News & Reviews

A wickedly funny satire. An academic flees a recent break up and lands in the absurd heart of Middle Eastern politics, charged with running a de-radicalisation program, armed with nothing but naïvely good intentions.

  Hard By a Great Forest reads like a dark fairytale for our times. Lyrical, unsettling and strangely tender, it is the story of young man on the hunt for his missing family, now

Modern Man is lost, floundering in a sea of neuroses. The legendary psychoanalyst presents an eminently readable theory of their origin and treatment, carefully articulating his understanding of the unconscious, the place of dreams

Three debut authors join two returning finalists and a two-time winner on the 2025 Miles Franklin Literary Award shortlist, which the judges praised for “writing that refuses to compromise” and for inventing “new languages

  By the author of Bookoccino favourite Withering-by-Sea, a long-awaited new fantasy adventure novel for sophisticated 8-12 year olds who love a strong heroine and don’t mind a little danger. This much praised story will

  Helen Garner’s capacity to pay attention and look at life with a curious gaze has never wavered. In this simple, beautiful book she thinks about and appreciates young men as they train, play

Moving to the Northern Beaches in 2003 from the Mid-North Coast, with her husband Ben and two young children, Sally was delighted to find a few days work at Bookoccino, an Avalon institution with Margaret

Uplifting. Moving. As journalist Cheng Lei describes her soul-destroying imprisonment in China, outrageously accused of spying, I wondered how she endured — more than three years in the cells, the lights always on, the

illustration: maría medem Jun 5th 2025 Biography and memoir Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America. By Sam Tanenhaus. Random House  William Buckley revived American conservatism in the second half of the

A tender love story and meditation on Blackness and masculinity set in contemporary London. Told in the second person with a lyrical prose that reads like water, Nelson questions what it means to be

I LOVED this book — funny, smart, and strangely moving. Set in ancient Syracuse but written with a modern, Irish street wit, it follows two unemployed potters who decide to put on a Greek

Hard New World: Our Post-American Future; Quarterly Essay 98 by Hugh White Generally speaking Americans no longer want to bear the economic costs of being the world’s policeman, believing their security is not at

Daughters of the Bamboo Grove: From China to America, A True Story of Abduction, Adoption and Separated Twins. A tour de force, in writing and reporting. As part of China’s one-child policy, a baby

The Director by Daniel Kehlmann Daniel Kehlmann’s historical fiction novel, The Director, delves into the life of legendary filmmaker G.W. Pabst. Known for his socially conscious and sexually frank silent movies, Pabst directed Greta

  Our Book of the Month is A Beautiful Family by Jennifer Trevelyn. It’s a sensational debut, completely absorbing. “I’ve been telling everyone: You simply must read it. . .it is that good,” says Literary Critic Caroline

Culture | Forged in blood The friendship of a Chilean dictator and a Nazi war criminal Philippe Sands traces the connections between Augusto Pinochet and Walter Rauff in his new book Sitting, not in

Peter Craven, The Weekend Australian. 17 May 2025 It’s five years since I reviewed Philippe Sands’s The Ratline but it stays in the mind as few books can. It’s the story of Otto von

Dear Newsletter Reader, Thank you for voting for your favourite book from our First Quarter Bestsellers. By clicking on the book of your choice in our Newsletter you have generated one vote for that

Dear Members of Ray’s Unofficial Book Club, Greetings from New York. I know you want an analysis of how the Trump world looks up close. Let me just say that in a recent NYT

We are delighted to be part of Book People. © Nielsen BookScan for the week ending April 19, 2025 Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games) Collins,Suzanne 2. The Let Them Theory Mel Robbins