Australian Women Writers Challenge

M.L. Stedman’s The Light Between Oceans (2012)

“She’s a beauty all right,” said Tom, taking in the giant lens, far taller than himself, atop the rotating pedestal: a palace of prisms like a beehive made from glass. It was the very heart of Janus, all light and clarity and silence.”

Janus is a small isolated island off the west coast of Australia, [...]

Elizabeth Jolley: Spare Little Novels?

That’s what the LA Times calls The Newspaper of Claremont Street: “Every word of this spare little novel is right.”

(You could say the same of Miss Peabody’s Inheritance, which I read earlier this year; this is the only other of her novels on my shelf, so I’m not sure if she is known for [...]

On Being Cloned, Trapped and Lonely

B.I.P.’s Snips are short-hand responses to works; I usually opt for this format when I’ve read the book without taking many (or any) notes.

Kate Wilhelm’s Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang (1976)

Read: Mostly over breakfast, home-baked muffins or bakery-bought rugelach with coffee, perched on a stool in the kitchen, mostly on sunny days, the [...]