I’m very excited to be able to take part in #AusReadingMonth for once – hosted by Brona’s Books and she has loads of lists of books, divided by non-fiction and fiction and by state, so do pop over to find out if you fancy taking part. I don’t think I’ve ever managed to join in with this one, even though I have read a fair bit of Australian fiction in my time. She talked about “The Ladies of Missalonghi” a while ago, and when I found out it was about small-town Australia and had a feisty heroine with one chance of escape, well, I had to click and order a copy, didn’t I.

I read this one before “Greensleeves” but that one had to slot in first for reasons of challenge dates. And didn’t I say I wasn’t doing any challenges this year? Hm, see below the book confessions to read how true that is!

Colleen McCullough – “The Ladies of Missalonghi”

(12 October 2017)

This is a fairy tale really, but a lovely one where you really root for the heroine, and you also do get quite a lot of detail about the fate of impoverished genteel ladies trapped in small-town Australia, unable to earn any money in all but the most indirect ways and vulnerable to being preyed on by even their male relatives. As the narrator, speaking in Missy’s internal narrative says,

The Missys didn’t know enough about men, and the smidgen they did know lay in the realm of generality. All men were untouchables, even jailbirds. All men had choices. All men had power. All men were free. All men were privileged.

And of course, just like we’re seeing a bit at the moment with all the sexual harassment scandals, the worst enemies of women turn out to be other, more privileged women, blind to their plights or to the reality of their lives. This is reversed quite satisfactorily here, though, as we hope all the way through the story.

Missy Wright lives with her mother and disabled aunt, and you know she’s going to be a good heroine because she’s a big reader, even though she’s tearing through romances at the moment. She turns out to be over 30, kept in a sense of suspended girlhood, from which the only escapes, literally, are illness and marriage – and it looks like she might have ended up getting sent down the former route. When divorcee Una starts working at the library (and passing her these contraband romances), she gently enlarges Missy’s horizons, and when a stranger shows up in town, Missy determines to grab her only opportunity (it doesn’t harm her plans that he’s both handsome and kind).

There are some great set-pieces with the more wealthy side of the family (basically, the whole town is populated by the Hurlingfords of various branches) which are satisfying, and a great, if fairy-tale, conclusion. There are a few slightly rude bits among the genteel organ-playing and sewing, but they are fitting and amusing in turn as the fates of two spinsters of different kinds are decided in two contrasting ways. A good read I’m glad I picked up.

November has started with some Book Confessions already, oops! My lovely friend Cari sent me a gorgeous parcel of three excellent looking books: another Dean Karnazes (amusingly, in the UK edition, he’s fully clothed!) and a book she’s approved about running faster (I don’t necessarily need to run much faster than I do, but could do with picking up things a tiny bit). The Iceland one looks interesting but is apparently a little patchy – I am a sucker for anything Iceland, so we’ll see with that one.

Then I met my friend Gill to re-stock one of our BookCrossing shelves and there was Sherman Alexie’s “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian”, describing life on and off an American reservation, which had been on my wish list for ages and came recommended by her and two others. So …

Obviously I finished this novel a few days ago and have read “Greensleeves” since. I’m currently devouring “Under the Net” – isn’t it great when you read a book for the fourth or fifth time and you STILL can’t put it down – and I’ve also started that lovely big bio of Angela Carter, to make a bit of room on the poor neglected physical TBR. I have “Radio Free Vermont” to read for NetGalley (published today, oops) and “The Headmistress” for Angela Thirkell Reading Week with the Undervalued British Women Novelists (see what I meant about challenges, but Ali sent me this one so it would be rude not to, right?).

Have you read any of this gallimauphry of books reading and planned to be read? Are you taking part in AusReadingMonth?