TANNER MULLER under/Limelight. Reviewed by Michael Jongen
Tanner Muller’s short stories in under/Limelight explore responses to the 2017 marriage equality plebiscite. under/Limelight is a suite of seven short pieces set around the marriage equality postal plebiscite. These are micro-stories told from different...
Autumn Giveaway #4
No, you can’t ever have enough books, whatever Marie Kondo says. Here’s your chance to win all four of these titles in our fourth big Autumn Giveaway. To go in the draw, simply email editors@newtownreviewofbooks.com.au with ‘Autumn 4′ in the subject...
CHRISTOPHER SEQUIERA (Ed.) Sherlock Holmes: The Australian Casebook. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
An accessible dip into the world of fan fiction, these 16 illustrated short stories are not just for lovers of Sherlock Holmes. Seventeen different authors have contributed to this collection, including the overall editor Christopher Sequiera, himself a Sherlock...
JULIE KOH Portable Curiosities. Reviewed by Ashley Kalagian Blunt
Portable Curiosities portrays a world of comic misery and brightly coloured heartache. Portable Curiosities, Julie Koh’s debut full-length short story collection (after a capsule collection, Capital Misfits), earned her a spot among 2017’s Sydney...
PATRICK LENTON A Man Made Entirely of Bats. Reviewed by Ashley Kalagian Blunt
Patrick Lenton’s playful collection of absurdist, pun-filled, mostly superhero-themed stories and flash fiction is crafted with technicolour vividness. Reading Lenton is like eating a box of chocolates with familiar flavours in unfamiliar combinations, like tangerine...
TEGAN BENNETT DAYLIGHT Six Bedrooms. Reviewed by Tracy Sorensen
These short stories of the messiness of life unfold like a concept album. The world of Six Bedrooms will be familiar to Gen X Sydneysiders who lived in share houses in the 1980s. There’s the Mardi Gras parade, someone playing a Style Council record and a junkie...
JOHN KINSELLA Crow’s Breath. Reviewed by Michelle McLaren
One of Australia’s foremost poets brings inventiveness and economy to this clever collection of microfictions. Crow’s Breath, John Kinsella’s new collection of short stories, opens with an uncommonly wise eight-year-old walking home from the school bus stop when his...
CARMEL BIRD My Hearts Are Your Hearts. Reviewed by Jeannette Delamoir
Love, pain and mortality are intertwined in a collection that also takes us behind the scenes of the writing. Carmel Bird’s new collection promises ‘twenty new stories and their origins’. Most of the stories have been published elsewhere and so are not brand new...
MURRAY MIDDLETON When There’s Nowhere Else to Run. Reviewed by Michael Jongen
This powerful collection dissects love, death, sex and alienation in modern Australia. 2015 Vogel Award winner Murray Middleton has written something close to a great contemporary Australian novel in this terse collection of stories. Losers, victims and spectators...
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.
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...
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