A book about the ease with which a woman could be committed to a psychiatric hospital in the early part of the twentieth century. If a father or husband was displeased with a daughter or a wife (for whatever reason), the female in question could find herself locked away for ever without any possibility of …
In his book, neurosurgeon Alexander tells how, in November 2008, completely out of the blue, he contracted a type of meningitis that is related to E.coli bacteria. In spite of the best medical care available, he quickly slipped into a coma. The prognosis was that he would not survive and that if by some miracle …
This is an amazing book; it takes everything we know – and everything we think we know – about the world, and the different countries that comprise it, and expands it in every conceivable direction. It is well written with clear, concise, objective and up-to-date information. As Nicholas Lezard writes: ‘One of the best books …
On her 85th birthday, Miriam receives a beautiful bracelet from her family. It is handcrafted by gypsies and her name, Miriam, has been carefully engraved into the silver. However, she both amazes and disturbs her family when she announces that her name is not Miriam. Miriam’s thoughts revert to the 1940s, and we learn that …
Agnes Grey, though fictional, is actually based on many of Anne Brontë’s own experiences as a governess in the 1840s, and if you consider children of today (i.e. twenty-first century) to be rude and undisciplined then this is definitely a book you should read. While Agnes Grey’s small charges are nothing short of horrendous, Brontë …
As Denniss says in the beginning of his book: ‘The key question we must face is: what kind of country do we want to build? Do we want more coalmines, or more wind turbines? Better education and aged care, or lower taxes for high-income earners? Over to you.’ This book about neoliberalism (defined by the …
This is an amazing, refreshing, perplexing, wonderful book where a thirteen-year-old boy, Eli, and his one-year-older brother, Gus (who has chosen not to speak), live in an outer-Brisbane suburb with a mother who is a drug addict, a step-father who is a drug dealer, a baby sitter who is a convicted murderer, and a father …
Covering an overwhelming 841 pages, Magician – a fantasy – is a feat of imagination, planning, and realization. Feist’s management of the story, on many different levels and with a host of characters, is to be admired. Moreover, as Feist would have written it prior to the advent of the basic PC he would not …
On the cover, John Boyne writes ‘A masterful combination of humour and sadness’ – a statement that beautifully sums up the entire book. Eleanor Oliphant, thirty, lives alone. She has very little to do with the other people in the office where she works in accounts. She eats the same food every day, follows the …
Although this is a German book, I read it in Swedish (hence the Swedish title in first place). Gudrun Pausewang was 17 when WWII ended in 1945, and this small collection of stories contains some of her memories of the Nazi period and its aftermath. In no way is this book a literary masterpiece, it …