Over a decade since Time Out favourite, Swamplandia!, Karen Russell’s new novel The Antidote is here. Set in 1930’s Nebraska, in the time of The Dust Bowl, Russell weaves together history and magic to tell a tale full of rich characters, stunning writing and gives context to the effects of colonisation and the climate crisis. Highly, highly recommended.
Listen to Jenna’s review with Jonny, in the bFM studio below.
Told with caustic wit, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's long-awaited fourth novel, Dream Count, follows the lives and complex relationships between four Nigerian women.
Fans of Americanah will love Adichie's most recent return to fiction- a witty, funny and clever excision of womanhood and migration.
Adichie explores the moulding of desire, love and friendship and the cracks of tension that emerge via the stratas of race, class and geography.
Clever, poignant and deliciously readable Dream Count cements Adichie as a generational talent akin to Anne Tyler and Sally Rooney.
Today on Nine to Noon, Jenna was in the studio to chat to Kathryn about French author, Laurent Binet’s new novel. Perspectives is an epistolary novel that tells a playful tale of murder, art & moral panic in Renaissance Florence. Featuring real life figures such as Michelangelo, Vasari and the Medicis, this is one for the art history buffs.
Listen below for the full review.
Jenna has so much book news, that we’ve dedicated this week’s segment to it.
First, the shortlist for the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards has been announced. See the list of finalists here. The ceremony will be held on May 14th.
Secondly, a preview of names have been announced for the Auckland Writers Festival, with the full programme being release this Wednesday 12th March. Kaliane Bradley, Gavin Bishop, Yael van der Wouden, Ben Macintyre and Asako Yuzuki are just the start of an amazing programme.
Finally, New Zealand author Saraid de Silva’s Amma has been longlisted for the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction.
Listen to all the news & more below.
Fundamentally is a debut novel by peace-keeping specialist Nussaibah Younis.
Younis writes about a UN peace-keeping contingent based in Iraq and tells the story through the perspective of a criminologist specializing in deradicalization programmes.
A hilarious piece of auto-fictional satire, Fundamentally skewers the saviour industrial complex and contends with the tangled politics of international relations.
Told with caustic wit, Fundamentally is a funny, highly readable story sure to help any reader out of their summer rut!
Listen to Suri’s call with Jonny in the studio below.
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Jenna & Jonny are in the studio this morning talking literary horror. Old Soul is a mysterious & unsettling tale traversing many countries on the hunt for a mysterious, dangerous woman.
For fans of David Mitchell, Stephen King and Mariana Enriquez, Susan Barker is the author of Time Out favourite, The Incarnations.
First released in the 1960’s, a new Daunt Books edition of Celia Dale’s A Spring of Love has been newly republished.
Esther, a 30 year old ‘spinster’, lives with her Gran and has little reprieve from her mundane routine. She soon meets & starts a courtship with Raymond, a man of artificial charm who weasels his way into her life.
Reminiscent of Mary Gatskill and Shirley Jackson, A Spring of Love is a gripping and hilarious psychological thriller which explores the loneliness and desire of women and the men who prey on them.
You can also listen to Suri’s review of Celia Dale’s previous book, Sheep’s Clothing here.
Abby gives you the low down on Star Gazers by Duncan Sarkies, a local read due for release this Thursday! If you're looking for a piece of fun and satirical fiction, Star Gazers is highly recommended. For fans of political intrigue, comedy and alpacas.
Translated from French, Dear Dickhead is a epistolary tale between cancelled crime author, Oscar and aging actress, Rebecca as they talk about feminism, generational difference and addiction.
Nuanced and very funny, Dear Dickhead is a great next step if you enjoyed All Fours. As Jonny says, ‘it sounds very French!’
Today on Nine to Noon, Jenna was in the studio to chat to Kathryn about some of her favourite 2024 reads.
Listen below for the full review.
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As hard as it is to believe, 2025 is now well and truly upon us and the time has come to move from writing best books of the year lists to most exciting upcoming books of the year ahead. Thankfully, while everyone else was trying to get as much rest as could be squeezed in over Christmas/New Year, the book/publishing world never truly stops and we’ve already got some great titles releasing soon, as well as exciting authors slated to release new books this year that are well worth keeping an eye on.
The big release for February is the new Han Kang ‘We Do Not Part’. I’m only about 100 pages in but I can already tell it’ll be an early favourite of the year. The central plot is deceptively simple- a woman struggling through a snowstorm to check on a friend's budgie- but there’s an ever present menace lingering in these pages and I can’t wait to see it unfold.
Another Nobel winner also has a new book out in Feb, with Annie Ernaux’s ‘The Use of Photography’, finally reaching New Zealand. In it, the great French essayist examines her relationship with former partner Marc Marie, using images he took of their time together. Ernaux is both brilliant and experimental and I can’t wait to see how she explores the interactions between the two mediums.
Less well known but no less brilliant is Gerald Murnane, whose book on writing ‘Barley Patch’ is being re-released by one of my favourite small presses that same month. No one else I’ve read can write quite like he can; his novels push the boundary of what fiction means and can do. I would hazard a guess that a Nobel prize isn’t too far away from him either. Finally, we have a memoir by Geraldine Brooks, author of ‘People of the Brook’ and ‘Horse’, focusing on the loss of her husband.
March is always a great month for new releases and this year is no exception. Perhaps the biggest literary release of the year 'Dream Count’ by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, her first book in a decade, lands early in the month. ‘Americanah’ and ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’ are two of those books that I’ve always told myself I should read and have just never quite gotten to, so I’m particularly excited to finally read an Adichie. ‘Twist’ by Colum McCann is also released that month, which might win the award for best book with least inviting premise. While it bills itself as a book about repairing undersea internet cables and even goes as far as to have a massive cable on the front cover, it’s surprisingly a very compelling read. McCann is best known for his novel ‘Apeirogon’, which focused on the bond between two Israeli and Palestinian fathers. In ‘Twist’ he continues to focus on the connection between people, but in this case the way in which those bonds can fracture and the consequences of that. It's already an early 2025 staff favourite! Keep an eye out for ‘Flesh’ by David Szalazy and ‘The Antidote’ by Karen Russell, two wonderful writers releasing new books in March.
There are a number of amazing authors releasing books later in the year. Ocean Vuong is releasing his first novel since ‘On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous’ with ‘The Emperor of Gladness’- described as a friendship between a suicidal teen and a elderly women with dementia. I’m sure it will be as poetic and heart-wrenching as his previous works.
My bet for saddest book of the year is Yiyan Li’s memoir on grief, written after her sons suicide in early 2024. ‘Where Reasons End’, her last novel, a conversation between a mother and her dead son, was inspired by the death of her first son in 2017 and was achingly beautiful. I expect her memoir will be emotional, unflinchingly honest and beautifully written.
On a less heavy note R F Kuang, after the runaway success of ‘Yellowface’ and ‘Babel’, returns with another book of dark magical academia. ‘Katabasis’ has been described as a cross between Piranesi and Dante's Inferno, which personally, sounds extremely fun. It is out in August.
Ali Smith is also slated to release the companion novel to ‘Gliff’, aptly titled ‘Glyph’, in 2025. ‘Gliff’ was my favourite book of last year and I would not be surprised at all if ‘Glyph’ was my favourite of this one. Ben Okri and Catherine Lacey also have new books out later in the year, both of which sound typically experimental and interesting.
Two titles, one fiction and one non-fiction, are clear standouts in the New Zealand book sector. ‘The Book of Guilt’ by Catherine Chidgey is published late May and Chidgey is an author who never seems to miss. This one is a dystopia set in a government home in 1970s England and early reviews say it is exactly as good as it sounds. For non-fiction, Jacinda Ardern’s autobiography ‘A Different Kind of Power’ releases in June. While I usually steer clear of politicians' biographies as, with a few notable exceptions, I find they often write a sentence on their mistakes and a chapter for every minor win, but I think this one could definitely be a good read. Whatever you think about Jacinda, she undoubtedly led New Zealand through a tumultuous time in its history with great grace and eloquence. Also watch out for Duncan Sarkies ‘Star Gazers’ which aims to bring Alpacas into fictional relevance and Tina Makeriti’s ‘The Compulsion In Us’, her first nonfiction release, centred on the wahine that have inspired her.
2025 is also looking like it’ll be a great year for weird books. Two of the greats release new books this year, with Sayaka Murata following up ‘Earthlings’ and ‘Convenience Store Women’ with ‘Vanishing World’ a dystopian novel where all children are born via artificial insemination. At the end of the year we can all look forward to the prequel/sequel to Mona Awad’s ‘Bunny’ with ‘We Love You Bunny’. Expect both of these to be disturbing, imaginative with sections that leave you reeling. ‘Blob’ by Maggie Su, which arrives in store soon, also looks like an incredibly fun book. In it, a woman defies conventions and falls in love with a sentient blob. Reviewers are tipping it to be one of the most exciting debuts of the year, maximising the potential of its concept to deliver an excellent satire on desire and modern relationships. Another debut, tipped for an April NZ release, that couldn’t help but catch my attention is ‘Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert’ by Bob the Drag Queen. While I don’t know what to expect from a book about a time travelling Harriet Tubman recording an album, it’ll certainly be unique.
I think it speaks to the year ahead that when writing this column there was a list much longer than this one of books that I just couldn’t fit in. It looks like a great year of reading and bookselling ahead!
Reprinted 29 years after its original publication, Holding the Line delves into one of the largest worker strikes in American history.
Through extensive interviews with the women working gruelling manual jobs and fighting for collective rights at a huge personal cost, Kingsolver paints a portrait of some of America's historically most vulnerables workers.
Bold, extensively researched and written with as much flair as her later novels, Holding the Line illuminates a rarely explored part of history, told through the voices of some of America's most marginalised voices.
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Named after Patti Smith’s Dancing Barefoot, Some Strange Music Draws Me In is both a visceral 1980’s, small town coming of age story and a modern day exploration of gender, generation differences, family & relationships.
Fun fact: As well as being an author, Griffin Hansbury is a psychoanalyst.
This shot up to being one of Jenna’s favourite books of 2024.
Listen below to Jenna & Jonny reunite in the studio for 2025.
Jenna called into the studio for Time Out’s last session for the year! Listeners texted in for book advice, including sci-fi for teens, Egyptology for an 8 year old and non-mainstream reads for a dude. Jonny needs a summer read too, plus some advice on 2024 cookbooks.
Time Out is open from 9am-9pm to help with all your Christmas needs. Gift wrapping included.
Listen below!
Suri & Jonny are in the studio with a HEAP of Christmas recommendations.
Listen in for some agony aunt answers - including advice on science fiction, graphic novels and self help.
Then, Suri picks out some of her top gift picks, including:
Time of the Child by Niall Williams
The Garden of Time by Olivia Laing
James by Percival Everett
The Gavin Bishop Treasury
What I Ate by Stanley Tucci
Ātūa Wāhine by Hana Tapiata
Click the link below for audio.
Jenna & Jonny talk Juice, the new dystopion novel by Australian living legend, Tim Winton. This pacy novel set in the North Western Australian desert, imagines a world of climate crisis but underpins the fear with the hope of humanity.
Listen to the full review below.
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