"Well, there’s so much to read, and I’m so far behind." Wallace Stegner
The Korowai Pass had been closed since the end of the summer, when a spate of shallow earthquakes triggered a landslide that buried a stretch of the highway in rubble, killing five, and sending a long-haul transport truck over a precipice where it skimmed a power-line, ploughed a channel down the mountainside, and then exploded … Continue reading Birnam Wood | Eleanor Catton
Katherine Mansfield was born a century ago and died in 1923, but there is still something tantalizing about the 'faint ghost with the steady eyes, the mocking lips and, at the end, the wreath set on her hair.'* *quote from The Diary of Virginia Woolf: 1925-30 (1980) I read, but did not particularly enjoy Claire … Continue reading Katherine Mansfield: A Secret Life | Claire Tomalin
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
Eve Langley (1904 -1974) is an enigmatic figure in Australian literary history. One of the (many) reasons why Eve Langley is considered enigmatic is her writing. There was a LOT of it, but was it fiction or was it autobiographical? And how is it possible to tell the difference when the author deliberately leads you … Continue reading Eve Langley and The Pea Pickers | Helen Vines
Je ne Parle pas Français, or I Do Not Speak French was written in early 1918 and published in Bliss and other stories (1920).There is a rather long and complicated story about the publication of this particular short story. It started life as a pamphlet published by Heron Press, which was run by John Middleton … Continue reading Je ne Parle pas Français | Katherine Mansfield #ShortStory
William Lipincott | Loves Ambush | 1890 Psychology is a short story by Katherine Mansfield first published in Bliss and Other Stories (1920). As luck would have it, I've managed to select three very different types of Mansfield stories for the #1920Club reading week. Miss Brill was set in post-war France with a focus on … Continue reading Psychology | Katherine Mansfield #1920Club
The Wind Blows was first published in the Athenaeum on 27th August 1920 and then included in Bliss and Other Stories (1920), although I have also spotted on the Katherine Mansfield Society page that they claim it was published in 1915. So I dug a little deeper. I discovered a reference in J. McDonnell's Katherine Mansfield and the Modernist … Continue reading The Wind Blows | Katherine Mansfield #1920Club
Miss Brill is a short story by New Zealand author Katherine Mansfield. It was first published in Athenaeum on 26 November 1920 and later included in The Garden Party and Other Stories (1922). I knew I wouldn't have the time or reading energy to tackle a novel published in 1920 for this week's 1920's Club with Kaggsy and … Continue reading Miss Brill | Katherine Mansfield #1920Club
The twelve men congregated in the smoking room of the Crown Hotel gave the impression of a party accidentally met. The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton won the Booker Prize in 2013. Which means that I can tick this book off my Eclectic Reader Challenge - Award Winning category. It's also a chunkster, fits the historical … Continue reading The Luminaries | Eleanor Catton
This Reading Life 