A Writing Life: Helen Garner and Her Work (Bernadette Brennan, Text)
Tuesday, 28 February 2017
I don’t think there has been a more significant writer in my bookselling life than Helen Garner—Monkey Grip was published in 1977, the year I began selling books. Every work...
From the Wreck (Jane Rawson, Transit Lounge)
Thursday, 2 February 2017
In 1859, the steamship Admella sunk off the coast of South Australia. Among the few lucky survivors was sailor George Hills and a mysterious woman who vanished upon her rescue....
Loopholes (Susan McCreery, Spineless Wonders)
Tuesday, 27 September 2016
Shakespeare once said that ‘brevity is the soul of wit’; the genre of microfiction takes this advice to heart. To succeed, microfiction must combine efficiency of text with immediacy of...
Antipodes: In Search of the Southern Continent (Avan Judd Stallard, Monash University Press)
Monday, 8 August 2016
This remarkable book is about an imaginary place: Terra Australis Incognita, the Unknown Southern Land. Avan Judd Stallard tells the story of a geographical obsession and how it developed in...
Goodwood (Holly Throsby, A&U)
Friday, 8 July 2016
It’s fitting that a reviewer once described Australian musician Holly Throsby as ‘a songstress with [the] literary depth of a novelist’, because Throsby is now writing fiction—and her debut, Goodwood,...
Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil (Melina Marchetta, Viking)
Wednesday, 29 June 2016
Outside Calais, a bomb tears apart a bus full of international teenage students. The uninjured include British ex-Chief Inspector Bish Ortley’s daughter Bee and 17-year-old Violette Zidane, the youngest member...
The Toymaker (Liam Pieper, Hamish Hamilton)
Thursday, 26 May 2016
From the first few pages of The Toymaker it’s obvious that Liam Pieper isn’t pulling any punches: he has your attention straight away as his privileged, wealthy protagonist Adam makes...
Ruins (Rajith Savanadasa, Hachette)
Friday, 29 April 2016
Told from five viewpoints—mother, father, daughter, son, servant—Rajith Savanadasa’s debut novel is a ‘family bildungsroman’ which unfolds during the final days of the Sri Lankan civil war. Latha, aging servant...
Gotham: Wisdom Tree Book One (Nick Earls, Inkerman & Blunt)
Friday, 1 April 2016
What does family mean in the 21st century? Brisbane writer Nick Earls has a few ideas. Five, specifically. Wisdom Tree is a collection of five interlinked novellas that place the...
Everywhere I Look (Helen Garner, Text)
Wednesday, 24 February 2016
I’d probably give Helen Garner five stars for her shopping list; I’ve loved her work since Monkey Grip was published in 1977, the year I began selling books. I’m sure...
A Loving, Faithful Animal (Josephine Rowe, UQP)
Wednesday, 27 January 2016
Josephine Rowe’s first novel follows her acclaimed story collections How a Moth Becomes a Boat and Tarcutta Wake. Like her stories, A Loving, Faithful Animal distils the small incidents of...
