Cirrus@Austlit

'Sarah Armstrong's third novel, Promise, reflects the poise and craftsmanship of her two previous books. Indeed, her first novel, Salt Rain (2005), was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award and her second, His Other House (2015), written after a considerable hiatus, was also favorably received. ...'

'Paul Mitchell's debut We. Are. Family. is an exploration of the darker side of Australian masculinity, a tale of domestic violence that flows through three generations like a family curse. Mitchell is a terse and observant writer, as alive to the particulars of Aussie idiom and experience as Tim Winton, but less showy. His male characters have an unnerving, archetypal quality to them, and the constraints of gender make them ill-equipped to see or share a legacy of trauma of which Mitchell makes the reader acutely conscious. ...'

'Books are sharks, said the late Douglas Adams. There were sharks before there were dinosaurs, and the reason sharks are still in the ocean is that nothing is better at being a shark than a shark. ...'

'As Michael Gawenda​ notes in his introduction to this history of Australian newspaper photography, the images, often as not, survive well after the story itself. It's a readable yet serious study that charts the rise of news pictorials from the 1880s to the present day, and is alert to such issues as authenticity, and not just digital enhancement. Early shots were nearly always set-ups. It also takes us into the magic, closed domain of the darkroom, which many photographers interviewed for the book talk of in hushed tones. ...'

'Paul Brickhill not only wrote the best-selling war dramas The Dam Busters, The Great Escape and Reach for the Sky, he lived those dramas, as this engagingly written biography reveals. Brickhill, a Spitfire pilot in World War II, was shot down and spent the war in the Stalag, where his escape novel, based on actual events, is set. ...'

'A film about a shy, retiring type whose love of all things mechanical inadvertently draws him into holding up banks was one of the surprise hits of the 1980s. Yes, Malcolm, who is played with impish intelligence by Colin Friels, is happier in his own world of gadgetry than he is in company. ...'