Book Recommendations Archives

1. Blood Red Road The Dustland Series: Book 1 by Moira Young Loved this story! Saba’s world is so compelling, and the action scenes are superbly done. There were some moments (especially when Saba is cagefighting) when I was literally sitting on the edge of my seat, hunched over the book as my eyes scanned the page, almost tripping over words in my head from reading too fast as I hurried to fin... Read more

Serena Frome, the beautiful daughter of an Anglican bishop, has a brief affair with an older man during her final year at Cambridge, and finds herself being groomed for the intelligence service. The year is 1972. Britain, confronting economic disaster, is being torn apart by industrial unrest and terrorism and faces its fifth state of emergency. The Cold War has entered a moribund phase, but th... Read more

Vale Nora. You were one of those writers who sounded so confiding, so intimate that I thought of you as a friend I’d never met- and that was before Facebook exploited and devalued that concept. I loved Heartburn. Think it was the first novel I ever read that interrupted the narrative to give readers a recipe. What a trend that started! Can anyone remember any other novelist doing this before No... Read more

Booktopia is pleased to welcome Caroline Baum to the role of Editorial Director of our monthly newsletter the Booktopia BUZZ. Here is Caroline’s introduction from the BUZZ plus some of this month’s highlights. Some of the most compelling fiction published this month shares a common theme: violence, and its aftermath, the psychological scarring of war and upheaval pushing people to t... Read more

Christobel Kent’s latest offering in her Sandro Cellini series, The Dead Season, takes us to Florence during August with its unrelenting stifling heat. The novel is set among those left behind when the more affluent head to the coast for their summer holidays. Those familiar with other crime writers whose stories are based in Italy such as Dibden, Camilleri, Leon, Nabb, Pears and Hewson, will f... Read more

Whether you agree with Anthony Burgess  ‘Everybody knows now that Ulysses is the greatest novel of the century’ or feel as Virginia Woolf did ‘I . . . have been amused, stimulated, charmed interested by the first 2 or 3 chapters–to the end of the Cemetery scene; & then puzzled, bored, irritated, & disillusioned as by a queasy undergraduate scratching his pimples.... Read more

The book world sighs in unison. The dark matter of the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy has filled the void left by the dying star of paranormal teen fiction. Of course, publishers worldwide predicted this would happen. Right? Night always follows twilight. And it doesn’t get any darker than erotica. Makes sense. What we are witnessing is a natural progression from the muted, frustrated desir... Read more

Drip Drip Drop Trickle Splash In reviewing the latest and one of the greatest novels in Pulitzer-Prize winning writer Richard Ford’s literary career Canada, one is reminded of the simple turn of the tap, the water slowly seeping out before a sudden rush of brilliance, albeit the brilliance is also there in the wonderful beginning, only in more hushed tones. It’s been six years since Ford has re... Read more

Ears to the ground. Do you hear the gentle caress of a forearm to the face, the whimsical thud of a scrum engagement, the glorious stroke of leather boot on synthetic rubber? Yes Booktopians, here we are, halfway through another Rugby season, and with it mid-year tests for the Wallabies. Rugby has been a major force in the Australian sporting landscape for over a century with teams now based in... Read more

It has been a bizarre month in politics. We’ve seen a speaker talk (or text) about dud roots, an MP allege union officials used his hotel phone while he was in the shower and an opposition minister for business declare  he had the skin of a rhinoceros, the speed of a gazelle and was watching the opposition like a hawk (yes ladies and gentlemen, a one man menagerie voted in by the people f... Read more