Reading plans for 2016 – the Year of Reading India

While I was in Ubud recently, I decided that next year will be my Year of Reading India. I plan for 2016 to be the beginning of a new type of reading approach for me. Why India? Because I have a bunch of books written by Indian authors already, including a few of Salman Rushdie's [...]

The Secret Son, review in The Australian newspaper

Was very happy to see this review of The Secret Son (alongside Leah Kaminsky's first novel The Waiting Room) in the paper over the weekend. An author dreams of reviews, and they don't always happen, small or big, positive or negative. They don't always happen quickly, and they don't always happen at all. With 400 new [...]

FALLEN

Today's post is dedicated to the 22nd book I've read this year, Fallen, a memoir, by Rochelle Siemienowicz (HURRAH, that is the first time I've been able to spell Rochelle's surname, without looking. And funnily enough, my spell check has offered 'Microeconomics' instead.) I was always going to read this book, because: DISCLOSURE, I know Rochelle in [...]

Not a review: books of strange, new things

For my final book post for the year, I have chosen recent local fiction (plus one non-local interloper) to present. These are all VERY exciting novels, especially for this reader who usually sticks to The Real. Annabel Smith's THE ARK Paddy O'Reilly's THE WONDERS Jane Rawson's A WRONG TURN AT THE OFFICE OF UNMADE LISTS [...]

Not a review, on How to Be Both by Ali Smith

This year I've tested out a couple of book clubs, run by local bookshops. I have a fairly non-existent history with book groups. I went along once to a friend's meeting. I hadn't finished the book, and felt incredibly inarticulate. I don't know whether finishing the book would have made any difference, to be honest. One [...]

Not a review – The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

I've been avoiding The Luminaries (I will get back to it, I will) by re-reading The Little Friend, and then I found myself avoiding that by reading The Virgin Suicides, which is an attractive slender thing, something tasty and distracting, but all too quickly over. Oh, how beautifully it's done. It's a book about death [...]