Well here we are right in the middle of June. Though this tends to be one of the quieter months for new books before the lead up to Christmas, there are plenty of excellent new books around. It’s the perfect time to discover a new author you may never have picked up before, and here’s [...]

There’s nothing like a book that feels utterly fresh. Regardless of quality, a large number of books that cross my path seem to be a variation on a theme. Of course this is to be expected, but it does mean that when we stumble across a book loaded with originality- and brilliantly executed- it feels [...]

The latter part of 2011 was crammed with so many big book releases that just to think of them was tiring. In early September my ‘to read’ books were stacked in a thick but reasonable pile; by December the ‘pile’ resembled a shoddily built skyscraper, enormous and keening this way and that at the slightest [...]

Part 1 featuring the first five books in my list can be found here. Open City by Teju Cole Damn it, I thought recently, after finishing Open City. I said I wouldn’t declare any book to be the best of 2011! Yet Teju Cole’s momentous debut novel has sorely tempted me to break my own rule. [...]

Ah, December. It’s the time of year when we look back as well as forward. It’s also the time of year when humanity’s strange proclivity towards list making finds an outlet and ‘best of’ lists start popping up everywhere: best movies, best albums, best political revolutions, etc. It really starts getting freaky when people on [...]

Picking up the new Nick Earls book is like saying hello to a friend you haven’t seen in a while. One of those more interesting friends that you actually enjoy being around. In The Fix, we follow Josh Lang, just returned to the Gold Coast after being made redundant in London. It’s the latest disappointment [...]

‘The bedroom is strange. Unfamiliar. I don’t know where I am, how I came to be here. I don’t know how I’m going to get home.’ Some novels centre around a tired idea, saved only by expert writing. Some novels sparkle with originality but are let down by poor execution. Then there are novels like [...]

‘One way or the other, the ocean would claim her dead. Munroe stood, bare feet fueling the savage ecstasy of the hunt to come’. So we encounter Vanessa Munroe, central character in Taylor Steven’s The Informationist. This American debut is part thriller, part action novel, with lashings of high drama and violence- it’s certainly not [...]

We all dream of adventure. Jetting off toward exotic destinations we read about in the weekend supplements, searching for the kind of memories worthy of…well, a book. Freelance writer Becky Wicks is one of those people brave enough to actually take such voyages, and her sense of adventure eventually lands her in Dubai, a city [...]