Page 2 of our reviews
Lonely Castle in the Mirror by Mizuki Tsujimura
Kokoro doesn’t want to go back to school. After enduring painful bullying at the hands of her classmates, her whole body seems to rebel at the idea of returning to Yukishina No. 5 Junior High. Barric…
No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
Patricia Lockwood is known for – among other things – saying very clever things on the internet. The unnamed protagonist of her highly anticipated first novel seems to have the same gig: she reckons …
The Shape of Sound by Fiona Murphy
‘The hearing world rarely welcomes deaf bodies,’ writes Fiona Murphy in her heartbreakingly honest memoir The Shape of Sound. Murphy kept secret that she is deaf in her left ear for 25 years. In her …
The Chase by Candice Fox
At a prison in Nevada, the annual friendly baseball game between the officers and the minimum-security inmates is due to take place. A bus load of family members is coming to cheer on the guards, as …
Love Objects by Emily Maguire
Nic is smart, proud and quick-witted. She is 45-years old and sees her home as a sanctuary, yet to the outside world it becomes something else entirely. Nic could tell you the story about each ‘speci…
On the Line: Notes from a Factory by Joseph Ponthus
I’ve been thinking a lot about On the Line since I read its final pages. Written in French (À la ligne) this book is a piece of autofiction in verse. Its narrator, like its author, is a social worker…
The Hard Crowd by Rachel Kushner
Rachel Kushner is a masterful storyteller. Her fiction is sharply insightful, completely original and always entertaining. This collection of short pieces proves her nonfiction to be just as engaging…
Ariadne by Jennifer Saint
There’s been a flush of novels based around feminist retellings of ancient myths lately. The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker and A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes depicted the fall of Troy as see…
Beethoven: Works for Flute by Emmanuel Pahud & Daniel Barenboim
Why is Beethoven so delightfully cute on the flute? Beethoven might be rolling in his grave as I say this, but as I listened to this album, I just kept finding myself smiling at the cheeky phrases ef…
Sex, Lies and Question Time by Kate Ellis
Well, this book could not have come at a better time, could it? Sex, Lies and Question Time came to me for review hot on the heels of International Women’s Day, allegations of horrific sexual assault…