The Book of Everything (Guus Kuijer 2004, tr John Nieuwenhuizen 2006)

We have tickets for the Belvoir Street production of Richard Tulloch's dramatisation of this, so I'm getting the book under my belt ahead of time.

Slugs (David Greenberg & Victoria Chess 1983)

My grand-niece dug this out last night and softly asked me to read it to her. A delicious combination of gross-out (the book) and sweetness (the grand-niece).

Boyhood (J M Coetzee 1997)

Having read the third of Coetzee's, um, memoirs how could I not go back to the beginning?

DVD: Doubt (John Patrick Shanley 2008)

In the DVD extras the playwright/screenwriter/director says that the thing about his play was that people would walk out into the street and realise they'd just seen a different play from the person sitting next to them. And so it was with us!

Big Blue Mouth (John Malone 2009)

An honorably self published book of children's poetry, much of it previously seen in The School Magazine.

The Paterson Parodies (Stephen Whiteside 2009)

An honorably self-published book of bush verse.

Genova (Michael Winterbottom 2009)

We had complimentary tickets to this, but would have paid good money. Family Aftermath of Sudden Death is a bit of a genre. This is a highwater mark of that genre. Every character shines, even down to the callous Italian adolescent.

Departures (Okuribito) (Yôjirô Takita 2008)

Many Japanese movies feel to me as if I'd understand them a lot better if only I shared or at least knew about some key cultural element.That may be true of this, but dealing as it does with  honouring the newly dead, it speaks eloquently across the cultural divide.

DVD: Dean Spanley (Toa Fraser 2008)

Remarkably respectful of its Edwardian origins (a novel by Lord Dunsany) and surprisingly moving where one expected only a ponderous kind of silliness.

Theatre Kantanka: Missing the Bus to David Jones

The Theatre Kantanka web site aptly subtitles this 'poetic reflections in a nursing home'. Apart from some failed attempts at humour, I found it deeply engaging, and not only because it enacted versions of familiar scenarios. It's a short season. If you're in Sydney,try to get to it.

Full Circle (Pamela Freeman 2009)

Even though I'm engrossed in Black Politics, I've yielded to temptation and made a start on this. I dread the moment when I've finished it and there's no more of this world to be had for love or money.

DVD: Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 6 (Larry David 2007)

This is new to me. We watched four episodes and by the end of the fourth I was wanting to hide behind the couch.

Black Politics (Sarah Maddison 2009)

My Book Recommender in Chief says this is absolutely riveting. It seems a good follow-up to Noel Pearson's Quarterly Essay.

Herovit's World (Barry Malzberg 1975)

A small book from my TBR cache, slipped in between serious reads.

Come to Me, My Melancholy Baby (Kate Jennings 1975)

A friend who is cleaning up her bookshelves sent me this. I'm grateful – it looks as if she could have sold it for $40. I've regretted discarding my copy.

Belvoir: Berlin / Wall (David Hare 2009)

David Hare is in town to check out Belvoir's (in my opinion) terrible production of Gethsemane, and he's doing just one performance of these monologues. I enjoyed them both –Berlin as a highbrow-political travelogue, Wall as an impassioned acount of the Israel/West Bank fence/wall

Quarterly Essay: Radical Hope (Noel Pearson 2009)

The correspondence re previous QE are recaps rather than responses, leaving Annabel Crabb nothing to do but update us and tell us that Malcolm Turnbull responded graciously.

The September Issue (R J Cutler 2009)

I don't know if this is a good movie but the real Anna Wintour and her relationship with Grace, one of her leading creative staff, are more interesting than the set-up of the movie about her relationship with a new girl on staff in The Devil Wears Prada. Also the demands of editing the magazine Vogue are much more tellingly captured.

Whatever Works (Woody Allen 2009)

'Whatever temporary measure of grace.' Woody Allen is a kind of hybrid between creative human mind and idiosyncratic movie factory

Summertime (J M Coetzee 2009)

I hope it's not a problem that this is the third book in a series. I'm reading it for my Book Group.

Sydney Theatre Company: God of Carnage (Yasmina Reza 2009)

This starts out as a post–Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf drawing-room comedy, The Slap only bourgeois and witty, very sober and somewhat stilted. But with the first projectile vomit all was well. A great relief after the endless talky sameness of the Belvoir's Gethsemane.

Julie & Julia ( Nora Ephron 2009)

Quelle voix! So now we non-USians know who Julia Child was. It's refreshing to see a movie about a happy person, in a loving long-term relationship, a much happier bunny than Elizabeth David. And it's got blogging, sort of.

Belvoir Street: Gethsemane (David Hare 2009)

There's a lot of good stuff in this, but whether it was the writing, the direction or my perception of both, something was incoherent.

Séraphine (Martin Provost 2008)

An excellent film in the Tragic Mad Woman genre. The central performance by Yolande Moreau is something I hope I remember forever.