Less than a week to Christmas and I’m looking forward to some lazy summer days of reading. What could be better than stretches of time immersed in another world. Reading is not just an escape from the current craziness of politics and threats of extreme weather. It expands our imagination, creates the beauty and peace we all crave and brings us into conversation, albeit one-way, with some very interesting people, the authors of the books we read. At the end of the year, indeed of the decade, I thought it would be good to share with you five books I think are ideal for holiday reading.
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| The Testaments Margaret Atwood Chatto & Windus 2019 432 pages ISBN: 9781784742324 |
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| The Penguin Lessons Tom Michell Penguin 2016 240 pages ISBN: 9781405921800 |
Tom Michell’s The Penguin Lessons is a short, joyful and amusing memoir of an Englishman who, as a young teacher, rescues a penguin from oil slick on a beach in Uraguay. The penguin forms an attachment to him and refuses to return to the sea. The author smuggles it back into the boys’ boarding school in Argentina where he works. Much hilarity and poignancy ensue as teacher and students get to know and learn from the penguin. This is a perfect book to enjoy on the holidays. It is written in a light tone with sensual descriptions of South American landscape and wildlife.
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| Home Fire Kamila Shamsie Bloomsbury 2018 288 pages ISBN: 9781408886793 |
Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire is an engrossing drama, a modern retelling of Antigone involving the twin sister of a young man who has left the UK to fight with ISIS in Syria. It is a story with high stakes for all the characters: the older sister Isma, her younger siblings, Aneaka and Parvais, the UK Home Secretary, Karamat and his son, Eamonn. The story is told in five parts, each continuing the action in a new character’s voice. The prose is clear, fast-paced, varied in form and compelling. It is a fascinating book which I could not put down.
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| Bel Canto Ann Patchett HarperCollins 2002 336 pages ISBN: 9781841155838 |
Despite Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto being set in the aftermath of a terrorist attack and, the novel is overwhelmingly gentle in pace and tone. Published pre-9/11, it presents a positive view of human nature. It is set in the aftermath of a bungled attempt to kidnap the president of an unnamed South American country. The novel moves at a leisurely pace from the perspective of one character to another before focusing on the main characters, a Japanese CEO whose birthday extravaganza is the setting of the siege, his translator, an opera singer hired for the occasion, and the Vice-President. Somewhat unrealistic in the wake of the hostage situation in Martin Place, Bel Canto explores how hostages and terrorists are drawn together by their common humanity. Read it for its beautiful writing and exploration of character.
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| The Shepherd’s Hut Tim Winton Penguin Australia 2019 288 pages ISBN: 978014379540 |
If you have not yet read it, Tim Winton’s The Shepherd’s Hut is a must. The short novel is the story of a young boy driven from his violent home to embark on a physical and emotional journey to manhood. The more distance Jaxie Clackton puts between himself and home, the more he needs to use everything he has learned in his short life. His stamina and resourcefulness are extraordinary. At a point where his skills are reaching their limit, he encounters an older man who lives in the bush as a hermit. During the time he stays with the older man, Jaxie learns about love and the higher virtues, elements missing from his earlier life. For me, the joy of reading this book was Jaxie’s voice as he tells the story. I found his turn of phrase endearing and his observations entertaining as a boy. I needed to re-read the prologue to find the same appeal in the adult Jaxie but it was there, most notably in his love of life.
I’d love to hear what you think of these suggestions. Let’s start a conversation!