Things on My Shelf

Tenters & Zucchini & Reasons to Shop for Books This Afternoon

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1
25/05/2011

This morning I went to start the blog with the phrase “waiting on tenterhooks,” which is one of those expressions that’s been around for a while without me ever really understanding where it actually came from. And so there was google, and this rather succinct discussion of the phrase where I discovered the tenterhook was a...
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1
13/05/2011

So yesterday there was dayjobbery and tutoring and writing, oh my, with a side of doing the page proofs for Say Zucchini, and Mean It so I can mail them back to the folks at Daily SF and fix the various muddle-headed things I’ve done in the story. Usually there’s something painful about the...
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A Season in Hell

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1
18/04/2011

The Gold Coast, in my younger days, was not a city that welcomed serious readers. It’s a long, skinny strip of a city pressed up against the South East Queensland coastline, a city predicated on beachfront tourism and theme parks and being a nice place to retire. I often introduce it to American friends...
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What I Did on My Weekend

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4
28/03/2011

So, by my standards, it was an awesome but crazy-busy weekend. Often, when my weekends are quiet and sedate, I feel like I’m letting the side down and I find myself thinking, “man, I wish I had a crazy-busy weekend, you know?” Then the crazy-busy-weekend comes along and I go along with the flow...
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Bookshelves, Write Club, and Interesting Things Said About Cities

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0
02/03/2011
Bookshelves, Write Club, and Interesting Things Said About Cities

I wasn’t going to spam you with dodgy phone-camera records of the Great Bookshelf Reorganisation of 2011, but I got a phone-call from my dad and at some point he asked for an update, and I like my dad enough that I’m going to oblige him. The photograph above contains the first seven shelves...
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The Lady of Situations and Moby Dick

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6
17/02/2011
The Lady of Situations and Moby Dick

I’m always a bit ish-ish about recommending books to people. Giving books to people is fine – there are few things I enjoy more than randomly giving friends books they might enjoy – but asking people to trust my taste and spend their hard-earned money on something is…ish-ish. This doesn’t mean I don’t do...
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Ditmar, Etc

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1
16/02/2011
Ditmar, Etc

So about six months ago I won the Best New Talent Ditmar, and I have to admit that I’m rather fond of the trophy. It’s a clean design and it’s got a nice weight to it, and it makes for a nigh-perfect book-end on the brag shelf in my living room. Plus its not...
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Credit Where Credit’s Due

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14/02/2011
Credit Where Credit’s Due

On Friday night, after a panel at the QWC’s One Book, Many Brisbanes program, I got the opportunity to go hang out with Cat Sparks, Trent Jamieson, and the elusive Ben Payne. There was beer and chatter and hot chips with tomato sauce. The true value of this experience probably doesn’t sink in unless...
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What I’m Watching: Xena, Warrior Princess

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20/09/2010

So I’ve been watching the first seasons of Xena for the last couple of days. Largely I blame Tansy Rayner Roberts for this, since I borrowed the DVDs from a friend after reading the Xena Rewatch Notes on her blog. I can recommend going and checking those out, should you want to follow an in-depth...
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5 Books

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14/09/2010

If you were to ask me for book recomendations right now – and yes, I know you aren’t, but lets just say you were - you’d probably get a list that runs something like this: The Thin Man, Dashiel Hammett: Screw The Maltese Falcon – if you’re only going to read one hardboiled detective...
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