What am I reading? Where do I start with that? With the pile of books that towers over me as I sleep? The short story ‘book snacks’ I dip in and out of between books? The open articles in my browser? The book I currently slide into at night, slipping off to bed to enjoy cold sheets, the pale bedside light and pages turning quietly beneath my fingers? Growing up, books were discovered and passed around from mothers, aunts and friends. All given with no description—just ‘you should read this’. Or ‘I enjoyed it’ as it was handed over, well-thumbed. […]

Gabriel seizing the illiterate man, alone and fasting in a cave, and commanding read, the man saying I can’t, Gabriel seizing him tighter, commanding read, the man gasping I don’t know how, Gabriel squeezing him so tight he couldn’t breathe, squeezing out the air of protest, the air of doubt, crushing it out of his crushable human body, saying read in the name of your lord who created you from a clot, and thus: literacy. Revelation. —’The Miracle’ by Kaveh Akbar   According to our Islamic tradition, the first revelation began with the angel Gabriel appearing before the Prophet Mohammed […]

Reading has become a simple luxury. Book clubs exist in the 2020s by members frantically listening to audio books at work to ‘catch up’ before the big night out. I’ve tried. I just can’t do it. I was once proudly presented with a Kindle so that I could move into the twenty-first century, but I must admit that after it had lost its charge following the festive season, it remained in my desk drawer, unused. Dusty. And then outdated. I’m terrible with technology and want a book that I can hold in my hands (and drop in the bath if […]

Since childhood I’ve been a grateful reader, an avid reader, but until fairly recently, a fretful one. I felt driven to read before I knew how. As a three-year-old in New Mexico, where my airman father was stationed, I’d watch other kids traipse by our window on their way to school—in my mind, a magical palace of reading. I used to beg my mother to let me go too. She told me I wasn’t ready: I didn’t know the alphabet. Determined to prove myself, I took to my chalkboard, where the letters A to Z ran in two neat rows […]

I recently devoured an eggs benedict with an author who wrote an erotic Ancient Mayan masterpiece. Monica Byrne was surprisingly accessible for someone who spent her leisurely time and a solid chunk of her thirties embedded in the Belizean jungle to research the spelling and pronunciations of words like Ixul and Xibalba. To impress her, I was prepared to mine all of my obscure Central American knowledge on poisonous cashews and whale sharks—normally reserved for pub night trivia during dank nights in London. But instead, we spoke about the smell of North Carolina’s pine trees, the complexities of family, and […]

There’s a package the size of a manuscript on my doorstep. I’m not expecting any packages, or manuscripts. I’ve been away on a family camping trip to the Snowys where I read Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. (I’ll often bring a classic, or a book I feel I’ve missed, on holidays. Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina came with me to Lord Howe Island, as did Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Last year when I went to the Tarkine I took Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go.) I’m dirty and exhausted, craving a shower and a cup of tea without twigs floating in it. It’s […]

One of my favourite authors is asleep on the bed beside me. As I write this, she is sleeping off her jetlag from the trip between New York and Sydney. When she wakes, I will ask her to her sign my copies of her books. Then, she will write, and I will edit for my day job. Between bouts of focus, we will catch each other’s eyes and derail that carefully cultivated focus into conversations about this specific plot point or that particular narrative technique. Tonight, we will go to dinner with some of our favourite authors, people who have […]

It’s early November and I’m sitting at my desk looking out the window… again. I’ve sat here every day since December 15th 2021—the day Tasmania’s borders opened—and at this point I’m seriously considering screwing a mailbox to the corner of the desk and calling it my permanent residence. The view through the window has become mind-numbingly familiar: green grass, grey driveway, black car. Green grass. Grey driveway. Black car.   Green grass Grey driveway Black car   None of it has changed. Trust me—I would know, because the scene has branded itself on my retinas and I’m certain the afterimage […]

This year is the year I rediscovered my love of reading. What I’m reading this year began with me stumbling across Fence by CS Pacat in my university library, a lighthearted graphic novel about a high school fencing team filled with a fun cast of characters. I read all four volumes available at the time in one sitting, which led to even more graphic novels and manga (Heartstopper and Death Note were some of the more notable mentions). Growing up, comics were always one of my favourite forms of literature. Some of the most fun I’ve had while reading this […]

October 26 I’m sitting on a bench in New Farm Park reading Northanger Abbey on my phone. The jacarandas are in bloom and a breeze cools my face, which is red from running. I finish Chapter 17 and uncross my legs, disentangling myself from the character I’ve been inhabiting—the one in my head as well as the one on the page. I walk back to my car, purple blossoms under my runners. Nobody would guess that I’ve just been reading classic literature. In my T-shirt and leggings, I look like any other jogger in this well-to-do neighbourhood—though I should mention, […]

For the past year, I’ve been buying most of my books from a second-hand bookstore above a wine cellar on Sydney Road. When open, they line the street below with a small sampling of stock, a taster to beckon passers-by upstairs to the main collection. There’s a couch in the centre of the entry room; the walls are almost completely covered in posters of well-known titles. Stacks of uncategorised books sometimes conceal other stacks of uncategorised books. I awkwardly nudge and push these around as I browse, hoping to stumble across a hidden, well-priced gem. My favourite shelf, unexpectedly, is […]

not much! two little kids and working in a bookshop an abundance of books to read not much clear air tho not many stretches at the desk fall asleep the minute i get into bed just pockets of time to think in the shower, bike to work and back on the toilet washing nappies hanging clothes walking with a baby strapped to my chest theres a late night once in a while an afternoon now and then v early morning if lucky to think, jot down, read, daydream not only do i write and work in fragments now but i […]