Blood & Tinsel - Jim Sharman. I said: 'The memoir is highly absorbing entertainment and has the potential to appeal to different ages and audiences, from those who will recognise suburban Australia, punk London, and hippie-era Tokyo, to those that only know Sharman through cult associations. Blood & Tinsel is an interesting and unique story of … Continue reading Literature that Rocked My World in 2008
Reviews + Analyses
Books, poetry, journals and the occassional film…
The Comfort of Figs by Simon Cleary
9780702236433, UQP, 2008 (Australia) This book opens in the past, with the sight of a body falling from a bridge. In the present, Robert O'Hara makes small gestures - planting fig trees, comforting his distraught girlfriend after an attack on them both, easing his way into an old man's life to learn the secrets of his own … Continue reading The Comfort of Figs by Simon Cleary
The Boy Detective Fails by Joe Meno – a 'mood' review
Punk Planet Books, 9781933354101, 2006 (Aus, US) razor. pillow-kiss. mental patients. interior snowflakes. haunted house memory. failed masked-man. essentially bad or essentially good? the horror of a discovery. pills, lots of them. lonely echoing voices down the phone. vaporized individuals. an office. graveyard shift. mystery. solved/unsolved. missing her. stealing pink. childhood gone. … Continue reading The Boy Detective Fails by Joe Meno – a 'mood' review
Two Hamlets
Hamlet: A Novel, John Marsden, Text, 9781921351471, 2008 (Australia) + Hamlet (film), directed by Kenneth Branagh, 1996. John Marsden has always had a distinct ability to grasp and express adolescent experience. His Hamlet: a Novel is highly accessible for an audience familiar with heightened perceptions of desire, deception, unfairness, traps, loneliness, defiance, and existential angst. If you are familiar … Continue reading Two Hamlets
Firmin by Sam Savage
Sam Savage, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 9780297854586, 2008 (Aus, US/Kindle) Firmin is a sad, lonely, depressing book. An anthropomorphous rat, achingly empathetic, shares his hopeless, dreaming, doomed existence. The ‘chinless' one was born in a bookstore and suffers from ‘lexical hypertrophy' or, as he also refers to it, a kind of ‘biblio-bulimia', where he at first … Continue reading Firmin by Sam Savage
Such sensual books I've read lately – Rachael King's The Sound of Butterflies
Picador, 2008, 9780330449175 (Aus, US) In 1904, Sophie awaits her husband at the train station in Richmond. He is returning from the heart of the Brazilian jungle, seeking a mysterious, rumoured species of butterfly. When he arrives at the station Thomas is a shadow - scarred with insect bites, thin, and not speaking at all. The narrative of … Continue reading Such sensual books I've read lately – Rachael King's The Sound of Butterflies
Seduce Me by Megan Clark
9780758209818, Kensington Fiction, 2008 (Aus, US) So it begins and ends with sex, and there's a whole lot of juicy business in the middle, but Seduce Me also has an intriguing storyline and vivid, memorable characters. Megan Clark utilises the characters' sexualities to round them out - desires, fulfillments, vulnerabilities and disappointments. Carissa has a … Continue reading Seduce Me by Megan Clark
Uncorrected Proof by Louisiana Alba
ElephantEars Press, 9780955867606, 2008, UK (Aus, US) Can something be playfully and overtly postmodern and still be readable - driving you through a compelling plot? Louisiana Alba proves it can be done. Uncorrected Proof is a postmodern novel that entertainingly riffs on form, style, character, tense, person - but with an overall thriller/quest type plot … Continue reading Uncorrected Proof by Louisiana Alba
The Goose Bath: Poems – Janet Frame
9780980416541, WilkinsFarago (2008, Australia) After reading Faces in the Water by Janet Frame about a year ago, I vowed I would read more of her work. The prose was absorbing and raw, and really striking. When I heard that Melbourne publisher WilkinsFarago were bringing out a collection of her poetry I couldn't wait to dive … Continue reading The Goose Bath: Poems – Janet Frame
Overland 192
Overland is an Australian literary journal that has been around for over fifty years. It claims to be ‘temper democratic, bias Australian' and is proudly left-leaning. I got my hands on the Spring issue (no. 192) at the Melbourne Writer's Festival and have been devouring the eclectic selection of articles, poetry, stories, and reviews here … Continue reading Overland 192
LiteraryMinded 