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Book Reviews
The Wonderling
Reviewed by Harley Crebert (aged 9)
Arthur, the one eared fox ("Wonderling") and Trinket (a small wingless bird) are the unlikely heroes who embark on heroic adventures and daring escapades through the fantastical world of Lumentown, Gloomintown and The Home (for wayward and misbegotten creatures). On a quest ... (continued)
Dork Diaries: Frenemies Forever
Reviewed by Olivia
A young customer of ours has kindly reviewed one of our new young fictions! (continued)
Half Wild by Pip Smith
Reviewed by Gillian, Berkelouw Books, Mona Vale
Pip Smith acknowledges the detailed and scholarly research of Susannah Fullerton and Mark Tedeschi who have both published works on the life of Eugenia Falleni, and from these, and her own investigations she has produced a dramatic, and compassionate fiction. She opens her story with a quo... (continued)
Police at the Station and They Don't Look Friendly
Reviewed by Gillian, Berkelouw Books, Mona Vale
This is the sixth Sean Duffy novel to be delivered by Irish ex-pat Adrian McKinty. The story is set in Belfast in 1988, a time of great volatility and trouble. Duffy is one of the few Catholic members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and thus a natural outsider. He has just become a father and... (continued)
The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Reviewed by Gillian, Berkelouw Books, Mona Vale
These stories from a Pulitzer Prize winner centre around the experiences of Vietnamese refugees who flee their country as Saigon falls, and focus on the communities they form in the US. Superbly written, the stories convey the disconnection, vulnerability and dismay felt by refugees, the... (continued)
Nevernight by Jay Kristoff
Reviewed by Jo Riccioni, Berkelouw Books, Mona Vale
Fantasy lovers, meet Mia Corvere, 17-year-old dispossessed noble of Godsgrave, on the run from her father’s killers and out for revenge. Mia is tough and smart, determined to become a student at the esoteric Red Church. But the Red Church is no ordinary school. There the most deadly assa... (continued)
See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt
Reviewed by Gillian, Berkelouw Books, Mona Vale
Lizzie Borden's grizzly tale is hardly the obvious story for a librarian from regional Victoria to retell as a debut novel - but Sarah Schmidt makes a suitably chilling job of rendering the last days of Andrew Borden and his wife Abby. Covering the period leading up to the murders and ... (continued)
Dregs by Jorn Lier Horst
Reviewed by Shirley Corley, Berkelouw Crime Book Club
For fans of Scandi Noir a new star is born. He is Norwegian crime writer Jorn Lier Horst. His sixth crime novel, brilliantly translated into English, has now been published in Australia. Due to the success of Dregs, two more novels will follow later this year. This beautifull... (continued)
Winter Traffic by Stephen Greenall
Reviewed by Gillian, Berkelouw Books, Mona Vale
Big man, Detective Michael Rawson, known variously as The Big Ship, The Blue Movie and The Incremental to give you just a few of his nicknames is at the centre of this sprawling story. He has been a hero, he has big gambling debts, he worries about his daughter and ex-wife and although he is s... (continued)
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
Reviewed by Gillian, Berkelouw Books, Mona Vale
When Count Alexander Rostov appears before the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs in post-revolutionary Moscow he is declared to be a non-person and condemned to live the rest of his life in the Metropol Hotel - "set foot outside the Metropol again and you will be shot".&n... (continued)
The Turners by Mick Elliott
Reviewed by 10 year old Zac Martin
My Book Review (on Turners) The book Turners was VERY good in my opinion. The description was amazing along with the details of everything that was happening. Excitement was something else that hooked me into Turners. He turned into a KOMODO DRAGON!!!AT SCHOOL!!!!!!Just heaps of... (continued)
The Boy Behind the Curtain by Tim Winton
Reviewed by Gillian, Berkelouw Books Mona Vale
Helen Garner's recent collection of writing is called Everywhere I Look, and in Garner's work it seems to me, it is what she chooses to notice, the things she looks at, that create a particular view of the world, delivered to the reader through her transcendent writing. I t... (continued)
Barkskins by Annie Proulx
Reviewed by Gillian, Berkelouw Books Mona Vale
Annie Proulx' s novel tells the story of the European colonisation of North America through the exploitation of its vast forests, and the history of the Sel and Duquet family who arrive in Kebec in 1693.With the destruction of the forest comes the marginalisation of the indigenous people w... (continued)
All the Light We Cannot See
Reviewed by Jade Brown-Zwar
'All the light we cannot see' is a beautiful and enchanting novel which presents a different perspective to the highly sensitive and horrific time of World War II. Following the live of a German boy and a blind French girl, Anthony Doerr not only siezes the power of language to p... (continued)
The Crossing by Andrew Miller
Reviewed by Gillian, Berkelouw Books, Mona Vale
Maud and Tim meet at the end of their university studies brought together by their shared interest in sailing. Maud is a scientist ready to embark on a career in R&D. Her parents are both school teachers - she remembers her home always smelling of laminating. She is intelligent and p... (continued)
Beauty is a Wound by Eka Kurniawan
Reviewed by Gillian, Berkelouw Books, Mona Vale
The life story of renowned beauty (and prostitute) Dewi Ayu, takes us through the tumultuous history of modern Indonesia from independence, through Japanese occupation and the rise of Indonesian strong men. Dewi Ayu's village, Halimunda, is subject to the upheaval affecting the w... (continued)
The Winner's Curse - Marie Rutkoski
Reviewed by Jamie, Balgowlah
Think Roman Empire meets Victorian England, with a main character who is Elizabeth Bennet cross Katniss Everdeen. When Kestrel, the privileged daughter of a General, impulsively purchases Arin, a slave, at the market she sets the whole city talking. After being surrounded ... (continued)
The Shepherd's Life- James Rebanks
Reviewed by Elias, Balgowlah
The English Lakes are famous for their beauty, but less famous for their farmers. James Rebanks, proud inheritor of a tradition that spans millennia, is a tenth-generation shepherd – that rarest of beasts, a working small hold farmer. This book is an account of his life on a land enshrin... (continued)
Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner? - Katrine Marcal
Reviewed by Elias, Balgowlah
When Adam Smith theorised modern economics in the 18th Century, he based it on the individual. The workings of the market were driven by this individual pursuing their rational self-interest, as natural to humans as eating or breathing. In this hilarious, breezy, and sharp book, Katrine Mar&cc... (continued)
Landfalls- Naomi J.Williams
Reviewed by Lee, Balgowlah
One voyage, many voices. Leaving France in 1785 with the grand purpose of scientific and geographic discovery, Laperouse commands La Boussole and Astrolabe, and the fate of 114 men. This novel captures that ill-fated expedition with meticulous research and terrific characterisation. ... (continued)