Last time I raved about e-book readers I still had plenty of doubts about whether I would ever be ready to give up my physical books for a file on a reader. That was about eighteen months ago, and of course a year and a half is a really long time in terms of technology.
A friend of mine recently imported a Sony e-book reader and has pretty much fallen in love with it – he says that now he actually prefers it over “real” books (and he is a “real book” lover) because you don’t need any hands to read it – no more sitting at the breakfast table trying to hold a book open with one hand and spoon your cereal in with the other hand – and because if he spends hours reading, he finds reading off that screen to be the least tiring for his eyes. And of course there are the huge advantages of being able to take numerous books with you without adding kilograms to what you’re carrying.
I’m still not quite at his stage yet, but I did read with interest a prediction that by the end of 2010, there will be 10 million people using e-book readers. That’s a lot. Prices are also coming down quickly and the same article predicts they could be under $100 by that time, which is surely a price where a lot more users will come out of the woodwork. Me included, perhaps. Stay tuned on that. And let me know in the comments if you’ve also had some good experiences with an e-book reader.
by David Sornig; set in Berlin, and written by an Australian writer born of German/Austrian parents, there was plenty to interest me in this novel. But I couldn’t quite believe it. First half – great, second half – so-so. Sorry.
by David Vann – a collection of short stories that’s won a few prizes. Well, they are short stories, but they are all connected, and all about the very personal theme of the suicide of the author’s father. I can already say this will be one of the best books I’ll read all year. Fans of Cormac McCarthy’s 
will enjoy this. Then again, enjoy is not quite the right word. It’s a shocking, awful story at times, but so, so readable and beautifully written.
by great Aussie writer Alex Miller. Excellent. It’s about an artist and how art takes over your life, or can; it resonated with me because my husband, who attended an art school but eventually chose to be an engineer, said one reason he did so was because being an artist wasn’t compatible with being a family man. This book certainly agrees that it’s difficult.
from J. G. Ballard, who died last year – that’s significant because I watched a bad “this decade” round-up on TV over the New Year and saw him listed in the “great people we’ve lost” section, then saw this book at the library the next day and grabbed it because he was fresh in my mind. Millennium People is kind of gritty and scary and at times a bit odd, but really well-written and really worth reading.
by young Czech writer Petra Hulova, part of a series of translated works labelled “Writings from an Unbound Europe” – I’ll have to get more of them – was, somewhat surprisingly, set in Mongolia. I dug a bit deeper online and found out Hulova lived in Mongolia for a year on exchange, so that does now make sense; anyway, it was a great read, not just to learn about Mongolia but to follow a bunch of female characters who each have a strong but contrasting story to tell. Curiously there’s an entire blog 
by Nick Earls. He’s a pretty well-known Aussie author who’s so often compared to Nick Hornby that it even says this in the opening para of 
by Morris Lurie, another Aussie. Two important things about this novel: it’s actually basically autobiographical (and therefore quite tragic; but I’m not going to tell you anything of the storyline); and it’s written in an utterly poetic style. It took me a few pages to get into the swing of it – there are strange sentence structures, lots of fragments, then tumbling long sentences, alliteration, you name it – but once I did, I raced through the book, and recommend it heartily.
by Stella Rimington – yes, her spy novels are now a 
by Alice Hoffman. A little bit fluffier than my usual reads (they reference Jodi Picoult on the cover) but enjoyable just the same. Interesting modern family saga kind of novel, with good changes in point of view (important for what I’m writing at the moment).
by Chinese (now living in the US) writer Yiyun Li. I previously enjoyed her collection of short stories – A Thousand Years of Good Prayers – so I was pretty pleased to find she now has her first novel out. Life under Chinese communism is an endlessly fascinating topic to me, and Yiyun Li grew up in Beijing, leaving just in 1996, so she is obviously writing from experience. The Vagrants is set in 1979 and follows quite a number of characters from one town as the Democratic Wall movement in Beijing impacts on them; it’s beautifully written and cleverly, too, weaving the stories of each character together so well. Highly recommended and I really look forward to her future novels.
by Stella Rimington, yep, the third of her Liz Carlyle series, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop until I’ve read all five … plus whatever she brings out next. Similar to the previous stories, good solid spying with enough interesting factual history and setting to make me enjoy it, and good to learn how to write a real page-turner!
by Kazuo Ishiguro, one of my favourite writers – this is his newest, and it’s a collection of five short stories all based on the theme of music and musicians. Beautiful to read, only problem is I heard an interview and he originally had more stories (seven or nine I think) but cut several – I would have liked to have more, please!
by Olafur Johann Olafsson; I have an odd 
by Markus Zusak. This has been sitting on my bedside table for a while but I was put off it because it was quite thick – only now do I realise what I’ve been missing out on all these months. It’s gorgeously written, it’s a great story, the characters are perfect, the style is unique, the only thing wrong with it is that it ends. I wish I was still reading it. Zusak is Australian (yay!), but the book is doing big stuff in the big wide world as well. Curiously it’s being marketed as Young Adult in the States, but “normal” adult here. Read it however old you are. It’s a story set in southern Germany in the Nazi era, but don’t think that it’s a story like you’ve ever read before. I can’t stop raving about it.
by Richard Yates. I’ve been on the library reserve list for this book for almost a year, after it was recommended on the 
also by Richard Yates (I was on a roll!). Not quite as good as Revolutionary Road, but very readable and a similar style. It follows the character of Emily who faces similar dilemmas of how to be satisfied in life, and doesn’t quite figure it out. I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re feeling down about your own life, though, it probably would make things worse!
by Ravi Howard, a novel based on the true story of the lynching of a teenager in Mobile, Alabama in 1981 (yep, long after you’d think that kind of behaviour was done with). It’s narrated by the brother of a guy who found the body and works in his family funeral home. Quietly written, sad in parts, and a good read.
by John Scott Shepherd. This was just a novel I grabbed at the library on account of liking the title; for the first three chapters I liked it, for the next two or three I hated it, and then it all came together very enjoyably, apart from the very ending – it went a few paragraphs too far and became a bit Hollywood-ish. It’s about a high-flyer who realises he’s trodden on too many people to get where he is and goes around making things right – but it’s better than it sounds and the writing is really snappy. Just stop reading a few paras before the end and it’ll be even better.
by Danny Wallace – another non-fiction travel narrative – and not a bad one. The premise was that Wallace found his childhood address book with twelve names in it, and set out to travel the world to reunite with his long lost friends – a sweet story.
by Leo Tolstoy. It’s been a while since I sunk my teeth into a meaty classic, and I really enjoyed it. I still wonder, of course, if books like that would get published today – I’m sure most editors would send it back for some serious revisions (and reductions).
by Jincy Willett is something I’d been wanting to read for ages. It’s a lot of fun – it’s a kind of murder mystery with all the characters belonging to a writing class, so for a writer like me there’s a bunch of extra interesting stuff to read as they go about their writing, too.
by Leif Davidsen, something I picked from the library catalogue purely on the strength of it having “Bratislava” in the title – I came across it while I was trying to decide on my own novel’s title. Davidsen is a well-known Danish crime writer (I gather) and this spy story which travelled all over eastern Europe was great. What is it about Danes and crime writing – here on TV we see heaps of Danish crime shows and they’re always really good. Hmm.
by Salley Vickers arrived on my desk by way of the library reservation shelf and I wasn’t sure why I’d reserved it – it looked like a bit of a trashy romance novel! It turns out that Vickers was booked for the Perth Writers Festival and that’s why I’d got the book, and while it wasn’t exactly my genre – it was definitely a romance-style book, although not trashy – I enjoyed it. It followed the cruise journey of a woman from the UK to New York over a week or so, but had cleverly done flashbacks to give the broader story.
by Tom Rachman is definitely a recommended read from me. It’s all about an international newspaper based in Rome, and is cleverly told – most chapters are almost independent short stories, each about a different character connected to the modern-day version of the paper (but you still learn the “big picture” story), blended between historical flashbacks about the paper’s development. A little difficult to explain, but trust me, it’s good.
by a bunch of my favourite Australian authors – this book came outt as part of the Books Alive 2009 campaign. Yes, so “this year” is actually last year, but it doesn’t seem to have done me any harm to read them a year late! If you like Aussie literature, or wonder if you do, it’s a great sampler.
by Anna Gavalda. A sweet story, translated from the French original, about a bunch of quite different people who end up living together. Nine tenths of it is good, the last bit is too soppy – and the blurb on the front cover is a giveaway there: “Hunting and Gathering stops at nothing to make the reader feel good”. Well, it *should* stop at something. Eek.
by Nikki Gemmell, one of my all-time favourite writers, and it lives up to my expectations. Her language is so prosaic, yet really spare and restrained, I always wish I could write a little more like her. Highly recommended.
by Alice Sebold; I read this not because of the movie version coming out, but because I found I’d bought a copy from the library discard sale last year! Anyway it was a great read, something a bit different which is always refreshing, and I’d even be interested in seeing the movie.
by Nick Hornby, one of my favourite writers in the sense that I always know I’ll enjoy whatever I read of his. Juliet, Naked is again about music and musicians, obviously one of Hornby’s favourite themes, and it was a real pleasure.
by Alex Miller (second Miller book for this year, although it’s one of his earlier ones). Set back almost a century and switches between France and Tunisia – a bonus for me as Tunisia’s one of my favourite places and Miller describes several places I’ve visited. But that aside, it’s an excellent novel, following the story of a young Australian woman who marries and moves to Paris and can’t quite get used to being a wife. I’ve heard Miller tell the story a couple of times that readers of this book expected “Alex” to be a woman, and I can understand why, his ability to write from a woman’s perspective is really impressive.
by Nick Cave, who I know better as a singer. It’s a “rough” story in the sense of there being plenty of swearing and sex, but I really enjoyed it – “Bunny” (such a funny name for a tough guy) loses his wife to suicide at the opening of the book (he was too busy spending the night with a prostitute to understand what his wife’s phone call could mean …) then takes his little boy, Bunny Junior, on the road.
which, I think, gives it quite a different tone! – but anyway, it’s a book set right here in country Western Australia during the second World War when Italian prisoners of war were sent to work on farms. It’s got really fascinating characters and a good storyline, but I’m afraid to say the most amazing thing I learnt is actually that Goldbloom wrote this beautiful novel while raising her EIGHT children. I’m having trouble writing and taking care of my two cats.
by India Knight was a fun, fluffy piece of chick-lit which I read in one night (in the middle of the night, thanks to some pregnancy insomnia) – I occasionally like a light piece of chick-lit and this one hit the spot without being spectacular.
by Henry James. From chick-lit to a classic, I have to say I enjoyed this more. I’ve always liked James’s writing style and Washington Square is interesting in that it follows just a single, simple story about a plain young woman who may or may not get married to a maybe or maybe-not gold-digger, and although nothing of great excitement happens it’s a story you want to keep reading.
by Cate Kennedy was the ONLY novel I finished during April (thanks to the rather momentous birth of our son). Great story, well told, love her stuff – and a good setting in Tasmania, too. Highly recommended.
by Kylie Ladd, yet another Aussie writer. This was the only novel I finished in either May OR June, thanks to momentous event of having to look after said son. It follows two couples whose lives are dramatically changed when two of them have an affair – the fall of the title is falling in love, clever, hey? Great read.
by Haruki Murakami, oh how I love this man! One of my favourite writers, although this is different – it’s a non-fiction memoir about his experiences as a long distance runner and how they relate to his work as a novelist. Very honest, very interesting and almost enough to make me take up running. Almost, but not quite.
by Amy Barker is another Aussie novel – yep, I love ‘em – set mainly in a lower class housing estate, or at least an area that has become one of them – interesting characters and a good plot too.
by Jodi Piccoult is not something I’d choose to read myself, because I keep thinking Piccoult is “too mainstream” for my tastes – my mother lent me this while we were travelling – but I really couldn’t put it down. A really intriguing plot and I had to know what happened. I wasn’t so satisfied with the ending though, it seemed to stop a bit too suddenly for me.
by Jana Wendt, the Australian journalist I idolised as a teen. And this copy is personally signed, from a launch event I attended just a couple of weeks after my baby was born – so it has special sentimental value! It’s non-fiction, I should add, but very interesting – Wendt spent time shadowing people doing various different jobs, from CEOs to boxers, and makes some fascinating observations.
by Eleanor Catton, one of a bunch of great new novels I won through a Facebook competition! It’s a little unusual in style and I was sometimes unsure when I was reading about a performance and when I wasn’t, perhaps that’s the point, and I felt like I learnt most of the story too early on, but it still made for an interesting read.
by John Boyne. So, so awful and so, so good. Not sure why Holocaust novels always get me, but they do. I won’t say anything about it, except that if you haven’t read it, do. (I haven’t seen the film, but I can’t imagine it could have the same impact as the book, so I’d definitely read the book first! Well, I always do anyway.)