FAY WELDON Death of a She Devil. Reviewed by Carmel Bird
Very very sharp and very very funny: Fay Weldon is on form as she follows up her 1980s hit The Life and Loves of a She Devil. Nearly 60 years ago, in a Hobart pub called The Man at the Wheel, I had a conversation with the novelist Christopher Koch on the subject of...
ASHLEY HAY A Hundred Small Lessons. Reviewed by Jeannette Delamoir
Ashley Hay's new novel gives us warm, affectionate portraits of people and place in a story that shifts between past and present. Longlisted for the 2014 Miles Franklin Award, Ashley Hay’s previous novel, The Railwayman’s Wife, was a love letter to Thirroul. A Hundred...
CLAIRE CORBETT Watch Over Me. Reviewed by Sally Nimon
This is a powerful portrayal of what can happen in war and in the skilful hands of Claire Corbett the message is clear: there but for the grace of God ... The world is at war. It always has been. Our sense of security is an illusion. At any moment, on any day, in any...
JOHN KINSELLA Old Growth. Reviewed by Carmel Bird
John Kinsella's short stories reveal flashes of beauty amid the bleakness. ‘They were close enough to the dregs of the river to have a water rat dead on their dead lawn.’ So far, so ugly – the opening line of the 18th story in this collection of 27. By number 18 I was...
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 dancing, but...
ROXANE GAY Difficult Women. Reviewed by Linda Godfrey
Women's difficult lives are laid bare with a surgeon's precision in this collection. This is a collection of 21 short stories about women in relation to the men in their worlds. I had to think long and hard about the title. The more I read the stories, the more I...
CK STEAD The Name on the Door is Not Mine: stories new and selected. Reviewed by Carmel Bird
Stead's short stories contest truth and identity – and feature a winged man, scary women, and a hint of Edna Everidge. One of the most important elements of a short story is its structure. In these 12 pieces gathered from across the lengthy and illustrious literary...
SARAH FLANNERY MURPHY The Possessions. Reviewed by Sally Nimon
The Possessions is an unsettling debut conjuring a world where the dead may speak through the living. What makes you you? Is it the lipstick you wear? The way you talk? An unselfconscious moment captured in a photograph? Or is it the impression you leave on other...
GRAHAM SWIFT Mothering Sunday: A romance. Reviewed by Folly Gleeson
Mothering Sunday gives us a moving exploration of a particular day, and opens up a rich look at the nature of writing. Graham Swift’s wonderful novella concerns one particular Mothering Sunday, that of 30 March 1924. Mothering Sunday was a sort of feudal ritual that...
SUE WOOLFE Do You Love Me Or What? Reviewed by Carmel Bird
These short stories from Sue Woolfe offer alienation, yearning and brilliance. The final story in this collection of eight pieces is an extract from the personal papers of an unnamed fiction writer, with footnotes by Professor Amelia Broughton, who has prepared an...
JANE RAWSON From the Wreck. Reviewed by Linda Godfrey
Jane Rawson's new novel has its feet planted in the earth as well as in the ocean and the stars. Rawson says that she began this book as an attempt to record and make sense of historical facts from her family's past. She knew that her great-great-grandfather, George...
ALAIN DE BOTTON The Course of Love. Reviewed by Robin Elizabeth
De Botton's novel about relationships and keeping love alive comes with an inbuilt commentary from the author. The Course of Love has been touted as the long-awaited sequel to Alain de Botton’s debut novel Essays in Love, which was first published in 1993. In the...
STELLA GIBBONS Cold Comfort Farm. Reviewed by Jean Bedford
Gibbons's parody is a masterpiece of comedy in its own right. Cold Comfort Farm was first published in 1932. Gibbons says at the beginning of the novel that it is set in the ‘near future’ though this only seems to manifest itself in television-phones and the...
KENT HARUF Our Souls at Night. Reviewed by Robin Elizabeth
Haruf writes about companionship, love, and the damage small minds can do to gentle hearts. Our Souls at Night is Kent Haruf’s seventh and final book. It was published after his death from interstitial lung disease in 2014. It was perhaps Haruf’s own impending death...
LUCY DURNEEN Wild Gestures. Reviewed by Carmel Bird
Durneen has a sharp eye for the meanings woven into the stories of past, present and future. Lucy Durneen teaches writing in Plymouth, England. In 2014 she went to the 13th International Conference on the Short Story in Vienna. In her very long list of...
BEN H WINTERS Underground Airlines. Reviewed by Chris Maher
Underground Airlines is set in modern day USA – basically the same except for one overwhelming difference: the Civil War never happened, and slavery still exists. This novel is quite a feat.Ben H Winters has woven a provocative idea into a compelling narrative, driven...
ROANNA GONSALVES The Permanent Resident. Reviewed by Suzanne Marks
Roanna Gonsalves's 16 short stories reveal the aspirations, guilt, and perils of what it is to be an Indian immigrant in Australia in the 21st century. Gonsalves herself came to Australia in 1998 as an international student and pursued her studies while working in...
EMMA CLINE The Girls. Reviewed by Linda Godfrey
Emma Cline dissects the cruel attraction of cults in this novel inspired by the Manson murders. This is a work of fiction drawn from real-life events. The book does not say that outright, but it is very identifiably based on the Manson Family, the cult run by Charles...
NRB Editors on their favourite books of 2016
Unusually, this year Jean only features one crime novel, but as usual our picks are widely different. Linda's close following of Australian women's fiction is evident, while Jean has returned to some classics. Jean's picks: Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys Wide Sargasso...
NRB reviewers pick their best books of 2016
This year, we’ve asked some of our regular reviewers to nominate the best book they have read in 2016. The result is a diverse and fascinating round-up. Ashley Kalagian Blunt David Hunt’s Girt: The Unauthorised History of Australia, Volume 1: From Megafauna to...
LISA OWENS Not Working. Reviewed by Sally Nimon
Not Working is a novel for the millennial generation. The 21st century is one giant tangle of paradoxes. We have better and easier access to information than ever before, yet we seem less certain about anything. We are more educated than our grandparents could have...
MELISSA ASHLEY The Birdman’s Wife. Reviewed by Tracy Sorensen
Melissa Ashley’s debut novel brings to life the remarkable Elizabeth Gould – watercolourist and wife of the famous ornithologist. Make no mistake: despite its gentlewomanly veneer, redolent of spring gardens and gentle watercolours, this is a book that is red in tooth...
DEBRA JOPSON Oliver of the Levant. Reviewed by Michelle McLaren
Oliver of the Levant is a wise and nuanced coming-of-age story set in troubled times. Like many 15-year-old boys in the late 1960s, Oliver Lawrence has a poster of Jimi Hendrix on his bedroom wall, and he’d rather hang around Bondi Beach than go to school. But unlike...
RYAN O’NEILL Their Brilliant Careers: The fantastic lives of sixteen extraordinary Australian writers. Reviewed by Bernard Whimpress
This account of fictional writers' brilliant careers contains connections, plays, substitutions, witty epigraphs, much ado about plagiarism and jokes galore. I’m tempted to describe this book as a parody of Australian literary history — so I will. Taking the piss is...