Books

The new Junior MasterChef judge dishes up some morsels about herself When I was little I wanted to be a member of ABBA. My favourite cooking ingredient is lemon. I love listening to Ry Cooder when I’m cooking. I can’t cook brains – they gross me out! At school my favourite subjects were cooking and […]

Two young lovers – one Indian, one Welsh – fall in love, sparking a lifetime of challenges, children and courageous rebellion, with a vow to “rattle the cage of the world”. The Salman Rushdie endorsement on the cover does this charming, gentle love story a disservice. Not because it isn’t “captivating”, as Rushdie notes – […]

Indelible Ink, BY FIONA MCGREGOR, SCRIBE, $32.95 A late-life divorce leaves Marie King with a large house on Sydney’s North Shore, a horribly judgmental brood of adult children and a growing dependence on white goods and alcohol. So far, so predictable – until the day, on impulse, she gets her first tattoo. Then another. She […]

NOMAD , BY AYAAN HIRSI ALI, HARPERCOLLINS, $35. Just 40 years old this year, Somali-born Ayaan Hirsi Ali has already lived many lives: the dutiful Muslim daughter, who was hideously “circumcised” at five; the young woman who fled from an arranged marriage; and the conservative Dutch politician. Ali has been called brave, but also a […]

THE LACUNA BY BARBARA KINGSOLVER, FABER & FABER, $23.99. A lacuna is a blank space, like the missing part of a jigsaw, and a title well-chosen for this fascinating novel and winner of the 2010 Orange Prize. It tells the story of dreamy young Harrison – son of a flamboyant Mexican mother and largely absent […]

THE SNOWMAN BY JO NESBØ, RANDOM HOUSE, $32.95. “Guaranteed cooler than Stieg Larsson,” says the cover sticker. Who could resist? Nesbø is Norway’s gun crime writer and with this – his fifth novel to be translated into English – he has broken big, proving there’s life in the old serial-killer genre yet. Distinguishing this one […]

THE LAST LETTER FROM YOUR LOVER BY JOJO MOYES, HODDER & STOUGHTON, $32.99. The Last Letter From Your Lover is a perfectly executed love story. It weaves together two tales: that of present-day journalist Ellie and wealthy 1960s housewife Jennifer. Ellie is in a less-than-perfect relationship with a married man when she discovers a beautiful […]

THE INVISIBLE BRIDGE BY JULIE ORRINGER, VIKING, $32.95. Hate, war and the machine of corrupt bureaucracy take Julie Orringer’s finely drawn characters and fling them cruelly into the hands of fate. The Invisible Bridge begins in 1937, when sensitive student Andras Levi leaves Budapest to study architecture in Paris. His financial struggles and the difficulties […]

THE RED QUEEN BY PHILIPPA GREGORY, SIMON & SCHUSTER, $36. We all love a Tudor and since, for the time being, we’ve bled Henry VIII and his wives and daughters dry, we turn to his paternal grandmother, Margaret Beaufort. At age 14, she gave birth to the last male of the once mighty House of […]

THE BOTTICELLI SECRET BY MARINA FIORATO, ALLEN & UNWIN, $32.99. A man and a young woman race to decode the secrets of a painting, while pitched against a powerful secret society and trailed by a freakish assassin. Yes, it’s all a bit The Da Vinci Code, but The Botticelli Secret is a lot more fun […]