Madeleine West is an actor who was a star of Neighbours for four years, and has since been seen on TV in Winners & Losers, Satisfaction, Underbelly and House Husbands. She and her partner, restaurateur Shannon Bennett, have six children together. Six Under Eight (Viking), about parenting as "an extreme sport", is Madeleine's first book.
The Secret History
Donna Tartt
I stumbled upon this remarkable novel as a wordy, disillusioned teenager. It lifted the veil on a dark, beatific world where intellect is prized and motives prove hostile amid the highest halls of learning. The novel so perfectly expresses the heartbreaking awareness of self, of difference, and the incidental cruelty which are all part of adolescence. It taught me that the onus is on ourselves to determine how we deal with these undeniable, harsh realities as we are pushed into the unforgiving realm of adulthood.
A Little Life
Hanya Yanagihara
I slashed my way through this "holiday read" with clenched fists and a lump in my throat which I am still struggling to swallow. A Little Life chronicles the mind-bending, heart-wrenching cruelty too often visited upon our most innocent and vulnerable, and yet the narrative is so vital, so alive. It hums with insistent hope: for healing, for salvation, urging its audience to aspire for more and find the forgiveness and redemption that can only come after the past is acknowledged and ultimately put to rest.
What Alice Forgot
Liane Moriarty
The most perfectly rendered effigy to the aspirational, middle-class soccer mum. With equal fondness and exasperation, What Alice Forgot paints a vivid portrait of suburban school-gate society: their cliques, foibles and dreams. Moriarty's subjects are so perfectly imperfect. Yet the gentle judgment and the empathy with which she deals out her words and shapes her characters are the mark of a truly great writer.
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
Marina Lewycka
I was given this irreverent little gem by a dear friend who provides me with an array of marvellous reads. Tractors is a biting chronicle of cross-cultural tensions, cross-generational, social and family tensions, dressed as a rollicking comedy tied with a gold-digging bow. From Valentina, the "fluffy pink grenade" villainess, to her victims, the characters are comic yet relatable. An uproarious, uplifting read you'll want to devour in a single bite.
