Books I've been reading in September/October

 Alison-Lizzie Porter. Graphic novel about a fictional artist who moves from Dorset to London in the late 1970s and eventually has a career retrospective.

Green Dot-Madeline Gray. Fictional novel set in Sydney about a twenty something who succumbs to an office job and dating a married man. Whilst this sounds so so, it has a spectacular ending, in which she realises she's been looking all along at one small spot... well crafted, has hidden mysteries etc. 

Romantic Comedy-Curtis Sittenfield. Admittedly I read this a few months ago but I just gave it to my friend Gab, and said it was about a comedy writer who meets a hot musician when he performs on the TV show that she writes for and they get together. (Plus there's a pandemic). Sometimes you just like to read a book that makes you happy, right!

Some biography of Elizabeth Harrower-this also turned out to be an intriguing overview of Australian female writers across the 1930s to 1970s and a nice match to the Dangerously Modern art exhibition. 

Tim Reeves, 101 Adelaide houses or something. Some time ago, Tim hosted a tour of Deepacres, was quite the architectural historian and reminded me of Tim from Project Runway, confirming my theory that guys called Tim rock. He's tracked down all the nicely designed/commissioned family homes scattered across the burbs, ones with floor plans and garden views and a vision of modern living and is launching his book this Sunday. I'm attending with a friend and not sure if it would be acceptable to get him to sign the library copy (should check); they were spruiking his talk at a women in architecture talk  at Arkaba Hotel recently, which has a nice design, nice carpets but a history in my mind as a place for under age discos and divorcee socialising and therefore, not somewhere I've ever had a mind to frequent. (Once again-is there a pub that has been able to keep its sympathetic charms, the way of the Palais in Broken Hill, where all ages are welcome and can have a good time and a nice counter meal? Or is this just a country thing, like being good at gardening large blocks and anti-ageist?)

Apropos of nothing, a couple of months ago I had to fill in time at Flinders Uni, I did my best to find the community garden connecting the Sturt Campus to the top of the hill campus, couldn't, but I walked around the cloisters and the gardens and the lake and visited the art museum and the drama studio and thought, yes, this is the place, and wondered why I'd never thought to live and work in the south (probably because last time I caught the bus and interpreted the whole neighbourhood through that lens). The other side of the family lived in the Panorama/Glenelg/Brighton stretch, never venturing beyond Anzac Highway except by tram and eating all their restaurant meals south of Cross Road but I see the point now, I really do, all that yellow glass windows and wooden interiors and above ground swimming pools and hill views of the city below and velour as day time attire and velvet couches.