Sir Terry Pratchett, fantasy author and creator of the “Disworld Series” has died aged 66 of Alheimer’s disease. Loved by millions for his irreverent take on life, he satirized politics, religion and anything else he deemed to be flawed and pretensious. Often compared to classic authors like Jonathan Swift and Kurt Vonnegut. He wrote 70 books, his most popular novel being, ironically “Mort”, his “Bromeliad Trilogy” is often regarded by critics and fans alike as works of genius. His career spanned over 40 years and his books where translated into 37 languages, worldwide sales totalled over 70 million volumes. He was Britain’s second most read fantasy author after J.K. Rowling. Continue reading
Monthly Archives: March 2015
On the Noodle Road
On the Noodle Road by Jen Lin-Liu
Non Fiction – Cooking, Silk Road
Abstract
A food writer travels the Silk Road, immersing herself in a moveable feast of foods and cultures and discovering some surprising truths about commitment, independence, and love. Feasting her way through an Italian honeymoon, Jen Lin-Liu was struck by culinary echoes of the delicacies she ate and cooked back in China, where she’d lived for more than a decade. “Who really invented the noodle?” she wondered, like many before her. But also: How had food and culture moved along the Silk Road, the ancient trade route linking Asia to Europe and what could still be felt of those long-ago migrations? With her new husband’s blessing, she set out to discover the connections, both historical and personal, eating a path through western China and on into Central Asia, Iran, Turkey, and across the Mediterranean. Continue reading
What days are for
What days are for by Robert Dessaix
Abstract
One Sunday night in Sydney, Robert Dessaix collapses in a gutter in Darlinghurst, and is helped to his hotel by a kind young man wearing a T-shirt that says F… YOU. What follows are weeks in hospital, tubes and cannulae puncturing his body, as he recovers from the heart attack threatening daily to kill him. While lying in the hospital bed, Robert chances upon Philip Larkin’s poem ‘Days’. What, he muses, have his days been for? What and who has he loved ? and why? This is vintage Robert Dessaix. His often surprisingly funny recollections range over topics as eclectic as intimacy, travel, spirituality, enchantment, language and childhood, all woven through with a heightened sense of mortality.
Comments
Collapsed on a pavement, Robert Dessaix was helped by a young man wearing a t-shirt that says F… YOU and a hotel staff member. He suffered a major heart attack but thanks to those kind people, he was saved. Continue reading
The Yellow Birds
The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers
Abstract
“The war tried to kill us in the spring,” begins this breathtaking account of friendship and loss. In Al Tafar, Iraq, twenty-one-year old Private Bartle and eighteen-year-old Private Murphy cling to life as their platoon launches a bloody battle for the city. In the endless days that follow, the two young soldiers do everything to protect each other from the forces that press in on every side: the insurgents, physical fatigue, and the mental stress that comes from constant danger. Bound together since basic training when their tough-as-nails Sergeant ordered Bartle to watch over Murphy, the two have been dropped into a war neither is prepared for. As reality begins to blur into a hazy nightmare, Murphy becomes increasingly unmoored from the world around him and Bartle takes impossible actions.
Comments
Took a while to get into the book but enjoyed it. Very good portrayal of what it means to go to war and the consequences. Sterling was a very interesting character. Heart of gold but very rough exterior. Continue reading
2014 Aurealis Awards – Finalists
We have more for Sci – Fi and Fantasy readers. Here are the finest titles from these couple of genres by Australian writers: