I picked Olaf Stapledon a few weeks ago when I came across his name somewhere and now I can’t remember where. I was already familiar with the name but can’t find anything on my shelves to back that up, I suspect I read his books in my dim, dark past ...
"You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me." C.S. Lewis
Est. 2009
How’s Andy Going? by Alan Marshall Alan Marshall is one of our national treasures, and if he isn’t he should be. He’s one author everyone should read as he’s written so much about Australian life. Born in 1902 in country Victoria he contracted polio at the age of six. He ...
I was thrilled to the back teeth when I found Eric Frank Russell last night, I’d never heard of him before but one of my favourite magazines was mentioned on his Wikipedia entry as Further Reading! They’re talking about an article by Jacob Edwards titled Overlooked: The Non-fiction of Eric Frank ...
I thought I’d have trouble with Q but I ended up with a choice of six authors! Refusing to do all of them I made a choice to do Thanas Qerama just because he’s an Albanian author and it tickled my fancy to write about an Albanian author. Of course, I then struggled ...
Who else would I do for M but our own George R. R. Martin? I did consider Michael Moorcock but I couldn’t find any of his books on my shelf and felt that was the deciding factor. I must have read some of Martin’s work over the years as he’s been published in ...
One of my favourite dogs when I was young was Harry so I was chuffed when I found Harry by the Sea by Gene Zion in Benn’s Books in Bentleigh the other day. Just don’t ask me how I made it out of the bookshop without buying anything, I don’t ...
I’ve got this fabulous book on my shelf which I’m not going to share with you today! I pulled it off the shelf to see if I could find someone for J, I’m excited to tell you I haven’t missed a letter yet…a day but not a letter. Carl Richard Jacobi ...
I’m fudging things just a little here. Sagan Jeffries is the pseudonym of Ed Lukowich, Curling Champion from Canada. Lukowich has written several books about the art of Curling. Why art? It doesn’t feel like sport to me but more of an art form as you have to sweep the ice to ...
Someone once asked me about authors I’ve met, it was a long time ago and I’ve since met more with some of them being brand new authors. These three stand out (I am going to link to some books from Booktopia here as I would like to make enough money ...
A bit of a surprising choice for the Alphabet of Authors as he’s only written one science fiction book but I want to celebrate the fabulous Idle. He’s done many things, most notably being one of the multitude of talents that created Monty Python. I’m thinking he was undervalued, he’s the ...
Breathe, just breathe. You know those days when you decide what you’re going to write about and then do the research? I almost freaked out when I was researching Lee Harding. Harding, born in Colac, Victoria in 1937, so he’s a spring chicken compared to my cousin who died at ...
In today’s issue of Authors by Alphabet I’m taking a brief look at Hugo Gernsback. Gernsback was an amazing man. He started the pulp fiction title of Amazing Stories thereby bringing science fiction to life. Gernsback is the person responsible for the phrase ‘science fiction’ and used it despite preferring the ...
Philip Jose Farmer didn’t write easy material, his Riverworld series illustrates that to me. Based on a world fairly similar to our Earth but with an incredibly long river, everyone who has ever lived wakes up at the same time. We have historic figures, nameless people and everyone in between. The ...
Just a quick look at some of the photos of Diana Wynne Jones books I have on my computer. Two totally different photos of Archer’s Goon, both have things to recommend them: the top one gives some idea of how the siblings were fighting over Howard; while the second one shows ...
Looking for someone to write about I pulled an Analog at random from my bookshelf and then continued pulling more Analog magazines down until I found one with an author starting with E. When I started researching William B. Ellern I was promptly astounded to see what a find I had. Ellern ...