The author of the Booker-winning Shuggie Bain returns to the streets of Glasgow in his second novel. This is a grim but compelling coming-of-age novel about a teenage boy, set over a year in Glasgow. The book opens as Mungo looks up at his mother’s...
Scott Pearce’s dreamlike second novel explores life on the edge of society. From the opening moments of The Rider on the Bridge it is clear that we are dealing with a protagonist whose path through life has been somewhat unusual. Kitten, as...
Edwina Preston’s second novel conjures a rich portrait of the artist as a young woman. The protagonist of Bad Art Mother, Veda Gray, finds herself unable to reconcile her duty to motherhood with her duty to her inner life of the mind. Much is bound...
Was the explorer Ferdinand Magellan the hero European history has claimed him to be? Failure is fatal to happiness but can be fruitful for fame. Metaphorically, resurrection often follows crucifixion. Sometimes partial but spectacular success adds...
Drewe Rooke outlines a decades-long litany of errors by South Australia’s forensic pathologist. How can we trust what we think we know? The only way to have any certainty is to test our conclusions to see if they contain weaknesses – elements that...
Isabel Allende’s latest novel recounts the life of a remarkable woman. ‘I came into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the year of the scourge.’ Violeta del Valle is now a hundred years old and she is writing her life story for her beloved...
