01. I went to a Melbourne Food and Wine Festival class last weekend – we made punch (I think that’s a responsible way of saying ‘big batch cocktails’). Anyway, now I need a retro punch bowl and a new Pinterest board so that I can start collecting punch recipes. Continue reading
In 1929, Hungarian writer Frigyes Karinthy wrote a short story called Chains in which he coined the phrase six degrees of separation. Of course the 1993 film, Six Degrees of Separation, starring the incomparable Stockard Channing, cemented the phrase (and concept) into everyday parlance. Based on the concept of six degrees of separation, Emma Chapman and Annabel Smith created a neat meme, where bloggers share links between books, in six moves.
This month, the chain begins with The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton. I haven’t read it and my reason is pathetic – it’s just such a big book and I’ve done a few big books of late. That said, it is on my reading list (propping up the chunky end along with Harry Quebert). But the beauty of this meme is that having read the book is not a prerequisite. Continue reading
Aussie, Aussie, Aussie! Oi, oi, oi! I enjoy the Australian Women Writers Challenge – it goes a little way to addressing the gender bias in literary review pages, plus I try to buy my AWW titles from an independent book shop (doing my bit for the Australian publishing industry and independent booksellers).
I signed up for the Miles challenge (read 6 books, review at least 4) but managed to complete the Franklin level (read 10 books, review at least 6). Continue reading
It’s interesting that I had two books at the top of my reading stack about women and footy. One was Anna Krein’s Night Games and the other, The Whole of My World by Nicole Hayes. I picked up Hayes first, partly because I committed to reading some of the ARCs that I had been kindly given access to but also because I suspected the Krein would be confronting reading (and I wasn’t in the mood for that at the time).
It’s worth noting that although this book is aimed at the young-adult market, the issues that it covers are anything but light. Instead, expect characters dealing with grief; the difficulties of finding your place in a group (regardless of age); the lure of celebrity fame; and that tightrope between being a kid and an adult.
The Whole of My World is the story of Shelley, a teenage girl obsessed with Australian Rules football. Despite being robbed of the opportunity to play, Shelley lives and breathes footy, analysing every part of Glenthorn’s game, watching the replay with her dad, clipping newspaper articles about Glenthorn and going along to local games to watch her childhood friend, Josh, play. Continue reading
Where has the year gone?! I think I say that every year. I must be getting old. Really old.
Here’s a quick round-up of the important (reading) bits – Continue reading