Contents of "The Age" Book Review pages for Saturday March 5:
Major review: one, Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Medium review, fiction: three, Villages by John Updike, The Year is '42 by Nella Bielski, and Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum.
Medium review, non-fiction: four, An End to Suffering: The Buddha in the World by Pankaj Mishra, Curtin's Gift: Reinterpreting Australia's Greatest Prime Minister by John Edwards, The King and I by Herbert Breslin and Anne Midgette, and The Moral of the Story: An Anthology of Ethics Through Literature by Peter Singer and Renata Singer.
Short notices, fiction: five, Ghost Tide by Yo Yo, Alone by Lisa Gardner, The Truth About Magic by Dave Luckett, Tyrant by Valerio Massimo Manfredi, and Eleven Days by Mchael Manuell.
Short notices, non-fiction: nine, Alexander: Selected Texts from Arrian, Curtius and Plutarch edited by Tania Gergel, The Ideas Book introduced by Phillip Adams and Dale Spender, The Pagan Christ: Is Blind Faith Killing Christianity? by Tom Harpur, Sharon and My Mother-In-Law by Suad Amiry, Frontier Justice by Tony Roberts, A Portrait of the Artist as an Australian by Paul Matthew St Pierre,
Hawkwood: Diabolical Englishman by Frances Stonor Saunders, Revelations by Various, and A Shifting Shore by Alice Garner.
I hadn't actually realised just how many books are covered each week in the review pages of "The Age" until I listed them out like that. You can understand the reasoning of giving the major review to the Ishiguro: he's a major novelist and is probably high up in the running for this year's Booker, if this review, and similiar recent ones, are anything to go by. The first Australian book we come to is Curtin's Gift, reviewed by Michelle Grattan, "The Age"'s political editor. She describes the book as "both a mini-biography and maxi essay" and a "good introduction for people unfamiliar with the story of an Australian icon." You sort of get the feeling that Grattan considers this book to be rather slight, especially as it follows the recent (a few years back anyway) full biography by David Day. The philosopher Peter Singer and the novellist Renata Singer have produced The Moral of the Story: An Anthology of Ethics Through Literature, which has been published by Blackwells at arather expensive $69.95. For libraries only I fear. James Ley does a good job of reviewing the book: praising and ticking off in equal measure, giving a good overview of the book and its aims in the process. There's not much more you can ask of a review than that. There are several Australian books covered in the short notices but none stands out for me other than The Truth about Magic by Dave Luckett. This is described as the first in a lively fantasy series for children. Perth-based Luckett has been writing for a while now and I wish him well with this one, which shouldn't be too hard, given that it has been published by Scholastic; the publishing house of a well known young magician if I recall correctly. Oh, okay, I know Dave, and have done for quite some years. Not extremely well, but enough to hope this series kicks off for him.
The Curtin biography is also given good coverage over at "The Australian" by Stephen Marchett, along with the almost-obligatory photo of ex-Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. The other major piece this weekend is the piece by Maryanne Confoy titled Morris the Maverick being an edited extract from her recent book Morris West: Literary Maverick. And given the recent goings on in the Vatican it might well be time to drag old Morris down off the shelf and check him out once more.
