The Top 5: Female Protagonists from -

A Book Series:

1. 

Violet Baudelaire from A Series of Unfortunate Events       

All of the Baudelaire children have special talents to help them get themselves out of a jam, but Violet’s skill is inventing, and sometimes she makes some downright mechanical things.  If Violet ever made it to university, I’d think she’d go into mechanical engineering.  Seriously, remember the grappling hook in book one???  She does all of her best thinking on her feet, at the same time as keeping her younger siblings safe from evil relatives who want their money, and ingeniously foiled an attempt at robbery by marriage by signing the contract in her NON PREFERRED HAND.  Moral of the story, dear readers?  No one can make you do anything you don’t want to.  And adorable hair ribbons make you smart.

2.       

Ellie Linton from John Marsden’s Tomorrow Series

Despite being played by the whiny girl from Home and Away/ The Sleepover Club in the (frankly abysmal) movie adaptation of this book, I am pretty sure that Ellie’s voice will always be somewhere in my head.  She was tough and street smart, rather than book smart, but she also had the emotional intelligence to see different strengths in all of her friends.  As a leader of the group, alongside her neighbour Homer, Ellie holds the band of teenagers together and her quick thinking ensures their survival through seven books and a sequel series.  It isn’t always a smooth getaway, and Ellie handles grief honestly and plans her revenge accordingly.  I want her on my side in the apocalypse.

3.

Jo March from Little Women

Jo is not sentimental.  She does what it takes, even when that means cutting off her beautiful hair.  While she doesn’t get the passionate love we all hope for her, she still achieves a happy life, and best of all, educates others.  Jo works hard on what matters, has a vivid imagination, and cares about her family… she’d be just fine, husband or none.

4.

Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind

Okay okay, so this isn’t a book series, but it takes you about the same amount of time to read it.  Are you surprised by my inclusion of backstabbing, preening, self-absorbed Scarlett?  This novel shows the most complex and realistic portrayal of disappointment I have ever seen.  The humbling of pretty, bubbly, manipulative Scarlett as she comes to a head against the realities of her life would rival any great Bildungsroman; and the idea that marriage does not lead to happily ever after is greatly under-misrepresented in classic literature.  Indeed, as Colleen McCullough posits in her Pride and Prejudice para-fiction, perhaps Darcy and Elizabeth’s opposing personalities might have turned out like Scarlett’s and Rhett’s had this been given time on the page.

5.

Alanna from The Song of the Lioness Quartet

Tamora Pierce, I miss you.  I miss reading you.  I miss your heroines who disguise themselves as
pages and go off to learn to be knights, all the while bed-hopping with princes!  Alanna or Alan may have had more love interests than a girl of her age or a girl of mine could fully understand, but the insertion of a girl acting against convention in a medieval fantasy series was pure genious.  Way to introduce girl power from an early age!  These novels gave girls like me adventures to play out in my head, ones in which I could be the champion and not the damsel.  Sometimes, I look at the books about fairies and princesses available for young readers and I want to weep. 

_________________________

(photo credit: Mark McGovern)

Emily Paull is a bookseller by day and a writer by night. She has a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in English, Creative Writing and History. Emily blogs at The Incredible Rambling Elimy.

Guest Post: A Study of Termites and Biofuel

I am a first year PhD student from UWA. I have recently handed in my project proposal so it's a great time to share my plans with you. In a sentence, my project is about studying the gut flora of local termite species to find cellulase enzymes useful for the production of bioethanol in Western Australia. 

Let me give you a bit of background...

As you all probably know, fossil fuels are a finite resource and their use contributes to climate change. There is a lot of research going into cleaner, renewable sources of energy. I think this is not an easy problem to solve and that in the end it is probably a combination of solutions that will come into play. Anyway, biofuels are one way to tackle this issue. Bioethanol is a type of biofuel. It is ethanol made from biomass (recently dead or living biological material).

Guest Post: A Sad Place Indeed

The fate of your local independent bookseller

A closing down bookshop is a sad place indeed.

At the time of my writing this, New Edition in Fremantle has just closed its doors. (Sure, it will be opening again in eight weeks, in a new location and under a new owner, and a rose by any other name, right?) To the avid book-buyer, it’s another year, another closure. We all remember the scenes a few years back when Borders and Angus and Robertson both closed their doors almost simultaneously, and like vultures we descended on the carcasses to buy up the remaining stock at a fraction of the retail price. It was the same when Dymocks in High Street closed, and again when the Elizabeth’s Second Hand bookshop closed next door to it a few months after. For the people of Perth, statistics on bookstore closures are beginning to play out before our eyes.