Best Wishes by Richard Glover

When I purchased my copy of Richard Glover’s latest book Best Wishes, I set myself up in my favourite chair on the decking and didn’t really move again until I was finished the whole book.

Best Wishes was an enjoyable, relatable, laugh out loud read. Filled with Richard Glover’s usual wit, sass, and humour. I found myself wishing (excuse the pun) for another few hundred wishes. Somehow, 365 didn’t feel like nearly enough.

If you are looking for the perfect book to lose yourself in on a sunny Saturday morning in your favourite spot, then Best Wishes is that book. I guarantee you will feel a warm glow inside when you have finished.

Should you enjoy Best Wishes as much as I did, do yourself a favour and listen to the eAudiobook version; narrated by Richard Glover himself, it is brilliant! I read the book and listened to eAudiobook.

Listen to this book online [Borrow Box]

If you enjoy Richard Glover’s books as much as I do then why not pop along to his Author Talk on Saturday 18th November 2023 at Parramatta Library at PHIVE.

Happy reading everyone, I hope you all enjoy Best Wishes as much as I did.

Jody

Book Review Lying Beside You Michael Robotham

Lying Beside You

Michael Robotham

Summary

Two missing women. One witness. So many lies…

Twenty years ago, Cyrus Haven’s family was murdered. Only he and his brother survived. Cyrus because he hid. Elias because he was the killer.

Now Elias is being released from a secure psychiatric hospital and Cyrus, a forensic psychologist, must decide if he can forgive the man who destroyed his childhood.

As he prepares for the homecoming, Cyrus is called to a crime scene in Nottingham. A man is dead and his daughter is missing. Then a second woman is abducted. The only witness is Evie Cormac, a troubled teenager with an incredible gift: she can tell when you are lying.

Both missing women have dark secrets that Cyrus must unravel to find them – and he and Evie know better than anybody how the past can come back to haunt you . . .

Comments

This book is the third in a series of psychological thrillers featuring Cyrus Haven, who is a criminal Forensic Psychologist, and it reads well as a stand-alone story. It is a ‘whodunit’ with interesting, interweaving plot lines. We all found this to be a page turner with engaging and quirky characters, most of them with traumatic pasts. The writing style was clear and comprehensible and the use of character names for chapter headings did not interfere with the flow of the storytelling.

Evie and her minder Cyrus are the main proponents but all the other characters have a purpose and add interest to the satisfying plot. After many false leads and an eventual terrifying stand-off, there is a ‘twist in the tale’ ending.

Every member of our Bookclub enjoyed this story and some obtained books 1 & 2 to read the backstories. We are all looking forward to reading book 4.

8/10

Read by Dundas Readers

Book Review The Cowra Breakout

The Cowra Breakout by Mat McLachlan

Summary

The riveting story of the missing piece of Australia’s World War II history, told by bestselling historian Mat McLachlan (Walking with the AnzacsGallipoli: The Battlefield Guide).

During World War II, in the town of Cowra in central New South Wales, Japanese prisoners of war were held in a POW camp. By August 1944, over a thousand were interned and on the icy night of August 5th they staged one of the largest prison breakouts in history, launching the only land battle of World War II to be fought on Australian soil. Five Australian soldiers and more than 230 Japanese POWs would die during what became known as The Cowra Breakout.

This compelling and fascinating book, written by one of Australia’s leading battlefield historians, vividly traces the full story of the Breakout. It is a tale of proud warriors and misfit Australian soldiers. Of negligence and complacency, and of authorities too slow to recognise danger before it occurred – and too quick to cover it up when it was too late. But mostly it is a story about raw human emotions, and the extremes that people will go to when they feel all hope is lost.

Comments

This book was enjoyed by our readers, with many adding that they were surprised by how much they did enjoy this book.

We found the book to be extremely well researched by the author. With this very factual research the author has then developed a highly detailed and very readable novel about an interesting episode in Australian war history.

The writer was able to take us to this period in time by well researched real personal accounts starting with Japanese Zero fighter pilot Tatsumi Hanada, Australia’s first prisoner of war, shot down over Melville Island following the first Japanese attack on Darwin.

We found it to be a most enjoyable read about the homeland history of Australian soldiers in WW2.

The book also prompted a reflective discussion about how the Japanese prisoners of war were treated by the Australian captors as opposed to how Australian and allied forces along with civilian expats who were captured were treated by the Japanese forces. The Japanese culturally having a completely different attitude to what it meant to be a POW. It was an interesting fact in the book that many Japanese prisoners used false names to conceal from their families in Japan that they were POW’s. Their complete personal shame at being a prisoner, they would rather die in a mass escape than return home after the war to be known as a POW. The Australians treating them well as prisoners only seemed to make them resent their situation more.

This story also gives real recognition to the Australian soldiers who died during this escape and a detailed account of what these soldiers faced on that night in 1944, the night of the breakout.

The cover up following from the Australian authorities, just like the cover up of the bombing of Darwin, evokes hurt and resentment to this day from Australian soldiers and citizens.

As a group we all confessed that we had very little knowledge at all about the Cowra breakout although most of us had heard of the breakout. This bought about a discussion of many other historically important and impressive episodes in Australia’s war history that are not taught in school history as far as we know.

The cover up following from the Australian authorities, just like the cover up of the bombing of Darwin, evokes hurt and resentment to this day from Australian citizens.

A lengthy discussion also followed about Australians’ personal attitudes toward the Japanese after the war. How attitudes have changed over time. Our own grandparents and parents, who lived through this period, had such a different attitude to the Japanese compared to our own generation and that of the current younger generations.

This was a read that we are happy to recommend.

Read by MJ Readers

Book Club Book Reviews June 2023

The Liars by Petronella McGovern

Summary

A wife burning with resentment. A husband hiding the past. Their teenage daughter crusading for the truth. Who can we trust?

The close-knit community of Kinton Bay is shocked when fifteen-year-old Siena Britton makes a grisly discovery near a cave in the national park. Siena believes it’s a skull from the town’s violent colonial past and posts a video which hits the news headlines.

But her parents, Meri and Rollo, think the skull is related to their teenage parties in the Killing Cave back in the 1990s. And a school mate who went missing then.

None of them foresees the dangers that the discovery will create for their family. The dangers of past deceits, silences and lies that have never been resolved.

Comments

Set in a small country town on the coast of New South Wales after Covid 19, this is a story which revolves around the cases of three missing people from the 1990s.

When a skull is discovered, lives and lies begin to unravel; and events spiral out of control, especially in the Britton family around whom the story is focussed. This small community has been keeping secrets for many years and some in the community are haunted by their memories.

Only a few of our group read the whole story, having found the beginning very uninspiring. It was easy to read but ‘ordinary’ and ‘underwhelming’ was the group verdict; we felt that it would be better suited as a young adult read.

4/10 Read by Dundas Readers


Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen

Summary

Welcome to Bascom, North Carolina, where it seems that everyone has a story to tell about the Waverley women. The house that’s been in the family for generations, the walled garden that mysteriously blooms year round, the rumours of dangerous loves and tragic passions.

Every Waverley woman is somehow touched by magic. Claire has always clung to the Waverleys’ roots,  tending the enchanted soil in the family garden from which she makes her sought-after delicacies – famed and feared for their curious effects. She has everything she thinks she needs – until one day she waked to find a stranger has moved in next door and a vine of ivy has crept into her garden…

Claire’s carefully tended life is about to run gloriously out of control.

Comments

Our group quite enjoyed this easy to read, fanciful story of a family of women with ‘magical’ gifts and an enchanted, backyard apple tree. It did remind us of a Hallmark movie and could imagine it also as a miniseries, even perhaps more suited to the young adult genre. There were some aspects of realism and conflict. We enjoyed the references to the language of flowers, the positivity of the environment as a healer and the hope and support that the women provided each other. The character of Evanelle was our favourite. She was eccentric, loving, somewhat ageless but a wise elder. The ending was predictable but satisfying.

Read by MJ Readers

Book Review Girt David Hunt

Summary

Girt. No word could better capture the essence of Australia…

Girt. No word could better capture the essence of Australia…

In this hilarious history, David Hunt reveals the truth of Australia’s past, from megafauna to Macquarie – the cock-ups and curiosities, the forgotten eccentrics and Eureka moments that have made us who we are.

Girt introduces forgotten heroes like Mary McLoghlin, transported for the crime of “felony of sock”, and Trim the cat, who beat a French monkey to become the first animal to circumnavigate Australia. It recounts the misfortunes of the escaped Irish convicts who set out to walk from Sydney to China, guided only by a hand-drawn paper compass, and explains the role of the coconut in Australia’s only military coup.

Our nation’s beginnings are steeped in the strange, the ridiculous and the frankly bizarre. Girt proudly reclaims these stories for all of us.

Not to read it would be un-Australian.

Comments

Girt by David Hunt is a different approach to presenting the history orfAustralia. There has been an incredible amount of research done by the author but, unfortunately, the style did not resonate with us. We found the writing to be demeaning, negative, flippant and condescending. In an attempt to be comedic or ironic, we felt the author trivialised women and gave no dignity to the people who forged our society. The only people who seemed to be presented positively were the ‘currency kids’ who are portrayed as hardworking and healthier than those who went before them, although they didn’t appear to value their own self worth.

The book felt very self indulgent and is not one that we would recommend.

Read by MJ Readers