The aim of this website is to provide an opinionated collection of reviews from a broad range of nationalities, languages, genres and styles. My preferences lean heavily to literature from European nations, or those authors influenced by the European masters. I also have an interest in Australian literature (I am Australian).

In addition to this, I have a great fondness for trawling through texts available within the public domain that have significant cultural or literary merit but have, for whatever reason, fallen by the wayside. The memory of contemporary literature (particularly in the English-speaking world) is notorious for forgetting authors who were giants within their own time. I hope to provide reviews that will provoke their readers to seek out these astonishing works of literature.

My website in no way attempts to claim to be comprehensive. There are far more texts to be reviewed (to be read!) than are currently available, and the backlog of texts I am interested in will far outstrip the capacity of my life to read. Thus, my reviews are necessarily opinionated, subjective, and should be understood to represent a clearly defined literary viewpoint. I claim a definite bias in the type of books I review, and the type of book I like - and no apologies will be made for this. I do, however, intend to add reviews with regularity, and these reviews should, when taken as a whole, indicate a coherent and directed approach to reading and literature. You should very much 'get what you see' with this website concerning the scope and focus of the reviews.

My tastes trend toward modernity, European whimsy, and the bildungsroman. I enjoy the surreal and the subversive, though I generally detest the post-modern (or at least, in its deadened American form). The novels of Sebald, Rolland, Borges, Proust and Mann I consider to be touchstones, and it is through the prism of these authors' works that I view the landscape of literature, and judge accordingly.

I can be contacted by email. I am happy to discuss literature or review recently (or not so recently) published works.

Alternatively, books may be sent directly to my PO Box address:

Damian Kelleher
PO Box 10599
Adelaide Street
Brisbane QLD 4000
Australia

The best place to start on this website is the Review Index, which aims to catalogue all of the reviews by topic, nationality, alphabetical, etc. Or, alternatively, you could read the Recent Reviews page, which contains information on the nine most recently reviewed texts.

Thank you for visiting my website.

Also of Interest

November 2010
Happy Fourth Birthday, Website - An examination of the website at four years old