Review search
Flashbacks from the Flow Zone (Tom Crago, Hardie Grant)
Released May 2014
Tom Crago’s Flashbacks from the Flow Zone is ostensibly a memoir about work and travel in the just-connecting days of the early millennium. Global business and pleasure mix in heady... Read more
Tiddas (Anita Heiss, Simon & Schuster)
Released March 2014
Prolific author and academic Anita Heiss has created a fascinating subgenre of popular women’s fiction, dubbed ‘choc-lit’, as a way of celebrating Australia’s Indigenous culture and promoting it to a... Read more
Stormswept (Shannon Curtis, Pan Macmillan)
Released April 2014
Fans of The Bold and the Beautiful won’t be disappointed with Momentum’s tie-in with the popular daytime soap. Stormswept sees Hope Logan and long-time friend and former flame, Oliver, travelling... Read more
No Limit (Holly Childs, Hologram)
Released April 2014
Ash’s flight out of Auckland is grounded by an erupting volcano, so she heads back into the city. With her new friends, she visits the drive-in for a disaster-movie marathon,... Read more
Lick: Stage Dive 1 (Kylie Scott, Pan Macmillan)
Released May 2014
Kylie Scott is a USA Today bestselling romance author who lives in Queensland. I mention this because her latest book is firmly set in the US—Las Vegas, LA and Portland.... Read more
Joyful (Robert Hillman, Text)
Released February 2014
At the beginning of Joyful, Tess, wife of the asexual Leon and lover of many men, dies. The reader then learns of their courtship, where Leon dresses Tess in glamorous... Read more
The Bush Book Club (Margaret Wild, illus by Ben Wood, Scholastic)
Released March 2014
Some children can be reluctant readers, and this picture book is a great resource for parents and teachers to encourage page-turning habits. As the name suggests, every animal in the... Read more
Foreign Soil (Maxine Beneba Clarke, Hachette)
Released May 2014
Recently, and rather controversially, a reviewer of Black Inc.’s Best Australian Stories 2013 complained that overall there was little that was memorable or stuck in the mind amidst last year’s... Read more
The N00bz: New Adventures in Literature (if:book Australia, Editia)
Released May 2014
In 2013, if:book Australia challenged 14 Australian writers to try a new professional experience, to become a beginner (or Noob) again, and then to write about the experience for futureofthebook.org.au.... Read more
Dangerous Allies (Malcolm Fraser, MUP)
Released May 2014
Former prime minister Malcolm Fraser argues that for too long Australia has relied on what he terms ‘strategic dependence’. Rather than set our own course on defence strategy and foreign... Read more
The Colonial Journals: And the Emergence of Australian Literary Culture (Ken Gelder & Rachael Weaver, UWA Publishing)
Released May 2014
Academics Rachael Weaver and Ken Gelder have trawled through the archives of colonial Australia’s journals to reproduce articles, stories, poems and editorials documenting the emergence of Australia’s literary culture. Each... Read more
Tapestry (Fiona McIntosh, HarperCollins)
Released May 2014
Fiona McIntosh is certainly prolific; she has written over 25 adult novels and six young-adult novels spanning several genres. Her new novel Tapestry blends historical fiction and fantasy. It starts... Read more
The Strays (Emily Bitto, Affirm Press)
Released May 2014
Following Emily Bitto’s shortlisting for the 2013 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript, The Strays became one of the most highly anticipated debuts of 2014—and it certainly lives... Read more
The Promise (Tony Birch, UQP)
Released May 2014
This impressive new collection from the author of Blood (2011) introduces a host of peculiarly Australian outsiders: émigrés, kids, ex-cons and other lost souls, from vagabond ‘blackfellas’ to cuckolded husbands.... Read more
The Blue Mile (Kim Kelly, Pan Macmillan)
Released May 2014
The latest novel from Kim Kelly (Black Diamonds, This Red Earth) is an engaging, entertaining read set in 1930s Sydney against the backdrop of the building of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.... Read more
Max (Marc Martin, Viking)
Released April 2014
This picture book tells an emotional story about the relationship between a cheeky seagull called Max and a fish-and-chip shop-owner called Bob. Max has become a friend to Bob, who... Read more
Dreamers (Ezekiel Kwaymullina, illus by Sally Morgan, Fremantle Press)
Released May 2014
This companion book to My Country, which comes from the same mother-and-son team, is full of swirling movement and vibrant colour. ‘We are the dream and the dreamers,’ begins the... Read more
Bleakboy and Hunter Stand Out in the Rain (Steven Herrick, UQP)
Released April 2014
Jesse talks to a picture of Jesus on his wall to think things through; Hunter bullies younger kids at school. Jesse would do just about anything to help the starving... Read more
A House for Donfinkle (Choechoe Brereton, illus by Wayne Harris, Walker Books)
Released May 2014
Is this Grand Designs for the younger set? Donfinkle Vonkrinkle is building his dream house and all goes well until a Flooble starts to criticise, a Mooble makes a suggestion,... Read more
Here in the Garden (Briony Stewart)
Released April 2014
Here in the Garden is a gentle picture book about the loss of a loved one. It begins with the wind blowing through the falling leaves and a forlorn boy... Read more
