scribepub's reviews
497 reviews

Once I started reading Blueberries, I found it almost impossible to put down. It’s fascinating to watch Ellena Savage’s mind at work in this book — her essays unfurl, expand and dance in unexpected and satisfying ways. This is a masterful, fearless book in which strength and vulnerability collide.
Chelsea Hodson, author of Tonight I’m Someone Else

A breathtaking interrogation of the self in the world; the self within structures of power and oppression … Blueberries is exciting and distinctive. STARRED REVIEW
Books+Publishing

Savage navigates delicate and difficult terrain with wit, ruthless scrutiny and painfully sharp analysis … If Yellow City is any indication, Blueberries will be one of the most exciting debuts of the new year.
Overland

The 15 essays contained here wear various guises, from experimental prose to poetry, memoir to polemic to cultural critique. … Savage’s idealism and eloquence are a much-needed counterbalance to our by-now-threadbare belief that all the hard questions of how to order our world have been answered, that everything unsettling such certainty is a glitch, to be soldered onto the technocratic motherboard and run through the circuits of the polity. Blueberries is an adamant and unruly book. It is also the most exciting work of creative nonfiction to be published in this country since Maria Tumarkin took up the pen.
Geordie Williamson, The Australian

In fifteen works, Savage blends memoir, personal essay, stream of consciousness, journalism, and prose poetry to interrogate the messy and fragmented life of a writer, a woman, and a body … A masterclass in experimental nonfiction…Savage is fiercely intelligent and manages to inject dry humour into even the most serious topics, creating a delicate balance between dire existentialism and life-affirming joy. By questioning the very nature of memoir itself, Savage breathes new life into the non-fiction form and considers what it means to be alive in today’s uncertain world.
Chloë Cooper, Kill Your Darlings

Savage plays with form like a poet, and excavates the roots of her experience with an impressive generosity and fierce intelligence that mirror her mentor, Maria Tumarkin … Fans of Tumarkin and Jia Tolentino should hunt this down … and luxuriate in a recent past where whiplash-inducing international travel was an option.
Jo Case, InDaily

[F]or fans of the understated yet insightful prose of Rachel Cusk and Sally Rooney … Wrestling with the intricacies of memory, identity, class and trauma, [Blueberries] sees Savage contemplate her past with unflinching clarity … Take it to your next book club.
Elle Australia ‘Book of the Month’

Ellena Savage has produced a collection that defies categorisation but is fervently experiential, candid and original.
Readings Monthly

For fans of Maria Tumarkin, Kathy Acker and Maggie Nelson, Blueberries marks Savage as an experimental writer and essayist to watch.
Adelaide Review

Blueberries asks piercing questions about power, desire, and violence. The essays explore what it means to be an artist, a body, a woman, a friend, a lover, a daughter – and how these roles intersect with systems of oppression. Each essay has its own form and process, but in each one Savage focuses her sharply analytic eye on the world she moves through – as well as on herself.
Caitlin McGregor, Australian Book Review

The essays display a fiercely intelligent mind that blends the personal with polemic ... It is original, forthright and will have you challenging your own views and assumptions. 4.5 STARS
Melinda Woledge, Good Reading

Elly is a book about the dark side of longing.
Hubert Spiegel, speech at the Robert Gernhardt Prize

In few yet incredibly precise words, Maike Wetzel creates an oppressive tension around a family falling apart. A book that will not let you go.
Brigitte Woman

Reminiscent of Ian McEwan’s A Child in Time, Elly will have wide appeal ... Maike Wetzel’s fresh, original take on the popular literary theme of missing children is delivered in her clear, understated prose with its unflinching eye for detail.
New Books in German

Wetzel tells the story of the loss of a child as a family drama from various perspectives, in permanent present tense.
Christoph Schröder, Süddeutsche Zeitung

An elaborate mosaic about the unrelenting belief in a happy ending.
Brigitte

A highly focused and accurate novel about that which is not supposed to happen.
Judith Von Sternburg, Frankfurter Rundschau Online

Breathtaking. An intense, abysmal study of the trauma of abandonment and uncertainty.
Hansruedi Kugler, Luzerner Zeitung

Wetzel’s powerful narrative style reminds of Judith Hermann, who does not waste a word, but uses unusual imagery to create atmospheres that express the unconscious, the inexpressible, the outrageous.
Volksdorfer Zeitung

Maike Wetzel mercilessly writes about overwhelming pain and its destructive power.
Hans Von Trotha, Deutschlandfunk Kultur

Psychologically refined, linguistically brilliant.
Sylvia Schwab, Hessischer Rundfunk

Wetzel’s literature gets right to the core of human existence ... How she conveys primal fears and their consequences is captivating and unsettling. Her laconic, unruffled style is in contrast to the inner life of her protagonists ... This book fits only too well in a time when assumed certainties and principles are shattered.
Michael AU, Südwestrundfunk

The perfect book for those moments when you forget the world around you.
Lydia Herms, Deutschlandfunk Nova

So haunting and touching, so captivating and intense that you cannot resist it.
Andrea Heussinger, Norddeutscher Rundfunk

An enigmatic study, a polyphonic monologue.
Cornelia Zetsche, Bayerischer Rundfunk

A fascinating narrative revolving around the question whose story is being told — and to whom stories actually belong.
Bettina Hesse

Revolving around the disappearance of an 11-year-old girl, this slender German novel builds into a brutal, uncomfortable story, told from the alternating perspectives of family members.
Marta Bausells, The Guardian, ‘Ten of the best new books in translation’

At just 150 pages long, Elly shares the best qualities of Maike’s short stories – a rumbling sense of unease or menace, an unemotional focus on emotionally-charged family dynamics, and above all Maike’s careful, pared-down prose style … Elly will leave you breathless.
Lyn Marven, translator

This short, haunting novel that can be read in one sitting is a devastating study of grief and loss.
Daily Mail

A breathless yet mournful rollout of the tides of grief and loss.
Andrea Thompson, Aust Crime Fiction

A gripping read that ends on a thought-provoking and unsettling note … Recommended reading and an ideal one for book clubs.
Theresa Smith Writes

It kept me reading, the back and forth of the narratives coupled with the lyrical penmanship was quite breath-taking … Elly is a compelling literary thriller that’s snappy and dynamic, which is fantastically translated and absolutely recommended for readers who enjoyed Lullaby, The Lovely Bones and The Girl in the Red Coat.
The Reading Closet

This poignant tale has the gripping pace of a thriller … This is a rare and evocative study of heartbreak and grief in myriad forms, and Wetzel’s skill as a short-story writer is clearly evident in this brief, taut, honed and urgent novel. A haunting and unforgettable read.
Paul Burke, European Literature Network

This is a very impressive novel, subtly layering great depth of feeling and meaning in very few words and those simply presented … [H]aunting and evocative, leaving the brain mulling over thoughts and questions even when the book is back on the shelf. It should be brilliant for book clubs that explore people, families and emotions.
Hilary White, NB

[Maike Wetzel] is a very cinematic writer.
Kate Evans, ABC Radio National The Bookshelf

Short and sharp.
Pile by the Bed

Elly is a book about the dark side of longing.
Hubert Spiegel, speech at the Robert Gernhardt Prize

In few yet incredibly precise words, Maike Wetzel creates an oppressive tension around a family falling apart. A book that will not let you go.
Brigitte Woman

Reminiscent of Ian McEwan’s A Child in Time, Elly will have wide appeal ... Maike Wetzel’s fresh, original take on the popular literary theme of missing children is delivered in her clear, understated prose with its unflinching eye for detail.
New Books in German

Wetzel tells the story of the loss of a child as a family drama from various perspectives, in permanent present tense.
Christoph Schröder, Süddeutsche Zeitung

An elaborate mosaic about the unrelenting belief in a happy ending.
Brigitte

A highly focused and accurate novel about that which is not supposed to happen.
Judith Von Sternburg, Frankfurter Rundschau Online

Breathtaking. An intense, abysmal study of the trauma of abandonment and uncertainty.
Hansruedi Kugler, Luzerner Zeitung

Wetzel’s powerful narrative style reminds of Judith Hermann, who does not waste a word, but uses unusual imagery to create atmospheres that express the unconscious, the inexpressible, the outrageous.
Volksdorfer Zeitung

Maike Wetzel mercilessly writes about overwhelming pain and its destructive power.
Hans Von Trotha, Deutschlandfunk Kultur

Psychologically refined, linguistically brilliant.
Sylvia Schwab, Hessischer Rundfunk

Wetzel’s literature gets right to the core of human existence ... How she conveys primal fears and their consequences is captivating and unsettling. Her laconic, unruffled style is in contrast to the inner life of her protagonists ... This book fits only too well in a time when assumed certainties and principles are shattered.
Michael AU, Südwestrundfunk

The perfect book for those moments when you forget the world around you.
Lydia Herms, Deutschlandfunk Nova

So haunting and touching, so captivating and intense that you cannot resist it.
Andrea Heussinger, Norddeutscher Rundfunk

An enigmatic study, a polyphonic monologue.
Cornelia Zetsche, Bayerischer Rundfunk

A fascinating narrative revolving around the question whose story is being told — and to whom stories actually belong.
Bettina Hesse

Revolving around the disappearance of an 11-year-old girl, this slender German novel builds into a brutal, uncomfortable story, told from the alternating perspectives of family members.
Marta Bausells, The Guardian, ‘Ten of the best new books in translation’

At just 150 pages long, Elly shares the best qualities of Maike’s short stories – a rumbling sense of unease or menace, an unemotional focus on emotionally-charged family dynamics, and above all Maike’s careful, pared-down prose style … Elly will leave you breathless.
Lyn Marven, translator

This short, haunting novel that can be read in one sitting is a devastating study of grief and loss.
Daily Mail

A breathless yet mournful rollout of the tides of grief and loss.
Andrea Thompson, Aust Crime Fiction

A gripping read that ends on a thought-provoking and unsettling note … Recommended reading and an ideal one for book clubs.
Theresa Smith Writes

It kept me reading, the back and forth of the narratives coupled with the lyrical penmanship was quite breath-taking … Elly is a compelling literary thriller that’s snappy and dynamic, which is fantastically translated and absolutely recommended for readers who enjoyed Lullaby, The Lovely Bones and The Girl in the Red Coat.
The Reading Closet

This poignant tale has the gripping pace of a thriller … This is a rare and evocative study of heartbreak and grief in myriad forms, and Wetzel’s skill as a short-story writer is clearly evident in this brief, taut, honed and urgent novel. A haunting and unforgettable read.
Paul Burke, European Literature Network

This is a very impressive novel, subtly layering great depth of feeling and meaning in very few words and those simply presented … [H]aunting and evocative, leaving the brain mulling over thoughts and questions even when the book is back on the shelf. It should be brilliant for book clubs that explore people, families and emotions.
Hilary White, NB

[Maike Wetzel] is a very cinematic writer.
Kate Evans, ABC Radio National The Bookshelf

Short and sharp.
Pile by the Bed

Ortberg’s playful takes on pop culture as he explores everything from House Hunters to Golden Girls to Lord Byron, Lacan, and Rilke … Ortberg’s writing is vulnerable but confident, specific but never narrow, literal and lyrical. The author is refreshingly unafraid of his own uncertainty, but he’s always definitive where it counts … You’ll laugh, you'll cry, often both at once. Everyone should read this extraordinary book. STARRED REVIEW
Kirkus Reviews

Slate advice columnist Ortberg (Texts from Jane Eyre) brings the full force of his wit and literary depth to this genre-bending essay collection. Describing it as ‘memoir-adjacent,’ Ortberg intersperses searingly honest passages about his journey as a transgender man with laugh-out-loud funny literary pastiche ... Ortberg provides an often hilarious, sometimes discomfiting, but invariably honest account of one man’s becoming.
Publishers Weekly

Like all of his work, Something That May Shock and Discredit You is a stand-alone pillar in Ortberg’s remarkable canon, one in which the lines typically drawn around topic and genre are obliterated, resulting in a wide-open field of possibility.
Electric Literature

This book is clever and strange and lovely and sad and hysterical and poignant. These are the qualities that make up most of my favourite people and all of my favourite books. You really need to read this now.

Jenny Lawson, New York Times bestselling author of Let’s Pretend This Never Happened and Furiously Happy

Deeply honest and often sidesplittingly funny.
Michelle Hart, O: The Oprah Magazine

At last, we have the work of transgender bathos we didn’t know we needed, but very much do … Ortberg’s narrative is anything but linear: It skips back in time to mythic Greece, traipses across the landscape of contemporary pop culture and, in one wonderfully fabulist entry that would make Carmen Maria Machado proud, slips outside of time altogether … One of our smartest, most inventive humour writers, Ortberg combines bathos and the devotional into a revelation … By broadening what transgender memoir can do, the author is in good company with Viviane Namaste, who decades ago diagnosed autobiography as ‘the only discourse in which transsexuals are permitted to speak.’ Ortberg partakes of neither the damaging trope of tragic transness nor the sentimental sanctimony that we are “permitted,” offering instead the comic and the transcendent.
Jordy Rosenberg, The New York Times

[A] memoir comprised of the humorous essays that have become his trademark … Some are essays and some are scripts or imagined conversations; at first the chapters and interludes are distinct, but at a certain point they start to blend together. All are hilarious, infused with the type of magical thinking Lavery excels at. They weave Lavery’s life experiences together with his historical and pop-cultural obsessions.
Claire Landsbaum, Vanity Fair

[A] a hybrid of incisive cultural criticism and heartfelt rumination on transitioning and queer identity.
Erin Keane, Ashlie D. Stevens, and Hanh Nguyen, Salon

Daniel Mallory Ortberg’s Something That May Shock And Discredit You is three eloquent books in one: memoir, essay collection, and treasure trove of cultural analysis, all coming in under 250 pages. Ortberg is as nimble a storyteller as they come, so the shifts from painful personal revelations to pithy observations about Lord Byron turn on a dime while still mostly feeling part of the same whole … The details are all Ortberg, as is the ability to turn eschatology into something more accessible and less judgmental.
Danette Chavez, The A.V Club

With this collection of essays, he will make you laugh and cry with stories of transition, family, culture and William Shatner.
Karla Strand, Ms.

[Ortberg] puts his dazzling wit and humour on display in a ‘memoir-adjacent’ collection of essays that touches on topics as wide-ranging as Lord Byron, the Bible and House Hunters in his exploration of self as a transgender man.
Barbara VanDenburgh, USA Today

The ‘Dear Prudence’ columnist and expert culture commentator returns with his sharpest, wittiest collection yet, a survey of pop culture ranging from scathing to plain weird.
David Canfield, Entertainment Weekly

[A] fusion of old and new Ortberg work. It’s a collection of chapters and fragments, pieces that refuse single identities … The intensity of emotion and self-centredness are stripped of their high language, and become vividly queer, utterly recognisable, and essential to the gender mode that Ortberg himself is learning to express throughout this collection … Ortberg is perhaps closer than any other writer to functioning as the voice of progressive millennials … Every movement of Ortberg’s writing as he considers gender is hesitant, and his use of upspeak inflection both satirises the femininity associated with that questioning tone and engages with it genuinely. There must be a space between being prepared to mock gender norms and being deeply uncertain about them. The sincerity beneath the humour is new in Ortberg’s work, and powerful and well as disconcerting … The book is emotionally effective, but not always entirely accessible. In many ways, Ortberg’s transition is likely to be less alien to many readers than his deep Biblical knowledge … Ortberg’s least accessible book, but also his most important. Unlike his earlier work, Shock and Discredit must be read slowly, and with reflection. It’s not always easy. The breezy humour sometimes dives deep into New Testament referentiality without actually gesturing to deep faith. Read slowly to keep from flailing. Ortberg’s writing will wait for you to catch up.
Annette Lapointe, The New York Journal of Books

A … kind of glee animates Ortberg’s writing, and it rushes all the way through this thoughtful, joyous book. Even when Something That May Shock and Discredit You delves into difficult material … Ortberg always writes with a sense of profound and honest delight: What luck, it’s another day where he gets to be a man. And reading, you can’t help but be delighted with him … This book is odd and self-satisfied and bizarrely specific, in all the best possible ways. Consistently, it’s funny … But Something That May Shock and Discredit You is also tenderly, gently thoughtful about gender and about what it means to transition, especially for someone like Ortberg, who built a public reputation as a feminist running a women’s website before coming out … Something That May Shock and Discredit You is not precisely an explanation for everyone who was wondering why the person they first knew as Mallory Ortberg is now Daniel M. Lavery. It is neither apologetic nor self-justifying, and Ortberg remains very clear on the fact that he does not owe an explanation about himself or his gender to anyone … Instead, this book reads like an exploration — a funny, gentle, thoughtful exploration — of how Ortberg sees the world, and how transitioning affected the lens through which he sees it. Reading it feels like reading the Toast felt in 2013, which is to say it feels like coming into contact with a restless and smart mind of profound and specific hyperfixations. It’s a joy.
Constance Grady, Vox

Something That May Shock and Discredit You offers a vital account of transition and gender identity … [It] allows space for confusion and uncertainty, while also offering the wisdom of hindsight … [It] is funny while remaining sincere, and is inventive in its use of different forms to explore various aspects of his experiences.
Erin Stewart, ArtsHub

Daniel Lavery ... has penned a book ostensibly about the experience of transition, but effortlessly traverses religion, philosophy… and William Shatner? In Something That May Shock and Discredit You Lavery’s innermost expressions of vulnerability are rendered with remarkable candour in some passages. Other passages are flat-out hilarious. All, however, are poignant.
Dan Shaw, Happy Magazine

Inimitably witty.
Nicole Elphick, The Age

Ortberg gracefully slips between the memoirist’s lucid personal narrative and the essayist’s more topical ruminations. Passage after passage sees him refining a riveting intertextual portrait of his life and transness fit for the pages of an illuminated manuscript … Discarding any distinction between high and low cultures, Ortberg’s Something that May Shock and Discredit You most certainly astonishes and amazes — it may even be transformative.
Dave Wheeler, Shelf Awareness

Ortberg does not simply narrate his experience of transition; he also grapples with the challenge of doing so, toggling skillfully between criticism, personal essay, and literary pastiche … Animated by Ortberg’s Christian faith and eclectic cultural enthusiasms, the book is a syllabus of sorts — a road map for navigating one remarkable writer’s mind.
The New Yorker

Written almost as a stream of consciousness, this genre-bending work by Slate columnist Ortberg blends memoir, social commentary, and biblical exegesis in a series of essays that reflect an evolving sense of identity. Similar to his work as co-founder of The Toast, Ortberg’s brief chapters here expand on topics serious and challenging, humorous and trivial … This account of a vulnerable life makes for contemplative reading.
Stephanie Sendaula, Library Journal

For those who have no firsthand experience of gender transitioning, this book is an education in empathy, solidarity and compassion, and an ode to the courage and resilience of transgender people. It’ll make you think, laugh and maybe reconsider some of your preconceptions about gender. If nothing else, you’ll never look at the Bible the same way again.
Zoya Patel, The Canberra Times

A bundle of short, eclectic and wonderfully funny essays.
The Telegraph

Part satire, part confessional and all utterly original, Lavery’s third book is a wild rollercoaster of a read that defies definition. It’s a riotous stew of diarist self-examination, taut comic sketches, and queer readings … At a moment of renewed global transphobia, when Leslie Feinberg’s tragic Stone Butch Blues remains the touchstone of transmasculine literature, Lavery’s kaleidoscopic memoir is a refreshing reminder of the possibility of trans irreverence, trans peace — even trans joy.
Yves Rees, Inside Story

This novel full of autobiographic humus sizzles with ambition … In The Blessed Rita, Wieringa quietly revels in scenes struck sweetly with an exuberance of colour, deposited with careless writer’s joy and grimly comedic tones. He writes like a fearless showboat in a bar, tethering his listeners to his every word … From these miniscule, damaged lives, Tommy extracts a very sensual book, drunk with language and written with a stylistic precision you will envy. FOUR STARS
De Volksrant

With a good eye for remarkable stories and sharp dialogues, Wieringa sketches an inky black portrait of a meagre emotional life and a perverse small-town culture.
De Standard

A tragicomedy of Joe Speedboat-calibre, on village souls lost amidst the modern times and the poignant clumsiness of male friendships. A wonderful novel.
VPRO Gids

The masterful The Blessed Rita is at once both The Great Twente Novel and completely European … The Blessed Rita tells the story of a shrinking life in a shrinking region — but Wieringa’s version of that familiar story feels like the ultimate one. Because: it’s described in flawless bulls-eyes of sentences that are rich in metaphor and symbolism, but which don’t cross over into melodrama. Precisely for that reason, they evoke associations with the style of Wieringa’s literary role model James Salter … Wieringa displays his full abilities as a storyteller and manages them masterfully … In the end this story is not just about big themes like shrinking regions, xenophobia or the revenge of the man-driven-into-dire-straits, but Wieringa also concerns himself with the people — he brings the big story back down to human proportions. The novels ends with a surprisingly tender and tragic note — Wieringa doesn’t only show it, he lets you feel it. FIVE STARS
NRC Handelsblad

It is his best book, his master hand has developed itself again. The depth is deeper, the views stretch farther. His style approaches perfection, or surpasses it. His use of figurative language is economical. It’s used only when it’s dead-on. FIVE STARS
Algemeen Dagblad

Wieringa said this novel “cost blood, sweat and tears”, but there is not a single moment in which you feel that four year struggle. The way in which he reconciles the tragedy of the “bumpkins” with a literary tumble in wet spring grass is astonishing. At the same time, when it comes to content, you aren’t left with empty hands: migration is a burning issue, and lives that hopelessly run aground and are beyond saving transcend the ages. Just like this novel. FIVE STARS
Het Nieuwsblad

Tommy Wieringa demonstrates with The Blessed Rita that he belongs in the pantheon of Dutch literature. Amidst all of the desolation, compassion proves to be the dominant tone … Wieringa’s personal involvement can be felt in everything. Being familiar with the landscapes, the colours and the light, he brings the region stirringly to life … With an equally masterful precision he describes the leaden grey lives of his characters. In a vortex of tragicomic scenes he paints the desolation and the deadlock of life at the edge of the abyss. No one can save these hopeless causes, not even their patron saint Rita. And yet they can count on our sympathy, so convincing is the compassion that Wieringa evokes … More than just the story of a lost man, this is a portrait of a time in which those who can’t keep up, lose out. A lament for those left behind, and an ode to two clumsy men who despite the disappointment keep taking care of one another.
De Tijd

In terms of style and imagery, Wieringa’s best book … Wieringa’s style in The Blessed Rita is more powerful and concentrated than ever … Though you can hear the writer speaking warily through his characters about the new times, in which the animals have disappeared from the pastures, in which the sick are only interested in their smartphones, it doesn’t wallow in nostalgia. The Blessed Rita is an ode to the Twente region, but above all it is a funny and moving plea for compassion. Compassion for those who are rooted and no longer able to move in a rapidly developing world – the hopeless causes.
Trouw

Tommy Wieringa writes about his hopeless causes with empathy; he looks at them with old, wise eyes; he does them justice. [Book of the Month]
Vrij Nederland

The Blessed Rita is a wonderfully beautiful book, even without the plot-driven apotheosis.


An ode to the silent ones of the Twente region. FOUR STARS
Elsevier

With Tommy Wieringa you expect a masterpiece, just as you did with writers like Willem Elsschot. And he never disappoints.
De Nieuwsbv. NOP Radio 1

Critical, dark, and profound fiction.
Le Monde

A strange and interesting novel ... Wieringa’s story of a changing world has its own unnerving power. FOUR STARS
Penelope Debelle, SA Weekend

This novel full of autobiographic humus sizzles with ambition ... In The Blessed Rita, Wieringa quietly revels in scenes struck sweetly with an exuberance of colour, deposited with careless writer's joy and grimly comedic tones. He writes like a fearless showboat in a bar, tethering his listeners to his every word ... From these minuscule, damaged lives, Tommy extracts a very sensual book, drunk with language and written with a stylistic precision you will envy. FOUR STARS
De Volkskrant

It is his best book, his master hand has developed itself again. The depth is deeper, the views stretch farther. His style approaches perfection, or surpasses it. His use of figurative language is economical. It's used only when it’s dead-on. FIVE STARS
Algemeen Dagblad

Critical, dark, and profound fiction.
Le Monde

Tommy Wieringa is a prolific and respected Dutch writer and this novel shows his gift for observation and detail as well as for prose.
Sam Garrett, The Age

With ample end notes (50 pages worth) to support challenges he may expect to be forthcoming, this hit-list of medical myths and misguided therapies comes from a highly reputable source - the director of Vaccine Education at the Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia and a professor of vaccinology and paediatrics.
Robin Osborne, GPSpeak

This is an exceptional book. It promises kindness, humour and insight, and absolutely delivers … Who’s Your Real Mum? manages that rare combination of meaningful moral and pure narrative pleasure.
Anica Boulanger-Mashberg, Books+Publishing

A gorgeous story with an understanding and tender heart. There’s a lot of humour within, a nurturing of curiosity and absurdity but overall; it’s a story about family, and love – always love.
Alpha Reader

All mums will love this! ... [A]n endearing and fun book for all young readers and grown-ups who care for them.
Tegan Tigani, Queen Anne Book Company, Seattle, WA

[A]n empowering approach that shows a child who confidently has her own solution … [T]here’s still a time and a place for books that deal smartly with some of the questions that children in LGBTQ families may encounter. Who’s Your Real Mum? is one of them.
Mombian

[N]ot enough children’s books out there that represent these families … [A] great way to show children different kinds of families.
Youth Services Book Review

The limited colour palette is striking for its yellows, which are gender neutral and contrast with the imagined scenes in blues … Square panels and sequential scenes give a comics feel to the illustrations and correspond with the playful tone of Elvi’s responses to Nicholas’ questions. This Australian import may encourage kids with same-sex parents and could serve as a prompt for a creative writing exercise.
Booklist

This is a question I imagine many children with same sex parents receive. It must get old. Real old. The illustrations of this picture book show how much Elvi feels loved and supported in her family, and how, as Nicholas continues to just not get it, she resorts to her powerful imagination … [W]e highly recommend it!
Baby Librarians

This imaginative picture book affirmation of family centres brown-skinned Elvi, who has two mothers. When Elvi’s friend Nicholas asks which of her parents is the ‘real’ one … Elvi cleverly reframes the subject, defining her mother in ways every child can understand… Hatched and stippled textures in ink and marker … offer the illustrations a snug, soft feel.
Publishers Weekly

Elvi (a child of colour with light brown skin and straight, brown hair) has two mums (one of whom has darker skin and hair and one, lighter than Elvi). When Nicholas (who has light brown skin and curly hair) comes over to their house, he asks, ‘Elvi, which one is your real mum?’ Elvi’s initial, confident retort is: ‘They’re both my real mum.’ Elvi patiently offers similar responses as Nicholas persists, then starts to have a little fun … Ideally, readers who need this message will grasp it sooner than Nicholas does, though perhaps the book’s impact will have more power for those who read it as validation of their own experiences enduring microaggressions.
Kirkus

Elvi’s imagination guides her answer to a curious question about what is real.  Love is bigger than any answer she can give and her age appropriate answer is pedagogically perfect and developmentally spot on.
Jesica Sweedler DeHart, Librarian Review, Neill Public Library

Who’s Your Real Mum? is a beautifully illustrated and entertaining picture book story by the team of author/storyteller Bernadette Green and artist/illustrator Anna Zobel that celebrates nontraditional families and captures exactly what lies at the heart of family life — love.
Midwest Book Review

A sensitive story that encourages children to talk and think about a diverse range of family setups.
The School Reading List

[T]he journalist and filmmaker warns against the optimistic belief that technology is the solution … At a time when many claim to be “citizens of the world” or retreat into naive or hypocritical protectionism, Pitron’s book is an attempt to open people’s eyes to the consequences of their societal choices and lifestyles.
Green European Journal

French Writer and analyst Guillaume Pitron warns about growing reliance on rare-earth metal – which are necessary to build high-tech products … He shines a light on “the untold story” of the energy and digital transitions.
European Scientist

An expert account of a poorly understood but critical element in our economy.
Kirkus Reviews

[E]xposes the dirty underpinnings of clean technologies in a debut that raises valid questions about energy extraction.
Publishers Weekly

The Rare Metals War is Guillaume Pitron’s urgent exposé of the race for resources and an examination of its environmental and human impacts.
Dan Shaw, Happy Magazine

This new book sets out to share the experiences and anecdotes of a career in genetic medicine more than two-decades long, while narrating segments of the history of genetic pathology and exploring the world of genes today and to come … Kirk makes effective use of footnotes to deflate the academic style and maintain a sense of personality and fun.

David Ferrell, Canberra Times

Both an account of the human stories at the heart of Kirk’s practice and a beginner’s guide to genetic medicine, The Genes That Make Us tells of the significant progress that has been made in genetics over the past two decades, while also signalling how far there is left to travel.
Diane Stubbings, Australian Book Review

‘For God’s sake behave like a prime minister’, implored the journalist who had assisted William McMahon to attain that office. His faults were legion. Throughout his political career he boasted and intrigued, curried favour, and was habitually disloyal. He worked assiduously with little comprehension of his responsibilities, and was indecisive and prone to panic. Patrick Mullins’ engrossing, fine biography does much more than document all these liabilities: it explains how they enabled him to attain national leadership and left him unable to exercise it.
Stuart Macintyre

Mullins fills an enormous gap in our political history with extraordinary insight and clarity. He casts new light on our post-war politics. and rescues one of its most dominant figures from the throes of partisan caricature.
Lindsay Tanner, Author of Sideshow and Politics with Purpose

A welcome addition to prime ministerial biography … An engaging and informative read.
Troy Bramston, The Australian

This is the most detailed investigation and explanation of what happened … Completing a biography of this scope is an enormous undertaking, and Patrick Mullins does it with considerable skill … Mullins conveys the turmoil, the atmosphere of crisis, the bickering and the bloodletting that marked this extraordinary period of Australian political history.
David Solomon, Inside Story

Dr Mullins has become an expert on the topic.
Danielle Nohra, citynews.com.au

So why did Mullins, a young political historian, pen a 776-page biography of William McMahon? And why is this book about such an apparently unlikely and unlikeable subject already emerging as a classic of its genre, just weeks after release? To find out the reader should first go to the book. The pages are well written and authoritative. They add up to a precociously confident historian's distillation of material from a remarkable range of sources.
Australian Financial Review

[Patrick Mullins] has certainly engaged in wide-ranging and meticulous research on his subject.
Michael Sexton, The Australian

Tiberius with a Telephone is relentless in its quest to understand a man who seems out of his depth in Canberra and, at times, uncertain why he’s even there. Importantly, it shows when a government is bereft of real leadership and ideas, how quickly things can go wrong.
Jeff Maynard, Herald Sun

[Patrick Mullins] provides a detailed and, at times, sympathetic account of the difficult issues McMahon faced as he struggled to shape events. But he is brutal in his depiction of McMahon’s dishonesty, dithering, vanity, cunning and capacity for political self-harm … His biography is an engaging exposition of a neglected politician and his complex era.
Duncan Hughes, Sydney Morning Herald

This is, as others have remarked, biography at its best: diligently researched, with detail nowhere else examined, and a demonstration of fine judgement concerning the crucial interplay between personal disposition, role demands, and historical context.
James Walter, Australian Book Review

The book is a significant work – exhaustive and considered ... an engrossing read.
Nick Mattiske, Insights (Uniting Church in Australia)

A fascinating read.
John Atkin, Company Director

[An] extremely entertaining, intriguing biography.
Mark Thomas, The Canberra Times