en-US Sat, 26 Apr 2025 04:14:19 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 216463546 It's 1974 in the Riverina

The weather is hot

But the body in the Murray River is stone cold . . .

A captivating and compulsive crime thriller about guns, drugs and a young woman dead on the money

Riverina 1974:

When nineteen-year-old farmgirl Adelaide Hoffman applies for a cadetship at the Gunnawah Gazette, she sees it as her ticket out of a life too small for her. Its owner, Valdene Bullark, sees something of the girl she once was in young Adelaide.

Val puts Adelaide straight to work. What starts as a routine assignment covering an irrigation project soon puts Adelaide on the trail of a much bigger story. Water is money in farming communities, and when Adelaide starts asking questions, it's as if she's poked a stick in a bull ant's nest. Violence follows. Someone will do whatever it takes to stop Adelaide and Val finding out how far the river of corruption and crime runs.

Shady deals. Vested interests. A labyrinth of lies. It seems everyone in Gunnawah has a secret to keep. But how many want to stop Adelaide dead?

Set deep in the heart of rural Australia during the era of Gough Whitlam, pub brawls and flared jeans, Gunnawah is a compulsive crime thriller of corruption, guns and drugs from Australian Noir's most arresting new voice. ]]> 319 Ronni Salt 0733653243 David 4 currently-reading, read-2025 3.85
author: Ronni Salt
name: David
average rating: 3.85
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/26
date added: 2025/04/26
shelves: currently-reading, read-2025
review:

]]> 205973370
“How rare, this delicacy—this calm, sweet, desolated wisdom.”—Helen Garner

The Burrow follows members of the Lee family as they navigate grief and hope in their quiet Australian Jin, an emergency physician and father; Amy, a published author and mother; Lucie, their bookish and introverted ten-year-old; and Pauline, Amy’s mother who’s trying to make amends. Racked with grief for Ruby—Lucie’s baby sister who died in a shocking accident—the family adopts a rabbit in the hopes of bringing much-needed cheer to their home. At first, each family member benefits from the distraction of a new and needy creature, but when a violent home invasion breaks their fragile sense of peace, the family is forced to confront the terrible circumstances surrounding Ruby’s death.Atmospheric and tautly lyrical, Melanie Cheng’s slim novel brings together four distinct perspectives—and one wide-eyed rabbit—to reveal the enormity of loss, long-buried family secrets, and how to survive in a newfound world after the ultimate tragedy.]]> 200 Melanie Cheng 1959030868 David 4 read-2025 3.99 2024
author: Melanie Cheng
name: David
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/15
date added: 2025/04/15
shelves: read-2025
review:

]]> 15997 Paradise Lost is one of the greatest epic poems in the English language. It tells the story of the Fall of Man, a tale of immense drama and excitement, of rebellion and treachery, of innocence pitted against corruption, in which God and Satan fight a bitter battle for control of mankind's destiny. The struggle rages across three worlds - heaven, hell, and earth - as Satan and his band of rebel angels plot their revenge against God. At the center of the conflict are Adam and Eve, who are motivated by all too human temptations but whose ultimate downfall is unyielding love.

Marked by Milton's characteristic erudition, Paradise Lost is a work epic both in scale and, notoriously, in ambition. For nearly 350 years, it has held generation upon generation of audiences in rapt attention, and its profound influence can be seen in almost every corner of Western culture.]]> 453 John Milton 0140424393 David 3 read-2025 3.83 1667
author: John Milton
name: David
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1667
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/08
date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: read-2025
review:

]]> 56791389 Alternate cover edition of ASIN B08BKGYQXW


The apocalypse will be televised!

A man. His ex-girlfriend's cat. A sadistic game show unlike anything in the universe: a dungeon crawl where survival depends on killing your prey in the most entertaining way possible.

In a flash, every human-erected construction on Earth—from Buckingham Palace to the tiniest of sheds—collapses in a heap, sinking into the ground.

The buildings and all the people inside have all been atomized and transformed into the dungeon: an 18-level labyrinth filled with traps, monsters, and loot. A dungeon so enormous, it circles the entire globe.

Only a few dare venture inside. But once you're in, you can't get out. And what's worse, each level has a time limit. You have but days to find a staircase to the next level down, or it's game over. In this game, it's not about your strength or your dexterity. It's about your followers, your views. Your clout. It's about building an audience and killing those goblins with style.

You can't just survive here. You gotta survive big.

You gotta fight with vigor, with excitement. You gotta make them stand up and cheer. And if you do have that "it" factor, you may just find yourself with a following. That's the only way to truly survive in this game—with the help of the loot boxes dropped upon you by the generous benefactors watching from across the galaxy.

They call it Dungeon Crawler World. But for Carl, it's anything but a game.]]> 446 Matt Dinniman David 5 read-2025 4.49 2020
author: Matt Dinniman
name: David
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/08
date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: read-2025
review:

]]> 33123208
Henry Hoobler is a reluctant adventurer worried about his summer holiday: camping at the beach, bugs, spiders, snakes, stingers, blue ringed octopi and sharks. Worst of all, his family and friends are pushing him to ride his new silver bike without training wheels. But when Henry meets Cassie, he discovers that courage is there to be found when you have a friend who is straight up and true.

A joyous, heart-warming story from the much-loved author of My Big Birkett.
More books by this author]]> 216 Lisa Shanahan 1760293016 David 3 2-3-4-class, read-2025
There were lots of relatable moments in the story. I recalled my own family camping trips �� how is something that is meant to be relaxing so stressful?

There are so many characters in the book. I got a little confused who they all were and what their relationship to Henry was. Cassie is a beautiful character with a deep back story. I wish there was more of her in the book.

I also thought the book dragged on a little bit. The climax was when he rode bike down the hill, but then the book took a little too long to finish after that.

I really liked the book. I enjoyed reading it to my class. I think they got a lot of enjoyment out of it. I do wonder what sort of kid would read this book independently. The main character is 8 and can’t ride a bike yet �� however the vocabulary and writing style is more aimed at upper primary. I don’t think those kids would be so interested in the story. However, as a class novel it worked well.]]> 3.95
author: Lisa Shanahan
name: David
average rating: 3.95
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/07
date added: 2025/04/07
shelves: 2-3-4-class, read-2025
review:
The Grand Genius Summer of Henry Hoobler had an excellent message for young kids. It showed them how taking risks and trying new things can lead to amazing experiences. It’s an important message, especially as parents and educators look for ways to combat anxiety in young people.

There were lots of relatable moments in the story. I recalled my own family camping trips �� how is something that is meant to be relaxing so stressful?

There are so many characters in the book. I got a little confused who they all were and what their relationship to Henry was. Cassie is a beautiful character with a deep back story. I wish there was more of her in the book.

I also thought the book dragged on a little bit. The climax was when he rode bike down the hill, but then the book took a little too long to finish after that.

I really liked the book. I enjoyed reading it to my class. I think they got a lot of enjoyment out of it. I do wonder what sort of kid would read this book independently. The main character is 8 and can’t ride a bike yet �� however the vocabulary and writing style is more aimed at upper primary. I don’t think those kids would be so interested in the story. However, as a class novel it worked well.
]]> 6689 176 Roald Dahl 0375814248 David 4 penny, read-2025, maggie 4.04 1961
author: Roald Dahl
name: David
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1961
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves: penny, read-2025, maggie
review:

]]> 214273049

She’s a passionate Western Bulldogs fan (with an imperfect grasp of the rules) who loves the epic theatre of AFL football. But her devotion to the under-16s offers her something else. This is her chance to connect with her youngest grandchild, to be close to him before he rushes headlong into manhood. To witness his triumphs and defeats, to fear for his safety in battle, to gasp and to cheer for his team as it fights for a place in the finals.


With her sharp eye, her generous wit and her warm humour, Garner documents this pivotal moment, both as part of the story and as silent witness. The Season is an unexpected and exuberant a celebration of the nobility, grace and grit of team spirit, a reflection on the nature of masculinity, and a tribute to the game’s power to thrill us.]]> 0 Helen Garner 1922791814 David 5 read-2025 4.13 2024
author: Helen Garner
name: David
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/05
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: read-2025
review:

]]> 383022 A novel of rare genius, The Man with the Golden Arm describes the dissolution of a card-dealing WWII veteran named Frankie Machine, caught in the act of slowly cutting his own heart into wafer-thin slices. For Frankie, a murder committed may be the least of his problems.
The literary critic Malcolm Cowley called The Man with the Golden Arm Algren's defense of the individual, while Carl Sandburg wrote of its strange midnight dignity. A literary tour de force, here is a novel unlike any other, one in which drug addiction, poverty, and human failure somehow suggest a defense of human dignity and a reason for hope.
Special contributions by Russell Banks, Bettina Drew, James R. Giles, Carlo Rotella, William Savage, Lee Stringer, Studs Terkel, Kurt Vonnegut, and others.]]> 464 Nelson Algren 1583220089 David 0 to-read 3.88 1949
author: Nelson Algren
name: David
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1949
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 13037 253 Lawrence Durrell 0140153195 David 0 to-read 3.86 1957
author: Lawrence Durrell
name: David
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1957
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 28449207 The dream chooses the dreamer, not the other way around��and Lazlo Strange, war orphan and junior librarian, has always feared that his dream chose poorly. Since he was five years old he’s been obsessed with the mythic lost city of Weep, but it would take someone bolder than he to cross half the world in search of it. Then a stunning opportunity presents itself, in the person of a hero called the Godslayer and a band of legendary warriors, and he has to seize his chance or lose his dream forever.

What happened in Weep two hundred years ago to cut it off from the rest of the world? What exactly did the Godslayer slay that went by the name of god? And what is the mysterious problem he now seeks help in solving?

The answers await in Weep, but so do more mysteries—including the blue-skinned goddess who appears in Lazlo’s dreams. How did he dream her before he knew she existed? And if all the gods are dead, why does she seem so real?

Welcome to Weep.]]> 532 Laini Taylor 0316341681 David 0 to-read 4.27 2017
author: Laini Taylor
name: David
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 4264
For Nick Hornby, his devotion to the game has provided one of few constants in a life where the meaningful things - like growing up, leaving home, and forming relationships, both parental and romantic - have rarely been as simple or as uncomplicated as his love for Arsenal.

Fever Pitch is his tribute to a lifelong obsession. Part autobiography, part comedy, part incisive analysis of insanity, Hornby's award-winning memoir captures the fever pitch of fandom �� its agony and ecstasy, its community, and its defining role in thousands of young men's coming-of-age stories. Fever Pitch is one for the home team. But above all, it is one for everyone who knows what it really means to have a losing season.]]> 247 Nick Hornby 1573226882 David 3 read-2025 3.78 1992
author: Nick Hornby
name: David
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1992
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/02
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: read-2025
review:

]]> 220815054 272 Steve MinOn 0702268801 David 0 to-read 4.10
author: Steve MinOn
name: David
average rating: 4.10
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 3853803 181 Ronald Hugh Morrieson 0868636770 David 0 to-read 3.87 1963
author: Ronald Hugh Morrieson
name: David
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1963
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 213891410 Michael and Mary Shelley are Christian fanatics who loathe their fellow Australians �� especially their 'foul language, reckless indulgence of alcohol and obsession with idiotic ball sports'.


Lenore and Tom Blaine are working-class Queensland publicans raising a large family in a raucous, loving, rugby-league-obsessed home.


There's just one problem. The Blaines are foster parents to three of the Shelleys' children, who were removed from Michael and Mary as infants. And the Shelleys are prepared to do anything to get them back. Anything.


Australian Gospel is a family saga like no other �� heartbreaking, hilarious and altogether astonishing.


'One of the best writers of his generation.' Benjamin Law


'Blaine's native tongue, an ocker irreverence, gives his writing an amiable charm and reflects the styles of artists such as Tim Winton, Stella Franklin and Helen Garner.' Australian Book Review ]]> 385 Lech Blaine 174382386X David 0 to-read 4.49
author: Lech Blaine
name: David
average rating: 4.49
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 17333319
Set against Iceland's stark landscape, Hannah Kent brings to vivid life the story of Agnes, who, charged with the brutal murder of her former master, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution.

Horrified at the prospect of housing a convicted murderer, the family at first avoids Agnes. Only Tóti, a priest Agnes has mysteriously chosen to be her spiritual guardian, seeks to understand her. But as Agnes's death looms, the farmer's wife and their daughters learn there is another side to the sensational story they've heard.

Riveting and rich with lyricism, Burial Rites evokes a dramatic existence in a distant time and place, and asks the question, how can one woman hope to endure when her life depends upon the stories told by others?]]> 336 Hannah Kent 0316243914 David 0 to-read 4.00 2013
author: Hannah Kent
name: David
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 119042 278 Miles Franklin 1600963781 David 3 read-2025 3.80 1901
author: Miles Franklin
name: David
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1901
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/27
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: read-2025
review:

]]> 43706466 An intensely powerful new novel from the best-selling author of The Bastard of Istanbul and Honour

'In the first minute following her death, Tequila Leila's consciousness began to ebb, slowly and steadily, like a tide receding from the shore. Her brain cells, having run out of blood, were now completely deprived of oxygen. But they did not shut down. Not right away...'

For Leila, each minute after her death brings a sensuous memory: the taste of spiced goat stew, sacrificed by her father to celebrate the long-awaited birth of a son; the sight of bubbling vats of lemon and sugar which the women use to wax their legs while the men attend mosque; the scent of cardamom coffee that Leila shares with a handsome student in the brothel where she works. Each memory, too, recalls the friends she made at each key moment in her life - friends who are now desperately trying to find her. . .]]> 312 Elif Shafak 0241293863 David 3 read-2025 4.08 2019
author: Elif Shafak
name: David
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/19
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: read-2025
review:

]]> 207627291
Two fugitives, a man and a child, drive all night across a stony desert. As dawn breaks, they roll into an abandoned mine site. From the vehicle they survey a forsaken place �� middens of twisted iron, rusty wire, piles of sun-baked trash. They’re exhausted, traumatised, desperate now. But as a refuge, this is the most promising place they’ve seen. The child peers at the field of desolation. The man thinks to himself, this could work.

Problem is, they’re not alone.

So begins a searing, propulsive journey through a life whose central challenge is not simply a matter of survival, but of how to maintain human decency as everyone around you falls ever further into barbarism.]]> 529 Tim Winton 1035050838 David 4 read-2025 3.95 2024
author: Tim Winton
name: David
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/08
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: read-2025
review:

]]> 211479192 A woman inherits a pawnshop where you can sell your regrets, and then embarks on a magical journey when a charming young physicist wanders into the shop, in this dreamlike and enchanting fantasy novel.

On a backstreet in Tokyo lies a pawnshop, but not everyone can find it. Most will see a cozy ramen restaurant. And only the chosen ones—those who are lost—will find a place to pawn their life choices and deepest regrets.

Hana Ishikawa wakes on her first morning as the pawnshop’s new owner to find it ransacked, the shop’s most precious acquisition stolen, and her father missing. And then into the shop stumbles a charming stranger, quite unlike its other customers, for he offers help instead of seeking it.

Together, they must journey through a mystical world to find Hana’s father and the stolen choice—by way of rain puddles, rides on paper cranes, the bridge between midnight and morning, and a night market in the clouds.

But as they get closer to the truth, Hana must reveal a secret of her own—and risk making a choice that she will never be able to take back.]]> 384 Samantha Sotto Yambao 0593724992 David 3 read-2025 3.79 2025
author: Samantha Sotto Yambao
name: David
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/26
date added: 2025/02/26
shelves: read-2025
review:

]]> 200555176
"Miracles, marvels, saints, sinners, love, plague, and treachery! M. T. Anderson has laid out a medieval feast of a novel, stuffed with everything I could have wished for. If I could canonize him for it, I would. But I’ll settle for shouting about how much I love this book."—Kelly Link, author of The Book of Love

"M. T. Anderson is one of our greatest and most precious voices. His books aren't just brilliantly witty and vastly entertaining, they're fixed stars of wisdom and sanity in our increasingly unhinged universe. When lost, I use them to steer by."—Lev Grossman, author of The Magicians Trilogy

The year is 1087, and a pox is sweeping through the Italian city of Bari. When a lowly monk is visited by Saint Nicholas in his dreams, he interprets the vision as a call to serve the sick. But his superiors, and the power brokers they serve, have different plans for the tender-hearted Brother Nicephorus.

Enter Tyun, a charismatic treasure hunter renowned for “liberating�� holy relics from their tombs. The seven-hundred-year-old bones of Saint Nicholas are rumored to weep a mysterious liquid that can heal the sick, Tyun says. For the humble price of a small fortune, he will steal the bones and deliver them to Bari, curing the plague and restoring glory to the fallen city. And Nicephorus, the “dreamer,�� will be his guide.

What follows is a heist for the ages, as Nicephorus is swept away on strange tides, and alongside even stranger bedfellows, to commit sacrilegious theft. Based on real historical accounts, Nicked is a swashbuckling saga, a medieval novel noir, a meditation on the miraculous, and a monastic meet-cute, filled with wide-eyed wonder at the world that awaits beyond our own borders.]]> 223 M.T. Anderson 0593701607 David 3 read-2025 3.67 2024
author: M.T. Anderson
name: David
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/23
date added: 2025/02/23
shelves: read-2025
review:

]]> 17899948 Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again...

The novel begins in Monte Carlo, where our heroine is swept off her feet by the dashing widower Maxim de Winter and his sudden proposal of marriage. Orphaned and working as a lady's maid, she can barely believe her luck. It is only when they arrive at his massive country estate that she realizes how large a shadow his late wife will cast over their lives--presenting her with a lingering evil that threatens to destroy their marriage from beyond the grave.

First published in 1938, this classic gothic novel is such a compelling read that it won the Anthony Award for Best Novel of the Century.]]> 449 Daphne du Maurier 0316323705 David 3 read-2025 4.28 1938
author: Daphne du Maurier
name: David
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1938
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/21
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: read-2025
review:

]]> 19063 Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will be busier still.

By her brother's graveside, Liesel's life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. It is The Gravedigger's Handbook, left behind there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery. So begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her accordian-playing foster father, learns to read. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library, wherever there are books to be found.

But these are dangerous times. When Liesel's foster family hides a Jew in their basement, Liesel's world is both opened up, and closed down.

In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time.

(Note: this title was not published as YA fiction)]]> 592 Markus Zusak David 4 read-2025 4.38 2005
author: Markus Zusak
name: David
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/20
date added: 2025/02/20
shelves: read-2025
review:

]]> 61953668 An extraordinary chronicle of war and an occult story of love between a father and his son from one of Iraq’s most celebrated contemporary writers

“Whenever he told lies, the birds would fly away. It had been that way since he was a child. Whenever he told a lie, something strange would happen.��

So begins Bachtyar Ali’s The Last Pomegranate, a phantasmagoric warren of fact, fabrication, and mystical allegory, set in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein’s rule and Iraq’s Kurdish conflict.

Muzafar-i Subhdam, a peshmerga fighter, has spent the last twenty-one years imprisoned in a desert yearning for his son, Saryas, who was only a few days old when Muzafar was captured. Upon his release, Muzafar begins a frantic search, only to learn that Saryas was one of three identical boys who became enmeshed in each other’s lives as war mutilated the region.

An inlet to the recesses of a terrifying historical moment, and a philosophical journey of formidable depths, The Last Pomegranate interrogates the origins and reverberations of atrocity. It also probes, with a graceful intelligence, unforgettable acts of mercy.]]> 322 Bachtyar Ali 1953861407 David 4 read-2024 4.22 2002
author: Bachtyar Ali
name: David
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/22
date added: 2025/02/16
shelves: read-2024
review:

]]> 42270835 Author of The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys sentenced to a hellish reform school in 1960s Florida.

Elwood Curtis has taken the words of Dr Martin Luther King to heart: he is as good as anyone. Abandoned by his parents, brought up by his loving, strict and clear-sighted grandmother, Elwood is about to enroll in the local black college. But given the time and the place, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy his future, and so Elwood arrives at The Nickel Academy, which claims to provide 'physical, intellectual and moral training' which will equip its inmates to become 'honorable and honest men'.

In reality, the Nickel Academy is a chamber of horrors, where physical, emotional and sexual abuse is rife, where corrupt officials and tradesmen do a brisk trade in supplies intended for the school, and where any boy who resists is likely to disappear 'out back'. Stunned to find himself in this vicious environment, Elwood tries to hold on to Dr King's ringing assertion, 'Throw us in jail, and we will still love you.' But Elwood's fellow inmate and new friend Turner thinks Elwood is naive and worse; the world is crooked, and the only way to survive is to emulate the cruelty and cynicism of their oppressors.

The tension between Elwood's idealism and Turner's skepticism leads to a decision which will have decades-long repercussions.

Based on the history of a real reform school in Florida that operated for one hundred and eleven years and warped and destroyed the lives of thousands of children, The Nickel Boys is a devastating, driven narrative by a great American novelist whose work is essential to understanding the current reality of the United States.]]> 213 Colson Whitehead David 5 read-2025 4.25 2019
author: Colson Whitehead
name: David
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/13
date added: 2025/02/13
shelves: read-2025
review:

]]> 1217281 302 Alex Miller 0140159878 David 0 to-read 3.34 1992
author: Alex Miller
name: David
average rating: 3.34
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 216670080
A pregnant woman’s sketches on a seemingly innocuous blog conceal a chilling warning.

A child’s picture of his home contains a dark secret message.

A sketch made by a murder victim in his final moments leads an amateur sleuth down a rabbit hole that will reveal a horrifying reality.

Structured around these nine childlike drawings, every one holding a disturbing clue, this novel invites readers to piece together the harrowing truth behind each and the overarching backstory that connects them all. Strange Pictures is the bestselling international debut from mystery-horror YouTube sensation Uketsu—an enigmatic masked figure who has become one of Japan's most talked about contemporary authors.]]> 236 Uketsu 0063433087 David 4 read-2025 4.05 2022
author: Uketsu
name: David
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/11
date added: 2025/02/11
shelves: read-2025
review:

]]> 57933306 Our ability to pay attention is collapsing. From the New York Times bestselling author of Chasing the Scream and Lost Connections comes a groundbreaking examination of why this is happening--and how to get our attention back.

In the United States, teenagers can focus on one task for only sixty-five seconds at a time, and office workers average only three minutes. Like so many of us, Johann Hari was finding that constantly switching from device to device and tab to tab was a diminishing and depressing way to live. He tried all sorts of self-help solutions--even abandoning his phone for three months--but nothing seemed to work. So Hari went on an epic journey across the world to interview the leading experts on human attention--and he discovered that everything we think we know about this crisis is wrong.

We think our inability to focus is a personal failure to exert enough willpower over our devices. The truth is even more disturbing: our focus has been stolen by powerful external forces that have left us uniquely vulnerable to corporations determined to raid our attention for profit. Hari found that there are twelve deep causes of this crisis, from the decline of mind-wandering to rising pollution, all of which have robbed some of our attention. In Stolen Focus, he introduces readers to Silicon Valley dissidents who learned to hack human attention, and veterinarians who diagnose dogs with ADHD. He explores a favela in Rio de Janeiro where everyone lost their attention in a particularly surreal way, and an office in New Zealand that discovered a remarkable technique to restore workers' productivity.

Crucially, Hari learned how we can reclaim our focus--as individuals, and as a society--if we are determined to fight for it. Stolen Focus will transform the debate about attention and finally show us how to get it back.]]> 357 Johann Hari 0593138511 David 2 read-2025
Hari has proven time and again to fall into the former camp by making up quotes or plagiarising others�� work.

Hari makes some excellent points within the book, but ultimately, what’s the point of reading a non-fiction book where each fact and quote needs to be taken with a grain of salt?]]> 4.22 2022
author: Johann Hari
name: David
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/10
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: read-2025
review:
Look. Popular non fiction isn’t my favourite genre. Too often important information is left out because it doesn’t fit the overall narrative. The author is always balancing between making something entertaining and making something factual.

Hari has proven time and again to fall into the former camp by making up quotes or plagiarising others�� work.

Hari makes some excellent points within the book, but ultimately, what’s the point of reading a non-fiction book where each fact and quote needs to be taken with a grain of salt?
]]> 153492 100 John Buchan 1419151126 David 2 read-2025 3.62 1915
author: John Buchan
name: David
average rating: 3.62
book published: 1915
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/09
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: read-2025
review:

]]> 31554413
The people thought the boy could save them, so they opened their gates and sent him out into the world.

To where the monsters lived.]]> 400 M.R. Carey 0316300330 David 4 read-2025 3.92 2017
author: M.R. Carey
name: David
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/07
date added: 2025/02/07
shelves: read-2025
review:

]]> 214329001 The future of storytelling is here.

Life has thrown Zelu some curveballs over the years, but when she's suddenly dropped from her university job and her latest novel is rejected, all in the middle of her sister's wedding, her life is upended. Disabled, unemployed and from a nosy, high-achieving, judgmental family, she's not sure what comes next.

In her hotel room that night, she takes the risk that will define her life - she decides to write a book VERY unlike her others. A science fiction drama about androids and AI after the extinction of humanity. And everything changes.

What follows is a tale of love and loss, fame and infamy, of extraordinary events in one world, and another. And as Zelu's life evolves, the lines between fiction and reality begin to blur.

Because sometimes a story really does have the power to reshape the world.]]> 448 Nnedi Okorafor 0063391155 David 0 to-read 4.04 2025
author: Nnedi Okorafor
name: David
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220422629 'the Queen of tech noir'���� ��The Australian

When you can fake anything, how do you know what’s real?

Harlow Close has made a career as an influencer uncovering��the secrets of Winnipeg, dubbed ‘North America's strangest city��. The region is renowned for its sub-zero temperatures, dropping to minus 40 degrees –��sometimes for months at a time. Yet, it’s not just the frigid winters and geographic seclusion that render Winnipeg peculiar. �� When Harlow’s father mysteriously disappears amid��a brutal cold snap, suspicions of foul play arise. It’s not like Scott to��miss phone��calls �� and he’s been even more cautious since that time he��was catfished by a romance scammer. Unhappy with the pace of the police investigation, Harlow launches her own search, enlisting her sister Blaise’s reluctant help.
�� As Harlow struggles to uncover what happened to her father, she’s forced to question everything and everyone around her �� including herself.��

PRAISE FOR COLD TRUTH:

‘With��Dark Mode, Ashley Kalagian Blunt announced her arrival on the thriller scene with a bang. In this follow-up, we would expect nothing less than a smart, twisty plot, set in an unforgettable place and populated by deeply human characters �� but��Cold Truth��does even more than that. In bringing us into the depths of Canadian winter, Ashley takes us right into what makes us who we are. Blood ties and shady online dealings come to the fore in this enthralling novel. I adored this book �� compelling crime fiction at its absolute best.������ Hayley Scrivenor, author of��Dirt Town and Girl Falling

��Cold Truth��is bone-chilling in every a missing father, a complicated relationship between sisters and a taut mystery in an icy Canadian winter. With twists that had me gasping, the story rocketed towards a gripping finale. I could not put it down! Another explosive thriller from the master of the cliff-hanger.�� �� Petronella McGovern, author of��The Liars and The Last Trace

‘Ashley Kalagian Blunt has done it again, delivering another propulsive psychological thriller that filled me with dread from the first page to its shocking conclusion. Set in the depths of the Canadian winter, Cold Truth was truly chilling; a relentless ride that had me guessing at every turn and reading into the early hours of the morning.��Kalagian Blunt has established herself as the master of terrifying, addictive thrillers that will leave you questioning your own safety.�� �� Shankari Chandran, author of Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens and Unfinished Business

‘Vivid, twisty, fast-paced and action-packed, I tore through��Cold Truth��in two days. It left me shivering �� with both cold and the stark reminder that in this world where anything can be faked, truth is as stable as quicksand.�� �� Pip Drysdale, author of The Next Girl and The Close-Up

‘Atmospheric, twisty and terrifying, Cold Truth is a taut and pulse-racing thriller that left me with an icy shiver. A story of sisterhood, loss, deceit and triumph �� laced with the menace (and malice) of the dark web.]]> Ashley Kalagian Blunt 176115169X David 0 to-read 4.00
author: Ashley Kalagian Blunt
name: David
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 136335272 320 Melissa Lucashenko 0702266124 David 5 read-2025 4.11 2023
author: Melissa Lucashenko
name: David
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/02
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: read-2025
review:

]]> 213854079 272 Robbie Arnott 176156353X David 4 read-2025 4.22 2024
author: Robbie Arnott
name: David
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/30
date added: 2025/01/30
shelves: read-2025
review:

]]> 201296096
Grace is a thief- a good one. She was taught by experts and she's been practising since she was a kid. She specialises in small, high-value items-stamps, watches-and she knows her Jaeger-LeCoultres from her Patek Philippes. But it's a solitary life, always watchful, always moving. It's not the life she wants.

Lying low after a run-in with an old associate, Grace walks into Erin Mandel's rural antiques shop and sees a chance for something different. A normal job. A place to call home.

But someone is looking for Erin. And someone's looking for Grace, too. And they are both, in their own ways, very dangerous men.]]> 384 Garry Disher 1922790621 David 0 to-read 3.77
author: Garry Disher
name: David
average rating: 3.77
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 33832444 Marlon James David 0 to-read 3.93
author: Marlon James
name: David
average rating: 3.93
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 25856606
Insightful, bold, irreverent, and raw, The Fault in Our Stars is award-winning author John Green's most ambitious and heartbreaking work yet, brilliantly exploring the funny, thrilling, and tragic business of being alive and in love.]]> 313 John Green 0525478817 David 5 read-2025 3.99 2012
author: John Green
name: David
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/21
date added: 2025/01/21
shelves: read-2025
review:

]]> 40180098 The Overstory is a sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of - and paean to - the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, Richard Powers’s twelfth novel unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. There is a world alongside ours—vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.

A New York Times Bestseller.]]> 502 Richard Powers 039335668X David 5 read-2025 4.10 2018
author: Richard Powers
name: David
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/19
date added: 2025/01/19
shelves: read-2025
review:

]]> 210943364
The first of the book’s three intertwining essays is set in Dakar, Senegal. Despite being raised as a strict Afrocentrist, Coates had never set foot on the African continent until now. He roams the “steampunk�� city of “old traditions and new machinery,�� but everywhere he goes he feels as if he’s in two places at once: a modern city in Senegal and a mythic kingdom in his mind. Finally he travels to the slave castles off the coast and has his own reckoning with the legacy of the Afrocentric dream.

He takes readers along with him to Columbia, South Carolina, where he meets an educator whose job is threatened for teaching one of Coates’s own books. There he discovers a community of mostly white supporters who were transformed by the “racial reckoning�� of 2020. But he also explores the backlash to this reckoning and the deeper myths of the community—a capital of the confederacy with statues of segregationists looming over its public squares.

And in Palestine, Coates discovers the devastating gap between the narratives we’ve accepted and the clashing reality of life on the ground. He meets with activists and dissidents, Israelis and Palestinians—the old, who remember their dispossessions on two continents, and the young, who have only known struggle and disillusionment. He travels into Jerusalem, the heart of Zionist mythology, and to the occupied territories, where he sees the reality the myth is meant to hide. It is this hidden story that draws him in and profoundly changes him—and makes the war that would soon come all the more devastating.

Written at a dramatic moment in American and global life, this work from one of the country’s most important writers is about the urgent need to untangle ourselves from the destructive nationalist myths that shape our world—and our own souls—and embrace the liberating power of even the most difficult truths.]]> 232 Ta-Nehisi Coates 0593230388 David 0 to-read 4.51 2024
author: Ta-Nehisi Coates
name: David
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 182733784
Every generation, a journalist has looked deep into the heart of the nuclear military establishment: the technologies, the safeguards, the plans, and the risks. These investigations are vital to how we understand the world we really live in—where one nuclear missile will beget one in return, and where the choreography of the world’s end requires massive decisions made on seconds�� notice with information that is only as good as the intelligence we have.

Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen’s Nuclear War: A Scenario explores this ticking-clock scenario, based on dozens of exclusive new interviews with military and civilian experts who have built the weapons, have been privy to the response plans, and have been responsible for those decisions should they have needed to be made. Nuclear War: A Scenario examines the handful of minutes after a nuclear missile launch. It is essential reading, and unlike any other book in its depth and urgency.]]> 400 Annie Jacobsen 0593476093 David 0 to-read 4.37 2024
author: Annie Jacobsen
name: David
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 53835 The Age of Innocence is Edith Wharton’s masterful portrait of desire and betrayal during the sumptuous Golden Age of Old New York, a time when society people “dreaded scandal more than disease.��

This is Newland Archer’s world as he prepares to marry the beautiful but conventional May Welland. But when the mysterious Countess Ellen Olenska returns to New York after a disastrous marriage, Archer falls deeply in love with her. Torn between duty and passion, Archer struggles to make a decision that will either courageously define his life—or mercilessly destroy it.]]> 293 Edith Wharton 159308143X David 5 read-2025 3.96 1920
author: Edith Wharton
name: David
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1920
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/15
date added: 2025/01/15
shelves: read-2025
review:

]]> 219906442
'This house is freaking me out. It's bad for me. But I'm finishing this.'

Discovering Kanye West is praising Adolf Hitler, John Safran heads to America to find out what's up. Kanye proves elusive, one thing tumbles into another, and John packs his duffle bags and moves in, squatting at one of Kanye's mansions in the rolling hills of Los Angeles.

Will the neighbours get wise and snitch to the cops? Are the creatures in the woods behind the mansion a worry? Will Kanye return? More paranoid each day, John becomes convinced the house itself is turning against him.

Alone with his thoughts in Kanye's haunt, John finds himself asking where he fits into the world as a Jew. Dangerous and hilarious, Squat examines just how precarious identity and belonging can be.]]> 320 John Safran 1760890170 David 3 read-2025 3.82
author: John Safran
name: David
average rating: 3.82
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/13
date added: 2025/01/13
shelves: read-2025
review:

]]> 50403456 Mauro Javier Cárdenas, the critically-acclaimed author of The Revolutionaries Try Again��"an original, insubordinate novel" (New York Times)—pens a profound story of literature about a man coming to terms with his dysfunctional Colombian family, as well as his own behavior, as an immigrant in America.

Antonio wants to avoid thinking about his sister—even though he knows he won't be able to avoid thinking about his sister—because his sister is on the run after allegedly threatening to shoot her neighbors, and has been claiming that Antonio, Obama, the Pentagon, and their mother are all conspiring against her. Nevertheless, Antonio is going to try his best to be as avoidant as possible, because he worries that what's been happening to his sister might somehow infect his relatively contented, ordered American life, and destabilize the precarious arrangement with his ex-wife that's allowed him to stay close to his two daughters.

In fact, he's busy doing everything except facing his problems head-on: transcribing recordings of his mother speaking about their troubled life in Colombia, transcribing recordings of his ex-wife speaking about her idyllic life in the Czech Republic; writing about former girlfriends whose words and deeds still recur in his mind; rereading stories by American writers that allow him to skirt the subject of his sister's state of mind without completely destroying his own.

Written in long, unravelling sentences that accommodate all the detritus of thought—scenes real and imagined, headphones and heartache, Toblerones and Thomas Bernhard��Aphasia captures the immensity of the present moment as well as the pain of the past. It cements Mauro Javier Cárdenas‘s place as one of the most innovative and extraordinary novelists working today.]]> 208 Mauro Javier Cárdenas 0374257868 David 4 read-2025 3.69 2020
author: Mauro Javier Cárdenas
name: David
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/12
date added: 2025/01/12
shelves: read-2025
review:

]]> 29780253
Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents�� indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away. Finally liberated by the end of South Africa’s tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle.

Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. It is also the story of that young man’s relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother—his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life.]]> 289 Trevor Noah 0385689225 David 0 to-read 4.48 2016
author: Trevor Noah
name: David
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 50269327
Now Natsuki is grown. She lives a quiet life with her asexual husband, surviving as best she can by pretending to be normal. But the demands of Natsuki's family are increasing, her friends wonder why she's still not pregnant, and dark shadows from Natsuki's childhood are pursuing her. Fleeing the suburbs for the mountains of her childhood, Natsuki prepares herself with a reunion with Yuu. Will he still remember their promise? And will he help her keep it?]]> 247 Sayaka Murata 1783785675 David 4 read-2025 3.59 2018
author: Sayaka Murata
name: David
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/09
date added: 2025/01/09
shelves: read-2025
review:

]]> 209020672 Why did the same games evolve across wildly different civilisations?
And how can those games make your life happier, healthier and more fulfilled?

From scratching shapes in the sand to the combative bonding of festive board games, humans have created games to encourage fun, competition, collaboration and, in the very hardest of times, escape.

In this fascinating and entertaining look at games throughout history, Tim Clare explores the legal highs of a good dice roll, the thrills of a predatory race game, and the tactile pleasures of the games that age with us through our lives.

Drawing on Roman anti-cheating devices, organised crime card games, and dice contests that link Chaucer to Warren G, The Game Changers will show you why games are more popular now than ever, and how playing them helps us win more often, become better losers and stay one step ahead �� on and off the board. Through play, we become fully ourselves.]]> 250 Tim Clare 1837260001 David 4 read-2025 3.99
author: Tim Clare
name: David
average rating: 3.99
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/04
date added: 2025/01/08
shelves: read-2025
review:

]]> 152034931 A rollicking history��of England's earliest kings and queens, a story of��narcissists, excessive beheadings, middle-management insurrection, uncivil wars,��and more, from��award-winning British actor and comedian David Mitchell

Think you know the kings and queens of England? Think again.

In Unruly , David Mitchell explores how early England’s monarchs, while acting as feared rulers firmly guiding their subjects�� destinies, were in reality a bunch of lucky bastards who were mostly as silly and weird in real life as they appear to us today in their portraits.

Taking us right back to King Arthur ( he didn’t exist), Mitchell tells the founding story of post-Roman England right up to the reign of Elizabeth I ( she dies), as the monarchy began to lose its power. It’s a tale of bizarre and curious ascensions, inadequate self-control, and at least one total Cnut, as the English evolved from having their crops stolen by the thug with the largest armed gang to bowing and paying taxes to a divinely anointed King.

How this happened, who it happened to, and why the hell it matters are all questions Mitchell answers with brilliance, wit, and the full erudition of a man who once studied history—and is damned if he’ll let it off the hook for the mess it’s made of everything.��

A funny book that takes history seriously, Unruly is for anyone who has ever wondered how the monarchy came to be—and who is to blame.]]> 433 David Mitchell 0593728491 David 0 to-read 4.13 2023
author: David Mitchell
name: David
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 205899901 An extraordinary new novel set in the world of John le Carré's most iconic spy, George Smiley, written by acclaimed novelist Nick Harkaway

It is spring in 1963 and George Smiley has left the Circus. With the wreckage of the West’s spy war with the Soviets strewn across Europe, he has eyes only for a more peaceful life. And indeed, with his marriage more secure than ever, there is a rumor in Whitehall—unconfirmed and a little scandalous—that George Smiley might almost be happy.

But Control has other plans. A Russian agent has defected, and the man he was sent to kill in London is nowhere to be found. Smiley reluctantly agrees to one last simple interview Szusanna, a Hungarian émigré and employee of the missing man, and sniff out a lead. But, as Smiley well knows, even the softest step in the shadows resounds with terrible danger. Soon, he is back there, in East Berlin, and on the trail of his most devious enemy’s hidden past.

Set in the missing decade between two iconic instalments in the George Smiley saga, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Nick Harkaway’s Karla’s Choice is an extraordinary, thrilling return to the world of spy fiction’s greatest writer, John le Carré.]]> 320 Nick Harkaway David 4 read-2025 3.99 2024
author: Nick Harkaway
name: David
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/07
date added: 2025/01/07
shelves: read-2025
review:

]]> 39988 “The Trunchbull�� is no match for Matilda!

Matilda is a little girl who is far too good to be true. At age five-and-a-half she's knocking off double-digit multiplication problems and blitz-reading Dickens. Even more remarkably, her classmates love her even though she's a super-nerd and the teacher's pet. But everything is not perfect in Matilda's world...

For starters she has two of the most idiotic, self-centered parents who ever lived. Then there's the large, busty nightmare of a school principal, Miss ("The") Trunchbull, a former hammer-throwing champion who flings children at will, and is approximately as sympathetic as a bulldozer. Fortunately for Matilda, she has the inner resources to deal with such annoyances: astonishing intelligence, saintly patience, and an innate predilection for revenge.

Roald Dahl was a spy, ace fighter-pilot, chocolate historian, and medical inventor. He was also the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, The BFG, and many more brilliant stories. He remains the World's No. 1 Storyteller.]]> 240 Roald Dahl 043512398X David 5 read-2024, penny 4.33 1988
author: Roald Dahl
name: David
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1988
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/13
date added: 2025/01/07
shelves: read-2024, penny
review:

]]> 6310 (back cover)]]> 176 Roald Dahl 0142403881 David 5 penny, read-2024 4.16 1964
author: Roald Dahl
name: David
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1964
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/01/07
shelves: penny, read-2024
review:

]]> 6693 96 Roald Dahl 0375822070 David 5 2-3-4-class, penny, read-2025
The book is short but it has lots of interesting parts. Jaz like it how all the animals worked together. Bailie liked how smart and clever the Fantastic Mr Fox was. Rhylan didn’t like how the farmers were shooting at the fox and he said he would never do it.

Kids aged 5 and up would like this book, although there all lots of tricky words we don’t use much nowadays. Mr A is nearly 40 and he still enjoyed. Even though this book was written 50 years ago, kids living in the city can still enjoy this story of life on the farm. We give this book a resounding 5 out of 5 stars.
]]> 4.09 1970
author: Roald Dahl
name: David
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1970
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/08
date added: 2025/01/07
shelves: 2-3-4-class, penny, read-2025
review:
Fantastic Mr Fox was written by Roald Dahl in 1970. It’s about a fat Mr Boggis, a dwarf Mr Bunce and a skinny and smart Mr Bean who are mean farmers who want to kill Mr Fox, his wife and his children. Mr Fox is clever and comes up with a plan to outsmart them when all seems lost.

The book is short but it has lots of interesting parts. Jaz like it how all the animals worked together. Bailie liked how smart and clever the Fantastic Mr Fox was. Rhylan didn’t like how the farmers were shooting at the fox and he said he would never do it.

Kids aged 5 and up would like this book, although there all lots of tricky words we don’t use much nowadays. Mr A is nearly 40 and he still enjoyed. Even though this book was written 50 years ago, kids living in the city can still enjoy this story of life on the farm. We give this book a resounding 5 out of 5 stars.

]]> 209192695 From the bestselling author of Norwegian Wood and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World comes a love story, a quest, an ode to books and to the libraries that house them, and a parable for our peculiar times.

We begin with a nameless young couple: a boy and a girl, teenagers in love. One day, she disappears . . . and her absence haunts him for the rest of his life.

Thus begins a search for this lost love that takes the man into middle age and on a journey between the real world and an other world—a mysterious, perhaps imaginary, walled town where unicorns roam, where a Gatekeeper determines who can enter and who must remain behind, and where shadows become untethered from their selves. Listening to his own dreams and premonitions, the man leaves his life in Tokyo behind and ventures to a small mountain town, where he becomes the head librarian, only to learn the mysterious circumstances surrounding the gentleman who had the job before him. As the seasons pass and the man grows more uncertain about the porous boundaries between these two worlds, he meets a strange young boy who helps him to see what he’s been missing all along.

The City and Its Uncertain Walls is a singular and towering achievement by one of modern literature’s most important writers.]]> 449 Haruki Murakami 0593801970 David 4 read-2025 3.72 2023
author: Haruki Murakami
name: David
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/03
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: read-2025
review:

]]> 40400269
Working as a waiter in a West Berlin hotel in 1988, Maurice engineers the perfect opportunity: a chance encounter with celebrated novelist Erich Ackermann. He quickly ingratiates himself with the powerful �� but desperately lonely �� older man, teasing out of Erich a terrible, long-held secret about his activities during the war. Perfect material for Maurice’s first novel.

Once Maurice has had a taste of literary fame, he knows he can stop at nothing in pursuit of that high. Moving from the Amalfi Coast, where he matches wits with Gore Vidal, to Manhattan and London, Maurice hones his talent for deceit and manipulation, preying on the talented and vulnerable in his cold-blooded climb to the top. But the higher he climbs, the further he has to fall. . . .

Sweeping across the late twentieth century, A Ladder to the Sky is a fascinating portrait of a relentlessly immoral man, a tour de force of storytelling, and the next great novel from an acclaimed literary virtuoso.]]> 362 John Boyne 1984823019 David 0 to-read 4.18 2018
author: John Boyne
name: David
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 37398 229 Toni Morrison 0452269652 David 5 read-2024 3.90 1992
author: Toni Morrison
name: David
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1992
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/28
date added: 2024/12/28
shelves: read-2024
review:

]]> 216857785
Why is Miami…Miami? What does the heartbreaking fate of the cheetah tell us about the way we raise our children? Why do Ivy League schools care so much about sports? What is the Magic Third, and what does it mean for racial harmony? In this provocative new work, Malcolm Gladwell returns for the first time in twenty-five years to the subject of social epidemics and tipping points, this time with the aim of explaining the dark side of contagious phenomena.

Through a series of riveting stories, Gladwell traces the rise of a new and troubling form of social engineering. He takes us to the streets of Los Angeles to meet the world’s most successful bank robbers, rediscovers a forgotten television show from the 1970s that changed the world, visits the site of a historic experiment on a tiny cul-de-sac in northern California, and offers an alternate history of two of the biggest epidemics of our day: COVID and the opioid crisis. Revenge of the Tipping Point is Gladwell’s most personal book yet. With his characteristic mix of storytelling and social science, he offers a guide to making sense of the contagions of modern world. It’s time we took tipping points seriously.]]> 352 Malcolm Gladwell 0316575801 David 3 read-2024 4.03 2024
author: Malcolm Gladwell
name: David
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/25
date added: 2024/12/25
shelves: read-2024
review:

]]> 43256597 255 Kevin Barry 0385540310 David 4 read-2024 3.60 2019
author: Kevin Barry
name: David
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/20
date added: 2024/12/20
shelves: read-2024
review:

]]> 127938747 From a visionary Mexican author, a hallucinatory, revelatory, colonial revenge story that reimagines the fall of Tenochtitlan.

One morning in 1519, conquistador Hernán Cortés entered the city of Tenochtitlan �� today's Mexico City. Later that day, he would meet the emperor Moctezuma in a collision of two worlds, two empires, two languages, two possible futures.

Cortés was accompanied by his nine captains, his troops, and his two translators: Friar Aguilar, a taciturn, former slave, and Malinalli, a strategic, former princess. Greeted at a ceremonial welcome meal by the steely princess Atotoxli, sister and wife of Moctezuma, the Spanish nearly bungle their entrance to the city. As they await their meeting with Moctezuma �� who is at a political, spiritual, and physical crossroads, and relies on hallucinogens to get himself through the day and in quest for any kind of answer from the gods �� the Spanish are ensconced in the labyrinthine palace. Soon, one of Cortés’s captains, Jazmín Caldera, overwhelmed by the grandeur of the city, begins to question the ease with which they were welcomed into the city, and wonders at the risks of getting out alive, much less conquering the empire.

You Dreamed of Empires brings to life Tenochtitlan at its height, and reimagines its destiny. The incomparably original Alvaro Enrigue sets afire the moment of conquest and turns it into a moment of revolution, a restitutive, fantastical counter-attack, in a novel so electric and so unique that it feels like a dream.]]> 220 Álvaro Enrigue 059354479X David 0 to-read 3.75 2022
author: Álvaro Enrigue
name: David
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/17
shelves: to-read
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]]> 75584918 Golden Hill.

In a city that never was, in an America that never was, on a snowy night at the end of winter, two detectives find a body on the roof of a skyscraper.

It's 1922, and Americans are drinking in speakeasies, dancing to jazz, stepping quickly to the tempo of modern times. Beside the Mississippi, the ancient city of Cahokia lives on—a teeming industrial metropolis, containing every race and creed. Among them, peace holds. Just about. But that body on the roof is about to spark off a week that will spill the city's secrets, and bring it, against a soundtrack of wailing clarinets and gunfire, either to destruction or rebirth.

The multiple-award-winning Francis Spufford returns, with a lovingly created, richly pleasure-giving, epically scaled tale set in the golden age of wicked entertainments.]]> 496 Francis Spufford 0571336876 David 3 read-2024 3.91 2023
author: Francis Spufford
name: David
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/14
date added: 2024/12/14
shelves: read-2024
review:

]]> 202330671 From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Karla's Choice, comes a thrilling new detective novel.

On the shore of a rundown holiday town, a young woman washes up dead. Martha Erskine, the matriarch of a local dynasty, suspects a member of her own family might be involved in the murder, and calls in Cal to investigate.

Cal Sounder is a detective first and a Titan second, but it's not easy to make that work. It's hard to be an ordinary guy when you're fundamentally not ordinary anymore. Cal has recently taken a dose of T7, a rare drug that is usually the preserve of the rich, making its users - called the Titans - younger and bigger each time they take it, so that as they age the bodies of the ultra-wealthy become as immense as their bank accounts.

As Cal digs into the crime, he finds this forgotten town is simmering with wage disputes, strikes, and political conflict, and no one is quite who they say they are - not even the victim. As Cal second-guesses everyone he meets, he is forced to confront his own identity and ask himself who he wants to be from the far side of the mirror of power, age and greed.

Sleeper Beach is a hugely original, powerful and action-packed novel from the acclaimed novelist Nick Harkaway.]]> 256 Nick Harkaway 147215889X David 0 to-read 4.19 2025
author: Nick Harkaway
name: David
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/07
shelves: to-read
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]]> 208931300 An exquisitely moving story about grief, love, and family—but especially love—from the global phenomenon Sally Rooney.

Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common.

Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties—successful, competent, and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women—his enduring first love, Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke.

Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined.

For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude—a period of desire, despair, and possibility; a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.]]> 454 Sally Rooney 0374602638 David 3 read-2024 3.87 2024
author: Sally Rooney
name: David
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/06
date added: 2024/12/07
shelves: read-2024
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]]> 199698485 When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide

Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.]]> 490 Liz Moore David 0 to-read 4.15 2024
author: Liz Moore
name: David
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/06
shelves: to-read
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]]> 49092634
We next meet San, aged twenty-two, as she starts a job in a flower shop. There, we are introduced to a colourful cast of characters, including the shop's mute owner, the other florist Su-ae, and the customers that include a sexually aggressive businessman and a photographer, who San develops an obsession for. Throughout, San's moment with Namae lingers in the back of her mind.

A story of desire and violence about a young woman who everyone forgot, VIOLETS is a captivating and sensual read, full of tragedy and beauty.]]> 218 Kyung-Sook Shin 1558612904 David 0 to-read 3.58 2001
author: Kyung-Sook Shin
name: David
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 204417873 300 Baek Se-hee David 0 to-read 3.00 2018
author: Baek Se-hee
name: David
average rating: 3.00
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 56648660 Cursed Bunny is a genre-defying collection of short stories by Korean author Bora Chung. Blurring the lines between magical realism, horror, and science-fiction, Chung uses elements of the fantastic and surreal to address the very real horrors and cruelties of patriarchy and capitalism in modern society.

Anton Hur’s translation skilfully captures the way Chung’s prose effortlessly glides from being terrifying to wryly humorous. Winner of a PEN/Heim Grant.]]> 251 Bora Chung 1916277187 David 0 to-read 3.76 2017
author: Bora Chung
name: David
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 5941033
Let the Great World Spin is the critically acclaimed author’s most ambitious novel yet: a dazzlingly rich vision of the pain, loveliness, mystery, and promise of New York City in the 1970s.

Corrigan, a radical young Irish monk, struggles with his own demons as he lives among the prostitutes in the middle of the burning Bronx. A group of mothers gather in a Park Avenue apartment to mourn their sons who died in Vietnam, only to discover just how much divides them even in grief. A young artist finds herself at the scene of a hit-and-run that sends her own life careening sideways. Tillie, a thirty-eight-year-old grandmother, turns tricks alongside her teenage daughter, determined not only to take care of her family but to prove her own worth.

Elegantly weaving together these and other seemingly disparate lives, McCann’s powerful allegory comes alive in the unforgettable voices of the city’s people, unexpectedly drawn together by hope, beauty, and the “artistic crime of the century.�� A sweeping and radical social novel, Let the Great World Spin captures the spirit of America in a time of transition, extraordinary promise, and, in hindsight, heartbreaking innocence. Hailed as a “fiercely original talent�� (San Francisco Chronicle), award-winning novelist McCann has delivered a triumphantly American masterpiece that awakens in us a sense of what the novel can achieve, confront, and even heal.]]> 351 Colum McCann 1400063736 David 0 to-read 3.95 2009
author: Colum McCann
name: David
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 172366 36 Jorge Luis Borges 156792123X David 0 to-read 4.37 1941
author: Jorge Luis Borges
name: David
average rating: 4.37
book published: 1941
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 8407173
Rebellious, mixed-race and solitary, Jasper is a distant figure of danger and intrigue for Charlie. So when Jasper begs for his help, Charlie eagerly steals into the night by his side, terribly afraid but desperate to impress. Jasper takes him to his secret glade in the bush, and it's here that Charlie bears witness to Jasper's horrible discovery.

With his secret like a brick in his belly, Charlie is pushed and pulled by a town closing in on itself in fear and suspicion as he locks horns with his tempestuous mother; falls nervously in love and battles to keep a lid on his zealous best friend, Jeffrey Lu.

And in vainly attempting to restore the parts that have been shaken loose, Charlie learns to discern the truth from the myth, and why white lies creep like a curse.

In the simmering summer where everything changes, Charlie learns why the truth of things is so hard to know, and even harder to hold in his heart.]]> 397 Craig Silvey 1742372627 David 4 read-2020 4.08 2009
author: Craig Silvey
name: David
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/11/27
shelves: read-2020
review:

]]> 61640979
'You don't have to carry the weight of the world in your tool belt.'

Annie Shearer lives in the country town of Upson Downs with her best friend, an adopted stray dog called Runt. The two share a very special bond.

After years evading capture, Runt is remarkably fast and agile, perfect for herding runaway sheep. But when a greedy local landowner puts her family's home at risk, Annie directs Runt's extraordinary talents towards a different pursuit - winning the Agility Course Grand Championship at the lucrative Krumpets Dog Show in London.

However, there is a curious Runt will only obey Annie's commands if nobody else is watching.

With all eyes on them, Annie and Runt must beat the odds and the fastest dogs in the world to save her farm.

Runt is a heart-warming and hilarious tale of kindness, friendship, hurdles, hoops, tunnels, see-saws, being yourself and bringing out the best in others.]]> 352 Craig Silvey 1761185276 David 5 2-3-4-class, read-2024
I liked the dastardly villains. Earl Robert Barron is a rich, stingy neighbour who hoards everything �� priceless artefacts and the town’s water too. Fergus Fink comes from a long line of dog handlers and he believes it is his birthright to win dog agility competitions �� and he will do anything to win!

I didn’t expect Silvey to write a book for young kids, but it was a great decision. He doesn’t tone down his vocabulary, which makes the book great to read together with young readers and a challenge for older kids. The characters are larger than life �� very much in a Roald Dahl tradition of funny kids novels. And he carefully avoids a cliched ending, while still ensuring those who deserve it find their comeuppance.

I’d previously read two books by Craig Silvey; Jasper Jones that I loved and Honeybee that was just ok. As an adult I found myself thoroughly engrossed in this story. After the success of this book and it being turned into a movie, it’ll be interesting to see what age group Craig writes for next. 5 stars.
]]> 4.46 2022
author: Craig Silvey
name: David
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/21
date added: 2024/11/27
shelves: 2-3-4-class, read-2024
review:
Runt is about a stray dog who is adopted by a kind and determined young girl named Annie. Together they enter an agility competition to help save the family farm. The problem is �� Runt will do anything Annie says, except while people are watching! How will the resourceful Annie fix this?

I liked the dastardly villains. Earl Robert Barron is a rich, stingy neighbour who hoards everything �� priceless artefacts and the town’s water too. Fergus Fink comes from a long line of dog handlers and he believes it is his birthright to win dog agility competitions �� and he will do anything to win!

I didn’t expect Silvey to write a book for young kids, but it was a great decision. He doesn’t tone down his vocabulary, which makes the book great to read together with young readers and a challenge for older kids. The characters are larger than life �� very much in a Roald Dahl tradition of funny kids novels. And he carefully avoids a cliched ending, while still ensuring those who deserve it find their comeuppance.

I’d previously read two books by Craig Silvey; Jasper Jones that I loved and Honeybee that was just ok. As an adult I found myself thoroughly engrossed in this story. After the success of this book and it being turned into a movie, it’ll be interesting to see what age group Craig writes for next. 5 stars.

]]> 157981682 The Book of Love showcases Kelly Link at the height of her powers, channeling potent magic and attuned to all varieties of love—from friendship to romance to abiding family ties—with her trademark compassion, wit, and literary derring-do. Readers will find joy (and a little terror) and an affirmation that love goes on, even when we cannot.

Late one night, Laura, Daniel, and Mo find themselves beneath the fluorescent lights of a high school classroom, almost a year after disappearing from their hometown, the small seaside community of Lovesend, Massachusetts, having long been presumed dead. Which, in fact, they are.

With them in the room is their previously unremarkable high school music teacher, who seems to know something about their disappearance—and what has brought them back again. Desperate to reclaim their lives, the three agree to the terms of the bargain their music teacher proposes. They will be given a series of magical tasks; while they undertake them, they may return to their families and friends, but they can tell no one where they’ve been. In the end, there will be winners and there will be losers.

But their resurrection has attracted the notice of other supernatural figures, all with their own agendas. As Laura, Daniel, and Mo grapple with the pieces of the lives they left behind, and Laura’s sister, Susannah, attempts to reconcile what she remembers with what she fears, these mysterious others begin to arrive, engulfing their community in danger and chaos, and it becomes imperative that the teens solve the mystery of their deaths to avert a looming disaster.]]> 628 Kelly Link 0812996585 David 0 to-read 3.45 2024
author: Kelly Link
name: David
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> 127282939 From the acclaimed author of Parakeet, Marie-Helene Bertino’s Beautyland is a wise, tender novel about a woman who doesn't feel at home on Earth.

At the moment when Voyager 1 is launched into space carrying its famous golden record, a baby of unusual perception is born to a single mother in Philadelphia. Adina Giorno is tiny and jaundiced, but she reaches for warmth and light. As a child, she recognizes that she is different: She possesses knowledge of a faraway planet. The arrival of a fax machine enables her to contact her extraterrestrial relatives, beings who have sent her to report on the oddities of Earthlings.

For years, as she moves through the world and makes a life for herself among humans, she dispatches transmissions on the terrors and surprising joys of their existence. Then, at a precarious moment, a beloved friend urges Adina to share her messages with the world. Is there a chance she is not alone?

Marie-Helene Bertino’s Beautyland is a novel of startling originality about the fragility and resilience of life on our Earth and in our universe. It is a remarkable evocation of the feeling of being in exile at home, and it introduces a gentle, unforgettable alien for our times.]]> 327 Marie-Helene Bertino 0374109281 David 0 to-read 4.08 2024
author: Marie-Helene Bertino
name: David
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> 20518872 472 Liu Cixin David 3 read-2024 4.08 2006
author: Liu Cixin
name: David
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/25
date added: 2024/11/25
shelves: read-2024
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]]> 59336625
As the long overdue change occurs, however, painful episodes from Fuyuko’s past surface and her behavior slips further and further beyond the pale. All the Lovers in the Night is acute and insightful, entertaining and engaging; it will make readers laugh, and it will make them cry, but it will also remind them, as only the best books do, that sometimes the pain is worth it.]]> 224 Mieko Kawakami 1609456998 David 4 read-2024 3.70 2011
author: Mieko Kawakami
name: David
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/19
date added: 2024/11/19
shelves: read-2024
review:

]]> 5695 0679734511. (ISBN13: 9780679734512)

Inspired by the true story of a political murder that horrified Russians in 1869, Fyodor Dostoevsky conceived of Demons as a "novel-pamphlet" in which he would say everything about the plague of materialist ideology that he saw infecting his native land. What emerged was a prophetic and ferociously funny masterpiece of ideology and murder in pre-revolutionary Russia.]]> 733 Fyodor Dostoevsky David 4 read-2024 4.31 1872
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: David
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1872
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/17
date added: 2024/11/17
shelves: read-2024
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]]> 51544112
But Ārama is braver than he looks, and he has a friend and his friend has a dog, and the three of them together might just be strong enough to turn back the tide of sorrow. As long as there’s aroha to give and stories to tell and a good supply of plasters.

Here is a novel that is both raw and sublime, a compelling new voice in New Zealand fiction. Haere mai, Becky Manawatu.]]> 328 Becky Manawatu David 0 to-read 4.52 2019
author: Becky Manawatu
name: David
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 117833 The first complete, annotated English Translation of Mikhail Bulgakov's comic masterpiece.

An audacious revision of the stories of Faust and Pontius Pilate, The Master and Margarita is recognized as one of the essential classics of modern Russian literature. The novel's vision of Soviet life in the 1930s is so ferociously accurate that it could not be published during its author's lifetime and appeared only in a censored edition in the 1960s. Its truths are so enduring that its language has become part of the common Russian speech.

One hot spring, the devil arrives in Moscow, accompanied by a retinue that includes a beautiful naked witch and an immense talking black cat with a fondness for chess and vodka. The visitors quickly wreak havoc in a city that refuses to believe in either God or Satan. But they also bring peace to two unhappy Muscovites: one is the Master, a writer pilloried for daring to write a novel about Christ and Pontius Pilate; the other is Margarita, who loves the Master so deeply that she is willing literally to go to hell for him. What ensues is a novel of inexhaustible energy, humor, and philosophical depth, a work whose nuances emerge for the first time in Diana Burgin's and Katherine Tiernan O'Connor's splendid English version.]]> 372 Mikhail Bulgakov 0679760806 David 0 to-read 4.31 1967
author: Mikhail Bulgakov
name: David
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1967
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 44361927 637 Herman Melville 2377931324 David 4 read-2024 3.77 1851
author: Herman Melville
name: David
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1851
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/04
date added: 2024/11/04
shelves: read-2024
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]]> 209355985
'One rainy Friday evening in the winter of 1993, a taxi swept through the streets of East Melbourne, on its way from the city to Richmond. That year was one of the few remaining when a great deal was known of the world, but not yet so much that the world had become over-known. Small gaps remained...'

Edinburgh, 1916:Thomas Wrenfether, a rich Scottish industrialist, is offered the opportunity to take on a startling project - to build a paddle steamer from European cherrywood on the other side of the world, in booming Melbourne, Australia. But nothing goes according to plan.

Melbourne, 1993. Martha is a lonely, frustrated lawyer. One night on impulse she stops at a strange pub in Fitzroy, The Cherrywood, for a bottle of wine. The building and its inhabitants make an indelible impression, and she slowly begins to deduce odd truths about the pub.

A complex puzzlebox of a novel, this is delicious, rich storytelling, with a dark unusual charm. Cherrywood brings to mind the delicate, witty, character-driven storytelling of Peter Carey's Oscar and Lucinda; the daring of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas; and a dash of something unworldly a la The Shadow of the Wind - it is haunting, magical and a true original.]]> 400 Jock Serong 1460717155 David 4 read-2024 3.71 2024
author: Jock Serong
name: David
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/03
date added: 2024/11/03
shelves: read-2024
review:

]]> 54840696 Maggie Blue, strong-willed and isolated, sees her enemy from school taken through a window to a parallel world by one of their teachers and determines to follow, whatever the cost. With the help of irascible cat, Hoagy, they discover a world where happiness is being stolen - and they must do everything they can not to be caught up in its web of destruction.

Maggie Blue is an outsider, both at home and at school. She lives with her eccentric aunt Esme, and has no friends other than the irascible Hoagy, a stray cat who can talk to her. Maggie discovers that her role is far more important than anyone could have guessed.]]> 0 Anna Goodall 1913101312 David 0 to-read 3.86
author: Anna Goodall
name: David
average rating: 3.86
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/28
shelves: to-read
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]]> 53240817
Then Amari discovers a ticking briefcase in her brother’s old closet. A briefcase meant for her eyes only. There was far more to Quinton, it seems, than she ever knew. He’s left her a nomination for a summer tryout at the secretive Bureau of Supernatural Affairs. Amari is certain the answer to finding out what happened to him lies somewhere inside, if only she can get her head around the idea of mermaids, dwarves, yetis and magicians all being real things, something she has to instantly confront when she is given a weredragon as a roommate.

Amari must compete against some of the nation’s wealthiest kids—who’ve known about the supernatural world their whole lives and are able to easily answer questions like which two Great Beasts reside in the Atlantic Ocean and how old is Merlin? Just getting around the Bureau is a lesson alone for Amari with signs like ‘Department of Hidden Places this way, or is it?�� If that all wasn’t enough, every Bureau trainee has a talent enhanced to supernatural levels to help them do their jobs �� but Amari is given an illegal ability. As if she needed something else to make her stand out.

With an evil magican threatening the whole supernatural world, and her own classmates thinking she is an enemy, Amari has never felt more alone. But if she doesn’t pass the three tryouts, she may never find out what happened to Quinton.]]> 416 B.B. Alston David 0 to-read 4.35 2021
author: B.B. Alston
name: David
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/28
shelves: to-read
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]]> 199798201
A house is a precious thing...

It is 1961 and the rural Dutch province of Overijssel is quiet. Bomb craters have been filled, buildings reconstructed, and the war is truly over. Living alone in her late mother’s country home, Isabel knows her life is as it should be—led by routine and discipline. But all is upended when her brother Louis brings his graceless new girlfriend Eva, leaving her at Isabel’s doorstep as a guest, to stay for the season.

Eva is Isabel’s antithesis: she sleeps late, walks loudly through the house, and touches things she shouldn’t. In response, Isabel develops a fury-fueled obsession, and when things start disappearing around the house—a spoon, a knife, a bowl—Isabel’s suspicions begin to spiral. In the sweltering peak of summer, Isabel’s paranoia gives way to infatuation—leading to a discovery that unravels all Isabel has ever known. The war might not be well and truly over after all, and neither Eva—nor the house in which they live—are what they seem.

Mysterious, sophisticated, sensual, and infused with intrigue, atmosphere, and sex, The Safekeep is a brilliantly plotted and provocative debut novel you won’t soon forget.]]> 272 Yael van der Wouden 1668034344 David 0 read-2024 4.05 2024
author: Yael van der Wouden
name: David
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2024/10/24
date added: 2024/10/24
shelves: read-2024
review:

]]> 415 776 Thomas Pynchon 0143039946 David 4 read-2024 4.01 1973
author: Thomas Pynchon
name: David
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1973
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/21
date added: 2024/10/21
shelves: read-2024
review:

]]> 200241802
1917. On a battlefield near the River Aisne, John lies in the aftermath of a blast, unable to move or feel his legs. Struggling to focus his thoughts, he is lost to memory—a chance encounter in a pub by a railway, a hot bath with his lover on a winter night, his childhood on a faraway coast—as the snow falls.

1920. John has returned from war to North Yorkshire, near another river—alive, but not whole. Reunited with Helena, an artist, he reopens his photography business and endeavours to keep on living. But the past erupts insistently into the present, as ghosts begin to surface in his ghosts whose messages he cannot understand .

So begins a narrative that spans four generations, moments of connection and consequence igniting and re-igniting as the century unfolds. In luminous moments of desire, comprehension, longing, and transcendence, the sparks fly upward, working their transformations decades later. This resonance through time—not only of actions but also of feelings and perceptions—desire in its many forms—are at the heart of this novel’s profound investigation.

Held is a deeply affecting and intensely beautiful novel, full of unforgettable characters and imagery, wisdom and compassion. It explores the deepest mysteries, and the ways in which desire in its many forms—and��perhaps the deepest desire, to find meaning—manifests itself. Held moves through history to light upon Darwin, Sir Ernest Rutherford, North Sea ganseys, early photography, Ella Mary Leather, modern field hospitals…while lovers find each other and snow drifts down across the centuries. From the WW1 battlefield where the novel begins, and its opening lines, Held is alive with "We know life is finite. Why should we believe death lasts forever?”]]> 240 Anne Michaels 0771005458 David 3 read-2024 3.50 2023
author: Anne Michaels
name: David
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/13
date added: 2024/10/13
shelves: read-2024
review:

]]> 123136728
Contudo, mesmo tão distantes do mundo, os seis astronautas não conseguem escapar à sua constante influência. Chegam notícias da morte de uma mãe, trazendo pensamentos de regresso e de saudades de casa. A fragilidade da vida humana torna-se um tema central nas suas conversas, nos seus medos e nos seus sonhos.

Apesar de tão longe da Terra, nunca antes se haviam sentido tão protetores dela, tão parte dela. Começam a refletir: o que será a vida sem a Terra? O que será a Terra sem a humanidade?]]> 207 Samantha Harvey 0802161545 David 4 read-2024 3.55 2023
author: Samantha Harvey
name: David
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/11
date added: 2024/10/11
shelves: read-2024
review:

]]> 196774352 The Essex Serpent, a story of love and astronomy told over the course of twenty years through the lives of two improbable best friends.

Thomas Hart and Grace Macaulay have lived all their lives in the small Essex town of Aldleigh. Though separated in age by three decades, the pair are kindred spirits—torn between their commitment to religion and their desire to explore the world beyond their small Baptist community. It is two romantic relationships that will rend their friendship, and in the wake of this rupture, Thomas develops an obsession with a vanished nineteenth-century astronomer said to haunt a nearby manor, and Grace flees Aldleigh entirely for London.

Over the course of twenty years, by coincidence and design, Thomas and Grace will find their lives brought back into orbit as the mystery of the vanished astronomer unfolds into a devastating tale of love and scientific pursuit. Thomas and Grace will ask themselves what it means to love and be loved, what is fixed and what is mutable, how much of our fate is predestined and written in the stars, and whether they can find their way back to each other.

A thrillingly ambitious novel of friendship, faith, and unrequited love, rich in symmetry and symbolism, Enlightenment is a shimmering wonder of a book and Sarah Perry’s finest work to date.��]]> 384 Sarah Perry 0063352613 David 0 to-read 3.54 2024
author: Sarah Perry
name: David
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/11
shelves: to-read
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]]> 168632462 A deeply moving novel about forgiveness, grief, and what it means to be 'good', from the award-winning author of The Natural Way of Things and The Weekend.

A woman abandons her city life and marriage to return to the place of her childhood, holing up in a small religious community hidden away on the stark plains of the Monaro. She does not believe in God, doesn't know what prayer is, and finds herself living this strange, reclusive life almost by accident.

As she gradually adjusts to the rhythms of monastic life, she finds herself turning again and again to thoughts of her mother, whose early death she can't forget. Disquiet interrupts this secluded life with three visitations. First comes a terrible mouse plague, each day signaling a new battle against the rising infestation. Second is the return of the skeletal remains of a sister who left the community decades before to minister to deprived women in Thailand - then disappeared, presumed murdered. Finally, a troubling visitor to the monastery pulls the narrator further back into her past.

With each of these disturbing arrivals, the woman faces some deep questions. Can a person be truly good? What is forgiveness? Is loss of hope a moral failure? And can the business of grief ever really be finished? A meditative and deeply moving novel from one of Australia's most acclaimed and best loved writers.

"Wood joins the ranks of writers such as Nora Ephron, Penelope Lively and Elizabeth Strout." THE GUARDIAN UK]]> 320 Charlotte Wood David 3 read-2024 3.73 2023
author: Charlotte Wood
name: David
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/08
date added: 2024/10/08
shelves: read-2024
review:

]]> 215525602
When forced to take a part-time teaching job Andy meets Lang Tzu, a charismatic and intriguing man. Andy is drawn deeper into a dangerous relationship when Lang asks him to prove his friendship by brokering a risky deal for a much-desired piece of art. Andy finally consents despite Jo's opposition. In the process, Andy is in fact negotiating his own deal with himself as an artist and is compelled to face up to the conflict between his conception of art as a creative gift and the realities of the art market.

Powerful and perceptive, Miller's profound and intimate depiction of Jo and her partnership with Andy, and his poignant portrait of Lang's troubled genius, form the beating heart of this beautiful novel.]]> 304 Alex Miller 1761471570 David 0 to-read 3.56 2024
author: Alex Miller
name: David
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 207300960 416 Rachel Kushner 1982116528 David 4 read-2024 3.34 2024
author: Rachel Kushner
name: David
average rating: 3.34
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/06
date added: 2024/10/06
shelves: read-2024
review:

]]> 205478762 The Overstory at the height of his skills. Twelve-year-old Evie Beaulieu sinks to the bottom of a swimming pool in Montreal strapped to one of the world’s first aqualungs. Ina Aroita grows up on naval bases across the Pacific with art as her only home. Two polar opposites at an elite Chicago high school bond over a three-thousand-year-old board game; Rafi Young will get lost in literature, while Todd Keane’s work will lead to a startling AI breakthrough.

They meet on the history-scarred island of Makatea in French Polynesia, whose deposits of phosphorus once helped to feed the world. Now the tiny atoll has been chosen for humanity’s next adventure: a plan to send floating, autonomous cities out onto the open sea. But first, the island’s residents must vote to greenlight the project or turn the seasteaders away.

Set in the world’s largest ocean, this awe-filled book explores that last wild place we have yet to colonize in a still-unfolding oceanic game, and interweaves beautiful writing, rich characterization, profound themes of technology and the environment, and a deep exploration of our shared humanity in a way only Richard Powers can.]]> 381 Richard Powers 1324086033 David 0 to-read 4.16 2024
author: Richard Powers
name: David
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 40227699
Reyna knows her relationship with Boyd isn’t perfect, yet as she visits him throughout his three-month stint at Rikers Island, their bond grows tighter. Kiki, now settled in the East Village after a journey that took her to Turkey and around the world, admires her niece’s spirit but worries that she always picks the wrong man. Little does she know that the otherwise honorable Boyd is pulling Reyna into a cigarette smuggling scheme, across state lines, where he could risk violating probation. When Reyna ultimately decides to remove herself for the sake of her four-year-old child, her small act of resistance sets into motion a tapestry of events that affect the lives of loved ones and strangers around them.

A novel that examines conviction, connection, and the possibility of generosity in the face of loss, Improvement is as intricately woven together as Kiki’s beloved Turkish rugs, as colorful as the tattoos decorating Reyna’s body, with narrative twists and turns as surprising and unexpected as the lives all around us.]]> 240 Joan Silber 1640091130 David 0 to-read 3.47 2017
author: Joan Silber
name: David
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 209330233 A novel of money and morality from the New York Times bestselling author of Leave the World Behind.

Brooke wants. She isn’t in need, but there are things she wants. A sense of purpose, for instance. She wants to make a difference in the world, to impress her mother along the way, to spend time with friends and secure her independence. Her job assisting an octogenarian billionaire in his quest to give away a vast fortune could help her achieve many of these goals. It may inspire new desires as well: proximity to wealth turns out to be nothing less than transformative. What is money, really, but a kind of belief?

Taut, unsettling, and alive to the seductive distortions of money, Entitlement is a riveting tale for our new gilded age, a story that confidently considers questions about need and worth, race and privilege, philanthropy and generosity, passion and obsession. It is a provocative, propulsive novel about the American imagination.]]> 288 Rumaan Alam 0593718461 David 2 read-2024 3.00 2024
author: Rumaan Alam
name: David
average rating: 3.00
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/10/03
date added: 2024/10/03
shelves: read-2024
review:

]]> 43263237 From Annalee Newitz, founding editor of io9, comes a story of time travel, murder, and the lengths we'll go to protect the ones we love.

1992: After a confrontation at a riot grrl concert, seventeen-year-old Beth finds herself in a car with her friend's abusive boyfriend dead in the backseat, agreeing to help her friends hide the body. This murder sets Beth and her friends on a path of escalating violence and vengeance as they realize many other young women in the world need protecting too.

2022: Determined to use time travel to create a safer future, Tess has dedicated her life to visiting key moments in history and fighting for change. But rewriting the timeline isn’t as simple as editing one person or event. And just when Tess believes she's found a way to make an edit that actually sticks, she encounters a group of dangerous travelers bent on stopping her at any cost.

Tess and Beth’s lives intertwine as war breaks out across the timeline--a war that threatens to destroy time travel and leave only a small group of elites with the power to shape the past, present, and future. Against the vast and intricate forces of history and humanity, is it possible for a single person’s actions to echo throughout the timeline?]]> 352 Annalee Newitz 0765392100 David 3 read-2024 3.68 2019
author: Annalee Newitz
name: David
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/21
date added: 2024/09/21
shelves: read-2024
review:

]]> 407760
In the midst of the Japanese occupation of China and Hong Kong, two lives become Wong Chia Chi, a young student active in the resistance, and Mr. Yee, a powerful political figure who works for the Japanese occupational government. As these two move deftly between Shanghai’s tea parties and secret interrogations, they become embroiled in the complicated politics of wartime—and in a mutual attraction that may be more than what they expected. Written in lush, lavish prose, and with the tension of a political thriller,�� Lust, Caution �� brings 1940s Shanghai artfully to life even as it limns the erotic pulse of a doomed love affair.]]> 68 Eileen Chang 0307387445 David 4 read-2024 3.71 1978
author: Eileen Chang
name: David
average rating: 3.71
book published: 1978
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/13
date added: 2024/09/13
shelves: read-2024
review:

]]> 29906980 Lincoln in the Bardo is a literary experience unlike any other—for no one but Saunders could conceive it.

February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln's beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. "My poor boy, he was too good for this earth," the president says at the time. "God has called him home." Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returned to the crypt several times alone to hold his boy's body.

From that seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable story of familial love and loss that breaks free of its realistic, historical framework into a thrilling, supernatural realm both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds himself in a strange purgatory, where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate, quarrel, and enact bizarre acts of penance. Within this transitional state—called, in the Tibetan tradition, the bardo—a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie's soul.

Lincoln in the Bardo is an astonishing feat of imagination and a bold step forward from one of the most important and influential writers of his generation. Formally daring, generous in spirit, deeply concerned with matters of the heart, it is a testament to fiction's ability to speak honestly and powerfully to the things that really matter to us. Saunders has invented a thrilling new form that deploys a kaleidoscopic, theatrical panorama of voices—living and dead, historical and invented—to ask a timeless, profound question: How do we live and love when we know that everything we love must end?]]> 368 George Saunders 0812995341 David 4 read-2024 3.75 2017
author: George Saunders
name: David
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/10
date added: 2024/09/10
shelves: read-2024
review:

]]> 209286331 In his most exhilarating novel yet, Britain’s greatest storyteller transports you from the vibrant streets of sixties London to the sun-soaked cobbles of Cadiz and the frosty squares of Warsaw, as an accidental spy is drawn into the shadows of espionage and obsession.

Gabriel Dax is a young man haunted by the memories of a every night, when sleep finally comes, he dreams about his childhood home in flames. His days are spent on the move as an acclaimed travel writer, capturing the changing landscapes in the grip of the Cold War. When he’s offered the chance to interview a political figure, his ambition leads him unwittingly into a web of duplicities and betrayals.

As Gabriel’s reluctant initiation takes hold, he is drawn deeper into the shadows. Falling under the spell of Faith Green, an enigmatic and ruthless MI6 handler, he becomes ‘her spy��, unable to resist her demands. But amid the peril, paranoia and passion consuming Gabriel’s new covert life, it will be the revelations closer to home that change the rest of his story. .]]> 272 William Boyd 0241542073 David 0 to-read 4.10 2024
author: William Boyd
name: David
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 22098550 278 Sara Pennypacker 0062377019 David 5 read-2024, 2-3-4-class
It’s a book about how families can be ripped apart by wars and how children deal with that loss. Its about the journey kids take into adulthood, sometimes before they are ready, and about learning why adults make the seemingly cruel decisions they do.

There were a few excellent sections including those featuring Peter and his mentor, Vola. Those featuring Pax were less poignant but mirrored the coming-of-age story of the boy. For my students, we learned a lot about the nature of foxes and the section where Pax learned to hunt was especially memorable.

It was a great class novel for my Grade 3 class.
]]> 3.96 2016
author: Sara Pennypacker
name: David
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/05
date added: 2024/09/05
shelves: read-2024, 2-3-4-class
review:
Pax tells the story boy and his pet fox that get separated by a war. The boy runs away to find his fox and, in the process, learns about himself and the cold truth of the world around him. The story’s point of view alternates between the boy and the fox with each chapter.

It’s a book about how families can be ripped apart by wars and how children deal with that loss. Its about the journey kids take into adulthood, sometimes before they are ready, and about learning why adults make the seemingly cruel decisions they do.

There were a few excellent sections including those featuring Peter and his mentor, Vola. Those featuring Pax were less poignant but mirrored the coming-of-age story of the boy. For my students, we learned a lot about the nature of foxes and the section where Pax learned to hunt was especially memorable.

It was a great class novel for my Grade 3 class.

]]> 174156218 An electrifying debut novel from an “unusually gifted writer�� (Lorrie Moore) about the radical intimacy of physical competition

An unexpected tragedy at a community pool. A family’s unrelenting expectation of victory. The desire to gain or lose control; to make time speed up or stop; to be frighteningly, undeniably good at something. Each of the eight teenage girl boxers in this blistering debut novel has her own reasons for the sacrifices she has made to come to Reno, Nevada, to compete to be named the best in the country. Through a series of face-offs that are raw, ecstatic, and punctuated by flashes of humor and tenderness, prizewinning writer Rita Bullwinkel animates the competitors�� pasts and futures as they summon the emotion, imagination, and force of will required to win.

Frenetic, surprising, and strikingly original, Headshot is a portrait of the desire, envy, perfectionism, madness, and sheer physical pleasure that motivates young women to fight—even, and perhaps especially, when no one else is watching.]]> 224 Rita Bullwinkel 0593654102 David 5 read-2024 3.49 2024
author: Rita Bullwinkel
name: David
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/03
date added: 2024/09/03
shelves: read-2024
review:

]]> 1617 Night is the terrifying record of Elie Wiesel's memories of the death of his family, the death of his own innocence, and his despair as a deeply observant Jew confronting the absolute evil of man. This new translation by his wife and most frequent translator, Marion Wiesel, corrects important details and presents the most accurate rendering in English of Elie Wiesel's testimony to what happened in the camps and of his unforgettable message that this horror must simply never be allowed to happen again.]]> 120 Elie Wiesel 0374500010 David 4 read-2024 4.38 1956
author: Elie Wiesel
name: David
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1956
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/01
date added: 2024/09/01
shelves: read-2024
review:

]]> 203956647 A brand new series. An iconic new detective duo. And a puzzling new murder to solve...

Steve Wheeler is enjoying retired life. He does the odd bit of investigation work, but he prefers his familiar habits and routines: the pub quiz, his favorite bench, his cat waiting for him when he comes home. His days of adventure are over: adrenaline is daughter-in-law Amy’s business now.

Amy Wheeler thinks adrenaline is good for the soul. As a private security officer, she doesn’t stay still long enough for habits or routines. She’s currently on a remote island keeping world-famous author Rosie D’Antonio alive. Which was meant to be an easy job...

Then a dead body, a bag of money, and a killer with their sights on Amy have her sending an SOS to the only person she trusts. A breakneck race around the world begins, but can Amy and Steve stay one step ahead of a lethal enemy?

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 059365322X.]]> 400 Richard Osman David 0 to-read 4.06 2024
author: Richard Osman
name: David
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 199126293 A biting portrait of British class, politics, and money told through five interconnected families and their rising―and declining―fortunes.

Campbell Flynn, art historian and biographer of Vermeer, always knew that when his life came crashing down, it would happen in public―yet he never imagined that a single year in London would expose so much. Entangled with a brilliant student, he begins to see trouble brewing for his family and friends. All his worlds collide―the art scene and academia, fashion and the English aristocracy, journalism and the internet―as dangerous forces enter his life and Caledonian Road gives up its secrets.
Andrew O’Hagan has written a social novel in the Victorian style, drawing a whole cast of characters into company with each other and revealing the inner energies of the way we live now.

“Not only a peerless chronicler of our times, O’Hagan has generosity, humour and tenderness, which make this novel an utter joy to read.”―Monica Ali, author of Love Marriage and Brick Lane]]> 614 Andrew O'Hagan 1324074876 David 0 to-read 3.73 2024
author: Andrew O'Hagan
name: David
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 202908611 A story about the weight of the past and the promise of the future set between rural Australia and London - from the bestselling author of The Bass Rock

Max didn’t believe in an afterlife. Until he died. Now, as a reluctant ghost trying to work out why he remains, he watches his girlfriend Hannah lost in grief in the flat they shared and begins to realise how much of her life was invisible to him.

In the weeks and months before Max’s death, Hannah is haunted by the secrets she left Australia to escape. A relationship with Max seems to offer the potential of a different story, but the past refuses to stay hidden. It finds expression in the untold stories of the people she grew up with, the details of their lives she never knew and the events that broke her family apart and led her to Max.

Both a celebration and autopsy of a relationship, The Echoes is a novel about stories and who has the right to tell them, asking what of our past can we shrug off and what is fixed forever.]]> 304 Evie Wyld 1529926998 David 0 to-read 3.81 2024
author: Evie Wyld
name: David
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 216977232
In 1998, an apparently ordinary Australian man is arrested and charged for a series of brutal murders. The news shocks the nation, bringing both horror and resolution to the victims�� families, but its impact travels even into the past, as the murders rewrite personal histories, and into the future, as true crime podcasts and biopics tell the story of the crimes.

Highway Thirteen , Fiona McFarlane’s newest collection, takes murder as its starting point, but it unfolds to encompass much through the investigation of the aftermath of this violence across time and place, from the killer’s childhood town to Texas, Rome, and tropical northern Australia, McFarlane presents an oblique, entrancing exploration of the way stories are told and spread, and at what cost.

What damages, big and small, do these crimes incur? How do communities make sense of such atrocities? How does the mourning of families sit alongside the public fascination with terrible crimes? And can we tell true crime stories without centering the killers? From the acclaimed author of The Sun Walks Down and The High Places comes a captivating account of loss and its extended echoes in individual lives.]]> Fiona McFarlane 176106701X David 0 to-read 3.59 2024
author: Fiona McFarlane
name: David
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>