Welcome to this new section of Bright South’s website, which is kicking off with two sparkling reviews by Yaffler MacSweeny. They include Kyle Perry’s The Bluffs, and Heather Rose’s Bruny, which are just the first to arrive off the chopping block.
Yaffler MacSweeny’s reviews are being published as a genuine effort to promote intellectual diversity, literacy and a love of books. lutruwita-Tasmania has low levels of adult literacy, with around half the population ‘functionally illiterate’. Literacy rates are especially low among males, but the state’s rates of literacy are also linked to our older-than-average population and high proportion of rural residency. As Yaffler’s reviews show, however, it doesn’t have to be like this, and the statistics really don’t show the whole story. Yaffler’s reviews have been published with a minimal amount of editing, to preserve the inherent (often beautiful) qualities of his language. It also reminds us that low literacy does not necessarily mean that a person cannot love books and stories.
I hope Yaffler’s reviews will encourage others who don’t feel confident about their ability to read or write to worry less about how they use language and simply embrace lutruwita-Tasmania’s stories. The people of our island have unique experiences of the world, and they use language in special ways to make sense of and communicate those experiences. Often the language we use speaks clearest to those closest to us, and we have wonderful books about lutruwita-Tasmania which we should all be reading more.
I hope you will enjoy Yaffler’s reviews, which we are kicking off with the first two, below. I hope we will be bringing you many more. Please keep an eye out by bookmarking this link (and coming back to check occasionally), or follow Bright South on Facebook. And read on to find out more about Yaffler himself, in his own words.
The Bluffs by Kyle Perry
The main things that stick in the mind about The Bluffs is it starts out like an ordinary police investigation and gets bigger and bigger as the story flows along with wonderful descriptions on the landscapes and surrounding countryside. It was a really Tasmanian kind of small town story I think. READ FULL REVIEW…
Bruny by Heather Rose
The things I liked about Bruny were the classic case of the government going secretive and the negotiating skills led by one person to unravel it all, about pulling the wool over the ordinary Tasmanians’ eyes. I thought the ending was brilliant, the stuff of a Hollywood blockbuster all done on Bruny. READ FULL REVIEW…
Who is Yaffler MacSweeny?
Yaffler MacSweeny is a 40 something living on a 5 acre block in rural southern Tasmania, he’s a keen firewood collector as well as road transport enthusiast and is a model kit car builder and diecast car and truck collector. He has a three legged dog called Bud and likes beach walks and going to cafes. He normally likes big espionage crime and adventure novels by authors such as Matthew Reilly, Clive Cussler and James Patterson and he’s an avid history reader.