August Picks

De Goldi, Kate (2022) Eddy, Eddy. Allen & Unwin. In the two years since Eddy Smallbone dramatically left school, and earthquakes destroyed his home city, he has struggled to navigate life and find himself. Eddy is a sweet lost soul. His pet-minding business has extended into friend and child sitting, and although his life is… Continue reading August Picks

July Picks

Browder, Bill (2022) Freezing Order: A True Story of Russian Money Laundering, Murder and Surviving Vladimir Putin's Wrath. Simon & Schuster. This mind-blowing book reads like a thrilling tale of espionage, rather than a memoir. It is a compelling caper of crime and corruption, assassinations, bribery and intimidation, legal battles, tax evasion, and the laundering… Continue reading July Picks

June Picks

McTiernan, Dervla (2022) The Murder Rule. HarperCollins. Third-year law student Hannah Rokeby sought to become a volunteer on a Virginia university's Innocence Project. The focus of the Project was to revisit the convictions of wrongly-jailed prisoners. But innocence wasn't Hannah's motive in volunteering for the program. She was seeking to right a wrong done to… Continue reading June Picks

May Picks

Patchett, Ann (2021) These Precious Days. Bloomsbury. In this collection of personal essays Ann Patchett ponders and explores the nature of the people, events and memories that have influenced and inspired her life, from a portrait of the three men she called father, the choice to be childless, a feigned offer to buy a woman’s… Continue reading May Picks

April Picks

Clifford, Aoife (2022) When We Fall. Ultimo Press. When Alex and her mother make a grizzly find on the beach barrister Alex does not accept the police explanation of accidental death. Then there is a second death. Bella is found dead at the bottom of a ravine drowned in salt water, whilst Maxine is pulled… Continue reading April Picks

March Picks

Ypi, Lea (2021) Free: Coming of Age at the End of History. Allen Lane. Politics professor Lea Ypi's memoir describes her coming of age in the last European Stalinist outpost - Albania. As a young student she was in enthusiastic thrall of both Stalin and Albania's dictator Enver Hoxha but as her politics develop her… Continue reading March Picks

February Picks

Hawkins, Paula (2021) A Slow Fire Burning. Riverhead Books. When a young man is found murdered on a London houseboat Laura is immediately suspected. Laura is the damaged one-night stand last seen at the victim's boat. Laura, Miriam the nosy neighbour who reported the murder, and Carla the victim's grief-stricken aunt all have connections to… Continue reading February Picks

January Picks

Strout, Elizabeth (2021) Oh William! Viking. Lucy Barton, in her third outing, is at a crossroads and she starts to muse on her first husband, William. Lucy is navigating her life as a widow, mother of two adult daughters, and a successful author, when she reconnects with William. This leads her to reflect on the… Continue reading January Picks

Best Picks 2021

As Covid and its variants continue to rage 2021 has been a particularly challenging year to access books, with libraries in lockdown, titles rescheduled for publication, and delays in supply and delivery, choices have been somewhat limited. Nevertheless I have continued to be curious about place, ecocentrism and anthropocentrism, and indulge in Australian crime-noir.  My… Continue reading Best Picks 2021

December Picks

Heller, Miranda Cowley (2021) The Paper Palace. Penguin Random House. On a perfect August morning, Elle Bishop heads out for a swim in the fresh water pond below 'The Paper Palace' - the decaying family compound in the back woods of Cape Cod where Elle has spent her 50 summers. This fictional memoir is in… Continue reading December Picks