Girl in a Blue Dress ...

[NotQuiteCockney]

Just finished this one. I liked some things about it, and I'm wondering if any other MNers read it recently?

You're Booker-reading, aren't you? I'll impatienty tap my fingers til you get to the Aussies then...

Haven't read this one yet, although I bought a copy - then the LRB review came out the same week (not complimentary) and I somehow haven't picked it up since. Is it worth reading?

Which ones are the aussies? I've got the longlist (or most of it, not sure? Xmas gift), am churning through them (but stopped now, for the weekend papers).

It's ok. I dunno, I generally don't like Victorian things. The basic premise of 'it's a lot like Charles Dickens but not quite', I found a bit annoying, somehow. But the writing is good, the characters are ... ambiguous, you can see things either way ...

I didn't like it much at all. I kept reading and reading and thinking "surely something will happen soon to make me engage with at least one of the characters" but it was like The Magic Porridge Pot - I kept turning the pages and the damn thing just wouldn't stop. I just thought it was tedious - a shame, as she can clearly write.

Yeah, a bit more happening would have been good ... but I felt reasonably engaged with the main character, the evil husband, and the mistress, although to varying degrees ...

@NQC: Steve Toltz and Michelle de Kretser are the Aussies. I was gutted The Lost Dog didn't make the shortlist as I thought it was beautiful. Anyway, I'll hang around here until you get to them...

I actually gave up reading the weekend papers when I was Booker-reading last year! It is surprising quite how much time it takes up.

I've started Lost Dog.

I don't think there are a lot of Aussie writers I like. Um ... Peter Carey? He's ok, he gets published in Granta ... I read a long book once about someone going walkabout (I'm sure you can tell which one it was from that description ) which was alright.

I probably just haven't been exposed to enough of them.