Reviewed by Ian Lipke This is an adventure story told in the traditional way with each event nicely dealt with in isolation from the next – a cracking good yarn from which the tension never eases until the last page. Gone to Ground’s totally apt, dual-level title works immediately. A clever choice of words suggesting
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke For a novel of this type, the beginning of the book has to be chapters which for a while seem totally unconnected. At first what begins to connect the characters and their stories, is the location, a small country town in New South Wales not far from Tamworth. But even so,
Reviewed by Ian Lipke Little Species, Big Mystery is the story of Homo Floresiensis – in other words, the hominid. 2004 was a special year for mankind for until then we remained in ignorance of the knowledge that our little cousin, the hominid, lived, until 52500 years ago, in our backyard. Specifically, he flourished on
Reviewed by Ian Lipke This is the nonfictional account of the precarious lives led by Australian prisoners of war at the infamous Sandakan POW camp in Borneo in WW2. It purports to tell the story through the eyes of Warrant Officer Bill Sticpewich’s, whom some see as a hero, others as a collaborator. The story
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke This 273-page book, The Urban Field Naturalist Project, was produced through the collaboration of experts in the life and environmental sciences, design and digital technology who wish to help people notice and appreciate the wildlife in their urban environment. At the heart of the book is an effort to describe and
Reviewed by Ian Lipke People find any number of ways to release meaning from within artifacts that are held to conceal secrets. Not least among these have been the turtle shell masks that were at one time found in their hundreds on the beaches of the islands of the Torres Strait. For many years traders
An Interview with Frank Chalmers Frank Chalmers has a UQ bachelor’s degree in Philosophy & Maths, MA(Qual.) in Philosophy, and is a graduate of the Australian Film, Television and Radio School. He has taught high school and at university in Science, Philosophy, Communication Design and Writing. He began a forty-year professional writing career on scripts
Reviewed by Patricia Simms-Reeve This book of backyard buddies, delightfully depicted in just twenty pages, could soon be regarded as an historic document, as grandparents are known to bemoan the changes that have occurred in their lifetimes when their yards were once visited by a great variety of creatures, including grasshoppers, beetles, butterflies and lizards.
Reviewed by Rod McLary J P Pomare has had – and continues to have – an interesting writing career. His first novel – Call Me Evie – was published in 2018 and was awarded the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best First Novel. Three more books followed and now The Wrong Woman has now been published.
Reviewed by Ian Lipke Steve Cavanagh’s The Accomplice is a smorgasbord of crime fiction in which leading characters are killed primarily for effect and in which the reader can be taught the intricacies of conducting a criminal trial. There is little laying out of preliminary events. The author introduces his story with an American female
Reviewed by Ian Lipke Given Tony Park’s interest in the animals and people of Africa, one could be pardoned for believing that this will be a story that is centred on lions. After all, they do live in a pride. The comment on the cover, “A lioness will kill to protect her own”, reinforces the
Reviewed by Richard Tutin What sets this book by international cricketer Dan Christian apart from the many cricketing books that are currently available? Surely the sport, like many other codes, has been well covered while every retiring cricketer seems to produce a memoir or autobiography soon after the conclusion of their playing career. The main
Reviewed by Patricia Simms-Reeve A writer’s debut novel is always an interesting, even exciting, prospect. Jason Rekulak’s Hidden Pictures has been well received, praised by the very successful Stephen King. Besides this intriguing title, it has a recovering drug addict, Mallory, nanny to a charming, bright four-year-old boy, Teddy. The background is luxury suburban, not
Miles Franklin Award winner Jennifer Down has won the 2022 Miles Franklin Literary Award, worth $60,000, for her second novel Bodies of Light (Text). At 31 years old, Down is one of the youngest authors to win the award in its 65-year history, with the youngest being 23-year-old Randolph Stow for To the Islands in 1958. Chosen from a shortlist of
Reviewed by E. B. Heath Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley was the subject of a bidding war between publishers both in America and Europe. This is unusual, particularly for a debut novel, and for one written by a seventeen-year-old. Leila Mottley is also a poet of some note, awarded the 2018 Oakland Youth Poet Laureate. With