Number 3 chiller
Garry Disher talks to Linda Herrick at the New Zealand Herald about crime writing, growing up in South Australia, and the time he taught Chopper Read in a creative-writing class. Garry’s new novel, Bitter Wash Road, is available now in bookshops and online.
‘The best stories in The Double can be brutal yet remain achingly moving and painfully poignant; there are some outstanding, even breathtaking sentences and scenes in this book. Takolander is fluent in capturing moments of sudden grief, shame, intimacy and melancholy.’ Read more
The 10 most dramatic deaths in fiction.
Some fantastic tattoos inspired by children’s books. Red Riding Hood is my favourite.
The best parties in literature (to which you weren’t invited).
Rebecca Stead’s Liar & Spy has won the Guardian children’s fiction prize.
Julia Eccleshare, Guardian children’s books editor and chair of the judging panel for the prize, called Liar & Spy ‘an incredibly sensitive book.
Today is the November pub date! Check out all the new books here. Missed today’s newsletter? Never fear. (But you should probably subscribe so this doesn’t happen again.)
On unusable words: auto-antonyms, profanity and other tricksy language problems.
A brief history of publishing, from 40,000 BC to the present day.
Do you have writer’s block? Here, have some writer’s block soup.
An interesting thought experiment: Read more
‘With its intricate narrative structure, use of multiple points of view and flashbacks, this is Savage’s most ambitious and accomplished crime novel to date.’ Sue Turnbull reviews Angela Savage’s The Dying Beach in the Age.
Some contemporary illustrations for famous novels.
How well do you know literature? Take the quiz! (I know literature very well. We were at kinder together.)
30 amazing book dedications that might actually be better than the books themselves.
‘It has the makings of the rare, palliative novel, to be visited and revisited, like a reassuring friend.’ Madeleine St John’s The Women in Black, reviewed.
Goodreads: where readers and authors battle it out in an online Lord of the Flies.
How the Japanese earthquake shook a novel to its core: on Ruth Ozeki’s Booker-shortlisted novel, A Tale for the Time Being.
In the digital age, what does it mean to own a book?
The Joy Is In the Struggle of Making: how writers get their ideas.
