AustLit

'After I swim, I watch an osprey hanging in mid-air. It looks like pure pleasure, suspended, its wings barely beating. If those who came before really do dissolve and dissipate, and if their cells really are all around us, then that bird is held there by Mum and Peter and my grandmother Molly and Ning and Grandpa and billions of others of the long-dead. The osprey, on its updraft, is kept aloft by absences. Perhaps I am too.

'When her husband of nearly thirty years doesn't answer his phone, Ailsa Piper knows something is wrong. She calls their neighbour to ask him to check. Minutes later, he rings back. 'Oh, Ailsa. I'm so sorry,' he says. Five words to change a life...

'Wanting to flee her shattered world in Melbourne, Ailsa migrates north. She rejects all advice, trusting a Sydney real estate agent to find her a nest - and he does, in a sunlight-filled haven. Soon, the harbour works its way into her days. She learns to swim. She walks, up to the lighthouse and along sandstone cliffs, meeting the locals: winter swimmers, shoreline philosophers, and others, like her, hiding sorrow in plain sight.

'But we never leave our pasts behind. Ailsa is drawn back to the south, and even farther back, to the aqua waters of the west. Home, it would seem, is not just one place ...

'For Life is a testament to the healing power of the natural world, a celebration of renewal and wonder, and an unflinching look at grief. It calls us to bear witness to death, and perhaps even embrace it as part of life's raucous cacophony. Above all, For Life is a beacon of hope.' (Publication summary)

'Dear Ailsa, Sometimes I wonder whether the friendship that has caught us both - a most unlikely friendship I must confess - might find an echo in a far off Irish village somewhere in the wild, windy hills of old Donegal. Or am I allowing that uncontrollable imagination of mine too much slack? This is the story of an unlikely friendship...When priest and Sydneysider Tony Doherty emailed Melbourne-based writer and performer Ailsa Piper to say how much he had enjoyed her latest book, he was met with a swift reply from a similarly enquiring mind. Soon emails were flying back and forth and back again. They exchanged stories of their experiences as sweaty pilgrims and dissected dinner party menus. They shared their delight in Mary Oliver's poetry and wrestled with what it means to love and to grieve. This energetic exchange of words, questions and ideas grew into an unexpected but treasured friendship...Collected here is that correspondence, brimming with empathy, humour and a fierce curiosity about each other and the worlds, shoes and histories that they inhabit. Described by one reader as 'a demonstration of how to have a conversation and a friendship', The Attachment is an intriguing, entertaining and moving celebration of family, faith, connection-even the correct time of day to enjoy rhubarb...Dear Tony, Funny how our ears tune in to things. How our priorities shift based on who and what we know. How we come to care about such abstract or remote things through the experience of another. Lovely, somehow, but so serendipitous. All the other things we might care about. All that we might have missed had we not stopped to care for this person. I'm glad we stopped for each other.' (Publication summary)

'"I WILL WALK OFF YOUR SINS
Pilgrim seeks sinners for mutually beneficial arrangement.
Seven Deadlies a speciality."

'With those words Ailsa Piper sought sponsors for a 1300km solo walk across Spain. She worried people would think she'd joined a cult. She worried her knees would give out—and not from praying! She worried that 30kms a day for six weeks, with a swag of sins for company, would send her mad. But she went.

'She began at Easter, a time of sin and reflection—but not hot cross buns, as she discovered. She hiked olive groves, searched for lodgings in refuges and sports centres, and "did the crying" for those who'd sponsored her.

'As a child, Ailsa's plea was "Don't cry. Don't cry. Let me do the crying!" Her walk took that to new extremes! Like medieval believers who paid others to carry their sins to holy places, and so buy forgiveness, Ailsa's donors confessed to anger and envy, pride and lust, sloth and selfishness, among others. Along the way, their sins became hers. She was tempted and she battled. On one occasion, she was saved by a fellow pilgrim's snoring, proving sharing a room with forty belching, grunting blokes can be a blessing!

'Miracles also found her. Matrons stuffed homemade sausages into her pack. Angels in name and nature eased her path. And she fell in love: with kindness, strangers, and Spain.

'She came home changed—as were many of her sinners. Their stories made her believe in the power of confession—acknowledging we're all sinners. All saints.

'Sinning Across Spain celebrates the blessing of bathtubs, the benediction of bunions, and the simple act of setting down one foot after the other.' (From the publisher's website.)