John's August Staff Picks

If there is a thread linking my August reading it is hope. Whether it is overt with books like I Love The Whole World!, King's Ransom and Peck & Peck wearing their hearts on their sleeves, or slightly obscured as in Ordinary Funny Tragic and The World Beneath Her Feet, there is still hope. Even Stations, devastating as it all is, is built on hope.

Hope, not a bad theme for our times.

I Love the Whole World! is a sweet and essentially uplifting novel about embracing change and overcoming self-sabotaging doubts in order to live your best life. Give a friend a copy.

Finally, a book for fans of Schitt's Creek and the early work of Peter Carey… Come to think of it, that would be a very small audience. Schitt's Creek and Muriel's Wedding? Look, Ordinary Funny Tragic is deep and frivolous at the same time and kind of wonderful.

Holly Ringland's moving debut, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, was a hit here and abroad and was turned into an award-winning TV series. The World Beneath Her Feet is Ringland's most personal novel yet and feels destined to be a fan favourite.

King's Ransom is absolute blast of a book. Impossible to put down. Matthew Reilly has ratcheted up everything in the second of the Sam Speedman books. More explosions, more death-defying deeds, more brain-teasing clues. Imagine squishing all of the Die Hard films into one and replacing Bruce Willis with Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory and you're almost there.

Stations sits with John of John, The Palm House, The Left and the Lucky and The Things We Never Say, the best books I've read this year. It will gut-punch anyone who has ever tried to someone they love who's hell-bent on self-destruction.