NYOR 2012 Australia

Australian libraries and library associations are behind a campaign to turn 2012 into the National Year of Reading, NYOR,  linking together all the great things that are already happening around books, reading and literacy, and giving them an extra boost, with fun programs and activities taking place across the country.

Upcoming events listed on the website Love2Read include World Book Day on 3 March, and World Read Aloud Day on 9 March.

And here at MYSTERIES in PARADISE we'll be doing our little bit throughout the year, because we all agree that reading is so important.
One of the websites associated with NYOR opens with some sobering thoughts:

Nearly half the population struggles without the literacy skills to meet the most basic demands of everyday life and work. There are 46% of Australians who can't read newspapers; follow a recipe; make sense of timetables, or understand the instructions on a medicine bottle.

The Patron of NYOR is William McInnes, writer, actor, narrator, popular speaker at various writers' weeks. We look forward to seeing him at various events.
He doesn't write crime fiction but I really enjoyed his account of growing up in rural Australia, which seemed to have so much in common with my own experience. My review: A MAN'S GOT TO HAVE A HOBBY

A MAN'S GOT TO HAVE A HOBBY, William McInnes

I picked up a copy of A MAN'S GOT TO HAVE A HOBBY, after hearing William McInnes speak at Adelaide Writers' Week earlier this month. An accomplished actor, McInnes comes over as a laconic, laid-back larrikin, and those qualities emerge from his book too. He read a number of excerpts from this book in particular at the AWW sessions I attended and I was hooked. That's why I have read a book which is an exception to my genre of choice.

It has taken me a while to finish, simply because I put it down to get on with some "genre" reading, and I'm not good at reading two books at once.

William McInnes says A MAN'S GOT TO HAVE A HOBBY is a tribute to his father, but it is really a tribute to a life style that we've almost lost. McInnes is a decade or so younger than me, and despite the fact that it is written from a masculine point of view, we have shared so many growing-up-in-the-country experiences. The Queensland of his childhood is a long way from the South Australia of mine, but the book is all about values, what is important in life. It is a memoir filled with larger than life characters and a kaleidoscope of humour.

The first hundred pages focusses on the house McInnes grew up in - the fine vessel - the big house on the battleaxe block that was always full of laughter and music. In the second hundred pages McInnes is attending a benefit dinner to raise money for the new local museum for the town where he was born. He is an invited guest, and waiting for his turn to speak, his mind free ranges over the past: from the time the footy coach tried to inspire the team with sound track he'd recorded from the Guns of Navarone, to going to the drive in theatre in the truck in his pajamas. The final fifty or so pages is titled Saying Goodbye - "a part of me is moving further away from where I grew up".

McInnes is part of a fine Australian tradition, of Australians who have a keen eye for character and incident. He doesn't have the literary flair of the classic writers such as Joseph Furphy, Banjo Paterson, and Henry Lawson. But he does have a turn of phrase and a sense of the ridiculous. I am the first to admit I'm not at all well read in this genre but A MAN'S GOT TO HAVE A HOBBY reminds me a lot of Nino Culotta's THEY'RE A WEIRD MOB.

The blurb on the back says "This is a book about people who aren't famous ... but should be. It is about love and hope and fear, laughter, death and life." That just about says it all.

My rating: 4.4

Adelaide Writers' Week, Day 3

A marathon day today- 6 sessions!
Not only hot today (35 c) but even bigger crowds than yesterday. Breaks between sessions were characterised by people hurrying from one place to another (never in the right place for the next session) only to find that not all the lemmings are migrating! Some have just gone for coffee, or a "wee" break, leaving chairs "bagged" with hats, clothing and programmes.

It's hot, William McInnes arrives for his session (more later) attired in ancient red board shorts and thongs. (You can almost hear his father saying "Typical!")
If you don't get a seat in a tent, then outside in the shade is a possibility, but outside in the sun - well you know what Noel Coward said about mad dogs and Englishmen..

My purchase for the day : HEARTBREAK HILL by Thomas H. Cook - signed too.

Session #1 - Meet the author: Siri Hustvedt, chaired by John Coetzee

Biographical details here.
A very nervous Siri compared books to echo chambers, full of themes, and ideas, like halls of mirrors. John Coetzee asked Siri to comment on the after effects of 9/11 on the inner lives of New Yorkers. She said that many people have flashbacks well after a traumatic event particularly on anniversaries.
She is particularly interested by the idea of family secrets. There are many things that we don't know about that remain as secrets in previous generations. She likened a family secret to a bulging pocket - we know there is something there, but we don't know what it is.

Session #2 - Sports - a panel session with Gideon Haigh, John Harms, and William McInnes, chaired by Bernard Whimpress.
This was a very entertaining session - the chance to hear McInnes do impersonations should not be missed!

Panel conversation centred around the cultural importance of sport, and the real importance that sports writing be done well, but so much of what appears in the papers is mechanical. John Harms talked about the role that newspapers play, as stakeholders, in determining the quality of what is published. They build individual players up as super heroes, for the pure pleasure of knocking them down when they fall.
William McInnes talked about the social importance of cricket, and Gideon Haigh about sport as a forum for building of social capital in Australia.

Session #3 Book Launch - Peter Carey HIS ILLEGAL SELF

The guest "launcher" was Ian McEwan.
He spoke of how difficult it is to get into the mind of a child, and how well Peter Carey does it.
He too referred to James Wood's review and in the process of looking I found a useful collection of reviews. McEwan says Carey is a "writer of world rank at the top of his game."

Hearing McEwan speak here was a little compensation for the very disappointing cancellation of the "public audience part" of the scheduled recording of the First Tuesday Book Club at the Adelaide ABC Studio tomorrow afternoon.

Session #4: Meet the Author: Thomas H. Cook

My crime fiction treat for the day. I heard Cook speak the other day on a panel, and I have read a number of his novels including THE CHATHAM SCHOOL AFFAIR, RED LEAVES and THE MURMUR OF STONES.

Cook sees himself as writing in the William Faulkner tradition. He writes about ordinary people whose lives spiral down to black.

Session #5 - Double Exposure - a panel session

3 authors: Georgia Blain, Patrick McGrath, and Melina Marchetta have all had books turned into films, and what a long and agonising process it seems to have been. Georgia Blain tried to distance herself from the process as much as possible. Patrick McGarth revelled in it, and Melina Marchetta, who wrote LOOKING FOR ALIBRANDI, got drawn into it despite feeling that she was not qualified to write film script. It seems that anywhere 6-10 years is not uncommon for a film to go from options to actual filming.

Session #6 - Meet the Author - Richard Holmes

Energy very definitely waning at this stage.
Holmes is a very successful historian who specialises in things military. We went mainly because husband Bob has two of his books, but he was an interesting speaker, and sparked a lot of questions from the audience.

Tomorrow I'm having a rest day!
The temperatures for the rest of the week will be 35-37 c, so I'm staying home, although on Friday I will go in to hear Gabrielle Lord, Marshall Browne, and Garry Disher.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to an International Women's Day breakfast to hear Margaret Pomeranz speak.

Adelaide Writers' Week, Day 2, part 1

First of all, purchases & freebies.
I got on the bus only to find I had left my current reading (FAN MAIL by P.D. Martin) at home, so had to resort to the book tent on arrival. There I bought A MAN'S GOT TO HAVE A HOBBY by William McInnes. In her review my friend Sunnie described it as a "feel-good" book, and 45 pages in, I can affirm that. It's sub-title is Long summers with my dad and it is a collection of anecdotes from William's childhood about his family and his father in particular. I grew up in a country town and can easily visualise the incidents he describes. No wonder it has been a hit. It's a cross between Nino Culotta's THEY'RE A WEIRD MOB, and Alan Marshall's I CAN JUMP PUDDLES, and soemthing that is quite uniquely William McInnes. Give it to your Dad for his next birthday, borrow it from your library, or, best of all, read it yourself.

The freeby that attended my purchase of A MAN'S GOT TO HAVE A HOBBY was two-fold. First of all book bag (hessian with shoulder straps to put my purchase in), and then a copy of TALES FROM THE LOWLANDS, edited by Joed Elich and Malou Nozeman, an anthology of Dutch Writers who have appeared at Adelaide Writers Week 1988-2008. It contains 11 stories selected by the Dirk Hartog Foundation, and distributed free due to the "generous support of the Dutch embassy in Canberra." The cover appears to be a photo of the Australian Bight. The writers include Cees Nooteboom, Arnon Grunberg, Adriaan van Dis, Tessa de Loo, Margriet de Moor, Helga Ruebsamen, Lolo Houbein, Tim Krabbé, Moses Isegawa, Stefan Hertmans and Marcel Möring.

For those who don't know of the Dutch connection with Australia, Terra Australis was on the route of Dutch merchant ships on their way to the East Indies from the late 1500s. The idea was to come around the Cape of Good Hope, strike out to the east, and then carefully judge when to turn north. Sometimes they made a mistake, came too far east, went too far south, or simply managed to scrape along the coast of Western Australia. On their maps Terra Australis Incognita, was a coastline being filled in, and became known as New Holland. When Dirk Hartog's ship was stranded on Houtmann's Abrolhos in 1616 he left behind, nailed to a tree, a pewter plate with an inscription.
South Australia's first encounter with the Dutch appears to have been explorer Pieter Nuyts, who came about 1500km too far east in search of Batavia, turning around about Streaky Bay. Dutch names serve as reminders on our coastline.
It is generally agreed that Gulliver's land of Lilliput is actually this area, that Jonathon Swift based his choice of location on Nuyts' map of 1627.

General observations
AWW takes place in 2 very large and open tents, with seats also outdoors under shady trees, and I estimate there was probably in excess of 3,000 people there today. The temperature was promised to be 34C and while we came home before it reached that, it was warm enough.

The audience today were really roughly the retired, ex-teachers, intellectuals, writers, readers, and a sprinkling of university students. Most people my age are now retired, so that is probably the category I am in, but some like me (still working) will have taken holidays to coincide with the week.
The mild-mannered jostling for seats in between sessions is amusing to watch, unless of course you are one of those looking for one. Once you have found one, you might, like me, you may find that the white plastic chairs do not allow for much overhang...

Article on opening day in Sydney Morning Herald.
Writer's Week News - Adelaide Advertiser

Awards
Short List for AWW awards
Award winners

$15,000 Award for Children's Literature
Don't Call Me Ishmael (Michael Gerard Bauer, Omnibus)

$15,000 Award for Fiction
The Ballad of Desmond Kale (Roger McDonald, Vintage)

$10,000 Award for Innovation
Someone Else: Fictional Essays (John Hughes, Giramondo)

$15,000 Award for Nonfiction
Sunrise West (Jacob G Rosenberg, Brandl & Schlesinger)

$15,000 John Bray Poetry Award
Urban Myths: 210 Poems (John Tranter, UQP)

$10,000 Jill Blewett Playwright's Award for the Creative
Merger – art, life and the other thing (Duncan Graham)

$10,000 Award for an Unpublished Manuscript by a SA Emerging Writer
The Second Fouling Mark (Stephen Orr)

In addition, John Tranter won the South Australian Premier's Award for his poetry collection, Urban Myths: 210 Poems.