<![CDATA[NORTH MELBOURNE BOOKS - Book Reviews]]>Sat, 11 Apr 2026 20:04:56 +1000Weebly<![CDATA[A Stocking Full of Spies, by Robin Stevens]]>Sun, 29 Mar 2026 01:11:58 GMThttps://northmelbournebooks.weebly.com/book-reviews/a-stocking-full-of-spies-by-robin-stevensPicture
When two mysterious deaths occur at the famous wartime code breaking centre Bletchley Park, the guilt is pinned on a most unlikely suspect.

It’s 1941. The British are secretly breaking German codes at Bletchley Park. When their school is bombed, twelve-year-olds May Wong and Nuala O’Malley find themselves working as messengers at the famous code breaking centre. Secret codes aside, there are other mysteries afoot at Bletchley Park. An adult family friend of May’s has been implicated in murder. Bertie Wells, while doing routine military night training at the park, accidently killed fellow code-breaker Llewelyn Huxley. Or did he? There were others there during the training session, and it was nighttime. Anxious Bertie, lacking in confidence, thinks his gun went off accidently, but he can’t be sure. As May, Nuala and fellow sleuth Eric investigate, another murder happens. The obnoxious Colonel Hugo MacNair, leader of one of the code breaking teams, dies suddenly after drinking a cup of tea laced with strychnine. Could the two deaths be linked? And what of rumours that a spy, working for the Germans, is in their midst.

Children’s author Robin Stevens has made a well deserved name for herself as the Agatha Christie of children’s literature. In this second series (the first, Murder Most Unladylike, was set in 1930s England) Stevens concentrates on the Second World War. The characters, language and expressions all brilliantly capture the time, right down to the timing of jokes and delivery of punchlines. Besides Agatha Christie, there is even a hint of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh in Steven’s effervescent storytelling. The plot is endlessly ingenious and the narrative superbly paced. There’s not a dull page in sight. An added bonus is the novel’s educational aspect, which teaches readers about the workings at Bletchley Park, and its role in helping the Allies win the war. 

Kids’ detective fiction that doesn’t disappoint.

A Stocking Full of Spies: The Ministry of Unladylike Activity 3, by Robin Stevens. Published by Puffin. $16.99

Review by Chris Saliba
]]><![CDATA[on antisemitism, by mark mazower]]>Fri, 27 Mar 2026 04:07:51 GMThttps://northmelbournebooks.weebly.com/book-reviews/on-antisemitism-by-mark-mazowerPicture
A fair minded look at how notions of anti-semitism have evolved over the last 150 years.  

​The title of this book is perhaps a misnomer. It could more accurately be called a political history of anti-semitism. The expression “anti-semite” came out of Germany in the late 1870s, a term used in academic and journalistic circles. It was invented by German pamphleteer Wilhelm Marr, who formed a League of Antisemites. By 1910 the word had entered the Encyclopedia Britannica and was spread worldwide by Adolf Hitler. 

The irony is that the term anti-semitism came into being in response to growing Jewish emancipation. Old prejudices and legal restrictions were slowly being broken down. The late 19th century was a time of great optimism for the status of Jews, especially those living in Europe. But it was this growing freedom that created a backlash. Jewish people making great contributions to finance, science and the arts would be blamed for all of modernity’s ills. Such prejudice reached its apogee with the publication of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, essentially a conspiracy theory that Jewish people intended to take over the world. To use today’s vernacular, it went viral and was enormously influential.

The history of the Second World War hardly needs to be gone over, but post war a Jewish homeland became an urgent preoccupation. Israel was established during the 1948 Palestine War. Some 700,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homeland. As Israel grew from a nascent state into a more mature one, ideas of anti-semitism and Jewishness changed, pretty much hand in hand with the country’s political evolution. The idea that Jewish identity was more wound up with Israel than the Jewish diaspora took root. As Jewish identity merged with Israeli statehood, to criticise Israel meant leaving yourself open to charges of anti-semitism. Paradoxes abounded: left wing Jews concerned about the plight of the Palestinians could be called anti-semitic, while far right anti-semitic groups could laud Israel for its brutal occupation. All of this was helped along by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s 2016 working definition of anti-semitism, which was much vaguer and looser, lacking the precision of earlier, more broadly agreed on definitions.

British historian Mark Mazower has taken on a minefield subject, one that is sure to displease people on various sides of the argument. His book raises many questions and is a call for common sense. He argues that expanding and inappropriate use of the term anti-semitism is not making Jews safer, and may have unintended consequences. 

A carefully examined history of anti-semitism in modern times and how political discourse is corrupted. An eye opener and an education. 

On Antisemitism: A Word in History, by Mark Mazower. Allen Lane. $55


Review by Chris Saliba
]]><![CDATA[Reminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev, by Maxim Gorky]]>Fri, 20 Mar 2026 05:11:57 GMThttps://northmelbournebooks.weebly.com/book-reviews/reminiscences-of-tolstoy-chekhov-and-andreyev-by-maxim-gorkyPicture
Three Russian greats are seen up close and personal in this classic memoir, newly translated.

Maxim Gorky published his short, sketch-like memoir of Tolstoy in 1919, and the following year Virginia and Leonard Woolf’s Hogarth Press published an English translation. In 1934 the memoir was expanded to include two other greats of Russian literature, Anton Chekhov and Leonid Andreyev. Fitzcarraldo Editions has now published a new translation by Bryan Karetnyk, with a useful introduction by J. M. Coetzee.

Gorky writes in a luminous, magical prose that is a delight to read. All three memoirs - especially the Tolstoy one - are composed of short chapters, more like sketches or snapshots, designed to capture the essence of these great authors in casual moments. For example, one entry simply quotes Tolstoy saying, “Look after thyself first and foremost - for then there shall be more left for others.”

Maxim was friends with all three of his subjects, but they were complicated relationships. Tolstoy is prickly, brilliant, charismatic and sometimes full of arrant nonsense. After his death, Gorky reflects that he doesn’t know whether he loved or hated him. Chekhov is the least complicated of the trio, a warm and easygoing character, someone who is kind at heart. It’s with Leonid Andreyev that Gorky has the closest friendship. This is ironic, as the two were quite opposite characters. Gorky is consistently critical of Andreyev, his aesthetic choices and politics, while also proclaiming his deep affection.

Reminisces of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev is enjoyable on many levels. It examines complicated relationships, provides fascinating biographical sketches on some of world literature’s biggest figures, and finally, is written in a pleasurably immersive prose style, one that continually astonishes with its shrewd observations and inventive analogies. 

Fans of Russian literature will find this mandatory reading, but for those not particularly invested, Reminisces may spur a further interest in these greats of literature.

Reminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekov and Andreyev by Maxim Gorky. Translated by Bryan Karetnyk. Published by Fitzcarraldo. $32.99

Review by Chris Saliba
]]><![CDATA[Vilhelm's Room, by Tove Ditlevsen]]>Sun, 01 Mar 2026 01:14:46 GMThttps://northmelbournebooks.weebly.com/book-reviews/vilhelms-room-by-tove-ditlevsenPicture
An abandoned wife takes a victory lap of sorts, giving an excoriating commentary on her friends, lovers and family. 

Lise Mundus is a celebrated poet. Her husband, Vilhelm, is an equally famous newspaper editor. After twenty years of marriage, he has abandoned his wife. From a psychiatric ward, Lise publishes a lonely hearts ad, searching for a lover. She takes up with Kurt, an aimless drifter  who lives above her flat. The relationship is pretty meaningless to Lise, just a way of filling in the empty hours. What really gives her life a semblance of meaning is a steady stream of exasperated, ironic and often comical commentaries on Vilhelm and his many lovers. Lise is also critical of herself and her own behaviour in the relationship, although the tone of these self-reproaches is breezy and glib. 

As this mad, patchwork narrative barrels along, we know a reckoning is ahead, for in the first page we learn that Lise is already dead.

Vilhelm’s Room was Danish poet and author Tove Ditlevsen’s final novel, published in 1975. It is a bit of a train wreck, but one you can’t look away from. The story jumps all over the place, characters come and go erratically and the narrator’s voice is hard to pin down. Sometimes it’s Lise narrating, sometimes a third person narrator, sometimes it’s hard to figure out who’s who. That might make it sound like a challenging read, and it is to a degree, but the novel’s extraordinary psychodynamics - the ex-lovers, the self loathing, the sexual competition, the painful loneliness- make it compellingly universal. Our darkest moments are here laid bare in a prose that is both despairing and witty. The reader doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Interspersed through the madness are insightful passages where Ditlevsen discusses relationships, childhood and personal struggles. If Vilhelm’s Room has a theme, it is the latter. Lise is flighty, cheerful and witty, even if this is at core a very rancid type of wit, the enjoyment of Vilhelm’s character assasination. Underlying all this is a serious mental illness. Lise talks in earnest about suicide, claiming the thought of it is her only happiness in life, as it provides her the freedom to choose when her misery will end.

Tove Ditlevsen’s final novel is shocking and raw. It’s also darkly comic, with a nervous energy that propels the story. The book should perhaps come with a warning, especially anyone suffering from mental illness. 

Brilliant and original, but also deeply saddening. (Translated by Sophia Hersi Smith & Jennifer Russell.)

Vilhelm's Room, by Tove Ditlevsen. Published by Penguin. $26.99

Review by Chris Saliba
]]><![CDATA[A shadow of myself, by peter flamm]]>Sun, 01 Mar 2026 01:04:06 GMThttps://northmelbournebooks.weebly.com/book-reviews/a-shadow-of-myself-by-peter-flammPicture
A man troubled by war tries to lose himself by impersonating someone else.

While roaming the scarred battlefields of Verdun in north eastern France, a German man named Wilhelm Bettuch comes across the corpse of a dead surgeon, Hans Stern. A working class baker himself, Wilhelm decides to steal the papers of this professional man, return to Germany, and impersonate him. Things go surprisingly smoothly. Posing as Hans Stern, Wilhelm discovers he has a wife, named Grete. She recognises him as her husband, and any differences in personality she puts down to the traumatic effects of war. Hans/Wilhelm also discovers that neighbours and friends easily recognise him.

But a troubling inner voice says he will be caught. The family dog, Nero, treats him suspiciously. And family friend and prosecutor Sven Borges claims to be on his tail. When Hans/Wilhelm is summoned as a witness in a court case, he risks serious consequences. 

Peter Flamm (real name Erich Mosse, 1891-1963) was born into a Jewish family in Berlin. First published in 1926, A Shadow of Myself is on one level about survivors of trench warfare during the First World War, but on another level it delves into themes of self and presentation of self in society. Hans/Wilhelm (the two are somehow convincingly mixed into one entity) very much hides behind a mask, his inner self a roiling ocean of doubts, anxieties and fears. The text  denies the idea of concrete personality and identity, that hard surface and false veneer we try to wear. In an extraordinary passage, Flamm describes individuals as mere expressions of biology and mysterious nature:

“...our parents aren’t our father and mother, not their blood alone, we have every animal inside us, every plant, all of them speaking their muffled language, as embryos we still have all their shapes, breathing with gills, we’re fish and reptiles and animals, the whole of creation is inside us…we’re all brothers, we’re all one, there’s no guilt because we’re not ourselves…”

The novel’s narration is paced like a thriller, as Hans/Wilhelm constantly fears detection. Even though he is surrounded by friends and family, and  lives in a bustling city, he is nevertheless haunted by a terrifying isolation, a world that can never understand him. In tone and atmosphere, A Shadow of Myself is reminiscent of Kafka’s nightmare existential classic The Trial (the framing device Flamm uses is that of a courtroom confession, where Hans/Wilhelm tells his story.) 

A hundred years after it was first published, this exceptional work of war time fiction can now be enjoyed by English readers. (Translated by Simon Pare.)

A Shadow of Myself, by Peter Flamm. Published by Pushkin Press. $32.99.

Review by Chris Saliba
]]><![CDATA[fall, bomb, fall by gerrit kouwenaar]]>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 23:08:56 GMThttps://northmelbournebooks.weebly.com/book-reviews/fall-bomb-fall-by-gerrit-kouwenaarPicture
A Dutch youth itching for some excitement in his life gets more than he bargained for in this classic coming of age novel.

Karel Ruis is a seventeen-year-old fed up with his dull life and unhappy parents. He wishes for something to happen, anything really. His ennui makes him even wish for a bomb to fall and shake things up. There are rumours afoot that Germany intends to invade his country, the Netherlands. There is an atmosphere of denial and trepidation among the adults. Surely the English will come to their rescue and all will be well.

Karel has an uncle, a jolly fat man who claims to have found the secret of a happy life, despite all the personal tragedies he’s had to endure. Uncle Robert gives Karel a letter, to be delivered to a Mrs Mexocos, a Jewish woman. Karel is to wait for Mrs Mexocos to write a reply. He performs this mysterious errand and finds himself enchanted by the woman - an artist - and her Bohemian style apartment. Mrs Mexocos also has a daughter, named Ria, whom Karel  immediately falls in love with. 

The gathering storm of threatened German invasion happens. Karel’s new and enchanting friends Mrs Mexocos and Ria must flee. They book tickets to London. Karel dearly wants to follow, to escape his miserable family and live a charmed life in London. But he must return home, with only heartache for company. When he arrives back in the city he finds the bombs he had wished for have caused untold tragedy.

Gerrit Kouwenaar (1923 - 2014) wrote Fall, Bomb, Fall when he was a mere twenty-three. The novel’s depth and maturity suggest an author of a much older age, looking back on their youth. Kouwenaar perfectly captures the flightiness and restless energy of youth. Karel is compulsive and reckless, but also warm and earnest. The text is light and playful in tone, almost humorous, despite the dark subject matter of Nazi invasion and looming Jewish persecution and murder. The novel presents a vibrant slice of life, a time when everything is normal and tomorrow can be trusted in, that is soon to be turned upside down and forever destroyed.

First published in 1950 and now translated into English for the first time, this is a literary gem not to be missed.

Fall, Bomb, Fall by Gerrit Kouwenaar. Published by Pushkin. $26.99

Review by Chris Saliba
]]><![CDATA[freezing point, by anders bodelsen]]>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 04:03:43 GMThttps://northmelbournebooks.weebly.com/book-reviews/freezing-point-by-anders-bodelsenPicture
Danish writer Anders Bodelsen (1937 - 2021) considers the high price of living indefinitely.

It’s 1973. Magazine editor Bruno discovers while shaving a weird lump on his neck, causing him to bleed. He visits specialist Doctor Ackerman and is assured it’s nothing to worry about, but some tests will have to be performed nonetheless. What was presumed to be a benign condition, turns out to be terminal cancer. Bruno hasn’t long to live. But extraordinary leaps in science present Bruno with a terrible choice. Doctor Ackerman offers a radical new procedure. He could be part of an early medical experiment where his body would be “frozen down” and then brought up again decades later when a cure was found. 

Bruno is torn over what to do. He has just started a new relationship with a dancer named Jenny. With limited time to think out his options, he impulsively decides to be frozen down. 

Twenty-two years later he is revived, but finds changes have been made to his body without permission. He has been sterilised and certain organs have been swapped out for synthetic ones. Society has been divided into two classes - “now-life” and “all-life”. Now-life mortgage their organs and live like “hippies”, not having to work. All-lifers work long and hard hours to afford all the medical interventions needed to keep them alive, ostensibly forever.

Bruno hopes to meet his girlfriend Jenny in this brave new world. He persistently asks for a meeting and the hospital authorities keep putting it off, as Jenny has also had some medical interventions. Eventually the reunion occurs. Bruno is  shocked by what Jenny has become. 

Anders Bodelsen was a Danish writer of experimental thrillers. Freezing Point was first published in 1969. It’s a tightly written story that looks at the ethics of medical interventions to prolong life indefinitely. As a sideline, the book also questions the economics of prolonged life. In the imagined society of 1995 and 2022 (the book jumps first 22 years into the future, then 27 years) all resources are directed towards extreme medicine. People who opt to live a natural lifespan sell their organs, while those who wish to live eternally must pay in endless (and by extension, eternal) work.  The novel also plays with ideas of narrative, as editor Bruno muses on different modes of storytelling. In a dehumanised future world, it seems that fiction may have died, as Bruno tries in vain to obtain magazines or books to read.

A gripping and ghoulish thriller offering the reader plenty of ethical conundrums to wrestle with. 
​
Freezing Point, by Anders Bodelsen. Translated by Sophie Mackintosh. Faber Fiction $24.99

Review by Chris Saliba
]]><![CDATA[discipline, by randa abdel-fattah]]>Fri, 13 Feb 2026 05:12:52 GMThttps://northmelbournebooks.weebly.com/book-reviews/discipline-by-randa-abdel-fattahPicture
Award winning Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah addresses the contorted way Middle-Eastern issues are dealt with in media and academia.

Ashraf is an academic trying to keep his head above university politics. He  can’t speak his mind too freely on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict without seeming like an Islamic extremist. His postgraduate student, Jamal, has no such qualms, and posts articles and comments that gets them both into hot water.

Hannah is a journalist - the only Muslim in her workplace - trying to shift the lens on reporting Middle Eastern politics. Her stories are often reworked by editors to give a more pro-Western slant. It’s frustrating, but what options does she have? Turn her back on a good paying job (she has a young family to raise), or try to change attitudes from within?

When a year 12 student at an Islamic college protests a university’s ties to an Israeli weapons manufacturer, both Hannah and Ashraf are drawn into the affair. The issue presents a terrible personal crisis. Respond honestly, unapologetically highlighting the hypocrisy, falsehoods and blindspots of Western thinking on the Middle East, or compromise and feel you’ve sold out?

Discipline is about self-censorship. How false narratives are powerfully embedded. Randa Abdel-Fattah has written an engaging and accessible novel with very relatable characters, highlighting the perilous tightrope Australian Muslims are compelled to walk. 

Discipline, by Randa Abdel-Fattah. Published by UQP. $34.99

​Review by Chris Saliba
]]><![CDATA[Gough whitlam, by troy bramston]]>Sat, 31 Jan 2026 03:04:46 GMThttps://northmelbournebooks.weebly.com/book-reviews/gough-whitlam-by-troy-bramstonPicture
One of Australia’s most iconic prime ministers is given the thorough biographical treatment.
​
Gough Whitlam was beyond dispute one of Australia’s most significant political figures. He single handedly wrested the Australian Labor Party away from its traditional working class roots and old school socialist ideology, dragging it kicking and screaming into the modern world. In many ways, pre-Whitlam labor resembled today’s One Nation Party: racist and protectionist. Whitlam consigned those policies to the bin, and introduced a far more progressive platform.

​Labor under Whitlam (1972 - 1975) worked at breakneck speed, a government in a hurry to implement its progressive agenda. Labor ended conscription, withdrew from the Vietnam War, introduced medicare and free university education, recognised China, abolished the death penalty and made laws to advance women's rights. That's a snapshot of the Whitlam Government’s achievements - there were many more. 

Serious problems loomed, however. Firstly, Gough himself. A genius, certainly, but also a trainwreck. Vain and conceited, he was not a good reader of people. Hubris allowed him to sleepwalk into bad decisions. Most notably, he made a poor choice in appointing John Kerr as governor-general. Compounding the problem, he refused to acknowledge Kerr’s own unstable personality. Many around Whitlam were begging him to take heed. It was plain to insiders that Kerr’s vanity and insecurity meant he could possibly fire Whitlam. 

Cue the 1975 Senate crisis. The opposition under Liberal Malcolm Fraser used their majority numbers to block money bills (supply). The rationale seemed fair enough, the methods bloody. Fraser’s opposition had no faith that the Whitlam Government could make responsible economic policy. In fact, Labor operatives were involved in an extraordinarily dodgy scheme to raise money from Iraq to fund some of their programs. Whitlam himself had zero interest in economics and merely assumed a growing economy would pay for everything. When the Senate crisis hit, the Labor leader was fully confident that Kerr wouldn’t blink. But blink he did. The rest is history. 

Troy Bramston has written a detailed biography of Whitlam, based on over a hundred interviews. It is a blow by blow chronicle of Labor’s coming to power after twenty-three years in opposition and the “crash or crash through” government it produced. It’s a mixed legacy. Essential reforms that last until this day, but a shockingly incompetent government that was never popular. 

A fine, carefully balanced biography that shows a fatally flawed yet brilliant man.

Gough Whitlam: The Vista of the New, by Troy Bramston. Published by HarperCollins. $55

Review by Chris Saliba
]]><![CDATA[The Cat Who Came in Off the Roof, by Annie Schmidt]]>Wed, 31 Dec 2025 23:13:09 GMThttps://northmelbournebooks.weebly.com/book-reviews/the-cat-who-came-in-off-the-roof-by-annie-schmidtPicture
A network of cats help a journalist break a big news story

​Tibble is a reporter with the Killenthorn Courier, but he is in trouble with his editor. His boss says he writes too many cat themed stories, and needs to write on other topics. The trouble is that Tibble doesn’t have a very forceful personality, the type a journalist needs to ask confronting questions and get the breaking scoop. Then something strange occurs. He is sitting in the town’s Green Square when a dog comes bounding through. Up a nearby tree there are rustling leaves and Tibble presumes a cat has sought refuge, having been chased by the dog. But it turns out to be a woman, not a cat. Her name is Minou. The strange thing is, she actually is a cat that has been mysteriously turned human by eating something from a bin near the Institute for Biochemical research.

Minou is looking for a home, and starts sleeping in a box at Tibble’s apartment. The good news is Minou still speaks cattish, and can communicate with all the local cats, of which there are many posted at all the town’s main spots, like the hotel, church and post office. Soon Tibble is getting great tip offs for articles from this makeshift cat press agency. Trouble brews when the town’s most eminent citizen, Mr Ellmore, a factory owner and professed animal lover, is discovered by the cats to be up to no good. Can Tibble’s pen, with the help of the cats, expose Mr Ellmore?

Annie M. G. Schmidt was a famous Dutch children’s writer. The Cat Who Came in Off the Roof was first published in 1970 and is re-printed here by Pushkin Press, with a translation by David Colmer. Schmdit’s prose is light and breezy, carrying the narrative along at a pleasant clip. The story has a zany tone and much of it requires the suspension of disbelief (for adult readers at least, children will be more sensible). The broad cast of cats is a delight, with some fun names (Ecumenica is the church cat). The best drawn cat character is Tatter, a tough-as-nails street cat who has had umpteen litters and gets into her fair share of scrapes, only to emerge triumphant. There is a vague theme of finding the courage to overcome your fears, but the real thrust of the book is a devotion to nonsense and fun. 

A bright and inventive entertainment that will enchant readers of all ages.

The Cat Who Came in Off the Roof, by Annie Schmidt. Published by Pushkin Children's $19.99

Review by Chris Saliba
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