Books like A Very Important Teapot

Believe me; I know how hard it is to write humour. To produce a successful comedic novel with laugh-out-loud lines as a debut novelist is no mean feat, but for me, Jane Ions has pulled it off with this book. 

I found the voice of Sally Forth (I know!) engaging and hilarious from the off. There was so much for me to enjoy, from the wayward teenage son living in a lean-to in the garden to Sally’s long-suffering and respectable husband, who just happens to be an MP.

I love this kind of well-observed comedy that treats its characters, no matter how misguided, with kindness and compassion. 

The on-target humour of this book helped get me through the lockdown. It is a comic novel about love, lust, and guerrilla dentistry in 1980s Leicester. How could I resist that? 

I found the main character–teenager Lizzie Vogel, the guerrilla dentist in question–to be a hilarious and compelling creation, filled with the arrogance and naïveté of youth, very much in the tradition of Adrian Mole. 

In fact, the book teems with entertaining, richly observed characters and absurd situations. Though there is plenty to laugh at, what impressed me most was Nina Stibbe’s gift for making her characters so real that, even while I was laughing at their antics, I felt great sympathy for them and their disappointments. 

I’ll never understand why humorous writing is less respected than the more literary kind. Yet, I believe creating characters that are both convincing and amusing and steering them through a complicated plot–without letting the humour flag–takes great skill. For me, this is what the author Stevyn Colgan achieves in his South Herewardshire books, the first of which is A Murder to Die For. 

I found the laughs just kept on coming as farce piled upon farce. As well as giving me a good chuckle, I relished the rural setting, a touching reminder of the splendors and eccentricities of English village life that I, for one, would be sad to lose.

A confession: Lissa Evans is one of my very favourite authors. I’ve greatly enjoyed all her books, and this one is a brilliant example. It’s crammed full of likeable and fallible characters–as well as some equally believable horrors–attempting to deal with the ridiculousness of life. 

Reading it, I felt I was never far away from a good laugh, either a chuckle-worthy turn of phrase or a riotous set piece. Yet, along with escaped city pigs, procreating giant snails, and porno-mag chomping tortoises, I loved that there is poignancy and even tragedy. So much so I found myself late at night worrying for the fate of some of her characters.

The first time I set foot in Sydney, Australia (after a 19-hour flight from Los Angeles), I knew that I needed to learn as much about the history of that continent as possible.

In bars and cafes, I would listen to Australians speaking to each other, marveling at their accents. I wondered how a colony of convicts could thrive in a place completely different from their homes in England and Ireland. I wondered what they did to the Aboriginal people to claim as much land and wealth as they had.

This is why I was drawn to Christina Baker Kline’s book, which follows three young women in Australia, telling the story of its colonization in the 19th century from very different perspectives. Kline’s prose is effortless–descriptive without getting in its own way, but not simplistic. At some point, when I was reading this book cover to cover, I looked up… show more.

I love a tense, character-driven thriller, and this one was set in a remote town I’ve visited. 

I love that the book is set in 1963, a decade that had particular significance for Australian women, their roles, and the expectations placed upon them.

It’s not fast-moving, but the setting is an almost palpable character in its own right. I found it dark, rife with corruption, violence, oppressive heat, and both the best and the worst of what Australia has to offer.

I enjoyed The Opposite of Life (which preceded this book) for its wit, originality, unexpected poignancy, and Australian urban setting. I think Walking Shadows is even better.

Librarian Lissa and her very uncool, but lovable, vampire buddy Gary return, and Lissa is drawn further into Melbourne's vampire underworld to protect Gary (the first of many wonderful ironies).

Someone is hunting vampires and Gary's on the hitlist, despite the fact he doesn't bite people or drink blood. (In Harris’s mythology, vampires don't need human blood to survive, it simply enables them to feel alive.)

There are still themes of death, grief, and consequences of choices, but these are balanced by moments where simple joys in life are celebrated and relished. I loved the deepening friendship between Lissa and Gary—theirs is a unique relationship in the world of vamp-based stories.

Begin, End, Begin: A #LoveOzYA Anthology is a great collection of short stories, written in a cross-section of genres, on different themes, by a variety of Australian authors. Reading these stories gives you a taste of the authors’ writing styles, and, as many of them also write novels, you can choose which authors’ works you’d like to read more of.

Dyschronia is strange, complicated, overwhelming, frightening, and occasionally enervating – just like climate change. Jen Mills tells the story of a young woman in a small, dying town who can’t stop seeing horrible futures; or, perhaps, the story of a young woman who compulsively lies. You won’t forget the compelling and sickening scene of a town waking up to find the ocean has disappeared. This one is worth wrapping your brain around.

Far from an ordinary guidebook, Loving Country, A Guide to Sacred Australia gets to the heart of this ancient continent through the eyes and stories of Australia’s First Nations people. Beautifully designed and illustrated with photographs, the book opens up an Australia that many visitors never – sadly – see. Exploring Australia’s Indigenous culture is one of the best ways to understand this country, and there are many ways of doing that, if you seek them out. After consultation with Indigenous communities and elders, the authors have chosen just 18 places to feature, telling the stories of the Dreaming, explaining traditional cultural practices, and outlining tours that will open a new world to those who care to dive deep into the culture.