News & Reviews

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

We are delighted to be a part of the inaugural Global Book Crawl – a worldwide event for booklovers to support and celebrate their independent bookstores! There are a great prizes and beautiful totes

  “A personal memoir, a piece of historical detective work and a gripping courtroom drama unite in 38 Londres Street” Renowned author and lawyer Philippe Sands joins us from the UK, discussing a shocking

A talented seamstress weaves her way through the social (& gender) divides of 1900’s Italy. Pitzorno is a prolific fiction writer in her homeland, & this easy novel reads like a short story collection,

Isobel, a privileged property development heiress, couldn’t have less in common with Meg, a desperate, down on her luck journalist, but a well timed, mysteriously gifted DNA test could change all that. A classic

A rich, delightful thriller, another Emma Donoghue gem. Read the right clock at the station, set at different times, to get on board the Paris Express at the end of the 19th Century. Meet

MAY BOOK OF THE MONTH A small book, intensely descriptive and beautifully researched.  It will shock when we finally realise we are so teeny-tiny, living on an incredible planet in the infinite vastness of

A beautifully crafted historical novel that transports readers to 17th-century Venice. Orsola, a young woman defies convention to carve out her place in a male-dominated world. Immersive and rich in detail. — Julia

38 Londres Street — in pursuit of Pinochet and a Nazi war criminal Philippe Sands tells the story of his part in attempts to extradite the Chilean dictator and trace his ties to an

The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins and Sawyer Robbins Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy Quarterly Essay 97: Losing It: Can We Stop Violence Against Women and Children? Orbital by Samantha Harvey Memorial

I was waiting for this book and it was so worth it. It is absolutely breathtaking! The History of Sound has a pure, crystalline quality. In twelve timeless stories Shattuck explores American history, war,

Dream State by Eric Puchner   I’m halfway through this quirky novel, which feels like the love child of Jonathan Franzen and Kathy Lette. It reminds me a bit of the bestselling Eleanor Oliphant

The Prosecutor: One Man’s Battle to Bring Nazis to Justice by Jack Fairweather A profile in courage in a time of peril. Fritz Bauer, an irascible, German-Jewish lawyer jailed and torture by the Gestapo, was

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy A remote island off Antarctica, a research station with an underground seed bank, for when civilization as we know it ends (by flooding, burning or starvation) is now abandoned —

Polis — between 650BCE and 350CE a loose collection of up to 1,500 self-governing city-states had a direct say in their government through philosophical debate and collaboration. The Polis was a resilient and adaptable

Were you a fan of Hamnet, or The Marriage Portrait, by Maggie O’Farrell. Perhaps you loved Matrix by Lauren Groff. If so you’re sure to love this detective novel set in renaissance Florence. Cosimo di Giovanni

Dear Friends, Last minute and a rare opportunity: Geraldine Brooks was at Bookoccino last Friday to sign copies of Memorial Days, “a heart-rending and beautiful memoir of sudden loss and journey toward peace.” Geraldine and

From a ‘factory,’ with only cold showers, no air conditioning, and ferocious mosquitos, an enigmatic, reclusive former engineer in the People’s Liberation Army who grew up in poverty, Ren Zhengfei, built the technological behemoth,

I absolutely adore Lawrence Osborne. I know you will too.  Late last year I recommended The Forgiven to Julia, one of our most prolific staff readers. First published in 2012 it is just one