Summer reading

Contemporary fiction

Factory 19 by Dennis Glover, Black Inc

Fascinating, funny and futuristic – but not in the way you may expect. Author Dennis Glover paints Hobart in 2022, when Tasmania’s capital is staggering under a seemingly irreversible recession – depressed residents are departing in droves. One day, a rusty ship arrives in the harbour to unload its cargo on the site of the subterranean Gallery of Future Art. GoFA’s owner, enigmatic billionaire Dundas Faussett – “I have seen the past and it works!”– wants to rebuild the economy, devoid of any technology. He’s thinking of a new Year Zero: 1948. All those “little people” who lost jobs because of Amazon, Uber and Airbnb are invited to live as if the internet had never been invented. Zo long, farewell Zuckerberg; welcome back factory whistle! Can nostalgia defeat the future?

LAST TANG STANDING by Lauren Ho, HarperCollins

While Andrea, 33, is unlucky in love, she is also a rising mergers and acquisitions attorney on Singapore’s 40 under 40 list. We join her for Spring Festival. “It’s a time for conjuring up boyfriends with names like Pete Yang or Anderson Lin … there is no time more desperate for single