Emily Paull

Today Will Be Different Maria Semple Weidenfeld and Nicolson 2016 (I own a copy, courtesy the publisher) After the phenomenal success that was Where'd You Go, Bernadette? , Maria Semple found her way onto my list of go-to authors.  Her writing did that rare thing-- it made me laugh without making me feel like I was reading something that was going to rot my teeth.  I can still remember the way that it felt to be sucked into the world of Where'd You Go, Bernadette? , right down to the fact that I played Monopoly with my family the evening after I finished it. In the interim between these two books, I've read Semple's (then) hard to find debut, This One is Mine , which in my opinion was a better, edgier book than its Baileys' Women's Prize follow up, and watched all of television's Arrested Development, which Semple was involved in writing. So when I heard that she had a new book out in 2016, you could say that I was excited. The protagonist of Today...

The Woman on the Stairs by Bernard Schlink Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2016 (I own a copy, courtesy the publisher) 9781474604994 Bernard Schlink is most well-known for his novel The Reader, which admittedly, I have never read.  His newest novel, The Woman on the Stairs  is a highly anticipated release, and tells the story of a painting which reappears in a gallery in Sydney after having disappeared decades before from the home of a German businessman.  Our narrator, an unnamed German lawyer, stumbles across the painting while he is in Australia on business, and feels compelled to track down the woman whom he is sure is the unnamed patron who has donated the piece. He is right.  His searching leads him to Irene, both the subject of the painting and the woman who stole it, many years before, with the narrator's help.  She has placed the painting in the gallery in the hopes of luring both the painting's former owner and the painter himself to her secluded is...

It's torture reading about all the books that are due to come out in 2017 when I can't go and read any of them straight away!  New books are always exciting, but for the last week or so, I've been keeping a list of the books that I'm keen to read when they're published next year.  Not surprisingly, the list is already quite long... The Fifth Letter by Nicola Moriarty This promises all the delicious social drama of a book by that other Moriarty lady-- the very famous Liane.  When four friends go on an annual holiday and decide to send each other letters revealing their secrets anonymously, it's all supposed to be a harmless game... until a fifth letter shows up, that is!  It sounds like the perfect weekend read and I can't wait. Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders Many, many moons ago a writer recommended to me that I read Tenth of December , which is a collection of stories by Saunders that I have never got around to reading, even though it sou...

I love seeing all the best books of 2016 that keep coming out-- the only problem is, with every list I read, my TBR (to be read) pile gets that little bit longer. Read on for the books that I loved best over my 2016 reading year.  Click the titles to read my reviews. The Life and Death of Sophie Stark by Anna North   Fates and Furies  by Lauren Groff The Words in my Hand by Guinevere Glasfurd A Kiss from Mr Fitzgerald by Natasha Lester Waer  by Meg Caddy Like a House on Fire by Cate Kennedy Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff The Midnight Watch by David Dyer The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte The Paper House  by Anna Spargo-Ryan The Windy Season by Sam Carmody A Little Life  by Hanya Yanagihara Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin Words in Deep Blue  by Cath Crowley The Historian's Daughter by Rashida Murphy Dark Roots by Cate Kennedy Our Tiny Useless Hearts by Toni Jordan Thr...

Earlier in the year, I posted a list of all the books I was really looking forward to reading on the website of the bookshop I was working at-- a bookshop which has since closed down, taking its website and my original post with it.  On the one hand, I am now saved from measuring how poorly I stuck to my guns on the books I wanted to read!  On the other, I'm now flying blind and so I am going to assume I knew about all of these books at the beginning of the year. Reading can be a funny thing-- you're so keen on a book and it comes out, you buy it and then... huh, you're not in the mood to read it straight away and other things sneak up the TBR (to be read) pile. Without any further to do, here is a list of GREAT 2016 Books that I'm still keen to read but haven't got to yet. The Mothers by Brit Bennett It's sitting on my shelf and I will get to it soon.  This was definitely one which snuck up on me.  I'd seen the cover and I knew nothing about it, and...

Writing the Dream  ed. Monique Mulligan Serenity Press 2016 (I own a copy courtesy the publisher) If I were to get a tattoo, I would get one that says 'Be The Tortoise'. This is the title of a section in Guy Salvidge's essay 'Hard Travelin'' and it speaks to the importance of patience in any writer's career.  For many who pick up this book, the lessons that taught Guy and his fellow essayists this patience will be all too familiar.  Writing is rewarding and cathartic and beautiful and hard.  It is the overall message of Writing the Dream  that despite how difficult it may be at times, it is important to keep writing anyway. Local indie publishing house Serenity Press has embarked on its most ambitious project yet with Writing The Dream  and they have been rewarded with a warm reception from the writing community in Western Australia.  Contrary to the twenty-four stories promised on the cover, Writing the Dream is actually a compilation of twenty...

Last week I was featured in a guest post on Amanda Curtin's blog, Looking Up/ Looking Down.  The post was an update on a series from two years ago on WA Women Writers to Watch.  You can check out the original post here and read about the other ladies from the series.  My guest post is reproduced below.   What a difference two years makes.  Since I was featured as one of Amanda Curtin’s WA women writers to watch out for, a lot of things have changed.  Some of them were good changes—such as, for example, having short stories published in two anthologies.  My story ‘A Thousand Words’ was published in the UK in a collection called [Re]Sisters , and I was lucky enough to have a story called ‘The Sea Also Waits’ selected by editor Laurie Steed to be a part of the Margaret River Press Anthology, Shibboleth and Other Stories.   When I last wrote for this blog, I was about to begin my time as one of three Young Writers in Residence at the Kathe...

Beyond Carousel Brendan Ritchie Fremantle Press, 2016 9781925164039 This review may contain spoilers.  If you don't want to see spoilers about Beyond Carousel,  get to your nearest indie bookshop, buy a copy, read it and then come back and talk to me about it in the comments.  If you've read it, or spoilers don't bug you, feel free to read on. When we last left Nox, Taylor and Lizzy at the end of Carousel , they'd finally managed to make their way out of the shopping centre which had imprisoned them for eighteen months.  Now, living in a deserted, post-apocalyptic Perth with no power and limited clean water and food, they're starting to think that maybe they were better off where they were.  Still, outside the confines of the centre, the trio are slowly starting to piece together what may have happened to everyone else.  The arrival of a Danish filmmaker, Tommy, to the property in the Perth hills where the gang are bunking down alerts them to so...

Le Chateau  by Sarah Ridout Echo Publishing 2016 9781760404413 I was immediately fascinated by Le Chateau  when it began to get coverage on a few Australian blogs and social media accounts the weekend before it was due to be released.  Previously, I hadn't heard a thing about it.  The premise was intriguing-- Charlotte, an Australian woman, is returning home to a French chateau in the middle of a vineyard after a head injury.  She is returning to a husband and a daughter that she doesn't remember, and the life she expected to fit back into doesn't seem to suit who she feels she is.  Add to the mix a highly manipulative mother-in-law who keeps hinting at some indiscretion that had been going on between Charlotte and the riding instructor from the next property over and the result is a novel which twists the best strands of a few genres together.  While Le Chateau  could be said to be a romance, a thriller or a literary novel respectively, I thi...

Love at First Flight  Tess Woods Harper Collins, 2016 (I own a copy, courtesy the publisher) 9781460752647 Image from Goodreads Love at First Flight , the debut novel by WA-based physiotherapist Tess Woods was released as a paperback in August this year, but not before garnering thousands of fans all over the world as a digital release.  The novel follows Mosman Park GP, Mel, who appears to have the whole package.  She has a great job, is married to an anaesthetist who people frequently describe as a Greek God, two gorgeous teenagers, and lives in a big beautiful house in one of Perth's most elite suburbs.  Yet as the book opens, the reader is given a glimpse of Mel's inner life.  Something is missing.  She just doesn't know what it is yet.   Then, on a flight to Melbourne to have a girls' weekend with her best friend Sarah, Mel meets Matt.  He's younger than she is, but the attraction is instantaneous and mutual.  As the plan...

The Historian's Daughter Rashida Murphy UWA Publishing 2016  I first met Rashida Murphy when we were both featured on Amanda Curtin's blog as WA Writers to watch. Not long after this, Rashida's book, which she had been working on as part of her PhD, was accepted for publication by UWA Publishing.   The Historian's Daughter came out in September of this year, and I was so excited to read it. I was not disappointed. The Historian's Daughter  is the story of Hannah, a young girl growing up in India with a colonialist father whom she calls the Historian, and a Persian mother whom she adores, and calls the Magician.  She idolises her older sister Gloria, loves to read about 'the conquistadors', Englishmen who travelled to the Indian colony, and collects words.  Hannah's family life is crowded and not always satisfying to her, with numerous Aunties living under their roof such as Meher Aunty who is a greedy and selfish presence in Hannah's li...

The Good People Hannah Kent Picador, 2016 (I own a copy, courtesy of the publisher) When I read Hannah Kent's 2013 debut, I was supposed to be vacuuming my room.  But I was reading instead, and I was reading about dark, cold, Iceland, and by the time I had finished the book, I had climbed into my bed and pulled the covers up because my whole body felt frozen.  That was the power of that book.  Hannah Kent's writing had taken me to a place I had never even been. Since reading it, and since it became a global phenomenon, I have seen Hannah Kent speak at the Perth Writers' Festival, and seen her give interviews on television.  There is no doubting that she is a thoughtful, intelligent writer who takes her subject matter seriously.  It should not be a surprise to anyone who has read Burial Rites that her new book, The Good People , is just as moving. The novel tells the story of three women who set about trying to banish a fairy changeling which they bel...

Katherine of Aragon- The True Queen (Six Tudor Queens Book 1) Alison Weir Headline Publishing, 2016  (I own a copy, courtesy the publisher) Ever since I read Philippa Gregory's novel The Constant Princess , Katherine of Aragon has been one of my most admired historical figures.  We all know some parts of the story of Henry the Eighth and his ill-fated six wives: divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived.  But what we also know is that there are a lot of rumours about the time period which make for really interesting but really inaccurate dramas.  If anyone has ever seen The Tudors , that would be my case in point. Tudor England was not just a haven of licentiousness and intrigue.  It was a highly political time, and also a time when religious belief was much more fervent than it is today.  Katherine of Aragon was sent to England to marry Arthur, Prince of Wales, who was the oldest son of the first Tudor King, Henry the VII and Queen El...

I don't know what it was about August, but almost everyone I spoke to was busy, busy, busy.  August saw me spending one entire weekend escaping into book after book to get away from all the stress of uni and work and everything in between.  Without any further ado, here is what I read in August. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by Jack Thorne, John Tiffany and JK Rowling A lot has been said about the new 'Harry Potter' book, which isn't a book at all but a rehearsal edition of the script for the new play currently on in the UK.  There are a few problems with the play, but this came into my life at exactly the right time.  A lot of things were changing and I felt unstable-- it was just the ticket to be able to escape back into the familiar world of Harry Potter, even if some things were just a little bit off. The Muse by Jessie Burton I loved The Miniaturist , which came out a few years ago and told the story of an enchanted doll's house in Amsterdam...