Funny to think how recently I became an audiobook lover, since three of my four “reads” this month were actually listens, and the fourth was one I had to review for the magazine. My deadline is still hanging over my head, so no curling up on the couch with a good book until it’s done! So grateful for audiobooks so I can at least still enjoy books while I’m walking, working out, on the train or driving – and they were wonderful ones this month…
Fight Like A Girl by Clementine Ford (57 of 52) is an extraordinary book. There’s deep and justified anger within it, but it’s also moving and sad, and occasionally funny. It’s deeply personal, yet also tragically universal, with international studies and specific cases to back up the beautifully worded stories of personal experience, and all she has learned in years of study – and years as a target of awful, angry people furious at being challenged to be more concerned about violence against women than having their feelings hurt. I am astonished by Clementine’s bravery in handling the misogynists who have long been trolling and threatening her, awed at all she does to keep women safe – from the individual and personal things she does, to her broader changing-the-way-society-views-gender-expectations work – and her writing is just as courageous. This book is inspiring, inclusive, challenging, passionate, empowering, rage-filled yet hopeful, full of information that we all kind of know, but have never really viewed in this light. I listened to the audiobook first, which is brilliantly narrated by Clementine and shimmering with great tenderness, brutal honesty and wholly justified rage – and I loved it so much that by a couple of chapters in I’d ordered the book, so I could read it “properly” too… She’s described as Australia’s most fearless feminist writer, and I have to agree. Thank you Clementine, for your courage and strength and brilliance and love.
Swallow the Air by Tara June Winch (58 of 52) is sad, moving, tragic and beautiful. It’s gorgeously written, and although it spirals around, jumping from one time frame to another, back and forward, one place to another, traversing this country, introducing many characters and shifting focus often, the writing is so evocative, the audiobook by my favourite narrator Tamala Shelton is wonderful, and I’ll probably buy the book too just so I can re-read the exquisite lines and submerge myself in the raw emotion of the story…
The Wild Wood by Charles de Lint (59 of 52) is a sweet modern faery tale… it’s beautifully written, with lots of lush descriptions of Canadian woodlands and strange fae folk, and magical encounters and art and nature and love… it’s a little bit preachy, with strange pov shifts, but was a lovely read/listen…
The First Scientists by Corey Tutt (60 of 52) is a fascinating book full of deadly inventions and innovations from Australia’s First Peoples, who have been using scientific methods, and passing on the wisdom of the land, sea and sky, for 65,000 years. They were this country’s first engineers, environmentalists, inventors, astronomers, builders, botanists, chefs, healers, land managers and more, but sadly their incredible knowledge has been ignored until now, which is a terrible loss. But today Indigenous wisdom is finally being recognised and appreciated, to the benefit of all of us. and there is so much for us all to learn. With great illustrations by Blak Douglas, this book will inspire you to connect with the land around you and see the world in a new way, encouraging a love of learning and the pursuit of topics that excite you, and the asking of life’s big questions. following the things that excite you and exploring the world to unleash all you are capable of. Science is all around us, and we can all become involved with it if we pay attention, ask questions and learn the ancient wisdom that is being so generously shared.
🌟 Corey’s also the editor of a series of Deadly Science books Australian Geographic is publishing, which are awesome!
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