Reviewed by Ian Lipke Reading songs of praise by various critics – totally original (David Baldacci), brilliant (Stephen Fry), smart, sophisticated suspense (Lee Child) – I found it difficult to wait until I could get my hands on my copy of The Silent Patient. My wait was well rewarded. The story opens with a

Reviewed by Angela Marie The Extraordinary Life of Stephen Hawking is part of a series designed for the 7 years + reader and features people whose lives have had great impact on us. Some are everyday names whilst others are less well known. To adults the name Stephen Hawking conjures up images of amazing brainpower, resilience

Reviewed by Rod McLary Tami Hoag is a best-selling author with over 40 million copies of her books in print. She successfully made a transition from writing romance to crime/mystery, and has written a series of stand-alone crime novels. Since beginning her sojourn into crime in 1988, she has written 39 – a frequency of

Reviewed by Ian Lipke Clare Mackintosh’s book Let Me Lie has the ultimate attention-grabber on its front cover. How could anyone resist – the police say it was suicide, Anna says it was murder, They’re both wrong – could you resist that? Accident, you say? But it’s also described as a ‘chilling, twisty psychological thriller

Reviewed by Ian Lipke Kerry-Anne Walsh was a name not known to me when I read her expose of Pauline Hanson. I was very keen to find out what I could about a writer of a book with such a provocative title. I discovered that she had been a member of the Canberra press gallery

Reviewed by Angela Marie What do the following celebrities, rock stars, super stars, politicians, oligarchs, musicians, artists and actors have in common? Jean Shrimpton, Gregory Peck, Clyde Packer and  Andrew Peacock. Charles Blackman, Winifred Atwell, Maurice Chevalier, Bert Newton and Bob Dylan. Andres Segovia, Don Chipp, Marcel Marceau, Zoe Caldwell and Fred Astaire. Ava Gardener,

Reviewed by Dr Kathleen Huxley This book is a captivating and delightful work that presents Shakespearian plants in the form of an alphabetically organised botanical guide. It consists of the twenty-five articles entitled Mr Guilfoyle’s Shakespearian Botany which were originally published in the Bankers Magazine of Australasia between June 1899 and June 1901. The work is skilfully

Reviewed by Dr Kathleen Huxley In this academic and scholarly book, Judith Shoaf has translated and edited the early-thirteenth-century canonical version of ‘The Quest for the Holy Grail’. The Quest being the next to last part or ‘branch’ of the Old French version of the Lancelot-Grail cycle. The cycle comprises a much larger number of

  Reviewed by Wendy Lipke The Squatters by Barry Stone is a thoroughly researched history of a particular group of early Australian settlers. It contains a lot of facts and figures about sheep and cattle in the various early settlements. Many statements are supported by written evidence from the actual time of settlement. The content