Thank-you to everyone who took part in the vote to select the next book for Reading Matters' Online Book Group.
I am happy to announce that the winner is ...
Synopsis (from B&N website):
Ferocious and funny, penetrating and exuberant, Theft is two-time Booker Prize-winner Peter Carey's master class on the things people will do for art, for love . . . and for money.
"I don't know if my story is grand enough to be a tragedy, although a lot of shitty stuff did happen. It is certainly a love story but that did not begin until midway through the shitty stuff, by which time I had not only lost my eight-year-old son, but also my house and studio in Sydney where I had once been famous as a painter could expect in his own backyard. . ."
So begins Peter Carey's highly charged and lewdly funny new novel. Told by the twin voices of the artist, Butcher Bones, and his "damaged two-hundred-and-twenty-pound brother" Hugh, it recounts their adventures and troubles after Butcher's plummeting prices and spiraling drink problem force them to retreat to New South Wales. Here the formerly famous artist is reduced to being a caretaker for his biggest collector, as well as nurse to his erratic brother.
Then the mysterious Marlene turns up in Manolo Blahniks one stormy night. Claiming that the brothers' friend and neighbor owns an original Jacques Liebovitz, she soon sets in motion a chain of events that could be the making or ruin of them all.
Displaying Carey's extraordinary flare for language, Theft is a love poem of a very different kind. Ranging from the rural wilds of Australia to Manhattan via Tokyo - and exploring themes of art, fraud, responsibility and redemption - this great novel will make you laugh out loud.
Resources:
- Author's listing on British Council for the Arts website
- Review from the New York Times
- Transcript of author interview on ABC radio's The Book Show
Where to get a copy:
- Try your local library
- Reading Matters' Book Store
- Abebooks
Or if you just want to read an excerpt to see whether the book is for you:
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If you've not taken part in the group before you can find out how it works here (91K PDF).
Discussion for Session 11 will then open on SATURDAY 30 JUNE.
