Emily St. John Mandel
Reviewed by Wendy Tucker
Emily St. John Mandel is a Canadian novelist and essayist now living in New York. She has written six novels and came to fame in 2014 with her post-pandemic, prize-winning novel Station 11, published and widely acclaimed well before the real COVID-19 pandemic hit the world. It has now been translated into thirty-three languages and made into a mini-series by HBO (available on Stan in Australia). Both the novel … Read more »
review by Wendy Tucker
Black Cake
Charmaine Wilkerson
Black Cake is a delicious debut novel that shows how history and chance can change a family.
The actual black cake has a complicated history, as does Eleanor Bennett the main protagonist. The cake is dense with fruit soaked in rum for many weeks and finished with burnt sugar and is a Caribbean tradition for all celebrations. For many immigrants from the Caribbean, it is a continual reminder of home and … Read more »
by Alice Feeney
Harper Collins Australia
Reviewed by Wendy Tucker
I often read crime fiction as a break from more challenging literary fiction. Crime, suspense, thriller, psychological thriller … whatever they were once listed as, they now seem to have merged under the general title of crime or thriller.
There seems to be an increased appetite for crime fiction and it now outsells most other genres. Bestselling thriller writer, David Baldacci, says that when times are more stressful … Read more »
Review by Wendy Tucker
Devotion
Hannah Kent
Hannah Kent’s eagerly-awaited third novel is a departure from her earlier two although it continues with her themes of women on the fringes of their society, women who evoke suspicion.
The novel is divided into three sections: Before, After and Then.
It begins in 1836 in Prussia, where Hanne is part of an Old Lutheran community, now banned from the practice of their religion. Hanne is fifteen years old and dreading the … Read more »
reviewed by Wendy Tucker
Still Life
Sarah Winman
HarperCollins, $32.99
This novel was my perfect antidote to a Christmas of rain, uncertainty and lots of visitors. It is a wonderfully rich, multi-layered, joyous and affectionate novel that spans the years between 1944 and 1979.
It is a character-driven novel with brave, transgressive characters who are a joy to know and show, in different ways, how lives can be resurrected and changed. And the city of … Read more »
2021 was not the greatest year of our lives but, for avid readers, it has had some terrific highlights. Here are my selections for the best of – would love to hear which books gave you the most pleasure.
Overall favourites/champions
After Story – Larissa Behrendt; and Kazuo Ishiguro – Klara and the Sun
Best biography
James Campbell – Talking at the Gates: A Life of James Baldwin
Best political histories
Johanna Perheentupa – Redfern: Aboriginal Activism in the … Read more »
