If you caught my post yesterday you might know how excited I was about Love Your Bookshop Day this year. Obviously there was no way I could visit my favourite bookshops without picking up a few new books, and today I wanted to share my very excellent haul.

Despite the excitement I did manage to restrain myself and only buy books that were on my list - I've been looking forward to getting my hands on each of these!

The Surprising Power of a Good Dumpling - Wai Chim
This brand new contemporary #loveozya is all over instagram at the moment, and I am only hearing great things. I can't wait to read it for myself!

Growing Up Queer in Australia - edited by Benjamin Law
I have a couple of the Growing Up... anthologies already, and I was super keen to pick this one up too. I am loving that publishers (in particular Black Inc Books) are supporting anthologies of diverse Australian stories.

Red, White and Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
Another current favourite online, everyone is talking about this new romcom and it sounds excellent.


The Monster Who Wasn't - T.C. Shelley
I saw this middlegrade novel in the Bloomsbury catalogue a little while ago and thought it looked really fun.

Being the book nerd that I am, one day and one bookshop just wasn't enough. Today I popped into Dymocks in Belconnen to share the love a bit more - and pick up two more books from my ever-growing to-be-read list =)



It Sounded Better in My Head - Nina Kenwood
This is another case of bookstagram made me do it! There has been so much buzz around this brand new contemporary #loveozya novel, and everyone is loving it.

My Name is NOT Peaseblossom - Jackie French
I really enjoy Jackie French's books - whether they are adult, picture books, or YA. I'm currently working on growing my collection of her novels by keeping an eye out for them secondhand, but I couldn't resist buying this retelling of A Midsummer Night's Dream when I spotted it on the shelves today.

I'm pretty delighted with my Love Your Bookshop Day haul - so many gorgeous books! Now I just need to decide which one to read first!

xo Bron

Harry Hartog Woden is technically part of a chain, but has a real indie feel. The staff are friendly and well read, and I always checking out the staff recommendation shelves. I also go along to the bookclub at Harry Hartog - it's always a fun discussion and the hosts help to make sure there is room for everyone to have their say. A second Canberra Harry Hartog store opened earlier this year at the Australian National University, and I can't believe I still haven't had a chance to go check it out!

 

Paperchain is pretty much a Canberra institution. It's a lovely little indie store nestled in between
Manuka's cafes, and is open until late 7 nights - perfect for an after dinner book browse. Paperchain have also recently started hosting a monthly book club which is really lovely.


Dymocks Belconnen- we have a couple of Dymocks stores across Canberra, but Dymocks is for sure my favourite. One of the things I love about this store is how kid friendly it feels - my daughter loves to browse the books there, and I have never felt uncomfortable or worried that we'll be thrown out (haha)! But seriously - it's so nice that she can browse while we do. The store has a lovely feel and the staff are super friendly and always helpful, and they run an excellent Instagram account.

  

I love that all of the events are in one location and on the same day - I feel like this gives it a proper festival feel - and also that the events are all so affordable. Perhaps my favourite thing about All Day YA is how accessible all the authors are - they are available to sign books between sessions, and often spend most of the breaks chatting with readers, and are so generous with their time and open about their experiences.

It is always hard to chose between events - this year I went to these:

• On History's Page (this one was about the fantastic anthology Meet me at the Intersection)
• The Great Deceit: On Love, Lies and Problematic Faves
• To All the Fandoms I've Loved Before
• Rewriting the Body
• Teen Con 

While all of the sessions were amazing, there is always one that really stands out, or touches me deeper than the rest. This year that was Rewriting the Body, which brought home to me again the importance of people - especially young people - having the opportunity to see themselves in the books they read. It also really opened my eyes to the hate people can be exposed to simply for pushing for better representation. Jenna Guillaume, Dhonielle Clayton, and Jax Jacki Brown were all incredible on this panel, and Jordi Kerr did an exceptional job of moderating/chairing. Check out the link to the event here for more info about them!

One more special highlight this year was the chance to pick up a sneaky special early copy of Kindred: 12 Queer #LoveOzYA Stories, which is being released in June. I've been looking forward to this collection and you'll be hearing more about it from me closer to the release date for sure!

Thanks again to the SWF organisers for such a wonderful event - I'm already excited for next year!

xo Bron

I picked up The Place on Dalhousie as soon as it was released, and was completely hooked from the first page. This is one of those immensely readable books, where I slip right into its world when I start reading, and an hour later realise I'm already a third of the way through. I have heard from a few people that they read this in just one or two sittings.

One of the things I find really magical about Melina Marchetta's writing is the amount, and intensity, of feelings she manages to infuse her stories with. This one gave me ALL the feelings, and I really felt like I was right there by the characters. There are some really moving scenes - both due to them being so heartbreaking but also some that are really joy-filled.

The Place on Dalhousie is officially classified as adult fiction (the younger POV characters are in their early to mid twenties), but Marchetta does explore many of the same themes from her young adult work - belonging, family (biological and chosen), fitting in, standing out, and the way these things all contribute to who we are. There is also a sense of that coming-of-age feeling that is typical in young adult fiction, as the characters struggle to figure out where they belong and who they are. I'm not sure whether I would necessarily say the characters are culturally diverse, but there are characters from a couple of different backgrounds, including Italian. One of the things that I thought was really interesting (although I didn't think about it much at the time - it was something that came up at the event we went to) was the difference in experience of two Italian families - one of which had come to Australia after the war when families were moving together and there were large communities building here, and the other that had come more recently, just parents and one child and been more isolated.

I went into reading this with pretty much no idea what it was about, so didn't realise that it revisits the same group of friends Marchetta wrote about in two previous books - Saving Francesca and The Piper's Son. I didn't feel at all like not having read these two meant that anything in The Place on Dalhousie was hard to follow or didn't make sense, even though there were a few bits where events from them were referred to. That said, my first thought on finishing this was that I wanted to binge read them and follow with a re-reading of this one - it is really that good!

As I mentioned above, I did have the opportunity to see Marchetta talk a little bit about this book, and her writing process more generally, at an event last week. If you ever get the chance to see her speak in person I absolutely recommend it! She is so open and honest with her answers, and couldn't be more generous with her time - it was such a delight!

 I gave this five out of five big bright shiny stars, and am already planning a re-read!

xo Bron

It was a fantastic evening. The event was held at Harry Hartog Booksellers in Woden, and there were soooo many people there (about a hundred, I think) and it always makes me so happy to see so much support from books stores and the community for our wonderful local authors!

Claire from Harry Hartog did an amazing job of hosting - she and Sam had great chemistry and the conversation was warm, fun, and insightful, and just a pleasure to watch. Sam was very funny, and I loved hearing more about her writing inspiration and process.


As for the book, I LOVED it. It is low magic fantasy, with a similar kind of feel to something like Game of Thrones - but without all the sexual violence. But alongside that gritty, almost medieval, epic fantasy feel, it is also a closed room murder mystery, where the reader gets all the same clues as the protagonists.

There are so many things I enjoyed about this one - here are a couple of my highlights:

- I felt like the world building was awesome. There is so much background and depth to the setting, society, and characters, and it is all given in a natural way rather than feeling like and info dump. Given the richness of the storytelling I was really surprised to hear that Sam writes in the details as she needs them for the story, rather than researching and setting out all the info at the start!

- I loved the subtle ways that the world was feministy, without screaming it on every page, like some other books I've read whether the author is playing with power and patriarchy in the society. For instance, in City of Lies, the family line is passed through the mother's family, with women and men both taking positions of power in the society. The lack of toxic masculinity throughout was so refreshing!

- It was wonderful to see same sex relationships discussed in exactly the same way as M/F relationships, and just as often. The treatment of romantic relationships in the society is really interesting - women have children without attachment to the father, and instead nominate a close male relative to live with and to be mentor to their children (hence the main characters in the book having close relationships with their uncles).

- The characters feel real, and flawed, and are living with chronic disease, and mental health issues - this is a great contrast to the invincible characters we often see in fantasy.

- Despite being a pretty big book of epic feeling fantasy, and the fact that there's a sequel on the way, City of Lies can totally be read as a stand alone. The main mystery in the book - who is the poisoner and how did they do it - is solved, so you could be satisfied with the ending as it stands. There are, however, a bunch of tiny threads to carry through to the next book, which I am completely busting to read (only a year to go haha).


Overall, I thought this was a brilliant read. It had me hooked from the very first line - "I was seven years old the first time my uncle poisoned me." - and get me intrigued throughout. This was one of those magical books that breaks the rules of physics, and while it took a week or so to read the first half, somehow I got through the second half in the space of 24 hours!

As I mentioned above, I was provided with a free advance copy of City of Lies by the publisher (Penguin Random House), but I liked this one so much that I have bought myself a finished copy, and I am just thrilled to be able to tell everyone that will listen how much I love a new book by a local author!

4.5 stars (and can I have the sequel now, please?)

xo Bron

*** City of Lies ***
Available now from Penguin Australia
On Goodreads
Source: I was sent a copy by the publisher but loved it so much I bought a finished copy too
Genre: Fantasy (low magic), with some closed room murder mystery
Find Sam Hawke online here

This weekend just gone was four weeks until the Canberra Writers Festival, and I've been pulling together a pre-festival reading stack. I'm always a bit torn before festivals and other events, about whether I want to read ahead of the event, or wait until I have heard the author speak, which gets me excited about the book, and read it with the extra info from the author in mind. So, for the CWF I've pulled together a couple of titles I thought sounded interesting, and maybe I'll pick up a few more after the event. Here's what I have (so far!).


We See the Stars - Kate van Hooft
This is (I think) the only YA event at the CWF. It looks excellent and I'm looking forward to reading it!

Every Lie I've Ever Told - Rosie Waterland
I'm a little bit embarrassed to admit I don't really know very much about Rosie Waterland at all, but some of friends were really keen on her event at the festival and her memoir looks really interesting. Also, this will count toward my Read Harder Challenge, for the prompt about a celebrity memoir.

Mullumbimby - Melissa Lucashenko
Melissa Lucashenko is going to be a part of the panel discussion at the event An Evening with First Nations Australians - this is one session that I'm sure will inspire me to pick up more books after the event.

Room on Our Rock and Are You My Bottom - Kate and Jol Temple
We've already read these two a bunch of times (I wrote a bit about them both in my post on Living Arts Canberra) and I think this event is going to be super fun!


These guys are all going on my August TBR - pop back next weekend when I will (hopefully!) have pulled together my August TBR stack!

xo Bron

We were lucky enough to attend another fantastic children's book event in May, this time for the launch of Blast Off by Shelly Unwin (who has recently moved to Canberra), illustrated by Ben Wood. The launch was held at my local Harry Hartog store - I have been to a bunch of events there and they always do such a fantastic job. They also have a perfect space for kids events.

Blast Off is a perfect example of narrative non-fiction - there is a fun story about traveling around the solar system to keep kids interested while they learn some actual facts about each planet. The rhyming text sounds great read aloud, and it gets extra points from my 4 year-old for featuring her favourite word in a book (bum) AND someone  vomiting in the illustrations haha

With me being away a few weekends in a row at book events, Amelia was pretty interested in going to something bookish too. Lucky for us we didn't have to wait long for a suitable event to come up! The day after the Sydney Writer's Festival local Canberra author Maura Pierlot launched her new picture book - The Trouble in Tune Town - at the National Library of Australia.

And suddenly it was June!
I'm continuing tonight with my recaps of some of the bookish things I got up to in late April/early May (why is everything always all at once haha?!). My next event, on 5 May, was the Sydney Writers' Festival All Day YA.


This was my second time at a SWF All Day YA event. My friend Madeleine and I went kind of on a whim last year - not really sure what to expect but thinking it would probably be pretty fun. We were absolutely blown away by how amazing the event was, and have really not stopped raving about it all year! (You can read a bit about it here). Having had so much fun last year expectations were pretty high this time around, and again we had a really great time.

The set-up for the day was pretty much the same as last year - 10 sessions (either conversations or panels) planned for the day across 5 time slots, so attending the entire day meant you could go to 5 sessions.


We saw the following 3 panels (featuring the writers listed) - click through to the program for more info on each:

From the Sidelines (about diversity and tokenism in YA)
Sarah Ayoub
Tamar Chnorhokian
Patrick Ness

Burn the Book: Real Girls in YA
Alicia Tuckerman
Tara Eglington
Jenna Guillaume
Rebecca Lim

Architects of New Worlds
Jay Kristoff
Claire G Coleman
Callie Black
Jessie Andrews

And we also went to Teen Con, hosted by Wil Kostakis, where publishers told us about some new and upcoming releases they are excited about, as well as there being a bunch of book giveaways, and free books for everyone on the door (I got Children of Blood and Bone, which I have had my eye on for AGES).


I don't think I had a favourite session at this event - they were all so fantastic. The whole day is just so well done, so I thought I'd share five things about All Day YA that I think help make it such a brilliant (and perhaps pretty unique) event:

Going with friends
Ok, so this first point isn't actually something that is in the control of the organisers, but I can't not mention how much I love going to bookish things with my friends! I'm sure it makes these events infinitely more fun when I have a like-minded book nerd to share the excitement with. This year Madeleine and I we were joined by another friend, Claire - you can check out her wrap up of the day here, and her blog & reviews here.


Youth Curators
Now we are onto the bits that the lovely people at SWF are responsible for, and the one that I thought was most exciting - and probably groundbreaking - was the involvement of Youth Curators in programming and moderating/hosting the sessions. I can't even describe how much it thrills me to see SWF involving actual young people in the planning of an event which is really for young people. I have seen some other festivals using 'YA experts/advocates' (or something) in their program planning, but tbh, while that's better than nothing, I don't think having (for example) a 30 year old woman speaking for the needs/preferences of a teen audience is really good enough. The approach taken by SWF in planning the All Day YA programming seemed to have really empowered young people to put together a program they wanted, supported by mentors. Also, each of the Youth Curators/moderators we saw in panels were so amazing, asking considered questions, and relating the discussions about books back to real life brilliantly.

Affordability
Now that I've been banging on about how this is really an event aimed at 'young people' (does saying 'young people' make me really old? You know what I mean!), one of the great things about the event is that the prices of the sessions are appropriate for students. Each session cost $10 (compared to upwards of $20 for other events during the festival), and while $50 is still a considerable amount of money, I feel like it's pretty good value for a whole day (plus, you could attend just one session if that was what you could afford.)


The venue
Again, I think the venue is something that really facilitates this event being easier to attend for teens especially. It is pretty easily accessible by public transport, or a parent could drop their teen off and know that they get to see a whole day's worth of bookish goodness in one place (compared, for instance, to a one hour event where parents have to hang around, or several sessions on one day in different venues). I guess what I'm getting at (and what I'd like to see at other festivals, and more specifically here in Canberra) is that they way they sessions are spread across the day in one place for more affordable prices really makes this like a mini festival that is more accessible for the people who it should be targeted to - teens/students/young people.

The writers
Maybe it goes without saying, and maybe authors are always like this, or perhaps its to do with YA writers at an event full of YA peeps, but my experience with the writers at All Day YA have just been so brilliant both years. They are kind and supportive and patient and respectful (yes, these are all things we hope people would be, but it is still amazing to actually see them in person) and there seems to be no limit to the amount of time they are willing to share chatting to readers and giving advice to young writers. Patrick Ness literally stayed to sign books for over 2 hours straight (he began at the start or the lunch break, signed all through lunch and was still at it when we came out of the next session.) - and despite the enormous line of people waiting to meet him still chatted with every single person he met. We were actually booked into a fourth session, but opted to wait to have Jay Kristoff sign our books - he also signed and chatted for over an hour. And each and every author was so nice in the signing line. They really contribute to making the event an absolute delight, and (along with the fantastic attitudes of everyone attending) the vibe at these events both times has been wonderful and friendly.

So, that's my rave review of the 2018 All Day YA. I honestly can't wait to do it again! (And I have my fingers crossed for some great YA events at the Canberra Writer's Festival!)
The program is still up on the SWF website, and I'd definitely encourage everyone to pop over and give these authors and their books some love!

xo Bron

April and May have been super busy here! Not only did we have Easter, my birthday, and Mother's Day, but I have been lucky enough to a whole bunch of fantastic book events as well. I'm planning to catch up on recording them here over the next few weeks =)

First up, on 28 April, I headed to Melbourne for Speculate - the very first Victorian Speculative Writers Festival - with my friend Madeleine. We had a great time together at the Canberra Spec Fic Guild's festival - Conflux - last year, and when we saw both Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman would be at Speculate we couldn't resist and booked our tickets right away!

As seems to be standard for these events - especially when we head out of state - our day was sponsored by coffee and pastry (how else could I survive the 4:30am wake-up? haha).  We opted just for a day trip, which meant that we missed one session to make sure we could get to the plane on time, but our day was still totally packed with bookish fun.


There was a fantastic line up of speakers (you can see them all on the Speculate website here) who sat on panels on a variety of topics during the day, including the history and future of fantasy, the language of imagination, and the past present and future of sci-fi.

Each of the panels was brilliant, but I think my favourite was the language of imagination, where panelist spoke about how words are used to get what's in a writer's head into their reader's mind. I am just fascinated with language (as well as being a science nerd I also majored in linguistics at university) and it was interesting to think about how the things an author chooses to tell us about a character shapes our view of them (for instance, an author might describe what someone is doing or how they are doing it or what they are wearing etc). Beyond those sorts of interesting tidbits about language choice, it was also super interesting to think about the power of language in terms of diversity and equality. For instance, in general people are more likely to describe the a woman's body, but a man's clothes. And of course the issue that our books and films have been (and still are) so predominantly white for so long, that readers tend to assume characters are white, and how this isn't appropriately solved just by stating when characters aren't white (since this strengthens the white unless identified as 'other' dichotomy). I'm pretty sure I haven't done the discussion justice at all, but it was just so so interesting and IMPORTANT!


So much fun! I'm sure I could never get sick of listening to writers talking about their process and issues, and the Speculate team did such a fantastic job of pulling the event together! The festival was a great size, in terms of panels and attendees, and the venue (Gasworks Arts Park in Port Melbourne) was pretty perfect. All of the panelists seemed to be really generous with their time, and the whole day had a really nice feeling. The only regret I had was not mingling  a bit more with other attendees, and I'll definitely be keeping my eye out for it again next year!