Another Trip To the Library

Jack and I returned to the library today (well, yesterday really because I won't be posting this until morning).

We can access our neighborhood library's catalog from the Internet so last night I looked up Australian teen books.  It ends up our library has a lot of them.

This is sort of embarrassing, but I'll shame myself and tell it anyway.  In Spring 2007, I rewrote the novel I wrote in high school and tried to get it published. I had absolutely no luck.  When I go through things like that (yes, it has happened before), I get turned off by the whole publishing world. Since my novel was for teens, I especially had bad feelings towards teen fiction.  There was that feeling of WHY did they get published and my novel didn't. 

Jealousy in its worst form. Well, maybe not the worst.  I guess the worst would be if I took a gun and went out to shoot all other young adult authors.

Anyway......

I knew I'd get over it eventually and now here I am...totally over it. I'm ready and excited because it opens up a whole new avenue of Australian books to find.    

Anyway, here is what I got today.

Guitar Highway Rose by Brigid Lowry

Leaving Jetty Road by Rebecca Burton

Thursday's Child  and What the Birds See  by Sonya Hartnett

Kalpana's Dream by Judith Clarke

Does My Head Look Big in This?  by Randa Abdel-Fattah

Magic's Child by Justine Larbalestier

The last one is the third in a series. I'm reading totally out of order. I thought of looking for the first book before reading the third,but figured what the heck.

I'm reading the John Marsden's books out of order.  I read the Night is For Hunting which is I think the 6th in the Tomorrow series. And then I read the first book in the Ellie Chronicles which is a continuation of the Tomorrow series.

I originally thought I'd rush and read the whole Marsden series, but I'm already a little tired of it. I do love the story and the characters.  I guess I might be a little tired of Ellie. The story is told through her eyes. I like the girl, but I'm ready for a change. I kind of think the books might be better if they switched narrators--have each book narrated by a different character. One book could be narrated by Ellie, another book narrated by Fi, another one by Lee, etc.   OR maybe the books ARE like that and I just ended up with the ones narrated by Ellie.

I might still read more books in the series.  I'm just not going to go out of my way to find them.  I don't think our library branch has any more. I might check out Half Price books the next time I go.   

Right now I'm reading Tim Winton's new book.  Breath.  I think I have read more of his books than any other Australian author.  It's not that I love his books the most. I think Fort Worth just happens to have a good supply of Winton books.   

I'm also working on learning about the Eora people of Manly and the South Coast.  

Oh, and I've been listening to my Aussie music playlist.  I think Jimmy Barnes is one of the sexist men out there. I'm also loving "Bridal Train" and "From Little Things Big Things Grow". On the way to the library, I had in my mind that line Vesty man roared and vesty man thundered. I don't know why. It was just stuck there.  

I really wonder how long this Australian obsession will continue.  Sometimes, I think it will end.  It fades at times and then it comes back ten times stronger. I feel less obsessed with moving there though, and more obsessed with learning everything about it. It's like this insatiable hunger.

   

What would our world be like if we

knew for sure there 

was life after death, and 

we could easily talk to our 

dearly-departed on the Internet?

The Dead are Online a novel by Dina Roberts