Welcome to Litsy!

I loved this singular novel about an Indigenous Australian woman who is forced into marriage with a future prime minister. Wright is virtuosic with language, mixing Aboriginal words with English, local vernacular with literary & mythological references. It‘s a hard-hitting commentary of racism & colonialism in Australia but satirical & very funny re bureaucracy. Infused with Indigenous thought, it makes you see differently.

#IdiomInsight Day 24: perfect for #SwanSong - got a copy of this for our #DecolonizeReading2023 reading theme. I hope to get to it soon enough, I hope.

These homeland brolgas casually walked into any house without fear, gently prancing off the ground with spread wings, and stealing food they plucked straight from the kitchen table in a casual leap. No one cared less about what brolgas did as creatures that belonged there, with every right to have a bit of food—and who would harm a brolga anyway?
(Internet photo of a brolga)

Mother Nature? Hah! Who knows how many hearts she could rip out? She never got tired of it. Who knows where on earth you would find your heart again? People on the road called her Mother Catastrophe of flood, fire, drought and blizzard. These were the four seasons, which she threw around the world whenever she liked.

A number of authors were invited to share their best books of 2021 in The Guardian. Wole Soyinka started off by talking about himself: “I sometimes suspect that I was actually found abandoned in a tree, adopted and raised as a family secret.” Which struck me because I‘m reading the tagged book by Alexis Wright and it starts off with an abandoned girl found in a tree. (Looking forward to Soyinka‘s pick too: Elif Shafak.)

I owe the fact that I am alive today to a swan. But anyhow, my story of luck is only a part of the concinnity of dead stories tossed by the sides of roads and gathering dust.

Pleased my January haul hasn‘t actually added anything to my tbr. It is my goal for the year to always read books the month I buy them so it at least stops growing.

Made a stop off this morning to spend some of my Christmas vouchers.
Alexis Wright is my favourite author, but initially I read most of her work through the library, so I‘m working on adding her backlist to my shelves.

This is a difficult book. Excoriatingly allegorical

Surprise! I didn‘t make it past the first page. Heavy subject matter + dense prose = it‘s a no from me dawg

Reading a book about Australia while my boss is in Australia. For my #ownvoices book set in Oceania. #readharder2019

Alright, I‘m ready for #24B4Monday - I got my book stack and my Witch Please mug ready for #PopJarGame

I‘ve already pulled my first slip, but I NEED NEED NEED to finish the other 2 books this weekend! Hopefully I can spend most of the weekend actually reading!

Love it when the library has a book sale! These are from Toronto.

This is one of the best novels I have read this year. I read at the beginning of the year and I still think about it. It has no direct dialogue and the effect of this is quite eery and unsettling. The futuristic novel is a must-read for anybody who wants to know more about Indigenous Australia. I‘m not summarising the novel well but it‘s just as well, so that you can all read it yourselves to find out. This is a novel that deserves to be read.

Happy #NAIDOC ! I‘ve been listening this this one and am mesmerised by Wright‘s writing.

#becauseofherwecan
#aussiesrule2018

#TBRtemptation post 4! Set in a future altered by climate change. It follows the life of a mute aboriginal woman, Oblivia, who lives in a swamp with thousands of black swans and eventually becomes Australia's First Lady to its first aboriginal president. Magical realism ensues with a talking monkey, PhD genies, the guidance of the swans, and other elements. #blameLitsy #blameMrBook 😎

I rarely DNF a book - I will put down a book for a few months and then go back to it when I'm in between books. I can only remember 1 true #dnf and that's The Swan Book - no idea what was going on. It just keep repeating the same parts of the story and it was lyrical beautiful but too dense.

This book had lovely, complicated writing but the repetition of the story stopped me from making any progress. Maybe one day.....

This book is just too abstract for me. I must bail. But can we talk about this cover?!? Good lord, this is gorgeous. It's the work of Aboriginal artist Gloria Petyarre. I encountered her art on a trip to Australia 6 years ago and am still kicking myself for not buying one of her paintings. I find her pieces mesmerizing.

"He was a child, but his mind was already laden like a museum, where old and new specimens, facts and figures, lived together as evidence of his own personal history." (The Swan Book, by Alexis Wright, US release June 28, 2016)

I will read more galleys. I will read more galleys. I will read more galleys.