You know that feeling when you get on a reading roll? You finish a few books in quick succession and it’s like you’ve taken on this momentum. You have to be lucky with the books you pick though or you bog yourself in something that allows itself to be put down midway through and forgotten about. Tony Birch’s second collection of short stories, Father’s Day was certainly not one of those books that you could put down for too long.

It’s a subtle yet incredibly moving collection of short fiction that’s over-arching themes can be best described as dealing with family, those on the fringes of society and characters with something missing. After reading the story ‘Shadowboxing’ and his novel Blood last year, I have come to love not just how Birch is drawn toward dealing with marginal characters, like I do in my own writing, but his realist mode of writing. It is direct and unobtrusive. The danger I find with collections of short fiction is the pause between each piece and having to immerse yourself in a new one each time. But Birch’s realism allows for you to do that easily. You are not lost each time in thick obscure description in the beginning. Birch places you in the scene clearly and immediately. It is like the author is not even there.

But I guess critics of writing like Birch’s would argue that there is no art to it, and Birch often breaks the rule that you’re meant to “show not tell” but he does it so well. The statement of “fact” and the placement of those events without the intervention of the author is in itself quite moving. And to me, the style and the insignificant way in which he finishes most of his stories conveys a realism situated in the often mundane, subtle and trivial details that portray what it is to be a marginal character in society, so much so that they seem to be the kinds of stories that other writers would overlook and deem not significant enough to tell.

I’m someone who looks for books that punch you in the stomach. I look for great, cataclysmic events that leave me breathless. This collection is not like that but still leaves me thinking this is a very good collection of short stories. There are moments when pieces feel unfinished, but necessarily so and the sense of loss you get from some of them is a reaction that I think is not always the one you seek, but I think worthwhile all the same.

I haven’t posted a book review on here in a while. Actually, I haven’t posted on here in a while, but I felt compelled to say something about Tsiolkas’ Loaded. After reading it in just two-sittings last week, on the way to Perth and then back again. I read The Slap a few years ago and it’s a novel I still think about, and had been meaning to read more of his work, and my friends had raved about Loaded.

It is sharp and intense. It’s about a 19-year-old boy Ari who likes to have sex and take a lot of drugs, and it takes place over one night. The novel moves seamlessly through the various places he goes out to, to the various people he meets. It feels a little like a drug trip as you read it, but it’s never just drugs and sex and nothing under the surface.

As with many successful novels, I think Tsiolkas has managed to nail the voice, along with a kind of minimalism that is not too over the top. The casual language and pace make it easy to keep reading and finish in a short while. There is politics there. It alludes to a feeling of apathy and powerlessness that I think was a common mood of the 90s and it speaks a lot to me about the motivations for the kind of lifestyle Ari leads, without being patronising about it, perhaps because it also feels to me as if it might be semi-autobiographical. There are details that seem to match up.

I saw Tsiolkas speak at the Wheeler Centre a few weeks back, where I bought the book and got him to sign it. He did a reading from his forthcoming novel, Barracuda. Like someone like Tony Birch, he has a fascination for characters perhaps marginal, perhaps just those overlooked. I’m interested in that too as a writer. But I’ve only just discovered them recently, never the kinds of texts they gave to me in high-school, but then I wonder if I would’ve read them then.

In line with my recent running craze, another writer and runner recommended Haruki Murakami’s What I talk about when I talk about running, a memoir of sorts about Murakami’s long standing dedication to long distance running and writing, and how it all kind of links together.

It is a short and engaging book, helped greatly by Murakami’s matter-of-fact minimalist style, or at least that of the translation. And I don’t think you need to be into running to get anything out of it, but as I continue to come across writers who see running as their physical activity of choice, I think those of us who are both, recognise an affinity with the two activities.

Much of the book focusses on his preparation for the New York Marathon, how he prepares, what challenges he faces, particularly the onset of old age and inevitably slower times. Murakami’s incredibly philosophical about the whole thing and provides some honest insights into mortality and why he continues to run. It’s due to needing to keep healthy when you spend so much time as a writer at your desk, which makes sense, except weight isn’t really a concern for me (I can’t gain weight for some weird reason) so running is about keeping fit in case the bits inside me, the bits I can’t see, might be breaking down without any outward signs of my lack of health. It’s also time to think, which hasn’t exactly worked out that well for me personally yet and writing is much harder at the moment than running. You can keep running regardless of mental barriers. The process remains exactly the same. One foot in front of the other. I seem to have more control over it than I would writing sometimes, how exactly to start or attack an idea or image. Often these things puzzle me or it’s not as clear as looking ahead down a path and knowing how far left I have to go.

Through What I talk about when I talk about running, you get a real sense that Murakami is an incredibly focussed and disciplined person and that his routine means he probably doesn’t find writing as hard or sporadic as I might. It’s worth reading for writers who feel they lack motivation and discipline, as reading memoirs from writers often does.

It has become fairly common to describe each one of China Miéville’s novels as very different from the others. He’s quite commonly quoted as saying he’d like to write a novel in every genre, and certainly each one is unique. He could never be accused of just finding a formula that readers like and resigning himself to rehashing it over and over. But as much as Railsea is certainly a change, especially from his previous novel Embassytown, it is a return in some ways. It reminds me a lot of King Rat, his first novel.

Miéville describes it as a novel for ‘all ages’ which is different to the way some people have described it as ‘young adult.’ The language isn’t ‘dumbed down’ as such, but it’s just not at the level of Embassytown which employed an impressive use of vocabulary fitting in with the themes of linguistics. He says it’s a novel in homage to his younger-self, and it’s in the plot and story that this is the case. It’s a fun, adventure story, full of the in depth world building that we’ve become used to. You tear right through it.

The railsea is an intertwining mass of railway tracks, that densely spread out over an expanse of earth full of nasty burrowing animals, like moles and bugs, larger than usual, with teeth. It’s like a maritime adventure with trains. The metaphor and the way Miéville has a ‘railsea version’ of almost everything is quite fascinating. And he introduces us to everything as the story moves along, perhaps even as he was discovering it all himself. It’s a riff on Mobydick, with the captain of moletrain, the Medes, hunting some great big ivory coloured mole with the main character, Sham, leading the story off along other tracks. There’s pirates, imperialist navies and rogue explorers.

Where’s the politics in it? I’m often asked that about his work. I think, as with Embassytown, it’s mostly in the world-building. The foundations of his stories and the world’s they are set in reflect his (and my) view of the world. You won’t miss the point of the book if you’re not also a Marxist. It might just be a good story, or you might pick up that the way certain forces relate to each other reflect an understanding of capitalism. Not just classes, but as with Mankini, one of the main countries, world superpowers. It’s not one dimensional either, as all characters have flaws and most of them, sympathetic qualities.

Without giving away spoilers, the politics of Railsea culminates in the ending too. As the characters explore the railsea and look for uncharted areas, we discover it with them and at the end there is an analogy, a very overt one, rife with imagery and meaning that almost came out of nowhere as Miéville led us along what is for the most part, just an adventure story. It reflects the times we’re living in and was an apt culmination of a satisfying read.

It is a novel for all ages. Miéville can almost write what he likes. His fans follow him along whatever area he wants to write in, right down to the ‘young adult’ or ‘all ages’ works like Un Lun Dun. There’s no division between the ages of his readers. I’m sure his older followers will like this just as much, as say I’m sure his younger readers can enjoy his other stuff, even if they have to refer back to a dictionary every once and a while.