A couple of new reviews are now up on the Melbourne Review books pages.
My longer review this month is of Ian McEwan’s Sweet Tooth. It’s a very shiny thing, in my review I wonder if it’s not just a little too shiny.
I’ve also written a short review of Keith Ridgway’s Hawthorn and Child which I was keen to review given the some of the buzz I had heard about it – most notably from The Guardian’s John Self, who wrote on his blog that he thought it ‘the best new book I’ve read this year, and so I want it to do well in order that Ridgway has the means and time to write another.’ That’s a big tick in anyone’s book.
I really admire Self’s unashamed support for a writer he not only admires but with whom he also appears to be on very friendly terms. I think his declared campaign of championing the book behoves other disinterested reviewers to have a look at the book.
It doesn’t disappoint. While my review is brief (I was impatient to review it before my deadline and it arrived later than I had expected it to, so it got the shorter column) then I should reiterate here that I think it’s a magnificent book. If the discontinuous style of Jennifer Egan and Steven Amsterdam are your thing, you’ll find lots to admire in Ridgway.
Hello, David. Good to “see” you.
Would you believe I am STILL studying for my degree? This is the degree I started in 1998. Health does not always make for a steady incline, I’m afraid. I’m back at the old stomping ground of Deakin, immersed in the throes of Anthropology, with about eight subjects to go
I have just had my first ever for-payment piece published as a My Word section in The Big Issue and looking forward to more
There is a young bloke in the fish and chip shop who reminds me of you. I think it’s the deep set baby blues. Hope you’re keeping well, ole Sornigmeister
Anthropology is ace. I studied in many moons back at Deakin. And well done on the publication.
I have a long history with fish and chips.