There have been plenty of books and movies about pandemics. Given the current reality, if you want to read about a pandemic, it may be more satisfying to read about the more idiosyncratic, literary ones. For example, in Ling Ma’s Severance, people who succumbed to the virus found themselves endlessly repeating common tasks. But there…
His and Hers, and whoever that other person is. Television presenter Anna Andrews, DCI Jack Harper and an unknown observer all contribute to this twisted tale of murder and treachery that has its origins in past cruelty inflicted by English school girls. The very thought of it. Anna Andrews has the breath knocked out of…
The Wych Elm is one of those releases that I’ve had circling in my library pile for ages and keep meaning to come back to. All the opinions I’ve heard in the year and a half or more since its release have been positive and fresh off the back of viewing (and reviewing) a Tana…
Not a new concept but so unacknowledged! Yes, the middle aged woman is pretty much invisible. If you’re over 40 and female, one could rob a bank, steal a car or murder someone and likely no one would ever think it was you. Can You See Her chronicles the effects of loss and how age…
In October 2002, the US districts of Maryland, Colombia and Virginia were under attack. Driveby sniper shootings were occurring in all sorts of locations – schools, petrol stations, convenience stores, front yards. Nowhere was safe. The FBI and state police scrambled all available to deal with the random attacks and initial thoughts as to who…
When reviewing a new Stephen King book, you can only really compare such rich work to that of his own. There is no other writer, past or present, quite like him. King is the gold standard, the literary bar, a unique category. A problem other authors would no doubt like to have. If It Bleeds…
Booker Prize winning author Aravind Adiga takes on the issue of refugees and asylum seekers, focusing on Australia in his latest novel Amnesty. Set in Sydney, on a day sometime in the recent past, the book concentrates on Dhananjaya Rajaratnam, aka Danny the Cleaner, as he grapples with his duty to society and his…
The life-changing influence of platonic female relationships rarely gets covered in fiction, and for this alone Seven Lies deserves a tip of the hat. It’s not a subject matter many writers have invested in and anyone who has ever been or spent time around a teenage girl would know that the connections young women make…
Elly was once a sister to Ines, and a daughter to Judith and Hamid. She lives on in the stories told by others and most importantly, in the stories told by her own family. Elly is a curious novella that depicts the isolated roads that we journey through grief, surrounded by others but essentially always…
For those of us who fondly remember shoving disc after disc into our car CD players for company on our long drives, the audio book has certainly come a long way. From the first days of single voice actors narrating entire novels, the audio book has evolved into an aural universe complete with full musical…
