Lizzy's August Reading

August was a bit of a strange month, and I ended up reading a bit less than normal due to a broken leg in the household taking up a lot of attention and energy, as well as a busy month at work meaning there was little time leftover to read! Somehow though I still snuck in 12 books (started a few others that will carry over into this month because I'm terrible at multi-tasking but love reading books at the same time. 

First off I finished two wonderful books that I'd started the month before. One was an incredible genre-defying book that my husband had chosen for me to read (we get to choose one book for the other person to read each month!). The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett is a murder mystery fantasy, and a combination I haven't seen before that was carried out perfectly. With main characters that remind you of Sherlock Holmes and Watson, a deadly botanical murder weapon (we all know by now I love anything botanical horror related!), and giant Leviathans threatening the empire. It's a strange combination of things that just worked to create such a gripping and unique book - highly recommend! I also finished the rather wonderful Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz, a delightful novella about a group of deactivated robots who decide to start up a hand-pulled noodle shop in a post crisis San Francisco. If hopeful sci-fi (think Becky Chambers) and found family is your jam, give this one a go.  I read (listened? Still counts) another amazing Sci-Fi/Robot book this month thanks to my husband, Service Model (my first book by Adrian Tchaikovsky). This was absolutely fascinating and so unique in the way it was structured and narrated by Charles/Un-Charles who is a service robot that may or may not be infected with a protagonist virus and is finding himself increasingly unmoored from all that he knew. The storytelling was incredible and has definitely left me wanting to read more of Tchaikovsky's novels.

Next, while I was away on holiday, I had to read the newest thriller on the block; No Prisoners by Ellis Blake (aka Ben Sanders). He then came to visit a little later in the month so read all about his neo-crime novel and how much I loved it here! I then was clearly feeling the thriller vibes (I love how fast I read them, they are hard to put down and so easy to get lost in!) so I read another one that had been top of my TBR and by another local Kiwi writer, The Nowhere Boy by Anne Cleary. Set in Auckland where a three year old child goes missing from his car seat our near Muriwai, this was everything I wanted it to be. The young parents were both frustrating and very real and human, the threat of danger to the young boy kept me stressed the entire time, and the way the story unfolded upped the tension in the perfect way. 

With a pivot back into my usual genre of literary fiction I then read All Her Lives by Ingrid Horrocks which is a collection of short stories that took top Fiction prize at the Ockham's this year winning and I can absolutely see why. A set of connected and time jumping snippets of life for women in Aotearoa and abroad, some of these stories will stay with me forever and I even chose one to be read aloud at my local reading group this month.  I also really loved reading Hello Baby by Kim Eui-Kyung, a fascinating translated novel about a set of women all in a chat group together about their time trying to get pregnant through the same fertility clinic. It's a poignant reflection of how far some people will go to become a mother, and an exploration of womanhood that does a lot in it's small number of pages. 

By far the two strangest books I read in August were kluge by Pip Adam, and Angel Down by Daniel Kraus. Both absolutely excellent books, and both pushed my own limits of how much I can keep up with clever writing. Angel Down won the Pullitzer Prize which is why I picked it up, and although there was a small moment in the middle where I started to struggle, by the end I was absolutely on board with this book being a masterpiece. Told in one entire sentence, through fragments that all begin with 'and then', this novel feels as relentless as the war in which we are dumped. It's an incredible book and worth picking up, just like kluge by NZ author Pip Adam which is narrated by an AI for a huge company going through a rather impressive impplosion, and told in the style of a stand up comedy show? It was a bizarre story but worth trying especially if you're interested in novels that push boundaries.

Three last books to cover, and again all of these were excellent (I don't think I read a single book less than 4 stars last month which sets a high bar for September!). For this month's Hobsonville Book Club we read The Husbands by Holly Grammazio. The incredibly original premise of this had us all hooked - Lauren is having an issue with her attic, every time a husband goes up, a new husband comes down. Through this she has to figure out what to do when there's a seemingly never-ending supply of husbands to choose from, how do you know which is 'The One'? I loved this even though it definitely could have gone further/deeper/funnier - I think it's a crowd pleaser of a novel that lots of people would enjoy, and made for a really fun book club discussion.

I am trying my best to read a selection of Booker Prize longlist titles, and I absolutely adored Switzy by Emma Cline which is a fascinating portrait of a man who is making his last journey to Switzerland to take care of the end of his life before his dementia does it first. It's disturbing and unsettling being in his brain for the novel, feeling things slip and questioning memories and moments, and I thought Emma Cline did an incredible job. 

Lastly, my one non-fiction for the month that I finished was the huge but absolutely gripping Say Nothing by narrative non-fiction master Patrick Radden-Keefe. After adoring London Falling and hearing from a couple of trusted customers that this was just as good if not better, I picked this up and immediately was drawn into Ireland in the 70s at a time when violence was a part of everyday life for many. This is a murder mystery at it's heart, but as always with Radden-Keefe it;'s so much more. I'm now watching the TV adaptation which is also very good. 

If you tried to make me choose a favourite this month I'd probably self-implode, so please don't. It was such a great month of reading although a bit low on the romance side so for September I'm starting strong with some dark dystopian romance, but you'll have to wait til the next wrap up to hear more about that!