Kurt Johnson The Red Wake: A hybrid of travel, history and journalism. Reviewed by Ashley Kalagian Blunt
The Red Wake explores the Soviet Union’s complex legacies, exposing both the West’s totalitarian narrative and Russia’s increasingly revisionist history. It was the USSR that built the world’s first power-producing nuclear reactor, beginning a period of nuclear...
The Godfather: Petet Corris on Scrabble
‘That’s disgraceful,’ a friend said when I admitted that Heath, my then seven-year-old grandson, could beat me at Scrabble. That was 18 months ago and he continues to beat me. In fact, after 40 or so games the closest I’ve come was a game when there was nothing...
HENRY REYNOLDS Unnecessary Wars. Reviewed by Bernard Whimpress
Unnecessary Wars provides a powerful antidote to the pervasive militarising of Australian history over the past 20 years. Not how, but why, is the most compelling question posed by Henry Reynolds in this book, which examines Australian debates about war and peace,...
The Godfather: Peter Corris on auctions
It is often said that people living cheek by jowl in the city do not know each other or, at best, have only a nodding acquaintance. This was not our experience in Hordern Street, Newtown, as I have recorded in an earlier column, but it has been so recently in a...
MELANIE JOOSTEN A Long Time Coming: Essays on old age. Reviewed by Shelley McInnis
Old age may be a long time coming, but it is coming. This eloquent collection advocates for the elderly. It was a Doris Lessing novel – specifically, Diary of a Good Neighbour – that inspired Melanie Joosten to take up social work with the idea of working with older...
Anna Spargo-Ryan giveaway
We have a copy of Anna Spargo-Ryan’s debut novel The Paper House to give away. To go in the draw, just email your name and address to editors@newtownreviewofbooks.com.au with ‘Paper House’ in the subject line by 6pm today, 29 June 2016. Australian...
Crime Scene: ANNA WESTBROOK Dark Fires Shall Burn. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
Inspired by the true events surrounding an unsolved murder, Dark Fires Shall Burn is set in Sydney’s Newtown in the aftermath of World War II. The title of Anna Westbrook’s debut novel is wonderful. Based around a stanza from the Australian poet Dorothy...
The Godfather: Peter Corris on flowers
‘Send me dead flowers by the mail’ – Jagger/Richards I am indifferent to flowers, although I was surrounded by them at home as a child. Where I grew up, in the dreary south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne in a brick veneer house set on a quarter-acre block, there...
ANNA SPARGO-RYAN The Paper House. Reviewed by Kylie Mason
An unimaginable loss leads to unimaginable suffering in this debut novel. Heather and Dave have bought a house on a hill by the sea; a house with unusual rooms, a rambling back yard and a bull-nosed verandah. They are expecting their first child and have sold their...
Winter Solstice 2016 giveaways
It’s winter, we’ve just had the shortest day, so you must need more books to keep the cold at bay. This winter solstice we have not one but TWO terrific bundles of books to give away to two lucky winners. To enter, email your name and address to...
COLLEEN Z BURKE The Waves Turn: a memoir. Reviewed by Jeannette Delamoir
The Waves Turn provides a valuable lens though which to explore the intertwined histories of folk music, Irish heritage, and political activism. Poet Colleen Z Burke writes in her Prologue that her autobiography offers readers a glimpse into: … the elusive,...
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