What to read this week: Japan, a Routine Infidelity, a money guide and more
Japan, infidelity, a money guide and the sequel to the best-selling The Hidden Life of Trees are among this week’s choices.
Japan, infidelity, a money guide and the sequel to the best-selling The Hidden Life of Trees are among this week’s choices.
Japan
Steve Wide and Michelle Mackintosh are certified Japanophiles who have written several books about Japan. Their latest book explains why it continues to be the destination of choice for many Australians. Beautifully designed, it covers the country’s history, culture and art, food, seasons and all the best sights in different regions. While delivering all the usual information, this guide also goes off-track, with information about sacred sites and pilgrimage trails, unique places, manholes, pop art and much more. Whether you’re a pop-culture fanatic, heading to Japan to ski, or in search of something more contemplative, this fascinating book has something for everyone. Perfect for travellers, including from the armchair.
A Routine Infidelity
Elizabeth Coleman is a successful screenwriter and playwright and more recently wrote on every season of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries and Miss Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries. A Routine Infidelity is her debut novel and is a smart cosy crime that is perfect for fans of Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club. Private investigator Edwina ‘Ted’ Bristol usually deals with cheating spouses and missing pets. While working on a seemingly straightforward case of infidelity, she blunders across an intriguing embezzlement case. Could she finally fulfill her dream of solving a real crime? When she discovers her sister has fallen prey to a catfishing scam, the twists, turns and fun escalate.
The Dream Builders
Maneka Roy returns home to India from the USA after her mother dies. There, she discovers a very different country to the one she left. In this astonishing debut, Oindrila Mukherjee tells a grand tale of class, gender and globalisation. This is a character-driven story of India today, masterfully told through ten alternating perspectives. While the perspective constantly shifts, you never feel lost or disoriented. Achieving this sense of ease within such an ambitious and innovative narrative structure reveals Mukherjee’s true talent. She has a PhD in literature and currently teaches creative writing at Grand Valley State University.
The Power of Trees
The Power of Trees is the follow-up to Peter Wohlleben’s international bestseller The Hidden Life of Trees. This time, he shares new and fascinating discoveries about how trees exchange information, placing them in a strong position to survive the current climate crisis. But trees need two things to successfully adapt: time, and to be left alone. “Forests return quickly and vigorously when they are allowed to grow back on their own.” He also explores the problems associated with tree planting schemes, and planting trees for logging or virtue signalling. Wohlleben is a passionate advocate for trees and the environment, and this is a realistic, readable and ultimately hopeful read about both.
The Double Bind
By Loraine Peck
Text Publishing, Fiction
400pp, $32.99
Loraine Peck’s gripping debut, The Second Son, won the 2021 Best Debut Crime Fiction Ned Kelly Award. Set in Western Sydney, it’s a disturbing look into gang warfare there, especially between the Croatians and Serbs. It introduced Johnny Novak, whose brother Ivan was gunned down, and his struggle between the toxic expectations of his birth family and his desire to keep his wife Amy and their son Sasha safe. Now, Johnny and Amy return in The Double Bind. In this novel, they’ve moved to a coastal town up north, but the past won’t let go – and neither will Milan, the family patriarch. Now it’s Amy’s turn to come out blazing, and it makes for a sensational read.
The London Seance Society
A feminist Victorian whodunit mystery set in the world of spiritualism – it may sound like an unusual mix, but Sarah Penner’s follow-up to her hugely successful The Lost Apothecary does not disappoint. Lenna Wickes, devastated by the murder of her beloved younger sister, Evie, travels to Paris to study under the tutelage of the infamous Vaudeline D’Allaire. Lenna is a reluctant student, sceptical of spiritualism, preferring the reality of fossils. It’s a divide that separated her from Evie, an aspiring medium. But with her sister’s untimely demise, Lenna finds herself doing what she least expected, in the hope she and Vaudeline may be able to uncover Evie’s killer.
Smart Money Strategy
Luke Smith is a financial planner who appears weekly on a Canberra radio show and podcast called the Strategy Stacker. As part of his ongoing philosophy to educate clients and demystify key financial concepts, he’s written Smart Money Strategy. This book is designed to give you the background to some key financial strategies, show you when and how to use them, and how ‘stacking’ these strategies can help you reach your goals. Simply explained, Smith provides tools for understanding where you’re at financially, what to implement next, and the knowledge and language to be better equipped when seeking professional financial advice. With detailed sections on investment, super, retirement and wealth protection, this is an excellent guide for the current times.
Pragmatism
This is the latest volume in the MIT’s Essential Knowledge series, and it’s billed as a “reader-friendly overview of pragmatism.” And we all do need to be a little pragmatic right now, don’t we, what with rising interest rates and the crippling cost of living making it nigh impossible to afford essentials, such as books. Shook describes pragmatism‘s origins, concepts, and “continuing global relevance” as a tool, for example, in Russia’s domestic and international propaganda regime. The author teaches philosophy at Bowie State University in Maryland. His previous works have been about neuroscience.
Author leaves final testament
Victoria Amelina was bravely documenting the Russian war against Ukraine when a missile ended her life, but her story lives on in her posthumously released book
Sunk before it could swim
French or American? A new book examines the long road toward a new Australian submarine program.