The Slap, Dangerous Ideas, psychopaths, WAP hiatus
The Slap
The ABC’s TV adaptation of Christos Tsiolkas’ novel The Slap starts this Thursday, 6 October at 8:30pm. I’ll be taking a break from my West Wing marathon and tuning in. And no doubt episodes will also be available on ABC’s iView.
Read Ten Classic Books in Under a Minute
A hoot and a half.
When is a James Patterson book not a James Patterson book?
If you thought James Patterson was just an extremely prolific and hard-working writer then … Continue Reading
In conversation with Jonathan Franzen
On Tuesday evening I spent 75 minutes with Jonathan Franzen and found him to be a witty, modest and disarmingly candid man.
Okay, so it wasn’t just me and Franzen; there were a few hundred other people gathered in the Concert Hall at the SOH that evening.
The event was promoted by the Sydney Writers’ Festival as being Jonathan Franzen in conversation with Geordie Williamson, chief literary critic from The Australian newspaper. … Continue Reading
Literacy, book covers, dead authors, n+1, Franzen & will power
War and Peace
Yep folks, I’m still reading War and Peace. I started over three months ago and I’m not quite halfway. I’ve come to accept the fact that I won’t be finishing in October as I had initially (and optimistically) estimated. What planet was I on?
I’ve realised that reading War and Peace is like going on a really long and difficult hike by yourself through dense scrub, beneath a tree canopy that allows only glimpses of the sky. You can’t see very far in the distance and the world starts to close in such that you begin to wonder if anything exists outside your range of view. … Continue Reading
Profound thoughts
If I could find a way to knit, read a novel, write a novel, listen to the day’s podcast from The Book Show, watch the West Wing and dunk a milk arrowroot (that’s a bickie) in my coffee, without dropping the soggy bit in it, all at the same time I would have achieved the ultimate in pleasure-multi-tasking-bliss. … Continue Reading
Book bewitched
Do you ever have that moment in a bookstore where a book makes itself known to you and immediately gets under your skin in a way that you can’t stop thinking about it?
You may have gone into the store looking for a specific book and not even be in browsing mode. Yet you find yourself coming back to that book again and again, picking it up, turning it over, opening it to a page and reading a paragraph. And putting it back on the shelf again.
This has happened to me a few times and it happened most recently in Next Page (a great bookstore in Wahroonga, New South Wales. … Continue Reading
Calling all GWAPIRC members
My fellow GWAPIRC members, I’m taking your silence as a sign that you’re so preoccupied with War and Peace that you simply don’t have time to be reading pages et cetera.
I would love to hear from you. How are you going?
As I was getting ready for work this morning I forgot to put my copy in my bag and didn’t realise until I was well on the way to the train station. I felt naked not having my book on the train. (My four-year-old thought it was hilarious that I felt naked without my book.) … Continue Reading
What I’m …
To my delight I’m finding that this increasingly digital world we live in is allowing me to become more immersed in the world of books than ever before.
Aside from good old fashioned books there’s podcasts on my iphone; digital magazine and journal subscriptions on my ipad; iview online and YouTube of course which lets me listen and watch and interact with books and discussion about books. … Continue Reading
What I’m reading
