A Good Man is Hard to Find
Flannery O’Connor

Currently I’m chugging through Flannery O’Connor’s book of short stories A Good Man is Hard to Find. Set in the pre-meth Deep South, the tales are all equally disquieting, mysterious and darkly funny. I admire that her characters always have their own rules of internal logic, sometimes very strange yet she sharply conveys everything with style and originality. I’d probably recommend this (or her novel Wise Blood), to fans of Gummo, True Detective, and probably the Coen Brothers.

Words by Ben Yaxley

 

Human Bondage
Somerset Maugham

I love the autobiographical nature of this novel and the way it barely focuses on any of the sub-plots, and instead flows continuously in a life-like manner.

Words by Callista Goh

 

Les Miserables
Victor Hugo

I’m not very far into it, about 150 pages of a 1200-page book. While reading, I’ve been thinking about how the people we meet have a profound impact on us. It’s really moving how much compassion can change a person’s life.

Words by Mike Anderson

 

Facial Moisturiser: Reviews and Usage Instructions
Multiple Authors

I have recently been reading information about skincare. I wash my face with a bar of soap and that particular bar does not seem conducive to any form of moisture. I probably shouldn’t be using it, but I like how dry my face feels, even when water is rushing over it. Using a bar of soap makes me feel robust. Sometimes I think about washing my hair with it but I know that is not a good idea. I am getting a deep wrinkle on my forehead and I want to combat any other landscape changes or unnecessary undulations which may be forming. I spend long periods of time reading online reviews, but they are hard to trust if I cannot see the skin in person. Everyone’s skin is different anyway. I went into Aesop but the woman serving me didn’t sell me anything, she said I seemed unsure. She gave me samples in a thick paper bag I kept for quality alone. The last thing I read for enjoyment was the instructions on the small sachets of moisturiser, telling me to rub in upwards motions.

Words by Bryce Newton

 

The Georgics of Virgil
Virgil

What is up with these old dead guys and their thees and thous am I right? If I wanted to read about bloody sea-queens and freaking tartarus I would have gone and watched Clash of the Titans or Hercules (the Disney cartoon) or Hercules (the one with Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. And why is it this stuff is always written in Latin, its like ‘yeah we get it, you went to UWA and spent three years studying a dead language, but 119 pages of verse and iambic pentameter is a little beyond masturbatory.

Words by Jesse Wood

 

A Time for Everything
Karl O. Knausgaard

Its terrain is enormous, covering the most indelible encounters between the human and the divine, from Cain and Abel to Noah and Ezekiel. This book is obsessed with angels. The prose is divine, like an incandescent stream of feeling, place and imagery I long to melt away with.

Words by Ryan Suckling

This article first appeared in print volume 88 edition 1 HEAT