No one takes reading seriously

This week I asked my boss if I could start working four days instead of five, to give me a day for writing, and he very kindly said yes. It seemed a sensible thing to do: I like writing, after all, and consider myself a …

Dabbling in sci-fi: should it be a crime?

Writer-wise, I am a speculative fiction dilettante. I do not have any deep understanding of the form, I have read only around the fringes (Mieville but not Asimov; Mitchell but not Le Guin), I don’t know enough about the tropes and styles to properly respect …

Politics in literature: N by John A Scott

I’ve been meaning to stop reviewing on Goodreads and start reviewing over here instead (if you can call it reviewing: I never write more than a few paragraphs), so here’s my first attempt. N by John A Scott is an Australian novel, released last year …

Cold Light, Canberra and my first #TBR20

A little while ago I signed up for #TBR20, vowing to read 20 books I already owned before buying or reading more. I’ve already failed: I accidentally got Harry Sadler to send me a copy of his novel Small moments, and I can just tell …

My year in books, unnecessarily charted

Right, let’s assume I’m not going to finish any more books between now and the end of the year. What a ridiculous assumption. Anyway, here’s my 2014-in-reading wrap-up (which won’t cover the books I read between now and the end of the year. I promise …

My Australian Women Writers Challenge wrap-up

This was the first year I did the Australian Women Writers challenge. I set out to achieve ‘Franklin’ level – 10 books read and six of them reviewed. I ended up reading 39 books and reviewing 30 of them (though most of my reviews are only …

On being exhausted by the most-loved thing (also, #TBR20)

Sometimes I feel utterly overwhelmed by reading. I remember a time (OK, maybe I imagine it) when I used to run out of books to read, or when friends would lend me a book and I just started reading it right away, not worried about …

History records I am a spec fic writer

Thanks very much to Helen Merrick for interviewing me for this year’s round-up of Australian speculative fiction. It felt a little presumptuous to be saying so much when I know so little, but it was a really fun process. The interview is here, and there are links to all the other bloggers doing interviews at the end of Helen’s post. Enjoy!

I Claudius, toilet reading and where germs come from

Image by Rob Styles/Flickr

Thanks to everyone who participated in my ‘what do you read on the toilet?’ survey. I’ve written up the results and revealed all about my own revolting habits in this post for Writers Bloc: The book that…I read on the toilet.

Reading Australian women writing

In January, I signed up for the Australian Women Writers reading challenge. I figured I might as well go for gold, and selected ‘Miles Franklin’ level: I pledged to read 10 books by Australian women – any genre, published at any time – during 2014. I figured it would take me nine months or so to knock them off. But as of April 2, I am done. It was really easy, and I’m only half-way through the list of books I wanted to read.

Istvan/Flickr

So I’m kind of perplexed as to why your regular Australian reader (usually a woman, I believe) reads so few Australian women authors. There are plenty of books written by them. They write in all the genres, including ‘literature’ (whatever that is…).  Some of them are even really good.

Anyway, if you like a bit of structure to your reading, or a goal to aspire to, why not sign up. You can do it here.

And if you want to see what I read and what I thought of it, that’s here.

And if you want to read a totally nuts exchange of comments on whether we should bother trying to read more women writers, have a look at this.