Reviews

Reviewed by Ian Lipke Paige Toon has taken an old idea, dressed it in a new costume, and provided readers of romantic fiction with a well told story whose characters are likable, settings beautiful and a plot that hangs together to the very end. The lead character Nell opens the story with a scene where

Reviewed by Ian Lipke I must say that, when I read this book, I was looking for something escapist, something that required next to no cerebral effort, in short, just a rattling good yarn. And that is what I found. A General of some hidden department in the Pentagon has the bright idea of setting

Reviewed by E.B. Heath This is the Great Australian Classic Adapted For Younger Readers There are so many reasons why this young readers’ edition of A. B. Facey’s, autobiography A Fortunate Life, should be reinstated on school reading lists.   Historical facts and figures are useful to a point, but fall short of illustrating how lives

Reviewed by Gary Alech It is widely acknowledged that a picture is worth a thousand words. Just how many words that picture, read photograph, is truly worth is dependent on the skill set and the physical and emotional connectedness of the photographer and the viewer. There are numerous technological aspects to photography. Ultimately the question

Reviewed by Norrie Sanders This is a story about death.  And life. More or less in that order. Venom’s lurid cover pretty much gives away the topic. It is not a book about snakes in general, but about one snake in particular – nguman, dhayban – the coastal taipan. The central theme is about the

Reviewed by Rod McLary In the 1990s, a new genre in literature emerged in Australia – grunge literature.  Perhaps the best exemplars are Andrew McGahan’s novels Praise and 1988 published in 1992 and 1995 respectively.  The characteristics of grunge literature are that its novels are usually fictional or semi-autobiographical and concerned with dissatisfied and disenfranchised

Reviewed by Ian Lipke One has to resist the temptation to gush with superlatives when laying down this latest Feist feast. King of Ashes is the sort of book that Caligula and Nero would have welcomed as an affirmation of their world. In this world the bizarre is normal, and murder, deception, theft, kidnapping and

Reviewed by Wendy Lipke Who would have thought that this humble sweet biscuit would mean so much to so many. These words at the beginning of the preface were exactly what I thought when first reading this book. Allison Reynolds, a culinary historian and gastronomer in residence in several South Australian establishments has provided the

Reviewed by Dr Kathleen Huxley The poignant title of this new collection of essays by Robert Manne, Australia’s acclaimed intellectual, emeritus professor of politics and well-known journalist, refers to the very touching and personal first chapter of the book. Diagnosed in 2016 with throat cancer that necessitated extensive surgery and a laryngectomy, Manne conveys a

Reviewed by Rod McLary Alex Miller is one of Australia’s finest writers – although like Patrick White before him, Alex Miller was born in England.  He came to Australia as a teenager and worked on a property in North Queensland.  His experiences there inform much of his writing as it is from working on the

Reviewed by Angela Marie What does United Nations Resolution 66/281 have in common with artist and author,  Alex Beeching? Both are on a mission to create and foster something amazing. A state of happiness. Curiously, I first thumbed through Draw Yourself Happy on March 20. Unbeknownst to me at the time, but discovered later on during that day,

Reviewed by Angela Marie What do you get when you cross a speech pathologist with a freelance illustrator? You get Over is Out. Australian authors, Sarah and Lachlan Creagh, have delivered an appealing and beautifully-illustrated picture story book in their first literary collaboration. As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. Together the authors have harnessed the

Reviewed by Wendy Lipke Many Australian readers will be well aware of the Bali Nine would- be drug smugglers and the controversy surrounding the execution, after ten years in Kerobokan Prison, of the masterminds Australian Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran. Cindy Wockner’s book, The Pastor and the Painter, is not about the smuggling of drugs,

Reviewed by Rod McLary In 2000, Australia was outraged by a number of rapes in Sydney perpetrated by young members of the Lebanese community.  The perpetrators were later convicted and sentenced to lengthy terms in prison.  There were consequent changes to the sentencing laws in New South Wales. On 11 September 2001, two planes were