Our latest reviews
Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto, Octet
Canadian fiddler James Ehnes has yet to put a foot wrong in his imaginative interpretations of the core repertoire: he’s exposed the tenderness in Paganini, delighted in Barber and tackled Elgar with astonishing presence and maturity for someone so young…
Grainger Edition
On the fiftieth anniversary of Percy Grainger’s death, Chandos have re-issued their acclaimed Grainger Edition CDs as a box-set. Grainger was one of music’s most original voices and his compositions, especially his arrangements of folksongs, include some of the world’s…
The End of the Affair by Graeme Green
You’ll know what it’s like to experience something as a younger person: a film, a book, a place, and then to long remember it as wonderful. Perfect, perhaps. You hold its lofty status sacrosanct for years, only to venture back…
Angelica by Arthur Phillips
Things are amiss in the Barton household. The ordinary trials of family-making have wrung all that was good from Joseph and Constance’s marriage. Nightly, his motions to tenderness are rebuffed, while, to her distress, she finds more of her father…
Dream of Ding Village by Yan Lianke
Based on the recent history of Henan Province in central China, Yan Lianke’s fifth novel – the third to be banned in his home country – charts the gradual decline and death of a rural community in the wake of…
When the Killing's Done by T.C. Boyle
T.C. Boyle’s thirteenth novel returns to the politics of his earlier works, such as the masterful The Tortilla Curtain (1995). When the Killing’s Done, inspired by true events, looks at the conflict between animal rights activists and preservationists on…
Anatomy Of A Disappearance by Hisham Matar
For those who are sitting reading this, thinking, ‘Matar, yes … now why do I know that name?’, I’m happy to give an answer. Back in 2006, Matar authored a superb debut novel, In the Country of Men, which was…
One Foot in Eden by Ron Rash
You might hear this book described as a simple murder mystery – and for the first chapter, you’d be right. However, to the people involved, there’s nothing simple about this murder. Ron Rash tells the story of Holland Winchester, a…
Gone by Jennifer Mills
Following his release from a Sydney prison, Frank catches a train heading south. He has nothing; no cash, no supplies and no identity. He’s going out west to the home he hasn’t seen for 15 years and he will get…
Batavia by Peter FitzSimons
This book is an exciting read for those interested in European maritime or early Australian history.In the early 17th Century the Dutch had largely cornered the European market in spices by the establishment of colonial outposts in the Spice Islands…
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