Going to university in Sydney is a big deal for Ava, who was raised by a single dad in poverty, and her horizons expand further when she wins a scholarship to Cambridge. For Laurie, the cloisters of Cambridge were exactly what was expected for her, and she grudgingly accedes to the desires of her own father, a domineering Marxist professor. When they meet on campus, these two young women with very different backgrounds bond over the loss of their mothers. Their university days are formative, with a surprising connection that unites them as their life trajectories diverge once again afterwards. Alison Edwards’ Two Daughters is written in undistinguished prose though it does bring dry wit to commentary on social justice issues, motherhood, and class. It also blends several genres – Bildungsroman, university satire, rags-to-riches romance, the female friendship novel – in ways fans of them might enjoy.

NON-FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK
Madrid
Luke Stegemann
Yale University Press, $39.25

Any history of Madrid wouldn’t be complete without at least one observation from Hemingway, who, invoking an essentialist perspective, said it was the “most Spanish of all cities”. Luke Stegemann’s comprehensive history of the city is both “an expression of love” and “an act of recovery” – for though he thinks of Madrid as “a magnificent story waiting to be told”, he says that it has too often been overlooked because of its apparent plainness, among other things. With passion, a genuine turn of phrase, and encyclopaedic knowledge of the place, he traces Madrid from its ancient origins, and the way it mirrors the turbulence of Spanish history, through to the city’s Hausmann-like modernisation in the 20th century and beyond.

Take Flight
Kathy Mexted
NewSouth, $34.99

Kathy Mexted, in this group portrait of contemporary Australian women aviators, reckons that the urge to fly is primal. Whether it’s a universal condition, it’s true of these 10 case studies. Sacha Dench, for example, a paramotor pilot, spent months in extreme conditions, following the path of migratory swans from the Russian tundra to the UK, her story also taking in an awful crash in which a colleague was killed and Dench severely injured. There’s an astrophysicist, a paraglider, a wing-walker and more. A lively account, Mexted often displays a poetic sensibility as in her description of a hot air balloon rising: “As softly as a mother settles her sleeping infant, we are released like its dreams into the gentle dawn.”

No Autographs, Please!
Katherine Wiles
Echo, $34.99

No Autographs, Please! – great title! – could have been sub-titled “The Chorister’s Progress”, for it’s the tale of an opera performer sloughing off dreams of being a diva and embracing a deeply satisfying life in the chorus. Too often, she points out in commendably light, no-nonsense style, the chorus is dismissed as “singing wallpaper”. Wiles, who has been with Opera Australia since 2007, not only corrects this but gives us a fly-on-the-wall appreciation of the chorus itself; the cramped backstage conditions (like a platform in the Tube), gruellingly satisfying schedules, the camaraderie and the costumes that grant her licence to be someone else. This will change the way you look at, and think of, the chorus.

Kosciuszko
Anthony Sharwood
Hachette, $34.99

The mountain, Kosciuszko, looms large in the national imagination, but few know about the Polish freedom fighter after whom it was named by fellow Pole Pawel Strzelecki. And yet, his life, which Sharwood charts in informed, entertaining detail, was remarkable. Born into a minor aristocratic family, Tadeusz fought in the American War of Independence with such distinction that he mixed with Washington and had numerous places named after him in the US (he never visited Australia), before returning home to lead a doomed attempt at Polish independence. Above all, when there are signs the mountain’s name may be changed to an indigenous one, Sharwood emphasises the deep, genuinely held humanity of his subject.

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