ACT Book of the Year Frank Bongiorno has been awarded the 2023 ACT Book of the Year for Dreamers and Schemers: A political history of Australia (La Trobe University Press). Bongiorno’s book, which covers social and cultural history of political life in Australia from pre-colonisation First Nations systems to the present day, was described as ‘a captivating
Reviewed by Rod McLary Jack Heath is the author of the Hangman series of crime thrillers featuring Timothy Blake – a protagonist with a very unusual secret which is progressively disclosed through the four books. Each of these books is a tense and exciting thriller. Now the author has begun a new series with each
Indie Book Awards 2024 The longlists for the 2024 Indie Book Awards, presented by Leading Edge Books, have been announced. The titles longlisted in the Fiction category are: Lola in the Mirror (Trent Dalton, Fourth Estate) * Restless Dolly Maunder (Kate Grenville, Text) The Seven (Chris Hammer, A&U) * Edenglassie (Melissa Lucashenko, UQP) The Hummingbird Effect (Kate Mildenhall, Scribner) *
Reviewed by Patricia Simms-Reeve Olivia, a writer longing to produce a novel that will be more successful than her book Becky, is made a seductive offer to reconstruct the life of the dead grandmother of a famous billionaire Henry Asherwood the Third, known as Ash, famous as being ‘the sexiest man alive’. He has a
Reviewed by Richard Tutin How many times have we heard people say that they “could not sing for peanuts”? When it comes to using the musical instrument called our voice the outcomes are mixed. Some people can hold a note beautifully while others can’t seem to hit any note let alone the right one. Yet,
Prophet Song by Paul Lynch has been named the winner of the Booker Prize 2023. The author receives £50,000.00 and was presented with his trophy by the 2022 winner. Exhilarating, terrifying, propulsive and confrontational, Prophet Song is a work of breathtaking originality and devastating insight, a novel that can be read as a parable of
Reviewed by Rod McLary It is a common trope in psychological dramas that a serious event occurs affecting the immediate lives of those directly and indirectly involved. Such an event also reverberates through the many years following the incident until finally it is acknowledged and resolved. This allows for a certain tension as the narrative
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke This novel is the second in a two-book deal the author has with Pan MacMillan. Her first was the book Duck à l’Orange for Breakfast. As both of these titles might suggest, these stories have their own quirkiness. never ever forever, with no capital letters, is written by Sydney-based Karina May,
Reviewed by Norrie Sanders One of the more unusual institutions in Zagreb, Croatia, is the Museum of Broken Relationships. Populated by objects and words that tell heartbreaking, though sometimes comical, stories of those who have loved and lost. Courting is a book about a particular kind of broken relationship – one that ends just as
Reviewed by Patricia Simms-Reeve The pandemic made our modern lives even more complicated and the thoughtful amongst us gained a new perspective on the nature of love, friendship, and what truly matters. Sigrid Nunez, in her latest novel The Vulnerables, presents a profoundly gentle scenario where it emerges that virtually everyone has a vulnerability that
Reviewed by Antonella Townsend It is said that David Walliams’ books for children cross the brick wall built in the sand by the political correctness brigade. Personally, I didn’t notice, and I have it on good authority that children reading David Walliams think his books are wonderful. Even children who normally regard reading as ‘work’
Reviewed by Rod McLary Social history, which came to prominence in the 1970s as a discipline, sought to document large social changes and reconstruct the experiences of ordinary people through the course of those changes. There is a subset of Social history which also came to some prominence at the same time – women’s history
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke For all those who obtained degrees through The University of Queensland, Mayne Hall will be familiar to you. Peter Roennfeldt, an alumnus of the University of Queensland and Emeritus Professor at Griffith University, has provided a detailed account of Mayne Hall from its first ideas to the years where it fulfilled
Reviewed by Richard Tutin The word “Immortal” is an interesting one. It is used to describe those who might live forever. They inhabit folk stories and, in modern times, action movies. It is also used to describe those who have excelled in a particular field. Various sports, for example, have honoured those whom they regard
WINNERS OF THE 2023 PRIME MINISTER’S LITERARY AWARDS Creative Australia announced the winners of the 2023 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards at the National Library of Australia in Canberra today. The Awards are the richest literary prize in the nation, with a tax-free prize pool of $600,000 in recognition of the outstanding literary talents of established