Tim Winton ~ EYRIE ~ Abbey's Bookseller Reviews

LINDY JONES...
I have been reading Tim Winton since he won the Vogel back in 1981, and I am a great admirer of his writing. In his new book, his powers of description are very apparent - the only other person who comes close to his descriptions of the western coasts for me is the poet John Kinsella. I dare say anyone familiar with Fremantle will see the area faithfully depicted in all its hybrid vigour.

The main character, Tom Keely, is holed up in a faded apartment block with million dollar views; he has no plans for the future, a pretty disturbing present, and a past which is only sketchily understood by the reader. When a new resident turns out to be a girl from his old neighbourhood, with custody over her detached and fey grandson, Keely finds himself reluctantly connecting with them.

I took a while to get into the story, and I came away unsatisfied with the narrative. Winton spins a believable world populated with people on the edge, but unlike every other vaguely annoying book of his where the story just ends without resolution, I found myself annoyed that I had followed the characters through to yet another non-conclusion, and not understood what had happened. I also wondered if Winton's involvement in conservation causes had shaken him so much that he had to unload some of the negativity into this novel? This is not to say it isn't full of fine writing, but as a librarian friend of mine says, "Winton can sure write, but he can't end a story for peanuts!". This time, I have to agree with her!

GREG WALDRON...

Tom Keely is a broken man. Failed marriage and career, he is searching for redemption. When a woman from his past resurfaces with her enigmatic grandson, Keely finds both his past and present colliding with explosive consequences. Winton’s new book has divided opinion in the shop, but from my perspective I found this an incredibly disturbing and powerful read. The author demands the reader's participation, hence there are definitely loose ends in the story. For me this adds to the book's power and I found myself unable to put it down. Highly recommended.

EVE ABBEY...

Written in a very staccato way - quite disturbing. Well done, but not for me.

MEG SHOOTER...

Tim Winton has been one my favourite authors for many years.  I love his ability to intricately capture humanity on all levels, and images and environments that conjure such rich memories and familiarities that you just KNOW even if it is simply off his prose and not experience. Winton has certainly used that skill in every way in Eyrie. You can nearly feel the heat oozing out of the page, you can nearly taste the acrid wine and you can darn well empathise with every single character you meet.

Tom Keely has been unemployed for a while, his money is running out and his once important and beloved career will never be brought back to life. With troubles and headaches lunging at him from every corner, all he needs is for a forgotten piece of his past to come crashing through his door. And of course it does, in a most unlikely and seemingly rewarding way. I simply tore through this book, I drank in every page and the prose restored my lately failing faith in fiction. 

Eyrie is one of my books of the year and I highly recommend it for Winton fans, for lovers of literature and if you haven't yet had the pleasure of being introduced to Winton's eloquent and exact language - start with this one. Please! It is truly a morsel that you will devour and savour all at once.

EYRIE
TIM WINTON

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Children & YA New Releases in September ~ Lindy's Bookseller Picks

ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICKS ----- September's Children's & YA releases


Every Breath by Ellie Marney
Rachel Watts is living in a tiny house in a Melbourne suburb, her parents and older brother working all the hours they can to keep a roof above their heads. None of them want to be there, but the banks foreclosed on the family property and they are reduced to near penury.

Rachel resents the loss of her wide-open country life, but there is one consolation - her friendship with charismatic neighbour and near-genius James Mycroft. He attends the same school (when he hasn't been suspended - a regular occurrence) and there are hints about a troubling past. His abiding passion is forensic science, and he runs a website dedicated to criminal forensics. When they find a friend of theirs, a homeless man, dead near Melbourne Zoo, they begin their own investigation. A page-turner for older teen readers!

That is Not a Good Idea by Mo Willems
A fox and a goose meet and there is instant attraction. Dinner! thinks one of them. Fox asks goose to go for a stroll, and she accepts. That is NOT a good idea! says a little gosling. They stroll into the dark woods (NOT a good idea!) and visit his kitchen (really NOT a good idea) where dinner is eventually served… A very simple picture book with Willems' trademark cartoon-graphic illustrations, text presented like a silent movie to move the story along, and repetition which invites young readers' participation. Ages 4-6.

The Dance Teacher by Simon Milne
Isabelle wants to be a ballerina. Her teacher, Miss Sylvie, tells her dancing is hard work and practice is necessary, and asks whether she can work hard. So starts Isabelle's love affair with ballet. Her best friends start classes with her, until life gets in the way for the others, but Isabelle persists, until she realises her ambitions to be a ballerina. But one day she realises she wants something else… A sweet and charming picture book about the thrill of dance, and of working hard to achieve your dreams, and then the satisfaction of giving back. Expressive illustrations by Chantal Stewart.

The Vanishing Moment by Margaret Wild
The respected and award-winning picture book author has produced a fascinating and intriguing novel for older readers. Three people's lives are followed, in fragments. Bob has an awful stepfather who makes his life hell. The only bright spot is his little half-sister, who he loves with all his heart. Arrow is adrift, and has never felt comfortable since early adolescence, when a terrible tragedy split her life into 'before' and 'after'.

Marika can't stop weeping after her little brother is kidnapped in a public place when she was was in charge. Arrow and Marika's lives intersect in a small coastal town which has significance for both of them - and for the magician, Bob, who tells them both of his theory about multiple universes. And even though their present lives aren't what they want, what would Marika and Arrow lose if they could change their pasts? A very satisfying read!

Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling illustrated by Robert Ingpen
This is one in Ingpen's beautifully illustrated classics for children - but as with all the others he has done (eg Wind in the Willows, Secret Garden, Treasure Island, Alice in Wonderland) their appeal is widespread and certainly not limited! The text is unabridged and brings to the reader all Kipling's charming and colourful tales of how certain animals got their characteristic features. They are delightful and entertaining, and still worth sharing with younger readers. The gorgeous illustrations add to the experience, Ingpen's warm and soft colours in realistic shades of golden greys and browns enlivened with greens and blues are so beautifully expressive! For readers and book collectors, young and old.


~ Lindy Jones (ABA Text Publishing Bookseller of the Year 2011)

View more September New Releases for Children

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The Sky So Heavy by Claire Zorn ~ Abbey's Bookseller Pick

ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- Fin is your typical teenage boy, growing up in the lower Blue Mountains, getting through school, mucking around with his friends, trying to impress the girl of his dreams. But one day nuclear bombs are detonated in the northern hemisphere, and not only are whole countries obliterated, but the climate changes literally overnight. A bitterly cold winter has set in. With his mother in Sydney, his father gone off to appease his second wife the night before the bombs and not returned, and a younger brother to look after, Fin suddenly has to grow up. Supplies run out, water is contaminated, and society reverts to each for themselves.

A cracking, page-turning novel for readers 13 and up, in the style of John Marsden’s Tomorrow series.

~ Lindy Jones (ABA Text Publishing Bookseller of the Year 2011)


The Sky So Heavy
Claire Zorn

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The Feast of Artemis by Anne Zouroudi ~ Abbey's Bookseller Pick

ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- I love this series! The Mysteries of the Greek Detective are a sparkling and entertaining lot of stories, all set in a modern-day Greece (but not contemporary – references to drachmas not euros, for instance). You don’t need to read them in any order, as they are self-contained with no reference to previous books.

Hermes Diaktoros works for the Higher Authorities rather than police, and is more interested in justice than law. This book is set in a small town at the time of its saint’s day celebrations, and Hermes, on his way elsewhere, finds himself detouring. He also discovers his half-brother Dino, an ageing hippy in appearance with a fondness for wine, women and story-telling (not to mention an inability to settle his debts!).

The two main families of the town are at loggerheads – one keeps traditional methods, the other is trying to embrace technology. When the young grandson of one family is burnt in a prank gone wrong and the patriarch of the other dies before his time, Hermes finds his special powers of observation and assistance are needed. Lots of descriptions of Greek food decorate the pages as an added incentive to read! Great fun!

~ Lindy Jones (ABA Text Publishing Bookseller of the Year 2011)


The Feast of Artemis
Anne Zouroudi

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The Swan Book by Alexis Wright ~ Abbey's Bookseller Pick

ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- How to describe this amazing, complicated and intellectually demanding novel? It is full of inventive wordplay, chorus-like mutterings from the wings of the main theatre, splintered and fragmentary narratives.

It is angry, and playful, and colourful. It is about discrimination – against and within refugees, indigenes, country-dwellers. The main character, Oblivia, does not speak, but the ghosts of (some of) her past do. The woman who saves her from the abuses of her childhood is a great storyteller, full of tales of swans from a different hemisphere.

Climate change has intensified the problems of society, but the land remains essential to a sense of identity. Politics is as useless to the ordinary person as it ever was, but hero-worship remains important to national pride. Cultural misappropriation is rife, but it isn't always the fault of the non-indigenous.

All these elements make for a coruscating story, a 'modernist' novel that takes some effort to get into, but which is well and truly worth the time.

~ Lindy Jones (ABA Text Publishing Bookseller of the Year 2011)


The Swan Book
Alexis Wright

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Blood & Beauty by Sarah Dunant ~ Abbey's Bookseller Pick

ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- If you enjoyed Hilary Mantel's account of Cromwell in the court of Henry VIII and need something to fill in the time until the third book in the trilogy, then I commend this novel as a fine alternative!

Told in an immediate and vivid style, this will do for the Borgias what Mantel has done for Cromwell: bring historical figures into colourful life. Rodrigo Borgia is a complicated man full of roaring life and passion, not to mention an insatiable appetite for power; a Spaniard in Rome who buys his way to the Papacy, holy in theory, but corrupt in practice. He uses his children as pawns in his ambition to create a dynasty, and lets nothing get in the way of his desires, either political or personal.

I became thoroughly immersed in the time and characters and it was such an enjoyable experience that I had trouble finding something new to read after having lived in renaissance Rome! Having read a bit of history I found the novel managed all those complicated alliances and cross-currents very smoothly and felt very 'true' when dealing with the Borgias themselves. The imagery was lush and almost touchable, but as I am an admirer of Dunant's writing I expect that of her, so I wasn't disappointed.

Like Mantel's interpretation of Cromwell, I find myself very much looking forward to the concluding novel. Even though I know what happens in historical accounts, I want to know how Dunant will tell their story, and having to wait a couple more years to find out seems unfair!

~ Lindy Jones (ABA Text Publishing Bookseller of the Year 2011)


Blood & Beauty
Sarah Dunant

Available at Abbey's (131 York Street Sydney) ~ An Aladdin's cave for readers

MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood ~ Abbey's Bookseller Pick

ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- It's taken a couple of years but the final book in the trilogy is here, that ties up the events of Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood – and it was worth the wait!

It starts from the point where the second book left off, but as with the other books, moves between the present and the past quite smoothly. In this volume, Toby, ex-God's Gardener who has survived the plague released by Crake upon the world, is the main narrator. She finds herself telling to the neo-human Crakers, the stories Zeb has told her. As the survivors of the plague work out the ways to live in the transformed world and also how to combat the evil inadvertently released, Toby and Zeb's stories intertwine.

A lot more complicated to review than to read, Maddaddam is a wonderfully constructed novel, full of surprisingly light touches (Toby's bedtime stories to the child-like Crakers can be very funny), gripping story-lines, imaginative wordplay and a plausible world future that may not be so very far away… Fabulous stuff!

~ Lindy Jones (ABA Text Publishing Bookseller of the Year 2011)


MaddAddam
Margaret Atwood

Available at Abbey's (131 York Street Sydney) ~ An Aladdin's cave for readers

STILLWAYS: A Memoir by Steve Bisley ~ Abbey's Bookseller Pick

ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- The well-known and talented Australian actor can also write – beautifully! This is his memoir of childhood and school days, spent on the central coast. The 1950s and 60s are a foreign country now, but Bisley evokes the innocence and accepted violence of those days without sentiment.

The joys of the local show or Cracker Night, of catching a feed of prawns with his family, of mucking about with good mates, of being a young tearaway pushing the boundaries of allowable behaviour – all these and more are described in clean and unforced prose.

So too the darker moments of living with a father who had an unpredictable, violent and nasty streak, who thrashed his wife and children for perceived infractions.

There is no rancour in the retelling of these painful episodes, just a kind of mute acceptance; but they are more often hinted at than dwelt on. The book ends with Bisley being offered his first job after leaving school. I hope there will be a book of his further adventures, I enjoyed this one so much!

~ Lindy Jones (ABA Text Publishing Bookseller of the Year 2011)


Stillways - A Memoir
Steve Bisley

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The Vale Girl by Nelika McDonald ~ Abbey's Bookseller Review

ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- Sarah Vale is the daughter of a small country town's prostitute. She knows lots of secrets, like which of Banville's men visit her mother regularly, even if they pretend to live upright and righteous lives. She knows how to do without things, like regular meals and friends.

Tommy Johns knows how to do without things too, like his father's presence; in fact all the people he has ever loved disappear. So when Sarah vanishes, he isn't surprised. She is the one friend he has, although his feelings for her are deeper than that, he's too careful to let them show. But when he tries to tell others that Sarah is missing, no-one cares. Even the local copper, Sergeant Henson, can't undermine the indifference to her fate.

Tommy, with his fascination for local botany, is very observant, and he isn't going to give up on Sarah, and he isn't going to let the others, either…

A compulsively readable novel, with a few twists to keep the reader guessing. Very much in the vein of Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey if a comparison is needed, a quietly confident and multi-layered representation of secrets and undercurrents in small town life.

~ Lindy Jones (ABA Text Publishing Bookseller of the Year 2011)


The Vale Girl
Nelika McDonald

Available at Abbey's (131 York Street Sydney) ~ An Aladdin's cave for readers