Tag Archives: Christine Sneed

Portraits of a Few of the People I’ve Made Cry by Christine Sneed

Posted by Kate W in Fiction and tagged with , , , , , , ,

I really had the best intentions to do all of my Short Story September reviews in September… but anyway, here I am in October (planning November reading) and thinking I ought to draw a line under last month. So, Portraits of a Few of the People I’ve Made Cry by Christine Sneed…

There are ten stories in the collection (Sneed’s debut. I bought this book after reading her first novel, Little Known Facts, which I enjoyed). The themes focus on love and what people choose to do for love. Continue reading →

Bookish (and not so bookish) Thoughts

Posted by Kate W in Stuff and Nonsense and tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

stella-prize-longlist-2015

1. Stella Prize 2015 longlist announced today. I’ve read four of them (Hartnett, Pung, Garner and Laguna) and have a couple of others in my very-near-reading-future.

2. I’d like to see Hartnett win.

3. But can’t believe Favel Parrett’s When the Night Comes didn’t make the longlist. Continue reading →

Six Degrees of Separation – from We Need to Talk About Kevin to Little Known Facts

Posted by Kate W in Stuff and Nonsense and tagged with , , , , , , ,

we-need-to-talk-about-kevin-lionel-shriver

It’s time again for my favourite meme. Based on the concept of six degrees of separation, Emma Chapman and Annabel Smith have created #6DEGREES, where bloggers share links between books in six moves. Check out the rules if you want to play along.

This month, we begin with Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk About Kevin. I could talk endlessly about this book – it left an indelible impression on me and although I read it when it was first published in 2006, hardly a month goes by without thinking about it. But I haven’t reread it – I’m not sure I could cope. Similarily, Sonya Hartnett’s Of a Boy is a book that will never be far from my mind – devastating, crushing and one that I’m unlikely to reread because: too stressful. Continue reading →

Top Ten Books for 2013

Posted by Kate W in Fiction, Non-fiction and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

top ten books 2013

It’s that time of year (the last reading day of 2013) where I pick my favourite and bests. The first nine are in no particular order: Continue reading →

You can choose your friends but… – a top ten list of books about families

Posted by Kate W in Fiction and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina opens with this –

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

And aren’t readers glad that Tolstoy is correct because such families make for great stories.

This week’s top ten, hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, is favourite books in a particular setting – I’ve chosen families as my theme (and also cleverly managed to put Tolstoy and Sister Sledge in the same post. I know, brilliant)..

So, play that funky beat and browse this list of the best books about families dealing with their share of unhappiness – Continue reading →

Top 10 Books I’ve Read So Far This Year

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top-ten-june-2013

By this point last year, I’d read The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach. Had I not read another good book for the remainder of the year, I would have been satisfied that 2012 had been a ‘good reading year’. In fact, 2012 got even better when I read Lisa Klaussman’s Tigers in Red Weather.

But 2013 is another story.

When I saw this week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic – best books read so far this year – the first thing I thought was ‘This year, I haven’t found ‘the one’.’ I’ve read some great books (as the list below demonstrates) but I haven’t found the one book that I press onto everyone I meet.Yet.

So this list of excellent books comes with qualifiers – I loved all of these novels but I’m not necessarily recommending them to ALL THE PEOPLE (although The Rosie Project comes darn close). Continue reading →

Top Ten Tuesday – My Autumn TBR List

Posted by Kate W in Fiction and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

vactionland-sarah-stonich

I almost feel ill when I think about my TBR stack. It’s towering. And it just keeps getting bigger. It’s a good/bad ill feeling – kind of like what I call ‘airport stomach’ – that special nervous excitement you get when you’re about to jet off on a holiday but have to get up very, very early to be at the airport on time. Maybe I need a new kind of ill called ‘TBR stack fever’ – identified by a feeling of overwhelming anticipation.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic, hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, is ‘Books On My Spring 2013 TBR list’ – it’s supposed to be autumn in Melbourne. You wouldn’t know it. It’s only rained three times this year and we’ve had weeks of 30+ degrees. It’s hard to think about bunkering down with serious books when it’s sweltering (I tend to read more seriously when it’s cold and read more trash in summer – tell me that’s normal!). Continue reading →

Top Ten Tuesday – There’s a new book out by…

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buy all the books meme

When John Irving released In One Person last year it received mixed advance reviews. I read them all but they didn’t stop me from pouncing on In One Person as soon as I was able. And I didn’t really like it which was disappointing because I’d waited for it for so long. But it didn’t matter because Irving is without question my favourite contemporary author and, if he suddenly began publishing his books on the back of boxes of Cheerios, then I’d be an overnight Cheerios eater.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic, hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, is ‘Authors On My Auto-Buy List’. It’s not just Irving –

1. John Irving – goes without saying! Continue reading →

‘Little Known Facts’ by Christine Sneed

Posted by Kate W in Fiction and tagged with , , ,

Slick, fast-paced and with that ‘I-know-it’s-sleazy-but-I-can’t-stop-watching’ element of Entourage, Little Known Facts, the debut novel by Christine Sneed is a brilliant read.

It’s the story of Hollywood movie star, Ren Ivins, and is told from the perspective of the various people around him from his children (Will and Anna) and ex-wives to the kid who looks after props on the set of one of his films. In many ways, Ren is exactly like you would expect –

“‘I’m an ass man and a tits man. Why should I have to choose between the two?’ Indeed. The usual laws of supply and demand do not apply to movie stars.” Continue reading →