Kathryn's Inbox

As all good Adelaide folk know, there is something a little bit cool and a little bit special about the Seaford Railway line. It is the only line on the Adelaide suburban rail network to have electric trains and modern railcars (thanks Tony Abbott for cutting off funding to the project when the Gawler Central line was only half done--I'm sure this played a part in the fact that you are no longer Prime Minister,) and you never have to put up with being crammed in like a sardine on one of those tiny 3000 class railcars that (lets face it,) never really were a suitable replacement for the iconic Red Hen railcars. Anyway, I was travelling on the Seaford Railway line recently, I got a little bored and my mind started to wander. Then I started coming up with stupid alternative names for all of the stations. And they were all so dumb and unfunny that, naturally, I decided to share them here ... Mile End - Smile End Adelaide Showgrounds - Adelaide Snowgrounds Goodwood - Goodwood,...

I was strangely fascinated by Night Owls from the moment I read the description and I am pleased to report that it is a story that does not disappoint. Beatrix is a nice girl and an aspiring artist who lives with her mother and brother who are struggling to make ends meet. One day Beatrix meets Jack on the Night Owl, the night bus that services San Francisco and discovers his secret--that he is one of the city's most notorious graffiti artists. Far from being a story of a good girl led astray, this is a story of how, through their shared love of art, Jack and Beatrix are able to help one another heal from their difficult and broken pasts. I found Night Owls to be very cleverly plotted. We learn about Jack and his situation bit by bit and it is obvious that he is far from the juvenile delinquent that the police and media believe this mysterious artist to be. Beatrix also makes for an interesting protagonist, a young woman who is unduly, and unfairly, damaged by her parents d...

I am not sharing street art this week, but a shot of the bridge that crosses the River Torrens at Elder Park. I love that the bridge ends in a fountain.

NOWHERESVILLE AUSTRALIA--Twenty-seven year old Rocco Baker, who has not seen one of his eleven children in the past two years, and who recently taken to court by all five of his former partners for his staunch refusal to pay child support, was left feeling 'disappointed' on Father's Day, when none of his children bothered to buy him a gift.  "My children are nothing but a bunch of ungrateful little shits," he told our reporter. "I went to the trouble of giving each of them life--even the ones whose mothers were like, ugly and shit, and now they can't even be stuffed thanking properly for that on Father's Day. They didn't even have to visit, at least one of them could have thought to have left a slab of beer at the door." A few days after Father's Day, Baker's hopes of a gift were, at least partially restored when he received an envelope in the mail addressed to him in a childish hand. "I opened it, hoping that it would ...

I saw the above meme doing the rounds and I thought that it was giggle-worthy enough to re-post it here. While my favourite Muppets are probably Rowlf and Gonzo the Great, I have to admit that I have a bit of a soft spot for Miss Piggy. Miss Piggy is all woman--she's beautiful, brave, smart and devoted to the man, uh, sorry, frog, who she loves, but her real tragedy is that her love for Kermit is completely misguided given that he is, well, indifferent to her. (The thing about Kermit is that his life is just fine as it is. He has no need, or desire, for a relationship.) And Miss Piggy continues on, falling into the trap that every woman has fallen in to at one time or another, foolishly believing that if she just tries that little bit harder, or becomes something a little bit more, that she might just win Kermit over. 

Although I am very familiar with the 1959 movie of the same name, until recently I was completely unaware that it was based on a book that had been written some years earlier. And then, when I found a copy of the book, I was in for a bigger shock. Unlike the film, which examines racism and mother/daughter issues, in a soap opera like fashion Fannie Hurst's Imitation of Life is, at its heart, a feminist novel that offers a chilling message--that women cannot have it all. The novel tells the story of Bea Pullman, a young woman who was forced by economic circumstances to marry a man many years her senior and soon finds herself a widow and young mother with a ailing father to look after. No one will give her much of a chance, and her only income is through selling maple syrup and things look pretty desperate, until Delilah comes along and helps Bea to reshape her business. The pair enjoy a long and successful business relationship that lasts right up until Delilah dies, but m...

American author Abbi Glines moves back into high school/YA territory with her latest release Until Friday Night. It's the first novel that the author, best loved for her NA romances has set in a high school since The Vincent Brothers . And given that Glines is somewhat prolific, that was many, many releases and series ago. Anyway, Until Friday Night is a sweet romance featuring West, the star of the high school football team and all around popular guy and Maggie, the sweet new girl in town who also suffers from selective muteness after witnessing a terrible incident two years ago that tore her family apart. West's own life is not going so well--his dad is dying--and it is Maggie who offers him comfort, while offers a friendship that allows Maggie to feel safe for the first time and to speak once again. But could the pair be more than just friends? This one is a light, touching romance. It never tries to be anything more than it is and the experience is enjoyable enough,...

This is another of the many mosaics that decorate Beach Road, Christies Beach. This one is about midway, along the southern side outside a real estate agent.  

I think Friday might be here ...

Picking up where his first autobiography, Boy, left off, Going Solo tells the story of Roald Dahl's first journey away from home--one that would last for many years thanks to the onset of the Second World War. The first half of the book cover's Dahl's adventures in Africa working for Shell--from an unlikely adventure with a lion who carries a woman away, to the more frightening prospect of having to stop a bunch of Germany citizens from escaping the boarder. (And the terrible way that their bluff was called when they tried to escape.) Moving on from there, we get to read about Dahl's often dangerous adventures as a Second World War fighter pilot and his occasional daliance with daredevil photography. Much like Boy, I am left with the impression that some of the stories were a little embellished or even made up, but consider who the author is and the stories that he writes for children this is totally forgivable. Much harder for modern audiences to digest is the way ...

Australian author Kate Forsyth takes the story of Beauty and the Beast and makes it massively original by setting it in World War Two Germany. Ava is the Beauty--an innocent young woman with a beautiful voice who marries a well-respected member of the Nazi party in order to help her family. Leo is the Beast, the member of the Nazi party, the latter as we know being responsible for many horrific crimes. But just as in the tale of Beauty and the Beas t nothing is quite as it appears on the surface for these two young people and both are secretly conspiring against the Nazis--Ava as part of an underground resistance movement, while Leo is part of a group who is trying to assassinate Hilter. The author does not shy away from showcasing much of the brutality that occurred during World War Two in Germany, and the terrible treatment of the Jewish population and anyone else who happened to get in the way of the Nazi party. The novel is extremely comprehensively researched, and the aut...

This war memorial has sat proudly and quietly at Norwood for many years now ...

Very few authors can write about any topic with the level of class that Anne Rice can. In the course of Rice's long career she has written about vampires, witchcraft, retold the life of a young Jesus Christ and turned a fairytale (sleeping beauty) into an erotic novel that will most likely become a classic. In Exit to Eden Rice writes about a forbidden romance that begins in the most unlikely of places--on an island that houses a BDSM resort--and between two unlikely characters, one of the young female owners of the resort and a brand new and very willing male slave ...  I enjoyed reading this Exit to Eden , which I found to be quite well written and unique. Lisa and Elliot are far more than their roles on the island (her as a dominant, he as a slave,) and their forbidden romance brings out the complex nature of their lives and their sexualities. There is a real depth to the writing and a complexity to the characters and their situations. While some readers may be disturbe...

Too funny not to share ...

I have to admit, I am normally very fussy about what romances that I read and I can be a harsh critic of the genre, especially when it is an NA romance. This time around, something about this book had me hooked from the moment that I read its description. I guess that I have a bit of a soft spot for love stories that involve second chances, or the one who got away ... Before We Were Strangers opens with Matt, a thirty-something man who has recently suffered the humiliation of his wife cheating on him with one of their colleagues and then leaving him. He claims to be over it and not interested in finding anyone else. Then one day while he is travelling on the subway, he sees a familiar face, Grace, a woman who he loved during his college days and who mysteriously disappeared when he went to work abroad one summer. And with no way of being able to contact Grace, Matt publishes a beautiful note to her online. From there, the story goes back in time to tell the how Matt and Grace ...

This artwork sits at the main entrance to Flinders Medical Centre at Bedford Park, just near the bus interchange. It has been there since 2009 and is part of a project for reconciliation.

NOWHERESVILLE, AUSTRALIA--A self-confessed pyromaniac who deliberately blew up the Nowheresville Petrol Station for 'entertainment,' killing three people and causing millions of dollars worth of damage has spoken to the media for the first time, claiming that her arrest is unfair. "I know its sad that the petrol station isn't there any more and that some people got killed, but I don't think it's right that the police should arrest me," twenty-nine year old Skyla McDonald told our reporters from inside her cell at the Nowheresville Remand Centre yesterday. "I mean, they're treating me like I'm a criminal." Prior to blowing the petrol station up, Ms McDonald had purchased a can of coke and a chocolate bar from the business. "This made me a paying customer," Ms McDonald explains. "And the customer is always right. So if I feel like blowing a business up and murdering the staff in the process just because I am bored, then...

Got to love Daria.

The Silver Linings Playbook is a bittersweet look at mental illness, the end of a relationship, grieving and acceptance. (It also has remarkably little to do with the movie that was based on the book, but that is fodder for another post.) Thirty-something Pat Peoples is returning to his parents home after a stint in a psychiatric hospital. He knows not how long he has been there, but he knows that for now he is not allowed to see or speak to his beloved ex-wife Nikki and that she will only take him back once he one, recovers from his illness and two, becomes all of the things that she wanted him to be. Much to the chagrin of his family and friends Pat does not heed their advice about letting go and moving on. Readers are drip fed information about what went wrong between Pat and Nikki (a woman who, for all intents and purposes sounds like a stuck up cow, but then again, the reader is supposed to be on Pat's side,) whilst seeing Pat move on with his life--even if he doesn...

Larrikin Aussie journalist Peter Clancy is back and this time around he's in London ... where he has found himself working for a gutter tabloid publication. It does not take long though before Clancy finds himself embroiled in a glitzy, scandalous journey where he's bedding the daughter of a famous rock star, whilst ghost writing the memoirs of a disgraced famous actress. And, of course, in the lives on London celebrities nothing is quite what it seems and there may be something more sinister afoot ... Fans of TW Lawless earlier Peter Clancy novels can expect to be pleasantly surprised by the third novel in the series which, in my opinion, is easily the best of the lot. (It can also be read as a stand alone, so don't despair if you haven't read the previous novels.) It's difficult to write a review without spoilers, so I'll just say that I enjoyed this one--particularly the setting. TW Lawless writes well and the prose is quite addictive and kept me turn...