The hustle and bustle of life can bring about a longing to take a journey or go on a trip. There is no better way of doing that, than to take some time out on a Sunday afternoon and read a good book. We have compiled a list of award-winning titles to provide you some inspiration.
Brick Lane by Monica Ali
Life for Bangladeshi village girl Nazreen is duty and obedience until her father arranges her marriage to Chanu of Tower Hamlets, London. Nazreen struggles to reconcile herself both to fate and to the choices she must make as she faces issues surrounding family, identity, Islam and community.
Shortlist nominee of the Man Booker Prize in 2003, the leading literary award in the English speaking world. This award brings recognition, reward and readership to outstanding fiction for over 50 years.
A Death in Brazil by Peter Robb
Robb paints a picture of South America’s largest and most mysterious country, blending personal journey with a portrait of a sensual, often violent society with extremes of poverty and wealth. This is presented against a background of centuries of slavery, workers’ strikes and organised crime, all flavoured with lime and coconut juice.
A Death in Brazil was named The Age’s nonfiction book of the year in 2004. These awards were part of the annual Melbourne Writers Festival until 2013.
Highways to a War by Christopher Koch
‘Being in battle, like being in love, is one of the fundamental human experiences.’ Set in the predominantly male world of war journalism, this novel opens in 1976 with the disappearance of a gifted war photographer in Cambodia. It follows the highways of his life into the countries and the wars he covered.
This novel was presented the Miles Franklin award in 1996, which is awarded to a ‘novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases’.
The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
This short novel is an easy Sunday afternoon read. While the novel is well over 50 years old, the narrative still resonates, which is why it’s considered a classic. The Old Man and the Sea is set in Cuba and about the battle between an experienced fisherman, Santiago and a giant marlin.
In 1953, this novel received the acclaimed Pulitzer Prize and was called out during Ernest Hemingway’s Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.
The Other Side of the World – Stephanie Bishop
Set in the post-war 1960s, Charlotte struggles with the demands of being a new mother. Her husband Henry makes a decision to move them from their cottage in Cambridge to sunny Perth, convincing himself that it’s all for her sake. When their new life doesn’t offer the solutions that they’d hoped for, Charlotte and Henry embark on a personal journey that threatens their life together. An emotional novel that explores nostalgia, identity and the decisions we make to find ourselves.
This novel was longlisted for The Stella Prize 2016, shortlisted for The Victorian Premier’s Literary Award 2016 and won the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction 2015.