Read on for thoughts about books and reading and teaching and life. But mostly books.
Steven Herrick is a pillar of Australian young adult literature. His newest YA novel, How to Repaint a Life, hits all the right notes.
In which Danielle waxes way too enthusiastic about book mail in general and Bionic Books mail specifically.
Jane Harper’s The Dry and The Lost Man are crisp and startling crime novels set in the heart of Australia. This September, her latest novel, The Survivors, shifts to the wilderness of the Tasmanian coastline. Is this latest story as good as the others?
The short answer is: yes.
“I think it is a very human thing to store away some little nugget of the present deep inside yourself - ready for a future version to pluck it out and reexamine when you're able to. That's what I did in some way, even as a 12-year-old; I kind of reminded myself to not forget this stuff.”
This moment when, for a tiny space in time, Australia’s history crossed paths with the much bigger story happening in south-eastern Europe has been little explored in fiction, but Danielle Binks’s warm and brilliant middle grade debut, The Year the Maps Changed, captures it all through the eyes of the fierce and immediately endearing Winifred – or Fred, to her dad.
Michael Christie’s Greenwood is as towering, timeless and complex as the species it is named for.
In this promising debut from Andrew David MacDonald, 21-year-old Zelda figures that most of life’s challenges can be overcome with a little Viking courage and ingenuity.
David Burton’s memoir, How to be Happy, won the 2014 Text Prize for YA and Children’s Writing. His fiction debut, The Man in the Water, proves to be just as masterful.
If you’re going to read one book on a 731-kilometre road trip to farewell your grandmother, let it be Kassandra Montag’s debut novel, After the Flood.
