By Jason Steger
Top reads in July include new titles from Michael Robotham, Oscar Farinetti, Meg Rosoff, Claire G. Coleman and Carmel Bird.
So many books and so little time. The good thing about winter, though, is that those of us in cooler climes are not so inclined to go out. Ergo, more time to stay in and relish a good read.
There are plenty of good reads looming this month. From Carmel Bird’s memoir for book lovers and a collection of essays by the remarkable Patrick Radden Keefe to the latest novel by Claire G. Coleman and Chris Womersley’s return to the world of Cairo, there really is something for everyone.
Here is a selection of 10 books that should be on your reading pile.
The Booklist is a weekly newsletter for book lovers from books editor Jason Steger. Get it delivered every Friday.
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Telltale, Carmel Bird
Transit Lounge, $32.99, July 1
If you love books, the prolific Carmel Bird’s latest is one you should relish. Partly an exploration of books that have influenced her and partly a memoir prompted by the reading of the books in her library during the pandemic, it’s an attempt to find some sort of pattern to her work, and also perhaps a pattern to her life. Whatever, it’s endlessly fascinating and is beautifully published as a handsome hardback. “Fiction,” she writes, “is a tissue of lies. Lies in an attempt to construct a different world of truth.” Hard to argue with that.
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Lapvona, Ottessa Moshfegh
Jonathan Cape, $32.99, July 5
When James Ley reviewed Moshfegh’s last novel, he wrote “the sardonic intelligence of Moshfegh’s novels is backed up by her ability to craft smartly conceived and carefully layered narratives with a facility that would seem to border on outright precocity”. She has become something of a cult author, renowned for her amoral narrators. Lapvona is a village in medieval times that has been through the worst of the plague, but one that is subject to horrors galore. Benighted young Marek has the toughest upbringing and then falls foul of the governor and the priest. A post-pandemic allegory? Perhaps.
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Lying Beside You, Michael Robotham
Hachette, $32.99, June 29
It’s hard to top Michael Robotham for his sheer criminal consistency. Want a great thriller that will keep you fixated until the last word? He’s your man. His latest brings back Cyrus Haven and Evie Cormac, his teenage offsider who is like a human lie-detector. The set up? Twenty years ago Cyrus’ brother slaughtered their parents and sisters; now he’s getting out of jail. Then, two women go missing … and you’re hooked.
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Rogues, Patrick Radden Keefe
Picador, $36.99, July 7
Keefe is the New Yorker writer best known for his books Empire of Pain, which exposed the Sackler family’s deep involvement in the opioid plague, and Say Nothing, about the Troubles in Northern Ireland. This selection of his long-form work from the magazine includes pieces on drug lord El Chapo, a man who delved deeply into the mystery of the Lockerbie bombing, and Mark Burnett, the man who created The Apprentice and “resurrected Donald Trump as an icon of American success”. Great long-form journalism.
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Friends Like These, Meg Rosoff
Bloomsbury, $16.99, July 5
The American writer and long-time London resident burst onto the YA scene with her brilliant 2004 novel, How I Live Now. Since then, she has written a further nine books, including this tale of Beth who gets a coveted internship at what I assume is The New York Times after a story she stumbled on was picked up by the national media. It’s one of those summer-of-discovery novels, but it’s handled in Rosoff’s characteristic witty, sharp and stylish way. Rosoff has also written a novel for adults, Jonathan Unleashed, and finished her equally brilliant friend Mal Peet’s final novel, Beck, after his death.
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The Diplomat, Chris Womersley
Picador, $32.99, June 28
Remember Womersley’s novel Cairo, which revolved around the eponymous block of apartments in Fitzroy, the motley group who lived there, and the theft of Picasso’s Weeping Woman from the National Gallery of Victoria? Well here comes the taciturn painter from that novel, Edward Degraves, back in town after doing a runner to London with Gertrude – now freshly dead; he’s carting round her ashes – and clean after a spell in detox. It’s all about dealing with the people and ghosts from the past and finding a way forward.
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The War Game, David Horner
Allen & Unwin, $45, July 5
What with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the concern with China’s ambitions in our region, war is a topic not far from the minds of politicians and the military these days. Historian David Horner, emeritus professor at ANU and a prolific author, offers a perceptive study of the decision to go to war, the conduct of those wars and Australia’s relationship with its allies. In the years between 1914 and 2003, Australia “went to war nine times,” Horner writes, and to understand why “we need to focus on the decisions of the political leaders, and in particular the prime ministers”.
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Enclave, Claire G. Coleman
Hachette, $32.99, June 29
There are echoes aplenty in Coleman’s allegorical novel. If you liked Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale or Charlotte Woods’ The Natural Way of Things, this one is clearly for you. Christine lives with her family in Safetown, the enclave of the title, where everything is ordered and you do what you’re supposed to. The workers who make their lives pleasant are brought in from the outside, but no one goes out there until Chris does the unthinkable – she falls for a worker, who is both black and a woman. Then she makes a run for it.
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The House of Fortune, Jessie Burton
Picador, $34.99, July 12
Eight years after Burton’s bestselling The Miniaturist comes – at last – a sequel that returns us to the Herengracht house in Amsterdam where Nella Oortman lived after she made her disastrous marriage to Johannes Brandt. But the years have passed – Nella is 37 – and things have taken a turn for the worse. She would like her niece, Thea, the daughter of Johannes’ sister Marin, to make a profitable marriage that might save the family’s dwindling fortunes. But Thea is in love with Walter Riebeeck, a set designer at the city playhouse. How can Nella justify putting Thea through what she experienced all those years ago?
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Serendipity, Oscar Farinetti
Black Inc., $34.99, July 5
This is a book about the accidental discoveries in the food world that have left us all better off. Farinetti established the Italian food retailer Eataly that he’s taken to the wider world and has contacts and stories galore. Crepes suzette came from the accidental splashing of liqueur in a pan cooking crepes and despite the flames they were still served and proved popular. Guinness emerged from a reluctance to chuck out a load of malt that had been burnt in a Dublin warehouse. And is the Milanese cutlet simply a version of Wiener Schnitzel or did it actually precede the Austrian national dish? Plenty to learn if you want to know the origins of what you’re eating and drinking.
The Booklist is a weekly newsletter for book lovers from books editor Jason Steger. Get it delivered every Friday.
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