hill house: where dreams go to die

A Public Space is running an online book club on Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, led by her recent biographer, Ruth Franklin. It started today, and the first post made me realise just how much Hill House drains Eleanor of life, her dream life, even before it takes her physical life from her....

notes on “where i end” by sophie white

[this is full of spoilers by the way.] i read this book a few months ago and it still gnaws away at the sides of my brain. here's the blurb from sophie white's website: "Teenager Aoileann has never left the island. Her silent, bed-bound mother is the survivor of a private disaster no one will...

“things we lost in the fire” by mariana enriquez

this collection has some of the most unflinchingly brutal stories i've ever come across. granted, i don't read many brutal stories. i picked this title for a horror book club. there was a comparison with shirley jackson on the back and that's enough of an incentive for me. the brutality is so strong that there...

when life gives you “lemon” by kwon yeo-sun

too striking to resist, isn't it? let me get this off my chest: i totally picked up this novella based on the cover. it's quite apt really, because this whole story is about looks, about perception, and being perceived, and the consequences, trivial or sinister, which arise from that. more specifically, it's about "the high...

“the story of a brief marriage” by anuk arudpragasam

This story is paced so slowly, and rendered so gently that the devastation depicted in doesn't hit you like a sledgehammer all at once. Instead, it's like delayed burning. It's slow and torturous. It's the story of Dinesh, who lives in isolation. He has lost everything in the war. His mother died during the evacuation....

into the heart of the spider-verse

There’s something about Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. It's been awhile since I last saw it but I still remember how joyous it made me feel. It bursts with heart, and wisdom, and warmth, and humour, and bravery and a whole truckload of good things (one of which is a head bopping soundtrack). I loved it...

Saints, Misfits, and Humbert Humberts

I read S. K. Ali’s novel Saints and Misfits right after reading Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita. It was hard to miss the fact that both novels centred around predators and the people they prey on, though each story was told from opposing points of view: one from the predator’s, and the other from the victim’s. Reading...

Party like it’s 2018 Book Night

Book Discussion Scheme will be holding their annual Book Night on May 22nd. What is a Book Night you ask? It’s simply a fun way for all of New Zealand to join in and celebrate reading (and go in the draw to win some prizes at the same time). Reading doesn’t have to be a...

Most Unexpected Things to Happen in Bookshops

Bookshops seem fairly straightforward, right? There are shelves inside, they have books on them. You browse the shelves, and if you find something you like, you purchase it. It's all pretty straightforward and by the book. Except some people like to think outside the box. Why only shop in a bookshop when there's a whole...

The outcast in Apirana Taylor’s “Five Strings”

I started Five Strings two months ago, barrelled through most of it, and then put it on hold. It became too much. I picked it up this weekend, and pushed my way through the last pages. It was hard not to be bogged down in Mack and Puti's story, the two outcasts at the centre...