GeoKit Oceania 2021

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GeoKit Oceania 2021

1pamelad
Modificato: Dic 21, 2020, 2:48 pm


Papua New Guinea

Fiji
Kalyana Rajni Mala Khelawan

Samoa
Leaves of the Banyan Tree Albert Wendt
Where We Once Belonged Sia Figiel
Telesa The Covenant Keeper Lani Wendt Young
Scar of the Bamboo Leaf Sieni A.M.

Solomon Islands

Where Leaves had Fallen: a collection of poems by Celo Kulagoe SINU Library

Vanuatu

Black Stone, Black Stone II, Colonised People by Grace Stone (Poetry)

Kiribati
Waa in Storms by Teweiariki Teaero

Federated States of Micronesia

Indigenous Literatures from Micronesia Edited by Evelyn Flores and Emelihter Kihleng

Pohnpei
My Urohs by Emelihter Kihleng (Poetry)

Tonga

Tales of the Tikongs Epeli Hau'ofa

Marshal Islands

Iep Jaltok: Poems from a Marshallese Daughter by Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner

Palau

The Palauan Perspectives: a poetry book by Hermana Ramarui

Tuvalu

Tuvalu: A History by Simati Faaniu

Nauru

Rapa Nui/Easter Island (Chile)

New Caledonia, French Polynesia, Wallis and Futuna (France)
Frangipani Célestine Hitiura Vaite
The Wreck by Déwé Gorodé

Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands (USA)

Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen by Liliuokalani
Mariquita - A Tragedy of Guam by Chris Perez Howard

Pitcairn Islands (Britain)

Pitcairn’s Island Charles Nordhoff

Non-indigenous Writers

The writers listed above are, in the main, indigenous. Many others have written about the region:
Tales of the South Pacific by James Michener
The Happy Isles of Oceania by Paul Theroux
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones
Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life by Herman Melville
South Sea Stories by Somerset Maugham

The War in the Pacific
Many, but not all, of these books are set in Oceania.

Asylum Seekers on Manus Island (New Guinea) and Nauru
The Australian Government has imprisoned asylum seekers illegally and indefinitely.

No Friend but the Mountains: from Manus Prison by Behrouz Boochani (from Iran, now in New Zealand)
Freeing Ali by Michael Gordon
Offshore: Behind the Wire on Manus and Nauru Madeline Gleeson
Sending Them Home: Refugees and the New Politics of Indifference by Robert Manne, David Corlett

3pamelad
Modificato: Dic 21, 2020, 2:54 pm



Assorted Australian Writers

Crime

Alan Carter
Peter Corris
Garry Disher Ned Kelly Award
Candice Fox Ned Kelly Award
Kerry Greenwood
Chris Hammer
Jane Harper (from Britain)
Katherine Howell Davitt Award
Katherine Kovacic
Gabrielle Lord Ned Kelly Award
Shane Maloney Ned Kelly Award
Leigh Redhead
Jock Serong Ned Kelly Award
Peter Temple (from South Africa) Miles Franklin Award
Emma Viskic Davitt Award

Over fifty years ago
Patricia Carlon
Charlotte Jay
Arthur Upfield (from Britain)

Fiction

Tirra Lirra by the River by Jessica Anderson Miles Franklin Award
It's Raining in Mango by Thea Astley
The People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey Booker
The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan Booker
The Spare Room by Helen Garner
Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam by Peter Goldsworthy
The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard
The Well by Elizabeth Jolley
Sixty Lights by Gail Jones
Schindler's Ark by Thomas Kenneally Booker
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
The Thornbirds by Colleen McCullough
Mateship with Birds by Carrie Tiffany Stella Prize
The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas Commonwealth Writers Prize
The Natural Way of Things by Charlotte Wood Stella Prize

Over fifty years ago

Come in Spinner by Dymphna Cusack
The Timeless Land by Eleanor Dark
My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin
The Watch Tower by Elizabeth Harrower
The Pea Pickers by Eve Langley
The Shiralee by D'Arcy Niland
The Harp in the South by Ruth Park (from New Zealand)
Coonardoo by Katherine Susannah Pritchard
The Fortunes of Richard Mahony by Henry Handel Richardson
The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead
The Tree of Man by Patrick White Nobel
Isobel on the Way to the Corner Shop by Amy Witting

Non-fiction

The Tyranny of Distance by Geoffrey Blainey
Tracks by Robyn Davidson
The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes
Animal Liberation by Peter Singer
The Bush by Don Watson

Prizes

Miles Franklin
Ned Kelly Award
Scarlet Stiletto Award and Davitt Award- Sisters in Crime
The Stella Prize

Overseas Writers

Down Under by Bill Bryson
In the Land of Oz by Howard Jacobson

4pamelad
Modificato: Dic 6, 2020, 4:08 pm


New Zealand, Cook Islands, Niue, Tokelau - Indigenous Writers

Alan Duff Once Were Warriors
Patricia Grace Potiki
Keri Hulme The Bone People Booker
Witi Ihimaera The Whale Rider
Paula Morris Rangatira Nga Kupu Ora Maori Book Award
Hone Tuwhare No Ordinary Sun (Poetry)

Web Sites

Focus on Maori Writers
HUIA Book Shop
Maori and Pacific Writers - The Encyclopedia of New Zealand

6pamelad
Dic 5, 2020, 9:36 pm

Getting started. Thinking of ways to select and organise the Australian writers because there are so many.

Looking for suggestions of New Zealand writers.

Still seeking writers from the Pacific Islands. Samoa is well represented, but most of the others are not.

7NinieB
Dic 5, 2020, 9:45 pm

>6 pamelad: I highly recommend Ruth Park's Pink Flannel, also published as Dear Hearts and Gentle People, for New Zealand. She grew up on the North Island, where the book is set.

8pamelad
Dic 5, 2020, 10:40 pm

>7 NinieB: Thank you. I'll put her in NZ.

9spiralsheep
Dic 6, 2020, 1:09 am

>1 pamelad: Thread's looking good! I saw you setting this up and added a link to the wiki.

Palau: The Palauan Perspectives: a poetry book by Hermana Ramarui was published in 1984 and is showing its age but it does represent Palau well at that time.

Pohnpei (Federated States of Micronesia): My Urohs by Emelihter Kihleng is a single author poetry book.

Nauru and Manus islands have a whole body of refugee literature written by people imprisoned there, including some professional writers such as No Friend but the Mountains: from Manus Prison by Behrouz Boochani.

I might think of some more when I'm properly awake.

10spiralsheep
Dic 6, 2020, 1:21 am

Vanuatu: Grace Molisa published her poetry in Black Stone II, and Colonised People, and the original Black Stone.

11spiralsheep
Modificato: Dic 6, 2020, 1:24 am

Solomon Islands: Where leaves had fallen: A collection of poems by Celo Kulagoe.

12pamelad
Dic 6, 2020, 6:26 am

>9 spiralsheep: Thanks. I've added them all.

13MillieWhitehouse
Dic 6, 2020, 6:47 am

Questo utente è stato eliminato perché considerato spam.

14MissWatson
Dic 6, 2020, 8:35 am

Wow, that's a great set-up. I need to get my skates on for South America!

15Jackie_K
Dic 6, 2020, 8:57 am

>15 Jackie_K: I was thinking the exact same thing! I don't think Europe will be quite as extensively covered in the opening post, somehow! :)

16DeltaQueen50
Dic 6, 2020, 12:16 pm

Great set up for our first GeoKit of the year! Seeing this up and ready is making 2021 seem much closer.

17pamelad
Dic 6, 2020, 7:38 pm

>14 MissWatson:, >15 Jackie_K:, >16 DeltaQueen50: Thank you for the positive feedback!

18MissBrangwen
Dic 21, 2020, 11:06 am

I wanted to buy The Yield by Tara June Winch when it came out, but it wasn't available in Europe. I just checked again and I'm happy to see that I can finally order it. My plan is to not order that many books online next year, but I think this will be one of the few I'll order!

And thank you >1 pamelad: for the great selection of choices. There are some that I've read or heard about, but also many that are new to me and that I will check out.

19pamelad
Dic 21, 2020, 3:24 pm

>18 MissBrangwen: Thank you. Being from Australia it's a temptation to see Oceania as Australia and the Rest, so it's been interesting to look for books from all over Oceania. I'd like to read something Samoan, as well as more books by Australian indigenous writers. The Yield is on my list.

20JayneCM
Dic 30, 2020, 6:46 am

21LittleTaiko
Gen 15, 2021, 5:04 pm

I read Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay - a classic novel set in Australia. Definitely had a good sense of the place though I'm not sure I liked how ambiguous the novel was.

22pamelad
Gen 16, 2021, 10:13 pm

>21 LittleTaiko: It's a long time since I read this, so it could be due for a re-read. I remember the eeriness and the ambiguous ending, which go together.

I've just finished A Few Days in the Country a collection of short stories by Elizabeth Harrower. Memorable. Also worth reading are her novels, including The Long Prospect and The Watch Tower.

23JayneCM
Gen 17, 2021, 1:21 am

The Yield is well worth the read. Also Terra Nullius.

24Jackie_K
Gen 18, 2021, 1:23 pm

I started reading Nevil Shute's A Town Like Alice for the April 2020 GeoCAT, but kept getting distracted. Finally finished it today, so am counting it instead for this year's GeoKIT! I did enjoy it (despite taking months to read it).

26spiralsheep
Modificato: Feb 9, 2021, 7:17 am

I read Tiare in Bloom by Celestine Vaite, which is a chicklit-style novel set in Tahiti about a middle-aged couple in their forties but told mostly from the husband's point of view and especially delves into the meaning and practice of various forms of fatherhood. It's technically the third novel in a series but it worked for me as a standalone. As ever with this relatively light-hearted style of social commentary, a reader is either in tune with the author's humour and perspective on life or not but I think this novel is easy to enjoy (and I'm not the target audience for this genre). 4*

I've now read at least one book from all seven GeoKIT areas!

27MissBrangwen
Feb 11, 2021, 7:58 am

I finished my first book for this challenge: Never Never by James Patterson and Australian author Candice Fox. It takes place in the outback of Western Australia, relatively close to Kalgoorlie. Although I didn't like the characters or the plot, the setting was fascinating.

28pamelad
Feb 11, 2021, 3:36 pm

>27 MissBrangwen: Candice Fox has written a series of mysteries set in Cairns, in tropical north Queensland. They make a change from the usual drought dramas. The first is Crimson Lake.

I have just bought a second-hand copy of Geoffrey Dutton's The Australian Collection: Australia's Greatest Books and from it am reading The Middle Parts of Fortune, which is Frederic Manning's account of his experiences as a private soldier in the French trenches in 1916.

29MissBrangwen
Feb 11, 2021, 4:50 pm

>28 pamelad: Oh, thank you for telling me!!! I‘m quite excited now, because I studied abroad in Cairns at JCU and I‘d love to read something set there! And I read many reviews saying that Crimson Lake was much better than the Harriet Blue series.

30DeltaQueen50
Feb 11, 2021, 11:41 pm

I have completed my read of Voss by Patrick White. I am sure this is a brilliant novel but it wasn't for me. Set in the 1840's Voss is an explorer who heads an expedition to cross Australia from east to west.

31pamelad
Feb 16, 2021, 1:37 am

I am reading Finding Eliza: power and colonial storytelling by Larissa Behrendt and am finding it eye-opening. Behrendt looks at the colonists' myths used to justify dispossession and genocide. She stars with Eliza Frazer and branches out.

32spiralsheep
Feb 23, 2021, 7:26 am

I read The Women in Black, by Madeleine St John, which is a novel about the lives of women working in the Ladies' Frocks Department at Goode's Department Store in Sydney, Australia, during the 1950s. 4*

Quote

Xmas at the beach: " 'Are you happy?' he asked her. 'Of course not!' said Magda. 'What a very vulgar suggestion. Are you?' 'Oh dear, I hope not,' said Stefan. "

33Tess_W
Feb 23, 2021, 9:19 am

I read War with the Newts by Karel Capek. It was set somewhere in the "Malays" and Indonesia.

34sturlington
Mar 9, 2021, 8:14 am

I read Flyaway by Kathleen Jennings. This is a lovely little book that draws on Australian myth and folklore. It is set in a small town in Queensland.

35susanna.fraser
Mar 16, 2021, 10:15 pm

I read Tales of the Tikongs by Epeli Hau'ofa, a Tongan author who set these satirical short stories on a fictional South Pacific island. They're not my usual genre or style of reading, but they did hold my interest.

36dudes22
Mar 21, 2021, 10:23 am

I've read A Life by Design by Siobhan O'Brien, a biography about the life of Florence Broadhurst which takes place in Australia.

37MissWatson
Modificato: Mar 29, 2021, 3:23 am

I have finished The beach of Falesá, a short story by RL Stevenson set on an unnamed Samoan island.

38MissWatson
Mar 30, 2021, 4:49 am

And the other South Sea story in the book is The ebb-tide.

39pamelad
Apr 24, 2021, 1:24 am

I read Wish by Peter Goldsworthy. Australian author, set in South Australia. I liked it.

40susanna.fraser
Mag 1, 2021, 11:09 pm

The Women in Black by Madeline St John is a lovely, deftly written and rather comic novel set in a Sydney department store in the 1950s during the Christmas rush. (And if I ever forgot I was reading a book set in Australia, all the talk of hot summer weather at Christmas reminded me!)

41spiralsheep
Mag 11, 2021, 4:06 am

>40 susanna.fraser: I also enjoyed The Women in Black. And I loved seeing the Christmas at the beach cliche subverted by the characters. :D

>1 pamelad: I read Potiki, by Patricia Grace, which is a novel set in a Maori community in Aotearoa (New Zealand) about family, cultural and economic survival, and how all are linked to environmental caretaking. 4*

42pamelad
Mag 19, 2021, 8:07 pm

May 27th to June 3rd is National Reconciliation Week. Here are lists of relevant adult and children's books.

43VivienneR
Giu 25, 2021, 2:57 pm

I read Bliss and other stories by Katherine Mansfield. The two I liked best were Bliss and The Garden Party.

44pamelad
Lug 1, 2021, 3:37 am

I read The Yield by Tara June Winch and reviewed it here.

Winch is a Wiradjuri woman.

45JayneCM
Lug 30, 2021, 8:33 am

I read All Our Shimmering Skies by Trent Dalton.

This book is very evocative of place - the author has spent a lot of time and effort researching deep country with the traditional owners and this is reflected in the beautiful descriptions of the area. It really shows Australia in all her beauty and terror.

" . . . the land gives you all you need if you know the right way to ask for it."

"Is there a land in this world more in awe of oblivion? Death resides in its branches, in its rivers, in its soils. Death crawls here and death slithers. . . Tell me of a land more determined to kill those who would dare embrace its beauty."

The book reads as a modern day myth or fairy tale and I loved the whole story, the writing, the atmosphere. But I just wish it had been more sparingly told. It was a story that needed to stand for itself, without all the flowery embellishments. Definitely a case of less would have been more.

That being said, it is still a wonderful story and if you would like to read more about Australia's traditional country, this is a great book.

46pamelad
Ago 1, 2021, 11:25 pm

From Secret Ballot to Democracy Sausage: How Australia Got Compulsory Voting by Judith Brett is a history of the Australian electoral system.

On Patrick White: Writers on Writers by Christos Tsiolkas is an assessment of White's writing.

47pamelad
Set 7, 2021, 2:41 am

The Nancys by R. W. R. McDonald won the Ngaio Marsh Best First Novel Award. It's a crime novel set in a tiny town near Dunedin, in New Zealand's South Island.

48VivienneR
Set 10, 2021, 3:30 pm

Just finished Great Australian Journeys by Graham Seal.
Beginning with the arrival of the first peoples in Australia about 70,000 years ago, Seal follows the many arrivals and journeys of Australians and visitors to their island. The stories of transported convicts were interesting and provided more detail than usual about the colourful characters and the dire conditions they left behind. The most entertaining chapter was about Tigga, a cat found in a garden in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. His microchip revealed he was from Australia, via London, England, where he had been treated by a vet. The puzzle of his travels was eventually solved but sadly he died while in care and it was Tigga's ashes that made the journey back to Australia. Mark Twain's visit to Australia was another highly entertaining section. His witty remarks are as funny now as they were when delivered. Wisely, Seal's stories are not chronological but enticingly jump around in time. From historical to contemporary, the comings and goings of Australians are fascinating.

49DeltaQueen50
Nov 22, 2021, 2:26 pm

I have just completed The Blue Lagoon by Henry de Vere Stacpoole. Although somewhat dated, I found this a very good read.