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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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Tag: Melbourne

Review: Little Plum by Laura McPhee-Browne

A beautiful and tender novel of becoming a mother.

Australian, Contemporary, Fiction, Melbourne, Novel, Parenting

Review: Shirley by Ronnie Scott

Ronnie Scott renders pre-pandemic life scintillatingly strange.

Australian, Contemporary, COVID-19, Fiction, LGBTIQ, Melbourne, Novel

Review: Marlo by Jay Carmichael

An evocative portrayal of queer life under oppression.

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

Review: Bodies Of Light by Jennifer Down

A novel of surviving extraordinary trials.

Australian, Contemporary, Fiction, Melbourne, Novel, Stella Prize

Review: Found, Wanting by Natasha Sholl

A gripping and exhausting, funny and despairing, and completely compelling account of living with grief.

Australian, Grief, Melbourne, Memoir, Nonfiction

Review: Good Indian Daughter by Ruhi Lee

Lee’s memoir is a complicated depiction of parents and parenting.

India, Melbourne, Memoir, Nonfiction, Parenting

Five new queer films to add to your watchlist

My pick of the recent Melbourne Queer Film Festival.

Film, France, Germany, Israel, LGBTIQ, Melbourne, Melbourne Queer Film Festival, Mexico, Movies, queer

Review: Poly by Paul Dalgarno

Poly is a riot of a novel, an all out brawl.

Australian, Fiction, Melbourne, Novel, polyamory

Review: Cherry Beach by Laura McPhee-Browne

Cherry Beach is a painful portrait of millennial queer life, and agonising desire.

Canada, Contemporary, Fiction, lesbian, Melbourne, Millennial, queer

Review: The Adversary by Ronnie Scott

A story of gay frenemy-ship set in share-house inner Melbourne, uncovering uncomfortable truths about queer life and love.

Australian, Contemporary, Fiction, gay, Melbourne, Novel, queer

Instagram

A new Alexis Wright book is something to anticipate feverishly and with a little trepidation. Her latest, vast novel is her most intimidating yet, a 700-page “open-wound theatre” about the town of Praiseworthy on the Gulf country of northern Australia.
I read this amazing book a little while ago, and it’s had a powerful impact on the way I look and listen to the world around me. It’s a beautiful history of family and country that richly evokes Debra Dank’s Gudanji land in the dust and gravel country of the south-western Gulf Of Carpentaria.
This retelling of E. M. Forster’s Maurice is a fast-paced, horny exercise in wish fulfilment, told from the perspective of Maurice’s lover Alec.
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