My Brother Jack by George Johnston I’ve been looking at a lot of iconic books today, this is just one of them. It’s the story of one Melbourne family’s travails through both World War I and World War II through the eyes of David Meredith. Written in 1964, photo I’ve put ...

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Yesterday we visited The Astor Theatre in Windsor for what is likely to be the last time. We saw Lawrence of Arabia and while it was a fabulous movie, with stunning scenery and great acting it’s not what’s really important to me today. The Astor was first opened in April ...

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What? You mean we buy the outfit and get the clothing as well? I’m applauding this one. They have more than one staff member working there so they pluralled the word ‘staff’. Makes great sense if English isn’t your first language. Bit of sightseeing for you. I was in Brunswick ...

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Sea of Many Returns by Arnold Zable As with all of Zable’s books I was moved, not moved to the point of tears but still moved. Sea of Many Returns is a great book about immigration and return from and to Melbourne and Ithaca. This book looks at Xanthe as she ...

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Saturday night I dragged some family members to Maskerade, a play based on a Terry Pratchett book. Kicking and screaming they were, well screaming with laughter. It’s a tremendously funny play, bringing to life some of the scenes that are harder for the reader to imagine, bringing to life some ...

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Last week I talked about the Glen Eira Storytelling Festival 2014 and mentioned the Walking Tour of Murrumbeena with a particular focus on one of our famous artistic families, the Boyds. I did this last Saturday, if you missed it there’s another one this coming Saturday starting at the same place ...

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This past weekend was the Queen’s Birthday long weekend. Australian’s are fond of public holidays, we have enough of them, and most of them are set on a Monday or Friday with the odd one being on a Tuesday (but I’m not mentioning Phar Lap or the Melbourne Cup) to ...

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Saturday night, almost five hours after the play finished and my eyes were still sore from crying. I started within moments of the actors coming onstage and stopped while they were handing out cake. It was an awesome play, totally hit the tenor of the book, with seriously good music ...

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This is another Murray Whelan Thriller. This is book five out of six. In this book Murray Whelan is a Minister in the Victorian Government and his lover shows him a significant ultrasound photo, minutes later she’s dead. This is the story of Whelan and his travails a couple of ...

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Sucked In - Shane MaloneyI’ve spoken about The Murray Whelan Thrillers before. They’re a good set of books and they highlight the Melbourne political scene very nicely. In this book Murray is in the Upper House of the Victorian Parliament currently ‘doing the rounds’ having a working lunch with his ...

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I’ve used this book for Teaser Tuesday twice as I’ve found it a challenge to get through. I know I’ve promised more blogs about AussieCon 4 but I figured you’ve been waiting for this for longer so it was well past time for this book Jewels and Ashes by Arnold ...

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Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following: * Grab your current read * Open to a random page * Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page * BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE ...

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Tonight I’m going to break with tradition and give you three-in-one book review. I’m shamelessly pinching some stuff from Shane Maloney’s website as his summary is nice and concise. “There are currently six Murray Whelan novels. Each is a stand-alone story. Sequentially, they follow Murray’s journey through the ranks of ...

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I’m sure you want to know what Doctor Who and me being blogged have to do with each other. Actually, to be honest, nothing at all. I only have a few words to say about both things and I’m going to talk about both of them today to make a ...

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As you might know from a previous post I have a lot of Agatha Christie books, I’m really only missing three titles of short stories and The Mousetrap. So it’s a very exciting time when I find a book I don’t have. My other half took me away for a ...

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