scribepub's reviews
497 reviews

This is my chance to speak for my people, who continue to suffer, but who are voiceless.
The Guardian

More than 688,000 Rohingya fled western Burma since August 2017, at the launch of punitive operations, a sweep of violence without precedent. Habiburahman, though, left the zone well before this happened — 18 years ago. He passed through Thailand and Malaysia, was stopped by a fishing boat, then tried to reach Australia by sea, getting as far as the Christmas Islands. After two and a half years in Australian detention centers, he was released at the end of 2012.
Le Monde

Habiburahman without doubt presents an unambiguous view of the Burmese situation … But there is little evidence from the Rangoon government to seriously deny it.
L’EXPRESS

The gripping, chilling inside story of the incubation of a genocide ... Habib’s moving family history emerges as a powerful and, to my knowledge, unique historical document. His compelling storytelling relates how playground prejudice against the Muslim Rohingya of Arakan escalated into pogroms, terror, and apartheid ... Incredible.
Jonathan Miller, Foreign Affairs Correspondent, Channel 4 News

The book is written in simple language and tells the story without embellishment. There is no need for flourishes; it is relentless.
Gay Alcorn, The Guardian

The greatest barriers to stories such as Habiburahman’s being heard, though. Are invalidation and indifference. Do not be indifferent to this urgent, humane book. Read it, share it, talk about what has been happening — and in so doing safeguard the humanity of Habiburahman, the Rohingya and all asylum seekers, as well as the imperilled humanity of this country.
Maria Takolander, The Saturday Paper

[First, They Erased Our Name] tells the first-hand truth behind the global humanitarian crisis.
Business Standard

For the first time, Habib’s book gives written voice to the history of fate and his people who have been left stateless in their own country. Habib’s own story is an odyssey of danger, resistance, torture and courage.
James Taylor, Surf Coast Times

Compelling. FOUR STARS
Robyn Douglass, SA Weekend

The result is a forensically researched and brutally revealing chronicle of the days and weeks before and after the August coup — one told with the precision of an investigative journalist but in the elegant narrative style that always makes Savva a great read.
Paul Williams, Australian Book Review

How good is this book! So much intrigue. So many revelations. Such a brilliant read.
Laurie Oaks

A forensic and gripping account of Turnbull’s departure and Scott Morrison’s arrival ... Savva has written an account that moves at the velocity of an express train without brakes.
Stephen Loosely, Weekend Australian

Explosive.
Daily Mail

Plots and Prayers provides a detailed and fascinating look at one of the craziest weeks in Australian politics. It’s part documentary, part thriller. You’ll not want to put it down, but also throw it across the room because of frustrations with the central characters ... this book is a must read.
Tobi Lotus, Chronicle

Canberra insider Niki Savva’s new book burrows deep inside the ousting of former PM Malcolm Turnbull ... accurate and an important historical record.
Ellen Whinnett, The Observer

Niki Savva’s Plots and Prayers is heroin for political junkies. It is a fast-paced, funny and detailed chronicle of the events that led to the ousting of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and the rise of Scott Morrison as Australia’s latest prime minister.
Neos Kosmos

Day writes a splendid history of Australia’s nascent labour movement and one of its major figures, distilling the complex social and economic issues of the time into a bracing narrative. Maurice Blackburn will appeal to the general reader and history buff alike. FOUR STARS
Chris Saliba, Books + Publishing

Inspiring, galvanising.
Clare Wright

Another wonderful David Day book.
Peter FitzSimons

It has lessons for our time.
Michael Kirby

Green peppers Stella’s adventures with sarcastic asides and light political commentary, which leavens the narrative without detracting from the fast-paced action.
Erich Mayer, ArtsHub

Green has written another edge of your seat thriller. A crime thriller peppered with the desert-dry dark humour I’ve come to love … an action-packed conclusion to a much loved Aussie crime series.
Booklover Book Reviews

Stella is every bit the smart-talking, cynical, hardboiled investigator ... The gritty descriptions of the city read like a love letter to Melbourne’s colour and edge ... The tension grows as the plot unfolds, but there are also unexpected moments of laughter and relief in the form of Stella’s wry and sarcastic observations.
DeeCarey.com

A great read ... Wisecracking good fun.
Karina Barrymore, Herald Sun

Very enjoyable, with a great cast of characters and some nice twists.
Jeff Popple, Canberra Weekly

Crisp prose, rocketing pace, a flawed hero and some of the best jokes in fiction.
Jane Rawson, The Age ‘The books we loved in 2019’

This is a rollicking tale and will readily fill your day as you recline with your favourite beverage.
Maggie Baron, Sisters in Crime

A smart, pacey read, with an engaging protagonist, a nice amount of social commentary and generous dollops of both sly and dry humour.
Carmel Reilly, Sisters in Crime

Complex and entertaining.
Anna Creer, Canberra Times

Elizabeth Cook’s visual imagination is as sharp and gorgeous as any Pre-Raphaelite painter. Her psychological penetration is deep and compassionate. They are both unfailing as she weaves together the stories of King David and Bathsheba and of Thomas Wyatt and Ann Boleyn. If this is, in a way, atour de force, it doesn’t read like that: the connections are organic and realistic, gripping the reader and integral to the rapid movement of the narrative.
John Drury, author of Music at Midnight

Almost two decades in the making, Lux is well worth the wait. Like its predecessor Achilles, it’s an ambitious and compelling novel, equally vivid in its conjuring of myth and history, particularly striking in its portrayal of religious belief under pressure, the nature of holiness and the sacred. It’s a remarkable book.
Michael Symmons Roberts, Author of Drysalter

Cook’s quietly masterful prose builds a huge world, unsentimental, numinous and deeply moving. Longing, appetite, love, grief, regret and their consequences: Lux, Wyatt’s falcon, is named for the luxury of courts and concupiscence but also the light of the desert, of song, of David’s Yahweh. This novel is a joy to read.
Susan Hitch

A well-told thinker of a read.
Weekend Sport

Lux emerges as an unusual and accomplished page turner. It’s ambitious, incredibly detailed … the clarity and beauty of the prose is a joy. An overwhelming sense of destiny is palpable and defining.
Irish Examiner

A vivid retelling … balanced very meticulously.
Tom Sutcliffe, BBC Radio 4’s ‘Saturday Review’

[Cook’s] account of an Old Testament repentance is a full-throated one.
Elizabeth Buchan, Daily Mail

In her second novel, Elizabeth Cook has followed her own passions … to good effect. Her command of language, and of her material, makes this an extremely satisfying read.
Anne Goodwin

Lux is a remarkable interweaving of one ancient king’s story and his place as redeemer within and beyond Judaism.
Rabbi Dr Aviva Kipen, J-Wire

Intelligence, originality and poetic grace … Ms. Cook reflects on the momentous change by tenderly humanising all of these larger-than-life characters. Her portrayal of Bathsheba is both more compassionate and more convincing than the usual caricature of a power-hungry seductress. Her David, too, is remarkably approachable … Again and again in this discerning novel, sin and suffering culminate in a majestic work of humility and praise.
Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal

Cook writes beautiful and complicated prose, befitting of the subjects she chooses … Informed by the Judeo-Christian spiritual tradition without being subject to it, here is the rare book that functions on multiple levels, inspiring new ideas and insights with each re-reading … The most powerful chapters of Lux are those spent with women … Cook plucks these hollowed-out characters from Samuel and imbues them with souls. She circles the Bible story of David and Bathsheba, plumbs its depths and breathes life into it, creating the type of mannered, academic leaning novel that the English seem to adore … But press down firmly on the cover and the words, regardless of how beautiful they are, will flow out its sides like water from a sponge.
Tara Cheesman, On the Seawall

[T]he seminal book on the hardships and joys of teaching.
Joseph Berger, The New York Times

[Kaufman] fully grasped the thankless position of the teachers left to impart knowledge and instill citizenship in the face of awesome obstacles … [T]he most enduring account we have of teachers’ lives — not naïve, not exculpatory, but empathetic and aware.
Samuel G. Freedman, The New Yorker

Easily the most popular novel about U.S. public schools in history.
Time

Shot through with despair and hopefulness, violence and levity, bureaucratic inanity and a blizzard of official memorandums so mind-bendingly illogical as to seem almost Kafkaesque … A stunningly accurate portrait of life in an urban school.
Margalit Fox, The New York Times

Up the Down Staircase … should be read by anyone interested in children or education.
The New York Times

The most excellent and useful portrait of a[n] … American teacher’s life that we are likely to have for a long time.
Life

Up the Down Staircase is even more pertinent, useful, charming, important, and utterly adorable than it was twenty-five years ago.
Garson Kanin, actor, writer, and director

Nick Richardson captures the feel not only of a unique Olympics, but of a unique time in Australian history. He uses the Olympics as the lens through which to view some of the most profound developments in Australia and the world … This book pulls back the blinds on what was a vitally important year in Australian – and world – history … Nick has the rare ability to blend an historian’s eye for the critical detail with a journalist’s nose for the underlying human story to deliver a compelling read … simply an excellent storyteller.
Michael Gleeson, The Age

Richardson’s approach to his subject is both thematic and chronological. The resulting narrative is deftly woven and, surprisingly given all the detail, sweetly paced.
Sara Dowse, Inside Story

[Nick Richardson] takes us back to an Australia at a moment of quiet yet irrevocable change.
Alex Sinnott, The Weekly Times

As the chronicler of a year, Richardson (an author, academic and journalist) proves spirited, artful and entertaining. While keeping the Olympics as the pivot and focus for his year, Richardson also assembles an eclectic cast of supporting players to weave in and out of the narrative ... whimsically charming.
Mark Thomas, The Canberra Times

Richardson has written a social, political, administrative, sporting and cultural history of Australia during a pivotal year in a pivotal decade.
Alex McClintock, The Australian

A gentle dig for ideas about how to live — this book will grow your mind and put a glow in your cheeks.
Deborah Levy, author od Swimming Home

Erudite, yet witty and accessible, [Philosophy in the Garden] is intellectual history at its most completely pleasurable.
Oliver Burkeman, author of The Antidote

A brilliant philosophical and literary meditation that helps us rethink our relationship with the natural world — and with ourselves.
Roman Krznaric, author of Empathy and How to Find Fulfilling Work

This is a gardening book that takes readers not on a walk around great estates but on a tour of great minds…It's a lovely extension on the notion that gardens make you contemplative and in working with the soil you see life's big picture.
The Daily Telegraph

[T]hought-provoking … fine book.
Gardens Illustrated

[L]ucid and entertaining … an enjoyable and erudite addition to a burgeoning literature.
David E. Cooper, Los Angeles Review of Books

At once touching and exuding charm, this still manages to pack a punch. It’s a study of what can grow from trust and caring despite grief and misfortune, that no matter what stage of life a person is at, rebirth can be unexpected and come in many forms … uplifting and satisfying.
Scott Whitmont, Books + Publishing

The descriptions of landscape, on the plateaus as well as in the deep valleys, have the ring of truth about them that only comes from years of walking the area.
Good Reading

Hare’s Fur is a tale of convalescence, a restrained, moving story about how we discover new meaning in the wake of anguish ... Hare’s Fur is about the inevitable reconfiguring of a life. It shows us that, like Kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with seams of gold, we too can mend ourselves, we too can reconnect our pieces.
Jack Callil, Australian Book Review

With luminous prose and ekphrasis, Shearston depicts the ubiquitously relatable challenge of handling change in everyday life. Hare’s Fur is a poignant story of the literal and figurative pottery of trust, friendship and new beginnings, dirty hands and all.
Jeremy George, Readings Booksellers

It’s a gentle tale about grief, hope, love and kindness … The elegance of this novel is in the unfolding; it is in the way each of the characters comes to trust the possibility of a future.
Laura Kroetsch, Adelaide Advertiser

This short novel could well become that literary holy grail: the successful young adult/adult crossover. It would also be a fascinating addition to state high school curriculums. The author of nine novels, Shearston is a fine stylist and an assured storyteller.
Mandy Sayer, Weekend Australian

A wonderful novel.
Jenny Barry, Co-organiser of Bathurst Writers’ and Readers’ Festival, Western Times Bathurst

This is a meditative novel about grief, work, loneliness, trust, and dealing with fragility, whether in pots or in children. Trevor Shearston is meticulous in recording the complexity and detail of Russell’s craft, and the unfolding of the plot is moving without ever sinking into sentimentality.
Kerryn Goldsworthy, Sydney Morning Herald

One of the most profoundly moving and beautiful books I have read all year, brimming with love, honesty, and insight. A true gem of a novel.
Alice Pung

This exquisite, moving story from Gandolfo captures the raw, wide-reaching pain of the tragedy, long regarded as Australia’s worst industrial accident.
The Herald Sun

Superb … Utterly heartbreaking.’
ANZ LitLovers

A poignant novel which examines class, grief, guilt and moral culpability, The Bridge weaves together two vastly different yet interrelated narratives.
Il Globo

[Enza Gandolfo] doesn't shy away from the unpleasant emotions of her characters, and paints a startlingly real and believable picture of lives impacted by these kinds of tragedies.
Good Reading

[A] dramatic and dynamic novel … This is a novel about everyday tragedy written in everyday language. Clarity prevails over lyricism. Dialogue is colloquial and lively. Carefully articulated sentences give way, in moments of anger, to more truncated phrasing and, in the closing chapters, to snappier prose that creates a sense of urgency … Her skill as a storyteller and her ability to create complex and empathetic characters gives weight to her fiction and invites the reader to question her own integrity and sense of self-worth, not without compassion.
Australian Book Review

Gandolfo writes that “things that were solid crumbled” and she documents with painstaking intricacy the grieving and guilt of survivors. It is a masterful portrayal of families torn apart, searching for redemption in an unforgiving world.
Sunday Territorian

Enza Gandolfo’s The Bridge, set among working-class lives, considers the collapse of the Westgate Bridge alongside a contemporary tragedy. It’s a moving, unsentimental novel about ethical complexities.
Michelle de Kretser, ABR’s ‘Books of the Year 2018’

Gandolfo’s The Bridge is an exquisite historical novel largely set in the working class communities of Melbourne’s west, against the collapse of the Westgate Bridge – Australia’s worst industrial accident. My year, and my life, are richer for having read these books.
Maxine Beneba Clarke, SMH’s ‘Reads of the Year’

The Bridge is a stunning novel. Grave, yes, but exquisitely written, an intricate study on trauma and grief tightly meshed with guilt ... It has all the markers of an Australian classic.
Theresa Smith, Theresa Smith Writes