Kathryn's Inbox

Friday Brown has been sitting on my to-read pile for a little while now--in fact, it was one of the book purchases that I made at Adelaide Writers' Week in early March--which is a bit silly of me, as it turned out to be a fantastic read. An Honour Book in the Children's Book Council of Australia 2013 books for Older Readers, Friday Brown tells the story of a young woman who is grieving for her mother and finds out what life is all about ... the hard way. After the death of her mother, seventeen-year-old Friday runs away from the rich grandfather that she barely knows and finds herself living in a squat with an eclectic bunch of kids, including Silence, a boy who does not talk but who regards her as a kind of kindred spirit. The kids live under the rule of Arden, a young woman who uses her approval and disapproval like currency, and who uses sex (or perhaps sexual attraction,) in a similar manner. Over time, Arden and the headstrong Friday begin to clash more and more. ...

Once again, it's time for Writers on Wednesday. This week, I'm chatting with the brilliant J.C. Phelps, author of the Alexis Stanton Chronicles ... Tell us a bit about yourself … I am a mother of three girls between the ages of fourteen and four.   My home life is very busy, but I have a wonderful husband who supports me in everything I do.   I ’ ve been writing since I was very young but The Alexis Stanton Chronicles are the first books I ’ ve published. Tell us about your most recently published book? My most recently published book is Traces of Grey.   It ’ s the fourth book in The Alexis Stanton Chronicles and was released in November of 2014.   It ’ s a bit darker than the rest of the series because Ms. Grey is past her training and taking on more and more serious jobs. Tell us about the first time you were published? I ’ ve written for newspapers and online sites, but nothing compared to holding my very first novel in my hands. ...

There are times when, by some kind of quirk or twist of fate, exactly the right book can be delivered into my hands at exactly the right time. And that is what happened when, searching for another book entirely,* I stumbled upon a copy of Kate Forsyth's Dancing on Knives . Although I follow the author on facebook, I had no idea that she was releasing a new book and have been more familiar with her fantasy novels and books that go behind the scenes of various fairytales or that retell them such as The Wild Girl and Bitter Greens . Anyway, I happily snatched a copy of Dancing on Knives up and began reading it over lunch. And maybe it is just because I am writer who has been struggling a bit with her craft, but I found the note from the author at the front explaining the novel's long journey to publication (actually, republication, as the novel was previously published in 2003 under the author's maiden name and under the title of Full Fathom Five ,)  to be quite inspiring...

I snapped this one a couple of weeks ago, at the corner of King William and Hindley Streets. It is part of a project by artist Peter Drew, who recently visited a number of detention centres around Australia and spoke with asylum seekers about their experiences--this one depicts a happy childhood memory, though many other posters depict a far unhappier memories and experiences.   Another aspect that makes these pictures so intriguing is that Drew placed them up without asking permission from the Adelaide City Council--they simply appeared in challenge and inspire. I'll be interested to see how long they remain. 

Lost and Found is a sweet and surprising novel that revolves around love and loss, three unlikely characters and an unplanned road trip (of sorts). Millie Bird is seven years old and has been abandoned by her grieving mother at the local shopping centre. Karl the Touch Typist is an escapee from the local old folks home. Agatha Pantha is a widow who has not left her house in several years. Slowly, their lives intersect and the three work together to try and reunite Millie with her mother--creating a number of misunderstandings with the many people that they meet along the way. I loved the scenes set aboard the Indian Pacific.  After reading so much hype about this novel, I was both curious and apprehensive to know what it was really like. Fortunately, I was not at all disappointed. Debut author Brooke Davis offers some remarkable insights in to the human condition and into love and loss. I found some of her decisions, such as the two elderly characters becoming sexually att...

HOLLYWOOD--Slowpoke Rodriguez, famous for playing the part of "the slowest mouse in all Mexico" in a number of Looney Tunes animated shorts, is set to own and operate a new pizza delivery restaurant. "It's an exciting new venture for me," he told one of our reporters after arriving three hours late for the scheduled interview. "Being a cartoon television star is, quite frankly, too exhausting for me, as is having to spend my days repeatedly being chased by Sylvester the Cat, while my cousin, Speedy Gonzales, attempts to use his superior speed to come to my rescue, only for it all to be revealed at the end that I own a gun and possess a superior intellect than your average animated cat. I'm tired of being on the receiving end of all these jokes about being lazy, so I've decided to try this new business venture. I'll be delivering the pizza's personally, which should be an exciting experience for all of my fans." Slowpoke Pizza'...

Poor Lucy. She just can't take the hint ... Never mind. I suspect that we've all been there and done that, once.

It is not very often that I open a parcel containing a book and immediately burst out laughing (joyfully, I may add,) but that is exactly what happened when I opened the packaging containing this surprising story of fame, youth and excess. At that point, I had yet to discover the tumblr on which the book is based so it was a bit of a surprise to discover a book of that title, and with a cover that depicts a line of cocaine on a US $100 bill. Anyway, Rich Kids of Instagram is a fairly lightweight but amusing story that depicts the intersecting lives of several young people, all of whom have an excessive amount of wealth and very few of whom have any kind of conscience whatsoever. Or much of a grip on reality, in some cases. The descriptions of some of the parties, homes and a very unusual kitten-themed restaurant are extremely amusing, as is a certain notable characters revenge on the others at the very end. This one is difficult to describe in detail as the plot is very thin in pla...

Welcome back to Writers on Wednesday. This week, I am chatting with Susan Horsnell, author of a some wonderful romance novels, including the very sexy Capturing Charlie ... Tell us a bit about yourself … I grew up in Sydney, the eldest of 5 children. My parents immigrated to Australia from England in 1952 as £10 poms. Dad had met an Aussie when he was with the British Army in Kenya and decided Australia was where he wanted to raise his family. I was a Nurse for 35 years, a good career considering I am married to a Naval Officer and we have frequently moved around. It wasn’t difficult to find work in each city. Tell us about your most recently published book? My most recent publication is Capturing Charlie. A western romance set in the 1800s in Texas. Yep, an Aussie who writes stories set in Texas. Charlie has been scorned by one too many women and takes off to begin anew. He dreams of owning a ranch and being surrounded by critters, alone. Until he meets Josephin...

Ever wanted to know how to write a good book review? This handy guide is all you need ... 1. Your review should not focus on what the author set out to do when he or she wrote the book and what story they wanted to tell. Focus instead, on what you wish the author had done. Pissed off that Nora left her husband at the end of A Dolls House instead of suggesting to Torvald that they take up a BDSM lifestyle? Call that home wrecker Herik Ibsen out on his shit.  2. Do not allow the reader to get their own taste of the book by using any extended quotes. Instead, tell them that it was TERRIBLE. (But add that you wanted to like it so that you don't sound like a bad person or that you only write reviews like this for their puerile entertainment value.) Use block capitals and numerous punctuation points to emphasise your point. Consider using half a dozen or so .gifs showing teenage actors, animated characters and animals doing stupid things to further emphasise your displeasure....

Smile Over the past few months, I have seen these gorgeous chalk smiley faces on a number of pavements around Adelaide. The first time I saw them was outside the Central Markets. Then I saw them in Victoria Square. Then I noticed some on the corner of Hindley and King William Streets, more on Rundle Street, some outside of the Adelaide Railway station and ... well you get the idea. Let me know if you have seen any of these smiley faces around Adelaide, (or any other city,) where and if you know who is responsible. (Or if you have a theory ...) I'll be looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

A sixteen-year-old girl has managed to overthrow a corrupt government today, with a small amount of help from her best friend, a couple of quirky adults and Steele a broody and disenchanted young man who is actually quite attractive once you get to know him. Angelica Simmons, better known to her band of impeccably fit comrades as 'Angel' or 'The Avenging Angel' was once a typical teenager living in a futuristic version of a city that shared many geographical similarities to one famous city or another in the United States. The entire city had been walled and the only mode of transportation available was rail, which may help to explain why many of the residents of the city did not question some of the stranger goings on in their hometown--such as why no two teenagers had ever fallen in love before Angelica met Steele and had complacently followed the government's odd mate selection process.   Angelica's rise to overthrowing the government came after she and ...

Clean all the things is an image from Allie Brosh's clever blog Hyperbole and a Half . The picture was part of a narrative on the struggles the author had with her daily, adult responsibilities and was later included inside her book, also titled Hyperbole and a Half . What is remarkable about this one is the number of times this image has been altered and circulated across the internet. Here are a few of the more surprising entries: And this little gem:

It is difficult not to love Abbi Glines. At times, I can be a bit meh about NA romance, but I have an amazing about of respect for this author and her career. Glines not only knows and understands her target audience well, but she has done seemingly the impossible, moving smoothly and swiftly from independently published author to a best selling author with an astounding number of titles under her belt. Misbehaving is the latest Abbi Glines title to be released in Australia and forms the sixth novel in the Sea Breeze series. It is the first novel I have read in the series and I have to agree with the promotional material on the front cover that this is a scorching novel.)  Misbehaving tells the story of Jess who is not only the bad girl in the community of Sea Breeze, but who is also badly misunderstood--and through the narrative, we soon learn why. As the novel opens, we learn that she is twenty years old and was raised by her single mother who works as a stripper at a c...

Welcome back to Writers on Wednesday. This week I'm chatting with the very awesome Hettie Ashwin, who lives on a boat in northern Queensland and is author of seven novels, including suspense novel The Mask of Deceit... Tell us a bit about yourself … I have downsized my tupperware and live on a boat in Far North Queensland. Our yacht "Dikera" has been my home for 8 years as we (husband and I) sail around the Queensland coast. We are planning on doing the world trip thing starting next year via Indonesia. As we sail, I write. I have always been a stationary tragic   (read, pens, paper, fancy envelopes etc) and began writing in earnest 11 years ago. Besides novels, I write for boating magazines, short story mags online and in print. I also like the medium of radio and have written several audio pieces which have been broadcast. Tell us about your most recently published book? This is Mr Tripp buys a Lifestyle . It is a novel which incorporates the mishaps...

What if Adolf Hitler suddenly appeared in 21st century Berlin? That's the premise of this cheeky novel by Timur Vermes which soon became a bestseller in its home country, before being translated into English and proving itself to be quite the hit here as well. In Look Who's Back, the author takes quite a few jabs at political correctness, while it details Hitler's rise to popularity again, this time as a "comedian" who soon becomes a sensation on television and YouTube for his uncompromising, hit hitting views. It is difficult to for me to form a firm opinion on this book. On the one hand, as a dark comedy that takes a stab at political correctness and as something that moves past the legend to examine who Adolf Hitler may have been as a person--flawed, uncompromising and surprisingly charismatic--it does rather well. There are also some interesting questions raised about politics, human nature and how many people can be so easily swayed. On the other ...

Volkswagen Flower Pot Another relic from 2011, this Volkswagen Beetle was converted into a flower pot as part of the Adelaide City Council's Splash campaign, designed to draw people in to the city. Sadly, the Volkswagen's were a short lived feature--they did not survive an attack from vandals, but it was fun while it lasted. 

It's always a bit exciting when there's a book coming out that you want to read and the author contacts you personally asks if you will feature it on your site. And that, is exactly what happened to me during the week when Lisa Joy, author of the upcoming romantic comedy Yes, Chef! messaged me via facebook. Anyway, here's a bit of information about Yes, Chef!  which will be released tomorrow under Penguin's Destiny imprint: Becca Stone is disillusioned by her tedious and thankless job taking reservations in one of London's most successful restaurant empires. When she is unexpectedly catapulted into working as PA to celebrity chef, Damien Malone, it seems like the opportunity of a lifetime. Becca is quickly caught up in an exciting whirlwind of travel, reality TV and opening nights, and even her usually abysmal love life seemingly takes a turn for the better. But as Becca is slowly consumed by the chaos of life in the spotlight, she begins to lose touch w...

Seventeen-year-old Colin Singleton has a problem. Nineteen of them in fact. He keeps falling for girls named Katherine. And he keeps getting dumped. And now he wants to know why. That's the premise of this clever, YA literary novel by John Green, author of the massively-popular-right-now The Fault in Our Stars which I read and reviewed on this blog a few weeks ago. And although The Fault in Our Stars may have required a bit more emotional involvement from readers, there is a lot to enjoy in this quirky tale that comes complete with footnotes, an appendix and a lot of clever usage of anagrams. (And for the record, I didn't just love this one because it has my name--sort of--in the title.) Colin is a fairly annoying, inward thinking kid who takes a lot of things literally and tends to invest a bit too much emotionally in people. Colin's been hailed as a child prodigy through most of his life, but he is only just beginning to discover that he is a bit well, socially in...

I rarely share Garfield memes on here, on account of most of them either not being funny, or being dirty jokes made by disenchanted former fans, but I thought this one was pretty cool. Who would have thought the greedy tabby has actually been losing weight all these years?  PS The chronology on here is slightly inaccurate. Garfield's eyes became oval in 1984, the same year that he first stood on his hind legs. The picture attributed to 1984 is how Garfield appeared in 1979; the picture attributed to 1988 is how he appeared in 1980; the picture attributed to 1992 is how he looked in 1985. All other years/depictions are accurate.

A bus signed NOT IN SERVICE turns from Jetty Road Glenelg into Colley Tce GLENELG, SOUTH AUSTRALIA--Local resident and regular patron on AdelaideMetro's extensive bus network, Mrs Mabel Hall, was disappointed earlier this week when she discovered NOT IN SERVICE was not, in fact, an actual suburb of Adelaide. "I just cannot understand it," Mrs Hall told one of our reporters in an exclusive interview. "I see buses going there all the time." Mrs Hall's obsession with discovering the locality of NOT IN SERVICE began a week or so ago, when waiting at the bus stop in Moseley Street for the route 300 which services the stop at 30 minute intervals during the day, taking her from the popular precinct back to her home at the Lazy Breeze Retirement Village on Diagonal Road. The 300 service (which runs through a complicated circuit through Adelaide's inner suburbs that takes more than two and a half hours to complete,) on the morning in question was runnin...

It's that time again when I have just packed up a number of book that have been recently reviewed on this book, allocating them a spot in the ever-growing library inside my spare room. Each has a sticky note attached, documenting on what day the book was reviewed and whether the book was purchased by me, won in a competition, supplied by a publisher or a book related site or the most precious kind of all, gifted to me from an author in the hope of receiving a review. And then I started thinking about this site and I decided that it was high time that I said something important: Thank you. To everyone who contributes in some small way to help make this blog great. (At least, in my opinion the blog is great. The rest of you may beg to differ on that one.) But seriously, thank you. To all the people who have sent me books for review, thank you. To all the writers who have participated in, and wowed me with their answers for the Writers on Wednesday feature, thank you. To th...

Imagine a world where you would be cosmetically recreated to look beautiful on your sixteenth birthday. That is the premise of Scott Westerfield's series for teens, Uglies . The first instalment in the series follows heroine Tally Youngblood as she waits for her sixteenth birthday so that she may be turned pretty and reunited with her friends who are all a few months older. A surprise twist comes in the form of a new friend, Shay, who is not interested in turning pretty and runs away. Tally is then issued with an ultimatum from the police. Find her friend and turn her in, or never become pretty and spend her life as an outcast ... I found  Uglies  to be a pleasant and often page turning read. There were a number of twists and turns that I was not expecting and it dealt with themes of change, identity, relationships and loyalty in ways that were unexpected but still quite believable. I felt that Tally's character could have been fleshed out a lot more--she came across a...