Category: Issue Five Book Reviews
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Book review: Autonomy
Review by Abby Claridge. ‘ Only a woman can know the visceral desire to end a pregnancy she is experiencing against her will – no man… can ever understand this.’ My biggest struggle with reviewing this text was coming to terms with the fact that I would never be able to capture the profound effect this…
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Book review: Watermark by Joanna Atherfold Finn.
Reviewed by Angela Wauchop “She reads each word carefully and I follow along in my head. ‘“A particularly fine specimen,”’ she says, her finger drawing an imaginary line under the small print. It is so small that I have to lean in to make out the words. ‘What a strange way to describe her. Like…
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Book Review: ‘Every Note Played’.
Reviewed by Angela Wauchop “He loves women, appreciates them as much as any man, but ultimately they find themselves achingly hungry with him. And he refuses to feed them. His artistry for playing the piano seduces them. His lack of artistry as a man is why they leave.” American author and neuroscientist Lisa Genova is…
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Book review: Dying & Other Stories By Eugen Bacon
Reviewed by Angela Wauchop ‘Did you want me to teach you about galaxies and how a sprinkle of magic could keep them efficient? Did you want me to clap my hands and say: Look at this world. Isn’t it beautiful?’ Zhorr pressed his hands together. ‘This, my son, concludes our history session.’—A Maji Maji Chronicle Dying…
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Book review: Thirteen Wicked Tales
Review by Kathryn Lamont From alien planets to medieval battles, athletes to clones, Eugen Bacon and E. Don Harpe’s collection of literary speculative fiction, Thirteen Wicked Tales, tackles a wide variety of places, people and themes in thirteen bite sized pieces: easy for any book lover to devour on the go. While each tale is…
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Book review: Jules Grant’s We Go Around in the Night and are Consumed by Fire
Reviewed by Angela Wauchop. “Knock people’s places down, just makes them cling on harder. Then you got people clinging on to dreams, and you can’t ever fight that. […] Cut something back just makes it grow thicker and faster, Carla says, but I guess no one ever told the police that.” We Go Around in…
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Book review: Dark Matters by Susan Hawthorne.
By Madeleine Reid. Dark Matters is a terrifying, yet beautiful novel by the Australian writer, Susan Hawthorne, published by the feminist and contemporary Spinifex Press, in 2017. It deals with the issues of homophobia, love, family, female heroism and terror. This unique book defies categorisation. It is a work of literary fiction, with a side of…
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Book review: Dark Matter by Robin Morgan
Review written by Nik Shone In her new collection, Dark Matter, Robin Morgan explores themes that have been prevalent throughout her life as she details her experiences in ageing and her diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease. The collection starts with her beautiful poem, The Magician and The Magician’s Assistant where she invites the reader into her…