Book Club

When Lisa D’Onofrio rolled up her sleeves and threw herself into organising a Children’s Literature Festival in Castlemaine, she hoped for a decent turn-up. It had taken all her persuasive powers, a bucket-load of patience, truck-loads of time and an enormous pile of energy to make it ..

Huntly author Katrina Nannestad thinks of herself as a “closet writer”, not much given to chatting while she’s actually in the process of story-making. Talking to the children who read her books, however, is something she loves to do. “I’m really private when I&rsqu..

On February 7, 200 years ago, Charles John Huffam Dickens was born. To celebrate this event, Bendigo Library (5.30pm, phone 5449 2781) is hosting a kind of Little Dickens; dramatised readings from a half-dozen of the novels by Castlemaine actors Bev Geldard and Michael Treloar. Bev say..

This is one of those books you have to go back to the beginning to read, once you’ve finished it. The first short chapter is very weird, so it’s important not to let it put you off. But once you’re in to this rather black comedy, it’s both enjoyable and thought-provoki..

Jennifer Egan A Visit from the Goon Squad Constable and Robinson, $19.99 THE way writers such as Jennifer Egan go about their novels may just be a reason that the paper book will not be entirely replaced by the ebook. While you can whip through Egan’s fast, funny, bol..

Keeper Of The Light Diane Chamberlain Harlequin, $29.99 Don’t be fooled that this is your average love story. Dr Olivia Simon is a dedicated doctor with experience in a large and busy hospital. She has been persuaded to come to a smaller town by her husband, Pau..

The Seamstress Maria Duenas Picador, $32.99 If you’re a reader who likes a touch of history with your fiction, this epic novel, set in Madrid, Morocco and Lisbon will be right up your alley. It’s 1935 in Madrid when we first meet Sira Quiroga, a young seamstress raised by her si..

Troubling as the arrival of ebooks is for books and publishing, there has never been a better time for reading. Where once people who live in the country had only a fraction of the access city people have to both new publications and old, now, we are linked in to libraries, bookshops and publisher..

We asked Bendigo Weekly bookclubbers to send us the titles of books they have enjoyed this year. Most are new, some are classics... Ape House by Sara Gruen: the follow-up to Water for Elephants, about a scientist at the Great Ape Language Lab The Art of Fielding by Chad Har..

BENDIGO poet Tru Dowling says it feels a little strange finally to see her poems gathered in a classy chapbook, her name on the cover, the poems sitting firm and final on the white page. But it was always going to happen. “I feel like I can’t not write poetry,” Tru says. &ldquo..

Memoirs Of A Consenting Victim by Tru Dowling This is the time she aches for breaks given rules for bidden for the time it tick tick tick tick ticks ticks ticked him off the list the gist was to recognize realign the white lies, blow flies of his owl brown e..

Where do you go after Harry Potter? Daniel Radcliffe showed he is serious about developing his career as an actor by playing in a small-budget film made in Australia and based on the novel by Michael Noonan. Now, apparently, at 22 Radcliffe is preparing to take on a role that is as different fro..

IS there anybody out there? A couple of weeks back a newcomer to Bendigo contacted us at the Weekly because she has heard about our Bookclub. She had moved from another Australian city, where she had been a member of a different kind of bookclub, the reading group kind which meets regularly at a..

Ship Kings Andrew McGahan Allen and Unwin, $22.99 A SEA shanty with a mythical whirlpool at its heart. Miles Franklin-award winning author, Andrew McGahan, has continued on his merry way, working through every genre known to readers, by embarking on a four-book fantasy series. The Coming ..

The Drop Michael Connelly Allen & Unwin, $32.95 You know you’re in good hands with a new Michael Connelly, the Florida-based crime writer, author of a couple of dozen novels, one a year since he started in 1992. His new one, The Drop, is another Harry Bo..

Cicadas They came to us from far away their older selves left like suitcases by the door. we crunched them as we trod to school or crushed the shells to crystal when summer broke above the small backyards and ..

Browsing in one of her favourite bookshops – Book Now in Bendigo – Kaz Cooke became absorbed by descriptions in old “ladies’ encyclopedias” about the complicated treatments for various ailments. “So many of them finished with, ‘the patient will..

Who would make the perfect Heathcliff? If you were given the task of casting the role of the rough romantic in Emily Bronte’s classic 1847 novel, Wuthering Heights, could you do better than Laurence Olivier from the 1939 film? A new adaptation of Wuthering Heights, directed by Andrea Arnol..

The talk before the announcement of this year’s Man Booker Prize, was all about whether the judges were dumbing down the most prestigious literary award in the world. Even with the announcement on Wednesday that the $77,000 prize goes this year to Julian Barnes for The Sense of an End..

The Little Refugee Anh Do and Suzanne Do Allen & Unwin, $24.99 It was Anh Do’s personality, his optimism and humour, that made his autobiography, Australia’s Happiest Refugee, such a popular book. Turning it into a book for kids might seem a bit opportunistic, an..