One upside to the wet summer we’re having this year is a chance to dive into some great new books. This month we have a compelling New Zealand memoir about foraging and living off the land, a reimagining of David Copperfield set in Southern Appalachia, and a colourful history of the Roman roads in Britain.
DEMON COPPERHEAD
Barbara Kingsolver
This was released at the end of 2022 but has remained top of bestseller lists for good reason. Kingsolver is perhaps best-known for The Poisonwood Bible, but her quieter, lesser-known books are where she shines. The excellent bookseller at new indie bookstore Lamplight in Parnell (do visit if you get a chance), warned me this wasn’t a ‘beach read’ – and she’s right. It follows a young boy trying to survive amidst the ruins of the opioid crisis in rural America, in the narrative style of Dickens or Copperfield – hard-hitting but compulsive reading because Kingsolver understands character so well. Voted one of the best books of 2022 by The Washington Post and The New York Times, this is Kingsolver back at her best.
A FORAGERS LIFE
Helen Lehndorf
Lehndorf writes beautifully and with a lot of heart while detailing her rural childhood spent foraging and living off the land in Taranaki, and in later years the burgeoning punk scene in 80s rural New Zealand. On her OE in the UK, she searches for her European heritage while foraging for wild food around London and goes on a quest to find a hag stone, before returning to New Zealand and settling in Palmerston North. This memoir has it all – love, loss, grief, creativity, motherhood and community – with a quiet through-thread on the transformative power of plants and caring deeply for our environment. I took long walks after this, longing to identify the many plants she mentions in the book. Luckily, each chapter is bookended with recipes using local New Zealand plants and surrounds – from meadowsweet granita to herbal tinctures.
THE ROAD
Christopher Hadley
Receiving rave reviews in the UK and an early contender for best history book of the year, The Road is the latest book from Hadley, journalist and author of the acclaimed Hollow Places. Here he’s searching for an elusive Roman road that sprang from one of the busiest hubs in Roman Britain. But this is no dry history book – Hadley has a poetic eye as he surveys the archeology, history, landscape, hauntings and more on his epic journey, revealing secrets from its two-thousand-year history.
