web analytics

deborah | biancotti

Tag: reading

  • Coming in from the cold

    —

    by

    deborahb
    in

    I’ve been reading THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD (John LeCarre) for the past month now — or so Goodreads tells me — because I’m spending a lot of time staring out the train window instead. This has nothing to do with the book. More to do with my aging eyes. Anyhoo, I’ve…

  • 25 May: Towel Day

    —

    by

    deborahb
    in

    There are few drawbacks to living ‘in the future’ (i.e. in a city which is 10 hrs in advance of GMT), but one of them is not realising until reading it on BoingBoing that today was (or, is, for some of you) Towel Day, in honour of the great, late Douglas Adams. I always figured…

  • What I’ve been reading

    —

    by

    deborahb
    in

    Yes, I actually have blogging time today! Because I am home sick. It is a bittersweet kind of deal, eh? Lately I’ve been working full-time, alas, but one of the silver linings of full-time work (apart from cold hard cash) is commuting. But only because commuting grants reading time. Here’s some of what I’ve been…

  • In which, frankly, I rant about Camus

    —

    by

    deborahb
    in

    I’ve been meaning to read Albert Camus’ THE OUTSIDER since I was fifteen. Which sounds more dramatic than it is. A friend of mine with a kinda photographic memory for narrative once sat on my floor — when we were 15 — and told me the story of the outsider. A man, she said, who…

  • David Mitchell’s Rat

    —

    by

    deborahb
    in ,

    Yes, yes, we all love David Mitchell. How can we not? The man’s a bloody genius. For proof: a story about a rat and a divorce. Thank-you, Guardian. I love you. Today is typically Sydney: both overcast AND muggy. To compensate I am watching In Treatment Season 2, which is frikking awesome. Maybe more awesome…

  • I remember now

    —

    by

    deborahb
    in

    I was gonna say, my stars are warning me that I’ll be very happy this year, provided I’m not too prescriptive in what I want. Man. I only just got through setting those goals. In other news, I went into Dymocks today to spend some of my Xmas book voucher on CM Priest’s BONESHAKER, &…

  • Weeding your literary garden

    —

    by

    deborahb
    in

    If, like me, you have limited space in your life, then perhaps you, too, are looking for ways to eliminate those nasty little disease-carrying lurgies called BOOKS! The roomfordebate blog shows you how. Says author Chang-rae Lee, “Anthologies of fiction and poetry that have “greatest” in the title; “best” is O.K., but “greatest” usually means…

  • The year that was

    —

    by

    deborahb
    in

    If you asked me how I feel about 2009 being over & I started with “WooooooHOOOOOOO” and ended with “thankgod, thankgod, thankgod”, then you’d probably have a pretty clear idea of your answer. No? There were some highlights, of course. Apparently my name is now on the cover of a book (that really happened, right?)…

  • More on endings

    —

    by

    deborahb
    in

    Over at the American Book Review, they’ve made a list of 100 best last lines from novels. Most of ’em aren’t even spoilers. Some of ’em really make you wonder what the hell kinda book came BEFORE that line. Check it out. Also a note to whatever hacker tried to line up vietnameseorphansfund.org to point…

  • And in today’s unusual discoveries…

    —

    by

    deborahb
    in

    … turns out you can still buy Redsine #7, edited by Trent Jamieson & Garry Nurrish, from about 2002. I loved Redsine and always wished it had continued for longer. It was a classy zine, and short (a good characteristic for a zine, imho: one-sitting-reading always scores well with me). And I love it not…