Emily Paull

I have a dream of having beautiful hand-crafted bookshelves built into my office, but for now I make do with the ubiquitous Ikea expedit giant cube. As I have three little children, the books don’t stay in any sort of order for long, but I do try!  Up high, out of the reach of grubby toddler fingers, are my nice, ‘to keep’ books, including hardcovers. I don’t have a lot of hardcovers, so these tend to be books that I have rushed out to buy by my favourite authors, like Kate Grenville, Tim Winton, and Jeffrey Eugenides,. I also have some that I bought because they look beautiful, such as My Mistress’s Sparrow is Dead , a collection of short stories about love (edited by Eugenides). It has a gorgeous cover, and a beautiful collection of stories from all sorts of writers including Cattalus (84BC), Munro and Checkov.  I also have some other books that I try to keep away from the children: my signed collection of Shaun Tan graphic novels (I love these and have two...

Taking a Chance Deborah Burrows Macmillan 9781742612836 I've well and truly been living in the 1940s this last week, and what better book to take me there than Taking A Chance , set in my home town of Perth during 1943.  Having previously read A Stranger in my Street and finding it a little underwhelming, though still entertaining, I was expecting something light and fluffy.  Boy, did I get a shake up.  I could not put this book down, from before work yesterday and after, as soon as I got home I was scanning the pages like mad, and today (Friday) I have spent the whole day in bed, finishing it.  Deborah Burrows, I take my hat off to you. Nell Fitzgerald is a journalist with the scandal sheet known as the Marvel , famous for her fashion and beauty tips, but her luck changes when the court reporter gets sick and she is sent to cover the murder trial of a beautiful artist.  At the case, she meets charming American, Johnny Horvarth and he enlists her help p...

If I Should Lose You Natasha Lester Fremantle Press 9781921888786 There are multiple ways of thinking about the human body, and If I Should Lose You is a book that finds a poignant way to unite the two most disparate of them; medicine, and art.  Camille, a transplant co-ordinator, is used to helping families through the process of donating the organs of their loved ones but her job becomes shockingly close to home when her oldest daughter Addie, who has had a liver disease since birth, suddenly needs a transplant.  Addie is critically ill but not top priority and faces a long wait for her liver.  Camille suddenly finds herself wishing for accidents, waiting for someone else's child to die. But Camille is also curating an art show based on the work of her father and her mothers' lover Jack, both of whom were inspired by Alix's body- Dan with sculpture and Jack with painting.  Camille is reading her mother's diary, creating a love story to bind all the artwork...

The Light Between Oceans ML Stedman Vintage (Random House) 9781742755717 You've probably heard of this book.  It's been long or shortlisted for all the major prizes, won scores of accolades, and I am pretty sure that Oprah was endorsing it at one point.  People from Perth are particularly attached to it.  The writer, ML Stedman (charmingly reclusive), was raised in Western Australia even though she lives in London now.  And the book is set on the southern coast of Western Australia.  That's just enough to satisfy for local intrigue.  A constant best seller, this book has had editions printed in more than thirty countries now, has been described as 'unputtdownable', and is one of the most requested titles in the bookshop where I work.  This week, I decided it was finally time to read it. 1926.  Tom Sherbourne is a lighthouse keeper, a man of meticulous care and thoughtfulness with a past that he is trying to forget.  He meets and marr...

One entire wall from floor to ceiling in my writing room is covered in bookshelves. When I’m writing, all I have to do is scoot my chair across the floor and at my fingertips are incredible books like The Blind Assassin , timeless books like Jane Eyre , helpful books like Roget’s Thesaurus , childhood books like The Wizard of Oz , secrets-from-my-past books like a whole series of Dorothy Dunnett’s historical romances and you-just-never-know-when-you-might-need-it second hand book stall purchases like World Furniture . I don’t organise my books by colour, author, title - it’s a rather haphazard arrangement and because I take books from the shelf so often for one reason or another, haphazardness suits me fine. I don’t have to be particular about whereabouts on the shelf the book goes back - wherever it fits works best for me. I do have two shelves though, which are organised and specific. One of these shelves is the My Favourite Books shelf and it has to be a very speci...

Burial Rites Hannah Kent Picador 9781742612829 (Proof Copy provided by Pan Macmillan Australia) In 1829, a woman named Agnes Magnusdottir was beheaded for her part in the murders of two men, one of whom was her employer.  Prior to her execution, she was sent to the home of a District Officer to be minded.  There, she worked alongside the family of this Officer until such time as her execution was arranged.  These are the facts, what the historical record shows.  Everything in between are lacunae. As a writer of historical fiction myself, I recognise the impulse to fictionalise moments of history that appear to go unexplained. By now, you will no doubt have heard the story of Burial Rites' meteoric rise to literary fame.  Hannah Kent, young and gorgeous, is a rising star.  She became fascinated with Agnes's story on a trip to Iceland a number of years ago, made this the subject of her research, and won a competition which saw her working with Ger...

Fairytales for Wilde Girls Allyse Near 9781742758510 Random House Fairytales for Wilde Girls  by Allyse Near has one of the best opening lines that I have read in a long time.  It is a first line that will make the decision process between buying and browsing extremely easy.  For that reason, I am not going to share it here.  You need to experience this magic for yourself. A cotton candy gothic fairytale set in the modern world, Fairy Tales for Wilde Girls is the story of sixteen year old Isola Wilde, and what happens when she finds a dead girl living in the woods behind her house.  Isola has a lot going on in her life; new love interest, a best friend who won't talk to her anymore because she doesn't have romantic feelings for him, parents who are capital W weird.  Plus, she can see things everyone else believes are mythical.  Protected by six Brother-Princes, Isola must solve the mystery of the dead girl before it's too late. A w...

This beautiful book is one to be read in a single sitting.  To read it is to totally submerge yourself in a complete world, in the blissful investigation of other people's problems. Gaelle, a beauty editor, flees her troubles at home and finds herself at Siesta Park, Western Australia.  Here she meets Selena, an inquisitive thirteen year old girl whose friendship will force Gaelle to admit to the truths she hasn't been telling the world, and herself. It is no wonder that Natasha Lester's What is Left Over, After  won the TAG Hungerford award in 2010.  The novel is simple but deep; it describes a slice of human experience at once foreign and relatable.  The story is hard to define, spanning several genres including Literary, without any of the pretentiousness that this usually is accompanied by- no small accomplishment! At it's heart, the story is a celebration of storytelling, and the ways that humans use narratives to make sense of what happens to t...

I keep hearing "fake it 'til you make it" and "don't say you want to be a writer, actually be one", and other similar advice .   It's frustrating.  I think that I'm following it most of the time, and then I realise that I've been going to bed earlier and earlier because I'm exhausted from doing other things, and the thing I've neglected was my nightly hour of writing. Sure, I've started telling people I'm a writer.  I work in retail, and I'm fairly young looking, so naturally people always ask me a) if I'm studying, and b) what I plan to do with my life.  Because, of course, staying in retail is not a legitimate career goal unless you've given up all hope.  (I do hope you could tell I was being sarcastic there.)  In case you were wondering, the answers to those two questions are a) no, I finished last year, and b) I'm trying to get my first novel written and published.  The difficulty with doing this, however is,...

Telegraph Avenue Michael Chabon Fourth Estate 9780007288762 "Moonfaced, mountainous, moderately stoned, Archy Stallings manned the front counter of Brokeland Records, holding a random baby..." (page 3-4) From the Blurb "As the summer of 2004 fades out over California, former star quarterback Gibson Goode announces plans to dump his Dogpile music megastore on Oakland's famous Telegraph Avenue.  Nat Jaffe and Archy Stallings can only fear the worst for Brokeland Records, their vulnerable vinyl emporium.  But while trying to save their livelihood they must contend with the sudden arrival of Archy's illegitimate teenage son Titus and the return of his father, Luther, as well as the rupture of their wives' midwifery service." Review There is something about Michael Chabon's writing that makes him special, different.  Right away, you can feel the energy in his writing.  He has a keen eye for observation that allows him to draw simple connect...