The Reader - Magazine Editorial

Les Murray remembers his early reading days:

‘Then I moved to my mother’s set of encyclopaedias... I read them until they fell apart, and got a lasting interest in everything.’

Chris Routledge hides out in the garden shed:

‘...writers have always been escape artists, constantly seeking a place where they can connect at a deep level with the world outside.’

Ralph Pite discusses Thomas Hardy's landscapes:

‘As much as it humbles people, the experience of wilderness is felt to be an affirming one.’

Neil Curry tells the stories behind some Roman gardens of power:

‘Whatever was green or natural could be done without or would have to do as it was told.’

Adam Piette investigates poetry and nature with Susan Wicks' 'Vocabulary':

‘What occurs (in poetry) is a deep acknowledgement of the moulding, destroying, bending, beating forces of nature.’

There are reviews and recommendations ranging from Andrea Levy’s Small Island to Carson McCullers’ The Member of the Wedding, alongside new poetry and fiction of the highest quality. And as if all that wasn’t enough there’s brand new Buck’s Quiz! A veritable literary greenhouse to make the mind bloom and grow.

editorial

Jane Davis - Smash the Nature Table

new poetry

Stephen Newman
Jacob Polley
Jane Routh
John Kinsella
Alexander Heald
Neil Curry
Pamela Lewis
Michael Murphy

fiction

Vicki Seal In a Strange Land

essays and interviews

Neil Curry - Gardens of Power
Lasting Interest in Everything - Les Murray talks to Jane Davis
John Kinsella - By Any Other Name
John Carey - Feeding the Mind
Chris Routledge - A Shed of One’s Own
Michael Murphy - Wild Analysis

learning curve

Ralph Pite Hardy and Landscape
Adam Piette’s Practice of Poetry - Flora, Fauna, Images and Names in Susan Wicks’s ‘Vocabulary’
Ask the Reader - Are Herrick’s daffodils lost to us?

reviews

Gabriella Gruder-Poni - James Wood, The Irresponsible Self
Matt Thomas - William Fiennes, The Snow Geese
Linda Taylor Andrea Levy, Small Island
Mary Weston - Karen Press, The Canary’s Songbook
Ede Harter - Tom Turner, Garden History - Philosophy and Design 2000BC – 2000AD

recommendations

Ann Stapleton - Henry David Thoreau - The True Harvest
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Thoreau
Helen Tookey - Carson McCullers, The Member of the Wedding
Hugh McAllister - Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel
Good Books - brief recommendations by Dieuwerke Rutgers and Helen Tookey

reading lives

Sher Schwartz - Reading With Puppy
Susan Tranter - EnCompass Reading

the back end

Jen Hadfield - Chooks
Stephen Newman - Newman’s Notes
Enid Stubin - Our Spy in NY
Letters
Cassandra Crossword
Buck’s Quiz
Contributors
Quiz and Puzzle Answers

Issue 20 - Flora & Fauna, Winter 2006