Emily Paull

2019 has been a good reading year for me. I've managed to surpass my reading goal of reading 105 books, and I have used my local library a lot more than in previous years, so while it might not look like it from the state of my bulging bookshelves and piles of books on the counter by the door, I have in fact curbed my book purchasing. As far as the goal of reading at least 45 of my previously purchased unread books has gone, I have lost track of the number but I believe that I got very close!  Next year I will increase that number and be somewhat more strict with myself about the number of new books I can bring into the house-- I am even considering bringing back the old rule of not being allowed a new book until I have read ten others.  As a side note, Australian writer Stella Glorie (who has just started a great Booktube channel called Thirty Books (latest video linked here ), based on the idea that if everyone bought thirty Australian books a year (that's roughly $1000 ...

The writing of Well-Behaved Women  did not start out as the writing of a collection. Rather, the book pulls together stories written over the span of ten years of work. That they all seem to reflect on the theme of contemporary womanhood, and the way that women exist in society, was a coincidence born out of the fact that a consideration of what it means to be female in today's world is something that takes up a lot of my thinking time and has done for some years. Inspiration is a funny thing. If you're actively looking for it, most of the time it is nowhere to be found. The things that set you off can be completely random-- a news article, a piece of rubbish on a verge collection, the refrain in a song on the radio. This is how it has been for me, for the most part. So then, today's post is something a little different-- a list of things, people, songs and books that have served in some way as inspiration for the book. Reading from Well-Behaved Women at the offici...