Reviewed by Rod McLary The genre of crime and thriller fiction is a tough arena to break into. Populated by giants of the genre such as Ian Rankin, James Lee Burke and Harlen Coben – just to name a very small few – competition is fierce. As an aficionado of the genre, I always look
Reviewed by Ian Lipke This book is an expression of love. It was written to be a testament to love. It is a message to the reader that Leonie Matheson has an immutable love for her grandfather. This is captured within the covers, but overflows. It reveals itself within the prologue. A reader cannot do
Reviewed by Patricia Simms-Reeve The subtitle reads: a little bit of wisdom from the happiest animal on the planet. The Quokka enjoys its fame by featuring in countless photos and selfies. It is found mostly on Rottnest Island off the coast of Western Australia, a short boat trip from Perth. The quokka is loved by
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke The Wolf Girl adventure series is written for 8-14-year-old readers by Vietnamese-born Australian Anh Do. What a versatile person this author is. Not only does he write books, but he is often seen gracing our screens as the portrait painter in Anh’s Brush with Fame or in movies or as a
Reviewed by Gerard Healy This is an interesting book by Andrew Marlton (writing as First Dog on the Moon) aimed at younger teens on the all-important topic of climate change. He uses a humorous approach to a serious subject with great effect. It certainly engaged me as a reader and made me reflect on my
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke The wording on the cover of this book, showing a photo of the authors in their kilts, says ‘Whisky, Warfare, and a Scottish Adventure Like No Other’. On the back cover it also says ‘Two Men, One Country. And lots of whisky’. What more needs to be said? Diana Gabaldon, who
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke Sometimes when you start reading a book you feel compelled to keep on reading until the whole story emerges. This is how it was for me with Jenny Ashcroft’s Under The Golden Sun. I kept being driven back to continue reading. It is hard to understand why. Was it because the
Reviewed by Patricia Simms-Reeve Future Friend is an engaging story that presents an imagined life 1,000 years from now and the contrasting way we existed in 2019. By 3020, the population has reached twenty-four billion. Chickens become militant and it is accepted as wrong to kill animals for food. Pigs are intelligent beings, some capable
Reviewed by Patricia Simms-Reeve Maxine Beneba Clarke, passionate about human rights and social justice, has created a book for children that throbs with colour and emotion. This tumultuous year has produced events that must question a young child’s ability to make sense of their world. The media, especially television, depicted horrific scenes of the murder
Reviewed by Ian Lipke Scott Peeples is a professor of English at Charleston. He has a particular interest in the writings of Edgar Allan Poe. Peeples has published two other books on Poe. His current work is a book that bears an identical name to Poe’s story. To compound the confusion, Peeples includes a chapter
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke In chapter one of this book I was confronted, in the first paragraph, with a five and a half line or sixty-four word sentence which required me to backtrack and re-read it to get the full benefit of all those words. This was followed by the introduction of the central characters
Reviewed by Patricia Simms-Reeve Peter Godfrey-Smith is a philosopher scientist who writes with a clarity and beauty of language which make his latest work, Metazoa, easily accessible to the lay person who has a natural curiosity and an appreciation of science, especially biology. Life on Earth began with minute organisms with an intricate structure on
Reviewed by Patricia Simms-Reeve The media release summarises this edition of the Review perfectly. Number 70, entitled ‘Generosities of Spirit’ is a veritable ‘treasure trove of literary gems and curiosities from a shining selection of Australian writers.’ Kristina Olsson has, in her characteristic style, written a beautifully thoughtful piece. Her roots, in the inner Brisbane
Reviewed by Ian Lipke We, who did not live through the disruption and devastation of the early part of the twentieth century, can only imagine man’s image of himself as one crisis followed another. As Walter Benjamin states (cited in Foster, 2), “Many people returned from the Front [World War I] in silence”, harbouring a
Reviewed by Ian Lipke In a postscript to A Time for Mercy Grisham writes, “The point…is to apologize for any mistakes. I’m just too lazy to go back and read the earlier books” (367). Laziness has not been confined to reading past editions but has crept into later versions of Grisham’s stories. A blatant admission