SMSA (Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts)
ANIMAL STORIES
| Novello, Carol | Mutual rescue |
| Perry, Roland | Red Lead |
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BIOGRAPHY
| Garner, Helen | One day I’ll remember this |
| Keighran, Daniel | Courage under fire |
| Obama, Barack | A promised land |
| Olsen, Tim | Son of the brush |
| Rintoul, Stuart | Lowitja |
| Sedaris, David | The best of me |
| Winn, Raynor | The wild silence |
One day I’ll remember this / Helen Garner
The second volume of Helen Garner’s diaries picks up right where the first left off. It’s 1987 and her daughter, having graduated high school, is leaving home—or rather, Garner is flying the nest, having just purchased her first house and leaving ‘M’ and her friends to occupy the old one. And so One Day I’ll Remember This begins with Garner entering a new phase of life, forever in an uneasy tension with her identity as both a woman and an artist. Through economical, carefully selected fragments, Garner paints a vivid picture of her busy life as it flows around her busy mind: she rides her bike around Melbourne; she takes trips to Europe and America; she has an affair with another—married—writer. Gradually that relationship engulfs Garner’s life, consuming her thoughts and taking up more diary space—space that I was hoping would be used to examine more deeply the process of writing 1995’s fraught and baffling The First Stone. Nevertheless, whether she’s dissecting the writing she admires or documenting her dreams and relationships, Garner’s self-deprecating reflections are profound and funny. Her dispatches from daily life in the late 80s and early 90s—which also offer glimpses of recognisable cultural and historical events from the time—are relayed in her trademark matter-of-fact prose, always oriented towards truth and self-examination, no matter how painful. It’s fortunate that Garner decided against burning all of her diaries because One Day I’ll Remember This is a revealing window into the mind of one of Australia’s greatest living writers. (Books and Publishing, 23 September 2020)
A promised land / Barack Obama
In the first volume of his presidential memoirs, Obama delivers a remarkably introspective chronicle of his rise to the White House and his first two-and-a-half years in office. Aiming to give readers “a sense of what it’s like to be the president of the United States,” Obama mixes thorough rundowns of legislative matters (the Affordable Care Act, the DREAM Act) and foreign affairs (the Arab Spring, the assassination of Osama bin Laden) with intimate details about the doubts he felt in launching his presidential campaign, the strangeness of life in the public eye, and the toll his political ambitions took on his family life. He gives ample credit to campaign staffers, White House aides, and lawmakers for his successes, and holds himself accountable for mistakes, including his 2008 remarks about working-class Republican voters who “get bitter” and “cling to guns or religion,” and his failure to “rally the nation… behind what I knew to be right” ahead of the 2010 midterms, which saw Democrats lose control of the House of Representatives. Though he offers blunt assessments of opponents, including Republican senator Mitch McConnell and the Koch brothers, Obama also expresses grudging admiration for the discipline of their messaging. The book is shot through with memorable turns of phrase (letters from constituents “were like an IV drip from the real world”) and astute history lessons and policy analysis. This sterling account rises above the crowded field of presidential postmortems. (Publishers Weekly, November 2020)
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COOKING
| Mullen, Marissa | That cheese plate will change your life |
That cheese plate will change your life / Marissa Mullen
Mullen, a photographer and food stylist, combines her skills to build some 50 delightful, themed cheese plates. Borrowing her teaching technique from the paint-by-numbers school, Mullen has invented the Cheese by Numbers method, identifying six items used in each artistically arranged plate: cheese, meat, produce, crunch, dip, and garnish. Every entry receives its own four-page spread: the first page contains ingredient lists arranged by food category, as well as a recommendation for the type of physical platter (round soapstone, rectangular wooden board, etc.). The second page offers a full-page color photo of the finished plate. The third page provides six-panels showing step-by-step construction, and the final page contains a color drawing, by illustrator Sara Gilanchi, with each element of the plate represented. One of Mullen’s favorite stylistic choices is the “salami river,” a meandering ribbon of cold cuts that “creates movement and flow” across the board. Thematically, the trays run the gamut from a game day formation, with chicken wings, potato chips, celery, and blue cheese dressing, to a romantic “season of love” design boasting a heart-shaped slab of Brie and chocolate-covered strawberries. This is a fun, attractive, and unique guide to a favorite party dish. (Publishers Weekly, May 2020)
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GENERAL FICTION
| Abulhawa, Susan | Against the loveless world |
| Alam, Rumaan | Leave the world behind |
| Angstrom, Emma | The man in the wall |
| Baldacci, David | Daylight |
| Coe, Jonathan | Mr Wilder and me |
| Coelho, Paulo | The archer |
| De Bernieres, Louis | The autumn of the ace |
| Delaney, J. P. | Playing nice |
| Doshi, Avni | Burnt sugar |
| Dovey, Ceridwen | Life after truth |
| Fry, Stephen | Troy |
| Joyce, Rachel | Miss Benson’s beetle |
| Kinsella, Sophie | Love your life |
| Krauss, Nicole | To be a man |
| Kunzru, Hari | Red pill |
| Mackay, Hugh | The question of love |
| Manning, Kirsty | The midsummer garden |
| McDaniel, Tiffany | Betty |
| McGovern, Petronella | The good teacher |
| McIntosh, Fiona | The Champagne War |
| Mills, Kyle | Lethal agent |
| Mills, Kyle, | Total power |
| Morrissey, Di | Before the storm |
| Murata, Sayaka | Earthlings |
| Nell, Joanna | The great escape from Woodlands Nursing Home |
| Schlink, Bernhard | Olga |
| Zhang, C Pam | How much of these hills is gold |
Life after truth / Ceridwen Dovey
Reunions – attend them soon after graduation and we just tell each other shameful lies about how perfect life is. This novel centres on a Harvard graduating year returning for their 15th anniversary. It should be three days of partying, but an attendee, the son of the US President (fictionalised … but only using a see-though gauze disguise), is found dead. The son, Frederick Reese, is powerful but unloved. ‘Somebody had finally taken a stand.’ Five Harvard housemates introduce themselves like a play’s cast. Each character (other than Jules) then takes alternate chapters. Mariam and Rowan, now with kids in tow, have been a couple since their college days. Eloise teaches hedonics at Harvard. Jomo and Jules are best friends, but there are later hints that friendship isn’t enough. Jules was a famous actor even before Harvard. She seems troubled but remains intensely private. Her friends are protective. All share a strong bond, despite different career paths, financial security and occasional rivalries. The President’s son oozes hubris. He’s almost universally loathed, but this is not his story, and this doesn’t claim to be crime fiction. This is a study of character. There is, though, one structural concern. Reunions naturally rely on reminiscence and much of the narrative is looking backwards. Although vital for exposition, it can feel like the story treads water. Harvard itself, with its idiosyncratic conservatism, is very well written about. Dovey is a past graduate and knows her old campus well. This is an intriguing twist on the conventional campus genre. A marvellous, intricate novel. (Good Reading Magazine, December 2020)
Red pill / Hari Kunzru
If given a choice, would you take the red pill to expose life’s uncomfortable truths, or the blue pill to remain blissfully ignorant? This powerful, intriguing novel explores the two worlds: the high-minded concept of universal benefit and the darker world of provocation and self-interest. The unnamed narrator has been granted a position in an academic facility, the Deuter Center in Berlin where he expects a solitary workplace, but finds he is under constant surveillance. His proposed thesis is to uncover the ‘lyric I’ – the expression of self in poetry. He finds he can’t work under the constant view of others. Both the thesis material and the intrusion work as a metaphor – he doesn’t have a sense of his own ‘self’ and hasn’t the strength of argument to explain or defend it. He meets Monika, an ex-punk in the old East Germany and her story of the Stasi’s surveillance serves as a warning of future fascist possibilities. As a distraction he binge-watches a US cop show ‘Blue Lives’ and the unexpected meeting with its director brings him into contact with the alt-right movement. His weak sense of self spirals, taking his mental health with it. Kunzru has invoked several binary frictions here: high vs low art; thought vs action; public good vs self-interest; and academic research vs conspiracy theories. Woven into the narrative are three colours: the red pill, the trademark titanium white of the Deuter Center and ‘Blue Lives’. He is softly semaphoring the red, white and blue of the USA, and there is a sense of inevitability as the narrator returns to New York before the 2016 Presidential election. Kunzru’s matching of insanity and the primacy of self-interest – and its timing – speaks volumes. (Good Reading Magazine, December 2020)
Betty / Tiffany McDaniel
McDaniel bases her raw if overwrought bildungsroman (after The Summer That Melted Everything) on the life of her mother. Born in 1954, narrator Betty is one of eight siblings whose cherished father, Landon Carpenter, a Cherokee, tells wondrous tales, and whose mother, Alka Lark, shares cruel truths (“God hates us,” she says, referring to women). Betty recounts poverty, puberty, and the tragic loss of one sibling after the other. Betty looks like Landon and is abused at school by the prejudiced children and teachers of Breathed, Ohio. The episodic narrative revolves around Betty’s struggles over whether to divulge a family secret involving incest and rape at the story’s rotten core. Along the way, Landon, a finely rendered character, dispenses most of the wisdom (“Some people are as beautiful and soft as peonies, others as hard as a mountain”), but McDaniel gives Betty exceedingly precocious insights (at nine: “William Shakespeare wrote my father a Romeo heart and a Hamlet mind at the same time Henry David Thoreau composed him to have sympathy toward nature and a longing for paradise to be regained”). Still, she brilliantly describes Betty’s self-image based on her father’s stories of their ancestors. McDaniel is an ambitious and sincere writer, and occasionally her work transcends. (Publishers Weekly, August 2020)
Earthlings / Sayaka Murata
When people don’t fit in with their family, they sometimes say that they seem to have been born to the wrong parents. This marvellously unique novel takes this concept a whole lot further. Natsuki narrates the first part of this story as an eleven-year-old. She’s unloved by her family and sexually abused by her teacher. Her special friend, Piyyut, a small soft toy who tells her he comes from the planet Popinpobopia, has granted her special magical powers. Natsuki’s cousin, Yuu, feels like an alien. Neither fit in, so they come to believe that they too could have come from Popinpobopia. Tomoya, whose sexless marriage to Natsuki 20 years later is only for convenience, also argues for an alien birthright. (Popinpobopia will roll off your tongue by the end.) To the trio – who cannot fit into ‘Earthling’ society – the logic of their alienness is immutable. So far so weird, right? However, by using the innocent voice of the young Natsuki in the set-up, Murata has cleverly led readers into a creditable suspension of disbelief. Natsuki, Yuu and Tomoya escape to the mountains to practise their life as aliens. In other, more conventional settings, the three might be bohemians, living an alternate lifestyle. ‘People can easily pass judgement on others when they’re protected by their own normality.’ This story revolves around rejecting the strictures of conformity and obedience, ubiquitous in Japanese culture. Society is ‘the Factory’, where it’s essential to be a proper component, both as a work tool and child-manufacturer. Once free of society, there are few boundaries and the ending is redolent of Süskind’s Perfume. The novel’s conceit works so well that it seems impossible to say they’re not aliens. They’re certainly not Earthlings. (Good Reading Magazine, December 2020)
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HISTORICAL FICTION
| Gregory, Philippa | Dark tides |
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MYSTERY
| Abbott, Rachel | The murder game |
| Banville, John | Snow |
| Bilal, Parker | The heights |
| Brody, Frances | Death and the Brewery Queen |
| Bryndza, Robert | Shadow sands |
| Connelly, Michael | The law of innocence |
| Disher, Garry | Consolation |
| Evanovich, Janet | Fortune and glory |
| French, Tana | The searcher |
| Gee, Poppy | Vanishing Falls |
| Glenconner, Anne | Murder on Mustique |
| Greenwood, Kerry | Death in Daylesford |
| Jardine, Quintin | The roots of evil |
| Mark, David | The burying ground |
| Marsons, Angela | Deadly cry |
| Mitchell, Siri | Everywhere to hide |
| Patterson, James | Deadly Cross |
| Rhodes, Kate | Pulpit Rock |
| Sandford, John | Neon prey |
| Upson, Nicola | The dead of winter |
| Warner, Dave | Over my dead body |
Snow / John Banville
Snow … layered with meaning. The whiteness of it and its purity and innocence; its ability to blanket the environment so that things are hidden; so cold as to be cruel; and so stark that something bright like blood stands out on it. John Banville often hides his crime writing under the snow of a pseudonym, Benjamin Black, with the series of novels following Quirke, a Dublin pathologist. Quirke makes a tangential appearance here, but Benjamin Black has been relegated to the sidelines as Detective Inspector Strafford (you’ll be reminded about the ‘r’) investigates the death of a Catholic priest at Ballyglass House. With ‘Bally’ being an Irish word for ‘place of ’, this house of glass epitomises all that the metaphor suggests, particularly fragility and (supposed) transparency. Banville also cleverly uses a missing whiskey glass as an important clue. Ballyglass House is the ancestral pile of the Osbournes, a Protestant family still clinging to their influential position, if not their wealth. Father Tom Lawless was a frequent visitor to the house and is found early one morning dead on the carpet of the library. (Yes, it’s a body in the library, and yes, Banville is very aware of that stylistic convention. In other textual references, Cluedo gets a nod, as does the higher brow literature of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Joyce.) This is a closed-room mystery in the Agatha Christie style because, due to the snowfall, the inhabitants of the house – all singular and wonderfully drawn – are the only plausible suspects. The snow also evokes Christie’s play, The Mousetrap, with even the lady of the house dubbed ‘the White Mouse’ by her stepdaughter. Indeed, Strafford feels he’s watching a play, with performances by different characters and no-one showing their true selves. The Catholic-Protestant divide is central to the narrative, as is the power and obfuscation of the church hierarchy. Could – should – a crime of this magnitude be hushed up? Despite its subject matter, the book is not without its humour and, in time-honoured tradition, the denouement has several twists. Agatha Christie-like it may be, but this is pure John Banville mastery. (Good Reading Magazine, December 2020)
The Law of Innocence / Michael Connelly
Recent novels from Connelly, the modern maestro of LA crime writing, have focused on the investigations of long-running hero Harry Bosch and/or Detective Renee Ballard, a fierce new protagonist seeking justice in Bosch’s old stomping grounds in LAPD Hollywood Division. Bosch’s half-brother, sly defence attorney Mickey Haller, has made guest appearances, but in The Law of Innocence ‘the Lincoln Lawyer’ has top billing. And the stakes couldn’t be any higher: Haller finds himself charged with first-degree murder when the body of a former client, a conman who ripped off many including Haller, is discovered in the trunk of Haller’s car. The DA’s office has come out guns blazing to convict a man who’s thwarted them on so many occasions. There’s forensic evidence to back their case, and star prosecutor ‘Death Row’ Dana Berg is determined to put Haller behind bars for the rest of his life. Or keep him there – as, thanks to a vindictive judge, Haller has to prepare for the trial of his life while in custody. He’s made plenty of enemies over the years: did one set him up? Will others take their shots at him now? Connelly delivers a rip-snorting legal thriller that offers plenty of courtroom parry and thrust, while also giving readers fascinating insights into trial preparation and strategy with action aplenty even before the jury hears opening statements. Connelly’s keen insights into the realities of a flawed criminal justice system, as well as the character relationships, elevate this novel and the whole series to the top of the legal thriller class. (Good Reading Magazine, December 2020)
Consolation / Garry Disher
In this, the third outing for Constable Paul Hirschhausen, ‘Hirsch’ has settled into a routine in the town of Tiverton, wheat and wool country halfway between Adelaide and the Flinders Rangers. He has got to know the locals and spends time with his girlfriend, Wendy, a teacher at a school in the next town and her daughter, Katie. It is winter and Hirsch is patrolling the streets of the town he has come to call home. There is a snowdropper targeting elderly women but otherwise things are relatively quiet, until suddenly, they’re not. Within the space of a couple of hours Hirsch receives a call from a teacher at Wendy’s school who has concerns about a home-schooled student she is supervising via online learning. This is followed by a panicked call from the school about a father losing his cool and threatening violence at the school. Thus, master storyteller, Garry Disher sets the scene for another beautifully realised tale of small-town Australia. As the plot unfolds, the layers of the town peel back to reveal a dark underbelly of corruption, child abuse, neglect and fraud. Complicating matters, the teacher who reported the suspected abuse has developed an unrequited obsession with Hirsch, so in between chasing fugitives and unravelling a complex scam perpetuated by stalwarts of the local community, he is also dodging the persistent and unwelcome overtures of Miss Ogilvie. From the early days of ‘The Peninsula Mysteries’, his writing has become better and better. His prose is sparce but could only be Australian, much like the landscape of his novels. His characters are complex but far from impenetrable and the dialogue is as dry as the outback. Consolation is another fabulous read. (Good Reading Magazine, December 2020)
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NON FICTION
| Boyce, James | Imperial mud | 942.6 BOYC |
| Figes, Orlando | Natasha’s dance | 947 FIGE |
| Hannah, Sophie | Happiness, a mystery | 158 HANN |
| Hocking, Jenny | The palace letters | 994.062 HOCK |
| Mantel, Hilary | Mantel pieces | 820.8 MANT |
Imperial mud / James Boyce
f we can say there is nothing more universal than the intensely regional, then Tasmanian writer James Boyce’s intriguing history of the Fens in the east of England is a case in point. These marshlands, inhabited by locals (Boyce coins the term ‘‘Fennish’’) for thousands of years, were rich in food supplies such as grains, fish and fowl. But over the centuries they were drained and the commoners expelled through the land grab called ‘‘enclosure’’. Boyce, who won the Age book of the year for 1835, convincingly argues that it was part of the imperial project – either in the name of Progress, reform or the ‘‘civilising’’ of the Fennish, who were often described as sub-human – and that when the Fens were drained and enclosed the people lost their homeland, and were forced to work for rich farmers or driven to the cities. This is evocative and imaginatively argued. (Sydney Morning Herald, 23 October 2020)
Natasha’s dance / Orlando Figes
Even if one takes nothing else away from this elegant, tightly focused survey of Russian culture, it’s impossible to forget the telling little anecdotes that University of London history professor Figes (A People’s Tragedy) relates about Russia’s artists, writers, musicians, intellectuals and courtiers as he traces the cultural movements of the last three centuries. He shares Ilya Repin’s recollection of how peasants reacted to his friend Leo Tolstoy’s fumbling attempts to join them in manual labor (“Never in my life have I seen a clearer expression of irony on a simple peasant’s face”), as well as the three sentences Shostakovich shyly exchanged with his idol, Stravinsky, when the latter returned to the Soviet Union after 50 years of exile (” ‘What do you think of Puccini?’ ‘I can’t stand him,’ Stravinsky replied. ‘Oh, and neither can I, neither can I’ “). Full of resounding moments like these, Figes’s book focuses on the ideas that have preoccupied Russian artists in the modern era: Just what is “Russianness,” and does the quality come from its peasants or its nobility, from Europe or from Asia? He examines canonical works of art and literature as well as the lives of their creators: Tolstoy, Tchaikovsky, Chagall, Stanislavsky, Eisenstein and many others. Figes also shows how the fine arts have been influenced by the Orthodox liturgy, peasant songs and crafts, and myriad social and economic factors—from Russian noblemen’s unusual attachments to their peasant nannies to the 19th-century growth of vodka production. The book’s thematically organized chapters are devoted to subjects like the cultural influence of Moscow or the legacy of the Mongol invasion, and with each chapter Figes moves toward the 1917 revolution and the Soviet era, deftly integrating strands of political and social history into his narrative. This is a treat for Russophiles and a unique introduction to Russian history. (Publishers Weekly, October 2002)
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ROMANCE
| Laurens, Stephanie | The obsessions of Lord Godfrey Cavanaugh |
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SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY
| Arnold, Luke | Dead man in a ditch |
| Clarke, Susanna | Piranesi |
| Collins, Bridget | The betrayals |
| Mackintosh, Sophie | Blue ticket |
| Roberts, Nora | The awakening |
Dead man in a ditch / Luke Arnold
Arnold expands on the vividly imagined world of The Last Smile in Sunder City in the superb second urban fantasy to feature “man-for-hire” Fetch Phillips. Six years ago, a cataclysmic event called the Coda eliminated all magic from Sunder City. Following the events of the previous installment, Fetch, a human, has earned a reputation for working to prove that magic still exists, and many formerly supernatural creatures now try to hire him for this express purpose. When Lance Niles, an affluent newcomer to the city who had been buying up properties for an unknown purpose, is found dead in a humans-only club—looking like a “bomb went off in the back of his throat”—the police call Fetch in to assist, as the cause of death appears to have been magic. Fetch takes the case, hoping to quell the rumors about his magical conspiracy theories by finding a scientific explanation for Lance’s murder—and is promised a hefty reward should he succeed. With a lead who would be at home in the pages of a Raymond Chandler or James Ellory novel and a nicely twisty plot, this installment makes a strong case for Arnold’s series to enjoy a long run. (Publishers Weekly, September 2020)
Piranesi / Susanna Clarke
Piranesi is a difficult novel to review, in part because it resists categorisation – it’s fantastical and dark, yet poignant and sweet – but also because it’s a book best discovered on its own terms. Susanna Clarke, who gave us the remarkable Johnathon Strange and Mr Norrell, has pulled another rabbit out of the hat with Piranesi and has produced a singular and curious tale. The eponymous hero, Piranesi, lives in the House. The House is seemingly infinite and contains innumerable statues, staircases, halls, vestibules and even an ocean. While Piranesi lives alone in the House, he’s content. He understands it and knows how to sustain himself from its offerings. As he says, ‘The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite’. Twice a week, Piranesi receives a visit from The Other. Like the reader, Piranesi doesn’t understand why he’s there or why The Other calls him Piranesi when that’s not his real name. (Readers familiar with Giovanni Piranesi, an Italian artist known for his etchings of fictitious prisons, will have a head start on our hero). The start of the novel is confusing and disorientating, but that’s part of its ingenuity and what makes it so compelling. Clarke’s deliberately clunky prose is alienating at first but, as the story unfolds, it’s perfectly calibrated to communicate Piranesi’s singular point of view and extraordinary circumstances. It’s also the perfect vehicle to demonstrate Clarke’s superlative imagination. If you like books with a clear narrative and relatable characters, then this isn’t a book for you. But, if you are happy to give yourself over to the unexpected, can let the narrative tease and taunt and trust it to unravel at its own pace, Piranesi should be high on your reading list. (Good Reading Magazine, December 2020)
Blue ticket / Sophie Mackintosh
Mackintosh’s haunting, dystopian tale (after The Water Cure) explores the emotional fallout of forced birth control in a near-future society. Once girls begin to menstruate, they go to a lottery clinic and draw a ticket. White means they must bear children; blue means they must use birth control. Calla draws a blue ticket at age 14, and as she becomes a woman, she happily explores her untethered sexual freedom. When she reaches her 30s, she begins wanting a child. Despite her fears that the blue ticket means she is unsuited for motherhood (“Failure to nurture,” she imagines a doctor writing on her chart), Calla nevertheless manages to remove her birth control device and becomes pregnant. After her doctor says she must have an abortion, she goes on the run. Calla meets fellow rebel Marisol, and the two women become lovers while holed up in a deserted cabin, determined to give birth before they’re caught by the authorities. Mackintosh serves up vivid details of Calla’s psychological ordeal in the language of body horror (“I was the chicken I opened up one day only to discover that the stomach had been left in by mistake”), and convincingly conveys Calla’s and Marisol’s desperation. This tense, visionary drama is a notable addition to the growing body of patriarchal dystopias. (Publishers Weekly, June 2020)
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TRAVEL
| Clements, Caroline | Places we swim Sydney | 919.441 CLEM |
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New additions to eBooks at SMSA
EBOOKS
| General novels | Belle, Kimberly | Stranger in the lake |
| General novels | Emezi, Akwaeke | The death of Vivek Oji |
| General novels | Haig, Matt | The midnight library |
| General novels | Kampmann, Anja | High as the waters rise |
| General novels | Kosa, S. F. | The quiet girl |
| General novels | McCausland, Vanessa | The valley of lost stories |
| General novels | Parker, R. J. | While you slept |
| General novels | Sutton, Halley | The lady upstairs |
| General novels | Walter, B. P. | Hold your breath |
| General novels | Wyld, Karen | Where the fruit falls |
| Mystery | Amphlett, Rachel | Her final hour |
| Mystery | Casey, Jane | Silent kill |
| Mystery | Conyer, Natalie | Present tense |
| Mystery | Heath, Jack | Hideout |
| Mystery | Pine, Alex | The Christmas killer |
| Mystery | Sligar, Sara | Take me apart |
| Mystery | Stafford, David | Skelton’s guide to domestic poisons |
| Mystery | Thorpe, Alexander | Death leaves the station |
| Mystery | Tursten, Helene | Snowdrift |
| Non fiction | Garner, Helen | One day I’ll remember this |
The Death of Vivek Oji / Akwaeke Emezi
Emezi returns to adult fiction with a brisk tale that whirs around the mysterious death of a young Nigerian man, Vivek Oji. As a child in the 1990s, Vivek secretly identifies as a girl, the psychological strain of which causes Vivek to slip into blackouts. Only his close male cousin, Osita, recognizes the seriousness of these fugue states. (Vivek’s parents dismiss them as “quiet spells.”) As a teenager, Vivek grows his hair long in defiance of gender expectations, and Emezi affectingly explores the harm of threats to Vivek’s gender expression from other boys and men, who sling insults and glass bottles at him on the street. As Vivek finds solace in his female friends and Osita, he discovers he is not the only one with secrets. After his death, the heartbreaking details of which are gradually revealed, the other characters learn more about his secret life. While Emezi leans on clichés (“hit me in the chest like a lorry”) and two-dimensional supporting characters, they offer sharp observations about the cost of transphobia and homophobia, and about the limits of honesty in their characters’ lives. Despite a few bumps, this is a worthy effort. (Publishers Weekly, May 2020)
The midnight library / Matt Haig
Haig draws on quantum wave theory in this charming if sometimes laborious account of the many possible lives of a depressed woman. Nora, in her mid-30s and living in the small English town of Bedford, suffers from “situational depression”—though, as she wryly observes, “It’s just that I keep on having new… situations.” After she gets fired from her job and her cat dies, she attempts suicide, only to wake up in a book-lined liminal zone, where she is guided by a librarian: “Between life and death there is a library… Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived.” There, Nora discovers what would have happened had she not abandoned her promising swimming career, called off her engagement, or left the rock band she started with her brother. Each time an alternate life disappoints or doesn’t feel quite right, Nora exits, reappearing in the library to continue browsing for the perfect story. While the formula grows repetitive, the set changes provide novelty, as Haig whisks Nora from Australian beaches to a South American rock concert tour to an Arctic encounter with a polar bear. Haig’s agreeable narrative voice and imagination will reward readers who take this book off the shelf.(Publishers Weekly, July 2020)
High as the waters rise / Anja Kampmann
The beautiful English-language debut from German poet Kampmann tells the story of a middle-aged oil rig worker’s emotional crisis after the death of his friend. Wenzel Waclaw is devastated when he discovers that his bunkmate, Matyas, has fallen from the oil rig platform where they work and drowned. After learning Matya’s family hasn’t been informed of his death, Waclaw travels to Bocsa, Hungary, to notify Matyas’s half-sister, Patricia, and realizes he knew little about Matyas’s past and motivations—and perhaps knows even less about his own. Waclaw then revisits his own severed connections: in Malta he breaks things off with his on-again, off-again lover; in the foothills of the Italian Alps he reconnects with his late father’s friend; and in Germany he looks for his common-law wife, Milena, whom he hasn’t contacted in years. He also reflects on the toll coal mining took on his father’s health, and Matyas’s shame and frustration following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill when they were working in the Gulf of Mexico. As Waclaw digs up memories of his drilling throughout the world—in Morocco, Mexico, and Brazil—he ruminates on generations of workers who must eke out a living by exploiting the earth and its resources. Kampmann captures the visceral uneasiness that arises from second guessing one’s past. (Publishers Weekly, May 2020)
The quiet girl / S. F. Kosa
Dueling narratives propel this stunning psychological suspense debut from Kosa (the Immortal Dealers fantasy series). When struggling entrepreneur Alex Zarabian meets novelist Mina Richards at a book signing, it’s love at first sight. The two marry six months later, and settle in Provincetown, Mass. Following a tiff about starting a family, Alex returns home to find his wife gone, and later reports her missing. When the police begin asking questions about Mina’s friends and family, he realizes that he knows practically nothing about her past. Chapters from Mina’s unpublished novel, which describe the frightening experiences of a woman suffering from memory loss and facing a murderer, alternate with sections headed by dates that follow Alex’s movements as he tries to understand who his wife really is and what’s become of her. He, too, is set to confront a murderer. Kosa, a clinical psychologist, does a masterly job of weaving together these two versions of reality. Readers will wonder what elements in Mina’s account truly reflect the people and events in her life. Interpretations of Alex’s experience shift with each new chapter from her book. Hitchcock fans won’t want to miss this nuanced, multilayered novel. (Publishers Weekly, June 2020)
Take me apart / Sara Sligar
Sligar’s perceptive debut follows two women who appear collected on the surface but silently endure struggles. After 30-year-old Kate Aitken loses her copyediting job at a New York newspaper amid a disbelieved sexual harassment complaint against her superior, she moves to Northern California to take on a temporary archivist position, where she’s tasked with organizing the personal papers of photographer Miranda Brand, whose death two decades earlier was ruled a suicide. Supervised by Miranda’s adult son, Theo, Kate spends hours sifting through letters, receipts, and prints, and begins to suspect Miranda was murdered. As she builds her case, sneaking around to interview locals who knew the artist, Kate develops feelings for Theo and his two young children, and begins to shut out anything not involving the Brands. Alternating between chapters focusing on Kate and epistolary documents by the tormented Miranda, Sligar reveals Miranda’s unraveling throughout her brilliant career as she labors with parenthood and life with a manipulative husband. Though the novel falters somewhat in its home stretch, Sligar shows off a keen ear for dialogue, and Kate and Miranda hold interest. With a cool style and fast pace, Sligar achieves a propulsive exploration of these ambitious women’s inner turbulence in response to an abusive man in each of their lives. (Publishers Weekly, February 2020)
The lady upstairs / Halley Sutton
An intricate blackmail scheme goes off the rails in Sutton’s sizzling debut. When Jo met a woman named Lou three years ago, she was drowning in heartbreak and self-loathing. Her boyfriend (and co-worker) had not only dumped her, but he’d also gotten her fired. Lou showed Jo a way to make him pay and reclaim her life, and Jo has never looked back. Now Jo is running her own jobs for the Lady Upstairs’ Staffing Agency, a front for elaborate sexual blackmail schemes designed to entrap some of the wealthiest, and most morally bankrupt, men in Los Angeles. Only Lou knows who the mysterious Lady Upstairs actually is, but as long as the cash keeps flowing, Jo tries not to sweat the small stuff. When a grift goes wrong, leaving Jo with no incriminating photos or video to force her mark’s hand, she does start sweating it, because she owes money to the Lady Upstairs, and 11 large just went down the drain. To recoup that cash before the Lady resorts to distasteful collection tactics, Jo prepares to run a con on one of the biggest fish in the city. In Sutton’s sweltering LA, where grit and glamour entwine, nothing is free and life is cheap, so a few dirty cops, lots of double dealing, and maybe a little murder are only to be expected. Narrator Jo is a tough cookie, making her flashes of vulnerability, mostly glimpsed in her scenes with Lou, even more poignant. Sutton’s assured and moody prose often channels the best classic LA noir, but this deliciously tawdry and twisty tale is entirely her own. Readers who savor crime stories featuring complex, unapologetic women will be hooked. A scorching, knockout noir from an author to watch. (Kirkus Reviews, May 2020)
Snowdrift / Helene Tursten
Tursten’s spellbinding third crime novel featuring Det. Insp. Embla Nyström picks up eight days after the end of 2019’s Winter Grave, which closed with Embla receiving a late-night phone call from her childhood best friend, Lollo, who disappeared 14 years earlier. Suspected abductors were Gothenburg gangsters, the Stavic brothers—Milo, Luca, and Kador. When a cousin of Embla’s calls for help to solve a murder in one of his rented guesthouses, she’s shocked to find the victim is Milo. A second jolt comes when she learns that Luca was killed nearby on the same night. Challenged to solve the murders, Embla anxiously seeks the whereabouts of Kador, who has vanished in Croatia. The stabbing of a teenager at a nightclub thickens the plot. Aided by various police officials, including Irene Huss, Tursten’s other series lead, Embla seeks to uncover the truth about what happened to Lollo. The action includes a spectacular chase sequence, a bombshell twist that turns the cases around, and an explosive firestorm. This stunning page-turner is unarguably the best in the series. (Publishers Weekly, October 2020)
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AUDIOBOOKS
| Animal stories | Owst, Nicola | Saving Buddy |
| General novels | Basu, Arjun | Waiting for the man |
| General novels | Blair, Kristin | Agatha Arch is afraid of everything |
| General novels | Ferguson, Melissa | The cul-de-sac war |
| General novels | Hardy, Mina | After all I’ve done |
| General novels | James, Daisy | Christmas secrets at Villa Limoncello |
| General novels | Kate, Hamer | Crushed |
| General novels | Morgenthaler, Sarah | Mistletoe and Mr. Right |
| General novels | Schultz, Emily | Little threats |
| Mystery | Castle, Anne | Murder by misrule |
| Mystery | Ellis, Joy | The dying light |
| Mystery | Lambert, Ann | The dogs of Winter |
| Mystery | Porter, Joyce | Dover One |
| Mystery | Tyson, Wendy | A muddied murder |
| Mystery | Walters, Alex | Expiry date |
| Mystery | Weinberger, Andy | An old man’s game |
| Mystery | Whishaw, Iona | Death in a darkening mist |
| Non fiction | Manson, Mark | Everything is f*cked |
| Non fiction | Masters, Brian | Des |
| Non fiction | Richie, Jean | Kiss of death |
Waiting for the man / Arjun Basu
Joe, a lauded copywriter for a prestigious Manhattan firm, is confronted by the grim truth that material success is no guarantor of personal happiness. Jaded, deeply unhappy with his shallow life, Joe begins to dream of a mysterious figure, the Man. On the advice of the Man, Joe abandons his career in search of a life poorer but with meaning. Thanks to a reporter named Dan, Joe’s personal quest will become the focus of a growing media frenzy, unasked for fame yet another distraction on Joe’s long road west towards a quiet ranch and a deeper, truer connection to the world. Abandoning riches for road trips and rustic contemplation in a quest for insight is a story that has appeared in various forms for millennia; indeed, religions have been founded by people who undertook similar journeys. This version, told in two intertwined time-lines, moves this familiar tale to a modern setting to good effect. Although this is the author’s debut novel, his experience at shorter forms (Squishy) shows; fans of his 140-character Twisters on Twitter will be pleased to know that the author’s talents are on display in this novel. (Publishers Weekly, April 2014)
Agatha Arch is afraid of everything / Kristin Blair
Bair’s charming latest (after Thirsty) centers on an endearing, anxious woman who takes up spying on her neighborhood. Agatha Arch is a successful author whose fear of everything (including flies, vampires, and beans) has kept her relatively isolated, so after Agatha walks in on her husband, Dax, and the dog walker, Willow, getting busy in their shed, she has no friends to help her as her world falls apart. Instead, she destroys the shed with a hatchet. Dax moves in with Willow, leaving Agatha to shuttle her young sons between two homes. On nights when her sons are away, Agatha passes the time by spying on Dax and Willow, and trolling the moms of her neighborhood’s Facebook group. She begins sneaking around the neighborhood in her “spy pants” and flies a drone to scope out her husband’s new home. Despite initially avoiding the advances of well-meaning but overly zealous neighbor Melody, Agatha befriends her, and together they help a young woman who panhandles on the town’s main strip. A paradoxically intrepid and terrified individual, Agatha will draw readers in with her wry takes: “these are the first death threats ever to be issued as a result of a Moms group posting. It is frightening but thrilling.” Fans of Where’d You Go, Bernadette and Elinor Oliphant Is Fine will love this clever romp. (Publishers Weekly, September 2020)
The Cul-de-sac war / Melissa Ferguson
Ferguson returns to the world of The Dating Charade in this cute but slight rom-com. Actor Bree Leake stumbles into Chip McBride while she’s attempting to avoid an embarrassing costume malfunction during a performance at the historic Barter Theater in Abingddon, Va. It’s an adorable meet-cute, and both are immediately smitten—despite Chip’s girlfriend waiting just inside the theater. But Bree’s feelings sour when, after a fellow driver almost runs her off the road on her way home, she realizes that Chip is both the object of her road rage and her new next-door neighbor. After a few more bungled interactions, their good first impression dissolves completely and the pair become locked in a neighborhood prank war. But after a surprisingly compassionate night which seems to hint toward a cease-fire, Bree pulls off a prank that goes too far. Disappointingly, the focus on their feud leaves little time to explore the softer side of Chip and Bree’s feelings for each other. Instead, the emotional core of the novel is found in Chip’s strained relationship with his father and the touching moments between Bree and her well-intentioned, matchmaking parents. Readers will find plenty here to hold their interest, but long for a more fleshed-out love story. (Publishers Weekly, August 2020)
After all I’ve done / Mina Hardy
A traumatic car accident has left 45-year-old Diana Sparrow, the unreliable narrator of much of this twisty psychological thriller from the pseudonymous Hardy, unable to remember much of the last half year of her life, but she knows something’s amiss. In particular, she’s aware her husband, Jonathan, is lying to her and is having an affair. Chapters narrated by her estranged friend, Valerie, reveal that Jonathan’s affair is with Valerie. A third narrator, the handsome and mysterious Cole, who thinks Diana is beautiful, arranges to run into her at a coffee shop and strikes up an acquaintance. Cole knows more about Diana than he lets on. The tension rises as it becomes clear that Jonathan and his mother are scheming to gaslight Diana, to whom more and more odd things occur, such as discovering her car intact after Jonathan told her it was totaled in the accident. Will Diana be able to stay sane? Readers will eagerly turn the pages to find out. Hardy does an expert job keeping the emotional heat high. (Publishers Weekly, September 2020)
Mistletoe and Mr. Right / Sarah Morgenthaler
The endearing second rom-com in Morgenthaler’s Moose Springs, Alaska series (after The Tourist Attraction) pairs the divorced proprietor of the local pool hall with a lonely Alaska newcomer. When Lana Montgomery comes to Moose Springs to build a luxury condo complex, she’s met with suspicion and hostility from the locals—all save for the lovably nerdy Rick Harding, who’s willing to give the dazzling Lana a chance. Rick, a folksy animal lover who dresses his pet hedgehog in Christmas-themed outfits for the holidays, worries that property czar Lana is too sophisticated to return his affections. But they share a common passion: the offbeat town of Moose Springs itself. Rick musters the courage to ask Lana out, leading to a first date in an eerie B and B restaurant straight out of The Shining. Morgenthaler’s description of that disastrous outing is sure to prompt belly laughter from readers. Meanwhile, in a quirky subplot, Lana hopes to win over the rest of the townsfolk by capturing the elusive Santa Moose, a rampaging animal that destroys the town’s Christmas decorations year after year. Tight plotting, hilarious supporting characters—especially grumpy diner owner Graham and his sunny girlfriend, Zoey—and adorable romance will keep readers turning the pages. This holiday rom-com can be enjoyed at any time of year. (Publishers Weekly, August 2020)
Little threats / Emily Schultz
In 2008, Kennedy Wynn, the protagonist of this taut psychological thriller from Schultz, is released from prison 15 years after she pleaded guilty to the murder of her best friend, Haley Kimberson, whose body she found in the woods outside Richmond, Va., where the teenage girls were partying the night before. The state’s preponderance of evidence against Kennedy persuaded her to confess to the crime, even though she couldn’t remember what happened that night. Kennedy’s twin sister remains convinced that Kennedy really does remember, the boyfriend Kennedy and Haley once shared taunts her, and a crime show host encourages those closest to Haley to revisit the evidence. Much of Kennedy and Haley’s relationship unfolds through the writing exercises Kennedy does while in prison, leaving the impression that of all the people involved in the tragedy, Kennedy has done the most introspection, while those left on the outside remain trapped in old enmities and insecurities. The emotional energy of the story carries the book through and Schultz knows how to keep the reader engrossed. (Publishers Weekly, September 2020)
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New Books – December 2020
The new books for December 2020 are now available to borrow, with new ebooks and audiobooks.
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