While every week I get to recommend books to people as a bookseller, sometimes I do so for a wider audience on ABC Radio National’s The Bookshelf. In these uncertain times with so many people in lockdown/isolation/restricting contact with the outside world, everyone could do with a great book - so here are some links of my latest interviews if you are looking to escape into a book.
Recorded last week so hot off the press - sure you’ve heard of James Ellroy and Lisa Taddeo but why not pick the Jon McGregor novel - Lean, Fall, Stand - beautifully written, it travels the globe from Antartica, Chile, to the United Kingdom and is full of heart, wisdom and perfect sentences. This is one of my picks for the 2021.
I love Kazuo Ishiguro as an author and Klara and the Sun, his latest, confirms his genius. It’s a book for our times - concerned with Artificial Intelligence, loneliness, kids stuck at home unable to socialise, parents only wanting the best for their children but facing terrible choices about how to achieve it and at its heart it is about love and connection. This is a stunning book and frontrunner for my personal book of the year but then we’ve still got half the year to go.
A book I thought about so much last year - Laura Jean McKay’s Animals in That Country. Would you want to hear what your pet was thinking? What about a crocodile? A mouse? A dingo? There is a pandemic of zoo flu and a woman and dingo go on a dangerous journey to save her family. This is such an inventive story, so wildly imaginative, and has been winning awards and readers in Australia and beyond.
Sarah Moss’s Summerwater is a short, perfectly written book about a wet day in Scotland. Different families are staying in cabins by a loch. Their interactions are at times humorous, fascinating and ultimately tragic. She is such an incredible writer of beautiful prose. I loved this book. Special bonus is Iain Maguire’s The Abstainer.
