2024 Summer Reading List
We’ll be taking some time off over the new year period. Here’s what our team will be reading over the summer break (in no particular order):
The Bee Sting, Paul Murray
Irresistibly funny, wise and thought-provoking, The Bee Sting is a tour de force about family, fortune, and the struggle to be a good person when the world is falling apart
Too Much Lip, Melissa Lucashenko
Too much lip, her old problem from way back. And the older she got, the harder it seemed to get to swallow her opinions. The avalanche of bullshit in the world would drown her if she let it; the least she could do was raise her voice in anger.
Juice, Tim Winton
Two fugitives, a man and a child, drive all night across a stony desert. As dawn breaks, they roll into an abandoned mine site. From the vehicle they survey a forsaken place – middens of twisted iron, rusty wire, piles of sun-baked trash. They’re exhausted, traumatised, desperate now. But as a refuge, this is the most promising place they’ve seen. The child peers at the field of desolation. The man thinks to himself, this could work. Problem is, they’re not alone.
Rapture, Emily Maguire
The motherless child of an English priest living in ninth-century Mainz, Agnes is a wild and brilliant girl with a deep, visceral love of God. At eighteen, to avoid a future as a wife or nun, Agnes enlists the help of a lovesick Benedictine monk to disguise herself as a man and devote her life to the study she is denied as a woman.
The Fairy Tale Fan Club, Richard Ayoade
Read about the real lives of fairy-tale characters in this exclusive collection of letters between curious kids and their fairy-tale idols. What are they doing now? Was it really Happily Ever After? Is the Big Bad Wolf actually that bad? When will Sleeping Beauty get out of bed? And what makes frogs so kissable?
Wing, Nikki Gemmell
Students from an elite girls' school go on a camping trip into the Australian bush. Four of them - a girl gang, a group of best friends dubbed 'The Cins' by the teachers - become separated from the main group. A male teacher volunteers to look for them.
None of the five come back.
The City and Its Uncertain Walls, Haruki Murakami
When a young man’s girlfriend mysteriously vanishes, he sets his heart on finding the imaginary city where her true self lives. His search will lead him to take a job in a remote library with mysteries of its own.
Naku Dharuk: The Bark Petitions, Clare Wright
Naku Dharuk is the story of a founding document in Australian democracy and the trailblazers who made it. It is also a pulsating picture of the ancient and enduring culture of Australia’s first peoples.
Always Was, Always Will Be, Thomas Mayo
For the thousands of people who have been feeling sad, empty and powerless since last October, Always Was, Always Will Be aims to be a positive rallying cry. This book will map the path toward next steps on how to create a fairer Australia.
Australian Gospel: A Family Saga, Lech Blaine
Australian Gospel is the true story of Lech Blaine's family, a stranger-than-fiction tale that is heartbreaking, hilarious and altogether astonishing.