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The introduction of the most recent translation of Meyrink's Golem reminds us that the author brilliantly reproduced the atmosphere of 19th Century Prague. Kafka agreed. The introducer goes on to say, however, that 'if this were all it did, then the novel could only have limited interest for us today. More importantly, The Golem was an assault on the values of the bourgeoisie of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in its last days.'

What an extraordinary thing to say. Do even the great grandchildren of the Austro-Hungarian aristocrats care about the socio-politics of the day? But who among us would not like to have walked among the stalls of the alchemists and Jewish magicians in the Jewish Quarter of Prague, or met an eastern girl in a tryst in view of Charles Bridge or Hradcany Castle as the dusk gathered and lamps were lit.

How and why do academics learn the inability to read?

The Mary Smokes Boys

The Mary Smokes Boys is now out through Transit Lounge, Australia.

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Patrick Holland's Writing and Music

The Mary Smokes Boys

The Mary Smokes Boys review at Readings

The Mary Smokes Boys review at Olvar Wood

The Mary Smokes Boys review by Angela Myer

The Mary Smokes Boys review at Plume of Words

The Mary Smokes Boys review at Pip's Eye

The Mary Smokes Boys review at Avid Reader

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Abbey's Bookshop Featured Titles Mary Smokes Boys
Emmett Stinson on The Mary Smokes Boys (Known Unknowns)
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Etchings Issue 9
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Interview with Jo Case at Readings

Interview with Belinda Sanders ABC Radio
RRR FM on The Mary Smokes Boys
Am I The Black Rider? on The Mary Smokes Boys
Mary Smokes Boys Miles Franklin Longlist, Booktopia 
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Byron Bay Writers' Festival - Mary Smokes Boys

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THE MILES FRANKLIN AWARD 2011
Miles Franklin Trust
Ragged Claws / Ragged Claws 2
The Age
Tasmanian Writers Centre
Meanjin
ABC BOOKSHOW
Sydney Morning Herald

Langlands and Bell: air routes of Britain (day & night)

Maps invite the imagination across them by text as much as any other element. The reader of maps might be nostalgic for a street in Beijing that contains memories of a university, a particular restaurant in an adjoining alley, a phrase spoken by another human being there, and the term 'Zhonghua Rd', properly situated, will give rise to these... His eye might pursue a rail line across Eastern Europe with anticipation, and names like Warsaw, Sarajevo, Zagreb, pregnant with associations, with dreams, will increase his excitement ... but in this diptych text is totally absent. The untutored reader perceives a nexus of points without orientation or designation, and with no hierarchy but the varying size of the points he guesses are cities - a compass rose, or even a mark of orientation, would be inappropriate. The map describes a system that requires a tremendous amount of energy and a great degree of chance (a plane may or may not fly as scheduled, it may be hijacked, delayed for mechanical reasons, or the airline might go broke - where a mountain is almost always comelled to appear where a map suggests)... yet rendered in abstract lines and dots the reader is paradoxically made to feel secure and utterly lost at the same time. The map possesses a cold beauty that seems to remove the human element in a very human activity. Perhaps the beauty comes from 21st century Man's desire to be both irresponsible and safe, away and at home. Perhaps it is the beauty of distance, the same we perceive looking from a high point across the changing faces of a city at night, not comprehending any of the abstract signs.

L&B say they are interested in the feedback between man and his creations. Here there is no static. No noise. A series of accidents seems to have become inevitable. The air travel of the British Isles is a perfect system in this map. Man feels neither precedence nor power over the system.

Tourism

The tourist distorts the landscape he visits, finds buildings and industries made in his own image, thus he travels nowhere… For the tourist everywhere is nowhere. For the tourist every plane is a mirror.