Book Recommendations Archives

Our Everything Lavish collection is a range of stunning titles to make you tremble, drool and sigh with envy.  From the breathtaking marine photography of  Sea to the exquisitely sensual anthology Reflections to cheeky familiarity of The Complete Collection of Calvin and Hobbes, these are books you will want to run your fingers over again and again. Read more

Frank Moorhouse author of The Edith Trilogy – Grand Days, Dark Palace and now, Cold Light, reveals The 5 best novels I’ve read are… Liber Amoris or The New Pygmalion by William Hazlitt, 1823. Frank Moorhouse: One critic has looked at the reception this book received and said, ‘seldom in literary history has a small work evoked such resolute hostility and aversion’. The critic, Cyril Conno... Read more

With historical must-reads from Peter FitzSimons on Sir Douglas Mawson, to the brilliant fiction that is Elliot Perlman's The Street Sweeper, to highly anticipated autobiographies from cricket fast bowler Brett Lee and Tour de France Green Jersey winner Robbie McEwen you will have all your Christmas gifts covered Read more

Adriana Koulias author of The Sixth Key, The Seal and Temple of the Grail reveals… The 5 best novels I read this year are… The Painter of Battles By Arturo Perez Reverte Adriana: A retired war photographer lives in a crumbling tower by the sea. He is spending his last days trying to depict on the tower’s interior wall a vast circular mural of war in which landscapes and history fuse together to... Read more

What a cracker of an edition I have for you for December. How is this for a line-up? Gifts, give-aways and goodies to win include an amazing high quality Ken Duncan signed and numbered print valued at nearly $2,000 to be won by a purchaser of Australia: Our Island Paradise Read more

What I do get to do however, is to sample a LOT of books, and I get to fall in love with a few. And the few that take me to a different place, more than make up for the rest of the 450 on that list that made me want to go out and re-plant the trees. So here they are, my top picks for 2011, for those of you for whom Morrissey and Reilly just don't cut it. Read more

At the end of the day, once you finish The Freudian Slip you’ll most likely be asking yourself the same question that has been niggling at me since I flipped the last page. Where is my time machine? Read more

Thank goodness Miegunyah – an imprint of Melbourne University Press – who have the very cool slogan, Books With Spine – have begun republishing the works of Christina Stead. We need to be reminded that Australia used to produce artists of genius. And it might just encourage our present crop of writers to either give up or to aim higher. Your home library needs these three titl... Read more

Caroline Overington author of Matilda is Missing, I Came To Say Goodbye and Ghost Child reveals… The 5 best novels I read this year are… The Spare Room by Helen Garner Blurb: Helen lovingly prepares her spare room for her friend Nicola. She is coming to visit for three weeks, to receive treatment she believes will cure her cancer. From the moment Nicola staggers off the plane, gaunt and hoarse ... Read more

Monica McInerney author of Lola’s Secret, A Taste for It, Upside Down Inside Out, Spin the Bottle, The Alphabet Sisters, Family Baggage, All Together Now, Those Faraday Girls and At Home with the Templetons reveals… The 5 best books I read this year are… How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran I have to put this in… This is how Caitlan described her book, How To be a Woman, when answering our ... Read more