17 days to go!
Local Canberra media has been quick to respond to the launch of a Pozible campaign for Tears, Laughter, Champagne, the cookbook come memoir that tells the fifteen-year journey of nine women brought together by loss following the 2003 Canberra bushfires.
Some of the Singed Sisters joined Lish Fejer for Sunday Brunch on ABC Radio Canberra and Eddie Williams and Ian Meikle on 2CC’s Sunday Roast, Kathryn Vukovljak discussed the book with Karen Downing for City News, and Elias Hallaj has given it a plug on RiotACT.
Some 56 wonderful people have pledged to the project already. But with 17 days to go we need more supporters to reach our target!
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Behind the storm
Writer Ellen van Neerven made headlines in recent days as the social media target of disgruntled HSC students who took exception to the question asked about one of her poems which was set for the English exam. The resulting media storm obscures van Neeren’s work – literally. Search engine results for her name now will first return articles about this brouhaha and everyone’s opinion of it instead of the usual links to Ellen’s own writing. The Lifted Brow, where van Neerven is a commissioning editor, has asked that the writing community show her that it’s her writing, her work, that matters by linking to pieces of hers and places where people can buy her books. So here’s a few:
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What we’ve been reading
Karen finally discovered why so many readers rave about Elizabeth Strout as she raced through Olive Kitteridge (Random House, 2008) with its everyday details that describe universal truths. Absorbing! She was less taken by Louis de Bernières’ The Dust That Falls from Dreams (Penguin Random House, 2015). This ‘epic romance’ is a shadow of his Captain Correlli’s Mandolin (Penguin, 2005) that made her laugh and cry with everyone else. Bernières’ story of Britain’s blighted generation during World War One is far better told by AS Byatt in The Children’s Book. But surely The Dust That Falls from Dreams is one of the best book titles ever!
True to form Aidan has returned to reading novels about angsty young men with a penchant for sex and drugs. He recently finished Christos Tsiolkas’ The Jesus Man (Penguin, 1999) and Bret Easton Ellis’ Less Than Zero (Penguin, 1998) and is now reading Australian grunge classic Praise by Andrew McGahan (Allen & Unwin, 2005). Hopefully one day Aidan will grow out of this obsession, or at least turn it into something useful like a PhD.
Jane kept her promise to herself from last month and started reading from the twenty-first century. By rare good luck rather than prescience, she finished Lincoln in the Bardo (Bloomsbury, 2017) just days before it was announced winner of the 2017 Man Booker Prize. Much has been written about George Saunders’ novel, none of which particularly attracted her, but she takes that all back because it is an engrossing and moving read. Another favourite this month was Frank Bongiorno’s The Eighties: The Decade that Transformed Australia (Black Inc., 2017) which showed her three things: that parts of her lifespan are now open game for historians; too much of the politics sounds distressingly similar to contemporary debates; and, histories can be beautifully written.
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