So Long to 2022, Hello to 2023!

I kept starting blog posts with resources or teaching ideas these last few weeks and would then stop myself from posting them because it's December. I just feel like everyone is done with the teaching year. I'm right, aren't I? This year was the first uninterrupted year of school since 2019 but there was this constant sense of 'could things become unsteady again?' and the COVID-related absences (both staff and students) riddled the year with a certain sense of discontinuity. It feels really obvious to say this but everyone across the entire planet is feeling really tired.  

So I thought I'd do something different and write a little more personally for my last blog of the year. 

Here are some things that I was thankful for this year:

• My beautiful baby, who is now wobbling around the house on two legs like some stop-motion wonder from an old Ray Harryhausen movie. It's a cliche but my whole worldview has genuinely changed with the arrival of this additional person in my house. It's been amazing to watch such grow, to see everything anew through new eyes, and to share this journey with my beautiful wife.
  
• A new school to call home. This is the fourth school I've worked at now and it's been great professional learning to see just how differently every school operates within the same overall system. I feel a great sense of calm in knowing that I will be continuing at this school into next year and beyond. 
• Becoming a Learning and Support Teacher. I've alternated between English and History for my decade-plus career, never quite committing to just one (I'd like to say that I can't pick between the two but the honest truth is that I just go with the flow - if I'm asked to teach English, I will, if it's History, I'm happy to do that too). In Term 4 this year I got to step into the entirely different role of Learning and Support Teacher, and I've loved it so much. I've been feeling a greater sense of self-worth and I enjoy working to help students and their families - plus it allows me to look at big sets of data (a secret and highly nerdy passion that I've never had enough opportunity to dive into in the past).
• New (and old) friends who have been supportive and funny and helpful and a reminder of what matters in the workplace and beyond. 
  

As you might have guessed from the above, things have been busy in my house this year. I haven't had as much of a chance to write aside from a couple of teaching articles and some poems (two were published under a dastardly pseudonym). I read about half the amount of books that I'm usually able to (being a parent reintroduced to me to the concept of existing in a constant state of tiredness) but there were still some really great things that I got to read, here were my ten favourites, in no order:

• Plunder of the Ancients by Lucinda Delaney Schroeder. A true crime account of a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Agent going undercover in the Native American illegal artefact trade.
• Kindred by Kirli Saunders. I read this because I wanted to teach it to Year 11 and I found the poetry to be quite soothing and welcoming - Saunders has a way with words when it comes to providing a window into the very soul of the earth.  
  
• The Overstory by Richard Powers. This was a big wow; a brilliantly interwoven and finely crafted piece of climate fiction about trees. Much more interesting than you could imagine.
• The Hare with the Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal. My second time reading but my first time truly appreciating.
• Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain. A seedy knife's edge cooking memoir, and the perfect spiritual companion to this year's best new TV series (The Bear).   
• A Confederate General at Big Sur by Richard Brautigan. My third Brautigan novel - and I've loved all three so much that I'll be working my way through his entire body of work in the near future.
• Pax by Sara Pennypacker. A heartbreaking and beautiful coming-of-age novel about a fox and his boy. Thanks to my friend Ellen for this one!
• Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong. Last year, Vuong had a poem included in the HSC and he found himself (unexpectedly) bombarded online by students who hadn't coped with said poem. Unlike most authors who have previously faced this horrifying prospect, Vuong merely expressed bemusement and set about savagely and hilariously mocking some of the messages he received. His poetry collection Night Sky with Exit Wounds further exemplifies his mental acuity with a raw juxtaposition of the tough and the intimate in a range of pieces filled with unforgettably visceral imagery and remarkable wordplay.
  
• After Story by Larissa Behrendt. This one was recommended by my friend Lis. I just finished it this morning and I love how effortlessly it blends together so many different elements (trauma, family, travel, literature, Aboriginal culture) through dual perspectives. 
• The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow. Technically you could call this picaresque novel a 'coming-of-age' but, really, I haven't read anything like it before. Bellow's voice is uniquely colloquial yet sophisticated, presenting a range of misadventures and characters both hilarious and poignant.
  

And that's it from me in 2022. If you're reading this, I hope you take some time over the holiday break to rest and be with the people you love most. Here's to a gentle 2023. 

Top Reads for 2021

This year, in total, I read just over 100 books - a mixture of fiction, non-fiction, graphic novels, audiobooks, and picture books. You may note that this blog has not had as many updates lately... suffice to say, I found 2021 to be immensely challenging for a range of reasons. So it was nice, no matter what was happening, to always have some reading on the go. Often I find reading to be an anchor of sorts. 

I got my list down from 111 to my favourite 17.

The Dry by Jane Harper: I was riveted from start to finish and could not stop reading it because I really had to know what happened. This is great Australian crime fiction, and the isolated location gave me strong Peter Temple's Broken Shore vibes. I ordered and read Harper's second book almost immediately after finishing The Dry. 

The Museum of Whales You Will Never See by A. Kendra Greene: A wonderful series of discursive essays that take the reader along on the author's adventures through Iceland's esoteric museums. Wistful, fascinating, and full of wanderlust. Museum.. is the best kind of travel writing and easily my most favourite piece of non-fiction that I read this year.

Milkman by Anna Burns: What an incredible tour-de-force exploration of Northern Ireland's 'Troubles' period. Expertly constructed with an authentic and razor-sharp voice... a devastating examination of the corrosive power of conformity. This easily deserved its Booker Prize.

The Boy From the Mish by Gary Lonesborough: A beautiful, funny, heartfelt, authentic coming-of-age YA story from a gay Aboriginal perspective. My only gripe is that it's a bit sexually explicit in parts, which means I'd be hesitant to tackle it in a classroom. Lonesborough's future books will be ones to watch!

Nothing Much Happens by Kathryn Nicolai: A different sort of book to the other ones on this list. This is a book version of a popular podcast; I bought it on a whim as something to read to my wife each night to help her sleep. It worked a treat - easy rhythmic episodes designed to relax and lull. A nice concept, and it earns its place on this list because it had a positive real world impact on my life.

Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan: I've never read anything like this before and I loved it so much. It's a hard novel to describe but it's short and it's perfectly written and hilarious and poignant. Brautigan has become my new favourite author. 

The Iliad by Homer (Translated by Stephen Mitchell): Why did I wait so long to read this? I was swept up by the chance to experience the iconography and elegiac descriptions of the horrors and glories of a war culture, as written from within. Interwoven with myth and history... not at all as I expected (no Trojan horse, no Achilles heel!). I listened to this one, and Alfred Molina was a great narrator.

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas: I don't read a lot of YA Lit but I had to check this out due to the hype. It did not disappoint. Very much a vivid and electric book for our times. The Hate U Give is a frequently contested titles in schools due to the way it links into the BlackLivesMatter movement, but it's hard to imagine a legitimate reason for anyone wanting to stop other people from reading it. 

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead: Historical literature with a dash of magic realism. Whitehead employs crisp imagery, riveting characterisation, and a memorable examination of 19th century slavery in order to construct a 21st century literary classic on par with To Kill a Mockingbird. Loved it. 

Stuck Rubber Baby by Howard Cruse: I came across this while working my way through the graphic novel canon and was taken by its careful reconstruction of a time period via the lens of memoir. Stuck Rubber Baby is a roman-a-clef that offers a rich representation of the civil rights movement from a gay perspective. Amazingly detailed artwork and brilliant storytelling.

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel: I thought I'd be over hearing about Henry and Anne Boleyn after bingeing on The Tudors a few years back but Mantel offers a narrative that effortlessly recreates historical detail while retaining an identifiable human element. Mantel's Cromwell is a masterful characterisation. A truly absorbing novel. 

The Story of China by Michael Wood: I've looked at Wood's stuff before and, whilst he is very much a historian in the TV Presenter mood, I found a lot to be impressed with in this one-volume take on the Middle Kingdom. This ambitious, overarching history of China does a brilliant job at presenting the big events alongside smaller and more under-represented stories. 

Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart: A compelling and authentic piece of literary art. Shuggie Bain offers a heartbreaking perspective on the cycle of poverty, addiction, and dysfunction. Agnes Bain will go down as one of the great characters of 21st century literature. Another well-deserved Booker Prize win.

Under-Earth by Chris Gooch: A perfectly constructed and artful depiction of a brutal Australian dystopia. Modern day convicts are thrown into a garbage underworld without hope or independence. One of the best new dystopias I've read in a while.

Civilisations by Laurent Binet: This unique chronicle of counter-factual history imagines a sequence of events that leads to an Inca conquest of Europe in the early 16th century. It sounds like such an unlikely concept but Binet absolutely nails it through his fine observation of history and the forces that make it tick. Fascinating, incisively satirical, lively, and devastating in its dissection of European ideologies.  

Mirror Sydney by Vanessa Berry: A wonderful book of essays about Sydney's hidden histories and the layers of urban esoterica that evoke our memory. Berry has a knack for exploring nostalgia and loss, and attaching value to the devalued. This one really resonated with me because of how familiar I found the geography and history.

Follow Me In by Katriona Chapman: Another personal one. I picked this memoir travel-lit up because it features a lot of places in Mexico that I'd visited. Chapman's memoir is heartfelt and bittersweet and features some of the most beautiful and accomplished artwork I've ever seen in comic form. It took me back to Mexico and I felt like I'd walked it all over again. 

Top Reads for 2020!

I had a lot of time to read this year. It was the thing I filled the 'gaps' with, and something that kept me motivated. I can safely say that I read more in 2020 then I have in any other year. Of the 127 books and graphic novels that I read, the following 12 are my favourites; the ones that stood out most...

The Shipping News by Annie Proulx: One of my favourite reads of the last 5 years - such a great novel, funny and richly quirky and tragic and just beautifully constructed and written. I read it back in Autumn while walking by the sea, with the cold wind whipping up around me, and the weather felt perfectly attuned to the content of the novel. More than six months later I'm still thinking back on it and hoping to read something else like it. 

My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf: A perfect intersection of meticulous, exhaustive research and one person's unique insight into the formative years of one of America's most notorious serial killers. Derf Backderf deals with the material with sensitivity and integrity, and works incredibly hard to avoid veering into speculation. Intensely magnetic.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel: A wonderful, scary, hopeful, metatextual English teacher's dream of a post-apocalyptic novel. The author imagines a world struck down by a devastating pandemic (fancy that!) and adds layers of interlinked characters, multiple narratives that span decades, King Lear, and a fictional graphic novel-within-a-novel. Station Eleven took me four walks to read, and I would gladly read it again.

Lost Transmissions by Desirina Boskovich: This is a brilliant piece of counter-'canon' work that shines a light on an influential secret history of speculative fiction - the forgotten voices, the unsung artistic legends, the might-have-beens. Boskovich investigates the influence of science fiction on every aspect of pop culture - books, film, art, architecture, music, fashion - and presents the texts that slipped through the gaps or deserved more attention. It prompted me to seek out a bunch of new texts.

Safe Area Gorazde by Joe Sacco: I was a teen when the Yugoslav Wars tore the Balkans apart. It was confusing, partly because '90s Australian media didn't know what to make of a war where Muslims were very clearly the victims. This non-fiction graphic novel makes an incredibly challenging and complex piece of recent history quite terrifyingly clear. 

The Voyage of QV66 by Penelope Lively: You may have noticed a few post-apocalyptic titles in this list. I read 15 such novels this year, and the ones that made it onto this list are the true stand-outs. The Voyage of QV66 takes a different angle in that it presents a post-apocalyptic vision of Britain where the animals have inherited a world mysteriously void of humans. It's a fascinating parable that also happens to be very entertaining, and is suitable for adults and children alike. 

The Transmigration of Bodies by Yuri Herrera: A hardboiled, neo-noir, dirty-as-malaria, Mexican crime novella with shades of intense social decay. Imagine Romeo & Juliet mixed with Dashiell Hammett in a favela. It's a really quick, gripping read too, and I ordered Herrera's previous novel straightaway after reading. 

Blacksad by Juan Diaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido: If you love detective fiction, film noir, intelligently-captured caricatures of incisive crime genre archetypes, or evocative artwork that conveys so much so perfectly, then you must read the graphic novel Blacksad. A great find for me this year :)

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin: I loved this. Ursula Le Guin demonstrates in this novel why she is widely considered one of the greatest sci-fi authors of all time. This carefully-written narrative offers an insightful, compelling, feminist vision of an androgynous society. Paradoxically of its time (the late '60s) and way ahead of its time. A+ effort.

Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton: I got completely hooked once I got past the disorientating opening and adjusted to the rhythm of the writing. Dalton knocks it completely out of the park with this epic and finely-observed Aussie bildungsroman. Great characters and writing - lives up to the hype!

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald: An astoundingly heartfelt interweaving of falconry, personal grief, and an investigation of the pained, repressed life of the great English author T. H. White. Helen McDonald's prose is as sharp as the hawk's beak. This is great memoir writing.

In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan: An eerie, strange, beautiful, enigmatic, post-apocalyptic classic of the 1960s. Possibly the best book I've read this year and one of the most unexpected. I was so inspired I created the artwork below, and I'm about to read it again!

And that's it!

Here are some other honourable mentions that would round out a 'Top 25' from 2020:

The 1950s counter-culture graphic novel memoir Cruisin' with the Hound by Spain Rodriguez, influential island-set graphic novel Streak of Chalk by Miguelanxo Prado, Kurt Vonnegut's political satire Mother Night, Afro-futurist Romeo & Juliet remake Prince of Cats by Ronald Wimberly, American gothic classic The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers, Korean memoir Banned Book Club, Jules Verne's 20 000 Leagues Under the Sea, Italo Calvino's On a Winter's Night a Traveler..., Steinbeckesque graphic novel Kings in Disguise by Jim Vance and Dan Burr, the haunting Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham, Flea's memoir Acid for the Children, the challenging epic A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James, and Waubgeshig Rice's First Nations-perspective on the end of the world, Moon of the Crusted Snow.

Book Journeys: Greybeard

I'm reading a lot of post-apocalyptic fiction at the moment. I've always been drawn to this genre but recent times have pushed me into its arms even further, for better or for worse. As far as the genre goes, I tend to find that the end of the world presented in each of these possible futures falls in one of the five general scenarios:

1. A virus eradicates most of humanity (The Earth Abides, The Last Man on Earth, Station Eleven)
2. Nuclear war or some other technology reduces the Earth to a wasteland (A Canticle for Leibowitz, The Last American, The Quiet Earth)
   
3. Resource shortages (Dry, Mad Max, Soylent Green)
4. Natural disaster (The Voyage of QV66, Waterworld, The Drowned Earth)
5. Alien invasion (A Quiet Place, War of the Worlds)

The novel Greybeard by Brian Aldiss falls into the category of nuclear destruction, which is probably to be expected from a text written during the Cold War. In this vision of the future humanity doomed itself in the early 1980s after exploding experimental nuclear weapons in orbit around the Earth. The dispersion of radiation renders the entire human race and many larger mammals sterile. 

Aldiss has twin narratives running alongside each other. One is set in the 2030s and follows 'Greybeard', a 'young' fifty year old who takes a boat down the Thames to escape the exponentially growing packs of stoats that attack and consume all animals in their path. The other thread moves back through the past in segments to show how the world has changed in the 50 years since 'the Accident'.

It's a very British story with a strong sense of pathos... this is a world where humanity is moving closer and closer to extinction as the last survivors become increasingly geriatric. On every step of his journey Greybeard seeks out hope in the various rumours and folk tales of humanity's potential survival. This is a world, however, where there is no second generation waiting in the wings... a world without children, without a future. 

It's an affecting sci-fi classic.

But now, let's look at the various covers it's had, which have stories of their own to tell...

I like this cover as it has a sort of ethereal quality to it. As a cover for this novel though? The figure on the front does not resemble the main character in any way - the main character is a healthy 50 year old who just happens to have a long grey beard, whereas the guy on the cover looks decrepit. Don't even get me started on what appears to be his wife wandering listlessly in the background... The desert-like environment is also not related to the novel at all either.

A more abstract cover that's suggestive of the theme if not actually that reflective of the novel's content.

I actually don't mind this cover - the dark, evocative illustration feels 'right' in terms of some of the novel's more grotesque elements.

A more straightforward approach. It's not inaccurate but the cartoonish style, while reflective of trends in 1970s science fiction illustration, is just a bit too goofy for my tastes.

The more serious literary approach. Boring.

This one makes it look like a fantasy novel in the style of J.R.R. Tolkien.

A Scandinavian edition - actually a mostly accurate depiction of the character, theme, and tone.

Another Scandinavian edition... this is an appalling idea for a cover because it depicts the final scene in the novel. Why would you give away the book's ending ON THE FRONT COVER?!

I like this one. There's nothing in the novel like this but it kind of works in terms of being suggestive of the novel's theme of nature taking back over the Earth.

I'm struggling with this one. What is even going on here? This has little to do with what happens in the novel.

This one looks like Charles Dickens meets Charles Bronson. Actually, in some ways that's a good description of the book itself...

Does the main character swagger around with a big gun? I'm starting to second-guess myself. I only finished reading this book yesterday but all these covers are gaslighting me into thinking that maybe Greybeard does walk around with a big gun. Even if he does, it isn't the point of the book and he doesn't really shoot it that much.

Every other cover, no matter how ridiculous, is better than this one. Boring.

This very 1980s looking cover is from a German edition. Another 'thematic' approach.

The woman on the front (presumably Greybeard's wife Martha) isn't even remotely close in appearance to any characters in the novel. That aside, this is a pretty accurate depiction... it's how I imagined Greybeard to look and the background seems suggestive of a post-apocalyptic Oxford, which is one of the novel's settings.

Okay. My Dad has this edition and I used to look at it all the time when I was a kid. I would look at it and I would be freaked out by every single element... the weird plants, the mismatched eyes, the random tusks growing out of his cheek and shoulder, the stringy beard, the brick in his throat, the black bird with human hands and a weird human mouth underneath its beak, the lack of sleeves on the guy's shirt. It fired my imagination... what on Earth is going on here? But now that I've read it, 30 years later, I can look at this cover and confidently say that this illustration is absolute bullshit. There is NOTHING in this book that connects to this image. Greybeard has no strange mutations, and there is no half-human half-bird character... in fact, there isn't even a bird in the book! Amazing.

Book Journeys: A Canticle for Leibowitz

A Canticle of Leibowitz is a post-apocalyptic novel, albeit one with very little in common with other books I've read in the genre. Starting in the 26th century and ending about 1200 years later, Walter M. Miller Jr. depicts the gradual return to civilisation that takes place after world wide nuclear war has reduced America to a medieval state. This fascinating reconstruction of society in the blasted feudal deserts of the American Southwest takes place from the perspective of an order of Catholic monks who seek to canonize a 'Saint Leibowitz', a Jewish electrical engineer from the U.S. Army who hid with said monks and preserved 20th century knowledge through the clandestine art of 'booklegging'. 

Walter M. Miller Jr. was predominantly known for writing science fiction short stories. A Canticle for Leibowitz is a fixup of three such interrelated short stories into one narrative, and also the only novel that Miller Jr. had published in his lifetime. In some circles, A Canticle for Leibowitz is considered 'Christian Science Fiction', being that it presents a sympathetic view of the Church as a preserver of knowledge in a world gone mad. Another common perspective is that the novel is a crossover text of sorts, being that its message extends far into the realm of secular interests, and that the role of the Church in this future 'Dark Age' is a echo of the role that various orders of monks played throughout the original Middle Ages in preserving knowledge and pioneering innovations. The novel is deep in scope but never becomes esoteric or lofty, with Miller Jr. keeping his story firmly grounded in relatable human characters.

I was attracted to this novel because I love the American Southwest, and I love post-apocalyptic novels. The post-apocalyptic genre portrays possible scenarios that might arise from our overriding need to survive, which is a theme that will always resonate with readers. A Canticle for Leibowitz is also a good example of the little-discussed 'feudalpunk' subgenre, where science fiction and medieval technology intertwine, which also provides fertile ground for discussing the patterns of history as we know it.

I'm also found myself drawn to this novel because of its tragic backstory. On one level A Canticle for Leibowitz, published in 1959 and projecting a future created from the ashes of nuclear armageddon, is very much reflective of a Cold War context. On a more personal level, however, it's a novel that grew out of the author's own trauma. Walter M. Miller Jr. served as part of the U.S. Army Air Corps in World War II and was involved in the aerial bombing of an ancient Benedictine Monastery in Italy, which would continue to haunt him for the rest of his life. He came to idolise the anti-war movement during the Vietnam War and, by the 1990s, he was a recluse suffering from debilitating depression, disallowing even his own literary agent to ever meet him. 

Sadly, the author committed suicide in 1996, two years after the death of his wife. He had been working on a sequel to his novel for at least 15 years but ultimately decided that he was unable to finish it for psychological reasons. A deal was made for another writer, Terry Bisson, to complete the book. The presumption at the time was that Miller Jr. hadn't managed to make it work and that this was why he abandoned it, but surprisingly, Bisson found that Miller Jr. had written nearly 600 pages and had a very clear outline of how the novel should end. I haven't read Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman and, to be honest, I'm not sure that I ever will. I enjoyed A Canticle for Leibowitz so much that I wouldn't want to besmirch its memory in any way.