Tuesday, 19 November 2024
The best rom-com I’ve read this year is The Wedding Forecast by Nina Kenwood. It’s everything I’d want in a rom-com—addictive, delightful and featuring New York. I was also lucky enough to...

Tuesday, 12 November 2024
Dark Heir by C S Pacat! I blame the brilliance of that book for the world-class reading slump I’ve been in for much of this year. It was quite simply...

Tuesday, 5 November 2024
I recently read Lights Out, Little Dragon by Debra Tidball and illustrated by Rae Tan. Debra and Rae have created a delightfully humorous and beautifully illustrated picture book. I was...

Tuesday, 29 October 2024
I am completely enthralled by Nadia Wheatley’s The Life and Myth of Charmian Clift. It’s a true labour of love, brilliantly written and researched, and introduces new generations of readers...

Tuesday, 1 October 2024
Oh, this is too difficult! Can I break it down into different genres? Adult: Because I’m Not Myself, You See by Ariane Beeston is a heartbreaking, unputdownable story of Ariane’s...

Tuesday, 24 September 2024
Dusk by Robbie Arnott. I admire his capacity to embed characters in the landscape and the way he evokes Tasmania’s central highlands as such wild, strange places where humans can...

Wednesday, 18 September 2024
The book I still have on my table that I can’t stop looking at is Chae: Korean Slow Food for a Better Life. It’s just so incredibly beautiful, and Melbourne...

Tuesday, 10 September 2024
Fiona McFarlane’s Highway 13 is a stupendous collection of stories that imagines the fallout from the crimes committed by a serial killer. It’s a dazzling refraction of the backpacker murders...

Tuesday, 27 August 2024
The last Australian book I read and loved was Larry Writer’s wonderful The Shipwreck (2022). It tells the dramatic story of the sailing ship Dunbar, which, in 1857, after a...

Wednesday, 14 August 2024
If You Go by Alice Robinson (Affirm) is an amazing book that works as both tense, speculative fiction and as a nuanced, philosophical exploration of divorce, motherhood and the moments...

Tuesday, 6 August 2024
I have just finished reading Nova Weetman’s Love, Death & Other Scenes, in which she so rawly yet beautifully explores her journey through her husband’s illness and ultimate death, plus...

Tuesday, 6 August 2024
I am fascinated by Always Was, Always Will Be by Aunty Fay Muir and Sue Lawson, also published by Magabala Books. I have always appreciated the fight for respect on...

Wednesday, 31 July 2024
I keep returning to Jumaana Abdu’s Translations, which will be released in August. It’s an expertly paced work of fiction about a woman trying to build a home for herself...

Tuesday, 23 July 2024
The Prison Healer by Lynette Noni is a YA fantasy book about a girl who fights to survive in a death prison. It was my first time reading a fantasy...

Tuesday, 16 July 2024
I adored Emma Quay’s Happy All Over. It’s full of joy and light and happiness. The text consists of short, simple statements. These expressions of joy for a child arise from...

Tuesday, 9 July 2024
Eta Draconis by Brendan Ritchie. I loved this novel not only for the vivid depictions of place and landscape but also for the resilience and determination of the characters. The...

Tuesday, 25 June 2024
I loved Music and Freedom, a novel by Zoë Morrison, which I found in the street library out the front of where I live. (I stumble upon a lot of...

Tuesday, 4 June 2024
The last Australian book I read and loved was Katherine Brabon’s Body Friend. It was so unusual and mysterious—and very elegantly crafted. It provides some beautifully profound insights into living...

Tuesday, 26 March 2024
I really enjoyed reading Karina May’s Never Ever Forever, because I just love her narrative voice and her subtle contemporary humour. She’s a clever writer and her fresh takes on...

Wednesday, 20 March 2024
A book on anti-gravity. I found it hard to put down. A book on black holes. I was totally sucked in. A book on electricity. It was shocking. Okay, seriously....