Review
Eight great new reads to soak up in the sunshine
Our reviewers cast their eyes over recently published fiction and non-fiction.
- by Cameron Woodhead and Steven Carroll
Latest
Plenty of facts, truth, and good stories: New non-fiction releases for your to-read list
There is a host of big non-fiction books appearing in the next couple of months.
- by Nicole Abadee
This spy novel is really not bad, but why was it written?
There’s a feeling of deja vu in William Boyd’s new espionage novel set in Africa during the Cold War.
- by Malcolm Knox
The Blackman family letters paint a picture of a cultural moment
The letters between Charles and Barbara Blackman capture a decade in Australia’s cultural life.
- by Chloe Wolifson
Walking a tightrope during Stalin’s reign of terror
The protagonist of Malcolm Knox’s new novel is an old chum of Lavrentiy Beria, one of the most sadistic of Stalin’s colleagues.
- by Daniel Herborn
What to read: A documentary novel about the pandemic, and the joys of trees
Our reviewers cast their eyes over recently published fiction and non-fiction.
- by Cameron Woodhead and Fiona Capp
Escaping the bonds of class and ‘the heterosexual dictatorship’
Christopher Isherwood is best known as the creator of the Berlin stories that were turned into the play, musical and film, Cabaret. But there was more to his life than that.
- by Owen Richardson
Welcome to the season for big novels from big names
September marks the beginning of the peak publishing season. Here is a selection of the novels coming from here and overseas in the next couple of months.
- by Nicole Abadee
Someone used the Maori chef’s knives for murder, but was it him?
J.P. Pomare’s latest crime novel uncovers the role racism plays in the criminal justice system.
- by Sue Turnbull
In the air with the man who hunted Hitler’s giant battleship
When Mark Baker writes about the operational activities of the men who sank the Tirpitz, his book really flies.
- by Edmund Goldrick
How the death of his brother left this writer unmoored
When Gideon Haigh’s brother died he was utterly bereft. Now he has written about how the tragedy changed his life.
- by Peter Craven