But if you'd like to attend please register ahead of the event here.
(Subsequently, a couple of write-ups here and here.)
Showing posts with label The Ash Burner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Ash Burner. Show all posts
Sunday, October 11, 2015
Avid Reader Big Breakfast Book Club
On Sunday 1 November, I'll be speaking at Avid Reader Bookshop's Big Breakfast bookclub. As I understand it, you don't need to be a member of the club to come along.
But if you'd like to attend please register ahead of the event here.
(Subsequently, a couple of write-ups here and here.)
But if you'd like to attend please register ahead of the event here.
(Subsequently, a couple of write-ups here and here.)
Monday, August 17, 2015
QLA/Courier Mail People's Choice Book of the Year
I'm delighted to announce that my novel The Ash Burner has been shortlisted for the QLA/Courier-Mail People's Choice Queensland Book of the Year Award.
The other shortlisted books are Analogue Men by Nick Earls, Navigatio by Patrick Holland, Nest by Inga Simpson, Joe's Fruit Shop and Milk Bar by Zoe Boccabella, On the Road...With Kids by John Ahern, The Murder of Allison Baden-Clay by David Murray, and From Convict to Politician by Mary Lou Simpson.
More information about the award, including instructions on how to vote for your favourite book, is available here.
The other shortlisted books are Analogue Men by Nick Earls, Navigatio by Patrick Holland, Nest by Inga Simpson, Joe's Fruit Shop and Milk Bar by Zoe Boccabella, On the Road...With Kids by John Ahern, The Murder of Allison Baden-Clay by David Murray, and From Convict to Politician by Mary Lou Simpson.
More information about the award, including instructions on how to vote for your favourite book, is available here.
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| The Súdavík Book Exchange |
Tuesday, August 11, 2015
Brisbane Writers Festival 2015
The programme for the 2015 Brisbane Writers Festival has been announced. The festival theme this year is 'Minds Wide Open', with events scheduled at the State Library from 2-6 September. I'll be taking part in the following:
Hope to see you there!
- 1-2pm, Saturday 5 September: The Ash Burner (in conversation with Emily Philip)
- 11:30am-12:30pm, Saturday 5 September: How to be a heroine (as moderator, with Sarah Waters, Jane Caro, Kate Grenville and Sophie Hannah)
- 10-11:30am, Sunday 6 September: The Ash Burner (GOMA book club)
Hope to see you there!
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| With Emily Philip (Pic: Ian See) |
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| With Sophie Hannah, Kate Grenville, Sarah Waters & Jane Caro |
Thursday, May 21, 2015
ABC Bookworms interview
An interview that I recently did with David Curnow on ABC Radio's "Bookworms" program is now available online (here). David and I had a wide-ranging conversation about growing up in Iceland, long school days in 1970s Sydney, teaching creative writing and the writing life, and my new book The Ash Burner.
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| A stream in north-west Iceland |
Sunday, April 19, 2015
Books and Arts Interview
An interview that I recently did with Kate Evans on Radio National's 'Books and Arts' show about The Ash Burner is available online here.
Wednesday, April 1, 2015
Sydney Writers' Festival
The program of the 2015 Sydney Writers' Festival has been launched. I'll be taking part in three events:
- Memory as a structural device (Workshop): 9:30 AM - 12:30 PM Saturday 23 May
- On meeting Viking ancestors (Curiosity Lecture): 4:30 PM - 5:10 PM Saturday 23 May
- We are what we hide (with Jill Eddington, Malcolm Knox, and Sonya Hartnett): 10 AM - 11 AM
Sunday 24 May
- Memory as a structural device (Workshop): 9:30 AM - 12:30 PM Saturday 23 May
- On meeting Viking ancestors (Curiosity Lecture): 4:30 PM - 5:10 PM Saturday 23 May
- We are what we hide (with Jill Eddington, Malcolm Knox, and Sonya Hartnett): 10 AM - 11 AM
Sunday 24 May
Saturday, March 28, 2015
First Reviews
Three reviews of The Ash Burner have appeared.
- Kerryn Goldsworthy, writing for the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, and Canberra Times:
Kári Gíslason published a memoir in 2011, The Promise of Iceland, that tells the extraordinary story of his family history. You can sense some of that material still haunting him in his debut novel, the story of a young man called Ted whose father brought him to Australia as a little boy. Ted's mother is long dead. They now live in the town of Lion Head, somewhere on the coast between Sydney and Brisbane, and while recuperating in hospital from a near-drowning, Ted meets the young couple who will become the most intimate friends of his teenage and early adult years. This is a beautifully written novel about the intensities of youth and of mourning, and the strangeness and potential tragedy of young love. Its characters are vivid, its landscapes evocative, and its narrative given shape and power by the revelation at the end.
- Chris Somerville, in Readings:
Midway through the book, a character, on the eve of his departure from his hometown, insists that his best friend Ted write him letters. ‘He thought you could say a lot more that way,’ Ted tells us, ‘that email was inferior.’ This attitude runs though the entirety of The Ash Burner; though it’s set in modern Australia, its sensibilities lie much more in the past. There are no actual spirits here, but nevertheless this is a novel that’s supremely haunted.
It begins with the teenage Ted throwing himself into the ocean, with a half-sense that he’ll somehow be able to find his dead mother. He’s swept onto the rocks, badly hurt, and pulled out by his father. While recuperating in hospital, Ted meets Anthony, a boy a few years ahead of him at school, and Claire, Anthony’s girlfriend.
The increasingly intense friendship between the three of them forms the bulk of the narrative, with Ted somewhat in awe of both of them and taking part in their plans to leave the town of Lion’s Head and move to Sydney. The story spans years, and though there is a quietness and subtlety to the characters’ relationships (Ted is criticised on several occasions for being far too serious) the narrative does take some surprising turns, with one of the novel’s final revelations hitting the right balance of being both shocking and wholly believable.
In Gíslason’s first book, a memoir The Promise of Iceland, he showed that he was a nuanced writer, and here, with The Ash Burner, he has again shown his skill at mapping the subtle shifts in our lives. It’s a thoughtful work that should leave an impression long after it’s put down.
- Angie Andrewes, for Books and Publishing:
The Ash Burner is an insightful coming-of-age novel featuring a protagonist who is infinitely appealing. It grounds itself firmly in the art world and will appeal to fans of Craig Silvey’s Jasper Jones, Emily Bitto’s The Strays and Krissy Kneen’s Steeplechase.
- Chris Somerville, in Readings:
Midway through the book, a character, on the eve of his departure from his hometown, insists that his best friend Ted write him letters. ‘He thought you could say a lot more that way,’ Ted tells us, ‘that email was inferior.’ This attitude runs though the entirety of The Ash Burner; though it’s set in modern Australia, its sensibilities lie much more in the past. There are no actual spirits here, but nevertheless this is a novel that’s supremely haunted.
It begins with the teenage Ted throwing himself into the ocean, with a half-sense that he’ll somehow be able to find his dead mother. He’s swept onto the rocks, badly hurt, and pulled out by his father. While recuperating in hospital, Ted meets Anthony, a boy a few years ahead of him at school, and Claire, Anthony’s girlfriend.
The increasingly intense friendship between the three of them forms the bulk of the narrative, with Ted somewhat in awe of both of them and taking part in their plans to leave the town of Lion’s Head and move to Sydney. The story spans years, and though there is a quietness and subtlety to the characters’ relationships (Ted is criticised on several occasions for being far too serious) the narrative does take some surprising turns, with one of the novel’s final revelations hitting the right balance of being both shocking and wholly believable.
In Gíslason’s first book, a memoir The Promise of Iceland, he showed that he was a nuanced writer, and here, with The Ash Burner, he has again shown his skill at mapping the subtle shifts in our lives. It’s a thoughtful work that should leave an impression long after it’s put down.
- Angie Andrewes, for Books and Publishing:
The Ash Burner is an insightful coming-of-age novel featuring a protagonist who is infinitely appealing. It grounds itself firmly in the art world and will appeal to fans of Craig Silvey’s Jasper Jones, Emily Bitto’s The Strays and Krissy Kneen’s Steeplechase.
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| Whitby, 2006 |
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Lord Mayor's Writer in Residence
Both of my upcoming events at Avid Reader and Riverbend bookshops are now sold out. However in March, as part of the Lord Mayor's Writer in Residence programme, I'll be speaking about the writing of The Ash Burner at four Brisbane libraries.
All most welcome, but please register by phone at the numbers given below:
All most welcome, but please register by phone at the numbers given below:
- Ashgrove Library: 6pm Tuesday 3 March (ph: 07 3407 1940)
- West End Library: 10am Saturday 14 March (ph: 07 3403 8620)
- Corinda Library: 10:30am Tuesday 24 March (ph: 07 3407 7701)
- Wynnum Library: 10:30am Saturday 28 March (ph: 07 3403 2199
Friday, February 6, 2015
Monday, January 19, 2015
Book Launch
On Thursday 26 February, I'll be launching my novel The Ash Burner at Avid Reader Bookshop, West End.
Helping the book on its way will be Kristina Olsson, author most recently of the award-winning memoir Boy, Lost.
All are welcome at this free event, but please register at http://bit.ly/KARIavid
Helping the book on its way will be Kristina Olsson, author most recently of the award-winning memoir Boy, Lost.
All are welcome at this free event, but please register at http://bit.ly/KARIavid
Thursday, November 6, 2014
The Ash Burner
My second book and first attempt at fiction, The Ash Burner, will be published by UQP on 25 February, with a launch at the Avid Reader Bookshop the day after on Thursday 26 Feb.
If you can come along to the launch, be sure to register here.
- Hannah Kent
If you can come along to the launch, be sure to register here.
“At once contemplative and precise, The Ash Burner is an exquisitely written novel that left me deeply moved by its tender exploration of beauty and grief. Kári Gíslason is a thinker’s writer: thoughtful, sentient and graceful in his questioning of the world. A debut that will linger with me.”
- Hannah Kent
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