Prophet Song – Paul Lynch

Sometimes dystopian fiction cuts a little too close to present reality to simply be a “what if” scenario.  Prophet Song is one of those books. 

I read this at the very start of 2024 and, despite strong showings from other really excellent books on this list, it has remained at the top all year as my Book of the Year.   Over and over as I’ve watched events around the world this past 12 months my mind has turned again and again to the messages of this harrowing yet beautiful read.

As civil war strikes and the national government slowly suffocatingly curtails civil, political and social liberties in modern day Ireland, Eilish whose husband and son have both disappeared during the turmoil needs to make a decision – should she stay or should she go?

Prophet Song is a stark and timely reminder (not that we really need any extra reminders) of how easy it is to slip into authoritarian control and to lose not only your rights but your sense of self. 

On a deeper level Lynch is making a very real point about our mostly indifferent, if not downright hostile, attitude to the world’s refugee crisis. Ireland in this novel is a stand in for wherever people are fleeing tyranny and oppression.

Prophet Song also tells a truly human story.  You will find yourself frustrated at the actions of the main protagonists, willing them to do something different to what they are doing – to simply do something to escape.  As you read you imagine yourself doing something different to Ellish.  But would you? That’s the question at the heart of this disturbing and propulsive novel, not is this capable of happening, but what would you do if it actually did.  Without giving too much of the plot away despite the reader’s  frustrations, all of Ellish’s reactions are easily explicable and all too human.

Edenglassie – Melissa Lucashenko

The brilliant Melissa Lucashenko once more examines Australia’s fraught history in this perceptive, deserved winner of many awards.  The rejection of The Voice Referendum last year was a tragedy for acceptance and for Australians understanding of their own past.  Ridiculous, forlorn hope I know, but if more people were exposed to the sensitive and thorough way Lucashenko has handled our past and present in her novels we’d all be in a better place. 

Set in an area of modern Brisbane (known by its original inhabitants as Edenglassie), the novel takes place over two time zones; the mid 1800s amidst the brutal clash between white settlers and Australia’s first peoples; and the present day amidst celebrations for Brisbane’s white founding.  In the first narrative, young man Mulanyin grapples with both coming of age as a man and the dislocation and trauma of moving from his own country to new lands.  The second focuses on Brisbane’s oldest Aboriginal resident Eddie Blanket and her activist niece.  Eddie is recovering in hospital from a fall and is soon to be the star of Brisbane’s commemorative ceremonies as she recounts tales from her past, much to the disgust of her niece.

As Granny Eddie spins her tales, the past and future become intertwined in both an incredibly serious grappling with colonial history and a very funny tale of modern day opportunists.  

Melissa Lucashenko is one of Australia’s best contemporary authors, do yourself a favour and read her books. 

The Forever War: America’s Unending Conflict With Itself – Nick Bryant

There have been many books and articles written in recent years about the fact that Trumpism is the logical next step in the steady race of the Republican Party to the very bottom of the political gutter (I should know I’ve written articles on that very fact myself).  But in this brilliant assessment of American history Nick Bryant takes this notion a step further, making the point that the current state of the U.S. political system is not a bug but a natural feature. And that Trumpism might not be just the logical extension of Republicanism but of the history of the United States itself.

It’s an argument that has rarely been made before and certainly not as straight forwardly (or in my opinion as engagingly).  With a detailed love of the history of the U.S. and a contemporary eye as a journalist formerly based there, Bryant steadily builds the case that the current state of America was all but inevitable.

One of the great constants of America, and one of the things that has traditionally propelled American dynamism, is the constant struggle over the correct interpretation of American history and what it all means.  A fight between the view of the nation as a shining city on the hill and the brutal realities of a colonial history founded on the enslavement of fellow human beings.  It most often ends with a view from both sides of the debate that America may not have lived up to its’ Promise but it definitely will one day. 

Perhaps it takes a foreigner to cast a more objective eye over the truth. I reckon Bryant doesn’t believe America will ever get there or in fact if “the promise of America” is nothing but a bedtime fable.  Here Bryant lays out the evidence in what may be called the United States of America v Nick Bryant.  An authoritarian tendency – let us count the ways Trump’s predecessors asserted unchecked authority.  A thirst for insurrection – hello George Washington and friends.  Lack of democracy – the framers literally designed the constitution to defend against the “tyranny of the majority”.   In meticulously argued detail, with example after example, Bryant points out that the worst impulses of the American system come to the fore not as an anomaly but as a continuation.

Bryant starts his book by reminding everyone of the words of Lincoln’s Gettysburg address namely the ultimate question “can this country long endure?”.  In the second coming of Trump the question is even more urgent “can it?”

Hands down one of the best and most perceptive books on US politics in the last decade.  Well worth a read. 

The Paris Bookseller – Kerri Maher

If ever you were in need of something to evoke the literary greatness of Paris in the 1920s then this book is for you.  Peopled with the greats of modernist literature from Ernest Hemingway, to F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein and all their foibles, this lovely little book should be an instant classic of its genre.

It’s the story of one of the greatest and most famous (note the order I wrote those two words) bookshops in the world – the Left Bank’s Shakespeare and Co. But more than that, Maher’s novel is a story of tenacity and a tribute to a formidable, truly remarkable woman – Sylivia Beach.  Not only did Beach create a place still loved 100 years on (although now in a second iteration) she was almost single-handedly responsible for bringing to fruition Joyce’s Ulysses.

If you worship books (even if you don’t actually like the works of the central characters in Maher’s novel) and if you worship bookshops even more, you should worship this gorgeous paean to the literary life.

The Water Dancer – Ta-Nehsi Coates

Ta-Nehsi Coates is one of America’s most important public thinkers and writers of the last 20 years.  In his first novel, he has turned his considerable skills towards creating a work of fiction that may do more to illuminate the ongoing impact of slavery on Americans of all colours and creeds than any amount of beautifully crafted but earnest essays ever could. 

I liked the review of The Water Dancer that called it a black superhero origin story.  That’s a great description because it contains a truth of the genius of what Coates has done with this novel.   By using the construct of magical realism he makes the terror of slavery all too real for the modern reader.

The story centres around a slave on a southern plantation who is the son of his white owner. Hiram was separated from his mother soon after his birth and the story centres on his longing for her and his quest to find her. During the quest it turns out that Hiram has two “superpowers”. One, he has a perfect memory and two, he has the ability to transport himself over vast distances using only the power of his thoughts.  A power that slowly grows throughout the novel, and as Hiram realises this power, he also understands that he can help free his fellow slaves – joining with organisations that operate ding exactly that (the famed underground railroad). 

In many ways Coates has written a thriller, one I could not put down. But that aspect never cheapens the clear moral message at the book’s core.  Nor does the true nature of slavery’s violence and inhumanity, whilst clearly rendered, overshadow what is ultimately an uplifting story of hope, tenacity and love.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow – Gabrielle Zevin

It’s a story of video gamers and the games they create.  Of which I’m not one nor have ever been – reflexes too slow.   So why the hell would I recommend a book about video games?  Because video games are actually tangential to what makes this novel tick.  Friendship.  Zevin has created an immersive story of the trials and tribulations of deep platonic friendship.  Its ups and downs, its crack ups and repairs, its competitive tensions and collaborative bondings.  All of us have had friendships like these throughout our lives even if the actual circumstances of the Zevin’s main characters Sam, Sadie and Marx are a million miles from our own.

The novel tells the intertwined story of these three game creators as they start low, ascend high and fall to somewhere in between in their quest to create the perfect video game.

Despite scenes of passion, lust and love it’s not a love story it’s better, it’s a friendship story.  Lovers are “common,” says Sadie , while “true collaborators in this life are rare.”

Uncommon People:  The Rise and Fall of the Rock Stars – David Hepworth

The legendary E Street Band guitarist Stevie Van Zandt when asked a year or so ago whether rock and roll is dead pretty much answered in the affirmative.  If one looks at what is popular these days, you’d certainly have to conclude that rock and roll’s moment is, if not dead, then certainly pining for the fjords.  As a bloke who unashamedly loves drums and guitars this makes me sad. 

But then again, let the kids be kids I guess, let them listen to their stuff, and find a golden oldies station with 4/4 time and rock out to your heart’s content.  Or for something more sedate pick up a copy of Hepworth’s book and wallow in the nostalgia of your youth. 

In Uncommon People, Hepworth zeroes in on defining moments and turning points in the lives of forty rock stars from 1955 to 1995, from Little Richard to Kurt Cobain.  It’s not quite sex and drugs and rock and roll all the way, but there is a fair bit of that, and also something more.  Hepworth tells the story of society and the influence rock had on society as much as he tells the story of individual rock stars.  Uncommon People is an entertaining social history of the latter half of the 20^th century. 

Dr No – Percival Everett

From the very first pages, as Wala Kitu a Maths Professor whose speciality is the study of Nothing gets sucked into a parody of a James Bond story, with a villain who literally models himself on the greatest Bond villains, you know you are locked into a subversive satire of the highest order.

Our titular Bond villain, the billionaire John Sill (and let’s face aren’t all billionaires villains) wants to use Kitu’s store of nothing to wipe out the United States. From there the novel unspools an absurdist funhouse utilising every spy novel trope one can imagine (there is even a shark infested pool – the height of villainess). 

Percival Everett is certainly having a moment, with a number of his recent novels shortlisted for the Booker Prize and his 2001 novel Erasure turned into the excellent movie “American Fiction”.  It is a well-deserved moment. 

Lessons in Chemistry – Bonnie Garmus

Elizabeth Zott is a brilliant chemist but this is the 1950s and rampant sexism and exclusion of women from positions of power is in full swing.  Her only career path becomes teaching women how to cook on TV.  And just like the wonderfully subversive Julia Child, (whom Elizabeth Zott is clearly in some ways a homage to) Elizabeth uses the medium to speak directly to millions of housewives about their own capacity for change.

Bonnie Garmus has admitted she wrote this novel as a response to the way too common habit of blokes taking credit for women’s work in meetings. I guess you could call it a revenge comedy.  And about bloody time.  In a sense Elizabeth Zott is a reminder of how far we’ve come, but also how far we still have to go.

I found that while there’s a serious point to be made here – especially about the real-life women who suffered a fate not much different from Elizabeth’s having their brilliance born into a world that refused to accept it – the book was seriously, seriously, funny.  

And as a complete aside, how can you not love Elizabeth’s dog called 6.30.  What a character.  As someone who works from home with a dog as his only companion most days, I certainly wish my pooch could understand 981 words rather than just Charlie and NO.

I loved, loved, loved every part of this fun book.

A Dictator Calls – Ismail Kadare

‘A Dictator Calls’ is inspired by the three minutes in June 1934 when Joseph Stalin allegedly telephoned the famous writer Boris Pasternak to complain about a contemporary of Pasternak’s.  What happened next is subject to much speculation and forms the basis of this compelling and transgressive novella by Ismail Kadare.

Did Pasternak condemn his colleague to the Gulag or not? Kadare looks at the phone call from many different angles including eyewitness accounts and media reports.  The book is fiction, or is it? I’m still not sure.  Short, sharp, brilliant, Kadare provides a masterful and informative critique of the intersection of art and politics under dictatorship. 

Sassafras: A memoir of love, loss and MDMA therapy  – Rebecca Huntley

Because Rebecca Huntley’s book is a confessional of sorts, I’ll make my own confession up-front. I don’t really go in for memoir, particularly the sort of memoir written by normal folks.  I find it the least interesting genre. Look maybe I’m a horrible person that’s just not that interested in the lives of random strangers I will never know.  And despite buying literally every political memoir going, most often that’s for completionist purposes, as too often they are just self-serving drivel lacking real insight (which is why when I praise a political autobiography in these lists you know they are worth reading).

So, when my friend Rebecca Huntley wrote a memoir about her journey of understanding the inter-generational trauma that has plagued her life, I was torn. I had to read it, I wanted to read it, but there was that old genre bias to overcome.  In further confessions I’m genuinely glad I did.

The book has something very powerful and important to say about trauma, how we deal with it, how it affects our relationships with others and, on a macro policy level how we treat people suffering from trauma.  Because the great driver at the heart of Rebecca’s book is the use of MDMA therapy to help her unlock understanding of the demons affecting her.  At the time this therapy was illegal in Australia (now since allowed for use), and while Rebecca admits it transformed her life, under it must be said extremely controlled conditions, the book does force us to pose the question of the correct way forward for this groundbreaking therapy.

This incredibly well-written book tells a moving, at times confronting, at times heartbreaking story that is well worth investing in.

Lord of the Flies – William Golding

A few weeks ago my daughter went on a 20 day camping trip with her school.  The kids all had the idea to take a book each and swap with each other once they’d finished. One suggestion was to take Lord of the Flies.  I must say I felt compelled to suggest it should not be seen as a “How To” manual.   

 Having a kid at high school exposes one to modern youth and it seems to me that one can confidently declare that even though Golding was writing 70 years ago teenage boys haven’t improved any.  

Prompted by that notion I thought I’d revisit it after all these decades. Astonishingly it holds up very well as a dark satire on the thin line between decency and savagery and how all hell can break loose once norms and rules are shattered (well hello there President Trump!).   Golding is the master of suspense and an ability to create an ever growing sense of unease.  Absolutely well worth revisiting your own school years and re-reading.

Big Caesars and Little Caesars: How they rise and how they fall – from Julius Caesar to Boris Johnson – Ferdinand Mount

It seems that we are definitely back living in the world of the “strong man leader” – a time when men with tiny penises and even tinier brains make up for their defects by attempting to rule over the rest of us.  It would be somewhat amusing if it wasn’t so deeply and deadly serious.

With a dry wit and droll anecdote Ferdinand Mount takes us on a tour-de-force of history by making the point that every democracy, however sophisticated or stable it may look, has been attacked or actually destroyed by a would-be Caesar, from Ancient Greece to the present day.   Mount goes out of his way to reinforce the point that rather than leading towards progress, history tells us that authoritarian tendencies come back time and time again. 

Thus, Mount takes a series of case studies of what he terms both ”big” and “little” Caesars; from  Julius Caesar, Oliver Cromwell, Napoleon Bonaparte, António de Oliveira Salazar, and de Gaulle to Orban, Trump and Boris Johnson; to remind us of how populist leaders attain power and why the populace seems so willing to go along with them.  We like to think we are living in some new historic moment but as this book makes clear we certainly aren’t.

Which may give cause for hope.  Indeed, in trying not to succumb to pessimism Mount also furnishes us with a series of counter measures – sadly these feel quite feeble post November 5, certainly more than they did when I read this book earlier in the year.   

Not only are we living in the time of the “strong man leader” we are definitely living in the time if the book about the strong man leader.  I should know I seem to have read nearly all of them in the past 8 years.  So, take it from me, if you don’t have time to read this voluminous corpus on our current autocratic moment at least read Mount. Sometimes warnings from history don’t need to be all dark and portentous sometimes they can be light and serious too.    You’ll enjoy it and you’ll learn something too. 

Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens – Shankari Chandran

There have been some really first class books capturing the migrant experience in Australia in recent years and this Miles Franklin prize winner deserves to be right at the top.

Set in both modern-day western Sydney and over decades during the Sri Lankan civil war, Chandran’s novel is a multi-layered and multi-charactered mirror to modern Australia.  The Cinnamon Gardens of the title is a nursing home in Western Sydney established by Maya and Zakhir two Sri Lankan migrants who fled the civil war and set up the home as a haven for folks from all backgrounds.  The novel’s action jumps back and forward between incidents highlighting why they fled Sri Lanka and the struggles their daughter Anjali has in managing the home in the present day amidst a racial furore.

From a novel whose cover and blurb present like this may be a sweet little read, Chandran actually creates a searing look at the impact of multi-generational trauma with deeply realised characters dealing with a multitude of other problems that life throws their way . What underlies this darkness however are layers of genuine warmth and affection.  It’s that all roundedness that makes this novel so special.  Chandran writes in away designed to make you feel uncomfortable even as you are enjoying yourself – it is a tricky feat that she pulls off well. 

Finally, as a proud product of the west, I’m also heartwarmed to see that books about Western Sydney and all its complexities are getting the treatment they deserve too.    Let’s have more of it. 

 Tender is the Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby remains the north star by which I measure all other books.  That’s why its weirdly taken me so long to delve into the rest of Fitzgerald’s corpus.  What other book could possibly come close to Gatsby, even ones by the same author?

And while Tender is the Night is no Gatsby it does touch on the timeless themes of Fitzgerald – the impossibility of perfect love.  It is the most autobiographical of Fitzgerald’s works dealing as it does with a marriage in freefall – at times dissolute, at times soppily loving, at times vengeful Fitzgerald’s relationship with his own wife Zelda is clearly at play here.   

But like Gatsby, TN highlights Fitzgerald’s ability to turn a phrase, and embrace a unique descriptive storytelling style.  His ability to both capture and skewer character knows no peer and is on full display here.

Set in the South of France in the decade after World War I, Tender Is the Night is the story of a brilliant and magnetic psychiatrist named Dick Diver; the bewitching, wealthy, and dangerously unstable mental patient, Nicole, who becomes his wife; and the beautiful, harrowing ten-year pas de deux they act out along the border between sanity and madness.  In this telling we have it all – young love, disillusioned lust, alcoholism, and mental instability. 

As exasperating as it is brilliant, you will find yourself equally charmed and frustrated by Fitzgerald’s none too subtle assessment of his own life. 

Empire of the Vampire – Jay Kristoff

Every year at least one fantasy novel is worthy of inclusion in the Galey list and Jay Kristoff’s Empire of the Vampire and its sequel Empire of the Damned are both worthy of inclusion this year.  While literal doorstoppers clicking in at over 800 pages each the storyline is such rollicking fun that I’d be surprised if it took anyone more than a holiday week to read each of them.  

Ever since darkness fell across the earth 27 years prior to the events of the book various Vampire tribes have been waging a war on humanity.  Standing against them are a collection of half human, half monsters led by the greatest fighter of them all Gabriel de Leon.  Battles,

At times fantasy novels can be superficial however this duology is anything but.  It’s a tale of faith and disillusion, humanity and inhumanity, friendship and hatred, love and loss.  Dealing with some pretty serious concepts whilst at the same time engaging in a fantastically creative act of world-building.

It is filled with blood, gore, sex and so much swearing I thought I’d stumbled back into a political office.   Kristoff’s anti-hero is as addicted to saying fuck as he is to lopping off the heads of vampires.  But that’s what made these books such a great read.  There’s no sugar coating that Vampires are evil fuckers and that it takes someone to end them who is as equally ruthless and with virtually no redeeming features.  These books are what you might call a ripper of a read.

Winning Fixes Everything: How Baseball’s Brightest Minds Created Sports’ Biggest Mess – Evan Drellich

When the McKinseyification of baseball took place, when McKinsey graduates took over the running of MLB’s Houston Astros it was clear that no good would ensue.  Sure enough, when the cost cutting, win at all costs, treat people like pawns rather than humans, ethos took hold, exactly what you’d expect to happen happened. This is a forensic scalding of the cancerous culture that infected the Houston Astros and led to the cheating scandal that rocked baseball. Long may the Houston Trash Cans burn in baseball hell.

The Song of Kieu – Nguyn Du

The Song of Kieu is a luminous narrative poem that for over 200 years has stood as one of the defining central myths of Vietnam.  This epic narrative tells the story of the beautiful Vuong Thuy Kieu, who agrees to a financially profitable marriage in order to save her family from ruinous debts, but is tricked into working in a brothel. Her tragic life involves jealous wives, slavery, war, poverty, and time as a nun.  Rewritten from a traditional Chinese fable and turned into a parable of the history of Vietnamese unification the sheer lyrical beauty of the work blew me away.  Nguyn Du is considered one of the greatest Vietnamese writers for a reason.    

A Rumor of War – Philip Caputo

In many ways A Rumor of War is the OG Vietnam Memoir.  Released in 1977 when the so-called failure of the US’s war in Vietnam were still fresh scars on the American psyche. Of course, the US’s efforts weren’t a failure for the Vietnamese people – just a tragedy.

It hit like a bomb revealing home truths about the war that not even the daily media coverage and endless death tolls which had done so much to turn average Americans against the war revealed.  Or in the author’s own words he was writing  of ‘the things men do in war and the things war does to men’.

In 1965 at the age of 20 Caputo joined the Marine Corps as an idealist young officer so he could fight in Vietnam – not least inspired by JFK’s inaugural. “Ask not what your country can do …”, and all that. Sixteen months later he was sent home having been charged for murder (of which he was acquitted).  As he himself tries to reckon with, he’d been told to kill and now he was being charged for exactly that.   (For the record Caputo does not absolve himself for the events that lead to the shooting of two villagers who may or may not have been Vietcong, but he does question the culture of cover-up that so permeated the US military approach).

This is a soldier’s perspective of war -raw, honest and deadly.  As Caputo relates anecdotes of his time in the service he examines his own conscience, his actions and as importantly, the actions of those who view their only job as sending young men to die. 

It thoroughly deserves its status as a great classic of war literature

How to Spot a Fascist – Umberto Eco

The great Umberto Eco wrote this series of essays long before the answer to the question “how do you spot a fascist?” was “simply look on the platform formerly known as Twitter”. 

As Eco points out, they’re out there. It’s up to us to recognise and combat them. A pretty simple message incomparably rendered by one of the giants of the 20^th century.

After Story – Larissa Behrendt

At its heart this is a novel about storytelling – what it means to tell the stories of culture, what it means to tell our own personal stories, and as importantly, how to understand our own personal stories.  It is also a novel about perceptions, about how each of us perceives exactly the same things differently. 

The novel is framed around two First Nations women, Jasmine and her mother Della, taking a literary tour of England. It would be fair to say that the two women don’t exactly get along. Indeed, Della is a late substitute for the journey.  Each of the women have suffered both specific and general trauma and the journey is designed by Jasmine to try and get some closer understanding – only personality as it often does gets in the way.

The story, written in the first person, alternates between Della and Jasmine, thus, giving the reader each protagonist’s view of the tour as each day unfolds, and of the growing understanding dawning on both women.  This helps emphasise another of Behrendt’s themes, the clash of cultures; not just between coloniser and colonised but between two very different experiences of the world – the daughter who moved away from the small country town and the mother who stayed.

Populated with a cast of characters who are exactly what you’d expect from such a literary tour; pompous academics, confused septuagenarians, lesbian couples, enthusiastic and well-meaning tour guides the book examines deep issues in a way that’s never overbearing.

The surprisingly gentle nature of the novel is a great tonic to much of the more “in your face examinations” of these issues that populate bookshop shelves.  

The Enchanters – James Ellroy

James Ellroy is not for everyone.  In fact, I’m never quite sure if he’s for anyone. One always feels somewhat dirty after reading an Ellroy novel.  It’s as if his fixation on the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles reverts back into his style of writing and that style becomes as sleazy as the subject matter -making you the reader an accomplice in the sleaze if not the crime.   

But boy oh boy does he write a great sentence.  Ellroy writes with a sort of smash mouth staccato fever that often has you gasping for air.

And as for the subject matter, its nothing less than the USA itself.  Here’s how Ellroy describes his subject matter “My big thematic journey is twentieth-century American history, and what I think twentieth-century American history is, the story of bad white men, soldiers of fortune, shakedown artists, extortionists, leg-breakers. The lowest-level implementers of public policy. Men who are often toadies of right-wing regimes. Men who are racists. Men who are homophobes. These are my guys. These are the guys that I embrace.”

Ellroy excels at the “somewhat” fictionalised accounts of real life people.  While its fair to say that like all Ellroy novels this one has an incredibly complicated plot (and a whole appendix explaining all the characters) at its heart this is the story of private eye Fred Otash and his investigation firstly into the life and then into the death of Marilyn Monroe. Otash starts out working for Jimmy Hoffa and winds up working for the Kennedys. 

At some point its best just to go with the flow of an Ellroy novel and float down the deep sewers of male behaviour.  Now you’ve been warned about what to expect when you crack the spine – go ahead and do it. 

The Prime Minister – Anthony Trollope

The third instalment of the political trilogy that stands at the heart of Trollope’s longer Palliser series of novels The Prime Minister tells the tale of the rich Plantagenet Palliser becoming the leader of a grand coalition government and his efforts to keep it together in the face of both his enemies and his own intransigence. 

Trollope was such an acute social observer that his satirical examination of the faults, flaws and foibles of 19^th century politicians are as relevant to our understanding of today’s political class.  While not as strong as the first of Trollope’s political novels Fineas Finn, this is a fine example of a certain Victorian type of novel. 

Shakespeare is Hard, But So is Life – Fintan O’Toole

One of my lodestones is to read at least one new literary critique of Shakespeare every year.  Fintan O’Toole’s iconoclastic examination of four of Shakespeare’s tragedies (Macbeth, Hamlet, Othello and King Lear) ranks highly as one of the best critiques I’ve read in years.

O’Toole takes aim at how he believes we’ve been taught to analyse and perform these plays, for centuries.  In particular, he is scathing of the idea of a “fatal flaw” as being essential to our understanding of Shakespearean tragedy.  The author establishes that these greatest of Shakespeare’s characters are as complex, contradictory and multi-layered as any living breathing human and that to reduce them to single character trait does a disservice to the characters, to Shakespeare and ultimately to us as the audience of the plays. 

Although at times I felt like O’Toole was arguing with the 19^th century rather than the more modern assessments of these plays that have appeared in recent years, this was a witty, lively thesis that certainly makes you think.  A great read for any Shakespeare fan.

 The Offing – Benjamin Myers

Benjamin Myers writes poetry as well as novels.  And you can tell with every perfectly placed word and every lyrical paragraph.  There is a poetic beauty to this lovely little book as it tells the story of young Robert Appleyard, fresh out of school in the immediate aftermath of World War 2 and who decides to leave his coal mining town (which is as grim as it sounds) to discover what else life may have in store.  He ends up on the east coast of England doing odd jobs for an older woman named Dulcie who introduces him to what it takes to become an adult.

Young bloke, older woman, now I know what your dirty minds are thinking.  But this is no older woman seduces young man shag fest. You should be ashamed of yourselves.  It is as far from The Graduate as its possible to be. Rather, Dulcie introduces Robert to the delights of both gourmet eating and literary appreciation.  And more importantly (not that I can think of many things more important than eating and reading for pleasure) she teaches Robert the true meaning of kindness and giving.

The forgoing actually does Dulcie a disservice because it makes her seem like a mere cypher.  Far from it, it is the detailed rendering of Dulcie’s character and her heartbreaking back story that gives so much life and vitality to a novel brimming with both.

Many reviewers will mention that the “offing” is “the distant stretch of sea where sky and water merge”, a place of transition, and therefore a perfect metaphor for Robert’s transition from adolescence to adulthood.  Who am I to argue with that description – they’re right. 

This may be the perfect summer read, that is the perfect read about a perfect summer.

Baseball The Movie – Noah Gittell

A friend of mine once characterised sports movies as “men’s weepies”.  No more is this true than in the stirring heroics of the baseball movie.  For some reason baseball lends itself to literature and film more than any other sport (cricket of course is a great literary sport but sadly doesn’t have the same history of film except for the awesome mini-series on Bodyline). 

So Noah Gittell has done a great service for those of us who love both baseball and film (and the two combined).  As a film critic and baseball fan Gitell is uniquely placed to examine how the baseball movie sheds a light on the myths of both baseball and America. Highly recommended escapism. 

Repeat: A Warning from History – Dennis Glover

Dennis Glover juxtaposes the social, political and economic conditions that gave rise to fascism and Nazism in the 1930s with current conditions.  The result is disturbing to say the least. Things are not looking good.  A thoughtful and timely addition to the current wave of books warning of the slippery slope we are slowly sliding down.

1984 – George Orwell

I can’t imagine what prompted me to recently re-read this.  But then, Ignorance is Strength.

However, what the fuck is the NSW Board of Education doing by taking it off the syllabus?  I don’t want to be old man yelling at clouds here but, for fuck’s sake. You want to clean up the syllabus, get rid of some old stuff and bring in some more relevant newer stuff,  by all means do it.  But seriously? You can’t see that this book might be as relevant as ever? 

Interior Chinatown – Charles Yu

Meta doesn’t begin to describe how meta this novel is.

Charles Yu ’s scrutiny of the Asian experience in America has the novel’s protagonist Willis Wu as a literal extra in his own life. Willis and all his friends, relatives and acquaintances seem to be trapped in a Hollywood cop show called black and White set in any Chinatown USA.   Willis aspires to work his way up from generic Asian man in the hopes of one day becoming Kung Fu Guy.  But is that part of the TV show or is that what he wants in real life? And who can tell the difference?

I’m not sure if Charles Yu has invented a neat new literary device but it sure feels like he has.  The novel is written as a script for a police procedural and . All the action strictly adheres to the conventions of such a show. Yet the novel itself so often breaks the fourth wall to the point that the reader wonders if its possible to even tell the difference between the show and Willis’ real life. 

So bitingly sardonic that I needed to examine myself for teeth marks what a great little novel this is.   There’s a recent Disney+ adaption out now that seems to have gotten mixed reviews.  But there’s absolutely no room for mixed reviews with the novel. It’s simply brilliant. 

The Shortest History of Economics – Andrew Leigh

Towards the end of this short history Andrew Leigh, in discussing the concept of economic identity, points out that we often ask people what they do rather than what they buy.  I think I’m now going to reverse that in my personal dealings because I reckon you are much more likely to get interesting answers to the latter question than the former.  Anyway, that’s got nothing to do with the review its just a fun thing I’m going to do from now on.

I’ve got an economics degree and even I think we spend way to much our time assessing society through an economic lens and putting an economic value on every little thing we do rather than more important aspects of life.  And yet if more people understand some basic economics they’d be able to call bullshit more often on policy makers and businessfolk in their many abuses of that social science.  That’s where this short little book could come in handy.  A history of economics could be very boring indeed.  But Leigh has created a lively account that is as much a short history of the world with an economic lens as an economic history.  As such it only touches the surface of things but is a great primer for those wanting to understand the background to our capitalist system and how we got to where we are.  The trick now is to get out of where we are.

Woke Up This Morning: The Definitive Oral History Of The Sopranos – Steve Schirripa and Michael Imperioli

Here’s the list of the best TV shows of all time in my view.

1.The Sopranos, 2. The Wire, 3. The Simpsons, 4. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 5. Hill Street Blues, 6. Seinfeld, 7. The Muppet Show, 8. The West Wing, 9. MASH, 10. Twin Peaks. 

That’s it that’s the list.  

It’s 25 years since The Sopranos came out and there’s not much more to say really.  Two of the stars of the show interview their fellow actors, directors, screenwriters and others involved in the making of the The Sopranos to enliven this fascinating history of the show that changed TV.