In order to get more accurate results, our search has the following Google-Type search functionality:
If you use '+' in front of a word, then that word will be present in the search results.
ex: Harry +Potter will return results with the word 'Potter'.
If you use '-' in front of a word, then that word will be absent in the search results.
ex: Harry -Potter will return results without the word 'Potter'.
If you use 'AND' between two words, then both of those words will be present in the search results.
ex: Harry AND Potter will return results with both 'Harry' and 'Potter'.
If you use 'OR' between two words, then bth of those words may or may not be present in the search results.
ex: Harry OR Potter will return results with just 'Harry', results with just 'Potter' and results with both 'Harry' and 'Potter'.
If you use 'NOT' before a word, then that word will be absent in the search results.
ex: Harry NOT Potter will return results without the word 'Potter'.
Placing '""' around words will perform a phrase search. The search results will contain those words in that order.
ex: "Harry Potter" will return any results with 'Harry Potter' in them, but not 'Potter Harry'.
Using '*' in a word will perform a wildcard search. The '*' signifies any number of characters. Searches can not start with a wildcard.
ex: Pot*er will return results with words starting with 'Pot' and ending in 'er'. In this case, 'Potter' will be a match.
'The Boat raises the bar for Australian writing.'
Peter Craven, Heat
'Nam Le is - a disturber of the peace.
'Consider the subjects of his stories: a child assassin in Colombia ("Cartagena"), an ageing New York artist desperate for a reconciliation with his daughter ("Meeting Elise"), a boy's coming of age in a rough Victorian fishing town ("Halflead Bay"), before the first atomic bomb falls in Japan ("Hiroshima"), the suffocations of theocracy in Iran ("Tehran Calling"). This astonishing range is topped and tailed by accounts of the uneasy reunion of a young Vietnamese writer in America with his ex-soldier father, and by the title story - the escape of a group of exhausted refugees from the Vietcong in a wallowing boat.
'One might be permitted to think, after all this high seriousness and intensity, Nam Le can't do funny. But this criminally talented 29-year-old can do that as well.'
Barry Oakley, Australian Literary Review
'The Boat raises the bar for Australian writing.'
Peter Craven, Heat
'Nam Le is - a disturber of the peace.
'Consider the subjects of his stories: a child assassin in Colombia ("Cartagena"), an ageing New York artist desperate for a reconciliation with his daughter ("Meeting Elise"), a boy's coming of age in a rough Victorian fishing town ("Halflead Bay"), before the first atomic bomb falls in Japan ("Hiroshima"), the suffocations of theocracy in Iran ("Tehran Calling"). This astonishing range is topped and tailed by accounts of the uneasy reunion of a young Vietnamese writer in America with his ex-soldier father, and by the title story - the escape of a group of exhausted refugees from the Vietcong in a wallowing boat.
'One might be permitted to think, after all this high seriousness and intensity, Nam Le can't do funny. But this criminally talented 29-year-old can do that as well.'
Barry Oakley, Australian Literary Review