My favourite Astley novel, the writing is as spare and as dry as the landscape and emotions she exlpores.

I found this book at the bookcrossing meet-up at Starbucks. I started reading it immediately as I have promised another bookcrossing member to swap bookcrossing books. I am enjoying it so far but sometimes it gets too wordy!
I just have to put in this quote:
"It was an unpretentious place, for she had never been harried by the glamour of any possessions but books. They were everywhere within the few rooms, had taken on colonising attitudes of their own and squatted on chairs, tables, dressers, slumped in ranks along the skirting board."

RELEASE NOTES:

I am releasing this book - *sigh of relief* - I found this book really enjoyable in parts - especially story on illiterate married couple - but equally frustrating as most of the collection of short-stories are about country people who really want to escape their lives in the country and also each short-story is begun or finished with a page that only has the words "Meanwhile..." Astley tends to become wordy in parts and can't help wishing that she would write in plainer English. Meanwhile... some parts are truly poetic and most characters are identifiable as part of Aussie life.