A countdown of the fifty best debut singles
17 September 2021
Scoring a hit with your first musical release… that has to be an achievement and a half. What a great way to start a career. Tomorrow from midday, Saturday, 18 September, Double J will countdown what they rate as the Fifty Best Debut Singles.
That’ll be a show and a half. I couldn’t possibly guess at a number one, so instead here’s the video clip for Crave you, the 2009 debut single by Sydney electronic act Flight Facilities, which I’m hoping will be included somewhere in the fifty.
Update: here’s a list of the top fifty singles that made the cut. If you have a lazy five hours, stream the countdown here.
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The Fortune Men, by Nadifa Mohamed
17 September 2021
The Fortune Men (published by Viking/Penguin Random House, May 2021) is the third novel by London based author Nadifa Mohamed. The year is 1952, and Mahmood Mattan is a Somali sailor living in Tiger Bay, the docklands area of Cardiff, Wales. Married to Laura, with three children, he is something of a larrikin character and a small time criminal.
When a local shop owner is murdered one evening, and Mattan is named as a suspect, he isn’t too worried at first. He had no part in the atrocity, and is certain he would be cleared by the justice system should charges ever be laid. But when a customer present at the store at the time of the murder changes their statement, Mattan is convicted of the crime.
While later found to be a gross miscarriage of justice, from which he was posthumously exonerated, The Fortune Men is a fictionalised account of Matten’s trial and conviction. In being included in the short list of this year’s Booker Prize, Nadifa Mohamed becomes the first British Somali novelist to achieve the distinction.
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Booker Prize, fiction, Nadifa Mohamed, TBR list, writing
Booker Prize 2021 short list announced
16 September 2021
The work of Nadifa Mohamed, Anuk Arudpragasam, Damon Galgut, Patricia Lockwood, Richard Powers, and Maggie Shipstead, have been shortlisted for this year’s Booker Prize. The winner will be announced on Wednesday, 3 November 2021.
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ARIAs to end gendered award categories
16 September 2021
The Australian Recording Industry Association, aka ARIA, will no longer distinguish Australian musicians by gender, instead making award categories for the annual ARIA awards gender non-specific:
The time for separating artists based on gendered categories that exclude non-binary artists altogether has passed. The music industry is demanding a more equal, inclusive, safe and supportive space for everyone and ARIA is working hard to achieve that across the ARIA Awards and everything we do.
Good job. Why on earth should the work of anyone be differentiated on the basis of gender? The ARIAs will be streamed on YouTube on Wednesday 24 November 2021.
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The Banksia House Breakout, by James Roxburgh
16 September 2021
It’s a breakout, but not the sort of breakout you’re thinking of. Eighty-something widow Ruth Morris has been moved into Banksia House, a retirement home in Sydney, by her son, Michael. While the name of Ruth’s new abode may sound homely, Ruth instead feels homesick and isolated, as she pines for her past life of independence.
But when Ruth receives word her best friend Gladys is unwell, she hatches an escape plan in The Banksia House Breakout (published by Simon & Schuster, September 2021); the debut novel of Sydney based Australian writer and audiologist James Roxburgh. And with some help from her new found friends at Banksia House, Ruth makes a dash for Queensland.
But the journey is filled with trials and tribulations as Ruth, Beryl, and Keith, head north, hoping they’ll reach Gladys in time. While dealing with all sorts of problems on the road, the trio has to constantly outwit the home, and their families, lest they be stopped. Blending humour with the stark reality of aged care living, here’s another title for your reading list.
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books, fiction, James Roxburgh, literature, novels, TBR list
Drone Photo Awards for 2021
15 September 2021
Who’d have thought drone photography would ever be elevated to an art form? The winning entries in the Drone Photo Awards for 2021 have been named. Stunning work.
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The Phone Box at the Edge of the World, by Laura Imai Messina
15 September 2021
Imagine there were a way to contact your deceased loved ones. To feel you’d conversed with them, and perhaps found some comfort in the wake of their passing. But what might you say if it were possible? If it were as simple as picking up a phone and talking? If you can make your way to the Japanese city of Otsuchi, you might be able to do that.
In a garden there, is an old, disconnected, telephone box, called the phone of the wind. Those grieving the loss of loved one go there to seek solace, and Japan based Italian author Laura Imai Messina’s new novel, The Phone Box at the Edge of the World (published by Allen & Unwin, July 2020) is based on Otsuchi’s phone of the wind.
Yui lost her mother and daughter in the tsunami of 2011. Despite her grief she does what she can to carry on. After hearing about the phone in Otsuchi, she travels there. But she cannot pick up the phone and speak. But there Yui meets Takeshi, whose young daughter stopped talking when his wife died, and the two begin to form a bond.
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books, fiction, Laura Imai Messina, literature, novels, TBR list
#VaxTheNation so we get back to seeing live music
14 September 2021
Triple J, purveyor of finest new and independent Australian music, is getting behind the #VaxTheNation campaign, so we can all get back to live music events. No one likes the current lockdowns, and the other restrictions to our usual movements, but COVID is far worse.
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Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead, by Emily Austin
14 September 2021
Gilda, a woman in her late twenties, is a person with a few problems. She has a dread of death. She’s depressed. So much so she can’t deal with washing the dishes, showering, or even turning up for work. Unsurprisingly then she finds herself seeking another job, and is inadvertently hired as a receptionist at a Catholic church.
But Gilda is not Catholic, nor is she even religious. She is also gay. In addition though to lying about who she is, and pretending to be familiar with the workings of the Church, she also becomes obsessed with her late predecessor, Grace. Certain her passing was no accident, Gilda commences her own investigation into Grace’s death.
Could then Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead, (published by Allen & Unwin, August 2021) possibly have a more apt title? Early reviews for the debut novel of Canadian author Emily Austin look promising. Buzzfeed described it as “the perfect blend of macabre and funny“, while The Skinny found it “funny, dark and harrowing.”
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books, Emily Austin, fiction, literature, novels, TBR list
Redhead by the Side of the Road, by Anne Tyler
13 September 2021
Now I’m judging books by their titles, but as a redhead, how could I go passed the latest novel by American author Anne Tyler: Redhead by the Side of the Road (published by Penguin Books Australia, 2021). The protagonist, forty-something Micah, is a creature of habit; you could set your watch by his routines.
By day he works as a freelance computer technician, and come evening looks after the apartment block he lives in. He has a woman friend, and turns in each night at ten o’clock. But when his better half tells him she’s about to be evicted from her place, and a teenage boy arrives at the door, saying he’s his son, Micah’s ordered life is plunged into turmoil.
From the little I’ve read about the book so far, it seems there’s no actual redhead character in the story, but best I say no more on the count. Coming in at about one hundred and seventy eight pages, Redhead by the Side of the Road is a shorter read though, which sometimes is exactly what you want.
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