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The Narrow Road to the Deep North

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The Narrow Road to the Deep North : Winner of the 2014 Man Booker Prize - Richard FlanaganThe Narrow Road to the Deep North

Richard Flanagan

Summary

A novel of the cruelty of war, and tenuousness of life and the impossibility of love.

August, 1943. In the despair of a Japanese POW camp on the Thai-Burma death railway, Australian surgeon Dorrigo Evans is haunted by his love affair with his uncle’s young wife two years earlier. Struggling to save the men under his command from starvation, from cholera, from beatings, he receives a letter that will change his life forever.

This savagely beautiful novel is a story about the many forms of love and death, of war and truth, as one man comes of age, prospers, only to discover all that he has lost.

Comments

This is a stunning book. It is moving and horrific without being sentimental and lingered in my mind well after I finished the last page.

Told in three parts, primarily around the character of Dorrigo Evans, before, during and after his time as a P.O.W. on the Thai/Burma railway during World War II. Dorrigo is a surgeon who finds himself as the commanding officer in charge of hundreds of Australian P.O.W.s as they are starved and brutalised by the Japanese military.  Every character is fleshed out brilliantly. The secondary characters that do not survive linger throughout the book, and the survivors continue on with an understated stain that marks the rest of their days. Flanagan even manages to humanise the Japanese war criminals who view their actions as an honourable duty, even well into their old age.

It brilliantly subverts the idea of love, heroism and virtue. Dorrigo is not your typical hero protagonist. He is never comfortable with the admiration of his men, or the praise that he receives after the war. He is an adulterer who can never reconcile his feelings towards a lost, forbidden love and feels like a passenger within his loveless marriage.

I really can’t do this book justice in a short review. A must read.

Read by Dean

H is for Hawke

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h-is-for-hawkH is for Hawk

Helen MacDonald

Summary

As a child, Helen MacDonald was determined to become a falconer, learning the arcane terminology and reading all the classic books. Years later, when her father died and she was struck deeply by grief, she became obsessed with the idea of training her own goshawk. She bought Mabel for £800 on a Scottish quayside and took her home to Cambridge, ready to embark on the long, strange business of trying to train this wildest of animals.

H is for Hawk is an unflinchingly honest account of Macdonald’s struggle with grief during the difficult process of the hawk’s taming and her own untaming. This is a book about memory, nature and nation, and how it might be possible to reconcile death with life and love.

Comments

There is a lot of buzz around the publication of this book, it seems to have struck a chord with a lot of readers.  Basically it is part memoir and part memorial to both T.H. White the author of “The once and future King” and “The Sword in the Stone”,  (these books were written in the 1940’s and are  about the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the round table), and the author’s recently deceased and beloved father.  The story is about a young woman who has a fascination with Hawks and Falcons, literature and the history of England,  she acquires a young Hawk and raises it and trains it to hunt.  The book is basically a beautifully written meditation on Hawks and birds of prey and  coming to terms with  grief and finally reconciliation and acceptance of things past.

Read By Katherine

Jody’s Picks

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Over the last few weeks I have read some great books, some wonderful books and even a book I couldn’t finish; although lots of my colleagues loved it.

 

My MUST READ picks are

 

the-girl-in-times-square

The girl in Times Square – Paullina Simons

This is the first book I have read by Paullina Simons and I really enjoyed it. An overall enjoyable book.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

mortal-heart

Mortal Heart – Robin LaFevers

The 3rd book in a Young Adult series and I must say it was just as good as the first two in the series. I will definitely be reading any new books by this author. The two other books in the His Fair Assassin series are: 1 – Grave Mercy 2 – Dark Triumph

 

 

 

 

 

 

missing-you

Missing You – Kylie Kaden

I discovered Kylie Kaden last year when I read Kylie’s first book ‘Losing Kate’ which I loved. When I saw that Kylie had a new book out I knew I had to read it as soon as possible. I finished ‘Losing Kate’ in one day and I promised myself I would take my time with ‘Missing You’ but I didn’t I just couldn’t  put it down. It was so easy to read and the characters were so easy to get involved with. Even a day later I find myself still thinking about the book.

Missing You is unputdownable!

 

 

 

 

 

My ENJOYABLE READS are Continue reading →

The Little Coffee Shop

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the-little-coffee-shop-of-kabul

The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul

Deborah Rodriguez

 

Summary

In a little coffee shop in one of the most dangerous places on earth, five very different women come together. SUNNY, the proud proprietor, who needs an ingenious plan – and fast – to keep her caf and customers safea YAZMINA, a young pregnant woman stolen from her remote village and now abandoned on Kabul’s violent streets a CANDACE, a wealthy American who has finally left her husband for her Afghan lover, the enigmatic Wakil a ISABEL, a determined journalist with a secret that might keep her from the biggest story of her lifea and HALAJAN, the sixty-year-old den mother, whose long-hidden love affair breaks all the rules. As these five discover there’s more to one another than meets the eye, they form a unique bond that will for ever change their lives and the lives of many others.
Comments

Continue reading →

Stella Prize 2015

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This years winner of the Stella Prize has been announced.

 

And the winner is THE STRAYS BY EMILY BITTO

 

the-straysIn The Strays, Evan Trentham is the wild child of the Melbourne art world of the 1930s. He and his captivating wife, Helena, attempt to carve out their own small niche, to escape the stifling conservatism they see around them, by gathering together other like-minded artists. They create a utopian circle within their family home, offering these young artists a place to live and work, and the mixed benefits of being associated with the infamous Evan. At the periphery of this circle is Lily Struthers, the best friend of Evan and Helena’s daughter Eva. Lily is infatuated by the world she bears witness to, and longs to be part of this enthralling makeshift family. As Lily observes years later, looking back on events that she still carries painfully within her, the story of this groundbreaking circle involved the same themes as Evan Trentham’s art: Faustian bargains and terrible recompense; spectacular fortunes and falls from grace. Yet it was not Evan, nor the other artists he gathered around him, but his own daughters, who paid the debt that was owing.

For more information click here.