A curmudgeon writes.
So it’s the end of the year and I’m convinced that I won’t read any more books in 2023. Sad, but it has to be called at some point I guess.
Anyway, let’s get this final-review-of-the-year show on the road.
Continue reading “Quick reviews before the year (and the world?) ends”Once again, it’s been a while since I wrote. Call it life. Call it work deadlines. Call it the second round of COVID-19 I’ve had this year. Regardless, slackness ensurs and so now I’m going to try to make up for it not by humbly begging your indulgence, but by putting together a bunch – a decet? – of book reviews that may be of interest.
I hope so, anyway.
Continue reading “Review chunks”
The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson.
My rating: five stars
A short review for a short book: read it.
Look, I should probably do a bit more than that.
This is the first collection of short stories by Shirley Jackson that I’d read, and from what I gather it’s the only one I really need to. (That’s not to say that I won’t, just that this seems to be the prevailing sentiment.)
Continue reading “Book review: The Lottery and Other Stories”
Shutting Out the Sun: How Japan Generated its Own Lost Generation by Michael Zielenziger.
My rating: three stars
Japan is a country that’s had a Bit Of A Time. At the end of WWII is was bombed into atomic submission (twice) by the nation that would become the defacto dictator of political structure and positions of power, it experienced unprecedented growth and became one of the richest countries in the world.
Then, of course, there was a bubble and everything went tits-up. Security was no longer assured. Birth rates fell. Productivity fell through the floor. Entrenched ways of working started to inhibit growth, rather than spur it to nation-envying heights. And millions of adults locked themselves away from the world in voluntary seclusion, becoming hikikomori, individuals choosing to withdraw from the world entirely, often placing burdens on the familial unit.
Continue reading “Book review: Shutting Out the Sun”
Crossing the Line: The Inside Story of Murder, Lies and a Fallen Hero by Nick McKenzie.
My rating: four stars
I’m not going to lie: I’m reading this for different reasons (and have probably enjoyed it in a different way) than the usual reader. I’m digging in because at heart, while it ostensibly speaks to the murderous fuckwittery of one man, emblematic of a section of Australia’s elite forces, it also addresses the power that journalism can have, despite obstacles – legal, cultural and military – that might get in the way.
Continue reading “Book review: Crossing the Line”Perhaps it was us who were the fools for publishing without certainty of victory in a defamation court.
Masters always had a calm response to my second-guessing. ‘Was it in the public interest? Did Australians have a right to know? And was it true?’
The answer to all these questions was, yes, whether we could prove it in court or not.
As is eternally the case, I’m behind on my book reviews. Way more behind than I’ve been in quite a while. This post is three times as long as the last one.
(TWENTY-FOUR BOOKS WHAT THE HELL MAN.)
I mean, I did get made permanent at my new job. I did go to Dark Mofo (aka Goth Schoolies), though this – depressingly – turned out to be much more lame than expected. And I did catch COVID after three years of avoiding the bloody thing, giving me further evidence that I should really stay the fuck home as much as possible.
(Which, to be fair, probably counts as my House Words.)
Point is, there’s been a bit on. And so with a meagre clutch of excuses, let’s get to the books I’ve been reading since I last graced your eyeballs.
(Mercifully, I’ve been doing a bit more reading which, if nothing else, makes me feel a bit better. YMMV, mind.)
Continue reading “Book review: a few months’ worth, why not?”Once more, I’ve slackened off a bit in my reviewing duties. So instead of reading one review this time ’round, you’re going to cram six of the buggers into your eyeballs.
Talk about value for money! But that’s not all! There’ll be surveyors, pandemics, pugilistic pain, shoals of teen suicides, bad TARDIS houses, Nazi-influenced ‘shrooms and, er, Simon Callow.
Never let it be said I don’t offer value for money! Let’s get on with it.
Continue reading “Book reviews: six or so (no, it’s six)”
The Anomaly by Hervé le Tellier
My rating: four stars
Doubles have always freaked me out. Perfect example? The Black Lodge sequence from the end the second season of Twin Peaks: you know, Cooper is running around trying to avoid a maniacal version of himself, identical except for clouded eyes. The perfect image of something so mundane, something an individual sees every day – themselves! – except multiplied, with presumably ill intent.
There’s a long history of doppelgängers being evil, or at the very least a sign that everything is very fuckin’ far from okay – and their appearance is, understandably, a cause for concern.
(A special shoutout here to the Irish for using the term fetch to describe the same thing, which brings new depths to the demand that people stop trying to make fetch happen.)
Le Tellier’s The Anomaly takes the idea of the sudden appearance of a doppelgänger but adds a bit of a twist: what if there was a planeload of doubles?
Waypoints by Adam Ouston
My rating: four stars
So you know Harry Houdini, right? The straitjacket-and-locks guy? Big hater of spiritualist fraudsters? Escapologist, man with a dynamic gaze? Eventually bought low by a sucker punch? You know, this guy:
Well, it turns out that prestidigitation and being a momma’s boy weren’t the only things he was interested in: he also had a brief flirtation with aviation. Including Australian aviation: on a trip out here (organised at great expense), Harry was keen to be the first to attain powered flight on the continent.
(He ended up being third, though that didn’t really stop people blowing his trumpet, so to speak.)
This quest for aviation supremacy – and one man’s quest to reenact it as a sort of psychic salve – form the basis of Waypoints, Adam Ouston’s novel of uncommon energy and beauty.
Continue reading “Book review: Waypoints”
Faith, Hope and Carnage by Nick Cave and Seán O’Hagan
My rating: five stars
I’ve been a fan of Nick Cave’s work for a couple of decades, but I admit to having held a certain amount of cynicism about the guy (and parts of his output) over the years. Partially this was a bit of a pose, part of it was (perhaps justified) criticism at the increased deification and man-of-letters mantle he’d been gifted by certain parts of his fanbase, and by his home country of late, which of course disregards the fact that he had to fuck off to England and Germany before earning any sort of praise here.
The news of the death of Arthur, Cave’s son, put paid to that. Selfishly, it allowed me to focus more on the work than the man – it seemed like a particularly cunty act to want to run down a man (remember that Nick Cave & the Bad Everything photo?) in the wake of such terrible events. How would someone bear such a thing? How would they survive? How do you keep getting up in the morning?
Continue reading “Book review: Faith, Hope and Carnage”
Yeah nah. 