Edward St Aubyn’s satire Lost for Words skewers literary prizes and the foibles of those who enter and judge them. It’s a stylish and enjoyable romp that reeled me in. Funny and caustic in equal measure, there’s a touch of pantomime and moustachioed suspense as the announcement of the winner draws nigh. Who will claim
Australian author Gerald Murnane’s work has been compared favourably with Proust’s and his latest novel explores the trust that grows up between writer and reader in a certain kind of fiction. Here are six good reasons to read A Million Windows … even if you suspect it might do your head in! Redolence of Proust
If you like your fictional feasts seasoned with umami, Silence Once Begun should tempt your tastebuds. Sweet, bitter, sour and salty are standard flavours in western fare. Umami is savoury and hails from the east. It’s hard to get the right balance of flavours in fiction as in food … but in Silence Once Begun
This debut novel casts tender eyes over the life of one woman of the Irish diaspora. Tess is only a young girl when her mother dies from tuberculosis and it sets the emotional tone for much of her life. The ache travels within her to America and into love … and it spans six decades.
There are good reasons this evocative novel about love, obsession and restrained sexual identity — set mainly in an internment camp in rural Victoria during World War II — was shortlisted for the 2014 Miles Franklin Award … so check it out! What are we talking about? My Beautiful Enemy is the second novel by Australian author Cory Taylor.
Lost & Found is the debut novel of the year in Australia (so far) and it’s a pearl. Brooke Davis, its 34-year-old West Australian author, is a little breathless with all the fuss — and who wouldn’t be? A week before the book’s launch in Australia, it had been sold into 25 countries to be
The impact of Darren Groth’s charming new Young Adult novel Are You Seeing Me? should be seismic. If it doesn’t cause a major publishing tremor similar to that caused by The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion, I swear I’ll watch Jackie Chan* movies back to back for a week (no cakewalk, for me, I’ve got
The eight stories in Lorrie Moore’s new collection Bark may not have the dazzling urgency of pieces from earlier collections but they do leave traces as if you’ve been bitten. Why? They broach dark territory with light relief Moore wades straight in to the mess of human disappointment, disillusionment and dislocation with characters that are
1. The character Beiruti recluse Aaliya Sohbi says she suffers the neuroses of a writer without the talent. Her hair is too blue, her back is too knotty and her thoughts twist through memories of her volatile past and the scores of books she’s read and translated. She’s grumpy, lonely, ageing, witty, obsessive and unpractised
Her golden hair, her leopard print dress and her wedding band … The woman’s allure was irresistible, her life lessons the kind that cause a young man to live a little, question a bit and grow up a lot … What are we talking about? The debut novel of 21-year-old New Zealander Sebastian Hampson that
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