AustLit

'The Hands of Pianist's narrator is a neurotic freelance writer who aims to prove that pianos kill elite pianists. For decades, he has grappled with the guilt that followed an accident in which he severed his talented sister's fingers, ending her promising career at the keyboard. His investigations centre on the violent deaths at 31 of three great pianists, his detective work taking him from Melbourne to Geelong and Sydney, to the south of France, London, Sussex and the Czech Republic.' (Publication summary)

'The strangely familiar. The alien within the home. The repressed impulse. Bloodsucking counts in castles. Dismembered limbs. Wax models of famous figures. Trying to find a lost car in a parking lot. Being given seat E21 at the cinema when you live at 21 Rose Grove and your 21st birthday was last week. Doppelgängers, ghosts, déjà vu.

'This is the fourteenth issue of Monash University’s creative writing journal, Verge.

'Established and emerging writers have come together to fill this collection with poems, flash fiction, creative non-fiction and short stories that converge on the theme of the uncanny.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'In this funny and revealing memoir of travel, food, music and love, well-known food critic Stephen Downes rails against his starched Methodist upbringing to indulge in the romance of newspaper journalism. From London's famous Fleet Street, he falls in love with the adrenalin of chasing a story, the sound of typewriters and the smell of ink on newsprint. Moving to Europe in his early twenties, Stephen finds love of another kind when he meets his Parisian wife-to-be and discovers the authentic cuisine of the gastronomical hub that is France. ' (Publication summary)