From the best-selling author of Strange Weather in Tokyo comes a collection of playful, delightful, delectable Japanese micro-fiction. Take a story and shrink it. Make it tiny, so small it can fit in the palm of your hand. Carry the story with you everywhere, let it sit with you while you eat, let it watch you while … Continue reading People From My Neighbourhood | Hiromi Kawakami #shortstories
Book Stop is an occasional meme that allows me to travel and indulge in a good bookshop or library browse, during these strange, strange times when it's difficult to travel outside our home state, let alone the country. I plan to combine my bookish instincts with my itchy feet and explore the world via bookshops … Continue reading Book Stop #3
I missed out on reading Helen Macdonald's H is for Hawke a few years ago when it first came out to great acclaim. No good reason, just one of those things, so I was determined not to miss out on Vesper Flights. Especially since Macdonald was fortunate enough to get Chris Wormell to once … Continue reading Vesper Flights | Helen Macdonald #NonFiction
Marie Curie is one of my personal heroes. Ever since my Year 12 science depth-study on her, (which incidentally helped me to top the class and receive my one and only first-in-class medal) I have been constantly drawn to her story. As part of my depth-study research, I read Ève Curie's bio about her mother, … Continue reading Marie Curie & Her Daughters | Imogen & Isobel Greenberg
Honeybee by Craig Silvey is my first book club read for 2021. It has taken Silvey over ten years to write this book, after the huge success of his second book, Jasper Jones back in 2009. “I put everything I have into writing Honeybee. It tore me up, but it filled me with joy. I’m enormously … Continue reading Honeybee | Craig Silvey
My Week: Having a birthday in the same week as St. Valentine's Day means I have never got caught up the commercial hype that surrounds today. I'd much rather everyone focus on my special day! But it has been very interesting to observe both B23 and B20 this year with their girlfriends. Despite our parenting … Continue reading Stories & Shout Outs #37
What a mad, mad ride Laura Jean McKay takes you on in The Animals in That Country! During the past week McKay won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for fiction. That was enough for me to rat through my TBR piles looking for the ARC I knew I had tucked away somewhere. In this year … Continue reading The Animals in That Country | Laura Jean McKay #AWW
Thanks to the 2015 Stella Prize, I picked up Ellen Van Neervan's book, Heat and Light to discover the most extraordinary and eclectic collection of stories. I still think about them five years later. So I was thrilled when she published a book of poetry entitled Throat last year. It did not have an easy … Continue reading Throat | Ellen Van Neerven #Poetry
I started this post on the 27th January to commemorate/commiserate the one year anniversary of the first confirmed Covid-19 case in Australia. But these posts always take me longer to write than I think they will. The last Covid Chronicles was in mid December, just as the Northern Beaches cluster was starting. Over the Christmas/NY … Continue reading The Covid Chronicles #10
The very first thing I want to know is how does Emily pronounce her middle name? Does she say it as it looks, 'saint john', or does she use the English pronunciation 'sinjin'? I have no idea, or any good reason, why it has taken me so long to get around to reading this terrific … Continue reading Station Eleven | Emily St. John Mandel #PlagueLit
The Hilary Mantel Wolf Hall Readalong runs from the 1st Feb until the 31st May 2021. I first read Wolf Hall in 2011. I remember that I took it our summer holiday to the beach. After exhausting ourselves in the waves every morning, I would look forward to an hour or so every afternoon, lying in the … Continue reading Wolf Hall Trilogy Readalong Master Post
I spotted this book tag initially as one for books in translation. But after an amazing few months of reading mostly Australian books, I wanted to keep the green and gold momentum going. To join in though, simply change the country to one of your choosing. It could be your country of origin, where you … Continue reading Australian Literature Book Tag
