JANE SMILEY Some Luck. Reviewed by Robyne Young
Smiley returns to Iowa, the setting of her Pulitzer-Prize winning novel A Thousand Acres, in this first book of an epic new trilogy. It was chance that took the 19-year-old Jane Smiley to Iowa in 1972, and some further luck that gave her a place in the renowned Iowa...
MARGARET ATWOOD Stone Mattress. Reviewed by Lou Heinrich
This strange and entertaining collection of nine stories is a meditation on ageing and the body’s decay. Perhaps it is the most unglamorous of human traits: to wrinkle, to weaken, to forget. Ageing afflicts all who survive life to a certain point, yet the...
EMILY BITTO The Strays. Reviewed by Donna Lu
A deftly plotted, carefully crafted narrative about art, trauma and female friendship. It is no wonder that Emily Bitto’s haunting debut, The Strays, is on the shortlist for this year’s Stella Prize. Bitto’s well-constructed novel, primarily set in 1930s Melbourne,...
BARBARA PYM. An appreciation by Michael Jongen
The revival of interest in Pym’s delightful comedies of manners is well-deserved. ‘Of course it’s all right for librarians to smell of drink.’ – Barbara Pym, Less Than Angels I came to Barbara Pym late, through reading many comparisons to EF Benson and Jane...
MIRANDA JULY The First Bad Man. Reviewed by Donna Lu
Beneath the quirkiness Miranda July’s debut novel is a tale of connection and longing. Critics of writer, filmmaker and artist Miranda July’s work might swiftly dismiss The First Bad Man, her first novel, as another glib narrative filled with quirky characters who do...
KAZUO ISHIGURO The Buried Giant. Reviewed by Folly Gleeson
The Booker-winning author of Remains of the Day has created a moving and thought-provoking excursion into post-Arthurian Britain. This mysterious and beautiful story is set in Dark-Ages Britain in the post Roman-occupation period, not long after the times of King...
ELLEN VAN NEERVEN Heat and Light. Reviewed by Linda Funnell
This award-winning young writer delivers a debut collection of stories that ranges widely across themes of longing, identity, destiny and desire. Heat and Light is divided into three parts: ‘Heat’, ‘Water’ and ‘Light’. Each part has a distinct character, but a...
DAVID RAIN Volcano Street. Reviewed by Michelle McLaren
Nostalgia casts a long shadow in this novel about small-town life and secrets. Although we associate the word ‘nostalgia’ with a wistful longing for the past, the term was originally coined in the 1700s to describe a medical condition suffered by soldiers fighting on...
Remembering Colleen McCullough. By Linda Funnell
The world lost more than a household name when Colleen McCullough died on 29 January. Over 15 years, off and on, I published and edited Colleen McCullough in Australia. She was not only an internationally recognised bestselling author and an official...
LYDIA DAVIS Can’t and Won’t. Reviewed by Phoebe Chen
In her ninth collection of flash fiction Lydia Davis writes with complex emotional ambiguity about the spaces in between. Lydia Davis began her career as a translator of French literature, and perhaps as a kind of reprieve from the unwieldy sentences...
JULIAN DAVIES Crow Mellow. Reviewed by Michael Richardson
This deliberately strange and inventive homage to Aldous Huxley is a novel of ideas that will draw each reader in differently. Crow Mellow makes no secret of its strangeness. The book is narrower in size than normal, the author’s name in small type, just two sentences...
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