Glaston had been in the doldrums for forty years when I arrived. Not so much dead or dying as undecided. Worn down by branch closures and businesses leaving, by farming changes and the fickleness of markets; held up by a solid past and the confidence of those who saw beauty in it. It's streets are … Continue reading Glass Houses: A Novel | Anne Coombs #AWWfiction
Voss Readalong November 2022 Opening Lines: "There is a man here, miss, asking for your uncle," said Rose. And stood breathing. I love this opening. I can just see Rose, the hard-working, impatient, put-upon servant being asked to do something she doesn't normally have to do on a Sunday, and doing it huffily and with … Continue reading Voss | Patrick White #ReadtheNobels
Tonight’s Socceroo themed Opera House Not my usual post I know, but since 2005 thanks to Mr Books, B25 & B22 football has been a huge part of my life. This past week I’ve had to live with some tired, grumpy but ultimately very happy early morning World Cup viewers. At 6am AEST the Socceroos … Continue reading Living on a dream
Me, Antman and our mongrel, Fleabag, like partyin outside. We both come from the bush. Me, I'm a NSW desert girl and Antman's mob are river people. Cos we aint got no river or desert here in the city, we like sittin in the park yarnin, having a charge, playin country music. We don't cause … Continue reading Me, Antman & Fleabag | Gayle Kennedy #AWWfiction
The Cinnamon Gardens Nursing Home sleeps deeply on this summer night. The heat trapped in its brick walls radiates outwards, through the skin of its painted facade. Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens is set in an aged care home in Western Sydney. It's run by a Sri Lankan refugee, Maya and her husband, Zakhir. The … Continue reading Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens | Shankari Chandran #AWWfiction
Sydney, 1971The American family rented the house without having seen it - how could they have, halfway around the world? - so they did not know what it meant. Tablo Tales is a new Melbourne-based imprint in the hands of Jemma Birrell (some of you might know of Jemma as the Artistic Director of the … Continue reading A Dream Life | Claire Messud #AUSnovella
In a basement bar on a university campus, a boy and a girl hold each other, their limbs loose with alcohol. First, an apology for being pretty absent in blogger land lately. I'm keeping up with AusReadingMonth posts (just) and that's about it. Post scheduling errors, computer updates that end up requiring some IT input … Continue reading Love & Virtue | Diana Reid #AWWfiction
My dear son James has given me a task for my last years, or months, or whatever time I have left beyond the many years I have lived so far. Sometime in April or May last year, I was given an advance reading copy of Kate Grenville's A Room Made of Leaves. I was very … Continue reading A Room Made of Leaves | Kate Grenville #AWW
Written with unerring skill and insight, The Dyehouse is a masterly portrait of postwar Australia, when industrial work was radically transformed by new technologies and society changed with it. Mena Calthorpe—who herself worked in a textile factory—takes us inside this world, vividly bringing to life the people of an inner-Sydney company in the mid-1950s: the … Continue reading The Dyehouse | Mena Calthorpe #AWW
Sometimes a reading experience is not as straight forward as you might first think. There are some books that demand more of the reader. The Death of Noah Glass by Gail Jones was one of those books for me. I feel a little guilty about confessing that this was my first Gail Jones. One of … Continue reading The Death of Noah Glass | Gail Jones #AWW
I wanted to love Shell so much. I thought it would be easy.I adored the beautiful pearlescent cover on the hardback edition. It's dreamy quality felt nostalgic and apocalyptic at the same time (rather like Sydney last week during the dust storm)!I love historical fiction. The building of the Opera House combined with Vietnam War … Continue reading Shell by Kristina Olsson
The World Was Whole by Fiona Wright is a difficult book to review. It's a personal collection of Wright's essays, anecdotes and snippets. They are revealing and specific, almost like reading someone's private journal. Yet, all these sketches are written with such emotional intelligence and compassion that they become universal, finding their own connection with … Continue reading The World Was Whole by Fiona Wright
The Story of a Baby by Ethel Turner was a rather sad, and unexpected excursion into young love, an early marriage and societal expectations about gender roles. In this short story, Turner also took a rather nostalgic look into the changing face of Sydney and it's outer suburbs in the late 1890's. In cool weather … Continue reading The Story of a Baby | Ethel Turner #AWWfiction
Regular visitors to my blog know that at Christmas time I need safe, easy reads to get me through the crazy season in one piece. This year Three Wishes played its part perfectly.The story of a set of triplets - two identical, one fraternal, seemed a bit contrived at the outset, but after a little settling … Continue reading Three Wishes by Liane Moriarty
I had a rather unexpected, almost obsessive response to Jonathan Jones' installation at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney last year. It touched me in ways that I'm still finding hard to catch and define. My fascination kicked in at several levels: the fire the architecture the history the cultural aspect the loss the healing the … Continue reading barrangal dyara (skin and bones) Jonathan Jones
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