http://blog.booktopia.com.au Read up to date news, gossip, reviews and interviews on all matters, books, writing and the written word. Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:41:57 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ http://1.gravatar.com/blavatar/f5572af163cc08d75707495b10f33cab?s=96&d=http%3A%2F%2Fs2.wp.com%2Fi%2Fbuttonw-com.png http://blog.booktopia.com.au http://blog.booktopia.com.au/2011/06/10/rosalie-ham-author-of-there-should-be-more-dancing-answers-ten-terrifying-questions/ http://blog.booktopia.com.au/2011/06/10/rosalie-ham-author-of-there-should-be-more-dancing-answers-ten-terrifying-questions/#comments Thu, 09 Jun 2011 23:04:44 +0000 John Purcell, The Booktopia Book Guru http://blog.booktopia.com.au/?p=15141 ]]> http://blog.booktopia.com.au/2011/06/10/rosalie-ham-author-of-there-should-be-more-dancing-answers-ten-terrifying-questions/feed/ 0 BooktopiaBookGuru Click here for more details or to buy There Should Be More Dancing Author: Rosalie Ham Click here for more details or to buy The Dressmaker: After twenty years away, Myrtle "Tilly" Dunnage returns to Dungatar. Dungatar is a small country town, where the townspeople's eccentricities are many and varied – from Sergeant Farrat's predilection for cross-dressing, to pharmacist Almanac's retributive scheme of potion dispensing, not to forget the affairs and assorted dark secrets. But none of these can compare to the sin of Tilly and her mother: to have come from somewhere else. At first ostracised, the townspeople gradually accept her in order to make use of her extraordinary dressmaking skills and at last, Tilly feels that she might have found home. But small towns are strange places, where vanity rules and, once again reviled, she sets out to teach the town a lesson. In the process she faces the ghosts of her past, and wreaks a havoc that provides a most satisfying revenge. Click here for more details or to buy Summer at Mount Hope : Phoeba Crupp is a young woman who lives with her parents and sister on a small farm near Geelong in the 1890s. Her father is an eccentric ex-accountant who moved his family from the city in order to establish a vineyard, a decision her mother bitterly – and loudly – resents. While her sister makes a play for the local squatter's son, Phoeba is content with her best friend Harriet, until circumstances push her towards the world of men and money. Summer at Mount Hope has a lot of the black comedy of Ham's first novel, The Dressmaker, but also contains a more serious strand about the efforts of a woman a century ago to be free. Click here for more details or to buy There Should Be More Dancing : Margery Blandon has led a life of principles. Now she finds herself sitting on the 43rd floor of the Tropic Hotel, preparing to throw herself to her death. Margery Blandon was always a principled woman who found guidance from the wisdom of desktop calendars. She lived quietly in Gold Street, Brunswick for sixty years until events drove her to the 43rd floor of the Tropic Hotel. As she waits for the crowds in the atrium far below to disperse, she contemplates what went wrong; her best friend kept an astonishing secret from her and she can't trust the home help. It¹s possible her firstborn son has betrayed her, that her second son, Morris, might have committed a crime, her only daughter is trying to kill her and her dead sister Cecily helped her to this, her final downfall. Even worse, it seems Margery¹s life-long neighbour and enemy ­ now demented ­ always knew the truth. There Should be More Dancing' is a story of Margery's reckonings on loyalty, grief and love. Click here for more details or to buy An Imaginary Life http://blog.booktopia.com.au/2010/11/30/rebecca-lim-author-of-mercy-answers-ten-terrifying-questions/ http://blog.booktopia.com.au/2010/11/30/rebecca-lim-author-of-mercy-answers-ten-terrifying-questions/#comments Tue, 30 Nov 2010 03:02:37 +0000 John Purcell, The Booktopia Book Guru http://blog.booktopia.com.au/?p=10212 ]]> http://blog.booktopia.com.au/2010/11/30/rebecca-lim-author-of-mercy-answers-ten-terrifying-questions/feed/ 1 BooktopiaBookGuru Mercy Raoul-Dufy-The-Bay-Of-Angels--Nice--1929-9305 Mercy Rebecca Lim http://blog.booktopia.com.au/2009/05/21/cormac-mccarthys-the-road-book-first-movie-later/ http://blog.booktopia.com.au/2009/05/21/cormac-mccarthys-the-road-book-first-movie-later/#comments Thu, 21 May 2009 11:45:18 +0000 Toni Whitmont http://blog.booktopia.com.au/?p=85 ]]> http://blog.booktopia.com.au/2009/05/21/cormac-mccarthys-the-road-book-first-movie-later/feed/ 1 toniwhitmont cormac_mccarthy 9780330447546