Reading for Change – Cherrie Zell

Quarterly Essay – Uncivil Wars

Now that’s a bold title for my unassuming little slice of the internet. For those elsewhere, the Quarterly Essay is exactly as it sounds – the publication of an essay that hits the news stands four times a year, usually on a topical topic. I don’t buy all four; only those that interest me. SoContinue reading “Quarterly Essay – Uncivil Wars”

Whole Notes

Whole Surroundings Where to do you read your books? Does a particular type of book require a particular type of place? I wondered this on a cold blustery Sunday afternoon when I decided to pick up Ed Ayres’ book, Whole Notes: Life Lessons Though Music, after it sat abandoned for too long at my bedside.Continue reading “Whole Notes”

Rome

I get a little annoyed when there’s a disconnect between the cover of a book and its contents, when the visuals of the cover aren’t carried through to the experience of the story. There is a gorgeous red flamingo on the cover, when one might expect it to be pink; perhaps not red as renderedContinue reading “Rome”

Ben and Barack

Two books. One read. Can you guess which? The story of Benjamin Franklin It was a radical trip to the book store; one of those outings where I was unlikely to return with something run-of-the-mill because I didn’t need run-of-the-mill that day. I’ve already written about my encounter with Thomas De Quincey’s On Murder Considered asContinue reading “Ben and Barack”

Two books, intertwined?

I started one, wasn’t getting it so wasn’t getting into it, grabbed another from the shelf, got bored with the repetitiveness, went back to the first and stuck it out. The first choice was very left field, even though it was a Penguin. Its strangeness was grounded in an element of familiarity. It wasn’t theContinue reading “Two books, intertwined?”

Garner’s Everywhere

We have a new bookshop. Let me be more specific. We now have a local bookshop. It’s quite small and wants to specialise in a subculture to which I do not belong, but it stocks a selection of generically normal books such that I can fulfill an obligation to be supportive. Buying Local. I glanceContinue reading “Garner’s Everywhere”