Book Club

Dymocks Bendigo Top Ten 1. Smokin' Seventeen by Janet Evanovich 2. Passion by Lauren Kate 3. Silent Girl by Tess Gerritsen 4. Amazing Face by Zoe Foster 5. Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks 6. Fall of Giants by Ken Follett 7. Price of Life by Brennan et al. ..

Goose Pimples by Simon Patton The shine of setting sun proved stronger than the splatter of rain, still only a distant ticking on a sheep farmer's tin-roofed shed. We could believe our eNo. We did not believe our ears, when, on through the blind glare, the sou..

A talented writer has that rare ability to stir all five senses from the silent, black and white world of print. Which makes the eforts of recently published local writer Amanda Collins all the more special– she’s been deaf since birth. The 20-year-old’s first book, My ..

If the paper book is on the way out, someone needs to tell those who are attending, in droves, the many book fair around the world. Hong Kong is predicting visitor numbers to reach a million this year, with 22 countries represented. The book fair is a hybrid beast, half publishing get-together, ..

The Hard Light of Day Rod Moss UQP, $39.95 NEXT week is the announcement of the 2011 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards, with prizes going to fiction, non-fiction, young adult fiction and children’s fiction. Rod Moss’s intriguing The Hard Light of Day is one of five non-fict..

Tom Keneally has been set in stone, sort of. The author of Schindler's Ark and a host of novels and histories has donated his library to the Sydney Mechanics School of Arts - 2500 books on all kinds of topics - and the endowment has been acknowledged with the naming of the room in which the referenc..

Dymocks Bendigo Local Top Ten 1. Passion by Lauren Kate 2. Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks 3. Jamie's 30-Minute Meals by Jamie Oliver 4. The Bourne Dominion by Eric Van Lustbader 5. Mud Sweat and Tears by Bear Brylls 6. Fall of Giants by Ken Follett 7. Water For Elephants by Sara ..

Jackaroo by Michael Thornton, this week's Book Club Pick of the Week, is a story about not only life on a cattle farm - the tough times and the good - but also a memoir about one man's growth out of uncertainty and self-doubt towards confidence. It's also an insider's view into Nareen, the property ..

Jackaroo Michael Thornton Penguin, $29.95 As Michael Thornton drew close to the day when his book was to be published, he was astounded that his was the first. “I kept wondering if someone would beat me to the mark,” Thornton said before the launch of Jackaroo last evening i..

THE END OF THE BOOKSHOP Even though the federal government set a whole year aside for the Barry Jones-led inquiry into the impact of digital publishing on the Australian industry… Even though their public lending right agency has not yet put e-books on their discussion agenda… ..

The Roving Party Rohan Wilson Allen & Unwin, $27.99 IT has been a fair while since something as memorable as Kate Grenville’s Lilian’s Story (1984) or Andrew McGahan’s Praise (1991) came out of the Vogel’s Award. It’s almost as if The Hand That Signed t..

1. Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks 2. Bourne Dominion by Eric Van Lustbader 3. CSIRO & Baker IDID Diabetes Diet and Lifestyle by Peter Clifton 4. Jamie's 30-Miinute Meals by Jamie Oliver 5. Dead Reckoning Bk11 Sookie Stackhouse by Charlaine Harris 6. Heaven to Wundan..

The Orange Prize for women writers has been awarded to 25-year-old New York-based Tea Obreht for The Tiger's Wife. Obreht was born in the former Yugoslavia, and her magical realist novel has references to the bitter Balkan conflict. The huge pre-publication interest in the spoof bedtim..

The Forgotten Waltz Anne Enright Jonathan Cape, $32.95 ANNE Enright’s Man Booker winner The Gathering, was about the funeral of the family’s black-sheep ne’er-do-well son. It seemed so bleak, the characters so miserable. you had to be in the right mood to appreciate it. ..

THIS weekend will see the return of the Central Victorian Chrysler Club’s Mid State Mopars event in Bendigo. There’ll be an influx of Chryslers, Valiants, Dodges, Plymouths and Desotos, with more than 300 cars expected to be involved in the weekend activities. City of Greater Bendi..

What is it about the Regency era and Jane Austen’s excellent novels which holds such continued and in fact increasing fascination for 21st century readers? Is it that we yearn for a more simple time? Was it simpler? What about the American, French, and Industrial Revolutions, the Age o..

Here's an interesting idea: a company in the UK is hoping "booklovers" will be willing to back books before they are written, committing money to ideas put up on a website. "Unbound" want to be a new style of publishing company, offering books before they are published and, i..

A Decline in Prophets Sulari Gentill Pantera Press, $29.99 Reviewed by Brenda Stevens-Chambers I have lost count of the recent publications of around 350 pages where I have wanted to do some serious pruning. However, it was with some relief that I zoomed through A Decline in Prophets, ..

Top Ten June 3 1. Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks 2. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen 3. CSIRO & Baker IDID Diabetes Diet and Lifestyle by Peter Clifton 4. Jamie's 30-Minute Meals by Jamie Oliver 5. Dead Reckoning Bk11 Sookie Stackhouse by Charlaine Harris ..

Songwriter Paul Kelly has made the shortlist of the Prime Minister's Literary Awards, for his memoir, How to Make Gravy. He is up against four other books, including a study of sociologist Claude Levi-Strauss by Patrick Wilcken, Delia Falconer's Sydney, artist Rod Moss's uncompromising look at ..