Dear Reader christmas gift & book list

Here is the Dear Reader's team selection of some of their favourites.

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett  - After moving to a mansion – ‘the Dutch House’ – the mother of siblings Danny and Maeve does not cope with the change of circumstances and leaves her family. We follow the fallout of that decision and of their father’s fateful decision to remarry. When he dies, the children are expelled from the mansion by their stepmother and their inheritance denied. This is a story of love, family and unrealised potential. An elegantly written and poignant modern fairy tale.

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood (Joint) Winner of the Booker Prize 2019
This sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale picks up the threads some 15 years after Offred’s journeys into the unknown. There are three narrators – Daisy, Agnes and Aunt Lydia. Atwood examines how people become morally compromised and how collaboration results from fear and oppression. Whereas ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ was more inward looking, this is a plot-driven story brilliantly told.

The Man Who Saw Everything by Deborah Levy
The book is in two parts, the first starting in 1988 and the second in 2016. Both sections begin with an accident on the famous zebra crossing in Abbey Road, London. The first part becomes more and more unsettling – what is real or imagined? The second part possibly offers an explanation. It is a story about trying to make sense of one’s life and of lost opportunities.

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo (Joint) Winner of the Booker Prize 2019
The novel follows 12, mostly black, British women of mixed ages. Their stories overlap and weave around each other, each character being flawed but portrayed with empathy. While Evaristo tackles difficult topics – sexism, racism and general intolerance – she writes with humour, compassion and exuberance.

We Are Here: An Atlas of Aotearoa by Chris McDowall
Visually arresting and compelling maps, graphs and commentaries cover an impressive variety of topics about New Zealand. Covering such themes as te whenua, people, places, water and air, living things, government, movement and energy, and heart and memory, this is accessible, interesting and up-to-date information about us and our environment, now and historically.

The Body by Bill Bryson
With characteristic humour and verve, Bill Bryson takes us on a tour of the human body. The discussion is livened by historical explanations of the body’s workings, together with detailed, useful (and accurate) information. You don’t have to be a medical professional to enjoy this authoritative and easy to read account which leaves the reader awed by the complexity and wonder of the human body.

There Is Only One Direction: Volume 1 by Peter Simpson
In the first of two volumes on the life of New Zealand’s leading modernist artist Colin McCahon, biographer Peter Simpson covers the artist’s evolution up to 1959. As well as stunning reproductions of his work, there are illuminating extracts from McCahon’s letters. This is a stand-out study of the artist’s work informed by his experiences, thoughts, and visions.

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