31.May.2010 Book Porn: Pretty Tomes
I spent the second $100 Dymocks gift card I got from my credit card points. [insert the usual rant about book price in Australia here] I know I don’t get high quantity in the number of individual books, but do you think I get it in the quantity of pages? Books bought: East of Eden [...]
29.May.2010 Short Saturday: QL 696.C9 by Anthony Boucher
Continuing In the Stacks: Short Stories about Libraries and Librarians I read a murder mystery/detective short today by Anthony Boucher. The murder happens in a library to a librarian and the mystery revolves around library code. Fun. I don’t normally read mystery novels, let alone short stories, but short seems to be a less suitable [...]
26.May.2010 The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
I loved this book. I really really loved it. Hopelessly fell in love with it. There, I need to get that off my chest. There’s something about the writing that just hit me at all the right places. My funny bones, my melancholy bones, and all the bones I have that possibly evoke feelings. I [...]
22.May.2010 Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan
Tender Morsels is a book I picked up for many reasons. I first knew about it from Nymeth, whose passionate review seems to gather some sort of a cult. There was probably a time when people responded with a blank look “Tender Morsel who?”, but that time has long gone now! The novel won World [...]
18.May.2010 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards 2010
Sydney Writers’ Festival is coming again (15-23 May)! I went last year and I am going this weekend. Yay. One thing about the festival is New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards that are always announced at the beginning of the festival. Here are the shortlists this year for The Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, which [...]
16.May.2010 Short Sunday: Sleep by Haruki Murakami
Back in my high school days, I was so into mountain hiking and camping it drove my parents crazy. It wasn’t so much about the activities, more about how unsafe it was for a bunch of teenagers to hike faraway mountains considering how wild these places are in Indonesia. There isn’t much organization or safety [...]
11.May.2010 The Contract with God Trilogy by Will Eisner
“Will Eisner, born in 1917, saw himself as “a graphic witness reporting on life, death, heartbreak, and the never-ending struggle to prevail.” The publication of A Contract with God when Eisner was sixty-one proved to be a watershed moment both for him and for comic literature. It marked the birth of the graphic novel and [...]
08.May.2010 Short Saturday: First Love and Other Sorrows by Harold Brodkey
In Short Saturday I will journal my journey to find 5-star quality short stories. Unlike my book reviews, I will talk more about my thoughts and what I learn, why I choose the story and how I come upon it. Unlike books, I’m willing to take more risk for shorts, because they are.. well.. short, [...]
03.May.2010 April Incoming Books
Last month I redeemed a Dymocks gift card from my credit card points, valued at $100! (Actually, I got TWO cards, but I’ll save the other one for later.) So I hopped away, like a girl going to candy store. Or just say book store, literally. Not long after I realized that the books here [...]