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1. 

   Thanks for visiting mine. Some book bloggers make a point of reading them all – for me that’s a bit too arduous!

   Definitely some good stuff there though.

   By: Tom Cunliffe on July 29, 2009
   at 7:53 pm

   Reply

   • 

     It’s so much that it’s arduous, as that it interferes with other things I might want to read. To read all of the longlist before the shortlist came out I’d need to drop other things that are already a high priority with me. I’d be reading all international fiction for a start (unless you count Coetzee as an Aussie, which I suspect is not really fair dinkum, as we say). I have a vague plan of action for my reading – based on reading for my book group and the various challenges I’ve taken on (http://anzlitlovers.wordpress.com/challenges ) (though to be honest it doesn’t really deserve to be dignified by the term ‘plan of action’). Quite often, however, as the impulse takes me, I ignore both TBR (#BTB) and TBR(#s) (see http://anzlitlovers.wordpress.com/2009/06/20/whats-on-your-bedside-table/ ) and quite often just pluck things off the shelf if they seem to be calling to me. Then there are the occasional lapses into greed at the library where I bring home a great haul of interesting looking things that then have to be read before they’re due back. This kind of serendipitous reading is sometimes the most rewarding of all. What I hope for is that, apart from the ones that really appeal, some of the other longlisted titles will be acquired by my favourite libraries that I will eventually read them that way. Lisa

     By: Lisa Hill on July 29, 2009
     at 8:46 pm

     Reply

2. 

   Being on the road I hadn’t seen this list Lisa. Thanks for bringing me up to date. Must admit there’s not much there that’s high on my list though I’d like to read the Byatt, and the Coetzee of course (who’s nearly an Aussie I reckon). Will look more into it when I get back to my proper internet connection.

   By: whisperinggums on July 29, 2009
   at 10:53 pm

   Reply

3. 

   The is-he-isn’t-he-an-Aussie? argument is an interesting one in many contexts, I find. From a public policy POV, Australians have long been inclusive: immigrants can become citizens in a comparatively short space of time and access full rights, and with the end of that odious TPV refugees can too (though IMO there are still further reforms needed with our treatment of refugees.) In general though, people have to be here for a long time before being accepted as a real Aussie, and even descendants will always fail the ah-but-do-you-have-an-ANZAC-in-the-family-history-test.
   Conversely, Aussies who abandon the homeland are likely to meet with why-would-you puzzlement (Shirley Hazzard), or in the case of opinionated ex-pats like Carey, Greer or Robert Hughes, scorn, derision, and rejection of their ‘irrelevant’ opinions.
   This reluctance to confer true status as an Aussie on someone born elsewhere usually collapses spectacularly if the newbie does something we admire. We are also very quick to claim back people who left here in childhood (MJ Hyland, DBC Pierre). Yet there seems to be an ambivalence about claiming Coetzee as an Aussie: it’s as if his Nobel Prize status has put him a bit beyond our cheeky reach. The papers always use a dual identity label e.g. South-African/Australian. Curious, isn’t it?

   By: Lisa Hill on July 30, 2009
   at 7:15 am

   Reply

4. 

   I have to admit that I am going to give all of them ago. However if it werent for the publishers sending me the books very kindly I owuld be really really put off as its expensive for such a possibly gruelling task.

   By: savidgereads on July 30, 2009
   at 7:16 am

   Reply

   • 

     Hmm, yes, this is not a problem I’ve had, being swamped with books from publishers LOL! Lisa

     By: Lisa Hill on July 30, 2009
     at 2:09 pm

     Reply

5. 

   I read The Wilderness a month or so back. It was shortlisted for The Orange Prize, which I hoped it would win. It’s a wonderful book, and certainly the best thing I’ve read so far this year…

   I have the Toibin and O’Loughlin in the reading queue, bought on my last trip to Ireland, and will add the Mantel and Trevor to it at some point. Not too fussed by any of the others. Have kind of gone off the Booker prize, which seems to have become a giant marketing exercise in recent years.

   By: kimbofo on July 31, 2009
   at 4:41 am

   Reply

6. 

   You forgot to put in the link to your compelling review, Kim, so here it is….
   http://kimbofo.typepad.com/readingmatters/2009/06/the-wilderness-by-samatha-harvey.html
   Another one to add to my list…having said above that I don’t want to get sucked in by the Longlist, the more reviews I read by people whose opinion I trust, the longer my wishlist grows! I will be hitting the Readings bookstore at the Melbourne Writers Festival in 3 weeks time – if I can wait that long…

   By: Lisa Hill on July 31, 2009
   at 1:48 pm

   Reply

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