by Dave Bradley | Apr 25, 2018 | Books, Reviews
Carmen Maria Machado (Profile) 2018, 243pp, RRP $24.99 Machado has somewhat defied description for some time now, with her writing straddling horror, sci-fi, psychodrama, women’s erotica and ‘queer’ genres, and this collection of short stories includes examples of all...
by Dave Bradley | Jan 15, 2018 | Book, Books, Reviews
Noah Isenberg (Faber) 2017, 334pp, RRP $49.99 As the years roll by so many movies fade into obscurity, and yet somehow Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca (1942) remains untouchably beloved, and Isenberg here attempts, at great, often delicious length, to find out why. Using...
by Dave Bradley | Jan 15, 2018 | Book, Books, Reviews
Liz Lawler (Bonnier) 2018, 362pp, RRP $29.99 Lawler’s first novel is set in her home city of Bath and benefits considerably from her 20 years’ experience as a nurse, meaning that the medical talk sounds sometimes scarily genuine and rather excuses the occasional air...
by Dave Bradley | Jan 15, 2018 | Book, Books, Reviews
Tom Lee (Granta) 2017, 153pp, RRP $24.99 A short story writer and academic, Lee’s first (and rather slim) novel is a crisply-written study of the plight of a titular character whom it’s almost impossible to like, which some readers might find odd or off-putting and...
by Dave Bradley | Dec 20, 2017 | Book, Books, Reviews
Mick Wall (Hachette Australia), 310pp, RRP $32.99 Rock author Wall is a goddamn writing machine, having turned out biographies on Prince, Lemmy and Guns N’ Roses in less than two years and then followed them up with this, a pretty illuminating study of the life and...
by Dave Bradley | Dec 20, 2017 | Book, Books, Reviews
Joe Hill (Hachette Australia), 432pp, RRP $29.99 On the heels of Hill’s epic apocalyptic novel The Fireman comes this collection of four chunky novellas united (sort of) by the idea of weather, or at least meteorological events we don’t – or can’t –...