Books

Trick Of The Dark, BY VAL MCDERMID, LITTLE BROWN, $32.99. Val McDermid is a master of the complex crime thriller and her latest combines flawless, suspense-filled storytelling with a sharp contemporary eye on human behaviour and relationships, which culminate in possibly her most menacing, emotional whodunnit yet. Oxford University in England (where Scottish journalist and […]

BY NIGHTFALL, BY MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM, FOURTH ESTATE, $27.99. Manhattan art dealer Peter Harris is struggling with the kind of concerns only the rich can afford to contemplate at length. Am I happy? What is art? What is beauty? Pulitzer Prize-winning author (for The Hours), Michael Cunningham, writes so exquisitely it’s almost possible to forgive his […]

MINI SHOPAHOLIC, SOPHIE KINSELLA, BANTAM PRESS, $32.95. Beguiling Becky Bloomwood Brandon has many fans. She’s shopped her way through five successful books and her sixth is more of the same kind-hearted blundering and insatiable purchasing. Becky now has a two-year-old daughter, Minnie, in tow and, worryingly, she’s almost like her shopaholic mother. Becky is struggling […]

AT HOME WITH THE TEMPLETONS, BY MONICA MCINERNEY, MICHAEL JOSEPH, $32.95. The Templetons are a feckless, charming English family of seven and they’ve just moved into a stately home in rural Australia. They seem to have it all, especially in the eyes of neighbour Nina Donovan, a lonely young widow with a robust son, Tom. […]

BLUE HEAVEN, BY C.J. BOX, ALLEN & UNWIN, $22.99. If you like Clint Eastwood movies, you will love Blue Heaven. It’s a story that’s just waiting to star and be directed by the movie icon. Twelve-year-old Annie and her brother, William, sick of their mother’s boyfriend, take off to go fishing in the woods. There, […]

Fall Of Giants, BY KEN FOLLETT, PAN MACMILLAN, $49.99. Ken Follett is perhaps best known for his two historical novels, Pillars Of The Earth and World Without End. And his reputation as a master storyteller is again confirmed. It is the first in the Century Trilogy and introduces the reader to the five families whose […]

A Darker Music, BY MARIS MORTON, SCRIBE, $32.95 To budding authors out there, it’s heartening to see that teacher and artist Maris Morton was 72 when she snatched the inaugural CAL Scribe Fiction Prize 2010 (awarded to an unpublished manuscript by an Australian writer over the age of 35). Her novel is a “derring dip” […]

If you thought these kids were kitchen whizzes wait until you discover their other secret talents. CASSIDY Sports star: Overachieving Cassidy might have mastered the art of chicken and mushroom risotto but her other passion is sport. A fan of 2009 AFL Premiership winners Geelong, this 12-year-old only child is a title holder in her […]

Funny girls Jane Turner and Gina Riley will bring their Kath and Kim characters to life in a new live show. The comic duo will headline Sydney’s World’s Funniest Island comedy festival at Cockatoo Island on October 16 and 17 joining a line-up including Wil Anderson, the Umbilical Brothers and Julia Morris. Event organiser John […]

The youngest stars of the hit cook-off tell Lucy Chesterton how they became mini kitchen whizzes. While most kids dream of a cake on their birthday, the clever batch of Junior MasterChefs – including the youngest contestants, Nick and Siena – are far more interested in making their own. In fact, when Junior MasterChef star […]