Richard Flanagan, The narrow road to the deep north (Vintage 2013) I have admired Richard Flanagan’s stories, prose, vision (and environmental ethic) for many years. My wife was reading his first novel, Death of a river guide, as we rafted down a low Franklin River on our honeymoon in January 1998. His earlier masterpiece, Gould’s book…
Who said reviews had no power to sell books anymore? Helen Elliot’s review of Cracking the Spine (published by Spineless Wonders) in the recent Weekend Australian will have copies of the book walking off bookshelves if only bookstores stocked small independent publishers. Although Readings have the book on their list, they have no in-store stock…
Alexis Wright, The swan book (Giramondo 2013) Alexis Wright received the Miles Franklin Award in 2007 for her previous novel Carpentaria. That book I started three or four times, progressing no further than the first 50 pages through the dump and pricklebush. I persisted, and undertook again the perilous journey that unfolded in the gulf…
Gerald Murnane, Inland (Faber and Faber 1989) Gerald Murnane is a literary anachronism. Like the unreliable narrator of this novel, Inland, he rarely ventures from the physical world he knows. ‘I have travelled hardly anywhere in Australia and have never even thought of traveling overseas. I have never been inside an aeroplane. I have never owned…
Spineless Wonders will soon (in July) release an outstanding new book for readers and lovers of writing, Cracking the Spine. I could wax lyrical about why it is so important, why you MUST read it, but better to leave it to the chief literary critic of The Australian, Geordie Williamson: “Cracking the spine is not…
Shantideva, The way of the Bodhisattva (Shambhala 1999) One of the great classics of Mahayana Buddhism. In February/March 2000, during a six-week stay in the hills near Dharamsala, India, the little Tibet of northern India and exiled home of the Dalai Lama XIV, I attended the two-week long public teachings given by His Holiness. I…
1. A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. Thomas Mann 2. The best writers write slower than everyone else, and the better they are, the slower they write. William Deresiewicz 3. One-Way Street, Walter Benjamin POST NO BILLS The Writer’s Technique in Thirteen Theses. Anyone intending…
Franz Keim & Carl Otto Czeschka (illus.), Die Nibelungen (faksimile edition 1972). Of all the beautiful and wonderful artworks and objects at the Vienna Art + Design exhibition at the NGV in Melbourne, the one that most intrigued me was the open pages of what appeared to be a graphic novel. I was being rushed…
Catch a plane or hitch on a road-train bound for Alice Springs today. Come and support local literature and be entertained by 6 talented local writers. Where: Watertank Café (Hele Crescent) from 7pm. Readings by Kelly-lee Hickey, Leni Shilton, Glenn Morrison, Penny Whiley, Meg Mooney, Michael Giacometti. Music by Ben Allen. More info here. Produced…
I read with a different purpose in 2013. Much of what I read was research for the novel I continue to write, This landscape of failure. Hence, the journals of expeditions to places unknown, and gospels of the known and little known. I read David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas after seeing the film and enjoyed both equally.…
Michael Giacometti 