I’ve just read Kirsten Tranter’s first book, The Legacy. It’s one of those extraordinary first novels that pop up now and then - it’s very accomplished, very lyrical, about a young woman who falls in love with a wealthy New Yorker, leaves Australia and her friends for his life, and then a few years later, on September 11, 2001, disappears. Her best friend from her Australian years decides to find out what happened. It’s a book definitely worth reading.
If you enjoyed Motherless Brooklyn, Lethem’s romp through Brooklyn as Lionel, a young adolescent with Tourette’s, becomes a real detective investigating his friend’s murder, you’ll be delighted with this new book. It’s difficult to talk about as the themes are many. Chase is a Manhatten fixture on the social circuit, famous for two things - his childhood film years, and his fiancee who is marooned on the International Space Station. And there is an escaped tiger rumoured to be free on the Upper East Side. It’s been picked as one of the great books for this year.
On tuesday we had our final Literary Lunch for the year. Susan Duncan gave such an inspiring talk about the importance of community and how it brings us all together. A community project that feels overwheming when you are on your own becomes very achievable when you have the support of people around you. It’s certainly food for thought, especially when you consider Susan decided to start a choir and thought perhaps four or five people would turn up for the first rehersal. Forty five arrived, and the choir will have their first performance shortly on a barge in Pittwater. Her beautiful pictorial book, Life on Pittwater, reinforces just how lucky we are to live in this area. Do look at it next time you are in store.
One of my favourite food writers is Nigel Slater and his new book for Christmas is called Tender, a book about vegetables — how to grow them, and how to cook them. You can grow them in pots on your balcony, on your window ledge, and in Nigel’s case, he dug up his lawn as well. As he says, he’s put in this book everything he knows about vegetables. So after you’ve grown them, he gives you lots and lots of recipes on how to cook them. In the Chinese Greens section is a brilliant recipe for Prawn, Leaves and Limes. And his pumpkin scone looks fabulous. There is even a fragrant supper for one using eggplant, yoghurt and lots of herbs. This is one book I will definitely be taking home and using.
Gabrielle Lord is writing a gripping series for boys eleven and older. It’s called Conspiracy 365 and one book will be published each month. January, the beginning, is out now and it’s a book virtually guaranteed to get you hooked. The series starts on New Year’s Eve when Cal, a 15 year old boy, is chased by a sick, staggering man who warns him ‘They killed your father, they’ll kill you’. Cal is not sure what to believe, but as events unfold, he finds himself on his own, on the run, with not even his mother believing in him. It’s a great first book. Unfortunately, I’ve got to wait until February to read the second book.
Margaret Atwood’s new book, The Year of the Flood, is a companion book to Oryx and Crake published 2003. Atwood doesn’t like these books being described as science fiction, she prefers the phrase speculative fiction, and perhaps we really are already on the path of The Year of the Flood. The flood is waterless, a genetically engineered pandemic. Humanity has almost been wiped out, apart from a few groups — the Corporations who control governments and their security arm, CorpSeCorps who control what is left; God’s Gardeners, a cult maintaining gardens on top of buildings away from the marauders and bioengineered animals, living a very ecological life. And two women, Ren and Toby who struggle through this awful world, a world destroyed by experiments in genetic splicing. Their friendship is the bedrock of this novel. It’s thought provoking, especially when you realise some of Atwood’s gene splicing creations have already been researched
I think I mentioned a couple of months ago Michelle Paver’s wonderful series of books, the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness. They are for teenagers, but I have found them unputdownable. They are set six thousand years ago, after the ice age but before the spread of farming in north west Europe, where the land was one vast forest. We follow Torak, a 12 year old boy and his quest to rid the lands of evil spirits. I’ve just read the sixth and final book, Ghost Hunter. Torak’s pack brother is a wolf and his friend Renn is learning to be a mage and we follow the three of them over three years. Paver has done a brilliant job in bringing this world to life, a world of people who live in small clans in the forest or up in the icelands, living by hunting and gathering. It’s such a great series of books, I cant recommending it highly enough. The first book is Wolf Brother, where Torak rescues a baby wolf and they become pack brothers, a bond which will last until the end.
