Maori Girl: Unintentional racism in the social protest novel

Maori Girl, Noel Hilliard, 1960

New Zealand, #4
Hardcover, £10.11 from Alibris.com
Read April 2015
Rating: 2/5
Recommended for: Strictly for social historians interested in the early stages of Maori civil rights in NZ

Carpentaria

Carpentaria, Alexis Wright, 2006

Death of a River Guide, Richard Flanagan, 1994

Australia, #22
Paperback, Alibris.com, $0.99
Read January 2015
Rating: 3.5/5
Opening line: As I was born the umbilical cord tangled around my neck and I came into the world both arms flailing, unable to scream and thereby take in the air necessary to begin life outside of the womb, being garrotted by the very thing that had until that time succoured me and given me life.
Recommended for: Reading breaks between fever dreams

Tomorrow, When the War Began, John Marsden, 1993

Australia, #21
Paperback, Alibris, $0.99
Read December 2014
Rating: 2/5
Recommended for: teenagers, as long as they are fairly naïve and not sensitive to being talked down to.

Cloudstreet, Tim Winton, 1991

The Great World, David Malouf, 1990

Australia, #19
Paperback, alibris.com, $0.99
Read: November 2014
Rating: 3/5
Recommended for: War enthusiasts, very serious white men (or are these even distinct categories?)

Oscar and Lucinda, Peter Carey, 1988

Australia, #18
Paperback, price unknown (it was on my shelf when I started the project, having been bought, started, and abandoned at some point in the past)
Read July 2014
Rating: 3/5
Recommended for: timid agnostics and unlucky poker players

The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCullough, 1977

Picnic at Hanging Rock, Joan Lindsay, 1967

Australia, #14
Kindle, £4.37
Read March 2014
Rating 4/5
Opening line: “Everyone agreed that the day was just right for the picnic to Hanging Rock – a shimmering summer morning warm and still, with cicadas shrilling all through breakfast from the loquat trees outside the dining-room windows and bees murmuring above the pansies bordering the drive.”
Recommended for: proper young ladies who read Patricia Highsmith and Daphne du Maurier, have a secret love of Unsolved Mysteries, and appreciate the pathos of the opening scene of Carrie but find the rest of the movie lacking in subtlety