downunder update

Reason is a better name than Logic or Rationality. So said Serafina, who champions rationality and deplores any mention of magic. Especially the witchcraft (smokes and mirrors she calls it) practiced by her own mother. But what happens when her daughter is 15?

Justine Larbalestier won an Andre Norton Award for best genre Young Adult novel in May 2007 with this tale of beautiful and fearsome magic. Read the rest of this entry »

The Weekend Book Review : Another classic this week from one of our lighthearted detective fiction writers. We have a great crop of them.

The Brush Off : A Murray Whelan Mystery

A murder, an investigation, a swag of suspects, a chase, a punchup. Like most people starting a new job, Murray Whelan finds the first day a bit bewildering and confusing. Read the rest of this entry »

The Weekend Book Review. In the ‘detective for everyone’ pattern, there’s nothing new about women writing women detectives (these days we have art-dealing, cab-driving, and handicapped P.Is) and Marela Day has lovingly restored for your reading pleasure this straight hard-boiled detective entertainment. Read the rest of this entry »

Another Review today. I’ve been asked about ‘Classic Australian’ books, but what does that mean? I’m never sure, but this one is always described as a classic. In a way. it is. It’s a book I had to study at school, an account of our early European history here, when the English used the country as a dumping ground for their excess prison population. I wonder what they would do nowadays. Set up a penal colony on Mars? Read the rest of this entry »

An Australian book. I remember idly picking this up from the lounge room bookshelf when I was 12, reading most of the first chapter before my Mum descended out of nowhere to snatch it from me. It was years and years before I got to read it. Here’s my review. Read the rest of this entry »