Breathing Just a Little

The third book I read in my Stella Prize shortlist adventure was Samah Sabawi's Cactus Pear for My Beloved, which I very much enjoyed (see review below!) As a reminder, here is the shortlist. I'm highlighting books as I read them (the review of The Burrow is  here  and Theory and Practice is here ). I have a library loan of Translations, and I bought myself a copy of Black Witness, so I'll probably double-hand those two next. The prize is announced on 23 May, I'm busy as heck between now and then, and I haven't yet been able to source Black Convicts, so I am not convinced I am going to fulfill the full brief of getting them all read prior to, but it's still be a good exercise to try! I have already discovered one very good book and two outstanding books through the process, so I have no complaints.  At the halfway mark, of the three I have read, I would give the prize to The Burrow, but honestly I wouldn't be mad if either of the other two were successful in...

The Change so I want to talk about the way the seasons are changing: how the days are shaking off the peach fuzz and gold lace, the last of the late roses and the warmth of the midday sun. reaching for the sharp edges of hospital white stars in an endless black sky the dubious steel and blue-tinted cream of cloudy rain-bearing afternoons. The nights are getting longer and the air turning colder  nights spent with covers fully drawn and the small electric radiator on low the cat adhered to my ribcage, humming and velveteen hiding from the world. The aching flame of autumn is almost out now, in the garden and the sky and also in my body: my body, that has followed the rhythms of the month as steadily as a heartbeat since I was eleven years old; every month except when full of child cursing and blessing me with blood and with the relief from blood the pain and the mess and the way my heart lightens every time, is renewed and made whole my fears and my failures subsiding with the bleed...

 Next up on my Stella Prize shortlist journey is Michelle de Kretser's novel (or is it fictionalised memoir?), Theory and Practice. As a reminder, here is the shortlist. I'm highlighting books as I read them (the review of The Burrow is here ). I bought myself a copy of Black Witness, so that is the next one I will tackle. Translations by Jumaana Abdu (Novel) Theory & Practice by Michelle de Kretser (Fictionalised Memoir): 8/10 Cactus Pear for My Beloved: A Family Story from Gaza by Samah Sabawi (Memoir / Family History) Black Witness: The Power of Indigenous Media by Amy McQuire (Non-Fiction) The Burrow by Melanie Cheng (Novel): 9/10 Black Convicts: How Slavery Shaped Australia by Santilla Chingaipe (History) I have a close group of friends that I made when I was a postgraduate student in the mid to late 90s. We were all History postgrads, in different subfields - I myself was working on a Masters on 17th / 18th century American history, but our group also included Italian...