Looking for something to read? Try one of these

They’re four books that everyone is talking about – mostly because they are excellent reads. Why not pop down to your local independent bookstore and grab a copy this weekend? We’d love to know what you think.

‘Crooked Seeds’ by Karen Jennings (Karavan Press)

Booker-longlist nominee Karen Jennings is up for another prestigious award with Crooked Seeds, set in a near-future Cape Town where Day Zero has indeed come to pass. The author of An Island is now long-listed for The Women’s Prize for her latest novel. Continuing the tradition of grim and gritty South African literary fiction*, Jennings brings us into the world of Deidre van Deventer, a highly unsympathetic protagonist who is in a very bad way. It doesn’t really seem like things could get any worse for her, but then she receives a visit from the police: some skeletons have been found in the garden of the house she grew up in. This forces Deidre into a reckoning with her own past, and asks the reader to consider their own disgust for her character. Is she the inevitable product of history, or could she exert a little more control over her own story?

^{* For this book, imagine Triomf and The Promise had a baby, and Disgrace was its godparent.}

‘Good Hope’ by Nick Clelland (Karavan Press)

If you’ve maybe drunk just a little too much of the very-lefty Kool-Aid (i.e. me), you may be put off by Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis’s endorsement of this political thriller, but you know what, he’s right: it’s unputdownable. In an alternate-reality present day, the Western Cape has seceded from South Africa to become a high-tech surveillance state where trial-by-camera, capital punishment and a general disregard for human rights are what “make it work”. Clelland is able to generate a genuine yearning for how, with some effort and planning, many South African problems are imminently solvable and a beautiful life for most of us lies just beyond our current reach. But then he shows you what the ultimate cost might be under a hyper-authoritarian and libertarian government, which gives one pause. I was really impressed by this clever novel and have been recommending Good Hope to anyone who asks.

‘All Fours’ by Miranda July (Riverhead Books)

If more than one of your friends has read All Fours, it has probably lit up the group chat. An artist in her mid-40s tells her child and husband she’s going to road-trip across the US, but only makes it as far as the next suburb over, finds herself obsessed with a man at the Hertz dealership, rents a motel room and redecorates it in an effort to woo him, and then returns home to try to be a regular wife and mother again (not really a spoiler: this last part doesn’t work out).

The novel is notable for its extremely out-there erotic scenes and the presentation of an unconventional marriage arrangement as an achievable norm, but I was surprised to find the second half really reads a bit like a self-help manual for the perimenopause. I don’t think anyone who has had any awareness of the discourse around polyamory or non-monogamy will find this book groundbreaking, but July’s style is so friendly and funny that this was very enjoyable, regardless. (Side note: All Fours is also long-listed for The Woman’s Prize.)

‘Stone Yard Devotional’ by Charlotte Wood (Sceptre)

A very different sort of a blow-up-your-life story, Stone Yard Devotional details the retreat of an Australian woman into a nunnery when she becomes burnt out by her work in ecology. Written in diary entry form, it is remarkably compelling in a way that’s difficult to explain. It’s all about things like nuns being annoyed by their sisters’ sneezing, memories of a fairly regular childhood characterised by a slightly off-beat mum and participation in school bullying, and vague jealousy of a famous nun who has come to stay and seems to have a special relationship with the handyman. The biggest drama is a plague of mice and the question of whether or not it will ever end. Nevertheless, every moment is deeply enjoyable, making this a very memorable read.

_{Top image: Supplied.}