Editorial reviews

To read this novel of shrouded pilgrimages is also to arrive at a meaning that is “bewitching, and utterly private, a secret for me, a single ship, a single concealed place”.

Complex and resonant.

Magnificently disorienting and meticulously constructed, Triangulum couples an urgent subtext with an unceasing sense of mystery. This is a thought-provoking dream of a novel, situated within thought-provoking contexts both fictional and historical.

It is all about a young woman trying to find who she is and where she is going and what life holds for her.

Gardam’s ability to bring people so fully to life, in such vivid detail, never fails to delight. Such vivid people and dialogue — more than many of her books, I could imagine this as a film.

The Penalty Area is charming, and it’s easy to imagine it being a film. If you need a bookish boost, you can’t go wrong with this story.

Overall, a smart, sharp-eyed, entertaining, engrossing story.

The Black Prince is anything but a grim read. It’s a stylistic pastiche that is far more than a tribute act – as though Roberts has dismantled the clockwork that made Burgess tick and reassembled it in a new form.

The work is original, ambitious and challenging, submerging the reader in the strangeness of an anomalous mind, an aqueous medium where language is refracted into mazes of shifting meanings.

It’s a sign of excellent literature to be able to effortlessly hold up multiple interpretations at once. Murata’s book is no exception: It’s all of these things while also rendering an artful grotesque of modern personal branding.

Simultaneously disturbing and enthralling, Murata’s short work, a bestseller in her own country, speaks volumes about society and the role of the outcast.

A reader who knows what to expect will take pleasure in this book.

Murata tells her story very sympathetically, showing that finding your niche, even if it as a lowly as convenience store worker, is what matters, particularly if you do not fit in with the way society thinks you should fit in.

It’s a frank depiction of modern indecency, and a reflection of a generation that lacks any shred of a moral compass.

Whatever your jam is — mind-bending logic, beautiful, lyrical writing, or a deep dive into contemporary life — there is something brilliant here for everyone.

For a novel concerned with dislocation, there’s a lot of grounding humor in “The Life to Come.” Most of it comes at the expense of Pippa and her ilk, but de Kretser’s observations are so spot on, you’ll forgive her even as you cringe.

An ultimately optimistic and hopeful novel about growing up amid personal and political disarray.

“We don’t know half the ways poison infiltrates,” the narrator overhears at a frat party, and that is the inspired wisdom of this beautiful, bleak, and hopeful story. We don’t know. But that won’t keep us from trying to it figure it out.

Bukowski and his ilk might appreciate this oddball version of the hero’s journey, soaked in beer and melancholia.