Back to the January we should have been having. The slow and carefree month of nothing much in particular. The month in which we hold for a few days our resolutions for the New Year. You know the ones. Move more. Eat less. Stop doom scrolling. Slow down. Be kinder. Say yes more often or perhaps say no.

Login or signup to continue reading

So today, let's step back from the news fray, reclaim a little of what is normally the slowest month of the year.

For me, January - summer in general - is traditionally about reading. Long sessions on the deck with a good book in one hand and a cool drink in the other. Despite all the noise of the news cycle, I've devoured a few since the beginning of December.

The reading frenzy was kicked off with the customary John Grisham: The Widow. The plotline involved a small-town lawyer who sniffs opportunity when an elderly widow entrusts him with her will and apparently vast fortune it entails. Before long he's in the frame for her murder. Grisham's great skill is hooking you early and sending you down dead ends with a slew of red herrings. A great whodunit.

Niki Savva's Earthquake came next. A searing inside look at the Liberal Party's calamitous defeat at the May 2025 election, it, too, was a page-turner, in some ways stranger than fiction. If you're not familiar with Savva's journalism, the first half of the book helpfully reprises her columns from The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. But, for me, the second half, which chronicled the disastrous campaign and the ugly aftermath of the defeat, was the most compelling.

An aviation and history junkie, I couldn't walk past Atlantic Furies by Midge Gillies. It's the story of the women who competed to be the first to cross the Atlantic by air. A century ago, when aviation was in its infancy, the technical and physical challenges were immense. So were the social challenges. This was a time when society believed a woman's place was in the home and certainly not at the controls of an aircraft. Gillies does a great job bringing the era to life.

On the recommendation of an Echidna reader, I tracked down a copy of Karla's Choice by Nick Harkaway, the son of John Le Carre. For me, no summer is complete without a good espionage novel and by some literary magic Harkaway filled the void left by his late father by bringing one of his best characters, George Smiley, back to life. The same moral complexity,........

© Canberra Times