It’s a classic for a reason; it feels so alive and vibrant, more than sixty years after its publication. Do read it.
Latest Reviews
Truth by Peter Temple
Wow, the dialogue in this one is so fast, furious and full of slang and shortcuts, you feel like you’re watching The West Wing, but with filthy mouthed Australian cops. Temple demands a lot of his readers but never leaves us behind. Truth, along with it companion piece The Broken Shore, set a high standard in […]
Between A Wolf and A Dog by Geogia Blain
The story behind this 2017 novel is so sad it can only be true. Blain started writing this novel about a woman called Ester who has a brain tumour. She then found out one of her friends had a brain tumour, and she worried about the book’s impact on her friend. Then Blain found out […]
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Devastating and horrifying, but brilliant. Best to read it before you have children.
The Girl With All The Gifts by MR Carey
I’m not normally a fan of post apolocolyptic zombie novels, but this one is so good. Technically they’re not zombies; they are ‘hungries’. Twenty years ago, humanity was infected by a variant of fungus that causes people to lose their minds and eat human flesh, thereby becoming hungries. The small number of remaining humans are […]
Emma by Jane Austen
Emma Woodhouse is not half so wise as Elizabeth Bennett, but I have a spot soft for her, just the same. She’s a bit of an idiot but she does learn from her mistakes, eventually having the good sense to marry Mr Knightley and install him in her house, a no doubt unorthodox arrangement that […]
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Reading this book again as a adult, rather than a adolescent, I realised what a prick Heathcliff is. And Catherine is also quite a nasty piece of work. But the point is that they’re so well suited, and you can’t beat Wuthering Heights for atmosphere. Unforgettable.
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
If the Brontes taught us high school English students how to love with passion, Jane Austen taught us how to choose our great loves with intelligence. Eliza Bennett chooses Fitzwilliam Darcy with her head before her heart, after freeing herself of pride and prejudice. This one stands up to multiple rereads because it’s thick with […]