Previous posts in this Christmas recommendation series include picture books, junior books, middle-grade books and cookbooks.
Love is Strong as Death – Poems chosen by Paul Kelly by Paul Kelly
You should’ve seen me sit up in my chair when I first heard word about this book coming out. Yes, I said. Take my money.
Then when I went to find it at the bookshop, the person in front of me asked for it and the shop assistants had to go out the back and find a copy because although it had arrived it hadn’t been unboxed yet. I wouldn’t be surprised if the demand is similar in other places!
If poetry isn’t your thing, or to your usual taste, or intimidating, I’ll let Kelly explain his point of view:
“Many people I know say they feel poetry is difficult. That it seems ‘worthwhile’ but that ‘worthiness’ puts them off. Fair enough. But poetry is friendlier than they think.”
Those are the lovely opening lines to his Introduction, which can be found – along with the extract, which includes the selected poems – at the publisher’s website if you’d like more information.
One last personal note: he includes my favourite poem, ‘Dover Beach’ by Matthew Arnold, so that’s an automatic thumbs up.
Grand Union: Stories by Zadie Smith
Fans of Zadie Smith and lovers of short fiction (if you’re both, then woo!) will be excited to learn that the beloved and respected author’s first collection of stories has just been released. The publisher’s website states:
“Interleaving ten completely new and unpublished stories with some of her best-loved pieces from the New Yorker and elsewhere, Zadie Smith presents a sharply alert and slyly prescient collection about time and place, identity and rebirth, the persistent legacies that haunt our present selves and the uncanny futures that rush up to meet us.”
This is good for those of us (*cough* me) who aren’t entirely caught up with her previously published work, thus potentially making this book a new material discovery. An extract is available to read via the publisher’s website link if you want to take a look.
Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout
The sequel to the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Olive Kitteridge is here.
“Olive, Again follows the blunt, contradictory yet deeply loveable Olive Kitteridge as she grows older, navigating the second half of her life as she comes to terms with the changes – sometimes welcome, sometimes not – in her own existence and in those around her.
Olive adjusts to her new life with her second husband, challenges her estranged son and his family to accept him, experiences loss and loneliness, witnesses the triumphs and heartbreaks of her friends and neighbours in the small coastal town of Crosby, Maine – and, finally, opens herself to new lessons about life.” (Taken from the publisher’s website, where you can read an extract.)
This novel, much like The Weekend, which I’ll get to shortly, is concerned with the themes of relationships and belonging and how that can change. No doubt this will already be on the wish lists of Olive – and Strout! – fans.
Damascus by Christos Tsiolkas
“Christos Tsiolkas’ stunning new novel Damascus is a work of soaring ambition and achievement, of immense power and epic scope, taking as its subject nothing less than events surrounding the birth and establishment of the Christian church. Based around the gospels and letters of St Paul, and focusing on characters one and two generations on from the death of Christ, as well as Paul (Saul) himself, Damascus nevertheless explores the themes that have always obsessed Tsiolkas as a writer: class, religion, masculinity, patriarchy, colonisation, exile; the ways in which nations, societies, communities, families and individuals are united and divided – it’s all here, the contemporary and urgent questions, perennial concerns made vivid and visceral.” (Taken from the publisher’s website, where you can read the opening pages.)
Just last week, Damascus was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards 2020 for fiction. ‘A work of soaring ambition and achievement’ is a great description, and Tsiolkas is the perfect writer to take on such a challenge. As a Catholic (former? occasional? lapsed?)(I still feel the past tense isn’t quite applicable), I’ve felt a tugging of complex and uncomfortable worries over the years and while reading this novel (disclaimer: at time of publishing I’m still only halfway through) I feel in the middle of something intimate and intelligent. It offers comfort. I hope that makes sense.
The Weekend by Charlotte Wood
The Weekend is set at a property by the ocean in the days leading up to Christmas, so it’s certainly a time-appropriate novel! It’s the story of three women with disparate personalities who are cleaning out the house of their deceased friend. It examines the complexities of life and ageing, and Wood’s observations are clear and honest as always. I read it quickly, it certainly gathered me in fast. I’ve also thought a lot about it since; I’ve pondered the relationships I have – and want – as I get older. What will our futures look like? Who’ll stay by our side?
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