This is the last of what seems to have become my set of end-of-year-beginning-of-year posts - and it's about, as if you couldn't tell, the books that will be published this year. Obviously, I can't list them all - even if I could know them all - but it's fun to share a few that … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Some New Releases in 2017
Australian literature
Louise Mack, The world is round (Review)
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)
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
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)
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
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
Elizabeth Jolley, An innocent gentleman (Mini-Review)
Note: this is a mini-review compiled from the notes I made when I read Elizabeth Jolley's An innocent gentleman before blogging. I found them on some scrappy pieces of paper while decluttering and figured my blog is the best place to keep them ... not floating in some drawer somewhere! Most if not all of Elizabeth … Continue reading Elizabeth Jolley, An innocent gentleman (Mini-Review)
Monday musings on Australian literature: ABC RN presenters name their best reads of 2016
Now, here's my conundrum. We (at least I think I can speak for a general "we") want Australians to read widely, because it's important for us to understand cultures that are different to our own. But, given how small the Australian market is, we also want people to read Australian literature (and see, for that matter, Australian films … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: ABC RN presenters name their best reads of 2016
Monday musings on Australian literature: Aussie writers name their pick reads of 2016
December is, or has certainly become in recent years, the month of lists. As always, I'll be saving my lists until the end of 2015, which means you won't see them until January. However, that doesn't mean I can't share other people's lists, does it? I've gleaned the list I'm sharing here from a recent article in … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Aussie writers name their pick reads of 2016
Monday musings on Australian literature: Arnold Haskell on the Arts (1)
A couple of months ago I wrote a post on British dance critic Arnold Haskell's book, Waltzing Matilda: a background to Australia (published in Australia in 1944). I said then that I'd come back to it, so here I am, focusing this time on his chapter on "The Arts". It comprises 22 pages covering, according to … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Arnold Haskell on the Arts (1)
