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‘Zazie in the Metro’ by Raymond Queneau (translated by Barbara Wright) – Reading Matters
Fiction - paperback; Penguin Modern Classics; 192 pages; 2023. Translated from the French by Barbara Wright. First published in France as Zazie dans le metro in 1959, this novel by Raymond Queneau is regarded as a classic of French modern literature. Critics and reviewers laud its playful use of language, its comic absurdity and its…
‘Translations’ by Jumaana Abdu – Reading Matters
Fiction - paperback; Vintage Australia; 336 pages; 2024. Building a garden as a form of healing is a common theme in literary fiction, but Jumaana Abdu's novel Translations is the first I have read in which the protagonist is a Muslim doing so in rural New South Wales. Shortlisted for this year's Stella Prize, the…
‘A Language of Limbs’ by Dylin Hardcastle – Reading Matters
Fiction - paperback; Picador Australia; 304 pages; 2024. Dylin Hardcastle is a young Australian author, artist and screenwriter who previously wrote under the name Sophie Hardcastle. In 2020, I read their novel Below Deck about a young woman who has an emotional reckoning and enjoyed its impressive prose and mix of drama, suspense and quiet…
‘Rapture’ by Emily Maguire – Reading Matters
Fiction - paperback; Allen & Unwin; 310 pages; 2024. Emily Maguire's Rapture is the story of an "unmarriageable girl" in the 9th century who disguises herself as a man to lead the kind of life denied to her as a woman. She becomes a scholar and scribe in a Mainz monastery and later a respected…
‘The Burrow’ by Melanie Cheng – Reading Matters
Fiction - Kindle edition; Text Publishing; 192 pages; 2024. Review copy via NetGalley courtesy of the publisher. Melanie Cheng's The Burrow has been longlisted for this year's Stella Prize. This short novel, set in Melbourne during the COVID-19 pandemic, explores themes of grief and hope, using a pet rabbit as a metaphor for the fragility…
‘The Ghosts of Rome’ by Joseph O’Connor – Reading Matters
Fiction - paperback; Harvill Secker; 384 pages; 2025. The Ghosts of Rome is the second book in Joseph O'Connor's Rome Escape Line trilogy — but it works as a standalone. The first book, My Father's House, was set in September 1943; this one is set in February 1944, six months after Nazi forces occupy Rome…
‘The Thinning’ by Inga Simpson – Reading Matters
Fiction - paperback; Hachette Australia; 280 pages; 2024. Inga Simpson's The Thinning is a fast-paced dystopian novel set in Gamilaraay country in regional New South Wales. While it's an enjoyable read, it left me feeling like I'd just eaten a big bag of marshmallows — soft and sweet but ultimately lacking in substance. And yet…
‘Naming the Stars’ by Jennifer Johnston – Reading Matters
Fiction - Kindle edition; Tinder Press; 91 pages; 2015. The sad news that Irish writer Jennifer Johnston died last week prompted me to extract this novella from my digital TBR, where it's been sitting for almost a decade. Naming the Stars, published in 2015, was her final book. It’s quintessential Jennifer Johnston fare, focused on…
Vale Jennifer Johnston – Reading Matters
Vale Irish writer and playwright Jennifer Johnston who died earlier this week, aged 95. Long-time followers of this blog will know that I describe her as "my favourite living writer" and I'm not sure there's anyone else who can now step into those shoes. I only discovered she had died when I got a sudden…
‘The Country Girls’ by Edna O’Brien – Reading Matters
A Year With Edna O'Brien | #EdnaObrien2025 Fiction - paperback; W&N; 240 pages; 2007. It’s the last week of February, so it’s time to kick off my first contribution to A Year with Edna O'Brien, which I am co-hosting with Cathy from 746 Books. The Country Girls was O'Brien's debut novel and the one that,…
‘Happy-Go-Lucky’ by David Sedaris – Reading Matters
Non-fiction - hardcover; Little, Brown; 272 pages; 2022. Putting aside the ultra-creepy cover (I don't like clowns), David Sedaris' Happy-Go-Lucky is a right laugh. I chuckled through it and marked dozens of pages featuring great one-liners and funny quips. The book comprises 18 essays, most of them previously published in the New Yorker and other…
‘Dreams of Revenge’ by Kevin Casey – Reading Matters
Fiction - hardcover; Faber & Faber; 135 pages; 1977. Kevin Casey (1940-2022) was an Irish writer, married to Eavan Boland (1944-2020), an acclaimed poet and professor at Stanford University, with whom he had two daughters. He wasn't a prolific writer — he had just four critically acclaimed novels to his name — and there's next…
‘A Man’s Place’ by Annie Ernaux (translated by Tanya Leslie) – Reading Matters
Non-fiction - paperback; Fitzcarraldo Editions; 80 pages; 2020. Translated from the French by Tanya Leslie Annie Ernaux's A Man's Place might only be 80 pages long, but it’s such a richly detailed read that it feels much longer. The book — first published in 1983 — is an introspective and candid memoir focusing on the…