95bFM's Loose Reads: Blue Ruin by Hari Kunzru

The third title in Hari Kunzru’s Colours trilogy, Blue Ruin is a COVID-era novel taking aim at the art world. The novel follows Jay, a former artist whose descent from rising young art star to middle-aged manual labourer leaves his body and heart in disrepair. Crossing paths with his former lover Alice and her husband Rob (Jay’s art-school rival and a benefactor of wealthy corporate philanthropists), Jay’s life begins to take new shape.

Blue Ruin shifts between the 1990's and current day, covering the Young British Artists movement and the COVID-era landscape. Exploring the relationship between philanthropists and artists, between art and assets and between artistic integrity and survival, Blue Ruin unveils the winners and losers in art and in life and the financial precarity of those who lose. 

Listen to Suri’s review in the 95bFM studio with Jonny below.

95bFM's Loose Reads: A Sunny Place for Shady People by Mariana Enriquez

The queen of South American horror fiction is back with a new collection of short stories for the spooky season! From hauntings, cults, surgical disasters and beyond, Mariana Enriquez’s new book ‘A Sunny Place for Shady People’ explores the human-made violence and terror inflicted in unique ways onto each of her characters. From body horror, ghosts and psychological torture, this short story collection has something to sate the appetite of all fans of horror. 

Pre-order now to nab your copy just in time for Halloween!

95bFM's Loose Reads: The Empusium by Olga Tokarczuk

Winner of the 2018 International Booker Prize and 2018 Nobel Prize for literature, Olga Tokarczuk returns to fiction with a heady, atmospheric 'health resort horror story'. 

Written 100 years after the publication of The Magic Mountain, The Empusium is written both as a response and a feminist retelling of Thomas Mann's canonical work.

We follow Miczyslaw Wojnik's arrival at a sanatorium set in the lush and dense mountainous forests of Germany, where the alpine air is touted as an antidote to all its inhabitants' ills. 

Following strict regimens of diet and exercise and using their downtime to muse on the state of a nation on the brink of war, the patients are aware of beady eyes following every move- are they being watched by the staff? Or is there a more sinister presence lurking in the shadows of the mountain fauna?

A novel filled with socratic dialogue and a rich, divinical atmosphere, The Empusium is a stunning and sinister exploration into the roots of facism and misogyny, as relevant today as it's predecessor was almost a century ago.

95bFM's Loose Reads: Help Wanted by Adele Waldman

Biting, sharp and funny, ‘Help Wanted’ by Adelle Waldman follows the daily rhythms and tribulations of workers in the big box megastore, Town Square. Desperate to escape the grips of their line manager Meredith, the employees band together to plot her removal. 

Shifting perspectives between the workers, this novel explores the unimportant but omnipresent rules and structures governing the daily lives of workers chained to their jobs and class.

Irreverent, funny and whip-smart, ‘Help Wanted’ is a millennial workplace novel that unearths the bureaucracy of management and the physical and mental aches of working class life in America.

95bFM's Loose Reads: Blackouts by Justin Torres

Winner of The National Book Award in America, Blackouts is a clever and moving read. A love story between two men - young and old - as they reckon with queer histories and their place within them.

Listen to Suri and Jonny talk about it below.

95bFM's Loose Reads: Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner

Told through the eyes of sharp-eyed secret agent Sadie Smith, Creation Lake is a genre-bending espionage tale, with an unexpectedly philosophical core. Set in the ancient caves and dried lakes of France, this atmospheric novel follows Sadie as she infiltrates an extremist group intent on unraveling civilization and replacing it with a primordial society. Headed by the charismatic and evasive Bruno, the group plots violent acts intended to pull Europe back into the Bronze Age. 

A surprising and fascinating cat-and-mouse chase, Creation Lake asks existential questions about human and civilizational origins whilst remaining thrilling up to its last words.

This is Rachel Kushner's second Booker longlisted title and perhaps her most rigorous one yet. Creation Lake is released early September.

95bFM's Loose Reads: My Friends by Hisham Matar

Suri declares My Friends by Hisham Matar one of her favourite reads of 2024 and one to look out for on the Booker Longlist (which is announced next week).

My Friends is a political novel that follows three Libyan men, exiled in London, and their friendship’s journey, weaving together fictional characters along side real events. With themes of loss, grief and friendship, My Friends reveals uncomfortable truths about finding your identity whilst away from home.

Suri phoned into the studio, listen to her review with Jonny below.

95bFM's Loose Reads: The Mark by Frida Isberg

Teetering on the edge of dystopia, debut novel The Mark, takes place in a future Iceland where the device Zoe plays videos to soothe minds ill-at-rest and an Empathy Test determines your societal status.

Starting weeks before an explosive referendum to make the Empathy Test mandatory, The Mark follows the story of four characters: lonely, isolated Tristan fearful of what the Test will mean for his future job prospects, Vetur, a teacher worried about the prospects of her failing students and Eyjal, a corporate office worker facing dismissal and Oli, a psychiatrist who heads the organization responsible for creating and administering the test. 

A compulsive, addictive read for fans of Black Mirror

95bFM's Loose Reads: Performance by David Coventry

After five years of reviews, Suri AND Jenna came into the studio to farewell the amazing Rachel Ashby from her role at breakfast.

Suri then talks about David Coventry’s new autofiction-ish novel, Performance. From Te Waipounamu to Europe, David takes us on a clever and fascinating observation of identity, loss and longing.

Listen below!

95bFM's Loose Reads: Bird Child and Other Stories by Patricia Grace

This morning, Suri visited the bFM studio to review the well researched, electric and genius new book of short stories by Patricia Grace.

Divided into three sections, this collection immediately connects you to the human experience across a wide variety of character and place.

Listen to Suri’s chat with Rachel below.

95bFM's Loose Reads: James by Percival Everett

Today on 95bFM’s Loose Reads, Suri reviewed Percival Everett’s James.

An amazing endeavour of a novel, where Everett gives Jim, the peripheral sidekick in Huckleberry Finn, a full voice.

With notes of Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad, James is a clever exploration of language, plunging the reader into the American South, pre-civil war.

95bFM's Loose Reads: Ockhams Poetry Shortlist

Suri previews two of the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards poetry finalists.

Roof Leaf Flower Fruit: A Verse Novel by Bill Nelson - narrative poetry which traces family history with a shocking truth revealed.
Talia by Isla Huia explores whakapapa and peers with electric ease.

Listen below for Suri giving her lowdown and poetry reading from each book below.

The two other books on the poetry shortlist are:
Chinese Fish by Grace Yee
At the Point of Seeing by Megan Kitching

Keep updated here to find out the winners, announced May 15th, at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.

95bFM's Loose Reads: Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange

Tommy Orange’s latest novel, Wandering Stars explores the decimation of American indigenous communities; from colonial violence to economic repression and addiction. Told through the eyes of Orvil Red Feather and his ancestors, ‘Wandering Stars’ explores a patchwork of characters reckoning with the violence of past and present, at all times searching for the beauty and wisdom of their ancestors. Painful, beautiful and at times funny, this piercing companion to There, There strikes at the heart and offers human truths impossible to look away from. 

95bFM's Loose Reads: If We Burn by Vincent Bevins

If We Burn by Vincent Bevins (author of The Jakarta Method) explores a decade of the largest mass protests in modern history- from the Arab Spring to the Hong Kong uprisings. Combing through academic research and conducting interviews and with organisers, politicians and protesting participants, Bevins unearths the reasons why an era of mass mobilisation failed to materialise into political change. A sweeping look at the history of mass protests and its successes and failures, If We Burn is a sharp and fascinating analysis of a phenomena forgotten in a post-COVID era. 

Listen below!

95bFM's Loose Reads: Sheep's Clothing by Celia Dale

Suri visited the 95bFM Breakfast crew to chat about the late Celia Dale’s Sheep’s Clothing. Originally published in 1988, this book is a black comedy crime, following two women schemers in Thatcher’s England.

Listen below!

95bFM's Loose Reads: The Extinction of Irena Rey by Jennifer Croft

The debut novel by Olga Tokarczuk’s translator, Jennifer Croft.

Eight translators are brought to Polish forest to translate a beloved author’s latest work and the translators’ love of the them, becomes almost cultish. However when the author goes missing, all goes awry.

Surreal, absurd and clever, The Extinction of Irena Rey asks questions of authorship. role and credit of a translator. This is great read for language lovers.

Listen to Suri’s review with guest host, Aneeka and producer, Stella.

95bFM's Loose Reads: Clarice Lispector & Sarah Bernstein

On the first day back at Uni, Suri slipped into the bFM studio to talk about two books that she’s been reading lately.

Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein was shortlised for the Booker in 2023. When a woman returns to her ancestral land to become a housekeeper for her newly separated brother,
Allusive, observational and atmospheric.

Auto-fiction Argentinian queen, Clarice Lispector is here with her complete publicatoin of her essays (Too Much of Life), which she started writing when she was 7 years old. A great mix of writing - the relationship between humanity and technology, the domestic, philosophy and literary critique.

Listen below!

95bFM's Loose Reads: The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

Suri reviews this beautiful, funny, clever, poignant novel - from the author of The Colour of Water & Deacon King Kong. Part mystery, part Dickensian tale, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store explores race, class & the American dream whilst revealing subtle universal messages through character,

One of Barak Obama’s top reads 2023.

Listen below to Suri’s in studio chat with Stella.

95bFM's Loose Reads: Suri's Christmas picks!

Suri is in the studio today with her picks for Christmas.

• Pacific Arts Aotearoa ed. by Lana Lopesi

• So Late in the Day by Claire Keegan

• Rapture: An Anthology of Performance Poetry from Aotearoa New Zealand ed. by Carrie Rudzinski & Grace Iwashita-Taylor

• Wolves of Eternity by Karl Ove Knausgaard

• Rick Stein's Simple Suppers by Rick Stein

Listen to her kōrero with Rachel and Stella below for the hot tips.

95bFM's Loose Reads: Baumgartner & A Thread of Violence

Suri reviews two books on 95bFM’s Breakfast show today.

In A Thread of Violence, Mark O’Connell revisits a close to home in Dublin. A dramatic true crime featuring interviews with the killer.
Baumgartner by Paul Auster tells the story of Cy, a widower moving through domestic activities. Filled with human moments that are told with the ghost of his wife in mind.

You can listen below!