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 was a … Read more »
by Salena Godden
Reviewed by Wendy Tucker
Salena Godden is an English poet, author, activist, broadcaster, memoirist and essayist. Born in the UK, Godden is of Jamaican-Irish heritage. She is known for the graphic power of her poetry and is considered one of the foremost performance poets in the UK.
This is her debut novel. I had heard a lot about this prize-winning prose/poetry novel and because of the enthusiastic reviews regarding the beauty … Read more »
reviewed by Wendy Tucker
by Ben Aaronovitch
How to describe this novel, the first in a series of nine?
It’s a crime novel, a police procedural novel, a fantasy/magical realism novel,
a love letter to London and a commentary on race. And it’s rollicking good fun and totally addictive. I am a fan of good crime writing but not usually of fantasy.
Rivers of London is … Read more »
Reviewed by Wendy Tucker
Sebastian Barry
Old gods’ time is ‘an expression indicating a period beyond memory’ and also applies to a memory from so long ago that it belongs in the time of the old gods, such as those of the Greeks. It is the perfect title for this novel that is all about the struggle with memory, what is real, what is imagined and what is too traumatic, too damaging to be allowed to surface.
by Robbie Arnott
Text Publishing
Reviewed by Wendy Tucker
This is the third novel from the Tasmanian Wunderkind, Robbie Arnott. Some readers may have been disappointed as Limberlost seems to be a departure from the previous highly imaginative, magic realism novel Flames, where people burst into flame. Also, a departure from the prize-winning The Rain Heron where a bird made of rain may save a dystopian world. I loved both these amazing novels – although they are far … Read more »
by John Boyne
reviewed by Wendy Tucker
All the Broken Places is a sequel, of sorts, to the best-selling Boy in the Striped Pyjamas that, like Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, was originally published as Young Adult Fiction but both books quickly became best-selling novels in the adult fiction category and both were made into successful films. Both are set during the Holocaust of WW2. Both authors felt that Young Adult readers should know about the Holocaust and both were criticised by survivors for a too soft approach. That … Read more »
