Welcome to the monthly-round-up, where I yap about books I’ve read recently and what the shiny bits were, whether they came out years ago or last week.
From the archives:
- I read Maggie O’Farrell’s memoir I Am, I Am, I Am (structured non-linearly around moments of almost-death, of near-misses) and adored it as much as everyone said I would.
- I’m also listing Sarah Manguso’s Ongoingness in here, a short and insightful account of diary-keeping and writing and how we reflect on the world and time and memory, as it was first published a few years back (although it’s new to audiences this side of the Atlantic). I read her 300 Arguments earlier this year and am just loving her.
- I’m a bit smitten with Meg Wolitzer at the moment; I gobbled up The Wife which was everything I felt I wanted from a book, and then adored The Interestings. I’ve yet to read her new one but am eager to get started…
- Sarah Winman’s Tin Man is a quick but gorgeous read about loneliness and love.
This month’s shiny new reads:
- YA fiction reviewed at the start of this month in the Irish Times: Melvin Burgess’s The Lost Witch; Marisha Pessl’s Neverworld Wake; Elana K. Arnold’s What Girls Are Made Of; Nicky Singer’s The Survival Game; Laura Wood’s A Sky Painted Gold. And at the end of the month: Tina Callaghan’s Dark Wood Dark Water; SK Wright’s It Ends With You; Lucy van Smit’s The Hurting; Patrick Ness’s And The Ocean Was Our Sky (illus. Rovina Cai); Kody Keplinger’s That’s Not What Happened.
- Sarah Breen & Emer McLysaght’s Aisling returns in The Importance of Being Aisling, a warm and funny hug of a book that touches on Notions, modern Ireland and following your dream. Gabrielle Fernie’s non-fiction Lush offers up the more disastrous (but still hilarious) heroine for our times, focusing on Fernie’s real-life experiences leading up to her best friend’s wedding. Also on the women-in-non-fiction side of things is Mara Altman’s funny, relatable and honest exploration into the ickiness of the human body, Gross Anatomy.
- Re: historical fiction to watch out for, two tales inspired by real events. Heather Morris’s The Tattooist of Auschwitz is a love story set against the bleak backdrop of concentration camps; Nuala O’Connor’s Becoming Belle takes us to late Victorian London.
- Psychological thrillers of note: Claire Askew’s too-real account of the consequences of a college shooting, All The Hidden Truths, Sabine Durrant’s family drama Take Me In, and Riley Sager’s delicious, page-turning summer-camp-set Last Time I Lied.
To watch out for:
- Lizzy Barber’s My Name Is Anna (January 2019), a twisty psychological thriller about two teenage girls raised in different countries but nevertheless linked by a disappearance fifteen years ago.
- Deirdre Sullivan’s Perfectly Preventable Deaths (summer 2019) – a wonderful witchy YA novel from the award-winning (and lovely) author.
