Are you a scotch drinker or whiskey fiend? Neither? I am somewhat on the wagon these days but I do have a partiality to an occasional snifter of Laphroaig. I have been invited to appear at a series called Writers Under the Influence, at funky Northcote Buck Mulligan's Bar on Wednesday 7 June at 7.30pm. Buck [...]
Category: literature
Battling on with Sir Salman
I am in the final stages of Midnight's Children and what a struggle it is. This is not a novel that will give itself over to me in any way. Just when I think I'm getting a grip, it slips away from me, like one of the frequent snake motifs scattered through the book, or [...]
Read #1: The God of Small Things
I finished my first Reading India book last night, Arundhati Roy's first - and only - published novel, The God of Small Things. It's a book I had tried once before to read, and not gotten through the first twenty or so pages. This time, because of my challenge, I persisted. And for a long [...]
Plans for 2016
As I said before, this is my Year of Reading India. The rules are I don't buy any new local or overseas fiction, with the following exceptions: my friend's book, coming out this year some time books that fit into my written by an Indian author/set in India/about India books that are necessary for my reading [...]
Back from my fishing trip aka The Ubud Writers and Readers Festival 2015
It was really good and while the added six days were kind of not good, they were also good. Good. Here are some photos from my launch, which was held at the divine Sri Ratih Cottages in Ubud, which was also where I stayed. It was really fun doing a launch with a different format. First, [...]
Just me, Toni & Salman
So check out the link below. I'll wait here for you to come back. Radio National Books & Arts Daily I was very excited when I got a message from Kate Evans of Books+Arts and Books+ on Radio National to let me know my interview with her would be broadcast this morning. I listened 'live' and was [...]
My first author Q&A for The Secret Son
My publicist at Allen & Unwin was approached by a reviewer, who'd read my book and reviewed it on her website. Would I consider answering some questions, about the book and how I wrote it? Oh, yes I would! The questions were fantastic, and it's made me realise that after so long with a book, so [...]
The Fishermen, by Chigozie Obioma
Book 42: I finished this earlier today and did so with tears in my eyes. None rolled, but they were there. I found it moving, at the end, and also found that it seemed perfectly paced, the last quarter of the book. I felt doom, I felt apprehension and I felt admiration. It's a fine [...]
Wuthering Heights. It’s a love-hate thing.
Thursday was Emily Brontë's birthday and she would have turned 197. Her pièce de résistance Wuthering Heights was probably the first (and only?) piece of classic literature that I connected to with such visceral, anguished, teenagery love, and now regard with no less admiration, but it's tempered with a more mature writerly and readerly respect. As a teenager I wrong-loved [...]
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