Richard Allen (2)

I wanted to give this book five stars for the photography, and if it had just featured the amazing and well-staged photography, I would have. Unfortunately I found the narration overly-romanticised the subject matter. In non-fiction, I tend to find overly-romanticising nature a problematic narrative device. I also found the description of Indigenous Australian Dreaming jarring. Whether religious or not, it is generally offensive to take an entire culture's spiritual concept and describe it with a sentence like; 'They told fanciful stories about mythical beasts.' To the Indigenous Australians, these stories aren't mythical, and certainly not fanciful. Anymore than one would call the Bible 'fanciful.' To reduce tens of thousands of years of culture to the word 'fanciful,' was for me, an ugly moment in a beautiful book.

The narration did have it's good points, but I felt like it was excessive at times, particularly in the Magnificent Natives and Local Giants chapters. I did particularly enjoy the descriptors of the Private Trees, the Historic Trees and the Foreign Invaders, since I felt these had the most history and depth of research, and showed a great deal of respect for the content matter. I also felt all states of Australia were quite well-represented, and the respect the author has for the trees themselves came through clearly very often.

This book, overall, introduced me to some species of native trees I wasn't familiar with, and time was clearly taken to show magnificent or unusual specimens of each. The Moreton Bay Fig is simply glorious, and it's wonderful to see such great photos of these giant, stand-out trees. I am definitely considering purchasing this book for the photography alone; it is stunning.… (mehr)

Engaging book about the author's bike ride around Australia to raise funds for cancer research. I found the first part through northern New South Wales and Queensland a bit monotonous, but it picks up afterwards. The narrative of the ride along the Gibb River Road, the North West Coastal Highway, and the Eyre Highway at the southern edge of the Nullabor Plain is quite captivating. Having driven the length and breadth of Australia myself (by car, not by bike!) it was a delight to read about the very roads I had traveled on and the places I had visited just a few years before the author.… (mehr)

Apart from this being a really good book about a guy working hard for a cause he believes in, I am loving it because I can go 'hey, I've been there' He even stayed at the same sheep station I stayed at north of Carnarvon in WA. I read where he is and picture myself back there.

Wish it weren't so big, I'd ring it. May leave it at the Darwin Cycle Shop on Mitchell Street as I won't hang onto it 'til Adelaide and he didn't go down the centre.

I really really loved this book and was sad to let it go. As I mentioned before, great to see the places I 'knew' and had been to. Really would have loved to tour with them and heard the Maestro play.… (mehr)