March 2024 Books

Cytonic – Brandon Sanderson

This is the third book in the Skyward series. The best thing about the series is how each book expands the world-building. In this book, Spensa travels into the Nowhere. She meets a whole new group of characters who she bonds with, trains with and then defeats their foes, which is, unfortunately, a bit of a repeat of the plots of the first two books. Overall though, the story in these books has captured my attention and kept me engaged. I have the next book in the series on hold at the library. (4 stars)

Gondwana Theology: A Trawloolway man reflects on Christian Faith – Garry Worete Deverell

I’ve been trying to read more by First Nations authors because I feel I’ve got much to learn about living in this country. There were many helpful insights in this book that enabled me to further my understanding of First Peoples’s spirituality and also how the author seeks to understand it in light of Christian Theology. Having only recently started attending a church that uses the Book of Common Prayer I was interested in the postscript “A Christian Eucharist for Gondwana.” A rite written by the author that “seeks to create a conversation between the two [First Nations experience with God and the Anglo-Catholic tradition] that will open up new regions of imagination in all of us concerning God, neighbour, and our shared habitation in Australia” (4 stars)

Lines of note: “The land is therefore something of a sacred text for Indigenous peoples. Properly read and understood, it shows us who we are and what we are to do in this world. … By attending to its secrets, the call and address of the divine can be clearly discerned.”

This invocation and praise from the postscript is fabulous:
“Come Holy Spirit, wild willy-wind of God; when we studiously ignore your claims on our lives, please don’t take no for an answer!
Come Holy Spirit, come change our hearts.

Come Holy Spirit, friend of Jesus and living water; when our lives become dry and barren and deadly, surprise us with your falling showers of joy.
Come Holy Spirit, come change our hearts.

Come Holy Spirit, friend of nomads, apostles and saints; when our lives have become habitual to the point of absurdity, drag us into pilgrimage with you. Take us with you into the strange and dangerous places of God.
Come Holy Spirit, come change our hearts.“

Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens – Shankari Chandran

Cinnamon Gardens is a Nursing Home in the suburb of Westgrove, Sydney. It has residents of many ethnic backgrounds and is run by an immigrant family from Sri Lanka. The story was, at times, uncomfortable reading. Although fictional, it does bring to light how casual racism, majority defensiveness, and entitlement could escalate with devastating consequences. Through flashbacks, we also learn about the history of the Tamil characters with flashbacks to the Sri Lankan Civil War. I did not know much about this, but it sounds horrific. Miles Franklin Award Winner. (5 stars)

Hello Beautiful – Ann Napolitano

After an early tragedy in his family, William grows up with parents who can hardly bear to look at him. Talent on the basketball court gets him out of his hometown and into college, where he meets Julia, a woman who knows what she wants. Wrapped up in Julia’s loving family, things look good until the consequences of a childhood without love surface with devastating consequences. I enjoyed this book. It was fairly slow-moving at the start, but I had a few later nights once I got into it. A satisfying read. (4 stars)