Qld Literary Awards 2024 The shortlists for the 2024 Queensland Literary Awards have been announced. Two of the shortlists appear below. Queensland Premier’s Award for a Work of State Significance ($30,000) Borderland (Graham Akhurst, UWA Publishing) Fat Girl Dancing (Kris Kneen, Text) Edenglassie (Melissa Lucashenko, UQP) Poof (J M Tolcher, James Tolcher) Personal Score: Sport, culture, identity (Ellen van
Reviewed by Rod McLary I have read and reviewed each of J. P. Pomare’s six previous novels beginning with his debut Call Me Evie in 2018; and now his seventh novel has been published. A number of the author’s books has won awards including the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best First Novel for Call Me
Reviewed by Rod McLary This book has an interesting history. It began its life as an audiobook published in 2022 and was a #1 best seller; it is now published in print for the first time. The author – Gabriel Bergmoser – has established a reputation for tense and tight thrillers as he demonstrated successfully
Reviewed by Rod McLary Kathy Reichs has now written twenty-three novels featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan. Aficionados of the Brennan novels would be very familiar with Temperance, her daughter Katy and her long-standing lover Andrew Ryan Lieutentant-détective, Section de Crimes contra la Personne, Súreté du Québec. Retraité [or retired]. It is a pleasure to again
Reviewed by Richard Tutin It has been said that the mystique of flying disappeared years ago yet there is still the thought, as we take our seats for a flight to somewhere, that vestiges of it still exist. Captain Jeremy Burfoot, a pilot of more than thirty-five years’ experience, lays bare some of that ongoing
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke When reading this latest book by Fiona McArthur, I was reminded of segments from Macca’s Sunday programs and his book, Why I Live Where I Live: Australia All Over by Ian McNamara. Back to Birdsville certainly shows how this isolated location in outback Queensland, where the state abuts both the Northern
Reviewed by Rod McLary Serial killers are not common in Australia with the exception of two infamous examples who won’t be named here. So when crimes of this nature occur, perhaps more attention is given to them than would be in [say] the United States. The heinous crimes affect many people – the friends and
Shortlists for the 2024 Davitt Awards Sisters in Crime has announced the shortlists for the 2024 Davitt Awards for the best crime books by Australian women. The shortlisted titles in each category are: Adult novels The Chasm (Bronwyn Hall, HQ Fiction) The Tea Ladies (Amanda Hampson, Penguin) The Half Brother (Christine Keighery, Ultimo) Prima Facie (Suzie Miller, Picador) Exquisite Corpse (Marija Peričić, Ultimo) The Fall
Reviewed by Richard Tutin When Australian radio was in its “Golden Age” during the 1940s and 50s, one of the mainstays of programming were drama plays and serials. People gathered around the sets of the day to listen to their favourite shows. They were keen to find out more about the fortunes of their favourite
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke As the title of the book suggests, this story is about Giacomo Puccini, the Italian composer known primarily for his operas. Broadly based on actual people and events, it imagines the composer’s life around the time of his creating the opera Madama Butterfly early in the 20th Century. However, the first
Reviewed by Clare Brook Nothing exists, and therefore can be understood, in isolation from its context, for it is context that gives meaning to what we think and do. Alvin Gouldner Tessa Morris-Suzuki’s biography of Monte Punshon reveals not only the unique life of a women born in the late nineteenth century but also deepens
Reviewed by Rod McLary There are some novels which defy easy categorisation – and Oblivion is one such novel. It is a lyrical and strangely moving story of an unnamed narrator as he travels through the East on an unspecified and rather mysterious task. The narrator spends his time in those detached places such as
Reviewed by Patricia Simms-Reeve The winner of The Australian/Vogel prize for young hitherto unpublished authors of fiction is eagerly awaited, for it has launched some of our finest writers, amongst them, Tim Winton. First Year tells in convincing detail of the life of a very young drama student who has left her Gold Coast home
Literary Awards The biennial Magarey Medal for biography, awarded to the female author who has published the work judged to be the best biographical writing on an Australian subject in the preceding two years, was presented to Ann-Marie Priest for the 2022 title My Tongue Is My Own: A life of Gwen Harwood (La Trobe University Press), the first
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke The cover of All You Need to Know About Dogs says that the book is by A. Cat. Among the publishing details inside the book, in tiny font, is the sentence ‘Fred Blunt has asserted his right to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work’. Turning the first