Richard Flanagan is an excellent Australian author. I read Gould's Book of Fish on a long haul to Honkers years ago. It's an amazing take on Australian history and is definitely one of my favourite Australian books. This one reads a little meh; parallel stories with a Tasmanian gaol-keeper and Charles Dickens. Although having written that it seems really interesting. What is my problem?
I read The City and The City by this author just the other week. That book is the 2010 Hugo award-winning novel about two cities imposed one on top of the other. The citizens of each city have to pretend they can't see one another or risk being disappeared by "The Breach". Queue Orwellian ideas of thought police, coupled with a hard-boiled murder mystery and philosophical speculation. This one is about a species of alien who don't know how to lie...yet.
This one's for the book club. Am I missing something big when I say I'm not wildly crazy about Eugenides? As in, I wouldn't run screaming to buy this book? I mean, I've read both The Virgin Suicides and Middlesex and was just, well, not blown away. And is it just me or does this plot - a love triangle set in the 80's - sound something like an "intellectual" Marian Keyes? And that the title seems a bit Penny Vincenzi? Should I stop talking?
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