Our latest reviews
How the World Made the West by Josephine Quinn
The Jaipur Literature Festival is certainly one of the great festivals of the world. It draws an amazing array of guests from the Indian subcontinent and beyond. I was fortunate to be able to attend this year’s festival in February…
Fragile Creatures by Khin Myint
In cinema, there is a film editing technique known as the Kuleshov effect, wherein the audience derives more meaning from the interaction between two shots than a single shot alone. Usually used when discussing the philosophy of montage, the term…
Because I’m Not Myself, You See by Ariane Beeston
I’ve just come up for air after finishing this literary memoir about the author’s experience with post-partum psychosis. This is a fine piece of writing, a brutally honest work that speaks to the experience of early motherhood in a way…
The Friday Afternoon Club by Griffin Dunne
In the first few pages of The Friday Afternoon Club, the author drops the names of Jacqueline Bouvier, Admiral John Cain, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, his future aunt Joan Didion, his uncle John Gregory Dunne, Stephen Sondheim, Clifford Odets, Bono…
Safe Space by Alyssa Huynh
In this candid collection of essays, Melbourne‑based Vietnamese-Australian author Alyssa Huynh gives a lesson in empathy. Her writing on a lifetime experience of continued racism is both poignant and directed to us all. Everyone needs to read this book.
Huynh…
Harry By the Sea by Gene Zion & Margaret Bloy Graham (illus.)
I have several picture books from childhood I can’t bear to part with. I don’t know why, it’s just a feeling, a memory from years ago that began with words and pictures on a page capturing my young imagination. The…
Always Was, Always Will Be by Aunty Fay Muir & Sue Lawson
Always Was, Always Will Be is an in-depth look at how Australia’s First Nations have never stopped fighting for their land, their rights and their voice. Starting from the arrival of the Europeans, Aunty Fay Muir details all the ways…
Detective Beans and the Case of the Missing Hat by Li Chen
Detective Beans is the first full-colour graphic novel of New Zealand-based comics creator Li Chen. Detective Beans is a kitten and a detective, so when his crucially important hat goes missing, he immediately commences an investigation. The hat always seems…
Stitch by Padraig Kenny & Steve McCarthy (illus.)
Stitch doesn’t know where he came from, he only remembers waking up in the professor’s lab. Though he has never left the castle, he’s content with his life: just him, the Professor, Henry Oaf, and the brown mouse. It’s the…
Death in the Air by Ram Murali
Knives Out meets Crazy Rich Asians in this entertaining and witty whodunnit where murder has never been so glamorous. Everyone who’s anyone goes to Samsara, a luxurious and extravagant spa at the foothills of the Indian Himalayas. When Ro Krishna…
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