What we're reading: Chan, Weetman & Diaz
Each week we bring you a sample of the books we’re reading, the films we’re watching, the television shows we’re hooked on, or the music we’re loving
Angela Crocombe is reading Every Version of You by Grace Chan
I read Grace Chan’s Every Version of You this week and I cannot get it out of my head. It’s a speculative fiction novel set in a future Melbourne in the 2080s and it's cleverly unclear if it is describing a dystopia or a utopia. Everyone is living in virtual reality a lot of the time – they have jobs in there, and go to bars and restaurants that are eerily similar to reality. Soon, the technology is developed to an extent that you can upload all your data into the VR and essentially become immortal. Tao-Yi and her partner Navin have a loving relationship, but he has health troubles and wants to upload forever. Tao-Yi is not so sure, and her mother is stubbornly offline.
This is a beautifully written and fascinating look at a potential future world that feels all too possible and utterly terrifying. I loved it.
Gab Williams is reading The Jammer by Nova Weetman
Full disclosure: I'm a strictly feet-on-footpath type of person. I don't like skateboards, rollerblades, skates or scooters, and while bicycles certainly have their place, I'm not crazy about them either. I'm a walker. Or a trammer. Definitely NOT a jammer (and if you think I don't find that rhyme incredibly satisfying, you'd be wrong).
In the past, Fred was a jammer in her roller derby team. But now she's tossed it in (along with her skates, pads, helmet and uniform which are now lying at the bottom of Brisbane River), because it was the only adequate response she could come up with after her mum died a few weeks ago from cancer. So now Fred and her dad have driven down to Melbourne to stay with a step-uncle Fred's never met, while they try to work out how they're supposed to live a life without her mum in it. Nova Weetman is well known for her charming and relatable characters, and The Jammer is no exception. The people Fred meets on her adventures in Melbourne are the perfect tonic to the despair and displacement she feels, even while at the same time she's trying her hardest to stay disconnected from them all.
The Jammer is heartbreaking, but it's also hopeful and funny and endearing and cool (so very very cool). This is the perfect book for every 12 year old you know. Gift it with a pair of skates for the perfect present!
And for those who have been following along, in addition, Gab has this week finished up reading Trust by Hernan Diaz
It took me three weeks, but I finally finished this Booker longlistee on the weekend.
For those who don't know, Trust comprises 'four books in one', each one written by a different 'author', all of them centring around a financial genius who is held personally responsible for the stockmarket crash of 1929 which brought people and basically, the entire USA, to its knees. His wife is a fragile and delicate bystander for much of Trust, until we finally understand her perspective in book four. Each book is told in an entirely different voice, and often the narratives compete and contradict each other. But the final book, masterfully written, brings the huge book to an incredibly satisfying conclusion. No surprise at all that it was longlisted for the Booker.
