The Godfather: Peter Corris on the massage message
I once asked a friend who was suffering from some malady or other what he relied on to get better. ‘American chemicals,’ he said. Sceptical about homeopathy and alternative treatments, I was inclined to agree, but experience has taught me to be less definitive....
The Godfather: Peter Corris on fish ‘n’ chips
Fish ’n’ chips (aka fish and chips in polite circles) represent, according to Wikipedia, an example of fusion cuisine. Apparently in 19th-century England fried potatoes were much eaten in the north of the county and fried fish was popular in the south. With greater...
The Godfather: Peter Corris on bad news days
On Friday 3 August I listened to The World Today on ABC Radio National and made notes. ABC radio is my chief source of news and I had the impression that I’d heard nothing but bad news on this and many other similar broadcasts for as long as I could remember. Was I...
The Godfather: Peter Corris on literary vs popular fiction #2
From time to time discussion still arises about the difference between literary and popular fiction, and their respective merits. Those of us interested in the topic (and I imagine this would include many NRB readers) are often divided. Michael Wilding made his...
The Godfather: Peter Corris on cartoons
How many newspaper headlines can you remember? For obvious reasons I remember ‘FRED DIES’ emblazoned on a Sydney tabloid when Professor Fred Hollows died, and no one can forget the nefarious London Sun’s headline ‘GOTCHA’, celebrating the sinking of an Argentinian...
The Godfather: Peter Corris on the gap between page and screen
I have no idea what percentage of mainstream films is based on books. Does anyone? I suspect it’s quite high. In the crime field there have been notable failures. I’ve written before about Howard Hawks’s version of The Big Sleep (1946). It captures some of...
The Godfather: Peter Corris on breaking bounds
While I enjoyed and profited from my 13 years of schooling, I was aware that in some ways school was a prison. Some people felt this strongly and left as soon as they could. I felt it only faintly and occasionally. But you were there from 9 am to 3.30 pm and woe...
The Godfather: Peter Corris on revisiting books, again
This will be the last of my prison despatches – that is, columns to do with my two-months-plus time in hospital. Unlike some patients who are able to sit in their beds or on their chairs and stare at the walls or occupy themselves with television, I’d be crawling...
The Godfather: Peter Corris on his swansong
I was scheduled to appear at the Sydney Writers Festival on 27 May. I was keen to do this because it’d be my swansong, my final book having been published in January, and also because I’d be ‘in conversation’ with actor, journalist and author Graeme Blundell. I’ve...
The Godfather: Peter Corris on hospitalisation #2
Some weeks ago the NRB Editors posted that I was taking a break after a break. You gotta laugh. I’d had a mysterious blackout in the kitchen, had fallen and broken a vertebra, ribs, and bones in my ankle and foot. Then it was the magnificent ambos, a jab for the pain...
Random Thoughts: On editing. By Linda Funnell
The conference centre at Mt Eliza. As Peter Corris continues to recuperate, the NRB editors share their random thoughts. This week Linda writes about editing and the Residential Editorial Program. People most often associate editing with things like spelling and...
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