Ducks, Newburyport

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Ducks, Newburyport
Lucy Ellmann
Text Publishing

Reviewed by Jen Severn

Present circumstances have allowed me the time and space to finish Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann. I was intrigued when I heard that it comprises just one sentence of stream-of-consciousness (one review said ‘Ulysses has nothing on this’), and when my brother called to ask for ideas for my birthday present in November, it was my first thought. But somehow I’d missed the detail that it’s over a … Read more »

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The Wonder

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Reviewed by Debbie Worgan

Emma Donoghue

The Wonder 

$17.25

When Emma Donoghue wrote The Wonder she already had a strong following of readers after her success with Room. This story is completely different yet thought-provoking in its own way. The Wonder is a tale of two strangers and the clash between science and faith.

Set in the mid-nineteenth century in a tiny village in Ireland, something unusual is happening. Is it a medical anomaly or a miracle, as the town proclaims?

To … Read more »

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Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

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Debbie Worgan

Gail Honeyman,
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine,
$32.99

Debut Sunday Times Bestseller and Costa First Novel Book Award winner.

Eleanor Oliphant is most definitely not completely fine, but she is one of the most unusual and thought-provoking fictional characters I have met. The human need for connection, initially scorned by Eleanor, is at the heart of this novel.

Eleanor Oliphant is instantly real. When we first meet her, she is socially awkward and neurotic, has a drinking habit and holds regular conversations with an … Read more »

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The Cockroach

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Ian McEwan
The Cockroach
$16.99

A novella of only 100 pages, this book manages to pack in all the fury, despair, disgust and frustration of the writer as he views the disaster that is present-day UK. Referencing Kafka’s “Metamorphosis”, the opening lines describe how the Prime Minister is transformed into a cockroach, which does nothing to stop him implementing policies which are obviously flawed, not to mention, ridiculous. Does Brexit come to mind? The President of the US is backing him with an equal measure of … Read more »

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Mullumbimby

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Melissa Lucashenko – a celebration

Something a bit different this month—not an individual book, but a tribute to the latest winner of the Miles Franklin Award: Melissa Lucashenko. The winning book was Too Much Lip (reviewed last year in The Triangle and now in the Bega Valley library.) It was my favourite book for 2018. I also loved her first novel, Mullumbimby, also reviewed earlier and in the library. She is one … Read more »

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Machines Like Me

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Ian McEwan,
Machines Like Me,
$32.99

This is Ian McEwan’s fifteenth novel and must rate as one of the most challenging, but well worth the effort. Set in Britain in the 1980s at the time of Thatcher’s Falklands war, it is also the time when research into artificial intelligence and human interface with it accelerated. Enter into the novel, Alan Turing—the brilliant mind who led the Bletchley Park code-breaking during World War ll.

The main character, Charlie Friend, a huge … Read more »

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