September 1995I wake to find a young woman sitting beside me. She is Asian. Japanese. Chinese. I don't know. Book club throws up some interesting choices. The Butterfly Man by Heather Rose was such a one. I had never heard of Lord Lucan or the mystery surrounding him. Yet when this book was nominated for … Continue reading The Butterfly Man | Heather Rose #AWW
Lauren Mackay has created a very appealing companion book, to have to hand, whilst reading Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall trilogy. I love beautifully produced and packaged books - this is definitely one. Now that I have reread and read all three Wolf Hall books, I suspect I will not need to read them again and … Continue reading Wolf Hall Companion | Lauren Mackay #AWWnonfiction
And reports from Bairnsdale, in the Gippsland district, indicate that Mr Nils Desperandum, of Sarsfield, will have the largest crop of apples, this year, for miles around. - INTERSTATE WEEKLY.On a hot Australian morning I read the above advertisement out to June as we sat in the low-roofed kitchen of our old home in Dandenong. … Continue reading The Pea-Pickers | Eve Langley Part 2
It is easier to feel young in new York. Lily Brett feels like one of my very dear old friends. I've been reading her fiction and non-fiction for over 20 years now. Most of her books I read pre-blog, with Lola Bensky being the only foray into her work during my blogging years (although I … Continue reading Old Seems to be Other People | Lily Brett #AWW
There are few things as startling as encountering an unearthly glow in the wild. Confession one: this book was a chore to read. Confession two: for the past week I have been trying to read three books that were a chore to read. Why, I hear you ask? Confession three: I made myself finish one, … Continue reading Phosphorescence | Julia Baird #AWW
Confession one: this story was a chore to read. Confession two: for the past week I have been trying to read three books that were a chore to read. Why, I hear you ask? Confession three: I made myself finish one, but I have decided to abandon the other two. Sometimes a book does not … Continue reading All That Swagger | Miles Franklin #1936Club
The performance at the heart of The Performance is a Samuel Beckett play, Happy Days. It was Beckett’s sixth play, written in response to his wife requesting something less depressing. I'm not sure he knew how to do that though. The play revolves around a central character, Winnie, a woman in her fifties. In Act … Continue reading The Performance | Claire Thomas #AWW
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 they published a book of poetry entitled Throat last year. It did not have an easy … Continue reading Throat | Ellen van Neerven #Poetry
Last year, my friend at the Writer's Centre NSW, now called Writing NSW, was planning on hosting an Honouring event for Katharine Susannah Prichard. It's an annual event, of which I have managed to attend about half so far. I had just popped my name on the expressions of interest list early last year, when … Continue reading The Wild Oats Of Han | Katharine Susannah Prichard #AWW
Happy Birthday Ernestine! My Love Must Wait by Ernestine Hill was a bestseller when it was first published in 1941, which puts it neatly in the middle of Bill @The Australian Legend's Gen III of Australian Women Writers. I can see why this story about the adventurer and explorer, Matthew Flinders attracted a lot … Continue reading My Love Must Wait | Ernestine Hill #AWW
My first illness was that one most common to the children of the poor...a bad education and, like the bite of a goanna, it was incurable and ran for years. Ethel Jane (Eve) Langley was born in Forbes on the 1st September 1904. After her father, Arthur died in 1915, her mother, Myra moved her … Continue reading The Pea-Pickers | Eve Langley #AWW
