The Awards recognise and celebrate the indie booksellers as the number one supporters of Australian authors. What makes our Indies uniquely placed to judge and recommend the best Aussie books of the past year to their customers and readers, is their incredible passion and knowledge, their contribution to the cultural diversity of the Australian reading
Reviewed by Ian Lipke The name of this publication will be shortened to EWM. This single volume distils a wide selection of Thomas More’s important works, providing within its covers selections of the statesman’s works on theology, political philosophy, literature, theology, and law as well as his less familiar poetry. In this volume in no
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke The Salt Madonna is the debut novel by Catherine Noske, a writer and academic at the University of Western Australia. It is also a novel where the title is closely linked to the story between its covers both literally and figuratively. The story is set on an island and therefore it
Reviewed by Ian Lipke I’m not sure if I can review this book. I find myself soaking up the words on the pages, reading and re-reading and thinking – about the ideas, the emotions Julia Baird’s words evoke, about the woman herself. In ‘Lessons from a Cuttlefish’ the author writes about awe. That is what
Reviewed by Ian Lipke It is important to realise that this story was written for an audience that requires an exciting story not too troubled by authenticity. It is not for the serious reader. Given the book’s limitations and accepting that the genre is romance literature, readers can be comfortable that what they’re about to
Reviewed by Patricia Simms-Reeve Towards the end of this book, rather symbolically, a fragile and joyous hope emerges. This takes the form of two of the characters drinking the sap of the birch tree. The first people of the U.S. believed that, in Spring, the rising sap from these trees in the woods, gave them
Reviewed by Rod McLary The title of this book, part memoir and part social commentary, references the colloquial name ‘Rust Belt’ which was given to the north-eastern states in America where a major decline in the steel industry occurred from the 1980s. The Rust Belt was so-called because of the consequent economic and social decline
Reviewed by Patricia Simms-Reeve After reading the promotion to the publication of this book, I supposed that Harry had to be a very exceptional dog. Jill Baker, the author and devoted owner of Harry, suffered within a year, the death of her beloved husband, George, and a diagnosis and subsequent treatment for breast cancer. For
Reviewed by Gerard Healy The very talented illustrator and author Graeme Base has given us another agreeable tale, this time featuring three long-eared, white-furred, unassuming heroes. The story, when read to younger preschool children, should appeal because of its gentle charm, familiar settings and quirky characters. The vocabulary used (e.g. racquets, usual, disappeared and
Reviewed by Rod McLary This rather quirky title gives a good idea of what is within the book. It is a re-imagining of the well-known film Grease but with a LGBT twist. Ollie, when on holidays with his family at a lake in North Carolina, meets and falls in love with Will. Ollie and Will
Reviewed by Gerard Healy This is a charming picture book for younger readers (from 3 years) from the well-credentialed writer Jackie French and illustrator Bruce Whatley. The book’s concept is credited to Ben Smith Whatley, Bruce’s son. Jackie French’s long interest and concern for wombats, going back at least to ‘Diary of a Wombat’ (2002),
Reviewed by Ian Lipke Professor Henry Reynolds has described Cassandra Pybus’s Truganini as “a book of unquestionable national importance.” I could not agree more. It is a compelling book for Australians, for its stance on the human rights that aborigines would have expected, but were denied as a consequence of the blatant self-aggrandisement of George
Reviewed by Angela Marie “I have in my time sailed around Britain, canoed across Africa and crossed both America and Europe not once but several times. Yet the 7.71-mile route of London’s Number 12 bus stands equal to all those journeys. I cannot think of a trip with greater diversity or a more wonderful sense
Reviewed by Ian Lipke In 1941 the Allies are in a desperate situation. They require a new type of offensive weapon to level at their Nazi opponents. They need a way to demonstrate that Hitler was not the clean, fine character that his propaganda portrays. Posing as a wealthy industrialist, Tom Wilde enters Germany to
Reviewed by Patricia Simms-Reeve The title gives pause. Spinster is a word that may appear in novels of past centuries, but is rarely used today. It carries an aura of sadness and loneliness, even failure. Failure to be married, to bear children. Sections of this book are deeply affecting and do convey powerful feelings of