The Glassmaker by Tracy Chevalier
On Murano, a small island a stone’s throw from Venice, a family make their fortune creating beautiful glassware. Orsola Rosso may have been born into this family, but as a woman the studio is off-limits to her. But glassmaking calls to her, and when Orsola is determined, nothing will stop her.
‘The Glassmaker’ skips through time like a pebble on the water. Starting in 1486 we see the Venetian Lagoon through the dark days of plague, and move through the bustling decades where Venice is the centre of trade in Europe; in the 1800s we see the streets flooded with wealthy visitors on their Grand Tours, and we leave Orsola in 1915, as the city steels itself for war. Chevalier has crafted a unique masterpiece – this is a beautiful tale of family, passion, and love, and a story of a city in constant motion. – Lottie
Question 7 by Richard Flanagan
Question 7‘s starting point finds Flanagan somewhat-reluctantly attending a ceremony at the site of a WWII slave labour camp in Japan (a love hotel now stands there) where his father was held as a prisoner of war. From there, he weaves his way through war, the atomic bomb – which his father saw the glow of as it decimated hundreds of thousands of lives – HG Wells and Rebecca West’s affair, Chekov’s own Question 7, climate breakdown, philosophy, colonialism, his father’s demise and his mother’s regrets, and his own devastating brush with death.
All of this he sews together seamlessly into a breath-taking narrative that stretches to the extremes the bounds of memoir, forming something entirely new. Flanagan is one of those people who sees the world for what it is – window dressing that aides us in avoiding the unavoidable, that stops us forever staring into the abyss. This book documents who Flanagan is, and who we all are, and asks tough questions about humanity’s fate. Anyone who loves the work of Benjamin Labatut will find much to excite them in this most exquisite of books, which is surely one of the truly great works to appear in 2024. – Tom M
The Escher Man by T. R. Napper
2101, Macau: mega-corporations and criminal gangs are two sides of the same coin. Endel ‘Endgame’ Ebbinghaus is a hitman for the Macau Crime Syndicate, but he wants out, or at least he thinks he does; it’s difficult to keep track when your memory is wiped clean at the start of each job.
Plagued by feverish dreams of a happy, quiet life, Endgame must work out if these memories belong to him, and if they do, how can he get this life back?
For fans of Blade Runner, Neuromancer, Titanium Noir and Altered Carbon, The Escher Man is a worthy addition to the cyberpunk genre. – Tom B