Our latest reviews

Boxer, Beetle: Ned Beauman

Reviewed by Fiona Hardy, Readings Carlton

Kevin Broom is a Nazi memorabilia collector and an awkward, fish-scented sufferer of trimethylaminuria. Seth ‘Sinner’ Roach is a pre-World War II Jewish boxer, short, nine-toed, alcoholic, and the best fighter in England. Philip Erskine is a collector of beetles…

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An Exclusive Love: Johanna Adorján

Reviewed by Christine Gordon, Readings Events Coordinator

An Exclusive Love is the type of exquisite book one reads and finishes in the one sitting. It is the type of story that opens up discussions around dinner tables because of the affirmative portrayal of assisted suicide. However, this…

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The Convalescent: Jessica Anthony

Reviewed by Martin Shaw, Readings Carlton

Fine comic writing is a rareish thing in the current literary marketplace. Jessica Anthony’s astonishing debut quickly seduces with her seemingly outlandish creation of Rovar Pfliegman, a near-midget Hungarian butcher who sells his wares from a converted (broken-down) school-bus, on…

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The Body in the Clouds: Ashley Hay

Reviewed by Samantha Ellen-Bound, CAE Book Groups

The Body in the Clouds takes one moment – a man falling from the sky and surviving – and weaves three stories around it: William Dawes, an astronomer in the 1700s, arriving in Australia with the first European fleets; Dan…

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My Sister Chaos by Lara Fergus

Reviewed by Kate Goldsworthy

Nothing in this elegant, brilliant debut is out of place – it has obviously been crafted with thought and care. Its graceful structure reflects its content, and its compelling, well-paced plot artfully ties humanity’s most profound struggles and tragedies to…

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Reading Madame Bovary: Amanda Lohrey

Reviewed by Genevieve Tucker, freelance reviewer

I was blown away by Amanda Lohrey’s novella of 2008, Vertigo, and finished this first collection of stories wishing for a volume of novellas. (Of course, there is her rich and satisfying backlist to consider if you’re new to…

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Utopian Man: Lisa Lang

Reviewed by Ann Standish, freelance reviewer

Cole’s Book Arcade, which at its height included a printing press, tea rooms, musical entertainments and resident monkeys, as well as thousands of books, was a vibrant and wondrous part of Melbourne life in the late nineteenth and early twentieth…

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Night Street: Kristel Thornell

Reviewed by Ann Standish, freelance reviewer

In Night Street, joint winner of the 2009 Vogel Award, Kristel Thornell presents a fictionalised version of the life of painter Clarice Beckett. A student of Frederick McCubbin and then Max Meldrum in the 1920s, Beckett produced hundreds of…

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Quillblade: Voyages Of The Flying Dragon Book One: Ben Chandler

Reviewed by Kate Rockstrom, Readings Carlton

Excitement plus is the fashion in this book! Following the trails and tribulations of two very talented 13-year-old twins, this new offering from local author Ben Chandler is high fantasy with a dash of what feels like steam punk and…

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Having Cried Wolf: Gretchen Shirm

Reviewed by Annie Condon, freelance reviewer

In this collection of interlinked stories, Gretchen Shirm makes the fictional town of Kinsale and its residents come alive. The 15 stories dissect all the elements of small-town life – secrets, resentments, jealousies, tragedies. Friends since childhood, Alice and Grace…

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