• About
  • The Red Witch: A Biography of Katharine Susannah Prichard
  • My novel: The Fur

Nathan Hobby, a biographer in Perth

~ The life of Katharine Susannah Prichard, the art of biography, and other things

Nathan Hobby, a biographer in Perth

Category Archives: life

The Joy of Knowledge Encyclopedia

19 Thursday Jun 2008

Posted by Nathan Hobby in books, life

≈ 19 Comments

Tags

wikipedia

I had a strange impulse to browse the Hamlyn Illustrated Encyclopedia tonight. A one volume three column encyclopedia with black and white pictures at the top of the page. This edition was published in 1986, with the previous title being the Joy of Knowledge Encyclopedia (what a wonderful and comforting title). It’s my wife’s, not mine, but I know if I’d grown up with it I would have a strong attachment to it, offering as it does the whole world in one book.

I love Wikipedia, because it has lengthy articles on Spiderman 2099 and daily updates on recent deaths. But I remembered one thing it doesn’t have – the pleasure of browsing. On the way to check the entry on ‘Anabaptists’, my eye was caught by a photo of ‘Agnew, Spiro’ and I learnt some brief facts about this man I only really knew about from Mad Magazine. (So much of what I know about American politics and popular culture has come from Mad Magazine!). The ‘Anabaptists’ article was laughable – according to this, they were a Middle Age movement (about two hundred years out!) preoccupied only with believers’ baptism by immersion, and contributing nothing beyond being the ancestors of modern day Baptists, a very contestable suggestion indeed.

Then on the way to ‘Wycliffe, John’ I saw, for the first time in living memory, a picture of a ‘Wolverine’ and I was dragged pleasurably into a field outside theology / literature / history.

Long live the browsable encyclopedia!

Nathan Hobby meets Paul Auster at the Adelaide Festival Writer’s Week

06 Thursday Mar 2008

Posted by Nathan Hobby in authors, books, life

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Paul Auster

I did not have a coffee with Paul Auster. I did not shake hands with Paul Auster. I didn’t even really have a conversation with him. But I went to Adelaide and heard him speak (I was just out of the tent in the sun and he was very small but distinguishable) and he was wise, cynical yet generous, amusing and weathered, just as I imagined and hoped for.

And I did exchange a few words with him.

I was waiting in the autograph line wondering what I could say to a man who I had spent so many hours with and who had been so important to me. In the end the exchange went like this:

NH: ‘You’re my favourite writer, Mr Auster – it’s an honour to hear you speak.’

PA: ‘Well thank you. Thank you reading for my books.’

(Paul Auster indecipherably scribbles in my battered copy of Moon Palace.)

NH: ‘In my new novel one of the characters reads Moon Palace.’

PA (looking surprised): ‘Really? Well thank you.’

What happened then? Did he move onto the next person or did I walk away, spoiling a promising opening because there were a thousand people behind me waiting in the hot sun? I don’t know.

The reality is that you can’t hope to know a writer in ‘real life’ with any of the intimacy or depth that you know him or her through their books. It’s just not possible. It’s the wonder of reading and writing. Auster even said something to this effect at some stage, or I think he did.

There was a time when I would have thought of a witty or controversial or brilliant question to ask and I would have asked it, and I would have waited by the tent for hours, and I would have pushed my way into talking to Auster. But I’m 27 now, as of yesterday, and I’m old and shy. I’m mistrustful of people who push their way forward and I’m sick of egos.

I was glad I went, because I had to and because I enjoyed it, and yet it was in an important sense exactly as I feared.

Status Anxiety

15 Friday Feb 2008

Posted by Nathan Hobby in life

≈ Leave a comment

I watched the documentary of the book with Alain De Botton this week and it’s ironic to be blogging about it, because blogging is probably very tied to the status anxiety he talks about. We want success; we want people to think we’re good (or witty or insightful or intelligent or brilliant); we want to be noticed; we want to be remembered; we want attention.

So some of us keep blogs.

If I get over status anxiety it will probably mean not ever, ever, checking my blog stats. And that’s just for a start.

I’m going to read the book, because I’m really impressed. He gets to the malaise of society and of me with insightful and clear analysis, while also being interesting.

Blog revamp: An Anabaptist in Perth

27 Thursday Dec 2007

Posted by Nathan Hobby in life, writing

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Christianity

I’ve revamped my other blog, http://perthanabaptists.wordpress.com . It’s now called ‘An Anabaptist in Perth’. I’ve made a few posts in the last week, given it a new template, pruned the categories and updated the blogroll.

For the forseeable future, I think I’m going to be posting to it more than to this one. I’ve been living in this dreamworld where I read too many novels (not even writing that much) and not thinking enough about all the questions of faith which I need to explore. So I’m going to be reading less fiction in 2008, hopefully writing more, and spending more time on theology and faith. Working in my new job as librarian at the Baptist Theological College will help with this shift.

The Perth Anabaptists site started out as the blog for Perth Anabaptist Fellowship, the house church which was such a big part of my life but disbanded in April 2007. I imagined originally that lots of people would contribute to it, that it’d be a multi-voiced blog reflecting our theological ideas about everyone having a say. That didn’t work out. Rather than start again, I kept on contributing to it occasionally. Now it’s time has come properly.

Re-reading Atonement

12 Wednesday Dec 2007

Posted by Nathan Hobby in life, reading

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Atonement, Ian McEwan, Paul Auster

I’m re-reading Ian McEwan’s Atonement ahead of the release of the film on Boxing Day. It’s an exquisite treat. Each sentence is so well constructed, so revealing of some truth of experience, that I feel guilty reading it quickly. It’s like an extremely expensive meal that can’t even be replicated if you had the money: there are only a couple of books this good in the whole world and you can only read them so many times.

McEwan, my second favourite writer, and Auster, my first favourite writer, will both be speaking at the Adelaide Writers’ Festival. And I won’t be there. Like a fool, I hesitated, scared to ask for time off work when I was just starting a new job, and the event is sold out. It feels like a dream that first they could be speaking at the same event in the same country as me and second that I missed out.

Connecting to the music

12 Wednesday Dec 2007

Posted by Nathan Hobby in life, music

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

John Howard, red wine, Whitlams

I had a moment of perfect connection to the album I put on.

I was cooking, and drinking a glass of Cab Merlot (and enjoying it more than I’ve enjoyed red wine for a long time) and I was listening to The Whitlams’ Little Cloud album. The wistful lyrics and sound of Tim Freedman connected with me and felt so poignant.

I always find it so hard to choose an album to match my mood. I misjudge so often – the same way I misjudge my mood for film, novels and treats – but for once I chose well. I wonder if there are truly only a few pieces of music that will match a particular mood.

Tim Freedman keeps talking about the ‘year of the rat’ and ‘the rodent got back in’, and I suddenly realised that he might have been talking about John Howard – famously called (my wife reminded me recently when she dressed as) the Lying Rodent. Did he write these songs during the 2004 election, feeling depressed about Howard getting in yet again?

When more isn’t better

30 Friday Nov 2007

Posted by Nathan Hobby in life, music

≈ 1 Comment

I remember when I saved up to buy my first CDs. It was the mid-nineties and there weren’t many cheap CDs around. Big W was wonderful because it sold the top 30 for $25; five weeks pocket money, and that’s five weeks of no chocolates or books or comics.

So I didn’t have many CDs.

My brother and I got a secondhand copy of U2’s The Fly single with our first CD player from the pawnshop. We played it to death, and then Bush’s Glycerine single. I think the first album I bought was Metallica’s Load, maybe followed by Ash’s 1977. I got to know every single song so well. I have this theory that if you listen to a decent CD enough times with enough desire to like it, you will like it eventually. (Am I saying Load is a decent album? I don’t know! It certainly suited who I was at the time.)

Fast forward to today, where there’s a whole CD shop full of great albums for $10, which with inflation is something like $5 in the mid-nineties. I can borrow eight great CDs from my local public library and battle to play them all through once in three weeks. (Back in 1996, my local library only had classical CDs.) I have a very modest 2800 songs on my I-tunes, which would still take me 8 days to play and about 200 CDs mouldering away in racks, 200 LPs inherited or bought at opshops in noughties and at least 50 tapes.

Consequently, there’s not many albums I know really well any more. Not in the way I knew Bush’s Glycerine single with it’s two B-sides ‘Solomon’s Bones’ and ‘Alien’. I think a mindset of acquisition is a dangerous one. If only I had this CD and that one, then I’d be happy, then I wouldn’t need any more.

Imagine a situation similar to the one in Borges’ story “The Library of Babel”, except with songs, not books. You have every single song ever released. But instead of bringing you happiness, it brings you dissatisfaction, because every time you hit random, you get yet another song you have no affinity with. Just the task of scrolling through your album titles is an odious one. It’s too hard to find what you want. You sound like a radio station.

Sometimes more isn’t better.

Reading David Copperfield

24 Wednesday Oct 2007

Posted by Nathan Hobby in life, reading

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, Victorianism

Reading David Copperfield I feel like I understand my grandparents better. Dickens’ England seems closer to their worldview than my own – which seems remarkable, given they were born fifty years after he died in a different country. Mr Murdstone and Miss Murdstone believe in ‘firmness’ above everything else. Manners dominate everything. Order is the most important thing.

Watching Amazing Grace part 2: the letdown

26 Sunday Aug 2007

Posted by Nathan Hobby in life

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Amazing Grace, William Wilberforce

It all seems so clear in the cinema. All it takes is passion and dedication,  and you can free the slaves. You can change the world. You can make your life into a burning torch which sets the world alight.

But I get out of the cinema and time is no longer compressed. It passes with all the boring bits left in. The conversations we have to have about what groceries need buying. And the reality: I am not William Wilberforce. I am a librarian with a job to go to in the morning and dishes to be washed.

Is life a journey?

26 Tuesday Jun 2007

Posted by Nathan Hobby in life

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Christianity, death, heaven, hell

People talk so much about life being a journey that it’s a standard way to talk and think about our lives.

But is life like a journey?

Journeys have a destination. Journeys are about getting from one place to another. Sure, they’re more than that; we should enjoy the scenery as we go. But in the end, if there isn’t somewhere we are headed, then we don’t set out on a journey.

Life doesn’t have a simple destination like that – unless it’s death. And death isn’t a culmination, a completion of life so far.

Unless you’re Elizabeth Kubler Ross.

Or maybe even in the Christian story – if death in Christian thought is not a destination as such, then it is at least the transition point to the Christian destination. Maybe it is the expectation of eternal reward or punishment at the end of life that has pushed this metaphor of life as a journey.

And that’s a very individualistic Christianity – it doesn’t factor in Christian hope for the renewal of the Earth, for the establishment of God’s reign on Earth.

Newer posts →

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 268 other subscribers

Nathan on Twitter

My Tweets

Categories

  • academic (9)
  • archives and sources (8)
  • autobiographical (60)
  • biographers (10)
  • biographical method (24)
  • biographical quests (16)
  • biographies (16)
    • political biography (1)
  • biographies of living subjects (2)
  • biographies of writers, artists & musicians (11)
  • biographies of writers, artists and musicians (20)
  • biography as a literary form (8)
  • biography in fiction (2)
  • biography in the news (2)
  • books (229)
    • authors (19)
    • book review (167)
    • reading (23)
  • creative nonfiction (9)
  • daily life (2)
  • Daily Prompt (2)
  • death (21)
  • digital humanities (3)
  • fiction (6)
  • film and television biographies (5)
  • film review (48)
  • found objects (3)
  • historical biographies (1)
  • history (20)
  • In the steps of KSP (4)
  • Katharine Susannah Prichard (104)
    • Glimpses of KSP (7)
    • My KSP biography (28)
      • deleted scenes (1)
  • Katharine Susannah Prichard's associates and connections (15)
  • Katharine Susannah Prichard's writings (33)
  • libraries (4)
  • life (20)
  • link (22)
  • links (39)
  • lists (28)
  • local history and heritage (1)
  • media (4)
  • memes and urban myths (1)
  • memoirs (9)
  • meta (2)
  • music (18)
  • news (9)
  • news and events (27)
  • obituary (1)
  • Old writing found on a floppy disk (1)
  • poetry (5)
  • politics and current affairs (24)
    • climate change (1)
  • prologues and introductions (2)
  • psychological aspects of biography (3)
  • quotes (22)
  • R.I.P. (9)
  • reading report (3)
  • religion (1)
  • religious biography (1)
  • research (5)
  • role of the biographer within the biography (2)
  • Series: A-Z of Katharine Susannah Prichard (26)
  • Series: Corona Diary (1)
  • Series: Saturday 10am (14)
  • Series: Short Stories (2016) (6)
  • Series: The Tourist (2013) (6)
  • Series: Thursday 3pm feature posts (2009) (35)
  • structure of biographies (3)
  • technology and the digital world (2)
  • television (3)
  • the nature of biography (4)
  • this blog (10)
  • Uncategorized (31)
  • Western Australia (26)
  • writing (41)

Archives

Recent Comments

informatika on Stella #1: The prologue
informatika on Giving a sense of everyday…
informatika on I’ve started a new blog…
industri on The biography of Hugo Thr…

Bookmarks

  • Adventures in Biography
  • ANZ LitLovers LitBlog
  • Bernice Barry
  • It only goes up to your knees
  • Jane Bryony Rawson
  • Jenn Plays Recorder
  • Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers' Centre
  • Laura Sewell Matter: Essayist and Biographer
  • Mutually said: Poets Vegan Anarchist Pacifist
  • Resident Judge
  • Speaking Thylacine
  • The Australian Legend
  • Timothy Parkin Poetry
  • Treefall Writing – Melinda Tognini
  • Whispering Gums
  • Wrapped up in books: the home of Guy Salvidge

Top Posts

  • Glimpses of KSP - Leon Brodzky, Robbie and Bachelor Girls in 1909
  • Glimpses of KSP - Tarella Station
  • [Thursday 3pm #4] The tragedy of Robert Wadlow, world's tallest man?
  • Anger and Love by Justina Williams
  • Stella #1: The prologue

Blog Stats

  • 165,459 hits

Tag Cloud

9/11 19th century 33 1920s 1921 1930s 1950s 1970s 1971 1981 2000s 2004 2011 2015 2017 20000 Days on Earth A.S. Byatt Aboriginals activism Adam Begley Adrian Mole adultery afterlife Agatha Christie Alan Hollinghurst Alberto Manguel Alfred Deakin Amazing Grace Americana Amy Grant An American Romance Andre Tchaikowsky Andrew McGahan angela myers anne fadiman Anne Rice Arabian Nights archives art arts funding A Serious Man Ash Wednesday ASIO atheism Atonement Australia Australian film Australian literature Australian Short Story Festival autism autobiography autodidact Barbara Vine beach Belle Costa da Greene Bell Jar best best-of Bible Big Issue Bill Callahan biographical ethics biographical quest genre biographies birthday birthdays Black Opal Bleak House Blinky Bill blogging blogs Blue Blades Bodega's Bunch bog Booker book launch booksale Borges Brenda Niall Brian Matthews Brian McLaren Britney Spears Burial Rites Burke and Wills buskers C.S. Lewis C.S. Lewis canon capitalism Carol Shields Carson McCullers Catcher in the Rye Catholicism celebrities Charles Dickens Charlie Kaufman childhood Child of the Hurricane children's books Choir of Gravediggers Christianity Christian writing Christina Stead Christmas Christopher Beha Cinque Terra Claire Tomalin classics cliches climate change Coen brothers coincidence Collie Collyer coming of age Communism concert Condensed Books consumerism Coonardoo Cormac McCarthy Corrections cosy fiction Dara Horn David Copperfield David Ireland David Marr David Suchet death Death of a president definition demolition Dennis LeHane dentist diaries divorce doctorow Doctor Who documentaries donald shriver Don DeLillo Don DeLillo Donna Mazza Donna Tartt Don Watson Dostovesky doubt drama dreams of revolution Drusilla Modjeska E.M. Forster ebooks editing Eichmann Eisenstein Elizabeth Kostova email empathy ensmallification existentialism faith Falling Man fame families fantasy fiction film and television folk football Frank Barscombe Fremantle Press G.K. Chesterton Gabrielle Carey Gallipoli genealogical fiction Genesis Geoff Nicholson George W. Bush Gerald Glaskin Gilead Golden Miles Goldfields Trilogy Graham Greene grandad great novels Greenmount Guinness World Records Guy Salvidge Hannah Arendt Hannah Kent Hans Koning Hans Koningsberger Harper Lee Haxby's Circus Hazel Rowley He-Man headers heaven Heidegger hell Henrietta Lacks Henry Morton Stanley Herman Hesse heroes Hey Dad! historical fiction history Holden Caulfield holidays Homer & Langley Home Song Stories House of Cards house of zealots House of Zealots Hugo Throssell humour Ian McEwan In between the sheets Indonesia Infamous Inside Llewyn Davis interstellar interview Intimate Strangers Invisible Ireland ISBNs Ishiguro itunes J.D. Salinger J.M. Coetzee J.S. Battye Janet Malcolm Jennifer Egan JFK JFK assassination Joanna Rakoff Joel Schumacher John Burbidge John Fowles John Howard John Kinsella John Updike John Updike Jonathan Franzen journal writing JSB Judgment Day Julia Baird Julian Barnes Kafka Kalgoorlie Kate Grenville Katherine Mansfield Kevin Brockmeier King's Park KSP Writers' Centre language last ride Laurie Steed Left Behind Leonard Cohen Leo Tolstoy Libra Library of Babel Library of Babel Lila Lily and Madeleine links lionel shriver Lionel Shriver lists literary fiction literature Lleyton Hewitt lost book Louisa Louisa Lawson Louis Esson louis nowra love letter Lubbock Lytton Strachey Madelaine Dickie Man Booker man in the dark Margaret Atwood Margaret River Press Marilynne Robinson mark sandman meaning of life Melbourne Mel Hall meme memorialisation memory MH17 Michael Faber Mike Riddell Miles Franklin mining boom missionaries moleskine Moon Palace morphine Mother Teresa movies Music of Chance My Brilliant Career names Napoleon Narnia narrative Narrow Road to the Deep North Narziss and Goldmund Natalie Portman Nathaniel Hobbie national anthem Nick Cave Nina Bawden non-fiction nonfiction noughties novelists novels obituaries obscurity On Chesil Beach Parade's End Paris Hilton Passion of the Christ past patriotism Paul Auster Paul de Man Perth Perth Writers Festival Peter Ackroyd Peter Cowan Writers Centre phd Philip K. Dick Philip Seymour Hoffman pierpontmorgan poetry slam politics popular fiction popular science Possession postapocalyptic postmodernism Pride prophetic imagination publications Pulp Purity Queen Victoria Rabbit Angstrom radio Radio National Randolph Stow rating: 5/10 rating: 6/10 rating: 7/10 rating: 8/10 rating: 9/10 rating: 10/10 ratings reading fiction autobiographically reading report Rebecca Skloot recap red wine reincarnation juvenile fiction rejection review - music reviewing rewriting Richard Flanagan Richard Ford Rick Moody Roaring Nineties Robert Banks Robert Hughes Robert Silverberg Robert Wadlow Robinson Crusoe Rolf Harris romance Rome ruins Russell Crowe Ruth Rendell Sarah Murgatroyd scalpers science fiction Science of Sleep secondhand books Secret River sermon illustration sex short stories Silent Woman Simone Lazaroo Simpsons Siri Hustvedt slavery Smashing Pumpkins social interactions social justice some people i hate sources South Australia souvenirs speculation speech speeches sport status anxiety Stephen Lawhead Stranger's Child subtitles Subtle Flame Sue Townsend suicide Surprised By Hope Suzanne Falkiner Sylvia Plath Synecdoche TAG Hungerford Award tapes teabags Ted Hughes The Children Act The Cure The Fur The Imitation Game theology The Pioneers The Revolutionary Thomas Disch Thomas Hardy Thomas Henry Prichard Thomas Mann thriller time Tim La Haye Tim Winton Tolstoy Tom Wright top 10 Towering Inferno Tracy Ryan Trove Truman Capote tshirts TS Spivet Twelve Years a Slave underrated writers Underworld unwritten biographies urban myth USA vampires Venice Victoria Cross Victoriana Victorian era Victorianism Victoria Park video Voltron w Wake in Fright Walkabout Walter M. Miller war War and Peace war on terror Water Diviner Wellington St Bus Station Westerly Western Australia West Wing What Happened to Sophie Wilder? Whitlams wikipedia Wild Oats of Hans William Wilberforce Winston Churchill Witches of Eastwick Working Bullocks workshop World War One writers writing Writing NSW youth Zadie Smith Zeitgeist Zelig

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 268 other subscribers

Pages

  • About
  • My novel: The Fur
  • The Red Witch: A Biography of Katharine Susannah Prichard

Categories

  • academic (9)
  • archives and sources (8)
  • autobiographical (60)
  • biographers (10)
  • biographical method (24)
  • biographical quests (16)
  • biographies (16)
    • political biography (1)
  • biographies of living subjects (2)
  • biographies of writers, artists & musicians (11)
  • biographies of writers, artists and musicians (20)
  • biography as a literary form (8)
  • biography in fiction (2)
  • biography in the news (2)
  • books (229)
    • authors (19)
    • book review (167)
    • reading (23)
  • creative nonfiction (9)
  • daily life (2)
  • Daily Prompt (2)
  • death (21)
  • digital humanities (3)
  • fiction (6)
  • film and television biographies (5)
  • film review (48)
  • found objects (3)
  • historical biographies (1)
  • history (20)
  • In the steps of KSP (4)
  • Katharine Susannah Prichard (104)
    • Glimpses of KSP (7)
    • My KSP biography (28)
      • deleted scenes (1)
  • Katharine Susannah Prichard's associates and connections (15)
  • Katharine Susannah Prichard's writings (33)
  • libraries (4)
  • life (20)
  • link (22)
  • links (39)
  • lists (28)
  • local history and heritage (1)
  • media (4)
  • memes and urban myths (1)
  • memoirs (9)
  • meta (2)
  • music (18)
  • news (9)
  • news and events (27)
  • obituary (1)
  • Old writing found on a floppy disk (1)
  • poetry (5)
  • politics and current affairs (24)
    • climate change (1)
  • prologues and introductions (2)
  • psychological aspects of biography (3)
  • quotes (22)
  • R.I.P. (9)
  • reading report (3)
  • religion (1)
  • religious biography (1)
  • research (5)
  • role of the biographer within the biography (2)
  • Series: A-Z of Katharine Susannah Prichard (26)
  • Series: Corona Diary (1)
  • Series: Saturday 10am (14)
  • Series: Short Stories (2016) (6)
  • Series: The Tourist (2013) (6)
  • Series: Thursday 3pm feature posts (2009) (35)
  • structure of biographies (3)
  • technology and the digital world (2)
  • television (3)
  • the nature of biography (4)
  • this blog (10)
  • Uncategorized (31)
  • Western Australia (26)
  • writing (41)

Archives

Recent Comments

informatika on Stella #1: The prologue
informatika on Giving a sense of everyday…
informatika on I’ve started a new blog…
industri on The biography of Hugo Thr…

Bookmarks

  • Adventures in Biography
  • ANZ LitLovers LitBlog
  • Bernice Barry
  • It only goes up to your knees
  • Jane Bryony Rawson
  • Jenn Plays Recorder
  • Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers' Centre
  • Laura Sewell Matter: Essayist and Biographer
  • Mutually said: Poets Vegan Anarchist Pacifist
  • Resident Judge
  • Speaking Thylacine
  • The Australian Legend
  • Timothy Parkin Poetry
  • Treefall Writing – Melinda Tognini
  • Whispering Gums
  • Wrapped up in books: the home of Guy Salvidge

Top Posts

  • Glimpses of KSP - Leon Brodzky, Robbie and Bachelor Girls in 1909
  • Glimpses of KSP - Tarella Station
  • [Thursday 3pm #4] The tragedy of Robert Wadlow, world's tallest man?
  • Anger and Love by Justina Williams
  • Stella #1: The prologue

Blog Stats

  • 165,459 hits

Tag Cloud

9/11 19th century 33 1920s 1921 1930s 1950s 1970s 1971 1981 2000s 2004 2011 2015 2017 20000 Days on Earth A.S. Byatt Aboriginals activism Adam Begley Adrian Mole adultery afterlife Agatha Christie Alan Hollinghurst Alberto Manguel Alfred Deakin Amazing Grace Americana Amy Grant An American Romance Andre Tchaikowsky Andrew McGahan angela myers anne fadiman Anne Rice Arabian Nights archives art arts funding A Serious Man Ash Wednesday ASIO atheism Atonement Australia Australian film Australian literature Australian Short Story Festival autism autobiography autodidact Barbara Vine beach Belle Costa da Greene Bell Jar best best-of Bible Big Issue Bill Callahan biographical ethics biographical quest genre biographies birthday birthdays Black Opal Bleak House Blinky Bill blogging blogs Blue Blades Bodega's Bunch bog Booker book launch booksale Borges Brenda Niall Brian Matthews Brian McLaren Britney Spears Burial Rites Burke and Wills buskers C.S. Lewis C.S. Lewis canon capitalism Carol Shields Carson McCullers Catcher in the Rye Catholicism celebrities Charles Dickens Charlie Kaufman childhood Child of the Hurricane children's books Choir of Gravediggers Christianity Christian writing Christina Stead Christmas Christopher Beha Cinque Terra Claire Tomalin classics cliches climate change Coen brothers coincidence Collie Collyer coming of age Communism concert Condensed Books consumerism Coonardoo Cormac McCarthy Corrections cosy fiction Dara Horn David Copperfield David Ireland David Marr David Suchet death Death of a president definition demolition Dennis LeHane dentist diaries divorce doctorow Doctor Who documentaries donald shriver Don DeLillo Don DeLillo Donna Mazza Donna Tartt Don Watson Dostovesky doubt drama dreams of revolution Drusilla Modjeska E.M. Forster ebooks editing Eichmann Eisenstein Elizabeth Kostova email empathy ensmallification existentialism faith Falling Man fame families fantasy fiction film and television folk football Frank Barscombe Fremantle Press G.K. Chesterton Gabrielle Carey Gallipoli genealogical fiction Genesis Geoff Nicholson George W. Bush Gerald Glaskin Gilead Golden Miles Goldfields Trilogy Graham Greene grandad great novels Greenmount Guinness World Records Guy Salvidge Hannah Arendt Hannah Kent Hans Koning Hans Koningsberger Harper Lee Haxby's Circus Hazel Rowley He-Man headers heaven Heidegger hell Henrietta Lacks Henry Morton Stanley Herman Hesse heroes Hey Dad! historical fiction history Holden Caulfield holidays Homer & Langley Home Song Stories House of Cards house of zealots House of Zealots Hugo Throssell humour Ian McEwan In between the sheets Indonesia Infamous Inside Llewyn Davis interstellar interview Intimate Strangers Invisible Ireland ISBNs Ishiguro itunes J.D. Salinger J.M. Coetzee J.S. Battye Janet Malcolm Jennifer Egan JFK JFK assassination Joanna Rakoff Joel Schumacher John Burbidge John Fowles John Howard John Kinsella John Updike John Updike Jonathan Franzen journal writing JSB Judgment Day Julia Baird Julian Barnes Kafka Kalgoorlie Kate Grenville Katherine Mansfield Kevin Brockmeier King's Park KSP Writers' Centre language last ride Laurie Steed Left Behind Leonard Cohen Leo Tolstoy Libra Library of Babel Library of Babel Lila Lily and Madeleine links lionel shriver Lionel Shriver lists literary fiction literature Lleyton Hewitt lost book Louisa Louisa Lawson Louis Esson louis nowra love letter Lubbock Lytton Strachey Madelaine Dickie Man Booker man in the dark Margaret Atwood Margaret River Press Marilynne Robinson mark sandman meaning of life Melbourne Mel Hall meme memorialisation memory MH17 Michael Faber Mike Riddell Miles Franklin mining boom missionaries moleskine Moon Palace morphine Mother Teresa movies Music of Chance My Brilliant Career names Napoleon Narnia narrative Narrow Road to the Deep North Narziss and Goldmund Natalie Portman Nathaniel Hobbie national anthem Nick Cave Nina Bawden non-fiction nonfiction noughties novelists novels obituaries obscurity On Chesil Beach Parade's End Paris Hilton Passion of the Christ past patriotism Paul Auster Paul de Man Perth Perth Writers Festival Peter Ackroyd Peter Cowan Writers Centre phd Philip K. Dick Philip Seymour Hoffman pierpontmorgan poetry slam politics popular fiction popular science Possession postapocalyptic postmodernism Pride prophetic imagination publications Pulp Purity Queen Victoria Rabbit Angstrom radio Radio National Randolph Stow rating: 5/10 rating: 6/10 rating: 7/10 rating: 8/10 rating: 9/10 rating: 10/10 ratings reading fiction autobiographically reading report Rebecca Skloot recap red wine reincarnation juvenile fiction rejection review - music reviewing rewriting Richard Flanagan Richard Ford Rick Moody Roaring Nineties Robert Banks Robert Hughes Robert Silverberg Robert Wadlow Robinson Crusoe Rolf Harris romance Rome ruins Russell Crowe Ruth Rendell Sarah Murgatroyd scalpers science fiction Science of Sleep secondhand books Secret River sermon illustration sex short stories Silent Woman Simone Lazaroo Simpsons Siri Hustvedt slavery Smashing Pumpkins social interactions social justice some people i hate sources South Australia souvenirs speculation speech speeches sport status anxiety Stephen Lawhead Stranger's Child subtitles Subtle Flame Sue Townsend suicide Surprised By Hope Suzanne Falkiner Sylvia Plath Synecdoche TAG Hungerford Award tapes teabags Ted Hughes The Children Act The Cure The Fur The Imitation Game theology The Pioneers The Revolutionary Thomas Disch Thomas Hardy Thomas Henry Prichard Thomas Mann thriller time Tim La Haye Tim Winton Tolstoy Tom Wright top 10 Towering Inferno Tracy Ryan Trove Truman Capote tshirts TS Spivet Twelve Years a Slave underrated writers Underworld unwritten biographies urban myth USA vampires Venice Victoria Cross Victoriana Victorian era Victorianism Victoria Park video Voltron w Wake in Fright Walkabout Walter M. Miller war War and Peace war on terror Water Diviner Wellington St Bus Station Westerly Western Australia West Wing What Happened to Sophie Wilder? Whitlams wikipedia Wild Oats of Hans William Wilberforce Winston Churchill Witches of Eastwick Working Bullocks workshop World War One writers writing Writing NSW youth Zadie Smith Zeitgeist Zelig

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Nathan Hobby, a biographer in Perth
    • Join 268 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Nathan Hobby, a biographer in Perth
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar