SHORT SHARP AND BEAUTIFULLY SWEET: Penguin Specials
You’ve just finished that
mammoth five-hundred-page book, or if you are reading Stephen King that one-thousand-page
door-stop and you’re not sure whether you can face meeting new characters and
building a relationship. You need a
break. It’s a big commitment starting a
book and investing that time and trust with another author.
But you love to read,
right? If you’re like
me, you enjoy just laying there at night for half an hour flitting off to
another world before you close your eyes to sleep. Or you want something for that commute to
work or the lunch break or to have something so you know where your reading
next.
Well for those eReader
lovers, Penguin
Books Australia has exactly what you need.
They’ve come up with an innovative series entitled “Penguin Specials”
and have delved into their formidable treasure trove of essays and stories to
provide a growing selection of shorts from “today's best and most exciting writers” at an affordable
price and only available in digital format.
All the titles are compatible with a range of handheld reading devices.
Discover or reacquaint yourself with fabulous Australian authors such as Elizabeth
Jolley, Dorothy Hewett, Peter Goldsworth, Robert Drewe and Helen Garner, to
name a few. You will never have the time to read books from every author but
what a wonderful opportunity to sample the work of some our greatest literary
minds.
Do check them out and for the price of coffee feed your reader and your
mind. I’ve already indulged myself with
a few titles and here are some of my favourites.
Click here to view more PENGUIN SPECIALS
THE BODYSURFERS by Robert Drewe
This is an evocative piece, beautifully written by prize winning author Robert
Drewe, famous for his highly awarded memoir, "The Shark Net". Here he has captured the very flavour of
Australia.
Haunted by the brutal murder of a local couple, David heads to his weekend
shack with his new lover, Lydia, and his children from his recently crumbled
marriage. Together they find escape, if only briefly, in the ocean and the
bush.
The Bodysurfers, the title story of Robert Drewe's classic first collection, is a
vivid evocation of love, passion, terror and the beauty of the beach.
BEAUTY’S SISTER by James Bradley
PRICE: $3.99
I loved this alternate tale to Rapunzel. It’s dark and imaginative and
simply written; a bedtime story for young adults and adults. I hope Mr. Bradley
reworks a few more fairy tales.
Juniper, living deep in the forest with her parents, is stunned to discover
that the beautiful girl living isolated in a nearby tower is her sister. When
the two girls meet, what begins as a fascination and a friendship ultimately
develops into something truly sinister.
A story of jealousy, passion and power, Beauty's Sister is a dark
and gripping reimagining of one of our oldest tales, Rapunzel...
SIX WOMEN OF LETTERS curated by Michaela
McGuire and Marieke Hardy
PRICE: $3.99
I cannot tell you how much I loved reading these letters. Whilst I think we are all growing a little
weary of the newspaper’s love affairs with a “letter to my sixteen-year-old
self”. (Everywhere I turn somebody remotely famous is writing a letter to themselves.)
However, these letters are of a different nature. They are thoughtful,
beautifully conceived and written with heart. I particularly loved Ita Buttrose’s
musings on the life she may have had.
Haven’t we all thought if I’d just walked that road instead of this...? Here one of our most successful icons muses with
great insight.
In homage to that most civilised of activities, letter writing, Marieke
Hardy and Michaela McGuire created the literary afternoons of Women of Letters.
Some of Australia's finest dames of stage, screen and page have delivered
missives on a series of themes.
Published here for the first time are Deborah Conway writing about the ups
and downs of being a dog owner in A Letter to the Best Decision I Ever Made;
Ita Buttrose imagining an alternative life as an opera singer in A Letter to
the Life I Could Have Lived; Tracee Hutchison writing A Complaint Letter to
complaint letters; Pip Lincolne describing a magical childhood afternoon in A
Letter to the Moment I Knew it Was Time to Go Home; A Love Letter from Kate
Miller-Heidke aged twenty-nine to Kate Miller-Heidke aged twelve; and Helen
Garner looking back on a teacher both terrifying and inspiring in A Letter to
the Person I Misjudged
PRICE: $2.99
This story has a twist that bites.
Thank goodness I was reading it on my Kobo because my other hand was
free to cover my mouth in horror. How
things can go so terribly wrong so easily. This is the quintessential
Australian short story told by a master who knows how to grab you by the throat
and squeeze until it hurts.
A short shot of brilliant storytelling – one of the most celebrated modern
Australian short stories is now available to read by itself, wherever you are.
Drunk, restless and excited, Kenny
and Tom decide to continue their night with a swim in the local water tank. At
first exuberant and elated, the teenagers' adventure takes a terrifying turn
when they realise they are trapped in the tank with no way out.
Dark and gripping, Peter
Goldsworthy's The Kiss is a classic Australian short story from one of our
masters of the form.
THE DARKLING SISTERS by Dorothy
Hewett
PRICE: $2.99
Okay, I’m partial to a ghost story and there are ghosts here but handled in
such beautiful literary prose I felt like an eavesdropper on a 1920’s Australian
family. Immensely evocative and
entertaining, it was a doorway I enjoyed entering and I was sorry when I had to
leave.
A classic short story from one Australia's most celebrated writers. A big old Victorian terrace in Jersey Road,
Woollahra, is thought to be haunted by the two Darkling sisters from the 1920s.
When a young family moves in, dark images of these sisters, and of
relationships closer to home, hang over them.
Beautifully crafted and keenly
observed, this story from Dorothy Hewett's acclaimed collection A Baker's Dozen
is a stunning evocation of family, memories and neighbourhood.
PENGUIN SPECIALS: http://www.penguin.com.au/penguinspecials
PENGUIN EBOOKS:
If you have read any of these Penguin Shorts or have some
more that you have enjoyed from Penguin Shorts that you would like to recommend,
please do leave us a comment.
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