Meg Bignell, author of The Sparkle Pages, is here to give you five books you should read instead of hanging out the washing or cooking dinner…
1. Pomp and Circumstance by Noel Coward
This is an obscure-ish comedy of manners that runs to farce and is the perfect bit of escapism. It’s set on a South Sea Island under British claim so there’s a lot of Brits romping around behaving badly and trying to keep up appearances in the face of a royal visit. No one seems to do any housework, so there’s no guilt-making descriptions of scrubbing floors or starching linens. There’s a lot of alcohol consumption though, so put your feet up with a G&T, feel the island sun on your back and ignore your smudgy windows. It’s like a summer holiday with a bunch of extravagant and wildly inappropriate friends.
Buy Pomp and Circumstance here.
2. Love, Nina: Despatches from Family Life by Nina Stibbe
I love anything by Nina Stibbe but this is the best starting point for anyone just getting to know her. This is a book of letters written by Nina to her sister when she moved to London in the eighties to nanny for an eccentric writer and her two gorgeous sons. Nina’s piercing observations and poignant stories, told in her signature matter-of-fact voice are hilarious and endearing and fabulous. Listen to her read the audiobook while you’re on a long, indulgent walk for the full Nina effect.
3. Bridge of Clay by Markus Zusak
This book deserves your full attention. No dusty-shelf, weedy-garden distractions. It tells the story of five brothers finding their way in a harsh world, the enigmatic and captivating fourth son, Clay at their centre. Some of the phrasing just killed me: “The suitcase shook in what was suddenly just a boy’s boyish hand.” (I’m dead, farewell.) The experience of reading it was for me like sitting before the Pieta. The attention to detail is masterful and captivating. It made me, as a writer, want to burn my manuscripts and become a worm farmer.
4. The Asylum by John Harwood
This writer is Tasmanian like me, but that’s not why I read his books. He writes a cracking ghost story, one of my favourite genres, and not in an over-the-top, ‘as-if’ Hollywood way. His mysteries are eerie and compelling, full of gothic atmosphere and page-turning story. They end satisfyingly solved, mostly. The complexities and twists leave just enough unexplained to deliver a delicious, lingering ghostly aftertaste. You’ll never want to clean the attics again.
5. At Home with the Templetons by Monica McInerney
If you’re going to have a day off housework, you might as well go the whole hog and snuggle in with your doona, a cup of tea and a Monica McInerney book. At Home with the Templetons is the perfect comfort read. A family saga, it populates your imagination with endearing characters and draws you into their dilemmas until you can’t possibly extricate yourself even if the dishwasher filter is clogged. When you finish it feels as though you’ve been on sabbatical in country Victoria.
Buy At Home With the Templetons here.
About Meg Bignell:
Meg Bignell was a nurse and a weather presenter on the telly before she surrendered to a persistent desire to write. Since then she has been writing almost every day – bits and pieces here and there, either to earn a crust, to get something off her chest or to entertain herself.
She has written three short films, mostly because she wanted to do some acting and no one else would cast her. She sings a bit too, occasionally writes and performs cabaret, but is mostly very busy being a mother to three and a wife (to one). She lives with her family on a dairy farm on Tasmania’s East Coast.
The Sparkle Pages is her first novel – out now!
The Sparkle Pages
'Is marriage just a series of texts about where the children are and whether we need milk until one of you dies?'
Susannah Parks - wife, mother, cleaner of surfaces and runner of household - is a viola virtuoso. Except she hasn't picked up a viola for over a decade. She has, however, picked up a lot of Lego, socks, wet towels and other exhibits of mundanity. She has also picked up on the possibility that her husband has lost interest in her. (And frankly, she's not very interested in Susannah Parks either.) But this year, she has resolved to be very interesting. Also thoughtful, useful, cheerful, relevant, self-sufficient, stylish, alluring and intelligent...
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