What To Read This Summer, According to Five Indie Bookshops

Michael and Mary Shelley travelled around Australia for years, preaching a very strange brand of hateful-yet-anti-capitalist Christianity. They had four children, all of whom were removed by the state. Three of those children were fostered by Lenore and Tom Blaine. Lech is the youngest Blaine sibling – the only biological child of Lenore and Tom – and Australian Gospel is an account of his and his siblings’ childhood, haunted by the Shelleys. This is a propulsive and heartfelt tale of family – its joys and its darkest challenges.

Sabine is an artist who is preparing for a significant exhibition when she realises she is being stalked by an anonymous stranger. As the stalker terrorises her, Sabine is compelled into an increasingly unhinged creative practice. This is an unforgettable novel filled with creation, humour and rage.

This book is an oddity, delivered in a manner only beloved British comedian and actor Ayoade could pull off. Pensive, surreal and hilarious, this mockumentary-style novel follows Ayoade as he attempts to create a retrospective on the life of a raucous and infamous postwar playwright. Stephen Merchant calls this book “Nabokov meets Spinal Tap” and we can’t summarise it more perfectly than that.

On a North Sea island in 1843, a church minister lies unconscious, washed up against the rocks, his clothing in rags. He’s found by a man who doesn’t speak his language, and who has lived in isolation, tending the land in peace. Slowly, a bond emerges between them. But this occurs amid the Highland Clearances, where native residents were forcibly evicted from their homes across Scotland. Clear is a fine tale of friendship, language and violence, where every word is perfectly chosen, and will leave you shattered but convinced of our capacity to love.

This novel reads like a classic of the form, deliciously slow in the sense that you bask in the beauty of Hollinghurst’s sentences, and is a sensitive portrayal of the way we live our lives. Dave Win is of Burmese English ancestry, an outsider at boarding school, lost in Oxford’s academic stiffness; he ultimately longs for the joy of working in the theatre. Hollinghurst considers sexuality, race and class in a way that carefully observes the bonds we share, and his portrait of Dave’s relationship with his mother will stay with you long after the final page.

It’s grungy St Kilda in the 1980s, and a woman is writing about the novels of Virginia Woolf. This reminded us of Helen Garner’s Monkey Grip in that it crystallises Melbourne in a time of rebellious love and political activism, with pot-luck dinner parties in poky flats and afternoon bicycle rides through the backstreets of Fitzroy. Theory & Practice is also not quite a novel – de Kretser weaves through essay, memoir and story in a way that reveals the tension between her Sri Lankan identity and Woolf’s documented racism, and the contradiction between feminist theory and resenting the “other” woman during infidelity.

I’m calling it! This is The Millennial Novel. Or to be more specific, the Millennial Midlife Crisis Novel – because oh dear, we Millennials are in midlife. Banal Nightmare is not only the funniest book I’ve read this year, it’s genuinely one of the best. This is a deftly penned satire full of terrible people who are terrible to each other. They are miserable. It is hilarious. Butler’s writing is sharp and biting and brilliant. My explanations cannot do it justice. Just trust me on this one.

Sometime in the not-too-distant future, two young children find themselves separated from their mother. They’re forced to leave their home after a mysterious red circle has appeared around it. They’re alone in a hostile environment. How can they survive? Gliff is a compelling work of dystopian fiction. Despite the bleakness of the world it immerses us in, Smith’s clever and playful use of language make this a very beautiful book to read.

The blurb for this novel will tell you: four girls go missing on a school trip to the bush and a male teacher will attempt to find them. However, Wing is about so much more than this singular event. It is about girlhood, womanhood – the universally shared experiences of it. It’s a powerful fire of a book. I want to give it to my 20-year-old self. She’d love it too.

This black comedy book, a series of 13 interconnected short stories set in Mexico, is a punch in the gut. De la Cerda demonstrates how women are preyed upon and use their power, or lack of it, to try and exist in a society where 10 women are killed per day, all with an incredibly distinctive voice that artfully depicts femicide without being gratuitous.

The ways to read this book are endless. Chapter by chapter? Going through the entire book to piece together names and make a cohesive narrative? Ten years of diaries sorted by Excel certainly reveal consistent thoughts that mesh together, any way you want to blend it. To be honest, this book is absolute madness, but Heti is the only person that could execute this to perfection. From 10 years’ worth of thoughts on “art”, family, break-ups, what she shouldn’t be doing, and announcing that Zadie Smith's husband is hot, the structure is absurd yet absolutely brilliant.

On the surface Perfume & Pain is just another “sad girl novel”, but it actually manages to turn the entire genre on its head. Featuring a recently cancelled queer author who likes to write while on the Patricia Highsmith diet and who is at war with her neighbour, this is delightfully satirical and tongue-in-cheek; perfect to be read either on the beach or with an extra-large glass of wine.

Wild in nature, tone, setting and language, The Heart in Winter is a vivid psychedelic Western tracing the steps of Tom O’Rourke’s journeys, both literal and emotional, across hardscrabble America in the late 19th century. Barry’s voice is unique, earthy and unfettered, as he portrays a landscape and lifestyle alien to our contemporary eyes, while describing a vision of doomed Irish romanticism that still holds sway today. It’s funny, moving and I loved every single moment of it.

In her debut novel, Elkin is preoccupied with situation rather than storytelling, with an immersive and compelling focus on the minutiae, the repetitive and maddening sounds of an apartment and her protagonist’s inner contemplations. I was left reeling after closing the covers for the final time, wondering what I’d just read, but knowing that it was something special. Admittedly, I picked it up for the cover, but I stayed for the expressive and beautiful prose. This one’s for you if you’re a fan of Rachel Cusk, Sheila Heti or Ali Smith.

Broadsheet’s Summer Reading Guide 2023
Broadsheet’s Summer Reading Guide 2022
Broadsheet’s Summer Reading Guide 2021
Broadsheet’s Summer Reading Guide 2020
Broadsheet’s Summer Reading Guide 2019
Broadsheet’s Summer Reading Guide 2018
Broadsheet’s Summer Reading Guide 2017