Book Recommendations Archives

Amy Winehouse needs no introduction. A critically acclaimed recording artist, she touched millions with her music during her short but extraordinary life. Following her tragic death in July 2011, Mitch Winehouse wants to tell her incredible story in full. AMY, MY DAUGHTER will take the reader through her mischievous early years, her rise to stardom and to her much publicised struggles with addi... Read more

Dial M for Murdoch: News Corporation and the Corruption of Britain Dial M for Murdoch gives the first connected account of the wrongdoing over the last decade at News International, and the extraordinary lengths to which its parent company, News Corporation, went to ‘put the problem in a box’ (in James Murdoch’s words), how its efforts to maintain and extend its power were aid... Read more

The Orange Prize for Fiction Shortlist 2012 Esi Edugyan – Half Blood Blues This is a new part of an old story: 1930s Berlin, the threat of imprisonment and the powerful desire to make something beautiful despite the horror. Chip told us not to go out. Said, don’t you boys tempt the devil. But it been one brawl of a night, I tell you. The aftermath of the fall of Paris, 1940. Hierony... Read more

Film of Stephenie Meyer‘s The Host is set for release in March 2013. From the Publisher: The SUNDAY TIMES and NEW YORK TIMES bestseller – well over ONE MILLION copies in print worldwide. Melanie Stryder refuses to fade away. The earth has been invaded by a species that takes over the minds of their human hosts while leaving their bodies intact, and most of humanity has succumbed. Wa... Read more

  J.K. Rowling has just announced her new novel for adults, The Casual Vacancy. It will be released on September 27, 2012. Pre-order now Publisher’s blurb: When Barry Fairweather dies unexpectedly in his early forties, the little town of Pagford is left in shock. Seemingly an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, what lies behind the pretty facade is a tow... Read more

The Lifeboat is a daring and adventurous novel set just before the First World War. It begins in a courtroom, where an enigmatic young woman named Grace Sachs is on trial; in flashback, we learn why… A powerful tale set at the turn of the twentieth century, The Lifeboat is the story of Grace Sachs, an enigmatic young woman whose life is forever altered when the ocean liner on which she is... Read more

I have just finished Charlotte Wood’s Love and Hunger and urge everyone to read it, especially those who must cook every night and resent it, or avoids cooking when they can because they consider it a chore. This book has the power to reignite a passion for life, friendship, food and the everyday. Part memoir and part recipe book, Love and Hunger can be read cover to cover, as I did, just... Read more

 The Hunger Games trilogy is about a girl called Katniss Everdeen. It is set in the future, where the capitol has power over all 12 districts. Every year the capitol reaps 24 children; 12 girls and 12 boys, they enter a danger filled arena, and only one child can conquer the rest, and become a victor. The Hunger Games trilogy is a great series, which has so many different aspects. Adventure, my... Read more

The Hanging Garden may just change the way Patrick White is thought of by Australian readers. For many years now, the mere mention of his name has sent shivers down readers’ spines. Granted, for a small percentage of readers, these were the shivers of ecstasy but for the vast majority they were aroused by fear, dread and, for some, loathing. Australia’s only recipient of the Nobel Prize for Lit... Read more

So fairytales are pretty hot right now. If that seems like a ridiculous sentence, consider the fact that we have not one, but two “Snow White” movies set to hit the big screen this year. It seems like all of a sudden the world had gone bonkers for stories about fairytale princesses living happily ever after. I blame Kate Middleton. Still, having suffered from a pretty serious fairytale addictio... Read more