This will hurt me...

The bins are out, Geilston Bay, August 2021. Boy Swallows Universe   by Trent Dalton After delivering a rather scathing critique of Dalton's last book -  All Our Shimmering Skies  - I am glad that I succumbed to the badgering of my darling wife to give his much-praised debut a chance. She is correct. This is the infinitely superior book. I suspect that this is largely because Dalton is treading more familiar ground. Unlike the new book, there's an authenticity to the place and characters despite the shaggy dog tale that emerges. This is a likeable coming of age tale that will have appeal to anyone with memories of growing up on the wrong side of the tracks in 1980s Australia. There's a heart to what could have been a bitter and unpleasant tale. Still, Dalton pulls no punches, and there are no shortage of triggers for anyone who grew up in violent, tumultuous households. I appreciated the sophistication that the author has sensitively explored the concept of how young peop...

Good morning. Federation Dock, Hobart. August 2021. A God in Ruins   by Kate Atkinson A "companion piece" rather than a sequel to one of my favourite books that I've read this year ( Life After Life . Much like the first book, this one is also experimental in form. Timelines skip backwards and forwards but (largely) avoid the 'parallel realities' that marked the earlier work. The experimentation did not disrupt the experience, and I found that it again afforded Atkinson the power to explore the concept of memory, fiction and imagination. If I didn't quite enjoy it as much as its predecessor, it was due to the presence of the distasteful Viola. Without a doubt, her character is an essential exploration of the intergenerational shift, but I did find her irritating to the point of distraction. There is a fine art to the wilful disruption of chronology that goes some way to explaining Viola's attitude. The resolution of the piece - like  Life After Life  - is ...

Sails above. Pier One, Salamanca, Hobart. August 2021. The Years of Rice and Salt   by Kim Stanley Robinson This is an immense book in all sorts of ways. Just shy of 800 pages, it is quite unlike anything that I have ever read before. A sprawling, opulent alternative history novel about human civilisation beginning with a twist that eliminates European influence from events post-1400. We begin with a small detachment of Mongol soldiers stumbling across the fact that nearly all of Europe has been killed by a plague of such magnitude that it has emptied most cities and towns, leaving on a few survivors to scrabble on. From here, we travel through a series of chronologically spaced sections over the next seven centuries on an alternate Earth in which the societies of varying forms of Islam, the vast Chinese empire and other Buddhist states dominate global affairs in the absence of western Christendom. The conceit is fabulous, and in embracing a broad approach to reincarnation, we can ...

  Sunrise over the Tasman Bridge. Hobart. August 2021. The Sweetness of Water   by Nathan Harris A terribly sad and decidedly still novel, this is not at all as I expected. I was pleasantly surprised by the light touch that Harris has applied to what is a brutal tale. Set in the south in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, I understood that the book would tackle issues of race and sexuality. Before starting, I was prepared for either an affected and anachronistic (but largely 'worthy') book or one that embraced the usual machismo (with a queer twist). This is neither. It weaves twin narratives quite effortlessly in a quiet way. The weak but thoroughly decent George Walker is at the centre, who anchors the novel to allow the natural exploration of themes not usually found in such books. Reminiscent of Sebastian Barry’s work,  The Sweetness of Water  is a lovely, lyrical novel. Moreover, Harris's fine writing achieves the complex interweaving of the grand and the...