How many books should I take camping?
Let's get this out in the open right away - camping is not my thing. This is not to say that I don't love a caravan park, with their bouncing…
Book review: Bodies of Light by Jennifer Down
I was recommended Bodies of Light by a colleague with no warning of the harrowing read that it is. Certainly, the title didn't give me any clue as to the…
Book review: The Exiles by Jane Harper
When I was living in the UK on a gap year, I became obsessed with watching Home and Away. I loved seeing that golden sand and wide, blue sky, and…
Book review: Green Dot by Madeline Gray
Green Dot is really making me feel old … and maybe a little judgmental. I started off absolutely loving the story and narrator as she had her first encounter with…
Book review: Persuasion by Jane Austen
I always feel like a bit of an upstart when I write a review of one of the great works of fiction by an author like Jane Austen, but I…
Book review: The Improbable Life of Ricky Bird by Diane Connell
The Improbable Life of Ricky Bird was recommended to me as a 'strange' read, so I really wasn't sure what to expect from it. It turns out that it was…
Reflections on the NYT best 100 books of the 21st Century
There’s not much I love more than a ‘best of’ book list, and so when I spotted the New York Times 100 best books of the 21st Century trending on…
Book review: Limberlost by Robbie Arnott
The author of Limberlost, Robbie Arnott, has won various awards for his previous works, and so this one came with some sense of anticipation. Limberlost is set in Tasmania and…
Book review: What Happened to Nina? by Dervla McTiernan
What Happened to Nina was the fourth book I had read by Dervla McTiernan and it is another page-turner that is both satisfying and highly readable. I read it under…
Understanding history is easier if it’s personal
I've always had trouble remembering the exact (or even approximate) dates when it comes to the big events of history. When I read a passage in a textbook at school,…
Book review: Death in Venice by Thomas Mann
Death in Venice is one of those novels (or is it considered a short story?) that seems a little out of place in our time, despite its powerful writing. The…
Book review: Skellig by David Almond
Books can arrive on my bedside table for many reasons - they might have been recommended by a friend, been written by an author I admire, or in the case…
Book review: After Story by Larissa Behrendt
Larissa Behrendt's After Story included some of my favourite bookish elements - travel, relationships and culture. After Story centres on an Indigenous mother and daughter who take a literary tour…
Book review: The Younger Wife by Sally Hepworth
There is something addictive about Sally Hepworth's books, and it was no different with The Younger Wife, especially when listening to the audiobook. The story is told from the perspective…
Book review: Carrie Soto is Back
I read Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid just before attending the Australian Open, and I was glad I did. Tennis is at the heart of the novel…
Book review: Love Marriage by Monica Ali
I love being immersed in a family's life - whether it is in one of Ann Patchett's all-American family saga or a tale of childhood poverty in one of Douglas…
Book review: Wifedom by Anna Funder
Maybe it was my super-high expectations that meant that Wifedom was never had a chance. I absolutely loved Anna Funder's Stasiland and All That I Am, so I was thrilled…
Move over Taylor Swift, I’m fangirling over Helen Garner and Sofie Laguna
Has Melbourne ever seen fangirling of the kind we saw last month when Taylor Swift visited Australia for her record-breaking concerts? At each performance, more than 90,000 people swooned with…
Should there be a new book classification for young teens?
Ever since they started reading Spot and Grug, I’ve loved helping my kids choose their next read. As the kids have reached their tween years, we have continued to share…
My bookish highlights of 2023
Audiobooks I’ve listened to audiobooks while walking, vacuuming and cooking this year and they’ve improved each of these activities immensely. They make waiting in the car for the school pickup…
Wild Abandon by Emily Bitto
Wild Abandon is one of the best books I've read in ages. The story begins with Will travelling to the US in search of his big adventure ... and to…
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
I have an admission straight off the bat - I've never read Charles Dickens' David Copperfield, on which Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead is based. Despite this hole in my background…
Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart
I did not know that I'd be encountering another neglected boy so soon after reading Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver and Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart. Like Shuggie, Mungo is…
The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
After having loved A Gentleman in Moscow, I was looking forward to reading Amor Towles' The Lincoln Highway. I was surprised by how different this second of the writer's books…
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro is one of those books that I would have no hesitation in recommending to anyone. Told by a butler in a grand…
Kingsolver to Lessons in Chemistry: The best and worst of my holiday reading
It has been quite a while since I posted, but during that time I have been busy travelling, then getting my life back in order after extended time away. But…
There is a lot to consider when planning holiday reading
I’m about to leave on an international holiday with my family and I’ve been doing some careful planning about what books and audiobooks to load onto my Kindle and phone.…
Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies by Maddie Mortimer
This book has cemented my opinion that plot-driven – rather than prose-driven – novels are much better suited to listening. I listened to Mortimer’s book while walking, vacuuming and mowing…
Bruny by Heather Rose
I read Bruny while considering a trip to Tasmania, and nothing could make a visit more appealing. I loved reading about the unique landscape and community in the Apple Isle…
Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser
I have mixed feelings about Fleishman is in trouble. I almost loved it, but I really hated the last few pages. Fortunately, I had been warned that this might be…
The boredom and bliss of a long read
The word is that technology is shortening our attention spans. Like the fungus that invades the minds of the infected in The Last of Us, our concentration is being devoured…
Enough of the politics, I want more fiction at writers festivals
I have a love/hate relationship with politics. I love that we have a stable form of politics in Australia, even though sometimes it can get a little heated and it…
Are we losing the ability to read deeply?
It’s lovely to immerse yourself in a book that doesn’t require much of you. The characters are easily understood, and behave exactly as you would expect them too. The plot…
Book review: The Weekend by Charlotte Wood
It's disappointingly rare to read a book about older women, so I was interested to see how Charlotte Wood approached her novel about three women who return to clean the…
Book review: A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
Knowing that the movie based on A Man Called Ove was in the cinemas, I raced to read the novel on my Kindle. My friends who had already read it…
The narrator can make or break an audiobook
I never would have imagined how much I would come to love audiobooks. In the past I considered myself a purist – books had a feel and a smell that…
Book review: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
Do you know those timeline cleanse you that sometimes pop up on social media? When you're scrolling through opinion after opinion and suddenly a photograph of a puppy, a cute…
Hating a book is almost as fun as loving it
A shared love of a book is a beautiful thing. But a mutual dislike for a highly-regarded one is even better. That is what I’ve found recently reading the comments…
My favourite books of 2022
Reaching the end of 2022, I've been thinking of how I would describe my year of reading. There have been some definite highlights (I'm looking at you, A Little Life,…
Book review: Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stewart
I had heard a lot about Shuggie Bain before I had the opportunity to read it. I knew that it was going to be harrowing, and about a boy growing…
Book review: Oh, William by Elisabeth Strout
Once again, Lucy Barton's voice is crystal clear in the Booker shortlisted Oh, William. This time, Lucy is living her own life after her divorce from William, and the death…
Book review: My Name is Lucy Barton by Elisabeth Strout
When I am reading Elisabeth Strout's books I can almost hear the voices of the characters. They seem to be so solidly constructed in their mannerisms and temperaments that their…
Book review: To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara
Oh no, I just realised haven't reviewed To Paradise yet, about two months after reading it. This is going to be a tough one. How do you sum up a…
Book review: Three Sisters by Heather Morris
I have written before about Heather Morris’s ‘too good to be true’ portrayal of victims of the Holocaust, after having read The Tattooist of Auschwitz and Cilka’s Journey. I found…
Ordinary People by Diana Evans (audiobook)
There is something very appealing about the narrator of the Ordinary People audiobook and I couldn’t stop listening. Ordinary People is the story of two couples living in the UK,…
Book review: The Promise by Damon Galgut
I was attracted to The Promise after hearing positive reviews of it following its Booker win. The Promise is set in South Africa and centres on a white family, and…
Book review: Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley
The author of Nightcrawling, Leila Mottley, conceived the idea for the novel after hearing a news story in her home of Oakland in the US. The story was about a…
It’s possible to read a book badly, and I’ve just done it
Does the reader have a responsibility to read a book ‘well’? And what does that even mean? In the past, I might have argued that there was no ‘right’ or…
Good bye Hilary Mantel, and all of the books you might have written
I was shocked to hear last night that Hilary Mantel had died, aged 70. I had read and adored Mantel's Wolf Hall trilogy and been captivated by the author's genius.…
Book review: The Dispossessed by Ursula le Guin
I have to admit right now that science fiction is not my thing. For some reason, the idea of distant planets or alternative universes leaves me cold. It's the same…
What I love about bookish events … and Ann Cleeves!
It was in the middle of a busy week that I'd organised to meet some bookish friends at an author event a couple of weeks ago. I'd been extremely busy…
Book review: Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason
I'm so glad I finally got around to reading Sorrow and Bliss, after it had received glowing reviews from almost everyone I knew. Happily, I enjoyed reading it as much…
I find a prizewinning book harder to put down … does that make me a literary snob?
It is prize season in the Australian book industry, with Jennifer Down's Bodies of Light winning the Miles Franklin award and The Age announcing its Book of the Year shortlist.…
Book review: French Braid by Anne Tyler
If you want a comforting family saga, it’s hard to go past Anne Tyler. Having recently read and enjoyed A Spool of Blue Thread by Tyler, I thought I’d give…
Book review: The Women of Troy by Pat Barker
I have to admit I’ve become a bit of a Pat Barker fan in the past few years, having read her Regeneration trilogy and now her two novels about the…
Humour brings unexpected bliss to difficult themes
I've never made any secret of my love of a harrowing read. I love a book that leaves me feeling pummelled and wrung out ... and it gets extra points…
Why Sally Rooney’s latest left me a bit cold … and old
It’s hard to resist Sally Rooney’s books of youthful love, lust and friendship. Somehow, the 31-year-old writer perfectly captures a point in time when emotions are big and raw and…
The joy of a film adaptation of a well-loved book
Today I went to the movies and watched Mothering Sunday, and it was fabulous. After having read Graham Swift's novella a year ago, it was such a joy to see…
Cli-fi is a little too close to home right now
The best books reflect the times in which they were written. They capture the zeitgeist by addressing the social issues that are central to writers. So, it is no surprise…
Reflection on BWF – do books make us think?
It was wonderful to listen to Lucy Treloar, Charlotte Wood and Jane Rawson discuss whether books can change a reader at the Bendigo Writers Festival. First, they chatted about the…