‘Here is how I start: I read Nietzsche. I read Nietzsche in bed, with a chest cold. I highlight things in green and draw exclamation marks in the margins. I text friends. You wouldn’t expect I could be having so much fun reading Nietzsche, I tell them. They are worried about their children, about lockdown, about money, about their marriages. I am reading Nietzsche, I repeat. I text them quotes from Nietzsche. They do not reply.’
Gemma Parker’s parents were impulsively itinerant, and her literary heroes were utterly committed to following their muse, dashing into foreign lands and up mountainsides. To write properly about nihilism, she herself surely needs to go to Paris! But she’s stuck – by a job, by children, then by covid.
Nietzsche says that to be worth anything at all, art – and life – needs to break all rules and work itself out from scratch. As Parker reads the great philosopher’s work more deeply – and that of other celebrated nihilists Camus and Beckett – she discovers the life-affirming magic of believing nothing matters. And to find a way of being free, even at home.
Question: Tell us who the author is reading. ANSWER: Nietzschehttps://goodreadingmagazine.com.au/competitions/free-february-17-the-mother-is-restless-she-doesnt-know-why/Terms And Conditions:
1. Entry is open to all residents of Australia and New Zealand from 17 February 2026 to 18 February 2026. 2. Employees and the immediate families of the promoter and agencies associated with this promotion are ineligible. 3. The judge’s decision is final, and no correspondence will be entered into. 4. The first correct entries drawn from the competition in February 2026 will win the book. 5. The promoter accepts no responsibility for late, lost or misdirected mail. 6. The winners of the prize will be notified by email in February 2026.
Australian Competitions Club
