Enter Ghost
By Isabella Hammad
$32.99
Enter Ghost is worth reading on the strength of Hammad’s eye for similes alone, but the plot too proves as insightful and surprising as her first extraordinary novel The Parisian.
Set in modern day Palestine Enter Ghost follows our protagonist Sonia, an actress living in London reeling from a disastrous love affair. She flees to her ancestral home to visit her sister and immediately, and unwillingly, becomes wrapped up in a production of Hamlet in the West Bank where she soon finds herself reciting Gertrude’s lines in classical Arabic. Conflict is stirred up around – and because of – the controversy of the play. As opening draws closer, warring and disaster escalate while the actors contend equally with their egos as they do their context of political conflict.
An exquisite novel about art, connection, and resistance, Hammad writes Sonia’s search for meaning with a subtle but precise undercurrent; much like Sonia, to read this book is to find yourself wholly invested in something you didn’t know you were getting into.
WOMEN I KNOW
By Katerina Gibson
$29.99
This collection of short stories by our very own Katerina Gibson is at times startling, funny, dark, and always clever. We’re so lucky to have this superstar on our team here at The Sun Bookshop, recently announced as winner of The Christina Stead Prize and also named one of The Sydney Morning Herald’s Best Young Australian Novelists and an all-round brilliant person.
The stories weave together complex portraits of women living in contemporary society and its dizzying walk between isolation and connection. We follow a young woman cheating her algorithm, creating a wholesome online persona while her ‘real’ life dissipates; two lovers divide over alternative meat options; a factory worker fits eyes in companion dolls until she is called on to install her own.
Playful with genre and language and driven by an imaginative, probing mind, the collection has arresting insights into the modern world. The stories feel fresh, inquisitive and always captivating: you’ll be speeding along to the finish.
At the Younger Sun there are always new worlds for the younger people in our lives to explore.
It’s the Sound of the Thing
By Maxine Beneba Clarke
$22.99
Westside local and all-round amazing writer Maxine Beneba Clarke has done it again – this time with her new title It’s the Sound of the Thing, a collection of poems for young people.
A celebration of everyday life, the joy of language, and more than a little bit fun, It’s the Sound of the Thing is the perfect read for anyone aged 10 and up. There’s a range of poems within the book spanning topics such as peanut butter, TikTok dances, a grandfather’s fading memory, and big dreams. Through haiku, sonnets, narrative verse, rhyming couplets, limericks, free verse, tongue-twisters and more, Maxine invites readers to fall in love with the wonder that is poetry.
Most of all this book is everything we’ve come to love from Maxine Beneba Clarke; beautifully written, and all wrapped up for any child or adult to enjoy.
A Hunger of Thorns
By Lili Wilkinson
$24.99
Reviewed by Jenny Kiely
A Hunger of Thorns is a dark and witchy tale about forbidden magic and friendship that celebrates the power of women.
Maude is the daughter of witches. She spent her childhood running wild with her best friend Odette, weaving stories of girls who slayed dragons and saved princes. Then Maude grew up and lost her magic—and her best friend.
These days, magic is reduced to glamour patches and psychic energy drinks. Odette has always hungered for forbidden, dangerous magic, and two weeks ago she went searching for it. Now she’s missing and everyone says she’s dead. Everyone except Maude.
Be swept away by this lush tale steeped in secrets and celebrating girls who are discovering that they are wild, fierce and powerful.
Recommended for ages 13 to adult
