This is a fascinating book. Cantwell was a Major General in the Australian army. His experiences of the War on Terror in Iraq and Afghanistan left him a psychological mess. For someone so senior in the Australian Army to be so honest and open about his psychological wounds is extraordinary, and it makes compelling reading. […]
Latest Reviews
Bridge Burning and Other Hobbies by Kitty Flanagan
Flanagan, a comedian, seems like the kind of woman you would want to sit down and have a glass of prosseco with. She’s fun, she tells a fine story and she doesn’t talk about her sex life or her vagina (pause here to silently contrast with Amy Schumer’s book, The Girl With The Lower Back Tattoo, while […]
A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson
Here Atkinson’s focus is on Teddy, younger brother of Ursula Todd whose story was explored in the excellent Life After Life. Teddy is a World War Two pilot and his story is riveting. Unlike his sister, he only gets one life and is often bewildered as to how to live it. Atkinson’s writing brings the war to […]
Canada by Richard Ford
”First, I’ll tell you about the robbery our parents committed. Then about the murders, which happened later.” Pretty good start to a novel, Richard Ford. How could you not read on?Dell Parsons’ fairly ordinary small town life ends abruptly after his parents commit a bank robbery. They are the people not accumstomed to criminal behaviour, and woefully […]
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
Burial Rites made me really glad I wasn’t a woman in northern Iceland in 1892. Unfortunately for Agnes Mognusdottir, she is. It is perpetually freezing and miserable in northern Iceland in 1892 and Agnes is condemned to be executed for her part in the murder of two men. The book details her final days, unwanted, living amongst […]
Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty
Moriarty really gets women: “you never changed your appearance for men, you changed it for other women, because they were the ones carefully tracking each other’s weight and skin tone along with their own; they were the ones trapped with you on the ridiculous appearance obsession merry-go-round that they couldn’t or wouldn’t get off.” The […]
Devices and Desires by PD James
It’s so much fun to go back to these old PD James. This one, published in 1989, has smoke-filled pubs and people only able to contact each other via a landline. And always, always lots of good old fashioned murder.
The Murder Room by PD James
Any PD James is a good PD James, especially when the protagonist is poet/detective Adam Dalgiesh, the thinking women’s crumpet.