Showing all posts about novels
No Hebrew translation for Sally Rooney’s “Beautiful World, Where Are You”
15 October 2021
From a statement issued by the author of Beautiful World, Where Are You, Rooney’s most recent novel:
“I understand that not everyone will agree with my decision, but I simply do not feel it would be right for me under the present circumstances to accept a new contract with an Israeli company that does not publicly distance itself from apartheid and support the UN-stipulated rights of the Palestinian people.”
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How many banned books have you read? More than you think
28 September 2021
Lock the doors, lower the blinds, switch off your phone, we’re flying below the radar now. All because it’s Banned Books Week, and, well, who wants to be caught in possession of literary contraband? Not that I thought for a second I might be violating statutes by reading Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, or The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood.
Attempts to keep To Kill a Mockingbird out of circulation didn’t surprise me. I expect in 1960, when first published, it may have offended some sensibilities, but efforts to prohibit the title are far more recent. The Handmaid’s Tale, meanwhile, has likewise been challenged or banned since its release in 1985, for content deemed to be vulgar, violent, and sexually explicit.
Other books to receive similar treatment include The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, The Color Purple, by Alice Walker, and, yes, even Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, by Hunter S. Thompson. Yet I read each blissfully ignorant of the controversy they once stirred up, or still are. For that, I’m eternally thankful to live in the time and place I do.
Update: for the daring: banned book bingo by Keeping Up With The Penguins.
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The subtle art of asking a friend to critique your manuscript
22 September 2021
The subtle (and not so subtle) art of giving feedback to a writer, by London based Scottish cartoonist and illustrator Tom Gauld.
Writers know one of the scenarios Gauld envisages is going to play out. But it started me thinking; what if you’re an aspiring author, in other words, unpublished. How do you go about seeking feedback for the manuscript you’ve possibly spent years toiling over, when you don’t have the luxury of being able to call on an editor?
Should you ask friends? It’s probably what most people would think of. But if what a bunch of people agree to take a look, and you end up hearing nothing back? How do you interpret that? To mean your writing is subpar? That’s what I might think. On the other hand, it could be your friends are time-poor, like everyone else.
Expecting someone to read and digest one hundred thousand words and supply commentary, especially in the space of say a week, is a big ask by any standard. Perhaps a more graduated approach is a better idea, something Chicago based writer and filmmaker Jennifer Peepas suggests:
If someone volunteers to read your novel, send them the first chapter or so. If they write back to you wanting more, you have good feedback from that act alone: You wrote a good first chapter, you hooked them, they do actually want to read it, and they will likely give you notes.
That’s not a bad idea. But let’s get to the nitty-gritty. A friend has sent you their writing for critique, and it… it’s terrible. How do you respond? Without causing offence, and destroying the friendship? Freelance editor and writer Meg Dowell thinks the prospective author should put themselves in their friend’s position before sending anything. Long story short, maybe it’s best you don’t ask in the first place:
As humans often do, I turned this question back on myself and tried to imagine myself as the bad writer friend dreaming big. Would I want someone to tell me my writing kind of sucked? Or would I have a better experience continuing to write to my heart’s content and chase my dreams even if it wasn’t likely they’d come true? I’m not sure I would want to know if my writing was terrible. At least, I’m not sure I’d want to hear it from someone close to me. If I were passionate enough about writing to work hard in an attempt to make it, having my dreams crushed before my eyes … I don’t know how I would handle that.
I’m not sure anyone could tell a friend their would-be novel sucked though. More likely they’d say they really liked it, and they’re looking forward to the book launch. After all, that’s what friends are for. This is a matter requiring of further research, and follow-up. In the meantime, go and look at more of Tom Gauld’s work. It’s stellar, unlike asking friends to critique your writing.
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Booker Prize 2021 short list announced
16 September 2021
The work of Nadifa Mohamed, Anuk Arudpragasam, Damon Galgut, Patricia Lockwood, Richard Powers, and Maggie Shipstead, have been shortlisted for this year’s Booker Prize. The winner will be announced on Wednesday, 3 November 2021.
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The Banksia House Breakout, by James Roxburgh
16 September 2021
It’s a breakout, but not the sort of breakout you’re thinking of. Eighty-something widow Ruth Morris has been moved into Banksia House, a retirement home in Sydney, by her son, Michael. While the name of Ruth’s new abode may sound homely, Ruth instead feels homesick and isolated, as she pines for her past life of independence.
But when Ruth receives word her best friend Gladys is unwell, she hatches an escape plan in The Banksia House Breakout (published by Simon & Schuster, September 2021); the debut novel of Sydney based Australian writer and audiologist James Roxburgh. And with some help from her new found friends at Banksia House, Ruth makes a dash for Queensland.
But the journey is filled with trials and tribulations as Ruth, Beryl, and Keith, head north, hoping they’ll reach Gladys in time. While dealing with all sorts of problems on the road, the trio has to constantly outwit the home, and their families, lest they be stopped. Blending humour with the stark reality of aged care living, here’s another title for your reading list.
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books, fiction, James Roxburgh, literature, novels, TBR list
The Phone Box at the Edge of the World, by Laura Imai Messina
15 September 2021
Imagine there were a way to contact your deceased loved ones. To feel you’d conversed with them, and perhaps found some comfort in the wake of their passing. But what might you say if it were possible? If it were as simple as picking up a phone and talking? If you can make your way to the Japanese city of Otsuchi, you might be able to do that.
In a garden there, is an old, disconnected, telephone box, called the phone of the wind. Those grieving the loss of loved one go there to seek solace, and Japan based Italian author Laura Imai Messina’s new novel, The Phone Box at the Edge of the World (published by Allen & Unwin, July 2020) is based on Otsuchi’s phone of the wind.
Yui lost her mother and daughter in the tsunami of 2011. Despite her grief she does what she can to carry on. After hearing about the phone in Otsuchi, she travels there. But she cannot pick up the phone and speak. But there Yui meets Takeshi, whose young daughter stopped talking when his wife died, and the two begin to form a bond.
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books, fiction, Laura Imai Messina, literature, novels, TBR list
Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead, by Emily Austin
14 September 2021
Gilda, a woman in her late twenties, is a person with a few problems. She has a dread of death. She’s depressed. So much so she can’t deal with washing the dishes, showering, or even turning up for work. Unsurprisingly then she finds herself seeking another job, and is inadvertently hired as a receptionist at a Catholic church.
But Gilda is not Catholic, nor is she even religious. She is also gay. In addition though to lying about who she is, and pretending to be familiar with the workings of the Church, she also becomes obsessed with her late predecessor, Grace. Certain her passing was no accident, Gilda commences her own investigation into Grace’s death.
Could then Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead, (published by Allen & Unwin, August 2021) possibly have a more apt title? Early reviews for the debut novel of Canadian author Emily Austin look promising. Buzzfeed described it as “the perfect blend of macabre and funny“, while The Skinny found it “funny, dark and harrowing.”
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books, Emily Austin, fiction, literature, novels, TBR list
Redhead by the Side of the Road, by Anne Tyler
13 September 2021
Now I’m judging books by their titles, but as a redhead, how could I go passed the latest novel by American author Anne Tyler: Redhead by the Side of the Road (published by Penguin Books Australia, 2021). The protagonist, forty-something Micah, is a creature of habit; you could set your watch by his routines.
By day he works as a freelance computer technician, and come evening looks after the apartment block he lives in. He has a woman friend, and turns in each night at ten o’clock. But when his better half tells him she’s about to be evicted from her place, and a teenage boy arrives at the door, saying he’s his son, Micah’s ordered life is plunged into turmoil.
From the little I’ve read about the book so far, it seems there’s no actual redhead character in the story, but best I say no more on the count. Coming in at about one hundred and seventy eight pages, Redhead by the Side of the Road is a shorter read though, which sometimes is exactly what you want.
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Anne Tyler, books, fiction, literature, novels, TBR list
Some suggested reading for September
9 September 2021
A new-ish month, a new selection of suggested reading from the ABC Arts’ monthly book column. I’m liking the sounds of Things We See in the Light, by Sydney based Australian writer Amal Awad. Set in Sydney’s inner west, and loosely related to two of Awad’s earlier books, it tells the story of Sahar, who returns to Sydney after leaving her husband of eight years in Jordan. But it is an experience Sahar is reluctant to discuss with her friends, even as she becomes ever more settled in Sydney.
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Amal Awad, books, literature, novels
Beautiful World, Where Are You, by Sally Rooney
9 September 2021
Beautiful World, Where Are You (published by Faber/Allen & Unwin) is the third novel by Irish author Sally Rooney. Alice and Eileen are old friends who are young, but not that young. They often exchange long emails as they attempt to put the world to rights, and make sense of their love lives. Alice, a famous novelist, asks Felix, a warehouse worker, to accompany her on a holiday to Rome.
Eileen, a literary assistant, who lives in Dublin, has recently ended a relationship and has begun flirting with Simon, an old childhood friend. The two women haven’t seen each other in many years, so when they eventually meet face to face, they find their perceptions of each other – impressions generated by way of their email correspondences – are in sharp contrast to reality.
Oh to be a fly on the wall witnessing that meeting. Beautiful World, Where Are You has been published in two editions. The regular edition sports a blur cover, while the yellow cover book is a special edition hardback with a bonus short story. Another addition to the to-be-read list I think.
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