In preparation for my bus ride to Virajpet I dug out my sports bra. Not only was the juddering the same as I remember, but the constant hairpin turns at speed are giving my buns an amazing workout in my efforts to remain seated. The activity could be brilliantly adapted for one of those Wii games for people who like to exercise in private.
The scenery is as I remember except the season is a month earlier. The road alternately winds us through stubbled fields where the...
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In response to the queries coming from my curious readers, I should talk about a subject dear to my heart. I don't usually go too far out of my way for food experiences when travelling, although sometimes there are special occasions when a particular dish might be famous in a region. Just eating what everyone else eats is enough for me.
One thing I have noticed in Madikeri, which has been a downer for my writing, is that no one seems to want you lingering in their...
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Today was my third visit to Virajpet in the hope that I might be able to track down Jeevan and his family, who were so welcoming to me last time (see For the Love of Three Oranges). After walking about 13 km on the first visit since my return, and about 8 km on the second, I was getting ready to give up, until I had another read of my 2008 blogs and remembered that I took a different road the day I met Jeevan. He is not near Devangeri at all, but on the other side of the...
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If you like atmospheric murder mysteries mixed in with a little romance, history and village life, this is the book for you. The historical events are dated to prime ‘Agatha Christie time’, the mid thirties, but the location is updated for Australian sensibilities with the action taking place in a remote fishing community in Tasmania.
Pennicott is an experienced crime writer and it shows with the interwoven structure of the plot and the careful staging of information...
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Beware would-be novelists. This debut writer sets very high standards for a first book. Assured is the word; fluid is the pace, and light is the touch. Which is just as well, as the subject matter is tough and often dark.
The story is told, as many seem to be these days, in an alternating timeframe between the dark past and the present time that is trying to deal with and/or explain these past events. There is a sense of building tension as the past chapters progress...
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Structurally speaking, The Perfume Lover is an interesting non-fiction concept. Denyse Beaulieu, a well-known fragrance blogger and journalist living in Paris, is the eponymous lover. She is a lover, nay a connoisseur, of perfume, but throughout the book we are treated to juicy snippets about her more private sensual loves, which she writes about with typical Parisian insouciance.
The spine of the story is Beaulieu’s pursuit of a scent that will represent a night of...
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This collection of stories is about as mixed as you can get when they are all by the same author. They vary in length from four lines to seventeen pages and the variation in subject matter is even greater. Some of the stories come across as highly experimental, for example Nothing To Do With Anything uses no punctuation or paragraphing, Unsubstance resembles a stream of conscious, while Fragments of a Signal could be classed as speculative fiction. And then there are...