by NRB | 8 Jun 2012 | The Godfather: Peter Corris |
‘The film wasn’t as good as the book.’ How often have you heard it? The phrase set me thinking that there should be three categories for the discussion – film worse than book, film as good as book and film better than book. Off the top of my head I can propose three...
by NRB | 6 Jun 2012 | Crime Scene, Non-fiction |
Two recent books focus on Arthur Upfield’s half-Indigenous detective Napoleon Bonaparte. Arthur William Upfield (1 September 1890 – 13 February 1964) was an Australian writer best known for his 29 works of crime fiction featuring half-Aboriginal Detective Inspector...
by NRB | 1 Jun 2012 | The Godfather: Peter Corris |
Why am I wandering round my workroom putting books back on shelves and filing documents? Why I am rearranging books for God’s sake, and putting pens back in jars and screwing up scrap paper? Why am I drifting away to consult the Foxtel mag to see if there are movies I...
by NRB | 30 May 2012 | Fiction |
There’s more than one side to this story of a mother accused of murdering her child. It’s impossible to read Wendy James’s fourth novel and not think of the real-life case of Keli Lane, jailed for the murder of her baby Tegan, whose body has never been found. In...
by NRB | 24 May 2012 | The Godfather: Peter Corris |
I was the literary editor of the National Times for almost three years, from 1979 to 1981. I was given the job by Anne Summers who had held it for some time and for whom I’d written a few book reviews. She was a top-flight journalist who had published her feminist...
by NRB | 14 May 2012 | The Godfather: Peter Corris |
Popular Australian writers of the 30s, 40s and 50s rarely appeared in public, were heard on radio or seen in the early days of television. Writers like Arthur Upfield, Nevil Shute and Frank Clune did not give readings or talks. One of the most popular writers in the...
by NRB | 4 May 2012 | Non-fiction |
From how to make pastry to the ethics of eating, Charlotte Wood inspires with her passion for food. The best food writers are those who delight in the preparation of good food and in sharing it with loved ones, and novelist Charlotte Wood is one such writer. In...
by NRB | 1 May 2012 | Fiction |
A girls’-own-adventure with the lot. A beautiful-yet-deadly commander of a crack retrieval team; terrorists of US, European, Arabic and Asian strains; high-tech comms systems implanted into earlobes; assault helicopters; conspiracies; multiple explosions … Add a frank...
by NRB | 23 Apr 2012 | Fiction, The Godfather: Peter Corris |
Recently I was asked to name five books that everyone should read. That old chestnut. I declined; people have such different tastes and read in such different ways that the idea makes no sense. I offered instead ‘five books I’m glad to have read’. This was accepted. I...
by NRB | 19 Apr 2012 | Non-fiction |
Anita Heiss claims the right to be herself. One of the fundamentals about books is how they allow us to see through another’s eyes. In this part memoir, part polemic, part primer on Indigenous Australia, Anita Heiss gives a sharp, funny, moving account of...
by NRB | 14 Apr 2012 | Fiction, The Godfather: Peter Corris |
Historical novels have always been my favourite kind of recreational reading. From Baroness Orczy’s Scarlet Pimpernel to Georgette Heyer’s Regency bucks to sterner stuff like Henry Treece’s bloody tales of Saxon and Roman Britain, I escaped from a dreary...
by NRB | 5 Apr 2012 | Non-fiction |
What was Thomas Wyatt’s effect on English poetry? It helps to know Middle English or to have a glossary handy to fully appreciate Chaucer (1343-1400): In al the route was ther young ne oold That he ne seyde it was a noble storie, And worthy for to drawen to...
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