I can’t ignore that it is Australia Day. We received Chinese-made Australian flags in the letterbox from a local real estate agent and people are walking around with Australian-flag clothing and head gear. Cars are sporting flags, as are letterboxes and house rooves.
The Pen and the Stethoscope
Ed: Leah Kaminsky
Scribe Publishing 2010
ISBN: 9781921640735
$32.95
240 pp
This is a strange collection – an anthology of stories and essays linked only by the fact that all the writers are, or once were, doctors. The nine non-fiction pieces hang together through their subject matter; however, only a few of the six fictional short stories obviously owe something to the medical training of their authors. Nevertheless, every piece entertains or informs or both and I enjoyed them all.
New Australian Stories 2
Ed: Aviva Tuffield
Scribe Publishing 2010
ISBN: 9781921640865
$29.95
346 pp
With this second, large offering of short stories (36 examples of the art), Scribe is indicating a commitment as a publisher to add to the regular anthologies now available to Australian readers. Among the many writers I had not previously come across, there are also a number of familiar names.
Almost two years after the devastating fires in Victoria and now with a large area of Australia progressively inundated by floodwater, it is relevant to ask, ‘what is the best way to compensate people who suffer loss as a result of disasters on a large scale?
What are modern children to make of the Santa Clause, when they may see dozens of them in one day in a shopping centre, weeks before Christmas? What about the Easter Bunny? How well do we manage mythology for our children?
In the Santa-believing parts of the world, some tens of thousands of Santa suits have gone back into storage, along with fake sleighs and stuffed reindeer, tinsel, baubles and strings of lights, as well as all the flashing Santa displays and plastic Christmas trees. That must require millions of cubic metres of storage space. (more…)