Book Club: Part Two

1. Women of Letters curated by Marieke Hardy and Michaela McGuire. I'm a huge fan of anything Marieke Hardy does. I might have a slight girl crush on her. I was also fortunate enough to meet her a couple of years ago during the country music festival in Tamworth. It was unexpected, that's for sure. The Women of Letters book stems from a series of live shows where a bunch of different creative folk are asked to write a letter on a certain theme and read it on stage. I haven't had a chance to make it to one of the shows yet but it's on my bucket list for 2013. The book is a collection of most of the letters written and presented so far. They also introduced a couple of 'Men of Letters' shows last year and some kind men-folk have submitted their letters to the book as well. If you want to read heart-felt and often hilarious letters from well-known Australian artists, musicians, media personalities and other creatives, then this book is for you.

2. The Memory Keeper's Daughter. I borrowed this book upon recommendation from my BFF. If you're reading this, remind me to give it back! It's quite a sad story set in the 1960s about a Doctor who gives away his newborn baby because she has downs syndrome. He also keeps this from his wife for a very long time. As horrible as it sounds, I ended up really feeling for the man because he honestly thought he was doing the right thing. It's an interesting read, but a sad one at that.

3. Gaysia by Benjamin Law. I've briefly touched on this book in another recent blog post but wanted to tell you a bit more about it. In the same way that I'm obsessed with Marieke Hardy, I cannot fault anything that Benjamin Law does. Since I discovered him in Frankie magazine, I've also read his other novel, The Family Law. I also recently listed him as one of my favourite people to follow on Twitter. A gay man himself, Ben says he feels pretty lucky to live in Australia where he can speak up about gay rights and hold his boyfriend's hand in public. In order to write Gaysia, he traveled around parts of Asia including Bali, Thailand, China, Japan, Malaysia, Myanmar and India to find out what it's like being gay in these parts of the world. From a ladyboy pageant to gay sex workers, he spares no details. It's confronting and sometimes shocking but there's also plenty of funny moments. It's the relationships Ben forms with the various people he meets along the way that really got me in. This man knows how to tell a story and I can definitely say I learnt a lot. 

I've been trying to read a lot more of the classic novels lately and I'm currently onto The Great Gatsby, which I will tell you about once I've finished. In the next few weeks or so, Bec from My Bloggable Day and I will be sharing our reviews of Wuthering Heights, as we both happened to be reading it at the same time. If you're interested in being a part of this book club, please feel free to email me and we can choose a book to read and review together.

Book Club: Part One

Over Christmas and my birthday I received so many new books that I've run out of shelves, hence the 'book chair' pictured above. I wanted to start a new regular feature on this here blog of mine, highlighting some of my recent reads. This is the first instalment, stay tuned for more in the coming weeks. 

1. Desert Dawn by Waris Dirie. I borrowed this book from a friend quite a while ago and only got around to reading it at the end of last year. Waris Dirie is a a model and human rights activist of Somali origin. Her book is an autobiographic tale recounting her childhood as a nomad in the Somali desert from which she ran away at a young age. Nineteen years later, she is living in New York but decides on a whim to return home and find her family. I found this book to be very emotional and confronting in parts, particularly as Waris discusses the truths of female genital mutilation as is custom in her culture. At the same time, it's very heartwarming and honest and helped me understand a culture I had little knowledge of before.

2. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson. I was given this book by my Mum and Dad a couple of Christmases ago and again, only made time to read it a few months back. Little did they realise but they had actually purchased the 'Young Readers Edition' which meant all throughout the book there were certain words highlighted to show that their definitions could be found in the glossary at the back. I know big words, Mum and Dad, really, I do! We all had a chuckle. Needless to say, it made for a very quick read! Three Cups of Tea recounts the journey of an American man, Greg Mortenson, who attempts to climb K2, the second highest mountain in the world, located in Pakistan. He actually did not make it on his first attempt, and on his way down seeking refuge, he ends up in a very poor Pakistani village where he becomes friends with the locals. The people of this village have a passion for education and the children are desperate to learn, but they have no schools or resources. Greg embarks on a mission to build a school in this village which soon escalates and he ends up building schools all over Pakistan and Afghanistan. Again, this was a heartwarming read and opened my eyes to many truths about the challenges of humanitarian work like this.

3. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. I'm a huge fan of Safran Foer having read two of his other books, Everything is Illuminated and his non-fiction work Eating Animals. This was one of those situations where I had seen the movie before reading the book. I loved the movie but enjoyed the book a lot more. It was much more detailed and Safran Foer's writing style is fascinating. Each chapter presented a different voice or style and the book was littered with interesting images relating to certain parts of the story. I was so into this book and it felt like I was following Oskar all over New York on his expedition to find the missing lock to a key he had discovered in his father's wardrobe, not long after his father was killed in the September 11 attacks. I highly recommend both the movie and the book. 

4. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. This beautiful story about a young Shepherd's journey to the Egyptian Pyramids taught me so many lessons along the lines of finding life's purpose. Sounds deep, huh? Many people have described it as more of 'self-help' book than fiction. I don't really like the term 'self-help' but can certainly see why some may say this. It felt like there was so many little metaphors underneath the story itself along the theme of creating your own destiny. It was a quick and easy book to read if you feel like a little pick-me-up. I'm sensing a theme here, are you?

What have you read lately? Would you recommend it?