Gremill wrote:

acemuzzy wrote:

Anyone else on The Testaments then? This good.

I've got it, but haven't started it yet.

tigersgogrrr wrote:

Thumbs up.

Did you prefer it to Uprooted?

Tempy wrote:

You might have The Shinning

Facewon wrote:

Finished trigger warnings. Fantastic.

On to "A rightful place"

Its a series of essays released to coincide with the Uluru statement from the heart.

(statement now spoilered because it's longer than I thought in this format.)

Spoiler:

"We, gathered at the 2017 National Constitutional Convention, coming from all points of the southern sky, make this statement from the heart:
Our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tribes were the first sovereign Nations of the Australian continent and its adjacent islands, and possessed it under our own laws and customs. This our ancestors did, according to the reckoning of our culture, from the Creation, according to the common law from ‘time immemorial’, and according to science more than 60,000 years ago.
This sovereignty is a spiritual notion: the ancestral tie between the land, or ‘mother nature’, and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who were born therefrom, remain attached thereto, and must one day return thither to be united with our ancestors. This link is the basis of the ownership of the soil, or better, of sovereignty. It has never been ceded or extinguished, and co-exists with the sovereignty of the Crown.
How could it be otherwise? That peoples possessed a land for sixty millennia and this sacred link disappears from world history in merely the last two hundred years?
With substantive constitutional change and structural reform, we believe this ancient sovereignty can shine through as a fuller expression of Australia’s nationhood.
Proportionally, we are the most incarcerated people on the planet. We are not an innately criminal people. Our children are aliened from their families at unprecedented rates. This cannot be because we have no love for them. And our youth languish in detention in obscene numbers. They should be our hope for the future.
These dimensions of our crisis tell plainly the structural nature of our problem. This is the torment of our powerlessness.
We seek constitutional reforms to empower our people and take a rightful place in our own country. When we have power over our destiny our children will flourish. They will walk in two worlds and their culture will be a gift to their country.
We call for the establishment of a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution.
Makarrata is the culmination of our agenda: the coming together after a struggle. It captures our aspirations for a fair and truthful relationship with the people of Australia and a better future for our children based on justice and self-determination.
We seek a Makarrata Commission to supervise a process of agreement-making between governments and First Nations and truth-telling about our history.
In 1967 we were counted, in 2017 we seek to be heard. We leave base camp and start our trek across this vast country. We invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future."

Its fascinating and frustrating. (still no treaty and still no constitutional recog or voice to parliament as recommended.)

Noel Pearson writes the first essay, and he's an exceptional writer and thinker.

Some of his insights have been setting off light bulbs, and (the good side of his being a lawyer) some if his clarifications and distinctions of words we can take to be pajoritive to easily (conservative) are awesome.

His discussion of the history wars is so on point too.

Raiziel wrote:

From one mad yellow to another.  Started Robert Chambers The King in Yellow today.  Two stories down and it’s very good so far.

davyK wrote:

Finished the 3rd Jack Reacher novel. Tripwire Dependable stuff this. I've enjoyed this series so far. This sees Reacher more as a detective than a strongarm. Also dips into his history more. Seems to be a transitional book for the character. Good stuff. So easy to read and an interesting bad guy. Felt a bit more "filmic / movie-esque" but that is no bad thing. The books so far have covered different skill sets (prev book about marksmanship) and it is filling the Reacher character out nicely. I can see why there are 22 of these things as each so far has felt sufficiently different. I'll keep going with the series which is a rare thing for me. I'm reading them in sequence but I'm leaving a gap between them so they don't merge into one.