There are many ways to break a reading drought. It could be a week of woolly weather, a break from work or a raging pandemic with government enforced lockdowns. Or it could just be the timeless allure of a great book. Like a hot bag of Uber Eats at the end of a long week, […]
Author Archives: Ms A
January
16
How Much of These Hills Is Gold by C Pam Zhang
posted by Ms A
I can’t keep up with Obama, but frankly, who, besides Michelle, can? Every year, he publishes a list of his top 10 reads and every year, I head knowingly to the bookshop to scoop them up. I could just walk in with the list but no, instead I choose 3 or 4 and wander up […]
January
07
Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
posted by Ms A
Everything about this book seems light and breezy. What, with its throwaway title, cute cover and offbeat dialogue, you’d expect to find it atop a discount pile at an airport bookshop, not on the Booker prize longlist. But maybe that’s the point. Such a Fun Age is about racism and class, told through the story […]
December
06
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
posted by Ms A
Your Christmas reading list is sorted. After months of disappointing starts, I’ve finally found a book that I can recommend with all my heart. Shuggie Bain is a once in a generation novel that tells the simple story of a son’s devotion to his alcoholic mother. Set in Glasgow in the 1980s, where the mines […]
October
11
A Room Made of Leaves by Kate Grenville
posted by Ms A
Few authors get me to the bookshop faster than Kate Grenville. After The Secret River and The Lieutenant (which every single Australian needs to read if they haven’t already), all other authors can take a ticket. This time, Grenville shares the story of Elizabeth Macarthur, wife of British officer and renowned pastoralist of early colonial Sydney, John Macarthur, the […]
August
09
Melting Moments by Anna Goldsworthy
posted by Ms A
Ok Readheads – I’ve just picked your next book. Put it on your book club list and lend it to your friends and family. Especially your Mums. Melting Moments tells the life story of Ruby Jenkins, but really is a universal study of the changes that take place over the course of life. […]
May
17
Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
posted by Ms A
What a cracking work of fiction. Hands down my most enjoyable read of the year so far. Hamnet is a fictionalised account of the death of William Shakespeare’s son. Clearly I wasn’t listening at school, because I had never known that Shakespeare had three children (a girl and then a twin boy and girl) and that […]
April
26
A Thousand Moons by Sebastian Barry
posted by Ms A
It’s the aftermath of the Civil War in Tennessee and “the time is so dangerous that the law is barely possible”. An Indian girl named Winona is living on a farm with two soldiers who adopted her, their landlord and two recently emancipated black slaves. Released in March, A Thousand Moons is the latest from […]
Stoner by John Williams
posted by Ms A
I’m not sure I can explain to you how much I loved this book. Surely the most pure, quiet and understated work of fiction I have read in a long time. Stoner was first published in 1965 with no fanfare. Fifty years later, it was discovered by the general public and became a bestseller across […]
January
26
The Topeka School by Ben Lerner
posted by Ms A
I’ll admit it, I found this book a challenge. I would go so far as to say it is the trickiest book I’ve read in years. Swinging between fact and fiction and jumping forward and back in time, reading The Topeka School was the most exercise I did all holiday. The Topeka School is the […]
