Catherine’s Gift:  by John Little, makes me feel incredibly lucky and very grateful to live in Western Australia rather than the middle of Ethiopia where Dr Catherine Hamlin has lived and worked since 1959.  Dr Hamlin is a surgeon and operates on Ethiopian mothers who have contracted fistulas from prolonged labour.  This happens when the baby is bigger than the birth canal and the blood supply has been cut off to parts of the uterus.  The dead tissue sloughs away and forms a passageway (called a fistula) between organs, most notably between the bowel, bladder and the vagina.  This causes faecal material and urine to fall uncontrollably from the bladder and vagina with no way of holding it in. 

Martin Bryant, the blonde haired, blue eyed mass murderer who killed 35 people in Port Arthur in 1996, today sits in his jail cell, eating ice-cream, getting incredibly obese and feeling sad and sorry because he sees himself as the sole victim of life rather than the perpetrator of the world’s worst mass murder.

The Almost Moon, by Alice Sebold, was my choice for our monthly book-club.  I enjoyed it and read it in two days, but I found that while all the ingredients for a psychological pot-boiler was there, something went a bit wrong during the cooking process and it came out slightly under-done.  

On Chesil Beach, by Ian McEwan is a dignified and introspective read for anyone who has ever tried to lose their virginity, been terrified of the prospect of unimagined, unbridled passion or who has fumbled in the dark with an equally inexperienced partner and completely missed the point.

I adored this book; I loved its long, intense, meandering passages about existential crises and rampant passion in people’s lives.  I loved the serious profundity of the slightly melancholic characters who think and feel the way I do, that infatuation with your craft is just as, if not more, important than riotous, wanton love-making is. 

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, by David Wroblewski, spent thirty well-deserved weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.  It’s about a mute boy, his good parents and his bad Uncle, bonding, love, hate, betrayal and murder that took the author ten years to develop and write.  It starts off undulating gently and thoughtfully before descending into darkness and madness.