Moving from the pre-digital 1980s to the art and tech subcultures of the 1990s to a post-capitalist dystopic 2040s, Memory Piece is an innovative and audacious story of three lifelong friends striving to build satisfying lives in a world that turns out to be radically different from the one they were promised.
With the power of collectives, community gardens and shared living taking centre stage, we learn that our survival as a human species lies in the strength of our community networks. Ko masters three very different voices in this narrative, allowing you to chart the impacts of this dystopian vision on those from different class and racial backgrounds.
The Work by Bri Lee
One of the most hotly-anticipated reads of 2023, Bri Lee’s first foray into the world of fiction is finally here.
While this is a departure from her nonfiction deep dives and can’t possibly ever touch the raw vulnerability of Eggshell Skull, she still infuses The Work with thoughtful ponderings from the intersection of politics and art as she tackles cancel culture and millennial angst, all the while setting the tale against the backdrop of the lucrative and exclusive art world.
There’s lots in here for lovers of a Sydney-based novel, as well as the glitz and glam of a New York jaunt. If you love a story you can inhale in a single sitting, this one will be for you.
Thunderhead by Miranda Darling
Billed as a ‘black comedy set in suburbia’, Thunderhead is a short book, but it is mighty.
Winona Dalloway is trapped. But through one day full of the minutiae of motherhood – errands and kids and tears and letting the tradies in – we get a glimpse into her inner voice. While her running monologue is full of humour and self awareness, you can’t quite bring yourself to laugh as the tension builds.
As you follow the sinister undercurrent, you won’t be able to stop yourself from turning the pages to find out whether Winona will ever really be free to let those inner thoughts out and live a different life.
]]>Did you know that ‘billabong’ is a word that comes from the language of the Wiradjuri people in south western New South Wales? It means a big pond or a lake that’s left behind when a river changes direction. Water is a special part of our environment – it’s a source of freshwater and a home for many plants and animals.
In these pages, you’ll explore the banks of the billabong, meeting a chorus of locals as they warble, squawk, buzz and hum, creating a raucous symphony. Peek behind spiky branches, towering tree trunks and aromatic flowers to discover the hidden music of the bush.
Other things to think and do:
Jack Penwick is our protagonist, fitted out with a carefully-built life in the city. Lover of ‘radical practicality’ and ‘taking things at face value’, he reluctantly travels back to his family home to track down his missing-in-action mother and reconnect with his father, whose memory is no longer serving him as well as it used to. Through a series of misadventures, Jack is forced to confront the relationships he has prided himself on ignoring for years.
Small Hours reflects on small moments throughout the Penwick family’s history where affection was offered and rejected in equal measure, leading to seemingly irreconcilable rifts.
Complete with chatterbox animals, including the endearing and champion-of-the-cause fox, Small Hours brings back memories of getting lost in the stories of A.A. Milne, Kenneth Grahame and Beatrix Potter. We highly recommend revisiting some of these stories if you’re reluctant to leave the Penwick’s ramshackle abode in the woods behind.
We hope you love this magical and tender tale.
]]>Lovers of Japanese literature will be pleased that Butter has finally made it to our shores and we were certainly excited to sink our teeth into it.
An exploration of misogyny and obsession, the novel churns with unsettling remarks and behaviour from a cast of characters that keep you guessing. On one page you violently agree with them as they unpack societal expectations and on the next you cringe as they spiral in unexpected directions.
It won’t surprise you that butter features heavily in this story, with recipes that will pique your interest and descriptions of dishes that will set your mouth watering. But butter is also the physical manifestation of all the things women – and particularly Japanese women – have never been allowed to indulge in … sex, desire, revenge and more.
Despite the novel being inspired by the real case of the ‘Konkatsu Killer’, you will need to adjust your expectations if you’re looking for a thriller read – this one is all in the psyche and the disturbing reality of the day-to-day for many women.
Jaded by Ela Lee
Our protagonist, a young lawyer born to a Korean mother and Turkish father, wakes up the morning after a work gala with no memory of how she got home the previous night and must figure out what, exactly, happened. How much is she willing to put up with to make her way to the top of the corporate ladder?
There’s a strong trigger warning on this one, exploring themes around consent, power, race and identity and the rippling effects of sexual assault in workplaces.
Jaded gripped us right to the end – a fast-paced and thought-provoking modern tale.
The Extinction of Irena Rey by Jennifer Croft
Eight translators gather in a forest to begin work on translating the latest work of their beloved author. But, when their author goes missing, they need to investigate her disappearance, while continuing on the work she’s left behind.
It’s meta, it’s funny, it’s incredibly atmospheric and an examination of the power of language. In The Extinction of Irena Rey, footnotes and perfectly crafted details abound. Plus, it’s written by Jennifer Croft, a translator herself – she’s translated Olga Tokarczuk’s work previously, as well as many other recognisable names. You can tell she’s just been waiting to have fun with this concept.
You’ll finish this one wondering whether you’ve completely understood everything within its pages … and the urge to flip back to the start to read it all over again and catch the details you missed will be strong.
]]>Australia has lots of bush to explore and we hope that this book sparks your curiosity as you discover the bustling world of our native flora and fauna.
Extra things to think and do:
Come and Get It drops you into the heart of the University of Arkansas for what seems like a classic college campus drama. Capturing student life in all its vapid and anxiety-inducing glory – equal parts nostalgic and cringeworthy – Come and Get It is a reminder of the fleeting and all-consuming concerns of 20-somethings living in close quarters.
With money and class at the centre of its narrative, the novel follows three very different protagonists as their lives gently intertwine, diverge again and then, ultimately, careen towards disaster.
Comparing debut and sophomore novels can be a futile exercise, and while Come and Get It differs greatly from its predecessor, Reid’s sharp observational skills are on full display once again. Luring you in with their histories and complexities, Reid helps you make up your mind about characters, before slowly unravelling everything you thought you knew. At every step, you’re left wondering whether your own sense of judgement can be relied on as seemingly simple decisions spiral beyond control.
As the tension slowly builds, we found it increasingly difficult to put this one down and we hope you feel the same.
]]>The Great Undoing by Sharlene Allsopp
When the digital platform storing the world’s identity information is hijacked and shut down, the world descends into chaos. Scarlet Friday, whose job is to correct historical records, is stranded on the wrong side of the globe. Befriended by a stranger, she grabs an old, faded history book and writes her own version over the top – a record of the Great Undoing on the run.
While beloved Australian dystopian novels typically point the finger of blame at larger global powers, Allsopp dares to suggest that Australia’s technological prowess and penchant for rewriting history puts the nation in a unique position to be the catalyst for a dystopian future.
Interweaving stories from the distant and more recent past with Scarlet’s present, the novel plays with perspective and urges readers to think differently about all the things they believe to be true.
“What if, instead of allowing one voice to tell history, we listened to everyone’s version of history? What if we said that meaningful truth is delivered by a ‘the more the merrier’ approach, and does one history really take away from the other history? I think a discerning person can read coloniser history and let it speak for itself as to its veracity, but only if we also have all the other truths alongside. The monologue is the problem,” Allsopp says in an interview with the Wheeler Centre.
The Great Undoing is one of those novels that has managed to shift the way we think about history and the days yet to come, forever.
Piglet by Lottie Hazell
With a childhood nickname adopted right across her life, Piglet has worked hard to build a life that others admire. A promotion, a dream house and just 13 days until her wedding, everything is falling into place. But when her fiance, Kit, shares an awful secret with her, the pieces of Piglet’s life she has so carefully arranged begin to unravel.
The wedding countdown fills this debut with page-turning tension, leaving you wondering how things could possibly get worse. Piglet is filled with unlikeable characters, grey areas and open-ended questions, making it perfect for your next book club read.
We always suggest looking up content warnings for books, but take particular care in reading this one if discussion around food and disordered eating is something you would prefer to avoid.
Greta & Valdin by Rebecca K Reilly
Siblings in the Vladisavljevic family, Greta and Valdin are navigating life, work, love and everything in between – all while being flatmates, completely in each other’s space. We follow each of them through a dual perspective story as they get to the bottom of their own feelings, explore their queer and multi-racial identities, and uncover what they really want out of life.
This is one for those who love a family-driven story – you’ll be left wishing you were a part of the Vladisavljevic family. The Maori-Russian-Catalonian brood is passionate, loud and heavily involved in one another’s lives. Ready for an argument at any moment, they forgive quickly and drop everything to help when they need to.
Already a big hit across the ditch, Greta & Valdin is now making an impression across the world, and Rebecca K Reilly manages to fill her debut with equal parts humour and tender moments as she introduces you to a loveable cast of characters.
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Even if your holidays will be spent at home, the evocative watercolour illustrations in Good Night, Good Beach will transport you immediately to summers past and, hopefully, summers future.
Extra things to think about and do:
Some people read to escape, others to increase their capacity for empathy and understanding. At WellRead, we like to curate a program of books that do both.
Global politics is in a state of disarray. It has been difficult to know how to show up, what to say, how to provide tangible support. This month’s author, Yumna Kassab, says that she is “tired of politics being about numbers and dates, and I believe that the true impact should be how it plays out for individuals”. Stories are where this impact can be communicated, and it is in Politica that Kassab does this with the grace and honesty that she is revered for.
Politica is a novel set in no distinguishable country.
The characters are not there to be followed, the plot not there to decipher. You will be offered momentary glimpses into the past, present and future, and through this journey, you will be reminded of the pervasive, intergenerational impacts of war.
Born and raised in Western Sydney, Kassab went on to study medical science and neuroscience before making the move to regional NSW to teach. Her fiction has been listed for myriad awards, including The Stella Prize.
We hope that Politica opens you up to perspectives you might not have otherwise considered and that its vignettes move you as much as they did us.
]]>In this list you can expect to see some brilliant debut authors, international titles and some new releases from some beloved authors. Some of these we’ve already had a sneak peek at and we can confirm, they’re worth getting excited about.
Want to stay in the loop for new releases? A WellRead subscription curates the best new literary releases and delivers them straight to your door each month.
Piglet – Lottie Hazell
For Piglet – an unshakable childhood nickname – getting married is her opportunity to reinvent. Together, Kit and Piglet are the picture of domestic bliss – effortless hosts, planning a covetable wedding ... But if a life looks too good to be true, it probably is.
Thirteen days before they are due to be married, Kit reveals an awful truth, cracking the façade Piglet has created. It has the power to strip her of the life she has so carefully built, so smugly shared. To do something about it would be to self-destruct. But what will it cost her to do nothing?
As the hours count down to their wedding, Piglet is torn between a growing appetite and the desire to follow the recipe, follow the rules. Surely, with her husband, she could be herself again. Wouldn’t it be a waste for everything to curdle now?
Out January 2024.
My Brilliant Sister – Amy Brown
Stella Miles Franklin’s autobiographical novel My Brilliant Career launched one of the most famous names in Australian letters. Funny, bold, often biting about its characters, the novel and its young author had a lot in common. Miles went on to live a large, fiercely independent and bohemian life of travel, art and freedom.
Not so her beloved sister Linda. Quiet, contained, conventional, Linda was an inversion of Stella. A family peacemaker who married the man Stella would not, bore a son and died of pneumonia at 25.
In this reflective, witty and revealing novel, Amy Brown rescues Linda, setting her in counterpoint with Stella, and with the lives of two contemporary women: Ida, a writer whose writing life is on hold as she teaches and raises her young daughter; and Stella, a singer-songwriter who has sacrificed everything for a career, now forcibly put on hold. Binding the two is the novella that Linda might have written to her sister Stella – a brilliant alternative vision of My Brilliant Career.
Innovative and involving, My Brilliant Sister is an utterly convincing (and hilarious) portrait of Miles Franklin and a moving, nuanced exploration of the balance women still have to strike between careers and family lives. It gives a fresh take on one of Australia’s most celebrated writers and an insight into life now.
Out January 2024.
Come and Get It – Kiley Reid
It’s 2017 at the University of Arkansas. Millie Cousins, a senior resident assistant, wants to graduate, get a job, and buy a house. So when Agatha Paul, a visiting professor and writer, offers Millie an easy yet unusual opportunity, she jumps at the chance. But Millie’s starry-eyed hustle becomes jeopardized by odd new friends, vengeful dorm pranks, and illicit intrigue.
A fresh and intimate portrait of desire, consumption, and reckless abandon, Come and Get It is a tension-filled story about money, indiscretion, and bad behavior—and the highly anticipated new novel by acclaimed and award-winning author Kiley Reid.
Out January 2024.
Where There Was Fire – John Manuel Arias
Costa Rica, 1968. When a lethal fire erupts at the American Fruit Company’s most lucrative banana plantation burning all evidence of a massive cover-up, the future of Teresa Cepeda Valverde’s family is changed forever.
Now, twenty-seven years later, Teresa and her daughter Lyra are still picking up the pieces. Lyra wants nothing to do with Teresa, but is desperate to find out what happened to her family that fateful night. Teresa, haunted by a missing husband and the bitter ghost of her mother, Amarga, is unable to reconcile the past. What unfolds is a story of a mother and daughter trying to forgive what they do not yet understand, and the mystery at the heart of one family’s rupture, steeped in machismo, jealousy and greed.
Brimming with ancestral spirits, omens and the forces of nature, John Manuel Arias’s extraordinary debut novel weaves a brilliant tapestry of love – lost and found again – and, ultimately, redemption.
Out January 2024.
The Great Undoing by Sharlene Allsopp
In a near future, all identity information is encoded in digital language. Nations know where everyone is, all the time. Not everyone agrees with this constant surveillance, and when the system is hijacked and shut down, all global borders are closed. The world is no longer connected, and there is no back-up plan to establish belonging, ownership or trade.
Scarlet Friday, whose job is to correct historical record, is stranded on the wrong side of the globe. Befriended by a stranger, she grabs an old, faded history book and writes her own version over the top—a record of the Great Undoing on the run.
But in deciding what truth to tell Scarlet must face her own history. How do we navigate identity when it is all a lie? She must reckon with her past before she can imagine her future.
Out February 2024.
The Extinction of Irena Ray by Jennifer Croft
Eight translators arrive at a house in a primaeval Polish forest on the border of Belarus. It belongs to the world-renowned author Irena Rey, and they are there to translate her magnum opus, Gray Eminence. But within days of their arrival, Irena disappears without a trace.
The translators, who hail from eight different countries but share the same reverence for their beloved author, begin to investigate where she may have gone while proceeding with work on her masterpiece. They explore this ancient wooded refuge with its intoxicating slime moulds and lichens, and study her exotic belongings and layered texts for clues. But doing so reveals secrets — and deceptions — of Irena Rey's that they are utterly unprepared for. Forced to face their differences as they grow increasingly paranoid in this fever dream of isolation and obsession, soon the translators are tangled up in a web of rivalries and desire, threatening not only their work but the fate of their beloved author herself.
Out February 2024.
Lead Us Not – Abbey Lay
Millie is in her final year at a Catholic girls’ school, subdued by the conformity of her life and her parents’ quiet pain. But when her schoolmate Olive moves in next door, it marks the beginning of an intoxicating friendship that changes everything. In all the ways Millie feels unsure and half-formed, Olive, an aspiring actor from a devoutly Catholic family, seems at ease with her place in the world.
On the precipice of freedom, the two young women seize nights out and a school retreat as opportunities to further their own increasingly uncertain ends. Olive urges Millie on in her sexual encounters, but Millie is only becoming more consumed by Olive. When they’re not staying up all night talking, they’re watching each other from their bedroom windows – their selves are becoming blurred, their lives intimately mirrored.
That makes it all the more excruciating when, seemingly out of nowhere, Olive cuts off all contact. For all her efforts, Millie cannot understand what’s changed between them. Has she missed something? Or was their friendship, for Olive, just another performance?
Out March 2024.
Martyr! – Kaveh Akbar
The orphaned son of Iranian immigrants, Cyrus never knew his mother. Killed when her plane was shot down over the Persian Gulf in a senseless accident, Cyrus has spent his life grappling with the meaningless nature of his mother’s death. Now he is set to learn the truth of her life.
When Cyrus’s obsession with the lives of the martyrs – Bobby Sands, Joan of Arc – leads him to a chance encounter with a dying artist, he finds himself drawn towards the mysteries of his past: an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as the Angel of Death; and toward his mother, who may not have been who or what she seemed.
As Cyrus searches for meaning in the scattered clues of his life, a final revelation transforms everything he thought he knew.
Electrifying, funny, wholly original, and profound, Martyr! heralds the arrival of a blazing and essential new voice in contemporary fiction.
Out March 2024.
Thunderhead – Miranda Darling
A black comedy, set in suburbia, about one woman’s struggle to be free.
When Winona Dalloway begins her day — in the peaceful early hours before her children, that ‘tiny tornado of little hands and feet’, wake up — she doesn’t know that by the end of it, everything in her world will have changed.
On the outside, Winona is a seemingly unremarkable young mother: unobtrusive, quietly going about her tasks. But within is a vivid, chaotic self, teeming with voices — a mind both wild and precise.
And meanwhile, a storm is brewing …
Out April 2024.
The Work – Bri Lee
Lally has invested everything into her gallery in Manhattan and the sacrifices are finally paying off. Pat is a scholarship boy desperate to establish himself in Sydney's antiquities scene. When they meet at New York's Armory Show their chemistry is instant - fighting about art and politics is just foreplay.
With an ocean between them they try to get back to work, but they're each struggling to balance money and ambition with the love of art that first drew them to their strange industry. Lally is a kingmaker, bringing exciting new talent to the world, so what's the problem if it's also making her rich? Pat can barely make his rent and he isn't sure if he's taking advantage of his clients or if they are taking advantage of him, and which would be worse? Their international affair ebbs and flows like the market while their aspirations and insecurities are driving them both towards career-ending mistakes.
If love costs and art takes, what price do we pay for wanting it all? The Work is about the biggest intersections of life: of art and commerce, of intimacy and distance, of talent and entitlement, and of labour and privilege. Dazzling, funny, and unforgettable, it is an epic and forensic exploration of modern love and passion, politics and power. The Work announces a brilliant new voice in Australian fiction.
Out April 2024.
Sandwich – Catherine Newman
For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family’s yearly escape to Cape Cod. Their humble beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, sunny days, great meals, and messes of all kinds: emotional, marital, and—thanks to the cottage’s ancient plumbing—septic too.
This year’s vacation, with Rocky sandwiched between her half-grown kids and fully aging parents, promises to be just as delightful as summers past—except, perhaps, for Rocky’s hormonal bouts of rage and melancholy. (Hello, menopause!) Her body is changing—her life is, too. And then a chain of events sends Rocky into the past, reliving both the tenderness and sorrow of a handful of long-ago summers.
It's one precious week: everything is in balance; everything is in flux. And when Rocky comes face to face with her family’s history and future, she is forced to accept that she can no longer hide her secrets from the people she loves.
Out June 2024.
]]>When a friend gives him a gift to take home, he struggles to know what to do with it – it doesn’t fit into his home the way that he would like it to. Everywhere he tries to put it doesn’t seem quite right.
Picky Panda is a story about inviting new ideas into your life, changing your perspective and delighting in the wonderful things that sometimes make life more complicated.
Extra things to think and do:
Featuring a companionable parrot by the name of Eureka, an unlikely college-drop-out housemate and a luxurious hideaway in New York City, The Vulnerables is full of pertinent contemplation of what it means to exist in the world alongside other humans and what happens when the world you know gets turned upside down.
Known for her seamless blending of imagination and memory, you might be left wondering which parts of this story are close to Nunez’s reality. In an interview with Vanity Fair, she reflects “My narrators speak of things that matter deeply to me, and I give them many of my own musings and sentiments.” It’s down to us to decipher where the line is drawn.
Easily read in one sitting, or returned to in short bursts over several days, this novel is perfect for this busy time of year. It serves as a reminder of a time when slowing down was mandated and our loved ones weren’t always so near.
]]>We’ve put together a list of some of the best books of 2023 so you know you’re wrapping up some surefire literary delights.
Click through for a full synopsis of each of these 2023 releases.
Hyped books that are worth your time
Yellowface by R.F Kuang – the kind of page turner you’ll burn through on Boxing Day, Yellowface asks questions about race and the literary world, while challenging ideas of who has the right to tell certain stories.
The Bee Sting by Paul Murray – following a family in Ireland, The Bee Sting is a classic family drama told from multiple perspectives that will have you completely invested until the last page. A door-stopper novel, this is perfect for those who have been waiting all year to settle into their armchair and just read.
Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah – pitched as Squid Game meets The Handmaid’s Tale, this one’s for the dystopian lovers. We haven’t met a person who didn’t love this fast-paced, can’t-tear-your-eyes-away from it novel.
Millennial angst novels
Good Material by Dolly Alderton – with a reputation for crafting funny and painfully relatable novels, Alderton has done it again with Good Material as she explores heartbreak, friendship and the ever-tumultuous nature of your 30s.
The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue – this novel puts the focus on shifting relationship dynamics between friends and lovers as a fascinating cast of characters come of age and grapple with secrets, big decisions and life changes.
Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfield – writer of popular late-night sketch comedy show “The Night Owls” meets adored pop music sensation and they fall in love. Sittenfield, with her trademark flair of bringing complex women to life, explores the social rituals of love and romance and normalises those all-consuming pre-dating anxieties.
Books to lose yourself in over the holidays
Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano – lovers of Little Women will adore this modern retelling as it invites you to dive deep into four close-knit but very different sisters. Tackling complex family dynamics, mental health and the dedication to life dreams, Hello Beautiful carries you along with ease.
North Woods by Daniel Mason – a tale of one house and its occupants over the years, North Woods transports you, effortlessly working with the natural landscape as well as the very foundations of the building. One for those who can’t get enough of historical fiction, Mason asks us all to consider what it means to leave a legacy in our wake.
Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton – when a guerilla gardening group looks to expand their impact and grow their income, they find themselves wondering whether they’re willing to compromise their ideals and ideologies and whether they can really trust each other. This environmental mystery is a must read from a beloved NZ author.
Non-fiction to get the conversation started around the dinner table
Bite Back by Hannah Ferguson – essential reading for anyone interested in feminism, media, and politics, Ferguson expertly captures the mood of younger millennials and Gen Z as they come of age. This one was a huge bestseller, so, if your gift recipient already has it, we suggest gifting Consent Laid Bare by Chanel Contos which furthers the conversation.
Pageboy by Elliot Page – a beloved actor, Elliot Page takes control of his own story in Pageboy, sharing his experiences of gender, love, mental health, relationships and Hollywood.
Right Story, Wrong Story by Tyson Yunkaporta – there is so much to learn about Indigenous thinking and Yunkaporta is determined to make sure all of that knowledge is shared with the world. Right Story, Wrong Story, is the perfect gift for the insatiable knowledge seeker in your life.
For the hobbyist
The Milkwood Permaculture Living Handbook by Kirsten Bradley – perfect for kickstarting those New Year resolutions, this book is here to help you make small changes in your life to make a big difference in the world and embrace sustainable living.
More is More by Molly Baz – there’s nothing better than a holiday gift that makes you want to crack it open and get into the kitchen as soon as possible to try all the recipes. Your 2024 dinner parties are covered with Molly Baz’s new cookbook!
Looking for a last-minute gift? Don’t know what to get the person in your life who already has everything?
WellRead Literary Subscriptions are the gift that keeps on giving. Each month, we handpick the best new literary titles and deliver them to your door. We’re committed to curating diverse selections and stimulating the reading lives of our subscribers one quality book at a time.
Available as a 3, 6, 9 or 12 month subscription, these are available every day of the year, so they’re perfect for those last-minute gifts.
Want more ideas? This post doesn’t feature any of our selections from 2023– we’re hoping you’ve already got those on the shelf! You can browse our journal to see what we’ve chosen to send our subscribers this year, to gather more inspiration for your literary Christmas gifts.
]]>Held is the perfect novel for anyone who loves to follow the threads of life through multiple generations. Dropping readers into 1917 and the mind of John as he lies in the aftermath of a battlefield blast, Held is told through vignettes that follow John and his family throughout the decades, giving us glimpses into the beauty and adversity to be found at every moment.
It would be easy, in such a novel, to get stuck on the minutiae or to only focus on the larger story, but Michaels manages to find the balance between both, transporting you completely with each shifting chapter.
We found ourselves pausing to absorb the lyrical prose just as much as we wanted to keep flicking through to find out where the next chapter would take us.
Good Material by Dolly Alderton
Dolly Alderton has quickly become the voice of millennials everywhere, and for good reason. In Good Material we follow Andy, who has just been blindsided by the ending of his relationship with Jen as he tries to work out where he went wrong. Swinging from heartbreak to laugh-out-loud moments with ease, Good Material is full of Alderton’s signature wit, observation and life advice.
In a recent interview with Elle, Alderton reflected on the experience of writing Good Material from the perspective of Andy, a man, saying “I think there was definitely a bit of a hole in my empathy for a while [when it comes to men and their feelings], and I’ll be working on that for the rest of my life. But I think this has gone some small way to re-address that for me personally.” A sentiment that echoes through every page.
Central Places by Delia Cai
A thought-provoking debut from Delia Cai, Central Places explores themes of race and class in America.
A 27-year-old woman’s past and present collide when she brings her white fiancé home to meet her Chinese immigrant parents. As she locks horns with her demanding mother, confronts an unrequited love from high school and a long lost best friend, our protagonist is forced to reckon with the life she's been working towards and the life she really wants. Can she hide the person she's become from the person she once was?
The perfect book club pick, with plenty to unpack in conversations over tea and biscuits, Cai forces us to question what we are willing to sacrifice in the pursuit of an picture-perfect image, how to make amends when the people we love get caught in the crossfire, and how to muster the courage to carve out a life that feels true to who we are.
]]>WellRead exists to bring you books that expand your literary horizons, sometimes that means books written by people whose voices don’t often take centre stage. Other times it means books with a Surrealist flair that make you think, I can’t believe she got away with that.
With work that is oft-described as ‘a fever dream’, Broder delivers again with Death Valley as she invites you on an ill-equipped hike through the scorching Californian desert. You’ll encounter everything from a giant cactus cave to talking rocks and a rave of rabbits.
As weird and wonderful as the disastrous hike becomes, it can’t hold a candle to the internal landscape. Our nameless protagonist walks the suffocating line of anticipatory grief, daring to broach the self-concerned thoughts that often get squashed in the midst of others' pain and suffering.
Despite the heavy existential considerations, we found ourselves giggling throughout the tale, feeling validated not just in our grief, but in our propensity to seek advice from Reddit, then ignore it right away.
“I came to escape a feeling – an attempt that’s already going poorly, because unfortunately I’ve brought myself with me,” Broder writes.
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Jesmyn Ward has a big reputation, with some calling her one of the greatest writers of her generation. Let Us Descend is her latest release, showcasing her signature rich storytelling that transports you from the very first breathtaking line: “The first weapon I ever held was my mother’s hand”.
The novel follows Annis as she’s sold by the white enslaver who fathered her and sent on a journey from the rice fields of the Carolinas, to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation.
If you’re looking for an easy read, this is not it. Through the harrowing tale, Ward asks you to take it slowly, to sit with the horrors of slavery and the worst of humanity. Still, she invites you to see beauty too, to experience Annis’ journey with all of your senses and open yourself up to a world of spirits as magical realism is effortlessly interwoven with stark reality.
Women & Children by Tony Birch
In an interview with the ABC in 2022, Tony Birch noted the new focus of his recent work:
"More of my writing now is focused on the strength of women, Aboriginal women in particular. I want to write characters where women are very strong and are given the authority and autonomy they're entitled to.”
In Women & Children, he does just this. Joe Cluny sits at the centre of the story as he struggles to avoid run-ins with the nuns at his local Catholic school. When his sister heads off on an extended stay with a rural family, Joe’s just getting used to life without her when his Aunty Oona arrives on the doorstep, distressed and needing a safe refuge.
With the wide eyes of childhood, Joe watches on as his mum and aunty work out what to do next and has his innocence peeled away as he realises that his family is full of secrets and his community is full of people willing to turn away from those who need help.
In many ways, the story of secrecy, pride, innocence, abuse and sisterly bonds, is one that will be familiar to readers. But, through Joe’s eyes, we’re invited to put aside despondence and cut through the excuses spouted by systems and those who perpetuate them, to find hope once more.
The Conversion by Amanda Lohrey
The Conversion is a startling novel about the homes we live in: how we shape them, and how they shape us.
In a regional Australian town, Zoe, alone and troubled by her husband Nick’s ghost, sets about converting a deconsecrated church – a project that was his idea in the first place, and one that she feels she needs to press on with, even though the church seems empty of the possibilities Nick once envisaged for it. It’s not until a determined young teacher pushes her way into Zoe’s life, convinced of her own peculiar mission for the building, that it comes to life.
Lohrey’s writing pulls you along gently, as though you’re floating down a river – a balm as we enter the busy season. If you were a fan of Lohrey’s Miles Franklin Award-winning The Labyrinth, then you’ll love The Conversion, where her voice shines through as she explores what it takes to rebuild and reshape after grief shakes the foundations of your life.
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