Page 2 of our reviews
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…
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…
Find Me by André Aciman
If, like me, the final lines of Call Me by Your Name – André Aciman’s swoony summer tale of first love on the Italian Riviera in the 1980s – left you weeping and yearning for more of Elio and Oliver’…
The Topeka School by Ben Lerner
I’ll start out by saying that The Topeka School is one of my favourite novels of the year. I was already a fan, having loved his previous two novels, Leaving the Atocha Station and 10:04. Like these …
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…
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 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…
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…
Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister by Jung Chang
British–Chinese writer Jung Chang (Wild Swans, Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China) is well-known for writing intimate biographies set against some of the world’s most turbu…
The Witches Are Coming by Lindy West
Lindy West’s is the voice we need in 2019 – she’s snarky, sensible, accessible, inclusive and aware, and above all, hilarious. In The Witches are Coming, West takes her reader on a journey through po…
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