by NRB | 15 Oct 2020 | Non-fiction |
In The Time of Our Lives Robert Dessaix ponders approaches to ageing, and does so with ‘unending playful curiosity’. Robert Dessaix is 76 years old. Not quite spry enough to join the middle-aged hotel guests dancing to boom-box music by the lotus pool of...
by NRB | 30 Jun 2016 | Non-fiction |
Old age may be a long time coming, but it is coming. This eloquent collection advocates for the elderly. It was a Doris Lessing novel – specifically, Diary of a Good Neighbour – that inspired Melanie Joosten to take up social work with the idea of working with older...
by NRB | 1 Oct 2013 | Fiction |
This mesmerising and suspenseful novel examines isolation, trust and the vagaries of memory. Ruth Field and her cats reside in a house set among the dunes on the New South Wales South Coast. Ruth is a widow who lives a self-contained life, her hours and days filled by...
by NRB | 24 May 2013 | The Godfather: Peter Corris |
Recently I turned 71. My sister emailed a greeting and apologised for reminding me of the number but I didn’t object at all, not as I did when I turned 70. Had a lovely day – nice presents, email greetings from local friends, my agent in the Big Apple and daughters...
by NRB | 8 Aug 2012 | Fiction |
Susan Johnson’s new novel is both a woman’s search for love and a meditation on the senses. As Samuel Beckett reminds us, we are all born ‘astride of a grave’, so there is no reason why turning fifty per se should signal impending decrepitude. Western culture has...
JUNE WRIGHT Mother Paul series. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm6 December 2024June Wright has faded from view, but in 1948 her novel Murder in the Telephone [ … ]
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 [ … ]