AustLit

'THE SOUND OF waves just behind me filled my ears. My bare feet on the hot sand made me feel vaguely uncomfortable. I gently lifted them up and down, like a comical kind of marching: left, right, left, right, up and down, up and down. My arms joined in, swinging forwards and backwards in time. The twelve days of Christmas were always significant in our family story, give or take a day or two. In the demarcation of our coastal life, the things that preceded and followed our annual trip to the beach – the buying, the wrapping and unwrapping of gifts, the packing and unpacking of bags – coincided, oddly, with the re-boxing of unwanted presents and the release of our urban bodies set free by the sea.' (Introduction)

'She's a Brisbane-based songwriter and an award-winning producer of radio documentaries, and in this memoir Linda Neil travels the world, playing music and meeting people along the way. In this extract she recalls as a teenager being given the seemingly tedious duty of reading books to a blind neighbour. But what happened next surprised both the reader and the listener.' (Publication abstract)

'In this captivating memoir, Linda Neil shares stories of travel, taking us from the glitz of Shanghai to wintry London, from the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar to inner-city Sydney. Writing songs and playing music as she traverses the globe, Linda finds her life enriched in ways she never could have imagined. As she forges unexpected connections with people, places and even her past, she discovers that everyone everywhere has their own story to tell.

'Suffused with wild beauty, and rendered with deep emotion, All Is Given is an exquisite tribute to curiosity, spontaneity and the joys of travel.' (Publication summary)

'Like her travel agent in New Delhi, she had expected The Bird Lover’s Inn in Bharatpur to be no more than a one-star hotel: a sparse room with a dusty fan, a tap with a bucket in the bathroom, a bed with a thin foam mattress, and perfunctory accessories. But this time the brochure had not lied when it had offered her a ‘newly appointed room, off the well-beaten road close to the bird lover’s paradise’—well, as far as she knew anyway. It was dark when she arrived from Agra, so she did not know if the road was well-beaten or close to any kind of paradise. But she is both charmed and relieved by the attractive freshness of the new rooms at The Bird Lover’s Inn, the marble floors, the blue linen curtains and matching bed covers, especially the size of the bathroom. Her eyes water when she sees the deep bathtub, the shiny new faucets, the stand-up shower. After two months in India she is beginning to be able to smell her own hair, the dust and grime that have settled in its thickness, the premature greyness endowed upon her by the layers of mist and smog through which she has walked every day. The usual handheld showers never offered enough pressure to properly penetrate her thicket of amber curls; for a month now she has relied on surface moisture, perfunctory cleansing and leave-in conditioner. Her hair has developed textures that have nothing to do with hair: inorganic, hybrid, with smells and consistencies that have changed its colour more uniformly than any dye she might have used.'  (Introduction)

'Via the technological marvel of the internet, first conceived of by Leonardo Da Vinci, her favourite genius, Hannah is amazed to find herself talking to Leonardo himself. Hannah shares her 14-year-old girl-troubles with him, while Leonardo is greedily curious about everything in Hannah's time.'

Source: ABC Radio National's Airplay website, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/airplay/
Sighted: 14/09/2009

'When musician Linda Neil returns home to Brisbane to care for her ailing mother, Joan, a singing teacher, she has no idea what she is committing to, or even that she is committing at all.

'The experience will change her life.

'Connected by a deep love of music - from Linda's own songs and the works of the classical masters, to the musical comedy of the dance hall and the sounds of the street - Linda finds a new bond with her mother. As Joan's illness progresses, their shared musical passion soothes and instructs, helps them to make sense of what is happening and, finally, to accept it.

'Beautifully written and deeply felt, Learning How to Breathe is a daughter's love song to her mother, an unforgettable true story about what it means to find home.' (From the publisher's website.)

In the spring of the New Millennium, when word first began circulating about the legendary exploits of The New Passion Club, writer and musician Linda Neil was given the task of collating and editing the vast archive material collected from the Club for the purpose of preserving in sound and text, the stories, songs and music that sprang from the performance nights at the now infamous underground venue. The characters and artists who came and went, whose stories and songs are so much a part of the story of the Club itself, are presented here together for the first time, to be enjoyed as an interactive reading and listening experience. 1

The stories, transcribed from the oral narratives of the club's anonymous storyteller, chronicle the inside world of some of the club's most memorable characters, including Emerald Green, The Spaceman, Painter Bob, Lula Bliss, Justine the Magnificent and the Dictionary Man. The songs and music are actual bootleg recordings lifted from the sound desk and remixed by Linda Neil with the help of Indie music legend, Ed Kuepper. - Dotlit