The Age
Reading someone's letters always seems like a distinctive invasion of privacy to me. But I do it all the same, seeking out extra insights into people I'm interested in and generally eavesdropping on gossip. Peter Hill has gone one better with a review this week of Bert and Ned: The Correspondence of Albert Tucker and Sydney Nolan, edited and introduced by Patrick McCaughey. Hill finds it "a gorgoeus book, both for its content and its design and layout...This volume has been compiled with great care and scholarship for us to enjoy at our leisure and I recommend it highly."
The Australian
Australian books still on holidays, it seems.
The Sydney Morning Herald
Bronwyn Rivers has a look at a debut novel by Jessica White, titled A Curious Intimacy, and comes away thinking that it doesn't quite hit the mark: "...too many characters feel like missed opportunities, their interest not fully exploited. This sweet romantic story has the pace and atmosphere of a literary novel, but lacks the impact of a more profound emotional drama."
Literary allusions and in-jokes seem to be the order of the day in Helen Garner and the Meaning of Everything, a new novel by Alex Jones. Kerryn Goldsworthy finds that "It is, in short, a brilliant and near-absurdist rave, a sort of 21st-century Such is Life (a book the narrator swears he will never read), with a surprisingly warm and solid foundation in everyday suburban family life."
A little known story from the early days of Sydney forms the basis of Carol Baxter's book An Irresistible Temptation: The True Story of Jane New and a Colonial Scandal. "Jane New's story is one of theft, seduction, incarceration, escape, corruption and political intrigue. For all the differences between New's world and our own, readers will find much to recognise in the persuasive powers of sexual attraction, the importance of getting the right lawyers and the media's role in bringing down politicians." Kirsten McKenzie is impressed with the work, while being very disappointed in the cover.
The Courier-Mail
Jason Nahrung discovers the explosion in vampire-related novels: covering the romance, horror and fantasy genres.
Howard Arkley's work is examined in Carnival in Suburbia: The Art of Howard Arkley by John Gregory and the book is reviewed by Christopher Bantick. "It is a book which attempts to contextualise Arkley's work and also offer a perspective on his contribution to our understanding of suburban life. It achieves this moderately well."
