I read Nam Le's collection of short stories The boat a few months before I started my blog. The collection has been well reviewed nationally and internationally, and has won quite a few awards. I have just read that he has now been awarded another: The Kathleen Mitchell Award which is a biennial literary prize for writers … Continue reading Another award for Nam Le
Australian literature
Monday musings on Australian literature: Kookaburras at the coast
With daughter and dog left to guard the fort, Mr Gums and I are holidaying on the northern NSW coast with Ma and Pa Gums, and so this week's musings will be short and more relaxed. In fact, I am just going to write about one thing: Kookaburras. I was pondering what this week's Musings … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Kookaburras at the coast
Monday musings on Australian literature: For the love of ballads
I was first introduced to Australian ballads by my father who loved to read the works of AB (Banjo) Paterson to us. I loved it - my father's reading and the poems themselves. This love was reinforced in my first year of high school, through my poetry textbook, The call of the gums: An anthology of … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: For the love of ballads
Jeremy Chambers, The vintage and the gleaning
There's something I haven't had an opportunity to share with you, until now that is - and that is that I love to visit wine regions. Not just because I like wine but also because I like the areas in which wine is made. The landscape is often beautiful, the wineries themselves vary so much … Continue reading Jeremy Chambers, The vintage and the gleaning
Monday musings on Australian literature: Charles Dickens and Australia
Here's something completely different for my Monday musings! Not an Australian author, not even a foreign born author who came to Australia (though, being the great traveller he was, he did consider a lecture tour), but Charles Dickens does have a couple of interesting "connections" with Australia. These connections are supported by the existence of … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Charles Dickens and Australia
Peter Temple, Truth
I think that every novelist has a single ideal reader (Stephen King, On writing) As I was reading Peter Temple's Truth I wondered whether I was Temple's "ideal reader". Somehow I think not. I am not a crime novel reader, but I did read and greatly like Temple's previous book, The broken shore, so why … Continue reading Peter Temple, Truth
Monday musings on Australian literature: Some Australian expat novelists
Australia is the only country I have come across that divides its writers into residents and those who have dared to live elsewhere. Can one imagine Americans writing of Ernest Hemingway, or the Brits of Auden, thus? (Carmen Callil, Australian-born founder of Virago Press) That answers one of my questions: that is, whether other nations … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Some Australian expat novelists
Kate Jennings, Trouble: Evolution of a radical
I'm not going to beat about the bush but tell it like it is: I absolutely gobbled up Kate Jennings' Trouble: Evolution of a radical: Selected writings 1970-2010. It took me a fortnight to read it, partly because I've been pretty busy but also because there was so much to savour and take in that … Continue reading Kate Jennings, Trouble: Evolution of a radical
Ah, sweet synchronicity of life!
Ok, I know that "synchronicity" doesn't really scan with "mystery" but it just felt right. Last night, wearing one of my hats, I attended the National Film and Sound Archive's event, Coo-ee: Sound Day: Sounds of Australia 2010. (Phew, that's a mouthful isn't it?). Sounds of Australia is an NFSA initiative aimed at creating a … Continue reading Ah, sweet synchronicity of life!
Monday musings on Australian literature: Indigenous writers
It's important I think that my third post be on our indigenous writers. Again it's going to be pretty idiosyncratic as my reading in this area has been scattered, not for lack of interest so much as the old "so many books" issue that we all know only too well. I was first introduced to … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Indigenous writers
Whispering Gums 