Annie
Dyschronia by Jennifer Mills
My Writers’ Week picks are Rachel Khong, Patricia Lockwood and Sarah Sentilles. I’ve also just finished reading Jennifer Mills’ Dyschronia, which is a meditation on climate change, the media and the effect of boom and bust economics on small towns. Clapstone is a failed mining town, whose fortunes are reversed for a short time with the arrival of Big Asphalt. However, a young girl in the town foresees a dire future for the town, and when her premonitions start to come true, the townspeople don’t know whether to brand her as a witch or seek her help. Poetic and sweeping, Mills shines a stark light on Australia’s abusive relationship with the land we live on.
Charmaine
Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie
I cannot wait to see Kamila Shamsie next month at Adelaide Writers’ Week. Her latest book Home Fire, longlisted for the Man Booker in 2017, is in my top 5 reads in the past year. It is a gripping story of 3 siblings in contemporary London, who are Muslim and whose father was a terrorist but was killed en route to Guantanamo. What happens when his son is convinced to avenge his father’s death, a daughter falls in love with the son of the British Home Secretary (also Muslim) and the other daughter takes off to follow her dream to study in America? The story is powerful and devastating with an ending I am still getting my breath back from. We had the best book club discussion ever about this one.
Ben
Lost Connections by Johann Hari
Swiss-British writer and journalist Johann Hari’s first book, Chasing the Scream, was a revelation, offering what were, for me, mind-changing new insights into the failed war on drugs. His second book, Lost Connections, is an exploration of depression and anxiety (which Hari himself suffers from) and questions the prevailing view that these conditions are solely the result of chemical imbalances in the brain. Instead, Hari argues through vigorous research that psychological and social factors matter just as much, if not more than, biological ones. Moreover, it’s Hari’s (evidence-based) view that the idea that depression and anxiety are individualised problems is wrong. Instead, he argues, society is to a large extent responsible for making us feel mentally unwell, for example by disconnecting us from nature, from meaningful work, and from each other.
While Hari acknowledges that antidepressants have their place, he believes profit-driven pharmaceutical companies have distorted our understanding of mental illness by framing it as an individual problem and one that can be fixed with pills alone. Hari speaks from a place of experience but it is his careful analysis and synthesis of the relevant studies that makes his arguments so convincing and refreshing. As just one example, I had not before considered the positive effect a universal basic income (UBI) might have on mental health, which various trials and studies referenced by Hari have suggested. This is an important book for anyone who, like me, has experienced depression and anxiety, but I think there are lessons in it for everyone who wants to improve their mental wellbeing and the society we share.
Jess
The Gamekeeper by Portia Simpson
At the moment I’m reading The Gamekeeper by Portia Simpson. Portia is a young Scottish woman who, in the early 2000s became Scotland’s first fully accredited female gamekeeper. Her memoir immerses the reader into a real-life world where passionate and dedicated people live their lives connected to nature in a way that few others still do today. She shares with us the beautiful, the confronting, the humorous and the sometimes harsh and tragic realities of an outdoor life. Her experiences remind us that the people who choose to live their lives in wild places and with wild things are some of the last guardians standing watch over what remains of our planet’s wilderness.
Kate
Fever Dream by Samantha Schweblin
I read this small book in one sitting. It’s a strange and eerie novel about a mother who is on holiday somewhere in Argentina with her young daughter. From the beginning we are aware something has gone wrong as she lies dying in hospital recounting her story to a young boy. Through this conversation, she recalls the events that led to this moment and uncovers her foreshadowed doom. An ambiguous and thrilling read that plays out somewhere between a critique of genetically modified soy crops, folk superstition and the anxiety of motherhood and protecting children from imagined threats. I was left with many questions so I am very keen to listen to the author at Writers’ Week.