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LETTERS

 Pardon Me For Mentioning ...
Edited by Alex Kaplan, Julie Lewis and Catharine Munro
Allen & Unwin, A$29.99
Ever wondered about those letters that never make it to publication in the daily newspapers? Well, fret no more, because this collection offers a sample of unpublished letters to The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. The selection includes missives not just from irate readers writing about whatever irks them, but there are also whimsical, witty and funny observations.

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DEBUT
This is How to Love
Katie Cotugno
Pan Macmillan, A$16.99
Girl meets boy. They fall in love. Unbeknown to him, the girl, 16, is carrying his child. The boy disappears for three years and then returns, expecting the girl to act as though nothing has happened in his absence. This debut fiction is fairly standard teenage romance stuff, narrated in alternate before and after chapters (before his departure and after his return). Unfortunately, there's nothing particularly novel in the content or structure.



FICTION
<p></p>The Storyteller and his Three Daughters
Lian Hearn
Hachette, A$29.99
Lian Hearn has had great success with her Tales of the Otori, a trilogy set in Japan. She continues her fascination with the Land of the Rising Sun in her latest novel. Set in Tokyo in 1884, the book focuses on Sei, a great storyteller who turns narrative into a theatrical experience without props or music. His voice alone creates the world and its characters. This is a sprawling historical novel that takes a while to develop but captivates when it gets going.

 THE BOOK THAT CHANGED ME: JOHN SAFRAN
The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
Despite my environment I wasn't too much of a Jew. I had daydreamed about hip-hop through my five years at my Chasidic high school. Then in first-year uni I read all the famous Kafkas. To paraphrase Kafka, I awoke one morning to find myself metamorphosised into a giant Jew.

John Safran's Murder in Mississippi, about the death of a white supremacist, is published by Penguin Australia.