Miss Muriel Matters

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Robert Wainwright, Miss Muriel Matters, $32.99

Reviewed by Heather O’Connor
October 2017

Here is yet another woman I had never heard of! Muriel Matters was born in Adelaide, spent time in Perth where she began her life as an actress before moving to London to further her career at the beginning of the 20th century. Before long, she was caught up in the struggles for women’s right to vote. The book traces her commitment and her involvement up to and after the First World War.

She first … Read more »

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Days Without End

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Sebastian Barry, Days Without End, $32.99

Reviewed by Heather O’Connor
September 2017

This is the second book of Sebastian Barry that I have reviewed this year, but it is so completely different from all his others that I gave myself permission to indulge in this most favorite of authors.

All the other books of his that I have read have been set in … Read more »

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House of Names

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Colm Toibin, House of Names, $29.99

Reviewed by Heather O’Connor
August 2017

I must have been one of the first people in Australia to buy this recent release, such is my obsession with this terrific writer. I was a bit daunted by the reviews I had read, and it was much harder to get into than other books of his, mainly because my knowledge of … Read more »

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Exit West

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Mohsin Hamid, Exit West, $32.99

Reviewed by Heather O’Connor

Many of you will have read The Reluctant Fundamentalist (or seen the film), an earlier work of the author. In Exit West, he brings a really interesting take on the refugee experience, writing with a mix of stark reality and a touch of magical realism which you don’t expect in books dealing with displacement and incredible hardship.

You don’t know the identity of the city about … Read more »

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Between a Wolf and a Dog

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Georgia Blain, Between a Wolf and a Dog, $29.99

Reviewed by Heather O’Connor

This is a novel that will move you to tears. While completing the work, the writer found out she was suffering from brain cancer, the same fate facing Hilary, one of the characters in the book, and the mother of the main character, Ester. Hilary is widowed and determined to take control of her life and the manner of her death, which she does, independently of her family—food for thought as we all debate the ethics … Read more »

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Music and Freedom

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Zoe Morrison, Music and Freedom, $32.99

Reviewed by Heather O’Connor

Zoe Morrison has a broad and interesting background in music and in issues surrounding violence against women, two themes at the heart of this award-winning first novel.

Music and Freedom is the story of a young girl from country Victoria whose life is transformed when she wins a scholarship to Oxford to study music. Her early days there are marked by loneliness and overwhelming homesickness, but she gradually becomes absorbed in the life and culture, and seems destined for … Read more »

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