Staff Shelf-Talker: Anchor Point, Alice Robinson

10 year old Laura lives in the Australian bush with her sister, father and mother. However, after her mother vanishes on a trip to retrieve clay for her pottery, Laura makes a snap decision that will ensure she is never found. This decision haunts Laura for the next four decades as she desperately tries to hold her family together, help her father tame the harsh land and find her place in the world. Robinson beautifully and eloquently portrays the intricacy of familial relationships, and it isn’t hard at all to understand Laura’s determination to keep the peace.

Robinson also paints a painfully honest picture of rural Australia. The terrain is beautiful but untameable and fire and flood both shape the landscape to the extent that it is almost a character in itself. This is the harsh reality for many Australians living in rural areas that are dependent on the unpredictable and unforgiving environment, especially farmers such as Laura’s father.

I was first made aware of Alice Robinson through her cousin, a family friend, who was unable to find a copy of the novel in Hobart. However, while I may not have expected much at first, I was pleasantly surprised by the fresh Australian voice. Robinson is an excellent example of the promising work stemming from debut female Australian authors. Her writing style lyrical and poetic and her protagonist’s quest – for her place in the world, her ‘anchor point’ – is universally shared.

-Alex

Top 10: Fiction

1. Swimming Home, Mary-Rose MacColl
2. Thirteen Ways of Looking, Colum McCann
3. All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr
4. Sweet Caress, William Boyd
5. Brooklyn, Colm Toibin
6. Fates and Furies, Lauren Groff
7. My Brilliant Friend, Elena Ferrante
8. Hope Farm, Peggy Frew
9. A Brief History of Seven Killings, Marlon James
10. Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins

Staff Shelf-Talker: The High Mountains of Portugal, Yann Martel

Yann Martel’s latest offering is a humorous, surreal and devastating exploration of love, grief and our own struggle to understand death. The High Mountains of Portugal is made up of three individual novellas, subtly interwoven. In Homeless, Martel introduces us to Tomas, who after losing his lover, son and father, sets off on a quest for vengeance against God in pursuit of a “quite extraordinary” artefact. 35 years later in Homeward, a similarly grieving Eusebio comes to terms with his loss and his faith while performing a bizarre and absurd autopsy. Fifty years later, following the death of his wife, Canadian senator Peter retires to his ancestral village in Portugal with his chimpanzee companion in Home.

Each story builds on the last as all three protagonists try to make meaning of their loss. However while each story is somehow linked to the others, the tone shifts dramatically between them. While Homeless is youthful and fast-paced – Tomas has 10 days to complete his quest and hurtles through Portugal in one of the first automobiles – the following sections seem to progressively decelerate. One could argue Martel has done so to convey how age (or more aptly, maturity) provides us with the tools to understand, or at least accept death.

Much like Life of Pi, Martel’s use of animal symbols adds another layer of allegory to this philosophy-driven novel. Here, the chimpanzee appears in all three sections, and sparks thought on religion, evolution and our own humanity.

The High Mountains of Portugal is an interesting read to say the least. While the plot itself is not incredibly compelling, and the jumps between possible and impossible require the suspension of disbelief, it is a novel that will spark deep thought and discussion regardless of the reader’s overall stance. In that way, it is the perfect book for a bookclub, and well worth the read.

-Alex

Samantha Wheeler’s Shelf-Talkers

An avid Tim Winton fan, I began my holiday reading with his passionate memoir, Island Home. His evocative prose, describing the beauty and power of Australian place, was a luxurious holiday treat. What stayed with me the most was Winton’s sadness over the exploitation of our land, his despair over its degradation. As a fellow lover of Australian landscape and wildlife, I admired his call to arms, encouraging us all to care for our country, as our country defines us. An unexpected gem was discovering Winton’s journey to publication, and the pitfalls his unique writing style created. Island Home is a must, and I will certainly be reading it again.

The next book on my list also, in a strange way, involved nature. Charlotte Wood’s The Natural Way of Things was both thrilling and terrifying. Whereas I had difficulty picturing the women in The Handmaid’s Tale, I had no such trouble with Wood’s unflinching prose. Every breath, every drop of sweat is horribly plausible. Set in outback Australia, somewhere, a bunch of women with a thread of similarity are held captive for no clear reason. The interaction between them is fascinating, the plot compelling and the ending perfect. I would definitely recommend it.

Kate Morton is up high on my list of favourites, and I’m always thrilled when a new book of hers comes out. Each time, I tell myself I will savour it, but then I can’t stop reading, and I’m sad when I’m done.

The Lake House is no exception. Morton knows just how to set the mood, location, and characters surrounding grand English homes, and she takes you right to the heart of Cornwall with this one. There are lots of plot threads and several time jumps, but that didn’t spoil what was a thoroughly enjoyable read.

Sam Wheeler is the author of several children’s books, including Smooch and Rose, Spud and Charlie and Mister Cassowary. She lives in Brisbane with her husband, daughters and pets.

Suzy’s Shelf-Talker: ‘A Few Days in the Country,’ Elizabeth Harrower

In recent years there has been a renaissance for Elizabeth Harrower’s writing. The test of time is re-defining her stature on the Australian literary landscape. A Few Days in the Country brings together for the first time Elizabeth Harrower’s stories published in Australian journals in the 1960s and 1970s, along with those from her archives—including ‘Alice’, published for the first time earlier this year in the New Yorker.

Elizabeth Harrower has an uncanny insight into the psychology of the human condition. Her economy of words and spirit, her reserve and restraint, her magpie’s eye for the minutiae of life are devastatingly acerbic and refreshing, at the same time. The plot never takes control of Harrower’s writing and her endings will be sure to be both surprising and believable. This handsome edition is the perfect place to start reading Harrower’s work.

-Suzy Wilson

Staff Shelf-Talker: Did You Ever Have a Family

June Reid’s seemingly perfect life is thrown into disarray on the morning of her daughter’s wedding when her ex-husband, daughter and partner perish in a blaze that destroys her home. June flees the town in an attempt to outrun her grief, and the story that follows is told through the recounts of her friends, neighbours and acquaintances; those who knew the deceased closely and those only casually affected by the tragedy. It is only through the untangling of these interwoven perspectives and opinions that some sense can be brought to what happened, why, and most importantly, how one can possibly start over again.

Clegg does a brilliant job at depicting the classic small holiday town through the careful selection of his narrators. By writing from the perspective of ‘invisibles’ – cleaning ladies, shop owners, motel staff, and local stoners – he brings authenticity to the setting.

Ultimately, Clegg has crafted a wonderful story of loss, healing and, ultimately, family. Clegg’s beautifully lyrical writing style adds to the novel’s impact and shows the reader the restorative power of sympathy and love.

-Alex

Top 10: Fiction

1. My Brilliant Friend, Elena Ferrante
2. Fates and Furies, Lauren Groff
3. Thirteen Ways of Looking, Colum McCann
4. All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr
5. The Golden Age, Joan London
6. The Story of the Lost Child, Elena Ferrante
7. The Whites, Richard Price
8. A God in Ruins, Kate Atkinson
9. Brother of the More Famous Jack, Barbara Trapido
10. The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins

Staff Shelf-Talker: The First Bad Man, Miranda July

Filmmaker Miranda July’s wonderfully weird first novel is a surprisingly earnest tale of motherhood wrapped up in pitch black humour. Following the middle-aged, eccentric Cheryl, it weaves together a cast of hypnotically repulsive characters to form a taboo busting pastiche of genres.

When Cheryl is prevailed upon by her employers to put up their twenty-year-old daughter – the attractive, unhygienic Clee – an intense bond forms between the two women that defies easy categorisation. The new cohabitants’ psychological war is punctuated by bizarre text messages from Cheryl’s obliviously lecherous colleague and questionable advice from her therapist, Ruth-Anne, who herself is engaged in the sort of ‘adult game’ that Cheryl finds herself drawn into.

The novel might not always be even – the precise observational humour that characterises the first two thirds of the book starts to wobble when July gets serious – but there’s no questioning July’s originality. Funny, unique and heartfelt, it’s a promising new direction for a prolific creative voice.

Top 10: Fiction

1. A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara
2. My Brilliant Friend, Elena Ferrante
3. All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr
4. Fates and Furies, Lauren Groff
5. Hope Farm, Peggy Frew
6. Thirteen Ways of Looking, Colum McCann
7. Brother of the More Famous Jack, Barbara Trapido
8. The Whites, Richard Price
9. The Lake House, Kate Morton
10. Carol, Patricia Highsmith

Christine Bongers’ Summer Reads

Every month we’ll be profiling a local author and their recommended reading list, and first up is acclaimed local Young Adult writer Christine Bongers. Read on to hear all about the books she’s been rushing home to read over Christmas.

My tottering to-read pile is structurally sounder after two sun-soaked weeks at the beach. For your reading pleasure, here are some of the favourites I’ve recommended lately.

Crime aficionados please embed the name Candice Fox into your memory banks. The Australian author’s debut novel Hades is a knockout from its dark atmospheric opening in a Sydney underworld dump to its shocking climax twenty years later. If you think crime fiction couldn’t get much better, read Fox’s follow-up Eden. Then treat yourself to Fall, her newly released third in the series. It’s top of my to-read pile for 2016.

For the literary lover, Kate Atkinson’s A God in Ruins is a tour-de-force companion piece to her previous novel Life After Life. It tells Teddy’s story – from favoured son and would-be poet, to RAF bomber pilot, husband, father and grandfather. Exquisitely written with a fine ironical eye and loads of heart, it repeatedly reduced me to tears with harrowing setups and deft pay-offs I never saw coming. Another masterful work from one of my favourite writers.

Cloudwish by Fiona Wood is a wonderful young adult novel that references Jane Eyre, a book that has stayed close to my heart for a lifetime. I first read it as a twelve-year-old growing up with six brothers in the bush, and was captivated by Jane’s struggle to survive and thrive in a time that treated girls without family, fortune or looks with great harshness. So of course I was drawn to Fiona Wood’s Vietnamese-Australian heroine Vân Uoc Phan, a scholarship girl at prestigious Crowthorn Grammar, who solves life’s problems by asking ‘What would Jane do?’ An inspirational story, with an ending that gave wings to my heart.

(Christine Bongers is the award winning author of Intruder, Dust and Henry Hoey Hobson).