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New ‘Books+Publishing’ and ‘B+P Junior’ reviews out now

Books+Publishing’s latest Reviews newsletter contains reviews of 10 adult books publishing in October and November.

Drusilla Modjeska’s Second Half First: A Memoir (Knopf, October) received five stars from reviewer Gerard Elson, who describes it as a ‘remarkable literary work’. ‘Modjeska’s reflections on the subjects she turns her mind to are never less than stimulating, and the book covers the entrenchment of gender roles, capitalism, postcolonialism, art, psychotherapy, friendship (she shared her home with Helen Garner for several years), coupling, family and literature—to name just a few,’ writes Elson.

Also reviewed are:

Fiction: Good Money (J M Green, Scribe, November), The Lake House (Kate Morton, A&U, November), Olmec Obituary: Dr Pimms, Intermillennial Sleuth Book One (L J M Owen, Echo, November) and The Women’s Pages (Debra Adelaide, Picador, November).

Nonfiction: All the Days After (Sue Gunningham, Finch, November), Before Rupert: Keith Murdoch and the Birth of a Dynasty (Tom D C Roberts, UQP, November), Kidnapped (Mark Tedeschi, S&S, November), More to the Story: Conversations with Refugees (Rosemary Sayer, Margaret River Press, November) and Reckoning: A Memoir (Magda Szubanski, Text, October).

Books+Publishing’s latest Junior newsletter contains reviews of nine children’s and YA books publishing in October and November.

Two picture books scored five stars—Adelaide’s Secret World (Elise Hurst, A&U, November) and Can a Skeleton Have an X-Ray? (Kyle Hughes-Odgers, Fremantle Press, November)—and another, Numerical Street (Hilary Bell & Antonia Pesenti, NewSouth, November), was close behind with four and a half stars.

Also reviewed are:

Picture books: Emo the Emu (Tony Wilson & Lucia Masciullo, Scholastic, November); Have You Seen Elephant? (David Barrow, Gecko Press, October); and Mister Spears and His Hairy Ears (Dawn McMillan, illus by Ross Kinnaird, Libro International, distributed by John Reed, November).

Younger readers: Mister Cassowary (Samantha Wheeler, UQP, October) and Olive of Groves (Katrina Nannestad, illus by Lucia Masciullo, ABC Books, November)

Young adult: Illuminae: The Illuminae Files Book One (Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff, A&U, November).

Sign up to the Reviews and Junior newsletters here.

 

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