The musical background is a strong influence in Nesca’s poetry. In the present collection there are references to Stan Getz, Billie Holliday, and Count Basie as well as to more current groups. The musical influence is also apparent in the…
A review of Like a Fiery Elephant: The Story of B. S. Johnson by Jonathan Coe
Like all heresies, his novels challenge our most fundamental beliefs: our belief in the moral integrity of ‘fiction’, our belief in the usefulness of storytelling when the daily truths thrown up by our misbegotten world cry out for immediate, practical…
A review of The White Earth by Andrew McGahan
This is a passionate, powerful and beautifully written story which contains all of the elements of good fiction, and is the culmination of a skill which has been growing with each of McGahan‘s exceptional novels. In The White Earth McGahan’s prose maintains…
Interview with Anthea Paul, author of Girlosophy
The creator of Girlosophy talks about how the concept came about, why she didn’t self-publish, why the understanding of food is critical to all of the Girlsophy books, why the media has gone so astray in their messages, how she comes up with her topics, future projects, and lots more.
A review of Girlosophy – Real Girls Eat By Anthea Paul
The book’s content is all about empowerment through food knowledge: respecting your body through choosing to cook, understand nutrition, and choosing to eat and exercise in a way that will give you the energy to do whatever you want. Paul…
A review of 10 Minutes to the Pitch by Chris Abbott
Abbott is exactly the person you want to take this kind of advice from. She’s one of the most well known writer-producers in the business, with a welter of successful television and film credits to her name (including Magnum PI…
A review of Among the Blacks: Two Works by Raymond Roussel and Ron Padgett
The translation is a delicate, accomplished work that captures perfectly the placid emptiness that lies at the heart of Roussel’s world. A flurry of outlandish and bizarre events is related to the reader, but in a manner that is formal,…
A review of The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington
The humour is at its strongest when it mixes the exotic with the homely. At one point Marlborough, a kind of latter-day Noah, says of his sisters, one of whom is a werewolf who comes to mate with a wolf,…
A review of Peninsula by Trevor Hewett
Hewett observes and writes about those things which others tend to ignore, and allows the close, and very quiet perspective he takes to reveal its own meaning, without judgement or fanfare. This is an easy to read, and tenderly chosen…
A review of For the Dream by Craig Andrew Browne
One could easily imagine Casey Chambers turning, say, “Last Year,” into an almost whispered ode to the fickle passing of love stories, Wendy Matthews turning “Lord Take me Now” into a heady spiritual, or even Don Spencer turning “Walk Upon…