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In the next instalment of our “We Love to Imagine” illustration series, we meet Jeff from Victoria!

“Our Dad has worked as a teacher, nurse and midwife, and spent many years in mental health care and support work for people with disabilities. He has seen and done a lot in his 70 years. He has a little more 'spare' time these days, so more time for reading! He is not at all squeamish and enjoys a gory novel.

He is also a grandfather and looks after our son while we work, often trying to find a moment or two to read a few pages of whatever book he is in the middle of.

We have four cats who he enjoys playing with. He's a very family oriented man who loves nothing more than some chocolate, a cup of tea, his family around, and a good book!”

Please send us an email at hello@bookabuy.com.au if you would like to be featured in our next instalment of “We Love to Imagine”!

When a book is recommended by the former president of the United States of America, you know it’s a winner. Barack Obama described Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad with one word (“Terrific”), and I wholeheartedly agree with this endorsement.

The Underground Railroad tells the story of Cora, an African American slave at a Georgia plantation in the antebellum South. When a fellow slave tells her about the underground railroad, she finds the courage to run for her freedom. Thus begins her odyssey as a runaway slave, where her adventures introduce her to unprecedented horrors and lead her to disheartening realisations.

The core metaphor of The Underground Railroad is very powerful. On one level it signals early in the novel that this story is not meant to be taken literally, which allowed a lively revisionist history to bloom as the chapters progress. On another level, the railroad feels like so much more than a metaphor. To imagine a real railroad dug by African American hands and kept secret from their white enslavers is a slap-in-the-face reminder of the extraordinary accomplishments of African American slaves. By making this impossible railroad real, Whitehead forces readers to acknowledge just how unbelievable and extraordinary the true history of African American resistance really is.

While this was a tough read, it was also an incredibly worthy one. Whitehead deserved the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.