Jonathan Safran Foer - Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

This is Jonathan's second novel. Much like his first, it is ridiculously well written with lots of different narrative styles and the added addition of a hilarious photo of Lleyton Hewitt.

Even the inscription is beautiful, so we begin with that.

1. For NICOLE, my idea of beautiful.

2. What about little microphones? What if everyone swallowed them, and they played the sounds of our hearts through little speakers

3. And at the finish line at the end of the New York City Marathon it would sound like war.

4. I'd experienced joy, but not nearly enough, could there be enough?

5. How pinched and pathetic.

6. None of my pets know their own names, what kind of person am I?

7. And I conjugated for a while so I wouldn't have to think about things.

8. "No, but there are books that I love, love, love," she said it just like that, three times.

9. How she sneezes and says, "God bless me," God bless her.

10. "Then why are you crying?" I asked, exhausted and experienced.

11. I thought, it's a shame that we have to live, but it's a tragedy that we get to live only one life, because if I'd had two lives, I would have spent one of them with her.

12. There was art that was probably famous on the walls.

13. I took pictures of the stars with Grandpa's camera, and in my head i connected them to make words, whatever words i wanted... In my brain I made "shoe" and "inertia" and "invincible."

Daniel Hogan - The End et al.

Daniel Hogan is a young creative guy from Melbourne. 'Young creative' isn't as wanky as it sounds, it just means he excels at movies and stories and scribbling. Exhibit A: This wonderful piece of microfiction.

1. In Heaven, measurements are made using the metric system.

Joseph Brennan - Not Before Dinner

Joseph is currently working on his first novel. This little gem comes from a short memoir piece included in Voiceworks#80: Missionary.

1. "Have you boys seen Wolf Creek?" says the man in a suit, his other half, female, pearled and hooked on his arm.

Kill Your Darlings Issue 2

I recently added in the great one liners from Issue 1 of this new journal. I enjoyed reading the first one so much that i immediately subscribed. And bought a subscription for my mum. Because I'm a good guy like that, sometimes. Issue 2 arrived in the mail recently with a hand written letter from Deputy Editor Hannah thanking me for taking up a subscription. Great people. And great content.

Shock - Pierz Newtown-John
1. She switches on the light in the living room, the jaundiced illumination of a low-watt bulb...

2. Her blackness in the blackness like a double negation, like an absence made flesh...

Friction - Virginia Peters
1. As she spun across the wholemeal carpet and into the kitchen.

A Terror Story - Leanne Hall
1. I blink, blank.

2. Her eyes have flecks of rust and yellow in them. I'm afraid she'll read my mind with eyes like that.

Aravind Adiga - Between the Assassinations

Aravind has won the Man-Booker Prize. That's a pretty big deal. His follow up to the award winning The White Tiger was this book, which was actually written first. Go figure.
Here are some great lines:
1. Only he had taken them seriously; he had thought that they fucked women and blew up bombs.

2. 'You have to be full of life.'
He shook his fist at Keshava, as if to demonstrate the fullness of life.

3. The furrow in his brow was like a bookmark left there by the dead woman.

4. Mr Murthy said, giving his bald head a sad philosophical shake.

5. Dialectics had become Dust.

Jonathan Walker and Dan Hallett - Five Wounds

This is Jonathan and Dan's second collaborative effort, the first being Pistols! Treason! Murder! Dan is again at the helm of the illustrations, and has helped to create what has been coined (and rightly so) 'an illuminated novel'.

1. He could feel the bruises spreading under his skin like spilled wine, and he knew that he was disfigured from the hits.

2. Apparently there were paintings.

3. Their sweat was confident and neutral. It had none of the acid of burnt muscle.

4. He knows that flesh doesn't last, so he doesn't waste time on anything not informed by the soul.

5. 'Who are you?'
'No one you know,' Cuckoo said.
'No. Body.'

6. She breathed heavily, in a parody of the desire he had felt for her.

7. Their will was cumulative.

8. I was filled with grief that made no sense to me.

Pasha Malla - All Our Grandfathers Are Ghosts

Pasha came out for the Sydney Writers Festival recently. I saw him do a poetry reading at Number One wine bar in The Rocks. I had never read any of his stuff before, but was very, very pleasantly surprised. Pasha has a ridiculous ability manipulate emotions. His stuff kind of reminds me of Etgar Kerret. As well as this, he was super friendly, giving me a copy of his poetry collection AOGAG that he read from. Top bloke. Below are the stand outs.

The Proper Grammar
1. But when the guy behind the counter
showed us that .22,
like a discovery of unfamiliar briefs in the hamper,
thins changed.

2. How soiled my trousers were
- And yours too, Harold -
that day
in Manitoba.

The men named James and the woman, Alice
1. They are all just muscles and beard,
muscles and beard.

Best Poem Ever
1. You'd think she won
the Oscar
for Being Awesome,
or something

Booty Call
1. one of those guys
who'll take his shirt off at the park
and can throw a frisbee
like a ventriloquist -
that is, into the distance,
and trickily.

I got my MFA in haiku and this was my thesis:
One, two, three, four, five.
One, two, three, four, five, six, sev-
en. Shit, i fucked up.

Baseball: A Cricketer's Primer
1. Forward, onward, upward! Such is America.

2. Imagine the clean-cut, poster-worthy good looks of a cricketer.
Now, add a moustache: baseball.

Natalie Portman, Listen
1, But we're getting off on the wrong foot,
and i don't even own a sword.

2. And the world would sigh a little bit at each one.

3. Your body is a synagogue

4. I would dance a saucy Semitic dance.

Stop Following Me
1. and how sober the next morning
you wanted on so many levels
to kick in
your own face?