Foal's Bread, Gillian Mears, Allen & Unwin, 9781742376295 (paperback, ebook) A slow read – but think ‘slow’ as in that positive movement of slow food, slow travel – picked up each morning over breakfast. Set in Northern NSW, quite near where I grew up (and author Gillian Mears grew up) in the interwar and WWII … Continue reading Recently read: Foal’s Bread, White Noise + The Swimming-Pool Library
American literature
The epic qualities of outwardly ordinary lives: By Nightfall and Michael Cunningham in Australia
By Nightfall, Michael Cunningham, HarperCollins (Aus pb, Aus ebook, US and Kindle, UK) Over the past few days I’ve been in the audience of four sessions featuring my favourite American author Michael Cunningham. Cunningham’s latest novel is By Nightfall. I've drafted a few posts on it since I read it, but was never able to adequately … Continue reading The epic qualities of outwardly ordinary lives: By Nightfall and Michael Cunningham in Australia
Like, embrace the pain: the Bret Easton Ellis interview (part 1)
Pictured: Carrie, Samantha, Carrie Let’s begin at the end. After Kathy Charles and I finished our interview with the very engaging Bret Easton Ellis, we sat with his publicist over a couple of glasses of Chandon, waiting for Ellis to wrap-up with our friend Robbie Coleman. Robbie emerged, white-faced and swearing, revealing that the interviewee had turned interviewer … Continue reading Like, embrace the pain: the Bret Easton Ellis interview (part 1)
Don DeLillo’s Point Omega
Point Omega Don DeLillo Picador, 2010, 9780330512381 (buy Aus, US/Kindle) I’ve been ‘doing’ a few American writers of late. Loved my first encounter with Michael Chabon, in A Model World – he’s a master of beginnings and endings in those short gems – and will follow-up someday with The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and … Continue reading Don DeLillo’s Point Omega
Collected Stories – Richard Yates
Vintage 9780099518549 (Aus, US) When a man is fired from his job in the story ‘A Glutton for Punishment’, he realises he has enjoyed the failures in his life. The character in this – like many of the other characters in Richard Yates’ Collected Stories – runs over a conversation in his head, with his … Continue reading Collected Stories – Richard Yates
Guest post: Allison Browning on Alice Sebold’s Lucky
It was in an impassioned conversation with Miss Angela Meyer on the floor of a particular writers' festival venue, relishing the taste of ginger beer, that I expressed my love for the sparsity of Chloe Hooper's writing in The Tall Man. Angela and I continued to chat about those writers who have an understated way of inciting … Continue reading Guest post: Allison Browning on Alice Sebold’s Lucky
Review of George Dawes Green's Ravens for ABC Radio National's The Book Show
I recently reviewed the thriller Ravens, by George Dawes Green, for The Book Show on ABC Radio National. Have a listen, here.
Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol goes well with cheap wine, corn chips and reading into the morning
The most blockbustery blockbuster of the year found its way into my lap and with curiosity piqued (and a break needed from festival preparations) I indulged in one solid reading session – cover to cover – and was mainly intrigued, despite a few small snags. In The Lost Symbol, Harvard Professor Robert Langdon is called … Continue reading Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol goes well with cheap wine, corn chips and reading into the morning
Philipp Meyer's American Rust
A&U 2009, 9781741756838 (Aus, US/Kindle) The fundamental thread, through Philipp Meyer's brilliant American Rust, is mistakes and failures, and how they come about through choice, instinct or luck. In the novel, each of the characters comes up against choices large and small, and the reader is not only witness to the outcomes of their decisions, … Continue reading Philipp Meyer's American Rust
