These days I’m travelling overseas so Romy Ash’s novel Floundering held some travel narrative synergy and a touch of nostalgia for Australia’s ragged landscape. Two sons are being driven to an uncertain destination by their mother (who asks the boys to call her Loretta) in a car “yellow, brown and bubbled with rust” they call
It’s spring in Berlin but the cement “coffins” at the Holocaust memorial still cast chilling shadows. In the Berliner Dom crypt, the sarcophagi are larger and more opulent but the gloom and mustiness mean I can’t avoid reality: these silent tombs speak loudly of doom and death. Otto Quangel, a key character in Alone in
There’s no mystery as to why this delightfully easy-to-read novel is gaining plaudits. In Mateship with Birds Carrie Tiffany writes effortlessly and intriguingly about the natural world, rural life and desire. It’s a winning combination. Set in the 1950s, on the outskirts of the Victorian country town Cohuna, this quirky novel serves up a scraggly
Don’t expect easy allegory here with the odd boy at the centre of this novel equating directly with Jesus. This is not what happens. There are, however, intriguing parallels. For example the boy, David, writes of himself — Yo soy la verdad, I am the truth. Yet David might equally be a precocious fantasist whose
If you’ve ever longed to be a fly on the wall with some of the world’s greatest poets of the last 50 years or so as they crafted their poetry, listen up: You must read Poetry in Person. I’ve scattered some of its diamonds here in this two-part post but if you love poetry and
The popularity of Pearl London’s classes reveals how fascinating it can be to hear poets speak about their drafts and to learn first-hand how a great poem is made. As Poetry in Person details, students and poets were eager to be involved in London’s course at the New School in New York which, for much
Taking sides, for and against, says Simone Weil, is an intellectual leprosy that originated in the political world and contaminated all forms of thinking. Accordingly, this essay, translated into English for the first time, argues that political parties corrupt political life and should be abolished. Simone Weil was an acclaimed French philosopher, Christian mystic and
It’s a scorching summer’s day and I’m midway through Winter when a text message arrives from friends holidaying in Germany. “It’s snowing. We had a spectacular train trip from Frankfurt to Bamberg. Blankets of snow everywhere and then the sun came out to make it even more beautiful. Christmas markets. Gluhwein and Christmas party for
Cate Kennedy says stories are living, breathing entities that refuse to be corralled by aphorisms. There are 15 short stories in her latest book, Like a House on Fire, and all live and breathe deeply. I’d read a couple of the stories before in other contexts but was pleased to read them again and to
There’s a longstanding tradition in our office that if a staff member goes on leave they must pen the other staff a postcard (or ten!) so we can vicariously share their adventures. Much more than receiving their emails, the handwriting of these colleagues moves me as it conjures each individual and their enthusiasms, quirks and
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