Tag: Literature
READ FOR BOOKCLUBChosen by Jodie Penelope’s Fitzgerald’s last novel, written in 1997, details the early life of the German romantic poet Friedrich von Hardenberg who used the pseudonym Novalis and his love for 12-year-old Sophie von Kuhn. Set in provincial Saxony in the 1790s, the… Continue Reading “The Blue Flower – Penelope Fitzgerald”
READ FOR BOOKCLUBChosen by Rachel An investigation of an elderly woman’s mental wanderings after finding a note referring to a murder. Vesta Gul is an expected Moshfegh character: a female loner with convoluted, dangerous thoughts. She is 72, living alone in the woods after… Continue Reading “Death In Her Hands – Otessa Moshfegh”
Category: Female Experience, Mystery/Crime, Psychological, Unreliable NarratorTags: Best Books, Bookclub, Bookclub Blog, Books, Death In Her Hands, Literature, Must Read Books, Unreliable Narrator
READ FOR BOOKCLUB Chosen by Jo Apt for a loch setting, there is dark and mysterious element at work in Summerwater. Its title is a reference to “The Ballad of Semerwater” by the poet William Watson. This was based on a legend in which… Continue Reading “Summerwater – Sarah Moss”
Category: Contemporary fiction, Literary fiction, UK authorTags: Best Books, Bookclub, Bookclub Blog, Books, Books To Read, Literature, Must Read Books, Sarah Moss, Summerwater
READ FOR BOOKCLUBChosen by Jodie. Esther Greenwood’s story is remarkably similar to Sylvia Plath’s own life and struggles and is considered autobiographical fiction, despite being written under a pseudonym. Esther is an editor with mental illness who soon succumbs to being institutionally committed, fighting… Continue Reading “The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath”
Category: Coming of Age, Female Experience, Feminism, Literary fiction, US fictionTags: Best Books, Bookclub, Bookclub Blog, Books, Books To Read, Classics, Literature, Must Read Books, Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
Suzy: “All four books seemed completely deserving of their place on the shortlist. While I would have thought the judges may have leaned more towards Nothing to See I am not mad at all about Bug Week winning. There are flashes from the various Bug Week stories that still sit… Continue Reading “2021 NZ Book Awards”
Category: Kiwi lit, Literary fiction, NZ Book Awards, Short StoriesTags: Best Books, Bookclub, Bookclub Blog, Books, Books To Read, Kiwi lit, Literature, Must Read Books, NZ Book Awards, NZ Fiction
Read for NZ Book Awards An inmate at Buchenwald concentration camp aids the commandant who is trying to save his wife’s life ⫸ “Remote Sympathy tells the stories of several people and families who all have one thing in common: the Buchenwald concentration camp… Continue Reading “Remote Sympathy – Catherine Chidgey”
Category: Kiwi lit, Literary fiction, War storyTags: Best Books, Bookclub, Bookclub Blog, Books, Books To Read, Kiwi lit, Literature, Must Read Books, NZ Book Awards, NZ Fiction, Ockhams
Read for NZ Book Awards From 1960s Wellington to post-Communist Germany, Bug Week is a collection of short stories that traverses the weird, the wry and the grotesque fragments of people’s lives. There are bug collectors, necrophiliacs, an albatross at an open mic night,… Continue Reading “Bug Week And Other Stories – Airini Beautrais”
Category: Kiwi lit, Short StoriesTags: Best Books, Bookclub, Bookclub Blog, Books, Books To Read, Kiwi lit, Literature, Must Read Books, NZ Book Awards, NZ Ficton, Short Stories
Read for NZ Book Awards A brutal story of rugby, rape and toxic masculinity. ⫸ “After a Wellington School’s revered rugby final, a 15-year-old year is gang raped at the after party. We are then made privvy to the thoughts, actions and emotions of… Continue Reading “Sprigs – Brannavan Gnanalingam”
Read for NZ Book Awards The lives of friends Peggy and Greta are detailed in three different decades in this book. In 1994 they are aged 24 and breaking free of alcohol and a traumatic past; in 2006 they have jobs and are coping… Continue Reading “Nothing To See – Pip Adam”
Category: Contemporary fiction, NZ Book AwardsTags: Best Books, Bookclub, Bookclub Blog, Books, Books To Read, Kiwi lit, Literature, NZ Book Awards, NZ Fiction, Pip Adam
Chosen by Becks Political satirist George Orwell’s nightmarish vision of a totalitarian, bureaucratic world and one man’s attempt to find individuality.. ⫸ “Winston Smith is both an anti-hero and an everyday man who re-writes history for a living. He lives in Oceania in an… Continue Reading “Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell”
Category: Classic literature, Dystopian, UK authorTags: Best Books, Bookclub, Bookclub Blog, Booker Prize, Books, Books To Read, George Orwell, Literature, Must Read Books, Nineteen Eighty Four
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