Free April 2011 Readings Monthly

Patrick Allington on Jane Sullivan • Benjamin Law on Cory Taylor ) hamish hamilton

( king new novel The pale foster wallace's image from the cover of david

David Foster Wallace's final novel p 8

Highlights of April book, CD & DVD new releases. More inside.

fiction aus fiction biography CRIME fiction DVD POp CD CLASSICAL fiction $29.99 $24.95 $32.95. $32.95 $20.95 $39.95. $29.95 $24.95 $59.95 $33.95 >> p5 Ebook $18.99 >> p11 $32.95 $27.95 >> p8 >> p16 >> p17 >> p19 >> p4 >> p10

April event highlights : Andrew Fowler on Wikileaks, Betty Churcher on Notebooks, Julian Burnside talks to Michael Kirby. More events inside.

All shops open 7 days, except State Library shop, which is open Monday - Saturday. Carlton 309 Lygon St 9347 6633 Hawthorn 701 Glenferrie Rd 9819 1917 Malvern 185 Glenferrie Rd 9509 1952 Port Melbourne 253 Bay St 9681 9255 St Kilda 112 Acland St 9525 3852 Readings at the State Library of Victoria 328 Swanston St 8664 7540 email us at [email protected] Browse and buy online at www.readings.com.au and at ebooks.readings.com.au

EBOOK ALSO AVAILABLE NOW FROM www.ebooks.readings.com.au 2 Readings Monthly April 2011 Orange Longlist Almost half of the writers on this year’s longlist for the Orange Prize for Fiction are Meet the bookseller debut novelists – providing plenty of op- with … portunities for award followers to discover Fiona Hardy, Readings Carlton This Month’s News new favourites. At the same time, established Miles Franklin Australian writer. Australia gave me writing Longlist Announced and I shall always be grateful for that. authors whose books have attracted much Why do you work in praise (including attention from other book books? The longlist for Australia’s most prestigious Whether I go any further in the Miles awards) join them on the list – like Emma literary prize has been announced – and, Franklin process or not, what I love most is I’ve loved reading and Donoghue, author of the Man Booker as with last year, it’s a varied one, though that this achievement can never be taken away writing ever since I was shortlisted Room (Picador, PB $32.95) and overwhelmingly dark in terms of subject from me.’ a little girl making my Jennifer Egan, whose A Visit From The Goon matter. There are two debut novelists own little stories out of The nine books are: Rocks in the Belly by Jon Squad (Anchor, PB, $20.95) is reviewed by (Jon Bauer and Kirsten Tranter) and two wallpaper scraps and Bauer (Scribe, PB, $32.95), The Good Daugh- Readings Carlton manager Robbie Egan on former winners (Roger McDonald and terrible re-writes of my ter by Honey Brown (Viking, PB, $32.95), p8. Both novels made the list of Readings’ Kim Scott). And Melina Marchetta, author favourite books. I did work experience The Mary Smokes Boys by Patrick Holland ten favourite fiction books of 2010. Our of the much-loved Looking for Alibrandi, in a my local bookshop in Year 11, and (Transit Lounge, PB, $29.95), The Piper’s Son Book of the Month for April, Tea Obreht’s is a newcomer to the Miles, though her even after finding out that it’s not all by Melina Marchetta (Viking, PB, $24.95), much-lauded debut novel, The Tiger’s Wife books (all classified as ‘young adult’) have sitting behind the counter and read- When Colts Ran by Roger McDonald (Knopf, (Orion, PB, Normally $29.99, Our special won critical and popular acclaim. PB, $32.95), Time’s Long Ruin by Stephen ing, I loved it enough to stay. That was price $24.95) also made the longlist. And 13 years and four bookshops ago, and Marchetta’s publisher, Laura Orr (Wakefield, PB, $24.95), That Deadman Swamplandia by Karen Russell (Knopf, HB, Dance by Kim Scott (Picador, PB, $32.95), it is still an industry I remain entirely Harris said, ‘It is a thrill to see $34.95), is also reviewed in this issue, on p9. dedicated to. Melina’s work acknowledged The Legacy by Kirsten Tranter (Fourth Estate, Other shortlisted titles include: Jamrach’s in the longlist of the most PB, $24.99) and Bereft by Chris Womersely Menagerie (Carol Birch, Text, PB, $32.95, What’s the best book you’ve read lately? prestigious Miles Franklin (Scribe, PB, $32.95). Ebook $19.95), Great House by Nicole A Widow’s Story by Joyce Carol Oates Award. Her work has long The 2011 shortlist will be announced on Krauss (Viking, PB, $32.95), Whatever was a marvel: an account of loss that crossed over to many different 19 April, in Sydney. The winner will be You Love by Louise Doughty (Faber, PB, turned from raw stream-of-conscious- aged readers and her explora- announced in June at an award event in $32.99), Repeat it Today With Tears by Anne ness to clarity as the author moved tion of multigenerational characters and Melbourne – the first time the award has been Peile (Serpent’s Tail, PB, $27.95), Grace through her grief. It reminded me why contemporary Australian life has endured announced at a venue outside Sydney. ‘It is a Williams Says it Loud by Emma Henderson it can be worth persevering through a beautifully over many novels.’ national prize, however it has also been rather (Hodder, PB, $19.99), The Secret Lives of difficult read. Readings spoke to Morag Fraser, chair of the Sydney-centric in the past,’ John Atkin, CEO Baba Segi’s Wives by Lola Sheniyen (Serpent’s judging panel, about the shortlist, and asked of Trust (the company that administers the Tail, PB, $22.99), Annabel by Kathleen What have you noticed people buying whether the fact Marchetta’s The Piper’s Son Miles) told Readings. The move, along with Winter (Jonathan Cape, HB, $36.95), The lately? is branded ‘young adult’ was a factor for the the increase in prize money (from $42,000 Seas by Samantha Hunt (Constable & Co, I’m really pleased to see a lot of Aus- judges when discussing eligibility. ‘The judges to $50,000) is part of a concerted move to PB, $19.95), The Pleasure Seekers by Tishani tralian books flying off the shelves, like are interested in the quality of the writing, ‘refresh’ and ‘revive’ the award, ensuring it Doshi (Bloomsbury, PB, $29.99), The the late Hazel Rowley’s biography of not the marketing category into which the ‘remains relevant and also financially benefi- Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer (Vintage, the Roosevelts, the Quarterly Essay and books may or may not be slotted,’ she said. cial for authors’. PB, $22.95), Lyrics Alley by Leila Aboulela Meanjin, Meg Mundell’s Black Glass, ‘You will recall some of the publicity about (Orion, PB, $32.99), The Memory of Love by and This Too Shall Pass by S.J. Finn. eligibility that attached to Peter Temple’s win Indies Winners Aminatta Forna (Bloomsbury, PB, $22.99), last year with Truth. A genre novel! Crime The results of the 2011 Indie Awards, chosen London Train by Tessa Hadley (Jonathan What’s the strangest experience you’ve had fiction!The Guardian took up the debate and by Australia’s independent booksellers (like Cape, HB, $36.95), The Birth of Love by Jo- in a bookshop? British crime writers cheered, along with a Readings!) have been announced. The overall anna Kavenna (Faber, PB, $29.99), The Road Having Bret Easton Ellis in for a sur- number of eminent Australian and British winner of Book of the Year was Ahn Do, for to Wanting by Wendy Law-Yone (Chatto & prise signing the day after I’d seen him critics. We made our judgement strictly on The Happiest Refugee (A&U, PB, $32.99), also Windus, PB, $32.95) and The Swimmer by be wholly (and comically) intimidating the quality of the writing.’ She pointed out winner of the Non-Fiction Book of the Year. Roma Tearne (Fourth Estate, PB, $24.99). towards both MC and audience at the that many of the books considered for the Other winners were Chris Womersley, who Athenaeum Theatre. Turns out that in Miles are about childhood or young adult- took out Best Fiction for Bereft (Scribe, PB, 20% off Frommers person he’s perfectly friendly, signed a hood, but have ‘very broad’ appeal – and if $32.95), Jon Bauer, who won Best Debut Fic- Throughout April, all Frommer’s travel guides book for me and didn’t once send me selected, ‘it is because the quality of the writ- tion for Rocks in the Belly (Scribe, PB, $32.95) are 20% off, in-store and online. Purchase wailing into a corner with my feelings ing (always our first consideration) transcends and Jeannie Baker, whose Mirror (Walker one (or more) this month and you will go hurt. genre categories and notions of targeted audi- Books, HB, $39.95) won Best Picture Book. into the draw to win a copy of their new title ences’. Fraser demonstrated her point aptly: Both Chris Womersely and Jon Bauer have Melbourne Free and Dirt Cheap and other What’s the best experience you’ve had in a ‘I recently gave Miles Franklin’s My Brilliant also been longlisted for the Miles Franklin. Frommer’s goodies! bookshop? Congratulations to all Indies winners! Career to my almost teenage granddaughter. I Probably the release of the last Harry trust she will enjoy it as much at her age as I Potter book. The morning was freezing do at mine. Ditto for Pride and Prejudice etc.’ cold but so many people turned up for We were also curious about it, dressed up in costume, waiting pa- Melbourne author Jon Bauer’s tiently, and all totally and utterly excited Rocks in the Belly, which to buy a book. includes only subtle references Name a book that has changed the way to Australia (for instance, a you think – in ways small or large. ‘Robert proof fence’ puns on our ‘rabbit-proof fence’), and The Ethics of What We Eat by Peter Sing- whose setting is open to er—I read it almost four years ago and interpretation. ‘It seeks in the main to set the it led to an entirely new way of thinking story where the reader is,’ Bauer told Read- about what I eat and why. I wish he’d ings. ‘I worked awfully hard to set it in all added a chapter on why popcorn is bad Australia, rather than one place.’ Fraser said for you, so maybe I could stop consum- Bauer’s novel does meet the requirement of ing the stuff by the bucketload. ‘Australian life in any of its phases’, saying, What was your favourite book as a kid? ‘Landscapes can be psychological as well as physical. And recognisable – picking up on a The Dr Seuss-styled book Go Dog Go, by Zeitgeist.’ Bauer’s longlisting comes at an P.D. Eastman. I was endlessly fascinated auspicious time, in the same month that he by the dogs leading these exotic lifestyles was finally granted his much-longed-for like living under houses and having parties Australian citizenship. ‘It means a great deal in trees, and though the book itself had to have a book that means the world to me only about 20 different words in it, I still acknowledged in such a prestigious and loved reading it even when I was older. Australian award. I am and will always be an Oslo Davis www.oslodavis.com

CINEMA NOVA RECOMMENDS KEIRA KNIGHTLEY CAREY MULLIGAN ANDREW GARFIELD Visit the new Cinema Nova Bar NEVER LET ME GO from the creators of Bad Santa comes... WINNER: Best Actress Carey Mulligan 380 LYGON ST CARLTON British Independent Film Awards www.cinemanova.com.au Online bookings available ★★★★ Based on the acclaimed novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. Join our e-news for updates on the Met Opera, “An intriguing, offbeat comedy” COMMENCES MARCH 31 Directed by Mark Romanek (One Hour Photo) National Theatre and other stage spectaculars. COMMENCES APRIL 7 The Times Readings Monthly April 2011 3

versity. Tonight, we are fortunate enough to $45), a work that explores the dominant have Michael with us in conversation with forms of global popular games. Larissa Julian Burnside. Expect to laugh, cry and be Hjorth is Australian Research Council inspired. Tuesday 19 April, 6.30pm, Asialink APD fellow and senior lecturer in Games Theatre, Asialink Centre, Swanston Street, and Digital Media at RMIT University. University of Melbourne. Wednesday 6 April, 6.30pm, Readings EventsAll our Readings book and music eventsin Aprildangerous man in the world.' Thursday 14 Bookings: 9347 are entry by gold coin donation, unless April, 6.30pm, Cinema Nova, Lygon Street 6633. Carlton. Free, no need to book. otherwise stated. Please note that bookings Court, Carlton. Bookings: 9347 6633. do not guarantee a seat, but rather indicate to Sonia Krestschmar us the number of people to expect. To see more 27 & Errol Broome events or for updates on new events please 14 Hazel Edwards Join illustrator Sonia Krestschmar and visit the events page at www.readings.com.au. Leslie Cannold Family history sleuthing is the world’s most author Errol Broome as they celebrate the popular hobby. Hazel Edwards’ revised edi- release of their very beautiful picture book Leslie Cannold is considered tion of Writing a Non-Boring Family History Song of the Dove (Walker, HB, $29.95), the one of Australia’s leading (Hale & Iremonger, PB, $22.95) acknowl- tragic love story behind the young musi- 7 thought-provokers. Join us as edges the new e-formats that today’s family cian, Bellini, and his ascension to fame and Libbi Gorr she takes us on the journey members use, includes helpful tips on how glory. Friday 8 April, 6.30pm, Readings Mummy Manners by abso- of her first novel, The Book of to write a eulogy, and covers the growing Carlton. Free, no need to book. lutely funny woman Libbi Rachael (Text, PB, $32.95). interest in touring military battlefields and Gorr (HarperCollins, PB, This is the story of a fiercely researching on-site material. Join us as Hazel Guilia Giuffre $29.99) is designed to help intelligent child, consigned talks us through writing about our families mothers of young children by her sex to a life of ignorance and drudg- & Ian Britain Wednes- navigate a course through the in ways that people want to read. Join us for the launch of Primavera ery. But Rachael fights her destiny, secretly day 27 April, 6.30pm, Readings Hawthorn. maze of etiquette, morals and learning the forbidden skills of literacy from ($39.95), an Australian-Italian memoir of Bookings: 9819 1917. madness that comes from her father Yosef and her brother. Leslie has a childhood and family in the second half of

dealing with All The Other Mothers you wonderful knack of turning stories that we the twentieth century that takes the reader encounter while rearing your own precious live by upside-down. This is a treat for those from the rules for cooking pasta, to the love child. Not to mention coping with yourself. who have not had the pleasure of hearing 27 that gives life meaning. Wednesday 13 That’s a shock. Giving birth to yourself as a Leslie speak before. Thursday 14 April, REPOWERING AUSTRALIA April, 6.30pm, Readings Carlton. Free, no mum! Think Debrett’s A–Z of Modern 6.30pm, Readings St Kilda. Bookings: 9525 Come and hear how Australia can switch to need to book. Manners crossed with elements of The Slap. 3852. 100 per cent renewable energy in ten years. But it’s not the child that needs the slapping: Beyond Zero Emissions, an independent, Peter Barry it’s the mother. Join us for a belly laugh. not-for-profit research group, presents its Wayne Macauley will launch Peter Barry’s Thursday 7 April, 6.30pm, Readings 18 award-winning plan. Developed in partner- I Hate Martin Amis et al. (Transit Lounge, Carlton. Bookings: 9347 6633. Fay Anderson & ship with University of Melbourne, it is fully PB, $29.95). A winner of the Victorian Pre- Richard Trembath costed, provides baseload power and uses mier’s Unpublished Fiction Prize, it is the technologies commercially available now. compelling story of a frustrated writer who 11 Join us for a heart-breaking conversation For more information, visit beyondzeroemis- becomes a sniper in Sarajevo. Thursday 14 Pages to Poetry about the absolute realities of war. Witnesses to sions.org. Wednesday 27 April, 6.30pm, April, 6pm for 6.30pm start, Readings War by Fay Anderson and Richard Trem- Readings Carlton. Free, no need to book. Carlton. Free, no need to book. We’re back! This month we have two fine bath (MUP, PB, $36.99) is a landmark his- emerging poets, Aden Rolfe and Sam Langer, tory of Australian war journalism that covers Anthony La Ricca with celebrated Melbourne poet Claire Gas- the major conflicts of the twentieth century: Destiny (Sid Harta, $24.95) is the first in kin. Aden Rolfe is a Melbourne-based writer, World War I, World War II, Vietnam and 28 editor and radio maker whose work has ap- Will Mackerras a trilogy about a teenage boy who discov- Bosnia, through to recent and ongoing wars ers he is not only from another world, but peared in Overland and Best Australian Poetry. in Iraq and Afghanistan. Witnesses to War Will Mackerras was born and raised in Can- Sam Langer was born at the Queen Vic in berra, where he stayed to study law. In 2006 is also half-elf. He soon travels back home looks at how journalists reported the horrors to rate their world but gets caught in the 1983 and is the founding editor of Steamer. and politics of war, the rise of the celebrity he decided to get away from both Canberra Claire Gaskin’s a bud was published by John and the law, and before long found himself cross-fire, changing both worlds forever. journalist, issues of censorship and the ethics Saturday 16 April, 3pm, Readings Haw- Leonard Press in 2006, and was shortlisted in working as an apprentice Anglican Min- of ‘embedding’. Includes interviews with lead- thorn. Free, no need to book. the John Bray SA Festival Awards for Litera- ing war correspondents such as John Pilger, ister in north-western NSW. Up there he ture. Monday 11 April, 6.30pm, Readings Paul McGeough and Chris Masters. Monday developed a deep love of nineteenth-century Joe Reich Carlton. Free, no need to book. 18 April, 6.30pm, Readings Carlton. Book- Australian rhyming verse, and began trying I Know Precious Little (PB, $24.95) is the ings: 9347 6633. to write poems in the same style. He is now studying theology in Melbourne, hoping story of Pree and Katherine, whose lives 12 to upgrade from ‘apprentice’ to ‘master’! are intertwined mysteriously in a bond that will unravel as they face an unexpected David Herlihy 18 Thursday 28 April, 6.30pm, Readings Carlton. Free, no need to book. death. Set in Melbourne, against a back- You thought the Great Victorian Bike Ride Betty Churcher drop of the Beatles music, all is not as was hard ... well, let us introduce David in conversation it appears in this darkly comic tale of Herlihy and The Lost Cyclist (Mainstream, with Chris McAuliffe misunderstandings and incidental hurt. HB, $49.95), set in the late 1880s. Frank 28 Former director of the Thursday 28 April, 6.30pm, Readings Lenz of Pittsburgh, a renowned high-wheel Dave Graney National Gallery of Australia Hawthorn. Free, no need to book. racer and long-distance tourist, dreamed of in conversation with and much-loved figure in cycling around the world. In the spring of Australia’s art world, Betty Fiona Scott-Norman 1892, he quit his accounting job and gamely Churcher was dubbed ‘Betty Legendary rock showman Dave Graney set out to cover 20,000 miles over three Blockbuster’ by the public makes his literary debut with 1001 Aus- continents as a correspondent for Outing during her reign at the NGA. tralian Nights (Affirm Press, PB, $29.95), Coming in May magazine. Two years later, having survived Susanna de Vries She is credited with bringing a memoir of sorts and a rollicking ride countless near-disasters and hardships, he some of the world’s best art to Australia. She through three decades as a working artist. Art historian Susanna has written about approached Europe for the final leg. He was also the face of ABC TV series Hidden Join him on the publication of his first book great Australian women in her new book, never made it. Tuesday 12 April, 6.30pm, Treasures – and became something of a and the release of Rock ’n’ Roll is Where I Trailblazers (Pirgos, PB, $39.95). Readings Carlton. Bookings: 9347 6633. Wednesday 4 May, 6.30pm, Readings national treasure herself. After the shock Hide, an album comprising electric re- Hawthorn. degeneration of her eyesight in 2003, Betty recordings of a dozen Graney classics. He’ll Bookings: 9819 1917. set off on a journey to revisit her favourite bring his guitar, probably even an amp. 14 pieces of art around the world, to sketch them Thursday 28 April, 7pm, Readings St Kilda. Kelly Doust Andrew Fowler and commit them to memory. Betty’s journey Bookings: 9525 3852. In this beautifully illustrated mix of in conversation and the lovingly drawn sketches are repro- memoir, thoughts, fantasies and conversa- with Nic McKenzie duced in this new book. Monday 18 tions with other women, A Life in Frocks April, 6pm til 7.30pm, North Fitzroy Star, (Pier 9, PB, $29.95) is a book for those on julian assange St Georges Road, North Fitzroy. $45 per who love clothes and find fashion beguil- Nic McKenzie, from the Book launches ing, fickle and fabulous.T hursday 5 May, person: includes a glass of wine and a copy of Dr Kirsty Gover investigative unit at The Hidden Treasures. Bookings: 9347 6633. 6.30pm, Readings Hawthorn. Age, will talk with Together with the Centre for Comparative Bookings: 9819 1917. Andrew Fowler about Constitutional Studies, and the Centre for Environmental and Energy Law, The Most Dangerous 19 What It Is Man in the World (MUP, Professor Jeremy Webber will launch Our graphic novel extravaganza returns! PB, $32.99). This new Hon Michael Kirby Kirsty Gover’s Tribal Constitutionalism Monday 23 May, 8pm, Readings Carlton. book is based on in conversation (OUP, PB, $95.95). Tuesday 5 April, interviews with Julian with Julian Burnside 6pm for 6.30pm, Readings Carlton. Cassandra Clare Assange, his inner circle We are delighted to bring you a wonder- Free, no need to book. Meet the author of the thrilling Mortal and those disaffected by him. Fowler tells the ful night of stories. In celebration of the Instruments YA trilogy. The latest instal- story of how a man with a turbulent Hon Michael Kirby and the impact his life’s Larissa Hjorth ment is City of Glass (Walker, PB, $19.95). childhood and brilliance with computers has work has had on Australian culture, a book Professor Jo Tacchi (Deputy Dean, Re- Wednesday 25 May, 6.30pm, Westgarth become, according to Pentagon Papers has been written about him by A.J. Brown, search and Innovation, School of Media Theatre. Free, book on 9347 6633. whistleblower, Daniel Ellsberg, 'the most a Professor of Public Law at Griffith Uni- and Communication RMIT University) will launch Games and Gaming (Berg, PB, 4 Readings Monthly April 2011 New Australian Writing Feature

LargerPatrick Allington interviews Janethan Sullivan about Littlelife People (Scribe, PB, $32.95, Ebook $18.99)

employs her, but they are mostly interested he’s pulling himself together, he’s going in her because she is pregnant – Charles and onstage to astound the Antipodeans with Lavinia Stratton, aka General Tom Thumb his Napoleon. I’m four years old and I’m and The Queen of Beauty, seem to have a not going anywhere. I have been four for solution to the conundrum of what should a long time. You can’t see me, can you? become of Mary Ann’s unborn child. I’m hiding. I’m good at hiding. I’m like But Mary Ann (and readers too) cannot the boy in the picture puzzle. The boy in be sure of the Stratton’s motives. For one the fork of the tree, the boy-shaped space thing, when it comes to babies, they have the branches make. It’s kind of lonely up a history. For another, Charles has some here, but it’s the best place for me. As rather original ideas about conception. long as I keep still, you can’t see me.

While Mary Ann anchors the story, the ‘I think he’s an extraordinary man,’ Sul- colourful and eccentric troupe shines livan says of the real-life Charles Stratton. brightest. ‘There’s something in me that’s ‘It’s hard when you’re reading about him to strongly attracted to the quirky and the get a sense of what he was really like. What seemingly a bit crazy,’ Sullivan says. ‘I don’t you’re reading about most of the time is the mean in the sense of psychotic or anything performer and he was obviously quite a tal- like that, just really oddball … out of the ented performer, although from all accounts mainstream. I think I’m attracted to those he was not as talented as Commodore Nutt kinds of worlds and the people in them and … At this stage of his life, Charles Stratton what makes them tick.’ was in his thirties, he had put on a lot of weight and he seemed a bit tired and stiff What’s most interesting about the midgets , and not very convincing. He’d been per- is not their size but their weird public lives. forming since he was four years old, which I Sullivan humanises the Strattons, Lavinia’s just find utterly extraordinary. But growing sister Minnie and Commodore George up in that sort of totally artificial world and becoming this celebrity, I think it would Jane Sullivan is best in her head. ‘Sometimes when the fiction have given him a strange sense of himself.’ known to Melbourne isn’t going well it’s a relief to get back to the literature-lovers as the journalism,’ she says, ‘because there usually ‘In going back Little People is greatly preoccupied with scribe behind the I feel I know what I’m doing and it doesn’t fame and celebrity. An example: when Saturday Age’s weekly take too long and I just need to find out x, 140 years to observe Lavinia first meets Mary Ann, she orders column, ‘Turning Pages’. y and z and then I write the thing and I get her to kneel. While Mary Ann understands Now, on the eve of the paid and I see it appear. And that’s nice, I celebrities of that she should pin Lavinia’s hem, Lavinia publication of her second feel like I’ve achieved something, whereas later explains, ‘This is what one does before novel, Little People (the the fiction can drag on for years. I never another age, a queen, and I think I have been a queen first wasWhite Star, in quite know what I’m doing or whether I’m for most of my life, long before Mr Barnum 2000), we’ll be thinking of her as a novelist going to end up with a proper novel at the [ Little People ] manufactured me.’ The famous P.T. Barnum first, journalist second.Little People was end. It’s very hard to tell.’ hovers over the story like a God-like creator. shortlisted for Scribe’s inaugural CAL/Scribe invites readers He trained the real-life Charles Strat- Fiction Prize for writers aged 35 and over. Although The White Star is set in contem- ton when Stratton was a young boy, and Patrick Allington, the Miles Franklin longlisted porary Sydney, it shares some themes and to consider as Sullivan says, ‘that kind of oddity and preoccupations with Little People. In par- author of Figurehead, spoke to Jane about fame at a very early age can distort people. Little People’s long journey from her ticular, both books deal with fame, public contemporary The obvious example these days would be imagination to the page, for Readings’ and private personas, the allure of seemingly Michael Jackson.’ Sullivan points out that New Australian Writing feature series. illogical ideas and celebrity adoption. ‘To society’s fixation Australians in 1870 ‘didn’t have television or me they seem to be very different books,’ YouTube … When somebody like General Sullivan says. ‘Of course, there are things with cartoon-like Tom Thumb came to Australia, people going on when you’re writing that you’re were absolutely thrilled to have a chance on’t let the title of Jane not even conscious of. There are themes characters such as to see him. He was this huge celebrity and Sullivan’s new novel fool you. that pop up because you think about them he’d come amongst us. No wonder they all Little People is crammed with consciously, and there are also themes that Michael Jackson, rushed to the theatre and thronged into the big ideas and larger-than-life pop up without you even realising they are streets to see him and his troupe. It was an characters, several of whom there, but they somehow make their way to Charlie Sheen or amazing event.’ are famous midgets. ‘I’d the surface.’ like people to have the sense that they’re Lady Gaga.’ Perhaps this is why Little People is such watching a wonderful show and the curtain In Little People, Sullivan takes two distinct thought-provoking entertainment. In Dswings open and the characters come on stories – two different worlds, really – and going back 140 years to observe celebrities and they perform, and have some of that merges them into one raucous, chaotic, Washington Nutt by allowing them to speak of another age, it invites readers to con- exhilaration of a live performance,’ Sullivan tense and deliberately melodramatic tale. for themselves. They interrupt Mary Ann’s sider contemporary society’s fixation with says. ‘I hope it’s convincing ... but I don’t There’s Mary Ann, the principal narrator, narration to offer up their own perspectives cartoon-like characters such as Michael mind if it seems a bit over the top.’ In other who must confront the stark reality of being – as does Rodnia, Commodore Nutt’s less Jackson, Charlie Sheen or Lady Gaga. And words, even though real people and events pregnant and unwed in 1870s Melbourne. vertically challenged brother. These voices, while Mary Ann is an outsider, so too are inspired Little People, Sullivan doesn’t let And then there’s the spectacle of a troupe labelled ‘sideshows’ in the book, so sparkle the members of the troupe. They are Ameri- history cramp her storytelling style. of P.T. Barnum’s little people, in Australia that they threaten to become the main cans, sure of their prominent position in the as part of a world tour. From this, Sullivan event. world, some of them world famous, who are More than a decade separates Little People conjures a novel in which performance and startled by Australia’s deserts and floods, its and Sullivan’s debut novel, The White Star life imitate each other in an energetic mix of Charles Stratton is perhaps Little People’s over-excited crowds and even its inadequate (2000). That’s partly because she wrote dastardly deeds, secret alliances, professional most fascinating character. Sullivan pokes men: ‘All gape and guffaw,’ as Minnie puts another novel in between: ‘It’s gone into jealousies, dubious science, and true and holes in Stratton’s puffed-up facade, imagin- it. Little People offers a fresh perspective on the bottom drawer now,’ she says. It’s also false love. ing a rather sad but proud private man with colonial Australia and its peripheral place in because Little People ‘wasn’t easy to write. a split personality. In a stand-out scene, the world. In doing so, it also invites us to I haven’t found any novel easy to write.’ Mary Ann is, as Sullivan puts it, ‘the spine a boy arrested in time reveals himself: think afresh about modern Australia. Sullivan is also a journalist – she writes a of the book’. She describes the little people and their entourage with the eye of an Saturday column, ‘Turning Pages’, in The My name is Charlie Stratton, and I am Patrick Allington is the author of Figurehead Age — and she juggles the different de- inquisitive outsider, except that, having what the General used to be. The General (Black Inc., PB, $29.95), which was mands of writing fiction and non-fiction performed an act of extreme bravery, she is thirty-two years and three months old; long-listed for the Miles Franklin in 2010. by imagining she has ‘a little toggle switch’ has become an insider of sorts. The troupe Readings Monthly April 2011 5 Q&A with Téa Obreht Book of the Month Jo Case interviews Téa Obreht about The Tiger's Wife The Tiger’s Wife MarkNews and views from’s Readings’say managing (Orion, PB, Normally $29.99, Our special price $24.95) Téa Obreht director Mark Rubbo Orion. PB. Normally $29.99 Our special price $24.95 In writing several of my short stories, I How much should had struggled with my tendency to over- I returned from my

simplify characters. Luka was very much a Christmas holidays an ebook be? The villain at the start, but it didn’t seem right knowing that with Tiger’s Wife As some of you may to throw him out there and allow him to , I had just read my book of the year. know, in February we be comfortably reviled. It seemed easy. launched Australia’s first As a writer, I didn’t feel I understood him, And my euphoria hasn’t subsided since: I’m ebook site (www.ebooks. and thought it would be useful – and fair – readings.com.au) to explore his character further. This lead happily reading the novel a second time, and, as I write, I note committed to Australian to his youth as an artist and the difficult writing and featuring times he had, and also opened the door with delight that Obreht has just made New York Times Book works by Australian writers – some- for me to explore Darisha the Bear and the cover of the Review New York Times thing I’m really excited about. We’ve the apothecary. , and, over at the , has received the thumbs-up from the been working with publishers to add new titles; this month we will be I was intrigued by your insights about the inimitable Kakutani (among many other adding University of Queensland young people – Natalia and her peers – glowing notices). And this a debut Press, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, for whom the war had always been ‘at the novel, by a 25-year-old no less! I think Murdoch Books and Allen & Unwin center of everything’, and their seemingly it’s an interesting question – do you, titles to our list. Although we have paradoxical ‘inability to part with it’ as dear reader, perhaps wonder whether all a strong Australian bias, we do want it draws to a close. The idea that, terrible of this might just be hype? to include writing and books from as it is, it’s both what they are used to and I can only share my personal discovery overseas and should have Penguin and provides the circumstances they have planned of this author. Hearing about her forth- Random House books available by their lives around. Are these observations coming novel late last year, and noting late April/early May. Storytelling is central to The Tiger’s Wife – based on your conversations with people you that she was picked by The New Yorker its power to transport us to other places, grew up with in early childhood, reading as one of the ‘20 Best American Writers One of the perplexing issues in the to comfort, to inform, to entertain. And and research, or simply imagining yourself under 40’, I decided to read one of her ebook world is: what is the right price perhaps most of all, the way shared stories in that place? Or a combination? short stories (‘The Laugh’, which handily for an ebook? Certainly, this has been create bonds between people. Did you always brought up by some of our customers. Well, thank you! They’re definitely a com- appeared in last year’s Best American see the process of storytelling as integral to Without the cost of the physical book bination. I was very young when I left, so Stories collection). It involved an African the book? and all the costs associated with its my understanding of the war was based safari trip from memory, and it wasn’t physical distribution, the ebook price Like so much of the book, ‘storytelling’ on the stories of people with whom I later as though it was the greatest story I had should be significantly lower. Some ended up taking over as a central theme very reconnected, and my own observations of ever read in my life, but I do remember of our correspondents have argued naturally. Of course, I wouldn’t realise this its aftermath when I returned to Serbia being transfixed by its dynamics and its that the price should be negligible, until later – one of the things I learned in and Croatia. In spending my childhood rendering of place, and thinking – as but they fail to take into account that writing a novel is how much of it formed on in Cyprus and Egypt, I also grew up sur- I did when I first read Nam Le – how authors deserve a decent royalty, that its own, almost behind my back – but I did rounded by a very restless youth culture. does Obreht know all this stuff?? know that the reader would have to reconcile publishers still have significant and There’s a kind of energy when people are So the process of writerly seduction had two sides of the story when it came to the legitimate editorial and marketing on the brink of something, and I think already begun – but I still had no con- tiger and the tiger’s wife: ‘objective’ informa- costs and that our ebook technology that made its way into the book. cept of the masterpiece Obreht had in tion and the perceived truth of village gossip. has costs. In our conversations with store for me with this novel. We are in After that, other facets of storytelling, espe- Natalia’s grandfather says, after they see an publishers, we’ve taken the approach a Balkan country; precisely where is not cially storytelling as a bond between Natalia escaped zoo elephant on the streets of their that authors and publishers need to get defined, but it suits a tale where ‘reality’ and her grandfather, fell into place. neighbourhood in the middle of the night, the same return that they do from the ‘The story of this war – dates, names, who is a slippery thing, and legends and printed book; what can be taken out I think my favourite thread of the story was started it, why – that belongs to everyone ... superstitions seem to carry more weight should be the distribution costs and that of Gavran Gaile, the ‘deathless man’ But something like this – this is yours. than the historical record. A young doc- the amount we get. tor, Natalia Stefanovic, travels across the who Natalia’s grandfather encounters at It belongs only to you. And me. Only to us.’ What kind of price does that give and intervals throughout his life, always in places It’s those small, often surreal, moments, in border on behalf of a charity to admin- ister inoculations at a poverty-stricken what are the implications? Amazon, where people are dying en masse. I like the this novel that brings the lived reality of who own Kindle, price their ebooks of- way science (embodied by Natalia’s grand- this conflict and these places to life – and orphanage in a remote village (in one of this narrative’s occasional piercing ten below what publishers charge them, father, a doctor) meets superstition (Gaile) make the reader feel something in a way that in an attempt to lock in customers to and they vie, in increments, for credibility. reported facts can’t. Was that something you asides, Natalia notes the irony that it was her country that made these children the Kindle; it’s very difficult for anyone What inspired this character? And what were aiming for? to compete with that. In addition, they drew you to that juxtaposition of science and orphans). Not too far away, her be- Yes. I didn’t want to tell a ‘war story’ loved grandfather has gone away to die, don’t have to charge Australian custom- superstition, which is mirrored elsewhere in ers GST, which we do. While there may the book? straight, because I felt that relying on facts without even informing his wife that and historical accuracy and politics would he is sick. Natalia is puzzled – she knew be short-term benefits for readers, an The character is based on an archetype who restrict the essence what I wanted to write of his illness, but at the moment of his ebookselling world totally dominated often appears in Slavic and German myth, about. Personal and family mythology born greatest need, why did he go elsewhere? by an offshore behemoth can’t be in and his presence usually forces the people of conflict, the way you keep people and Could the story he used to tell her of his the best interests of readers and writers around him to deal with the social neces- situations alive long after they are gone, encounter with ‘the deathless man’ be at interested in a vibrant local culture. sity of death. In terms of the juxtaposition were both something in which I was deeply all relevant? And why is a woman in his This is certainly of concern to publish- of science and superstition: my friend is a interested. I found that mostly in the small, native village called ‘the tiger’s wife’? ers who have developed the so called doctor in Serbia, and for the past several surreal moments you describe. agency model, where the ebookseller is years, I have been treated to anecdotes from In the re-telling of these fables, which just an agent of the publisher who con- her medical life, most notably situations You spent your early childhood in Belgrade, Natalia explores anew in the quest for trols the price. The trick is to balance where she has had to struggle to get past a then lived in Cyprus and Egypt before the truth about her grandfather, her love the interest of the reader with those patient’s superstition in order to treat them. moving to America aged 12. Do you think for him gradually becomes a clear- of the author and publisher. It will be Knowing that much of the book would your experience of these very different places eyed reckoning with her homeland: interesting to see what transpires. his greatest gift to her. The sombre focus on death, it seemed that the deathless has influenced the way you read and write? I was particularly man’s continual reappearance would most If so, how? realisation that collective historical memory can actually occlude truth pleased that last month naturally frustrate a doctor, so that’s how the our sales of the ebook grandfather became one. That being said, in Absolutely. Growing up, I was steeped in and perpetuate conflict and misunder- stories. Myths were in minutiae, even the standing – and that it is only by being version of David thinking about death, I believe that we all Malouf’s Quarterly walk a very fine line between superstition copper platter on which the merchant attentive to our stories that we can around the corner sold his spices (he might truly connect with one another – is the Essay, The Good Life: and reality, no matter how steadfastly our On Happiness and the beliefs pull us in one direction or another. tell you the platter had once belonged to book’s greatest achievement. And what Napoleon). I think the idea of a story behind extraordinary storytelling! The experi- Modern World (PB, $19.95, Ebook One thing that strikes me about this book everything is very prevalent in The Tiger’s ence of reading it brought back for me $9.95) comprised 25 per cent of our is how nuanced your characters are. For Wife; and is ultimately something by which the long-ago excitement of first reading total sales. At half the price of the print example, the reader is uncomfortably forced we are all riveted. Great-grandmother’s silver Garcia Marquez’s 100 Years of Solitude. version, Malouf’s ruminations on the to re-calibrate their feelings about Luka – picture frame is that much more significant The Tigers Wife is a thrilling novel, idea of happiness are ideal for reading the village butcher who beats his wife, serves an heirloom if we are told that it survived one that I believe will be read, talked on the iPhone or similar device. customers in a blood-soaked apron and a flood or an arduous ocean crossing – about, and passed on like some kind compares ‘delicious’ pigs’ feet to children’s feet whether or not that story is actually true. of talisman for many years to come. Mark Rubbo is managing director of – after we discover his back-story. And even Readings. His review of David Malouf’s Natalia’s grandfather, in some ways the book’s The extended version of this interview is Martin Shaw is book buyer Quarterly Essay, The Good Life, can hero, is morally complex. Was this something available online at www.readings.com.au. at Readings Carlton be read on our website. you worked deliberately to achieve? 6 Readings Monthly April 2011 New Fiction For obvious reasons, some critics have Australian Fiction already drawn comparisons between Me The Book of Rachael and Mr Booker and Nabokov’s Lolita. But Leslie Cannold Taylor’s novel flips the dynamic, examining Text. PB. $32.95. Ebook $19.95 teenage female sexuality from the girl’s per- Dr Leslie Cannold is an spective without ever dismissing her agency impressive and formidable in the relationship. For that reason alone, writer. Her latest offering, some will find it an unnerving read. What The Book of Rachael, her first helps is that it’s blisteringly entertaining. I novel, takes what we think was sent the final manuscript of the book, Beautifully photographed, Mangia! Mangia! Unfinished at the time of David Foster Wallace’s we know and turns it on its printed out half of it, greedily inhaled it on is not only a wonderful cooking reference, it death, The Pale King is a deeply intriguing and a plane, read the rest on a laptop until the is a heartwarming account of the sharing of satisfying novel. It grapples directly with questions head. No surprises there: wisdom, the creation of community and the of life’s meaning and of the value of work and family Cannold is considered one of batteries ran out, then desperately resorted preservation of rituals that keep us close to – through characters imagined with the interior force Australia’s top 20 leading intellectuals. Her to reading the last few pages on my phone. those we love. and generosity that were Wallace’s unique gifts. life’s work is about making you think and I should note here that Taylor is a friend her previous books, The Abortion Myth and of mine, but it’s really rare that I find any What, No Baby? spoke to generations of book that compulsive. Deftly written, Me women. Both works showed where women and Mr Booker is a cracking read. And like have been stopped and why. the best coming-of-age stories, it reminds us that while teenagers grow up fast, it’s only The Book of Rachael does the same. However, because they’re surrounded by adults who with this novel Dr Cannold returns to the behave like children. beginnings of the Second Testament. The Benjamin Law is the author of The Family story is set in Nazareth in 30AD and tells Law (Black Inc., PB, $27.95) the story of Rachael, the younger sister of a Jesus-like character, Joshua. Racheal is Bearings ambitious and passionate and chooses to be Leah Swann unhindered by her culture. This is quite an Affirm. PB. $24.95 extraordinary situation, given the time and The newest addition to the place of this novel. The brutality of women’s divine Long Story Shorts – lives is not hidden in this book. (There are When Anthony Macris’ son was diagnosed At the end of the war Silvana and her son Aurek and one that will neatly with autism, he and his partner Kathy had two board a ship from Poland to England to meet up some deeply disturbing passages.) These complete the S-H-O-R choices: do what they were told – and could afford with her husband Janusz. After fleeing the war as women do not have choices. Education, lan- collection on your bookshelf – or do what they thought best. This is the tragic, a deserter Janusz is getting ready for their arrival. guage and politics are not part of their lives. with the T on its spine – is joyful, instructive story of how they confronted But the six years apart have changed them all, Rachael, however, is not going to accept her the condition that changed their lives. and they must learn that love can’t work unless another example of Austra- there are no secrets. rank. She falls in love with Judah of Iscariot, lia’s knockout talent when it Joshua’s best friend – and it is this person comes to short stories. Leah Swann’s who changes the shape of biblical history as involving tales are perfect little parcels of we know it. humanity: there is family, both new and old, penguin.com.au The Book of Rachael is not just a feminist there is life and death, pain and love, rewriting of the past, though. Essentially, happiness – and such wrenching heartbreak it is a love story about courageous people. I had to put the book down for a moment to It is fast-paced and the narrative is superb. hook myself back to reality. april out in One can only imagine the amount of Behind another stylish Dean Gorissen cover research needed to achieve such an ode to a for the series (and of course you should not time passed. This novel is not going to make judge books by their covers, but I shameless- everyone happy – it is controversial and brave ly do) there are seven short stories and the ‘The church has spent – but, dear readers, it is a work of fiction. novella ‘Silver Hands’, sitting neatly in the millennia writing women How brilliant that Cannold’s move to fiction middle. In the novella, Rachel is struck by has not marred her ability to ensure the out of history. In the the loss of both her husband and the move- reader thinks twice, and then speaks out. ment in her arms, which, as a sculptor and a wonderful Book of Chris Gordon is events coordinator mother, she sees as her entire world. Within Rachael, Leslie Cannold at Readings. her past lies the origin of both problems, and returns them to their it needs to be confronted to help her; in the rightful place at the Feature Review by Benjamin Law meantime you feel Rachel as close to you as a friend. centre of one of our Me and Mr Booker most powerful stories.’ Cory Taylor The collection is sometimes dark, but remains full of hope, and the saddest stories sophie cunningham Text. PB. $32.95 In some senses, Me and Mr are still touched with quirks: a dash of hu- Booker is your conventional mour, the addition of an unexpected animal, coming-of-age story. or something as beautifully simple and Sixteen-year-old girl is bored; evocative as the texture and taste of marma- sixteen-year-old girl falls in lade. Australia itself is as much a character as love; sixteen-year-old girl anyone else – all trees and dirt, drought and publishing creeks, fairy penguins and the Belgrave/Lily- T e x T learns many important lessons about life. But by the dale train line. Leah Swann makes every tale end of Chapter One, you know this novel’s as realistic as a memory: I would re-read ‘The different. For starters, very few opening Singles Club’ for its thrill of warm weather chapters end with hilariously dry English and new love, or ‘Slow to Learn’ for a stretch ‘A sexy, blood-spattered into the past. One little girl is called ‘clear as page-turner, beautifully banter, before the teenage protagonist matter-of-factly takes a guy’s balls into her a diamond’ and, ultimately, Swann’s writing crafted and full of mouth. And in most coming-of-age novels, is exactly that. genuine suspense, that that guy wouldn’t be twice the girl’s age and Fiona Hardy is from Readings Carlton tears the thorax out married. of the horror genre Those who Come After One of the most unsettling things about Elisabeth Holdsworth to create something Me and Mr Booker is how wry and funny it Picador. HB. $29.99 that stands rapturous is, especially considering the plot is actually Our special price $24.95 and majestic and pretty grim when you boil it down. Martha Those Who Come After is a entirely on its own.’ is 16 years old and lives in a dull Australian book that straddles the crum- town hours away from a big city. Viktor, her nick cave bling, aristocratic world of father, is insane – in the clinical sense of the post-war Europe and the hot, word. Martha’s mother can’t shake Viktor dry landscape of Australia, off, and her brother is largely absent. Bored today and in the 1960s. and lonely, Martha becomes smitten with Juliana Stolburg was 12 out in april the charming and hilarious Mr and Mrs when her family of three Booker, and Mr Booker becomes smitten stepped off a boat that travelled from Europe textpublishing.com.au with Martha in a way that can’t end well. Readings Monthly April 2011 7 to Melbourne in 1959. With her father, the The Sparrows of son of a Lord of Zeeland (a province of the Edward Street Netherlands) and her mother, a Jewish peas- Elizabeth Stead ant and political prisoner of the death camp UQP. PB. $32.95 Q&A with Dachau, she moves to the bottom of the Aria Sparrow is 17 and earth to restore the fortune that was lost to struggling to help her mother, the Stolburgs as a result of the war. But the Hanora, and younger sister, family has lost much more than heirlooms Leslie Cannold Elizabeth Rose, cope with the Leslie Cannold, author of the critically acclaimed The Abortion Myth (2000) and What, No and gold. grim realities of living in a Baby? (2005), talks to Readings Monthly editorial assistant Phoebe Bond about her third book, This atypical migrant tale weaves between disused army camp that has and first work of fiction, The Book of Rachael. (Text, PB, $32.95, Ebook $19.95) Juliana’s life at 60, as a just-retired diplomat, become the dreaded housing and her life as a sickly child, first in Zeeland, commission settlement on the I love documentaries, and many years ago playing in the collapsing castles of her ances- fringe of Sydney in 1948. I saw a BBC one about Jesus of Naza- tors, and then as a strong-willed adolescent reth – the man, not the religious figure. Row upon row of corrugated iron huts are set in the new world of Melbourne. Married, It was broadcast over weeks, the narrator in the dust, with gaps between the walls and but childless, Juliana realises she is the last of microscopically examining every shred of ceilings that let in the searing heat and the icy the illustrious Stolburgs when her aunt, Lady evidence about how Jesus lived and died. cold. Hanora medicates herself into a haze Katrien, a lady-in-waiting to the royal family At one point, the names and fates, even and Elizabeth Rose, like the royal she’s named in the Netherlands, dies. Elisabeth Hold- the burial places, of his four brothers was after, feels the humiliation of homelessness sworth was born in Zeeland and arrived in canvassed before the breezy assertion was and dependency. It is Aria, as our narrator, Australia in the same year as her protagonist. made that Jesus may have had sisters, too, who lives up to the family name: Sparrow. In 2007 she won the Calibre Prize for an es- but no one knew their names. The program These tiny birds thrive by picking through the say with the same title as this, her first novel. moved on. But I was stuck. What kind of debris, their sharp eyes finding the next scrap; world painstakingly records the names and Those Who Come After explores the legacy of and always willing to fight for their share. stories of important people’s brothers, but the war that ravaged Europe and the people She ekes a living as a photographer’s model not their sisters? What would it have been who survived. It is the story of resilience, in the city, paid a pitttance to ‘love’ every- like for a girl to have come of age in such a emotional fall-out and an era that slowly thing from sandsoap to vegetables. Her big world, especially if she was preternaturally collapsed. Although parts of this book feel breasts are what she plainly knows as her bright, as well as determined? I decided clunky, this wide-ranging story encompasses The Book of Rachael is set in Israel 2000 ‘currencies’ and also what prevents her from right there that I would tell the stories of a life that has borne unimaginable trials. years ago. In your Author’s Note you entering the more lucrative world of the these forgotten women, feeling it was both Holdsworth writes without emotional fan- mention that you don’t view the book as flat and curveless professional model. Back an honour and a challenge to take on the fare, allowing the reader to be swept across historical fiction. Where do you draw the in the camp, with ‘the theatre of this day task of reclaiming them for history. Eventu- oceans to the icy climes of Zeeland, and line between fiction and historical accuracy lifted a grubby curtain to the drama of faded ally, it came to feel like a responsibility, too, back again, to the sound of cicadas in the and what historical details were important hopes’, she can’t help but take an interest in and it was this sense of duty to the sisters Australian air. for you to get right? the lives and sufferings of other residents. that kept me going during the lean years. Virginia Millen is an editor at Hardie Grant I began the fiction-writing journey in a Aria is torn between doing the right thing Magazines and a freelance reviewer different place on this question to where for everyone and using her ‘currencies’ to As a feminist, you’ve written a book set in an I ended it. When I started The Book of jump ahead of the queue for a flat: who will era when women were totally subjugated by Rachael, my experience was as an academic The Last Werewolf help her family if she doesn’t? Covering an men. Do you see The Book of Rachael as a researcher and journalist. It was outside of Glen Duncan embarrassing chapter of New South Wales’ feminist novel? What were the intentions and the scope of possibility to write anything Text. PB. $32.95. Ebook $19.95 social history, this is an interesting read for tensions for you in writing of book? Mod-glam vampire rot has I didn’t know or believe to be true based lovers of post-war fiction and the humour I see the project of reclaiming women finally lost its reign at Top of on available evidence. It was all I could do found amongst the struggle to survive. lost to history as a feminist project and of the Pops. And in many ways, not to footnote! However, having written a Kath Lockett is a freelance writer and reviewer course I’m sympathetic to women born in this is a story that pits these first draft bristling with far too many, too times where their horizons were so limited. pitiful snobs prone to precisely drawn facts and realising – okay, Snake But it’s a novel and so once the decision to catatonia against the more so perhaps someone told me – that it didn’t Kate Jennings write it was made, all such considerations comely monsters of hunger, work as a novel, I was forced to reconsider Black Inc. PB. $19.95. Ebook $11.95. were set aside so I could focus on the sole lust and depravity – my position. Snake is Kate Jennings’ first and difficult-to-achieve objective of every werewolves. For a serious literary novelist on novel, first published in 1996, Ultimately, a novel has to work as a story work of fiction: to be a bloody good yarn. his seventh book, this is a brave move. now re-issued – because, quite and by the third draft of the story I finally Indeed the highest praise I have received Duncan has made his name writing about frankly, it is a brilliant novel, understood this, not just in my head but for the book so far has been from a not- sex and violence (see I, Lucifer), and to add written with sparse effective my heart. There had also been enough time particularly-feminist bloke who told me he further supernatural elements to this language. Jennings is between drafts that the masses of knowl- couldn’t put it down for this reason. well-traversed territory risks triteness. But originally a poet and her edge I’d packed into my first go had faded. this isn’t your regular gothic-horror-thriller. move to writing a novel easily The knowledge or impressions that stuck You build a strong sense of how much the Jacob Marlowe, an Oxfordshire gentleman, demonstrates the power of lucid imagination. with me were ones I decided must be most spirited protagonist Rachael struggles to find turned werewolf 167 years ago (1842) on a It is the story of a 1950s marriage in outback important to the story I was telling so I her place in the world. How do you think walking tour in Wales. Now, he’s fallen into Australia. Irene realises almost immediately wrote the novel with these as the founda- Rachael would fare in today’s society? And deep despondency and melancholy. He’s that her marriage to Rex is not what she tion stones and only returned to my tomes was this your way of writing the journey of exhausted the modes: ‘hedonism, asceticism, wants. Together, they attempt to create a life for further historical facts on an as-needs womankind in general? basis. spontaneity, reflection, everything from mis- for themselves and their children, bleakly Rachael would have loved being born erable Socrates to the happy pig’. Thus what known in the novel only as Girlie and Boy. today. I get a smile on my face just think- ensues is a fatalistic ennui, and preparedness As the years pass, Irene’s contempt for Rex You have created a style of speech that seems to observe the conventions of the time but ing about her. She’d be the prime minister to meet his death on the next moon of the and his quiet ways grows into pure hatred. or head of the UN or something. Perhaps Curse. He is the last of his species, being The title, ‘Snake’, conjures up this insidious simultaneously feels fresh and modern. How did you go about finding the voices for your she’d do this by not having kids, but she hunted for years by the World Organisa- marriage, ending with a strike of venom … might manage even with a few. I wouldn’t tion for the Control of Occult Phenomena characters? The novel is divided into four parts, allow- put anything past her. (WOCOP). Of course, plans are hampered That is so nice of you to say – thanks! This ing the two main protagonists their own by Hollywood plot twists and lycanthropic was certainly among the most challenging voice, although it is the judicious separation You evoke a tremendous sense of place in your hunger and lust – and, quite possibly, love. aspects of making the novel work. I wrote of the chapters that creates a rising tension. novel, I often felt like I was right there with and rewrote that first chapter many times, Each chapter has its own title and with these the characters walking through the landscapes Sure there are vampires, hookers and hired making very few changes on the nature or headings, Jennings’ power as a poet can also of ancient Israel. ‘Gethsemane … where stone mercenaries here too, and while it might all order of events I was recounting, but work- be realised. (Each title contributes a separate walls crumbled from the weight of years, and smack of a work adapted from the screen to ing constantly with the voice. Throughout, layer to the story.) With the same approach, the branches of olive trees straggled towards page, Duncan can certainly turn a phrase. I returned to the Gospels and the First Tes- the landscape described reflects the growing God like a hag’s withered arms.’ How did you Sitting in a three-piece-suit drinking Macal- tament to absorb the cadence and phrases desolation of the relationship. It is Irene’s go about constructing this world? lan and chain-smoking Camel filters, Mar- of these texts, but combined this with fierce rage at the dryness of the land and the muted lowe tells us that God is dead, but irony’s pragmatism. If more than one reader of Thanks again, this Q & A is really good for emotions of her terribly loyal but ineffective utterly alive. He’s painfully aware that mon- the manuscript said, ‘that’s lovely, but what my self esteem! Look, I have been to Israel husband that in the end drive this story to sters die out when the collective imagination does it mean?’ or simply wrote ‘huh?’ in three times, though it was a number of its final tragedy. Reminiscent of Lawson’s The no longer needs them. You’d be hard-pressed the margins, I’d usually – not always, but years ago and way before I decided to write Drover’s Wife, yet also a depiction, perhaps, not to howl out loud at Marlowe’s sharp, usually – bite the bullet and change it. My the book. Ideally, I would have travelled of why Jennings herself left Australia (she depraved mind. Think Warren Zevon meets editor was also pretty clear about the merits there again, but this just wasn’t feasible. So now lives in New York). Like Irene, I’m sure Grinderman, and it’s little wonder that it and limits of the vernacular enterprise on I dragged out all the photos I took during she thought there were adventures to be had becomes all the more piquant to have such which I’d embarked, and when she decided those years and pasted them around my away from this ‘sunburnt country’. Snake is a mythical beast tilt the lid on twenty-first something was too ye-olde or just plain desk, surfed the net for more images and not a sweet tale, but one of aching loss for all century humanity. confusing, I was smart enough to give way. put them up, and then let my imagination Luke May is assistant manager those involved. This short novel is, without build the rest of the picture based on the doubt, one of the most carefully crafted and of Readings St Kilda You say that the impetus for this novel came world described in the Bible. evocative tales to emerge in the last 20 years from watching a BBC documentary about of Australian fiction. the life of Jesus. Can you talk a bit about this Visit www.readings.com.au to see the longer Chris Gordon is events coordinator initial inspiration and where it led you? version of this interview. of Readings Carlton 8 Readings Monthly April 2011 to Wells’ egotism, selfishness and blindness to is difficult to resist the pull that Hadley’s Untold Story the effects of his actions on others, particu- perspective provides, so that we too become Monica Ali International larly the women in his life and his children. enthralled by Ernest, by where his ambitions Doubleday. PB. $32.95 More subtly, these traits are also hinted at take him, and by his complicated, passionate The third novel from Fiction through the gently humorous storytelling. friendships. Monica Ali (author of the It’s an involving, enjoyable depiction of the : This is a thoroughly researched novel that Booker-shortlisted Brick Feature Fiction Title writer’s life. The background, a familiar one will appeal to readers of biography as much Lane) takes the tortured The Pale King peopled with the eccentric British literary as readers of fiction. Despite a somewhat fairytale life of Princess David Foster Wallace and socialist elite of the late Victorian and unadventurous prose style, I loved it and Diana as ‘a point of depar- Hamish Hamilton. HB. $39.95 Edwardian years, is also entertaining. But still: recommend it highly. For Hemingway’s take ture’ for her story about a Our special price $31.95 I would have liked to have seen more of Jane. on his time in Paris, try A Moveable Feast fictional princess. Acknowl- Released 15 April 2011 Ann Standish is a freelance reviewer edging her inspiration, she’s said, ‘When David Foster Wallace was, (Vintage Classics, PB, $12.95). Bruno Moro is manager of Readings Malvern [Diana] died, she seemed to be at some as so many critics and fellow A Love Letter from kind of crossroads in her life. Over the writers have attested, both a a Stray Moon A Visit From years since her death, I’ve sometimes found literary genius and a major Jay Griffiths myself wondering how she would have influence on so many of the the Goon Squad Text. PB. $19.95. Ebook $19.95 Jennifer Egan matured into her 40s and beyond.’ This writers who came after him. book promises to offer an answer of sorts Griffiths has taken the life of Anchor. PB. $21.95 Peter Craven calls him, – but, Ali says, it’s not intended as a kind of Frida Kahlo as inspiration, Jennifer Egan’s latest novel ‘The greatest American writer sequel to the media story of Diana’s life, creating a fictional autobiog- consists of a series of of his generation’; The New York Times’ but an exploration of identity and what raphy that is a passionate ode tangentially linked chapters Michiko Kukatani dubbed him, ‘A prose makes a person who they are; the central to love and creation at their concerning that most magician’. The Pale King (unfinished at his question common to Ali’s fiction. most pure and primal. Acts pressing of baby boomer time of death) is the last literary work we’ll that can inspire delirious joy, see from him – and it’s no exaggeration to preoccupations: time. or knee-jerk reactionary fear The lynchpin is Bennie Pigeon English say it’s the year’s most keenly anticipated – art that has consequences beyond the Stephen Kelman literary event. Wallace intended the book Salazar, an untalented success found within the four walls of a musician who mines his love of music Bloomsbury. PB. $29.99 as an exploration of ‘crushing, crushing’ museum, the earnest documentary, or the boredom and the possibility of transcending through the record producing business. This debut novel – inspired polite review – art that can incite tears and We leap back and forth through time, by a high profile real-life that boredom to find bliss on the other side rebellion. – and a characteristically fearless and original meeting Bennie’s friends, girlfriends, murder of a ten-year-old on questioning of life’s meaning, and the value For this purpose, there can hardly be a better publicists – the character count is as vast as an London estate – was the of work and family. subject than Frida. Despite a horrific acci- it is diverse – and each of their stories offers subject of a twelve-publisher another radial aspect of how nothing we do bidding war, eventually sold The agents at the IRS Regional Examination dent as a young woman, she lived her life to is an accurate prospectus of our futures, and for ‘a six-figure sum’. It Center in Peoria, Illinois, appear ordinary the maximum and her paintings are honest and raw outward expressions of an indi- that we all look around at certain points and boasts a front-cover rave enough to newly-arrived trainee David Fos- from Room’s Emma Donoghue. And the ter Wallace. But as he immerses himself in vidual’s inner pain, depicting subject matter wonder: how the hell did I end up like this? that continues to resonate: love, fertility and BBC has commissioned an adaption a routine so tedious and repetitive that new Though the book is deliberately jagged in death. Frida’s exuberant identification with directed by Skins’ Adam Smith. So: employees receive boredom-survival train- structure, there is a tenderness in the treat- indigenous Mexican mythology created a expectations are high. Harri, an 11-year-old ing, he learns of the extraordinary variety of ment of all the character’s lives that binds powerful sense of connectedness to the earth Ghanian immigrant is caught up in gang personalities drawn to this strange calling. the disparate strands together. A beautiful and nature, which is another window of warfare in his South London estate when he And he has arrived at a moment when forces example is the story of a young man, drunk expression for the author of this book. and his best friend decide to ‘investigate’ within the IRS are plotting to eliminate even and high and desperately unhappy, who the murder of an older boy stabbed outside what little humanity and dignity the work I started reading this deceptively slim vol- dives into the toxic flotsam of New York’s the fried chicken shop. Told from Harri’s still has. ume with some hesitation – there have been East River in a final and devastating act of perspective, this is a riveting exploration of Visit our website after 15 April to read our some notoriously melodramatic/pretentious self-loathing and futility. The empathy Egan a world where the hope of new beginnings Readings review of The Pale King by Triple R renditions of the artistic life – but as I found brings to the youth in Goon Squad allows for meets moral compromise and danger. Breakfasters book reviewer Emmett Stinson. Griffiths’ voice harmonising with what I an even more brutal dissection of the old. know of Frida’s life, I was swept up and But their accumulated impatience, anger and The Final Testament A Man of Parts seduced. Through the great love that Frida bitterness is tempered by her understanding of the Holy Bible David Lodge had for Diego Rivera, the pain of Frida’s of the primal human urge to keep going, no James Frey Harvill. PB. Normally $32.95 accident and the subsequent loss of fertility matter how much our bodies deteriorate, our Hachette. PB. Normally $32.99 Our special price $27.95 and motherhood; love, loss and maternal- relationships implode, our businesses rise and Our special price $27.95 David Lodge’s latest novel ism are explored in Griffiths’ whirling prose. fall, and our options rapidly evaporate. The ever-controversial James Recently, I received a bewildering advertise- opens in 1944 as London is Goon Squad ends with a leap into the future, Frey (of A Million Little ment for shoes à la Frida Kahlo – not only being hit by the Blitz and extrapolating from current trends to a world Pieces fame) delivers what did they not look remotely Mexican (to H.G. Wells – once but no of relentless individual marketing. But it is just may be his most me), they had really high heels – perhaps longer the most famous writer nostalgic too, checking in on our quest for talked-about work yet – a that was meant to represent the metal rods in Britain – discovers he has authenticity. It is a clever novel – one chapter fictional update of the Bible that impaled the young Kahlo. Frida of the cancer. Approaching death is a PowerPoint presentation – but not an story. The Messiah is alive monobrow as fashion promotion?! Style evokes in Wells an internal exercise in gimmickry. The PowerPoint is the and living in New York: and guts: yes, in buckets. Griffiths has taken interviewer, who draws out his life story: a rise work of a young girl, and builds a picture of sleeping around with men and women these qualities and wrought a lyrical piece from poverty to great popular and financial her family so startlingly real and comprehend- alike, euthanising the dying and healing success as an author, renown for his idealistic that soars – and takes you with it. the sick, defying the government and Margaret Snowdon is Art & Design Buyer ing of family dynamics that I was moved to political views, scandal for his sexual mores tears. Not every chapter reaches these heights, condemning the holy. Frey asks – what and acclaim as an originator of science fiction but the peaks are upthrusts of originality and would you do if you met the modern-day that endured even as his popularity faded. THE PARIS WIFE greatness. A Visit From the Goon Squad is eas- Messiah and he changed your life? Would Paula McLain ily the best novel I read last year. It’s a must. you believe? Wells is ripe for fictionalisation and Lodge Little Brown. PB. Normally $30 Robbie Egan is manager of Readings Carlton makes the most of him, skilfully weaving Our special price $24.95 original material (letters between Wells and This is the story of a mar- Henry James are a highlight) and excerpts riage. Or, perhaps, of how a from Wells’ books into invented scenes. Wells’ good marriage ends. It is also writing and his womanising share the focus, the story of a place and of an ‘This boy’s love letter to the world both shown in their complexity. On one level era. Ernest Hemingway is a made me laugh and tremble all the way a literary hack, churning out everything from struggling but ambitious through. Pigeon English is a triumph.’ pot-boilers to political polemics and social writer trying to scratch a Emma Donoghue, author of Room comedies, Wells’ incisive imagination was living from his freelance early to explore the possible impacts of journalism when he meets Hadley. She is science on humanity and foresaw the rise of depicted as somewhat of a lost soul, with few tank warfare and atomic power. His deep prospects for anything other than a comfort- beliefs in sexual freedom and emancipation able, middle class existence. for women conveniently allowed him to seduce highly intelligent, beautiful, occa- It seems an unlikely union, until we realise sionally very young women, often with the that Hadley’s true passion is for her hus- knowledge and sometimes the support of his band, so that she becomes his first devotee, second wife, Jane. With two of these women providing the kind of reliable emotional – Amber Reeves and Rebecca West – he had and financial support that allows him to children. His behaviour raised eyebrows then, risk everything for his writing. Hadley helps as it may still, for different reasons. make it possible for Ernest to live in Paris between the wars, when it attracted people In the unseen questioner, Lodge has found such as Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Gertrude STEPHEN KELMAN an effective way of disrupting Wells’ point Stein and Ezra Pound, among others. It is OUT NOW of view. Without hammering retrospective an old-fashioned view of marriage, one that www.pigeonenglish.com.au judgement home, the device draws attention is not much challenged by McLain, but it Readings Monthly April 2011 9 22 Britannia Road Swamplandia!

Amanda Hodgkinson Karen Russell Fig Tree. PB. $32.95 Knopf. HB. $34.95 (Vintage) Classic Great new titles World War II is always a Karen Russell’s debut novel from Hachette painful subject to tackle and is not effortless, breezy, of the Month in her debut novel, 22 charming, fresh, or much Collected Stories Britannia Road, Amanda else that much-hyped debut John Cheever Hodgkinson doesn’t shy novels are often reported to Vintage Classic. PB. $12.95 away. She writes not only be. Instead, Russell’s dark John Cheever’s Collected about the terrors of war and tangle of a book demon- Stories, first awarded the secrets people hold once it’s strates that she is a writer Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in over, but also has a frank and open look at with serious intentions and some very 1979, is a magnificent, what it means to be a family, a husband, a unusual material. inspiring collection, and wife and a child of parents who are, at their one that has resolutely core, only human. It all starts innocently enough at Swamp- landia!, a DIY theme park where a family stood the test of time. Silvanna is a Polish refugee fleeing a past of not-Indians called the Bigtrees trade in Spanning from his earliest that still wakes her in the night screaming. live animals, kitsch, and the potential for writings in the mid 1940s to the late Arriving in England with her six-year-old son grievous bodily harm. Those familiar with 1970s, Collected Stories features Cheever’s Aurek, they are met by her husband (Aurek’s Australia’s giant banana and World’s Larg- most iconic works, including ‘The TiGer’s Wife father), Janusz. At first, we don’t know how est Prawn will feel right at home amongst Swimmer’, ‘The Enormous Radio’, and ‘The Country Husband’. These stories Tea Obreht Janusz made it from Poland to England, or Swamplandia’s alligator wrestlers and airboat As Natalia and a friend travel across the how he has managed to set up a whole new rides. When the star gator-wrestler dies and plumb the depths of human experience and have rightfully earned Cheever the title former Yugoslavia, immunising villagers, life for them, but he welcomes his lost wife the park flounders, however, her children the body of her grandfather turns up in a and child, and they desperately try to settle and the story seep out of the park and into ‘Chekhov of the suburbs’. And yet, for all hospital in the middle of nowhere. She and down and blend into the English way of life. south Florida’s procession of weirdness. his accolades, John Cheever (1912–82) her family have no idea why. Among its attractions: an alibino girl who faded from critical attention after his The story continually jumps between elopes with a ghost; a stunningly accurate death. It wasn’t until 1991, with the Janusz’s point of view and Silvanna’s, with picture of the ritual unpleasantness of both publication of the scandalous The Journals an occasional glimpse into Aurek’s, never teenage boys and their poorly paid hospital- of John Cheever (also available in Vintage dwelling long in either the past or the pres- ity jobs; a tooth-and-nail fight started by a Classic, PB, $12.95) that his reputation ent. Their disjointed history –and now this senile resident of a nautical-themed floating underwent significant revision. Here, his painful togetherness – highlights how secrets nursing home; and the state of Florida itself, public persona was so brutally contrasted can destroy a family. The reader can see how perhaps the closest a real place can come to a with his private – hitherto depicted as a each character is torn apart by memories parallel universe. wry, conservative and monogamous man; of home, their early marriage and the war the journals instead portrayed Cheever as years, where their experiences are so different Russell, whose first book was a collection of plagued by chronic alcoholism. He and yet similar, to the present-day, where short stories, winds her novel just as tightly struggled, too, with acceptance of his they can’t let go. The child Aurek just wishes to fit in all her best details and anecdotes. bisexuality, for which he consistently ‘the enemy’ (Janusz) would disappear and Her collection of staged oddities is fascinat- blamed his long-suffering wife, Mary. WHen God Was a rabbiT leave him and his mother to return to the ing, but the novel slows down and nearly All this biographical stuff naturally com- wild woods where he feels most at home. falters as chapters alternate between uncon- Sarah Winman plicates the way you read him. Was he an The question throughout is: do these people nected episodes from very different paths When God Was A Rabbit is a mesmerising essentially good yet brooding chap, or an portrait of childhood and growing up; the have enough spirit left to hold themselves of two Bigtree siblings. With some effort, adulterous, misogynous tyrant? You’ll need loss of innocence, eccentricity and familial together, or will their new life shatter and however, the novel pulls loose and one-ups to read The Journalsto decide on that your- bonds, a story of the unbreakable tie fall once these secrets are revealed? its oddities. Russell’s novel cinches shut as a self – and ultimately, it would be a shame if between a brother and sister. Kate Rockstrom is from Readings Carlton coming of age story – the fairy tale ends, the it clouded your opinion. Because the man, world grows weird and briefly hellish, and as horrible as he sounded, can write, and closure, when it finally comes, is as welcome, You Think That’s Bad there remains such a thrilling sense of an- beautiful, and almost inevitable as making it Jim Shepard ticipation when cracking open the Cheever through adolescence in one piece. Knopf. HB. $35.95 spine – as if delving into something fresh Luke Meinzen is an intern at A new story collection from and cool and profound. Never has a writer Sleepers Publishing and a freelance writer Jim Shepard is one of the so poignantly captured the tedium of the treats of my reading life. His American suburbs. new book, You Think That’s Bestseller Bad, is as original and diverse Allesandro Gallenzi Like his contemporary Richard Yates, as the previous three, and Released 15 March. Alma. PB. $19.95 Cheever’s fiction dwells largely in the reminds me most of his This wicked satire is being domestic, exploring life in mid-twentieth brilliant second collection, dubbed ‘the Devil Wears century America, and it is located mostly Love and Hydrogen. What makes Shepard so Prada of the publishing in the Upper East Side and the suburbs Land of PainTed Caves remarkable is his ability to inhabit wildly world’ – and yes, it’s written of Westchester. We read about families Jean M Auel different worlds. If a theme runs through by an insider (a working holidaying in ski lodges, home renovations, Once again, Jean Auel combines her You Think That’s Bad, it is isolation, but that publisher). Jim Talbot, servants and parties; characters recur. They brilliant narrative skills and appealing skirts around the edges of Shepard’s achieve- rejected by every agent and are ordinary folk, with ordinary feelings – characters with a remarkable ment. His range is limitless – he can and publisher in the land, is yet something larger and more damaging re-creation of the way life was lived does take you anywhere. willing to go to extreme lengths to make his festers in them: loneliness and helplessness. thousands of years ago, rendering dream of literary stardom come true. Charles There is such aching beauty in these tales, the terrain, dwelling places, longings, There is a story about two brothers and an Randall is the eccentric head of a small so sad and authentic. And beneath the beliefs, creativity and daily lives of emotionally warped love triangle, the main independent publisher, about to be sacked surface of sparse, neat prose seethes other Ice Age Europeans as real to the reader as today’s news. character stuck on the Kokoda track as by a newly appointed business consultant. kinds of compelling desire: for escape, for the Japanese advance invisibly through the Inevitably and calamitously, Charles and the more generous times in the past, and suffocating tropical jungle. There is another Jim’s paths are about to collide ... for the climax of confined rage and corrup- about the special-effects creator of Godzilla, tion. one about the adventurer Freya Stark, and a disturbingly thrilling tale about a serial killer For me, the stand-outs are ‘The Sorrows of preying on children in fifteenth-century Gin’ and ‘The Swimmer’. ‘The Sorrows of France. Shepard moves through time and Poetry Gin’ is a short tale, told from the perspec- location with seamless, effortless grace, and Illuminations tive of a little girl, Amy. Her parents are appears able to write about anything he takes Arthur Rimbaud, upper-middle class and like to attend par- to be interesting. His research, whether it be John Ashbery (translator) ties – they both enjoy a tipple. The family historical, bibliographical, or a speculative WW Norton. HB. $34.95 employs a cook, Rosemary, who it later leap into the future, never comes across as John Ashbery’s long-awaited, transpires has a severe drinking problem. information. It is as if he absorbs lives and virtuosic translation of Amy’s father has a drinking problem worlds, and mulls them over before giving Arthur Rimbaud’s Illumina- of his own – he needs several drinks in Paris Wife them back to us in sharper, purer tones. tions is presented with the the evening before he softens: ‘At last,’ Paula McLain Amy thinks, relieved, ‘he is happy.’ And French text in parallel and a A heart-wrenching novel of ambition Shepard is not read widely in Australia, and preface by its new translator. ‘The Swimmer’, Cheever’s most famous this is a mystery to me. His novels are master- and betrayal that captures a remarkable This collection of magic and most anthologised story, remains period of time and a love affair between ful too, and Project X, a thin slip of genius lantern slides, each an intense awe-inspiring in its casual, cruel critique two unforgettable people: Ernest about two misfit high-school boys, is one of and rapid dream, is recognised as an of bourgeois America, chronicling the Hemingway and his first wife Hadley. my all-time favourite books. He is a master unparalleled masterpiece of world literature. Narcissus-like Neddy Merrill’s bizarre quest of the interior and of the landscape, and is ‘An exquisite, untainted translation of to swim across all the swimming pools in a prose stylist of extreme elegance. If you Rimbaud; a transmission as pure as a winged his neighbourhood. haven’t heard of him, look him up; You Think dove driven by snow.’ – Patti Smith That’s Bad is as good a place to start as any. Rebecca Starford is editor of Robbie Egan is manager of Readings Carlton Kill Your Darlings 10 Readings Monthly April 2011

New Crime Dead Write with Fiona Hardy In a new Dead Write feature, from now on leave the reader tiptoeing about their house to the world’s attention. Svendsen is anonymously given a recording of I’ll be choosing my own book of the month: nervously locking all the windows afterwards. Kate O’Mara is from Readings Carlton a horrible beheading, and along with Inspec- the crime tale I loved the most. However, this I heartily recommend Live Wire – and with tor John Wagner and the reluctant help of the month saw too many good titles to pick just Suzze’s rock-star husband Lex Power hailing Danish secret service, she does what she can one, so with the help of previous Dead Write from sunny Melbourne (and playing his Thinker, family man, incorruptible: every- to identify the murderer. Religious hysteria is scribe Kate O’Mara, a big Henning Mankell breakout gig at St Kilda’s Esplanade Hotel), it one who loves Commissario Guido Brunetti running rampant through Denmark, aided fan, I cheated. Here are our top two. has a nice dash of familiarity too. FH will be thrilled to know that Donna Leon’s (of course) by the media, and when Dicte’s creation is back for her newest book, Draw- daughter is attacked, the horror of the investi- Live Wire Troubled Man ing Conclusions (Heinemann, PB, Normally gation rushes home. Harlan Coben Henning Mankell $32.95, Our special price $27.95). When The ever-popular and Orion. PB. Normally $33 Harvill. PB. Normally $32.95 an elderly woman dies in her apartment, Our special price $27.95 Our special price $27.95 the medical examiner on the case is happy fantastically facial-haired Michael Connelly is back Live Wire is almost unfairly Not long after Linda Wal- to write it off as a heart attack, but Brunetti with Fifth Witness (Allen & entertaining: when you put lander announces to her seeks the truth for the dead woman, who Unwin, PB, Normally $32.95 the book down and go back father she is pregnant, her helped sufferers of domestic violence. A chal- Our special price $27.95), the to your normal life, you are future father-in-law – a lenging view of how women and the elderly fourth Mickey Haller thriller. crushed by the lack of fights, respected former high-ranking are viewed, even in the beautiful-if-brittle With the global financial rock stars, private jets and naval officer – vanishes. To Venice, and how justice can be found in dif- crisis leading to the foreclosure of many endless drama. (Unless, of Kurt Wallander, who officially ferent ways. people’s homes, Haller is now in the business course, you are a football has nothing to do with the Gallows Bird (HarperCollins, PB, Nor- of foreclosure defense, and took as his first player.) Talent agent Myron Bolitar never has investigation, his disappearance seems linked mally $32.99, Our special price $29.95), by client a woman desperate to keep her home. a dull moment, even in his New York office to one of the biggest controversies in Swedish Sweden’s number-one female author Camilla After a mortgage banker is murdered in a – his co-workers are two female ex-wrestlers history – the incursions into neutral Swedish Lackberg, is the fourth book starring Detec- parking lot, however, Mickey’s client – who and the feared (and filthy rich) Windsor waters by Soviet submarines in the early tive Patrik Hedstrom and his very-very-soon the bank had taken a restraining order against Horne Lockwood III. After a seemingly eighties, and the ensuing allegations of wife-to-be Erica, who first shacked up in the – is accused of the crime. With Haller’s first inconsequential request from one of his espionage and other Cold War treachery. thrilling The Ice Princess (HarperCollins, PB, adventure, The Lincoln Lawyer, coming soon clients, ex-tennis star Suzze T, to track down In the course of asking inappropriate ques- Now $9.95). With plenty on his plate, a car to a theatre near you, it’s worth finding out someone slandering her on Facebook, Myron tions, treading on people’s toes and sticking accident seems like little to be concerned why Connelly remains such an enduring realises that this problem will eventually lead his nose in where it doesn’t belong, he slowly about, but along with a new police officer in bestseller. right back to himself and the brother he has uncovers what could be a shocking spy scan- town and the arrival of the cast and crew of been estranged from for years. The tangled dal. Mankell has declared this to definitely be a new reality television show – a drama-filled Colin Cotterill takes us to a more tropical relationship between tennis players, rock stars, the last Wallander story, and there is certainly group at the best of times – the beautiful, climate in Killed at the Whim of a Hat (PB, the mafia, Our Hero and his family is utterly an air of finality to the whole affair. The Wal- tiny, freezing town of Tanumshede is about to Quercus, $32.99), where hopeful crime enthralling – and all bets are off regarding lander in this book is an old man, looking find out that the accident is anything but. reporter Jimm Juree is in despair when she who will survive the confusion and what the back on a long and not always illustrious is forced by her eccentric family to move to hell is actually going on. Coben’s writing is career, slowly losing his memory, disappear- Elsebeth Egholm’s fame is stratospheric in a coastal village away from the much more ridiculously enjoyable, leading me to laugh, ing into the passage of time. It’s a sometimes Denmark, and we are finally getting to try her journalistically fascinating Chiang Mai. Luck- grip the page in tension, and tear through the puzzling goodbye. But if we must say farewell, for ourselves, with the release of her first book ily for her (but unluckily for those involved), book in high speed excitement. It’s gritty and then let us salute the troubled inspector in English, Next of Kin (PB, Pier 9, Normally this little village is about to literally unearth a bloody enough to not be purely light and his creator, who almost singlehandedly $29.99, Our special price $24.95, Ebook crime and Jimm is going to find herself with entertainment, but still fun enough to not brought modern Scandinavian crime writing $19.99). Journalist and part-time sleuth Dicte more than enough to report on.

Mezza Italiana: My Dear I Wanted An Enchanting Story About to Tell You POZIÈRES* Love, Family, La Dolce Vita LITTLE PEOPLE* BY LOUISA YOUNG Scott Bennett Jane Sullivan and Finding Your Place in the World ‘Pozières has ‘A pure delight – 9780007415755 languished in I fell in love with this ZOË BOCCABELLA RRP $29.99 Gallipoli’s shadow glorious novel from for almost a century. the very first page.’ 9780733329548 $29.99 Scott Bennett shines Toni Jordan A moving novel of love a probing light into Beautiful writing, gorgeous settings, and war set against the that darkness.’ Patrick Lindsay mouthwatering food and heart-warming brutal backdrop of World War I, themes of acceptance and endurance My Dear I Wanted to Tell You reveals make Mezza Italiana a very special journey the plight of the soldiers who serve, into the soul of Italy, and into a and the women they love. WHO AM I? WIKILEAKS AND family you’ll never forget! AND IF SO, THE AGE OF HOW MANY?* TRANSPARENCY* Richard Precht Micah Sifry An international A fascinating bestseller that exploration of ‘Highly engaging and A love story of uses a light touch the WikiLeaks to answer all the phenomenon as impossible to put down.’ extraordinary power. big philosophical part of a larger MIA FREEDMAN questions. movement for greater transparency and citizen empowerment. DISCONNECT* MARATHON* Devra Davis Richard Billows This riveting exposé A fresh, gripping look PERFEct AWARD- outlines the dangers at one of Western MothER’s WINNING posed by mobile- history’s defining DAy GIFt AUTHOR phone radiation. moments: the battle Essential reading of Marathon. for all mobile-phone users and abusers.

*Also available as eBooks www.scribepublications.com.au Keep in touch with great book news www.randomhouse.com.au Readings Monthly April 2011 11 Wikileaks Versus with autism. Readers with autistic loved ones the World: My Story will be grateful for this book; it’s also an Julian Assange engrossing general read and a poignant story Text. PB. $34.95. Ebook $19.95. of a couple’s fierce love for their son. Jo Case is Editor of Readings Monthly New Non-Fiction If you had to choose one story (aside from Velazquez, Cezanne, Goya, Sydney Nolan natural disasters) that’s dominated world and Jeffrey Smart, Botticelli, Tintoretto and press this year, it would have to be Wikileaks Be Different: Accessories Francis Bacon. and its controversial creator, Julian Assange. Adventures of a Popular Penguin Margaret Snowdon is Art & Design Buyer There has already been a slew of books on Free-Range Aspergian Water Bottles at Readings Carlton the subject; finally, here’s one direct from the John Elder Robison $24.95 each source. In this revelatory account, Assange Random. PB. $34.95 These classy stainless steel Townie expands on the philosophies that underpin John Elder Robison (brother water bottles, in classic Andre Dubus III his stateless, ground-breaking media com- of Augusten Burroughs) hit Penguin orange and white, WW Norton. PB. $32.95 pany. He draws on his own fascinating life the bestseller lists with Look are perfect for the booklover A brilliantly rendered story and offers compelling insights into the Me in the Eye, his wonderfully on the go. They’re available memoir of a childhood mercurial and highly driven man who has titled memoir about his in Jack Kerouac’s On the overshadowed by violence and forced us to radically rethink such basic ideas unconventional life, with a Road or D.H. Lawrence’s poverty, from the author of as transparency, democracy and power. (humorous, wise) focus on The Lost Girl – and come House and Sand and Fog how his undiagnosed with a handy clip on the lid so you can – and son of acclaimed My Korean Deli Asperger’s Syndrome affected him. This book, attach it to your bike or backpack. American writer Andre Ben Ryder Howe he says, is for the many readers who asked Dubus. Amidst many Henry Holt. PB. $24.95 him for more information. He offers stories plaudits, The San Francisco Chroniclecalled it Ben Ryder Howe is former from his own life to show how his Asperger’s ‘haunting ... as explosive as a Muhammad Ali editor of The Paris Review. traits have helped or hindered him, with Anthologies prize fight, as vivid as a Basquiat canvas’. The Yet it seems he had a higher advice for ‘Aspergians’, parents and educators. Best Australian Essays: early childhood of Andre Dubus III was calling in life. After spending It’s refreshing to read writing about Asperger’s A Ten-Year Collection much as you might imagine that of someone a good part of a year living in that is entertaining and informative, and whose father is a renowned writer: the house his parents-in-law’s basement views it as difference rather than disability Best Australian was full of books, his parents’ parties were in order to save for a house, (incidentally, the same views held by Asperg- Stories: A Ten-Year characterised by talk of Hemingway and his wife Gab one day er’s world expert Tony Attwood). Highly Collection Chekhov, and Kurt Vonnegut, a neighbour announced that she wanted to open a New recommended for anyone wanting to know Black Inc. PB. $34.95 ea. Ebook $19.95 ea. and family friend, dropped by in the after- York deli (ie. convenience store) to give to more about Asperger’s, without being made Batman To celebrate the tenth noons to watch with the Dubus kids. her mother as a ‘thank you’ for all the hard to feel bad about the Aspergian in their life. birthday of their ‘Best But after his parents’ divorce, aged ten, his life work she put into raising her. With a healthy Australian’ series, Black Inc. grew to resemble a Dennis Lehane novel, as dose of trepidation, Howe went along for has compiled two satisfyingly he and his siblings moved from rented house the ride. This is a story about opening a thick editions of the best of to house with his exhausted mother, living in working small business in the sometimes Australian Studies the best – one volume each neighbourhoods beset by drugs and violence. hostile, sometimes welcoming community of The Business of for stories and essays. As Sick of being bullied, and inspired by screen Brooklyn – and, just as enticingly, an inside Nature: John Gould Dirty Harry you’d expect, they’re both heroes such as , Dubus trained as account of working in a legendary New York a boxer and learned to hold his own – until and Australia packed with rolled gold writing from some literary institution in the last days of its Roslyn Russell he began to fear that, consumed by anger, equally legendary founder, George Plimpton. of Australia’s finest names, established and New South. HB. $49.95 new. Well worth picking up. he’d become one of the bad guys himself, and found other ways ‘to get this pus out, to Ryder Howe describes his mother-in-law The lithographs of John express a wound’ – such as writing. as the ‘Mike Tyson of Korean grandmoth- Gould’s artists, depicting Watch our website for our exclusive online ers’ on the very first page: I was instantly Australian wildlife and review by Tony Birch, author of hooked! It’s easy to fall in love with this accompanied by his com- Shadowboxing and Father’s Day. dysfunctional, non-Korean speaking, fish- mentary, are well known and NMemoirotebooks out-water writer who would do anything much loved today. This book Betty Churcher 1001 Australian Nights to keep his loved ones happy. There are so tells the story of Gould and Miegunyah Press. Dave Graney many laugh-out-loud moments and crazy wife Elizabeth (foremost (but totally believable) characters. There’s the among his artists). After moving to Van Normally $45 Our special price $39.95 Affirm. PB. $29.99. Ebook $14.95. group of regulars who visit the shop every Diemen’s Land in 1838, he cannily estab- The former director of the Dave Graney, best known evening to watch TV, the father-in-law who lished his thriving business, taking him into Australian National Gallery from his time with The Coral never says anything (except to sing karaoke if the world of British aristocracy and the gives us a personal tour of Snakes, hails from Mt no one is watching), and of course the ever- scientific elite. some of her favourite paintings Gambier. In his early in some of the world’s greatest present, formidable mother-in-law, Kay. twenties, he got involved in Essays on Muslims galleries (The National Gallery, the local punk scene and met Though told from a humorous point of London, The Prado Museum, drummer Clare Moore, who view, it’s also poignant and insightful: you and Multiculturalism The Metropolitan, New York, was to become his wife and never lose the fact that this family is simply Raimond Gaita (ed.) Kenwood House and the Courtauld Galleries, creative partner. Graney was a collector in a struggling to make ends meet. This is a Text. PB. $26.95. Ebook $19.95 London, Le Petit Palais, Paris and the Doria sense; he found much of his musical and book that should not be missed by anyone Philosopher and writer Pamphilj, Rome) through the drawings in her creative inspiration foraging through who’s ever worked in retail, or quite simply Raimond Gaita presides over personal notebooks. A charming and informa- second-hand shops buying old LPs, books anyone who’s shopped at a convenience some of Australia’s leading tive book, it is a window into the pleasures of and clothes. Musically, he was drawn to store. It will make you look twice at the writers and thinkers in this viewing great art – and as a bonus, some rockabilly and blues; in writing, he was person standing behind the counter, to give wide-ranging discussion. anecdotal insights into the experience of attracted to the American noir writers like them a smile and a ‘thank you’. These writers (including running a world-class National Art Gallery. James Cain and Cornell Woolrich and French Kate Rockstrom is from Readings Carlton Waleed Aly, Graeme For Churcher, it is a revisiting of the art that surrealists like Blaise Cendrars. He also picked Davison, Ghassan Hage and has inspired her, as she prepares for a future up modish clothes which – together with his When Horse Gaita himself) weigh the successes and that includes failing eyesight. A talented artist, pencil moustache – became a signature look. Became Saw failures of multiculturalism in providing a Churcher has always found contemplation Above all, Graney was interested in the Anthony Macris secure and just Australia, in the context of our post-9/11 cultural landscape. and drawing the key to connecting with creative process and the essence of perfor- Viking. PB. $32.95 works of genius. Composition, technique, mance. I first became aware of colour, meaning, expression – these are His memoir charts his development as an art- Anthony Macris when I read unpacked for the reader though her drawings, ist and the influences that shaped his career. his heart-wrenching, reproduced in facsimile from the notebooks. It’s an affectionate, sometimes cynical, look beautifully wrought Meanjin Current Affairs The accompanying text reads as part tour at life on the road and the music industry he essay, When Horse Became Against Remembrance guide, part travelogue, part history, and is found himself in. He laments the fact that Saw, about his young son’s David Rieff always engaging. Australia has no real musical or performing descent into autism. This MUP. PB. $19.95 The next-best thing to visiting great galleries traditions and that the Australian audience memoir, commissioned on David Rieff, a contributing and viewing a masterpiece or two is reading can be unforgiving of musicians such as him- the strength of that essay, tells the wider writer for New York Times about it in a book as engaging as this. Being self who tried to transcend a more simplistic story – about how his son’s condition was magazine (and son of Susan drawn into the experience, and perhaps rock style. He writes evocatively about the recognised, the diagnosis process, the Sontag) poses some hard remembering what it was like – the excite- pleasure of performance when it all comes devastating effects on him and his wife, and questions about the impor- ment of your first foray into one of the great right: ‘creating moments of suspension and the tough decision they took to undergo a tance of collective memory museums included in the book, for which yawning gaps that billow into the high hell of time-intensive, cripplingly expensive in this controversial and Churcher also gives us background and the dark room’. Graney’s memoir is a wonder- experimental therapy as the only way they important book. Are events historical notes. For me, it was particularly ful rendition of the ups and downs of a musi- that offered hope for helping their son find a like ANZAC Day an essential part of nice to find paintings I’ve been taken with, cian’s peripatetic life. His new CD, Rock ’N’ way of communicating with and being in decent public culture? Rieff draws on his including: Titian’s The Death of Actaeon, Roll is Where I Hide, is also out this month. the wider world. It’s not a miracle story, but experience as a war correspondent and his and Bellini’s portrait of The Doge Leonardo Mark Rubbo is managing director it does offer some small hope. It’s also a impressive grasp of history to explore the Loredan, as well as works by Rembrandt, of Readings damning indictment of the Australian role of memory in the defining events of government’s meagre provisions for families recent times. 12 Readings Monthly April 2011 The History of the and adaptability, as we find new ways to live. New from World Since 9/11 Gilding tells us how to fight, and win, what Dominic Streatfield he calls ‘the One Degree War’ to prevent Travel catastrophic warming of the earth, and how Paris Rediscovered Atlantic. PB. $32.99 to start today. Caroline Delabroy Don’t be put off by the Lonely Planet. PB. $19.99 slightly glib/dull-sounding Originally released last year for the French title – this is an absolutely Climate Capitalism L. Hunter Lovins market, this was such a success, Lonely Planet terrific book, exploring the is having a crack at an English version. A far-reaching consequences of & Boyd Cohen Farrar Strauss & Giroux. PB. $34.95 different type of guide to the usual fare, it’s the attacks on New York’s designed for the return traveller and bypasses It doesn’t matter if you World Trade Centre ten years the obvious for quirky galleries, off-beat shop- believe in climate change, ago. Streatfield looks at how ping and secret suburbia. Even the well-trod- says this book – the surest the lives of ordinary people around the den Champs-Élysées is seen with new eyes, route to profitability and world have been affected, though the lens of honing in on its dazzling array of modern security in a recession-rid- eight very different incidents around the buildings. There is a strong focus on the Pa- dled, carbon-constrained world, ranging from the murder (with racist risian music scene, theatre and contemporary world is doing exactly what It starts with a gift, when Ben Ryder Howe’s wife, overtones) of a Texas gas station attendant to art and architecture. It’s a lovely little book, you would if climate change the daughter of Korean immigrants, decides to repay Australia’s response to asylum seekers, as and I hope they do a similar guide to other her parents’ self-sacrifice by buying them a store. scares you to death. Embracing efficiency, experienced by one Iraqi refugee and his popular cities if this one proves a winner. Howe, an editor at the rarefied Paris Review, agrees innovation, renewables, carbon markets and to go along. After the business struggles, Howe finds family. Blends investigative journalism, Kate O’Mara is from Readings Carlton himself living in the basement of his in-laws’ home, reportage and political analysis in one new technologies is the smartest decision commuting to the Paris Review offices in the Upper engrossing volume. you can make. This book delivers hundreds East Side by day, and heading to Brooklyn at night of in-depth case studies of international to slice cold cuts. corporations, small businesses, NGOs, and $24.95 Hb, ISBN 9780805093438 Henry Holt municipalities to prove that energy efficiency History and renewable resources are already driving Pozières: ThEnvironmente Great Disruption: prosperity. The Anzac Story Scott Bennett How the Climate Prosperity Crisis Will Bring Scribe. PB. $36.95. Ebook $21.99 Without Growth This superb account tells the on the Sustainable Tim Jackson other ANZAC story – one Revolution Earthscan. PB. $24.95 long overshadowed by Paul Gilding In this explosive book, Tim Gallipoli. In 1916, after five Bloomsbury. PB. Normally $32.99 Jackson – a top sustainability attempts to seize the small Our special price $27.95 adviser to the UK govern- village of Pozières, the British This book is not just essential reading – its ment – makes a compelling called in the ANZACs to message is urgent. Global crisis is no longer case against continued complete this seemingly avoidable, says Australian-based environmen- economic growth in devel- impossible task. Pozieres was captured – and tal business expert Paul Gilding (a former oped nations. Economic heralded as a stunning tactical victory – but Journalist and amateur boxer Mischa Merz fulfils global head of Greenpeace), recently lauded heresy? Or an opportunity to only after 45 days and 23,000 casualties. a long-held ambition to travel across the United by Thomas Friedman in The New York Times. States and compete in a series of amateur improve the sources of well-being, creativity Scott Bennett draws on the letters and boxing tournaments. On this wild and fascinating We have come to the end of economic and lasting prosperity that lie outside the diaries of the survivors to tell their story. journey she meets her idols and some other truly growth. Yet Gilding also has a deeply optimis- realm of the market? Jackson provides a extraordinary characters. tic message: while the coming decades will see credible vision of how human society can India: A Portrait $29.95 Pb, ISBN 9781583229286 loss, suffering and conflict, they’ll also bring Seven Stories Press flourish – within the ecological limits of a Patrick French out our compassion, innovation, resilience finite planet. Allen Lane. HB. $49.95 One of this century’s greatest surprises has been the economic and social revolu- Science tion in India. But what is the The China Garden Discoverers of real nature of this rapid the Universe change, and what are its by Kristina Olsson roots? Here is an encompass- Michael Hoskin ing social, political and Winner – 2010 Barbara Jefferis Award RRP $24.95 Princeton UP. HB. $48.95 economic history, from partition to present, When a newborn baby is found abandoned, the The gripping story of William from a writer who’s spent much of his life Herschel, the brilliant, fiercely dramatic event pierces the lives of three very engaged with India. ambitious, emotionally different women. complex musician and A captivating story about betrayal and its echoes composer who became court across generations. astronomer to Britain’s King George III, and of his sister, Philosophy Caroline, who assisted him in Who Am I And his observations of the night sky and became If So How Many Just a Girl an accomplished astronomer in her own Richard Precht right. Together, they transformed our view of Been Looking For. Been Looking by Jane Caro Scribe. PB. $26.95. Ebook $15.99 the universe from the unchanging, mechani- Elegant and light-hearted, I am alive. I am awake and I am alive. cal creation of Newton’s clockmaker god to this international bestseller I am awake and tomorrow I shall be crowned. the ever-evolving, incredibly dynamic cosmos deftly introduces readers to Banished, imprisoned and forgotten; that it truly is. the big philosophical determined, passionate and headstrong. questions. Richard David Precht draws on neurosci- Mum’s Elizabeth the First shaped the destiny of a ence, psychology, history and RRP $19.95 RRP kingdom, all before she was 25. Cultural Studies pop culture to examine Disconnect: The Truth enduring questions like: What is truth? Does About Mobile life have meaning? Why should I be good?

Your Phone Radiation The Sparrows of Edward Street Devra Davis by Elizabeth Stead Scribe. PB. $32.95. Ebook $18.99 ‘Five-stars’ – Bookseller+Publisher Concerns about the effects of Music mobile phone radiation Richard Strauss: Sydney, 1948: Middle-class Hanora, Aria and currently have the status of A Musical Life Rosy Sparrow are facing a grim future in a urban myth here in Australia Raymond Holden Escape housing commission camp. – despite the fact that several Yale UP. HB. $45 But Sparrows are resourceful, and they soon countries outlaw the use of Richard Strauss is best discover that resilience and good humour might mobile phones by children, remembered as the composer RRP $32.95 RRP

The just be their salvation. for health reasons. This of a string of masterworks. compelling, solidly researched and accessibly Yet he also held important written exposé is essential reading for anyone conducting posts and influ- who has or knows someone with a mobile enced generations of conduc- phone (ie. everyone). Davis draws on tors. This book is the first to www.uqp.com.au find us on Facebook follow @UQPbooks interviews with key players within the consider Strauss’s career as a mobile phone industry and presents conductor and place it in relation to his life long-suppressed research. as a composer: an intertwined process. Readings Monthly April 2011 13

Foodby Justine Douglas, & manager, Wine Artby Margaret & Snowdon, Design Art buyer, Readings Port Melbourne Readings Carlton A Month in Live Forever: Marrakesh Elizabeth Peyton Andy Harris Laura Hoptman # 1 I N T H E H E R O T R I L O G Y Hardie Grant . HB. $45 Phaidon. PB. $59.95 In our travels there are some Highly stylised oil paintings, cities that speak to us – drawings, and watercolours A n e w e x c i t i n g Y o u n g A d u l t a d v e n t u r e s e r i e s where the people are kind are driven by the emotional, and the food is good. adoring eye of an unrequited Marrakesh is that city for lover, or starry-eyed consumer Andy Harris. He returns of celebrity culture. Peyton’s there every year to wander melding of influences and A t h r i l l i n g a d v e n t u r e its ancient markets. A Month obsessions ranges widely: in Marrakesh is filled with recipes for the from fandom and fashion illustration to o f a n c i e n t m y t h , street food that can be found around the academic anatomical studies; from Hockney g o d s , m o n s t e r s , markets, from a simple egg and potato roll, and Warhol, to Mannerist and Old Master perfect after a hard day’s night, to a beef, classics; from innocence to bohemia, equally m a g i c , s i r e n s , barley and couscous salad, a version of crediting photography and life drawing as s o r c e r e r s , which I have been preparing for many years driving forces for her portraiture. now as a late summer supper. This is a a n d m a n y e v i l s . . . beautiful homage to Moroccan cookery, Talk about with exquisite photography and an Contemporary Dance inspiring collection of delicious recipes. Phillipe Noisette T h e f a l l o f T r o y a n d There is an extensive chapter on salads that Flammarion. PB. $49.95 a d e s p e r a t e c h a s e includes a swiss chard and black olive salad A densely illustrated and comprehensive and a mechouia grilled vegetable salad with introduction to an art form that is enjoying a a c r o s s t h e s e a s i n a tomatoes, onions and peppers. Autumn is boom in popularity, due to its links with pop m a g i c a l s h i p . the perfect time to experiment with some culture, fashion, and music. Engaging and of the tagine and roast recipes. Last unpretentious, this book explores the disci- weekend, we made the roasted lamb pline in all its facets, from opera to hip-hop; shoulder with orange and honey syrup for from circus skills to fashion. Includes profiles our Sunday roast. I am intrigued by the of contemporary dance’s 30 most influential chicken mefenned, a pot roasted chicken, exponents and choreographers, including which you tear apart with your hands and Merce Cunningham, William Forsythe, Anne 4 d a r i n g y o u n g h e r o e s . . . wrap in a parsley omelette – maybe this Teresa de Keersmaeker and Akram Khan. Sunday. t r e a c h e r y , t r a n s f o r m a t i o n s a n d a d e a d l y q u e s t . Mangia Mangia Anish Kapoor: Teresa Oates & Angela Villella Turning the World O U T N O W Penguin. HB. Upside Down Normally $39.95. Our special price $34.95 Julia Peyton-Jones et al. On a drizzly Friday morn- Walther Konig. HB. $75 ing, I made the trip out to Over the autumn of 2010, visitors to the state- Thornbury to bottle passata ly grounds of Kensington Gardens in London with Teresa and Angela, who encountered four monumental stainless-steel established Mangia Mangia sculptures by Anish Kapoor, carefully situated to introduce and reconnect to reflect and distort in their mirrored surfaces people with traditional the weather, the wildlife and the changing family methods of preparing colours of the surrounding foliage. Kapoor’s and preserving food. The morning began sculptures interact with the locale with a with the most delectable almond biscuits tremendous sensitivity, while opening up new BOOKS THAT CHANGE YOUR MIND. (Maria’s Pasta di Mandorla) and a stove-top vistas and ‘turning the world upside down’. espresso. With an enormous pot filled with Illustrated with full-colour plates of these dozens of bottles of passata on the boil, we works in situ, the book also offers a compre- could relax and enjoy lunch, which hensive overview of all of the artist’s sculptures. included home-made sun-dried tomatoes, marinated olives and salami. I couldn’t New Kimono: possibly hope to recreate this banquet (in From Vintage Style my shoe-box kitchen), but I will be making to Everyday Chic some chilli oil to spoon over pasta. In their Kodansha. PB. $39.99 cookbook, Teresa and Angela have collected Nanao magazine is a Japanese their own family recipes and have illustrat- quarterly devoted to a new ed them with family photographs, which generation who are re-invent- capture the warmth and generosity these ing the art of wearing women exude. kimono. This book is a selection of the best articles Urban Cook from Nanao, including Mark Jensen interviews with young Murdoch Books. HB. $49.95 Japanese women who consider kimono their I already have too many day-to-day garb, advice on fabrics and designs, obi, footwear and underwear, how to When nearly 7000 cookbooks, but when I am people of German looking through a new one customise vintage kimono, and fabulous vintage kimono fashion spreads. Step-by-step and Austrian descent and find myself marking were detained in every second page, I know guidelines for putting it all on and a glossary that I need to find space for of kimono terms are also included. Australia during WW1, it on my shelves. Urban photographer Paul Cook – a stellar collection of Bird Photography Dubotzki was among recipes, but also a treatise on cooking and Field Guide them. Dubotzki’s eating for a sustainable future – is such a Ilex. PB. $24.95 rediscovered book. Rather than structuring his recipes by As digital photography equipment becomes photographs and course, Red Lantern chef Mark Jensen has increasingly affordable, more and more bird- diaries reveal what chosen to divide them into simple chapters. watchers are turning their hands to capturing life was like inside the images of their favourite subject. A good The first chapter on vegetables contains internment camps. over 40 recipes, with inventive combina- knowledge of your equipment, an under- tions like carrot, orange and blackcurrant standing of both photography and field craft, salad and sweet and sour capsicum with and a firm basis in post-production tech- pineapple and basil. The variety of cultural niques are also essential if you want to capture influences reflects a truly contemporary and create high-quality bird photographs. approach to cooking. All these topics are covered in this portable guide to bird photography. www.unswpress.com.au 14 Readings Monthly April 2011

Her parents work for The Museum of Leg- they could possibly imagine. Ripped from ends and Antiquities. Her father is a curator their parents as babies, they are being pro- and has also been attempting to determine tected from a horrible evil, an evil they know the location of a famous Egyptian’s tomb. nothing about. Until now. The Emerald Kids’ Books Her archaeologist mother has just returned Atlas brims with humour and action as it Book of the Month You Are My with some of the bounty after finally discov- charts the children’s extraordinary adventures Art for Baby Special Baby ering the tomb. To everyone’s excitement, through an enchanted world. she unveils the most sought after ‘Heart Templar. Board. $24.95 Carol Chataway & of Egypt’ scarab; but Theodosia is almost Child research suggests Danny Snell (illus.) Non-fiction & Novelty overwhelmed by the evil curse that emanates that babies see images in Working Title Press. HB. $24.95 My Little World from it. The adventure begins – and what a black-and-white more A gorgeous picture book that explores the Julia Cooke & great read it makes. It is wonderfully atmo- clearly than coloured ones bonds between a parent and child and the Marjorie Crosby-Fairall spheric, has a rollicking mystery and a smart, – and of course it’s easy to love, hopes and dreams one generation has Omnibus. HB. $26.99 funny heroine, as well as a host of eccentric, see why, even as an adult. for the next, featuring Australian native Sssh, be very still. It helps if you are small sinister and spirited characters. This delight- The simplicity and clarity of black-and- animals. (if tall, bend down quietly) – look closely fully presented hardback is the perfect gift white is visually more striking; colour can and carefully and you will see a world of for eight and up. AD confuse the eye and the mind. In Art for Wolf Won’t Bite insects and plants that most people miss. Baby , 12 black-and-white artworks from Emily Gravett Bungawitta For budding young naturalists, this book pre-eminent, contemporary artists appear Macmillan. HB. $26.99 is a delightful introduction to Australian Emily Rodda boldly on the sturdy board pages to Take your seat in the front creatures and plants not normally featured Omnibus. PB. $12.99 tantalise the viewer. row and watch in wonder as in children’s nature books. The enchant- It hasn’t rained in Bungawitta in a very three cheeky circus pigs make ing rhyme and exquisite illustrations invite It introduces babies to basic shapes in a long time. So long, in fact, that the young- a wild wolf jump through children to explore the beauty and variety creative and unique way; not just one circle est person in town has only ever seen rain hoops, endure feats of of their environment. The author’s notes of- on a page but, as in Julian Opie’s ‘Natasha’, on TV. But Bungawitta’s second youngest astounding daring-do, and fer more fascinating information and direct two piercing eyes in a mesmerising face. resident, Jay, decides he’s not just going to withstand perilous games of the reader back to find things they may Sharing this book with your child will not sit around staring at the dust – he comes up dress-up. Safe in the thought have overlooked. For ages four and up. AD only be a lovely bonding experience, but with a plan to save the town by hosting an that Wolf Won’t Bite! they put their heads will nurture their visual skills and stimulate Earth Sculpture Festival. This stand alone- between his jaws ... but can you push a wolf What Body Part is That their minds. What cultured babies you will novel from the author of the Deltora Quest too far? Sure to strike a chord with anyone Andy Griffiths & Terry Denton have when they can recognise iconic artists series is a real treat. You’ll laugh out loud at who has a pet and a young child, this is a Pan. PB $14.99 from such a young age! Forget the cutesy the antics of the Bungawitta locals, and fret playful story with a snappy ending! Following the success of farm animals and bring on Keith Haring; along with them when things don’t go exactly let them chew on Damien Hirst or be What Bumosaur is That?, as planned. Bungawitta is a charming, heart- hugely popular author-illus- hypnotised by Bridget Riley’s zig-zags. I’ll Be There Ann Stott & warming glimpse into what it’s like to live trator team Andy Griffiths However, for me – and, I suspect, parents in a drought-affected area, and exactly how and Terry Denton turn their – the highlights of this book are the three Matt Phelan (illus.) much change one good idea can bring about. Candlewick. HB. $24.95 zany talents from teaching friezes that accompany it, each with a brief Holly Harper is from Readings Malvern kids the intricacies of monograph on the artist and their work. Children love the idea of growing up and doing things on their own. It’s fun to dress, bumosaurs, to teaching them Art for Babies is a collaboration between a useless made-up facts about the human body maternity nurse, the artists and their read and have showers like a big kid. But Young Adult it’s scary too. Scampering along a wall just (like how to use your head as a bowling foundations (who freely donated the Golden Day ball). Contains 68 fully illustrated, 100 per images), and the publisher. Fittingly, a out of reach, a young boy asks his mother, ‘Will you still take care of me when I’m big?’ Ursula Dubosarsky cent fact-free chapters guaranteed to percentage of the sales go to societies in the entertain. UK that support vulnerable children. This is an honest, warm-hearted portrait of a A&U. PB. $19.99 Alexa Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn child’s first steps toward independence. ‘Today, girls,’ said Miss Renshaw, ‘we shall go out into the beautiful Gardens and think Royal Wedding: Picture Books A Place to Call Home about death.’ In the Gardens they meet a William and Kate poet. What follows is inexplicable, shocking, Dress-Up Dolly Book Paul Thurlby's Alphabet Alexis Deacon & Viviane Schwartz (illus.) a scandal. What really happened that day? Is Ladybird. $9.95 Paul Thurlby ‘the truth’ as elusive as it seems? And do the Walker. HB. $29.95 This delightfully kitsch Templar. Board. $14.95 girls know more than they are letting on? paper doll dress-up book This colourful, zany picture Seven furry brothers live in a nice, safe, warm home – a very small hole. But they allows budding princes and book makes the letters of the Wilful Eye: Tales from princesses to dress Wills and alphabet memorable and fun. grow too big for the space and are forced out into the world to find a new place to call the Tower Book One Kate in a dazzling variety of From ‘A for Awesome’, to ‘Z Isobelle Carmody outfits for quintessentially for Zip’, this is a stunning their own. This determined little unit tackle & Nan McNab English outings like a book from acclaimed graphic the elements until, finally, they reach the A&U. PB. $27.99 weekend in the country or a artist Paul Thurlby, with each edge of the world. Will they ever find a place Six of the world’s best-loved writers have tea party at Buckingham Palace, as well as new page revealing a unique, they can call home? chosen fairytales as inspiration for this spell- the Royal Engagement (dress the former and highly collectable artwork. Junior & binding and subversive short-story collec- ‘Waitie Katie’ in THAT navy dress) and the Royal Wedding. Fetching and dead funny Middle Fiction tion. The collection carries universal themes Dream of of envy and desire, deception and abandon- ... especially Wills’s Union Jack boxers. the Thylacine First Light ment, courage and sacrifice. They offer no Margaret Wild & Rebecca Stead prescription for living or moral advice, and From Mummies Ron Brooks (illus.) Text. PB. $16.95. Ebook $14.95 none belong in a nursery. to Bunnies A&U. HB. $29.99 Finally released locally, First Light is Rebecca Heavens, it is all happening This arresting and beautiful Stead’s first novel, followed by the award- Thyla in April. The fabulous picture book is a shimmer- winning When You Reach Me. First Light is Kate Gordon Tutankhamen Exhibition ing encounter with the the story of Peter and Thea. Peter’s home is Random. PB. $17.95 opens at the Melbourne Tasmanian tiger, a lament New York, but he heads to Greenland with Shapeshifters, werewolves, strange creatures Museum and we have been for a lost species, and a his family, where his dad is studying the ef- of the night roaming not Europe’s, but stocking up on some great celebration of the Australian fects of climate change on the ice caps. Thea Tasmania’s, forests and coming out when background reading. landscape. It interposes lives in a secret world hidden in an Arctic the moon is full? Somehow it does seem Among the new ones are arresting text and images glacier after her people retreated there years possible! At Cascade Falls School for girls, Marcia Williams’ illustrated cartoon style of the last known thylacine in a concrete earlier, having been suspected of witchcraft the narrator Tessa, a girl with almost no Ancient Egypt Tales of Gods and Pharoahs cage with sweeping colour paintings of and almost driven to extinction. As Peter’s memory, is trying to fit in and come to (Walker, HB, $29.95) and Egyptian Diary the animal in its natural environment. visions continue to get stronger, and Thea’s terms with contemporary language and from Richard Platt’s award winning Diary Intense, poetic and beautiful, this book hopes to see above the surface escalate, this technology. But as half-memories return, series, illustrated by David Parker (Walker, will haunt you. story of determination, exploration and fam- they are of a convict women’s workhouse, PB, $19.95). Then Anzac Day and Easter ily see’s Peter and Thea’s worlds collide. the Female Factory, and an evil overseer. are just one day apart, with relevant new Katherine Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn publications including Carole Wilkinson’s And Red Galoshes With the black striped scars on her back Glenda Millard and her heightened senses she feels a freak, Frommelles (Black Dog Books, PB, $18.99), Theodosia and the and the rather more cheery If I Were the & Jonathan Bentley (illus.) but then not all the normal school girls are Serpents of Chaos Easter Bunny by Louise Gardner (Harper, Little Hare. HB. $24.95 quite what they seem. Darkly involving for R.L. LaFevers lovers of the paranormal. HB, $14.99), a good one to introduce Playing in the rain and young children to the joys of Easter kicking leaves in cool windy Sandpiper. PB. $22.95 Kathy Kozlowski is from Readings Carlton As we are about to become enamoured with bonnet making and Easter egg hunts. weather is joyful, wintery Look out too for Plague (Egmont, PB, fun. But what do you do all things Egyptian (‘Tutankhamen and the Emerald Atlas Golden Age of the Pharaohs’ comes to the John Stephens $19.95), the fourth in Michael Grant’s when your red galoshes are Gone series and the delectable new jackets too big? This beautiful text Melbourne Museum in April), now is the per- Doubleday. PB. $27.95 fect time to introduce Theodosia to the child on Janet and Alan Ahlberg’s Peepo! (Puffin, by multi-award-winner Kate, Michael, and Emma have been in Board, $16.95, PB, $14.95, HB, $19.95) Glenda Millard is brought to in your life. She is gutsy, sleeps in a sarcopha- one orphanage after another for the last ten gus, can sense evil spirits and even better, for the thirtieth anniversary of this great whimsical life by Jonathan Bentley’s dreamy years, passed along like lost baggage. Yet nursery favourite. KK and enchanting illustrations. knows how to banish them – a rare ability. these children are more remarkable than Readings Monthly March 2011 15

ReadingsBargains on the web: New books are Bargai regularly added to our nwebsite. Table Click on the Bargains tab at www.readings.com.au. MOST Cultural Amnesia Charley Harper Culinaria Greece Clive James Todd Oldham(ed.) Marianthi Milona WANTED Norton. HB. Was $49. Now $16.95 HB. Was $85. Now $39.95 Konemann. HB. Was $49.95. Now $29.95 Renowned critic Clive James Deluxe large edition. Was $400. Now $199.95 This volume leads us from presents over 100 essays, For more than six the banquet tables of ancient which illuminate, rescue, or decades, Charley symposia to the sophisticated occasionally destroy the Harper painted arrangements of haute careers of many of the colourful, graphic cuisine in the metropolises greatest thinkers and artists illustrations of – as well as the simpler fare of the twentieth century. nature, animals, enjoyed by fishermen and insects, and people. farming families. More than This coffee table 1300 coloured illustrations on 460 pages as Nina Simone tome is a tribute to his singular style. well as numerous recipes make just reading David Brun-Lambert this book an experience for the palate. Aurum. HB. Was $39.95. Now $9.95 Great Equations This biography follows Robert Crease Jonathon Swift’s Simone’s sparkling career. HB. Was $39.95. Now $14.95 Gulliver Featuring rare photographs Although most people can Martin Jenkins & and a review of all Simone’s recite Einstein’s famous little Chris Riddell (illus.) albums and hits, this is an equation, who has heard of Walker. PB. Was $27.95. Now $9.95 extensive look at the complex eighteenth-century math- This magnificent and extremely talented diva. ematician Leonhard Euler’s edition of Jonathan famous equation? Crease Swift’s adventure The World reveals ten of the greatest story contains all According to Bertie equations in Western history. four of Gulliver’s Alexander McCall Smith extraordinary Jesus voyages. Martin Polygon. HB. Was $29.95. Now $13.95 Paul Johnson Jenkins has skilfully Bertie Pollock is a precocious Viking. HB. Was $35. Now $15.95 adapted the original novel, remaining true to six-year-old whose mummy Is Jesus relevant today? Few its tone and humour, while making it forces him to play a saxo- figures have had such an accessible to younger readers. Chris Riddell phone, converse in Italian, influence on history as Jesus brings life to Swift’s searing imagination in do yoga and see a psycho- of Nazareth. Paul Johnson wonderful panoramic detail. therapist who looks a lot like offers a lively biography of A ringside seat Bertie’s baby brother, Ulysses. the man who inspired one of Doctor Zhivago the world’s great religions. Boris Pasternak on the biggest Christianity Vintage. PB. Was $12.95. Now $7.95 leak in history Ann Marie Bahr How Sex Works Yuri Zhivago, physician and Millennium House. HB. poet, wrestles with the new Was $85. Now $24.95 Valerie Laken order and the anguish of Harper. HB $49.95. Now $15.95 The Most Dangerous Man This compelling account of being torn between the love in the World is the definitive Why do we need sex? of two women. This novel 2,000 years of Christianity account of WikiLeaks and includes superb illustrations, Looking into our evolution- talks about Russia in the features on the Bible, prayer ary past, Dr. Sharon Moalem throes of revolution, offering the man who is as secretive as and liturgy, plus maps and a explores how the struggle to a love story. the organisations he targets. timeline. A exceptionally fine survive and create healthy Fear and Loathing Through interviews with Julian large reference book. offspring determines our Assange, his inner circle and sexuality. in Las Vegas those who fell out with him, Australia’s Hunter S. Thompson Harper. PB. Was $25. Now $8.95 Fowler tells the story of how a Remarkable Trees The Kindly Ones man with a turbulent childhood Richard Allen & Kimbal Baker Jonathon Littell You might have read On the Road; you must read Fear and brilliance for computers Vintage. PB. Was $27.95. Now $8.95 Miegunyah. HB. Was $65. Now $19.95 and Loathing, a hilarious take created a phenomenon that With 164 million hectares of Former Nazi Dr. Maximilien on America through the has become a game-changer in forest and a geography that Aue has reinvented himself, drugged eyes of one of journalism and global politics. includes snowy mountains, many years after the war. America’s most original and lush rainforests, harsh deserts Through the eyes of this anarchic journalists. In this international thriller, and rich tablelands, Austra- cultivated yet monstrous lia’s variety of trees is Andrew Fowler gives a ringside man, we experience the seat on the biggest leak in matched by few countries. horrors of World War II. What Happens Next Marc Norman history. He charts the pursuit Minimal Art Aurum. HB. Was $49.95. Now $16.95 of Assange by the US and Resistance Memoirs In this fresh take on the mov- Sweden and how in the eyes Daniel Marzona of Occupied France Taschen. HB. Was $35. Now $9.95 ies, veteran Oscar-winning of many Assange had become, Agnes Humbert screenwriter Marc Norman according to the Pentagon A backlash against abstract Bloomsbury. HB. Was $39.95. Now $15.95 gives us the first comprehen- expressionism, minimalism sive history of the men and Papers whistleblower, Daniel was characterised by simpli- Humbert’s account of her Ellsberg, ‘the most dangerous work for the resistance in women who penned some fied, stripped-down forms of the greatest movies of all man in the world’. used to express ideas in a occupied Paris and her arrest and deportation to a labor time. Impeccably researched, direct manner. Featured erudite, and filled with unforgettable stories, artists include Carl Andre, camp in Germany is an invaluable addition to works What Happens Next is a unique and engross- Stephen Antonakos, Eva ing narrative of the quintessential art form Hesse, Donald Judd and Anne Truitt. highlighting the role of AVAILABLE 28 MARCH women during war-time. of our time. Musica The House of Wisdom The Blackest Streets Vladimir Ashkenazy Sarah Wise Millenium House. HB. Was $80. Now $24.95 Jonathon Lyons Bloomsbury. HB. Was $60. Now $16.95 Bodley Head. HB. Was $69.95. Now $16.95 A lavishly illustrated, ‘The Blackest Streets is an comprehensive reference to This lively history book excellent and intelligent 1000 years of western classical shows how, for centuries investigation of the realities music. Features hundreds of following the fall of Rome, of urban living that respond colour photographs, artworks, Western Europe was a world to no design or directive ... manuscripts and maps, along of subsistence farming This is a book about the with authoritative and and violent conflict, and nature of London itself.’ – engaging text. meanwhile, Arab civilisation was thriving. Peter Ackroyd, The Times. www.mup.com.au 16 Readings Monthly April 2011 LEBANON TREME: SEASON 1 Released 6 April. $34.95 Released $39.95. Blu-ray $49.95 June, 1982. The first From the creators of The Wire Lebanon War has begun. comes a new series about New DVDs A lone tank holding four adversity and the human novices is dispatched to spirit. Residents in New search a hostile town, Orleans struggle to preserve DVD OF THE MONTH TIME WITHOUT PITY which has been bombard- their culture in the aftermath GAINSBOURG Released 13 April. $14.95 ed by the Israeli Air of the greatest man-made $39.95 Tension rises to fever pitch in Force. What should have disaster in American history. Based on the remarkable life Joseph Losey’s ingenious been a simple mission gradually spirals of iconic French singer, psychological thriller about out of control with the soldiers pushed to WHEN YOU’RE STRANGE: poet, writer and actor Serge an alcoholic who has one day their limits in a struggle to survive. A FILM ABOUT THE DOORS Gainsbourg, this film is a to save his son from the Released 6 April. $34.95 surreal and evocative record gallows. The long-absent THE FLOWERS Narrated by Johnny Depp, of Gainsbourg’s youth. father races against time to OF ST. FRANCIS this film is an intimate It charts his growing up prove his son is not a killer. Released 13 April. $29.95 exploration of one of the in 1940s Nazi-occupied Stars Michael Redgrave and Leo McKern. A grand journey of hope world’s most influential rock Paris (when he was known as Lucien and a timeless search for bands. Uncovering previously Ginsberg), through to his transformation PREDICAMENT spiritual enlightenment. unseen footage of the rock into the hard-living showman, enfant Released 14 April. $34.95 Roberto Rossellini and quartet, this documentary terrible and successful song-writer of the Naive teenager Cedric Federico Fellini convey provides new insight into the 50s and 60s (famous for his glamorous Williamson conspires with the teachings of the revolutionary impact of the music of The lovers, including Brigitte Bardot and Jane two misfits to photograph people’s saint through a Doors. Other titles in the Arthouse series Birkin), to his notoriety in the 70s and and blackmail adulterous captivating series of available for $19.95, for a limited time only. 80s. A visually and narratively innovative couples. When the scam goes personal vignettes, illustrating the power project, featuring special effects from the wrong, they end up with of humility, compassion and sacrifice. GASLAND makers of Pan’s Labyrinth, Gainsbourg is blood on their hands and Released 13 April. $34.95 groundbreaking cinema. Cedric finds himself in a THE HAIRDRESSER’S The billion dollar energy predicament. Stars Jermaine Clement from HUSBAND industry has a dirty little Flight of the Conchords. Released 13 April. $29.95 secret. Hydraulic fracturing CITY ISLAND As a boy, his two greatest has contaminated the water $19.95. Blu-ray $24.95 POWELL & PRESSBURGER delights were dancing to supply, the corporate giants Set in a quaint fishing DIRECTOR SUITE SERIES: Arabic music and having are in cover-up mode, and community on the outskirts A CANTERBURY TALE his hair cut by the local the PR-heavy government of New York City, City Island I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING hairdresser. But as a has not only turned a blind is a hilarious and touching Released 6 April. $34.95 ea grown man, is he willing eye, but has regulated itself out of the tale about a family whose The films of Michael Powell to put childish things picture. Rough-hewn yet poetic, this film is comfortable co-existence is and Eric Pressburger are aside? Fearing his a plea for scrutiny of a powerful industry upended by surprising among the best British films maturity has gotten the better of him, yet that has turned its eyes on a new and (for revelations of past secrets and of the twentieth century. driven by youthful desires, Antoine now) largely unexplored territory: Australia. present-day lies. Stars Andy Garcia, Alan Renowned for their represen- romances Mathilde, a sultry hairdresser Arkin and Julianna Margulies. tation of ancient mysticism who takes him on a sensual voyage of GARDENS OF THE WORLD and Celtic mythology; both rediscovery and celebration, in one of the WITH AUDREY HEPBURN THE CLOUDED YELLOW these titles show a rare most original love stories ever told. Released 14 April. $29.95 Released 13 April. $14.95 beauty, combining romance, comedy, Imagine the world’s most When ex-spy David Somers suspense and a sense of the supernatural. MAD MEN: SEASON 4 elegant tour guide, illuminat- takes a low-profile job in the Released 6 April. $49.95 Blu-ray $69.95 ing some of the world’s most country cataloguing a LORD OF THE RINGS In Mad Men, the glass breathtaking vistas. The butterfly collection, he finds BLU-RAY ceiling is dangerously low, Emmy-winning PBS series that dangerous work Released 7 April. Blu-ray $89.95 and sexism reigns in a features the graceful film continues to pursue him. Enjoy this fantastical trilogy way that may shock icon, in her last screen He becomes embroiled in on Blu-ray and experience viewers. But this isn’t the appearance before her death a murder mystery and goes the sound and picture quality prim 60s: these characters in 1993, hosting a tour of the world’s most ‘underground’ with a beautiful suspect. that this format was made seduce, smoke, and swig spectacular gardens. Hepburn was a garden- The fugitives stay one step ahead of the for. Your television will never with abandon. A drama ing enthusiast (at least one rose and one police, until the breathless climax. be the same again! 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presented by Readings Monthly April 2011 17 MASTERPIECES OF THE HERMITAGE Released 14 April. $49.95 Dancing with the A breathtaking journey New Release CDs through time, culture and Devil: Cult Classics with Gerard Elson, Readings St Kilda art. This 18-part series classical piano background with sparse elec- includes stunning images of As Devil (2010) creeps tronica, austere drum loops and that voice treasures that represent the onto DVD this month, it CD of the Month to create something intensely moody and development of world seems opportune to King of Limbs at times quite breathtaking. This is a record culture and art, from the spotlight a couple of The Radiohead that benefits from close attention, preferably Stone Age to the twentieth Unholy One’s vintage Normally $29.95. alone in a locked room or on headphones. century. Originally built in 1754, the State starring roles. Worthy of Our Special Price $19.95 for a limited time. It’s a slow burner and requires some work, Hermitage museum in St Petersberg particular note are two Vinyl also available: Normally $29.95. but reveals new shimmering layers of beauty occupies six buildings and is home to more films which have recently Our Special Price $24.95 for a limited time. upon every listen. Absorbing. DM than three million masterpieces, collected clawed themselves up from the yowling pit over two and a half centuries, from every of import-only obscurity and onto local A new Radiohead album is an event – and hot on the Angles school of Western art. shelves at long last: William Diertele’s The Strokes oft-lampooned moral parable, The Devil heels of the digital release, Normally $26.95. Our special price $21.95 LA DANSE and Daniel Webster (1941), and Jacques their latest sonic adventure King of Limbs hits stores on It’s been five years between Tourneur’s compromised occult chiller, Released 6 April. $34.95 albums for New York outfit Night of the Demon (1957). March 25. Anyone expect- The Paris Opera Ballet is one ing another Bends or OK Computer should The Strokes. Their long- of the world’s great ballet Each presents a different if still ‘canonical’ really have given up by now, at the risk of awaited fourth LP – and companies. La Danse follows incarnation of ol’ Nick, who, when the massive disappointment and point-missing, as the first to be written the rehearsals and perfor- entire cosmic sweep of human myth and King of Limbs certainly ain’t it. What it is is collaboratively as a band, mances of seven ballets: literature is surveyed, really is about the the sound of a band on the move and a thing rather than just Casablancas – Angles is the Genus, Le Songe de Medée, La most pliable character in the history of of textured beauty. As in much of their recent most eclectic of the band’s albums to date. Maison de Bernarda, Paquita, storytelling. Diertele’s film takes Stephen work, it’s a record that creeps up on you and As the album title implies, new directions Casse Noisette, Orphée and Vincent Benét’s same-titled short fiction the sound is loop-heavy, but when it’s are approached and explored here, though Eurydice, and Romeo and Juliette. as its source, which Benét appropriated Radiohead controlling the loopiness, well tracks such as Under Cover of Darkness and from Washington Irving’s The Devil and … loop away, I say. As only Radiohead can Taken for a Fool still retain elements of what GRAND DESIGNS ABROAD Tom Walker, which itself was a then-con- do, they’ve once again produced a record we love so much about the band’s sound.

Released 7 April. $39.95 temporary spin on the German legend uniquely theirs – and now yours. Miranda La Fleur is from Readings St Kilda Grand Designs is now of Faust. It’s a tale you know well: mired Declan Murphy is from Readings St Kilda travelling abroad, following in a moment of avaricious daydream, a BAD MACHINES self-builders creating their hapless everyman utters the line ‘Why, Shane Nicholson dream homes in amazing I’d give my soul for a …’ CUE: the $24.95 landscapes. Each episode miraculous appearance of a glib, charmed Take a couple of weeks follows the in-depth process stranger who can divest our hero’s earthly Pop/Rock away in the Hunter Valley of an ambitious design ALELA DIANE woes with a snap of his mystic fingers. (in the middle of winter no project, from the initial The price? Why, only that very soul he & WILD DIVINE less!), take along a stack of blueprints to the often arduous tasks of but moments ago disavowed as if it were Alela Diane Bob Dylan albums to listen turning designs into practical living space. pocket lint … Here, farmer Jabez Stone $25.95 to and a trusty guitar, and Language barriers and foreign planning laws (James Craig) might just be Mr. Scratch’s Alela Diane has been a the result is pure joy. I have been listening to make for interesting times. cheapest client ever. For all he covets lesser-known member of Shane Nicholson since his debut 2003 as barter is two measly cents! Proving this century’s American folk VALHALLA RISING album It’s A Movie and was instantly struck wickedness needn’t preclude equitability, music revival. Others, such by just how much of a wonderful songwriter Released 13 April. $29.95 Scratch (puckish Walter Hudson) instead as Joanna Newsom or Iron and storyteller he is. I liken him to Neil Valhalla Rising is the brutal, tempts Stone with a pecuniary jackpot & Wine, have attracted far Finn, which is saying something. He just has epic story of a mute and seven years of kingly prosperity. more attention and sales. But that may well a knack of feeding your heart and soul with Scandinavian slave known Naturally, Stone accepts. Anyone familiar change with the release of her third (proper) wonderful stories. Bad Machines is no only as One Eye, whose fate with the Simpsons ep in which Homer album, Wild Divine. She has been a favou- different. You just get caught up in the takes a different course when and family out-litigate Devil Flanders rite of the music team at Readings Carlton wonder of Blueberry Pie and Hammer and he manages to escape and, to a jury of history’s most notorious since her first album, Pirates Gospel, in 2006. Nail while shedding a tear with the joyful after meeting a group of nogoodniks will find fun in discover- Fans of Neko Case or Laura Veirs should sorrow of The Broken Things and Whistling Crusaders, is convinced to ing just how on-the-nail that send-up is. certainly check this out. Cannonballs, a duet with Paul Kelly. You join them in their fight for the Holy Land. As the film’s eponymous real-life orator, Dave Clarke is from Readings Carlton need to listen to this album – you need to An intriguing amalgam of Norse mythology, Edward Arnold (in the performance that listen to all of Nicholson’s albums! religious historiography and ultra-violence, cast the mold for ‘down home Southern Seasons of My Soul Lou Fulco is from Readings Carlton Valhalla Rising is epic, brutal and utterly attorney’), stays the forces evil with nothin’ Rumer captivating. Stars Mads Mikkelsen. but a little lawyerly ingenuity and some $21.95 HOW TO BECOME powerful rousin’ speechifyin’. Nice to learn Having read fantastic things CLAIRVOYANT IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF that even Beelzebub is governed by the about this record in the UK caprices of the American court of law. Robbie Robertson FAMOUS COMPOSERS press as far back as Novem- $21.95. Deluxe 2 CD version $25.95

Released 13 April. $49.95 Night of the Demon, on the other hand, ber – and with no sign of a Released April 8 This ten-part series criss- strips the fiend of its humanness to sum- local release – I was forced Robbie Robertson was crosses the continent in the mon a more Blakean Satan. It’s a vision to import a few copies from named one of Rolling footsteps of ten of the world’s Tourneur never wanted in his film, which the US, just to see if the accolades were Stone’s 100 Greatest Guitar- greatest classical music was intended as a psychological slow-burn- justified. They were, and after a couple of ists of All Time. How To composers. At each stop, a er of commensurate tenor to M.R. James’ spins in the shop, the imported copies were Become Clairvoyant is his musician or historian serves Casting the Runes, the short story upon promptly snapped up, so it’s great to see it fifth solo album and his as our guide to the great which Charles Bennett’s script was based. finally hit our shores. Rumer is an English first record in more than ten years. Guitar composers’ public and But, famously, when producer/co-writer songstress of Pakistani descent and is virtuosos Eric Clapton (who co-wrote three private lives. Interviews blend with narra- Hal E. Chester saw the broody, conspicu- possessed of quite a remarkable voice. The tracks with Robertson), Tom Morello and tion, archive materials and musical sequenc- ously creature-free thinker Tourneur and Karen Carpenter comparisons seem ubiqui- Robert Randolph guest on the album; it also es to paint ten intimate portraits. Follow in Bennett had cooked up, he flipped: where tous; and though the similarity and clarity of features Steve Winwood and Trent Reznor. the footsteps of Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Verdi, was the devil in Night of the Demon? Re- tone is striking, Rumer’s debut leaves the Robertson was a founding member of The Beethoven, Vivaldi, Bizet, Puccini, Berlioz, shoots were ordered and the film wrested listener in no doubt as to its authenticity. Band, penning such classic songs as The Mahler and Offenbach. For lovers of the from Tourneur’s control. Scenes with a There are shades of Laura Nyro, Dusty Weight, The Night They Drove Old Dixie Classical Destinations series. goofy Muppet monster—all horns, fangs Springfield and most noticeably Burt Down and Up on Cripple Creek. DC and bat wings—were inserted, thus liter- Bacharach. (Indeed, the great man personally BAMBI alising (and hence, castrating) the stygian invited Rumer to sing for him at his home, so Summers in Mariana Released $39.95. Blu-ray $49.95 dread Tourneur had elsewhere conjured impressed was he by her talent.) This is a Stina wonderful, deeply personal and breakthrough Reflecting an age of inno- so well. And yet the film remains un- $19.95 cence and a time of wonder, doubtedly unnerving; its enduring status record that plays like a lost 70s classic and proves that Rumer is one to watch. DM Stina Thomas is a well- no film better captures the as a classic is easy to understand. I guess respected composer and pure magic of Disney than when the imposition of an endearingly James Blake performer in Perth, where Bambi – the world’s most hokey rubber hellion is your biggest she currently resides. endearing animated tale gripe with a supernatural horror flick, James Blake Summers in Mariana is her about the beauty of nature you’re probably not faring too poorly. $26.95 second album, and it and the miracle of life. This The Devil and Daniel Webster ($16.95) Having gained much critical acclaim for his consists of ten beautifully crafted instrumen- immortal blend of classic storytelling and and Night of the Demon ($24.95) previous EPs, precocious British talent James tal pieces. These predominantly feature a unforgettable characters comes to breathtak- are available now through Shock. Devil Blake releases his debut long player – and combination of keyboard instruments ing life through the artistry of some of ($39.95) is out now through Universal. what could be an early contender for various (piano, harmonium, korg) around which are Disney’s all-time greatest animators. ‘best of 2011’ awards. Blake combines his 18 Readings Monthly April 2011 woven various beats, loops, and samples, THE MAJESTIC leader seem to have drawn him into a more with tremendous understated melody and SILVER STRINGS direct, overtly melodic area. Album number attention to tonal subtlety. This is a warm, Buddy Miller three sees the piano sing like it very rarely intimate album: playful, joyous, deeply does, mixing originals with clever choices by $24.95 emotional, and highly recommended. Ornette Coleman, Hermeto Pascoal and Buddy is joined by fellow Lisa MacKinney is from Readings Carlton Paul Bley. Just magical. RM ‘pickers’ Marc Ribot, Bill Frisell and Greg Leisz for SO BEAUTIFUL an album of great musi- OR SO WHAT cianship; not only in the Paul Simon playing, but in the singing Out Now Released 8 April. Normally $26.95. as well. Featured here is a swag of guest All Eternals Deck (Mountain Goats), Our special price $21.95 vocalists, including Emmylou Harris, Patty Take The High Road(Blind Boys of Alabama). It’s been five years since Griffin, Shawn Colvin and Miller’s wife, Paul Simon released an Julie. They play reinterpretations of country all-new album, and – thank and folk standards, along with several goodness – it’s been worth original tunes. While after the first few the wait. It features tracks you feel you have stumbled onto a RLookeleased Out 8 Ap Forril wonderful infectious western swing hayride, the album has a fine I Want That You Are Always Happy (Middle orchestration and mischievous lyrics: all the overall balance of the then and now. LF East), Moment Bends (Architecture in Hel- elements that were so enjoyable back in the sinki) Wasting Light (Foo Fighters), Gather- time of the Graceland album. It’s been ages ing Mercury (Colin Hay), Rrakala (Geoffrey since I’ve heard songs with such intricate Gurrumul Yunupingu). layering of instruments, with words that touch on the everyday, expressed with Soundtrack Released 15 April sarcasm and wit. Top it off with great Norwegian Wood Apocalypse (Bill Callahan), Paper Airplane rollicking choruses, and this is a must-have. Soundtrack (Alison Krauss), Rock n Roll is Where I Hide Alice Bisits is from Readings Malvern Jonny Greenwood Nine Types of Light $24.95 (Dave Graney) (TV on SING IT LOUD Accompanying director the Radio). k.d. lang and Tran Anh Hung’s film adaptation of Haruki Coming 2 May The Siss Boom Bang Helplessness Blues (Fleet Foxes) Deluxe edition with extra tracks. Normally Murakami’s bestselling novel Norwegian Wood is $29.95. Our special price $22.95 Coming 23 May It’s off to Nashville with the soundtrack, which Born This Way Lady( Gaga) k.d. and the band she has features an instrumental score by Jonny personally selected for this Greenwood (guitarist of Radiohead) very laid-back, twangy performed by the BBC Concert Orchestra bunch of songs. Many of and the Emperor Quartet, as well as three the tracks were recorded tracks written and performed by Can. This is live in Middletree Studios in Nashville, Greenwood’s third film project; it’s has been owned by producer Joe Pisapia. Featuring described by the Irish Independent as an beautiful dobro guitar by Joshua Grange and ‘evocative and frequently plaintive score’ and keyboards by Daniel Clarke, k.d. is in sees Greenwood’s reputation as an expert amazing voice, as you would expect. Her orchestral craftsman gathering strength. version of the Talking Heads song Heaven is Greenwood also wrote the score for Bodysong truly striking, so yes – it’s another winner for in 2003 and composed the music for There your collection. AB Will Be Blood, for which he was awarded Best Film Score at the Evening Standard The Last British Film Awards for 2007, as well as the Ivor Novello Award for Best Original Film The Unthanks Score. MLF $24.95 10% OFF We hear the word ‘buzz’ a lot these days, but these ANY OF OUR folks surely deserve it, with their fourth album showing Jazz Special a marked growth. These folk-ternative mournsters of the Month draw on folk iconoclasts like Fairport, RESTORED RETURNED Steeleye and the Incredible String Band, while Tord Gustaven retaining a modern indie sensibility à la Normally $32.95. Our special price $19.95. VINYL Sufjan/Devendra/Antony/Joanna. All of For a limited time ALL THOUGH which sounds like rather a neither here-nor- Tord Gustavsen’s piano there approach, but believe me, it works. trilogy of recent years Songs of raw and (let’s be honest) immensely comprises one of the most depressing naked emotion, delivered by the beautiful – and popular – sublime Rachel Unthank. Songs of consider- artistic statements seen for APRIL able originality (which this frankly cliché- many years. We have riddled scribe seems unable to do justice). limited quantities of this, his latest album This is music beyond adjectives: just buy it. from 2010, at a very special price. On this Richard Mohr is a guest reviewer album he took a leap into uncharted territory, adding tenor/soprano sax and the AT READINGS mesmerising, ethereal voice of Kristin CARLTON, Asbjornsen. HAWTHORN HCountryERE WE GO AGAIN & ST KILDA* Willie Nelson, Wynton Marsalis with Norah Jones Jazz Normally $26.95. Our special price $21.95 FAITHFUL Miles Davis, Tom Waits, Given the rousing artistic Marcin Wasilewski Trio The Velvet Underground, and commercial success $29.95 Bob Dylan, Radiohead, of the first recorded One of the quiet pleasures collaboration of legendary of recent years has been Leonard Cohen and more! country troubadour watching the amazing Willie Nelson and jazz talent of this unit evolve, Check out our website for a statesman Wynton Marsalis on 2008’s first as the young group full listing of what’s in-store. Blue Note album Two Men With the Blues, that grounded trumpet- it’s not surprising that the pair would ren- er Tomasz Stanko’s leap to superstar sales * Offer in-store only, not online. dezvous again. This album was recorded live figures and every award in the book, then as On in-stock full-price items at New York’s Jazz at Lincoln Center, with their own unit, releasing two superb discs special guest Norah Jones. The album and playing a revelatory Melbourne concert only. Offer ends 30.04.11 pays homage to the music of the late last year. Wasilewski has a truly gossamer- Ray Charles, the iconic star of soul, like touch, even by ECM’s lyrical, reflective

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Rachmaninov: most serene; the work has an almost drone- Rhapsody on a Theme like quality. The Clarinet Concerto too is of Paganini/ Piano dreamy and meandering but is lifted, here Concerto No. 2 and there, to moments of jazz-like animation. Classical CDs Evan Meagher is from Readings Hawthorn Yuja Wang, Claudio Abbado Serious Songs & Mahler Chamber Orchestra Virtuoso Teddy Tahu Rhodes DG. 4779308. Normally $26.95 Ray Chen Classical CD ABC Classics. 4764363. $26.95 Our special price $21.95. Sony Classical. 88697808122. $22.95 The new release from opera Limited stock at this price The young Australian of the Month superstar Teddy Tahu With this new recording, violinist has now won two Ravel: The Complete Rhodes is called Serious Yuja Wang continues to of the world’s biggest Solo Piano Music Songs and lives up to its climb the heights of the performance prizes, making Steven Osborne name, right from the classical world. These him hot property. His performances again show Hyperion. CDA 677312 opening chords. But far debut for Sony, featuring from being simply serious, it is profound what a wonderful pianist she music by Bach, Tartini, Franck and Wien- Normally $59.95 is developing into – and Rachmaninov, for any Our special price $33.95 and emotional, highlighting his dramatic iawski, struck me at first as being very much voice and style. Tahu Rhodes gets magnifi- pianist, is always a great test of their musical about showing off Chen’s versatility, so I was Limited stock at this price abilities. Wang and Abbado move gracefully Ravel is traditionally cent support from the TSO, MSO, the surprised by how coherent the program felt Australian String Quartet and pianist through each movement of the Rhapsody and on listening – each work defined by a certain known for his stunning the pleasure she derives from performing this use of orchestral colour Kristian Chong: these artists lend a lush and kind of passionate energy, the production of evocative accompaniment and have mo- work is at once recognisable to the listener. which seems to be one of Chen’s particular – but in this new 2 CD set One never gets tired of hearing the Second from Steven Osborne, he ments of their own to shine. Featuring works strengths. The Tartini is appropriately from Brahms and favourite Lieder, such as Piano Concerto and Wang’s charismatic furious. The Franck sonata is a truly great shows that he is also a performance, combined with beautiful master of colour on a piano. Featuring his Schubert’s Erlkonig and Samuel Barber’s version and calls for the kind of drama Chen Dover Beach, this recording comes highly support from Abbado and the Mahler delivers – as does the Wieniawski, a personal complete solo piano works, there are the Chamber Orchestra, will surely delight. PR eternal favourites, Pavane pour une infant recommended. KR favourite of Chen’s, and evidently so. EM defunte and Le Tombeau de Couperin, J.S. Bach: St. Matthew interspersed with shorter single movement Gershwin: Rhapsody in Mahler: works. Osborne describes making this Blue/Piano Concerto Passion (3 CDs) Symphony No. 2 recording as ‘a labour of love’ and it is Stefano Bollani Jos Van Veldhoven Sir Simon Rattle & BPO highly apparent in the delicacy of his touch. & Riccardo Chailly & Netherlands Bach Society EMI. 6473632. $19.95 It has that frisson of feeling that only Ravel Decca. 4782739. Normally $26.95 Channel Classics. CCSSA32511. $54.95 Simon Rattle is well known for his Mahler in- can produce, in the hands of a master. With Our special price $21.95 The Netherlands Bach Society have rede- terpretations. Here at Readings, it’s mostly for detailed liner notes about each piece and a Limited stock at this price fined the possibilities of Bach performance his complete box-set of all the symphonies, personal note from Stephen Osborne, this You either love him or hate and recording with their string of acclaimed done with the City of Birmingham Sym- is a great way to explore the repertoire of him, and before we go Channel Classics releases in recent times. phony Orchestra. Now, with the high-profile one of the world’s favourite composers. further, I will admit to They conclude with the big ’un, St Matthew Berliner Philharmoniker, he has re-recorded Kate Rockstrom is from Readings Carlton adoring Gershwin’s music. Passion, and it is an absolute beauty! The re- the Symphony No. 2, Resurrection. Featur- cording was made in collaboration with the ing the vocals of Kate Royal and Magdalena With the new recording from Decca, it will give Catharijne Convent Museum of Utrecht, Kozena, this is one of Mahler’s most popular those who dislike his music even more to and the truly lavish packaging contains a symphonies, and though it’s long, it’s also talk about. Stefano Bollani has been called a glorious written and visual accompaniment very accessible. With Rattle’s usual deft touch ‘jazz star’, while Riccardo Chailly is consid- to this immortal music, drawing on the and the Berliner Philharmoniker’s amazing Classical Special ered one of the premier conductors still unmatched archives of the Museum, which ensemble and musicality, I will be surprised alive. What do you get when you mix them? possesses the largest collection of liturgical if this doesn’t become a standard to hold all of the Month Why, just about perfect Gershwin of course! art in the Netherlands. The young solo- other recordings to. KR Sir Thomas Beecham: Full of joy, and the cheekiness inherent in ists all shine brightly, and this stunningly The Later Tradition Gershwin’s music, this blend of jazz and designed 3 CD set is presented at less than Britten: Cello classical has never been so beautiful. We the price of two CDs. Symphony, (8 CDs) Richard Mohr is a guest reviewer Sir Thomas Beecham & RPO often forget that Gershwin was a ground- Orchestral Works breaker in his time, and this recording makes EMI. 9186112. $29.95 Paul Watkins it sound fresh and new all over again. KR Ross Edwards: This collection deals & BBC Philharmonic Heart of Night primarily with the classic Sound the Bells!: Melbourne Symphony Chandos CHAN10658. Normally $34.95 performances Beecham Orchestra Our special price $19.95. While stocks last conducted with the Royal American Premieres As an overview of Britten’s orchestral writ- ABC Classics 4763768. $26.95 Philharmonic Orchestra, for Brass ing, this disc makes for an interesting compi- which he established aged The Bay Brass Ross Edwards is among lation, contrasting the edginess of his famous 67. Beecham’s recordings of the Beethoven Harmonia Mundi. HMU 807556. $33.95 Australia’s most loved symphony for cello and orchestra – written and Schubert symphonies in particular are, Most people shudder when they see a brass contemporary composers. originally for Rostropovich – with sym- for this reviewer, particularly memorable. CD in front of them – but in the case of this His belief that music should phonic suites drawn from two operatic works, Also included here are some pieces by recording, it would be worthwhile taking the not be so esoteric, but Peter Grimes and Gloriana. The latter, rarely Richard Strauss; Beecham was early time to listen to this disc. The Bay Brass has should seduce its audience, performed, was a critical failure as an opera, champion of these works, as well as music put together an excellent program of brass is evident in his music, which often has a but the symphonic suite Britten extracted from Brahms, Liszt, Mendelssohn, music, with contributions from John Wil- dreamy, meditative quality. On this disc, from it is great. Edward Gardner and the Wagner and Suppe. There can be few (if liams, Kevin Puts and Scott Hiltzik. Stand- Diana Doherty’s wonderful recording of BBC Philharmonic are very much at home any) musicians who have single-handedly out tracks are the O Magnum Mysterium by Edwards’ oboe concerto, released a few years with this music, while Paul Watkins adds done so much in the establishment of Lauridsen and Bruce Broughton’s Fanfares, ago, is presented alongside two new record- plenty of bite to the cello symphony. EM. resources for musical performance as Marches Hymns & Finale. The playing is of ings by the MSO – the Clarinet Concerto, Heart of Night This and other new releases from Chandos are, Sir Thomas Beecham. PR the highest order and the recording quality is with David Thomas, and – a work for Shakuhachi and orchestra, featuring as every month, available for the introductory excellent. Highly recommended. price of $19.95, for a limited time. Phil Richards is from Readings Carlton Riley Lee. Heart of Night is Edwards at his

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Betty Churcher This is your invitation to a very special event Hear Author, artist, and former gallery director Betty Churcher, talking with Chris McAuliffe about her suburb new book Notebooks. As Director of the National Gallery of Australia, Betty Churcher Libbi worked for years to bring some of the world’s best art to Australia. After the shock degeneration of her eyesight in 2003, she set out to travel the world and make her Notebooks, a book full of writing on, and sketches of, her favourite pieces of art. Gorr Monday 18 April, 6pm-7:30 pm, North Fitzroy Star Hotel on Mummy Manners 32/36 St Georges Road South, Fitzroy. Tickets: $45 per person, Don't miss the comedian, broadcaster includes a glass of wine and a copy of Notebooks. Book by calling and author (formerly known as Elle 9347 6633. Please book soon: this event will sell out. McFeast) talking about The A-Z of Mummy Manners, her new guide to keeping other mothers under control. Thursday 7 April, 6.30pm Readings Carlton, 309 Lygon St. Entry by gold coin donation, but please book on 9347 6633.