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Geraldine Brooks

Geraldine Brooks Books

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The Secret Chord

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March

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Caleb's Crossing

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Year of Wonders

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Memorial Days

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“I reached for her, pushing back the fall of hair-it was heavy and thick and smooth to the touch-and tilted her chin so that the moonlight shone on her wet face. We married each other that night, there on a bed of fallen pine needles-even today, the scent of pitch-pine stirs me-with Henry's distant flute for a wedding march and the arching white birch boughs for our basilica. At first, she quivered like an aspen, and I was ashamed at my lack of continence, yet I could not let go of her. I felt like Peleus on the beach, clinging to Thetis, only to find that, suddenly, it was she who held me; that same furnace in her nature that had flared up in anger blazed again, in passion.”

LoveDesire
Book:March
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“I wonder where he lies. Wedged under a rock, with a thousand small mouths already sucking on his spongy flesh. Or floating still, on and down, on and down, to wider, calmer reaches of the river. I see them gathering: the drowned, the shot. Their hands float out to touch each other, fingertip to fingertip. In a day, two days, they will glide on, a funeral flotilla, past the unfinished white dome rising out of its scaffolds on a muddy hill in Washington. Will the citizens recognize them, the brave fallen, and uncover in a gesture of respect? Or will they turn away, disgusted by the bloated mass of human rot?”

War
Book:March
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“Are there any two words in all of the English language more closely twinned than courage and cowardice? I do not think there is a man alive who will not yearn to possess the former and dread to be accused of the latter. One is held to be the apogee of man's character, the other its nadir. An yet, to me the two sit side by side on the circle of life, removed from each other by the merest degree of arc. (MARCH - Chapter 11 - page 168)”

Bravery
Book:March
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“She had her head down, her back half turned to me. But even from that partial view, I could see that she was, as David had said, a striking woman: creamy skin, a glossy fall of obsidian hair, which she wore unbound and uncovered. Even in her loose robe it was possible to discern long, slender legs, a supple rounding of hips, and generous breasts, against which the baby lay, his thick shock of hair bearing fiery witness to his paternity. When David presented her she looked up, and I took a step backward. Her eyes were unexpected: a luminous blue. Also shocking: despite her tall, full figure, the face that gazed up at me was the face of a child. She was very young.”

King DavidBathshebaThe Secret Chord
Author:Geraldine Brooks
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“I looked at Batsheva and suddenly felt as I had throughout that long night after I'd returned from Beit Lehem, when I sat up waiting for some stillborn vision. I knew now why I felt so ill that night. All through that vigil, he had been raping her. And I had let myself call it a seduction. As I looked at her now, I was shamed by my own thoughts. In a way, I, too, had violated her.”

King DavidBathshebaThe Secret Chord
Book:The Secret Chord
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“He had scooped up another handful of sand and stared at each grain as it fell through his fingers. 'You are like these. Each a trifling speck. A hundred, many hundreds—what matter? Cast them into the air. You cannot even find them when they land upon the ground. But there are more grains than you can count. There is no end to them. You will pour across this land, and we will be smothered. Your stone walls, your dead trees, the hooves of your strange beasts trampling the clam beds. My uncle sees these things, here and now. And in his trance, he sees that worse is coming. You walls will rise everywhere until they shut us out. You will turn the land upside down with your ploughs until all the hunting grounds are gone. This, and more, my uncle sees.”

Colonisation
Book:Caleb's Crossing
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“Moshup made this island He dragged his toe through the water and cut this land from the mainland." He went on then, with much animation, to relate a fabulous tale of giants and whales and shape-shifting spirits. I let hi speak, because I did not want to vex him, but also because I liked to listen to the story as he told it, with expression and vivid gesture. Of course, I thought it all outlandish. But... it came to me that our story of a burning bush and a parted sea might also seem fabulous, to one not raised up knowing it was true.”

WorldviewPerspectivesRelative Truth
Book:Caleb's Crossing
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“[The haggadah] was made to teach, and it will continue to teach. And it might teach a lot more than just the Exodus story." What do you mean?" Well, from what you've told me, the book has survived the same human disaster over and over again. Think about it. You've got a society where people tolerate difference, like Spain in the Convivencia, and everything's humming along: creative, prosperous. Then somehow this fear, this hate, this need to demonize 'the other' -- it just sort of rears up and smashes the whole society. Inquisition, Nazis, extremist Serb nationalists... same old, same old. It seems to me that the book, at this point, bears witness to all that.”

ReligionPolitics
Author:Geraldine Brooks
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“What's wrong with leading the way? We've played that role before, after all. We gave the world the secret ballot... that did so much to raise living standards and improve conditions for workers worldwide. We were a leader in extending to women the right to vote. We were barely a nation when we set the bar for bravery and sacrifice by common soldiers in foreign wars. We grew up out of racism and misogyny and homophobia to become a mostly tolerant, successful multicultural society. We did these great things because we know we are in it together. It is our core value as Australians.”

KnowsWorldWayWarTogetherValuesNationsLeadershipCommonSecretLeaderRolesSuccessfulEnvironmentSacrificeConditionsGrewGrew UpRacismStandardsVoteBraveryRaisesWorkersSoldierCoreBarsGreat ThingsMisogynyHomophobiaBallotsExtendingRight To VoteMulticulturalCore ValuesLeading The WayMulticultural Society
Author:Geraldine Brooks
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“Write what you know. Every guide for the aspiring author advises this. Because I live in a long-settled rural place, I know certain things. I know the feel of a newborn lamb's damp, tight-curled fleece and the sharp sound a well-bucket chain makes as it scrapes on stone. But more than these material things, I know the feelings that flourish in small communities. And I know other kinds of emotional truths that I believe apply across the centuries.”

KnowsFeelsWritingBelieveWellsKindLongFeelingsCertainI BelieveSoundCommunityCenturyEmotionalMaterialsStonesGuidesChainsAdviseLambsBucketsNewbornMaterial ThingsDampFleeceSmall Communities
Author:Geraldine Brooks
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“But that Franklin trip changed me profoundly. As I believe wilderness experience changes everyone. Because it puts us in our place. The human place, which our species inhabited for most of its evolutionary life. That place that shaped our psyches and made us who we are. The place where nature is big and we are small.”

BelieveHumansMadeBigsI BelieveEnvironmentChangedSpeciesWho We AreWildernessFranklinPsych
Book:Boyer Lectures 2011: The Idea of Home
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“And at this moment in history, our core value happens to be the raw, aching truth of the human predicament. It may also be the only belief that can save us as a species. A species that will continue to find comfort and delight in the companionship of animals, the miracle of birds, the colours of the corals and the majesty of the forests. We are in it together, on this blue spinning marble in the cold and silent void. And we must act on that belief, if we are going to be able to continue to live a good life here, in this beautiful and fragile country, on this lovely planet, our only home.”

IfsHumansMayCountryMomentsHomeHappensAbleTogetherBeautifulValuesBeliefAnimalEnvironmentPlanetsColdComfortBirdMiracleBlueSilentSpeciesDelightCoreLovelyForestsColourGood LifeFragileVoidCompanionshipMajestySpinningMarbleCore ValuesPredicaments
Author:Geraldine Brooks
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“All the times, all the very many times, I had been forced to thwart and stifle my own nature seemed to gather together then, in that hot and dismal corridor. I heard a rushing sound in my head and felt a pressure in my breast, like floodwaters rising behind a flimsy dike. Before I knew I did it, the soup bowl was rising in my hand as if elevated by some supernatural force. Then, its yellow-gray contents were running down the nurse's pudgy face.”

IfsHandsRunningTogetherFacesForceFeltSoundMy OwnBehindsHeardPressureHotRisingBreastsGrayYellowNurseBowlsSoupRushingCorridorsSupernatural Forces
Book:March
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“I am not part of that earlier Australian generation who set off on a deliberate search for fame and fortune in distant lands. My generation was the first that didn't need to. By the 1980's when I left home, our culture had grown deep enough and wide enough to encompass all but the most rarefied of ambitions.”

NeedsFirstsArtEnoughHomeCultureLeftGenerationsLandFameAmbitionFortuneWideDeliberateAustralianMy Generation
Book:Boyer Lectures 2011
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“It is natural to want to forget, Anna, when everyday is a brimful of sadness. But those souls also forgot those that they had loved. You do not want that, surely? I have heard some preach that God wants us to forget the dead, but I cannot believe so. I think He gives us precious recollections so that we may not be parted entirely from those He has given us to love. You must cherish your memories of your babes, Anna, until you see them again in Heaven.”

ThinkingWantGivingBelieveMaySoulGivenHeavenNaturalMemoriesForgetHeardSadnessLove YouEverydayCherishWant UOur MemoriesRecollectionBabeAnna
Author:Geraldine Brooks
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