Currently I am reading Ulysses by James Joyce. For the first time in my whole life the book makes sense to me. I think I miss many of the puns and connections but I am totally enjoying the book just as a great story. I look forward to finding out what will happen next. Joyce is a great writer and s...

I'm reading "The Second World War" by Antony Beevor. Amusingly, my father's unit gets a mention: "...although inexperienced and ill disciplined to a point which left British officers almost speechless with rage (it) proved to be a collection of formidable fighters".

Hello everyone. New to this site and this is my first post. I am a fan of dystopian novels and I am currently reading "We" by Yevgeny Zamyatin, it's basically a mixture of Huxley (Brave New World) and Orwell (1984), both of which used "We" as inspiration for their respective nov...

When I was young the local library had a separate kids section. I'll always be grateful to the boss nun at my primary school who contacted the library and asked them to enroll me in the adult section so I could get books that would interest me. The only good thing the Catholic Church ever did for me.

Yes. Since Campbell lived for years in Spain and Portugal he spoke the languages colloquially.

That's the main reason. Also he was a pugnacious fellow and personally antagonised most of the leading writers of his generation and wrote satirical poems about them. Sometimes he's a bit self-indulgent but at his best he's a poet and a half!! One example:The Zulu Girl, though written long ago, is s...

Writers can be neglected for any number of reasons. Sometimes they just fall out of fashion, sometimes their political views are no longer accepted. Sometimes their reputations revive, sometimes they do not. WH Auden vividly expressed the hope that, in the long run, poets would get the recognition t...

Hi Cattleman, A pity you didn't get to see more of Australia (though Sydney is a good town - I lived there for about 10 years in the late 60s - early 70s). Maybe on your next visit you get to Tasmania! On the other hand I, unfortunately, have never been to your country at all. Perhaps if the horses ...

I've always rated Lawrence's poems higher than his novels. Your discussion about Lawrence, poetry and Australia reminds of his poem "Kangaroo" (not the novel of the same name). Delicate mother Kangaroo Sitting up there rabbit-wise, but huge, plump-weighted, And lifting her beautiful slende...

I'm a 68 year old man. These days I live in South Australia but I was born in Tasmania and will always regard myself as a Tasmanian (like Errol Flynn!!).