Book Review Archives | Page 4 of 6 | Michelle Scott Tucker

Oh no! One of my favourite books has been made into a movie

In the Heart of the Sea is the book that led me to non-fiction. Nathanial Philbrick's prose is gripping and evocative; his research academically rigorous. This is a book that grabbed me, gave me a good hard shake and turned me into a much better writer. At the time I pressed this book upon everyone I knew, like some sort of modern-day ancient mariner. In the Heart of the Sea tells the story of the whaling ship Essex, lost in the Pacific Ocean in 1820. The preface contains a scene [...]

Michelle Scott Tucker2018-03-27T21:51:08+11:00November 16th, 2015|Book Review|0 Comments

Salt Creek by Lucy Treloar – book review

In 1855 the well-to-do Finch family falls on hard times and is forced live and farm in the Coorong, on the remote southeast coast of South Australia. Cue struggles with the landscape and clashes with the local Ngarrindjeri people. But first-time novelist Lucy Treloar subverts the typical white Australian pioneer story in interesting and complex ways. Nothing in this fascinating and beautifully written story turns out as expected. Papa Finch is an entrepreneur always eyeing off the next big opportunity but the family's ramshackle homestead on the Coorong is a [...]

Michelle Scott Tucker2018-03-21T14:55:34+11:00November 8th, 2015|Book Review|5 Comments

Stella Count Redux – more of the same, I’m afraid

The sterling people behind the Stella Prize* have updated their 2014 analysis of Australian book reviews. This time they examined The Saturday Paper and Sydney Review of Books to discover which authors are reviewed, and who does the reviewing. The answers are, sadly, unsurprising. Or perhaps the results are surprising, given that one might expect such good quality publications to be, oh I don't know, somehow better than that. Although two-thirds of Australian books published are written by women: ...at both the Sydney Review of Books and The Saturday Paper, [...]

Michelle Scott Tucker2018-03-21T14:55:35+11:00October 28th, 2015|Book Review, Writing|0 Comments

Clive James – is it OK to speak ill of the dying?

Is it OK to speak ill of the dying? Probably not. But it’s somehow worse to speak ill of the dead so I’d best get my Clive James critique in now, while I still can. Latest Readings, Clive James’ latest book, is a collection of short essays about the books he’s read recently. And it is proof – if we needed it – that we’ve reached and moved beyond Peak James. Oh he’s still funny and erudite and masterful but this latest book betrays him. And how could it not? [...]

Michelle Scott Tucker2018-03-21T14:55:35+11:00October 16th, 2015|Book Review|0 Comments

Long Bay by Eleanor Limprecht

From some scant archival details – and a haunting mug shot – Eleanor Limprecht has created a compelling and powerful work of historical fiction. In 1909, Sydney woman Rebecca Sinclair was convicted of manslaughter. A mother of three had sought an abortion from Sinclair, and died as a result. Sinclair, in her twenties, was sentenced to three years hard labour at the Long Bay Women’s Reformatory. Six months later she gave birth to a daughter. The story begins with that birth. Rebecca hears nurses’ heels, rustling skirts, the cut glass [...]

Michelle Scott Tucker2018-03-21T14:55:36+11:00July 31st, 2015|Book Review|0 Comments

Consider the Fork by Bee Wilson

Just like a good dinner party, Bee Wilson's Consider the Fork: A history of how we cook and eat is entertaining, satisfying and lively. Our kitchens are filled with ghosts. You may not see them, but you could not cook as you do without their ingenuity: those potters who first enabled us to boil and stew; the knife forgers; the brilliant engineers who designed the first refrigerators; the pioneers of gas and electric ovens; the scale makers; the inventors of egg-beaters and peelers. Wilson's structure is, broadly, chronological and she [...]

Michelle Scott Tucker2018-03-21T14:55:37+11:00June 5th, 2015|Book Review|0 Comments

How to be a Heroine by Samantha Ellis

There seems to be a wrinkle in the publishing zeitgeist, resulting in a spate of books about books. Which makes good marketing sense really. What do all readers have in common? An interest in books, of course. Joyce Carol Oates, in a review in the New York Times, coins the term 'bibliomemoir'. Rarely attempted, and still more rarely successful, is the bibliomemoir — a subspecies of literature combining criticism and biography with the intimate, confessional tone of autobiography. The most engaging bibliomemoirs establish the writer’s voice in counterpoint to the [...]

Michelle Scott Tucker2018-03-21T14:55:37+11:00May 19th, 2015|Book Review|4 Comments

The Invisible History of the Human Race by Christine Kenneally

Lucid. Fascinating. Intriguing. Compelling. This is a book I read late into the night. Then at the breakfast table and then later in the parked car while waiting to collect the kids. I feverishly pressed copies onto friends. But what’s it all about? Essentially The Invisible History of the Human Race is a quest to discover what is passed down to us. How do our ancestry, our family and our cultural histories shape us? The answers are stranger than you might think. […]

Michelle Scott Tucker2018-03-21T14:55:38+11:00May 9th, 2015|Book Review|13 Comments

I’ll read anything – if it’s good enough. H is for Hawk is better than good.

A market researcher once asked me "What do you want to read about?" I can't remember what I said but I'm pretty sure it wasn't "I'd like to read about how an academic Englishwoman lived out her grief through raising and training a goshawk." And that's the thing, isn't it? We read in order to be taken to places we didn't even realise we wanted to go. To learn about things that it hadn't occurred to us to learn about. H is for Hawk is remarkable. A compelling, lyrical, insightful [...]

Michelle Scott Tucker2018-03-21T14:55:39+11:00February 28th, 2015|Book Review|12 Comments

Lady Catherine and the Real Downton Abbey by The Countess of Carnarvon

My beloved gave me a book for Christmas. It was a book I'd never have chosen for myself because I am a hypocritical literary snob who believes that any 21st century writer called The Countess of Carnarvon couldn't possibly write anything of interest to me. But you know how this story ends, don't you? The book was great. Well written and fascinating. I really enjoyed it. As I noted over at Whispering Gums recently, it seems that I read in order to learn about myself... I'm not going to review [...]

Michelle Scott Tucker2018-03-21T14:55:40+11:00February 3rd, 2015|Book Review|0 Comments