Recommendations from our customers

Last week saw us announce a change to our regular ‘What We’re Reading’ column. In short, we’re currently asking for recommendations from our customers as well as staff.

We got so many wonderful responses this past week.

Michael Wildenauer is getting stuck into Capital and Ideology, which he predicts will keep him going for a while. (We concur!) A radio interview inspired Sue White to pick up Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels, which she says has helped her to “realise the importance of strength, gratitude and kindness in all our lives – no matter what it throws at us”. Book blogger Sam Still Reading is reading intriguing-sounding The Rearranged Life of Oona Lockhart, which follows a woman who wakes up every year in a different, non-chronological part of her life. She commented: “The mixed-up life is strangely relevant right now…”

Elizabeth Creed sent us a missive all the way from the Northern Territory saying she was rereading Geraldine Brooks’s Year of Wonders. She writes: “Who would have thought that a novel about the plague in England in 1666 and the story of a small village which quarantined itself would be so enthralling… or so relevant to the current times?”

Several customers mentioned books that allowed them to escape the world a while, including Kiley Reid’s Such a Fun Age and Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror and the Light. And we loved hearing that Tim Coronel’s is reading Moonraker in anticipation of his next month’s James Bond Book Club.

You can find even more reading recommendations from our customers by browsing this collection.

Each week, we will do a call-out to customers on our Twitter and Facebook asking for recommendations. You can respond to us there, or you can also email us directly at [email protected].

Amanda Rayner is the Returns Officer at our Carlton shop. She recommends you seek out debut Australian debut fiction.

In a time of great uncertainty and caution, there is one group within the publishing and bookselling world that is vital not to forget: debut Australian authors. And I hope that readers will support new and emerging Australian authors over the coming months. After all, it was not that long ago that Dervla McTiernan, Jane Harper and Trent Dalton all had their own Australian fiction debuts. McTiernan and Harper have already each produced several excellent follow-up titles, while we are eagerly awaiting Dalton’s second novel later this year. Among this year’s drop of upcoming debut authors just may be the next big thing, and for that to be overlooked because of bad timing would be a tragedy.

One such upcoming debut author is Hilde Hinton whose impressive novel The Loudness of Unsaid Things I have recently read and enjoyed. You can read my full review here.

Caitlin Cassidy is a bookseller at our Hawthorn shop. She recommends Elena Ferrante, Fleetwood Mac and singing loudly.

I’ve been in social isolation for a while now because of my mum’s health issues (I’m her carer) and I have finally been getting into Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels. It is very strange reading about a little Italian town in the 1950s while Italy is in the state that it is right now, but in a way its oddly comforting, too. So beautifully written and a lovely snapshot of youth, growing up and the intensity of teenage friendships. I’m dreaming of days when we can linger in groups again, dance together, drink wine and embrace like those in the story. I’m also listening to a lot of Fleetwood Mac and singing loudly to distract myself from impending doom!