AUSTRALIAN BOOK INDUSTRY AWARDS (ABIA) 2021 AWARDS SHORTLIST The Australian Publishers Association have announced the shortlist for the 2021 Australian Book Industry Awards. From this shortlist, the category winners and the overall ‘Book of the Year’ winner will be announced at the premier event on the Australian book industry calendar. The Virtual Broadcast of the
Reviewed by Ian Lipke Prose Poetry: An Introduction is a deep study of what the authors maintain is “a highly significant literary form flourishing in most-English-speaking countries”. The writers intend to “explore prose poetry’s trajectory as a literary form and discuss the emergence of significant key practitioners”, significant because their views have strongly influenced the
Reviewed by Rod McLary The town of Nowhere River is a small town in the Central Highlands of Tasmania not too far from Hobart – it has suffered and continues to suffer from a long drought. Like many other small country towns across Australia, Nowhere River is slowly dying. This heart-warming and affectionate story centres
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke This hard covered book of photographs was edited by Alison Higgs and captures some of the unique beauty and richness of Kangaroo Island. This is Australia’s third-largest island and is situated in the Southern Ocean off South Australia. Did Alison take the photographs? I cannot find an answer to this question.
Reviewed by Patricia Simms-Reeve Readers seeking a diverting, laughter-filled few hours will pounce on Second First Impressions. This book is in fairytale territory with its unspectacular heroine, Ruthie, discovered and transformed by a ridiculously nearly perfect man, Teddy (Theodore). Ruthie is temporarily managing Providence, a retirement home for excessively wealthy ladies. Into her life comes
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke Angela Slatter, the author of All The Murmuring Bones, specialises in writing about dark fantasy and horror. This is her first novel set in the same world as her mosaic collections Sourdough and Other Stories and The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings, as well as the novella Of Sorrow and Such. This story will be followed
Reviewed by Patricia Simms-Reeve People of all ages, on occasion, think their memory has failed them. We know it is the most complex and important section of the brain. It gives shape, direction, ability and pleasure to our existence. For each, it is unique, and found deep in the brain in a small, sea-horse-like structure,
Reviewed by Rod McLary We were all fourteen-year-old teenagers once, and most of us – even when we don’t particularly want to – can remember what being fourteen was like. Negotiating the complexities of relationships outside our families, establishing a place in school, let alone addressing the whole new world of sexuality and gender –
Reviewed by Ian Lipke This is the story of a woman named Erica whose mother had recently died and whose husband Stuart had passed away soon after. Erica and her daughters Mackenzie and Issy are trying to put their lives back together. Erica is devastated when her financial advisers inform her that her venture capitalist
Reviewed by Patricia Simms-Reeve Half Life is a well-chosen title for this book, half fact and half fiction. Half life is the chemical term for the time it takes for half the radioactive element to decay. For Radium, it is 1600 years. Half the story is of Marie Curie and the other is an imagined
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke Apparently, this book is the fifth and last in a series about a group of ‘lovely ladies’ from Europe’s royal and most influential families and their less privileged sisters who played such a pivotal role in both World Wars and whose involvement has been omitted from the annals of history. The
Reviewed by Ian Lipke No doubt exists in my mind that Australia needs to wake to the fact that living within its shores is a major talent, a young woman whose Sisters of Freedom captures truly the spirit of the dawn of a federated nation. Society of the time led the way by drafting laws
Reviewed by Rod McLary The impetus for this book was – quite appropriately – a relationship breakup experienced by the author only days before she and her partner were due to travel overseas. Bereft in an airport bookshop and failing to find a book – any book – which would ‘put words around how I’m
Reviewed by Ian Lipke Hard Case books have been designed to be short, and promote tales that do not hold back. No pretty metaphors appear to lighten the mood. If the story is about horror, then blood and nastiness is what one expects. If it is a crime story, a murder or two and large