Chris Saliba's Book Reviews

Talk: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves, by Alison Wood Brooks

2026-09-04T22:16:09.244-07:00

Learn how to get more out of your conversations with this indispensable guide

Everyone knows how to talk, right? Wrong, according to Harvard Professor Alison Wood Brooks. We’re ill prepared with topics to discuss, don’t ask enough questions to maintain momentum and fail to see conversation as a way to engage and have fun. Professor Brooks backs up her guidelines for good conversation with rigorous science. Many of her findings may surprise you.

For example, one section of the book discusses the importance of apologising, even for things you didn’t do. Brooks cites a study where participants asked complete strangers if they could borrow their mobile phone to make a call. Only 9% of those asked cooperated. But when the study was performed on a rainy day, and participants apologised for the rain, 47% of people offered their phones when asked.

Other research shows that, despite our aversion to sounding intrusive or overly familiar, asking directly personal questions are for the most part well received. They demonstrate a strong interest in people, and so recipients are almost flattered at the attention.

Not all conversations are good, however. Some are hostile, or can quickly escalate. In a particularly useful chapter, Brooks guides the reader through the minefield of disagreement.and conflict. By listening and acknowledging grievances, the way can be smoothed to air an opposing point of view or opinion. Research shows that this method of discourse makes an opponent more amenable to what you have to say.

To make the book’s lessons easier to remember, Brooks smartly distillates her message into four main points:

T. Topics. Research things to talk about.
A. Asking questions
L. Levity. Finding the fun in conversation.
K. Kindness. Hear out what people have to say and give them space.

Written in cheerful, companionable prose, this guide to talking offers vital tips not only for making good conversation, but for also building strong relationships. A must read.

Talk: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves, by Alison Wood Brooks. Penguin Books. $26.99

JUNE 2026

The Things We Never Say, by Elizabeth Strout

2026-09-04T22:14:44.354-07:00

A middle-aged school teacher struggling with life finds himself not waving but drowning

Artie Dam is a much liked teacher and member of his community. He is married to Evie, who works as a therapist. She is more laconic and laid back, often giving questionable advice to her clients. They have a son, Rob, who was involved in a tragic accident that killed his girlfriend. It’s never spoken, but it is implied his negligence could be responsible. Artie is going through a period where it feels the weight of the world is on his shoulders. He also feels his country is on the wrong track, with the election of Donald Trump as president. In short, he’s not coping. Not only that, many people around him, friends and colleagues, are not coping either.

Into this dark and foreboding atmosphere a bomb is dropped by his son. He has discovered a family secret that threatens to blow them apart. With his mental health already perilously close to the edge, Artie must do his best to keep everything together, even when it seems that not only his family, but the whole country is falling apart.

The Things We Never Say is the eleventh novel from American novelist Elizabeth Strout. It’s a concisely written portrait of small town America, but one that reflects a larger national mood. The novel simmers with a terrible despair, occasionally relieved with flashes of humour and warm humanity. Strout has one character, the simple yet pure-of-heart Rhonda Lazarre, a victim of classroom bullying, represent the noble yet fragile values of protecting the weak and always seeing the best in everyone. Her portrayal gives grounds for hope that decency and grace are still possible in a world filled with indifferent cruelty.

A psychologically rich look at everyday lives of quiet desperation.

The Things We Never Say, by Elizabeth Strout. Published by Viking. $35

JUNE 2026

Another Man in the Street, by Caryl Phillips

2026-09-04T22:13:29.236-07:00

The life of a West Indian migrant is explored in this all-too-human novel.

It’s the 1960s, London. West Indian man Victor Johnson is sailing on a boat from St Kitts, a Caribbean island. He’s leaving behind a girlfriend, Lorna, in the hope of making something of himself in England. When he arrives he finds work in a pub. The owner, who can’t be bothered inquiring into his real name, calls Victor “Lucky”. At the pub he meets all sorts of characters, most notably Peter Feldman, an unscrupulous landlord. Peter has an interesting backstory too, a German-Jewish war refugee, he has lost his home and parents. Victor starts work with Peter as a rent collector, chosen for the job because his boss thinks he will have a better chance of extracting money from fellow West Indian migrants who tenant his substandard properties. While working for Peter he takes up with Ruth, a white working class girl who had to give up her daughter for adoption. The two set up a home together of sorts, but the relationship is plagued with challenges and insecurities. Despite all of Victor’s difficulties, he does experience a degree of success as a journalist, writing up articles on the West Indian migrant experience.

Caryl Phillips is an award winning Kittian-British writer who has published plays, essay collections and novels since the early 1980s. Another Man in the Street, his latest novel, addresses issues of class and race in England from the 1960s up to today. The novel is written from many perspectives and intimately fleshes out the experiences of working class and coloured people, the prejudices they face, and how this shapes not only their destiny, but how they see themselves. Victor is presented as a deeply flawed man, as are the other characters, including his girlfriend Ruth and former boss Peter. All three have a great degree of self-awareness about their limitations, which makes their portraits all the more painful and filled with pathos. Ruth constantly tries to re-imagine her life, torturing herself with what-ifs, while her daughter treats her like a moral outcast. In a harrowing chapter Peter ends up as a doorman in a New York apartment building, routinely humiliated by the entitled residents. And finally, Victor is haunted by regrettable scenes from his life.

Difficult subject matter sensitively handled in a tightly written narrative about broken people. For readers of Elizabeth Strout and Claire Keegan.

Another Man in the Street, by Caryl Phillips. Published by Bloomsbury. $22.99

The Lost Soldiers, by Andrey Kurkov

2026-09-04T22:12:25.974-07:00

Ukrainian writer Andrey Kurkov returns with a new Kyiv mystery.

Kyiv, 1919. It’s a time of great political instability. Only a year ago the entire Russian royal family had been shot. The Red Army is in control, but the White Army and anarchists are lurking in the background. Everything is in flux and anyone could be swept into power at any moment. Against this tumultuous background, humble police investigator Samson Kolechko works to solve the mysterious case of twenty-eight Red Army soldiers who have gone missing at the Halystka bathhouse, their clothing left behind. It’’s a surreal case, with many strange characters and bizarre twists. While Samson works in earnest to solve the mystery, he must also negotiate a maze-like underworld filled with corruption and nepotism. There is also the dreaded Cheka - secret police - who are keeping an eye on Samson’s activities.

The Lost Soldiers is the third installment of celebrated Ukrainian author Andrey Kurkov’s Kyiv Mysteries. The novel has wonderfully earthy descriptions of people, streetlife and Slavic food, bringing the Kyiv of a hundred years ago vibrantly to life. Kurkov mixes these gritty aspects with many humorous, almost absurdist elements, giving the story a bittersweet feel. We know Samson walks a perilous tightrope, with danger always nearby, yet the comic tone lightens this emotional burden. Deeply satisfying literary fiction.

The Lost Soldiers, by Andrey Kurkov. Published by MacLehose Press. $34.99

JUNE 2026

Bonfire of the Murdochs, by Gabriel Sherman

2026-09-04T22:11:09.155-07:00

An excoriating portrait of a very unhappy family.

Rupert Murdoch built a global media empire with far reaching political and cultural influence from his father’s inheritance. He intended to make Keith Murdoch proud and achieved extraordinary wealth and power. The question of who would eventually inherit and lead the Murdoch family empire was one that would fester among three key siblings - Lachlan, Elisabeth and James. (Prudence, from an earlier marriage with Patricia Booker, showed no interest in the family business, and two daughters with Wendi Deng, Grace and Chloe, were kept at arm’s length.)

Bonfire of the Murdochs is a riveting drama of how a powerful father pits his three children against each other. Lachlan, Elisabeth and James all try to prove their worth to a ruthlessly cold, calculating man who sees everyone as disposable. The betrayals, exploitation and emotional manipulation beggars belief. Rupert is often cowardly, creating emotional train wrecks but running away from the scene of the crime and getting others to clean up his mess. He suggested Elisabeth should tell brother James to step down from his position after the company’s phone hacking scandal. The two siblings wouldn’t talk for years afterwards.

Based on 150 interviews, journalist Gabriel Sherman has written a nightmare tale of wealth and the destruction it wreaks.

Bonfire of the Murdochs, by Gabriel Sherman. Published by Simon & Schuster. $36.99

JUNE 2026

Annie and Maeve are Definitely Not Friends, by Olivia Muscat

2026-09-04T22:09:58.102-07:00

Enmity turns to friendship in this realistically told story.

Eleven-year-old Annie has left her old school St Lucy’s after a bout of bullying from her former friends. After a recent accident that left her blind and with a limp, fellow students inexplicably turned on her, unable to cope with the change. On her first day at North Avenue Primary Annie is assigned a buddy, Maeve. Maeve is a long time North Avenue student. She is also blind.

The girls are immediately suspicious and contemptuous of each other. Their blindness doesn’t create camaraderie. But as circumstances keep throwing them together, and challenges call for joint resolve, they find their defences lowering. When a talent contest dares Annie to step out of her shell, she finally triumphs and conquers the trauma of her accident and bullying, also finding a loyal tribe of friends.

Olivia Muscat is a writer and disability activist. Annie and Maeve Are Definitely Not Friends is a middle grade novel about being vulnerable and finding your place in an often difficult and uncertain world. The story alternates between Maeve’s journal entries and a traditional third person narrative, deftly tracking Annie and Maeve’s personal transformations. A feel good story of courage and resilience that rings true to every word.

Ages 9-11

Annie and Maeve are Definitely Not Friends, by Olivia Muscat. Published by Freemantle Press. $17.99

JUNE 2026

The Perfect Passion Company, by Alexander McCall Smith

2026-09-04T21:58:27.936-07:00

A matchmaking agency presents a moral quandary for its new owner

Thirty-year-old Katie has been offered The Perfect Passion Company, an old school introductions business. Her cousin Ness, who started the business and grew it into a respectable concern, has decided to take a gap year in Canada. She may return, she may not. With some trepidation, Katie takes on the business and its bulging files of lonely hearts.

The matchmaking agency’s next door office on Little Mouse Street is occupied by a man four years Katie’s junior, William Kidd. Before leaving for Canada, Ness introduces William to Katie. It will be helpful, she decides, if the two get to know each other as Katie learns the ropes. William, it turns out, is the perfect gentleman - handsome, intelligent and courteous. There are no drawbacks, although he runs a curious business as a designer of woolen jumpers. He knits the designs up himself, which does lead to some assumptions about his sexuality, but the reader is assured that such reductive masculine stereotypes need not apply here. In fact, William has a fiance, Alice, back in his home city of Melbourne, Australia.

As Katie works through her first few matchmaking cases, William helps out in an advisory role, and the two strike up quite a friendship. Alice, the fiance back in Melbourne, often looms ominously in the background as Katie and William become closer. Is William and Alice’s relationship really on firm ground, or are there cracks starting to show? As Katie feels herself falling in love with William, she must do her best to keep her emotions in check.

The Perfect Passion Company started out as two e-book novellas, and now finds itself expanded into a four hundred page novel. All of the usual themes of Alexander McCall Smith’s fiction are present: sticky emotional entanglements, moral dilemmas, questions of how to live ethically. There is a good deal of stoicism in the pages of McCall Smith’s novels. Characters often must practice self-restraint and make decisions that prioritise the welfare of others. When Katie realises that her feelings for William could not only endanger herself, but cause cascading grief and heartbreak, she displays admirable self-control. Reading Alexander McCall Smith’s fiction, it’s always easy to empathise with his characters, to walk in their shoes and wonder, “What would I do?”

In the end, all moral quandaries are resolved, and the good are rewarded for their exemplary behaviour and steadfastness. The not-so-good, if not punished, are certainly found out. The Perfect Passion Club is an entirely satisfying fiction about real lives and real world problems, with a cast of likable characters muddling through life as best they can.

The Perfect Passion Company, by Alexander McCall Smith. Published by Polygon. $39.99

MAY 2026

A Message from Ukraine, by Volodymyr Zelensky

2026-09-04T21:55:00.096-07:00

A short collection of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s speeches.

A Message From Ukraine is a selection of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s speeches, from 2019 to 2023. The speeches were chosen by Zelensky himself and he also wrote the introduction. The book first appeared in 2022 and this new edition features an additional speech, from 2023.

Having watched on our television screens the horrible destruction and humanitarian disaster of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for the last two years, one might expect A Message From Ukraine to be full of grim stories from the front, unbearable tales of death and destruction. In fact, Zelensky’s speeches are warm and humane. While they may have been written to bolster morale and help Ukrainians endure the unendurable, their message has a universal appeal. Zelensky stresses that truth and dignity will be the victor in the end. There is a tone of deep empathy in Zelensky’s words - this is the voice of someone who has seen much suffering.

A Message From Ukraine is more than a collection of political speeches of the day; it is a timeless book dealing with the deepest of existential themes. It shows that truth and honour can give untold strength, despite the confronting horror of war.

A Message from Ukraine, by Volodymyr Zelensky. Published by Penguin. $19.99

MAY 2026

Long Island, by Colm Toibin

2026-09-04T21:53:37.220-07:00

When an old flame comes back to town, a spurned lover can’t decide what he wants, or what is best.

Eilis Lacey moved from Ireland to Long Island, New York in the 1950s and secretly married an Italian American, Tony Fiorello. It’s 1976 and she now has two teenage children, Larry and Rosella. One day a complete stranger - an aggressive Irishman - knocks on her door and tells her that his wife is pregnant with Tony’s child, and that he intends to dump the baby on her doorstep when it is born. The news knocks Eilis for six, but worse is to come. Her mother-in-law, Francesca, concocts a plan to take care of the baby herself. Eilis doesn’t want the baby anywhere near her family.

Stressed and not knowing what to do, she travels alone to her hometown of Enniscorthy in Ireland, ostensibly to celebrate her mother’s 80th birthday. An old flame, Jim Farrell, is running the local pub. The two had originally intended to marry, but Eilis ran out on him, starting a new life in America. Jim never married, but has now started a clandestine relationship with Nancy Sheridan, an old friend of Eilis’s. They are planning their own marriage, but carefully timing the announcement. When Eilis turns up in Enniscorthy, Jim’s is plunged back into the emotional turmoil of some two decades ago, when he was abandoned. He meets up with Eilis, which only opens old wounds; he also entertains naive hopes. Could he start a new life with Eilis in America, or is this mad, wishful thinking? And what of Nancy, who has invested so much in her relationship with Jim?

Samuel Johnson, the great English essayist and lexicographer, once wrote that “Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.” This piece of wit goes some way to explaining the themes of Long Island. Jim is hopelessly intoxicated with the possibility of a rejuvenated affair with Eilis, and he knows it is seriously upending his judgment. But still he ploughs into danger. The sensible path, staying with the practical and stable Nancy, seems like a let down when compared to Eilis, who represents a youthful passion that can maybe be recaptured.

Colm Toibin perfectly describes a slow moving trainwreck as Jim gets sucked further and further into this romantic delusion. A sense of suspense builds as it becomes obvious that none of what his characters are planning can possibly come to good. There are some humorous moments. The portrait of the prickly yet crafty Mrs Lacey, Eilis’s mother, is a delight. And the descriptions of Nancy’s business, a fish and chip shop which is subject to multiple complaints because of the smell, are wonderful for their relentless dinginess. The lives of Enniscorthy are often pathetic and small, but are nonetheless filled with warmth and humanity.

There are some uneven notes, however. The novel doesn’t really resolve the plot involving the unwanted child and the family dynamics of the Italian family back in Long Island. The trauma this has caused for Eilis is pretty much left up in the air. And Nancy’s revenge on Jim perhaps stretches credulity a bit far. Having said that, this is a story I thoroughly enjoyed, with characters whom I became totally involved with.

Long Island, by Colm Toibin. Published by Picador. $34.99

MAY 2026

The Mysterious Affair of Judith Potts, by Robert Thorogood

2026-07-31T21:14:06.463-07:00

The latest installment of the beloved cozy crime series.

Murder is afoot in the idyllic English town of Marlow. Football star Gary Wise is shot dead at the rear of his property, and soon local thriller writer Mike Saxon succumbs to the same fate. It seems the town’s celebrity class is being targeted, causing flighty TV presenter Angela Guthrie to worry she’ll be next. This is obviously a job for amateur sleuths Suzie Harris, professional dog walker, Becks Starling, the vicar’s wife and the crossword setter Judith Potts, their unofficial leader.

A spanner in the works is the appearance of Judith’s step-daughter, Eleni. Eleni is the daughter of Judith’s Greek husband Philippos, who died in 1976 on a boat trip off the coast of Corfu in suspicious circumstances. Eleni claims to have proof that Judith was responsible, even though Greek authorities cleared her name. Eleni dogs the three women, leaving Judith seriously rattled and unable to perform at her best.

The Mysterious Affair of Judith Potts is the fifth book in the successful Marlow series. Like all previous books, it’s a tightly plotted story with three irrepressible characters that readers will love. The Marlow novels balance entertainment and humour with the feel good themes of enduring friendship and personal resilience.

The Mysterious Affair of Judith Potts, by Robert Thorogood. HQ Fiction. $32.99

Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future, by Dan Wang

2026-07-31T21:13:09.379-07:00

China expert Dan Wang explains why China needs to slow its pace of building, while America needs to to do the opposite.

Dan Wang was born in Yunnan, China. Aged seven, his family moved to Canada, hoping to build a better life. As an adult, Wang has lived in both China and the United States, these experiences informing his work as a technology writer.

Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future benefits from an easy to understand premise. China is an engineering culture, capable of producing enormous infrastructure projects on budget and on time, but often of dubious quality and utility. America, on the other hand, is a lawyerly society. Once a great engineering nation, the US now is mired in a thicket of laws, rules and regulations, stopping much needed building. Wang argues that China needs be more lawyerly and adopt some breaks on their engineering zeal, while the US, with its crumbling infrastructure, could learn from China’s can-do approach.

One wouldn’t expect a book on comparative economics and engineering to be such a fun read. Breakneck is just that. Wang brings first hand experience and a gift for organising complex ideas into a rollicking narrative that humanises China - authoritarian on the surface, but messy and complex underneath.

A brilliant explainer from a generous guide.

Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future, by Dan Wang. Published by Allen Lane. $55

APRIL2026

Ivy and Bearlock: The Case of the Missing Flower, by Kristyna Litten

2026-07-31T21:12:04.254-07:00

A fun, endearing, endlessly inventive children's mystery for emerging readers.

Young Ivy and her grandfather Bearlock Holmes are crime sleuths. When they go on an outing to the botanic gardens to see the famed agave flower, which is blooming for the first time in 100 years, they are shocked to find themselves plunged into a mystery. The great flower has been stolen. Detective Hopkins, a rabbit that has a habit of falling asleep on the job, is the first at the scene. But you guessed it, he promptly succumbs to a nap. It’s left to Ivy and Bearlock to use all their crime solving skills to solve the mystery. The plot thickens as a honey trail, involving beekeeper Wilfred Buzzbee, queen bee Beatrice and badger honey sellers Bruce and Barry, leads to an unlikely culprit.

Writer and illustrator Kristyna Litten has created a real treat for young mystery fans. The story has a delightful cast of characters, witty dialogue and innovative twists and turns. Readers are taken for an exciting journey that includes beekeeping, archeology and underground tunnels. There are also puzzles, interesting botanical facts and other fun educational aspects. Written in the style of a graphic novel, with intricate and charming illustrations, newly independent readers will love Ivy and Bearlock.

Ages 5-9

Ivy and Bearlock: The Case of the Missing Flower, by Kristyna Litten. Published by Magic Cat Publishing. $21.99

APRIL26

Hot Chocolate on Thursday, by Michiko Aoyama

2026-07-31T21:10:34.456-07:00

Twelve interconnected stories from the celebrated Japanese author Michiko Aoyama.

Michiko Aoyama is a bestselling author in her native Japan. Two of her books, What You Are Looking For is in the Library and The Healing Hippo of Hinode Park have recently found their way into English translation. Now her first novel, Hot Chocolate on Thursday, has been published. (The sequel, Matcha on Monday, is due out later this year.)

The novel is comprised of twelve interconnected stories, each featuring a colour theme. Characters are briefly introduced in one chapter, then expanded up in the next, until the final chapter where the original main two characters, a waiter and his customer at a cafe, are brought full circle. In between there is a broad cast including mothers, child care workers, artists, gallery owners, students, travellers and an elderly married couple. These are everyday people, hoping for love and connection, but fearful of rejection and loneliness. Aoyama’s books have sometimes been described as therapy, and there is a self-help quality about her writing, but her light touch also succinctly captures the human dilemmas we all face. The fiction of Alexander McCall Smith - stories that explore the moral quandaries of everyday people - would probably make a good parallel.

I was struck by one paragraph in Aoyama’s novel, where she neatly encapsulates how the mind often works against itself:

“We live in ignorance of what the next second holds. There are things beyond our control that come to us unbidden. In those moments, anxieties that multiply endlessly cause us to imagine fearful scenarios. Even though these are stories of our own fabrication, we are threatened by them as if they were immutable futures handed down to us by someone.”

Gentle, easy reading, feel good fiction, containing a core of wisdom and truth.

Hot Chocolate on Thursday, by Michiko Aoyama. Published by Doubleday Uk. $34.99

APRIL26

Glyph, by Ali Smith

2026-07-31T21:08:07.252-07:00

Scottish novelist Ali Smith shows how the weight of history is still felt in the present.

Two sisters, Petra and Patricia, are very close when growing up in the 1990s as young girls, but fall apart during adulthood. Petra, the older sister by two years, recalls strange incidents from their youth, in particular a story told to them by an elderly woman at a family party. The woman was some type of messenger during the Second World War and during an errand came upon a dead flattened body, probably run over by a tank. The remains of the body are like a thick leathery strap. The story haunts the girls as they play games that try to recreate the dead soldier. Another story, this one from the First World War, is equally shocking. A sensitive young soldier leads a horse rendered blind by chemical warfare into the woods, and doesn’t return. He is later found guilty of desertion and shot.

In adulthood, Petra revisits these stories and out of the blue, contacts her estranged sister, Patricia. The two women re-connect, and Petra discovers Patricia now has a teenage daughter, Billie. Billie has gotten into a spot of bother with the police when attending a free Palestine protest.

For the most part, Glyph (the name given to the flattened man) constitutes a dialogue between two sisters, seen from the perspectives of both women. A third perspective is offered by Billie, who brings a contemporary critique of war. The language Ali Smith employs is light and playful, with lots of amusing word games, giving the novel an immediate and of-the-moment aspect. It feels like the characters are there with you. Where things get dark is in the descriptions of war violence and the questions raised about the morality of portraying - whether in literature or child’s play - those who have died in tragic circumstances. Hence the novel swings from cheerful childhood innocence to the horror and violence of war.

A deceptively simple story told in a loose style that could have gone off the rails in the wrong hands, but Ali Smith shows a deft hand in balancing the light and the dark.

Glyph, by Ali Smith. Published by Hamish Hamilton. $39.99

APRIL26

A Shadow of Myself, by Peter Flamm

2026-07-17T22:58:11.819-07:00

A man troubled by war tries to lose himself by impersonating someone else.

While roaming the scarred battlefields of Verdun in north eastern France, a German man named Wilhelm Bettuch comes across the corpse of a dead surgeon, Hans Stern. A working class baker himself, Wilhelm decides to steal the papers of this professional man, return to Germany, and impersonate him. Things go surprisingly smoothly. Posing as Hans Stern, Wilhelm discovers he has a wife, named Grete. She recognises him as her husband, and any differences in personality she puts down to the traumatic effects of war. Hans/Wilhelm also discovers that neighbours and friends easily recognise him.

But a troubling inner voice says he will be caught. The family dog, Nero, treats him suspiciously. And family friend and prosecutor Sven Borges claims to be on his tail. When Hans/Wilhelm is summoned as a witness in a court case, he risks serious consequences.

Peter Flamm (real name Erich Mosse, 1891-1963) was born into a Jewish family in Berlin. First published in 1926, A Shadow of Myself is on one level about survivors of trench warfare during the First World War, but on another level it delves into themes of self and presentation of self in society. Hans/Wilhelm (the two are somehow convincingly mixed into one entity) very much hides behind a mask, his inner self a roiling ocean of doubts, anxieties and fears. The text denies the idea of concrete personality and identity, that hard surface and false veneer we try to wear. In an extraordinary passage, Flamm describes individuals as mere expressions of biology and mysterious nature:

“...our parents aren’t our father and mother, not their blood alone, we have every animal inside us, every plant, all of them speaking their muffled language, as embryos we still have all their shapes, breathing with gills, we’re fish and reptiles and animals, the whole of creation is inside us…we’re all brothers, we’re all one, there’s no guilt because we’re not ourselves…”

The novel’s narration is paced like a thriller, as Hans/Wilhelm constantly fears detection. Even though he is surrounded by friends and family, and lives in a bustling city, he is nevertheless haunted by a terrifying isolation, a world that can never understand him. In tone and atmosphere, A Shadow of Myself is reminiscent of Kafka’s nightmare existential classic The Trial (the framing device Flamm uses is that of a courtroom confession, where Hans/Wilhelm tells his story.)

A hundred years after it was first published, this exceptional work of war time fiction can now be enjoyed by English readers. (Translated by Simon Pare.)

A Shadow of Myself, by Peter Flamm. Published by Pushkin Press. $32.99.

MAR26

Vilhelm's Room, by Tove Ditlevsen

2026-07-17T22:56:52.411-07:00

An abandoned wife takes a victory lap of sorts, giving an excoriating commentary on her friends, lovers and family.

Lise Mundus is a celebrated poet. Her husband, Vilhelm, is an equally famous newspaper editor. After twenty years of marriage, he has abandoned his wife. From a psychiatric ward, Lise publishes a lonely hearts ad, searching for a lover. She takes up with Kurt, an aimless drifter who lives above her flat. The relationship is pretty meaningless to Lise, just a way of filling in the empty hours. What really gives her life a semblance of meaning is a steady stream of exasperated, ironic and often comical commentaries on Vilhelm and his many lovers. Lise is also critical of herself and her own behaviour in the relationship, although the tone of these self-reproaches is breezy and glib.

As this mad, patchwork narrative barrels along, we know a reckoning is ahead, for in the first page we learn that Lise is already dead.

Vilhelm’s Room was Danish poet and author Tove Ditlevsen’s final novel, published in 1975. It is a bit of a train wreck, but one you can’t look away from. The story jumps all over the place, characters come and go erratically and the narrator’s voice is hard to pin down. Sometimes it’s Lise narrating, sometimes a third person narrator, sometimes it’s hard to figure out who’s who. That might make it sound like a challenging read, and it is to a degree, but the novel’s extraordinary psychodynamics - the ex-lovers, the self loathing, the sexual competition, the painful loneliness- make it compellingly universal. Our darkest moments are here laid bare in a prose that is both despairing and witty. The reader doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Interspersed through the madness are insightful passages where Ditlevsen discusses relationships, childhood and personal struggles. If Vilhelm’s Room has a theme, it is the latter. Lise is flighty, cheerful and witty, even if this is at core a very rancid type of wit, the enjoyment of Vilhelm’s character assasination. Underlying all this is a serious mental illness. Lise talks in earnest about suicide, claiming the thought of it is her only happiness in life, as it provides her the freedom to choose when her misery will end.

Tove Ditlevsen’s final novel is shocking and raw. It’s also darkly comic, with a nervous energy that propels the story. The book should perhaps come with a warning, especially anyone suffering from mental illness.

Brilliant and original, but also deeply saddening. (Translated by Sophia Hersi Smith & Jennifer Russell.)

Vilhelm's Room, by Tove Ditlevsen. Published by Penguin. $26.99

MAR26

Reminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekov and Andreyev by Maxim Gorky

2026-07-17T22:55:35.612-07:00

Three Russian greats are seen up close and personal in this classic memoir, newly translated.

Maxim Gorky published his short, sketch-like memoir of Tolstoy in 1919, and the following year Virginia and Leonard Woolf’s Hogarth Press published an English translation. In 1934 the memoir was expanded to include two other greats of Russian literature, Anton Chekhov and Leonid Andreyev. Fitzcarraldo Editions has now published a new translation by Bryan Karetnyk, with a useful introduction by J. M. Coetzee.

Gorky writes in a luminous, magical prose that is a delight to read. All three memoirs - especially the Tolstoy one - are composed of short chapters, more like sketches or snapshots, designed to capture the essence of these great authors in casual moments. For example, one entry simply quotes Tolstoy saying, “Look after thyself first and foremost - for then there shall be more left for others.”

Maxim was friends with all three of his subjects, but they were complicated relationships. Tolstoy is prickly, brilliant, charismatic and sometimes full of arrant nonsense. After his death, Gorky reflects that he doesn’t know whether he loved or hated him. Chekhov is the least complicated of the trio, a warm and easygoing character, someone who is kind at heart. It’s with Leonid Andreyev that Gorky has the closest friendship. This is ironic, as the two were quite opposite characters. Gorky is consistently critical of Andreyev, his aesthetic choices and politics, while also proclaiming his deep affection.

Reminisces of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev is enjoyable on many levels. It examines complicated relationships, provides fascinating biographical sketches on some of world literature’s biggest figures, and finally, is written in a pleasurably immersive prose style, one that continually astonishes with its shrewd observations and inventive analogies.

Fans of Russian literature will find this mandatory reading, but for those not particularly invested, Reminisces may spur a further interest in these greats of literature.

Reminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekov and Andreyev by Maxim Gorky. Translated by Bryan Karetnyk. Published by Fitzcarraldo. $32.99

MAR26

On Antisemitism: A Word in History, by Mark Mazower

2026-07-17T22:54:21.413-07:00

A fair minded look at how notions of anti-semitism have evolved over the last 150 years.

The title of this book is perhaps a misnomer. It could more accurately be called a political history of anti-semitism. The expression “anti-semite” came out of Germany in the late 1870s, a term used in academic and journalistic circles. It was invented by German pamphleteer Wilhelm Marr, who formed a League of Antisemites. By 1910 the word had entered the Encyclopedia Britannica and was spread worldwide by Adolf Hitler.

The irony is that the term anti-semitism came into being in response to growing Jewish emancipation. Old prejudices and legal restrictions were slowly being broken down. The late 19th century was a time of great optimism for the status of Jews, especially those living in Europe. But it was this growing freedom that created a backlash. Jewish people making great contributions to finance, science and the arts would be blamed for all of modernity’s ills. Such prejudice reached its apogee with the publication of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, essentially a conspiracy theory that Jewish people intended to take over the world. To use today’s vernacular, it went viral and was enormously influential.

The history of the Second World War hardly needs to be gone over, but post war a Jewish homeland became an urgent preoccupation. Israel was established during the 1948 Palestine War. Some 700,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homeland. As Israel grew from a nascent state into a more mature one, ideas of anti-semitism and Jewishness changed, pretty much hand in hand with the country’s political evolution. The idea that Jewish identity was more wound up with Israel than the Jewish diaspora took root. As Jewish identity merged with Israeli statehood, to criticise Israel meant leaving yourself open to charges of anti-semitism. Paradoxes abounded: left wing Jews concerned about the plight of the Palestinians could be called anti-semitic, while far right anti-semitic groups could laud Israel for its brutal occupation. All of this was helped along by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s 2016 working definition of anti-semitism, which was much vaguer and looser, lacking the precision of earlier, more broadly agreed on definitions.

British historian Mark Mazower has taken on a minefield subject, one that is sure to displease people on various sides of the argument. His book raises many questions and is a call for common sense. He argues that expanding and inappropriate use of the term anti-semitism is not making Jews safer, and may have unintended consequences.

A carefully examined history of anti-semitism in modern times and how political discourse is corrupted. An eye opener and an education.

On Antisemitism: A Word in History, by Mark Mazower. Allen Lane. $55

MAR26

A Stocking Full of Spies: The Ministry of Unladylike Activity 3, by Robin Stevens

2026-07-17T22:53:09.626-07:00

When two mysterious deaths occur at the famous wartime code breaking centre Bletchley Park, the guilt is pinned on a most unlikely suspect.

It’s 1941. The British are secretly breaking German codes at Bletchley Park. When their school is bombed, twelve-year-olds May Wong and Nuala O’Malley find themselves working as messengers at the famous code breaking centre. Secret codes aside, there are other mysteries afoot at Bletchley Park. An adult family friend of May’s has been implicated in murder. Bertie Wells, while doing routine military night training at the park, accidently killed fellow code-breaker Llewelyn Huxley. Or did he? There were others there during the training session, and it was nighttime. Anxious Bertie, lacking in confidence, thinks his gun went off accidently, but he can’t be sure. As May, Nuala and fellow sleuth Eric investigate, another murder happens. The obnoxious Colonel Hugo MacNair, leader of one of the code breaking teams, dies suddenly after drinking a cup of tea laced with strychnine. Could the two deaths be linked? And what of rumours that a spy, working for the Germans, is in their midst.

Children’s author Robin Stevens has made a well deserved name for herself as the Agatha Christie of children’s literature. In this second series (the first, Murder Most Unladylike, was set in 1930s England) Stevens concentrates on the Second World War. The characters, language and expressions all brilliantly capture the time, right down to the timing of jokes and delivery of punchlines. Besides Agatha Christie, there is even a hint of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh in Steven’s effervescent storytelling. The plot is endlessly ingenious and the narrative superbly paced. There’s not a dull page in sight. An added bonus is the novel’s educational aspect, which teaches readers about the workings at Bletchley Park, and its role in helping the Allies win the war.

Kids’ detective fiction that doesn’t disappoint.

A Stocking Full of Spies: The Ministry of Unladylike Activity 3, by Robin Stevens. Published by Puffin. $16.99

FEB26

Discipline, by Randa Abdel-Fattah

2026-07-17T22:44:59.047-07:00

Award winning Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah addresses the contorted way Middle-Eastern issues are dealt with in media and academia.

Ashraf is an academic trying to keep his head above university politics. He can’t speak his mind too freely on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict without seeming like an Islamic extremist. His postgraduate student, Jamal, has no such qualms, and posts articles and comments that gets them both into hot water.

Hannah is a journalist - the only Muslim in her workplace - trying to shift the lens on reporting Middle Eastern politics. Her stories are often reworked by editors to give a more pro-Western slant. It’s frustrating, but what options does she have? Turn her back on a good paying job (she has a young family to raise), or try to change attitudes from within?

When a year 12 student at an Islamic college protests a university’s ties to an Israeli weapons manufacturer, both Hannah and Ashraf are drawn into the affair. The issue presents a terrible personal crisis. Respond honestly, unapologetically highlighting the hypocrisy, falsehoods and blindspots of Western thinking on the Middle East, or compromise and feel you’ve sold out?

Discipline is about self-censorship. How false narratives are powerfully embedded. Randa Abdel-Fattah has written an engaging and accessible novel with very relatable characters, highlighting the perilous tightrope Australian Muslims are compelled to walk.

Discipline, by Randa Abdel-Fattah. Published by UQP. $34.99

FEB26

Freezing Point, by Anders Bodelsen

2026-07-17T22:43:12.645-07:00

Danish writer Anders Bodelsen (1937 - 2021) considers the high price of living indefinitely.

It’s 1973. Magazine editor Bruno discovers while shaving a weird lump on his neck, causing him to bleed. He visits specialist Doctor Ackerman and is assured it’s nothing to worry about, but some tests will have to be performed nonetheless. What was presumed to be a benign condition, turns out to be terminal cancer. Bruno hasn’t long to live. But extraordinary leaps in science present Bruno with a terrible choice. Doctor Ackerman offers a radical new procedure. He could be part of an early medical experiment where his body would be “frozen down” and then brought up again decades later when a cure was found.

Bruno is torn over what to do. He has just started a new relationship with a dancer named Jenny. With limited time to think out his options, he impulsively decides to be frozen down.

Twenty-two years later he is revived, but finds changes have been made to his body without permission. He has been sterilised and certain organs have been swapped out for synthetic ones. Society has been divided into two classes - “now-life” and “all-life”. Now-life mortgage their organs and live like “hippies”, not having to work. All-lifers work long and hard hours to afford all the medical interventions needed to keep them alive, ostensibly forever.

Bruno hopes to meet his girlfriend Jenny in this brave new world. He persistently asks for a meeting and the hospital authorities keep putting it off, as Jenny has also had some medical interventions. Eventually the reunion occurs. Bruno is shocked by what Jenny has become.

Anders Bodelsen was a Danish writer of experimental thrillers. Freezing Point was first published in 1969. It’s a tightly written story that looks at the ethics of medical interventions to prolong life indefinitely. As a sideline, the book also questions the economics of prolonged life. In the imagined society of 1995 and 2022 (the book jumps first 22 years into the future, then 27 years) all resources are directed towards extreme medicine. People who opt to live a natural lifespan sell their organs, while those who wish to live eternally must pay in endless (and by extension, eternal) work. The novel also plays with ideas of narrative, as editor Bruno muses on different modes of storytelling. In a dehumanised future world, it seems that fiction may have died, as Bruno tries in vain to obtain magazines or books to read.

A gripping and ghoulish thriller offering the reader plenty of ethical conundrums to wrestle with.

Freezing Point, by Anders Bodelsen. Translated by Sophie Mackintosh. Faber Fiction $24.99

FEB26

Fall, Bomb, Fall by Gerrit Kouwenaar

2026-07-17T22:37:46.613-07:00

A Dutch youth itching for some excitement in his life gets more than he bargained for in this classic coming of age novel.

Karel Ruis is a seventeen-year-old fed up with his dull life and unhappy parents. He wishes for something to happen, anything really. His ennui makes him even wish for a bomb to fall and shake things up. There are rumours afoot that Germany intends to invade his country, the Netherlands. There is an atmosphere of denial and trepidation among the adults. Surely the English will come to their rescue and all will be well.

Karel has an uncle, a jolly fat man who claims to have found the secret of a happy life, despite all the personal tragedies he’s had to endure. Uncle Robert gives Karel a letter, to be delivered to a Mrs Mexocos, a Jewish woman. Karel is to wait for Mrs Mexocos to write a reply. He performs this mysterious errand and finds himself enchanted by the woman - an artist - and her Bohemian style apartment. Mrs Mexocos also has a daughter, named Ria, whom Karel immediately falls in love with.

The gathering storm of threatened German invasion happens. Karel’s new and enchanting friends Mrs Mexocos and Ria must flee. They book tickets to London. Karel dearly wants to follow, to escape his miserable family and live a charmed life in London. But he must return home, with only heartache for company. When he arrives back in the city he finds the bombs he had wished for have caused untold tragedy.

Gerrit Kouwenaar (1923 - 2014) wrote Fall, Bomb, Fall when he was a mere twenty-three. The novel’s depth and maturity suggest an author of a much older age, looking back on their youth. Kouwenaar perfectly captures the flightiness and restless energy of youth. Karel is compulsive and reckless, but also warm and earnest. The text is light and playful in tone, almost humorous, despite the dark subject matter of Nazi invasion and looming Jewish persecution and murder. The novel presents a vibrant slice of life, a time when everything is normal and tomorrow can be trusted in, that is soon to be turned upside down and forever destroyed.

First published in 1950 and now translated into English for the first time, this is a literary gem not to be missed.

Fall, Bomb, Fall by Gerrit Kouwenaar. Published by Pushkin. $26.99

FEB26

Pictures of You: Collected Stories, by Tony Birch

2026-07-17T00:06:07.091-07:00

A collection of Tony Birch's stand out stories.

Having recently won the Age Book of the Year award for Women and Children, and with a substantial body of work now to his name, it feels like the time has come to celebrate writer Tony Birch. Hence the lushly produced Pictures of You, a collection of twenty-two previously published stories.

Birch is a writer who doesn’t stray too far from what he knows. He concentrates on his gritty Fitzroy upbringing, a time when people’s lives played out on the street. It was a time, too, when technology was whatever tools you had on hand, and what you could do with them. In a favourite story, “The Bicycle Thieves”, a foul mouthed neighbor donates a bicycle he cobbled together to some adventure seeking local kids. In other stories Birch tackles his fraught relationship with his father, scenes of domestic violence, terrible working class jobs, the vulnerability of children and the lives of Indigenous people.

Considering the difficult subject matter of many of Birch’s stories, they should be harrowing to read. Instead they provide warm, sympathetic portraits of people under duress. These are timeless stories written in a simple, unadorned prose, every word compelling.

Pictures of You: Collected Stories, by Tony Birch. Published by U.Q.P. $45

JAN26

Against Identity: The Wisdom of Escaping the Self, by Alexander Douglas

2026-07-17T00:05:14.947-07:00

A philosopher explores notions of identity in this fascinating study.

Philosopher Alexander Douglas was born in Canberra, Australia, and now teaches at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. In Against Identity, he explores how we cultivate our identities and how such a pursuit can harm us personally. Not only that, but identity - with clans, nations, social groups, ideologies - leads to social disharmony, conflict, even war. How to break out of this mind set and perhaps find peace? Douglas examines the thought of three philosophers from vastly different times and cultures - Zhuangzi (4th century BCE China), Spinoza (Dutch Enlightenment) and Rene Girard (20th century French theorist).

The overarching theory that Douglas weaves together is that identity is mimetic - we look to others and emulate people we think of as ideal. We imitate identity models. We also like others to emulate us. But identity can never be fixed - our subjective selves change constantly, as does the world around us. The remedy to this is to “embrace all possible identities while being defined by none of them.” That is, accept otherness and the ebb and flow of life, but resist defining ourselves against others.

A deeply thought out theory of being presented in lucid, accessible prose.

Against Identity: The Wisdom of Escaping the Self, by Alexander Douglas. Published by Allen Lane. $45

JAN26

The Adventures of Pongo and Stink, by Lisa Nicol

2026-07-17T00:04:08.559-07:00

Two pigs masquerade as dogs, with hilarious results.

Pongo and Stink are two pigs living in the barn at Farmer Nic’s. Life is pretty good, despite the occasional midnight visit from a menacing fox. But Pongo aspires to more. When she sees Farmer Nic’s dog Rollo living it up at the farmhouse, enjoying affectionate pats and scones with jam and cream, she starts to get ideas. She suggests to her good friend Stink that they dress up as dogs. Stink is cautious, and he takes some persuading, but soon enough they find themselves at Mr Waleed’s costume shop, being fitted out. All goes to plan. Farmer Nic is fooled by the costumes and the pigs enjoy all the delights that the farmhouse has to offer. Until that is they are asked to perform real dog tasks, like rounding up sheep.

Lisa Nicol’s piggy adventure is a zany romp full of delightful improbabilities, where costume sellers speak pig and a farmer doesn’t recognise his own animals wearing fluffy zip up suits. But the story has such a wonderful energy that the reader is happily taken along for the ride. Think Shaun the Sheep meets Roald Dahl. With delightful illustrations by Karen Blair. Warmly recommended!

Ages 6-10.

The Adventures of Pongo and Stink, by Lisa Nicol. Published by Penguin. $19.99

JAN26