It’s time for #6degrees. Start at the same place as other wonderful readers, add six books, and see where you end up. Continue reading
Author Archives: Kate W
Things that are making me happy this week
01. Slow-motion videos of waves. Continue reading
Three very different memoirs
One Hundred Years of Dirt by Rick Morton, Wham! George & Me by Andrew Ridgeley, and The Fixed Stars by Molly Wizenberg are wildly different books. In fact, the only thing that unites them is that they are all shelved under ‘memoir’.
Morton reflects on his traumatic childhood and the definition of ‘poverty’ in Australia; Ridgely also recalls his childhood, however his included a stable home, music lessons, and his friendship with a school mate who would eventually be known as George Michael; and Wizenberg focuses on the disintegration of her marriage after she realises that her sexuality is ‘fluid’. Continue reading
Long Bright River by Liz Moore
In choosing fiction, my preference is for narratives driven by emotion rather than action – I want to be in a character’s head and to know what they are feeling, as opposed to being a bystander, ‘watching’ what happens to them.
Long Bright River by Liz Moore is very much an action-driven story. It tells of two sisters, Mickey and Kacey, whose lives begin in the same troubled home but then take very different paths . Kacey lives on the streets of Kensington, Philadelphia, addicted to heroin, and doing what she has to do to feed her habit. Mickey also knows the streets of Kensington but that’s because she joined the police force. Although the sisters are estranged, Mickey keeps an eye out for Kacey. When a string of unsolved murders occur – the victims all young women with drug habits – Mickey fears for her sister. Continue reading
Sample Saturday – a girlfriend, a father, and a couple
Sample Saturday is when I wade through the eleventy billion samples I have downloaded on my Kindle. I’m slowly chipping away and deciding whether it’s buy or bye. Continue reading
Things that are making me happy this week
01. One of my favourite souvenirs from Berlin has special significance today (the speech was made 57 years ago). Continue reading
Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano
I know, I know, this was one of the ‘most anticipated’ books of the year. And I know lots of readers have really enjoyed it. I wasn’t sure, but picked it up on account of its grief-lit potential.
Now I realise that I’m not the right audience for Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano. Continue reading
Sample Saturday – grief memoirs suggested by Higgins
Sample Saturday is when I wade through the eleventy billion samples I have downloaded on my Kindle. I’m slowly chipping away and deciding whether it’s buy or bye.
In her memoir, The Girls, Chloe Higgins references a number of grief memoirs. Some were familiar to me, others not. Continue reading
Things that are making me happy this week
01. We will not rest until we’ve seen the deer but in the meantime, glorious walks this week with my friend Sam. Continue reading
Stay With Me by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀
Trigger warning: miscarriage and death of a child.
One thing that I have observed in my counselling work is that the grief associated with the death of a child is unfathomable, and that it changes families (for generations) in a way that is also unfathomable.
Stay With Me by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ is a deeply tragic story, which examines the yearning and grief experienced by Yejide and her husband, Akin.
I was not strong enough to love when I could lose again, so I held her loosely, with little hope, sure that somehow she too would manage to slip from my grasp. Continue reading