From where I sit the 2012 Miles Franklin Literature Award longlist seems right. The names I expected to see are listed, Elliot Perlman, Kate Grenville, Gail Jones, Alex Miller, as are some of the names I hoped to see, Charlotte Wood, Charlotte Wood and Charlotte Wood. There are a few disastrous exclusions,  though. The Life by Malcolm Knox, for one. Kylie Ladd’s Last Summer, is another. A... Read more

Charlotte Wood author of Animal People, The Children and more… reveals… The 5 best novels I read this year are… Read more

This year I read more novels by living, breathing writers than by stone cold dead writers. This is a first for me. However, if the truth be told, many of the contemporary novels I started were left unfinished. It’s partly due to the nature of the job. Publishers throw box loads of fiction at us to review and I can’t read them all. And, it is partly due to the state of modern fiction... Read more

I read Charlotte Wood’s novel Animal People twice. I think it’s one of the best contemporary novels I have read. But I cannot review it. I tried a number of times and failed each time. I only recently realised why this is. I don’t want to review Animal People. I want to recommend it. The trouble is, I can’t recommend it to just anybody. Sure, some part of me wants to help encourage compla... Read more

The Booktopia Book Guru asks Charlotte Wood author of Animal People, The Children and more Ten Terrifying Questions  ————————– 1. To begin with why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself – where were you born? Raised? Schooled? I was born, like those famous poets AD Hope, John Tranter and Steve Liebmann, in the mighty town of Co... Read more

‘He could not find one single more word to say. I just want to be free. He could not say those words. They had already withered in his mind, turned to dust. He did not even know, he marvelled now, what the hell those words had meant.’ A sharply observed, 24-hour urban love story that follows Stephen Connolly – a character from the bestselling novel The Children – through one of the ... Read more