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Welcome to A Novel Review, the book podcast where every week, Seamus reviews a different book. For 2025 Seamus is doing a ‘Book World Tour’ where every month he ‘travels’ through literature to another country. The rules are simple: Each month he reads two books – one male and one female and the author has…
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Some seek isolation for its freedom, but for Sybylla Melvyn, the open space of the Australian Outback only serves to drown her. Miles Franklin’s first novel, My Brilliant Career captures the lack of agency young girls and women growing up in rural Australia would have felt towards the turn of the 20th century. A country…
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Mockingjay is the final instalment of Suzanne Collins Hunger Games trilogy. A story that delves deeper into the political issues of a rebellion and the true cost of the face of war. Where propaganda is rife and for Katniss Everdeen, it becomes clearer as time passes that children are a political currency both sides are…
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Is the isolated outback town of Bundanyabba a paradise of absolute freedom or a living nightmare? This week, Kenneth Cook’s novel, Wake in Fright, explores the disturbing duality at the heart of the story and how the lack of judgment in The Yabba can make hell of heaven in a life of excess and indulgence…
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Midnight Blue by Simone Van Der Vlught unfolds with a swift and unflinching frankness. The story of a widowed woman trying to understand and find her place in this new found world, while also trying to distance herself from her past. Difficult to outrun who you were when it is the path that lead you…
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Catching Fire, the burning sequel to Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games, ignites the spark of rebellion in this near perfect sequel. We are back in Panem and Katniss has survived the Hunger Games. But, in that survival, the seeds of rebellion have been sown as Katniss understands that the real game has only just begun.…
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Harry Mulisch’s The Assault is our first Dutch novel for the book world tour that explores guilt, memory, and moral ambiguity in post-World War II Netherlands. Following Anton Steenwijk’s haunting past, the story unravels the devastating consequences of war and silence. Perfect for literature lovers, this summary delves into Mulisch’s masterful storytelling, and psychological depth…
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Non-fiction November rolls around and with it, a fresh stack of non-fiction books. No dragons to slay, no murders to solve and detectives to help us. Nothing but truth and fact to guide us as we turn from the usual fiction. From wandering the streets of Italy to the making of the western mind, campaigns…
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Predating Dracula by 25 years, Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla is the dark Sapphic vampire novel that kickstarted the blood sucking villain of horror in fiction. The perfect book to sink your teeth into, this bite sized chunk of a novella is ethereal as it is indulged. Laura is a young girl, isolated with her father…
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A question I wondered as I started reading Richard Adam’s ‘Watership Down’ was – how affecting will a book about rabbits be? It turns out that a story, that was originally orally comprised for the entertainment of his children, journeying for a better life across fields can sweep you along a great Odyssean tale of…
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The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins – I volunteer as tribute to read these books for you. The duality of power on display amongst the gross pageantry of the upper class exercising their abusive ‘right’ to control the citizens of Panem. Katniss Everdeen volunteers for the the annual Hunger Games. 24 children enter the arena…
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