Book

To Be Sung Underwater by Tom McNeal, Little, Brown, $29.99. Judith Whitman believes in the sort of love that “picks you up in Akron, Ohio, and sets you down in Rio de Janeiro”. Yet after finding just that kind of love as a teenager, she ended up marrying someone else instead. Now in her 40s, […]

He is best known as a comedian, but now Anh Do has cemented his place in Australia’s literary scene, taking out the top prize at the Australian Book Industry Awards. Do’s novel The Happiest Refugee was named book of the year at Monday night’s award ceremony in Melbourne. The book explores his family’s journey to […]

Florence Broadhurst: Her Secret & Extraordinary Lives by Helen O’Neill, Hardie Grant, $69.95. Helen O’Neill’s sumptuous coffee table book on Australia’s home design queen Florence Broadhurst first came out in 2006 and this new deluxe edition is bigger with much more of a design focus. Aficionados will notice more of Broadhurst’s signature prints and patterns […]

Blue Monday by Nicci French, Michael Joseph, $29.99. Nicci French is actually the pseudonym of UK crime writing husband and wife duo Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, and while the split personality of their voice is not immediately apparent, the duo’s books certainly benefit from the carefully crafted pace changes and character analyses that you […]

The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht, Orion, $29.99. There are two tigers in this book. One is a semi-mythical creature that lives in the jungles surrounding the old Balkan village of Galina, an object of superstition, fear and dangerous gossip. It features in many of the stories told to a young doctor, Natalia, by her […]

When God Was A Rabbit by Sarah Winman, Hachette, $29.99. I was a bit nervous about a book featuring a talking rabbit, especially when young Elly, the narrator, names her pet “God”. Whimsical charm can curdle awfully easily. Yet Winman is one clever (debut) author. In two parts over 40 years — from the revolutions […]

The Wreckage by Michael Robotham, Sphere, $32.99. He’s mastered the psychological thriller. Now, with his seventh novel, set amid the wreckage of the recent global financial meltdown, Robotham stretches the canvas to take in money, power and international conspiracy. In Baghdad, prize-winning journalist Luca Terracini is risking his life to chase a story about the […]

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 […]