Fiona O'Loughlin I knew Fiona from her standup career and funny jokes about family life. This is a wonderful insight into her life from her family in the Yorke Peninsula, to marriage and her own family in Alice Springs, to a fledgling standup career...

Annie Proulx I love this author and this memoir was lovely. It lacks the character arcs of her fiction obviously, but Annie can put you in a place so well. This follows her journey building a house in Wyoming and finishes with a few chapters of bird...

Mary Wesley This was an easy, enjoyable read, with such good characters. I became absorbed in the space and time of this story. A nice examination of fleeting relationships and love. I liked Claud's character arc through the market stall and writing...

Clive James I was impressed by Clive James from when I was a kid. He was an intellectual beamed into rural NSW through the television. I loved his insights and wit and broad knowledge and curiosity. It was infectious and fun. I remember Robert Hugh...

Nathan Millward English boy has a girlfriend in Sydney. He decides to go home to London on a Postie Bike. Adventure ensues. Fun read, nice paced narration of the joys and perils of motorbiking across the world. The nations you cross the people you m...

Bill Bryson This is a slender volume at just under 200 pages but it is Bryson, so I have to read it. I was not disappointed. Great research into a subject with a lot of missing pieces. I enjoyed he explaining what he found and writing about others c...

Paul Theroux I read his later travel work first and I find it better. This book must have been something in 1975. I still enjoyed it. I have been a bit funny about Paul since reading O-Zone. It showed pedophile tendencies and in his travel books his...

Henry Petroski Fascinating. Something I had not considered before. The gradual improvement of everyday things. When things fail or when they are irritating, or when new materials become available, inventors and innovators come up with a new solution...

Mustafa Suleyman I thought this would have more behind the scenes from Deepmind and Inflection AI. It does have some of that but mostly it is about alignment and what could happen if we get this wrong. It is well thought out and reasoned and i could...

Trudi Canavan This was the best of the three books. It was well paced has some good magic battles and has the characters we know from the first two books. Fleshing out the Sachakans nation with their Ichani outcasts was good. Not something I would p...

Trudi Canavan Another nice and easy to read fantasy. Continuing on with Sonea's leaning at the Magicians Guild. There are only 2 basic storylines in this book, one is soneas and character sat the Guild. Then Dannyl is travelling and searching throug...

Trudi Canavan This was an easy and comfortable fantasy. Set in one city with minimal characters. We follow the story of a slum dwelling girl who finds she has natural skills in magic. But the magic normally the domain of the wealthy and elite at the...

Jim Richards This was a fun look into Gold Fever. It was autobiographical and travel/work drama. Similiar to the previous book I read this year about oil rigs. But this time Jim wanted to get rich and this documents all the ways he tried and all the...

Nick Lane This was a dense and fascinating book. Nick has chapters that cover The Origin of Life, DNA, Photosynthesis, The Complex Cell, Sex, Movement, Sight, Hot Blood, Consciousness and Death. Some chapters were a bit tough for me to understand, w...

Paul Carter Adventures around the world on oilfields. Paul shares his life on various field around the world and part of his life back home here is Australia, talking about his Dad and falling in love and his wife. It is a fun book and an easy read,...

Murder, Fraud, and the last trial of Harper LeeCasey CepThis was a very engaging book. She broke it into 3 parts: The Reverence, The Lawyer, The Writer.I enjoyed all three parts. It reminded me of midnight in the garden of good and evil, due to it be...