Lai Wen, Tiananmen Square (Swift Press 2024) Before the meeting: On page 411 of this novel, the narrator-protagonist, a student at Beijing University, posts an application for an exchange program a…| Me fail? I fly!
Yao Feng, Great Wall Capriccio and Other Poems, translated by Kit Kelen, Karen Kun and Penny Fang Xia (Flying Island Books 2014) Beijing born Yao Feng is a much awarded poet, translator, artist and…| Me fail? I fly!
Albert Camus, L’étranger (1942, Methuen Educational 1970) My practice of reading a couple of pages from a classic book every morning has been in abeyance since I finished reading Montaigne…| Me fail? I fly!
Patricia Sykes, Among the Gone of It, with Chinese translation by Xu Daozhi and Wu Xi (Flying Island Books 2017) This is my fifth post for National Poetry Month, and my third bilingual book this mo…| Me fail? I fly!
Judy Johnson, Exhibit, translated into Chinese by Iris Fan Xing (Flying Island Books & ASM 2013) This is my fourth post for National Poetry Month. Like Geoff Page’s Codicil, Exhibit is a bilingual book, aiming to bring an Australian poet … Continue reading →| Me fail? I fly!
Geoff Page, Codicil, tanslated into Chinese by Chris Song and Matthew Cheng (Flying Island Books 2019) It’s National Poetry Month in Australia. The Red Room Poetry site lists a plethora of events, workshops and competitions, promoted by ambassadors ranging from … Continue reading →| Me fail? I fly!
Susan Hampton, Anything Can Happen (Puncher and Wattmann 2024) We decided on this book before checking on availability. All was good for the Kindle readers, but there was a long queue at the library and it was out of stock … Continue reading →| Me fail? I fly!
Debra Oswald, One Hundred Years of Betty (Allen & Unwin 2025) Long before the meeting: If not for the Book Club, I would have put this book aside at page 14. Betty is the seventh child in a desperately poor … Continue reading →| Me fail? I fly!
Bronwyn Rodden, Stranded (Flying Island Pocket Poets Series 2024) I have brought a stack of books from the Flying Island Pocket Poets series on a winter holiday. They’re perfect travel companions – physically light and small in size, but with … Continue reading →| Me fail? I fly!
[7 August 2025: I’ve retrieved this post from my old blog because I’m currently reading a book by Geoff Page, and Lawrie & Shirley, reviewed here, is the only other book by him I’ve read since I started blogging] Clive … Continue reading →| Me fail? I fly!
Lizz Murphy, Bitumen Psalms (Flying Island 2024) This book is another jewel in the Flying Island Pocket Poets series, more than 100 pocket-sized books (14 x 11 cm) so far, published under the stewardship of Kit Kelen. It’s a wonderful … Continue reading →| Me fail? I fly!
John Phillips, Concrete (Bodily Press 2025) A couple of mornings ago, I opened my letterbox to find an envelope stamped with a profile of King Charles and evidence that someone had paid £4.30 posta…| Me fail? I fly!
Family life, formerly a .mac blog, continued and rejigged. Mostly written on Gadigal Wangal land. I welcome any First Nations readers and commenters| Me fail? I fly!
Annie Ernaux, A Man’s Place (La Place ©1983, translation © Tanya Leslie 1992) Alphonse Duchesne, who ran a small cafe/grocery in Normandy with his wife, died in 1967, two months after his dau…| Me fail? I fly!
Richard Tipping, Instant History (Flying Island Poets, 2017) As a subscriber to Flying Island Poets, I receive a bundle of ten books at the start of each year. The pocket-sized books belie their mi…| Me fail? I fly!
Han Kang, We Do Not Part (2021, translated e. yaewon & Paige Aniyah Morris, Hamish Hamilton 2025) Before the Book Club meeting: Han Kang was awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature, so her m…| Me fail? I fly!
Saturday 24 May, the weather relented a little. The Emerging Artist and I usually do the Sydney Morning Herald quiz in bed in the morning. Today we went to Carriageworks to do it as a communal affa…| Me fail? I fly!
Yael van der Wouden, The Safekeep (Viking 2024) Before the meeting: As I mentioned in my post about Lai Wen’s Tiananmen Square, this book has a general strategy in common with a number of other boo…| Me fail? I fly!
Josh Tuininga, We Are Not Strangers (Abrams Comicarts 2023) In December 1941, about 127,000 Japanese Americans lived in the continental USA. After the attack on Pearl Harbor and the declaratio…| Me fail? I fly!
Judith Beveridge, Tintinnabulum (Giramondo Poetry 2024) As a rule on this blog I focus on the page of a book that corresponds to my age. There’s a lot I could write about Tintinnabulum (it…| Me fail? I fly!
