ANGELA MEYER (ed) The Great Unknown. Reviewed by Kylie Mason
Melbourne-based writer and reviewer Angela Meyer has brought together some of Australia’s finest writers in this collection of eerie and mysterious stories. From things that go bump in the night via sci-fi medicine to menacing alphabets, The Great Unknown explores the ideas that make us check under the bed before retiring for the night – and perhaps consider leaving a light on, just in case.
RICHARD FLANAGAN The Narrow Road to the Deep North. Reviewed by Michael Richardson
Inspired by both his father’s experiences as a prisoner-of-war and the life of Weary Dunlop, Richard Flanagan’s new novel explores trauma and heroism on the Thai-Burma railway. Beside the funeral pyre of Australian soldiers killed by cholera, Dorrigo Evans, surgeon...JOHN DALE Plenty. Reviewed by Michelle McLaren
This quietly powerful novella proves there’s still a lot to add to the asylum-seeker debate. It’s been more than a decade since the infamous Tampa affair, and still Australian political discourse returns time and time again to the same sorry shambles...KATHRYN HEYMAN Floodline. Reviewed by Robyne Young
A natural disaster provokes emotional and ethical dilemmas for the characters in Kathryn Heyman’s new novel. We each have our own floodline: that high watermark that represents the upper limits of our capacity to cope with the challenges life presents to us. Depending...DEBRA ADELAIDE Letter to George Clooney. Reviewed by Kylie Mason
The author of The Household Guide to Dying delivers a collection of short stories infused with hope. Debra Adelaide is one of those rare writers who is able to document everyday lives with wit, pathos and vivacity. She presents us with properly rounded characters...CHRISTOS TSIOLKAS Barracuda. Reviewed by Annette Hughes
Glittering prizes, a fall from grace and the path to redemption – Barracuda is a complex novel of class, ethnicity and rage. Summer. Up before the sun, slip on speedos and grab towel, water, goggles and cap and drive ten minutes to the pool. This morning we...ALI ALIZADEH Transactions. Reviewed by Walter Mason
A puzzling and unsettling book of short stories that plays games with popular tropes surrounding Islam, the Middle East and the Western subject. Many of the stories in Transactions are named after a card in the Major Arcana of the Tarot deck. This is Ali Alizadeh’s...ASHLEY HAY The Railwayman’s Wife. Reviewed by Michelle McLaren
This novel of the aftermath of war, grief and library books is written with elegance and feeling. It’s 1948, and although the war has been over for years, its echoes reverberate. In Thirroul, a small town on the coast south of Sydney, Anikka Lachlan counts...CHRIS WOMERSLEY Cairo. Reviewed by Robyne Young
Award-winning novelist Chris Womersley delivers a provocative portrait of the artist as a young art thief. There is a sense of anticipation and foreboding present throughout Chris Womersley’s third novel, Cairo, as its teenaged protagonist Tom Button, with a...FIONA MCFARLANE The Night Guest. Reviewed by Kylie Mason
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...STEVEN CARROLL A World of Other People. Reviewed by Tony Bremner
The novelist reveals himself a poet in this story of love in wartime London that channels TS Eliot. Steven Carroll is a fine writer, with a Proustian ability to explore the minutiae of the instant. He loves to tell us that ‘while this is happening here, over there...
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