What I’ve been reading

Here’s a haphazard and incomplete list of what I’ve been reading this year.

I’ve left out the books I didn’t enjoy, or didn’t finish (there’s a few of those – I’m not a person who feels compelled to finish a book that hasn’t captured me!) I’ve also left out the many books and articles I’m reading about Louisa Lawson and Henry Lawson.

And, finally, I’ve included a couple that I hope to get my hands before year’s end. What have you been reading this year? Tell us all about your best books in the comments.

The Forester’s Daughter, Claire Keegan

I’m a dyed-in-the-wool Keegan fan, ever since reading the brilliant and excoriating Small Things Like These (and yes, I’m very keen to see the movie). I saw Keegan speak at a writer’s festival last year – she is also brilliant and excoriating.

The Forester’s Daughter isn’t quite as good as Small Things Like These, but it’s still very bloody good.

• I Feel Bad About My Neck, Nora Ephron. Funny and wise essay collection. 
  
  
• Tom Lake, Ann Patchett. A lovely holiday read. I was lucky enough to go and see Ann Patchett speak too, and she was wonderful – very generous, very smart and full of laughter. 
  
  
• Old Filth, Jane Gardam. Beautiful and compelling and insightful.
  
  

The True History of the First Mrs Meredith and Other Lesser Lives, Diane Johnson

Published in the early 1970s, this is one of the first (if not THE first) biographies to illuminate the life of a woman otherwise written out of history. It’s so terrific and fresh, I can’t begin to tell you. Beautifully written too, with a captivating narrative voice.

I first heard about it via Backlisted, my favourite bookish podcast. Have a listen, you really won’t be disappointed. 

• Eleven Letters to You, Helen Elliot. An Australian memoir that didn’t receive nearly as much attention as it deserved. The structure is unusual but effective; the tone evocative and lyrical.
  
  
• A Month in the Country, JL Carr. I revisited this classic that I last read (and didn’t appreciate) in high school. How on earth he managed to pack so much into 20,000 words I have no idea.
  
  
• Stone Yard Devotional, Charlotte Wood. The Booker Prize shortlist hype is real – I think this is the best thing that Wood has ever written.
  
  

Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life, Anna Funder

I came to this with some skepticism, having been swayed by some bitter reviews. But writer friends recommended it and I’m so glad they did – Funder’s latest book is an illuminating marvel.

Read it to learn more about Eileen O’Shaughnessy. Read it for insights into Orwell. But most of all read to be shown how the insidious and pervasive erasure of women is so easily done, and so easily accepted. I’m still thinking about it, months and months later.

• Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, by JRR Tolkien (edited by Christopher Tolkien). Because what’s not love about early medieval mayhem, monsters and murder.
  
  
• Suddenly Single at Sixty, Jo Peck. Another under-appreciated Australian memoir that I inhaled in one sitting. Great fun.
  
  
• Graft, Maggie McKellar. Continuing in the theme of under-recognised Australian memoirs, this one is a corker. A year-in-the-life of a Tasmanian sheep farmer, Graft is deeply evocative of place.
  
  

Restless Dolly Maunder, Kate Grenville

Compelling and readable, Grenville once again effortlessly takes us back to the past. She writes so well, and illuminates the times so carefully, that is hard to remember that what we’re reading is a carefully crafted fiction.

I like that Grenville is a careful explainer – her author’s notes are always worth reading and deliver useful insights into the text, and into her approach. The real-life Dolly Maunder may well have been unknowable but Grenville’s fictional evocation of her grandmother is a stand-out.

• A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula Le Guin. Still a wondrous treasure. Beautiful, wise and moving. As an adult I take much more from it than I ever did as a child reader, even though I loved it then too.
  
  
• The Salt Path, Raynor Winn.  A beautifully written memoir about an English  couple who, at a time of personal and financial crisis, make the seemingly crazy decision to walk a thousand mile trail. I hear there’s a movie being made if this one too, and again I can’t wait to see it.
  
  
• Shrines of Gaiety, Kate Atkinson. A wonderful fictional romp through 1920s London.

Three Wild Dogs and the Truth, Marcus Zusak

Memoirs about dogs are definitely a genre of their own now. Some of them are a bit hokey, or a bit obvious. Yes. Dogs are great. We get it.

This one though, is a step above. 

Zusak takes us into his home, into his writing processes and into his heart in a narrative that is as wild and unexpected as his crazy dogs. I picked this up on a whim and put it down, much later, much moved. Dogs really are great. 

• We Are The Stars, Gina Chick. Forget about poorly written celebrity memoirs – Chick can write, and how. This memoir blew me away. 
  
  
• The Season, Helen Garner. Can’t wait to get my hands on this one. As a huge Garner fan, I’ll read her shopping list if she publishes it (she has, as a joke, in The Monthly, and I happily did!) 
  
  
• Is a River Alive? Robert MacFarlane. Another one that I can’t wait to get stuck into. MacFarlane’s writing about the natural world is always worth reading.