Tuesday, May 09, 2006



Despite all the modern gizmos at our disposal it is obvious that people still love to read. If you doubt it, czech out the Sydney Writer’s Festival website and you will notice than 800,000 hits in the lead up to the festival to be staged between 22 to 28 May 2006. The majority of Festival events are free. To book for our ticketed events call Sydney Theatre box office on (02) 9250 1988, or book online. This year, we’re bringing 70 international guests to Sydney to talk about their work. They come from all corners of the globe including Bosnia, Iraq, France, Israel, the Netherlands, Ireland, Canada, East Timor, Singapore, Nigeria and, for the first time, Russia. Anna Politkovskaya in Sydney

Power plays get personal Novel twist to discovery

Art of Living & Literature Across Frontiers: Why girls love older media dragons
Oooh, the older man: he's confident, sexy and knows how to navigate his way around the boardroom and the bedroom. But how old is too old?

Stability! Fabulous sex! Chivalry is back! Hooray! Oh yes - dating an older bloke has its merits. He treats you like a princess, opens the car door for you, carries your handbag, chooses the wine and pays for your dinner. Sigh.


Humphrey Bogart, 45, and Lauren Bacall, 20 [You’d never have been stupid enough to fall for the Nigerian email scam, would you? Okay, but how about the next scam? How sure are you? How a Massachusetts psychotherapist fell for a Nigerian e-mail scam. ; The Unknown Freud - an awesome ability to argue in crisp, clear, compelling prose Freud remains iconoclastic professor's most worthy opponent]
• · The buzzer is swiftly answered by the 36-year-old writer, whose upper-class English accent sounds like that of Hugh Grant, another product of the Oxbridge star system. de Botton's famously limpid blue eyes complete the image of the handsomely balding bookworm ; Exile isn't just about banishment from real places, as an Englishman fond of Australia tells Courting Shadows: Belonging is where you imagine you want to be
• · · Two young lovers, played by Heath Ledger and Abbie Cornish, whirl on a Luna Park ride. In the early days of a relationship, they are giddy with passion and possibility. But when she shares his taste for heroin, the lovers take a darker and more confronting ride. Candy man: an author's journey from page to screen ; If “America’s Storytellers” is to be a bright, cheery slogan for the Screen Writers Guild, what shall we call the Sex Workers Guild? “America’s Fun Makers”? Screenplays brought bigger paychecks, but the life of a novelist has its own rewards A writer unblocked
• · · · The people whose ideas, power and sheer will are changing New York. ; Robert Kuttner on The comeback of protest songs. We Shall Overcome'
• · · · · I talk with the authority of failure--Ernest with the authority of success. We could never sit across the table again Double Lives- Love Letters; Technologies that reveal the inner workings of the brain are beginning to tell the sleeping mind's secrets in dreams What Dreams Are Made Of
• · · · · · The US needs more gung-ho, patriotic war movies that celebrate our fight against Islamo-fascists Draft Hollywood ; In 1932, a 24-year-old man accepted the position of deputy director of the Institute of International Education in Manhattan As Good as it Gets