Prescient books for tumultuous times

The Papercuts team are finally back in The Spinoff studio this month with their usual winning recipe of book news, book recommendations, not books and their ever-growing ‘TBR’ piles.

They anticipate the announcements of some big book prizes, deep dive into a hugely entertaining book about the apocalypse, the new Ottessa Moshfegh (Eileen, My Year of Rest and Relaxation), and how reading BWB Texts will make you much smarter. This month's ‘Not Books’ recommendations include Hollywood gossip, Drag Race and getting back to our Baby-Sitters Club roots on Netflix.

Books reviewed

KD: Notes from an Apocalypse: A Personal Journey to the End of the World and Back by Mark O’Connell (Granta); Funny Weather by Olivia Laing (Picador)

LK: Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh (Jonathan Cape)

JT: Imagining Colonisation by Rebecca Kiddle, Bianca Elkington, Moana Jackson, Ocean Mercier, Mike Ross, Jennie Smeaton, Amanda Thomas (BWB Text); Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou: Struggle Without End by Ranginui Walter (Penguin NZ)

Not books

KD: Last Picture Show via You Must Remember This Polly Platt podcast

LK: Canada’s Drag Race, Race Chaser & The Chop podcasts; Hollywood Babylon by Kenneth Anger

JT: The Baby-sitters Club & The Claudia Kishi Club on Netflix; AGC Gossip

The TBR Pile

KD: The Disaster Tourist by Yun Ko-eun (Serpents Tail); Sprigs by Brannavan Gnanalingam (Lawrence & Gibson); Sing Backwards and Weep by Mark Lanegan (White Rabbit); Rat King Landlord by Murdoch Stevens (Lawrence & Gibson)

LK: The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek; The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin; Pachinko by Min Jin Lee; Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin

JT: Sigrid Nunez’s What are you Going Through; Carson McCullers’ Member of the Wedding; Jenn Shapland’s My Autobiography of Carson McCullers (Tin House)

Book news links

• The Booker Longlist will be announced tomorrow
• The International Book Awards Winners have been announced
• NZ Children’s and Young Adult Book Awards are being held virtually on the 12th of August, keep updated here
• Two new bookstores are opening in New Zealand! Bay Hill Books is open in Timaru and Good Books opens in Wellington soon.
• Kiran’s interview with Mark O’Connell on The Spinoff

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