Surf for Your Life

Grommets’ Edition

Mick Fanning and Tim Baker

Random House Australia. Australian, Children’s Non-Fiction, Autobiographical. Paperback rrp $19.95

Mick Fanning has a wonderful life of doing what he does best – surfing. And in a follow-up book to his popular Surf for Your Life, he has produced the Grommets’ Edition (a Grommet is a child surfer).

In the Grommets’ Edition you can read up on all the tips and tricks of becoming a world champion surfer, from choosing your board to doing exercises to build the right muscles. It’s also an autobiographical view of Fanning’s rise from being a Grommet to mastering the waves and the tour circuit.

Mick Fanning has had his share of ups and downs and he talks openly about his life, his family, his friends and his favourites – board, waves, surfers, movies.

Fabulous photos throughout the book with a poster included. An ideal gift for any hard-to-buy grommet/surfer.

The Reading Stack reviewed Mick Fanning and Tim Baker’s Surf for Your Life in January 2010 and Tim Baker’s High Surf in January 2007.

http://www.bytimbaker.com/
http://www.mickfanning.com.au/

The Happiest Refugee

by Anh Do

Allen and Unwin. Australian, Autobiographical. Paperback rrp $32.99

Guest Reviewer – Ian Brown

You may have seen Anh Do on television. He’s a popular guest doing stand-up comedy on programs such as The Footy Show, Rove and Matty Johns Show.

Do arrived in Australia via Malaysia on a boat when he was just a young kid. It was 1980, only a few years after the Vietnam War and Anh Do’s extended family had pooled all their money to buy a boat and make the dangerous open sea voyage to Australia.

After an amazing and tragic journey, they were lucky to still be alive when they arrived in Sydney with nothing. Here the family found a life of struggle. In addition to the hard work and hard living conditions, his father leaves the family when Do was 13. The photos in the book show a strong sense of family. Although mother and children had to work hard, they always seemed happy and the departure of Do’s father, made Do more determined to ensure his family would survive.

After finishing university, Do was sitting in the final interview for a high powered job, when he asked the interviewer how many hours a week did he work. That same night he was at a comedy club and asked a comedian the same question. The answers guided Do into choosing a life which has seen our lives enriched with laughter and made Do a very happy and successful man.

Told with wit and humour, this heart-warming story is a classic tale of ‘boy makes good’. Anh Doh is someone who begins with nothing but dreams, and succeeds beyond the wildest of those.

http://www.anhdo.com.au/

Reactions to f2m - the boy within’

a transitioning gender & punk music YA novel

What Happens When You Don’t Write What Your Regular Readers Expect?

by Hazel Edwards

Earlier this year, I wrote an article What Happens When You Don’t Write What Your Regular Readers Expect? http://www.australianwomenonline.com/from-hippos-to-transitioning-gender/ about the challenges of a children’s author who also writes in other fields.

Several do. But I made the mistake of not using a pseudonym.
 
The article was mainly about diverse media and personal reactions to my being a co-author of a YA novel on transitioning gender. Ryan, my co-author is an f2m (female to male) and this means our YA novel is first internationally, by a transitioned f2m co-author.

Despite being YA fiction, f2m;the boy within novel has been shelved as biography, autobiography, psychology, self help, health and even put in the adult category in bookshops and some libraries.

Readers appear disconcerted by writers who cannot be catalogued in one genre or categorised. I had always considered this a strength for a writer.

Educators, librarians and booksellers are especially wary of this gender subject.

This wariness is compounded when there are periodic TV current affair specials which sensationalise the more bizarre aspects of transitioning gender.

Our book is not sensationalised. We hope it humanises. Even if schools and librarians are wary, many youth support groups see this fiction as vital vicarious experience, and maybe saving lives. Social media response via blogs especially has been significant and fast. And the youth blogs are a way of enticing readers to libraries and books. Our e-book version is a significant attraction. Amazon http://tinyurl.com/28xys5o

Ironically science fiction/fantasy readers are interested in credible, transgender characters and with the Aussiecon 4 in September this is timely.

‘You might wonder what a review of a book dealing with a girl becoming a boy is doing on this website. It is here because I thought it sounded intriguing and also because gender-swapping is such a prevalent theme in SF that a serious and realistic novel based on one of the authors’ own experiences warranted it. The concept of gender-swapping goes back at least as far as the ancient Greek legend of Tiresias and is a part of many other mythologies as well. In modern times we have Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, Baum’s Princess Ozma, and countless other examples.'

Ian Banks The Specusphere: SF site

I’ve learnt that if I talk about our process of collaboration in an approachable way, by stressing the social media responses, readers will buy the book, read and make up their own minds. Then they tend to recommend it ‘as a good read’.

http://www.ryanscottkennedy.com/
http://www.hazeledwards.com/

Publisher: Ford Street Publishing
ISBN: 9781876462901
AUD$19.95
Category: Young Adult Fiction

Some Girls

(My Life in a Harem)

by Jillian Lauren

Random House Australia, Autobiography , Paperback, rrp $ 34.95

I was expecting excitement and exotica. Even a little erotica. The reality of Jillian Lauren’s experience of life in a harem was none of these things. It was an existence ruled by the struggle for the prince’s attention and the accompanying position and power it brought within the harem’s social hierarchy.

Jillian Lauren wanted to be an actress. But minor opportunities and seedy roles found her working in a strip club to pay the bills. The promise of good money in return for livening up the parties of a rich businessman for two weeks was an offer too good to refuse.

Prince Jefri Bolkiah was the youngest brother of the Sultan of Brunei. He lived a life of extravagant luxury, surrounded by a changing carousel of beautiful women. Despite her initial cynicism, Jillian soon discovered that like all the girls in the harem, she was in love with ‘Robin’, as the prince was known. Expensive gifts were valueless compared to a night spent in his company.

Jillian actively participated in the jealous schemes and alliances within the harem, trying to enhance her position and the prospect of time with Robin. She became a favourite and when her contract expired, she stayed in Brunei.

But rugs and riches do not equal happiness and Jillian eventually left to rebuild a life in New York and write this autobiographical account. Some Girls will appeal to those who have secretly wondered about life in a harem. Many, like me, will be surprised at what they discover.

http://www.jillianlauren.com/