Once, When We Were Innocent – My Pre-Internet Pursuit of the Forbidden

Posted on April 29, 2010 by John Purcell, The Booktopia Book Guru

Back when I was growing up, in the dark days before the Internet, there were very few ways to learn about sex. There were, on occasion, a few glimpses of nudie pictures -  usually someone’s older brother’s Playboy. But these pictures were inert and added to the mystery surrounding sex, instead of offering illumination. As [...]

Filed under: Crime/Thriller, Fiction, Literature, Young Adult | Tagged: , , , , , , | 7 Comments »

Q and A with Belinda Murrell, author of The Ruby Talisman

Posted on April 27, 2010 by John Purcell, The Booktopia Book Guru

Editor of Booktopia’s Six to Twelve BUZZ, Amelia Vahtrick, talks to Belinda Murrell about her new book The Ruby Talisman ———————————————– 1. The Ruby Talisman was so full of historical detail! Did you do a lot of research for this book? It took me months! My family and I spent about six weeks in France [...]

Filed under: Children's Fiction, Fiction, Historical Romance, Romance, Young Adult | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

Rodney Hall, author of Popeye Never Told You, answers Ten Terrifying Questions

Posted on April 27, 2010 by Toni Whitmont

Rodney Hall: I have chosen to turn my back on the usual method of writing autobiography – I do not reminisce or theorise or explain anything. The book reads more like a novel.

It covers the war years, from age 5 to age 9, as nearly as possible capturing the actual experience of being a child

Filed under: Biography/Memoir, Literary Prizes, Literature, Writing Style, Writing tips | Tagged: , | 4 Comments »

Innocent by Scott Turow – 20 years on and as good as his first

Posted on April 26, 2010 by Toni Whitmont

Turow has got the formula right. Just enough of the legal bits to make it about justice, a goodly amount of intrigue to make it about suspense and most importantly, a the perfect of psychological insight

Filed under: Crime/Thriller, Fiction | Leave a Comment »

BREAKING NEWS: Miles Franklin Shortlist

Posted on April 23, 2010 by John Purcell, The Booktopia Book Guru

Lovesong by Alex Miller Chez Dom – a small, rundown Tunisian cafe in Paris run by the widow Houria and her niece Sabiha – offers a home away from home for the North African immigrants working at the abattoirs of Vaugiraud. One day a lost Australian tourist, John Patterner, seeks shelter in the cafe from [...]

Filed under: Crime/Thriller, Fiction, Literary Prizes, Literature, Young Adult | Tagged: | 4 Comments »

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest by Stieg Larsson

Posted on April 22, 2010 by John Purcell, The Booktopia Book Guru

Imagine a world where readers buy from overseas retailers and avoid local providers!

Filed under: Biography/Memoir, Crime/Thriller, Fiction | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler

Posted on April 21, 2010 by John Purcell, The Booktopia Book Guru

Some classics demand to be read. We hear of them incessantly. We feel we must read them before we die. I’m thinking now of War and Peace, Crime and Punishment, Les Miserables, David Copperfield, Hamlet, Gulliver’s Travels, Don Quixote and Robinson Crusoe. Then there are classics which are pivotal in the history of literature but [...]

Filed under: Biography/Memoir, Fiction, Non Fiction | Tagged: | Leave a Comment »

Joanne Fedler Answers Ten Terrifying Questions

Posted on April 19, 2010 by John Purcell, The Booktopia Book Guru

The Booktopia Book Guru Asks Joanne Fedler author of When Hungry, Eat Ten Terrifying Questions ________________________________ 1. To begin with why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself – where were you born? Raised? Schooled? Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, raised during Apartheid, schooled in South Africa and the US, and moved to [...]

Filed under: Non Fiction | Tagged: | Leave a Comment »

Kate Veitch Answers Ten Terrifying Questions

Posted on April 16, 2010 by John Purcell, The Booktopia Book Guru

Kate Veitch: my novel – Trust – is about loyalty and betrayal, and how we give important parts of our selves away in the name of love, and duty, and goodness. Also, how hard and necessary it is to change.

Filed under: Fiction, Literature, Writing tips | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

Susan Maushart author of The Winter Of Our Disconnect Answers Ten Terrifying Questions

Posted on April 15, 2010 by John Purcell, The Booktopia Book Guru

The Winter of Our Disconnect is the story of one family’s digital de-tox: a chronicle of how three wired-at-the-hip teenagers and a mother with iPhone dependency issues survived six months of screenfree living. (In fact, we didn’t simply survive , we transformed …)

Filed under: Biography/Memoir, Non Fiction | Tagged: , , | 7 Comments »

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