SMSA (Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts)
New Book Highlights
BIOGRAPHY
| Brown, Craig, | One two three four |
| Tickner, R. E. | Ten doors down |
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GENERAL FICTION
| Adimi, Kaouther, | A bookshop in Algiers |
| Appleyard, Meredith, | When Grace went away |
| Arbuthnot, Leaf, | Looking for Eliza |
| Arguile, Katherine Tamiko, | The things she owned |
| Bennett, Brit, | The vanishing half |
| Bradley, Nick, | The cat and the city |
| Downes, Anna, | The safe place |
| Ewan, Chris, | A window breaks |
| Kwan, Kevin | Sex and vanity |
| Lowe, Fiona, | Just an ordinary family |
| Mabanckou, Alain, | The death of Comrade President |
| Macken, Frances, | You have to make your own fun around here |
| Majumdar, Megha, | A burning |
| McCall Smith, Alexander, | The geometry of holding hands |
| Messina, Laura Imai, | The phone box at the edge of the world |
| Moon, Josephine, | The cake maker’s wish |
| Moshfegh, Ottessa, | Death in her hands |
| Neeme, Imbi, | The spill |
| Oates, Joyce Carol, | Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars. |
| Persaud, Hannah, | The codes of love |
| Phinn, Gervase, | The school at the top of the Dale |
| Rosner, Jennifer, | Yellow bird sings |
| Rossi, Alan, | Mountain road, late at night |
| Rubin, Gareth, | The winter agent |
| Toon, Paige | The minute I saw you |
| Williams, Pip | The Dictionary of Lost Words |
A burning / Megah Majumdar
A terrorist attack, 100 lives lost and the scapegoating of the Muslim community to further political ambition. Another day in the West? Not this time. This is India and a literary thriller detailing the value of life and the difficulty in escaping a rigid caste system. Jivan is a Muslim girl trying to climb out of poverty. She lives in a house in the slums behind the rubbish tip, works in a clothing store and teaches English to Lovely, a hijra. Lovely wants a better life through an acting career. Jivan’s old teacher, Mr PT Sir is on his own upward journey, captivated by the populist nationalism of rightwing politics and the Jana Kalyan Party. The party translates as ‘wellbeing for all’, where ‘all’ tends to mean those in the party hierarchy. Jivan is arraigned for trial and both Lovely and PT Sir give evidence. However, both of them have their own agendas. This is not a happy Bollywood-style romance, although it’s not without its humour. It’s fast-paced, with short sentences and brief chapters in multiple voices. Don’t mistake that for simplicity, though. There are ample literary devices throughout. Majumdar carries off the different voices with aplomb: no mean feat for a first novel. The narrative is marvellously descriptive, with food a recurrent motif. There are wonderful examples of juxtaposition, particularly the clash between modernity and superstition. Thematically, the novel deals with gender imbalance, corruption and ambition. The title is interesting, both for what it says, and what it doesn’t. Burning, as a noun, could relate to the terrorist attack, or to a life turned to ash. If it were an adjective, however, it could be part of an unfinished phrase. The unsaid word is ‘desire’. Every character has a burning desire to improve their life. By whatever means available. Some will succeed, others won’t. Sometimes getting further up the ladder requires treading on the heads of others. Don’t look down. This book is extremely well written. It is not without its flaws, but the themes, issues, insights into daily Indian life, and the ethical and moral conundrums this assured debut offers will keep readers riveted and book club discussions enlivened. At one point, Jivan asks, ‘What can words do? Not very much.’ I disagree; you will disagree. The words in this novel can move mountains. (Good Reading Magazine, June 2020)
The yellow bird sings / Jennifer Rosner
The context of The Yellow Bird Sings is one that, unfortunately, we’re all too familiar with. At the centre of the story is Roza and her daughter, Shira. Their lives ought to have been ordinary but it is 1941, they are Polish, and they are also Jewish. The book opens with mother and daughter hiding in a barn loft, ‘no larger than three strides by four’. Compared to their fate if they remained in their village, or decamped to the woods, the loft is their best chance of survival. Yet Rosa faces a minute-by-minute struggle to keep five-year old Shira quiet and creates a story of a yellow bird to keep her entertained. After years of captivity, Roza arrives at the difficult conclusion that Shira’s best chance of survival is one in which she shares no part. The beautiful paradox of this novel is that the historical background is beyond grim – every member of Rosna’s family has died at the hands of the Nazis. And yet, by centering the mother-daughter relationship, Jennifer Rosner succeeds in making this story an uplifting and engaging one. Rosner’s prose is simple and elegant and she keeps the story moving along at a strong pace. She paints the landscape and her characters expertly, so that I keenly felt, for example, Roza’s desperate hunger and the deep ache for her child. The Yellow Bird Sings takes a vital fragment of 20th-century history that is so heavily bound in horror and grief and succeeds in endowing it with poignancy and beauty. As a consequence, it’s a captivating read. If you want a reminder that human beings have endured far worse crises than the current one, and that dark stories can have silver linings, The Yellow Bird Sings would be an excellent choice for these times. (Good Reading Magazine, June 2020)
The minute I saw you / Paige Toon
Hannah is a 27-year-old dispensing optician who is house-sitting her uncle’s cottage and dog in Grantchester, a small village near Cambridge. She’s back after a long time travelling and she doesn’t do relationships. Which is lucky, because she is quickly attracted to the sexy, confident Sonny who shows up to have his eyes tested. He doesn’t do relationships either and she thinks a quick fling will suit them both. But Sonny receives devastating news that makes him question everything. He decides changes are needed and begins with a vow of abstinence. Hannah thinks it will be easier to settle being friends but there is a sizzling chemistry between them. As Hannah supports Sonny, she is confronted with questions about her own life that she’s spent years trying to avoid. Do they carry too much baggage and are they too damaged to dream of having a future together? Beneath the surface of their privileged lives – boating along the river, weekends in Amsterdam, frequent catch-ups with friends in beer gardens – both Hannah and Sonny are dealing with (or avoiding dealing with) childhood secrets. This novel fizzes along delightfully, with fun characters and snappy dialogue. But it’s not all sunshine – as well as romance, Toon also examines some serious issues, including toxic masculinity, depression, the destructive ways in which people try and cope with trauma, and the power of friendship to offer support in dark times. Fans will be delighted by another cracking read by bestselling author Paige Toon. (Good Reading Magazine, June 2020)
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HISTORICAL FICTION
| DeRoux, Margaux, | The lost diary of Venice |
| Grenville, Kate, | A room made of leaves |
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MYSTERY
| Arlidge, M. J., | All fall down |
| Bannalec, Jean-Luc, | The missing corpse |
| Chien, Vivien, | Egg drop dead |
| Connelly, Michael, | Fair warning |
| Craven, M. W. | The Curator |
| Davis, Lindsey, | The grove of the Caesars |
| Firkin, Katherine, | Sticks and Stones |
| Horst, Jorn Lier, | The inner darkness |
| Izzo, Jean-Claude. | Total chaos |
| Jonasson, Ragnar | The mist |
| Lesser, Wendy, | Scandinavian noir |
| Patterson, James, | The Summer House |
| Pearse, Lesley, | Liar |
| Perry, Kyle, | The bluffs |
| Sandford, John, | Masked prey |
| Slaughter, Karin, | The silent wife |
| Steiner, Susie, | Remain silent |
| Szymiczkowa, Maryla, | Mrs. Mohr goes missing |
| Taylor, C. L., | Strangers |
| Tursten, Helene, | Winter grave |
The bluffs / Kyle Perry
Remote landscapes are often the source of legends and sometimes have the power to summon up irrational fears. In the wilderness of Tasmania’s Great Western Tiers, where the misty, impenetrable Bluffs tower above the residents of a small country town, a group of schoolgirls on a school hike disappear. Shades of Picnic at Hanging Rock? Only this time a legend has evolved about a Hungry Man who takes girls that walk alone by the mountain trees. In 1985, five girls were taken in the same area and never found. In the spine-tingling prologue their teacher, Eliza, is alone, facedown in the gravel of the hiking track. The back of her head is bleeding. Four girls have disappeared. Murphy’s daughter Jasmine, is one of the missing girls. In his desperate attempt to find Jasmine himself, he becomes a loose cannon, running foul of the police in charge, and assaulting those who impede his progress. Detective Con Badenhorst heads up the case. He struggles with trauma stress and has to contend with a local policeman who wants to bring Murphy down. There’s brilliant characterisation of good versus bad cop issues. Kyle Perry is a youth counsellor so his plots and characters bristle with real life. He explores the power of social media for evil through the high school YouTube queen, who manipulates her friends and the Indigenous legends of the area to increase her popularity. Perry has been lost in Tasmanian mountains twice, and seen strange things that defy explanation. His atmospheric description of landscape is vivid and chilling and the legend of the Hungry Man raises its fearful head. This is an intricately woven, cerebrally stimulating tale with many false leads and surprises leading to a suspenseful, unpredictable end. An ambitious and enjoyable debut. (Good Reading Magazine, July 2020)
Mrs Mohr goes missing / Maryla Szymiczkowa
Set in 1893 Cracow, this exceptional debut and series launch from Polish author Szymiczkowa (the pen name of writing duo Jacek Dehnel and Piotr Tarczynski) introduces Zofia Turbotynska, a 38-year-old professor’s wife, who finds household management, novel reading, and the search for social prestige insufficient outlets for her prodigious energy. At a nursing home run by nuns that she visits to promote a charitable cause, she becomes involved in the search for a missing resident, Antonina Mohr, a judge’s widow. Zofia questions the home’s staff and residents, hiding her unofficial investigation from both the mother superior and her husband. After Mohr’s suspiciously pink-hued corpse is found in an attic, Zofia pressures the resident doctor until an autopsy reveals cyanide poisoning. The strangling of one of the home’s impoverished residents complicates the puzzle. The preface offers helpful context on place and period, while the translation showcases the novel’s deliciously ironic voice. Fans who like colorful locales and tongue-in-cheek mysteries will eagerly await Zofia’s next outing. (Publishers Weekly, 7 January 2020)
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NON FICTION
| Figes, Orlando, | The Europeans | 940.28 FIGE |
| Hong, Cathy Park, | Minor feelings | 305.489 HONG |
| Khalidi, Rashid, | The hundred years war on Palestine | 956.9405 KHAL |
| Morris, Jan, | Thinking again | 828.914 MORR |
| Southwell-Keely, Peter | The School Of Chemistry | 374 SOUTH |
The Europeans / Orlando Figes
A prodigiously researched account of the spread of culture throughout the mid and late 19th century using three specific biographies to personalize the voluminous historical data. Figes (History/Birkbeck Coll., Univ. of London; Revolutionary Russia, 1891-1991, 2014, etc.) returns with another astonishing work displaying his vast knowledge of art, music, literature, culture, and history. Wisely, he uses three people to embody much of his discussion: Russian writer Ivan Turgenev, French singer Pauline Viardot, and her husband, Louis, a political activist and literary figure. The author follows these three over the decades—Turgenev and Pauline had an intimate relationship that Louis tolerated—and through their stories, we see specific instances of the cultural changes Figes illuminates throughout the book. The growth of railways, the advances in photography and publication, the explosion in literary translations, the vast increase in literacy—these and other factors increased the development of a kind of common European culture that only the growth of nationalism, and the consequent wars, could weaken. “The arts played a central role in this evolving concept of a European cultural identity,” writes Figes. “More than religion or political beliefs, they were seen as uniting people across the Continent.” This necessitated the “recognition that any national culture is a result of a constant dialogue across state boundaries and of the assimilation of separate artistic traditions into a larger European world.” Turgenev and the Viardots traveled continually: She was a popular singer, and, initially, it was her financial success that supported her family. Later, her voice gone, it was Turgenev’s writing and generosity. In many ways, the text is a who’s who of the time period. Liszt, Dickens, Balzac, Hugo, George Sand, Chopin, Tolstoy, Flaubert—these and countless other icons move smoothly through the narrative, a rich mélange of tasty ingredients. There are some mild surprises, too: Mary Shelley briefly wanders in (we read Victor Frankenstein’s description of the Rhine), and Henry James makes some cameos. A powerful and essential addition to our understanding of European history and culture. (Kirkus Reviews, 1 August 2019)
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SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY
| Allington, Patrick, | Rise and shine |
Rise and shine / Patrick Allington
Two city-states, Rise and Shine, are all that’s left after an apocalypse has destroyed the world as we know it. In this dystopian future, Rise and Shine wage perpetual war against each other, which is actually the means of survival for those who are left. With crops and livestock blighted, citizens are ‘fed’ by watching war footage and being moved by compassion at human suffering. Of course, some people remember the Old Time and those they’ve lost, but mostly people get on with life in the New Time. Rise is led by Walker, who along with his friend Barton (now the leader of Shine), helped save the world and set the new course. But Walker has become afflicted by a mysterious illness that is likely to kill him, and his spies have discovered that others are also suffering from the same illness. Is hope and compassion enough to sustain people through their despairing memories? Or is there a conspiracy afoot that is trying to find another way to live? It felt apt to read this clever novel during the COVID-19 lockdown. This new world is richly imagined and described and close enough to our own world to feel scarily possible. Questions about climate change and survival are raised. A welcome change is that this world is run by humane leaders who seem to have people’s best interests at heart. (Good Reading Magazine, June 2020)
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New additions to eBooks at SMSA
EBOOKS
| Animal stories | Masson, Jeffrey | Lost companions |
| Biography | Wainwright, Robert | Enid |
| General novels | Allott, Susan | The silence |
| General novels | Bradley, Nick | The cat and the city |
| General novels | Cooper, Tea | The house on Boundary Street |
| General novels | Haran, Maeve | The Greek holiday |
| General novels | Tu, Jessie | A lonely girl is dangerous thing |
| General novels | Unsworth, Emma | Adults |
| Mystery | Brady, A. F. | Once a liar |
| Mystery | Connelly, Michael | Fair warning |
| Mystery | Diamond, Katerina | The heatwave |
| Mystery | Tursten, Helene | Winter grave |
| Non fiction | Morishita, Noriko | The wisdom of tea |
| Non fiction | Temple-Camp, Cynric | The quick and the dead |
The silence / Susan Allott
In 1997, a phone call from Isla Green’s father pulls her back home to Australia for the first time in a decade. Thirty years ago, the Greens’ neighbour Mandy disappeared amid talk of a broken marriage, but now her family is trying to reconnect, and the last person to see Mandy alive was Isla’s father. For Isla, returning to Sydney brings with it fraught childhood memories and the confrontation of her own demons. Split between Isla’s arrival back in Sydney in 1997, and that fraught summer in 1967 before Mandy disappeared, The Silence is told from multiple points of view. As Isla unravels the past that links these two families, the reader is drawn into a story of the many buried secrets hidden within the idyllic image of the perfect Australian suburban life. At the centre of all this is the catalyst for the story: the Stolen Generation and the taking of Indigenous children from their families. This is a slow-paced novel and, while there is focus on character development, at times it lacks the depth to really make an impact, and seems to centre more on white guilt than the atrocities committed. However, the meticulous research Allott has done is evident between the pages and, by the ending, coupled with a brilliant authors’ note on The Stolen Generation, you are reminded why this piece of history should never be silenced. (Good Reading Magazine, July 2020)
Winter grave / Helene Tursten
Det. Insp. Embla Nystrom, who’s also a big game hunter and Nordic light welterweight champion, has a lot on her plate in Tursten’s fast-paced sequel to 2018’s Hunting Game. In Strömstad in western Sweden, she takes on a lethal combination of two missing children, arson, and a policeman’s murder. On the personal side, she has a torrid affair with the married lawyer of a suspect and must cope with nightmares about a lost friend. Though badly injured when assaulted by a man during a moose hunt the previous year, Embla relishes the thrill of the hunt, whether stalking wild boar—or killers bent on gory revenge. Embla and her team manage to create satisfying personal relationships and enjoy some great nights out, and the villains get appropriately punished. Embla also crosses paths with Tursten’s other detective heroine, Irene Huss, and their professional chemistry clicks. Readers will be curious to see how Tursten develops her complex lead in future outings. (Publishers Weekly, 7 October 2019)
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AUDIOBOOKS
| General novels | Cleeton, Chanel | The last train to Key West |
| General novels | Desai, Sara | The marriage game |
| General novels | Bell, David | The request |
| General novels | Rosen, Jane | Eliza starts a rumor |
| General novels | Stein, Leigh | Self care |
| Mystery | Andrews, Donna | Access denied |
| Mystery | Young, Kate | Southern sass and killer cravings |
| Mystery | Crombie, Deborah | And justice there is none |
| Mystery | Day, Maggie | Nacho average murder |
| Mystery | Harrison, Helen | An exquisite corpse |
| Mystery | Yu, Ovidia | Aunty Lee’s delights |
| Mystery | Stone, Lisa | Stalker |
| Mystery | Williams, J. C. | The seaside Detective Agency |
| Non fiction | Oluo, Ijeoma | So you want to talk about race |
The last train to Key West / Chanel Cleeton
Elizabeth Preston, one of three spunky heroines in Cleeton’s loosely braided historical (after When We Left Cuba), finds herself caught in a killer hurricane in the Florida Keys over Labor Day weekend in 1935, having fled New York City to avoid marrying gangster Frank Morgan and instead search for a WWI vet who wrote her a letter. Elizabeth’s train stops in Key West, where she meets the heavily pregnant Helen Berner, a waitress at Ruby’s restaurant. Married for nine years to Tom, an abusive alcoholic fisherman, Helen fantasizes about a new life. Also at Ruby’s is newlywed Mirta Perez Cordero, who is on the way to joining her husband, Anthony, at their honeymoon beach house. After Tom threatens Helen, she flees up the Keys to Islamorada, determined to protect her unborn child. Elizabeth, worried she might be tailed by one of Frank’s lackeys, allows a man she met on the train to accompany her. During a terrifying ordeal at the height of the hurricane, after Mirta discovers what business her husband is in, she is forced to confront the limits of her loyalty. The author neatly ties up the trio of plotlines, revealing the slender—and very convenient—threads connecting the women. Cleeton finds the right balance of historical detail and suspense, making this a riveting curl-up-on-the-couch affair. (Publishers Weekly, 15 June 2020)
The marriage game / Sarah Desai
Desai’s delightful debut is a playful take on enemies-to-lovers and arranged marriage tropes starring two headstrong Desi-American protagonists. Layla Patel returns home to San Francisco from New York City after losing her job, her boyfriend, and her self-respect. Her father, determined to fix her life, offers her the office space above his restaurant (which he neglects to tell Sam Mehta, the current tenant), and makes her a profile on an Indian dating site (which he neglects to tell Layla). Sam refuses to vacate the office space, but Layla sets up shop there anyway. The pair instantly clash, but when suitors from the dating website show up at the office hoping to woo Layla, Sam feels oddly protective. They strike a bet: if Layla finds a husband among the blind dates her father set up, she has to surrender the office to Sam, if she doesn’t, then Sam must leave the office. As part of their deal, Sam will chaperone her dates to protect her from the judgement of her hypertraditional suitors. It’s a blast to witness Sam and Layla exchange flirtatious barbs as their snarky chemistry blossoms into something real over the course of Layla’s hilariously disastrous dates. Rom-com fans should take note of this fresh, fun offering. (Publishers Weekly, 6 April 2020)
So you want to talk about race / Ijeoma Oluo
Narrator Bahni Turpin’s impassioned voice clearly conveys the gravity of this book on race and racism. The accessible audiobook is aimed at those who are working to fight the systemic oppression impacting people of color. Turpin walks listeners through each chapter, allowing them time to absorb the impact of topics from Affirmative Action to police brutality. Key points are repeated to help listeners absorb ideas and definitions, and Turpin engagingly reads real-life examples Oluo uses to illustrate complex concepts such as intersectionality and white privilege. Listeners may want to revisit specific sections, especially those on how to have productive and respectful conversations about race and positive actions they can take to work towards ending racial prejudice backed by systems of power. (Audiofile 2018)
Self care / Leigh Stein
In this sharp satire, Stein (The Fallback Plan) revels in wellness culture gone toxic. Devin Avery and Maren Gelb are cofounders of Richual, a Goop-like lifestyle company seeking to “catalyze women to be global changemakers through the simple act of self-care.” (That the company doesn’t have a maternity leave policy is a particularly juicy irony.) Richual uses sponsored content, paid influencers, confessional blog postings, and merchandise like “Believe Victims” beach towels to attract and monetize its user base. Devin, rich and devoted to a strenuous dietary and beauty regimen, is the face of the company, while Maren, who got her start working for a nonprofit feminist organization and has a mountain of student loan debt, ensures Richual runs “like a well-moisturized machine.” That machine hits a rough patch after a woman publishes an essay about the problematic sexual predilections of Evan, a former Bachelorette contestant and prominent male investor in Richual, threatening the company’s feminist bona fides and driving a wedge between its cofounders. The plot flies by, but the real appeal lies in Stein’s merciless skewering of startup culture, bloviating entrepreneurs, fatuous trends, and woker-than-thou internet denizens, a vanity fair of 20-somethings who are at once conspicuously privileged yet vulnerable, earnest yet hypocritical, navel-gazing yet engaged, independent-minded yet tribal. Stein’s sharp writing separates her from the pack in this exquisite, Machiavellian morality tale about the ethics of looking out for oneself. (Publishers Weekly, 6 April 2020)
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New Books — July 2020
The new books for July 2020 are now available to borrow, with new ebooks and audiobooks.
We hope you enjoy them!
- New books may be borrowed for a period of two weeks only and may not be renewed.
- Books remain listed as “New Books” for two months.
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