A common theme emerges if you search online for 'menopause cartoons'. There's no shortage of offerings - over 7 million results when I Googled recently - and they overwhelmly depict women looking dumpy, dowdy and elderly....My generation - Gen X - don't consider ourselves old, or dowdy, or past it. I read This Changes Everything: … Continue reading This Changes Everything | Niki Bezzant #NZnonfiction
The other day, a new Classic Club Spin was announced. When I went to check my CC LIST #2 for which books were left, I realised I had been a bit slack about updating it. By the time I added in my recent review of Voss, I was delighted to discover that CC LIST #2 … Continue reading Classics Club List #3
Voss Readalong November 2022 Opening Lines: "There is a man here, miss, asking for your uncle," said Rose. And stood breathing. I love this opening. I can just see Rose, the hard-working, impatient, put-upon servant being asked to do something she doesn't normally have to do on a Sunday, and doing it huffily and with … Continue reading Voss | Patrick White #ReadtheNobels
Tonight’s Socceroo themed Opera House Not my usual post I know, but since 2005 thanks to Mr Books, B25 & B22 football has been a huge part of my life. This past week I’ve had to live with some tired, grumpy but ultimately very happy early morning World Cup viewers. At 6am AEST the Socceroos … Continue reading Living on a dream
Stories & Shout Outs with bronasbooks.com November was a HUGE blogging month, and in the end, I only just managed to keep up with AusReading Month. Non-fiction November fell by the wayside as I could not keep up with all the posting and reading. In attempt to relieve this blogging bottleneck, I am contemplating a … Continue reading Stories & Shout Outs #55
AusReading Month 2022 Thank you one and all for your reviews and comments throughout November. It's a busy blogging month, so I appreciate how creative you are at combining the various book events. To this end, I have been thinking about 2023. When I first started AusReading Month in 2013, I chose November because of … Continue reading AusReading Month | Wrap up + Poll
Accidentally Kelly St illustrated by Briony Stewart with lyrics by Tim O’Connor from Frente! For people of a certain age, or perhaps people who had young children in 1992/93, you will remember the bubbly, joyful, effervescent pop group Frente! bouncing around our screens in colourful clothes, hair rollers and pearls. Accidentally Kelly Street was the … Continue reading A few Australian children’s books to finish off AusReading Month 2022
Burning Questions is my third collection of essays and other occasional pieces. The first Second Words, which began in 1960, when I started publishing book reviews, and ended in 1982. The second was Moving Targets, which gathered materials from 1983 to mid-2004. Burning Questions runs from mid-2004 to mid-2021. So, twenty years, give or take, … Continue reading Burning Questions | Margaret Atwood #CANessays
Me, Antman and our mongrel, Fleabag, like partyin outside. We both come from the bush. Me, I'm a NSW desert girl and Antman's mob are river people. Cos we aint got no river or desert here in the city, we like sittin in the park yarnin, having a charge, playin country music. We don't cause … Continue reading Me, Antman & Fleabag | Gayle Kennedy #AWWfiction
This is the catch-up week. If you have fallen behind, or lost your way, like Voss, you have two extra days this week to make up time! I will post a final AusReading Month post on the 30th November with a full book review ofVoss in the days immediately after that. A review, where hopefully, … Continue reading Voss Readalong – Week 4
At the time the pigeon affair overtook him, unhinging his life from one day to the next, Jonathan Noel, already past fifty, could look back over a good twenty-year period of total uneventfulness and would never have expected anything of importance could ever overtake him again- other than death some day. What on earth do … Continue reading The Pigeon | Patrick Süskind #DEUnovella
Opening Lines: Early on Sunday, after first Mass in Clonegal, my father, instead of taking me home, drives deep into Wexford towards the coast where my mother's people came from. It is a hot day, bright, with patches of shade and greenish, sudden light along the road. Foster was the buddy read chosen by Cathy … Continue reading Foster | Claire Keegan #IRLnovella
The Jew's Beech | Annette von Droste-Hülshoff A Picture of Life among the Hills of Westphalia Where is the hand so fraught with gentle art That tangled skein of narrow mind may part, So steadfast that untrembling it may throw The stone upon a wretched creature's woe? Who dares to measure surge of vain ambition, … Continue reading The Jew’s Beech | Annette von Droste-Hülshoff #DEUnovella
Voss Readalong - Week 3 Firstly, apologies. The first two weeks of AusReading Month and the Voss Readalong ended up being far busier than I had anticipated. The weekend away I knew about and planned for, but the unexpected, surprise visit from B25 and his GF this week threw several other plans out the window … Continue reading Voss Readalong – Week 3
Opening Line: Here she is, standing in the schoolyard. She is six years old, dressed in a crisp green uniform. Other children are on the swings and seesaw, but she has taken herself off to stand alone under the eucalyptus at the edge of the playground. Nothing Ever Happens Here: A Memoir of Loss and … Continue reading Nothing Bad Ever Happens Here | Heather Rose #AWWmemoir
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