Hi friends, Leanne here. I hope you had a chance to get away and/or spend some quality time with your loved ones and/or had a change of pace over this summer period.

I have been down the Great Ocean Road for a month and enjoyed catching up with extended family and friends, swimming and walks and mostly … very mostly! a change of scene - it has been VERY nice to step outside our lovely neighbourhood for a while after 2020.

But, time has crept by, and summer holidays can’t last forever.

At ACC we’ve been back on deck from this Wednesday 27 January. Kalimna and I are looking through all the emails and getting back to everyone who had enquiries etc. From Monday we’ll dive back into our full program.

In the meantime … just to keep the holiday vibe alive, I thought I could share with you some books I have enjoyed this summer … and seek recommendations for any that I should add to the summer reading pile … there’s still some time to enjoy a book in the sunshine right?

So here’s what I’ve read lately

• Girl Woman Other by Bernadine Evaristo is described as ‘a love song to black Britain told by 12 different people’ and won the 2019 Booker Prize. It is edgy (and gets more outrageous with each chapter that is told by a different character) but also pretty interesting and thought provoking about gender and race in modern times.

• The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams is gentle, and a bit heart breaking along the way. Set at the turn of the last century it is about a girl and the writing of the Oxford Dictionary. It tells her life story whilst exploring the idea that women’s words (like so much of women’s lives) often go unrecorded, even in tomes (such as a dictionary) that exist to record ‘everything’.

• The Yield by Tara June Winch - which I am sure our book groups will be reading in years to come …and our kids at school. It won the Miles Franklin Award in 2020. I can’t recommend it highly enough. It tells a great story … and gently guides you to rethinking and reimagining so many aspects around the traditional representation of our First Nations people - both historically and right now, today. Perfect reading following the discussions around Australia Day!

• I know …it all sounds a bit serious right? To counteract any thoughts that I might be too highbrow in my reading … I confess I also just read the book series that sits behind the new Netflix hit ‘Bridgerton’ - which I have recently received countless recommendations for (the TV show I mean). My friend Trish described the show aptly as a bit ‘saucy’, as are the books by Julia Quinn. As a closet fan of the romance genre (and historical romance to boot), and with a strong constitution for ‘sauciness’, I enjoyed the lighthearted distraction of the books … and I watched The Duke and I as soon as I got home!

So, have you read anything good that you’d recommend? You can use the comment section below to share your reviews … or email us. Perhaps we can put a local recommendations list together of great summer reading from 20/21!