The best new release books you need to read on your Easter holidays
Whip out your chocolate bunny, find your comfiest armchair and get ready to delve into whole new worlds with this list of the best new release books to read over your Easter holidays.
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Whip out your chocolate bunny, find the comfiest armchair and get ready to delve into whole new worlds with this list of the best new release books to read over your Easter holidays.
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TURNBULL MEMOIR TO SPILL DIRT ON EVERYONE
HOW POETRY IS MAKING REBELLIOUS COMEBACK
TURIA PITT’S TEEN GUIDE TO KICK-ASS LIFE
EXPLODED VIEW by CARRIE TIFFANY
TEXT, RRP $30
This strangely compelling story from Melbourne writer Carrie Tiffany, the winner of the first Stella Prize in 2013, is finely focused on the inner life of a young girl in the 1970s. The reader sees everything through her eyes as she struggles with an abusive stepfather, “father man”, mother and her brother, none of whom are named. The young girl finds solace and guidance in a Holden repair manual, with its clear instructions and exploded drawings of all the moving parts. While she helps with car repairs in her stepfather’s illegal backyard garage, by night she carries out vengeful acts of sabotage on the cars, stripping parts from the motors and burying them. Much of the story is taken up with a journey that provides respite from abuse and narrows the family’s life to the intimate space of the car’s interior, where they also eat and sleep yet manage to avoid touching — physically or mentally. This is a book about coping, of trying to see find life’s instruction manual and its exploded view of life.
VERDICT: MANIFOLD TRUTHS
THE GIRL THEY LEFT BEHIND by ROXANNE VELETZOS
SIMON & SCHUSTER, RRP $30
The adage that truth is stranger than fiction is a perfect fit as Veletzos returns to her grandmother’s childhood in war-torn Romania as inspiration for this historical novel. It begins when a weeping three-year-old girl is found alone on a Romanian doorstep as Jews flee persecution in Bucharest in 1941. Her parents figure a child stands some chance of survival as Romania allies itself with the Nazis. Despite the war, that little girl grows up content as Natalia in her wealthy adoptive family. But the end of World War II brings no relief as Russia and communism sweep in to rule with an iron fist. Ultimately, Natalia’s only chance at freedom means deciding whether to mirror her childhood by leaving her own loved ones behind. Veletzos follows her family history and her heart to recount the lifelong impact of the pillaging of Bucharest’s Jewish sectors in 1941. This special tale includes a chapter outlining her family story, complete with photos.
VERDICT: SAD BUT TRUE
CAVAN STATION by NICOLA CRICHTON-BROWN
HARPER COLLINS, RRP $50
This lavishly illustrated book is a history of Cavan Station near Yass, New South Wales. After European settlement, the unique landscape of the area was sighted by explorers Hume and Hovel on their 1824 expedition from Sydney to Port Phillip Bay, in search of new grazing land. At the time, Australia was being transformed from a dumping ground for convicts, to a breeding ground for the finest wool in the world. In 1834, the “Cavan run” was purchased by William Riley, the son of Alexander Riley, who had done much to promote the Saxon Merino as the ideal breed of sheep for Australian conditions. The younger Riley set about commercialising wool production in the area. Other owners followed, and through the devastation and preservation of the natural environment, through boom times and depression, the story of Cavan Station became, in a wider sense, the story of the Australian wool industry. Today, the origins of the industry can still be traced to this remarkable area and this book charts the changes of almost 200 years.
VERDICT: ENGAGING
LAST ONES LEFT ALIVE by SARAH DAVIS-GOFF
HACHETTE, RRP $30
I can’t imagine I’ll read a better book in 2019 than Last Ones Left Alive.
Granted, any day with a dystopian apocalypse novel is a good day, but Sarah Davis-Goff’s debut novel has elevated what can be little more than diverting escapism into literature. Think Cormac McCarthy’s The Road rather than The Walking Dead.
Orpen, a young woman of unspecified age, was raised by her mother and stepmother Maeve on a fictional island off the west coast of Ireland.
When we meet her she is with her dog Danger, wheeling a gravely ill Maeve in a barrow across a terrifying landscape infested with skrake — part zombie/part Alien creatures who inhabit the bodies of the humans they bite and have transformed Ireland, and presumably the world, into this desperate state.
She’s trying to reach Phoenix City. Orpen doesn’t know much about it, only that her mother and Maeve once lived there and it might offer sanctuary to those who can avoid the clutches of the skrake.
Her mother and Maeve refuse to discuss Phoenix City. The only knowledge Orpen gets from her parents is in reading, and how to defend herself. A strict physical training regimen begins when she turns 10. With a daily obstacle course comprising running, strength training and knife throwing, she’s as well equipped as she can be for whatever the future holds.
But though her island is likely the last skrake-free vestige of old Ireland, Orpen wonders about Phoenix City, and cobbles together her hopes about it by secretly seeking out whatever scraps of information she can find in an abandoned village on the island.
It’s those hopes that propel her on her journey across Ireland after a catastrophic event.
She’s about halfway there when she meets Cillian, Nic and Aodh, walking in the other direction. They don’t reveal much, only that Phoenix City isn’t the safe harbour she’s seeking. There girls are not taught to read, destined for a life as either a breeder or a “banshee”. Now Orpen has a choice to make.
Deeply unsettling with a long lingering aftertaste, Last Ones Left Alive is going to be filed alongside Beth Lewis’ The Wolf Road and Michel Faber’s Under the Skin on my bookshelf.
VERDICT: TERRIFYING
BEAUTIFUL BAD by ANNIE WARD
HARPER COLLINS, RRP $30
Beautiful Bad is one hell of a ride. It’s a tale of love and loss, control and manipulation, beauty and badness that will keep you guessing right to the last page. The book opens in idyllic Meadowlark, Kansas. A woman rings 911 screaming hysterically for help, but the line goes dead before she can say more than a few words. Police arrive at the up-market country home to find a body lying in blood in the basement and a child upstairs crying hysterically. The book then seesaws between the day of the killing and events that took place in the decade or so before until the time frames dramatically collide. It’s not a new strategy but it’s effective here. It also includes insights from both the victim and perpetrator, offering a unique view of violent domestic relationships. As the tagline says, “the truth is never this perfect”. This is not a book for the faint-hearted and at times it’s depressing and unnerving. Persevere with it — you’ll be glad you did. The last few pages make every grim, gut-wrenching word worth it.
VERDICT: HAUNTED, TWISTED, COMPELLING
ACCIDENTAL FEMINISTS by JANE CARO
MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY PRESS, RRP $33
“Feminism may be an incomplete project, but it has never been as influential or as powerful as it is today,” Jane Caro (above) writes. This book is a celebration of the giant steps women born between the mid-1940s and late-1950s — Baby Boomers — made for womankind. These were young women who grew up believing that their greatest achievement would be meeting a “spunk”, marrying him and having a family. But instead they were revolutionary, Caro says, becoming the first generation of women to have mostly earned their own money. Unfortunately, not everyone benefited in the same way, and Accidental Feminists is a call to arms, a recognition there is still a long way to go. One of the most critical situations involves older women who — due to pay inequality or having devoted their lives to caring for their husbands and children — have suddenly found themselves widowed or divorced and are living in dire financial circumstances or are homeless. Every woman, but especially every man, needs to read this.
VERDICT: BRILLIANT
EIGHT LIVES by SUSAN HURLEY
AFFIRM PRESS, RRP $33
Monoclonal antibodies, a cytokine storm, hybridomas … if, like most of us, you’re no science geek, such techno speak can be daunting in a novel. But debut author Hurley (above) draws on more than 30 years’ experience in medical research and the pharmaceutical industry to break through the jargon and deliver a powerful mystery with Melbourne at its epicentre. This is the story of David Tran, who defies a humble start in Melbourne as a Vietnamese refugee to become a golden boy of medical research after inventing a wonder drug billed as the answer to any number of immune diseases. With the drug he’s dubbed EIGHT’s potential to earn billions of dollars, Tran seems to have the world at his feet. But just as a vital human medical trial of eight healthy paid recipients is about to take place, Tran dies in strange circumstances. Hurley backtracks to solve the mystery, using the voices of Tran’s family, friends and business associates, some trustworthy, others decidedly dodgy. It’s an intriguing journey into the high stakes world of medical research where lives are on the line beside the corporate quest for profit. Hurley developed her story after a catastrophic real-life
UK drug trial in 2006 that resulted in six men coming close to death. Hurley’s story
is fiction but it will make you think about the power of disease, the drug industry —
and money, of course. And the ending has a kick in the tail.
VERDICT: THOUGHT-PROVOKING
MAKE A HOME TO LOVE by ANNA-CARIN McNAMARA
BRIO BOOKS, RRP $35
Swedish born and now calling Australia home, interior designer Anna-Carin McNamara is on
a mission to take the simple and distinctive Scandinavian style to the world. Unlike other design books, this is not just full of gorgeous photographs — although there are plenty to whet your appetite — but also gives you the nuts and bolts of how to do it yourself. It takes you step by step through each room, showing how to analyse with a designer’s eye. Not only will you learn to pinpoint what’s wrong and what needs to be done in each room, but the book also concentrates on the often intangible things that make a home welcoming and comfortable. Decluttering is high on the list, of course, but so are recycling and restoring or keeping important or favourite possessions to let them fit with the new look. This is a timeless reference and a beautiful bookshelf or coffee table addition.
VERDICT: SUPER STYLISH
EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT LOVE by DOLLY ALDERTON
FIG TREE, RRP $23
Best known for tackling political and pop culture topics via her wildly popular podcast, The High Low, and weekly columns across the UK, Dolly Alderton has sidestepped across to the timeless topic of love in her debut memoir, Everything I Know About Love. From tales of sex in bathrooms, hoarding indoor plants, being “guru-d” and exploring the never-ending possibilities of what can be done with a Texta marker, Alderton traverses the topic of love from every angle — what it feels like to want it, to have it, to lose it, and to find it in the most unlikely of places. Part cautionary tale of the sexual and romantic misadventures one has in their 20s, part love letter to the women who surround us through it all, Everything I Know About Love is as comforting and familiar as it is eye-wateringly hilarious.
VERDICT: PERFECT WEEKEND READ
THE WAR ARTIST by SIMON CLEARY
UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND PRESS, RRP $30
Simon Cleary’s powerful saga scrutinises the enormous effect of war, mentally and physically through Australian Brigadier James Phelan, an armchair officer who has made his operational decisions from the comfort of a desk. Desperate to get near the front, he wrangles a trip to Afghanistan for what’s supposed to be a benign meeting concerning a water crossing. Tragedy strikes when the patrol escorting Phelan is ambushed. Samuel Beckett, a young Aussie soldier, is killed and Lieutenant Anthony Gruen wants revenge. Enter Kira, a tattoo artist, who Phelan meets after he escorts Beckett’s casket back to Sydney. Kira has reneged on a fine arts degree to embellish people’s bodies and from the moment he steps into the tattoo parlour, their fate is intertwined. This book captures the strength of the human spirit; when life throws everything at you, from every direction.
VERDICT: A WORTHY READ
GREEK TO ME by MARY NORRIS
TEXT, RRP $28
Mary Norris, a former copyeditor at The New Yorker, has a longstanding interest in modern and classical Greek language. She also has a love of contemporary Greece and its mythical traditions. This book, rich in the history of language and the alphabet, is part memoir, as was her first book, Between You & Me, proving that language and life are impossible to separate. This book takes us on a journey with the written and spoken word, from the stresses on syllables to the stresses of travelling alone in a patriarchal society. It rollicks along, despite frequent stops to teach a little grammar and point out the problems of translating the ancient playwrights … as well as the reason Noah Webster decided Americans should pronounce Z as “zee” instead of the English “zed”. It’s the alpha to omega of everything, really.
VERDICT: EDIBLE PI
KINDRED by KATE LEGGE
THE MIEGUNYAH PRESS, RRP $45
Gustav Weindorfer was an Austrian amateur botanist who arrived in Melbourne in 1900 and fell in love with the Australian bush. He also fell in love with a feisty, independent woman, Kate Cowie. They married, moved to Tasmania and began exploring the Central Highlands. After a visit to Cradle Mountain, the Weindorfers became determined to reveal its beauty to others. They built a chalet, to which they invited people from around the world. During WWI, Kate died and Gustav came under suspicion of being a spy because of his ancestry, but nevertheless carried on his work of both promoting and protecting the Tassie wilderness. Author Legge has gained access to journals, personal correspondence and photographs to tell the story of this remarkable couple. Although she is never quite sure whether she is writing a love story, a history or a pictorial travelogue, she still evokes an impressive sense of time and place.
VERDICT: ELEVATED
GOING BACK by MUNJED AL MUDERIS
ALLEN & UNWIN, RRP $33
In his first memoir Walking Free, Munjed Al Muderis told the harrowing story of how in 1999, as a first-year resident doctor, he escaped from a hospital in Baghdad when Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard burst in and began murdering staff. He boarded a people smuggler’s boat in Indonesia, arrived at Christmas Island and spent “nine horrific months” in an Australian detention centre. Finally deemed a genuine refugee, he was released and rose to become a leading orthopaedic surgeon and a persuasive argument for tolerance of boat people. In Going Back, Al Muderis returns to post-Saddam Iraq to operate on soldiers and civilians who have lost limbs in the war against ISIS. In many ways the return is every bit as harrowing as the escape. Al Muderis again faces bias, bigotry and brutality. This is a story much bigger than one remarkable refugee and is told with a direct honesty that is inspiring and confronting.
VERDICT: EXEMPLARY
BLOOD ORANGE by HARRIET TYCE
HACHETTE, RRP $33
It’s hard to find a character to like in this book until their weaknesses are revealed. Behind the big-noting, drunken, high-flying bravado of the London legal profession is a truly messed-up world. The insight is shocking as we follow barrister Alison through her first murder, her career on the rise. But it’s not just the facts of the new case that are disturbing but also her own life as it rapidly unravels. Alison’s privileged private life with an adoring six-year-old daughter and a homebody husband contrasts sharply with her heavy drinking, affairs, risk taking and rough sex at work. Add to that a murder accused desperate to plead guilty, an instructing solicitor acting on the edge of the law, and a stalker, and Alison’s private and work lives are cleverly entwined in an edgy debut novel by author and former criminal barrister Harriet Tyce. A dark psychological thriller that will have you second guessing until the very end.
VERDICT: NOT FOR FAINT HEARTED
THIRTY THOUSAND BOTTLES OF WINE AND A PIG CALLED HELGA by TODD ALEXANDER
Simon & Schuster, RRP $33
Sick of the hustle and bustle of corporate Sydney, Todd and Jeff up stumps and luck upon an established property in the Hunter Valley. This dream-come-true plot has vines, an olive grove and plenty of space to build boutique accommodation. So begins Alexander’s retelling of their journey, warts and all. The couple’s every step, blunder and achievement is told with a comical touch, from coping with horny pigs and pampered chickens, to their first vintage and bungled recipes. There is plenty of self-deprecating humour littered throughout this tale, but at times it feels like a fleshed-out diary,
a step-by-step account of rejecting city life for the ultimate tree change. Some readers will love this but more of Alexander’s witty and droll observations on life rather than a chronological breakdown of their journey would have made this tale a far more sumptuous treat.
VERDICT: Recipe worth testing
‘Don’t try this at home’: Risk rewarded
Joanne Fedler defied inner fear and official advice, to take a risk at a time of personal loss – and made an extraordinary discovery that brought back her gift for storytelling.
Cleary, Gould haven’t spoken since phone call
Days after his extraordinary grand final feat, Ivan Cleary has opened up on some very private topics, including his rift with Phil Gould.