All books have an aim. Sometimes the author clearly states the aim, sometimes they gradually find it. Regardless, the reader goes on a journey through the realisation of that aim. Whether it be to explore small town life through a love story or to solve a murder mystery where the detective holds an enticing secret,…
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While this edition of ‘books you should have read by now’ will focus on one book (as usual), it’s still fruitful to speak about the novella in general. A once dying art form, the novella has experienced a resurgence. So there’s no time like the present (or as the concept of ‘books you should have…
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I spent the night before my first day of teaching in an excited loop of hushed masturbation on my side of the mattress, never falling asleep. Quite an opening, right? This is how Alissa Nutting’s Tampa begins, plunging the reader straight into the highly sexualised interior monologue of Celeste, a twenty-six year old school teacher….
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Reconstructing Amelia is a mystery thriller by new author, Kimberly McCreight. It opens with tragedy. High achiever, Amelia Baron, has thrown herself off the roof of her elite Brooklyn private school, Grace Hall, after being accused of plagiarising an assignment. Her mother, though, is convinced that Amelia did not take her own life (and didn’t…
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One of the most well-known literary couples is Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. Hughes, who died in 1998, was a poet and children’s writer, named Britain’s Poet Laureate in 1984. Plath met him in Cambridge during her tenure as a Fulbright scholar, she herself building a successful literary career as a poet and author before…
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Up until the eBook, not much has been done with the physical novel since the 1700s. Basically, the novel was a bunch of pages bound together. At its most physically innovative, it might have included some pictures, otherwise we just rely on the words for profundity. Yet, more and more authors and publishers are extending…
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Tasmania has a lot of problems that ‘mainlanders’ might not know about. As Jonathan West writes in his essay, “Obstacles to progress”, ‘Tasmania ranks at the bottom among Australian states on virtually every dimension of economic, social, and cultural performance.’ It’s perhaps timely then that this island state is investigated through an entire issue of…
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Both a problem and a strength of feminism is that the label is an umbrella term, representing a multiplicity of (sometimes contradictory) views. Calling yourself a “feminist” means that you believe in the advancement of the role of women in society. What this necessarily entails could be anything. One branch of radical feminism believes that…
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If you’ve got the workings of the ultimate cliché chick lit novel stashed in your bottom draw, then you’re too late. Gemma Crisp already wrote the most typical chick lit novel ever with her offering, Be Careful What You Wish For. Nina works in the giddy world of women’s glossies. Supported by her boyfriend Jeremy,…
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Fifty years ago, Betty Friedan explained to the world ‘the problem with no name’ in The Feminine Mystique. The problem was a general ennui and a lack of direction many women felt. These women were smart – often college educated – and capable of performing any job a man could do. Yet, they felt stuck…
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Granta is one of those literary journals you’re told to subscribe to when you study writing. It publishes the full gamut of linguistic genres – poetry, prose, fiction, non-fiction – in quarterly instalments. Usually the writing it features kind of makes a budding writer ashamed to call themselves a ‘writer’ while the understated beauty of…
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When I was in year seven I thought that it would be a good idea to try out for my school’s netball team. I turned up at the gym, the air rich in oestrogen, in my little blue pleated skirt. Growing up, I was always one of the taller kids, so it was assumed that…
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I have an admission which will place me firmly in the category of Bad Feminist: I don’t particularly enjoy seeing women in the midst of breastfeeding. It’s unusual to see the naked female form with a baby attached out and about in public. I’m not used to seeing breasts in the shopping centre food court,…
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Firing women for being ‘too attractive’ is a thing An American dentist was ruled to have acted legally when he fired an assistant that he found attractive simply because he and his wife viewed the woman as a threat to their marriage. The all-male Iowa Supreme Court ruled 7-0 that bosses can fire employees they…
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