The Same Man: George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh in love and war by David Lebedoff

At first glance there seems to be very little common ground between Orwell and Waugh. Orwell is most famous for writing 1984 and Animal Farm and Waugh for Brideshead Revisited. They were both born into middle class England but while Orwell shunned the class system Waugh was the ultimate social climber. Lebedoff writes that what they had in common "was a hatred of moral relativism. They both believed that morality is absolute, though they defined and applied it differently. But each believed with all his heart, brain and soul that there were such things as moral right and moral wrong, and that these were not subject to changes in fashion."

This fascinating book gives an insight into life in England in the early to mid-twentieth century and how the influential authors participated in and reacted to society. It can be found in the non-fiction section of Wagga City Library at 823.912 ORW. You can also find the novels of George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh.

The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas

Winner of the Commonwealth Writer's Prize for the Best Book in South East Asia and the Pacific, shortlisted for the ALS Gold Medal 2009, shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Prize 2009. The Slap was also discussed on the ABC's First Tuesday Book Club. It is a gritty, confronting look at suburban life in Melbourne. It centres around a barbecue at which a man slaps a child who isn't his own. This event has great consequences for all present and the author tells the story alternately from the perspective of the different characters. It is thought-provoking on many levels looking, not only at parenting and children, but also at love, marriage and tradition.

This book has tended to provoke strong reactions in those who have read it. I did not like any of the characters in the novel and yet still found the book compelling. It is worth a read just to see what all the fuss is about but be wary if you are sensitive to swearing!

The Slap is available from Wagga City Library - you can reserve it here.

Coronation Talkies by Susan Kurosawa

A charming, funny, engaging novel set in India at the end of British rule. It tells the story of Lydia who enters into a hasty marriage with with an Englishman living in India and Mrs Banerjee who comes to the station to set up a talking picture theatre.

Lydia moves from her quiet, English village to the very wet Indian hill station of Chalaili. This sodden, not quite fashionable town is full of fascinating characters, Indian, English and Anglo-Indian. Mrs Banerjee is hilarious as she sets up Coronation Talkies and enliven the society in Chalaili.

There is gossip and scandal, love and hate, betrayal and blackmail and a lovely look at the end of England's rule in India.

44 Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith

This is the first book in the delightful series by the author of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. It is set in a fictitious building in a real street in McCall Smith's home town of Edinburgh. It is full of characters very much a part of Edinburgh and yet recognisable to all of us - a good-looking young man, very used to getting what he wants, the young woman in her second gap year who falls for him though she knows she shouldn't, an eccentric widow, a pushy mother with a 'brilliant' son who just wants to be a little boy, the son of a wealthy man who just can't make a go of anything and many others.
You can borrow 44 Scotland Street at Wagga City Library (reserve it here) as well as the books that follow - Espresso Tales, Love Over Scotland, The World According to Bertie and The Unbearable Lightness of Scones.

Winter Close by Hugh MacKay

Hugh MacKay is a psychologist and social researcher who has written four best-selling books on social psychology and is also well known for his column in the Sydney Morning Herald. This, his fourth novel, is set in the Sydney suburb of Castlecrag and is a study of suburbia and the concept of neighbourhood.
That may sound a little dry but the novel is an engaging look at the residents of Winter Close, told by Tom, a counsellor who has his own inner demons. It is especially interesting if you are familiar with Sydney or have neighbours! Winter Close is one of the RRL Book Club titles.
You can borrow Winter Close, as well as other books by Hugh MacKay, from Wagga City Library - reserve it here.

March by Geraldine Brooks

March is the story of the absent father from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. Mr March is a man of great conviction who goes as an army chaplain to support those fighting to abolish slavery in the American Civil War. The book tells of the harsh, ugly and life changing realities of the war both for those who experienced them first hand and for those who were left behind.

From the author's website ; October 21, 1861. March, an army chaplain, has just survived a brush with death as his unit crossed the Potomac and experienced the small but terrible battle of Ball’s Bluff. But when he sits down to write his daily missive to his beloved wife, Marmee, he does not talk of the death and destruction around him, but of clouds “emboss[ing] the sky,” his longing for home, and how he misses his four beautiful daughters. “I never promised I would write the truth,” he admits, if only to himself.
When he first enlisted, March was an idealistic man. He knew, above all else, that fighting this war for the Union cause was right and just. But he had not expected he would begin a journey through hell on earth, where the lines between right and wrong, good and evil, were too often blurred.
For now, however, he has no choice but to press on. He is directed to a makeshift hospital, an old estate he finds strangely familiar. It was here, more than twenty years earlier, that he first met Grace, a beautiful, literate slave. She was the woman who provided his first kiss and who changed the course of his life.
Now, he finds himself back at the Clement estate, and what was once the most beautiful place he had ever seen has been transformed by the ugliness of war. However, March’s sojourn there is brief and he finds himself reassigned to set up a school on one of the liberated plantations, Oak Landing—a disastrous posting that leaves him all but dead.
Though rescued and delivered to a Washington hospital where his physical health improves, March is a broken man, haunted by all he has witnessed and “a conscience ablaze with guilt” over the many people he feels he has failed. And when it is time for him to leave he finds he does not want to return home. He turns to Grace, whom he has encountered once again, for guidance. “None of us is without sin,” she tells him. “Go home, Mr. March.” So, March returns to his wife and daughters, and though he is tormented by the past and worried for his country’s future, the present, at least, is certain: he is home, he is a father again, and for now, that will be enough.

Brick Lane by Monica Ali

Brick Lane is an RRL Book Club book and was short listed for the Booker Prize. It tells the story of Nazneen, who, as a young woman, leaves Bangladesh for London with her new and much older husband. Together they struggle to find their place in a new country, dealing with racism and disappointment. A great look into the life of immigrants and their journey towards belonging. She keeps in contact with her sister in Bangladesh whose love marriage resulted in hardship and suffering. Nazneen is a traditional and dutiful Bangladeshi wife who ends up finding a place for herself.

You can borrow Brick Lane from the Wagga Wagga City Library or reserve it here.