Cathy at 746 Books is hosting the 20 Books of Summer reading challenge again this year. As Cathy explains, it’s the most relaxed reading challenge you’ll participate in (swap books out, change your target, do whatever). The challenge is straightforward – read the books between June 1st and September 1st. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Charlotte Wood
Six Degrees of Separation – from Tom Lake to The Librarianist
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
Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood
I hate mice. No, more than hate. I have a phobia. They never used to worry me until 15 years ago, when our house was overrun after a large empty block of land next door was subdivided and developed. All the mice, who had lived happily in the grasses for years, took up residence with us. There was shit evidence of them everywhere. You would hear them at night. You would see them dart across the floor out of the corner of your eye. I would vacuum along the skirting boards every morning, the droppings pinging in the vacuum like gravel. It took us weeks to get rid of them.
I mention the mice because although Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood is about a woman who retreats to a small religious community in regional New South Wales, and more specifically, the return of a nun’s body to the Sisters in the community, the backdrop for the story is a mouse plague. Wood’s descriptions of the mice made me so anxious (I’m not over-stating that – I frequently put the book down when the mouse bits became too much) that I can only assume that she also isn’t a huge fan of mice. Continue reading
Six Degrees of Separation – from Western Lane to Dolores
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
The Performance by Claire Thomas
When I read Charlotte Wood’s brilliant novel, The Weekend, a few years ago, there was much discussion about the fact that the story focused on the inner lives of ‘older’ women, and that this is largely ignored in contemporary literature. At the time, I didn’t think it was but nor could I easily name any solid examples to prove otherwise. So, when I read Claire Thomas’s novel, The Performance, I realised it had been a long time between drinks. Continue reading
Six Degrees of Separation – from What Are You Going Through to Crossroads
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
Things that are making me happy this week
01. The Melbourne Theatre Company 2022 program (don’t talk to me about Opera Australia – I’m fuming). So much to look forward to at MTC, including some books transformed for the stage (Touching the Void by Joe Simpson; Fun Home by Alison Bechdel; Come Rain or Come Shine by Kazua Ishiguro; and Laurinda by Alice Pung). Continue reading
Things that are making me happy this week
01. We’re picnic-ing again. So good to see dear friends over cocktails and snacks. Continue reading
Second Place by Rachel Cusk
Second Place was my introduction to Rachel Cusk. I quickly became engrossed in the story and wondered why I had expected her writing to be impenetrable. Where had this impression come from? Other readers? Reviews? Her regular appearance on literature award lists? Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised – no, relieved – to find Second Place highly ‘readable’. No persistence required. Continue reading
I’m waiting for… 2021 edition
Proving that I don’t actually care about my never-really-shrinking-TBR-list is this list of new releases that are on my radar for 2021. Continue reading