Blog | Page 4 of 12 | Pen Hanley

What’s essential? Pandemic reading

Jul 20, 2020

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by

Pen

in Blasket islands, Cli-fi novels, psychopaths

Three outstanding books In the early days of the pandemic a contents box on the front page of a newspaper stated: ‘WHAT’S ESSENTIAL In France, wine In the US, guns.’ For me, it’s books. (Hmmmm, maybe the wine comes a close second.) Some people want to read books like Camus’ The Plague during this pandemic. If you’re the erudite Simon Schama you’ll of course be reading Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War with its evocative descriptions of plague and the detrimental effect on friendship. Not me. I don’t want to re-visit those two fine works when it’s nearly impossible to…
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Gently altering the world – the arts

Mar 30, 2020

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by

Pen

in art, arts and health, Common Good, creativity, humour, humour as medicine, rural Ireland, Stand-up comedy – Australian, stress management, value of the arts, writers’ health

Returning from a writing residency in Cill Rialaig, in Ireland’s County Kerry – https://cillrialaigartscentre.com/residencies/ – it was weird to be back yet not be able to hop on my bike and see friends, go to tango lessons, films, cafés and libraries or walk around the lake. I watched that ingenious ABC program You Can’t Ask That and this time it was on nudists. I thought they would just answer the questions in their clothes. But no – there they were, all shapes and sizes, in the nude. It reminded me of an unusual art exhibition I heard about in Cork.…
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The Salt Path by Raynor Winn

Feb 23, 2020

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by

Pen

in mental illness, miscarriage of justice, optimism, Simplifying, wild camping

Nothing left to lose I’m travelling through Ireland, en route to a writing residency in County Kerry and the bookshops here are brilliant. A favourite one is Charlie Byrnes Bookshop in Galway. My favourite book from there is The Salt Path by Raynor Winn (Penguin, 2018). Sitting before roaring log fires in Shankill Castle’s drawing room (my landlord Geoffrey calls it the withdrawing room), I couldn’t put this book down. But I didn’t want it to end. The Salt Path was a Sunday Times Bestseller and it’s easy to see why. The author and her husband, called Moth, decide to…
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Drinking the days: biographies and oysters

Jan 28, 2020

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by

Pen

in Australian memoir, Christina Stead, Democracy, Dennis Glover, Kay Schubach, Living creatively, mental illness, optimism, value of the arts

‘Set wide the window. Let me drink the day.’ American writer Edith Wharton (1862-1937) wrote that. I love it and would often think of it after opening the curtains first thing. But her words took on a tragic tone in the mornings after the bushfires began. We could no longer open windows. Canberra’s air quality suddenly became literally the worst city in the world. Actually it wasn’t as sudden as it seemed. Canberra’s air quality has been gradually worsening in the past few years, along with the rest of the country’s, thanks to our Government doing less than nothing about…
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Hectic Reading. Starting all over again (3)

Jan 16, 2020

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by

Pen

in Uncategorized

via Hectic Reading. Starting all over again (3)
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Reinventing our lives: surviving with the help of literature

Dec 28, 2019

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by

Pen

in Andrea Goldsmith, Australia behind, Bookshops, capitalism, Charlotte Wood, creativity, depression, Inequality – Australia, mental illness, optimism, value of the arts, writers’ health

When I was in Dublin in September I bought some wonderful books. A favourite is the intriguing, personal and beautifully written Hidden City: Adventures and explorations in Dublin by Karl Whitney (Penguin, 2014). (I’ve lent it and others to friends and can’t take a photo of its cover or some other favourites at the moment!) Stitched Up: The anti-capitalist book of fashion (Pluto Press, London, 2014) is a compelling account of how the fashion industry exploits and damages both the environment and individuals. Tansy E. Hoskins’ exposé was an eye-watering shock to me on both counts. I had no idea…
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John Clanchy’s brilliant new novel ‘In Whom We Trust’

Dec 12, 2019

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by

Pen

in Australian novels, Finlay Lloyd, Historical novels, John Clanchy

The best historical novels vividly evoke the past while illuminating the present. Award-winning writer John Clanchy’s new novel In Whom We Trust exemplifies this. Set in a country town in Victoria just before and during World War I, the plot is narrated through the viewpoints of Father James Pearse and two orphans who came to Australia from England, Thomas Stuart, formerly a London chimneysweep, and Molly Preston, at thirteen or fourteen, a few years older than Thomas. Father Pearse’s housekeeper Mrs Reilly (who even irons his newspaper for him) tells him one evening that a mysterious visitor came while he…
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Jules Clancy’s new e-book, Love Your Waistline and Your Food

Oct 19, 2019

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by

Pen

in Cook books, health, nutrition, recipes, writers’ health

Jules Clancy (pictured) was living in Cooma when I first discovered her blog, https://thestonesoup.com and I was working at the National Rural Health Alliance. Jules was a good example of an enterprising rural woman and I shared much of her nutritional and culinary advice as well as her blogs and books with my readers. She is a good writer and has a knack for making healthy cooking fun. At her blog and website you’ll find a goldmine of easily digested information and this book is the latest of a long series of excellent e-books. Love Your Waist Line and Your…
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Savouring time – First Class train travel and first class reading

Sep 15, 2019

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by

Pen

in Burgundy – description, Gail Honeyman, loneliness in literature, Sally Rooney

In the days when we had time for afternoon tea … I used to go into the Co-op Bookshop at ANU in the 1990s, in those days when workers had time for afternoon tea and when the university bookshop used to sell a wide range of high quality books, not today’s electronic gadgets and toys and, apparently as an afterthought, some course handbooks. I used to go there with a friend at afternoon-tea sometimes and he’d say, ‘Prize and size, Penny. Find me a book that’s won something, and find me something brief. Life is short. I don’t have time…
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Only Marcus knows: Sex in fiction

Jul 26, 2019

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by

Pen

in Bad Sex in Fiction

‘The sex in your novel I can understand,’ said a friend as we stood in adjoining lanes in the shallow end of Civic Pool. ‘The sex in A.S. Byatt’s novel you’d need a PhD in English Literature to understand.’ ‘I’ve got one of those,’ I said, pulling my goggles into place. ‘Can I borrow it?’ ‘I’ll bring it tomorrow,’ he said, before swimming away. And that is how I came to have A.S. Byatt’s Babel Tower, all 618 pages of it, about to topple off the tower of books on my bedside table. But I too gave up on it,…
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