February, 2012

*Spoiler alert: this is not intended as a straight review and I do refer to key plot points in this analysis. Mateship with Birds is a reflection on the various tangled forms of desire, love, and lust. In a revealing passage towards the end of the novel, Tiffany writes of one of the protagonists’s understanding [...]

Well, we appear to be in a strange looking-glass world this week with political satirist Stephen Colbert to publish a children’s book and acclaimed children’s author J. K. Rowling today announcing she will be releasing a novel for adults. Personally, I’m looking forward to both. Colbert’s book, I Am a Pole (And So Can You!) [...]

Guest post by Elizabeth Redman Every debate I have ever heard about e-books goes something like this: Advocate: ‘E-books are cheaper, more portable and quicker to access than paper books. They also allow authors to self-publish more easily.’ Critic: ‘Yes but paper books are so much better because of the way they smell.’ My nose [...]

Though for many of us it is a perpetual state, 2012 is the officially appointed National Year of Reading. One of the centerpieces of the NYOR is an initiative called ‘Our Story’. Over the summer of 2011-2012, Australians were encouraged to vote for one of six titles in a shortlist for their state/territory that best [...]

Guest Post by Rebecca Howden There are two things in the world I don’t think I’ll ever fall out of love with – books, and being in love. When I’m trying to impress cute philosophy students, I’m likely to claim that my incurable romantic streak is some kind of Nietzschean theory, that capacity for joy [...]

Guest Post by Andrew Stafford In a new post for the ‘Returns to’ series, Andrew Stafford isn’t crying a river for the loss of his children’s books. I LOST my children’s books in the Queensland floods. The story of how that happened is banal enough. They had not left my mother’s home since I left [...]

Guest Post by Laurie Steed  2012 marks my ten-year anniversary of being a writer. When I began I had many idols, including Peter Goldsworthy, Lorrie Moore, Roald Dahl and Nick Hornby. I also craved a mentor, someone to show me how. I craved it so much I befriended an established writer more insecure than I [...]

‘Gezellig. This is Mum’s word. “Nou ja, dit is gezellig,” she says as she shrugs off her coat full of winter rain and puts on a light.’ Gezellig is a word that recurs throughout The Last Thread. We have no literal translation or equivalent in English. The closest we have is ‘cosy’ or ‘coziness’, but [...]

Guest post by Max Denton It’s now been a year since the old orders of the Arab world began to crumble under the weight of popular protest. It was the first time in my lifetime that I’d witnessed, albeit from afar, the strength of raw people power to affect large-scale change. This, plus the ability [...]

At the moment I’m house-sitting in an apartment in Clifton Hill in Melbourne. It’s a cute little deco building and there are apartments below and above me, and all around are the windows and balconies of other brick buildings. I sit on the balcony to write, looking up at the chimney tops and out at [...]