Book

Smut by Alan Bennett, Faber & Faber, $24.95. British master Alan Bennett subtitles his latest Two Unseemly Stories, perfectly summing up these short peeks behind the suburban blind at the unconventional sexual lives of two apparently conventional, middle-aged women. For the widowed Mrs Donaldson, taking in lodgers to help make ends meet, it’s the offer […]

The Hare With Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal, Vintage $24.95. The book that sold itself is how I think of Hare. A word-of-mouth sensation, published last year but still selling strongly and dazzling readers wherever it goes. It’s a true but scarcely grabby plot: the author, a noted ceramicist, inherits his great uncle Iggy’s […]

All that I Am by Anna Funder, Hamish Hamilton, $32.95. Anna Funder’s long-awaited first novel has one of the great opening lines: When Hitler came to power I was in the bath. The place, Berlin; the year, 1933, and this homely image is a reminder of how mighty historical events can twist and destroy individual […]

Animal People by Charlotte Wood, Allen & Unwin, $29.99. Stephen is having a bad day. Another argument with his mum, a run-in with the neighbour’s dog, he skittles a pedestrian, then his bus seems to have a bomb on board. All this while tossing up which of the 50 ways he’ll choose to leave his […]

Far To Go By Alison Pick, Headline Fiction, $29.99 Even in retrospect, it’s almost impossible to comprehend evil on such a massive scale as Hitler’s Nazi Party. That inability explains a lot about why Jewish families such as Alison Pick’s fictional Bauers didn’t try to flee until it was much too late. Secular and wealthy, […]

Bertie Plays the BluesBy Alexander McCall Smith, NewSouthBooks, $29.95 If Precious Ramotswe of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency is the Alexander McCall Smith character I most admire, six-year-old Bertie Pollack is the one I most want to help. The latest of McCall Smith’s popular Scotland Street novels finally gives us a sliver of hope […]

The Cut By George Pelecanos, Orion, $32.99 Stephen King and Barack Obama are just two of George Pelecanos’ legion of fans. If you haven’t read him before, you might still know his work from the cult television hit The Wire — a gritty, understated, crime drama set in the gang-ridden streets of Baltimore. The Cut […]

The Sense Of An Ending By Julian Barnes, Random House, $29.95. Julian Barnes’ books seem to get shorter as he ages, but that doesn’t mean they’re any less engrossing. This one, more of a novella than a full-blown novel, has been long-listed for the Booker Prize and finds the author back in a contemplative mood. […]

The Doll: Short StoriesBy Daphne Du Maurier, Virago, $24.99. Published posthumously, these 13 forgotten short stories — penned by famed Jamaica Inn author Daphne Du Maurier, most of them when she was in her 20s — make for riveting, if somewhat shocking reading. The eponymousThe Dollis the scene-stealer: a macabre tension-filled tale of a man […]

You’ll Be Sorry When I’m Dead by Marieke Hardy, Allen & Unwin, $29.99. A threesome with a prostitute is a provocative way to open this brilliant new novel by Melbourne writer Marieke Hardy. Yet it is the chapters on her mundane life experiences that sparkle. Hardy quickly tires of prostitutes and dumps her boyfriend. From […]