FREE JUNE 2015

BOOKS MUSIC FILM EVENTS

NEW IN JUNE

ANN ZOË CAITLIN ORANGE EMMYLOU HARRIS TURNER NORTON DOUGHTY IS THE NEW & RODNEY $29.99 LODGE $27.99 BLACK CROWELL

page 5 $24.99 page 10 $39.95 $21.95 page 5 page 17 page 18 News

READINGS’ MARK RUBBO READINGS’ GERARD HYPERION CLASSICAL MUSIC RECIPIENT OF LLOYD O’NEIL ELSON WINNER OF YOUNG SALE AWARD BOOKSELLER OF THE YEAR Readings Carlton, Hawthorn and Malvern will be offering selected titles from the prestigious Hyperion Records catalogue at up to 40% off from 10–30 June (or while stocks last), featuring recordings from Angela Hewitt, Marc-André Hamelin, Leslie Howard, Ian Bostridge, Stephen Hough and groups such as Gothic Voices, St. Petersburg String Quartet, The Cardinall’s Musick and The King’s Consort. With approximately 400 titles in the sale this is the perfect We’re thrilled that Gerard Elson from time to complete your classical music Readings St Kilda has been recognised as the library. Please note that limited stock is Young Bookseller of the Year at the 2015 available and when we run out of stock of Australian Booksellers Association (ABA) a particular title it cannot be reordered at conference. The ABA Penguin Random the discounted price. House Australia Young Bookseller of the Year Award acknowledges and rewards the excellence of a bookseller aged 35 or under, NON-FICTION BOOK CLUB AT READINGS ST KILDA We’re delighted to share that at the 2015 and promotes bookselling as a career choice ABIA gala dinner on Thursday 21 May, for young people. Readings St Kilda runs a non-fiction book Readings’ own managing director Mark Gerard is an invaluable member of club on the third Wednesday of each Rubbo was announced as the 2015 recipient our Readings St Kilda team. St Kilda month. Members discuss a selection of of the Lloyd O’Neil Award. This is a major store manager Amy Vuleta notes that: books across history, politics, biography award for a person who has made a ‘Gerard will stand whole-heartedly behind and cultural studies. We are opening up significant, dedicated contribution to the books that he believes in with unending spaces for only $20 per session including development and reputation of the enthusiasm for communicating with the drinks and snacks. The next book club Australian book industry. Lloyd O’Neil was public about the books he loves’. He runs runs from 7–8:30pm on Tuesday 30 June, made a member of the Order of Australia in both fiction and non-fiction book clubs at where Helen Macdonald’s scintillating H 1991 in recognition of his distinguished the store, and he has been instrumental is for Hawk will be discussed. For more service to the local publishing industry. The in setting up a great number of successful information, please contact convenor and award that commemorates this exceptional in-store events drawing sell-out crowds. Readings staff member, Gerard Elson, on 03 figure recognises the long service of Gerard also contributes to the Australian 9525 3852 or [email protected]. similarly outstanding individuals in the book industry more widely, as the Australian book world. Previous winners interviews editor for local literary journal 2015 MILES FRANKLIN LITERARY include former head of publishing at Kill Your Darlings, and as a contributor of AWARD SHORTLIST Penguin, Robert Sessions (2013); Margaret reviews, interviews and feature pieces to Fulton (2011); chairman of Allen and a number of other Australian publications The shortlist for the 2015 Miles Franklin Unwin, Patrick Gallagher (2010); and David and media sources such as The Wheeler Literary Award has been announced. First Malouf (2008). Centre blog, Island magazine, The Big awarded in 1957, the $60,000 prize is In his acceptance speech, Mark shared Issue, Books+Publishing, Crikey and Kill awarded each year to the novel which is moving and astute reflections about the Your Darlings. of the highest literary merit and presents book industry and literary culture. We Australian life in any of its phases. The shortlisted books are: Golden Boys by proudly share a small selection of his words THE 22ND BLOOMSDAY IN here: Sonya Hartnett (Penguin); The Eye of the MELBOURNE FESTIVAL Sheep by Sofie Laguna (A&U); The Golden ‘It’s a great honour to receive this award; Melbourne readers’ unabated hunger Age by Joan London (Random House); Lloyd O’Neil was a publisher who helped set Readings Monthly for James Joyce is fed annually by the After Darkness by Christine Piper (A&U); the stage for a truly Australian publishing Free independent monthly newspaper Bloomsday in Melbourne Festival, which and Tree Palace by Craig Sherborne (Text). industry. Without him perhaps we would not published by Readings Books, Music & Film brings together seminars and lectures, The winner of the Miles Franklin Literary be where are today. gatherings, and original theatrical Award will be revealed on 23 June. When I started selling books in 1976, it Editor adaptations. This year’s festival runs from was, I believe, the birth of the contemporary Elke Power 10–16 June at Library at the Dock, 107 [email protected] Australian publishing industry and the main Victoria Promenade, Docklands. For more drivers of that were the reforms first put in information and to book for events, please Editorial Assistant place by Prime Minister John Gorton. It was visit bloomsdayinmelbourne.org.au. Alan Vaarwerk the establishment of the Australia Council [email protected] and the Literature Board that provided the money to give writers the time to write books Advertising and also to mitigate the risks for the brave Stella Charls publishers who took on those books. Those [email protected] small investments helped create Australia’s (03) 9341 7739 most successful cultural industry. It worries me that the arm’s length, Graphic Design Cat Matteson peer-assessed funding of the Arts that [email protected] has been so successful and so vital to our intellectual and cultural success is now in Front Cover danger of being radically compromised. We Readings Monthly cover design by Cat need to encourage people to take risks, to Matteson with images from the cover of fail, to produce obscure and groundbreaking Almost Sincerely by Zoë Norton Lodge, works. If we look at what cultural artefacts courtesy of Giramondo Publishing. Almost survive worldwide, it is the works that were, Sincerely cover design and illustration by at the time, provocative, contrary and often Georgia Norton Lodge. difficult to understand. I don’t know what Minister Brandis is trying to achieve, cutting Cartoon over $100 million dollars from the Australia Oslo Davis Council, but I think we should be worried oslodavis.com and I think he needs to explain. Are we in danger in the arts of climbing onto a slippery Readings donates 10% of its profits each slope to mediocrity and partisan support?’ year to The Readings Foundation: readings.com.au/the-readings-foundation READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2015 3

June Events

STUART THE LONG AND KLAUS NEUMANN TIM 1 MACINTYRE IN 4 WINDING ROAD 16 IN CONVERSATION 25 SOUTPHOMMASANE CONVERSATION TO GETTING Across the Seas by Klaus Neumann discusses ON RACISM WITH GIDEON PUBLISHED Australia’s response to refugees and asylum Tim Soutphommasane, Australia’s Race seekers, now and in the past. Join us for HAIGH Join us for this Emerging Writers’ Discrimination Commissioner’s book I’m a lively and important discussion as the Not a Racist But…: 40 Years of the Racial Author and journalist Gideon Haigh will talk Festival event with fiction authors (and history of Australia is examined. Discrimination Act, reflects on the national with historian Stuart Macintyre about Stuart’s Readings staff ) Miles Allison (Fever of experience of racism and the progress new book, Australia’s Boldest Experiment: Animals), Leanne Hall (This is Shyness) Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events that has been made since the introduction War and Reconstruction in the 1940s. and Alec Patric (Black Rock White City) Tuesday 16 June, 6.30pm of the Racial Discrimination Act in 1975. as they discuss how they got published, Readings Carlton Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events with Readings’ Books Division Manager Published to coincide with the Act’s fortieth Monday 1 June, 6.30pm and next big thing-spotter Martin Shaw. anniversary, this book gives a timely and Readings Carlton incisive account of the history of racism, Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events OSAMAH SAMI IN the limits of free speech, the dimensions Thursday 4 June, 6.30pm 16 CONVERSATION of bigotry and the role of legislation in our SAM LIPSKI IN Readings St Kilda society’s response to discrimination. 1 CONVERSATION WITH TONY AYRES WITH MICHAEL DAVID Meet Osamah Sami: a schemer, a dreamer Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events GAWENDA and a madcap antihero of spectacular Thursday 25 June, 6.30pm 9 BLUMENSTEIN IN proportions whose terrible life choices Readings Carlton Author and journalist Michael Gawenda CONVERSATION keep leading to cataclysmic consequences will talk with Sam Lipski about Sam’s new WITH NAT despite his best-laid plans to be good. His book, Let My People Go: The Untold Story of ALEXANDRA PESTANA story, Good Muslim Boy, is a hilarious and Australia and the Soviet Jews 1959–89. heartbreaking memoir of love, loss and 29 ROGINSKI’S THE What are pick-up artists really like? family. It’s about what we’ll do to live up to HANGED MAN AND Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Cartoonist David Blumenstein wanted to expectations – and what we must do to live Monday 1 June, 6.30pm THE BODY THIEF know, but in signing up for a free seminar with ourselves. Readings St Kilda with international pick-up artist (PUA) The Hanged Man and the Body Thief is a instructor Julien Blanc, David found himself Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events nuanced story about phrenology, a biased witness to one of the most successful anti- Tuesday 16 June, 6.30pm legal system, the aspirations of a new LAUNCH OF museum, and the dilemmas of a theatrical 2 STEVEN PUA campaigns launched by the feminist Readings St Kilda community. Join David and Nat Pestana, third wife. It is most importantly a tale of two CARROLL’S an organiser of Reclaim the Night, for a very different men, collector and collected, FOREVER YOUNG fascinating discussion. one of whom can now return home. Free, no booking required The award-winning author of The Art of Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Monday 29 June, 6.30pm the Engine Driver and The Gift of Speed will Tuesday 9 June, 6.30pm launch Forever Young, his extraordinary new Readings Carlton Readings Carlton novel about life in Australia in the 1970s. JORDANA Free, no booking required GEORGE 30 SILVERSTEIN’S Tuesday 2 June, 6.30pm 10 MEGALOGENIS IN Readings Carlton ANXIOUS CONVERSATION KILL YOUR HISTORIES WITH BARRIE ABDI ADEN IN 18 DARLINGS FIRST CASSIDY BOOK CLUB Joy Damousi will launch Jordana Silverstein’s 3 CONVERSATION book, Anxious Histories: Narrating the WITH CATHERINE Join us for a conversation between George June’s Kill Your Darlings First Book Club Holocaust in Jewish Communities at the Megalogenis and Barrie Cassidy about George event features Rochelle Siemienowicz Beginning of the Twenty-First Century which DEVENY Megalogenis’ TV program Making Australia discussing her frank and compelling debut addresses memories and narratives of the Author, comedian and journalist Catherine Great. Megalogenis’ three-part series asks memoir, Fallen: A Memoir About Sex, Religion Holocaust that have played a significant role Deveny will talk with Abdi Aden about an important question about what Australia and Marrying Too Young. Rochelle will be in in constructing Jewish communities. his new book Shining (co-authored with can do, having avoided the world’s greatest conversation with Kill Your Darlings’ online Robert Hillman). Shining tells Abdi’s story economic disaster in almost a century, to keep editor, Veronica Sullivan. Drinks provided. Free, but please book at – from fleeing Somalia’s vicious civil war, its unique winning streak on track. In this readings.com.au/events Free, but please RSVP to surviving as a refugee in Romania and investigation of our past, present and future, Tuesday 30 June, 6.30pm [email protected] Germany, to arriving in Melbourne at just he enlisted the support of every former PM Readings Carlton Thursday 18 June, 6.30pm seventeen and succeeding against the odds. and treasurer from 2013 back to the 1970s. Readings Carlton Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Wednesday 3 June, 6.30pm Wednesday 10 June, 6.30pm THE LIFE AND Coming Up in July Readings Carlton Readings Hawthorn 24 WORK OF VINCE VOZZO TRAVIS DEBORAH HART’S IAN BOSTRIDGE 1 MCKENZIE’S 4 GUARDING EDEN 13 IN CONVERSATION World-acclaimed sculptor Vince Vozzo talks about his book, The Life and Work of THE DRAGON WITH LISA David Karoly, atmospheric scientist and Vince Vozzo, which charts the journey of AND THE CROW joint winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize MACKINNEY a second-generation Italian kid from the will launch Deborah Hart’s Guarding Eden, Join us for the release of Travis McKenzie’s Historian and classical music specialist western suburbs of Sydney from dyslexic, which tells the stories of twelve ordinary latest young adult fantasy novel, The Dragon Lisa MacKinney will talk with cartoon-obsessed school boy to sand people who were so concerned about and the Crow, the first book in the new acclaimed English tenor Ian Bostridge sculptor on Bondi beach and art student, climate change that they altered their lives Magickless series. about his new book, Schubert’s Winter and then to prolific and acclaimed artist. to do something about it. Journey: Anatomy of an Obsession. Free, no booking required Free, but please book at Free, no booking required Wednesday 1 July, 6.00pm Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events readings.com.au/events Thursday 4 June, 6pm Readings Hawthorn Saturday 13 June, 2pm Wednesday 24 June, 6.30pm Readings Carlton Readings Hawthorn Readings Carlton

For more information and updates, please visit the events page at readings.com.au/events. Please note bookings do not necessarily guarantee a seat and some events may be standing room only. 4 READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2015

Mark’s News and views from Readings’ Managing Director, Say Mark Rubbo

For those of you who’ve read Drusilla Modjeska’s most recent novel, The Mountain, you’ll be aware of her affection for the people of Papua New Guinea. The Mountain is set primarily in the lower reaches of Mt Lamington, an active volcano in Oro Province. Modjeska first went to PNG as the wife of a young academic, in the late 1960s, at a time full of optimism as the nation was preparing for independence. She began returning to PNG many years later researching The Mountain, often travelling with the late Sydney art dealer David Baker. Baker had been going to PNG for many years collecting works for his gallery and during that time had provided assistance to many people in the remote communities, but his assistance was given in a rather ad hoc manner. When Baker died, Modjeska was inspired to provide lasting assistance to the people she’d grown so fond of. The communities were rich in cultural traditions but struggling to find a place and identity in a modern world; for many in the community literacy and education were the most important tools they needed to survive. So Drusilla founded SEAM – Sustain Education Art Melanesia – to help the communities. She teamed up with supporters and advisors who included writer and publisher Hilary McPhee and architect Stephen Collier. The problem they wanted to solve was how to get effective educational resources into communities that can only be accessed by water or narrow tracks, and where the humid tropical conditions destroy resources exposed to the elements. Collier and Modjeska grappled with the problem, first thinking of a floating facility that could travel between communities. That idea was abandoned and Collier came up with the idea of a weatherproof box that could contain a couple of resource centres that would fold out with work spaces, blackboards, computers, books and other resources. The box would also contain a tent-like roof with drinking water collection facilities and solar panels to provide power. I was so taken with the idea that The Readings Foundation gave some support to SEAM and a few weeks ago I travelled to PNG with Drusilla and Stephen to present the concept to the communities. Stephen brought with him a scale model of the newly named Schoolmate, or Wanskul in Pidgin, to show to the local communities. Over the week we travelled to different villages and attended meetings as Stephen presented and listened to comments; ‘This is how we think it will work; what do you think? What resources do you think you’ll need in it? How do you think it can best be used? Can you build the platforms to base it on? Will it be useful?’. At one meeting a man focused on the portability, thinking that the Schoolmate would not stay in the community. ‘I’m heartbroken,’ he said. Stephen was able to reassure him: ‘No, no, it’s portable so that you can carry it into your community; once you build the platform and set it up, it will stay in the village.’ In the village of Tainabuna we spent the day in the local school helping the kids to make books – chaotic and fun – and enlisting members of the community to become ambassadors for the project. It wasn’t hard – Lucy, a dynamic and articulate woman with three children in the school, volunteered to help form a committee to lay the #MIFF2015 groundwork for the project. ‘It is a very good thing, a very good thing, that Drusilla and Stephen do for us.’ The challenge now is to raise the money to build some prototypes – if you’d like to find out more or support the project, go to seamfund.org. From the

Books Martin Shaw, Desk Readings’ Books Division Manager

So we’re all fresh from our annual conference which, as ever, re-charged the bookselling batteries with previews of the many highlights on the literary calendar for the remainder of 2015. Perhaps the book carrying the biggest buzz was the latest novel from Jonathan Franzen – Purity – advance copies of which naturally disappeared fast. But there were also some home-grown authors causing a stir – Readings’ own Miles Allinson gave an introduction to his lauded debut novel The Fever of Animals, and I noticed proof copies were a hot item at the Scribe stand at the trade show the next day. Several other Australian writers made big impressions: the legendary Tom Keneally spun a wonderful tale when talking about his forthcoming novel, Our Great Friend, based on Napoleon’s exile on the island of St Helena, and the connection that exists with a family who settled in Mt Martha on our very own Mornington Peninsula. Then there was film director-turned-author Shirley Barrett with her wonderful novel set in Eden, Rush Oh!, which recounts its whaling history and, most notably, the killer whales there who routinely assisted the whalers with their hunt. A personal highlight, too, was hearing Stephanie Bishop talking about her forthcoming novel, The Other Side of the World. It’s been ten years since her debut, The Singing, but it’s been worth the wait. This novel about a family whose identity is torn three ways – between England, Australia & India – is a compulsive and enormously affecting read. There was also a presentation from Gail Jones about her fascinating-sounding novel A Guide to Berlin; Charlotte Wood also captivated listeners with the story behind her disturbing and provocative novel The Natural Way of Things; and George Megalogenis offered some intriguing insights into where Australia is going wrong in a discussion of his forthcoming book, Australia’s Second Chance. READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2015 5

New Fiction takes her home where his widowed mother to a community, albeit an eccentric one. offers the young family shelter. When Alma These stories are told with genuine warmth falls pregnant her daughter, Molly, is born and heart and are truly a joy to read. Book of the Month secretly and in shame. Stella Charls is Readings’ marketing and Many years later, Anna falls in love with events coordinator the dashing young man from the family THE LOST SWIMMER next door; when she becomes pregnant, FOREVER YOUNG Ann Turner Neil abandons her and her family shunts Steven Carroll S&S. PB. $29.99 her off to a Salvation Army home for HarperCollins. PB. $29.99 I knew The Lost Swimmer had won me over when I was unmarried mothers where she is forced to give up her baby. The latest novel by standing in line at the supermarket and all I could think about acclaimed novelist was what was going to happen next in Ann Turner’s impressive Meanwhile, Alma’s daughter Molly is childless and yearns for a child. Years Steven Carroll, Forever debut novel. This suspenseful and dramatic thriller centres on Young, is set against the archaeology professor Rebecca Wilding who is struggling with later, all three families’ lives intersect, offering some hope that the secrets and tumultuous period of financial pressures in her department, emerging accusations of fraud change and uncertainty and a growing suspicion that her husband Stephen is unfaithful. their attendant sadness will come to some positive resolution. If you like Colm that was Australia in When Rebecca and Stephen embark on a conference trip to Greece, Italy and Paris, she has 1977. Radicals have the chance to explore the source of the fraud allegations as well as face old demons Toíbín’s work, I’m sure you will love this book. The Mothers is a terrific achievement become conservatives, regarding her father’s tragic death. When Stephen disappears, Rebecca has to consider just idealism is giving way how deep her husband’s betrayal goes. for Jones and will, I hope, introduce him to many new readers. to realism, relationships are falling apart, and Michael is finally coming to accept that ‘I knew The Lost Swimmer had won me over when I was standing Mark Rubbo is the managing director of he will never be a rock and roll musician. Readings in line at the supermarket and all I could think about was what was Forever Young is a subtle and graceful exploration of the passage of time and our going to happen next in Ann Turner’s impressive debut novel.’ ALMOST SINCERELY yearning for the seeming simplicities of the Zoë Norton Lodge past, by one of our greatest authors. One of the most impressive elements of this book is Turner’s ability to maintain a feeling Giramondo. PB. $24.99 of uneasiness and suspense throughout almost the entire novel; especially memorable Zoë Norton CHARLIE ANDERSON’S is an incident concerning a kangaroo and her joey (an incredibly harrowing three pages Lodge is one GENERAL THEORY OF to read) as well as vivid descriptions of driving the perilous roads on the Amalfi coast. hysterically funny lady. LYING Further adding to the tension is the reader’s gradual awareness that Rebecca may not be A born performer and Richard McHugh the most reliable narrator, and while she is able to identify counterfeit jewellery in seconds, storyteller, she’s skilled Hamish Hamilton. PB. $32.99 one starts to query if she is able to accurately identify what is happening around her. in combining Continuing with this theme is the clever parallel between Rebecca’s field of archaeology traditional forms of Charlie Anderson is and the personal ‘digging’ that she has to do in order to discover who might be deceiving comedy like stand-up sure of himself. He’s her. These elements take The Lost Swimmer beyond a simple thriller to an insightful with a narrative form. sure he’s the best observation of people and their behaviour, and also make it a deeper study of loss, trust and She started a yarn- consultant in town, and what is hidden underneath. It also really made me want to travel again – although under spinning night called the Story Club, which a first-class liar and completely different circumstances! grew into a sell-out live event/somewhat seducer. But what Amanda Rayner is from Readings Carlton obscure TV show on ABC2, and worked as a happens when he writer and presenter on The Checkout and meets someone who The Chaser’s Media Circus. can outplay him? Or insistence that he’s not worth their trouble. Norton Lodge has made me laugh until when his CEO wife’s Australian Fiction The nurse who moves in is unnamed and I had tears streaming down my face – on rising star threatens to outshine his own? interacts with no-one else in the novel – multiple occasions. At last year’s Emerging Ranging from the politics of the bedroom to LEAP deliberately one-dimensional, transient, Writers’ Festival program launch, I had the the post-GFC economy, Charlie Anderson’s barely real. But then there are other General Theory of Lying is a funny, provoking Myfanwy Jones pleasure of hearing Norton Lodge read her characters, like Joe’s co-worker Lena, so story ‘The Devil Wears a Denim Winter and confronting debut novel that shows us A&U. PB. $26.99 vibrant and full of life they practically leap One-Piece’, about a children’s drama afresh the world we live in now. Three years on off the page. company ‘in the throes of its last attempt from a tragedy that While the narrative at times feels a little to wreak unhappiness and alcoholism on WEST OF SUNSET claimed the love of his crowded with motifs and characters, some the world’. Later at Amazing Babes, an Stewart O’Nan life, twenty-something left unresolved, each element is enjoyable event at that same festival, Norton Lodge A&U.PB. $29.99 Joe loses himself in and contributes to the boisterous, buzzing read a second story – ‘Yia Yia on Papou’ – a In 1937, F. Scott menial work, parkour tone of the novel. Stylistically similar to dramatic ode to her Greek grandparents Fitzgerald was a and his mentorship of a the most recent novels of Chris Flynn and and their decades-long resentment of each troubled, uncertain man teenage delinquent, Chris Womersley, Leap is a pleasure to other (aka ‘a short discourse on how the whose literary success using burnout and read and a compelling piece of Australian colander is actually a weapon’). was long behind him. In exhaustion as a coping contemporary fiction. Both stories are included in this poor health and his mechanism. When a beautiful nurse Alan Vaarwerk is the editorial assistant for superb collection, Almost Sincerely. This finances in ruin, he temporarily moves into his spare room and a Readings Monthly book proves that while Norton Lodge is a struggled to make a new mysterious Facebook profile wants to brilliant, animated performer, she’s just as start as a screenwriter in reminisce about his dead girlfriend, he begins THE MOTHERS funny on the page. Reading these absurd Hollywood. The last to wonder if there is more out there for him. Rod Jones tales of suburban mayhem in Annandale, three years of Fitzgerald’s life, often Meanwhile, middle-aged artist Elise Text. PB. $29.99 Heartland of Sydney’s Inner West, I obscured by the glamorous legend, are the becomes obsessed with the tigers at giggled on public transport, in the State focus of Stewart O’Nan’s heartfelt new Melbourne Zoo, visiting them in a secret I vividly Library, in line to pay at the supermarket. novel, a wise and intimate portrait of a man weekly ritual that allows her an escape remember Rod Even her bio made me chuckle: ‘Zoë was trying his best to hold together a world that’s from her crumbling marriage and her own Jones’ 1986 novel Julia Paradise (Text born in Annandale in 1984, where she was falling apart, if not gone already. spiralling sense of loss that threatens to essentially a normal person until she went overtake everything. Classics, $12.95), the story of a Scottish to a Performing Arts High School where THE GOLDEN AGE Myfanwy Jones’ writing pulses, pushed she received an A for Wanker, a B+ for along with an irrepressible dynamism psychoanalyst and his Joan London eponymous patient set Smoking and a Dolphin for Maths’. Vintage. PB. $19.99 that echoes its protagonists. Rather than With a charming cover illustration of in pre-war China. It Shortlisted for the 2015 wallowing in self-pity or drug-addled self- Annandale by Norton Lodge’s younger quite justifiably caused Miles Franklin award, destruction, what makes Joe’s character sister, ‘Little Georgia’, Giramondo have a sensation with its exploration of female The Golden Age evokes so compelling is his nihilistic energy and again produced a physically beautiful sexuality and earned the then young author a time past and a battle against his own ambition. Jones book. In interviews, Norton Lodge often accolades. The Mothers is Jones’ sixth yearning for deep captures with a real clarity the swirling mix refers to the fact that her mum, dad and novel. It’s a quietly moving story of three connection. It is a rare of rage, hope and world-weariness of the sister consistently sat in the front row at secrets and three women whose lives and precious gem of a millennial male. This energy make’s Joe’s Story Club events, laughing madly while intersect over three generations. book from one of narrative arguably the stronger of the two, simultaneously turning beetroot. In this When her husband brings home his Australia’s finest but it’s thrown into relief by Elise’s quieter, way Norton Lodge’s focus on her own mistress, Alma takes her two children and novelists. It is 1954 and more introspective storyline. family in this collection is never intended leaves. It’s 1917 in the midst of the war in thirteen-year-old Frank Gold, refugee from The women in Joe’s life, to varying to embarrass them. Instead she offers an working-class Footscray. Alma has nowhere wartime Hungary, is learning to walk again degrees, seem intent on redeeming him – affectionate love letter to those dearest to to go and a young man takes pity on her and after contracting polio in Australia. At the pushing back against his guilt, grief and her. Almost Sincerely celebrates belonging 6 READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2015

Golden Age Children’s Polio Convalescent Plum’s life changes drastically when she for the close-knit community of people on the family. The nights are terribly lonely, Home in Perth, he sees Elsa, a fellow meets an underground women’s collective. ground. Inspired by real events, Judy Blume especially with no one to talk to. Then one patient, and they form a forbidden, Broader societal changes then begin to interweaves the stories of three generations evening, Addie pays Louis an unexpected passionate bond. happen in the novel, too, as a terrorist of families, friends and strangers whose lives visit. Their brave adventures, pleasures group called Jennifer starts unleashing are forever changed in the aftermath. In The and difficulties form the beating heart of horrific violence against misogynistic men. Unlikely Event is an unforgettable novel, Kent Haruf’s final novel, a moving story International Fiction Dietland is a smart, ambitious debut that written with the same warmth and about love and growing old with grace. takes a few unexpected narrative turns and authenticity that won the hearts and minds of FIND ME tackles (with varying degrees of success) readers the world over for decades. PRINCESS BARI some big issues – this isn’t the book you Hwang Sok-Yong Laura van den Berg think it’s going to be at the beginning. THE HARDER THEY Scribe. PB. $27.99 Del Ray. PB. $32.99 Dietland has a lot of fascinating things to COME Princess Bari tells the Laura van den say about what it’s like to be a fat woman in T.C. Boyle story of a young girl who Berg’s first two today’s society. It’s not a safe or simple read, Bloomsbury. PB. $29.99 escapes famine and death books, the short-story and Sarai Walker doesn’t offer easy answers On a cruise to Central in North Korea in the collections What the or cookie-cutter happy endings. There’s America, Vietnam 1990s. Crossing oceans in World Will Look Like no romance in this book – Plum isn’t saved veteran Sten Stensen the hold of a cargo ship, When All the Water by a man, and she doesn’t find self-worth unflinchingly kills an she finally disembarks in Leaves Us and Isle of through someone else loving her. Instead, armed robber menacing London. Alone in a Youth, established her the novel delves into Plum’s interior life a busload of tourists. strange land, Bari will as an incredibly and changing perception of herself, while The reluctant hero is have to fight, through inventive writer with a exploring feminism, violence, the media, relieved to return home, pain and sadness, to find love and the will to clear grasp on the inner workings of human dieting, female friendships and women’s only to find that his son, stay alive. Hwang Sok-Yong entwines an old relationships. No matter the setup – a bodies. Despite the raft of serious topics, Adam, has become involved with a right- Korean myth, of an abandoned princess struggling actor finding work dressing up Dietland is highly entertaining and lots of wing anarchist group. As Adam’s mental travelling to the ends of the earth, against as Bigfoot and chasing willing participants fun to read. Plum is a complex, interesting state fractures, he becomes increasingly the backdrop of the modern world. through a forest, or a teenage girl helping character and a delight to spend time with. her mother’s magic act while also delusional until a schizophrenic breakdown Nina Kenwood is Readings’ digital marketing pickpocketing the crowd – van den Berg leads him to shoot two people. Inspired by SPILL SIMMER FALTER manager always managed to plumb each story’s a true story, T.C. Boyle explores the roots of WITHER violence and anti-authoritarianism emotional heart. MISLAID Sara Baume Van den Berg’s third book, Find Me, is inherent in the American character. Heinemann. PB. $32.99 Nell Zink also her first novel, and is narrated by Joy, A misfit man, Ray, finds a HarperCollins. PB. $27.99 a young grocery store employee, orphan, LUCKIEST GIRL ALIVE misfit dog, One Eye. Both and cough-syrup addict who also happens Mislaid, like Nell Jessica Knoll are accustomed to being to be immune to the virus that is working Zink’s first novel, Macmillan.PB. $29.99 alone, unloved, outcast – The Wallcreeper, is a its way through America. ‘It is an epidemic As a teenager, Ani but as spring turns to confident and clever of forgetting,’ Joy tells us. ‘First: silver FaNelli endured a summer, their relationship work, but what is most blisters, like fish scales, like the patient is shocking, public grows and intensifies, striking is its peculiar evolving into a different class of creature. humiliation that left until a savage act forces style. It’s a bizarre Second: the loss of memory. The slips might her desperate to them to take to the road. domestic satire about be small at first, but by the end the patient reinvent herself. Now, Spill Simmer Falter Wither is a wholly a very dysfunctional won’t remember the most basic details of with a glamorous job, different kind of love story: a devastating family spanning from who they are.’ expensive wardrobe, portrait of loneliness, loss and friendship, and the 1960s to the 1980s in Virginia. Peggy, When the novel opens, Joy is part of a and handsome fiancé, of the scars that are more than skin-deep. A who decides at a young age that she is a study in an isolated hospital somewhere she’s close to living the heartbreaking debut by a major new talent. ‘thespian’ (which she has confused with in Kansas where she spends most of her perfect life she’s worked so hard to achieve. ‘lesbian’), attends Stillwater, an old- time fighting off extreme boredom and But there’s something else buried in her THE UNDERWRITING fashioned girls’ college. There she meets doing arbitrary tests set up by the hospital past that still haunts her, something private Michelle Miller Lee Fleming, a young poet whose staff. When order starts to break down at and painful that threatens to bubble to the Text. PB. $29.99 the hospital, Joy sets off across the ruins homosexuality led his old-money family surface and destroy everything. Will Todd Kent is young, hot, of America to try and find her estranged, to banish him to teach literature. Lee and breaking her silence destroy all that she has and on his way to the top ocean-exploring mother. Peggy embark on an unlikely affair which worked for – or will it set her free? of Wall Street when the As a plot device this journey plays to ends in a marriage and children. eccentric founder of a van den Berg’s interest in the mundane Zink’s tale of the separation and LEAVING BERLIN popular dating app side of the fantastical. In a world where reformation of this family incorporates Joseph Kanon handpicks him to lead its the preservation of memory has become enormous cultural shifts and S&S. PB. $29.99 floating on the stock the most important thing, Joy is able to iconography, including beat poets, Alex Meier, a young exchange. Given just two share insignificant details and yet they modern business-school universities, the Jewish writer, fled the months to pull it off, resonate as precious. No matter the turns aftermath of segregation in the south, and Nazis for America Todd and his investment banking team race this book takes, van den Berg has created the characters’ engagement with race and before the war. But the to close the deal of the decade. But nothing an incredibly nuanced character for us to gender politics. Political incorrectness politics of his youth is what it seems in Silicon Valley, and when follow along with. and the stuff of real family trauma are treated lightly here, but somehow Zink have now put him in the tragedy strikes there’s no telling where the Chris Somerville is from Readings Carlton makes it original and subversive, filling crosshairs of the sparks will fly. McCarthy witch-hunts. DIETLAND her novel with deadpan humour and enviable one-liners. Woven throughout Facing deportation and COLORLESS TSUKURU Sarai Walker all of this is a very interesting exploration the loss of his family, he TAZAKI AND HIS YEARS Nero. PB. $29.99 of a woman’s decision to leave an makes a desperate bargain with the CIA to OF PILGRIMAGE Plum is a 29-year- oppressive relationship and make a life act as their agent in his native Berlin. But Haruki Murakami old, 300-pound almost from the start, things go fatally on her own terms, and it’s a brilliantly Vintage. PB. $19.99 woman who is funny read. wrong. Filled with intrigue and conflicted Tsukuru Tazaki had four scheduled for weight- loyalties, Leaving Berlin brings a shadowy Georgia Delaney is from Readings Carlton best friends at school loss surgery. She period of history vividly to life. whose last names all believes that once she IN THE UNLIKELY EVENT contained a colour. One loses weight her real life OUR SOULS AT NIGHT Judy Blume day his friends announced will begin: ‘The real me, Kent Haruf Macmillan. PB. $29.99 that they didn’t want to the woman I was Macmillan. HB. $32.99 When three planes see him or talk to him supposed to be, was Addie Moore’s crashed in Elizabeth, ever again. Since that day within reach. I had caught her like a fish on husband died years New Jersey within the Tsukuru has been floating a hook and was about to reel her in.’ In the ago; so did Louis space of three months through life, unable to meantime, Plum secretly buys clothes for Waters’ wife, and as in the early 1950s, form intimate connections with anyone. But her future thinner self, and works quietly neighbours they have Newark airport was then he meets Sara, who tells him that the from home at her job of answering fan mail long been aware of closed for a year. Each time has come to find out what happened all written to the editor of a teen magazine. She each other. With their of these disasters was those years ago. A mesmerising mystery story hides herself away and grapples with her children now far away devastating not only for from the internationally bestselling author of self-worth, but at the same time Plum is a both live alone in those on board, but also Norwegian Wood and 1Q84. wry, funny narrator of the world around her. houses empty of READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2015 7

of the supernatural world. It posits, water has splintered the world into a TIGHTROPE Science Fiction Simon Mawer further, that heavenly beings evolve, and politically and economically fragmented that even God may be subject to change. place and where lawlessness and a Little, Brown. PB. $29.99 Written with Knausgaard’s characteristic societal degradation are commonplace, In the sequel to The Girl THE WATER KNIFE style – level, patient, and intensely while our poor are left, quite literally, in Who Fell from the Sky, Paolo Bacigalupi readable – it is a dazzling and innovative the dust. But it’s also a riveting futuristic Marian Sutro has Orbit. PB. $29.99 examination of the relationships between thriller that begins as a complex slow survived Ravensbruck I’ve neglected humans, angels and God. burn which is worth enduring as the and is back in dreary adult sci-fi in my last three quarters are an exceptionally 1950s London trying to adult life as it’s FLOOD OF FIRE: IBIS thrilling ride. pick up the pieces of her something that I read a Jason Austin is from Readings Carlton pre-war life. Where, in TRILOGY BOOK 3 lot of it as a teenager, Amitav Ghosh the complexities of and this novel has SEVENEVES peacetime, does her Hodder. PB. $29.99 reminded me that sci-fi Neal Stephenson loyalty lie? When a mysterious Russian It is 1839 and tension often mirrors what is diplomat emerges to draw her into the has been rapidly happening today. It is HarperCollins. PB. $29.99 ambiguities and uncertainties of the Cold War, mounting between often fobbed off merely When a catastrophic she sees a way to make amends for the past China and British India as entertainment. The Water Knife, event renders the earth and to renew the excitement of her double life. following the although highly engaging, holds at its a ticking time bomb, it crackdown on opium centre an environmental message and triggers a feverish race MUSE smuggling by Beijing. with much of the world in drought at the against the inevitable. Jonathan Galassi With no resolution in moment, including California, it’s a An ambitious plan is Text. PB. $29.99 sight, the colonial message which is highly prescient. devised to ensure the government declares survival of humanity far Paul Dukach is heir Bacigalupi envisions a near future war. Flood of Fire follows a varied cast of beyond our apparent at Purcell & where the Southwest of the United characters from India to China, through the atmosphere. But unforeseen dangers Stern, one of the last States is an arid wasteland. The states first opium war to Britain’s seizure of Hong threaten the intrepid pioneers, until only independent publishers of Arizona, Nevada and California have Kong. A thrillingly realised and richly a handful of survivors remain. Five in New York. Though closed their borders and are quarrelling populated novel, imbued with a wealth of thousand years later, their progeny – things are shaky in the amongst themselves over the water historical detail, and a compelling seven distinct races now three billion age of conglomerates and rights to the Colorado River. Boss of conclusion to an epic trilogy. strong – embark on yet another audacious digital, Paul remains the Southern Nevada Water Authority, journey into the unknown, to an alien obsessed by one dazzling Catherine Case, is known for her THE ASSASSINATION OF world utterly transformed by cataclysm writer: poet Ida Perkins, whose life and verse luxury developments, or ‘archologies’, and time: Earth. have shaped America’s literary landscape, and MARGARET THATCHER multi-leveled structures that house the Hilary Mantel wealthier members of society. Case’s who entrusts Paul with her greatest secret THE VORRH – one that will change their lives forever. A HarperCollins. PB. $19.99 power depends on holding onto water supplies and to do so she requires Brian Catling brilliant, haunting book about the beguiling A brilliant and ‘Water Knife’, Angel, Case’s very own interplay between life and art, and the eternal transgressive collection Victor Gollancz. PB. $29.99 spy, assassin and muscle. Angel is sent romance of literature. of short stories from the Next to the colonial to Phoenix to investigate a possible double Man Booker town of Essenwald sits new business development for Case at A TIME FOR EVERYTHING Prize-winning author of the Vorrh, a vast – the same time that a journalist is found Karl Ove Knausgaard Wolf Hall and Bring Up perhaps endless – slain in the street. Lucy Monroe, a Granta. PB. $19.99 the Bodies. In these ten forest. Sentient and friend and colleague of the dead journo, bracingly subversive magical, the Vorrh Karl Ove Knausgaard’s investigates, and uncovers a world of tales, all Mantel’s gifts of bends time and wipes major novel, A Time corruption. It is here that her path characterisation and memory. Now, a For Everything is crosses with Angel and a young Texan observation are fully engaged, summoning renegade English about God and his refugee named Maria. forth the horrors so often concealed behind soldier aims to be the first human to angels. It posits that Bacigalupi won both the Hugo and everyday facades. Whether set in a traverse its expanse. But some fear the angels are real, that Nebula Awards for his last adult novel, claustrophobic Saudi Arabian flat or on a consequences of his mission, and a native God exists and The Windup Girl. He is a master world precarious mountain road in Greece, these marksman has been chosen to stop him. religious tracts, builder and this dystopian novel could stories share an insight into the darkest Everyone’s fate hangs in the balance, including the Bible, very well be seen as a prophetic vision recesses of the spirit. under the will of the Vorrh. are empirical evidence of the future where the scarcity of

An unforgettable novel about love and trust available now wherever books are sold

ann turner 8 READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2015 Meet New Crime Dead Write the 2015 with Fiona Hardy ABA Young Crime Book of the Month Bookseller of BEFORE IT BREAKS Dave Warner the Year Fremantle Arts Centre Press. PB. $29.99 DI Daniel Clement lives in a patchy so-called apartment on t Kilda staff member Gerard Elson top of a supply store by the wharf, trying to piece his life back was named Young Bookseller of together after abandoning his excellent career in crime-prone the Year at the 2015 Australian Perth to become a DI on Western Australia’s far-northern coastline. Booksellers Association conference. Forsaking that life to follow his estranged wife and young daughter SHere, Gerard shares his favourite books to match with readers and thoughts on the back to his hometown seems like the right thing to do, but Clement future of books. feels ostracised from the place of his youth and everyone who lives in it – especially when a brutal murder is discovered in a crocodile- What are your favourite books to match with readers you meet in the shop? infested creek, and old friends are as suspicious as the new, unfamiliar faces. Now, the detection skills dampened by his low-rent life in low-homicide Broome have an Two books I always enjoy sending to good opportunity to return as the case grows in both mystery and body count. homes are Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love ’70s punk-rocker Warner nails laconic Australian characters but has infused Before It and Sarah Bakewell’s genial but sagacious Breaks with a sharp writing style. So immersive in its description of the outback that you biography of Michel de Montaigne, How to could almost swat at the words on the page like the ever-present flies and use the pages to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question fan yourself from the heat, it bleeds casual realism, honest but never dreary, regarding the and Twenty Attempts at an Answer. Dunn’s non-blockbuster limitations of technology on blurry pictures, office procedure and officers novel is sui generis among modern American learning the ropes on their first murder, or the determination needed to traverse through fiction yet never quite gained the foothold hundreds of kilometres of searing West Australian space just to interview one person. A on the popular consciousness it deserved, cyclone rampages its way towards them as the case gathers speed: just put on your raincoat while Bakewell’s biography is a charming and hang onto your book – it’s a wild ride. and clear-sighted primer on one of the most influential – and delightful! – writers who ever lived. Witold Gombrowicz’s Diary is unable to resuscitate him. Yet Sejer was another book I’m forever entreating the BLACK RUN summoned for a reason: Skarre felt right customers to read. Antonio Manzini something was off-kilter with the mother’s More recently, I’ve loved connecting HarperCollins. PB. $24.99 story, and the autopsy proves him right. readers with John Darnielle’s Wolf in White Don’t let the book’s snowy Carmen then confesses that the boy drowned Van, Deborah Levy’s slim but weighty cover fool you – this is not in the bathtub while she had an epileptic volume Things I Don’t Want to Know, Sweden, but the Italian seizure, but even after her admission, Sejer Elena Ferrante’s astonishing Neapolitan Alps, where cranky Deputy can’t shake the case off. Fossum knows her novels, Antonio Muñoz Molina’s equally Police Chief Rocco strengths in Sejer, returning for the first time jaw-slackening Spanish civil war epic In the Schiavone is now located in nearly five years, and her own ability to Night of Time and my friend and colleague after getting the boot from plumb humanity’s cavernous depths. A.S. Patric’s Black Rock White City. Rome. Desperate to get What’s the most memorable thing that has back to his beloved city, and not appreciating PALACE OF TEARS happened to you in a bookshop? his cold and unexciting new hometown Julian Leatherdale I’ll decline the easy route of the celebrity (apart from the ladies who live there), he is Allen & Unwin. PB. $29.99 anecdote and instead recall the day a dust- virtually thrilled when a murder occurs. A In the Blue Mountains, caked and grizzled old timer with a face body torn to pieces by a snowcat is almost there is a hotel known by John Ford would’ve loved lumbered up to unidentifiable, apart from the tattoo that leads outsiders for its luxury and me, thumped his heavy, callused hands on Schiavone to a local trattoria and a hopeful by locals as the Palace of the counter and, fixing me with a bugged business deal. The irascible Schiavone is also Tears. On a searing and bloodshot eye, drawled, ‘Where’s ‘ya a man with a shady business to take care of, January day in 1914, a gold prospectin’ section, matey?’ and it’s worth shaking your head and following him on his darkly funny first outing. sparkling party is held by Who is an important author to you? the owner for his son – but Montaigne really had a huge impact on me BLACK WIDOW by the end of the day, when I began reading him intently about four disaster will eclipse the glamour and leave Carol Baxter or five years ago; his famous sceptical remark, the Fox family scarred. One hundred years Allen & Unwin. PB. $29.99 ‘Que sçay-je?’ (‘What do I know?’) somehow later, Lisa, the owner’s descendant, sets out to gave me permission, both as an aspiring When Michael Collins, find out what happened in the hotel that writer and indeed as a human being, to be Louisa Collins’ second keeps its grim nickname to this day. Fiction okay with dwelling in doubt, equivocation husband, died of a strange set in the early twentieth century in Australia and ambiguity. Keats’ idea of negative illness in 1888, the doctor is having quite the glory moment with capability is similarly resonant to me. was suspicious that Louisa Leatherdale joining, among others, I’ve long been suspicious of all things and was behind it, and tests Greenwood and Gentill – I really couldn’t be people resolute and unbudging. Forming my proved there was arsenic in happier about it. own understanding of Montaigne’s ability to his system and in his glass of question received wisdom, quite radical in milk – and, worse, in the promptly exhumed WAKE body of her first husband, too. The trial and its day, and to hold every thought, however Elizabeth Knox trivial, up to the light and examine all its accompanying tale of the six months leading up Constable & Co. PB. $29.99 facets has played a major part in developing to her gruesome execution in January 1889 is a the sense of fertile uncertainty with which I bizarre story of hung juries, a motiveless death, This is horror both in the try to meet the world. evidence unfairly entered, heated politics, and glorious literary sense, more. Carol Baxter’s meticulous research and and in the sense that the How do you see the future of bookshops? intelligent storytelling serve the long-dead, world around us is full of The critical advantage that bricks-and- and, let’s face it, probably guilty, Collins well. horror: full of people mortar bookshops have, over retailers like whose failings seem Amazon, are the relationships we form with THE DROWNED BOY everyday in the normal customers. Booksellers are proselytisers for Karin Fossum world, but expand when the church of literature – books form our the world falls apart – as Harvill Secker. PB. $32.99 pantheon – and no-one wants to feel like a things do for a town full of people in Chief Inspector Konrad shill by preaching through gritted teeth about Kahukura, New Zealand, when a gruesome Sejer is called to the some false idol. So, we need good books. madness sees almost everyone dead. For harrowing scene of a For bookselling as we know it to remain those few survivors, trapped with something drowning by Inspector culturally viable, publishers need to keep unseen, something that wants to pull their Skarre: a 16-month-old boy booksellers’ faith alive – encourage us to emotions into little pieces, the bravery of has wandered off and spread the word! – by continuing to produce looking after each other and the town itself drowned in the family’s daring and wonderful books to engender a may be the only solution. backyard pond, his parents rich and heterogeneous literary culture.

8060_June_ReadingsAd.indd 2 30/04/15 4:33 PM READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2015 9

New Young Adult Fiction trip to California to see Will. With cowboys, crazy bus people and annoying See books for kids, junior and middle readers on pages 14–15 aunts to deal with along the way, Eva will return from the trip with a new Young Adult Book of the Month understanding of love. Kissing in America isn’t just about PIECES OF SKY first crushes and teenage love. It’s about grief and how different people cope with Trinity Doyle it. Although at times I found the idea of A&U. PB. $16.99 following one’s crush across the country Lucy’s brother Cam died in a night surfing accident, which a little far-fetched, I did have to remind has rocked their small coastal town. Each of the family myself that as a teenager I probably members is grieving in their own separate way and Lucy, once a would have attempted the same thing! champion swimmer, is unable to venture back into the water. Great for those 13 and up who want a Adrift from the all-encompassing world of the swim team, she fun romance with a bit of humour and reconnects with an old friend, wild child Steffi, who is secretive emotion thrown in. and rebellious. Katherine Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn Lucy is desperate to know if her brother’s death was just an accident or intentional. She becomes obsessed with text messages that appear on her SEED brother’s phone and also has an unhealthy fascination with her brother’s best friend, Ryan. New boy at school, Evan, seems into her but her messy emotions about her Lisa Heathfield brother keep getting in the way. Egmont Books. PB. $19.95 Death and its aftermath are rendered complex and chaotic in this stunning debut Seed is the novel. There are no trite answers to the aftermath of tragedy, just a gradual discovery community in of the capacity to endure. Pieces of Sky is beautifully written, packed with longing and which Pearl grew up sadness, but also filled with hope. I inhaled it in enormous gulps like briny sea air and in, ruled over by the felt more passionately alive. sinister Papa S. Seed is all she has ever known Angela Crocombe is from Readings Carlton and when a group of outsiders join the community, including the heart of a fascinating and compelling HOW TO BE BAD the fifteen-year-old Ellis, cracks start to character through an artful combination E. Lockhart, Sarah Mlynowski & appear in the tranquillity of their small of first person narrative mixed with film Lauren Myracle society. This is a slow, subtle read, with directions and ideas from Luke’s notebooks Hot Key. PB. $16.95 darkness bubbling below the innocent to experience Luke’s vivid and enticing These three well- surface. Pearl’s journey is realised in world. Highly recommended for ages 14 known Young Adult beautiful detail with Heathfield painting and up (and especially for boys). authors have come a full picture of the cult and each together to write a novel Athina Clarke is from Readings Malvern increasingly dark layer. Seed will pull about a trio of very you in and refuse to let you go. IM different girls and their I’LL GIVE YOU THE SUN life-changing road trip Jandy Nelson BECOMING KIRRALI across Florida. Walker Books. PB. $17.95 LEWIS Each girl is struggling Phenomenal Jane Harrison with her own problems. Vicks’ boyfriend from the very Magabala. PB. $19.99 start, I’ll Give You the has just moved away for college and she’s Set within the explosive Sun is about the having trouble adjusting to the realities cultural shifts of the fractured relationship of adulthood. Her best friend, Jess, has 1960s and 1980s, between twins Jude become grumpy and anti-social as she Becoming Kirrali Lewis and Noah. Each tells secretly deals with her mother’s cancer chronicles the journey of their side of the story, diagnosis by turning to God. Mel, the new a young Aboriginal Noah as a thirteen- girl in town, wants to shed her identity as teenager as she leaves year-old and Jude, the ‘rich girl’ and finally find the friends her home town in rural three years later, at sixteen. The twins are she never had. Victoria to take on a law both so easy to spend time with, despite Each with their own reasons, the degree in Melbourne in 1985. Adopted at being broken and drowning. This is an girls drive across Florida from backwater birth by a white family, Kirrali doesn’t expansive story and the title references a Niceville to Miami, with hilarious question her cultural roots until a series of game that the twins play, in which they encounters along the way. This is a fun, life-changing events force her to face up to divide up ownership of the natural world flirty read for girls 14 and up. her true identify. Her decision to search for around them as if they are ‘gods’. They Julia Gorman is from Readings Carlton her biological parents sparks off a political feel powerful, but also sad and confused, awakening that no-one sees coming, least of as they struggle to find their way back to IT’S ABOUT LOVE all Kirrali herself as she discovers her one another. Beautifully written by Jandy Steven Camden mother is white and her father is a radical Nelson, I cannot recommend this enough. HarperCollins. PB. $16.99 black activist. The generational threads of Isobel Moore is from Readings St Kilda Don’t be misled, human experience are the very things that It’s About Love is will complete her. If only she can let go. about so much more. KISSING IN AMERICA It’s about where you’re Margo Rabb TO HOLD THE BRIDGE from and how you’re Penguin. PB. $19.99 Garth Nix judged; revenge, It’s been two A&U. PB. $19.99 confidence and the years since Eva’s Far to the north of the unresolved issues of father died and to help magical Old Kingdom, the the past; and the gulf numb the pain she’s Greenwash Bridge between what we feel taken up reading Company has been and what we’re prepared to face. It’s about romance novels, where building a bridge for a young man who dreams of becoming a love and happy endings almost one hundred film-writer but who struggles to find help her believe that years. It is not an easy confidence in his own voice. Before he can things can turn out ok. task. Despite the danger, succeed he must overcome his background, When her dreams of the perfect romance Morghan wants nothing negotiate a new relationship with his older turn to reality through attention and a more than to join the Bridge Company as a brother and bridge the ever-widening gulf kiss from her crush, Will, Eva can see her cadet. But the company takes only the best between his new life and his old friends. romance novels finally coming true. But and trains them hard. For the night might I found myself drawn to Luke’s out of the blue Will leaves to live in come when even an untried young cadet passions and his foibles; he’s a sensitive and California with his father and Eva is left must hold the bridge alone against the most introspective artist of great potential, if he to wonder what could have been. Not devastating of foes. can only overcome his own self-doubt. Let willing to let the romance die, Eva devises author Steven Camden take you deep into a plan with her best friend, Annie, to road 10 READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2015

New Non-Fiction GOOD MUSLIM BOY Academy award-winning actor Peter Finch children are uprooted from their farm and Osamah Sami – but who was so much more. thrown on an emigrant ship with thirty- eight distressed London needlewomen. Hardie Grant. PB. $32.95 THE BOOK OF JOAN How they came to be on the boat, and what Biography Osamah Sami is a Melissa Rivers happened afterwards, is a vivid tale of madcap antihero of Viking. PB. $32.99 family ambitions and fears, successes and SMOKE GETS IN YOUR spectacular catastrophes. EYES: AND OTHER proportions. By the age Joan and Melissa of thirteen, Osamah Rivers had one of the LESSONS FROM THE most celebrated NOT MY FATHER’S SON: had survived the Iran– A FAMILY MEMOIR CREMATORIUM Iraq War, peddled mother-daughter Caitlin Doughty fireworks and chewing relationships of all Alan Cumming Canongate. PB. $27.99 gum on the Iranian time. If you think Joan A&U. PB. $21.99 Funny, gruesome black market, proposed said some outrageous A beloved star of stage and thought- ‘temporary marriage’ not once but three things to her audiences and screen, Alan provoking, Smoke Gets times, and received countless floggings from as a comedian, you Cumming’s life and In Your Eyes is Caitlin the Piety Police for trying to hold hands with won’t believe what she career have been Doughty’s candid girls in dark cinemas. And the trouble didn’t said and did in private. Her love for her shaped by a complex account of her early stop when Osamah emigrated to Australia. A daughter knew no bounds – or boundaries. and dark family past – experiences working hilarious and heartbreaking memoir about In The Book of Joan, Melissa Rivers relates full of troubled with dead bodies, first what we’ll do to live up to expectations and funny, poignant and irreverent memories, kept buried as a crematorium what we must do to live with ourselves. observations, thoughts, and tales about the away. But then an operator and then at woman who raised her and is the reason unexpected phone call mortician school. Doughty, who’s been THE SHORT LONG BOOK she considers valium one of the four basic from his long-estranged father unravels rather aptly described as a ‘hipster Martin Flanagan food groups. everything he thought he knew about mortician’ by the Huffington Post, is well Vintage. PB. $17.99 himself. Not My Father’s Son is the story of GITTINS his journey of discovery, both a memoir of known as the creator of YouTube series Ask In 1995, Aboriginal Ross Gittins his childhood in Scotland, and an a Mortician, and is founder of the growing footballer Michael investigation into his family history which death acceptance organisation The Order Long quietly A&U. PB. $32.99 would change him forever. of the Good Death. She’s an engaging revolutionised For 40 years and 16 storyteller and her wry descriptions of her Australian sport by elections, Ross Gittins daily tasks are strange and unexpectedly refusing to let a racial has had a ringside Anthology delightful from the opening: ‘A girl always insult pass during the seat as the Australian remembers the first corpse she shaves.’ You Anzac Day match economy has gone should pick up this book if only to read between Essendon and through radical THE SIMPLE ACT OF lines like this one. Collingwood. A decade change. Few READING Corpses aside, Smoke Gets In Your economic journalists later, he again had an impact on the nation Debra Adelaide (ed.) Eyes is packaged as a fairly straight- when he set out to walk from Melbourne to have earned such Vintage. PB. $29.99 forward coming-of-age story. The essays Canberra to confront the Howard respect for their A collection of essays are linear and throughout Doughty government over Aboriginal issues. Funny, views, and throughout the book he and memoir pieces on writes endearingly about the anxieties incisive and revealing, The Short Long Book critiques without fear or favour the the topic of reading, in that often plague the early twenties. She is a compelling portrait of a man who could ministers and bureaucrats who have particular what it frets about earning the respect of her co- be described as the soul of the game, as shaped our economic wellbeing. He means for writers to be workers, worries about The Future and seen by Australia’s greatest sportswriter. dissects the newspaper game and lays falls in love with a boy living across the down some hard facts about a hard readers and how that country. Yet, Doughty also casually slips A DOUBLE SHOT OF future. Honest, robust and intelligent, has shaped their life. other little titbits alongside her personal HAPPINESS Gittins is as insightful and entertaining The Simple Act of anecdotes, everything from witch burnings as the man himself. Reading will support to mortuary cannibalism, and reflects on Judy Sharp Sydney Story Factory them. Time and time again, she reminds A&U. PB. $32.99 BREAKTHROUGH: HOW by emphasising the importance of reading the reader that Western attitudes towards When Judy Sharp took ONE TEEN INNOVATOR IS in shaping an individual’s future. death are not the only option, that things her three-year-old son CHANGING THE WORLD Contributors include Debra Adelaide, Joan have not always been this way. She Tim to a paediatric London, Delia Falconer, Sunil Badami, implores the reader to ask why we think specialist, he was Jack Andraka Gabrielle Carey, Luke Davies, Tegan about death the way we do, to question diagnosed with autism Scribe. PB. $24.99 Bennett Daylight, Kate Forsyth, Andy what the accepted stories about death so severe that she was Jack Andraka was just Griffiths, Anita Heiss, Wayne Macauley, mean as opposed to blindly accepting told he would never be 15 when he invented an Fiona McFarlane, David Malouf, Rosie them. At heart, her ‘memoir’ is really a able to talk or learn to early detection test for Scott, Carrie Tiffany and Geordie passionate argument for reconsidering live in a normal three types of cancer. Williamson. our relationship with the dead and it is an household, and that he After a family friend argument that convinced me. Smoke Gets was incapable of love, even towards his passed away, Jack In Your Eyes will change the way you think own mother. A Double Shot of Happiness is created a test that can Australian Studies about death, and for the better. Judy’s beautiful and heartfelt account of detect pancreatic, ovarian, and lung Bronte Coates is Readings’ digital content Tim’s odyssey from that terrible diagnosis ACROSS THE SEAS: cancer in its earliest coordinator to his emergence as an acclaimed international artist and a fulfilled, loving stages and, at 17, is now a renowned AUSTRALIA’S RESPONSE TO REFUGEES – A SHINING: THE STORY OF and loved young man. scientist. In Breakthrough, Jack encourages members of his generation to approach HISTORY A LUCKY MAN MAVERICK their pursuits with determination and Klaus Neumann Abdi Aden MOUNTAINEER optimism. In doing so, he illustrates how Black Inc. PB. $34.99 HarperCollins. PB. $29.99 the curiosity and perseverance of one teen Robert Wainwright Australia’s response to Abdi’s world fell apart could potentially save the lives of millions. HarperCollins. PB.$32.99 asylum-seeking ‘boat when he was only people’ is a constant fifteen and Somalia’s George Ingle Finch, LOST RELATIONS star in the political vicious civil war hit mountaineer, soldier, Graeme Davison news cycle, but lacks Mogadishu. Unable to scientist, rebellious A&U. PB. $32.99 the historical find his family, he fled spirit, boy from the Through the lives of perspective necessary with some sixty bush, was in his day two generations of his for informed debate. others, heading to one of the most famous forebears, one of Have we ever taken Kenya. Eventually men in the world. In Australia’s most our fair share of Abdi made his way to Romania, then to 1922 he climbed respected historians refugees? Have our past responses been Germany, finally arriving in Melbourne Everest, he pioneered tells the story of motivated by humanitarian concerns or at just seventeen. He had no English, no the use of oxygen in English free settlers economic self-interest? Historian Klaus family or friends, no money, no home. climbing and was a hero of both World arriving in the mid-19th Neumann examines both the government Yet he not only survived, he thrived. A Wars. So why has he vanished from the century, who built the policy and the public attitude towards remarkably warm-hearted, uplifting and pages of history? In this first full-length Australia we know refugees and asylum seekers since inspiring story of one boy’s survival biography, Robert Wainwright surveys the today. A widow and her eight older Federation. He places the Australian against the odds. man now best known as the father of READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2015 11 story in the context of global refugee NO, MINISTER movements, and international responses Allan Behm to those movements. MUP. PB. $34.99 NO SMALL CHANGE: Nothing prepares a THE ROAD TO person for the job of chief of staff to a RECOGNITION FOR Commonwealth INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIA Minister. There are no Frank Brennan professional UQP. PB. $32.95 development courses, In 1967, Australians recruitment agencies or voted overwhelmingly training manuals. In in favour of altering 2009, Allan Behm aspects of the became chief of staff to Greg Combet, the Constitution relating minister responsible for managing carbon to Indigenous pricing and the pink batts crisis. A seasoned Australians. Nearly troubleshooter, Behm had an uncanny ability fifty years later, there to anticipate and deflect political crises. By his is a groundswell of measure success was being an invisible force. support for our Indigenous heritage to be formally AUSTRALIA’S BOLDEST recognised in the Constitution. As we EXPERIMENT n this landmark book, Stuart await the new referendum, Frank Brennan Stuart Macintyre IMacintyre explains how a country traumatised by World War I, considers how far we’ve come, and yet New South. PB. $34.99 how much work lies ahead. Written by one hammered by the Depression and In this landmark book, overstretched by World War II became of our most respected commentators on Stuart Macintyre legal and human-rights issues, No Small a prosperous, successful and growing explains how a country society by the 1950s. An extraordinary Change is a vital contribution to our traumatised by World group of individuals, notably John understanding of indigenous affairs. War I, hammered by Curtin, Ben Chifley, Nugget Coombs, the Depression and John Dedman and Robert Menzies, SILENT SHOCK: overstretched by World re-made the country, planning its THE MEN BEHIND THE War II became a reconstruction against a background THALIDOMIDE SCANDAL prosperous, successful of wartime sacrifice and austerity. This AND AN AUSTRALIAN and growing society by book shows the 1940s to be a pivotal decade in Australia and reminds FAMILY’S LONG ROAD TO the 1950s. An extraordinary group of us that key components of the society we take for granted – work, JUSTICE individuals re-made the country, planning welfare, health, education, immigration, housing – are not the result of its reconstruction against a background of military endeavour but policy, planning, politics and popular resolve. Michael Magazanik wartime sacrifice and austerity, seeking to Text. PB. $32.99 fashion a new world order that would bring Lyn Rowe was born in peace and prosperity. This book shows the www.newsouthpublishing.com Melbourne in 1962, 1940s to be a pivotal decade in Australia. seven months after her mother was given a JOH FOR PM new morning sickness Paul Davey ‘wonder drug’ called New South. PB. $29.99 thalidomide. In 2011 In 1987 the Queensland Lyn Rowe launched a Premier, Joh Bjelke- legal claim against the Petersen, launched an thalidomide audacious bid to break companies and, against the odds, won a the federal Opposition multimillion-dollar settlement. Former Coalition, replace Ian journalist Michael Magazanik is one of the Sinclair as National lawyers who ran Lyn’s case. In Silent Shock Party leader and he exposes a fifty-year cover up become Prime concerning history’s most notorious drug Minister. Trench – an epic account of corporate villainy warfare waged between the Sinclair and against a backdrop of heroic personal Joh forces during one of the most bizarre struggle and sacrifice. and divisive periods in Australian politics. SUPERMARKET Paul Davey reveals what went on behind closed doors, and the strategies aimed at MONSTERS: thwarting the Joh campaign and reuniting THE PRICE OF COLES the party at state and federal levels. AND WOOLWORTHS’ DOMINANCE Malcolm Knox Business Black Inc. PB. $19.99 In hardware, petrol, ONLINE GRAVITY merchandise, liquor Paul X. McCarthy and above all in S&S. PB. $32.99 groceries, Coles and Why have local video Woolworths now shops disappeared and jointly rule Australia’s been replaced by retail landscape. On Netflix? Why are hotels average, every man, being replaced by woman and child in Airbnb? Why is your this country spends taxi driver from Uber? $100 a week across their many outlets. They are all under the What does such dominance mean for influence of online suppliers? And is it good for consumers? gravity, the unseen Journalist and author Malcolm Knox force changing the face of work and reveals the unavoidable and often employment. In this must-have guide to intimidating tactics both companies use negotiating your future in an increasingly to get their way. In return for cheap milk, digital world, Paul X. McCarthy shows us he argues, consumers are risking much what online gravity is, how it works and more: quality, diversity and community. how we can harness it for our own success. 12 READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2015

WHEN TO ROB A BANK war in western Europe. American troops, country that expanded the EU so that it Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. taken by surprise, found themselves lost any chance of social or political Science Dubner fighting two panzer armies. While many coherence. What is to be done? Britain’s American soldiers fled or surrendered, leading radical delivers an eviscerating Penguin. PB. $29.99 HEALTHY BRAIN, HAPPY others held on heroically, creating attack on the indistinguishable political Over the past decade, breakwaters which slowed the German elite of the UK. LIFE: HOW TO ACTIVATE the blogs of Steven D. advance. Antony Beevor tells the story of YOUR BRAIN & DO Levitt and Stephen J. the Germans’ ill-fated final stand. DON’T TRUST, DON’T EVERYTHING BETTER Dubner have FEAR, DON’T BEG Dr Wendy Suzuki & Billie entertained us and Fitzpatrick changed the way we Personal Development Ben Stewart understand the world. Faber. PB. $27.99 Heinemann. PB. $34.99 Now the very best of The plan was to attach Nearing forty, Dr these have been ALTRUISM: THE POWER a Greenpeace pod to Wendy Suzuki was at carefully curated into OF COMPASSION TO Gazprom’s platform the pinnacle of her a book – with added extras – for the CHANGE YOURSELF AND and launch a peaceful career, but was millions of readers who love all things THE WORLD protest against oil overweight, lonely Freakonomics. When to Rob a Bank being pumped from and tired, and knew Matthieu Ricard demonstrates the counterintuitive, the icy waters of the that her life had to Atlantic. PB. $29.99 irreverent brilliance that has made Arctic. However, change. Starting Levitt and Dubner’s books an Matthieu Ricard heavily armed simply at an exercise international sensation. delivers a rousing commandos flooded class, she began to not argument that the deck of the Arctic Sunrise, and the only get fit, she also became sharper, had altruism – genuine Arctic Thirty began their ordeal at the more energy, and her memory improved. Cultural Studies concern for the hands of Putin’s regime. Told in the Being a neuroscientist, she wanted to well-being of others activists’ own words and for the first know why. Taking us on an amazing – could be the saving journey inside the brain, Suzuki helps KEEP IT FAKE time, this is a dramatic and inspiring grace of the 21st story of incarceration and the ensuing unlock the keys to neuroplasticity that Eric G. Wilson century. Altruism is, emotional campaign to bring the can change our brains or bodies and, Macmillan. HB. $34.99 he believes, the vital thread that can protestors home. ultimately, our lives. Tell it like it is. Keep it answer the main challenges of our time: real. We love these the economy in the short term, life THE SOUL OF AN commands because satisfaction in the mid-term, and Psychology OCTOPUS: A PLAYFUL they invoke what we environment in the long term. Ricard’s EXPLORATION INTO message has been taken up by major love to believe: that THE GOOD STORY: THE WONDER OF there is an authentic economists and thinkers, including self to which we can be Dennis Snower, Amartya Sen, Joseph EXCHANGES ON CONSCIOUSNESS true. But while we Stiglitz, and George Soros. TRUTH, FICTION AND Sy Montgomery mock Tricky Dick and PSYCHOTHERAPY S&S. HB. $24.99 Slick Willie, we invent In 2011 Sy Montgomery Philosophy JM Coetzee & Arabella Kurtz identities on Facebook, pay thousands for Harvill Secker. PB. $32.99 wrote a feature for plastic surgery, and tune into news that Orion magazine about Arabella Kurtz and simply verifies our opinions. Eric G. Wilson her friendship with a PHILOSOPHY FOR JM Coetzee consider draws on neuroscience, psychology, sensitive, sweet- MILITANTS psychotherapy and its philosophy, art and his own life to explore natured octopus named social context from the possibility that there’s no such thing as Alain Badiou Athena and the grief different perspectives, unwavering reality. Verso. PB. $12.99 she felt at her death. It but at the heart of This concise, went viral, indicating both approaches is a accessible volume the widespread concern with stories. Humour captures the fascination with these mysterious, almost Working alone, the relationship between alien-like creatures. Since then writer is in sole charge politics and Montgomery has practised true immersion MUSINGS FROM THE of the story he or she tells. The therapist, philosophy as it is journalism, from New England aquarium on the other hand, collaborates with the INNER DUCK conceived in Alain tanks to the reefs of French Polynesia and patient in telling the story of their life. Michael Leunig Badiou’s work. the Gulf of Mexico, pursuing these wild, Drawing on great writers and Penguin. PB. $24.99 Harking back to his solitary shape-shifters. Octopuses have psychoanalysts, the authors offer Musings From the mentor Louis varied personalities and intelligence they illuminating insights into the stories we Inner Duck, Michael Althusser, Badiou explains how politics show in myriad ways, from endless trickery tell of our lives. Leunig’s poignantly conditions philosophy, while suggesting to escape enclosures and get food to jetting hilarious new cartoon that philosophy itself may be needed to water playfully to bounce objects like balls. collection, ranges clarify the truths produced within the Reference Montgomery chronicles this growing from Curly Flat to the political condition. Badiou also offers an appreciation of the octopus, but also tells a Global Positioning Sausage, accompanied intriguing take on what he calls the four love story. by the direction-finding duck. This major ensembles of Western society LOST IN TRANSLATION: collection of 138 cartoons tilts towards the today, in which new emancipatory forms AN ILLUSTRATED whimsical, the wise and the sublimely of politics are emerging: students, the COMPENDIUM OF Theology misaligned; it’s less heavily political than young, workers and immigrants. UNTRANSLATABLE previous collections, although the political WORDS THE BOOK OF THE system cops a serve here and there. Politics Ella Frances Sanders PEOPLE Random. HB. $29.99 A.N. Wilson Military History THE EXTREME CENTRE: Did you know that Atlantic. PB. $29.99 A WARNING the Japanese have In The Book of the ARDENNES 1944: a word to express People, A.N. Wilson Tariq Ali the way sunlight explores how readers HITLER’S LAST GAMBLE Verso. PB. $19.99 filters through the and thinkers have Antony Beevor Britain is a nation leaves of trees? Or approached the Bible, Penguin. HB. $49.99 without an opposition. that there’s a and how it might be On 16 December, Westminster is in the Swedish word that means a traveller’s read today. Charting 1944, Hitler launched grip of an extreme particular sense of anticipation before his own relationship his ‘last gamble’ in the centre: yes to a trip? Lost in Translation brings the with the Bible over a snow-covered forests austerity, to imperial nuanced beauty of language to life with lifetime of writing, Wilson argues that it and gorges of the wars, a failing EU, 50 beautiful ink illustrations. From the remains relevant even in a largely secular Ardennes. The increased security lovely to the funny, this is a collection society, as a philosophical work, a work of offensive, with more measures, and yes to full of surprises that will make you literature and a cultural touchstone for than a million men the status quo. savour the wonderful, elusive, the western world. Erudite, witty and involved, became the Euro-immigration is becoming an English untranslatable words that make up accessible, The Book of the People seeks to greatest battle of the obsession, even though it was this a language. reclaim the Good Book. READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2015 13

Travel Writing Art & Design with Margaret Snowdon THE WHIRL: MEN, MUSIC & MISADVENTURES ARCHITECTS’ HOUSES Stephen Crafti Jane Cornwell Murdoch Books. HB. $79.99 HarperCollins. PB. $29.99 Architects’ Houses Travelling the world offers an insight into in search of love, great how contemporary music and good architects live in the stories, London-based homes they have journalist and music designed specifically critic Jane Cornwell for themselves and collects relationships David Gonski, company chairman and director, patron their family. In the Every day the heroic police dogs and handlers of the the way the rest of us Victoria Police Dog Squad are fighting crime and of the arts and philanthropist, has become a household absence of a ‘client’ and a formal brief, pick up souvenir tea keeping citizens safe. The Dog Squad brings together name after his report into education funding. In this architects can be truly adventurous. their unique stories of bravery to give rare insights collection of speeches, he provides personal insights towels or snow domes. into the high-octane world of police dog work, and into some of the biggest issues in Australian society – This is also one woman’s journey through AGNES MARTIN the bonds that exist between dogs and handlers. the observations of one of our leading thinkers. music, a tribute to music’s power to heal, Nancy Princenthal inspire and transport. A fearless and T&H. HB. $55 funny quest for love, connection and a faithful man who can dance, The Whirl is This is the first a truly sexy memoir for the adventurer in biography of the all of us. visionary artist who was one of the most THE DIRECTOR IS THE influential and original COMMANDER: painters of the postwar period. Over the course COME ON A UNIQUE of a career that spanned JOURNEY INSIDE NORTH fifty years, Agnes KOREA’S PROPAGANDA Martin’s austere, serene work anticipated MACHINE and helped to define Minimalism, even as Anna Broinowski she battled psychological crises and carved Viking. PB. $32.99 out a solitary existence in the American Since her father died, sixteen-year-old Eva has found In December 1944, Hitler launched his ‘last gamble’ Southwest. comfort in reading romance novels. Then she meets in the snow-covered forests and gorges of the Ardennes. Looking for respite Will and her romantic fantasies become reality. When The goal? To split the Allies via the largest offensive in from her crumbling Will moves to California, Eva and her best friend decide Western Europe. Taken by surprise, the Allies would marriage and MAKING DESIGN to drive west and find him. As their road-trip unfolds, have to hold on heroically in order to break the back determined to stop a Cara McCarty et al. they confront the complex truth about love. of the Wehrmacht. coal seam gas mine Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design near her home, Museum. PB. $60 filmmaker Anna Designed by Irma Bloom, penguin.com.au Broinowski finds and containing over 1,200 wisdom and inspiration images from the museum’s in the strangest of collection, this book is places: Kim Jong-il’s manifesto The Cinema indeed ‘provocative, and Directing. Broinowski travels to North lyrical, funny, unexpected, Korea to collaborate with directors, ravishing, somber, and composers and movie stars to make a exquisite’ as described by powerful anti-fracking propaganda film. Caroline Baumann, director of the Cooper Meeting and befriending artists, defectors Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. With and loyalists, Broinowski offers new insight 54 essays on selected objects, pairing and into the world’s most secretive regime, and sequencing of images, a process glossary and propaganda in general. extended captions, this is a glorious collection. KEEPING AN EYE OPEN Visual Arts Julian Barnes Jonathan Cape. HB. $45 SIDNEY NOLAN: A LIFE Julian Barnes began Nancy Underhill writing about art with a In 1995, Aboriginal footballer Annie Barrows, celebrated New South. HB. $49.99 chapter on Gericault’s Michael Long gave the AFL its co-author of The Guernsey The Raft of the Medusa in ‘Mandela moment’. He quietly Literary and Potato Peel Pie Crashing through the his 1989 novel A History myths around revolutionised Australian sport Society, once again evokes the of the World in 10 1/2 Australia’s most famous by refusing to let a racial insult charm and eccentricity of a Chapters. Since then he artist, many of which pass during the Anzac Day match. small town in her new novel, has written a series of he created himself as a The Truth According to Us. remarkable essays, chiefly A decade later, he again impacted masterful self- on the nation when he set out to about French artists, tracing the story of When Layla Beck is sent to write promoter, this book walk from Melbourne to Canberra how art made its way from Romanticism to the history of a little mill town in gives us, finally, the to confront the Howard government West Virginia, everyone involved is Realism and into Modernism. biography that Sidney over Aboriginal issues. transformed – and their personal Nolan deserves. In an ARCADIA BRITANNICA Funny, incisive and revealing, histories completely rewritten. authoritative biography that fully charts The Short Long Book is a Henry Bourne Quirky, loveable and above all Nolan’s life and work, Nancy Underhill compelling portrait of a man human, this heart-warming novel T&H. HB. $39.95 peels back the layers from a complicated, who could be described as the explores how little we really know expedient and manipulative artistic genius. Folklore enthusiasts are soul of the game, as seen by about the people we know best. She carries the story from Nolan’s birth in alive and thriving in Australia’s greatest sportswriter. 1917 to his death in 1992, tracing his early contemporary Britain. life, his experience as a commercial artist, Through taking his involvement in the Angry Penguins portraits at key events magazine, his painting and set design, his and festivals, Henry difficult marriages and his even more Bourne takes a fond difficult friendships with some of the look at Morris dancers, twentieth century’s most famous figures: practising witches, Patrick White, Albert Tucker, Benjamin warlocks and others who actively celebrate a Britten, Robert Lowell, Stephen Spender rich tradition honouring our connection with randomhouse.com.au and Kenneth Clark. the seasons, the land and community. 14 READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2015

catching letters from one of his fans. Who is she? And Baby Board Books why does Fuzz’s funny, too-short ear start twitching every time he replies to her shocking notes? BABY’S VERY FIRST SLIDE AND SEE: UNDER THE SEA HOW TO BE A DOG Fiona Watt & Stella Baggott (illus.) Jo Williamson Usborne. BB. $19.99 Scholastic. PB. $15.99 An engaging, interactive board book, What do dogs really want? To catch a specially designed for very young ball and never let go? To scare the pesky children, full of vivid colours, stylish vet away? To have gloopy mud baths illustrations and friendly sea creatures. (not bubble baths!)? Food, more food Simple slider mechanisms allow the and even more food! The charming, pictures to be transformed as a hermit heartwarming illustrations show how crab emerges from its shell, and more. dogs choose their owners, where it’s best to sleep in the house and how to pretend you haven’t been fed yet. A HELP! THE WOLF IS COMING! picture book that gives children and grown-ups a warm, Have fun with stories Cedric Ramadier happy glow! brought to life by our Gecko. BB. $16.99 Oh no! The wolf is coming! He’s getting Children’s Storytellers! closer and closer – you’d better turn the Non-Fiction Enjoy weekly readings from page, tilt the book, shake it, and then slam it TRUE FACE a range of new release shut. In this book, you need to follow the picture books (and some instructions to make sure the wolf won’t get Siobhan Curham old favourites). you. He’s a bit scary – maybe he wants to Faber. PB. $13.99 eat us! But if we hold the book on a lean, We are living in the age of the perfect maybe the wolf will slip and fall, or disappear. Let’s try! image. From the bombardment of air-brushed photos, to celebrities and social media, young women are under Picture Books pressure as never before to project a persona of perfection. True Face shows MY NAME IS LIZZIE FLYNN: A you how to resist the pressure and STORY OF THE RAJAH QUILT proudly reveal your true self to the Claire Saxby & Lizzy Newcomb world. Siobhan Curham encourages young women and Black Dog Books. HB. $24.95 girls to be honest, dream big, and create lives that are Carlton happy and fulfilling. In 1841 Lizzie Flynn is being Fridays 10.30am - 11am transported on the ship The Rajah 309 Lygon St, 9347 6633 FIELD GUIDE: CREATURES GREAT from England to Australia. Her Malvern punishment for stealing a shawl is to AND SMALL Thursdays 10.30am - 11am serve seven years as a convict in the Lucy Engelman 185 Glenferrie Rd, 9509 1952 penal colony of Van Diemen’s Land. Quarto. PB. $24.99 Ship life is hard and as she struggles This is the first book in a series of St Kilda with it Lizzie is befriended by Mollie, who teaches her how illustrated guides to popular subjects Saturdays 10.30am - 11am to sew so she can join the other women in making a quilt such as natural history and fashion, 112 Acland St, 9525 3852 for the Governor’s wife. The conditions on those long beautifully presented as a book of voyages were cramped, unhygienic and diseases such as high-quality decorative black-and-white cholera were rife. Sadly, Mollie dies, leaving Lizzie to start prints featuring animals from all corners her new life in a strange land on her own. of the globe, with information on each species included The story is based on true events and after being lost for on the reverse of each print. Pull out each of the 36 prints 147 years, The Rajah Quilt is now in the National Gallery and colour them in, then hang them up on your wall or 20% off* of Australia in Canberra. Hauntingly told and beautifully give them away as presents. any full-priced illustrated, Lizzie’s story will resonate with a young and kids books for all older audience. For readers aged 5 and up. YOU ARE HERE: AN INTERACTIVE who attend the Alexa Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn BOOK OF MAPS AND WORLDS story time session. Kathrin Jacobsen THE MOST WONDERFUL THING IN Cicada. PB. $29.99 THE WORLD A playful introduction to maps and global Vivian French & Angela Barrett geography. Interactive, diverse illustrations Walker. HB. $27.95 allow young readers to learn and engage Oh my, this book is so pretty with the fundamentals of maps by and the detail in the pictures so drawing maps of their room, house, and exquisitely delightful, I didn’t want it town. Cities’ and countries’ resources, to end. In the way of so many foods, languages, and landmarks are fairytales, a suitable husband must be brought to life by doodling, completing, redesigning, and found for the princess and the edict embellishing the illustrations. Weather maps, climate is that to win her hand ‘he’ must present the King and change, bird migration, and ocean geography also find Queen with ‘the most wonderful thing’. While this is their place. happening the princess has requested that before she has *Discount valid for 30 minutes to settle down she would love to explore their city. As all GUARDING EDEN after completion of each story manner of grand and bewitching items are paraded before Deborah Hart time session. the royal parents by hopeful suitors, the princess is quietly A&U. PB. $17.99 and unobtrusively finding her own Wonderful Thing! Please note: Story time is not a Guarding Eden tells the personal stories of child-minding service. Vivienne French is a fine storyteller and Angela twelve ordinary people who were so We ask that parents stay with their Barrett has long been one of my favourite illustrators concerned about climate change that they children for the reading. and together they have created an enchanting story for altered their lives to do something about children 3 and up. AD it. Some did quiet backroom work in research, drafted submissions or wrote to FUZZ MCFLOPS politicians; others decided to go public Eva Furnari – one was part of the team occupying a Pushkin. PB. $14.99 160-metre power-plant chimney, one went on a hunger Fuzz McFlops is one of the most famous strike publicised around the world, another started the rabbit-writers in the land, but ever since his Lock the Gate Alliance. They come from all walks of life: classmates teased him about his lopsided there’s a nurse, a musician, an insurance broker, a teacher, a ears at school he’s lead a lonely life, writing lawyer, a vet. Surprisingly touching, Guarding Eden makes sad stories. Now he’s started receiving some an issue as complex and controversial as climate change scandalous, outrageous and rather eye- feel human and deeply real – great for readers 13 and up. READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2015 15

Middle Fiction Book of the Month THE UNLIKELY ADVENTURES OF MABEL JONES I KILL THE MOCKINGBIRD Will Mabbitt Paul Acampora Puffin. PB. $14.99 St Martin’s. PB. $12.99 Surprising and funny things can Fond memories of reading Andy Stanton’s inventive and hysterically daft Mr Gum happen when a literary classic series as a family were brought to mind from the very beginning of this pirate enters the brave new world of social adventure, which hurtles along at breakneck speed and manages to pack in a great deal media. Lucy and her two best friends of plot. Our hero Mabel Jones takes her kidnapping by a motley crew of anthropomorphic begin their summer holidays with an animal pirates in her stride. Though the captain never warms to her, being far too uninspiring reading list for school. consumed by his mission to collect all the pieces of a mysterious broken X (which marks Reminiscing about the only book their an ingenious spot, in this case), the rest of the team admire Mabel’s qualities, especially favourite teacher set for the summer her ability to read, her bravery and her kindness. That she also picks her nose makes her before, they also lament his untimely an even better feminist role model (yes, girls are gross too). death. To Kill a Mockingbird was the book and, as a long This is no run-of-the-mill pirate mission, and the place where Mabel has been taken summer awaits them, the three friends hatch a plan to is gradually revealed to be a lot further away from home than she first thought. create a demand for it. As Lucy’s mum, who is recovering Highlights include the superbly named and vengeful loris Omynus Hussh, lively from cancer, says, ‘Life is good, death is a mystery, the bird illustrations of all the inventive animal characters, a brilliantly disguised little needs work.’ boy who shows up at an opportune moment just when the plot is at its Funny and wise, playful and touching, I Kill the thickest, and of course the pirate-speak, which never fails to amuse. Mockingbird is about how one story can make a difference For strong readers over 8 or a fun family read. but it is also about the power of friendship, remembering Emily Gale is Readings’ online children’s specialist those gone and cherishing those still with us. I loved this book. I love that it is about an old story but sharing the love in a very contemporary way. For readers 10 and up. AD Classics PUFF William Wondriska Rizzoli. HB. (Pic Bk) $29.95 A reprint of a rare 1960s-era children’s book beloved by the graphic design world and children’s book collectors. Puff is an old-fashioned small steam engine who lives a very unexciting life in a train yard, and daydreams of travelling to distant lands like Egypt, India, France, and even outer space. When a newer modern engine pulling circus cars New breaks down during a snowstorm, Puff’s Junior Fiction chance to prove his mettle finally arrives. ZOMBIFIED! C.M. Gray Classic of the Month ABC Books. PB. $14.99 Kids’ Ben and his best friend Sophie are WATERSHIP DOWN slightly zombie-obsessed. Zombie Richard Adams video games, movies, comics – you name Penguin. PB. $19.99 it. But now their obsession with the When I picked up Watership living dead is starting to spill over into Books Down a month ago I thought to everyday life, and they’re starting to see myself ‘how exciting can a book about being bullied! Coco sets off for school to rescue her. But creepy things wherever they look, like rabbits be?’ Well, what can I say, this when cranky school principal Miss Trample sees Coco’s the secret room Ben finds at school, or book has everything! Not only was I up school uniform (customised, thank you very much), Coco the way the mysterious Mr Slender keeps popping up ’til all hours of the night pacing around might be in even more trouble than her best friend. How where he’s not wanted. Ben knows something sinister is trying to stay calm over what might will she get out of this one? happening inside the hidden room, but is uncovering the happen next, but I was brought to secret worth becoming a member of the undead horde? tears one minute and cheering and Zombiefied! is a perfect first introduction to horror Middle Fiction whooping the next. Forget The Hunger Games, if you for kids aged 7 and up who, like Ben, are slightly zombie- want a thrilling, suspenseful, slightly terrifying novel obsessed. While there’s some definite creep factor here, it NOT AS WE KNOW IT look no further than this brilliant classic. never becomes nightmare-inducing, so it’s safe to put into Tom Avery Brothers Hazel and Fiver were living peacefully in a full the hands of younger readers if they’re not quite ready for warren in Sandleford until Fiver had a vision of a horrible Andersen Press. PB. $17.99 Stephen King-level scary. destruction that is to be brought upon the warren. Unable Set on a small British island in the to convince the chief rabbits that such horrors are going Holly Harper is from Readings Carlton mid 1980s, Avery tells the story of to occur, Hazel and Fiver rally together a group of misfits twin brothers Ned and Jamie and their who believe in Fiver’s vision and are willing to leave the COCO BANJO IS HAVING A YAY DAY final adventure. Ned is sick, and the warren. As the rabbits journey to find a safe place they N.J. Gemmell brothers hope that the discovery of a encounter all sorts of predators, from humans to preying Random. PB. Was $14.99 mysterious creature from the sea will birds. However, it’s the other rabbits that just might be $11.99 somehow save him. This is an their biggest threat. emotionally complex, beautifully Coco Banjo loves her life. She sleeps in a Watership Down was originally published in 1972 bittersweet story, sublimely illustrated tiger onesie, wears her mum’s diamonds and has not aged one bit. This brilliant classic beats any throughout by Kate Grove. Not As We Know It is a just because she can, and has dolphins and new suspenseful dystopian novel hands down. Highly thematically big book, but is appealingly simply written, penguins for friends. Today Coco’s recommended for ages 10 and up, and also available in a making it an easy read that achieves much more than I planning a Yay Day of fun on her secret beautiful hardback edition with gorgeous illustrations by think it set out to. island home in the middle of Sydney Aldo Galli (Oneworld, 9781780746623). Harbour. But wait, what’s that Secret Isobel Moore is from Readings St Kilda Signal? Oh no, Narianna (known as N) is Katherine Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn 16 READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2015

THE TRUTH AMSTERDAM INSIDE MAD THESE ARE THE ABOUT THE Russell Shorto MAD Magazine NAMES HARRY QUEBERT PB. Was $32.99 HB. Was $45 John S. Levi AFFAIR Now $10 Now $15.95 HB. Was $99.99 Now $19.95 Joël Dicker Amsterdam is not just any It has long been assumed city. It has stood alongside that anyone who wasted Between 1788 and 1850, HB. Was $39.99 its larger cousins – Paris, their formative years more than 1500 Jewish men and women Now $17.95 London, Berlin – and has influenced the reading MAD would wind up a complete came to Australia either as convicts or as In the summer of 1975 modern world to a degree that few other failure. But it turns out some readers actually free settlers. This important biographical Harry Quebert fell in love with fifteen-year- cities have. Sweeping across the city’s went on to be successful! For the first time dictionary presents the details of these old Nola Kellergan. Thirty-three years later, colourful thousand-year history, Russell ever, some of these successful readers pioneers. Rabbi John Levi’s painstaking her body is dug up from his yard along with Shorto’s masterful biography looks at (including Roseanne Barr, Dane Cook, Paul research through the fragmentary and a manuscript copy of his career-defining Amsterdam’s central preoccupations as the Feig, Whoopi Goldberg and more) share often contradictory colonial records has novel. Quebert is the only suspect. Marcus wellspring of liberalism. what MAD meant to them. culminated in an invaluable reference work Goldman – Quebert’s most gifted protégé and resource. – throws off his writer’s block to save his LIVES SPEECHLESS mentor from the electric chair. But with Peter Robb James Button THE VOGUE Nola, in death as in life, nothing is ever as it PB. Was $32.99 PB. Was $27.95 seems. FACTOR Now $13.95 Now $12 Kirstie Clements A CITY LOST & Peter Robb has an uncanny James Button spent a PB. Was $29.99 FOUND ability to get into the skin of year writing speeches for Now $10 other people. In Australia, Kevin Rudd. Before that, In May 2012 Kirstie Robyn Annear Italy and elsewhere, Robb immerses he reported on politics for Fairfax. But Clements was PB. Was $19.99 the reader in the worlds of real people James also has politics in the blood: his unceremoniously sacked after 13 years as Now $12.00 behind the public image. Featuring much father was the larger-than-life senator John editor at Vogue Australia. Here she tells The demolition firm previously unpublished material, this is Button. Speechless is James’ highly personal the story behind the headlines, and takes Whelan the Wrecker was a fascinating exploration of some notable account of a year working in Canberra, seen us behind the scenes of a fast-changing a Melbourne institution for 100 years. Its lives – in all their variety, glamour and from both the inside and the outside, and a industry. From her humble beginnings to famous sign – ‘Whelan the Wrecker is Here’ idiosyncrasy. reflection on how far the Labor Party has her brilliant career as a passionate and – was a laconic masterpiece and served as a moved from the idealism and pragmatism of fierce custodian of the famous brand, vital sign of the city’s progress. Over three NIGHT GAMES his father’s generation. Clements invites us into a universe that generations, the Whelan family changed the Anna Krien brims with dazzling celebrities, fabulous face of Melbourne, demolishing hundreds PB. Was $19.99 THE AMERICAN lunches, exotic locales and, of course, of buildings in the central city alone. Robyn Now $12 FUTURE outrageous fashion. Annear brings to light fantastic stories about Anna Krien follows the Simon Schama Melbourne’s building sites. rape trial of an Australian HB. Was $65 WHY THE Rules footballer, taking Now $15.95 GERMANS? CHRISTIAN a balanced and fearless look at the dark The 2008 presidential WHY THE JEWS? ART side of footy culture. Both a courtroom election marked a moment Götz Aly Rowena Loverance drama and a riveting work of of truth about America’s identity PB. Was $39.99 HB. Was $79.95 narrative journalism, Night as a nation and its place in Now $12 Now $19.95 Games was shortlisted the world. Written in the Why did the Holocaust Palm mats and pilgrim for the Walkley Book leadup to the campaign, happen in Germany, of all places? How tokens, manuscript Award 2013 and the The American Future: did a country known for its culture and illuminations and church frescoes, Russian Adelaide Festival A History takes the refinement turn so rabidly anti-Semitic? icons and Mexican murals. What makes Award for Non- long view of how German historian Gotz Aly documents these works of art Christian? And what Fiction 2014, and won the United States how German anti-Semitism was rooted in distinguishes them from other works? the 2014 William Hill Bargain came to find itself in a more basic emotion: material envy. Aly’s These are the questions at the centre of this Sports Book of the multiple crises and account of this fatal social dynamic opens up sumptuously illustrated study of Christian Year Award in the UK. how an America that a new vantage point on the greatest crime in art over time and across the globe. Table began as ‘the last, best history and is sure to prompt heated debate. hope of Earth’ came to be so GREAT MOVIES suspected and vilified around ANIMALS Marcia Pointon VAN much of the world. Keith Laidler HB. Was $36 DIEMEN’S LAND HB. Was $99.95 Now $13.95 James Boyce LETTY FOX: Now $29.95 With over 600 original PB. Was $29.95 HER LUCK Embark on an incredible images from the Kobal Now $13 Christina Stead journey through the Collection, one of the world’s finest Almost half of the convicts who came to PB. Was $24.99 complexity and majesty archives of motion-picture stills, Great Australia came to Van Diemen’s Land. Now $12 of the animal kingdom. Animals showcases Movies: 100 Years of Cinema examines There they found a land of bounty and a Letty Fox: Her Luck, Christina some of the most astonishing wonders 100 of the greatest films ever. It takes an penal society, a kangaroo economy and a Stead’s sixth novel, was first of the natural world in spectacular in-depth look at ten genres – thrillers, new way of life. James Boyce shows how published in New York in 1946, and banned in detail. Organised according to scientific romance, musicals, comedies, historical, the convicts were changed by the natural Australia for its salaciousness. Set in wartime classification, each chapter focuses on a action, war, family, fantasy and drama – and world they encountered – behind the Manhattan and told in Letty’s own spiky different family of animals, starting with includes special features on sub-genres official attempt to create a Little England and exuberant voice, the novel follows her an introductory essay alongside over 350 such as film noir. was a story of adaptation, in which the poor, the exiled and the criminal made a successes and failures in the game of ‘being amazing images taken by the world’s best new home in a strange land. somebody’. Letty’s tireless pursuit of love and wildlife photographers. THE AGE OF sex provides the setting for Stead’s brilliant EMPIRES LIFE: THE satire of marriage, desire and the conventions WILL YOU Robert Aldrich (ed.) BEATLES that surround them. PLEASE BE HB. Was $60 FROM THE QUIET, PLEASE? Now $29.95 THE ANDY Raymond Carver In the modern period INSIDE GOLDSWORTHY PB. Was $14.99 of Western history, Robert Whitaker & PROJECT Now $8.95 empires in one form or another have LIFE Magazine Various First published in 1976, been a constant feature of the political HB. Was $45 HB. Was $70.00 Raymond Carver’s first collection breathed landscape. From the disappearance of the Now $15.95 Now $19.95 new life into the short story. In the pared- Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires, When Beatlemania exploded, young In 2003 British sculptor Andy Goldsworthy down style that has since become his to Germany and Italy’s short-lived overseas Australian photographer Robert Whitaker was invited to create a work of art for the hallmark, Carver showed how humour dreams and the US and Soviet Union’s was along for the wild ride, hired by the National Gallery of Art, Washington. and tragedy dwell in the hearts of ordinary unofficial imperialistic activity, this is the Beatles manager Brian Epstein and soon to become their friend. After years of The book traces the development of people, and won a readership that grew story of thirteen modern empires, told with collaborating with LIFE magazine, here are Goldsworthy’s project from conception with every subsequent brilliant collection of rich illustrations drawn from a wide range to completion and features the only fully his best photographs and reminiscences. stories, poems and essays that appeared in of vivid, authentic sources. illustrated catalogue documenting his the last eleven years of his life. commissioned installations – over 120 works. READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2015 17

New Film & TV DOWNTON ABBEY: THE THEORY OF SEASON 5 EVERYTHING with Lou Fulco $44.95 Available 11 June. $39.95 DVD of the Month ‘Downton is rebooted slightly, ‘A compassionate and inspiring with a lot more story, and the look at an extraordinary life, theme of noblesse oblige would anchored by two of the best ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK drive you batty, if it weren’t all so performances of the year.’ SEASON 2 campy.’ – Globe and Mail – Empire $39.95 Set in a fictional American women’s minimum security BABYLON: SEASON 1 FOXCATCHER prison (Litchfield), the arrival of Orange is the New Black $39.95 $39.95 garnered a lot of well-deserved praise for its portrayal of women ‘The tone is fresh and ‘Steve Carell offers a tour de so rarely seen in TV or film. When asked what they thought of rigorously untraditional … force of slow-burning menace. season one, Readings staff pointed to the amazing cast, made-up tackling serious issues of Foxcatcher, one of the year’s almost entirely of women – women of varying ages, ethnicities, hazing, internal politics, PTSD very best films, exposes the sexualities and social classes – and to stories of experiences and infidelity in a strangely diseased underbelly of otherwise given very little attention. riveting brew. This is a series worth American exceptionalism.’ – Rolling Stone Our introduction to the world of Litchfield minimum-security prison was with white, tracking down and watching.’ – Hollywood middle-class, fish-out-of-water Piper. In reviews of season one, Piper was described as Reporter an audience surrogate, but show creator Jenji Kohan more tellingly described Piper as a Documentary Trojan horse. In season one Piper’s disorientation was our disorientation, but in season POLDARK two we see immediately the extent to which Litchfield has become a familiar world – for $39.95 COBAIN: MONTAGE OF Piper and for us. ‘There are rare occasions HECK The first episode sets the season’s tone, undercutting the expected narrative as Piper when a popular drama series $29.95 is isolated and sent away from what has become the relative safety of Litchfield. It is a breaks free of its clichés and ‘[Cobain’s] story is undoubtedly wonderfully unsettling start, which establishes for the audience how comfortable we delivers something that a tragedy and [Brett] Morgen have become in the prison we think we know. Capitalising on that familiarity, season properly belongs to art … paints it like it was, in a stylish two widens its scope and moves its focus to characters we were only just starting to Aidan Turner [earns] every ounce of juxtaposition of traditional know in season one, to others who had barely registered at all and, most unnervingly, to praise that has been heaped upon him.’ biography and adventurous, characters we thought were familiar, making us realise how little we know them. – Telegraph (UK) If season one was Piper’s descent into darkness, season two is our arrival in this raw filmmaking.’ – The Australian new world. A world in which the protagonist remains important but in which there are FORTITUDE: SERIES 1 so many important protagonists. As Piper and fellow inmate Nicholls take stock near Available 10 June. $39.95 the beginning of the season they spell out the overarching mandate of this series: Piper Also coming soon ‘The wintry new psychological comments, ‘I spent a lot of time wondering if it would matter if I died.’ Nicholls replies, thriller about murder, the ‘In the macro sense, no. You’re one cheerio in the bulk box of life. But you f**king tickle WOLF HALL (17 June) Arctic, and environmental me so I think it would matter.’ WILD (17 June) collapse [is] one of this season’s THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ELEANOR Marie Matteson is from Readings Carlton most visually interesting new RIGBY (17 June) shows, a scientific twist on Cronenbergian THE NEWSROOM: SEASON 3 (17 June) body horror.’ – New Republic SELMA (18 June) TV PAPER PLANES (24 June) MISS FISHER’S MURDER Film ROALD DAHL’S ESIO TROT (24 June) THE GAME: THE MYSTERIES: SERIES 3, RAY DONOVAN: SEASON 2 (24 June) BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (24 June) COMPLETE MINISERIES VOLUME 1 BIRDMAN CITIZEN FOUR (24 June) $29.95 $29.95 Available 11 June. $39.95 MAKING AUSTRALIA GREAT (24 June) ‘Today’s high-tech espionage ‘Season 3 offers a new and ‘Michael Keaton is astounding A MOST VIOLENT YEAR (25 June) thrillers have their appeal, but unique world in each episode ... in this brilliantly conjured there’s still great pleasure to be Fisher’s estranged father piece of stream-of- mined from good old- returns from overseas to create consciousness cinema by fashioned spycraft … in this trouble, and Dot takes on a Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu … throwback miniseries set in the early Watson-like role to Miss Prepare to be enthralled, dazzled, 1970s.’ – The AV Club Fisher’s Holmes.’ – news.com.au delighted and disturbed.’ – 3AW

PARTISAN THE EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD Starring Vincent Cassel (Black Swan) and premiering at this year’s Michael Winterbottom, celebrated director of The Trip, joins forces Oscar-nominated Director Thomas Vinterberg (The Hunt) teams up Sundance Film Festival, Ariel Kleiman's ambitious Australian with actor, comedian and provocateur Russell Brand for the most with Carey Mulligan (An Education), Matthias Schoenaerts (Rust production is a chilling depiction of a childhood lived under the unlikely of documentary approaches: an uproarious critique of the and Bone) and Michael Sheen (The Queen) in this stunning auspices of an overwhelming and dangerous personality in world financial crisis. adaptation of author Thomas Hardy’s 1874 literary classic. cult-like conditions. “Made with the same crusading zeal and humour as Michael Moore’s ★★★★ “Extremely well done and well-acted, it’s an attractive, “A beautifully crafted yet equally disturbing thriller” FilmInk best docs…Brand puts across a familiar message in a very lucid and appealing, involving adaptation” Empire entertaining fashion.” The Independent Opens May 28 (CTC) Opens June 25 (M) Opens June 11 (CTC)

380 Lygon Street Carlton Melbourne’s home of quality arthouse and contemporary cinema cinemanova.com.au 18 READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2015

New Music Jazz Country

Album of the Month DEE DEE’S FEATHERS SUNDOWN OVER GHOST Dee Dee Bridgewater, TOWN THE TRAVELING KIND Irvin Mayfield & the Eilen Jewell Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell New Orleans Jazz $26.95 $21.95 Orchestra Sundown Over Ghost These long-time friends and musical cohorts have waited three $19.95 Town was recorded in years to follow their long-promised and award-winning duet Recorded in a reconverted historical her hometown of Boise, project Old Yellow Moon. The Traveling Kind is another beautifully church badly damaged by Hurricane Idaho. The album is composed of twelve produced (Joe Henry) collection of country, folk and rock with blues, jazz and Cajun hues Katrina, Dee Dee’s Feathers is a journey stunning, original compositions that feature and would comfortably sit in what today would be labelled Americana. Opening with the through the history of New Orleans as some of her most personal stories yet, haunting title track, the two singers pay tribute to songs and poets of the past amid told through song, a modern exploration blending influences of surf-noir, early blues, gorgeous harmonies and evocative mandolin. Most of the songs are co-written with of the music and culture that makes New rockabilly, and 1960s-era rock and roll. Crowell, some with Harris, and all display great humour and wit in examining the joys and Orleans a city and place unlike any other. sorrows of relationships from an older but wiser perspective. MONTEREY In one way or another Harris and Crowell were there when country music crossed TEN SAILS The Milk Carton Kids over and found a rock audience in a big way in the 1970s with the Hot Band and its array Luke Howard & $21.95 of guitarists such as James Burton and Albert Lee. Crowell met Harris when she began Nadje Noordhuis With their third album covering his songs and the pair hit it off so well that he was taken on as rhythm guitarist $19.95 Monterey, The Milk and back-up singer. Crowell had been part of the thriving but not mainstream Austin This first collaboration Carton Kids have evolved music scene that was fermenting the cosmic-cowboy and outlaw-country songwriters, between Australian their signature sound. including Townes Van Zandt, Steve Earle, Guy Clarke and Jerry Jeff Walker to name just a pianist and composer Luke Howard Written on the road, the singers’ acclaimed few. Harris was also becoming a sought-after session singer for the likes of Neil Young and and Brooklyn-based trumpeter Nadje harmonies move farther apart so that Linda Ronstadt. After a few years their careers moved in different directions, but the pair Noordhuis comprises ten exquisite the quirks and kinks of two individual always swore to work together again and The Traveling Kind is a testament to two mature minatures written by both peripatetic identities emerge, the harmonies all the artists who love making music together and made good on that promise. composers. Noordhuis melds classical while remaining lush and soaring. Track three, ‘Bring it on Home to Memphis,’ is a tough, rocking paean to Lucinda rigor, jazz expression and world-music Williams that features some smoking electric and slide guitar. A few tracks later they cover accents into a sound that is distinctively Lucinda’s breakthrough tune ‘I Just Wanted to See You So Bad’. If it’s the more traditional her own. Folk & World sounds of fiddle, mandolin and pedal-steel guitar that you like, there’s plenty of that too in the soulful ‘You Can’t Say We Didn’t Try’. The album ends with a romp in English and THE BAD PLUS JOSHUA French, ‘Le Danse De La Joie’. The Traveling Kind more than delivers on the fine work REDMAN POWER IN THE BLOOD begun on Old Yellow Moon. Buffy Sainte-Marie $21.95 Paul Barr is from Readings Carlton $24.95 In 2011, The Bad Plus Buffy Sainte-Marie invited saxophonist has been an untiring with a completely fresh approach. Dollops Joshua Redman to join champion for Native Pop & Rock of lush R&B are laced with cruisy electro them for a week of American people and the environment, flavours and some dark glitchy bedroom performances at the Blue Note in New through her music, art and political action. production touches to create a stylish take York City. Their collaboration, recorded MARLON WILLIAMS Power in the Blood, her first new album in on modern soul. late last year, includes seven new tracks six years, includes odes to the sanctity of $21.95 and two new arrangements of Bad Plus life, the splendour of Mother Nature, and Rising alt-country star HOW BIG, HOW BLUE, favourites. scathing political and social commentary. Marlon Williams releases HOW BEAUTIFUL his eponymous debut CURRENCY OF MAN Florence & the THE LONGEST RIVER album. Recorded in Melody Gardot Lyttelton, NZ with his Machine Olivia Chaney $22.95 $21.95 longtime producer Ben Edwards, the album $21.95 How Big, How Blue, How The highly-anticipated showcases why Williams has been called London-based folk Beautiful is the highly Currency of Man is ‘the impossible love child of Elvis, Roy singer, songwriter, and anticipated third album an intensely creative Orbison and Townes Van Zandt’. multi-instrumentalist from Britain’s Florence & the Machine. milestone, transcending Olivia Chaney makes her Live-sounding, tune-rich, and unhinged musical distinctions of jazz, blues and IN COLOUR album debut with The Longest River. Known in all the right places, How Big, How Blue, R&B, to offer a stirring social and musical Jamie xx for her acclaimed live performances and How Beautiful is powerful in all the best statement. Melody Gardot takes her gift $21.95 collaborations, Chaney balances her original ways. In voice and outlook, Florence has for songwriting in a completely different compositions with a selection of newly Jamie xx is a founding never sounded better. direction. member and producer arranged covers that illustrate the broad of The xx, and creator EVERYTHING SINGS MOOROOLBARK sweep of her taste. of electronic and club orientated music. TONIGHT Barney McAll In Colour – a bold, celebratory, emotional Available 5 June. $21.95 record featuring collaborations with Lucie Thorne Coming Soon Barney McAll’s new his The xx bandmates as well as Young $24.95 album is a sonic Thug, Popcaan and Four Tet – delivers his An exquisite collaboration reflection upon the BEFORE THIS WORLD definitive artistic statement. between Melbourne singer- songwriter Thorne and distance in miles and in James Taylor HAIRLESS TOYS long-time musical partner music he has travelled. The composer– Available 12 June. $24.95 pianist’s works exhibit diverse colours On the iconic singer- Róisín Murphy Hamish Stuart. In the midst of a European tour late last year, Lucie and Hamish spent and influences, ranging from gospel to songwriter’s first album $21.95 two days in Berlin, recording an album which Afro Caribbean styles, anchored by a since 2002, Taylor Hairless Toys is the third marks a bold and musically adventurous new distinctive compositional approach that continues to explore album by former Moloko direction for the pair. is all McAll’s own. many of the themes that have absorbed him frontwoman Róisín throughout his recording career. Produced Murphy, featuring 51 SOL INVICTUS CREATION by Taylor and Dave O’Donnell, it features ten minutes of extended jams, fusing electronic, Keith Jarrett songs, nine of which are brand new Taylor trip-hop and jazz-influenced sounds resulting Faith No More $29.95 compositions. in a welcome return for the former ‘The Time $21.95 Is Now’ and ‘Sing It Back’ hit-maker. The unparalleled Faith Creation features music THE OTHER SIDE OF No More return with selected by Keith Jarrett DESIRE TALK their their first release from his improvised solo concerts recorded in 2014 in Tokyo, Rickie Lee Jones Daniel Johns in 18 years. Produced by founding member and bassist, Billy Gould, and Toronto, Paris and Rome. Jarrett zeroes Available 19 June. $24.95 $21.95 including the reinvigorated band’s classic line- in on the most revelatory moments from Written and produced in her After putting his band up, Sol Invictus features ten brand new songs, six different concerts, giving us the home town, New Orleans, Silverchair on ‘indefinite including the new single ‘Superhero’. most up-to-the minute account of his Rickie Lee Jones’ first album hiatus’, Daniel Johns spontaneously created music. of all new material in almost a decade evokes steps out on his own the backdrop of The Big Easy. READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2015 19

New Classical Music SCHUBERT: CHAMBER ‘Søndergård’s Sibelius Two is breathtaking WORKS in its speedy pacing, lightness of foot, and command of the internal fluctuations of Tasmin Little & Piers Classical Album of the Month pace, mood and momentum ... The playing Lane of BBC N.O.W., in line with its conductor’s Chandos. CHAN10850. 2CDs. evident vision, is astonishing in its GUERRE & PAIX: 1614–1714 $29.95 sophistication ...’ – The Herald (Glasgow) Jordi Savall The electrifying Alia Vox. AVSA9908. $49.95 partnership of Tasmin Little and Piers ENGLISH HYMN Jordi Savall’s latest offering, Guerre & Paix: 1614–1714, recalls the Lane returns in this unique double-album bloody events of the century preceding the Siege of Barcelona. This featuring the complete works by Schubert ANTHEMS is an impressive compilation: comprising two CDs and an almost 400- for violin and piano. The Choir of Kings page booklet, each piece of music represents an historical event, from the Thirty Years’ College, Cambridge & War to a celebration of the end of the War of Spanish Succession. In presenting music of VOYAGE Stephen Cleobury battle Savall urges us to ‘acquire new ways of relating to each other if we are to reconcile Lavinia Meijer King’s College. KGS0004. $29.95 differences in a world that is fertile in action, word and thought’. The theme is a timely Sony Classical. one for Australians: 2015 marks the 100th anniversary of ANZAC landings at Gallipoli, 88875046402. English Hymn Anthems, the first release which serves as a solemn reminder of the atrocities of war. $21.95 of 2015 from the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, continues the choir’s active As his many recordings attest, Savall is a fine gambist, although there are few With her new album Voyage, commitment to expanding the popular opportunities to experience the beauty of his solo instrument on Guerre & Paix. Instead, he Lavinia Meyer continues to explore new understanding of choral repertoire through shines as an assured director, which is no small feat considering the array of styles covered repertoire for the harp and juxtaposes well- original research and recording. over the two CDs, from a traditional Ottoman ‘makam’ to Handel’s Jubilate Deo. known and contemporary composers, such Perhaps the most poignant moment is the ‘Hymne de la Catalogne’ (also known as Els as Debussy, Ravel, Satie and Yann Tiersen. Segadors, the Catalonian anthem), performed by La Capella Reial de Catalunya, whose HYPERION CLASSICAL unison singing is particularly stirring. Traditional Catalan music elicits great passion from COMPLETE CONCERTO MUSIC SALE the group, as demonstrated in ‘El Cant des Aucells’. Here, in this brief moment of musical RECORDINGS ON Readings Carlton, Hawthorn and Malvern peace to mark the 1705 military alliance between England and Catalonia, the women sing DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON will be offering selected titles from the with palpable tenderness and warmth. prestigious Hyperion Records catalogue Maria João Pires Ultimately, percussionist Pedro Estevan remains the standout. What is a battle at up to 40% off from 10–30 June (or DG. 4794370. 5CDs. $44.95 march without the thunderous roll of the drums? His playing provides a sense of both while stocks last), featuring recordings nationalistic fervour and solemnity, as the moment requires. Immaculately presented and Pires has developed a from Angela Hewitt, Marc-André performed, Guerre & Paix is a triumph for Savall. musical voice focused on Hamelin, Leslie Howard, Ian Bostridge, Alexandra Mathew is from Readings Carlton the essence of a work’s communicative Stephen Hough and groups such as qualities, powered by love, intuition and an Gothic Voices, St. Petersburg String unworldliness that allows every note to feel Quartet, The Cardinall’s Musick and emotionally genuine. The King’s Consort. With approximately VIGNETTES RAVEL: DAPHNIS ET 400 titles in the sale this is the perfect Emma Sholl & Jane Rosenson CHLOE SIBELIUS: SYMPHONIES time to complete your classical music 0889211409983. $24.95 Philippe Jordan NO. 2 & 7 library. Please note that limited stock is A comment you Erato. 2564616684. $19.95 Thomas Søndergård & available and when we run out of stock of often hear when Ravel’s Daphnis et BBC National Orchestra a particular title it cannot be reordered at talking about Australian Chloe is not only his of Wales the discounted price. classical music is: ‘Oh longest work but one of his Linn. CKD462. $29.95 yes, but in Europe they most popular (in its Suite do it so much better.’ form). Often recorded and From personal experience, however, I frequently performed even believe that is not true. Vignettes is proof in Melbourne, most classical music that Australian musicians and composers enthusiasts are familiar with the are capable of creating engaging and Impressionistic work. I have over seven appealing recordings. This album has different recordings in my collection alone, something for everyone, beautiful however there is so much room for classical music, jazz-infused chamber interpretation both by the conductor and the and contemporary repertoire from individual musicians that I love hearing new Australian composers. versions. This recording with the Orchestre de The album consists of works for l’Opera National de Paris started with what felt flute and harp, with a bit of bass and like a single breath of air and expanded into percussion to give occasional flavour. one of the most beautiful versions of this Emma Sholl is currently working as seminal work that I have ever heard. Associate Principal Flute with the Sydney The orchestra, under the baton of Symphony Orchestra and doubling her Philippe Jordan, originally started rehearsals workload as Lecturer in Flute at the for Daphnis as a season of the complete Sydney Conservatorium of Music and yet ballet at the Paris Opera Bastille, with the she can still produce this amazing music Benjamin Millepied, of Black Swan fame, as of the highest quality. Her counterpart choreographer. However, this recording was is Jane Rosenson, who is glorious in made after the season was finished and it’s her musicianship and precise in her obvious that each and every musician knows technique. Kees Boersma and Daryl their exact place, which only comes from Pratt complete the ensemble on bass and repeated performances. They have buffed percussion respectively. out any musical indecision and present the Vignettes is a delightful recording most wholehearted performance. It doesn’t with interesting contemporary music sound like an orchestra of 70 odd people, it that is also beautiful and is worthy of sounds like one natural organism living and repeated listens. breathing Daphnis et Chloe. Kate Rockstrom is a friend of Readings Kate Rockstrom is a friend of Readings

MOZART: VIOLIN MOZART: PIANO CONCERTO NO. 5; SONATAS VIEUXTEMPS: VIOLIN Marc-André Hamelin CONCERTO NO. 4 Hyperion. CDA68029. 2CDs. Hilary Hahn & Paavo $29.95 Jarvi Eight of Mozart’s divinely DG. 4793956. $24.95 inspired Piano Sonatas here receive ‘(Hahn’s) Mozart is elegant, performances of mercurial inspiration from stylish and played throughout with consummate-musician cum virtuoso-wizard beautiful tone ... The Vieuxtemps, though, is Marc-André Hamelin. This new Mozart will remarkable.’ – Gramophone not disappoint. MELBOURNE THEATRE COMPANY AND KAY + McLEAN PRODUCTIONS PRESENT THE INTERNATIONAL STAGE PREMIERE OF HITCHCOCK’S CLASSIC THRILLER!

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CAST NICHOLAS BELL, IAN BLISS, JUSTIN STEWART COTTA, MATT DAY, SHERIDAN HARBRIDGE, MATT HETHERINGTON, JOHN LEARY, TONY LLEWELLYN-JONES, AMBER McMAHON, DEIDRE RUBENSTEIN, LUCAS STIBBARD, LACHLAN WOODS DIRECTOR & SET DESIGNER SIMON PHILLIPS SET & LIGHTING DESIGNER NICK SCHLIEPER COSTUME DESIGNER ESTHER MARIE HAYES COMPOSER & SOUND DESIGNER IAN McDONALD ASSISTANT DIRECTOR JOHN KACHOYAN VOICE & DIALECT COACH LEITH MCPHERSON AV DESIGNER JOSH BURNS BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT WITH WARNER BROS. THEATRE VENTURES