Book

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 […]

The End Of The Wasp Season by Denise Mina, Orion, $24.99. Evil Lars Anderson hangs himself from a tree on his criminally acquired country estate and his dark shadow hangs over his family and those unfortunate enough to meet them. Hundreds of miles away in a wealthy suburb of Glasgow, a young woman is viciously […]

Summer And The City: A Carrie Diaries Novel by Candace Bushnell, HarperCollins, $24.99. A 17-year-old Carrie Bradshaw leaves her small hometown to take on Manhattan, where she is determined to make it as a writer before the summer is over. In this sequel to The Carrie Diaries, we finally learn how Carrie meets Samantha and […]

No Regrets Edith Piaf by Carolyn Burke, Bloomsbury, $32.99. “There has never been anyone like her; there never will be … ” wrote long-time platonic friend Jean Cocteau of Edith Piaf, “… her Bonaparte-like forehead, her eyes like those of a blind person trying to see … a voice that rises up from deep within, […]

The Girl In The Polka Dot Dress by Beryl Bainbridge, Hachette, $29.99. This is the novel British author Beryl Bainbridge was writing in the last decade of her life and right up to the moment she died in July last year. At her bedside was Brendan King, who had edited many of her 17 novels […]

When My Husband Does The Dishes by Kerri Sackville, Ebury, $32.95. Billed as what marriage looks like after three children and 150 years of togetherness, this memoir will have you giggling all the way to the laundry basket. Kerri Sackville is a 40-something wife, mother and writer. While she loves her husband The Architect, admiring […]

A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, $35. I first read A Suitable Boy when I was 12 years old and it was at this time that I became fascinated with India and its rich culture. Set in post-independence India, it explores the lives of various characters and how they adapt to this […]

Pop Star: Book 3 — Dork Diaries by Rachel Renée Russell, $14.99. Looking for a book for young readers? Fourteen-year-old Nikki Maxwell, self-confessed dork, must navigate the perils of a posh new school and the CPP (cute, cool and popular) group led by cruel queen-bee Mackenzie. Along the way, she finds friends, gains confidence and […]

For your chance to win lunch with the Queen of Crime, Lynda La Plante go to http://www.lunchwithlynda.com.au Q and A with Lynda La Plante She fainted at her first post-mortem, visited a Russian morgue where bodies were strung up naked, and almost tried her hand at prostitution for a night, all in the name of […]

When a Perth family set out on a two-year round-the-world trip on a catamaran, they didn’t count on being shipwrecked on a remote island in the Pacific. Sue Williams recounts their adventures. Lashed by nine-metre waves and brutal winds in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, Jennifer Barrie and her husband, Andrew, fought desperately to […]

Before I Go To Sleep by S.J. Watson, Text Publishing, $32.95. Every morning, Christine wakes in an unfamiliar bedroom next to a man she doesn’t recognise, with no idea how she got there. Alarmed, ashamed — she can see his wife’s clothes — she goes to the mirror and sees a woman 25 years older […]

Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks, HarperCollins, $32.99. Geraldine Brooks has a rare gift for unearthing small, overlooked historical facts which she then shapes and spins into great human stories. She’s done it three times already (with Year of Wonders, March, and People of the Book) and excels with this, her fourth. The nugget this time […]

The Butterfly Cabinet by Bernie McGill, Hachette, $29.99. The first chapter sets up the classic elements of fiction. A fortress-like castle on an isolated Irish headland. A proud, wealthy family shattered by their young daughter’s death. An old retainer who finds the black-bound diary her Mistress wrote in prison and decides, finally, she must tell […]

Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane, Little, Brown, $32.99. Eleven years ago, at the end of Lehane’s Gone, Baby, Gone, hard-bitten private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro faced a terrible moral dilemma: should they “rescue” missing four-year Amanda McCready if it means taking her away from loving and safe carers and returning her to the […]

Damn You, Scarlett O’Hara by Darwin Porter and Roy Moseley, BloodMoon Productions, $39.95. It’s a wonder Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh found time to become two of the greatest actors of the 20th century, it seems they were busier in the bedroom than on the stage or screen, and not necessarily with each other. Olivier […]

The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party by Alexander McCall Smith, Little, Brown, $34.99. What a joy to catch up once again with our old fictional friend Precious Ramotswe, and the small mysteries and daily dramas of life in Botswana. Readers familiar with the No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency will be thrilled to spot this latest instalment, […]

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain, Virago, $29.99. Until she was 28 years old, shy, sheltered Hadley Richardson lived an unremarkable life in suburban Missouri. But in 1920 she met a young aspiring writer, married and moved to a tiny flat in Paris. Her husband was a big drinking man of big ambitions, and his […]

Water For Elephantsby Sara Gruen, Allen & Unwin, $24.99. Orphaned and broke, just as the Great Depression begins to bite, veterinary student Jacob Jankowski runs away to join the dirty glamour of a travelling circus. There, among the weird and wonderful characters of the Benzini Bros’ Most Spectacular Show on Earth, Jacob finds two great […]

Franklin And Eleanor: An Extraordinary Marriage by Hazel Rowley, MUP, $36.99. Fifth generation cousins, once removed, the famously acronymed FDR (Franklin Delano Roosevelt) and wife Eleanor left indelible impressions on US generations serving four terms (1933-1945) as US President and First Lady. In this definitive biography, Hazel Rowley packs in just as much as the […]

My Sister Lives On the Mantelpiece by Annabel Pitcher, Orion Children’s Books, $24.99. In the book industry they’re known as “crossovers” — books written for a young adult audience which are so well constructed and intelligently pitched that they are just as captivating to an adult audience. Harry Potter started the onslaught, but My Sister […]

Moth to the Flame, by Joy Dettman, Pan Macmillan Australia, $32.99. “You’re an interesting study, kiddo. You’ve got a 40-year-old seamstress’s hands, the look of a Botticelli angel and you play cards like a mafia boss …” Country Victorian author Joy Dettman knows how to write strong women, and 22-year-old mother of three illegitimate children, […]

Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult, Allen & Unwin, $32.99. Once upon a time, there was only one way for babies to come into being. Now IVF, sperm donation and surrogacy have opened up a brave new world, where a child with two mums is no longer a rarity. Jodi Picoult’s latest novel focuses on […]

Notebooks by Betty Churcher, Miegunyah Press, $44.99 She was known as “Betty Blockbuster” when she was the director of the National Gallery of Australia because of her passion for bringing great international art to our shores. And when in 2003 Betty Churcher discovered she was losing her eyesight she set off on a global pilgrimage […]

Hypnotist by Lars Kepler, HarperCollins, $29.99. Riddled with irresistible, nail-biting suspense, this first-class Scandinavian thriller is one of the best I’ve ever read! When a Stockholm family is brutally murdered, surviving son, Josef Ek, remains seriously injured in hospital and in no condition to be questioned by police. Retired hypnotist, Erik Maria Bark, reluctantly agrees […]

The Andren Report by Peter Andren, Scribe, $30. Peter was my first boss at Prime TV in Orange. He nurtured my love of journalism and passion for rural Australia. In 1996, he took his fight to Canberra and created political history by becoming the independent member for Calare. He took on the big parties in […]

Past The Shallows by Favel Parrett, Orion, $26.99 This is an extraordinary book, part psychological family drama, part mystery, part painful rite of passage, all engulfed in the wild isolation and natural richness of the Tasmanian coast. Favel Parrett’s intimate knowledge and understanding of this rugged heel of the world seeps through every pore of […]

Caribou Island by David Vann, Penguin, $24.95. When Vann ‘s first work of fiction, Legend Of A Suicide, was published in 2009, it shot across the literary world like a comet, blazing a tail of prizes and critical acclaim that took pretty much everyone — including the author — by surprise. This novel proves it […]

The Shallows by Nicholas Carr, Atlantic, $32.99. A fascinating book about the way computers and the internet are changing the way we read and absorb information. The basic premise is this: after centuries of linear, literary thinking, book-type thinking, our minds are being rewired into a new kind of mind that operates in short, disjointed, […]

Batavia by Peter FitzSimons, Random House, $49.95. I would rather sail around Antarctica on the Titanic twice than cruise the coast of West Australia on the Batavia. Not only did 74 per cent of women survive the sinking of the Titanic, none of them or their husbands and children were murdered, or compelled to kill, […]

The Shelly Beach Writers’ Group by June Loves, Viking, $29.95. It’s not that her unpleasant husband dumped her that bothers 50-something Gina Laurel, it’s the fact he beat her to it and she hadn’t quite come up with plan b. That’s how former corporate high-flier Gina finds herself house- and dog-sitting at Shelly Beach, with […]

Kill Me Once by Jon Osborne, Century, $32.95. Nathan Stiedowe knows serial killers better than anyone else, except perhaps for FBI Special Agent Dana Whitestone. That’s because Nathan is a serial killer. He’s also a perfectionist, and it’s an unfortunate combination for his victims as he goes about recreating some of the most sickening murders […]

Lasting Damage by Sophie Hannah, Hodder & Stoughton, $32.99. It could be that Connie Bowskill is simply losing her mind. Late one night, while taking a virtual tour on a property website, she sees a woman lying in a pool of blood. Or does she? Seconds later, the gruesome scene is gone. Husband Kit is […]

A Widow’s Story: A Memoirby Joyce Carol Oates, Fourth Estate, $35. Joyce Carol Oates is one of America’s most prolific novelists, best known forBlonde, an extraordinary fictional biography which offers a window into the soul of Marilyn Monroe. InA Widow’s Storywe catch a glimpse of Oates’ soul seen in sharp, detailed, jarring focus through her […]

The Secret Fate of Mary Watson by Judy Johnson, HarperCollins, $32.99. “Left Lizard Island September 2nd, 1881 in tank or pot in which beche de mer is boiled. Got about three miles or four from the Lizards. “September 7. Made for an island four or five miles from the one spoken of yesterday. Ashore, but […]

Bird Cloud: A Memoir by Annie Proulx, Fourth Estate, $35.95. This is a rare glimpse into the private world of Annie Proulx, 75-year-old author of The Shipping News and Brokeback Mountain. Bird Cloud — her first non-fiction publication in 20 years — deals with her building a house for herself to live in and her […]

Less Than Perfect by Ber Carroll, Pan Macmillan Australia, $25. Striving to achieve your parents’ expectations is a battle with universal resonance and is at the emotional heart of this intriguing tale of love and loss. Caitlin O’Reilly meets the love of her life at her 18th birthday party. The boy in question is a […]

MM — Personal: From the Private Archive of Marilyn Monroe by Lois Banner, Abrams, $55. It’s hard to believe there’s anything new left to see or read about Marilyn Monroe, but this slickly presented hardback tome promises to lift the veil on the private Marilyn. While it may not do that exactly, what author Lois […]

Land of Painted Caves by Jean M. Auel, Hachette, $49.99. Thirty years ago, Jean M. Auel became a literary legend with The Clan Of The Cave Bear, the first book in her Earth’s Children series. Auel made prehistory come alive with the story of Ayla, an orphaned Cro-Magnon girl with an amazing knack for survival. […]

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, Virago, $22.99. First love is the sweetest they say. First love of a book may last longer — and if the book is worn out by that love it can be replaced. Take a naive and penniless girl, employed by the overbearing Mrs Van Hooper. Enter Maximilian de Winter, a […]

Faces In The Clouds by Matt Nable, Viking, $29.95. This is a surprising book in so many ways. It starts as a sweet very recognisable family tale about twin brothers growing up in the relative safety of an army barracks life and the wonderfully strong family unit that binds them. It then unfolds quite rapidly […]

The history of Pakistan’s powerful Bhutto family is written in blood, with murder, assassination and mysterious death commonplace. A young member of this cursed clan, Fatima, born to privilege but now in constant peril, tells the shocking inside story to William Langley. Fatima Bhutto is chic, petite and beautiful, but the story she tells is […]

In the first in a new series, our Editor-In-Chief Helen McCabe savours some fine food and conversation with best-selling author Jeffrey Archer. Sydney is your second favourite place on earth — what’s your first? Related: Join The Weekly’s book club We are at Quay restaurant in Sydney, but if you could have lunch anywhere in […]

Michelle Bridges is well known for transforming Aussies on the hit show The Biggest Loser. Now she shows you how to go one step further in ditching those last few kilos in her new book, Losing the Last 5 Kilos. We asked her about her reading habits. What was the last book you read? The […]

It’s L day for me today… Launch Day. My book, Love Wisdom Motherhood. is heading out into the wider world. And I keep pinching myself when I think about who is launching it for me — our Governor-General Quentin Bryce. She is one of the fabulous women that I interviewed for my book. What a […]

The Summer Without Men by Siri Hustvedt, Sceptre, $25 When Mia’s husband of 30 years calls for a pause in their marriage (“the Pause was French with limp but shiny brown hair. She had significant breasts”) she goes mad briefly, is hospitalised, and emerges from hospital shaken but sane into a world entirely made up […]

Savages, by Don Winslow, William Heinemann, $29.95 It was Sir Michael Parkinson — well-known TV interviewer, lesser-known crime buff — who first put me onto Don Winslow, describing his 2005 novel The Power of the Dog as the best crime thriller ever written. He’s probably right. Four books on, Winslow returns to Dog territory, where […]

The Philanthropist by John Tesarsch, Sleepers Publishing, $27.95 The good man who does bad things is a familiar figure in fiction. So points to first-time author John Tesarsch who’s taken the harder road and given us a thoroughly rotten protagonist who does good things (like, philanthropy) though for all the wrong reasons (status and tax-deductions). […]

Our Kind of Traitor by John le Carré, Viking, $32.95 The key question whenever a new Le Carré comes out is: is it a good one? He’s the master of the spy thriller but, as even fans concede, he can be patchy. The good news: yes, novel number 22 is a very good one. A […]

Vivian Rising by Daniella Brodsky, Simon & Schuster, $29.99 She has a dead end job, a dead boring boyfriend, and a deadbeat mother. Vivian Sklar’s one true joy is her feisty grandmother, who dies in her hospital bed, as poor Viv cowers in the loo. Lost and bereft, she’s cared for, and constantly fed, by […]

We Had It So Good, by Linda Grant, Virago, $29.99 The title sums it all up, We Had It So Good, and oh yes they did. This is the familiar but fascinating story of the baby boomers, and their journey from sweet self-absorbed hippies to a lost self-absorbed middle age. It’s 1968 and Californian Stephen […]

Mennonite In A Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen, Allen & Unwin, $29.99 Rhoda Janzen writes with wit and fondness of growing up in a “painfully uncool”, but happy and supportive community of Mennonites; they’re the less picturesque cousins of the better-known Amish people. Years later her glamorous and sophisticated life in the city falls […]

Lyrics Alley by Leila Aboulela, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, $32.99 Nur Abuzeid has it all, he’s the heir to his father’s business empire, and he’s betrothed to Soraya, the girl he loves. He’s a gentle, optimistic soul, and this is a gentle story of love and growth. When poor Nur is badly injured in an accident, […]

In Bligh’s Hand by Jennifer Gall, National Library of Australia, $34.95 William Bligh’s water-stained pocket notebook, kept by the sea captain following the mutiny on The Bounty, when he was cast adrift with 18 crew in a 7-metre open boat, is one of our most important historical documents. For years the Bligh family retained the […]

Anne Frank’s Tales From The Secret Annex, Cassell Reference, $27.99 The posthumously published diary of Anne Frank is world famous; 40 million copies published in 70 languages, ranking the inner thoughts of the 13-year-old Jewish chatterbox and would-be journalist, kept in captivity with her family during Nazi occupation of Amsterdam. What this latest collection of […]

The Lightkeeper’s Wife by Karen Viggers, Allen & Unwin, $29.99 Nature can both isolate and enlighten; inspire and depress. Battling the elements can be as much about battling the storms within yourself. In The Lightkeeper’s Wife, there are characters who find nature healing and those who are desperate to escape it. The novel’s eye of […]

The Discovery of Jeanne Baret by Glynis Ridley, Fourth Estate, $29.99 An extraordinary true-life tale of a remarkable “herb woman” from an impoverished peasant family in the Loire Valley region of France, destined to become the first woman to circumnavigate the world — and more importantly to fight eighteenth century moral codes, to blossom as […]

A Guide to Australian Etiquette by Ita Buttrose, Viking, $29.95 “There are those who claim manners no longer matter, but I don’t agree,” writes Ita Buttrose. “Times may have changed but good manners never go out of fashion.” Neither does Ita Buttrose. Many may remember Ita’s original The Guide to Modern Etiquette published in 1985, […]

The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver, Faber & Faber, $23.99 My current literary love affair is with Barbara Kingsolver’s The Lacuna. The story of Diego Rivera and Frida Khalo’s cook, it begins in 1930’s Mexico and ends in post-War America, taking in the hero’s ever-hopeful femme fatale mother, the exiled Trotsky and the ghoulish functionaries of […]

Left Neglected by Lisa Genova, Simon & Schuster, $32.99 Sarah, the main character in Left Neglected (Lisa Genova’s follow up to Still Alice) has a husband she loves, three happy children and is a high powered executive at the top of the corporate food chain. Some would say she has it all, but not the […]

In an exclusive extract from her moving book, Helen Cummings talks about the terror of her abusive marriage and the realisation that she too could have ended up dead had she not left her ex-husband. It started out as an ordinary Newcastle day, one weekend early in March 1984. Something was creating a strange sense […]

22 Britannia Road by Amanda Hodgkinson, Fig Tree, $32.95 There is no shortage of stories inspired by the terrors of World War II and the Nazi occupation of Europe, but Amanda Hodgkinson’s debut novel is so much more than that — beneath the story’s wartime bunker is a complex, intriguing and, in snatched moments, deeply […]

Someone Else’s Son by Sam Hayes, Headline, $32.99 Carrie Kent creates sensational television by manipulating grieving victims of crime, and luring explosive confessions from the perpetrators. She’s rich, famous, and demands perfection in every part of her life, except for her own performance as a mother. It’s not until her own son, Max, is stabbed […]

Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny, Sphere, $29.99 Three mysteries unfold together in this latest Armand Gamache novel, keeping even the sharpest of readers in suspense from page one. He’s one of the truest and bravest Chief Inspectors, but what went so badly wrong that it drove an anguished Gamache to seek solace with an […]

Daniel by Henning Mankell, Harvill/Secker, $32.95 Hans Bengler is a 19th century loser, running away from his purposeless, hopeless life in Sweden. Deep in the Kalahari Desert he finds a young boy who’s survived the massacre of his entire family. With the kindest of intentions he adopts the child, re-names him Daniel, and takes him […]

The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul by Deborah Rodriguez, Bantam Australia, $32.95 Sunny is a Southern gal who’s made herself a home, and a buzzing small business, in the middle of a war zone. Her coffee shop in Kabul, Afghanistan, is a place where men check their weapons at the door, and women support each […]

Vanity Fairby William Makepeace Thackeray With tongue-in-chic and cheeky chutzpuh, Becky Sharp was the Madonna of her day, flaunting tradition and challenging hypocritical sexual mores. And what a survivor. After the nuclear holocaust, all that will be left are a couple of cockroaches and Becky. Okay, she had a few minor faults – snobbery and […]

Emma by Jane Austen I adore Emma because it reminds me of what we should expect from men when it comes to courtship; the gallantry of Mr Weston, the generosity of Frank Churchill, the chivalry and honesty of Mr Knightley and the perseverance of Mr Martin. We should only accept hand-written and delivered invitations (not […]

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll Some of the world’s greatest books were written for children and Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland takes, for me, pride of place in that pantheon. Carroll’s surreal fictional world maybe full of games and riddles and bizarre characters but it is Alice herself with whom we engage – the […]

The Golden Prince by Rebecca Dean, HarperCollins, $32.99 Buttercup blond, blue-eyed 16-year-old Edward VIII – heir to the British throne and love-thwarted subject of novel, The Golden Prince – bears an uncanny physical resemblance to another young prince and heir to the British throne, about to wed in London this Easter. But this is where […]

Separate Beds by Elizabeth Buchan, Penguin UK, $24.95 British author Elizabeth Buchan writes chick-lit for the middle-aged woman which may sound a little grumpy-old-womanish but is actually surprisingly thought-provoking and hugely enjoyable. Separate Beds centres on Annie Nicholson, a 49-year-old health service manager, who hasn’t slept in the same bed as her media exec hubby […]

The Leopard by Jo Nesbo, Harvill Secker, $32.95 Since Swedish author Stieg Larsson and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo smashed the bestseller lists, a new literary sub-genre has developed – “Scandicrime” – with a buzz all of its own. Scandicrime is noir-ish, slightly subversive packed with antiheroes and set in the frozen snow-deadened landscapes […]

Angela Carter’s Book of Wayward Girls & Wicked Women edited by Angela Carter, Virago, $35 A revolutionary and pioneering collection of short stories about mad and bad women, written by women writers, including Angela Carter, this anthology was first published in 1986, just six years before Carter’s premature death at 51. In the preface she […]

Frank: The Making of a Legend by James Kaplan, Sphere, $35 James Kaplan’s 700-page biography of the first 39-years-old of Frank “The Voice” Sinatra (1915 until 1954), packs a colourful, sometimes crude and blue, but entertaining punch, littered with fascinating and dogged detail. Dubbed “scarface” by fellow New Jersey street kids because of facial disfigurements […]

Ask Me About Mary Kay by Jackie Brown, Strategic Book Group, $19.95 Jackie Brown rose through the ranks of Mary Kay Cosmetics as no-one else did and she became the role model for new recruits. In this pacey autobiography she takes us behind the scenes at the cosmetics house revealing the highs and more importantly […]

Insurrection by Robyn Young, Hodder & Stoughton, $32.99 Set during the period of the Wars of Scottish Independence, this historical fiction leads you in swiftly and doesn’t let you go. It starts in 1286 with the death of Alexander, King of Scotland, who is murdered by one of his own men as he rides home […]

Henri Matisse Rooms with A View by Shirley Neilsen Blum, Thames & Hudson, $90 The window was integral to the paintings of French 20th century artist Henri Matisse offering a unique framing for many of his works and for the first time this stunning book analyses its role. Art Historian Shirley Neilsen Blum looks at […]

The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford, Random House US, $12.95 I think I saw the film first, a brilliant film, and didn’t read the book until 15 years ago when I fell totally in love with it. It was first published in 1960 and is the most beautiful story about animals – a Labrador, a […]

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, Allen & Unwin, $22.99 Kathy, Ruth and Tommy were pupils at Hailsham – an idyllic establishment situated deep in the English countryside. The children there were tenderly sheltered from the outside world, brought up to believe they were special, and that their personal welfare was crucial. But for […]

The Lake Of Dreams by Kim Edwards, Viking, $29.95 Kim Edwards’ debut novel The Memory Keeper’s Daughter became a runaway bestseller when it was released in 2006 — and was published in 38 countries, selling millions of copies around the world. Four years later her much anticipated second novel has a lot to live up […]

A Food Lover’s Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela by Dee Nolan, Lantern, $100 This book is so beautiful it makes me squeak. That grass-green jacket – the colour, I’m told, of the hills on which you walk during stages of the grand six-week (though many do less) pilgrimage of St James, which ends at the […]

Half a Life by Darin Strauss, Hamish Hamilton, $26.95 “Half my life ago, I killed a girl.” She was just 16. Darin Strauss, the author of this memoir and also an acclaimed novelist, was 18 and soberly driving his father’s Oldsmobile when a freak accident – a girl, a bike, an inexplicable collision – changed […]

Harbour by John Ajvide Lindqvist, Text Publishing, $32.95 A remote Swedish island. A six-year old girl who disappears without a trace. A broken father, who returns to mourn the tragedy two years on – and discovers hers is not the first disappearance from the blighted island of Domaro. It is not just the islanders, nursing […]

Life by Keith Richards, Hachette Australia, $49.99 Who knew the old rogue was so popular? I’d always thought of The Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards as a minority taste – yet here’s his autobiography storming the bestseller lists. No small feat given it’s a $50 hardback, huge, and that’s one raunchy life he’s describing. Even allowing […]

The Queen’s Dolls’ House by Lucinda Lambton, Royal Collection Publications, $35 When you’re a royal princess after the ultimate dolls’ house who do you turn to? Who else but the country’s top architect, the guy whose day job is to design stately homes. And so it was that Princess Marie Louise, Queen Victoria’s granddaughter commissioned […]

Fall Girl by Toni Jordan, Text Publishing, $32.95 A favourite passage from this light, bright romantic comedy has Ruby, the matriarch in a family of genteel con-artists, list some “wonderful ideas” for stings. A cream that melts away cellulite. Tablets that fill in wrinkles from the inside. Daily doses of Siberian plant juice to stop […]

Sunset Park by Paul Auster, Faber Fiction, $32.99 I’ve been hooked on Paul Auster for more than 20 years now, since his first novel, the mysterious and haunting New York Trilogy. He writes with simple elegance about complex ideas though his favourite subject, the one he keeps returning to, is the role of chance in […]

Preincarnateby Shaun Micallef, Hardie Grant, $29.95 He’s a funny man, is Shaun Micallef. And I mean that in the best way. His first novel turns out to be exceedingly funny too (in ways both ha-ha and odd) jumbling time travel and a murder mystery in with space ships, Tom Cruise and the Loch Ness monster. […]

One Man Show: The Stages of Barry Humphries by Anne Pender, ABC Books, $35 Get your gladdies and wave them Possums, its time to celebrate the life of Edna Everage and the wild genius of her “manager” Barry Humphries. Intellectual, witty, and flamboyant, Humphries stood out in suburban mid-century Melbourne. At his sport loving private […]

Sisterby Rosamund Lupton, Piatkus Fiction, $32.99 Beatrice thinks of herself as the successful reliable older sister of warm but flaky art student Tess. But when Tess dies and police rush to decide it’s a suicide, Beatrice reevaluates everything about herself and those close to her. What makes this book special is the way the reader […]

The Secret Lives of Dresses by Erin McKean, H & S Fiction, $29.99 From the love, personal growth, and fashion genre, comes “The Secret Lives of Dresses”. Dora is in danger of becoming a professional student, but she’s more enamoured of her hapless boss at the campus coffee shop than she is of her studies. […]

Red Wolf by Lisa Marklund, Bantam Press (Random House, Emma Caddy) $32.95 Annika Bengtzon may be a wife, and the mother of two small children, but she’s also one of the most courageous and determined investigative reporters in Sweden. Still suffering psychologically from her last run-in with a psychopath, Bengtzon takes a break from crime […]

Australian chef Pete Evans is a busy man. Apart from being co-owner and executive chef of Hugo’s, he has just released a product range in David Jones, has his name associated with a Breville Pizza Maker and is the author of four books. His latest, My Party, shows you how to throw the perfect bash […]

In a battle worthy of one of his hugely successful books, author Stieg Larsson’s untimely death has pitted his partner, Eva Gabrielsson, against his family, as she tells William Langley. On a November afternoon in 2004, 50-year-old Stieg Larsson, an overweight, chain-smoking, Swedish news agency reporter, arrived at his office in central Stockholm. The lift […]

I Came To Say Goodbye, By Caroline Overington, Bantam Australia, $32.95. The reality of the often hidden child welfare system is revealed by this powerful story of a broken family in an Australian country town. The themes in this brilliant book are played out on news bulletins across Australia every week. A young woman in […]

Holly Kerr Forysth is a writer, photographer and passionate gardener. She takes time out of her busy schedule to share her favourite books in Book Club. What was the last book you read? I try not to read too much fiction, as intriguing, involving fiction can prevent me reading research [non-fiction] material. I have just […]

Two young lovers – one Indian, one Welsh – fall in love, sparking a lifetime of challenges, children and courageous rebellion, with a vow to “rattle the cage of the world”. The Salman Rushdie endorsement on the cover does this charming, gentle love story a disservice. Not because it isn’t “captivating”, as Rushdie notes – […]