Book Recommendations Archives

Bestselling author Khaled Hosseini returns to our shelves with his hugely anticipated third novel. On the eve of its release, Booktopia’s Andrew Cattanach casts an eye over it. Maya Angelou once said “The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise”. Whether Khaled Hosseini has heard that sage advice is unlikely. That he shares the same view,... Read more

Booktopia’s Andrew Cattanach has thrown himself into Dan Brown’s latest blockbuster. Read what he thought of all the hype . (Scroll to the bottom to see the three lucky people receiving copies signed by Dan Brown). How peculiar a world that seems content to throw billions of dollars at Adam Sandler dressing up as a woman to play his twin sister, yet derides an author because they of... Read more

“I don’t find writing romance restrictive. I find it liberating.” Mills & Boon author Michelle Douglas tells us why she loves being a romance author and reader. The romance genre speaks to me more than any other genre and I’ve wondered about this a lot. One of the reasons, perhaps, is that at heart romance is about joy and there are so few books out there that deal in joy. Please don’t thin... Read more

In the lead up to the 2013 Sydney Writer’s Festival we’ll be featuring a few of the key events we’re really looking forward to. We’ve also highlighted some great books to prepare you before basking in the warm glow of the festival. Here’s a couple of events that caught our eye… Read more

Booktopia’s Editorial Director Caroline Baum lets us in on her amazing bookish US adventure Good to see Anna Funder settled in Park Slope, Brooklyn, in a street that feels like something out of Henry James. It was used to shoot a TV adaptation of Dickens’ A Winter’s Tale a few months ago, and they laid down fake snow. Each house has an individual gas lamp in its front yard. I have no idea... Read more

Sofia Coppola only deals in great stories. The daughter of immortal director Francis Ford Coppola, her eye for simmering trauma underneath otherwise perfect lives has redefined contemporary film making. From the whimsical mystery of her 1999 debut The Virgin Suicides (adapted from the Jeffrey Eugenides novel of the same same) to her award-winning film masterpiece Lost In Translation, the tragic... Read more

Booktopia’s Head of Romance Haylee Nash ponders her vicarious rebellious streak. When I was small, I was the good girl. My parents love to recount how, even as a baby, I was always content. They would go out to dinner with friends and happily take me along, knowing I would sleep quietly in my carrier (once so quiet that they nearly left me there). When I got to talking age, I would happil... Read more

In the lead up to the 2013 Sydney Writer’s Festival we’ll be featuring a few of the key events we’re really looking forward to. We’ve also highlighted some great books to prepare you before basking in the warm glow of the festival. Here’s a couple of events that caught our eye… Read more

There’s nothing quite as nostalgia-inducing as first love. Get any random group of female friends and throw in a few bottles of wine and chances are first love will come up. Chances are this discussion will lead to the discussion of other firsts – the first time you had sex, the first time you moved out, first car. Kate Belle’s The Yearning explores, in a way that is both raw and poetic, a firs... Read more

The shortlist for this year’s Miles Franklin Literary Award features five books by Australian women, with this year’s winner due to receive $60,000, up from $50,000 last year. Last year’s award was presented to Anna Funder for All That I Am. This year’s shortlist features three debut novels—Floundering by Romy Ash, The Beloved by Annah Faulkner and The Mountain by Drusilla Modjeska—and one prev... Read more