 Word On Books
with Jeremy Fenton
As the year draws to a close, here's my selection of stocking stuffers and summer reading...
The Floating Brothel
 By Sian Rees, Published by Hodder
It's been a landmark year for examining Australian's past through easy-to-digest popular works of history (including Australia - A Biography by Eric Rolls and Further Than Any Man by Martin Dugard). One of the most enjoyable, however, was Sian Rees‚ rediscovery of the Lady Julian.
In response to one of Governor Philip's earliest dispatches from the newly established British presence in Sydney - in which he worried about the natural order of things procreative - 237 females (mostly prostitutes and petty thieves) had been sent as an essential ingredient to building the new colony.
Transported to 'Parts Beyond the Seas' for crimes ranging from petty theft to possession of stolen goods to assault, these were the convict women whose plight is documented in the short but fascinating book.
Snake Dreaming
By Roberta Sykes, Published by Allen & Unwin
Collected in the same volume for the first time is this new Christmas release of Roberta Sykes‚ autobiographical trilogy, Snake Dreaming.
From the small-town ignorance and racism of her upbringing in Northern Queensland, to her becoming the first black woman from Australia to earn a doctorate from Harvard University, Sykes has had an incredible life of hardship coupled with achievement.
One of the most recognisable Black activists in the country (having played a part in the Tent Embassy), Sykes has a story to tell that every Australian could benefit from reading.
While not without its controversial aspects (specifically the direction in the earliest book that seemed to claim the snake totem and Aboriginal ancestry has been left out of the two subsequent books), Snake Dreaming is as heartbreaking as it is uplifting.
Highly recommended reading (and at close to 700 tightly-packed pages, the summer's best book-buy value-wise).
Repeating the Leaving
By Charles Waterstreet, Published by Sceptre
Garnering reader and critical praise alike, Charles Waterstreet's 1998 memoir, Precious Bodily Fluids, left us with young Charlie about to leave Albury for a new life at boarding school in Sydney.
Repeating the Leaving picks up six years later, with Charlie repeating his last year at school and enjoying his time as an adolescent in the big smoke - even if not nearly as much relishing the presence of the teachers at the 'un-Christian Brothers' boarding school he attends.
No stone is left unturned in this coming-of-age story - religion, sex and family all mix in the free-for-all of emotions that make up adolescence.
A sense of background foreboding make Repeating the Leaving a bittersweet and engaging reading experience - and something far more worthy than a work that just plays on the cheeky larrikin spirit of Australian youth.
The Seven Daughters of Eve
 By Bryan Sykes, Published by Bantam Press
Within the mutation rate of mitochondrial DNA is one of the most reliable and easily read markers for accurately looking into our species‚ biological past.
The Seven Daughters reveals the seven common ancestors of all people of European descent (they existed from 45 to around 10,000 years ago) - and gives us a brief, gripping glimpse into their lives.
Definitely not the best-written book on a science subject for the year, but included here because of the amount of theories that bite the dust in its wake. Specifically, the 'multi-regional' hypothesis for our evolution is shown to be a clear loser to the 'out-of-Africa' argument.
Just the beginning of the landslide of works that will come about because of the discovery of our species‚ latest (and possibly most dangerous) toy - our own genetic code. Watch this space...
A Decent Innings
 By Pops McDonald, Published by Macmillan
Never one to limit himself - and believing that sport makes the man - throughout his life the enigmatic Pops played hard and fair in cricket, rugby (both codes), rowing, boxing and just about any other sport you'd care to mention.
Through a combination of his father's and grandfather's always helpful (and copious) advice and his own physical prowess, he comes to embody the epitome of fair play - both on and off the field.
Pops' long and crowded life probably would be a truly decent innings, if it weren't for the incidents such as eating those strange mushrooms in 1960s San Francisco, next-to-ignoring for three decades the woman he finally marries, and, perhaps, over-exaggerating his life story just a tad.
The perfect book for a spot of light and witty holiday reading.
Working for Rupert
By Hugh Lunn,
Published by Hodder
'No one ever seemed to know when Rupert was coming, or where he was going, or if he was still around, or when he was leaving, or even where he had been. No one dared ask.'
Hugh Lunn's latest book in his autobiographical sequence, Working for Rupert, details his time with the then fledgling Australian newspaper under a succession of editors from 1971 to 1987. While the seemingly omniscient Murdoch looms large in every chapter, this is a book primarily about the ethics of journalism (and a man who for the most part lived the profession in his own enviable way).
Lunn is the consummate raconteur, with anecdotes and tales filling every page of this wonderful book - laugh-out-loud funny, touching, illuminating and very entertaining. Really, he's incapable of writing a boring or poorly constructed sentence as his three Walkley Awards for journalism attest.
The Crystal Sun
By Robert Temple,
Published by Century London
Sir Arthur C Clarke points out, in his short introduction to The Crystal Sun, that although Galileo is rightly credited with introducing the telescope to the world in 1609 'he certainly did not invent it'. So who did? And is current orthodoxy correct in its assertions that the science of optics is a relatively modern phenomenon?
In The Crystal Sun the case is impeccably argued by Robert Temple (author of The Sirius Mystery) that the ancients had a comprehensive knowledge of glass-lenses that extended to eyesight-correction, fire-starting and probably magnification purposes.
A throw-back to works that don't tread expected paths, resembling in many ways the virtual catalogue of classics from ancient Greek and Roman thinkers mentioned throughout. A wonderfully thought-provoking book in every way.
Heartfire
By Orson Scott Card,
Published by Orbit
This reader for the most part stays a country-mile away from books published under the category of fantasy. Derivative, boring and having little relevance are but some of the comments to spring to mind regarding this inexplicably burgeoning genre.
No doubt the situation is about to become even direr after the soon-to-be release of the Lord of the Rings film (not that I class Tolkien's books as anything but works of extreme originality).
The one series (they all seem to be series!) of fantasy works to slip under my guard in the past decade has been the brilliant Tales of Alvin Maker by Orson Scott Card.
Heartfire is the long-awaited fifth book in the series that tells of an alternative America where magic exists and history is a bent and compelling reflection of our own.
Extraordinarily resonant and highly recommended storytelling (begin with the first book if you are new to the series).
Farewell to Bradman
By Peter Allen,
Published by Macmillan
If anyone ever had cause to wonder how legendary figures become such black or white characterizations, one has only to look at the construction of Sir Donald Bradman as everything that is good and noble to see the beginnings of the process.
Despite the excessive and scarcely-broken hagiography that has flowed since Bradman‚s death in February this year, he was really only a man. Undoubtedly with his fair share of foibles and unlikable qualities.
What is beyond question, however, is the fact that he was one of the most prominent Australian names of the 20th Century and probably the greatest batsman in cricket history.
If you are inclined to celebrate the Don and his cricketing prowess this Christmas, you could do a lot worse than the beautifully presented Farewell to Bradman - A Final Tribute.
This official Bradman Museum commemorative coffee table edition consists of a collection of obituaries, reminiscences and photographs that well serve the legend.
Isabelle the Navigator
By Luke Davies, Published by Allen & Unwin
In telling the story of Isabelle Airly and her struggle to deal with the deaths of her 'great love', Matthew Smith, and her self-destructive father, Tom Airly, Isabelle the Navigator deals with the big themes of humanity.
Namely, death and living life in its shadow.
Luke Davies is the author of Candy (one of the few successful takes on junkies in love that came as part of the late grunge literary push) and several books of poetry. His work in Isabelle speaks of a bright and worthwhile future for literature in our country.
For a relative newcomer to fiction, and the subject matter, Isabelle is a remarkably powerful novel and a substantial feat of weird imagination. And as a bonus, the local region plays a part.
Highly recommended Australian fiction.
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