The Godfather: Peter Corris on playing patience
I’ve lately taken to playing patience – the one-handed card game known in the US and Canada as solitaire. With no skill at cards, this, along with Snap, is a game I can handle. But, as well as luck it does require vigilance, and for me, with poor eyesight and no...
NATASHA LESTER A Kiss from Mr Fitzgerald. Reviewed by Robin Elizabeth
This new novel from Natasha Lester is best read with gin and jazz. Natasha Lester gives us all the glitz and glamour of classic romance in her third novel, a work of romantic women’s fiction that takes us back in time to the 1920s. There is gin, there is...
JULIA BAIRD Victoria the Queen: An intimate biography of the woman who changed the world. Reviewed by Bernard Whimpress
This immensely satisfying biography of Queen Victoria humanises its subject. The final words of Julia’s Baird’s biography of 493 pages are ‘Victoria endured’. Victoria endured to the age of 81 years when the average life span of her subjects was 46 and only one in 20...
The Godfather: Peter Corris on early days in the AFL season
It’s early days in a long season but the AFL competition has already thrown up some interesting configurations and contradictions. After Hawthorn disappointed supporters and some pundits by failing to achieve a ‘four-peat’ last year, few would have predicted that the...
Easter 2017 Giveaway #4
Will it be you? Who will win our final giveaway bundle of books this Easter? To go in the draw simply email your name and address to editors@newtownreviewofbooks.com.au by midnight tonight, Thursday 13 April 2017 with ‘EASTER #4’ in the...
Easter 2017 Giveaway #3
More, more, more books to enjoy this Easter. To go in the draw to win this book pack, simply email your name and address to editors@newtownreviewofbooks.com.au by midnight tonight, Wednesday 12 April 2017 with ‘EASTER #3’ in the subject line. Because...
Easter 2017 Giveaway #2
Is the Easter bunny real? Can chocolate make you smarter? This pile of books may not give you the answers, but it will give you some great reading as our Easter giveaways continue. To go in the draw for this bundle of books, simply email your name and address to...
Easter 2017 Giveaway #1
Nothing goes better with Easter eggs than a pile of good books, and we’re giving away a pile of good books every day between now and Good Friday. To go in the draw to win this first pack, simply email your name and address to editors@newtownreviewofbooks.com.au...
The Godfather: Peter Corris on Olivia Manning
Part of the pleasure of reading (or being read to, in my case) is revisiting something with renewed enjoyment or perhaps beneficially changing one’s mind. I experienced both of these pleasures on re-encountering Olivia Manning’s The Balkan Trilogy comprising The Great...
RUTH QUIBELL The Promise of Things. Reviewed by Ashley Kalagian Blunt
Ruth Quibell’s The Promise of Things offers a pathway to ‘an intelligent life with things’. We’re surrounded by things. Our own things, other people’s things, necessary things, beloved things, things we cannot wait to be rid of. Our heads are...
Crime Scene: ADRIAN MCKINTY Police at the Station and They Don’t Look Friendly. Review and overview by Karen Chisholm
Part history lesson, part social exploration, the Sean Duffy series from Irish-Australian writer Adrian McKinty is required crime fiction reading. The Sean Duffy series was originally intended to be a trilogy, not surprisingly, given McKinty’s history with the...
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