Bookish (and not so bookish) Thoughts

01. The Melbourne Writers Festival 2017 program was launched this week. I’m excited about Heather Rose, Jennifer Down, Christine Kenneally, Tracy Chevalier and Maxine Beneba Clarke. Also: Grenville, Tsiolkas, Laguna, Krien, Joosten. It’s going to be a busy ten days.

02. Hardly surprising that The Glorious Heresies has been snapped up for television. It will be ace.

03.“The control of women and babies has been a feature of every repressive regime on the planet.” Atwood on The Handmaid’s Tale in the age of Trump.

04. Related: I finished watching The Handmaid’s Tale and I loved it. Loved the cinematography. Loved the soundtrack (Spotify list here). Loved the costumes. Loved the casting. And really loved the line, “If they didn’t want an army, they shouldn’t have given us a uniform” (is that a direct quote from the book? I need to do a re-read).

05. Jane Austen in charts.

06. I would have worked through this list had I had it with me last time I went to NYC (note, they missed a GG spot that I did go to – Daniel).

07. All my free reading time is about to grind to a halt – got my uni reading list yesterday and it’s intense.

08. Nominations for Not-the-Booker-Prize are now open.

09. So much wish I could go to this Amadeus concert… (clashes with #ALLTHETHINGS)

Bookish Thoughts is hosted by Christine at Bookishly Boisterous. Stop by, say g’day.

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22 responses

  1. My uni course has started back too so my reading time is greatly reduced too. I’m excited about Joyce Carol Oates coming to the MWF! And yes – Glorious Heresies will be a great TV show – oh I recommend “City of Bohane” by Kevin Barry – who “discovered” Lisa McInerney through her blog and commissioned a story. City of Bohane is like Peaky Blinders in the future – crazy cli-fi meets gang warfare with lush Irish language…not that you have time to read it… sorry!

    • Thanks for the tip re Kevin Barry – I’ll check it out.

      Uni reading shouldn’t make a difference to my free reading but honestly, if I’ve been reading for hours for uni, the last thing I feel like is picking up another book!

  2. I am also somewhat excited about MWF this year. It’s a good line up.
    Can I ask what the save save save bit is about? Are you planning another trip? Are you doing a ‘buy no new books’ year and I forgot/missed the announcement?

    As for Handmaid’s Tale I think you know I was disappointed with enough of it to kind of spoil it for me. BUT I also have started re-reading it so will let you know if I come across that line. (Also I read Margaret consulted on the script? Or was involved. Whether she wrote any of it. But there were some very good lines, some of them my daughter said were in the book.)

    • This is so weird – I can’t see where I have said ‘save save save’… It’s not something I wrote in this post… Are you seeing something I’m not?! Related though, I am on another book-buying ban this year although it hasn’t really altered the TBR stack much because I keep going to the library :-/

      • now this is so weird. I finally managed to log into my laptop and can’t see the save save save bit. I was going to screenshot. I have seen it on all your posts on my other PC, so once there again will try to remember to check. But very weird. Funny how we set our challenges, but you did so well last year with it.

    • Yes, we failed last year! (I didn’t get to much because it clashed with my kids football/ soccer/ basketball grand finals – there won’t be as much grand final action this year, although I can’t say it’s because out of consideration their teams have under-performed so that I can go to more of the MWF!). I’ll message you when I’ve booked a few things in.

  3. Haha! Love the Not the Man Booker prize thing! I often have terrible luck with award winning books…and the worst of all with the Man Booker!

  4. I know I’m only saying this because I’m not currently a student, but I miss getting my required reading lists. Granted, I was an English major, so they were mostly novels, but still. It was always fun getting a new stack of books to read (that always wore off a few weeks later).

    Also, thanks for your post about my son’s swimming experience. He’s done and I feel much better about not forcing him to do much, since his elbows are definitely still shorter than his head 😉

    • My reading is text books and 30-page journal articles… not as much fun as a novel. I’m a relatively fast reader so I do wonder how people who don’t read much normally cope with the load.

      Keep checking the arm/elbows/head thing – it’s bizarre how all of a sudden their arms grow!

  5. Haha, I enjoyed reading those Jane Austen charts xD

    I can’t remember if I’ve added The Glorious Heresies to my wish-to-read list…I should fix that.

    Good luck with your readings at uni! Btw, I started posting my photos from my recent trip earlier this week if you’re keen to take a peek 😉

  6. I thought about going to MWF at one point – it’s usually more attractive than Brisbane Writers’ Festival but the program didn’t jump out at me. I’m going to the Romance Writers’ Festival next weekend, even though I don’t read or write romance, but a lot of the sessions are broadly relevant and I like the idea of hanging with like-minded peeps.

    I’m keen to get to the Byron Writers’ Festival sometime….

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