Australian literature: Book reviews
How to find book reviews
Book reviews appear in newspapers and scholarly journals. To locate these you can use a title search of a particular periodical, such as Australian Book Review.
Selected works:
- Australian Book Review - The official journal of the National Book Council (Australia), and the Australian Book Review index.
- Two books by Ken Gelder & Paul Salzman: The New Diversity : Australian Fiction 1970-88 and After the Celebration : Australian Fiction 1989-2007
Where you can find online book reviews
You can find the following databases online by visiting our eResources portal and searching for the database under the Browse eResources tab.
AustLit provides authoritative information on creative and critical works of Australian literature and on more than 700,000 Australian authors and literary organisations. In the AustLit database, see the Anthology of Criticism, under the 'Reading' tab, for full-text articles about selected authors and their works.
Australian Book Review Online has a national scope and is committed to highlighting the full range of critical and creative writing from around Australia.
Registered members of the National Library can access these databases from home.
As well as our databases, newspapers are also a good source of book reviews; recent articles can be found online through individual newspaper websites, such as the Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian and the Courier-Mail.
Fairfax Corporation, Group of men and women gathered around a trolley full of books at the Municipal Library, New South Wales, 20 June 1930, nla.obj-160503553
Fairfax Corporation, Group of men and women gathered around a trolley full of books at the Municipal Library, New South Wales, 20 June 1930, nla.obj-160503553
Online lists
Bookshop websites often have a section devoted to book reviews, which may be written by staff or customers.
Aussie Reviews has online reviews of fiction, non-fiction, children's and young adult books.
Reader's reviews
You can find many reader's blogs with reviews of classic and contemporary Australian literature. These will often have links to other Australian book blogs. Some of these include:
These and other book review blogs have been archived by the National Library. You can search for more at Trove.
Disclaimer
Please note: The National Library of Australia is not responsible for the content of external Internet sites.
Featured resource
Williamson, Geordie, The burning library : our great novelists lost and found. Melbourne : Text Publishing, 2012
The Burning Library explores the lives and work of some of our greatest novelists.
Alarmed by the increasingly marginal status of Australian literature in the academy, Williamson has set out to reintroduce us to those key writers whose works we may have forgotten or missed altogether.
His focus is on fiction that gives pleasure, and he is ardent in defence of books that for whatever reason sit uneasily in the present moment.
Related link
Novels: finding literary reviews and criticism - guide from the State Library of Victoria
In this guide
Mark Strizic, Searching for books at the State Library of Victoria, January 1967, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-140508667
Fairfax Corporation, Two men shaking hands in front of a schoolboy holding two trophies and another with three books at Sydney Boys' High School, Sydney, 28 December 1931, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-161791200
Fairfax Corporation, Editor Constance Robertson's daughters reading in garden, Sydney, 1 July 1932, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-162303890
Aitken, A., photographer, On the set of the film Two minutes silence, New South Wales, 12 May 1932, nla.obj-162472775
Morgan, Sally and Kwaymullina, Ezekiel, Sam's Bush Journey, Surry Hills, N.S.W. : Little Hare Books, 2009
Fairfax Corporation, Four young boys reading books on top of a stone wall during health week at school, New South Wales, ca. 1930,nla.obj-162139840
Peter Pierce, (2009), The Cambridge history of Australian literature, https://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn4557384