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There is a cornucopia of fabulous newly acquired fiction in this month’s selection of new titles, including two new Aotearoa gems Arms & legs by Choe Lane and The Wellington alternate by Oliver Dace (which is a debut work).

A book that caught our particular attention this month was Switchboard Soldiers by Jennifer Chiaverini. Switchboard Soldiers is a fictionalised account of an overlooked aspect of World War One that broke new ground in gender issues, smashed workplace glass ceilings and contributing greatly to the Allies victory.

When the American General John Pershing arrived in France in 1917 to lead the American forces there, he found that communications with soldiers in the front-line combat zone were in a very poor state. He knew almost immediately that he urgently needed highly experienced telephone operators fluent in English and French who wouldn’t be phased by pressure and were used to be being discreet in the extreme. He knew exactly where to source the best telephone operators in the World, but the problem was that they were all women and at that point in time women weren’t allowed to enlist in the American army. In the end, a recruitment drive was held and these brave individuals were the amongst the first women to be sworn into the U.S. military. Many served on, or close to, the front lines and faced possible death from enemy fire or the Spanish Flu pandemic that swept across the continent at the time. Their efforts are now attributed as playing a vital role in securing the eventual allied success.

Switchboard soldiers : a novel / Chiaverini, Jennifer
“June 1917. Arriving in France, General John Pershing found himself unable to communicate with troops in the field. Pershing needed operators who could swiftly and accurately connect multiple calls, speak fluent French and English, remain steady under fire, and be utterly discreet. Well-trained American telephone operators were women– who were not permitted to enlist. But the U.S. Army Signal Corps promptly began recruiting them. Grace Banker of New Jersey, Marie Miossec, a Frenchwoman, and Valerie DeSmedt, a Pacific Telephone operator from Los Angeles, were sworn in to replace male soldiers. For these The switchboard soldiers worked as bombs fell around them– as was the threat of a deadly new disease: the Spanish Flu. Not all would survive. ” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Sojourn / Chaudhuri, Amit
” It is the fall of 2005; it is getting colder in Berlin; riots have broken out in Paris; and the protagonist is beginning to feel his middle age, to feel that the new world of the twenty-first century, with its endless array of commodities from all over the world and no prospect, it seems, of any sort of historical transformation, exists in a perpetual present, a state of meaningless and interminable suspense. Now the narrator meets Birgit, and soon she is playing a part in his life. Now he begins to miss his classes. People are worried about him, especially after he blacks out in the street. “I’ve lost my bearings – not in the city; in its history,” he thinks. “The less sure I become of it, the more I know my way.” But does he? ” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Our wives under the sea / Armfield, Julia
“Miri thinks she has got her wife back, when Leah finally returns after a deep sea mission that ended in catastrophe. It soon becomes clear, though, that Leah may have come back wrong. Whatever happened in that vessel, whatever it was they were supposed to be studying before they were stranded on the ocean floor, Leah has carried part of it with her, onto dry land and into their home. To have the woman she loves back should mean a return to normal life, but Miri can feel Leah slipping from her grasp. Memories of what they had before, the jokes they shared, the films they watched, all the small things that made Leah hers, only remind Miri of what she stands to lose. Living in the same space but suddenly separate, Miri comes to realise that the life that they had might be gone.” (Adapted from Catalogue) Also available as an eBook.

The bohemians : a novel / Darznik, Jasmin
“To take a truly good picture you have to learn to see, not just look.” In 1918, a young and bright-eyed Dorothea Lange arrives in San Francisco, where a disaster kick-starts a new life. Her friendship with Caroline Lee, a vivacious, straight-talking Chinese American with a complicated past, gives Dorothea entrée into Monkey Block, an artists’ colony and the bohemian heart of the city. Dazzled by Caroline and her friends, Dorothea is catapulted into a heady new world of freedom, art, and politics. She also finds herself unexpectedly falling in love with the brilliant but troubled painter Maynard Dixon. With a cast of unforgettable characters including cameos from such legendary figures as Mabel Dodge Luhan, Frida Khalo, Ansel Adams, and D.H. Lawrence. ” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Arms & legs / Lane, Chloe
“In a Florida almost claustrophobic with life, New Zealand-born Georgie’s marriage has stagnated. But there’s no room to attend to it, as dangers small and large crowd in: teeth break, her son can’t find his words, there’s something in her husband’s eye, termites swarm the neighbourhood, and she finds a dead boy in the burning woods.And then – there’s Jason.As the repercussions of her discovery of the body, and her affair, come to land, Georgie digs deep, examining the undercurrents of her actions with curiosity, humour and cutting emotional intelligence. Arms & Legs is a deliriously insightful excavation of love, desire, parenthood and relationships at their best, and worst.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

The Wellington alternate / Dace, Oliver
“Ever since an egg had devoured her, Eighteen-year-old Merinette Dace Nadean wants to escape her destiny. She longs to be an academic instead of continuing in her family’s century-old position in maintaining the various surreal entities called Fiction. She would become only a glorified maintenance worker. That life is a chore. So Merinette, as stubborn as she is, refuses, eager to prove that she is more than the talents she was born with. She wants to turn her love for books into an alternative way to help her family rather than confronting Fiction head-on. And, when an opportunity arises in a dingy car park, Merinette will do anything to achieve her goal. ” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Diary of a void : a novel / Yagi, Emi
“When thirty-four-year-old Ms. Shibata gets a new job in Tokyo to escape sexual harassment at her old one, she finds that, as the only woman at her new workplace-a company that manufactures cardboard tubes-she is expected to do all the menial tasks. One day she announces that she can’t clear away her colleagues’ dirty cups-because she’s pregnant and the smell nauseates her. The only thing is . . . Ms. Shibata is not pregnant. Before long, though, the hoax becomes all-absorbing, and the boundary between her lie and her life begins to dissolve. ” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow / Zevin, Gabrielle
“On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn’t heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won’t protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts. ” (Adapted from Catalogue)