Mateship with Birds is, primarily, about Harry, a divorced dairy farmer outside the small regional town of Cohuna, Victoria in the 1950s. I wouldn’t recommend this book anyone, but thankyou first reads for the giveaway. I couldn’t fully understand the point of this story or what the author was trying to make me see. The other half was made up of Harry’s bird observation and poetry that I found extremely boring (I’m not a huge fan of poetry so had to skip over these parts). The animal and child abuse made me sick to my stomach. There was a huge amount of detailed sexual content that was both crude, vile and in my opinion unnecessary. There was nothing I liked or can relate to here.

What could have been an interesting story turned out to be rather confusing and bizarre. Harry also notices that Michael, Betty’s son, is at the age where he is becoming interested in women and takes it upon himself to inform him of the opposite sex.

Betty and Harry are both infatuated by each other they would observe, lust and fantasise over each other from a distance, yet neither of them is willing to make the first move. Harry lives next door to a single mother of 2, Betty. Harry is a middle aged bachelor - if he’s not attending to his dairy farm, he spends most of his free time journal writing, poetry, and bird observation. This story is about the relationship between neighbours, Harry and Betty, and life in a small country town of Victoria in the 1950’s. I was really excited to have won this book after hearing from a friend how much she enjoyed the Carrie Tiffany previous book ‘Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living’.

Mateship with birds by carrie tiffany