Category Archives: Books
Books
The terrible power of ‘echidna books’: Julienne Van Loon’s Harmless
When I was in primary school there was a book I simultaneously loved and feared. It was a picture book featuring Australian bush animals one of whom, the echidna, was ostracised by the others because of his appearance. Determined to overcome the other animals’ hostility the echidna … Read more
Books
The epic in the every-day: Iris Lavell’s Elsewhere in Success
It is always a delight to uncover a wonderful piece of debut fiction such as Iris Lavell’s Elsewhere in Success. This character-driven novel is about Harry and Louisa, two re-partnered baby boomers leading ordinary suburban lives in the suburb of Success in Western Australia. Louisa holds … Read more
Books
Joyful Strains: Stirring the multicultural melting pot
This week Affirm Press publishes Joyful Strains, a book celebrating the experiences of 27 new Australians on their expatriation to these shores. I am a new Australian and also publisher at Affirm Press. And did the editors put these two things together and ask me to contribute … Read more
Books
Novel writing and the melodic blizzard: the influence of music on The Burial
There has been some confusion about which Warren Ellis wrote the blurb on the cover of my recently released novel, The Burial. Is it Warren Ellis the writer of comics and novels or Warren Ellis the wiz with a violin?
Books
I won’t be eating my words: narrative in cookbooks
Until this year, cookbooks had managed to evade all those doomsday prophecies about the death of the book. But in March, a Sydney Morning Herald article dared to ask the question on every worried bibliophile’s mind: is the cookbook dead? Have food blogs, cooking apps and ebooks … Read more
Books
The (non-)completist
Do you like to read every book by your favourite author? I don’t…and I do. I discovered Marilynne Robinson in 2004, when her second novel, Gilead, came out. Narrated by John Ames, a small-town preacher, Gilead has an incomparable quiet humanity; I fell in love with the … Read more
Books, Reviews
Hook, line and sinker: Emily Maguire’s Fishing for Tigers
It’s hard not to be hooked by the opening lines of Emily Maguire’s Fishing for Tigers: ‘I had picked Hanoi because the airfare was cheap and I knew almost nothing about the place. The need to be swallowed up by strangeness was the closest thing to desire … Read more
Books
Pulp fiction: Australia’s other forgotten literary history
There’s been a lot of talk so far this year about Australia’s forgotten literary history. Universities have been criticised for failing to appreciate and teach Australian literature. Text is re-releasing ‘classics’ of Australian literature. The Wheeler Centre has organised a series of talks in which contemporary writers … Read more
Books, Reviews
Not such a bitter aftertaste: Ian McEwan’s Sweet Tooth
Long before Mulder and Scully turned the phrase ‘trust no one’ into an iconic piece of pop culture, Agent George Smiley, world-weary MI6 intelligence officer and star of several spy novels by John le Carré, was meting out this sombre advice to his peers. But what happens … Read more
Books, Reviews
A child’s song of war and home: Majok Tulba’s Beneath the Darkening Sky
What is it that is so precious about childhood? In Victorian England, the prevailing view was that children were little more than half-formed, incompetent adults. In more modern times, we often hear that children are the future – but even this attitude locates children’s importance in … Read more
