Reviews of Australian Books #23

The Broken Shore by Peter Temple has now been published in the UK and is starting to garner some reviews. In "The Independent" Mark Timilni is certainly impressed with the book: "The Broken Shore is a sad, desolate novel, as Temple chronicles the death of an area, on the down for the locals, but the up for the rich who come to play. It's a stone classic. Hard as nails and horrible, but read page one and I challenge you not to finish it."

In "The Daily Telegraph", Siddartha Deb finds a lot to like about Theft by Peter Carey: "Theft is a work of art that successfully reflects upon the conditions in which art is created, and one can't complain if it demands of the reader an ability to separate the slightly derivative skin from its pulsating, inimitably authentic, core."

Kate Grenville reviews Tom Keneally's The Commonwealth of Thieves in "The Guardian": "For anyone who has an uneasy feeling that their grasp of early Australian history is less than absolutely firm (and that includes a great many of us), The Commonwealth of Thieves is a great bluffer's guide. The book gives an overview and makes a clear sequence out of all the many different sources...[the book] is a great read and a useful scholarly resource. Excellent chapter notes, an extensive bibliography and the index make Keneally's journey transparent, and allow further exploration in the sources for an interested reader."

Keneally's book is also reviewed in "The Times" by Carmen Callil: "Keneally has always had a grand talent for the telling of a tale. His rattling account of the genesis of his native city is one of his very best."

Tim Flannery's book The Weather Makers is still attracting reviews with Richard Girling, in "The Sunday Times", casting an eye over the book, in tandem with two others on global warming: "Flannery's book is nothing less than a user's manual for the planet... He is a master of cause and effect, explaining, for example, why the warming of the Indian Ocean causes drought in the Sahel. Along with the horror, he serves a generous helping of fine-grained detail that improves our understanding of the natural world even as it increases our anxiety for its future."

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This page contains a single entry by Perry Middlemiss published on June 26, 2006 12:00 PM.

Australian Books to Film #11 - The Shoes of the Fisherman was the previous entry in this blog.

Weekend Round-Up 2006 #26 is the next entry in this blog.

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