Emily Paull

BOOK: The Luminaries FORMAT:  Trade Paperback This review constitutes part of a challenge series undertaken by myself and Simon from The Blether . Experts are saying that 2013 was the year of the BIG BOOK and you only have to look at recent release lists to see that this is true.  Weighing in at some 830 pages,  The Luminaries  is not the largest book on the 2013 Man Booker Longlist, but it is quite possibly one of the longest books ever to win- this tally includes 2009 winner Wolf Hall and it's sequel, 2012 winner Bring up the Bodies , both by Hilary Mantel.   The Luminaries can also claim several other accolades.  It is one of few offerings ever to win from New Zealand, and it's author, Eleanor Catton, was only 27 years old at the time she wrote it.  If that's not reason enough to be jealous, it's also a remarkable book. In comparison to other books in the shortlist. Reviews in other news media praise Catton for her use of the astrologic...

These reviews comprise part of a challenge undertaken with Simon from The Blether. BOOK: Five Star Billionaire by Tash Aw Format: Hardback There are definite benefits to a diverse longlist.  One of these is the chance for me, as a reader, to immerse myself in the world of another culture completely different to mine, as I got a chance to do this week when I devoured Five Star Billionaire by Tash Aw, possibly the best author I had never heard of.  I think it’s really easy to assume that because we’re talking about books in English, the longlist is going to consist of Americans, English people, Australians, Canadians and even New Zealanders.  But the extent of the prize reaches much further.  This is demonstrated by a varied longlist that includes (as well as lots of Irishmen), a Nigerian novelist, a Japanese Buddhist monk, and Tash Aw, who was born in Taipei and raised in Malaysia.  He now lives in London.  His grasp of the English language is ...

Graduation ceremony- February 2013 Best Books of 2013 1) Barracuda by Christos Tsiolkas 2) The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt 3) Elemental by Amanda Curtin 4)  The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan 5) The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt by Tracy Farr 6) The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion 7) The Shadow Year by Hannah Richell 8) Eyrie by Tim Winton Knitting for warmth!  Winter 2013 (Thanks for your help, Gma)    9) Lexicon by Max Barry    10) Burial Rites by Hannah Kent Notable Writing Milestones While I didn't manage to get anything published, or even placed in any competitions, I feel as if this year has been about growth.  I have grown as a writer and my support network has grown ever wider.  I am ready for a 2014 full of words and wisdom. Read my short story 'Pretending' at the Subiaco Library in April this year, all thanks to Annabel Smith  who wrote the amazing novel, Whisky...

BOOK:  The Marry of Chani Kaufman by Eve Harris Format:  Ebook (Courtesy Sandstone Press) The inclusion of The Marrying of Chani Kaufman in the Man Booker Longlist is quite a coup, but will it prove a coup de grace?   First time novelist Eve Harris is represented by independent Scottish publisher, Sandstone Press who were also responsible for 2011 Longlisted title The Testament of Jessie Lamb , distributed in Australia by Allen and Unwin.  As yet, The Marrying of Chani Kaufman is not available through an Australian distributor. Following the story of 19 year old orthodox Jew, Chani Kaufman, the book is a complex meditation on the meanings of marriage and womanhood among religious Jewish societies in the modern world.  Chani is set to marry Baruch, whom she has met just a few times before his proposal.  She has been rejected by other men in the recent past and views this opportunity as a frightening yet exciting prospect, and possibly her ...

Elemental Amanda Curtin UWA Press, 2013 9781742585062 Nearing the end of her life, Meggie Tulloch takes up her pen to write a story for her granddaughter.  It begins with the first years of the twentieth century, in a place where howling winds spin sat and sleet sucked up from icefloes.  A place where lives are ruled by men, and men by the witchy sea.  A place where the only thing lower than a girl in the order of things is a clever girl with accursed red hair. A place schooled in keeping secrets. Moving from the north-east of Scotland to the Shetland Isles to Fremantle, Australia, Elemental  is a novel about the life you make from the life you are given. This year there were two notable books that could be described as atmospheric.  The first, for me, was Hannah Kent's highly anticipated Burial Rites .  The second was Elemental .  Written by Perth local, Amanda Curtin, this book takes its structure from the four earthly elements of Water, A...

“What, this?” I said, my arm still awkwardly entangled around Aurora’s waist.  “This is Mrs Claus.”   The lie even sounded feeble to me, but this kid was young.  Surely she’d believe it.  Her unnaturally dark eyebrows knitted together in a scowl.  She took in Aurora’s costume, the striped candy cane tights, and the plastic pointy ears.  She shook her head.  “That’s not Mrs Claus,” she wailed.  “That’s an elf!” Then she screamed. Perhaps I should start at the beginning, but sometimes it’s kind of hard to pinpoint that moment, isn’t it?  Did this all begin with Natalia, the Spanish chick in my graduating class who, unbelievably, had let me make out with her behind the demountables instead of going to class?  Did it begin with me not getting into University, and failing to apply for TAFE?  Did it begin with my father telling me that he wasn’t going to let me live like a freeloader in the garage anymor...

I've just recently finished Hugh Howey's Silo trilogy at the recommendation of my significant other, and it's got me thinking about end of the world fiction.  More and more, as I read the second and third novels in this trilogy ( Shift and Dust ) I became convinced that Hugh Howey must be a fan of Margaret Atwood.  While the Silo trilogy is distinctively American, particularly in its description of the US Government's involvement in the central premise, both novels are anti-establishment and environmentalist in scope.  The end of the world, in other words, has been caused by us.  We have ruined our landscape and made it impossible for ourselves to go on living the way we know. In Wool, the first of Howey's trilogy, we are introduced to a new way of life.  People live in a silo underground where their way of life is governed by their specific skill set.  Our protagonist, Juliette, is a worker from Mechanical, way down deep towards the bottom of the sil...

The Goldfinch Donna Tartt Little Brown and co (Courtesy the publisher) Cover (Left) and Painting by Carel Fabritius (Right) I don't recall if I have mentioned this before, but Donna Tartt's second novel The Little Friend  was possibly one of the more disappointing novels I have ever read.  Exciting and well written, it is let down by it's strange manipulation of genre; a murder mystery in which the murder is, frustratingly, never solved.  No wonder, then, that I approached this novel, Tartt's third offering in something like 20 years, with trepidation. I had heard from several people whom I respect greatly that this was an unputdownable novel, exciting, clever and what have you.  The proof copy was no easy acquisition.  And finally, last Friday when I began to read, I was put under it's spell for myself. The story begins when Theo Decker is thirteen.  Having fallen in with a bad crowd, he's managed to get himself suspended and he and his love...

Check out this interview that I did with Rachael Russell from Spout Art. http://spoutart.com/artist-005-emily-paull/ So chuffed to be selected to be part of 31 artists, 31 days. Thank you Rachael!

This is a post out there for all the aspiring writers for whom it's JUST NOT HAPPENING. You're frustrated.  I know.  This might totally wreck my credibility as a writer, but in the past twelve months that I have been writing I have not had a single piece published or placed in a competition and so believe me, I get it.  But what I want to share with you today is a little piece of wisdom that's going to help you get over it and get on with it, and the wisdom comes courtesy of Simon from The Blether. Now as you may or may not know, when I'm not pretending to be an author, I work as a bookseller in one of Perth's better known independent book stores.  I love my job- truly.  It is inspiring to spend my days surrounded by books and people who love books.  But for the same reason it can also be a little daunting.  The world has so many writers in it.  There is no guarantee of a place for me.  Now, you may not know this, but Simon has recent...

The launch of my second novel, a self-published ebook, was a quiet affair; the slipping into the world of an illegitimate child, as compared to the celebratory racquet of my first: a print book with a traditional publisher.   With my ebook Sea Dog Hotel an unshakable sense of failure prevailed, of it being second rate. It seemed strange. It was strange. My novel was in the ether. I had nothing concrete, nothing to hold. I was dealing with the abstract. It all started in 2006 when I began work on the manuscript, which was to become known as Sea Dog Hotel, a work of fiction of 78,000 words. Initially work on the manuscript was erratic, snatches of time in between working on my first novel and other commitments.  In 2010 I finally had the space to give it more fuller attention, plus I had the help of an editor courtesy of my then agent who always reassured me that they would present it to a publisher when I was happy for them to do so.  For a year and a half the...

Happiness is counting your blessings while other people are tallying up their misfortunes- or at least that's what you will discover in the electronic pages of local author, Marlish Glorie's, new book. Yes, that's right... this is an ebook.  Dun dun DUUUUUUN Sea Dog Hotel  begins with the classic structure of strangers arriving in town, but Nyacoppin is no ordinary down.  Situated in the middle of the West Australian salt lakes, it boasts a population of 80 people.  It's biggest business is the Sea Dog Hotel and it is this building that has brought the nomads to town.  Grace, who turns 21 on the day the story begins, has become her mother's keeper since the death of her father three years prior, because of her mother's lingering and inexplicable mental illness- a condition that causes her to get the jitters and renders her unable to drive.  At first Grace resents being forced to accompany her mother to this nowhere town, but slowly, she learns to lo...

The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt Tracy Farr Fremantle Press, 2013 And now the review... I began this novel not knowing what to expect.  Postured like a history, was I in for two hundred pages of a fictionalised life story, or was I going to be swashbuckled and romanced?  I wasn't sure; but this was part of the draw.  Reading a book in a vacuum in this way is like discovering a new trend.  For a moment, it is just yours, your new secret love. That's right.  I think I am a little bit in love with Lena Gaunt. On the back cover she is described as a musician, and octogenarian and a junkie, all of which are true.  In the early chapters of the book, Dame Lena is invited to play her theremin in a festival in Perth's hills.  She seems conceited, a little deluded, and rather cranky, judging the other musicians around her and the young people that she works with.  She is affronted by a negative review, and dismissive of Mo, the young filmmaker...

I was reading an essay yesterday in which the author was talking about forms of metaphor, and suddenly it occurred to me that since I have finished university, my vocabulary has been shrinking.  I no longer feel comfortable enough with words like "synecdoche" to use them in every day conversation.  This is a horrifying thought. Although there is something to be said of being able to talk to other people without making it sound too obvious that you're smarter than they are, I am an English major with an Honours degree, and the less word power I have at my disposal, the less easily it is I can remember that fact.  It's like being a kinder-gardener and accidentally walking into one of the bigger classes.  The sense is acute: you do not belong.  Except that I do belong.  I was not always a kinder-gardener.  Someone has reverse aged me with some sort of machine.  Someone has taken my words. Vocabulary is like any skill.  If you don't practice,...

Barracuda Christos Tsiolkas Allen and Unwin 9781743317310 While many readers I have met say they are put off by the confronting nature of Christos Tsiolkas's previous novel, The Slap, I think that the ability to manipulate language in a way that shocks, and a way that communicates the desperation and heartbreak of a situation, is perhaps Tsiolkas's superpower.  There are words in his books which I no longer permit myself to say aloud, but it is this taboo I have placed on my own language which helps me understand the strength of emotion which the words convey.  (I am, of course, referring to the C-word, which I will refrain from using in this blog post.)  Because Barracuda is a very emotional book.  It is about not getting the thing you want most in the world.  It is about reaching rock bottom.  It is the very opposite of a a fairy tale.  It is, for some, real life. Danny Kelly is a swimmer who has the potential to be great.  After he i...

I used to be quite organised with my bookshelves. I used to categorise them all via publisher so those neat symbols lined up. These days my bookshelves are pretty chaotic. I moved from Sydney to Castlemaine a bit over a year now, and books are still in boxes. In Sydney, the removalist said to me, 'my god, you have a lot of books!', as if I was a lunatic, and after I'd just taken a whole bookshelf's worth to the op shop! In pride of place is a top bookshelf that has all my autographed books. I have always been an autograph hunter. I have Germaine Greer, Jonathan Franzen, Margaret Atwood, Elizabeth Jolley, Kate Grenville. I like to meet the authors and get the books signed directly. But many are gifts that people have given me too. Also on this shelf are all my dad's books. Yes, he's a novelist... My books are generally divided into fiction and non-fiction and sometimes I have all authors' works together, eg Murakami, because I love the bla...

Walking on Trampolines Frances Whiting Pan Macmillan, 2013 9781742611204 If you've ever had a best friend and you are a woman, you will probably identify in some way with this book.  In fact, if you have ever had a first love, parents, or setbacks, you will probably identify in some way with this book.  Because this book gets it.  This book is about the universal experience of finding yourself in your twenties and overcoming the little bits of baggage that you pick up on your way there. Tallulah (Lulu) de Longland has a slightly more complicated than average name, and a slightly more complicated than average teenage experience.  Growing up in the small town of Juniper Bay, Australia (coastal, of course, this is the country that produced Puberty Blues after all) nothing much has ever really happened to Lulu until the day that Annabelle Andrews decides that Lulu is going to be her best friend.  Annabelle is part of a family of notable, eccentric artists...

Sense and Sensibility Joanna Trollope for The Austen Project Harper Collins, 2013 9780007461790 Am I going to get pelted with rocks for saying that I read this?  Will I be burned alive for saying I enjoyed it?  Tune in and find out... In all seriousness though; let's talk Jane Austen spinoffs.  Cry until you are blue in the face, Jane-ites, it isn't going to stop these getting written or published, despite the idea being removed from fan fiction only in name.  It's undeniable-- these Jane Austen revisitation novels appear to be cash cows.  Which means they'll be coming off the presses for years to come, so either get used to it, or learn to live with it my dears, because guess what?  No one is going to press a gun to your head and force you to read one of them. I was appalled by the idea too.  What?  I thought to myself. They expect me to read a modern updating of Sense and Sensibility written by a woman whose novels are widely regard...