if i got to choose four books to take home tonight (if only el cardo credito weren't at the end of its tether and threatening to cut me off and send me to Spenders Anonymous...where i would kick it in the balls with my fancy new 1940s-esque black patent schoolma'am, gal-friday shoes...)
where was i?
oh yes.
under the dome, stephen king (hodder)
who would have thunk i'd ever want to read a stephen king so much? this one looks particularly epic, about a giant dome dropping over a town - cutting birds in half and detroying an aeroplane (killing some of the people inside) as it settles into place. i've just read the first three pages.
the boy next door, irene sabatini (sceptre)
this is a curious one. set in zimbabwe in the 1980s it looks to be the story of a young girl - lindiwe - and the young boy next door who is arrested for setting his stepmother alight. the blurb says "...though eighteeen months later the charges against ian mckenzie are dropped and he returns home, full of charm and swagger." i know very little about africa (and what i do know i only know from spud) and this story, which the blurb says vividly evokes this country's slide into chaos following its independence and it's also a love story.
truth, peter temple (text)
merely because it won the miles franklin. but i'd also have to get the broken shore, cuz i ain't read that yet either.
our tragic universe, scarlett thomas (canongate)
because i LOVED LOVED the end of mr y and have been DYING for another scarlett thomas since. this one's an august release and we'll prob get it in at the shop this week. i don't think i'm going to be able to stop myself buying it, somehow. fingers crossed for a reading copy!
here's the blurb from the text website:
If Kelsey Newman’s theory about the end of the time is true, we are all going to live forever. But for Meg—locked in a dead-end relationship and with a deadline looming for a book that she can’t write—this thought fills her with dread. Stuck in a labyrinth of her own devising, Meg knows that there must be a way out. And a wild beast living on the Devonshire moors, a ship in a bottle, the science of time and a knitting pattern for the shape of the universe all have a crucial part to play in Meg’s release.
Smart, entrancing and buzzing with big ideas, Our Tragic Universe is a book about how relationships are created and destroyed, and how a story might just save your life.
but i'm lucky, because my nana (who is very old - 93 - but very awesome) went to the sydney launch of p.m. newton's debut novel the old school (viking) and she bought me a copy and posted it to me.
but right now i have three books to review for magpies. they're awesome:
i am a genius of unspeakable evil and i want to be your class president, josh lieb (razorbill)
mimi and the blue slave, catherine bateson (woolshed press) - i've read a couple of chapters and cried. as i do whenever i read a bateson. her books are just so beautiful!
and i've also got an aussie chomp, but i can't remember which one.
I'm so pleased to discover I'm not the only one who cries when she reads Catherine Bateson's work!
ReplyDeleteAm interested to see what you think of Under the Dome. Have been umming over buying it - sounds intriguing
i feel quite sorry for el cardo credito. i have seen the shoes you speak of. while they are indeed gorgeous, they are tres pointy and i would not want to be on the receiving of a kate style kick in the nads.
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