Gabriel Garcia Marquez – A Life by Gerald Martin

March 13, 2009

This is our first encounter with ABC radio national’s The Book Show – a truly prolific arts show that manages an impressive amount of content every day from Monday to Friday. Of course it is also available as a podcast via iTunes Back on the 18th February 2009, the show met the author of Gabriel [...]

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The Well Dressed Ape by Hannah Holmes

March 13, 2009

Another nice little Late Night Live interview, this time with Hannah Homes who discusses her latest book “The Well-Dressed Ape: A Natural History of Myself“. As its starting point the author of the book takes a long hard look at herself – quite literally, naked in the mirror over the cause of an entire year [...]

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The Digested Read

March 13, 2009

For folks unsure about their next literary dalliance,  John Crace of the UK’s Guardian newspaper, puts his own unique, if cynical, spin on the canons of modern text for a series called The Digested Read The idea is simple: condense an entire book into 5 mins of audio, and if possible, into a single short [...]

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Stephan Faris talks about Forecast on LNL

February 20, 2009

In our first book club encounter with the venerable Phillip Adams & Late Night Live, I’d like to share with you an interesting interview with Stephan Faris, in which he discusses his latest book Forecast: The Consequences of Climate Change, from the Amazon to the Arctic, from Darfur to Napa Valley. Forecast examines the cultural [...]

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Alain De Botton live at the Opera House

February 19, 2009

Anglo-Swiss philosopher, architectural critic, interesting thinker and all-round good-guy Alain de Botton will be appearing at the Opera House Theatre on April 19th 2009 to tout his latest book “The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work” in association with the up-cmming Sydney Writers’ Festival. For a limited time only you can claim a massive $4 off [...]

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Kate Grenville talks about The Secret River

February 17, 2009

Australian author Kate Grenville talks to John Mullan and the Guardian Book Club about her 2005 novel The Secret River which won the Commonwealth Writers Prize, and the Australian Book Industry Awards book of the year award for 2006. The talk covers a range of topics beyond the book itself including the future direction of [...]

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Voyage for Madmen by Peter Nichols

February 13, 2009

Gentlemen of Book Club, Good to see you all in such fine form at the last meeting of the Book Club – even if book readership was disappointingly low. The next book you will either ignore or read carefully is A Voyage for Madmen by Peter Nichols, suggested at the very last minute by The [...]

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A Fraction Of The Whole – By Steve Toltz

February 10, 2009

The last book we “read” was “A Fraction of the Whole” by Steve Toltz. This book was (Aussie) Steve’s first novel and was short-listed for The 2008 Man Booker prize. The Sunday Telegraph said: “Exhilarating. Don’t be daunted by the length of the book – it never flags and at no stage feels overwritten … [...]

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The Old Man And The Sea by Ernest Hemingway

December 2, 2008

Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea” was probably one of the most successful meetings in my enormous 3 book club meeting history. Even though the actual discussion probably took up about 45 minutes of the 3 or so hours we were there, it was a good 45 mins with some searching questions and [...]

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My Name Is Red – Orhan Pamuk

October 14, 2008

The first book your loving moderator read with the Book Club was “My Name is Red” by Orhan Pamuk. This was the general idea: “In Istanbul, in the late 1590s, the Sultan secretly commissions a great book: a celebration of his life and his empire, to be illuminated by the best artists of the day [...]

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