I discovered this meme via Lizzy Sidal from Lizzy’s Literary Life.
It’s not as easy as it looks. And of course, if I did it next week, my answers would be different.
5 Books I Love (just from my 2022 reading, just from Australia and New Zealand)
True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
The Red Witch, a biography of Katharine Susannah Prichard by Nathan Hobby
The Morality of Gentlemen by Amanda Lohrey
Other Houses by Paddy O’Reilly
Loop Tracks by Sue Orr
4 Auto Buy Authors (Australia and NZ only. This was hard.)
3 Genres I Love (no surprises here)
Novels
Novellas
Literary biographies
2 Places I love to read
In bed
On the sofa
1 Book I’m (probably) reading next (for #WITmonth)
Klotsvog, Notes from the Jewish Underground, by Margarita Khemlin, translated by Lisa C Hayden
ANZ LitLovers LitBlog 
I wish a lot of ANZ writers were more widely available here, especially women. Peter Carey is pretty well known. Catherine Chidgey’s latest book is very easy to borrow as it’s currently available from every library and might come up as a future Kindle deal, and I bought In a Fishbone Church from one of the biggest discount book clubs QPD.
Occasionally I find secondhand or review copy Text Classics, and even the very occasional Kindle bargain, and I snaffle them all. I have 3 Elizabeth Harrower books and 5 Fiona Kidman books, and the other Kidmans are mostly at £5.99, which is actually a lot less than I used to spend on new paperbacks when I was working, and it’s probably worth it. I have asked several libraries to offer them through their digital catalogues but only one success so far, a brilliant but very sad Elizabeth Harrower novel about a woman in a bedsit in London and her relationship with a manipulative monster. I read it on Netgalley but can’t redownload it on to a Kindle I brought back to life after it crashed.
My grandfather Dan Davin was a New Zealand novelist although he lived for most of his life in Oxford, England where he was senior at Oxford University Press, and visiting Kiwis used to come to visit him (in the pub).
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By: elkiedee on July 30, 2022
at 9:48 am
Thanks for joining in, Lisa. Delighted to see Catherine Chidgey as an auto buy author. I was mightily impressed with Remote Sympathy last year and look forward to making my way through her back catalogue. Which should I head to next?
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By: Lizzy Siddal on July 30, 2022
at 4:30 pm
Hi Lizzy, thanks for dropping by. I loved The Beat of the Pendulum, but I’ve really liked everything else too:)
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By: Lisa Hill on July 30, 2022
at 6:44 pm
I have a copy of Remote Sympathy awaiting collection from one of my libraries, though I’m not sure I’m going to be able to return something else to collect it in time, I will probably have to rerequest.
Here it is part of a Jubilee promotion from around the Commonwealth. I’m not really a supporter of monarchy but this promotion is making loads of some old favourites and very interesting writers – and anything which gets more fiction into UK libraries from countries beyond the US and UK is good, as it’s often hard to find books by authors from Australia, New Zealand and Canada here. I also like that the promotion has lots of black writers – very important in London libraries but increasingly in the rest of the country too.
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By: elkiedee on July 30, 2022
at 11:38 pm
I’m not a supporter of the monarchy at all, but anything that promotes writers from around the commonwealth is a a good thing. I was disappointed by the Booker nominations, almost all UK and US and nothing much from anywhere else. And now we don’t even have the Commonwealth Writers Prize (except for short stories that you can’t buy anyway, it’s all very disappointing. We bloggers will just have to list our game!
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By: Lisa Hill on July 31, 2022
at 12:14 am
Such an interesting meme – I am tempted… And look forward to your thoughts on Klotsvog!!
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By: kaggsysbookishramblings on July 31, 2022
at 4:01 am
*sigh* I have to finish reading Still Life first…it’s a long mostly tedious book but I’m half way through and now I’m mildly curious to see how Winman gets herself out of the mess she’s made of a story that seems to be going nowhere.
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By: Lisa Hill on July 31, 2022
at 10:04 am
If anyone else seeing this has Still Life by Sarah Winman TBR I really really loved it last month, though I haven’t written any kind of review yet – I have my own copy on Kindle and haven’t received a review copy in any form so no commitment). Winman is on my list of authors whose books I will add to my wishlist – i borrowed it from the library and then bought it as a Kindle bargain so returned the library copy and read that.
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By: elkiedee on July 31, 2022
at 5:27 pm
I think this is what is really annoying me about Still Life. I’ve read rave reviews about it from people who love it as you do, and I’m just not feeling the love. I’m stuck in that middle bit where if only Evelyn had walked this way instead of that she would have seen Ulysses, and I keep thinking, oh get on with it Winman, either make them meet up or kill one of them off!
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By: Lisa Hill on July 31, 2022
at 5:53 pm
[…] Lisa posted this challenge, which she got from Lizzy Siddal, who nicked it from somewhere on Instagram! Love the provenance here! […]
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By: #54321 Challenge – Just for fun | Whispering Gums on July 31, 2022
at 8:15 pm
I meant to comment earlier Lisa … I loved this “(just from my 2022 reading, just from Australia and New Zealand)” They were some qualifications!! I also liked your auto buy authors. That really was hard.
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By: whisperinggums on August 2, 2022
at 12:27 am
[…] by Lizzy Siddal from Lizzy’s Literary Life . Lizzy choose five books all read in the 2020s), Lisa @anzlitlovers went for books read in 2022 with the added requirement that they were by Australia and New Zealand […]
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By: Around the world in #54321 : BookerTalk on August 4, 2022
at 2:57 am