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
It’s rare that book news breaks into mainstream media headlines. Help me out readers – what comes to mind? For me there’s only a handful over the last twenty-odd years – the James Frey fiasco; the year no Pulitzer was awarded; the controversial publication of Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman; Doris Lessing’s fabulous doorstep interview when she won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007 (and the lack of agreement about whether Bob Dylan should have won the prize in 2017) and maybe, Margaret Atwood’s publication of The Testaments (because Americans were living a real-life Handmaid’s Tale in Trump’s first presidential term). But I think the most recent one was the shocking attempt on Salman Rushdie’s life at an author talk in 2022.
In Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, Rushdie reflects on the event and the aftermath. Continue reading
When I started this blog almost ten years ago, I had an idea for a meme (it’s still sitting in draft posts). The idea was to read the books that my friends considered their ‘favourite’. I never progressed the meme, but I did get a nomination from Rory – Empire Falls by Richard Russo. Yes, shameful that it has taken me so, so long to read this book. And Rory commented on Goodreads that she was nervous that I wouldn’t love it as much as she did. Well… 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
Memorial Drive by Natasha Trethewey made lots of ‘best of 2020′ lists, and I find it hard to pass by a memoir that garners so much praise.
Natasha describes the events leading to her mother’s violent death, and how her experience of grief and trauma has shaped her work (Trethewey is a Pulitzer Prize–winning poet).
Three decades is a long time to get to know the contours of loss, to become intimate with one’s own bereavement. You get used to it. Most days it is a distant thing, always on the horizon, sailing toward me with it’s difficult cargo. 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. Continue reading
We got off to a fabulous start when host Benjamin Law noted Andrew Sean Greer’s striking leather pants and asked, “Who are you wearing tonight?” Andrew obliged – the pants were bespoke, made for him in Paris, and his striped blazer was purchased in Milan on a post-Pulitzer spending spree. For those who had not read Andrew’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Less, this exchange may have seemed farcical, however, those familiar with the character of Arthur Less immediately knew they were in for an entertaining evening (bespoke clothing occupies Arthur’s time in Paris). Continue reading
I am really, really trying to finish the Mount TBR reading challenge this year. I generally hit a road block in March as I read the Stella Prize lists, and again in August when the Melbourne Writers Festival provides a lovely distraction and lots of new books. At my current rate, I’ll need to read five books per month from my TBR stack in order to hit the target. It’s doable…
So, three old-school Twitter* reviews of Mount TBR books I’ve read over the last month – Continue reading
My thought as I was halfway through reading Andrew Sean Greer’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Less, was why the Melbourne Writers Festival team (i.e. Marieke and her off-sider, Gene) were so invested in the book (they were mad for it).
And then I discovered that there was so much more to Less.
It’s the story of Arthur Less, a mediocre novelist who is about to turn fifty (‘Arthur Less is the first homosexual ever to grow old’). When Less receives an invitation to ex-boyfriend Freddy’s wedding, he plans a round-the-world trip to avoid the nuptials. A string of speaking and teaching engagements takes him from New York and Mexico City, to Rome, Berlin, Paris, Morocco, India and Japan.
While snow glistens on Charlottenburg Palace, Freddy is standing beside Dennis in the California sun, for surely it is one of those white-linen-suit weddings, with a bower of white roses and pelicans flying by and somebody’s understanding college ex-girlfriend playing Joni Mitchell on guitar. Continue reading
As a reader, I didn’t hold up my end of the bargain with Toni Morrison’s Beloved.
My reading waxed and waned – distracted and unfocused. I feel bad because there is no question that Beloved is an important book, and one that needs careful and close reading. Continue reading