What to read this week: Another Life, The Paris Agent, Taken
A new novel from a New York Times No.1 best-selling author is among this week’s picks selected by critic Samuel Bernard.
A new novel from a New York Times No.1 best-selling author is among this week’s picks selected by critic Samuel Bernard.
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Another Life
Kristin Hannah has sold over 25 million copies of her books worldwide. Her novel The Nightingale was a New York Times No. 1 bestseller, and her delightful coming of age story, Firefly Lane, is now a best-selling series on Netflix. Another Life follows Angie DeSaria, a woman who has spent years trying for a child, with her marriage ultimately paying the price. Utterly lost, she returns to her childhood home to try and save her failing family business. There she meets Lauren, a senior high school student with a troubled mother. When Angie hires Lauren to work at her restaurant, the two form an immediate bond, but nothing can prepare Angie for what’s to come.
Mind of the Nation
Michael Wesley is the deputy vice-chancellor international at the University of Melbourne and former dean of the College of Asia and the Pacific at ANU. In Mind of a Naton, he investigates Australian universities and their turbulent relationship with Australian society; quite notably since the Covid pandemic. In an interview on ABC’s Radio National in June, Wesley stated that he couldn’t believe the vitriol coming out of the media towards Australia’s universities during this unstable period. What resulted is Wesley’s absorbing examination of the impact that universities are having on Australian life. Wesley has created an enthralling text that will appeal to academics, students, and those with a vested interest in the industry.
The Paris Agent
In The Paris Agent, Noah Ainsworth battles the gaps in his memories, years after the Second World War. Noah was a member of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), a top-secret British World War II organisation, which is perhaps better known as “Churchill’s Secret Army” but he can’t remember the name of the secret agent that saved his life during a final mission in France. As his daughter Charlotte begins to search for answers, she uncovers the compelling story of Fleur and Chloe, two ordinary women who were called up by the SOE in 1943. Kelly Rimmer is the best-selling author of The Warson Orphan and The Things we Cannot Say.
Broken Light
Joanne Harris has the ability to write across genre, time, and place. She has written twenty-two novels, three cookbooks, a stage musical, several screenplays, and numerous short stories. Her 1999 novel Chocolat was adapted to film starring Johnny Depp and in 2022 Harris was awarded an OBE for her services to literature. Broken Light is a crime thriller. Bernie Moon is almost 50, going through menopause, and often feels like she is losing herself. When a young female runner is murdered in a local park, it sparks a series of memories from when Bernie was a child, including memories of a talent that has lain quiescent over these many years; a talent that may just end up proving useful.
A Tiger Rules the Mountain
Cambodia has had a tempestuous political history and has even been categorised as one of the most repressive and corrupt countries on Earth. With Prime Minister Hun Sen leading the country since 1985, which indeed makes him the world’s longest-serving prime minister, Cambodia remains a shadow of the country it could be. Gordon Conochie is an adjunct research fellow at La Trobe University and has worked with the Ministry of Education, UNICEF and the World Bank in Cambodia. Conochie uses narrative nonfiction to take readers deep inside the borders to give personal accounts from an erratic and turbulent decade. He provides profound insight into a complex country that may just have an appetite for reform.
The Investigators
The Investigators is the captivating story of the first known circumnavigation of Australia aboard the HMS Investigator under the command of Matthew Flinders. This historical novel is primed with adventure, triumph, and tragedy, based on the life of John Franklin, a 15-year-old midshipman and the cousin of Flinders. Anthony Hill, the multiple award-winning author of Soldier Boy and Captain Cook’s Apprentice, guides readers through the detailed history of the HMS Investigator, from its delayed launch to the numerous tragedies aboard the vessel, and the crowning achievement of the voyage. The novel is well researched; Anthony Hill will certainly awaken the historian in you.
The Archipelago of Us
Geographically closer to Indonesia than Australia, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Christmas Island are ignored by most Australians. Our complicated relationship with these remote territories is put under the microscope in this reflective and insightful book. Written by the award-winning Reneé Pettitt-Schipp, The Archipelago of Us is a delicate and evocative look at Australia’s detention system and the history of the islands. Pettitt-Schipp lived in these territories from 2011 until 2014, almost a decade on, she finds herself being drawn back to this incredible region. The Archipelago of Usis a travel narrative, a memoir, and an impressively researched history of a place too often overlooked.
Taken
In 2020, Dinuka McKenzie won the Banjo Prize for her debut, The Torrent. In Taken, which was longlisted for the 2020 Richell Prize, McKenzie has crafted an intensive plot that would rock any parent to their core. Baby Sienna has just disappeared from her bassinet while her mother was showering. Detective Sergeant Kate Miles, who has just returned from maternity leave and is also feeling the financial pinch from her husband losing his job, is put on the case. McKenzie is an expert at driving the plot. The novel takes the reader down a winding rural road, with sharp twists and turns throughout. An intense crime thriller, brimming with piercing social observations.
Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy — charming and crackingly funny
Now widowed and in her fifties, Bridget Jones navigates love, loss, and ‘labial lockdown’. Hugh Grant steals scenes, Emma Thompson delivers comic gold, and wet-shirted romance lives on.
Which empire introduced coffee to Europe?
What fish is used in Worcestershire sauce? Which two film sequels have starred Robert Carlyle? Test yourself.