November’s book selection
November’s books include a story about the repercussions of an impulsive decision that affects two intertwined families, an epic love story across India and America, and Dr Karl’s memoir about his idiosyncratic path through life.
Find out about each one below and remember to email your choice.
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny
by Kiran Desai
A spellbinding story of two young people whose fates intersect and diverge across continents and years-an epic of love and family, India and America, tradition and modernity, by the Booker Prize-winning author of The Inheritance of Loss.
When Sonia and Sunny first glimpse each other on an overnight train, they are immediately captivated, yet also embarrassed by the fact that their grandparents had once tried to matchmake them, a clumsy meddling that only served to drive Sonia and Sunny apart.
Sonia, an aspiring novelist who recently completed her studies in the snowy mountains of Vermont, has returned to her family in India, fearing she is haunted by a dark spell cast by an artist to whom she had once turned for intimacy and inspiration. Sunny, a struggling journalist resettled in New York City, is attempting to flee his imperious mother and the violence of his warring clan. Uncertain of their future, Sonia and Sunny embark on a search for happiness together as they confront the many alienations of our modern world.
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is the sweeping tale of two young people navigating the many forces that shape their lives- country, class, race, history, and the complicated bonds that link one generation to the next. A love story, a family saga, and a rich novel of ideas, it is the most ambitious and accomplished work yet by one of our greatest novelists.
Amazon: Paperback $26.25, Kindle $17.99
Booktopia: Paperback $29.95
Sutherland Library: 2 copies
Can borrow Jen’s copy 🙂
Kmart: Doesn’t stock
Big W: Doesn’t stock
A Periodic Tale: Dr Karl
by Karl Kruszelnicki
How did a shy Polish immigrant kid – Karl Sven Woytek Sas Konkovitch Matthew Kruszelnicki – evolve into the fabulously eccentric Dr Karl?
Shortlist ABIA Biography of the Year 2025
The only child of Holocaust survivors who fled to Australia in 1950, Karl has always forged his own destiny in an idiosyncratic way. Before he became one of the world’s favourite scientific storytellers, he ambled through a convoluted cacophony of a career.
In the 1960s, he got his start as a physicist at the Port Kembla Steelworks and promptly joined the Steel Industries Auto Club, racing modified rally cars on Wollongong’s deserted back roads. In the 1970s, he entered his self-described ‘drug-crazed hippie years’, making a living as a long-haired, dope-smoking taxi driver. After he applied to be a NASA astronaut in the 1980s and ‘failed’, he ended up live broadcasting the first space shuttle launch on Triple J instead. Unexpectedly, that blasted off his media career, and from there it was a stratospheric rise from radio to TV, books, newspapers, speaking, podcasts and the internet.
Karl’s story teaches us that you don’t have to know all the answers, as long as you ask the right questions. He has wandered down more than a dozen career paths, from being a TV weatherman (really) to a professional four-wheel drive tester in the outback (really) to being a roadie for Bo Diddley (really). All of these seemingly random experiences have helped create the Karl we know today.
In this long-awaited memoir, you will learn that it’s okay to not take a linear path through life, and that by following our curiosities and our passions, we can bend the universe to our liking.
Amazon: Hardcover $16.99, Paperback $24.00, Kindle $16.99
Booktopia: Paperback $29.95
Sutherland Library: Paperback – many copies, eBook (BorrowBox & Hoopla)
Kmart: Doesn’t stock
Big W: $24
Dream State
by Eric Puchner
AN OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK AND AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
‘[A] brilliantly panoramic tale of family ties’ Guardian
‘A sprawling page-turner’ Grazia, Summer Reads
‘Moving, funny and utterly engrossing’ The Times
‘A totally involving and moving literary page-turner’ Clare Chambers
Cece is in love. She has arrived early at her in-laws’ beautiful lake house in Salish, Montana, to finish planning her wedding to Charlie, a cardiac anaesthesiologist with a brilliant future.
When Charlie asks Garrett, his best friend from college, to officiate the ceremony, Cece can’t imagine anyone less appropriate for the task. After all, Garrett, a depressed baggage handler at the local airport, doesn’t believe in marriage.
But as she spends time with him and his gruff mask slips, she grows increasingly uncertain about her future, leading to an impulsive decision that will alter the three friends’ lives forever – the events of that summer reverberating across fifty years and spanning generations.
Amazon: Paperback $19.87, Kindle $16.99
Booktopia: Paperback $27.75
Sutherland Library: 3 copies
Kmart: Doesn’t stock
Big W: Doesn’t stock
