Australian Women Writers Reading Challenge

I’m joining the Australian Women Writers 2012 Reading and Reviewing Challenge. A quick look at my reading for 2011 shows I read seven books by Australian women across several genres including the recommended The Three Miss Kings by Ada Cambridge, Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, and a book I had meant to read for years, Joan Lindsay’s Picnic at Hanging Rock. There were also the guilty pleasure reads of Kate Morton’s The Distant Hours and Jesse Blackadder’s bloodthirsty historical thriller, The Raven’s Heart.

I’ll have to up the ante for this year so I’m committing to read 10 books by Australian women writers and to review at least four at Bookwoods (apparently this category of the challenge is a Franklin-fantastic).

I have wanted to reread Tirra Lirra by the River by Jessica Anderson for some time, so I’ll definitely do that. I’m also keen to read some more 19^th century women writers. I’ve been intrigued for some time by, but have never read, Handfasted by Catherine Helen Spence, an early Australian speculative fiction work, so I hope to read that if I can find a copy. I’d also like to get in some contemporary writers: Kirsten Tranter’s The Legacy, has been on my ‘to read’ pile, as has Michelle de Kretser’s The Lost Dog. A recommendation on Waleed Aly’s ABC RN program, for Honey Brown’s The Good Daughter also interested me.

I’d definitely like to read some more women’s fantasy novels. We have top fantasy women writers here: Isobel Carmody, Glenda Larke, Fiona McIntosh, Traci Harding, Kim Wilkins, Kate Forsyth to name a few, so I’m spoilt for choice.