Stella Gibbons : Enbury Heath

Cold Comfort Farm, the book for which Stella Gibbons is best known, was published in 1932 when she was thirty. It is an extraordinary book for a thirty-year old; sophisticated, witty, a wonderful satire of Thomas Hardy, Mary Webb even D H Lawrence. It has been made into films, plays and audio books, and remains a favourite novel of many readers. Not many readers know that she published about twenty-eight books in her lifetime, as well as poetry and journalism. I am gradually dipping into her books, in no particular order, as they cross my path.

Heather Rose : nothing bad ever happens here

Believing and belonging occupy a great deal of human life. What to believe? How to belong? All of it is a mystery that we fill with stories.

Heather Rose’s memoir nothing bad ever happens here is her attempt to tease out the stories that make sense of her life. A Tasmanian, and author of seven books, but best known for her prize-winning novel about  Marina Abramovic, The Museum of Modern Love, she has also run a successful advertising agency and raised three children while writing her books. Hers is a life of hard work and a relentless search for meaning and spirit.

Raynor Winn: The Salt Path

Ann Patchett : These Precious Days

Ann Patchett is often described as a ‘beloved writer’ having ‘wit charm and grace’ and being one of ‘the most celebrated writers of our time.’ And it’s true she has won the Orange Prize for Bel Canto. But, but, but…. Doesn’t her work sometimes verge on the saccharine? Doesn’t she often tend to let know you what a wonderful person she is? Doesn’t she use the lives of her friends in her own work? It all makes me rather uneasy.

Per Petterson : Men in My Situation

Per Petterson has had a tragic life. In 1990 his parents, his brother, and his niece all died in the Scandinavian Star ferry disaster, where passengers were trapped in a fire. The case is still under investigation, and it appears it was a deliberate scheme to scuttle the boat for insurance purposes. In the Wake, published in 2002, was the first novel in which he wrote about this. His character Arvid Jansen, whom he describes as not an alter ego but a ‘stunt man’ is here shown to be overwhelmed by grief. He has lost his parents and his marriage has broken down.

Amanda Lohrey – The Labyrinth, Vertigo

Amanda Lohrey is an Australian fiction writer. Over a writing career starting with The Morality of Gentlemen in 1984 she has written seven novels and one book of short stories. In 2012 she got the Patrick White Award, which seems to be a kind of consolation prize for highly regarded Australian writers with a solid body of work, who have never got the recognition they deserve. A few local awards, a Longlisting for the International Dublin Literary Award and that’s about it. But that is not to say she doesn’t take on controversial subjects. In The Morality of Gentleman she dives right into the politics of Unionism in her account of a complicated legal case from the 1950’s. She comes from a working-class background and says that her work is always political.