ALEX MILLER Autumn Laing. A comment by Thea Welsh
Alex Miller makes Sunday Reed a lesser woman for the sake of art. In an enthusiastic review of Alex Miller’s novel Autumn Laing in the Australian Book Review, Morag Fraser worried that, as the novel draws ‘freely on the lives of [Sidney] Nolan and the Heide circle’,...The Godfather: Peter Corris on three historical events he’d have liked to see
I used to entertain myself and (less so, I suspect) my friends by posing the question, ‘What three events in history would you wish to have been a witness to?’ I had a theory that the answers would provide a clue not only to their real interests but to the kinds of...Crime scene: PAMELA BURTON The Waterlow Killings: A Portrait of a Family Tragedy. Reviewed by Tom Kelly
This sensitive account of a family tragedy details the terrible consequences when the mental health system fails. How’s this for a great horror/who-done-it plot? Nick Waterlow is a world-renowned art curator, past director of the Biennale, with an Order of...T C BOYLE San Miguel. Reviewed by Kylie Mason
Desolation and isolation haunt two families living decades apart on the bleakest of California’s Channel Islands On New Year’s Day, 1888, Marantha Waters arrives on San Miguel island, off the Californian coast, with her husband, Will, daughter, Edith, and maid, Ida....The Godfather: Peter Corris on trivia nights
Jean and I recently attended a trivia night – a fundraiser for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation. There were about 300 participants, many of them book people, giving us a chance to catch up with the likes of head of the Australian Booksellers Association and fellow...SARA MAITLAND Gossip from the Forest: The Tangled Roots of our Forests and Fairytales. Reviewed by Folly Gleeson
The forests of Britain entwine with retellings of Grimms’ fairytales in Sara Maitland’s imaginative investigation. This book is definitely for the bedside or the beach, perhaps for life. It offers a long leisurely exploration under the guidance of a sort...KRISTEL THORNELL Night Street. Reviewed by James Tierney
Artist Clarice Beckett inspires this award-winning debut novel. Kristel Thornell’s Dobbie and Vogel Award-winning novel Night Street takes the apparently narrow life of interwar Australian artist Clarice Beckett and imaginatively deepens her life’s hue, working with...The Godfather: Peter Corris on talking books
I wonder if there are any authors who listen to their own work when it appears in the form of a talking book? Possibly the real egoists do. About twenty of my books have had the treatment, mostly Cliff Hardys, but at least one each in the Crawley and the Browning...NEIL YOUNG Waging Heavy Peace; PETE TOWNSHEND Who I Am. Reviewed by Toby Creswell
Neil Young reveals and Pete Townshend conceals in these contrasting rock & roll memoirs. The rock & roll confidential has occupied one of the least edifying shelves in the bookstore. The hazy memories of too many girls and too many drugs were shaped by...Peter Corris nominates his best books of 2012
The NRB editors have invited me to nominate the best books I’ve read in 2012. As I explained in a Godfather column earlier this year (NRB 31 June), I keep a list of books I’ve read, with a brief assessment, and I assign each book a mark out of ten. This makes it...The Godfather: Peter Corris on discovering Maugham (and others)
In an idle moment, of which I have many these days, I found myself trying to remember who had introduced me to certain books and writers. I was unsurprised to find how many I’d forgotten, but surprised to find how many I could remember. My sister introduced me to...
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