I've had Louise Mack's debut novel, The world is round, on my TBR for about 20 years. Published in 1896, when she was 26 years old, it's a fairly straightforward tragicomedy about a young well-to-do 21-year-old girl, Jean, who aspires to be a writer, and the two men who love her, the 30-plus-year-old self-confident, successful lawyer-and-writer Musgrave, and … Continue reading Louise Mack, The world is round (Review)
Author: Whispering Gums
Blogging highlights for 2016
It seems that I've established a bit of an end of year trifecta with my Australian Women Writers' Challenge wrap-up post, followed by posts on Reading highlights and Blogging highlights. This post, obviously, is the Blogging one. I do it as much for my own record, because I enjoy tracking trends on my blog, so please don't feel obliged if you've … Continue reading Blogging highlights for 2016
Monday musings on Australian literature: Louise Mack
I promised in my Reading Highlights post that my first review of the year would be for a book from my TBR pile, and so it will be - hopefully in a couple of days. However, I suspect that the book, and maybe even the author, will be unknown to most of my readers here so I've decided … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Louise Mack
Reading highlights for 2016
And so we finally say goodbye to a year many of us would like to forget, but before we do, I would like to share my 2016 reading highlights. As usual, I won't be naming top picks, because I'm a wuss. It's too hard. So, instead, I'll be sharing highlights which combine best reads with those that were interesting for … Continue reading Reading highlights for 2016
Eudora Welty, A curtain of green (Review)
This week I received the Library of America's annual email in which they list their "Top 10 Story of the Week selections of 2016". I've only read eleven of their selections this year, but two - Kate Chopin's "A pair of silk stockings" (my review) and Willa Cather's "Enchanted bluff" (my review) - are in their Top Ten. … Continue reading Eudora Welty, A curtain of green (Review)
Georgia Blain: Births deaths marriages: True tales (Review)
Poignant is a word I actively avoid in my review posts, as it's such a review cliché, but sometimes a book really does call for it, and the late Georgia Blain's essay-collection-cum-memoir, Births deaths marriages, is such a book. In the last essay, she talks of her mother, broadcaster, activist and non-fiction writer, Anne Deveson, trying her … Continue reading Georgia Blain: Births deaths marriages: True tales (Review)
Books given and received for Christmas, in 2016
I did a "books given and received post" last Boxing Day, and decided to do it again, but after Boxing Day because this year Boxing Day coincided with Monday Musings, and I have another tradition for the last Monday Musings of the year. Anyhow, here goes with the books I gave and received this Christmas. There are not … Continue reading Books given and received for Christmas, in 2016
Monday musings on Australian literature: Australian Women Writers’ Challenge 2016
For the fifth year in a row, I'm devoting my last Monday Musings of the year to the Australian Women Writers Challenge*. This year has been one of consolidation rather than of huge change for the Challenge, as we got used to our self-hosted site to which we moved in 2015. The big advantage of this move was that it … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Australian Women Writers’ Challenge 2016
David Hockney at the National Gallery of Victoria
It's a while since I wrote about an art exhibition, not because I haven't been to any but because this is a litblog (and I'm even less of an art critic than I am a literary one). However, I did feel the urge to write about the David Hockney Current exhibition, which is now showing at Melbourne's National Gallery of … Continue reading David Hockney at the National Gallery of Victoria
Monday musings on Australian literature: Spotlight on Georgia Blain
This is the fifth in my occasional series of Spotlight posts inspired by Annette Marfording's Celebrating Australian Writing: Conversations with Australian Authors, and this time I'm featuring Georgia Blain who died just over a week ago, three days before her mother Anne Deveson also died. In a comment on my Vale post, Annette Marfording reminded me that she'd interviewed Georgia … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Spotlight on Georgia Blain
Whispering Gums 