Anna Funder's Stasiland, which won the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction, is one of those books that can be reviewed from multiple angles, and I know that when I get to the end of this review I'm going to be sorry about the angles I didn't get to discuss. But, I can only do what … Continue reading Anna Funder, Stasiland (Review)
AWW Challenge 2012
Brenda Niall, True north: The story of Mary and Elizabeth Durack (Review)
'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)
Dame Mary Durack, Lament for the drowned country (Review)
Near the end of her book True north about Mary and Elizabeth Durack, biographer Brenda Niall writes of Mary Durack's poem, "Lament for the Drowned Country", which she says "has been judged her finest poem". Of course, with such a statement, I had to read it. I could have Googled* it, but I decided to check my … Continue reading Dame Mary Durack, Lament for the drowned country (Review)
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)
Elizabeth Harrower, The watch tower (Review)
Cover for The watch tower (Courtesy: Text Publishing) Elizabeth Harrower's fourth and final novel, The watch tower, is a rather harrowing (couldn't resist that) read. It is also an astonishing read, and I wonder why it has had such little recognition over the decades or so since its publication in 1966. Thanks to Text Classics, … Continue reading Elizabeth Harrower, The watch tower (Review)
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)
Merlinda Bobis, Fish-hair woman (Review)
How do you classify a book like Fish-hair woman by Filipino-Australian writer, Merlinda Bobis? Darned if I know, but I'll have a go. It's part war story, murder mystery, political thriller, romance, and historical epic. It draws on the magical realist tradition of writers like Isabel Allende, but overarching all this, it is a book about … Continue reading Merlinda Bobis, Fish-hair woman (Review)
Whispering Gums 