We got 1.5 stacks today! The second stack has been in my photos folder for months now so I’m letting it freeee even though there’s a book in there I might still get around to reading.
39 Damage - Josephine Hart [City of Sydney Library]
What a dark, fucked up little book (complimentary). The cover of this edition was so tacky (it was a Netflix adaption tie in) and really didn’t capture just what a murky, sex-sodden, grimy little novel this is. Brilliant characterisation of the protagonist, tragic and offbeat in its plotting. Not pleasant but still somehow enjoyable to read!
40 What I Loved - Siri Hustvedt [City of Sydney Library]
This is a book in two parts. Ostensibly about a friendship between two men - a critic and an artist - in New York’s mid/late 20th century art scene, it takes a hard swerve in the middle (the same way life does) and becomes almost gothic. The ending in particular has a heightened surrealism. A sad book overall, grief struck and mesmeric.
41 Happiness Forever - Adelaide Faith [City of Sydney]
I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. A woman falls in love/obsession with her therapist and then her therapist tells her she’s retiring. She makes a new friend, she walks her disabled dog. I don’t really remember much more than that. People whose taste I respect rated this but it didn’t really do anything for me.
42 The Devil You Know - Dr Gwen Adshead and Eileen Horne [City of Sydney Library]
A rare non fiction book for me, this was a compelling look at the psychology of violent offenders written by a brilliant forensic psychiatrist and psychologist. A good one for airing out stale corners of your mind and forcing you to wrestle with your ideas of good and evil, and reckon with what you believe prison is really for - punishment or reform?
43 Frenchman’s Creek - Daphne Du Maurier [City of Sydney Library]
This is fun but very very silly - the definition of a romp. I was hoping it’d have a similar vibe to another of Du Maurier’s books, Jamaica Inn, which was much more frightening and gothic. Instead this is all pirates, cicadas in the long grass, heaving bosoms etc.
44 Hunchback - Saou Ichikawa [Borrowed from a friend]
Strange and a little sleazy. The character’s perspective is entirely unique, but by the end I was uncertain of what I was reading, whose point of view it was, and what was true and what was imagined. That may have been the point, or perhaps something was lost in translation. Read it in a single sitting, but I don’t think I really liked it.
45 Who Wants to Live Forever - Hannah Thomas Uose [City of Sydney Library]
Read this months ago now and it’s premise still sits with me uneasily. If there was a drug that would let you freeze yourself at your current age, would you? And what would that do to society? What are the ethics of choosing or not choosing to age? What does it do on the micro level of relationships and families and partners and friend groups? I enjoyed it best when it wrestled with the concepts, but wasn’t all that invested in the characters so it was a lopsided book for me. Still worth reading though.
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Deep Cuts I started reading but lost interest after a few chapters. Felt like it was chasing a Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow vibe, but it didn’t grab me. Ran out of time before taking it back to the library and haven’t bothered borrowing it again.
Reservoir Bitches was leant to me by a friend, and I just haven’t gotten around to it! I might still get there but didn’t want to hold this stack up any longer.
What I Loved is one of those books that broke me ... that middle swerve still haunts me! Such a brilliant book.