Reviewed by Ian Lipke Pamela Hart is the respected author of The Soldier’s Wife, The War Bride, A Letter from Italy, and The Desert Nurse – all stories set in war time and all immensely popular. Fine writing, combined with the sentimental climate that stories about service life attract, produced stories that the public found
Reviewed by Ian Lipke A magnificent story that offers a perception of three geographically distinct, but imaginatively connected, localities in the late seventeenth century. Philippa Gregory describes 1670 London, a place that, as all serious historians know, was controlled by the profligate King Charles II. Roman Catholicism had replaced the dour age of Oliver Cromwell
Reviewed by Ian Lipke The title of this authoritative work suggests that the author’s subject will be the specific fire of 64 C.E. that burned down large portions of Nero’s Rome. This turns out to be the case except it’s a ‘friends with benefits’ situation. We learn a great deal about that specific fire together
Reviewed by Wendy Lipke The Valley of Lost Stories written by Vanessa McCausland was inspired by a real place, the beautiful Capertee Valley in NSW. In this area of the Blue Mountains, all that remains of man-made structures are the crumbling buildings of a township set up for the shale oil miners in the 1950s,
Reviewed by Rod McLary In his third novel [following Call Me Evie and In the Clearing – both reviewed in these pages by this reviewer], JP Pomare again explores the grey area between truth and lie and the unfortunate – and sometimes tragic – consequences which fall on those caught between the two. But as
Reviewed by Ian Lipke At long, long last, a writer has emerged to contest the place held by John le Carré in the canon of spy literature, who produced the immortal George Smiley series of novels. Charles Cumming has provided a book with the stimulating title Box 88 – an organisation that doesn’t exist with
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 the cultural diversity of
The estate of Vivian Robert de Vaux Voss and the Australian University Heads of English are proud to announce the winner of the 2020 Voss Literary Prize: Tara June Winch, The Yield (Penguin Random House Australia)
Reviewed by Ian Lipke It is summer on the European mainland when Georgie Young and Max Spender are posted to Berlin. She finds him arrogant; he regards her as a naïve reporter who is certain to get under his feet. It is 1938 and the German people slavishly follow Hitler’s demands. The city is swathed
Reviewed by Patricia Simms-Reeve The Strays of Paris, which the much-loved author Jane Smiley has written, brings an unlikely tale of community, friendship and the value of kindness in the heart of one of the most sophisticated of cities, Paris. It begins when Paras, short for Perestroika, nudges the door of her stall and discovers
Reviewed by Clare Brook In his latest novel Contacts Mark Watson validates the positive power of our modern telephone technology; how social media can be used to facilitate communication, providing paths to inclusion and empowerment for those on the margins of society. To achieve the above, Watson constructs a plot around James, a man in
Reviewed by Rod McLary While the origins of HIV/AIDS remain uncertain, it seems that it was first recognised as a pandemic in the early 1980s. There was then much confusion and misinformation about how it was transmitted and, in some circles, HIV/AIDS was known as the ‘homosexual disease’. Indeed, in the 1980s, it was given
Reviewed by Norrie Sanders Humans start to die above 8000m unless they have a supply of oxygen. Fourteen mountains on the planet rise above 8000m. Even with oxygen, the climbs are steep and dangerous and there is only a short climbing window each season when conditions are suitable. So climbing all of those peaks in
Reviewed by Gerard Healy This is the first children’s book by the renowned J.K. Rowling after her hugely successful Harry Potter series which broke records for world-wide sales. It’s probably fair to say that this one is not in the Harry Potter league, but nevertheless, it’s a charming tale that should entertain children and the
Reviewed by Patricia Simms-Reeve As an avid reader who grew up in the era when Enid Blyton was the most exciting writer of children’s books, it was with a blend of delight and envy that that I read Code Name Bananas by David Walliams. Delight because it is a riotous tale of a young boy,