Our staff share the books they’re planning to read over summer.

“Linn Ullmann’s Unquiet, has come to my attention with the highest of commendations from a number of brilliant women I greatly admire – our head book buyer, Alison Huber, as well as the writers, Deborah Levy, Rachel Cusk, Ali Smith, Lydia Davis, and Claire Messud – so this memoir as novel is my number one pick to help me escape from my world into another one once the activities of Christmas and New Year come to an end. After that, I’ll probably pick up something travel, food, and/or nature based, such as Helen Attlee’s The Land Where Lemons Grow or James Rebanks’ English Pastoral or finally read Gerald Durrell’s The Corfu Trilogy. Or maybe all of them!”

– Joanna Di Mattia

“I actually got my reading mojo back a bit this year, and I’m looking forward to being able to spend some time over the Christmas holidays making a further dent in my TBR pile. I’ve got a copy of this year’s Readings Prize-winner, Smart Ovens for Lonely People, sitting next to the couch for reading while my toddler naps – I’ve struggled with short stories in the past, but it turns out they’re perfect for times when you know you’re on a time limit. The Dressmaker’s Secret and Magic Lessons will be going away with me – I loved the previous books in both series’ (The Dressmaker and Practical Magic) so I’m pretty confident these won’t be wasted space in my suitcase. I’m also looking forward to sinking my teeth into A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes. Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls was one of my favourite books last year, and this Women’s Prize-shortlisted book which tells the Trojan War from the female perspective seems like an ideal companion.”

– Lian Hingee

“I love a well-written, meaty literary biography and this year I am very tempted by Heather Clark’s Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath. This mammoth 1000+ pages biography is getting terrific reviews with many critics describing it as a definitive work. So it’s on my wishful TBR pile – though I do have a tendency to make last-minute bookish decisions in the haze of Christmas holidays.”

– Bronte Coates

“There are so many great books that I missed out on this year, and I’m looking forward to catching up. I have had The Lying Life of Adults on my bedside stack for a very long time, so that’s first on the list. I’d also like to read Luster by Raven Leilani. I’ve heard such amazing things about this novel from my fellow booksellers, and it has a cover quote from none other than Zadie Smith. To balance my fiction reading, I also want to read Native American writer Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, a mix of nature writing, personal narrative and Indigenous knowledge. Finally, I’m very keen to read Collisions, the anthology from Liminal magazine’s fiction prize longlist, and a look at some of the most exciting writing in Australia at the moment.”

– Ellen Cregan

“I spent the last two months judging literary prizes for Australian books so I’ll be using the summer to catch up on some books by international authors. Top of the pile is Charles Yu’s pop-culture infused satire Interior Chinatown, which has just arrived in-store after winning the National Book Award for Fiction in the US. I’ll also be diving into two New Zealand fantasy books (what’s in the water there?): Tamsyn Muir’s novel about swordplay, intrigue and queer necromancers in space, Gideon the Ninth, and Elizabeth Knox’s epic The Absolute Book, which my coworker Bronte-of-the-Impeccable-Taste raved about earlier in the year. Another friend recommended I pick up Natasha Trethewey’s memoir about her mother Memorial Drive, likening it to a book I loved (Charmaine Papertalk Green’s Nganajungu Yagu) and telling me it would break my heart. Since I now feel nothing after the hell year of 2020, I welcome this promise of external emotional stimuli.

Finally, narcissism and narcissism alone put Lauren Ho’s Last Tang Standing on my to-read list, and I’m looking forward to reading a funny, fizzy story of friendship, love, family, and, as in any good piece of Chinese-diasporic writing, the existential burden of filial piety.”

– Jackie Tang