Difficult to describe this one; it’s about a tiger entwined within an old woman’s dementia, and also within her relationship with her carer. Really it’s about the vulnerability that encompasses us all as we age. It’s surprisingly beautiful and all too real. It won a lot of awards for first time novelist Fiona McFarlene, and […]
General fiction
See What I have Done by Sarah Schmidt
See What I Have Done gets inside the head of Lizzie Borden, who presumably murdered her father and stepmother in 1892 despite being acquitted at the subsequent trial. Being inside Lizzie’s head is an oddly compelling but uncomfortable place to be. The book is well written but it’s difficult to love something so odd and […]
The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne
Ah, you’ve got to read this one. It’s beautiful and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny. The protagonist Cyril Avery, adopted out by his sixteen year old mother to strikingly insensitive parents, has a hard time of it, being gay in Ireland during the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s. None of his inner circle know of his sexuality until […]
The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
Even if you’ve never been able to get through one of Earnest Hemingway’s novels (and I confess I haven’t), this book about his relationship with first wife Hadley Richardson still fascinates. Hadley is neither confident nor glamorous but she is kind and loyal, and she and her husband share an unshakeable belief in his brilliance. This […]
The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan
I was unable to get through Richard Flanagan’s award winning Gould’s Book of Fish, but Narrow Road is much more accessible and all the better for it. In fact it’s a beautiful and profoundly moving war story which I assume stays very close to the facts, and everyone should read it. Enough said.
The Natural Way of Things by Charlotte Wood
Wow. Reading this book is literary equivalent of being being smacked in the face with a frying pan. It is painful. It will make you stop in your tracks. But, unlike a frying pan in the face, it is oh so necessary. Usually I gobble up a book in a few days but with this one […]
Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan
Ah, beautiful. How could you not appreciate a book with writing like this: “Eddie felt a lulling possibility of happiness pulling at him like sleep. But rebellion jerked him back to awareness. No, I cannot accept this, I will not be made happy by this……He withdrew, holding himself apart, and in swerving away from happiness, he […]
Why Mummy Drinks by Gill Sims
Gill Sims is notably better at swearing than most other people. In fact she’s gifted. And it’s her ability to direct this gift towards the everyday trials of motherhood that makes us admire her, because we wish we could swear so effectively at and about children and husbands and life in general without feeling bad […]