Five Bells

Author: Gail Jones

Publisher: New York: Picador, 2012

Annotation: 

Told over the course of a single Saturday in Sydney, Five Bells weaves together the stories of four characters -- country girl Ellie, who is new to the city, her childhood friend, the heavily medicated James, Dublin native Catherine and Pei Xing, whose family fled China's Cultural Revolution -- all of them dealing with personal sorrows and secret guilt.

Library Journal praises the book's "deliberate pacing and introspective style," saying "this is a book for contemplative readers willing to lose themselves in the characters' journeys between present and past".

For more information:

• Picador (publisher)
• The Guardian
• Goodreads

Questions of travel

Author:  Michelle De Kretser

Publisher:  New York: Little, Brown and Company 2013

Annotation: 

Questions of Travel tells the stories of Laura Fraser, an alienated Sydneysider who escapes to Europe and forges a new identity as an expat travel write after a beloved aunt dies, leaving her a modest inheritance. She returns home, aimless and unmoored.  Meanwhile Ravi Mendes, a Sri Lankan refugee has fled to Australia after the brutal murder of his wife and child in the country's civil war. Their stories are told in alternating chapters and, inevitably, their paths cross and their stories entwine. 

Questions of Travel both the 2013 Australian Literature Society Gold Medal and the 2013 Australian Prime Minister's Literary Award for fiction. Writing in Booklist, Hazel Rochman says of the book: "This ironic, contemporary view of finding home makes for heartfelt drama." 

Additional formats: Also available as an audiobook

For more information:

• Little Brown (publisher)
• Goodreads
• The Guardian
• Australian Book Review