A new code of conduct for for Australian psychologists provides updated guidance that it's almost never OK to date someone who is or has been a client, even if that was years ago.

@alanbaxter.bsky.social hey Alan thanks for posting The Gulp (signed) to me from your website shop! I have just finished, and loved it. Super unsettling and loads of fun. Will be avoiding Woollies parking bays for a while….!

Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth are the hottest Lizzy and Darcy - Fight Me.

List of dogs in Brunswick with food names (that I’ve met so far):
- Toastie
- Beans
- Muffin
- Noodle
- Coffee
- Sushi
- Basil
- Mochi

Finished Christian Kracht’s novella “Eurotrash” - a hilarious story & somehow imbues awful rich people with some humanity.

Busting his octogenarian mother out of a psych ward, the narrator attempts to help her spend her ill-gained wealth as fast as possible on a road trip around Switzerland

Sometimes you just gotta roll in dirt, then wet grass, then tanbark. Then rinse and repeat.

I’m exhausted, so I’ve gone to my TBR shelf and taken all the books <200 pages out to read.

Time to settle into some novellas and short stories. Cat is laying between the piles of books. Dog is asleep at my feet. Hoping short bursts of reading is the dopamine I need.

Incredibly humbled and grateful to be included on the shortlist for this year’s Neilma Sidney Short Story Prize. Huge congrats to all of the other writers on the list, and even huger thanks to the judges and the wonderful folks @overlandjournal.bsky.social

overland.org.au/2025/03/anno...

What a joy to read László Krasznahorkai’s “Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming” - deliberately ridiculous characters who somehow maintain their humanity in a running frantic commentary of thoughts, wading through their consciousness as the Baron returns. Ottilie Mulzert’s translation is superb.

Definitely indicative of the difficulties facing punishers in Australia. Will be interesting to see how this develops in the longer term.

Melbourne-based independent publisher Text Publishing, has been acquired by Penguin Random House Australia.

"Text has created an unparalleled space for itself in Australian publishing. Now it’s time for a new owner..."

www.textpublishing.com.au/blog/text-pu...

Tee hee.

“Part fact part fiction is what life is.” - Jeanette Winterson on having the same name as her protagonist in Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, updated intro, 2014.

Delightfully revisiting this novel, haven’t read it in more than ten years since my beloved lit degree days. Bliss.

In Helen Garner’s new non-fiction account “The Season,” she openly describes the novel as “a nanna’s book about footy,” the octogenarian watching both bewildered and entranced from the sidelines.

There’s something so luxuriously nostalgic about the whole thing, perfect for a rainy day.

A really interesting discussion about the need for collective action and how the capitalist machine is made to simply replace people and move on when individuals act unilaterally rather than en masse.

Makes me excited to read Marx’s Capital this year as a challenging reading project.

Finally finished Gabor Maté’s “The Myth of Normal” which takes readers through the biopsychosocialsocietal elements of how fucked our society is, namely due to capitalism and colonisation- resulting in toxic disconnection and illness, slowly killing us from within. Excited to move to Marx next.

Jumaana Abdu’s debut novel is a highly accomplished tale of a divorced mother finding herself, community, and setting down roots in rural NSW as a Muslim woman. Beautiful commentary on the importance of place, connection and people.

Now desperately trying to find anything else she’s written.

A group of diverse and impoverished teens are invited to do the Kokoda trail with local cops. Good commentary of how our education system fails kids, but the novel is undercooked and gives too much humanity to racist characters. @picadorbooks.bsky.social

So keen for the first installment of my summer subscription! Thanks for double wrapping it so that I couldn’t peek at the title, it’s those small details that really count.

Going to read it on Christmas morning 🎄🥰@paperbackbookshop.bsky.social