Less by Andrew Sean Greer

Greer won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for this book. It’s a sweet book, about a sensitive soul on a mission to distract himself from his miseries. Arthur Less is an aging gay writer, whose novels are not show stoppers but who is continuing to try. His lover of nine years has left him to marry another man. He is about to turn fifty. So he escapes on an around the world journey that takes him places like Milan and Paris, Morocco and Mexico, Germany and Japan. It’s a charming book, and a sweet love story. It has humour and grace, and the character of Arthur Less is beautifully observed. There’s tongue in cheek humour, as subtle as it is clever, and lovely, lovely language and metaphor.

Medieval Bodies: Life, Death and Art in the Middle Ages by Jack Hartnell

The most frustrating thing about books like this is that I forget most of what I’ve read almost as soon as I have finished the chapter. And this wonderful book is packed with fascinating details that I do so much want to remember! Jack Hartnell is an art historian so here he is writing about medieval bodies as the people themselves saw them and lived in them, and how we can see evidence of this in the contemporary art of the times. The book is divided into chapters about the various areas of the body, such as head, feet, stomach and so forth. Each chapter contains wonderful anecdotes (Jack Hartnell understands the importance of story telling to capture an audience), medical opinions and treatments of the time, and spin offs – in the chapter about feet for example, we look at travel and cartography. I enjoyed some aspects of this book so much that I sent emails to long suffering friends about characters like Roland the Farter, a member of Henry II’s court, employed for his skills in jumping, whistling and farting all at the same time. Because this is fundamentally a serious book though, and absolutely packed with information, it requires some concentration to read. Not for the beach but definitely for a rainy day on the couch!

Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr

This is such a lovely book. Anthony Doerr writes about the year he spent in Rome with his wife Shauna and baby twins Henry and Owen in 2004. On the day the twins were born, he received a one year fellowship from the American Academy in Rome, which involved moving the family there and living and writing there. So what he ends up writing, three years later once all that experience has had time to mature, is this story of his year in Rome. For someone who knows Rome well, has lived in Italy herself for a year and returned over and over and over again, this is like reliving the experience all over again. It’s not a travelogue, but rather a quiet and detailed observation of daily life in Rome throughout the year, the small sights, sounds and tastes of the city. With two tiny babies in a pretty basic rented apartment, no car and a book to write, Doerr and his wife are not tourists per se, but genuine visitors absorbing the life of the city. Quite simply, it made me very, very homesick for a city I love. And I haven’t even mentioned the writing, which is quite simply gorgeous. Doerr’s language is beautiful and his observations thoughtful. This is a lovely book.

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

This is the classiest piece of historical fiction I think I have ever read. It’s the story of Count Alexander Rostov who, after the Russian Revolution, is confined to the elegant Metropol hotel in Moscow for the term of his natural life. Life, however, comes to him in his captivity and we meet the most fascinating array of characters against the backdrop of all the political machinations that took place during the period between 1922 and 1956. Not only is the story fascinating, it’s also beautifully told, with a lightness and elegance of touch that leaves me desperate to read more of this writer. Along the way we also learn what it is to be a true Russian gentleman, reminding me somehow of some of those English period pieces where to be a gentleman is the be all and end all of polite society.

A Long Way from Home by Peter Carey

I am a dedicated Peter Carey fan and this book did not let me down. It is the story of Titch Bobs, a flashy car salesman, and his feisty little wife Irene Bobs, and their neighbour Willie Bachhuber. In order to get publicity for their business they enter the Redex Trial with Willie as their navigator. The trip around the back roads of Australia takes them to both physical and metaphorical places they could never have imagined; it changes their lives forever. It also unravels a history that none of them ever suspected and provides Peter Carey with an opportunity to look closely at the shameful history of racism in this country. One of the things I admire most about Peter Carey is his ability with character and voice. This wonderful book is written in several voices, predominantly though in the utterly convincing voices of Irene and Willie. I was totally absorbed by them and often really surprised as their characters developed in unexpected ways. Willie’s gradual self-realization is a major and quite moving focus of this story. From the outset he seems to be able to sense the racial violence that has occurred in the landscape and as his journey continues, he finds himself attempting to record the truth.

Reckoning by Magda Szubanski

This is a deeply personal story – well it is an autobiography – from the very funny, very human comedian Magda Szubanski. It’s coloured by the tragedy of family experiences in war torn Poland and her own struggle to come to terms with her sexuality. The book focuses mainly on the impact both these major issues have on her relationships with her family and with her career. Magda is not a literary writer, so a lot of this reads pretty much like a personal journal and in fact I think may be just that. However the personality of this woman shines through and you cannot help but warm to her and feel sympathy for her as she battles to understand both her father and herself.

Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer

I really like the pacy writing style of JSF. A lot of his fiction reads like Woody Allen is talking, fast and furious, with a New York accent. This book is about Jewishness, as played out in a family that spans Israel to America. Against a background of debate about Jewish questions - Zionism, faith, how far you should uphold tradition, loyalty and betrayal - it charts the breakdown of a family relationship as the individuals in it try to find their inner selves. It’s a bit fraught and I found it a bit wordy, but then that’s probably just me being impatient and being on holidays so not wanting to get too bogged down in having to think too much.