Page 2 of our reviews
Lilly and Her Slave by Hans Fallada & Alexandra Roesch (trans.)
‘Hans Fallada’ is the nom de plume of Rudolf Ditzen (1893–1947), a German writer who chronicled desperate lives between the wars. His best-known novel, Alone in Berlin, published weeks after his deat…
Raised by Wolves: A Memoir with Bite by Jess Ho
Having worked in hospitality since they were 15 years old, Jess Ho has extensive knowledge of Melbourne’s food scene and its evolution over the last two decades. In high school, they did the usual sh…
Women I Know by Katerina Gibson
I was incredibly excited and not at all surprised to learn that Melbourne author Katerina Gibson would be releasing their debut book, Women I Know, this year. Their work has appeared in literary jour…
This Is Gonna End in Tears by Liza Klaussmann
This Is Gonna End in Tears is a captivating story about the strength of friendship, trying to forget the past and what happens when the past comes rushing back to you. Reading this was like a psyched…
Telltale: Reading, Writing, Remembering by Carmel Bird
When I was a child one of my favourite books was titled Help! I’m a Prisoner in the Library. The premise being you are thrillingly stuck, surrounded by bookshelves, where reading is the only option a…
Holy Woman: A Divine Adventure by Louise Omer
Louise Omer was not born into a religious family. Like many teenagers, she began to feel like an outsider during adolescence, rejected by friends and her twin brother, Ben, who had withdrawn from fam…
Exactly As I Am by Rae White
Rae White won the 2017 Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize for their debut collection, Milk Teeth, which was also shortlisted for the 2019 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards and commended in the 2018 Anne …
After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz
With After Sappho, Selby Wynn Schwartz takes an entrancing look at art, sapphism, feminism and the emancipation of women in 19th- and 20th-century Europe. Not just a feminist manifesto, After Sappho …
In the Roar of the Machine by Zheng Xiaoqiong & Eleanor Goodman (trans.)
In the Roar of the Machine brings together more than 10 years of Zheng Xiaoqiong’s poetry in a lyrical and poignant collection. Zheng was born in Sichuan and trained as a nurse but, sick of the worki…
Denizen James by McKenzie Watson
Here are my rules for reading this gripping and quite frankly at times terrifying debut novel: don’t read it late at night unless you have nerves of steel; and don’t read it when you are stranded at …