Australia Books

This is the 2nd book of a series of 3 that describe in details the complete range of Carnivorous/Insectivorous Plants in Australia. In the same format as the other two books, each species is described in one page of text giving a brief botanical description and any significant charactristics. A fairly decent line drawing faces this page of a typical full grown plant shwing the leaf, flower, and root form in detail as required. There are also a number of full colour photographs of each species in the wild showing plants in flower, etc.

A good book, one of the better CP ones (see my Review of Vol. 3 as well). Buy the book if you can - if not try and have a look at a copy and see what you are missing......

This is the long awaited third book in a series that documents the complete range of Australia's Carnivorous/Insectivorous Plants. Like the two before it, the book combines short (single page) semi-botanical descriptions of each species with a high quality sketch illustrating the form and a number of colour photographs showing typical (and sometimes atypical) plants in their natural environment.

This book is not so aimed at the 'how to grow them' shelf, but, at the accurate identification of numerous Australian Drosera (sundews), etc. In this respect it is a 5* hit and a must for any CP grower. Add it to your collection NOW before the print run is sold out (I pre-ordered last year!) - Vol.s 1 and 2 are now hard to get hold of and sell at a premium and a re-print may not occur for a long time.

ONE OF THE BETTER CP BOOKS

This is an absolutely fascinating book. It tells how the men of Ilahita, a village in the Sepik region of Papua New Guinea, consciously and deliberately destroyed their secret men's cult (the Tambaran) by revealing its secret artifacts to the women. The book describes in a detailed but incredibly readable way how a prophecy contained at the end the Ilahita creation myth (involving the local lake and a Cassowary Woman) foretold the destruction of the cult, enmeshing the men and women of Ilahita on a downward spiral that even involves the anthropologist author in the second coming of the Cassowary Woman's "youngest son". It also describes the resulting damage to the village's gender dynamics, its cultural destruction at the hands of the Revival Christianity (now run by the women in a similar way to the method used by the men in the old Tambaran system), and the village's final loss of local power and land. Quite a tragic story, and one which has relevance to our own society's gender dynamics.

This book is classic good company on a lonely evening; this is the real mccoy of survival story-telling

Catalyst: The Power Of The Media And The Public To Make Change by Madonna King (Senior Columnist with the Courier-Mail and broadcaster with Brisbane's Newstalk) is an in-depth presentation of the effect public opinion and the media has upon government policies, big business, as well as political figures and activists. Providing the reader with an extensive and comprehensive analysis media intervention and influence, Catalyst draws from interviews with over 130 people, including state premiers, attorney generals, Supreme Court judges, journalists, academics, social workers, and even convicted criminals. Catalyst offers a unique and conceptual grasp of politics, criminology, sociology, and the great exposure to media the general public still retains, granting them a decent perspective on their empowered those who govern them in the private and/or public sectors of control.

Catastrophe Cat is a young adult novel about a girl who survives Cyclone Tracy, but loses her beloved cat Tia, swept away by the fierce winds. Evacuated with her family to Melbourne, she struggles with grief welling up in her heart. But amid the rubble of her devastated home city, miracles are still possible, and Tia is a hardier survivor than one might expect of a small Siamese! Catastrophe Cat is an emotionally well crafted tale of perseverance.

Lots of before unknown information on thenlife of one of my favorite authors - Catherine Cookson

This is a fascinating little book about caves, graves, grave robbers, ancient sewer systems, cave dwellers, and more. Although the book is written for children, you might enjoy reading it after your child has finished with it. One of my favorite stories is about the family of cannibals living in a cave in Galloway, Scotland during the period of King James VI (1566-1625). The book also mentions lesser-known nature facts, such as the orchids that can grow underground, and the world's largest earthworms that can grow to 16ft in length. An interesting read!

I loved everything about this story, the descriptions of emotion and surroundings were deep and at times I was surprised a male author could be so in touch. The story line was great up until when Ned is injured, the boy dies, she goes mad etc etc, I have a good mind to rewrite it, in fact it's all in my head. I was absolutely heart broken when I read the last couple of chapters, what happened Richare Masefield, to make you do such a thing to the end of my favorite story, it just caught me by surprise. But I did love it till that point, now I'll read Brimstone.

Gooneratne's fictional work covers on notions diaspora, hybridity and transcultural negotiation with humour and irony. A Change of Skies is a story of a journey by a Sri Lankan couple who had only known Australia through fissured and distant visual images as "a blank pink space shaped like the head of a Scotch terrier with its ears pricked up and its square nose permanently pointed westward, towards Britain" (1991: 11)

When Gooneratne published A Change of Skies in 1991, she also established a tradition of representing the Sri Lankan diaspora in the Australian literary scene. Nevertheless, there have been other writers, including Earnest McIntyre (1981), who have used drama to portray the Sri Lankan diaspora in Australia. (1) Following that Chandani Lokuge (2000, 2003) has also provided her perspectives on Sri Lankan diaspora "Down Under" and my own writing (Govinnage, 2002) has followed a similar path. (2)

Unlike Lokuge's or my own work, Gooneratne's protagonists are early Sri Lankan immigrants who arrived in Australia at the end of the White Australia policy. Her novel represents a portrayal of early Sri Lankan migrants, their socio-economic status and also their connection with the British Empire as a journey between colonial and national boarders. These journeys take Gooneratne's protagonists into "a culture that is once familiar and unfamiliar." (Paranjape, 2003: 288) The issue of familiar and unfamiliar journeys has been observed by Paranjape in his analysis of the south Asian diaspora in Australia. However, he has failed to provide observations on Gooneratne's work. Nevertheless, Paranjape's observations of familiarity and unfamiliarity of Australia is an important discourse to examine the journeys as represented by Gooneratne. He writes that Australia has "... a culture that is once familiar and unfamiliar. It is familiar because of the shared and enduring connection with the British Empire" (2003: 288)

Sunil Govinnage, Perth, Australia