In London during the WW1, Peg and her identical twin sister, Maude, fold and gather the pages of books in the Oxford printing house along with other women. The men, in a different section, edit and design the covers. Peg wants nothing more than to read the books but her job doesn’t allow her. She eagerly takes home faulty books. While her sister is content at her mundane job, Peg dreams of attending Oxford Somerville College across from the printing house, but what are the chances for a bookbinder? When refugees arrive after the German invasion of Belgium, a few of the Flemish women join the printing house. Lotte immediately draws close to Maude although Peg was assigned to assist her with the folding process. With the war going on and men leaving their jobs to join up, is there hope for Peg to work at something more challenging than her present job? When she volunteers to read and write for wounded soldiers, she meets Gwen, a privileged woman full of confidence and slowly doors open.
In 1800s China Little Flower’s father dies and her destitute mother takes to Canton and sells her into slavery to the Fong family while keeping her son. She is to be the maidservant to the spoilt Linjing. Despite the practice of foot binding, Linjing has been spared because she is destined to marry a man who does not want his wife to have bound feet. Still, she is jealous of Little Flower whose mother bound her feet at four. Little Flower is an accomplished embroider and Linjing is jealous of the attention her mother pays to the muizai’s skills. At each turn, Linjing destroys Little Flower’s hope of ever being free. Can she ever break free from the confinement and humiliation of being a slave with Linjing quelling goals?
This is an engrossing story encompassing the hardships and narrow lives of all women in a China dominated by privileged men, but a deeper concern, is other woman.
European misrepresentation that Australia’s first peoples were nomadic hunter gatherers has persisted since the continent was first invaded and still persists to a large extent today to justify invasion. However, Pasco examines not only the diaries of many early European explorers who ventured inland, but also archeological sites that confirm that Australian Aborigines not only had permanent settlements often built of stone, but constructed weirs for trapping fish, cultivated grasslands to harvest seeds for flour and tubers, utilized bush burning to replenish these native foods, dug numerous wells and had a democratic system that meant the country before European invasion had never experienced wars.
At the death of Elizabeth’s father, she and her mother move in with her grandfather. And while Elizabeth’s mother doesn’t care for her daughter, her grandfather dotes on her and teaches her all he knows about farming and sheep. After her mother remarries and abandons her daughter, Elizabeth is taken in by her best friend, Bridie’s parents. They are close friends until Elizabeth makes the biggest mistake that will change her life forever.
Read and Write 
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