Books

FOR THE LOVE OF NATURE: E. E. GOSTELOW’S BIRDS & FLOWERS BY CHRISTOBEL MATTINGLEY, NATIONAL LIBRARY OF AUSTRALIA, $29.95. An unexpected gem of a book, not just for the delicate colour plates of Australian wildflowers and birds, but for the story of the man who painted them. Born in 1866, Ebenezer Edward Gostelow was a […]

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD BY HARPER LEE, RANDOM HOUSE, $21.95. Fifty years old. Thirty million copies sold. Does Harper Lee’s classic of injustice and courage in a small town in the Deep South really warrant this celebratory edition? Can it be as good as we remember from school? Yes and even better. The familiar tale […]

A TINY BIT MARVELLOUS BY DAWN FRENCH, PENGUIN, $32.95. Families are the current Big Subject in fiction, so I was interested to check out UK comedian Dawn French’s first novel, which arrives with the tag, “Everyone hates the perfect family. So you’ll love the Battles”. Well, I didn’t love them at first. Written in the […]

THE ROMANTIC: ITALIAN NIGHTS AND DAYS BY KATE HOLDEN, TEXT PUBLISHING, $32.95. Plot-wise, Kate Holden’s latest memoir is a bit like the very dark sister of Eat, Pray, Love. A woman heads to Italy in search of romance, adventure and knowledge. She eats well, struggles with the language, has lots of great sex and constantly […]

STORIES OF LOVE & WAR BY REBECCA BRITT, NEW HOLLAND PUBLISHERS AUSTRALIA, $35. The pain of longing for a loved one is exquisite. Yet when that emotion is set against the backdrop of war, it is almost too heart-wrenching to contemplate. In this beautiful collection of love stories from The Australian War Memorial, author Rebecca […]

AN OBJECT OF BEAUTY BY STEVE MARTIN, WEIDENFELD & NICOLSON, $32.99. This is Steve Martin’s third novel and, Hollywood star status aside, he’s a pretty decent novelist. The setting is one close to his heart, if a little rarefied – the New York art scene. Yet he imbibes it with sass in the form of […]

SWAINSTON’S FISHES OF AUSTRALIA BY ROGER SWAINSTON, VIKING, $125. It may seem an odd choice for an artist, but once you see Roger Swainston’s gentle, mesmerising illustrations of Australia’s fish, you’ll understand immediately where this artist gets his inspiration. This is a big book and certainly a specialised one, but it’s also surprisingly captivating. Swainston […]

MURIEL SPARK: THE BIOGRAPHY BY MARTIN STANNARD, PHOENIX, $29.99. Muriel Spark was an imaginative child brought up in a bookless Edinburgh household in the 1920s. The curious 11-year-old laid the foundations for her best-selling 1961 novel, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, the moment she walked into Christina Kay’s classroom at the James Gillespie’s School […]

MY STORY BY DANNII MINOGUE, SIMON & SCHUSTER, $35. It’s tempting to scour little sis Dannii’s autobiography for headlining scraps about Kylie. And, of course, there is the time territorial Kylie sticks black tape down the middle of their shared childhood bedroom to keep her adoring sibling at bay and the time that Dannii ratted […]

GLORY GIRL BY PETER YELDHAM, PENGUIN, $32.95. It’s 1927, Sarah Carson is fearless, charismatic and determined to take part in the first flight from England to Australia. She makes a deal with pilot James Harrington that she can come on the flight. What follows is fame, love, tragedy and notoriety, with one of them even […]