Categorie archieven: Australië

Alexis Wright – Carpentaria

Alexis Wright Carpentaria review and information of the content of the 2006 novel by the Aboriginal Australian writer. Here you can read information about the content of the famous novel by Alexis Wright, the author and the publication.

Alexis Wright Carpentaria reviews

  • “Wright breaks all the rules of grammar and syntax to sweep us along on a great torrent of language that thrills and amazes with its inventiveness and humor and with the sheer power of its storytelling… Like the Gulf Country itself, this is big enough to lose yourself in. Once in, you may never want to be found.” (Sydney Morning Herald)
  • “The writing is the best in the country, some of the best in the world; we call to mind Alexis Wright when they talk about our country’s great literary voice.” (Tara June Winch, The Guardian)
  • “By the end of the book you’ll be seduced by its Dreamtime logic, and probably persuaded by its passionate political and ecological message. It’s not an easy read, but if you want to know the real Australia, persevere.” (The Daily Telegraph)
  • “Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria is a masterpiece of the art form, a novel of immense accomplishment that combines local storytelling with national history, interweaving themes of conquest and subjugation with the struggle between indigenous and foreign civilizations. Most importantly, this work of art is composed in the most exquisite literary style, making someone like me who writes novels as a profession feel absolute awe and admiration.” (Mo Yan, Winner of the 2012 Nobel Prize)

Alexis Wright Carpentaria

Carpentaria

  • Author: Alexis Wright (Australia)
  • Book type: Aboriginal novel, Australian novel
  • First Edition: 2006
  • Publisher reissue: New Directions
  • Released: February 6, 2024
  • Length: 480 pages
  • Format: paperback / ebook
  • Prize: $ 18.95
  • Winner of the Miles Franklin Award 2007
  • Order book from: Amazon / Bol

Blurb of the 2006 novel by Alexis Wright the Aboriginal author

Carpentaria is an epic of the Gulf Country of northwestern Queensland, Australia. Its portrait of life in the precariously settled coastal town of Desperance centers on the powerful Phantom family, leader of the Westend Pricklebush people, and its battles with old Joseph Midnight’s renegade Eastend mob, on the one hand, and with the white officials of Uptown and the nearby rapacious, ecologically disastrous Gurfurrit mine on the other.

Wright’s masterful novel teems with extraordinary characters—the outcast savior Elias Smith, the religious zealot Mozzie Fishman, the murderous mayor Bruiser, the moth-ridden Captain Nicoli Finn, the activist Will Phantom, and above all, the rulers of the family, the queen of the garbage dump and the fish-embalming king of time: Angel Day and Normal Phantom—who stand like giants in a storm-swept world.

Wright’s storytelling is operatic and surreal: a blend of myth and scripture, politics and farce. She has a narrative gift of remaking reality itself, altering along her way, as if casually, the perception of what a novel can do with the inside of the reader’s mind.

Alexis Wright was born November 25, 1950 in Cloncurry, Carpentaria Alexis Wright 2006 novel first editionQueensland, Australia. She is a prize-winning novelist and nonfiction Aboriginal Australian writer, and a member of the Waanyi nation of the southern highlands of the Gulf of Carpentaria. She has written  novels and non-fiction books. She was a Distinguished Research Fellow at Western Sydney University and named the Boisbouvier Chair in Australian Literature at the University of Melbourne in 2017.

Matching books

Beste Australische romans en literatuur

Beste Australische romans en literatuur. Wat zijn de beste romans en boeken van Australische schrijvers, schrijfsters en auteurs?  In welk jaar zijn de romans en andere boeken van auteurs uit Australië verschenen? Wat is de inhoud van de Australische romans en andere literatuur?

Beste Australische romans en literatuur

Uiteraard kun je uitgebreid discussiëren over wat de beste Australische romans en andere boeken zijn? Sterker nog iedere lezer zal zijn persoonlijke voorkeur hebben. Daarom is hier een lijst opgenomen van de beste romans en andere literatuur van uit de Australië die volgens onze redactie de moeite van het lezen waard zijn.

Tot nu toe is één keer de Nobelprijs voor de Literatuur uitgereikt aan een Australische schrijver. In 1973 ontving Patrick White (1912-1990) de prijs voor een episch en psychologisch verhalende kunst die een nieuw continent geïntroduceerd heeft in de literatuur.

Wat zijn de beste Australische romans en andere literatuur?

Onze redactie kiest ervoor om een alfabetisch overzicht te maken van romans en andere literaire boeken van Australische auteurs die volgens velen het lezen meer dan waard zijn. Er zullen bovendien nieuwe uitstekende en uitmuntende romans van schrijvers,  schrijfsters en auteurs uit Australië worden toegevoegd. Ook is er aandacht voor de Nederlandse vertaling van de roman, mits deze verschenen is, uiteraard.

Marcus Clarke For the Term of His Natural Life novel from 1874 first editionMarcus Clarke – For the Term of His Natural Life

roman over Tasmanië uit 1874
Wrongfully convicted of a crime he did not commit, a young aristocrat is sent to pay his dues in Van Diemen’s Land. As a criminal in this new colony, Rufus Dawes is forced to endure tremendous suffering and inhumanity, from the baseless cruelty of those in power to the harsh brutalities of an untamed country. Yet, with enduring human spirit and unrelenting determination, Dawes remains ever desperate to clear his name, no matter the trials that come his way…lees verder >

Miles Franklin – My Brilliant Career

Australische roman uit 1901
Waardering redactie: ∗∗∗∗∗ (uitstekend)
Miles Franklin’s debut novel follows the vivacious and rebellious sixteen-year-old Sybylla Melvyn – closely modelled on Franklin herself – as she fights to break free of restrictive bush life. Growing up on her parents’ outback farm, Sybylla is desperate to read, write, sing and achieve great things. Yet her aspirations for a ‘brilliant career’ are persistently thwarted, first by the arduous demands of rural family life, and later by the shackles of a proposed conventional marriage to the wealthy Harold Beecham. With only her brilliant, conflicted mind to guide her, Sybylla is forced to define a life on her own terms…lees verder >

Monkey Grip 1977 Novel by Helen Garner the Australian Writer First EditionHelen Garner – Monkey Grip

Australische roman uit 1977
Waardering redactie: ∗∗∗∗∗ (uitstekend)
In 1970s Melbourne, Nora is a happy woman. She is happy moving between the city’s communal households, with her little daughter. Happy with days spent at the public pool, and nights spent dancing and drinking and talking and smoking and loving freely. But then Nora meets Javo. Javo, with his crooked, wrecked, wild face and his violently blue eyes. And soon she is trapped in the monkey grip of his drug addiction and her own obsessive love for him…lees verder >

Helen Garner This House of Grief 2014 True Crime First EditionHelen Garner – This House of Grief

The Story of a Murder Trial
Australische true crime uit 2014
Waardering redactie: ∗∗∗∗∗ (uitstekend)
In this utterly compelling book, Helen Garner tells the story of a man and his broken life. She presents the theatre of the courtroom with its actors and audience – all gathered to witness to the truth – players in the extraordinary and unpredictable drama of the quest for justice. This House of Grief is a heartbreaking and unputdownable book by one of Australia’s most admired writers…lees verder >

Elizabeth Harrower The Watch Tower reviewElizabeth Harrower – The Watch Tower

Australische roman uit 1966
Nederlandse vertaling: De wachttoren
Breaking their poses like trees snapping branches, the women urgently regarded each other, cleared away all signs of work in an instant, examined their souls for defects, in a sense crossed themselves, and waited. After Laura and Clare are abandoned by their mother, Felix is there to help, even to marry Laura if she will have him. Little by little the two sisters grow complicit with his obsessions, his cruelty, his need to control…lees verder >

Burial Rites Historical Iceland Novel from 2013 by Hannah Kent the Autralian author first editionHannah Kent – Burial Rites

historische IJsland roman uit 2013
Nederlandse vertaling: De laatste rituelen
Waardering redactie:∗∗∗∗∗
 (uitstekend)
Set against Iceland’s stark landscape, Hannah Kent brings to vivid life the story of Agnes, who, charged with the brutal murder of her former master, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution. Riveting and rich with lyricism, Burial Rites evokes a dramatic existence in a distant time and place, and asks the question, how can one woman hope to endure when her life depends upon the stories told by others?…lees verder >

Gerald Murnane Barley Patch review en recensieGerald Murnane – Barley Patch

Australische roman uit 2009
The narrator lays bare the acts of writing and imagining, finally giving us a glimpse of the mythical place where the characters of fiction dwell before they come into existence in books. With something of the spirit of Italo Calvino and Georges Perec, this is a cornerstone of Murnane’s unclassifiable project, for which he is a deserving Nobel Prize candidate…lees verder >

Gerald Murnane InlandGerald Murnane – Inland

Australische roman uit 1988
Inland is a work which gathers in emotional power as it moves across the grasslands of its narrator’s imagination – from Szolnok County on the great plains of Hungary where a man writes in the library of his manor house, to the Institute of Prairie Studies in Tripp County, South Dakota, where the editor of the journal Hinterland receives his writing, to the narrator’s own native district in Melbourne County, between Moonee Ponds and the Merri, where he recalls the constant displacements of his childhood…lees verder >

Gerald Murnane De vlakte RecensieGerald Murnane – The Plains

Australische roman uit 1981
Nederlandse vertaling: De vlakte
Speels en dromerig meesterwerk, waarin een man op de Australische vlakte arriveert in de hoop een film te maken over de vreemde cultuur van de bewoners. In deze roman arriveert een jongeman op de Australische vlakte in de hoop een film te kunnen maken over de vreemde, maar rijke cultuur van haar bewoners. Het resultaat is een minutieuze verkenning van het vlakke Australische binnenland en zijn landeigenaren…recensie lezen >

Patrick White Memoirs of Many in One reviewPatrick White – Memoirs of Many in One

Australische roman uit 1986, laatste roman
The last Patrick White novel published in his lifetime, Memoirs of Many in One presents the eccentric, often fantastical recollections of the ageing actor, Alex Xenophon Demirjian Gray. These are ‘edited’ by the writer Patrick White, her friend and executor, who is often the target of her scorn. Witty and affecting, Memoirs reveals another side of White’s fiction even as it echoes many of the themes running through his work…lees verder >

Patrick White Voss 1957 novel first editionPatrick White – Voss

Australische roman uit 1957
Waardering redactie: ∗∗∗∗∗ (uitstekend)
Nederlandse vertaling: Voss
Set in nineteenth-century Australia, Voss is the story of the secret passion between an explorer and a naïve young woman. Although they have met only a few times, Voss and Laura are joined by overwhelming, obsessive feelings for each other. Voss sets out to cross the continent, and as hardships, mutiny and betrayal whittle away his power to endure and to lead, his attachment to Laura gradually increases. Laura, waiting in Sydney, moves through the months of separation as if they were a dream and Voss the only reality…lees verder >

Carpentaria Alexis Wright 2006 novel first editionAlexis Wright – Carpentaria

Aboriginal Australian novel from 2006
Winner of the Miles Franklin Award 2007
Carpentaria is an epic of the Gulf Country of northwestern Queensland, Australia. Its portrait of life in the precariously settled coastal town of Desperance centers on the powerful Phantom family, leader of the Westend Pricklebush people, and its battles with old Joseph Midnight’s renegade Eastend mob, on the one hand, and with the white officials of Uptown and the nearby rapacious, ecologically disastrous Gurfurrit mine on the other…read on >


Bijpassende boeken en informatie

Tasmanië romans, thrillers en andere boeken

Tasmanië romans, thrillers en andere boeken. Welke romans, thrillers en andere boeken spelen zich af op het Australische eiland Tasmanië of gaan erover?

Tasmanië romans, thrillers en andere boeken

Het eiland Tasmanië ligt ten zuidoosten van Australië. Vernoemd naar de Nederlandse ontdekkingsreiziger Abel Tasman spreekt het grootste Australische eiland bij velen van ons tot de verbeelding. Natuurlijk omdat het bijna de verste bestemming is vanaf Nederland maar ook door de bijzondere natuur en cultuur. Met enige regelmaat boeken over Tasmanië. Natuurlijk reisverhalen, boeken over de geschiedenis en bijzondere natuur van het eiland, maar ook romans en thrillers.

Nieuwe boeken, romans en thrillers over Tasmanië

In onderstaand overzicht is zijn tips te vinden van nieuwe boeken over het eiland. De links verwijzen naar uitgebreide informatie over de roman, thriller of boek. Daarnaast zijn bestelmogelijkheden en, zo nu en dan, een boekbespreking of recensie. De nieuwste boeken staan bovenaan de lijst.

Richard Flanagan Vraag 7 recensieVraag 7

  • Auteur: Richard Flanagan (Australië)
  • Soort boek: familiegeschiedenis, memoir
  • Origineel: Question 7 (2024)
  • Nederlandse vertaling: Thijs van Nimwegen
  • Uitgever: Koppernik
  • Verschijnt: 12 maart 2026
  • Omvang: 288 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: paperback
  • Prijs: € 26,50
  • Boek bestellen bij: Boekenwereld / Bol / Libris
  • Inhoud boek: Meesterverteller Flanagan onderzoekt op poëtische wijze hoe het kleine en het grote, het persoonlijke en het historische elkaar voortdurend beïnvloeden. Vraag 7 is een herinnering aan Flanagan’s ouders, verweven met bespiegelingen over Tasmanië, genocide, kolonialisme, de atoombom en is zowel een liefdesverhaal als een meditatie over schuld, overleven en de onverklaarbare drang van de mens om betekenis te vinden en te geven…lees verder >

Marion Pauw Jij bent het licht recensieJij bent het licht

  • Auteur: Marion Pauw (Nederland)
  • Soort boek: Nederlandse thriller
  • Uitgever: Ambo | Anthos
  • Verschijnt: 4 november 2025
  • Omvang: 320 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: paperback / ebook / luisterboek
  • Prijs: € 24,99 / € 14,99 / € 16,99
  • Boek bestellen bij: Boekenwereld / Bol / Libris
  • Inhoud thriller: Mia reist naar Tasmanië om Jo te bezoeken, de enige bij wie ze zich als kind veilig voelde. Jo is verlamd na een beroerte en kan niet meer praten. Mia vermoedt dat er meer aan de hand is, zeker wanneer ze ontdekt dat Jo betrokken was bij een actiegroep tegen de bouw van een luxehotel waar ooit een berucht jongensinternaat stond. Mia’s broer Max woonde een tijd op dat internaat. Hij heeft inmiddels een boek geschreven over zijn jeugd, waardoor alles wat Mia dacht te weten over haar eigen verleden in een ander licht komt te staan…lees verder >

Charlotte Van den Broeck Een vlam Tasmaanse tijgers recensieEen vlam Tasmaanse tijgers

  • Auteur: Charlotte Van den Broeck (België)
  • Soort boek: reisverhaal over Tasmanië
  • Uitgever: De Arbeiderspers
  • Verschijnt: 27 september 2024
  • Omvang: 288 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: gebonden boek / ebook
  • Prijs: € 24,99 / € 14,99
  • Waardering redactie: ∗∗∗∗∗ (uitstekend)
  • Boek bestellen bij: Bol / Libris
  • Inhoud boek: In dit meeslepende boek volgt Charlotte Van den Broeck sporen van de uitgestorven Tasmaanse tijger. Haar reis brengt haar via dierentuinen en natuurhistorische collecties op tal van plekken in Europa, langs filosofie, wetenschap en fictie tot in Australië, en diep in de bush van Iutruwita oftewel Tasmanië…recensie lezen >

Meer romans en andere boeken over Tasmanië

Marcus Clarke For the Term of His Natural Life novel from 1874 first editionMarcus Clarke – For the Term of His Natural Life

roman over Tasmanië uit 1874
Wrongfully convicted of a crime he did not commit, a young aristocrat is sent to pay his dues in Van Diemen’s Land. As a criminal in this new colony, Rufus Dawes is forced to endure tremendous suffering and inhumanity, from the baseless cruelty of those in power to the harsh brutalities of an untamed country. Yet, with enduring human spirit and unrelenting determination, Dawes remains ever desperate to clear his name, no matter the trials that come his way…lees verder >

Bijpassende boeken en informatie

Afbeelding bovenzijde: Binalong in the Bay of Fires, Tasmanië (T. McKinnon, Unsplash)

Antigone Kefala – Sydney Journals

Antigone Kefala Sydney Journals review and information of the content of the diary of the Romania-born Australian author and poet. Transit Books will republish the Antigone Kefala book, on March 26, 2025. Here you can read information about the content of the book, the author and the publication.

Antigone Kefala Sydney Journals reviews

  • “Sydney Journals (2008) and Late Journals (2022) showcase Kefala’s distinctive, cosmopolitan vision. They are, among other things, wonderful Sydney documents, capturing the city’s changing moods and forms through charged, astute, visually rich observation…While the loss of community attendant on migration is felt in Kefala’s Late Journals, this work highlights a different, sustaining kinship: the artists and intellectuals Kefala engages with, their presence and their work serving to enrich her days. There is wonderful generosity in Kefala’s acknowledgment of the creative work that matters to her, and a sense of celebration in her intransigent faith in the value and power of art.” (Judges of the Patrick White Literary Award)
  • “In poetry as in prose, Antigone Kefala has made the fragment her form. It’s a form that embodies both salvage and destruction, and it’s wonderfully deployed in Late Journals to snatch moments from time while testifying to discontinuity and loss. I couldn’t stop reading this book. It bears moving witness to a distinctive, cosmopolitan vision and an unwavering faith in the power and integrity of art.” (Michelle de Kretser)
  • “The best Australian writer you’ve never heard of.” (The Berliner)

Antigone Kefala Sydney Journals

Sydney Journals

  • Author: Antigone Kefala (Australia)
  • Book type: diary from 2009
  • Publisher: Transit Books
  • Released: March 26, 2026
  • Length: 216 pages
  • Format: paperback / ebook
  • Prize: $ 18.95
  • Order book from: Amazon / Bol

Blurb of the Sydney Journals by Antigone Kefala

A thirty-year diary that became a groundbreaking literary project.

Antigone Kefala has long been considered one of Australia’s best kept secrets. Born in Romania in 1931, she and her family were forced to flee following the occupation by the Soviet Union, escaping first to refugee camps in Greece before moving to New Zealand and then finally Australia in 1959, where she lived until her death.

As she grew into her career as a writer, she situated herself within Sydney’s artistic and intellectual milieu, publishing poetry and fiction. She also kept a diary for over thirty years, portraying a world sustained by conversation and friendship, and by reflection, on books and paintings, plays and films, and literary fortune.

For Kefala, Sydney Journals was a literary project, culled from decades of recordkeeping and shaped by austere and frank observations that beam with poignancy and humor. What is left is a rare document of the domestic and public life of the period, of an aging writer and her companions, and the dramatic beauty of the city and its landscapes.

Intimate in its recollections, social in nature, the Journals establishes Antigone Kefala as one of literature’s great diarists.

Antigone Kefala was born May 28, 1931 into a family of musicians in Brăila, Romania, and aspired to be an actor. Following the occupation by the Soviet Union, her family fled Romania, first escaping to Greece and living in refugee camps there. She moved to New Zealand before arriving in Sydney in 1959, where she lived until her death. A poet, novelist, and diarist, she has been described as “one of the most significant of the Australian writers who have come from elsewhere” and a “cultural visionary,” mapping the experiences of exile, displacement, and otherness. She died December 3, 2022 in Sydney Australia the age of 91.

Matching books

Marcus Clarke – For the Term of His Natural Life

Marcus Clarke For the Term of His Natural Life review, recensie en informatie roman uit 1874 over de gevangeis op Tasmanië. Op deze pagina lees je uitgebreide informatie over de roman For the Term of His Natural Life van de uit de Australië afkomstige schrijver Marcus Clarke die in Engeland was geboren. Er is geen Nederlandse vertaling van de roman verkrijgbaar.

Marcus Clarke For the Term of His Natural Life recensie, review en informatie

  • “Terrible and tragic, but seething with intense human life…A masterpiece.” (Canberra Times)

Marcus Clarke For the Term of His Natural Life

For the Term of His Natural Life

  • Auteur: Marcus Clarke (Australië)
  • Soort boek: roman over Tasmanië uit 1874
  • Taal: Engels
  • Uitgever: Text Publishing
  • Omvang: 512 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: paperback / ebook
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol

Flaptekst van de roman van Marcus Clarke over Tasmanië

A masterpiece in style and scope, Marcus Clarke’s For the Term of His Natural Life is an ambitious tale of tragedy, redemption, and the ugliness and resilience of man.

Wrongfully convicted of a crime he did not commit, a young aristocrat is sent to pay his dues in Van Diemen’s Land. As a criminal in this new colony, Rufus Dawes is forced to endure tremendous suffering and inhumanity, from the baseless cruelty of those in power to the harsh brutalities of an untamed country. Yet, with enduring human spirit and unrelenting determination, Dawes remains ever desperate to clear his name, no matter the trials that come his way.

First published in 1874, Marcus Clarke’s vivid and brutal depictions of convict life have come to define our colonial history. Still beloved by readers today, For the Term of His Natural Life remains the most important Australian book of the nineteenth century, and a vital part of our cultural and literary identity.

Marcus Clarke was born in on 24 April 1846 in Kensington, London. At age seventeen Clarke left England for Australia, where his uncle was a county court judge. Despite an early career in banking, Clarke had begun to write professionally by 1867, penning stories for the Marcus Clarke For the Term of His Natural Life novel from 1874 first editionAustralian Magazine and working as a theatre critic for the Melbourne Argus. Commissioned by the Australian Journal to write a serial about convict life, Clarke produced his masterwork, His Natural Life. Republished as a novel in 1874 under the new title For the Term of His Natural Life, Clarke’s epic tale of crime and punishment was later distributed in Britain, America, Germany and many other countries. Marcus Clarke died in Melbourne on 2 August 1881, aged thirty-five.

Bijpassende boeken

Josephine Rowe – Little World

Josephine Rowe Little World review, recensie en informatie over de inhoud van de roman van de Australische schrijfster. Op 12 augustus 2025 verschijnt bij Transit Books de nieuwe roman van Josephine Rowe, de uit Australië afkomstige schrijfster. Een Nederlandse vertaling van het boek is niet verkrijgbaar.

Josephine Rowe Little World review en recensie

  • “Radiant…In the sumptuous novel Little World, neither human cruelties nor fiery spirits can be erased.” (Foreward Reviews)
  • “Rowe’s writing is rich in atmosphere and reads as if channeled directly from the minds of others…A human yet otherworldly tale.” (Booklist)
  • “Rowe’s story about various lives touched by a child saint’s corpse over space and time is lyrical, varied, and only slightly less strange than it sounds.” (The Millions)

Josephine Rowe Little World

Little World

  • Auteur: Josephine Rowe (Australië)
  • Soort boek: Australische roman
  • Taal: Engels
  • Uitgever: Transit Books
  • Verschijnt: 12 augustus 2025
  • Omvang: 128 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: gebonden boek / ebook
  • Prijs: $ 22,95
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol / Libris

Flaptekst van de roman van Josephine Rowe

A dazzling novel about the mysterious body of a child saint and the lives it touches across time.

He has no notion of how to care for a saint. Even a small one. Does not even believe … Still. Catholic or not. You don’t turn away a saint.

Little World opens with the body of a child saint stranded in the Australian desert. Her name is unknown, as is the story of her life and the status of her canonization. She arrives in a box made of canoe timber, and Orrin Bird is dressed in his best clothes to receive her.

As the novel sweeps across time and place, from the 1950s to the present day, we encounter the lives the saint touches: from the retired engineer who unwittingly becomes her custodian, to a woman driving across the Nullarbor Plain in the mid-1970s with a pair of young lovers, and ending in contemporary Victoria.

A haunting reflection on violence and the interdependency of all things, Little World is a dazzling feat by one of Australia’s finest writers.

Josephine Rowe is born in Australia. Her first novel, A Loving, Faithful Animal was published in 2016. She als wrote two collections with stories: Tarcutta Wake (2012), her debut and Here Until August (2019)

Bijpassende boeken en informatie

Helen Garner – Monkey Grip

Helen Garner Monkey Grip review, recensie en informatie roman uit 1977 van de Australische schrijfster. Op deze pagina lees je uitgebreide informatie over de roman Monkey Grip van de uit Australië afkomstige schrijfster Helen Garner. Er is geen Nederlandse vertaling van de roman verkrijgbaar.

Helen Garner Monkey Grip review en recensie

  • “It’s the crystalline austerity of Garner’s sentences that most enthral me now in Monkey Grip. The lives may be chaotic; the language is anything but. Its cadences are beautiful, its images ever striking, the prose gleaming with a tender, almost chivalrous formality … I love Garner’s sense of joy; her gutsy, worried humility; her hilarious sense of humour.” (Charlotte Wood, Guardian)
  • “Whichever form she’s inhabiting, Garner is great company: perceptive, unsparing of others yet also self-questioning. Her books contain details that radiate long after you finish reading them.” (Max Lui, Financial Times)
  • “Seductive as hell. Brilliant, unusual, breathtaking.” (Lauren Groff)

Helen Garner Monkey Grip

Monkey Grip

  • Auteur: Helen Garner (Australië)
  • Soort boek: Australische roman uit 1977
  • Taal: Engels
  • Eerste uitgever: McPhee Gribble
  • Uitgever: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
  • Verschijnt: 14 maart 2025
  • Omvang: 352 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: paperback / ebook
  • Prijs: £ 9,99
  • Waardering redactie: ∗∗∗∗∗ (uitstekend)
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol / Libris

Flaptekst van de roman uit 1977 van de Australische schrijfster Helen Garner

In 1970s Melbourne, Nora is a happy woman.

She is happy moving between the city’s communal households, with her little daughter. Happy with days spent at the public pool, and nights spent dancing and drinking and talking and smoking and loving freely.

But then Nora meets Javo. Javo, with his crooked, wrecked, wild face and his violently blue eyes. And soon she is trapped in the monkey grip of his drug addiction and her own obsessive love for him.

On its first publication in 1977, Monkey Grip was both a sensation and a lightning rod in its frank portrayal of the lives of a generation. Now a modern classic, it shows Helen Garner’s dazzling and radical literary voice.

Helen Garner is born 7 November 1942 in Geelong, Victoria,
Australia. She writes novels, stories, screenplays and works of non-Monkey Grip 1977 Novel by Helen Garner the Australian Writer First Editionfiction. In 2006 she received the inaugural Melbourne Prize for Literature, and in 2016 she won the prestigious Windham–Campbell Prize for non-fiction. She was honoured with the Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature in 2019. And in 2023 she was awarded the ASA Medal for her outstanding contribution to Australian literature. Her works include five novels Monkey Grip, Moving Out, The Children’s Bach, The First Stone, Cosmo Cosmolino and The Spare Room (De logeerkamer). She also wrote non fiction books like This House of Grief, The Season and three volumes of her diaries. Garner lives in Melbourne.

Bijpassende boeken

Helen Garner – This House of Grief

Helen Garner This House of Grief review, recensie en informatie true crime-boek uit 2014 van de Australische schrijfster. Op deze pagina lees je uitgebreide informatie over de het boek This House of Grief, The Story of a Murder Trail. Het boek dat inmiddels is uitgegroeid tot een true crime klassieker, is geschreven door Helen Garner, de uit Australië afkomstige schrijfster. Een Nederlandse vertaling van het boek is niet verkrijgbaar.

Helen Garner This House of Grief recensie en review

  • “This House of Grief makes its complexity out of an honest vulnerability…Garner’s book is superbly alive to the narrative dynamics of the case; she tells a grim story of unhappy marriage, limited social opportunity, bitter divorce, and spousal grievance. Again, as in The First Stone, what consumes her are the difficult questions that seem to lie beyond the reach of formal narration: the deepest assumptions of class and gender and power; the problem of how well we ever understand someone else’s motives…Attracted and repelled, Garner circles around the unspeakable abysmal horror. Can any story “explain” why a man might murder his children? She doesn’t pretend to possess the explosive answer, and frequently confesses stupefaction, but her book walks us along an engrossing and plausible narrative fuse…Her narrative is lit by lightning.” (James Wood, New Yorker)
  • “Helen Garner is an invaluable guide into harrowing territory and offers powerful and unforgettable insights. This House of Grief, in its restraint and control, bears comparison with In Cold Blood.” (Kate Atkinson)
  • “In This House of Grief, Helen Garner describes with wonderful subtlety and honesty the trail of a man accused of drowning his three sons; she is fascinated by what we’re capable of and how fiercely we hide it from ourselves.” (Helen Simpson, Times Literary Supplement)
  • “As involving, heart-rending and unsettling a read as you could possibly find, a true-life account of three deaths and a trial that leaves you with a profound sense of unease as its drama unfolds, and disturbing questions about how we judge guilt and innocence…Tailor-made for those who have gorged recently on the popular true-crime podcast Serial.” (The Times)

Helen Garner This House of Grief

This House of Grief

The Story of a Murder Trial

  • Auteur: Helen Garner (Australië)
  • Soort boek: true crime boek uit 2014
  • Taal: Engels
  • Eerste editie: Text Publishing
  • Uitgever: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
  • Omvang: 320 pagina’s
  • Verschijnt: 14 maart 2024
  • Uitgave: paperback / ebook
  • Prijs: £ 9,99
  • Waardering redactie: ∗∗∗∗∗ (uitstekend)
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol / Libris

Flaptekst van het true crime boek van de Australische schrijfster Helen Garner

Anyone can see the place where the children died. You take the Princes Highway past Geelong, and keep going west in the direction of Colac. Late in August 2006, soon after I had watched a magistrate commit Robert Farquharson to stand trial before a jury on three charges of murder, I headed out that way on a Sunday morning, across the great volcanic plain.

On the evening of 4 September 2005, Father’s Day, Robert Farquharson, a separated husband, was driving his three sons home to their mother, Cindy, when his car left the road and plunged into a dam. The boys, aged ten, seven and two, drowned. Was this an act of revenge or a tragic accident? The court case became Helen Garner’s obsession. She followed it on its protracted course until the final verdict.

In this utterly compelling book, Helen Garner tells the story of a man and his broken life. She presents the theatre of the courtroom with its actors and audience – all gathered to witness to the truth – players in the extraordinary and unpredictable drama of the quest for justice.

This House of Grief is a heartbreaking and unputdownable book by one of Australia’s most admired writers.

Helen Garner is born 7 November 1942 in Geelong, Victoria,
Australia. She writes novels, stories, screenplays and works of non-Helen Garner This House of Grief 2014 True Crime First Editionfiction. In 2006 she received the inaugural Melbourne Prize for Literature, and in 2016 she won the prestigious Windham–Campbell Prize for non-fiction. She was honoured with the Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature in 2019. And in 2023 she was awarded the ASA Medal for her outstanding contribution to Australian literature. Her works include five novels Monkey Grip, Moving Out, The Children’s Bach, The First Stone, Cosmo Cosmolino and The Spare Room (De logeerkamer). She also wrote non fiction books like This House of Grief, The Season and three volumes of her diaries. Garner lives in Melbourne.

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Jacques Bussillet – Jack Findlay

Jacques Bussillet Jack Findlay review, recensie en informatie boek en biografie over de motorcoureur uit Australië. Op 15 augustus 2025 verschijnt bij Veloce het Engelstalige boek over motorcoureur Jack Finlay, held van het legendarische Continental Circus. Er is geen Nederlandse vertaling vanhet boek verkrijgbaar.

Jacques Bussillet Jack Findlay review en recensie

Als er in de media een boekbespreking, recensie of review verschijnt van Jack Finlay, Hero of the Continental Circus, het boek geschreven door Jacques Bussilet, dan besteden we er op deze pagina aandacht aan.

Jacques Bussillet Jack Findlay

Jack Findlay

Hero of the Continental Circus

  • Auteur: Jacques Bussilet (Frankrijk)
  • Soort boek: motorsport boek, portret
  • Taal: Engels
  • Uitgever: Veloce
  • Verschijnt: 15 augustus 2025
  • Omvang: 160 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: gebonden boek
  • Prijs: £ 25,00
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol / Libris

Flaptekst boek over de Australische motorcoureur Jack Findlay

Jack Findlay: The fearless privateer who became the heart and soul of the legendary Continental Circus.

Among the heroic riders in the Continental Circus was an Australian named Jack Findlay, who became a role model for these modern gladiators mounted on two wheels. His talent and courage meant he was often referred to as the “best privateer in the world”.

For nearly 30 years, a group of daring motorcycle riders toured Europe, competing on perilous circuits. Driving small vans loaded with their racing motorcycles, they formed a nomadic spectacle that came to be known as the Continental Circus. While some riders gained fame through races that contributed to world championships, many remained unsung heroes. The 1969 movie Continental Circus celebrated these brave racers—individuals who risked their lives for the sheer love and passion of the sport.

Among these fearless riders was Australian Jack Findlay, a legendary figure who became a role model for the ‘modern gladiators’ of motorcycle racing. Known as the ‘best privateer in the world’, Findlay’s immense talent and unshakable determination set him apart as he competed against factory-backed superstars with far greater resources. He embodied the very spirit of the Continental Circus and all it stood for.

This book delves into Jack Findlay’s extraordinary journey, honouring a solitary yet immensely gifted and resilient rider who defined an era of motorcycle racing.

Jacques Bussillet is a French journalist and writer who saw his first motorcycle race when he was nine-years-old, and followed the Continental Circus as mechanic and helper. After studying journalism at university, he reported about Grand Prix motorcycle racing during the 1970s and ’80s for the leading weekly Moto Journal and the daily sport newspaper l’Equipe. He met and knew all the players of motorcycle racing and has kept in contact with this world. He has published around 20 books about motorcycle sport and champions.

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Stephen D. Hopper – Eucalyptus

Stephen D. Hopper Eucalyptus review, recensie en informatie boek over de natuurlijke historie, biologie en culturele betekenis van de boom uit Australië. Op 1 oktober 2025 verschijnt bij Reaktion Books het boek over de Eucalyptus. Het boek is geschreven door de Australische Professor of Biodiversity at the University of Western Australia. Een Nederlandse vertaling van het boek is niet verkrijgbaar.

Stephen D. Hopper Eucalyptus review en recensie

  • “Having experienced Eucalyptus trees in their native Australian haunts, I fell in love with them and was intrigued by their diversity and beauty. This book on Eucalyptus provides the reader with a unique experience: wonderful descriptions of these amazing trees and bountiful information on their uses and cultural significance that are so important in the lives of Australian Aborigines. I enjoyed Stephen D. Hopper’s book immensely and highly recommend it to anyone interested in Australia and plants.” (Mark W. Chase, Honorary Research Associate, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew)

Stephen D. Hopper Eucalyptus

Eucalyptus

The rich natural history, biology and cultural significance of eucalypts

  • Auteur: Stephen D. Hopper (Australië)
  • Soort boek: Australische geschiedenis
  • Taal: Engels
  • Uitgever: Reaktion Books
  • Verschijnt: 1 oktober 2025
  • Omvang: 256 pagina’s
  • Uitgave: gebonden boek
  • Prijs: £ 18,00
  • Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol / Libris

Flaptekst van het boek over de Eucalyptus en Australië

Eucalypts, iconic to Australia, have shaped art, science and landscapes worldwide. With around nine hundred species, from towering giants to compact mallees, these trees inspire awe and curiosity. Their hardwood has driven industries, sparked protests and even toppled governments. Their aromatic leaves hold healing properties yet fuel devastating wildfires.

This book blends Aboriginal knowledge and Western science to uncover the rich natural history, biology and conservation of eucalypts. It explores their evolution, cultural significance and surprising roles in modern life, offering insights into sustainable ways to coexist with these remarkable trees. Featuring stunning photographs from fifty years of fieldwork, this is the first comprehensive review of Aboriginal eucalypt wisdom, paired with cutting-edge scientific discoveries.

Stephen D. Hopper is Professor of Biodiversity at the University of Western Australia, and was Director of Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, between 2006 and 2012. His books include Life on the Rocks: The Art of Survival (with Philippa Nikulinsky, 2008).

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