Shambolic Living

Reading This Week – Worse Things Happen At Sea – William McInnes, Sarah Watt

Janine — Sun, 09 Apr 2017 21:33:52 +0000

Anyone who has survived a long-term relationship (and I’m talking decades, not just a year a two) knows it is an adventure in joy, despair and resilience combined with equal parts humour and anger. This memoir of family life by Aussie Actor/Writer, William McInnes, and his Film Director/Animator wife, Sarah Watt, captures the nuances of daily...

What’s Your Favourite Cookbook?

Janine — Sun, 05 Aug 2012 07:56:21 +0000

There is a certain irony to writing a blog post about cookbooks on a night one child in your family is having a hotdog, the husband is having leftover pumpkin soup and yourself and the other child are heating up some frozen spinach and ricotta pasties – Sunday night is gourmet at Shambles Manor. However,...

Reading This Week – Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? – Jeanette Winterson

Janine — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 02:07:54 +0000

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is the tenth novel of British Author, Jeanette Winterson. In it she returns to the childhood depicted in her first award-winning book, Oranges Aren’t The Only Fruit. Although this time around Winterson ditches the “semi autobiographical” label of Oranges and embraces the memoir. Winterson regards the first book as...

Reading This Week – Things They Didn’t Tell You About Parenting

Janine — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 06:59:27 +0000

A first for the blog this week – a review of an e-book. I’m still trying to come to terms with the concept of reading “books” online. I’m a traditional girl who loves the paper, the print, the page turning but I’m trying to “get with the times” and come around to the convenience...

Reading This Week – Love & Hunger – Thoughts on the Gift Of Food – Charlotte Wood

Janine — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 10:03:21 +0000

Every month I take part in the Book Club on ABC Mid North Coast, which means I have books selected for me to read. It’s like a literary lottery, you never know what you are going to get. You often find yourself reading books you wouldn’t normally choose for yourself. This month we discussed Love...

Reading This Week – Silent Fear by Katherine Howell

Janine — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 02:45:08 +0000

I love a good crime novel, mystery or thriller. The obsession began with Enid Blyton’s Secret Seven, moved through Agatha Christie and into Patricia Cornwell, PD James, Ruth Rendell. If I’m left to my own devices to choose a book to curl up with on a rainy day I wade straight into the murky world...

Reading This Week – Watercolours – Adrienne Ferreira

Janine — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 03:40:22 +0000

A gifted child, a quirky family, an inexperienced teacher, a mysterious death all jumbled together in a small, country town that’s the essence of Watercolours. This is the debut novel for Adrienne Ferreira and in it she creates an engaging story with a group of likeable characters. Watercolours is a gentle book which meanders through the...

Reading This Week – There Should Be More Dancing – Rosalie Ham

Janine — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 22:55:42 +0000

Margery Blandon, an uptight 79-year-old, is on the 43rd floor of the Tropic Hotel debating whether to jump over the edge. How she came to get there is the basis of There Should Be More Dancing by Rosalie Ham. Ham, the author of The Dressmaker, portrays a darkly humorous look at the process of aging,...

Letter to my 16 year old self

Janine — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 19:30:58 +0000

Have you seen the book “Dear Me, A Letter to My Sixteen-Year-Old Self“? An array of celebrities write a letter to their teenage self. If you could jump in the DeLorean and head back to the future to meet up with the kid you once were what advice would you offer? Here’s my attempt. Dear...

Reading This Week – Bereft – Chris Womersley

Janine — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 05:43:10 +0000

The new novel by Chris Womersley is a dark tale with Gothic sensibilities. Womersley portrays a world of sadness and pain, set in 1919 in the aftermath of the First World War and in the midst of the Spanish Flu epidemic. Ten years earlier Quinn Walker had fled his hometown of Flint when he was...