Book Reviews for Booklovers from The Booklover • October

This month's must read:

Love Is Blind   
William Boyd  $37

This sweeping, heart-stopping novel is set at the end of the 19th century, and follows the fortunes of Brodie Moncur, a young Scottish musician, about to embark on the story of his life. When Brodie is offered a job in Paris, he seizes the chance to flee Edinburgh and his tyrannical clergyman father, and begin a wildly different new chapter. In Paris, a fateful encounter with a famous pianist irrevocably changes his future – and sparks an obsessive love affair with a beautiful Russian soprano, Lika Blum. Moving from Paris to St Petersburg to Edinburgh and back again, Brodie’s love for Lika and its dangerous consequences pursue him around Europe and beyond, during an era of overwhelming change as the new century begins. Love is Blind is a tale of dizzying passion and brutal revenge; of artistic endeavour and the illusions it creates; of all the possibilities that life can offer, and how cruelly they can be snatched away. At once an intimate portrait of one man’s life and an expansive exploration of the beginning of the 20th century, it is a masterly work from one of our best loved storytellers. 


Imagine John Yoko
John Lennon & Yoko Ono  $70

Personally compiled and curated by Yoko Ono, Imagine John Yoko is the definitive inside story – told in revelatory detail – of the making of the legendary album and all that surrounded it: the locations, the creative team, the artworks and the films, in the words of John and Yoko and the people who were there. The stunning book features predominantly exclusive, unpublished archive photos and footage sequences of all the key players in situ, together with lyric sheets, Yoko’s art installations, and new insights and personal testimonies from Yoko and over forty of the musicians, engineers, staff, celebrities, artists and photographers. With a message as universal and pertinent today as it was when the album was created, this landmark publication is a fitting tribute to John and Yoko and their place in cultural history.


Killing Commendatore  
Haruki Murakami  $45

From the internationally celebrated author of several bestsellers. A thirty-something portrait painter in Tokyo is abandoned by his wife and finds himself holed up in the mountain home of a famous artist, Tomohiko Amada. When he discovers a strange painting in the attic, he unintentionally opens a circle of mysterious circumstances. To close it, he must complete a journey that involves a mysterious ringing bell, a two-foot-high physical manifestation of an Idea, a dapper businessman who lives across the valley, a precocious 13-year-old girl, a Nazi assassination attempt during World War II in Vienna, a pit in the woods behind the artist’s home, and an underworld haunted by Double Metaphors. A tour de force of love and loneliness, war and art – as well as a loving homage to The Great Gatsby – Killing Commendatore is a stunning work of imagination from one of our greatest writers. 


The Labyrinth of the Spirits  
Carlos Ruiz Zafon  $40

The globally acclaimed author returns to the magnificent universe of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books he constructed in his bestselling novels The Shadow of the Wind, The Angel’s Game and The Prisoner of Heaven in this electrifying tale of passion, intrigue and adventure, set in the Barcelona of the 1950s. With the help of the beautiful and enigmatic Alicia Gris, whose investigation shines a light on the dark history of Franco’s reign, Daniel Sempere uncovers one of the most shocking conspiracies in all Spanish history… Within the unforgettable and haunting pages of the final volume of Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s cycle of novels, he masterfully weaves together plot and subplot in an intricate and intensely imagined homage to the art of storytelling – that magical bridge between literature and our lives. 


Tina Turner: My Love Story
Tina Turner  $40

The dramatic story of one of the most distinguished women in music history celebrates Tina Turner’s 60th year in the industry. Love’s got everything to do with it – the Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll tells her story of a truly remarkable life in the spotlight. From her early years picking cotton in Nutbush, Tennessee to her rise to fame alongside Ike Turner, and finally to her phenomenal success in the 1980s and beyond, Tina candidly examines her personal history, from her darkest hours to her happiest moments and everything in between. Brimming with her trademark blend of strength, energy, heart and soul, My Love Story is a gripping, surprising memoir, as memorable and entertaining as any of her greatest hits. 


Issue 92 October 2018