Julia's 2024 Top Reads

 

I have a Special Little List ……… 

(which I should have prepared MUCH earlier) of 2024’s Top Reads on Libraries Horowhenua’s review blog, Great Reads for Great Readers.

1.    The Girl in the Eagle’s Talons, by Karin Smirnoff

2.    Horse, by Geraldine Brooks

3.    Tom Lake, by Ann Patchett

4.    The Hunter, by Tana French

5.    All the Words we Know, by Paul Nash

6.    Fox Creek, by William Kent Krueger

7.    City in Ruins, by Don Winslow

8.    Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, by Benjamin Stephenson

9.    James, by Percival Everett

10.            Long Island, by Colm Toibin

11.           Joe Nuthin’s Guide to Life, by Helen Fisher

12.           The Trees, by Percival Everett

13.           The Spy, by A. J. Choudhury

14.           The Mountain King, by Anders de La Motte

15.           Table for Two, by Amor Towles

16.           Death at the Sign of the Rook, by Kate Atkinson

17.           Patea Boys, by Airana Ngarewa

18.           Nine Girls, by Stacey Gregg         Junior Fiction

19.           Tell Me Everything, by Elizabeth Strout

20.           Juice, by Tim Winton

These are truly great reads as every great reader will know, and aren’t we all blessed that our exceptional library enables us to be the Great Readers that we aspire to be. 

The staff and volunteers at Te Takeretanga o Kura-hau-po wish you all a most happy and healthy 2025.  (And some summer sunshine would be nice!)

 

Nine Girls, by Stacy Gregg.            Junior Fiction.

 

            Stacy Gregg is enormously popular for her equine novels for children, but she takes a different tack his time with an exploration of her own origins, so successfully that she won first prize for this title at the New Zealand Book Awards.  And deservedly so:  it has just the right mixture of everything – comedy, pathos, friendships old and new, and most importantly, family solidarity, for we all need to be part of an enveloping, loving kinship – whether we like it or not!

            It is 1978 and Titch is wondering how she has gone from living in Remuera, Auckland’s most expensive suburb, to residing in a much humbler house next to her Nan (her Maori Mum’s Mum) in Ngaruawahia – a sorry little town halfway between Auckland and Hamilton, and all because her Geologist Dad lost his job because JBL, the company for which he worked folded in the stock market crash.  They are no longer privileged, pãkehã and rich, and instead of their own private pool they have to go to the scummy local pool or swim in the mighty Waikato river.  Which is not a good idea because of the strong currents.   And several of her many new cousins reckon there’s a Taniwha – a hungry river monster -  in there, too, so she better watch out.  Yeah, right.  They’d say anything to upset the new kid on the block, but they also say that there’s buried gold on one of the derelict old farms in the area and, despite Titch’s scornful disbelief, she can’t help but get excited over the family rumours of betrayal and heartbreak a century ago;  in fact this is her first introduction to her mother’s family History – her Whakapapa – and it is Titch’s history too.

            And the plot can only thicken when Titch releases an enormous eel from a trap in the river;  it seemed to be calling her, and sure enough, when she let him out he had plenty to say, especially about how slow she was to get him out, for naturally he was no ordinary eel, but the Taniwha of legend, and he had lots of things to fill her in on about her history, because they were part of the same family, eh!  And the stories are tragic;  treachery and deceit from the Pãkehã Governor Grey, who wanted all the Waikato land but not the Maori who farmed it, and murder and injustice that had never been forgotten, as if it ever could.

            ‘Nine Girls’ covers five years of Titch’s life admirably;  it has a glossary of Maori words and terms for those not familiar with Te Reo, and a great love for Whanau (family) and country, especially Ngaruawahia, that is evident on every page of this lovely, unforgettable book:  suitable for kids of all ages – SIX STARS!   

              

         

           

 

No one Will Know, by Rose Carlyle.

 

            Rose Carlyle writes thrilling thrillers.  Every ingredient required for success – suspense, horror, characters-who-aren’t-what-they-seem, and an indomitable protagonist who survives an ending with the final twist on the last page is present by the bucket-load.  (Can you tell how much I enjoyed this book?  It’s not often that I try to read something in a single sitting, and I didn’t succeed, but two days is pretty good.)

            Eve Sylvester hasn’t had a good start in life, but lately she believes she is being rewarded with some happiness at last:  crewing on an ocean-going yacht with a man she eventually loves, exploring wonderful destinations, and a marriage proposal from Xander who has arranged for her to meet his parents when they dock in Sydney:  what could possibly go wrong?

            Naturally, everything.

            On the way to the fateful family lunch, Xander is killed in a freak car accident and Eve is injured, but finds that she is pregnant.  As well as being rejected as a fortune-hunter by Xander’s family, she is stunned with grief but is determined to manage somehow:  she will be mother to Xander’s child if it is the last thing she does – they will both survive, but how?

            The seemingly miraculous answer comes in the shape of an offer by a very rich couple who seem to know her circumstances better than she does:  wife Julia cannot have children.  To inherit a very old family property in Rumania she must bear a child:  if Eve could spend her pregnancy on their remote property off coastal Tasmania, after the secret birth she could be the child’s Nanny, never having to leave its side.  A win-win for everyone – what could possibly go wrong?  Except everything.

            For a start, Eve notices too much about her surroundings, which are sumptuous but so remote that she would never be able to leave without the couple’s permission should she change her mind;  there are unexplained arrivals of various big boats at the island’s marina where mysterious deliveries and collections are made.  And the staff closest to Julia and her husband Chris are very hostile and protective.  Eve is trapped in a rich little cocoon:  what will happen to her after the birth?  Nothing good, she’s certain!

            Ms Carlyle has proven that she’s no One Hit Wonder – she carried me along on a wave of ‘will she won’t she’ that nearly drove me mad enough to read the ending before I’d got there;  fortunately, I didn’t succumb to my baser instincts and lasted the distance, giving myself a well-deserved pat on the back for being strong.  Well done, me!  FIVE STARS.

             

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Juice, by Tim Winton.

 

            An old man and a little girl travel east in a land turned to ash and desert;  eventually they stop for shelter at an abandoned mine works – except that it isn’t abandoned:  a bowman is in residence and fancies the look of their transport, and the batteries that power it.  He takes them prisoner and, to play for time, the old man tells him the story of how they arrived at this last Godforsaken place in the southeast of what used to be Australia – before human greed and power-hungry tinpot dictators wrecked the planet by fossil-fuel extraction – Juice.

            Tim Winton has written a frightening, dystopian and brilliant story in spare, beautiful language of the consequences of climate change, global warming, and how the remainder of the population survived ‘The Terror’ – when nature got payback for all the overuse of precious resources;  now survivors use all their ingenuity to keep batteries going so that they can have light and transport, and formerly big cities are now walled to repel lawless bandits.  The old man paints a stark picture of his childhood in a hamlet near the tropic of Capricorn, raised by his strict but loving mother as a plantgrower:  money no longer has any power;  food of all kinds is the currency:  food can be traded for other commodities – building materials, fowls for eggs and spare parts for the vehicles.  It is a very simple, lonely life, but when he is seventeen, he is recruited into a secret organisation called the Service, where all members are Operators, and trained in many and various ways to ‘acquit’ the world’s polluters – ‘acquit’ being a euphemism for assassinate:  the teen doesn’t tell his plantgrower mum that he has been recruited;  he just says that he has to go foraging for whatever he can find that is useful, even though he sometimes sustains serious injuries, but he doesn’t want to worry her.

            Or Sun, his great love, and the daughter he has with her, Ester (The only two named characters in the book), who eventually abandon him when he is absent ‘foraging’.  Now he is self-appointed guardian of the mute little girl, and wants to team up with the bowman;  he feels that they would survive well as a team – unfortunately, the bowman doesn’t feel the same way; he covets the old man’s transport:  who will survive?

            Tim Winton is an enormously respected Australian novelist – this could be his magnum opus, especially as the theme he tackles affects us all, and no-one could be more adept at describing our headlong rush to wreck the planet than he.  This is the best book I have read this year.  SEVEN STARS.

 

Pãtea Boys, by Airana Ngarewa.                      NZ Fiction

 

          Airana Ngarewa has already made a tremendous impact with his first novel ‘The Bone Tree’, a Take-No-Prisoners exposé of racism, colonialism and every other shameful ‘ism’ that Aotearoa New Zealand is guilty of, but ‘Pãtea Boys’ is different, for he has written about his home and upbringing in a small Taranaki town – chiefly famous for the NZ-wide top hit song ‘Poi E’ (check out YouTube!) performed in the 0ughties by the Pãtea Maori Club -  all the Nannas when they were young and full of rhythm and, with the advent of this wonderful collection of stories Pãtea will once again be rightly famous for producing a son who cherishes his history and community, and writes of it superbly.

            ‘Bombs for the Bros’ concerns Turi, who wants to make the biggest Bomb(splash) in the local pool’s history, gaining the undying respect of all his mates – and the bigger Bros who are his idols.  The way to do that is to launch himself off rails that are higher than anyone has tried before and to do it when the lifeguard is distracted – no easy task because she’s pretty fearsome, but!  He does the business – the biggest bomb ever!  The only problem being that the lifeguard (who is his Nan) saw everything and her rage is incandescent:  he’s barred from the pool FOREVER, and just wait till they get home!  Was it worth it or not?

            Each story illustrates the closeness of a small community and their Marae, and how Maori deal with different aspects of life, especially if they leave, as so many had to, to find work elsewhere – automatically, leavers lose a certain amount of influence if they return home only occasionally, then try to put their opinions forward:  ‘Why’s he putting his oar in?  He’s never here!’  Marae funerals are written of with great affection, too, with enormous respect for all the old people looking down at their descendants from their photos on the walls, and once again Turi features with his little sister, both consigned to the kitchen to help with the funeral feast – because they’re not related to the dead person, so not grieving.  The conversation they have as they work is a demonstration of their affection for each other, and the life they have with their Nan, the strongest wahine they know.

            Airana Ngarewa writes of his home, dominated by Mount Taranaki, his maunga, with great love and respect, and a restless, wonderful energy and humour that would beguile any reader and, for students of Te Reo the stories are contained in Maori in the second half of the book.  CHUR, BRO!  SIX STARS.      

 

 

 

Tell Me Everything, by Elizabeth Strout.

 

            Elizabeth Strout’s beloved characters are all lined-up here, again ready to allow us into their lives, feelings and dramas and what a privilege it is to meet them again:  Olive Kitteridge, former maths teacher in Crosby, Maine where she has lived her entire prickly, outspoken life (she is now 90);  Lucy Barton, now a respected novelist who has moved with her ex-husband William to Crosby during the Pandemic ‘to see what happens’ – to see, really, if they can be properly and permanently reconciled after William’s several affairs;  and Bob Burgess, a lawyer returned to his nearby hometown of Shirley Falls with his wife Margaret, a Unitarian Minister.  The scene is set.

            Bob and Lucy are firm friends and go walking by the river each week, rain or shine.  Lucy is privy to the fact that Bob gave up smoking years ago but at a certain place on their usual path, he lights up his verboten ciggy, then has to make sure the wind doesn’t blow the incriminating smoke onto his clothing;  Margaret would be scandalised if she knew of his lapse!  And Lucy finds in Bob the perfect listener as she bounces ideas and opinions off him;  his common-sense logic and practicality is invaluable.        

            From the distance of her retirement home Olive watches and shrewdly evaluates the growing friendship, for Lucy visits her, often with stories of her own to tell, and it’s possible that this story could have turned out differently if a local woman that everyone detested went missing, not to be found until months later submerged in a car at the bottom of a quarry:  her middle-aged reclusive son Matt is the main suspect – he was her caregiver but was also a weirdo, liked to paint pictures of nude pregnant women.  What a pervert!  Until Bob consents to defend him, should the case go to trial, and all the stories start to float up to the surface, Olive remembering many of them.

            ‘Tell Me Everything’ is exactly that, for unburdening themselves eases many heavy hearts in this beautiful little book;  every character has something that they never want to think of again, but are unable to think of anything else.  No-one is exempt from heartache, regardless of how well they pretend.  And I wonder if this is Olive’s last hurrah – her best and only friend at the retirement home seems to be sleeping more and more lately.  Olive’s still wide-awake, but for how long?  I cannot imagine one of Ms Strout’s books without her.  Rock on, Olive, rock on!  FIVE STARS

 

Death at the Sign of the Rook, by Kate Atkinson.

 

   

         Ex-Detective Jackson Brodie is now a Private Detective doing the gumshoe work usually associated with ex-coppers, which is making a living off the surveillance of extra-marital sinners and the like;  now he has been instructed to find a missing painting thought to have been stolen by an old Yorkshire lady’s last caregiver.  But his new employers do not strike him with confidence, either – they are too dismissive of the painting’s value (just an old keepsake, sentimental value only’), especially in light of the ruthless evaluation of everything else in the house:  ‘Lady with a Weasel’ (well, what else could that fur ball be, sitting on her lap, thinks Jackson when he sees a rare photo of the painting.  Jackson’s knowledge of fine art is minimal at best.)

  Something Stinks in the State of Denmark, reflects Jackson later, when another painting by Turner is audaciously removed from a stately home not too far from the first theft, the stately home now being reduced to running Murder Mystery Weekends in a part of the building converted into a hotel for paying guests by the sons of local aristocrat Lady Milton.  Sadly, it would seem that her Secretary went missing the same time that the Turner was cut from its frame:  too many coincidences, thinks Brody (and everyone else!)

            Ms Atkinson has decided to follow the ironclad rules of the classic Detective fictional story here:  a troupe of actors hired for the Mystery Weekend;  a motley collection of guests including the local vicar, an army major (lost a leg in Afghanistan, no less!), Jackson himself as the pillar of logic and lightning converter of clues; oh, and don’t forget the mysterious caregiver/secretary, who also returns to stir up the waters – which aren’t waters at all, but a blinding snowstorm, which traps everyone in place when the power fails.  And guess what is revealed when the lights come back on?  Well. You’ll have to read the book to find out.

            And what a book!  Ms Atkinson has never been better at setting the scene, providing each great character with a backstory that is entirely rational but exceptional, and when the plot’s end is finally revealed the reader has to take off their hat (whether wearing one or not!) to the relentlessly perfect dotting of I’s and crossing of t’s – there is absolutely nothing left to chance;  all is revealed in the most marvellous and witty manner.  And it goes without saying that the crooks are the most entertaining!  SIX STARS.