Kneale’s two-millennium travel guide has enlightened my understanding on everything Roman, and this experience will remain within my mind indefinitely. This excellent book delivers a century-by-century account of Rome’s inhabitants, their commercial and cultural challenges along with endless religious disruptions and several sieges commencing with the Battle of Allia by the Gauls (Celts).
An interview with Alan Alda
Alan Alda is an award-winning actor known for his portrayal of the iconic character Hawkeye Pierce on the popular television series M.A.S.H., and as host of the PBS series “Scientific American Frontiers,” as well as his many movie and Broadway roles. In this revealing interview, Alan focuses mostly on his new book If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face? but also explores the writing process, his reading habits, communication as a whole, the relationship between writing scripts, acting, and writing nonfiction, and much more.
A review of Little Me by Matt Lucas
There’s a graciousness and respect that underlies all of the stories in this book. Little Me creates the feeling that the reader is being taken into a very relaxed confidence, in which we get to hear the juicy backstage details as if they were being whispered to us over a cup of tea. Obviously this is a book that will be far more enjoyable for fans than for those who have never seen Matt Lucas’ work – there are a lot of references to his shows, and reading about the processes behind the shows is definitely part of the enjoyment of this gentle, self-deprecating, sometimes slapstick, but always moving memoir.
A review of Never Completely Awake by Martina Reisz Newberry
er poetry is universal in its ability to resonate with her audience. The writing is uncompromising and passionate. Her words are clothed in her experiences: rich and very human. Newberry writes with courage and a refreshing and welcoming honesty. I make no excuses for gushing over her work, it’s deserving of my every gush. You don’t read Martina Reisz Newberry, you experience her.
An interview with Idelle Kursman
The author of True Mercy talks about her new novel, writing about human trafficking, autism, her writing background, her influences, self-publishing, and lots more.
A review of North and Central by Bob Hartley
The choppy, lean writing strikes me as a guy’s kind of writing, but I do love some quirky humor sprinkled throughout. Two cheap Santas fight for the right to be in Andy’s bar and another time two wobbly octogenarians punch it out for the woman they love and the hubby shatters the other’s dentures. Defeated the toothless gent totters up to the bar to ask for a beer and is told “no teeth, no beer!”
An interview with Kaz Cooke
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It was during completion of a Creative Fellowship at the prestigious State Library of Victoria (2013-15) that Cooke literally unearthed the inspiration for Ada. Now with its nation-wide release (as published by Penguin Random House Australia), Cooke took some time out of her hectic schedule to discuss her exhaustively researched novel depicting the life of titular Ada Bell – one of the most sought-after travelling performers of the bygone era, chronicling her poverty-ravaged beginnings to the dizzying highs of her apex and the tragic fall thereafter.
A review of Glasshouses by Stuart Barnes
The work resists an easy correspondence. You can’t “translate” it to a simple message or meaning. Instead the poems move between landscapes that feel like they should be familiar, with the unsettling quality of dreams or memory – slightly distorted and nightmarish, but also enticing.
A review of Scorn by Matthew Parris
Not only does this book deliver 432 pages of compressed and valuable entertainment, it releases a multitude of ready responses that if rehearsed well, will provide a source of heavy artillery for any form of social intercourse within societies’ boundaries. This is also a vernacular most Australians accept as dinkum.
An Interview with Lee J. Mavin
The author of Li Bai’s Shadow provides a sample of his new book and talks about his research into China’s most celebrated poet, key themes, his background, work in progress, and lots more.