Books

A content warning before we begin: Sprigs deals with heavy themes of sexual violence and rape. 

The novel tells the story of a group of students who attend St Luke’s, an all-boys high school in a wealthy suburb of Wellington. While at an end-of-year bash, things take a turn for the worse when they sexually assault another partygoer. What follows is a tale about recriminations, cover-ups, and a critical look at New Zealand’s lingering rape culture.

What makes Sprigs stand out from other books that cover this sort of material is the way it’s handled. While a lot of stories are told from the victim’s perspective, Sprigs focuses on the perpetrators, attempting to humanise them as not just monsters, but as young men who are left dealing with the emotional and social fallout of their disgusting crime.

It’s a unique take on quite a dark subject. The character development is solid, and everyone’s given a moment to shine. The author tries to show them for who they really are, giving readers the feeling that they’re very real people desperately trying to cope with the nightmare they’ve created. I felt that some of the students fell into the smarmy prep-school stereotype, a little too much for my liking, but overall they’re very convincing.

The only real problem was that it took too long to get into the main storyline; in fact, it isn’t until page 89 that the plot really begins unfolding. Until then it’s just rugby, rugby, rugby, which if you’re not that sporty may put you off. This is a real shame, since I felt that underneath it all, the book has a real message about the issue of sexual assault in New Zealand.

Sprigs deals with some pretty heavy issues and doesn’t attempt to shield you from the darker, nitty-gritty details. While it’s a good story, it’s not something that I’d say is for everyone.

I cannot decide if I hate the main character of Infinite Splendours, or if I simply hate the author’s talent in making me love him.

Sofie Laguna writes in the same way the protagonist, Lawrence, draws and paints: poetically and eloquently, as though magic happens every time a new word is formed or a new landscape painted.

This devastatingly beautiful story allows readers to grow with Lawrence, from the age of 10 all the way through until he is an old man, feeling his every thought and emotion as he loves, learns, and suffers. As a child with a bright future ahead of him, and every talent under the sun, Lawrence experiences an unimaginable trauma. Readers are confronted with every dark detail as Lawrence is groomed and raped by the uncle he once admired. From then, Lawrence changes, suffering an anxiety that prevents him from speaking, socialising, and even growing in the ways the other kids do.

Laguna’s words convey powerful themes through their symbolism, repetition, and artistry. She has a way of presenting her readers with a struggle that Lawrence himself faces regularly: being stuck between two extremes. Lawrence, rocking back and forth for comfort, often finds himself comparing dreams and reality, and trapped between his lost ‘boyhood’ and being a ‘man’. I, a reader, find myself questioning morality; good and love versus evil and hate. As Lawrence’s mother thought he was just like his uncle, as he grows, Lawrence’s scattered thoughts take him to dark and questionable places. I’m forced to think he might be just like his uncle after all. We learn to love Lawrence, wanting to comfort him, feeling heart-broken when he is hurt, but we are also aware of his troublesome and distressing desires; do they make him a bad person, or just a broken one?

The beauty of Infinite Splendours is in its nuance: its ability to have me feeling one way while also feeling the complete opposite. From the first page, Laguna’s exquisite words draw me in, and though distressed, I can’t stop reading.

It was about the same time this year that I opined that despite popular opinion, the humble paperback wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Thankfully, The Magpie Society: One For Sorrow has proven that there’s still a place for them as a viable medium.

Zoe Sugg and Amy McCulloch’s latest book is a great first step into what I hope will become a popular new series. It sets up its premise nicely while introducing us to the array of different characters that populate this new world – including the school itself, Illumen Hall.

The story focuses on newcomer Audrey Wagner and long-time student Ivy Moore-Zhang as they team up to solve the mysterious death of Dolores Radcliffe, a popular and well-loved pupil who may or may not have been murdered.

It’s a very deep and satisfying story, and while I suspect it’s aimed more at the teenage demographic, it’s adult enough to warrant a closer look from older readers. At its core, The Magpie Society is a classic whodunnit, complete with enough twists and turns to keep even the most diehard murder mystery fan engaged until the very end. Characters are well fleshed out, but still have enough surprises up their sleeves to keep readers on their toes.

My only gripe, and it’s a small one, is that it seems to lean too much into J.K. Rowling’s territory. A student enrols in a new school that doubles as a creepy medieval castle, check. Gets sorted into one of several houses, check. The student ends up having strange adventures with friends they meet, check.

While the whole thing does sound a bit too ‘Harry Potterish’, at least in the beginning, it soon begins opening up and blossoming into its own thing. 

This was a surprise hit for me, and a pleasant, fun end to 2020. If you’re looking for the perfect gift for the bookworm in your life who loves their classic murder mysteries, this is the one.

When you think about it, autobiographies are some of the best books around. They take a person’s entire life, their triumphs, failures, and cram it all into three to four hundred pages.

They’re such great learning tools, and I wholly recommend them for anyone wanting to learn from and connect with the person they’re reading about. It’s deeply reassuring to find out that people you idolise have made the same mistakes you have and that you’re not alone in the department of screwing up. What’s more important is finding out how they fixed those mistakes and moved on to greater success. They’re like blueprints or plans that give us that kick in the pants that we all need sometimes.

A Del of a Life is exactly that, a shot in the arm from someone who’s been there and done that and lived to tell his story. 

Born into poverty in England, David Jason recalls his first memories of German air raids taking place during the last few years of World War II. When he got older, he tried his hand as an electrician but slowly gravitated towards acting – first on stage before transitioning over to the small screen.

Sprinkled throughout A Del of a Life are little nuggets of advice, not just about acting, but about life in general. I was a major fan of Jason’s work growing up, as he always came off as down-to-earth and amiable. That personality bleeds out onto the page. Motivating and very funny, his story will inspire everyone who picks it up – not just hopeful actors, but anyone who’s ever dreamed of making it big.

Despite doing my best to find something to complain about, I honestly didn’t come across a single thing. Jason’s really outdone himself, and I can’t wait to read about the next chapter of his life (PS this is number five).

A Del of a Life is worthy of a place in anyone’s collection. Funny. Insightful. Inspiring.

The metal pipe piercing through Beth’s arms is not a pipe. This is the first thing Tara Black wants you to know – it’s right there in the title. Each page of this graphic novel, though, depicts the pipe constraining Beth’s arms together. As a result, it becomes harder and harder to explain the pipe merely as a metaphor and instead forces the reader to entertain the idea that this pipe is in fact that: a pipe. But, just like René Magritte’s The Treachery of Images, Black’s assertion is of course correct; Beth’s metal pipe can only ever be an image of one, it can only ever be a drawing. This is the central tension at the core of this text.

This Is Not a Pipe, Black’s first book, takes the form of a long-form autobiographical comic. Black’s narrator, however, is a fictional one. This work’s title, form, and subject matter create and explore the dynamic that exists between the real and the metaphoric. Is there really a pole there? Are these real experiences? What does real even mean?

Beth’s life is an experience of limitations; there isn’t much you can do freely with a pole joining your arms together. The one thing she can do freely, though, is draw. This pole and her drawings isolate Beth from her life somewhat. Beth is both observer and drawer of the events that happen in her life – an isolated fictional character recreating her fictional life through her drawings.

Kenneth is Beth’s sanctimonious, self-conscious, solipsistic, and sometimes sweet partner who is creating a religion grounded within the rules of narrative structure via blog posts. The irony here is that Ken sees himself as the protagonist of his relationship with the narrator through whom we are experiencing this story. Black’s comics consist of blank space and panels falling off the page.

Tara Black’s This Is Not a Pipe is a graphic novel that works to loosen the complex knot of narrative structure.

What better way to sink into the New Year than to learn to take your space?

Take Your Space reads like a conversation with friends, and the collective narrative of unique experiences, advice, and observations of a cross-section of successful women are shared eloquently and fiercely. These are women who are all well versed in the ‘how-tos’ of taking their own space. It’s evident that their journeys have not been easy, linear, nor without sacrifice. All have involved some serious personal growth, self-awareness, and self-care.

Authors Jo Cribb and Rachel Petero encourage you to take your seat at the table, whatever that table may look like to you. Perhaps it is a seat at the head of the table, or maybe it is just being seen and heard in a room full of people. They encourage you to champion other women; to be the kind of woman that honours the desires and aspirations of other women. ‘Find your people’, they say – these are your tribe who can mentor, support, and embolden you to get to where you want to be.

Find your voice, learn that ‘no’ is a complete sentence, and own your own unique brand of confidence, not just to get a promotion or to negotiate a higher pay, but fundamentally to walk in your own space with your culture, your family, your past, and your present. I know personally that a licence to be yourself in the workplace is instrumental to happily getting out of bed each morning.

Take Your Space is a bold book and within, you will find the sentiments that I did. Do not accept the status quo in work and in life if the status quo leaves you wanting, stuck in a rut, or unfairly disadvantaged by power dynamics and discrimination. Make work work for you by deciding what you want and how work fits into all your other roles.

Literally take your space as a woman and as a person, implicitly, unreservedly, and without explanation.

Love America, written by Jenny Robin Jones, is a masterful blend of exploration, art, and cultural identity. Jones sets off travelling to New Mexico with a companion known only as the “O-M”, or “the old man.” The book centres around the memories of familiar writers and artists, such as D.H. Lawrence and Dorothy Brett, who made the same journey that inspired her trip.

Jones does an incredible job of describing the fascinating stories that are woven into the history of the local land and landmarks. Every anecdote is relevant and holds a power that helps to reinforce the significance and beauty of the route the companions take. Jones successfully inspires the reader to want to know more and make the journey first-hand. Seriously, if it were not for current travel restrictions, I would be on the next flight over to New Mexico!

The small gestures and often silent companionship between Jones and the O-M shaped a faint but touching emotional element. There is a deeply personal and genuine manner in the way Jones describes the exchanges between the two. These are likely real stories pulled out from within her cherished memories.

As someone who has travelled extensively, I related strongly to the many feelings expressed in the book associated with exploration. The initial motivation to step outside of your own culture is usually triggered by the desire to seek a depth that transcends the monotonous machinery of everyday life. With reference to Lawrence, Jones describes this longing for answers perfectly. “Desperate for somewhere in the world that cherished human dignity and psychic health, he put his faith in America, and in Native Americans in particular.” Jones then goes on to quote Lawrence himself. “I must see America. I believe one can feel hope there.” Overall, I related less to Jones but more so to the characters that came long before her.

To travel is to explore culture, identity, and humankind itself. Jones does a profound job of showcasing these meaningful connections and I could not have loved this book more!

Set near the end of the roaring 20s, Death in Daylesford sees the return of Phryne Fisher (pronounced fry-nee) and her ever-faithful assistant Dot as they’re plunged into a new adventure involving murdered suitors and several missing women. Meanwhile, back in Melbourne, her family of adopted children, Jane, Ruth, and Tinker, attempt to solve a mystery of their own when one of their friends from school dies in suspicious circumstances.

I really have to tip my hat to author Kerry Greenwood. The way she’s able to weave such a seamless narrative is simply outstanding. I was never left scratching my head and wondering “who was that”, or “what’s happening now?”

Phryne Fisher has been Greenwood’s baby since she wrote her first book in the series (Cocaine Blues) in 1989, so it’s no surprise that Death in Daylesford is as good as it is.

From the beginning, the world she’s created drips with atmosphere and crackles to life.

Characters are more than just words on the page; they’re fully functioning individuals, and almost all of them have a part to play in the story. The standouts would have to be the stars of the show, Dot and Phryne herself. Both women couldn’t be more different in terms of outlook, social status, and religious views, but somehow Greenwood has juxtaposed these personalities and made them work. Phryne is portrayed as modern, open-minded, and fully embraces new experiences with her ‘come what may’ attitude. Dot, on the other hand, is far more conservative and behaves more in line with what’s expected from a woman in 1929.

The only problem I could find was that I didn’t like the story involving the dead schoolmate. It felt unnecessary and only served to take me away from the adventure that the two main characters were having. However, it didn’t stop me from enjoying the book.

If you’re into your old-fashioned murder mysteries, Death in Daylesford will be right up your alley.

Mickey Haller is the Lincoln Lawyer, so called because his office is in the back of a chauffeur-driven car rather than a brick and mortar building. He is also the subject of several books by one of the greatest crime writers today, Michael Connelly.

Within a page or two, Haller is picked up by a police patrol car on the flimsy excuse of a missing licence plate. But when the cop asks to see what is in the boot, you just know Haller is being set up.

Cut to his arrest and incarceration for murder and we know we are in for the long haul of an innocent victim having to conduct his defence whilst in the holding cells. We’re led to believe that this will be a claustrophobic read and a drawn-out courtroom drama. And, to an extent it is. But then Haller has friends on the outside who do much of the legwork, and this is where Connelly’s writing shines.

It takes a clever writer like Connelly to discuss court proceedings or strategies without miring the reader in boring minutia. Connelly achieves this by turning the story into a game of chess. Even the art of jury selection comes under the scrupulous eye of a masterful storyteller. His behind-the-scenes team spends time observing the people most likely to be anti-Haller. These include someone with a Trump sticker on his bumper. In a sleight of hand, Trump’s appalling presidential record is woven in as well as the COVID-19 scare, which was just coming to the fore as the book was being written.

Being a first-person narrative though excludes other perspectives – what is the prosecution thinking, and who, if anyone, committed the crime in the first place? Given that Harry Bosch (half-brother to Haller) has been the central character in a couple of dozen Connelly books, Bosch seems underwritten here.

Still, at the end of the day, there are few better writers around who consistently produce stories as good as this.

“no piece of paper
to certify my dreams
I just kept turning up
until I learnt the words
cos I never wanted to confuse anyone
just make you feel the same as me
for a few minutes
a complicated party trick
like backflips
or beatboxing
something free
that makes you exist”.

I Thought We’d Be Famous is a halfway house for poems that rail against this country’s laissez-faire approach to life and land ownership. Now in its second printing with Dead Bird Books, Dominic Hoey lines this collection with a derision for the debts, the conventions, and the landlords that we all must endure.

The true brilliance of Hoey is his ability to fashion an amalgam of softness and contempt through his poetry. In all his works – this collection, his novel Iceland, his previous poetry book Party Tricks and Boring Secrets, his Instagram posts – exists an inimitable, gentle representation of our smallest moments and feelings.

I Thought We’d Be Famous is unpretentious and authentic precisely in the way that people who often use the word ‘authentic’ are not; each line of this book can be read as an abstraction yet, at the same time, is intrinsic to the whole and to the world – like a toe and the foot it has been severed from.

“you searched the gutter
for money to feed the landlord
and you thought
in America they dream of being president
in this country we long to own rental properties”.

Set against the backdrop of Nazi Germany during World War II, Remote Sympathy is about three people trying to survive in a world that’s seemingly gone mad.

We first meet the happy couple of Dr Lenard Weber and his young wife Anne, who have a daughter, Lotte. Lenard’s a dreamer and invents the machine he dubs the ‘Sympathetic vitalizer’, something he hopes will someday change the world.

We’re then introduced to SS Sturmbannfuhrer (Major) Dietrich Hahn, the new administrator of the Buchenwald concentration camp, and his wife, Greta.

When tragedy strikes and Greta develops cancer, Dietrich, desperate to save her, has Weber transferred to Buchenwald as a political prisoner so that he can begin treating her with what later becomes known as his ‘miracle machine’.

Chidgey’s writing is top-notch stuff, and the characters are extraordinarily well written. None of them are truly what I’d label a classical hero or villain; instead, they’re what I’d like to call ‘realistically nuanced’. Each one occupies a grey area, not truly good nor evil. No one’s 100 percent innocent, but I think that’s the point Chidgey’s trying to make. Even the best of us can bend our moral compasses when it comes to protecting the people we love.

The only sticking point was when the perspective switched to the people of a nearby town and how they were able to justify a concentration camp essentially in their backyards. I understand what Chidgey was going for, but I wasn’t as emotionally invested in them as I was in the three main characters, and they only served to distract me from the book’s main story. For me, it came across as filler, and while I’m no expert, I really feel like the narrative could have benefited from their exclusion altogether.

However, it’s only a minor sticking point and shouldn’t prevent anyone from picking this up the next time they find themselves browsing for their next great read. Lest we forget.

Snow is not an average murder mystery.

Though its opening chapters certainly present with all the classic trimmings of a crime thriller – a gory death scene to be picked apart by an intrepid young detective looking to make his mark – Snow seems to tilt slightly to veer away from traditional suspense and into a surreal world where nothing makes sense.

With a backdrop of rural Ireland, 1957, John Banville creates an eerie, unsettling scene. When a local Catholic priest is found dead under strange circumstances in the country manor of Ballyglass House, everyone seems to know something that they are unwilling to share with Inspector Strafford; a shared secret hidden behind innocent veneers of endearing cluelessness. Everyone is suspicious. Everyone seems to be playing a role, a caricature of a suspect.

The victim appears to be a popular, friendly man; a favourite among local Catholics and Protestants alike. Indeed, in Father Tom’s own words, “I’m a priest for Christ’s sake – how can this be happening to me?” Priests are simply not murdered: it’s unheard of. They are an untouchable class existing outside of regular social rankings. Banville’s gentle commentary on the political and religious climate of Ireland at the time seems initially to be a narrative device, brought up constantly but with little consequence.

Like a slow rollercoaster cart being dragged torturously up a slope, this story is a very slow burn. It finally peaks almost at the last chapter and teeters there as the fog of speculation finally clears and the ugly truth that has been simmering beneath the surface is revealed.

Maybe I wasn’t paying close enough attention, but the twist took me by surprise, and I feel like it shouldn’t have. Perhaps I was successfully distracted by the frustratingly circular conversations and sluggish investigation enacted by Inspector Strafford, who we follow as he stumbles through awkward interactions with a litany of evasive characters.

When the twist comes, it is sharp and painful. In retrospect, the truth was there all along, hinted at but unacknowledged, a dark secret but not a sin.