by NRB | 11 Nov 2021 | Non-fiction |
Jay Parini’s memoir provides an insight into the famous South American author as the two of them tour the Scottish Highlands. It doesn’t matter if you have never read any of the work of the famous Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges, neither had Jay Parini when...
by NRB | 9 Nov 2021 | Non-fiction |
Stretching from France to the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, Carol Major’s memoir is a meditation on family, grief and love. This memoir by Carol Major comprises three strands woven into one heartbreaking narrative of a woman and her daughter. Written as a...
by NRB | 4 Nov 2021 | Non-fiction |
Novelist Bohumil Hrabal’s memoir explores the roots of cruelty by examining the author’s relationship with his many cats. Published in Czech in 1986, novelist Bohumil Hrabal’s non-fiction work All My Cats is now available in English, translated by Paul...
by NRB | 2 Nov 2021 | Non-fiction |
Michelle Tom’s memoir weaves together the experience of being in an earthquake and the reverberations of family trauma. In 2011, Michelle Tom’s house was damaged by the deadly magnitude 6.3 earthquake in Christchurch that killed 185 people. In her debut memoir...
by NRB | 28 Oct 2021 | Fiction |
Colm Toibin’s tenth novel imagines the life and times of novelist Thomas Mann, whose books were banned by the Nazis in his native Germany. The Magician is a very clever and enjoyable novel based on the life of German author Thomas Mann. Toibin has previously...
by NRB | 26 Oct 2021 | Fiction |
Miles Franklin-winner Michelle de Kretser offers unsettling possibilities and questions to ponder in her latest fiction. Scary Monsters is really two novels in one book. The publishers decided to print each novel so that it starts from the opposite end of the book....
by NRB | 21 Oct 2021 | Fiction |
Emily Bitto won the Stella Prize in 2015 for her first novel The Strays. Her second, Wild Abandon, was worth the wait. Wild Abandon is a kind of coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of two very different sides of America (the book itself is divided into two...
by NRB | 19 Oct 2021 | Non-fiction |
Dr Norman Swan investigates the evidence for common assumptions we make about what is and isn’t good for our health. Despite its 432 pages, a brief description of Swan’s book could be ‘a health compendium for busy people’. Part memoir, part handbook, it ranges...
by NRB | 14 Oct 2021 | Non-fiction |
Lucia Osborne Crowley explores how trauma affects our bodies, recounting her own experiences and those of others. ‘Despite our best efforts,’ writes Lucia Osborne-Crowley, ‘the body finds a way to express what the mind cannot.’ Through a combination of memoir,...
by NRB | 12 Oct 2021 | Fiction |
The Airways is Jennifer Mills’ third novel and ranges from Sydney to Beijing as it explores themes of infection and the banality of violence. Someone recently tweeted that if we gave male violence the same attention as Covid, men would have been under curfew for...
by NRB | 8 Oct 2021 | Fiction, Flashback Friday |
Welcome to Flashback Fridays! This is a new monthly feature where we review books we overlooked when they first appeared. This week, Michelle McLaren discusses Toni Jordan’s 2018 novel of intrigue and literary obsession, The Fragments. All Has an End was Inga...
by NRB | 7 Oct 2021 | Non-fiction |
In Rogue Forces journalist Mark Willacy documents the disturbing truth about war crimes committed by Australia’s SAS forces in Afghanistan. Lord Acton is the one who said ‘power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’ He added, ‘Great men are...
NRB readers’ favourite reviews of 202419 December 2024Welcome to our most popular reviews of the year. Is your favourite among them? [ … ]
RONNI SALT Gunnawah. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm17 December 2024Ronni Salt’s debut is historical crime fiction at its best, with a strong [ … ]
TIMOTHY SNYDER On Freedom. Reviewed by Braham Dabscheck12 December 2024Historian Timothy Snyder asserts that freedom is something we must work for – [ … ]
SUE PRIDEAUX Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin. Reviewed by Ann Skea11 December 2024Sue Prideaux separates the man from the myth in this new account of the [ … ]