03 Friday Jan 2014
Posted in Uncategorized
This gallery contains 1 photo.
Happy New Year to all our readers! The Newtown Review of Books is beginning 2014 in a new home: newtownreviewofbooks.com.au All of our …
27 Friday Dec 2013
Posted in The Godfather: Peter Corris
This gallery contains 1 photo.
I never liked teaching and unlike the people mentioned in a previous column I was no good at it. As …
26 Thursday Dec 2013
Posted in Quizzes
This gallery contains 1 photo.
Here are the answers to our Boxing Day quiz (no pun intended). How did you do? 1 Nicole Hayes’s YA novel …
26 Thursday Dec 2013
Posted in Quizzes
Tags
Boxing Day Quiz questions, Frank Hardy, Gordon Graham, Malcolm Knox, Nicole Hayes, Peter Corris, sport in Australian fiction, Steven Caroll, Tim Winton
This gallery contains 5 photos.
Here’s a quiz, just for fun. Sport in Australian literature – not much, but some. How well do you know it? …
24 Tuesday Dec 2013
Tags
Alex Cothren, Australian fiction, Australian short stories, Carmel Bird Short Story Award, ghost stories, Guy Salvidge, Krissy Kneen, Marion Halligan, Mark O’Flynn, Rhys Tate, Ryan O’Neill, SF, Susan Yardley
This gallery contains 1 photo.
A refreshing anthology of the macabre, the uncanny and the downright scary. Melbourne-based writer and reviewer Angela Meyer has brought …
20 Friday Dec 2013
Posted in The Godfather: Peter Corris
Tags
Arthur Rylah, Cliff Hardy, Coopers Hotel, Gough Whitlam, Henry Bolte, Kelly's on King, Newtown pubs, the Marlborough, the Newtown Hotel, the Whitlams, Tim Freedman
This gallery contains 1 photo.
I frequent four pubs in Newtown. There are different reasons for my visiting them and each has a different atmosphere. …
19 Thursday Dec 2013
This gallery contains 1 photo.
The second volume of this epic fantasy is a clever and engrossing tale exploring cruelty, enslavement, magic and power. In …
17 Tuesday Dec 2013
Posted in Fiction
This gallery contains 1 photo.
Inspired by both his father’s experiences as a prisoner-of-war and the life of Weary Dunlop, Richard Flanagan’s new novel explores …
13 Friday Dec 2013
Posted in The Godfather: Peter Corris
Tags
Andy Warhol, Blue Poles, Charles Condor, Chris Berkman, El Greco, Francis Bacon, Heidelburg School, JMW Turner, Michael Fitzjames, Pat Barker, Robin Wallace-Crabbe, Sistine Chapel, Van Gogh, Virginia Wallace-Crabbe
This gallery contains 1 photo.
I’m not big on painting. I was notably quite without talent at it when at school. We had to submit …
12 Thursday Dec 2013
This gallery contains 1 photo.
This quietly powerful novella proves there’s still a lot to add to the asylum-seeker debate. It’s been more than a …
10 Tuesday Dec 2013
Posted in Fiction
Tags
Brisbane, Diaghilev, Emilia Markus, Gotterdammerung, Karoly Pulszky, LIllian Nordica, Nijinsky, Sebastiano del Piombo, Thursday Island
This gallery contains 3 photos.
European high culture in unlikely Australian settings lies at the heart of these two novels by Australian poet Tom Shapcott. …
06 Friday Dec 2013
Posted in The Godfather: Peter Corris
Tags
best books of 2013, Giles Blunt, Larry McMurtry, Nicholas Evans, Philipp Meyer, William Boyd, William Dalrymple
This gallery contains 6 photos.
Again the NRB editors have invited me to nominate the best books I’ve read this year. As I explained in …
05 Thursday Dec 2013
Posted in Fiction
This gallery contains 1 photo.
A natural disaster provokes emotional and ethical dilemmas for the characters in Kathryn Heyman’s new novel. We each have our …
03 Tuesday Dec 2013
Posted in Non-Fiction
Tags
Antarctic exploration, climate change, evolution, extinction, science, Tim Minchin, Wittgenstein
This gallery contains 1 photo.
In its pursuit of cool ideas, this diverse anthology – from essays to poetry to memoir – gives a fresh …
29 Friday Nov 2013
Posted in The Godfather: Peter Corris
This gallery contains 1 photo.
Many memoirs, perhaps especially by writers, acknowledge the roles played by teachers in the shaping of people’s careers. Sometimes the …
28 Thursday Nov 2013
Posted in Non-Fiction
Tags
Australian women's writing, biodiversity, Numinbah Valley, Peter Andrews, rainforest rehabilitation, south-east Queensland, The Change, The Female Eunuch
This gallery contains 1 photo.
This passionate account of one woman’s engagement with the natural world is also a plea for conservation and rehabilitation. Under suburban …
26 Tuesday Nov 2013
Posted in Fiction
Tags
9/11, American fiction, Gravity's Rainbow, Jonathan Franzen, Neal Stephenson, The Crying of Lot 49
This gallery contains 1 photo.
The author of Gravity’s Rainbow takes on corporate greed, 9/11 and the dark unconscious of the internet; the result is …
22 Friday Nov 2013
Posted in The Godfather: Peter Corris
Tags
Adelaide Writers Festival, Bill Hayden, Bob Gould, Frank Hardy, Frank Moorhouse, Fred Hollows, Germaine Greer, Gleebooks, Gough Whitlam
This gallery contains 1 photo.
An unusual book launch was held recently at Gleebooks, unusual in that three books were celebrated – novels by Michael …
21 Thursday Nov 2013
This gallery contains 1 photo.
Alien technology, interplanetary travel, Artificial Intelligence and the origin of the universe are among the many ideas explored in this …
19 Tuesday Nov 2013
Tags
Australian fiction, Australian short stories, Australian women's writing, The Household Guide to Dying
This gallery contains 1 photo.
The author of The Household Guide to Dying delivers a collection of short stories infused with hope. Debra Adelaide is …
15 Friday Nov 2013
Posted in The Godfather: Peter Corris
This gallery contains 1 photo.
After a lapse of quite a few years I’ve joined a gym again. My first gym was in Wollongong about …
14 Thursday Nov 2013
Tags
This gallery contains 1 photo.
A huge and occasionally chaotic canvas does not diminish the achievement of this dystopian trilogy. Dust is the long-awaited conclusion …
12 Tuesday Nov 2013
Posted in Non-Fiction
Tags
Alex Miller, Arnold Zable, asylum-seekers, Australian writers, John Tranter, Kathryn Heyman, Kim Scott, Malaysian Solution, Raimond Gaita, refugees, Rodney Hall, SIEV X, Sue Woolfe
This gallery contains 1 photo.
This anthology of essays, fiction, memoir and poetry contains some powerful and impassioned writing from some of Australia’s best-known writers. …
08 Friday Nov 2013
Posted in The Godfather: Peter Corris
This gallery contains 1 photo.
I used to get the news from a combination of reading the broadsheets, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian, …
07 Thursday Nov 2013
Posted in Fiction
This gallery contains 1 photo.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Interpreter of Maladies delivers a compelling family story of secrets, love and duty. The Lowland …
05 Tuesday Nov 2013
Posted in Crime Scene, Fiction
Tags
Australian crime fiction, crime fiction, Grand Union Canal, Regent's Canal, South Australia, the Thames
This gallery contains 3 photos.
Garry Disher introduces a new character and Barry Maitland continues his successful Brock and Kolla series. Bitter Wash Road is …
01 Friday Nov 2013
Posted in The Godfather: Peter Corris
This gallery contains 1 photo.
Smells can powerfully evoke memories. I can’t smell night-blooming jasmine or pipe tobacco smoke without remembering places and people. Music …
31 Thursday Oct 2013
Posted in Fiction
Tags
Arthur Conan Doyle, Ian Fleming, James Bond, John Gardner, Kingsley Amis, Sebastian Faulks, spy fiction
This gallery contains 1 photo.
Moneypenny, M, danger, sex and cigarettes; the self-indulgent, worldly tone: William Boyd’s James Bond gets it right. I imagine that writing a …
29 Tuesday Oct 2013
Posted in Fiction
This gallery contains 1 photo.
Glittering prizes, a fall from grace and the path to redemption – Barracuda is a complex novel of class, ethnicity and …
25 Friday Oct 2013
Posted in The Godfather: Peter Corris
This gallery contains 1 photo.
We set off at midday to catch a 1.15 train north after lunch at Central Station. We’d arranged for a …
24 Thursday Oct 2013
Posted in Fiction
This gallery contains 1 photo.
A puzzling and unsettling book of short stories that plays games with popular tropes surrounding Islam, the Middle East and …
22 Tuesday Oct 2013
Posted in Fiction
This gallery contains 1 photo.
This novel of the aftermath of war, grief and library books is written with elegance and feeling. It’s 1948, and …
18 Friday Oct 2013
Posted in The Godfather: Peter Corris
Tags
I suppose I’ve had a bit more experience of firearms than the average urbanite. When young I was an enthusiastic …
17 Thursday Oct 2013
Posted in Non-Fiction
This gallery contains 1 photo.
This true story outlines one woman’s battle against Australian bureaucracy to be reunited with her husband. In this book Robyn …
15 Tuesday Oct 2013
Posted in Non-Fiction
Tags
Aboriginal tent embassy, Arthur Upfield, Australian history, camping, colonial Australia, Daisy Bates
This gallery contains 1 photo.
History seen through a tent flap: this view of post-settlement Australia is ‘alive and itchy’. The act of camping strips …
11 Friday Oct 2013
Posted in The Godfather: Peter Corris
Tags
Bill Hunter, Bryan Brown, column-writing, Fred Hollows, John Sinclair, National Times, Newtown, Philip Nitschke, Ray Barrett, Roger Keesing
This gallery contains 1 photo.
This is my 80th column for the NRB and time to reflect on the experience of column writing. I’ve had …
10 Thursday Oct 2013
Posted in Crime Scene, Fiction
This gallery contains 1 photo.
Award-winning novelist Chris Womersley delivers a provocative portrait of the artist as a young art thief. There is a sense …
08 Tuesday Oct 2013
Posted in Crime Scene, Fiction
This gallery contains 1 photo.
The Dreyfus Case, notorious for its betrayals and anti-Semitism, inspires this new thriller from the author of Fatherland. In the …
04 Friday Oct 2013
Posted in The Godfather: Peter Corris
This gallery contains 1 photo.
In one of my novels I have Cliff Hardy remark that painless dentistry and being able to pause live television …
03 Thursday Oct 2013
Tags
This gallery contains 1 photo.
The Bone Season offers a parallel future of clairvoyants and alien races in a complex and vibrant thriller. This is …
01 Tuesday Oct 2013
Posted in Fiction
This gallery contains 1 photo.
This mesmerising and suspenseful novel examines isolation, trust and the vagaries of memory. Ruth Field and her cats reside in …
27 Friday Sep 2013
Posted in The Godfather: Peter Corris
This gallery contains 1 photo.
My eight-year-old grandson has recently expressed a preference for snow peas over avocado when required to eat something green. His …
26 Thursday Sep 2013
Posted in Non-Fiction
Tags
attainted convicts, Australian history, Bernard Rochford, colonial Sydney, Newtown Ejectment Case, Nicholas Devine, Sydney land deals
This gallery contains 1 photo.
Forgery, drunkenness, prejudice, injustice – the notorious Newtown Ejectment Case of the 1850s provides a fascinating slice of colonial life. …
24 Tuesday Sep 2013
Posted in Non-Fiction
Tags
AFL, Andrea Stretton, Australian football, Emma Quayle, John Harms, Kate Eltham, Peter Schwab, Ramona Koval
This gallery contains 1 photo.
Footy – for spectators and participants – has the power to connect and the power to crush. There’s much to love in this …
20 Friday Sep 2013
Posted in The Godfather: Peter Corris
This gallery contains 1 photo.
Of my three favourite western films,* one was based on a novel, one was an adaptation of a foreign film …
18 Wednesday Sep 2013
Posted in Fiction
Tags
Australian history, Great Famine, Irish history, Irish immigrants to Australia, Jeff Kildea, women's lives
This gallery contains 1 photo.
Evelyn Conlon sidesteps the traps of historical fiction in this moving story of four young Irishwomen sent to Australia during …
17 Tuesday Sep 2013
Posted in Crime Scene
This gallery contains 2 photos.
Frank Swann PI moves through the wild and sometimes dangerous world of 1970s mining-boom-town Perth, and in the law courts …
13 Friday Sep 2013
Posted in The Godfather: Peter Corris
Tags
election day 2013, Get Up, Greens, Newtown, Socialist Alliance, Voluntary Euthanasia Party, voting with a disability
This gallery contains 1 photo.
I was worried about voting. My eyesight is poor and I’d heard that the ballot paper for the Senate, as …
12 Thursday Sep 2013
This gallery contains 1 photo.
Humans, trolls, bad governments and parallel worlds: Pratchett and Baxter offer a rich cast of characters and provocative ideas in …
10 Tuesday Sep 2013
Posted in Non-Fiction
This gallery contains 1 photo.
From convicts to mutineers to modern scandals, Robert Macklin taps the history of Norfolk Island. Robert Macklin has successfully woven …
Happy New Year to all our readers! The Newtown Review of Books is beginning 2014 in a new home: newtownreviewofbooks.com.au All of our …
I never liked teaching and unlike the people mentioned in a previous column I was no good at it. As …
Here are the answers to our Boxing Day quiz (no pun intended). How did you do? 1 Nicole Hayes’s YA novel …
Here’s a quiz, just for fun. Sport in Australian literature – not much, but some. How well do you know it? …
A refreshing anthology of the macabre, the uncanny and the downright scary. Melbourne-based writer and reviewer Angela Meyer has brought …
I frequent four pubs in Newtown. There are different reasons for my visiting them and each has a different atmosphere. …
The second volume of this epic fantasy is a clever and engrossing tale exploring cruelty, enslavement, magic and power. In …
Inspired by both his father’s experiences as a prisoner-of-war and the life of Weary Dunlop, Richard Flanagan’s new novel explores …
I’m not big on painting. I was notably quite without talent at it when at school. We had to submit …
This quietly powerful novella proves there’s still a lot to add to the asylum-seeker debate. It’s been more than a …
European high culture in unlikely Australian settings lies at the heart of these two novels by Australian poet Tom Shapcott. …
Again the NRB editors have invited me to nominate the best books I’ve read this year. As I explained in …
A natural disaster provokes emotional and ethical dilemmas for the characters in Kathryn Heyman’s new novel. We each have our …
In its pursuit of cool ideas, this diverse anthology – from essays to poetry to memoir – gives a fresh …
Many memoirs, perhaps especially by writers, acknowledge the roles played by teachers in the shaping of people’s careers. Sometimes the …
This passionate account of one woman’s engagement with the natural world is also a plea for conservation and rehabilitation. Under suburban …
The author of Gravity’s Rainbow takes on corporate greed, 9/11 and the dark unconscious of the internet; the result is …
An unusual book launch was held recently at Gleebooks, unusual in that three books were celebrated – novels by Michael …
Alien technology, interplanetary travel, Artificial Intelligence and the origin of the universe are among the many ideas explored in this …
The author of The Household Guide to Dying delivers a collection of short stories infused with hope. Debra Adelaide is …
After a lapse of quite a few years I’ve joined a gym again. My first gym was in Wollongong about …
A huge and occasionally chaotic canvas does not diminish the achievement of this dystopian trilogy. Dust is the long-awaited conclusion …
This anthology of essays, fiction, memoir and poetry contains some powerful and impassioned writing from some of Australia’s best-known writers. …
I used to get the news from a combination of reading the broadsheets, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian, …
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Interpreter of Maladies delivers a compelling family story of secrets, love and duty. The Lowland …
Garry Disher introduces a new character and Barry Maitland continues his successful Brock and Kolla series. Bitter Wash Road is …
Smells can powerfully evoke memories. I can’t smell night-blooming jasmine or pipe tobacco smoke without remembering places and people. Music …
Moneypenny, M, danger, sex and cigarettes; the self-indulgent, worldly tone: William Boyd’s James Bond gets it right. I imagine that writing a …
Glittering prizes, a fall from grace and the path to redemption – Barracuda is a complex novel of class, ethnicity and …
We set off at midday to catch a 1.15 train north after lunch at Central Station. We’d arranged for a …
A puzzling and unsettling book of short stories that plays games with popular tropes surrounding Islam, the Middle East and …
This novel of the aftermath of war, grief and library books is written with elegance and feeling. It’s 1948, and …
I suppose I’ve had a bit more experience of firearms than the average urbanite. When young I was an enthusiastic …
This true story outlines one woman’s battle against Australian bureaucracy to be reunited with her husband. In this book Robyn …
History seen through a tent flap: this view of post-settlement Australia is ‘alive and itchy’. The act of camping strips …
This is my 80th column for the NRB and time to reflect on the experience of column writing. I’ve had …
Award-winning novelist Chris Womersley delivers a provocative portrait of the artist as a young art thief. There is a sense …
The Dreyfus Case, notorious for its betrayals and anti-Semitism, inspires this new thriller from the author of Fatherland. In the …
In one of my novels I have Cliff Hardy remark that painless dentistry and being able to pause live television …
The Bone Season offers a parallel future of clairvoyants and alien races in a complex and vibrant thriller. This is …
This mesmerising and suspenseful novel examines isolation, trust and the vagaries of memory. Ruth Field and her cats reside in …
My eight-year-old grandson has recently expressed a preference for snow peas over avocado when required to eat something green. His …
Forgery, drunkenness, prejudice, injustice – the notorious Newtown Ejectment Case of the 1850s provides a fascinating slice of colonial life. …
Footy – for spectators and participants – has the power to connect and the power to crush. There’s much to love in this …
Of my three favourite western films,* one was based on a novel, one was an adaptation of a foreign film …
Evelyn Conlon sidesteps the traps of historical fiction in this moving story of four young Irishwomen sent to Australia during …
Frank Swann PI moves through the wild and sometimes dangerous world of 1970s mining-boom-town Perth, and in the law courts …
I was worried about voting. My eyesight is poor and I’d heard that the ballot paper for the Senate, as …
Humans, trolls, bad governments and parallel worlds: Pratchett and Baxter offer a rich cast of characters and provocative ideas in …
From convicts to mutineers to modern scandals, Robert Macklin taps the history of Norfolk Island. Robert Macklin has successfully woven …
The Newtown Review of Books 