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I was eager to read Border Crossing after having read Barker’s Regeneration trilogy about Siegfried Sassoon (who suffered from shell-shock), his psychologist Rivers (who becomes something of a father figure for the soldiers) and other soldiers in World War One. Border Crossing follows a psychologist who specialises in minors who commit atrocious crimes. He becomes reacquainted with a man he first met as a 10-year old and who has just finished serving a sentence for a murder he committed at that age. The young man wants the psychologist to help him work out why he committed his crime. Both texts explore psychologist/patient relationships, paying particular attention to the way that the psychologist’s weaknesses also become apparent through the process. Barker (female) creates believable male voices and explores the role that memory and the sharing of memories plays in shaping what we believe about ourselves and others. However, this text lacks the poetic style of the Regeneration texts, and, while it is engaging and interesting, I felt it ended weakly.

Australia has lost one of its literary treasures, Ivan Southall, who died on the 15th November at the age of 87. Mr Southall was particularly prominent during the 1960’s and 1970’s, when he penned one of my favourite books from childhood – Hill’s End - a story about children who must fend for themselves in the Australian bush when a wild storm attacks their town. His other novels include award winning classics  Josh and Ash Road.

Mrs Sweeney

Melbourne author Nam Le has won the prestigious Dylan Thomas Prize for Literature, worth $140 000! The son of Vietnamese refugees who came to Australia when he was a baby, Nam Le is a qualified lawyer who quickly realised he didn’t want to live the corporate life.

His book The Boat is a collection of short stories set in diverse locations. When asked about this aspect of his work Nam said he is interested in the  the way

 ’fiction makes strange even the places we think we know. Subjectively, no two neighbours live on the same street, let alone in the same city. However, fiction can also evoke our familiarity with strange things. It’s this tension I’m interested in — the artifice and agenda behind making familiar things strange, strange things familiar’,

 (http://www.namleonline.com/q&a.html  18/11/08). 

The Dylan Thomas Prize is the world’s largest literary prize awarded to an author under the age of 30.

Mrs Sweeney

A fascinating novel about the life of a half-caste Chinese man living in Penang who befriended a Japanese man who actually turned out to be a spy. All the time through the friendship the Japanese man was like a mentor to the half-caste and eventually the Japanese invaded Malaysia and Singapore through the help of the information given to the Japanese man. The half-caste Chinese man was rebuffed by family and friends as he was torn between these relationships. Worth a read!

Kafka on the Shore tells the story of two characters, young Tamura who runs away from home at fifteen and the simple-minded Nakata who has never recovered from a strange accident in his childhood. Their parallel quests are filled with extraordinary characters and events: a murder riddle, raining fish, soldiers lost from WWII in a secret forest, conversations with cats; to create a novel that is completely engrossing. The novel leaves as many questions as it resolves and is highly recommended.

Stark, brutal, real. No glamour here, no heralding of bravery…just life in the trenches replete with corpse-fed rats, suffocating mud and the endless, sanity-stealing lice.

It’s fascinating and enlightening to read how Canadian soldiers regarded their superiors and the English  as enemies – even more so than the Germans…to learn how a man could kill one German soldier with his bayonet and then share a cigarette with his victim’s brother as they shelter from the bullets raining down from both sides. Such situations are so horrific and insane they become chillingly ludicrous.

In this account of WWI by a man who fought in the trenches, the numbing fear is tangible; the scream of bombs is audible. Unrelentingly Harrison describes battles merging into marches marked by desperate fatigue or drunken escape. It is a deeply moving account of young men who do not know why they are fighting, and who long for good food, clean sheets and quiet safety.

Mrs Sweeney

Brilliant though his writing is, Shakespeare often proves to be daunting and difficult to appreciate for students of English Literature. Marsden has done such students and their teachers a great service by writing this novel version of Hamlet. The story is as intriguing and passionate as ever, there are tastes of Shakespeare’s beautiful language, and the spicy bits in the first few chapters are likely to keep young adults reading into the night. Bravo John Marsden…I hope more of the bard’s plays will receive his treatment.

Mrs Sweeney

Have you ever wondered what people are going on about when they say their excuse is ‘bona fide’, describe your girlfriend as rather ‘gauche’, or tell you to quit ‘kowtowing’ to everyone?

A new book in the library can shed light on these and other words and phrases from other languages. The explanations are clear, giving the often fascinating origins of the words and examples of their current use.

 KOWTOW : Derived from words meaning ‘knock’ and ‘head’, kowtow relates to the one-time practice in China of touching the head to the floor as a mark of extreme respect in the presence of a superior; hence it means to ’show sycophancy’, to ‘grovel’:

eg. French critics have accused their own government of simply kowtowing to Beijing.

Each word or phrase is also given a ‘Pretensiousness Index’, so you can decide whether you really wish to include it in your vocabulary! 

Anyone interested in language will enjoy dipping into Faux Pas when they have a few moments to spare. 

Mrs Sweeney

The sequel to Diego Run is out! Actually, I didn’t find it as exciting as Diego Run, but if you read the former you’ll probably still be keen to find out what happens to Diego. He becomes involved in a blockade by Coca farmers, attempting to dissuade the Bolivian government from confiscating the farmers’ Coca harvests. Hit by rubber bullets and tear gas Diego once again proves himself tenacious and brave. Does he make it back to his parents? Read it to find out.

Mrs Sweeney

Emil and Karl is a story about the holocaust suitable for readers in their early teens. I class it amongst other great books in this genre, such as I Am David, The Boy in Striped Pyjamas and the Diary of Ann Frank. One fascinating difference however, is that it was published in 1940. The author, whilst aware of the anti-semitic atmosphere in Europe and the distressing treatment of Jews already taking place, could not have predicted the mind-numbing scale of the extermination that was to come.

This is a tale of a much more personal nature – the story of two small boys who find themselves without parents in the troubled city of Vienna in 1938. Emil’s parents have been taken away because they are socialists. Karl is a Jew, and his mother succumbs to insanity when her husband is arrested. The boys must fend for themselves, aided by two resistance fighters - Hans, who masquerades as a simpleton in order to escape the suspicion of the nazis, and his kind, pragmatic wife, Matilda.

Emil and Karl’s story is one of loving humanity, friendship and loss. It was beautifully written in Yiddish by the Polish Glatshteyn, who aimed to inform young American Jews of the events unfolding in Europe. Published for the first time in English in 2006, its power is undiminished 66 years after it was written.

Mrs Sweeney