Five More Things

Monday again, and I’m tapping away like crazy, working on lots of reviews and interviews for the TBYL blog. Here’s an update on what’s going on and coming up for TBYL…

Firstly, you might have already noticed, but the TBYL Reading Pile is busting at the seams with exciting new titles. If you’ve not already, can I suggest that you take a look at the Reading Pile for some great reading ideas? I’d love to know what you like the look of… 

Secondly, I’m reading in a few different directions this week – there’s just too much to choose from to just pick one book! I’ve got three titles on the go at the moment; All That Is, by James Salter, Shooting Star, by Clayton Zane and  Dark Matter, by Brett Adams. All I can say at this stage is that I wish there were (many) more hours in the day!

Thirdly, for this month’s TBYL Book Club we’re going to be talking about our favourite literary mums! You can find out more here, but essentially, it’ll give us a chance to think about our favourite bookish mothers and the books that our mums (and other lovely ladies) love the most. Plus, for something a little different, we’re going to be holding our club discussions on the Facebook page in May. To get involved, just join our Facebook community.

And fourth, there are still a handful of tickets left for the TBYL Event The Next Step. As well as being a fantastic chance to chat with publishers and authors from Escape Publishing, the event will be held 22 May 2013 (7pm) at the Wheeler Centre, Melbourne. Book your tickets now!

Finally fifth, I wanted to make sure that you knew that there are two copies of Angela Lawrence’s The Rules of Conception from Harlequin up for grabs at the moment. It’s super quick to enter, you’ll find full details in this month’s edition of TBYL News: All Things Bookish… Don’t miss out, this is a really funny book on a fascinating topic.

So that’s a little of what’s going on with TBYL at the moment, so much fun, and lots of goodies coming up for all you lovely bookish people!

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An Announcement: TBYL Book Club

I think I’ve made a decision about the TBYL Book Club…

I love the TBYL Book Club. It’s been fantastic to hear what you guy think about our monthly books and the feedback has been really positive. Many of you have told me that it’s a fantastic chance to get involved in a book club, especially for when you’re not able to join a ‘real-life’ club for one reason or another.

Last year I set up an online home for the club using SocialGO, which many of you joined. It was great having our own space, but over the last couple of months it’s been a bit difficult to get a really good ‘flow’ of discussions. I think for people it’s not always possible to visit the site, and it can be difficult to remember to visit the site repeatedly.

As we all get busier (myself included) TBYL needs to continually adjust and adapt to work smarter, not harder… and for that reason I’m proposing that we now conduct the TBYL Book Club on the existing TBYL Facebook page.

I’d love to know what you think about this idea?!

I’m going to try this out in May. The structure of the club will remain the same – we’ll discuss the book(s) together starting 27 May 2013. The discussion will start off with some questions from me on Facebook and hopefully the conversation will grow from there.

Now I hear you asking… ‘Which book?!’

I thought it might be nice to chat about a theme for the May TBYL Book Club, rather than a single book. Next week is Mothers’ Day and it got me thinking about my favourite ‘literary mothers’. For our club I’d like us to have a conversation about Mums and Books. About our favourite storybook mums and about books that remind us of our mum, or other significant women in our lives.

Will you join us?

If you’d like to be involved, make sure you Like Us on Facebook so you don’t miss the chats. If you’d like to know a little bit more about the TBYL Book Club you can visit the TBYL website here. After we’ve given this new approach a try, I’ll look to you guys for some feedback on how you think it went. I hope you’ll get involved.

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Five Things

It’s a new week, and there’s so much going on in TBYL-land that today’s post brings you five small things of note…

The first thing is that, despite being a little busy doing the day-job on Monday and Tuesday, the transit time gives me a fabulous chance to get some reading done. I’m pleased, as it’ll give me a chance to get into my Mother’s Day reading A Grandmother’s Wisdom by Catriona Rowntree (Allen and Unwin). I’ve only read a chapter so far, but so far it’s very sweet

Thing two is about a bookish chat we’re about to start. The April TBYL Book Club starts today, and I’m looking forward to hear what you think about The Unfinished Journals of Elizabeth D by Nichole Bernier (Allen and Unwin). You can read a review here and join the conversation here.

Thing number three is a wonderful development for the next TBYL Event The Next Step. As well as being a fantastic chance to chat with publishers and authors, attending this event will also give you the chance to win an USB key from Escape Publishing, loaded with titles from Charmaine Ross and Rhian Cahill. There are three up for grabs, and winners will drawn on the night. The event will be held 22 May 2013 (7pm) at the Wheeler Centre, Melbourne. Book your tickets now!

The forth thing is that next Monday, the May edition of TBYL News: All Things Bookish… will be published. It’ll have interviews, favourite reviews, special offers and a fantastic book give-away. If you’ve not subsribed to receive it by email, you can SUBSCRIBE here!

Finally, thing five is all about staying in touch. Our Facebook community is growing bigger by the week, and I wanted to invite you to Like Us  if you haven’t already. It’s the best way to keep up to date with what’s going on with TBYL. We’re on Twitter and Pinterest also, if that’s more your thing. Can’t wait to connect!

So that’s a little of what’s going on with TBYL at the moment. There’s also lots of author-interviews in the pipelines, as well as a new mobile friendly TBYL Store in the works, but more about that later…

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April TBYL Book Club, starting Monday

On Monday, we’ll start chatting about this month’s TBYL Book Club book, The Unfinished Journals of Elizabeth D by Nichole Bernier (Allen and Unwin).

I’d say that there are two quite distinct themes in Bernier’s novel. The first is that of internal conflict and second, the notion of who you are versus who you seem to be. Both of these themes make for an incredibly moving story, one that really gets to the heart of what it is to be a woman living a suburban, matrimonial and maternal life…

You can read the full review here

It’s a fairly quick read, so if you’ve got a little time over the weekend, it’s not too late to join in the discussion. You can join the conversation on the TBYL Book Club on Monday, 29 April 2013.

For the May book club, I’d like to propose a theme, rather than a book… Stay tune for more information at the beginning of next month.

Hope that you have a wonderful, bookish weekend!

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TBYL Book Club: March and April

It was remiss of me, I was distracted and this month’s book club fell a little flat. February was quite simply, too short, too spritely, too crowded.

It’s a shame, but I’m not dwelling on it (I’m guessing most of you were in the same crazy boat). Rather, I’m flying forward into March and April with some amazing titles for us to chat about over at the TBYL Book Club.

For March…
I thought it might be interesting to revisit one of our very first book club books. There’s a whole group of new members on board since we last discussed Carrie Tiffany’s Mateship with Birds (Pan Macmillan) and I would love to hear what you all think of this amazing book. Those of you who joined us in chatting about this book in 2012 are very welcome to join in again, I’ll be posing some different questions to keep things interesting.

A shortlisted nominee for last year’s Victorian Premier’s Literary Award and a longlist nominee for this year’s Stella Prize, Mateship with Birds is…

“A novel about young lust and mature love. It is a hymn to the rhythm of country life – to vicious birds, virginal cows, adored dogs and ill-used sheep. On one small farm in a vast, ancient landscape, a collection of misfits question the nature of what a family can be.”

It was one of my top five last year and you can read my review here…

Last year we talked about relationships, the use of nature, the representation of lust and love and the harsh but stunning Australian landscape that has been painted by Carrie Tiffany.

I’ve got copies of the book in the TBYL Store at the moment for just $16.00 (rrp $19.99) plus p&h and you can join the TBYL Book Club group here…

For April…
The book that I’ve chosen for April will have you asking; “What would I have done?” on more than one occasion. Published in the later half of last year, The Unfinished Journals of Elizabeth D, by Nichole Bernier (Allen and Unwin) has come to mind often since I read and reviewed it.

The book is intriguing from the outset, and very sad…

Before there were blogs, there were journals. And in them we’d write as we really were, not as we wanted to appear. But there comes a day when journals outlive us. And with them, our secrets.

Summer vacation with her family was supposed to be a restorative time for Kate, who’d lost her close friend Elizabeth in a plane crash. But when she inherits a trunk of Elizabeth’s journals, they reveal a woman far different than the cheerful wife and mother thought she knew.

The complicated portrait of Elizabeth – her upbringing, her marriage, and journey to motherhood – makes Kate question not just their friendship, but her own deepest beliefs about loyalty and honesty at a moment of uncertainty in her own marriage. When an unfamiliar man’s name appears in Elizabeth’s pages, Kate realises the extent of what she didn’t know about her best friend, including where she was really going when she died.

It raised many questions for me and you can read my review here…

I would imagine that a book such as this would raise questions for most readers, and I’m looking forward to hearing what you think about this stirring novel.

I’ve got copies of the book in the TBYL Store at the moment for just $27.99 plus p&h and you can join the TBYL Book Club group here…

***

I hope you’ll agree that we’ve got some amazing conversations coming up in the next two months.

You can find out more about the TBYL Book Club here.

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Join the conversation for a chance to win!

Today’s chance to win is a little bit different, and requires you to GET INVOLVED!

To enter the TBYL big book give-away today you need to contribute to our TBYL Book Club discussion.

For this month’s book club, we’re chatting about our summer reading and everyone who gets involved in the conversation over at The Club will recieve one entry into the competition draw. The conversation will continue until Wednesday evening and you can join the Group here…

What’s the TBYL Book Club?
Each month the club brings you a new, exciting book to read, discuss and share. We’ll be suggesting a variety of titles over the year, encouraging you to read widely, differently and adventurously. It’s a perfect excuse to get reading, and to make time to chat with other readers about great books.

It’s online, it’s free and you can opt in and opt out as you’d like. You can join the club here…

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What’s up with December TBYL Book Club?

Can you believe that it’s almost the silly season?!

This is the TBYL Book Club’s first Christmas, and I wasn’t quite sure what to do… our discussions normally happen at the end of the month, and I don’t know about you but I plan to have eaten too much, drunk too much and slept in too much to be completely committed to discussing one specific book. As such, I thought I’d better come up with a plan…

And so, for the TBYL Book Club in December we’re going to be doing something a little different to our normal read and chat! Because December is so busy, and our book club week is smack-bang in the middle of the holidays, I’d like to invite you to participate in a series of discussions focusing on the books in our past… books we’d like to re-read, books we’d recommend, books we wished we’d never picked up etc. I think it should be a lot of fun!

Please feel free to join the group, the ‘wall’ is where we’ll conduct our daily conversations. New questions will be posted 31 December 2012, 1 and 2 January 2013 (Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday) – the last week of December. Hopefully it’ll be a good opportunity to get to know each other a little better!

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TBYL Treasure Hunt – Clue Number 1

Monday’s treasure is all about the TBYL Book Club. Take a look around The Blog to find the answer to today’s question, which is “What was the first ever TBYL Book Club book?”

You’ve got until midnight tonight to email the answer to info@thatbookyoulike.com.au. You’ll find full instructions of how the competition works here.

Happy hunting!

Secret Mothers’ Business? The Mothers’ Group

There are some books that just get a conversation going. It’s not even necessarily the book that’s being talked about, sometimes it’s just a chat about memories, experiences, emotions… the book is just the catalyst, the starting point, the excuse.

Fiona Higgin’s The Mothers’ Group (Allen and Unwin) is one such book. A book club favourite, this novel has sparked many conversations in lounge rooms and cafes, over coffee and wine. Not surprisingly it has struck a cord with mothers around the country, all eager to share their own experiences of the spell-binding, mind-blowing and at times terrifying stage of early motherhood:

‘The Mothers’ Group’ tells the story of six very different women who agree to regularly meet soon after the births of their babies.

Set during the first crucial year of their babies’ lives, ‘The Mothers’ Group’ tracks the women’s individual journeys – and the group’s collective one – as they navigate birth and motherhood as well as the shifting ground of their relationship with their partners.

Each woman strives in her own way to become the mother she wants to be, and finds herself becoming increasingly reliant on the friendship and support of the members of the mothers’ group. Until one day an unthinkably shocking event changes everything, testing their bonds and revealing closely held secrets that threaten to shatter their lives.

Sucked in yet? I know I was…

I’d had lots of people recommend this book before I read it, and I’ll admit that at chapter one I wasn’t quite sure why. The story was interesting, albeit a little stereotypical, but on meeting Ginie, the first of six main characters, I found her somewhat unlikeable, she irritated me and therefore, so did the book. But, by about forty pages in, I worked out that this was exactly what I was supposed to feel, and decided to go along for the ride.

The novel paints a picture of challenges, both personal and maternal…

“All those things no one ever tells you about motherhood. It’s like secret mothers’ business. Lots of my friends had babies before me, but not one of them ever told me it would be this hard… It’s like a code of silence.”

…and appeals to a wide range of readers by presenting a fair range of ‘typical’ types of mothers. The story’s mothers’ group is an eclectic mix of woman, and half the intrigue of the novel is watching how these people relate to each other, and overtime, learn from each other.

Higgin’s had constructed a suspenseful, relatable and quite complex novel. It is at times a little cliched, but is no less enjoyable for it. In addition, I think the book encourages important conversations that can be very helpful to new mothers, and equally to those mothers who’ve gone through this challenging stage in the past.

The Mothers’ Group is our September TBYL Book Club book, and I can’t wait to hear what you thought of the book. Discussions kick off online on Monday, 24 September and will continue until Wednesday evening. I’ll be online on Monday night (from about 7:30pm) if you’d like to join me for a live chat. You can join the TBYL Book Club here.

If you’d like to buy a copy of the book, I’ve got copies in the TBYL Store, here…

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A good question: How to Be A Woman

A couple weeks ago, I read this month’s TBYL Book Club book, Caitlin Moran’s How to Be a Woman (Random House).

Now, straight up, I’m going to say that I really enjoyed this book. I found it humorous, pragmatic, realistic and revealing. I’ll also say, that I know plenty of people who didn’t like this book – a few of whom didn’t push past the first couple of chapters.

And that is why I’m so looking forward to chatting about this book at the end of August…

How to Be a Woman is ‘part memoir, part rant, Caitlin Moran answers the questions that every modern woman is asking’

“It’s a good time to be a woman: we have the vote and the Pill, and we haven’t been burnt as witches since 1727. However, a few nagging questions do remain…

Why are we supposed to get Brazilians? Should we use Botox? Do men secretly hate us? And why does everyone ask you when you’re going to have a baby?”

I’m sure that most of us have pondered on one or more of these questions at one time or another, and Moran attempts to cast a little light on what these questions mean to women, both cosmetically and politically. Her illuminations are often irreverent, but I think always intelligently considered. Avoiding the ‘militant’ or ‘academic’ approach of many feminist writers, Caitlin’s approach to exploring issues that are so often labeled as fickle or unimportant is refreshingly practical:

“I have a rule of thumb that allows me to judge – when time is pressing, and one needs to make a snap judgement – whether some sexist bullshit is afoot. Obviously it’s not 100 per cent infallible but, by and large, it definitely points you in the right direction.

And it’s asking this question: ‘Are the men doing it? Are the men worrying about this as well? Is this taking the men’s time? Are the men told not do this, as it’s ‘letting the side down’? Are men having to write bloody books about this exasperating, time-wasting bullshit? Is it making Jeremy Clarkson feel insecure?”

As she says, it’s not a fool-proof test, but it’s interesting set of questions to ask.

Some people I know have found the book a little ‘ranty’ and it does have that about it, but I like the author’s humour, and I found this memoir a nice change from the fiction that I most often read.

As our August book at the TBYL Book Club, we’ll start our conversation about the book on Monday, 28 August over at the club. Join the August Group to join in the conversation, and if you’re around, pop online at 8pm Monday for a live chat. As something a little different this month, I’ll be posted a few questions each day, Monday through to Wednesday. We’ll wrap up the ‘official’ conversations on Wednesday night, although people are of course welcome to hang around for the rest of the week if you want to keep talking.

I am really interested to hear about what you enjoyed, disliked, agreed with or disagreed with. I hope you’ll join us…

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