Yesterday I referred to the New Yorker’s Best Books of 2009, including Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi. Well, reviewer James Wood also makes special mention of Helen Garner’s masterpiece, The Spare Room:

‘Utterly unsentimental, facing death without shyness, rightly praised by Peter Carey, The Spare Room is a far more powerful re-writing of Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich than Philip Roth’s much more self-pitying Everyman.’ Read more

The Spare Room is out now in paperback. Peter Carey calls it ‘A perfect novel.’ And it would make the perfect gift this Christmas. It is a life-changing read.