“Rain sounds like sausages frying in a pan. You don’t think it does, right now, but after you’ve read this, it will rain, and it will forever after sound like sausages.” (From Barrage by Jude Bridge) This recent anthology from indie publisher Spineless Wonders (edited...
Can’t believe I’ve just discovered this novel from Kamila Shamsie. This awesome book was a deserving winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction in the UK in 2018. Its themes include family bonds, ambition, love, loyalty, grief, Muslim terrorism and British politics. Two...
Lanny (Faber & Faber, 2019) is one of those fantastic books that will remind you – if you needed reminding – why it’s worth reading fiction. It’s ostensibly a book about a boy called Lanny who lives in an English village, yet somehow about so much more. That’s...
I didn’t have any great expectations when I started reading A Gentleman in Moscow (Amor Towles, Random House, $19.99). But I soon realised it was a rare gift – a book with an original plot and a wonderful main character. I’ve read a lot of novels, so an original plot...
Despite just about everyone I know recommending this debut novel from Melbourne journalist Jane Harper, I’ve resisted reading it until now because the subject matter sounded so, ahem, dry. Somehow, out of all these recommendations, I’d managed to pick up that the book...
The plot of Barbara Kingsolver’s new novel rests on absent foundations – literally. In alternating chapters, Unsheltered (Allen & Unwin, 2018) weaves together the stories of two strong, intelligent individuals whose homes are crumbling around them. The homes seem...
