Honeybee by Craig Silvey
I had absolutely no idea what this book was about nor had I read anything else by Craig Silvey when I chose to download it as the ‘free book of the month’ from Audible. Rarely do I give out a 5 star rating but this book was totally worth it. I’m going to try to describe it without giving too much away. It starts with young teenager Sam meeting elderly gent Vic on a bridge, as they are both about to end their lives. From […]
Shallows by Tim Winton
Continuing with my project to read all of Tim Winton’s novels this year, I have just finished Shallows, first published in 1984. As usual for his works, the location and geography feature strongly and I was happily thrown into an immediate sense of place along the south coast of Western Australia. In the small town of Angelus, everyone knows everyone and the inhabitants have been there for generations. It’s the late 1970s and when some Greenies have arrived to protest whaling, the historic economic driver […]
Electrify: An Optimist's Playbook for our Clean Energy Future by Saul Griffith
I got this book from the library after listening to an interview with the author on one of my favourite podcasts (Wild, with Sarah Wilson). The whole book is an argument for why electrifying everything is the biggest (albeit not the only) way to fight climate change while creating millions of new jobs, a healthy environment and cheaper electricity for all. Although I’m in Australia and this book is about what the USA can do, I still learnt a lot and had many misconceptions challenged. […]
Cultish: The Language of Fanatacism by Amanda Montell
I read this book after placing it on my TBR list following a great review on this very website. It did not disappoint (to say the least). Cultish explains how language is used in cults (and ‘cultish’ organisations) to lure people in and keep them there. From love-bombs to thought-terminating cliches, language is just about the most powerful tool to make people feel like they belong swiftly followed by making them feel terrified of the consequences if they leave. Scientology, as an example, has so […]
56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard
… but then again I don’t read a lot of fiction so I didn’t really know what to expect. I picked this book up from the display near the library entrance. Not gonna lie, I can’t remember what drove me to pick it up, but it was a good distraction for a few days. It goes like this: girl meets guy in supermarket. Whirlwind romance moves more quickly than usual due to the beginning of Covid-19 lockdowns. They move in together after only a few […]
Rewording the Brain by David Astle
After coming across a chance social media post containing a cryptic crossword clue and instructions for how to solve it, I fell headlong into the addictive craze and borrowed this book from the library. I’ve now kept it for its maximum number of renewals and have to return it so I’m on the lookout for a second-hand copy that I can get for keeps. David Astle, for those who don’t know, regularly sets cryptic crosswords for a couple of Australian newspapers and runs the ‘letters’ […]
