Berkelouw Mona Vale - Book Reviews

Underwater Dogs by Seth Casteel

Reviewed by Graziela, Berkelouw Books, Mona Vale

This book uses the very creative concept of taking pictures of dogs underwater as they chase their toys. Photographer Seth Casteel has put together a wonderful collection of photos, some hilarious, some adorable and some not so elegant, which are sure to entertain every doglover. There are aro... (continued)

The One Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson

Reviewed by Graziela, Berkelouw Books, Mona Vale

This is a debut novel from Swedish author Jonas Jonasson and has been a great success in Europe before being translated into English. This book capitvated me from the start, and didn't disappoint as it unfolded. The main character, Allan Karlsson, runs away from his nursing home on the... (continued)

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

Reviewed by Kate, Berkelouw Books, Mona Vale

Best read  for me in 2012 was The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. Rothfuss has the art of telling a good story in which you lose yourself. It has been a long time since I have read a novel with such simple good storytelling. This poetically written story is told through the eyes of ... (continued)

All That I Am by Anna Funder

Reviewed by Kate, Berkelouw Books, Mona Vale

All That I Am  by Anna Funder is a great story told through the eyes of activists against Hitler. The main characters find themselves engaged in  cloak and dagger activities against the Nazi regime from London where they are in exile. It took a bit of time to get into the story ... (continued)

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

Reviewed by Kate, Berkelouw Books, Mona Vale

   I started 2012 reading the last installment of 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. With an incredible build up in the first two books I expected good things. Murakami is a master  of detail with an intelligence in his writing that challenges the reader to look beyond the first ... (continued)

Defending Jacob by William Landy

Reviewed by Kate, Berkelouw Books, Mona Vale

Imagine John Grisham writing a We need to talk about Kevin  sort of story. Interesting look at the criminal justice system in Massachusetts. Landy worked as an assistant district attorney and his observations about the legal system are sharp, cynical and realistic. And it’s a... (continued)

Game of Thrones by George R R Martin

Reviewed by Kate, Berkelouw Books, Mona Vale

Blood and guts, knights and kings with peasant uprisings in the middle, all as winter is coming and arrives. Fun reading for winter nights. But be warned don’t get attached to any character as Martin will surely kill them off! (continued)

The Dinner by Herman Koch

Reviewed by Kate, Berkelouw Books, Mona Vale

If you liked Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl then read this. I liked this more. A cleverly written crime that is retold throughout all the courses of a dinner. I found the characters interesting and disturbed. Tightly written in a clever format. Gave me an appreciation of Koch’s writing. (continued)

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Reviewed by Kate, Berkelouw Books, Mona Vale

Two disturbed people marry. They deserve each other. Hard to like any of the characters. Written well although it takes a bit of time to get into Flynn’s language structure. Clever plot but annoying characters. (continued)

John Saturnall's Feast by Lawrence Norfolk

Reviewed by Gillian, Berkelouw Books, Mona Vale

In John Saturnall's Feast by Lawrence Norfolk, set in in the England of 1625, we find folk doing what they often do (even now) with a woman who has extraordinary professional skills and competence - calling her a witch and driving her out of town. Before the woman, Susan Sandall, meets her death,... (continued)

Pure by Andrew Miller

Reviewed by Gillian, Berkelouw Books, Mona Vae

Pure by Andrew Miller is set in Paris in 1785. It is the story of Jean-Baptiste Barrette, an engineer from Normandy, who is given the job of emptying Les Innocents, a cemetery. This novel revels in the detail of this interesting period in French history, when the order of things is beginning to c... (continued)

Montebello by Robert Drewe

Reviewed by Gillian, Berkelouw Books, Mona Vale

Robert Drewe's memoir takes its title from an archipelago off the north west coast of Western Australia where, in the 1950s, the British conducted several nuclear tests. Described as a sequel to The Shark Net, this book follows several paths through Drewe's life one of which involves visiting Mon... (continued)

San Miguel by T C Boyle

Reviewed by Gillian, Berkelouw Books, Mona Vale

I've been a fan of US writer T.C. Boyle since reading his 2009 novel The Women, a fictional rendering of the life of mercurial architect Frank Lloyd Wright. His 2011 novel When The Killing's Done is the story of a environmental battle over an island in the Santa Barbara Channel. It is both s... (continued)

Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver

Reviewed by Gillian, Berkelouw Books, Mona Vale

"You never know which split second might be the zigzag bolt dividing all that went before from everything that comes next." (p 359) This is Dellarobia Turnbow, loving mother, discontented wife, misfit in a small Tennessee town of Christian fundamentalists, musing on the possibility of transformat... (continued)

Canada by Richard Ford

Reviewed by Gillian, Berkelouw Books, Mona Vale

This is the first new novel from Richard Ford in six years and having enjoyed his earlier work I was keen to read this one when it landed in store. The novel is told from the point of view of Dell Parsons who, when the novel opens, is about to start at the Great Falls High School where he is int... (continued)

The Mountain by Drusilla Modjeska

Reviewed by Gilliann, Berkelouw Books, Mona Vlae

I've been watching TV footage of election preparation in PNG while reading Drusilla Modjeska's first novel The Mountain. Reality and fiction interweave as the figure of Michael Somare features in the news today and passes through this story that commences with PNG on the verge of independence. T... (continued)

The Office by Gideon Haigh

Reviewed by Gillian, Berkelouw Books, Mona Vale

One of the best things about the humdrum bookseller task of unpacking boxes is the moment when you pick up a new book and everything about it is just fine -from the subject matter, to the design, to the writing and the approach that the author has taken. The Office: A Hardworking History by Gideo... (continued)

THE WINTER OF OUR DISCONNECT

Reviewed by Pippa

A compelling account of a 6 month experiment of living without TV or digital media for 6 months. A regular columnist for the Weekend Australian, Maushart has a witty and erudite style, incorporating the latest digital media language into her prose with flair. Smart, insightful and very well resea... (continued)

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain

Reviewed by Gillian, Berkelouw Books Mona Vale

Somewhere around the beginning of the twentieth century, Susan Cain argues, Americans changed from a "culture of character", where the ideal self was serious, disciplined and private, to a "culture of personality" where people began to focus more on how other people perceived them. This, in Cain'... (continued)

Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

Reviewed by Sarah, Berkelouw Books, Mona Vale

Thirteen year old Conor is woken every night at seven minutes past midnight by a monster outside his bedroom window. Conor has been having the same nightmare every night since his mother started her treatments, but there's a twist - this monster is ancient and wild and has become a part of Conor'... (continued)