Books

Me And Mr Bookerby Cory Taylor, Text, $32.95. Martha is a bored 16-year old desperate to escape the tedium of small-town Australian life. Mr Booker is the perfect and oh-so-obvious solution. He turns up in a slick white suit trailing smart lines, cigarette smoke and low-rent glamour — married, of course — and the book […]

Last Man In Tower by Aravind Adiga, Allen & Unwin, $32.99. If you’re looking for cheap thrills in snatched moments, this is not the book for you. Last Man In Tower powerfully rewards the time and attention of the patient reader. Adiga won the Booker prize for his darkly comic novel The White Tiger and […]

The Daughters Of Rome by Kate Quinn, Headline Review, $32.99. As members of one of ancient Rome’s most privileged families, the four Cornelii women have ringside seats to all the brutality, danger and passion of the bloodthirsty sports of the Coliseum. Yet, with Rome in turmoil, Marcella, Cornelia, Lollia and Diana are going to need […]

The End Of The Wasp Season by Denise Mina, Orion, $24.99. Evil Lars Anderson hangs himself from a tree on his criminally acquired country estate and his dark shadow hangs over his family and those unfortunate enough to meet them. Hundreds of miles away in a wealthy suburb of Glasgow, a young woman is viciously […]

Summer And The City: A Carrie Diaries Novel by Candace Bushnell, HarperCollins, $24.99. A 17-year-old Carrie Bradshaw leaves her small hometown to take on Manhattan, where she is determined to make it as a writer before the summer is over. In this sequel to The Carrie Diaries, we finally learn how Carrie meets Samantha and […]

No Regrets Edith Piaf by Carolyn Burke, Bloomsbury, $32.99. “There has never been anyone like her; there never will be … ” wrote long-time platonic friend Jean Cocteau of Edith Piaf, “… her Bonaparte-like forehead, her eyes like those of a blind person trying to see … a voice that rises up from deep within, […]

The Girl In The Polka Dot Dress by Beryl Bainbridge, Hachette, $29.99. This is the novel British author Beryl Bainbridge was writing in the last decade of her life and right up to the moment she died in July last year. At her bedside was Brendan King, who had edited many of her 17 novels […]

When My Husband Does The Dishes by Kerri Sackville, Ebury, $32.95. Billed as what marriage looks like after three children and 150 years of togetherness, this memoir will have you giggling all the way to the laundry basket. Kerri Sackville is a 40-something wife, mother and writer. While she loves her husband The Architect, admiring […]

A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, $35. I first read A Suitable Boy when I was 12 years old and it was at this time that I became fascinated with India and its rich culture. Set in post-independence India, it explores the lives of various characters and how they adapt to this […]

Pop Star: Book 3 — Dork Diaries by Rachel Renée Russell, $14.99. Looking for a book for young readers? Fourteen-year-old Nikki Maxwell, self-confessed dork, must navigate the perils of a posh new school and the CPP (cute, cool and popular) group led by cruel queen-bee Mackenzie. Along the way, she finds friends, gains confidence and […]