Fly, Wild Swans
Jung Chang
Reviewed by Wendy Tucker
This is the long-awaited sequel to Wild Swans, published in 1991 to worldwide acclaim. Wild Swans told the story of three generations of Chinese women, Chang’s grandmother, her mother and herself and interwove the modern history of China into these very personal memoirs. This was the first insight that most of the West had into the cruelty, terror and insanity of China under … Read more »
Local writer, Jen Severn, has a new book out in March – a novel called Garnet about a small country town peopled with eccentric, lovable, difficult, ordinary and extraordinary characters – and a few evil developers for good measure. This short novel (an early manuscript was shortlisted in the Viva La Novella Prize in 2022) packs the emotional punch of a much larger book. It is quiet but … Read more »
Your summer reading list from The Triangle team Marita
Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen, 2016. I borrowed this after watching the movie Springsteen: Deliver me from Nowhere. The book provides deep insight into the life and career of The Boss and is quite raw.
Yoga in Practice, Katy Appleton, 2004. I bought this book and a pile of Katy’s videos when I had a back injury over 15 years ago. I decided to revisit it … Read more »
Memorial Days
by Geraldine Brooks
Memorial Days is a memoir about grief by one of our most admired contemporary women writers. Memorial Day, the last Monday in May, is an American public holiday to remember those who died in wars. On Memorial Day in 2019, prize-winning author, Australian- American Geraldine Brooks, received a phone call that would forever change her. Brooks was working intensely and was halfway through her novel Horse, and so … Read more »
Theory and Practice
Michelle de Kretser
Text Publishing
Review by Wendy Tucker
This is Michelle de Kretser’s seventh novel and her second one to win the Stella Prize (for writing by women and non-binary authors). In this novel, de Kretser is again experimenting with form as she did in Scary Monsters where one story paralleled the other. I feel that this is primarily a novel with a splash of … Read more »
Ghost Cities
Siang Lu
University of Queensland Press
Reviewed by Wendy Tucker
Lu’s Ghost Cities just won the Miles Franklin award, certainly the most lucrative and probably the most prestigious literary prize in Australia. This was a bold, risky and brave choice because there is nothing safe about this novel. It is savage in its satire, hilarious in its observance of absurdity and, yet, surprisingly moving. It is also impossible to slot it … Read more »