New book rag

So, I’m a little slow in mentioning this, I saw it last week in Crikey and had meant to post about it but I forgot.
D.D. McNicoll announces, under the rather modest headline “Literary review a new chronicle of our age” that the Australian is to launch a new literary supplement.
Mitchell said the ALR would not [...]

Starving students

Just overhead on campus:
Student 1: I’ve made $110 already!
Student 2: Oh, so you bought in?
Student 1: Yep, Rio Tinto.

The idea of a university

BBC Radio 4 is running a series called ‘The idea of a university‘ which can be listened to via the web. It is based on UK unis but still might be of interest to some.
Martha Kearney looks at how our universities have been transformed by six decades of expansion. Has our idea of what a [...]

I don’t know why I subject myself to this stuff

I don’t know why I read Miranda Devine but I do. The masochist in me? I don’t know. She sets the bar high but every week she seems to top herself. This week’s Sun Herald column is, well, out there. Miranda, I do think you may have outdone yourself.
Headlined “Nuclear families under attack from court [...]

5 questions

John Baker has kept his blog going while on holidays by having other lit/book/writing bloggers answer five questions. There are 40 so far in the series. (And yes, mine went up yesterday).

Wot? No new posts?

That’s because I have been writing at Sarsaparilla and Larvatus Prodeo this week. Will be back with you shortly.

Coming over all Mexican

This weekend, quite exceptionally for me, I left Sydney and spent some time in Melbourne. I’ve been guilty of some Melbourne-bashing in the past and to be honest, I have often found it difficult to see its charms. I have to hold my hand up now and say I have been converted. Perhaps, just perhaps, [...]

Why was Bush reading Camus?

John Dickerson asks this in Slate this week. And I agree, I would like to know a little more about the President’s holiday reading choice of Camus’ The Stranger.
White House spokesman Tony Snow said Bush “found it an interesting book and a quick read” and talked about it with aides. “I don’t want to [...]

Words of the week

Ok, so I’ve already mentioned this scientist who can write but I would just like to draw your attention to his quirky series of ‘Words of the week‘. (Just scroll down, you’ll see them). If you’re not familiar with Sydney it will mean absolutely nothing to you but if you do, it’s worth a look. [...]

All White

So, I finally mananged to find a copy. I looked in the local library, a number of bookshops and ended up paying way over the odds for a 1982 paperback copy. The one with the Tucker painting on the cover. (Admittedly I didn’t try the largest library in the southern hemisphere – I was looking [...]