Thames: Sacred River by Peter Ackroyd
29 October, 2007
Peter Ackroyd's Thames: Sacred River runs from source to sea, like the river itself. Like the river, too, it sometimes flows swiftly through landscapes of great interest and beauty, and at other times it meanders, becomes turgid, or has stony passages where the going gets harder.

Shakespeare's Wife by Germaine Greer
13 September, 2007
In this introduction to her 'Introduction', Greer spells out for us the theme and nature of her book. Ann Shakespeare is the maligned or disparaged wife in question and Greer intends to rescue her from this sorry state.

Dead Lucky: Life and death on Mount Everest by Lincoln Hall
13 September, 2007
At 7.30pm on May 26th 2006, at 8600 metres on the face of Mount Everest, Lincoln Hall died. At 9am that morning he had stood on the summit and spoken by radio-phone to Alexander Abromov, the expedition leader at Advance Base Camp.

The Miracle of Water by Masaru Emoto
4 September, 2007
‘The Miracle of Water’ is well presented as an A5 size pretty looking book. Pretty, perhaps not doing it justice! Looking into this title is like examining a body of still water.... it runs deep.

The Verneys by Adrian Tinniswood
3 August, 2007
"Sir Francis Verney lay on his bed in the great hall of the sick at Messina. He was thirty-one years old. He was a long way from home. And he was dying". He had been a Barbary Coast pirate, a "sometimes great English gallant", a convert to Islam and, for two years at the end of his life when his fortunes lapsed, a galley slave. All of which makes for a dramatic opening scene in this family saga which has all the ingredients for a gripping television series. And it is all true.

The View from the Valley of Hell by Mark Willacy *
1 July, 2007
Don’t be led astray by the airport novel-ish cover, or the sensationalist-sounding title.

Living Politics by Margaret Reynolds **
1 July, 2007
Living Politics by Margaret Reynolds is her memoir of life-from grassroots activism to federal politics and United Nations human rights advocacy.

Faith, Money and Power by Margaret Simons **
1 July, 2007
What do the words ‘religious revival’ mean to you? In the minds of most Australians the religious revival, along with the rise of mega-churches such as Hillsong, are synonymous with conservative, right wing politics.

The Devil and Maria D'Avalos by Victoria Hammond **
1 July, 2007
This historical narrative incorporates the life, loves and violent death of the renowned beauty, Maria d’Avalos, who was murdered by her third husband, the talented, temperamental and highly acclaimed musician, Prince Carlos Gesualdo.

My Life as a Traitor by Zarah Ghahramani & Robert Hillman
1 June, 2007
‘I want my pink shoes!’ writes Zarah Ghahramani in her memoir My Life as a Traitor. This statement may seem frivolous, even silly, but it sums up the core of this book: the right to chose, to make one’s own decisions, the right to be free.

Cheerio Tom, Dick and Harry by Ruth Wajnryb
1 June, 2007
Inspired initially by the ‘Cemetery of Lost Books’ in Zafon’s Shadow of the Wind, Ruth Wajnryb has constructed a home for words that are disappearing from today’s English language.

Red Princess: A Revolutionary Life by Sofka Zinovieff
29 May, 2007
Mrs Skipworth, an old lady immersed in her books in rural Cornwall, fostering stray animals and walking Bodmin Moor in old gum-boots and scruffy clothes. And Princess Sophie (Sophka) Dolgorouky, a child attended by nursemaids, footmen and private tutors, playmate of the Tsarevich, and heiress to some of the greatest wealth in Russia.

Ted Hughes Selected Translations by Daniel Weissbort
29 May, 2007
"Ted Hughes(1930-98), Poet Laureate from 1984, was among the most important translators in the English tradition". So writes Daniel Weissbort in his introduction to this book. Weissbort whose own expertise in translation is widely acknowledged and who was co-founder of the magazine, Modern Poetry in Translation in 1965, is ideally placed to assess Hughes's translations.

Autobiography of My Mother by Meg Stewart
25 May, 2007
What do you do if you have spent hours talking to your mother and recording her memories, researched some of the family history, and published it all as a ghost-written autobiography, and then you read a chapter headed 'Mistress and Wife' in someone else's book and realize that there was something your mother omitted to tell you?

Meaner than Fiction by Lindy Cameron
1 April, 2007
This book is a truly fascinating yet, at times, extremely unsettling look at the Australian justice system, one that many believe is a system to be trusted and relied on to convict the guilty and free the innocent.

The 3rd Degree by Murray Hogarth *
1 April, 2007
Anyone who was in Australia in the second half of 2006 would have felt the ‘tipping point’ of public concern on global warming that followed the triple whammy of Tim Flannery’s The Weathermakers, Al Gore’s An Invonvenient Truth and the Stern Report-not to mention the worsening drought in many areas.

Hotel Heaven by Matthew Brace **
1 April, 2007
If you are interested in luxury, then you cannot go past Hotel Heaven.

Cultural Amnesia by Clive James **
1 April, 2007
For anyone who has listened to the Radio National program broadcast a couple of years ago that was a conversation between two expatriate Australians, the poet Peter Porter and the one and only Clive James, it will be no surprise that the latter has put together his collection of important thinkers and their writings

The Mystery of the Cleaning Lady by Sue Woolfe *
1 April, 2007
There are plenty of books on the market about the writing process.

Slicing the Silence by Tom Griffiths **
1 April, 2007
Historian and author Tom Griffiths turns his attention to Antarctica in his latest book.

Shot by Gail Bell
2 February, 2007
One wonders what Gail Bell has in store for her next memoir.

Unpolished Gem by Alice Pung
5 January, 2007
The setting of Unpolished Gem will be at once familiar and completely foreign to many readers. Those familiar with Melbourne will know the suburb of Footscray in which Pung grew up, but most would consider themselves outsiders to the Chinese Cambodian refugee community she presents here. Unpolished Gem is a playfully written and welcoming gateway into the lives of one family for whom the suburb is at first a ‘wonderland’ and eventually a delicately intertwined community.

The Human Touch by Michael Frayn
10 December, 2006
You have to admire Michael Frayn's courage. He has taken on all the major problems that philosophers have argued about over the centuries; all the major assumptions about the universe which underlie the scientific experiments on which we spend billions; and all the ethical credos on which we base our judicial system; and he has come to the conclusion that we make it all up.

Ted Hughes: A Literary Life by Neil Roberts
9 December, 2006
" As a young man, Ted Hughes must have seemed blessed. He was extravagantly gifted, as his juvenile poetry shows, and was warmly encouraged by his family and teachers. From a socially and economically modest background in Yorkshire, he won a place at Cambridge, despite performing poorly in his entrance exam: his teacher persuaded the college to accept him because of his talent as a writer".

Interview with Andrew McGahan - author of Underground
5 November, 2006
Andrew McGahan’s latest novel Underground invokes an Australia ‘in the not too distant future, a military state where Muslims are the enemy and government propaganda is rife’. McGahan spoke to Tony O’Loughlin.