Nigel Krauth

Okay I’ve just finished reading Tim Winton’s The Riders. I’ve scribbled notes on pages all the way through, but I don’t want to go back and consult them. Who wants to return to hell? The Riders is a novel to read legless, brainless, and heartless. I recommend litres of Irish whisky, ouzo, cheap French wine, Dutch beer, or anything that stops you from feeling. The Riders is your wildest ni ... (read more)

Draw an outline of the Cape York Peninsula, far north Queensland. Just a rough one. An isosceles triangle, more or less. Now draw its mirror image away from the baseline. Imagine it in 3-0. Two cones. Two cyclones joined, spinning in opposite directions. Male and female vortices balancing each other, consuming each other. That’s it. Two novellas making a novel: Thea Astley’s brilliant Vanishin ... (read more)

In 1868 John Heaps (alias Muley Moloch), a preacher, self-styled prophet, and trained bootmaker, left England with a group of eight women bound for Australia. Their intention was to set up a mission dedicated to the development of their own perfection and a preparation for the Second Coming of Christ. They arrived in Melbourne but found it unsuitable as a New Jerusalem (too superficial and violen ... (read more)