I just chanced on this book in the library sale, 50c well spent, worth much much more. I was captivated by it. It is part Bio, part 'How to read a Book' and part 'How Kelly writes ...'.
Very enjoyable ... The book came about when she was invited to vote in yet another 'Best 100 Books Ever Written' ...
You just know that these lists will be filled with best sellers not 'Best Books Ever Written'. Like Kelly I largely ignore best sellers, I keep my eyes pealed and ears tuned for other recomendations, like books that motivated great writers.
Anyway Kelly is living and writing an interesting life. Throughout discussing books she is reading or has discarded.
A lively read. And she presents her 'Best 100 books' at the end.… (mais)

Marcado

GeoffSC | Jul 25, 2020 |

Daylight second de Kelly Ana Morey

This proved to be an enjoyable read. The story is set against the background of the depression years. It follows the the life of a New Zealand born colt, who is shipped to Australia. This gangling young horse grows to become the internationally famous, Phar Lap taking out the prized Melbourne Cup along with many other races. Attempts are made on his life as he proves to hard to beat. However he meets his end in America, as he is penalized out of contention in Australia.
The author also introduces the reader to his New Zealand born trainer, Harry Telford and Australian stable hand Tommy Woodcock who together recognise, train and nurture this talented horse to stardom. The reader witnesses the impact their intense focus has on the personal lives and loves of these two men.
I believe this is the first fictionalized account of the Phar Lap story. It is a worthwhile read and I can understand why both countries lay claim to this once great horse.… (mais)

Marcado

HelenBaker | 1 outra resenha | Dec 21, 2019 |

Bloom

My discovery of this absorbing novel is due to serendipity. I’d been exploring Teara, the Encyclopaedia of New Zealand online when (via Creative and Intellectual Life/Literature/Maori fiction) I came across the entry for Kelly Ana Morey and mention of her first, award-winning novel Bloom (2003) which won the Best First Book Prize at the Montana New Zealand Book Awards in 2004. Intrigued, I hunted around until I found a second-hand copy. Now that I’ve read it, I’m keen to find copies of her other novels: Grace is Gone (2004), On an island, with consequences dire (2007) and Quinine (2010).

Trained as an art historian, Morey worked as the Royal New Zealand Navy’s oral historian (from which came the book Service from the sea (2008) about the Navy Museum’s collection) – and perhaps it’s the visual artist’s way of looking at the world that has influenced her writing. On almost every page there are images rendered in exquisite and often sensual detail:

I looked in the direction of his pointed finger and caught the flare of the sun on a corrugated-iron roof. Alistair produced an apple from his pocket and began to polish it on the leg of his tan cotton shorts. ‘Would you like half?’ he asked, holding up the gleaming apple for my inspection.
‘Yes please.’
Using a penknife hanging from a waxy string around his neck, Alistair cut the apple in half, giving me the piece that had the reddest skin. Juice oozed from the cut surface, dripping onto my hands. I licked the sugary liquid from my fingers. It tasted of the sun. (p. 133)

The blurb teases readers who might be looking for a conventional crime novel:

Constant Spry, newly liberated of her waitressing job, is summoned home by her grandmother, the irrepressible Mrs Algebra Spry. Accompanied by Nanny Smack, the ghost who crochets tomorrow’s sky, Connie journeys south to Goshen – a crossroads caught between the mountain and the sea. And, slowly but surely, she gathers the myriad threads that are the lives and loves of the four murderous and conveniently forgetful Women Spry.

Instead, the ‘murders’ – all four of them – are gradually revealed to be more like misadventures as the novel progresses lightheartedly through a century and a half. Connie returns home with a sense of curiosity about her elusive father (as well she might), and pursues her personal history through the memories, anecdotes and old photos of the women in her life. The murkiness of the male line contrasts with the common preoccupation with family genealogy: this is not a family that can construct a neat family tree. Morey’s women are triumphantly not 'respectable'.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/07/14/bloom-by-kelly-ana-morey-bookreview/… (mais)

Marcado

anzlitlovers | Jul 14, 2018 |

Daylight Second de Kelly Ana Morey

New Zealand born Phar Lap became the favourite of the Australian racetracks during the depression years. Born in Seadown, Timaru in 1926, trained in Australia where he set new track and race records, to his final race in Mexico and his untimely death there in 1932, this book spans the lives of horse trainer Harry Telford (1877-1960) and Phar Lap's constant companion Tommy Woodcock (1905-1985). Harry's research into his bloodlines see an ungainly colt with a warty face known as 'Lot 41', grow up into a gigantic chestnut gelding who was so good that he received death threats and even an attempted shooting. An imagined biography and tale of two very different marriages, those of Harry and Tommy, this book gives a great insight into life in those depression years as well as human failings, egos and high stakes.… (mais)