Everything Feels Like the End of the World | Else Fitzgerald #AWWshortstories

16 January 202316 January 2023 ~ Brona's Books ~ 10 Comments

We drove home along the forest road, the trees like exposed bones in the headlights, trunks bending in over the gravel track. From the first story in the collection, 'River' Everything Feels Like the End of the World is a speculative fiction short story collection 'exploring possible futures in an Australia not so different from … Continue reading Everything Feels Like the End of the World | Else Fitzgerald #AWWshortstories

Alison | Lizzy Stewart #GraphicNovel

8 January 20238 January 2023 ~ Brona's Books ~ 14 Comments

My name is Alison Porter and I began my life, in 1958, in Bridport, Dorset. My parents had grown up in Dorset, and their parents before them. My dad worked in the local bank and my mum did repairs and alterations for a nearby dressmaker. My brother, Michael, was four years older than me. We … Continue reading Alison | Lizzy Stewart #GraphicNovel

Bournville | Jonathan Coe #UKfiction

3 January 20234 January 2023 ~ Brona's Books ~ 19 Comments

The arrivals hall at Vienna airport was so quiet that Lorna had no difficulty picking her out, even though they had never met before. It's a bit of a pity when the first book reviewed for a brand new year turns out to be one of those just okay books. I thoroughly enjoyed Middle England … Continue reading Bournville | Jonathan Coe #UKfiction

Lone Wolf: Albanese and the New Politics: Quarterly Essay 88 | Katharine Murphy

29 December 20224 January 2023 ~ Brona's Books ~ 12 Comments

I would like to be a regular Quarterly Essay reader. Every time I read one, I admire the format and find the content fascinating, challenging or enlightening. It's a fairly quick and easy way to absorb a current topic, yet I rarely prioritise them in my reading schedule. Insert shrug. Although it looks like it … Continue reading Lone Wolf: Albanese and the New Politics: Quarterly Essay 88 | Katharine Murphy

Salonika Burning | Gail Jones #AWWfiction

14 December 202228 January 2023 ~ Brona's Books ~ 11 Comments

By midnight all was blaze and disintegration. A group of soldiers standing on the hill watched with indecent pleasure. The wind locals called the Vardaris blasted from the north, puffed minarets into candles and monuments to blocks of gold. A whoosh of flame - shaped paisley in its exotic unfurling - caused some spontaneously, shamelessly, … Continue reading Salonika Burning | Gail Jones #AWWfiction

This Changes Everything | Niki Bezzant #NZnonfiction

9 December 20229 December 2022 ~ Brona's Books ~ 8 Comments

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

A few Australian children’s books to finish off AusReading Month 2022

28 November 202229 November 2022 ~ Brona's Books ~ 9 Comments

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 | Margaret Atwood #CANessays

26 November 202226 November 2022 ~ Brona's Books ~ 29 Comments

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

Nothing Bad Ever Happens Here | Heather Rose #AWWmemoir

12 November 2022 ~ Brona's Books ~ 16 Comments

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

Olga Masters Short Story Award 2022

9 November 2022 ~ Brona's Books ~ 1 Comment

I confess I had not heard of the Olga Masters Short Story Award until yesterday, when I discovered that my friend Ruth Armstrong had won the 2022 prize! Her story, Sandcastles, will be published in Island Magazine in November and will appear on the Olga Masters website early next year. Miriam Webster was the runner-up … Continue reading Olga Masters Short Story Award 2022

The Swimmers | Julie Otsuka #USAnovella

28 October 202226 October 2022 ~ Brona's Books ~ 17 Comments

Opening Lines: The pool is located deep underground, in a large cavernous chamber many feet beneath the streets of out town. Some of us come here becasue we are injured, and need to heal. We suffer from bad backs, fallen arches, shattered dreams, broken hearts, anxiety, melncholia, anhedonia, the usual aboveground afflictions. For about a … Continue reading The Swimmers | Julie Otsuka #USAnovella

Lucy by the Sea | Elizabeth Strout #USAfiction

26 October 202222 October 2022 ~ Brona's Books ~ 22 Comments

Opening Lines: Like many others, I did not see it coming. But William is a scientist, and he saw it coming; he saw it sooner than I did, is what I mean. Like many others, I did not see another Lucy book coming! But, in the end, I was glad. Lucy by the Sea brings … Continue reading Lucy by the Sea | Elizabeth Strout #USAfiction

This Devastating Fever | Sophie Cunningham #AWWfiction

20 October 202228 January 2023 ~ Brona's Books ~ 10 Comments

Epigraphs (3): (1) I very rarely think either of my past or my future, but the moment that one contemplates writing an autobiography...one is forced to regard oneself as an entity carried along for a brief period in the stream of time, emerging at a particular moment from darkness and nothingness and shortly to disappear … Continue reading This Devastating Fever | Sophie Cunningham #AWWfiction

Limberlost | Robbie Arnott #AUSfiction

17 October 202228 January 2023 ~ Brona's Books ~ 17 Comments

Epigraph: In the economy of Nature nothing is ever lost. Gene Stratton-Porter The end of this quote from Stratton-Porter's Jesus of the Emerald (1923) is, "I cannot believe that the soul of man shall prove the one exception." I'm not sure where Arnott stands on the whole idea of souls, but it is clear that … Continue reading Limberlost | Robbie Arnott #AUSfiction

The Sun Walks Down | Fiona McFarlane #AWWfiction

10 October 202212 October 2022 ~ Brona's Books ~ 14 Comments

The Sun Walks Down | Fiona McFarlane (2022) The boy met a god by the hollow tree. ‘Go away,’ said the boy, and the god, formless, passes on in the direction of the red hill. I believe I have just read my favourite and best book of 2022. Although I am a little reluctant to … Continue reading The Sun Walks Down | Fiona McFarlane #AWWfiction