01. I’m sure Australia’s bushfires have made world news. The stats* are staggering and almost incomprehensible. I won’t turn this into a rant about our government’s lack of action (no, even acknowledgment) on climate change but this article is worth a read.
“Australia is the canary in the coal mine.”
An even spread of excellent books and some truly memorable author events has made 2019 a terrific reading year.
As I’ve done in previous years, I’ll focus on the books that have continued to resonate with me (as opposed to those I gave five stars to as soon as I’d finished reading). Continue reading
It’s Nonfiction November, this week hosted by Sarah’s Bookshelves. The task? Pair up a nonfiction book with a fiction title.
I have so much fun with this topic (past post, and here), and other bloggers’ book-pairings have resulted in a lot of books being added to my TBR sack.
When relationships get messy, the band does not get back together – Bright Lights, Dark Shadows: The Real Story of ABBA by Carl Magnus Palm and Daisy Jones and The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Continue reading
It’s time for Nonfiction November, starting with my ‘Year in Nonfiction’, hosted by Julz Reads.
Strictly speaking, I should call it Memoir November (Memvember?!) – doesn’t have quite the same ring but it is more accurate in my case, given that the majority of my nonfiction reading is memoir (specifically, I’ve read 16 memoirs, one biography and four other nonfiction titles this year).
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
Can you see Tayari Jones in the pic above? She looks tiny but I had to show off the magnificent Capitol Theatre, one of the venues for this year’s Melbourne Writers Festival.
I managed four sessions on my first Festival day. The highlights: Continue reading
The MWF 2019 program was announced at 7pm. I’ve been busy since then making long lists of authors, events, dates and times.
The theme this year is ‘When We Talk About Love’. I LOVE the graphics and that sparkly heart (and a friend quite rightly pointed out that they need to have this vase everywhere, at all the venues). Continue reading
Seems trite to say the year is zipping by, but there you go, it is. Continue reading
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
When an author gets the balance between memoir and journalism* just right, it makes for brilliant reading. Kate Rossmanith has done it with Small Wrongs, a book that explores how we say ‘sorry’.
Rossmanith looks at what constitutes remorse from many angles – the ‘theatre’ of courtroom appearances; how judges make their decisions; prison, parole and rehabilitation and how these systems create opportunities for offenders to show remorse; and retribution for victims of crime.
In the justice system…the act of forgiveness was unrelated to the duty of punishment; it was not the role of the courts to forgive a person…only the victims can forgive. Continue reading