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 and suspects … Read more »

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The Bee Sting

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Reviewed by Wendy Tucker
by Paul Murray

This is the fourth novel by Irish writer Paul Murray. It was short listed for the Booker Prize 2023 and won The Irish Post Book of the Year 2023. 

It is essentially a tragicomic family saga set in a dull town in Ireland and told in four voices. Murray slips back though time, moving from each section though the mind of each family member as much is revealed … Read more »

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The In-Between

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Reviewed by Wendy Tucker

by Christos Tsiolkas

Christos Tsiolkas is the author of eight novels, he is also a playwright, essayist and screenwriter. He is best known for the international best seller The Slap and for his historical novel Damascus. 

Christos and his partner holiday at Narooma and love the area. They especially love Cobargo and Well Thumbed Books, ‘… one of his two favourite bookshops in the world’. 

Well Thumbed Books … Read more »

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Stone Yard Devotional

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reviewed by Wendy Tucker
by Charlotte Wood
This is the seventh novel by the Australian writer, Charlotte Wood. The first novel of Wood’s I read was the multi-award winning The Natural Way of Things, a very disturbing, harsh and political novel. But brilliant. I eagerly awaited the next – a lighter, funnier novel but with a tough ironic bite, called The Weekend with five elderly woman as main characters. I was disappointed but most readers were … Read more »

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Lessons in Chemistry 

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by Bonnie Garmus 

Reviewed by Wendy Tucker

Bonnie Garmus was 65 years old when this, her first novel, was published in 2022 and this fact should give hope to all those procrastinating writers out there. She was a senior copy writer and the only woman at a meeting where she was yet again spoken over, interrupted, disregarded and her ideas usurped. That night she wrote the first chapter of Lessons in Chemistry while thinking of her mother, a … Read more »

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Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens  

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reviewed by Wendy Tucker
by Shankari Chandran
Ultimo Press
Chandran, a Sydney-based lawyer of Tamil heritage won this year’s prestigious Miles Franklin prize of $60,000. I like to read the winning book, judged by an esteemed group and deemed to be the best book of the year with an Australian theme. I’m still reeling from this confronting and sometimes confusing novel.

I had by-passed it because of its cosy cover and cute title, assuming it … Read more »

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