101 Small Ways to Change the World by Aubre Andrus Lonely Planet Kids Children’s book author Aubre Andrus has come up with an easy-to-read book that has 101 ideas to make a difference to the world. She says that ideas start with one person and you don’t have to be big to make small […]
Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi Allen & Unwin Ada was born in Nigeria where her mother Saachi was a nurse and her father Saul a doctor. Author Akwaeke Emezi, who was also born in Nigeria, inhabits Ada as she goes from foetus through the birth process and then as she grows up. Overlaid with Igbo, […]
Keeping On Keeping On by Alan Bennett Allen & Unwin This is the third volume of diaries from actor, author, playwright, screenwriter Alan Bennett. Writing Home (1994) detailed his life between 1980 and 1990 and Untold Stories (2005) covered 1996 to 2004. Now 82, this volume contains excerpts from diary entries and various scribbling between […]
Prior to reading Ah Well, Nobody’s Perfect the only exposure I had to Molly Meldrum in my life was in my early years on Saturday nights when the family gathered around the T.V. to watch Hey Hey It’s Saturday, and Molly was a regular judge for the Red Faces segment. I don’t remember him […]
Days Without End by Sebastian Barry Allen & Unwin Orphans Thomas McNutty and John Cole are only teenagers when they find themselves tramping through America in the 1850s, in search of work. They end up in a town where they are offered jobs dressing as women and dancing with saloon customers who are mainly […]
Take Me to Paris, Johnny by John Foster Text Classics Take Me to Paris, Johnny is John Foster’s moving yet unsentimental tribute to his lover Juan Cespedes. It traces his childhood in Cuba, his move to New York as a dancer and the struggle to gain residency in Australia with partner, Melbourne-born Foster. The memoir […]
The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood Bloomsbury After a mega financial meltdown, with unemployment at around 40% of the population, people are starving, scavenging and pilfering. Houses are repossessed and desperation rules as gangs roam the streets. Married couple Stan and Charmaine are living in their car “condemned to a life of frantic, grit-in-the-eyes, […]
Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America by John Waters Murdock Books Cult film director John Waters was between pictures as they say in Hollywood and, having nothing better to do, he decided to hitchhike from his home in Baltimore to his co-op apartment in San Francisco. Calling the undertaking his ‘hobo-homo journey’ and being […]
Reclaimed by Ray Cook Balboa Ray Cook describes his book as a journey ‘from lost to found’ and says writing was a cathartic exercise for him to deal with the clash between his sexuality and his religion. As a straight A student and ‘model Mormon boy’, he had to cover up his internal dilemma to […]
Cicada by Moira McKinnon Allen & Unwin In between the pains of childbirth, Emily thought about her doomed marriage. Emily had known William since he was adopted as sickly child in England. When they married, they replaced the refinements of 1918 London with the red dust of the Kimberley and William had become as harsh […]
