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Return to Book Page. Like a House on Fire by Cate Kennedy.
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From prize-winning short-story writer Cate Kennedy comes a new collection to rival her highly acclaimed Dark Roots. In Like a House on Fire , Kennedy once again takes ordinary lives and dissects their ironies, injustices and pleasures with her humane eye and wry sense of humour. Paperback , pages. Published October 1st by Scribe Publications first published September 26th To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Like a House on Fire , please sign up.
Lists with This Book. Apr 02, Denise rated it really liked it. In one respect, this was a very easy book to read. Her characters and their everyday lives are real and recognisable. Quite frankly, I am in awe of her talents — she is a master of the craft. Loss of love, life, youth, health, innocence, dreams. Lack of love, money, resources, security, stability. Some passages actually made me laugh out loud. Stuff this for a joke. With one exception, all the stories engaged me from beginning to end.
I rarely read short stories, but Like a House on Fire has sparked off an interest in this genre. And I hope she wins the Stella Prize! Jul 09, Nancy rated it liked it Shelves: Low return on 'reading investment' Here are my comments about the 5 best stories: Aug 04, Louise rated it it was amazing.
Review of Like a House on Fire — Jessica White
A masterful collection depicting moments of Australian life. I'm in awe of the richness and complexity Cate Kennedy manages to create in each short story. My personal favourite was 'Ashes'. Feb 10, Sonia rated it it was ok Shelves: This was originally posted at my blog www. It was difficult to write about this collection because what do I know? I huffed and puffed over this being included. It was the wrong book for the wrong prize. I cannot comment on the remainder of the list.
Something pulling at my sleeve tells me I should read some of the others on the long list to truly understand why they have been included. All of the stories, except three, were previously published in literary magazines or anthologies. The cover of this collection gives us a hint on what to expect within the pages. There are scatterings of socks, vases, cups of coffees, a broken plate and a glass of wine.
So yes, you will get a dose of reality in these stories. Kennedy does realism well, in other stories, but only sometimes in this collection. Many stories reveal the unfortunate lives of many characters, but several stories end with a sliver of hope, a crack in the drawn curtains, where the light comes in. But there is a moment before the story ends where she sees him for the vulnerable human that he is.
get on like a house on fire
The mundane of life is successfully portrayed in this story, as Chris witnesses the stereotypical behaviour of her children without her encouragement. I have often witnessed it in my own house: Where have they absorbed all this from, this nasty flotsam leaking in like battery acid? Right from the first paragraph, we are aware this is a facade, showing stiff smiles and getting physically too close to each other for the sake of the photo. This was delicious to read.
The stone in my stomach was squeezing and pressing, sending a taste up into my mouth. Like when you have an Easter egg and the foil gets bitten onto one of your fillings. View all 3 comments. Jan 11, Evrim rated it it was amazing. This book is full of such good short stories As I kept on reading, I had this growing sense - 'what if I had missed this book'!
May 09, B. Kyle rated it it was ok Shelves: This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. The problem with this trope is that it rarely applies to real life, because if it did, the solution and treatment for infertility in Real Life would simply be reverse psychology.
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- Get on like a house on fire - Idioms by The Free Dictionary;
- Inside the Shadow in Jaffa Gate;
- Incident of the Tavern Maid (Doctor Perry Sidwells Adventures with Dreams and the Paranormal Book 2);
In Australia, so much peer pressure is placed upon married couples to have children, so much so that it is very common for couples to conceive their first child through IVF, and then conceive their second child naturally. It is a proven fact that the more pressure and strain a woman places on her body to become pregnant, the more likely it will just not happen.
The narrative has implied, but never outright stated, that this couple in this story could possibly fall into a low-income category, and in that case, the woman could apply for Centrelink benefits. Now, the husband could earn just that little bit too much for them to qualify for those benefits. This leads to the situation of earning too much to apply for welfare but not earning enough to get by, which is unfortunately very common.
Like a House on Fire
However, these options are not mentioned or spoken of at all. Research says that about 1 in 10 working mothers feel guilty about having their child in care, so it is a common problem many women have to deal with. An issue with day-care in Australia is that many day-care centres are being shut down due to many new regulations, and day-care owners would rather sell then have to deal with all the red tape and fee increases. So that leads to limited access and child placement of day-care centres, Day-care is very expensive.
So expensive that it is sometimes the reason why women are forced to stay at home.
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Comments on like a house on fire What made you want to look up like a house on fire? Get Word of the Day daily email! Winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction, Balram Halwai is the White Tiger - the smartest boy in his village. Too poor to finish school, he has to work in a teashop until the day a rich man hires him as a chauffeur, and takes him to live in Delhi.
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Searing and profound, suffused with beauty, sorrow and longing, this collection is a resounding confirmation of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's prodigious storytelling powers. In this collection of award-winning stories, Melbourne writer Maxine Beneba Clarke has given a voice to the disenfranchised, the lost, the downtrodden and the mistreated.
It will challenge you; it will have you by the heartstrings. This is contemporary fiction at its finest. In Melbourne's western suburbs, in a dilapidated block of flats overhanging the rattling Footscray train lines, a young black mother is working on a collection of stories. The book is called Foreign Soil. When her identity was discovered, Malala began to appear in both Pakistani and international media, advocating the freedom to pursue education for all.
In October , gunmen boarded Malala's school bus and shot her in the face, a bullet passing through her head and into her shoulder. Remarkably, Malala survived the shooting. At a very young age, Malala Yousafzai has become a worldwide symbol of courage and hope. Once, Rich and Sandy were environmental activists, part of a world-famous blockade in Tasmania to save the wilderness. About the only thing they have in common these days is their year-old daughter, Sophie. Kenneth Branagh plays this like a campfire ghost story, told by a haunted, slightly insane Marlow.
Horrified to have a convicted murderess in their midst, the family avoid contact with Agnes. Streetwise George and his big, childlike friend Lennie are drifters, searching for work in the fields and valleys of California.
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But dreams come at a price. Trouble so bad that even his protector George may not be able to save him From prize-winning short-story writer Cate Kennedy comes a new collection to rival her highly acclaimed Dark Roots. In Like a House on Fire , Kennedy once again takes ordinary lives and dissects their ironies, injustices, and pleasures with her humane eye and wry sense of humour.
In 'Laminex and Mirrors', a young woman working as a cleaner in a hospital helps an elderly patient defy doctor's orders. In 'Cross - Country', a jilted lover manages to misinterpret her ex's new life. And in 'Ashes', a son accompanies his mother on a journey to scatter his father's remains, while lifelong resentments simmer in the background. Cate Kennedy's poignant short stories find the beauty and tragedy in illness and mortality, life and love. She is an award-winning short-story writer whose work has been published widely.
Her book The Taste of River Water: