Shortlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize, Paul Murray’s novel, The Bee Sting, is 643 pages of pure reading pleasure. It tells the story of the Barnes, a modern-day Irish family whose luck has turned. For teenage daughter Cass, the decline began with the closing of her father’s car showroom. For PJ, the younger child, it […]
Days of Innocence and Wonder is Lucy Treloar’s third novel. Her voice is strong and assured. She proceeds at her own pace in this novel which builds slowly to its frightening climax. The protagonist, Till, is a Melbourne woman in her twenties. She carries with her the memory of an incident in her childhood that
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The Axeman’s Carnival by New Zealand author, Catherine Chidgey contains a novel twist to the trope of a stranger entering a family’s life and acting as a catalyst for change. The stranger in The Axeman’s Carnival is a magpie who is also the first-person narrator of the story. The first sentence of the book put
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Last week I read the novel Prima Facie by Suzie Miller and had the privilege of attending RBG: Of Many, One written by the same author. Performed at the Drama Theatre of the Sydney Opera House by the extraordinarily talented actor Heather Mitchell, RBG: Of Many, One is a one-woman play about Ruth Bader Ginsberg
All That’s Left Unsaid is a well-chosen title for this debut novel by Tracey Lien. At its heart is the death of teenager Denny Tran in a well-patronised restaurant in Cabramatta, Sydney. No-one there on the night will say anything to the police. When her father calls with the news that Denny is dead, his
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Reading War and Peace has been a life-long dream of mine, inspired by my father who took the book on a Gold Coast family holiday and vowed to read a hundred pages a day and finish it over the September school holidays, which he did. Over Christmas and the first half of January this new
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As we approach the end of 2023, I’ve been looking back on a year of very enjoyable reading. I always have a book on the go. It’s as if I am living two lives at any one time: my own and the one created by the author. My monthly review posts reflect my choice
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During the last few weeks, I watched the television adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s Neopolitan novels and returned to re-read the fourth and final novel, The Story of the Lost Child. Ferrante’s four novels, My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Stay and Those Who Leave and The Story of the Lost
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Louise Doughty’s new novel, A Bird in Winter, is replete with tension. It begins with a familiar scene. The protagonist, Heather, attends a work meeting in a room dubbed ‘Alaska’ because it is so cold. Her workmates are seated at a glass board room table. Her boss stands by the window, coffee cup in hand.
As soon as I finished Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au, I started reading it again. The book is a short one, more a novella than a novel. On the surface, it reads like an extended report on a travel experience rather than a story with dramatic twists and turns. Yet its essence is