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Regular Work
Journal: 118 Winter came to Perth at last, in the last week of Autumn, after nine months of hot days and no rain. I was in and out of my truck all day, alternately soaked and drying off, doing this...
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The Unknown Orwell, Stansky & Abrahams
Brona’s Reading George Orwell 2024 The central thesis of this 1974 biography is that Eric Blair (1903-1950) very nearly did not become George Orwell. In a trivial sense, this is so because even as his...
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Willa Cather, Miles Franklin, Chicago
Willa Cather (1873–1947) was a US novelist whose life had some interesting similarities with the six years younger, and fellow farm girl, Miles Franklin’s, although I was unable to find any evidence...
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Nervous Conditions, Tsitsi Dangarembga
Black Africa Project 2024 Listening to this book over the last few days -relistening, I listened to it earlier but the intervening books just about wiped it out – I have been thinking about it as...
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Bookshelves
Journal: 119 The other day JASACT, Canberra’s Jane Austen society, discussed JA memorabilia. I’m not a member, but I like JA, the secretary’s competent, writes interesting posts, so I follow them. I...
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One of Ours, Willa Cather
One of Ours (1922) is Cather’s fifth novel, after Alexander’s Bridge and the prairies ‘trilogy’. She was 49 when it came out, but then got a skate on, writing seven more in the next 18 years, plus...
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Moving Milly, One Small Load at a Time
Journal: 120 Last week the truck was off the road getting some work done, so Milly and I did a trip down to Denmark with a ute-load of household stuff that was cluttering up her (temporary) house. For...
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Intimate Strangers, Katharine Susannah Prichard
Intimate Strangers (1937) was the eighth of KSP’s 13 novels (9th of 14 if you count the serial in New Idea, A City Girl in Central Australia (1906)). KSP was a Communist, developing over time a firm...
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His Only Wife, Peace Adzo Medie
Black Africa Project 2024 Peace Adzo Medie is a Liberian-born Ghanaian woman and academic, in her 30s or 40s going by her photos, currently a senior lecturer in gender and international politics at...
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Not So Regular
Journal: 121 ‘Regular work’ proved not to be the boon I thought it might be. Yes, there was a big cheque at the end of the month – the end of the month after I did the work, but reconciliation against...
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Miles apart
‘Miles apart’ doesn’t, as you might expect, refer to my favourite author. But rather, from my reading over the past month I have two Canadian books to review, which are miles apart in more than just...
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Entitlement, Jessica White
First things first. Jess White has been a member of this blogging community forever. She was an editor on Australian Women Writers Challenge, which is now my other gig; she has often contributed to...
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How Beautiful We Were, Imbolo Mbue
Black Africa Project 2024 Imbolo Mbue (1981- ) was born and raised in Cameroon. She moved to the USA to study and that is where she now lives and writes. This is her second novel. Cameroon is south...
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More UKLG Prize 2024
Journal: 122 With this year’s Ursula K Le Guin prize to be announced next month (21/10), Marcie/BIP and I are a bit behind on our shortlist reading, but I’ve made a start (and Marcie has already read...
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Two Small Birds, Dave Newman
At last, a literary trucking novel (thank you Melanie, I’m sure, somewhere back in the mists of time). This was lost on my kindle, and turned up only recently when I discovered I had two accounts, one...
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The Diviners, Margaret Laurence
A decade ago, if I thought about Pride & Prejudice I would wonder how such a perfect novel popped fully formed into the world when before there had been nothing. Of course I have since learned...
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Who’s on First
Aussie Men, Gens I & II Week 12-19 Jan. 2025 ABC-RN recently ran a story (by Nick Baker and Catherine Zengerer) “Who was John Lang and was he the first Australian Novelist?” based on a Late Night...
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One Day I Will Write About This Place, Binyavanga Wainaina
Black Africa Project 2024 My aim with this year’s project is to get an introduction to Black African literature – ironic if you consider Wainaina’s famous essay, How to Write about Africa (2005), a...
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Off-Centre Fiction
Journal: 123 The Intuitionist (1999) was completely new to me a couple of months ago. Since, I have read it twice. How I missed it in the quarter century since publication I have no idea. (That dust...
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Blackheart Man, Nalo Hopkinson
Blackheart Man (2024) was released in just the last month or so. Jamaican/Canadian woman Nalo Hopkinson (1960- ) is my new favourite author (you’d already worked that out?) so I got stuck into it just...
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