Beastings... About the Book: Winner of the Portico Prize for Literature and the Northern Writers' Award A girl and a baby. A priest and a poacher. A savage pursuit through the landscape of a changing rural England. When a teenage girl leaves the workhouse and abducts a child placed in her care, the local priest … Continue reading Book Review: Beastings by Benjamin Myers
Prize Winning fiction
Behind the Pen with Holden Sheppard
It’s always a great pleasure for me to feature debut authors and today, I welcome Holden Sheppard to Behind the Pen, talking about his new novel, writing in general, and living your best life. How would you describe Invisible Boys if you could only use 5 words? Raw muscular unfettered grunge exorcism. What is the … Continue reading Behind the Pen with Holden Sheppard
#BookBingo – Round 19
Prize winning book Well, this was an obvious selection! Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton Winner of four ABIAs: Book of the Year, Literary Book of the Year, the Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year and Audio Book of the Year (Wavesound, narrated by Stig Wemyss). It’s also on the 2019 Miles … Continue reading #BookBingo – Round 19
Book Review: Normal People by Sally Rooney
Normal People... About the Book: Winner: 2019 Novel of the Year and Book of the Year at the British Book Awards, and the 2018 Costa Novel Award: Sally Rooney set the books world buzzing in 2017 with her debut Conversations With Friends. Normal People is a girl-meets-boy story with a difference, interrogating the difficulties of … Continue reading Book Review: Normal People by Sally Rooney
Book Review: Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton
Boy Swallows Universe... About the Book: Brisbane, 1983: A lost father, a mute brother, a mum in jail, a heroin dealer for a stepfather and a notorious crim for a babysitter. It's not as if Eli's life isn't complicated enough already. He's just trying to follow his heart, learning what it takes to be a … Continue reading Book Review: Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton
Book A Day: The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
Day 11: The English Patient In 1992 this novel was one of two titles that won the Man Booker Prize for fiction and this year it took out the special 50th anniversary Golden Man Booker. Seems I’m not the only one who thinks it's one of the greatest novels ever written. Haunting and harrowing, as … Continue reading Book A Day: The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
Queensland Literary Awards 2017 Fiction Winner: The Birdman’s Wife by Melissa Ashley
The Queensland Literary Awards ceremony was hosted by the State Library of Queensland on 4 October. I am absolutely thrilled that Melissa Ashley has been awarded The University of Queensland Fiction Book Award for her novel The Birdman's Wife, published by Affirm Press. So well deserved! About The Birdman's Wife: Inspired by a letter found tucked inside … Continue reading Queensland Literary Awards 2017 Fiction Winner: The Birdman’s Wife by Melissa Ashley
New Release Book Review: Drawing Sybylla by Odette Kelada
Drawing Sybylla... About: Winner of the 2016 Dorothy Hewett Award for an unpublished manuscript, Drawing Sybylla is a novel about the challenges women writers have faced in pursuing the writing life. On stage, a woman named Sybil Jones is making a speech. She is talking about the significance of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story ‘The … Continue reading New Release Book Review: Drawing Sybylla by Odette Kelada
