For a second week Peter Carey’s The Chemistry of Tears (Hamish Hamilton) has received the most mentions in Media Extra. Author Alain de Botton, who tours Australia in late February, argues that religion still has some very important things to teach the secular world in Religion for Atheists (Hamish Hamilton). In Vanished Kingdoms (Allen Lane), historian Norman Davies asks how many people know that Glasgow was founded by the Welsh in a period when neither England nor Scotland existed? Also on the most mentioned chart were Jojo Moyes’ Me before You (Michael Joseph) and Peter Carey’s Parrot and Olivier in America (Penguin)–Media Extra.
Archive for the ‘Most mentioned books’ Category
Most mentioned this week
Posted: 30 January 2012 at 12:05 pm
Comment
Most mentioned this week
Posted: 23 January 2012 at 1:50 pm
Peter Carey’s latest novel The Chemistry of Tears (Hamish Hamilton) received the most mentions in Media Extra this week. In the story, Catherine is the leading lady. When her lover dies suddenly, all Catherine has left is her work at London’s Swinburne Museum. When she finds the diary of a mysterious clockmaker, she becomes obsessed with uncovering the truth about his life. Also listed on the most mentioned chart this week were Breakdown by Sara Paretsky (Hodder & Stoughton), A Common Loss by Kirsten Tranter (HarperCollins), The Fortunes of Richard Mahony (Henry Handel Richardson, various imprints) and The Glass Canoe (David Ireland, various imprints)–Media Extra.
Most mentioned this week
Posted: 16 January 2012 at 1:52 pm
Jane Sullivan spoke about literary sexism in several forums during the week and her book Little People (Scribe) has consequently made it to the top of the most mentioned chart. Little People is about an impoverished governess, who rescues what appears to be a child from the Yarra River, but turns out to be General Tom Thumb, star of a celebrated troupe of midgets on their 1870 tour of Australia. Other books on the most mentioned chart, all receiving a couple of mentions this week, include Colin Cotterill’s Slash and Burn (Quercus), Kirsten Tranter’s A Common Loss (HarperCollins), Robert Harris’ The Fear Index (Hutchinson) and Christopher Simon Sykes’ Hockney: A Rake’s Progress (Century)–Media Extra.
Most mentioned this week
Posted: 5 December 2011 at 1:29 pm
Sherlock Holmes expert Anthony Horowitz brings the great man to life for a new generation of readers in The House of Silk (Orion), which sits at first place on the most mentioned chart. The following three titles received equal mentions this week. Peter FitzSimons provides a portrait of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition 100 years ago inMawson and the Ice Men of the Heroic Age (William Heinemann). Cold Light (Vintage) is the final volume of Frank Moorhouse’s ‘Edith Trilogy’ set in 1950s Canberra among the murky politics of multi-national diplomacy. Pride and Prejudice fans should keep an eye out for P D James’ Death Comes to Pemberley (Faber): the year is 1803, and Darcy and Elizabeth have been married for six years, when Lydia Wickham, an uninvited guest at their annual ball, arrives screaming that her husband has been murdered–Media Extra.
Most mentioned this week
Posted: 28 November 2011 at 12:54 pm
Ahead of the bicentenary of his birth next year, Charles Dickens was all over the papers this week thanks to a new biography Claire Tomalin’s Charles Dickens: A Life (Viking). Receiving equal mentions were Joan Didion’s Blue Nights (Fourth Estate), an honest examination of her life as a mother, woman and writer; P D James’ Death Comes to Pemberley (Faber), which recreates the world of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and sets a dectective mystery at its heart, and Wade Davis’ Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest (Knopf), which draws connections between the first World War and the conquest of Mount Everest in the 1920s. Geoffrey Blainey’s A Short History of Christianity (Viking), which describes many of the significant players in the religion’s rise and fall through the ages, also appeared on the most mentioned chart–Media Extra.
Most mentioned this week
Posted: 14 November 2011 at 10:48 am
All five books on the most mentioned chart received equal mentions this week. Former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating has published a volume of speeches and occasional pieces in After Words: The Post-Prime Ministerial Speeches (A&U). An English teacher finds a portal to 1958 and is given the chance to stop the assassination of John F Kennedy in Stephen King’s 11.22.63 (Hodder & Stoughton). Cold Light (Random House) is the third book in Frank Moorhouse’s Edith Campbell Berry Trilogy, set in postwar Australia. The rise and metamorphosis of double-entry bookkeeping is one of history’s best-kept secrets and one of its most important untold tales in Jane Gleeson-White’s Double Entry (A&U). And finally, media personality and foodie Indira Naidoo embarks on a mission to transform her tiny balcony into a bountiful kitchen garden in The Edible Balcony (Lantern)–Media Extra.
Most mentioned this week
Posted: 7 November 2011 at 1:36 pm
Gillian Mears’ Foal’s Bread (A&U) is set among the country show high-jumping circuit that prevailed in rural New South Wales prior to World War II and tells the story of two generations of the Nancarrow family and their fortunes as dictated by the land. In Hiroshima Nagasaki (HarperCollins), Paul Ham explains that most people believe the Allies ended the Pacific War and saved millions of American and Japanese lives in doing so. Ham challenges this view, arguing that the bombings, when Japan was on its knees, were the culmination of a strategic Allied air war on enemy civilians. Joan Didion’s Blue Nights (Fourth Estate), Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 (Harvill Secker) and Billy Connolly’s Route 66 (Billy Connolly & Robert Uhlig, Sphere) also appeared on the most mentioned chart–Media Extra.
Most mentioned this week
Posted: 24 October 2011 at 11:22 am
Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Marriage Plot (HarperCollins), the third novel from the Pulitzer prize-winning author of Middlesex, is about a love triangle between three Ivy League undergraduates in the early 1980s. It’s followed on the most mentioned chart by Elliot Perlman’s The Street Sweeper (Vintage), which explores the varied histories of its New York-based characters, from the experience of the Nazi regime in Europe to the civil rights movement in the US. Julian Barnes’ Man Booker Prize-winning A Sense of an Ending (Random House), Alex Miller’s Autumn Laing (A&U) and Kerryn Goldsworthy’s Adelaide (NewSouth) also appeared on the most mentioned chart this week–Media Extra.
Most mentioned this week
Posted: 17 October 2011 at 1:01 pm
An 85-year-old Autumn Laing is moved to write about her affair with Australian artist Patrick Donlon and the near-catastrophic effects their relationship had on those closest to them in Alex Miller’s Autumn Laing (A&U). Another elderly lady, Lola Quinlan, is the protagonist of Monica McInerney’s latest novel. In Lola’s Secret (Penguin), Quinlan has sent her family away for Christmas and invited a number of mystery guests to stay with her instead. On Shakespeare (A&U) is John Bell’s insight into the world of contemporary Shakespearean acting. In Tasmina Perry’s Private Lives (Headline), Anna Kennedy is the lawyer to the stars, hiding their sins from the hungry media. Heather Brooke’s The Revolution Will Be Digitised: Dispatches from the Information War (Bloomsbury) also gained a spot on the most mentioned chart–Media Extra.
Most mentioned this week
Posted: 10 October 2011 at 4:44 pm
Charlotte Wood’s Animal People (A&U), an urban love story set over 24 hours, and Alex Miller’s Autumn Laing (A&U), a novel about love, loyalty and creativity, made it to the top of the most mentioned chart this week with the same number of mentions. Stephen Greenblatt’s The Swerve: How the Renaissance Began (Vintage) is about one man’s discovery of an old manuscript in the 15th century, which fuelled the Renaissance and changed the world. A Private Life (A&U) is Michael Kirby’s collection of reminiscences that reveal his private side. Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Marriage Plot (Fourth Estate) is a novel about Madeleine Hanna, who falls in love with Leonard Morten, a charismatic loner and college Darwinist–Media Extra.
