Book Club

Bendigo Writers Festival website is now live, with the very first information about what’s on the program, August 9-11. Bendigo Weekly, in collaboration with The Capital, is running an earlybird registration incentive: sign up for the update email and you will get first information about ti..

Local poet and community radio show host James WF Roberts hopes to be off to Ireland in August, to attend a Poetry Festival in county Cork. He says the invitation to attend the Fermoy festival is “luck and sheer determination”. Over the past six years, he has worked tirelessly at Ph..

OUR first Bendigo Writers Festival surprised everyone, with the generosity of the writers and the enthusiasm of our audiences. An initiative of the Greater Bendigo council, in partnership with La Trobe University Bendigo, it was a busy three days of discussions and events, that made it very ..

In the Miles Franklin Literary Award has not only announced an all-woman shortlist, they are also running a “Miles of Reading Challenge” for tweet-reviews of those novels. To be announced on June 19, the $60,000 prize was set up from the estate of Stella Ma..

Newstead starts the winter, and Bendigo brings it to an end. While the announcement is imminent of who is coming to The Capital in August for Bendigo Writers Festival, this weekend Newstead Short Story Tattoo has a packed program on offer. Director Neil Boyack explains this three-day event as..

One of Michael Leunig’s favourite quotes is by the influential child psychologist Donald Winnicott, who said artists are torn by an “inherent dilemma”. They have, Winnicott said, an “urgent need to communicate and the still more urgent need not to be found”. Despite..

By Rosemary Sorensen Stacey Logan returned briefly to Bendigo earlier this month, to let people know about her books. Now in her 30s, the former Camp Hill Primary and Catholic College student has been beavering away at writing since leaving school. She admits her first efforts were “of v..

The Childhood of Jesus JM Coetzee Text, $34.95 Fables can work, if they have humanity within them, not just signposts to morality. Whether or not JM Coetzee’s latest novel, The Childhood of Jesus, works for you will depend on your willingness to go along with the absurdity ..

Glenda Millard’s Lightning Jack, illustrated by Patricia Mullins, is on the shortlist for picture books at this year’s Children’s Book Council Book of the Year awards. The Bendigo writer talked about the book at last year’s Bendigo Writers Festival, and took young students ..

Life After Life Kate Atkinson Doubleday, $32.95 It will very much depend on what kind of reader you are, and why you read books, whether you rate Life After Life by Kate Atkinson. She is one of those writers who defies definitions. When the discussion about the novel comes up ag..

Into the Woods Anna Krien Black Inc, $19.95 Melbourne writer, Anna Krien, hit the ground running with her first book, Into the Woods. She went to Tasmania, gonzo-style, and immersed herself in the people and politics behind the battle for old-growth forests in Tasmania. The resulting b..

Once upon a time, there were shortlists, a bit of a gap, then a winner was announced. Now, no self-respecting prize does without a longlist; so ubiquitous are they, some prizes, such as the new Stella prize for women writers, do without a shortlist altogether. This week, the British equivalent o..

Floundering by Romy Ash Text, $35 Tom and his older brother Jordy are virtually kidnapped after school by Loretta, their no-good, smokin’, drinkin’, drug-taking mum. It’s been 12 months since Loretta has left the boys in their grandmother’s care and she&rsqu..

Back in the days when literary matters were debated with a hostility worthy of a footy grand final, “women’s writing” was, for a while, the burning issue. In 1986, writer Gerard Windsor declared that women writers receive special treatment in Australia, favoured ahead of their ma..

A M E Bale: Her Art and Life Peter Perry Castlemaine Art Gallery and Historical Museum, $60 To say that “Alice Marian Ellen Bale is one of Australia’s most significant painters of flowers” may not sound like grand praise. But this beautifully produced book by Cas..

If and when we get to see the BBC’s Parade’s End here, this will probably be the first time many Australian readers have come across Ford Madox Ford. Parade’s End was a trilogy, based on Madox Ford’s life, particularly the period he spent living with Australian artist Stell..

It was a series of coincidences that brought Mary Pomfret to Bendigo. But once here, she found her writing voice. Ms Pomfret will launch her first book this month, a small collection of linked prose pieces called Writing in Virginia’s Shadow. Published by a little innovative company call..

Graeme Simsion has pulled off a tricky challenge in his first novel. First - the author. According to his publisher, Text, he's a computer programmer who founded a consulting business in 1982, which he sold in 1999. He is also a wine importer and an antique dealer, and was, until recentl..

1835 James Boyce Black Inc, $44.95 When Malcolm Turnbull reviewed James Boyce’s brilliant book, 1835, he completed his summary like this: “When governments say, doing the right thing is ‘too hard’, what they are really saying is that it is more lucrative, o..

By Dianne Dempsey Something new, something old, something borrowed, something blue: my summer reading Something new: The Dinner Herman Koch Text, $29.99 This is the first time the popular Dutch writer, Herman Koch, has been published in Australia and you can quickly..