With the most recent two offerings of the Twelve Planets series from Twelfth Planet Press.

One of the things I always associate with happy memories from my childhood is my grandmother making tea.  She was a massive tea drinker, and always had this amazing collection of tea cups and saucers.  She’d get them out for other people, but when it came to her own tea, she always made it in a stubby fat brown mug, as though she wasn’t good enough for the pretty china.  My mother has always collected tea cups, too, but rarely uses them.  I’ve always wanted to start collecting, and have a few nice sets that have been gifts.  The above cup and saucer isn’t an amazing piece of china, but it’s something that I bought with the intention of using it, and then stashed away in a cupboard to gather dust.  This morning I got it out and used it, and went and got my other sets out from a cupboard where they’ve been on display (but tucked away in a part of the house where they are actually rarely looked at).

One of the things I’ve been doing for the past year or so is reading every book that the podcast The Writer and the Critic talk about.  Kirstyn and Mondy are amazing people and the discussions they have about books are always worth reading to.

I’ve read some amazing books via the podcast – many of which I wouldn’t have picked up or come across afterwards (and I am dead excited that they’re going to be doing House of Leaves this year!).

One of the upcoming books for the podcast happened to be one that’s been sitting on my to-be-read shelf for way too long – Zoo City, by Lauren Beukes.

I think I grabbed this first because of word of mouth about it’s awesomeness.  And knowing that it involved spirit animals of a kind always had me intrigued.  I snapped up a copy and then, as too many books tend to do, it languished gathering dust on my shelf for far too long.

I’m really regretting that time now, because the book is damn awesome.  I love that it features many POC characters, and I love even more that they don’t all get “cool” spirit animals.  The way this world works is just unique, and while I want to know about the mechanics of how people get Animalled (and why), the writer in me loves that Beukes never really explains about it, just giving just enough information to make the whole thing fascinating.

I’ve now picked up Moxyland , Beukes’ debut (which has also been languishing unread for far too long) and am already sucked into it after only a few pages.  I have no idea if Beukes is going to revisit the world of Zoo City at any time, but I really, really hope she does.

Now I am eyes deep in Aurealis Awards reading, beta reading a friend’s novel and have started working on Never again.  Add to that a two-year-old, and you don’t get much time for anything else.

I’m not going to write reviews, since stories in these are both eligible works in Aurealis wards, but I just wanted to say that you should go and read these anthologies, because they are freaking awesome.

Ishtar, Gilgamesh Press. (amazon link, kindle edition).

Ghosts by Gaslight, edited by Jack Dann. (amazon link)

My favourite story isn’t AA eligible, so I’m going to mention it - Theodora Goss’ Christopher Raven.  Worth buying for that story alone.

You will notice lots and lots of artwork by Ravenari, as well as stuff from Goddess Guidebook.

Bees having a party on the field of dandelions that have sprung up in our back lawn.

Generation X - Douglas Copeland

The Gaslight Dogs - Karin Lowachee (DNF)

Always Hungry - Inez Baranay

The Seventh Wave - Paul Garrety

The Emerald Tablets - Paul Garrety

Veronica Decides to Die - Paulo Coelho

Unnatural Journeys: Part One - John Ezzy*

Unnatural Journeys: Second Night - John Ezzy*

The Freedom Maze - Delia Sherman*

The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls - Emilie Autumn*

The Wilmont Chronicles - Paul Harrison

This Green Hell - Grieg Beck

House of Sighs - Aaron Dries

The Hall of Lost Footsteps - Sara Douglass*

More Scary Kisses - Liz Gryb*

Dead Red Heart - Russell B. Farr*

Ghosts by Gaslight - Jack Dann*

Winds of Change - Elizabeth Fitzgerald*

Concrete Jungle - Brett McBean

Non-fiction

The China Study - Colin T. Campbell

Loud in the House of Myself - Stacy Pershall

Prozac Nation - Elizabeth Wurtzel

More, Now, Again - Elizabeth Wurtzel

Madness - Marya Hornbacher

A Passionate Apprentice - Virginia Woolf

Rough Magic: a biography of Sylvia Plath - Paul Alexander

Five Historical Feasts - Gillian Polack*

Zelda: a biography - Nancy Milford

“Time and tide” by Lyn Battersby

“Fireflies” by Steve Cameron

“Sleeping Beauty” by Thoraiya Dyer

“The Fletcher Test” by Dirk Flinthart

“Ghosts” by Stephanie Gunn

“Sleepers” by Kaia Landelius

“Solitary” by Dave Luckett

“Losses beyond the kill point” by Kathleen Martin

“Cold comfort” by David McDonald

“Mornington Ride” by Jason Nahrung

“The last good town” by Elizabeth Tan

I owe my fellow writer’s group members a huge thanks for their help in getting Ghosts in the shape it needed to be.  I am very pleased to be sharing a TOC with some amazing authors and to be a part of a Fablecroft production.

I think I have my medication sorted out now, and hopefully will manage to keep my head above water now.  This time of the year is hard – as a family, we’re facing the first Christmas without my father.  But there are good things on the horizon – a new niece who will be born early in the new year, and a wedding to look forward to.  Life goes on, and even with the hole in the world where Dad should be, there is good.

I am deep in Aurealis reading right now, which will be the focus of my work for the rest of the year.

And next year.  I am going to be signing up for the Australian Women Writer’s Challenge 2012.  I’m going to go for the Devoted Eclectic (as many genres as possible) at the Franklin-fantastic level (read 10 books and review at least 4).

Objective: This challenge hopes to help counteract the gender bias in reviewing and social media newsfeeds that has continued throughout 2011 by actively promoting the reading and reviewing of a wide range of contemporary Australian women’s writing. (See the page on gender bias for recent discussions.)

Goal: Read and review books written by Australian women writers – hard copies, ebooks and audiobooks, new, borrowed or stumbled upon by book-crossing.

Genre challenges: 
Purist: one genre only
Dabbler: more than one genre
Devoted eclectic: as many genres as you can find
  
Challenge levels:
Stella (read 3 and review at least 2 books)
Miles (read 6 and review at least 3*
Franklin-fantastic (read 10 and review at least 4 books)*
* The higher levels should include at least one substantial length review

“I am one of the searchers. There are, I believe, millions of us. We are not unhappy, but neither are we really content. We continue to explore life, hoping to uncover its ultimate secret. We continue to explore ourselves, hoping to understand. We like to walk along the beach, we are drawn by the ocean, taken by its power, its unceasing motion, its mystery and unspeakable beauty. We like forests and mountains, deserts and hidden rivers, and the lonely cities as well. Our sadness is as much a part of our lives as is our laughter. To share our sadness with one we love is perhaps as great a joy as we can know – unless it be to share our laughter. We searchers are ambitious only for life itself, for everything beautiful it can provide. Most of all we love and want to be loved. We want to live in a relationship that will not impede our wandering, nor prevent our search, nor lock us in prison walls; that will take us for what little we have to give. We do not want to prove ourselves to another or compete for love.”

Oh, yes.