Image of cover of book The Season by Helen Garner, reviewed by Michael Jongen in the Newtown Review of Books.

2025 Readers’ Favourites

by NRB | 8 January 2026 | Fiction, Non-fiction | 0 Comments

With the new year barely begun, take a look back at our top ten reviews of 2025. It's always fascinating to see which reviews have attracted the most interest from readers. While this 2025 list leans slightly more towards fiction than non-fiction, it does include...

Image of writer Jean Bedford wearng a dark shirt, her head resting on her hand.

Tributes to Jean Bedford

by NRB | 18 December 2025 | Non-fiction | 2 Comments

Writer and editor Jean Bedford died after a long illness on 11 December 2025. She leaves a considerable literary legacy. Author of eight novels, including Sister Kate and a trio of Anna Southwood detective novels, two collections of short stories (one written with...

Image of cover of book Salt Upon the Water by Liz Dickens, reviewed by Ann Skea in the Newtown Review of Books.

LYN DICKENS Salt Upon the Water. Reviewed by Ann Skea

by NRB | 11 December 2025 | Fiction | 0 Comments

Lyn Dickens’s award-winning debut novel of an independent woman in colonial South Australia explores prejudice, power and identity. Salt Upon the Water is an historical fiction; also, according to the blurb on the back cover, ‘an epic love story’. Both are true, but...

Image of cover of book The Maskeys by Stuart Everly-Wilson, reviewed by Catherine Pardey in the Newtown Review of Books.

STUART EVERLY-WILSON The Maskeys. Reviewed by Catherine Pardey

by NRB | 10 December 2025 | Crime Scene, Fiction | 0 Comments

Set in a small Australian town dominated by a family of drug dealers, Stuart Everly-Wilson’s new novel is full of memorable characters. Possibly you’ve always been intrigued by the kind of people who feature prominently in Stuart Everly-Wilson’s The Maskeys, but never...

Image of cover of book The Everlasting by Alix E Harrow, reviewed by Robert Goodman in the Newtown Review of Books.

ALIX E HARROW The Everlasting. Reviewed by Robert Goodman

by NRB | 9 December 2025 | Fiction, SFF | 0 Comments

Alix E Harrow’s time-travelling new novel asks questions about our most cherished national myths and what might happen if they were to change. Alix Harrow’s latest fantasy is a story about the power of stories. And while there have been plenty of these, this is a...