Quickie Book Reviews

I'll quickly whip through a few here.

Vendela Vida, Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name

The story is interesting enough, but an annoying central character and clumsy dialogue spoil it for mine. Avoid.

W.G. Sebald, Austerlitz

I really expected to enjoy this more than I did. A remarkable main character, fascinating story and it covers a topic that interests me greatly. Yet it left me cold. Maybe it is Sebald's narrative approach, but I just found it a bit of a grind. Not for the faint hearted!

Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle

I've not read a lot of Dick as sci-fi has never really been my thing. However, I do have some time for alternate history, especially if it is well done. Dick does a convincing enough job envisioning a world in which the Axis powers emerged victorious in the Second World War, and delivers a decent little page-turner to boot. Recommended.

Peter Roebuck, It Takes All Sorts

I've both bagged and praised Roebuck previously in this blog, and generally rate his work. He has a keen eye for minor detail that stands out amongst cricket writers that I like, and this book is a reasonably interesting examination and rumination on the different types that play cricket across all levels. Recommended for fans of the sport.

Michael Gurr, Days Like These

The recollections as speech writer for Steve Bracks interested, mediations on the theatre less so. Only for the very keen.

Jerzy Kosinski, Being There

Although very slight (finished in under three hours), it remains terribly enjoyable. It's aged quite well (better than the film), and reads as surprisingly contemporary. Highly recommended.

Kathryn Hughes, The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs. Beeton

History as it should be, both focused in extraordinary detail, yet always in the context of the time, Hughes has pulled off a masterful work. Anyone interested in food or the history of food will find plenty here. Recommended.

Comments

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral...

There was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.

Here is a self portrait. I’m calling it Portrait of a lady in a dirty window . Shocking, isn’t it? However, it is apt! Samhain , Nos Galan Gaeaf , Hop-tu-Naa , All Saints , All Hallows , Hallowmas , Hallowe'en or HALLOWEEN . It’s Theme Thursday and we’re talking about the festivals traditionally held at the end of the harvest season. Huh? No wonder Australians have trouble with the concept of HALLOWEEN. For the record, in my thirty-two L O N G years on the planet, I can’t say I’ve ever seen ghosts ‘n goblins, trick ‘n treaters or Michael Myers stalking Tasmania’s streets at the end of October. [That said, I did once see a woman as pale as a ghost turning tricks that looked like Michael Myers in late November one time.] Despite the best efforts of Hollywood, sitcoms, and innumerable companies; it seems Australians are impervious to the [ahem] charms of a corporatized variant of a celebration of the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darke...

Hold me now, oh hold me now, until this hour has gone around. And I'm gone on the rising tide, to face Van Dieman's Land

Theme Thursday again, and this one is rather easy. I am Tasmanian, you see, and aside from being all around general geniuses - as I have amply described previously - we are also very familiar with the concept of WATER. Tasmania is the ONLY island state of an ISLAND continent. That means, we're surrounded by WATER. That should help explain why I take so many photographs of water . Tasmania was for a long time the place where the British (an island race terrified of water) sent their poor people most vile and horrid criminals. The sort of folk who would face the stark choice of a death sentence , or transportation to the other end of the world. Their catalogue of crimes is horrifying : stealing bread assault stealing gentlemen's handkerchiefs drunken assault being poor affray ladies being overly friendly with gentlemen for money hitting people having a drink and a laugh public drunkenness being Irish Fenian terrorist activities being Catholic religious subversion. ...

This will hurt me...

Search This Blog