Top 10 Tuesday 24th January

Top 10 Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme created and hosted by The Broke and the Bookish with a different theme each week. This one is a freebie theme, so we get to choose our own. In honour of 2012 being the National Year of Reading here in Australia, and also the fact that it’s Australia Day this week, I’m going to go a touch patriotic and celebrate my love of our local literature. So my TTT this week is:

Top 10 Books By Australian Authors

1. Ghost Child, I Came To Say Goodbye and Matilda Is Missing, by Caroline Overington. All three of these novels are a little hard to categorise but they’re roughly contemporary crime/mystery told in an indirect way. I’ve talked about Caroline Overington here on my blog before – she’s a former journalist who has a real gift for writing from an unusual viewpoint, often that of an older man. I always feel her characters are very true ‘Australian’ for me.
2. Past The Shallows, by Favel Parrett. I only read this last year, a debut novel set along a remote stretch of Tasmanian coastline and was amazed at the emotions it stirred up. The novel is about two boys, sons of a tough Abalone fisherman. Two likable, curious boys and their life now that their mother has been killed. It’s so well written and the ending is killer.
3. Looking for Alibrandi, by Melina Marchetta. I read this in school and I’ve only read it once since but it’s a novel that stays with you. Marchetta is well loved, for this novel and also for On The Jellicoe Road, which I’ve not read yet (one that I really need to get around to). Looking for Alibrandi is about Josephine Alibrandi, a teenage girl living with her mother and grandmother and she’s in her last year of high school (strict Catholic high school no less). It’s a sort of journey of self-discovery book, she learns about her father, about boys. It’s amazing that we got to read it in high school only a couple of years after it was published. My high school wasn’t a fan of giving us contemporary novels to read.
4. Tomorrow, When The War Began, by John Marsden (and the 2 books following). I read this in year 7 or 8 I think and absolutely fell in love with it. A bunch of teenagers go camping deep into the bush and when they return home they find that basically, the country has been invaded. Everyone in their town is gone, rounded up into a central place. They retreat back into the bush and plan on how to avoid being captured and also how they might get their town back. And it has a Corgi. I had a Corgi at the time of reading this, so I loved that because other than with the Queen, you don’t see/hear a lot about Corgi’s these days. I also loved the next 2 books but then I turned 14 or 15 and decided teen books were no longer for me and I should step up into adult fiction. I really need to re-read this entire series.
5. The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak. Although I don’t love this book as much as lots of other people, that’s mostly because it fuels my desire to know more – it cuts off at a really interesting point and I would’ve loved to have known what happened to Liesel after the book ended. But basically it’s a beautiful story – Nazi Germany, hiding a Jew in the basement, stealing books, music, etc. The character of Liesel’s foster father is one of my favourite characters in literature. I think their relationship is perfection.
6. Animalia and The Eleventh Hour, by Graham Base. I have to put these ones in – two of my absolute favourites as a child and I used to still look at my high school library’s copies all the time! They’re both exquisitely illustrated and there’s so much more to them that meets the eye, especially The Eleventh Hour. There are so many hidden things to find in the pictures, they’re hours of fun. I must buy copies of both of these for my children.
7. Raw Blue, by Kirsty Eagar. Only read this month and this book about Carly, a university drop out who heals herself through surfing, has already rocketed into my list of faves. Its raw emotion and beautiful writing made it a page turner and one that will stay on my shelves for a long time! Can’t wait to read more from Eagar.
8. Of A Boy, by Sonya Hartnett. Another one my husband urged me to read, this time after we moved in together. He once told me he never read YA, not even realising that Harnett writes YA. This one is not for those looking for fun and happy times. It’s about a boy, who lives with his grandmother after being removed from his mother’s care. It’s an amazing book – everyone needs to read it!
9. The Obernewtyn Chronicles, by Isobelle Carmody. Because an Australian list isn’t complete without this series! One of my favourites of all time! I’m so looking forward to re-reading them all this year in an on-line read-a-along hosted by Shannon from Giraffe Days. Anyone who hasn’t dived into this post-apocalyptic world where there are ‘Misfits’ (genetic mutations resulting in special abilities after something like a nuclear wipeout) needs to give it a go.
10. Monkey Grip and The Spare Room, by Helen Garner. Also not for people wanting a fun or happy read, Garner writes bleak books on human relationships.

Compiling this list has really made me think that I need to read some more Australian fiction. I looked through a couple of Goodreads lists of top 100 Australian novels etc and there’s an embarrassing amount that I haven’t read! Really need to start tossing more Aussie books into the pile and trying to get through some of those ‘always wanted to, never gotten around to it’ books.

Looking forward to everyone’s topics today!