95bFM's Loose Reads: In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado /  by Time Out Bookstore

‘If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.’
ZORA NEALE HURSTON

After making multiple ‘Best of 2019’ lists in the USA, Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House has finally made it to New Zealand.

Machado describes a year long, psychologically abusive relationship with her ex-girlfriend through vignettes headed with narrative genres.

She contextualises her experience as she looks outwards into writing on abusive relationships in the queer community, folklore and pop culture.

This book is intense, helpless and visceral but as Machado says, this is an act of resurrection for herself. Incredibly smart, powerful and compelling - this may be my memoir of the year already!

Listen to Jenna’s review below:

 
 

95bFM's Loose Reads: Strange Hotel by Eimear McBride /  by Time Out Bookstore

On 95bFM’s Loose Reads Kiran reviewed the eagerly anticipated new novel Strange Hotel by Eimear McBride, author of A Girl is a Half Formed Thing and The Lesser Bohemians. A slim novel at only 149 pages, Strange Hotel calls to be read in one feverish siting with a cold white wine which is what our unnamed narrator orders by the bottle from room service as she moves between a series of hotels in France, Prague, Oslo, Auckland and Austin. A searing meditation of the mind, body and loss, this radical novel is perfect for fans of Edna O’Brien and Rachel Cusk.

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BOOK OF THE MONTH: February, 2020: The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom /  by Time Out Bookstore

Our Book of the Month for February is The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction. A memoir of place, class, race and inequality, it tells the story of a hundred years of Broom’s family and their relationship to home after the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.
”An extraordinary, engrossing debut… kinetic and omnivorous… instantly essential.” - New York Times Book Review

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95bFM's Loose Reads: Braised Pork by An Yu /  by Time Out Bookstore

An Yu’s debut novel tells the story of Jia Jia who after discovering her husband dead in the bath, finds a curious drawing from his dream.

From Beijing to Tibet - Braised Pork weaves together domesticity, Chinese traditions and myth - resulting in a gentle exploration of grief.

Braised Pork is also our March Lit Reads pick! Listen to Jenna’s review with Rachel below:

 
 

RNZ's Nine to Noon: Jenna's Best of 2019 /  by Time Out Bookstore

Lucy Ellmann's Ducks, Newburyport a 1000 page, stream of consciousness of an Ohio mother as she bakes pies. Is it worth it? Yes!

Also, Jenna almost missed this incredible memoir, The Copenhagen Trilogy by Danish author Tove Ditlevsen, republished as a Penguin Classic forty years after publication. 

Listen to Jenna’s review with Kathryn Ryan below:

95bFM's Loose Reads: All Who Live on Islands by Rose Lu /  by Time Out Bookstore

Kiran reviewed All Who Live on Islands by Rose Lu on 95bFM’s Loose Reads. In this collection of nine essays which move between China, Palmerston North, Wellington, Christchurch and Whanganui, Lu writes with a lightness of touch about food, friendship, relationships, casual and internalised racism, sex, working in the tech industry, and what it’s like to grow up as a Chinese migrant in a multicultural society that has a monocultural focus. Kiran says, “we need more writing like this and I think it’s coming, which is exciting.”

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95bFM's Loose Reads: Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid /  by Time Out Bookstore

Are you looking for a great summer read that’s so compelling that you can’t put it down?

Kiley Reid’s Such a Fun Age is a topical page-turner that’s funny and sharp. Brilliant dialogue gives depth to her complex characters as they navigate race, privilege and wokeness.

This book has been bought by Lena Waithe’s production company and will soon be a TV series.

Listen to Jenna’s review with Rachel and Tess below!

 
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95bFM's Loose Reads: Jenna's Christmas Picks /  by Time Out Bookstore

Alright, it's the end of the year and wowee, Jenna has a full list of reckons for the last Loose Reads of 2019.

NOVEL OF THE YEAR The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

ADVENTURE STORY OF THE YEAR The Burning River by Lawrence Patchett

EPIC SUMMER READ Ducks Newburyport by Lucy Ellman

BEST BOOK FOR KIDS The Adventures of Tupaia by Courtney Sina Meredith
BEST BOOK FOR BABIES My First Words In Māori by Stacey Morrison

BEST FANCY BOOK Private Gardens of Aotearoa by Suzanne Turley

BEST CLIMATE SCIENCE BOOK Fifteen MIllion Years in Antarctica by Rebecca Priestley

BEST BOOK FOR A 2020 RESOLUTION Tales from a Hot Financial Mess by Frances Cook.

 
 

BOOK OF THE MONTH: December, 2019: Olive, Again by Olive Kitteridge /  by Time Out Bookstore

Olive, Again
Elizabeth Strout

Our Book of the Month for December is Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout. Readers will be thrilled by the return of the much-loved character Olive Kitteridge. Olive adjusts to her new life with her second husband, challenges her estranged son,  experiences loss and loneliness, witnesses the triumphs and heartbreaks of her friends and neighbours in the small coastal town of Crosby, Maine - and, finally, opens herself to new lessons about life.

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95bFM's Loose Reads: Me by Elton John /  by Time Out Bookstore

Jenna reviews this bloody excellent memoir by Elton John. Filled with incredible tales of celebrity, drugs and music - you will find yourself repeating these anecdotes around the dinner table.

This is the perfect Christmas present for any music lover in your life. Listen to Jenna’s review with Rachel and Tess below:

RNZ's Nine to Noon: Murmur by Will Eaves /  by Time Out Bookstore

On RNZ’s Nine to Noon, Kiran reviewed Murmur by Will Eaves. It is a mesmeric novel where science, imagination and literature intersect. It re-imagines the inner world of brilliant mathematician Alan Turing who was a computer science and number theory pioneer and WWII codebreaker. Bringing together deep philosophy, maths and the body, Murmur is also about exclusion, socio-economic stability and human rights - and what happens when these things are threatened. This exquisite novel was the winner of the 2019 Wellcome Book Prize, a prize which celebrates health and medicine in literature.

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95bFM's Loose Reads: It Gets Me Home, This Curving Track by Ian Penman /  by Time Out Bookstore

This beautiful collection brings together music criticism, history, social commentary and biography in eight intelligent and elegantly written long-form pieces by music journalist Ian Penman who has contributed to the NME (when it was still a class act!), Guardian and London Review of Books (from which some of these essays originated). Penman eloquently covers the mod revival, James Brown, Charlie Parker, Frank Sinatra, John Fahey, Steely Dan, Elvis Presley and Prince.

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