Things I've read lately.

The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
Our last book club read for the year was The Luminaries, the 2013 winner of the Man Booker Prize written by New Zealand's Eleanor Catton. It's a richly-worded epic mystery set in the damp goldfields of Hokitika. The story weaves its way around the dozen or so characters, narrated by the reliable voice of Walter Moody, a young solicitor who has travelled to NZ from England to make his fortune.

I found it an enjoyable but dense read. The characters are so well fleshed out and the story so intricately revealed that I couldn't help marvel at Catton's immense skill. Then I'd have to remember who was who, where the plot was up to and what had just taken place. I actually haven't finished it yet! The story is compelling but I think you need to spend bigger blocks of time reading to make progress. I lugged it around on holidays and was able to chew through hundreds of pages at a time (it's LONG!) but since then I haven't had chunks of time. I'm so close to the end I'll just have to keep going. In the meantime, I was distracted by...

**

Maestro by Peter Goldsworthy
I thought of Maestro on my first trip to Darwin in August last year. This had been one of the texts we studied in our year 12 English class so it was a quick but enveloping re-read (on a flight from Alice Springs to Melbourne). Knowing a little bit more about Darwin meant the sense of place - which had come rushing back in such a strong way that I wrote about it in this post - had more of a context. It also made me want to practise piano.

**

Barracuda by Christos Tsiolkas
This is our next book for discussion at book club, and it was as engaging as I expected from Christos Tsiolkas. The dialogue is often raw and rough and the characters are flawed and not necessarily likeable which, I find, is something Tsiolkas can do well and still create characters that the reader can sympathise or resonate with. It would be interesting to read this around the lead up to a summer Olympic games - perhaps you'd see the young, cocky and often privileged male swimmers with a different lens. It's a story of class, gender, sexuality, violence, broken-ness, family politics - and a dream that is within sight but out of reach.

**

From Alice with Love by Jo Dutton
I was keen to read this book as it is set in Alice Springs and Central Australia. It's always interesting to read literature (fiction and non-fiction alike) set in the place you live and I've found this to be particularly so about living in Alice. Since I've lived here, I've read Songlines by Bruce Chatwin, A Town Like Alice by Neville Shute, Cleave (also sometimes titled Alice Springs) by Nikki Gemmell (coincidentally set between Alice Springs, where I currently live, and the Illawarra, where I am from - and where Gemmell was born!), Alice Springs by Eleanor Hogan, and A Long Weekend in Alice Springs, a graphic novel by Joshua Santospirito based on the essay by Craig San Roque. I found From Alice with Love to be quite a flat read. It was nice to feel that the places, people and dialogue were familiar - which makes me wonder how readers who haven't lived here would find it. It was, however, quite often grammatically awkward and I found the dialogue to be stilted. It did delve into some of the complexities of living here but overall I thought the story was a little shallow and I had that odd feeling where I thought that the main character didn't really match her name. I am glad I read it, though.

**

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
What an intriguing title! Originally written in French, the translation to English did not - I'm presuming - lose in the process any of the elegance and poignance of the language. The language is a real delight; the word 'nary' appears in the first couple of sentences. The narration is shared in alternating chapters between Renee, the frumpy, middle-aged, widowed concierge of a posh Paris apartment building, and Paloma, the 12-year-old daughter of one of the wealthy, left-leaning families who inhabit the building. Each harbour their own secret; Renee has carefully constructed a veneer of ordinariness that hides a sharp intellect and refined taste in the arts and culture, while Paloma is so discontented with her family and the world she deems as meaningless that she plans to commit suicide by her 13th birthday. An unexpected new tenant in the building is the catalyst for Renee to emerge ever so slightly and Paloma to discover a glimmer of meaning. I believe this has been made into a movie - I wonder if it does it justice?

**

Next on our list is Burial Rites by Hannah Kent, set in Iceland and telling the story of a woman condemned to death for her role in the murder of two men.

Have you read any of these books? What did you think? What are you reading right now?