250 AA Oct 10.Indd

Issue #250 October 2010 Atlas of Out of the Black Land Remote Islands Kerry GREENWOOD Pb $29.95 Fifty Islands I Have Not Visited and Never Will 18th Dynasty Egypt is peaceful and prosperous under the dual Judith SCHALANSKY rule of the Pharaohs Amenhotep III C 144pp Hb $45.00 and IV, until the younger Pharaoh Tom McCarthy Schalansky was born in 1980 begins to dream new and terrifying on the wrong side of the Berlin dreams. Ptah-hotep, a young peasantnt boyboy studyingstudying Hb $39.95 Wall. The Soviets wouldn’t let anyone travel so to be a scribe, wants to live a simple life in a Nile everything she learnt about the world came from hut with his lover Kheperren. But Amenhotep IV her parents’ battered old atlas. An acclaimed appoints him as Great Royal Scribe. Surrounded Parrot and Olivierr novelist and award-winning graphic designer, by bitterly envious rivals and enemies, how long will she has spent years creating this, her own Ptah-hotep survive? The child-princess Mutnodjme in America imaginative atlas of the world’s loneliest places. sees her beautiful sister Nefertiti married off to the Peter Carey She lures us across all the oceans of the world to impotent young Amenhotep. But Nefertiti must bear Tp $32.95 50 remote islands - from St Kilda to Easter Island royal children, so the ladies of the court devise a and from Tristan da Cunha to Disappointment shocking plan. Kheperren, meanwhile, serves as Island - and proves that some of the most scribe to the daring teenage General Horemheb. memorable journeys can be taken by armchair But while the Pharaoh’s shrinking army guards the The Finkler travellers. On one page are perfect maps, on the Land of the Nile from enemies on every border, other unfold bizarre stories from the history of the a far greater menace impends. For, not content Question islands themselves. Rare animals and strange with his own devotion to one god alone, the newly- Howard Jacobsonn people abound: from marooned slaves to lonely renamed Akhnaten plans to suppress the worship Tp $32.99 scientists, lost explorers to confused lighthouse of all other gods. His horrifi ed court soon realise keepers, mutinous sailors to forgotten castaways. that the Pharaoh is not merely deformed, but Recently awarded the prize of Germany’s most irretrievably mad - and that the biggest danger to beautiful book, Die Ziet magazine describes: the Empire is in the royal palace itself. “Tenderly tracing one fi nger over the maps, we The Long Song lose ourselves in the beauty of fi ligree lines, Obama’s Wars Andrea Levy points and letters. We smell the sea, hear the Bob WOODWARD surf breaking, see icebergs and rocks, and under 464pp Hb $39.99 Tp $32.99 our feet feel fi ne sand. Anyone who opens this is Working behind the scenes for 18 likely to get as lost as Robinson Crusoe.” months, Woodward has written In a The Briefest the most intimate and sweeping portrait of Obama making Strange Room Punctuation Guide the critical decisions on the Damon Galgut Ever! Afghanistan War, the secret war in Pb $29.99 Ruth COLMAN Pakistan and the worldwide fi ght againstitt terrorism. i 88pp Pb $16.95 Drawing on internal memos, classifi ed documents, Not sure when you should start meeting notes and hundreds of hours of interviews a new sentence? Or whether with the key players, including Obama himself, this a comma should go before or is an original, fl y-on-the-wall account of Obama and Room after a word? Or if you should use an apostrophe his team in this time of turmoil and uncertainty. Emma Donoghue or not? Colman strips out all the jargon to make Tp $32.99 understanding punctuation easy. This concise and The Axe and the Oath practical guide sheds light on the most common Ordinary Life in questions: When do I end a sentence? Where the Middle Ages should I put commas? Should I capitalise that or Robert FOSSIER not? How do I make something a possessive? 400pp Hb $57.00 How do I treat quotes and lists? When should I What did men and women eat, use a hyphen? It’s not that hard, really. Just a few drink and wear in the Middle Ages? simple rules, presented in a simple way and you’ll How did they work, fi ght, pray be writing perfect sentences that say what you and laugh? This book reduces medievalieval life to its want to say, and what you mean to say. This little most elemental functions. It encompasses not only book started life as a self-published, spiral-bound material and social conditions, thought and belief, book which our customers would buy in lots of but the natural environment as well. Viewed in their Labour Day Mon 4 Oct fi ve for friends. Now it’s at the top of every text bare fl esh, humans living in the Middle Ages appear and reference list. not much different from us. Open 10am - 5pm www.abbeys.com.au 1 Ph (02) 9264 3111 Fax (02) 9264 8993 Ape House By Nightfall FICTION Sara GRUEN Michael CUNNINGHAM A Dead Hand 352pp Tp $32.99 256pp PbS $27.99 A Crime in Calcutta An absorbing, heart-warming The whole course of one’s life really and ultimately uplifting story of can change in an instant. Peter Paul THEROUX how six bonobo apes change is 44, prosperous, childless, the 272pp Pb $24.95 the lives of three humans, from owner of a big New York apartment, Theroux’s new book, set in present the author of the international a player in the contemporary art day Calcutta, is a compelling story bestseller, Water for Elephants dealing scene. He has been married to Rebecca of obsession and depravity. His (Pb $23.95). Sam, Bonzi, Lola, Mbongo,bJlid Jelani and for close on 20 years. Their marriage is sound, in descriptions of the crumbling, Makena are no ordinary apes. These bonobos, the way marriages are. Peter might even describe hot city, its traffi c-choked streets, andnd pavements like others of their species, are capable of reason himself to be happy. But when Mizzy, Rebecca’s teeming with a struggling populace are vivid and and carrying on deep relationships - but, unlike much younger brother, comes to stay, Peter’s world give the story its atmosphere and menace. Jerry, most bonobos, they also know American Sign is turned upside down. Returning to their fl at after a travel writer, has dead hand, or writer’s block, Language. Isabel Duncan, a scientist at the Great work one day, he sees the outline of Rebecca in and is killing time in the city when he receives Ape Language Lab, doesn’t understand people, the shower. But when he opens the shower door, a letter from a wealthy American woman who is but animals she gets, especially the bonobos. She it is Mizzy he comes face to face with. From that running a children’s hostel, funded by her own feels more comfortable in their world than she has moment on, it is Mizzy who occupies all of Peter’s money, to save some of the ragged children who ever felt among humans - until she meets John thoughts. His fascination with him is erotic but not roam, neglected and hungry, throughout Calcutta’s Thigpen, a very married reporter who braves the exactly sexual. Without ever really falling out of myriad streets. She is beautiful and regal, and ever-present animal rights protesters outside the love with his wife, he tumbles into love with her Jerry is soon under her spell. He is beguiled by her lab to see what’s really going on inside. When an brother. selfl ess generosity, fascinated by her control and explosion tears apart the lab, severely injuring standing in Calcutta and, when she requests that Isabel and ‘liberating’ the apes to an unknown The Anthologist he investigate the mysterious dumping of a body in destination, John’s human interest piece turns into Nicholson BAKER a hotel room where her son’s friend is staying, he the story of a lifetime, one he’ll risk his career and 308pp Pb $22.99 is eager to help. He lives for her company, the very his marriage to follow. This story is narrated by Paul sight of her is an erotic experience and he longs to Chowder, a poet of some little please her. As the story unfolds, a mounting sense I Came to renown who is sitting in his of dread emerges and the conclusion is inevitable Say Goodbye barn most of the time trying to and heartbreaking. Immensely readable and Caroline OVERINGTON write the introduction to a new thought-provoking. Peter Tp $32.95 anthology of poetry called Only A Pure Clear Light It was four o’clock in the morning. Rhyme. He’s having a hard time gettingtti started t t d Madeline ST JOHN A young woman pushed through because his career is falling apart, his girlfriend 288pp Tp $32.95 the hospital doors. Staff would Roz has recently left him, and he is thinking about later say they thought the woman the poets throughout history who have suffered Simon and Flora Beaufort have far worse and actually deserve to feel sorry for three perfect children and a was a new mother, returning to her child - and in a way, she was. She walked into the nursery, themselves. He has also promised his readers comfortable, happy life in London. that he will reveal many wonderful secrets and When Flora takes the children for where a baby girl lay sleeping.

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