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TOP 5 BOOKS
KID'S BOOKS
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.
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TOP 5 BOOKS
KID'S BOOKS
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.
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.
