The premise for George Kemp’s novel, Soft Serve, is deceptively simple – four people taking shelter in a regional McDonald’s as bushfires close in around the town. What unfolds, is a story about grief, expectations and imagined futures.
…orange embers dart over her head and flutter down the hill towards the town, flicky death-filled confetti… Continue reading
For the first time since I’ve joined the Literary Wives Club, the selection is a short story collection – Jhumpa Lahiri’s Pulitzer Prize winning Interpreter of Maladies.
There are nine stories in the collection, the majority focused on Indian or Bengali immigrants in America. Lahiri writes from different perspectives, not bound by gender or age, and the stories feature details and quirks that make them ‘splendid’* and memorable. Continue reading
In previous years, I’ve attempted to read the full Stella Prize longlist – that took some effort in terms of coordinating predictions, library reservations and bookshop visits! This year, the longlist announcement crept up on me and I was totally unprepared. Nevertheless, I got my hands on a copy of Lucy Nelson’s short story collection, Wait Here. Continue reading
01. It’s Melbourne Food and Wine Festival! Two dinners and an event: 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
Dear Ann,
I am writing to congratulate you on your most recent novel, State of Wonder, which was given to me for my birthday by my brother…
Yes, the protagonist, Sybil Van Atwerp, is referring to Ann Patchett. She goes on to say that if Ann was to ever visit Annapolis, she’d be glad to host her. Sybil’s familiar tone (which she also employs in letters to Joan Didion and Kazuo Ishiguro) is wonderfully endearing and I’d like to imagine, disarming for the receivers of those letters.
However, letters to authors are just a small part of The Correspondent by Virginia Evans. Continue reading
It’s hard to pick out the happiest of happy things but this is my list of 2025 highlights (excluding books – more on those later – and holidays, and I had some amazing ones this year, notably Hobart, Cambodia, New Zealand, and my sinkholes tour). Continue reading
I left my mother not because I didn’t love her, but in order to be able to continue to love her. Continue reading
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. This week, all three came via Insta book recommendations – Continue reading
All year I show restraint and then November happens – Nonfiction November, Novellas in November, and German Literature Month – it usually means my TBR stack grows, although this year I have been a little more restrained. Continue reading