Tag: books
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Top of a lighthouse is on my bucket list
Get in line if you want to know how many humour columnists it takes to change a lightbulb. I’ve got a more pressing riddle: how many humour columnists can you squeeze into a lighthouse? That’s the question I asked in an email I sent to Steve Jeffrey, former editor and proprietor of the Anchor Weekly…
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Two things will happen in my next novel
In the final book of my Windy Mountain series, someone will get married and someone will die. They may even be the same person. I haven’t decided yet, so please go easy on me. That uncertainty probably tells you a lot about me. I try to write blog posts weekly because they behave themselves. They turn up, do…
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I’m not who you think I am. Wheely.
I can’t continue the lie. All this time I’ve been masquerading as a short, overweight, unfit former journalist called John Martin. But my real name is Urs Freuler — and in the 1980s and 1990s I was one of the world’s greatest cyclists. Six foot two. Muscles on muscles. Legs like tree trunks. Born in…
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The case for me as a piece of Australiana
Exhibit A: Name, Heritage and Pure CoincidenceA man named John Martin was a convict on the First Fleet. He was a Black American and a political prisoner. So it’s wildly unlikely I’m related — but you never know. Australia was built on improbability. Until recently I thought I had Locke blood on my mother’s side.…
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The evolution of funny, satirical books
Humour has been part of storytelling for as long as people have been telling stories. Ancient writers used comedy to puncture pomposity, while medieval satirists sharpened their pens on the powerful. In English literature, Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726) proved that a ridiculous adventure could carry biting political commentary, and Charles Dickens later filled his novels with…
JOHN MARTIN'S TALES 