Margaret, Lady Hoby, is best known as the author of the earliest known diary written by a woman in English. While her diary began as a religious exercise and includes details of her religious practices, prayer and reading, it is also a window through which we can glimpse the busy domestic life of a woman … Continue reading Early Modern Women – Margaret, Lady Hoby (1571-1633)
Book Review – Gilgamesh by Joan London
Gilgamesh by Joan London begins in 1918 with Frank Clark an Australian soldier in a convalescent hospital in England meeting Ada who is there ‘to visit the soldiers’. He invites her to come with him back to Australia, to ‘go far away to a country where there will never be another war’. Ada accepts the … Continue reading Book Review – Gilgamesh by Joan London
Books I Didn’t Finish
I ended last year with the feeling that I had started but not finished almost as many books as I had read from cover to cover. This was an exaggeration of course, it was less than half that number. Not that any of the books were badly written, it was simply that they failed to … Continue reading Books I Didn’t Finish
Book Review – The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
The Bible is filled with so many, many stories that it is easy to read superficially without thinking much beyond the words on the page. One story easily overlooked is that of Dinah, the daughter of Leah and Jacob, the Old Testament Patriarch, father of the twelve men who formed the tribes of Israel. Dinah … Continue reading Book Review – The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
Other Places, Other Times
In August last year I travelled for the first time to the northern hemisphere. It was a whirlwind tour, only a month away from home, and I managed to see so much yet I know I barely scratched the surface of the places that I visited. I firmly believe you could spend your whole life … Continue reading Other Places, Other Times
Book Review – Jungfrau by Dympna Cusack
Jungfrau is the story of three independent young women who have been friends since university, living in Sydney in the mid-1930s. Eve is an obstetrician who has recently returned to her Catholic faith, Marc a social worker with progressive philosophies who lives life to the full and Thea, a teacher, sensitive and lacking the clear-eyed … Continue reading Book Review – Jungfrau by Dympna Cusack
My Reading – July 2017
A Writing Life: Helen Garner and her Work by Bernadette Brennan Days Without End: A Novel by Sebastian Barry New Boy : Othello Retold by Tracy Chevalier The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
Irish Heritage – Patrick McGrath (1848-1911)
My great grandfather Patrick McGrath was born at Finnahy in Tipperary and was baptized at the church in Upperchurch on the 19 Jul 1848. He was the eldest son and fifth child of Thomas McGrath and Mary Ryan. In 1853, when Patrick was five, the family left Ireland and migrated to Australia. For the first … Continue reading Irish Heritage – Patrick McGrath (1848-1911)
Words, Proverbs and Meanings
The meanings of words change over time. Awful began as a shortening for 'full of awe', in other words, inspiring wonder or fear. It has mutated to now be a tired word for something unpleasant. Although changing, on occasions a word will retain something of its original meaning. Elope was first used to described a … Continue reading Words, Proverbs and Meanings
Book Review – New Boy : Othello Retold by Tracy Chevalier
This retelling of Othello (part of the Hogarth Shakespeare series of contemporary retellings) is set in a suburban Washington elementary school in the 1970s. When Osei, the son of a Ghanaian diplomat, arrives in the all white school, he immediately finds a friend in the popular and pretty Dee, but his arrival upsets the balance … Continue reading Book Review – New Boy : Othello Retold by Tracy Chevalier
Catherine Meyrick 