From the Desk—May in Review

Dear Reader,

Welcome to Matilda Bookshop Review #12, your monthly chronicle of books and writing, where we share with you our current reads, author interviews, book club wrap ups, and other literary ephemera such as reviews, award news, and books we love. 

We could not be more thrilled and proud for our esteemed colleague and kids’ bookseller extraordinaire/kids’ book club maven, Kasey Chambers, to have been shortlisted for the ABA’s Children’s Bookseller of the Year, this month. Winners announced at the Australian Booksellers Association conference in June.

This month of May has also seen us celebrate the announcement of the winning books of the International Booker Prize (Taiwan Travelogue), The Stella Prize (Cannon), as well as the Miles Franklin Longlist (VERY BIG SHOUT OUT to South Australian author Lyn Dickens and Salt Upon The Water making this list).

We love the events held in our cosy and golden-lit bookshop, and earlier this month, we hosted the sassy, Claire Thomas, to a bookshop-full of delighted guests, as she took us on a radiant literary tour of Switzerland in conversation with Molly Murn. We are excited to be presenting Sharon Kernot in conversation with Kasey Chambers, and Alex Sawyer chatting to Alex Cothren in the coming months.

Our featured author in this month's Review is Claire Thomas, who joined us in the shop earlier this month to discuss the quietly stunning, On Not Climbing Mountains. The interview is as illuminating as her writing. Browse the complete archive of Author Q&As here.

Happy Reading,
Jo, Gavin, Molly, Kasey, Rose, Heather, Nadia & Emilie

Emilie: Beginning Middle End by Valeria Luiselli  (out July)

A journey-of-self following divorce with the beginnings, middles and ends looping around each other. Our writer protagonists' story intersects with that of her accompanying daughter, aging mother, ancestors and those she meets along the way. 

Gavin: I Want You To Be Happy by Jem Calder (out August)

An eminently readable novel of the confusing times we live in, the ennui caused by financial and workplace precariousness and the impossibility of mediating relationships through the distorted prism of your phone.

Heather: Permanence by Sophie Mackintosh (out July)

This is speculative fiction at its most dreamlike and unsettling - two lovers spirited away to a city built for adulterers, where they are free to love openly. Beautifully rendered in her signature sparse prose, this book was quietly devestating and morally alive - I loved it.

Jo: Whistler by Ann Patchett (out June)

A chance meeting with her long absent once-stepfather takes Daphne back to a happy part of her  childhood and the traumatic event that changed it forever. Told in Patchetts trademark style its a beautiful story about memory and enduring love.   

Kasey: Night Swimming by Sharon Kernot (out June)

Trauma, desire and an unreliable narrator propel this dark thriller of a verse novel. January Clare Colson is haunted by guilt and warped by obsession when the past walks back into her life.  Armed with a cocktail of sleeping pills, a propensity for lateness and a thirst for answers, the line is blurred between victim and aggressor.

Molly: Land by Maggie O’Farrell (out June)

Atmospheric and moody, this novel tells the story of a land ordnance surveyor of few words, and his (reluctant) young son, as they map a ravaged Ireland in 1865. Mystical and earthy, tragic and beautiful, this is another finely spun story from O’Farrell.

Nadia: London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe (out now)

A 19-year-old falls from the balcony of a luxury apartment in London; the details of his death, and life leading up to this point, are bonkers. It's a tragic and wholly compelling story of a young life swept up in the allure of power and money.

Rose: Medea Sang Me A Corrido by Dahlia de la Cerda (translated by Julia Sanches and Heather Cleary) (out June)

Medea is a meddling archangel of birth and death in modern Mexico in this new work by the International Booker longlisted author of Reservoir Bitches. I haven't come across a voice this strong (and a little mad) in a long time.

Kids Book Club News

Dear book-loving young people, we run three book clubs for kids, Magical Minds, The Matilda Society, and Chapter & Ink book clubs. Newcomers are always welcome for engaged chats and snacks in our cozy bookshop setting. But be quick, sessions sell out fast.

This term we chatted about A Murder is Going Down in Chapter & Ink, Oh Brother in The Matilda Society, and Nerds Vs Aliens in Magical Minds.

Term Two Sessions Next Up:

Magical Minds: The Clueless Guide to Solving a Mystery by Samera Kamaleddine on Monday June 22nd

The Matilda Society: The Wild Unknown by Emily Gale on Monday June 29th

Chapter & Ink: Our teen book club will take a break next month and resume in August.

Highlight on Authors Series

Welcome to this month's Highlight on Authors series, where we ask authors (whose books we've read and absolutely loved) questions on books and writing. 

The next author we're introducing you to is the talented and sassy, Claire Thomas, discussing her extraordinary palimpsest of a novel, On Not Climbing Mountains.

(We've provided a glimpse of the interview  below):

Further Reading

Here's the literary ephemera that we've been loving this month, from the best in LitHub, Australian Book Review, The New York Times, The London Review of Books, The Sydney Book Review, and others ...

“If you can’t summarize the basic idea of a book in a sentence, it’s probably gonna be harder to adapt.”: from the man who reads books for a living, Clarke Speicher, on adapting books for screen.

Punk, intellectual, feminist, theorist, brave as hell, vulnerable, funny, Valie Export was a hero to many women.

“Communion with nature was a rich spiritual experience, while persistent labour and sacrifice were key to her ideas about making art, writing, and maintaining her faith,” Isabella Gullifer-Laurie on Barbara Hanrahan’s Sea Green.

Rest assured, there is no need to feel anxious about not getting through your To Be Read edifice, “because the best part of having not read something is that in your future you still have something wonderful to first encounter. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a reader in possession of curiosity must be in want of another great book”.

Your poem of the month: The Night Migrations by Louise Glück.