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What I’ve Been Reading : Muriel Spark
I enjoyed A Far Cry From Kensington so much that I wanted to know more about the author, so my next read was Muriel Spark: The Biography by Martin Stannard. This was a very long and thorough overview...
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What I’ve Been Reading: Some Really, Really Annoying Books, Plus One...
I’m not going to write about the really, really annoying books I’ve just read (even though I have many thoughts about them) because those authors don’t deserve any more publicity. However, I did enjoy...
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‘Iris and the Tiger’ by Leanne Hall
Disclaimer because this is an Australian book: I don’t know the author and have no connection to the publisher. I absolutely loved Leanne Hall’s Iris and the Tiger, a charming, funny story about Iris,...
View ArticleMiscellaneous Memoranda
– Rivers of London fans, here’s a good interview with Ben Aaronovitch at Radio National (although, beware, it contains big plot spoilers for the whole series). Also at Radio National, there’s an...
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What I’ve Been Reading
At Home: A Short History of Private Life is another of Bill Bryson’s entertaining books about history. This one came about when he was looking around his Victorian house in Norfolk and considering how...
View ArticleCopy (Not) Right
Last year, the Productivity Commission was asked by the Australian government to review intellectual property rights in Australia. The Commission’s draft report was recently released, and although I...
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‘Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life’ by Anne Lamott
Although I’d seen many recommendations for Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird1, I put off reading it because it sounded a bit too mystical for my tastes. In fact, this book is fairly big on spirituality, with...
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What I’ve Been Reading
I don’t usually read horror fiction (if I want horror, I can read the newspapers), but I recently borrowed a huge pile of books, plucked pretty much at random off the shelves of my library because it...
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What I’ve Been Reading
I have not been reading much fiction lately as I’ve been distracted by ALL THE POLITICS, but two novels I recently read did provide some insight into race and immigration, which seems highly relevant...
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Miscellaneous Memoranda
– There’s a great interview with E.B. White in this 1969 edition of The Paris Review, which includes his thoughts on writing for children: “Anyone who writes down to children is simply wasting his...
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National Bookshop Day 2016
Fellow Australians1, it’s National Bookshop Day this Saturday! This celebration of our nation’s bookshops is especially important this year because the Australian Booksellers Association is one of the...
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What I’ve Been Reading : Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
For various reasons, I haven’t felt up to reading anything new lately, so I’ve been working my way through old favourites from my bookshelves. This has included a whole shelf of novels and short...
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‘Party Animals: My Family and Other Communists’ by David Aaronovitch
Party Animals is a fascinating memoir about growing up in a British Communist family during the Cold War, written by David Aaronovitch, the son of Sam Aaronovitch, Communist Party worker and Marxist...
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‘Howl’s Moving Castle’ by Diana Wynne Jones
I have had a mixed reaction to the novels of Diana Wynne Jones so far. I enjoyed Dogsbody, I thought Charmed Life was okay, I loathed Fire and Hemlock. I was also a bit put off by DWJ’s fans, some of...
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‘The Genius of Birds’ by Jennifer Ackerman
Could there be a book title more perfectly designed to appeal to my interests? Jennifer Ackerman’s new book is a fascinating exploration of bird intelligence, which begins with a description of the New...
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‘Autumn Term’ by Antonia Forest
After hearing a lot of praise for Antonia Forest’s Marlow books, I was happy to find a reasonably-priced copy of the first in the series, Autumn Term, originally published in 1948. I had high...
View Article‘Autumn Term’, Part Two
Chapter Three: A Form Examination The twins meet up with Tim in the garden and Tim offers them delicious juicy pears, which she cheerfully admits she stole from the headmistress’s private garden. As...
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Chapter Five: –And Nicola Loses It A storm is brewing in Third Remove! Nobody much likes Marie, so she makes friends with ghastly Pomona and they plot to unseat Nicola from her prize desk at the front...
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Chapter Seven: A First Class Hike Before we get to the hike – it turns out Lois Sanger has been demoted to the netball Seconds after the Firsts’ catastrophic loss. Even though Lawrie loftily claims the...
View Article‘Autumn Term’, Part Five
Chapter Nine: Half-Term It’s half-term and the Marlow sisters go home for a long weekend. Over breakfast with their parents and their brother Peter, the twins’ school reports are discussed....
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