The First Law of the Bush, by Geoff Parkes
I asked my book guru for a book with plot. I’m writing the outline of a potential novel which needs a properly complicated sub-plot – the sort where a bloke does one little thing that he shouldn’t and things snowball dramatically to a killer twist at the end. Not my usual type of writing, or reading for that matter.
“Read The First Law of the Bush,” said Phil. So I did.
The Curiosity, by Stephan Kiernan
I’m going to give a bookie suggestion right up front. If you’re keen on reading a great story where we bring a man back to life from history, Kaliane Bradley’s The Ministry of Time is the one. It was one of my favourite books of 2024. Stephan Kiernan’s The Curiosity was published a decade earlier, same sort of story, with a modern woman falling for a reanimated gent with all his old-fashioned charms, but it has none of the raunchy chemistry that makes Bradley’s book such a hit. The Curiosity is interesting in parts, but…
Continue reading “The Curiosity – Book review”All Her Lives, by Ingrid Horrocks
Ingrid Horrocks’ book, All her Lives, currently shortlisted for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction, contains nine short stories of women across different generations. The stories span from a tenacious woman chasing stolen silver on the Norwegian coast in 1795 via a Berlin nightclub in 2005 to a woman who visits her son in prison, today. The stories are elegantly constructed, totally different but all the same, each telling of a woman negotiating her place to stand amongst the men around her. If you’re looking for the voice of the Universal Woman she’s here, in these collected works, in a consideration that runs through all these lives like a subcutaneous layer of fat. Simply: How do I, as a woman, negotiate communication with men?
Continue reading “All Her Lives – book review”The Mannequin Makers, by Craig Cliff
I’m always delighted when I find a terrific New Zealand historical fiction from the past that I’ve missed. The Mannequin Makers was published in 2013 by Penguin and now on my list of top NZ hist fict to recommend. This is no sweeping saga of real events, rather a strange small town rivalry that mostly takes place in a shop window. With mannequins. Sounds quirky? Well, yes, in the sense that the story is unconventional and miles away from the usual immigrant saga, but it thankfully misses all the usual shit that comes with ‘quirky’, there is no manufactured cheesiness or forced charm, no ‘found family’ of misfits. Craig Cliff soars above all that.
Continue reading “The Mannequin Makers – book review”Saltblood, by Francesca de Tores
The cover has a tall ship under sail in a stormy sea, SALTBLOOD written in bold gold strapped across the middle and a promise of ‘A blood soaked story of piracy and prejudice’. Its a story of a girl brought up as a boy who runs away to sea and ends up as a pirate. Can a book get any more inviting than that? Well yes, it can, because I happen to know that the story is based on fact. How cool is that?
Continue reading “Saltblood – book review”Caledonian Road, by Andrew O’Hagan
Well, I’m glad that’s over. I took up the challenge of Caledonian Road on the advice of a writer I admire tremendously and who shall remain nameless and cast into the darkness where people who recommend painful books live. Caledonian Road goes on for six-hundred-and-forty pages, robbing me of time I could have spent with a more enjoyable book. I thought it might be one of those stories that will suddenly click as the characters step off the page and beseech me to care about them. Didn’t happen. So why is it on my recommended reading list?
Continue reading “Caledonian Road”Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
Wow. This is a hell of a book. Designed to throw you off balance and make you think, chapter after dense chapter of revelations that leave you uncomfortably challenging your assumptions and prejudices. Those weird Victorians and their strange ‘scientific’ beliefs – right on the cusp of modern thinking and at the same time waaay back in the Dark Ages. Well? Do you believe that sweet Grace Marks brutally murdered her master and the housekeeper?
Continue reading “Alias Grace – book review”The Correspondent, by Virginia Evans
Sybil is a retired judge’s clerk, slightly cranky and opinionated, but oh! so open to change, eventually. She likes to express herself in conversation by writing, and keeps up long dialogues with friends, colleagues, family and others through correspondence – mostly hand written letters, occasionally emails. There’s something wonderful about conversations by letter; the thoughtful choice of topic, the chance to think before speaking, and the opportunity to finish each train of thought without interruption. The whole book is made up of these missives to and from Sybil Van Antwerp, all pithy and interesting, gradually outlining a hole in the heart of her story. There’s a disintegrated family at the bones of all this, things lost between her daughter, her husband, her son.
Continue reading “The Correspondent – book review”Revenge and Rabbit Holes by Mandy Hager
I reviewed Mandy Hager’s Strays & Waifs as part of the great Kapiti fiction theme – there are so many good reads coming from that stretch of coast. Something in the wind, perhaps. Strays was the first gutsy read in the series ‘Chasing Ghost Mysteries’, now followed by book two, Revenge and Rabbit Holes, which again, is a mix of thriller, mystery/crime plus ghost story, with a healthy dollop of Mandy Hager’s signature ‘fight for what’s right’ theme. I like a book that’s high on entertainment but still manages to have decency anchored in its body.
Continue reading “Revenge and Rabbit Holes”Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
It took me a couple of attempts to get into Cloud Cuckoo Land, and I feel no shame in giving up initially after the first few chapters because there are half a dozen seemingly unrelated stories going forward or backward in different times and vastly different locations. If you want a put-down-and-pick-up story, this is not the right book for now. I came back with more patience, reread from the start and was slowly hooked. It’s absolutely worth the effort, but…
I’ll explain.
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