What I’m reading and what’s gathering dust on the bedside bookstack this month.
The Rain Heron by Robbie Arnott, Text Publishing, 2020
Loved this one. Just gobbled it up.
The word ‘fable’ gets used a lot to describe this book and for good reason. It’s not entirely here and not entirely now and not completely possible in our world but it’s still very familiar. The landscape especially is a mash-up of Tasmanian wilderness and the European continent.
Ren lives in a remote mountain area. She keeps to herself and has so far avoided the new martial law of the land. That changes when soldiers come looking for the Rain Heron. Most people think it’s just a story but Ren knows that it isn’t.
The narrative is divided between the past and present for Ren, the Army Captain looking for the Rain Heron and a medic in her team.
Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason, 4th Estate, 2020
Exactly as the title suggests, this one covers the best and worst of what life and our closest relationships have to offer.
Martha is our narrator. Her highs are high and her lows are totally debilitating. She knows there is something more to it but everyone around her says that’s just the way she is. This is a story about families, sisters, marriage and mental health.
Martha is funny and irritating and will keep you reading way past bedtime.
Axiomatic by Maria Tumarkin, Brow Books 2018
I’m usually a one-book-at-a-time reader. I read all the short stories or essays in a collection in a row. But I had to put this collection down and let a little light in between the essays. They’re not comfortable reads – suicide, poverty, the failings of the justice system….
But that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be read. It’s a privilege to accompany Maria Tumarkin’s intellect and curiosity. She is a beautiful writer but isn’t writing about beautiful things in this book.
The Nowhere Child by Christian White, Affirm Press, 2018
It’s no surprise that Christian White was a scriptwriter before he was an author. This mystery unfolds in a very filmic way and is an easy read page-turner. The measure of a whodunnit is whether you’re interested enough to know and it’s clever enough to keep you guessing. Ticks on both fronts for this one.
Two-year-old Sammy Went disappears from her home in Kentucky. 30 years later, a man turns up in suburban Melbourne to tell Kim Leamy that he thinks she’s that girl. All the right rules have been followed in this one to set up a crime, a handful of possible suspects and then let it ride.
The Morbids by Ewa Ramsey, Allen & Unwin, 2020
This is a book about besties and PTSD.
After surviving a car accident, Caitlin thinks that she’s going to die. All the time and in countless different ways. A fair chunk of normal life is out of bounds because of her anxieties.
Caitlin tries to keep a lid on the narratives that play out internally and this means distancing herself from her best friend and family. She goes to group sessions with other people who are also convinced they’re going to die. None of them are sure it’s doing any good but misery loves company.
Did I mention that it’s also a love story? What can I say – I’m a sucker for a happy ending.
We Were Never Friends by Margaret Bearman, Brio Books, 2020
Lotti Coates has just moved to Canberra and is trying to navigate new friendships and puberty outside of the shadow of her famous artist father.
I loved how domestic this story was. The mum is always arriving home with the youngest child after day care pick-up and dinners always need to be made.
Unfortunately, the artist father was so annoying to me that instead of following on with the plotline I was a chapter back, still fuming about how arrogant and selfish he was. I was, perhaps disproportionately, distracted by how much air-play we give to selfish men who are apparently ‘genius’ and can therefore absent themselves from any childminding, meal preparations and other domestic necessities.
Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler, Chatto and Windus, 2020
Anne Tyler has 22 novels behind her (I know, right!!!!) and plenty of people who say she is a genius but this book just wasn’t for me. I gave it a good 45 pages and then left it.
There is a type of story where your main character is pretty boring and regimented person. Their daily routine is described in detail, which is also pretty boring and then eventually (the hope is) something happens or they meet someone that changes their life and their ways.
I just couldn’t wait around long enough for that to happen.
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, Head of Zeus, 2017
Still in the pile. Still haven’t started it yet. Next month I say.
This tome was my only Christmas book (and it actually arrived in January). Anything over 500 pages seems to sink further down the book stack for sheer stability of the pile.
Billed as a generational family saga about Koreans in Japan, I missed the hype of this book when it came out but put it on my wish list after listening to this interview with Min Jin Lee on Conversations.
Sounds like once I get stuck in, I won’t be coming up for air for a while.
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Nina Cullen 