'Of course we are mad,' Bet wrote to Mary, 'but we live in a mad place.' Brenda Niall's True North (Courtesy: Text Publishing) The mad place that Bet - Elizabeth Durack - refers to is the Kimberley region of north-west Australia and the book this quote comes from is biographer Brenda Niall's True north: The … Continue reading Brenda Niall, True north: The story of Mary and Elizabeth Durack (Review)
21st century literature
Melissa Lucashenko, The silent majority (Review)
I have reviewed many individual short stories by Americans (through the Library of America), but not by Australians. Time to rectify that a little, and why not with a short story by Melissa Lucashenko, an Australian writer of European and indigenous Australian heritage. She is an award-winning novelist and an essayist, but I hadn't read … Continue reading Melissa Lucashenko, The silent majority (Review)
Jeanine Leane, Purple threads (Review for Indigenous Literature Week)
Bookcover via University of Queensland Press* What I especially like about Jeanine Leane's book, Purple threads, is how well she draws the universal out of the particular. That she does this is not unusual in itself. After all, this is what our favourite books tend to do. The interesting thing about Purple threads, though, is … Continue reading Jeanine Leane, Purple threads (Review for Indigenous Literature Week)
Catherine McNamara, The divorced lady’s companion to living in Italy (Review)
What would you say to a cross between chick lit, those mature-women-finding-themselves travel memoirs (like, say, Mary Moody's Au revoir or Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love), and Alice in Wonderland? Such a fusion is how I'd describe Catherine McNamara's first novel, The divorced lady's companion to living in Italy. Intrigued? Then read on ... The plot is simple. Marilyn … Continue reading Catherine McNamara, The divorced lady’s companion to living in Italy (Review)
Susan Johnson, Life in seven mistakes (Review)
By coincidence, really, my local reading group finally got around to reading Susan Johnson's Life in seven mistakes just as her next novel, My hundred lovers, is to be published. Johnson has written several novels now, though I'd only read one, The broken book based on the life of Charmian Clift, before this. I loved … Continue reading Susan Johnson, Life in seven mistakes (Review)
Deborah Robertson, Sweet old world (Review)
I may not have read Sweet old world by Deborah Robertson if Random House Australia had not suggested it to me - but I'm rather glad I did. Why do I say this? Because it isn't the sort of book I usually like to get my teeth into. It doesn't play with form, or voice, … Continue reading Deborah Robertson, Sweet old world (Review)
Peter Carey, The chemistry of tears (Review)
It may sound strange, but when I think of Peter Carey, I also often think of Margaret Atwood. Their works and concerns are very different, I know, but the thing is that both produce highly varied oeuvre. They take risks; they try new forms, voices and genres. This is not to say that I only … Continue reading Peter Carey, The chemistry of tears (Review)
Julian Barnes, The sense of an ending (Review)
I should have known I wouldn't be the first to think of it, but during my reading Julian Barnes' Booker Prize winning novel, The sense of an ending, I was suddenly reminded of TS Eliot's The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock. It was the melancholic tone, the sense of life having passed one by, … Continue reading Julian Barnes, The sense of an ending (Review)
PD James, Death comes to Pemberley (Review, sorta)
How do you review or evaluate a Jane Austen "sequel"*? Do we expect, want even, the author to channel Austen? I suspect the answer is as varied as are the readers of sequels, and it probably depends on why we read Austen. Those who are mostly interested in the stories and what happens to the characters … Continue reading PD James, Death comes to Pemberley (Review, sorta)
Chris Flynn, A tiger in Eden (Review)
Courtesy: Text Publishing Are all people redeemable, regardless of what they've done? This is the question that confronts us in Chris Flynn's debut novel, A tiger in Eden. I wondered, as I was reading this book, what inspired Flynn to write - in first person - about a man who was a violent thug during … Continue reading Chris Flynn, A tiger in Eden (Review)
