Library

New Books

Here are some more new books for older readers.  All well known and liked by many.

The Life to come by Michelle De Kretser.  Michelle de Kretser knows how to construct a gripping story!  We meet three characters, Pippa, Celeste and Ash and we track through their lives discovering in the process that we all have flawed perceptions of other people.  This book is very moving, wickedly funny and demonstrates how the shadows cast by past and future can transform, distort and undo the present. This book is a Miles Franklin award winner.

The Cuckoo’s calling by Robert Galbraith (aka J K Rowling).  This is a compulsively readable crime novel and is the first in a series featuring the private detective Cormoran Strike.  As a wounded war veteran, physically and psychologically, this work provides Strike with a financial lifeline.  His private life is in disarray, however his relentless pursuit to find answers leads him to some un-nerving discoveries …. 

The Shepherd’s Hut by Tim Winton.  A brutal telling of two very isolated people.  One mysteriously choosing to live a life of penance on the very edge of a salt pan, the other on a journey of discovery that will uncover a surprising lack of self-awareness.  Both want to survive – “but it wasn’t always like this.  I been through fire to get here.  So be happy for me.  And for f*sake, don’t get in my way.”

The year of the farmer by Rosalie Ham.  Another masterful story set in rural New South Wales.  The small town rumblings of social upheaval partly due to punishingly dry weather over a number of years; if only Neralie McIntosh (no relation to Leigh), hadn’t left town and boyfriend Mitchell Bishop, then he would not have fallen for horrid Mandy and Glenys Dingle would not have tried to rip off hardworking farmers already struggling up to their eyes in debt.  This is a dark, satirical novel of a small country town battling the elements and one another.

Past Tense by Lee Child.  This is a new Jack Reacher thriller.  Shrouded in mystery and suspense, this novel will keep you turning pages to find out what happens next.  Reacher starts a road trip across America from Maine to California, not far into the New England woods, he sees a sign to the town and birth place of his father – or so he thinks.  The city clerk’s office states that no one named Reacher ever lived in that town.  He knows his father never went back – but now wonders, was he ever there in the first place?  Apparently this one’s a nail-biter!