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JULY 2018

Read an extract from Teacher by Gabbie Stroud

page 6

New books from Louis de Bernières, A.M. Homes, Anne Tyler, Roxane Gay, Shaun Tan and more

BOOKS MUSIC FILM EVENTS

LULUC page 22 SHAUN TAN page 18 OCCUPIED TRENT DALTON KON KARAPA- CHRISTIAN page 21 page 7 NAGIOTIDIS WHITE page 13 page 12

CARLTON 309 LYGON ST 9347 6633 KIDS 315 LYGON ST 9341 7730 DONCASTER WESTFIELD DONCASTER, 619 DONCASTER RD 9810 0891 HAWTHORN 701 GLENFERRIE RD 9819 1917 MALVERN 185 GLENFERRIE RD 9509 1952 ST KILDA 112 ACLAND ST 9525 3852 STATE LIBRARY VICTORIA 328 SWANSTON ST 8664 7540 | SEE SHOP OPENING HOURS, BROWSE AND BUY ONLINE AT WWW.READINGS.COM.AU

READINGS MONTHLY 3 July 2018

by Kim Scott. The winning author will be ache, and I felt every sentence of it keenly’. The program also includes a fold-out map July announced on Sunday 26 August. The Women’s Prize for Fiction was launched developed in partnership with the Koorie in 1996 to celebrate the best novel written by Heritage Trust, featuring a contemporary a woman in the English language. It is widely Aboriginal design and architecture walking News Melbourne Writers Festival 2018 recognised as having had a huge impact on tour. You’ll find the program available The 2018 Melbourne Writers Festival the promotion of women’s writing worldwide, to purchase for $24.95 in all Readings runs from Friday 24 August to Sunday 2 including being one of the key inspirations shops and online from 1 July. Find out September. For more than three decades, for Australia’s very own Stella Prize. more about Open House Melbourne at Carlton shop reopening MWF has been bringing together the best openhousemelbourne.org Readings Carlton is reopening its doors this writers, thinkers and performers from month! Our Carlton shop has been undergoing Australia and around the world to revel in the Open House Melbourne a renovation since late May, and the grand power of words to unite and inspire us. This This year’s Open House Weekend is taking The Readings Podcast reopening and exciting reveal of our flagship year, new artistic director Marieke Hardy is place on 28–29 July, and 220 significant The Readings Podcast is a celebration of store’s new look is currently scheduled for aiming to push the boundaries of a traditional buildings and sites across Melbourne will books, music, film, TV and pop culture. Saturday 21 July. To stay up-to-date with the writers festival and invite you to step outside open their doors so you can learn how Episodes feature author interviews, details of the reopening, follow Readings on your creative comfort zone. The program the built environment and urban planning publisher interviews and event recordings. social media (@Readingsbooks) and sign up will be released on Tuesday 17 July, with initiatives and issues influence our culture We’ve recently uploaded some fascinating to our enews at readings.com.au/sign-up. tickets on sale from Friday 20 July. Find out and shape our cities. Readings is delighted interviews with some of our favourite local While you wait for the Carlton shop to reopen, more at mwf.com.au. Readings is the official to be the exclusive distributor of the Open and international authors, including Jennifer don’t forget to visit our pop-up bookshop bookseller of the Melbourne Writers Festival. House Melbourne 2018 Program. The Egan, Holly Ringland, Robert Manne and across the road, at the rear of Lygon Court. program features 338 pages, packed with Christos Tsiolkas. You can find all our everything you need to plan your Open episodes on SoundCloud or iTunes. Melbourne International Film Festival 2018 House Melbourne Weekend and to make For more information, visit Special offer on The Power of Hope The Melbourne International Film Festival the most out of the month-long festival readings.com.au/the-readings-podcast. This month Kon Karapanagiotidis releases has released the first glance at their 2018 of architecture that is the July Program. his memoir, The Power of Hope, which tells program. The 2018 Melbourne International the story of how Kon overcame a childhood Film Festival runs from 2–19 August. The filled with racism, bullying and loneliness to festival features films of all genres from both create one of Australia’s largest human rights local and international filmmakers. Tickets organisations. The Asylum Seeker Resource for selected special events including the Centre has gone on to transform the lives of Opening Night Gala and a Nicolas Cage-a- thousands of refugees. During the month of thon are on early sale now. The full program July, Readings will donate $2 from every sale of over 300 titles will be announced on of The Power of Hope to the Asylum Seeker Tuesday 10 July, with public tickets on sale Resource Centre. Friday 13 July. To find out more, buy passes or become a MIFF member, please visit miff.com.au. Readings is a proud supporter Miles Franklin Shortlist 2018 of MIFF. The shortlist for the 2018 Miles Franklin Literary Award has been announced. First awarded in 1957, the $60,000 prize is Winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2018 awarded each year to a novel that is of the Kamila Shamsie has been named this year’s highest literary merit and presents Australian winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction, for life in any of its phases. The six shortlisted her novel Home Fire. Our reviewer, marketing books are: No More Boats by Felicity and events coordinator Ellen Cregan, says Castagna; The Life to Come by Michelle de of Home Fire ‘it’s hard to recount the plot of Kretser; The Last Garden by Eva Hornung; this novel without giving too much away – Storyland by Catherine McKinnon; Border Shamsie has structured it masterfully. For Districts by Gerald Murnane and Taboo lack of a better word, this book made me

READINGS MONTHLY EDITOR ADVERTISING PRICES AND AVAILABILITY Free, independent monthly newspaper Elke Power Ellen Cregan Please note that all prices and release dates published by Readings Books, Music & Film [email protected] [email protected] in Readings Monthly are correct at time of publication, however prices and release SUBSCRIBE EDITORIAL ASSISTANT GRAPHIC DESIGN dates may change without notice. Special You can subscribe to Readings Monthly Judi Mitchell Cat Matteson price offers apply only for the month in and our e-news by visiting our website: [email protected] colourcode.com.au which they are featured in the Readings readings.com.au/sign-up Monthly. PROOFREADERS FRONT COVER DELIVERY CHARGES FOR Judi Mitchell, Marie Matteson and The July Readings Monthly cover features Readings donates 10% of its profits each MAIL-ORDER PURCHASES Ellen Cregan Shaun Tan’s illustration from the cover year to The Readings Foundation: $5 flat rate for anywhere in Australia of his new picture book, Cicada (Lothian, readings.com.au/the-readings-foundation KIDS/YA CURATOR HB, was $26.99, special price $22.99). DELIVERY CHARGES FOR Angela Crocombe and Dani Solomon ONLINE PURCHASES CARTOON $5 flat rate for anywhere in Australia for MUSIC CURATOR Oslo Davis orders under $100. Free delivery on orders Dave Clarke oslodavis.com $100 and over. CLASSICAL MUSIC CURATOR Phil Richards

DVDS CURATOR Lou Fulco

EVENTS CURATOR Chris Gordon 4 EVENTS

July Friday 13 July, 10.30am-11.30am Saturday 21 July, 10.30am Monday 30 July, 6.30pm KIDS KIDS INDIGENOUS LITERACY Events CELEBRATE HONEY BEES STORY TIME: MR MO FOUNDATION FUNDRAISER: Felicity Marshall has written a wonderful STARTS TO GROW WITH BRUCE PASCOE IN picture book, Hello, Honey Bee, a LAURA STITZEL CONVERSATION WITH whimsical tale of friendship that explores Mr Mo Starts to Grow is an adorable story ANDY GRIFFITHS Monday 2 July, 6.30pm the importance of bees in our daily lives. about imagination, friendship and growing Join Felicity and her bee-utiful friends for a Bruce Pascoe is an award-winning up. Mr Mo is a little monster. He is soft and celebration of bees – there’ll be beehives, Australian Indigenous writer from the TRENT DALTON IN squishy and not a bit scary. Mr Mo spends a bee-keeping suit and, of course, honey! Bunurong clan of the Kulin nation. He has CONVERSATION WITH all his time with his best friend Jane, singing worked as a teacher, farmer, fisherman KATE LEGGE Readings Kids, songs, doing magic tricks and sometimes and an Aboriginal language researcher. making mischief. But one day, Mr Mo starts Trent Dalton writes for The Weekend 315 Lygon Street, Carlton We are thrilled that he will be joining us to to grow. Join author and illustrator Laura Australian Magazine and among his many Suitable for children aged 4–10 years old. talk about his life, his fears and his hopes Stitzel for a special story time. writing accolades he’s a two-time Walkley Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events for a future of equality and recognition. He will be in conversation with Andy Griffiths, Award winner, three-time Kennedy Award Readings Kids, children’s author extraordinaire and a winner, and a four-time winner of the national 315 Lygon Street, Carlton News Awards Features Journalist of the Year. lifetime ambassador for the Indigenous Tuesday 17 July, 6.30pm Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Join us to hear him speak about his debut Literacy Foundation. novel, Boy Swallows Universe, a literary tale of Church of All Nations, brotherhood, true love and the most unlikely POLITICS, DEMOCRACY 180 Palmerston Street, Carlton of friendships. Dalton will be in conversation & THE KNOWLEDGE Wednesday 25 July, 6.30pm with award-winning journalist Kate Legge. Tickets are $35 ($25 concession). All funds from SOLUTION the evening will go directly to the good work of Readings Hawthorn, Join us for a lively night of discussion with P. DAVID MARSHALL AND the ILF. Please book at readings.com.au/events 701 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn three great thinkers. Acclaimed journalist JOANNE MORREALE ON Michelle Grattan will be joined by Gareth Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events ADVERTISING Evans and Jon Faine to discuss local Advertising and Promotional Culture: politics and acknowledge the release of Case Histories traces the development her new book: The Knowledge Solution. Coming of advertising from the mid-nineteenth Thursday 5 July, 10.30am-12pm Edited by Grattan, this anthology brings century to the present. Join us to hear together essays from across the political KIDS authors P. David Marshall and Joanne Up and ideological spectrum dissecting the Morreale expertly trace themes back challenges facing Australian democracy in A WRITING WORKSHOP to the origins of consumer culture and the twenty-first century. WITH 100 STORY BUILDING provide connections with the past that illuminate present developments and point How often while you are reading a story does Readings Hawthorn, to future possibilities. Sunday 5 August, 2pm-3.30pm a character make a decision that you think is 701 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn really stupid? And you find yourself yelling, Tickets are $5 per person. Please book at Readings Hawthorn, A BOOK-MAKING WORKSHOP ‘Why did you do that?!’? 100 Story Building is readings.com.au/events 701 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn giving you the chance to write a story where WITH SKYE ROGERS Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events your reader gets to decide what happens. 100 Join Skye Rogers, artist and author of Paper Story Building is a centre for young writers Wednesday 18 July, 6.30pm Bliss, for a workshop to create your own based in Melbourne’s inner-west in which unique, mixed-media, handmade book on the children and young people from culturally Thursday 26 July, 6.30pm HUGH MACKAY IN theme of ‘home’. All materials will be supplied, and linguistically diverse and marginalised and poetry, music and inspirational ephemera backgrounds are given the opportunity to CONVERSATION WITH JULIE BINDEL AND will help inspire you to make something foster their creative voice and to have their DON WATSON beautiful and meaningful to take ‘home’. ideas shared and respected. Come along to MARY CROOKS ON In Australia Reimagined, legendary social our Kids shop and write a story no one will WOMEN’S RIGHTS AND Readings Hawthorn, researcher and lifelong student of the ever throw across the room and yell at … 701 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn national mind Hugh Mackay finds grounds PROSTITUTION because they’d just be yelling at themselves. Tickets are $60 per parent-and-child team for hope. You might not agree with all Julie Bindel is a freelance journalist and or $45 per individual. Ticket price includes a MacKay’s ideas, but chances are you’ll be political activist from the UK, a founder of Readings Kids, signed, hardback copy of Paper Bliss and thinking about them for a long time. Join Justice for Women, and the author of the 315 Lygon Street, Carlton refreshments. Places are very limited. Please us as Mackay discusses our country’s new book The Pimping of Prostitution. Bindel Suitable for authors aged 9–13 years old. Tickets book at readings.com.au/events will be in conversation with Mary Crooks, the are $15 per person and bookings are essential. prospects – the paths we might take and executive director of the Victorian Women’s Please book at readings.com.au/events the holes into which we might fall – with Don Watson. Trust, about one of the most contested issues facing feminists, human rights Tuesday 7 August, 8pm-9.30pm Church of All Nations, activists and governments around the globe 180 Palmerston Street, Carlton Tuesday 10 July, 4.30pm-6pm – the international sex trade. GEORGE MEGALOGENIS, Tickets are $10 per person and all ticket funds KIDS Readings Hawthorn, CHRISTOS TSIOLKAS & will be donated to The Readings Foundation. Please book at readings.com.au/events 701 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn WALEED ALY ON FOOTBALL ANDY GRIFFITHS AND TERRY Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events DENTON LAUNCH THE What do Waleed Aly, Christos Tsiolkas and George Megalogenis all have in common? 104-STOREY TREEHOUSE Wednesday 18 July, 6.30pm They’re award-winning writers and sons of We’re delighted to invite everyone along Monday 30 July, 1pm migrants, but what truly binds them together to another utterly madcap book launch MICHAEL ATHERTON as Victorians is their passion for football. with Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton.The BOOK SIGNING: LEATHER The three authors will share the stage for 104-Storey Treehouse is a brand-new, ON THE CULTURAL the first time to launch Megalogenis’s new brilliantly wacky treehouse adventure. Andy HISTORY OF THE PIANO SOUL BOOK SIGNING book, The Football Solution: How Richmond’s and Terry have added another 13 levels to IN AUSTRALIA WITH BOB MURPHY premiership can save Australia. their magnificent creation, complete with a A sport unlike any other in the world, Emeritus Professor Michael Atherton will Footballer, music buff,Age columnist never-ending staircase and a burp bank – football has always been Australia’s discuss his beautifully illustrated new book, and Winnebago driver Bob Murphy is as finally! Andy and Terry promise to deliver bellwether. But at a time when politics is A Coveted Possession: The Rise and Fall comfortable in a quiet corner of a Fitzroy one hour of complete and total madness at increasingly conducted like sports – full of the Piano in Australia, which tells the café as he is in the locker room. You can this book’s launch. of one-eyed tribalism, captain’s calls and intriguing cultural history of Australia’s also find him at our Carlton shop where he will sign copies of his memoir. Leather Soul policy dictated by the Newspoll scoreboard Melbourne Town Hall, relationship with the piano. In addition to – football is the one institution that’s more 90-130 Swanston Street, Melbourne being a writer, Atherton is a composer and explores his 17-year football career, including relevant than ever. In this characteristically performer across several instruments, and his three years as captain of the Bulldogs, Tickets are $28 per person. Each ticket along with the people, places and events entertaining story, Megalogenis reveals includes entry and a signed first edition of The several genres and styles of music. that shaped him. how football has been shaped by the nation 104-Storey Treehouse, which will be given out Readings Hawthorn, that invented it and how the game we at the event. One ticket is required per person 701 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn Readings Carlton, love, in turn, might help resolve Australia’s so adults and children each need a ticket. $1.50 309 Lygon Street, Carlton political impasse. The panel will be chaired of each ticket will be donated to the Indigenous Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Literacy Foundation. Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events by broadcaster, journalist and the former Please book at readings.com.au/events editor of The Monthly, Sally Warhaft. So don EVENTS + COLUMNS 5

your beanie and scarf and come along for together when they realise their parents Mars Room is in store at last. Mid-month, we’ll an evening of fascinating conversation. are hiding a sinister secret from them. This Dear have the new novels from Anne Tyler and book asks how much you’d be willing to risk Louis de Bernières. We also have stock direct The Melbourne Athenaeum, to find out who you really are. from the Nexus Institute in Amsterdam of 188 Collins Street, Melbourne Saturday 7 July, 2pm Reader Patti Smith’s poem, The New Jerusalem: it’s a Tickets are $50 ($45 concession) and include Readings Kids | Free, no booking required. beautiful illustrated (and bilingual!) volume. a signed copy of The Football Solution. Please book at readings.com.au/events Dunera Lives by Ken Inglis, Seumas Winter is here at last. As I Our Nonfiction book of the month is by Spark and Jay Winter with Carol Bunyan write, it’s pelting rain, an local hero Kon Karapanagiotidis, who tells his Dunera Lives: A Visual History will be Antarctic gale is blowing, life story and documents the calling that drove launched by Raimond Gaita with MC and I couldn’t be happier. I him to establish the Asylum Seeker Resource Monday 3 September, 6.30pm-7.30pm Rebecca Silk. In July 1940, around 2000 love the drama of Centre. This NGO offers crucial support to and refugees, most of whom were Jewish and Melbourne’s weather, which confounds and advocacy for refugees, and we’re proud to tell TARYN BRUMFITT ON THE from Germany or Austria, were sent from annoys my friends from interstate no end. But you that $2 from the purchase of each copy Britain to Australia on the HMT Dunera. The BODY IMAGE MOVEMENT really, there could be no better incentive to of the book this month will be donated to the story of the ‘Dunera boys’ is an intrinsic part stay indoors and read until your eyes will read ASRC (also supported by Readings Foundation Taryn Brumfitt is the fiercely passionate of the history of Australia in the Second no more. This July you must begin with our grants). Gabbie Stroud’s Teacher is another thought-leader behind The Body Image World War and its aftermath, and while the Fiction Book of the Month, Boy Swallows strong Australian memoir; it will make you Movement, the author and director of injustices these men suffered in internment Universe, Trent Dalton’s debut novel, which question seriously the way we value the labour the inspiring social-change book and camps at Hay, Tatura and Orange are well mines his childhood experience to create a of educators in this country. documentary Embrace: My Story from Body known, what happened to them afterwards Loather to Body Lover, and an international is less well known. story that feels destined to be an Australian Nelson Mandela would have turned keynote speaker. Brumfitt’s global crusade classic. Our reviewers also recommend new 100 this July; this month his prison letters Monday 9 July, 6.30pm to end the body dissatisfaction epidemic Readings Hawthorn | Free, no booking required. local literature from Moreno Giovannoni, are published. For fans of novelist Glen has seen her recognised by organisations Tiffany Tsao, Future D. Fidel, Sally Piper, and David Gold, reading his memoir will be such as the UN Women, Amy Poehler’s Antidote to a Curse by James Cristina Kate van Hooft. Last year’s winner of the PM’s a fait accompli; for those unacquainted, Smart Girls and the Geena Davis Institute. Rich with images and allusions yet Literary Award, Ryan O’Neill, continues his our reviewer’s resounding praise should Come along to hear her speak about her grounded in everyday Melbourne and satirical revision of the Australian literary bring it to your attention. We also have Europe, Antidote to a Curse is a startling work and her new book, Embrace Yourself: canon with The Drover’s Wives, meddling with memoirs from Seymour Hersh, Bob Carr and debut novel from James Cristina which will Learn to Love the Skin You’re In, the ultimate Henry Lawson’s ‘The Drover’s Wife’ in 99 Nadia Wheatley, while Beck Dorey-Stein, be launched by Judith Rodriguez. Cristina ‘how to’ guide to loving your body at every fabulously different ways. accidental stenographer for Barack Obama, shape and size. subtly draws the reader deeper and deeper You’ll see I loved Convenience Store Woman dispatches From the Corner of the Oval Office. into a state of psychological obsession There is a clutch of forthcoming books about Church of All Nations, where only the truth can provide a way out. by Sayaka Murata, a rising star of Japanese 180 Palmerston Street, Carlton fiction, and the new collection from A.M. reducing waste, and we have two this month: Thursday 12 July, 6.30pm A Zero Waste Life and Waste Not. Bird expert Tickets are $35 per person and include a signed Readings St Kilda | Free, no booking required. Homes, Days of Awe. Tommy Orange’s There, copy of Embrace Yourself. Please book at There is highly praised by our reviewer, and Gisela Kaplan turns her attention to one of readings.com.au/events Real Pigeons Fight Crime by Andrew it’s garnering great international reviews my favourites, the Tawny Frogmouth. McDonald and illustrated by Ben Wood too. I think we’ll also hear a lot more about And finally, dear reader, I’d like to Join us for the launch of Real Pigeons Fight it, Melissa Broder’s The Pisces and Rebecca express our congratulations and admiration Crime by Andrew McDonald and illustrated Makine’s The Great Believers on the awards for our talented colleague at Readings St by Ben Wood. It’s the secret story of how circuit. Olivia Laing found many new fans Kilda, Gerard Elson, on the news that Scribe July our city is protected by a secret squad of crime-fighting pigeons. Have you ever with the nonfiction work, The Lonely City; she will publish his work about the late, great wondered why pigeons always act so will find even more with her first novel, the Rowland S. Howard, Something Flammable, Launches weird? It’s because they’re out there experimental Crudo. Rachel Kushner’s The in late 2019. Brilliant stuff. chasing the bad guys and saving our butts! Saturday 14 July, 2pm Readings Kids | Free, no booking required. Oppy: The Life of Sir Hubert Opperman by Daniel Oakman We See the Stars by Kate van Hooft Join us for the launch of Oppy: The Life of Join Kate van Hooft for the launch of her Sir Hubert Opperman by Daniel Oakman debut novel. We See the Stars is a haunting – curator, historian and bike rider. Hubert and deeply moving novel with a brilliant ‘Oppy’ Opperman was a sporting icon and voice in the tradition of The Eye of the a cycling phenomenon who dominated Sheep and Jasper Jones. almost every race he entered for over Monday 16 July, 6.30pm two decades and shattered record after Readings Hawthorn | Free, no booking required. record. The book will be launched by former professional cyclist Phil Anderson. Mental by Catherine Deveny and Dr Steve Ellen Tuesday 3 July, 6.30pm Join psychiatrist Dr Steve Ellen and Readings Hawthorn | Free, no booking required. comedian Catherine Deveny for the launch The Fireflies of Autumn by Moreno of their book, Mental: Everything You Never Giovannoni Knew You Needed to Know about Mental Join us for the launch of Moreno Health. Set to become a go-to guide for Giovannoni’s exquisite debut collection anyone with a mental illness or supporting of stories. The Fireflies of Autumn tells of someone who has one, Mental breaks the the rich and sometimes tragic life of San taboos around mental health and offers Ginese, a village in Tuscany, throughout clear, practical advice on how to live the course of the twentieth century. These successfully. linked tales recall the works of Italo Calvino, Thursday 19 July, 6pm Elena Ferrante, and Colm Tóibín, but Bouvier Bar, 159 Lygon St, Brunswick East Giovannoni is an original. Free, no booking required. Wednesday 4 July, 6.30pm for a 6.45pm start Co.As.It: 189-199 Faraday St, Carlton Wren by Katrina Lehman and illustrated by Sophie Beer Free, no booking required. Wren is a beautiful new picture book by Mr Ordinary Goes to Jail by Wil Patterson Katrina Lehman and illustrated by Sophie Mr Ordinary Goes to Jail is Wil Patterson’s Beer that tells the story of a new addition to account of his time in a contemporary the family. With bright, modern illustrations Victorian prison, the unusual characters and a powerfully simple story, any child he met, the often hilarious and terrifying (and any parent!) who’s ever had to deal situations he found himself in, and the ways with change to the family will love Wren. in which he comes to terms with his past Sunday 29 July, 2pm and forges a new future. Readings Hawthorn | Free, no booking required. Thursday 5 July at 6.30pm These Wonderful Spring Days by Jeremy Readings Doncaster | Free, no booking required. Stock Mercy Point by Anna Snoekstra Join us for the launch of Jeremy Stock’s Join us for the launch of Mercy Point original and innovative work, These Wonderful Spring Days. These Wonderful Spring Days by Anna Snoekstra, the author of the explores and allows space for the ideas of acclaimed debut YA novel Only Daughter. In progress and transience. her latest novel, Snoekstra introduces five Wednesday 1 August, 6.30pm very different teenagers who are thrown Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. 6 READINGS MONTHLY EXCERPT July 2018

Teacher: One Woman’s and we all looked at the wall where images were supposed official documents and We need an accurate representation. Struggle to Keep the to be projected. ‘What’s wrong with it now?’ He stabbed The other staff had thought it was hilarious and my notes Heart in Teaching angrily at his keyboard. had been read aloud over recess when the Principal and Gabbie Stroud ‘I’ll go on,’ the Assistant said. ‘What we want to talk Assistant were out on duty. A&U. PB $29.99 about today and what’s going up on screen is the new ‘I can’t seem to get this projector to work,’ the model for reporting that’s being implemented. We’ve Principal admitted. Defeated, he plopped back into his agreed to be a trial school.’ chair. ‘I’ll just talk you through it,’ he said, his finger ‘I never agreed,’ muttered Madge under her breath. I hovering over the mousepad. ‘I spent all afternoon tried not to snort. Last term, Madge and I had been banned preparing this . . .’ He sighed. from sitting beside each other. We were supposedly a bad He clicked through slide after slide, telling us about the influence on each other. The truth was we shared a low need for standardisation and the A to E model that would tolerance for bullshit and a chronic addiction to humour. level playing fields and bring clarity to our teaching. ‘From now on, A to E graded reporting is going to be ‘An important thing to understand,’ he said, ‘is that the way we report to parents,’ the Assistant Principal under this model, a C is like the new A.’ explained. ‘It’s being introduced to make things standard ‘What?’ I paused my cutting, looked up to find most of across the state so all schools are speaking the same my colleagues were bent over marking, preparing lessons An extract language, and when a child arrives from another school and hiding behind computer screens. Only Jule, who was we know where they’re at.’ taking the minutes, appeared to be following the thread ‘Yes, yes,’ said Lana, older and wiser than the of the discussion. from Teacher Assistant Principal. ‘I’ve been here and ridden this ‘Go back,’ I insisted. ‘What does that mean? C is like the donkey. And you know how it ends? Eventually we realise new A?’ that you can’t quantify what a child knows with a single ‘Well, under this model this kind of grading is about letter. So, let’s short-circuit this and stick with what we’ve what the student has learned and how well they’ve learned Teacher: One Woman’s Struggle to Keep the Heart got and save ourselves a whole heap of work.’ it. A student scoring a C grade has’ – he squinted at the ‘She’s right,’ Jule said. ‘Been there, done that, got in Teaching by Gabbie Stroud is a powerful new screen – ‘a sound knowledge and understanding of the the T-shirt. A to E is a grand idea in theory, but how do main content.’ memoir about Australia’s education system and we agree on what constitutes an A and a B and a C? And ‘So, what’s an A?’ what it is really like to work within it. what about the poor bugger who tries his guts out but ‘The student has an extensive knowledge and still performs at an E level? The thing I never liked about understanding, and they can readily apply this By this time in my career, I had come to understand that A to E was that we never acknowledged effort. Surely knowledge.’ He looked up. ‘Make sense?’ staff meetings were a special kind of torture. Without the student’s effort is of as much value as his or her ‘Yes and no.’ a judicious Principal or Assistant Principal or middle achievement.’ Something inside me wanted to rage against this management person to keep things on time, on track ‘I think that’s one of the best moments in teaching,’ imposition. I wondered what the letter E would mean for and on task, things could and would degenerate quickly. Sophie said, looking up from the sample Art piece she all the Warrens and Ryans of the world. I thought of a Teachers in a meeting will generally behave about as well was making for tomorrow’s lesson. ‘That moment when younger me flipping herself inside out to achieve an A and as their third most disruptive student. (I am exaggerating, a child understands that they can exert effort on their hating myself when I didn’t get it. I glanced at the clock. It but only slightly.) learning, that they can try hard to learn.’ She paused. ‘It was nearly five. Shut up, Gab. Staff meetings at Belmora were no exception and I warms my heart.’ ‘Parents are going to struggle with this,’ someone came to think of them as my first line of attack. They were ‘No, no, no,’ the Principal said. He flicked a switch on else said. ‘The last time we had the A to E grades, A was theoretical spaces where our future workload was bandied the projector and the thing blazed to life, filling the wall always quite achievable. It doesn’t sound like it would be about, existing only as ideas and words and imaginings. with an image so bright we couldn’t see it. The Assistant with this model.’ Part of me was always on high alert during these fussed about with the curtains, creating darkness, and the ‘I’m struggling with the words “readily apply this meetings. I was fearful of a workload I couldn’t sustain. first PowerPoint slide came into focus. knowledge”,’ Lana said. Up to this point, she had been ‘Is there funding?’ I would ask. The Common Grade Scale will be used to report student marking books – the open pile on her left gradually ‘Is it compulsory?’ achievement in both primary and junior secondary years in shifting to a closed one on her right. ‘If I teach a child how ‘What research supports this?’ all NSW schools. to measure out liquid amounts and how to weigh things, ‘Why do we have to do this?’ The state’s education logo was plastered above the how can I be sure that child can apply that knowledge in Somehow, over time, I became the person – the statement like a royal decree. different contexts? I can’t follow them home and watch idiot – who voiced what everyone was thinking. ‘So, this is going to be mandatory?’ Jule asked. them bake a cake.’ ‘Yes, very soon,’ the Principal said, stacking a wad — ‘No, no,’ the Principal said, his tone placating with of home readers beneath the projector’s stumpiest leg. an edge of patronising. ‘And that’s to do with how we’re ‘Is everybody here?’ ‘We’re a pilot school. We’ll trial it.’ assessing students more broadly. We’ll need to review The staff meeting was about to begin and the Assistant ‘What if we don’t like it?’ Lana said. that. We’ll need to establish rubrics. Our assessment Principal was doing a head count. I slid into my seat and ‘Then we’ll put that in our review,’ the Assistant said. processes need to become more rigorous, more produced a pile of Brenex squares – shiny coloured papers ‘And it’ll all go ahead anyway,’ Madge said, not under standardised, more professional.’ that are a staple for junior primary Art projects. her breath this time. There was a quiet then. It happened most meetings ‘What are we cutting?’ asked Madge, slipping into ‘Well, at least we get an opportunity to have a say,’ when the Principal said something with such perverse the seat next to me. She took up the extra scissors I had the Assistant replied. ‘We might be able to make some ignorance that we were all offended. So, what you’re brought and slid a blue square off the top of the pile. recommendations that improve the reporting.’ saying, I wanted to rant, is that what we do now isn’t ‘I need two hundred and fifty equilateral triangles ‘Who writes the review?’ I asked. rigorous, isn’t standard enough and isn’t professional? ready for tomorrow’s Art lesson,’ I told her and held up a How would you know? You never come into my classroom, sample. ‘See, here: they need to be equilateral so the kids ‘We’ll do it together,’ the Principal said and I groaned, you’ve never seen the way I assess. I cleared my throat and can fold them like this.’ loudly and rudely. swallowed down my inner scream. Only fifteen more ‘Why so many?’ ‘Another hour of my life I’ll never get back.’ minutes until we could all leave. ‘My class,’ I said, ‘and Soph’s class. That’s forty-eight A few people laughed. ‘Anyway, we can talk about all of that next week,’ the kids, plus a sample for each class – that’s fifty projects. The projector shat itself again and we were in Principal said. ‘Let’s have an early mark today.’ Each project needs five triangles.’ darkness. The Principal headed back under the desk while ‘No, we can’t leave yet.’ It was the Sports Coordinator. ‘You making the boat thing?’ Lana slumped into the the Assistant made for the lights. ‘We need to run through the procedure for the carnival. chair on my other side. ‘Why does that become my job?’ Madge whispered, It’s this Thursday.’ She pointed to a bunch of papers on the ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘It always turns out well.’ jabbing her scissors at the screen. desk in front of her. I sat and snipped triangles with Madge as we waited I shrugged. ‘Here,’ I said, handing her a red square. ‘And I have a few items I need to cover as well,’ added for the meeting to begin. Teachers arrived and then left, ‘Just cut another triangle and try not to think about it.’ the Assistant Principal. She pointed to the diary, tapping remembering a phone call they had to make, racing back ‘Oh, before I forget,’ the Assistant said, ‘is someone her finger against the page. to their classroom for paperwork, dealing with children taking minutes?’ ‘Alright,’ the Principal said. ‘Let’s move on to those.’ who had missed the bus, speaking to parents. By four This time there was a collective groan. We didn’t finish until 6 p.m. o’clock we were ready to begin, but then the Principal A roster was produced, a name called out, and discovered the digital projector wasn’t working. someone threw a notebook in their direction. ‘You start,’ he said to the Assistant. ‘I’ll try to fix this.’ ‘I can do it for you,’ I suggested, but from under the Gabrielle Stroud was a primary school teacher from He crawled under the table to check the leads. desk came the Principal’s voice – an emphatic NO! 1999 to 2015. Now a freelance writer, her debut I had been banned from minute-taking early in ‘Alright,’ the Assistant Principal said. ‘Item number novel, Measuring Up, was published by Scribe in one. We need to start meetings on time. We are officially Term One after I wrote additional comments next to each 2009. She is currently at work on her next novel. twenty minutes late. Let’s work on that for next week.’ She minute. Honest, childish things like: Photo by Angi High Photography. pulled the lid off a pen and made a tick on the page. There This will never work. was a grunt from under the table and the Principal inched Bags not doing this. his way out and sat down. This will probably suck. To find out more about Teacher: One Woman’s Struggle to Keep the ‘Bloody cord had come loose,’ he nudged the mouse I had been told off, publicly and privately: These are Heart in Teaching, read our review on page 13. READINGS MONTHLY 7 July 2018

already suspect as it makes so much like imagery of Simon’s internal struggles New sense when you reflect back on the rest – the pains inside his body become birds of the novel. Regardless, it is a satisfying in his chest, the honeycomb of swarming conclusion to a novel that already had me bees, or rising storm clouds. Fiction gripped from the first paragraph. As the novel reaches its conclusion, Amanda Rayner is from Readings Carlton van Hooft increasingly moves into magic realism as Simon’s reality continues to slip away from him. Simon’s world was always Boy Swallows Universe moved me deeply, in the same way The Fireflies of Autumn: and illusory, wrapped up in his escapism Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief or Mark Haddon’s The Curious Other Tales of San Ginese BOOK OF THE with imaginary friends, Superman and Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time did. Perhaps it’s because Moreno Giovannoni MONTH travelling ghosts, and expressed most the character observations are told with such deference and Black Inc. PB. $29.99 poignantly in the consistent return to the Fiction humour. Or possibly this novel broke my heart because I In this debut work of sublimity of the night sky and to the love read it knowing that the author (and Walkley Award-winning fiction, Moreno he expresses for his mother: journalist) Trent Dalton was telling the truth and, once you Giovannoni brings together ‘Is that the Big Dipper?’ Mum asked. know that, there is no recourse to telling yourself that it’s many tales from the small Her eyes were bright from the light in them, just a story. You can only become an observer, and if you town of San Ginese in and they shone in the darkness more than are fortunate, that time traveller of an author will take you Tuscany, Italy. While the any of the stars in the sky.’ firmly by the hand and lead you through the corridors of stories of The Fireflies of We are left with a puzzling, open wrecked families and dreams and still permit you to love all Autumn are fictional, San Ginese is a real ending, and, ultimately, it is up to the those people you meet along the way. This is Dalton’s story of village, and Giovannoni’s birthplace. This reader to put together the pieces. This is his childhood state, where corruption ran wild, drugs were book has a wonderful fable-like quality, a hauntingly beautiful, compelling and counted and parenthood was a loose definition. and features lovely descriptions of the touching novel that keeps you guessing. Boy Swallows Universe opens up the doors to a parallel Tuscan countryside, as well as the way of universe where it’s hot and it is 1983 and there is bad music life of its inhabitants. Caitlin Cassidy is from Readings Carlton playing and long Queensland night skies. His protagonist, Eli These intergenerational yarns all come Bell, has calamitous circumstances. His brother is purposely together, forming a web that tells the story The Geography of Friendship Boy Swallows mute, his dad is a drunk, his beloved mum is headed for of San Ginese and its residents. In the Universe Sally Piper jail, his step-dad deals heroin, his babysitter is a convicted process fact and fiction blend, and, like any UQP. PB. $29.95 Trent Dalton murderer and his only friend, apart from his brother, seems to great village tale passed down through the Female friendships Fourth Estate. PB. be his prison pen-pal. Also, he falls in love. Is this too much? I generations, it doesn’t really matter – the Was $32.99 can be messy, can’t guarantee it’s not. Dalton has poured his soul into this book. truth of the event is less important than the they? Especially when the $27.99 And by doing so, he has ensured that this novel’s magical realist lesson it teaches. Each story has a timeless friendship starts when we refrain carries an overwhelming emotion of hopefulness. quality to it – most of these tales are from are young and moves This novel will be on my favourite list for the year because the writing is worthy – in the twentieth century, but they are all given through our maturing years the best sense of the term – and noble and, in the reading of it, I was taken far away from the mythic treatment one might expect regardless of any defining our winter skies. from a story that is hundreds of years old. experience of relationships, wealth, or Christine Gordon is the events manager for Readings Together, all these interwoven stories give a education. The Geography of Friendship sense of San Ginese’s collective identity: the investigates that romantic notion of female things its people find important, the way friendships having irrevocable bonds that they set themselves apart from outsiders, exist throughout hardship and glory days and even the history behind phrases used and throws that theory of ‘everlasting’ out. Australian Fiction Under Your Wings in their dialect. One major underpinning It also examines the concept of history and Tiffany Tsao theme is that of migration – many of San how the past can and will define our lives. Viking. PB. Was $32.99 Ginese’s inhabitants depart Italy for places The Geography of Friendship is Sally Prize Fighter $29.99 like Australia, America and Canada to make Piper’s second novel and she has twisted Future D. Fidel I am still reeling from their fortunes; some return with vast riches, those ideas of identity into a thrilling story Hachette. PB. Was $29.99 this book at the time of some with empty pockets, and others do about three women deciding to re-create $26.99 reviewing it and I think it is not return at all. an experience shared twenty years earlier. Future D. Fidel is a also partly responsible for I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. In their late teen years, the three friends refugee from the the strange dreams I have Giovannoni encapsulates such a broad range had set out to complete a five-day hike Congo. Prize Fighter is based been having over the past of emotions in each tale – great joy and in an isolated part of Victoria. (Piper is a on the acclaimed stage play few days. Tiffany Tsao’s horrible tragedy often live right beside each self-confessed nature lover.) Even before written by Fidel and it too novel of sisters Gwendolyn and Estella is other. The quaint drama of village life is very the bush walk begins, they encounter an follows the life of Isa Alaki haunting, disturbing and vivid. It is one of entertaining – the scope and intensity of aggressive and predatory male. The women from the war-torn Congo to those novels that has such a strong opening decades-old grudges in particular had me react differently to this threat and we are life in Australia. The power of this novel is chapter that I questioned if the author giggling and gasping at the same time. This given insight into their responses of fear, that it takes the cold, clinical term ‘refugee’ would be able to meet my expectations for book is a must-read for any lover of folktales. anger, and dismay. Twenty years later, the and turns the abstract ‘refugee’ into a person the rest of the novel. But meet them she did. Ellen Cregan is the marketing and events women decide to follow their original steps with fears, hopes, and a future. Gwendolyn and Estella are part of the coordinator for Readings in order to re-shape the original memories. Isa is born to a middle-class family large and affluent Sulinado family, a Chinese As the walk continues and the pace of the in the Eastern Congo. His father is a family who has set up business in Indonesia We See the Stars writing becomes quicker, sharper and more politician and when rebels invade their primarily in the textile industry. Gwendolyn Kate van Hooft loaded, it is clear that these women had put city his family is targeted and brutally and Estella are close when they are younger A&U. PB. $29.99 their friendships on hold for good reasons. killed; only Isa’s older brother and he are but drift apart due, predominantly, to Simon is an 11-year-old Piper has achieved that glorious, decisive spared, forced to join the ragtag band of Gwendolyn’s foray into her own business and boy living in a world of moment in any great novel where the reader rebels and become brutalised themselves. Estella’s troubled and suffocating marriage. silence, lists and numbers. becomes desperate to know the ending. If Isa escapes and makes his way to Nairobi, The sisters unite prior to their grandfather’s Rarely known to speak to his you loved Jane Harper’s Force of Nature, where he is taken in by a kindly woman eightieth birthday as they stumble across a family or classmates, Simon prepare yourself for anther page-turning and her adopted daughter. They encourage family secret which eventually leads Estella uses his imagination to adventure. Piper’s novel is testament to the Isa to seek refuge away from Africa. to commit an act of horrifying proportions. make sense of everything bonds of complicated friendship and to the Accepted by Australia, Isa arrives in It is remarkable how much is packed occurring around him. In her debut novel sense that the Australian bush is relentless, Brisbane alone and disoriented but obsessed into this 270-page novel. The plot is We See the Stars, Kate van Hooft writes with isolating and utterly terrifying. And, truly, with trying to find his brother. When he was enthralling in itself, but additionally there deep tenderness of the difficulties of being there is no romance in that. little, his brother taught him the rudiments is the examination of a family who are an outcast growing up as a young boy in Christine Gordon is the events manager for of boxing and in Brisbane he uses boxing as cocooned in wealth and privilege, where 1970s rural Victoria, and of the frustration Readings a way to ground himself and also as a way to emotions are not directly addressed and of being a child misunderstood by the get enough money to search for his brother. outsiders are viewed with suspicion. Tsao adults and peers around you. When Elephants Fight As a boxer he is single-minded and vicious, cleverly uses the sisters’ fascination with Struggling to connect with his Majok Tulba driven by the demons that haunt him; these entomology (the study of insects) to create classmates as his family life disintegrates, Hamish Hamilton. PB. $29.99 metaphors for how the family operates; qualities bring him success in the ring. Simon finds companionship in his brother, In the South Sudanese its hierarchy, its instinct to protect and its Fidel has written a story of great power Davey, the ‘weird’ girl from his class, Cassie, village of Pacong, the civil necessity for sacrifice. that brings to life an experience that would and his beloved teacher, Ms Hilcombe. war has forced Juba to grow be alien to most of us. It is a wonderful Already much is being made of the Yet when Ms Hilcombe mysteriously up quickly. Then, after the addition to the canon of Australian writing. book’s conclusion. Some may view it disappears from town, Simon is adamant he arduous trek from the life as a surprise but to me it is a cleverly Mark Rubbo is the managing director of is the only one who knows how to save her. he loves to a refugee camp, Readings constructed ending that others may Along the way, van Hooft crafts fairytale- Juba wonders if there’s such 8 READINGS MONTHLY FICTION July 2018 a thing as safe haven in his country. Majok International Fiction This avant-garde, stream-of- The Great Believers Tulba’s debut novel, Beneath the Darkening consciousness novel is an engrossing Rebecca Makkai Sky, was likened to the work of Nam Le, journey through the interiority of Kathy Fleet. PB. Was $32.99 Markus Zusak and Primo Levi. When Clock Dance and the exteriority of a turbulent northern- $29.99 Elephants Fight is no less brilliant and hemisphere summer. Anne Tyler The Great Believers while it draws a horrifying picture of what Olivia Laing has given us a Kathy who Chatto & Windus. PB. Was $32.99 opens in Chicago, humanity can do to itself, Juba’s story is is struggling to reconcile the interior and $27.99 1985, with Yale Tishman one of transcendence and resilience. exterior, the cause of feeling and the effect Available 16 July attending the wake of of action. As Kathy says early on: ‘There was Nico – the first of many in A few years ago, there Antidote to a Curse currently ... a problem with putting things his group of friends to be was a rumour going James Cristina together.’ Kathy wrestles continuously with felled by the AIDS around that there wouldn’t Transit Lounge. PB. $29.99 the effects of a constant news cycle in which epidemic. Yale is the development director be any more stories from Silvio Portelli returns to nothing can be ignored and yet nothing for an art gallery and about to land an Anne Tyler. She was Melbourne in the ’90s after can be concentrated on: ‘She missed the acquisition of modernist art that will make threatening to retire from teaching in England and sense of time as something serious and his career. The thrill of this professional writing – after fifty-plus rents a room from the diminishing, she didn’t like living in the accomplishment is tempered by Yale’s years, twenty novels and a Pulitzer Prize, charismatic octogenarian permanent present of the id.’ fears that he himself has contracted HIV. there was going to be no more! I was Nancy Triganza. Nancy is As the real Kathy Acker championed dismayed. If I’m in a slump, and when The second chapter of the novel fast- having an elaborate aviary the use of existing art, so does Olivia Laing nothing else will do, she’s my default forwards to 2015. Fiona, Nico’s little sister, is constructed. At a city sex shop, Silvio have the Kathy of Crudo draw from many solution. Reading her prose is like hitting a flying to Paris to track down her estranged meets the mysterious Zlatko, a Bosnian past avant-garde artists who chronicled reset button. It’s a reminder of what great daughter. This trip will force Fiona to come immigrant and former collector of rare the coming of Fascism. In one powerful writing should be: straightforward and to terms with the ways in which bearing birds. As Silvio waits for the results of his scene Laing brings to culmination all unpretentious. Thankfully this rumour was witness to the AIDS epidemic has shaped HIV tests, he becomes obsessed with Kathy’s musing on young alt-right Nazis a furphy, an unfortunate misquote. her life – with devastating results. This Zlatko. This is a story in which the hunter with a clear statement of Kathy’s affinity alternating chapter structure is consistent Tyler writes small-scale domestic becomes the hunted, the writer the with Christopher Isherwood’s Christopher throughout the novel; it moves back and dramas and Clock Dance, her twenty- subject, and vice versa. and His Kind, the author’s memoir of his forth between Yale’s perspective in the late second novel, is no exception. Willa Drake decade in the queer, avant-garde Berlin eighties/early nineties and Fiona’s in 2015. is eleven when her mother disappears. She arts scene that flowered as Fascism rose. The Coves and her sister don’t know if their mother Although seemingly only tenuously Marie Matteson is from Readings Carlton David Whish-Wilson is coming home, neither does their father. connected, the two narratives both explore Fremantle Press. PB. $27.99 Willa’s twenty-one when her boyfriend, the effects of living through an epidemic, San Francisco, 1849. The Derek, proposes to her. On a plane trip The Pisces and specifically the HIV/AIDS crisis. Yale hills are swarming with home one Easter, the man next to Willa jabs Melissa Broder is forced to contend with the imminent threat the virus poses to a gay man and desperate men from all her in the ribs, telling her that he has a gun. Bloomsbury Circus. PB. $29.99 over the world, gripped by Fiona must figure out a way to emotionally Willa does nothing. When she tells Derek Melissa Broder is the gold fever. In their wake survive the trauma of living through the about it later, he thinks the story is unlikely. author of So Sad Today, come the opportunists, crisis that devastated her group of friends. At forty-one, Willa becomes a widow a powerful collection of including a group of I knew going into this one it would be with two teenage sons. She later marries essays about feminism, sex, Australians, known as The Coves, headed a harrowing read, but don’t let the gravity Peter. Willa’s son Sean describes Peter as love, depression, and by standover man Thomas Keane. Enter of the subject scare you away. This novel a ‘difficult man’, he ‘huffs and puffs and addiction. Broder’s first novel, twelve-year-old Samuel Bellamy, lately of is immensely readable and, dare I say it, quibbles’. Willa’s life is steered by others. The Pisces, takes these topics, Van Dieman’s Land, in search of his unputdownable. Rebecca Makkai brings When Sean’s ex-girlfriend, Denise, is and explores them within the framework of mother. Sydney-Town, San Francisco, is a hope, light and grace to an inevitably bleak shot, Willa receives a phone call asking if a confronting, unexpectedly funny, and world of opportunism, loyalty and violent and distressing history. This is accomplished she can help look after Denise’s nine-year- decidedly odd modern fantasy. betrayal, and Samuel must learn to be a primarily through the characters who are so old daughter, Cheryl, and her dog, Airplane. Lucy is a bored, 38-year-old PhD student, man if he is to survive. fully realised you’ll walk away from this one For the first time Willa does something whose dissertation on the lost stanzas in feeling like you had met them in real life. It’s spontaneous. She leaves her home to fly Sappho’s poetry seems to be going nowhere. an emotional and unforgettable read for fans The Drover’s Wives across the country to look after strangers. Dissatisfied with life in general, an attempt of Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life and David Ryan O’Neill In doing so she meets different people that to knock her comfortable relationship off its France’s How To Survive A Plague. Brio. PB. $26.99 bring new experiences and meaning. axis backfires when her long-term boyfriend Henry Lawson’s ‘The Clock Dance is a beautiful, understated readily agrees to a separation. After an Tristen Brudy is from Readings Carlton Drover’s Wife’ is an novel. It’s a reminder that life can steer unfortunate incident involving a drive- Australian classic that has us into some wonderful experiences if we through donut shop, a bottle of Ambien, There There sparked interpretations on are willing to change direction from time and a thrown punch, Lucy finds herself on Tommy Orange the page, on canvas and on to time. the other side of the country – house-sitting Harvill Secker. PB. $32.99 the stage. But it has never Jason Austin is from Readings Carlton in Venice Beach, parenting her sister’s Available 16 July been so thoroughly, or fur-baby, and attending court-mandated The terrible hilariously, reimagined as by Ryan O’Neill, therapy for obsessive romantics. consequences of Crudo: Love in the Apocalypse remixing and revising Lawson’s For a while things seem to be looking up, colonialism are still being masterpiece in 99 different ways. You’ll be Olivia Laing but it’s not long before Lucy starts looking felt acutely by people of Picador. HB. $29.99 amused, delighted and surprised by a Year for something – and someone – to fill the colour all over the world. 8 essay, a sporting commentary, a pop song, Crudo, an Italian word void in her romantic life. Tinder offers only Tommy Orange – enrolled a Hollywood movie adaptation and many for raw, used most a string of disappointing hook-ups, but member of the Arapaho and more. This is laugh-out-loud literature from often when describing fish, on the breakwater between the ocean and Cheyenne tribes and resident of Oakland, the winner of the 2017 Prime Minister’s is the title of the debut the colonies of homeless junkies living on California – brings his own experience to Literary Award for Fiction. novel from nonfiction the beach, Lucy stumbles across a real-life life in his debut novel, There There. Set in writer Olivia Laing. The fantasy lolling about in the water. Theo Oakland, the narrative follows a large and The Far-Back Country narrator might be Kathy is young, gorgeous, sympathetic ... and a diverse cast of characters, each negotiating Kate Lyons Acker iconoclast punk author – she says merman. It’s not long before Lucy has, once their life and identity in the lead-up to the A&U. PB. $29.99 that she is. However, Kathy Acker died in again, tumbled down into the black hole of Big Oakland Powwow. The novel comprises In 1979, at fourteen, Ray 1997 and this Kathy is definitely living in all-consuming, obsessive, romantic love. numerous storylines from many different the northern hemisphere summer of 2017 McCullough ran away from Broder has an unflinching, take-no- perspectives and doesn’t hold back in when it seemed to many in the West that his family’s western New prisoners writing style that serves this depicting the struggles of its characters, the world was starting to gather speed South Wales sheep property novel well, and despite the fantastical yet issues such as alcoholism, mental towards its own destruction. following a violent premise, The Pisces seems at times health, and criminality are rendered with confrontation with his dad. Kathy is turning 40, and getting excruciatingly plausible. Swinging respect, honesty and resilience. Now forty-one and married. She is attaching herself to between the oddly prosaic – how do Orange utilises a variety of styles to tell convinced he has inherited his father’s someone else. She is deciding to leave her you have sex with someone who has a each character’s story, and there are many – violent steak, Ray works as an itinerant essential aloneness. ‘You think you know giant, barnacle-encrusted tail? – and including recovering alcoholic Jacquie Red cook and labourer across the remote yourself inside out when you live alone, but the poetically metaphysical, The Pisces Feather, who decides to make her way back outback. When a body is found with Ray’s you don’t ... you do not realise how irritable is a filthy, satirical, thought-provoking to Oakland to reunite with her long-lost identification, his sister Ursula begins to you are ... because you have not learnt how book about how the missing parts in our grandsons; Dene Oxdene, who documents follow the tracks left by Ray, each leading to soften your borders, how to make room.’ existence are made more beautiful by the the stories of the people attending the her closer to understanding the man he Kathy is also living and grappling promise of what they could have been. Powwow; and Tony Loneman, a lost young with what one should be doing as the became and why he disappeared all those Lian Hingee is the digital marketing manager man who decides to violently rob his own world is ending. years ago. for Readings people. These stories represent just some of FICTION READINGS MONTHLY 9 July 2018 the vast array of Indigenous experiences, get away with any of that, and mercilessly yet all show how people are still living and exposes their absurdity, and these stories are dying in the shadow of colonialism. The so much fun. stories are important, and moving, but I enjoyed every story in this collection, Discover they don’t invite sympathy or pity – each but a few have stayed with me. ‘The National character’s story simply speaks for itself. Cage Bird Show’ is an unlikely tale of PTSD a new favourite While the quick-fire changes of perspective set in a budgerigar-enthusiast chat room: can be jarring at times, the fast-paced only Homes could dream this up and make third act makes for a gripping and thought- it work. In ‘A Prize for Every Player’ she has a Under Your Wings Tiffany Tsao provoking finale. There There is a strong, family undertake a monstrous competitive Gwendolyn and Estella have challenging debut that forces us to confront shopping game in order to complete their always been as close as sisters can the plight of not just Native American weekly shop, and includes the attainment of be, but now Gwendolyn is lying people, but the plight of all those displaced something that should never be available at in a coma, the sole survivor of Estella’s poisoning of their whole and silenced by history. the store. It ends with a biting commentary family. A powerful and evocative on the populist turn of global politics: this literary thriller from a stunning Kelsey Oldham is from Readings Hawthorn new Australian voice. is vintage Homes. In the title story, ‘Days Convenience Store Woman of Awe’, two writers reacquaint themselves When Elephants Fight Sayaka Murata at a conference on genocide; it’s full of bad Majok Tulba behaviour, ill-considered transgressions, Majok Tulba’s debut novel was Portobello. PB. $24.99 likened to the work of Nam Le, and is topped off with a few gentle (and Since the age of 18, Markus Zusak and Primo Levi. hilarious) barbs at the conference circuit. No less brilliant, When Elephants narrator Keiko has Read ‘She Got Away’ and you’ll understand Fight is an important testimony worked part time in a of the harrowing lives of refugees. why I laughed out loud at the answering 24-hour Tokyo convenience machine messages left by the disgruntled “Gunshots echo behind me. But if you store. Often baffled by therapist, and again at the description of a can hear a gun, you’re not dead.” societal norms, Keiko celebration of a ‘life in foams’. If you’ve never WHEN ELEPHANTS FIGHT BY MAJOK TULBA appreciates the order that read Homes before, you must rectify that the shop brings to her life; the strict rules of oversight immediately. This collection is a corporate retail at the Hiiromachi Station So Much Life Left Over great place to start. Louis De Bernières Smile Mart, and the rhythms of its theatre A sweeping, heartbreaking of commodity exchange, give her ways of Alison Huber is the head book buyer for novel following Daniel in his fitting in to society that she can understand Readings troubled marriage with Rosie as they navigate the unsettled … or so she thought. At 36, and now well time between the World Wars. past the age at which women are expected The Mars Room to have found a ‘real job’, or ‘settled down’ Rachel Kushner How to be Famous and procreated, she is facing increasing Jonathan Cape. PB. Was $32.99 Caitlin Moran $27.99 A riotous novel set in the inquiries from friends and relatives into her epicentre of Britpop London status as unwed, child-free and still Romy Hall is at the start of from the author of Sunday working an apparently dead-end job. Keiko two consecutive life Times Number One bestseller, How to Build a Girl. needs to rethink her approach, and the sentences, plus six years, at result is an intimate journey with this Stanville Women’s endearing ingénue as she tries to find a way Correctional Facility. Read more at penguin.com.au to allay the incessant intrusive questioning Outside, there is San of her lifestyle and, along with that, her Francisco; also the Mars reason for being. Room strip club where she once gave lap I really loved this book, a bestseller dances for a living; and her seven-year-old in Japan, with its insightful and astute son, Jackson, now in the care of her HIVE depictions of working life in a shop. The estranged mother. Inside is a new reality. A. J. Betts author is a winner of the Akutagawa Prize, Romy sees the future stretch out ahead of and works part time in a convenience store her in a long, unwavering line – until news From the award-winning, bestselling author of Zac & Mia. herself: the affection she shows for this from outside brings a ferocious urgency to ‘Betts has created a unique closed world and an labour is palpable. Like much of the Japanese her existence. appealingly stubborn protagonist.’ Books+Publishing fiction that I’ve read, the translation (written by Ginny Tapley Takemori) offers up prose Suicide Club that is simple and spare, while opening a Rachel Heng window onto a complex emotional, social Sceptre. PB. $29.99 and political world. The intersections of Available 10 July LONELY GIRL commerce and personhood, ideology and In the near future, thanks to Lynne Vincent McCarthy resistance, are richly explored here, with the medical technology setting of the shop operating as both well- HealthTechTM, immortality She knows he’s a killer. drawn observation and perfect metaphor is within grasp. The Ministry He swears he’s innocent. for the experience of life in our times. This is the all-powerful arbiter of ‘Dark, disturbing and feminist take on the roles we assume – or healthcare resource utterly compelling.’ find ourselves playing – is precise, and also allocation. Resources accrue Emma Viskic heartbreaking. to ‘lifers’, those predisposed for a healthy life Alison Huber is the head book buyer for well beyond a hundred years old. Non-lifers Readings are known as ‘sub-100s’. The Suicide Club was originally a group of disillusioned lifers, Days of Awe indulging in forbidden activities: live music, A.M. Homes traditional meals, irresponsible orgies etc. THE 104-STOREY THE PEOPLE IN Granta. PB. $27.99 Now branded terrorists, anyone found guilty TREEHOUSE THE TREES A.M. Homes is one of of wanting the right to die as they choose will Andy Griffiths Hanya Yanagihara my favourite authors, find themselves condemned to immortality. & Terry Denton and I am hungry for any new An astonishing story From Australia’s most from the international writing from her. Homes is a The Occasional Virgin popular children’s bestselling author of brilliant analyst of life in the Hanan al-Shaykh storytellers, 13 new levels A Little Life. anxious times of late Bloomsbury Circus. PB. $29.99 in the bestselling, record- capitalism, where personal Huda and Yvonne are on breaking Treehouse series. ‘An absorbing, intelligent relationships and the nuclear family have holiday in the Italian Riviera, What are you waiting for? and uncompromising become irrevocably fractured, and everyday enjoying the sun and the Come on up! novel which beguiles encounters are disrupted by self-obsession sparkling Mediterranean – and unnerves.’ Available 10 July The Independent and punctuated by the distractions of which, even now in their technology. Her characters are neurotic. thirties with Huda a They are often cold or rude. They frequently successful producer and do things they shouldn’t. Lots of them are in Yvonne running her own advertising therapy (or need it). Some seem broken agency, feel like forbidden fruit denied beyond repair. But Homes doesn’t let them during their conservative childhoods in 10 READINGS MONTHLY FICTION July 2018

Lebanon. But a chance encounter with a Ayiti conversations set against the beguiling So Much Life Left Over handsome young man in London brings an Roxane Gay backdrop of West London’s bars, fuelled by Louis de Bernières unexpected opportunity. The Occasional Corsair. HB. $29.99 liberal G&Ts. From early winter to July’s hot Harvill Secker. PB. Was $32.99 Virgin is a perceptive exploration of From New York Times swelter, Emily narrates Evan’s passion for $27.99 sexuality, Islam and cultural identity – and Caroline to the brink of his destruction. bestselling author Roxane Available 16 July the difficulty of finding a man who’ll call This is a mischievously intelligent novel Gay, Ayiti is a powerful Rosie and Daniel have when he says he will. about desire, ambition, and friendship from collection exploring the moved to Ceylon with their the award-winning author of The Big Music. Haitian diaspora little daughter to start a new This Mortal Boy experience, widely life at the dawn of the 1920s, Fiona Kidman available for the first time Her Pretty Face attempting to put the trauma RHNZ Vintage. PB. $27.99 and including several new stories. In Ayiti, Robyn Harding of World War I behind them, Albert Black, known as the a married couple seeking boat passage to S&S. PB. $29.99 and to rekindle a cold ‘jukebox killer’, was only America prepares to leave their homeland. Frances Metcalfe is a marriage. Back in England, Rosie’s three twenty when he was A mother takes a foreign soldier into her stay-at-home mum whose sisters are dealing with different challenges convicted of murdering home as a boarder, and into her bed. A troubled son is her full-time in their searches for family, purpose and another young man in a young woman procures a voodoo love job. After a disturbing happiness. Around them the world is fight at a milk bar in potion to ensnare a childhood classmate. A incident at his elite school changing, and when Daniel finds himself in Auckland on 26 July 1955. woman conceives a daughter on the bank leads the other families to Germany, he witnesses events taking a dark His crime fuelled growing moral panic of a river while fleeing a horrific massacre. ostracise the Metcalfes, she and forbidding turn. about teenagers, and he was hanged less feels more alone than ever. Until she meets than five months later, the second-to-last How to be Famous beautiful, powerful Kate Randolph. As the Social Creature person to be executed in New Zealand. But Caitlin Moran two bond over their disdain for the Tara Isabella Burton what really happened? Was this a love Ebury. PB. $32.99 Forrester snobs and their fierce love for Raven. PB. $29.99 crime? Was it a sign of juvenile I’m Johanna Morrigan, I’m their sons, a startling secret threatens to Louise is struggling to delinquency? Or was this more about nineteen, and I live in tear them apart – because one of these survive in New York. Juggling society’s reaction to outsiders? London in 1995, at the women is not who she seems. Her real name a series of poorly paid jobs epicentre of Britpop. I’m is Amber Kunik. And she’s a murderer. and renting a shabby flat, she A Weekend in New York going to use my new monthly dreams of being a writer. And Benjamin Markovits column for The Face to write House of Stone then one day she meets Faber. PB. $29.99 about every aspect of a Novuyo Tshuma Lavinia, who has everything. Benjamin Markovits’s million people knowing your name. But Atlantic. PB. $29.99 Lavinia invites Louise into her charmed ambitious new fictional when my two-night-stand with comedian Bukhosi is missing. His circle, takes her to the best parties, shares her tetralogy immerses us in the Jerry Sharp goes wrong, people start to parents, Abed and Agnes, clothes, her coke, her Uber account. Louise lives of an upper-middle- know my name for all the wrong reasons. hope he has run away, knows that this can’t last for ever, but just class New York family, the He needs to be stopped. But how can one rather than been murdered how far is she prepared to go to have this life? Essingers, over multiple woman stop a bad, famous, powerful man? by government thugs. Only Or, rather, to have Lavinia’s life? generations. In A Weekend in the lodger seems to have New York, the first novel in the quartet, An Ocean of Minutes any idea. Zamani has lived Testament Markovits vividly charts the experiences of Thea Lim in the spare room for years; he’s almost Kim Sherwood mid-ranking tennis professional Paul Quercus. PB. $29.99 part of the family. Cajoling, coaxing and Riverrun. PB. $32.99 Essinger at the ATP Tour and US Open. Polly and Frank are young coercing Abed and Agnes into revealing Available 10 July Markovits interweaves the insular and in love. But one Texan their life stories, Zamani aims to steep After her grandfather’s domesticity of family life with the sweeping evening in 1980 the world is himself in borrowed family history, so that death, Eva finds a letter from forces shaping American society to create a suddenly pulled apart by a he can fully inherit its uncertain future. the Jewish Museum in deeply intimate – yet uncompromisingly deadly virus. Within months, This is a striking debut about cuckoos in Berlin. They have found the political – portrait of America. Frank is dying. Polly can save the nest, the death of colonial Rhodesia testimony he gave after him if she agrees to time- and the bloody birth of corrupt Zimbabwe. surviving the death march Adjustment Day travel to 1993 and leave Frank behind; they across Serbia and Hungary, Chuck Palahniuk will find each other again in twelve years’ Mad Boy and they want to exhibit it. But the famous Jonathan Cape. PB. $32.99 time. But when something goes wrong, Nick Arvin Joseph Silk – who came to England as a In this ingeniously comic Frank is nowhere to be found. Completely Europa Editions. PB. $24.99 refugee – remade himself long ago. As Eva work, Chuck Palahniuk does alone, Polly must navigate a terrifying new Young Henry Phipps is on a unravels what happened to him, and to the what he does best: skewer world to find him, and to discover if their quest to realise his dying woman he loved, she is confronted by lies. the absurdities in our love has endured. mother’s last wish: to be They will change her grandfather’s identity; society. Smug, geriatric buried at sea, surrounded but they could also turn the tide of history. politicians hatch a nasty Bed-Stuy is Burning by her family. Not an easy fate for the burgeoning Brian Platzer task considering Henry’s The One-Eyed Man population of young males; working-class Washington Square Press. PB. $24.99 ne’er-do-well father is in Ron Currie men dream of burying the elites; and Aaron, a disgraced rabbi debtor’s prison and his comically earnest Penguin. PB. $29.99 professors propound theories that offer turned Wall Street banker, older brother is busy fighting the red After his wife Sarah dies, K. students only the bleakest future. When it and Amelia, his journalist coats on the battlefields of Maryland. But becomes so wedded to the arrives, Adjustment Day inaugurates a girlfriend, live with their Henry’s stubborn determination knows notion of clarity that he new, disunited states, and makes real the newborn in Bedford- no bounds. Entertaining, atmospheric, infuriates friends and logical conclusion of every separatist Stuyvesant, one of the most and touching, Mad Boy is a poignant tale strangers alike. When he fantasy, alternative fact, and conspiracy dynamic, historical, and of a young man burdened by an outsized intervenes in an armed theory lurking in the American psyche. volatile neighbourhoods in New York City. undertaking and a convincing work of robbery, K. finds himself After a cop shoots a boy in a nearby park, historical fiction. both an inadvertent hero and the star of a Aliens & Anorexia conflict escalates to rioting – with Aaron new reality television program. Together Chris Kraus and his family at its centre. Sharp-eyed Our Friends in Berlin with Claire, a grocery store clerk with a sharp Tuskar Rock. PB. $19.99 and fast-paced, Bed-Stuy is Burning offers a Anthony Quinn tongue and a yen for celebrity, he travels the First published in 2000, window into an array of complex lives and Jonathan Cape. PB. $32.99 country, ruffling feathers and gaining fame Aliens & Anorexia is the deftly wrestles with the most pressing Available 16 July at the intersection of American politics and searing sequel to Chris issues of our time. A group of British citizens is entertainment. But he soon discovers the Kraus’s cult classic I Love gathering secret information world will fight viciously to preserve its Dick, and it defined a female Caroline’s Bikini to aid Hitler’s war machine. delusions about itself. form of chance both Kirsty Gunn Jack Hoste has become emotional and radical. It Faber. PB. $29.99 entangled in this treachery, Small Beauty weaves together the lives of earnest Available 11 July but he also has a mission: to Jiaqing Wilson-Yang visionaries and failed artists, including The moment Emily’s friend locate the most dangerous Brow Books. PB. $27.99 Simone Weil, the first radical philosopher Evan Gordonstone, a Nazi agent in the country. Amy Strallen was After the sudden death of of sadness; the artist Paul Thek; Kraus successful middle-aged once close to this elusive figure. Her life is a her cousin, Mei abandons herself; and ‘Africa’, Kraus’s virtual S&M financier, meets the world away from the machinations of Nazi her life in the city to live in partner. Kraus makes a case for empathy glamorous Caroline sympathisers, yet when Hoste pays a visit to his empty house in the as the ultimate perceptive tool, and Beresford at her Richmond Amy’s office, everything changes. small town of Herbertsville. reclaims anorexia from the psychoanalytic home, we are immediately Breathtakingly tense, Our Friends in Berlin There she connects with his girl-ghetto of poor ‘self-esteem’. immersed in a hypnotic series of intense is inspired by true events. history as well as her own, FICTION READINGS MONTHLY 11 July 2018 discovers her aunt’s secret love, and of life’. In Riemen, Smith recognised a reflects on the trans women she left kindred spirit and responded with a behind. While navigating her self- phone call and invitation to: ‘Meet me in imposed isolation, Mei brushes up against my café. I’ll be there writing.’ local mysteries and receives advice from Anyone who has read M-Train will departed loved ones. A complex tapestry be familiar with Smith’s café, and with of memory and revelation, Small Beauty is the idea of the sanctity of the artist and a stirring story that quietly roars. creator that infuses much of her writing. When Riemen meets Smith she is working The Lost Letters of William on a poem, ‘The New Jerusalem’, partly Woolf inspired by Trump’s decision to move the Helen Cullen US embassy to Jerusalem, partly inspired Michael Joseph. PB. $32.99 by Blake, and possibly a modern reflection Available 16 July on the prophecy in The Revelation of St. Inside the Dead Letters John in the New Testament. Depot in East London, The idea of the sacred, of writer and William Woolf is one of artist as prophet and visionary, has been thirty letter detectives who explored by poets and philosophers spend their days solving for centuries, but Riemen expresses mysteries. William and his surprise that a punk such as Smith would wife Claire separately consider Christ, alongside the likes realise that their marriage is in a perilous of Wilde, Ginsberg, Blake, Camus and state, but when William starts to find Mapplethorpe, as an artist. letters written by a woman named Winter This idea of the sacred and the to her great love – whom she has never religious bleeds through The New met – he becomes convinced that she is Jerusalem: there is the sense of Smith writing to him. William commits to digging deep to excavate the treasure of solving what could be the most important this poem. The rhythms in Smith’s prose mystery ever to come his way. poem read like passages from an ancient text, with themes both contemporary The Perfume Burned His Eyes and eternal. The language is ethereal yet Michael Imperioli political, while the accompanying images Akashic Books. PB. $29.99 lend the text an extra layer of gravitas. Matthew is a sixteen-year- The hardcover book is slight; it is old living in Jackson an object to be admired, with pages of Heights, Queens, in 1976. woven rayon cloth, sewn and bound, and After he loses his father gold foil printed cover. The latter half and grandfather, his of the book is a Dutch translation of the mother uses her English text; the earlier pages comprise inheritance to uproot Riemen’s introduction, while Smith’s Matthew and herself to a posh apartment poem covers a brief sixteen pages. Brief, building in Manhattan. Although only perhaps, but weighty, and I expect I’ll three miles away from his boyhood home, be revisiting these pages often. Smith ‘the city’ is a completely new and strange collectors will love it. world to Matthew. Matthew soon Deborah Crabtree is from Readings Carlton befriends Lou Reed, who lives with his transgender girlfriend Rachel in the same building. The artistic-shamanic rocker Science Fiction eventually becomes an unorthodox father figure to Matthew. The next addition Shattermoon: The Long Game The Waters and the Wild Book 1 to your toolbox... DeSales Harrison Dominic Dulley Oneworld. PB. $29.99 Jo Fletcher. PB. $29.99 The death of Jessica Burke Orry’s father is the best was easy to explain: a conman in the quadrant, history of depression, a running elaborate heists heroin habit, a girl alone in with Orry and her brother, her bathtub. But when her Ethan, to target the ruling psychoanalyst, Daniel families of the Ascendancy. Abend, receives an This time should be no ominous, handwritten poem, he quickly different: straight in and out with a realises that this was not just an fortune in spice paragon in hand – but overdose. As a second and third missive then Orry goes off-script and everything arrive, and his daughter abruptly falls apart. Less than an hour later the disappears, Daniel finds himself the Count of Delf’s only grandson is dead and subject of an elaborate torment, one that Orry’s on the run, accused of a murder she reaches back decades, crosses oceans, didn’t commit. and begins with a chance encounter with a beguiling girl in a Paris stairwell. The Book of M Peng Shepherd Voyager. PB. $27.99 Poetry In a market in India, a man’s shadow disappears. The phenomenon spreads The New Jerusalem like a plague as people Patti Smith learn the true cost of their Nexus Institute. HB. $39.95 lost part: their memories. When Nexus Institute Two years later, Ory and his wife Max have escaped ‘the Forgetting’ by DIY: KNOW-HOW WITH SHOW-HOW will teach you how to tackle any DIY task with founder Rob Riemen confidence, whether you’re looking for a quick fix or a long-term renovation project. wrote Patti Smith a letter of hiding in an abandoned hotel deep in the This step-by-step guide covers it all – small or large jobs presented with sharp admiration, he also sent her woods. Then Max loses her shadow. photography and clear instructions to guide you through the whole sequence. a book he had written and Knowing the more she forgets, the more an invitation to take part in dangerous she will become, Max runs a Nexus Symposium on away. But Ory refuses to give up what dk.com.au ‘New York counterculture as a university little time they have left. 12 CRIME

You Were Made For This Lonely Girl Dead Michelle Sacks Lynne Vincent McCarthy HQ Fiction. PB. $29.99 Pan Mac. PB. $29.99 Write There’s nothing quite In a lonely house by like an imperfect the Tasmanian with Fiona Hardy mother to pique the wilderness, Ana and interest of crime her dog River prepare One rainy Melbourne evening, photography teacher Kim readers. Every mother for their own end of BOOK OF THE Leamy is approached in the cafeteria by a man who has feels like they are just days. River is old and MONTH news that will knock Kim right out of her orbit: he believes short of being a he is sick, and Ana is mother; others judge young and she has had Crime that she is not Kim Leamy, but in fact Sammy Went, who disappeared twenty-eight years earlier from her home in mothers (and fathers) enough of life already. Manson, Kentucky. Two-year-old Sammy’s disappearance for every move they Just before she can caused a rift within not only her own family, but through make. Merry is, to all appearances, perfect: finish it, the town is overrun by police cars the town itself, one populated by a religious community living off the land in the lush Swedish and crime-scene tape: a woman is dead, that believe that snake-handling is a way to God. As Kim countryside with her husband, Sam, in an and Ana knows who she is, because Ana attempts to discover whether the mother and stepfather old house gifted to him by a relative. They saw her right before she died. And she was she adores have been hiding a secret for nearly three have escaped the crushing dystopia that is not alone. Ana’s scarred family history of decades, the past is relived and the path to Sammy Went’s New York and now live in the fresh air. spite and the scathing world around her real story is slowly revealed. Sam is looking for film work; Merry is means that Ana knows there is only one baking cakes and tending to the garden way to solve a problem like a murderer in and to her beautiful son, Conor. Well, her midst, and that is to deal with it the The Nowhere Child – winner of the sometimes she tends to her beautiful son. same capable way she’s ever dealt with 2017 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award And Sam’s hunt isn’t so successful, but the anything: on your own. This is a slowly for Best Unpublished Manuscript – is picture-perfect life he has created is – devastating psychological thriller. a taut, rattling thriller that will have surely? With Merry’s old friend Frank The Nowhere coming to stay, someone else will see just The Other Wife Child you shrieking the next time you see an how splendid it is. Unless, of course, the Michael Robotham Christian White abandoned piece of rope in the middle truth is revealed instead. Hachette. PB. Was $32.99 Affirm Press. PB. of the road. Was $32.99 $27.99 Something in the Water Michael Robotham is $27.99 Imagine being presented with the idea that your family Catherine Steadman one of those constants is not what you have always believed – it’s inconceivable. S&S. PB. $32.99 on the crime-fiction Kim’s reaction to this situation follows a believable Have you ever tried to shelf that you can trajectory of disbelief, gentle investigation, and absolute fear for herself and her dig a grave on your always rely on, family. Her mother is no longer alive to tell Kim the truth – whatever it is – and her own? It’s not easy delivering an half-sister Amy is furious at Kim for even entertaining the idea. When Kim flees to – and how you get addictive and America to dig for the truth, she is confronted with a history that not everyone wants from a normal life to readable book a year to revisit – one that plays out in alternating chapters that see a small, claustrophobic standing in the dirt is like an un-birthday town full of suspicion and distrust between those that believe in the power of the harder still. When present. In The Other Church of the Light Within, and those who do not. The Nowhere Child – winner of the Erin and Mark – Wife, Joe O’Loughlin returns, a little older, 2017 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Best Unpublished Manuscript – is a taut, documentary a little sadder, reeling from his status as a rattling thriller that will have you shrieking the next time you see an abandoned piece filmmaker and banker single father, working out his new place in of rope in the middle of the road. respectively – go on the honeymoon of the world with his grief and his two their dreams, it’s with the heaviness of daughters. Into all this comes his father, their newly impoverished lives back home hospitalised from a fall on the stairs at the weighing down on them. But for now, it’s home he lived in with his wife. Except that Retribution burn of rage and disappointment in their the sun-kissed and elsewhere-kissed this wife is not the one Joe has known his Richard Anderson losses, all have someone else to blame, and lifestyle they’ve been looking forward to, whole life as his mother, but another Scribe. PB. Was $32.99 one stolen horse will see the flames rage. and a scuba trip or two. Well, until there’s woman – another wife. With the security $29.99 A simmering, gripping tale fraught with the thunk of their boat hitting something of his parents’ relationship in shreds, it’s For those resolutely emotional tension, populated with rich in the water. And what our two newlyweds all he can do to think straight, and realise suburban readers, like characters, heavy with the past – and what do with this knowledge will bring down no that something isn’t right about his me, the allure of rural the future will hold. end of chaos. Actress and author Catherine father’s fall after all. A stellar thriller. crime is relentless: all Steadman – of Downton Abbey fame – lets those long, dark Second Sight off a firework at the start and then builds roads, the expansive Aoife Clifford tension until the breathless ending. Also out this month: farmland where S&S. PB. Was $29.99 Perfect for those escaping winter to the anything can hide, $26.99 beach – but just stay on the sand, perhaps. and a certain type of Aoife Clifford’s Also out this month: ex-magician John character who says excellent debut novel, Death Notice Ajvide Lindqvist writes about a magician more with a long stare than with anything All These Perfect Zhou Haohui named John Lindqvist whose apartment so overt as words. In Retribution, Richard Strangers, was Head of Zeus. PB. $29.99 basement is hiding something unexpected Anderson delivers all of that and more: university life laid Eighteen years ago, in I Always Find You (Text, PB, was $32.99, retribution here is not only a side project bloody and bare; here, two murders shook special price $29.99); another Swedish but the name of a horse whose she sets her (second) Chengdu’s police to family-gone-wrong in Zoje Stage’s Baby disappearance is about to turn a sights on a beachside their core, sweeping Teeth (Michael Joseph, PB, $32.99); Ruth community to violence. community skirting the cases to the side to Ware’s The Death of Mrs Westaway (Harvill It begins in the lead-up to Christmas, around the national hide their lack of clues Secker, PB, $32.99); Linwood Barclay’s when Graeme Sweetapple, celebrating spotlight after a violent coward punch puts or insight. But all those A Noise Downstairs (Orion, PB, $29.99); the holiday season by driving some stolen their town in the news. Eliza Carmody was years, Sergeant Zheng Alex Dahl’s The Boy at the Door (Head of steers back to his place, encounters a bad there, watching in disbelief as road rage and Haoming has been Zeus, PB, $29.99); James Brabazon’s The car accident on the side of the road and a familiar face turned to danger, and events looking into this cold Break Line (Michael Joseph, PB, $32.99); an injured woman who cuts a deal with further conspire to drag her back to Kinsale, case, and now, things are heating up. The Peter Cotton’s Dead Heat (Scribe, PB, him: look after the bag she’s got and she the town she’s always wanted to run from. mysterious Eumenides – named for the $32.99); Henry Porter’s Firefly (Quercus, won’t tell the police who helped the ute’s She hadn’t wanted to be there in the first Greek goddess of vengeance – has PB, $32.99); Final Girls author Riley Sager occupants get to safety. place – not a place with such bitter history reappeared, so to speak, and is open for back with Last Time I Lied (Ebury, PB, Elsewhere, Luke, a protestor at the for her – but her job as a lawyer had seen her suggestions: who deserves to die for what $32.99); Adrian d’Hagé’s The Russian mines, is leaving the protest life behind return, battling the class-action suit directed they have done? It’s not long before Affair (Michael Joseph, PB, $32.99); Sophie and stepping back into his old one; Carson, at the power company blamed for the fires someone is dead and the next one is Hénaff’s Stick Together (MacLehose, PB, a woman on the wrong side of men’s that ravaged the town and its happiness. It’s advertised freely: here is who we are killing, $29.99); Jo Jakeman’s Sticks and Stones advances, is searching for a way out of the a job she needs to keep fast and quiet, but and why, and when. When the execution (Harvill Secker, PB, $32.99); Michael town she loves and loathes; Caroline, an the past is not letting her go this time. takes place despite police protection, the Rutger’s The Anomaly (Zaffre, PB, ex-politician and Sweetapple’s neighbour, Clifford’s punchy writing and the slow burn frantic chase to stop these brutal murders $29.99); Laura Marshall’s Three Little Lies is recovering from the brutal loss of her of tension make this an immediate, sparky begins. Blisteringly popular in Zhou’s (Sphere, PB, $29.99); Marc Elsberg’s Zero position in the world. All of them feel the tale to keep as close as you dare. native China, this is a hell of a thriller. (Doubleday, PB, $32.99) … and more! READINGS MONTHLY 13 July 2018

Grattan, contributors include Gareth Evans, New Maxine McKew, Katharine Murphy, Tony Abbott, Bill Shorten, Paul Kelly, Greg Combet, Noel Pearson, Melissa Lukashenko, Nonfiction Terri Butler, Peter van Onselen and more.

Serving in Silence? Noah Riseman, Shirleene Robinson & Graham Willett A recent decision by the Australian government to cut income BOOK OF THE NewSouth. PB. $39.99 support for thousands of asylum seekers has meant the Asylum MONTH Most people have heard of Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) has reached breaking point. the United States’ infamous Nonfiction The ASRC relies on donations and has already almost run out of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ food for their food bank, which supports more than 600 people policy, yet few know about per week. Kon Karapanagiotidis, CEO and founder of the ASRC, Australia’s own history of decided it was time to open the ASRC to the public and, on a LGBT military service. In recent freezing winter Sunday morning, he put a call out on Serving in Silence? lesbian, social media for donations of food, blankets and winter coats. gay, bisexual and transgender servicemen Two thousand people turned up to the centre in Footscray to and women share their personal stories for contribute food and clothing and Karapanagiotidis was there at the first time. The book explores the the door to shake hands with each and every donor, thanking emotional stress they experienced hiding them for their contribution. Such is the power of hope. It is this their sexuality or gender identity under that has inspired and kept Karapanagiotidis fighting, despite official bans, as well as the challenges his own personal struggle with life. facing those who have served openly in the Mercilessly bullied and teased at school for being an outsider, last 25 years. he found solace in books, to which he credits his learning of empathy and compassion for others. His family life was also Siege: Inside the Lindt Café The Power of difficult and upon finishing high school, he was so filled with Deborah Snow Hope self-loathing and an inability to help himself, that he decided A&U. PB. $32.99 Kon the best thing he could do was help others. Over the next decade On 15 December 2014, just Karapanagiotidis he volunteered at several different charities while studying to ten days before Christmas, HarperCollins. HB. become a social worker and eventually a lawyer. The ASRC was $32.99 born from a TAFE class he was teaching called Community Work the unthinkable happened. A Readings will donate $2 where he decided the class should start their own charity as a terrorist attack on Australian from the sale of each class project. The ASRC is now the largest organisation helping soil. For seventeen hours copy of this book sold in asylum seekers in Australia. Islamic State-inspired July to the Asylum Seeker gunman Man Haron Monis Resource Centre This is an incredibly personal, honest and moving book. Kon Karapanagiotidis wants to share the anguish and suffering held his captives in a terrifying drama that he has experienced and the steps he took to overcome his shame paralysed Sydney and kept a nation glued to in the hope that others will not have to suffer as he has. The last few chapters outline how the its television screens. Two hostages were reader can make practical changes to help others as well as help themselves. killed and three seriously wounded. The others would have their lives changed Kara Nicholson is from Readings online forever. Deborah Snow draws us into a vortex of police missteps, extraordinary bravery and profound grief to reveal what happened during that awful day. frontlines of war, in the manufacturing Australian Studies hubs of the Federation era, and in the hands of the makers, entrepreneurs, teachers and Biography Australian Foreign Affairs Issue virtuosos of the twentieth century. 3: Australia and Indonesia – Can We Be Friends? Dunera Lives: A Visual History Teacher Jonathan Pearlman Ken Inglis, Seumas Spark & Jay Gabbie Stroud Black Inc. PB. $22.99 Winter with Carol Bunyan A&U. PB $29.99 Available 9 July Monash University Publishing. PB. $39.95 Education and teachers Australian Foreign Affairs In July 1940, around 2000 are political footballs is published three times a refugees, most of whom like no other. Politicians year and seeks to explore – were Jewish and from regularly stir up controversy and encourage – debate on Germany or Austria, were about teachers’ daily working Australia’s place in the sent from Britain to lives: their (excessive) wages; world and global outlook. Australia on the HMT their (generous) holidays; In Australia and Indonesia, Dunera. The story of the their (misdirected) classroom focus. Parents, Hugh White, Jen Rayner, Endy Bayuni, and ‘Dunera boys’ is an intrinsic part of the understandably anxious to get the best for Tim Lindsey each examine the turbulent history of Australia in World War II and in their kids, are sometimes easy targets for relationship between these two neighbours its aftermath. The injustices these men ‘quick-fix’ plans. and provide crucial reading for anyone suffered in internment camps at Hay, Gabbie Stroud’s Teacher plunges you wanting to understand the intricacies of Tatura and Orange are well known. Less straight into the working life of an Australian arguably Australia’s most important familiar is the tale of what happened to teacher. Stroud paints a vivid picture of the relationship. Also in this issue: Ric Smith them afterwards. This book tells that story, chaos, hilarity and occasional futility of a on Afghanistan; Julia Wallace on Myanmar; primarily through images. hardworking contemporary classroom at the Tim Harcourt on global trade; and Richard mercy of a disconnected bureaucracy. The McGregor on China. The Knowledge Solution: Politics kids, as per usual, are a troubling riot. Stroud Various, with an introduction by uses their antics to ask some big questions A Coveted Possession Michelle Grattan about what education is and what we might Michael Atherton MUP. PB. $29.99 want it to be. Her reflections on her own La Trobe University Press. PB. $34.99 In The Knowledge Solution: upbringing and education, however, make From the instruments that Politics, thinkers from across this all more bittersweet than polemical. floated ashore at Sydney the political and ideological Stroud has to simultaneously extend Cove in the late eighteenth spectrum dissect the many engaged students, support struggling century to the resurrection challenges facing Australian students and determine where on that of derelict heirlooms in the democracy in the twenty- broad spectrum the rest of her 30 students streets of twenty-first- first century. The result is a sit. She has to help all the students with century Melbourne, A frank assessment of the current problems special needs without enough Education Coveted Possession tells the curious story of and the radical reforms needed so that Support staff. And just when she’s getting Australia’s relationship with the piano. It Australian democracy can deliver the a handle on these issues, she has to watch charts the piano’s fascinating adventures equality, opportunity and prosperity it some politician’s pronouncement on TV and across Australia – on the goldfields, at the promises. With an introduction by Michelle realise all the solutions she’s come up with 14 READINGS MONTHLY NONFICTION July 2018 are not feasible anymore. It’s a maddening The Bootle Boy movement for constitutional recognition a writers’ room full of women used their dilemma all teachers will be familiar with. Les Hinton of Indigenous Australians. She takes us own poignant, hilarious, and Directives from above about mandatory Scribe. HB. $49.99 inside this vital campaign to meet those humiliating stories to launch a cultural standardised testing are an increasingly Fifty-two years after being involved, and shares the journey that led phenomenon. By the bestselling author common and often completely pointless sent out to buy a sandwich for to the Turnbull government’s of Seinfeldia, and featuring exclusive part of the teaching day. These farcical his first boss, Rupert heartbreaking rejection of the Uluru new interviews with the cast and writers, rituals can become a ‘last straw’ moment for Murdoch, when Les Hinton Statement from the Heart. Radical Heart this is a fascinating retrospective of the many teachers already putting in extremely finally leaves Murdoch’s challenges all Australians to work together iconic and award-winning television long hours. Stroud herself ultimately left employment in 2011, the towards a fairer future. series to coincide with the show’s teaching in frustration at the NAPLAN and business of news has been twentieth anniversary. My School regime. turned upside down. Hinton has been present The Prison Letters of Nelson Teacher is an engaging and charming at and noiselessly directed several key scenes Mandela cautionary tale about where we’re headed in that tale of revolutionary transformation, Nelson Mandela Cultural Studies as a society. If you’ve ever envied a teacher as employee and later head of Murdoch W.W. Norton. HB. Was $49.95 their holidays, this exposé will make you companies in newspapers, magazines, and $44.95 glad you chose a 9–5 job. television, on three continents over five Arrested in 1962 as South Not That Bad: Dispatches from Christopher Dite is from Readings Carlton decades. This is his evocative memoir of the Africa’s apartheid regime Rape Culture golden age of newspaper publishing. intensified its brutal Roxane Gay (ed.) I Will Be Complete campaign against political A&U. PB. $26.99 Glen David Gold Bruce Lee opponents, forty-four-year- Available 11 July Sceptre. PB. Was $32.99 Matthew Polly old lawyer and African In this anthology, Roxane $27.99 S&S. PB. $35 National Congress activist Gay collects original and I love this book. There, More than forty years after Nelson Mandela had no idea that he would previously published I’ve said it. I love it Bruce Lee’s sudden death at spend the next twenty-seven years in jail. pieces by established and and this is why. age 32, journalist and author During his incarceration, the future leader up-and-coming writers, I Will Be Complete is Matthew Polly has written of South Africa wrote a multitude of letters performers, and critics the autobiography that the definitive account of to unyielding prison authorities, fellow that address what it means took years for the author Lee’s life. It’s also one of the activists, government officials, his to live in a world where women have to to write because he wasn’t only accounts; incredibly, courageous wife, Winnie, and his five measure the harassment, violence, and quite sure if all the things that happened there has never been an authoritative children. Now, 255 of these letters provide aggression they face, and are routinely to him, whilst growing up, were actually biography of Lee. Following a decade of exceptional insight into one of the most bullied for speaking out. Not That Bad true. Well, they are all true and they are all research that included conducting more inspiring figures of the twentieth century. reflects the world we live in and offers a spectacularly bonkers. than one hundred interviews with Lee’s call to arms, insisting that ‘not that bad’ Glen David Gold grew up in San family, friends, business associates and The Pianist of Damascus must no longer be ‘good enough’. Like Francisco during the liberal 70s. He had even the mistress in whose bed Lee died, Aeham Ahmad Rebecca Solnit’s Men Explain Things to an American father who was obsessed Polly has constructed a complex, humane Michael Joseph. PB. $35 Me, Not That Bad will resonate with by money and had a taste for giving portrait of the icon and the man. Available 16 July every reader. ‘house tours’ to guests, and an English One morning on the outskirts mother, who you could say is slightly Going to the Mountain of Damascus, two starving Ten Arguments for Deleting unconventional. So far, so normal – until Ndaba Mandela friends are walking through Your Social Media Accounts his parents divorce. His father marries for Hutchinson. PB. $35 their desolate city and come Right Now a second time, whilst his mother joins a In Going to the Mountain, across a familiar street that Jaron Lanier set of colourful characters that includes Ndaba Mandela shares the has been turned to rubble. Bodley Head. HB. $24.99 thieves, drug dealers and men out to story of his coming-of-age Aeham turns to the only Available 16 July swindle her for all she’s got. alongside South Africa’s comfort he has left and sits at his piano to Recently it has become Suddenly, when Gold is twelve, his rebirth, and of growing up play a song of hope to his fellow Syrians; the horribly clear that social mother decides to move to New York City with, and learning from, one song will carry consequences he could never media is not bringing us with her new man. Young Gold is left to fend of the greatest leaders the have dreamed of. This is a gripping portrait together – it is tearing us for himself, with the occasional drop-in world has ever known – his grandfather, of a man’s search for solace and of a country apart. Silicon Valley insider from adults. He gets himself to school, cooks Nelson Mandela. It is a remarkable that has been torn apart. Jaron Lanier explains dinner and maintains the home. It is here journey, and one that took him from the precisely how social media that we begin to see the damage that both violent, segregated Soweto ghettos to his Reporter works – by deploying constant surveillance parents are causing him. grandfather’s presidential home. Intimate Seymour Hersh and subconscious manipulation of its Gold takes us along with him as he and inspirational, Going to the Mountain is Allen Lane. HB. $49.99 users – and why its cruel and dangerous navigates life through hardships, college, a powerful reminder of how one person Seymour Hersh’s fearless effects are at the heart of its current romance, jobs and his constant analysing can profoundly affect another. reporting has earned him business model and design. As well as and testing of his parents. He writes to piece front-page bylines across offering arguments for liberating yourself together the fragments of his childhood and Her Mother’s Daughter the English-speaking world, from its addictive hold, he outlines an to try to understand the strange yet loving Nadia Wheatley honours galore, and no alternative that provides all the benefits mother-son relationship. Should he feel Text. PB. $34.99 small amount of without the harm. sorry for his mother? Is she worth forgiving? Author Nadia Wheatley grew controversy. In this memoir I won’t say much more, except that the up in the crossfire between an he describes what drove him and shares ending will leave you a blubbering mess. independent woman and a the stories behind his own groundbreaking Environmental Please, please, please read this book. It controlling man. After her stories that challenged official narratives. is an exceptional memoir that is hilarious, mother’s death, the ten-year- Hersh divulges previously unreported Studies bizarre, touching and one that you must old began writing down the information about some of his biggest read this year. stories her mother had told scoops, including the My Lai massacre and Anna Rotar is from Readings Carlton her – of a Cinderella-like childhood followed the horrors at Abu Ghraib. This is essential A Zero Waste Life by an escape into a career as an army nurse in reading on the power of the printed word Anita Vandyke Run for Your Life Palestine and Greece, and as an aid-worker in at a time when good journalism is under Vintage. PB. $19.99 Bob Carr the refugee camps of post-war Germany. fire as never before. A Zero Waste Life is the MUP. PB. $34.99 Some fifty years later, the finished memoir is ultimate guide to Bob Carr’s memoir plunges a loving tribute and an investigation of the radically reducing your in, beginning with the bewildering processes of memory itself. Cinema waste, without losing despair of a young man your lifestyle. In her pining for a political career Radical Heart thirty-day challenge, before vaulting to the Shireen Morris Sex and the City and Us Anita Vandyke provides exhilaration of a premier MUP. PB. $27.99 Jennifer Keishin Armstrong you with the rules, tips and tricks you who, on one day, saves a vast Neither Indigenous nor S&S. HB. $35 need to eliminate plastic and live a forest and unveils the country’s best white, Shireen Morris is Sex and the City and Us is cleaner, kinder life. Small changes can curriculum. Above all is Bob Carr’s idea of both outside observer and the story of how a make a big difference, and by following public service in a party he describes as an instrumental insider in the columnist (Candace these easy, creative steps we can all do old, scarred, barnacled whale. All author fight for Indigenous rights. Bushnell), two gay men more to save our world. These are the proceeds from this book are donated to Shaped by her family’s (Darren Star and fellow inside tips of a waste warrior and former Australia for UNHCR to help children Indian and Fijian migrant executive producer engineer, whose life has changed from displaced by the Syrian civil war. story, Morris is a key player in the Michael Patrick King), and excess to eco-luxe. NONFICTION READINGS MONTHLY 15 July 2018

Waste Not Natural History Erin Rhoads Hardie Grant. PB. $29.99 Each year Australian Tawny Frogmouth households produce Gisela Kaplan enough rubbish to fill a CSIRO Publishing. PB. $39.99 three-bedroom home, The tawny frogmouth is one including thousands of of Australia’s most dollars worth of food and intriguing and endearing an ever-increasing birds. Written by award- amount of plastic. But what can we do winning author Gisela about such a huge problem? Erin Rhoads Kaplan, one of Australia’s went from eating plastic-packaged leading authorities on takeaway while shopping online for fast animal behaviour and native birds, this fashion to becoming one of Australia’s second edition of Tawny Frogmouth most popular eco-bloggers. In Waste Not presents an easy-to-read account of these she shares everything she’s learnt from unique, affectionate, and resilient her own funny, inspiring, and far-from- nocturnal birds, which can be found across perfect journey to living with less waste. almost the entire continent. Fully revised

and updated throughout, this book "For too long, our LGBT personnel served represents the most comprehensive single in silence. This book gives voice to men and study ever conducted on tawny frogmouths. History women who served in the face of prejudice and discrimination.” David Morrison, Asperger’s Children former Chief of Army and 2016 Australian Personal of the Year Edith Sheffer W.W. Norton. HB. $39.95 Development or the first time, Serving in Silence? In 1930s and 1940s Vienna, reveals the integral role played by child psychiatrist Hans F Asperger sought to define Advice for Future Corpses lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender men autism as a diagnostic (and Those Who Love Them) and women in Australia’s military after category, treating those Sallie Tisdale the Second World War. Their powerful children he deemed A&U. PB. $29.99 personal stories, recounted with searing capable of participating How many of us know how honesty, illustrate the changing face of the fully in society. Depicted as compassionate to die, or how to support a Australian Defence Force, the pivotal role of and devoted, Asperger was in fact deeply loved one in a ‘good death’? military service in the lives of many LGBT influenced by Nazi psychiatry, and he The fact of death is hard to Australians, and how they have served their believe. Sallie Tisdale prescribed harsh institutionalisation and country with distinction. even transfer to one of the Reich’s killing explores our fears and how centres for children with greater uncomfortable talk about www.newsouthpublishing.com disabilities. Edith Sheffer reveals the death makes us; she looks at grief, what the heartbreaking experiences of these last days and hours of life are like, and children, while illuminating a Nazi regime what happens to dead bodies. Think of this obsessed with sorting the population into book as a travel guide: a guide to preparing dangerous categories. for your own death and the deaths of people close to you. Empire of Enchantment John Zubrzycki The Happiness Curve Scribe. PB. $35 Jonathan Rauch Available 16 July Green Tree. PB. $29.99 India’s association with Why does happiness get magicians goes back harder in your 40s? Will the thousands of years. Western slump ever end? Drawing on magicians appropriated cutting-edge research, Indian attire, tricks, and award-winning journalist stage names. Switching Jonathan Rauch shows that their turbans for top hats, from our twenties into our Indian jugglers fought back, and earned forties, happiness follows a well- their grudging respect. This book tells the documented U-shaped trajectory, a extraordinary story of how Indian magic ‘happiness curve’, declining from the became part of daily ritual and popular optimism of youth into what’s often a long, entertainment across the globe, and low trough in middle age, before starting recounts tales of levitating Brahmins, to rise again in our fifties. But he doesn’t resurrections, prophesying monkeys, and just show you the dark forest of midlife, he ‘the most famous trick never performed’. helps you find a path through the trees.

Travellers in the Third Reich Julia Boyd Philosophy Elliott & Thompson. PB. $22.99 The events that took place in Germany between Aristotle’s Way 1919–1945 were dramatic Edith Hall and terrible. Travellers in Bodley Head. PB. $32.99 the Third Reich is an Aristotle was an extraordinary history of the extraordinary thinker and rise of the Nazis based on his deepest belief was that fascinating first-hand accounts, drawing we can all be happy in a together a multitude of voices and stories, meaningful, sustained way. In this handbook to his including students, politicians, musicians, timeless teachings, Professor diplomats, schoolchildren, communists, scholars, athletes, poets, journalists, Edith Hall shows why ancient thinking is fascists, artists, tourists, even celebrities precisely what we need today, even if you like Charles Lindbergh and Samuel don’t know your Odyssey from your Iliad. In Beckett. Their experiences create a ten practical lessons she shows that life deals remarkable three-dimensional picture of the same challenges in Ancient Greece or the Germany under Hitler. modern world, and what to do when it does. 16 READINGS MONTHLY July 2018

Out of My Head Science more interconnected and peaceful. Tim Parks Husain was born in London to Muslim Food & Harvill Secker. HB. $35 migrants from British India. He studied Available 16 July The Evolution of Beauty Arabic and Islam in Syria, lived and worked in Saudi Arabia as a teacher with the British Gardening Hardly a day goes by Richard O. Prum without some discussion Doubleday. PB. $29.99 Council, and later completed a postgraduate with Chris Gordon about whether computers Can adaptation by natural degree in Islam and Middle East politics can be conscious, whether selection really account for in Britain. He has worked on addressing our universe is some kind everything we see in nature? the misconceptions of Islam and Muslim The Margaret Fulton Cookbook: of simulation, whether Yale University ornithologist culture, and the current ‘gulf’ between 50th Anniversary Edition ‘mind’ is a unique quality Richard Prum – reviving Islam and the West, throughout his career – Margaret Fulton of human beings or spread out across the Darwin’s own views – thinks not only in his studies and writing, but also Hardie Grant. HB. $39.99 universe like butter on bread. Most not. In thirty years of by creating the London-based counter- Our Margaret once said that philosophers believe that our experience fieldwork, Prum has seen numerous display extremism think-tank Quilliam. she thought her recipes were is locked inside our skulls, an unreliable traits that seem disconnected from, if not The House of Islam is divided into so popular because ‘part of representation of a quite different reality outright contrary to, selection for four main sections. The first discusses the thing that women liked outside. Out of My Head tells the individual survival. To explain this, he the religious underpinnings and origins about my recipes was that I gripping, highly personal, often dusts off Darwin’s long-neglected theory of of Islam and the Quran. The second would get them doing the surprisingly funny, story of Tim Parks’ sexual selection in which the act of section looks at the ideas, identities and maddest things’. Join me in celebrating the quest to discover more about this choosing a mate for purely aesthetic consequences of what Husain refers to wonderful work of Margaret Fulton (and a fascinating topic. reasons is an independent engine of as ‘Arabisation’ of Islamic thought and rich part of our culinary history) by reading evolutionary change. juxtaposes this with discussions of the this delightful book filled with classic recipes meaning and relevance of Sufism and and new favourites. There are tips and treats The Re-Origin of Species Islamism. The third section discusses the on every page and I promise you that by the Politics long-term impact of both Westernisation Torill Kornfeldt end of this book you will have Saturday night and ‘Arabisation’ across various entertaining down to a fine art. Scribe. PB. $35 geographical areas of Muslim cultures. The Bean Counters Scientists across the globe final section then discusses the importance Richard Brooks are working to resurrect all The Book of Vermouth of global openness and coexistence. Atlantic. PB. $32.99 kinds of extinct animals, Shaun Byrne & Gilles Lapalus As someone with very little knowledge Leading investigative from ones that just left us to Hardie Grant. HB. $39.99 of Islam, I found Husain’s book a fantastic journalist and former those that have been gone From the creators of the Gin introduction to Islam and Muslim culture. senior tax inspector for many thousands of Palace and the boutique The House of Islam expertly addresses the Richard Brooks offers a years. It seems certain that Australian vermouth, current gaps in knowledge of this large, ground-breaking exposé of these animals will walk the earth again, Maidenii, this manual significant and diverse part of our world’s the accountancy industry, but what world will that give us? And is includes the very best tips for history and modern-day culture. including the ‘Big 4’ any of this a good idea? Science journalist perfect cocktails, alongside a accountancy firms - PwC, Deloitte, Ernst Torill Kornfeldt travelled the world to meet Rose Maurice is from Readings Doncaster very comprehensive guide to everything & Young, and KPMG. Charting the the men and women working to bring you need to know about vermouth as a profession’s history from humble agrarian these animals back from the dead. drink and a flavour. Perfect for all of us that beginnings to its underappreciated role in Travel favour the James Bond lifestyle, whatever the financial crash of 2008, Brooks Rocket Men our profession may be. explores how the industry hides behind Robert Kurson its ‘boring’ image to ruthlessly exploit the Scribe. PB. $35 The Nacho Manifesto financial system that depends on it. In early 1968, the Apollo Under the Rock Jack Campbell programme was on shaky Benjamin Myers Smith Street Books. HB. $29.99 From the Corner of the Oval footing. President Elliott & Thompson. HB. $29.99 Melbourne-based Jack Office Kennedy’s end-of-decade Carved from the valley side Campbell provides Beck Dorey-Stein deadline to put a man on above Mytholmroyd in inspiration and delight in Bantam. PB. $35 the Moon was in jeopardy, Calderdale, West Yorkshire, nacho recipes for every Available 16 July and the Soviets were Scout Rock is a steep crag occasion, including breakfast In 2012, Beck Dorey-Stein threatening to pull ahead in the space overlooking wooded slopes and dessert! And yes, all the was just scraping by in race. By August 1968, with its back against and flat weed-tangled recipes are easy to make, involve one of the Washington DC when a the wall, NASA decided to scrap its usual plateaus. To many it is greatest treats of all times (cheese and corn posting on Craigslist landed methodical approach and shoot for the unremarkable; to others it is a doomed chips: heaven) and are suitable for all who her, improbably, in the Oval heavens. With just four months to prepare, place, for many reasons. It is also the understand the beauty of a one-dish meal. Office as one of Barack the agency would send the first men in subject of Ted Hughes’s essay ‘The Rock’. Obama’s stenographers. The history to the Moon. Benjamin Myers asks are unremarkable Sweet Street ultimate DC outsider, she joined the elite places made remarkable by the minds that Anna Polyviou team who accompanied the president map them? The result is a lyrical and Murdoch. HB. $39.99 wherever he went, recorder and mic in Theology unflinching investigation into the very In Sweet Street, Anna hand. But as she learned the ropes, Beck meaning of place in modern Britain. Polyviou brings her became romantically entangled with a world-class training, colleague, and the political became all too techniques and flavours personal. This is a compulsively readable, The House of Islam Visual Arts into your kitchen. Her behind-the-scenes memoir. Ed Husain instructions may even Bloomsbury. PB. $29.99 tempt you into making her own aptly The Perfect Weapon Ed Husain has taken named Anna’s Tower of Terror. This book David E. Sanger on the mammoth task Antipodean Perspectives is perfect for aspirational cooks, for Scribe. PB. $32.99 of writing a comprehensive Rex Butler & Sheridan Palmer (eds) dreamers of fairy floss and for all of you Available 16 July history of Islam and its Monash University Publishing. PB. $29.95 who enjoy spending an entire weekend From Russia’s tampering people for a Western Bernard Smith (1916–2011) baking one single creation. with the US election to the audience. The House of Islam was one of Australia’s WannaCry hack that successfully achieves this, greatest humanist scholars Cauliflower temporarily crippled providing a necessary foundational and art historians. Oz Telem Britain’s NHS, cyber- overview of the historical, cultural and Antipodean Perspective: The Hardie Grant. HB. $24.99 attacks have the potential geopolitical issues of Muslim culture from Selected Writings of Bernard Such is Israeli foodie Oz to wreak global its inception through to the twenty-first Smith presents twenty-six Telem’s obsession with food devastation. Here, New York Times century across seven different cultural and art historians, curators, artists and critics, that he spent his final year of correspondent David E. Sanger takes us geopolitical spheres. Husain situates Islam from Australia and overseas, who have school translating Gordon from the White House Situation Room to in relation to the West and Western chosen a text from Smith’s work and Ramsay’s Healthy Appetite the dens of Chinese government hackers thought. However, he does not create an ‘us’ sought to explain its personal and broad into Hebrew. In Cauliflower, and the boardrooms of Silicon Valley, vs. ‘them’ comparison. Instead, he significance. Their selections reveal he shares his enthusiasm for this surprisingly piecing together a remarkable picture of a highlights the limitations and dangers of Smith’s extraordinary range as a scholar, versatile vegetable. Cauliflower features world now coming face-to-face with the current Western perceptions and his profound grasp of this nation’s past, recipes for snacks and starters, soups, salads, most sophisticated – and arguably most demonstrates how the relationship between and the way his ideas have maintained Middle-Eastern inspired meals, and truly dangerous – weapon ever invented. the ‘West’ and the Muslim world can be their relevance as we face our future. comforting pastries and pies. Who knew?! READINGS MONTHLY 17 July 2018

Lottie’s experiments and believes Lottie Young has started her period. Lottie accordingly uses the cotton from the menstrual pads TUSCANY AS to stuff a lorikeet. Adult History is important in this story. YOU HAVE Lottie’s family is German and she must grapple with their experiences during NEVER SEEN World War II; her male relatives were A.J. Betts Hive introduces an unfamiliar world that is IT BEFORE confined in the Loveday Internment strange and perplexing and as a reader it takes time to build BOOK OF THE Camp in South Australia, and the women a sense of orientation within this story, but it’s well worth left to make ends meet at home. Kernot MONTH the effort. Hive is the place where Hayley abides among also touches on the Stolen Generations Young Adult people who have a shared sense of community and purpose, through Lottie’s friendship with Jeffrey, an where social structures are clearly determined and everyone Aboriginal boy living with a white family, knows their place and function. But Hayley is not like her though her attempts to draw a parallel peers. Nor does she pine for the kind of fruitful courtship between Lottie's and Jeffrey’s experiences that would help populate her people and reinforce her are the weakest parts of the book. social role within her society. Hayley's sensibility is one of The Art of Taxidermy was shortlisted innocence and playfulness, where the natural world offers a for last year’s Text Prize for Young Adult rich source of rapture and engagement. But when migraines and Children’s Writing. It will appeal to cut through her sense of harmony and equilibrium, her teen readers who have, like Lottie herself, effort to find relief brings her into contact with confronting ‘a dark heart’. For ages 13+. truths that destabilise her world view. And with a single drop of salty water seeping through a crack in her awareness, Bronte Coates is the digital content many questions arise that challenge the very structure and coordinator and the Readings Prizes manager meaning of her world. Found 'Hive is the first in a dystopian duology Fleur Ferris Random House. PB. $19.99 that gives form to an innovative Elizabeth Miller has Hive world, structured by bee-like social always lived in Deni. In A.J. Betts hierarchies where conformity and a small rural town, Pan Mac. PB. $16.99 instinctive participation are the rule Beth’s biggest problem San Ginese is a village in of order.' is telling her protective Tuscany where fatalism and fiercely private father that she has a rules, God lingers in Hive is the first in a dystopian duology that gives form to an innovative world, structured boyfriend. But when by bee-like social hierarchies where conformity and instinctive participation are the rule people’s minds, and many her dad disappears of order. There is no rule book to help those who would defy order within Hive. As each before her and Jonah’s eyes, Beth dream of California, breach of truth permeates Hayley's reality, the certainty of her world dissolves beneath discovers that her dad’s not who she her, causing a free-fall into the unknown. This is the trajectory she must follow as her fate Argentina or Australia. thought he was. Her family’s secret past propels her towards a resolution that feels disorienting and unexpected. It’s a compelling has caught up with them, and someone Some leave only to return end to a tale that promises more to come. wants her dead. Beth has been disillusioned, wishing Natalie Platten is from Readings Doncaster unwittingly prepared for this moment her whole life. This is another thrilling they had never come page-turner from the bestselling author of back, some never leave Risk, Black and Wreck. and forever wish Mercy Point Point will appeal to fans of YA thrillers Anna Snoekstra and urban fantasies alike, and will keep Royal Bastards they had. HarperCollins. PB. $19.99 readers guessing until the very end. Andrew Shvarts Recommended for readers 13+. Disney-Hyperion. PB $18.99 Five teens in Mount Cobalt each Kushla Egan is from Readings Kids Available 10 July Tilla’s father loved her carry a heavy secret ‘Astonishing in the alone: they suspect they The Art of Taxidermy as a child, but cast her are adopted, and they Sharon Kernot aside as soon as he had seductiveness and trueborn children. At are certain their parents Text. PB. $19.99 uniqueness of its are lying to them. When The Art of sixteen, Tilla spends they each receive an Taxidermy is an her days exploring with storytelling. I read it her stable-hand email invitation to join a evocative verse novel greedily, not wanting to private message board for teens in the local set in a small Australian half-brother, Jax, and area who doubt their paternity, it seems too town in the 1960s. her nights drinking leave San Ginese and return with the servants, passing out on Jax's good to be true. Emboldened by anonymity, Author Sharon Kernot to the real world.’ they find support in each other and begin to explores themes of grief floor while her castle bedroom collects give voice to the fears they have carried and identity in her story dust. But when Tilla and Jax lead visiting Christos Tsiolkas alone for so long. It feels like hope. of Lottie, a girl Princess Lyriana on a late-night escapade, Behind the screens is an unlikely fascinated by death. Lottie has suffered a they stumble upon a crime they were never bunch of friends: obnoxious know-it- number of losses in her own short life, meant to witness – a brutal coup. Can they ‘I have never read a all Emma, who always stands up to the including her mother’s, and her way of warn the king in time? bullies; Michael, king bully himself; and grieving is unique – she collects dead migrant tale so original, his favourite target, the sweet, cowardly animals and attempts to preserve them. The Opposite of Here so breathtaking in scope, Fabian; Tessie, the vigilant loner; and the In lyrical language, Kernot draws a Tara Altebrando mysterious Sam. When they finally meet comparison between the Australian bush Bloomsbury. PB. $16.99 or so magical.’ in real life, they are humiliated. These and death: both are beautiful and Only months after her Alice Pung are not the kind strangers they imagined: desolate at once. boyfriend died in a these are their enemies. They decide never The reasons for Lottie’s desire to tragic accident, to speak again, to continue living a lie. But express her grief through taxidermy are Natalie's parents take their parents are hiding something much evident: ‘I wanted flesh and blood, / not her and her three best more sinister than just their adoption, and ghosts.’ In one passage, she imagines friends on a week-long they have to find the truth together. resurrecting her grandfather: ‘Rewired, cruise for her birthday. Narrated in turns by each teen, we reconstructed, / resurrected, rewound, She's surprised when learn more about their stories and their / revised the present. / Rewrote the she meets a guy on the stereotypes inevitably melt away. As they past.’ While Lottie’s father, a scientist, is first night and feels a connection she's reconnect, the more dangerous the secrets accepting of her interests, her Aunt Hilda never felt before. After a late-night talk, being kept from them appear. Something deems such tendencies inappropriate for Natalie runs to her cabin for a change of OUT NOW happened in Mount Cobalt, and it began a girl. There are glimmers of dark humour clothes, but when she returns, he's gone BLACKINCBOOKS.COM in the caves. This small town has a secret to be found here, such as when Aunt without a trace. This is a thrilling tale from that it is desperate to protect. Mercy Hilda finds a bloody sheet from one of the author of The Leaving and The Possible. 18 KIDS

regretting to inform your baby there will sometimes be Children’s sadness and ice cream disasters, but it’s ok because there will always be happiness, warm embraces and more ice cream. Junior I loved this thoughtful and quirky book; it reminded Books me so much of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Fiction guidebook, I was almost surprised the words ‘Don’t Panic’ weren’t written on the back cover in large, friendly letters. Welcome is perfect for all people with new babies in, or coming into, their lives. Bad Nana: Older Not Wiser Dani Solomon is from Readings Kids Sophy Henn HarperCollins. HB. $17.99 Wren Bad Nana is not like Jeanie’s Katrina Lehman & Sophie Beer (illus.) other grandparents. Bad Nana is BOOK OF THE Scribble. HB. $24.99 often up to no good, but she is always MONTH Poor Wren. All he wants is a good fun. Bad Nana wears a lot of Picture Books bit of peace and quiet, but in black, and has a pink cat named a big, noisy family living in the city Liberace. She’s been known to cause it’s practically impossible. Then his disruptions at line-dancing club, and, baby sister arrives and she never with a whoopee cushion among the stops crying. Wren retreats to his surprises in her enormous black handbag, she loves grandparents’ house in the country nothing more than to pull off hilarious pranks at the but after a while it seems too quiet. Could he be missing expense of bullies and bores. the baby and all her noise? This book has a really cool, highlighter pink and The illustrations by Sophie Beer for this warm-hearted black colour scheme that reflects Bad Nana’s punk family story are vivacious and vibrant, filled with life style and her love of a little pink flair (on super-special occasions Bad Nana likes to wear her sparkly pink Cicada and love. They perfectly depict the chaos of a big family with so much colour and movement. This is a big-hearted turban). The illustrations are bold and the text design is Shaun Tan story about families and siblings that is perfect to read to exciting; it all looks very fresh and appealing. Bad Nana Lothian. HB. Was $26.99 children aged 3+. is great fun to read together, perhaps with a favourite, $22.99 cheeky grandparent, and is also perfect for budding Angela Crocombe is the manager of Readings Kids independent readers aged 6–8. Kim Gruschow is from Readings St Kilda In Cicada, award-winning artist and author Shaun Tan Grandad Mandela has produced another stunning masterpiece of minimalist Zindzi Mandela, Zazi & Ziwelene Mandela, & social commentary that will resonate with adults and Sean Qualls (illus.) Mr Penguin and the Lost Treasure children alike. Frances Lincoln. HB. $24.99 Alex T. Smith The eponymous Cicada is an office worker in a cubicle in Two great-grandchildren ask their Hodder. PB. $14.99 a grey, featureless building. For 17 years he slaves away, living grandmother 15 questions about the Available 10 July onsite, bullied by co-workers and given no recognition. Upon man they remember as Grandad, and Mr Penguin of Cityville is a clever retirement he climbs Escher-like stairs to the roof of the the world remembers as Nelson and spirited penguin looking for building. What happens then is simply extraordinary. Mandela, the global icon of peace and adventure. Everyone knows that any Tan’s rich oil paintings depict the bleak office forgiveness who spent 27 years in self-respecting professional adventurer environment in shades of grey. Cicada’s green head is the prison. Seen from a child’s has a trusty side-kick; in Mr Penguin’s only colour on many pages. The art is deceptively simple, perspective, and authored jointly by case it’s Colin – a spider in a bowler hat allowing the viewer to project their own imaginings onto his great-grandchildren and daughter, this amazing story who’s terrific at delivering ferocious the page. The endpapers are divine. is told as never before to celebrate what would have been Kung Fu kicks when necessary! The language of Cicada is also simple, yet expressive. Nelson’s Mandela 100th birthday. Unfortunately, when this awesome duo accepts the The story comments on the absurdity of corporate urgent (and dangerous) case to find the museum’s lost life, reflects on the life cycle of the cicada (up to 17 Ready to Ride treasure, things go awry. years underground) and suggests the possibility of Sébastien Pelon I loved this wacky Indiana Jones-esque tale of derring- transformation. The text is written in the simple rhythmic Words & Pictures. HB. $19.99 do, adventure and friendship. It’s got an outlandish, voice of Cicada, with an economy of words and gestures, A little boy is told to play outside by fast-paced plot with a terrific twist in the end, delightful always ending with ‘Tok, Tok, Tok!’ his mum, and once there bumps into characters, dastardly villains and a lovable hero. Lots of This magnificent picture book is the work of a master an imaginary friend. They go for a energetic black-and-white line illustrations (with spots of storyteller at the top of his game, pared back to only the bike ride, and at first the boy finds it colour) bring an extra layer of fun to a story that will have minimum required to tell his story, leaving us to question and difficult to keep up, but with his readers laughing. imagine further. It’s suitable for ages 4+. Bravo Shaun Tan! imaginary friend’s help he takes off The creator of the much-loved Claude books has done it again! This is the first book in another madcap adventure Angela Crocombe is the manager of Readings Kids the bike’s training wheels and learns to freewheel – all the way home. Stunning illustrations series guaranteed to keep young readers turning pages. and an imaginative design make this a special picture Highly recommended for readers aged 7+. book for little bike riders everywhere. Athina Clarke is from Readings Malvern Picture The Girls Real Pigeons Fight Crime Lauren Ace & Jenny Løvlie (illus.) Andrew McDonald & Ben Wood Little Tiger Press. HB. $24.99 HG Egmont. PB. $14.99 Books Four little girls meet under an apple The Real Pigeons are a crime- tree and form a bond that grows as fighting squad of city birds, each they share secrets, dreams, worries with a unique Pigeon Power. Grandpouter and schemes. This beautifully is the patriarch in charge of super-strong Welcome: A Mo Willems Guide for New illustrated tale charts the girls’ lives Frillback, extra-bendy Tumbler, Arrivals through ups and downs and navigational expert Homey and the Mo Willems laughter and tears. Find out how newest recruit, Rock, a master of disguise. Walker. HB. $24.99 their friendship flourishes as the years pass by and the Real Pigeons Fight Crime is the first instalment in Welcome: A Mo Willems Guide girls become women. the Real Pigeons series, with a trio of short, illustrated for New Arrivals by Mo mysteries that will make you fall in love with these Willems is a guidebook on life for Charlie feathered protectors. The Pigeons meet regularly in a your newborn baby. The Ronojoy Ghosh bin, endure long stakeouts and enact creative plans to illustrations are high-contrast and Puffin. HB. $24.99 vanquish breadcrumb thieves, protect the park bats and in the style of yellow street signs A gorgeous new picture book about avert disaster at a food-truck fair. – detailed enough, but simple. The fitting in and standing out. Charlie’s a Each story is divided into manageable chapters with book is a perfect one to read to your very clever lion. He loves art, fancy a genuine mystery to solve, and quirky surprises such as baby, and it encourages you to do so throughout. restaurants and travelling. Or, at least, a monster crow, a fortune-telling budgerigar, a walking ‘Thank you for joining us’, it starts, and briefly explains he thinks he would. It’s hard to tell, scarecrow and more. Text and pictures work together how you, the reader, have been anxiously awaiting your since he’s stuck in a zoo. If Charlie is seamlessly, with comic sequences, graphic dialogue, baby’s arrival. It goes on to hope your baby enjoys their ever going to explore the world, he’ll funny captions, exuberant visual humour and word play. stay and offers some highlights (music! and cats!) before need a cunning disguise. By the end of this first book, crow-power conservative KIDS READINGS MONTHLY 19 July 2018

Jungle Crow and fame-obsessed Mega Bat are shaping raised include love, death, war, environmentalism, and the end of summer. up to be excellent and not-too-scary nemeses. I can’t wait gender identity. In later scenes, abrupt plot manoeuvres For any horse lover, there are lovely scenes of getting to to witness more of the Real Pigeons’ ingenuity, bravery, and startling revelations add important dimensions to know and trust a new horse, as well as gaining confidence teamwork, and general silliness. Readers aged 6+ with a Rob’s character, and cause shifts in emotional register. riding. There are also added layers of a grieving family, sense of humour, a love of animals and sleuthing skills Rob receives a hard-hitting lesson in love, which finally particularly Harry’s mother, and her sister’s voice that will adore this entertaining new series. compels him to voice his truth. only Harry can hear. Secondary characters, including a Leanne Hall is from Readings online In his award-winning novel My Life as an Alphabet, kind riding teacher and a troubled bully, are also well- Barry Jonsberg demonstrated his brilliance in a drawn. What initially appears to be a simple horse story conceptually singular story about an unconventional is actually a sophisticated drama that will resonate not Lucy & Andy Neanderthal girl tackling life’s miscellaneous trials using a peculiar only with horse lovers but also readers aged 8-11 who enjoy Jeffrey Brown blend of droll honesty and compulsive altruism. In this stories about overcoming hardship. Random House. PB. $12.99 timely novel, Jonsberg excels once again, delivering Lucy and Andy get into trouble much Angela Crocombe is the manager of Readings Kids the perfect balance of whimsy and insight, performed like any sister and brother – except Lucy by a wonderful cast of wise-cracking characters. Rob’s and Andy live in the Stone Age! Discover Ottilie Colter and the Narroway Hunt irascible, dry-witted grandad is an especially riotous their laugh-out-loud adventures as the Rhiannon Williams show-stealer. For ages 10+. pair take on a wandering baby sibling, HG Egmont. PB. $17.99 bossy teens, cave paintings, and a Carrie Croft is from Readings Hawthorn Ottilie Colter and her brother, Gully, have mammoth hunt. But what will happen always fended for themselves. So when when they encounter a group of Hello, Universe Gully goes missing one night, Ottilie sets humans? This hilarious graphic novel includes extra Erin Entrada Kelly & Isabel Roxas (illus.) out to find him – and soon makes a information about Neanderthal life that’s sure to appeal to HarperCollins. PB. $14.99 horrible discovery. Gully has been forcibly future paleontologists and science-phobes alike! Winner of the prestigious Newbery recruited by the Narroway Hunt, a Medal for 2018, Hello Universe secretive male-only organisation that explores some common and not-so- hunts savage, blight-spreading monsters. common themes with a charming and Disguising herself as a boy, Ottilie infiltrates the Hunt. As Middle funny deftness. We are issued into the she trains alongside her brother, hoping for a chance to world of four middle-school kids who are, escape, how long can she keep her true identity a secret? for varying reasons, disenfranchised Fiction from the mainstream. One day, through Swallow’s Dance mishap, their fates converge and offer up a new universe Wendy Orr where friendship will be the winner. Erin Entrada Kelly’s A&U. PB. $16.99 perfectly pitched novel encompasses multiculturalism, Leira is about to start her initiation as a The 104-Storey Treehouse disability, loneliness, shyness and bullying. Does that priestess when an earthquake leaves her Andy Griffiths & Terry Denton (illus.) sound like too many themes and dilemmas? It’s just a home and family in pieces. With her normal day in any community, but presented lightly and Pan Mac. PB. $14.99 injured mother and elderly nurse, Leira sensitively. I absolutely loved the characters in this kind Available 10 July flees across the sea to Crete. But a exploration of friendship and self-acceptance; Hello I am a huge fan of the Treehouse volcanic eruption and tsunami throw the Universe champions resilience and applauds difference books, they are excellently irreverent entire world into darkness and chaos. and I heartily recommend it for girls and boys of 9+. in a Pythonesque way (I have definitely Being noble-born now means nothing; seen a giant foot in amongst Terry’s Alexa Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn Leira must find the strength and resourcefulness within drawings!). For those who haven’t yet been herself to find safety for them all. This is a thrilling introduced to the phenomenon, Andy and The Boy at the Back of the Class Bronze-Age survival story from the acclaimed author of Terry, the author and artist, live in a Onjali Q. Raúf Dragonfly Song. 104-storey treehouse and spend their time Orion. PB. $14.99 trying to write their books and get them to their publisher, the Available 10 July always-angry Mr Big Nose, by the deadline. They don’t really The Boy at the Back of the Class is an mean to save writing and drawing their books until the very engaging exploration of the refugee Classic last minute; it’s just that things keep happening to them! crisis through the eyes of a child. A group Like all good double-acts there is a funny man – the of students are determined to befriend the puppy-like Terry – and a long-suffering straight man – Andy. new boy in class, and when they learn he’s of the Month Jill, their animal-loving neighbour, is the sensible one, a ‘Refugee Kid’, they also decide that although I’m not entirely sure you would call someone willing they’re going to help him, setting in to do surgery on sharks ‘sensible’. motion a madcap and heartfelt adventure. In The 104-Storey Treehouse, poor Andy has a toothache Author Onjali Q. Raúf is the founder and CEO of A Fortunate Life: Edition for Young Readers and can’t write. So, the two men and Jill get all mixed-up Making Herstory, an organisation which works to end A. B. Facey with a special joke writing pen, tooth-fairy money and the abuse and trafficking of women and girls. She brings Fremantle Press. PB. $17.99 climbing Mount Everest. Between the story and all of Terry’s her passion for social responsibility to this story which They say the past is another country, and tiny and crazy illustrations, this book guarantees hours- demonstrates the power of small actions to initiate larger that was never more true than for this worth of re-reads! change. In addition, Raúf initially conceals details about new young reader’s edition of the This is, hands-down, the best book on budgeting, time- the book’s narrator (such as their name) which could be Australian classic A Fortunate Life. management and oral health for all kids aged 5-104. seen as a way for children to better imagine themselves Albert Facey’s simple recounting of Dani Solomon is from Readings Kids into the story. childhood and youth more than a hundred The Boy at the Back of the Class is reminiscent of Morris years ago takes place in an Australia that A Song Only I Can Hear Gleitzman’s 1990 novel, Two Weeks with the Queen. It too is scarcely recognisable today. uses humour to tackle a challenging and timely subject, Barry Jonsberg Young readers 10+ will be enthralled by the and even features an attempted visit to the Queen! And A&U. PB. $16.99 adventures of young Albert. This is an extraordinary life: while the story does contain sad and painful events, its escaping cruel employers, managing a farm on his own A Song Only I Can Hear opens with emphasis on kindness and happy ending makes it a safe at 14, boxing his way around Australia, building railways thirteen-year-old, would-be writer choice for sensitive readers. For ages 9-11. and soldiering. The scenes where Albert joins a cattle- Rob Fitzgerald researching how people fall droving team across Western Australia are particularly in love. Rob’s trying to solve a dilemma: he Bronte Coates is the digital content coordinator and the Readings Prizes manager vivid and exciting. believes he’s in love with Destry But readers will also be moved when they notice what Camberwick, but panic attacks prevent young Albert lacks: a family to provide real emotional him from making the first move. Soon The Promise Horse support, a sense of home, and the chance to attend school. after, Rob receives well-timed, anonymous Jackie Merchant texts; they are essentially dares designed to boost his Walker. PB. $16.99 The teenage Albert saw early action at Gallipoli, and self-confidence. The initial text functions as a stimulus – In this middle-grade novel pitched readers might reflect on the personal cost of war: the ‘Do not fear fear. It’s only purpose is to let you know that at horse lovers there is plenty of energetic, restless teenager returns broken, though he something is worth doing’ – while the ensuing challenges other drama too. Harry and her sister, scarcely admits it, to work as a tram conductor and a launch Rob on a madcap adventure of self-discovery. Sissy, have always longed for a horse. But tram driver. As Rob’s dormant talents emerge – soccer star, it is only after Sissy dies and the family Nine months after A Fortunate Life was published Shakespearian actor, animal-rights activist – he suddenly moves to the country that Harry is in 1982, Albert Facey died. But he created an indelible finds himself on Destry’s radar. What happens next is as allowed to borrow a horse, a giant on four memory of a life in Australia and what it was like for one powerful as it is unpredictable. legs named Marksman. Harry must learn boy growing up a hundred years ago. A new generation of readers now has the chance to travel back in time. For all its hilarious set pieces, A Song Only I Can to care for Marksman and improve her riding skills if she Hear is cumulative and surprisingly poignant. Topics has any hope of being allowed to attend the gymkhana at Mike Shuttleworth is from Readings Hawthorn 20 BARGAINS

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Was $41.99 Now $12.95 Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons superhero in this laugh- HB. Was $24.99 Now $12.95 Christopher Lloyd leads us Raymond Blanc out-loud story by New York From the award- on an extraordinary HB. Was $95 Now $29.95 Times best-selling author winning team behind journey, from the birth of Raymond Blanc’s Le Kate DiCamillo. It begins Sam and Dave Dig a life to the present day, as he Manoir aux Quat’Saisons is with a tragic accident that Hole, and illustrated by attempts to explain, in a a bastion of haute cuisine has unexpected Jon Klassen, the Kate jargon-free way, the and a beacon of l’art de consequences. Ulysses (a squirrel) never Greenaway-winning phenomena that we call ‘life on Earth’. vivre. It is also the only saw the vacuum cleaner coming, but Flora creator of This Is Not My Hat and I Want My Beautifully illustrated and wide-ranging it country house hotel in Belle Buckman is just the right person to Hat Back, comes the first tale in an provides an eye-opening insight into the Britain to have held two step in and save him. What neither can exciting new trilogy. Meet Triangle. He is story of our world, humankind’s place in Michelin stars for more than three predict is that Ulysses has been born anew going to play a sneaky trick on his friend, nature, and our pivotal relationship with decades. This is Blanc’s personal tour of Le and that Flora will be changed too, as she Square. Or so Triangle thinks… the Earth itself: past, present and future. READINGS MONTHLY 21 July 2018

Peter Rabbit British thriller written by actor Lennie Film & TV $29.95 James. He also stars as man-about-town Beatrix Potter’s best-known lothario Nelson ‘Nelly’ Rowe whose world story, The Tale of Peter comes crashing down when his 13-year- Rabbit, about a mischievous old daughter, who he barely knows, and adventurous hero has goes missing. Her mother, played by the DVD OF THE It is six months after the first season of Jo Nesbo’s neo-Cold captivated generations of readers. It has now wonderful Suranne Jones, is convinced MONTH War thriller concluded and the Russian occupation still been adapted to the big screen with The Late Nelly is guilty in this complex mystery. holds Norway in a firm grip. Set in the near future, Norway TV Late Show host, James Corden, playfully is occupied by Russia on behalf of the European Union, due voicing the role of Peter. Accompanied by a to the fact that the newly elected environmentally friendly cast of Hollywood superstars, Peter Rabbit Documentary Norwegian government has stopped the all important oil and has been described by Entertainment Weekly gas production in the North Sea. as ‘clever, and funny, and moves as fast as a Series two opens with ousted Prime Minister Jesper Berg tyke on a sugar bender’. The Ghan: Australia’s in a self-imposed exile, and a country on the verge of civil war. Greatest Train Journey Tensions between Norwegian forces and the occupying Russian $24.95 government are past breaking point, and the threat of a violent TV Available 4 July conflict between the two becomes very real despite the peace An Australian first foray into treaty signed by the Russian invaders. The eco-political focus the ‘Slow TV’ movement, of series one has been surpassed by one of nationalism – the The Americans: this is an immersive journey on Australia’s conflict is not just between the occupiers and the occupied, but Season 5 most iconic railway that reveals – in also between those who will fight for their nation and those who $39.95 real time – the stunning topographical will not. Danger, disillusionment and vistas and dramatic palette changes from Occupied: Occupied is a topical thriller, exploring grim but feasible- betrayal reach an all-time Adelaide to Darwin, while unpacking Series 2 feeling hypotheticals, and plays well on the Western world’s high in the suspense-laced our Indigenous, multicultural and social $29.95 existential dilemma of how to have a future with both fifth and penultimate season of The history in the most surprising way. environmental and fuel security. Americans. Making multiple critics’ lists for ‘The Best Show on Television’ this Bombshell: The 1980s Cold War period drama follows the Hedy Lamarr Story lives of Soviet spies posing as American $24.95 Film social prejudices of the 1930s, this married couple Philip and Elizabeth Available 4 July handsome debut feature from Swedish- Jennings. A timely series not to be missed! ‘[Bombshell] is the story of Sami writer–director Amanda Kernell Hedy Lamarr, ’40s Hollywood A Quiet Place robustly blends adolescent fears that Top of the Lake: star and pioneer of frequency-hopping, $29.95 resonate across borders and generations China Girl a technology that would help power first Available 18 July with a fascinatingly specific, rarely $34.95 weapons of war then eventually GPS and If they hear you, they hunt depicted cultural context: Sweden’s ‘Top of the Lake: China Wi-Fi. That she’d receive no recognition for you. In John Krasinski’s colonial oppression of the indigenous Sami Girl, the second season of it haunted her. It should haunt others too. intense thriller, a family of folk.’ – Variety the miniseries … might This moving, surprising documentary offers four must navigate their lives in silence in be even better than the first. It puts the a tale of Hollywood pigeonholing that feels a post-apocalyptic world after mysterious Ready Player One show’s themes above the mystery without particularly timely.’ – Time Out London creatures that hunt by sound threaten Was $34.95 sacrificing any of the action, tension their survival. The Guardian warns: ‘if ever $29.95 | Available 4 July or subversive touches. Elisabeth Moss, Midnight Oil: 1984 a film had me mentally tiptoeing over a ‘The gamer kid in Steven Gwendoline Christie and Nicole Kidman are $29.95 booby-trapped carpet of eggshells while Spielberg lets his VR freak a wonderful trio of dark, complex and flawed Available 4 July silently gibbering with anxiety, it’s this flag fly in [his adaptation of characters, and it’s harrowing to see if they In 1984, Midnight Oil released brutal sci-fi suspense thriller.’ Ernest Cline’s sci-fi novel] Ready Player can survive their demons.’ – The Wrap their iconic record Red Sails in One, a mindbending joyride that jacks you the Sunset and embarked on a Sami Blood into a fantasia bursting with CGI wonders, Save Me relentless tour around the nation. Featuring $29.95 dazzling cyperscapes mixed with live $34.95 new footage of the band on and off the stage, Available 4 July action, hidden Easter eggs and infinite Available 4 July Midnight Oil: 1984 is the untold story of ‘A moving, classically pop-culture shoutouts to the 1980s … As From the multi-award- the year Australia’s most iconic rock band rendered coming-of-age ever, Spielberg is ready to play. Are you? winning producers of Line inspired the nation to believe in the power of tale set against the scarring Game on.’ – Rolling Stone of Duty comes this gripping music to change the world.

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ANDRÉ July 12 (PG) THE BREAKER UPPERERS Opens July 26 (CTC) THE WIFE August 2 (M) Fashion is fleeting, but style is timeless — this is the gospel according Produced by Taika Waititi, THE BREAKER UPPERERS is the latest Behind any great man, there’s always a greater woman. Indeed, to André Leon Talley, the operatic style icon and fashion industry excellent addition to the Kiwi comedy wave. Fifteen years ago, Mel Glenn Close gives a tremendous performance sure to rival her very trailblazer. Produced by the team behind The First Monday in Mayand (Madeleine Sami) and Jen (Jackie van Beek) discovered they were best in the simmering drama THE WIFE, an examination of an Page One: Inside The New York Times, and featuring commentary from being two-timed by the same man. Bitter, cynical and so soured on intelligent woman who has spent forty years sacrificing her own fashion luminaries including Anna Wintour, Marc Jacobs and Tom Ford, love, they discovered a niche use for their anti-romance talents: talent, dreams and ambition to support her charismatic, THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ANDRÉ is a funny and poignant portrait breaking up other couples for cash. Now they’re in their late-thirties philandering husband Joe (Jonathan Pryce) and his brilliant literary about a man who is much more than a stylish sound bite. and business is booming. But when they run into an old victim, Mel career. Co-starring Christian Slater, THE WIFE is an emotional “The ‘Nelson Mandela of couture’ finally gets his due in this admiring develops a conscience and their friendship is truly put to the test. journey of self-discovery and liberation. new documentary” The Washington Post “Look out couples — and Hollywood — because New Zealand comedians “Glenn Close is exquisite in the literary drama” IndieWire Jackie van Beek and Madeleine Sami are ready for stardom” Variety HHHHH The Guardian

Melbourne’s home of quality arthouse and contemporary cinema 22 MUSIC

hues … This is another record about an inspired Rose to combine black music and Popular unraveling romance and the fraught social activism, along with new studio sexuality of its final moments.’ – Pitchfork recordings of tracks taken from her own highly acclaimed songbook. Music Sympathique Pink Martini Milyakburra $19.95 | Also on vinyl Emily Wurramara Australian indie-folk duo Luluc’s third studio album, ‘Beloved Oregon-based $24.95 ALBUM OF Sculptor, is laid-back indie-folk in the vein of artists like Nick “little orchestra” Pink ‘Steeped in the sand, THE MONTH Drake, Angus and Julia Stone, and Sufjan Stevens. Randell Martini will release the salt and concrete of her 20th anniversary family, community, Pop/Rock/Alt and Hassett’s wonderfully harmonised vocals form the backbone of this album, and are carried along by melodies edition of their culture, islands and all that are almost reminiscent of the Beatles ‘Yellow Submarine’ acclaimed debut album, of the souls that have era. This album sits somewhere between indie-rock and Sympathique … via Heinz Records … Of played a part in her folk, but incorporates elements of many other genres too. In the anniversary edition, lead singer journey so far, Milyakburra is 11 tracks … the track ‘Controversy’, serene acoustic guitar is gradually Forbes says, “It’s hard to believe it has sung in both English and Anindilyakwa intertwined with futuristic-sounding synths. ‘Genius’ pairs been 20 years since we released our first that explore the contrasting themes of the soft vocal harmonies with drumming that would sound at album, Sympathique, and I am so excited two worlds in which Emily [Wurramara] home in an experimental jazz track. That’s not to say that this that it has been restored to its original grew up – the island and the city.’ – Forte album doesn’t feel like it hangs together well – it certainly version with Ravel’s Bolero!”’ – Vents does. While there are many elements beyond the traditional Dancing with My Spirit scope of indie-rock to this album, it is both lyrically and Archie Roach Sculptor musically holistic. This is an album that manages a sense of Jazz/Blues $24.95 Luluc whimsy, but toes the boundary line of what we might expect ‘Dancing With My Spirit from contemporary indie-folk music. $19.95 | Also on vinyl features the title track Lyrically, this album is filled with evocative, atmospheric Heaven & Earth Available 13 July as well as the likes of ‘A imagery. These images are sometimes unexpected: Kamasi Washington Child Was Born Here’, in ‘Needn’t Be’, this imagery is of domestic life, and is $27.95 | Also on vinyl ‘Dancing Shoes’ [and] underpinned by a refrain, “be kind to yourself”. This message ‘Kamasi Washington has ‘Colour of Your Jumper’ of kindness and gentleness is one that permeates the entire album, moving from that announced his full- ... According to [producer] Jen Anderson, domestic sphere out to the political in other songs. length follow-up to 2015’s “The combination of these three women In my time spent working on the shop floor at Readings, there were a handful of The Epic. It’s called [Tiddas] and Archie singing together albums that would consistently sell within minutes of being put on to play over the shop Heaven and Earth. created a magic that’s rare and precious, speakers. Customers would break away from their browsing, come to the counter and ask Washington stated in a and I consider myself extremely fortunate what was playing, then purchase it immediately. I have a feeling that Sculptor, with it’s tweet, “The Earth side represents the world to have witnessed this creation.”’ – The easy, beautiful melodies, will soon join the ranks of those albums. as I see it outwardly, the world that I am a Music Network Ellen Cregan is the marketing and events coordinator part of. The Heaven side represents the world as I see it inwardly, the world that is a Anchor part of me.”’ – Pitchfork Norma Waterson & Eliza Carthy $24.95 The Blues is Alive and Well ‘Recorded as live in a Pop/Rock/Alt A Bachelor, which was nominated for Best Buddy Guy chapel in the family’s Rock Album at the 2017 Grammy Awards. $19.95 | Also on vinyl home town, Yorkshire’s Buddy Guy’s The Blues is Robin Hood’s Bay … Hope Downs The Now Now Alive and Well features Anchor is as steadfast Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever Gorillaz appearances by Mick and timeless as its title $21.95 | Also on vinyl $19.95 | Also on vinyl Jagger on ‘You Did the implies. Not that it is a record of ancient ‘This Melbourne band’s ‘Damon Albarn’s band Crime’, Keith Richards lore: it is a broadminded, spellbinding and full-length debut is a are following up 2017’s and Jeff Beck on ‘Cognac’, often surprising collection of songs, minor marvel: 10 Humanz quickly … and James Bay on ‘Blue No More’. Grammy celebrating the influences on the family perfectly pitched Albarn said he had Award-winning producer/songwriter and and their friends.’ – The Guardian guitar-pop songs, not a made The Now Now so long-time collaborator Tom Hambridge dud among ’em. Every swiftly after Humanz so produced the album. The Blues is Alive and Wande amp tone on this album is just sweet he had “something nice to play everyone” Well is the follow-up to Guy’s 2015 critically Samba Toure enough, every jangling rhythm hits at Gorillaz tour dates this summer. Albarn acclaimed album Born to Play Guitar. $27.95 exactly where it should. Rolling Blackouts also revealed the album has been Wande is a record that are playing an old game, but they’re produced by James Ford, who has worked Luedella reconciles continuity damned good at it.’ – Rolling Stone with Arctic Monkeys, Haim, and Florence Collard Greens & Gravy and change. [Samba + The Machine.’ – NME $24.95 Touré] became Bye Bye Wolves Acclaimed for their renowned across the Fraser A. Gorman Lo La Ru gritty, driving, down globe for his passionate $21.95 | Also on vinyl The Rubens home-sound, Collard guitar work and fiery singing, one of the Available 13 July $21.95 Greens and Gravy play a masters of his art, a man who’s learned In Bye Bye Wolves, The Rubens are set to repertoire of stripped- from the greatest and gone on to develop a Gorman’s songwriting make a huge return with back, harmonica-driven, sound that’s completely his own. builds around his ability the forthcoming release Chicago blues in the style of greats such as to convey his life, hopes, of their third album. Little Walter, Jimmy Reed and Muddy and fears openly with Indeed, the band are Waters to name a few. Their latest album Country sun-drenched tones and back and eager to build Luedella has gone to number one on the lyrical wit. Taking a slight step away from on the excitement of their first two albums, ABRAC charts and is receiving rave reviews. the country folk vibes of his previous which have gone platinum and gold All the Things That I Did and releases, this album is more laid back respectively in Australia thanks to hits All the Things That I Didn’t Do Americana with a driving pop sensibility. ‘Hoops,’ ‘Hallelujah,’ ‘Lay It Down,’ ‘My Folk/World The Milk Carton Kids Gun’ and more. $19.95 | Also on vinyl Pray for the Wicked In this album, acoustic Panic! at the Disco So Calypso! So Sad So Sexy duo The Milk Carton Calypso Rose $19.95 | Also on vinyl Lykke Li Kids (made up of Joey $14.95 [This] album, produced $24.95 Ryan & Kenneth by Jake Sinclair, ‘Many of Li’s gifts, Ordained ‘Calypso Pattengale) have features the new single including her distressed Queen’ in 1972, Calypso brought a band into the ‘Say Amen (Saturday brand of longing, are on Rose is a powerful figure studio with them for the first time. As Joey Night)’ and ‘(Fuck A) display in So Sad So Sexy. in today’s fight for Ryan has said, ‘It was liberating to know Silver Lining’. Pray For The hooks are still women’s rights in the we didn’t have to be able to carry every The Wicked follows Panic! at the Disco’s broad, primed for music industry. This song with just our two guitars.’ critically acclaimed fifth album, Death Of festival stages with more downcast pop album pays tribute to the songs that READINGS MONTHLY 23 July 2018

Korngold & Nielsen: established himself as arguably the most Classical Violin Concertos exciting and unique voice in contemporary Jiyoon Lee, Odense Symphony Australian composition, and sees them Orchestra & Kristiina Poska continuing to explore new forms of Music expression and creativity. Orchid Classics. ORC100079. $26.95 ‘Make no mistake, J.S. Bach: Jiyoon Lee is a major Joshua Bell is widely considered one of the best violinists Violin Concertos Nos. 1 & 2 talent (and Kristiina ALBUM OF in the world, and when he was made music director of the Daniel Lozakovich & Poska shouldn’t be prestigious Academy of St Martin in the Fields his world Radoslaw Szulc THE MONTH left out of this reputation was cemented. Many people would already know DG. 4799372. Classical equation), a sensitive $21.95 of him through listening to his many recordings or hearing and searching artist, of his famous ‘busking in the subway’ stunt (if you don’t Following in the with bags of confidence; if I were a know about it, look it up as the results are still fascinating). footsteps of Anne- conductor I’d be straight on the phone to The first violin concerto he ever learnt, at the tender age Sophie Mutter and her management to arrange a concert date. of 11, was the ever-popular Bruch Violin Concerto. Then, David Garrett, Daniel The recorded sound is very good, bold and thirty years ago at 20-years-old, he first recorded the Lozakovich is the vivid, well-balanced between violinist and Concerto with the Academy, led by their founder, Sir Neville next young and orchestra….’– classicalsource.com Marriner. Now in 2018, leading it himself, he’s recorded it talented violinist to again, along with his first recording of the four-movement be signed to the prestigious Deutsche Bruch Scottish Fantasy. This album is a real look at the Open Heart Story Grammophon label. Having already won mature musicianship of Bell. Luke Howard multiple awards, including first prize at Bruch: Scottish Mercury. 6704154. the 2016 Vladimir Spivakov International Fantasy & Violin Violin Competition, and praised by ‘The first violin concerto he ever learnt, $21.95 Concerto No. 1 Open Heart Story, the audiences and critics alike, this is his at the tender age of 11, was the ever- Joshua Bell & new album by exciting debut album. Academy of St popular Bruch Violin Concerto. Then, Australian modern Martin in the Fields thirty years ago at 20-years-old, he classical composer Classic 100 Dance Sony Classical. first recorded the Concerto with the and pianist Luke Various 19075842002. Howard, is a ABC Classics. 4829892. 8 CDs $19.95 Academy, led by their founder, Sir Neville Marriner. Now in 2018, leading it reflective and $59.95 introspective journey. In Luke’s own Australia’s himself, he’s recorded it again ....’ words, the album ‘explores fragmented favourite classical relationships, childhood memories and music countdown Starting with the Fantasy, the music leaps from the page, but with serious musical getting older.’ Luke’s music ranges from comes waltzing deliberation in each phrase the recording never becomes raucous. Sometimes as I intimate solo piano pieces to emotive back into the listened I felt like Bell could easily have physically played these movements faster works for 23-piece string orchestra, calendar, as the but made a conscious decision to bring the tempo down a notch or two. This brings a occasionally accompanied by subtle Classic 100 turns gravitas to some of the phrases, particularly in the finale movement of the Concerto electronics. It is characterised by tranquil its attention to dance, and music that which can often seem to run away from the soloist. melodies, sensitive harmonies and an makes you move – whether tapping your Bell comments that over recent years he’s become more and more enamoured by the uplifting cinematic edge. toes or pirouetting like a prima ballerina. Scottish Fantasy. With Scottish roots himself, and stories passed down the generations For centuries, composers have been of fighting in the Black Watch in Scotland, finally recording the work gave him the The Aussie Album inspired by the movement of the human opportunity to explore his musical heritage. Benaud Trio with Greta Bradman body. From the drama and longing of the Kate Rockstrom is a friend of Readings ABC Classical. 4817164. ballet to the elegance of a French Suite, $21.95 from a raging polka to the passion of a The Benaud Trio polonaise or the lust of a tango, dance has return with The long been used to communicate the vast spectrum of human emotion. Stephen Hough’s Gaspar Sanz: Aussie Album, a Dream Album Complete Music for Guitar beautiful and Stephen Hough Alberto Mesirca arresting collection John Adams: Hyperion. CDA68176. Brilliant Classics. 95396. 2 CDs of works that Doctor Atomic $29.95 $24.95 captures modern- BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC ‘Pianist Stephen With this two-CD set, day Australia through music. Using Percy Singers & John Adams Hough’s Dream Alberto Mesirca has Grainger’s ‘Colonial Song’ as its starting Nonesuch. 7559793107. 2 CDs Album is an artful recorded all of point and featuring works by Paul $39.95 program of works by Gaspar Sanz’s Stanhope, Nicole Murphy, Carl Vine, Iain ‘His most visionary Liszt, Sibelius, Elgar punteado (plucked) Grandage and Matthew Hindson – and ambitious stage and other familiar music for guitar, including six world premiere recordings work to date … composers. The together with the and four works commissioned by the Adams’s conducting, pieces are chosen for what Hough calls their corresponding rasgueado (strummed) Benaud Trio – it explores the fundamental second to none in his ‘lyrical’ or ‘hallucinatory’ quality. Hough’s parts or dances. This music reveals Sanz as question: ‘What does it mean to be own music, had playing is utterly captivating and intensely a key figure in bridging two different Australian?’ They are joined on this tremendous intimate. He’s a magician, a tease, and a musical traditions – the Spanish and the stunning album by star soprano Greta conviction and unique authority, with brilliant performer who creates an Italian. Bradman whose recent stage every facet of the score’s terrible beauty laid intoxicating dream world of pianistic performances and recordings have bare … thrilling playing and choral singing expression.’ – The Whole Note, Canada American Symphonies cemented her status as a singer of … Gerald Finley conveyed Oppenheimer’s London Symphony Orchestra & immense warmth and artistry. moral agony with singing of great Musica Nova: Lance Friedel refinement and subtlety.’ – The Guardian The Harmony of Nations BIS. BIS2118. Symbiosis Hesperion XXI & Jordi Savall $29.95 Joe Chindamo & Zoë Black The Golden Age Alia Vox. AVSA9926. When American ALFI. ALFI0818. Ray Chen $29.95 composers began $24.95 Decca. 4833852. With this new writing symphonies Symbioses is the $21.95 recording Jordi Savall around the mid- fourth recording by The Golden Age and his ensemble 1800s, their works the ARIA nominated showcases works Hesperion XXI sets a were very much in duo of violinist Zoë from the ‘golden age’ new standard by the European Black and composer/ of the violin, with delivering a tradition. During the first half of the 20th pianist Joe arrangements/ comprehensive vision century, the great innovator Charles Ives Chindamo. Beginning transcriptions by of a repertoire for which they are already injected a recognisably American sound their journey 6 years ago as masters of Kreisler and Heifetz. famous. London, Venice, Rome, Versailles, into the genre. On this new release re-maginings of other composers’ music, The centrepiece is Max Bruch’s Violin Madrid: all the great European courts have conductor Lance Friedel strikes a blow for this latest release sees them standing alone Concerto, performed with the London been illuminated by this musica nova, this the American Symphonic repertoire by as unabashed champions of new Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor new style, dreaming of an harmony beyond presenting works by Walter Piston, Samuel contemporary music. The music on the Robert Trevino. Also included are 3 pieces time and frontiers. Jones and Stephen Albert. album is penned by Chindamo, who has with Ray’s string quartet ‘Made In Berlin’.