Saturdays exhibition opening with Fiona Kidman was lovely. I know I'll treasure my signed copy of this fantastic book.

Please check out the link if you wish to see a review for this second part of her celebrated memoir.

http://mary-mccallum.blogspot.com/2009/06/congratulations-dame-sir-fiona.html

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austin and Seth Grahame-Smith

Review by Alicia Ponder

There's something wrong about this book. There's no denying the idea's a little sick, but then every Zombie story ever written is a little sick. Nor is there much denying that the book struggles to have a plot, but that never stopped the original from being a classic. So the thing that's screamingly, horribly wrong is only that somebody dared put the two together. It's just wrong on a gut level -- and that's the exact reason I had to read it, and probably why I kind of enjoyed it -- but I wouldn't rave.

Yes, there are moments of brilliance, but there are also moments of drear drudgery. Whole sections where a stray Zombie or two -- just to put one or two of the characters out of their misery (and consequently out of our own) would have been heaven-sent. Whatever point Jane Austin may have been trying to prove about how shallow it is to be only interested in men and fripperies, did she have to make it so well that even the zombies Seth Grahame-Smith injected into the script, seemed more full of character than the majority of the heroine's family?

So is it worth reading? Yes, in the end, why not? It is a bit of culture -- and there's the added bonus that the character you dislike the most may yet succumb to those dreadful zombies..