For those of you who read either the Age or Andrew Bolt, you will be aware of this article, which points out the following: More than a third of the winners of Australia’s most prestigious literary prize, the Miles Franklin Award, are now out of print. Of the 53 books that have been awarded the [...]
By skepticlawyer
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Also posted in Australia, Books, Bring Laws and Gods, England, science fiction
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Tagged Andrew Bolt, Antony Harwood, Michael Heyward, Miles Franklin Award, Text Publishing, The Hand that Signed the Paper, The Kindly Ones
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Instead of doing, you know, actual work last night (how do I hate thee HMRC, let me count the ways), I spent quite a bit of the evening reading articles and responding to the news that new Queensland Premier Campbell Newman has cancelled (I’m not sure if that’s the right word, but never mind) the [...]
By skepticlawyer
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Also posted in Academia, Australia, Books, Economics, Education, Law, Politics, Popular culture, The Left
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Tagged Campbell Newman, David Hicks, externalities, Guantanamo Bay, Jonathan Haidt, merit goods, Miles Franklin Award, milton friedman, Nick Earls, Queensland Premier, Queensland Premier's Literary Awards, Stella Prize, Tony Abbott, Unaipon Award
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The title of this post reveals the Latin quip (by the Roman satirist Juvenal, in his 10th Satire, 77-81) from which Suzanne Collins derived the name of her fictional dystopian country in The Hunger Games (Legal Eagle’s review and commentary is here). It means ‘bread and circuses’ and is part of a lengthy whinge where Juvenal [...]
By skepticlawyer
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Also posted in Children, Law, Popular culture, science fiction, Welfare
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Tagged Ancient Rome, Juvenal, Marcus Aurelius, Martial, panem, panem et circenses, steven pinker, Suzanne Collins, The Better Angels of Our Nature, The Hunger Games
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I have just read Suzanne Collins’ series The Hunger Games. ‘Read’ is probably not the right word: ‘devoured’ is more like it. Once I’d started, I had to finish. As I’ve said before I think good writing has a “hook” which makes you want to read on, but also makes you think about people or [...]
By Legal Eagle
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Also posted in Books, Personal liberty, Philosophy
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Tagged better angels, dystopia, empathy, fiction, inner demons, Katniss Everdeen, novels, Peeta Mellark, psychology, reality TV, steven pinker, Suzanne Collins, The Better Angels of Our Nature, The Hunger Games, violence
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October 10, 2011 – 10:16 pm
It’s not often that the paths of commercial law and literature intersect, so when it happens, we tend to seize the opportunity with both hands. This post, then, is a discussion of the newly-founded Stella Prize for Australian women writers, and the legal instrument that will of necessity be the vehicle for its ongoing success: [...]
By skepticlawyer
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Also posted in Economics, Equity, Feminism, Law
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Tagged Adam Smith, annuity, Augustus, charitable trusts, coverture, cy-près, freedom of testation, law of trusts, Miles Franklin, Orange Prize, perpetuity, primogeniture, pro-family legislation, property law, purpose trusts, Starship Troopers, Stella Prize, taxation, time value of money, Trusts, Wealth of Nations
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September 26, 2011 – 9:59 am
Apologies that I haven’t been around lately. I have mostly recovered from my chest ailments (residual cough only), but my book manuscript is due to be sent to the publishers at the end of this week, so I have been frantically reading and re-reading the manuscript. Via Kerryn Goldsworthy, I became aware of this great [...]
By Legal Eagle
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Also posted in Academia, Books, History, Internet, Law, Society
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Tagged Academia, History, intelligence, Maria Tumarkin, Meanjin, morals, Orlando Figes, Rachel Polonsky, Robert Service, russia, Stalin
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August 21, 2011 – 10:42 am
About a year ago I picked up The Children’s Book, which I’d put down months earlier after failing to really get engaged in it, and, as with Wolf Hall (which I talked about in my last post), I was lost in a past world. Not that I want to go to this one – it [...]
[SL: I used to think I'd read a lot of science fiction and fantasy, and I have, but my reading depth in the two genres pales in comparison with Lorenzo's efforts, and probably with Legal Eagle's, too, if I'm to be honest. I've read enough, though, to appreciate that readers can become ghettoized, much like [...]
By skepticlawyer
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Also posted in Books, Guest Post, Religion, science fiction
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Tagged C. S. Lewis, deepak Lal, isaiah berlin, Jacqueline Carey, Julian Gough, Kylie Chan, L. E. Modestit Jnr, Lois McMaster Bujold, Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman, Norman Cohn, Sarah Monette
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February 21, 2011 – 8:04 pm
One way–in days gone by, when the West at least was less free–for authors to satirize the Great and the Good was for them to employ the roman à clef, or ‘novel with a key’. The actual phrase was coined by leading French author Madeleine de Scudéry, who used the technique to do just that: [...]
By skepticlawyer
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Also posted in Law
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Tagged Ablene Cooper, breach of confidence, christina stead, defamation, English defamation law, invasion of privacy, Kathryn Stockett, Madeleine de Scudéry, Max Mosley, roman à clef, streisand effect, The Help
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January 21, 2011 – 4:57 am
[To be cross-posted at the Fortnightly Review in the coming week or so] Who enjoys reading spy fiction, or watching spy movies? I do. There’s something interesting about espionage. Perhaps it’s the secrecy which makes it so fascinating. People love to know secrets: it reflects the broader idea that if something is scarce, it must [...]
By Legal Eagle
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Also posted in Law, Media, Privacy, Public Policy, Society, Technology, Terrorism
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Tagged Anthony Blunt, breach of confidence, Britain, double agents, John Le Carre, Julian Assange, Malcolm Turnbull, margaret thatcher, MI5, Peter Wright, Robert Armstrong, Roger Hollis, secrecy, spies, spycatcher, spying, WikiLeaks
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