Klein, Naomi (2023) Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World. Allen Lane.
Celebrated activist Naomi Klein takes us into the doppelganger world of conspiracy culture. Her own doppelganger, Naomi Wolf, with whom she has been chronically confused, was once a liberal feminist darling, but after being publicly shamed she entered the mirror world of conspiracy theories, misinformation, grifting, and alternative reality. As Klein obsessively follows her double into the distorted shadowlands of social media she lifts the lid on individual brands and the radically different views which have become polarised along a left-right axis. The conspiracy ecosystem fostered by suspicion of governments, big tech, media and influencers, is capitalising on paranoia and a range of issues from colonial genocides and climate change, to Covid lockdowns and surveillance. “The facts may be wrong but the feelings are right”. Scary big read.
Rating: 4/5
Peters, Amanda (2023) The Berry Pickers. Catapult.
When four-year-old Mi’kmaq girl, Ruthie, goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine her family suffers decades of pain. For nearly fifty years a young girl named Norma grows up the only child of an affluent, yet secretive, family. Norma intuits that there is something her parents are not telling her. Meanwhile for Ruthie’s brother, Joe, her loss has traumatised his whole life. We meet Joe on his death-bed. This is an unrelenting tale of family separation, betrayal and healing, that witnesses the challenges faced by indigenous cultures. A powerfully emotional tale told in dual narratives. Haunting.
Rating: 4/5
Doughty, Louise (2023) A Bird in Winter. Faber.
Bird abandons everything to go on the run. Hypervigilance and paranoia have been part of her life since childhood. Her father was a member of the secret service. Now in middle-age her own intelligence career has become a threat justifying her wariness, but she is prepared. She flees north utilising multiple disguises and her survival skills, unsure who is hunting her. As she runs her story is slowly disclosed. Subtle fast paced thriller that is full of tension. Riveting read.
Rating: 5/5
Fisher, Richard (2023) The Long View: Why We Need to Transform How the World Sees Time. Wildfire.
In our day to day lives the ‘now’ commands all our attention. Any sense of the past or future is tempered by the events in business, politics, science or the current news cycle. Short-termism permeates our life. Why when we are capable of projecting our minds between the past and future are we trapped in the present? Fisher’s aim is to make us more ‘long-minded’, to escape the blinkered temporal stresses of the present by analysing the past, and expanding our perception of time into the future. We need to change the way we think about time and start thinking in centuries. Thought-provoking.
Rating: 3/5
Sager, Riley (2023) The Only One Left. Dutton.
Kit, a disgraced caregiver, is recruited to care for multiply disabled septuagenarian Leonora Hope who has long been accused of the massacre of her family. As Kit helps Leonora disclose the truth of that bloody night in 1929 she suspects that this seemingly harmless woman is still dangerous. A gothic thriller complete with unreliable characters and a precariously perched clifftop mansion on the Maine coast. Slow buildup of suspense but when the denouement comes it was over in a flash and plausibility becomes an issue.
Rating: 3/5
Hallett, Janice (2023) The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels. Viper.
A cult, Angel Gabriel, brainwashed children, mass suicide and a newborn baby deemed to be the antichrist. The dramatic story of the Alperton Angels has sustained public interest for two decades. True-crime writer Amanda Bailey is writing a book about the angels, in forced collaboration with Oliver Menzies. They are both seeking the Alperton baby who would now be eighteen-years-old. The story is told in interviews, texts, emails, scripts and archives. This fictional tale took me down a rabbit hole from which there was no escape. Confused and disappointing.
Rating: 2/5
Loehnen, Elise (2023) On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to be Good. Dial Press.
Contemporary culture reaps the benefit of the ‘goodness’ of women. Women’s behaviour codified by the early church, and further mandated by patriarchal society, was dictated by a collection of mores known as the Seven Deadly Sins (Eight when the ‘excommunicated’ sin of Sadness is included). Loehnen explores the origin of the sins and examines each in relation to the modern life of women. She analyses how these ‘rules’ have been internalised by women to not only obey but to be virtuous also. Women have been programmed by shame to be compliant, and practice self-denial and restraint. Her explanations are reinforced by her own stories, and spiritual reflections. A pause for thought but not a lot new here.
Rating: 4/5
Johns, Rachael (2024) The Other Bridget. M. Joseph.
Bridget’s namesake is the fictional Bridget Jones. Now living in Fremantle, and working as a librarian, she has been unlucky in love but she has a superpower. She is remarkably gifted at connecting the right book to the right reader. When two eligible men enter her orbit she get into all sorts of trouble. A bit of frothy romantic fun that celebrates the pleasure of books.
Rating: 3/5
Elston, Ashley (2024) First Lie Wins. Headline.
Evie (not her actual name) Porter’s latest job is to investigate her new mark-come-boyfriend Ryan’s black market business. Everything is going well for Evie – she has a loving boyfriend, and a lovely house with a white picket fence and a garden, that is until she meets a friend of Ryan’s girlfriend who introduces herself as Lucca Marino – Evie’s real name. Then it becomes a game of cat and mouse with Evie’s boss, Mr Smith, who has not only stolen her identity but threatens her life. Will her past catch up with her? Intriguing smart thriller, well worth a read. Page-turner.
Rating: 4/5
7:30 Bookclub 