Emily Paull

I haven't written about myself on here for a while, and I have to tell you that I don't even really feel comfortable doing it now.  Recently I have decided that book snobbery is a big no-no and I think the same should go for blogs- anyone can blog about whatever they like and screw what Franzen has to say about the spread of amateurism- but I'm just not a huge fan of treating the internet like your personal diary, or posting endless self-portraits (Selfies) and outfits of the day.  That being said, if I manage to take a photo of myself that I actually like, you know that picture is going straight on Instagram. Recently, I had a read through of some of my old journals from when I was nineteen and I realised that I had treated them the way that a lot of my generation treat their Facebook accounts: I only wrote when I was really sad or when I had something to complain about.  The picture I got of myself was of a sad, lonely, rather unfocussed young person who didn't spen...

The Age of Miracles Karen Thompson Walker 9780857207241 Simon and Schuster This book, quite frankly, is amazing. Reviews have compared it to Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones , but it's more horrifying than that in a way because The Age of Miracles deals with the kind of catastrophe that we don't even think to be scared of. From the blurb "On a seemingly ordinary Saturday in a California suburb, 11-year-old Julia and her family awake to discover, along with the rest of the world, that the rotation of the earth has suddenly begun to slow. The days and nights grow longer and longer, gravity is affected, the environment is thrown into disarray. Yet as she struggles to navigate an ever-shifting landscape, Julia is also coping with the normal disasters of everyday life--the fissures in her parents’ marriage, the loss of old friends, the hopeful anguish of first love, the bizarre behaviour of her grandfather who, convinced of a government conspiracy, spends his ...

Schroder Amity Gaige 9780571296712 Faber and Faber It took me a while to work out whether or not I liked Amity Gaige's Schroder or not. While many reviews have compared this book to Nabokov's Lolita , Erik Schroder/ Eric Kennedy is by far not as interestingly dislikable as Humbert Humbert, nor is he as literate.  Sure, he's literate in his own way, but not in that trippingly on the tongue Lo-li-ta way that makes a reader keep turning the pages of a book even though it's trying to get you on the side of a paedophile. Let's get one thing straight first out though.  Eric/ Erik is not a paedophile and he does not abduct his daughter Meadow in order to have any sort of sexual relationship with her.  In fact, at one point when young Meadow declares she'd like to marry her father, he gently tells her that this is just not how it's done. Eric, aside from not being a paedophile, is also still in love with his wife.  (Perhaps it might be a bit mo...

The Watch Tower Elizabeth Harrower Text Classics 9781921922428 I once heard this book described by Ramona Koval at the Perth Writer's Festival as being 'scandalously under-read.'  Considering that a) I had never heard of Elizabeth Harrower before, and b) I enjoyed this book immensely, I would have to agree. The Watch Tower is about two sisters, Laura and Clare who are abandoned by their selfish, diva of a mother after the death of their beloved father.  Laura resolves herself to a life which will not be how she imagined, sacrificing dreams of singing opera or becoming a doctor in order to help raise Clare, but Clare regards herself as the "Only Russian in Sydney" because of her fondness for Tolstoy and the likes, and stubbornly digs her heels in against the notion that she cannot achieve more than her lot.  Laura is sent to work in a cardboard box factory for a man named Felix Shaw, a  shady business-man with manic depressive tendencies and an alcohol ab...

Today was ANZAC day here in Australia (and in New Zealand) and I thought I would share with you all what that means to me.  Seeing as the way I make sense of the world is through reading, I'm going to do this by talking a little bit about some of my favourite war stories and poems. 1.  The Tomorrow  Series by John Marsden We're never told who is invading Australia or why, but if it happens for real, I want Ellie and Homer and crew on my side.  Barring that terrible  movie, these stories were an important part of my childhood reading experience.  They draw on that same ANZAC spirit that I've been taught about since primary school- mateship, resourcefulness, bravery.  I look forward to the day when I no longer have a to-read pile that takes up more than four shelves, because I'll finally get to revisit books like these. 2. Gallipoli by Jack Bennett This one has a movie too, but it's a much better movie version.  I can distinctly remember r...

Elsewhere in Success Iris Lavell Fremantle Press In a suburb called Success, what choice do we have but failure?  This is the central question asked by Iris Lavell's debut novel about two people who are both on their second marriages and trying their hardest not to dig up the past. Harry and Louisa have had less than satisfactory experiences in life.  Harry married the woman of his dreams and had a baby with her, but maybe he was a little more like his father than he thought. He hasn't seen Yasamine or Bella in years, but as the book takes off he finds himself wondering, wishing, fantasising.  He's tried to be a better husband to Louisa than he was to Yasamine, but the tragedies in her past- the beatings she suffered at the hands of her ex-husband Victor and the guilt she feels over the death of her son Tom- make her difficult to reach.  These are two people who seemed determined to pick at their own scabs and wallow in misery. Lavell's plot is both clever...

Letters to the End of Love by Yvette Walker University of Queensland Press I thought I would write this review in the form of a letter to Yvette.  I hope she gets to read it. Dear Yvette Walker, You could just as easily have called your beautiful novel Letters to the End of Hate , because that is what it is.  To me, your words have celebrated a place you love, and the things you love about people, and about being in love itself.  I wanted to quote you to yourself here, but the page escapes me- I wanted to reference the remark either Lou or Grace makes about loving receiving emails, but letters singing.   The very act of letter writing is very intimate, and that you have paired it with this kind of romantic love and longing seems incredibly apt.  Your novel is about three couples- the first live in County Cork in 1969.  Dmitri is a painter.  His wife, Caithleen is a writer.  He is unwell, dying in fact, and the fear that th...

This is the first in which I hope will be a number of guest posts on this blog. I asked my wonderful Facebook contacts if anyone would like to write a short piece about their favourite book, and to my delight, one of the responses was from Annabel Smith.  Annabel is the author of two novels, A New Map of the Universe (UWA Press) and Whisky, Charlie, Foxtrot.  She has a great blog which you can read here.   I recently had the pleasure of meeting her and hearing her talk about her writing process.  She is the kind of confident and inspiring writer who, to me, embodies the kind of positive qualities that make the local writing scene so great.  I hope she won't mind me listing her as one of my role models. So without much further ado, here is what Annabel had to say on the topic of her favourite book! "It is basically impossible for me to choose an all-time favourite book, because different books have resonated with me at different times in my lif...

Tonight, I had the pleasure of seeing Annabel Smith talk about her novel Whisky, Charlie, Foxtrot for the second time this year.  Last time was at the Perth Writer's Festival.  The event was held at the Subiaco Public library, a beautiful venue which is fortunate enough to be home to not one but TWO Shaun Tan murals.  (Wow...) This evening was particularly special to me because Annabel very kindly put in a good word for me with the event's organiser, and I was asked to take part in the library's emerging writers program, and to read a short example of my own work before Annabel did her author talk.  As I told all my friends, I was effectively opening for Annabel Smith, which made me feel like a rockstar. I read from my short story "Pretending" which won the 2011 KSP Short Fiction award for the Under 20's category.  I intend to publish the full version on this blog tomorrow, once I have removed the spelling errors that I found when I was reading aloud.  ...

Such an awful lot of books have entered my house this month... I have a little book buying addiction! This month I have been loving Elizabeth's Second-Hand Bookstore in Fremantle (all branches.)  There is something lovely about adopting a book that someone else has put aside, and something even lovelier about standing in a room that smells sweetly of old books. In April, I have adopted: Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre The Icarus Girl by Helen Oyeyemi Making Laws for Clouds by Nick Earls Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood Zoo Time by Howard Jacobson Finding Jasper by Lynne Leonhardt The Reader by Bernhard Schlink How to be Alone by Jonathan Franzen At the end of March, I celebrated my 22nd birthday.  Usually I get many many books, but this year I only got one!  My darling boyfriend works in computer science and also studies mathematics, so he picked up a copy of Steven Strogatz's The Joy of X which is one good looking book! And then there we...

A History of the Beanbag Susan Midalia UWA Press As a writer, but not often a reader of short stories, I never really know what to expect from this form.  Some short stories are self contained examples of the narrative arc, with a beginning, middle and end to the plot, though not necessarily in that order.  There is conflict, denouement and resolution.  In other short stories, there are no answers but many questions.  Some are character studies, others exploration into a facet of the human condition.   A History of the Beanbag  is a collection which demonstrates the variety of the short story form and the vastness of the writer's talent. Highlights in the collection include the eponymous beanbag story which is experimental in style,  using headings as if it were truly a report on the history of the beanbag rather than a story about aging, disappointment and friendship told against the backdrop of beanbags through the ages.    All...

I don't usually participate in this kind of blogging challenge, but given that I spent all of last year studying Australian Literature, and (you know) writing a big thesis about it, I thought that there was no better challenge to start with than Reading Matters' Australian Literature Challenge .  I heard about this blog and this challenge on Annabel Smith's blog . All throughout April, you can expect to see reviews of Australian books such as: Letters to the End of Love by Yvette Walker The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead A History of the Beanbag and Other Stories by Susan Midalia The Watch Tower  by Elizabeth Harrower Elsewhere in Success by Iris Lavell It is pure, glorious coincidence that all of these were written by women.   Will you be taking part?  Which books will you be reading?