Now to Love

As Neil Sedaka sang, breaking up is hard to do — but not if you live in China. For a mere $30, Chinese lotharios can now hire a complete stranger to dump their partners for them. The past few months have seen a boom in ‘break-up proxy’ websites that help timid customers end their romances […]

Singer Celine Dion was presented with an awkward situation when she learned a man had broken into her home, raided her fridge and run a “nice warmish bath”, according to police. A 36-year-old man was arrested after allegedly breaking into the singer’s luxury Montreal home, located in the suburb of Laval, which police were alerted […]

US mum Christie Haskell has treated her son’s hyper activity with a controversial treatment — two cups of coffee a day. Although her son Rowan has not been officially diagnosed with ADHD, Christie says she wants to steer clear of prescription medication treatment like Ritalin. So, she went online to look for an alternative and […]

The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson, Picador, $32.99. Remember Al “Chainsaw” Dunlap? The Packer family’s corporate cost-cutter of the early ’90s? Well, he’s exhibit A in Jon Ronson’s new investigation into the madness industry — specifically, whether many leading CEOs and politicians are in fact diagnosable psychopaths. Lord knows how Ronson persuaded him but he […]

Amexica: War Along The Borderline by Ed Vulliamy, Random House, $35. A tough, gritty — and most disturbingly, true — report from the Mexican-US border, where drug cartels wage war on each other, and anyone gets in their way. More than 28,000 have been killed since the official war on drugs was declared five years […]

Gilgamesh by Joan London, Random House, $23.95. This is an oldie-but-goody, recommended with such enthusiasm by a fellow reader I felt I had to give it a go — and so enjoyed the experience I am now passing it on. Drawing on the epic of Gilgamesh, the world’s oldest known poem, it is both a […]

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, Corsair, $24.95. “Time’s a goon, right? You gonna let that goon push you around?” As if anyone can stop the clock. This exciting novel, winner of this year’s Pulitzer Prize for fiction, takes us on a wild ride across 40 years in the lives and loves, […]

Until Thy Wrath Be Past by Asa Larsson, Quercus, $32.99 The first chapter of Until Thy Wrath Be Past is so shockingly powerful, beautiful and terrifying, I forgot to breathe. It sat on the bedside table as I took a few deep inhalations before I could continue, but once picked up again it was only […]

A Decline in Prophets by Sulari Gentill, Pantera Press, $29.99. Travel back in time to 1932 and book yourself a first-class suite on the luxurious passenger liner RMS Aquitania, but take care, for among your fellow well-heeled passengers is an elegant ruthless killer. Also travelling the seas in style is wealthy young Australian pastoralist and […]

The Girl From Baghdad by Michelle Nouri, William Heinemann Australia, $29.95. Born to a wealthy Iraqi father and a beautiful Czech mother, Michelle Nouri experienced the best and worst of Saddam Hussein’s Baghdad and Communist Eastern Europe. From her spoiled childhood as her father’s princess to her grotty Prague flat, Michelle’s true life story has […]