Taking a breather

I love the escape that reading a great novel brings so this week I've read Breath by Tim Winton, this book won the Miles Franklin Literary Award for 2009 recently. I'm unsure how I feel about this coming of age novel. DH bought this book when it was first published and he never said whether he enjoyed it so after the recent award was presented I decided I should read it. One of our local librarians described it to me as "the perfect novel", maybe I'm not learned enough to say that about it! It is well written but I think the last third of the book is disjointed and not enough detail for me, the first part of the book introducing the characters and overall theme is fabulous but it just feels like the book didn't go anywhere for me. Anyway it was an enjoyable but not satisfying read in my humble opinion! We have a few Tim Winton books in our collection, one being a signed uncut hardback edition of Dirt Music (Miles Franklin Literary Award winner for 2002) with the accompanying cd of music which is a good book but not as good as Cloudstreet (another MFLA winner) which is my favourite Tim Winton book of all time.

I've been told by a local authority that Tim's uncle lives locally so one day we might see him visit our area which is on the opposite end of this great continent to which he lives in Western Australia. I'd love to hear this man speak about his writing, his life, and what inspires him. He appears to be a very interesting Aussie character who has added to our world so creatively.