This Australian novel won several literary awards after publication in 1999.  Each chapter started with a description of a different eucalypt tree, interesting to botanists perhaps but irritating and repetitive to our readers. Ellen Holland, a beautiful girl brought up in isolation by her father, was advertised as a potential bride to any man who could identify all of the hundreds of eucalypt species he had planted across his rural property.

Local suitors all failed this test, until Roy Cave, an older outsider arrived and over a period of months successfully identified every tree as he walked across the farm with her father. Ellen secretly watched this friendship between the two men and realised Cave was likely to succeed. While spying on their progress she met a young stranger who lurked on the farm and who told her many stories of the outside world, many of which he never finished or which seemed to have little relevance to her. Like the eucalypts, these stories also became tedious to our readers. Was all this a figment of Ellen’s imagination or did she really meet a young man, more suited to her age with whom she ran away? The ending is ambiguous and we are left to reconstruct it ourselves.

This book provoked lively discussion but was not generally recommended.

​Coming up in October - Remains of the Day, Kasuo Ishiguro 


Meg Dillon, Convenor

​You will either love or hate Maggie O’Farrell’s book 'The Marriage Portrait'. This historical novel, set in the 1500s in Renaissance Italy, details the brief marriage between the  fourteen year old  Lucrezia Medici and the evil and older Duke of Ferrara.

Based on the Browning poem ‘My Last Duchess', the novel implies the girl was murdered by her husband after two years of marriage. History has very few details about the real story of this marriage, apart from Lucrezia’s early death.

Fans of this writer enjoy her lush descriptions and explorations of factual  minutia in the plot. Critics dislike her ‘purple prose”, laboured descriptions  and lengthy digressions. You be the judge.

If you like historical fiction this may just be the right book for you to try out.

Coming up in September - 'Eucalyptus', by Murray Bail 


Meg Dillon

Laura has disappeared. Three people know something but they're not saying anything: guilt, fear, confusion...

Jasper Jones has been a year 9 or 10 text which would be ideal as it centers on four 13 to 15 year olds facing challenges regarding their parents, peers, racism, bullying, courage and their moral code vs the law. It would give boys, in particular, a chance to explore and express their feelings about many issues.

Set in 1960s SW Western Australia Silvey portrays the era well, themes that permeate the story include; the Vietnam War, dysfunctional marriage when divorce wasn't seen as an option, white man marrying an Aboriginal woman, incest, suicide, racism towards a Vietnamese family and a part Aboriginal boy and sport being a measure of your value/standing in a small country town.

Some readers felt Silvey included too many issues in the book, but he did do it less overtly than Christos Tsiolkas in The Slap.

One comment we had as a group of readers who had lived through the 1960s was Silvey's use of certain swear words. We didn't  think 'f...' was in common use back then.

A good page turner with some twists we didn't see coming.
 
Next month's book: 'The Marriage Portrait' by Maggie O'Farrell.


Roe Cumming

Chang’s book is part auto-biography and part revisionist history of the Communist Government in China from the 1940s to the present. She challenges the official history presented by the Communist Party of China, and presents instead her different interpretations.

Chang and her family were part of the Communist elite that governed China from the 1940s. Her father took part in the Long March that succeeded in creating the first communist government, and later was Governor of a number of provinces.

Her mother also held many significant positions and they both had many enduring contacts with both those members of the elite who were silenced and exiled, and those promoted by Chairman Mao.

​Jung Chang returned to China several times to interview the now aged former officials or their surviving relatives. She also had access to some significant documents either in Chinese provincial archives or in archives in Moscow.

She is critical of many of Chairman Mao’s actions in  causing the collectivisation of rural  land, the Cultural Revolution and the Taemin Square massacre of protesters. Her books are banned in China.

An interesting book for readers interested in Chinese recent history.

​Next month's book - 'Jasper Jones', by Craig Silvey.  

​Meg Dillon

Begbie, a sometime resident of Benalla, has portrayed a fractured family of bossy father and four adult siblings. The son, confident he will inherit the family farm has left and lurched from one unsuccessful business venture to another in the city. Sophie, frivolous and unable to settle in any job has avoided contact with her siblings; Christine has become a super organising wife; and Jenny withdrawn and partnered, has stayed on a nearby farm and assisted her father when needed.

Dying, their father has realized how separated his family has become and accepts he was partly responsible for this. He changes his will and requires the four to come together and in four days after his death, build a coffin for his funeral. If they fail the task, the local solicitor will inherit his whole estate. What could possibly go wrong?

Through a number of personal false starts the four combine at last to try to achieve this task. How they resolve the inheritance issue is the twist at the end of the novel.

A popular Australian rural genre novel, this book may please anyone wanting a cosy fireside read this winter.


Meg Dillon

Structured as a story, the author introduces her readers to an easy introduction to the philosophy of Stoicism.

How can Stoic principles help us navigate the challenges of our divided, unstable world. Can the principles of Stoicism lead us to a peaceful, 'good' life? We are all going to die, so how should we live?

Anger, violence, events outside your control and consumerism are some of the negative features of modern life, but they have always been features of past eras too.

Be indifferent to wealth and fame; don’t worry about what others think of you; understand that you can only change what is within your power to change; control your anger, try to maintain a relaxed state of self-control: Stoics maintain these are the behaviours that matter and will lead to happiness.

In this novel a traumatised journalist is given a dream assignment - track down the mayor of a remote and mysterious town whose citizens are reported to be the happiest people on Earth.

Journeying into a harsh and inhospitable landscape, she overcomes many obstacles before arriving in Silver Springs, whose citizens live according to the ancient philosophy of Stoicism and where she has been granted three days to interview the mayor. During this time all of her ideas of modern life are challenged by the mayor who acts as her guide. After much personal struggle she understands the wisdom of this approach to life. An unexpected twist at the ending puts her journey into a new perspective.

Almost a self-help book but with the sweetener of a story line this book may appeal to anyone wondering what this philosophy is about. 

Next month’s book is ‘The Deed’ by Susannah Begbie.


Meg Dillon

This popular American novel was a recent best seller and was favourably reviewed on  TV by Oprah. The author researched the drug wars in Mexico and the struggles experienced by refugees fleeing from the brutalities of the untouchable drug lords.

 A Mexican bookseller, Lydia, and her son try to flee from Mexico to America, after Javier Fuentes, a drug lord whom she had befriended in her bookshop, orders her whole family murdered when he discovers her husband is writing an expose of him.

Assuming Fuentes is hunting her to kill her too, she uses some of the dangerous escape routes to get to the border. These include: hiding in a group of American religious  tourists; a completely unbelievable jumping onto a moving freight train; changing names frequently; and finally being in a small  guided group of assorted people where rape and murder happens amongst them.

Critics complained it was poorly written and gave an exaggerated negative picture of Mexico, but it is fast paced and sympathetic to the terrible choices refugees are forced to make.

Sure to be a film. Our group had divided views about it.

Coming up in April - 'The Seeker and the Sage', by Brigid Delaney - An isolated village, that practices stoicism, hosts a journalist for three days.  She learns about uncertainty and life affirming actions. 
​
Meg Dillon

This experimental, prize winning novel by a young Chinese Australian author, explores his difficulties in negotiating both his Chinese and Australian heritages. The traditional story of an evil ancient Chinese emperor is interwoven  throughout the novel.

Lu, unable to speak mandarin, accepts the invitation of a young rich Chinese capitalist , Baby Boa] ,to join his company, travel back to China and participate in his scheme to create a film set in one of the Ghost Cities, that have remained unpopulated during the Chinese building boom.

Things are not as they seem. The city is populated by actors taking the many parts of a city’s inhabitants. Bao becomes as dictatorial and dangerous as the ancient emperor. In both cases terrified people fall into line with the tyrant’s demands.

Readers can interpret the novel in many ways, including seeing that both ancient and modern rulers can enforce similar tragedies upon whole countries.

This book is not an easy read and some of our group felt it was not worthy of the general praise it has received.

Our book for March is 'American Dirt' by Jeanine Cummins.

Meg Dillon
Convenor

Page Turners commences on Tuesday 3 February at 10am at the Dillon residence.  It is held monthly on the first Monday from 10 to 12 midday. 

The book for discussion in February is ‘Ghost Cities’ by Siang Lu.  “Negotiating two cultures, a Chinese translator tells about stories and storytellers in his two cultures.”
​

Tessa Enster gained scholarships to Cambridge University and learnt how to change her working-class background into a new British middle class one to fit in with her new image of a successful young lawyer. She becomes a young outstanding barrister, super competitive and keen to outshine her colleagues. She appears for the Prosecution and mercilessly interrogates witnesses to break their testimony.

Things change for her when one of her colleagues rapes her and she reports it to the police. In the subsequent court case, she experiences firsthand what it is like to be disbelieved and treated with disrespect by the defendant’s barrister. The defendant is found not guilty.  Both his and her future careers are defined by this court case and their brilliant prospects limited.

This expose of the limits of the law is an interesting comment on how lawyers are required to present the best case for their clients: they are not expected to expose the truth. That is the job of the jury, who must decide which of the facts presented best represents the truth.
An interesting read for those who want to look more closely at how the law operates and how “truth”, especially in cases like this one, is a malleable concept.


Meg Dillon

What is memory? How do we ever know what another person is thinking or how they are really living their life? Can research or interviews really get to the essence or truth about the life of another person?

Dao has his main character attempt to do this when he tries to write a biography of his Vietnamese grandfather, who was imprisoned for ten years by the new Communist Regime after the end of the war in the 1960s. But Dao always questions the tentative conclusions he reaches. Was his grandfather even Vietnamese? He was brought up by wealthy parents who sent him to an exclusive French school in Vietnam before the war. There he absorbed French culture and adopted French as his main language. When released he and his wife went to France to live. Despite many hours of interviewing the grandfather, Dao is still perplexed by his character.

As an academic who studied philosophy, several answers are mined briefly from these possibilities. But each possible answer has some objection that takes the author no further towards the truth. Is Dao playing games with his readers?

Our group found the book perplexing and most of us didn’t finish reading it.

As a Miles Franklin prize winner, it explores a complex life lived in Asia and Europe, without coming to any definitive conclusions.


Meg Dillon

Lyons, a foreign correspondent for major Australian media and newspapers, has written about his personal experiences in the Middle East in various Arab and Jewish nations.

In various countries during the ‘Arab Spring ‘ [2010 to 2013] Lyons observed revolts against corrupt or despotic regimes, most of which failed to bring improved political conditions to the inhabitants. He placed himself in many dangerous situations in order to report the news.

The main thrust of his book explores the increasing tensions then and later, between Israel and the semi -autonomous areas of Gaza and the West Bank, which were given some administrative freedom after the Intifada of 1993. During his seven-year assignment in Israel, Lyons  witnessed many ways in which  Palestinians were discriminated against by both the Israeli Government and individual Israeli citizens and groups. The removal of Arabs from their legally held land in these areas and the policy of illegally creating Israeli settlements in Gaza and the West Bank, has dramatically increased tensions and hatreds between the two groups. Lyons believes Western Countries have not fairly or openly reported on these tensions, with America openly supporting the aims of Isreal to eventually exclude all Arab inhabitants from these two areas.

This book is difficult to read, but for those readers interested in this tragic conflict in the Middle East, it provides an insight into reasons for the current war and provides little hope for a lasting solution.

October:  'Anam' by Andre Dao.  'Australian author tells story of his grandfather, imprisoned by the Viet Cong for ten years.'

Meg Dillon

This is a book about family secrets. After World War Two, Holland had to rebuild its economy and welcome back Dutch Jewish people who had been incarcerated in camps by the Germans.

Some found their former homes occupied by others. Some returned to their homes but owed the Government large sums of money in back rates they had not paid during their internments.

This book looks at a group of mostly unlikeable people. Isabel lives in one such house unaware of its history. She is miserly and alone, although only still young. Her older sarcastic brother and his lover rarely visit her. A  crass neighbour courts her but she dislikes him. Her younger  brother dumps a recent girlfriend, Eva, with her for a short stay. Although Isabel dislikes her and suspects Eva of stealing things from the house, she eventually comes to find out the true history of the house she has lived in since a child.

Does this make her a better or more understanding person? You, the reader, will have to make your mind up about that!

Next session - Tuesday 2 September:  'Balcony over Jerusalem', John Lyons
​
Meg Dillon, Convenor

​We read two books for our July meeting...

The Alphabet House by Jussi Adler-Olsen Two British airmen are shot down over Germany during World War Two. They survive and attempt to escape by hitching a ride on a train filled with wounded German soldiers being transported to a hospital. Stealing the uniforms of two dying soldiers, they assume their identities and arrive at the hospital, a mental facility for shell shocked men. Their gruelling experiences and survival strategies form the first half of the book. One escapes but leaves the other behind and the rest of the book explores what happens thirty years later when they both meet up. This is a tough book to read and pulls no punches about the horrors of the incarceration they endure. For those who like war stories, this is challenging book about endurance, fortitude and the effects of war service on men.

What Happened to Nina by Dervla McTierman This book is really not about what happened to Nina, but instead about the behaviour of two sets of parents when Nina goes missing. One is rich and well connected, the parents of Simon who is suspected of killing Nina after a rock climbing expedition becomes an angry argument. The other, an average middleclass family, who manage a small B&B, and believe Simon is guilty but protected by his wealthy family who hire an unscrupulous legal firm to harass them. How far will parents go to protect their children? And how far will parents go to get revenge if they think that the law is incapable of solving this mystery? None of the parents are guiltless or even likeable, but as characters they are shallowly drawn by the author. This could be a good read if you want a well paced crime novel for a rainy winter afternoon.

The book for our next session on Tuesday morning, 5 August, is 'The Safe Keep', by Yael van der Wouden - 'Living in a secluded, ruined house that survived WW2, Isabel is confronted by house guest Eva when secrets unravel war-time mysteries.'

​Meg Dillon

This Pulitzer Prize award winning book delves into the lives and changing times of a group of Newfoundland misfits and eccentrics.

It’s a book that charts the redemption and changed fortunes of many of the characters. Quoyle, an ugly lump of a man with no self-esteem, returns to Killock Claw with his two young daughters after the death of his unfaithful wife. With the help of his practical aunt who accompanies them, herself with many dreadful family secrets, they patch up the old family home and start a new life. Quoyle gets a job on the local paper and with the support of a bunch of eccentric reporters, confronts his fears and heals himself. Eventually he finds a loyal local widow, herself also betrayed by her former husband. Together they create a better life there for themselves.

But Newfoundland itself is a major force in the novel. Its savagely harsh environment and ferocious and deadly storms are superbly rendered by Proulx.   From the lawless days of the early settlement, through the annexation by Canada and the destruction of the fishing industry, to the more promising potential of modern times, the weather rules.

A good book from one of America’s major writers.

​
At our next session on Tuesday 1 July: -
What Happened to Nina by Dervlar McTierman; and
The Alphabet House by Jussi Adler-Olsen
Members can choose one or read both on the long winter nights to come..


Meg Dillon

Long Island, by Irish writer Colm Tóibín explores some of the difficulties experienced by migrants in their new culture. Eilis, an Irish woman, settles in America and marries into an Italian family there. She is engulfed by the traditional requirements of her new family who adhere to old Italian ways of forming a tight and patriarchal family bond. When she rebels against this, she is quickly excluded from the formal Sunday family lunch. Her husband fails to defend her against her exclusion. She chooses not to leave him.

When she returns to Ireland temporarily to attend her mothers 80th birthday celebration she pairs up with Jim Farrell, an old flame who never married but is promised to a local widow whom they all know. The confusions, evasions and broken promises are eventually settled by a surprising twist by the widow. Eilis returns to America, still undecided about what she should do.

Could be made into a popular film script with the characters developed more fully.

​Our June book is The Shipping News by Annie Proulx

​
Meg Dillon

An engaging story of the suffragette movement in England before World War One, told through the lives of some of the middle and working class women who were affected by it.

While Australia gave women the [Federal] vote in 1902, English women had to mount many demonstrations, some violent, endure imprisonment and the forced feeding of those who went on hunger strikes.

Women only got the vote in England in 1928, although they could be elected to Parliament in 1918. Some of the suffragettes worked as nurses in Army hospitals during the war or were drafted into factories to support the war effort.

We can be proud that women in Australia, America and other British former colonies received much better opportunities and treatment than those in England.

A good read to catch up on this aspect of feminist history.

Next month:  'Long Island', by Colm Toibin

Meg Dillon

A family with dark secrets. Shannon and Patrick married and divorced some years previously, having had one daughter, Neve, who later went to live in a remote part of wintery Scotland with her father. Patrick wants to give a party for Neve, now turning eighteen, and invites Shannon to visit from Australia.
 
Shannon came to confront Patrick about his former disturbing treatment of her and to persuade her daughter to return to Australia with her. But Patrick, a musician and bandleader, now living with Alison refuses to admit to his former behaviour. Alison, also wealthy, and a former scriptwriter, has become reclusive in this dark, cold house with its strange smells and rooms she doesn’t enter. Why has she left her mother’s bedroom untouched since her death? And why does Elixir, a neighbour’s son, befriend Neve and surreptitiously film Alison as she goes about the house?
 
The behaviour of this strange cast raises many questions, but the past certainly haunts them and has changed them. Could be a script for a rather spooky film.
 
Our group was divided in their responses to the book, but it certainly evoked a spirited discussion.
 
Next month’s book - Like Fire Hearted Suns by Melanie Joosten, Ultimo
​
 
Meg Dillon 

Small Things Like These is positive book about a coal vendor who rescued a young woman confined to a coal cellar in the local Magdalen Laundry run by catholic nuns. The punishments and cruelties of these institutions in the 1900s has been well documented in other books and TV exposés. Clair Keegan explored the compassion of one man who opposed this treatment of women and rescued the girl , taking her into his own family home. Well written and thought provoking.

Grace Notes by comparison was a joyous exploration of the lives of two teenagers   during the covid lockdowns in Melbourne. Clare, a year 10 talented violinist and James Crux,  a year 12 street artist, meet by chance when they sneak out to defy the monotonous boredom of lockdown. Karen Comer captures the aspirations, energy and speech of her characters as they negotiate aspects of their liberty with their parents and forge ahead to achieve their own dreams of their futures.

Both books are well worth a read.

We have two books for our first meeting on Tuesday 4th February at 10 am – Grace Notes by Karen Comer (Youth Fiction/In verse) – ‘Two teenagers survive the covid lockdowns in Melbourne in their own ways’ and Small Things Like These by Clair Keegan (Historical) ‘Coal vendor discovers cruel Magdalen laundry run by nuns for unmarried mothers’.
 
The selection of books chosen by the 2024 Page Turners Group for 2025 can be viewed on our web page and downloaded here. 

The book for our session on Tuesday 4 March is Feast, by Emily O’Grady.

​Meg Dillon

Meg Dillon

This is the story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure. His quest will lead him to riches far different—and far more satisfying—than he ever imagined. Santiago's journey teaches us about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, recognizing opportunity and learning to read the omens strewn along life's path, and, most importantly, following our dreams.

A short book akin to a fable about life and what you make of it. More than a self help book – it encourages readers to strive and believe in themselves. This novel by Coelho is not for all but worth a look at the early work of this novelist.

December book is  Ann Patchett’s Tom Lake.

Meg Dillon
​

No one should buy into this semi-retirement village! It’s set in the English countryside probably not far from Midsommer.  Strangely, its occupants were all ages from their thirties to almost retirement.

Alice is the newcomer with reasons to  seek revenge on one particular young resident and willing to murder others to achieve her goal. We know the villain from the start, but Cooper weaves her plot around the sneaky ways Alice starts up a bookclub then uses it to hunt down her victims. The original five friends all have secrets and Alice finds these out and uses them to her advantage. A shame Inspector Barnaby couldn’t get over with his trusty sergeant Ben Jones from Midsommer. I’m sure they could have stopped her.

A light read for the holidays perhaps?

Next month’s book is The Alchemist by Paul Coelho


Meg Dillon

Lola ‘in the mirror’ has lived with many names as she and Erica, her mother, shift endlessly from place to place. She is brought up lovingly by her drug running mum who keeps them on the run till Lola turns 18, so Welfare cannot find them and take Lola away. They live in campervan in a Brisbane junkyard with other semi homeless people in old cars, but it’s a caring community of misfits and poor people who cannot settle in to ordinary lives. The Web, a community centre for homeless, helps out with meals, showers etc. Lola is a talented young artist, always drawing the places and people she knows.

After Lola’s mother dies without telling her the truth about their lives, Lola gets mixed up with the local drug dealing syndicate and delivers drugs to their customers. Things go badly wrong, she is hunted by them to kill her but escapes through a series of misadventures.  The novel does have a happier ending as Lola eventually breaks free and enrols in Art School.

Dalton, a former journalist, writes sympathetically about people on the fringe of society, many of whom do not have the chance to change their lives. A challenging read that most of us found a gripping story.

Next Month:  'The Book Club', by C. J. Cooper

Meg Dillon

Our group read a variety of Virginia Woolf’s Short Stories for discussion at our August session. .

These are quite different from her novels. She ranges freely over many personal topics and emotions in the short stories, experimenting with her ‘stream of consciousness’  style, as she muses over the lives of typical people in her times between the world wars of the twentieth century. Woolf belonged to the Bloomsbury set of writers who were quite despairing at times about British society.

Woolf has a generally pessimistic view of people and life in some of the stories. She herself committed suicide in her early forties. Sometimes she responds happily to the joys of the natural world and the few people who seem to construct happy lives in difficult times.

Worth dipping into if you are interested in the social changes that marked the beginning of England starting to move into the modern world.
​
Meg Dillon