Breathing Just a Little

 The 2025 Hugo Awards for SFF works will be announced in August this year. I often like to have a stab at reading to the list for short stories, novels and novellas, and this time I had a big head start, having already read 4 of the 6 novels. Here are my thoughts on the short stories! Novella and novel review posts to come. The six stories on the list are: “Five Views of the Planet Tartarus” by Rachael K. Jones “Marginalia” by Mary Robinette Kowal “Stitched to Skin Like Family Is” by Nghi Vo “Three Faces of a Beheading” by Arkady Martine “We Will Teach You How to Read | We Will Teach You How to Read” by Caroline M. Yoachim “Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole” by Isabel J. Kim While I have given a tie mark to the two I think are the strongest, if it were me, I would give the Hugo to We Will Teach You How to Read We Will Teach You How to Read because I think what is does is strikingly original in both form and affect, and I think risk-taking innovation like that should...

I have decided to challenge myself to do a mid-year month of poetry (similar to what I do every January with my poetry group, but solo this time!) as I have been feeling the lack of consistent creativity in my life and would really like a stimulus to get that started again. This time, I have decided to set myself a theme to see how that works out for me. I enjoyed writing a recent poem on the Stonehenge builders so much that I have chosen as my theme "great mysteries of history" - relatively loosely defined, but an organising principle at least.  Starting from the position of ruling out unsolved serial murders (no Jack the Ripper, Tylenol Killer or Zodiac for me, thanks), I have a bunch of ideas floating around, but if anyone wants to add anything to the suggestion box, feel free! The key ones I have in mind at the moment are in the list below. NB: I know some of these now have plausible or even probable solutions, but none have been conclusively resolved and all remain fasc...

Well, after saying this was going to be a light month for new books, four audiobooks I had been waiting on landed in my apps! Happy days, and the reading pace immediately accelerated as I listen to audiobooks while driving, shopping, exercising, cleaning and cooking (usually at least 3 hours a day between all those activities). The first cab off the rank was John Safran's latest book, Squat, which, being only 8 hours or so long, I knocked over in 3 days :-) This book is an enjoyably out-there piece of gonzo journalism from Safran, whose reputation as a talented but unpredictable enfant terrible of the Australian docu-art scene endures despite the fact that he is now (like me) 52 years old. I have been a fan of his work since his late 90s debut as part of the ABC documentary-making competition, Race Around the World, and this book did not disappoint. The set-up is quite simple: Safran, having heard Kanye West's increasing forays into public anti-semitism, decides to travel to LA...

  The mornings of ice have roared in suddenly now. The breath of autumn turning from summer memory to winter herald in the space of a few short days. No time to acclimate, if that were even possible; the long warmth vanished into the pale clear sky. Woodsmoke rises and mushrooms creep across the grass and getting out of bed has become a matter of will rather than instinct. The first morning tasks once again to set the rice pot cooking  and put on both the heaters, while my toes curl imploringly inside the not-enough slippers. Rousing cat and dog for their morning medications is a difficulty, as they wind their bodies into helixes, bolstering against the chill. Today is a day for thermal vests and lambs-wool socks; for heatpacks and finger gloves, scarves and puffer jackets. A little later, the warm rice and fresh egg, the hot tea, provides a moment of comfort before the run to the station for my daughter's workday, shivering from door to door let's take the big car today , I s...

This has been a slow month so far with new books, as I have been pretty frenetic with life and work commitments. I've read one of the Stella Prize shortlisted books (Cactus Pear for My Beloved) which I reviewed here , and also one pretty average mystery novel that I haven't reviewed, but other than that, I've only finished these two spec fic books. I've just started (and will finish and be reviewing!) another Stella nominee, Translations, and am wending my way through the Terry Pratchett official biography which will definitely get finished this month, which will make six. However, that might end up being all she wrote given the timetable of the next 12 days, which includes both a heavy workload and a higher than average volume of social engagements. Ahhhh well, not every month can be *all* about books... Of these two, I would recommend the first to fantasy and fairytale fans without hesitation, but the second (the classic - a Booker nominee that I somehow missed when i...

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...