"Well, there’s so much to read, and I’m so far behind." Wallace Stegner
'Right son, this one's going to the address in Leverstone Road - you go over Vauxhill Bridge and after a few lefts you're almost there. Know where that is?' The porter pointed to the handwritten address on the envelope as he handed it across the desk to the boy, who grasped it, ready to leave … Continue reading Maisie Dobbs #16 The Consequences of Fear | Jacqueline Winspear
It is never easy to move to a new country, but in truth I was happy to be away from New York. That city had become disorientating to me, after my father's death and my mother's sudden retreat to Singapore. For the first time, I understood how much my parents had anchored me to this … Continue reading Intimacies | Katie Kitamura
A few weeks ago, on one of the first days of spring in my eighty-second year, I began a project that seemed likely to provide a neat rounding-off to my career as a published writer. Gerald Murnane is, of course, talking about a project that was intended to be a 'reassuring' and 'undemanding' task purely … Continue reading Last Letter to a Reader | Gerald Murnane #AUSessays
This book was written in the year that was 2020. Best remembered for Covid-19 and a renewed Black Lives Matter movement after the murder of African-American man George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer. The year 2020 was also the 250th anniversary of Captain Cook's voyage along the east coast of so-called … Continue reading Another Day in the Colony | Chelsea Watego
Back in 2020 when I was given my very first proof copy of Richard Osman's The Thursday Murder Club and devoured it one rainy long weekend, I knew he was on a winner. Writing in the genre I call #cosycrime, Osman had nailed the easy-to-read, funny, heart-warming murder mystery. No forensic jargon or gory details … Continue reading The New Thursday Murder Club Mysteries | Richard Osman
Once upon a memory, at the far end of the Mediterranean Sea, there lay an island so beautiful and blue that the many travellers, pilgrims, crusaders and merchants who fell in love with it either wanted never to leave or tried to tow it with hemp ropes all the way back to their own countries. … Continue reading The Island of Missing Trees | Elif Shafak
7 December 1962, Devon 7 REASONS NOT TO DIE: 1. Skin. To never again feel the skin of one's beloved child. Not another fictionalised biography I hear you cry! One day I will work out why I am so drawn to this genre. But for now, I give you Sylvia Plath and Euphoria. What do … Continue reading Euphoria | Elin Cullhed #SWEfiction
The Promise | Damon Galgut (2021) Lately I have been struggling with the how, what, when, where and why of blogging. Some minor health issues have been impacting everyday life, work is exhausting me and I never seem to have enough time. But I am still reading! So that's a bright spot. Trying to pull … Continue reading The Promise | Damon Galgut #BookerPrize
Jazz Money is a poet and artist of Wiradjuri heritage, currently based on sovereign Gadigal land. Her debut collection of poetry, how to make a basket, was described by the judges of the David Unaipon Award as 'luminous and beautifully sculpted, [a] seamless collection of poems that reflect on place and passion...[and] builds on the … Continue reading how to make a basket | Jazz Money #poetry
No Document is an elegy for a friendship and artistic partnership cut short by death. The memory of this collaboration becomes a model for how we might relate to others in sympathy, solidarity and rebellion. At once intimate and expansive, Anwen Crawford’s book-length essay explores loss in many forms: disappeared artworks, effaced histories, abandoned futures. Written … Continue reading No Document | Anwen Crawford
I had planned on writing extended reviews for some of these books, but Covid. Assembly especially, which packed a punch much weightier than its mere 100 pages would suggest, deserves to be more widely considered and discussed. But for now, all I will say is READ IT. You have to stop this, she said. This … Continue reading June Mini Reviews [2]
The Edith Readalong has been my priority of late. But before I got started with it, I was determined to finish a few of the half read books by my bed which included a trip to Nigeria, dabbling with some poetry and a peek inside a leper colony. Princeton, in the summer, smelled of nothing, … Continue reading June Mini Reviews
May featured some wonderful, interesting stories, but I still don't feel up to writing about them in any length. I would like to acknowledge Cathy @746 Books and her glorious review of Claire Keegan's novella, Small Things Like These, last year that was the impetus for me picking up this book as soon as it … Continue reading May Mini Reviews
In the spring of 1936, a writer planted roses. A while back, Sue from Whispering Gums alerted me to the fact that such a thing as The Orwell Foundation existed. Ever since, I have been slowly exploring the site, which has led to an increased interest in all things Orwell. When Rebecca Solnit's Orwell's Roses … Continue reading Orwell’s Roses | Rebecca Solnit
She rides out of the forest alone. Seventeen years old, in the cold March drizzle, Marie who comes from France. The first thing I did when I finished this powerful, compelling story about nuns-in-a-medieval-abbey was duck, duck, go! I was curious to find out how someone who lives in Gainesville, Florida came to write a … Continue reading Matrix | Lauren Groff
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