21 Tuesday May 2013
Posted in Crime Scene, Fiction, SFF
This gallery contains 1 photo.
This intriguing and original time-travelling thriller is not for the faint-hearted. Lauren Beukes is known for her genre-bending. Her first …
17 Friday May 2013
Posted in The Godfather: Peter Corris
On awakening he appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection of the whole, and taking his pen, ink, and …
16 Thursday May 2013
Posted in Fiction
This gallery contains 1 photo.
An ancient folk tale reworked in modern London provides a meditation on memory and the creative spirit. A story never …
14 Tuesday May 2013
Posted in Crime Scene, Fiction
This gallery contains 1 photo.
Le Carré’s espionage fiction remains in a class of its own. John le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in from …
10 Friday May 2013
Posted in The Godfather: Peter Corris
Having never taught creative writing and having avoided writing workshops, mentoring and such things, I’ve always been reluctant to give …
09 Thursday May 2013
Posted in Fiction
This gallery contains 1 photo.
Seventeenth-century Florence comes alive in this intricately plotted story of a wax sculptor’s unusual commission. This elegant novel is set …
07 Tuesday May 2013
Posted in Crime Scene, Fiction
This gallery contains 1 photo.
A classic of foreboding and suspense set in the Victorian High Country. There are a few authors out there who …
03 Friday May 2013
Posted in 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 …
02 Thursday May 2013
Posted in Fiction
This gallery contains 1 photo.
This novel of a condemned woman in nineteenth-century Iceland grips like a northern winter. It is March 1829 and Agnes …
30 Tuesday Apr 2013
Posted in Fiction
This gallery contains 1 photo.
This delightful story revives the screwball comedy in a very 21st-century way. Associate professor of genetics Don Tillman knows the …
26 Friday Apr 2013
Posted in The Godfather: Peter Corris
Tags
AFL, Essendon Football Club, heavyweight boxing, Monash History Department, Muhammad Ali, Sydney Swans
Lying wakeful, I began a new routine to help me get to sleep. Nothing radical, like some of the proposals …
25 Thursday Apr 2013
Posted in Fiction
Tags
This gallery contains 1 photo.
The author of The Pursuit of Happiness delivers a sweeping American saga laced with philosophy. Set in Maine and Boston, …
23 Tuesday Apr 2013
Posted in Non-Fiction
This gallery contains 1 photo.
One moment after another: Jo Case’s well-crafted memoir is a graceful tale of living with difference. Asperger’s Syndrome describes someone …
19 Friday Apr 2013
Posted in The Godfather: Peter Corris
This gallery contains 1 photo.
Recently I emailed a friend to explain that a visit he proposed wasn’t convenient because I’d be minding my seven-year-old …
17 Wednesday Apr 2013
This gallery contains 1 photo.
Inscrutable dragons and a mysterious city: the final volume of Robin Hobb’s latest series ties up the loose ends and …
12 Friday Apr 2013
Posted in The Godfather: Peter Corris
When the Editors of the NRB invited me to write a column I asked them what they wanted me to …
11 Thursday Apr 2013
Posted in Fiction
This gallery contains 1 photo.
A lyrical gem from the award-winning author of The Anatomy of Wings This is a story of friendship set in …
09 Tuesday Apr 2013
Posted in Crime Scene, Non-Fiction
Tags
Australian history, Australian women's history, Australian women's writing, Brunswick Baby Farmer, True Crime
This gallery contains 1 photo.
The real-life hanging of a 19th-century baby-farmer inspired award-winning poet Judith Rodriguez to tell the story in a variety of …
05 Friday Apr 2013
Posted in The Godfather: Peter Corris
By now there are probably about 200 book-length pastiches of Sherlock Holmes in print. One of the earliest, and to …
04 Thursday Apr 2013
Posted in Fiction
This gallery contains 1 photo.
A cleverly constructed identity disintegrates in the face of the bond between father and daughter. Schroder is the quiet and …
02 Tuesday Apr 2013
Posted in Fiction
This gallery contains 1 photo.
A fascinating evocation of multiple lifetimes from this innovative and accomplished novelist. Kate Atkinson is known for her playfulness …
29 Friday Mar 2013
Posted in The Godfather: Peter Corris
I use two (non-electronic) telephone and address books, both old and battered, one slightly smaller than the other. One is …
28 Thursday Mar 2013
Posted in Crime Scene, Non-Fiction
This gallery contains 1 photo.
This true crime account attempts to explain the mind of a manipulative killer. It’s a cliché, but in this case …
26 Tuesday Mar 2013
Posted in Fiction
This gallery contains 1 photo.
Dawn Barker’s novel is an insightful and devastating story of mental illness. Anna and Tony Patton seem to have it …
22 Friday Mar 2013
Posted in The Godfather: Peter Corris
Probably no one under 60 is closely familiar now with the BBC Radio quiz program My Word. Immensely popular in …
20 Wednesday Mar 2013
This gallery contains 1 photo.
Kate Forsyth’s new novel takes us beneath and beyond the fairytales of the Brothers Grimm. This novel offers the reader …
18 Monday Mar 2013
Posted in Non-Fiction
This gallery contains 1 photo.
A return to Patti Miller’s childhood home in country New South Wales sparks this investigation of place, identity and dispossession. …
15 Friday Mar 2013
Posted in The Godfather: Peter Corris
Recently I tried to distract and entertain a friend laid up with a severely broken ankle by setting him a …
14 Thursday Mar 2013
Posted in Non-Fiction
Tags
Charles Bonnet Syndrome, hallucination, hallucination and illness, hallucination and religion, psychedelic drugs
This gallery contains 1 photo.
The greatest mystery is the human brain, and Oliver Sacks is the ultimate detective. Oliver Sacks is a neurologist who …
12 Tuesday Mar 2013
Posted in Crime Scene, Fiction, Non-Fiction
Tags
Australian crime fiction, Australian true crime, Fitzgerald Inquiry, Joh Bjelke-Petersen, Russ Hinze, Terry Lewis
This gallery contains 2 photos.
History, mystery, truth and fiction; these two books expose the underbelly of south-east Queensland. In complete control of the genre, …
08 Friday Mar 2013
Posted in The Godfather: Peter Corris
I’ve been lucky with reviewers, lucky even in their mistakes. A recent positive review of my current Cliff Hardy novel …
07 Thursday Mar 2013
Posted in Fiction
This gallery contains 1 photo.
This sure, funny novel of an Indigenous woman and her land is alive with the tensions of new ways of …
05 Tuesday Mar 2013
Posted in Non-Fiction
Tags
60s Britain, Alec Douglas-Home, British class system, Christine Keeler, Harold Macmillan, Lord Astor, Mandy Rice-Davies, Profumo Affair
This gallery contains 1 photo.
Lies, puritans and hypocrites: England’s class system and the notorious Profumo Affair of the early 1960s. I can safely say …
01 Friday Mar 2013
Posted in The Godfather: Peter Corris
Television came to Australia in 1956, in time for the Melbourne Olympics. The big consoles were expensive and my parents …
28 Thursday Feb 2013
This gallery contains 1 photo.
Three women battle the elements, men and each other in the quest to be the first to set foot on …
26 Tuesday Feb 2013
Posted in Crime Scene, Fiction
This gallery contains 1 photo.
This novel of murder and military intelligence in wartime Melbourne is inspired by history. While The Holiday Murders isn’t, sadly, …
22 Friday Feb 2013
Posted in The Godfather: Peter Corris
Tags
David Parkin, David Wiliamson, George Langley, Graham Kennedy, Ron Sackville, schools in Melbourne, the Seekers, W M Woodfull
Advancing age is said to enhance the long-term memory at the expense of the short-term. At 70 I’m not aware …
19 Tuesday Feb 2013
Posted in Crime Scene, Fiction
This gallery contains 1 photo.
This dystopian Finnish crime novel is well above the ordinary. The Healer is set in Finland in the near future …
15 Friday Feb 2013
Posted in The Godfather: Peter Corris
Tags
Ernest Hemingway, Hemingway and boxing, Martha Gellhorn, Nicole Kidman, William Kennedy, Woody Allen
Lately I’ve had Ernest Hemingway coming at me from all directions. For the second time I watched Woody Allen’s brilliant …
13 Wednesday Feb 2013
This gallery contains 1 photo.
For a copy of Antti Tuomainen’s just published prize-winning Finnish crime novel The Healer – or just for fun – do this …
11 Monday Feb 2013
Posted in Non-Fiction
Tags
Alain de Botton, Aristotle, gardens, Jane Austen, Nietzche, philosophy, Plato, Proust, Sartre
This gallery contains 1 photo.
This book invites readers to drink from a beautifully blended philosophical cup. Philosophers occupy a diffident space in Australian public …
08 Friday Feb 2013
Posted in The Godfather: Peter Corris
Tags
Agatha Christie, Fred Hollows, golf and writers, Jamie Grant, John Betjeman, John Updike, Patrick Gallagher, Ray Barrett, Stephen Wallace, writers and golf
A number of creative people have played golf. British Poet Laureate John Betjeman did and wrote a poem about it, …
07 Thursday Feb 2013
Posted in Crime Scene, Fiction
This gallery contains 1 photo.
The lives of paramedics entwine with a police investigation to remind us just how good Australian crime writing can be. …
06 Wednesday Feb 2013
Posted in Quizzes
This gallery contains 1 photo.
For a copy of Pamela Burton’s The Waterlow Killings: A Portrait of a Family Tragedy – or just for fun – do this …
04 Monday Feb 2013
Posted in Fiction
This gallery contains 1 photo.
Greaves channels Cormac McCarthy in this compelling Depression-era novel of a couple on the run. If, like me, you’ve been waiting …
01 Friday Feb 2013
Posted in The Godfather: Peter Corris
Tags
For more than 69 years I never had any trouble sleeping. As a kid I was very active, riding a …
31 Thursday Jan 2013
Posted in Crime Scene, Fiction
This gallery contains 1 photo.
The anatomy student, the coma victim – and a satisfying new direction from Belinda Bauer. I have to admit I …
28 Monday Jan 2013
Posted in Quizzes
Tags
Australian authors, Australian literature, Australian/Vogel's Award, holiday quiz, Paul D Carter, quizzes
This gallery contains 1 photo.
For a copy of Paul D Carter’s 2012 Australian/Vogel’s Award-winning book Eleven Seasons – or just for fun – send us your answers …
25 Friday Jan 2013
Posted in The Godfather: Peter Corris
Tags
Byron Bay, Cliff Hardy, Fitzroy, houses, Illawarra, Marrickville
Jean Bedford and I have owned ten houses together – one in Melbourne, three in Sydney, several in the Illawarra. …
22 Tuesday Jan 2013
Tags
This gallery contains 1 photo.
Inventive and page-turning, this dystopian tale turns on a society’s clash of values. This is the kind of science fiction …
18 Friday Jan 2013
Posted in The Godfather: Peter Corris
This gallery contains 1 photo.
When, some years ago, I ruthlessly culled my library down from several thousand books to a few hundred, a surprising …
Crime novelist Anne Perry began her life as Juliet Hulme, who in 1954 was convicted of murder. Heavenly Creatures, Peter …
From colonialism to the internet, Michelle de Kretser explores big themes in this tale of two travellers. Australian literary fiction is …
I’ve worked as a writer with some justly well-known and extraordinary people, like ophthalmologist Fred Hollows, feisty euthanasia campaigner Philip …
This colonialist seized his chance and became known as the man who founded Singapore. Raffles and Singapore go together like …
Alex Miller makes Sunday Reed a lesser woman for the sake of art. In an enthusiastic review of Alex Miller’s …
I used to entertain myself and (less so, I suspect) my friends by posing the question, ‘What three events in …
This sensitive account of a family tragedy details the terrible consequences when the mental health system fails. How’s this for …
Desolation and isolation haunt two families living decades apart on the bleakest of California’s Channel Islands On New Year’s Day, …
Jean and I recently attended a trivia night – a fundraiser for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation. There were about 300 …
