If you can manage to simultaneously practice laziness and purity you will eat pretty well, because the food will be simple and good.' In prose as sensuous and seductive as a fine wine and a tasty dish, Marion Halligan takes us with her on a wandering journey into her novels, between past and present, across continents and on long sea voyages, with even a sojourn or two in France. The Taste of Memory has us sitting in gardens - or labouring in them - as well as at tables. And it celebrates the great oral tradition of cooks throughout time who pass on recipes out of the love of friends and food. The Taste of Memory invites us to look at the world and find it good.
All is not as it seems in the calm, well-ordered streets of the nation's capital. After the turbulence of their courtship, Cassandra and the colonel have settled into wedded bliss - only to have it shattered by a death far too close to home. A friend's daughter is found dead from a drug overdose - a tragic suicide. But when her unfinished manuscript turns up containing an explosive expose of the local child prostitution scene, suicide turns to murder. With characteristic panache, much reading between the lines, and a magnificent wardrobe of women's clothes (his), Cassandra and her colonel set out to find the truth in this eagerly awaited sequel to The Apricot Colonel.
A successful lawyer, bon vivant, loving husband and father, has a heart attack and dies while swimming in the local pool. A man apparently happily married, yet, with two divorces behind him and three puzzled children. In death it seems that he is not the person everyone thought. As his extended family gathers to mourn, secrets and lies unfold uncomfortably around them. Those pornographic images on his laptop? An unexpected lover - is he still philandering? But somewhere in the turmoil of mourning each of them has to find an answer to the question - who was this man really? What mysteries has he taken to the grave with him? Goodbye Sweetheart is a powerful novel of love, the desire for understanding, and the inevitable messiness of life.
A beautiful man, and all she can do is tinker with his prose For Cassandra, an editor, books are easy. It's real life that's the challenge: it doesn't sit quietly and let itself be fixed. Right now Cassandra's life seems far too heavy on the suspense, while the romance is distinctly unconvincing. But that was before the murders started. And before she suspected that her own name was on the killer's hit list Murder, match-making and the dark arts of book editing: The Apricot Colonel is Halligan at her light-hearted best.
One morning, Lucy Halligan lay on her bed with her cat and went to sleep. Soon after, her heart stopped. But her mother, writer Marion Halligan, forced hers to keep beating. More joy than sorrow, this profoundly moving memoir celebrates Lucy's life, weaving together everyday details and treasured events. Words for Lucy sees Marion at the peak of her writing powers, telling the story of a mother surviving the aftershocks of death and finding the space to live. 'A sublime book about the small joys that make up a treasured life, from a writer of unfathomable grace and stoicism.' - Alice Pung 'This is a gentle, intense reconstruction of a rich and potent past, a bright gift of grace in sorrow.' - Carmel Bird
Why did Bluebeard kill his wives? Because that's what he did. It's a given. It's the plot. Until the lucky one, who is saved. The even more interesting question is: why did Mrs Bluebeard feel utterly unable to resist opening the door? Don't we all think, when it comes to these stories, that we'd have made it work? So much freedom, and one tiny forbidden thing. Not important, a token in fact. So easy to obey so small a prohibition. We think, if I had been Eve I wouldn't have picked the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, I wouldn't have given a piece to Adam. I and my progeny down the millennia would still be multiplying fruitfully in the Garden of Eden.' Life in all its richness is reflected in this superb new collection from one of Australia's most acclaimed short story writers. Love and loss, sex and death, and the great pleasures of food, wine and reading all populate its pages. Shooting the Fox is brimming with surprising characters - the virgin and the pornographer, the adulterer, the translator, the defecting diplomat - and the inconveniences of modernity. In the end, though, it is a collection of stories about happiness, its circuitous routes, its surprising outcomes, and the consequences when we fail in its pursuit.
In prose as sensuous and seductive as a beautiful flower and a tasty dish, Marion Halligan embarks on a wandering journey into her novels, between past and present, across continents and laboring in gardens and kitchens. This inviting memoir celebrates the great oral tradition of cooks who pass on recipes out of the love of friends, food, and gardens.
A lyrical work full of hope and children set in lustrous modern-day Paris. Fanny and Gerard fall in love in a way that surprises even them as their lives fill with good sex and loving companionship; but they long for a child to complete their happiness. Two of Fanny's lesbian friends feel similarly driven by the need to have a child. Jean-Marie is an internationally regarded professor of philosophy whose adoring students are willing sexual partners, but perhaps philosophy can't bear the weight of human emotion. When Gerard buys a beautiful old house in the suburbs, the disturbing contents of the attic binds the stories into an intriguing and darkly disturbing knot. Capturing the contemporary Parisian lives of an interwoven group of friends, this intoxicating work is written by a literary novelist at the height of her powers.
This new book by Marion Halligan combines autobiographical sketches with recipes and advice for gourmands. One of her earlier collections of short stories, TThe Living Hothouse', won the 1989 Steele Rudd Award in the NSW State Literary Awards.
A story about the busy, fulfilling lives of the midwife's daughters as they assist their mother in taking care of all the new births in the town - Set in the early years of Australian history_
A collection of stories funded by the Australian Bicentennial Authority to celebrate Australia's Bicentenary in 1988 and originally published in that year as 'Canberra Tales'. The authors are part of a group of writers known as the 'Seven Writers' who first met in Canberra in 1980 to support and critically encourage each other. The stories cover a wide range of experiences including a man's strange pact with his dying daughter and sadism which erupts out of the commonplaces of a broken marriage. Between the authors they have published seven books.
A Sporting Nation will appeal equally to the serious sports enthusiast and mainstream reader. Its main text comprises excerpts from the Library's oral history recordings, with additional features by Olympian Marlene Mathews, and Eric Rolls and Marion Halligan.Twenty-six richly illustrated features present a broad and popular sweep through the nation's sporting culture, opening with a recollection of the 1956 Melbourne Olympics and a survey of the Sydney 2000 Games by Marlene Mathews.
Fairy tales speak to the heart. They are the foundation stories that embody darkness and light, good and evil, and use magic to convey essential truths. In Once Upon a Time in Oz, Griffith REVIEW holds up an enchanted mirror to explore the role of fairy and folk tales across cultures in this country, and create new ones. How have the European tales transported in the nineteenth century affected Australian literature? What role do the legends of the Aboriginal Dreamtime, and the stories of Asia, South America, the Pacific and Africa, play in the Australian imagination? Is it wise to censor traditional stories for the good of children? How do the stories change, and why? Are fairy tales really only for children? Once Upon a Time in Oz presents new stories by renowned writers, and examines through essay and memoir some of the mysteries of storytelling. This edition features Carmel Bird as contributing editor.
A collection of 22 stories by a multi-prizewinning Australian writer. The tales are grouped under the headings TStories of Unease', TYouth and Death and Age', and TTales of Violence and Deceit'. All the stories have either appeared previously in magazines or have been read on ABC radio. Previous books by the author include TThe Living Hothouse' and TLovers' Knots'.
One morning, Lucy Halligan lay on her bed with her cat and went to sleep. Soon after, her heart stopped. But her mother, writer Marion Halligan, forced hers to keep beating. More joy than sorrow, this profoundly moving memoir celebrates Lucy's life, weaving together everyday details and treasured events. Words for Lucy sees Marion at the peak of her writing powers, telling the story of a mother surviving the aftershocks of death and finding the space to live. 'A sublime book about the small joys that make up a treasured life, from a writer of unfathomable grace and stoicism.' - Alice Pung 'This is a gentle, intense reconstruction of a rich and potent past, a bright gift of grace in sorrow.' - Carmel Bird
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.