Allen & Unwin, 9781742374161, 2011 (Aus paperback, ebook + US/Kindle) Bright and Distant Shores is hugely imaginative historical fiction. It’s set just before the dawn of the 20th century in Chicago and the South Pacific. Owen Graves is sent by Hale Gray, the president of Chicago First Equitable, to collect some ‘special items’ to display [...]
Monthly Archives: September 2011
20 Classics in 2011 #7: Death on Tiptoe by RC Ashby
September 15, 2011 – 3:21 pm
I’m reading 20 classic, modern-classic or cult books in 2011. Read more about this project here. Why did I want to read it? In The Children’s Bookshop in Edinburgh, I discovered a wall of yellow books with purple pinstripes: rediscovered, republished books by women. There were all kinds of stories, but the fact that Death on Tiptoe was [...]
The big bucks: Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards 2011
September 7, 2011 – 7:21 pm
Last night I went along to the ‘streamlined’ Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, run by the Wheeler Centre. The awards took place in the grand Plaza Ballroom (part of the Regent Theatre), built in 1929. The decadent entrance and room is apparently in the Spanish Rococo style, but it seemed very eclectic to me: nouveau flourishes, [...]
Review of :etchings 9 – Love & Something on Cordite
September 6, 2011 – 10:54 am
I recently reviewed issue nine of the journal :etchings for Cordite Poetry Review. The focus of the review is the issue’s poetry, as that is Cordite‘s focus, but I mention the fiction and nonfiction also. It begins: ‘Love & Something is the sub-header of :etchings 9, and the something seems to stand for the multitudinous meanings the [...]
Read just now: Re: Reading the Dictionary by Tim Sinclair
September 1, 2011 – 11:40 am
Spent the morning writing and editing. Checked my email. Read a press release on Tim Sinclair’s new poetry book Re: Reading the Dictionary. Clicked the link. Bought it. Downloaded it. Read it from A to Z. Loved it. Wanted to tell you about it right away. Each piece from ‘Afflatus’ to ‘Zombie, Philosophical’ takes a [...]
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Reading fiction is addictive and unhealthy, says Corn Flakes guy
I just came across this astonishing passage, quoted by John Fiske in Understanding Popular Culture. It’s from the Ladies Guide in Health and Disease by John Harvey Kellogg (yes, of Corn Flakes fame), published in 1882. There are also chapters on ‘marriage’, ‘personal beauty’, ‘diet’, clothing’, and, ah, ‘criminal abortion’. He says: ‘The reading of [...]