Montefiore’s take on Jerusalem is both a physical and spiritual chronology. And what a subject! Could there be any place on earth that has been so fought over, so prized by so many different people’s across three millenia?
Filed under: Biography/Memoir, Current Affairs, History, Non Fiction, Philosophy, Politics, Religion, Travel Writing | Tagged: Alex Miller, An Angel at My Table, Andrew MacGahan, Arthur Phillips, Bonfire of the Vanities, Breath, Catherine the Great, Embers, Flaubert, Half of a Yellow Sun, Janet Frame, Jerusalem, Jerusalem: The Biography, Journey to the Stone Country, Madame Bovary, May Gibbs, Prague, Sandor Marai, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, Stalin, The Master and Margarita, The White Earth, Tim Winton, Tom Wolfe, Washington Square | Leave a Comment »
Like Flaubert’s Madame Bovary more than a century earlier, and Alex Miller’s very fine LoveSong of last year, Shapiro writes with enormous insight about the confusion between a woman’s desire for a child and her desire for a man.
Filed under: Contemporary Literature, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literature, Magic Realism, Romance | Tagged: 13 rue Therese, Alex Miller, Birds Without Wings, Birdsong, David Ebershoff, David Malouf, Elena Mauli Shapiro, Gustave Flaubert, Louis de Bernieres, Lovesong, Madame Bovary, Sebastian Faulks, The 19th Wife, The Great World | 2 Comments »
There is interest enough in the story to make this a compelling book. However, what lifts it way above that is the writing. Scott’s prose shimmers.
Filed under: Fiction, Literary Prizes, Literature | Tagged: Alex Miller, Andrew McGahan, Benang, Kate Grenville, Kim Scott, Miles Franklin Award, Richard Flanagan, That Deadman Dance | Leave a Comment »
The sense of menace in Trespass is set from that opening scene. And it is not just the menace wrought by human hands. There is a palpable feeling throughout that the earth itself is alive
Filed under: Fiction, Literature | Tagged: Alex Miller, Andrew McGahan, Man Booker Prize, Orange Prize for Fiction, Road Home, Rose Tremain, The White Earth, Trespass | Leave a Comment »
And so we come to yesterday’s announcement of the Miles Franklin long list. This is the nation’s most prestigious literary prize. Prestige in spades. But prestige doesn’t automatically lead to commercial success….
Filed under: Fiction, Literary Prizes | Tagged: Alex Miller, Jasper jones, Miles Franklin Award | Leave a Comment »
