4 minute read
From the Heathens
from Gleaner August 2023
by Gleebooks
While any kind of weather is, of course, perfect book-reading weather, winter in the mountains is an especially good time to mull (is that a thing?) some wine, heat up your hot water bottle and curl up with a great book! The gorgeous Tilly Pamment – Wentworth Falls-based author of The Plain Cake Appreciation Society – stopped by recently to sign copies, along with a VIP delivery of her citrus madeleines (pg 182). After some arduous quality control on our part, we can attest to their deliciousness ...
From more locals comes Black Cockatoo with One Feather Blue, a stunning children’s picture book from dynamo author/ illustrator team Jodie McLeod and Eloise Short.
We’re also excited to report that the program for the Blue Mountains Writers’ Festival 2023 was announced on August 10, with day and weekend passes on sale at bluemountainswritersfestival.com.au. Keep the weekend of 20-22 October free – it’s going to be another great festival and Gleebooks Blackheath looks forward to seeing you there.
What we’re reading in the mountains
Victoria spent an afternoon beside the fire with Ann Patchett … which she says is like sitting with a dear friend as they tell you a story about their life. And, so she says, that pretty much sums up Ann’s new book, Tom Lake. Lara is hounded by her three daughters to tell them the story of when she was an actress in a play showing for a summer season at the Tom Lake theatre company. It is a love story with characters that are beautifully crafted, as always by Patchett. Another winner from this awesome author.
Tiff adored The Librarianist by the super talented Patrick deWitt. This is the story of the life of an unassuming retired Librarian, Bob Comet. Subtle, charming and very funny, she found herself reading some of the wonderfully crafted dialogue out loud to savour just how good deWitt is. Champion of the underdog, deWitt raises up and celebrates the lives of ordinary people. An absolute joy!
And Jane read Dreaming in French by Vanessa McCausland, thinking it would be a lightweight weekend read but was so glad she picked it up. Set half in Sydney, half in France, it tells the story of a woman dealing with anxiety, medication and a domineering husband. When she discovers she has been left part ownership in a villa in the south of France, her history comes back to haunt her ... The atmosphere is nostalgic and wistful, while the writing is unexpectedly powerful. It covers some very sensitive topics with grace. Definitely worth a read, she says.
Ava recently read two books that featured protagonists whose latent homosexuality causes them a great deal of inner turmoil, largely as a result of their rigidly unsympathetic environments. The Ballad of the Sad Cafe by Carson McCullers is the story of Miss Amelia Evans, a strong but unpleasant woman who is the richest and most powerful person in a tiny town in Georgia. Her lonely existence is interrupted by a strange hunchback from out of town who claims to be her distant cousin. While everyone finds him repulsive, Amelia takes him in and provides him with a comfortable existence, a kindness which is repaid by a devastating act.
George Haddad’s Losing Face was a compulsive page turner. Joey is a young man from western Sydney whose Lebanese family has always managed to sweep its ugly secrets under the rug: one family member has a gambling addiction while a second committed a serious crime. When Joey finds himself entangled in a tragic incident late one night, he discovers that this latest event might be the thing that finally tears down the facade that has been holding them all together.
See you on the mountain!
