Free july 2011 Readings Monthly • • • Peter Salmon Ann Patchett Alan Hollinghurst Robert Hughes image from gillian welch's new album the harrow and harvest (see p18)

Gillian Welch’s long-awaited new album p 17

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

non-fiction aus fiction fiction fiction ya DVD POp CD CLASSICAL $50 $39.95 $29.99 $24.95 $30 $24.95 $33 $27.95 $19.95 $24.95 $25.95 $21.95 $24.95 >> p19 >> p5 >> p6 >> p7 >> p8 >> p14 >> p16 (for July) >> p17

July event highlights : Matthew Evans on Winter on the Farm. James Boyce at Readings Carlton, Favel Parrett, Rosalie Ham. See 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

travel card travel card

Instant WIN a $10,000 4000 1234 5678 9010 4000 5678 9010 4000 1234 4000 GOOD THRU 00/00 GOOD THRU 00/00

ANZ Travel Card It’s money made to travel Purchase any Lonely Planet product with a promotional sticker from 9am 04/06/11 until ANZ Travel Card ANZ Travel Cards 5pm 31/07/11 and visit lonelyplanet.com/anztravelcard to be in the running to win... 1 worth $10,000 10 worth $2,500 each Browse and buy at readings.com.au and in store at – Carlton, St Kilda, Port Melbourne, Hawthorn, Malvern and the State Library of Victoria Visit lonelyplanet.com/anztravelcard for full terms and conditions. This promotion is open to legal residents of Australia aged 18+. To enter this promotion, eligible entrants must, during the promotional period a) purchase any Lonely Planet product featuring a promotional sticker from a participating retail store or from shop.lonelyplanet.com; and b)Visit lonelyplanet.com/anztravelcard, follow the prompts to the online entry form, enter all the requested details including the unique code found on the promotional sticker and submit the fully completed online entry form. Promotion commences at 9am AEST on Saturday, 4th June, 2011 and ends for purchases at 5pm AEST on Sunday 31st July, 2011. Entries close at 11.59pm on Sunday 31st July, 2011. The promoter is Lonely Planet Publications Pty Limited (ABN 36 005 607 983) of 90 Maribyrnong Street, Footscray, Victoria 3011.Retain original sticker (showing the unique code) and original purchase receipt (showing date/time/store of purchase) for all entries. Winners of prizes valued at over $250 will be published in The Australian on 26/8/11. Authorised under NSW Permit No. LTPS/11/03301, VIC Permit No. 11/836, ACT Permit No. TP 11/01427.1 and SA Permit No. T11/750

WIN a $10,000

Instant code ow to enter to ow

ANZ Travel Card h

eal your unique unique your eal

and details on details and open up to rev to up open 2 Readings Monthly July 2011

Meet the bookseller From the Editor with … Luke May, Readings St Kilda So far, 2011 seems to be the year of women’s This2011 ORANGE Month’sThink Inc News writing. Or – the year of talking about PRIZE WINNER On September 18, a science and rationalism Why do you work in women’s writing, how it’s overlooked, and Congratulations to Téa conference will be held in Melbourne. It will books? how to fix the problem. And just when you explore what we, as a global community, Obreht, who became the People who read are think maybe you’re imagining the problem need to do in the next ten years in order to youngest woman ever to win more interesting and as larger than it is, something comes along to survive and flourish. Speakers include Tim the Orange Prize, when her better furnished to confirm all your suspicions. Flannery, Michael Shermer and many more. debut novel The Tiger’s Wife imagine different worlds Readings will be there too! For tickets and In Australia, it was the all-male Miles short- was awarded the prize on 8 than our own, with the more information, visit www.thinkinc.org.au. list – the second in three years. That’s given June. The prize comes with exception of lunatics, drunks, mystics added impetus to a concerted effort to set up £30,000 and ‘celebrates STORYTIME AT the STATE and the occasional genius. I figure it’s an Australian version of the Orange Prize. excellence, originality and accessibility in best to keep within swimming distance (Declaration: I’m on the steering commit- women’s writing from throughout the LIBRARY OF VICTORIA of sanity and work with those who only tee for the fledgling prize, along with all the world’. The Tiger’s Wife is available from Join us for our very first storytime held at exhibit small amounts of the former. women involved in the Readings’ Interna- Readings at a special price of $24.95 the State Library of Victoria Readings shop. tional Women’s Day event that started it all.) (Orion, PB, Normally $29.99). Author Sally Gould will read from her beau- What’s the best book you’ve read lately? It’s a little-known fact that the bestselling tiful Chase through Venice. For children aged Woefully, too many books published out- Orange Prize winners (including Andrea MELBOURNE two to five years old. Free event, no need to side our Anglo-centric world are ignored Levy’s Small Island and Lionel Shriver’s We INTERNATIONAL book. Please note: This is not a child-mind- in this country, and much contemporary Need to Talk About Kevin) have outsold the FILM FESTIVAL (MIFF) ing service. We ask that parents stay with fiction suffers from the lack of exposure bestselling Booker winners, proving that MIFF is celebrating its sixtieth anniversary their children for the reading. To find out to these different narrative forms. Visita- such prizes, done well, can achieve their aim in July 2011, making it one of the oldest more please call us on 8664 7540. tion by Jenny Erpenbeck (trans. Susan of increasing recognition of women writers. film festivals in the world. The largest film Bernofsky) is a magisterial fable-like elegy READINGS AUSTRALIAN The idea that women’s writing is valued less festival in Australia, MIFF has showcased to place and time that distils the last than men’s was unwittingly given an extra some of cinema history’s most beloved BOOK CLUB century of German history and emotion dollop of credibility lately, when the winner films over its 60 years, including Seven Interested in Australian literature? Join a into a slender 150 pages. Brilliant. of the Nobel Prize for Literature, V.S. Samurai (Kurosawa), Orpheus (Cocteau), Readings Australian Book Club. The unique Hiroshima Mon Amour (Resnais), Paths of feature of our club is that only Australian What have you noticed people buying Naipaul, declared that he considered no lately? woman writer his equal. He dismissed Jane Glory (Kubrick), 8 1/2 (Fellini), Love in the literature is read and discussed. Read- Austen as ‘sentimental’ and labelled the Afternoon (Rohmer) and The Conversation ings Australian Book Clubs are distinctive Vinyl. As the silent war rages on about literary efforts of his female publisher-turned- (Coppola), to name but a few. The festival because they are primarily for talking about digitised content in the book world, author ‘feminine tosh’. Calling works by has grown year by year, screening a record books in a structured yet informal way – records are making plenty of noise across women ‘quite different’, he boasted that ‘I 350 films from over 50 countries in 2010. they’re only secondarily a social event. The town. I don’t think it’s a fad. These read a piece of writing and within a paragraph MIFF provides the region’s most prestigious Readings Australian Book Clubs are held people aren’t DJs, nor craggy hirsute or two I know whether it is by a woman launch platform for domestic and interna- at the Readings head office in Drummond gents, but kids who want something or not. I think [it is] unequal to me.’ The tional filmmaking. For more information Street, Carlton. We have limited places avail- tangible and beautiful to keep. Guardian (UK) responded by running a and ticketing, visit miff.com.au. Readings able in two groups on Tuesday and Wednes- is proud to be a sponsor of MIFF again day evenings, commencing in August from What’s the strangest experience you’ve had ‘V.S. Naipaul test’ online, inviting readers to in a bookshop? guess the authorial gender of various random in 2011, and you can pick up a MIFF 6.30pm – 8pm. To express your interest in passages. Five out of ten was the highest quiz program guide from any of our six shops joining email Ingrid on ingrid.josephine@ Generally book folk are a well-mannered score I heard of. Is Naipaul a genius with a from July 8. readings.com.au species, yet an old-fashioned joust is bloodhound’s nose for womanly sentiment, or never far away, nor discouraged (in the is he, in fact, full of tosh? I’ll leave that to you SCRIBE FREE Colum McCann metaphorical sense anyway). One day, to decide. CALICO BAG OFFER wins IMPAC with great gusto, a perturbed Englishman Scribe is celebrating 35 Irish author Colum McCann has won the jumped the counter and walloped my Here at Readings, we’re all thrilled that one of years of seriously good International IMPAC Dublin Literary (six-foot-six!) friend across the pate with our favourites (and bestsellers) for this year, books in 2011. Buy any Award for his 2009 novel Let The Great a fresh hardback copy of Samuel Pepys’ The Tiger’s Wife, took out this year’s Orange two Scribe titles from World Spin (Bloomsbury, PB, $22.99). With diaries. Alas, what followed was a chase Prize – making 26-year-old Téa Obreht the Readings in July and prize money of €100,000, the IMPAC is the and citizen’s arrest, landing the poor youngest-ever winner. Obreht told Australian get a Scribe tote bag world's richest literary prize. fellow cuffed to the door with box tape. audiences recently that the much-praised for free. While stocks last. Only later did the police inform us that novel started as ‘a horrible short story’ that he was an author of some local repute! was ‘more an outline than a story’, but turned into something more because she ‘fell in love What’s the best experience you’ve had in with the characters’. The relationship between a bookshop? the narrator and her grandfather, which lies Many will be aware that our poet laureate at the heart of the novel, was inspired by her [Paul Kelly] released a memoir last year, own close relationship with her grandfather, How to Make Gravy. Well, he was kind who had recently died. Her ‘greatest fear’ is enough to come and share that with us that ‘because The Tiger’s Wife came from an under stage lights in St Kilda. A packed emotional response to an emotional tragedy house, brimming with music and drink. that happened in my life, I won’t feel the Paul even brought his own mix-tape. same way about my next one.’ She joked: ‘You know how there are people you date What was your favourite book as a kid? and people you fall in love with? I don’t want Where the Forest Meets the Sea by Jeannie to be dating my next project.’ Whatever it Baker left an enduring imprint on my is, we can’t wait for it! Obreht joked that ‘for six-year-old dreams. Baker’s collages are me, there is nothing better than a koala’. So stunning. You can almost climb in and it seems we’ll see her back in Australia when walk around primordial rainforests. that next grand passion comes along. I traced this artwork for years and could Yes, it’s been a bad year for women writ- barely contain my giddiness when I ers – but on the other hand, writers like Téa finally visited Dromkeen for one of Obreht and 2011 US National Book Award Baker’s exhibitions. I hate to admit it, winner Jennifer Egan (A Visit from the Goon but I got too close to the exhibit that Squad ) are proving impossible to overlook. ‘ This is Harold. Harold's a cartoonist.’ day and have shamefully hidden a piece of broken clay ever since. —Jo Case Oslo Davis www.oslodavis.com

CINEMA NOVA RECOMMENDS Visit the new Cinema Nova Bar The long-awaited final instalment of the series. Brad Pitt Sean Penn WINNER Palme d'Or Cannes The TREE of LIFE Film Festival 2011 PART 2 Terrence Malick's masterpiece of evolution, life, family and death 380 LYGON ST CARLTON IT ALL ★★★★★ www.cinemanova.com.au Online bookings available ENDS “Visionary cinema” The Guardian Join our e-news for updates on the Met Opera, Group bookings and private COMMENCES JUNE 30 National Theatre and other stage spectaculars. COMMENCES JULY 13 screenings available in 3D and 2D Readings Monthly July 2011 3

27 11 Favel Parrett Christine Nixon A huge fuss has been made of Favel’s debut It’s no surprise that Christine Nixon – now novel Past the Shallows (Hachette, PB, the author of autobiography Fair Cop (MUP, EventsAll our Readings book and music eventsin are Julyresentfully observes the vibrant young couple $26.99) – and for good reason. Hauntingly PB, $34.99) – grew up to be a cop, and entry by gold coin donation, unless other- who move in, with their solitary 12-year-old beautiful and told with an elegant simplicity, ultimately Victoria’s Chief Commissioner of wise stated. Please note that bookings do not niece. Monday 18 July, 6.30pm, Readings this is the story of two brothers growing up Police, after being one of the first women in guarantee a seat, but rather indicate to us the Carlton. Free, but please book on 9347 in a fractured family on the wild Tasmanian Australia to move into operational policing. number of people to expect. To see more events 6633. coast. Come and meet the author over a Her father Ross often brought his police or for updates on new events please visit the glass of wine. Wednesday 27 July, 6.30pm, work home with him; she helped mull over events page at www.readings.com.au. Readings Port Melbourne. Free, but please crime-scene photos at the kitchen table and 20 book on 9681 9255. lug seized weapons in from the car. Matthew Evans Thursday 11 August, 6.30pm, Cinema Nova. Free, but please book on 9347 6633. 7 Renowned food critic, farmer Readings Quarterly and television presenter 27 Essay Discussion Series Matthew Evans brings us his Alan Kohler Don’t miss this chance to latest cookbook, Winter on the High-profile business reporter Alan Kohler become part of a regular event Farm (Murdoch, HB, will talk about Alan Kohler’s Eureka Report: Launches for all those who enjoy the $49.99). Matthew grows A Guide to Personal Investing (with Barbara Kelly Gardiner Quarterly Essay. We'll be much of his own produce on Drury, MUP, PB, $39.95). This is a personal Act of Faith (Harper, PB, $19.99) is a YA hosting regular events to his farm in Tasmania, the finance bible from Alan Kohler and the team novel about books, freedom, and friendship discuss the new Quarterly setting for his TV series The Gourmet Farmer, at The Eureka Report, an online investment – an adventure story set in an era when ideas Essay, with Margaret Simons where he cooks up cosy feasts on his wood- subscription-based newsletter. Wednesday were dangerous. Tuesday 5 July, 6.30pm, (co-author of Malcolm Fraser: fired stove as the temperature drops. Wednes- 27 July, 6.30pm, Readings Hawthorn. Free, Readings Carlton. Free, no need to book. The Political Memoirs) Anna Krien (Into the day 20 July, 6.30pm, Readings Hawthorn. please book on 9819 1917. Karen Healey Woods) and Tim Soutphommasane (political Bookings essential: 9819 1917. Tickets are The Shattering theorist and commentator for The Australian) $20. Includes wine and tastes from the book. Lili Wilkinson will launch This month: The panel will talk about Judith 28 (Karen Healey, A&U, PB, $17.99), about a Brett’s essay Fair Share: Country and City in Gaye Weeden sunny tourist town afflicted by dark secrets. Australia. Read the essay, read the panel's blog 21 Wednesday 6 July, 6.30pm, Readings & Hayley Smorgon Carlton. Free, no need to book (on the Readings website), and come prepared Rosalie Ham In celebration of delicious finds, foods and for a lively night of discussion. Thursday 7 There Should Be More fancies, join us for a glass of wine and an Adam Wallace July, 6.30pm, Readings Hawthorn. Free, Dancing (Vintage, PB, exploration of Melbourne’s very best places The Incredible Journey of Pete McGee (Jojo but please book on 9819 1917. Normally $32.95, Our to shop. The Butcher, the Baker, the Best Publishing, PB, $14.99) is a fun-filled ad- special price $27.95) tells the Coffee Maker (Viking, PB, $39.95) by venture novel for children, set in the time darkly funny, surprisingly Gaye Weeden and Hayley Smorgon explores of knights. Wednesday 6 July, 6pm, Read- 9 poignant story of an ageing Melbourne’s reputation as a foodie mecca – ings Hawthorn. Free, no need to book. John Sullivan Brunswick resident and her and identifies key spots and key recipes too! John Sullivan will be signing copies of his family’s tussle to secure her Thursday 28 July, 6pm, Dench’s Bread James Boyce new book Firebug. Saturday 9 July, 2pm, future (and her house). It’s about ageing, and Jam for Frances Cafe, Readings Michael Cathcart will launch 1835: The Readings Port Melbourne. Free, no buried secrets, families ... and Melbourne Hawthorn. $50 per person. Includes signed Founding of Melbourne and the Conquest of need to book. real estate. Thursday 21 July, 6.30pm, Read- first edition of the book, wine and pre-din- Australia (Black Inc., HB, Normally $44.95, ings Hawthorn. Free, but please book on ner nibbles. Places strictly limited. Bookings, Our special price $39.95, Ebook $24.95). 9819 1917. please call 9819 1917. Thursday 7 July, 6.30pm, Readings Carlton. 11 Free, no need to book. Pages to Poetry 22 28 Melanie Joosten Another evening of wine and poetry to StoryTime Marisa Fazio Alison Bell (of ABC TV’s Laid) will launch soothe your soul. This evening’s poets are Berlin Syndrome (Scribe, PB, Normally Angela Gardner, the author of Parts of Speech with Sally Gould A Leopard’s Kiss (PB, $24.95) is a new take $29.95, Our special price $24.95, Ebook (UQP, PB, $24.95) and Views of the Hudson, Join us for our very first storytime at our on the pathos of migration. Join Marisa to $17.99), Melanie Joosten’s debut novel. (Shearsman Books, 2009); Petra White, State Library of Victoria shop (and later, at talk about her book, in conjunction with the Thursday 14 July, 6pm for 6.30pm, Bella whose latest book, The Simplified World Readings Carlton). Sally Gould will read anniversary of the death of Giuseppe Tomasi Union Bar, Trades Hall, Cnr Lygon & Thursday 28 (John Leonard, PB, $24.95) was joint win- from Chase through Venice (Windy Hollow, di Lampedusa (The Leopard). Victoria St, Carlton. Free, but please book July, 6.30pm, Readings Carlton. ner of the Grace Leven Prize for Poetry; and HB, $27.95). Friday 22 July, 11am, Read- Free, but on 9349 5955. Jamie King-Holden, co-editor of Windmills, ings SLV. Free, no need to book. Thursday please book on 9347 6633. whose first book of poetry, Chemistry, was 28 July at 10.30am, Readings Carlton. Eamon Evans published by Whitmore Press (2011). Free, no need to book. Join us for the launch of The Godfather Was a Monday 11 July, 6.30pm, Readings 30 Girl (Hardie Grant, PB, $24.95), a fun book Carlton. Free, no need to book. StoryTime that uncovers the true identities of popular 25 with Kylie Dunstan cultural characters. Tuesday 12 July, 6.30pm, What it is 4: a comic Readings Carlton. Free, no need to book. 14 Kylie Dunstan’s The Red Bridge (HB, book song cycle $27.95) is the story of Claire and her family, Edel Wignell Andrew Fuller Musician Martin Martini and comic book who have moved from Australia to Vietnam. Bilby Secrets (Walker, HB, $29.95) is a In his new book, Life: A Guide (Finch, artist Bernard Caleo collaborate on a per- Saturday 30 July, 10.30am, Readings Port beautiful narrative non-fiction book which PB, $29.99), Andrew Fuller – a clinical formance in which comics become music Melbourne. Free, but please book on 9681 follows the life of a bilby. Wednesday 13 psychologist and family therapist – presents and music becomes comic books. These two 9255. Suitable for children aged two to six. July, 6.30pm, Readings Carlton. Free, no a fascinating analysis of what we can expect gentlemen have been gunning for a Unified need to book. from life at different stages. Join us to discuss Theory of Everything for Art, and they are the common denominators in our lives. getting closer and closer to the bull’s-eye. Bernie McCarthy Thursday 14 July, 6.30pm, Readings They think. ALSO: the kamishibai (Japanese Join us for the launch of Hearing the Hawthorn. Free, please book on 9819 1917. ‘paper theatre’) performance, ‘Troubadour Coming in August Person with Dementia (Jessica Kingsley, PB, Blues’. Monday 25 July, 8pm Readings $21.95), by the founder of McCarthy Psy- Carlton. 2 Free, no need to book. Frank camorra chology Services. Tuesday 19 July, 6.30pm 15 Readings Carlton. Free, no need to book. Sarah McKenzie & Richard cornish Fresh from headline performances at the 26 We are lucky to have Frank Dr John England recent Stonnington & Melbourne Interna- Michael McGirr Camorra and Richard Kickstart: Recharge your Life with a Pace- tional Jazz Festival, Sarah McKenzie will in conversation with Cornish with us, to talk maker or Defibrillator (Verand Press, PB, launch her debut album at Readings. Don’t Michael Thornton about MoVida’s Guide to $24.95) collects stories from patients who Friday Barcelona (MUP, PB, received pacemakers, and from their doc- miss a chance to see her perform live! In Jackaroo (Viking, PB, 15 July, 6pm, Readings Carlton. $32.99). Frank Camorra, tors. Wednesday 20 July, 6.30pm, Readings Free, no $29.95), Michael Thornton need to book. chef at renowned Spanish Carlton. Free, no need to book. recalls his years learning the restaurant MoVida, teams ropes in an era when farm up with food writer Richard Cornish to Nicholas Gresson work was still done on 18 provide a beautifully illustrated insider’s A Life in Poetry: Nicholas Lyon Gresson horseback. His memoir guide to one of the most exciting travel (edited by Professor Elizabeth Grierson, Virginia Duigan reveals the hard-working lives destinations in the world. Tuesday 2 ASP, PB, $24.95) covers 55 years of writ- Set in the Blue Mountains, The Preci- of the unsung all-rounders of August, 6.30pm, Readings Hawthorn. ing. Wednesday 27 July, 6.30pm, Readings pice (Vintage, PB, $32.95) is the diary of the country. Tuesday 26 July, 6.30pm, Bookings essential: 9819 1917 or in-person Carlton. Free, no need to book. cantanker­ous retired headmistress Thea Readings Hawthorn. Free, but please book at the Hawthorn shop only. $45 per person. Farmer, whose career ended in a long-ago on 9819 1917. Includes a signed first edition copy of the scandal. After losing her dream house, she book and a wonderful glass of Spanish wine. 4 Readings Monthly July 2011 New Australian Writing Feature

DancingMichelle Griffin interviews Rosalie Ham about Therein Should beBrunswick More Dancing (Vintage, PB, Normally $32.95, Our price $27.95)

mother in the nursing home where I worked. He visited every Friday at the same time and he wore shorts and a Collingwood guernsey no matter what the weather. He’d obviously drunk a little too much in his time but he was just adorable ... he had to go in.’ As a child, Ham would travel down from Jerilderie to visit her grandmother in Castle- maine. Next door lived the little old lady who would become the novel’s Mrs Parsons. ‘Her blind would go up or down during the day, and we would go over and tie or untie her shoelaces because she couldn’t do it. It stuck in my mind that you could do that for a person.’ The 25 years Ham spent working in nursing homes has given her an eye for the way the aged move, an ear for the timbre of older Australian voices and an abiding affection for the stories that can be spun out of a life span’s experience. ‘If there’s a roomful of people and I don’t know anyone, I’ll go talk to the old person,’ she says. The old ladies of the latest novel are neither twinkly vessels of wisdom nor bitter husks of malice, two of the archetypes set out so often for the oldest woman in a story. Instead, we get a spirited heroine with a sharp tongue, a Rosalie Ham made While Ham’s first two novels were decidedly The story begins outside Brunswick’s fierce sense of outrage and an opportunity to her name with her rural, almost all the action in the new book borders, on one of the top floors of what is learn some home truths she’s been avoiding much-loved debut, takes place within 500 metres of her home. recognisable as the Sofitel in Collins Street. for decades. The Dressmaker, con- The house where her protagonist Margery Margery has booked a room and plans to tinuing her success with sits fuming over her cross-stitch is ‘just down fling herself to her death rather than face the In the novel, Margery uses her cross-stitch The Summer at Mount there’, she says, gesturing down the road. ‘I injustices visited upon her by her family and samplers as both a shield and a weapon, Hope. It’s been more pass it four or five times a week walking my other enemies. This, says Ham, was not the brandishing parables ripped from a doctor’s than five years between dog.’ It is one of those un-renovated oppor- most attractive pitch to shop around to pub- calendar to comment on indignities, and novels now – but both tunities that the real estate agent son-in-law lishers. ‘It’s not a very good premise – a little avoiding any real engagement with the world fans and newcomers to in the novel paws so covetously: ‘a detached, old lady about to end her life. If you’re going as she bends over her threads. The dramas Ham’s dark wit and stubborn characters will two-bedroom weatherboard cottage with to tackle something like that, you need to do that play out, betrayal and love and honour, embrace There Should Be More Dancing kitchen and bathroom tacked into the back it with humour.’ remind us, too, that love and anger do not (Vintage, PB, Normally $32.95, Our special and outdoor lavatories’. Ham took a photo always fade away. price $27.95), a novel set in her home of the house down the road so she could If nobody else writes with quite the same suburb of Brunswick. The Age’s Michelle physically map the landscape her characters wry warmth and pitch-black wit of Ham, ‘A theme I had in A Dream at Mount Hope Griffin spoke to Rosalie Ham for Readings’ inhabited. ‘If it’s true and it’s real, it comes she does share something of the melancholy was how to live a life. That was a kind of New Australian Writing series. out of your head and down your arms and and humour of local animator Adam Elliot. anti-romance where romance and passion onto the page. There’s the park and the pub lost out to friendship and loyalty. This is the and Sydney Road and Union Square – it’s same thing, a book about how to live your easy to map their progress. They covered a life well. I think I’m done with that now.’ huge terrain by going not very far.’ With a third novel finally on the shelf, Ham I put all is ready to start digging away at the next idea She thought that if she wrote an urban nov- ‘ for a novel. She’s also waiting with fingers el, it would change her style along with her crossed to see if the film adaptation of The landscapes. Her break-out first novel, The the standard Dressmaker is going to be filmed next year. Dressmaker (2001), was set in the Mallee. The director attached is Jocelyn Moorhouse, n the 25 years that Rosalie Ham has Her second book, Summer at Mount Hope goodies in it,’ who is best known for Proof – but also, lived in Brunswick, she’s watched (2005), unfolded in a Victorian vineyard a perhaps, for her attempt to film Murray her corner of the suburb change in century ago. But as Ham readily admits, her she says. ‘Love Bail’s Eucalyptus, before Russell Crowe fundamental ways. ‘When we came readers will recognise both the stubborn, started demanding rewrites. Strong-willed here, there was no one in the park,’ honourable characters and the assured comic actors permitting, Ham is hoping she’ll get she says. ‘There was no one there, just a voice. ‘I put all the standard goodies in it,’ and deceit and an opportunity to play an extra in a dance bunch of teenagers who would smoke and she says. ‘Love and deceit and betrayal and scene. Otherwise, her only involvement with Idrink and root each other, and some older lies and lust.’ betrayal and the production is enthusiastic support and people passed out in the toilets. Now you ‘beaming idiotically on the red carpet,’ she have to queue for the swings with your tod- There Should be More Dancing had a lengthy says. dler, if you have one.’ and troubled gestation, unlike The Dress- lies and lust.’ maker which Ham calls ‘the one I got for Which brings us to the endearing title of her Ham, 56, is not one to decry the ways of free’. ‘Tragically I came under the influence new novel: There Should Be More Dancing. New Brunswick – ‘now there’s good coffee of Marilyn Robinson. I read Gilead and Should there be? Ham says yes. The title is just there and a good pub – you don’t have tried to write my book in the first per- There’s lot of fine-grained detail, from the a family heirloom. ‘There’s a bit of a family to travel far’ – but her third and latest novel son. But I’ve found it’s better to write in perfectly slicked hair of Margery’s sweetly joke that comes from my mother and now does work on one level as a serio-comic love the voice of Rosalie Ham. It’ll come out punch-drunk ex-boxer son, to the daily has been taken up with my boy [her step- letter to the old Brunswick, to the pub- anyway. So I rewrote it and rewrote it and indignities suffered by the tiny, arthritic and son],’ she says. ‘Every now and then, when reared boxers and pub-soaked fathers, the rewrote it. It took probably five years from almost silent neighbour Mrs Parsons. Both things are serious, we always exclaim “there linoleum kitchens in the tiny worker’s cot- the nucleus of the idea and mapping out are based on real people, says Ham. should be more dancing!”.’ tages and the broken cars in the front yards and not writing anything until the time I of the share-houses. actually sent it out.’ ‘He was someone who used to visit his Michelle Griffin is a journalist atThe Age. Readings Monthly July 2011 5

Book of the Month Mark’s say rome: a cultural News and views from Readings’ Q&A with Peter Salmon managing director Mark Rubbo history Kabita Dhara interviews Peter Salmon, former editor of Readings Monthly, Robert Hughes It’s Scribe Publications W&N. HB. Normally $50 about his pitch-black satirical debut novel, The Coffee Story (Sceptre, PB, 35th birthday this year. Our special price $39.95 Normally $29.99, Our special price $24.95). Despite its relatively Robert Hughes is small size, Scribe has Australia’s – and perhaps then wear it lightly. But gosh, I know a become one of Austra- the world’s – most famous lot of stuff – you don’t want me sitting lia’s most influential art critic. He’s famous for next to you at a dinner party. publishers. Henry Rosenbloom, founder his combination of and owner, says that books he publishes erudition and accessibility, Coffee, its production and consumption, have to be well-written, interesting and resulting in a series of obviously plays a major role in your novel. have something intrinsically important to terrifically readable books, There are beautifully evocative passages say. ‘The biggest mistakes we’ve made are with The Shock of the New (1980, his third describing the roasting and grinding and when we’ve published cynically, just for book), The Fatal Shore (1987), The Culture preparation of the perfect cup of coffee, and commercial reasons; we have to believe in of Complaint (1993) and most recently, some of your characters have an encyclo- every book we publish.’ That’s not to say Things I Didn’t Know (2006) among them. paedic knowledge of coffee. Where did your that every book is a success – but Scribe The magic of Hughes is his way of leading particular interest in coffee come from? has enjoyed enough commercial success to And how do you brew your perfect cup? the reader through his chosen subject, enable it to become the vibrant house it is explaining, describing and debating it so Legend has it my first words were ‘cup today. Scribe has complemented its vividly and enthusiastically that both his coff’ so it was obviously there pretty Australian list by buying Australian rights knowledge and his passion are irresistibly Teddy Everett, the head of early. And working at the wonderful to books published overseas. While other infectious. (‘Nothing exceeds the delight the Everett and Sons Readings in Lygon Street cemented the publishers also do this, to my mind, none of one’s first immersion in Rome on a fine Coffee company, is telling love. It really is the best drink in the do so comprehensively and with such spring morning.’) His work suits relative his ‘coffee story’ from his world. As for the perfect cup, the best integrity. newcomers to his subjects and aficionados deathbed. As his story coffee I’ve ever had was the coffee I had While Rosenbloom’s passion is non- alike – a rare talent. And, of course, despite progresses, the reader in Harar recently – a superb coffee is fiction, he realised that to be a well- the impressive breadth of knowledge and becomes aware of how taken for granted, and any family that rounded house, he needed a fiction list. thought he brings, it is his lively, elegant, unreliable Teddy’s beckons you to join them will always Wife Margot took on the role of fiction impeccably stylish writing that is the true narrative is, and how unlikeable Teddy have a glorious cup for you. I hate tea, editor and worked on their first big novel, joy of his work. himself is. Of course, the idea of the main by the way. Just so you know. Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts, a I have to confess that Rome arrived on character being an anti-hero is not unusual, local and international bestseller. When but what do you think having this kind of Teddy leads a cosmopolitan life, right from the last day of production for Readings a young age when he moves to Ethiopia. Margot stepped back from the business, Monthly, so I’ve only just cracked the protagonist, as opposed to a traditional Henry appointed Aviva Tuffield to hero, allowed you to do creatively? This migration profoundly affects the fam- spine and read the prologue and opening ily and its fortunes. How did your move manage and grow the fiction list. A few chapter ... but I can say that I’m already I like Teddy! I don’t agree with every- from Australia to the UK affect your writ- years ago, Henry and Aviva, with the hooked. By way of introducing his thing he says or does, but then again, ing and the writing of this book? support of Copyright Agency Limited, topic, Hughes takes us back to his first neither does he! When I was writing established the CAL Scribe Fiction Prize, encounter with Rome, as a 20-year-old Not greatly, as much of the work was him, I didn’t think in terms of ‘hero’ or for an unpublished manuscript by a writer Australian architecture student, dazzled done before the move, but I think the ‘villain’. I wanted to create a character 35 and over. Not one, but three novels by the place, the art, the architecture, the one key thing that informed my final who was brutally honest – who tells the were published from the first year of the food and the history. ‘How would one pulling together of the book is the things about himself that most of us keep prize – the winner, A Darker Music by know if art of any kind was any good?’ loneliness that comes from no longer secret. It’s that dark river that runs under Maris Morton, and shortlisted runners-up he muses in reflection. ‘Mainly – if not being around your friends. Teddy is, our public persona that interests me. And Black Glass by Meg Mundell and Little only – by going to Rome and seeing the essentially, a man without friends and given that Teddy is dying, he’s got noth- People by Jane Sullivan. And over the real thing in the real place.’ He had hoped his life has been one long conversation ing to lose by telling the whole truth. past year, Scribe has had commercial and Rome would deliver him sophistication, with himself. I’m not quite at that stage, critical success with Indelible Ink by Fiona taste, spirituality and earthly delights – and Even though Teddy is dying, and anger although, having said that, now I’m McGregor, Rocks in the Belly by Jon Bauer confides that it mostly delivered. and guilt seem to be at the heart of his wondering if I wrote these questions and the Miles Franklin-shortlisted Bereft story, there is a lot of (dark) humour in myself and am going mad. Best not to by Chris Womersley. This book is a thrilling tour of the city Teddy’s storytelling. How important was think too much. that has profoundly shaped Hughes, as the use of humour in writing your book? Rosenbloom loves the process of editing a critic and a person. Rome – as a city, Even as Teddy rails against his father, he and working with writers to shape a book. an empire, and an enduring idea – is I didn’t necessarily set out to write a is in some ways following in his footsteps. One author he’s very proud of is Vietnam in many ways the origin of everything humorous book – quite simply, the How do you think Teddy’s family inheri- vet Barry Heard, whose memoir Well he has spent his life thinking and book grew out of finding Teddy’s voice, tance, financial and otherwise, affects his Done Those Men has sold over 15,000 writing about. Here, he traces the city’s and Teddy, bless him, tends towards the own development? And do you think fam- copies. ‘It’s been a transformative work beginnings, from its mythic foundation scabrous and scatological. If there was ily inheritance is impossible to escape? both for me and Barry. That book (and one element I wanted to be deliberately with Romulus and Remus. He recreates Absolutely. It fascinates me – how much two subsequent books) have changed the Ancient Rome of Julius Caesar, ‘comic’, it was the form of the book Barry’s life.’ Publishers like Rosenbloom itself. I have a bit of an aversion to the of our hard-fought personality is in fact Caligula, and Virgil. And with the artistic passed down to us. Even those things believe that their work brings books and blossoming of the Renaissance, he casts ‘well-made novel’ (whatever that may ideas to the attention of a wider audience; be – discuss!), so I liked having a central we inherit which we attempt to reject – his critical eye over the great works of it seems to me that they are part of the Australian books that may either never the likes of Raphael and Michelangelo, character who was oblivious to novel- have been published because they weren’t istic convention – he does tend to give prison of our personality too. Basically, shedding new light on the Old Masters. I wanted to fill Teddy with an almost ‘commercial,’ or overseas titles that may away important plot points at inappro- I’ll leave the last word to a critic who has Proustian sense of inheritance, and then never have been brought to the public’s priate moments, and to break off from read the entire book, rather than lingering watch him squirm. Endless fun. attention in any meaningful way. key moments in the story to chat about over the opening pages – Jonathan Keates, more, ahem, elemental concerns ... You have a very distinctive style. Which Two recent Scribe books tellingly reflect writing in the UK’s Literary Review: books and writers do you think have in- that philosophy. Lindsay Tanner’s ‘[Hughes] is a writer who does nothing Although Teddy’s story unfolds in a Sideshow fits Henry’s criteria of a good number of locations – America, England, fluenced you stylistically? And which books by halves, and Rome positively crackles and writers do you look to for inspiration? book – a serious commentary on the with his splenetic downrightness (any Cuba – it is your depiction of Ethiopia state of contemporary politics. Henry that really stands out in my mind, so clarifying subtitle for the book has been As I said, I’m not a lover of the ‘well- worked closely with Tanner to help deemed unnecessary). We enjoy reading much so that it is like another character in crafted novel’ – I like a book that is not craft his ideas in a way that made the the book. What sort of research did you do? Hughes precisely because he avoids any of afraid to digress, to obfuscate, and do book interesting and relevant, despite that corseted coyness which characterises Too much – I actually ground to a halt the odd thing that annoys the reader. having no ‘dirt’. ‘It was a great pleasure too much art-historical writing nowadays. at one stage as the temptations of show- I really like the strange ... Books like to work with Lindsay,’ he said. Three Thankfully not having to worry about ing off my extensive knowledge of Wiki- Memoirs of My Mental Illness by Judge years ago, he bought the rights to In The securing professorial tenure at a university pedia started to overcome my desire to Schreber, and The Robber by Robert Garden of Beasts by Erik Larsen (then or gaining a coveted gallery curatorship, tell a good story. This was particularly Walser (best opening lines ever – ‘Edith only at proposal stage), a brilliantly he can speak with the candour of a visceral tempting with Ethiopia – a country loves him. More on this later.’). Plus written and researched account of the enthusiasm, savaging mediocrity and with a rich past, condemned to be Proust and Henry James, both of whom US Ambassador to Hitler’s Germany, a rhapsodically defending excellence.’ viewed by the West through the prism are far stranger than they are given New York Times bestseller – I’m reading of the 80s famine. But, in the end, I credit for. But I guess if there is one it now and it’s a cracker! To celebrate If you have any interest in Rome –for its consciously put aside all my research book that informs The Coffee Story more their birthday, Scribe are giving away a long history, its thousand-year cultural and let the story tell its own truth, only than any other, it’s The Book of Daniel lovely book bag if you buy two or more dominance, its myths, or its art – I urge going back afterwards to make sure there by E.L. Doctorow – frankly, I owe him Scribe titles this month – not hard to you to feast on Rome, with Robert were no glaring errors. This seems to me most of the royalties. Don’t tell him do considering the range! See page 2 Hughes as the perfect tour guide. to be the trick – to do the research, but though. Please. for details. — Jo Case is Editor of Readings Monthly 6 Readings Monthly July 2011 New Fiction Berlin Syndrome Melanie Joosten Australian Fiction Scribe. PB Normally $29.95. Ebook $17.99 The Coffee Story Our special price $24.95 Peter Salmon This is Melanie Joosten’s first Sceptre. PB. Normally $29.99 novel – and what a ripper of a Our special price $24.95 tale it is. I reckon Ms Joosten Teddy Everett is dying. must be a die-hard fan of We are with him, as he Hitchcock, because this is lies inert and helpless on one writer who seems to his death-bed, in some vile relish the power of suspense. hospital, as he muses on The novel begins quite slowly, the life he’s had, the life describing those first moments of girl-meets- he had thrust upon him. boy in a foreign city far from home. The A life, not so much flashing, attraction between Clare and Andi is mutual, as ping-ponging back and forth through the laughs and desire genuine – it all seems time, and flipping like a pinball twixt event, like a pretty good holiday romp from Clare’s action and catastrophe. Like your narrative perspective. However, all good things must straight and linear? Hold on tight, it’s going come to an end. to get bumpy. Teddy is everything your av- The pace of the novel picks up as the horror erage cuddly, gentle, slightly left-of-centre of the story sets in. The story is set in Andi’s bookish type of person loves to hate: rich, crumbling apartment block in the middle of capitalist, amoral, self-centred dipsomaniac, Berlin. The apartment becomes the centre and a lothario. Worse still, the money is all Hardback $44.95 / Ebook $24.95 Hardback of Clare’s life when Andi refuses to allow inherited. So why is he so damn likeable? her to leave. She is a prisoner. Joosten aptly Teddy is a coffee magnate; last in the long demonstrates the power of obsession in her line of an overbearing colonial plunder and protagonist, allowing the reader to be swept 1835: The Founding of Melbourne & the Conquest of Australia bluster lineage. Flay the skin off ’em, and up in the never-ending futility of Clare’s take home the profit ... that sort of thing. position. By taking on both of her charac- James Boyce From Ethiopia in the 30s to Cuba in the ters’ positions, however, she does tend to lose 50s, Teddy spins a tale of a life of spoilt sight of the real picture she is painting. Time From the award-winning author of Van Diemen’s Land. decadence, over-imbibing, sex and violence. is swept aside and details become smudged, 1835 brings to life the untold story of the settlement of Melbourne. All the fun things. All your favourite as the violence within the relationship grows. This makes for eerie reading. James Boyce conjures up the Australian frontier – its complexity, elements are here. Exotic locations. Communist Revolutionaries. Crazy Berlin Syndrome is an astonishing debut its rawness and the way its legacy is still with us today. This is the ex-wives. Repulsive relatives. Unrequited novel from an author who understands the must-read history book of the year. Love. (Lucy where are you?) Coffee ... and twists and turns of emotion and fear. Per- humour. While the book ruminates on haps this book should be made compulsory www.blackincbooks.com many a historical detail (I learned more reading for all those young women out there about colonial East Africa here than I have about to embark on an overseas adventure. in a lifetime), matters political, personal – Chris Gordon is events coordinator at Readings and even occultic – Mr Salmon writes in a style that is so lyrical and humorous, that one cannot help but like our protagonist, Two Greeks scoundrel that he is. John Charalambous UQP. PB. $24.95 For all that the story is simply about what This thoroughly entertain- a dying bloke is thinking, it is also a smack ing novel is a meditation on to the back of the head of conventional fatherhood, family and storytelling – and very very funny. Listen: forbearance. We are in Mel- think maybe Vonnegut. Maybe Doctorow. bourne in 1974, a time And Groucho. before ‘no-fault divorce’, and Garry Mansfield is from Readings Carlton the Stylianou family are living under the thumb of I Am Max Lamm their eccentric, domineering father Harry, Raphael Brous the first of the ‘Two Greeks’ of the title. UQP. PB. $27.95 While Mrs Stylianou secretly plans her What do you get when you escape, son Andy and his big sister Angela August 2008. Photojournalist Nigel Brennan When five-year-old Matthew Farraday is cross Philip Roth with attempt to come of age in the stifling world travels to Somalia with reporter Amanda abducted and a picture of his face is splashed Lindhout. They are abducted by a criminal over the newspapers, psychotherapist Frieda Jonathan Safran Foer and of Harry’s creation. gang. If the US$3 million ransom amount is Klein is troubled: one of her patients has been add a touch of grand farce? I Angela rejects her father’s Greek Cypriot her- not paid, they will be killed. The story of an relating dreams in which he has a hunger for a Am Max Lamm, of course! ordinary Australian family discovering how far child. A child he can describe in perfect detail, itage for conventional teenage rebellion: pop they’re prepared to go for what they believe in. a child the spitting image of Matthew. Everyone knows that Jews music, fashion and boyfriends. When the are no good at sport; they second of the ‘Two Greeks’, Alex Voreadis, also know that if a Jew was moves in next door, Andy is offered an good at sport, they’d muck it up. Max opportunity to know a positive Greek role Lamm was good: a clever student, he knew model and experience the treasures of Greek art but he was also very good at tennis (so language and culture. Andy takes it, and good that he was to play in the US Open). forms a bond with the elderly neighbour, But then he couldn’t keep himself away who has his own estrangement issues with from Lagaya, the gorgeous hooker from El his family. This is a novel to savour, with Salvador. And one thing led to another and brilliantly drawn characters and entertaining, poor Max ended up accidentally hitting a intimate details of suburban life in the 70s. I Pakistani teenager too hard when he tried especially enjoyed Andy’s mother; her trans- to rob him as he waited for a bus outside formation from overweight housewife to a fit Hyde Park. Malik fell, hitting his head and divorcee-in-the-planning is particularly sat- dying. The press called it a race murder and isfying, marked by astute observations that Max ... well he went on the lam ... in Hyde demonstrate how the feminist revolution Japanese craft books are loved the world over A gorgeous illustrated guide to the hidden Park, underneath the barbecue. Briefly Max directly transformed lives. John Charalam- for their beautiful and practical design, and gems, flavours and iconic recipes of is saved by an energetic tryst with a rich bous outlines the dissolution of her marriage their clear, meticulous instruction. Translated Melbourne: Bagels from Glick’s, coffee to American and a rediscovery of his Jewish with great sensitivity. We experience her in- into English for the first time, Stylish Dress cross town for, seasonal produce at the ner turmoil as she plots her way to freedom, Book contains 26 projects for beautiful dresses farmers’ markets, all the delights of Sydney roots, but sadly is undone by greed and and blouses, adapted for Western sizing. Road, Little Saigon in Footscray, eating out betrayal. All in all, I Am Max Lamm is a biding her time for the impending change in with the kids, Pasta at Pellegrini’s… hoot; it’s a great debut novel that leaves divorce law, sometimes resisting, sometimes you wanting to hear more from its author. relenting, as Harry, aware that he is losing Mark Rubbo is managing director of Readings her, attempts to draw her close. Two Greeks beautifully evokes the loneliness penguin.com.au of individuals within even the most Readings Monthly July 2011 7 claustrophobic of families, with each person people start to die. Once again, Rowland living a distinct, separate reality within the finds himself in the thick of it. Imbued shared life of the household. Ultimately it with 1920s glamour, this is historical crime is ‘Hurricane Harry’ who is in most risk of with a stylish twist. exile, but what is so lovely in this novel is Q&A with Vikki Wakefield that for Andy, the door is always open for Dismissal Jo Case interviews Vikki Wakefield about her edgy, darkly funny YA debut reconciliation and forgiveness. Nicholas Hasluck novel, All I Ever Wanted (Text, PB, $19.95, Ebook $14.95). Bruno Moro is from Readings Malvern HarperCollins. PB. $29.99 Based on the 1975 dismissal Last Summer of the Whitlam government, forgotten suburb, an hour from the city’ – in Kylie Ladd this is a compelling political a far more nuanced light than we generally A&U. PB. $29.99. Ebook $17.99 drama that explores the see, in books, film, TV or even on the news. So Australian in setting and democratic roundabout with Was that something you were trying to do? atmosphere that you can all its flaws, corruptions and And how did you know the place you wrote smell the sausage sizzle in the dynamic energies. Roy about so well – experience or research? pages, Last Summer is the Temple and his friends are The majority of this novel is written from involving tale of nine people accused of espionage in the Cold War era. experience. I’m easily bogged down by trying to cope with the loss Though never charged with a crime, a cloud research, particularly the sedentary type. of their friend, brother, of suspicion will follow them all their I’d rather see, touch or taste something husband: Rory Buchanan, as political lives. Twenty years later, those before I write about it. In All I Ever large in memory as he was in person. His allegations will threaten to bring down the Wanted, I meant for the setting to be a death, at cricket training, tests all who knew Whitlam government, and Roy is forced to Your teenage heroine, Mim, character, too. Along with the flesh-and- him. The characters are so real, they play on confront his past to discover who has is the one straight girl in a blood characters, its layers are peeled to your mind when you’ve put the book down, betrayed him all along. notorious crime family, reveal its heart. In the later chapters I’ve almost to the point where you want to call longing to escape her deliberately mirrored the description. The them up and check they’re okay before End of the Night Girl surrounds and fascinated by words haven’t changed on the page, but I realising the only way to find out is to read Amy Matthews the brother and sister from hope the reader can see place differently, the next chapter. It’s full of summer heat, Wakefield. PB. $24.95. Ebook $16.95 the fringes of her dodgy as Mim does. She says, ‘It is what it is, and cricket matches, family, and sex: the key This highly inventive, suburb, ‘glossy with the I know every inch.’ Knowing a place well ingredients to any scandalous summer terrifically compelling novel sheen of parental love’. It’s such an inventive reveals its dark corners and its moments of season. took out the 2010 Award for premise – a bit like Underbelly meets radiance, however transient they may be. an Unpublished Manuscript Rory’s wife, Colleen, tries to adapt to life Hating Alison Ashley. Where did you get There’s some fantastic imagery in this book. as part of the Adelaide without Rory there to support her and their the idea for the story? Describing the local kingpin drug dealer, frightened children. His sister, Kelly, is stuck Festival – and has already Originally the novel was meant to be a you write ‘Dr Frankenstein could have mourning her beloved sibling amongst earned accolades from the story about the underdog and her great put him together out of spare parts’. Mim’s people trying resolutely to move on with likes of Brian Castro and escape. Thirty thousand words into the overweight mother is ‘lying on her couch, their lives; her husband, Joe, lashes out Nicholas Jose. Molly, a sassy waitress, is story, I realised I’d made my themes like leftover dough’. How important was it in violent anger. Friends Trinity and Pete haunted by the ghost of a murdered Polish redundant. My antagonists were too to you to get those images just right? Did you have to cope with a sullen daughter and Jew. Two novels, each a compelling likeable. At this point I took a major spend a lot of time crafting them? the intrusion of an unexpected new family page-turner, combine teasingly in one as detour and the novel was less about Mim’s member; Nick and Laine with the lure of End of the Night Girl explores the shadow I’ve worked in graphic design, so I think escape and more about her journey – I infidelity and an endless wave of grief; Anita cast by the Holocaust across decades, visually. I have scraps of paper with anno- was drawn to explore what she’d be leav- and James with the realisation that their life continents and cultures. Amy Matthews has tated sketches rather than a notebook full ing behind. I had to ask myself, if Mim together has stagnated. Even their children, been featured in Best Australian Stories and of chunks of prose. I do these sketches in escaped her poverty-stricken life without previously an enthusiastic bunch of kids longlisted for the Vogel. the planning stage so I can often refer to a learning tolerance and acceptance, what mucking around at junior cricket practice, character or setting sketch and translate to kind of person would she become? How can’t escape the impact of Rory’s death, their the page quickly. I will often discard the would she live her life? As Mim discovers, own friendships fracturing in its wake. first image I write – it’s invariably been International that glossy sheen of parental love can be done before. Writing vivid description is Last Summer is a wrenchingly honest look all veneer and no substance. Jordan and a joy when I can nail it and, for me, short at relationships, old and new. It’s enough Fiction Kate’s parents don’t understand them at and punchy is sweeter. It is important for to make you look suspiciously at all your State of Wonder all – Mim’s much-maligned mother knows me to get these images just right. I hate to friends and wonder what secrets they’re Ann Patchett her better than Mim knows herself. And backtrack when I’m reading. It’s a lot like hiding under their cricket whites. You’ll take she will sacrifice herself without blinking. Bloomsbury. PB. Normally $30 the memory game – if you attach an im- sides just as you would in your own friends’ Our special price $24.95 ‘Surely there’s a recipe for it. Follow a few age to a person, you’ll never forget them. lives, and later change your point of view. This is quite possibly Ann steps and you can cook up your own shiny Straightforward yet evocative, Last Summer The loneliness of being different seemed to be Patchett’s most intriguing destiny.’ Tell us about Mim’s formula for a is a vivid slice of suburban life, as potent as a major thread in this book – Mim trying to and compelling novel to different destiny to her family and class- the smell of zinc. be straight in her rough surrounds, Kate as date. It begins with the news mates – her rules for ‘how not to be’. How an intelligent ‘nerd’ in a rough school, but Fiona Hardy is from Readings Carlton of Anders Eckman’s death, ‘I does she expect them to work, and how do also other characters who stand out for dif- write with unfortunate news they work in reality? ferent reasons. Was this something you were Anthology of of Dr Eckman, who died of Mim describes herself as ‘an outline, interested in? Colonial Australian fever two nights ago ... As a caricature’. That’s how she views the Adventure Fiction for the purpose of Dr Eckman’s mission, I I remember how it felt to be different, torn suburb she lives in and the people around assure you we are making strides. I will between fitting in and just being myself. Ken Gelder & Rachael Weaver her. She’s as guilty of misguided judgment keep what little he had here for his wife, to At one point, so much of my identity was MUP. PB. $39.99 as the rest of society. She sets herself rules whom I trust you will extend this news shaped by my peers that I didn’t know who Part of a series that has so to live by – no drugs, no sex, no alcohol, along with my sympathy. Despite any I was. And often I felt loneliest in a crowd. far covered colonial Austra- no tattoos, don’t trust anybody, no drop- setbacks, we persevere.’ Marina Singh, one When Mim and Kate find each other, it’s lian gothic fiction, crime ping out of school. And, rule number of Eckman’s colleagues at Vogel Pharmaceu- like seeing themselves reflected as they fiction and romance fiction, one: I will not turn out like my mother. It’s ticals, receives the news and is given the would like to be. It’s surprising to Mim this anthology takes the an overly simplistic view – it follows that unenviable task of informing Eckman’s that Kate would want to be like her. Their reader on a fantastic journey her rules for ‘how not to be’ are destined family of his death. Eckman has been on a friendship gives Mim the courage and into the often dangerous to fail. Hiding her true nature only works field trip to a remote part of the Amazon to conviction that she needs to be herself. world of colonial Australian against her and Mim’s rules prove useful report on and salvage what he can of rogue adventure fiction. The cast of characters is only as they are broken. Mim says, ‘I think I’m an anticipation junk- sure to draw the reader in – bushrangers, scientist Annick Swenson’s research. ie’. Do you think that’s something especially Mim is such a wisecracking character – she lost explorers, mounted troopers, mad Out of loyalty to Eckman and his family, intrinsic to being a teenager – a time when has some terrific lines, like when she tells her shepherds. Writers include Ernest Favenc, Marina agrees to follow in his doomed you’re in transition and deciding how you best friend, ‘Your definition of fun is puking Louis Becke, Rosa Praed and Guy Boothby. footsteps to uncover what actually hap- want that transition to play out? How does in a bush, and trying to get your feet on both pened to him. There are complications the thrill of anticipation play into the book? side mirrors of Ryan’s car.’ Was it fun to write A Decline in Prophets though: nobody really knows the exact Sulari Gentill her, and to give her this smart-arse dialogue? I think that anticipation, looking forward, nature of Dr Swenson’s research or her is essential to every person’s wellbeing. It Pantera. PB. $29.99 location. This could be the plot of an Mim was a lot of fun to write. It was makes life worth living and it’s particularly A Decline in Prophets is the airport thriller or Willard Price adventure challenging to show the vulnerability consuming for a teenager. For me, ado- second in Sulari Gentill’s series, but in Patchett’s capable hands it is beneath her tough exterior and she has a lescence was a holding cell, a time when I Rowland Sinclair series, the anything but farcical. Her descriptions of great sense of humour in some pretty dire seemed like I was on the edges of myself, A Few Right first being the Amazon are majestical: ‘At dusk the circumstances. In my experience, teenag- waiting to fall in. I couldn’t be trusted; I Thinking Men, which was insects came down in a storm ... every last ers with Mim’s kind of upbringing can be had a curfew and I couldn’t buy beer or shortlisted for the Common- one unfolded its paper wings and flew with darkly hilarious and utterly human in the cigarettes, but I was expected to know wealth Writers’ Prize for Best unimaginable velocity.’ best and worst of ways. what I wanted to be. How is that possible? First Book. Onboard the RMS Aquitania, Rowland Sinclair and his This novel is peopled with an extraordi- One thing you do in this book is show a See our website (www.readings.com.au) companions are enjoying the luxury liner’s nary cast of characters, from the tenacious much-maligned place – ‘A lost street in a for the long version of this interview. refined, elegant atmosphere until, suddenly, Marina and her complicated relationship 8 Readings Monthly July 2011 with Mr Fox (CEO of Vogel Pharmaceuti- takes place in the period between the two never came back. Her papa is still searching but this news – that the brother he hasn’t cals), to the beautiful Bovenders, caretakers World Wars, the third occurs in 1967, the for the ultimate truth – and the only one seen for years is dead – is catastrophic in of Dr Swenson’s apartment in Manaus and fourth in 1983, and the last in 2008. We who will listen to Minou’s own theories is unpredictable ways. At the beginning of the the gatekeepers to her whereabouts. An meet the people who will write biographies a frozen dead boy, found washed up on the novel, when the reader meets Jack, he is in intoxicating novel that traverses an evening and reassess the value of Valance’s – and beach. The mystery of what happened to a state of apparent hopelessness: ‘He’d of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice at the Teatro their own – contribution to English litera- Minou’s mama hangs over the novel and is already taken the shotgun from the cabinet Amazonas to the call-and-response rituals ture. We also follow the ever-diminishing worked well into the narrative, with clues downstairs – the keys are in the lock – and of the Lakashi. Enjoy. life of Daphne as her secrets are dissected; and back-story subtly woven into the plot. brought it up here. It’s lying loaded on the Justine Douglas is manager of Readings her life retold and all but dismissed. Jakobsen skilfully shows us how mama’s bed behind him, on the white duvet.’ This Port Melbourne disappearance has affected everyone on the is the beginning of a journey Jack must Hollinghurst’s ability to draw out the ef- island. Sometimes having Minou’s papa undertake. Tom’s death has brought past fects of a seemingly innocuous event down bang on about philosophers just feels like suffering to the surface. He must recover The Stranger’s Child the years, against the ever-changing social an excuse to name drop as many ‘names’ as his little brother’s remains and, in doing so, Alan Hollinghurst order of England, is remarkable. Through possible, but for the most part, his philo- must revisit his family’s troubling past. Picador. PB. Normally $33 class, wealth, the effects of war, the decrimi- sophical musings reveal the struggles of a Our special price $27.95 nalisation of homosexuality, the advent of broken man. Swift is an ambitious writer. Some novels The Stranger’s Child is Alan same-sex marriage, and a critique of how take the huge,terrifying things that are Hollinghurst’s first novel literary myths are created, Hollinghurst But this is Minou’s story. In her, we get all happening in the world at large right now, since his 2004 Booker paints a broad canvas that, despite losing the heartbreak and delicacy of the book, and try to understand them emotionally Prize-winning The Line of some energy towards the end, is beautiful the battle between reason and imagina- and personally; Wish You Were Here is one Beauty. Fascinated with class and enthralling. tion. What Jakobsen has done so well with such novel. Engaging with the themes of and the ever-changing social Pip Newling is a freelance writer and a staffer the characters who populate these pages is mortality, community and memory, Swift and sexual mores of British at Readings Hawthorn make them both fascinating and flawed, shows how human experiences, such as loss society, Hollinghurst but always without judgement. She lets us and the need to belong, are both unknow- plunges us into the secrets and shadows of the Vanishing Act arrive at our own conclusions; these char- ably personal, and inescapably universal. the life of Cecil Valance, a young poet, an Mette Jakobsen acters and their island cast their own quiet aristocrat and a ‘Cambridge man’ in 1913, Swift writes in a way that gives his readers Text. PB. $23.95. Ebook $14.96 spell long after the final page. in the lead-up to World War I. A family unmediated access to the thoughts of his The Vanishing Act is a debut Samantha Ellen-Bound is from dinner at George Sawles’s home (Sawles characters, mixing their inner and outer novel about how even the CAE Book Groups being Valance’s younger Cambridge friend worlds perfectly. Jack’s voice carries the most isolated, snow-covered and lover), sees events play out that will weight of suffering, but never ceases to be islands have their own Say Her Name entrance generations to come. After this credible. The monologues of Jack, and the secrets and intricacies. It is dinner, Valance writes a poem, ostensibly Francisco Goldman other characters, are, at one moment, an about loneliness and finding dedicated to Sawles’s 16-year-old sister Atlantic. PB. $29.99 utterly dependable, honest vision of the the place where you fit. It is Daphne, which becomes a cultural A few months ago I read an world and, the next moment, totally a little bit magic, a little bit touchstone and sets the world for extraordinary article in The unreliable. Swift’s prose never loses track philosophical, and a little bit sad. Jakobsen Hollinghurst’s sharp, funny, deeply New Yorker entitled ‘The of what’s important. has written quite an unusual novel, and I’m observant critique of class, society, sexuality, Wave: A Tragedy in Mexico’. William Heyward is from Readings Carlton not quite sure where it belongs, but I and the world of literature and literary It was a personal history that enjoyed the quietness of it and remained reputation. novelist Francisco Goldman At Last enthralled throughout. had written about the death Edward St Aubyn In a homage to Evelyn Waugh – and par- of his wife, Aura Estrada, on Minou is 12 years old. She lives on a small Picador. PB. Normally $32.99 ticularly Brideshead Revisited – Hollinghurst a beach in Mexico. That story has haunted island – solitary in every sense of the word Our special price $27.95 jumps decades to view the events of 1913 me because of the precise, filmic way – with her parents, a priest, a heartbroken This is the fifth book in again as they have grown in significance, Goldman described those moments between magician and his dog No Name. One year Edward St Aubyn’s loose both personally and culturally, with each life and death, the disbelief and grief of ago, her mama walked out into the rain series featuring posh, section taking up the story from a slightly losing your love. They met at NYU where he with a black umbrella and a turtle and tormented Patrick Melrose. different perspective. The second section was on a panel with two Mexican novelists: Its most recent predecessor, Jose Borgini, Aura’s then-boyfriend, and Mother’s Milk, was short- Gabiela Castresana. Afterwards he invited listed for the 2006 Booker her to join them for dinner (Borgini didn’t) Prize. Mother’s Milk was with Salman Rushdie. Goldman’s descrip- partly about the perceived betrayal of tion of their first meeting, ‘Hola! (Hello!) disinheritance, as Patrick’s mother, Eleanor, Meet your death’ and their subsequent Prepare to be handed over the beloved family property in marriage is an achingly accurate account of France to a shonky New Age collective. At what Octavio Paz called ‘The Double Flame’ Last covers just one day: the day of Elea- swept away of love and eroticism. nor’s funeral. This rite of passage forces Say Her Name is a meditation on their love, Patrick – fresh out of rehab, separated from Feel the exhilaration and terror infused with Aura’s poetry and fragments of his wife and sons, and wrestling with of fl ight in this beautiful and daringly her short stories. He recounts Aura’s family sobriety in a Kensington bedsit – to look imaginative novel that explores the history, her father’s abandonment of her and deeper into his relationship with his limits of self-transformation. her mother when she was four, and her life mother. Through a series of flashbacks, and ‘Th is book is intoxicating; it made me in Mexico City – the squalid apartments and through other characters’ observations, imagine things I never imagined before.’ three jobs her mother worked to ensure Aura Patrick attempts to countenance a process Jane Campion, director of Th e Piano went to university. Aura’s mother, Juanita, of forgiveness for the dichotomy in her and Bright Star blames Francisco for the death of her only character – that she genuinely sought to do child; she evicts him from their apartment good in her fractured world, but had also in Mexico City and threatens him with a willingly used him as a ‘toy’ in her sado- lawsuit. One can understand her wrath at masochistic relationship with her brutal OUT NOW RRP $32.99 that wave for extinguishing her shining husband. light, her beautiful and brilliant daughter After a bit of a shaky start, no words are and Goldman accepts it. ‘It seemed perfectly wasted in this elegant book. St Aubyn’s right for everybody to be acting crazy.’ He dialogue is razor-sharp, his characters spot- must return to their apartment in Brooklyn, on. The seething resentments and appalling where her best friend Valentina has erected a snobbery of Patrick’s remaining elderly shrine to her memory, but he wanders their relatives and family friends make for highly From the award-winning author of Bel Canto old haunts alone. I cannot improve on Colm entertaining reading. His sons’ precocious- Toíbín’s description of Say Her Name as ‘a ness strains credulity slightly less in this beautiful love story, and an extraordinary book, and their genuine questions about Ann Patchett story of loss’. Justine Douglas is manager of Readings life temper the high-concept philosophical Port Melbourne musings of his wife’s ex-lover. St Aubyn’s combination of brittle humour Wish You Were Here and raw despair sees him likened to Evelyn Graham Swift Waugh and Martin Amis; his prose is im- What lies within the heart of darkness... Picador. PB. Normally $32.95 peccable and many of his characters wholly Our special price $27.95 unlikeable. At the core of At Last, however, Wish You Were Here is the lie the tired and ravaged heart and mind story of Jack Luxton, whose of Patrick Melrose – and minds, as his son little brother, Tom, has just Thomas so wisely reminds him towards the been killed in the war in end of the book, are there to be changed. Iraq. Jack runs a seaside Perhaps, finally, St Aubyn is allowing him caravan park with his wife, to lay at least some of his demons to rest. Ellie. His family have a Vicky Booth is from CAE Book Groups complicated and sad past, History of a flourishes and the seasons can last for many Pleasure Seeker years. Originally part of book four, A Feast Richard Mason for Crows, A Dance with Dragons runs Great new titles parallel to the previous book, but also Q&A with Hachette. PB. $32.99 from Hachette Piet Barol leaves his drab existence in the moves on to resolve some of the storylines John Charalambous Dutch provinces to arrive in belle epoque that began there. ‘Truly epic … with its Amsterdam. He is employed by one of the magnificent action-filled climax, it provides by Bruno Moro, Readings Malvern richest families in the city, as a tutor for their a banquet for fantasy lovers with large on Two Greeks (UQP, PB, $24.95) – Publishers Weekly son, Egbert, a talented musician who has not appetites.’ left the house for a year and a half. Piet soon Harry, the first of the attracts the attentions of the women of the ‘Two Greeks’ in the house – Egbert’s two sisters and his mother novel, seems both angered Jacobina, who has been living in a sexless Poetry and alienated by the marriage since her husband made a pledge to world. What has brought And then when the him to this point? God. Ambitious Piet is determined to climb Dan Disney the social ladder through his connections John Leonard Press. PB. $24.95 I wanted to show that with the family, but when he seduces – or This is the first full-length Harry is angered by his lack of power is seduced by – Jacobina, dire consequences collection of poetry from in the world. Some of his feelings are arise for his future. Melbourne poet Dan Disney. shared by migrants in general, feelings Issued from a hyper-illumined of frustration at not being able to speak To Be Sung world of statues, rituals and the new language properly, feelings of Underwater looming silhouettes, his bewilderment in the face of social exclu- Tom McNeal poems have at their heart a sion. Then there is the transition from Rome Hachette. PB. $29.99 pleasure at surprise. And then village to city. But even if Harry had Robert Hughes What if you rediscovered when the is an eyewitness report which, the nous to negotiate these difficulties, One of the most celebrated art critics your first love? Judith suffused with wit and on occasion melan- he would still be disabled by feelings of and cultural commentators turns his Whitman always believed in choly, tells its own kinds of truthfulness. inferiority. No amount of success could attention to the timelessly fascinating the kind of love that ‘picks dispel his insecurities. How did he get city of Rome. Robert Hughes identifies you up in Akron and sets you like this? The novel suggests a bitter seven distinct cultural episodes: the down in Rio’. Once upon a relationship with his father, but what city’s Etruscan beginnings, Julius Caesar time, back home in Nebras- comes first, the chicken or the egg? and the birth of the Imperium, primitive ka, she had that kind of love Journals Maybe some people are congenitally Christianity and the growth of the Church, with Willy Blunt. But when she left for Island 125 miserable. the Renaissance, the Baroque and the Sarah Kanowski (ed.) Neo-Classic, the Rome of Fascism Stanford she never looked back, and 20 years and Mussolini and, finally, the Rome later, unhappy in her marriage, she wonders: PB. $15.95. Ebook also available The second of the ‘Two Greeks’, who moves in next door, is a much more agreeable of the 1960s – Fellini, la dolce vita if she called him, what would he say? An The latest edition of and the birth of the paparazzo. epic and moving literary love story. Tasmania’s contribution to person who educates Andy in the richness the lit-mag scene looks of his Greek heritage and language. Do terrific, with a focus on you think it is possible for children of mi- The Map of Time grants to hold onto their original heritage? Félix J. Palma, translated by David Walsh’s much-talked- about Museum of Old and Yes, certainly, provided the family is Nick Caistor New Art in Hobart. Scribe. PB. $32.95. Ebook $18.99 united and sees the value of their heri- Contributors include Phillip tage. The key is keeping the language. London, 1896. The wealthy young Andrew Adams on collecting, Juliana Engberg on Harrington wants only to turn back the I never had that. I never met a Mr MONA’s place in the history of private Voreadis. clock and rescue his lover from being mur- museums, and meditations on the artworks dered by Jack the Ripper. Meanwhile, Claire in MONA by art critic Peter Timms and You write the novel from Andy’s perspec- Haggerty is sick of her family match-making philosopher John Armstrong. Fiction and tive but he often speaks to his mother her with men they consider suitable. If only poetry from Kathryn Lomer, Gerard directly, referring to her as ‘you’. What do she lived in a time when she could be free to Windsor, John Kinsella and more. you think this brings to the novel? love whom she chose. Time is a problem for them both. Until they meet popular author Granta 115: The F Word I wanted to stress the divided nature of H.G. Wells, whose time machine has the John Freeman (ed.) the household: on one side, ‘mother- power to change everything. culture’, on the other, ‘father-culture’. Granta. PB. $30.95 To Be SunG undeRwaTeR This latest issue of Granta In childhood, and as an adult, Andy’s explores feminism and its allegiances are split, yet he identifies Tom McNeal diverse ways of existing in a mostly with his mother. By address- ‘For you, I was a chapter – a good chapter Science Fiction world in which the balance ing her directly he acknowledges that maybe... but, still, just a chapter – of power remains tipped his understanding of those years is a and for me, you were the book.’ towards men. It includes collaboration. He remembers through A riveting and heartbreaking love story about what happens when you & Fantasy fiction from Edwidge his mother’s eyes, which establishes, I A Dance with Dragons revisit the road not taken. Danticat, Louise Erdrich hope, their emotional solidarity. Carol George R.R. Martin and Jeanette Winterson, non-fiction from is knowable; Harry is opaque. Voyager. HB. Normally $39.99 A.S. Byatt, Eudora Welty and Rachel Cusk, Is the marriage between Andy’s mother Our special price $34.95 poetry from Sadaf Halai and Selima Hill, and Harry doomed from the start? She is George R.R. Martin’s fifth and an introduction by Téa Obreht, author not Greek; how many of their problems instalment in his ‘Song of Ice of The Tiger’s Wife. and Fire’ series is finally here! are based on cultural divides? The series, planned to unfold over seven books, follows the Harry’s ethnicity would seem to set him violent dynastic struggles of a apart from his Australian-born fam- fictitious empire where magic ily, but I see his inability to care about anyone but himself as his primary flaw. His insecurities make him aggressive and incapable of love. I doubt a Greek woman would have fared any better with him.

The novel is mainly set in the suburban Melbourne of the 1970s. Do you feel THe Coffee SToRy nostalgia for this period? Peter Salmon Quarterly Essays now available No, it was a nasty time to grow up Teddy Everett, reluctant heir to the $ Greek. Back then there was a sting in Everett fortune, strips naked his past as ebooks for only 9.95 each the word ‘wog’. Multicultural policies in a wild, caffeine-fuelled deathbed have since allowed kids to grow up with confession of love and betrayal that a sense of pride in their backgrounds. I spans four continents. This is a riotously Only at ebooks.readings.com.au love what Australia has become. original debut of honour, cowardice, bravery and coffee. Always coffee. Do you think men like Harry are an extinct species? No, there will always be people who are bottomless wells of misery, wherever they hale from. Readings Monthly July 2011 9

New Crime Dead Write with Fiona Hardy This July comes with an avalanche of great mystery sees Detective Elinborg (the White Death Crime Book of the Month new crime titles, which is convenient, as it’s deputy of absent Detective Erlendur), Tobias Jones my dad’s birthday. He’s been an avid crime take the reins of a case that she just may Faber. PB. $29.99 The Devotion reader since the Jurassic period (he claims excel in. A young man is found dead and of Suspect X Despite the economic crisis, he rode a dinosaur to school) and loves to surrounded by blood, but clues are thin Italian property developers Keigo Higashinto inherit my pre-loved books. In fact, he has on the ground – apart from the drugs in are manipulating the market, Little, Brown. PB. Normally $29.99 so many, I’m surprised he has room in the his pocket and a shawl imbued with a and those connected – politi- Our special price $24.95 house for my mother. So Dad: here’s a list of potent scent. The investigation uncovers cians, estate agents – are The Devotion of Suspect X titles you might like for your birthday. FH an unsolved disappearance, the sinister use sharing in the benefits. was a prize-winner and of date-rape drugs, and a murderer you’ll ‘White death’ is the term for runaway bestseller in the Silent Girl never guess. an industrial accident. author’s native Japan. Finally Tess Gerritsen Private Investigator Castagnetti believes the it’s been translated so that Bantam. PB. $32.95 Blood line factory owner who has asked for his help is English readers can see what A gun-toting severed hand is Lynda La Plante not the only one being bullied, and must the fuss is about. Ishigami is found on the ground in S&S. PB. Normally $32.99 stop it before his city, and the people in it, a middle-aged mathematics Boston’s Chinatown. On the Our special price $27.95 are ruined. genius and not living up to his potential. building above lies the dead Another usually second- He works at a local high school and is red-haired woman it belonged billed police officer comes Afterwards obsessed with his next-door neighbour to. Detective Jane Rizzoli and forward to take charge, with Yasuko, a divorced single mother and Bento Rosamund Lupton distracted medical examiner Detective Chief Inspector Piatkus. PB. $29.99 store worker. When Yasuko’s ex-husband Maura Isles must penetrate Anna Travis investigating a Togashi comes to her door one night In a story told from an unexpected perspec- the close-knit Chinese community to solve a pool of blood – with no tive, Afterwards is narrated by a mother lying wanting money and threatening Yasuko’s crime that could be closer to fable than fact. victim attached – and her teenage daughter Misato, the situation gets unconscious in a hospital bed, explaining superior, Detective Chief wordlessly to her husband what has brought out of hand and before long, Togashi is a Rip Tide Superintendent James Langston, watching corpse on the living-room floor. Ishigami, her there. Injured saving her daughter from a Stella Rimington closely (and critically) to make sure the case fire at her school, Grace realises the fire may overhearing the commotion next door, is solved. offers to help Yasuko dispose of the body Bloomsbury. PB. $29.99 have been a direct threat to her family, and and cover up the crime. When the body is Former head of MI5 Stella Rimington brings needs to do whatever she can to save them. back Liz Carlyle in another MI5-based spy 66 North found, the detectives assigned to the case Michael Ridpath feel that there is something amiss and what thriller. Carlyle is called to a pirate attack off I am God Atlantic. PB. $29.99 ensues is a cat-and-mouse battle of wits the Somalian coast after one of the pirates is Giorgio Faletti Iceland is a country in deep economic trou- between Ishigami and his old university discovered to be British-born. An undercov- Pier 9. PB. $24.99. Ebook $14.99 ble. It’s also the home of Michael Ridpath’s friend, now police consult, physicist Dr er agent, linked to the case, is found dead in When a 22-storey building in New York is Fire and Ice series, and 66 North continues Yukawa. With intelligently written charac- Greece, spilling the case even further abroad blown up, it is revealed that bombs were the story of Icelandic-born, American- ters and a killer twist, there is much to like – but her home turf of England could be planted in the foundations of other build- grown Sergeant Detective Magnus Jonson, about this novel. For those who are fans most dangerous of all. ings when they were constructed in the city. back in Reykjavik and teaching at the of crime fiction (and for those, like me, Giorgio Faletti’s sociopath declares I am God. National Police College. When two linked who seldom dip their feet into the genre), Outrage Detective Vivien Light, along with hated bankers die, he can’t help but investigate, I can’t recommend this highly enough. Arnaldur Indridason photographer Russell Wade, go on a nail- while his own history – and that of Iceland Jason Austin is from Readings Carlton Harvill. PB. $32.95 biting race to find the bombs and whoever Arnaldur Indridason’s seventh Reykjavik itself – is none too bloodless either. the hell hid them in those buildings.

9781921888472 • PB • TRUE CRIME Half a million dollars in missing gold sets off a chain reaction involving three brothers, two crooked cops, one mysterious plane crash and a THE MAP OF TIME* DEADLY WATERS* phony gold nugget sold to millionaire Alan Bond. Félix J. Palma Jay bahadur Australia’s West has never looked so wild. ‘Strange and wonderful. Magical and A major book by a young journalist who smart. Félix J. Palma has done more than talked his way into one of the world’s www.fremantlepress.com.au written a wonderful novel, he’s concocted most dangerous places — the remote Find us on Facebook a supernatural tour de force.’ – M.J. Rose pirate havens of Somalia.

Dismissal Once Upon a River BY NICHOLAS BY BONNIE HASLUCK JO CAMPBELL RRP $29.99 RRP $24.99 bERLIN SYNDROME THE HONOURED DEAD* Melanie Joosten Joseph braude In search of her ‘A courageous and exciting debut … A riveting, true story of murder and A thrilling tale of intelligent and masterful … a fine book intrigue in Casablanca, from the first political intrigue, betrayal, vanished mother, by an extremely talented new writer.’ Western journalist ever to be embedded spies and treason, spanning the Margo takes to the Michigan – Top Picks, Five Stars, Bookseller & Publisher within an Arab security force. tumultuous decades in Australia Stark River in what becomes a defining leading up to ‘The Dismissal’. journey of self-discovery and strength. www.scribepublications.com.au *AUTHOR TOUR 10 Readings Monthly July 2011

one of the most dynamic periods in Austra- a New Century’ – in which among others lian art. The photographs lay forgotten for things weight, menopause, parenting and many years until Burke discovered them again penis envy are all given the Roseanne Barr in 2004 and are a unique visual memoir, with treatment – had me choking on my dark New Non-Fiction subjects including Albert Tucker, Betty chocolate (which I was eating in honour sively self-destruct. Churcher, Jenny Watson, Shane Maloney, of the author) from laughter, but also not Kiffy Rubbo and Paul Taylor. wanting to tell my grandmother why. As It does not make for easy reading, and nor with most good comedians, Roseanne is 1835:Australian THE FOUN StudiesDING should it, because Black Swan is also a story of Storm over Kokoda at her best (and funniest) when brimming OF MELBOURNE AND THE the disastrous effects of government interven- Peter Ewer with justified anger. For instance, on the tions that robbed people of their self-determi- Murdoch. PB. $29.99. Ebook $19.99 topic of mad cows’ disease, she was stunned CONQUEST OF AUSTRALIA nation and dignity. Given the horrors inflicted James Boyce Few know the story of the to find scientists were trying to clone a cow on the Stolen Generation, it is easy to assume Australian pilots and that is immune to the disease, when the Black Inc. PB. Normally $44.95. Ebook $24.95 that subsequent policies could only have been answer is ridiculously simple – stop feeding Our special price $39.95 aircrew of 75 Squadron, an improvement. As Black Swan makes patently who first halted the the cows other dead cows! Henry Reynolds, in his clear, this was not always the case. Finally, Black review in The Age, called Japanese advance into the I could talk for hours trying to explain Swan is a story of the storytelling process itself: southwest Pacific. Storm James Boyce’s Van Diemen’s of Harrison and Landon’s meetings, their visits what Roseannearchy is. I could say it’s smart, Land ‘a fresh and sparkling over Kokoda tells the tale of terrifying, sometimes painful and always to archives and the paintings Harrison created these Australian crews who, account of the first in response to freshly unearthed memories. The funny, but I think Roseanne Barr herself generation of British in a handful of Hudson bombers and sums it all up exactly with the title of one question of emotional truth versus ‘actual’ truth Catalina flying boats, engaged in desperate settlement in Tasmania’. dogs every work of autobiography, and Landon’s of the last chapters: ‘Eat, Pray, Sh*t, Shower The Australian’s John air fighting over New Guinea and Port and Shave’. That’s all you really need to insistence on accuracy occasionally verges on Moresby – six months before the Japanese Connor was more circumspect, while the obtrusive. But for the most part her words know about the tone of this book. Read it. acknowledging that ‘it [was] a solid and campaign on Australian land even started. Dani Solomon is from Readings Carlton merge seamlessly with Harrison’s, welcoming An important chronicle of a previously significant addition to Australian colonial the reader as the silent third at the kitchen table, history’. Arguably one of our most neglected part of Australian military listening in while the two women talk. history. My Faraway One: interesting historians, Boyce turns his Selected Letters of eye to the settlement of the grasslands of Eileen Harrison is a remarkable woman, and South Eastern Australia and the ultimate for that reason, if no other, you should read this Georgia O’Keeffe & dispossession of the original inhabitants. book. But – perhaps more importantly Alfred Stieglitz, Vol. 1 The accepted orthodoxy is that there was – it offers an uncompromising insight into Sarah Greenough (ed.) little the colonial authorities of the day a less-documented period of Aboriginal Biography & Yale. HB. $49.95 could have done to stop the wholesale Australian history, the effects of which There are few couples in the occupation of the lands. Convicts (escaped continue to be felt today. AnMemoird Furthermore history of twentieth-century and emancipated), sealers and sailors – Marion Rankine is from Readings Carlton Judi Dench American art and culture who all crossed Bass Strait to escape the Hachette. PB. $22.99 more prominent than strictures of the Tasmanian colony – were Mark Strizic: And Furthermore charts Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred the ones to make the first inroads to Melbourne, Dame Judi Dench’s illustri- Stieglitz. Between 1915, Victoria. There, they coexisted with the Marvellous ous career, from her teenage when they first began to indigenous population. to Modern debut in the York Mystery write to each other, and Emma Matthews Plays, to her rise to fame on 1946, when Stieglitz died, they exchanged The prevailing myth is that it was over 5000 letters that describe their daily T&H. HB. Was $75.00 the sitcom A Fine Romance entrepreneurial farmers who occupied and lives in profoundly rich detail. This Our Special Price $49.95 (where she met the actor opened up the native grasslands, in spite of long-awaited volume features some 650 Photographer Mark Strizic Michael Williams who later colonial authorities and the disapproval of letters, carefully selected and annotated by began photographing became her husband), to her star turns in London. Boyce, controversially, argues that leading photography scholar Sarah Gre- Melbourne on his arrival films such as Ladies in Lavender, Shake- the authorities used this argument to mask enough. their real intentions, which were to open up from Europe in 1950. His speare in Love and six James Bond films. the fertile plains to the squatters from the work captures the city’s This bestselling memoir is a highly amusing magnificent architectural chronicle of an extraordinary life. Lives and Letters sheep industry. Boyce argues that it didn’t Robert Gottlieb (ed.) have to be this way – and that by allowing heritage, its vibrant laneways, squatters to seize vast tracts of land, the its grand arcades and the Stieg and Me Farrar Strauss Giroux. HB. $44.95 colonial authorities not only aided the sudden spaces of a city in transition. This Eva Gabrielsson Robert Gottlieb boasts decimation of the local indigenous people, month, a new exhibition at the State Library A&U. PB. $24.99. Ebook $14.99 impeccable literary creden- but led to poor uses of the land of Victoria will heavily feature Strizic’s Stieg and Me is Eva Gabriels- tials – he has been editor of and inefficient investment. gorgeous photographs. This lavishly son’s story of life with Stieg The New Yorker, publisher at produced book – with notes from curator Larsson, author of the Random House, on the This book is an important contribution and art historian Emma Matthews – pro- bestselling Millenium trilogy board of the New York City to the understanding of our history vides the perfect companion to the exhibi- – and lends intriguing Ballet, and numbered both and has relevance to contemporary tion, and a treasured keepsake of an elegant insights into the man behind Katherine Hepburn and Australia. ‘Could there be a connection bygone Melbourne. the publishing phenom- A. Scott Berg among his acquaintances between the ingrained assumption that enon. She tells of Stieg’s (enabling him to trash Berg’s Hepburn the squatter conquest of Australia could Half a Citizen lifelong efforts to expose Sweden’s neo- biography with unrivalled authority). It all not have been slowed down and regulated, John Murphy, Suellen Murray, Nazis, of his battles to save the magazine he plays into these pages, where he collects the and the national difficulty in imagining Jennifer Chalmers, Sonia founded, Expo, and of the genesis of the best of his writings on icons from across the that governments might do the same to Millenium trilogy (and the mystery of the arts, including John Steinbeck, Elia Kazan, coalminers today.’ Martin & Greg Marston Maxwell Perkins, Margot Fonteyn, and A&U. PB. $39.99 fourth volume). Also a deeply personal Mark Rubbo is managing director of Readings Judy Garland. The Boston Review praised Half a Citizen goes behind account, Gabrielsson writes of her 30-year romance with Stieg, his difficult family these pieces for their ‘thinking-man’s heft the unemployment statistics and the casual elegance of their style’. Black Swan to explore what it’s like to relationships and the controversy surround- Eileen Harrison live on a low income and rely ing his death and legacy. & Carolyn Landon on welfare. Through in-depth A&U. PB. $29.99 interviews with 150 welfare Roseannearchy Sometimes a book comes recipients, the authors Roseanne Barr Current Affairs along that leaves you both introduce us to people who S&S. HB. $35 Deadly Waters: gushing and speechless: you are struggling to balance paid work with In the nine years Roseanne The Hidden World have to write a thousand income support, dependent on unstable was on television, night after of Somalia’s Pirates words or none at all. housing conditions, but also active citizens night you could always rely Jay Bahadur Unfortunately, I’ll have to who participate in society. It explodes the on Roseanne Connor, the Scribe. PB. $29.95. Ebook $17.99 do my best with 300 and a myth that welfare recipients don’t contribute most realistically portrayed Somalian pirates have made fervent recommendation. to society and questions the assumptions on housewife in all of the the news in recent times for Black Swan is a curious beast. Part-memoir which welfare policy are based. history of television (if you their daring hijacking of and part-biography, it is also three stories in come from my family huge ships owned by one. First and foremost it is the story of Personal View: anyway), to tell us all how it really was. international conglomerates. Eileen Harrison, Kurnai woman and artist, Photographs, 1978–1996 Usually by shouting it from a couch. Freelance journalist Jay as told to Carolyn Landon over many Janine Burke Roseanne has been off television for nearly Bahadur travelled to a meetings in Harrison’s kitchen. After Monash University Publishing. PB. $19.95 15 years now – but if you miss those region of north-eastern growing up on Lake Tyers Mission Station, Author, curator and historian refreshing rude, loud, stingy truths about Somalia, one of the world’s most dangerous Harrison was relocated with her family to Janine Burke has brought everyday life, you need not anymore with places, to meet these Somalian pirates and Ararat as part of the government’s early- together an amazing collec- Roseannearchy. find out about their lives. He also talked to 1960s ‘assimilation’ policies regarding tion of photographs of artists, security personnel who were trying to Aboriginal people. Isolated from their For those of you who don’t read her blogs critics, writers and curators combat piracy, as well as with former pirate extended family and completely unprepared and have never seen her stand-up, you may (who were also her friends hostages who lived on their ships for for life outside of the mission, Harrison’s find yourself a bit shocked by some the and colleagues) taken during months while awaiting news of a ransom. once-stable family begins to comprehen- content. The entire chapter of ‘Rants for 12 Readings Monthly July 2011 The Honoured Dead that was printed using woodblocks on a baby? Most importantly, perhaps, she asks Joseph Braude paper scroll and dated 868AD. The why – in the early 21st century, when more Hitchens vs Blair: Scribe. PB. $32.95. Ebook $18.99 discovery shed new light on the history women than men are graduating from uni- Be It Resolved, Religion Joseph Braude was the first of Buddhism and its spread along the versities, ‘many of them spend a fair whack is a Force for Good Western journalist ever to Silk Road. of their salaries emulating Katie Price’. Fans in the World of Tina Fey’s Bossypants are bound to love be embedded within an A&U. PB. $14.99. Ebook $9.74 This is a fantastic adventure story. Joyce this whip-smart book. Arab security force. Assigned Morgan and Conrad Walters are both Is religion a force for good to a unit of detectives in senior journalists for the Sydney Morning in the world? Writer and Casablanca, he is given the Herald and the narration of Stein’s peril- atheist Christopher Hitch- file for a seemingly com- ous journey in freezing conditions without ens goes head-to-head with monplace murder. But as communication and detailed maps is ener- Psychology former British Prime Braude becomes intrigued by the details getic and absorbing. Many of Stein’s discov- Zero Degrees of Minister Tony Blair, an of the case, he starts to believe that the true eries were shipped back to Britain and it’s Empathy: A New Theory openly devout Catholic, to story has been covered up. His investigation fascinating to read about what happened debate this age-old question. takes him from cosmopolitan Marrakesh of Human Cruelty to the Diamond Sutra and other price- Simon Baron-Cohen Sharp, provocative and engrossing, Hitch- to the Berber heartland, from the homes less artifacts during World War II and the ens and Blair tackle questions like: How of the wealthiest and most powerful people bombing of London. Today, the Diamond Allen Lane. HB. $39.95 does faith influence our actions? And is in the country to the back-streets of Sutra is housed in the British Library, but We have probably all had religious doctrine rigid, or should we allow Casablanca. A remarkable and riveting rarely on display (to prevent deterioration). experiences where we for flexibility in our interpretations? This story about a society in transition. Instead you can go to their website and become so self-absorbed that riveting debate played out in front of a scroll through a digitised copy. A very we fail to notice others or sold-out audience last year, but this is the interesting read, especially for anyone the impact that our actions first time it has appeared in print. The book pondering the future of the printed word. have. Potentially, we can also includes interviews with both speakers. Kara Nicholson is from Readings Carlton become cruel and insensi- Travel tive. We have probably also Culture in a Liquid Journeys met people who instantly make us feel on the Silk Road Single White Female important and at ease, who seem to care. Modern World Joyce Morgan in Hanoi We read about people doing absolutely Zygmunt Bauman & Conrad Walters Carolyn Shine terrible things and try to understand it in Wiley. PB. $27.95 Pan. PB. $34.99 Transit Lounge. PB. $29.95 terms of good and evil. For Doctor Influential social thinker With the future of the book Sydney-based musician and Baron-Cohen, it is all about empathy, the Zygmunt Bauman argues such a hot topic, it is writer Carolyn Shine moved ability to relate to other people’s feelings. that the role of culture has welcome relief to take a step to Hanoi virtually on a changed in our contempo- We can, for a number of reasons, turn our back in time to the discovery whim. Expecting to find rary liquid-modern world. empathy off temporarily; some of us feel of the world’s oldest printed romance and a culture she Bauman claims that it no intense empathy most of the time, whereas book. This is the story of could adapt to relatively longer functions as an agent some have little or no empathy and their Aurel Stein, a Hungarian- easily, she found herself of change seeking to view of the world is totally self-centred – born archeologist who set sorely disappointed on both enlighten people – but instead seduces so much so, that they can perform extreme- out from northern India in 1906, on a counts. What she did find were a raft of them. It fails to satisfy existing needs but ly cruel acts without ever feeling remorse. mission to uncover ancient settlements and memorable Vietnamese characters, as well creates new ones, while simultaneously It is during the first 12 months that babies explore hidden caves. He was funded as foreigners like her, also looking for love ensuring that existing needs remain become attached to a significant other and largely by the British government, who and adventure. This is a wonderfully permanently unfulfilled. Bauman examines develop empathy; without that attachment, wanted antiquities for their museums, and humorous and quirky story that explores the effects of globalisation and migration empathy doesn’t develop. his journey took him and his team along sexual longing and cultural misunderstand- on our world and identifies the particularly ancient Silk Road routes through Central ing, while bringing alive the city of Hanoi. Baron-Cohen posits that we lie somewhere important role Europe has to play in Asia and into China. His greatest discovery on an empathy spectrum, and that this revitalising our understanding of culture. was the Diamond Sutra, a Buddhist text measure determines how we interact with others. This book is not as readable as, say, Humour Oliver Sacks; nevertheless it challenges New from Go the F**k to Sleep some of our most deeply held assumptions. History Adam Mansbach Mark Rubbo is managing director of Readings Il Duce and His Women & Ricardo Cortes Roberto Olla Text. HB. $17.95 Alma. HB. $54.95 Adam Mansbach, Il Duce and His Women father of a two-year- Cultural Studies charts the main events in old who played up at Dante in Love Mussolini’s private and bedtime, posted on A.N. Wilson public life, from his humble Facebook that he was Atlantic. HB. $55 beginnings in Romagna as writing a book called Award-winning biographer the son of a blacksmith to Go the F**k to Sleep. A.N. Wilson turns his his years as the director of a Amazingly, what started out as a quip by a attention to Dante Alighieri, leading socialist newspaper tired father turned into a bestseller before it the author of one of western and his irresistible rise to power, with a had even hit bookshops. Capturing the literature’s most celebrated particular focus on his renowned appetite familiar trials of putting your child to sleep, works, The Divine Comedy. for women, and the lesser-known influence parents new, old and expectant will relish Wilson doesn’t just delve they had on his decision-making. Syed Saleem Shahzad, recently found murdered the honesty and humour in this beautifully into Dante’s life, but also was an investigative reporter with unparalleled illustrated book. Just don’t actually read it into his world, arguing that to really access to leaders and fighters in Islamic to your two-year-old! understand the Comedy, one has to movements. He has been both a hostage and a understand how medieval Florence guest of the Taliban, giving him insight into its functioned. Exploring Dante’s numerous Philosophy workings that no other journalist can match. How to Be a Woman Time and Philosophy: $39.95 Pb, ISBN 9781420256710 Caitlin Moran preoccupations and their influences on his A History of Palgrave Macmillan Ebury. PB. $29.95 masterpiece, Wilson also investigates Continental Thought This frank, funny memoir of Dante’s decision to immortalise the John McCumber mysterious Beatrice in his Comedy. sorts doubles as an excursion Acumen. PB. $44 into contemporary woman- Time and Philosophy is hood – and how feminism Lost in Transit a thorough survey of conti- plays out (and what it David F. Dufty nental thought, looking at means) in the modern MUP. PB. $34.99 a vast body of work through world. Germaine Greer In 2004, a group of scientists history and charting its herself has called Moran built the Philip K. Dick development. Philosophers (who wrote her first novel aged 16) ‘a Android. It wore the famous discussed here range from genuinely original talent’ and praised her science-fiction author’s Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, many ‘good, tough, unsentimental jokes, clothes, thought his Adorno and Horkheimer, Sartre, de mostly at her own expense, in the female thoughts and spoke his Beauvoir, Derrida, to the most influential tradition’. mind. David F. Dufty was a thinkers of today, like Agamben, Badiou, confidante to the team of This book starts at the age of 13, and jour- Butler and Rancière. An essential text for The figure of Benito Mussolini looms large as one scientists who created it. Here, he takes us neys through adolescence, the workplace, first-time readers of the primary texts of of the most influential during the first half of into the world of artificial intelligence to strip-clubs, love, fat, abortion, motherhood continental philosophy. the twentieth century. But who is the real Benito show us how the android was made and the and beyond. Moran asks questions like, Mussolini? Understand his renowned appetite for intelligence, humour and obsession that women, and the lesser-known influence they had Why are we supposed to get Brazilians? fuelled the project. on his decision-making. Should you get Botox? Do men secretly $54.95 Hb, ISBN 9781846881350 hate us? What should you call your vagina? Alma Why does your bra hurt? And why does everyone ask you when you’re going to have Readings Monthly July 2011 13

byFood Justine Douglas,& Wine byArt Margaret & Snowdon,Design Readings Port Melbourne Readings Carlton Winter on the Farm Contemporary Art Matthew Evans World Currents Murdoch. HB. $49.99 Terry Smith This is my favourite time of Laurence King. HB. $65 year, mostly because I can The combination of author indulge in my favourite kind Terry Smith and publisher of food – country cooking. | July $27.95 Fiction Laurence King is bound to | July $24.95 Fiction Winter on the Farm starts produce an excellent book. promisingly enough, with Smith’s wonderful What is the perfect date and banana Contemporary Art has I am Max Lamm Two Greeks porridge, and Matthew Evans become one of Readings’ Raphael Brous John Charalambous is a man after my own heart – he eats his bestsellers on this subject. with cream. While I may not have a A darkly comic novel from a A bittersweet story about This new book argues that, in recent talented new voice. migrant life and family tension wood-fired cooker to cook a cardamom- decades, a worldwide shift from modern to in 1970s suburbia. scented rice pudding overnight in, it was contemporary art has occurred. Artists worth getting up early to prepare it for a late everywhere have embraced the contempo- breakfast, just to have the smell wafting rary world’s teeming multiplicity, its through the house. The mainstays of country proliferating differences and its challenging cooking are soups and stews that don’t rely complexities. This book shows how on exotic or expensive ingredients, but contemporary art achieved definitive force nevertheless satiate and warm the soul like in the markets and museums of the major nothing else. There is a wonderful recipe in art centres during the 1980s. New commu- here for a spiced oxtail and parsnip soup that nicative technologies and expanding social would convert the most squeamish children

media are now shaping the future of art. WITH BOOKS DEPTH to eating oxtail. There are also plenty of Terry Smith offers the first account of these ‘rib-sticking’ meals like bratwurst with changes, from their historical beginnings to braised Lilliput lentils and pot-roasted quail Non-fiction | July $34.95

the present day. Non-fiction | $39.95 September with pomegranate, which will see you through the dreariest of days. Art in the Streets The Chimps of Fauna Jeffrey Deitch et al. The Sons of Clovis Easy Rizzoli. PB. $55.95 Sanctuary David Brooks Tom Aikens This is the catalogue for the Andrew Westoll A new look at the truth Ebury Press. HB. $59.95 exhibition at MoCA LA An absorbing, big-hearted book behind the Ern Malley hoax – The title of this cookbook is – the first large-scale about ex-lab chimps on the road somewhat misrepresentative. with the narrative tension of American museum exhibi- to recovery. a thriller. You won’t find express tion to survey the colorful versions of classic recipes history of graffiti and street using convenience foods here art movements internation- www.uqp.com.au find us on Facebook follow @UQPbooks – thankfully, there isn’t a lasa- ally. Highlighting the gne recipe in sight. Instead, connection between graffiti and street art Tom Aikens has collected a and other vibrant subcultures, such as those startlingly original range of dishes that can that developed around hip-hop in the be easily prepared for family and friends Bronx and skateboarding in Southern alike. All of the dishes are cooked from California, Art in the Streets explores scratch and do require a minimal amount of parallel movements in dance and music. planning, but you will be rewarded with a tasty, healthy supper like chicken marinated Stylish Dress Book: in yoghurt and mint with lime rice, or spiced lamb mince with turmeric yoghurt. Wear with Freedom Sometimes it is easier and safer to cook a Yoshiko Tsukiori meal from your repertoire (most of us have a Penguin. PB. $29.95 repertoire of half a dozen recipes) but I First we had the beautiful promise you that this book will inspire you shapes of the ‘Pattern Magic’ to experiment without frazzling your nerves books; now we have a more or wasting expensive ingredients. If spatch- down-to-earth collection. cocked poussins with lemon, green olives This book contains 26 and rosemary is too demanding (a cinch patterns for garments that even if you substitute a chicken for the are elegant and loose-fitting, poussins), then roast a couple of chickens designed to be worn in any and leaf through the chapter on leftovers for season and suitable for women of all ages excellent recipes like a honey-roasted chicken – smock and tunic-style tops and dresses and spiced vegetable soup. that still manage to convey a unique and beautiful Japanese aesthetic. The easy-to- South East Asian Food follow instructions are accompanied by Rosemary Brissenden detailed diagrams and gorgeous full-colour Frank Bowden, a specialist in photographs. Hardie Grant. HB $49.95. PB $34.95 the field of infectious disease The first edition of South East Beyond Shelter: and sexual health, looks at Asian Food was published Architecture for Crisis over 50 years ago. It was, at one bug at a time, weaving the time, the first compre- Marie Aquilano (ed.) hensive study of the cuisines T&H. PB. $45 around them the stories of his This was written by the of Thailand, Indonesia, patients and their families, the Malaysia, Singapore, Laos, founders of some of the Cambodia and Vietnam. world’s most provocative doctors and the difficulties they Each cuisine is introduced with a fascinating architecture and engineer- potted history of regional specialities and ing firms, non-profit face. We encounter Swine Flu, influences, which make this book an companies and research Golden Staph, SARS, Hepatitis, essential reference for anyone travelling to centres, as well as leading charitable South East Asia. There aren’t any glossy organisations on the frontline of disaster and HIV, and many more! photographs of market scenes or stylised prevention and recovery, in rural and urban dishes. The beauty of this tome lies in the areas alike. Together they illustrate the recipes. After experimenting with a variety of reality that evolving risk requires new ways different Asian cookbooks, Brissenden’s of thinking, and that architects have a recipes remain the most authentic and they leading role to play. Includes Sydney-based never fail. An essential addition to any group Emergency Architects Australia. serious cook’s library – and if, like me, your paperback version is falling apart, here is your chance to replace it with a beautifully www.newsouthbooks.com.au bound hardcover. 14 Readings Monthly July 2011

long list of rules designed to keep trouble at neering grandmother wants him to move bay: don’t do drugs, hang onto my virginity, in with her, and his dad is in America with don’t turn out like my mum … But when his new family. A Monster Calls is simply the novel begins Mim has agreed, against all breathtaking. You will pick it up and keep better sense, to courier a package for her reading until the last page, and even then it Kids’ Booksthe world. This is a fun, short, chapter book Picture Books mother. And all too quickly, she finds it hard will stay with you for a long time afterwards. Basher’s ABC that manages to make some salient points to keep on keeping her precious rules. Old Visually it’s a treat, too: the ink-splatter Basher about what we expect from girls, while also friendships will be lost, new friendships black-and-white illustrations suit the mood delivering on the simply written but fun made, family history revealed, boys seduced, of this sombre yet uplifting tale perfectly. Scholastic. HB. $24.99 adventure. This is the first book in a six-part and people will turn out to be not who they This story of loss and hope will surely go There are a plethora of series aimed at junior readers. initially seem to be. down as a classic. alphabet books about – some Marie Matteson is from Readings Port Melbourne Holly Harper is from Readings Carlton Mim is a fabulous not-perfect protagonist: straight educational, others more novelty. Then we have Nanny Piggins and sarcastically funny, smart, brave, inexperi- ones like Basher’s that is a bit enced, stubborn, gullible and hopeful. And POD of both and has a delightful the Rival Ringmaster I could almost feel the boredom and wilting Stephen Wallenfels design aesthetic. Each letter R.A. Spratt heat and madness and ugliness of Australian A&U. PB. $19.99. Ebook $16.99 has a double-page spread; the Random. PB. $15.95 suburbia wafting off the pages! All I Ever When the PODs first arrive, left-hand side alliteratively setting the scene This wonderful series began Wanted is an entertaining, touching, pitch- nobody knows what they are. for the object on the opposite page. The when Sarah Piggins ran away perfect and darkly funny read. The round, black objects characters are bold, quirky and lots of fun. I from the circus to work as a Leanne Hall is from Readings Carlton hover over the cities omi- particularly like the complete A to Z shown nanny in the Green house- nously, until they make their each time with the appropriate letter hold. Five books later and The Shattering first move: they evaporate highlighted; kids can see where the letter is in Nanny Piggins still has an Karen Healey every person who is not incredibly sweet tooth; the indoors. So begins a tense relation to the whole. This is a witty, creative A&U. PB. $17.99. Ebook $15.29 children adore her chocolate siege told from the points of view of Josh, celebration of the alphabet. The quality of Keri is still traumatised by cake; Mr Green prefers to spend time at stuck in his house with his father, and Megs, the production and the artwork make for an the recent and unexpected work; and Boris the Russian ballet-dancing a young girl trapped alone in a parking outstanding picture book. Ages three and up. suicide of her older brother, bear lives in the garden shed. In this garage. As food starts to run out, people Alexa Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn when she is approached by adventure, Nanny Piggins uncovers some begin to turn on each other, and Megs and her classmate Janna, whose startling truths about The Ringmaster, wins Josh must use all their wits to survive. POD Ruby brother made the same a Nobel Prize, is reunited with a lost friend, is a thoughtful sci-fi survival tale brought Alison Lester choice to end his life. Janna and finds herself consoling a nervous alive by its two excellent narrators, and told Hachette. PB. $16.99 has an interesting theory bride-to-be. The books are a joy to read and in a wonderfully intense way that will have When Ruby was a baby, her about the disturbing regularity and similarity must be read while eating a bar of chocolate! you biting your fingernails in suspense! HH mother made her a beautiful with which young men who have spent time They can be read in any order and if you patchwork quilt to keep her in their town, Summerton, have committed haven’t already done so, grab a copy and be safe and warm. Ruby called it suicide. Summerton is a seemingly idyl- Novelty prepared to laugh out loud at Nanny Piggins Besty. One night, Ruby lic holiday town that enjoys unusually good The Marvellous Book and her antics. rescues Besty from the weather, a thriving tourist industry, and Daniela Perinac is from Readings Malvern of Magical Horses clothesline and discovers vistas so beautiful that they frequently hold Eva Steele-Saccio Besty can fly. Join Ruby and visitors in an entranced thrall. But Summer- Klutz. Spiral. $24.99 Besty on an adventure over the seas! Muncle Trogg ton also plays host to some fairly disturbing Janet Foxley For girls and boys who like events that escalate during this pacy and My Little Pony and George’s Dragon Chicken House. PB. $12.99. page-turning mystery-slash-thriller. Keri, dress-up dolls, this book Claire Freedman Muncle Trogg is the smallest Janna, and summer visitor Sione (who has has everything they could giant in the world. The giants Scholastic. PB. $15.99 also lost his brother) begin a risky investiga- possibly want to create of Mount Grumble are big George’s new pet lizard is tion that slowly uncovers the black heart of costumed horses and and ugly with yellow teeth no ordinary lizard. Sparky this pretty town. engage in imaginative play. With two paper and faces covered in warts. keeps accidentally setting fairies, six paper horses and over 250 They feast on fungus things on fire, and he doesn’t I loved Karen Healey’s debut novel Guardian reusable push-out fashions, including porridge, squirrels-on-a- stop growing! Soon Sparky of the Dead, so I was extremely excited to read saddles, wings and tiaras, it is bright and skewer and frogspawn is a big dragon, and George The Shattering. Healey has provided us with sparkly, while encouraging kids to use their crumble and love to compete in the annual must convince his mother three strong, likeable, diverse main characters imagination and creativity. This book will Burps and Farts Competition. But poor that dragons do make who are each grappling with some serious keep them entertained for hours and is Muncle is so unlike the other giants, even his very good pets. individual issues; punchy and witty dialogue; recommended for ages six and up. AC youngest brother Gritt likes to pick on him. slow-creeping menace; an intriguing trail of Junior & Middle Muncle is often labelled a ‘Smalling’, the clues; and nail-biting action sequences. Kiwi Princess Creativity people most feared and despised by giants. Healey now lives in Melbourne, but I love Book Precious and Smallings are what giants call us humans. that her novels are so firmly and vividly set in the Monkeys But Muncle will discover that being small her home country. LH Dragon Creativity Alexander McCall Smith does have its benefits, as this unlikely hero Book Polygon. HB. $19.95 saves the giants from their ill fate. Muncle In the Sea There Andrea Pinnington Precious Ramotswe, founder Trogg is a funny, action-packed adventure are Crocodiles Walker. PB. $19.95 each of the Number One Ladies’ featuring a likeable hero who will appeal to Two activity books with the readers aged eight and up. DP Fabio Geda Detective Agency, was already Random. HB. $24.95 lot – stickers to stick, solving mysteries as an This is the remarkable true pictures to colour in, games eight-year-old! In this EJ12 Pyramid Puzzle to play and ideas for things Susannah McFarlane story of a young Afghani boy, charming tale, Precious Enaiatollah Akbari, who was to make and do. With rich investigates the theft of her Scholastic. PB. $12.99. Ebook $7.99 abandoned by his mother in and colourful illustrations, school friends’ snacks. Find Book ten in Susannah Pakistan at age ten, for his both books include two sticker sheets, a large out how young Precious became the crafty McFarlane’s Girl Hero series. own safety. He then under- gatefold sticker scene, stencils for drawing, a and intuitive private investigator we all love. Shadow seems to have took a harrowing five-year press-out model and beautiful craft paper. uncovered a secret in an journey through Iran, Turkey The Goblin King: Egyptian pyramid. Special and Greece, to eventually find sanctuary in Round-up Sophie and the Shadow Agent EJ12 will need to dig Italy. Forced to make very adult decisions Nobody knows nose books like Readings Woods Book 1 deep and unravel the puzzle about how to survive and who to trust, this month! We’re up to our nostrils in Linda Chapman before Shadow escapes with Enaiatollah is incredibly courageous but picture books on olfactory organs. From & Lee Weatherly ancient treasure. That’s the easy part. As matter-of-fact about his choices. Written as a the much-loved illustrator of Diary of a EJ12, Emma Jacks can do anything. So why HarperCollins. PB. conversation between Enaiatollah and Italian Wombat comes Bruce Whatley’s Nog and does she think she can’t trust her friends? novelist Fabio Geda, this is a fascinating and the Land of Noses (Scholastic, HB, $26.99). Special introductory price $4.99 Perhaps she can after all. Sophie Smith loves action and very human story about the life of a young In the Land of Noses exists every kind of adventure, but she has no idea man desperately seeking a place to call home. nose imaginable: big noses, small noses, that on her tenth birthday she Young Adult Recommended for ages 12 and up. runny noses, blocked noses. Nog doesn’t is going to become the All I Ever Wanted Angela Crocombe is from Readings St Kilda think much of his nose, until trouble comes guardian of the shadow gate Vikki Wakefield along and only he can sniff it out. And in that protects our world from Text. PB. $19.95. Ebook $14.95 A Monster Calls Errol and his Extraordinary Nose (David the mischievous and grue- All I Ever Wanted is quite Patrick Ness Conway, Walker, PB, $16.99), it seems as some shadow creatures. But unlike any other Aussie YA Walker. HB. Normally $27.95 though everyone has an act for the upcom- that’s what happens – and Sophie will need all book I’ve ever read – in the Our special price $21.95 ing talent show – everyone except Errol. her taekwondo skills (and the help of her best possible way. Sixteen- Conor is still lying awake just after midnight But soon the elephant discovers his special friend Sam) if she’s to succeed. I would’ve year-old Mim has grown up when the monster calls. It stands outside talent might be right under his nose. With loved this book when I was seven and looking in a deadbeat family in a his window and tells him it has come to get these books and others to choose from, for a story where a girl just like me – who down-at-heel suburb, and him, but he isn’t afraid. After all, he’s got come on in and pick your nose! Er, nose likes skateboarding and martial arts – is she’s determined not to end bigger things to worry about: his mum’s can- book that is … HH invested with special powers and gets to save up in prison like her two brothers. She has a cer treatments have started again, his domi- Readings Monthly July 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. INVESTING & Rick Stein’s The West and the Map King’s Way: The ARRESTING Far Eastern Odyssey of the World Beginnings of Rick Stein Matthew Richardson Australian Graffiti HB. Was $59.95. Now $24.95 HB. Was $70. Now $29.95 Martin Harvey, Karl Stamer A guide to the authentic food Inspired by antique map- & Duro Cubrilo of Southeast Asia. Features makers and their global PB. Was $45. Now $16.95 over 150 recipes from vision, The West and the Map King’s Way chronicles the Cambodia, Vietnam, of the World presents the past events, spaces, materials and Thailand, Bangladesh, Sri as a single narrative in which folklore that made up the Lanka, Malaysia and Bali. European history is an lives of Melbourne’s early off-shoot of Asian history. A graffiti artists. stunningly beautiful volume. Delusions of Gender Seven Hundred Habits Cordelia Fine of Highly Ineffective PB. Was $29.99. Now $13.95 People Australia’s A passionately argued and much-needed corrective to Jonathon Biggins Remarkable Trees the belief that men’s and PB. Was $24.95. Now $9.95 Richard Allen women’s brains are intrinsi- This is a laugh-out-loud HB. Was $65. Now $19.95 cally different. ‘This marvel- funny book from one of Australia’s Remarkable Trees lous and important book will Australia’s best comedic explores the extraordinary change the way readers view talents across stage, screen lives of 50 of Australia’s the gendered world.’ and writing. A direct take on oldest, largest and most – Publishers’ Weekly The 700 Habits of Highly unusual trees. Richly Effective People, Jonathan illustrated, with more than The golden Mean Biggins turns it on its head 500 photographs, writer Annabel Lyon and writes a modern-day response to the ills Richard Allen and photogra- of modern society. pher Kimbal Baker went to the far reaches of PB. Was $30. Now $12.95 Australia to photograph them and tell their Lyon shows us life through The Lost Mother: A stories. Aristotle’s eyes. A ‘vivid Story of Art and Love Alan Kohler’s Eureka Report: imagining of the encounter Anne Summers Collins Australian Guide to Personal Investing between Aristotle and the provides the tools you need to young Alexander the Great HB. Was $35. Now $15.95 Dictionary 9th Edition … Lyon’s evocation of the After her mother’s death in HB. Was $90. Now 19.95 understand all aspects of your ancient world is earthy and 2005, Anne Summers Including a much wider personal finances. immediate.’ – The New Yorker inherits a portrait of her range of words than ever mother as a child. Mes- before, the extensive coverage AVAILABLE JULY Splendour & Squalor merised by this image, she of geographical, scientific Marcus Scriven finds herself drawn into the and technical entries has story of how the portrait was been updated by leading PB. Was $27. Now $10.95 painted and eventually found academic experts. Readings’ From stately homes to the its way into her family. Martin Shaw swears by prisons of war-time Britain, Collins Dictionaries. from the Ritz and the Dorchester to East End dives, The Gardens of Eden Bob Dylan in America Splendour and Squalor tells Holly Kerr Forsyth Sean Wilentz the stories of three of PB. Was $45. Now $15.95 Britain’s most illustrious HB. Was $55. Now $16.95 Gardens of Eden brings Growing up in Greenwich aristocratic dynasties and of together more than 50 of the the black sheep who brought them down. Village in the 60s, Sean world’s most beautiful Wilentz discovered the music gardens. Spanning time and of Bob Dylan as a young Hawke: continents, this book visits The Prime Minister teenager. Almost half a the glorious paradise gardens century later, now a distin- Blanche D’Alpuget of ancient Persia, the guished professor of Ameri- PB. Was $55. Now $17.95 restrained gardens of Italy can history, he revisits Hawke begins as Bob Hawke and the Buddhist-inspired landscapes of Dylan’s work with the critical skills of a wrestles the Labor leadership China and Japan. scholar and the passion of a fan. from Bill Hayden and a few weeks later wins the 1983 The Gardener’s Zig Zag federal election, thus Book of Days Nicholas Booth achieving his life’s goal of Holly Kerr Forsyth HB. Was $36. Now $14.95 becoming Prime Minister of PB. Was $45. Now $14.95 A lively and sympathetic Australia. A perpetual calendar for account of celebrated double the Kaiser’s Holocaust every garden lover. Organised agent Eddie Chapman, into daily readings for the incarcerated when the David Olusoga whole year, it brings together Germans occupied the HB. Was $45. Now $16.95 practical advice, recipes using Channel Islands in 1940. On On 12 May 1883, the produce from the garden, his release, he received In her frank and engaging German flag was raised on the information about annual training as a saboteur and coast of South-West Africa. As memoir, Fair Cop, Christine festivals and gardening German spy in occupied France. Nixon opens up about working settlers began to take over events, and interesting facts about garden tribal lands, the Herero and designers and gardens around the world. A Thousand Cranes: in one of the toughest jobs in Nama resisted and Germany the country and the pressures Treasures of of life in the public eye. launched a war of extermina- Everfresh Blackbook Japanese Art tion. Everfresh Studio Seattle Art Museum AVAILABLE AUGUST Sunset Park PB. Was $40. Now $14.95 PB. Was $39.95. Now $19.95 The Everfresh studio is an A history of Japanese art, Paul Auster explosive hub of creation and PB. Was $33. Now $13.95 from the earliest times until activity, located in Mel- the twentieth century. In the flatlands of Florida, bourne’s inner city. Behind Miles is photographing the Published to accompany an an unmarked factory door, exhibition at the Seattle Art last traces of families who’ve Everfresh artists conceive, abandoned their houses due Museum, it is an excellent develop and collaborate to survey of Japanese art. to debt or foreclosure - and produce their now interna- is haunted by the death of tionally renowned work for the streets, as his step-brother. well as fine art for exhibition in galleries. www.mup.com.au 16 Readings Monthly July 2011 ENTOURAGE: SEASON 7 Released 13 July. $39.95. Blu-ray $49.95 For Vince, Eric, Drama and Turtle, life in Hollywood’s fast New Release DVDs lane can be an intoxicating ride. This season, after an accident during the filming th TRAFFIK: 20 SEX & DRUGS & OLIVIA: VOLUME 1 of his latest action flick, Vince ANNIVERSARY EDITION ROCK & ROLL Released 6 July. $24.95 develops a new lease on life $24.95 Released 7 July. $34.95 Based on the beautiful that makes him even more The original, award-winning ‘ … is all my body needs’ children’s picture books by difficult to manage than usual, while each of UK Channel 4 mini-series sang Ian Dury, front-man of Ian Falconer. Every day is an the guys must decide which steps to take to that inspired the Steven The Blockheads, famed for adventure for Olivia, the fun, map out their own futures. Soderbergh movie is brought hits such as Reasons to Be feisty and fashionable piglet vividly to life in a newly Cheerful and Hit Me With with an active imagination GETTING ON: SERIES 1 & 2 re-mastered version. Traffik Your Rhythm Stick. In this and too much energy for her Released 7 July. $29.95 lays bare the international rock and roll biopic, Andy own good. Join Olivia and Set in Ward B4 of King drug trade by tracing three ‘Gollum’ Serkis as Dury her friends on their many adventures. Edward VIIIth hospital – intersecting lives: Jack (Bill Paterson), a – part Fagan, part punk Oscar Wilde – a run-of-the-mill female British government minister; Helen (Lindsay immerses himself in the role of the polio FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS: medical ward in an NHS Duncan), a woman embarking on a survival survivor and art school urchin who wrought SEASON 3 outpost someway outside strategy; and Fazal, a Pakistani peasant music hall poetry from his tyrannical $39.95 London – Getting On finds working for a menacing drug lord. Hard- childhood and brought a confrontational One of the most compelling, its humour in the daily grind hitting, groundbreaking and passionate, this edge to his music as well as his domestic life. heart-felt and intense TV faced by the staff. The black is television that changes attitudes. series of all time, Friday comedy flows thick and fast as staff wade INSIDE JOB Night Lights returns to more through the bureaucracy, bickering and daily THE NIGHT PORTER Released 6 July. $39.95 acclaim, with 13 ground- battles with life and death in this health- $19.95 The 2011 Academy Award breaking episodes in season care backwater. Getting On does for mental Dirk Bogarde and Charlotte winner for Best Documen- three. Featuring a powerful healthcare what The Thick of Itdid for politi- Rampling star in this tary, Inside Job, directed by all-star cast led by Kyle cal spin. As seen on ABC1. controversial drama about a Charles Ferguson, shows that Chandler and Connie Britton, Friday Night concentration camp survivor the 2008 global financial Lights is the realistic series that has received KENNEDY and her tormentor, now a Armageddon was no unrivalled recognition. $29.95 lowly porter, who resume accident. It was predicted Before playing The West their sado-masochistic and could have been THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU Wing’s President Bartlett, relationship in the seedy prevented. This compelling, serious, Released 6 July. $39.95. Blu-ray $44.95 Martin Sheen spent a term in grandeur of a Viennese hotel. Dubbed, on easy-to-follow film will make you want to Do we control our destiny or the White House as John F. its release in 1974, as ‘one of the most raise your voice and declare … ‘Enough!’ do unseen forces manipulate Kennedy – giving the controversial pictures of our time’ (along us? Matt Damon stars in this definitive performance – in with Last Tango in Paris and Salo), The Night THE PROTECTORS thriller as a man who glimpses this 1983, five-hour mini- Porter is a stark reminder of how ground- Released 6 July. $39.95 the future Fate has planned series. Kennedy is a detailed breaking 70s cinema was. SBS brings us another of their for him and realises he wants biography of the presidency of JFK, including carefully chosen gems of something else. To get it, he the high-stakes family pressures and torment MONEY European angst-ridden sleuth- must pursue the only woman of a man at the height of his political career. Released 7 July. $19.95 ing – in temperatures as cold he’s ever loved across, under and through the Based on the 1984 darkly as the criminals’ hearts – with streets of modern-day New York. On the SQUIZZY TAYLOR comic novel by Martin Amis. this Emmy award-winning brink of winning a seat in the US Senate, $24.95 This BBC production Danish crime series. In today’s ambitious politician David Norris (Damon) Melbourne, 1919. A turf war starring Nick Frost (Shaun of violent world, the lives of meets beautiful contemporary ballet dancer erupts between rival Fitzroy the Dead, Spaced) as John many politicians, industrialists, heads of state Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt). But just as he and Richmond gangs, Self, a champagne hedonist and other VIPs are endangered. Luckily, they realises he’s falling for her, mysterious men painting the cobbled blue- and small-time commercials can all rely on competent, quick-thinking and conspire to keep the two apart. David learns stones red. From shoot-outs director thrown into the utterly loyal bodyguards. In Copenhagen, he is up against the agents of Fate itself – the in Barkly St, Carlton, to a Hollywood deep-end, defines with pharma- Rasmus, Jonas and Jasmina form a dedicated men of The Adjustment Bureau – who will death bed in St Vincent’s, the ceutical verve the era of greed, ego and excess group called ‘The Protectors’. This Danish do everything in their considerable power to remarkable story of Australia’s that was the 80s. crime series focuses on the lives and missions prevent David and Elise from being together. first true gangster Squizzy Taylor is a curio of of the specialists and their superiors, while In the face of overwhelming odds, he must Melbourne street history. Starring Jackie also portraying the people they protect and either let her go and accept a pre-determined Weaver and Steve Bisley, filmed in and those they protect them from. path, or risk everything to defy Fate. around Carlton. A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO CINEMA These three box sets, each containing six masterpieces of modern cinema, will explain everything you wanted to know about film but were afraid to ask!

Metropolis The Science of Sleep For a limited time only get 50% off Tokyo Story – all three box sets are reduced Double Indemnity from $99.95 to $49.95 each!* The Edge of Heaven Seven Samurai *Offer ends 31st July 2011 …and many more Influential Cinema from Around the Globe

DIRECTORSSUITE.COm.aU Readings Monthly July 2011 17 SCHOOL HOLIDAYS SPECIAL OFFER: DVDs & BLU-RAYS FOR KIDS Readings has a special New Release CDs selection of great kids’ DVDs at reduced prices available Suck It & See during July, to help fill in the Arctic Monkeys time between those craft CD of the Month Normally $25.95 projects and museum visits. The Harrow Our special price for July $21.95 Titles include: Little Miss, Mr and the Harvest Suck It & See represents Men, Maisy for the Tots, Gillian Welch something of a back-to- More ebooks Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Willy Normally $25.95 basics approach for this Wonka, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, * Our special price for July $21.95 record-breaking Sheffield at special prices Fantasia, Fantastic Mr Fox (a Wes Anderson It’s been eight long years foursome. Having again gem), Astro Boy, The Wizard of Oz and Star since Gillian Welch teamed up with long-time Wars Clone Wars. released an album. Now at producer James Ford, the band are proving Stieg and Me long last, the follow-up to to be sitting comfortably somewhere MIFF SALE Eva Gabrielsson Soul Journey is here. There between their stunningly energetic and Paperback $24.99 Various titles $19.95 each are no surprises, which youthful debut, and the more sprawling and To coincide with the some people may see as a negative, but fans menacing sound of their last outing, ebook $14.99 Melbourne International of Welch only want to hear her voice and Humbug. The trademark Alex Taylor lyricism Film Festival, Readings and David Rawlings’ unrivalled guitar playing. and foot-stomping tunes are all here, but so Madman are offering a This is a beautiful collection of songs, too are the more contemplative elements selection of wonderful cult, proving once again what a formidable that prove the Arctic Monkeys as a band art-house, Australian and song-writing team Welch and Rawlings embracing their growing maturity. After all foreign films during July – all have become. From the opening Scarlet – no one is young forever. DM for $19.95. Titles include: As Town, they move effortlessly through each The Vanishing Act it is in Heaven, The Band’s Visit, Coco Chanel, song – and in-between we are treated to She Was a Boy Mette Jakobsen Control, Dead Man, Double Indemnity, Down some wonderful moments, such as the Yael Naim Paperback $23.95 by Law, Exit through the Gift Shop, Harvie delicate harmonies on The Way It Will Be $24.95 ebook $14.96 Krumpet, I am Love, In the Loop, Lantana, and the joyful sound of banjo and harmon- Leon the Professional, Leopard, Let the Right French-Israeli singer-song- ica on Six White Horses. Has it been worth writer Yael Naim is all the One in, The Piano Teacher, Rififi, The the wait? Of course it has – especially when September Issue, Seven Samurai, Ten Canoes, best kinds of hyphens. it’s Gillian Welch. With a healthy amount of Wake in Fright, Walkabout, When You’re Phil Richards is from Readings Carlton Strange, Wings of Desire and Paris, Texas. Camille-type whimsy and an international touch, She Coming soon Was a Boy will transport you immediately to the quirky, enchanting France you find in Hitchens vs Blair: DOWNTON ABBEY movies. This CD has amazing musical range: Pop/Rock The Munk Debate Julian Fellowes’ television costume drama Codes & Keys sometimes a gentle guitar-plinking country on Religion that quietly builds things up, like in Never has had fans swooning over its sumptuous Death Cab for Cutie Paperback $14.95 quality. Dinner suits and your finest jewel- Change, while the flute in My Dreams is as lery are recommended while watching. Normally $26.95 whimsical as its name, and the sensual Man ebook $9.74 Our special price $21.95 of Another Woman borrows from her Israeli Codes & Keys sees this heritage. Soon to be heard at art galleries and Washington four-piece cafes all over the world. (and indie favourites) Fiona Hardy is from Readings Carlton AUSTRALIAN DCFC extend their sonic palette, moving closer to Also available. Secret Rituals Hitch 22: A Memoir. CLASSICS the electronic territories The Grates explored by main man Ben Gibbard’s side ebook $14.99 All titles available at $12.95 Normally $26.95 project, The Postal Service. It would seem Our special price $21.95 married life has done much to brighten Just listening to Australian Gibbard’s mood – and given his wife is indie rock trio-now-duo actor–musician Zooey Deschanel, that’s The Grates makes me want I am God hardly surprising. The sound is very much to throw some kind of Giorgio Faletti that of a studio album, with the band enormous party. In one Paperback $24.99 showing an eagerness to experiment with room there’d be people space and texture; in most cases disposing drunk and emotionally charged, listening ebook $14.99 of their previously guitar-driven sound for a to Like You Could Have It All. In another, more keyboard-oriented feel. That said, it’s there’d be one person slow-dancing to melodically strong and still sounds very Change and contemplating a new lifestyle. much like a DCFC album. I may never In the bedroom, a new couple would start a forgive Gibbard for stealing the woman of sweet love affair to With You. In the lounge my dreams … but with Codes & Keys, he room, everyone would be laughing and has produced a fine record. dancing to Turn Me On. And people would Also available I Kill Declan Murphy is from Readings St Kilda remember the soundtrack to that party for ebook $9.99 Gloss Drop years to come. FH Battles Demolished Thoughts $24.95 Thurston Moore Battles’ first full-length $21.95 record, Mirrored, was one The brand new solo album of the best of 2007 – and from Sonic Youth’s Last Summer with Gloss Drop, the band front-man is not necessar- Kylie Ladd have continued to push ily what you might expect. Paperback $29.99 their sound forward in a Beautiful, acoustic and way that defies comparison to any other folk-edged, it’s closer in band operating today. Having lost inspired ebook $17.99 feel to producer Beck’s Mutations or Sea singer Tyondai Braxton, Gloss Drop employs Change than to the experimental noisefest a slew of collaborators to fill his shoes; a Sonic Youth are more often known for. tactic they’ve pulled off to great effect. Always one to keep evolving and doing his Battles are possessed of the unique ability to own thing, Thurston Moore’s brand of make boundary-pushing sound like fun, a ebooks.readings.com.au eloquent psych-folk is multi-layered and testament to their fantastic musicianship and well worth exploring. Very nice indeed. inventiveness. Four years on from an Melissa Whebell is from Readings Hawthorn acclaimed debut, they have produced another contender for album of the year. DM Note these ebook prices for a limited time only * Umbrella Entertainment 18 Readings Monthly July 2011

Savages and relationships; he hones in and puts you is her second album of acoustic country/folk You Can’t Teach an The Webb Sisters right in the heart of the story. That is and bluegrass songs, with beautiful arrange- Old Dog New Tricks $29.95 indeed a gift. Songs like Northern Wind and ments featuring fiddles, banjos, guitars and Seasick Steve Fragile Bird make you really listen, while mandolins (many of them played by Jarosz). English sisters Charley and $24.95 Natural Disasters lifts the tempo with a The album opener and title track is a real Hattie Webb, renowned for Steve’s fourth album is great chorus. His voice is his instrument attention grabber, with its finger-picked their mesmerising accom- aptly titled, as the sixty- and you need to hear it. Please listen to this acoustic intro and soulful vocals over some paniment to Leonard something continues to album. LF very tasty electric guitar licks. An absolute Cohen’s live band for his make glorious rackets out stand-out is her wonderful take on Dylan’s world tour during 2008 of beaten-up and home- LUCY Ring Them Bells done bluegrass style, with – 2010, have released their new album made guitars, fashioned some very fine backing from Mr Dobro Jerry Savages, which draws on British and Lucy Wainwright Roche from cigar boxes and hubcaps. Nobody but Douglass. Album closer Peace is a moody American folk and pop traditions. Playing Import Only. $32.95 nobody gets a slide guitar sound as glori- Celtic-tinged instrumental featuring guitar, keyboard, piano, drums, vibraphone, Lucy Wainwright Roche is ously dirty and full of breath as this. On as mandolin from Jarosz and Solas wind player harp and mandolin, these very talented a very different creature to few as just three strings and with little Seamus Egan on wooden flute. multi-instrumentalists also impress with her more celebrated accompaniment besides regular drummer their angelic harmony singing on the album. half-siblings, Rufus and Paul Barr is from Readings Carlton Dan Magnusson, Steve sounds positively Track eight of Savages is Leonard Cohen’s Martha Wainwright. symphonic. The recorded sound is perhaps song If It Be Your Will, which is a live cut the Loudon Wainwright’s more expansive than before: no more so than Webb sisters performed on (and includes a daughter by singer Suzzy Roche, she has on the three glorious tunes where John Paul spoken word intro by Cohen). none of the extravagant flamboyance Jazz/Blues Jones sits in on bass to create a truly awesome Miranda La Fleur is from Readings Carlton associated with the family, adopting a rather Standing on power trio. RM more coy, introspective and wholly less the Rooftop The Flowerpot brazen approach, both in song and delivery. Madeleine Peyroux Sessions She’s clearly inherited her father’s way with words and her mother’s quirky nonchalance. Normally $26.95 Various Our special price $21.95 Normally $26.95 It’s album number five for AFolk/Worldgadez Our special price $21.95 Madeleine Peyroux, and Bombino The Flowerpot Sessions is the this time she has taken a $24.95 second release from slightly different shift in ComeSoul/Funk Together: Black Omara ‘Bombino’ Moctar Communion Records, style. But don’t be alarmed, is the latest guitar hero to which was established by America Sings Lennon that voice is as beguiling as emerge out of the Tuareg Mumford & Son’s Ben and McCartney ever and everything works just charmingly, rebel music brigade. Lovett and his label Various Artists thank you very much. Production by Craig Bombino rocks a bit more partners Kevin Jones and Ian Grimble. This $24.95 Street (Norah Jones, k.d. lang) has steered than his heroes Tinariwen extensive compilation features 26 artists who A few months ago the her towards a rootsier sound and it suits her. and the late Ali Farka Touré, and has paid came together over a week in July 2010 in a mighty Ace label released With intricate arrangements, Madeleine’s more attention to his amplifier settings to Kentish Town pub called The Flowerpot to How Many Roads: Black voice weaves a spell like Billie Holliday’s, make great use of distortion and sustain. perform acoustic collaborations and reinter- America Sings Dylan. especially on the Beatles classic, Martha, My Many of these tunes extend to six minutes pretations of a variety of songs. Featuring Now it’s Lennon/ Dear. This is a must for your collection. plus and he is inclined to let his guitar do performances by Beans on Toast, Sarah McCartney’s turn for Alice Bisits is from Readings Malvern more of the talking than his desert blues Blasko, Damien Rice with Angus & Julia the same treatment. This album features colleagues. Certainly there are hints of Stone (performing You’re the One That I Want 24 tracks covered by the likes of Otis Don’t Tempt Me Hendrix, early Santana and Jimi Page. from Grease), Kill it Kid, Pete Roe and many Redding, Mary Wells, Fats Domino, Sarah McKenzie Underneath the stratospheric guitar breaks, more, the album is an enjoyable collection of Al Green, as well as lesser-known artists, Normally $26.95 his band-mates lay down some hypnotic unpolished tracks, which were intended to giving The Beatles’ catalogue a fairly Our special price $19.95 trance-inducing grooves. Bombino also plays remain as true to the original state as the thorough, soulful R&B workout! MW This is the first solo album on a couple of virtuoso acoustic numbers. recording process would allow. MLF for Sarah McKenzie, after a This is mind-altering African music with career of regular perfor- bite. PB A Treasure mances with mentor James Neil Young and Country Morrison. She has also The International Harvesters Queen of the backed Michael Bublé on Standard $19.95. Blu-ray $24.95 Minor Key tour, and is currently appearing at the While fans wait for the Eilen Jewell Melbourne International Jazz Festival. Music Specials next volume of his Archives Audiences were stunned at her recent gig at $24.95 series, we can make do with the Stonnington Jazz Festival, where the I can’t get enough of of the Month these 12 live recordings 22-year-old showed amazing vocal interpre- rockabilly’s influence on new releases dating from 1984 and tive talent, masterful piano-playing and musicians, and Eilen at low, low prices 1985. Five of these songs mature stage presence. A complete package Jewell’s new album is All normally $26.95 are previously unreleased. The International for jazz fans – and this is just the beginning enough to make your hair Our special price $14.95 Harvesters were his support band on 1985’s for this talented artist. AB break out in victory rolls. Old Ways and were responsible for some of The title track, with its amazing guitar work, the most straightforward country music of Strictly Whatever is an injection of pure fun. The album itself Young’s career. The Harvesters also featured is a mix of pace, from blues-touched Hooked Harry Manx & Kevin Breit some of the greatest artists in the history of to surf finisher Kalimotxo. Tracks like Santa $24.95 country music and it is for this reason the Fe may make you mellow and contempla- A typically beautiful album sounds so compelling and valid even tive, with its heavier reliance on the slow, collection of new songs today. The time span coincides with a period lapsteel country sound, but songs Warning from the Canadian blues For the month of July, we have a selection when he was touring without the support of Signs and Bang Bang Bang will get you back rambler. Manx and of some of the best releases of the last 12 an album. His label was unhappy with that, on your feet straight away. A great country sometimes guitar foil Breit months at the low, low price of $14.95. as well as his ‘leaning’ towards a more all-rounder. FH conjure a bewitching array Stocks are very limited. Once sold out, unpopular traditional country sound. of sounds from sundry guitars, banjos, these will revert back to their standard price Clearly they had not heard Harvest or Comes Follow Me Down electric sitar, ukulele, mandolin – and of ($26.95). a Time. This release will be available in a course the fearsome 20-string Indian Sarah Jarosz variety of formats, but the deluxe CD/ mohan veena. This is funny, dark and Titles on sale are: Build a Rocket Boys! $19.95 Blu-ray package will feature selected videos. overall damn danceable music. Witness the (Elbow), Mayhem (Imelda May), At the tender age of 20, Lou Fulco is a friend of Readings filthy bottom end of Dance with Delilah, Let England Shake (P.J. Harvey), Lungs Texan singer/songwriter with the swampy sass of modern, worn- (Florence and The Machine), My Beautiful and multi-instrumentalist Little Hell down Dylan or Waits. Or witness the Dark Twisted Fantasy (Kanye West), Great Sarah Jarosz is really just City And Colour ethereal Do Not Stand at My Grave and Impression (Sparkadia), James Blake (Blake getting started – but give Weep, which sounds like the score to an James), Loud (Rihanna), Midnight Remember $25.95 her a little more time and ‘Little heavens and little imaginary Wim Wenders film. Sublime. (Little Red). she could be a serious challenger to Alison hells are what comprise a Richard Mohr is a friend of Readings Krauss and Gillian Welch. Follow Me Down relationship’ says Dallas Green, who writes, performs and records under the moniker of City And Colour. The themes explored on this album Bob Dylan, Miles are just that, ‘the things you do to get through them both’. Recording the album AT CARLTON, Davis, Tom Waits on tape also adds to the warmth and colour HAWTHORN & and many more! that bring the songs to life. They range from bluesy rockers to country-fied acoustic ST KILDA. but all the while Green keeps the message VINYL quite intimate. He takes snapshots of life Readings Monthly July 2011 19

piano trio by Theodor Kirchner and the cascading chords that Howard deftly Fantasiestucke Op. 88. These chamber works manages, confidently expressing the work’s are infused with Schumann’s usual warm rich harmonies and textures. The disc also sound and the three musicians are not only includes several miniatures, including a Classical CDs integrated in their sound, but complement haunting arrangement of the fifth move- each other in their musical ideas. KR ment of the Vespers. high-wire routine without a net – each piece Evan Meagher is from Readings Hawthorn is performed with a raw energy that is at Baroque Duets Classical CD once controlled and beautiful. Full credit Fiona Campbell Per La Vergine Maria must be given to Duncan Ferguson and & David Walker Rinaldo Alessandrini of the Month his choir for their glorious performance, John Adams: Son of Vexations840. 8401101. $24.95 & Concerto Italiano for without this dedication to the music it Australian mezzo-soprano Naïve. OP30505. $29.95 Chamber Symphony / would be just notes on a page. PR String Quartet Fiona Campbell and I picked this up having American counter-tenor been so impressed with John Adams & St. Lawrence Piazzolla: Tangos for David Walker have joined Concerto Italiano’s highly String Quartet Violin, Brass Quintet forces this year to create a acclaimed recording of Nonesuch. NNS523014.2. $24.95 and Percussion new recording of baroque motets by Melani This new disc from Andrea Tacchi & Quintetto duets through Sydney label Vexations840. (OP30431). Melani, a composer John Adams, di Ottoni e Percussioni della The sound world is stunning and warm, composer fortunately recovered from arguably America’s greatest Toscana without the dryness often associated with oblivion by Alessandrini and his ensemble, is living composer, is a fine Naxos. 8572611. $12.95 baroque repertoire. The wonderful aspect of featured again – alongside Monteverdi, example of his composi- This is Piazzolla like you’ve this particular set of chosen works is that Bencini, Soler, Scarlatti and others – in this tional style. Son of Chamber never heard him before – a Campbell and Walker have chosen baroque collection of music devoted to the Virgin Symphony, the first piece, is inspired by jazzed-up collection of his repertoire that is a combination of well- Mary. The inclusion of Stravinsky for the Schoenberg’s Op. 9 Chamber Symphony. repertoire with a big band known and lesser-known vocal pieces of the final track seems incongruous, but actually Adams, however, is his own man and creates sound and occasional period; the result is a recording both works really well. Alessandrini always gets an within the form something that is uniquely interludes of solo violin. beautiful and musically satisfying. Highly amazing sound from these singers. There is John Adams. The International Contempo- One of the stand-out pieces is Piazzolla’s recommended for all lovers of vocal something compellingly raw and immediate rary Ensemble play beautifully under his Four Seasons Suite; if Vivaldi had been born repertoire. KR about the voices, and this sound is captured direction. The String Quartet follows. Like in Buenos Aires, maybe the Four Seasons brilliantly in their recordings. EM the Chamber Symphony, it’s beautifully would have sounded like this. This recording Fiesta Criolla: written. The St. Lawrence String Quartet is is arranged by Donato De Sena for the Latin American Mad Rush: Solo Piano clearly at one with the music; they give a Tuscan Brass and Percussion Quintet, who Orchestral Works Music of Philip Glass wonderful performance. Both pieces will are all professors from leading Italian please lovers of Adams’s music – and will Gabriel Castagna Sally Whitwell universities, and features Andrea Tacchi on & Wurttembergische ABC Classics. 4764469. $24.95 surely convert a few non-believers. violin. A great way to jazz up a slow Phil Richards is from Readings Carlton Philharmonie Reutlingen Sydney pianist Sally afternoon. Chandos. CHAN10675. Normally $34.95 Whitwell has been featured Kate Rockstrom is from Readings Carlton Our special price $19.95 on a number of ABC Classics recordings in the The Art of Martha Argentine Cello This magical new disc from Argerich Chandos explores the past, including the Classic Zoe Knighton & Amir Farid 100 Piano, but this is her Martha Argerich wonderful world of South Move Records. MD3347. $29.95 American classical compos- solo debut. The opening track on this disc is DG. 4779523. 3 CDs. Normally $34.95 Smooth cello sounds with ers. There is a veritable feast the first movement from Glassworks – a work Our special price $29.95 bright accompaniment are of early to mid-twentieth Philip Glass intended to be more ‘Walkman- On 5 June 2011, the great features of this new release century orchestral music by composers from suitable’ than some of his larger-scale works. Martha Argerich turned 70. from local duo Zoe Argentina, Peru, Brazil and Columbia. No less suitable to MP3 players, most of the To celebrate, Deutsche Knighton and Amir Farid. Piazzolla’s little known Milongón Festivo music collected here meets Glass’s descrip- Grammophon, the As the name of the album starts the disc and immediately it will have tion. Glass has spent his career working company she has recorded suggests, it features repertoire from the you sitting up and taking notice. Apart from hypnotic minimalism into forms accessible with for 50 years, has Argentine musical tradition. The sense of Mr Piazzolla, I was not familiar with these to and loved by an enormous audience. The released this three CD set. During her tenure musicianship is clear, and dramatic as composers, but their works are so engaging recording features an Australian Stuart & with DG, she has made some of her greatest required, while both musicians have that I just sat back and enjoyed the journey. Sons piano – specifically selected for its clear, recordings. The solo and orchestral record- moments of intense virtuosity that are Highly recommended. PR bright tone – for use on this project. EM ings here demonstrate that, as a pianist, she executed with much aplomb. The whole was not afraid to tackle any composer. Some recording is infused with excitement and an Rachmaninov: COLLECTORS’ CORNER of the standout performances are J.S. Bach’s obvious joy in what they do. KR This new initiative is a series of releases that English Suite No.2; why she didn’t record the Piano Sonatas Leslie Howard will be offered at discounted prices. Featur- other five suites is a mystery. Argerich is Schumann: Complete ing the prowess of Chandos, Harmonia Mu- Melba Records. MR301127. $29.95 truly one of the greats of the classical world Works for Piano Trio nidi, Hyperion, LSO Live, Naïve Classique Melbourne-born Leslie – and this set is one to be treasured. PR and many other fantastic labels, there will Leif Ove Andsnes, Howard is one of the be 20 top new releases every month. Now, Christian & Tanja Tetzlaff world’s most highly regard- Bruckner: Motets what is really special about this particular EMI. 0941802. $24.95 ed pianists. Having Duncan Freguson corner of the repertoire is that as a loyal Leif Ove Andsnes is a name recorded the complete & Choir of St. Mary’s and frequent buyer, if you purchase FIVE that keeps popping up in piano music of Liszt for Cathedral Edinburgh recordings, you get one for FREE! Keep the relation to new internation- Hyperion, he brings us another world first, Delphian Records. DCD34071. $28.95 card with you, or keep it on file at your local ally-acclaimed recordings. this time for our own Melba Records – the I have always felt that Anton Bruckner has Readings store – it doesn’t matter, just make This new release through coupling of the two Rachmaninov piano never quite been given the attention he sure you get it stamped and once you’ve EMI features him with the sonatas, featuring the original 1913 version deserves from the classical music public. filled the quota, you can choose any of the Tetzlaff siblings: violinist Christian and of the second sonata. The original version Hopefully this new recording of motets will $19.95 recordings from the Collectors’ Cor- cellist Tanja. There are not only the three was considered too difficult for pianists at change that perception. This is the choral numbered piano trios on this disc but also ner range to take home for free. singing equivalent of performing a the time, and is still rarely heard today. It is the six etudes in Canonic Form, arranged for a wonderful work, with impossibly thick

~ ~ You can also browse and buy at our secure website www.readings.com.au Order Form Post to : PO Box 1066, Carlton, 3053 Send facsimiles to : (03) 9347 1641

Please supply the following items : Please send to :

_____ X ______$ ______Name : ______

_____ X ______$ ______Address : ______

_____ X ______$ ______Postcode : ______Phone : ______X ______$ ______   Order No.: ______Payment enclosed or please charge my VISA MC _____ X ______$ ______( Last three numbers of the security ______Card No.: CRV : code on the back of your card )

$ ______Postage (see rates below) : Expiry Date : __ __ / __ __ Signature : ______

$ ______  Total : Send me Readings Monthly e-news My email : ______

POSTAGE RATES: Australia: BOOKS : Melb. Metro: 1-6 books $6.50; Other VIC: 1–6 books $7.50; Anywhere else in Aust: 1-6 books: $7.95 ~ Order 7 or more books and we will pay the surface freight to anywhere in Australia ~ CDs, DVDs: flat rate: $4.80. Order 6 or more and we’ll pay the surface freight to anywhere in Australia ~ WEBSITE: Spend $50 or more online and get free freight within Australia. Freight for orders less than $50 is $6.50 within Australia. NEW ZEALAND: Freight for 1-3 items: $7.95; 4 or more items: $10. NOTE: Prices correct at time of printing but subject to change ~ READINGS ABN : 45 005 153 533 ~ www.readings.com.au. FREE EXHIBITION

MAGGIE DIAZ NORMAN IKIN HELMUT NEWTON ATHOL SHMITH WOLFGANG SIEVERS MARK STRIZIC DACRE STUBBS HENRY TALBOT

State Library of Victoria AS MODERN AS TOMORROW PhotograPhers in Postwar Melbourne

slv.vic.gov.au/modern

Supported by:

Discover the work of Melbourne’s leading postwar photographers. This free exhibition of striking commercial images gives a unique insight into the changing cultural and social fabric of mid-century Melbourne.

State Library of Victoria 328 Swanston Street Melbourne 1 July 2011–5 Feb 2012 Images, from top left: Wolfgang Sievers, Cotton ring spinning frame, Fibremakers, Bayswater 10am–5pm daily Helmut Newton, Crude distillation unit – tower sections and process (detail), 1966; Maggie Diaz, Detail of machinery photographed for pipelines (detail), c. 1953; Norman Ikin, Valerie Wittman Ikin at ‘The Nilsen Story’, c. 1960s; Athol Shmith, Julie Reiter modelling for A Rowland Sinclair Novel (to 9pm Thursdays, the Caulfield Cup, 1950; Mark Strizic, Robin Boyd (detail), 1970; Patons Bluebell Crepe (detail), c. 1960s, © the estate of Athol Shmith closed public holidays) Dacre Stubbs, Printing equipment, Kodak Australasia (detail), c. 1951; (all gelatin silver photographs)

Readings Food Events at Hawthorn

Gaye Weeden Hayley Smorgon Frank Camorra The Butcher, Richard Cornish Matthew Evans The Baker, The MoVida’s Guide Winter on the Farm Best Coffee Maker to Barcelona

Matthew grows much of his own produce Join us for a glass of wine and celebrate the Restaurateur Frank Camorra (MoVida) on his farm in Tasmania – which is also best foods in Melbourne as Gaye Weeden and writer Richard Cornish have teamed the setting for his TV series The Gourmet and Hayley Smorgon talk about The Butcher, up again to bring us MoVida’s Guide to Farmer. Let Matt warm your winter for a The Baker, The Best Coffee Maker. This new Barcelona. Don't miss them talking about couple of hours at Readings Hawthorn, as book is the guide to the best places to shop the beautiful food and locales of Barcelona. he talks about his cooking and his lovely for provisions and delicacies in Melbourne. Tuesday 2 August, 6.30pm, Readings new book, Winter on the Farm. Wednesday Thursday 28 July, 6pm, Dench’s Bread and Hawthorn. Tickets: $45 per person, 20 July, 6.30pm Readings Hawthorn. Tickets: Jam for Frances Cafe at Readings Hawthorn. includes a glass of Spanish wine and a $20 per person, includes wine and tastes Tickets: $40 per person, includes signed first signed first edition copy of MoVida’s from Winter on the Farm. Bookings are edition of the book, wine and pre-dinner Guide to Barcelona. Bookings essential: essential: please call 9819 1917. nibbles. Bookings essential: 9819 1917. please call 9819 1917.

Readings Hawthorn and Dench’s Bread and Jam for Frances Cafe are at 701 Glenferrie Rd. Check event details at www.readings.com.au