Books
WARMING UP WITH A 19TH-CENTURY ANARCHIST, WE JUMP TWO CENTURIES AHEAD WITH A PERSONAL PORTRAIT OF THE OBAMAS, AND ADDITIONS TO WELL-LOVED SERIES.
THE ANARCHISTS’ CLUB Alex Reeve, Raven Books, $29.99
Facebook now acknowledges more than 70 distinctions of gender. Oh please. In Victorian London, Leo Stanhope is a hospital porter. Born Charlotte, Leo runs away from home in order to live as a man. It isn’t long before he (that is how Leo identifies) is in the frame for murder. An old friend needs an alibi and blackmails poor Leo, thrusting him even deeper into deception. His only hope is to solve the murder. Working conditions of the 19th century are evoked with grisly gusto. When Leo boldly rescues and protects two kidnapped waifs, a feminine tenderness emerges. Reeve cleverly avoids the trap of letting our familiarity with Dickens define the scene. What he serves up is new and provocative.
THE ROAD TO GRANTCHESTER James Runcie, Bloomsbury, $29.99
Runcie’s father was the Archbishop of Canterbury, the first one to have had frontline combat experience, which is no doubt why the renowned author and filmmaker is able to produce such a brilliant back story for Sidney Chambers, known to television viewers from The Grantchester Mysteries series. In this prequel, Sidney, a captain with the 2nd Battalion Scots Guards, returns from seeing his dear friend fall at Minturno in Italy and flounders as he finds himself without a reason to go on living. Everything changes when he is seized with the belief that he should become a vicar. An endearingly eccentric ‘Principal’ gives him the once over, and then he stays with monks for a few weeks. Certain of his calling, there is one more test before a trio of bigwigs with more than suitability on their minds. Their verdict is ‘you’ll do’. Sidney’s love for ‘me me me’ Amanda is a mystery — must be pheromones. Those who have watched the three series know what happens next. But it won’t spoil the suspense. A lovely and uplifting novel small enough to fit into a raincoat pocket — your next walkabout read.
HOPE, NEVER FEAR Callie Shell, Murdoch Books, $35
In the December before Barack Obama’s inauguration, Callie Shell was asked to be chief photographer at the White House. She declined, knowing it would entail long periods away from her young family. The Obamas understood and instead offered her free access whenever she had the time. These are her pick of on-duty and off-duty photographs taken during the eight years of the Obama administration. The title is from Michelle Obama’s speech, the one that told us “when they go low, you go high”. There are touching glimpses of quiet family moments alongside shots of history in the making. My favourite is on page 68. Backs to the camera, Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, and the First Lady are at Winfield House in London. Hillary is a sturdy figure in blue. Michelle, leggy and elegant, is serious; something is amiss. Hillary’s left hand rests on the younger woman’s shoulder. The body language speaks of trust and civility. Nice.
NAIL YOUR RENOVATION WITHOUT GETTING SCREWED
Steve Burke and Suzanne Burke, Woodslane, $34.99
This handy manual came in, magically, at the right moment. I was on the brink of building a brand-new house and panicking. Steve Burke, an awardwinning builder, takes us through the process, inside and out, room by room, by explaining what goes beneath and above and, invisibly, through the walls. There are valuable tips and breakout boxes so you can zoom in on an answer to a specific query, plus panels to guide you through trouble shooting and chapters dealing with the major decisions. The way Australia regulates house construction today means you are never going to achieve what people got away with in the past. These days, we must think about water tanks and sustainable materials. Be prepared to adapt, but read this book first and know your options.
A GOOD ENOUGH MOTHER Bev Thomas, Faber and Faber, $29.99
Unlovable and helpless, at least in their own estimation, the patients who end up in Dr Ruth Hartland’s office have scored the very best available posttraumatic treatment the UK’S National Health Service (NHS) has to offer. Dr Ruth has her own problems, which she chooses not to divulge to her staff or patients. As director of the unit, she has a supervisor and other allies within and beyond the NHS. However, when the admin department fails to deliver a file (tell me about it!), she has to wing her way through the encounter with her new 4pm Friday ‘service user’, aka patient. He turns out to be the spitting image of her teenage son, who has been missing for 18 months. Of course she should rescue herself but she does not. This novel takes you by the shoulders and shakes you. In the 1970s, Sydney had two phone-counselling hotline options. The smaller one, called The Helping Hand, worked in accordance with Carl Rogers’ theories. These required the counsellor to, as far as possible, engage with whatever feeling the caller expressed, however
unfamiliar or distasteful. Empathy and losing yourself in what the caller described were key; it was all about letting the caller in. The abiding failure of traditional one-on-one therapy was the fact that there was a helper and someone being helped. The helper had a status that the helped was well aware of. The Rogerian method attempted to make the two parties equal. Since the 1970s, at least five ‘fashions’ in post-traumatic stress disorder therapy have come and gone. Dr Ruth and her unit return to the Rogers approach. Feeling what the service user feels is the primary goal. Dr Ruth questions herself constantly and tries to be uncritical of her daughter’s alienation, her husband’s immaturity and her mother’s alcoholism. We follow her through sessions and pick up how the system works. We get to know the dangers. Halfway through, there’s a jolt — Dr Ruth is being played. Henceforth, she must well and truly suffer trauma and post-trauma stress. Whether her life is entirely ruined is for the reader to discover. Bev Thomas is a therapist and administrator with the NHS. This is her debut novel. It is nothing short of astounding.
DEAD AT FIRST SIGHT Peter James, Pan Macmillan, $29.99
Sussex county has a population of 1.6 million and a low crime rate. However, last year more than 30 million pounds was paid by unsuspecting victims of an ever-increasing ‘rom-con’ scam. This is the 19th DS Roy Grace mystery. Brighton is his patch. Two murders drag Grace into a crime which is new to him. The victims were prepared to lend/give huge sums to fake would-be lovers who wooed them by email. Behind the scam is an American living in Jersey who runs a rom-con academy for smart young men from Ghana and Nigeria. Tunde Oganjimi (aka Jules de Copeland) and Kofi Okonjo met as child soldiers. Their skills with machetes (needed when a target susses them out and has the potential to turn nasty) are now complemented by a very scientific use of language guaranteed to enslave a lonely lady or a gullible man. They hunt for prey using videos of minor celebrities as bait. Oganjimi’s alter ego ‘Ingrid’ extracts 400 000 Euros from a retired major. The best Grace can do is bring the rogues to justice and perhaps seriously inconvenience the mastermind in Jersey. That’s not good enough for the major, who wants a more personally satisfying revenge. A pageant of fascinating characters and situations make this one of the best in James’s much-loved ‘Dead’ series.
THE SHELLY BAY LADIES SWIMMING CIRCLE Sophie Green, Hachette, $29.99
Sydneysiders Theresa, Marie, Leanne and Elaine meet randomly through their love of swimming. Yes, here it is again, the Four Women novel – a Fowo. However, it would be fair to say that in many real women’s lives, regardless of family, work and a functioning one-on-one relationship, there’s a Fowo-shaped hollow. How satisfying to read about four casual yet trusted friends who meet on a regular basis. Though need is not what draws the swimmers together, nevertheless, subtle bonds hold strong when tested and draw forth unexpected talents. Sophie Green creates flawed characters that are often avoiding necessary decisions but are united by the discovery that they’re not alone.