Emphasis on the dirt! The author makes no attempt to sanitise the experience of a Tongan family living on a pittance in Sydney‘s outer suburbs to help support their relations in Tonga. A fascinating insight into Tongan culture but, for me at least, not an enjoyable read. A low pick. #ozfiction

This book starts with a chapter that reads like a long form article in a newspaper or current affairs magazine, then peels back the layers of that story to show the manipulations perpetrated & the consequences for the people involved. There‘s lots to think about, not least the insidious nature of columnists whose “opinions” are written to “maximise [their] own profits, influence and longevity”. I think it‘s really good - a worthy Booker contender.

And isn‘t that exactly how a lot of people see the world? It just makes me sad.

Ok, I confess I bought this because I sometimes watch 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown 🫣 It was a pretty slow to start, and the whole thing was a bit contrived, but I enjoyed the word games, the etymologies and the insiders look at the work of lexicographers as well as the Oxford setting. A fun read.

This tale of a group of genteel elderly people seeing out their days in a shabby London hotel is funny and sad in equal measure. The unlikely friendship of widowed Mrs Palfrey and young would be writer, Ludo, makes for a subtle way of illustrating the social divide of 1960s Britain - the last vestiges of the colonial empire and the youth culture of Swinging London. I loved it.

#BookReport for July

The Axeman‘s Carnival was my favourite. Woodworking, Fundamentally & Better Days were all terrific too & I wouldn‘t be surprised if they all feature in my best of 2025.

#RomanceRoundUp for July

Copper Script - historical M/M. KJ Charles never disappoints
Awk-Weird - cute hockey player/nerd story. Surprise pregnancy / forced proximity tropes
I Think They Love You - second chance M/M. Romance was okay, family PR company story a bit cringy
Kiss of Steel - Steampunk vampires! Not really my thing but fun for a change. Read with #LittensLoveRomance

For me, humour is the ultimate humaniser & I thought this book used it to perfection. The bureaucracies & corruption of the UN, British Embassy & Iraqi ministries were believable, comic & infuriating all at once. I liked the way it dealt with the role of the media. The main thing I take away from the book is how, in spite of the ways we other one another, people are people - whatever our culture/religion a lot of our behaviour is very similar⬇️

Loved it. Great characters with distinctive voices , plotting that avoided cliché and predictability, smart writing and some wonderful calling out of the attitudes of the “Christian” Right - “…everything you say is bankrupt, warped by money and power and privilege”. “But a person‘s life is their own. Few sins are greater than trying to squeeze someone else into the shape you require them to be.” Can‘t wait to discuss #CampLitsy2025

The talking magpie narrator explaining the ways of birds and people is an appealing hook that frequently had me laughing out loud and is also an effective counterpoint to the harshness of conditions of the human characters. What could have been very bleak became much more palatable, but no less powerful. I loved it. A definite contender for my book of the year so far. #NZfiction
Have you read this one @Centique ?

At the half-way mark I‘ve read 8 of the books in my #14books14weeks stack 😊

What a charmless lot these characters were! I had trouble feeling sympathy for any of them, except maybe Lavinia who seemed to be doing her best. #FurrowedMiddlebrowClub

@Sarahreadstoomuch Tag you‘re it! If you want to play, find another post related to the ocean to share.

#tagyoureit #ocean

I really enjoyed this book, but I don‘t know how to describe it adequately. It‘s about a successful woman & her relationships with her mother, her husband, her best friend, her children, her number one client & with music. The story may not be very new, but the characters are wonderful, vibrant & multi faceted. The mother in particular. I‘m often not fond of novels with multiple time shifts but it works well here. #ozfiction

Meh. It was fine, decently written and interesting enough, but never particularly engaging. I'd have thought if you were going to make yourself the narrator of a cosy mystery you'd give yourself a bit of charm. Horowitz doesn't agree, it seems. With a sleuth as enigmatic as this one the narrator needs to sparkle. As it is, its a cosy mystery that lacks warmth.

#BookReport for June

The Proof of My Innocence was my favourite for the month and one of my favourites for the year so far.

June #RomanceRoundup

Poetry On Ice - Enemies to lovers isn‘t a trope I generally enjoy. This one handled it reasonably well, but I found the 🌶 a bit icky
Pucked - Read with #LittensLoveRomance (thanks @StayCurious ) teammate‘s sister trope, started well but never developed the relationship beyond the physical, which just got boring
Untouchable Player - Sweet jock/nerd & teammate‘s brother trope
Blue Line - OK but forgettable fake dating trope

I just loved this book. Ostensibly it‘s a murder mystery told by means of literary pastiche (a cosy mystery complete with secret passages, plenty of suspects & a quirky detective, a dark academia background excursion & an auto fiction conclusion) but at heart it‘s a political asking (expressly) why the proponents of the Thatcher/Reagan era policies which have created our current society do not like that society. ⬇️

I‘ve made it to 35% but I‘m going to bail now. I have no doubt a lot of Barnado‘s children were treated as badly as this, but the book feels too much like trauma porn to me. Sorry @Jess861 #OhCanada

Charming epistolary novel with a spiky central character and a lot of book chat. Thanks for putting it on my radar @BarbaraBB

It is an astonishing fact that, in 1914 & 1915, as Europe approached & then began a devastating war, the married, 60+ British Prime Minister was so besotted with a 27 year old society girl that he wrote letters to her during cabinet meetings that contained state secrets along side gushing professions of love & sent her top secret documents. This book is a fictionalised account of the relationship & of the government‘s conduct of the war. ⬇️

The Miles shortlist is out. Any thoughts, #ozfiction readers?

From the very start, this book told me where it was going. Even so, I was surprised when it got there. I knew nothing about life in post WWII Vienna and found this aspect of it fascinating. I enjoyed Resi‘s story, but she was such an ephemeral character I didn‘t feel a lot for her. I felt much more connected to Professor Adler & his efforts to make a new life in his old home. #PersephoneClub

#UnpopularOpinion

I appreciated what the author is trying to do here but for me she wasn‘t successful. I didn‘t buy the central relationship - there was too little to show how they came to care for one another. It‘s a trope I rarely enjoy or find convincing so maybe it‘s just me. The writing is good and the background story is really important. I‘m extra critical when I think a book could be truly great but misses the mark, so only a so-so.

I agree this is an odd book, but I enjoyed it. I have an idea about what I think it‘s doing. I‘m looking forward to seeing what the campers think. #CampLitsy25

I think this is a lesser known Heyer, but for me it is up there with the best of them. Romance, comedy and great characters. Totally delightful, but have you ever seen a less appropriate cover for a Heyer @LeahBergen ?

Oh boy! That was a lot! It starts as a 1920‘s shipboard murder mystery featuring a dizzying number of characters, all with complicated backstories, and evolves into a gruesome horror/disaster story. Underlying it all is the horror of the First World War and under that the evils of centuries of imperialism. I would never have chosen to read it if I didn‘t love Toby Schmitz. I think I‘m glad I did, but I need to wash my brain now 😵‍💫🤢 #ozfiction

This is brilliant

#BookReport for May. The Wardrobe Department and The Sitter were my two favourites for the month.

Romance round up - 3 m/m hockey romances

Textbook Defence - latest in the Hockey Ever After series. Not a patch on the first one as originally published, but still fun. It‘s always good to get a glimpse of Gabe & Dante.
On the Edge - I like the slow burn in this series. This one is a pretty good example of the grumpy/sunshine trope.
One Timer - I can‘t remember this much but it must have been ok because I finished it after bailing on a few.

The spirit of Cezanne‘s wife & frequent subject, Hortence, tells her story while watching over a writer who is trying to write Hortense‘s biography but winds up writing a heartbreaking part of her own autobiography. That may sound like an unnecessary bit of literary pretentiousness, but it is beautifully & sensitively done. I‘m not surprised it was on all those prize lists last year. #ozfiction
Second book for #14books14weeks

Oh wow! I loved this. The backstage at the theatre stuff is great and the family stuff is even better. Some of the scenes between the family members felt to me like scenes from a play. The dialogue is really, really good. And I loved the Uncle Vanya references. I‘ll be looking out for Elaine Garvey‘s next book.
First book completed for #14books14weeks

Found this in a 2nd hand bookshop & couldn‘t resist after Family Roundabout. Tilly enters service as a 15 year old in the late C19th and watches as the family she serves grows up and grows old. Unhappy marriages feature again & there is a degree of contempt for the social norms of the monied classes. Tilly has more sense & more empathy than all of her so called betters. I‘ll be looking out for more Richmal Crompton.

This police procedural murder mystery set in an Icelandic winter and dealing with themes of immigration, dislocation and jingoism was very enjoyable, although I would have enjoyed it more if I‘d read earlier books in the series because there was quite a bit about the detectives‘ private lives as well as their professional interactions.

Although it‘s winter not summer here I‘m joining the challenge #14books14weeks

Here‘s my stack

Four stories exploring the experience of transness, particularly in relation to sexuality. I saw Torrey Peters at the Melbourne Writers Festival last night which added to my reading experience enormously especially in relation to the eponymous story, which I didn‘t really enjoy reading - I found the logger vernacular offputting, but she explained that it was writing in that style that gave her freedom to find the emotional truth in the story. ⬇️

Delightful! A sweet little romance, a lovely happy family and some beautiful clothes. Just what I've come to expect from Susan Scarlett. #FurrowedMiddlebrowClub

#BookReport for April. No romances on the list this month - I DNF‘d a few that were so uninspiring I can‘t even remember what they were. Geraldine, Normal Rules Don‘t Apply and Signs of Damage are all excellent. Geraldine is my pick for favourite of the month.

It's Democracy Sausage Day!

From her early days as Gerald in the Midlands, Zambia & an English boarding school, establishing her identity as Geraldine as a teenager in the prog & punk music scenes of the 1970s, finding herself transplanted to far away Perth & its underwhelming (to her) music scene in the early ‘80s to throwing herself into the battle for LGBT law reform in the 90s & 00s Geraldine insists on her right to be unashamedly herself. And she is excellent company ⬇️

After that last book I wanted something straightforward & simple & that‘s what I got here. A modern murder mystery with some entertaining dynamics between believable characters & quite a nice twist at the end. There are similarities with Big Little Lies, if that had been set around a boys school in Cornwall. Good fun.

Well that was really weird… but kind of interesting, even though I‘ve got no idea what it was trying to tell me. A fictional amalgam of Melbourne & Geelong begins twisting & changing, moving streets & buildings around apparently at random. An artist who has recently returned to the city becomes the target of vitriol when her former European collective gets into trouble. Her sister & nephew live almost exclusively online. There are some unusual⬇️

Like her most recent Jackson Brodie, this collection of short stories felt to me like Kate Atkinson having fun. I love her sense of humour and the apparently effortless way she nails her characters to recognisable types without reducing them to cliche. Very enjoyable.

Although this has a thriller-like structure & is a variation on the “trauma plot”, it is not a major departure from Diana Reid‘s previous novels. It is most interesting for its exploration of friendships & sibling relationships, the interplay of power, sexual politics & societal norms & of the cancer of secrets & lies. I think she‘s a really interesting writer, she always leaves me with plenty to think about. #ozfiction

What a wonderfully juicy bit of gothic fiction this is - it really has it all! Poor wilting Rosy, bravely battling Ughtred (that name😵‍💫), plucky, capable Betty, honourable Mount Dunston, all-American G Seldon & best of all the irredeemably villainous Sir Nigel - I envisioned him twirling his moustaches while he tormented his victims. Thoroughly enjoyable. Also, it‘s interesting that idioms we take for granted needed explanations #PersephoneClub

Here‘s my suggestions for #CampLitsy25

Although it‘s a variation on the old chestnut of empty-nester running away to exotic location (in this case Brittany) on discovering husband‘s infidelity, there is a lot to like about the way the story is told here. There is more to Audrey than first appears & the cast of supporting characters are original & entertaining. I could have done without the romantic subplot, but at least it wasn‘t presented as her ultimate fulfilment. #ozfiction

Former not quite pop star & single mother Florence throws herself into the investigation when one of her son‘s classmates goes missing. I confess I was mostly drawn to it because of the title (school gate trauma much?) & didn‘t have any real expectations, which was probably a good thing. The story rockets along at a furious pace & it‘s quite a fun read, although Florence is such a mess she is more annoying than amusing. Another low pick.

I‘m at almost exactly the same stage in my life as Rocky, the narrator of this story but I just can‘t relate to her at all. She was so appallingly needy. Her constantly overflowing emotions were tiresome & her suggestion that her calm & steady husband & son didn‘t have feelings seemed just plain cruel. But I enjoyed the bright & breezy writing that brilliantly evoked the atmosphere a summer beach holiday. A low pick.

Number 3 in the Sandhamn Murders series is a clever interweaving of past and present to create a plausible motive and opportunity for murder. I really enjoyed the descriptions of winter on the island. Looking forward to number 4 to see how things turn out for the main characters. #SeriesLove2025