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“We soon found ourselves becalmed, the Steadfast languishing on glassy seas. When a breath of wind at last appeared, our progress was slowed again, this time by a massing of strange organisms. For days we laboured through the milky soup of a jellyfish bloom – millions of alien blobs crowding the water like malignant cells, their tentacles strung with debris, dragging at the hull.”

Beach wandering, Moorina Bay, Bruny Island. June 2021. The Trespassers by Meg Mundell An entertaining little thriller set in a future in which climate change, an energy crisis, and a global pandemic throw the world askew. Mundell has used this conceit to explore notions of emigration, xenophobia, corporate greed, political cowardice and capitalism run rampant. The narrative unwinds through three distinctive voices: a formidable (but bruised) Glaswegian nurse-turned nightclub singer; the reserved English schoolteacher from a family fallen from wealth; and a deaf nine-year-old Irish lad cut adrift with just his mother by his side. I can't say that each character thoroughly convinced me, but the occasional jarring of inauthenticity did not hinder the story from moving along briskly. More jolting was a considerable shift from a claustrophobic murder mystery novel set at sea to a more nebulous political thriller. As I said, I liked it well enough, and I am always keen to read a sharp c...

"As I lay there half-reclining, with blood streaming down from my head and hands, a North Vietnamese soldier appeared literally a metre away over a slight rise. My first reacion was, ‘What a fantastic shot!’ "

A white-bellied sea eagle, Queen Elizabeth Cape, Bruny Island. June 2021. One Crowded Hour by Tim Bowden Neil Davis was the kind of man that I suspect would be decidedly out of place in the modern world. A Tasmanian who found himself struck by wanderlust in the 1960s and set out to southeast Asia to record the seemingly endless turmoil and upheaval seen there. Encompassing the Konfrontasi , the early ruptures of fighting in South Vietnam, the full-blown war in Vietnam, the overthrow of Suharto and descent into the Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66, the flow of neighbouring wars into Laos and Burma and, most vitally to Davis himself, the destruction of Cambodia, the madness of the Khmer Rouge genocide and subsequent invasion by Vietnam. As close a friend to Neil Davis as anyone could be, Bowden has done an exceptional job compiling this autobiography. I did not expect to find so much joy in his formative years, which often feel like a makeweight in such books. Sorell and Hob...

“When a person undergoes such a drastic transformation, there's simply nothing anyone else can do but sit back and let them get on with it.”

Archway, Bruny Island. June 2021. The Vegetarian by Han Kang My apologies; I am just not interested in mental illness porn. I found the book a turgid crawl through the mundanities of pain and misery. I am not a huge believer in trigger warnings (lest they spoil an invaluable experience), but this is a novel best avoided by anyone with an eating disorder. I can’t be certain if the author chooses to be deliberately strange or something that has been lost in translation is intrinsically and darkly peculiar. Either way, this was not a pleasurable read. ⭐ 1/2

“You know what they say about finding a man in Alaska—the odds are good, but the goods are odd.”

A pretty little bird, South Bruny National Park, Bruny Island. June 2021. The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah The story itself was fine, with the descriptions of the Alaskan landscape and weather rich and vivid. However, the novel is hamstrung with a pedestrian narrative, shallow characters and a frustratingly predictable plot. It is also far too long and could have benefited by shedding a good third of its bulk. Given the intensely claustrophobic setting, it amazes me that the three central characters lack any real depth or plausibility. The Cora exists (it seems) to be little more than an irritating and hapless victim. Her tormenter husband Ernt – the stereotypical damaged Vietnam veteran – is a hollow caricature. Given that the author had nearly 600 pages, I cannot understand that she gives us nothing more than Cora’s feeble assertions that “he’s a decent man” over and over. Seriously, a bit of backstory or something that might SHOW the reader why Cora puts up ...

“At the time, age eighteen, having been brought up in a hair-trigger society where the ground rules were – if no physically violent touch was being laid upon you, and no outright verbal insults were being levelled at you, and no taunting looks in the vicinity either, then nothing was happening, so how could you be under attack from something that wasn’t there? At eighteen I had no proper understanding of the ways that constituted encroachment.”

Beach house, Cloudy Bay, Bruny Island. June 2021. Milkman by Anna Burns Anna Burns has pulled off a stunning achievement here. The novel emerges inside the head as (almost) a single stream of consciousness. It is equal parts funny, shocking, tender and intense. Weaving a tale of personal agency in a complex political and social dynamic - Northern Ireland during the Troubles - Milkman is mightily effective. I suspect that few readers will sit on the fence with this one, either loving or loathing it. Count me among the former. I enjoy the 'all-in' nature of the narrative voice, and if you're comfortable with the 'norn iron' voice in your head, it works beautifully. Perhaps I'm biased, as the repetition of skimming over events with different lenses and the constant, stringent internal monologue, enjoyment of running and shame (!) of reading while walking resonated with me. All this allows Burns to apply a persuasive critique of sectarianism, conformity, violence,...

“Everyone knows everyone, but no one knows anyone at all.”

Ezra hops. Cloudy Bay Beach, Bruny Island. June 2021. Welcome to Nowhere River by Meg Bignell After something on a rocky start, I ended up enjoying Welcome to Nowhere River an awful lot. My fear after the first few chapters was that I was being treated to a 'painted by the numbers' chick-lit bit of fluff, populated by cardboard cutout characters moving through familiar patterns to a predictable conclusion, Thankfully, Meg Bignell soon starts to subvert the conventions of the form, and we are treated to a range of well-rounded characters (particularly the women of Nowhere River). Our central character (Carra) is allowed some rough edges, and the author is brave with how she deals with many of the key relationships. As a Tasmanian, I'm not sure that I ever really fully believed in the town, but I enjoyed the story nonetheless. In addition, the story's arc was enjoyable enough to overcome a couple of rather predictable twists. With plenty of laughs and a few tears to ...

“Men down here aren’t like the men you think of,” he said. “Men down here will probably hurt a bunch of women before they’ll hurt anything else. I don’t figure nobody ever hurt anything without knowing they could hurt it first. That’s the way it is and probably the way it’s always been.”

Heading home. Bruny Island to Kettering on the ferry, June 2021. Rivers by Michael Farris Smith A well-put together dystopian novel that resists many of the usual conventions, I enjoyed Rivers far more than is surely healthy. Set in an apocalyptic future where the climate has irrevocably changed, making the southeast part of the North American continent virtually unlivable. There are echoes of Cormac McCarthy's The Road here. Yet, while suitably bleak, the vibe is not quite as riven with utter hopelessness as that book. Indeed, we get a closer look at some of the grifters and miscreants, and the villains of the piece are more human than the spectres that haunt that book. In Cohen, we have a suitably complex central character equally haunted by the past and the future. A capable man, I appreciated that the ordinariness that he brings to the piece. Unfortunately, too often, the superhuman hero (or indeed villain) spoils this kind of book. In grounding ...