cread | read & see

The Rosie Project's lead character, Don Tillman, would be satisfied that I read on the Kindle platform of his project to find a wife. While reading I was informed of what percentage of the book had been completed and also was given the estimated time in the current chapter so I could adjust my optimal reading speed. Despite these and other efficiencies I found my reading broke into my sleep allocation such that I finished the book at 4.13am. I determined not to adjust my daytime schedule but to increase by 29.7 per cent my intake of caffeine. But seriously... it is perhaps a tribute to the steadiness of voice and rhythm of author Graeme Simsion and the sympathetic, human and lifelike characters that he has written, that I now find myself thinking and talking like Don, who is apparently non-the-wiser of being well and truly on the autism spectrum. A professor of genetics, he undertakes to find a wife through the mechanism of a fool-proof 16 page questionnaire and a...

The devastation of a disaster like the shooting down of MH17 is indiscriminate and ruthless - with people of all walks of life cut off in an instance in the most horrific of circumstances. Australia's literary community is particular mindful of the loss of novelist Liam Davison, who with his his wife Frankie, a much-loved teacher, were passengers on the doomed flight. Mr Davison published eight books and was awarded the National Book Council's Banjo Award for Fiction in 1993 for Soundings , as well as being shortlisted for several literary prizes such as The Age Book of the Year Award and the Victorian Premier's Literary Award. Reviewer Perry Middlemiss said of Soundings: 'This is an impressive novel, short, and beautifully paced. Its concept of landscape lingers long in the mind, clinging on like the mud of the bay.' He is known for his 'sharp and perceptive insights into Australian history and landscape' and also taught writing for many y...

For an Australian author like Richard Flanagan, there is material enough for a great novel just telling of the lives and suffering of Australian prisoners of war during World War 2.  Even more so considering his father was just such a prisoner on the Burma railway, something Flanagan speaks of 'imbibing' while growing up. Instead he settles for a broader and more difficult panorama. Alongside the adept before and after descriptions of Australian soldiers - of love affairs and guilty confusion - we are also taken into the minds of Japanese officers and Korean soldiers and dystopian post-nuclear Japan. Somehow it all rings as true as his depictions of Melbourne society and Tasmanian poverty. The heat of Adelaide is pitched against the humidity of Siam and the unresolved heroics of an Australian surgeon against the inconclusive brutality of Japanese prison commander. It is not a triumphant book or a cheery one, and it offers little hope except that sometimes people surviv...

Reading is as easy as pointing your finger at the text with the prototype FingerReader being developed by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Unlike other readers available for visually impaired people, which first need to process and translate text, the MIT finger reader reads in real time, and uses remarkable technology to assist the reader follow line after line. MIT's Professor Pattie Maes, who founded and leads the Fluid Interfaces research group developing the prototype, says the FingerReader is like "reading with the tip of your finger and it's a lot more flexible, a lot more immediate than any solution that they have right now." Books, magazines, newspapers, computer screens and other devices can all be read comfottably with the FingerReader but a solution for touch screens is still being developed because of the disruption to text that occurs when the finger touches the screen. Vibrations help guide the reader's fin...

The obvious attraction of I Am Malala is the inside story of this young women's violent struggle with the Taliban but there are even greater, quieter wonders on offer for the patient reader. Malala Yousafzai tells her story with a refreshing lack of self-consciousness so that we are given not only a deeply personal insight into her own soul, but into the intricacies of her family and her troubled Swat homelands in Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The entire world focused on one day of her life, Tuesday, October 9, 2012 when the high school student and campaigner for girls education, was shot by a member of the Taliban who also wounded two of her fellow students. The entire world has again focused on Malala with the announcement she is to jointly receive the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize.* Although the book takes its time to provide satisfying detail as to the events of the day she was shot, there is no sense of frustrating delay as the reader is first intr...

Australian publisher Hardie Grant has moved forward the release of The Undesirables which is a whistle-blower's account from inside the asylum-seeker camp on Nauru. Available from March 17, 2014 the rushed release is in response to the recent violence and death of one asylum-seeker at Manus Island. Author Mark Isaacs was just 24 when, as the Sydney Morning Herald reports, he was hired as a support worker for Naura detention centre on the strength of a single phone interview. He joined other untrained Salvation Army contractors who were quickly assembled to serve at the camp, re-opened in a desperate attempt by then Prime Minister Julia Gillard to solve her asylum seeker political problem. According to Hardie Grant's publicity of the book: 'His [Mark Isaacs'] unique voice and unbiased view allow readers to draw their own conclusions and holds up a mirror to the Australian government, and it's [sic] policies. This book is not a justification of the men's ...

Probably the most interesting thing about The Tournament is how I received my copy. Which is not to say Reilly's departure into historical fiction is bland or boring, but that fact is often stranger then fiction, even when the fiction is by one of Australia's leading action authors. Returning from my favourite Sydney CBD coffee shop, Vella Nero on Clarence St, I saw relaxing in the sunshine on Druitt St, a young man, with all the indications of being homeless, and with this copy of The Tournament sitting next to him. He was hoping people would drop a few coins in a hat, as I recall, and as I did I asked what he thought of the book. 'It's a great read,' he said. I got it last night and have been reading it ever since. Just finished it.' 'That's good to know,' I replied and before I could move one, the young man continued our conversation. 'Would you like to read it? Here, take it.' I hesitated for a moment and will admit to wond...