Jenna was back in the Auckland RNZ studio today to review Bobby Palmer’s Isaac and the Egg. We know this sad/happy tale is going to be a word-of-mouth favourite. For fans of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, The Midnight Library and Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine.
Listen to Jenna’s review with Kathryn below.
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TOP 5 BOOKS
KID'S BOOKS
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.
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TOP 5 BOOKS
KID'S BOOKS
Chilean Poet is a warm, soulful, hilarious novel about fatherhood, family, and of course, Chilean poetry. The tale begins with Gonzalo and Carla, who fizzle out after an awkward teenage fling in 1991, only to reunite 9 years later at a steamy Santiago night-club. Gonzalo, by now a frustrated poet and academic, moves in with Carla and her 6-year-old son Vicente, who quickly wins a spot in his heart. We follow the three of them along with their cat, Darkness, through the everyday trials and wins of family life, and what is the most tender portrait of the particularities of step-fatherhood I’ve read. Carla and Gonzalo separate, but Gonzalo leaves behind an indelible love for poetry in Vicente.
Fast-forward another 9 years and a dreamy 18-year-old Vicente yearns to travel and write and fall in love, and refuses to go to university until education is free. Unlike Carla and Gonzalo, Vicente hasn’t grown up under Pinochet, and refuses to assume the trauma of his parents’ generation. One night he meets Pru, a lost American journalist, and urges her to chart the lesser-known poets of Chile. Her research takes her into the homes and parties and beds of an eccentric crowd of writers, forming a lively montage of Chile’s literary scene. When Pru heads home to New York, the story circles back to Vicente and Gonzalo - two beloved characters we long to see reunite.
This is the perfect winter warmer to laugh and cry over - light-hearted, meaningful, and filled with characters you wish you could meet. Without a doubt my favourite book of 2022 so far.
Jenna speaks with guest host Guy Montgomery today about Jarvis Cocker’s delightful memoir, Good Pop, Bad Pop. This book is an inventory of ‘psychic lint’ from Cocker’s loft - items he’s accumulated without even realising - and in this, gives us the origins of his iconic band, Pulp.
Brightly designed with fantastic images, Good Pop, Bad Pop is very self deprecating, nostalgic and funny. Capturing schoolboys moving through a grimy music scene in 1980’s Sheffield, this is a grand read and we hope there is a sequel planned.
Listen to the full review below!
The newest Ottessa Moshfegh, Lapvona, has just hit the shelves today!
An absurd historical fable that has been compared to Shrek, Moshfegh’s latest novel is a hilarious exploration of the human condition. Suri warns to approach this novel with caution as there are some grotestque scenes, but still declares Moshfesh a ‘filthy genius.’
You can listen to Suri’s review with Rachel below.
The Escape Artist is the true tale of a man’s miraculous escape from Auschwitz. Written by journalist and thriller writer Jonathan Freedland, it makes for a pacy and compelling read.
Despite being an incredibly grim topic, Jenna still recommends you pick it up. This story lends incredible insight into how difficult it was to get the news of this horrifying mass murder into the right hands.
Listen below!
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TOP 5 BOOKS
KID'S BOOKS
Time is a Mother is the second collection from beloved poet Ocean Vuong, and his writing is as beautiful and raw and intimate as ever. Grappling with the death of his mother, as well as his own addiction, Vuong explores the grief and love and history that continues to shape him. Formally more confident than ever, these poems dance masterfully between prose, narrative, and sparse shreds, filled with Vuong's characteristically lyrical and dreamlike imagery. My personal favourite was 'Amazon History of a Nail Salon Worker' - a moving portrait of Vuong's mother in the last year of her life, composed solely from each of her mundane monthly purchases. Poetry isn't everyone's cup of tea, but Vuong is definitely one to try - there's bound to be something in here that gets you in the heart.
Jenna reviews one of her favourite books of 2022 so far - it’s just a little difficult to explain what it’s about.
Canadian author Sheila Heti questions creation, love, grief, art, philosophy, nature & more in this quietly profound novel.
Listen to Jenna, Rachel and Zoe chat as they are reunited in the studio. Click the link below!
Click on the covers to shop!
TOP 5 BOOKS
KID'S BOOKS
We have a great non-fiction recommendation for you today. In the late 1960’s, a Premonitions Bureau was set up at the Evening Standard by psychiatrist John Barker and journalist Peter Fairley. However, Barker’s own fatality is predicted by one of his subjects.
An anecdotal yarn that follows the science of trying to explain the unexplainable.
Listen to Jenna and Rachel on the phone below:
Manon calls in from Oamaru to give her latest review!
All the Lovers in the Night (2011, trans. Sam Bett, David Boyd) is the newly translated novel from Mieko Kawakami, one of Japan’s most exciting writers.
It’s the story of Fuyuko, a 34-year-old woman working as a freelance proof-reader in Tokyo. She lives an extremely isolated, lonely life, barely leaving her apartment, bewildered by the world, yearning for connection but terrified to experience it. As the book goes on, we learn about a horrifically painful rupture in her earlier life. One day she meets Mitsutsuka, a physics teacher who shares her fascination with the properties of light, and Fuyuko begins to be seen by somebody and begin a quiet transformation. It’s a crushing heartbreaker of a book, but offers so much about the way we shape each other. As Kawakami herself has said, we don’t always find hope in light books, and we don’t always find despair in the dark ones.
Manon’s full review is with Rachel is below.
First of all, we have a run through of the winners from last week’s Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, including the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for fiction, Kurangaituku by Whiti Hereaka.
Then, we are so excited talk about this debut from all-round artist extraordinaire, Coco Solid aka Jessica Hansell.
Following three wāhine around an evolving & gentrifying Tāmaki Makaurau - the form of How to Loiter takes sharp & spare shape in prose, poetry & essay.
Listen to Jenna and Rachel on the phone below:
Suri’s latest review visits the newest book by one of our store’s favourite NZ authors, Brannavan Gnanalingam. Slow Down, You’re Here follows a dissatisfied immigrant mother and a secret trip to meet her lover on Waiheke Island. A compelling read that reaches a shocking conclusion, Suri believes this is one of Brannavan’s best.
You can listen to Suri’s review with Rachel below.
