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2025 Reading Challenge

2025

READING

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Paul Adkin has read 49 books of his goal of 41!

120%

Paul David Adkin

Goodreads Author

Born

in Long Eaton, The United Kingdom

Website

http://www.pauldavidadkin.com

Twitter

AdkinPaul

Genre

Fiction, Plays, Philosophy

Influences

Dostoevsky, Thomas Mann, Joseph Conrad, Patrick White, Thomas Bernhard ...more

Member Since

May 2012

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/pauladkin

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Paul Adkin was born in Long Eaton, Derbyshire, England, in 1958, at his aunt’s house. His early infancy was spent in a council house in Bridge Street, Sandiacre, which runs parallel to the Erewash canal. The contrast between gloomy brick and the calm, fecund life of the river; between the poverty of the town and the richness of the natural world, has been a deeply ingrained dialect in Paul’s artist’s psyche. In 1965 his father, a clerk at a railway company, decided to pull up roots and migrate to Australia.
After a seven week voyage, on assisted passage, the Adkin family set themselves up at the Nunawading Migrant Hostel in Melbourne. In the most uninspiring atmosphere of the eastern suburbs, it was his discovery of Swift, Dostoevsky and Pa Paul Adkin was born in Long Eaton, Derbyshire, England, in 1958, at his aunt’s house. His early infancy was spent in a council house in Bridge Street, Sandiacre, which runs parallel to the Erewash canal. The contrast between gloomy brick and the calm, fecund life of the river; between the poverty of the town and the richness of the natural world, has been a deeply ingrained dialect in Paul’s artist’s psyche. In 1965 his father, a clerk at a railway company, decided to pull up roots and migrate to Australia.
After a seven week voyage, on assisted passage, the Adkin family set themselves up at the Nunawading Migrant Hostel in Melbourne. In the most uninspiring atmosphere of the eastern suburbs, it was his discovery of Swift, Dostoevsky and Patrick White that began to open Paul’s mind to the beauty and power of literature.
Paul remained in Nunawading until he started the drama and literature course at Rusden in 1976. Without any scholarship he did part time work in factories and farms while he was learning stage craft. At Rusden he had started writing plays and after graduating he wrote and directed his first play at the La Mama Theatre in Carlton, “The Jack and Jill Story.” In 1982 he was given the prestigious title of artistic-director-in-residence at the Anthill Theatre in South Melbourne where he directed his play “Schadenfreude”.
In 1983 he left Melbourne for Japan and lived a year there teaching English and working on a novella, inspired by a Thomas Mann short story, “Gladius Dei”. That novella would eventually be published thirty years later with the title of “Art Wars”.
In 1984 he did a whirlwind tour of Europe that introduced him to the Mediterranean countries. He worked as hotel cleaner, later hotel manager and broker in London. Two very sterile years were spent in London until he escaped to Spain and Madrid.
In Madrid he married Isabel Martin and started writing a novel about the Spanish attempts to discover Australia. The result of this was the Terra Australis Incognita trilogy, the first part of which was “Purgatory”. This found a literary agent but was rejected by over one hundred publishers. Eventually it was published by Paul himself in 2012, in ebook format.
In Madrid Paul returned to the theatre and he has been the founder of three theatre companies. Big Bang and Ñu Accents were created to do plays that could teach English in Spanish schools. His third company, Ñu Teatro, produced Paul’s scripts, either translated or written by Paul himself in Spanish.
With the millennium Paul and his wife started holidaying in the Greek Islands and very soon a strong spiritual tie was developed between them. His short story Kalimera won the Eyelands short story competition in 2012 and was translated into Greek. He has been acclaimed by his Greek readers for possessing a sharp, observant eye of the Greek culture and atmosphere. When Sirens Call was another product of this very happy and fruitful relationship with the islands.
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Paul David Adkin’s books

Average rating: 4.88 · 25 ratings · 5 reviews · 10 distinct works

	Purgatory 4.63 avg rating — 8 ratings — published 2008 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Art Wars it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 4 ratings — published 2014	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	When Sirens Call it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 4 ratings — published 2014 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Hamlet Rex it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 2012 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Jack and Jill Story it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 1981	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Purgatory it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 2012	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Dismantling the Paradigm it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Desmantelando el paradigma it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Fake Lies it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	When Sirens Call 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Eichmann, Trump and a World of Thoughtless Cliches

Hannah Arendt, who personally attended the trial of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi SS officer who was a leading figure in the Holocaust, wrote that what struck her most about Eichmann was not his evil monstrosity, but rather the manifest shallowness of the monster’s personality. “The only notable characteristic,” she said: “One could detect in his … behaviour … was something entirely negative: it wa

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The Life of the Mind, Volume Two: Willing

by Hannah Arendt

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Harmony and Voice Leading

by Edward Aldwell

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Phenomenology of Spirit

by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

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