This novel has lingered in my mind for ages…it is a superb vision of a not too distant America teetering on the edge of fiscal collapse juxtaposed with a highly improbable, yet somehow tender love affair … super sad, super funny and super scary all at the same time. Brilliantly executed!
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Set in North Korea in the recent past when Kim Jong iI reigned supreme, this Pulitzer Fiction Prize winner is the harrowing story of Jun Do, who lives his life at the mercy of the oppressive communist regime. This is a regime where the government’s messages are tirelessly drilled into the citizenry through propaganda broadcasts […]
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The goon squad of the title refers to time and the novel which could loosely be described as being about the American music industry, deals with the treatment its characters receive at the hands of time. The novel zigzags from story to story and character to character across times and places: punk teenagers in 1970s […]
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Jasper Jones has won a stack of Australian awards and it deserves every one of them in my opinion. This novel sees Charlie, the 13 year old quiet, bookish protagonist increasingly drawn into a complicated mystery which will rob him of his innocence and change his world view completely. Brilliant dialogue coupled with the compelling […]
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This brilliant piece of psychological writing, set in 1940s Sydney, seeps into one’s bones and is very difficult to dislodge. After the death of her father and subsequent abandonment by her mother, Laura finds herself married to the much older Felix mainly because he agrees to “take on” her sister Clare as well. Having isolated […]
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Told over the 17 days following the suicide of her beloved grandson, 89 year old Lilly Bere, consumed by grief, reflects on her life. Hers has been a life marked by exile from her homeland, fraught with hardship and trauma at almost every turn in America and yet she has been indomitable and optimistic throughout […]
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Set against the backdrop of the legendry British heatwave of 1976, Maggie O’Farrell brilliantly penetrates the depths of a family crisis and the devastating and long-range power of family secrets. With the sudden disappearance of their father – he went out to get the newspaper and didn’t come home – 3 adult siblings each in the […]
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Wow! This is by no means an easy or uplifting read and yet, I found it to be utterly compelling. Containing graphic depictions of sexual abuse and self-harm which are excruciating and difficult to read, it is also strangely beautiful because the brutal chapters are skilfully balanced with extended sections portraying the unconditional kindness and […]
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In this exquisite novel, WW11 is depicted through two parallel stories focussing on the experiences of Marie-Laure a French girl who has been blind since the age of six and her father who works at the Museum of Natural History as a locksmith and Werner a young German orphan whose talent for radio engineering earns […]
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It is impossible to talk about this book in any depth without revealing the major aspect of the plot, so from the outset I admit I won’t really do the book justice here as there will be no spoilers from me! Technically, this novel starts in the middle of the story where we meet the […]
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WOW! As with a delicious meal, I simply gobbled this book and on completion was left with a massive feeling of regret that I had devoured it so rapidly without savouring every single delicious bite! However, it did “stay” with me for weeks and I was unable to settle on reading anything else for ages […]
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What a fabulous reading experience this was! On an overarching level it is a sensational critique of cultural misogyny, in particular the insincerity and superficiality of the art world. On a more intimate level it is Harriet “Harry” Burden’s story – middle-aged and widowed she is consumed by rage after what seems to have been […]
Read More →“To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.”
– Somerset Maugham
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