#121 There is someone in the house. Heard as he moves around the room upstairs. When he gets out of bed or when he goes down the stairs and into the kitchen. There’s the gush of water through the pipes when he fills a kettle. The sound of metal on metal when he sets the … Continue reading On the Calculation of Volume: Book 1 | Solvej Balle
'Why a book about Orwell's wife?' a friend asked. 'He would have been a great writer no matter who his wife was, right?' That thought was expressed to me several times as I researched this book. After all, Eileen died in 1945, just before Animal Farm was published, and therefore just before Orwell began to … Continue reading Eileen: The Making of George Orwell | Sylvia Topp
In October there were yellow trees. Then the clocks went back the hour and the long November winds came in and blew, and stripped the trees bare. Early in 2022 I read Small Things Like These for the first time. Sadly I was in a bleak blogging phase at the time and all I could … Continue reading Small Things Like These | Claire Keegan
'I've lost my soul, Mary! Help me, my little Madonna!' Black and more black. This must be death. The two novellas I've read this month so far have been sad little numbers about illness. The first was cancer (Cheri by Jo Ann Beard) and now this autofiction foray into mental health, depression and psychiatric wards. … Continue reading Everything Calls for Salvation | Daniele Mencarelli #NovNov
When Saya sends a text to tell me she has a new boyfriend, I instantly write back: What's he like? But all she replies is: He's a doctor. Modern Japanese literature really is a world unto its own. From the dense, supernatural, magic realism fantasy that Murakami writes to the (often) saccharin sweet, story-with-message that … Continue reading What You Are Looking For is in the Library | Michiko Aoyama
When I was nine years old I was a good little girl, though this hadn’t always been the case. Have you ever noticed that the books you really enjoyed reading - a lot - and would like to read again, are the ones you find the hardest to write something about? The Inseparables has been … Continue reading The Inseparables | Simone de Beauvoir
This incredible book is a testament to the renaissance of First Nations poetry happening in Australia right now. UQP website Fire Front: First Nations Poetry and Power Today is an anthology of poems and essays from many well-known and emerging First Nations writers and thinkers. It is powerful and confronting stuff. It is very contemporary, … Continue reading Fire Front | edited by Alison Whittaker #poetry
Even with months of planning and anticipation, Bill @The Australian Legend's Gen 4 Reading Week has still caught me by surprise! He describes Gen 4 as Australian "women who began writing in the 1960s, 70s and 80s." Postmodernism and Magic Realism were some of their tools of trade, but for Bill, this generation is defined … Continue reading Collected Stories | Shirley Hazzard
When the Moon rose in the Third Northern Hall I went to the Ninth Vestibule to witness the joining of Three Tides. This is something that happens only every eight years. I'm really not sure how I can write a review for this story that will do the reading experience justice. Piranesi was the book … Continue reading Piranesi | Susanna Clarke
'All over the country, brooding on squatters' verandahs, or mooning in selectors' huts,' so A. G. Stephens wrote in the Bulletin in 1901, 'there are scattered here and there hundreds of lively, dreamy Australian girls whose queer uncomprehended ambitions are the despair of the household. They yearn, they aspire for they know not what...' I … Continue reading Friends & Rivals | Brenda Niall
Émile Zola: A Very Short Introduction is part of the very excellent Oxford University Press Very Short Introduction series. There are over 700 titles in the series covering everything from author biographies, religions and philosophers, medicine and health topics, periods of history, cultural and social issues, to science and maths. If you're on the brink … Continue reading Émile Zola: A Very Short Introduction | Brian Nelson
Let me begin in my father's house. A good opening line tells you a lot. Right from the get-go we see there is a story to be told. There is a father (but not a mother) and that houses will be significant. We start with Erica returning to her old family home - a cottage … Continue reading The Labyrinth | Amanda Lohrey
My nana used to call it the 'change of life'. It was a change alright. If you take a quick glance at the health section in most Australian bookshops, you will notice that suddenly there are quite a few books about older women's health, specifically perimenopause and menopause, being published. I can only assume it's … Continue reading The M Word | Dr Ginni Mansberg
A few minutes past midnight on Tuesday, 10 September 1940, an air raid struck Mecklenburgh Square. After a mini-reading slump in April, I needed something to capture my attention and my heart. Normally I would go to some cosy crime, or pick up a Jane Austen. Instead, this time, I found myself in the warm … Continue reading Square Haunting | Francesca Wade
Once the queen's head is severed, he walks away. Didn't Anne die in the previous book? And didn't we deal with the time immediately after her death already? Is this opening line a signal that a big recap is coming? Yes and no. As it turns out The Mirror and the Light is an overlong … Continue reading The Mirror and the Light | Hilary Mantel #Readalong
