Voices From The Trenches
by Noel Carthew (New Holland $24.95)
This is the first war book I’ve read from beginning to end. It has everything – drama, horror, poetry and emotion. Using family letters written from the trenches during WWI to wives and sweethearts back home, the author breathes life and passion into in a conflict that saw thousands of young Australians die needlessly. Woven between the letters is a compelling narrative which transforms dull slabs of military history into an action movie. Read it and weep.
Amie – Memories of an Australian Childhood
by Amie Livingstone Stirling (Black Inc. $29.95)
Originally published 20 years ago, this book has been re-released with new material added by her proud grand-daughter. A charming, poignant story of a young woman and her unconventional upbringing in south east Australia in the late 1800s to the bohemian streets of Paris and the jungles of Africa in the early 20th century. More fascinating and original than many novels – as Margaret Whitlam says in her foreword, “it’s the sort of book you don’t want to end.”
Baggage
by Emily Barr (Hodder headline $29.95)
This intriguing tale about double identity and running away, is one of my favourites of the year to date. There’s Sophie, the English backpacker who while travelling in the outback, thinks she sees her best friend who supposedly committed suicide ten years earlier. There’s Sophie’s boyfriend, Larry, who thinks he’s onto the hottest story of the century. And Lina, who’s found happiness in the tiny, dusty opal town – or is she really Daisy, the once glamorous ballerina whose glittering career ended in tragedy and scandal?
The Tin Moon
by Stephen J Lacey (Simon & Schuster $19.95)
Beware of reading this on public transport, as it will make you laugh out loud. A charming, endearing and darkly comic account of a young boy growing up in a daggy, working class suburb on the central coast of NSW. If you can remember Choo-Choo Bars it will ring a lot of bells. Even if you can’t, you will love this chronicle of life in Australia as it once was. You may even yearn for it.
Lucky Man
by Michael J. Fox ( Bantam $39.95)
He announced he had been diagnosed with Parkinsons’s disease in 1998. In fact, Michael J. Fox had been secretly fighting it for seven years. Not another self absorbed, Hollywood star bleating on about his tragedy, but a thoughtful, interesting story which includes his childhood, marriage, acting, alcoholism and his journey from initial denial, fear and anger to certainty that the illness is a positive in his life.
Love, Greg & Lauren
by Greg Manning (Macmillan $30)
A riveting read about Lauren Manning, wife and mother of an 11 month old son, who received burns to 82.5percent of her body when she stepped into the lobby at the One World Trade Centre on September 11, just as a fireball exploded. Her husband, Greg, watches over her as she lies in hospital, sending emails to family friends and colleagues that became his daily journal. Through his eyes, we experience the journey to recovery, going from despair to triumph. Crow Lake by Mary Lawson (Random House $29.95)
A gripping and emotional first novel about a young woman who thinks she has escaped the grim, rural backwater where she grew up and the strange and terrible things that happened there. Inexorably, she is drawn back to face to face her past and the family history and misunderstandings that cast long shadows on her successful, city life and romance.
Fiddleback
by J.M. Morris (Macmillan $28)
A psychological thriller that is completely unput-downable. I took it away at Easter and became the holiday-mate from hell who wouldn’t be torn from her book. Fiddleback refers to a type of deadly spider and it is very easy to get trapped in this sticky, web-like plot that has you following the exploits of Ruth Gemmill who sets off to find her brother who has gone missing in a dark and lonely town called Greenwell.
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