Sally has had various past lives mainly involving the darkened wings of theatres. Her love of words and dust lead her to open her very own bookshop on the pier at Manly. Eventually the consequences of ferries overshooting their berth lead to the development of an unsightly twitch, so she moved her shop to the famous Corso where she sold books happily for a decade.
Always an independent bookseller at heart she is now as happy as a sand boy on leafy King Street.
The Lacuna
Barbara Kingsolver
It's been eleven years since my favourite novel, The Poisonwood Bible was released. I had high expectations for The Lacuna and she lived up right from the first page. Kingsolver is a dream-weaver at the height of her powers. Her stage is mainly exotic Mexico of the 1930s and 40s as it clashes with the US through one of its darkest periods. The cast includes Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and Leon Trotsky but the star is HW Shepherd, the 'ordinary man' searching for a sense of self and home in a world of turmoil. Fans of The Poisonwood Bible will not be disappointed with this vividly realised world with equally engaging, endearing characters. Fabulous stuff!
The Disappeared
Kim Echlin
PB $29.99
October 2009
Remember when you first really fell in love? Your compass totally realigned to a new North, peripherals lost in an exquisite fog. Remember too, the power of the music of your youth to lift you up and sweep you away? Music and love are the two potent powers without borders central to Kim Echlin's poetic new novel about two worlds universes apart.
Written entirely as the memory of young Canadian Anne Greves, this novel succeeds in bearing witness not only to her great love, but to the history of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s. The quite brilliant choice to write the novel in the first person addressing itself to the lost lover, "You", in a pared back, poetic seamless language have created a delicate and very moving space for these lovers to inhabit.
The lover is a gentle Cambodian musician, Serey is caught in Montreal when the borders to his homeland are closed down under Pol Pot. He and Anne become lovers but the pull to discover the fate of his family draws Serey back when the borders finally reopen.
A decade later, all ties thought to be broken, Anne thinks she sees him momentarily on the TV. She follows him to Phnom Penh her studies of Khmer over the intervening decade making her impetuous search seem possible if improbable. Echlin is one of the most gifted writers I have come across, drawing this tragedy on a mythic scale. The horror, violence, corruption are equally balanced with the beauty of the people, their landscape and culture but the power is in the telling and the haunted, lost souls must have their stories told.
Don't miss this beautiful book.
This is How
MJ Hyland
PB $32.95
July 2009
MJ Hyland just loves trouble, or at least troubled youth. She delves and scrapes away to get to the bare bones of what makes people tick. Compellingly, they are ordinary, unassuming types leading seemingly uneventful lives and she's good at it. Her last book, Carry Me Down was shortlisted for the Man Booker and Orange prizes and How the Light Gets In is a favourite at BRTD.
This book is inspired by a story she read from a collection of interviews with 12 convicted murderers. There's something just slightly off about her main character, poor old Patrick Oxtoby but nothing you could put your finger on. When we first meet him he is fleeing the embarrassment of a broken engagement, and who wouldn't have fleeting thoughts of perhaps pushing the jilting lover down the stairs? Patrick is moving on, he has a new job as a mechanic and new digs in a seaside boarding house. And who wouldn't feel cramped when their mother turns up, unannounced, to check up on you - a grown man?
One thing leads to another and this is how...you're in for a riveting, unputdownable read!
The Death of Bunny Munro
Nick Cave
2009
PB $32.95
As hopeless fathers go Bunny Munro is right up there best of the worst. He is an even worse husband driving Libby, his childhood sweetheart and mother of their sweet son Bunny Junior, to suicide with his relentless womanising. This reader was set up to dislike the man from the moment she saw the cover and I see others hesitating as they consider the provocative image chosen. (The UK edition has quite a different treatment). BUT...from the first few pages I was hooked. Nick Cave's tragic, sex obsessed, door-to-door peddler of women's beauty products must be one of the biggest losers you will ever grow to love - OK like a lot. The wild horror of Bunny's derangement as he decides that the best course of action is to take Bunny Junior out on the road with him will wring tears of laughter as well as pangs of disbelief. As innocent and good as his father is desperate and wicked, Bunny Junior tucks his encyclopaedia under his arm, (he's up to the Ms), and faithfully follows his Dad as he "shows him the ropes". Ladies, don't be disheartened, Libby isn't done with Bunny yet!
After the Fire a Still Small Voice
Evie Wyld
PB $32.95
Yes it's a romantic thriller about men who don't talk much. Evie's Dad is a Brit, her Mum an Aussie. As a child she has vivid memories of visiting her relatives on their farm on the north-east coast of Australia. She says their favourite game was "scarring the English"! By all accounts Evie's uncle was a dead ringer for Crocodile Dundee, with a reputation to match. He walks with a limp, the result of having jumped out of a helicopter which was too far off the ground and she loved him. One day she came across a photo album full of photos of his time in Viet Nam - he had never talked about it, but here were images of such horror that it planted the seed for this book. After the Fire a Still Small Voice explores the space between what you think you know about people and who they really are.
Her descriptions of the coast and in particular the creeping cane fields which seem possessed are brilliant. This is a poignant, multi-dimensional mystery by a terrific young writer.
Evie visited BRTD recently and we do have signed copies available.
The Wasted Vigil
Nadeem Aslam
2008
PB $32.99
Aslam says that "the novelist's job is not to pose solutions, but to find out how best to live" and as in his previous novel, Maps for Lost Lovers, he explores the struggle to hold on to god.
This very moving novel revolves around five people with opposing ideological positions. A Russian woman in search of her brother, an American gem merchant, a young Afghani teacher and a radicalized Afghani boy all meet at the home of the English perfume maker, widower Marcus Caldicott.
While the evocation of present-day Afghanistan is unspeakably sad, redemption comes in haunting glimpses of the eternal beauty of the land and kindness remaining in the men and women drawn together in their various searches, friends becoming family.
The Shadow of the Wind
Carlos Ruiz Zafón
2001
PB $24.95
We had to wait three years for this wonderful European bestseller to be translated from the Spanish into English. It has everything, a mystery and love story, a beautiful setting and who couldn't love a story that starts out with a young boy's visit to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books???
The city of Barcelona is also a star in this book and there are wonderful maps which really bring the story to life.
The Life You Can Save
Acting Now to End World Poverty
Peter Singer
2009
PB $34.95
This is the first book I'd read by Peter Singer. I found that it was not only readable it was compelling.
It's a call to action based on Peter's belief that, for the first time in history, it is now within our reach to eradicate world poverty. Peter explains that around the world, a billion people struggle to live each day on less than many of us pay for bottled water. And though the number of deaths attributable to poverty worldwide has fallen dramatically in the past half-century, nearly ten million children still die unnecessarily each year. We in the developed world face a profound choice: If we are not to turn our backs on a fifth of the world's population, we must become part of the solution and what he proposes are some very practical ways each of us can get involved and make a difference.
My favourite book
The Poisonwood Bible
Barbara Kingsolver
1998
PB $23.95
Dysfunctional families make for great story telling and the Price family are one of literatures most wonderful creations. This wise and darkly witty book remains a favourite since I first read in 1998. It's also a great way to get to know more about the history of the Congolese fight for independence.
Nathan Price; the guilt-ridden Baptist preacher, has decided that the only way to appease his conscience is to uproot his wife and four daughters from their comfortable home in Georgia and take them to save souls in the Belgian Congo. The story takes us through the political turmoil of the 1950's and 60's in the amazing Belgian Congo, right up to the 90's and the death of Mobuto.
Kingsolver, a botanist who spent time in the Congo herself, brings this foreign world to life and has created some of the most memorable characters you'll ever have the pleasure of knowing.
As Nathan sets out to rule not only his family but the 'misguided natives' he finds in the Congo, it is the Price family women alone who each in turn tell this epic tragedy. The women sees the world quite differently. The eldest daughter, Rachel, a materialistic teen who cannot believe her parents could so utterly ruin her life, ultimately finds that good looks have their advantage even in this god-forsaken place. Leah, one of the twins, idolises her father but ultimately loses her faith, still chooses to remain and live in the Congo forever. Adah, the other twin is mute and stricken with a limp. Blessed with intelligence, wit and a love for poetry, this cynical child was my favourite character. Ruth May is the baby of the family, the innocent who binds all the other together and finally Orleana, the mother who is torn between supporting her driven husband who surely has god on his side, while knowing that his extremist views threaten all that is dear to her. Fabulous!
My favourite author
Tim Winton
I discovered the wonders of Winton late in life and can remember time just standing still while I read Cloudstreet for the first time. I started it again straight away as I couldn't bear to leave them all behind. Next I read a collection of his short stories, The Turning, then Breath. I love the way he uses language and celebrates the Aussie vernacular. He depicts our beautiful country so vividly and our people uniquely.
What's Beside The Bed...
Truth
Peter Temple
The sequel to The Broken Shore - which my bookclub unanimously loved.
King of the Cross
Mark Dapin
Jane Philips our Pan Macmillan rep LOVED this so it's all down to her. Let's see if it's as wickedly wonderful as she says!