On a roll, reading for Australia Day—January 26th, I decided to reread another old favourite (having had so much fun rereading Ruth Park’s novel below). But this one is 400 pages long and my before-bed read (which is to say that I fall asleep long before I’m bored). So,
Perhaps independent presses are most vital in their willingness to confront, to engage with ideas and possibilities that make readers uncomfortable. Consider Mélikah Abdelmoumen’s book about reading James Baldwin and William Styron, which opens with this epigraph from Raoul Peck’s J’étouffe: “Forgive me in advance,
Over the six years that Kaggsy has hosted Reading Indies in February (previously she hosted with Lizzy, who passed away last year), the definition of ‘independent press’ has been much discussed. The details matter in a celebration of those publishers that don’t have the financial security of the Big
On January 1st, I learned that January 26th is Australia Day; this isn’t likely the first time I’ve learned this, but it’s the first time I decided to do something about it, and that something was read. And, on this colonial holiday, indeed most of my reading has been
My first copy of Oroonoko (1688) by Aphra Behn (1640-1689) was a skinny little volume bound like a play. It felt a little like a travelogue, and a little like epic poetry—harder to read than either—with a love story (if one calls Romeo-and-Juliet a love story). I knew Aphra
