-
3 amazing Australian authors I read in 2016 and absolutely loved
I tend to stumble upon my books (matters not if it is work by Sri Lankan or Australian authors) and I started young. We have a bookcase in our house that spans the length of the downstairs study. It is mostly filled with modern day thrillers and what I refer to as airport novels – Jeffery Archer, Frederick Forsythe, Connelly, Koontz, Deaver. John Grisham. Those books. A smaller bookcase housed the encyclopedia set and the treasure trove of Agatha Christie novels. In the bookshelf for us kids, there were Enid Blytons and Carolyn Keenes, topped up by regular birthday and Christmas gifts. I read the classics – the cornerstone foundation of…
-
Maudiegirl and the von Bloss Kitchen by Carl Muller
The first author I read this year is not an Australian female writer but a Sri Lankan male one. Â It was Carl Muller and his book Maudiegirl and the von Bloss Kitchen. I thought it would be prudent to try and read more POC authors this year as well as try to understand a bit more about my own English language literary background and read more Sri Lankan authors. Carl Muller can come across as crude. His stories about the Burghers (the mixed race descendants of European colonisers and native Sri Lankans) feature life in the raw as it was in what seems to be early 2oth century life in…
-
The best Australian books that 7 Australian writers loved in 2016
I wanted to write about some of the best books by other Australian writers that I had read and been blown away by during 2016. And then I thought – why not ask them who they read in 2016 that was amazing ANDÂ an Australian author? So that then I could have a list of books to then go read myself in 2017? So I did. I yelled out into the Twittersphere: Australian #writers: what was the best book by an Australian that you read this year? I want to write a blog post & will link back to you. — Marisa Wikramanayake (@mwikramanayake) December 24, 2016 And true enough, over…
-
Sulari Gentill’s A Few Right Thinking Men
I grew up on a literary diet that had a healthy portion of crime fiction in it and these days if I see one crime novel that sparks my interest then the entire process of hunting down the whole series one by one begins. This is also one reason why I am so glad that the first book in Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series never fully grabbed me in the same way – I would still be trying to get through all of them decades later.
-
The Paper House by Anna Spargo-Ryan
My heart fell out on a spring morning… ~ The Paper House by Anna Spargo-Ryan Grief is an ever present theme in Australian literature. We are a nation of writers fascinated by either lack or loss. That, in itself, intrigues me. And it intrigues me that much like Anna’s opening line here, that we never run out of ways to twist and use language to be able to describe so well the nuances of the nature of that grief. And language and the use of it is what strikes me so immediately with The Paper House. This is Anna’s first book, one she has worked on for ages, one that…
-
The Australian Women Writers’ Challenge 2016
So in case you didn’t know, I often volunteer, and often fail (sorry Elizabeth) at rounding up and discussing what people have read for the Australian Women Writers’ Challenge in the genres of non fiction and short fiction and poetry. Occasionally, I interview authors for podcasts as well. The Challenge aims to get people reading more books written in all genres by Australian female and female identifying writers and to promote their work since we seem unable to rely on mainstream media to do a good enough job of doing so with no gender or racial bias involved. This year we hope to introduce a bingo card element to the…
-
The Readathon has begun!
Author Jane Rawson is a fantastic person. And to attest to that awesomeness she has started a Readathon for the winter months of June and July. Basically you read whatever you like but if you are part of the team, people sponsor you for each book you read and the money goes to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation which I think is a fantastic idea. Some people have already made lists of what they will read since June is already upon us. I fear that I am not one of those people. Instead all I can tell you is that I have written a spiel about why I love to read…
-
Marianne Delacourt’s Sharp Shooter
I think often about what it means to stand in a spot in one place and to take it all in. To live in a place long enough to be someone who understands how life works its way through that spot’s particular urban or rural landscape. And how it feels like saying hello to an old friend when you pick up a book to find yourself in a place that is both that place you know and also perhaps for the sake of the work, not quite that place either. But that’s just the start of what surprises you about the Tara Sharp series by Marianne Delacourt, pseudonym of Marianne…
-
Robin Bower’s Beyond Home
-
Australian Love Stories
Here's the livetweet feed of the panel discussion held at The Orient Hotel in Fremantle on Wednesday 19 November 2014. The panel consisted of Susan Midalia, Danielle McGee, Natasha Lester and Sally-Ann Jones, all authors included in the anthology and Will Yeoman, books editor of The West Australian
