Sorry the above image is so big! Adam Ford is an Australian poet and zinester. Whilst on one of my many trips to the lovely Sticky Institute in Degraves St Subway, I picked up this gorgeous little chapbook and was shocked (in a good way) to discover that it was published by Picaro Press, a [...]
Tagged Adam Ford, chapbooks, Picaro Press, poetry, Sticky Institute, The Third Fruit Is A Bird, zinesIf by now you haven’t cottoned onto the fact that I’m smashing poetry volumes in order to reach my 75 books goal by the end of the year, you’re a bit dim. This one I picked up directly through the publisher Tupelo Press which does this cool thing where they choose one or two titles [...]
Tagged book review, Inflorescence, poetry, reading, Sarah HannahMy former mentor, god bless his seedy soul, had given me a copy of this poetry volume by Susan Hampton a fair few years ago. Because I hadn’t heard of her, I did neglect to read it till now. Silly me! Probably one of the best collections of Australian poetry I’ve read this year – [...]
Tagged Australian poetry, book review, Greek mythology in contemporary literature, Susan Hampton, The Kindly OnesI just about wet myself in glee when I spied this book, casually browsing in a bookshop. I remember I did a fair bit of damage to my finances on that particular outing. It’s taken me about a year to finish it – it’s the perfect book for dipping in and out of on lazy [...]
Tagged book review, interviews, The Paris Review Interviews Volume 2, writersIt hit me that it was probably about time I read some of Billy Collins’ poetry given he was a former American Poet Laureate. Despite promising my friend Luke that I wouldn’t start another book till I’d finished reading the one he lent me (No Logo by Naomi Klein), I did because I didn’t want [...]
Tagged Billy Collins, book review, poetry, Questions About Angels, readingI’ve read all of last year’s issues of Going Down Swinging one of this year’s and haven’t been disappointed yet. There’s always such a fun mix of short fiction, graphics and stacks of yummy, juicy poetry that actually makes me feel something instead of boring me to death with its forced cleverness (hey, that’s probably [...]
Tagged book review, Craig Billingham, Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz, Going Down Swinging, Melbourne poets, periodical, readingTerry Eagleton is a filthy Marxist. Thing is, I actually quite like it. I’m pretty sad to have finished this book as I’ve been dipping in and out of it for ten years. Yep. When I first started it, literary theory was scary and thrilling knowledge. Now, it’s like an old friend. I actually laughed [...]
Tagged book review, literary theory, Literary Theory: An Introduction, Marxist critics, Terry EagletonFranz Kafka, The Trial aNobii seems to have stuffed up and it won’t show the pretty covers of the books I’ve read. It’s a crap service, yet I can’t seem to give it up. You can view a gorgeous cover here. I have an older version of this edition meaning the cover on my copy [...]
Tagged book review, Franz Kafka, reading, The TrialThe better half T-dawg was talking about one of his ‘impressive’ skills was knowing the phonetic alphabet off by heart. I think it’s a pretty daggy skill and joked that I’d make up my own with really unusual, difficult words. I thought it would make a fun blog post. Even more fun to test my [...]
I was in the city the other day and was strolling past Polyester Records. There were a whole bunch of Pop Penguins strategically placed by the front window. Argh. Of course I was going to look. I saw one I’d never seen before but sounded fantastic – haiku about the classics. It looked like the [...]
Tagged book review, David Bader, haiku, One Hundred Great Books In Haiku, Popular Penguins, readingIt’s odd that given my fondness for Richard Brautigan’s poetry, I hadn’t read much else of his other work, so I set up to rectify that immediately. I even e-mailed a literary journal publisher (for the now defunct Torpedo), hoping to submit yet another Brautigan-inspired work to another literary journal. Sadly, the publisher seemed to [...]
Tagged book review, In Watermelon Sugar, Peter Boxall 1001 books to read before you die list, reading, Richard Brautigan, Torpedo magazineWe all have guilty reading pleasures. Well, except @alexlobov – Alex seems to be reading serious shit 24/7 (I mention him because like my friend Felix, I aspire to adopt Alex’s reading habits). Alas, I don’t quite have that stamina and after getting a second wind of that weird flu-like illness hitting up Melbourne-town, I [...]
Tagged book review, guilty pleasures, historical fiction, Philippa Gregory, reading, The Queen's FoolSpringtime has finally hit sleepy little Melburnia. I think. I hope the warmer weather doesn’t discourage me from reading – already I’ve seen quite a few of my bike pals hit the roads and go on long cycling trips. I’m a little behind on my book reviews for the blog, but am still happily reading [...]
Tagged big books, booklists, Charles Dickens, friends, Great Expectations, James Joyce, New Yorker, reading, Richard Adams, Ulysses, Watership DownAs a kid growing up in England, I was fascinated by the serialisation on telly of Chocky. As can be predicted, what I remember didn’t quite match up to what was in the book though I’d love to see the series again. This is my first John Wyndham novel and I walloped it in one [...]
Tagged book review, Chocky, John Wyndham, Peter Boxall 1001 books to read before you die list, readingCandide is an orphan who unfortunately falls in love with his benefactor’s daughter and is unceremoniously turfed out from the castle in which he was brought up after stealing a kiss from her. Thus begins Candide’s journey around the world as he struggles to hold onto his beloved philosophy professor Pangloss’ tenet that everything is [...]
Tagged book review, Candide, Enlightenment philosophy, optimism, reading, Voltaire