"Ready ?""Ready.""Now ?""Soon.""Do the scientists really know? Will it happen today, will it ?" First published on the 1st March 1954, Ray Bradbury's short story came to my attention today thanks to a chat on our local ABC radio morning show. One of the presenters remembered a story she read as a child about a … Continue reading All Summer in a Day | Ray Bradbury #USAshortstory
Once again, another Club read has snuck up on me! Although for 1976, part of the problem was the lack of contenders. Pre-blog I had read: All Things Wise and Wonderful | James HerriotChildren of Dune (Book 3) | Frank HerbertTintin and the Picaros (Tintin, #23) | Hergé, Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper (Translator), Michael Turner (Translator) All enjoyable reads … Continue reading The Bicentennial Man | Isaac Asimov #1976Club
But we might never find them? Fermi's Paradox is at the heart of this story. The story goes that in 1950, Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi, made a passing comment asking 'where are all the aliens?' given the youngish nature of our planetary system and the relative ease of space travel. Fermi was not the first … Continue reading Bewilderment | Richard Powers #USAfiction
When I met M. Hartz, he was a naturalist and dealer who ran his business affairs in a quiet way, selling minerals, insects or plants to collectors. Thankfully I read and thoroughly enjoyed Mauprat a decade or so ago. If I had started my George Sand journey with Laura: A Journey into the Crystal, it … Continue reading Laura | George Sand #FRAfiction
On the 2nd March 2021, Faber & Faber in the UK, Alfred A. Knopf in the US, Knopf in Canada and Allen & Unwin in Australia will publish Kazuo Ishiguro's latest novel, Klara and the Sun. This is the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, who, from her place in the store, … Continue reading Klara and the Sun | Kazuo Ishiguro #ReadtheNobels
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
I have spent a ridiculous amount of time wondering how best to write the title of this book - FRAN KISS STEIN like the cover, FRANKISSSTEIN like the title page of the book or Frankissstein like Goodreads.FranKissStein appealed to me, but it's not a version I've spotted anywhere else.Whatever you call it, though, Frankissstein: A Love … Continue reading FranKissStein by Jeanette Winterson
Who knew that when I decided to join in Marg @Books in Bloom's #Frankenfest as my #CCdare choice for October, that I would be opening up a can of worms simply by reading the Preface! I'm reading the 1999 Wordsworth Classics edition that includes the original 1817 Preface by Percy Bysshe Shelley as well as … Continue reading Frankenstein | Mary Shelley – The Preface
Speculative fiction is not usually my cup of tea, but I had heard interesting things about this debut author and his book of short stories.This is part of the rave book blurb from goodreads -AN EXTRAORDINARILY RESONANT AND PROPHETIC COLLECTION OF SPECULATIVE SHORT FICTION FOR OUR TECH-SAVVY ERA BY DEBUT AUTHOR ALEXANDER WEINSTEIN.Children of the … Continue reading Children of the New World by Alexander Weinstein
In Special, Georgia Blain imagines a world not too far removed from what is possible now.A world before 'The Breakdown'.A world where data is the new currency and where genetic modification is the norm. For some.For everything has a price. Even our individual identity.Especially our individual identity.A world where being special isn't all its cracked … Continue reading Special by Georgia Blain
I thoroughly enjoyed The Bones Clocks and have recommended it to many, many people who have never read a David Mitchell before. I found The Bone Clocks to be very accessible and not as dense or as incomprehensible as his earlier works (I attempted to read Cloud Atlas and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de … Continue reading Slade House | David Mitchell
My brain is spinning, cycling endlessly, much like the spiral symbolism throughout Sedgwick's latest book, The Ghosts of Heaven.This was not the light, easy, I-need-a-break-from-my-desperately-sad-chunkster-bio, YA read that I thought it was going to be. The Ghosts of Heaven was intense reading. Absorbing, intriguing, frustrating, compelling, disturbing, thought-provoking....but what does it all mean?The main (the … Continue reading The Ghosts of Heaven by Marcus Sedgwick
"In late 2012, Australia and India were rocked by violent crimes against young women. In Dehli, thousands protested against rape. In Melbourne, thousands stood vigil in memory of a young woamn raped and murdered walking home. The fate of all young women, what they should fear and what they could hope for were hot topics … Continue reading Eat the Sky, Drink the Ocean edited by K Murray, P Dahr & A Roy
I read A Wrinkle in Time as a child (many wrinkles ago) and failed, back then, to understand why it was considered a modern day classic by my teachers.As a budding mathematical, rational 10 yr old I found the religious references obvious & off-putting (the very same reason I struggled with many of the Narnia … Continue reading A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Following a scalding row with her mother, fifteen-year-old Holly Sykes slams the door on her old life. But Holly is no typical teenage runaway: a sensitive child once contacted by voices she knew only as “the radio people,” Holly is a lightning rod for psychic phenomena. Now, as she wanders deeper into the English countryside, … Continue reading The Bone Clocks | David Mitchell
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