Jenna
The shortlist for the 2021 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction has just been announced! We've previously reviewed Nothing to See, Sprigs and Remote Sympathy, so it's time to check out the fourth finalist, Bug Week.
Bug Week is well worth a read. Listen to Jenna's review with Rachel and Zoe below. Also, check out the rest of the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards shortlist here.
Back into Level 3, Jenna reviews Una Mannion’s A Crooked Tree from the shop.
With an instantly enticing premise - a harried mother pulls her car over and demands her young child out to walk home. It’s cold, dark and far away from their home in the mountains. This act sets off a series of events that will change the lives of a family.
Told through the eyes of 15 year old Libby, this is literary fiction that’s part mystery, part coming of age. This is smart and surprising character novel.
Hello from Level 3! On today’s 95bFM Loose Read’s review, Jenna talks about Interior Chinatown, the latest winner of the National Book Award for Fiction.
Written as a script, this book is a sharp and smart satirical observation of the portrayal of Asian American stereotypes in Hollywood.
Interior Chinatown is on the shelf now!
Jenna chats with Kathryn about some of her ‘forgotten favourites’ from 2020.
Earthlings is an absurd & twisted foray into the ‘factory’ of Japanese culture.
Homeland Elegies is a modern day American auto-fiction classic - from the perspective of a Muslim American life post 9/11.
In the Dream House is a searing collection of vignettes that explore an abusive queer relationship and the history of queer relationships in pop culture.
Kia ora all! Here’s our first 95bFM review for 2021.
Jenna delved into Catherine Chidgey’s Remote Sympathy over the holidays. A weighty tome, this book follows four characters whose lives are intertwined with the concentration camp, Buchenwald.
Characters are expertly weaved together to portray different sides of the Nazi regime while reflecting the way a society can be blind to what’s happening right in front of them. This is a must-read novel, it’s bloody brilliant.
Listen to Jenna’s review with Keria and Tess below:
Do you need something FUNNY to read over the holidays? Go no further than David Sedaris. This is a best of collection spanning 25 years of essays, stories and opinion pieces. Listen to Jenna’s review below.
This morning on 95bFM’s Loose Reads, Jenna reviewed Victory Park by Rachel Kerr.
A fantastic character novel based around a council flat in Wellington. Single mother Kara starts spending time with new tenant Bridget, who has moved in after her husband is caught up in a Ponzi scheme. Subtle, yet still punchy and compelling, this is the newest novel from the publisher of Becky Manawatu’s Auē.
This morning on 95bFM’s Loose Reads, Jenna reviewed Stan Walker’s Impossible.
Walker has an epic story - an unstable and violent childhood, abused by a cousin, winning Australian Idol and having stomach cancer. Throughout this, whanaungatanga (relationships between people) and kotahitanga (unity) have kept his whānau together.
Stan’s voice shines throughout this memoir with a kaupapa that no matter your past, you can succeed. A great read.
A spooky book for a spooky week. Jenna reviews this true ghost story by Kate Summerscale, which explores the period of ghost hunting between the two world wars.
This has a little bit for every reader - for fans of true crime, ghosts, history, psychology and ethics. Kate Summerscale’s impeccable research makes for fascinating reading. This is also shortlisted for the UK’s top nonfiction award - the Baillie GIfford, announced late November.
Jenna makes a case for everyone to discover the brilliance of Sigrid Nunez’s writing in this 95bFM breakfast show review.
Her brand new novel, What Are You Going Through, is a conveniently topical read for a New Zealand audience. The narrator is asked to accompany her terminally ill friend on a trip where she plans to end her life on her own terms. “I promise to make it as fun as possible.”
Of course, because it’s Sigrid Nunez, this book is not just about euthanasia. It’s about women, ageing, companionship, writing, teaching and philosophy. A warm and smart read by an incredible writer.
Don’t forget to check out her previous novels: National Book Award winning The Friend, The Last of her Kind and Salvation City.
Today, Jenna reviewed two wonderful memoirs that have both recently been published, are by New Zealand women and are about identity and memory.
First, Alison Jones’ This Pākehā Life: An Unsettled Memoir. Alison tackles the task of reflecting on her upbringing and life as a Pākehā in Aotearoa. What is a Pākehā? How do Pākehā live and respect Te Ao Māori? A frank, yet respectful memoir.
Then, we have Tree of Strangers by Barbara Sumner. This memoir tells of Barbara’s experience as an adoptee child, however story is quite unbelievable. Personal history alongside research and insights into the often tragic circumstances that adoption can lead too. A wonderful read.
Listen to Jenna, Rachel and Tess chat below.
Shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize, Burnt Sugar tells the story of Antara, an artist who has never had a good relationship with her mother. But when her mother’s memory starts declining, Antara is the only person who knows how to help.
Set in India, this is an intense, blazing narrative that takes us between past, present and explores the great tension of a mother/daughter relationship. Rich in prose, contemporary in style.
Listen to Jenna, Tess and Mary Margaret chat below:
This is Jenna’s most anticipated book of the year and it hasn’t disappointed.
A coming of age story that has all of the classic Ferrante ingredients - Naples, the class divide and passionate women. Highly recommended and on the shelf now.
Listen to Jenna’s review with Kathryn below and buy the book here.
TW: Sexual assault.
On Monday’s 95bFM’s Loose Reads, Jenna reviewed Brannavan Gnanalingam’s Sprigs. Set in Wellington, we open with an end of season rugby game between two rival schools, St Luke’s and Grammar which leads to a horrific sexual assault at the after party.
A cast of 100 characters are managed with ease as we move through four distinct scenes - The Game, The Party, The Meeting & The Trial.
This is a novel that Jenna lost herself in for an entire weekend, barely coming up for breath. Filmic, powerful, emotional and intense, Sprigs an incredibly immersive and compelling novel that explores masculinity, power and reputation.
Today on 95bFM’s Loose Reads, Jenna reviewed Lil O’Brien’s Not That I’d Kiss a Girl. This astonishingly compelling memoir captures Lil’s experience of coming out in at the turn of the 21st century in Aotearoa. Funny, brutally honest and capturing the complexities of family relationships - this is an important story that’s well worth a read.
Today, Jenna highlights some kick ass novels that are set in her old home of South Korea. With the rise of K-Pop, K-Beauty, films and of course, Han Kang’s The Vegetarian becoming popularised in the West, there’s no time like the present to delve into this spectacular pile of writing by Korean women.
If I had your Face by Frances Cha - a compelling, fast paced novel that follows a group of four women navigating urban society in Seoul.
Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin - Translated from French by Aneesa Abbas Higgins. A moody novel set in a tourist seaside town in the freezing winter. Atmospheric, sparse and
Untold Night and Day by Bae Suah - Translated from Korean by Deborah Smith. Jenna’s favourite of the pile. Filmic, sensory and surprising.
Listen to Jenna chat with Rachel and Mary Margaret below:
In a small village in France, sits a library of unpublished manuscripts, which must be delivered in person.
A Parisian editor find a manuscript of genius while browsing the shelves. The book is published, taking the book world by storm - but is this a hoax? How can Henri Pick, a grouchy pizzeria owner, have written this when no one in his lifetime saw him pick up a pen?
A charming literary mystery with a kooky cast of characters, reminiscent of the film Amélie. Listen to Jenna’s review below and buy the book here.
In what’s been an incredibly strange and unsettling 2020, it can be good to read some non fiction with an optimistic outlook. Looking into well known psychological, economical and historical research within a new context, Bregman proves to us that humans are…really not that bad.
For fans of Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens. You can buy Humankind here.
Listen to Jenna. Rachel and Tess chat about this book on 95bFM’s Loose Reads below:
We’re reunited in Level 1!
Jenna’s in the studio to chat to Rachel and Tess about the new New Zealand novel, Fake Baby by Amy McDaid. Set over nine days in Auckland city, this novel is full of wry, dry humour as we follow a three down and out, yet charming characters as they navigate society, family and their mental health.
Meiko Kawakami is a literary star in Japan (also a blogger, poet and former J-Pop star) and this is her first book published in English (translated by Sam Bet and David Boyd. )
Breasts and Eggs won Japan’s most prestigious writing award, the Akutagawa Prize, in 2007. Since then, it has expanded into two books within a book. In Book One, Natsuko is hosting her sister and niece over a sweltering summer in Tokyo from Osaka. Makiko is obsessed with getting breast implants while Midoriko is incredibly anxious about her impending body changes. In Book Two, it’s ten years later and Natsuko is exploring having a child using a sperm donor.
Throughout this novel, Natsuko is surrounded by solo, independent women and this book explores and makes a stand against Japanese patriarchal society. Grimy small apartments, bodily functions, ramen noodles and hostess bars are the background to an intriguing and fleshed out character study.
Also, highly recommended is Kawakami interviewing Murakami where she deeply takes him to task for his writing of female characters.
Listen to Jenna’s review with Rachel and Sarah below:
