Summer reading recommendations selected by Sarah and Mark from the shelves at South Seas Books in Port Elliot.
A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson (2015). A story of a man living through the second world war, the ripple effects from his life and the differences we can make to the world. Wild Sea: A History of the Southern Ocean by Joy McCann (2018). An erudite demonstration that ‘far from being a wild sea at the uttermost end of Earth’, the Southern Ocean is deeply entangled with humanity’s past and the world’s future. Lab Girl: A Story of Trees Science & Love by Hope Jahren (2016). An outstanding, poetic memoir written by a scientist, memorialising her love of plants and lifelong friendship with her laboratory partner. Peace by Gary Disher (2019). A gripping, tightly controlled crime novel set in South Australia’s mid-north. The Chrysalids by John Wyndham (1955). A classic science fiction story of coming of age in a post-nuclear future, exposing Marvel’s current crop of mutants as two-dimensional pretenders. Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner (1987). A revived classic, reflecting on the gift of friendship, its necessity to enhance the world’s joys and cushion the fates of its indifference. The Forest of Wood and Steel by Natsu Miyashita (2019). A man’s journey to become a piano tuner in Japan, his engagement with the people he meets and music he loves as he searches for beauty and perfection. Warlight by Michael Ondaatje (2019). The disorder of war and its aftermath alongside the disruption of established hierarchies of age and class in London, provides a fertile setting for discovery and self-invention, for breaking free. Greenwood by Michael Christie (2020). Beautifully written ecological fiction describing the history of a forest over a century through the stories of the people who live among it for both good and ill.
