Category: 2015

Xinran (2015) Buy me the Sky: The remarkable truth of China's one-child generation. Rider. The first generation of Chinese children raised under China's one-child policy has reached adulthood. In her interviews with young people Xinran found a generation adrift. Her observations paint a poignant portrait of one-and-onlies adjusting to independence and loneliness, cultural and political shift, western influence, and the dynamics of… Continue reading November Picks →

De Goldi, Kate (2015) From the Cutting Room of Barney Kettle. Longacre. 12-year-old Barney Kettle was a 'megalomaniac' when it came to filmmaking. Global fame was his ultimate goal. He had already made four 15-minute films, with his sister Ren, when one summer holidays he began a documentary of life in High Street, the street where he lived.  The story is… Continue reading September-October Picks →

Barrows, Annie (2015) The Truth According to Us. Doubleday.  Macedonia's sesquincentennial is to be celebrated with the publication of the town's history.  In a hot summer in 1938 disinherited debutant, Miss Layla Beck, is given the task of recording the seemingly unremarkable story of the West Virginian town.  Then Layla mets the eccentric and seductive Romeyns whose lives are bound up… Continue reading August Picks →

Fuller, Alexandra (2015) Leaving Before the Rains Come. Penguin.  In this latest instalment of Alexandra Fuller's memoir she looks back to her African youth to understand the disintegration of her marriage. Alexandra recalls her courtship in Zambia as she struggles to come to terms with her life in Wyoming, and the pragmatism of her husband. She hankers for the fatalistic and… Continue reading July Picks →

Clough, Tina (2015) Running towards danger. Vanguard Press. Karen witnesses the murder of her flatmate and within days she becomes a target. To evade the killer she criss-crosses New Zealand, changes her name and appearance, and settles in a small Hawkes Bay community. But, when she becomes the reluctant hero in a river rescue her… Continue reading June Picks →

De Los Santos, Marisa (2015)  The Precious One.  William Morrow.  Seventeen years after being "ditched" by her father Taisy Cleary is summoned to her father's home.  In all this time Taisy has seen Wilson and his new family, wife Caro and their daughter Willow, once. Taisy is forced to deal with the memories and fallout from their… Continue reading May Picks →

Whitehouse, David (2015) Mobile Library. Picador.  Twelve-year-old Bobby Nusku ekes out a brutal existence with his father, as he archives the life of his long-gone mother. When he befriends Rosa and her mother Val, he finds solace. They escape town in a redundant mobile library and begin an adventure equal to the books that surround them.  This dark and original tragicomic road trip is a touching… Continue reading April Picks →

Wilder, Laura Ingalls (2014) Pioneer Girl: The annotated autobiography, edited by Pamela Smith Hill. South Dakota Historical Society Press. Laura Ingalls Wilder's never before published autobiography reveals true stories behind her pioneering life.  Pioneer Girl served as the historical foundation for Wilder's fictional world. Out of the period, places and people in the manuscript sprang the characters and settings… Continue reading March Picks →

Norton, Graham (2014) The life and loves of a He Devil. Hodder & Stoughton. Graham Norton's memoir is inspired by love, premised by "it is really the things you love that inspire and drive you". Although his approach is largely eclectic he shares his love of his career, dogs, the divas he has met, booze and boys, and his homeland… Continue reading February Picks →