Tag: audiobook

The Yield by Tara June Winch

Posted October 9, 2020 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Historical Fiction / 6 Comments

The Yield by Tara June WinchTitle: The Yield (Goodreads)
Author: Tara June Winch
Published: Penguin Random House, 2019
Pages: 343
Genres: Historical Fiction
My Copy: Audiobook

Buy: AmazonBook DepositoryKindleWordery (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

While my interest in reading sides more with translated literature, I still read books from local authors. This is mainly as a result of my in-real-life book club that I attend, although I this year has seen more American crime novels sneak into my reading life than the norm. This is the reason I recently read Tara June Winch’s latest novel The Yield. The novel tells a story from three different perspectives and  how choices made multiple generations ago still effect people now.

I am unsure if I am out of practice, or just not sure what to say, but I having a hard time trying to put all my thoughts on this book down on paper. Basically, The Yield tells the story of August Gondiwindi who has returned home for her grandfather’s funeral. Knowing he was about to die, he had written down the experiences he had living near the Murrumby River at Prosperous House, on Massacre Plains and a dictionary he was constructing of Wiradjuri words. The third narrative is letters from a German Lutheran missionary, Reverend Greenleaf talking about the early years of the settlers.

These three narratives tell the story of the lasting effects of colonialism, the intergenerational trauma and how it effects the people and the land. I find it had to talk about this novel, but I think this is an important novel to read, especially for white Australia. The narrative from Reverend Greenleaf stood out, due to the way he tried to help the true owners of the land and protect them from greedy white settlers but not every choice he made felt right. He came across as a white saviour, because he was imposing his own values on these people. When World War I hit, he was met with his own hostility from white settlers as a German.

August’s story is the primary plot, and it is interesting that she plays the role of an outsider, someone that has moved away. Tara June Winch is based in France, so the narrative of August feels like it might be autobiographical in the way she might feel, I do not know her story, but I get the sense based on this novel, she might be treated as an outsider for being an Aboriginal to the white people, but treated as an outsider to her country for leaving. This is how I feel August’s narrative works, she still sees herself as part of her community and tries to help but there are people that do not trust her and treat her like an outsider.

Within the August narrative, the area of Massacre Plains is under threat from a mining company that wants to dig up their land for tin. A very relevant topic for Australia, since Rio Tinto has recently demolished a 46,000-year-old Aboriginal site, and they are not the sole culprits. It is said mining giants BHP Billiton have destroyed at least 40 significant Aboriginal sites in the past year. The mining industry in Australia is big business but the cultural damage they are doing to the different Aboriginal lands is beyond reproach.

Essentially The Yield is a novel about the psychological and cultural damage facing the different Aboriginal communities around Australia. You get to see the effects of colonialism, and the damage that is done to these people, plus the current degradation being done by the Australian government and the mining companies that pay those politicians. However, in the midst of all that, Tara June Winch has crafted a stunning novel that is funnier than I expected based on the subject matter. The Yield has been a big success in the Australian literary scene, it even won the 2020 Miles Franklin Literary Award, which is Australia’s highest literary award. The novel is showing up around the world and I hope it has just as much a success there; this really is a great book.


Yes Please by Amy Poehler

Posted December 6, 2014 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Humour, Non-Fiction / 4 Comments

Yes Please by Amy PoehlerTitle: Yes Please (Goodreads)
, 2014
Pages: 400
Buy: AmazonBook DepositoryKindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

For those who don’t know Amy Poehler, then let me clear this part up first. Poehler is a comedian/actor who studied improv before working for Saturday Night Live from 2001 to 2008. In 2009 a spin-off from the American version of The Office was created and Poehler took the lead role in this show called Parks and Recreation. The character Leslie Knope is a perky, mid-level bureaucrat with big hopes and dreams in the small fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana. Parks and Rec follows this government department in a single-camera, mockumentary style as they try to jump through all the hoops to do something as simple as fill in the construction pit in an abandoned lot and create a park. The seventh and final season of Parks and Recreation is set to begin during the mid-season of the 2014–15 season.

Author photo

Amy Poehler is not the first Parks and Rec star to release a memoir; Nick Offerman’s (who plays Ron Swanson) book Paddle Your Own Canoe finds him musing about life, manliness, wood work and how to best grill meat. However Poehler’s book was marketed as companion to Saturday Night Live co-star and friend Tina Fey’s Bossypants, rather than Offerman’s memoir. This is possibly due to the huge success of Fey’s memoir and the fact the two often work as a comedy duo.

I picked up Paddle Your Own Canoe as an audiobook because I liked the idea of Ron Swanson narrating and I decided to do the same with Yes Please. Amy Poehler made the audiobook a unique event, with guest stars and banter that I don’t expect appeared in the book. This allowed the listeners to enjoy a different experience to that of reading the book which I know has some pictures to look through instead. I have stopped listening to fiction in audio form because of personal preferences, which has allowed for more podcasts and non-fiction audiobooks. I feel like non-fiction and memoirs seem to work really well as audiobooks; I am not sure why but it just works really well.

What I found interesting about Yes Please was the memoir style; this wasn’t told in a linear format, rather a collection of essays that went back and forward depending on the topic. I really liked this style it allowed more focus on particular topics and allowed Amy Poehler to explore things in her own way. I was also impressed with how strong and confident she comes across in the book; when it came to talking about her divorce with Will Arnett she just simply stated it wasn’t a topic she wanted to go into and then moved on. I think people expect all the juicy and dark details on someone’s life in a memoir and I liked how she just brushed it off, proclaiming “This isn’t a topic I wish to share”. She does share some darker moments but for the most part she wants to come across as a positive and happy person.

Amy Poehler has a strong and passionate attitude towards life and in the end Yes Please really wants people to know that it is okay to be yourself. There were tender moments throughout the book and if you are a fan of Parks and Recreation, you might tear up when she shares her love towards every star within the show. She also spends a lot of time talking about her improv days and trying to make it into show business, reminding people persistence and passion is needed; if you love what you do, then why do anything else.

I really enjoyed reading Yes Please, maybe not as much as Paddle Your Own Canoe but it was still interesting to learn about someone’s life. While some may think that Amy Poehler has let the reader down by refusing to share some parts of her life, I think it really showed integrity. Just because she is an actor doesn’t mean her life is an open book. Parks and Rec fans should pick up this book, but also anyone interested in reading a memoir about someone passionate about life and their job will find Yes Please a great book.


Book Juggling

Posted October 19, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Literature / 0 Comments

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I’m curious to know if you read one book at a time or juggle books and if you do read multiple books, then how do you do it? I know some people prefer to read one book at a time and I’m not sure how they manage that; sometimes I wish I could be that focused but I read in multiple locations so it is easier to have a few books on the go at a time.

Here is how I go about juggling books. I have one book on the go while at work (normally an ebook) and an audiobook in the car. At home it depends on what I’m reading but normally a physical book and sometimes a short story collection as well. I just can’t read a short story collection the same way I would read a normal book. This is the general formula but it doesn’t always work out that way.

Sometimes a book is so heavy or slow (theoretically a big book as well) that I have two books on the go at home, as I spend most of my time reading there. Then there are those times where I dip into a book as I want to see what it’s like and then put it aside for a while. This isn’t because I didn’t like the book but I just get distracted with other books.

I’ve been very conscious about the amount of books I have on the go at once. I don’t want to fall into a trap where I have ten or more books on the go at the same time. I have had this happen and when I finish one book I always seem to prefer to start a new book than focus on the ones on the go. So I have to be careful. I would love to know how others read and what traps they seem to fall into, whether it is reading multiple books or not.