Book Reviews
At New Edition we not only sell books! Everyone here loves to read, discuss, and even have their opinion heard about what they've been reading. We've set up this book review page to allow our staff post their thoughts and reviews about all the latest releases as well as the classics and a few personal favourites as well.
We also have the ability for everyone to drop in and comment about our reviews and the books to get your own thoughts!
Pretty Monsters
Written by Kelly Link
Reviewed by Kate-Anna
/ 5
I should hate Kelly Link. Whenever someone points me in the direction of any book dealing in monsters, fairies, zombies or any element of fantasy, I am prone to a good eye-roll, a deep exhale, and this kind of strange syndrome where my ears seem to tune out entirely to what the well-meaning recommender is saying.
Kelly Link has however, has managed to change my tune. She is a sharp, startling, wicked Goddess of a storyteller. She came into my life around 5 years ago and has been haunting me ever since. A week does not go by that I do not pick up one of her collections of stories and lose myself in her warped, magical, yet decidedly believable worlds.
‘Pretty Monsters’ is not a new collection of stories, but it is so amazing and important that this reviewer believes she still needs to draw your attention to it. Published in 2008, this anthology presents a selection of Link’s most awarded and arguably best stories and joins them together in a dark, if not slightly humourous web of words.
The book takes us through all kinds of imagined realities- we meet a handbag, carnivorous, and playing host to a kingdom of fairies, a teenage poet doubling as a grave-digger, and a werewolf with a penchant for internet chat. Part of Link’s charm comes from her remarkable ability to run these crazy plot twists along side very real and relatable subject matter. Teen romance, fights with friends, and crazy families all play a big part in her story-telling, bringing her out-of –this-world sensibilities back to earth. Because of this particular brand of human element (and possibly also the gratuitous use of zombies), Link is often classified as a Young Adult author, which can serve to turn readers off. Don’t listen. Just read the book.
My favourite of all of the stories in this group is called ‘Magic for Beginners’. Originally published in an earlier collection of the same title, it centers around a group of high school friends who have a feverish obsession with a sporadically screened television show set in a magical library. The characters lives begin to entwine with those on the show. Fox- the mysterious heroine of 'The Library'- and a character who I can not help but wish wish wish was real (I kind of believe she is) – crosses between worlds, embedding herself in real life via abandoned telephone booths and inherited wedding chapels.
It all sounds far too confusing, I know, but I promise that if you invest the time to get immersed in Link’s world, you will be rewarded. And you will become heart-racingly addicted. And you might even start to believe in magic.
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It Chooses You
Written by Miranda July
Reviewed by Kate-Anna
/ 5
In 2011, I heard that Californian artist, author and filmmaker Miranda July was venturing to our shores to premiere her film ‘The Future’, and give a lecture regarding her artistic process. Within fifteen minutes of receiving this news, I had plane tickets booked for a whirlwind 24 hour trip to meet and suck wisdom in from one of my biggest influences. This is the kind of power Miranda July can conduct over people.
It is hard not to become suspended in this power when working your way through her latest offering ‘It Chooses You’ - July’s first foray into non-fiction writing. She takes us through the process of piecing together the remarkable film she was debuting last year, -‘The Future’- a fictional piece about the distance that grows between a long-term couple when forced to step outside of the online world their lives have been caught up in, and face each other in real life. The story is set on the timeline of the adoption of an injured stray cat. The couple decide to cut of all contact with the technological world until they are able to collect their new pet. It is a story about human contact and human truths- two themes that run through all of July’s work, and which are noticeably present in her last literary collection- the small anthology of short stories ‘No One Belongs Here More Than You’.
In her new work July, a true hoarder of people and memories, chronicles her adventures through the world of the Penny Saver- A L.A classifieds paper. While this journey started as a way to procrastinate from tackling her screen play, it soon became an integral part of the film, July casting a man she met selling a home-made Christmas cards for $1 each as a central character in the film as him self.
‘It Chooses You’ is comprised of interviews with the people she meets, as well as reflections of the journeys that lead people's lives to intersect, and therefore to change. We read of Matilda & Domingo selling Care Bears for $2 each, of Michael, a cross-dresser selling a large leather jacket for $20, and of Dina, parting with her hair dryer for $5. Each story seems to bring with it some odd sensation of sadness- as if we leave a small part of our heart with each of these almost-strangers. I am known to be a sentimental and wimpy lass however, and found that once I got past the sense of loss I felt as I turned the last page of this collection, I found a glowing hope.
July weaves magic with her words, reminding us with her searing honesty and trademark off-beat sense of humour, that there are lives out there beyond our own – beyond our facebook page- beyond our T.V screens. All of us are capable to reach out and find another living, breathing soul –a treasure chest - which no doubt is filled with stories, loves, objects and treasures that a easy to overlook in our everyday lives. A million stars forever.
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Women of Letters
Written by Hardy Marieke McGuire Michaela
Reviewed by Kate-Anna
/ 5
Marieke Hardy is an interesting character. Her opinions are as sharp as her tongue, and the debauched tales that she recalls from her life with brutal honestly and winking humour often grate people the wrong way. A select few of us on the other hand are absolutely besotted by her penchant for screaming at ex-boyfriends from bar stools, her strange ability to get herself into increasingly embarrassing situations in front of her famous heroes, and the fact that she never holds back what she is thinking - whether it be across the pages of Frankie Magazine, on the internet, or through the idiot box on Tuesday Night Book Club. She is my hero. Haters gonna hate.
I say all this, because every time I recommend 'Women of Letters'- the recent collection of letters written by respected and articulate Australian authors, poets, songwriters, actors and politicians that has been dreamed up and edited by Ms. Hardy and fellow hilarious and arguably crazy Melbourne writer Michela McGuire - I am more often than not met with an expression of either disgust or sheer excitement at the names that appear of the cover.Those with such fierce opinions in either direction on these lasses and what they say should chill out for a couple of hours and pick up this book.
The concept for 'Women of Letters' started as an excuse to get drunk and write (hello!), whilst raising some coin for a local animal rescue charity (the amazing 'Edgar's Mission'). Women, well known and otherwise armed themselves with a pen and a glass of wine, and took to writing letters to 'The host of THAT party', 'My most treasured possession' and 'My first boss' among other things.
This book, published in 2011, brings together the best of those stories from names you are sure to admire. Read Helen Razor's diatribe against Sarah Jessica Parker, Judith Lucy bemusedly take us through some of her worst dates, Rowena Grant-Frost reflecting on the true love that exists between her and her modem, or in my personal favourite, Mia Timpano tell us with gusto that our lives - love and otherwise - are never going to get better and that we are all probably going to end up dating tyrannical, homicidal REM fans. How bleak for us.
One of the strongest points in this collection is the collection of letters by men, written to the women that changed their lives. Eddie Perfect makes us smile, John Safran makes us cry with laughter, Bob Ellis and Paul Kelly grace the pages with trademark Australian literary savvy. This collection is not just one for the girls.
While hilarious in some parts (see above), this book will also break your heart when it sees fit. It resonates so well because it is easy to see oneself in all of these stories. It makes you think about what how letters would read, if you ever sat down to write them. You should.
Bravo amazing lady writers, you have reminded me that everyone has a story to tell, be it hair-brained or heartbreaking. You have created a manic masterpiece. Five stars.
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