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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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 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…

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…

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…

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 is one of those books that I would have no hesitation in recommending to anyone. Told by a butler in a grand…

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…

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.…

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…

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…

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 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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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.…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…