Happy’s Best New Books (18th April – 24th April)
Updated weekly by the fine folk at Happy Mag, these are the best new books that this week has to offer from Australia and around the world!
Janelle Monae – The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer
Based on the singer’s 2018 Grammy-nominated album Dirty Computer, Monae’s new collection of stories walks the line between Afro-futurism and science fiction. The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer is a fascinating exploration of liberation, queerness, race, and gender all wrapped up in a totalitarian landscape.
JANELLE MONAE
THE MEMORY LIBRARIAN: AND OTHER STORIES OF DIRTY COMPUTER
Ceridwen Dovey and Eliza Bell – Mothertongues
Genre-defying Mothertongues turns motherhood on its head. In this collaborative exploration into all things motherhood, Dovey and Bell create a colourful collage of the highs and lows of this experience. Saving each other’s lives, they imagine themselves in a future where women don’t always have to choose between art and motherhood. Surprising, messy, thoughtful, and fun, Mothertongues is an engaging insight into the modern mother’s collective mind.
CERIDWEN DOVEY, ELIZA BELL
MOTHERTONGUES
Ali Smith – Companion Piece
Following up on Ali Smith’s stand-out triumph of four Seasonal novels — Autumn, Winter, Spring, and Summer, Smith brings forth her Fifth instalment, a Companion Piece. Set in the present day, Smith explores companionship in its countless expressions, in all its knowable and unknowable glory. Engaging and thoughtful, there is a delightful chapter dedicated to hello, and all the mysteries that the word contains in its five simple letters “Where every hello, like every voice, holds its story ready, waiting.”
ALI SMITH
COMPANION PIECE
Kyung-Sook Shin – Violets
A tale of baffling emotions, and of love gone awry. Violets is a story about loneliness, the oft-blurred line between independence, and attachment. Rejection was nothing new to San, who as a child was ostracised from her community. Finding a friend in Namae, everything seemed to be changing for the better, until one afternoon everything changed. The story follows San as a twenty-two-year-old over the course of one hot summer at a job at a flower shop. Through it all, as if backdrop to her life, she finds that her moment with Namae lingers in everything she does.
KYUNG-SOOK SHIN
VIOLETS
Cristina Morales – Easy Reading
A passionate and bold novel about sex, politics, and disability by the prize-winning Spanish writer Cristina Morales. Easy Reading follows the story of four strong unique women, Ángela, Patricia, Marga, and Nati who are cousins sharing a state-subsidised apartment together in Barcelona. Easy Reading is a fierce takedown of what it means to be marginalised by the so-called institutions that label the disabled, but above all else, it is a celebration of the female body.
CRISTINA MORALES
EASY READING
Lee Cole – Groundskeeping
An enduring love story about Owen and Alma, two people from two very different life situations, navigating class, identity, and coming of age. Set in 2016, in a run-up to the Primary elections in Kentucky, the story follows Owen and Alma’s secret relationship. Groundskeeping is beautifully written, with poetic restraint and a great depth of feeling.
LEE COLE
GROUNDSKEEPING