Kathryn's Inbox

How well do you really know those closest to you? Jess, Liz, Mel and Charlotte all met ten years ago when they were expecting their first child and have been good friends ever since. Then, one night Jess brings her baby into Emergency with a serious injury and a story that doesn't quite add up. To complicate matters, the paediatrician on duty is Jess ... and she is duty bound to call an investigation. But Liz wouldn't hurt her child ... would she? This novel explores notions of motherhood, friendship and duty, while gently and slowly drip feeding the reader bits of information until revealing a surprising but unsavoury truth. This was a page turner with plenty of cliffhanger chapters and shifting perspectives. From the beginning I had no idea what the truth was behind baby Betsey's injuries and the reveal at the end certainly surprised me and, if I am going to be honest, left me a bit shaken. Recommended. Thank you to Simon and Schuster Australia for my copy of Lit...

I'm pretty sure I have shared this clip on my blog a time or two before. It hit the Australian music charts in early 1992 and got a lot of airplay, particularly on SA-FM which was the cool radio station of the day. Anyway, my parents hated SA-FM and they hated this song even more, considering it shouty, unoriginal and repetitive. I remember feeling like such a rebel one day, at age ten, for sitting outside, on the back of a Toyota Light Stout that had become a fixture in my parent's backyard and listening to this song on a transistor radio. Good times. 

Have you ever picked up a book with low expectations and then been completely blown away by just how good it was, and then read it cover to cover in just a few hours? That was my experience with Please See Us , a psychological thriller about the victims of a serial killer, and the two very different women who try to solve the crime. Set during summer in Atlantic City, the author paints a bleak picture of Clara, a young woman with psychic abilities who works on a stand with her aunt, a woman who should most definitely not be trusted to look after a teenage girl. Contrasting against Clara is Lily, an artist who has returned home from New York City after experiencing heartbreak and a cruel humiliation. Chance throws the pair together, but they soon find themselves trying to discover what may have happened to Julie, a young woman who is missing, and who may be in Atlantic city. From there, things take a chilling twist ... This was a fast paced novel, set against a bleak landsca...

View this post on Instagram Harry Hartog, Burnside Village @harryhartogburnside #bookshops #bookshopsofinstagram #bookstagram #bookstagramaustralia #aussiereaders #booklove #books #bibliophile #burnsidevillage #adelaide #southaustralia A post shared by Kathryn White (@kathryns_inbox) on Feb 26, 2020 at 12:54am PST

Another interesting clip from the Curiosity Show.

I am sharing this clip, because it is almost impossible to listen to this song without smiling. According to YouTube Pop Muzik was one of the earliest new wave songs to make an impact on the music charts.

As many readers would already be aware through some of her previous works, beloved Australian author Helen Garner often kept a diary. For the first time, the content of some of those diaries has been published. Yellow Notebook features extracts from her diaries covering the years 1978 to 1987. Initially when I heard about this I was a little cynical. Was Garner trying to play at being Anais Nin? Fortunately not. Yellow Notebook is very much all her own, an eclectic mix of thoughts of the authors thoughts and experiences and carefully edited so not to invade the privacy of others.  There is little I can offer of critique of this one--how can anyone critique a diary after all--though every entry was beautifully and lovingly written. The author's deep level of empathy shows on every page, regardless of whether she is describing mundane day to day activities, tragic stories that she has seen or heard on the news or various activities in her own life. Recommended. No...