cURRENT BOOK

CHAI TIME AT CINNAMON GARDENS

Author: SHANKARI CHANDRAN

 Welcome to Cinnamon Gardens, a home for those who are lost and the stories they treasure.

Cinnamon Gardens Nursing Home is nestled in the quiet suburb of Westgrove, Sydney – populated with residents with colourful histories, each with their own secrets, triumphs and failings. This is their safe place, an oasis of familiar delights – a beautiful garden, a busy kitchen and a bountiful recreation schedule.

But this ordinary neighbourhood is not without its prejudices. The serenity of Cinnamon Gardens is threatened by malignant forces more interested in what makes this refuge different rather than embracing the calm companionship that makes this place home to so many. As those who challenge the residents’ existence make their stand against the nursing home with devastating consequences, our characters are forced to reckon with a country divided.

Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens is about family and memory, community and race, but is ultimately a love letter to story-telling and how our stories shape who we are.

Past books read by our Book Club…

• The Bookbinder of Jericho, Pip Williams
• The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern
• The Good Wife of Bath, Karen Brooks
• Lessons in Chemistry, Bonnie Garmus
• Shrines of Gaiety, Kate Atkinson
• The Cuckoo’s Calling, Robert Galbraith
• Between Before & After, Edita Mujkic
• The Marriage Portrait, Maggie O’Farrell
• Death on the Ferry Hygeia, Will Spokes
• Denizen, James McKenzie Watson
• Horse, Geraldine Brooks
• The Lincoln Highway, Amor Towles
• The Jane Austen Remedy, Ruth Wilson
• Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity & Love, Dani Shapiro
• The Last Beekeeper, Siya Turabi
• Miss Benton’s Beetle, Rachel Joyce
• The White Girl, Tony Birch
• The Girl with the Louding Voice, Abi Dare
• The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett

• Still Life, Sarah Winman
• Amnesty, Aravind Adiga
• A Million Things, Emily Spurr
• The Thursday Murder Club, Richard Osman
• Hamnet, Maggie O’farrell
• Truly Madly Guilty, Liane Moriarty
• All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr
• The Good People, Hannah Kent
• Working Class Boy, Jimmy Barnes
• A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara
• The Restorer, Michael Sala
• The Hidden Hours, Sara Foster
• Black Rock White City, A S Patric
• The Dry, Jane Harper
• The Cows, Dawn O’Porter
• Celeste, Roland Perry
• The Secret She Keeps, Michael Robotham
• American Dirt, Jeanine Cummins
• On the Java Ridge, Jock Serong
• The Girl Before, J P Delaney
• Angels & Insects, A S Byatt
• Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng
• The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami