The Librarytart Awards 2009

The better late than never awards ceremony.

Reading a trifling 75 books – with many released before 2009 – hardly gives me the clout to speak authoritatively on the year’s releases, but I am healthy enough of ego to hand out some trophies anyway, damn it. Most of the already-published reviews have focused on the ‘best’ books (a mixed bag of eye-opening delights at best and skewed towards inhouse marketing at worst) and book selling web sites will cover the best-selling titles, so I will jot my favourite and less-than-favourite books read in 2009.

I’m sorry there’s photos of book covers and not lemon tarts (my favourite) but I’m off sugar at the moment.

Books released in 2009

Favourite memoir

~ Affection, Krissy Kneen

Affection’s publishing team has to be congratulated for the most intense PR effort in recent Australian literary history. I reached the stage of reading reviews in the weekend paper supplements with the attitude of, “Bloody hell, if I buy the damn book, will you promise to stop plugging it so aggressively?”

I took this resentment into opening the book, but after only a few dozen pages Kneen’s articulate writing and searing frankness turned my attitude to awe and respect. The publishers are flogging the book because it deserves a wide audience. Much more than a sexual memoir and the personal impact of living authentically, the author also eloquently describes an inhibited upbringing, unrequited desires and homelessness with courage that most of us lack.

Most brilliantly-executed idea

~ Sum, David Eagleman

This street-smart collection presents 40 daring and occasionally solemn challenges about what might happen when you die, but is really questioning about how you’re living your life now. Ever thought about being confronted by the selves you could have been if you had lived up to your potential? I squirmed uncomfortably and put the book away for a few days after considering that scenario. He pokes at humanity with a stick but I don’t mind because he’s tickling the funny bone and the grey matter simultaneously.

Most over-rated release

~ Wetlands, Charlotte Roche, and

~ Her Fearful Symmetry, Audrey Niffenegger

In Wetlands, a young woman takes an obsessional level of interest in her bodily functions but deep down her wish is to get her parents back together. The shakily-empowered but brave protagonist tries her hardest but the choppy writing, haphazard editing and lack of supporting storylines let the book down more than shock value can prop it up. And I still eat avocado, so the grossness of the sexual acts featuring my favourite fruit were a little overplayed by gobsmacked reviewers as well.

Initially, my disappointment with Her Fearful Symmetry stemmed from a case of me wanting to love Niffenegger’s new book as much as The Time Traveller’s Wife. When several of the main characters transfigured from merely secretive and selfish into evil, I lost interest and read with hope that the skilled author would save the story with more discipline and less suspension of belief, but it wasn’t to be.

The sleeper I hope wakes

~ The Marriage Club, Kate Legge, and

~ Reunion, Andrea Goldsmith

Both books are coincidentally based on the encroachment of middle age and relationships and I was delighted and humbled by two different approaches of similarly outstanding quality.

The Marriage Club uses the death of woman at the hand of her husband to allow the façade of a seemingly-perfect marriage crumble under scrutiny. While exploring if Leith Kremmer died accidentally or was murdered, her friends question their own actions and relationships with unease and secrecy. Kate Legge deconstructs the outer lives and inner secrets of her characters with a deft and wise hand.

Reunion’s characters are a more externally passionate and ambitious bunch but Andrea Goldsmith brings them together with bonds tied with disrespect and resentment before tearing them apart. She also delves skilfully into the nature of success, insecurity, jealousy and death. It’s a quietly challenging book with subtleties and afterthoughts that reach out long after the book has been placed on the shelf.

Most magnificent short stories

~ An Elegy for Easterly, Petina Gappah

This award was a walk in the park when I realised I had been hauling Petina Gappah’s book around in hope of delayed appointments so I could cram just one more story in. The author is an outstanding creator of scene and her characters – especially the cast of dejected and manipulative adults — are portrayed as if leaping from the page. While the stories are a product of Mugabe’s disastrous rule in Zimbabwe, the author saves bitterness and anger for her protagonists and writes with sharp insight and tender melancholy. This is probably my favourite book released in 2009.

Books released prior to 2009

The sleeper that woke

~ The Slap, Christos Tsiolkas

Something happened during the year that turned a tale about a fractured unit of family and friends from a sleeper to a soarer. By mid-year I was gloating that I’d already read the book twice, and the first time last year, thank you very much new converts. It doesn’t hurt that The Slap is a cracker of a book that peels away social niceties and strips its characters to their flawed selves. I giggle every time I hear reviewers say the characters are unlikeable; of course they are, they’re a reflection of ourselves and our own family units and nothing is as confronting as the truth that aren’t the people we want others to think we are.

Most wonderful compilation

~ The Best Australian Essays 2008, edited by David Marr

In his introduction as overseer of 2008’s collection, David Marr confesses to grappling with little more than the reassurance of gut feel in whittling hundreds of worthy essays to a manageable 31, but he is being far too humble. He has selected a treasure trove of short to middle-length pieces, opening with a sweet essay by Christos Tsiolkas on the beauties of the night, takes us for a trip to the USA with Guy Rundle’s outsider’s view of the lead-up to the last presidential elections, and home again where Rachel Robertson observes a confused but fiercely loving family living with a charming autistic boy. John van Tiggelen’s empathetic and tragic story of the Indigenous Aurukun community’s struggles in ‘After Sorry’, first published in Fairfax’s Good Weekend, is worth the cover price alone.

Favourite memoir

~ Speak, Memory, Vladimir Nabokov, and

~ So Many Selves, Gabrielle Carey

I found Nabokov’s book in a reading list in Carmel Bird’s book about writing, Writing the Story of Your Life. That woman has hurt my credit card with her recommendations being on the money every single time and Speak, Memory is now placed firmly in the beloved category with The Grapes of Wrath as a book I’ll re-read regularly.

Gabrielle Carey’s 2006 memoir was a beautiful chance meeting at the library. Unfortunately best-known in trivia questions as, “Who co-wrote Puberty Blues with Kathy Lette?” Carey chronicles her unbreakable teen friendship with Lette that indeed split irrevocably. The book is an honest, self aware look at spirituality, relationships and parenthood, peppered with moments most of us will never experience, such as an unlikely friendship with a mentally ill Spike Milligan at his most unguarded.

Cookbook surprise

~ Jamie’s Ministry of Food, Jamie Oliver

I know, there is no end to my talents and no section of a bookshop left neglected. In all seriousness, a book that aims to turn pot burners into burgeoning cooks is ripe for speaking down to its audience, but Oliver nails it with enthusiasm and respect. Starting with pantry and equipment essentials and recipes for the basics including sauces and dressings, the book is a little like the younger brother to Stephanie Alexander’s tome in a less intimidating, breezier format that should also satisfy more experienced cooks. There’s certainly a permanent place for both in my collection. I’m ignoring the dorky ‘commitment to cook’ pledge at the front of the book and focusing on the fresh, easy-to-prepare meals. So far, I’ve sent three copies as Christmas presents for people who are trying to enjoy cooking and want to do a bit more.

Happy reading in 2010.