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From a blob to birds: Eight new books to read this week

Our reviewers cast their eyes over recent fiction and non-fiction releases.

  • Cameron Woodhead and Fiona Capp

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The ones that I find most irritating are the family photographs. They are always the same.

PSA: You don’t need a professional photo shoot for every occasion

The ones that I find most irritating are the family photographs. They are always the same.

  • Mali Waugh
Robert Lukins  is terrific at conveying both male and female experience.

Robert Lukins plays a risky narrative game in his third novel

Similar in narrative style to Kafka’s The Trial, Lukins’ new novel, centred on the crimes of a wealthy American family, withholds specific details.

  • Jack Cameron Stanton
Peter Beinart, author of Being Jewish After The Destruction of Gaza.

This book is so powerful, it’s hard to resist the urge to cry

Jewish scholar Peter Beinart imagines a world where Jews who support Israel’s bombardment of Gaza and Jews who are utterly opposed make accommodations with each other.

  • Jenna Price
Tony and Geraldine in their early days. After he died, Geraldine said she had “not allowed myself the wild wideness of an elaborate, florid, demonstrative grief”.

Grief in every detail: Geraldine Brooks on life after loss

Brooks’ memoir of her marriage and grief is vulnerable and tender.

  • Michael McGirr
This old dog knows the secrets to growing old.

Be kind and keep going: A dog’s guide to growing older

Sometimes, the older humans in my circle go all weird when confessing to a quick snooze in the early afternoon. Why the embarrassment?

  • Richard Glover
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There’s more to book blurbs than meets the eye.

The extreme measures writers take for a killer book blurb

Blurbs can be a delicate matter in the book world. They can make or break a literary friendship.

  • David Free
Shadows

The greatest trick ever will change your mind about magic

The climax is no less moving than a great line of poetry or a soaring phrase of music.

  • David Free
Sara Tindley and daughter Lily. 

I didn’t know Sara and Lily, but I followed their story from afar

The mother and daughter were both so vibrant, I never saw death knocking.

  • Jessie Cole
Baby hippo Moo Deng plays with a zookeeper in the Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Chonburi province, Thailand.

‘Bouncy pork’ and ‘clown bus’: The new words that went viral overseas

Before 2025 gets too old, let’s see the alternative coinages that captured the global year that was.

  • David Astle

Original URL: https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/link/follow-20170101-p5bl91