There’s nothing tame about this bunch. This month is all about extremes. Extremes of desire, of  behaviour, of crisis situations, of people tested to the limits of desire, survival, transgression and boundaries crossed. Find out how far you’d be prepared to go. Live dangerously. Pick up a book. N.B. Caroline Baum and former Buzz editor, Toni Whitmont, will be chairing sessions at a ... Read more

HEAVY HITTER OF 2012 BRING UP THE BODIES  by Hilary Mantel What is there left to say? I just wanted to join the chorus of universal admiration for the second volume of Mantel’s remarkable feat of embodying Henry Vlll’s chief strategist, Thomas Cromwell. Like many, I found it easier to read than Wolf Hall, because the narrative treads more familiar ground (the waning of Anne Boleyn’s power and H... Read more

What’s your take on coincidence? Sometimes it’s hard not to ask yourself how themes and ideas come to share  the same moment in the ether… so when I read Courtney Collins’ The Burial this month, a remarkable début novel based on the true story of a female bushranger, swiftly followed by Amanda Coplin’s The Orchardist, another very polished first novel from the US, ... 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