by NRB | 24 Mar 2020 | Fiction |
This new novel from the Booker-shortlisted author of The Reef explores memories of a Sri Lankan childhood. Kairo is looking back at his younger self: at a summer in his home in Colombo in 1964, when school was closed and he was aimlessly riding his bike around a...
by NRB | 12 Mar 2020 | Fiction |
Booker Prize-winning author Aravind Adiga takes on the issue of refugees and asylum seekers in his latest novel Amnesty. Set in Sydney, on a day sometime in the recent past, Amnesty concentrates on Dhananjaya Rajaratnam, aka Danny the Cleaner, as he grapples with his...
by NRB | 5 Mar 2020 | Fiction |
Sophie Hardcastle’s second novel explores the lure of the sea, and the cost of violence. It starts below deck. Olivia (Oli) has been kidnapped. Well, not actually kidnapped but rescued late at night, in a drunken stupor, by Mac, an old man who now needs to...
by NRB | 28 Feb 2020 | Fiction |
Evie Wyld won the Miles Franklin Award for her last novel, All the Birds, Singing. Her latest, set on the coast of Scotland, contains both beauty and violence. The Bass Rock opens with a small girl, who we will shortly meet as the grown-up Viv, finding the body of a...
by NRB | 24 Oct 2019 | Fiction |
The new series from the author of the bestselling His Dark Materials continues in The Secret Commonwealth. For young adults, breaking up with a lover who seems to know your inner thoughts is a heart-wrenching experience. How painful then to break up with your actual...
by NRB | 22 Oct 2019 | Fiction |
Petronella McGovern’s debut thriller contains a lesson for the digital age. Six Minutes. A lost child. That’s it in a nutshell. As the world witnessed in horror the unfolding of the infamous James Bulger case in the early 1990s, or Madeline McCann’s...
by NRB | 8 Oct 2019 | Fiction |
David Vann turns his personal family trauma into a disturbing work of fiction. Most Australian readers will be unfamiliar with the name David Vann, despite the fact he’s frequently compared to literary giants like Cormac McCarthy and Ernest Hemingway in his...
by NRB | 17 Sep 2019 | Fiction |
Susanna Kearsley explores the impact of wartime secrets in Every Secret Thing. The award-winning author of Mariana is best-known for time-slip romances moving between the present and the distant past. Every Secret Thing, however, is a book somewhere between crime...
by NRB | 22 Aug 2019 | Fiction, SFF |
In this debut novel Kate Mascarenhas creates a world where time travel is not only possible, it could be linked to a murder … In 1967, four female scientists invent time travel, but only three of them become household names for the right reason. The fourth,...
by NRB | 16 Jul 2019 | Fiction |
The early years of cinema in Paris and US infuse this new novel from the Dominic Smith, author of The Last Painting of Sara de Vos. Dominic Smith loves historical settings. His previous book, The Last Painting of Sara de Vos, featured a fictional 17th-century...
by NRB | 7 Nov 2013 | Fiction |
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Interpreter of Maladies delivers a compelling family story of secrets, love and duty. The Lowland is the story of two brothers and one woman, and a tragedy that reverberates down four generations. It is a tale of two countries; of...
by NRB | 17 Dec 2012 | Fiction |
Desolation and isolation haunt two families living decades apart on the bleakest of California’s Channel Islands On New Year’s Day, 1888, Marantha Waters arrives on San Miguel island, off the Californian coast, with her husband, Will, daughter, Edith, and maid, Ida....
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, [ … ]
PETER GODWIN Exit Wounds. Reviewed by Ann Skea15 January 2025Peter Godwin’s memoir charts a life of exile, ranging from the horror of civil [ … ]