Author Archives: susan

Recently we drove to the coast, to Port Fairy for a few days holiday, just before the full coronavirus emergency hit. Late autumn, harvest-time, and semi-trailers loaded with hay constantly roared past. The recent rain meant that paddocks looked dry … Continue reading →

Comfort reading. Like comfort eating, it can be addictive and feel a little shameful. Shouldn’t I be reading the latest, grimmest memoir or book on current affairs? What about that great tome of literary fiction that’s been on my shelf … Continue reading →

Nothing New: A History of Second Hand is light and cheerful reading,  full of Robyn Annear’s usual sparkling anecdotes. But there is also enough substance to get me thinking very seriously and personally about waste. Robyn makes it clear that … Continue reading →

In 1945 our parents went away and left us in the care of two men who may have been criminals… I read the whole of Warlight over one day on a visit to Melbourne, on V-line country trains and on … Continue reading →

It’s a new year – it has been for a couple of weeks now – but with the pall of smoke reaching here all the way from the fire grounds in Victoria and New South Wales, thousands of homes lost, … Continue reading →

Often in bookselling there are titles that come to my attention not because of advertising and promotion or the fame of the author, but via the good old word of mouth. This year, with so many customers ordering this book, … Continue reading →

In the midst of some dark and heavy adult reading’- ‘Dark Emu’, ‘Too Much Lip’, ‘The Body Keeps the Score’ – I decided to browse my shelves for a children’s book and came up with ‘The House in Norham Gardens’ … Continue reading →

Right there on the cover it says ‘A Jackson Brodie novel”. But Jackson Brodie is just one circle in an intricate Venn diagram of characters. From the first page, the diagram is proliferating and intersecting wildly. Private investigator Brodie (ex-army, … Continue reading →

A Tasmanian political thriller? How unexpected. And not what I would have predicted as a follow-up from Heather Rose, who was awarded the 2017 Stella for Museum of Modern Love. Bruny is a gripping novel about corruption and influence and … Continue reading →