We need to talk about boys (and books)
We are currently experiencing a social revolution in which women are standing up and refusing to tolerate the bad behaviour of certain men. It is happening in small towns where…
The problem with literature’s fascination with bad mothers
It is nice to laugh at bad mothers on film. In the movie, ‘Bad Moms’, exhausted, fraught and irreverent mothers behave badly as similarly frazzled mothers watch on in glee,…
The beauty of a book in which nothing ‘happens’
Most journalism students learn to write a news story as if describing an event to a friend. Start with the most important part, and that should be the first paragraph…
All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld
Evie Wyld’s All the Birds Singing is like a beautiful dot-to-dot for grownups, tracing the story of Jake’s life back to the distant past in order to make sense of…
Forget neutral, my bookcase is going to be big, full and messy
The interior design idea was offered up innocently enough. “Lauren keeps the look neutral by stacking books back to front.” The Twittersphere responded with a tsunami of ridicule and scorn…
Head Over Heel: Seduced by Southern Italy by Chris Harrison
Most tourists see a certain side of Italy. There are the rolling hills of Tuscany, fascinating cities and idyllic coastal towns, topped off by warm and friendly locals and some…
Do you like the same books as me? Talking books with kindred spirits
It is usually the bookshelf that gives it away. That was how I often discover that a new friend is not just good company, but also a bookish kindred spirit…
My New Year’s resolution is to make more conscious book choices
In the past I have always taken a scatter gun approach to choosing books, picking up one at a second-hand stores, another at a Sunday market, and finding many on…
The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham
It is not hard to see why W.Somerset Maugham wrote The Painted Veil after he was inspired by a fascinating story he read while on vacation as a student. According…
What makes the perfect holiday read?
IT’S the time of year when everyone is preparing for their Christmas break, planning festive menus and get-togethers, and packing their bags for a couple of weeks down the coast…
The big appeal of short stories
Can you think of a blockbuster book of short stories? No, me neither. In this form of writing, there is no Dan Brown or JK Rowling, and just a very…
Remembrance of video stores past
There were many people who sighed in relief when the video shops shut down. My husband was one of them. He hated spending so much time browsing the shelves –…
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
I had been told that The Elegance of the Hedgehog would make me cry. For me, the ability to make a reader cry is high praise, and even though the…
To every book there is a season
In my late teens, the movie Reality Bites spoke to me. All of that teen angst, the heartfelt pronouncements and the aloof boyfriend seemed so profound and moving. Fifteen years…
The Bodysurfers by Robert Drewe
There’s a strange sense of synchronicity when an event in the news closely aligns with a book that you are reading. That happened when I was finishing The Bodysurfers by…
Shed the book shame and get back to enjoying reading
The Book Club on the ABC is polling Australia’s favourite books released in 2017. Wonderful, I thought. I’ll have a look at the options and enter my choices. I scrolled…
What kids really want to read
One thing teachers learn early on in their careers is that no child is alike. Each is an amalgam of different traits, preferences and behaviours. As a parent of three,…
Seeing the walkman, Salt ‘n’ Pepa and the Australian schoolyard through new eyes
Pop culture has a way of marking a generation. Those who spent their childhood and teen years listening to the same songs by the same bands and choosing the same…
I have mixed feelings about improved internet on my commute
One of the big frustrations of an hour-long commute to work is the poor internet reception on the train. Between the regional town where I live and Melbourne, where I…
One theme is at home in most of our literature
Readers can travel to far flung places in the pages of a book. They can see life from the lofty perspective of an Olympian or statesman or immerse themselves in a…
Review: Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson
Often, family sagas centre on a great love, either thwarted or consummated. While Behind the Scenes at the Museum might be the story of a family, with limbs reaching back…
Let’s stop thinking of libraries as gifts, but as wise investments
There are plenty of things that young generations feel aggrieved about being saddled with. Climate change for one and a long-running war in the Middle East are two that leap…
Chasing a sense of community by the book
There are times in life when the goodwill of others is more obvious than usual. When you are walking using crutches, it is rare that a stranger doesn’t rush forward…
Some books bring the horror of war too close to home
Some scenes in The Narrow Road to the Deep North are hard to read and impossible to forget. Based on real events, Richard Flanagan’s award-winning novel tells of the experience…
Autobiography suffers from a missing chapter
“Everyone has a chapter they don’t read out loud.” (Anonymous) Bob Dylan’s memoir might be as lyrical as his songs and offer fascinating insights about his arrival on the music…
We need less news and more literature
We have global news at our finger tips, constant updates on social media and 24-hour services, meaning we can find out what is happening in the world, all day, every…
Book Review: Commonwealth by Ann Patchett
It can sometimes be difficult to describe what a book was ‘about’. While some might centre on an earth shattering event, others carry on quietly, with the reader bobbing along…
What do your book choices reveal about you?
How much do you ever really know about your workmates? Perhaps their daily coffee order. Maybe their favourite Netflix series. While we might spend a big chunk of our waking…
The voyeuristic pleasure of reading
As much as we might like to deny it, we are all voyeurs to some degree. Whether it is in the nightly news or reality television, we love to see…
Should parents teach their preschoolers to read?
From the time a baby is born, there are benchmarks that can be as frightening as they are imprecise. Anxious parents carefully jot down milestones in baby books and, at…
Never mistake simplicity for stupidity when it comes to books
There was a time in secondary school when only the longest, most obscure word would do. In Year 9, I remember waiting eagerly for the teacher to return an essay…
What I have learnt from six months of commuting
After six months of commuting to work three days a week, there remain few happier sights than the lights of the Melbourne-bound train rounding the bend as I stand on…
The peril of Book Week for the literature-loving parent
Parents of twins must be overjoyed during Book Week. Pop a couple of red onesies on their duo and they have Thing 1 and Thing 2. Simple and irresistible. While…
The bestseller list exposes a hole in Australians’ financial education
One book has dominated the Australian bestseller charts for the past year and a half since it was released. Could it be Liane Moriarty, with her irresistibly readable books and…
Great expectations can be the death of a book
It has been a long wait. Twenty years after writing The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy has released her second work of fiction, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. Having…
How to avoid the battle of the school reader
It starts out a happy sign of a young learner’s first steps towards independent reading. The parent tucks their child under their arm to listen to them sound out words…
Book lovers are not always cut out to be booksellers
Many book lovers dream of opening their own bookstore. They imagine setting up a quaint and cosy shop, dimly lit, with little reading nooks and well-padded chairs. Fellow book lovers…
It is our responsibility to read painful books
Information is everywhere, overflowing from our phones and iPads, clogging up the internet and hijacking our free time. However, amid all of this information, a couple of years ago, my…
New tricks are fun, but the old arts endure
From Snapbook to Tingram, streaming to gaming, augmented reality to reality tv, the way we are entertained is constantly changing. No sooner does the next big technological advance emerge than…
Beware of the book that is impossible to forget
Most readers will have experienced the sense of panic of picking up their holiday read, only to realise a few pages in that the book is very familiar. It is a sad…
It’s hard to resist the lure of the perfect book title
Twitter demands the news of the day be condensed into 140 characters. In order to squeeze in our pithy commentary, we crop and substitute, abbreviate and summarise. Yet, Leo Tolstoy…
Bibliotourism isn’t just for bibliophiles
We've had agritourism, gastrotourism, sports tourism and volunteer tourism, but could the next big thing in travel be bibliotourism? Just like any worthwhile tourist attraction, libraries can tell you a…
Faraway tree or Andy Griffiths’ treehouse? Books for the inbetweeners.
It is not hard to find great books for young children. Libraries and bookshops have considerable areas dedicated to the under-fives, complete with beanbags and colourful posters. From Mem Fox…
Don’t sweat the small stuff when it comes to books
Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan said in a recent lecture that you didn't really need to get a book, song or poem to enjoy it. For Dylan, the way a…
In defence of gossip magazines
It is easy to despise certain gossip magazines. They build up celebrities before brutally tearing them down with make-up free close-ups; they prey on women’s body insecurities; and they are,…
Why write?
The news is not good for writers. One of Australia’s great authors, Frank Moorhouse, is apparently going broke. He is unlikely to be the only one, with Australian writers earning…
The writer stripped bare
It can be hard to find gifts for a father-in-law. If he’s not into golf, footy or fishing, the choices are limited. With this in mind, I thought I had…
A winter of content has arrived for the bookish tribe
It's footy season again. Aussie Rules supporters have risen out of their summer hibernation and gathered their sashed or striped tribes. The games are watched in homes, pubs and clubs…
Fiction blurs the line between good and evil
A disabled child is killed, yet the reader finds themselves sympathising with the murderer. A family is slaughtered, but readers are surprised by the politeness and sensitivity of one of…
When pet names go wrong
Terms of endearment help bring people together. They are a way of displaying affection and familiarity between couples, parents, their children and friends. But sometimes they go wrong. I found…
We need to talk about motherhood
The ideal mother looms large in art and popular culture, from the ubiquitous image of Mary cradling Baby Jesus to the modern day supermum. In literature, motherhood is not always…
Books as gifts – to buy or not to buy?
There is a tradition in Iceland of giving loved ones the gift of a book on Christmas Eve. Closer to home, as we frantically hit the shops to find that…
The Lure of Shared Sadness
Sadness is something we shun. We shrink from the grieving as if their condition was contagious, and we implore the depressed to ‘cheer up’. In fear of the spectre of sadness,…
Why we should read difficult books
There are two types of people in the world: one who loves a challenge, and one who likes nothing less. I’ve always thought that I was in the latter category,…
A tale of two bookshops
To me, it seemed like the worst of times. A big, bright, multinational bookstore had opened up directly across the road from my favourite independent bookseller. Book lovers were miffed. How could…
Please don’t tell me reading is a waste of time
Conversation at polite dinner parties is constrained by an implicit set of rules. No talking religion, no talking politics and no talking sex. In the future, I might have to strike another category…
Don’t judge a book by its cover, but by its reader
It is easy for a reader to deliver a damning verdict on a book. Whether it is a debut novel or the masterpiece of a genius, the dismissal can be equally swift…
The upside of commuting
Commuting is bad for the body and mind. It increases the risk of depression, takes a toll on cardiovascular fitness and causes weight gain. It has even, somewhat melodramatically, been…
Cookbooks aren’t going to solve all our health problems
Food, glorious food. It is one of life’s great joys, and one that is constantly available in all of its wonderful fatty, salty, sweet diversity. As playwright George Bernard Shaw…
Can the real Australia be found in fiction?
It is a strange paradox that fiction can be a source of life's great truths. It is, after all, by its very nature made up. But there is no denying…
