As we’re a mere few weeks away from Christmas I thought I’d put together a series of book posts about some titles I’m particularly interested in or excited about. I know there are a few of you out there with tastes similar to mine, so let us ponder and sigh over these together. If you’re looking for present ideas for somebody, perhaps these might help you with that task.
All That I Am, Anna Funder, Penguin
Taken from Penguin’s website:
Based on real people and events, All That I Am is a masterful and exhilarating exploration of bravery and betrayal, of the risks and sacrifices some people make for their beliefs, and of heroism hidden in the most unexpected places. Anna Funder confirms her place as one of our finest writers with this gripping, compassionate, inspiring first novel.
All That I Am was the #1 Bestselling book at the Dymocks bookstore during the Melbourne Writers’ Festival, which was about the same time I saw Anna on Q&A and featured in the press. I was struck by her poise, intelligence and grace and have wanted to read this, and Stasliand, ever since.
The Marriage Plot, Jeffrey Eugenides, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
The Virgin Suicides and Middlesex are two personal favourites of mine (The Virgin Suicides, particularly), so I cannot wait to read Eugenides’ new novel which:
(Its cast) consists mostly of bright, go-getting young Ivy Leaguers, and its storyline follows their love entanglements and spiritual crises during the early 1980s as they pursue and escape each other through a variety of colourful locations that stretch from Cape Cod to Monte Carlo to Calcutta. {source}
Silence, Rodney Hall, Pier 9
No selection would be complete for me without one short story collection and this month it’s Silence by Rodney Hall. Only just released, there’s a lovely write-up about it in The Australian which I recommend.
Autumn Laing, Alex Miller, Allen and Unwin
I should say, right here, that I didn’t understand all the fuss about Lovesong at first. I liked it, I enjoyed it, but that was about all. Or so I thought. But somehow it crept under my skin and still, today, ages after I finished it, I find myself thinking about certain passages; they drift through my memory like a welcome breeze. If Autumn Laing does anything similar, it would be well worth checking out.
From the publisher’s website:
Autumn Laing has long outlived the legendary circle of artists she cultivated in the 1930s. Now ‘old and skeleton gaunt’, she reflects on her tumultuous relationship with the abundantly talented Pat Donlon and the effect it had on her husband, on Pat’s wife and the body of work which launched Pat’s career. A brilliantly alive and insistently energetic story of love, loyalty and creativity.
Before I Go to Sleep, S.J. Watson, Text Publishing
There is something fascinating about a book with a character who has lost his or her memory; how their place in the world is tested and compromised every day, what it teaches those nearest and dearest to them. The Housekeeper and the Professor is my most recent read which is based around this theme and I’ve been hearing good things about Before I Go to Sleep, so it’s another one I want to dive into.
From the publisher’s website:
Each day, Christine wakes knowing nothing of her life. Each night, her mind erases the day. But before she goes to sleep, she will recover fragments from her past, flashbacks to the accident that damaged her, and then—mercifully—she will forget.
Chilling, exquisitely crafted and compulsively readable, S. J. Watson’s debut novel Before I Go to Sleep is a psychological thriller of the highest order. It asks primary questions. Are there things best not remembered? Who are we if we do not know our own history? How do we love without memory?
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What are your Christmas/summer reads going to be? What titles will you be buying, either for yourself or others? Tune in later this week to see my non-fiction and children’s titles posts.
