by NRB | 28 Sep 2012 | The Godfather: Peter Corris |
Dedicating books is one of the few ways an impecunious writer can do something nice for people. Publishing around 80 books has given me ample opportunity to acknowledge family, friends, helpers and people I’ve admired. Not that every book of mine has a dedication;...
by NRB | 24 Sep 2012 | Fiction |
The creator of the immensely popular Les Norton died on Thursday 20 September 2012. He was a more complex figure than his public image suggested. Bob Barrett loved to stir. The first time I saw him was in a newspaper photograph of the opening...
by NRB | 21 Sep 2012 | The Godfather: Peter Corris |
Patrick White worried about his drinking. He told biographer David Marr there were times when he drank half a bottle of spirits a day and wine as well. He consulted doctors, almost hoping, Marr suggests, for a diagnosis of alcoholism, which would relieve him of...
by NRB | 17 Sep 2012 | Fiction |
Pat Barker returns to the haunting fictional territory of World War One. There have been many fine novels with World War One settings, such as A Farewell to Arms, All Quiet on the Western Front, A Very Long Engagement and Birdsong. While this book isn’t in that class...
by NRB | 14 Sep 2012 | The Godfather: Peter Corris |
I came to book reviewing in a bizarre way. In 1975 I was teaching at a CAE in Gippsland, Victoria, and hating it, when I read a newspaper review by Olaf Ruhen of a book on Pacific history. I was affronted. I’ve forgotten the book’s title, but I thought the review poor...
by NRB | 12 Sep 2012 | Fiction |
This third novel from Belinda Castles is a love story, a family saga, and a slice of twentieth-century European and Australian history. Hannah and Emil first see one another across a crowded room in 1933. The venue is a trade union conference in Brussels, where...
by NRB | 10 Sep 2012 | Fiction |
The unlikely story of 1920s lady missionaries in exotic Kashgar entwines with the tale of a modern woman in contemporary London. Evangeline English has inveigled her way onto a 1923 missionary expedition, led by the enigmatic Millicent, to explore the mysterious East...
by NRB | 7 Sep 2012 | The Godfather: Peter Corris |
My medications and health support devices sit on top of the filing cabinet in my workroom. A Type 1 diabetic, I have two insulin injection pens and a glucometer to check my blood sugar three or more times a day. The glucometer uses strips contained in a small plastic...
by NRB | 5 Sep 2012 | Fiction |
A book of dark humour and beautifully polished prose. Men have returned from the Great War to hard times and meagre living, many out on worthless, waterless selections with ‘a few skinny cows’. At the dawn of the Australian twentieth century, Jessie is on...
by NRB | 3 Sep 2012 | Fiction |
Witchcraft, the gothic, religious persecution and the aesthetics of a talking head: the NRB editors discuss Jeanette Winterson’s new novel. Linda Funnell: This short book is like a little black cat: sleek and swift and twisting, an omen of trouble, its eyes full of...
by NRB | 31 Aug 2012 | The Godfather: Peter Corris |
I’ve been reading for sixty-six years, from about the age of four. I was born in Stawell in Victoria’s Wimmera and my family used to travel by car to Melbourne. I’ve been told I learned to read from the road signs and this before I went to school because that didn’t...
by NRB | 29 Aug 2012 | Fiction |
Sumner Locke Elliott’s portrait of Kings Cross and Sydney’s class divides is a classic worth revisiting. My mother was a wonderful snob. ‘You know Macleay Street, of course,’ I overheard her say once, giving directions to our Potts Point apartment. (I love...
JUNE WRIGHT Mother Paul series. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm6 December 2024June Wright has faded from view, but in 1948 her novel Murder in the Telephone [ … ]
ANDREW O’HAGAN Caledonian Road. Reviewed by Catherine Pardey5 December 2024This new novel from the author of Mayflies is set in London, but Glasgow is [ … ]
IAIN RYAN The Dream. Reviewed by Ben Ford Smith3 December 2024Iain Ryan’s latest novel continues his fascination with 1980s Queensland and [ … ]
MARINA YUSZCZUK Thirst. Reviewed by Ann Skea28 November 2024Argentinian writer Marina Yuszczuk puts her twist on the vampire novel in [ … ]