May 14, 2022 | What Am I Reading?
This book is heart-warming, life-affirming, happy and sad. It will make you laugh and cry. The Improbable Life of Ricky Bird (Simon and Schuster 2022) by Diane Connell will appeal to anyone who loved Eleanor Oliphant, or the characters in Ove or The Curious Incident...
May 14, 2022 | What Am I Reading?
I know I keep saying this, but what is it about Australian debut crime writers lately, particularly those setting their novels in the rural outback? Is there something in the water? (Or perhaps in the dry dust…?) Because there seems to be an abundance of excellent...
Apr 30, 2022 | What Am I Reading?
By the author of the novel that was made into the award-winning film JoJo Rabbit, Christine Leunens’ novel In Amber’s Wake (Bateman’s Books 2022) is a similarly forensic examination of relationship dynamics and motivations, and the aftershock effects of choices. The...
Apr 6, 2022 | What Am I Reading?
‘Mislike me not for my complexion, The shadow’d livery of the burnish’d sun.’ This is the quote from William Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice) that opens Mirandi Riwoe’s extraordinary collection of short stories The Burnished Sun (UQP 2022), and it is apt because...
Apr 2, 2022 | What Am I Reading?
Cassie Hamer’s third novel, The Truth About Faking It (Harlequin 2022) again denotes her inimitable style: light-hearted and heart-warming, funny, with snappy and sharp dialogue, relatable contemporary characters and humorous plots and set-ups that allow for plenty of...
Apr 1, 2022 | What Am I Reading?
Great Circle (Penguin Random House 2021) by Maggie Shipstead is a complex, intricate, soaring, all-encompassing puzzle of a book. While I thoroughly enjoyed her previous novel Seating Arrangements, this is in a whole other stratosphere. The writing is fiercely good,...
