Reviews
This morning, Suri reviewed the new novel by the author of the bestselling, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982.
Cho Nam-Joo’s Saha is a dystopian thriller following various characters living in an abandoned building. The truth of their lives reveals a larger truth of society.
As Suri calls it, ‘a dark book for dark times.’
Listen to Suri and Rachel’s chat below.
Epic music producer and all round guru, Rick Rubin, has collated his thoughts on creativity, art and your place in the universe. This is the perfect read to set you up for a 2023 full of ideas.
Listen to Jenna chat with Rachel and Zoe below.
Poor Suri is sick today, so Jenna dialed for a last minute review. She gave advice on three great music books, which would be great for a Christmas present (or just yourself.)
Surrender by Bono - a life story told in forty songs which contains beautiful images & drawings.
Re-Sisters by Cosey Fanni Tutti - a memoir spanning centuries, Tutti interweaves the amazing lives of three women (including herself) who paved the way in both music, writing and creativity.
A Book of Days by Patti Smith - a diary of of year, told in images. As only Smith can be, this is considered, thoughtful and is an ode to art, thinkers, music, family and politics.
This morning, Jenna reviewed the first novel to be translated into English, by Argentine author, Mariana Enriquez. This is a horror, but as a non-horror fan, Jenna thinks okay for those who are squeamish (mostly!)
Filled with the dark arts, magic and politics, this is the perfect summer saga at 700 pages.
Listen to much more about this book in Jenna’s review with Rachel and Zoe below.
Still Born is the fourth novel from Mexican author Guadalupe Nettel, published by Fitzcarraldo Editions.
The story follows the narrator, Laura, as she writes her PhD in Mexico City. While Laura decides to be surgically sterilised, her good friend Alina is undergoing IVF to conceive, but the two women’s conception of motherhood is set to keep evolving as their lives take unexpected turns.
Told in Nettel’s typically simple, unflowery prose, this is a quietly profound story about motherhood. More generally, it’s about care and the forms it might take beyond conventional roles and communities, teasing out what connects women to children and to each other.
Anyone who’s battled with the decision to have children, or looked after other peoples’ children, or even fancied themselves a feminist, will find a lot to love and think about in this honest and smart read.
Poet and storyteller, Dominic Hoey, brings us a tale of Avondale ratbags in Poor People with Money. Monday has a ‘face like a broken dinner plate’ and can barely hold together her minimum wage job but dreams of being a champion kickboxer. When she gets an opportunity to fight in a tournament in Thailand, she needs to get some money quick.
Narrative threads from both Monday’s mysterious past and adventurous present are weaved together in a compelling read, where you find yourself rooting for the underdogs.
Listen to Jenna’s review with Rachel and Zoe below.
Alan Garner's latest novel, Treacle Walker, follows young Joe and his curious friendship with a rag and bone salesman, Treacle. Swapping his old clothes and a lamb shoulder blade for two of Treacle's treasures, Joe begins to see things which were once invisible to him- are they real or a trick of his imagination?
Filled joy, folklore and charm, this playful little book explores the trickery of the human eye and the perspectives we gain in unlikely friendships. A gorgeous little book for fans of Max Porter's Lanny.
The Axeman’s Carnival is narrated by a magpie called Tama, which is short for Tamagotchi. He lives in the yolk-yellow house of Marnie and Rob, which sits on a struggling High Country sheep farm in Central Otago.
Tama is quite clever and much to the delight of Marnie and the horror of Rob, starts parroting back what he hears around him. Marnie casually starts a Twitter account for him and this soon brings fame to this small town family.
This story is not all comedy. Marnie recently had a miscarriage and there’s a leering, nasty side to Rob that Marnie bears the brunt of. Marnie needs to leave, however her ties to Tama keep her home.
Chidgey is a master of voice. She’s a funny writer, but this humour cuts to a darkness beneath the surface. As with her previous works, the research and descriptions of place are impeccable. An excellent read from one of the best writers in Aotearoa right now.
Listen to Jenna’s review with Rachel and Zoe below.
The Mountain in the Sea is a thrilling new sci-fi read from Ray Nayler. Meticulously researched, crafted, and paced, Nayler brings new colour to the age-old question of what we as beings and minds are - or could be - and how we might know one another.
In a near-ish future, Ha Nguyen, a prominent marine biologist and author of 'How Oceans Think,' signs on for a research mission to a remote Vietnamese archipelago to study a dangerously intelligent new species of octopus living in the bowels of a shipwreck. The islands have been purchased by an AI tech corporation named DIANIMA, whose murky motivations Ha ignores in the opportunity of her lifetime, obsessed with deciphering the strange symbols the octopus flashes on its skin to communicate.
She is joined on the island by a highly sophisticated android named Evrim, and a war-scarred Mongolian security guard named Altantseg - each fascinating characters in their own right. Meanwhile, two subplots bubble: in Astrakhan, a hacker named Rustem attempts to find a way into the android's brain, and out in the open sea a man named Eiko, who has been captured and enslaved by a sinister automaton fishing vessel, fights for freedom.
This is a mind-bending and at times super spooky read, laced with philosophy and science surrounding the non-human mind, intelligence, and language. Pacy yet cerebral - a perfect beach read as you look out at the waves and ponder what goes on beneath.
The first novel in 15 years from Australian author Sophie Cunningham. Alice, a writer, has spent 15 years researching Leonard Woolf, husband of Virginia.
This is a novel for deep readers and for writers. Exploring colonialism, health, ideas, ghosts, viruses, war, sexuality and research, This Devastating Fever shows us that since early twentieth century, perhaps not much has changed at all.
A review for chilly peak reading weather. A debut novel by a Pakistani British writer, Taymour Soomro.
Leaving his London life of theatre & literature in London, Fahad is brushing up against his father’s expectations of masculinity whilst traveling to his family’s Pakistani farmlands.
A beautiful, evocative and sensory novel with a tender love story that will make you feel far away on a rainy day.
Manon reviews this ‘slippery whisper’ of a book that stays with you. Jessica Au’s Cold Enough for Snow follows a mother and daughter as they move through Tokyo. A subtle, deeply thought and artful read.
This book won the inaugural Novel Prize, a new, biennial award offered by New Directions, Fitzcarraldo Editions (UK), and Giramondo (Australia), for any novel written in English that explores and expands the possibilities of the form.
Manon phoned into the bFM studio chat to Rachel, listen below!
‘My family should never be out in the world.’
9 year old Shiv has been suspended from school (for fighting) and is under the supervision of Grandma - a vivacious and hilarious woman (to the reader) but incredibly embarrassing (to Shiv.)
Miriam Toews’ Fight Night is the feel good book of this summer.
Listen below for for more as Jenna phones in to Rachel from the bookshop.
2022 Pulitzer Fiction Prize winner, The Netanyahus has instantly become a staff favourite. Political, brave and absolutely hilarious - Suri highly recommends this one.
Listen below to Suri’s review with Zoe & David Feauai-Afaese Vaeafe (LEAO, Noa Records) below as well as a wonderful reading from the book.
Today’s Loose Reads is a memoir by Ali Millar, who grew up on the Scottish Borders as a Jehovah’ s Witness. Detailing fear, isolation and conflicting worlds, Millar provides an ultra personal insight into finding freedom.
For fans of Educated.
Listen below to Jenna’s chat with Rachel and Zoe.
Morton's visceral and intimate third collection is a self-professed 'gnarly' read; gloriously jewelled sentences brim with rich and dark language - this is the work of someone who feels the sounds and visuals of words as much as their meanings. An eroding headland "gentle as a soft-shell crab, loses its meat to the tide"; a father pulls honeysuckle from "the soft brains of hydrangea". This is post-pastoral NZ gothic; trees and flowers giving way to rotting ox carcasses and deep dread.
Morton borrows like a magpie from various scientific fields to form a reality where beings and objects refuse to stay inside their boundaries. Anatomy, botany, animal and vegetable, pharmaceuticals, sickness and medicine, and heavy news headlines collide to lend new precision to our vision of a soul grappling with the unruliness and violence of their mind and body, with the edges and limits of things, and with the constant search for hope. A rich and rewarding book of poems for those who like to chew words down to the bone.
Colleen Maria Lenihan’s new book, Kōhine, is an excellent collection of linked short stories that move between Japan and Aotearoa. An atmospheric and weighty account of living with grief, women working hard and a sense of place. This is a highly recommended read from Huia Publishers.
Listen to Jenna’s review with Rachel as she calls in from the shop, below:
This morning, Suri reviewed the ‘older millennial’ gamer novel, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.
A clever and nuanced story about love, loneliness, machines and art.
You can listen to Suri’s review with Rachel below and this is on the shelf now.
Laurence Fearnley’s Winter Time is a South Island based character study filled with mystery and atmosphere. A perfect read for the season!
Jenna phoned in to the bFM studio this morning, listen to her full review with Rachel below.
