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The Library Is Open

A blog about books and writing, through rainbow-tinted glasses. Every book gets a gay rating.

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Review: An Immense World by Ed Yong

A majestic and intimate travelogue of animals’ sensory worlds.

Animals, nature, Nonfiction, science

Review: White Noise by Don DeLillo

A bracing dose of retro-strangeness.

1980s, America, Fiction, Novel, speculative fiction, US

Review: Hold Your Fire by Chloe Wilson

I screamed, I cackled, I winced my way through these delicious short stories.

Australian, Contemporary, Fiction, Short stories

Review: Cold Coast by Robyn Mundy

Brings the excitement and adventure of living through the polar night to life.

Arctic, Australian, Fiction, Historical, Norway, Novel

Review: Marlo by Jay Carmichael

An evocative portrayal of queer life under oppression.

1950s, Australian, Fiction, Historical, Melbourne, Novel, queer

Best books I’ve read 2022

My favourite reads of the year.

Australian, Contemporary, Environment, Fiction, LGBTIQ, Nonfiction, Novel, Poetry, queer

Review: Modern Nature by Derek Jarman

Sex, death, life, art — this diary about a garden has it all.

Diary, HIV/AIDS, LGBTIQ, Memoir, Nonfiction, UK

Review: Desire by Jessie Cole

A delicate study of needs and desires.

Australian, Climate change, Environment, Memoir, Nonfiction

Review: Vā (edited by Sisilia Eteuati and Lani Young

A rich series of stories and poems from the Pacific Ocean.

Aotearoa, Contemporary, Fiction, Fiji, Hawai’i, New Zealand, Pacific, Poetry, Samoa, Short stories, Vanuatu

Review: Tomb Of Sand by Geetanjali Shree (translated by Daisy Rockwell)

An epic novel that pushes at the boundedness of things.

Contemporary, Fiction, India, LGBTIQ, Man Booker International, Novel, queer, Transgender, Translation

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The early 20th Century German biologist Jacob von Uexküll conceived of an animal’s sensory world as its Umwelt. To try to understand an animal’s Umwelt would be like travelling, he said. Ed Yong vividly conjures these other worlds in this majestic and intimate travelogue of animals’ interior worlds.
White Noise is Don DeLillo’s version of the US suburban parody-horror, like Edward Scissorhands or Stranger Things or Desperate Housewives. It follows Jack Gladney, a professor and inventor of Hitler studies at a liberal arts college, and his family as they try to extract meaning out of their lives. It’s very droll and often amusing — I particularly enjoyed the parody of post-modernist, post-structuralist disciplines, but also that DeLillo seems to yearn for the meaning these studies invest in things.
I screamed, cackled and winced my way through this delicious collection of short stories.
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