by NRB | 20 Jan 2023 | Flashback Friday, Non-fiction |
In this month’s Flashback Friday, Anna Verney assesses Deborah Levy’s 2018 memoir The Cost of Living. As readers of South African-born British writer Deborah Levy’s literary fiction will know, it always has an unsettlingly allusive quality. While grounded...
by NRB | 18 Jan 2022 | Non-fiction |
Billie Jean King was a champion on and off the tennis court, working for inclusion and civil rights as she made tennis history. Whenever Muhammad Ali met up with tennis legend Billie Jean King, he liked to say, ‘Billie Jeeeean, you’re the Queen.’ And ‘the Queen’ she...
by NRB | 3 Sep 2019 | Non-fiction |
A dangerous way to make a living: John Cann’s autobiography tells the story of his life as a professional snake handler. George Cann was a snakey – a snake handler – all his life. His son John grew up to be a snakey too. One...
by NRB | 23 Jan 2018 | Non-fiction |
One of the pleasures of al-Sharif’s book is the insight it gives into how women negotiate their way through chinks in the wall of oppression. This enthralling autobiography begins, as many books do, with its most dramatic moment: ‘The secret police...
by NRB | 1 Apr 2016 | The Godfather: Peter Corris |
In April 1998 Captain Ken Blyth, a Scot and an experienced and respected merchant mariner, was in command of a tanker transporting thousands of tons of fuel through the South China Seas. The vessel, named the Petro Ranger, was boarded by pirates, diverted to a secure...
by NRB | 5 Jun 2014 | Non-fiction |
Morrissey presents his case with palpable bitterness in a book that offers validation in the end. Bitterness and revenge inform this eponymous autobiography, or at least large chunks of it. Morrissey disses his bandmates, his record label, the press and the judges of...
HELEN GARNER The Season. Reviewed by Michael Jongen23 January 2025Helen Garner’s account of a single season of her grandson’s AFL team is about [ … ]
EVA MENASSE Darkenbloom. Reviewed by Ann Skea22 January 2025In Austrian writer Eva Menasse’s new novel, the residents of a small border [ … ]
MICHEL HOUELLEBECQ Annihilation. Reviewed by James Arbuthnott21 January 2025The controversial author of Atomised sets his new – and possibly last – novel [ … ]
CHER The Memoir Part 1. Reviewed by Naomi Manuell16 January 2025Cher is a genuine superstar who has had an extraordinary career across music, [ … ]