It’s that time of year again! Time to think about how many Australian books and authors you can read during the month of November for AusReading Month. Now in it’s 10th year, AusReading Month is a chance to celebrate all the things we love about Australian literature. Back in 2013, I was looking for an … Continue reading AusReading Month 2022 is coming soon…
Today is the day we begin reading The Edith Trilogy and this is the offical master post for all three books. Grand Days was first published in 1993 in a magnificent hardcover edition complete with a cover featuring Circe Invidiosa by John William Waterhouse (one of my favourite paintings). I picked up a sale copy … Continue reading The Edith Trilogy Readalong Begins #EdithReadalong
The unfolding situation in Ukraine is distressing and worrying for so many of us. When my home state of NSW is not in the middle of another major flooding event, our news is full of what is happening in Eastern Europe. The what and where is easy to see. But it's hard to get a … Continue reading I Stand For Peace Reading Event May – Sept 2022
*Spoiler alert* 'But I put it to you, my lord, that prize-money is of essential importance to the navy. The possibility o, however remote, of making a fortune by some brilliant stroke is an unparalleled spur to the diligence, the activity, and the unremitting attention of every man afloat.' So says Sir Joseph Blaine, the … Continue reading HMS Surprise | Patrick O’Brian #Readalong
At first dawn the swathes of rain drifting eastwards across the Channel parted long enough to show that the chase had altered course. Post Captain begins with peace being declared. This is a not necessarily the happy occasion the modern reader might think it is. As Jack explains to an uncomprehending Stephen, It's the others … Continue reading Post Captain | Patrick O’Brian #Readalong
“We are all dying, just at different speeds.” The end is nigh. For our Wolf Hall trilogy readalong and for Thomas Cromwell. I hope you enjoyed your Tudor mini-break throughout April; I certainly did. But I am now more than ready to tackle the final episode in this courtly drama, The Mirror and the Light, … Continue reading #WolfHallReadalong2021
His children are falling from the sky. Part of my desire in (re)reading Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies was to refresh my memory, so that I could have it all front of mind for my very first reading of The Mirror and the Light. As I started BUTB, I realised that Mantel helps … Continue reading Bring Up the Bodies | Hilary Mantel #Readalong
2020 was the year of many things. Some planned and expected, like the War and Peace chapter-a-day readalong. But many things unexpected and impossible to plan for as well. Who knew that Plague-Lit would become a thing? Or that I would waste one whole perfectly good reading month by feeling weird and distracted about a certain … Continue reading 2021 Here We Come!
Given the ridiculous amount of books I have on the go at the moment, the idea of starting yet another, seems rather ridiculous. But I struggle to pass up any opportunity to join a readalong at the best of times, but when it also means reading along with Jean and Cleo, then how could I … Continue reading The Illustrated Golden Bough | Sir James George Fraser #Readalong
Goodness! What a read. Or more accurately, a reread. I bought my Penguin edition of One Hundred Years of Solitude on the 3rd April 1996 in Sydney. At a guess, it must have been the Easter school holidays and I was visiting my sister, who lived in Coogee, for a few days. I cannot remember … Continue reading One Hundred Years of Solitude | Gabriel Garcia Márquez #NobelPrize
Photo by Jamie Street on UnsplashSometimes in this blogging life, the words just won't come.I have several posts on the back burner waiting for inspiration, time and for the right words to appear. In the meantime, I will fill the gaps with housekeeping posts and lists.Once upon a time, I used to join in a … Continue reading 2020 | Here We Come!
My work has been a bit crazy this year. And during August and September it was hectic and full of changes. So a lot of the hype surrounding the sequel to The Handmaid's Tale passed me by. I saw some excited chattering on blogs, twitter and goodreads. I heard some of the discussion around it's … Continue reading The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
Just as well I've been reading Moby-Dick in the lead-up to starting this book. Just like Melville, Murdoch loves to list and categorise things. In this case, Murdoch spent the first part of The Book and the Brotherhood listing all the characters, what they were wearing and how they were related or linked.I had to … Continue reading The Book and the Brotherhood by Iris Murdoch
Update:Ongoing changes at work have taken up quite a bit of my time in the past couple of weeks, and will probably do so in the next few weeks as well. Thankfully, I've got a number of almost completed posts waiting in draft to tide me over this hectic and tiring time.So far I'm staying … Continue reading Moby-Dick Chapters 31 – 34
Goodness gracious me! This book is consuming me.Have I become like the manic Melville or the obsessive Ahab?Can I possibly maintain this level of enthusiasm and effort?Who knows!Like Ishmael, all I can do is go along and go along, to see how this things ends...and hope that I'm one of the ones still left standing … Continue reading Moby-Dick Chapters 26 – 30
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