What was it like?
From international best sellers to literary classics and quirky book store finds, take a look at our latest book reviews.
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Yuong
There is no doubt that the title of this book is gorgeous, and that’s what attracted me to Ocean Vuong’s novel. The same poetry that is in the title also…
Book Review: Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls by David Sedaris
I think I’ve found my new favourite writer. I loved reading Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls and can’t wait to get my hands on more of his books – Naked…
Book review: Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
I have always loved reading a family saga, whether it’s A Suitable Boy, set in India, or Thornbirds, in Australia, and so Pachinko was right up my alley. This one…
Book review: Lanny by Max Porter
I didn’t really know what to expect when I loaded Lanny onto my Kindle before a recent holiday. I’d read extremely enthusiastic reports about Max Porter’s novel, but didn’t know…
Book review: The Rip by Mark Brandi
I thought I was going to struggle reading this one as I only had it as a one week loan from the local library, but ended up reading it in…
Book review: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
I might have been the last person on earth to have read Gone Girl, but I’m glad I finally got around to reading it. What a ride! Gillian Flynn’s bestseller…
Book review: The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner
The headline in The Washington Post read: “If you like despair and ‘Orange is the New Black’, You’ll Love The Mars Room’. After having loved The Mars Room, it made…
Book review: Dear Life by Alice Munro
There is so much in Alice Munro’s short stories that it is hard to know where to start in reviewing Dear Life. I don’t usually read short stories as I…
Book review: Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
It sounds macabre, but for some reason I feel attracted to books about the Holocaust. It might be because I have some Jewish ancestry, so I am drawn to reading…
Black Rock White City by AS Patric
Black Rock White City is a difficult book to sum up, as there are so many themes and ideas at play. But I’ll do my best to do justice to…
Book review: Hot Milk by Deborah Levy
I had no idea what to expect from Hot Milk, but as soon as I started reading, I was swept along by Deborah Levy's beautiful language. This is one of…
The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike
I came to The Witches of Eastwick as a big fan of John Updike. I had read Couples and the Rabbit series years ago, and loved his keen eye for…
Book review: Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
Where the Crawdads Sing is a book that has been all over social media, so I was intrigued to have a read and see what everyone was talking about. The…
Book review: Hunger by Roxana Gay
After seeing Roxane Gay on the ABC’s Q&A program, I thought I knew what to expect with her memoir, Hunger. She is renowned as having a fierce intellect, and being…
Book review: Autumn by Ali Smith
I might have come to Autumn a little uninformed, believing it to have been written by Zadie Smith, rather than its true author, Ali Smith. However, the aesthetic was right,…
Book review: The Aunts’ House by Elizabeth Stead (UQP)
Set in Sydney in 1942, The Aunts’ House is the charming story of a young recently orphaned girl named Angel who is sent to live in a boarding house run…
Junior Review: Alex Rider Secret Weapon by Anthony Horowitz
Review by Sam, 8 years What is the book about? There are seven short stories that all have a completely different theme but all starring Alex Rider. Alex Rider is…
Book review: Bridge of Clay by Markus Zusak
Bridge of Clay is an intimidating book, the size of a brick and as eagerly anticipated as it was, following the success of Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief. And at…
Book review: The Everlasting Sunday by Robert Lukins
In literary fiction, it is often the language that rises above the plot. Sometimes, little seems to happen, but the reader is carried away with the lyricism of the language.…
Junior review: Jacob’s Toys – The Big Backyard Adventure! By Claudia Woods
Review by Sam, 8 What was the story about? The story was about toys that Jacob was going to get rid of, but then they blew off the clothes line…
Book review: The Rosie Result by Graeme Simsion
I read The Rosie Result at the same time as I was reading Toni Morrison’s Beloved – Simsion’s book was on my bedside table and I read Morrison’s classic during…
Book review: Beloved by Toni Morrison
I’ve been holding off on reviewing Toni Morrison's Beloved because how can you really critique such a book? It won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and its author Toni Morrison won…
Book review: The Ruin by Dervla McTiernan
With the follow up just published, I finally got around to reading Dervla McTiernan’s The Ruin. Set in Galway, The Ruin spans two decades, from a time a young police…
Book review: The Eye of the Sheep by Sofie Laguna
It is with trepidation that I start reading an author of a book that I adored, and so it was with The Eye of the Sheep. I read The Choke…
Book review: Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie
Kamila Shamsie's award-winning novel Home Fire begins as a story of two families on either side of the fight against terrorism, but becomes an exploration of love, loss, politics and…
Book review: The Nowhere Child by Christian White
A child goes missing in the US, only to be found decades later on the other side of the world. Who wouldn’t want to read a book about the search…
Book Review: I Am I Am I Am by Maggie O’Farrell
Who knew a book about death could be so uplifting? Maggie O’Farrell’s I Am I Am I Am details 17 brushes with death, ranging from a chillingly close encounter while…
Book review: Less by Andrew Sean Greer
This book came highly recommended – my mum loved it and even though she had a copy of her own, she bought another one for me. Fortunately for our family…
Book review: Resurrection Bay by Emma Viskic
I had heard a lot about Australian author Emma Viskic before I had picked up any of her books. From the Wreck had recently been shortlisted for various literary awards,…
Book review: Axiomatic by Maria Tumarkin
There have been a few books this year which have been unlike any I have read before, and this is certainly one of them. Somewhere between an essay and a…
Book review: Warlight by Michael Ondaatje
I read this book under pressure, after borrowing it from the library on a one-week loan that cannot be renewed. So, I read it while wrangling my children on a…
Book review: Normal People by Sally Rooney
It is hard to comprehend how Sally Rooney has managed to capture the dynamics of a relationship as well as she has in Normal People. Aged just 27, Rooney tells…
Book review: Reckoning by Magda Szubanski
I’m not usually drawn to memoirs, but I’d heard such good reports about Magda Szubanski’s Reckoning that I happily picked it up when I saw it was available at the…
Junior book review: Father Christmas and Me by Matt Haig
By Sam, 7 What was the book about? It was about a girl, Amelia, who went to Elfhelm to live with Father Christmas and a woman called Mary. The girl…
Book review: Kudos by Rachel Cusk
Young journos are famously advised to start their stories as if they are telling their best friend the most exciting thing that has happened that day. Rachel Cusk’s widely celebrated…
Book review: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
I was almost relieved when, partway into reading The Kite Runner, I realised this was definitely a ‘good’ book. Otherwise, I’m not sure that I could have written a review.…
Junior book review: The Institute of Fantastical Inventions by Dave Leys
Sam, 7 years * Caution - there may be spoilers below The story was about: It was a story about science and a place that used science to make people’s…
Book review: Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton
This year I’ve read some extraordinary books written by Australian writers, from the perspective of a child, including Sofie Laguna’s The Choke and Mark Brandi’s Wimmera. Trent Dalton’s Boy Swallows…
Book review: The Fish Girl by Mirandi Riwoe
The Fish Girl seems at first glance to be a light book, easily read in a day, perhaps even one sitting. But within the Stella Prize shortlisted novella is story…
Book review: The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
I have read a lot about World War II, from brutality of the concentration camps in The Tattooist of Auschwitz to the ‘what ifs’ of Life After Life and the…
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
I never read The Little Prince as a child, so I was looking forward to reading it with my seven-year-old son. Unfortunately, this strange and charming little story didn’t capture…
Junior review: Nevermoor by Jessica Townsend
Review by Elizabeth Morrison, 10 years old Nevermoor is a heartwarming story that will soon become the favourite of most children and adults. I liked if from the start and…
The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante
What is it about this series that so takes hold of the reader? Is it the Italian setting, so vividly evoked by Ferrante? Or is it the gorgeous, understated language?…
Brooklyn by Colm Toibin
Don’t let the title fool you – Toibin’s book is just as much about Ireland as it is about Brooklyn. Place looms large in the novel, set in the 1950s,…
The Geography of Friendship by Sally Piper
The Geography of Friendship is set in a beautiful bush land setting, through which a group of friends retraces a bush walk of decades earlier. However, there is nothing calm…
Circe by Madeline Miller
For anyone who is curious about the ancient classics, but reluctant to give them a go, Circe is the perfect introduction. However, it is equally appealing as a stand-alone story…
The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by Shokoofeh Azari
Twenty years ago, I fell in love with the magical realism in One Hundred Years of Solitude. I had never read this type of novel before and was carried away…
The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris
There is no shortage of books about the Holocaust, or other horrors of war, but in The Tattooist of Auschwitz focuses on an intriguing story of one character. The tattooist,…
Extinctions by Josephine Wilson
Some books are painfully clever. They are dense with ideas, and their dialogue is so witty as to be almost undecipherable – even the characters are cleverer than the average…
Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf
Many of Australians' favourite books of all times, according to the Dymocks 101 list are familiar. Unsurprisingly, there was Harry Potter and The Handmaid’s Tale, alongside more recent bestsellers like The…
People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
It’s hard for a booklover not to be drawn to a novel that is about …. a book. And what a book it is. The Sarajevo Haggadah at the centre…
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine has attracted a lot of hype, including taking the top spot on the Sunday Times bestseller list. And for me, it lived up to that…
Wimmera by Mark Brandi
It’s hard not to love a book in which Ballarat plays a minor role, but there are plenty of other reasons that made Wimmera so easy to recommend. The first…
Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout
I had high hopes for Anything is Possible, after enjoying Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge, and it didn’t disappoint. In both books, Strout beautifully captured intimate moments of significance in the…
The Life to Come by Michelle de Kretser
Some books come with such glowing reviews that it is difficult for them to live up to the hype. Perhaps that is what happened when I read de Kretser’s The…
The Dry by Jane Harper
It has been some time since I have come across a book that has been so widely read and talked about. There seem to be very few people who have…
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
There is something endearing about an author who introduces a book by saying that the final story was nothing like he had planned, and he expected it to be a…
All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld
Evie Wyld’s All the Birds Singing is like a beautiful dot-to-dot for grownups, tracing the story of Jake’s life back to the distant past in order to make sense of…
Head Over Heel: Seduced by Southern Italy by Chris Harrison
Most tourists see a certain side of Italy. There are the rolling hills of Tuscany, fascinating cities and idyllic coastal towns, topped off by warm and friendly locals and some…
The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham
It is not hard to see why W.Somerset Maughan wrote The Painted Veil after he was inspired by a fascinating story he read while on vacation as a student. According…
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
I had been told that The Elegance of the Hedgehog would make me cry. For me, the ability to make a reader cry is high praise, and even though the…
The Bodysurfers by Robert Drewe
There’s a strange sense of synchronicity when an event in the news closely aligns with a book that you are reading. That happened when I was finishing The Bodysurfers by…
Review: Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson
Often, family sagas centre on a great love, either thwarted or consummated. While Behind the Scenes at the Museum might be the story of a family, with limbs reaching back…
Autobiography suffers from a missing chapter
“Everyone has a chapter they don’t read out loud.” (Anonymous) Bob Dylan’s memoir might be as lyrical as his songs and offer fascinating insights about his arrival on the music…
Book Review: Commonwealth by Ann Patchett
It can sometimes be difficult to describe what a book was ‘about’. While some might centre on an earth shattering event, others carry on quietly, with the reader bobbing along…
Book Review: Chronicles: Volume 1 by Bob Dylan
I don’t usually read memoirs, or much non-fiction of any type, but I was curious about reading Bob Dylan’s book after he (controversially) won the Nobel Prize for Literature. At…
Book Review: The Museum of Modern Love by Heather Rose
I am no modern art lover – at best I am curious and at worst I am bewildered. However, in reading The Museum Modern Love, I found that I have…
Book Review: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
Sibling relationships are at the heart of many novels, with Little Women, My Family and Other Animals and The Cement Garden among the most memorable. However, to that list we…
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
Childhood never seems as close by as when you read it in a book. That is particularly true of reading My Brilliant Friend. Despite being set in a working class…
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Labelled by some as historical fiction and others as science fiction, Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad is a book that does not slot easily into any one category. I came…
Book review: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Much has been written about Jane Eyre, and it’s true that it is a hard book not to like. Its protagonist is a feisty, principled woman who was brought up…
Book review: Book review: Regeneration by Pat Barker
Regeneration is a different type of war book to what readers or students might be used to, with the action taking place in a hospital rather than in the trenches.…
Review: The Way to Paradise
Books can either reflect the world as the reader already knows it, but in a new and surprising way, or introduce a whole new world, which is unfamiliar and exotic.…
Freedom Song, Amit Chaudhuri
It feels as if spring has gone on strike, enabling winter to continue until December. The mercury is sluggish and the wind is fierce, and I have been stuck at…
On Love, Alain de Botton
From the popularity of The Bachelor to the amount of paraphernalia surrounding Valentine’s Day, it seems that romance is having a renaissance. And with all the roses, candlelit dinners and…
As sweet as a madeleine by the Seine – The Little Paris Bookshop, Nina George
I usually prefer books that can be described as moving, heartbreaking, uplifting or captivating. I like to be lifted up and shaken when I read, and I love books that…
Slaughterhouse 5, Kurt Vonnegut
Oh Billy Pilgrim, you are one of a kind. Has there ever been a character so pitiable, so pathetic, but so likable as the lead character in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse…
The Natural Way of Things – misogyny out loud
Sometimes it is not the spoken but the whispered threat that is the most menacing. So it is with sexism. While important issues such as the gender pay gap and…
Charlotte Gray shines a light on the children of the Holocaust
It is very difficult to empathise with people we have never met, who lived a long time ago, in a country on the other side of the world. It is…
Review: The Sellout by Paul Beatty
Some books are so unlike any others that it takes a while to understand what is happening when you start reading them. Their characters are unfamiliar and the situations unrecognisable,…