The cover of the book I read Click here to read my Historiographer site post.
Category: writing
Reading Annie Ernaux’s ‘The Years’
She's just won the Nobel (October 2022) for Literature so I've seen her name (for the first time too - so much happens in the world and no-one, no-one, can know even a smidgeon of it all) bandied about recently. So I leap this morning from The Guardian page to a note from Booker Prizes … Continue reading Reading Annie Ernaux’s ‘The Years’
The reader as passenger
I am reading Dan O’Brien’s excellent The Contract Surgeon and making the odd note as I go along. Not in the book, I should add (it is not mine) but in a notepad. On page 23 this rather excellent little cameo is made by a female character – ‘an old woman’ who is tending a … Continue reading The reader as passenger
Extract from book for kids with art by Brendan T.
Weather is crazy cold snaps and frying egg hot days and blizzards. A day or two. Climate is when you can expect those things with some certainty. Yep, it's August—here come those wild and woolly westerlies. Jacaranda here always flower in early October; that sort of thing. Climate change means those old certainties aren’t as certain as they used to be.
Stephen J Kimber – why I write
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08XFVWYBX Why does anyone write? 'Tis a lonely, often bruising affair, sometimes filled with self loathing. Then again, it lets you inhabit myriad worlds, most of them perhaps better (though, you fear, lacking depth) than the one we've somehow found ourselves in. The Literary Hub notes 33 writers on why they write; surprise, surprise - … Continue reading Stephen J Kimber – why I write
Homage to a big hearted river
Part 1a Alex slowed the car coming into Abercrombie. 80, 60… Ahead was the general store, built in the 1920s, white weatherboard with faded pale-yellow trims and an awning. He didn't want the store and drove around the corner. Parked. The letter was on the passenger seat beside him; addressed to Michael. He'd left … Continue reading Homage to a big hearted river
The new book
According to Kindle Direct Publishing I can embed a preview into a web site, so let's see if it works now: https://read.amazon.com.au/kp/card?asin=B072WKC3QK&preview=inline&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_QnGuzb4ZCKYNW
Sendak on the artistic process
Interesting take on the artistic process by Maurice Sendak, the author/illustrator of Where the wild things are, among other texts: "This dual apperception [of self as adult and child] does break down occasionally. That usually happens when my work is going badly. I get a sour feeling about books in general and my own in … Continue reading Sendak on the artistic process
The zoo speaks
An excerpt from the novel called Kidnapping Douglas Adams - a kind of homage: Tralfamadore is not so much planet as spectacle. Its whole landscape has become, indeed, the universe’s zoo; where planet begins and zoo entertainment ends cannot be unravelled. The place where Felix had put them down (un-intercepted, much to Douglas’s surprise) was … Continue reading The zoo speaks
Freedom vs. Rootlessness
We are, most of us, unrooted in place and time. (See pp. xxi – xxii of introduction to Nabokov’s Speak Memory.) Our obsession with stuff over substance, with the now over duration, with one-liners & tweets over discourse has seen us come unstuck (just like Billy Pilgrim). “That this darkness is caused merely by the … Continue reading Freedom vs. Rootlessness
Inkstained fingers 