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Miseryguts
Journal: 124 Rottnest, looking back towards the city The family has a lot of birthdays in/near October, and this year was Lovely’s 21st, so we booked a week on Rotto to celebrate. Psyche came down...
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Only Sound Remains, Hossein Asgari
Iranian-born Hossein Asgari worked as a physicist before undertaking a PhD in Creative Writing at University of Adelaide. Only Sound Remains (2023) is his first novel. It is set in Adelaide where an...
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The Story of the Lost Child, Elena Ferrante
So, here we are at last at the fourth and final book of the Neapolitan Quartet. Do I still love it? Yes I do. Do I understand it any better than a year ago when I finished number 3? A little maybe,...
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Speaking to the Dead
Journal: 125 A lord dressed as a highwayman forces a carriage to overturn, and therefore must propose marriage to the occupant, a single mother who, unbeknownst to him, is his younger brother’s...
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Life Before Man, Margaret Atwood
MARM 2024 Margaret Atwood was born in 1939, making her half a generation older than me. Her first novel came out in 1969 and this, her fourth, in 1979. So, like, let’s say, Mick Jagger or John Lennon,...
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Australian (white) Men, 1788-1950s
Jacket design: Russell Drysdale You have all been enthusiastic participants in my various Australian Women Writers ‘Gen’ Weeks, in January each year, and for that I thank you. I have previously said...
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After Lives, Abdulrazak Gurnah
Black Africa Project 2024 Abdulrazak Gurnah (1948- ) was born in Zanzibar, an island off the East African coast which has since been incorporated into Tanzania. He is of Arab descent, his father was...
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Older Women
Journal: 126 I’ve dated women older than me a couple of times but it has never felt right (and no, I haven’t dated anyone at all for years). I wonder why that is so. It made sense when I was younger,...
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The Independent Woman, The End.
Last time I wrote about The Independent Woman, I was criticised for illustrating my post with a cover from McLeod’s Daughters. It was suggested Offspring and Fisk would be equally relevant and more...
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Not My Time to Die, Yolande Mukagasana
Black Africa Project 2024 Not My Time to Die (1997), a memoir of Rawanda 1994, is the most scarifying book I have ever read. I admit I mostly ignore third world conflicts, happening to someone else...
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Seasons Greetings, 2024
Another mine, another dirt road. An easy load, and it should have been my last for the year, but I’m squeezing in one more today, Friday. Christmas 2023 was a biggy – a great granddaughter born early...
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EOY 2024
Journal: 127 These are the books I am currently ‘reading’, on my bed where I tossed them aside while checking out truck crashes and Grey’s Anatomy on Facebook, my Bluesky and X feeds, ABC News, Al...
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Monkey Beach, Eden Robinson
Eden Robinson (1968- ) is a Haisla and Heiltsuk woman, from northern, coastal British Columbia, Canada. Monkey Beach (2000), Robinson’s first novel, is a coming of age, a fictionalised account I...
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Australian Writers: Men’s Week, Gen 1
Australian Writers: Men’s Week, Gens 1-3, Jan 12 to 19, 2025 I’m not ready for this week, other from a lifetime of reading older Australian books, nor do I have anything prepared, for which I...
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Australian Writers: Men’s Week, Poetry
Australian Writers: Men’s Week, Gens 1-3, Jan 12 to 19, 2025 This was meant to be an overview of Gen 2, but I have written at length in the past about the Bulletin years – their vociferous and often...
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Australian Writers: Men’s Week, Poetry (2)
Australian Writers: Men’s Week, Gens 1-3, Jan 12 to 19, 2025 Reviewing Judith Wright’s ‘Australian Poetry to 1920’, continuing on from my previous post … Barcroft Boake (1866-1892), “one of Gordon’s...
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Here’s Luck, Lenny Lower
Australian Writers: Men’s Week, Gens 1-3, Jan 12 to 19, 2025 I haven’t written an introduction to Gen 3 (Mens) yet, but Kim/Reading Matters has come up with a gem – of its kind – by Lenny Lower...
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The Drover’s Wife, Frank Moorehouse ed.
Australian Writers: Men’s Week, Gens 1-3, Jan 12 to 19, 2025 Henry Lawson’s ‘ The Drover’s Wife’ first appeared in the Bulletin in 1892 and then in the collection Short Stories in Prose and Verse...
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Dust, Gavin Casey
Australian Writers: Men’s Week, Gens 1-3, Jan 12 to 19, 2025 Sue/Whispering Gums has reviewed the short story Dust, by Gavin Casey for Men’s Week and I thought I’d take this opportunity to write a...
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For the Term of His Natural Life, Marcus Clarke
Australian Writers: Men’s Week, Gens 1-3, Jan 12 to 19, 2025 Marcus Clarke (1846-1881) was born in London. His mother died when he was 4 and his father when he was 16, leaving young Marcus unable to...
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