by NRB | 7 Nov 2024 | Non-fiction |
Award-winning novelist Amitav Ghosh turns to non-fiction to chart the greed and racism at the heart of British and American opium sales to China. In researching his Ibis Trilogy novels – Sea of Poppies (2008), River of Smoke (2011) and Flood of Fire (2015) – which...
by NRB | 17 Sep 2024 | Fiction |
Comedian Steph Tisdell’s first novel tackles serious issues in this story of growing up in a First Nations family. Set in Brisbane, The Skin I’m In opens with Layla, the youngest daughter of a First Nations mother and a white father, getting ready for her last year of...
by NRB | 13 Feb 2024 | Non-fiction |
Rachel Maddow’s account of how Nazism gained a foothold among US politicians in the 1930s holds lessons for the present. When Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany in early 1933, he embarked on a long-term plan not only to keep the United States out of a future...
by NRB | 24 Oct 2023 | Crime Scene, Fiction |
A finalist in the Ngaio Awards for Best First Crime Novel, Paper Cage is the story of a divided community and a string of missing children. There’s not much that happens in Masterton that Lo Henry doesn’t know about. One of two Pākehā sisters who married...
by NRB | 7 Sep 2023 | Crime Scene, Fiction |
Steeped in a sense of culture, people and place, Blood Matters is crime fiction set at the heart of a family and community. Author Renée is a towering figure in New Zealand. A legendary playwright, novelist and activist, Renée is of Māori (Ngāti Kahungunu), Irish,...
by NRB | 29 Jun 2023 | Non-fiction |
Stan Grant remains committed to responding with love as he interrogates Whiteness in Australia and around the world. In The Queen is Dead Stan Grant uses the death of the person he calls ‘The White Queen’ as a springboard to discuss not only fundamental questions...
by NRB | 25 Apr 2023 | Crime Scene, Fiction |
Dennis Lehane returns to familiar territory in his latest novel, but Small Mercies is far from predictable. American writer Dennis Lehane burst onto the crime scene with his hard-hitting debut A Drink Before the War (1994), the first of his Kenzie and Gennaro novels....
by NRB | 16 Jun 2022 | Non-fiction |
Deidre O’Connell recounts how an American jazz band caused panic in White Australia. In the latter part of the 1920s, the JC Williamson Company was on the lookout for American talent to attract patrons to vaudeville shows at their Tivoli Theatres. One of the...
by NRB | 10 Aug 2021 | Non-fiction |
Michael Holding assembles a stellar array of champions to discuss their experiences of racism, Black achievements on and off the field, and finding a way forward. Michael Holding was a champion fast bowler and a member of the all-conquering West Indies cricket team...
by NRB | 18 Jul 2019 | Fiction |
Linda Grant’s eighth novel explores the consequences of Brexit-era nationalism on the rich multicultural traditions of London. There are so many novels about London. A massive, diverse city, much like New York it provides endless fodder for novelists. It is also...
by NRB | 9 Jul 2019 | Fiction, SFF |
Matt Ruff’s fiction explores the reality of writer HP Lovecraft’s world, where the real demons might be your neighbours rather than supernatural forces. The fantasy and science fiction world has a bit of a love-hate relationship with the works of HP...
JUNE WRIGHT Mother Paul series. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm6 December 2024June Wright has faded from view, but in 1948 her novel Murder in the Telephone [ … ]
ANDREW O’HAGAN Caledonian Road. Reviewed by Catherine Pardey5 December 2024This new novel from the author of Mayflies is set in London, but Glasgow is [ … ]
IAIN RYAN The Dream. Reviewed by Ben Ford Smith3 December 2024Iain Ryan’s latest novel continues his fascination with 1980s Queensland and [ … ]
MARINA YUSZCZUK Thirst. Reviewed by Ann Skea28 November 2024Argentinian writer Marina Yuszczuk puts her twist on the vampire novel in [ … ]