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NEWS August 2020 READINGS MONTHLY 3

storytelling and identity. First awarded in Kneen (Avid Reader), Anna MacDonald 1957, the Miles Franklin Literary Award is (Paperback Bookshop), and Rachel Readings’ online events August presented annually to a novel of the highest Robson (Berkelouw Books Leichhardt). Our In response to the COVID-19 health crisis, literary merit and presents Australian life congratulations to them once more. Readings has moved its events program in any of its phases. As the 2020 winner, online. Each month, we’re bringing you News Winch will receive $60,000 in prize money. an array of local and international authors You can find out more about the award at Melbourne Writers Festival discussing their books, all accessible and milesfranklin.com.au/news. The 2020 program for Melbourne Writers available to watch right from your home. Readings shops and COVID-19 Festival has been announced. This year’s Highlights this month include writer and festival will be taking place entirely online, broadcaster Richard Fidler joining us for Due to the ongoing public health situation Readings Children’s Book Prize & Young so you can enjoy a stellar range of bookish an evening session on Monday 24 August in Melbourne, our shops are operating a Adult Book Prize winners 2020 conversations with your favourite authors to discuss his new book with Readings’ little diferently. For full information about After a great deal of deliberation, the from the comfort of your own home. This own Marie Matteson. For details on how trading hours, kerbside pickup and special winners of the Readings Children’s Book year’s program features artists including to watch, and to see what’s on ofer conditions for our seven shops, please visit Prize and the Readings Young Adult Kate Grenville, Brit Bennett, Anne Enright, across our whole events program, visit readings.com.au/our-shops. You can also Book Prize have both been decided. We Julia Gillard, Alexis Wright, Christos readings.com.au/events. follow us on social media (@readingsbooks are proud to announce that the winners Tsiolkas, Elizabeth Strout, Kevin Kwan and on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook) are The Girl, The Cat and The Navigator more. For more information, and to see the or sign up to our enews (readings.com. by Matilda Woods, and Ghost Bird by full program, please visit mwf.com.au. au/sign-up) to get the most up-to-date Lisa Fuller, respectively. We’d like to information about any changes to the way extend our congratulations to the other our shops are operating. shortlisted authors for both prizes for ofering such strong competition. More information about the prizes and winners Father’s Day can be found on page 5. Father’s Day is coming up on Sunday 6 September. As well as browsing the many excellent new releases throughout the Alison Huber awarded ABA Text newsletter, you can find some specific Publishing Bookseller of the Year Award Father’s Day gift ideas on pages 12 and 13. Congratulations to Alison Huber, Readings’ If you’re shopping online, we encourage Book Division Manager, who has been you to place your Father’s Day orders of awarded Bookseller of the Year by the in-stock items by 5pm, Friday 14 August, to Australian Booksellers Association (ABA). help ensure your gift will arrive in time. Huber has worked at Readings for seventeen years, and in 2015, took on the role of head book buyer for the bookshop. She has been Miles Franklin Literary Award winner 2020 a positive and ardent advocate for Australian Tara June Winch has been named the literature over the years, with a particular winner of this year’s Miles Franklin emphasis on raising the profile of emerging Literary Award. Her winning book The local voices. Huber was shortlisted alongside Yield is the story of a people and a culture several other passionate booksellers dispossessed, but it also a powerful including Michael Earp (The Little Bookroom), reclaiming of Indigenous language, Kate Horton (Farrells Bookshop), Krissy

R E AD I N G S M O N T H LY 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 ADVERTISING at time of publication, however prices SUBSCRIBE EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS Ellen Cregan and release dates may change without You can subscribe to Readings Monthly Judi Mitchell & Ellen Cregan [email protected] notice. Special price offers apply only for and our e-news by visiting our website: the month in which they are featured in readings.com.au/sign-up PROOFREADERS GRAPHIC DESIGN Readings Monthly. Judi Mitchell, Ellen Cregan & Marie Cat Matteson & Gemma Mahoney DELIVERY CHARGES FOR Matteson COVID19 MAIL-ORDER PURCHASES FRONT COVER While all title release dates were correct $5 flat rate for anywhere in Australia KIDS/YA CURATORS The August Readings Monthly cover features at the time of going to press, due to the Angela Crocombe & Dani Solomon an illustration by Michelle Pereira. Cover ongoing COVID-19 crisis the unexpected DELIVERY CHARGES FOR design by Cat Matteson & Gemma Mahoney. may happen along the supply chain. ONLINE PURCHASES MUSIC CURATOR Please bear with us as we bring you books $5 flat rate for anywhere in Australia for Dave Clarke INTERNAL ILLUSTRATIONS in these rapidly changing circumstances. orders under $60. Free delivery on orders Illustrations by Michelle Pereira are also $60 and over. CLASSICAL MUSIC CURATOR featured on pages 13 and 21. Readings donates 10% of its profits each Phil Richards year to the Readings Foundation: readings.com.au/the-readings-foundation DV D S CU R ATO R Lou Fulco 4 READINGS MONTHLY August 2020 COLUMNS

And, are you fully prepped to read Edward Cullen’s half of the story in Mark’s Dear Stephenie Meyer’s hotly anticipated Midnight Sun? (If that description Say Reader doesn’t mean anything to you, don’t ‘Engrossing worry – the Twilight fever of the 2000s fresh, clean air and living in a classless society where everyone was your mate.’ with Mark Rubbo with Alison Huber and heartfelt.’ passed me by too.) In Nonfiction, we have a wonderful Christopher Raja was eleven years old whenMEG his father, MUNDELL David, decided to moveIf you’ve the been family a customer to atAus The award given to an piece of writing about forests and Readings you’ve come Unpublished Manuscript walking by John Blay, Wild Nature, tralia in pursuit of the idyllic lifestyle. They brought their hopes and aspirationsacross to Alison a bungalow Huber, either in at the annual Victorian which our reviewer says is a ‘balm for directly or indirectly. She’s Premier’s Literary the frustrated urge’ to visit nature she Melbourne’s outer suburbs. On the surface, the Rajas appeared to be living a ‘normal’been with us Australian since 2003. life. Awards has developed an feels during our time in lockdown (a For many of those years, she moonlighted excellent track record over the years for feeling I share). Paddy Manning’s Body from her day job as an academic at the uncovering talent (alumni include Jane Count uncovers the human costs of the Throughout his teenage years, Christopher embraces the freedoms ofUniversity his adopted of Melbourne. country, Prior to that, while she his Harper, Christian White, and Melanie climate emergency: increasing mortality worked at the Melbourne University Book Cheng), and so it was with some rates worldwide. Our reviewers also father becomes more and more disenchanted. Just as Christopher isRoom settling and the Dymocksinto university, at Melbourne Central the familyexpectation that I read Kokomo by recommend Christopher Raja’s memoir (now gone). Bookselling just didn’t seem to let Victoria Hannan, 2019’s award recipient. of migration, Into the Suburbs, Merlin is rocked by a tragic and unexpected loss. ‘In Calcutta we were crammedher go. In 2015, in whenamong Readings’ crowds, books trafficI was not disappointed: this impressive Sheldrake’s book about fungi, Entangled manager Martin Shaw announced that he debut is a fnely crafted piece of writing Life, and Philippe Sands’s The Ratline. and his family were decamping to Germany, rich in ideas, and is our Fiction Book of Also out later this month is Pattie Lees’ and pollution. We had visions of breathing fresh, clean air and livingAlison inwas afaced classless with an important society decision where the ev Month. memoir, A Question of Colour, as well as about whether to continue with her academic Speaking of prizes for unpublished new writing from Masha Gessen, Zadie eryone was your mate.’ Christopher Raja was eleven years old whencareer his orfather, put her hand David, up for Martin’s decided job. In to manuscripts, Loner won its author, Smith, Tim Parks, Richard Fidler, Hugh Alison’s words, ‘the planets aligned’ with her Georgina Young, 2019’s Text Prize Mackay, Sam Harris, and Frédéric Gros. move the family to Australia in pursuit of the idyllic lifestyle. Theydecision brought to put universities their hopes behind her.and aspirafor Young Adult and Children’s I think we could all do with some tips In her role, Alison leads a team of Writing, and this satisfying coming- from Eddie Jaku at the moment, whose tions to a bungalow in Melbourne’s outer suburbs. On the surface, thecolleagues Rajas in making appeared decisions to about be the living of-agea novel will please YA and adult lessons from his remarkable 100-year range of books Readings stocks and features audiences alike. We also recommend life are recorded in The Happiest Man on in each of our shops. A voracious reader, new Australian writing from Charlotte Earth. I have a small collection of books ‘normal’ Australian life. Throughout his teenage years, ChristopherAlison embraces is committed the to freedoms making Australian of his adMcConaghy, Amanda Lohrey, and about collections, so this month I’ll be stories a focus of her energies: ‘I have read Kathleen Jennings. adding a copy of The Museum of Whales opted country, while his father becomes more and more disenchanted.more Just Australian as literatureChristopher over the last is settlingHalle Butler’s The New Me was a You Will Never See: Travels Among the decade than I ever have in life. We need a sleeper hit amongst our staf last year, Collectors of Iceland. into university, the family is rocked by a tragic and unexpected loss.diversity of local stories and voices more and we can’t wait to catch up on her frst And finally, dear reader, Father’s than ever, and I see it as a huge and hugely novel, Jillian, which is now available Day is not until September, but given ‘In Calcutta we were crammed in amongBold, crowds, traffic new and pollution.important We part ofhad my job visions that Readings of breathing helps locally. Lots of folks will be awaiting everything that’s going on, we think Australian writers fnd their readers.’ Alison the fnal instalment of Ali Smith’s it’s wise to plan ahead, so we’ve put At the closely guardedis a trailblazer, and generous in mind and spirit, seasons quartet, Summer. Kate Reed together some gift suggestions on fresh, clean air and living in a classless society where everyone was soyour it was nomate.’ surprise to me that this year Petty is getting a lot of attention in the pages 12 and 13. Make sure you place Alison was the recipient of the Australian US already with her novel, True Story, your orders of in-stock items online Christopher Raja was eleven years oldAustralian when his father, David, decidedBooksellers to Associationmove the Text family Publishing to Ausand our reviewer wanted to reread it by 5pm on Friday 14 August, or phone secretive military facil-Bookseller of the Year Award. immediately. Meanwhile, David Mitchell’s one of our stores for further assistance Normally at this time of the year we’d cult following should already be at the – you can find all the individual shop be preparing to set up our bookstall at the rereading stage with Utopia Avenue (if phone numbers on the front cover of ity, Pinenon-fiction Gap in Austra-Melbourne Writers Festival but, like so not, hop to it!). this (and every) Readings Monthly, and many public events, it’s been disrupted New novels are also out this also on our website at readings.com. by Covid and will this year be presented month from James McBride, Kristen au/our-shops. lia’s Northern Territory,totally online. This year’s festival has been Hannah, DBC Pierre, Emma Donoghue, (And to my dad, if you happen to be put together by the associate director, Gene Carys Davies, Daisy Johnson, and a reading my column this month: I really Smith, while the festival searched for a collection of short stories from award- hope we get a chance to see each other in new director to replace Marieke Hardy. The winning Indian author Jayant Kaikini. person come September!) police arrest six nonvio-festival recently announced that the director of the Sydney Writers’ Festival, Michaela McGuire, had been appointed and would lent activists. Their crime:take up the position with MWF next month. in it together. Over the last month I Gene has put together a festival that would On was delighted to be privy to Richard be the envy of any other writers’ festival. Ford’s thoughts on his new collection to step through a fence,It runs from 7–16 August and features an of short stories and Kate Grenville’s eclectic mix of local and international Events reflections on writing, and to hear writers. Some will be known to you, such with Chris Gordon the inimitable Lisa Taddeo (author of as Kate Grenville and Elizabeth Strout, but the sensational Three Women) discuss lamenting and prayingothers willfor be wonderful discoveries. One of sex with Alice Robinson. Books have my favourite books of last year was Patrick been launched, champagne has been Radden Keefe’s Say Nothing, a massive book Zoom, zoom, zoom. poured, and we have seen various the dead of war. about the Troubles in Northern Ireland. I thought I would be lounge rooms and studies as authors Keefe has also released a wonderful podcast back in our wonderful discuss their work and see friends in about the German band the Scorpions and shops by now. I thought the process. They call themselves theirPeace 1990 hit ‘Wind of Change’ (which is also that this pandemic This month brings us not only the the name of the podcast). During lockdown, would have had its time in the sun and Melbourne Writers Festival from 7–16 I read A Burning by Indian writer Megha moved on. Clearly optimism is a fool’s August, but also the continuing virtual ‘Compelling Majumdar; this political thriller has already game. However, that does not mean the Readings dinner parties (as I like to think Pilgrims. toThe the Crowncore.’ callsbecome a simmering hit at Readings and I’m Readings events program is falling by of our Zoom events). The dress code is looking forward to hearing more from her. the wayside. It will not because there informal and it’s BYO drinks. As always, ANNA KRIEN These are just two of the writers involved in are so many stories to share, explore and we’ll be joined by many extraordinary them a threat to nationalthis year’s festival; there are so many more celebrate. All you need to do to join us is minds. The subjects we’ll be discussing to discover. For more details, head to the to download the free Zoom application. in the nights to come include George MWF website at mwf.com.au. Zoom is actually a very intimate Pell, suburban life, Prague, and acting. security and demands gaolIn the wake of the death of George Floyd, platform: the audience is as close to All you need to do to get an invite is to books about racism and by diverse authors the author as you could ever imagine. check out our website at readings.com. have been in demand. One book that I Despite the miles in-between, we are au/events and book a place at the events believe hasn’t got the attention it deserves is literally talking with authors over the of your fancy. time. Their political tri-Travellers by Nigerian author Helon Habila. kitchen table. These moments can Oh, and I’ll be in conversation with This novel about African immigrants and make our collective anxiety and fear social researcher Hugh Mackay. We www.uqp.com.au refugees in Europe is a beautifully poignant fade a little. Glimpses of other people’s will be talking about love. It seems like als, under harsh Cold andWar important work – I recommend it. lives are affirming. Indeed, we are all perfect timing. legislation, tell a story of FEATURE August 2020 READINGS MONTHLY 5

The Readings Young Adult Book Prize 2020 winner

Introduced by Angela Crocombe, Readings Kids In response to the news of her win, Fuller responded manager and chair of The Readings Young Adult Book generously: ‘There are no words for how honoured I am to win Prize 2020 judging panel. the Readings Young Adult Book Prize. I feel like I’m watching my dreams come true and I'm in complete shock. Thank you so We are absolutely delighted to announce Ghost Bird by Lisa much to Readings, the judges, and all of the amazing shortlisted Fuller as the winner of the Readings Young Adult Book Prize for authors!’ 2020. Ghost Bird is a terrifying and spooky thriller set in country While there can only be one winner, we had a very strong Australia and against a backdrop of family relationships, small- feld to choose from this year and want to again congratulate town grudges and casual racism. It is a cracking read for ages 14 our shortlisted authors: Wai Chim (The Surprising Power of a through to adult that will scare the pants of you and make you Good Dumpling); Holden Sheppard (Invisible Boys); Katy Warner question your biases. (Everywhere Everything Everyone); Meg Caddy (Devil’s Ballast); Our four staf judges – Bec Kavanagh, Claire Atherfold, Joe and Susan White (Take the Shot). Murray and I – were joined by YA author Amie Kaufman (The Kaufman commented: ‘The Readings Young Adult Book Prize Illuminae Files, The Aurora Cycle, The Starbound Trilogy) to make highlights the fact that the Australian YA scene is bursting with Ghost Bird the fnal decision on the winner. Kavanagh put it most succinctly talent. The fantastic 2020 shortlist shines a light on some of the Lisa Fuller when she said: ‘Readers looking for late-night scares will devour very best and is a chance for readers to support up-and-coming UQP. PB. $19.95 Ghost Bird. Fuller’s debut probes the deep tears in Australian home-grown talent.’ Available now culture, in its peoples and lands. In the forbidden depths of the The Readings Young Adult Book Prize has been recognising mountain lies something powerful and terrifying, something Australian authors since 2016 and has given early attention to that – when disrespected – will come out of the darkness to eat authors such as Zana Fraillon, whose novel The Bone Sparrow you alive. This is a book that will get under your skin, in more was awarded the prize in 2017 and later went on to win the ways than one.’ internationally recognised Amnesty CILIP Honour. Erin Gough Kaufman added to this praise: ‘Ghost Bird kept me reading (Amelia Westlake) and Eleni Hale (Stone Girl) have also been well into the night – with all the lights on! The novel draws you supported by the Readings Young Adult Book Prize and have seen deep into the bonds between sisters, family, and community, a signifcant boost in sales and awareness of their books. and is a fantastic addition to the Australian speculative fiction Due to the impact upon Readings of the ongoing global health scene, from a truly talented Murri author. This book is for crisis, we are unable to ofer prize money for any of our three everyone, and I loved it.’ prizes in 2020. We do hope these prizes will still guide readers Fuller is a Wuilli Wuilli woman from Eidsvold, Queensland, towards wonderful emerging voices. and is also descended from Gooreng Gooreng and Wakka We hope that you will support this exciting new author and the Wakka peoples. She is the frst First Nations writer to win one of prize by grabbing yourself a copy of Ghost Bird. Just be prepared Readings’ three book prizes. for a sleepless night …

The Readings Children's Book Prize 2020 winner

Introduced by Kim Gruschow, children’s book specialist Among the judges, there was a very real and powerful sense at Readings St Kilda and chair of the Readings Children’s that The Girl, the Cat & the Navigator is a classic in the making; Book Prize 2020 judging panel. many shared moments from the narrative that had stayed with them since frst reading it. And as Weetman puts it: ‘A book We are thrilled to share that the winner of this year’s Readings that promotes magic and kindness and strength and bravery is Children’s Book Prize is The Girl, The Cat & the Navigator by something to be celebrated at the moment.’ Matilda Woods! This thrilling high-seas tale will enchant readers In response to the announcement, Woods said: ‘It’s such an of ages 7–12 years. unexpected honour to be selected as this year’s winner for the Readings Eleven-year-old Oona longs for adventures, but as a girl in Children’s Book Prize. I had so much fun writing The Girl, the Cat & the Nordor – a town where houses are built from wood that comes Navigator and I hope a lot of children have fun reading it!’ from shipwrecks and sway as though still at sea – she must stay This is the second time Woods has been shortlisted for this demurely at home while the men (including her sneering sea prize. Her frst book, The Boy, the Bird & the Coffin Maker, was captain father) go out and hunt whales. Luckily, Oona is smart, shortlisted in 2018, and we are pleased to ofer both titles in one daring and determined. She sets of to discover the legend, danger specially priced pack for $26.95 (was $29.98). A third book from The Girl, the Cat & the and mythical creatures of the icy north for herself. Woods, Otto Tattercoat and the Forest of Lost Things, has also been Navigator Reminiscent of a classic folktale, this versatile and beautifully released this year. Matilda Woods & Anuska packaged book features vivid illustrations from artist Anuska Congratulations again to the fve authors who were shortlisted Allepuz (illus.) Allepuz. Woods is a gorgeous storyteller and her book will be alongside Woods: Remy Lai (Pie in the Sky), Bren MacDibble (The Scholastic. PB. $14.99 eagerly devoured by independent readers, as well as being a Dog Runner), Helen Milroy (Wombat, Mudlark & Other Stories), Available now and also available in perfect choice for a family read-aloud. Renée Treml (Sherlock Bones and the Natural History Mystery), a pack – see article for details. The Girl, the Cat & the Navigator was chosen by a panel of and Edwina Wyatt (The Secrets of Magnolia Moon). Readings children’s book specialists – Athina Clarke (Readings This is the seventh year of the Readings Children’s Book Prize, Malvern), Daniella Robertson (Readings Malvern), Fiona Hardy which was established in 2014 to celebrate books that children (Readings Doncaster), and me (Readings St Kilda) – along with our and families will love, and to raise the profle of exciting emerging 2020 guest judge, author Nova Weetman. Australian authors. Weetman praised this year’s exceptional We were unanimous in our love for this book. Woods shortlist as a fabulous showcase of the rich oferings of local has crafted a timeless fairytale that pays tribute to bravery, children’s publishing, and said of the prize: ‘The Readings kindness, and the power of making your own family. The Children’s Book Prize is a game-changer for authors and their judges particularly praised Woods’s unique imagination, her books. It translates to sales and it widely promotes Australian skilful use of language, and her awe-inspiring world-building. children’s literature.’ Weetman says: ‘Woods’s voice is refreshing and exciting; the Due to the impact upon Readings of the ongoing global health world that this book inhabits is adventurous and bold.’ Like crisis, we are unable to ofer prize money for any of our three prizes all the best magical fables, Oona’s story has an immensely in 2020. We do hope this prize will guide new readers towards satisfying and comforting conclusion. Woods’s books, which we believe are utterly wonderful. 6 READINGS MONTHLY August 2020 FICTION

garden. But when a mysterious note writes so quietly and confdently that you New arrives, Bettina sets off on a journey will be drawn into the scenery and to the to learn the truth about her tiny home supporting characters, and you will be town of Runagate, and the whereabouts weeping for Erica before you fnish. Fiction of her missing family members. Clearly, I am a huge fan of Lohrey’s Bettina’s quest to find out what writing and I do believe that this novel is happened to her family is the thread her very best. It is perfectly balanced and that holds each piece of this novel completely masterful. Fans of Alice Munro The anguish of living with unfulflled desire pulses together. But between the events of and Anne Tyler will rejoice in this kind of BOOK OF THE through Victoria Hannan’s debut novel, Kokomo. Its the overarching plot are a number of Australian story. characters, each in their own way, are trying to work out how MONTH fantastical tales: ghostly horse skeletons Christine Gordon is the events and to live when they cannot get what they need, or when the stalking the land, weeds growing over programming manager for Readings Australian things they want have been taken from them. and consuming entire towns, mysterious Fiction Mia has been living in London, pursuing a promising if girls appearing in the night at the exact The Last Migration precarious career in the high-pressure world of advertising. same time as sons disappear. For this Charlotte McConaghy She wants her workmate Jack – desperately, but probably reader, these forays into imagined local Hamish Hamilton. PB. $32.99 unwisely. The opening pages record an extremely intimate mythology were the highlight of Flyaway. Available 4 August scene that suggests she is about attain that need (NB: for the They will draw you further into the book While The Last faint of heart, the opening two pages may prove challenging, as you inch closer to the sinister truth of Migration is the but they don’t represent the tone of the rest of the novel, so its conclusion. author’s debut work of please do read on), but their union is interrupted by a phone Flyaway is Australian Gothic to its literary fction, Charlotte call from home, delivering the news that Mia’s agoraphobic core. The landscape is dry, the local McConaghy’s considerable mother Elaine has been seen outside her house for the frst community live in each other’s pockets, experience writing time since Mia’s father died suddenly twelve years ago. Mia and Kathleen Jennings imbues each scene, speculative fction is immediately fies back to Melbourne, though her mother and indeed each sentence, with a sense evident in the pacing seems unmoved by her return. of whimsy and mystery. The characters and plot of this novel. who orbit Bettina’s life and backstory McConaghy is clearly as adept at catching ... it’s easy to see why Hannan won the are truly of rural Australia, but would readers as her enigmatic sea captain, Ennis Kokomo coveted Unpublished Manuscript Award at feel just as at home on the pages of a Malone, was at catching herring – before Victoria Hannan collection of folklore. Through some of the the fsh disappeared. Hachette. PB. $32.99 2019’s Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards. peripheral tales within the book, Jennings A staunch vegetarian and Available 28 July acknowledges the painful and bloody conservationist, Franny Stone must go Some things resemble the home she knew (like the history of colonial interactions with First against everything she and her beloved steadfast Chengs, neighbours so close so as to almost be Nations people. This is not a central plot husband believe in and convince the crew family), but after years living abroad escaping the pain of her mother’s and her own grief, point, more a respectful remembering, of one of the few remaining legal fshing she fnds that so much has changed: some friends have new priorities, diferent lives. and the author ofers a reading list of First vessels to let her join them so she can The ground has shifted. As news of goings on at work in London come to her via text and Nations authors in the acknowledgements shadow the last Arctic terns on what is email, she realises that her life there has been compromised too. In the second half of the section of the book. predicted to be their fnal migration from novel, the point of view shifts to Elaine, and surprising revelations suggest that mother This is a bewitching debut novel, and the Arctic to Antarctica. Malone and his and daughter share much emotional terrain. one that I hope fnds its way into the hands crew of six are on a pilgrimage of their own At its best, the novel settles into the uncomfortable spaces of tension to be found of all who love Australian Gothic fction. in pursuit of the ‘Golden Catch’ – a fshing in-between: between places and times; leaving and returning; generations and families; haul large enough to fll their boat and between what we have and what we need; what we settle for and what we really want. It’s Ellen Cregan is the marketing and events coordinator for Readings make their fortunes, like in the old days – also tribute to the tenderness of friendship. There are many striking passages, brilliantly before commercial fshing is outlawed executed scenes, and gorgeous uses of the written word in this book that made me think once and for all. more than once, ‘Wow, this writer has really got it’, and it’s easy to see why Hannan The Labyrinth It’s a race against the clock for all won the coveted Unpublished Manuscript Award at 2019’s Victorian Premier’s Literary Amanda Lohrey concerned, and when an ensemble cast of Awards. This is an excellent debut. Text. PB. $29.99 Available 4 August characters sets of around the world on a Alison Huber is the head book buyer for Readings What to do with a hunt for endangered birds that may lead mother’s guilt? them to the catch of a lifetime, there will be Where does a mother’s drama. The novel draws upon backstories into her friendly PJs and pretend there shame lead? What does knotted with tragedy and reveals a present isn’t a world she should participate in. Australian love make us do? in which the perilous stakes include love, She’d love to go to bed and wake up the Amanda Lohrey asks death, and mass extinction. Fiction next day fully formed. She is intelligent these questions of her The reader is confronted by a near-future but lacks the language to make herself readers in her latest reality in which few animal species of any understood or to ask her family and Loner breathtaking novel. kind are left in the wild – and ordinary friends the important questions so she Georgina Young Erica Marsden’s son Daniel – an sights we take for granted (when not in in turn can understand them. Inevitably, lockdown), such as seagulls snatching Text. PB. $24.99 eccentric, driven artist – commits a classic misinterpretations lead to shaky chips, are rare and nostalgic. Although it is Available 4 August heinous crime and will spend the rest foundations for relationships – haven’t we a very diferent novel, The Last Migration Loner won the of his life in prison. Single mother Erica all been there? reminded me of David Dyer’s The Midnight Text Prize in 2019. moves to a run-down cottage by the ocean I loved Lona and Loner. I loved Lona’s Watch, not only because they are both sea- It is the universal story to be able to visit Daniel, but also to refect endearing honesty and even when she faring epics, but also for the authors’ shared of becoming an adult on happier times. Her childhood was spent strayed at times, she mostly stayed true to interest in the life-altering potential of small and all the uncertainty, within hospital grounds that hosted a herself. Even if she didn’t know who she human actions. drifting and questioning wonderful maze – a labyrinth. It is a place was, we pretty much did and really felt she that entails. Some lucky where being lost made sense, and Erica Elke Power is the editor of Readings Monthly would come through okay. young people know who decides re-creation is in order. Good one, Text, you chose well and I can’t they are and what they Of course, this is not the frst novel to Man in Armour wait to recommend this book far and wide. want – and then there are the Lonas of this ask questions about a mother and son’s Siobhan McKenna world. Lona is funny and spiky, lacking in Alexa Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn volatile relationship. Lionel Shriver’s Fourth Estate. PB. $32.99 self-esteem but wonderfully her own true We Need to Talk About Kevin addressed Available 5 August self. Having dropped out of her art course Flyaway the aftermath of a son’s violence and Charles lives in the at uni, her creativity is unfulflled; she is Kathleen Jennings the irreversible link between a mother brutal world of stuck in her old world while a new one Picador. PB. $24.99 and her chid. However, this novel is investment banking. passes her by. Her best friend and soul Available 28 July diferent because it does not seek to Each day he shrugs on a mate is being elusive, her new boyfriend is Nineteen-year- shock us, but rather it quietly allows us to metaphorical suit of defnitely not a soul mate and her new job old Bettina witness crossroads and transformations. armour and goes out to at a supermarket is spectacularly mind- hasn’t been the same Lohrey’s writing ensures we invest in do deals. But now, he numbing and strangely comforting; her since her father and and understand a mother’s intense need fnds himself empty. life is one big paradox. brothers disappeared. for forgiveness. Her writing asks us to Over the course of two Loner is an insular novel, it navigates She lives with her participate in Erica’s loneliness and grief. days, Charles’ life starts to splinter the bewildering small dramas of life as a mother, Nerida, in the Lohrey’s skill, however, is that The apart – and he’s splintering too. This is a backdrop to the big decisions that young family home, Labyrinth is fundamentally a story of story of a man whose world is falling adults face, and does it with dry humour. spending her days hope. It is an illustration of community apart – and the very start of his putting it Most of the time, all Lona wants is to get running errands and taking care of the spirit, of kindness and of empathy. Lohrey back together. FICTION August 2020 READINGS MONTHLY 7

The Question of Love encounters which set each character on a Hugh Mackay path that they assume is shared while each Pan Mac. PB. $32.99 is actually caught entirely in their own Available 11 August narrative, the star of their own movie. Richard and Freya are, The ease with which Kaikini seems to on the surface, a perfect pluck individuals out of the vast city of couple. He has a thriving Mumbai and follow them along for a little architectural practice; while brings an intimacy to each and every she plays the violin like story while retaining the sense of a city an angel. They live in a that seems to grow and grow. beautiful home. They I am still thinking of the three men in seem respectful and a taxi during a food, drawn together as caring of one another. strangers by small acts of kindness, and all They should be happier than they are. distracted still by what they will need to Starkly observed, beautifully written and return to in their individual lives after this intricately plotted, The Question of Love moment out of time. explores the myriad ways we resist the No Presents Please won the DSC Prize terrible beauty of true intimacy. for South Asian Literature, the frst book in translation to do so. It is a wonderful Ghost Species opportunity for English language readers James Bradley to experience some of Kaikini’s beautiful Hamish Hamilton. PB. $29.99 writing for the frst time. I’m very glad I did. Available now Marie Matteson is from Readings Carlton When scientist Kate Larkin joins a project to Jillian re-engineer the climate, Halle Butler she becomes enmeshed W&N. PB. $22.99 in a clandestine program Available now to recreate the Halle Butler’s Neanderthals. But when Jillian is a whole- the frst of the children body cringe, can’t-look- is born, Kate fnds away experience of herself torn between her duties as a vicarious mortifcation. scientist and her urge to protect their The second novel by time-lost creation. Thrillingly original, Butler to be published Ghost Species is embedded with a deep love in Australia, following and understanding of the natural world. The New Me which delighted Readings’ staf last year, it is in The Glad Shout fact her debut – though you wouldn’t Alice Robinson know it. Afirm Press. PB. $19.99 The eponymous Jillian is a thirty- Available now fve-year-old fantasist, single mother to a After a catastrophic preschooler, and one of two women who storm destroys begrudgingly work in a Chicago ofce Melbourne, Isobel fees organising colons and their owners for a to higher ground with gastroenterologist. Megan is the other – ‘A stunningly powerful call to political leaders her husband and young twenty-four, aggressively insecure, and everywhere who hear the warnings of the devastating daughter. Food and channelling her itching ennui into a supplies run low, panic vicious preoccupation with her co-worker’s impacts of climate change on health but fail to act.’ sets in and still no help shortcomings. It’s so all-consuming arrives. To protect her that after a fght, Megan’s boyfriend Dr Helen Haines, independent member for Indi daughter, Isobel must take drastic action. Randy makes a ‘peace ofering’ by asking This starkly visual and compelling novel Megan about Jillian. Megan replies, ‘She won The Readings Prize for New continues to be a thick strand in the Australian Fiction in 2019 and is a deeply malevolent web of my daily routine.’ moving homage to motherhood. With two flms to her credit, it’s no surprise that Butler’s dialogue is inescapably audible. Her writing is also International unsparing in its physical specifcity. Fiction Acutely sensitive to the many humiliations and uncertainties of her own relatively comfortable existence and aficted by No Presents Please an all-too-frequent hangover after yet Jayant Kaikini & Tejaswini another night of being enraged by her Niranjana (trans.) peers’ self-expression and achievements, Scribe. PB. $27.99 Megan feels: ‘totally ridiculous sudsing Available 4 August her buttcrack with the teal plastic bath Mumbai is the poof while crying and thinking about the central, beloved future.’ Butler excels at these moments of character of Jayant crushing, abject banality. Kaikini’s story collection, While Megan appears to manifest yet plenty of space Butler’s own disdain for capitalist remains to fall in love expectations, Jillian radiates a toxic with the protagonists of positivity incompatible with reality. each story. In No Presents Despite having no capacity to pay pressing Please, the stories are fnes or her son Adam’s childcare fees, drawn from Kaikini’s vast oeuvre, spanning Jillian is determined to adopt a special- the early 1980s to the 2000s, and translated needs dog. Elena, a ‘friend’ from church from the Kannada, consciously as a body of upon whom Jillian must rely to ferry work, by Tejaswini Niranjana. Adam to and from childcare after her In the frst story, ‘Interval’, we are car is impounded, refects with cheerful Stories of heartbreak, heroism and dropped into a small vignette, as narrated complacency that if she chose to murder hope from the front lines of the by two characters who only acknowledge Adam and bury him in the woods, she each other through the language of would get away with it as nobody would climate crisis Bollywood flms. In wonderful shorthand, believe Jillian. Fortunately, Elena has no as in a script, we scroll through a series of real interest in murder. 8 READINGS MONTHLY August 2020 FICTION

Jillian is an excruciating and often fnancial success. Partying and performing hilarious tale of two lost souls, each between London and Los Angeles, the subconsciously bent on a rapid course of band is soon crossing paths with assorted everyday self-sabotage. luminaries – David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix Elke Power is the editor of Readings Monthly and Janis Joplin, to mention a few. Mitchell immerses the reader so deeply Sisters into the milieu and the characters that this is entirely believable, but he doesn’t Daisy Johnson spare us the downside that comes with Jonathan Cape. PB. $29.99 success and creativity. Along with the Available 18 August family tragedies of ordinary lives, there is Something terrible addiction, blackmail and mental illness – has happened. all threaten to derail the band. Jasper’s Sheela’s only recourse is illness takes the straightforward narrative to spirit away her two of Utopia Avenue back to the surreal world teenage daughters, July of Mitchell’s earlier novels as he wrestles and September, and with inner demons that have travelled herself, from their home down his grandfather’s line from The in Oxford to a run-down Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet and shack in the Yorkshire The Bone Clocks. Moors known as the Settle House. It is here Ultimately though, Utopia Avenue is a that we get to know the two sisters and celebration of the power of music. It made their strangely close relationship. me want to hear the band; I wished I could Born ten months apart, July and YouTube scratchy black-and-white videos September sometimes feel more like of live performances and read essays twins despite their obvious diferences. by Joan Didion on their contribution to July resembles her maternal, Indian popular culture. grandmother and September is as pale as their absent, Danish father. September is Susan Stevenson is from Readings Malvern bold and rude; July is meek and polite. A leader and a follower, they are perfectly True Story happy in just each other’s company. As Kate Reed Petty stated early on in the novel: ‘It would have Riverrun. PB. $32.99 surprised neither of us to have found, slit Available 11 August open, that we shared organs, that one’s If you don’t control lungs breathed for the both, that a single your story, your heart beat a doubling, feverish pulse.’ story will control you. However, as the narrative progresses, Private schoolgirl the house and its occupants become Alice doesn’t know increasingly unsettled. The Settle House what happened to her itself feels like a character, ‘a shifting the night of the party. and changing thing, awkward in its fesh, She knows she was very sometimes swelling and bloating out drunk. She knows she from its own walls.’ In this environment was driven home by Richard and Max, two the boundaries between sleep and lacrosse players from a nearby high school. consciousness become blurred and the She knows that they left her passed out on sisters slowly lose their grip on reality – her porch, running away when her mother taking the reader with them. saw them and started screaming. What she Daisy Johnson was the youngest doesn’t know is what they did to her while author ever to be shortlisted for the Booker she was passed out in the back of the car. Prize, for her debut novel Everything Life-shattering rumours spread but the Under. Her sophomore efort proves to boys tell a diferent story when they are be just as ambitious and exciting. Sisters questioned by the police. contains the menace of a Shirley Jackson That night, and its repercussions, or Stephen King novel but with Johnson’s defne not only the next sixteen years of own poetic style; simultaneously beautiful Alice’s life but of fellow students Nick, and thrilling. I would not be surprised another lacrosse player, and Hayley, Alice’s to see Sisters on its own fair share of best friend. All three must contend with prize shortlists for this year. Highly what they know and what they think they recommended. know about what happened that fateful Tristen Brudy is from Readings Carlton evening, until the truth comes to light in the novel’s shocking conclusion. Utopia Avenue Kate Reed Petty’s debut is a genre- David Mitchell defying, compulsively readable novel Sceptre. PB. $32.99 about the power of storytelling and the Available now fallibility of memory. It’s about the stories we tell about ourselves and to ourselves. David Mitchell’s It’s about who has the power to control and new novel, Utopia shape the narratives that shape us. Avenue, is a love letter to the music of the 1960s As Alice herself tells us, this is ‘a on both sides of the thriller, a horror, a memoir, a noir’ and will Atlantic. In it, the likely appeal to fans of all of those genres. process of music- Petty’s control of her narrative is masterful making is inhabited so and it’s hard to believe that this is a debut convincingly, it made novel. The disparate sections of her novel, me wonder whether writing was Mitchell’s spanning diferent characters, continents, second career choice. and decades, come together seamlessly in the fnal chapters. It took all of my self- Set at the jaded end of the era of free control not to immediately re-read True love, fower power and psychedelic drugs, Story and I know that I’ll be thinking about ‘Utopia Avenue’ is the name of the band brought together by manager Levon this novel for months to come. Frankland. All in their early twenties, Elf, Please note that this novel does deal Dean, Jasper and Grif personify diferent with sexual assault, drug and alcohol facets of the music scene – folk, jazz, blues abuse, and domestic violence. Petty is never etc. Seemingly incompatible, their unlikely fippant in her approach to any of these combination of talents creates a unique topics, but they may be triggering to some. sound and jettisons them toward fame and Tristen Brudy is from Readings Carlton FICTION August 2020 READINGS MONTHLY 9

The Mission House outsiders: Doctor Kathleen Lynn, and a Carys Davies young volunteer Bridie Sweeney. In the Text. PB. $29.99 darkness of this tiny ward, over three days, Available 18 August these women change each other’s lives in Fleeing the dark unexpected ways. undercurrents of contemporary life in Anxious People Britain, Hilary Byrd Fredrik Backman takes refuge in Ooty, a Michael Joseph. PB. $32.99 hill station in South Available 18 August India. There he fnds A bank robber on the run solace in a mission house locks himself in with an with the Padre and his over-enthusiastic estate adoptive daughter, Priscilla. As Hilary’s agent, two bitter IKEA- friendship with the young woman grows, addicts, a pregnant tensions are brewing and the mission house woman, a suicidal may not be the safe haven it seems. multimillionaire and a rabbit. In a series of Nothing Can Hurt You dysfunctional testimonies Nicola Maye Goldberg after the event, the witnesses all tell their Raven. PB. $29.99 version of what really happened and it’s Available 4 August clear we have a classic locked-room On a cold day in 1997, mystery on our hands: How did the robber student Sara Morgan manage to escape? was killed in the woods near her college in The Book of Hidden Wonders upstate New York. Her Polly Crosby boyfriend confessed, HQ Fiction. PB. $32.99 only to be acquitted Available 5 August following a plea of Romilly lives in a temporary insanity. In ramshackle house with the wake of this senseless act of violence, her eccentric artist the case comes to haunt a strange and father. She knows little surprising network of community about her past – but she members, who, as the years pass, search knows that she is loved. for retribution or explanation. When her father fnds fame with a series of Olive children’s books Emma Gannon starring her as the main character, HarperCollins. PB. $29.99 everything changes. But as time passes, Available 5 August Romilly’s father becomes increasingly Olive is still fguring it all suspicious of everything around him, out, navigating her world until, before her eyes, he begins to without a compass. But disappear altogether. when her best friends’ lives start to branch away Deacon King Kong towards marriage and James McBride The Happiest Man on Earth motherhood, Olive starts Doubleday. PB. $32.99 to question her choices. Available 4 August EDDIE JAKU Told with great warmth In September 1969, a The 100-year-old Holocaust survivor shares how he and nostalgia, this is a modern tale about cranky old church found gratitude, kindness and hope in the the obstacle course of adulthood, milestone deacon shufes into the darkest of places. decisions and the ‘taboo’ about choosing courtyard of a south not to have children. Brooklyn housing project, pulls a gun from 11 Summer his pocket and, in front AUG Ali Smith of everybody, shoots the Hamish Hamilton. PB. $29.99 project’s drug dealer. As From one of Australia’s most respected psychologists Available 4 August the story deepens, it becomes clear that comes a book about the ways we hide from the truth In the present, Sacha the lives of the characters overlap in about ourselves and the psychological freedom knows the world’s in unexpected ways. Told with insight and we enjoy when we fnally face that most searching trouble. Her brother Robert wit, Deacon King Kong demonstrates that question of all: ‘Who am I, really?’ is troublesome. Their love and faith live in all of us. mother and father are having trouble. In the past, Meanwhile in Dopamine City THE PULL OF THE STARS a lovely summer. A DBC Pierre EMMA DONOGHUE diferent brother and sister Faber. PB. $29.99 know they’re living on borrowed time. This Available 4 August From the internationally bestselling author of Room is a story about people on the brink of Lonny Cush, sanitation ‘A visceral, harrowing, and revelatory vision of life, death, change. They’re family, but they think worker and single and love in a time of pandemic. This novel is stunning.’ they’re strangers. Where does family begin? parent, is trying his best Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven to protect his kids from The Pull of the Stars the hysterical hyper- Emma Donoghue reality of 21st century Picador. PB. $32.99 life. When his daughter Available 28 July gets her frst In an Ireland doubly smartphone, and falls ravaged by war and down the rabbit hole of memes, trolls, and ‘A superbly told tale of folklore-infused fantasy, disease, Nurse Julia peer pressure, what should Lonny do? full of rising dread, set in a sharply observed Power works at an Rescue her or follow her? Because who is Australian outback town.’ understafed hospital in right: Lonny, or the world he and Garth Nix the city centre, where everybody else is living in now?

expectant mothers who Love talking about books? have come down with an Find us online at Pan Macmillan Australia unfamiliar fu are quarantined together. Into Julia’s regimented world step two 10 READINGS MONTHLY August 2020 FICTION

The Miseducation of Evie This Tender Land People Like Us marriage, he is going to have to consider Epworth William Kent Krueger Louise Fein that he might not have seen it clearly in Matson Taylor Atria Books. PB. $29.99 Head of Zeus. PB. $32.99 the frst place. Scribner. PB. $29.99 Available 1 August Available 5 August Available 5 August 1932, Minnesota – the Hetty Heinrich is a Love After Love East Yorkshire: July, Lincoln School is a perfect 1930s German Ingrid Persaud 1962. Sixteen-year-old pitiless place where child. She believes in Faber. PB. $29.99 Evie Epworth is on the hundreds of Native her country, and the Available now cusp of womanhood, American children, man who runs it. Until Meet the Ramdin-Chetan dreaming of an forcibly separated from Walter, the blond- family: forged through independent life in the their parents, are sent haired, blue-eyed, loneliness, broken by city. But before she can to be educated. It is Jewish boy who saved secrets, saved by love. decide on a career, she also home to an orphan her life, changes Irrepressible Betty must frst deal with the named Odie O’Banion, who is compelled everything. As Hetty falls in love with Ramdin, her shy son Solo malign presence of her future stepmother, to fee from its superintendent. Along Walter, she must fght against her country, and their marvellous the manipulative Christine. Moving, with his brother, their best friend, and a her family and herself. lodger, Mr Chetan, form inventive and richly comic, The brokenhearted little girl, he steals away in an unconventional Miseducation of Evie Epworth is the best a canoe on a life-changing odyssey into Elly household, happy in their diferences. Happy, thing to have come out of Yorkshire since the unknown heading for the Mississippi Maike Wetzel that is, until the night when a glass of rum, a Wensleydale cheese. and a place to call home. Scribe. PB. $24.99 heart to heart and a terrible truth explodes Available now the family unit, driving them apart. The Standardization of The End of October Eleven-year-old Elly is Demoralization Procedures Lawrence Wright missing. After an Latitudes of Longing Jennifer Hofmann Bantam. PB. $32.99 extensive police search Shubhangi Swarup Riverrun. PB. $29.99 Available now she is presumed dead, Riverrun. PB. $32.99 Available 11 August At an internment and her family must Available now On November 9, 1989, camp in Indonesia, learn to live with a gaping A spellbinding work of Bernd Zeiger, a Stasi forty-seven people are hole in their lives. Then, literature, Latitudes of ofcer in the twilight of pronounced dead four years later, she Longing follows the his career, is with acute reappears. But soon her interconnected lives of deteriorating from a hemorrhagic fever. parents and sister are plagued by doubts. Is characters searching for mysterious illness. When Henry Parsons this stranger really the same little girl who true intimacy. We follow Alarmed by the travels there on behalf went missing? And if not, who is she? a scientist who studies disappearance of Lara, of the WHO to trees and a clairvoyant a waitress at his investigate, what he Why Visit America who speaks to them; a regular café, he chases a series of clues fnds will soon have staggering Matthew Baker geologist working to end futile wars over a throughout Berlin. Set in the fnal, repercussions across the globe. As Bloomsbury. PB. $29.99 glacier; octogenarian lovers; and a yeti turbulent days of the Cold War, this book international tensions rise and Available 4 August who seeks human companionship. blends high-wire espionage with governments enforce unprecedented Equal parts speculative Binding them all together is a vision of life absurdist humor to evoke the measures, Henry fnds himself in a race and satirical, the stories as vast as the universe itself. dehumanising forces that turned against time to track the source and fnd a in Matthew Baker’s neighbour against neighbour. cure – before it’s too late. collection portray a world within touching Sci-Fi & Fantasy distance of our own. This is an America riven Midnight Sun by dilemmas confronting so many of Stephenie Meyer Atom. PB. $32.99 us, yet turned on its head. Read together, Available 5 August these parallel-universe stories create a composite portrait of our true nature and a When Edward Cullen and dark refection of the world we live in. Bella Swan met, an iconic love story was born. But Wild until now, fans have heard only Bella’s side of Kristin Hannah the story. This tale, told Pan Mac. PB. $32.99 through Edward’s eyes, Available 28 July takes on a new and dark From within the vast twist as we learn more expanse of impenetrable fascinating details about Edward’s past and darkness and impossible the complexity of his inner thoughts. How beauty that is the can he justify following his heart if it means Olympic National Forest leading Bella into danger? in the Pacifc Northwest of the United States, a six-year-old girl appears, Poetry speechless and alone. As child psychiatrist Dr Julia Cates begins working with the little girl, naming her Guwayu, For All Times ‘Alice’, the shocking facts of Alice’s life test Jeanine Leane (ed.) the limits of Julia’s faith and strength. Magabala. PB. $24.99 Available 1 August Fleishman is in Trouble Guwayu, For All Tafy Brodesser-Akner Times is a collection Wildfire. PB. $22.99 of First Nations Available now poems commissioned Finally free from his by Red Room Poetry nightmare marriage, over the past sixteen Toby Fleishman is years, and is a ready for a new life. But radical literary everything changes intervention for its when his ex-wife, breadth of representation, temporal Rachel, disappears. depth and diversity of language. This While Toby tries to fnd fiercely uncensored collection features out what happened, his over sixty poems from First Nations narrative of a spurned husband is his sole poets in twelve First Nations languages, consolation. But if he ever wants to really and together they are an exquisite understand what happened to his expression of living culture. CRIME August 2020 READINGS MONTHLY 11

murdered. Days later, the killer jumps in a tourist.) Max McLean is a contract killer front of the train that runs behind the for the British government, but when a hit Dead Write school, but lives. And over the next year, turns out to be a set-up, a strange clue is with Fiona Hardy the students who survived that horrifying left on a dead body, and then Max fnds night do the same – but succeed. A year himself in the middle of a sometimes-gory, after the frst deaths, as the case regains always-thrilling world-romping escapade Summer and Iris are identical twins – asymmetrically, momentum, an online presenter, a towards the truth – and away from some so when Iris looks at her sister, she sees her own BOOK OF THE podcaster, a profler and a forensic very high-stakes danger. refection. But where Summer has succeeded – handsome MONTH reconstructionist all know that there’s husband, loving friends, immense wealth – Iris has failed, Crime more to this case than the neat and tidy Eight Detectives with one broken marriage already behind her and only ending the media reported, and that what jealousy to fuel her. So when Summer asks Iris for a favour – Alex Pavesi lies within the school gates might be the Michael Joseph. PB. $32.99 to sail the family yacht out of a sticky situation in Thailand worst kind of game you ever join. (Apart Available 18 August with her husband, Adam – Iris can see a future on the open from Monopoly.) sea, with a handsome man and a new way of wresting her Thirty years ago, father’s conditional inheritance from her siblings. But one mathematician Grant When She Was Good morning, in the middle of the ocean, Iris wakes to fnd herself McAllister calculated completely alone. It’s a struggle to get back to land, but on the Michael Robotham all the possibilities of a Hachette. PB. $32.99 arduous journey there, wracked with horror and grief, a new murder mystery and Available 28 July path appears before her. Can she take it? Can she sell it? And wrote The White what will it cost? Once upon a time, six Murders: seven years ago, a man was perfectly crafted found dead in a house detective stories that he But one morning, in the middle of – tied to a chair and published to little fanfare. Now, he lives on the ocean, Iris wakes to find herself tortured. Then things a Mediterranean island, alone but for Julia The Girl in the completely alone. started to go missing in Hart, the editor who’s just arrived on his Mirror neighbouring houses, doorstep to publish his stories afresh. Rose Carlyle This book has everything: a beautiful yacht; frst-class and one keen-eyed McAllister isn’t much for talking, and the A&U. PB. $29.99 living; endless, treacherous water; an inheritance that has police ofcer traced the more Julia reads his stories the more she Available 4 August seen a family discreetly torn into bitter pieces; a good twin clues back to that house – fnding a girl realises what’s been missed in them – but and a bad twin. It’s a story laced with surprises and deceit; hiding in a secret room. Years later, and are these rookie writer errors or something Carlyle, a sailor herself, knows her boats (I assume – I happily know nothing but love to still nobody knows the identity of the girl much deeper that will lead her right back read about them), and knows how to navigate readers through an excellent, twisty book nurses nicknamed ‘Angel Face’; nobody to a real-life mystery? A challenging, and to drop anchor hard in an ending that will stop your heart. knows her name, her age, or what she saw. brain-twisting whodunnit. But forensic psychologist Cyrus Haven, fresh from Michael Robotham’s bestselling The Night Swim Good Girl, Bad Girl, wants to fnd out who Megan Goldin The Dead Line starts to make their relationship with Angel Face – now a cynical young woman Michael Joseph. PB. $32.99 Holly Watt Miles and Lucy not only uncertain but called Evie – really was, even if she doesn’t Available 4 August Raven. PB. $29.99 also dangerous. want him to. Because people who ask those Rachel Krall is on her Available 4 August questions wind up dead, and now Cyrus – way to the Atlantic British investigative The Hunted and Evie – are on their radar. Another Ocean, bound for the journalist Casey Gabriel Bergmoser gripping, nonstop entertainer by the seaside tourist town of Benedict is hunting for HarperCollins. PB. $29.99 author of The Secrets She Keeps, which has Neapolis, when stories at the Post Available 31 July been adapted for TV on Channel 10. somebody leaves a note when one is delivered A young man, on a road in her windscreen. straight into her trip to fnd the real The Night Whistler Rachel’s on her way to hands: a fashion- Australia, encounters a Greg Woodland Neapolis to record editor colleague, woman at an isolated Text. PB. $32.99 another season of her hit podcast, Guilty shopping for clothes pub. They hit it of, and Available 4 August or Not Guilty – the frst of which saw a for a shoot, finds an embroidered note in she asks to come along It’s summertime in jailed man freed – and somebody knows a skirt that reads: They take the girls to a with him – and why not, Australia, and the 1960s she’s on her way, and they want a favour. baby factory. It’s not the only note they he thinks. Can’t say are rolling along in the Rachel’s plan is to cover a rape trial that’s find, and Casey knows this problem is you’re out for an rural town of tearing the community apart, but, big – she’s been on life-altering, life- adventure and not grab it when it sits next Moorabool. There are decades earlier, a teenager named Jenny damaging investigations before. And so to you at a bar. Then there’s Frank, who new faces in town: Still died, and her sister is desperate to she traipses the world to find out not runs a roadhouse in the middle of Constable Mick fnd answers. Rachel doesn’t have time for only where this happened and how to nowhere, who’s suddenly in charge of the Goodenough, there another case, but her curiosity always stop it, but also where these babies are granddaughter he has no relationship with thanks to a demotion, gets the better of her – and when now and the scale of wreckage her and just wants to get through the next two and young Hal and his family, who Mick connections between the new and old discoveries will unveil. weeks as cleanly as possible. But when a hears from after Hal’s mother starts to get cases arise, there’s no way to let go until young woman arrives at the roadhouse, some strange phone calls late at night. the truth is out. Playing Nice badly injured and telling him not to call for Somebody keeps whistling down the line JP Delaney help, Frank, and the customers in the to her and then hanging up. Then there’s Also out this month: Quercus. PB. $32.99 wrong place absolutely at the wrong time, Hal’s gory discovery of a dead dog – or, Available 28 July soon realise that there is nothing clean rather, a clearly murdered dog – and Mick’s It’s an ordinary day about what has brought her here, and who missing pet of his own. Slaughtered when Pete opens the exactly has followed her. Tense and animals are a bad sign, Mick knows. And front door to Miles and terrifying, The Hunted is a blood-soaked while nobody else might be listening, he his private detective. nightmare – in the very best kind of way. knows the phone calls are too. A tense, They have the exact evocative trip into the past. kind of news that The Suicide House makes you need to read Charlie Donlea Arkhangel the rest of the book: Bantam. PB. $32.99 James Brabazon Pete’s son, Theo, is not Available 4 August Michael Joseph. PB. $32.99 his at all. He’s Miles’s. And Miles, in In an abandoned Available 18 August S.J. Watson’s Final Cut (Text, PB, $32.99); turn, has Pete’s son, who he and his wife boarding house at an Documentarian and Lisa Jewell’s Invisible Girl (Century, PB, Lucy have called David. A hospital elite American prep frontline journalist $32.99); Anthony Horowitz’s Moonflower mix-up has seen them raise each other’s school, there’s a game James Brabazon has Murders (Century, PB, $32.99); Shari children for more than two years, and that students play. You written an action- Lapena’s The End of Her (Bantam, PB, now they need to talk. The two families fnd your way through thriller that should end $32.99); Ilaria Tuti’s Painted in Blood tentatively start to strike a bond and to the woods with a up in the hands of Lee (W&N, PB, $32.99); Karen Dionne’s The involve each child in the other family’s candle, into the house, Child’s fanbase or with Wicked Sister (Sphere, PB, $32.99); Sophie life, which seems the only way to go and to the mirror. You those who miss tearing Hannah’s The Killings at Kingfisher – until what happened in the past, and light a candle, and you repeat a mantra. through a Dan Brown – Hill (HarperCollins, PB, $32.99); Chris what’s happening now, as Pete and his One night, a group of students take the and for those of us who miss the jetsetting Carter’s Written in Blood (S&S, PB, partner Maddie spiral deeper into panic, challenge, and two of them are brutally lifestyle of an assassin. (Or, you know, $32.99) … and more! 12 READINGS MONTHLY August 2020 FATHER’S DAY GIFT IDEAS 2020 Father’s Day Gift Ideas

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PB. $24.99 Kate Grenville narrative, essential to understanding the current reality of Available now the United States. Text. HB. Was $39.99 Climate catastrophe, police brutality, $34.99 white genocide, totalitarian rule and Available now The Vanishing Half the erasure of Black history provide the What if Elizabeth Macarthur – wife of the Brit Bennett backdrop for stories of love, courage and hope. In this Dialogue Books. PB. $32.99 notorious John Macarthur, wool baron in unfinching new anthology of short fction, twelve of Available now the earliest days of Sydney – had written Australia’s most daring Indigenous writers and writers of a shockingly frank secret memoir? And what if novelist Desiree and Stella Vignes are identical colour provide a glimpse of Australia as we head toward Kate Grenville had miraculously found and published it? twins who grew up in a small Black the year 2050. Kate Grenville’s return to the territory of The Secret River community, before running away at is historical fction turned inside out, a stunning sleight of sixteen. Ten years later, Desiree returns Fire Front: First Nations hand by one of our most original writers. to live with her daughter in the town she tried to escape. Poetry and Power Today Stella, far away, secretly passes for white. Still, the fates Alison Whittaker (ed.) Stone Sky Gold Mountain of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen UQP. PB. $24.99 to the next generation, when their own daughters’ Mirandi Riwoe Available now storylines intersect? UQP. PB. $29.99 This important anthology, curated by Available now Gomeroi poet and academic Alison Siblings Ying and Lai Yue left China to Fair Warning Whittaker, showcases Australia’s most- seek their fortunes on the goldfields Michael Connelly respected First Nations poets alongside some of the rising Michael Connelly. PB. $32.99 of Australia, eventually settling in stars. Divided into fve thematic sections, each one is Available now Maytown. When a serious crime introduced by an essay from a leading Aboriginal writer is committed, suspicion falls on all those who are Jack McEvoy has taken down killers and thinker. This incredible book is a testament to the considered outsiders. Evoking the rich, unfolding before, but when a woman he had current renaissance of First Nations poetry. tapestry of Australian life in the late nineteenth a one-night stand with is brutally century, this is a heartbreaking and universal story murdered, he realises he might be facing about the exiled and displaced. a criminal mind unlike any he’s ever encountered. When Jack becomes a suspect, and races to clear his name, his The Yield fndings point to a serial killer who uses personal data shared by the victims themselves to hunt his targets. Tara June Winch Hamish Hamilton. PB. $32.99 Available now In this year’s Miles Franklin Literary Award-winning novel, August Gondiwindi has been living on the other side of the world for ten years FATHER’S DAY GIFT IDEAS 2020 August 2020 READINGS MONTHLY 13

Nonfction of white dominance, whitewashed feminism to the link Lofted between class and race, award winning journalist Reni William Watt Eddo-Lodge ofers a timely new framework for how to see, Hardie Grant. HB. $45 acknowledge and counter racism. Available 5 August Dark Emu A visual adventure for the modern Bruce Pascoe Gardening Through the golfer, Lofted takes you on a journey of Magabala. PB. $22.99 Year in Australia discovery with stunning photography Available now DK Australia and words featuring golf experiences Dark Emu puts forward an argument Dorling Kindersley. HB. $49.99 across the globe. From the design of the bunkers and for a reconsideration of the hunter- Available now doglegged tees to the art of mindfulness in the great gatherer tag for pre-colonial Aboriginal Gardening Through the Year in outdoors – the unexpected stories and images featured Australians. Almost all the evidence Australia takes you systematically here will challenge your perceptions of golf. in Dark Emu comes from the records and diaries of the through the year, each chapter colonial explorers, and insists that Aboriginal people looking in-depth at one month at a time. This updated Roughy: The Autobiography right across the continent were using domesticated edition features inspirational ideas for achieving colour, Jarryd Roughead plants, sowing, harvesting, irrigating, and storing prior scent or eye-catching foliage in your garden. Packed with Viking. HB. Was $45 to British invasion. essential gardening advice, this is an ideal book for new $37.99 gardeners and a trusty reference for old hands. Available 4 August Fire Country: How Indigenous A country boy from Leongatha, Jarryd Fire Management Could Help The Bird Way Roughead’s talent and dedication turned Save Australia Jennifer Ackerman him into an AFL star. Then, during a Victor Stefensen Scribe. PB. $35 routine check-up in 2016, a scan showed he had cancer. Hardie Grant. PB. $29.99 Available now A new immunotherapy treatment saved his life, but had Available now From the author of The Genius of Birds, brutal side efects that threatened his return to footy. Delving deep into the Australian here is a radical examination of the What saw Roughead through was the resilience, drive and landscape, Fire Country is a powerful bird way of being – how they live and positivity he’d learned from playing football. account from Indigenous land management expert how they think. Drawing on personal Victor Stefensen on how cultural burning practices, and observations, the latest science, and her bird-related Rone: Street Art and improved ‘reading’ of country, could help to restore our travel around the world, Ackerman shows there is Beyond land. For every copy sold, Hardie Grant will donate $1 to clearly no single bird way of being. As E.O. Wilson once Mo Wyse (ed.) Firesticks, which empowers Indigenous fre management said, when you have seen one bird, you have not seen T&H. HB. $59.99 practitioners to revive cultural burning. them all. Available now Known for his multi-storey murals The Future of Us: Diary of a Young Naturalist gracing buildings all over the world, Demography Gets a Dara McAnulty Melbourne-based artist Rone uses Makeover Text. HB. $29.99 his work to explore the friction and connection between Liz Allen Available now beauty and decay, youth and ruin. Rone: Street Art and NewSouth. PB. $29.99 Diary of a Young Naturalist chronicles a Beyond presents a survey of the artist’s work from the Available now year in ffteen-year-old Dara McAnulty’s street, the studio, and the ephemeral installations. Demography is far more important than world, beginning in the spring and destiny. By tracing connections between taking you through the year in his patch a population’s past and present, demographers can foresee of Northern Ireland. These vivid, evocative and moving Father’s Day is coming up on Sunday its future. The true wonder of demography, though, is not diary entries about his connection to wildlife and the way 6 September. If you’re shopping its ability to predict the future but to shape it. With energy he sees the world are raw and revelatory. online, we encourage you to place and passion, demographer Liz Allen sets out the potential your Father’s Day orders of in-stock paths to make Australia better. Fathoms: The World in the items by 5pm, Friday 14 August, to Whale help ensure your gift will arrive in time. How to Talk About Climate Rebecca Giggs Change in a Way that Makes Scribe. PB. $35 Can’t make up your mind? We a Diference Available now also ofer online Readings gift Rebecca Huntley In Fathoms: The World in the Whale, vouchers! Our online gift vouchers Murdoch. PB. $32.99 Giggs blends natural history, philosophy, are automatically sent electronically Available now and science. She examines the uncanny to the recipient, and can be used to While scientists double down on the charisma of these magnifcent mammals, and confronts purchase any item in Readings shops shocking fgures, we still fnd ourselves the plastic pollution now pervading their underwater and on our website. Visit readings.com. unable to discuss climate change meaningfully. This book environment. This book provides us with a powerful, au/gift-cards for more information. is about understanding why people who aren’t like you feel surprising, and compelling view of some of the most the way they do and learning to talk to them efectively. urgent issues of our time. Rebecca Huntley shows us how to have the conversations needed to engage the disengaged, and persuade the Humankind: A Hopeful cautious of the need for action. History Rutger Bregman Hazelwood Bloomsbury. PB. $32.99 Tom Doig Available now Viking. PB. $34.99 It’s a belief that unites the left and right, Available now psychologists and philosophers, writers In February 2014, the Hazelwood brown- and historians. It drives headlines and coal mine caught fre. As the air flled laws. Human beings, we’re taught, are by nature selfsh with toxic smoke, residents of the Latrobe and governed by self-interest. Humankind makes a new Valley became ill, afraid – and angry. Up argument: that it is realistic, as well as revolutionary, to against an unresponsive corporation and an indiferent assume that people are good. government, the community banded together. In Hazelwood, Tom Doig reveals the decades of decisions that The Body: A Guide for led to the fre, and gives an intimate account of the frst Occupants moments of the blaze and the dark months that followed. Bill Bryson Black Swan. PB. $22.99 Why I’m No Longer Talking to Available now White People About Race Here Bill Bryson sets off to explore the Reni Eddo-Lodge human body, how it functions and its Bloomsbury. PB. $19.99 remarkable ability to heal itself. Full of Available now extraordinary facts and astonishing stories The Body: This is the book that sparked a national A Guide for Occupants is a brilliant, often very funny conversation in the UK, and it has a great attempt to understand our physical and neurological deal to teach Australia. Exploring issues make up. It will have you marvelling at the form you from eradicated Black history to the political purpose occupy time and time again. 14 READINGS MONTHLY August 2020 NONFICTION

by documents, diary notes and witness Traitors and Spies: Espionage accounts, and details a deliberate church and Corruption in High Places New strategy of using psychological warfare in Australia, 1901-50 against witnesses in key trials involving paedophile priests. John Fahey Nonfiction A&U. PB. $34.99 Available 4 August The Case of George Pell In Traitors and Spies, Melissa Davey former intelligence Scribe. PB. $35 This year of staying at home has made me ravenous ofcer John Fahey tells Available 4 August for the wild places I can’t visit, and John Blay’s new the story of Australia’s BOOK OF THE Melissa Davey, book is a balm for this frustrated urge. Blay is a naturalist, intelligence operations Guardian Australia’s MONTH best known for his exploration and recording of the before ASIO was Melbourne bureau Natural History Bundian Way, an ancient Indigenous route running from established. This book chief, attended each of the Snowy Mountains to the coast. In Wild Nature, Blay sets reveals the dark side of Cardinal George Pell’s out to walk as much of the south-eastern forests as possible, Australian politics in trials for alleged opening himself up to whatever experiences might come the frst half of the twentieth century, historic sexual and recording them in his gently compelling style. including early infltration by Russian offences against agents, persecution of innocent civilians, children. What she and corruption, right up to the prime This year of staying at home has made saw, heard, and read made her minister’s ofce. me ravenous for the wild places I can’t determined to produce a dispassionate and thorough rendition of what visit, and John Blay’s new book is a balm Grifith Review 69: The occurred. The Case of George Pell is the for this frustrated urge. European Exchange result – an authoritative account of those trials, of the basis for the verdicts, and of Ashley Hay & Natasha Cica Blay’s writing has a quality very much like a long and Grifith Review. PB. $27.99 the backlash to the verdicts. satisfying walk. He describes the trails he takes with a Available 1 August steady rhythm, noting plants and changes in the landscape A year ago French A Concise History of Australia Wild Nature: with an expert’s eye. Sudden, rich encounters fit across president Emmanuel Stuart Macintyre Walking the page like rosellas hiding in a grove of tree waratahs Macron declared that CUP. PB. Was $39.99 Australia’s South in full bloom, or the dingo that steals his hat somewhere Europe must be $34.99 East Forests along the Genoa river. He writes with candour about understood as a project John Blay frustrations and setbacks – a wrong turn, or a push through Available 15 August – a vision of global NewSouth. PB. $39.99 wiregrass so thick it shreds his trousers to ribbons – but Stuart Macintyre, one community. Although Available now these are outweighed by what Blay calls ‘wild ecstasies’, of Australia’s most the COVID-19 crisis has moments when wilderness rewards the quiet observer with highly regarded profoundly challenged connection and epiphany. Bushwalkers will recognise this feeling and adore this book. historians, revisits A the idea of Europe as interconnected, and It’s impossible to read about these places without thinking of the catastrophic Concise History of as accessible to Australia, the rich bushfres that tore through while Blay was fnishing of the book, and his writing provides Australia, provoking exchange between peoples and continents important context for the history of forest management. Wild Nature is a social and readers to reconsider will eventually resume. Griffith Review 69: political history of the forests, their traditional owners, foresters, conservationists, Australia’s past and its The European Exchange explores the deep politicians and scientists: a whirlwind of interests and conficts. He argues against relationship to the and complex relationships between oversimplifcation of the debate: it’s never just left vs. right, or greenies vs. jobs. Our present. Integrating new scholarship with Europe and Australia. forests are complicated places that demand accordingly nuanced management, and Blay the historical record, the fifth edition is an excellent guide to navigating this complexity. brings together the social, cultural, Peace Crimes political and economic developments Eleanor Jenkins is from Readings Carlton Kieran Finnane that created contemporary Australia. UQP. PB. $32.99 Available 4 August How to Sell a Massacre At Pine Gap, the closely crisis in terms of risk management and Peter Charley guarded military Australian Studies mitigation. Using examples of climate- ABC Books. PB. $34.99 facility in Australia’s related disasters that unfortunately Available 5 August Northern Territory, incurred loss of life, Manning seeks to Body Count: How Climate In 2019, the ABC aired an police arrest six understand and presents cogent reasons Change is Killing Us explosive investigative nonviolent activists. for concerted action against climate crisis. Paddy Manning documentary, How to Sell They call themselves Climate crisis costs lives. The physical S&S. PB. $32.99 a Massacre, which Peace Pilgrims. The and mental health of Australians and Available 5 August revealed how One Nation Crown calls them a people around the world are at stake, a fact As I write this solicited donations of up threat to national security and demands established by medical professionals, yet review, I’m to $20 million from the gaol time. In Peace Crimes, Alice Springs ignored by governments (including our own). conscious of that we’re NRA, promising in journalist Kieran Finnane gives a gripping At the crux of this book is the call: we about to clock twelve return to attempt to account of what prompts the Pilgrims to must collectively and cooperatively work months since the onset soften gun laws in Australia. With this book, risk so much. to counter climate crisis for the security of the fres in New South Peter Charley gives an inside account of the of our health and our planet. This book Wales that would get out sting, and explains why he felt it was represents an important contribution Golden Daze: The Golden of control and eventually necessary to set a trap to catch the truth. to the climate crisis discussion. The last Days of Australian Surfing devastate the landscape, twenty years may represent a tiny blip to Sean Doherty communities, and biodiversity across that Public Enemies: Russell ‘Mad the Anthropocene era but anymore wasted Hachette. HB. $45 state. Those fres started because airborne Dog’ Cox, Ray Denning and time will be costly: to lives, food security, Available now dust particles created static which led to the the Golden Age of Armed and biodiversity, now and in the medium In this book, world- formation of dry lightning. When the dry Robbery to long-term future. renowned surf writer lightning struck, it ignited a landscape Mark Dapin and bestselling incredibly dry from years of little to no Julia Jackson is from Readings Carlton A&U. PB. $32.99 author Sean Doherty substantial rainfall. The conditions that led Available 18 August tells the story of to these fres in NSW – and also the fres in The Altar Boys In the Australia of the Australian surfng Victoria and South Australia of 2019–20, Suzanne Smith 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, one year at a time along with those of Black Saturday in ABC Books. PB. $34.99 armed robbers were the through the lives of 2009 – are attributable to climate crisis. Available 20 August top of the criminal food our greatest surfers, Indeed the occurrence of such The Altar Boys is the chain. Their dash and taking a deep dive into a signifcant year of disasters (including foods), and other powerful exposé of violence were their surfng lives. Part journal, part health-afecting phenomena (heatwaves, widespread abuse of celebrated, and men biography, part surf-culture memoir, thunderstorm asthma, and pandemics) children by the Catholic like Russell ‘Mad Dog’ Golden Daze is a fascinating insight into noticeably prevalent in the last decade, Church in and around Cox and Ray Denning what makes Australian surfng tick. all pose signifcant risk to humans. In Newcastle, Australia. were household names. Mark Dapin brings Body Count, Paddy Manning explores Focusing on two his brilliant research skills and distinctive the connections between climate crisis childhood friends, their narrative style to this book, exploring the and human health. He mounts a case families and life of these infamous public enemies and to reframe the dialogue around climate community, this gripping story is backed the criminal world they inhabited. NONFICTION August 2020 READINGS MONTHLY 15

History Double Lives: A History of Christopher Raja takes to the outer heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful Working Motherhood suburbs of Melbourne like a duck to water. memoir of how happiness can be found Helen McCarthy He partakes in teenage tomfoolery, he even in the darkest of times. The Ratline Bloomsbury. PB. $29.99 worships footballer Warwick Capper, he has Philippe Sands Available 4 August girlfriends, and he ventures out of the family One Hundred Summers W&N. PB. $34.99 In Britain today, three- home. Meanwhile, his parents are struggling. Vanessa Branson Once proud, systematic racism and cultural Available now quarters of mothers are Mensch Publishing. PB. $29.99 diferences now weigh them down. Tragedy The good news in employment and paid Available 4 August strikes and Raja is left to understand all his for 2020 is that work is an unremarkable One Hundred Summers is parents fears and hopes. Philippe Sands has feature of women’s lives a portrait of a century as There are laugh-out-loud moments in fnally written a after childbirth. Yet a it was experienced by his memoir; anyone of a certain age will follow-up to his century ago, working one extraordinary understand the references to popular culture enormously successful mothers were in the family. Along the way, from dingy St Kilda clubs to fumbling with Baillie Giford Prize- minority, excluded Vanessa Branson recalls girlfriends in stolen moments. Anyone can winning book, East altogether from many occupations, whilst the rough and tumble of empathise with the generational gap between West Street! Didn’t read their wage-earning was widely perceived as a her post-war childhood. parents longing for respect and a teenager’s that one? No problem. This coronavirus social ill. In Double Lives, Helen McCarthy Growing up alongside need to break away. Throughout this period, chaos will provide ample opportunity to accounts for this remarkable transformation, her older brother Richard, she would have his own suburban life is shown to be a read both! To recap, East West Street – whose consequences have been momentous a front-row seat at the birth of Virgin. melting pot of Australian and Indian culture. part memoir, part history book – explored for Britain’s society and economy. Touching, humane and honest, Branson’s He does what so many people have done; he the lives of the originators of the concepts family memoir is a vivid and charming learns to balance cultural expectations. of genocide and crimes against humanity, The Habsburgs: The Rise and tapestry of fortune, fate and passion. Hersch Lauterpacht and Raphael Lemkin, Fall of a World Power Read this book if you want to understand interspersed with the fascinating story of Martyn Rady what it is like to be outsider. Read it if you Too Much and Never Enough: haven’t realised that we are all responsible Sands’ maternal grandfather (a Polish Allen Lane. HB. $59.99 How My Family Created the for making our community a welcoming Jew) during WWII. Available 4 August World’s Most Dangerous Man place. Read it because, for so many of us This new book picks up a strand From modest origins, the Mary L. Trump over the generations, Raja’s story of fnding introduced by Sands in the earlier Habsburgs grew in power S&S. PB. $32.99 a home within our suburban streets is our volume and also in his documentary to gain control of the Holy Available now story as well. flm My Nazi Legacy, and delves into the Roman Empire in the In this revelatory, life and terrible wartime career of Otto ffteenth century. Christine Gordon is the events and authoritative portrait of von Wachter, Nazi-appointed Governor Historians often depict programming manager for Readings Donald J. Trump and of Galicia and Krakow. Responsible for the Habsburgs as leaders the toxic family that the creation of the Krakow ghetto and of a ramshackle empire. A Question of Colour made him, Mary L. the deaths of thousands of Jews (and But here, Martyn Rady Pattie Lees with Adam C. Lees Trump, a trained other groups of opponents), Wachter’s reveals their enduring power, driven by the Magabala. PB. $22.99 clinical psychologist disappearance and re-emergence in Italy belief that they were destined to rule. The Available 24 August and Donald’s only niece, provides the basis for The Ratline. Habsburgs is the defnitive history of a Pattie Lees was just shines a bright light on Sands, with the assistance of von remarkable dynasty that forever changed ten years old when she the dark history of their family. In doing Wachter’s son Horst (a steadfast denier Europe and the world. and her four siblings so, she explains how her uncle became the of his father’s Holocaust involvement), were separated from man who now threatens the world’s health, and a small team of researchers, piece Stalin’s Wine Cellar their mother on the economic security and social fabric. together how von Wachter escaped John Baker & Nick Place grounds of neglect and who helped him to do so. The title Viking. PB. $34.99 and placed into State is taken from the name given to such Available 18 August care. This book Environmental underground networks (like ODESSA) In the late 1990s, John provides a frst-hand Studies who spirited numerous Nazi officials Baker set of on a journey account of Pattie’s experiences as a such as Adolf Eichmann (bearing new to fnd the wine ‘fair-skinned Aboriginal’ during identities) to the safety of far-flung collection of Nicholas II, Australia’s assimilationist policy era, and Fire: A Brief History countries including Argentina. recounts her survival following a decade of the last Tsar of Russia. Stephen J. Pyne An aspect of East West Street that abuse as a ward of the state. Stalin’s Wine Cellar is a NewSouth. PB. $29.99 made it such a brilliant read was the wild ride in the Available 1 August focus on Sands’ own family history, as glamorous world of How I Clawed My Way to Over vast expanses of a descendant of Holocaust survivors. In high-end wine. From the Middle time, fre and humanity this new book, his interactions with Horst Double Bay, Sydney to Tbilisi, Georgia, a John Wood have interacted to expand von Wachter form part of The Ratline. multimillion-dollar cellar and a breathtaking Viking. PB. $34.99 the domain of each, Clearly, these men don’t see eye to eye on collection of wine (and one very expensive Available 4 August transforming the earth several fronts, and their conversations, as broken bottle) is the elusive treasure. How I Clawed My Way to and what it means to be related by Sands, are exasperating. The the Middle is a beguiling human. In this concise Ratline, while perhaps not as engrossing memoir from one of yet wide-ranging book, as its predecessor, is nevertheless a solid Biography Australia’s most Stephen J. Pyne – named and fascinating read, rich in detail. cherished actors on by Science magazine as ‘the world’s leading Julia Jackson is from Readings Carlton Into the Suburbs: both stage and screen. authority on the history of fre’ – explores A Migrant’s Story Full of humility, the surprising dynamics of fre before and Alaric the Goth: An Outsider’s Christopher Raja warmth and humour, it after the arrival of humans. History of the Fall of Rome UQP. PB. $29.99 tells of the ephemeral Douglas Boin Available 4 August nature of theatre, the luminous personalities John Wood encountered WW Norton. HB. $41.95 Personal stories of Cultural Studies along the way, and the perilous reality of Available 3 August migration to life as a professional actor in Australia. Alaric grew up near the Australia always break river border that my heart a little. It is Bad News: Why We Fall for separated Gothic within these afecting The Happiest Man on Earth Fake News territory from the portraits of someone’s Eddie Jaku Rob Brotherton Romans. He was denied life that we see an Pan Mac. HB. $32.99 Bloomsbury Sigma. PB. $29.99 citizenship despite his Australia that is racist, Available 28 July Available 4 August service in the army, as classist and so arrogant. Eddie Jaku always There was a time when Romans were deeply Christopher Raja’s story of arriving from considered himself a the news came once a conficted over who Calcutta to Melbourne when he was eleven German frst, a Jew day. But times have should enjoy its privileges. The three years old shows us the debilitating efect of second. But all of that changed: now we’re nights of riots the Goths brought to the racism. His story is told in an open and changed in November inundated. And despite capital in 410 AD – led by Alaric – struck pragmatic style, noting the early days of 1938. Eddie was taken to this unprecedented fear into the hearts of the powerful, but arrival to the Garden State through to a concentration camp, abundance of were not without cause. Through Alaric’s adulthood. He takes us by the hand and and for seven years faced information, it seems story, Douglas Boin reveals the Goths’ invites us into his memories, beginning with unimaginable horrors. increasingly difcult to complex and fascinating legacy in shaping his parents’ optimism for beginning a new But because he survived, Eddie made the know what’s true and what’s not. In Bad the history we thought we knew. life in a country that is clean, open and quiet. vow to smile every day. This is a powerful, News, Rob Brotherton delves into the 16 READINGS MONTHLY August 2020 NONFICTION

psychology of news, reviewing how the married life with his wife Sandra; and his elements and handballing it over through Making Sense: Conversations latest research can help navigate this handshake deal with Ted Albert that the roots of trees or into our gobs on toast on Consciousness, Morality supposedly post-truth world. helped create a music empire. on Sunday morning. When trees converse, and the Future of Humanity they do so using telephone lines of fungal Sam Harris Intimations: Six Essays Paul Kelly: The Man, the Music mycelium – the Wood Wide Web. To read Bantam. PB. $32.99 this book is to get drawn down through Zadie Smith and the Life In-Between Available 18 August the soil and into the networks by which Penguin. PB. $12.99 Stuart Coupe Neuroscientist, the living, composting, thriving earth Available 4 August Hachette. PB. $35 philosopher, podcaster communicates. Delightfully, even the Crafted with the sharp Available 28 July and bestselling author lyrical illustrations were drawn (by Colin intelligence, wit and style Until now, no one has Sam Harris has been Elder) using ink made from Coprinus that have won Zadie written the defnitive exploring some of the comatus – shaggy ink cap mushrooms. Smith millions of fans, biography of Australia’s greatest questions Merlin Sheldrake reckons that paying and sufused with a best-loved singer, song concerning the human more attention to our fungal buddies will profound intimacy and writer and poet. Stuart mind, society, and the help us save this troubled world. And, yes, tenderness in response to Coupe, with Paul’s events that shape our since you asked, he does seem like a fun guy. these unprecedented blessing, shows us the world, via his internationally popular times, Intimations is a evolution from a young Bernard Caleo is a member of the Readings podcast Making Sense. Featuring twelve vital work of art, a gesture of connection man to Australian music events team electric exchanges from the podcast, this and an act of love. This is an essential book icon. Paul Kelly: The Man, the Music and book fuses wisdom with rigorous for extraordinary times. the Life In-between gives an unfltered The Language of Butterflies interrogation to shine a light on what it examination of Kelly’s life, art, and, most of Wendy Williams means to make sense of our world today. all, his storytelling. Black Inc. PB. $29.99 Health Available 17 August Tell Me Why: The Story of My Butterfies are beloved Politics across the globe, The End of Epidemics: How Life and My Music adorning gardens, parks to Stop Viruses and Save Archie Roach and zoos. Their beauty The Double X Economy: The Humanity Now S&S. PB. $32.99 Epic Potential of Empowering Available 5 August has led many to Dr Jonathan D. Quick with obsession – Women Bronwyn Fryer Not many have lived as Linda Scott many lives as Archie lepidopterists Scribe. PB. $27.99 Faber. PB. $29.99 Roach – stolen child, (butterfy-seekers) have Available 4 August Available 18 August seeker, teenage died in search of In The End of Epidemics, Provocative, accessible alcoholic, lover, father, particular species, frenzied and driven leading public health and potentially game- musical and lyrical mad in the pursuit of colour. This authority Dr Jonathan D. changing, The Double X genius, and leader – but melodious book reveals the inner lives of Quick tells the stories of Economy is both a work of it took him almost a these special creatures and shows why the heroes, past and expert analysis and an lifetime to fnd out who they continue to fascinate us. present, who have urgent call to action. he really was. This intimate, moving and succeeded in their fghts Drawing on a wealth of often shocking memoir is an extraordinary to stop the spread of Personal sources including radical odyssey through love and heartbreak, illness and death. He original research and family and community, survival and Development explains the science and the politics of vivid case studies, Linda Scott shows that by renewal – and the healing power of music. combatting epidemics. And he provides a pulling women in as equal participants in the detailed seven-part plan showing exactly The Inner Self: The Joy of economy, we could address many of how we can work together to prevent Natural History Discovering Who We Really Are humankind’s most pressing problems. epidemics, saving millions of lives. Hugh Mackay Pan Mac. PB. $34.99 Eat the Buddha: Life and Entangled Life: How Fungi How to Survive a Pandemic Available 11 August Death in a Tibetan Town Make Our Worlds, Change Our Michael Greger, MD Barbara Demick Minds, and Shape Our Futures Here, Hugh Mackay – Bluebird. PB. $34.99 one of Australia’s most Text. PB. $34.99 Merlin Sheldrake Available 28 July respected pyschologists – Available 18 August Bodley Head. PB. $35 Many infectious explores addiction, Eat the Buddha Available 4 August diseases, including materialism, nostalgia, chronicles the tragic Fungi, eh? Flavour COVID-19, share a victimhood, and how it history of modern Tibet of the month. The common origin story: is our fear of love’s through the lives of newest mycological human interaction with demands that drive us several subjects, among champignon, Merlin animals. These into hiding. The Inner them a princess, a Sheldrake, is a ‘musician pathogens emerge and Self is a book about the ways we hide from radicalised nomad, and and keen fermenter’, a son re-emerge throughout the truth about ourselves and the a schoolgirl. of Rupert Sheldrake, holds history, sparking psychological freedom we enjoy when we Illuminating a society a PhD in tropical ecology epidemics and pandemics. Here, Dr. Michael fnally face that most searching question long romanticised as deeply spiritual, from Cambridge, and has written this book Greger delves into the origins of some of all: ‘Who am I, really?’. award-winning journalist Barbara Demick which details his research and wide- zoonotic diseases and reveals what human reveals the reality of these lives, and of ranging conversations across the feld of society must rectify to reduce the likelihood preserving culture, faith and language in fungi. Yeasts, lichens, magic mushrooms of even worse catastrophes in the future. Philosophy contemporary Tibet. and trufes all get a guernsey as he surveys the work of mycology obsessives (including Music himself) across the globe and reports on Disobey!: The Philosophy of Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover- their fndings regarding the contributions Resistance up and the Reporter Who of fungi to our world, and the potential of Frédéric Gros Revealed It to the World Friday on My Mind: The Life of further fungal thinking. Verso. HB. $29.99 Lesley Blume George Young As it is for me, the humble mushroom Available now Scribe. PB. $35 Jef Apter might be the main way by which you In this provocative essay, Available 4 August A&U. PB. $29.99 encounter the world of fungi. But Frédéric Gros explores In the days leading up to Available 4 August Sheldrake’s book reminds us of the the roots of political the atomic bombings of Pop star, mentor and gazillion (at latest count) of them that live obedience, social Hiroshima and Nagasaki, icon, George Young was inside you, and the (roughly) brazillion conformity, economic the US began a secret one of the most species out there in the world that help subjection, respect for campaign to hide the true important fgures in make our planet habitable. Scientifcally authority, and extent and nature of the Australian music speaking, fungi have their own kingdom, constitutional devastation about to history. In this long- neither plant nor animal, and they consensus. At a time occur. For nearly a year, overdue book, the frst constitute a vital bridge between the when the decisions of experts are presented the cover-up worked to focus exclusively on latter two, feeding dead animals to plants as the result of icy statistics and anonymous – until New Yorker journalist John Hersey Young’s life and work, which, in turn, we living animals eat. calculations, disobeying becomes an reported the truth to the world. Fallout is an writer Jef Apter explores George’s long Fungi also transform non-life into life by assertion of humanity. To philosophise is to engrossing detective story, as well as an and fruitful association with Harry Vanda; breaking down inorganic material (rock, disobey. This book is a call for critical important piece of hidden history, which his rare ability to maintain a stable oil, plastic and pesticides) into organic democracy and ethical resistance. shows how one heroic scoop saved the world. NONFICTION August 2020 READINGS MONTHLY 17

Glimpses of Utopia United States. This book is a short history Science Jess Scully of that decline, and how idealism was Pantera. PB. $32.99 replaced by hubris and moral compromise. At Available 4 August The Smallest Lights in the It’s hard to be excited Sunnis and Shi‘a: A Political Universe home about the future right History Sara Seager with Chris Gordon now. Climate crisis is Laurence Louër & Ethan Rundell Fourth Estate. PB. $32.99 accelerating, and (trans.) Available 18 August inequality is growing. Princeton University Press. PB. $29.99 Sara Seager has made it But all over the world, Available now her life’s work to peer into 7 Ways people are refusing the When Mohammed died the spaces around stars. Jamie Oliver Michael Joseph. HB. Was $49.99 business-as-usual in 632 AD without a But with the unexpected mindset, reimagining male heir, Sunnis death of her husband, her $39.99 work, care, fnance and government. contended that the life became an empty, Available 20 August Glimpses of Utopia shows us the ways in choice of a successor lightless space. Suddenly, I love Jamie Oliver. I which we can reshape our world to be fair should fall to his she was a single mother, a reckon he has done and sustainable for all. companions, but Shi‘a widow at only forty. In more for the way we eat believed that this invigoratingly honest memoir, Seager than any other cook in The Rare Metals War Mohammed’s cousin, tells the story of how, as she navigated the modern history. In his Guillaume Pitron & Bianca Ali, should be leader. So began a schism world of grief, she kept looking for light in latest book, he Jacobsohn (trans.) that is nearly as old as Islam itself. the dark. considers the top Scribe. PB. $35 Laurence Louër tells the story of this ingredients we buy Available 4 August centuries-old rivalry, taking readers from week in, week out. We’re talking about The resources race is the last days of Mohammed to the Travel Writing those meal staples we pick up without even on. Powering our digital political and doctrinal clashes of Sunnis thinking. He understands how families work; grab this book if the thought of lives and green and Shi‘a today. The Golden Maze technologies are some serving spag bol again is doing your head Richard Fidler of the Earth’s most in. I promise, it will help. Tray bakes, for Deaths of Despair and the ABC Books. HB. $39.99 precious metals – but example, are our new way forward. Future of Capitalism Available 20 August they are running out. Anne Case & Angus Deaton In 1989, Richard And what will happen Princeton University Press. PB. $29.99 The Ethical Omnivore Fidler travelled to when they do? Drawing Available now Laura Dalrymple & Grant Hilliard Prague, where a on six years of research across a dozen Murdoch. HB. $39.99 Deaths of Despair and decrepit police state countries, The Rare Metals War is a vital Available 4 August the Future of Capitalism was being overthrown exposé of the ticking time-bomb that lies Want to help make the paints a troubling by crowds of ecstatic beneath our new technological order. planet a better place? This portrait of the American citizens. Thirty years book shows all of us how dream in decline. Case later Fidler returns to to live with less impact on Who Cares Wins and Deaton tie class Prague to uncover the the animals and Lily Cole crisis to the growing glorious and grotesque history of Europe’s environment that support Penguin Life. PB. $35 power of corporations, most uncanny city. Following the story of us. The Ethical Omnivore Available 4 August and to a rapacious Prague from its origins in medieval is a user-friendly nose-to-tail handbook We are living in an age of health care sector that redistributes darkness to its uncertain present, Fidler that will open your eyes to a better way to turmoil, destruction and working-class wages into the pockets of curates an engaging and compelling buy, cook and eat. Also, it’s just going to uncertainty. But there are the wealthy. This book charts a way history of a place. still reasons for optimism. forward, providing policy solutions that make you feel like you are doing something positive, and that always helps digestion. Here, Lily Cole meets can rein in capitalism’s excesses and make The Museum of Whales You with people all around it work for everyone. Will Never See: Travels Among the world who are the Collectors of Iceland Halliday Wine Companion 2021 committed to creating a Surviving Autocracy A. Kendra Greene James Halliday more sustainable and Masha Gessen Granta. HB. $32.99 Hardie Grant. PB. Was $39.99 peaceful future for humanity. Exploring Granta. HB. $27.99 Available 4 August $34.99 issues from fast fashion to renewable energy, Available 4 August Welcome to Iceland, a Available 6 August this book is a beacon of hope in dark times. As the 2020 US small nation with a large For well over thirty years Presidential race takes number of (mostly) very James Halliday has been Why We’re Polarized shape, Masha Gessen small museums. Founded Australia’s most respected Ezra Klein provides an in the backyards of wine critic, and his Profile. PB. $32.99 indispensable overview houses, begun as jokes, or Halliday Wine Companion Available 4 August of the calamitous as memorials to lost is recognised as the America’s political trajectory of Trump’s friends, these museums industry benchmark for system isn’t broken. regime. Manifesto-like, tell the story of an Australian wine. It is the The truth is scarier: it’s Surviving Autocracy is enchanted island. From Reykjavík’s go-to guide for wine ratings, regions, best working exactly as threaded with solutions to the current renowned Phallological Museum to a house varietals, winery reviews and a curated designed. In this book, situation, such as developing a political of stones on the eastern coast, here is an selection of the best wines in Australia. journalist Ezra Klein language that encompasses autocratic enchanting story of obsession, curation, and With our borders closed, this seems the reveals the structural impulses, a more agile and honest media, the peculiar magic of this isolated island. perfect time to plot a post-lockdown road trip and psychological and a visionary moral politics to counter to our extensive and delicious wine regions. forces behind Trump’s ongoing assault. Italian Life America’s descent into division and Tim Parks Intoxicating dysfunction. This is a revelatory book The Storm Before the Calm Harvill Secker. PB. $35 Max Allen that will change how you look at politics, George Friedman Available 4 August T&H. PB. $32.99 and perhaps at yourself. Black Inc. PB. $29.99 There is no word for Available now Available 3 August whistle-blower in Max Allen’s book is a Play by the Rules George Friedman Italian, though you can personal journey through Michael Pembroke predicts that the 2020s absolutely chiudere Australia’s complex drinking Hardie Grant. PB. $29.99 will bring to the United un’occhio (turn a blind history. He begins with the Available 5 August States dramatic eye). In all areas of fermented sap of the In the heady days after upheaval and reshaping public life – community, Tasmanian cider gum, 1945, the authority of of government, foreign education, employment – enjoyed by Indigenous the United States was policy, economics, and your connections are people long before European invasion, and unrivalled. But seventy- culture. With a unique everything. Unfolding into a story of power fnishes with the cellars of the country’s fve years later, its Australian foreword and corruption, infuence and exclusion, oldest wineries. He picks up cocktail recipes infuence has diminished. encompassing COVID-19, Friedman Tim Parks’s compelling new book is a and samples 150-year-old champagne The world has now examines the cycles through which the behind-the-scenes look at a paradoxical rescued from a shipwreck; there are tales of entered a post-American United States has developed, matured, country: a gripping account of how Italy local characters and glimpses of how our era – defned by the rise and solidifed, breaking down the coming actually happens. drinking culture might evolve in the future. of Asia, as much as by the decline of the years in thrilling detail. 18 READINGS MONTHLY August 2020 BARGAINS

history including Frans Lanting, Wolfgang keeps throwing obstacles in the way. An book ranges the globe and captures the August Tillmans, Nan Goldin, Cindy Sherman, instant Australian classic this is a story of restlessness of the human spirit. Elliott Erwitt, Trent Parke and many more. brotherhood, true love and the most unlikely of friendships. The Secret Language of Animals Bargains Brilliant Women: Pioneers of Janine M. Benyus & Juan Carlos Science and Technology Detours Barberis (illus.) Georgia Amson-Bradshaw & Rita Tim Rogers PB. Was $29.99 Now $12.95 Petruccioli (illus.) PB. Was $27.99 Now $12.95 From the Adélie penguin Royal Gardens PB. Was $19.99 Now $10 Tim Rogers of You Am I to the plains zebra to the Stéphane Bern & Jean-Baptiste Discover the inspiring has always been a giant panda, this Leroux (photog.) stories of pioneering complicated man: a wonderfully written and HB. Was $39.99 Now $16.95 women, in the feld of hard-drinking musician beautifully illustrated In this lavishly illustrated science and technology, with the soul of a poet; a book takes us inside the book, photographer who have shaped the world famboyant faneur; a animal kingdom and Jean-Baptiste Leroux we live in. Filled with raconteur, a romantic and shows us the whys and the hows behind the takes us on an exclusive wonderful illustrations, a rafsh ne’er-do-well. In distinctive behaviour of creatures great and walk through some of the and engaging activities that will nurture this ofeat, endearing memoir, Rogers small in their natural environments. most beautiful gardens in your own varied skills, this book will teach walks us through years jam-packed with Europe, the Middle East, and Asia – all of you all about diverse, intriguing and love, shame, joy, enthusiasms, regrets, Levant: New Middle Eastern which have belonged, or still belong, to brilliant women who followed their passions fghts, family – and music, always music. Flavours royal families. Author Stéphane Bern and were not put of by people telling them Rawia Bishara presents the intriguing history of these they couldn’t or shouldn’t. Everything is F*cked: A Book HB. Was $49.99 Now $19.95 unforgettable landscapes, accented by About Hope Rawia Bishara believes one personal testimonies of their owners. Natural Wonders of the World Mark Manson of the greatest assets of Molly Oldfield & Federica Bordoni HB. Was $34.99 Now $16.95 Middle Eastern cuisine is Mighty, Mighty Construction Site (illus.) In this counterintuitive its inherent fuidity, its Sherri Duskey Rinker & Tom HB. Was $28.99 Now $12.95 guide to the problems of remarkable capacity to Lichtenheld Set of on a journey of hope, Mark Manson turns adapt and transform over HB. Was $32.99 Now $14.95 discovery in this beautiful his gaze to the endless time. In Levant, she ofers more than 100 Down in the big photographic celebration of calamities taking place in recipes that represent a new modern style construction site, tough the natural world. From the world and challenges us and are the very best of the dishes she has trucks stir in the morning frefy squid glowing to be more honest with developed over the last twenty years in her light! There’s a brand new against the night sky in ourselves. With his usual mix of erudition New York City restaurant. job to start and Excavator, Japan to a Mexican cave and humour, he dissects religion and Bulldozer, Crane Truck, Dump Truck, and flled with the largest crystals ever found, politics and looks at our relationships with The Book Thieves Cement Mixer will need the help of new you’ll discover the stories and science behind money, entertainment and the internet, Anders Rydell construction friends to get it done. these wonders, the threats they now face and and how too much of a good thing can HB. Was $49.99 Now $13.95 Together, there’s nothing they can’t do! the eforts taking place to save them. psychologically eat us alive. While the Nazi party was Playful rhyming text and vibrant being condemned by much illustrations make this book a surefre The Basque Book Paddington: A Classic Collection of the world for burning favourite for construction fans everywhere. Alexandra Raij & Eder Montero Michael Bond & Peggy Fortnum books, they were already HB. Was $39.99 Now $16.95 (illus.) hard at work perpetrating Andy Goldsworthy Projects Basque cooking – one of Slipcase. Was $129.99 Now $24.95 an even greater literary Andy Goldsworthy Spain’s most fascinating Paddington Bear has been crime. Through extensive HB. Was $100 Now $49.99 and essential traditions – delighting adults and new research Anders Rydell tells the story Andy Goldsworthy is showcased here with a children alike with his of the Nazis’ systematic pillaging of Projects presents a decade collection of recipes from earnest good intentions and Europe’s libraries, and the team of of the artist’s large-scale star chefs Alexandra Raij humorous misadventures librarians now working to return the sculptural work from and Eder Montero. Taking for nearly sixty years. To stolen books to their rightful owners. around the world. Using readers on a tour of the Basque countryside, celebrate his enduring popularity, ten local materials – including they reveal the iconic ingredients, cooking classic paperback novels are brought The Country Cooking of France stone, clay, and wood – his projects are techniques, and traditional dishes that together in this special slipcase edition. Anne Willan & France Rufenach inspired by and interact with the natural defne the region. Paddington is now a major movie star! (photog.) landscape. They are as beautiful as HB. Was $49.95 Now $16.95 they are thought-provoking. Previously An Anthology of Intriguing Darling Winston Renowned for her cooking unpublished, each one is accompanied by a Animals David Lough school in France and her commentary from Goldsworthy. Dorling Kindersley HB. Was $59.99 Now $12.95 bestselling cookbooks, HB. Was $49.99 Now $24.95 Brimming with gossip, Anne Willan combines Press Here This celebration of the name-dropping and cheek, years of experience with Hervé Tullet animal kingdom this revelatory collection of extensive research in a HB. Was $22.95 Now $12.95 showcases dozens of the letters between Winston brand new classic. With Press the yellow dot on the animals in close-up detail. Churchill and his mother more than 250 recipes and sprinkled with cover of this interactive From lions and butterfies Jennie enriches our historical tidbits and enchanting photos of children’s book, follow the to sharks and spiders understanding of the food markets, villages and country instructions within, and there’s something for political apprenticeship of Churchill, kitchens, this cookbook is an irresistible embark upon a magical everyone. Arranged from biggest to Britain’s most celebrated statesmen, and celebration of French culinary culture. journey. Each page of this smallest, the wildlife of the world is ofers poignant insights into his surprising touch book instructs the reader to revealed with stunning photography and relationship with his mother, whose The Most Beautiful push the button, shake it up, tilt the book, gorgeous illustrations, and the storybook worldly advice and loving encouragement Universities in the World and who knows what will happen next! This descriptions will delight children as they frst set him on the path to power. Guillaume de Laubier (photog.), unique picture book will delight and provide discover amazing animal facts. Jean Serroy (text) & Zachery R. read-aloud fun for all ages. Dead Reckoning: Tales of the Townsend (trans.) Boy Swallows Universe Great Explorers, 1800–1900 HB. Was $60 Was $29.99 The Photographer’s Vision (Limited Gift Edition) Helen Whybrow (ed.) Discover more than Michael Freeman Trent Dalton HB. Was $49.99 Now $15.95 twenty hallowed halls of PB. Was $39.99 Now $14.95 HB. Was $39.99 Was $15.95 This remarkable collection higher learning as Michael Freeman Brisbane, 1983: A lost contains stories from the acclaimed photographer examines the work of father, a mute brother, a most compelling and Guillaume de Laubier photography’s greats, mum in jail, a heroin celebrated odysseys of the turns his lens to a new explaining how to view a dealer for a stepfather and century, some of them aspect of world heritage. His sumptuous photo and how to learn a notorious crim for a long-forgotten classics of photographs showcase amphitheaters, from looking at it. babysitter. It’s not as if Eli’s their time. From polar libraries, reception halls and hidden Visually stunning and intellectually life isn’t complicated navigation to the search for the source of gardens, while the text describes the history rigorous it features some of the most enough already. He’s just trying to follow the Nile, the frst crossing of the Himalayas of each campus, its architecture, research distinguished names in photography’s his heart and be a good man, but life just to a quest for the origin of species, this disciplines and reference collections. YOUNG ADULT August 2020 READINGS MONTHLY 19

The Great Godden The Love Hypothesis Young Adult Meg Rosof Laura Steven Bloomsbury. PB. $15.99 HG Egmont. PB. $19.99 Available 4 August Available now A British family Physics genius Caro A girl wakes up with no knowledge of who she is or what of six and their Kerber-Murphy knows friends spend each she’s smart. With BOOK OF THE has happened in her past. All she knows is that she is on a driverless bus speeding along a coastline with six other summer at the beach, straight As and a college MONTH people on board, none of whom look familiar. They each have a returning to an old scholarship already in Young Adult name on their chest, but are those really their names, and why home, and all their the bag, she’s meeting are some people in red shirts and some in blue? They are given summer pursuits. It’s her two dads’ colossal a thought experiment to which they must respond: the classic different this year as expectations and then Trolley Problem. They must choose between one person dying they are joined by two some. But there’s one or many and this is actually happening because they can see American brothers, chalk and cheese test she’s never quite been able to ace: love. people on the road ahead, right where the bus is heading. siblings, the sons of a somewhat-known And when, in a particularly desperate actress. While Hugo Godden comes off moment, Caro discovers a (defnitely This is just the beginning of Lili as quiet and moody, Kit is glowing and questionable) scientifc breakthrough that beautiful, immediately enthralling promises to make you irresistible to Wilkinson’s latest novel and it everyone around him, including the everyone around you, she wonders if this absolutely does not disappoint. young narrator. could be the key. It’s a story that strongly echoes I It’s a plot with as many twists and turns as the treacherous Capture the Castle or even Call Me By Girl, Unframed road the bus is driving along. There is a cast of diverse and all Your Name: a gorgeously written, stormy Deb Caletti too humanly fawed characters, including our narrator, Cecily, coming-of-age tale of frst love and family. Simon Pulse. HB. $29.99 who feels lust for the hot guy on the bus who smells familiar, The Erasure Interestingly, the narrator’s gender is Available 5 August but is also attracted to the sharp cheek-boned and angry girl Initiative never revealed. They’re a really strong Sydney Reilly has a bad with the beautifully decorated prosthetic leg. Tantalising Lili Wilkinson character; an observant young person feeling about going home snippets and articles are also interspersed throughout the A&U. PB. $19.99 with a big sense of self, a bit defant, a to San Francisco before narrative about a mysterious ‘Blue Fairy’ who has something Available 4 August bit cynical but not as immune to life’s she even gets on the to do with all these characters. provocation as they imagine. plane. How could she Lili Wilkinson has followed up her doomsday-prepper Of course, being Meg Rosof, this not? Her mother is a flm novel of two years ago, After the Lights Go Out, with an equally compelling novel that is novel is humorous too and there’s a fairly star who prizes her action-packed but also delivers some real moral dilemmas about good and evil, asking dramatic twist towards the end that you beauty and male the reader whether people can change their basic character. This pacey thriller will be may not see coming. This is a slim and attention above all else, devoured by readers aged 14+. alluring book, it’s so easy to devour, but including her daughter. But Sydney’s worries Angela Crocombe is the manager of Readings Kids each and every character has been richly multiply when she discovers that Lila is painted. I believe The Great Godden is the involved with the dangerous Jake, an art frst of three summer novels that Rosof dealer with shady connections. Tribal Lores You Were Made for Me will publish, and that’s exciting news. A teen girl’s summer with her mother turns Archimede Fusillo Jenna Guillaume This is perfect escapism reading for those sinister in this gripping thriller about the Walker. PB. $19.99 Pan Mac. PB. $17.99 dreaming of warmer weather and holidays. insidious dangers of unwanted attention. Available 1 August Available 11 August Kim Gruschow is from Readings St Kilda Local author You Were Made This Time Will Be Diferent Archimede For Me is the The Enigma Game Misa Sugiura Fusillo is known for his second novel by Elizabeth Wein HarperCollins. PB. $19.99 culturally reflective Australian YA rom-com Bloomsbury. PB. $14.99 Available 5 August stories that draw on his master Jenna Available 4 August Katsuyamas never Italian–Australian Guillaume, and it does Windyedge Airfield, quit – but seventeen- heritage and the not disappoint. Our Scotland. World War II. year-old CJ doesn’t even exploration of protagonist, Katie Three young people are know where to start. manhood through his Camilleri, is sixteen desperate to make a She’s never lived up to young male protagonists. His earlier years old and has never been kissed. Not difference in a war that her mum’s ambition, works, Sparring with Shadows and The for lack of want, but because she’s waiting has decimated their and she’s perfectly Dons, attracted literary recognition and for the perfect guy. Just when it seems families, friends and happy just helping her Fusillo has been a valued contributor on that the perfect guy will never come country. When the aunt at their family’s schools’ panels at writers’ festivals. His along, Katie and her best friend Libby means to change the fower shop where she discovers a knack most recent work, Tribal Lores, draws accidentally bring him to life using course of history falls into their hands, she never knew she had. Then her mum upon familiar ground and we meet science and a bit of clay. Now that her how will they use it? And when the decides to sell the shop to the family who frst-generation Australian Frankie Rescio dream guy is here everything in Katie’s enemy comes looking for them, who will swindled CJ’s grandparents when growing up in a traditional Italian family life should be perfect, but of course it’s have the courage to strike back? A thousands of Japanese Americans were in the northern suburbs of Melbourne. never that simple. thrilling story of wartime secrets, sent to internment camps during WWII. A shadow of grief hangs over the Rescio Just when it seems that the perfect guy international intrigue and wild courage Suddenly CJ has found something she family and this loss both insulates and will never come along, Katie and her best from an award-winning author with wants to fght for. stagnates their growth, binding them to friend Libby accidentally bring him to life heroes you’ll never forget. cultural traditions and restricting their using science and a bit of clay. I Killed Zoe Spanos connection with those outside their The story is told in a dialogue Loveless Kit Frick community. Until the day the Marsh family between Katie and Libby as they Alice Oseman Margaret K. McElderry. PB. $17.99 move into the house next door and bring recount the crazy series of events that HarperCollins. PB. $17.99 Available 5 August with them their complicated and messy follow their experiment. Katie’s first- Available 5 August When Anna Cicconi lives. Frankie and Lochie, the sons of their person account is often interrupted by Georgia has never been arrives in a small respective households, form an unlikely Libby for a moment of fact-checking or in love, never kissed Hamptons village for a friendship, with each boy drawn to the other commentary, providing a refreshing anyone, never even had a summer nanny gig, she for the very things that set them apart. For and immersive reading experience. crush – but as a fanfc- hopes for a fresh start. Frankie, it’s an opportunity to rebel against This is a story about the risks of obsessed romantic she’s What she finds instead the strict parental and cultural expectations being in love with the idea of being sure she’ll fnd her is a community on edge that bind him, and to lose himself in his frst in love, and about the importance of person one day. As she after the disappearance romantic crush: Lochie’s wayward half- good friends. While exploring topics starts university with her of Zoe Spanos, a local sister, who is herself struggling to cope with like grief, body image, and sexuality, best friends, Georgia’s girl who has been missing since New an unplanned pregnancy to her less-than- Guillaume’s voice is delightful, always ready to fnd romance. With her outgoing Year’s Eve. Anna bears an eerie impressive boyfriend. Lochie, on the other funny, and authentic. You Were Made roommate on her side and a place in the resemblance to Zoe, and her presence in hand, is drawn to the Rescio family like a for Me is charming, hilarious and Shakespeare Society, Georgia’s ‘teenage town stirs up still-raw feelings. Two moth-to-the-light for their good modelling distinctly Australian. Perfect for fans dream’ is in sight. This wise, warm and witty months later, Zoe’s body is found in a of loyalty, trust and support. At the core, this of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, story of identity and self-acceptance sees nearby lake, and Anna is charged with is a story about the values that shape us and and anyone who is a sucker for a good Alice Oseman in towering form as Georgia manslaughter. Kit Frick weaves a the tribes we belong to. romantic comedy. For ages 14+. and her friends discover that true love isn’t gripping story of psychological suspense Natalie Platten is from Readings Doncaster Kealy Siryj is from Readings Kids limited to romance. that twists and turns until the final page. 20 READINGS MONTHLY August 2020 KIDS

These two people build a connection through art. This begins with a gift from Pete to the boy: a yellow Kids’ bird of fying sunshine, created on the pavement. As the little boy shares his appreciation and delight Books in Pete’s artwork with others, they too begin to see Pete and ofer their help. The boy opens their eyes to what was always there in front of them – someone in need. Claire Atherfold is the manager of Readings State Library Victoria

Pearl Molly Idle Little, Brown. HB. $24.99 Available 28 July Like the other mermaids of the deep, Pearl longs to care for the endless beaches, coral reefs, Board Books and towering kelp forests of her BOOK OF THE vast ocean world. So when her MONTH mother asks her to tend to a Middle Grade Ten Sleepy Sheep mere grain of sand, Pearl is Renée Treml heartbroken. Caldecott Honor Pufin. BB. $14.99 author–illustrator Molly Idle Available 4 August dazzles with an original mermaid tale about how Night-time has fallen and the small, persistent actions can achieve great things. farm is asleep, time for you to count your sheep. Count along Across the Risen with our baby animals as a Junior Grade Sea farm in the Australian bush Bren MacDibble goes to sleep. Ten Sleepy Sheep is a perfect bedtime book for Marshmallow Pie: The Cat Superstar A&U. PB. $16.99 small children, introducing Clara Vulliamy Available 4 August the concept of counting down from ten. HarperCollins. PB. $9.99 Available 5 August Neoma and Jaguar are a team. They always do Marshmallow Pie, full name things together and dream of becoming the best Picture Books Marshmallow Marmaduke fshing crew and salvagers on the whole of the inland Vanilla-Bean Sugar-Pie Flufngton- Fitz-Noodle, resides in an apartment sea. Self-subsisting and largely forgotten by a Found succession of governments, their small community building with Amelia and her Dad. Bruce Pascoe & Charmaine Ledden-Lewis tries to live peaceful, environmentally gentle lives. Amelia is an independent and (illus.) When strangers from the Valley of Sun arrive creative young person and when she Magabala. HB. $24.99 uninvited and make unwelcome changes, their gentle picks up a fyer about auditions for Avaialble 1 August lives and dreams are threatened. Neoma must set of pets, it becomes her project to make Found starts with a on a daring solo mission – encountering freak storms, Marshmallow Pie a star. Marshmallow Pie much prefers frightened calf in the foating cities, pirates, sharks and shark-wrestling lying around dreaming of roast chicken to learning Australian outback; he can’t crocodiles along the way – to protect the people she tricks, but does get excited about some aspects of fnd his family. The calf is very loves and their way of life. showbiz glamour, especially fabulous hats! quickly found by a man, who From the author of How to Bee and The Dog Runner Buster the dog is Marshmallow’s arch nemesis. He picks him up and pushes him comes an action-packed adventure in a post-climate lives on the balcony of the apartment downstairs. When into the back of a cattle truck crisis world. For readers who might be feeling worried they meet at the audition it’s a recipe for chaos, but can full of other distressed-looking about the future, this adventure with courageous, loyal Marshmallow bring the old razzle dazzle and become cows. The calf quickly escapes, but as the truck drives and resilient characters will help explore human impact a celebrity regardless? There are a lot of laughs and so of the calf realises the man has stolen his mother. on our planet. For ages 9+. many lovely illustrations in this book, including a cool Alone again, the calf wanders the country, fnding map of the fat Marshmallow lives in. This is the kind Bianca Looney is from Readings Kids animals similar to him but not the same, until, fnally, of sweet and funny chapter book that new readers and he hears a distant moo. The calf calls out and his young cat lovers are very hungry for! mother responds, allowing the calf to follow the calls Kim Gruschow is from Readings St Kilda until he is safely back with his mother and family. Found is a very gentle introduction to a very difcult Annie Lumsden, The Girl from the Sea and painful part of our nation’s history, the Stolen Generations. It’s aided by the beautiful illustrations David Almond & Beatrice Alemagna (illus.) Walker. HB. $18.99 of Chamaine Ledden-Lewis, who does a wonderful job Available 1 August of capturing the stunning colours of the Australian outback. For ages 3+. This is a beautifully tender coming-of-age story of Dani Solomon is from Readings Kids unconditional love and acceptance, diference and I Saw Pete and Pete Saw Me belonging, of fnding our place in Maggie Hutchings & Evie Barrow (illus.) the world, our connection with all Afirm Press. HB. $24.99 living things and ultimately, what Available 28 July it is to be human. From the creative fair of Annie is diferent, a puzzle Maggie Hutchings, who to medical science, and struggles to ft in; school is brought us Unicorn! and Your especially difcult for her. But her mother’s gift for Birthday Was the Best, alongside Evie storytelling stimulates a curiosity for the natural Barrow’s hand-drawn sketches that environment that leads Annie to a larger world where celebrate beauty in imperfection, we she truly belongs. have a touching tale about the David Almond’s thought-provoking, sensitive tale importance of kindness and truly is as broad and as deep as the ocean it evokes and seeing what surrounds you. Beatrice Alemagna’s vivid, playful illustrations enrich Whilst this book does deal with some sad realities of the mystery and wonder on every page. Together they our world, it also portrays a sense of hope and resilience capture the elusive innocence of childhood and the through a simple yet powerful friendship between a beauty of nature with a magical realism that beckons small boy and Pete, who doesn’t have a home. the reader to dive in and interpret Annie’s world. KIDS August 2020 READINGS MONTHLY 21

This book (like much of Almond’s exquisite work) This beautiful book is a sensitive rendition of Berta’s defes categorisation and Alemagna’s captivating life, and shows how inspiringly brilliant books can be, Father’s Day Round-up illustrations ensure this special gift will charm both particularly illustrated biographies for children. For children and adults alike. Highly recommended for ages 9+. ages 9+. Alexa Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn Athina Clarke is from Readings Malvern Nonfiction Middle Grade Dry to Dry: The Seasons of Kakadu A Clue for Clara Pamela Freeman & Liz Anelli (illus.) Lian Tanner Walker. HB. $26.99 A&U. PB. $16.99 Available 1 August Available 4 August The latest in the Nature Clara wants to be a famous detective Storybook series, following the with her own TV show. She can read award-winning Desert Lake, is claw marks, fnd missing feathers a stunningly illustrated and and knows morse code and extraordinary story of the semaphore. There’s just one problem. yearly weather cycle and She’s a small scrufy chook, and no attendant changing wildlife of one takes her seriously. A puzzling Kakadu National Park. From and hilarious mystery from the Dry to the Wet to the Dry again, the seasons have bestselling author Lian Tanner. shaped the astonishing variety of plants, animals, On Father’s Day, we take the time to celebrate birds and insects found in the park’s tropical the wonderful father figures in our lives. Here, wetlands and escarpments. Brasswitch & Bot (Rise of the we’re using the term ‘dad’ to describe all of these Remarkables, Book 1) parental figures, whether they be dads, stepdads, Adventure Starts at Bedtime Gareth Ward grandads, uncles, guardians or any other kind Walker. PB. $19.99 Ness Knight & Qu Lan (illus.) Available 1 August Magic Cat. HB. $34.99 of carer. Families may be taking a low-key Screams surge along York’s narrow Available 1 August approach to Father’s Day this year, but we are Victorian streets as a runaway Travel back in time, across lucky to have some wonderful new titles to share. crackle-tram races toward disaster. thousands of miles with these Fearing an accident like the one that thirty true stories written by killed her parents, Brasswitch award-winning journalist and Wrench is forced to reveal her modern-day adventurer Ness powers – a decision that will change Knight. Packed with danger and her life forever. Drawn into a world intrigue young readers can re-live jaw-dropping moments of prejudice, deceit and danger, The delightful charms of Philip Bunting are in from some of history’s most Wrench teams up with maverick mechanical leader, full splendor with Wild About Dads (HG Egmont, HB, intrepid adventurers which will have them counting Bot, and must master her powers, knowing they ofer $19.99), a fun look at parenting in the animal world. down the hours until bedtime. her only hope for survival. Bunting’s trademark sense of humour and sharp illustrative style make this one a laugh-out-loud winner Sunflower Classic of the Month for animal lovers, and you might even learn a thing or Ingrid Laguna two. For the dad who fancies himself as a bit of a cool Text. PB. $14.99 cat, we have Keith Negley’s stylish My Dad Used to Be Available 4 August Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret So Cool (Flying Eye, PB, $16.99). This tattooed father Jamila is happy in her new home in Judy Blume wistfully refects on his glory days playing in a band Australia, though she still misses Pan Mac. PB. $14.99 and riding a motorcycle, but realises that his son still her old life in Iraq. She and her new Available now thinks he is the coolest guy in the world. Negley’s best friend Eva sing in the school I revisited Judy Blume’s cult previous title, Tough Guys Have Feelings Too (Flying choir and have picnics together. One favourite Are You There, God? Eye, PB, $16.99), is also a lighthearted way of looking at day, Jamila gets exciting news: It’s Me, Margaret as it turns ffty emotions – with superheroes! Mina, her oldest friend from Iraq, is years old in 2020. I frst read For the dad who is more like a kid than a grown up, coming to Australia. But when Mina Blume’s widely challenged book we have Time for Adventure, Daddy (UQP, HB, $24.95). arrives, things do not go as planned. when I was eleven, and although It’s the third book in Dave Hackett’s hilarious series Jamila feels torn between her two friends. Can she be a Margaret Simon was an eleven-year- in which child and parent switch places, and the kid true friend to Mina, and help her feel safe and happy in old New Yorker in the 1970s, and I takes charge. These are a great deal of fun and gently her new home? was growing up in suburban remind children of what best behaviour looks like, as Melbourne in the 2000s, she felt very familiar to me. Dad inevitably mucks it up. Also available are Time Margaret’s anxiety about her period and impending for Bed, Daddy (UQP, PB, $14.95) and Time for School, Graphic Novel adolescence is almost universal. Daddy (UQP, HB, $24.95). While some of the technology is outdated (the My Dad Is… by Ed Allen and illustrated by James book was updated in 1998 to swap out sanitary belts Hart (Scholastic, HB, $17.99) has a spinner on the front The Bird Within Me that helps you choose between diferent descriptions Sara Lundberg & B.J. Epstein (trans.) for adhesive pads), Blume writes frankly about sex, faith, and puberty, in a way that still feels very much of Dad including ‘the best storyteller’ and ‘the loudest Book Island. HB. $24.99 relevant. As a children’s bookseller, it is obvious to me farter’ that will be sure to bring a laugh to any story time. Available now how much of coming of (tween)age writing is informed For a vibrant, inclusive Father’s Day book you can’t The Bird Within Me is a and inspired by Blume. To open up conversations go past Sophie Beer’s delightful Love Makes A Family compact gem of a book about puberty with tweens in 2020 read (or re-read) (Little Hare, BB, $16.99), which is a perennial favourite that is based on the life of Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, and then follow at Readings. We also think The Girl with Two Dads by Swedish Artist Berta it up with Lily Williams and Karen Schneemann’s Go Mel Elliott (HG Egmont, PB, $16.99) is incredibly sweet. Hansson. Raised in a small With the Flow or Cory Silverberg and Fiona Smyth’s Sex While we may not be having large celebrations this farming community, she is Is A Funny Word. For ages 10+. Father’s Day, we hope that all families have a fantastic expected to help, leaving day with lots of cuddles, plenty of food, and wonderful little time for the art she Kealy Siryj is from Readings Kids stories to share with the kids. Happy Father’s Day! loves. Whenever she can, Angela Crocombe is the manager of Readings Kids Berta does paintings and little sculptures for her sick mother, in the hope they will make her better. The doctor, who is an art lover, thinks she should go to art school. But in an age when education isn’t considered a priority for girls, her father says no, she is needed on the farm. 22 READINGS MONTHLY August 2020 DVDS | MUSIC

edges its way into the case, it forces a Unfollow the Rules canon … [Gaslighter] is all fre and nerve, DVD seasoned cop (Ben Mendelsohn) and an Rufus Wainwright performed by three women whose musical unorthodox investigator to question $22.95 | Also on vinyl | Available now bona fdes are rivaled only by their everything they believe in. rock-solid backbones.’ Rufus Wainwright’s long-awaited new album Vera Series 9 fnds him at the peak of his Jazz/Blues TV $29.95 | Available 5 August powers, entering artistic In Series 9 of the award- maturity with passion, Belgravia: Season 1 winning series, DCI Vera honesty, and a new-found fearlessness, Swallow Tales Stanhope is confronted with while remaining as creative, bold, and Was $34.95 $29.95 | Available 12 August John Scofield, Bill Stewart & Steve four more tragic and mischievous as ever. Swallow In Brussels on the eve of the intriguing murder cases. In $26.95 | Also on vinyl | Available now Battle of Waterloo, two young each episode Vera follows the Song for Our Daughter Available now lovers forge a legacy that will trails of complex mysteries including the Laura Marling Guitarist John Scofeld create scandal for generations murder of a trainee forensic psychologist $21.95 | Also on vinyl | Available 8 August celebrates the music of his to come. Years later, their two and the opening of a cold case when a friend and mentor Steve families fnd themselves skeleton is discovered buried in Whitley Bay. Song for Our Daughter living in Belgravia. With a shared history arrives in the midst of Swallow in an outgoing that threatens inheritances and reputations, uncharted global chaos, and spirited recording, there are those who would do anything to Film and yet instantly and made in a single day in New York – ‘old ensure secrets remain buried. Read our tenderly ofers a sense of school’ style, as Scofeld says, while also review of Belgravia online at readings.com.au purpose, clarity and calm. As a balm for acknowledging that more than forty years The James Stewart Collection the soul, this new collection could be of preparation led up to it. His Dark Materials: Season 1 $29.95 | Available 12 August posited as Laura Marling’s richest to date, $39.95 | Available 5 August This fantastic collection but in truth it’s another incredibly fne Arctic Rif features four of James From Philip Pullman’s His record by a British artist who rarely strays Marcin Wasilewski Trio & Joe Lovano Stewart best-known flms from delivering incredible records. Dark Materials fantasy $34.95 | Available now proving what a versatile actor trilogy comes Season 1 of The frst-time teaming of he was. Vertigo, one of this compelling HBO series Hermitage Poland’s dynamic Marcin cinema’s most chilling that follows young orphan Ron Sexsmith Wasilewski Trio and romantic endeavours; Rear Window, perhaps Lyra on an incredible $19.95 | Also on vinyl | Available now big-toned US tenorist Joe Hitchcock’s best; Its a Wonderful Life, adventure into a parallel world where a ‘Ron Sexsmith takes Lovano brings forth special Frank Capra’s heartwarming masterpiece human’s soul exists outside one’s body – listeners on a dreamy, music of concentrated, deep feeling, in and American Civil War flm Shenandoah. in the form of a talking animal. Lyra pastel-tinged vacation of which lyricism and strength seem ideally embarks upon a dangerous journey that the mind with Hermitage, balanced. The alliance plays four new will change her life forever. Documentary a batch of 14 songs that tunes by Marcin and one by Lovano, as range from loosely tropical swing-alongs well as Carla Bley’s classic ‘Vashkar’. Curb Your Enthusiasm: to forlorn lullabies. Often backed by a Season 10 Aznavour by Charles simple piano line, the melodies in this Blues with Friends $29.95 | Available 31 July $24.95 | Available 5 August album tell a gentle story, creating – as the Dion & Various Artists album’s title suggests – a kind of hideout Larry David is back, once In 1948, Edith Piaf ofered a $29.95 | Available now again landing himself in one Paillard-Bolex camera to from the outside world.’ No Depression This latest album from the self-inficted faux pas after Charles Aznavour, which lead singer of the famous another in Season 10 of the would always be with him. Monovision doo-wop group Dion and award-winning comedy. This Until 1982, he flmed hours of Ray LaMontagne The Belmonts came to season, Larry gets into a reel, as he would have kept a $19.95 | Available now fruition after Joe series of escalating predicaments as he diary, recording key moments, his travels, Grammy Award-winning Bonamassa inspired Dion to invite others to takes on a major project to spite a new friends, loves and even his boredom. Before artist Ray LaMontagne’s play on it. The result is an album of his adversary – which proves to be more he passed away in 2018 he made a flm with eighth studio album fnds story-driven songs featuring stars such as complicated than he anticipated. Marc di Domenico using this footage. him in the multiple roles of Jef Beck, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, songwriter, singer, Van Morrison, Rory Block, and more. Mystery Road: Series 2 Hermitage: The Power of Art producer, engineer, as well as performing all $29.95 | Available 5 August $29.95 | Available 19 August the instruments on every track. As with Detective Jay Swan takes on A wonderful complex of previous albums LaMontagne continues to Folk/World a grisly new case in a small buildings with the largest push himself in diferent musical directions, coastal community in WA, collection of paintings in the yet with his uniquely signature sound. where the red sand meets world The Hermitage, and St. Heart’s Ease the turquoise blue sea and Petersburg were a meeting Shirley Collins people go for a fresh start or point for foreign artists, Country $22.95 | Also on vinyl | Available now to bury their past. When the case becomes architects and intellectuals creating Shirley Collins, widely linked to an outback drug syndicate boss connections through art and culture. Toni regarded as England’s Jay has been chasing for years, he enters a Servillo tells the story of its daily life today Old Flowers greatest female folk singer, world where deception is king. and retraces its fascinating history. Courtney Marie Andrews hadn’t recorded an album $21.95 | Also on vinyl | Available now for thirty eight years when Miss Scarlet & The Duke Courtney Marie Andrews 2016’s enthralling Lodestar was released. $29.95 | Available 5 August has pulled all the With Hearts Ease she delivers an even Set in the same 1850s London CD | Vinyl songwriting skill, vocal stronger performance of traditional and society that gave rise to Jack prowess, and musicianship new songs, which is as compelling and the Ripper, this British displayed on previous original as her great albums from the ’60s detective drama features albums, into one career defning statement. and ’70s. Miss Scarlet, a fearless, A break-up record for sure, though due to independent heroine. Rather Pop/Rock/Alt Courtney’s extraordinary storytelling gifts, Not Our First Goat Rodeo than behaving like a proper lady, she is more of a modern day coming-of-age tale of Yo Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar interested in running her late father’s Please Leave Your Light On love won, love sustained, and unfortunately, Meyer & Chris Thile love’s inevitable dissolution. detective agency – but nothing can prepare Paul Kelly & Paul Grabowsky $19.95 | Available now her for the dangers she will face. $22.95 | Also on vinyl | Available 31 July Following the success of the Please Leave Your Light On Gaslighter Grammy award-winning The Outsider: Season 1 is the new collaborative The Chicks album The Goat Rodeo $39.95 | Available 29 July album by multiple ARIA $19.95 | Available now Sessions, Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart The gruesome murder of an Award winners Paul Kelly In a review of The Chicks’ Duncan, Edgar Meyer, and eleven-year-old boy leads a and Paul Grabowsky. This frst album in fourteen years, Chris Thile return, nine years later, to detective into a disturbing unique body of work sees Kelly performing Entertainment describes collaborate on a second volume. The music search for the truth in this selections of his catalogue with new the album as blending featured on this stunning album again series based on Stephen interpretations by Grabowsky, who ‘early-21st-century pop combines their remarkable talents to create King’s bestselling novel. accompanies him on piano. Read our savvy with the storytelling that made a sound that’s part composed, part When an insidious supernatural force review of the album at readings.com.au country music so crucial to the American improvised, and uniquely American. MUSIC August 2020 READINGS MONTHLY 23

Dame Ethel Smyth: The Prison The Diabelli Project Classical Music Sarah Brailey, Dashon Burton, Rudolf Buchbinder Experiential Orchestra and Chorus DG. 4837707. $26.95 & James Blachly ‘This lovely album Chandos. CHSA5279. Was $32.95 brims over with Nowadays, it’s rare for a record company to produce a $26.95 (limited stock at this price) afection, exuberance ALBUM OF full-length studio recording of opera, but, for star Composed in 1930 and and inventiveness, not only in the companion- THE MONTH tenor Jonas Kaufmann, Sony Classical makes an exception. premiered in 1931 in And what a wonderful gift for opera fans at this time when Edinburgh’s Usher pieces written for Classical live music performances have been put on hold. Most will Hall, The Prison is a Buchbinder but also in the veteran be familiar with Shakespeare’s tragic story: soldier Iago – Symphony in two Austrian pianist’s energetic account of jealous, conniving and resentful – vows to destroy parts, ‘Close on Beethoven’s original. Of the new works,

Venetian general Otello’s life, making him believe that Freedom’ and ‘The Deliverance’, set for Christian Jost’s rambunctious Rock it his wife Desdemona has been unfaithful. soprano and bass-baritone soloists, Rudi and Jörg Widmann’s delicious chorus, and full orchestra. The text is “wrong-note rag” variation (taking in taken from a philosophical work by boogie-woogie and the Radetzsky March Otello may be a tragedy, but the sheer Henry Bennet Brewster and concerns the along the way) are particular delights.’ splendour of Verdi’s music fills me with writings of a prisoner in solitary – Presto Classical optimism, especially when so masterfully confinement, his reflections on life and performed and recorded. his preparations for death. Beethoven: Symphonies 1-5 Verdi: Otello Le Concert des Nations & Jordi Jonas Kaufmann, Kaufmann as Otello is in excellent, rich voice, and his Dvořák: Cello Concerto, Silent Savall Orchestra e Coro interpretation brims with fragility and humanity. Carlos Woods, Songs My Mother Alia Vox. AVSA9937. 3CDs. Was $59.95 dell’Academia Álvarez is the malevolent Iago – his dark baritone perfect for Taught Me, Laast mich allein & $49.95 (limited stock at this price) Nationale di Santa the part. In fact, the cast comprises stand-out singers. Young Goin’ Home For this set of Cecilia & Antonio Italian soprano Federica Lombardi is a fne Desdemona, and Kian Soltani, Staatskapelle Berlin Beethoven’s frst fve Pappano her moving ‘Ave Maria, piena di grazia’ left me in a puddle & Daniel Barenboim symphonies, Jordi Sony Classical. of tears. Virginie Verrez is a lavishly-voiced Emilia, and DG. 4836090. $24.95 Savall began with the 19439707932. 2CDs. $34.95 although her role misses out on a notable aria, she makes an Two years after his fundamental idea of excellent and dramatic addition to the ensembles. The real successful Deutsche recovering the highlight for me, however, is Liparit Avetisyan as Cassio. Grammophon debut original sound of the orchestra and tempo Again, he is primarily an ensemble singer, but Avetisyan’s album Home, Kian as the composer imagined them. All the lovely bell-like tenor rings out among the other voices. The choruses, performed by the Soltani returns with an orchestral work was performed with Coro dell’Academia Nationale di Santa Cecilia, pack a huge punch – Verdi, as we know, Antonin Dvořák album instruments corresponding to those used composed some of the most rousing choruses in the repertoire – and make me hopeful featuring the famous cello concerto and at the time, and by sixty musicians, a for a time when we can once again feel and hear the full force of such an almighty team fve arrangements of some of the greatest number similar to that arranged by the of singers in a real-life setting. Otello may be a tragedy, but the sheer splendour of Verdi’s pieces Dvořák composed. Maestro Daniel composer. The main goal was to refect all music flls me with optimism, especially when so masterfully performed and recorded. Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin the richness and beauty of these While not the most uplifting of operas, Kaufmann’s new recording of Verdi’s accompany Kian Soltani in the concerto, symphonies, through a true balance Otello provides a welcome escape from reality – full of intrigue, deception, and most while for the other pieces (three of which between colours and the quality of the importantly, beautiful singing. have been arranged by Kian Soltani orchestra’s natural sound. Alexandra Mathew is from Readings State Library Victoria himself) he is joined by six cellists of the Staatskapelle Berlin. Vivaldi: I colori dell’ombra Ophélie Gaillard & Pulcinella Max Richter: Voices Orchestra moments of each other’s styles in these two Vaughan Williams: Max Richter Aparte. AP226. 2CDs. $29.95 works. This album is delightful, soulful and Symphony No. 5 & Finzi: Decca. 0898651. $24.95 On their latest well worth adding to your collection. Clarinet Concerto Max Richter invited recording Ophélie Michael Collins & Kate Rockstrom is a friend of Readings people around the Gaillard and the Philharmonia Orchestra world to be part of the Pulcinella Orchestra BIS. BIS2367. Was $29.95 Mozart y Mambo piece and interwove reveal the incredible $24.95 (limited stock at this price) Sarah Willis hundreds of crowd- sound palette of Vivaldi. He hath given me Alpha. ALPHA578. Was $32.95 sourced readings of the Drawing on the fnest cello works of the rest by His sorrow $26.95 (limited stock at this price) Universal Declaration of Human Rights composer, Ophélie Gaillard’s selection and life by His Sometimes grand into this work. These readings form the places great emphasis on the concerto. The death. – Bunyan adventures start aural landscape that the music fows vocal interventions of Lucile Richardot Written above the with a throwaway through: they are the Voices of the title. and Delphine Galou light up the program third movement of comment. Sarah Willis, Voices is not only a showcase of Max like rays of sun through the clouds. This Vaughan Williams’s Fifth Symphony, French Horn in the Richter’s extraordinary talent but also a music thus unveils all its mysteries in the Romanza, these words are deceptively Berlin Philharmonic, message of hope, and a celebration of interplay of light and shadow. multilayered. Not just pertinent to the was amazed in 2017 to discover there is a global community in dramatic times. years in which the piece was written statue of Mozart in Havana, Cuba. Dowland: A Fancy (1938–1943, the height of World War II), but Nonplussed by her amazement, one of the Elgar: Sea Pictures & Falstaf Bor Zuljan also to Vaughan Williams’s own ftful work local musicians observed that ‘Mozart Elīna Garanča, Staatskapelle Berlin Ricercar. RIC425. Was $32.95 on his opera based upon Bunyan’s The would have been a good Cuban’. Inspired & Daniel Barenboim $26.95 (limited stock at this price) Pilgrim’s Progress, they are supposed to by this sentence, she decided to blend Decca. 4850968. $24.95 Never before has the represent the emotions of the music itself. together her two passions in life, Classical Recorded in December lute sounded as This is just a snapshot of how this piece and Cuban music. A keen Salsa dancer, she 2019 with Latvian expressive and is strangely complex throughout its four discovered that there were not only many soprano Elīna Garanča colourful as in these movements. Lush with the string sound budding horn players in Cuba, but that and Staatskapelle masterful Fancies, as we often associate with the Vaughan some contemporary composers had Berlin, this new dynamic as in these Williams style, Michael Collins and the already blended the two styles of music, recording from Daniel sparkling dances: Renaissance lute Philharmonia Orchestra bring this piece to with the ‘Sarahnade mambo’ on this Barenboim continues his acclaimed Elgar music here reached its summit. Bor life in Collins’s recorded conducting debut. album being a particular standout. series. Elgar composed Sea Pictures Zuljan explores these qualities in his This album took three years to complete Anyone who has had an even passing during the summer of 1899. For those not debut solo recording, breathing new life and was fnally recorded in January of 2020. interest in the clarinet will most likely have familiar with this work, Sea Pictures is a into John Dowland’s masterpieces, and Willis has interspersed the Mozart horn heard of Michael Collins. Widely considered song cycle for voice and orchestra drawing the listener on a journey repertoire with the Cuban tunes and created one of the best clarinettists in the world, he consisting of fve songs, based on fve through multiple shades of melancholy one of those weird Frankenstein’s monster has been working as a conductor, performer poems by diferent authors, about the sea. and lucent hope. and teacher at the Royal College for many albums that somehow seems to fulfl all your years. Leading from the soloist position for musical needs in one go. It features beautiful the Finzi Clarinet Concerto, he manages soaring horn lines across movements of to use all his skills to show of Finzi’s Mozart’s famous works, countered by the particular compositional style. Finzi and groove and rhythms of traditional Cuban Vaughan Williams were contemporaries and music that will bring a skip to your step. friends and it’s fascinating to hear passing Kate Rockstrom is a friend of Readings