The List
8 May 2008
4 stars
It’s safe to say this latest novel from Fifer John Burnside won’t be sparking a tourism boom on the east coast anytime soon. But his bleakly beautiful tale digs beneath the surface of the everyday to do what he does best, hunting out terrifying and comforting truths about what makes us [...]
The List
4 September 2008
4 stars
Tyndale Corbett is worried that ‘do-gooding, over-forgiving softies’ have given religion a bad name. After stealing a friend’s identity and fleeing to Miami to escape his dead-end existence, he wants to con a congregation into believing he’s God. Decency and law-abiding got him nowhere, but his new role as a [...]
The List
2 October 2008
4 stars
Mark Doty’s talent has always been in bringing elegance to simple, normally very recognisable, snapshots from everyday life. The American poet starts out with a plain observation - some rude truck driver tearing up the NYC streets; his dog, Beau, wagging its tail; a bat leaving an ‘inky signature’ in the [...]
The Sunday Times
24 August 2008
In her second novel, Under the Mountain, Cooke weaves a tale that tracks the difficult road to adulthood
The List
3 July 2008
Shop talk
The work of playwright Jim Cartwright can be found on the school curriculum. Claire Sawers learns how a debut novel has allowed his imagination to run wild
The List
13 March 2008
Life swap
Having switched from Marxist activist to Zen Buddhist, Meaghan Delahunt tells Claire Sawers that her new book is all about escaping from the past
The List
29 November 2007
3 stars
Great comedy and psychological problems normally go together like Bill Hicks and nicotine. Nice guy Steve Martin’s ‘funny but weird’ schtick means he’s pulled off the near impossible by delivering original, occasionally brilliant material, without ever turning into an out and out nut.
