Several books by Australian and New Zealand authors have been longlisted for the €100,000 (A$166,000) International Dublin Literary Award, the world’s most valuable annual prize for a single work of fiction written in or translated into English. Among the 70 books longlisted for the prize are: Birnam Wood (Eleanor Catton, Granta) * Feast (Emily O’Grady, A&U)
Indie Book Awards 2024 Established in 2008, the Indie Book Awards celebrate the best Australian writing; and who better to nominate and judge the best-of-the-best than indie booksellers! What makes indie booksellers uniquely placed to judge and recommend the best Aussie books of the past year, is their incredible passion and knowledge, their contribution to
Reviewed by Richard Tutin History is fickle. Not only is it fickle, it is notoriously selective. It has been said that only the victors get to write it and that is largely true. Otto English has given us a provocative book. The stories he tells about ten characters from the pages of history may or
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke I love Léonie Kelsall’s writing style. She provides a very human narrative while at the same time highlights the beauty of the flora and fauna of her beloved South Australia. Through her tales the reader becomes privy to historical and geological facts that blend naturally into the flow of the story.
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke Sarah Freethy worked as a television producer, script consultant and screenwriter before turning her hand to fiction with her first novel, The Porcelain Maker. Although this work is a story of fiction, many of the things written about did really happen and have been well documented. The Allach Porcelain and the
Reviewed by Antonella Townsend When writing for very small children colour is a vital component, worldly logic need not be applied to the narrative. Those enviable little people are free spirits, living in a universe of possibility, no suspension of disbelief needed. Rainbow Saurus by Steve Antony is full of colour and movement as he
Reviewed by E. B. Heath The Power Code by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman provides readers with a well-researched survey regarding social power. Shipman and Kay define social power as being similar to scientific power – that of energy transferred with effect of making things move. Social power is generally understood as the power to
Reviewed by Rod McLary Parents at a dinner party, their children left at home alone: what could go wrong? Well, almost everything. One evening in December 1979, four couples in a brand-new suburb gather together for their weekly dinner party. Those who have children are comfortable with leaving them at home as the neighbourhood is
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke Jean Kwok is an award-winning, New York Times and international bestselling Chinese American author. She immigrated from Hong Kong to Brooklyn when she was very young and worked in a Chinatown clothing factory for much of her childhood while living in very impoverished conditions. Because of this, she is well positioned
Reviewed by E. B. Heath The glacier knocks in the cupboard, The desert sighs in the bed, And the crack in the teacup opens A lane to the land of the dead. W.H.Auden Famous for her historical novels, one can only assume that Hilary Mantel has a cupboard full of cracked teacups. But, as this
Reviewed by Rod McLary Readers familiar with the author’s first novel – The Resemblance – will immediately recognise Marlitt Kaplan who was the protagonist in that novel. Marlitt appears in the author’s latest book although she is no longer a police officer with the Athens PD. At the end of the first book, Marlitt was
Reviewed by Norrie Sanders The fires of Australia’s black summer of 2019/20 were amongst the largest ever recorded in human history. Burning 24 million hectares, they eclipsed any of the infamous Australian bushfires of the last 100 years (Ash Wednesday, Black Saturday, for example). The fact that they were named for a whole season rather
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke Romance stories in the 2020s depict society as it is in the present, and so boy-meets-girl-and-they-live-happily-ever-after tales are no longer the dominant storylines. With more first marriages failing and the advent of online dating platforms, modern society’s love stories are no longer just the domain of the young. In Karly Lane’s
Reviewed by Rod McLary Apocalyptic stories – a sub-genre of science fiction – have been written since 1500 BCE when the Ancient Mesopotamians collected tales such as the Sumerian creation myth and the Epic of Gilgamesh. Apocalyptic novels gained considerable popularity after World War II during the Cold War era when the threat of global
Reviewed by Rod McLary There are many crime novel series – some now classics of the genre – in which there is a continuing protagonist and the reader can enjoy reading about his or her exploits from one book to the next. The protagonist may be a detective like Commander Adam Dalgleish, a forensic pathologist