Reviews
The growth of tech, social media and personal devices has evolved the way our society interacts with the world today. Stolen Focus is an investigation into how this has happened, what it means and offers tools in how to get our focus back. A hot topic told in an engaging and thorough way, this a great non fiction read to start off the new year.
Read this excerpt from The Guardian and listen to Jenna, Rachel and Zoe discuss below.
Jenna is Rachel and Zoe’s first guest in the studio since August! Today, she reviews Lauren Groff’s Matrix. An imagining of the life medieval poet, Marie de France, who is sent away from the royal court to live as a nun. Never has a story set in the twelfth century felt so contemporary!
Richard Power's latest novel, Bewilderment, is a tender exploration of loss, climate anxiety and the binding love between father son. In the wake of his wife's death, scientist Theo tries to rescue his sensitive son from the noise and cruelty of the modern world. A rich mixture of philosophy, science and spirituality, Bewilderment is a powerful ode to the natural world.
This is another lockdown review! You can listen to Suri chat with Rachel below.
The prolific David Sedaris is back with his second volume of diaries, A Carnival of Snackery (2003-2020.)
With the usual ingredients of travels stories, languages, bad jokes, the Sea Section, taxidermy, rubbish, Hugh & the infamous Sedaris family, this is a must read for Sedaris fans. It’s the type of book that can sit over the coffee table over Christmas and have multiple readers at once.
Listen to Jenna’s lockdown review with Rachel and Zoe below:
Samuel Te Kani's debut erotic short fiction collection, Please, Call Me Jesus is an electric, moreish journey through suburbia and its dark pleasures.
From gaming housewives, to teenage werewolves and suburban fathers with secrets, Sam Te Kani's psychologically piercing and playful vignettes of suburban desire make for addictive reading.
Samuel Te Kani is a contributor to Metro NZ, The Spinoff, Pantograph Punch and formerly Vice NZ.
This is another lockdown review! You can listen to Suri chat with Rachel below.
This little book follows The Woman in the Yellow Cardigan and she follows, like a friendly(ish) ghost, The Woman in the Purple Skirt.
This is a portrait of single women in Japan, women who work in service and the hierarchy within those industries. It’s also a portrait of loneliness.
This is perfect Christmas present for fans of Sayaka Murata and also Korean authors such as Han Kang and Bae Suah. It’s completely bonkers but funny, creepy but innocent, compelling and mysterious.
Listen to Jenna’s lockdown review with Rachel and Zoe below:
Keep the spooky season alive with Gigi Fenster's chilling new novel, A Good Winter! The 2021 Michael Gifkins Prize winner is an absorbing psychological thriller told through the neurotic and increasingly frenetic observations of Olga, a lonely woman who befriends her neighbour Lara. As Olga's life becomes more entwined with Lara's and her feelings become more obsessive, her paranoia begins to take over until the shocking end.
A compulsive and addictive read, A Good Winter is a dark and fascinating insight into the mind of a woman alienated from family, love and desire.
This is another lockdown review! You can listen to Suri chat with Rachel below.
Alice is ‘the person nobody cares about in the movie if they die’. She’s in her late thirties and lives with her mother (whom she only communicates with by morse code), she has an extraordinary IQ and low empathy for others.
Aotearoa is in a state of political and social change. A chance encounter with one of Aotearoa’s new weathugees,Pablo, leaves Alice living with his 15 year old daughter, Erika - who also happens to be a genius.
Set in a bleak future that we can almost touch with our fingertips, She’s a Killer has a perfectly formed plot, funny & considered dialogue and a thrilling twist. Not a single character is wasted.
Listen to Jenna’s lockdown review with Rachel and Zoe below:
After a brief hiatus, Karl Ove Knausgaard returns to fiction with The Morning Star, a rich 666-page exploration of human existence told through the lives of nine interconnected characters. In The Morning Star, the spectre of the unreal and imagined hovers over the prosaic rituals of daily life, as Knausgaard's characters try to find meaning in the modern world. A stunning novel for turbulent times.
This is another lockdown review! You can listen to Suri chat with Rachel below.
An epic tale that spans the past, present and future from the author of All the Light We Cannot See. Jenna reviews this highly anticipated read from the shop floor, which was delivered by the courier during the review.
Auckland writer Zarah Butcher-McGunnigle’s devastating little novella ‘Nostalgia Has Ruined My Life’ explores the emptiness of dating and work in the modern world. Told through darkly funny and painful little vignettes, ‘Nostalgia Has Ruined My Life’ is a deliciously twisted and intoxicating work. For fans of Ottessa Moshfegh and Sakaya Murata!
Listen to Suri’s lockdown review with Rachel below.
A gentle and funny love story, great for a lockdown read.
Listen to Jenna’s review with Rachel and Zoe below.
Jenna reviews Love and Virtue by Diana Reid, Amanda reviews Pop Song by Larissa Pham, and Manon reviews Intimacies by Katie Kitamura (apologies from Manon for the rambling!)
Twice-Pulitzer Winning author Colson Whitehead’s latest novel ‘Harlem Shuffle’ follows the life of fictional Ray Carney, a black furniture salesman whose middle-class aspirations lead him to a criminal underworld of heists, blackmail and corruption. A punchy, zinging noir, Harlem Shuffle looks at the hypocrisy of the American Dream with a sharp sense of humour.
Due at the end of September, you can pre-order this book now.
Listen to Suri’s lockdown review with Rachel below.
From the home office, Jenna reviews Megan Dunn’s essay collection, Things I Learned at Art School.
An eighties childhood, a nineties art school education and a stint as a brothel barmaid on Karangahape Road. This is a collection of bite-sized, infectious essays where Dunn displays her trademark deadpan humour and observation.
Listen to Jenna’s review with Rachel and Zoë & pre-order below.
Omar El Akkad's latest novel, What Strange Paradise tells the story of nine year old Amir, a lone survivor of a storm-wrecked ship carrying refugees to Greece. Aided by the ordinary kindness of Greek teenager Vanna, Amir navigates the unfamiliarity of a new country and the bureaucratic systems he's ensnared by, never forgetting the ghosts of his past. Subtly written and powerfully rendered, What Strange Paradise explores the sheer urgency and existential dread of those escaping conflict.A great read for fans of Ali Smith and Colson Whitehead.
Listen to Suri’s chat with Rachel and Zoe below:
Jenna presents some Level 4 cosy crime goodness for you in today’s Loose Reads review. The Ghost of Frédéric Chopin is the newest title in the Pushkin Press’ Walter Presents imprint.
Prague, 1995: Vera Foltynova claims that the ghost of Chopin is visiting her with new compositions and journalist Ludvík Slany is sent to expose the truth.
This book is inspired by and dedicated to Rosemary Brown.
Listen to Jenna, Rachel and Zoë chatting below!
Sorrowland tells the story of Verne, a pregnant teenager escaping the confines her strict religious community. Confronted with monsters both physical and metaphorical, Sorrowland is a masterful Southern Gothic that explores the ways in which surviving the institutions that rule us can change us irrevocably.
Listen to Suri’s chat with Amelia and Zoe below:
Today Jenna chats about the upcoming Going West Festival and then gives a quick review of The Commercial Hotel - a thoughtful and curious collection of essays about small town New Zealand.
Winner of the 2021 International Booker Prize, At Night All Blood is Black is a brutal, intelligent insight into the mythologies and psychologies of war. Telling the story of Alfa, a soldier who loses his close comrade on the battlefield and finds purpose as ‘the collector of souls’, this is a novel that examines the ungluing of humanity and sanity in the fields of war. Listen to Suri and Rachel’s chat below!
