My favourite Grenville for the Booker Short List ring.
List of participants - let me know if you'd like to be in any other order:
Fleebo
miss-jo
goodthinkingmax
jubby
woosang ...book is here
xoddam
servalan
back to me - Sujie
then to sherlockfan in NZ

Received safely in the mail. Thanks very much!

"London, 1806. William Thornhill, a Thames bargeman, is deported to the New South Wales colony in what would become Australia. In this new world of convicts and charlatans, Thornhill tries to pull his family into a position of power and comfort. When he rounds a bend in the Hawkesbury River and sees a gentle slope of land, he becomes determined to make the place his own. But, as uninhabited as the island appears, Australia is full of native people, and they do not take kindly to Thornhill's theft of their home."

I admit that I have been pushing this book aside for weeks, reluctant to read yet another lecture about how the white settlers destroyed the Aboriginal people of Australia. (Can't we just assume that I already feel sufficient guilt and would now prefer a few helpful suggestions about how to balance the situation in the present day? No? Well then, I'll just read something else...)
Although the ending of this story was inevitable, it is vividly and beautifully written, and is certainly more meaningful than some of the other Booker contenders. Bravo.
I'll give this book to miss-jo when I next see her, which should be this week. Thanks.

It's amazing what fear can do to people, especially the fear of the unknown. Whiile nothing can really make our ancestors' actions ok, the author showed a lot of understanding of what led to the problems.

I think I've just missed a picnic/bookswap event, but I'll pm goodthinkingmax and get it off to her asap.

Just wanted to add I heard Grenville read from "The Secret River" and she said she'd had quite a few letters from aboriginal Australians thanking her for writing it.

Thanks miss-jo. Received today and will start reading soon.

A beautifully written book, and a vivid tale. Much of my appreciation rests on the descriptions of early Sydney life. It has not inspired me to write a long journal entry. Just a book I enjoyed at the time! I'll post this to Jubby today.

Just got home today to find this in my mail. Yay! This and the winning book are the two outstanding 2006 Shortlisted Booker Prize books that I've not read - and the ones I'd wanted from the first!

Thank you. Will try and get into it in the next few days.

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Posted off to Woosang.

Now I have unearthed the boko, and dealt with a lot of the backlog, I will either give it a try in the next week OR just pass it to the next reader.
Sorry for having it so very long

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Found! Off to a new reader, I have been snowed under with work

I've had this since Saturday and I'm really looking forward to starting to read it on the bus tonight. Thanks Woosang and Sujie and everyone.

I always knew Kate Grenville was a brilliant writer but I've come away a little disappointed from most of her books so far (even The Idea of Perfection, which had me almost weeping for country-town NSW homesickness in Scotland but left me a little hollow after whetting my appetite) -- this one, however, was very satisfying indeed. Somehow I managed not to cry, but only because I knew what was coming.

It's not quite fair to describe this book as an apologia for genocide, but it's also hard for the reader (and perhaps impossible for the writer) not to be sympathetic to Thornhill and happy for his material prosperity -- even whilst knowing he has the blood of his neighbours and the erasure of their long history on his hands.

It would be a grave mistake to pretend that the genocide of the Australian aborigines is somehow final and complete. The heirs of the tribes that Thornhill with his more callous, industriously murderous neigbours dispossessed live amongst us still, temporarily but never completely reduced to dependence. This country belongs to them as it always has.

Will pass this to servalan tomorrow; when she's done with it I will return to Sujie or post to sherlockfan as appropriate.

Thanks all for letting me butt in on this ring, will pass back to Jonathan when I am done.

I have been working on a 4 volume set of books for Project Gutenberg called London Labour and the London Poor. It goes into excruciating detail - using interviews - of the wretched lives of those trying to exist clutching to the underbelly of life in the early 1800s. Much of the background of Thornhill's life in London seemed to come straight from those pages... As to The Secret River, I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would, I think I am over literary fiction with a MESSAGE - I'm much more of a reader of non fiction - just give me the facts. That being said, it was well-written & like gtm I really enjoyed reading about early Sydney.

If you're curious about London Labour & London Poor, it was written by one of the founders of Punch, Henry Mayhew & he's become something of a hero to me and rumoured to be an inspiration to Dickens. More info at wikipedia:

Henry Mayhew

Thanks for letting me interrupt this ring, I'll pass the book back to xoddam tomorrow.

Don't know quite where this has been since December 15th but here it is with me now and only a couple of others standing between it and me. Must say I had a moment of puzzlement when reading the Customs label on the outside "Book and Tea Bags". What could this be? Sure enough, on opening there was a book and an interesting selection of organic tea bags. What an interesting idea. I'm not a drinker of standard teas and am looking for something to divert me from copious mugs of coffee each day. I've already tried a Chamomile cup which I enjoyed. Maybe I'll become a convert. Worth a try. Just as this book is worth a try.
Its arrival almost on the day that Kevin Rudd made his public apology to the Aboriginal Race for the early Government's alienation of the children seems signification. So curious to see what the book holds for me.
Thanks for sending it on.

Those teabags must have come from xoddam, sherlockfan. He's been keeping them warm under the book since Servalan gave the book back to him! Glad you have it and in such auspicious times. It comes back to me, thanks, but no hurry.
Give up my espresso? Never!

You are correct sujie, there was a very rushedly (is there such a word?) written postcard inside from Xoddam explaining about being in "...a constant urgent rush - go there, get here before such-and-such a deadline. It has taken a string of missed buses & Trains to persuade me to stop." He obviously didn't have time for a JE though. Afraid to say that the tea bags did not meet the taste test of a non drinker, but it wa a nice thought.

I found this a very good read indeed, and quite gripping in places. Really enjoyed the ambience of the Hawkesbury River; admired the patient long suffering of Lizzie with her intense focus on "going home". I am old enough to remember older folk in small town New Zealand referring to "home" all the time when I was small although how many of them did go back I don't know as I've moved on from there.
The end of the aborigines was pretty inevitable alas and fairly well handled by the author.

Please send me your address Sujie and I'll return it to you. Definitely a book you'll want to keep in your permanent collection. Thanks so much for including me I wouldn't want to have missed this.

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Returning to Suije with grateful thanks. Super book that I really enjoyed and feel pleased to have read.

Back home today, thanks sherlockfan. Lovely card - is that NZ Christmas bush? (Pohutukawa Flowers - Metrosideros Excelsa)
Thank you all for taking part in the ring.

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In bookshelf at end of counter.