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Manners, please!

I heard about Amor Towles’ A Gentleman in Moscow from a visiting American whose book group had just read it. “You will love it!” she said. As I was about to set off on a solo drive up the coast, I thought I would experiment with listening to A Gentleman in Moscow as an audiobook. […]

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Tension versus beautiful writing

At a First Friday Club meeting this year at Writing NSW in Rozelle, one of the aspiring writers in the audience asked Angela Mayer, the speaker and a publisher, to give advice about submitting manuscripts. Her response was: “It’s not so much a matter of beautiful writing. I look for narrative tension. The first pages

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Isolation and connection

One of the big questions of our time is how to overcome loneliness. When I’ve had to spend time away from my family, I always take my Kindle or a book or two. When I feel lonely, I read. It’s like a conversation with the author, even if it’s one-sided. It’s a form of human

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Word of Mouth

I love to talk about books but sometimes people I don’t know will talk books to me. Yesterday I went to the doctor’s. She took my blood pressure and checked my pulse. Then she started. She told me she was reading a book every girl in Australia should read. And the boys too, she added.

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