Reviews
Suri reviews this beautiful, funny, clever, poignant novel - from the author of The Colour of Water & Deacon King Kong. Part mystery, part Dickensian tale, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store explores race, class & the American dream whilst revealing subtle universal messages through character,
One of Barak Obama’s top reads 2023.
Listen below to Suri’s in studio chat with Stella.
Jenna brings in the recently minted 2023 Booker winner, Prophet Song by Paul Lynch. A powerful, gut-punch of a book, set in modern day Ireland - following a mother of four as she desperately tries to keep her family together during a civil war.
Jenna, Rachel & Stella also some Christmas agony aunt questions!
Wafting 95bFM listener: The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez or Sonic Life by Thurston Moore.
Big reader aunt: The Postcard by Anne Berest
Tween read: Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell
Also! Don’t forget to get tickets to the Save the B gig. This Wednesday, 20th December.
Suri is in the studio today with her picks for Christmas.
Pacific Arts Aotearoa ed. by Lana Lopesi
So Late in the Day by Claire Keegan
Rapture: An Anthology of Performance Poetry from Aotearoa New Zealand ed. by Carrie Rudzinski & Grace Iwashita-Taylor
Wolves of Eternity by Karl Ove Knausgaard
Rick Stein's Simple Suppers by Rick Stein
Listen to her kōrero with Rachel and Stella below for the hot tips.
Bird Life is a lyrical, present novel set in Japan. Dinah, grieving the suicide of her twin brother, moves from Aotearoa to Japan to teach English. There, she meets Yasuko, a mother grieving her son leaving home. Together, the kinship between Dinah and Yasuko deepens as they navigate their own paths.
Listen to Jenna’s on studio chat with Rachel and Stella below.
Suri reviews two books on 95bFM’s Breakfast show today.
In A Thread of Violence, Mark O’Connell revisits a close to home in Dublin. A dramatic true crime featuring interviews with the killer.
Baumgartner by Paul Auster tells the story of Cy, a widower moving through domestic activities. Filled with human moments that are told with the ghost of his wife in mind.
You can listen below!
It’s almost Christmas, therefore it’s time for our end of year round-ups. Today, Jenna chose three nice novels, just because it feels like we need them.
Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
Good Material by Dolly Alderton (audiobook on Libro.fm)
Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-Reum
Listen to Jenna’s on studio chat with Rachel and Stella below.
Rapture - a brand new Auckland University Press anthology, edited by Carrie Rudzinski and Grace Iwashita-Taylor, is one for the home library.
Listen to Suri wax lyrical about this collection to Rachel, as well as read out a poem by our very own staff member, Abby Irwin-Jones.
It’s Britney, bitch!
Jenna thoroughly enjoyed Britney’s highly anticipated and bestselling memoir. With the perfect mix of shock, sadness, humour and plenty of villains., The Woman in Me gives a lot of insight and context into the dark side of fame.
This was listened to on Libro.fm, where your chosen indie bookshop gets a portion of the sale.
Listen to Jenna’s on studio chat with Rachel and Stella below.
In anticipation of Claire Keegan’s new novella, Suri delved into Foster.
Purposefully told, this is a tale of beauty with an underlying dark backstory. Touching, beautiful and a great distraction from studying for exams.
So Late in the Day is due next month.
Suri called into the studio to chat to Rachel.
Professor, commentator and activist, Naomi Klein’s latest book analyses the mirroring of truth online.
Underpinning this cultural exploration with her Klein’s own experience of being constantly misidentified as author and conspiracy theorist Naomi Wolf, this is a critique of existing on the internet that is unlined with hope.
Suri does often say this, but declares Doppelganger one of the best books she has read in a long time.
Listen to Suri, Rachel & Stella chat below!
Green Dot is the debut novel by Australian arts writer, critic, academic annnnd former bookseller, Madeleine Gray.
Hera is a woman in her mid-twenties, who embarks on a self-destructive, long term relationship with an older, married man, who continues to promise he will leave his wife for her.
This Fleabag-esque page-turner observes millennial life & the internet with such on the nose humour, it could have been written by Hera Lindsay Bird.
Listen to Jenna’s on studio chat with Rachel and Stella below.
From the one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists 2023, Strangers at the Port depicts what happens when foreign arrivals shake up an archipelago community who live a quiet and repetitious existence.
Suri describes this book as gothic cottage-core, that is reflective of late nineteen century events.
Listen to Suri and Rachel chat below!
Newly Booker Shortlisted and one of three Pauls in the running, The Bee Sting is a laugh out loud Irish family saga. With the humour and teen angst of Derry Girls meets the structure and depth of Jonathan Franzen’s Crossroads, Jenna rates this as this year’s BIG SUMMER READ.
Listen to Jenna’s chat with Rachel and Stella below.
On this week’s Loose Read’s review, Suri deep dives into the weighty tome that is Palo Alto by Malcolm Harris. (Not to be confused with James Franco’s novel of the same name).
Connecting the explosion of the gold rush to what is now the epicentre of Silicon Valley, Harris presents an emotive, interesting and clear-eyed history of California.
Suri also recommends If Then by Jill Lepore.
Listen Suri’s chat with Frances and Stella below.
Jenna called into the 95bFM studio this morning from Murihiku/Southland to chat about Adventures with Emilie.
Victoria Bruce was living in Christchurch working in a successful yet stressful career in comms, while raising her young daughter. But her depression and PTSD from a tough adolescence were catching up on her. Looking towards nature as a solace, she decided to take Emilie out of school and have them both walk the length of Aotearoa on the Te Araroa trail.
Listen to Jenna’s chat with Rachel and Stella below.
Suri is in the 95bFM studio this week to review Jenny Erpenbeck’s fourth translated novel, Kairos. Set in Berlin, a 19 year woman starts an affair with an older, married man. An observational love story & psycho-drama that mirrors the tension of East and West Germany and the fall of the Berlin wall.
One of the most interesting fiction novels Suri has read this year!
Listen Suri’s chat with Rachel and Stella below.
On this rare sunny morning in Tāmaki, Jenna visited the studio to talk about the 2023 Booker longlisted, In Ascension. A book that hits the depths of the sea and stretches into the wider universe, this is a book that explores the connection between science, humans and the environment.
For fans of Richard Powers!
Listen to Jenna’s chat with Rachel and Stella below.
Suri was in the studio this morning to talk about the coming-of-age tale, The Gospel of Orla, written by Northern Irish poet Eoghan Walls. Young Orla travels on her bike from England to Ireland to seek her Mother’s gravesite and meets a mysterious man named Jesus along the way.
Fable-like, filled with magic realism and reminiscent of the Booker longlisted, Treacle Walker, Suri recommends this strongly.
Jenna called in from a bustling Mt. Eden Village this morning to chat about the winners from the NZ Book Awards for Children & Young Adults. Listen to her chat with Rachel below.
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One of Suri’s favourite books for 2023 (so far!) A found classic from the 80’s, this book that explores the life of a teenager and her love of books in the time of political change in the Philippines.
Sexy, clever and surprising, listen to Suri’s great review with Rachel below.
