BOOK REVIEW: CONAN CITY OF THE DEAD by John C Hocking Titan Books, June 2024 Hardcover, rrp AUD$45 Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar 68% Considering most of Robert E Howard’s original Conan stories were novellas at most, John C Hocking has made the odd choice of drawing his two Conan novels out to epic proportions – […]
BOOK REVIEW: LOVE & PAIN by BEN GILLIES & CHRIS JOANNOU with Alley Pascoe Hachette Australia, September 2023 Hard cover, rrp $44.99 Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar 75% As far as titles go, “Love & Pain” couldn’t be more appropriate for this memoir from the other two guys in Silverchair, whose love for their former bandmate […]
BOOK REVIEW: UNDER A ROCK by CHRIS STEIN Hachette Australia, June 2024 Paperback, rrp AU$34.99 Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar 77% What we knew about Chris Stein before reading his book: he’s the guitarist in Blondie, ex- of Debbie Harry, and he had some weird illness which prevented him touring – or doing much of anything […]
BOOK REVIEW: THUNDERHEAD by SOPHIE BEER Allen & Unwin Australia, October 2024 Paperback, rrp AU$17.99 Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar 85% Sophie Beer draws on her personal experience of hearing loss following the discovery of acoustic neuroma, a brain tumour requiring surgery. Thunderhead is a kid who loves music but is having a crisis of faith […]
BOOK REVIEW: LIGHT OVER LISKEARD by LOUIS DE BERNIÉRES Penguin Random House Australia, October 2023 Paperback, rrp AU$34.99 Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar 65% Light Over Liskeard follows the enigmatic Q, a quantum cryptographer, as he relocates from the frenetic city to a remote Cornwall farmhouse in disrepair in preparation for a technological crash of epic […]
BOOK REVIEW: THE REVENGE OF THE TOXIC SPACE POTATO by FIRST DOG ON THE MOON Allen & Unwin Australia, December 2024 Paperback, rrp $19.99 Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar 80% First Dog On The Moon is arguably Australia’s most insightful cartoonist, equally hilarious and political – whilst revelling in a healthy level of absolute absurdity. His […]
BOOK REVIEW: THE WAITING by MICHAEL CONNELLY Allen & Unwin Australia, October 2024 Paperback, rrp $34.99 Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar 85% Being a huge fan of the Bosch TV show, it’s remarkable that before now I haven’t taken the time to read one of Michael Connelly’s 39 (to date, with another due in 2025) novels […]
BOOK REVIEW: THE SINGER SISTERS by Sarah Seltzer Little, Brown || Hachette Australia, August 2024 Paperback, rrp $24.99 Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar 72% The Singer Sisters are Judie and Sylvia Zingerman, Sixties folk stars and siblings with a complicated family history. Pre-fame, Judie, desperate to find a little teenaged independence from her domineering mother, defiantly […]
BOOK REVIEW: DOWN WITH THE SYSTEM by SERJ TANKIAN Hachette Australia, May 2024 Paperback, rrp $34.99 Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar 85% Serj Tankian is far too intellectual and philosophical to be a run of the mill, garden variety, ‘rock star’ – in fact you’re likely to learn more about the attempted genocide of the Armenian […]
BOOK REVIEW: GUILTY BY DEFINITION by Susie Dent Bonnier through Allen & Unwin, October 2024 Paperback, rrp AU$39.99 Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar 88% Brit TV fans will be familiar with Susie Dent as the resident lexicographer from Dictionary Corner in shows such as Countdown and Eight Out Of Ten Cats Does Countdown and know that […]
BOOK REVIEW: HORROR UNMASKED by Brad Weissmann Murdoch books via Becker Meyer, September 2023 Hardback, rrp AUD$39.99 Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar 90% Brad Weissman presents an impressive overview of horror on film in this exhaustively thorough tome, starting with the silent movie era (including 1896’s The Haunted Castle aka The House Of The Devil, 1920’s […]
BOOK REVIEW: LONG LIVE EVIL by SARAH REES BRENNAN Orbit through Hachette Australia, July 2024 Paperback, rrp AU$32.99 Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar 86% Where would fantasy literature be without those two magical words, “what if…?” Here, bestselling YA author Sarah Rees Brennan asks a deliciously enticing question… “what if… a terminally ill young woman were […]
BOOK REVIEW: RARE SINGLES by Benjamin Myers Bloomsbury, August 2024 Paperback, rrp AUD$29.69 Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar 71% If you can muscle past Benjamin Myers belabouring his main themes (addiction, withdrawal, grief) relentlessly, and accept that a promoter would hire a singer to travel to the other side of the world for a small town […]
BOOK REVIEW: VEGEMITE by Jamie Callister Allen & Unwin Australia May 2023 Paperback – RRP AUD$32.99 Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar 95% Jamie Callister’s grandfather, Cyril Callister, invented Vegemite – and if that isn’t a claim to fame, then I don’t know what is. Involved in munitions development in the UK during the Great War, Cyril […]
BOOK REVIEW: THE INCREDIBLE TAIL OF LITTLE ROO by Ross Knight & Matt Weston with Lluis Fuzzhound Love Police Books December 2022 Hard cover – RRP AUD$24.99 Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar 95% Ross Knight is more often seen rocking out with his seminal band Cosmic Psychos than writing children’s stories, but here he and (band […]
COOKBOOK REVIEW: GUGA – BREAKING THE BARBECUE RULES by Gustavo Tosta Penguin Random House Australia April 2023 Hardcover, $49.99 Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar 89% Ol’ mate Guga – Brazilian American YouTube personality and cook Gustavo Tosta – likes nothing better than breaking the rules, ESPECIALLY the barbecue rules, and he encourages the reader to do […]
BOOK REVIEW: PAUL McCARTNEY – 1964 EYES OF THE STORM Penguin June 2023 Hardback, $140 Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar 95% “Somewhere in the back of my mind, I always knew I had taken some pictures in the 1960s,” McCartney opens in the Foreword to this illuminating fly on the wall-type coffee table book, and what […]
BOOK REVIEW: A STROKE OF THE PEN – The Lost Stories by Terry Pratchett Penguin Random House October 2023 Paperback – $32.99 Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar 70% For Terry Pratchett obsessives, this is something akin to the Holy Grail – early, formative, long lost stories which were published in the 1960s, 70s and 80s under […]
BOOK REVIEW: BERSERKER! By ADRIAN EDMONDSON Pan Macmillan Australia September 2023 Paperback, $36.99 Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar 93% At first it’s rather incongruous to read Adrian Edmondson refer to himself as “an accidental comedian.” After all, this is the man who influenced millions by bringing ‘very metal’ anarcho punk Vyvyan to life in Rik Mayall, […]
BOOK REVIEW: THE KAMOGAWA FOOD DETECTIVES by HISASHI KASHIWAI Pan Macmillan Australia October 2023 Paperback, rrp $19.99 Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar 90% The Kamogawa Food Detectives are father/daughter duo Nagare and Koishi, as unlikely a pair of detectives as you will meet. Nagare is the chef at their diner – a hard-to-find little-known establishment without […]
