What we're reading: Eng & Adegoke
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.
Mark Rubbo is reading The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng and Judas Boys by Joel Deane
Struck down by Covid on my very first day of retirement, I was lucky to have a copy of Tan Twan Eng’s Booker longlisted novel, The House of Doors beside my bed. Sadly, it was so good that I devoured it in a day. The novelist William Somerset Maugham and his lover, Gerald Haxton, come to Penang to stay with his old friend Robert Hamlyn and his much younger wife, Lesley in 1921. Over the course of the stay Lesley confides in Maugham, revealing the hypocrisy of colonialism and the scandals in this exotic multiethnic community. This is Malaysian author Tan’s third Booker longlisting and most impressive – it would be a great choice as winner, but I haven’t read the others.
I’ve also just finished Joel Deane’s new novel Judas Boys. My goodness, it’s good and disturbing too. Deane scratches at the underbelly of betrayal and desire in this finely realised novel. Made me think of Tobias Wolf.
Rosalind McClintock is reading plenty via Libro.fm including The List by Yomi Adegoke
I have done a deep dive into Libro.fm of late, and am loving it, my brain seems to work differently when I listen to a book compared to reading one. I confess, I listened to Yellowface by Rebecca F Kuang, and loved the mean girl voice of the narrator, better than I could have imagined in my head bringing the unreliable and unaware narrator to life perfectly. I also really enjoyed The Happy Couple by Naoise Dolan, where a young couple seem to make the decision to get married on little more than expectation and indecision. I am now half-way through The List by Yomi Adegoke, where happy in love Ola (a journalist for a feminist website) and Michael's world is turned up-side-down a month out from their wedding day when Michael is named on a list of men in media who are accused of harassment and abuse. Told from both of their viewpoints, it is an insight into how each deal with the situation.
