ARUNDHATI ROY The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. Reviewed by Linda Godfrey
Roy shows a deft hand when writing about the lives of the lowest and the most successful with equal detail. This is Arundhati Roy’s second novel in 20 years. Her first, The God of Small Things, won the Booker Prize in 1997 and this one was longlisted...
WENDY SCARFE The Day They Shot Edward. Reviewed by Kim Kelly
A slim volume but vast in scope, The Day They Shot Edward is a novel that asks who the grownups really are. Beautifully original historical fiction, The Day They Shot Edward is an intricately layered story of life and death and love set in Australia during the First...
JULIAN BARNES The Only Story. Reviewed by Carmel Bird
The latest novel by Booker-winner Julian Barnes shares resonances with The Sense of an Ending. Some time in the 1980s I read Flaubert’s Parrot by Julian Barnes. I loved it so much that not only did I give copies to several friends, but my own paperback fell...
GLENDA GUEST A Week in the Life of Cassandra Aberline. Reviewed by Linda Funnell
A Week in the Life of Cassandra Aberline exists on the plane of memories, where grief can enlarge small events and erase larger ones. Glenda Guest’s follow-up to her prizewinning debut Siddon Rock (2009) is a novel of memory and betrayal. It opens with a brief,...
EVA HORNUNG The Last Garden. Reviewed by Linda Godfrey
Eva Hornung shows us that the story of the Garden of Eden can have a different ending. The Last Garden is set in an unnamed New World, most likely South Australia, where many Germans settled in the 19th century seeking relief from religious persecution. The...
CARMEN MARIA MACHADO Her Body and Other Parties. Reviewed by Carmel Bird
Machado’s stories twist and turn and startle and shock. The first piece in this exhilarating collection of eight unconnected short stories begins with a beguiling instruction to readers suggesting that, if they are reading the text out loud, there are certain...
ADA LANGTON The Art of Preserving Love. Reviewed by Kim Kelly
Ada Langton’s The Art of Preserving Love is a carefully controlled, rambling rose bush of a tale. From the opening chapter title of this delightful debut, it’s clear this is historical fiction told with warmth and a hint of mischief: Early in the...
NRB Editors on their favourite books of 2017
For the first time in NRB’s history, Jean and Linda both have the same title on their books-of-the-year lists. What could it be? Read on to find out … Jean’s picks (As I was one of the judges for the Ned Kelly Awards this year, I read a lot of wonderful Australian...
MICHAEL GIACOMETTI My Life and Other Fictions. Reviewed by Jessica Stewart
Michael Giacometti is skilled in the short form – with much to excite, to heighten our senses, before a swift close. Running through many of the stories in this collection is discovery and the yearning, futility and fallout that it brings. The act of discovery, the...
PIP SMITH Half Wild. Reviewed by Robin Elizabeth
Half Wild is heart-warming, confusing and deeply unsettling all at the same time. This debut novel by Pip Smith is based on the life of the person variously known as Eugenia Falleni, Harry Crawford and Jean Ford. It is a work of impressive scope, covering three...
ANTHONY O’NEILL Dr Jekyll & Mr Seek. Reviewed by Folly Gleeson
An elegant and entertaining coda to Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Anthony O’Neill’s novel opens with a description of London that evokes a sort of Dickensian city and also presages the subsequent blurring and...
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