What we're reading: Winterson, McKay & Pippos
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.
Tye Cattanach is reading 12 Bytes: How We Got Here. Where We Might Go Next. by Jeanette Winterson
There are quite a few books I am excited for this year (TBR groans audibly) However! Perhaps the one I was most excited for publishes next week and I was beyond delighted to get my hands on an early copy! (Thanks lovely Alison!) After I devoured Jeanette Winterson’s Frankissstein on its pub date, I spent a great deal of time reflecting on the enormity of the research that had to be involved in writing a book like that. There is an exceptional depth of knowledge on display in Frankissstein, part of what makes it such a fascinating read. But I found myself wondering, surely there must be so much more to share?
Winterson has literally answered my silent prayers to the gods of literature, and delivered 12 Bytes: How We Got Here. Where We Might Go Next. Twelve incredible essays that delve deep into Artificial Intelligence, where it started, where it might take us, where it could take us, and what if…? It makes for captivating, transfixing reading. My mind is quite literally swimming with all that I am learning reading this phenomenal collection. How lucky we are to have writers and thinkers like Winterson in the world.
Mike Shuttleworth is reading Saffy’s Angel by Hilary McKay
My daughter loved Saffy’s Angel by Hilary McKay so much she named our ginger cat after it. While our Saffy was quietly celebrating her eleventh birthday, Saffy’s Angel has been reissued in a lovely new edition.
What a joy to revisit Saffy’s Angel and the Casson children. The bohemian Casson parents have named their children after colours on the paint chart: Permanent Rose, Indigo, Saffron and Cadmium (Caddy). When Saffron learns to read, she can’t find her name there at all. And so she begins to search for her origins, aided by her wheelchair bound best friend, Sarah (an irresistible force). Winner of the Whitbread Prize, Saffy’s Angel is the first in a funny and impossibly warm-hearted set of novels about an unforgettable family. For readers 9+
Gabrielle Williams is reading Lucky’s by Andrew Pippos
Like a modern-day Greek myth, you could be forgiven for thinking Pippos has dragged the gods kicking and screaming into the twentieth and twenty-first century Sydney, made them human, thrown in outrageous acts of fraud, a franchise of restaurants, rage-filled acts of madness, the Wheel of Fortune, and one charming optimist called Lucky.
An unexpectedly delightful mess of human emotions, this book comes highly recommended.
