This might have appeared in The Albany Advertiser, but didn't. Every year the paper runs a feature on local writers and their summer reading. The West does it. The Australian does it. But this year Albany missed. Anyway, here's mine. (Oops, it just appeared, Albany Advertiser, Tuesday 26/1/2016.)
Although the Noongar season of Birak seems late this year,
not so my summer reading.
As always there is a collection of fiction and non-fiction,
starting with a classic, The Mask of
Sanity, by American psychiatrist Hervey Cleckley who has attempted to
define the psychopathic personality. Psychopaths have always intrigued me, how
they are, why they are and how I can pick them before they pick me
.
It can be a heavy read and so I need a little light relief
and for that I will be going to Poems
that make Grown Men Cry, edited by Anthony and Ben Holden. This book was
given to me by a motley collection of nieces and nephews who decided I needed
more tears in my life and eyes.
For the laughs I will go to Unlearning with Hannah Arendt, by Marie Luise Knott, a biography of
a German Jewish moral and political philosopher and holocaust survivor. Luise
focusses on Arendt’s exploration of laughter, translation and forgiveness.
Finally, I will be reading the works of Patrick de Witt, a
Canadian writer who will be here for the Perth Writers Festival in the Great Southern.
I have already read The Sisters Brothers,
about two hitmen, one a psychopath and the other a tormented soul. I will next
read his latest - Undermajormo Minor.
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