by Anna Funder

‘Simply, a masterpiece. Here, Anna Funder not only re-makes the art of biography, she resurrects a woman in full. And this in a narrative that grips the reader and unfolds through some of the most consequential moments – historical and cultural – of the twentieth century.’ GERALDINE BROOKS

‘There’s exhilaration in reading every brilliant word.’ CHLOE HOOPER

Looking for wonder and some reprieve from the everyday, Anna Funder slips into the pages of her hero George Orwell. As she watches him create his writing self, she tries to remember her own…

When she uncovers his forgotten wife, it’s a revelation. Eileen O’Shaughnessy’s literary brilliance shaped Orwell’s work and her practical nous saved his life. But why – and how – was she written out of the story?

Using newly discovered letters from Eileen to her best friend, Funder recreates the Orwells’ marriage, through the Spanish Civil War and WW II in London. As she rolls up the screen concealing Orwell’s private life she is led to question what it takes to be a writer – and what it is to be a wife.

Compelling and utterly original, Wifedom speaks to the unsung work of women everywhere today, while offering a breathtakingly intimate view of one of the most important literary marriages of the 20th century. It is a book that speaks to our present moment as much as it illuminates the past.

‘So, she will live writing the letters she did – six to her best friend, and three to her husband. I know where she was when she wrote them. I know that the dishes were frozen in the sink, that she was bleeding, that he was in bed with another woman – and she knew it. . . .I supply only what a film director would, directing an actor on set – the wiping of spectacles, the ash on the carpet, a cat pouring itself off her lap.’

Amazon Paperback $18:00, Kindle $18.99

Sutherland Library Book (many copies), Large Print

Kmart $18

Big W – Not stocked

by Tracy Chevalier

“This charming fable is at once a love story that skips through six centuries, and also a love song to the timeless craft of glassmaking. Chevalier probes the fierce rivalries and enduring loyalties of Murano’s glass dynasties, capturing the roar of the furnace, the sweat on the skin, and the glittering beauty of Venetian glass.” – Geraldine Brooks, author of Horse

 From the bestselling historical novelist, a rich, transporting story that follows a family of glassmakers from the height of Renaissance-era Italy to the present day.

 It is 1486 and Venice is a wealthy, opulent center for trade. Orsola Rosso is the eldest daughter in a family of glassblowers on Murano, the island revered for the craft. As a woman, she is not meant to work with glass–but she has the hands for it, the heart, and a vision. When her father dies, she teaches herself to make glass beads in secret, and her work supports the Rosso family fortunes.

Skipping like a stone through the centuries, in a Venice where time moves as slowly as molten glass, we follow Orsola and her family as they live through creative triumph and heartbreaking loss, from a plague devastating Venice to Continental soldiers stripping its palazzos bare, from the domination of Murano and its maestros to the transformation of the city of trade into a city of tourists. In every era, the Rosso women ensure that their work, and their bonds, endure.

 Chevalier is a master of her own craft, and The Glassmaker is as inventive as it is spellbinding: a mesmerizing portrait of a woman, a family, and a city as everlasting as their glass.

 Amazon: Paperback $26.95, Kindle $14.99

Sutherland Library Book, eBook (Borrow Box), Large Print, eAudiobook

Big W $18

by William Finnegan

**Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Autobiography**

Included in President Obama’s 2016 Summer Reading List

Barbarian Days is William Finnegan’s memoir of an obsession, a complex enchantment. Surfing only looks like a sport. To initiates, it is something else: a beautiful addiction, a demanding course of study, a morally dangerous pastime, a way of life.

Raised in California and Hawaii, Finnegan started surfing as a child. He has chased waves all over the world, wandering for years through the South Pacific, Australia, Asia, Africa. A bookish boy, and then an excessively adventurous young man, he went on to become a distinguished writer and war reporter. Barbarian Days takes us deep into unfamiliar worlds, some of them right under our noses—off the coasts of New York and San Francisco. It immerses the reader in the edgy camaraderie of close male friendships forged in challenging waves.

Finnegan shares stories of life in a whites-only gang in a tough school in Honolulu. He shows us a world turned upside down for kids and adults alike by the social upheavals of the 1960s. He details the intricacies of famous waves and his own apprenticeships to them. Youthful folly—he drops LSD while riding huge Honolua Bay, on Maui—is served up with rueful humor. As Finnegan’s travels take him ever farther afield, he discovers the picturesque simplicity of a Samoan fishing village, dissects the sexual politics of Tongan interactions with Americans and Japanese, and navigates the Indonesian black market while nearly succumbing to malaria. Throughout, he surfs, carrying readers with him on rides of harrowing, unprecedented lucidity.

Barbarian Days is an old-school adventure story, an intellectual autobiography, a social history, a literary road movie, and an extraordinary exploration of the gradual mastering of an exacting, little-understood art.

Amazon Paperback $11.58, Kindle $14.99, Hardcover $15.99

Sutherland Library – Has book

QBD Books $24.99

by Tea Cooper

What connects a botanical illustration of a butterfly with a missing baby and an enigma fifty years in the making? A twisty historical mystery from a bestselling Australian author.

1868 Morpeth Theodora Breckenridge, still in mourning after the loss of her parents and brother at sea, is more interested in working quietly on her art at the family’s country estate than she is finding a husband in Sydney society, even if her elder sister Florence has other ideas. Theodora seeks to emulate prestigious nature illustrators, the Scott sisters, who lived nearby, so she cannot believe her luck when she discovers a butterfly never before sighted in Australia. With the help of Clarrie, her maid, and her beautiful illustrations, she is poised to make a natural science discovery that will put her name on the map. Then Clarrie’s new-born son goes missing and everything changes.

1922 Sydney When would-be correspondent Verity Binks is sent an anonymous parcel containing a spectacular butterfly costume and an invitation to the Sydney Artists Masquerade Ball on the same day she loses her job at The Arrow, she is both baffled and determined to go. Her late grandfather Sid, an esteemed newspaperman, would expect no less of her. At the ball, she lands a juicy commission to write the history of the Treadwell Foundation – an institution that supports disgraced young women and their babies. But as she begins to dig, her investigation quickly leads her to an increasingly dark and complex mystery, a mystery fifty years in the making. Can she solve it? And will anyone believe her if she does?

Amazon Paperback $25.40, Kindle $11.99

Sutherland Library – Has books, eBook, Large Print & Audio Books

August/September’s books include a wartime secret, a daredevil aviator, and teenage connections.

Find out about each one below and remember to email your choice.

by Fiona Valpy

In this haunting tale from the bestselling author of The Storyteller of Casablanca, Beatrice kept a wartime secret to protect the innocent. Now, could telling it set her free?

Tuscany, 1943. Stranded in war-ravaged Italy, Beatrice’s dream of an escapist year teaching English is shattered. Granted shelter at the Villa delle Colombe, she seeks refuge in Francesca and Edoardo’s beautiful walled garden, hidden from the outside world, with an elaborate cypress maze at its heart.

But Beatrice is not the only one seeking an escape here. Francesca has brought children to the safety of the house, as well as other adults, all of them seeking sanctuary on the estate with its mysterious maze. As the war closes in, the residents are forced to witness—and do—unthinkable things…

2015. Tess arrives at the villa raw from the agonising loss of her husband. Beatrice, now custodian, guides her to the solace of its gardens, where Tess begins to heal. But all hope of peace is shattered by the arrival of Marco, the estate’s absent owner, who wants nothing more than to hand it over to developers.

Distraught, Beatrice realises she must finally reveal the villa’s painful past if she wants to save it. As the extraordinary story unfolds, Tess realises that Villa delle Colombe is not just a refuge, but a beacon of hope in the darkest of times. Can she convince Marco to give it a new lease of life—and find a way back to happiness herself?

by Maggie Shipstead

Spanning Prohibition-era Montana, the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, New Zealand, wartime London, and modern-day Los Angeles, Great Circle tells the unforgettable story of a daredevil female aviator determined to chart her own course in life, at any cost.

After being rescued as infants from a sinking ocean liner in 1914, Marian and Jamie Graves are raised by their dissolute uncle in Missoula, Montana. There—after encountering a pair of barnstorming pilots passing through town in beat-up biplanes—Marian commences her lifelong love affair with flight. At fourteen she drops out of school and finds an unexpected and dangerous patron in a wealthy bootlegger who provides a plane and subsidizes her lessons, an arrangement that will haunt her for the rest of her life, even as it allows her to fulfill her destiny: circumnavigating the globe by flying over the North and South Poles.

A century later, Hadley Baxter is cast to play Marian in a film that centers on Marian’s disappearance in Antarctica. Vibrant, canny, disgusted with the claustrophobia of Hollywood, Hadley is eager to redefine herself after a romantic film franchise has imprisoned her in the grip of cult celebrity. Her immersion into the character of Marian
unfolds, thrillingly, alongside Marian’s own story, as the two women’s fates—and their hunger for self-determination in vastly different geographies and times—collide. Epic and emotional, meticulously researched and gloriously told, Great Circle is a monumental work of art, and a tremendous leap forward for the prodigiously gifted Maggie Shipstead.

by Robin Benway

National Book Award Winner, PEN America Award Winner, and New York Times Bestseller!

Perfect for fans of This Is Us, Robin Benway’s beautiful interweaving story of three very different teenagers connected by blood explores the meaning of family in all its forms–how to find it, how to keep it, and how to love it.

Being the middle child has its ups and downs.

But for Grace, an only child who was adopted at birth, discovering that she is a middle child is a different ride altogether. After putting her own baby up for adoption, she goes looking for her biological family, including–

Maya, her loudmouthed younger bio sister, who has a lot to say about their newfound family ties. Having grown up the snarky brunette in a house full of chipper redheads, she’s quick to search for traces of herself among these not-quite-strangers. And when her adopted family’s long-buried problems begin to explode to the surface, Maya can’t help but wonder where exactly it is that she belongs.

And Joaquin, their stoic older bio brother, who has no interest in bonding over their shared biological mother. After seventeen years in the foster care system, he’s learned that there are no heroes, and secrets and fears are best kept close to the vest, where they can’t hurt anyone but him.

Don’t miss this moving novel that addresses such important topics as adoption, teen pregnancy, and foster care.

July’s books include three novels about women’s courage, friendship and strength.

Find out about each one below and remember to email your choice.

by Kristin Hannah

An intimate portrait of coming of age in a dangerous time and an epic tale of a nation divided.

Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances “Frankie” McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised in the sun-drenched, idyllic world of Southern California and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But in 1965, the world is changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she njoins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path.

As green and inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is over- whelmed by the chaos and destruction of war. Each day is a gamble of life and death, hope and betrayal; friendships run deep and can be shattered in an instant. In war, she meets and becomes one of—the lucky, the brave, the broken, and the lost.

But war is just the beginning for Frankie and her veteran friends. The real battle lies in coming home to a changed and divided America, to angry protesters, and to a country that wants to forget Vietnam.

The Women is the story of one woman gone to war, but it shines a light on all women who put themselves in harm’s way and whose sacrifice and commitment to their country has too often been forgotten. A novel about deep friendships and bold patriotism, The Women is a richly drawn story with a memorable heroine whose idealism and courage under fire will come to define an era.

by Heather Marshall

A debut about three women whose lives are bound together by a long-lost letter, a mother’s love, and a secret network of women fighting for the right to choose—inspired by true stories.

2017: When Angela Creighton discovers a mysterious letter containing a life-shattering confession, she is determined to find the intended recipient. Her search takes her back to the 1970s when a group of daring women operated an illegal underground abortion network in Toronto known only by its whispered code name: Jane.

1971: As a teenager, Dr. Evelyn Taylor was sent to a home for “fallen” women where she was forced to give up her baby for adoption a trauma she has never recovered from. Despite harrowing police raids and the constant threat of arrest, she joins the Jane Network as an abortion provider, determined to give other women the choice she never had.

1980: After discovering a shocking secret about her family, twenty-year-old Nancy Mitchell begins to question everything she has ever known. When she unexpectedly becomes pregnant, she feels like she has no one to turn to for help. Grappling with her decision, she locates “Jane” and finds a place of her own alongside Dr. Taylor within the network’s ranks, but she can never escape the lies that haunt her.

by Sadeqa Johnson

From the award-winning author of Yellow Wife, a daring and redemptive novel set in 1950s Philadelphia and Washington, DC, that explores what it means to be a woman and a mother, and how much one is willing to sacrifice to achieve her greatest goal.

1950s Philadelphia: fifteen-year-old Ruby Pearsall is on track to becoming the first in her family to attend college, in spite of having a mother more interested in keeping a man than raising a daughter. But a taboo love affair threatens to pull her back down into the poverty and desperation that has been passed on to her like a birthright.

Eleanor Quarles arrives in Washington, DC, with ambition and secrets. When she meets the handsome William Pride at Howard University, they fall madly in love. But William hails from one of DC’s elite wealthy Black families, and his parents don’t let just anyone into their fold. Eleanor hopes that a baby will make her finally feel at home in William’s family and grant her the life she’s been searching for. But having a baby—and fitting in—is easier said than done.

With their stories colliding in the most unexpected of ways, Ruby and Eleanor will both make decisions that shape the trajectory of their lives.

by Frauke Bolton-Boshammer

The powerful true story of how one woman turned the outback dust into a diamond empire.

Within minutes of landing at Kununurra, Frauke Bolton had made up her mind to get on a plane back to Germany. It was 1981 and the dusty frontier town was no place for a woman. However, Frauke stayed determined to help her husband carve out a new life farming. Tragedy struck just three years later when Friedrich took his own life, and she was left to raise their family alone.

Twenty-six years after she sold her first necklace off the back porch, Kimberley Fine Diamonds in Kununurra., is now home to one of the worlds largest collections of Argyle pink diamonds with a client list of Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman.

Frauke is credited for not only pioneering an industry but for putting the tiny outback town and its precious diamonds on the map.

A Diamond in the Dust is a tale of love and loss, hardship and heartache but ultimately the inspiring story of a young girl from Germany overcome by tragedy to pioneer a diamond empire in one of Hef most unforgiving terrain on earth.

Sutherland Library: 2 copies

Big W & Kmart: Don’t stock

Booktopia: $35.75 Paperback

Amazon: $4.99 Kindle, $30.79 Paperback

by Elizabeth Gilbert

In 1940, nineteen-year-old Vivian Morris has just been kicked out of Vassar college, owing to her lack lustre freshman years performance. Her affluent parents send her to Manhattan to live with Aunt Peg, who owns a flamboyant, crumbling midtown theatre called the Lily Playhouse.

There Vivian is introduced to an entire cosmos of unconventional and charismatic characters, from the fun-chasing show girls to a sexy male actor, a great dame actress and a lady killer writer and a no-nonsense manager. But when Vivian makes a personal mistake that results in professional scandal, it turns her world upside down in ways that it will take years to understand . Ultimately , though it leads her to a new understanding of the kind of life she craves for and the kind of freedom it takes to pursue.

It also leads to the love of her life, a love that stands out from all the rest.

Now ninety-five years old and telling her story. Vivian recalls how the events of those years altered the course of her life and the gusto with which she approached it.

Sutherland Library: 8 copies (+ 3 lge print) & Borrow Box

Big W & Kmart: Don’t stock

Booktopia: $53.25 Hardcover (No paperback)

Amazon: $11.05 Kindle, $17.70 Paperback

by Lucinda Riley

Maia D’Apliese and her five sisters gather together at their childhood home a fabulous, secluded castle on the shores of Lake Geneva, having been told that their beloved father who adopted them all as babies has died.

Each of them is handed a tantalising clue which takes Maia across the world to a crumbling mansion in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. Once there she begins to put together the pieces of her story and its beginnings.

Eighty years earlier in Rios Belle Epoque of 1920, s, Izabella Bonifacios father has aspirations for his daughter to marry into the aristocracy. Meanwhile architect Heitor de Silva is devising plans for an enormous statue to be called the Christ of Redeemer and will soon travel to Paris to find the right sculptor to complete his vision.

Izabella, passionate and longing to see the world convinced her father to allow her to accompany his family. There at Paul Landon’s studio in the heady vibrant cafes of Montparnasse she meets a young sculptor Laurent Brouilly and knows at once her life will never be the same.

In this sweeping epic tale of love and loss in a spellbinding showcase series of seven novels.

Sutherland Library: Borrow Box, 1 lge print (7 holds)

Big W $14, Kmart: Don’t stock

Booktopia: $21.75 Paperback

Amazon: $12.99 Kindle, $14.00 Paperback

by Raynor Winn

Just days after Raynor learns that Moth, her husband of 32 years, is terminally ill, their home is taken away and they lose their livelihood. With nothing left and little time, they make the brave and impulsive decision to walk the 630 miles of the sea-swept South West Coast Path, from Somerset to Dorset, via Devon and Cornwall.

Carrying only the essentials for survival on their backs, they live wild in the ancient, weathered landscape of cliffs, sea and sky. Yet through every step, every encounter and every test along the way, their walk becomes a remarkable journey.

The Salt Path is an honest and life-affirming true story of coming to terms with grief and the healing power of the natural world. Ultimately, it is a portrayal of home, and how it can be lost, rebuilt and rediscovered in the most unexpected ways.

Recommendations for The Salt Path

The prize-winning, Sunday Times bestseller from the million-copy bestselling author

 Bring nature into your home with the inspiring true story of hope and the healing powers of the natural world, in one of the most talked about books of the decade

FROM THE MILLION-COPY BESTSELLING AUTHOR

‘This is what you need right now to muster hope and resilience . . . a beautiful story and a reminder that humans can endure adversity’ Stylist

‘A beautiful book, it really lives up to the hype . . . an enjoyable, gentle yet moving read’ Pandora Sykes on The High Low

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER, WINNER OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY LITERATURE CHRISTOPHER BLAND PRIZE & SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2018 COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD & WAINWRIGHT GOLDEN BEER BOOK PRIZE 2018

GUARDIAN BEST BOOKS OF SUMMER

‘A beautiful, thoughtful, lyrical story of homelessness, human strength and endurance’ Guardian

‘Mesmerising. It is one of the most uplifting, inspiring books that I’ve ever read’ i

‘The most inspirational book of this year’ The Times

‘Luminescent. A literary phenomenon’ Mail on Sunday

by Suzanne Heywood

Aged just seven, Suzanne Heywood set sail with her parents and brother on a three-year voyage around the world. What followed turned instead into a decade-long way of life, through storms, shipwrecks, reefs and isolation, with little formal schooling. No one else knew where they were most of the time and no state showed any interest in what was happening to the children.

Suzanne fought her parents, longing to return to England and to education and stability. This memoir covers her astonishing upbringing, a survival story of a child deprived of safety, friendships, schooling and occasionally drinking water… At seventeen Suzanne earned an interview at Oxford University and returned to the UK.

From the bestselling author of What Does Jeremy Think?, Wavewalker is the incredible true story of how the adventure of a lifetime became one child’s worst nightmare – and how her determination to educate herself enabled her to escape

Recommendations for Wavewalker

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

A TIMES BEST MEMOIR OF 2023

‘Grippingly vivid and pacey’ THE TIMES

‘A seven-year old girl on a seventy-foot yacht, for ten years, over fifty thousand miles of sailing’ SIMON WINCHESTER

‘An astonishing almost day-by-day account of [a] hazardous journey and its legacy’ TELEGRAPH

‘This is a story of an epic childhood journey, so exciting and so shocking it is hard to know whether you’re reading about a dream or a nightmare… Wavewalker is thrilling, horrifying, beautifully written – I couldn’t put it down’ ED BALLS

‘A classic memoir of childhood. This is a book that every parent should read to consider the consequences of their midlife crises, and every child should read to learn how to deal with impossible mums and dads, as well as boils and barnacles’ Mail on Sunday 5*

‘An electrifying story about an extraordinary childhood, and Heywood tells it with remarkable clarity and assurance . . . an engrossing book that pitches the reader into the highs and lows of a young life spent in the “Wavewalker School of the Sea”’TLS

by Richard Osman

Shocking news reaches the Thursday Murder Club.

An old friend in the antiques business has been killed, and a dangerous package he was protecting has gone missing.

As the gang springs into action they encounter art forgers, online fraudsters and drug dealers, as well as heartache close to home.

With the body count rising, the package still missing and trouble firmly on their tail, has their luck finally run out? And who will be the last devil to die?

THE FOURTH NOVEL IN THE RECORD-BREAKING, MILLION-COPY BESTSELLING THURSDAY MURDER CLUB SERIES

‘As charming and funny as always but SO MOVING’ Marian Keyes