Monthly Archives: December 2009
Books
Literary Gluttony: Hannah Kent on Holiday Reading
Ah, Christmas holidays. That special time of year filled with endearing family spats, sunburn that leads to ridiculous tan lines, and what my friend likes to call ‘meat sweats’ from days spent overeating at the beach, park, or token relative’s bottle- or cat-strewn backyard. A time to tie … Read more
News
Making up for a bad year? I think not.
It’s not just me, is it? This advertisement, promoting Bigpond’s free music downloads, is extremely offensive. It’s been half a year or so since the ‘Chickengate’ scandal, and it appears some lessons still haven’t been learnt. ‘Chickengate’, a notorious incident involving North Melbourne Football Club players, brought … Read more
Interviews
Interview with a Porn Star: Kill Your Darlings speaks with Monica Mayhem
Pornography, and the mainstreaming of porn in our society, is a divisive issue. Does porn encourage misogyny and sexual violence, or is it a necessary part of society? Can porn help save relationships, or does it encourage unrealistic expectations of sex? Does it provide a necessary outlet … Read more
News
Kafka Minded (by Martin Shaw)
That notable blogonaut Angela Meyer holds a special place in my heart, for every so often she reminds her readers of one of her writerly guiding stars: Franz Kafka. He’s a fixture of my literary pantheon, too: I was perhaps 15 or 16 when I first immersed … Read more
News
The Indian Ark
Prithvi Varatharajan reviews The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets. Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, Indian poet and candidate for the 2009 professional poetry role at Oxford University, once wrote that ‘anthologies are graveyards, and the anthologist’s job is to see only the best corpses get in’. He reckoned that … Read more
