This timely novel of estranged sisters and a family consumed by history gives a compelling insight into contemporary Greece. The house on Paradise Street, Athens, is home to three generations of the Perifanis family. Told alternately by Maude (or...
It’s often said that writing is a solitary, lonely business. Well, I suppose the actual act of writing is done alone, but I never minded the kids coming in to ask what I was doing or to request a peanut butter sandwich; and Christopher Smart and...
Murder and malice at a writers’ retreat. This is the fifth novel in a series featuring Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope of the Northumberland police. Like many of the more successful English crime series, these books depend heavily on a sense of...
Nearly 200 years later, Oliver Twist is still a great read. As it is the 200th anniversary of his birth, I decided to revisit Dickens, and read, for the first time, Oliver Twist, which was originally published between 1837 and 1839 in serial...
‘The film wasn’t as good as the book.’ How often have you heard it? The phrase set me thinking that there should be three categories for the discussion – film worse than book, film as good as book and film better than book. Off the top of my head I...
Two recent books focus on Arthur Upfield’s half-Indigenous detective Napoleon Bonaparte. Arthur William Upfield (1 September 1890 – 13 February 1964) was an Australian writer best known for his 29 works of crime fiction featuring half-Aboriginal...
