Is it possible to live wondrously by fluorescent light?

In The Ruin of Magic, Kate Holden turns her attention to home, belonging, enchantment and the risks and comforts of nostalgia. She meditates on the cultural belonging she feels to long-ago Europe versus the natural belonging she feels to the Australian landscape. And she laments the flattening influence of modernity while directing an amused gaze at her own pretensions – all the time consulting the literature and gathering fragrant bouquets of wisdom from other writers and thinkers.

Eclectic, lush and deeply thoughtful, this book of essays is a warm light in a dark room.

'Elegant and whip-smart, The Ruin of Magic is a work of beauty – a sober yet joyful quest to find home and belonging.' —Susan Johnson

'Thrillingly erudite, belletristic, yet necessarily raw. Many readers will encounter this "almost private" book as the mirror they've been walking past their whole lives. The Ruin of Magic is a very lucid howl.' —Gregory Day

'A shimmering book that teases, enchants and provokes while offering balm through language and memory for our modern anguish and fear of oblivion' —Robert Dessaix