Three Must-Reads from Pan Macmillan on The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2023
Each year, the staff of The New York Times Book Review pore over thousands of new books, seeking out the best novels, memoirs, biographies, poetry collections, stories and more. Pan Macmillan Australia is proud to have three titles on the 2023 list: Western Lane by Chetna Maroo, Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll, and Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives by Siddharth Kara.
From gripping narratives to thought-provoking themes, these books promise a journey into extraordinary realms crafted by some of the most talented authors of our time. The three Pan Macmillan Australia titles on this year’s list couldn’t be more different from each other, but are united by their excellent writing, strong voices, and captivating stories.
Congratulations to our authors who worked so hard on these books and have been recognised by the esteemed team at The New York Times Book Review. Check out the other standout books on the list here.
About the Books
Western Lane by Chetna Maroo
‘WOW. Western Lane is glorious. You’ll want to read it over and over again.’ – Aravind Adiga, author of The White Tiger
A taut, enthralling first novel about grief, sisterhood, and a young athlete’s struggle to transcend herself.
Eleven-year-old Gopi has been playing squash since she was old enough to hold a racket. When her mother dies, her father enlists her in a quietly brutal training regimen, and the game becomes her world. Slowly, she grows apart from her sisters. Her life is reduced to the sport, guided by its rhythms: the serve, the volley, the drive, the shot and its echo.
But on the court, she is not alone. She is with her pa. She is with Ged, a thirteen-year-old boy with his own formidable talent. She is with the players who have come before her. She is in awe.
An indelible coming-of-age story, Chetna Maroo’s first novel captures the ordinary and annihilates it with beauty. Western Lane is a valentine to innocence, to the closeness of sisterhood, to the strange ways we come to know ourselves and each other.
SHORT-LISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2023
Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll
‘Cleverly constructed [. . .] psychologically astute and written with flair.’ – The Sunday Times
January 1978. Tallahassee. When sorority president Pamela Schumacher is startled awake at 3 a.m. by a strange sound, she’s shocked to encounter a scene of implausible violence – two of her friends dead and two others, maimed. Thrust into a terrifying mystery, Pamela becomes entangled in a crime that captivates public interest for more than four decades . . .
On the other side of the country, Tina Cannon has found peace in Seattle after years of hardship. When Ruth, her best friend, goes missing from Lake Sammamish State Park in broad daylight, surrounded by thousands of beachgoers on a beautiful summer day, Tina devotes herself to finding out what happened to her.
When Tina hears about the tragedy in Tallahassee, she suspects the same man the papers refer to is responsible. Determined to make him answer for what he did to Ruth, she travels to Florida on a collision course with Pamela – and one last impending tragedy.
From the author of the New York Times bestseller and #1 Netflix movie Luckiest Girl Alive comes Jessica Knoll’s extraordinary novel inspired by the real-life sorority targeted by America’s first celebrity serial killer in his final murderous spree.
Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives by Siddharth Kara
Cobalt Red is the searing, first-ever exposé of the immense toll taken on the people and environment of the Democratic Republic of the Congo by cobalt mining, as told through the testimonies of the Congolese people themselves. Activist and researcher Siddharth Kara has traveled deep into cobalt territory to document the testimonies of the people living, working, and dying for cobalt. To uncover the truth about brutal mining practices, Kara investigated militia-controlled mining areas, traced the supply chain of child-mined cobalt from toxic pit to consumer-facing tech giants, and gathered shocking testimonies of people who endure immense suffering and even die mining cobalt.
Cobalt is an essential component to every lithium-ion rechargeable battery made today, the batteries that power our smartphones, tablets, laptops, and electric vehicles. More than 70 percent of the world’s supply of cobalt is mined in the Congo, often by peasants and children in sub-human conditions. Billions of people in the world cannot conduct their daily lives without participating in a human rights and environmental catastrophe in the Congo. In this stark and crucial book, Kara argues that we must all care about what is happening in the Congo—because we are all implicated.