Reading Picks from Hastings Library Book Chat

From a door-stopper of a biography to classic sci-fi; a chilly Scandinavian mystery-thriller to a children’s self-help book - I can’t remember such a wide assortment during a single session of Book Chat. Read on for the details; click on the titles for catalogue info.

Rosetta Allen is a New Zealand author who has set her novel, The Unreliable People in Soviet Russia. It follows the story of Antonia, an art student who feels she doesn't quite fit – she’s neither Russian, Korean nor Kasakh, but Koryo-saram - a descendent of exiles who were deemed as Unreliable People by none other than Stalin. Of course, Antonia's art is nonconformist too. This novel of love and loss is an engrossing read.

Our reader is a big fan of Selina Tusitala Marsh’s poetry and recently saw the poet at a writer’s festival where she talked about her new children’s book Wot Knot Have You Got (subtitled: Mophead’s Guide to Life). Kids write to Mophead all the time with the knottiest of problems. Can she help them sort out their knots? An inspiring picture book that describes problems and how to deal with them.

We loved The Lincoln Highway and A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles which were both big hits around the Book Chat table. Rules of Civility is an earlier book that will immediately enchant you with it’s perfectly pitched and finely crafted writing. Set in 1930s New York, our main characters are Katey and Evie, a wise-cracking pair of friends who are keen to make their mark in spite of lacking either funds or connections. But that’s all set to change.

Not your run of the mill thriller, A House without Windows by Nadia Hashimi is set in Afghanistan and follows what happens to Zeba when her husband is found brutally murdered. Imprisoned for a crime she did not commit, she meets other women with similarly unsound convictions, but as a woman, she cannot speak out or reveal the truth of what she knows. Her only hope is her American-raised lawyer, Yusuf. An enlightening read that is also a brilliant mystery.

The Lost and the Forgotten Languages of Shanghai by Ruyiuan Xu is a novel dealing with aphasia, a condition where someone loses the power of speech. Li Jing is a happily married and has a successful business in Shanghai when a freak accident leaves him unable to speak Chinese. He is however able to remember the English he learnt as a child in Virginia. How can he communicate with his wife or run his business?

This probably wins the prize for the fattest book to appear on the table at Book Chat. It’s The Book of Iris: a life of Robin Hyde by Derek Challis and it’s a really fascinating look into the world of an extraordinary writer. Hyde had a difficult life, battling illness as well as her own personal demons, and also giving up the care of her son to a trusted family – the same son who wrote this book. A big read, but well worth it.

Into the Water by Paula Hawkins is the second book from the author who brought us The Girl on the Train. This one concerns a single mother found dead at the bottom of a body of water, the same place where a vulnerable teenager died. There's also a daughter left to the care of an aunt, the sister of the deceased who had years before run away, never planning to return. An atmospheric and chilling read.

Our reader couldn’t put down I Am Pilgrim, so was pleased to get her hands on Terry Hayes’s sequel, The Year of the Locust. Kane’s a CIA spy on a seemingly impossible task. He's in the "badlands" of the borders between Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan where he’s to exfiltrate a man with key information for the safety of the west. He’ll be up against a particularly difficult adversary though. Another engrossing read.

The Prey is a stand-alone mystery by Irsa Sigurdardottir. It concerns a series of apparently unconnected events – an elderly woman calling for her daughter, a search and rescue mission to find two missing couples in the Iceland highlands, and a phone call in the same highlands and what sounds like a child calling for her mother. An original thriller that keeps you guessing.

If you have fond recollections of classic science fiction authors like John Wyndham and Arthur C Clarke, you might like The End of the World and Other Catastrophes – a short story compendium of doom-laden tales dating back as far as the 1890s through to the 1960s. Our reader found them oddly enjoyable.

Another reader ended up reading all four Dervla McTiernan mysteries in a row thanks to a helpful librarian, but felt that while they were all good, the first three that are set in Galway, Ireland, were best. The new book, The Murder Rule takes us to the United States and is certainly a lively page-turner, but the atmosphere and character development of the Cormac Reilly novels, The Ruin, The Scholar and One Good Turn, made for more satisfying reading.

Maybe you saw Graham McTavish, the co-author of Clanlands in New Zealand: Kiwis, Kilts and an Adventure Down Under for his talk in Havelock North Library earlier this year. If so, you will not be surprised to learn that this is a humorous adventure travel book with plenty of amusing anecdotes. Co-authored with Sam Heughan – both actors together in the TV series Outlander - they perfected their entertaining bantering style in their first Clanlands book, which takes in the sights and history of Scotland (Clanlands: whisky, warfare, and a Scottish adventure like no other).

29 April 2024

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