City Boy, My Life in New York During the 1960s and 1970s
Edmund White
Bloomsbury 
If gay were a country, Edmund White would be a national treasure. While his works of fiction are charming and readable, it’s his autobiographical novels that captivate me most and City Boy certainly doesn’t disappoint. It is a brutally honest and graphic account of his journey from Midwestern America to the bohemian paradise that was New York in the 1960s and 1970s and his desperate search for recognition as a writer. He describes both his sexual and social encounters in such detail the experience of reading feels almost voyeuristic. White met and was friendly with many struggling writers and artists of the time who would go on to become some of the most influential literary and artistic figures of our time, and while he is mostly sympathetic he doesn’t hesitate to dish out the gossip, which has certainly ruffled feathers. Some accuse him of name-dropping or betraying confidences but I love the feeling of insight his writing gives to the era and the people that populated it. By far the most interesting and valuable account in the book is White’s retelling of the Stonewall riots of 1969. It is one of the most poignant and surprisingly funny descriptions from someone who was actually there I have read.
Amy Henderson
The Bee Hut
Dorothy Porter
Black Inc. Books
Dorothy Porter is undisputedly one of Australia’s finest poets. Her place among the canonised greats, including Paterson, Lawson and Kinsella, was assured long before her death from breast cancer, but this final collection confirms her place unabashedly.
The Bee Hut brings together works from the final five years of Porter’s life. They are poems that are electric, nostalgic, uncompromising and breath taking in equal measures. With a foreword from her long term partner Andrea Goldsmith, there’s something ultimately brittle, delicate and fragile about this collection.
Broken into eight parts, The Bee Hut moves almost progressively toward Porter’s death. We begin wrapped in mythology before moving toward the heart of Porter, both figuratively and literally, a swathe of poems dedicated to Andy, snapshots from a joint holiday. It then moves toward denser regions, one where Porter reinvents herself time and again.
The Freak Songs in particular are a song cycle of such ferocity they are reminiscent of horror fiction, crippling and soaring in their tragic beauty. Other snippets of songs appear, such as excerpts of The Eternity Man, before concluding with Porter’s final ever poem, View From 417.
It’s probably knowing that they are the final words of an amazing writer which adds to the poignancy of these works. There’s an angelic starkness throughout, an economic tundra of beauty that is the sum of its parts and a breathtaking landscape as a whole.
Scott-Patrick Mitchell
The Last Bed on Earth
Teri Louise Kelly
Wakefield Press
The Last Bed on Earth is a verbal rollercoaster the moment the book’s spine has been bent. Just as you laugh out loud and promise to cast to memory a witty one-liner it is soon forgotten for the next. A barrage for the senses, Teri Louise Kelly is not afraid to say it like it is – ‘tanker-like turds’ and all. And why not, considering she has seen it all – both as a man and as a woman, and even as a woman pretending to be a man.
Kelly and her partner Jo Buck, the busty blonde dominatrix, have travelled for two years, are down and out but not quite prepared to return home to Australia. So in true arse-end-of-the-world form they lob into New Zealand’s south island to begin life as hostel managers for some of the dodgiest characters this side of the South Pacific.
For anyone who has ever owned a backpack and slept in a flea-infested bed this is a book that more than just survives – it uplifts. It just goes to show Kiwis are more than just a bunch of ‘sheep shaggers’. Now where’s my ticket?
Aja Styles
The Little Stranger
Sarah Waters
Little Brown 
Let me just preface this review by saying that I am possibly one of the biggest Sarah Waters fans you will ever meet. From the moment I read the last page of one of her novels it is a painstaking wait to get my hands on the next… which is probably why The Little Stranger left me a tad disappointed. All that build-up and expectation is just too much to live up to. While not technically a ‘ghost story’, the book is essentially about a haunted house that has a dire impact on its inhabitants and those who come in contact with it. The story moves painfully slow for the majority of the book and I hate to say I didn’t really find it as spooky or eerie as I expected. Waters is an amazing writer and the novel is lush, descriptive and visual – it just doesn’t really go anywhere. I am not so much of a lesbian purist that I expect all of her novels to include lesbian characters; however I do think that is where Waters’ skill lies and I found it difficult to empathise to the uptight, heterosexual characters in this book. Now begins the wait for the next one…
Amy Henderson
Dear Me: A Letter To My Sixteen-Year-Old Self
Joseph Galliano (ed.)
Simon & Schuster
If given the opportunity, what wise words would you impart to your 16 year old self? Would you point out the forthcoming pitfalls? Would you impart sagely advice? Or would you resign yourself to the inevitability of it all and just nod and smile with one of those timeless knowing little smiles?
Such is the premise of Dear Me, a collection of letters written by some of the greatest intelligent modern icons around. And I stress intelligent. These aren’t letters from disposable pop stars, from one-minute wonders: these are letters from people with proven intellect, the kind you’d kill to have attend a dinner party. Or two.
Naturally, the likes of Stephen Fry steal the show with his rambunctious letter, but there are some other great pearlers in here too. Julian Clary, Edmund White, John Barrowman and Sir Elton John fill out the gay factor. And how.
But there’s also letters from Joanna Lumley, Annie Lennox, Baz Luhrmann and Emma Thompson, all of whom are heartfelt and funny in equal parts. And then there’s surprising lucidity from the likes of Yoko Ono, who writes with a surprising sincerity and assuredness that is enchanting and insightful to read.
This is a perfect last minute gift, an absolute gem of a book. It even comes with a section where people can write their own letters and include their own photo. Perfect really.
Scott-Patrick Mitchell
Delicious – Quick Smart Cook
Valli Little
ABC Books 
There are many cookbooks around but I have some preferences for the cookbooks I use. Firstly every recipe must have a picture so that I can see what the final dish looks like. Secondly, the list of ingredients and instructions must not be too long or complicated and lastly, emphasis must be on fresh ingredients. Valli Little, who creates up to 60 recipes a month for the successful Delicious magazine, has come up with a book that ticks all these boxes and wins extra points for adding a little ‘wow factor’ to most of the dishes. I also particularly liked the menu section that put dishes together for weekend brunch, Sunday best, midweek special and waist watcher meals.
Breakfast highlights include making homemade muesli in 30 minutes, coconut pancakes with banana and Greek salad frittata. The section on cheese has a mouth-watering instant fondue with roast veges and brie; there’s a pink pasta cooked in beetroot juice in the pasta section and salmon with wasabi tartare stands out in the fish section. There are recipes for steak with espresso mushroom sauce as well as meatloaf; low fat recipes like wonton soup and an over-the-top Mars Bar trifle. Unfortunately I can’t include the pictures with all of these, but the book makes them look wonderful. I’ve tried the Thai tomato soup and peach and ginger crumble, and like the title says, these dishes are quick, smart and delicious.
Lezly Herbert
Object of Desire
William J. Mann
Kensington Books
Caught in a perpetual Californian summer, Danny Fortunato is starting to garner that deep embedded tan that makes anyone of a certain age look like leather. And with this comes a mid-life crisis, the kind that can only be cured by chasing someone 20 years younger, someone far more beautiful. At least on the outside.
From the outset this is a book which deals with surfaces. Or should that be superficiality? Either way, the characters seem better suited to a gay melodrama. They seem drawn from stereotypes, feeding stereotypes, being stereotypes. Although love does attempt to break beneath the surface… but only just.
Written with skill, Mann’s latest makes for somewhat of a challenge. In part you wish the characters would just be real, but unfortunately they can’t: they all seem so unhappy with themselves that swimming beneath the surface is just an impossible feat. But then perhaps that’s Mann’s intention. Perhaps.
Scott-Patrick Mitchell
Feeding Fussy Kids
Julie Wood and Antonia Kidman
ABC Books ($35.00)
A doctor once told me that no child in a Western country will starve to death and that was a great comfort to me as I watched both my children (who now have fussy children of their own) existing on hardly any food at all. Antonia Kidman and Julie Wood have six children between 18 months and 10 years, and they know what it is like to battle fussy eaters every day. The difference is that for this generation of fussy eaters, there are so many convenient but nutritionally empty products around. Also, today’s media-savvy children are experts at pester-power. Sometimes it is just easy to give in after a hard day rather than turn mealtime into yet another battle.
Feeding Fussy Kids has come to the rescue with 270 pages crammed with fantastic information, tips and recipes. There are tips on superfoods you can hide and recipes that put ‘invisible’ vegetables in favourites such as pancakes, chicken nuggets, meat pies and fish fingers. The book has great ideas on how to deal with the sweet-toothed child, the ‘I only like pasta (or any other food) child and eating greens. It also has answers for ‘it’s too slimy (not sweet enough, so boring)’ retaliations and a chart to answer questions about why they should eat that fruit.
Lezly Herbert
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