Our latest reviews
The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
Erin Morgenstern’s award-winning debut novel The Night Circus is one of those wonderful books that swallows you whole, rendering the world of a magical carnival in such vivid prose that you can almos…
In Love with George Eliot by Kathy O’Shaughnessy
I have been stuck at page thirty-nine of Middlemarch for going on four years now. So when the chance to read about being in love with George Eliot arose, I grabbed it in the hope of finding the spark…
The Man in the Red Coat by Julian Barnes
With this ‘narrative nonfiction’, Julian Barnes leads us through the literary and arty world of Paris of the 1880s and 1890s, the Belle Époque of glittering salons and vicious gossip and social snipi…
Beyond the Sea by Paul Lynch
Bolivar, an experienced, albeit aging, fisherman of meagre means and scant ambition in an unnamed South American seaside location, sets off with the inexperienced, teenaged Hector against conventiona…
Your Own Kind of Girl by Clare Bowditch
Melbourne is a town of connections. I’m sure many of us have heard of Clare Bowditch, perhaps we have heard her on the radio, seen her on television, or follow her on Instagram. Perhaps you have sung…
The Bee and the Orange Tree by Melissa Ashley
I have been having a good run of ‘books with strong endings’ lately. Alice Robinson’s The Glad Shout’s nailbiting conclusion; the protagonist’s Shakespearean revelation in Fernanda Torres’s Glory and…
Richard Strauss by Lucerne Festival Orchestra & Riccardo Chailly
There is silence. We wait … and wait … and then, out of this heavy hush, the trumpet speaks those famous notes. Riccardo Chailly brings his understanding of opera drama to these epically dramatic pie…
Mozart: Piano Trios
There is something so assured in this recording of Mozart’s Piano Trios. A deft touch at the piano, a sense of style to the violin melodies and a warm rich tone for the cello. This is everything Moza…
Make It Scream, Make It Burn by Leslie Jamison
Leslie Jamison’s first essay collection, The Empathy Exams, made Readings’ Best of Nonfiction list in 2014. It is a book we still recommend and to which many of us still return. Jamison’s new essay c…
True West by David Whish-Wilson
If you want to get truly knocked about by a book, True West is what you want in front of you. Set in Western Australia in 1988, this is the visceral tale of Lee Southern, a young man driving south, a…
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