At the recent History Unbound Festival at Parramatta, I discovered a feast of historical fiction by Australian authors. By chance, two of the novels I’ve read since feature orphaned female protagonists who end up living in a religious order. In the 9th and 10th centuries, this arrangement offered opportunities for women which would not otherwise
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Alerted by my sister last Sunday afternoon, I caught the announcement on ABC Radio National of the top ten books of the 21st century as voted by readers around Australia. The countdown of the top hundred books had been underway since Saturday morning. Many listeners followed the broadcast for the whole weekend. You may be
Inconvenient Women is a non-fiction book about Australian women writers in the 20th century. It covers the years 1900-1970 and sets out in accessible prose the lives of these writers in the context of the historical and political events which influenced their lives and their writing. The book’s cover features Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin,
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This is the Story of a Happy Marriage is a 2013 collection of non-fiction magazine articles by American novelist Ann Patchett written to pay the rent while she worked on her first novels. The success of Bel Canto in 2001 meant that she could largely give up her freelance work to focus on fiction. In
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Over recent years, John Boyne has published a series of four novellas named after the ancient elements of Water, Earth, Air and Fire. I have just finished reading the first two, Water and Earth, both published in 2023. In each, Boyne takes on a part of human nature which is dark and difficult and examines
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Chimamanda Ngosi Adichie begins her latest novel, Dream Count, in Washington where one of her four main characters grapples with the challenges of Covid lockdown. Chiamaka’s plans to keep herself active and productive come to nothing. She embarks instead on a dream count, remembering all the men in her life and how they failed to
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Intermezzo is Irish writer Sally Rooney’s most recent novel. It explores similar themes to her previous books, Conversations with Friends, Normal People, and Beautiful World, Where Are You. They all interrogate the search for love or meaningful connection with other people. In Rooney’s previous novels, a common theme has been the relationship between a young
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Orbital is a slim volume that packs a punch. It richly deserves the 2024 Booker Prize. Six astronauts from five different countries (two are from Russia) and their experiences in the International Space Station are the focus of the book. Yet the beating heart of Orbital is the Earth. The astronauts live in a different
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Niall William’s latest novel, Time of the Child, is one of those books that transports you to another time and place in the company of characters you really care about. The opening sentence sets the scene and the hook for the story: ‘This is what happened in Faha over the Christmas of 1962, in what
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Joseph Roth’s novel, The Radetzky March, has been hailed by Michael Ondaatje as ‘one of the 20th century’s great historical novels.’ It was first published in German in 1932 and only made available to English-speaking readers in 2002 in a translation by Michael Hoffmann. The story unfolds at a leisurely pace. Each scene is replete
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