These are my top 10 fiction reads from 2022, in the order I read them. After Story, Larissa Behrendt Della’s daughter Jasmine left their Australian country town to become the first in the family to go to uni and her relationship with her roots is complicated. One day she asks […]
Estimated reading time: 16 minutes
In no particular order… Devotion, Hannah Kent Readers of Kent’s other books Burial Rites and The Good People, will recognise the connection with physicality and place, as well as the spiritual backdrop and themes. Devotion is a novel about the German religious refugees who settled in Hahndorf in South Australia. […]
Estimated reading time: 11 minutes
Understanding Sexual Abuse: A guide for ministry leaders and survivors has been on my ‘to read’ list since 2018 when it came out. Its author, Tim Hein, was a pastor at the church I attended in my later-high school and uni years and has continued to have a fruitful pastoral […]
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
Big Picture Parents: Ancient Wisdom For Modern Life* is a Christian critique of postmodern parenting. Harriet Connor opens with the observation that many parents say all they want is for their kids to be happy, and yet mental health issues among children and young people are greater than ever. Feeling […]
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
I agree with Arthur that Charlotte Wood’s ‘The Natural Way of Things’ is enduring. Here are three other books I’ve read recently which have stayed with me. The Good People, Hannah Kent In mid-nineteenth century rural Ireland, Nora Leahy’s husband has died and she is left looking after their disabled grandson. […]
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
No, 2015 is not a typo, it’s just that things got seriously out of whack during our 12 months of transition. Here are five more stories that have especially stayed with me. (See the previous list here…) The Natural Way of Things (Charlotte Wood, 2015) This Stella Prize winner first […]
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
I attended Adelaide Uni at the same time as Clementine Ford and I was both fascinated and terrified by her. So much of what she had to say matched the intuitions I had about feminism, but which I did not yet have the tools to own. And I was convinced […]
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes