Inside the Australian and New Zealand book industry

Image. Advertisement:

Reviews newsletter Featured book review >

From the Wreck (Jane Rawson, Transit Lounge) 

2 February 2017
In 1859, the steamship Admella sunk off the coast of South Australia. Among the few lucky survivors was sailor George Hills and a mysterious woman who vanished upon her rescue....

Loopholes (Susan McCreery, Spineless Wonders) 

27 September 2016
Shakespeare once said that ‘brevity is the soul of wit’; the genre of microfiction takes this advice to heart. To succeed, microfiction must combine efficiency of text with immediacy of...

Goodwood (Holly Throsby, A&U) 

8 July 2016
It’s fitting that a reviewer once described Australian musician Holly Throsby as ‘a songstress with [the] literary depth of a novelist’, because Throsby is now writing fiction—and her debut, Goodwood,...

The Toymaker (Liam Pieper, Hamish Hamilton) 

The Toymaker 26 May 2016
From the first few pages of The Toymaker it’s obvious that Liam Pieper isn’t pulling any punches: he has your attention straight away as his privileged, wealthy protagonist Adam makes...

Ruins (Rajith Savanadasa, Hachette) 

Ruins cover 29 April 2016
Told from five viewpoints—mother, father, daughter, son, servant—Rajith Savanadasa’s debut novel is a ‘family bildungsroman’ which unfolds during the final days of the Sri Lankan civil war. Latha, aging servant...

Everywhere I Look (Helen Garner, Text) 

Everywhere I Look 24 February 2016
I’d probably give Helen Garner five stars for her shopping list; I’ve loved her work since Monkey Grip was published in 1977, the year I began selling books. I’m sure...

A Loving, Faithful Animal (Josephine Rowe, UQP) 

a loving faithful animal 27 January 2016
Josephine Rowe’s first novel follows her acclaimed story collections How a Moth Becomes a Boat and Tarcutta Wake. Like her stories, A Loving, Faithful Animal distils the small incidents of...