Summer Reading Guide This season’s best books selected by your favourite independent bookseller 2 Australian Fiction SPECIAL PRICE BRIDGE OF CLAY THE BUS ON THURSDAY THE BUTCHERBIRD Markus Zusak Shirley Barrett STORIES The Book Thief garnered international An absurdist contemporary rom-com about A S Patri´c acclaim and made Markus Zusak a cancer, life as a newly single woman and Before the release of the Miles Franklin– household name. Thirteen years on, the making a tree change? Huh? With The Bus winning Black Rock White City, AS Patri´c many readers who have been waiting for on Thursday, Shirley Barrett delivers an honed his craft via writing short stories. his next book have been rewarded with unorthodox but highly entertaining novel that In this collection, he returns to short-form this very different but equally wonderful draws on disparate influences – everything writing, and the result is a collection that novel. A multi-generational Australian family from Bridget Jones to The Exorcist and Twin feels accomplished and mature. Some of saga, Bridge of Clay is largely narrated by Peaks – to tell the story of Eleanor Mellett, these stories have familiar settings, others Matthew, the eldest of five brothers, though freshly single and thoroughly traumatised travel further afield to different times and it centres on the actions of the idiosyncratic Allen & Unwin PB from the ordeals associated with her Transit Lounge PB foreign places. What these stories have middle child, Clay, and his desire to $29.99 treatment for breast cancer. Moving to a $29.99 in common is a clarity of language, and Picador construct an object of beauty as a way of remote mountain hamlet, she interacts with WAS $39.99 emotional complexity. As in many of his HB coping with family tragedy and dealing a bizarre cast of characters, including a previously published works, The Butcherbird NOW $32.99 with its complex legacy. Heart-wrenching highly sexed vacuum-cleaner salesman and Stories sees Patri´c focusing his attention on PB WAS $32.99 for all the right reasons, Bridge of Clay is an exorcism-obsessed friar. Barrett delivers migrant experiences – something he does NOW $27.99 indubitably worth the wait. NB: Hardback the narrative in the form of Eleanor’s private, very well. This is fiction that will stay with available only while stocks last. savagely funny and surprisingly poignant you long after you’ve turned the final pages. blog, ensuring an entertaining read. CEDAR VALLEY SPECIAL PRICE THE CLOCKMAKER’S Holly Throsby THE CHILDREN’S HOUSE DAUGHTER When Benny Miller arrives in the small town Alice Nelson Kate Morton of Cedar Valley, she is searching for answers. Beautifully poised and finely structured, Bestselling novelist Kate Morton (The Benny’s late mother was a mystery to her, this stunning novel traces the effects of Distant Hours, The Lake House) delivers and she hopes that this town holds the key trauma on mothers, and the trauma that another engaging read with her sixth novel, that will unlock the many secret parts of her absent mothers inflict on their children. At which follows Elodie Winslow, a young mother’s life. While Benny is searching for the same time it is a celebration of hope, archivist working in contemporary London, the truth about her mother, another outsider goodness and love of all kinds. Alice Nelson as she seeks to uncover the story behind arrives in town – a mysterious, well-dressed has skilfully woven together multiple stories two seemingly unrelated items found in man who sits down in front of the town’s of displacement, loss and abandonment in an old satchel: a sepia photograph of a Allen & Unwin PB antique shop and dies. Who was he and this, her second novel. Marina was born on $29.99 Allen & Unwin PB woman in Victorian clothing, and an artist’s what was he doing in Cedar Valley? Throsby a kibbutz where children were the property $32.99 sketchbook containing the drawing of is perhaps best known as a musician, but of the community rather than their parents, Vintage PB a twin-gabled house. The house seems not for long – the way she intertwines the WAS $32.99 living communally in ‘the Children’s House’. familiar to Elodie, and as she first identifies mysteries of Cedar Valley will leave you NOW $29.99 Constance is a refugee from the massacre in it and then researches its history, she fully immersed in this delightful novel, Rwanda, so traumatised she can’t summon uncovers a story of 19th-century murder, which paints a lovely portrait of small-town any feeling for her young son. Reading about mystery and thievery. Australian life and community. their – and Nelson’s other characters’ – lives is deeply moving. THE FRAGMENTS THE HELPLINE THE GIRL ON THE PAGE Toni Jordan Katherine Collette Oh, the twist at the end! It’s the perfect John Purcell Fans of Graeme Simsion’s The Rosie Project finish to this mystery about a lost book Former Sydney bookseller John Purcell and Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant is and the secrets of its famous young published his previous novels, the Secret Completely Fine are highly likely to enjoy author. Inga Karlson’s first book captivated Lives of Emma trilogy, under the pseudonym Katherine Collette’s debut novel, which its readers in the 1930s, but just before of Natasha Walker, but there are a number is heartwarming and humorous in equal her second was due to be published, she of similarities between those books and measure. Germaine Johnson is an insurance and the book perished in a fire, leaving this: strong female characters, lots of sex, probability outcomes mathematician who only a few fragments. In 1980s Brisbane, fast-paced narrative and sly humour. Set is more comfortable with pie charts and Caddie Walker meets a woman who seems in London, The Girl on the Page follows sudoku puzzles than she is with other $29.99 Text PB to know the words that went up in smoke. ‘hard-drinking, bed-hopping, hot-shot young Text PB $29.99 people. She’s also in need of a job. When Meanwhile, in the 1930s, book-loving Fourth Estate PB book editor’ Amy Winston as she attempts she eventually gets a position working on Rachel escapes her family and moves to $32.99 to coax literary great Helen Owen to deliver the senior citizens helpline at the local New York. In alternating narratives, Caddie a long-overdue novel. Purcell’s story is full council, Germaine soon realises that Mayor tries to find out more about the fragments of barbed references to the contemporary Verity Bainbridge wants to rope her into as the connection between Rachel and publishing world, but it also raises serious a secret project to close the local senior Inga slowly emerges. There’s delicious questions about how writers can retain their citizens centre. But as Germaine gets to romance amongst the intrigue, and artistic integrity while at the same time know – and like – the local senior citizens, Jordan’s portraits of the two contrasting meeting the business-focused requirements the probability of her life getting complicated settings are pitch-perfect. of modern publishing houses. increases. And so too does her happiness. Literary Award Winners THE ENIGMATIC FLIGHTS HOME FIRE LESS MR DEAKIN Olga Tokarczuk Kamila Shamsie Andrew Sean Greer Judith Brett Text PB $32.99 Bloomsbury PB $19.99 Abacus PB $19.99 Text PB $34.99 This novel of linked Awarded the 2018 Women’s Humorous and wise, Greer’s Brett’s masterful biography fragments connected by Prize for Fiction, this novel about growing older of Alfred Deakin – scholar, themes of travel and human powerful reimagining of and the essential nature of spiritualist and Australia’s anatomy was awarded Sophocles’ Antigone is set love was awarded the 2018 second prime minister – the 2018 Man Booker against the backdrop of Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. won the 2018 National International Prize. contemporary London. Biography Award. THE LIFE TO COME MILKMAN TRACKER THE YELLOW HOUSE Michelle de Kretser Anna Burns Alexis Wright Emily O’Grady Allen & Unwin PB $22.99 Faber PB $29.99 Giramondo PB $39.95 Allen & Unwin PB $29.99 This year’s Miles Set in Northern Ireland Winner of the 2018 Stella The Australian/Vogel’s Franklin Award went during the Troubles, Burns’ Prize, this memoir takes Literary Award for 2018 to this meditation on confronting and mordantly as its subject Aboriginal went to this powerful intimacy, loneliness and humorous novel won this leader, political thinker novel about the legacies our flawed perception year’s Man Booker Prize. and entrepreneur Tracker of violence and the of other people. Tilmouth. possibilities of redemption. Australian Fiction 3 HOPE SHINES MATRYOSHKA MONKEY GRIP Brotherhood of St Laurence Katherine Johnson THE CHILDREN’S BACH Selected by Quentin Bryce, Cate Blanchett Family, secrets, violence and refuge – Helen Garner Text HB $29.99 each and Kate Grenville, the 10 short stories big themes are addressed in the latest These two novels from Garner’s early writing in Hope Shines were shortlisted for this novel by Tasmanian writer Katherine career are now undeniably part of the canon year’s Hope Prize, an annual literary award Johnson (The Better Son). Abandoned of Australian literature. Presented here given by the Brotherhood of St Laurence for as a baby by her mother and brought up in gorgeous new hardback editions, they writing that transcends stereotypes of ‘the by her grandmother, a Russian post-war include new introductions by Charlotte Wood poor’ and ‘reflects the resilience that people immigrant, Sara Rose returns to Tasmania for Monkey Grip and by Ben Lerner for The show in the face of poverty and testing after her grandmother’s death to raise Children’s Bach.