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.

The National Library of Australia is not responsible for the content of external Internet sites

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These and other book review blogs have been archived by the National Library.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

The National Library of Australia is not responsible for the content of external Internet sites



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  

How do you 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:

Where can you 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. 

FEATURED RESOURCE

The Burning Library

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

Not sure where to start?

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Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are advised that this website contains a range of material which may be considered culturally sensitive including the records of people who have passed away.

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