The Dully Dispatch

Spring has sprung and our lovely store is in full bloom with so many books to discover and enjoy. So what are your local booksellers reading? Letitia recommends Anne Enright’s new novel, The Wren, The Wren Irish writers seem to draw from a remarkable well of storytelling. Here we have well-worn territory – a mother and daughter story, family secrets and the separation (or not) of a man’s deeds from his artistic greatness – but it’s fresh and vivid in Enright’s skilful hands.

Next up, Letitia recommends Katherine Brabon’s new novel Body Friend – an unexpected pleasure of a book and highly original. Brabon has written an intimate and very personal novel about a woman living with chronic pain who makes friends with two very different women over one Melbourne summer. This is a book for quiet and surprising self-reflection – with great pace and a thread of mystery.

Dave Eggers is one of those remarkable writers who can turn his hand to anything. This time, it’s a supposed middle grade novel that completely transcends categories and is, rather, a fable for the ages and all ages. The Eyes & The Impossible is a story entirely and unapologetically from the perspective of a “free” dog (not a pet). This is certainly a collectable – bound in timber, gold-edged paper and classical paintings throughout!

Letitia will also be reading Unfinished Woman, the greatly anticipated memoir by Robyn Davidson, the international bestselling author of Tracks. Letitia had the great honour of meeting Davidson earlier this year – she is absolutely remarkable and brilliant and this book will not disappoint.

Dasha recommends Catherine Chidgey’s Pet, a compelling and beautifully written psychological thriller set in a New Zealand Catholic school in the ’80s. Dasha warns that it is a bit creepy at times – but it’s well worth it. Highly recommended!

Lachlan’s early pick for book of the year is Wifedom, a staggeringly great portrait of George Orwell’s first wife by Anna Funder. Equal parts biography, personal story, counter-fiction and critique of patriarchy – and every page is such a pleasure to read.Lachlan was also moved by Southern Aurora by Mark Brandi, another heartbreaking novel about a boy on the knife edge between innocence and experience. Every bit as powerful as Wimmera, with a sure feel for its ‘80s small-town setting – and a voice so familiar it could be your own. And Lachlan is still on a rural crime binge – loving South Australian Margaret Hickey’s latest Mark Ariti novel Broken Bay, and he can’t wait to get into Ripper, Shelley Burr’s follow up to the award-winning Wake Meanwhile Soren, our kids expert, is loving Impossible Creatures, the new novel by Katherine Rundell. describing it as really exciting middle-grade fantasy. Howzat!

WHAT WE’RE READING Be Mine

Richard Ford

The four novels (and one novella) that form Richard Ford’s Frank Bascombe “sequence” have given me enormous satisfaction over the almost four decades since The Sportswriter (1986). They’ve been described as “books about happiness as an act of conscious denial” (Kevin Power), and they undoubtedly are. Deeply and richly contemplative, as well as wise, funny, poignant and insightful, they are also a kind of social history of Frank’s (and Ford’s) generation of America. Be Mine (2023) has only added to their significance as a chronicle of our times. – David $34.99, Bloomsbury

The House of Doors

Tan Twan Eng

When not to judge a book by its cover? Well, for me at least, this month it is with The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng. Sorry Canongate, but the cover of this book, with its gilt lettering, and anonymous south-east Asian roofline, washed with a red overlay, like some bastard child of a Jeffrey Archer novel and a Malaysian Airlines in-flight menu, gave me precisely zero inkling of the book’s style or content. And yet, wow, what a captivating read. Its evocation of place (1920s British colonial high society in Penang) is immediate and transfixing; its characters believable and beguiling. Think Somerset Maugham, starring Bette Davis, directed by Willliam Wyler, but with a kind of Ishiguro sensibility and restraint. The House of Doors is on this year’s Booker Prize longlist and is very deserving of making the shortlist, if not going all the way. – Andrew $32.99, Canongate