A Quick Word... On Acquisitions and Other Oddities

Just a quick update!

Another review of mine has gone up on Crikey's LiteraryMinded. In it I review Brisbane author Angela Slatter's great new book The Girl With No Hands.

The review begins:

In my first year at University I studied fairytales, and more specifically Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, a book which is arguably the poster-child of fairytale re-imaginings. Carter writes well, and in many cases her stories spin beautifully away from tradition while remaining neatly tied to the history of the tales they retell.

Yet I’m sorry to say that I didn’t really like them and they were an immense struggle to study. I found them elusively constructed and occasionally prepared to sacrifice good narrative in exchange for overtly feminist plots. So when Angela Slatter’s The Girl With No Hands arrived at my door, and billed the other Angela as one of its key influences, I settled down to read the book convinced I knew the way it was going: bestial males and victimised women. Truly Slatter was in trouble: my verdict was as good as written before I had even started...

You can read the rest of the review here.

*****

In other news this week, I managed to pick up my new laptop on the weekend. This is not usually noteworthy news... except that this is a particularly special computer.

You might like to take a look at it:

I knew when I bought the laptop that I didn't want another ordinary grey Apple logo floating around the world. As such, I got in touch with the remarkably talented Georgie, from Tselliah Online, a Tasmanian based artist who agreed to paint a miniature mural for me.

Georgie - as I'm sure you can see - is an amazingly talented artist. The design is incredible - a lot of the time I have no idea which side of the screen to look at (I certainly know which side is my favourite, and it's not the one with Facebook). Her work has never failed to impress me from the moment I first discovered she was painting a mutual friend's wardrobe, and I lament for the day when she gets the recognition she deserves - and she will get it - because it means she'll probably be too busy to be painting the laptops of small timers like me.

For now though, I have a wonderful new computer that is grabbing positive comments wherever it goes. The same computer I am typing these words on to you now. And I couldn't be more happy. Thank you Georgie, you're a marvel.

*****

And finally, a treat to get you through to the end of the week. This video came to me from a few directions, and I re-watched it every time. Great fun. My thanks to Joe, Ryan and James for sharing it.