book nerds rejoice

like i said, i love lists...

these darlings have been patiently waiting on the bookshelf of ness for months now. i am particularly eager to read Addition; my mum bought this to sydney with her on her last visit - she met author Toni Jordan at the Adelaide Writers Week and said she was wonderful (if not a little eccentric).

Suite Francaise Irene Nemirovsky
Running With Scissors Augusten Burroughs
Double Fault Lionel Shriver
Paula Isabel Allende
Red Shoes Carmel Bird
Margot Fonteyn Biography Meredith Daneman
Happiness Will Ferguson
Man and Boy Tony Parsons
A Changed Man Francine Prose
Addition Toni Jordan

and these are the brand new beauties i am desperately craving...

The Private Lives of Pippa Lee Rebecca Miller

One Foot Wrong Sofie Laguna

When You Are Engulfed in Flames David Sedaris

Poppyland Raffaella Barker

The Behaviour of Moths Poppy Adams

I Dream of Magda Stefan Laszczuk

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society Mary Ann Shaffer

Don’t Get Too Comfortable David Rakoff

Children of Freedom Marc Levy

A Child’s Book of True Crime Chloe Hooper

Just lately i have finished a couple of books that i feel the need to share. Helen Garner's Joe Cinque's Consolation has been sitting on my shelf for awhile but it somehow drew me in to its pages last week and i devoured it in a matter of days. funny how a book can do that. i love miss garner for her stunning story-telling skills and journalistic integrity. she brings to light another side of the idea of duty-of-care that i've never thought of before. 

how deeply involved with someone do you have to be before you are considered an "accessory" in any wrong-doings they commit? Obviously, if you walk past someone in the street who is suffering from a drug overdose and you do nothing, you can't be pinned for manslaughter. But if you happen to help that person, perhaps give them a pain-killer which raises their blood pressure or thins their blood and they die, are you partly responsible for their death? It is such an intricately fascinating topic. I could debate it for days (high school debate geek coming out...)

i also loved Geraldine Brooks' newie, The People of The Book. I religiously watch 'First Tuesday Book Club' each month and so when they reviewed this one and the overall consensus was a resounding THIS IS TRIPE, i backed off. But  -- my mum read it and loved it and i trust her book judgement a thousand times more than Marieke 'I wear a ratty flower in my hair so i look bohemian and cool' Hardy and Jennifer 'I LOVED this! (squeel)' Byrne. (I have nothing bad to say about Jason Steger, the third member of the reviewing team and that's because i have a slightly creepy crush on him. And yes, i know he's old. whatev)

Back to the book. I know Geraldine has this tendency to ramble on and use slightly too many stereotypes in her prose (how many times the main character had to say 'tinnie' and 'g'day' and 'shit -a-brick' before we finally realised she was an Aussie I'll never know). But all in all, i thought it was a great read, i ended up sitting there with my laptop on so i could google all the things she talked about that i knew little of (ie. the Sarajevo War). And my god can she write historical fiction well. am tres` jealous.

tis' bedtime now for ness. if only my neighbour would stop watching reruns of Will and Grace on repeat and then we'd all be happy. oh yes...

ness x