Haruki Murakami, Annie Ernaux, Kim Mahood, Holly Throsby, Don Watson
Thus begins the countdown to Christmas. It’s the last full month of new books and there are still masses to come out.
Here are just 10 of them – memoirs, novels, stories – but you’ll find plenty more crackers on the bulging shelves of your local bookstore.
The Booklist is a weekly newsletter for book lovers from book editor Jason Steger. Get it delivered every Friday.
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To get lostAnnie Ernaux
Fitzcarraldo, $27.99, November 15
There was almost universal joy among literary types when the French writer won the Nobel Prize earlier this month. It is therefore appropriate that this diary, which served as the basis for his autobiographical novel, Simple Passion, should appear in the translation now. In the previous book, she wrote about her affair with a Soviet diplomat; it is the sincere account of this relationship. Rereading her diaries from the time, she found a different truth to the novel – “something raw and dark, without salvation, a kind of oblation”.
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Nothing bad ever happens hereHeather Rose
Allen & Unwin, $32.99, November 1
To say this memoir by the Stella Prize-winning author of The Museum of Modern Love is surprising is something of an understatement. When Rose was 12, her beloved brother and grandfather drowned, an event that marked her life and sent her on a quest for meaning, truth and solace. It also opened her up to remarkable spiritual and hair-raising experiences. And, no, she said, the title is not ironic.
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Private White’s PassionDon Watson
Scribner, $49.99, November 2
A new Don Watson book is always a treat and this one is particularly personal to him. Watson met Neville White in college. White was drafted to serve in Vietnam and survived, emerging with PTSD and a desire to “better understand why people differed.” As an anthropologist, he has worked and lived with the indigenous peoples of northeastern Arnhem Land, trying to preserve them, their culture and their lands, and at the same time heal themselves and friends from Vietnam whom he encouraged to travel north.
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Novelist by vocationHaruki Murakami
Harvill Secker, $35, Nov. 15
The latest book on a writer’s creative process comes from the Japanese superstar novelist who is loved by millions around the world. The book, which was first published in Japan seven years ago, consists of a series of essays that Murakami started in 2010. There are concise things here, including his view that novelists can’t be friends – “writers are basically a selfish, proud, very competitive race”. And he values his need for physical fitness to bolster his mental capacity for the rigors of writing.
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A brief affairAlex Miller
Allen & Unwin, $32.99, November 1
Two-time Miles Franklin winner’s latest book was Max, a wonderful memoir about his friend Max Blatt. His 13th novel, A brief affair, marks a welcome return to its unique genre of meaningful fiction. In this one, the romantic entanglement of the title causes Frances Egan to reconsider all sorts of things in her life. She’s an academic who works in what was once an asylum. The diary of a former resident who was confined to what is now her office comes to play an equally important role in her life.
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Elizabeth and JohnAlan Atkinson
NewSouth, $39.99, November 1
You may have read Kate Grenville’s book A room made of leaves, which breathed fictional life into the historical character of Elizabeth Macarthur, wife of John, the so-called “father of the Australian fleece”. But Alan Atkinson, author of the award-winning three-volume Europeans in Australia, wants to start “everything from scratch”, to start an investigation into the life of the couple and peel the enormous amount of material still existing. He points out that the Internet has transformed the writing of history, making “much more information readily available”.
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clarkHolly Throsby
Allen & Unwin, $32.99, November 1
I really liked Holly Throsby’s first two novels, good wood and Valley of the Cedars. There’s a warm tone to the small-town world somewhere south of New South Wales that she creates. Not so warm, however, that there are no mysteries to disrupt the lives of its carefully crafted characters, like poor Barney Clarke, who is startled when the police arrive at his rented house to search for a missing woman. Throsby’s books seem to have slipped a bit under the radar, but definitely deserve more attention.
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Wander with intentionKim Mahood
Scribe, $35, November 1
Kim Mahood says she writes about the things she is passionate about – “art, country and the interface between indigenous and non-indigenous Australia”. She grew up in Central Australia and wrote a beautiful, award-winning memoir, Crafts for a dry lake. These essays were written over a period of about 15 years. She acknowledges the cultural privilege she exercises, but “the question is whether I am exercising that privilege in a way that can be justified.” Read it and judge for yourself.
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Border CrossersMeg Foster
UNSW Press, $34.99, November 1
Everyone knows about the Ned Kellys and the Captain Moonlights, but what about all the forgotten bushrangers whose lives haven’t been mythologized to the same degree? It is in this area that the Australian historian of the University of Cambridge, Meg Foster, has spent years researching. In Border Crossers she unearths the hidden lives and exploits of Aborigines, African Americans, Chinese and female outlaws. A new look at a well-laminated history.
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A guest at the feastColm Toibin
Picador, $34.99, November 8
Around this time last year, the Irish writer’s novel about Thomas Mann was published. Now we have a collection of his essays, most of which were written for The London Book Review, which range from his revealing account of his cancer – “it all started with my balls” – to his curious encounter with Irish composer Frederick May at the Stag’s Head pub in Dublin. Various subjects – sexuality, religion, literature, John McGahern and the controversial Francis Stuart.
The Booklist is a weekly newsletter for book lovers from book editor Jason Steger. Get it delivered every Friday.
