News & Reviews by Bri Lee

This week’s livestream is ‘Enoughness’ Book Club with Jodi Wilson. Jodi’s new book (and the name of her retreat) is about the concept of ‘Enoughness’. The Cost of Living by Deborah Levy is a beautiful book that opens up a conversation about what ‘enough’ might look and feel like for an artist or a woman.

Books mentioned in this episode:

The Cost of Living - Debrah Levy

A Brain That Breathes - Jodi Wilson

Practising Simplicity - Jodi Wilson

Dopamine Nation - Anna Lembke

Radical Surrender - Anna Lembke

On Our Best Behavior - Elise Loehnen

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Bri is once again joined by the incredible Antonia Pont for this season’s Touch Some Grass, where they unpack tradwives, unlikeable characters and why Antonia doesn’t enjoy engaging with our “social media sloppy plebeian depths.”

Books discussed in this episode:

Yesteryear - Caro Claire Burke

The Transparency Society -Byung-Chul Han

The Burnout Society - Byung-Chul Han

The Agony of Eros - Byung-Chul Han

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Jaclyn Crupi is back with a stack of recommendations, including two books over 600 pages, two books about classical music and musicians, and two books about the imagined lives of famous writers.

If you want to hear Jaclyn and Bri talk IRL, there are still 30+ tickets left for Sydney GarnerRama on November 24 but only 20 tickets left for Brisbane GarnerRama on November 25. If you’re worried about not being prepped enough, please don’t let that stop you from coming! Jaclyn and Bri agree, if you haven’t read any Garner at all, these are the single books you should pick per city event:

* In Sydney we’re talking about the diaries, and you should definitely start with Yellow Notebook.

* In Brisbane we’re talking about the families, and you should definitely start with Monkey Grip.

* In Melbourne we’re talking about the courtroom dramas, and you should definitely start with The First Stone. (Controversial, we know!)

Books mentioned in this episode:

Under Story - Chloe Benjamin

Partita - Barbara Kingsolver

Music Against the Night - Yiyun Li

In One Brief Moment All Eternity - Elif Shafak

The Song of Stork and Dromedary - Anjet Daanje

American Hagwon - Min Jin Lee

People Skills - Nina Kenwood

The Starving Bride - Catherine Chidgey

Dodge City - Patrick deWitt

Stations - Louise Kennedy

Life Out of Order - Audrey Niffenegger

No One’s Looking - Brooke Davis

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We kick off Summer Season with a brief reintroduction to what the News & Reviews community is all about, and what this “newsletter” is going to deliver next year.

Books mentioned in this episode:

Brave New Humans by Sarah Dingle

American Hagwon by Min Jin Lee

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

The Fraud by Zadie Smith

Ordinary, Funny, Tragic by Bridie Jabour

The Correspondent by Virginia Evan

The Heather Blazing by Colm Tóibín

Take the Fire by Leila Slimani

The Country of Others by Leila Slimani

Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams

Plain Life by Antonia Pont

Sophie Standing There by Meg Mason

Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead

There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

All Heart by Mick Fanning

Taiwan Travelogue by Yang Shuang-zi

Walking on Broken Glass by Shannon Nutter and Julia C. Carreon

Who Gets to Be Smart by Bri Lee

Switzy by Emma Cline

Monkey Grip by Helen Garner

I Am Nannertgarrook by Tasma Walton

Fruit Fly by Josh Silver

The Palm House by Gwendoline Riley

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Otherwise leave a comment below.

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This is the first live recording of Bri and Jaclyn Crupi’s GarnerRama series. Bri and Jaclyn discuss Garner’s classic novella The Children’s Bach, recorded at the Melbourne Writers Festival.

They talk through when they first encountered the novel, how it affected them then as well as how a re-read has changed their perspectives. They also discuss what Garner was going through in her life during the time she wrote it as well as the impact it had on the Australian literary landscape.

There will be three more live shows in this series with the next Melbourne show already being sold out.

Be sure to get your tickets to the remaining GarnerRamas:

Sydney will be focusing on The Diaries (Yellow Notebook, One Day I’ll Remember This, How to End a Story) on the 24th of November at The Vanguard.

Brisbane will be focusing on The Families - Monkey Grip, The Children’s Bach, The Season) on Wednesday 25th November at Avid Reader.

Tickets are $40 at every venue. Thank you for supporting this totally independent News & Reviews production.

Make sure you’re subscribed to News & Reviews to stay up to date with all the latest events.

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This is a free 15 minute version of our August New Release Roundup with the incomparable Jaclyn Crupi! This is a part of our seasonal online readers and writers festivals.

To be able to listen to the full version of this episode and all the back catalogue of our seasonal online readers and writers festivals, become a paying subscriber to News & Reviews on Substack.

Books mentioned in this episode:

Tight Lines - Allee Richards

Trust - Hernan Diaz

Beginning Middle End - Valeria Luiselli

A Real Animal - Emeline Atwood

Nightbitch - Rachel Yonder

Heresies - Richard Flanagan

Sophie Standing There - Meg Mason

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain - George Saunders

I Love the Whole World! - Victoria Hannan

Kokomo - Victoria Hannan

Helpless - Jessica Knoll

Good Witch - Lucianne Tonti

Kitten - Stacey Yu

Mother Waters - Lisa Nan Joo

The Wanted and the Unwanted - A.M Stafford

It Will Come Back to You - Sigrid Nunez

Nerve Damage - Annakeara Stinson

A Study in Sparkling - Jodi McAlister

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Bri is joined by Stan Grant to discuss his book When Words Fail Us. They discuss the notion of time, the nature of history and words as well as religion, mysticism and trying to find meaning in the face of modernity.

Let us know what you thought of this episode below.

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Books mentioned in this episode:

Gravity and Grace - Simone Weil

The Power of Words - Simone Weil

Yorro Yorro - David Mowaljarlai

Mrs Dalloway - Virginia Woolf

Digging - Seamus Heaney

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit newsandreviews.substack.com/subscribe