Hi everyone! Today I have a post that’s a bit different for me. I don’t read that much nonfiction, I mainly read YA fantasy and Sci-fi, YA Contemporary, Romance and Mystery. Nonetheless, from time to time, I’ll pick up a nonfiction book and more times than not, I’ll love it. So, I was thinking the other day that maybe some of you also like to read nonfiction from time to time and if that nonfiction is diverse that’s even better and that’s why I decided to share with you some of my favorite diverse nonfiction books.

Without further ado, here they are:

In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom by Yeonmi Park & Maryanne Vollers

Human rights activist Park, who fled North Korea with her mother in 2007 at age 13 and eventually made it to South Korea two years later after a harrowing ordeal, recognized…

Mullumbimby is Melissa Lucashenko’s fifth book but the first that I have read by this author.  She is of Russian/Ukrainian and Aboriginal Goorie heritage, identifying with the Ygambeh/Bundjalung people of the Byron Bay hinterland around Ocean Shores.  (See her author page at UQP).  Previous books have won all kinds of awards, most notably Steam Pigs (1997) which won the 1998 Dobbie Prize for Australian women’s fiction, and was shortlisted in the NSW Premier’s Awards and the regional Commonwealth Writer’s Prize.

Sue at Whispering Gums reviewed Lucashenko’s short story called ‘The Silent Majority’ the opening lines of which I now recognise almost word-for-word as the opening lines of Mullumbimby, and while liking the story very much as a meditation on stories and their importance, Sue noted that the character Jo – who’s the central character in Mullumbimby – ‘conveys … a sense of cynicism about humans, of all colours’.  That sense of cynicism is…

In 1956. in a letter to her friend Jonet Wilkie, the Melbourne poet Anne Elder (1918-1976) wrote:

Convey deep appreciation to your mother for her remarks in a letter to mine. She puts her finger right on the spot when she says writing verses is something which can still provide satisfaction almost to one’s dying breath.  It is something I have been puddling away at all my life, but only lately have grown confident enough to post them off.  I still get lots of knock-backs & don’t suppose I will ever get very far as I’m too simple minded & about 20 years behind the times as to style.  John [her husband] I suspect is secretly proud of my little successes, but goes cold with fury when he arrives home late at night & finds me with a glazed eye of composition & unwilling to spring up and boil the…

Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) is commemorated each year on the 27th January, because that is the day of the liberation of the Nazi extermination and concentration camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1945.  As it says at Global Dimension, which is a website for teachers promoting learning for a ‘just and sustainable world’:

HMD seeks to highlight the importance of understanding and combating the processes that led to the mass extermination of Jews during World War II, and to recognise that the type of behaviour demonstrated in Nazi Germany was not unique either to Germany or to a particular point in history. More recent events in Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur amply demonstrate the propensity of human beings to engage in mass murder.

The theme for HMD 2018 is ‘The Power of Words‘, exploring how language has been used in the past, and how it is used in the present…

Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) is commemorated each year on the 27th January, because that is the day of the liberation of the Nazi extermination and concentration camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1945. As it says on the HMD website:

Holocaust Memorial Day is the day for everyone to remember the millions of people murdered in the Holocaust, under Nazi Persecution, and in the genocides which followed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur.

The theme for HMD 2019, Torn from home, encourages audiences to reflect on how the enforced loss of a safe place to call ‘home’ is part of the trauma faced by anyone experiencing persecution and genocide. ‘Home’ usually means a place of safety, comfort and security. On HMD 2019 we will reflect on what happens when individuals, families and communities are driven out of, or wrenched from their homes, because of persecution or the threat of genocide, alongside the continuing…

Dumplin’

Directed By: Anne Fletcher

Grade: B+

Dumplin’ is based on the Julie Murphy book of the same name and is showing on Netflix. Which is generally having a good run of YA adaptations. It’s about Willowdean Dixon a plus size girl who as form of protest (and grief) joins her mother’s beloved beauty pageant and inspires several other girls who normally wouldn’t to do the same.

9 to 5

Directed By: Colin Higgins

Grade: B+

9 to 5 was my Blind Spot pick for January. Mainly because I wanted to watch something funny and low-key because I’ve had that song in my head off and on since Dumplin’ in December!

The film is about three overworked harassed women (Jane Fonda, Dolly Parton and Lily Tomlin) who attempt to get even with the creep boss whose taking advantage of them played by Dabny Coleman.

This post is dedicated to Alistair. Check out his incredible seagull shot & say goodbye to the last of my Patagonian bird shots!

A Photo A day … February 07 2013

Click to enlarge for optimal viewing.

Southern Caracara (an aggressive raptor with an up to 52 inch wingspan)

Dolphin Gull (native to Southern Argentina & Chile) It took me awhile to find out what this bird was!

Goslings (these were in Buenos Aires)

Magellan Goose (South American goose)

Southern Lapwing (only crested wader in South America)

Long-tailed Meadowlark (native to Southern South America)

The heron in my prior post is a Black Crowned Night Heron!

Dolphin Gulls are sub-antarctic birds, living in the coastal regions of the southern ocean, and like most gulls can usually be found around boats and people, searching for hand-outs.

They are native to southern Patagonia, specifically Chile, Argentina and The Falkland Islands. Vagrants will visit the Sandwich and South Georgia Islands. They are quite beautiful snow-white birds and are smaller than most gull species, with much shorter, less lethal beaks.

This happy gull likes the freshly fallen rain water,

and drinks all he can the conventional way,

before turning his head almost completely upside down to guzzle more down!

Cheers to you from the Dolphin Gulls of the southern latitudes~