Our latest reviews

Paradise Updated: Mic Looby

Reviewed by Kabita Dhara, Readings Carlton

Robert Rind is a legendary guidebook writer, working for trendy guidebook publisher SmallWorld (whose offices are located in a ‘tastefully converted industrial suburb’ with a cafeteria, rooftop garden and gym). Mithra is his editor at SmallWorld who unexpectedly finds herself…

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Little White Slips: Karen Hitchcock

Reviewed by Jo Case, editor of Readings Monthly

I was madly curious to read this debut short story collection. It comes with a rave from Helen Garner. (The last short fiction collection she endorsed was Nam Le’s The Boat.) It’s the first in a much-heralded two-book deal…

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Getting Real: Challenging the Sexualisation of Girls: Melinda Tankard Reist (Ed)

Reviewed by Jo Case, editor of Readings Monthly

The ‘raunch culture’ identified by Ariel Levy in Female Chauvinist Pigs, is having an increasingly damaging effect on the self-worth of younger and younger girls. This book – boasting a foreword by much-loved former Play School presenter Noni Hazelhurst…

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The Bee Hut: Dorothy Porter

Reviewed by Genevieve Tucker, literary blogger

Dorothy Porter often advised braggart speed-readers of her high-octane verse novels to re-read them slowly and allow things to ‘trickle through’. In this final collection, The Bee Hut, her poems carry us just as effortlessly through past and recent…

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Humbug: Arctic Monkeys

Reviewed by Declan Murphy, Readings St Kilda

Album number three from Sheffield’s finest sees Alex Taylor and co up their game with an ever bolder and considerably brasher sound. Teaming Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age with their usual producer James Ford has added beef…

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Hollywood Ending: Kathy Charles

Reviewed by Kath Lockett, freelance reviewer

Hilda and Benji are 17-year-old teenagers clad in black – with attitudes to match – and obsessed with exploring the dark world of celebrity deaths in LA. Grisly tales of dead cats, drug overdoses, car accidents, decapitations and stabbings lead…

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Blood From Stars: Joe Henry

Reviewed by Dave Clarke, Readings Carlton

Joe Henry has been a particular favourite of mine since the release of the alt-country classic Short Man’s Room (recorded with members of The Jayhawks) in 1992. He soon moved away from the country-ish edges to an edgier, more rhythm-oriented…

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Everything Is True: Paul Dempsey

Reviewed by Ali Meehan, Readings Port Melbourne

This solo outing from Something For Kate frontman Paul Dempsey is like a chameleon – at first glance, a camouflage of folk-rock tunes accompanies his unmistakable voice, but with repeated listening, this record evolves into revealing storytelling.

The primarily acoustic…

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Ivy Loves to Give: Freya Blackwood

Reviewed by Holly Harper, Readings Malvern

Ivy loves to give presents. They might not always be exactly right, like giving a cup of tea to the chicken, or a dummy to an extremely unimpressed cat, but that doesn’t stop her.

A winner of the 2007 Australian…

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Open Fire: Battle Boy Book One

Reviewed by Marie Matteson, Readings Port Melbourne

A brand new series for all those Zac Power lovers, the Battle Boy books follow the adventures of Napoleon Smythe as he travels through time to observe famous battles.

Plucked from a boring Saturday morning in the library, Napoleon is…

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