I mostly read and re-read childrens books, but here are the adult books I also read when I get the chance.
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Writer, filmmaker, and organizer Astra Taylor takes a curious, critical, and ultimately hopeful look at the uniquely modern concept of …
Writer, filmmaker, and organizer Astra Taylor takes a curious, critical, and ultimately hopeful look at the uniquely modern concept of …
What is an art of life for what feels like the end of a world? In Raving McKenzie Wark takes …
What is an art of life for what feels like the end of a world? In Raving McKenzie Wark takes …
For years, Teresa has passed from one job to the next, settling into long stretches of time, struggling to build …
For years, Teresa has passed from one job to the next, settling into long stretches of time, struggling to build …
A Natural History of Transition is a collection of short stories that disrupts the notion …
An interesting collection of magic realist (for want of a better term) short stories of human transition as part of the greater natural world. My favorites were Winter of Men and The Swarm.
A Natural History of Transition is a collection of short stories that disrupts the notion that trans people can only …
A Natural History of Transition is a collection of short stories that disrupts the notion that trans people can only …
Frustrated by her current relationship, trans lesbian Maria Griffiths decides to change her life by making some brash decisions and …
Frustrated by her current relationship, trans lesbian Maria Griffiths decides to change her life by …
The first few chapters I thought the writing style was pretty contrived...but it ends up really working the more you get to know Maria. Other than that, wow, it's amazing, it's great. I will probably read it again.
Frustrated by her current relationship, trans lesbian Maria Griffiths decides to change her life by making some brash decisions and …
The Nickel Boys is a 2019 novel by American novelist Colson Whitehead. It is based on the historic Dozier School, …
Paradise Estate picks up a few years down the road (and on the other side of the peak COVID pandemic years) from where The Magpie Wing left off, following Helen as she endures some major life events in addition to the shitshow that is renting and sharing an anywhere-near-affordable house in a major Australian city.
So many of the characters are looking for genuine connection with each other, if they could only get past their own vices, preoccupations, insecure and unsatisfying work, and inhospitable living conditions.
All the Paradise Estate housemates share a common dissatisfaction with the world at large and have a real desire to make change, which is tempered by their own personal histories of injury and loss, vanity (in Nathan's case), and the jadedness and exhaustion that comes with precarious living and working well into their 30s and beyond.
I've spent most of my adult years in …
Paradise Estate picks up a few years down the road (and on the other side of the peak COVID pandemic years) from where The Magpie Wing left off, following Helen as she endures some major life events in addition to the shitshow that is renting and sharing an anywhere-near-affordable house in a major Australian city.
So many of the characters are looking for genuine connection with each other, if they could only get past their own vices, preoccupations, insecure and unsatisfying work, and inhospitable living conditions.
All the Paradise Estate housemates share a common dissatisfaction with the world at large and have a real desire to make change, which is tempered by their own personal histories of injury and loss, vanity (in Nathan's case), and the jadedness and exhaustion that comes with precarious living and working well into their 30s and beyond.
I've spent most of my adult years in the kind of world these characters inhabit, so to say I found the book relatable is an understatement. I share Rugby League playing laborer/anarchist Rocco's frustration with the typical Australian arms-length friendship and aversion to direct action. I probably also share(d) his idealism of restlessly moving and looking for the ideal place to be and community to be in, (which of course will never work out if you don't stick around and learn to accept where you are and the people around you).
Like The Magpie Wing, you'll get a little extra juice out of knowing the places, names and bus routes in this book, but the universality of getting older and feeling you're not fucking getting anywhere is the real story, which Paradise Estate evokes so well.
