The Island of Desire: Slow-paced adventure and frustrated aspirations

~ Kelly Dunagan ~ 10 Comments

The Island of Desire (The Story of a South Sea Trader), Robert Dean Frisbie, 1944

  • Cook Islands, #1
  • ebook, free from Project Gutenberg Australia
  • Read: August 2015
  • Rating: 3/5
  • Recommended for: people who fantasize about expatriating, not because they want to be a part of a different culture, but just to get away from their own, and have romantic and fairly unrealistic ideas about what that would actually be like

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Les Immémoriaux

~ Kelly Dunagan ~ 4 Comments

Les Immémoriaux (A Lapse of Memory), Victor Segalen, 1907

  • French Polynesia, #1
  • Kindle, french edition, free from amazon.com
  • Read July 2015
  • Rating: 3/5
  • Opening Line: Cette nuit là — comme tant d’autres nuits si nombreuses qu’on n’y pouvait songer sans une confusion — Térii le Récitant marchait, à pas mesurés, tout au long des parvis inviolables.
  • Recommended for: scholars and cynics (and cynical scholars)

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Tu: More Maori identity issues, this time addressed through war

~ Kelly Dunagan ~ 1 Comment

Tu, Patricia Grace, 2004

  • New Zealand, #10
  • Paperback, £0.69 from alibris.com
  • Read June 2015
  • Rating: 4/5
  • Opening Line: Dear Rimini and Benedict, You didn’t deserve ill-humour and rebuff, and I had no right to send you off with empty hearts when all you were asking was to get to know your ‘father’.
  • Recommended for: the insatiably curious and tragically brave

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The Whale Rider and Once Were Warriors: Maori identity in modern New Zealand

~ Kelly Dunagan ~ 5 Comments

The Whale Rider, Witi Ihimaera, 1987

  • New Zealand, # 8
  • Paperback, borrowed from Brent Library, London
  • Read June 2015
  • Rating: 5/5
  • Recommended for: optimistic environmentalists

Once Were Warriors, Alan Duff, 1990

  • New Zealand, #9
  • Kindle, £7.19
  • Read May 2015
  • Rating: 4/5
  • Opening line: Bastard, she’d think, looking out her back kitchen window.
  • Recommended for: pessimistic social justice warriors
  • Not recommended for: The faint of heart

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