Book news & reviews from the Sydney Morning Herald - Industry at crossroads but book sales are booming
MARC MONCRIEF 7:41pm Booksellers are already counting on a bumper Christmas season, but it comes before a new year that promises changes feared by many in the industry.
Peter Craven Paul Kelly has maintained his rage about the dismissal of Gough Whitlam's government.
Thuy On The whole anti-stress adult colouring craze has reached saturation point so maybe dot-to-dot is the next big publishing craze.
Chloe Quigley Chloe Quigley loved the concept of The Time Traveller's Wife.
Daniel Herborn The daughter of a short story writer finds her niche as something between an artist and documentarian.
Marc McEvoy Jackie French writes about wombats. Marc McEvoy finds out why.
Book reviews
Michael Popple Michael Popple delves into the world of historical fiction.
Books for Christmas
Colin Steele If you're looking for a Christmas book gift, there are some delightfully varied offerings available across a wide range of subjects, writes Colin Steele.
Books as gifts
Jeff Popple This was a good year for crime fiction, with plenty of variety and some outstanding debut novels.
Frank Furedi Reading was always regarded as a source of prestige and a marker of refinement and culture. With so much at stake, reading is not simply about absorbing a text but often also about putting on a performance.
Peter Pierce Alex Miller has found stories in his youthful years on a farm in England, on a cattle station in the Gulf Country of Australia, in his encounters with painters, in the Paris diaries kept by his mother before her marriage. The principal outcomes have been 12 novels.
Jenny Valentish Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl is more profound as a bildungsroman than as a rock memoir, even though the prologue leaves us intrigued: Why would Carrie Brownstein rather smash her fingers in a door than carry on in Sleater-Kinney any longer?
Luke Slattery In Pacific: The Ocean of the Future Simon Winchester assembles 10 curious tales – and stories within stories - about the post-war Pacific.
Michael McGirr As a young man, Daniel Klein started collecting arresting quotes from the great minds of history.
Kerryn Goldsworthy Short reviews of fiction by Rupert Thomson, Ross Fitzgerald & Ian McFadyen, Vikki Wakefield and Tess McLennan
Jane Sullivan In A Brief History of Seven Killings, Marlon James dared to write about gangsters and ruthless killers in his native Jamaica with a raw honesty. But perhaps the bravest thing he has done is to come out as a gay man.
Sam Cooney City on Fire is not the post-postmodern opus many were expecting, despite some gimmicky visual elements. It is instead a straightforward novel in the vein of Jonathan Franzen or Chad Harbach, one that obsesses with lost children: children escaping their parents, their homes, their past.
Steven Carroll We mull over a fine collection of books about Ernest Hemingway, Ian Fleming, Dalton Trumbo and Drew Barrymore.
David Astle As an ex-teacher, I've come to realise kids hate being told anything, unless it's funny, embarrassing or exciting, so that was my challenge: how to animate each clue recipe without the sniff of lesson.
The Wimpy Kid stays in number-one spot, but Guinness World Records is breathing down his neck.
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