10 great lockdown reads
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Need to kill some time? Books were made for days spent at home.
Manuka’s Paperchain Bookstore share 1o great reads, perfect for lockdown.
FICTION
The Bass Rock
Evie Wyld
Evie Wyld has proven herself to be a master storyteller, and The Bass Rock is no exception.
Set on the Scottish coast in the shadow of the titular Bass Rock, this most recent novel follows three women who live centuries apart (we are taken back to the 1720s, to the aftermath of WW2, to something like the present), but whose stories are connected by the landscape they inhabit, and by haunting threads of one-another.
Told in language that is both economic and startlingly evocative, this is a deeply unsettling and searingly insightful exploration of abuse and isolation.
The tales of these three women weave in and out of each of their lives, knotted with pain and fury—but also, with the gleam of hope, and the possibility of survival.
THE ODYSSEY
Homer
Odysseus, King of Ithaca, remains missing, 20 years after sacking the City of Troy. In his efforts to return he finds himself driven to the ends of the earth, facing temptations and trials from foes, both foul and fair, in a bid to return home to his family.
Back home his household is in disarray; his wife Penelope fights against the rising number of suitors that are seeking to marry her, while his son Telemachus tries in vain to stand up to them.
In Odysseus’ quest to return home Homer explores the themes of wandering, temptations and homecoming—the absence of home, the fight to return to what is loved and the embrace of the familiar. Though it has stories of war and isolation, these narrative elements distil the essence of ‘home’—the place that you call your own, and in an emotional sense, the ones who you love.
This Is How You Lose The Time War
Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone
This Is How You Lose The Time War is a captivating blend of science fiction, queer romance, and lyrical prose, in which two spies (Red and Blue) working for opposite factions—each trying to bring about their versions of a utopia across multiple universes and timelines—begin exchanging letters and slowly fall in love, forging a dangerous bond with each other that could spell tragedy in the midst of war.
El-Mohtar and Gladstone’s writing is wonderfully rich, with vivid artistic expression and fascinating worlds and ideas. Red and Blue are brilliantly deep and different characters, who the reader slowly gets to know through the letters being exchanged, the way that they interact with the worlds they’re tasked with altering, and their reactions to each other.
A gripping and emotional read.
My Year of Rest and Relaxation
Ottessa Moshfegh
Never one to shy away from the darker realities of contemporary life, Ottessa Moshfegh’s latest novel is a grim, funny and artfully realised account of disconnection and alienation.
Set in pre 9/11 New York, the unnamed narrator—a beautiful, wealthy young women—dulls the pain of her parents’ death by putting herself into ‘chemical hibernation’ for a year—taking a vast menu of prescription drugs obtained from the ethically dubious Dr. Tuttle.
In doing so, she hopes to emerge cured of the disaffection she feels in being alive in a seemingly pointless modern world. Of course, things don’t go as planned, but Moshfegh’s skill in building the world of this character is a compelling triumph.
THE TOYMAKERS
Robert Dinsdale
Entering the welcoming wings of a magical toy emporium in central London, a pregnant teenage runaway with no plans for the future finds a place of shelter among the aisles of enchanted Christmas toys. The creation of an enigmatic Prussian Toymaker, the emporium is a mysterious world that opens on the first midnight frost and closes when the first snowdrop flower blooms.
It is here, in the enchanted building, that Cathy tries to hide her pregnancy and inadvertently catches the eye of the two Toymaker’s sons, the charismatic Kaspar and the reserved Emil.
After her first winter in the Emporium Cathy begins to feel a sense of belonging; however, in the face of the store’s impending closure, she hides away in the depths of the building to give birth to her child and begins to create a new home.
THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU
Jonathan Tropper
After the death of their father, the four adult Foxman children make their way back home to sit ‘Shiva’, the Jewish period of mourning with their mother.
Begrudgingly coming together for first time in many years, they must spend seven days together under the same roof in order to fulfil their father’s dying wish. Bringing with them their various marital debacles and old sibling feuds, painful wounds are reopened as people from their past re-emerge and the riotous family dynamic from their childhood returns.
Though the roots of this story are steeped in the misfortunes of life, the failures of relationships and sobering nature of death, there is a likeability and humour in the flaws of each character as they search their own lives for meaning and ponder their regrets.
NON-FICTION
REMODALISTA: THE ORGANISED HOME
Julie Carlson and Margot Guralnick
The word ‘home’ conjures up a variety of contradictory ideas: cosy, cluttered, open and light, minimal and restful. All of them resonate differently in each of us, however, they all involve a sense of belonging, safety and rest.
Remodalista is an inspiration guide that taps into the recent decluttering and downsizing trend which seeks to promote simpler living spaces. It encourages readers to take part in an eco- friendly approach to decluttering by engaging in a ‘Sharing Economy’ by borrowing items they would rarely use.
Although Remodalista is based around changing the physical space in your home, at the core, it is a means to improving one’s mental health by creating solutions for the inevitable cluttering that begins even as you unpack boxes in a new home. Not only does it inspire you to reduce your clutter, it is also darn pretty to flick through.
SAGALAND
Richard Fidler and Kari Gislason
Iceland is a place of meadows and mountains, a vast windswept interior and plunging waterfalls. A place where Viking feuds played out, and whose true stories have been passed down through the years from generation to generation.
Part biography, part travel-writing, this collaboration between Fidler and Gislason is an exploration of the landscape of epic folklore, but for Kari it is also a search for home in the land of his father. The son of an Australian woman and an Icelandic father, Kari’s early life was spent in Iceland before his mother returned to Australia leaving behind the first home he’d ever known.
The book finds its rhythm through alternating chapters from each author: in Richard’s there is a playfulness to the phrasing and humorous observations, and in Kari’s there is a poetry of longing as he seeks to uncover his father’s family history and find his own place amongst the Sagas of Iceland.
Before Time Began
Jessica De Largy Healy, Georges Petitjean, Luke Scholes
Before Time Began is an Indigenous art book, cataloguing the first major Indigenous art exhibition at the Foundation Opale.
The book opens with a series of essays exploring Dreaming, contemporary Indigenous art in Arnhem land and its links to traditional roots, the emergence of the Western Desert art movement at Papunya in the 1970s, and the Kulata Tjuta (Many Spears) Project, which showcases traditional spear-making from a number of Indigenous communities as an art form.
The second half of the book is a catalogue of Indigenous art, paintings, and sculpture from across Australia. The combination of fascinating essays, beautiful art, and rich commentary that provides depth and insight into to each artwork makes this book a fantastic read for anyone interested in art, and Indigenous culture and history.
The Memory Pool
Therese Spruhan
For many of us, our early memories ripple with swimming pools. If home was the suburbs—perhaps the scent of chlorine, the grease of sunscreen and hot chips, the scald of concrete. If the ocean was close—maybe hair encrusted with salt, the sequinned surface of sea pools, sandwiches full of sand.
In The Memory Pool, Therese Spruhan has collected stories from 27 Australians who hold dear the swimming pools of their youth—stories of imagination and escape, of endless summers, of after-school rituals, of teenage romances, of secrets and dreaming. These tales will move and delight anyone who knows what it is to be glitteringly haunted by a pool from childhood—whether a pool of the city or the suburbs, of the ocean or the bush.
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