The Headlands Writers Festival – A collection of books and authors

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by Wendy Tucker

Is this one of the best Writers Festivals in Australia? I think so. An amazing selection of disparate authors, easy to access venues, not too crowded and a whale frolicking at the lunch hour, stretch-the-legs walk.
The big names are in the bigger hall and these sessions are livestreamed to wider audiences in libraries so bookworms who are further away from Tathra can enjoy some of the festival. I’m not sure who decides which authors go … Read more »

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What I’d rather not think about

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by Jente Posthuma

translated by Sarah Timmer Harvey

reviewed by Wendy Tucker

This is the second novel from Jente Posthuma, a Dutch writer, and was among the six novels shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2024. The Booker Prize has had a few name changes and this has resulted in some confusion. The Booker Prize (now the new/old name) is for a novel published in English from writers in Commonwealth countries and Ireland. In 2005, the International Booker Prize was inaugurated for novels worldwide, that were published in English, including books translated into English, with the aim of promoting global literature. … Read more »

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Mania

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reviewed by Wendy Tucker

by Lionel Shriver

I’ve been a fan of Lionel Shriver since the best-selling, prizewinning novel that made her name, We need to talk about Kevin, appeared in 2003.

Any woman who at 15 changes her name from Margaret Ann to Lionel and sticks with it, has got to be fierce. And fierce she is. We need to talk about Kevin examined maternal ambivalence and a high school shooting. … Read more »

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The Thursday Murder Club (and the next three in the series)

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reviewed by Wendy Tucker
by Richard Osman

In 2020 forty publishers bid for the rights to this first novel by television presenter and producer, Richard Osman. It has become the biggest selling adult crime novel since records began and Spielberg immediately purchased the film rights. Osman has since written three more novels in the series with equal success: The man who died twice in 2021, The bullet that missed in 2022 and The last devil to die in 2023. … Read more »

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Women & Children

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Reviewed by Wendy Tucker

by Tony Birch

Tony Birch is an author, activist and academic. This is his fourth novel. He is best known for his award-winning novel The White Girl and his short story collection Dark as Last Night.

Women & Children has just won the 2024 Age Book of the Year for Fiction and will probably win more awards. It is set in 1965 in a poor inner-city suburb of Melbourne. Our protagonist is Joe Cluny, ‘a wide-eyed, … Read more »

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All the words we know

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reviewed by Wendy Tucker
written by Bruce Nash
This is the third novel from local author, Bruce Nash, and it has, deservedly, found a respected commercial publisher with all the advantages of overseas publishing and audio books.
Rose, who is our unreliable narrator throughout, is in her 80s, in a nursing home and has dementia. When Rose finds that her Scrabble partner has died by apparently falling from her window, she remembers other strange deaths … Read more »

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