Hello readers. I am sorry, again, for the delay. I was intending on posting this review in the weeks after Bali, but work got busy, and then in June, around my (cursed) birthday, I ended up in hospital for two weeks, and then spent many more weeks on the couch in recovery. That seemed like a good time to write a post, but alas, I had bought myself a Switch 2 as a little consolation prize and my brain just wanted to potato. So that is indeed what happened. Next thing I knew, I was back at work and in the vortex again, and everything felt like a lot, and I sort of just gave up. Sorry.
I’m OK, by the way. In 2010-12, I had three surgeries on my guts, which cured me of ulcerative colitis (which I’d had for 12 years) and replaced my large intestine with a new organ, called a J-pouch. It’s a pretty interesting and complex surgery, and one I was very worried about but ultimately survived and found that my life was drastically improved by. There was essentially a “before surgery” and “after surgery” era, which also marked my transition from a career in writing and editing to a career in technology (for better or worse).
In the 13 years since that surgery, everything seemed to be going well. It’s sort of hard to know, because with different insides, it’s not totally obvious if they’re working optimally. But I was healthy, lifting weights, running and cycling, and broadly living a normal life.
In December 2023, Antoinette Lattouf, a casual broadcaster with Australia’s ABC radio network, was fired from her short contract for re-posting a post from the Human Rights Watch account about the Israeli military using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza on her personal Instagram account.
Although other ABC journalists regularly post on their social media on other topics, including Roe v Wade, Australia Day, and the Uluru Statement, Lattouf was fired for posting this singular post and portraying the ABC as “biased”. ABC argued in court that Lattouf was not fired but “relieved of work”. This was later found to be inaccurate.
It is alleged that there was pressure to remove Lattouf from the start of her employment, even before her Instagram post, as her political views on Gaza were considered problematic. A group of lawyers lobbying for the Israeli government sent a sustained campaign of emails to the ABC leadership encouraging them to let Lattouf go. (Lattouf was only employed for five days in total, and the ABC has now spent more than a $1.1 million AUD defending the case in court for 14 months). We are still waiting on a verdict on the case.
Hello subscribers and sorry for the long wait. In a way that should surprise absolutely nobody, I have been busy and it has meant that I have a series of book reviews backed up waiting to be written and shared. This is largely because my life swings violently from extreme busy-ness to total relaxation, with very little grey area in between. My work is quite intense (sometimes triple booked calendar all day long, long hours and barely a lunch break) and when I’m on holiday I like to completely disconnect. The good news is I really love reading on holidays and recently went to Bali, so I have a lot to tell you about.
Jack
One thing that perhaps is a caveat to the above description of my life is that I have taken up a new hobby. Since my friend Jack passed last year, I’ve been thinking a lot about music. He and I bonded deeply over music when we met almost 20 years ago. We wrote music together, DJ’d together, went to SO many gigs together and I even played in his band for a bit (flute, harmonium and backup vocals!). Since I’ve become a full time wage slave (see above) I’ve felt increasingly alienated from music. My first ever job was being a music journalist, and I taught flute for a few years.
I tried to read this in 2024 to mark a good few years of Reading Books by reading the Booker Prize winner in the year it won but bookshops were sold out! Foiled!
I tend to like the Booker winners. I don’t know if it’s a British thing. I like the Mercury Prize-winning music too. I find those prizes are a reliable way for me to discover new authors or artists that I like, and I like discovering new things. And as I have decided this year to stop letting algorithms suggest things that are similar to each other that make me sad and bored (bye to social media and streaming services), I am explicitly seeking out human-curated recommendations to discover new things.
Underground Lovers – Encounters with Fungi by Alison Pouliot
January 5, 2025 – Northcote
I'm trying to get off Instagram. Facebook too, ideally, although there still feels like too many people I am only connected to on these platforms that I might regret being more disconnected from. I want less time on the algorithm of banality rectangle and now time reading books and looking at wild and rare mushrooms.
I read this in a cabin in Romsey, stopping every now and then for a trip to a little town, lighting a fire or a hike through the bush on the property. I also found myself pausing to look up photos of the fungi mentioned in this book, getting distracted by things like frog songs or watching the local kangaroos and cockatoos and kookaburras.
This is the driving question of Charles Yu's experimental novel Interior Chinatown, where Willis Wu yearns to be more than A generic Asian stereotype in the screenplay of his life.
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
October 26, 2024 – Northcote
Almost dropped this so many times but hate-read it until the end. Perhaps got better on the last act or so. Found all the references to games and coding deeply cringe. Almost threw the Kindle off the balcony after the horrific sex scene. Hated all the characters. Got mad about how I could be reading something better many times. Became obsessed and confounded by why so many other people loved this but I despised it. Found the friendships insipid and trite. I have worked in tech and been a designer and run companies and moved cities and had deep friendships and suffered chronic health problems and pain and experienced depression and grief and yet this just felt like a horrible soap opera making fun of the depth and awe and horror and joy of those experiences. Remarkably boring, benign and self indulgent, felt like the author romanticising a life they haven't led. Absolutely not for me. Sorry!
Quite a beautiful read, a book that goes deeper than we have ever gone into an oceanic trench and further than we have ever travelled into space. We accompany Leigh, our protagonist; relatable, lonely, awkward, smart, introspective or perhaps neurotic. She's a scientist and a sister and a human being living through a technological advancement that changes her life.
This book is about scientific curiosity and it's also about life, death and being made of the same stuff as stars. It's about the specific and strange experience of swimming in the ocean and it's about never really knowing other people.
As we are paying Brussels a visit I thought I'd read a Belgian author. I seem to be developing a taste for dystopian sci fi, with an interest in non-male protagonists.
This was honestly very grim. But surprisingly readable and entertaining. 40 women live in a bunker, unsure of how they got there or where it is, policed by silent male guards with intimidating whips. The youngest of them is our narrator. When the bunker suddenly opens, the story moves to the surface with still more questions than answers.
I knew I'd read this, although I was not sure I'd read it so fast. Digested between Melbourne and Heathrow, I found it charming, rich and sweet, like a decadent croissant.
I have often felt like I'm old for my age, and that's not really a brag. I worry I will head into peri early, and that I have spent a lot of my life preoccupied with work, which feels increasingly grim. I have felt for a long time that my life has been on hold, from illness or work or lockdown or grief. I've not been interested in marriage or children because I've felt like I've not yet had my own life, and am not ready to give it to someone else. I too would like to have my cake and perhaps even eat it. After all, what's the point of having cake you can't eat?
This took a long long time to get through. It's been a rough year. It started out slow, introducing all the characters who would eventually weave together into an exciting story about trees and activism and hope and nature and humanity. It ended kind of slowly too, as if it had used up all its energy in the crescendo.
I think I enjoyed it, especially in the middle. But overall I was a little surprised by how some of the stories didn't seem as well thought through. In particular, I had so much interest in Neelay and his game, but that whole arc kind of dwindled into .. something something AI? 😑
Reading this made me feel like I was having a stroke. I loved it. I don't really know how to describe it — the art style is off-putting and purposefully ugly; the stories are oddly erotic, alien and surreal, all loosely based on the autobiographical character of the author's namesake. It made me grateful for weird people who make art and the good people in my life who share that art with me ( 🙏🙏 to my sister, Sophie).
Seek You – A Journey Through American Loneliness by Kristen Radtke
March 11, 2024 – Northcote
A new(?) genre (at least for me) — long form graphic essay — exploring loneliness with a focus on North America. From cowboys to dating apps, Radtke wants to understand the specific flavour of American isolation that drives behaviour, diagnoses and, ironically, connection.
I used to subscribe to The Believer and have been enamored by the art style for a long time, so for me this was a visual treat. Add to that the actual content, well written, handled with deep curiosity and meditation, this was engaging from start to finish.
I Don't – The Case Against Marriage by Clementine Ford
March 3, 2024 – Northcote
It's taken a while to get through this one. We moved house, there's a genocide happening and I've been distracted. I think dealing with all that and digesting the content of this was too much for me.
I saw Clem launch this and was so impressed with her knowledge and eloquence and already am on this side of the argument so was keen to really feel connected with a point of view I've held for a long time.
After enjoying Exhalation so much I picked up Ted Chiang's other book, which includes the story the film Arrival is based off.
Ostensibly this is a sci fi short story collection but Chiang has a really curious and fascinating style where he takes an obviously untrue thing and extrapolates what if that were true? What would the world be like if that were true? In Exhalation he explores this with creationism, and in this book there are stories of angels, aliens and more. And they all really surprise and challenge you with the depth of thinking and imagination.
Eventually Everything Connects – Eight Essays on Uncertainty by Sarah Firth
December 16, 2023 – Thornbury
Such a beautiful and deeply relatable book of personal essays. I feel like this book articulates a kind of maturity that I strive for this kind of flexible thinking and stoicism, self awareness and analysis.
Sarah manages to touch on very modern themes without crossing over into cringe, or perhaps transcends it into a lovely, vulnerable place that feels like making a new friend.
See What You Made Me Do – Power, Control and Domestic Abuse by Jess Hill
November 26, 2023 – Thornbury
This book is my villain origin story. It broke me over and over again. I've been reading it for months, picking it up and then needing to take a break, over and over and over again.
The scale of this is so big, and the violence so stomach churning, it becomes hard to take in. But how you can read this and not become radicalised is beyond me. It's so extreme, the fact that it's not a national emergency seems wild to me.
I kind of knew I'd love this but wow I really really loved it. It reminded me a lot of Italo Calvino, although with a Charlie Brooker speculative sci-fi kind of vibe.
Each of these stories is impossibly good, so perfectly constructed that it makes your head spin a little.
We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby
September 19, 2023 – Gold Coast
Hilarious and oddly moving. Personal essays about surviving under late stage capitalism with your mean cat and dark sense of humour. Much needed levity in my weirdly dark reading diet. Thanks to Karolina for the rec/loan.
An absolute delight. Funny and touching meta art theory heist story. I loved this. @worf_episode's art style, writing and ability to weave in-jokes and narrative together seamlessly is masterful.
