by NRB | 9 Mar 2018 | The Godfather: Peter Corris |
Most readers will be familiar with Johnny Cash’s vengeful diatribe about the dirty, mangy dog who named his son Sue … First names go in and out of fashion. Few parents now would name a daughter Gertrude or a son Ernest but they were both once common – think of...
by NRB | 7 Dec 2017 | Non-fiction |
This biography of Anthony Powell is a fine examination of the creative process and the time between the two world wars. For those who have read and loved – or, as in my case, wallowed in – the 12 novels of A Dance to the Music of Time, this stunningly impressive...
by NRB | 21 Apr 2017 | The Godfather: Peter Corris |
I’ve lately taken to playing patience – the one-handed card game known in the US and Canada as solitaire. With no skill at cards, this, along with Snap, is a game I can handle. But, as well as luck it does require vigilance, and for me, with poor eyesight and no...
by NRB | 16 Dec 2016 | The Godfather: Peter Corris |
I haven’t read any books this year, but have had the great privilege of listening to 89 audiobooks narrated by superb actors. As in past years, I gave each book a mark out of 10. Listed here are the five that have most impressed me, not in order of merit but in the...
by NRB | 11 Sep 2014 | Fiction |
This funny and satirical story will entertain those readers who take an interest in the politics of literary awards. Malcolm Craig, an MP who has time on his hands due to political misfortune, accepts the invitation to chair the judging of a literary award, on the...
by NRB | 13 Mar 2014 | Non-fiction |
More social history than biography, this fascinating book brings to life the glamorous years between the world wars. Born in 1895 on a property near Goulburn, New South Wales, Sheila Chisholm spent her childhood like most other Australians: cavorting outdoors, getting...
by NRB | 25 Jul 2013 | Fiction, Non-fiction |
This literary figure from a forgotten age retains a cult following for his charmingly sharp-eyed novels, which may even have curative powers. ‘We will pay anything for Lucia books,’ read a legendary advertisement in the Times at some point in the 1940s, placed by a...
by NRB | 14 Jun 2013 | The Godfather: Peter Corris |
A writer and his agent were having lunch in an up-market London restaurant a few years ago. The agent was paying. They started with oyster soup and moved on to Dover sole with a bottle of German Riesling. The writer, 45 or thereabouts, had published a string of...
by NRB | 3 May 2013 | The Godfather: Peter Corris |
I’m indebted to writer and publisher Michael Wilding for introducing me to Michael Frayn, whom I’d heard of but never read. He was enjoying Frayn’s 1998 novel Headlong and I’d just finished an historical novel of no distinction and was looking for something good....