Category Archives: Australian Authors

The Man Booker Prize Winner

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Congratulations Richard Flanagan.

WINNER of the 2104 Man Book Prize for ‘The Narrow Road to the Deep North’

the-narrow-road-to-the-deep-north

What would you do if you saw the love of your life, whom you thought dead for a quarter of a century, walking towards you? Richard Flanagan’s story, of Dorrigo Evans, an Australian doctor haunted by a love affair with his uncle’s wife, journeys from the caves of Tasmanian trappers in the early twentieth century to a crumbling pre-war beachside hotel; from a Thai jungle prison to a Japanese snow festival; from the Changi gallows to a chance meeting of lovers on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Taking its title from 17th-century haiku poet Basho’s travel journal, The Narrow Road To The Deep North is about the impossibility of love. At its heart is one day in a Japanese slave labour camp in August 1943. As the day builds to its horrific climax, Dorrigo Evans battles and fails in his quest to save the lives of his fellow POWs, a man is killed for no reason, and a love story unfolds.

The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion

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the-rosie-effect-no-more-signed-copies-The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion

Book Summary

Don Tillman and Rosie Jarman are now married and living in New York. Don has been teaching while Rosie completes her second year at Columbia Medical School. Just as Don is about to announce that Gene, his philandering best friend from Australia, is coming to stay, Rosie drops a bombshell: she’s pregnant.

In true Tillman style, Don instantly becomes an expert on all things obstetric. But in between immersing himself in a new research study on parenting and implementing the Standardised Meal System (pregnancy version), Don’s old weaknesses resurface. And while he strives to get the technicalities right, he gets the emotions all wrong, and risks losing Rosie when she needs him most.
Review

The Rosie Effect continues the story of Don and Rosie, now married and living in New York. While I enjoyed ‘The Rosie Project’, I found ‘The Rosie Effect’ BRILLANT!

Don and Rosie are settling into their new life in New York when Don is thrown a curve ball, Rosie announces; “We’re pregnant”.

This is the beginning of a hilarious and delightful story; one which I am sure everyone will find hard to put down.

There are some familiar characters Gene, Don’s best friend and Dave the American who Don met on his trip to New York. All the characters both old and new fitted so well together. Their stories and the way they interacted with Don added those special elements that made this book so AMAZING.

Graeme Simsion’s writing style is very engrossing; you feel like you are actually part of Don’s story. I found it hard to believe Don was not a real person and that I wasn’t his friend sharing his ups and downs.

‘The Rosie Effect’ will make you laugh; be prepared for strange looks if you are reading on the bus or train. You will also hold your breath and hope against hope that Don will triumph.

It would be very hard not to like ‘The Rosie Effect’. Instead I feel people cannot help but be sucked into the vortex that is Don Tillman.

I can already tell that ‘The Rosie Effect’ will be very high up on my list of books that I loved this year.

5 stars

 

 

 

 

 

Reviewed by

Jody

The Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2014 shortlist

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The 2014 shortlist is out!

 

Check out all the great titles.

booker prize

 

Reserve your copy now! Click on the links below.

 

The Narrow road to the deep North by Richard Flanagan

J by Howard Jacobson

The lives of others by Neek Mukherjee

To rise again at a decent hour by Joshua Ferris

How to be both by Ali Smith

We are all completely beside ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

 

The winner will be announced on Tuesday 14th October 2014.

 

How many books will you read?

 

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

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Second Tuesday Book Group – September 2014

 

Summary

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Set against Iceland’s stark landscape, Hannah Kent brings to vivid life the story of Agnes, who, charged with the brutal murder of her former master, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution.

Horrified at the prospect of housing a convicted murderer, the family at first avoids Agnes. Only Tóti, a priest Agnes has mysteriously chosen to be her spiritual guardian, seeks to understand her. But as Agnes’s death looms, the farmer’s wife and their daughters learn there is another side to the sensational story they’ve heard.

Riveting and rich with lyricism, BURIAL RITES evokes a dramatic existence in a distant time and place, and asks the question, how can one woman hope to endure when her life depends upon the stories told by others

 

 

Comments

  • Story about Agnes Magnúsdóttir who was condemned to death for her part in the brutal murder of two men in Iceland in1829.
  • Really liked the book, interesting, emotional; devastating end.
  • Wonderful; great writing good descriptive on relationships. Showed what life really was like for the time; hardship.
  • The writing was very vivid and took the reader on a great journey.
  • One of the best books read this year. Very different, good insight into the way of living and different class of living standards.