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I’ve just returned from visiting some major cities in the USA. It was illuminating to see which Australian literature is stocked in their (mostly) indie bookstores. This is anecdotal but shows which Australian books browsers are seeing, raising the profile of our literature.

Marcus Zusak’s The Book Thief was the most prominent Australian book. I didn’t go to one shop where it wasn’t stocked.

The ABIA (Australian Book Industry) 2014 overall award winner, The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion was also popular. And a close third was Shaun Tan’s inimical Rules of Summer, which has recently won a prestigious Boston Globe-Horn Book picture book honour award. Some stores had copies in stacks.

http://www.hbook.com/2014/05/news/boston-globe-horn-book-awards/picture-book-reviews-2014-boston-globe-horn-book-award-winner-honor-books/#_

I noticed a few other Tans shelved in ‘graphic novels’, including his seminal work, The Arrival – which is newly available in paperback.

One large store had an Oceania section, where Eleanor Catton’s Man-Booker winner, The Luminaries rubbed shoulders with an up-to-date selection of Australian novels. These included hot-off-the-press Miles Franklin winner All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld and Hannah Kent’s Burial Rites, plus expected big-names – Tim Winton with Eyrie, Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North and works by Thomas Keneally and David Malouf. Less expected but very welcome was Patrick Holland.I chaired a session with Patrick at the Brisbane Writers’ Festival a few years ago and particularly like his short stories Riding the Trains in Japan.

Australian literary fiction I found in other stores included Kirsten Tranter’s A Common Loss, Patrick White’s The Hanging Garden and some Peter Carey.

One NY children’s/YA specialist was particularly enthusiastic about Australian writers. Her store had hosted Gus Gordon to promote his picture book, Herman and Rosie, a CBCA honour book, which is set in New York City. They also stocked Melina Marchetta’s Looking for Alibrandi and Saving Francesca, John Marsden, David McRobbie’s Wayne series (also a TV series), Catherine Jinks’ Genius Squad (How to Catch a Bogle was available elsewhere) and some of Jaclyn Moriarty’s YA. One of my three top YA books for 2013, The Midnight Dress by Karen Foxlee was available in HB with a stunning cover and Foxlee’s children’s novel Ophelia and the Marvellous Boy was promoted as part of the Summer Holidays Reading Guide.

Elsewhere I spied Margo Lanagan’s The Brides of Rollrock Island, published as Sea Hearts here (the Australian edition has the best cover); Lian Tanner’s Keepers trilogy; John Flanagan’s Ranger’s Apprentice and Sonya Hartnett’s The Children of the King. These are excellent books that we are proud to claim as Australian.

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The trailer is pretty awesome.  And the book is not too shabby either.  Birdie tells the story of how she and her boss, Alfred the Bogler, rid London of child-snatching demons.  Small and fair, Birdie has an angel's voice.  She sings.  The bogle comes out to snatch her.  (Some are slimy; some are smoky.  All are evil.)  Alfred does what he must.

Two things happen almost simultaneously in this novel.  First, the woman who runs the largest band of child pickpockets and beggars in London asks Alfred to look into the disappearance of several of her lads.  More boys are disappearing than usual.  Then, a learned gentlewoman wants to accompany Alfred and Birdie on their jobs because she has studied every book she can find about these demonic beings. She makes it worth their while - at first.

Well, that's all I can tell you without spoiling the book for you.  Just know that there are some evil doings in here and some treachery - of the human kind.  And Birdie and Alfred get their world shaken up and thrown around.

How to Catch a Bogle by Catherine Jinks  Check a library or bookstore near you.  I hope the next book in this series comes out soon.

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On October 8th I will be doing two panels at SheKilda, the second women's crime convention to be held in Melbourne. My co-panellists will be Goldie Alexander, who has written far more books than I have, for younger kids, and the wonderful Catherine Jinks, author of a wide variety of YA novels in a huge variety of genres - SF, fantasy, mystery, ghost stories, historical fiction (the fabulous Pagan series set during the Crusades) - you name it, if it's a YA genre she's probably written about it. The convention itself should be terrific, if it's anything like the last one. People would yell out, "SheKilda!" and others would respond "No she didn't!" There were some great guest speakers and there was even a panel on fan fiction, with Kerry Greenwood admitting she wrote the stuff just for herself, very steamy, while Jenny Pausacker was happy to admit that she, too, wrote fan fiction and published it on-line. Also steamy. ;-) I met a lot of people I knew, because SF and crime fandom overlap. The con committee are all SF fans as well as crime writers/readers. I remember the time we all went off to see the Star Trek movie in Gold Class and afterwards walked around Borders putting our books facing outwards. Well, the others did - and they had to do mine as well, I was too embarrassed! (Hides face while Cecilia Dart-Thornton finds a copy of Crime Time and faces it outwards...).Come along if you can. It will be a great weekend. Check it out on the web site - SheKilda Again - and there's a single day pass if that's all you want to attend. The program is up so you can decide what you want to see.Come and hear me? :-)

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Okay--let's make one thing perfectly clear: I really hate the title of this book. It's schlocky and reminiscent of bad teenage slasher films. Having read the book, I understand why it's used. But.....truthfully....ick. However, let's make something else perfectly clear; if we're going to sink to dodgy terminology...this book kicks ASS! And I am so glad I read it, because it was a breathless ride

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(*VFR: Very Fun Read)

Genius Squad by Catherine Jinks

SUCH a fantastic book! I liked its predecessor, Evil Genius, just fine, but this one went above and beyond. (You will, however, want to read these in order.) First off, it's a teen spy/criminal mastermind book, the genre of which comes close to tying with my love of the retold fairy tale genre. Secondly, it's a very smart book, meaning it is the sort of book I wish I could write but never will because it's way too mystery/logic/computer-science orientated. But it's also completely accessible, even for those of us who are definitely not left-brained. Thirdly, the characters are all highly defined: they're people we are or that we've met or that we could meet. There's tangled complications on emotional levels: with the bad guys, with the good guys; with who you can trust and who you can't. It moved me, it freaked me out, and it had me clenching the pages of the book in agony when I couldn't read fast enough to find out what was going to happen.

I was afraid Genius Squad was going to suffer from sequelitis, but the author totally pulled off an even better book than the first. I am so excited for the third book, Genius Wars, to come out.

(Note: there's some strong language.)

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