FREE AUGUST 2019

Stone Girl by Eleni Hale wins the 2019 Readings Young Adult Book Prize

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August is for anthologies! Great new collections Growing Up Queer in Australia and Arab, Australian, Other are out this month

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BOOKS MUSIC FILM EVENTS

THE TESKEY BROTHERS page 22 TOP END MEG MUNDELL BRUCE BENJAMIN NINA WEDDING page 7 PASCOE LAW KENWOOD page 21 page 12 page 12 page 16

CARLTON 309 LYGON ST 9347 6633 KIDS 315 LYGON ST 9341 7730 DONCASTER WESTFIELD DONCASTER, 619 DONCASTER RD 9810 0891 HAWTHORN 701 GLENFERRIE RD 9819 1917 MALVERN 185 GLENFERRIE RD 9509 1952 ST KILDA 112 ACLAND ST 9525 3852 STATE LIBRARY VICTORIA 285-321 RUSSELL ST 8664 7540 | SEE SHOP OPENING HOURS, BROWSE AND BUY ONLINE AT READINGS.COM.AU 30 AUG — 8 SEP

New York Times essayist Celebrated Canadian novelist American fiction writer Mexican author and political Sloane Crosley Patrick deWitt Tayari Jones scientist Emiliano Monge

Australian artist and activist Dear Prudence podcast host Marvel comic book writer Television presenter and Ben Quilty Daniel Mallory Ortberg Eve L Ewing author Yumi Stynes

Former Prime Minister of Booker Prize–winning Author, broadcaster, feminist Scottish crime writer New Zealand Helen Clark novelist Richard Flanagan Jane Caro Val McDermid

YA Day A Day of Romance Book Club

WHEN Sun 1 Sep WHEN Sun 8 Sep TICKETS $60 TICKETS From $15 TICKETS $25/$19 FEATURING

FEATURING FEATURING Julian Burnside, Sloane Randa Abdel-Fattah, Clare Connelly, Daniel de Lorne, Crosley, Nazeem Hussain, Becky Albertalli, Michael Earp, Annie Grace, Toni Jordan, Maria Lewis, Judith Lucy, Scott Ludlam, Jenna Guillaume, Amie Kaufman, Maureen Matthews, Jodi McAlister, Brian Nankervis, Daniel Mallory Melina Marchetta, and more. Melanie Milburne, CS Pascat, and more. Ortberg, Sami Shah

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Official Bookseller NEWS August 2019 READINGS MONTHLY 3

your pens, pencils and most creative ideas Pascoe, Andrea Goldsmith, Jane Caro, Subscription, please see: readings.com.au/ and start designing! For full details of the Clementine Ford and many more. You can kids-book-subscription August competition, pick up an entry form at your browse the full program and make bookings local Readings shop. at mwf.com.au. This year, MWF will be held in multiple venues within walking distance Pre-order offer on The Testaments News of Melbourne’s iconic State Library Victoria, We have a special pre-order offer on Sign up to our enews and you can find books from the aritsts Margaret Atwood’s follow-up to The Readings enews subscribers are first to featured at the festival at the Readings State Handmaid’s Tale, The Testaments (out in hear about sale days exclusive to members; Library Victoria shop (open daily). Readings September). Pre-order of the hardback Growing Up Queer in Australia the latest news on book releases; book, is proud to be the official bookseller of edition of The Testaments to receive a To celebrate the release of the essential music and DVD reviews from our expert Melbourne Writers Festival. giveaway copy of Freedom, also by Atwood, new anthology Growing Up Queer in staff; news about events and other special from the Vintage minis range. This special Australia, Readings will donate $2 from offers. New subscribers also go into the offer is available online and in all our shops, every sale of this book in the month of draw to win a $100 Readings voucher. Readings Kids’ Book Subscription and will run until stock of Freedom runs out. August to Minus 18, an organisation that You can sign up at readings.com.au/ Our Kids’ Book Subscription is the perfect champions rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, newsletters-and-e-news gift for the little people in your life – a book transgender, intersex and queer youth in the post every month to share. There Madman DVD Sale Australia-wide. Black Inc., the book’s are two options to choose from: a six Our annual Madman DVD sale is on again publisher, has generously agreed to match The Readings Young Adult Book Prize month subscription ($185) and a ten month throughout August, featuring a wide our final donation, so Minus 18 will receive 2019 Winner subscription ($300). Each book will be range of releases including films such as a total of $4 for each copy of the book sold After a great deal of deliberation from the selected monthly by our expert children’s Gurrumul, Arrietty, The Death of Stalin, and at Readings in August. To find out more judging panel – consisting of Readings staff booksellers, and then posted out by us. We Lost in Paris. With plenty of discounted about the amazing work Minus 18 do, visit and author Cath Crowley – we’re proud to recommend this subscription for children Madman titles, this sale is not to be missed. minus18.org.au announce that Stone Girl by Eleni Hale is aged 0-4 years old. The subscription Visit your local Readings to check out the the winner of this year’s Readings Young is available for purchase exclusively full range. The sale will be available in all Adult Book Prize. Chair of Judges Georgia in the Readings online shop. For more of our seven shops as well as online at Melbourne International Film Festival 2019 Phelan writes that in Stone Girl, Hale information about the Readings Kids’ Book readings.com.au The Melbourne International Film Festival ‘delivers a raw dose of reality to her readers has launched their 2019 program. This year’s with tender yet unflinching prose, and deftly festival runs from 1–18 August, and features navigates the intricate violence of broken films of all genres from both local and systems and the truths lived by Australia’s international filmmakers. Tickets to the full foster youth’. Congratulations to Eleni, who program are on sale now, including single receives $3000 in prize money. We’d like to tickets, passes to special events and galas, extend our congratulations to the other five and mini-passes, which provide admission shortlisted books for offering such strong to any ten standard sessions at the festival. competition. More information about the To find out more, buy passes or become Prize and Stone Girl can be found on page 17. a MIFF member, please visit miff.com.au. Readings is a proud sponsor of MIFF. The Melbourne Writers Festival The Melbourne Writers Festival (MWF) Love Your Bookshop Day connects writers and stories to celebrate a Love Your Bookshop Day is coming up world of literature, explore universal ideas, on Saturday 10 August. This year, we’re and inspire a global community of readers. running a competition for the younger The 2019 Melbourne Writers Festival readers in the lead up to LYBD. The brief: runs from Friday 30 August to Sunday 8 design your dream bookshop. Andy September. Some highlights of this year’s Griffiths and Terry Denton are looking for festival include international visitors Ben inspiration for a suitably fun and imaginative Folds, Tayari Jones, Patrick deWitt, Becky treehouse bookshop to include as one of Albertalli, Daniel Mallory Ortberg and DeRay the levels in their next Treehouse book. Get Mckesson, as well as local authors Bruce

READINGS MONTHLY EDITOR EVENTS & PROGRAMMING PRICES AND AVAILABILITY Free, independent monthly newspaper Elke Power Chris Gordon Please note that all prices and release published by Readings Books, Music & Film [email protected] dates in Readings Monthly are correct at ADVERTISING time of publication, however prices and SUBSCRIBE EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS Ellen Cregan release dates may change without notice. You can subscribe to Readings Monthly Judi Mitchell and Ellen Cregan [email protected] Special price offers apply only for the and our e-news by visiting our website: month in which they are featured in the readings.com.au/sign-up PROOFREADERS GRAPHIC DESIGN Readings Monthly. Judi Mitchell, Ellen Cregan and Marie Cat Matteson DELIVERY CHARGES FOR Matteson Readings donates 10% of its profits each MAIL-ORDER PURCHASES FRONT COVER year to The Readings Foundation: $6 flat rate for anywhere in Australia KIDS/YA CURATORS The August Readings Monthly cover features readings.com.au/the-readings-foundation Angela Crocombe and Dani Solomon the cover image from It Sounded Better in DELIVERY CHARGES FOR My Head by Nina Kenwood. Book cover ONLINE PURCHASES MUSIC CURATOR design by Imogen Stubbs with illustrations $6 flat rate for anywhere in Australia for Dave Clarke by Giulia Rosa. Cover image courtesy of the orders under $100. Free delivery on orders publisher, Text. To find out more about the $100 and over. CLASSICAL MUSIC CURATOR book see our review on page 16. Phil Richards CARTOON DVDS CURATOR Oslo Davis Lou Fulco oslodavis.com

The new novel from the No.1 bestselling author of ‘Explosive’ ‘Haunting’ ‘Poignant’ Booklist, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, The Other Wife and The Secrets She Keeps Starred review Starred review Starred review 4 READINGS MONTHLY August 2019 EVENTS

Bistro, Saint Crispin, Pickett’s Deli & that formed the eight ‘national races’. First, Rotisserie, and Matilda. Join us to celebrate They Erased Our Name is his urgent, moving August the release of his second book. memoir. Join us to hear Habiburahman and Sophie Ansel in conversation about the book Estelle Bistro with Julian Burnside. Events 243 High Street, Northcote Tickets are $125 per person and include a glass Readings Hawthorn of wine, a two-course meal and a signed copy of 701 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn Marriage of Flavours; or $210 per couple, which Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Event times and locations are subject to change. includes a glass of wine each, two two-course For the most up-to-date information on events, meals and one copy of Marriage of Flavours. please check readings.com.au/events Bookings are essential at readings.com.au/events Saturday 17 August, 10.30am Please note, for our free, in-store events, your booking may not always guarantee a seat. KIDS Tuesday 6 August, 6.30pm 40 Friday 9 August, 6.30pm STORY TIME WITH JESS JANE SULLIVAN IN GROWING UP QUEER IN MCGEACHIN Jess McGeachin’s gorgeous picture book RIES CONVERSATION WITH AUSTRALIA EDITED BY STO Fly is a story of determination no matter the AN LI JASON STEGER A BENJAMIN LAW odds, and love in the face of loss. We are R T S 50 Australian In Storytime: Growing Up with Books, author Compiled by celebrated author and delighted that McGeachin will be joining us U A Stories event series and literary critic Jane Sullivan takes us journalist Benjamin Law, Growing Up Queer to read this story. Perfect for kids aged 8 from Wonderland to Narnia, Moomintroll in Australia assembles voices from across and under. to Mr Toad and from Winnie the Pooh to the spectrum of LGBTIQA+ identity. This Readings is celebrating our 50 year the Magic Pudding, to find out why her collection spans diverse places, eras, Readings Kids 315 Lygon Street, Carlton history in 2019. To honour the stories favourite childhood books were so vitally ethnicities and experiences. Join us for the that have emerged from the books on important, and how they shaped the woman launch of the anthology, which features Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events our shelves, we are hosting 50 special she is today. Come along to hear Sullivan contributions from David Marr, Fiona events that illustrate passion, artistry discuss with Jason Steger her emotional Wright, Nayuka Gorrie, Steve Dow, Holly adventure down memory lane, during which Throsby, Sally Rugg, Tony Ayres, Nic Holas, and Australian literature. Monday 19 August, she relives old joys and faces old fears, and Rebecca Shaw and many more. 6.30pm discovers that the books were not what she 42 thought they were, and she was not the Readings Carlton Saturday 3 August, 10.30am–11.30am child she thought she was. 309 Lygon St, Carlton DAVID CROWE ON Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events THE SECRET RIVALRIES KIDS Readings Carlton 309 Lygon St, Carlton IN THE LIBERAL PARTY Join us for a lively discussion as David BEN & BERNARD’S BIG Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Saturday 10 August, all day Crowe gives a cracking account of the DRAWING rivalries that split the Liberal Party, brought Join comic artist and Squishface Studio ROMANCE WRITERS OF down Malcolm Turnbull and propelled Wednesday 7 August, creator Ben Hutchings and Readings’ AUSTRALIA ANNUAL Scott Morrison to power. His book Venom: own Bernard Caleo for an incredible 6.30pm 41 Vendettas, Betrayals and the Price of Power squiggle-drawing journey. In celebration of CONFERENCE is the secret history of the recent and brutal Hutchings’ delightful new graphic novel for DORIS BRETT & From Friday 9 August to Sunday 11 August, power plays to lead the government. kids, Mini Mel and Timid Tom, kids aged 10 over 300 authors will come together for KERRY CUE ON THE Readings Hawthorn and under are invited to join Hutchings and the annual Romance Writers of Australia SUNDAY STORY CLUB 701 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn Caleo for a comic-drawing workshop. conference in Melbourne, and Readings is Doris Brett and Kerry Cue’s book The delighted to be the conference bookseller Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Readings St Kilda Sunday Story Club is an inspiring collection on Saturday 10 August. Supporting 112 Acland Street, St Kilda of real-life stories that have been told among aspiring, emerging and established authors, This workshop is suited to kids aged 10 and under. a group of women when they gathered for a Romance Writers of Australia exists to Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Monday 19 August, 6.30pm deep and structured conversation – once a promote excellence in romantic fiction. month in a suburban living room – about the More information about the conference and things that really matter. Come along to hear RWA can be found at romanceaustralia.com WINTER POETRY READING Brett and Cue discuss their book and the Sunday 4 August, 11am Come along for another wonderful winter importance of sharing stories. The Pullman Melbourne, Albert Park poetry event with Luke Beesley. Innovative 65 Queens Road, Albert Park KIDS Readings Hawthorn poet Jessica Wilkinson will read from her Tickets and bookings at romanceaustralia.com 701 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn just-published third poetic biography, Music Made Visible: A Biography of George THE ULTIMATE ANIMAL Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events COUNTING BOOK WITH Balanchine. She’ll be joined by awarding- Monday 12 August, 6.30pm winning poet Fiona Hile, author of Novelties JENNIFER COSSINS and Subtraction, and Prithvi Varatharajan, Jennifer Cossins is a 2017 Children’s Book Thursday 8 August, 6.30pm whose first book, Entries, will be published Council of Australia Honour Book-winning JENNIFER BRYCE IN in late 2019. Tasmanian artist and writer with a passion MEGAN K. STACK AND CONVERSATION for nature. Come along for this special visit Readings Carlton Come along to hear local author Jennifer from Cossins, at which she’ll talk about her MARY CROOKS ON 309 Lygon St, Carlton Bryce talk about her new book, Lily books, including her latest: The Ultimate WOMEN’S WORK Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Campbell’s Secret. Set in 1913, it’s a story Animal Counting Book. When published author and journalist about teenage pregnancy that confronts Megan K. Stack was pregnant with her Readings Kids issues of patriarchy, creativity, nationalism, first child, she quit her job as a foreign 315 Lygon Street, Carlton and love. Tuesday 20 August, 4.30pm–6.30pm correspondent to instead focus on writing Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events books. Working life with a baby was quite Readings St Kilda different from what she expected, but 112 Acland Street, St Kilda ZINE WORKSHOP WITH living abroad provided her with access to Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events ASHLEY RONNING Tuesday 6 August, affordable domestic labour. When Pooja, Ashley Ronning is a Melbourne-based 6.30pm–9pm 3 their Indian nanny, disappeared one night illustrator, artist and zine maker. She travels 9 with no explanation, Stack was confronted around Australia hosting zine workshops, SPECIAL EVENT Tuesday 13 August, 6.30pm by numerous truths, including that her life attending zine fairs and spreading her zines had become inextricably intertwined with far and wide. Ronning will be joining us for A MARRIAGE OF the women she employed. Come along to JULIAN BURNSIDE IN a zine-making workshop – come along and FLAVOURS FEAST WITH hear Stack in conversation about her book CONVERSATION WITH make your own. SCOTT PICKETT Women’s Work: A Personal Reckoning with HABIBURAHMAN AND Labour, Motherhood, and Privilege, and Readings Hawthorn Join us at Estelle Bistro in Northcote for the issues it raises, with Mary Crooks, the SOPHIE ANSEL 701 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn a glass of wine; tasters from chef Scott director of the Victorian Women’s Trust. Habiburahman was born in 1979 and raised Tickets are $20 per person and include the Pickett’s delightful new cookbook, Marriage in a small village in western Burma. When he workshop, snacks, equipment and a copy of one of Flavours; a two-course meal and a talk Readings Hawthorn was three years old, the country’s military of Ronning’s zines. This workshop is suitable from the chef himself. Pickett’s highly 701 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn leader declared that his people, the Rohingya, for young people aged 12–16. Bookings are acclaimed restaurants include Estelle Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events were not one of the recognised ethnic groups essential at readings.com.au/events EVENTS August 2019 READINGS MONTHLY 5

second novel, Wolfe Island, with fellow syndrome, a rare genetic disorder. Tuesday 20 August, writer Sian Prior. Wolfe Island tells the story Wednesday 14 August, 6.30pm 6.30pm 4 of Kitty Hawke, the last inhabitant of a Book Readings Hawthorn | Free, no booking required. 3 dying island sinking into the wind-lashed Chesapeake Bay. Kitty has resigned herself Poster Boy: A Memoir of Art and Politics UNCLE JACK CHARLES Launches by Peter Drew to annihilation until one night her pregnant IN CONVERSATION Join Peter Drew for the launch of his book, granddaughter rows ashore, desperate and Poster Boy: A Memoir of Art and Politics. Jack Charles has worn many hats begging for sanctuary. throughout his life: actor, cat burglar, Packed full of Drew’s memorable images, Writing Speculative Fiction by Eugen Bacon musician, heroin addict, activist, even Readings State Library Victoria Poster Boy dives into the stew of identity. Join Eugen Bacon for the launch of Writing Senior Victorian Australian of the Year. But 285-321 Russell Street, Melbourne Wednesday 14 August, 6.30pm Speculative Fiction: Creative and Critical the title he’s most proud to claim is that of Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Approaches, her engaging guide for Aboriginal Elder. Come along to hear him creators and consumers of contemporary Sludge: Disaster on Victoria’s Goldfields discuss his heartbreaking and hilarious new speculative fiction. by Susan Lawrence & Peter Davies book, Jack Charles: Born-again Blakfella, Clare Wright will launch Sludge: Disaster Thursday 29 August, Thursday 1 August, 6.30pm a candid and uplifting memoir from one of on Victoria’s Goldfields by Susan Lawrence 6.30pm Readings Hawthorn | Free, no booking required. Australia’s finest and most beloved actors. 45 and Peter Davies. This is the fascinating I Am Change by Suzy Zail story of the forgotten filth that transformed Readings Carlton CHLOE HIGGINS Inspired by and written in consultation with the state’s water and land. 309 Lygon St, Carlton IN CONVERSATION WITH young Ugandan women, Suzy Zail’s YA Thursday 15 August, 6.30pm Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events LEE KOFMAN novel, I Am Change, is a timely and moving Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. story of one girl’s struggle for change. When Chloe Higgins was seventeen years Thursday 1 August, 6.30pm An Impossible Thing Called Love by old, her two younger sisters, Carlie and Belinda Missen & One Summer in Thursday 22 August, 6.30pm Readings St Kilda | Free, no booking required. Lisa, were out with their father when the car Santorini by Sandy Barker he was driving tragically veered off the road. We’ll Stand in That Place and Other Join us for the launch of An Impossible by Belinda Missen, and PETER GOLDSWORTHY Both of Chloe’s sisters were killed. The Girls Stories edited by Margaret River Press Thing Called Love IN CONVERSATION WITH is the story of what happened next, and Join us for the Victorian launch of We’ll the launch of One Summer in Santorini by Stand in That Place and Other Stories, the Sandy Barker. ROBERT GOTT is an unforgettable memoir of family, grief and sexuality. Come along to hear Higgins latest anthology in the annual Margaret Thursday 15 August, 6.30pm | Join us to hear award-winning author in conversation about her debut book with River Short Story Competition series. Readings Hawthorn Free, no booking required. Peter Goldsworthy discuss his new book, author Lee Kofman. Thursday 1 August, 6.30pm Nature, Post-Nature by Ren Gregorčič & Minotaur, with Robert Gott. Part laugh-out- Readings SLV | Free, no booking required. Jessye Wdowin-McGregor loud comedy, part deadly serious study of Readings Hawthorn Graveyard Shift in Ghost Town by Michael Join artists Ren Gregorčič and Jessye revenge, even part love story, this unique 701 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn Pryor Wdowin-McGregor to celebrate the novel from one of our finest writers is also a Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Michael Pryor’s Graveyard Shift in Ghost publication of their book Nature, Post- slow, crabwise journey of self-discovery. Town will be launched by Ellie Marney. In the Nature, which explores climate crisis and Readings State Library Victoria sequel to Gap Year in Ghost Town, there are post-natural landscapes in Victoria. 285-321 Russell Street, Melbourne more ghostly adventures for Anton and Rani. Thursday 15 August, 6.30pm Readings SLV | Free, no booking required. Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Thursday 1 August, 6.30pm Coming Readings Kids | Free, no booking required. Welcome to Your Period by Yumi Stynes & Jean Blackburn: Education, Feminism and Dr Melissa Kang Social Justice by Craig Campbell and Thursday 22 August, 6.30pm Welcome to Your Period by Yumi Stynes and Up Debra Hayes Dr Melissa Kang (a former Dolly Doctor) Peter Goss will launch Jean Blackburn: is a frank, funny, age-appropriate guide for Education, Feminism and Social Justice, the KYD FIRST BOOK CLUB pre-teens about getting your period. biography of a significant policy reformer by Join us to hear Readings’ own Ellen Cregan Friday 16 August, 6pm Craig Campbell and Debra Hayes. discuss the Text Prize-winning YA novel Thursday 5 September, 6.30pm Readings Hawthorn | Free, no booking required. It Sounded Better in My Head with debut Friday 2 August, 6pm author Nina Kenwood. It Sounded Better Readings Hawthorn | Free, no booking required. Sally and the Magical Sneeze by Simon JULIET RIEDEN IN Taylor & A.D. Lester (illus.) in My Head is a deeply tender coming-of- My Unicorn Farts Glitter by Suzanne Join comedian Simon Taylor for the launch age story about first love, friendship and all CONVERSATION Barton of his book Sally and the Magical Sneeze, in the horrifying awkwardness of navigating Join us to hear Australian journalist Juliet Come along for the launch of Suzanne which Sally is sick at home and begins to young adulthood. Rieden discuss her poignant book, The Barton’s picture book My Unicorn Farts sneeze up all kinds of wacky, fun creatures. Writing on the Wall: How One Boy, My Glitter, an irreverent, playful tale of sibling Readings St Kilda Thursday 22 August, 5pm Father, Survived the Holocaust. It’s a love about a stinky but lovable unicorn. 112 Acland Street, St Kilda Readings Kids | Free, no booking required. meticulously researched and beautifully told Saturday 3 August, 2pm Free, no booking required. real-life story of a woman’s quest to make Readings St Kilda | Free, no booking required. It’s Your Money by Alan Kohler sense of her father, and of his determination The Soul of Narcissism by Christian Join Alan Kohler for the launch of his new to craft a life defined by connection and Fierens & Michael Plastow (trans.) book, It’s Your Money. It’s a practical guide purpose from a childhood marred by Wednesday 28 August, Join Michael Plastow for the launch of his for investors of all ages, offering tools for unimaginable loss. 6.30pm 44 translation of The Soul of Narcissism by taking charge of your money and your future. Readings St Kilda Christian Fierens, which examines Freud’s Thursday 22 August, 6.30pm ASHLEY 112 Acland Street, St Kilda concept of narcissism in its historical context. Readings Hawthorn | Free, no booking required. Thursday 8 August, 6.30pm KALAGIAN BLUNT Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events A Brugel Fairytale Treasury: Far-fetched IN CONVERSATION WITH Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. fables by Ebony McKenna TONI JORDAN The Trespassers by Meg Mundell Join us for the launch of A Brugel Fairytale Anna Krien will launch Meg Mundell’s new Treasury: Far-fetched fables by beloved YA Hear Toni Jordan and Ashley Kalagian Blunt Monday 9 September, novel, The Trespassers. It’s a compelling romance novelist Ebony McKenna. in conversation about Kalagian Blunt’s new 6pm–7pm 4 literary thriller that taps into contemporary Thursday 22 August, 6.30pm book, My Name is Revenge, a collection of 6 tensions around migration, climate change, Readings Kids | Free, no booking required. fiction and essays related to the Armenian ANNABEL CRABB and the future of work. genocide and its connections to Australia. How to Make a Movie in 12 Days by Fiona IN CONVERSATION Thursday 8 August, 6.30pm These include the 1980 assassination of a Hardy Readings SLV | Free, no booking required. Turkish consul-general in Sydney, a crime We are thrilled to be hosting the Join us for the launch of How to Make a that remains unsolved to this day, and an celebration of the 75th Quarterly Essay It Sounded Better in My Head by Nina Movie in 12 Days by one of Readings’ own attempted bombing in Melbourne in 1986. at the Melbourne Athenaeum. Join us to Kenwood booksellers, Fiona Hardy. This wonderful, hear renowned political commentator Join us for the launch of the Text Prize- fun middle-fiction novel is a celebration of Readings Hawthorn Annabel Crabb discuss her essay on winning It Sounded Better in My Head by movies, friendship and the summer holidays. 701 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn politics, work and gender. She examines Readings’ own marketing manager, Nina Saturday 24 August, 2pm Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events how, over the last half-century, women Kenwood. It’s a tender, funny and joyful YA Readings Kids | Free, but please book at have revolutionised the way we work and novel about longing, confusion, and feeling readings.com.au/events live, and why men’s lives have changed left out. How Powerful We Are by Sally Rugg remarkably little in the same time. Thursday 8 August, 6pm Thursday 29 Atugust, 6.30pm Join LGBTIQA+ rights activist, writer, public Readings Kids | Free, no booking required. The Athenaeum Theatre speaker and change.org executive director LUCY TRELOAR IN 188 Collins Street, Melbourne Take the Shot by Sue White Sally Rugg for the launch of her first book. How Powerful We Are is a manifesto for CONVERSATION WITH Tickets are $45 per person and include a Judith Rossell will launch Sue White’s new copy of Quarterly Essay 75: Annabel Crabb YA novel, Take the Shot. This funny and life- championing what you believe in. SIAN PRIOR on Politics, Work and Gender. Bookings are affirming story follows Bug, a basketball- Thursday 29 August, 6.30pm Join us to hear Lucy Treloar discuss her essential at readings.com.au/events obsessed 15-year-old boy with Marfan Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. 6 READINGS MONTHLY August 2019 COLUMNS Mark’s Dear Say Reader

I hate this time of year, the It occurs to me that our end of the financial year. two books of the month, It’s when we find out how Meg Mundell’s The many books have been Trespassers and Bruce stolen from our shelves. Pascoe’s Salt, encapsulate You’d think I’d get used to it, but I never this moment in time in the sense that they quite do. This year the value of the items each demonstrate key concerns of both stolen has increased by 30% to $175,000. It’s Australian independent publishing and the upsetting; with that money we could have culture at large. The former is a genre- given our hardworking staff a bigger bonus defying allegorical novel about climate crisis and also put some extra money into the and refugees that holds a mirror to our Readings Foundation. I read an interesting darkening age; the latter is a genre-defying article the other day which posited that collection showcasing the brilliant career of normally ethical people give themselves a one of the nation’s most respected writers, license to steal – they rationalise that which comes at a time when Indigenous they’ve helped out a colleague, given $20 to writing and thinking is becoming a newly a homeless person, donated to a charity, or acknowledged force in Australian (literary) they’ve spent a lot at Readings and culture. Simply put, these are two books not Readings won’t miss it and they are in a to be missed. rush. In their minds, it’s not really stealing. Meanwhile, two Australian debuts – Authors and publishers also suffer when Elizabeth Bryer’s From Here On, Monsters, people don’t pay at bookshops; when we sell and Lauren Aimee Curtis’s Dolores – a book our software sends an alert that we have our reviewers swooning. Our staff need to get another copy. The people who also recommends the new work from forget to pay for a book don’t tell us that SWEATSHOP writers collective member they are taking the last copy of Kate Peter Polites, and Miles Franklin shortlistee Grenville’s The Lieutenant. So we don’t Philip Salom. Yoko Ogawa and Téa Obreht know that it’s gone. Normally, we sell three have many admirers at Readings, so copies of The Lieutenant a week and Kate advance copies of their new books have gets a royalty from those sales. I did a rough been in high demand in the tea room. Irish calculation and Kate lost around twelve writing is having a huge moment here and weeks of royalties – and her publisher Text internationally, and Oisín Fagan is another dk.com.au also lost their profits. author to put on your radar; his second Happily, there are also some positive novel, Nobber, sounds wild in the best sort trends in the book world that we can of way. Novels from Sarah Elaine Smith, reflect on at this time of year. Bruce Karl Marlantes, Kevin Barry, Edoardo Pascoe’s history of Aboriginal settlements Albinati, Alvydas Šlepikas, and Duanwad and farming, Dark Emu, has helped to Pimwana also have me intrigued. reframe the way we see the first settlers Major nonfiction releases this month of Australia. It’s also been a publishing include memoirs from Jack Charles, Dennis sensation. Bookscan figures show that its Altman, Jane Sullivan, Chris Fleming, two editions have sold over 100,000 copies Tessa McWatt, and Tim Costello, while Long since it was published in 2014 and 64,000 Litt Woon’s memoir of mushrooms and of those were sold over the last year, so its mourning sounds unlike any other book sales are increasing. Last month, Bruce there is. David Leser tackles the difficult brought out a version for younger readers, subject of male-female relations in the Young Dark Emu, which sold out its first wake of #MeToo in Women, Men, and the print run of 13,000. At an event Readings Whole Damn Thing. Adele Ferguson gives hosted during the school holidays, Bruce her take on the banking royal commission told the audience of kids and their parents in Banking Bad. Two more collections of that he was using the money from Dark essays – Growing Up Queer in Australia and Emu to employ Aboriginal people on Arab, Australian, Other – collate essential his farm near Mallacoota, where they perspectives on identity politics. Four are growing crops of the foods that were other nonfiction releases have caught my farmed by Indigenous Australians over eye: Karen Olsson’s The Weil Conjectures, millennia. Bruce is hopeful that books such Aaron Bastani’s Fully Automated Luxury as his are helping to change the perception Communism, Lewis Hyde’s A Primer for of Indigenous Australian cultures. If the Forgetting, and Darcey Steinke’s Flash Count success of Dark Emu and other recent Diary, as does the major monograph from books by Indigenous authors is anything Bill Henson. I’m not exaggerating when I say to go on, then things are heading in the I have literally been waiting twenty years for right direction. According to Bookscan, Jamie Oliver to write a vegetarian cookbook: the children’s book Welcome to Country by Jamie has rewarded my extreme display of Aunty Joy Murphy and Lisa Kennedy has patience with Veg, due out mid-month. sold 13,500 copies; Growing Up Aboriginal And finally, dear reader, I offer huge in Australia, 12,000 copies; and Welcome to felicitations to our marketing manager, Country by Marcia Langton, 21,000 copies Nina Kenwood, on the publication of her (a version of this book for younger readers brilliant debut novel, It Sounded Better In is due in September). This year’s releases My Head. If you’re like me, and almost never from Tony Birch (The White Girl) and Tara read YA books, please make an exception June Winch (The Yield) have also been for this book, not because Nina is part of the popular. We can look forward to two new Readings family (though admittedly, that books on Indigenous culture in the coming is a pretty good reason), but because it is an months: in September, Text has Sand outstanding book that captures perfectly the Talk – How Indigenous Thinking Can Save liminal moment at the end of high school the World by Tyson Yunkaporta, and in before ‘real life’ begins – in my opinion, October Hardie Grant will publish Finding it’s the younger, funnier cousin of Sally the Heart of the Nation by Thomas Mayor, Rooney’s Normal People, and I think Nina is on the Uluru statement. about to become quite famous. FICTION August 2019 READINGS MONTHLY 7

New Spine width 23.13mm ‘Salt demonstrates Fiction why Bruce Pascoe’s voice is important

The Trespassers shifts between the points of view of three to the country.’ migrants travelling from overcrowded, disease-ridden countries BOOK OF THE SaltSelected Stories to a better future – Billie, a Scottish healthcare worker; Cleary, and Essays —Kim Scott MONTH a young Irish boy who lost his hearing to a serious illness; and Australian Tom, a British schoolteacher from a privileged background. Fiction Their destination is Australia, which remains untouched by the plagues and other crises sweeping through Europe. Billie, Cleary, Tom and their fellow passengers have all been carefully selected for the journey to Australia by RedStar, the huge corporation shipping them over. They’ve been screened for disease and had their character, fitness and work histories

relentlessly assessed. When a mysterious illness beginsISBN to 9781760641580 afflict the migrants mid-journey, no-one can figure out its origin. The disease moves through their small, close-quarteredblackincbooks.com population9 781760 641580 > BRUCE PASCOE rapidly, and as the death toll rises the crew begin to suspect Salt-Coverspread.indd 1 5/7/19 3:52 pm sabotage. Billie, Cleary and Tom all inch closer to the truth from their very different vantage points, and they find themselves embroiled in a deadly scramble to obscure this epidemic and its cause from the outside world. A collection of stories and essays by This novel depicts a believable dystopia: one filled The Trespassers with doomsday cults, anti-migration terrorists, island- award-winning author Bruce Pascoe, Meg Mundell sized patches of plastic floating across the ocean, dubious UQP. PB. $29.95 corporations and unfeeling politicians. Meg Mundell also Available 3 August showcasing his shimmering genius draws clear parallels to the arbitrary cruelty of Australia’s present-day migration detention policies. It is in this across a lifetime of work. sense that The Trespassers is a dystopian novel that hits very close to home, and also has great potential to inspire empathy in its readers. This is literary speculative fiction at its absolute best. Mundell combines the best parts of multiple genres with well-honed prose, a plot that is taut and pacey, and a great deal of compassion. If you’re looking for a readable literary novel with impact, intrigue, pace, and mysteries as deep and dark as the ocean, look no further. Ellen Cregan is the marketing and events coordinator for Readings blackincbooks.com

kind of warmness that encompasses the Australian Fiction characters in its glow. Curtis is certainly Salt Readings.indd 1 8/7/19 4:21 pm a new Australian voice to pay attention Dolores to and she is already receiving attention Lauren Aimee Curtis from overseas readers; a part of Dolores W&N. PB. $24.99 has already appeared in Granta. If you are looking for an Australian novel that Available now embraces its uniqueness, then Dolores This very short novel can’t be recommended enough. from Lauren Aimee Curtis follows the titular Chris Somerville is from Readings online character, Dolores, as she arrives at a remote convent of From Here On, Monsters nuns. She’s sixteen years old, Elizabeth Bryer dehydrated, pregnant, and Picador. PB. $29.99 has a lace tablecloth, taken from a restaurant, Available now pinned to her head. The book moves between The craft of accurately scenes from her life in the convent and the translating another’s events that led her there, and Curtis skilfully work, of getting inside the balances both its revelations and ambiguity head of the creator and being to aid momentum. as faithful to the original Dolores isn’t the girl’s real name, and it’s piece as possible, is where never disclosed. Her mother has a Spanish this book by debut author background and fills their apartment with Elizabeth Bryer starts. And Bryer knows Spanish novels which she never reads. We what she’s talking about, having translated a know the convent is in the hills somewhere number of literary works including Blood of in Europe, but never know where, exactly. the Dawn, Claudia Salazar Jiménez’s All this, rather than being frustrating, gives Americas Narrative Prize-winning debut. the story an otherworldly sheen, and the An exploration of the power of words book is so well written that it makes the need to enhance the human experience, as well for solid details feel frivolous. What Dolores as the dehumanising effect bureaucratic doesn’t hold back on is the grotesqueness of legalese can have on our ability to connect everyday life for the women at the convent. emotionally with our neighbours, this The nuns have green-yellow gunk in their book has a big idea at its core. The idea eyes and bad breath. One has a large tooth is, essentially, that if certain words were that hangs out of her mouth. They smell withdrawn from use, we’d lose the ability of sweat. Another has ‘a large, round, and to name those feelings, and once those translucent face, like the moon’. Even the feelings became unnameable, our ability pretty one bites her nails. to actually feel them or even recognise Focussing on these details has the them would also diminish. possibility of slipping into cruelty, but Cameron is an antiquarian bookseller Curtis resists doing so. By keeping the who is working part-time on an art project narrative tight, she’s able to put care into that becomes more sinister and surreal each sentence and this pays off with a the further into it she goes. Meanwhile, 8 READINGS MONTHLY August 2019 FICTION

the real art – an ancient codex written by a working on a novel about two characters save her farm, her family, and to protect relationship that develops between man genius called Szilard – is being translated who are pleasantly reminiscent of Big and the man she loves. and animal is beautifully and imaginatively by a young man back at the bookshop. The Little from Salom’s previous novel, Waiting. wrought by Obreht who always thrills on a further he goes with the translation, the In some ways, The Returns and Mother of Pearl line level. A couple of scenes in this novel more it becomes apparent that the codex is Waiting are very similar, as both bring to Angela Savage stopped my heart; Inland is an evocative either predicting, or perhaps creating, some life such a vivid depiction of Melbourne Transit Lounge. PB. $29.99 and immersive read. of the strange things that are happening that I found myself wondering which Available 1 August Bronte Coates is the digital content in the broader world. Monsters can be streets Salom was thinking of when he Angela Savage draws us coordinator for Readings heard foraging outside doors. Voices and wrote each scene, and whether I’d seen masterfully into the lives of sounds waft down from the empty rooftop. his characters and not even realised it. Anna, an aid worker trying The Memory Police Strangers become friends but then fade In fact, with the plot kicking off after an to settle back into life in Yoko Ogawa into the background before disappearing ad for a room is posted in a bookshop Australia; Meg, Anna’s Harvill Secker. HB. $27.99 altogether. Words start vanishing from window, I couldn’t help but think that this sister, who hopes for a child Available 15 August newspapers, journalists are given directives was perhaps a fantasy version of Readings despite seven fruitless On an isolated island, not to use certain phrases, and forgetfulness Carlton, before the renovations. Though years of IVF; Meg’s husband Nate; and things are seems to settle over the general populace. the more I read about this fantasy shop, Mukda, a single mother in provincial disappearing. Ribbon, hat, If you like your books experimental and the more obvious it became that it wasn’t Thailand. Rich in characterisation and bird. One by one, they all slightly on the noir-ish side, then this book Readings Carlton. For one thing, it was feeling, Mother of Pearl will generate disappear, and soon, the is exactly what you’ve been looking for. small and quiet. discussion amongst readers everywhere. inhabitants of the island Gabrielle Williams is from Readings Malvern In other ways, however, Salom has forget they ever existed at once again taken this new novel as a Out of Time all. The disappearances are enforced by chance to reinvent himself. Without Big The Pillars Steve Hawke the Memory Police, and those who can and Little’s allegorical innocence leading Peter Polites Fremantle Press. PB. $27.99 remember when they shouldn’t are taken the way, the reins are instead taken up by Hachette. PB. Was $32.99 Available 6 August away. When a young novelist discovers two protagonists whose maturity lends a $29.99 Joe and Anne’s relationship that her editor, R, can illegally remember more sombre tone. The language is graphic Available now has finally found the sweet the forgotten things, she fears for his life and evocative, jumping from thought to This is Peter Polites’ spot as they are look and secretes him away beneath the thought in a way that encapsulates the second novel; his first, forward to retirement. But floorboards of her home with the help of wandering, erratic minds of his characters. Down the Hume, was time is not on their side. her elderly neighbour. It can sometimes require a bit of patience shortlisted for the 2019 Miles Inexplicably, Joe – a gifted This is an elegant and thoughtful novel, from the reader, but with Salom’s Franklin Award. We know, architect – finds himself and an interesting approach to dystopian charming way of capturing the romance therefore, that he is an author losing things, making miscalculations, fiction. It’s refreshing to see literature that and the nuance in the stories that are who can tell an Australian blanking parts of his day. As Joe’s condition explores this familiar scene not in the gun- happening all around us in real life, this story. Polites’ power as a writer is that he is worsens, he and Anne face the agonising wielding factions or rebellious leaders of patience more than pays off. relentless. Every sentence is an observation question: what is the point of no return? other, brasher additions to the genre, but in and recalls a sharp perceptiveness about Tom Davies is from Readings Doncaster the quiet moments between neighbours, or how people live and why. This type of prose simple moments of loss between lovers. keeps the story moving along at tremendous Taking Tom Murray Home International This novel’s strength is in its eerie, speed. One moment you’re dwelling on the Tim Slee Fiction quiet prose – one almost feels as if a layer of anguish of Alzheimer’s and the next you are HarperCollins. PB. $32.99 mist lies between you and the words, and thrust into a sex scene that is seemingly Available now this sensation is very effective in world- deliberately brutal. In between observations Bankrupt farmer Tom Inland building and tone-setting. Readers perhaps about an aging mother and Murray would rather burn Téa Obreht unfamiliar with translated fiction, or even acknowledgments of racism, sexism and down his own house than W&N. PB. $32.99 Japanese fiction, for that matter, may homophobia, there is the authentic narrative hand it to the bank. But $29.99 struggle with the slow pace and perceived of a changing suburban landscape. The title tragically, he dies in the Available 13 August lack of direct action, but in a sense, this is what makes this novel ‘real’. This is the end of this breathtaking novel is a giveaway. The blaze. His wife, Dawn, Many readers will of the world as seen through the eyes of the symbolic meaning of pillars is the notion of decides to hold a horse- remember Téa watchers in the windows and the passers- stability, whereas a broken pillar represents drawn funeral procession for Tom as a Obreht’s impressive debut by in the street, not the Katniss Everdeens death and mortality. The Pillars is a novel protest. But as the motley funeral novel, The Tiger’s Wife, or Theo Farons. It is sometimes frustrating that deals with that very paradox. procession passes through Victoria, which won the Orange Prize that the rules of the world are unclear, or The protagonist, Pano, is working as a mysterious arson attacks follow. Taking back in 2011. Inland is the perhaps just under-explored (things have writer and also lobbying against a mosque Tom Murray Home is a timely Australian author’s sophomore outing ‘disappeared’ and the protagonist has no being built across the road from his home. story like no other. and Obreht once again displays a memory of them, but somehow is able to Moreover, he’s being paid to ghost-write for remarkable talent for blending folklore and refer to, see and hear them), but that doesn’t a wealthy property developer. In the midst Snake Island reality. Set within the wild and drought- stop The Memory Police from being an of it all, Pano is asking the universe for Ben Hobson stricken ranges of the American frontier, original and compelling piece of literature. meaning. The changing, affluent times are A&U. PB. $29.99 this is a myth-soaked historical epic that is making him reflective. Available 5 August certain to dazzle readers anew. Georgia Brough is the digital content Do not read this novel if you are After their son Caleb is The story moves between two characters coordinator for Readings offended by graphic language. However, do jailed for domestic abuse, who playfully subvert two traditional read this book if you want to understand Vernon and Penelope Moore Western narratives: an outlaw being Nobber more about being marginalised. Read it never want to see him relentlessly pursued by the law, and a plucky Oisín Fagan if you want to know what it’s like to be again. But when Vernon frontierswoman determined to defend her JM Originals. PB. $32.99 Greek and gay and alone amongst crowds hears that Caleb is being family and home. Yet, Lurie – a Bosnian Available now of talkers. You’ll devour it if you were a fan harassed by a local criminal immigrant with a camel as his trusty The year is 1348, and of Tsiolkas’ Loaded or Merciless Gods. It’s as the police stand by, he knows he has to steed – is no Butch Cassidy and while Nora it’s a deadly one. Quite not a story for everyone, but nevertheless act. Snake Island is a propulsive literary has plenty of pluck and grit, she is far from literally. As with pretty Polites’ voice is essential if we are ever to thriller written with clarity and power. It being defined exclusively by these traits; much everywhere else, the live in an egalitarian society. will take you to the edge and keep you her richly nuanced inner life reveals secret Plague (or Black Death) has Chris Gordon is the programming and events there long after the final page is turned. desires and fears. The world that these ravaged the Irish landscape, manager for Readings characters inhabit is at once original and decimating the population. The Burnt Country familiar, and wholly believable. It is a place The survivors and the few resources left The Returns Joy Rhoades marked by awe-inspiring natural wonder are easy prey to looters and brigands. One Philip Salom Bantam. PB. $32.99 and needy spirits. Both our main characters enterprising sort, Osprey de Flunkl, a Transit Lounge. PB. $29.99 Available 6 August speak to the dead: Lurie is haunted by an fourteenth-century megalomaniac, is on a Available 1 August As a young woman running array of ghosts, while Nora has an ongoing mission: to pull off a massive land Bookselling day in and a sizeable sheep station in conversation with her dead daughter whose acquisition he is buying up all the lands day out is not what he New South Wales, Kate ghostly presence has aged alongside her. where the owners have perished. On this expected. It is more like knows she’s expected to In crafting this novel, Obreht has drawn venture, de Flunkl is accompanied by serfs dreaming of love and fail. Her grazier neighbour inspiration from a little-known piece of William and Harold; the latter proving the walking on the wrong side of is doing his best to ensure American history. Lurie first meets his foil for de Flunkl’s greed. Throughout, the road. she does, attacking her camel when crossing paths with the Camel there are passages featuring doomed and steadily maddening townspeople, many of The Returns centres on method of burning off to repel a bushfire. Corps, a failed experiment by the U.S. Army whom are quarantined, as well as Trevor, a quiet, elderly bookseller with a But fire risk is just one of her problems. to import camels for military purposes back encounters with gangs of Gaels – rivals for failed marriage, and Elizabeth, an editor Kate must put out fires on all fronts to in the 1850s and a fascinating story. The FICTION August 2019 READINGS MONTHLY 9 de Flunkl. At the final destination, the building he once lived in. The first-ever Delayed Rays of a Star and propaganda, this deception is about township of Nobber, these groups converge novel by a Thai woman to appear in Amanda Lee Koe to unravel. This is a stunningly and are confronted by the town’s colourful English, Bright is an offbeat, satisfying, Bloomsbury. PB. $29.99 imaginative novel about the Cold War, remaining inhabitants, including a naked and sometimes magical coming of age Available now the Russian space program, and the blacksmith. Yes, you read that correctly. story of an unforgettable young boy. When a photographer amazing fraud that pulled the wool over This is perhaps one of the more captures Marlene Dietrich, the eyes of the world. experimental books to emerge this year, Marilou is Everywhere Anna May Wong and Leni and one of the things I really enjoyed about Sarah Elaine Smith Riefenstahl in one frame at The Warlow Experiment it was the prose. Wordy, for descriptive Hamish Hamilton. PB. $29.99 a party in Berlin in 1928, Alix Nathan purposes, but also to emulate historical Available 6 August no-one realises the extent to Serpent’s Tail. HB. $29.99 texts: in particular, the chivalric, peasant One summer, Pennsylvania which their lives will reflect Available 5 August and macabre tales from the eighteenth and teenager Jude Vanderjohn the tumultuous decades that follow. This The year is 1792 and nineteenth centuries that influenced the goes missing. She is fierce and exquisite debut about ambition Herbert Powyss is author. Indeed, Oisín Fagan’s own macabre beautiful, intelligent, richer and art introduces a mesmerising new determined to study the ‘childhood imaginings’ including ‘corpses than most – and black. literary talent for our times. effects of prolonged growing in the fields … the accidental litter Watching this drama unfold solitude on humans. The of some local historical carnage,’ which is Cindy, a younger girl from Tidelands only man desperate enough he described in a column in the Irish a white trash family. She has idolised Jude Philippa Gregory to take part in his Times in 2018, are also evident here, as in for years. In the absence of anyone to give S&S. PB. $32.99 experiment is John Warlow, a labourer Hostages, his earlier work. Nobber is darkly a damn where she goes or what becomes Available 20 August who needs to support his family. Left humourous, providing sharp criticism of her, Cindy starts to slip out of her own In 17th century England, alone underground, Warlow soon loses of (de Flunkl’s) capitalism, and the role skin and into the space Jude left behind. Alinor, a descendant of wise his grip on sanity. The Warlow of money to society: ‘money is the king’s women, is crushed by poverty Experiment is an outstanding literary estate and the king’s estate is almost broken The Third Hotel and superstition. This is the novel that announces a major new voice because there is no vision beyond it … Laura van den Berg time of witch-mania, and in British fiction. his face is on these coins and they are the Picador. PB. $26.99 Alinor, a woman without a remnants of some older people’s vision that Available 6 August husband, skilled with herbs, In the Shadow of Wolves cannot be abnegated with a mere word ...’ Clare, recently widowed, suddenly enriched, arouses envy in her rivals Alvydas Šlepikas Julia Jackson is from Readings Carlton arrives in Havana to attend and fear among the villagers, who are ready Oneworld. HB. $29.99 the Festival of New Latin to take lethal action into their own hands. Available 5 August Bright American Cinema, which World War II is drawing to a Duanwad Pimwana & Mui her film-professor husband, First Cosmic Velocity close, but the world is not Poopoksakul (trans.) Richard, had purchased Zach Powers safe. Facing the approach Brow Books. PB. $27.99 tickets for. The day after Penguin. PB. $27.99 of Russian soldiers, East Available now the screening of the movie Richard Available 6 August Prussian women must send When five-year-old Kampol wanted most to see, Clare finds him It’s 1964, and the Soviet their children into the is abandoned by his father, standing outside, back from the dead. space program has forest, and across the he is adopted by the Filled with subtle meditations on grief, launched five personned Lithuanian border in search of food and community, soon being marriage, art, misogyny, and the capsules into space. But it work. Based on meticulous research, this raised by various figures in loneliness of travel, The Third Hotel is a has never successfully powerful novel tells the story of the ‘wolf the homes around the brilliantly propulsive shape-shifting brought one back to earth. children’ and the measures families were run-down apartment novel from an inventive author. In a nation built on secrets forced to take in order to survive. 10 READINGS MONTHLY August 2019 FICTION

The Catholic School The Sun on My Head Edoardo Albinati Geovani Martins Picador. PB. $32.99 Faber. PB. $22.99 Available 6 August Available 5 August The Catholic School The Sun On My Head is a examines power wielded collection of thirteen short and misused by men in stories set in Rio’s largest groups. Set in the halls and favela, Rocinha. This corridors of San Leone spellbinding debut about Magno in the late 1960s masculinity, corruption, and the 1970s, this novel guilt, poverty and resilience creates indelible portraits of teachers and is completely of our time yet promises to pupils, and exposes the dark underbelly be profoundly timeless. It is a superb of the Italian upper middle class at a time rendering of both form and storytelling. when traditional structures of family and religion were under threat. Night Boat to Tangier Kevin Barry Blueprint Canongate. HB. $29.99 Theresia Enzensberger Available 5 August Dialogue Books. PB. $32.99 It’s late one night at the Available 6 August Spanish port of Algeciras At the beginning of the and two fading Irish turbulent twenties, Luise gangsters are waiting on the Schilling arrives at boat from Tangier. Their Weimar’s Bauhaus world has come asunder – University, and throws can it be put together again? herself into the dreams and Night Boat to Tangier is a novel drenched ideas of her epoch. This in sex and death and narcotics, in sudden novel depicts a young woman in the violence and old magic, but it is obsessed, throes of life: from brutal conflicts above all, with the mysteries of love. between right and left, to a pair of young lovers leaping into a river at night, almost The Red Daughter one hundred years ago. John Burnham Schwartz Corsair. PB. $32.99 Deep River Available 6 August Karl Marlantes Svetlana Alliluyeva, the Atlantic. PB. $32.99 only daughter of Joseph Available 5 August Stalin, abruptly abandoned In the early 1900s, as the her life in Moscow in 1967, oppression of Russia’s arriving in New York to a imperial rule takes its toll nation hungry to hear her on Finland, the three story. Drawing upon private Koski siblings – Ilmari, papers and years of research, this novel Matti and Aino – are imaginatively re-creates the story of an forced to flee to the extraordinary, troubled woman’s search western edges of the United States. In for a new life and a place to belong. ARAB, AUSTRALIAN, OTHER lucid, luminous prose, Karl Marlantes masterfully depicts the tyranny of The Second Sleep Edited by award-winning author and nascent America, the limits of human Robert Harris academic Randa Abdel-Fattah, and activist survival and the enduring might of Hutchinson. PB. Was $32.99 and poet Sara Saleh, this collection family love. $29.99 explores the experience of living as a Available 20 August member of the Arab diaspora in Australia. The Far Field 1468. A young priest, Madhuri Vijay Christopher Fairfax, arrives Grove Press. PB. $29.99 in a remote Exmoor village Available 5 August to conduct the funeral of his FROM HERE ON, MONSTERS In the wake of her predecessor. The land mother’s death, Shalini, a around is strewn with ‘Traverses the chasm between truth and privileged young woman ancient artefacts – coins, history . . . It’s a modern Australian novel from Bangalore, searches fragments of glass, human bones – which about modern Australia that, refreshingly, for a lost figure from her the old parson used to collect. Did his doesn’t read at all like a modern childhood, journeying obsession with the past lead to his death? Australian novel.’ from Southern India to Shaun Prescott Kashmir and to the brink of a devastating political and personal Science reckoning. The Far Field masterfully Fiction examines contemporary Indian culture, THE GOOD FAT GUIDE offering a profound meditation on the limits of compassion. To be Taught if Fortunate In this fully revised and updated edition of Becky Chambers his 2013 bestseller Toxic Oil, David Gillespie The End of Time H&S. HB. $27.99 reviews the latest research from this rapidly Gavin Extence Available 6 August evolving field linking seed oils H&S. PB. $32.99 Imagine a future in which, to a host of diseases. Available now instead of terraforming Beneath the stars, on a planets to sustain human stony beach, stand two life, explorers of the solar teenage brothers. Turkey is system instead transform THE 117-STOREY TREEHOUSE behind them and Europe themselves. As an lies ahead, a dark, astronaut on an extrasolar From Australia’s bestselling author and desperate swim away. They research vessel, Adriane sleeps between illustrator, a brand new wonderfully wild don’t know what will come worlds, waking up with different features and wacky treehouse adventure. next, but they’re about to meet a man who each time. Including brilliant writing, Well, what are you waiting for? Come on up! does. He calls himself Jesus, the Messiah. fantastic world-building and exceptional, And he believes he has information that diverse characters, this book is sure to will change three lives forever. capture imaginations. CRIME August 2019 READINGS MONTHLY 11

man with something of a gift. Page can turn Where the Dead Go the physical world into numbers and Sarah Bailey Dead measurements and find the path of a bullet A&U. PB. $29.99 in no time. Except now, years after leaving Available 5 August Write the FBI and becoming a professor and foster DS Gemma Woodstock has with Fiona Hardy carer, he no longer has the time to help. But always gone her own way, that doesn’t stop anyone from asking, and it independent of what those turns out the victim is Page’s old partner. she loves or those in charge Deep in the middle of both winter and the AFL season, there Besides, this death is just the first, and Page tell her to do. Now, she’s BOOK OF THE are few things more readable than ex-corporate lawyer Sarah needs to make sure he doesn’t become the headed to Fairhaven, north MONTH Thornton’s Lapse. When Clementine Jones leaves her old, last. A gritty and snappy procedural. of Byron Bay, to investigate Crime untenable life in Sydney behind, she chooses the regional the murder of a teenager town of Katinga to hole up in, trying to reinvent herself – or Beyond Reasonable Doubt and locate his missing girlfriend. All eyes are to push the old Clementine away. No longer a lawyer, now the Gary Bell on her: Australia is fascinated by the case, local footy coach, she’s the talk of the town as she brings the Raven. PB. $29.99 and everyone in the small town is watching team’s decades-long losing streak to a close and spearheads Available 5 August her too. Never one to undercomplicate things, their finals chances. So when her star player, Clancy, quits as Gary Bell, QC, has written Gemma has brought her son with her, and a the season draws to a close, everyone around wants answers – a legal thriller starring whole heap of baggage; Ben’s father has just and so does Clem. But asking them in a town so averse to Elliot Rook, QC, with died, and the two of them are dealing with answering them might just see Clem having to answer some obvious but never tedious their own versions of grief. Gemma also can’t questions of her own – questions she’s already fled hundreds insider knowledge. Rook is shake off the memory of an old case similar to of kilometres to avoid. As her investigation into Clancy’s a man whose past has this one that ended so badly she’s not at all departure takes a turn for the dangerous, she must decide been hidden for years with sure of herself any more. Bailey always writes who she needs to take out of the firing line – and if she’s stories of an Eton a killer thriller, and this is gritty and real. willing to take herself out of it too. education and a respectable upbringing. In Clementine is a character so deeply damaged that she reality, he was a homeless criminal when he The Turn of the Key Lapse can’t help but inflict damage on others – by shutting out decided to become a barrister, and despite Ruth Ware Sarah Thornton friendly locals who try and get close, or, when her carefully those youthful years, he’s a more-than- Harvill Secker. PB. $32.99 Text. PB. $29.99 crafted simple life starts to show cracks, by helping out. She respected silk. Just as he finally meets a Available 20 August Available 6 August doesn’t want redemption for what she’s done in the past, she junior barrister whose smarts and A woman currently residing just wants to move on, despite not being able to see anything background remind him of his younger self, at Her Majesty’s pleasure beyond the next day or three. But Clem’s still got a spark he’s confronted by a case to which he can’t writes a letter to the lawyer of her old self, the one with confidence and a clear future, and sometimes that fires up say no: violent white supremacist and she is convinced can save again – whether when coaching a team of has-beens into local legends, or fighting for long-term bastard Billy Barber is accused of her, but how do you what is right on a murky moral ground. murder and could reveal everything Rook introduce yourself when Tackling Clem’s guilt and shame with sympathetic and honest clarity, Thornton’s debut has worked so hard to hide. Informative, one look at your name will is a small-town, high-stakes, mid-season tale that you don’t need to love footy to enjoy – but addictive, and soon to be a BBC series. reveal you as the most it’s always advisable to wear a beanie and scarf for your August reading anyway. loathed person in the country? Rowan is no See You at the Toxteth saint, but she insists she is not capable of Peter Corris murder. Which means that somebody else at The Warehouse down. All these years later, Anna and David A&U. PB. $29.99 Heatherbrae is – and it’s already a house with a reputation of being haunted. What Rowan Rob Hart are married, Meg has disappeared without Available 5 August discovered between those high-tech walls Bantam. PB. $32.99 a trace, and Anna has been hiding It was one of the hardest was more sinister than anybody – including Available 20 August something for a very long time. This is a times in Australian crime the nannies that came before her – could ever In the near-ish future, life twisting and intimate espionage thriller fiction when Peter Corris have predicted. A proper creepy story of a isn’t so grand. The climate from the granddaughter of real-life British passed away last year, and properly modern haunted house. crisis has seen low-lying double-agent Kim Philby. to honour him, editor (and coastal areas flooded. wife of Corris) Jean Violence is part of the The Other Mrs Miller Bedford has edited a Also out this month gorgeous-looking everyday narrative. Jobs Allison Dickson Customer favourite Michael Robotham is Sphere. PB. $32.99 compendium of Corris’s writing. Opening are scarce now that other, back with Good Girl, Bad Girl (Hachette, Available now with Cliff Hardy’s youthful days and cheaper ways have been PB, Was $32.99 SP $29.99); James Patterson moving throughout the years as Cliff gets a found for doing just about everything. Enter, Phoebe Miller is not doing teams up again with Australian crime little older and savvier, it also includes Cloud: a business that sells everything you wonderfully. From the superstar Candice Fox with The Inn some of Corris’s much-read crime columns need in life, and can deliver it almost outside, of course she is: (Century, PB, $32.99); Daniel Silva’s new spy and his ‘ABC of Crime Writing’. Corris has immediately. It’s not just a business, but a she’s beautiful, rich, has a thriller The New Girl (HarperCollins, PB, a legacy spanning decades, and those who way of life – literally, in fact, now that you handsome husband, and Was $32.99 SP $29.99); Gilly Macmillan’s started reading more Australian crime can live in the same place you work. Paxton spends all of her days domestic noir The Nanny (Century, PB, thanks to his vastly entertaining books has just started his new job for Cloud, the drinking beside her pool. $32.99); Anne Holt’s A Grave for Two will find much in this, as will new readers company that ruined his previous life, and Inside, however, she’s (Corvus, PB, $29.99); journalist Shiv Malik’s and everybody in between. meets Zinnia, who’s also new at Cloud, but miserable, lonely, and rudderless. Her real-life story of an ex-jihadist in The has a lot of secrets and one hell of a plan. As successful father, recently exposed as a Messenger (Guardian Books, PB, $29.99); Gibson, the man who started Cloud, faces his Weinstein-esque figure, looms over her life, The Day the Lies Began the entertaining Vaseem Khan’s Bad own mortality, the company – definitely not even in death. But things are about to spark Kylie Kaden Day at the Vulture Club (Mulholland, PB, based on any real-life business – faces the her life back into action. Unless, of course, Pantera. PB. $29.99 $32.99); a Korean-American courtroom truth of what happens when freedom ain’t so her spark is extinguished. Dickson trickles Available 19 August drama in Angie Kim’s Miracle Creek (H&S, free any more. suspense like blood dripping from a It’s not long after the Moon PB, $29.99); J.P. Delaney’s The Perfect Wife countertop, and the plot will flip you right Festival when Hannah has no memory of anything, including her The Most Difficult Thing over. A riveting slow-burn. returns from her life in husband, but everything’s probably fine, Charlotte Philby America to her beachside right? (Quercus, PB, $32.99); a shocking HarperCollins. PB. $29.99 City of Windows hometown – and things cult thriller with Alex Marwood’s The Available now Robert Pobi have changed in the Poison Garden (Sphere, PB, $29.99); Lynda One unassuming morning, Mulholland. PB. $32.99 intervening years. Molly, La Plante’s The Dirty Dozen (Zaffre, PB, magazine editor Anna Available 6 August Hannah’s teenage sister, is $32.99); beloved French author Fred goes away on a work trip to It’s below freezing in New doing Meals on Wheels as part of her Vargas’s This Poison Will Remain (Harvill Greece and kisses her York, and a man has just community service, and looking after their Secker, PB, $32.99); Jørn Lier Horst’s non- family goodbye as usual – been shot while he was ailing father. Abbi, her oldest friend, is a holiday-destination The Cabin (Michael however, what she is doing driving down a Manhattan parent now, married to overly honest doctor Joseph, PB, $32.99); a glorious, quantum- is anything but. The plan street, and a civilian was Will. Blake, Abbi’s foster brother, is there to physics-sliding-doors-time-warp in Alyson that Anna has for her taken out with him. The pick Hannah up at the airport, loyal to a Rudd’s The First Time Lauren Pailing Died future ties in with her past, from all those mechanics of how that fault. The years have changed them all, but (HQ Fiction, PB, $29.99); a community of years ago when Anna and her university shot could land – through now, there’s an undercurrent of something suspicion in Shari Lapena’s Someone We friends Meg and David were just starting to a car, in the wind and snow, from far more. Something happened the day of the Know (Bantam, PB, $32.99); Tim Ayliffe’s make their way in the world. It was then away – are so complicated that the grizzled Moon Festival, and nobody wants to talk State of Fear (S&S, PB, $29.99); Laura that they met Harry, a journalist with the FBI agents investigating have only one about it. Kaden’s Australian beach noir is a Lippman’s historical Lady in the Lake (Faber, capacity to turn everybody’s lives upside person they can ask for help: Lucas Page, a simmering pot of small-town mystery. PB, $29.99) … and more!! 12 READINGS MONTHLY August 2019 NONFICTION

(wool) and exported overseas. It’s an heading and what that means for Australia. exploitative and extractive industry. But it New doesn’t have to be this way. Indeed the Latin Arab, Australian, Other root for pastoral not only means to feed and Randa Abdel-Fattah & Sara Saleh Nonfiction maintain, but also to protect.’ Picador. PB. Was $32.99 And protect is exactly what David $29.99 Pollock is doing on Wooleen, his 153 Available now thousand hectares of pastoral lease in the Although there are twenty- Southern Rangelands of Western Australia. From the author of the game-changing Dark Emu comes Salt, two separate Arab Pollock had already started to question the BOOK OF THE a selection of essays and stories spanning more than thirty nationalities, representing way Rangelands were managed when he years. A paradigm shift does not happen overnight, and Salt a huge range of cultural MONTH inherited his land in a degraded condition. provides a wonderful expanse of thinking and storytelling, backgrounds and By the time it was his, he knew it was his Australian and of wrestling with history in ways that lead to momentous, experiences, the portrayals responsibility to make the land whole Studies revealing scholarship. Interweaving essays and stories from of Arabs in Australia tend to again. But restoring land from 200 years across many journals, lectures, story collections and other range from homogenising to racist. Edited of abuse is a difficult journey. Criticising works, Salt lays before the reader the vastness and complexity by author and academic Randa Abdel- government policy, questioning the of Bruce Pascoe’s thoughts and experiences of a continent Fattah, and activist and poet Sara Saleh, Pastoral Lands Board, inviting dingoes grappling with itself. this collection explores the experience of onto his land; none of these things would In prose that is funny in one moment and devastating the the Arab diaspora in Australia. next, Pascoe moves us from the wry humour of an expedition win Pollock any friends. While other pastoralists thought him crazy to destock to look for a rare banksia that is too quickly achieved, leaving Growing Up Queer in Australia the party ‘faced with the prospect of returning before we’d his land for so long in order to regenerate it, Benjamin Law (ed.) even popped the plugs on our battered vacuum flasks’ to ANZ threatened to foreclose on him. Black Inc. PB. $29.99 the realisation that he is standing in a long ago cultivated By asking difficult questions and Available 6 August field of kangaroo grass ready to be harvested. It beautifully following the advice of ecologists who were Compiled by celebrated evokes the sudden drop into the deep sadness that follows working against received wisdom, Pollock author and journalist the wonder of discovering a history of richness and fullness has managed to bring water back to Wooleen Benjamin Law, Growing Up deliberately obscured. Lake, attract native wildlife, build soil health, Queer in Australia The power of this collection does not reside exclusively and make muddied rivers run clear. Pollock Salt: Selected assembles voices from in the big questions of colonialism and dispossession, in pulls no punches. He questions whether Stories and across the spectrum of the amazing prospect of the Australian national psyche land essentially owned by banks can ever be Essays LGBTIQA+ identity. With potentially grappling with a huge, complex and devastating sustained as a public resource, and criticises Bruce Pascoe contributions from David Marr, Fiona Black Inc. PB. Was $34.99 history, it resides in the individual psyche of each Australian government policy that favours short-term Wright, Nayuka Gorrie, Holly Throsby, through time. The stories and essays of Salt succeed in doing profit over environmental restoration and $29.99 Sally Rugg and many more, this powerful what the mineral of its title is known for doing: this writing Indigenous land management. Available 6 August anthology spans diverse places, eras, irritates and hurts, yet it preserves and makes possible a Michael McLoughlin is from Readings Carlton ethnicities and experiences. return to the meat of the matter of Australia. Marie Matteson is from Readings Carlton Banking Bad The Politics of the Common Adele Ferguson Good ABC Books. PB. $34.99 Jane R. Goodall Available 5 August building that will either be an expensive NewSouth. PB. $32.99 Art & folly or an indication of great foresight, the Against all the odds, Available 1 August Australia held a royal Victorian desalination plant. As for Harry With insight, passion and Architecture commission into the Seidler’s umbrella – you’ll have to read an eye on history, Jane banking and financial about that yourself! Goodall argues that as the services industries. Its Harry Seidler’s Umbrella Mark Rubbo is the managing director of ravages of neo-liberalism revelations rocked the Joe Rollo Readings tear ever more deeply into nation. In Banking Bad, T&H. PB. $49.99 our social fabric, the Adele Ferguson tells the full story of the Available 1 August principle of the commons Australia Modern power imbalance, cover-ups, and the The first thing that should be restored to the heart of our Hannah Lewi & Philip Goad outcomes. Will it be business as usual from strikes you about this politics. This important book calls for a T&H. HB. $80 now on, or have our financial executives book is its sheer beauty. Joe radically different kind of economy, one Available 1 August learned that their wealth cannot come at Rollo got his friend and that will truly serve the common good. From the Sydney Opera the expense of ordinary Australians? graphic designer Garry House to sought-after Emery to design the book homes across the country, Songspirals and together they agonised The Enchantment of the Long- the presence of Gay’wu Group of Women over it. It’s a lovely object to hold, to open haired Rat modernism is inescapable A&U. PB. $34.99 and to look at – and it is so intentionally. Tim Bonyhady in Australia. Australia Available 5 August Which is fitting: a book that is an homage Text. PB. $32.99 Modern vividly captures Aboriginal Australian to Australian architecture by one of Available 6 August this architectural legacy with a survey of 100 cultures are the oldest on Australia’s foremost architectural critics, The long-haired rat is a significant modern sites, from the iconic and earth, and at their heart is and that ranges over two decades, should much-maligned native the urban to the everyday, and is richly song. Songspirals are sung be a beautifully designed object just like Australian rodent. Here, illustrated with archival images and newly by Aboriginal people to the buildings Rollo describes. Tim Bonyhady explores the commissioned photographs. awaken Country, to make place of the rat in Aboriginal Rollo is a self-confessed architecture and remake the connections culture, and recounts how nerd; he lives and breathes the built form between people and place. Songspirals is a Europeans responded to and and he delights in the way that beautiful Australian Studies rare opportunity to connect with the living learned about it. An astonishing history, and well-designed buildings can lift the tradition of women’s songlines, as The Enchantment of the Long-haired Rat heart and transform a city. Almost every recounted by Yolngu women. morning he has coffee in Spring Street with The Wooleen Way illuminates a species, a continent, its his mate Peter Elliott who took out five David Pollock climate and its people like never before. prizes at last month’s architecture awards Scribe. PB. $35 Biography for his design of the members’ annexe at Available 20 August Inside the Greens Victoria’s Parliament House, and I’m sure ’Pastoralism might be Paddy Manning every morning they discuss, tear apart and a dirty word in Black Inc. PB. $34.99 The Way Through the Woods praise the latest projects going up. Australia. I think there is a Available 19 August Long Litt Woon & Barbara This collection of Joe’s best pieces gives certain correlation in After a decade of leadership Haveland (trans.) you a real sense of the history of Australia’s Australian’s minds between changes and volatility in Scribe. HB. $35 modern architecture; they are short, sharp pastoralism, colonisation, Canberra, Australia is Available 6 August and to the point and what’s more, they the displacement of disillusioned with the two Long Litt Woon are very evocative and perceptive. You’ll Aboriginal people, and soil degradation. I major parties. But what enrols in a come away with a better understanding think if we’re honest about it, we can see about the Greens? Here, ‘mushrooming for of the buildings that you walk past every that pastoralism in Australia has worked respected journalist Paddy beginners’ course in her day and of why they matter. The buildings the way strip-mining has: plants are Manning exposes the workings of a divided home city of Oslo. She’s he covers range from the magnificent and denuded by sheep, living soil is eroded, organisation. This is a compulsively looking for ways through iconic, The Sydney Opera House, to the biomass is turned into a salable product readable account of where the Greens are her crippling grief after NONFICTION August 2019 READINGS MONTHLY 13

her husband’s sudden death, not terrorised by police. So much of his life is journeys, creating a narrative of relives old joys and faces old fears, she realising she is about to uncover her new simply not fair. It’s not how we imagine our determination and triumph. The Joy of High discovers that the books were not always hobby, one which will reshape her life. country. This is a book we all need to read. Places combines physical adventure with a what she thought they were. The Way Through the Woods is a Chris Gordon is the events and programming powerful emotional journey. story of Long’s discoveries and recovery, manager for Readings Unrequited Love as well as a book about the role of A Lot with a Little Dennis Altman mushrooms in Norwegian communities A Woman Like Her Tim Costello Monash University Publishing. PB. $29.95 and culture. It also includes recipes, Sanam Maher Hardie Grant. HB. $45 Available 6 August notes for identification and recounts Bloomsbury. PB. $29.99 Available 1 August Dennis Altman is a narratives of the people in the Norwegian Available 5 August In this evocative memoir, close friend of mine, mushrooming scene. I was drawn to this Qandeel Baloch was called Tim Costello explores the but I needed to read book because of my own interests (and Pakistan’s Kim Kardashian. people and experiences that Unrequited Love to discover hobbies) in the endlessly fascinating Her posts were viewed have shaped him. More the richness of his life. His world of relationships between humans millions of times and the than a simple life story, this work in gay politics has and micro-organisms in the kitchen and comments beneath them were is a book about individual taken him across the garden, and I suspect many more readers full of hate. When she was and community, public and globe – and still does. (The unrequited love who share my love of growing and making murdered, people were private, spiritual and material, equality of the title refers to his long romance with things will be drawn to it too. transfixed. Drawing on interviews and and liberty – and, most of all, about faith the US.) He has friends everywhere, Long’s book is just as much for readers in-depth research, Sanam Maher pieces and its power to sustain in the face of the including France, Croatia, the US, and of natural and cultural history as armchair together Baloch’s life from the village where world’s big issues. Ecuador. He’s spent time with the likes of gastronomers, as she explores and then she grew up, to her incarnation as the Muslim Susan Sontag, James Baldwin, Kate Millett, shares the science of fungi, their roles in world’s most unlikely feminist icon. On Drugs Edmund White, Julia Gillard, Neil Blewett, forests and soil and the ways they underpin Gore Vidal, Christopher Isherwood; he’s Chris Fleming all life on earth. As Long starts to see and shared a lift with Jackie O and sun-bathed And How Are You, Dr. Sacks? Giramondo. PB. $29.95 appreciate the threads connecting history, with Joni Mitchell. Dennis Altman relates Lawrence Weschler Available 1 August food, science and ecology, she also finds all these encounters with sharp insight and Farrar Straus Giroux. HB. Was $39.99 A memoir of intoxication her way back to herself and connects with a at times a laugh-aloud humour – familiar to $34.99 like no other, On Drugs new community. Long shares stories of her those who have read his many books. Available 6 August explores Chris Fleming’s ‘mushroom buddies’: these unlikely friends, The structure of Unrequited Love Lawrence Weschler experience of drug met through their shared hobby, gradually is inspired. Altman tracks his life – befriended Oliver Sacks in addiction. Fleming reveal knowledge and secret mushroom international and local academic the early 1980s, intending to combines meticulous spots to her. I was struck by how secretive meetings, operas seen, people met – from profile him for The New observation of his life with and territorial the Oslo mushroom hunters late 2016 to January 2019. The current Yorker. The project was a keen sense of the absurdity of his appear here – I didn’t realise how seriously events trigger pivotal events from the past: abandoned until thirty years actions. In confronting the pathos and this pursuit is taken. Exams are required the son of central European Jews growing later, when Sacks was dying. comedy of drug use, he also opens out to become a qualified inspector, and there up in Tasmania, the move to New York in Weschler depicts Sacks vividly: ranting, into meditations on the self and its is a standard practice of having all hauls his twenties, involvement in gay politics, caring deeply, writing, recalling his younger deceptions, religion and illness, and the checked over by one of these professionals. the enduring influence of the AIDS days, and waging intellectual war against a tortuous path to recovery. The Way Through the Woods will make epidemic, meeting his partner Anthony, medical and scientific establishment. a lovely gift for the curious bushwalker, and dealing with Anthony’s death twenty recently bereaved person, or even the niche Poster Boy years later, marriage equality, and so hobbyist in your life. Don Dunstan Peter Drew much more. This is an idiosyncratic and Georgia Delaney is from Readings Carlton Angela Woollacott Black Inc. PB. $29.99 generous memoir – I couldn’t put it down. A&U. PB. $32.99 Available 6 August Andrea Goldsmith is a friend of Readings Jack Charles: Born-again Available 19 August Peter Drew’s posters are a Blakfella As Premier of South familiar sight across Australia – his ‘Real Jack Charles with Namila Benson Australia, Don Dunstan Cultural Studies blazed a trail of reform. This Australians Say Welcome’ Viking. PB. Was $34.99 is the first comprehensive and ‘Aussie’ campaigns $29.99 biography of a larger than life have started conversations Women, Men and the Whole Available 20 August figure who battled Adelaide’s all over the country. In this Damn Thing Told with heart- conservative establishment unexpected memoir, Drew traces the links David Leser wrenching honesty to win office for Labor in 1968. Dunstan’s life between his creative and personal lives, A&U. PB. $29.99 and humour, Jack Charles’s story helps us to appreciate a watershed era discovering surprising parallels between Available 5 August story is a history of necessary in Australia, and to see how one small state Australia’s unacknowledged past and the Journalist David Leser change. Charles is an actor, could, for a time, lead a nation. conflict at the core of his own family. has written a timely musician, potter and gifted and passionate contribution performer, but in his seventy- Jean Blackburn Shame on Me to the public discourse that three years he has also been homeless, a is emerging in the wake of Craig Campbell & Debra Hayes Tessa McWatt drunk, a heroin addict, a thief and a regular the #MeToo movement. It’s Monash University Publishing. PB. $34.95 Scribe. PB. $29.99 in Victoria’s prisons. the contribution of, in his Available 6 August Available 6 August He is the son of Blanchie Charles. own words, ‘a straight, white, middle-class A notable feminist and ’What are you?’ Tessa He is Boon Wurrung, Dja Dja Wurrung, male who has breathed the untroubled air well-known public McWatt knows first-hand Woiwurrung and Yorta Yorta. Charles is of privilege all [his] life’, an identity that intellectual, Jean Blackburn that the answer to this not only Koorie, but also a Wiradjuri man represents the core demographic that has bridged generations with question, often asked of from his father’s side. This is his account had the rug pulled out from under it in the her thinking. Her life work people of colour by white of his undeniably successful acting career, wake of revelations in Hollywood and was the attachment of people, is always more but it is, moreover, a narrative of being beyond. Building on his well-regarded education policy to the complicated than it seems. part of the Stolen Generations, of being an article of the same name published in the causes of social equality and opportunity. In this stunningly written exploration of activist, and of believing that people are Good Weekend in February 2017, Leser has This new book shows how Blackburn who and what we truly are, McWatt good and can change. produced a wide-ranging examination of revolutionised the way that public and dismantles her own body and examines it There are laugh-out-loud moments in the enormity and scale of violences against Catholic schools delivered education to piece by piece to build an incisively subtle this memoir. I was particularly taken with a women at home and abroad, synthesizing disadvantaged families. analysis of the race debate as it now stands. story about how Charles shared a cup of tea many different resources to provide both with the homeowners of a place he had just context and a just-in-time history for the broken into. I guess that is one of his gifts; The Joy of High Places Storytime record; for this, the book will be an he can make friends in any place, in any Patti Miller Jane Sullivan invaluable resource for teachers and situation. He can likewise tell a great tale NewSouth. PB. $32.99 Ventura. PB. $29.99 parents – indeed, anyone wanting to get a and his book is a terrific read. It traces the Available 1 August Available 1 August handle on what has been happening – and trajectory of his life and of a nation in the In this extraordinary book, In Storytime, author and will help start productive conversations throes of transformation. Patti Miller tells the story of literary critic Jane Sullivan about the banal ideology of toxic Jack Charles’s story is so much a part her walking over hundreds takes us from Wonderland masculinity. of Melbourne that several of his tales of of kilometres and of her to Narnia to find out why It should also be the first port of call for film and theatre work are already known brother Barney’s her favourite childhood people who have been shocked or surprised to me. However, I didn’t know about his paragliding accident. The books were so vitally by the revelations of ‘misconduct’ that experiences of what it was like to be in story of his struggle to walk important, and how they have dominated the news, and are seeking a prison cell, or to steal food, or to be again intersects Patti’s long-distance shaped the woman she is today. As Jane some explanation of how sexual violence 14 READINGS MONTHLY August 2019 NONFICTION against women has been accepted and A Primer for Forgetting Humour stories of excessive achievement, normalised for so long. Mining sources as Lewis Hyde adventure and overcoming, Grunwald diverse as the Bible, Aristotle, and Kristen Canongate. HB. $35 encourages you to wake up, and dare to Roupenian’s short story, ‘Cat Person’, Available 5 August Mad as Hell and Back follow your passions. and full of personal correspondence with We live in a culture that prizes Shaun Micallef & Gary McCaffrie activist and academic figures (not all of memory. But what if Hardie Grant. PB. $34.99 them immune to controversies of their Politics forgetfulness were seen not as Available 1 August own), it’s a fast-paced account which something to fear, but rather 2019 marks the tenth makes for compelling reading. While as a blessing, a balm, a path to season of Mad as Hell and Fully Automated Luxury close readers may query some of the peace and forgiveness? This is Shaun Micallef’s twenty- Communism uses of theoretical perspectives, and the a playful and melancholy first year in comedy. What juxtaposition of misogyny in different Aaron Bastani defense of forgetfulness by exploring the better way to celebrate than Verso. PB. $29.99 cultural contexts, the book’s key strengths healing effect it can have on the human with a comprehensive Available 5 August lie in its discussions of the many grey areas psyche, from the author of The Gift. collection of the funniest of an issue that is sometimes reduced to In Fully Automated Luxury scripts from Micallef’s long career? With black and white, and in its invitation to – Communism, radical The Weil Conjectures perenially wicked wit, Micallef and his indeed its demand for – men to participate political commentator Karen Olsson co-writer Gary McCaffrie usher us behind positively in the belated social change Aaron Bastani claims that Bloomsbury. HB. $37.99 the scenes with hilarious footnotes to being incited in our times. new technologies will Available 19 August their most loved sketches. liberate us from work, Based on the 1940 letters providing the opportunity Dopeworld between extraordinary to build a society beyond both capitalism Niko Vorobyov siblings Simone and André Music and scarcity. Automation, rather than H&S. PB. $32.99 Weil, The Weil Conjectures undermining an economy built on full Available now explores the art of A Dream About Lightning Bugs employment, is the path to a world of Dopeworld is a bold and mathematics, and the Ben Folds liberty and happiness. eye-opening exploration mysterious nature of S&S. PB. $35 into the world of drugs that scientific and creative thought. This is a rare Available 1 August Shadowplay: Behind the Line traces the emergence of work of nonfiction that intricately weaves Ben Folds is an & Under Fire psychoactive substances together biography, history and philosophy, and our relationship with internationally celebrated Tim Marshall written with precision and poetic lucidity. Elliott & Thompson. PB. $22.99 them. Exploring the murky musician and singer– Available 1 August criminal underworld, Niko Vorobyov takes songwriter, beloved for us on a deeply personal journey into the Health songs such as ‘Brick’, ‘You The last of the devastating heartland of the war on drugs and the Don’t Know Me’, ‘Rockin’ series of conflicts resulting devastating effect it’s having on humanity. the Suburbs’ and ‘The from the breakup of Period Power Luckiest’. In A Dream About Lightning Yugoslavia, the Kosovo War saw more than 13,500 Fabulous Monsters Maisie Hill Bugs, Folds looks back at his life so far, and Green Tree. PB. $29.99 opens up about finding his voice as a fatalities. Twenty years Alberto Manguel Available 5 August musician and becoming a rock anti-hero. have passed since the war’s Yale. HB. $37.99 end, yet Kosovo’s status remains Due early August The hormones of the menstrual cycle influence uncertain. This is the definitive account Alberto Manguel, in a Bowie by O’Neill energy, mood and behaviour, of one of the major events in recent style both charming and Terry O’Neill but too often we’re taught geopolitical history, the repercussions of erudite, examines how Cassell. HB. $75 that these hormones make us which continue to be felt today. literary characters live Available 6 August unreliable. Maisie Hill, a with us from childhood This book traces iconic health practitioner who Home Grown: How Domestic on. His favorite photographer Terry knows the power of working with the Violence Turns Men into characters include Jim O’Neill’s creative menstrual cycle, refuses to accept this Terrorists from Huckleberry Finn, Phoebe from The partnership with David theory. Period Power is Hill’s no-nonsense Catcher in the Rye, and Dr. Frankenstein’s Bowie. Containing rare Joan Smith guide that gives you all the tools you need to Riverrun. PB. $29.99 maligned Monster. Sharing his unique and never-before-seen improve your menstrual health. Available now powers as a reader, Manguel encourages us photographs, this book to establish our own literary relationships. includes images from the last Ziggy What do the attacks in Stardust performance, recording sessions London Bridge and History Westminster have in Flash Count Diary for Young Americans, studio portraits for Diamond Dogs, plus live shows, backstage common with those at the Darcey Steinke moments and more. Charlie Hebdo offices, the Canongate. HB. $35 Trinity Finsbury Park Mosque Available 5 August Frank Close attack and multiple US Menopause hit Darcey Allen Lane. HB. $55 Fried & Justified shootings? They were carried out by men Steinke hard, mentally and Available 6 August Mick Houghton with histories of domestic violence. Home physically. She felt lost until Klaus Fuchs knew more Faber Social. PB. $32.99 Grown is an urgent manifesto revealing she learnt that the only two nuclear secrets in the last Available 5 August the link between domestic violence and species on earth that go two years of the Second Fried & Justified is a gonzo terrorism by a seasoned journalist and through menopause are World War than anyone else tour through the glory human rights campaigner. humans and killer whales. in Britain. He was the years of indie rock ‘n’ roll Her fascination with this fact became the conduit by which knowledge and acid house by Mick starting point for Flash Count Diary, a of the highest classification Houghton, one of the Photography deeply feminist book, and an argument for passed to the Soviet Union. This is a best-loved characters in the the beauty and power of the post- thrilling new history of the most damaging music business. It is Mick’s reproductive years. nuclear spy ever to undermine the West, by indefatigable belief that it is always the The Light Fades but the Gods an important scientific practitioner. music that comes first, and his knack of Remain Nobody’s Victim attracting so-called ‘difficult’ and Bill Henson ‘troubled’ artists makes for an amusing Carrie Goldberg Chinese Spies T&H. HB. $100 and insightful tale. Virago. PB. $32.99 Roger Faligot Available 1 August Available 13 August Scribe. PB. $39.99 Over thirty years have Nobody’s Victim is an Available now Surf by Day, Jam by Night passed since Bill unflinching look at a hidden Unearthing previously Ash Grunwald Henson made his iconic world most people don’t unseen papers and Pantera. PB. $32.99 Untitled 1985/86 series: know exists – one of interviewing countless Available 19 August mesmerising stalking, blackmail, and insiders, this book reveals From heavy wipe-outs to photographs of people sexual violence, online and nothing less than a century heaving crowds, soulful and places from off – and the incredible of world events shaped by road trips to flow states, Melbourne’s suburb of Glen Waverley. story of how one lawyer fought back and Chinese spies. They’ve been this book gives a rare Now, Henson has revisited his home turned her own hell into a revolution. Both everywhere – from Stalin’s purges to 9/11. insight into the lives and suburb to create new work. Together, the personal and universal, this book is a bold This fascinating narrative exposes the sprawl minds of the true legends two series provide a glimpse into and much-needed analysis of victim of the world’s largest intelligence service, who have mastered the Henson’s brilliant mind as he ponders the protection in the era of the internet. from the birth of communist China to today. artforms of surfing and music. Through passing of time. NONFICTION August 2019 READINGS MONTHLY 15 Science At home with Chris Gordon The Case Against Reality: How Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes Veg: Easy & Delicious Meals Donald D. Hoffman for Everyone Allen Lane. HB. $45 Jamie Oliver Available 20 August Michael Joseph. HB. Was $49.99 Do we see the world as it $44.99 truly is? In The Case Available 22 August Against Reality, cognitive Over thirty books, scientist Donald D. countless television Hoffman says no. Using series, numerous thirty years of his own restaurants, a steady research, Hoffman argues stream of public-health that evolution has shaped our perceptions initiatives and a gaggle of into illusions. This is a groundbreaking kids since we all examination of human perception, embraced the phenomenon of The Naked reality, and the evolutionary schism Chef, Jamie Oliver is back riding the between the two. zeitgeist with Veg: Easy & Delicious Meals for Everyone. With plenty of super-tasty, ‘A soaring memoir of longing, resilience brilliantly simple yet inventive vegetable and delight in the natural world.’ Travel dishes, it truly is a book for everyone – from – Jemma Birrell Writing the very best home cook to the lazy teenager wanting a snack right now. atti lives to walk and Barney is obsessed Delicious, good for us, and good for our with paragliding: a brother and sister planet – it’s a winner. P The Crow Eaters bound to the joys of nature. Strangers for Ben Stubbs most their lives, their relationship changes NewSouth. PB. $29.99 Halliday Wine Companion 2020 when a tragic accident occurs. Patti tells Available 1 August James Halliday their story, creating an intense narrative of Outsiders think of South Hardie Grant. PB. Was $39.99 determination and triumph. Australia as being different, $33.99 without really knowing Available 8 August much about it. Combining As the world falls more and his own travel across the more into a state of disquiet, state with an investigation it’s comforting to have some of its history, Ben Stubbs constant and trustworthy seeks to find out what South Australia is information in your life. Bin really like. Readers will find it hard to night, changing PMs and www.newsouthpublishing.com resist the book’s implicit invitation to take tremendously good a look at places much closer to home. Australian wine are all things we can depend upon. And, of course, we can rely on Paris and Other James Halliday’s Wine Companion, and his Disappointments signature tasting notes, to knowledgeably Adam Rozenbachs guide us through our land’s grapevines. Viking. PB. $34.99 Available 20 August Tulum: Modern Turkish Cuisine Adam Rozenbachs foolishly Coskun Uysal decided to take his travel- Melbourne Books. HB. $49.99 averse father on the trip of Available 1 August a lifetime. But amid the No time to jump on a irritation of holidaying plane to Turkey? No with an adult toddler, problem: create your own Adam learned – through Turkish feast at home gritted teeth – more about his dad, his with the assistance of family and himself. Paris and Other Coskun Uysal. Uysal is a Read a Disappointments is a hilarious memoir remarkably modest chef about fathers and sons from one of who has worked in the kitchens of The Australia’s most talented comedians. River Café in London, Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen and Melbourne’s Attica. His much-acclaimed modern Turkish Blak book Visual restaurant in Melbourne, Tulum, was Arts recently awarded its first Chef’s Hat by the Good Food Guide. This uncomplicated cookbook captures the essence of Tulum’s lately? Colony: Australia 1770–1861 / delicious innovative cuisine with recipes Frontier Wars suitable for cooks of any level. Cathy Leahy, Judith Ryan, Isobel Crombie, Myles-Russell Cook & Marriage of Flavours Megan Patty (eds) Scott Pickett First Nations T&H. HB. $80 Lantern. PB. $39.99 Available 1 August Available 6 August Literary Festival In 1770, Cook landed on Renowned for his mastery the east coast of of incredible flavour 8—5 September 2019 Australia, marking the combinations, much-loved Melbourne beginning of a long and Melbourne chef Scott bloody history. Including Pickett shares the secrets blakandbright.com.au works by William Barak, that make his recipes so Maree Clarke, and many successful. Using the @blakandbright others, this is an essential exploration of principle of eight key flavour profiles, this Australia’s complex colonial mindset: from compilation of recipes is for those that want the tragedies of a contested beginning to a more technical and inspirational guide to the conversations that allow us now to catering a family meal. It’s a masterclass in contemplate a better future. contrasting and complementary flavours. 16 READINGS MONTHLY August 2019 YOUNG ADULT

city she calls home and separating Santee many challenges they face. As Zail from her family. On one side of this wall demonstrates in her book, they have also Young you are considered a ‘threat’, but which had to contend with barriers to education side is it? and personal autonomy that are Adult Everywhere Everything Everyone unfortunately experienced by many young examines the power of freedom and women around the world. the precariousness of control, both in But I Am Change is a story of hope and civilisation and in the everyday lives of fighting back. Lillian, the protagonist This book is a rare gem; a simple story told with an utterly individuals. There are unsettling echoes of this novel, represents a voice of BOOK OF THE authentic and humorous voice that portrays with great of contemporary issues of race, class and change. Determined to break the cycle of MONTH empathy the insecurities and confusion of young adulthood. threatened social liberties. It is an influential disadvantage in which she finds herself, Natalie has just finished year twelve and is enjoying first novel from a grand new voice. Lillian fights for her education and is Young Adult one final summer with her best friends Zach and Lucy Claire Atherfold is from Reading State Library ambitious; she wants to become a teacher. before they all go to university. But on Christmas Day her Victoria The challenges she faces to realise this parents announce they are separating and she is absolutely ambition are almost unfathomable for a devastated. Then there is the surprise invitation to her The Surprising Power of a privileged reader growing up in Australia very first party, a terrifying game of spin the bottle, and an Good Dumpling to imagine. And it is for this reason that unexpected mutual attraction with Zach’s older brother. In Wai Chim I Am Change is essential reading. The reader, too, can make a difference by a matter of days, Natalie’s entire world has been radically A&U. PB. $19.99 donating to Help Girls Learn, a charity turned upside down. Available 5 August set up by Zail to give girls like Lillian the Anna Chiu and her benefit of an education. It Sounded Better in My Head is an younger siblings Natalie Platten is from Readings Doncaster absolute knockout of a novel. It’s a Lily and Michael are very familiar with the book that really gets what it is to be on ups and downs in their the cusp of adulthood, simultaneously mother’s mental health, It Sounded Better having the world at your feet whilst but that doesn’t make in My Head their family life any Classic of being utterly confused. Nina Kenwood easier. Year Eleven Text. PB. $19.99 student Anna takes on parental duties Written in a confessional first person, Natalie’s inner voice when her mum retreats into her bedroom the Month Available 6 August says all those many things we may think but can never say. She for months at a time, ensuring that Lily and is simultaneously utterly hilarious and incredibly vulnerable. Michael are fed, showered, dressed and The dialogue is whip-smart and witty, the characters are beautifully described, and the delivered to school on time. Anna’s father depiction of Natalie’s relationships with her parents and her best friends feels authentic buries himself in running his restaurant, The Watcher in the Garden and compassionate. The reader can’t help but be immediately sucked into the vortex of and pretends that his wife’s condition isn’t Joan Phipson Natalie’s world and passionately concerned with her numerous predicaments. that serious. Desperate to escape the Text. PB. $12.95 It Sounded Better in My Head is an absolute knockout of a novel. It’s a book that really sometimes-oppressive environment at Available now gets what it is to be on the cusp of adulthood, simultaneously having the world at your home, Anna convinces her dad to let her The slightly feet whilst being utterly confused. It won the 2018 Text Prize, and it will also win over work in the restaurant on the school sinister title was hearts and minds everywhere. It’s a triumph! holidays, where she meets, and starts a what initially drew me romance with, Anglo-Australian delivery in to this unusual Angela Crocombe is the manager of Readings Kids boy Rory. Anna’s enjoyment of slogging it thriller. Long after out as a valued member of the Jade Palace finishing the final team and her heady experience of first love pages, its unsettling The Last Balfour sequel. Highly recommend for readers 14+ is tempered when her mum’s health after-effects still linger. Cait Duggan who enjoy a taut, nail-biting adventure; suddenly deteriorates. Sixteen-year- HarperCollins. PB. $19.99 lovers of historical fiction are definitely in Wai Chim has written a sensitive old Kitty (Catherine) struggles with big Available now for a treat. portrayal of a close immigrant Chinese- emotions. She feels like an outsider in her Australian family struggling to manage an own family. Hijacked by sudden rages, I do love a good Athina Clarke is from Readings Malvern untreated mental illness. Everyday details she is driven to do things she cannot witch story: there’s pile up in an atmosphere of pressure and understand or control. In a blind rage she something exhilarating Everywhere Everything hypervigilance; Anna’s mother comes across seeks solace in Mr Lovett’s garden and about a young woman Everyone as loving and loveable, but the difficult instead discovers a strange sentience there. drawing on an unknown Katy Warner aspects of her behaviour are also not mystical force and HG Egmont. PB. $19.99 As she is initially perceived as a glossed over. The process of Anna’s mother discovering her potential. Available 1 August threat, the garden is antagonistic towards being admitted into hospital and the harsh her. But as an unlikely friendship grows This story surges at a Melbourne local realities of medication provide a realistic between Kitty and Mr Lovett, she finds breathless pace and is Katy Warner is a insight into the process of recovery. her relationship with the garden changes unrelenting in its emotional grasp. There’s playwright and writer Anna truly won my heart; at sixteen she’s too. She begins to benefit from its healing, the mystery in harnessing the forces of the with many awards caught at the crossroads of responsibility transformative powers. natural world and herbal lore for good, the already under her belt for and restriction, labouring under heavy Kitty is not the only trespasser, intrigue in the swirling supernatural, the both her short fiction and expectations that come from others and however. Terry, a bitter, resentful fear in a perilous journey and the despair at plays. Her debut YA novel herself. Chim has employed a deeply neighbour with a long-held desire to own a the ultimate betrayal of friendship. Everywhere Everything immersive storytelling style to explore the piece of Mr Lovett’s garden, is also keeping Drawing from a rich source of Scottish Everyone is an exciting unspoken truths within families, trust, a watchful eye on the garden and its blind, history and folklore and peppered with continuation of this talent. inter-cultural relationships, cultural elderly owner. As Terry plots against Mr Scottish dialect, The Last Balfour instills a The story begins with a glimpse into obligations, first love and forgiveness with Lovett, Kitty seeks to protect and warn deep realism that transports the reader to Santee’s ‘normal’ life. She’s sixteen and sophistication and unfailing empathy. him of coming danger. the sixteenth century. It was a time when lives in a small apartment with her mother The garden enables Kitty and Terry witchcraft was considered the scourge of and sister. Initially it seems that the worst Leanne Hall is Readings’ online children’s to perceive and feel things through the age, something evil to be stamped out; thing that could happen to her is to be book specialist extrasensory powers. A force to be a time when capable, independent women grounded for missing curfew, or perhaps reckoned with itself, the garden takes sides were regarded with suspicion; when the boy she likes at school won’t fancy her I am Change in the conflict, intent on harming anyone women were at the mercy of men. back, but as the view of her world expands Suzy Zail who poses a threat. Eventually something It’s in this climate of superstition and we discover that there is so much more to Black Dog. PB. $19.99 must give. paranoia that Iona Balfour loses loved ones her situation. Her father is in prison for Available 1 August in violent trauma; grieving and defenseless, protesting – he dared to speak out. Santee Suzy Zail’s latest The garden in the story is rooted in an she must seek a magical stone and escape to is ostracised at school because of this, and novel, I Am actual place – Everglades, now a National Edinburgh before the witch hunters catch her family refuse to mention him because Change, is a fictional Trust managed garden, in the Blue her. It’s during this perilous journey that our they fear the neighbours or someone else work based on research Mountains town of Leura, outside Sydney. vulnerable protagonist finds friendship and may be listening. and personal interviews Published in 1982, this novel is courage, and also discovers her hidden power A sinister feeling creeps in and with young Ugandan reissued as a Text Classic with a superb and true self. explodes when Santee finds herself in women from rural introduction by Margo Lanagan. Highly This is a remarkable debut novel with a the wrong place at the wrong time on the communities living in recommended for readers aged 12+ who surprising ending that had me completely wrong side of the new ‘safety border’ (or extreme poverty. For love a tense, slow-burning plot. enthralled. I’m desperately waiting for the wall) that appears overnight, dividing the these young women, poverty is but one of Bianca Looney is from Readings Kids YOUNG ADULT August 2019 READINGS MONTHLY 17

Stone Girl by Eleni Hale (Penguin. PB. $19.99)

2019 Purcell © Nicholas Readings Young Adult Book Prize winner

The winner of the 2019 Readings Young Adult Book of judges, including Readings staff Jackie Tang (Readings pat happy endings. The novel ends with hope – but it’s Prize is Stone Girl by Eleni Hale. Now in its third online), Dani Solomon (Readings Kids), Kate O’Mara satisfying and believable. Eleni Hale’s Stone Girl is one of year, the Readings Young Adult Book Prize was (Readings Hawthorn) and chairperson Georgia Phelan the most compelling YA novels I have read in a long time.’ created to recognise and celebrate new voices in (Readings Doncaster). This year, the panel was joined by As the winner of the prize, Eleni Hale is awarded Australian Young Adult literature and considers Cath Crowley, a multi-award-winning author and much- $3000. Hale said of her win: the first and second books of YA authors across loved pillar of the Australian Young Adult literary scene. ‘I’m grateful beyond words to the team at Readings Books Australia. This year’s shortlist included Hale’s Stone The judging panel also received input from the Readings for all their support. Winning a prize like the Readings Young Girl, Highway Bodies by Alison Evans, What I Like Teen Advisory Board. Adult Book Prize is an honour. Thank you so much. About Me by Jenna Guillaume, Making Friends with Writing a novel not only takes many years, it also Alice Dyson by Poppy Nwosu, Unmasked by Turia absorbs some of the life force of the writer. We write true Pitt and Bryce Corbett, and The Learning Curves of Stone Girl is earth-shattering things even in fiction. We wrestle with each sentence Vanessa Partridge by Clare Strahan. until it says what we mean, which is much harder than Stone Girl follows Sophie, a vulnerable yet and essential reading. it sounds. There is also a team of editors, publishers resilient girl who becomes a ward of the state and designers behind it. To have this work recognised is following the sudden death of her mother. As she On the prize shortlist and judging process, guest judge incredibly rewarding. falls into a system meant to help, Sophie quickly Cath Crowley commented: This prize is also a gift. It will help lift the profile of an realises that the foster system is where Australia’s ‘It was a great pleasure to participate in the judging important issue: the largely untold stories experienced kids fall through the cracks. Kicking around from panel for the 2019 Readings Young Adult prize. Alison by some of the 40,000 kids who currently reside without home to home, Sophie forms a broken family with Evans, Jenna Guillaume, Eleni Hale, Poppy Nwosu, Turia parents in Australia. Their lives remain largely invisible Gwen, Matty and the intoxicating, destructive Spiral Pitt and Bryce Corbett, Clare Strahan–these writers plunge for many reasons, including a complex bureaucracy and – all fellow casualties of abuse and neglect. Together, the reader into rich and diverse worlds. They all deserve the silencing effect of negative life outcomes. and apart, they struggle against a system which acclaim for their writing. The Readings Young Adult Book Prize and the promised safety, but swallowed them whole. Eleni Stone Girl by Eleni Hale tells the story of Sophie, a ward Readings team have a proud history of supporting a Hale delivers a raw dose of reality to her readers with of the state, growing up unprotected by adults and the plethora of books and I am so thrilled that Stone Girl can tender yet unflinching prose, and deftly navigates system. The prose is exquisite – precise and original. The be counted among them.’ the intricate violence of broken systems and the characters are heartbreakingly real. We hold our breath, truths lived by Australia’s foster youth. Stone Girl is terrified for Sophie as she moves through an increasingly earth-shattering and essential reading. dangerous world. Hale doesn’t shy away from the trauma Georgia Phelan, chair of the 2019 Readings Young Adult Book Prize Stone Girl was selected as the winner by our panel that young people experience, and she doesn’t offer judging panel, in consultation with and on behalf of the 2019 judging panel 18 READINGS MONTHLY August 2019 KIDS

Kids’ Book Kids’ Subscription Our new Kids’ Book Subscription Books is the perfect gift for the little people in your life – a book in the post every month to share. You can sign up for a ten month or six month subscription. See news on page 3 for more details.

artist Marc Martin, this is a book that encourages BOOK OF THE Picture Books children and adults alike to speak up for young people all around the world, and to treat one another with MONTH compassion and kindness. Picture Book Dear Grandpa The Rabbit Listened Kate Simpson & Ronojoy Ghosh (illus.) Cori Doerrfeld A&U. HB. $24.99 Scallywag. HB. $24.99 Available 5 August Available 1 August This delightful picture book Taylor has been through a very You Might Find celebrates the powerful bond difficult time, and now he is Yourself between a child and their surrounded by concerned Tai Snaith grandparent, as chronicled friends who each tell him how he through the long-distance T&H. HB. $24.99 should feel and what he should exchange of letters between the Available 1 August do to start feeling better. But it is imaginative young Henry and his not until they have gone and a equally inventive Grandpa. As Henry writes, the pair little rabbit comes and sits quietly by his side, that he Tai Snaith is a master of collage and mixed media are separated by thousands of kilometres; even if all the begins to process his thoughts, and start to think and and her new picture book has been eagerly blue whales in the world lined up it still wouldn’t close feel on his own. awaited. It shines with brilliant art and gorgeous the gap between the two. But even as Henry measures imaginings; it beckons you in and then sets you free to all the curious ways his Grandpa is geographically Wibble Wobble contemplate, it sings with possibility. Snaith invites distant, the obvious love and playfulness they share Jen Storer & Lisa Stewart (illus.) proves just how close two people can be. the reader to explore life’s potential and different ABC Books. HB. $24.99 situations, to visualise the myriad experiences we The colourful, double-page illustrations beautifully Available now capture their quirky humour and illuminate the know or could encounter. From talented creative duo Jen poignant juxtaposition of physical isolation and You Might Find Yourself is in its depictions and Storer and Lisa Stewart comes emotional intimacy that makes this such a moving creative use of materials inspirational and children the perfect bedtime book for and heart-warming story of a human connection that will be keen to create collages themselves. This is a young families. Filled with the transcends mere distance. Highly recommended for kids unique and beautiful celebration of life and our world joyful moments of a toddler’s aged 4+ and perfect for reading with any grandparent. and I highly recommend it for kids aged 3+. day as they discover and Alexa Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn Athina Clarke is from Readings Malvern explore their world, this book is guaranteed to become a firm family favourite. Argh! There’s a Skeleton Inside You! Idan Ben-Barak & Julian Frost A&U. HB. $19.99 Board Available 5 August Cookery Quog and Oort are two friends Books on their way to another friend’s birthday party when their spaceship breaks down. They try to Lunch at 10 Pomegranate Street get out and fix it, but they cannot Felicita Sala Moving Your Body because Oort is a gas cloud, and Scribble. HB. $27.99 Beci Orpin Quog is a jelly blob and they cannot Available 6 August Lothian. BB. $12.99 open the door. You, the reader, are asked to put your What a delightful and unique Available now hand on the page and Oort is able to reveal that you cookbook for kids! In an Melbourne-based artist, have a skeleton inside you! You can help Quog and Oort apartment block, each of the illustrator and designer Beci get out and fix their spaceship by using your bones, neighbours is preparing a special dish Orpin has previously produced four muscles and nervous system to push pages, lift the for a communal dinner. We see a beautiful craft books, Make & Do; book above your head and even show how you can turn beautiful illustration of each cook, Home: 25 Amazing Projects; a page with your eyes closed. With lively, bright and including children, preparing their Sunshine Spaces; and Find & Keep. simple but informative illustrations Argh! There’s a food. On the opposite page, the simple recipe is All of her books make use of her Skeleton Inside You is an excellent (and funny) represented visually. Each ingredient is illustrated signature bold geometric style and strong use of colour. introduction to basic anatomy for kids aged 4+. with quantities, making it easy to know what you need. This time she has utilised her creative flair to Dani Solomon is from Readings Kids The method is also very simple. The illustrations are fashion a brightly illustrated board book called Moving charming and colourful, and the recipes are delicious. Your Body. This fun and simple idea, which is the first Every Child a Song My family has now made four of the dishes, in a series of board books based on early learning Nicola Davies & Marc Martin (illus.) including the guacamole and the black bean soup. concepts, focuses on the different movements our Wren & Rook. HB. $26.99 My ten-year-old daughter has cooked the Spaghetti bodies can do, such as: ‘Smile with your mouth/ Wiggle Available 6 August al Pomodoro on her own a number of times. Recipes with your bum/ Fly with your arms.’ Award-winning children’s author include party food such as mini quiches through to It will engage the little ones in your life as they Nicola Davies introduces young starters, mains and dessert. Cuisines featured include discover the ways our bodies function and interact. It readers to the universal rights that Indian, Italian, Japanese, Greek and more. will also inspire you to get up and move around with every child is entitled to under the This easy cookbook comes highly recommended them in an entertaining and joyous manner! Perfect United Nations Convention on the for foodies of all ages. The food will taste even better for kids aged 1+. Rights of the Child. With moving when shared with family and friends! Claire Atherfold is from Reading State Library Victoria illustrations by award-winning Angela Crocombe is the manager of Readings Kids KIDS August 2019 READINGS MONTHLY 19

is or where he belongs. Assisted by a kind angel, he Junior Fiction begins to learn about his new surroundings and finds a Graphic Novel family that may be his, but when a baby is taken away he must re-enter the dark, gloomy and dangerous world beneath the earth to try to rescue her. Zanzibar In this hectic, magical, monster world there are Sincerely, Harriet Catharina Valckx & Antony Shugaar (trans.) brownies, goblins, pixies and a terrible ogre king Sarah W. Searle LPG Graphic Universe. PB. $16.99 Gecko. PB. $16.99 named Thunderguts, who seems to have his own plans Available now Available 1 August for the boy. With shades of The Labyrinth, Artemis This new middle-grade graphic When renowned journalist (and Fowl and A Most Magical Girl, this exciting debut novel novel from a Perth resident lizard) Achille LeBlab goes from a Perth-based author is a witty fantasy adventure explores loneliness and illness. Harriet is looking for exceptional characters to perfect for readers aged 9+. having a tough time, she has moved to a feature in his newspaper, it inspires a Kim Gruschow is from Readings St Kilda new home in a new city, she’s been wonderful crow, Zanzibar, to attempt a unwell and is being snubbed by the old feat so remarkable that it was bound to The Brilliant Ideas of Lily Green friends she has tried to connect with. She make headlines: to lift a camel in the Lisa Siberry begins to spend time with an elderly neighbour, an air using just one wing! In pursuit of his dream, HG Egmont. PB. $17.99 ex-librarian named Pearl who lends Harriet books. They Zanzibar heads south towards the desert where Available 1 August slowly develop a sweet and caring friendship. something amazing happens. Lily Green is a messy, unfussy Harriet has a tendency to let her imagination run This quirky little gem of a book, with its delightful kind of a girl, bursting with wild, and after getting the wrong idea about some of her language, humour and simple childlike illustrations, is creative exuberance and a vibrant mind. neighbours and surroundings, she is encouraged to write guaranteed to engage young readers. Accompanied by a Her mum’s beauty salon is the family’s stories. The illustrations are smooth and sweet, there wonderful cast of animal characters, Zanzibar discovers sole source of income since Lily’s dad are lots of pastel tones and a gentle plot that highlights what it means to be extraordinary while learning to passed away some years before. Faye, the comforts of reading, and the benefits of writing as a value the simple everyday things. At its core, this Lily’s older sister, bemoans Lily’s messy creative outlet, as well as the relief that can come with charming tale is also a celebration of the importance, looks and is forever trying to give Lily a beauty the sharing of one’s problems and fears. support and encouragement of friends. makeover. But Lily’s only interest in beauty is to make It’s an encouraging story that may provide comfort Highly recommended for junior independent things to sell in her mum’s salon. She makes products for those living with a chronic illness, and may readers aged 7+ and their classrooms; it’s also an ideal like peanut butter and apple-cider-vinegar hairspray help others to understand some of the frustrations read-aloud story the family will enjoy. that mostly look dreadful, smell even worse and boast of Multiple Sclerosis, which can include emotional Athina Clarke is from Readings Malvern doubtful beauty benefits. That is, until Lily comes distress, lack of energy and difficulties with balance. across strange and magical ingredients sourced from This is a valuable and moving book that is absolutely the garden of her elderly botanist neighbour. perfect for readers of Raina Telgemeier aged 10+. Suddenly, Lily’s fortunes seem to have turned, but Middle Fiction will this discovery help her save the salon, win the Kim Gruschow is from Readings St Kilda invention competition and entice back the best friend she fears has strayed? A refreshing, inventive story full of mischief and dollops of gloop for readers aged 9+. Nonfiction As Happy as Here Natalie Platten is from Readings Doncaster Jane Godwin Lothian. PB. $16.99 Fully Booked: (Toffle Towers, Book 1) Available now Tim Harris & James Foley (illus.) Welcome to Your Period Jane Godwin has been busy with Puffin. PB. $14.99 Yumi Stynes, Dr Melissa Kang & Jennifer wonderful picture books the last few Available 6 August Latham (illus.) years, so it is a treat to have her back Toffle Towers is about to be inherited by HG Egmont. PB. $19.99 writing fiction. Three early teens with the next generation. Though only ten Available 1 August different situations, temperaments and years old Chegwin Toffle is determined Yumi Stynes is right when she says family backgrounds are sharing a hospital to transform Toffle Towers from a that ‘Dolly Doctor’ was once the ward. Evie is a promising athlete who has boring hotel for grown-ups into an only place to which you could turn for had a ghastly accident that could see her sporting incredibly exciting destination for honest advice on bodies and your prowess severely hampered, and she is also burdened by children (and their families). But periods. Thankfully, finally, we’re parental expectation. Lucy is a talented musician who running a hotel isn’t easy. Chegwin has plenty of ideas. starting to see greater awareness of has a potentially life-threatening illness and a But can he turn his madcap daydreams into reality? menstruation – this book comes hot on the heels of the pessimistic view of things. Finally, the newest addition to Victorian Women’s Trust’s self-published success About the ward is the unreliable, cranky and neglected Jemma. Goblins Bloody Time, by Karen Pickering and Jane Bennett. While the sensitive and compassionate Evie tries Philip Reeve Welcome to Your Period is light, cute and very easy to bond with Jemma, they witness from their hospital Scholastic. PB. $15.99 to read and navigate. It covers all the basics of bleeding window some mysterious behaviour that ultimately, Available 1 August for beginners, and is broken up by Dolly Doctor style they believe, is related to a series of crimes in the area. Always busy squabbling, the goblins Q&A panels and personal anecdotes, which bring a When they become implicated in the mystery, Jemma’s who live in the great towers of range of experiences to the page. Although some of the behaviour takes on an untrustworthy edge and the girls Clovenstone spend all their time more complicated issues are dealt with only briefly, all have to work hard to have faith in one another. As fighting and looting. Only Skarper overall this is a welcome, positive introduction to the drama plays out, their choices take on a worrying realises that an evil sorcerer is rising. anybody who might be about to experience their first naivety that ultimately leads to a chilling climax. Strange forces are gathering in the period. Welcome to Your Period is the period pocket- As Happy as Here is an empathetic exploration lands of men. Dark magic is afoot. Soon book filled with the kind of frank, practical advice of family, friendship and how all our actions have trolls, giants, cloud-maidens, swamp monsters, your older bestie might offer, and will help hundreds of consequences. Beautifully written and with real tree-warriors and goblins alike are swept up into a teens demystify and normalise their experience. insight into the nature of young people, this is suitable fabulous magical conflict! Bec Kavanagh is from Readings Kids for ages 11+. Alexa Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn Scary Stories for Young Foxes Plastic: Past, Present and Future Christian McKay Heidicker & Junji Wu (illus.) Eun-ju Kim, Joungmin Lee Comfort (trans.) & The Monster Who Wasn’t Henry Holt. HB. $26.99 Ji-won-Lee (illus.) T.C. Shelley Available 30 July Scribble. HB. $27.99 Bloomsbury Children’s. PB. $14.99 When fox kits Mia and Uly are separated Available 6 August Available 8 August from their litters, they quickly learn The world consumes over 300 million A strange imp boy is born in the that the world is a dangerous place filled tonnes of plastic each year. But when did underworld. Immediately with monsters. As the young foxes travel we start using plastic? And why? Where compelled to escape, he joins up with a across field and forest in search of a does all the plastic waste go? Journey hilarious gang of crabby chocolate- home, they’ll face a zombie who hungers through the life cycle of plastic – how loving gargoyles and makes his way for their tender flesh, a witch who wants plastics are produced, the many uses of above ground to the world of the to wear their skins, a ghost who haunts and hunts plastics throughout the last century, how our plastic use humans. The boy isn’t quite sure who he them, and so much more. has spiralled out of control, and what we can do about it. 20 READINGS MONTHLY August 2019 BARGAINS

and she was struck deeply by grief, she criminal classes. The Other Paris upends beauty of his prose; the depth of his became obsessed with the idea of training the story of the French capital, reclaiming feeling and his capacity for joy. August her own goshawk. This award-winning the city and lighting a candle to the works book is an honest account of Macdonald’s and days of the forgotten poor. Walk Through Walls Bargains struggle during the process of the hawk’s Marina Abramović taming and her own untaming. Outline HB. Was $49.99 Now $16.95 Rachel Cusk Performance artist Marina And the Weak Suffer What HB. Was $39.99 Now $15.95 Abramovic has spent her The Incredible Unlikeliness They Must?: Europe’s Crisis Outline follows a novelist life walking through walls of Being: Evolution and the and America’s Economic teaching a course in – barriers of pain, Making of Us Future creative writing over an endurance, acceptability Alice Roberts Yanis Varoufakis oppressively hot summer and, above all, art and life. HB. Was $49.99 Now $16.95 HB. Was $36.99 Now $16.95 in Athens. The people she In this extraordinary In this book, Alice Roberts In January 2015, Yanis encounters speak volubly memoir she tells her story from her severe, takes you on the most Varoufakis was appointed about themselves: their abusive childhood in post-war Yugoslavia incredible journey, revealing finance minister to Greece, fantasies, anxieties, pet theories, regrets, to the daring and controversial acts of your path from a single cell with more votes than any and longings. And through these performance that have stunned audiences to a complex embryo to a other member of disclosures, a portrait of the narrator is and won international acclaim. living, breathing, thinking parliament. Here, he drawn by contrast, a portrait of a woman person. It’s a story that presents the ultimate case learning to face a great loss. The White Road: Journey into connects us with our distant ancestors and against austerity, proposing concrete an Obsession an extraordinary, unlikely chain of events policies for Europe that are necessary to Adventures of a Young Edmund de Waal that shaped human development and left a address its crisis and avert contagion to Naturalist: The Zoo Quest HB. Was $49.99 Now $16.95 mark on all of us. This is your story, told as America, China, and the rest of the world. Expeditions An intimate narrative never before. David Attenborough history of porcelain, The Larousse Wine HB. Was $39.99 Now $16.95 White Road chronicles a The Age of the Horse: An David Cobbold & Sebastian Written with his trademark global obsession with Equine Journey Through Durand-Viel wit and charm, Sir David alchemy, art, wealth, craft, Human History HB. Was $85 Now $39.99 Attenborough tells the and purity. Here, in a Susanna Forrest This expert guide to wine story of his early career as sweeping yet intimate style HB. Was $49.99 Now $16.95 from the publishers of a broadcaster and a that recalls The Hare with the Amber Eyes, An essential book for Larousse Gastronomique naturalist. Adventures of a de Waal gives us a singular understanding anyone who’s ever been offers wide-ranging Young Naturalist is not just of the spectrum of porcelain and the captivated by horses, The coverage of the key the story of a remarkable adventure, but mapping of desire. Age of the Horse is a wine-producing regions of the man who made us fall in love with breathtaking exploration of of the world, with the natural world and taught us the Blink: The Power of Thinking the enduring connection particular reference to French vineyards. importance of protecting it – and who is without Thinking between humans and Equus Boxes and features throughout also cover still doing so today. Malcolm Gladwell caballus. Equestrian expert Susanna a vast range of subjects such as how to HB. Was $29.99 Now $12.95 Forrest presents a unique, sweeping read a wine label and whether to decant Purity In his landmark bestseller panorama of the animal’s prominent role in wine, through to organic wine-growing Jonathan Franzen The Tipping Point, Malcolm societies around the world and across time. and bio-dynamics. HB. Was $39.99 Now $14.95 Gladwell redefined how we Young Pip Tyler doesn’t understand the world Baghdad: City of Peace, City May We Be Forgiven know who she is. She around us. In Blink, he of Blood A.M. Homes knows that her real name is revolutionises the way we Justin Marozzi PB. Was $29.99 Now $12.95 Purity, and that her understand the world HB. Was $59.99 Now $16.95 Harold Silver has spent a relationship with her within. Blink is a book about how we For much of its extraordinary lifetime watching his mother is hazardous. When think without thinking, about choices life, Baghdad, known for younger brother, George – a a chance encounter leads that seem to be made in an instant – in centuries as the City of successful TV executive – Pip to an overseas internship, she may the blink of an eye – that actually aren’t as Peace, enjoyed both cultural acquire a covetable wife, finally unravel the secret of her origins. simple as they seem. and commercial pre- two kids, and a beautiful Purity is a grand story of youthful eminence and its economy home in New York City. But idealism, extreme fidelity, and murder by Dietrich & Riefenstahl: was the envy of West and George has a murderous temper, and when one of the major writers of our time. Hollywood, Berlin, and a East alike. Yet Baghdad’s inhabitants have he loses control the result is an act of Century in Two Lives also seen many terrible hardships and much violence so shocking that both brothers are The Return: Fathers, Sons and Karin Wieland & Shelley Frisch violence. Justin Marozzi vividly brings to life hurled into entirely new lives in which the Land in Between (trans.) the fascinating story of what was once the they both must seek absolution. Hisham Matar PB. Was $29.95 Now $13.95 greatest capital on earth. HB. Was $49.99 Now $15.95 Marlene Dietrich and Leni Transit When Hisham Matar was Riefenstahl lived so close to Anything is Possible Rachel Cusk nineteen, his father went each other that Riefenstahl Elizabeth Strout HB. Was $39.99 Now $15.95 missing under mysterious could see into Dietrich’s PB. Was $22.99 Now $12.99 In the wake of her family’s circumstances. Hisham Berlin flat. Coming of age in Anything is Possible tells the collapse, a writer and her would never see him the Weimar Republic, both story of the inhabitants of two young sons move to again. Twenty-two years sought fame in Germany’s rural, dusty Amgash, Illinois, London. The process of this later, he returned to his silent film industry. Moving deftly the hometown of Lucy upheaval is the catalyst for native Libya in search of the truth. The between their stories, Karin Wieland Barton, a successful New York a number of transitions – Return is an unforgettable work with a contextualises these lives, chronicling writer who finally returns, personal, moral, artistic, powerful human question at its core: how revolutions in politics, fame and sexuality after seventeen years of and practical. In this second book of a does one go on living in the face of on a grand stage. absence, to visit the siblings she left behind. precise, short, yet epic cycle, Cusk captures unthinkable loss? With an unforgettable cast of small-town with unsettling restraint and honesty the The Language of Kindness: A characters who cope with love and loss, it longing to both inhabit and flee one’s life. Science in the Soul: Selected Nurse’s Story underscores Elizabeth Strout’s place as one of Writings of a Passionate Christie Watson America’s most respected authors. The Other Paris: An Illustrated Rationalist PB. Was $29.99 Now $12.99 Journey through a City’s Poor Richard Dawkins Christie Watson was a nurse H is for Hawk and Bohemian Past HB. Was $49.99 Now $17.95 for twenty years. Taking us Helen Macdonald Luc Sante This anthology of more from birth to death and from HB. Was $49.99 Now $16.95 PB. Was $32.99 Now $14.95 than forty pieces is a the emergency department As a child, Helen Many think of Paris as kaleidoscopic argument to the mortuary, The Macdonald was determined the city of white for the power and the glory Language of Kindness is her to become a falconer, facades, discreet traffic of science. Science in the astonishing account of a learning the arcane and well-mannered Soul is a sparkling profession defined by acts of care, terminology and reading all exchanges. But there showcase for Richard compassion and kindness. And in these the classic books. Years was another Paris – Dawkins’ wit; the clarity, precision and dark days of division and isolationism, she later, when her father died that of the working and vigour he brings to an argument; the encourages you to stretch out your hand. DVDS August 2019 READINGS MONTHLY 21

Endeavour: Series 6 leans towards the social, watching hardy $29.95 sorts offer entertainingly gossipy titbits Film & TV on courtship, beauty and other everyday Available 7 August ‘[Endeavour] is part heart- pursuits. You’ll shed a tear or two, wrenching tragedy … and possibly more.’ – The Guardian part flawlessly plotted crime A romantic comedy wouldn’t be a romantic comedy without thriller. The show has DVD OF THE an obstacle or two to overcome on the road to happily ever elevated the TV prequel and Film after. In this respect, Wayne Blair’s Top End Wedding is no MONTH brought 1960s England different to other rom-coms. Adelaide-based lawyers Lauren vividly to life … [It] has grown into a Film (Miranda Tapsell) and Ned (Gwilym Lee) decide to marry in her superior drama, with high production All is True hometown of Darwin. When they arrive in the top end, Lauren’s values, intelligent scripts, wonderful Was $34.95 father, Trevor (Huw Higginson) informs them that Daffy (Ursula acting and a bittersweet emotional punch $29.95 Yovich), Lauren’s mum, took off a few days ago. Lauren and Ned ... In short, it is excellent’ – New Statesman Available 14 August hit the road, with just ten days to find Daffy and say ‘I do’. The year is 1613, and Blair, who directed 2012’s The Sapphires, knows how to Shakespeare is entertain. There are plenty of laughs in Top End Wedding, The Bay: Season 1 $29.95 acknowledged as the greatest slapstick moments and quirky supporting characters. But where Available 7 August writer of the age. But disaster Top End Wedding differs from other romantic comedies is in its strikes when his renowned formidable sense of place. Lauren’s Indigenous heritage takes ‘Suspects and police officers Globe Theatre burns to the centre stage as her search for her mother provides a deeper with shared secrets? Check. ground. Devastated, Shakespeare returns connection with Country, culture, and ultimately herself. Information wilfully withheld to Stratford, where he must face a troubled Lauren and English-born Ned’s road trip takes them through by the writer? Check. Will you past and a neglected family. In so doing, he the spectacular landscapes of Nitmiluk (Katherine) Gorge and be hooked? Check … The Bay is ruthlessly forced to examine his own Top End Wedding Kakadu (the film was made with the support of Tourism NT), is Broadchurch in failings as a husband and father. Was $39.95 eventually arriving at Daffy’s birthplace, the Tiwi Islands. It’s Morecambe. I would even bet half my David $29.95 a part of Australia most of us know little about, and seeing it Tennant memorabilia collection that was Available 14 August expands our understanding of Indigenous culture on screen. the makers’ pitch in its entirety. Why not? Galveston Tapsell, who co-wrote the screenplay, is a Larrakia woman who It’s perfect.’ – The Guardian $24.95 grew up around Kakadu, and her knowledge of these places and Available 24 July their peoples gives Top End Wedding an authentic voice, vividly reinforced by the inclusion of Yellow is Forbidden ‘Fans of noir will more than Indigenous languages, music, and dance. $29.95 find their kicks in this Top End Wedding is a film about belonging. Homesickness runs from mother to daughter Available 27 July beautiful film that stares and speaks to a powerful yearning for reconciliation – within a family, and within the nation. Guo Pei is chasing every hard into the abyss of human Tapsell and Blair have created a rom-com with emotional weight. You’ll laugh and cry. designer’s fantasy to become possibility. Though encased part of the exclusive yet solidly in darkness and Joanna Di Mattia is from Readings Carlton savage world of Haute despair, it’s not without its glimpses of Couture. This unprecedented light and hopes of redemption, making it a documentary takes the character study of significant nuance and viewer inside the world where Guo Pei, a revelatory delights.’ – Glide Magazine TV & Documentary woman who learnt her craft at Number 2 Light Industrial School after the reign of The Trouble with You Line of Duty: Series 5 Mao Tse Tung, creates magic. $29.95 Shetland: Series 4 $29.95 Available 7 August $29.95 Available 7 August Older than Ireland One of the biggest audience Available 7 August The hit police corruption $29.95 hits of Cannes 2018, this is a Ann Cleeves’ bestselling drama from the makers of Available 27 July sparkling screwball comedy detective series return. A Bodyguard returns. When ‘Both wry treat and from French cinema’s human hand washes up on a three police officers are shot testament to the efficacy of master of the genre, Pierre Shetland beach. Then more dead during the hijack of a modern medicine, Alex Salvadori. Set on the French body parts are discovered in a seized-drugs transport, Fegan’s documentary Riviera, it is the story of a detective who hold-all that has been AC-12 move in to investigate possible rounds up 30 Irish tries to make amends after discovering dumped at sea. DI Jimmy Perez uncovers a police collusion. As the body count rises, centenarians, and invites her late husband, a local police chief, was complex network of human trafficking AC-12 realise they’re facing their most them to hold forth on subjects from the not the embodiment of virtue she had across Scotland’s remote rural communities. vicious adversary yet. civil war to Twitter … Fegan’s history been led to believe.

ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD THE NIGHTINGALE Opens Aug 29 (CTC) MARGARET ATWOOD: LIVE IN CINEMAS Opens Sep 19 Opens August 15 (CTC) Jennifer Kent (The Babadook), returns with an equally as frightening (CTC) Quentin Tarantino’s ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD brings us tale – but this time it’s a story of revenge. Set in 1825, Clare (Aisling THE TESTAMENTS, Margaret Atwood’s sequel to The Handmaid’s the summer of ‘69 in Los Angeles via a comedic thriller. Teaming up Franciosi), a young Irish convict woman chases a British officer (Sam Tale, will be revealed in a global cinematic event. Readings from the again with his stalwarts Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, TV Actor Claflin) through the rugged Tasmanian wilderness, bent on revenge new book by special guests make this an intimate event spotlighting Rick (DiCaprio) is past his prime and quickly becoming a has-been. for a terrible act of violence he committed against her family. On the Atwood’s insight, humour and intellect. Conversation and Accompanied by his long-term stunt double (Pitt), the two make their way she enlists the services of an Aboriginal tracker – Billy (Baykali performance filmed live, with exclusive documentary content, way around an industry they hardly recognize anymore. Co-starring Ganambarr), who is also marked by trauma and violence from his will open a window on to Atwood’s rich and varied career. Margot Robbie and Kurt Russell, ONCE UPON A TIME... IN own past. Expect gothic gore and bloody vindication as we follow “Dear Readers: Everything you've ever asked me about Gilead and its HOLLYWOOD is a retro ode to eras gone by. Clare’s plan of vengeance. inner workings is the inspiration for this book. Well, almost everything! “The most fun Quentin Tarantino has had in years” – Variety HHHHH “A furious, gruelling and essential film that gives voice to The other inspiration is the world we've been living in.” HHHHH – The Guardian female suffering.” – ScreenHub – Margaret Atwood

Melbourne’s home of quality arthouse and contemporary cinema 22 READINGS MONTHLY August 2019 MUSIC

darkest and tenderest music he has Australian. Including musicians such as released outside of Radiohead, floating Dan Sultan, Dallas Woods, Tia Gostelow Popular uneasily through the space between and Electric Fields it is a celebration of societal turmoil and internal monologue … music, culture and identity. Music [It’s] tone throughout is meaty, full- blooded, often a little menacing. Yorke’s History melancholy has grown teeth.’ – Pitchfork Youssou N’Dour $29.95 The Teskey Brothers debut album was one of the standout Guesswork Available now ALBUM OF releases of 2017, ending up on many people’s best of the Lloyd Cole ‘Aside from his sublime THE MONTH year lists. The album introduced a band of four who love $29.95 voice and onstage playing together and who have a great feel and dedication for Available 2 August Pop/Rock/Alt charisma, Senegal’s American sixties-era classic soul and blues music. Predominantly an premier star has always The band’s Warrandyte studio utilises vintage equipment, ‘electronic’ album been a musical adding to their authentic sound. The band had already been Lloyd Cole’s Guesswork innovator, fusing playing together for a decade before their first album launch, is fashioned from tradition and modernity … History, his first and their sound has had plenty of time to grow. Constant classic and modern album in four years, showcases N’Dour’s local and international touring over the last two years has keyboard, modular and mastery of multiple styles and languages … developed their musical chops even further. drum synthesizers, though guitars played [He] sings with accustomed majesty The new album is no rushed carbon copy affair. Run by Cole and Neil Clark (ex-Commotions) throughout; sometimes commanding, Home Slow is a great follow up that should provide a major do feature. Lloyd Cole’s ear for a melody, sometimes anguished, an always urgent breakthrough. his lyrical smarts, and his unmistakable force of nature.’ – The Guardian Run Home Slow Here are new songs with added stylistic variations and voice ensure the songs on Guesswork The Teskey instrumental colour but retaining that familiar Teskey stand shoulder to shoulder with anything Brothers Brothers sound. ‘Man of the Universe’, the first single of he has previously written. the album, is a punchy slice of pop/soul that can easily sit Jazz/Blues $21.95 | Also on vinyl alongside any of the classic soul hits that inspired the band Amoeba Gig Available 2 August to play all those years ago. ‘So Caught Up’ features a beefier Paul McCartney guitar sound accompanied by those familiar soul grooves. $29.95 | Also on vinyl Producer Paul Butler, who has also worked with Michael Kiwanuka, has helped push the Antidote Available now band to new heights, and the brass and occasional string players add even more depth to Chick Corea & The Spanish Heart Amoeba Gig is the first a great collaborative effort. Band full length commercial $29.95 | Also on vinyl Paul Barr is from Readings Carlton release of Paul Available 2 August McCartney’s surprise free concert at ‘Antidote from Chick Hollywood’s Amoeba Corea and his newly formed Spanish Heart music. Featuring Television’s Tom Verlaine Music on June 27, 2007. Twenty-one songs Band revisits songs Pop/Rock/Alt on the title track their folk-punk remains as documenting possibly the most intimate from his classic albums warm, wise and weird as ever before and L.A. show McCartney has ever played can My Spanish Heart and they continue to mine the vast range of ideas now be experienced by all. The album Touchstone … The music covers Spanish, and melodic complexity that has includes such classics as ‘The Long and Latin, and flamenco traditions with his Songs from the Aftermath characterised the band since 1983. Winding Road’, ‘I’ve Got a Feeling’, ‘I’ll own compositions … This [album] can Wagons Follow the Sun’ and ‘Here Today’. stand with Corea’s best work, quite an | $21.95 Also on vinyl When I Get Home accomplishment.’ – Glide Magazine Available 9 August Solange Songs from the $54.95 Only on vinyl Oklahoma Aftermath cascades Soul/Funk Available 2 August Keb’ Mo’ through random visions ‘Solange’s growth as an $21.95 | Also on vinyl and emotions, like a artist has been one of Available now long road trip through music’s most fascinating The New Adventures of … ‘Keb’ Mo’ built his now the night. It has the stories, and, like A Seat at P.P. Arnold legendary reputation as a bands trademark enigmatic-twang, fused the Table, When I Get $29.95 bluesman but has proven with chaos, longing and loneliness. After Home serves as a thrilling Available 9 August to be equally adept in two decades, Wagons still pulse and stomp reminder that this is just the beginning of the Five decades after she R&B and Americana- together as a joint force, with singer Henry futures she still has yet to unpack. If she can became a ’60s icon with styled roots music. The Wagons at the helm. make a party-friendly album so meaningful, the timeless pop hits latter and rootsy blues are at the heart of we’ve barely even witnessed the tip of her ‘The First Cut is the Oklahoma, and … reflect his personal Wild Seeds vision.’ – Rolling Stone Deepest’ and ‘Angel of passions and interests … Ambitious indeed, Seeker Lover Keeper the Morning’, soul singer but there’s some signature Keb’ Mo’ feel good $21.95 | Also on vinyl Down to the River P.P. Arnold is set to release a double-album blues songs and a killer love song duet with Available 9 August The Allman Betts Band of stunning new material. Featuring his wife in the mix too.’ – Glide Magazine $29.95 Beloved Australian contributions from, among others, Paul Available now indie-folk supergroup Weller, Ocean Colour Scene’s Steve Cradock, Seeker Lover Keeper ‘Down to the River is the The Specials and P.P’s songwriter son, Kodzo (Sarah Blasko, Sally highly anticipated debut the album crowns an extraordinary career. Jazz Special Seltmann and Holly from The Allman Betts Throsby) finally release Band, recorded at the of the Month their long awaited follow-up to their debut legendary Muscle Shoals of 2011. The songs on Wild Seeds reflect a Sound Studios … It’s an Folk/World shared outlook and lived experience, album where the group pays homage to its expressing personal narratives and famous lineage while creating a legacy of its Last Dance universal stories such as the nostalgia of own … [It] is a great start to what will Keith Jarrett & Charlie Haden youth, yearnings for connection and the hopefully be a long run for The Allman Deadly Hearts 2 Was $26.95 endurance of friendship. Betts Band.’ – Rock and Blues Muse Various artists $11.95 (Limited stock at this price) $16.95 Keith Jarrett and Charlie Hotel Last Resort Anima Available now Haden broaden the Violent Femmes Thom Yorke The second volume of scope of their duo $19.95 | Also on vinyl $22.95 | Also on vinyl ABC Music’s ground- project to showcase jazz Available 30 August Available now breaking Deadly Hearts classics like Thelonious Violent Femmes tenth ‘Dreams, nightmares, once again celebrates Monk’s ‘Round studio album resides and sleepwalking haunt NAIDOC week. On Midnight’ and Bud Powell’s spritely ‘Dance among their finest work, the songs of Anima, Deadly Hearts 2 some of of the Infidels’. Love songs, however, are to simultaneously refining/ [Thom] Yorke’s most Australia’s best young artists reimagine the the fore in this selection, with tender redefining their one-of-a- ambitious and assured iconic songs that spoke to them most versions of songs such as ‘My Old Flame’, kind take on American solo album yet. It is the strongly about growing up as an Indigenous ‘My Ship’ and ‘Every Time We Say Goodbye’. MUSIC August 2019 READINGS MONTHLY 23

led by Nézet-Séguin … a powerful is remarkably able to express tenderness, performance … I like Batiashvili’s gentle wonder and sometimes even a smoky Classical Music swagger … She perfectly captures the music’s sensuality; there’s also a genuine sense of sardonic spirit without overdoing the childlike innocence in some of her singing aggression. I also appreciate her free-flowing on this album … Sierra is a major talent, way with the solo opening of the Second now sought after by the world’s greatest Schumann’s Frauenliebe und –leben was groundbreaking: Concerto, her subtle use of portamento and opera houses. You can see why from this it was the first song cycle composed to be sung by a woman ALBUM OF the sweetness of the first movement’s second excellent debut.’ – Opera News and from her perspective. As the title indicates, the cycle THE MONTH subject.’ – Gramophone follows the life and love of a nineteenth-century woman, Classical from the time she first sets eyes on her beloved, through Verbier Festival: 25 Years of Verdi marriage, childbirth, and finally bereavement. Considering Excellence Joseph Calleja, Orquestra de la it starts with youth and ends with the wisdom of old age, Various artists & Verbier Festival Comunitat Valenciana & Ramón is it more suitable for a young soprano or a mature one? Orchestra Tebar For her first lieder album in twenty years, soprano Renée DG. 4835143. 4CDs. Was $59.95 Decca. 4831539. Was $24.95 Fleming – a woman at the height of her singing career – has $36.95 (Limited stock at this price) finally chosen to add Schumann’s cycle to her discography. $11.95 (Limited stock at this price) ‘Every performance is a She approaches Frauenliebe und –leben from the latter ‘Calleja is not a clarion gem: the line-up could end of the experience and age spectrum, and interprets trumpeter but his tenor scarcely be starrier, but the opening songs with wistfulness and nostalgia. Unlike is tinted with soft what makes it special is golden hues, sunshine Lieder: Brahms, younger interpreters of the cycle, Fleming brings palpable the fact that everything love, loss, heartbreak and knowing to the closing ‘Nun hast beaming through the is more than the sum of Schumann & voice much the same Mahler du mir den ersten Schmerz getan’. Her voice is just as luscious its considerable parts. Highlights include a as on her previous lieder album, but she now brings with her way as it did with Luciano Pavarotti. gloriously uninhibited account of Berio’s Renée Fleming, twenty years’ more life experience. In the liner notes Fleming Coloured with a gentle flutter of vibrato … Folk-Songs from maverick mezzo Malena Harmut Höll explains that ‘there is a delicacy to it, I think, that is very it has an old-school quality of a Björling or Ernman, an electrifying Beethoven & Christian moving’. That delicacy is evident in her performance. Di Stefano, which is high praise indeed. concerto from Martha Argerich, and a Thielemann Alongside the Schumann Fleming has also recorded The honeyed ease with which he floats big-boned but lyrical Brahms piano trio Decca. 4832335. $21.95 lieder by Brahms and Mahler, and I just love her voice in this phrases in Don Alvaro’s aria from La forza from Truls Mørk, Ilya Gringolts and Daniil repertoire: it’s rich and warm and full of feeling. Fleming’s del destino is winning and he makes Trifonov’ – Presto Classical impeccable singing technique means that, even at sixty, her voice sounds fresh and Radamès’ paean to “Celeste Aida” beautifully eloquent …’ – Gramophone brilliant as ever. Simple, beautiful, and tenderly performed by Fleming and Hermut Höll, In Concert: Beethoven & Liszt the opening Wiegenlied by Brahms is a particular highlight. Renée Fleming’s latest lieder Bernstein: Symphony No. 2 Till Fellner album has prompted me to delve into her back catalogue and enjoy her 1999 Schubert ECM. 02894816837. Was $24.95 album – and I encourage all Fleming fans to do the same. ‘The Age of Anxiety’ $11.95 (Limited stock at this price) Krystian Zimerman, Berliner Alexandra Mathew is from Readings Carlton Philharmoniker & Sir Simon Rattle ‘Fellner’s “Wallenstadt” DG. 4835539. Was $26.95 is magnificent, flowing joyfully while melding $12.95 (Limited stock at this price) late Liszt with the Notturno: Songs by Richard ‘[Zimerman’s] is a very mistiness of the Classical Strauss wise, very seasoned, Impressionists. Thomas Hampson & Wolfram Rieger poetic take on it and Throughout, Fellner offers a sort of DG. 4792943. Was $24.95 from his very first solo Specials revelling in the piano sound reminiscent of $11.95 (Limited stock at this price) is possessed of a Schiff. He rightly conjures a more severe ‘Powerfully sung, with thoughtful world for Beethoven’s final sonata. Fellner’s Daniel Hope’s solo “inwardness”. He finds the heartache and mastery is in the second movement, Schumann: Geistervariationen violin and Wolfram disillusionment between the notes and unfolding beautifully but with decidedly András Schiff Rieger at the piano conveys a hypnotic “out of body” feeling in varied terrain. The path to Elysium, for ECM. 4763909. 2CD Was $39.95 creating a ghostly its many moments of reflection. Simon him, is no easy one’ – International Piano $19.95 (Limited stock at this price) atmosphere, it comes Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic ‘… if you want the living across as a major achievement of Strauss’s Orchestra shroud him in opulence, the Homecoming: A Scottish definition of virtuoso song writing career – a dark and chilling grand logic of it all beautifully Fantasy pedalling, listen to masterpiece … All the songs, though, conveyed.’ – Gramophone Nicola Benedetti, BBC Scottish András Schiff in the benefit from Hampson’s impeccably clear Symphony Orchestra & Rory “Aria” movement of German and his ability, with Rieger’s Schubert: Die Nacht Macdonald Schumann’s F sharp support, to set ideally well-judged speeds … Anja Lechner & Pablo Márquez Decca. 4786690. Was $24.95 minor Sonata … It’s the most impressive it is Hampson who generally shapes the ECM. 02894817172. Was $24.95 realisation of Schumann’s challenging songs most persuasively.’ – Gramophone $11.95 (Limited stock at this price) $11.95 (Limited stock at this price) pedal markings that I have ever heard. In their first duo album, ‘Her assured technique Schiff’s ability to ‘voice’ piano writing is The Salzburg Recital 2008 German cellist Anja sees her through all the perhaps his outstanding feature as a Grigory Sokolov Lechner and formidable obstacles en performer … the whole set is full of the DG. 4794342. 2CD Was $24.95 Argentinean guitarist route … The BBC pure, Olympian beauty and intellectual $11.95 (Limited stock at this price) Pablo Márquez, look to Scottish SO conducted sharpness that characterise Schiff at his ‘Some of the playing is the strong tradition of by Rory Macdonald finest.’ – BBC Music Magazine breathtaking in its guitar accompanied songs prevalent in share Benedetti’s rapport with this music, clarity, articulation and Vienna in the nineteenth century. After playing from the heart … Her infectious Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5 colour … The Mozart many years of fruitful collaboration this way with the reels would brighten up any & Piano Sonata No. 32, Op. 111 playing may seem first full duo album features many of Hogmanay or Burns night’ – Gramophone Nelson Freire, Gewandhausorchester old-fashioned, but it Schubert’s most beloved songs. Also & Riccardo Chailly overflows with vitality, each movement included are the graceful Trois Nocturnes, Piano Masters in Berlin Decca. 4786771. Was $24.95 conceived as a single, sweeping entity, originally written for cello and guitar by Various artists $11.95 (Limited stock at this price) while each of the Chopin Preludes Friedrich Burgmüller. DG. 4835057. 8CDs. Was $44.95 manages to conjure up a complete ‘If two musicians could $26.95 (Limited stock at this price) expressive world in a miniature frame … put a new shine on There’s a Place for Us Eight CDs present It’s all to treasure.’ – The Guardian Beethoven’s Piano Nadine Sierra, Royal Philharmonic outstanding Concerto No. 5, the Orchestra & Robert Spano performances from “Emperor”, it was a good Visions of Prokofiev DG. 4835004. Was $24.95 Deutsche Grammophon’s bet they would be Lisa Batiashvili, Chamber Orchestra $11.95 (Limited stock at this price) unrivalled roster of pianist Nelson Freire and conductor of Europe & Yannick Nézet-Séguin ‘The young American pianists accompanied by Riccardo Chailly … together he and Chailly DG. 4798529. Was $24.95 soprano Nadine Sierra’s the two pillars of German musical life: the banish the pompous air that often stifles $11.95 (Limited stock at this price) debut recording is an Berlin Philharmonic and the Staatskapelle performances of the “Emperor” and ‘Batiashvili effectively eclectic collection of Berlin. The remarkable recordings replace it with a fresh, keen atmosphere echoes Oistrakh’s songs and arias in presented here represent different layers of with glimpses of a radiant, cloudless sky. warmth and there’s a English, Spanish and style and time, featuring: Géza Anda, Freire’s filler, a luminous performance of definite boon in having Portuguese. Her shimmering, jewel-toned Martha Argerich, Daniel Barenboim, Andor Beethoven’s Op. 111 Piano Sonata is no less an orchestral soprano is showcased beautifully in a Földes, Emil Gilels, Katia and Marielle absorbing.’ – Financial Times accompaniment securely variety of styles and moods … Sierra’s voice Labèque, Maurizio Pollini and Yundi. black

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