by NRB | 6 Dec 2024 | Crime Scene, Fiction, Flashback Friday |
June Wright has faded from view, but in 1948 her novel Murder in the Telephone Exchange outstripped sales of Agatha Christie in Australia. Between 1948 and 1966, Australian author June Wright published six mystery books, raised six children, and maintained a marriage...
by NRB | 12 Apr 2024 | Fiction, Flashback Friday |
It’s Flashback Friday: Jessica Stewart reviews Robinne Lee’s 2017 novel of an older woman and a younger man which is getting renewed attention thanks to a film adaptation. Is there a right way to love? In a thousand ways we are told what is acceptable, ethical,...
by NRB | 12 May 2023 | Flashback Friday, Non-fiction |
First published in 2008, Esther Woolfson’s Corvus is part memoir, part natural history, and conveys her fascination with the birds living in her home. As I write, the bird is behind me on her branch. From time to time she mutters, a sound softly bearing the imprint of...
by NRB | 5 May 2023 | Fiction, Flashback Friday |
The recent release of Brigitta Olubas’ biography of Shirley Hazzard has prompted Catherine Pardey to reflect on Hazzard’s 1980 novel The Transit of Venus. After re-reading The Transit of Venus it is always surprising to re-remember it was published in 1980, as it...
by NRB | 20 Jan 2023 | Flashback Friday, Non-fiction |
In this month’s Flashback Friday, Anna Verney assesses Deborah Levy’s 2018 memoir The Cost of Living. As readers of South African-born British writer Deborah Levy’s literary fiction will know, it always has an unsettlingly allusive quality. While grounded...
by NRB | 12 Nov 2021 | Fiction, Flashback Friday |
This month’s Flashback Friday explores Nick Earl’s entwined Wisdom Tree novellas from 2016: Gotham, Venice, Vancouver, Juneau, and NoHo. The Tolstoy quotation about unhappy families could easily have been the epigraph to every one of the five novellas that...
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...
ANDREW O’HAGAN Caledonian Road. Reviewed by Catherine Pardey5 December 2024This new novel from the author of Mayflies is set in London, but Glasgow is [ … ]
IAIN RYAN The Dream. Reviewed by Ben Ford Smith3 December 2024Iain Ryan’s latest novel continues his fascination with 1980s Queensland and [ … ]
MARINA YUSZCZUK Thirst. Reviewed by Ann Skea28 November 2024Argentinian writer Marina Yuszczuk puts her twist on the vampire novel in [ … ]