What we're reading: Schwab and Zevin
Each week our wonderful staff share the books and music that they've been enjoying.
Lian Hingee is reading The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
A lot of my favourite reading experiences have come about through recommendations from my wonderful and widely-read workmates (pro-tip: work at a bookshop, you'll never run out of books you desperately want to read). When our Emporium bookseller Megan posted on Instagram about how she was jealous of people who got to read The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue for the first time, it was too intriguing a pitch to go past.
In eighteenth-century France, Adeline La Rue escapes an arranged marriage by selling her soul to an old God who promises her life; as much of it as she wants, for as long as she wants it. As is the way with Faustian deals, there's a sting in the tail – in return for immortality, Addie has signed away the ability to be remembered; the moment she is no longer in front of a person they forget her existence. For the next three centuries Addie lives a half-life, rootless, cursed, and desperately lonely. Until one day, she is remembered...
I have enjoyed every moment of this gorgeously-conceived book about love, art, legacies, and what it means to be human. It touches on enough real historial events and people to be fiendishly interesting to someone who enjoys a Wikipedia deep dive, and Addie herself is someone I would love to know. As Megan said before me: I am jealous of those of you who get to experience this vibrant, nuanced, and deeply immersive story for the first time.
Angela Crocombe is reading Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
I have been hearing how great this novel is for a while now, so I was both excited to take it away for the weekend, and also nervous because sometimes when a novel is hyped too much, the reality can be disappointing! But I loved it, and devoured it in just a few days.
Based around two people in who become childhood friends friends in the 1980s through gaming together in a hospital, it follows their relationship over many years and the gaming company they start together. I’ve never been particularly interested in gaming, but that didn’t stop me. But it was the heartfelt fraternal love and frustration between the two main characters that really had me immersed and I couldn’t put it down. It’s just a wonderful, fascinating read and when it ended I felt like I'd had to let go of two of my friends.