I’ll begin with Night Games by Anna Krien for several reasons. First because I think it is an important book on an important subject. Second is everyone I know who has read it loves it. Third is because I have a crush on Anna; I think she’s terrific. Taken from The Monthly:
Krien’s new book, Night Games, is about a rape trial, but it is also about top-level football and the treatment of women. It is about the problem of prosecuting sexual assault, especially in light of what Krien calls “the grey area, this gulf of uncertainty between consent and rape”. More than that, it is about the struggle to know the truth in human relations: why the law can fail to find it, and whether a writer can do better. Finally, it is about the author herself, and the perilous journey she has undertaken in writing this book.
In other reviews Night Games has been compared to Helen Garner’s The First Stone, which I loved.
Moving on from sports to sciences – more into my husband’s area of interest – Seven Elements That Have Changed the World is written by John Browne, former chief of BP – certainly an intriguing candidate to be writing such a book. These elements, in case you’re wondering are iron, carbon, gold, silver, uranium, titanium and silicon. If you want to learn about these elements, or perhaps get an insight into a man who knows the petroleum industry, then this might be for you.
I’m not big on book trailers – that’s mostly because those I’ve seen have generally not been that great. However, this one for Tell my Sons: A Father’s Last Letters is quite effective. Not only do you get an idea of what the book will be about, but you’re introduced to the author, get a glimpse of his family, with the requisite testimonials thrown in as well.
It will certainly be emotional.
The next four choices are very cheeky of me because they’re not released yet. I know, I know. Maybe if you’re the kind of book-voucher-buying-person such as I am, then you can suggest these as you hand over the envelope.
John Safran’s Murder in Mississippi (due end of September) sounds compelling. Blurb from Penguin:
When filming his TV series Race Relations, John Safran spent an uneasy couple of days with one of Mississippi’s most notorious white supremacists. A year later, he heard that the man had been murdered – and what was more, the killer was black.
At first the murder seemed a twist on the old Deep South race crimes. But then more news rolled in. Maybe it was a dispute over money, or most intriguingly, over sex. Could the infamous racist actually have been secretly gay, with a thing for black men? Did Safran have the last footage of him alive? Could this be the story of a lifetime? Seizing his Truman Capote moment, he jumped on a plane to cover the trial.
Sounds gusty and compelling.
The next three are highly anticipated novels from very accomplished and well-loved authors: it’s been eleven years since Tartt’s last novel, almost five since Tsiolkas’ and just over that for Winton. So fans have been waiting! The latter two are out in October – Tartt’s in November.
From the publisher’s websites:
Aged thirteen, Theo Decker, son of a devoted mother and a reckless, largely absent father, survives an accident that otherwise tears his life apart. Alone and rudderless in New York, he is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. He is tormented by an unbearable longing for his mother, and down the years clings to one thing that reminds him of her: a small, strangely captivating painting that ultimately draws him into the criminal underworld. As he grows up, Theo learns to glide between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love – and his talisman, the painting, places him at the centre of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle.
His whole life Danny Kelly’s only wanted one thing: to win Olympic gold. Everything he’s ever done – every thought, every dream, every action – takes him closer to that moment of glory, of vindication, when the world will see him for what he is: the fastest, the strongest and the best. His life has been a preparation for that moment.
Barracuda is about living in Australia right now, about class and sport and politics and migration and education. It contains everything a person is: family and friendship and love and work, the identities we inhabit and discard, the means by which we fill the holes at our centre. It’s brutal and tender and blazingly brilliant; everything we have come to expect from this fearless vivisector of our lives and world.
Tom Keely’s reputation is in ruins.
And that’s the upside.Divorced and unemployed, he’s lost faith in everything precious to him. Holed up in a grim highrise, cultivating his newfound isolation, Keely looks down at a society from which he’s retired hurt and angry. He’s done fighting the good fight, and well past caring.
But even in his seedy flat, ducking the neighbours, he’s not safe from entanglement. All it takes is an awkward encounter in the lobby. A woman from his past, a boy the likes of which he’s never met before. Two strangers leading a life beyond his experience and into whose orbit he falls despite himself.
What follows is a heart-stopping, groundbreaking novel for our times – funny, confronting, exhilarating and haunting. Inhabited by unforgettable characters, Eyrie asks how, in an impossibly compromised world, we can ever hope to do the right thing.
What would your picks be? Are you buying books for Father’s Day? Do tell!
