There are two types of people in the world, according to Nicole Trilivas’s protagonist Kika Shores: those who travel, and those who don’t. Kika belongs to the former category: she enjoys the thrill of walking through a city whose name she can’t pronounce, and finding herself an alien culture with nothing but a well-worn backpack….
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Ask Me Anything is acclaimed writer Rebecca Sparrow’s endeavour to answer a tangled and awkward mess of questions posed to her by teenagers. On the surface Ask Me Anything sounds like the kind of book that worried parents might buy their teenage daughter for Christmas, a remedy for unwanted pregnancies and a clever way to avoid…
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Rosie Waterland’s The Anti-Cool Girl is the Australian antidote to Lena Dunham’s controversial memoirs but with much more bite. Waterland, a writer for the Mamamia Women’s Network, is most commonly known for her hilarious recaps of The Bachelor. In the The Anti-Cool Girl Waterland smoothly takes us through her life, from birth to the present…
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Sophie Hardcastle’s memoir Running Like China is not just about shattering the stigmas of mental illness or about providing a safe place for those who may be going through similar issues. Running Like China is also about an artist who finds her true self through the good and the bad times, and who emerges victorious…
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Geraldine Brooks is a genius. Historical biographical fiction is difficult to write at the best of times because of issues with source evidence and conflicting views; Brooks does a superlative job in her latest novel, The Secret Chord, taking inspiration from a historical figure from three thousand years ago. King David’s story of rags to…
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At the heart of any great book, whether fiction or non-fiction, sci-fi or drama, lies a character arc that we can personally relate to on some level. The core of all good books often pulls at our heartstrings at a moment’s notice, leaving us breathless and wanting more. With Robyn Hennessy’s memoir, Worthless, the average…
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Elizabeth Harrower’s ‘new’ collection of short stories, A Few Days in the Country: And Other Stories, is enchanting. By which I do not mean that it contains magic, or the promises of happy endings. No; Harrower’s writing is pure, unadulterated realism. Her stories occupy the real world, and make an effort to reveal the lives…
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I’m picky when it comes to crime novels. If there isn’t a delightful balance between character, believability and suspense, I’m apt to put the book down and forget about it. Thankfully, Good Money by J.M. Green balances all of these elements. Green is a debut author whose book was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s…
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I spoke with Catriona Pollard last month about her upcoming solo basketry exhibition Love.Honour.Cherish and discovered an incredibly successful businesswoman who was really doing it all. Besides recently being proud and confident enough to call herself an artist, Catriona is also the founder and CEO of CP Communications, a prominent PR agency located in Sydney,…
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This review contains some spoilers. Cass Moriarty’s The Promise Seed, which was shortlisted for the Queensland Literary Awards in 2013, delves into the lives of two, at first, very estranged characters: an old man and a young boy. Both grew up in different eras and don’t seem to have anything in common, yet throughout the…
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Not Just Black and White: a conversation between a mother and a daughter is the inspiring and harrowing true story of mother and daughter duo Lesley and Tammy Williams. The novel follows the lives of these two Murri (Aboriginal) women in the form of written conversations between mother and daughter. This puts a light tone…
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When you open a book and it starts with the chronology of an entire country, it can be daunting. I’m not the type to remember dates or places, and when this was followed by a “list of characters in order of appearance” and a glossary, I freaked out a bit. I don’t know anything about…
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Earlier this year I was working at the Auckland Writer’s Festival where Helen Macdonald was promoting her critically acclaimed memoir H is for Hawk. So far it’s snapped up both the Costa Book of the Year and the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction. But as I glimpsed her signing books, at the front of a…
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[This review contains spoilers] Judy Blume is a well-known American author famous for novels such as Are You There God? It’s me Margaret, and Superfudge. I consider Blume to be the voice of my American, teenage girl upbringing. She’s both an uplifting yet incredibly honest writer; truly an inspiration to read then and now. So…
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