The Best Books You Probably Didn’t Get Around to Reading Last Year

This article is part of our VICE Weekends summer series, presented by Weis

2016 was a long year, and a hard one. If you didn't have the time or energy to open an 800 page bestseller, we don't blame you. Luckily, 2017 is finally here. And with it, two more months of glorious summer. Which means it's time to pick up a book and get reading before the beloved celebrities start dying. Something not too serious, but also not too trashy. Reading in public means you have to assert some image control, after all.

Of course, because 2016 was such a wild year, you might be a little behind on the happenings within your local literary scene. Luckily, while you were reading the news headlines with an ever-increasing sense of dread, Australian and New Zealand authors were pumping out the gold.

Here's a guide to some of the best local releases from the past 12 months to take to the beach house or, at the very least, local pool.

The Island Will Sink, by Briohny Doyle
Climate change and science fiction aren't always a great mix. Like, sometimes you get Solar, but sometimes you get The Day After Tomorrow. The Island Will Sink is not like either of those movies, especially as it is a book. The debut from Melbourne-based writer Briohny Doyle, this is also the first fiction release from alt publishers The Lifted Brow. It's a simultaneously terrifying and humorous take on the whole, um, impending doom thing. Also a great way to kick start some environmentally conscious new year's resolutions.

The Hate Race, by Maxine Beneba Clarke
Poet and storyteller Maxine Beneba Clarke is somewhat of a national literary treasure. In this memoir, she relates how it felt to grow up black in suburban Australia, where prejudice is as easy to come by as freshly mown lawns and neighbourhood barbecues. As the daughter of English migrants with Afro-Caribbean heritage, Beneba Clarke offers a perspective that many Australians can relate to—the difference being that her writing is unusually spectacular. The Hate Race is the patient education that white Australia desperately needs, although probably doesn't deserve.

The Love of a Bad Man, by Laura Elizabeth Woollett
There's dating a bad boy, then there's dating Hitler. We've all done the former, but it's weird to think about the fact that more than one woman happily did the latter. This book of short stories imagines the lives of women who were romantically entangled with history's worst ever dudes: serial killers, rapists, Nazis, the lot. You'll find yourself oddly fascinated by this deep dive into the twisted psychology of loving someone who is bad for not only you, but other people, too. Think you wouldn't date a dictator? Have a read of this and re-assess.

Dodge Rose, by Jack Cox
You'll either love this book or hate it. There really is no in-between. Dodge Rose is written by a man who clearly worships at the altar of James Joyce. You know, the type of guy who wears tight jeans and horn rimmed glasses, and is really boring to talk to at a party. Still, you don't have to talk to him—just read the book. It's not often that someone writes a modernist novel set in Sydney, which is what this novel essentially is. If you can read past the ridiculous levels of pretension, this is worth a go.

Our Magic Hour, by Jennifer Down
Loosely following the consequences of an unexpected suicide upon a tight knit friendship group of twenty something Melburnians, Our Magic Hour is a raw novel about growing up in a world that never seems to make any sense. If you're from Melbourne, you'll enjoy all the local references to sharehouses in Carlton and gigs at the Gaso. If you aren't, it doesn't really matter—this novel manages to neatly capture that universal malaise felt by terrified millennials all over the world. In other words, it's super depressing. A nice antidote to the overtly cheerful festive season, you know?

Hera Lindsay Bird, by Hera Lindsay Bird
The thing about poetry is that most people think they hate it—mainly because they were forced to read Keats in high school. Unlike Keats, Wellington's Hera Lindsay Bird writes poems from the perspective of someone living in the twenty first century. She's proof that verse can be cool. Okay, admittedly there are references to Keats in her poems, but they're about having sex with him. If you need another selling point, Bird has a preoccupation with the characters from Friends. No Shakespearean sonnets, just good times. We promise.

If We All Spat At Once They'd Drown: Drawings About Class, edited by Sam Wallman
Melbourne-based cartoonist Sam Wallman crowdfunded the production of this huge compilation of drawings from comic artists and writers from around the world. With plenty of wit, If We All Spat at Once tackles class conflict, and all the social issues that come with it. This isn't just an excuse to avoid reading something with heaps of words—it's also an eye-opening exploration of economic inequality that feels especially crucial in the months following Brexit and Make America Great Again. The book itself is beautiful to look at, too.

Talking to My Country, by Stan Grant
Stan Grant has gone viral a couple of times now. First for an article defending Adam Goodes from being booed on pitch, another for a gut wrenching speech about the impact of racism. While both provided the journalist with opportunity to share some much-needed perspective on racial identity, his book is perhaps more worthwhile because its analysis strikes far deeper than those fleeting moments of online hype. While it asks hard questions about the treatment of Indigenous people within Australian culture, Talking to My Country offers more hope than it does blame. It will motivate you to help make things better.

This article is presented by Weis