Bob Johnston from the Gutter Bookshop in Temple Bar and Dalkey and Louisa Cameron from Raven Books in Blackrock joined Sean O’Rourke to recommend some of their favourite summer reads this year, whether you’re reading them from sunny Spain or sunny Stepaside.
Louisa recommends I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, a true crime book by the late Michelle McNamara. It details McNamara’s investigation into The Golden State Killer (a title McNamara coined herself to combat the multitude of nicknames the perpetrator had been given in separate investigations).
The story around the book is "better than fiction in some respects", Louisa explained. McNamara had "become obsessed" with case and was almost finished writing the book when she died suddenly at the age of 46. Her husband, actor and comedian Patton Oswalt, knew "how much it meant to Michelle" to complete the book and potentially reignite the investigation into the case. He enlisted the help of two investigators to finish the book. Two months after its release in February of this year, authorities in California arrested The Golden State Killer, 32 years after his last known murder.
Bob put forward a "thriller that we’ll never forget", The Mountain by Luca D’Andrea.
"I like to sling something in my suitcase that’s just a good page-turning thriller…it’s got loads of twists."
Set in the Italian Dolomite mountains, The Mountain follows the story of a small Italian village which was rocked by the murder of three students in 1985. While fictional, it mirrors Louisa’s first pick somewhat in that a cold case comes into the spotlight.
"It’s one of those little tucked-away communities where there are many secrets bubbling underneath."
Sticking to the theme of crime, Louisa’s next pick is by "South Korea’s answer to Jo Nesbo", You-jeong Jeong. Louisa joked that there’s "obviously a lot of murder going on this summer’. In The Good Son, readers struggle to figure out whether the narrator, 26-year-old law student Yu-jin, is telling the truth about the death of his mother.
"He wants to find the murderer himself. So, he hides the evidence. And over the next three days, he is trying to figure out what happened and we are trying to figure out if he is indeed the ‘good son’."
Miraculously, Bob did have a book on his list that does not focus on crime. He’s found a funny book and in his own words, "finding funny books is pretty hard to do". Daryl Gregory’s newest novel, Spoonbenders, is about family. A pretty unique, telekinetically-abled family.
"It’s a great story. It’s funny. It’s quirky. It’s a great family drama. You know, you just want to read something that kind of just gives you a laugh but is also kind of clever. Very well-written."
Less by Andrew Sean Greer, which recently won a Pulitzer Prize, is one of Louisa’s picks. And it all starts with a wedding invitation.
"Many of us have been in the awkward situation of receiving a wedding invite from an ex-lover and not being quite sure what to do."
This is the dilemma faced by the novel’s protagonist, Arthur Less. He really doesn’t want to go to his ex-girlfriend’s wedding. So, he accepts a whole raft of international invitations he’d been given due to his work as a writer. It seems like it’s going to work out. But fate may have an intervening hand.
"As we all know, the best-laid plans of mice and men and indeed literary heroes go horribly wrong. This is a very funny book."
I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death is the memoir of Irish writer Maggie O’Farrell. In it, she shares the incredible near-death experiences she has had throughout her life. Bob was quick to point out that these are not the "floating into the light" kind of near-death experiences.
"We’re talking about actual things that happened to her. So, a childhood illness that she suffered that she was not expected to survive, a terrifying encounter on a remote path. So, it’s a series of vignettes. They’re incredible reading."
Louisa shared a pick by Blackrock-based author, Sue Rainsford. Her debut, Follow me to the Ground, features Ada, a faith healer and her father. They are both "revered and feared" by the community they live in.
"It’s really unusual. It’s one of the most original stories I have read in the longest time."
Listen back to the whole discussion and the full list of recommendations on Today with Sean O’Rourke here.
