I seem to be incapable of writing reviews at the moment. I’m not going to labour over them. Instead, brief thoughts on some of what I’ve read over the last two months – Continue reading
See What You Made Me Do by Jess Hill is the winner of the 2020 Stella Prize. Continue reading
The Stella Prize 2020 winner is announced tonight (tune in for the live announcement here). Continue reading
Where to start with this big story, plump with important themes, lush language, and rich history? No review that I will do of Tara June Winch’s novel, The Yield, will capture all the elements of this book, so instead I will focus on the two parts that drew me in – the experience of grief, and the meaning of words. Continue reading
According to the publishers, the short stories in Josephine Rowe’s collection, Here Until August, explore the point of change in people’s lives. And yes, the collection delivers that – the ten stories examine thresholds, internal and external boundaries, and points-of-no-return. But there’s also a theme of belonging in each of these carefully crafted stories, explored through memory; through people being in foreign places; and people returning ‘home’ (but not necessarily ‘belonging’).
The collection opens with Glisk, a story about the return of the narrator’s older brother to a small town. There’s a past trauma and a deceit, and when the deceit is revealed, it tips everything the narrator has known sideways.
I’m waiting behind the flyscreen, feeling everything I’d neatly flat-packed springing up in me. Continue reading
My Stella Prize longlist reading effort only started last week…. and it turns out that I’ve read the majority of the shortlist. Yay for me!
Here it is: Continue reading
I’ll keep it short… Continue reading
Breaking Badly by Georgie Dent is the second Australian memoir I’ve read within the last month that examines mental health. While Nicola Redhouse turned to psychoanalysis and medication, Dent discovers that CBT strategies are effective in managing her anxiety. Continue reading
We’ve all known a couple that breaks up and gets back together over and over again. As teenagers, that sort of relationship drama seems to be part of the adolescent experience, but once you’re in your twenties and thirties the debriefings and speculation over what has been said and done wears thin.
Helen Garner’s Monkey Grip unpicks the relationship between Nora and Javo. It’s predominantly a story of addiction – Javo has a drug habit and Nora has a ‘Javo-habit’. As frequently as Javo says he is giving up drugs, Nora says she’s done with Javo. Neither stop and that is essentially the beginning and end of the story. Continue reading
Every year my kids’ school has a vital information night on at the same time as the Stella Prize longlist announcement. So, while I would have preferred to be at the Melba Spiegeltent for the announcement, I was instead in a school hall, pretending to listen to VCE study tips and surreptitiously looking at Twitter as the longlist was revealed.
I’m home now and I’m ready to start reading. Continue reading