Our latest reviews
Midnight in a Perfect Life: Michael Collins
Karl is in the midst of a mid-life crisis in a less than perfect life. He has been masquerading as a writer based on an early successful novel, now long forgotten. The last few years have been spent trying to…
The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog and of his friend Marilyn Monroe: Andrew O’Hagan
Maf, short for Mafia Honey, is a Maltese terrier given to Marilyn Monroe by Frank Sinatra as a cheer-up gift following her separation from playwright Arthur Miller. Marilyn’s world is revealed through the eyes of a dog with generations of…
Milk Fever: Lisa Reece-Lane
Melbourne author Lisa Reece-Lane’s first novel Milk Fever is named after a condition that befalls dairy cows shortly after they calve. Left untreated, it can be fatal. Narrated in turn by ethereal dairy farmer Tom and young mother Julia, a…
Houdini’s Flight: Angelo Loukakis
Terry Voulos is a man in crisis. He’s sick of driving buses, of seeing the increasing contempt of his wife and wonders whether his own son even notices him or not. When the highlight of his week is performing some…
Known Unknowns: Emmett Stinson
The Long Story Shorts series by Affirm Press just took a giant leap forward. I mean no disrespect to either Barry Divola or Bob Franklin, who preceded Emmett Stinson’s in the series. It’s just that on reading Known Unknowns…
Gunshot Road: Adrian Hyland
The laid-back elegance and low-key humour of Adrian Hyland’s prose is rarely found in crime fiction, and this is perhaps why the higher brow literary rags swooned over his first Emily Tempest novel, Diamond Dove.
Follow-up Gunshot Road is…
How a Moth Becomes a Boat: Josephine Rowe
This commercial reissue of poet Josephine Rowe’s self-published story collection is filled with bittersweet moments of unbridled humanity. With all stories clocking in at under 1000 words and bearing single-word titles, How a Moth Becomes a Boat fits neatly in…
Love Is Strange: Jackson Browne and David Lindley
Recorded live during their Spanish tour of 2006, this is a beautiful document of two careers interwoven over 30 years. They’re accompanied by the great flamenco percussionist and producer Tino di Geraldo, as well as other well-known Spanish musicians.
While…
Court Yard Hounds: Court Yard Hounds
Dixie Chicks sisters Martie Maguire and Emily Robison couldn’t wait for the third sister Natalie Maines to come back to the fold, so they formed a side project to tide them over till the next Chicks album. But without Maines’s…
The Jayhawks Aka Bunkhouse Sessions: The Jayhawks
After listening to the Bunkhouse Sessions, it’s clear why the Jayhawks became a catalyst in the evolution of what would eventually be termed alt-country.
The early album has more in common with Gram Parsons and The Flying Burrito Brothers than…
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