Welcome to Litsy!

I really enjoyed this book about intrepid Jean Paget who leads a group of imprisoned women around wartime Malaya, comes into some money, and makes a life for herself in Australia. This is a quiet love story, but mostly Jean‘s story, and you can‘t help but root for this practical, can-do character who in building a life for herself also builds a town for her life.

I saw the movie in my impressionable teens and it stayed with me. The trauma of the war the romance against all odds the crucifixion and the steak and two eggs for breakfast. The language is of its time and is now we know better, very offensive. It‘s also about a third too long and could have ended much sooner with an epilogue. Buts it‘s also quaint. Jean is fierce + determined. Joe is a strong masculine hero. I‘m glad I read it with adult eyes.

Jean Paget is the only single woman on a forced march of 100s of miles during WWII by the Japanese of the women and children around #Malaysia because there was no POW camp to house them. This first part of the book is based on true events in Sumatra. One of the few survivors, Jean became a creative leader, finding ways to keep the others alive, while balancing intricate communications with the captors and the Malayans met ⬇️

#fortheloveofbooks @TheSpineView

Whoohoo! I finished the tagged book last night. #Malaysia #foodandlit @Catsandbooks

It‘s September already (soon) and time for us to move to #Malaysia for #foodandlit! I‘ll be reading the tagged book.

I‘ve started this audiobook for #Malaysia #foodandlit It also works for #readingOceania for #Australia

I‘ve read it before back in high school and really liked it.

Free on Audible

Doing my research tonight to fill in some holes for my challenges this year, I realized this book I‘m rereading works for #Malaysia, coming up in September for #foodandlit. I‘ve been reading it for #Australia #readingOceania. It didn‘t hit me that around half of it occurs in Malaysia! So even though I‘m about 30% into it, I‘m going to put it on hold till September. Since it‘s a reread I think I won‘t have to start at the beginning again.

I read this in the 1980s (can you tell by how beat up the book is?) and loved it. So it‘s time to pull it out again and read it for #Australia #readingOceania @Librarybelle @BarbaraBB

An extraordinary book! Some parts make for difficult reading especially those set in Malaysia during world war 2 but the cast of characters and the flow of the narrative will make you not want to put it down.

The story begins in London after WWII, then moves to British Malay during the war, then onto Australia after the war. Written in 1950, the book has 1950s sensibilities toward race and women. I loved the story of a woman‘s survival as a prisoner of the Japanese, and the building of towns in the Australian Outback. I am now curious about Australia‘s history of racial segregation, which was treated matter-of-factly in the novel. Loved the narrator.

James McFadden died in March 1905 when he was forty-seven years old; he was riding in the Driffield Point-to-Point.
# firstlinefridays
@ShyBookOwl

#bookmail yesterday (plus a stack for Christmas). The tagged book is positively tiny! That might be a problem when I get around to reading it.

After purchasing this book in 1976, some 44 years ago I decided to finally put it up for sale on Ebay yesterday, sharing the fact on Twitter. I was surprised to receive a like from the
NevilShute.org foundation in Norway, an association that I never knew existed.

#7Days7Books ... Day 6
Seven books that made a deep impression and changed me.

It‘s more about why I read this than the book itself. As a college freshman I worked in my dorm‘s mailroom & was friendly with an older coworker who became a mentor. We discussed books and he encouraged me to broaden my reading horizons. This book was a gift shortly before he died. I still have it 35 years later and I think of him when I see it. Thanks, Tom. ❤️

This book just seemed to crop up a lot on Litsy, and it was really such a good read - horrible racism aside! I absolutely loved it. Amazing to think of those women who actually marched for 2.5 half years. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

There was a lot I loved - I loved Jean and the love story and the perspective on women‘s experiences as prisoners of war, I loved how gently and humanely painful things were written about. Unfortunately I have to knock points off for the colonial ideas and the way the aboriginal Australians were written about, while there was a lot I loved I don‘t think I can mark a book a pick that spoke like that. I‘d love an updated rewrite of this story

I can‘t believe I haven‘t read this until now. It‘s about a British woman who is working in Malaya when she is taken prisoner by the Japanese. 10 years later she learns of an sizable inheritance left to her by an estranged uncle. She falls in love with Australian man that she met when she was a prisoner. Six years after the war ended, she travels to Australia trying to find him. Together, they make “a town like Alice” in the Australian outback.

#GratefulReads #readinhighschool

I seem to have quite a few books with a #YellowCover waiting to be read in my Kindle....

#FallisBooked @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks @OriginalCyn620

#7days7covers Day 3

It was good. Odd point of view, told from Noel‘s POV, though Jean was the main character, so it was pretty much her story told by him, but at a distance. There was racism (a heck of a lot to our 21st century eyes and ears), sexism, and the end was pretty implausible. I don‘t want to say too much, but Jean single-handedly doing as much as she did? I doubt it. Con't in comments...

Trying out this one tonight!

It was Love Your Bookshop Day in Australia on the weekend, which gave me the perfect excuse to go book shopping (as if I ever needed one). Here‘s my haul!

Revisiting this!
#reread

@Saknicole has been talking my ear off about this book for the past month or so, and I got lucky this weekend when I found a copy among a pile of giveaway books! Now I can find out if it lives up to my sister‘s praises.

Book club tonight! The bookstore double booked its meeting space and told us we had to use their cafe space. they didn't know we would require every chair and table! We're huge!

Rereading this lovely amazing thing while waiting to receive my DVD copy of the 1980s miniseries, traveling all the way from Australia... #riotgrams #bookandbeverage #australia #wwii #postwwii

This month's bookclub pick, A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute, starts in England with an aging attorney setting up a trust. Most of the story follows Jean Paget, who spent most of World War II in Malaya as a prisoner of the Japanese. The journey after the war is the best part. It's a slow journey to get there, but paid off. Warning - there are some racist comments in here that seem a bit harsh even in 1950.

I came across A Town Like Alice in my local Oxfam shop by pure chance. I'd never heard of Nevil Shute or any of his books but I'm always excited by the promising red spine of a Vintage Classic!
Shute had me hooked at just a couple of pages in with this remarkable love story between Jean Paget, Joe Harman and Noel Strachan set in war time Malay and later in the Australian outback.
A Town Like Alice has put NS on my favourite author list!

#litsyclassics #litsyclassicsmatches

@sprainedbrain @KVanRead

I loved the first half of this book. My expectations were somewhat disappointed in the second half. But, overall, it was an education about WWII in the Pacific and life in the outback of Australia.

"People who spent the war in prison camps have written a lot of books about what a bad time they had. They don't know what it was like, not being in a camp." - Jean Paget, A Town Like Alice (Nevil Shute)
#war #QuotsyNov17 @TK-421
#quotsy

I found myself reveling in the subtleties of this Australian classic. So much of what we read today goes for the major impact, that it's nice to stop off for awhile and enjoy what's simply just a good story. In this case, the journey of Jean Paget's life is the extraordinary WWII tale of someone who would consider herself quite ordinary.

It is a product of its time however so be forewarned about derogatory racial language contained within.

This story of #lostloves "follows its enterprising heroine from the Malayan jungle during World War II to the rugged Australian outback." I read it several years ago when my coworker loaned me her old battered copy. She thought that it was out of print, but recently I found this edition in a used bookstore. I'll need to reread it to see if I love it as much as the first time. #jubilantjuly

The Lost City of Z - set in the Amazon, according to the map in the front looks like mostly Bolivia and Peru. (Haven't read it yet.)

A Town Like Alice - partially set in Australia. The other part is in British Malaya, which doesn't exist anymore. Although there's no direct equivalent to a modern country, most likely this was in Malaysia, not quite south of the equator.

The Pickup - set in South Africa

#setinthesouthernhemisphere #junebookbugs

This book is mostly #setinsouthernhemisphere, as all the best bits happen there. (The parts in England are important too, but not as exciting.) #junebookbugs @RealLifeReading

First arrival for next season's book club. This is one of those classics I've never read. #bookmail

The ultimate romance. Amazing book.

This was the first book that sprang to mind when I saw #farflung for #MayBookFlowers today. This is sey in Malaya (as was) and then Australia. I adored this when I first read it & cried my eyes out more than once. I haven't reread it it a while, and I suspect there's probably a touch of problematic language in there because of its age. BUT it does have a more nuanced portrayals of Japanese soldiers in WW2 that I've seen in many books of this age.

My #bookishpetpeeves is when people mark their place in a book like this! You're damaging its precious little spine *sobs*
Seriously though, you can use anything as a bookmark- hair ties, random bits of paper, pencils- it's not like this is the only lazy bookmark option.
#marchintoreading @RealLifeReading

Used book store haul! It was 20% off everything in the store. I hardly ever buy books these days so I mostly #blamelitsy for this. 😝I couldn't resist this pretty edition of A Town Like Alice, I've been meaning to try Shirley Jackson, and I plan to read Their Eyes Were Watching God for the Read Harder challenge (classic by a POC author).

Super behind on litsy updates, so here we go! I loved this one. I loved the characters and how their stories intersect. At first I was a little iffy on the narrator, but I got choked up by the end. It felt extra special to read my mom's copy of her favorite book, and I liked the epic feel of this story. Fair warning: Contains some problematic race comments that, while believable for the era, aren't cool. Also one weird remark about consent.

One of my all time favorites. Just ordered a paper copy so I can read it again.

I've wanted to read this book for almost a year, but I never got around to procuring a copy. So I put it on my Christmas wishlist that my mother still requests because MOMS. She read my list and got SO excited. "I have A Town Like Alice! It's one of my favorite books of all time!" Then she went down to the basement and handed me this, but said, "I'm going to want that back!"

Must remember to raid my mom's bookshelves more often.

Just a small town boy, living in Alice Springs. He took the midnight train goin' anywhere. Just a city girl, born and raised in London Town. She took the midnight train goin' anywhere......Romance, war, torture, bitching guitar solo. #setinasmalltown #photoadaynov16 #dontstopbelievin

Part two of my audible haul.