Library staff members Lesley Conway and Pia Butcher run a radio show each Wednesday 12:05pm-12:45pm on Eastern FM 98.1 called The Eastern Regional Library Show. Tune in next Wednesday for a great show.
On today's show
Our libraries are not always able to give you the book you saw reviewed in the Saturday paper, and that's why free reservations are a good thing. We can say confidently however that the latest Helen Garner novel The Spare Room was in our branches 2 weeks before last Saturday's reviews, and that it is quite possible that Lyn Baines had the first public review of this book on the ERL blog. Now if you don't already check our blog for book reviews, go back to the ERL webpage and click on Reader's Corner, and then Reader's Corner Reviews. You can post your own review, and check those posted by ERL staff and visitors. Back to The spare room, and Lyn is quoted as saying " Helen Garner’s first novel in 15 years is a moving, funny account of a woman dying of cancer and her friend, who tries to help her...... There’s a lot of humour in the novel and, as always in Garner’s work, beautiful descriptions of domestic life. This book is an emotional journey which raises questions about love, friendship and honesty."
Another new addition to our Popular novel category is Cynthia Harrod-Eagles' Game Over, the latest in her detective series featuring Bill Slider. The official website describes Bill as a fallible 'everyman', and Lyn attests to the addictive pull of following him through many trials and tribulations. In this, the eleventh in the series, Bill is desperately trying to fit his wedding to his pregnant partner in between the demands of solving a murder, and threats from the past. Compulsive reading.
If you admit publicly to obsessions as Lyn has done frequently on the radio, then we all cheer for her when a book combining two of her favourite obsessions - Daphne Du Maurier and the Bronte family - is published. Daphne, by Justine Picardie, is a novel which combines fact with a fictional look at some 'what if' possibilities. There are three points of view, that of Daphne herself in 1957 at a difficult time in her life, that of Alex Symington, a Bramwell Bronte sholar with whom Daphne corresponds, and that of an unnamed woman in our times who investigates both these characters, and the legacy of Bramwell Bronte. The 'ghost' of Du Maurier's Rebecca flits through all three of the sements, and Picardie is obviously as enthralled by Du Maurier's novels as are many more of us.
Lyn briefly mentioned Charles Nicholl's The Lodger : Shakespeare on Silver Street which she will review in detail next month. Suffice to say that it adds something to the ongoing debate about whether Shakespeare actually lived and wrote all the plays credited to him. Having stirred the pool of controversy, on next weeks radio broadcast, I will review some of the material available on the Shakespeare controversy.
The link to the book review blog is http://readerscornerreviews.blogspot.com/
---- Lesley
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