95bFM's Loose Reads
We think Dr. Emma Espiner’s debut memoir, There’s a Cure for This, is going to be a favourite for 2023.
"I don't know why medicine felt like coming home but, for some reason, it fits. I keep thinking about how the tohu, once awarded, can never be taken back. Better not fuck it up."
Through nostalgia, whānau & the grit of medicine this collection of essays explore being a mother, a daughter & a Māori doctor.
You can listen to Jenna, Annabel & Stella’s chat below!
Suri is back with a new review on 95bFM’s Loose Reads.
Prolific Chinese author, Yan Lianke explores secularism, money and faith in his new novel. This is a book to read if you want to take the pulse of what’s happening in China.
Listen to Suri and Rachel’s chat about Heart Sutra below
This week, Jenna visited the studio to talk about a current Time Out staff favourite, Rebecca Makkai’s I Have Some Questions for You.
A cross between The Secret History and Serial Podcast, this is a page-turning read that cleverly captures the zeitgest of the fascination of true crime, the #metoo movement and social justice.
You can listen to Jenna, Rachel & Stella’s chat below!
This morning, Suri reviewed Salman Rushdie’s new novel, Victory City.
Set in fourteenth century southern India, this novel gives context to the nation buidling myths of India.
By giving contemporary facets to his characters, Rushdie installs starting points for those who may want to understand India and its racial divide.
Listen to Suri and Rachel’s chat about Victory City below
Recently longlisted for the 2023 Women’s Prize, Cursed Bread is already one of Jenna’s favourite books for the year. Small but perfectly formed and fable-like, this feels like an instant classic.
Jenna phoned into the studio, pre-stocktake day! Listen to her chat with Rachel below.
Australian author, Tom Lee, pushes the boundaies of narrative form in his new novella, Object Space. Suri recommends this for philosophers, tech nerds and those interested in AI and ChatGBT.
Listen to Suri and Rachel’s great chat about this book below.
Last week, the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards shortlist was announced. Jenna delves into the fiction finalists today.
Listen to her chat with Rachel below.
Suri believes that Bret Easton Ellis is back to American Psycho form with his new novel, The Shards. Think Gossip Girl meets Scream in this hedonistic horror based in 1980’s LA.
Want to know more? Listen to Suri and Rachel’s chat below.
The Trees is a book that is both incredibly grim and incredibly funny. Shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize, this was one of Jenna’s favorite reads of the summer.
Listen to her chat with Rachel below.
This morning, Suri reviewed the new novel by the author of the bestselling, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982.
Cho Nam-Joo’s Saha is a dystopian thriller following various characters living in an abandoned building. The truth of their lives reveals a larger truth of society.
As Suri calls it, ‘a dark book for dark times.’
Listen to Suri and Rachel’s chat below.
Epic music producer and all round guru, Rick Rubin, has collated his thoughts on creativity, art and your place in the universe. This is the perfect read to set you up for a 2023 full of ideas.
Listen to Jenna chat with Rachel and Zoe below.
Poor Suri is sick today, so Jenna dialed for a last minute review. She gave advice on three great music books, which would be great for a Christmas present (or just yourself.)
Surrender by Bono - a life story told in forty songs which contains beautiful images & drawings.
Re-Sisters by Cosey Fanni Tutti - a memoir spanning centuries, Tutti interweaves the amazing lives of three women (including herself) who paved the way in both music, writing and creativity.
A Book of Days by Patti Smith - a diary of of year, told in images. As only Smith can be, this is considered, thoughtful and is an ode to art, thinkers, music, family and politics.
This morning, Jenna reviewed the first novel to be translated into English, by Argentine author, Mariana Enriquez. This is a horror, but as a non-horror fan, Jenna thinks okay for those who are squeamish (mostly!)
Filled with the dark arts, magic and politics, this is the perfect summer saga at 700 pages.
Listen to much more about this book in Jenna’s review with Rachel and Zoe below.
Still Born is the fourth novel from Mexican author Guadalupe Nettel, published by Fitzcarraldo Editions.
The story follows the narrator, Laura, as she writes her PhD in Mexico City. While Laura decides to be surgically sterilised, her good friend Alina is undergoing IVF to conceive, but the two women’s conception of motherhood is set to keep evolving as their lives take unexpected turns.
Told in Nettel’s typically simple, unflowery prose, this is a quietly profound story about motherhood. More generally, it’s about care and the forms it might take beyond conventional roles and communities, teasing out what connects women to children and to each other.
Anyone who’s battled with the decision to have children, or looked after other peoples’ children, or even fancied themselves a feminist, will find a lot to love and think about in this honest and smart read.
Poet and storyteller, Dominic Hoey, brings us a tale of Avondale ratbags in Poor People with Money. Monday has a ‘face like a broken dinner plate’ and can barely hold together her minimum wage job but dreams of being a champion kickboxer. When she gets an opportunity to fight in a tournament in Thailand, she needs to get some money quick.
Narrative threads from both Monday’s mysterious past and adventurous present are weaved together in a compelling read, where you find yourself rooting for the underdogs.
Listen to Jenna’s review with Rachel and Zoe below.
Alan Garner's latest novel, Treacle Walker, follows young Joe and his curious friendship with a rag and bone salesman, Treacle. Swapping his old clothes and a lamb shoulder blade for two of Treacle's treasures, Joe begins to see things which were once invisible to him- are they real or a trick of his imagination?
Filled joy, folklore and charm, this playful little book explores the trickery of the human eye and the perspectives we gain in unlikely friendships. A gorgeous little book for fans of Max Porter's Lanny.
The Axeman’s Carnival is narrated by a magpie called Tama, which is short for Tamagotchi. He lives in the yolk-yellow house of Marnie and Rob, which sits on a struggling High Country sheep farm in Central Otago.
Tama is quite clever and much to the delight of Marnie and the horror of Rob, starts parroting back what he hears around him. Marnie casually starts a Twitter account for him and this soon brings fame to this small town family.
This story is not all comedy. Marnie recently had a miscarriage and there’s a leering, nasty side to Rob that Marnie bears the brunt of. Marnie needs to leave, however her ties to Tama keep her home.
Chidgey is a master of voice. She’s a funny writer, but this humour cuts to a darkness beneath the surface. As with her previous works, the research and descriptions of place are impeccable. An excellent read from one of the best writers in Aotearoa right now.
Listen to Jenna’s review with Rachel and Zoe below.
The Mountain in the Sea is a thrilling new sci-fi read from Ray Nayler. Meticulously researched, crafted, and paced, Nayler brings new colour to the age-old question of what we as beings and minds are - or could be - and how we might know one another.
In a near-ish future, Ha Nguyen, a prominent marine biologist and author of 'How Oceans Think,' signs on for a research mission to a remote Vietnamese archipelago to study a dangerously intelligent new species of octopus living in the bowels of a shipwreck. The islands have been purchased by an AI tech corporation named DIANIMA, whose murky motivations Ha ignores in the opportunity of her lifetime, obsessed with deciphering the strange symbols the octopus flashes on its skin to communicate.
She is joined on the island by a highly sophisticated android named Evrim, and a war-scarred Mongolian security guard named Altantseg - each fascinating characters in their own right. Meanwhile, two subplots bubble: in Astrakhan, a hacker named Rustem attempts to find a way into the android's brain, and out in the open sea a man named Eiko, who has been captured and enslaved by a sinister automaton fishing vessel, fights for freedom.
This is a mind-bending and at times super spooky read, laced with philosophy and science surrounding the non-human mind, intelligence, and language. Pacy yet cerebral - a perfect beach read as you look out at the waves and ponder what goes on beneath.
The first novel in 15 years from Australian author Sophie Cunningham. Alice, a writer, has spent 15 years researching Leonard Woolf, husband of Virginia.
This is a novel for deep readers and for writers. Exploring colonialism, health, ideas, ghosts, viruses, war, sexuality and research, This Devastating Fever shows us that since early twentieth century, perhaps not much has changed at all.
