Page 480 of our reviews
The Last Sky: Alice Nelson
Shortlisted for last year’s Vogel Award, this is Alice Nelson’s first novel. Maya and her husband, Joseph, are academics. She is working on Poussin, he, an archaeologist, has just taken a position at…
How The Soldier Repairs The Gramophone: Sasa Stanisic
Born in Višegrad, Bosnia and escaping during its Serbian invasion, Saša Stanišić charts his debut novel as a whimsical child tenderly mindful of the river Drina.
Witness to war and peace, the Drina…
Song For Night: Chris Abani
Song for Night is a powerful piece of prose portraying the shocking experiences of an African boy soldier. ‘My Luck’ belongs to a team trained to defuse mines with jungle knives. They have their voca…
When Will There Be Good News?: Kate Atkinson
From the moment she burst onto the literary scene with the dazzling Behind the Scenes at the Museum, Kate Atkinson has been fusing genres and defying categorisation to deliver wonderfully satisfying,…
Earth to the Dandy Warhols: The Dandy Warhols
On this follow up to 2005’s Oddortorium or Warlords of Mars it’s not until track 4’s (Wasp in the Lotus) that you realise you are in fact listening to the Dandy Warhols. From here on in, it’s classic…
Evening Is The Whole Day: Preeta Samarasan
The exquisite challenge of portraying modern Malaysia is in the conveying of subtle paradoxes. Authoritarian yet democratic, stable yet fractious, multicultural yet segregated, its nuances have defie…
Mother Land: Dmetri Kakmi
Dmetri Kakmi paints beautiful word pictures for the reader, effortlessly seducing them into another world – the world of his childhood.
Kakmi grew up on the Turkish island of Bozcaada (formerly Tene…
The Dog on the Tuckerbox: Corinne Fenton & Peter Gouldthorpe
I must admit that, despite having lived in this country for a very long time, I’ve never encountered the legend that is the dog on the tuckerbox. Yet it did not surprise me that, like many Australian…
The Pencil: Allan Ahlberg & Bruce Ingman
What does a little pencil do if it’s lonely? It draws a picture book of course! Our lonely little pencil draws a picture of a boy, a dog, a cat and a paintbrush to colour in their adventures. But wha…
Someday This Pain Will Be Useful To You: Peter Cameron
It is the ‘voice’ that gives this novel its power. James is a loner, intelligent, privileged, articulate, and completely lost. His sudden refusal to do the expected thing and go to college causes his…
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