The Book of Lies by Mary Horlock, Text Publishing, $32.95. Like many 15-year-old girls, Catherine Rozier has a flare for the dramatic and a loose association with the truth, so did she really, as she claims, kill her best friend? It’s 1985 and Catherine lives on the island of Guernsey, a place that suffered terribly […]

The Stranger’s Child by Alan Hollinghurst, Picador, $32.99. Seven years after British author Alan Hollinghurst won the Booker Prize, his follow-up novel displays much of that playful quality of writing and engrossing acuteness of characterisation, but in a new world which spans several decades. This well-made tale starts just before the World War I and […]

Pictures Of You by Caroline Leavitt, Allen & Unwin, $27.99. There’s something rather satisfying about a book you can’t instantly classify, that can’t be neatly filed away as a romance, a mystery or an emotional drama. That is the very joy you’ll find in Pictures Of You, which magically combines all three. The tipping point […]

A Field Full of Butterflies: Memories of a Romany Childhood by Rosemary Penfold, Orion, $22.99. When Rosemary Penfold’s mother left her “gadje” (non-roaming) life to marry a Romany, who could not read or write, she never looked back. “We were her life,” writes UK-born gypsy Rosemary, now 73, who along with her three brothers, was […]

Boat People: Personal Stories From The Vietnamese Exodus 1975-1996 edited By Carina Hoang, Freemantle Press, $45. In 1979, Carina Hoang, then 16, fled her Vietnamese homeland with her younger brother and sister in a 25-metre wooden boat crammed with 373 others. They were part of the greatest mass exodus in human history as 1.5 million […]

IMPROby Keith Johnstone, Bloomsbury Publishing, $29.95 The improvisation training I did in my 20s has made me the performer I am today. It taught me to be open, to listen, to act with spontaneity. The book that literally changed my life in this domain was, and still is,IMPROby Keith Johnstone. He’s a teacher with great […]

The Vault by Ruth Rendell, Random House, $32.95. Ruth Rendell’s latest outing sees the return of her much-loved detective Inspector Wexford. Now retired, Wexford is enjoying the quiet life with his wife and his books, until a chance meeting with an old acquaintance on a London street sees him drawn into a case involving the […]

Jessica was diagnosed with cancer in 2008 at age 22. After leaving her job to focus on her health, she now spends her time learning everything she can about healing. Here are her six tips on helping your body to fight cancer. “It’s cancer”. These are two words you never want to hear, but with […]

Not all fat is bad. Fats are an essential part of healthy eating so it’s good for you to eat a certain amount of the healthier fats. Here we clarify the differences between healthy and unhealthy fats and the foods you need to try to include in your diet and those you should avoid. A […]

If you suffer from nightmares the problem could lie with when you hit the hay, after scientists find that night owls have a greater chance of experiencing nightmares. A preliminary study suggests that night owls, people who go to sleep later, are more prone to bad dreams, but the reason for this remains unclear with […]