Tag Archives: Reading

Book Review: You Must Remember This by Sean Wilson

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Shortlisted for the 2026 Miles Franklin Literary Award, this is a story about Grace’s aging and the effect on her and her daughter Liz.

Grace lives alone and manages to hide the fact that she has dementia until she is found wandering the streets lost and confused. Her daughter Liz is at a loss about her what to do about her condition and makes the difficult decision to move her into an aged care facility for her safety and well-being.

Many of us with elderly parents face these decisions but Wilson shows us the day-to-day practical issues along with the difficult emotional ones. Both characters are well drawn. Liz grapples to understand her mother’s disease as well as coping with being a working parent. We could judge her growing frustration but deep dive below that is her fear and loss and the beginning of the grieving process at work.

The chapter numbers are jumbled up reflecting Grace’s state of mind as it slips back and forth reflecting her past and present. Grace lives in her own world, bewildered and frustrated whilst understanding what is happening to her.

This is a well written, short read, powerful as it is sad. Check it out.

Book Review: Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy

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I have heard a lot about this author yet not read her most famous work, The God of Small Things which is now on my list.

This is Roy’s memoir where she bares the ups and downs of her life with her fiercely determined   single mother Mrs Roy. Roy has always called her mother that since Mary Roy set up a Christian school in India changing the lives of many.  Her mother, an asthmatic was a woman who got things done where no barrier was too high for her to ruthlessly knock down. Her daughter and son where casualties and the cruelty imposed on them gave them powers into adulthood when Arundhati became an activist for social justice in India. No threat equaled that of her mother.

This is a fascinating memoir not just from Roy’s point of view about her family and upbringing but also gives insight into her writing, her relationships, poverty and her entry into activism. It was particularly insightful to learn about the political situation in India, the corruption, mass deaths and inequity as it was about how her novels came together.

The writing is beautiful evocative of the times she lived through. Her grief over her mother is confounding for her as is the love.

Roy like her mother has lived a full and fruitful life and I’d recommend this memoir.  

Book Review: John of John by Douglas Stuart

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Down and out with little prospects, John-Callum McLeod, Cal for short, heads home from art school to help look after his grandmother who lives with his father, John on a small island off the coast of Scotland.

At the outset the writing is exquisite and the reader is immediately immersed into the isolation, desolation and poverty of this tiny god-fearing community.

Cal is a gay man which he hides from his family and slides right back into his home never fully meeting his father’s expectations. Cal’s mother lives further away and what he doesn’t know is the reason his parents split up is because his father is also gay. John lives a tormented and secret life within walking distance from his long-time love.  The secrets of this island have a way of pulling the reader in.

The harshness and isolation is everywhere and the community is stuck in old traditions and fake piousness which settles uncomfortably in a modern world. You could be forgiven for thinking the book is set a hundred years ago but it’s quite current whereas the thinking is not.

Cal’s journey and that of his father unfolds allowing the reader to relate to their everyday life, it’s ups and downs wondering if anything will ever change. Fortunately, it eventually does.  

This is shortlisted for the Booker Prize for 2026 and I’m not surprised. Check this one out.

Book Review: The Names by Florence Knapp

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This one is a powerhouse of a novel.

Cora sets off with her nine-year-old daughter to register the name of her newborn son. Her GP husband Gordon has given her explicit instructions that his son is to be named after him as per his family tradition. But when the time comes to fill out the paperwork, Cora has doubts.

Spanning the next thirty-five years, Knapp plots a course for the three names Cora may have chosen for her son and the consequences upon not just his life but hers as well.

The three versions of the boy’s life as Gordon, Julian and Bear are gripping, harrowing and completely imaginative. The version of Gordon is the most difficult and given the themes of domestic violence can be very challenging to read. Fortunately, the chapters are short to allow the reader to draw breath and relief. But the switch into the new name and timeline means extra focus to remember each boy’s life version. Reading this one in long blocks would help which isn’t too hard since it’s a page turner. The themes of domestic violence, coercive control crossing all sections of the community was enlightening as it was sobering.

I can see why this one has made such an impact in the book world. Check this one out.

Book Review: In a Common Hour by Sita Walker

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Set in a State High school in QLD is teacher Paul Bush and his students who are in their last year. A disgruntled student does something devastating during a one-hour lunchtime which has devastating consequences changing Paul Bush’s life and impacting the students around him.

If you’re not a teacher, you will appreciate how difficult this profession is and if you are then a lot of this will hit home. Walker delivers believable characters in a genuine setting of a busy high school. It’s a compelling read and the writing captures the atmosphere brilliantly.

Each chapter represents a brief time block in the hour and at times it’s hard to believe so much happens within that time. Yet it seems to work considering it’s a fairly short novel.

The only down side is the number of characters and because I read this over a couple of days,  I was able to keep up and remember them all—just.

It’s a brave world out there in schools and I take my hat off to all the wonderful teachers who try to do the best they can.

Check this one out.

Book Review: Whistler by Ann Patchett

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An intriguing story about Daphne who unexpectantly runs into her mother’s second husband, Eddie at a museum. He had only been married a year but had left a lasting impact on nine-year-old Daphne who believed the break up was her fault. The last time she’d seen him was when they were in a car accident and she had  trudged through snow to save him.

This is a beautifully told story about love and loss and how two people can have a profound impact on each other. Both Daphne and Eddie are propelled back to their once loving relationship almost immediately their bond barely broken

Daphne relays the story of the accident to her sister in snippets. Yet her sister being younger, didn’t have quite the same relationship and at times disappears in the story while Daphne and Eddie reignite their love for one another.

The characters are endearing and thoughtful even Jonathan, Daphne’s husband. Daphne herself is complicated as she is likeable. The story told through her eyes, reveals her pain and loss as well as her heartfelt relationships.

This is a lovely gentle story. Check it out.

Book Review: Strangers by Belle Burden

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You would think the story line of a wife who comes home and finds her husband has been unfaithful to be of little interest to anyone.

Except this memoir is a highly compelling and voyeuristic look inside a world of privilege and the disintegration of a relationship.

I was captured hook, line, sinker with this one. The writing is truly beautiful and the author engages the reader about her life, the tragedy, and the fallout affecting her friends, family and neighbours. It shines a light on the societal norms of the nuclear family and the class structure she experiences in her Martha Vineyard home all while with Covid lurks in the sidelines.

The author is no celebrity but she does have wealth which was taken advantage of by her philandering husband who kept his obscene hedge fund salary a secret. To be fair, she admitted she had no interest in their finances trusting him completely. And many relationships do that and it’s all fine until it isn’t. Every person should understand their financial situation and it’s got nothing to do with trust. If he’d died suddenly, she would have had to face it anyway—lesson learned.

I was captivated with this story, how the husband managed a double life and it played on my mind as to how these men actually think. We get no more of an explanation of this betrayal than Burden did. But the signs were there. He leaves the parenting to her, wants the prenup changed, convinces her that his long hours at work is for the family, agrees that her trust fund should be used to buy property in joint names without contribution from him. Is it hindsight or her ignorance about what their relationship truly looked like?

The disintegration of one woman’s life and how she picked up the pieces was engaging enough. Check this one out.