InaGuddle

Monday, 19 October 2026

Insatiable Desire

In December 2021 American author Madeline Miller announced she was working on a new novel about Persephone, the daughter of Zeus and Demeter who became queen of the underworld when her uncle Hades abducted her. Unfortunately Miller caught long-COVID which derailed her writing, causing chronic fatigue and an inability to focus. However, in researching for Persephone, Miller would have come across the subject of her latest publication, the short story Mestra (2026).

When the King of Thessaly, Erysichthon, destroys a sacred grove of trees, the goddess Demeter punishes him with an insatiable appetite. He eats and eats but is never satisfied. He spent all his wealth on food, becoming a pauper. His daughter, Mestra, tries her best to bring him food. Eventually the King sells Mestra to a merchant, promising him an obedient virgin in exchange for seven roast chickens. Mestra is frightened, not only of this man, but also because she knows that Poseidon already took her virginity. On the journey to the man's home, she prays for Poseidon's protection and he turns her into a shape-shifter.

Mestra is able to turn into any person or creature. When she returns home to her father with food, he learns of her abilities and decides to sell her, over and over again, to unsuspecting men. She is sold as a farm girl, a cook, a horse, a cow and each time, her father eats and eats but never gains weight. Trapped in this cycle of being sold, and with her life in danger, Mestra realises her father will never stop unless she refuses to use her power for him. When she does, the King makes an irrevocable decision.

Mestra is a wonderful short story, beautifully told. Like Galatea, this gorgeous pocket-sized hardcover, is a mere 65 pages long, but is an engrossing story. Miller's writing is sharp and evocative, reminding readers of her abilities. She is such a gifted writer, I only hope that she is able to write in long form again.

My reviews of other works by Madeline Miller are available on this blog:

Sunday, 18 October 2026

Top 100 Australian Books (2026)

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Radio National Program is naming Australia's Top 100 Australian Books of all time.

I voted in early September for my favourites. I included:

Miles Franklin - My Brilliant Career (1901) (#18)
Anna Funder - Stasiland (2003) (#23)
Chloe Hooper - The Tall Man (2008) (#92)
Helen Garner - This House of Grief (1993) (#72)
Hannah Kent - Always Homesick, Always Home (2025)
Sarah Krasnostein - The Trauma Cleaner (2017) (#87)
Charlotte McConaghy - Wild Dark Shore (2025) (#16)
Frank Moorhouse - Grand Days (1993)
Heather Rose - The Museum of Modern Love (2016) (#95)
Charlotte Wood - The Natural Way of Things (2015) (#76)

Because I could only vote for ten, I had to whittle it down and could not include all of these on my Wishlist:

Mark Colvin - Light and Shadow - Memoir of a Spy's Son (2016)
Richard Flanagan - The Narrow Road to the Deep North (2015) (#8)
Anna Funder - All That I Am (2011) (#45)
Helen Garner - The Spare Room (2008) (#94)
Chris Hammer - Scrublands (2018) (#(73)
Jane Harper - The Dry (2016) (#10)
Hannah Kent - Burial Rites (2013) (#4)
Joan London - The Golden Age (2014)
Rick Morton - One Hundred Years of Dirt (2018)
ML Stedman - The Light Between Oceans (2012) (#51)

After several weeks of online voting, the results were announced on Radio National on 17-18 October 2026. Here is how Australia voted:

Note that I have read the titles in Bold, and I have linked to my review where available. The Asterix means it was on my ballot. Double Asterix means it was on my Wishlist.

Top 100 Australian Books

100. Paul Jennings - Round the Twist
99. Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton - The 13-Storey Treehouse
98. Shaun Tan - The Arrival
97. Hannah Kent - Devotion
96. Nagi Maemhashi - RecipeTin Eats: Dinner
95. Heather Rose - The Museum of Modern Love (2016) *
94. Helen Garner - The Spare Room (2008) **
93. Christina Stead - The Man Who Loved Children
92. Chloe Hooper - The Tall Man (2008) *
91. Jeannie Baker - Where the Forest Meets the Sea
90. Kathy Letter and Gabrielle Carey - Puberty Blues
89. Melissa Lucashenko - Edenglassie
88. Tim Winton - Juice
87. Sarah Krasnostein - The Trauma Cleaner (2017) *
86. Jane Harper - The Lost Man
85. Rosalie Ham - The Dressmaker
84. Gregory David Roberts - Shantaram
83. Marcia K Vaughan and Pamela Lofts - Wombat Stew

82. Murray Bail - Eucalyptus
81. Mrs Aeneas Gunn - We of the Never-Never
80. Marcus Clarke - For the Term of His Natural Life
79. David Malouf - Johno
78. Frank Hardy - Power Without Glory
77. Peter Temple - The Broken Shore
76. Charlotte Wood - The Natural Way of Things (2015) *
75. Pip Williams - The Bookbinder of Jericho
74. Robert Hughes - The Fatal Shore
73. Chris Hammer - Scrublands (2018) **
72. Helen Garner - This House of Grief (1993) *
71. Patrick White - The Tree of Man
70. Jackie French and Bruce Whatley - Diary of a Wombat
69. Nevil Shute - A Town Like Alice

68. Clive James - Unreliable Memoirs

67. Patrick White - Voss

66. Alexis Wright - Carpentaria

65. Shankari Chandran - Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens

64. Anne Summers - Damned Whores and God's Police

63. Richard Flanagan - Question 7

62. Alison Lester - Are We There Yet?

61. Melissa Lucashenko - Too Much Lip

60. Eddie Jaku - The Happiest Man on Earth

59. Banjo Patterson - The Man from Snowy River

58. Tara June Winch - The Yield

57. Holly Ringland - The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart

56. Stephanie Alexander - The Cook's Companion

55. Norman Lindsay - The Magic Pudding

54. Thomas Keneally - Schindler's Ark

53. Charlotte Wood - Stone Yard Devotional

52. Geraldine Brooks - Horse

51. M L Stedman - The Light Between Oceans **

50. Li Cunxin - Mao's Last Dancer

49. Germaine Greer - The Female Eunuch

48. Mem Fox and Judy Horacek - Where is the Green Sheep?

47. Ruth Park - Playing Beattie Bow

46. Colleen McCullough - The Thorn Birds

45. Anna Funder - All That I Am **

44. Peter Carey - True History of the Kelly Gang

43. Geraldine Brooks - People of the Book

42. May Gibbs - The Complete Adventures of Snugglepot & Cuddlepie

41. Tim Winton - Dirt Music

40. Peter Carey - Oscar and Lucinda

39. Liane Moriarty - Big Little Lies

38. Helen Garner - Joe Cinque's Consolation

37. Alan Marshall - I Can Jump Puddles

36. Robbie Arnott - Limberlost

35. Trent Dalton - Lola in the Mirror

34. Graeme Simsion - The Rosie Project

33. Tim Winton - Breath

32. Graeme Base - Animalia

31. Helen Garner - Monkey Grip

30. George Johnson - My Brother Jack

29. Anh Do - The Happiest Refugee

28. Sally Hepworth - Mad Mabel

27. Ruth Park - The Harp in the South

26. Joan Lindsay - Picnic at Hanging Rock

25. Ethel Turner - Seven Little Australians

24. Bryce Courtenay - The Power of One

23. Anna Funder - Stasiland*

22. Maryanne Blacker and Pamela Clark - The Australian Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake Book

21. Sally Morgan - My Place

20. Anna Funder - Wifedom

19. Alison Lester - Magic Beach

18. Miles Franklin - My Brilliant Career *

17. Colin Thiele - Storm Boy

16. Charlotte McConaghy - Wild Dark Shore (2025) *

15. Christos Tsiolkas - The Slap

14. Geraldine Brooks - Year of Wonders

13. Melina Marchetta - Looking for Alibrandi

12. Bruce Pascoe - Dark Emu

11. Mem Fox and Julie Vivas - Possum Magic

10. Jane Harper - The Dry (2016) **

9. Kate Grenville - The Secret River

8. Richard Flanagan - The Narrow Road to the Deep North **

7. Pip Williams - The Dictionary of Lost Words

6. John Marsden - Tomorrow, When the War Began

5. A B Facey - A Fortunate Life

4. Hannah Kent - Burial Rites **

3. Trent Dalton - Boy Swallows Universe

2. Marcus Zusak - The Book Thief

1. Tim Winton - Cloudstreet

So, what to make of the list?

I am pleased that 9 of my top 10 picks, and 7 of my extended picks made it to the list. I have read 36 of the top 100. There are a bunch of other titles on the list that I have on my shelf. This countdown is a good reminder of titles to read.

While I picked books that were literary or had an impact on me long after finishing them, I had expected there would be a lot of popular titles on the list, but was surprised to see so many children's books on the list. I had predicted that Muzak and Dalton would be in the top ten, especially given they were voted as the top 100 books of the 21st century last year. Good to see so many books by Garner, Funder, Kent, Flanagan, Brooks and many more favourites.

The countdown of the ABC Radio National Top 100 Australian Books was lovely to listen to and it is great to hear so many people excited by books.

Sunday, 11 October 2026

Underground Railroad

American author Octavia E Butler's Kindred (1979) is a neo-slave narrative with a time-travelling twist. Part historical fiction, part fantasy, Kindred is a gripping novel which transports the reader from the post-civil rights era to the pre-civil war era and back again.

It is 9 June 1976 and African-American writer Dana Franklin is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her husband Kevin in their new home in Los Angeles. They are unpacking boxes of books when Dana suddenly becomes dizzy and Kevin sees her disappear. She finds herself near a river where a young white boy is drowning. Dana pulls him to shore and revives him. When the boy's parents arrive and aim a gun at Dana, she becomes dizzy again and returns to her living room.

Soon it happens again, and this time Dana is in a bedroom with the young boy. He is a few years older now and has just lit some drapes on fire. Dana puts out the fire and talks to the child, Rufus. She learns that she is in Maryland and it is 1815. Dana has travelled back in time and across the country to this boy again. Dana is not safe here - a Black woman dressed in trousers at an antebellum plantation. Rufus takes her to the home of Alice Greenwood, a free Black woman who lives near the plantation. Dana realises that she is a descendant of both Rufus and Alice, and this must be why she has been drawn here. When a group of white men arrive and her life is threatened as she has no papers, Dana is transported back to her home in LA.

While Dana has been in 1815 for hours, Kevin assures her she has only been gone a few minutes. They decide to prepare for the next jump by fastening a survival bag to Dana's waist and reading up on history. The next time Dana departs, Kevin is transported with her. He holds a different status, as a white man, and they pretend that Dana is his slave so that she has some protection, as an interracial marriage would be strictly forbidden. Kevin's experience of the racism is starkly different to Dana's, and while he gains a level of understanding of what she has to go through, it will never be the same for him as his race and gender afford status and liberty. Dana soon figures out she is called to the past whenever Rufus is in danger, and ejected back to her own time when her life is on the line.

Over the course of the novel there are six journeys back to the nineteenth century. In each one Dana learns more about the plight of slavery and the intergenerational trauma caused by the treatment of her ancestors. The parallels between Alice and Dana, and their intertwined relationship, are well crafted. Dana is smart, empathetic and practical, but her twentieth-century knowledge is often challenged by nineteenth-century realities.

Narrated in the first person, Butler has achieved something extraordinary with Kindred. By interrogating slavery, she is also questioning racism, sexism and inequality in the 1970s. Butler writes in a straightforward prose, which conveys volumes. Like other neo-slavery narratives (for example Toni Morrison's Beloved, Lawrence Hill's The Book of Negroes), Butler does not shy away from the terror and brutality of slavery and brings the two timelines closer together so that history is never far away. In telling the story via the fantasy element, Butler has created a captivating page turner where the reader is vested in what happens to Dana and the people she encounters. Highly recommended.

Friday, 9 October 2026

Nobel Prize for Literature 2026

The Nobel Prize for Literature was announced this week, recognising Canadian poet and essayist Anne Carson.

Born in Toronto, Carson attended my alma mater the University of Toronto, graduating with degrees in classics a BA (1974), a MA (1975) and a PhD (1981). She became a professor, teaching classics, comparative literature and creative writing at McGill, NYU, Princeton, University of Michigan and University of Calgary.

Carson has written over twenty books, including poetry, essays and translations of Ancient Greek tragedies. She has been awarded the TS Eliot Prize, Governor General's Award for English-language Poetry, the PEN/Nabakov Award, and many other recognitions for her work.

While I have known of Carson for decades, I have not read her work. Let's take a quick look at some of her best known writing:

Canicula di Anna (1984) - Carson's first collection of poetry.
Eros the Bittersweet (1986) - a book of criticism examining pleasure and pain, this is a reworking of her doctoral thesis. It was named on Modern Library reader's list of 100 Best Nonfiction of the 20th Century.
Autobiography of Red (1998) - Reimagining the Ancient Greek poem Geryoneis about Heracles and Geryon, Carson portrays Geryon as a gay teenager in the present day who calls in love.
Men in the Off Hours (2000) - a collection of poems, essays, epitaphs, translations. Prior to this Carson wrote lengthy poems, but here she switched to short verse.
The Beauty of the Husband (2001) - Subtitled 'a fictional essay in 29 Tangos' this collection of poetry won the TS Eliot Prize.
Red Doc> (2013) - A collection of prose, poetry and drama, this book picks up the story of the Autobiography of Red. It received the Griffin Poetry Prize.

The Nobel Academy praised Carson "for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature".

In recent years, the Nobel Prize for Literature has been awarded to:

Hungarian author Laszlo Krasznahorkai (2025)
South Korean author Han Kang (2024)
Norwegian author Jon Fosse (2023)
French writer Annie Ernaux (2022)
East African/British author Abdulrazak Gurnah (2021)
American poet and essayist Louise Gluck (2000)

As I have said previously, I would love to have Margaret Atwood, Gerald Murnane or Alexis Wright recognised with the Nobel one day. Will have to see what happens next year.

Wednesday, 7 October 2026

National Book Award Finalists 2026

The Finalists for the 2026 National Book Awards have been announced. These annual American literary awards have been presented since 1936. Each finalist received $1000, a medal and a citation, while the winners get $10,000 and a bronze sculpture.

Past recipients include: William Faulkner (Collected Stories 1951; Ralph Ellison (Invisible Man 1953); Philip Roth (Goodbye Columbus, 1960); Joyce Carol Oates (them 1970); William Styron (Sophie's Choice 1980); John Irving (The World According to Garp 1980); John Updike (Rabbit is Rich 1982); Alice Walker (The Colour Purple 1983); Don DeLillo (White Noise 1985); E Annie Proulx (The Shipping News 1993); Jonathan Franzen (The Corrections 2001); Jesmyn Ward (Salvage the Bones 2011); and Percival Everett (James, 2024)

The Finalists for 2026 are:

Fiction

Hannah Lilith Assadi, Paradiso 17
Edwidge Danticat, Dey
Julian Delgado Lopera, Pretend You're Dead and I Carry You
Valeria Luiselli, Beginning Middle End
Morgan Thomas, Mad Eden

Some big names have fallen off the list. I would have thought Louise Edrich (Python's Kiss), Marlon James (The Disappearers) or Kenan Orhan (The Renovation) would have made the cut. Of these books, I am most interested in the novels by Assadi and Luiselli.

Non-Fiction

Colin Asher, The Midnight Special: The Secret Prison History of American Music
Abdelrahman ElGendy, Huna: A Memoir of Revolution, Prison, and Becoming
Campghne Felix, Let the Poets Govern: A Declaration of Freedom
Sara Novic, Mother Tongue
Joseph Osmundson, Spawning Season: An Experiment in Queer Parenthood

Poetry

Victoria Chang, Tree of Knowledge
Carolina Ebeid, Hide
Brenda Hillman, Still House in the Desert
Fady Joudah, Exhibit G: Poems, Essays and Photographs of Gaza
Susan Stewart, Bramble

Translated Literature

Karl Ove Knausgaard, The School of Night - Translated from Norwegian by Martin Aitken
Vicente Luis Mora, Centroeuropa - Translated from Spanish by Rahul Bery
Intan Parmaditha, Night of a Thousand Hells - Translated from Indonesian by Stephen Epstein and Tiffany Tsao
Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, Pure Men - Translated from French by Lara Vergnaud
Samar Yazbek, Your Presence is a Danger to Your Life: Voices of Survival and Witness in Gaza - Translated from Arabic by Leri Price

Young People's Literature

Elena K Arnold, Holloway
Tae Keller, When Tomorrow Burns
Keala Kendall, That Which Feeds Us
David Leviathan, Gabriel Duckels, TheFight of Our Lives: AIDS in America
Julian Randall, Shook

Sunday, 4 October 2026

Mourning Becomes Her

A couple of years ago I came across author Jennifer Saint and her books retelling Greek myths from the perspectives of women. I read her novels Ariadne (2021) and Atalanta (2022), and bought a copy of her book Elektra (2022) which has been sitting on my shelf for four years waiting for a turn... I actually started it in 2023, but shelved it again as I had recently read Costanza Casati's Clytemnestra (2023), which covers the same ground but from the viewpoint of Elektra's mother. Figuring enough time has passed, I gave Elektra another go.

Elektra is the story of the Trojan War and the Curse of Atreus told by three women: Clytemnestra (Queen of Mycenae), Cassandra (princess of Troy) and Elektra (Clytemnestra's daughter).

Elektra is the daughter of Agememnon, the King of Mycenae and Clytemnestra. Her father heads to Troy to lead the troops in battle. To appease the goddess Artemis and gain a fair wind for the voyage, Agamemnon sacrifices his daughter Iphigenia at Aulis. Clytemnestra will never forgive him for this murder and plots her revenge.

While her father is off at war, Elektra witness her mother becoming closer to Aegisthus. She seeks to keep her father's memory alive so that when he returns he can oust Aegisthus and restore his place as ruler. She tells stories of their father's heroism to her younger brother Orestes, who has no memory of him.

Meanwhile, in Troy, Cassandra foresees the devastation that awaits her family, but also the fall of Agamemnon. When Agamemnon leads his troops home from war, he brings Cassandra with him as his prize. His homecoming is short-lived, as his enrgaed wife welcomes him home with an axe. Elektra will never forgive her mother, so plots with her brother to avenge him.

Saint has chosen to tell this story through the eyes of three women - Clytemnestra, Cassandra and Elektra - but I think the story would have been more impactful if it had left Cassandra out. This would have given more scope for Elektra to become more fully formed, allowing the reader to better understand her motivations. It is not until the final chapters that she fully comes in to her own.

While I enjoyed reading this novel, I much preferred Costanza Casati's Clytemnestra and would recommend that book for someone looking to understand this myth. Elektra is not as strong as the other Saint novels I have read. But I would recommend the audiobook version of this story, as it is narrated by Beth Eyre, Jane Collingwood and Julie Teal, who give sympathetic portrayals of each of the leading women.

My reviews of other novels by Jennifer Saint are also available on this blog:

Ariadne (2021)
Atalanta (2022)

Saturday, 26 September 2026

The Good Daughter

American author Ann Patchett's latest novel, Whistler (2026) was one of my most anticipated reads this year. She unveiled the cover of the book months before it was released and I was intrigued, wondering about this horse and what the story would entail.

Set in modern day New York City, the story is told by Daphne Fuller, a fifty three year old high school English teacher. Daphne and her retired husband Jonathan live north of Manhattan in Bronxville, Westchester County. One day, on a visit to the city, they roam through the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Jonathan notices an older man watching them, following them from room to room. Eventually Jonathan approaches the older man who introduces himself as Eddie Triplett. Eddie was Daphne's stepfather for a short time, forty years earlier, when he was married to Daphne's mother. Daphne is delighted to be reunited with Eddie as she has fond childhood memories of their time together and 'had missed him every day of my life'. The two quickly become family again, catching up on the lost decades when they were apart.

Patchett uses interstitials to take the reader back to 1980 and Daphne's time with Eddie. On a fateful winter night, Eddie's car veers off the road injuring both him and Daphne. Eddie's relationship with Daphne's mother, Abigail, was never the same after that night and Daphne has always blamed herself for their separation. Now, as an adult, Daphne learns more of what happened between Eddie and her mother and unpacks the childhood memories she has locked away. During these flashbacks, we also learn about the horse and why it is important to the story.

Whistler is a wonderful novel about family, love and second chances. We learn about Daphne's relationship with her sister Leda, and with their mother. We learn about Eddie's life as a book editor, his lifelong friendship with Skip and Polly, and about how much he enjoyed being a father during his brief time as a parent to Daphne and Leda. For the most part, everyone is a good, ordinary, flawed soul just trying to make their way in life.

Ann Patchett is such a good writer, pacing the story well, and allowing the characters to reflect and grow. The Women's Prize winning author of Bel Canto (2001), Pulitzer Prize finalist The Dutch House (2019), and other gems like State of Wonder (2011), Commonwealth (2016) and Tom Lake (2023) has, in her tenth novel Whistler, crafted a feel-good story with a big heart. Highly recommended.

Wednesday, 23 September 2026

Booker Prize Shortlist 2026

This week the Shortlist was announced for the 2026 Booker Prize.

From a Longlist of thirteen titles, the Shortlist of six has been decided as follows:

M John Harrison - The End of Everything (British)
Marlon James - The Disappearers (Jamaican)
Luke Kennard - Black Bag (British)
Rebecca Perry - May We Feed the King (British)
Elizabeth Strout - The Things We Never Say (American)
Douglas Stuart - John of John (Scottish)

Mary Beard, Chair of the 2026 judges said of the shortlist:

'These novels range from the hilarious to the discomfiting, from the frighteningly strange to the alarmingly domestic, from the powerfully shocking to the intriguingly understated. In them, we meet characters from different countries and different centuries, created by authors 40 years apart, new talent and well-known favourites.This is writing at its best. There’s plenty to enjoy, some blissful escapism and prose to die for (‘I just wish I could have written that’ kept going through my mind). But there is also plenty here to change the way we see the world, to surprise us and to challenge our certainties.'

I am excited about this shortlist. So far I have only read John of John and The Things We Never Say, and loved them both. I am keen to read May We Feed the King and The Disappearers. I had thought that Emma Cline's Switzy and Kenan Orhan's The Renovation would make the shortlist, instead of Kennard's Black Bag and Harrison's The End of Everything. But the other four shortlisters I correctly predicted. I am going to predict now that Marlon James will win (again!) for The Disappearers.

The Winner will be announced on 9 November 2026. Better get reading!

Sunday, 20 September 2026

Lonesome Highway

Australian noir is a popular genre - gritty crime thrillers set in a harsh and isolated landscape, drawing on gothic themes. As an avid reader of Garry Disher, Chris Hammer, Jane Harper and Hayley Scrivenor I am always on the lookout for a new Aussie noir to sink my teeth into. I have often seen Margaret Hickey's novels in bookstores alongside Hammer and Harper and thought I would check her out.

Cutters End (2021), Margaret Hickey's debut novel, is set in remote South Australia. It's 2021 and Detective Sergeant Mark Ariti has been called back from his leave, assigned to a cold case. Thirty years ago a burnt corpse was found in the outback, 300 kilometres outside Cutters End. Long thought to be an accidental death, a high profile celebrity has been pushing for the case to be reopened, believing Michael Denby's death to be a murder. Ariti interviews the celebrity in her Bronte beachfront home, and then heads to Cutters End. With the help of local cop, Jadeep Kaur, Ariti pulls back the layers on this cold case and finds that he has a connection to a pair of hitchhikers - Ingrid and Joanne - who were in the area on New Year's Eve 1989 when the man was last seen alive. Will the fact that he dated Ingrid decades ago help or hinder his investigation?

The atmosphere is moody and readers cannot help but think of the Belangalo backpackers murders and the disappearance of Peter Falconio. Hickey capitalises on the location to bring a sense of foreboding to the story. Lots of people have gone missing in the outback, disappearing without a trace in the harsh landscape, through misadventure or malice. Like Hammer and Harper, Hickey has portrayed a strong sense of time and place. One of the things I loved about this novel was the Australian colloquialisms and slang which are peppered throughout the book.

Cutters End is a solid debut novel. It is a well crafted police procedural, with interesting characters. Ariti is not immediately likeable, so I will be interested to see how his character evolves in subsequent novels. Hickey has written two more books in the Ariti series - Stone Town (2022) and Broken Bay (2023), along with other novels The Creeper (2024), An Ill Wind (2025) and Cold River (2026).

Saturday, 19 September 2026

Auguries of Innocence

The September selection for the Read Christie 2026 Challenge, 'Best According to Agatha', is another novel I had not heard of - Endless Night (1967). This is standalone novel - not featuring Poirot, Marple, or the Beresfords - and reportedly one of Christie's favourite among her 74 novels.

Michael Rogers, age twenty-two, is a restless but charming young man. In his short life he has tried his hand at many jobs and wooed many young women, unable to commit to anything or anyone. Mike currently works as a chauffeur and hopes to earn enough money to eventually buy his dream home for his dream wife. The problem is that he is broke and doesn't seem to have much of a plan. When he comes across a property called Gipsy's Acre, a beautiful spot in the English countryside, Mike imagines it is the perfect location for his house. But there are rumours of a curse on the property.

By chance he encounters Ellie Guteman, a young American heiress, who is also admiring the property. The two are an unlikely pair, but they quickly fall in love and marry, much to the chagrin of Ellie's imposing family. Initially Mike appears lost in the world of the super-rich, with Ellie being advised by lawyers and bankers and her constant companion, Greta. The couple soon appoint a mysterious architect, Santonix, to build their dream home at Gipsy's Acre. Shortly after they move in they are haunted by the curse - with bricks lobbed through the windows and an old woman warning them to stay away.

I will refrain from spoiling the story by telling more of the plot. Suffice it to say that while Endless Night could be mistaken for a gothic romance, this is definitely an Agatha Christie. But Endless Night is so different to the typical Christie whodunnit. It doesn't begin with a murder. There are no quirky detectives, no gathering of suspects, no unravelling of clues. But there are layers of intrigue as the suspense builds to a page-turning finish. The twist in the final chapters almost made me want to go back to the start to see what I missed along the way.

The title of this novel comes from this verse in the William Blake poem, Auguries of Innocence (1863):

Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born.
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.
Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.

Christie uses Blake's verse well throughout the novel. Written in her later years, Christie has refined her skills as a storyteller. This novel brings through important themes of the late 1960s - including class and gender. Having read nine of her books this year, in my view Endless Night is one of her best and well worth reading.

My reviews of other Agatha Christie novels are available on this blog:

The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)
Murder on the Links (1923)
Murder on the Orient Express (1934)
The Body in the Library (1942)

The Labours of Hercules (1947)

The Rose and the Yew Tree (1948)

Mrs McGinty's Dead (1952)

A Caribbean Mystery (1964)

By the Pricking of My Thumbs (1968)

Friday, 18 September 2026

National Book Awards 2026 Longlist

The longlist for the 2026 National Book Awards has been announced. These annual American literary awards have been presented since 1936. Each finalist received $1000, a medal and a citation, while the winners get $10,000 and a bronze sculpture.

Fiction

Hannah Lilith Assadi, Paradiso 17
Kimberly Blaeser, Red Ants
Edwidge Danticat, Dey
Julian Delgado Lopera, Pretend You're Dead and I Carry You
Louise Edrich, Python's Kiss
Marlon James, The Disappearers
Valeria Luiselli, Beginning Middle End
Alexander Maksik, Passengers
Kenan Orhan, The Renovation
Morgan Thomas, Mad Eden

James and Orhan are both Longlisted for the Booker for their novels, so I reckon either of them has a good chance of taking the National Book Award.

Non-Fiction

Rozina Ali, Seasons of Fury: Four Families and the Rise of Islamophobia in America
Colin Asher, The Midnight Special: The Secret Prison History of American Music
Zayd Ayers Dohrn, Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young: A Fugitive Family in the Revolutionary Underground
Abdelrahman ElGendy, Huna: A Memoir of Revolution, Prison, and Becoming
Campghne Felix, Let the Poets Govern: A Declaration of Freedom
Wil Haygood, The War Within a War: The Black Struggle in Vietnam and at Home
Sara Novic, Mother Tongue
Joseph Osmundson, Spawning Season: An Experiment in Queer Parenthood
Angela Pelster, The Evolution of Fire: Essays on Crisis and Becoming
Wendy S Walters, A Dead White: An Argument Against White Paint

Poetry

Victoria Chang, Tree of Knowledge
Carolina Ebeid, Hide
Brenda Hillman, Still House in the Desert
Richie Hofmann, The Bronze Arms
Fady Joudah, Exhibit G: Poems, Essays and Photographs of Gaza
Layli Long Soldier, We
Johan Mixon-Webster, Promise/Threat
Jake Rose, Joan
Jake Skeets, Horses
Susan Stewart, Bramble

Translated Literature

Egana Djabbarova, My Dreadful Body - Translated from Russian by Lisa C Hayden
Alvaro Enrigue, Now I Surrender- Translated from Spanish by Natasha Wimmer
Karim Kattan, Eden at Dawn -Translated from French by Jeffrey Zuckerman
Karl Ove Knausgaard, The School of Night - Translated from Norwegian by Martin Aitken
Ping Lu, To The East of the East - Translated from Chinese by Jeremy Tiang
Vicente Luis Mora, Centroeuropa - Translated from Spanish by Rahul Bery
Intan Parmaditha, Night of a Thousand Hells - Translated from Indonesian by Stephen Epstein and Tiffany Tsao
Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, Pure Men - Translated from French by Lara Vergnaud
Maria Stepanova, The Disappearing Act - Translated from Russian by Sasha Dugdale
Samar Yazbek, Your Presence is a Danger to Your Life: Voices of Survival and Witness in Gaza - Translated from Arabic by Leri Price

Young People's Literature

Delali Adjoa, The Free Verse Society
Elena K Arnold, Holloway
T A Chan, The Celestial Seas
Tae Keller, When Tomorrow Burns
Keala Kendall, That Which Feeds Us
David Leviathan, Gabriel Duckels, TheFight of Our Lives: AIDS in America
Chanel Miller, The Moon Without Stars
Eric Darnell Pritchard, Shannon Wright, Clothes to Make You Smile: Patrick Kelly Designs His Dreams
Julian Randall, Shook
Matthew Swandson, Robbi Behr, Life on the Moon

Saturday, 12 September 2026

Whale Song

In May 2026 at the Sydney Writers' Festival I heard actor and author Tasma Walton speak about her latest book I Am Nannertgarrok (2025). I wasn't familiar with Walton and was not sure that her novel was something I would be interested in reading. But after listening to her talk about the novel and the true story that inspired it, I bought a copy on the spot.

The novel begins in 1833 on Boonwurrung Country in Nerrm (Port Phillip Bay, Victoria) where Nannertgarook is a young mother of two. It is a peaceful, idyllic life as she participates in ceremonies and rituals which honour the land and the whales which are a totem for the sea country people. They soon see sailing ships and fear that the ngamudji (white men) are coming to their sacred shore. As the women and children run from the shoreline, a handful of women and children, including Nannertgarrook are captured, taken on boats out to sea.

On the sealers ship, they are taken across the sea to an island in the Bass Strait where they meet other First Nations women who have also been stolen from their lands. Pregnant when captured, Nannertgarook clings to hope that she and her unborn child will return home to their kin. But the sealers are brutal - killing every creature in their path - and forcing the women into slavery. Rape, violence and misery followed. As did children, with the women forced to bear the pregnancies that came from these assaults, only to have their children stolen from them when they were old enough to be sold on to others.

The story follows Nannertgarrook over the next thirty years as she is taken eventually to Bald Island in Western Australia. Her captor renamed her Eliza 'No-One' Nowen and her children were all given anglicised names. Nannertgarrook seeks to pass down her cultural knowledge to her children despite being taken further and further away from her sea country home.

While the subject matter was dark and horrific in places, this is an important novel about our colonial past that is definitely worth reading. The violence is not sensationalised, Walton handles this with great skill, giving readers the reprieve that Nannertgarrok did not receive.

Walton's writing is poetic, peppered with the language of the Boonwurrung people. The glossary at the back of the book was helpful, but I opted to download the audiobook, read by the author, so I could hear the correct pronunciation of the words I was reading. This greatly enhanced my experience of the story.

Tasma Walton signing her book for me (May 2026)

At the Sydney Writers' Festival Walton revealed that the story had been mythologised in her family. The tale handed down was that Nannertgarrook has been wooed by a merchant seaman and run off with him. Historical records show this to be untrue. In writing this story, Walton brought Nannertgarrook home.

I Am Nannertgarrook won the ARA Historical Novel Prize and was shortlisted for the 2026 Stella Prize. Following the success of this novel, Walton's publisher has secured the rights to her next two novels. Walton has announced that she is continuing this story with I Am Emma Gamble - the tale of Nanertgarrook's youngest child. She will also write I Am Bindergarrook which follows what happened in Boonwurrung Country after the abduction.

We will need to wait until 2028 for the first of these novels to be published, but I will definitely put this on my wish list!

Sunday, 6 September 2026

Operation Vestal

A few weeks ago, the New York Times published a list of the '50 Best Thrillers of the 21st Century'. I love a good thriller and have read many on this list. Irish author Tana French was listed multiple times with four books from her Dublin Murder series, including her first novel, In the Woods (2007), positioned at number three. I loved her Cal Hooper series (The Searcher, The Hunter, The Keeper) and know the quality of her writing. With her Dublin Murder series already on my e-reader, I downloaded the audiobook and set off on a new adventure, In the Woods.

The opening scene is in the summer of 1984 with three children running wild in the woods. The police are called when they don't return home. A search of the woods locates only one traumatised child, Adam, unable to recall what has happened to him or his missing friends. Flash forward twenty years and the boy has reinvented himself has Rob Ryan, a detective on the elite Dublin Murder Squad. When a twelve year old girl is found murdered in the same woods, Rob returns to Knocknaree to investigate, finding eerie similarities to the earlier crime. Are they connected? Will this bring closure to the childhood memories from that summer which continue to haunt Ryan? Or will his presence on this case undermine any chance of resolution?

In the Woods is a slow burn thriller, a form French has perfected since this assured debut. The central character Ryan is an unreliable and unlikable narrator (my favourite kind!), but what he lacked in personality was more than made up for by his partner Cassie Maddox. She is a marvellous creation - a smart, multidimensional character - and I really enjoyed the friendship she and Ryan had which made their partnership work so well. The supporting characters - Sam, O'Kelly, Devlin - are also well formed.

As a police procedural, the novel works well; showcasing the door-knocking, tip-fielding, daily grind of an investigation where leads often go nowhere. What I liked about French's approach, which can be frustrating for some readers, is how she revels in the messiness, refusing to tidy up all strands of the case. Her literary prose draws the reader in. I greatly enjoyed power-reading this alongside the audiobook performed by John McCormack who expertly gave Ryan the 'BBC' voice his character acquired while at boarding school in England.

Other books in this series are on the NYT '50 Best Thrillers of the 21st Century' list including the second book The Likeness (2008) [#34], the fourth book Broken Harbor (2012) [#20] along with her standalone thriller, The Witch Elm (2018) [#33]. As The Likeness features Cassie Maddox, I am keen to continue with this series.

Saturday, 5 September 2026

My 21st Century Booker Longlist

Recently there has been a lot of buzz on social media with readers publishing their 21st Century Booker Prize Longlist - a Booker's dozen of thirteen titles which have been longlisted since 2000. Readers select their longlist, shortlist and ultimate winner from the titles. After refreshing my memory on all the titles longlisted over the past twenty-five years, I thought I would join in the fun with a list of my own.

My challenge is that, of the 389 books that have been longlisted since 2000, I have only read 41(11%). But I own 94 of these books (24%) so could have read a lot more. I think part of the challenge has been that so often the books are not available in Australia until well after the Booker season when I have moved on to other things. There have been whole years where I have not read a single Booker longlisted book. In recent years they have been more accessible, and the new rule change will improve this even more.

So, for what it's worth, here is my assessment, from the handful of Booker Longlisted novels I have read.

My 21st Century Longlist

Margaret Atwood — The Testaments (2019 WINNER)
Graeme Macrae Burnet — His Bloody Project (2016 SHORTLIST)
Anne Enright — The Gathering (2007 WINNER)
Percival Everett — James (2024 SHORTLIST)
Richard Flanagan — The Narrow Road to the Deep North (2014 WINNER)
Claire Keegan — Small Things Like These (2022 SHORTLIST)
Ian McEwan — Atonement (2001 SHORTLIST)
Ian McGuire — The North Water (2016 LONGLIST)
George Saunders — Lincoln in the Bardo (2017 WINNER)
Douglas Stuart - John of John (2026 Longlist)
David Szalay — Flesh (2025 WINNER)
Yael van der Wouden — The Safekeep (2024 SHORTLIST)
Charlotte Wood — Stone Yard Devotional (2024 SHORTLIST)

My Shortlist

Graeme Macrae Burnet — His Bloody Project (2016 SHORTLIST)
Anne Enright — The Gathering (2007 WINNER)
Percival Everett — James (2024 SHORTLIST)
Richard Flanagan — The Narrow Road to the Deep North (2014 WINNER)
Ian McEwan — Atonement (2001 SHORTLIST)
David Szalay — Flesh (2025 WINNER)

My Winner

Percival Everett — James (2024 SHORTLIST)

Given that I have so many Booker Longlisted books on my shelves (including signed copies by so many winners!) I think I will prioritise these for my future reading.

Want more?

I have compiled a list of all the longlisted books in the 21st Century below with links to any blog posts I have written about them and my reviews of longlisted books. Bold = Read.