Edwina Preston's Bad art mother was my reading group's June book, replacing our previously scheduled book because we'd heard Bad art mother was to be the featured book in the Canberra Writers Festival session, Canberra's Biggest Book Club. This suited me, as, coincidentally, I'd just started reading it! Bad art mother has been shortlisted for two … Continue reading Edwina Preston, Bad art mother (#BookReview)
Literature by period
Tuesday Atzinger, The River (#Review)
Back in January I reviewed two stories from Ellen van Neerven and Rafeif Ismail's anthology Unlimited futures: Speculative, visionary Blak+Black fiction for Bill's (The Australian Legend) Australian Women Writers Gen 5 Week. The stories I reviewed were the second and third in the anthology because they were the first two by Australians in it. The … Continue reading Tuesday Atzinger, The River (#Review)
Leslie Marmon Silko, The man to send rain clouds (#Review)
After a two-month hiatus, I return to my reading from Great short stories by contemporary Native American writers with a three-decade jump from D'Arcy McNickle's 1936-published "Train time" to Leslie Marmon Silko's "The man to send rain clouds", which was published in 1968 . Leslie Marmon Silko Again, I'm using anthology editor Bob Blaisdell's brief … Continue reading Leslie Marmon Silko, The man to send rain clouds (#Review)
Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in chemistry (#BookReview)
Bonnie Garmus' debut novel Lessons in chemistry made a splash on best-of-2022 booklists last year, resulting in my reading group scheduling it this year. It is an enjoyable read, but the intriguing thing is that more than one reader I know couldn't remember what it was about a few months after reading it. Each remembered … Continue reading Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in chemistry (#BookReview)
Slow reading: Jane Austen’s Pride and prejudice
Some of the editions of Pride and Prejudice owned by my JA group Back in the early to mid-2010s, my local Jane Austen group undertook a program of slow reading Jane Austen's novels, coinciding with those books' 200th anniversaries. Given that began around a decade ago, we decided last year that it was time to … Continue reading Slow reading: Jane Austen’s Pride and prejudice
William Trevor, The dressmaker’s child (#Review)
I knew, when Kim (Reading Matters) and Cathy (746 Books) announced their "A year with William Trevor" project, that I had a little book containing some William Trevor short stories but, could I find it? Nope. It was a little book after all. And then, voilà, just the other day while I was doing my … Continue reading William Trevor, The dressmaker’s child (#Review)
Jane Austen on travel
It's been some time since I posted on Jane Austen, but currently my local Jane Austen group is repeating the slow reads we did a decade or so ago when her novels had their 200th anniversaries. Last year, we did Sense and sensibility, and right now we are doing Pride and prejudice. There are different … Continue reading Jane Austen on travel
Maggie O’Farrell, The marriage portrait (#BookReview)
I have mentioned Author's Notes a few times recently, because I have read a few works of historical fiction. Maggie O'Farrell's latest novel, The marriage portrait, is another historical novel and so here I am again talking Author's Notes. The marriage portrait, as you probably already know, is based on the life of Lucrezia de' Medici, … Continue reading Maggie O’Farrell, The marriage portrait (#BookReview)
Stella Prize 2023 Winner announced
The 2023 Stella Prize winner was announced tonight and, for the second year in a row, it's a poetry collection ... Sarah Holland-Batt's The jaguar Darn it! I nearly bought it last weekend when I was at the National Library but with my move and having stuff everywhere, I put it back down again and … Continue reading Stella Prize 2023 Winner announced
D’Arcy McNickle, Train time (#Review)
Continuing my reading from Great short stories by contemporary Native American writers, we now jump a decade from John M. Oskison's 1925-published "The singing bird" to D'Arcy McNickle's "Train time" which was published in 1936 . D'Arcy McNickle As before, I'm using both anthology editor Bob Blaisdell's brief intro and Wikipedia's article to introduce this … Continue reading D’Arcy McNickle, Train time (#Review)
Whispering Gums 