qbc-melbourne
As I was saying ...
20 posts
Latest Posts by qbc-melbourne
Home with Alice by S Fallon
Home with Alice by S Fallon
I came across this title when I was shelving books at work – as I was walking by the travel books and having a quick squiz for something to read. This book is more of a memoir than it is a travel book and that made it interesting for me. Full disclosure – I’ve been a little bit obsessed with Ireland since my first trip there in 2017, around the time of my last book “review”. A lot of what I’ve…
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Comparative Government
No! Do not panic. I’m not reviewing a book on government systems from my Year 11 Politics class.
I came across this little beauty today, as I was cataloguing my book collection. I opened it up for a quick look see, and found something quite telling about why I have not been here over the last three and a half years.
Get this. ‘The Façade democracy’
This is where “liberal democratic…
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Helen Garner
Helen Garner is 71!? Check out this article about her experience as a person “of a certain age”.
It’s always given me the ibits when people over 60 get treated as if they are somehow out of sync with the rest of the world.
My grandmother at 98 was more interesting and fun then most of younger people I knew..
#HelenGarner #monkeygrip is the only book of hers I read.
“I had known for…
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The Dry
The Dry, by Jane Harper I forgot how much I love a whodunit until my book club buddies started suggesting them way back at the start of this caper – with Adrian McKinty’s and his Sean Duffy series. Jo’s pick for this month hit the sweet spot. This one is set in a rural township, drought stricken, tinder dry and unbearably hot. The locals are not necessarily welcoming. A gruesome murder suicide…
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Ferney
Ferney, by James Long Jo suggested this one. She said it was a story with a bit of time travel. Fab! I love science fiction. Only, it wasn’t. It was more fantasy. What is the difference I hear you ask? Well, Science fiction usually involves a scientific idea, and/or an amazing technical feat or at least some sort of semi coherent explanation for the weird stuff that happens. In fantasy, weird…
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Rode parts of Ireland recently, had to write it down to make sure I remember it.
Pt.1 getting there
Buses, the lovelorn, and a bit of hangover.
Ithaka
How could I resist a title like that? So this is a side story to the Odyssey – it is set in Ithaca during the period Odysseus is trying to make his way home. The protagonist in this story is a young girl, who along with her twin brother, grows up as playmates with Telemachus, son of Odysseus and Penelope. As they reach adolescence their close bond is strained due mainly to the introduction into…
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(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NxenCGfxEk)
This is so good - c'mon laugh with me
The midnight bell
Little pink post-it gave K action. She was unusually quick to get back to us with a title for March. Normally she agonises about what to get – and normally picks great reads. I wish she had agonised over this one a little. What a shit book. K hated it, and gave up on it at chapter 3. I hated it and gave up on it at chapter 6 – but that probably doesn’t count because I sped read those chapters…
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Hey babe, call for you ..
Hey babe, call for you ..
Today you had a call from a recruitment company. I was a little curt with the poor fellow . I felt bad about it. But not so bad that I would be endlessly kicking myself, the way I normally do when I feel I’ve been unkind.. But he got me by surprise. It was the last thing I expected. The first time they called (yesterday) I saw the 02 area code, and ignored it thinking it was another…
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The Good People
Oh boy – months since my last. Oh well – not like anyone is waiting for them, or reading them. Kent, Hannah, The Good People Set in the late 19th century rural Ireland – where people lived a simple, yet harsh existence. Their labour was arduous, their earnings meagre, the climate mostly frigid. The country at that time is at the cusp of losing their traditional superstitions (Fairies) and…
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Bloody Hell!
Bitten off more than I can chew?
I started a book club specifically so I would stop doing this … Four books on the go – that I’m listing here. This is not counting the ones I started and stopped reading last year. Made the mistake of updating my Goodreads account. There it was – the books listed as ‘currently reading’. And that is only the one I am willing to show you. A a sense of guilt, or is it defeat? whatever it is, it…
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Euphony
euphony ˈjuːf(ə)ni/
noun
the quality of being pleasing to the ear. “the poet put euphony before mere factuality”
the tendency to make phonetic change for ease of pronunciation.
I will name my next cat Euphony.
When I was required to read poetry for school, it was not a pleasant experience. Chaucer, or anyone from the 18th century woulds’t doth mine own headeth in. But, spoken…
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Where was I?
Been reading a cute little number that has had me in fits of giggles on my commute each morning. Sometimes I’ve had to snap the book shut just as a guffaw was about to erupt. Very frustrating, reading in public and having to contain myself like that.
Eats shoots & leaves : the zero tolerance approach to punctuation. Truss, London : Profile Books, 2003.
2003! Where the hell was I when this was…
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Another month, another thought....(just the one)
Time seems to fly - it really does - we wonder where the days went, try to grasp what has happened? - but really, in actual fact it is not passing that quickly at all...I mean, it's only been a month since my last note..... about the time it took this moss to grow on the picnic table (took this pic a week ago...)
I swear it feels like its been at least three months
well, what can I say?
The clock is ticking, the cat is snoring - I should be in bed....but here I am. Just started this up so I could check out some nice little library posts...will probably delete this account in under a month. We'll see.