Our latest reviews
Martin Westley Takes a Walk: Andrew Humpreys
Amnesia has long been a popular theme for daytime soap operas and usually involves a dramatic accident, but for Sydneysider Martin Westley, it occurs after being hit in the temple by a kite during a walk. He tells no-one that…
Nineteen Seventysomething: Barry Divola
Cicadas. Variations of brown. Dragstar handlebars. Pop music. Barry Divola’s new collection of short stories Nineteen Seventysomething oozes those hazy summer afternoons when time dissolved and beanbags rustled in our struggle to regain composure because THAT boy or THAT girl…
Below the Styx: Michael Meehan
Awaiting trial for clobbering his wife over the head with an epergne, Martin Frobisher is incarcerated in that wild river between Hell and Earth – prison. But this isn’t purgatory. Jail bestows time for scholarship, and for Martin this uncharacteristic…
The Norseman’s Song: Joel Deane
As I never tire of pointing out to prospective fiction writers, it’s highly recommended to try to grab your reader’s attention right from the beginning, or at least spark some sort of curiosity – there’s a plenitude of other books…
Gravel: Peter Goldsworthy
A man shoots his dog. A woman is ‘courted’ by a shop attendant. A father and daughter watch a couple’s last night played out on a second-hand camcorder. Needless to say, things are a little extreme in the murky world…
The Piper's Son: Melina Marchetta
Sequels are a dangerous business. But then, so is moving away from your genre, which Melina Marchetta proved to be no obstacle in her fourth novel, Finnikin of the Rock. Her return to the world of Saving Francesca is…
Littledog: Katrina Germein and Tamsin Ainslie
Who hasn’t come across a stray dog at one point in their life and desperately wanted to adopt it? In Littledog, Mum, little brother Sam and the big sister narrator are thoroughly charmed by Littledog, who shows up unexpectedly…
Kampung Boy: Lat
Kampung Boy is the adventure-laden and funny story of Mat, a Muslim boy growing up in rural Malaysia in the 1950’s. Mat spends his childhood in a very traditional village, or kampung, before leaving to attend boarding school. There’s so…
The Reflections Of A Solitary Hamster: Astrid Desbordes and Pauline Martin
Take one narcissistic and arrogant hamster who won’t share his waffles; a slow-moving snail; a short-sighted mole who aspires to be a writer; a hedgehog who wishes he had soft fur instead of spines; an admiring squirrel and a rabbit…
Walton: Cello Concerto: Pieter Wispelwey
For this new recording, Wispelwey has put together a fascinating collection of post-war works for cello. The disc opens with Walton’s Cello Concerto accompanied by Jeffrey Tate and the Sydney Symphony, and follows it with four works for solo cello…
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