Kathryn Gossow: Storytelling and Garden Growing
This month the Pocket Bookclub read Dark Emu Black Seeds: agriculture or accident by Bruce Pascoe. Bruce Pascoe was at the Byron Writers Festival and I heard him speak about his sense of obligation to write this book about Aboriginal agriculture because even did not initially believe the stories people told him. It seems we… Continue reading Pocket Bookclub Unlearning
Have you ever dreamt you find a 'new' room in your house? Or perhaps you are in a new house discovering new rooms. I have this dream all the time. Well, at least a couple of times a year. If Kirsten Tranter hasn't had a similar dream I will eat my hat. Early on in… Continue reading Pocket Book Club gets Dreamy
This month the Pocket Book Club did not stray far. Sort of. We read Angela Slatter's Vigil, set in Brisbane but in a world far weirder than our own. Vigil is urban fantasy but owes a great deal to the detective novel. Verity Fassbinder's mother was Normal but her father was Weyrd. (As in child-eating-Weyrd) You… Continue reading Could the Angel Cake be nice than Angels?
Salt Creek by Lucy Treloar made me cry three times. One time was while I was walking to work (I listened to the book). I got in the elevator, having barely wiped away my tears. My work colleague was in the lift and I did not even see him. I was still on the Coorong in… Continue reading Pocket Book club and salty tears
The Golden Age by Joan London is a novel set 1950's Perth. The Golden Age was an old pub repurposed to care for children with polio. Frank Gold, the oldest resident is the child of Hungarian refugees and the book is in part about his parents' trauma and sense of being different in the big… Continue reading Pocket Bookclub get clucky and talk polio
I have a particular prejudice against male writers who either are proclaimed, or self proclaim as genius. It is a little jealousy. Not because I am remotely close to being a genius, but because it is a tag more often given to male writers than female writers which seems unfair and a product of sexism… Continue reading Pocket book club get curious
It says something of the age of Pocket Bookclub members that we all know what a brunch coat is and remember our mothers' wearing one. Perhaps we wore one too but we were not willing to admit it. A bit like duchess for a dresser, brunch coat has fallen out of favour. I have looked… Continue reading Pocket Bookclub talk about brunch coats and Miles Franklin winner