The Prince: Faith, Abuse and George Pell; The Quarterly Essay by David Marr

Wow. This is everything you ever wanted to know about Pell, and in particular how and why the Catholic church is such a hotbed of paedophilia and has been covering it up for so many decades. David Marr has done his usual meticulous research and the essay is gripping reading. One terrifying quote: ‘ Forty years after the DLP collapsed under the weight of its own irrelevance, the Movement will have one man in the curia and another in Canberra. Pell is about to live the dream of every prince of the church: to be the spiritual adviser to a national leader.’

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

This may verge on chicklit but it is lovely chicklit. It’s written from the point of view of a man with Aspergers who is seeking love through what he calls The Wife Project. Then he meets Rosie, who fulfils none of the criteria… and of course the rest is inveitable. But it is such fun and there are plenty of laugh aloud moments, something that is increasingly rare these days. The character of Professor Don Tillman is extremely endearing and the rest of the cast are typically flawed but wonderful human beings. I loved this book though it’s over before your know it!

Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

Following on from Wolf Hall, this continues the story of Thomas Cromwell, the most powerful man in the kingdom after Henry VIII. It’s a great read, involving and well researched, and very human. I have become quite interested in Cromwell now and would actually like to read something serious about him, because I get so absorbed in the story with these historical fiction novels that I cross the line all the time and believe it all!

Lady Susan by Jane Austen

It is obvious that this is an early work, and in fact Lady Susan was written when Austen was in her teens. It’s the story of the widowed Lady Susan, her sixteen year old daughter Frederica, and the friends and family upon whom Lady Susan imposes herself. She is a dreadful and immoral woman, utterly beautiful and charming, but a nasty piece of work. She flirts outrageously, leads men into thinking they can marry her and all the while carries on an affair with a married man. She tries to manipulate her daughter into marrying a man she doesn’t love. And so on and on as Austen begins her exploration of the themes that will reach their full maturity in later works: love, how society works, morality and immorality, the way people manipulate one another. And of course even in this early piece her language is wonderful. It’s a delightful piece of work, extremely short but funny and charming. It’s written as a series of letters between the main characters, which limits the perspective she can show, but is obviously experimental as well. There’s also a strong sense of naughtiness in it – I imagine just writing about this wicked Lady Susan was a bit of risk in itself.

May We Be Forgiven by AM Homes

Theo has just read me something from the paper about Chinese students and their families blockading the exam hall where they had just done their final school exams to protest about inspectors preventing them cheating. They said that they were disadvantaged since everybody in China cheats. This could almost have come from May We Be Forgiven. It’s a crazy book full of crazy situations, all of which are scathing satires on the American way of life. Early in the book the protagonist, Harold, who is a Nixon scholar, defines the American Dream, ie the opportunity for anybody to make good, and refers to Nixon’s part in promoting it. The events in the book are about the American Dream gone nuts. Essentially, and without spoiling the story, Harold is a mild mannered, somewhat spineless and unengaged professor of Nixon studies who becomes involved with his sister in law Jane. This involvement unleashes a series of events, which are fairly credible but very strange. I found the book long and, not knowing a great deal about Nixon, a little long winded when it talked about him, but probably appropriately so if you knew the history. The descriptions of institutions such as the schools, the criminal justice system and so forth are hilarious, brilliant satire and at the same time ridiculous – I hope! This book probably verges on chick lit but I really enjoyed it. It’s well written and compelling.

Miss Mapp by EF Benson

Second in the Lucia and Mapp series, Miss Mapp is another controlling character living in a small English village. She is more demonic than Lucia, nastier and more deliberately cruel, and you can’t like her as much. The story revolves around the town of Tilling (based on Rye where EF Benson lived) and involves a series of small town characters including Major Benjy, Captain Puffin, Mrs Plaistow and Diva, Miss Mapp’s arch enemy and outwardly, bosom friend. Life is all about who can get and disseminate the gossip first. Mapp and Diva spend a lot of their time trying to one-up one another and find ways to embarrass one another and make each other look foolish. This book describes a series of everyday events in the village, ranging from quarrels over new dresses to the arrival of Mr Wyse and Susan’ Plaistow’s attempts to entrap him. It’s all done across a backdrop of bridge and tea parties. This is laugh aloud stuff: Benson is witty and bitchy and obviously knows these types well . I’ll keep reading this series until they are all finished, the writing is so arch and so clever.

Noah’s Ark by Barbra Trapido

I do love Barbara Trapido. She gets right under the skin of her characters, who are so human that you identify with them completely. This story is about Ali who has been married to Noah, her third husband, for ten years. An old flame comes back into her life and she has to come to terms with that and finally to come into her own. It’s a story about relationships within a family and with friends and even with enemies, and is warm and funny and sensitive.