Two Salingers are Better than One

There are rare but beautiful moments when you know you are experiencing something close to perfection: attending a Wilco concert, eating the butter poached coturnix quail breast at Quay, watching Steve Waugh single-handedly drag Australia through the 1999 Cricket World Cup. And recently I experienced reading perfection: JD Salinger’s Seymour—An Introduction. It’s a big call, isn’t it? And how on earth [...]

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R is for a Richard who Rocks

What I want to write about is hard to discuss without potentially revealing myself as at least one of three things. 1) a moron, 2) a snob, 3) a cultural philistine. And yet this isn’t a post about TV, my inability to snag a man, or my not-so-secret love for a power ballad… In recent years I’ve discovered I really like American fiction. [...]

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January wasteland

Um, did anyone see January come and go? I’m sure I saw it stride in through the door wearing glitter and a party hat and dragging a slightly mangled December behind it, then I turn my back for a few seconds and there’s that bloody February standing a little closer than is polite and breathing its [...]

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Book 15: The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil by George Saunders

It’s been awhile, hasn’t it? So much for a book a week… although were standing strong on a book a fortnight, and there are a couple of pre-pubs I’m waiting for the release date to post on, which will help catch us up some. Don’t us Industry book fiends love our proof copies. ‘Oh this? [...]

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