Category: Books
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Chaotic London: August Reads 2016
Every month I find myself meandering around a theme in my reading. Somehow all the books manage to link to each other via their subject matter. This month, most of the books revolved around the theme of anarchy and the world in chaos, especially in London. There’s something about this city which has attracted revolutionaries…
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Walking the Melbourne City of Literature in Pictures – Part I
What better day than National Bookshop Day to start walking the Melbourne City of Literature? With my trusty literary companion, Edie Hawthorn, we set out to visit as many bookstores as we could in a three hour period (less than we thought, given how much time we spend in bookstores). But this is only the…
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Neon Noir: Limbo, Leviathan Wakes and Phonogram Review
In June I read a bunch of neon noir books and comics, including Limbo, Leviathan Wakes and Phonogram. Inspired by 80s aesthetic, neon noir embraces the big, bold themes of the decade with the shoulder pads to match. There’s a reason why it’s often linked with supernatural or science fiction themes, given the number of…
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What are the best books on writing genre fiction?
I asked some of my writing friends to share the best books on writing. There are some great suggestions here, including several books I’d never heard of. I’ve included several of my favourites at the bottom of the list.
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Hardboiled Holmes: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Valley of Fear
In researching a new novel, I stumbled across a curious tidbit within The Scientific Sherlock Holmes by James O’Brien. It briefly mentioned The Valley of Fear, one of the four Sherlock Holmes novels, as an early precursor to the hardboiled novel. Intrigued as Holmes coming across a mystery, I immediately sought out the story. I’m a perpetual dabbler…
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A Year of Good Reading: 2015 in Review
At the start of 2015 I wrote a blog post about my year of good reading – usually I try to read the complete works of an author in one year. This year was Edgar Allan Poe. How’d I go? Well, I failed.