The first in a series of simultaneous book and film reviews by LiteraryMinded’s Angela Meyer and Celluloid Tongue’s Gerard Elson.
Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates
(orig. 1961, several editions)
Angela says…
Revolutionary Road opens with a moody series of observances and a sense of foreboding – 1955, Western Connecticut, settled yet restless characters, cars too large and gleaming, a community play, [...]
Tag Archives: book review
Read and Seen: Revolutionary Road
February 17, 2009 – 10:49 pm
The Comfort of Figs – Simon Cleary
December 16, 2008 – 7:29 am
9780702236433, UQP, 2008 (Australia)
This book opens in the past, with the sight of a body falling from a bridge.
In the present, Robert O’Hara makes small gestures – planting fig trees, comforting his distraught girlfriend after an attack on them both, easing his way into an old man’s life to learn the secrets of his own history. His [...]
Seduce Me – Megan Clark
November 11, 2008 – 7:48 am
9780758209818, Kensington Fiction, 2008 (US)
So it begins and ends with sex, and there’s a whole lot of juicy business in the middle, but Seduce Me also has an intriguing storyline and vivid, memorable characters. Megan Clark utilises the characters’ sexualities to round them out – desires, fulfillments, vulnerabilities and disappointments.
Carissa has a perfect, sweet boyfriend [...]
Late Connections – Aileen La Tourette
September 16, 2008 – 7:20 pm
2008, Ilura Press, 978921325052
It’s a shame to read a story that feels as though it has been wrestled into the wrong medium. Aileen La Tourette’s Late Connections might have made a good dramatic play with its style, overt exposition, and historical setting. We begin in Paris, where seamstress Annie Doulard works on the dress of [...]
Blood & Tinsel: A Memoir – Jim Sharman
August 3, 2008 – 6:13 pm
9780522853773, Miegunyah Press, August (Australia), HB
A version of this review was first published in the June 2008 issue of BOOKSELLER+PUBLISHER magazine (c) 2008 Thorpe-Bowker (a division of RR Bowker LLC).
Jim Sharman relays the story of his life rhythmically, like a play or film. Childhood memories of boxing sideshows are cut between information on eras, people, [...]
The Miernik Dossier – Charles McCarry
May 18, 2008 – 5:24 pm
Scribe, February – Trade Paperback, 9781921215605.
Scribe have wisely decided to reinvigorate cold war spy novel The Miernik Dossier , which centres around paranoia, suspicion and misconceptions. A mixed band of secret agents (American, British, African and suspected Soviet) travel from Switzerland, through Eastern Europe to the Sudan. American spy Paul Christopher attempts to decipher the [...]
The Spell Book of Listen Taylor – Jaclyn Moriarty
January 10, 2008 – 7:19 am
Macmillan, September 2007, 9780330423489 (Young Adult)
(Review first published in Viewpoint, vol. 15, no. 4, Summer 2007)
The Zing family have a secret. Every Friday night they meet in the garden shed to discuss it. Listen Taylor’s Dad has just moved in with Marbie Zing. Listen wonders if it might be the secret of happy families, as [...]
The Children – Charlotte Wood
October 27, 2007 – 9:25 am
9781741753356, Allen & Unwin, 2007
The perfect book for me is one that is about the extraordinariness of everyday life – the things that human beings acknowledge, and the things they deny; the amazement, comfort and simultaneous hurt in personal relationships; the wealth beneath the surface, but also the necessity of surfaces.
Charlotte Wood looks into a [...]
The Trout Opera – Matthew Condon
October 13, 2007 – 12:17 pm
Random House Vintage, 9781740510325, November 2007, $32.95 (TPB).
First published in the October 2007 issue of BOOKSELLER + PUBLISHER magazine (c) 2007 Thorpe-Bowker (a division of RR Bowker LLC) http://www.bookseller+publisher.com.au/
Wilfred Lampe has experienced a whole century in the Snowy River town of Dalgety. He’s a part of the landscape, its consistencies and its alterations. The Olympic [...]
Patriot Act – James Phelan
October 11, 2007 – 8:45 am
9780733620980 (TPB), Hachette Australia, 2007.
Lachlan Fox is an investigative journalist for GSR (Global Syndicate of Reporters). He’s an ex-Aussie Navy operative now in New York City. He is attempting to uncover just who may be trying to access the powerful information database ‘Echelon’, and to what purpose. The information could enable any smaller power to [...]
Copyright © 2008 Private Media Pty Ltd, Publishers of Crikey.com.au. All Rights Reserved.
Independent news, blogs and commentary on politics, media and business.
Editor: Jonathan Green.
Publishers: Eric Beecher, Diana Gribble.
Level 7, 22 William St, Melbourne, 3000. Ph: 1800 985 502 Fax: (03) 8623 9975