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Summer Reading

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Chess-playing drama The Queen’s Gambit is high on the summer watching list for several federal politicians.

Always one move ahead: chess drama The Queen’s Gambit tops MPs’ summer binge list

Australia’s federal politicians have diverse reading plans for summer but many have chess-playing drama The Queen’s Gambit high on their to-watch lists.

  • Katina Curtis

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llustration by Simon Letch.

Good Weekend's Summer Reading: Short stories by big writers

Eight Australian novelists, funny, moving, all thought-provoking stories about an imaginary year.

Rationally, I knew it was stupid. But also, I was not willing to risk it.

Meg Mason: 'The only thing different that summer, me and him and us finding ways to be away from everyone'

When the guy from your after-school job agrees to spend New Year’s at your family beach house, sunburn, salty hair and pash rash are just the beginning. 

  • Meg Mason
"There is nothing that thrills me more than earning the honour of a reader’s time."

Craig Silvey: 'If writing leaves me hollowed out, it’s readers who fill me back up'

Attendees at literary festivals can be insightful, funny, respectful – then there are the rest.

  • Craig Silvey
"Clear mountain water soaked into the loam, and this time my cameras caught the spiders creating their cottony exhibitions on the ancient, thirsty canvas of the forest."

Robbie Arnott: ‘The bushland was draped in a shroud of extraordinary design’

A storm-induced mega spiderweb prompted a thriving business. Nature had different ideas.

  • Robbie Arnott
'When they departed and the dust trail from their motorcade settled, four days of song and dance were decreed.'

Nardi Simpson: ‘Country itself whispered our sovereignty into their bones’

After the Ullaroi mob sign a treaty to re-establish their sovereignty, four days of song and dance send them to the stars and back.

  • Nardi Simpson
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"David seemed down, and understandably ashamed."

Vivian Pham: ‘Humans are parasites powerful enough to destroy the world. Yet some want to protect it'

What would a bedbug perched on the shoulders of David Attenborough have seen during its long travels?

  • Vivian Pham
"Every month of 2020, it seemed, there were losses for country music. My musical heroes are getting old."

Sofie Laguna: ‘These were the songs of my youth, now overlaid with grief’

The deaths of multiple musical heroes in 2020 prompts a meditation on the final journey we all take.

  • Sofie Laguna
"But she didn’t teach him to make bread, and now she imagines his struggles with friendships and love and identity, and all the questions he might have asked if she were there."

Pip Williams: ‘I wonder if absence is necessary. I wish there was another way’

How does a self-confessed helicopter parent give her young adult son some space? By flying the nest herself.

  • Pip Williams
"It had been a while since we’d shared this kind of project, and it was fun to do this with you: touching, thinking, sorting."

Ronnie Scott: ‘This inappropriate and unavoidable feeling was not something we’d previously encountered’

At home, certain everyday objects begin to take on a life of their own. And he’s not the only one feeling it.

  • Ronnie Scott

Original URL: https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/topic/summer-reading-1ncl