AWARDS: Most Underrated Book Award 2014

There is a book award that doesn’t get a great deal of publicity, unlike the Man Booker Prize, the Miles Franklin Award and many other well known prizes.  It’s the Most Underrated Book Award and it is the brain child of The Small Press Network an umbrella organisation for Australian small and independent publishers.  The award aims to shine a light on some of the outstanding titles that, for whatever reason, did not receive their fair dues when first released.  The winner for 2014 is a debut novel by Jane Rawson A Wrong Turn at The Office of Unmade Lists. 

Set in 1997 San Francisco, Simon and Sarah have been sent on a quest to see America: they must stand at least once in every 25-foot square of the country. Decades later, in an Australian city that has fallen on hard times, Caddy is camped by the Maribyrnong River, living on small change from odd jobs, ersatz vodka and memories.

A review from the Goodreads website says:

“What a strange, great little book. If you like plot, you won't like this; plot is pretty much entirely absent. You join up with a troupe of acrobats at the start of a tour, shift from town to town across Europe working, drinking, dancing and having sex, and then you leave. But the voice of this book is utterly charming. There's no plot when you meet up with your risk-taking, charming, wilful, beautiful friend for a few too many drinks, is there? And yet, you still look forward to doing it again every time. Somewhere between three and four stars; let's call it four for just being so odd. “

BOOK REVIEWS

There are some good books around at the moment and here are reviews on three of them.

Lucky Dog: How being a veterinarian saved my life by Dr Sarah Boston is a wonderful look into the differences between the medical treatment of our pet animals and the medical treatment of humans (in Canada in this instance) and Sarah Boston pulls no punches with her comments/complaints.  This is the story of a veterinarian oncology surgeon to small animals who contracts cancer and chronicles the differences in the path taken with her and with the animals she treats in her practice.  Full of great stories about dogs and cats with cancer and how oncology surgery and treatment gives these animals a second chance at life.  It is also full of the disturbing differences in the processes Sarah slugs her way through to get the treatment she understands (in some instances better than the oncologist) to defeat the cancer that threatens her life.  There are sections of the book where I thought the author went on a little too long on her complaints, but for all that, it is still a very interesting read and worth the time.

Girl on a Train by Paula Hawkins is has a very different format and because of this is most intriguing.  Rachel has gone through a bad marriage breakup and it has changed her for the worse.  She travels daily on a train that passes the backs of houses along one section of the line and Rachel has become obsessed with the pieces of the lives she sees of two occupants of one of the houses.  The story has many twists and turns and there are a couple of surprises early in the story that kept me reading.  Definitely worth the read.

 

Outside the Lines by Amy Hatvany is this author’s sixth novel and this shows in the way the plot and characters are developed.  The story has the obligatory romance between the main character and a secondary character and yet this doesn’t in any way detract from the plot.  (You can see I’m not a romance reader........oh well, we all have our defects).

So to the story, when Eden was ten years old she found her father, David, bleeding on the bathroom floor. The suicide attempt led to her parents' divorce, and David all but vanished from Eden's life.  Twenty years later an adult Eden (now a successful chef) begins to wonder where her father is and even if he is still alive so she begins the search, much to the distress of her mother who has since re-married.  She meets Jack, the romance interest and manager of a homeless shelter; because she has been told her father is living on the streets.  He helps her in the search for her father and more importantly in her understanding of why some wish to remain on the streets.  Eden helps Jack by cooking for the homeless people with the added benefit of meeting people she hasn’t any frame of reference to understand.  All up I thought it was a good read, with some social commentary that added to my education.

 

SHAKESPEARE AND COMPANY: An Update

Some time ago I put a post on FB about Sylvia Beach and her bookshop Shakespeare and Company.  Since then I've researched a little further and found this connection.

In 1951, another English-language bookstore was opened on Paris's Left Bank by American ex-serviceman George Whitman, under the name of Le Mistral. Its premises was the site of a 16th-century monastery. In 1964, after Sylvia Beach's death, Whitman renamed his store "Shakespeare and Company" in tribute to the original.

His daughter, Sylvia Beach Whitman joined him in 2003 at the age of 22 and continues to run the store in the same manner as her father, allowing young writers to live and work in the bookstore.

 

BOOK REVIEW: All The Bright Places

Thanks to Jess from Penguin Australia I had the pleasure of reading the first young adult title from Jennifer Niven.  Jennifer has written five adult fiction and three non-fiction and with this break in to the young adult market she has shown what an excellent writer she is.

All The Bright Places is the title and it shows the author's understanding of the minds of our youth.  Briefly, the story is about Theodore Finch a high school student who believes he is 'broken' and can't be fixed; he lives in a dysfunctional family and at school he is considered a freak.  Violet Markey is devastated by the death of her sister in a car accident and she and Theodore meet on the school bell tower (ready to jump?).  From there the story takes you into the lives of both these people as they struggle independently and eventually together to dig there way out of the black holes they live in.

In the story there is reference to an online magazine that Violet is writing for; this magazine is not a product of the authors mind, but of her creativity.......it exists.  See it here

If you enjoyed the Fault in Our Stars by John Green you will enjoy this story.

NEW DIRECTION FOR INFORMATION FROM FOSTER'S LITTLE BOOKSHOP

Over the last two years we've spent a large amount of time posting information on Facebook and found in recent months that it isn't us who decides who sees our posts, Facebook is.  This means that no matter how much information I put out there that might be of interest to my readers...........many of them don't get to see it in their 'feed'.  I don't want to do that in 2015 so I've resurrected our blog and this is where we will be posting material from now on.

Initially I'll send an email to our client list and attached a link to the blog, if anyone isn't interested they only need to let me know and I'll remove their name from the list.  You can make comment on the posts..........or not, dependent on what you think, or how you feel.

 

 

First Author Event for 2015

On Saturday 17th we had the pleasure of a 'conversation with' Terry Guilford at the Community Health Centre in Foster.  There was a good number in the audience and Terry and I had a great time.

We thank the ladies from the Hospital Auxiliary for their hard work and their beautiful food.