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READINGS MONTHLY FEBRUARY 2015 3

News

THE READINGS FOUNDATION Project on 13 February at Testing Grounds, winners and overall Book of the Year winner GRANTS ANNOUNCED an exciting outdoor arts space and will be announced on Wednesday 25 March. The Readings Foundation has announced Melbourne CBD’s greenest creative hub. grants totalling $113,880 to support a The program incorporates free screenings 20% OFF DK EYEWITNESS range of projects and organisations within on the big screen at Federation Square, TRAVEL GUIDES Victoria in 2015. The successful grant before moving to Cinema Nova until 6 recipients for this year are: March. Readings is a proud supporter Back from summer holidays and already planning your next trip? Luckily, we Somebody’s Daughter Theatre ($10,000) of the Transitions Film Festival. Please are offering 20% off our range of DK Reading Out of Poverty ($16,000) visit transitionsfilmfestival.com for more Eyewitness Travel Guides from 1–28 Mallee Family Care ($20,000) information. February. This fantastic offer includes Asylum Seeker Resource Centre ($15,000) travel guides and phrase books. The sale Migrant Information Centre ($2,880) READINGS BOOK CLUBS is on in-stock items only while stocks Aboriginal Literacy Foundation ($10,000) The Queer Book Club is back at Readings last at all Readings shops and online at The Wheeler Centre Hot Desk St Kilda for 2015, dedicated to fiction and readings.com.au. Fellowships ($20,000) select non-fiction books that represent HUSH Music Foundation ($5,000) aspects of LGBTIQ life. For more Readings will also continue to support information about the book club, or to ST KILDA FESTIVAL 2015 the Sacred Heart Mission in St Kilda and make a booking, please contact Amy at The St Kilda Festival is on again from 31 The Brotherhood of St Laurence’s HIPPY Readings St Kilda on 03 9525 3852 or January to 8 February 2015, celebrating (Home Interaction Program for Parents [email protected]. summer outdoors and the leading lights of and Youngsters) in Fitzroy with a $5,000 The Non-Fiction Book Club is also coming the local music scene. Readings St Kilda is donation to each. back to Readings St Kilda this year. For more proud to host one of the festival’s Live N Please visit readings.com.au/news/ information or to make a booking, please Local events – visit stkildafestival.com.au the-readings-foundation-grant- contact Gerard at Readings St Kilda on 03 for the full program. recipients-announced-for-2015 for more 9525 3852 or [email protected]. information on each funded project.

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Graphic Design WHITE NIGHT MELBOURNE INDIE BOOK AWARDS SHORTLIST Cat Matteson AT READINGS STATE LIBRARY Showcasing another year of great [email protected] On Saturday 21 February, Readings’ Australian writing, the Indie Book Awards State Library shop will be open until have announced the category shortlists Contributors midnight as part of the Melbourne White for the best Australian books of 2014. The Miriam Sved Night celebrations, where Melbourne’s shortlisted titles for the fiction categories streets, laneways and cultural institutions are When the Night Comes by Favel Parrett Front Cover are transformed into a cultural (Hachette Australia), Amnesia by Peter This month’s cover features a range of cover playground from dusk to dawn. Visit Carey (Penguin Books Australia), Golden images for titles due to be published in 2015 whitenightmelbourne.com.au for more Boys by Sonya Hartnett (Penguin Books by Australian-based publishers. Please note information about the festivities. Australia) and The Rosie Effect by Graeme that image inclusion was based on cover Simsion (Text Publishing). The debut availablity at print deadline. fiction shortlist includes Lost & Found TRANSITIONS FILM FESTIVAL by Brooke Davis (Hachette Australia), Cartoon The Transitions Film Festival returns Foreign Soil by Maxine Beneba Clark Oslo Davis this February, with an inspiring program oslodavis.com (Hachette Australia), The Strays by Emily showcasing groundbreaking features, Bitto (Affirm Press) and After Darkness Readings donates 10% of its profits each shorts and documentaries about the by Christine Piper (Allen & Unwin). Find year to The Readings Foundation: transition to a better world. The festival out more about the shortlists for other readings.com.au/the-readings-foundation launches with Inside Out: The People’s Art categories at indies.com.au. The category

abc.net.au/adelaide 4 READINGS MONTHLY FEBRUARY 2015

February Events

QUENTIN BRYAN LEANNE HALL 11 BERESFORD IN 19 STEVENSON 26 LAUNCHES CONVERSATION ON JUST MERCY ANDREW Bryan Stevenson presents WITH JOHN VAN MCDONALD’S SON TIGGELEN a lecture on racial inequality and the broken American justice system, OF DEATH Quentin Beresford will discuss his incisive new following the launch of his latest book, Leanne Hall will launch Andrew non-fiction book The Rise and Fall of Gunns New York Times bestseller Just Mercy: McDonald’s new children’s novel, Son of Ltd and the political and environmental stakes A Story of Justice and Redemption. Death – the darkly funny tale of Sod, a in the ongoing Tasmanian forestry wars, with teenage Grim Reaper who would much author and journalist John van Tiggelen. Free, but please book at events.unimelb.edu.au/events/4730-just-mercy rather play guitar with his band than guide Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Thursday 19 February, 6pm souls to the afterlife. Wednesday 11 February, 6.30pm Derham Theatre, Melbourne Law School Free, no booking required. Readings Carlton 185 Pelham Street, Carlton Thursday 26 February, 6.30pm Readings Carlton PETER TWOHIG BENNY LEWIS ON 17 ON THE TORCH 19 LANGUAGE Fresh from the Adelaide Festival, HACKING the author of The Cartographer Benny Lewis only spoke English until the will discuss his new novel, The Torch. age of 21 – now he speaks 11 languages, 7 of them fluently. For the past decade, Benny Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events has travelled the world, immersing himself Tuesday 17 February, 6pm in local cultures. Benny will share his Readings Hawthorn BELLE ROSCOE AT techniques for ‘language hacking’ from his popular blog, and best-selling book, Fluent in 3 ST KILDA FESTIVAL 3 months. Get your blue suede shoes on and join in the Live N Local series as Belle Roscoe perform Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events from their new album Boom Boom – a Thursday 19 February, 6pm wonderful indie pop-rock sound that is the Readings Hawthorn embodiment of summer itself.

Free, no booking required. SIR HENRY NEVILLE, Tuesday 3 February, 6pm 19 ALIAS WILLIAM Readings St Kilda SHAKESPEARE Join us for the launch of Mark Bradbeer VANESSA ALFORD and John Casson’s Sir Henry Neville, Alias ON BEING FIT NOT William Shakespeare, which analyses 4 Shakespeare’s history plays and their HEALTHY controversial place in the Elizabethan Join us for the launch of Vanessa Alford’s political landscape new memoir Fit Not Healthy, the eye- Free, no booking required. opening story of how the author’s obsession Thursday 19 February, 6.30pm with fitness almost destroyed her body and Readings Carlton chances of having a family.

Free, no booking required. STORYTIME WITH JOHN DARNIELLE Wednesday 4 February, 6pm 21 CHRISSIE PERRY 26 IN CONVERSATION Readings Hawthorn BOOK SIGNING Local author Chrissie Perry (Go Girl) joins WITH GERARD 17 WITH JULIA ELSON TONY WALKER AND us at St Kilda for a signing and to read from DONALDSON her newest book, Penelope Perfect: Project 5 HARRISON YOUNG Musician and author John Darnielle And into the woods we go! Come and get Best Friend about the anxious but endearing (The Mountain Goats) discusses Tony Walker will launch Harrison Young’s your book signed, and meet the author of Penelope Kingston’s mission to find a best his writing, music and critically- new novel Submission, a smart and sexy The Gruffalo. Please note: Julia will sign friend. acclaimed debut novel Wolf In White blend of historical fiction and romance set in books purchased on the day as well as one Free, no booking required Van with Readings’ own Gerard Elson. the Middle Eastern desert in the 1980s. book from home. Saturday 21 February, 10.30am Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Readings St Kilda Free, no booking required Free, no booking required. Thursday 26 February, 6.30pm Thursday 5 February, 6.30pm Tuesday 17 February, 10am Readings St Kilda Readings Hawthorn Readings Carlton NICOLE JENKINS 23 ON FASHION TERRENCE HOLT HILDA THE FURY: WOMEN Nicole Jenkins has been collecting and 27 IN CONVERSATION 7 MONKEY DOES 18 WRITE ABOUT restoring clothes since she was a child. With WITH KAREN YOGA WITH SEX, POWER AND a background in film and theatre costume HITCHCOCK & design, her Melbourne boutique Circa LOUISE GODFREY VIOLENCE Vintage, showcasing the best of 200 years of PROFESSOR PAUL Come and join local author Louise Godfrey Rosie Batty will launch the essay collection Australian fashion, opened in 2004. Over a KOMESAROFF for a relaxing and mindful morning session Fury: Women Write About Sex, Power and glass of wine, hear Nicole talk about fashion Join critically-acclaimed doctor and writer of yoga, perfect for the start of the hectic Violence, edited by Samantha Trenoweth. and the history of clothing, and impart a few Terrence Holt in conversation with Karen school year. Louise will be reading from Including contributions by Helen Razer, tricks of the trade. Hitchcock and Professor Paul Komesaroff her book Hilda Does Yoga and special guest Clem Bastow, Anne Summers and more, as they discuss Holt’s new collection Entry is $10 per person and includes a glass of Hilda the Monkey will be demonstrating this collection offers a much-needed wake- Internal Medicine: A Doctor’s Stories and the champagne. Please book at readings.com.au/ poses with the kids. up call on violence against women. events intersection between medicine and literature. Free, no booking required Free, no booking required. Monday 23 February, 6pm Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Saturday 7 February, 10.30am Wednesday 18 February, 6.30pm Readings Hawthorn Thursday 26 February, 6pm Readings St Kilda Readings Carlton Readings Hawthorn

For more information and updates, please visit the events page at readings.com.au/events. Please note bookings do not necessarily guarantee a seat and some events may be standing room only. READINGS MONTHLY FEBRUARY 2015 5

Mark’s News and views from Readings’ Managing Director, Say Mark Rubbo

I am writing this column from Jaipur Literature Festival; it’s early days yet but yesterday I was privileged to hear one of my favourite authors, Paul Theroux, speak about his career as both a travel writer and novelist; having had three novels published and needing to make a living he thought travel writing was the way to go so he hopped on a train in London and travelled to India, Asia, Russia and back, which resulted in one of the finest travel narratives of modern times, The Great Railway Bazaar. Theroux famously befriended Nobel Prize winner V.S. Naipaul in Uganda, where they both happened to be in the ‘60s. The two also famously fell out and at Jaipur, Theroux joined fellow writers Hanif Kureishi and Amit Chaudhuri in paying homage to Naipul’s landmark work, A House for Acclaimed author James Bradley (The Resurrectionist) He’s so hopeless that he can’t even end it all, Mr Biswas. Theroux described it as ‘one of the finest books I’ve ever read’. Naipaul was in ponders how a changing planet might alter but Sullivan Moss has reached a decision: he’ll do one the audience, and he was invited to the stage afterwards. Naipaul, who is suffering from our lives. Claude follows three generations of one useful thing. Now everyone wants a piece of him. Parkinson’s, was visibly moved as he thanked the panel and Theroux in particular. Paul family through disasters and plagues, miraculous From the creator of hit Australian TV series Offspring Theroux’s Mr Bones has just come out. small moments and acts of great courage, offering comes a smart, moving and wry novel about the search an evocative glimpse of what the future may hold. for meaning and self-worth. The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald ran a story recently about the resurgence of the print book and the plateauing of the sales in ebooks and reading devices. People often ask me how things are going for books; I hope it’s because they are concerned and want bookshops to hang around. Are the stories of resurgence true? Well there is an element of truth about it, and I’d say that the printed book is not dead. People flocked to books last Christmas, with Nielsen Bookscan reporting book sales up 1.2% over the holiday period; even more encouraging was a 6% increase in sales of children’s books. What’s heartening is that, for Readings at least, Australian authored books dominated our top 20, led of course by The Narrow Road to the Deep North. The list included Julia Gillard’s My Story, Helen Garner’s This House of Grief, David Walsh’s idiosyncratic memoir Bone of Fact, Peter Carey’s Amnesia, Andy Griffiths The 52-Storey Treehouse, Don Watson’s The Bush and Graeme Simsion’s second book The Rosie Effect. I was particularly pleased that the inaugural winners of the Readings Prize – Only the Animals by Ceridwen Dovey (New Australian Writing Award) and Song for a Scarlet Runner (Children’s Book Prize) by Julie Hunt were both in our top 100 for the year. Titles announced so far for 2015 suggest a strong year for Australian writing. I’m While embarking on new culinary adventures, When Alice Eveleigh arrives at Fiercombe Manor during particularly interested in the novel Wolf, Wolf by Australian–South African writer Eben Rachel Khoo keeps her notebook right by her side. the summer of 1933, she fi nds a house brimming Venter, which is about the South African rugby tour of Australia in 1971. The tour was A collage of notes, ideas, photographs and illustrations, with secrets. She also fi nds photographs of Elizabeth particularly divisive and I vividly remember attending demonstrations against the tour. this is where her unique and inventive recipes are born. Stanton – a woman who vanished a generation ago. Now you can join Rachel as she harnesses inspiration Alice is determined to unearth the truth. But could her Fourth Estate are excited by an Australian debut historical novel by Robyn Cadwallader, from all she encounters in the world. own life become an eerie echo of the past? The Anchoress, set in 12th century Britain. It’s already been sold internationally and I’m sure the publishers are hoping to repeat the success of Hannah Kent’s Burial Rites. Two Readings employees have books coming out this year – A.S. Patric’s novel Black Rock White City in April and last year’s Victorian Premier’s unpublished manuscript award penguin.com.au winner Fever of Animals by Miles Allinson in September. Award winning poet Lisa Gorton ventures into fiction with The Life of Houses in April. I’m looking forward to Rod Jones’ The Mothers in June. His first novel Julia Paradise was exceptional. Penguin has high hopes for Steve Toltz’s second novel Quicksand. I have always admired Tony Birch’s work, so I’m eagerly anticipating his new novel Ghost River in October. There will be a slew of political books which is led off this month by David Day’s biography of Paul Keating; Day is a noted THE MOST FUN historian and this will be his fourth biography of an Australian prime minister. Finally, John Wylie, merchant banker and president of the State Library of Victoria (SLV) board, and Myriam Boisbouvier-Wylie have provided an endowment to fund The YOU CAN HAVE Boisbouvier Founding Chair in Australian Literature at the University of Melbourne. The aim of the position is to advance the teaching, understanding and public appreciation of Australian literature. As I understand it, the position will go to a writer so it’s not purely an academic post. Wylie and Boisbouvier join Maureen and Tony Wheeler in offering WITH YOUR significant philanthropic support to Australian writing for Melbourne-based institutions. It’s very exciting to see. PARTNER (WITH YOUR CLOTHES ON)

TALK LISTEN DISCOVER The Art of Couples’ Conversation brings couples of all ages and stages closer together as they delight in communications that enrich, enliven and strengthen their relationship. LAUGH LEARN CONNECT The Art of Conversation is available at Readings and all good book shops $19.95 RRP www.taoc.com.au 6 READINGS MONTHLY FEBRUARY 2015 The most anticipated books of 2015 Martin Shaw, Readings Books Division Manager

Welcome to my first column of 2015, which as well as my traditional wrap of the month’s new releases includes a rather panoramic survey of titles on the horizon for later in the year – rather a feast, I’m sure you’ll agree! February is already a tremendous month. On the fiction front James Bradley returns after a lengthy spell between books with a wonderful novel entitled Clade. As many of you may know, James is a regular book reviewer, so when I caught him a few weeks ago describing a book under review as ‘thrillingly taut and idea-rich’, I couldn’t help but feel he had involuntarily penned a brilliant encapsulation of his own new book. If you are ever stricken with the feeling that the world’s hell-bent on its own destruction, this book will speak strongly to you. And equally it’s a profoundly moving story of what human qualities might sustain us through the time that is bound to come, sooner than we might care to think. A beautifully calibrated piece of writing, it’s a tremendous start to the year for Australian literature. The book that will no doubt cause the greatest excitement internationally is Miranda July’s debut novel The First Bad Man. With her first book No One Belongs Here More than You – which won the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award – July became one of the world’s hottest fictional properties, and this book, with glowing endorsements already from the likes of A.M. Homes, Andrew Solomon and Lena Dunham, feels like it’s 2015’s first essential fiction read. Fans of Anne Tyler and Andrew O’Hagan will also be well-pleased with their new novels: A Spool of Blue Thread and The Illuminations respectively. And we have several other significant Australian titles too: Medea’s Curse, the debut crime novel from Anne Buist (Chair of Women’s Mental Health at the University of Melbourne, and also as it happens Graeme Simsion’s partner: there must be something in their morning porridge!); Clockwise from top left: the screenwriter Debra Oswald’s (creator of Offspring) Useful, which Geraldine Brooks Fury: Women Write About Sex, Power and Violence by describes as ‘more than useful, it's absolutely essential’; and a sequel to Richmond local Samantha Trenoweth (ed.) (Feb, Hardie Grant) Peter Twohig’s much-loved novel The Cartographer, namely The Torch. A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler (Feb, Chatto & Windus) In non-fiction the far and away stand-out is celebrated historian David Day’s biography Everything You Need to Know About the Referendum to Recognise Indigenous Australians by Megan Davis & George of Paul Keating: The Story of a Prime Minister. Keating still appears unwilling to pen his Williams (Out Now, NewSouth) own memoirs, so Day has set himself the task of giving Keating the biography he surely The Anchoress by Robyn Cadwallader (March, HarperCollins) deserves, with extensive archival research and interviews with colleagues and associates. Hot Little Hands by Abigail Ulman (March, Penguin) As an aside, The Book of Paul: The Wit and Wisdom of Paul Keating was placed at an incredible 14th in our bestselling books list of 2014 – political nostalgia feels like it has never been higher in contemporary Australia! I wonder why… Allow me one special mention – a ‘Books Desk Hot-Tip’ for 2015, if you like: Antonia Meanwhile a topic doubtless close to Keating’s heart is addressed in Megan Davis Hayes’ Relativity. She’s a former book publicist and bookseller for a start (we do love our and George Williams’s Everything You Need To Know About the Referendum To Recognise own!), but it also turns out she’s a bit of a dark horse, with her debut novel being snapped Indigenous Australians; the bestselling Norman ‘Neuroplasticity’ Doidge has a sequel to The up by major publishers around the world pre-publication. I think it comes out roughly Brain that Changes Itself entitled The Brain’s Way of Healing; while Samantha Trenoweth mid-year, but while you wait I’d urge you to seek out her essay ‘Wolf Like Me’(on the edits a collection of essays concerning that scourge of our society – violence against women Meanjin website, and indeed it’s in the Best Australian Essays 2014 volume from Black Inc.), – in Fury: Women Write About Sex, Power and Violence. Another (sadly) important book which gives you a sense of the stakes involved in her writing. this month is the Guantanamo Diary of Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who has been imprisoned International Fiction: Karl Ove Knausgaard of course, for all of those like me for whom without charge since 2002 at the notorious facility. his books are read practically intravenously – we now have Volume Four of his My Struggle I’ll close this section with mention of two happier books: former chef and food critic, series, Dancing in the Dark; New Zealander Anna Smail, who might just be taking over the now Tasmanian smallholder, Matthew Evans with a cookbook dedicated to sustainable baton from Eleanor Catton with The Chimes; Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant, a whole seafood: The Gourmet Farmer Goes Fishing; and the little-known fact that the American new direction for the celebrated novelist; and the final installment in the Neapolitan series actor David Duchovny actually has an MA degree in English Literature from Yale, and was of Elena Ferrante – The Story of the Lost Child. Plus a list of other highlights: Orhan Pamuk, heading for a PhD – which may well have rubbed off on his debut novel Holy Cow. On all Kate Atkinson, Amitav Ghosh, Toni Morrison, David Vann, Louis de Bernieres, Milan accounts it’s a charming fable about ‘a conflicted cow, a Jewish pig and a debonair turkey Kundera, Zadie Smith, Jonathan Franzen … seeking acceptance and enlightenment during a journey across the Middle East’. Memoir: Rebecca Starford’s reckoning with bullying and identity in Bad Behaviour is Turning to the rest of 2015 now, from this (of course very early) vantage point I have simply extraordinary: look out for more on this in the March Readings Monthly; another the following on my radar: young literary wunderkind Oliver Mol offers us Lion Attack!; Maria Katsonis reckons Australian fiction: in April a simply great debut novel from Readings’ own A.S. with coming out and mental illness amidst her traditional Greek Orthodox upbringing Patric, Black Rock White City; Alice Robinson also on debut with Anchor Point; Robyn in The Good Greek Girl; there’s Hannie Rayson’s memoir of her life as a playwright, Cadwallader’s medieval tale The Anchoress, that is being published around the world this Hello Beautiful; Kate Grenville’s account of her mother’s story, One Life; and, relatedly, a year; S.J. Finn’s Down to the River, and many, many more: Abigail Ulman, Amanda Lohrey, collection edited by Monica Dux on the experience of motherhood, Mothermorphosis. Marion Halligan, Tony Birch, Rod Jones, Malcolm Knox, Krissy Kneen, Gregory Day, Omissions here are voluminous and notable I’m sure, but hopefully that gives you a Eleanor Limprecht, Kari Gislason, Patrick Lenton, Charlotte Wood, Steve Toltz, Stephen sense of the year to come. Happy reading! Carroll – I could go on and on! READINGS MONTHLY FEBRUARY 2015 7

New Fiction indication of fast moving global warming. THE TORCH In the next chapter, their daughter Peter Twohig Summer is a toddler and Ellie appears to be Fourth Estate. PB. Was $29.99 suffering from depression. The fissures in $24.99 Book of the Month the marital relationship are deepening while the physical landscape of the world includes Melbourne, 1960: Mrs Blayney and her THE FIRST BAD MAN changing monsoonal patterns in Asia, and limited power and blackouts in Sydney. twelve-year-old son live Miranda July As Summer grows up in this environment in South Richmond. At Canongate. PB. $24.99 she becomes wary, and, like many of her least, they did, until Miranda July’s first book, No One Belongs Here More generation, unsure of her future in a world their house burnt down. Than You, was a collection of short stories that, while not where jobs, relationships and technologies The prime suspect, also linked in the traditional ways through character or plot, was are arbitrary and changing. twelve, has mysteriously bound into a cohesive whole by its voice. Now, close to a Gradually, Clade reveals more of what our disappeared. Our decade later, she’s published her first novel, which slots in future might look like. Despite its apocalyptic narrator, the Blayney comfortably beside her short stories. July’s domain seems to be overtones, the stories are told in a personal kid, sets off on a covert mission to find the the weird side of the domestic in modern America, and her and moving way. The family grows over missing ‘Flame Boy’ (and the briefcase he novel has the same unique voice again cast adrift in it. the space of about 100 years to encompass disappeared with) before a small army of The First Bad Man’s narrator, Cheryl Glickman, is in her early forties and, at the novel’s others – an autistic boy, an orphaned Chinese irate locals get him first. But the kid has got a opening, is pining for Phillip, a man twenty years her senior who’s on the board of the teenager, a refugee. lot going on: he’s also organising a new gang, company she works for, which sells exercise videos based on the art of self defence. Clade is carefully constructed and coping with the ups and downs of having a beautifully written. There may be some girlfriend, trying to avoid Flame Boy’s ‘July’s domain seems to be the weird side of the domestic in modern debate about whether it is a linked story dangerous prison-escapee father, who is suspected of selling secrets to the Russians; America, and her novel has the same unique voice ... ’ collection or a novel, but nevertheless, the result is outstanding. It reminded me of all the while wondering how he can get his Steven Amsterdam’s brilliant Things We hands on the Melbourne Olympic Torch. A She believes that she and Phillip have been together throughout all of time, from cave Didn’t See Coming, with nuanced personal madcap, shambolic and fun novel about loss, people, through the Renaissance and up to the present day. relationships like those created by Alice discovery and living life to the full, from the Cheryl confesses this belief to him one night, during one of their long phone Munro or Elizabeth Strout. author of The Cartographer. conversations, which Cheryl starts making to relieve the stress after her bosses, a Annie Condon is from Readings Hawthorn husband and wife, move their 21-year-old daughter Clee into her apartment. It’s the International antagonistic relationship between the two that forms the bulk of the novel, with the TRIO submissive Cheryl being both a host to, and afraid of, the domineering Clee. It would ruin the book to talk too much about how their relationship develops – suffice to say Geraldine Wooller Transit Lounge. PB. $27.99 A SPOOL OF BLUE that the turns it takes are both hard to predict and keep raising the stakes. July’s ability THREAD to present us with the mundane and then surprise us is her forte, and it makes for a West Australian very funny and oddly heartfelt book. author Geraldine Anne Tyler Wooller’s fourth novel Chatto & Windus. PB. Was $32.99 Chris Somerville is from Readings Carlton explores the depths $27.99 and limitations of ‘that Anne Tyler writes After many psychological tests, fragile thing’, about families; Australian appointments with shrinks and a self- friendship. Spanning usually they are quite enforced healthier lifestyle, Sully five decades, from late ordinary, middle-class USEFUL miraculously forges a new, healthy life for ’60s London, early ’80s families. They might himself. Now employed and sober, Sully Calabria to post- have a few quirks but Debra Oswald finds his chutzpah again as he makes new millennium Perth, Trio charts the peaks mostly they, like the Viking. PB. Was $32.99 friends with Natalie and her son Louis, and and troughs of ‘a dodgy yet unregrettable, rest of us, are trying to $29.99 begins to patch things up with old friends unforgettable time’ between three friends navigate their lives as Fans of Offspring, such as his ex-best mate Tim. But Sully as they forge careers, move countries, best they can. In short, Australia’s soon discovers that altruism is not as easy succeed and fail in love and get on with the they are unremarkable. That is Tyler’s popular TV series, will as it seems. Just when he thinks he’s got it messy business of living together and alone. strength: like Alice Munro, she manages to love this book! It’s together, Sully realises how fragile life is Drawn together by their passion for make the mundane absolutely absorbing author is Offspring and how easily life can fall apart. art, theatre and music, aesthete Australian and draw characters that are believable and co-creator and head In Oswald’s inimitable fashion, Useful set designer Celia, sensual English actress recognisable. writer, Debra Oswald, is an incredibly fast-paced read brimming Marcia and troubled Irish director Mickey Abby and Red Whitshank’s family have who has also written with brilliant insights into a diverse group embark on an unconventional life together, grown up mostly successful, apart from three ‘Aussie Bite’ of characters’ lives and a wry, moving sharing a flat in Earls Court as a mostly Abby’s favourite child, Denny, who seems books for young snapshot of one man’s search for meaning platonic threesome. Bit players dip in and unable to settle down or commit and is readers, six novels for teenage readers and in life. out of their lives, changing the dynamic largely unreachable except when he chooses now a novel: Useful. Emily Harms is the Head of Marketing and between them, but theirs is a relationship to drift back into their lives. Abby is starting Sullivan Moss started life as a cruisy, Communications for Readings that endures distance, heartache, betrayal to have memory lapses – calling their dog, baby-faced actor who picked up a bit of and eventual estrangement. Brenda, ‘Clarence’, which was the name work here and there and got lucky with CLADE Slipping back and forth in time, Trio of their old dog – and Red suffers a minor the women at uni. Meanwhile, his friends James Bradley is told mostly from Celia and Marcia’s stroke. The idea of a retirement home is concentrated on their professions and Hamish Hamilton. PB. Was $32.99 perspectives, spotlighting the domestic as anathema and their youngest son, Douglas, eventually grew up to establish long-term well as the political. Wooller slowly builds a $29.99 and his wife, Norah, decide to move into relationships and good careers. portrait of three artists dogged by unhappy the big family house to keep an eye on James Bradley’s Sully, as he was known by his friends, childhoods, who crave connection with them. This brings latent family tensions to new novel has succeeded at becoming such a lazy, others but ultimately struggle to achieve the surface as Douglas, the youngest, was been eagerly awaited. alcoholic, unemployed, underachieving it. Says Celia, ‘No one, not even family, has adopted and it’s he who is taking over the The wait has been well loser that he couldn’t sustain a relationship much idea of the inner life of the other,’ and family construction business. Abby was worth it – Clade is the or even commit suicide properly. However, there’s a lingering feeling that we also don’t forever taking in her strays and orphans; first book I’ve read in clarity hits him when he wakes up in get to know these characters as well as we Douglas was the one who stayed. 2015 and I’m already hospital after falling the wrong way on might like. While the family doesn’t unravel, Tyler wondering how many a rooftop. Now is his chance to be useful Studded with pithy little life lessons strips back the facades of various family literary prizes it will in this world – by donating a kidney to a and hard won insights, Trio moves at a myths, fictions of the kind that many win. Clade consists of stranger. meditative pace, one that will suit readers families construct to paper over tensions. ten complete stories, or chapters, following Having to start from scratch after literally who prefer a reflective rather than an While I have some reservations about the Leith family from the present day to a packing up his life, right down to the last of action-driven novel. Wooller seeks to the structure of the book, A Spool of Blue frightening but possibly realistic future. his clothes being thrown in a donations bin, address life’s big questions of love, loss, Thread is utterly engrossing, enjoyable and, As the book opens, Adam and Ellie Sully has to call on Natalie, a radio producer grief and growing old: how do we live, at times, illuminating. are trying to conceive. Ellie pursues IVF and friend of his ex-wife, for a huge favour: to where do we belong and how do we treatment in their home city of Sydney Mark Rubbo is Readings’ Managing Director. pick him up from hospital. He’s already burnt become who we are? After life has ‘belted while Adam, a scientist, keeps in touch through his friend credit with everyone else. her about a bit’, Celia finally concedes that from a remote station in Antarctica. While Natalie’s dad has just died in the strangest of the most important relationship she will he waits to hear whether she is pregnant, circumstances and so, fortunately for Sully, he ever have is with herself. he listens intently to the creaks and groans now has a place to stay in her dad’s old house of the ice – a shifting of land into sea and an Sally Keighery is a freelance reviewer so he can look after the dog, Mack. 8 READINGS MONTHLY FEBRUARY 2015

GET IN TROUBLE abandoned nudist colony. The beauty of MOBILE LIBRARY mobile library. The three of them enjoy Kelly Link Link’s writing is that these fantastical David Whitehouse a fun-filled summer and spend hours elements don’t crowd out the narrative – consumed by the amazing adventures Text. PB. $29.99 Picador. PB. $29.99 they slide seamlessly into a very real, very contained within the library. But once Nobody writes Twelve-year-old familiar America full of characters driven school is back things don’t go so well, short fiction like Bobby Nusku has by very real, very familiar desires. and then bad luck finds Rosa and Val – Kelly Link. Get In been having a hard A standout piece is ‘The Lesson’, suddenly the mobile library looks like Trouble, her first time. He’s a prime about a gay couple who leave the woman their only escape. collection for adults target for the school carrying their child for a friend’s wedding David Whitehouse has created a since 2005’s Magic For bullies, friends are on a nearby island. In a collection where fantastical story with Mobile Library. Beginners, showcases hard to come by and everything is so out of the ordinary The child inside me had a riotous time the author’s unique he and his dad just that nothing is, the only piece to be set reading this book and tagging along for brand of magical haven’t been getting ostensibly in the ‘real’, non-supernatural the adventure. There is a strong element realism, blending along since the world feels strangest of all – highlighting of ‘but what if?’ in which ordinary fantasy, sci-fi and American fiction, and is accident when his mother disappeared. the absurdity and terror of being a modern people do the extraordinary and I really brimming with ideas astonishing in their However, things are set to change. adult. enjoyed this, but Whitehouse doesn’t simplicity – what if people had two Bobby may be living with his dad, but Link's stories are exquisitely crafted get lost in the fantasy. Bobby’s character shadows? What if superheroes were as he’s really just waiting for the return of – both tight and expansive, playful and grows and matures as his insecurities common as dentists? What if we still built his mother. He’s been keeping a special thoughtful – with themes and subtexts and fears dissipate and he finds his pyramids to bury rich kids? file ready to help her reintegrate into his that duck and weave from view, like strengths. The adventure also illustrates In these nine stories, Link constructs life. It contains photos, perfumes and the ghosts that feature throughout the to those involved that family can be worlds almost but not quite like our own – make-up, snippets from her old dresses, collection, tantalisingly present but never many things – Bobby always thought where passengers on a spaceship wake and other precious remnants. The file quite palpable. Stories end teetering on a he would find family when he found from cryogenic sleep and tell ghost stories, also documents everything his dad and precipice, a sublime intake of breath that his mother, but he learns that you can pocket universes full of retirees and Disney his new girlfriend have been up to. makes anything and everything possible. choose to be a family too. characters materialise in Tibet, teenage Bobby is great with numbers and Get In Trouble is thrilling, inventive girls collect animatronic boyfriends, and places but he’s not so good with people. Suzanne Steinbruckner is from Readings St storytelling at its very best. actors who made their names playing Then one day he makes friends with Kilda teenage vampires hunt ghosts at an Alan Vaarwerk is a freelance reviewer Rosa and her mother, Val, who cleans a

Feature Janette Turner Hospital Miriam Sved on teaching creative writing and reading Janette Turner Hospital

am teaching a creative writing washing machine. His face the main characters, every line redolent other questions: how did she do this bit, subject this semester about short was pressed into his father’s of inner life. But there are ‘types’ too, why put that there? A way of embodying fiction. I’ve tutored in this subject characters who are quickly recognisable. the text from within, claiming it almost; a few times over the years, and shirt where the collar met the Nelson, in ‘That Obscure Object of owning it. An act of readerly stalking. II love it. Lots of grist in the reader: yoke and there was a damp Desire’: computer geek, somewhere In class we do two weeks on graphic Chekhov, Faulkner, Garner, Munro. I vibrating sweetness that Lachlan on the Autism spectrum, weirding narratives (I flounder) and at home I can keep coming back to these stories recognised. his way through an escalating feud read the last fictional piece in Forecast: and finding new ways into them. And with his obnoxious former employer. Turbulence, ‘Afterlife of a Stolen Child’. short fiction is good to teach: literary The more the dripping Melbourne weather But at some stage Nelson diverges A clever take on an emotive subject, and techniques jump right out at you, there’s permeates everything the further you from type; a decision, or a series of I’m glad for the slight tricksiness of it, nowhere for them to hide. In novels you go into the boy. Pathetic fallacy: the decisions; believable but so surprising which I trace with interest: multiple tend to have to search for them in all the attribution of human emotion to nature. that the Nelson we’re left with takes on narrative perspectives on an event, the flesh. As soon as I finish the story it seems like retrospective heft, a shadowy roundness. points of view beginning to concertina I came to short stories quite late, as a it was in first person rather than third. It happens in just a few paragraphs; I together until it seems like there might reader and a writer – for a long time I was In class we look at different ways to re-read them to see if I can isolate the be a singular perspective behind them only really interested in novels, then I got begin a story: scene setting openings moment, the exact words; how she does it. all, a character with his own agenda whacked over the head with Alice Munro that paint the world before you occupy it, ‘What’s the point of always picking informing everything. Perspectives are (I think I was staying at my uncle’s, an old and in media res, dropping you straight apart these stories?’ one of my students distinct but not too distinct: there is an copy of The New Yorker lying around) and into the action. Like most contemporary says. ‘Wouldn’t it be better to just, like, overarching narrative tone even when was never the same. writers, I favour in media res. experience them?’ And I give the spiel the voice moves close to the characters, In class we look at metaphorical and From ‘The Prince of Darkness Is a about reading as a writer, getting into inside the characters, melding with their elliptical plot structures. A Marjorie Gentleman’: ‘On one night, the worst one, a text so we can see its mechanisms, own voices. A narrative mystery as well Barnard story (fruit and breasts). James and the last one before Katie ran away, understand them, recreating them. In as a plot mystery, balanced between the Joyce (piecing together a hypothetical there were eighteen of those calls.’ university terms the creative writing questions who dunnit and who tells it. plot from scant clues on the page; I find One day I’d like to write an opening workshop is an exercise full of interesting I wonder about trying something like it satisfying but some of my students hate line that good. She can do scene setting tensions. A throw-back to a time before that myself: multiple voices, multiple it). An ingeniously evasive Nabokov and too: ‘Jodie’s desk in the capitol building the author died. For me it’s a pragmatic characters shimmering in slightly too deceptively simple Mansfield. in Wirranbandi is a scratched and alibi: I’ve always read like this, long golden light, not quite believable. Follow At home I start reading Forecast: gouged door resting across two wooden before I started writing. As an undergrad the literary clues, effect and intention, Turbulence by Janette Turner Hospital. sawhorses in a room that was once the I studied literature in a theoretically aware of being toyed with, and of toying In the first story, ‘Blind Date’, a young boy lobby and teller area of a now-defunct oblivious bubble that was somehow back. waits for a reunion with his father. Lots bank.’ A layering of camera angles, allowed to exist at Sydney Uni in the Then somewhere in the last section – of weather imagery, conveyed in sensory worked into the sentence to make it look 1990s (or this is how I remember it) – an the point of view with the mother – the gasps, the boy’s blindness never stated but seamless, no transition between close innocent textual playground where we language races faster than I can pin it there as subtext in every part of the story. view and wide. In two clauses you get the were encouraged to chase down a unified, down, I slip into a space between devices, The history of the family comes out in measure of the place. unitary reading, a meaning behind the between narrative voices and rounded bites of dialogue and sense memory, the We discuss material and treatment, text, and where close reading might characters and chronological structuring emerging understanding of a child. which dictates chronology. Material: the one day lead to the golden pinnacle of – into the dream of a dream that feels understanding: authorial intention. You real, phantom memories working on raw ‘I’m sorry, mate.’ When his what and what and what of a story, boring linearity; treatment: the how and why. probably can’t get away with that kind nerve endings. I finish the story, and I cry father said that, he was hugging And characterisation. Flat characters of thing in a literature tute anymore, and cry and cry. Lachlan so tightly that all and round ones. I think most of Turner but in creative writing the question of Miriam Sved is a Melbourne-based writer Lachlan could think of was Hospital’s characters are round; certainly authorial intention lurks behind the and editor and the author of Game Day. READINGS MONTHLY FEBRUARY 2015 9

WEATHERING a new tale that revisits the world of Art & Design for using these mathematical transformations Lucy Wood American Gods. Trigger Warning is a as design tools. cornucopia of horror and ghost stories, Bloomsbury. PB. $29.99 with Margaret Snowdon science fiction and fairy tales, fabulism UNEVEN GROWTH Pearl doesn’t know how and poetry that explores the realm of she’s ended up in the STREET CRAFT Richard Burdett & Teddy Cruz experience and emotion. river, or why, for that Riikka Ruittinen MOMA. HB. $45 T&H. PB. $29.95 In 2030, the world's matter, she’d been WOLF, WOLF stupid enough to fall Street art has population will be a down the stairs. Ada, Eben Venter transformed from a staggering eight billion Pearl’s daughter, doesn’t Scribe. PB. $29.99 practice carried out by people. Of these, know how she’s ended Mattie Duiker is trying anonymous creators, two-thirds will live in up back in the cold, very hard to live up to seen by some as cities; most will be poor. rickety house she left his dying father’s vandalism, into a With limited resources, thirteen years ago. Fascinated by the wishes. He is putting commercial enterprise this unbalanced growth strange scattering of people she meets and aside childish things, and a respectable part will be one of the greatest challenges faced by by the river that unfurls through the valley, starting his first of the international art societies across the globe. The third of Pepper, Ada’s daughter, doesn’t know why business serving market. One of the richest movements in MOMA’s Issues in Contemporary anyone would ever want to leave. Each will healthy takeaway food street art has been the development of an Architecture Series brings together ideas discover the ways that places can take root to the workers of Cape alternative, crafts-based, three-dimensional from an international group of scholars, inside us and bind us together. Weathering Town, making his Pa movement, broadly identified as Street practitioners and other experts on is an exquisite debut novel from the author proud. At the same time, though, Mattie Craft. Street Craft features artists creating architecture and urbanism. Featuring a of the critically acclaimed short story is battling an addiction to porn – one uncommissioned, site-specific works variety of international proposals, Uneven collection, Diving Belles. which both threatens his relationship employing a range of techniques including Growth explores how emergent forms of with his boyfriend, Jack, and imperils his weaving, crocheting, sculpting, painting, tactical urbanism could address rapid and THE ILLUMINATIONS inheritance. While Pa, once a swaggering gardening, light installation, and more. uneven growth around the globe. Andrew O’Hagan businessman, fights against both the cancer inside him and his own AKADEMIE X Faber&Faber. PB. Was $29.99 ALTHANASIUS diminishing authority, his family wrestles Marina Abramovic & Olafur In her youth, Anne KIRCHER’S THEATRE OF with matters of entitlement and Eliasson et al. Quirk was an artistic THE WORLD inheritance. All the while around them, a Phaisdon. HB. $45 pioneer, a creator of new South Africa is quietly but Joscelyn Godwin groundbreaking T&H. PB. $60 Akademie X: Lessons in persistently nudging its way forwards. Art + Life brings documentary Athanasius Kircher together a faculty of photographs. Now she (1602–80) was THE WINTER WAR artists and writers from is an elderly woman at considered to be the Philip Teir across the globe. Each of home, while her most learned man of his Serpent’s Tail. PB. $27.99 these ‘tutors’ has beloved grandson, Luke, age. By profession a On the surface, the provided a unique lesson is on a tour of duty in Jesuit priest, he made Paul family are living that aims to provoke, Afghanistan. When Luke’s mission goes himself an authority on the liberal, middle- inspire and stimulate. The contributors horribly wrong, he becomes haunted by every subject under class Scandinavian draw on their extensive experience in the questions of moral responsibility. He returns (and above) the sun and published the dream. Max Paul is a contemporary art world to share previously home to Scotland where both his and Anne’s results of his research in over 30 lavishly renowned sociologist untold stories and identify the crucial secret stories begin to emerge. The illustrated volumes in Latin. Inevitably, his and his wife Katriina things they wish they’d known at the start Illuminations is a compelling new novel by work has been superseded in most areas of has a well-paid job in of their careers: with advice on two-time Booker finalist Andrew O’Hagan. study, but he remains a key figure in the the public sector. They practicalities, professional relationships, history of ideas and in recent years there has live in an airy ideology, art education, and a range of HOLY COW been a revival of interest. But while every apartment in the centre of Helsinki. But ‘assignments’ to spark creative thinking. David Duchovny other aspect of his thought has been studied, look closer and the cracks start to show. Headline. PB. $24.99 the fascinating engravings with which he As he approaches his sixtieth birthday, ELSA SCHIAPARELLI Elsie Bovary is a cow, illustrated his ideas have been largely the certainties of Max’s life begin to Meryle Secrest and a pretty happy one ignored until now. dissolve. He hasn’t produced any work of Penguin. HB. $45 at that – until one night note for decades. His wife no longer loves TIE DIP DYE The name Schiaparelli had, she sneaks out of the him. His grown-up daughters – one in Pepa Martin and Karen Davis like Dior, always created a pasture and finds London, one in Helsinki – have problems herself drawn to the Craftsman House. PB. $24.99 little bubble of imagined, of their own. So when a former student impossibly glamorous farmhouse. Through Tie-dye has had turned journalist shows up and offers him excitement in my youthful the window, she sees resurgence on the a seductive lifeline, Max starts down a brain. There have been the farmer’s family catwalk, in interiors and dangerous path from which he may never plenty of books on Dior but gathered around a with crafters as part of find a way back. not so many on bright Box God – and what the Box God the ‘slow craft Schiaparelli, so Secrest’s biography is very reveals about something called an movement’. Tie Dip Dye THE SECRETS OF welcome. After an exotic yet restrictive ‘industrial meat farm’ shakes Elsie’s is aimed at a new MIDWIVES upbringing and early marriage to a self- understanding of her world to its core. The generation who value Sally Hepworth deluded occultist, Schiaparelli went on to only solution? To escape to a better, safer subtle and modern designs. Whether you’re Macmillan. PB. $29.99 great fame and fortune between the wars world. And so a motley crew is formed: trying dip-dyeing, arashi, space-dying or with clothes embedded with the aesthetics Elsie; Shalom, a grumpy pig who’s recently Neva Bradley, a classic kumo circle designs, this book of Surrealism and a new spirit of freedom converted to Judaism; and Tom, a suave third-generation contains all the essential techniques you’ll for women. turkey who can’t fly, but can work an midwife, is need to start creating unique fashions and iPhone with his beak. determined to keep homewares. the details ICONIC: A PHOTOGRAPHIC TRIGGER WARNING surrounding her own MORPHING TRIBUTE TO APPLE Neil Gaiman pregnancy – including Joseph Choma INNOVATION the identity of the Headline. PB. Was $29.99 Laurence King. HB. $70 Jonathon Zufi baby’s father – hidden $24.99 Cylinders, spheres and Ridgewood. HB. $120 from her family and cubes are a small With vivid colour Neil Gaiman returns co-workers for as long as possible. Her handful of shapes that and detail, Iconic to haunt and mother, Grace, finds it impossible to let can be defined by a looks back at over 35 entertain with this this secret rest, even while her own life single word. However, years of Apple to third collection of begins to crumble around her. For most shapes cannot be show the journey of short fiction Floss, Neva’s grandmother and a retired found in a dictionary. design that made it following Smoke and midwife, Neva’s situation thrusts her They belong to an alternative plastic world the company and brand it is today. Created Mirrors and Fragile back 60 years in time to a secret that defined by trigonometry: a mathematical as a photographic tribute to all the Things, which eerily mirrors her granddaughter’s – world where all shapes can be described engineers, designers, product managers includes previously a secret which, if revealed, will have under one systematic language and where and visionaries of the Apple story, this published pieces of life-changing consequences for them all. short fiction-stories, verse, and a special any shape can transform into another. This project began with the author’s website Doctor Who story ¬ as well as ‘Black Dog’, visually striking guidebook clearly and shrineofapple.com. systematically lays out the basic foundation 10 READINGS MONTHLY FEBRUARY 2015

New Crime Dead Write their school days – though it’s a lot more dangerous. with Fiona Hardy THE WHISPERING CITY Crime Book of the Month Sara Moliner Orion. PB. $29.99 In the fascist WOLF WINTER environment of 1950s Cecilia Ekback Barcelona, young Hodder. PB. Was $29.99 journalist Ana Martí $24.99 Noguer gets the Swedish Lapland, June 1717 (note, this reader virtually unexpected job of never reads things set in the past): Finns Maija and Paavo accompanying take their children Frederika and Dorotea to Sweden, away from Inspector Isidro Castro the fear that has beaten Paavo into a shadow of the man he once on the kind of case that was. They settle in Lapland, beside the mountain Blackåsen, has the whole city ill-equipped for living in an isolated and storm-racked area. They abuzz: socialite Mariona Sobrerroca is have been there only a short time when the two girls take their found dead in her exclusive mansion, and goats for a walk and stumble upon the body of a man. Wolves, or a bear, Maija tells them. as it often is with high-profile cases, the But she knows it is not true. And so their new home becomes one not of hope, but one of truth and the official story are rarely one fear renewed, with new atmospheric tension and a landscape as brutal to your home and and the same. Ana and her scholar cousin, body as it appears enchanting in a painting. Beatriz, are as intent on solving the puzzles Maija is a female protagonist so organically heroic that she seems not at all out of place of this case as the town is intent on hiding an unnerving conspiracy in aplace as ‘the mountain is bad, but is it the people on it who are bad, beautiful as it is oppressive and violent. or is it the land itself?’ THE WHITE VAN in these long past times. Things need to get done and Maija is the one to do them in Patrick Hoffman this land of endless days that in winter turn into eternal nights, where the men are too Atlantic Books. PB. $29.99 trapped by their land, their anxiety and their stoic manner to do anything but shake their Here is the story to read heads at a torn-up body in a glade. And so she is the believable midwife turned farmer for the San Francisco turned 1700s-era forensic investigator when no one else bothered to try. As those around you don’t see in her say, the mountain is bad, but is it the people on it who are bad, or is it the land itself? wide-eyed and cheerful The sorcery trials of the past still have a grip on everyone’s lives, but the question is travel shows that can’t whether Maija’s staunch faith in reality and God is the way, or if it is blocking her ability see past cable cars and to see the truth. I was up until 3am reading this haunting thriller, but then it was as dark the Golden Gate Bridge: as the book itself. My advice: read it in the sun. Emily Rosario, desperate and unhappy and possibly, maybe, TELL THE TRUTH are some fires Natalie must put out before drunk, a bit, goes home with a Russian Katherine Howell they engulf her entirely. businessman and resurfaces after a hazy few Macmillan. PB. $29.99 drug-fuelled days to discover she is now part I love crime books that DEAD GIRL WALKING of a bank robbery – and so she makes off follow an unexpected Christopher Brookmyre with the cash. Broken cop Leo Elias, who perspective, and Little, Brown. PB. $29.99 could do with a fix of cash, decides to be the Howell delivers that in Brookmyre’s beloved one who finds her and the money – albeit off spades. Howell is an Jack Parlabane returns the books – and is not the only person on the ex-paramedic and her – in a way – though hunt in this bleak but narcotics-level expertise shines bereft of his happiness addictive neo-noir thriller. through. Her and self-esteem, and powerfully enjoyable waiting for something GUN STREET GIRL detective, Ella to turn his life around. Adrian McKinty Marconi, often finds herself counting on It’s music that does it: Serpent's Tail. PB. Was $29.99 the help of paramedics, or saving their the band Savage Earth $24.99 lives. Here, she is desperately trying to do Heart, to be precise, There were a few the latter after paramedic Stacey Durham not because of their excellent sounds, but books on this list vying vanishes, leaving behind a car soaked in due to the disappearance of band member for book of the month. her blood and a picture-perfect life that Heike Gunn. From Vegas to Europe and Ekback won because I surely cannot be real. With her own life through a web of lies cast tight around the took enough notes unable to recover from chaos, especially band itself, Parlabane needs to run to Heike during the read to have when it comes to her captivatingly fraught and away from his past before the last notes the review done before relationship with her partner’s mother, ring out for both of them. the book was. In this, I can Marconi find the truth? took no notes because I BRUSH BACK MEDEA’S CURSE was too busy reading Sara Paretsky through at an enthusiastic and frantic Anne Buist Hachette. PB. $29.99 speed. DI Sean Duffy ticks a lot of boxes: Text. PB. $29.99 Detective VI sarcastic, frequently drunk, and cynical Forensic psychiatrist Warshawski barely about the force. He also ticks the most Natalie King is an recognises the man important boxes: likeable, original, and excellent badass: who comes into her enjoyable to follow around. It’s November tearing up to her office in ill-fitting 1985 and Duffy is a policeman in Northern offices on a Ducati, clothes and a sheen of Ireland – not the best place to be a ready and willing with anxiety, until he calls policeman, unless you enjoy being blown help for the helpless her by her childhood up. Snatching what looks like a smooth and cutting remarks for nickname, Tori, and domestic murder away from the those who deserve she sees in the larger neighbouring department, Duffy and his them, namely Crown man the redheaded baseball player she team end up involved in something much Prosecutor Liam O’Shea, the man she loves was in love with at 18. It’s been a long more expansive and dangerous than they to hate. But she has a new direction for her time for both of them, and Frank Guzzo were expecting, but that’s really the least of rage: towards the person who’s leaving has suffered from his mother’s it. This is fun, shocking, grim, as addictive anonymous notes and creating a incarceration following her conviction for as cocaine filched from the evidence room, threatening environment around her that killing his kid sister. But, he now claims, and wonderful. Not least, this is one of the she needs to demolish. Natalie works with Stella Guzzo was framed. The gritty very few new crime books that is people involved in violent crimes, on both world of South Chicago isn’t a place VI completely devoid of sexual assault, and for sides of the abuse, and she knows there’s no wants to return to, but this case isn’t as that I give it five gold stars and a round of end of people with fire in their veins. There clear as she remembered it being back in sincere, heartfelt applause. READINGS MONTHLY FEBRUARY 2015 11

New Young Adult Fiction Revolutionary Guard finds out about her mother's Bring Back the Shah activities, See books for kids, junior and middle readers on pages 18–19 her family could be thrown in jail, or worse. The day she meets Sadira, Farrin's life changes forever. Sadira is funny, wise, Young Adult Book of the Month and outgoing; the two girls become inseparable. But as their friendship THE LAST TIME WE SAY GOODBYE deepens into romance, the relationship Cynthia Hand takes a dangerous turn. It is against the law HarperCollins. PB. $19.99 to be gay in Iran; the punishment is death. Lex is a self-confessed maths geek with a dream to go to Despite their efforts to keep their love MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) where secret, the girls are discovered and she can pursue her love of everything mathematics. But when arrested. Separated from Sadira, Farrin can her brother, Taylor, commits suicide in their garage, Lex only pray as she awaits execution. Will her suddenly has a lot to deal with. She has to cope with not only family find a way to save them both? Based her own grief and anger, but her mother’s constant crying and on real-life events, multi-award winning inability to properly function, and a father who is mostly author Deborah Ellis's new book is a tense absent and whom Lex still resents due to an affair that saw and riveting story about a world where him leave his family. But while so many things could have contributed to Taylor’s homosexuality is considered so abhorrent suicide, Lex blames herself. A therapist’s suggestion of writing a diary is at first met that it is punishable by death. with indifference, but as Lex slowly writes she realises it may be the only way she can open up about what really happened. ALL FALL DOWN While I felt that, for the most part, Cynthia Hand has written a touching and Ally Carter captivating story that tackles the situation of suicide with dignity, I did find a couple Scholastic. PB. $19.99 of the storylines unnecessary. That said, this is a sensitive novel for teens who are Grace Blakely is interested in true-to-life stories. Ages 14 and up. absolutely certain of Katherine Dretzke is from Readings Carlton three things: She is not crazy. Her mother was I WAS HERE Drawn from actual events, the story is murdered. Someday she is going to find the killer Gayle Forman written in alternating chapters from the perspectives of Rose and Michael and make him pay. As Simon & Schuster. PB. $19.99 with immediacy and compassion. It’s a certain as Grace is about ‘I regret to inform wonderful, if tragic, tale. This book should these facts, nobody else you that I have be required reading for all teenagers 15 and believes her – so there’s no one she can had to take my own up. It will also provoke powerful discussion completely trust. Not her grandfather, a life’ – what a way to within a classroom situation. powerful ambassador. Not her new friends, open a book! When who all live on Embassy Row. Not Alexei, Angela Crocombe is from Readings Carlton. Cody receives this line the Russian boy next door who is keeping in an email one day his eye on Grace for reasons she neither after her best friend THE DOOR THAT LED TO likes nor understands. Everybody wants Meg has taken her own WHERE Grace to put on a pretty dress and a pretty life, she feels like she Sally Gardner smile to block out all her unpretty thoughts. has failed her friend. How could she not Five Mile Press. PB. $16.95 But they can’t control Grace any more than have seen that her friend was suicidal or Sally Gardner’s Grace can control what she knows or what even that she was depressed? Meg’s parents stories step right she needs to do. ask Cody to go to Meg’s dorm room to clean into to your imagination up and bring her possessions home and it is and don’t leave until THE HONEST TRUTH here that Cody meets Ben, a charismatic long after the final page Dan Gemeinhart musician who she discovers broke Meg’s and The Door That Led Chicken House. PB. $15.99 heart. However, it isn’t until Cody returns to Where is no exception. Mark’s like any other home and talks to Meg’s 10-year-old Sixteen-year-old AJ thirteen-year- old. He younger brother that she starts to think Flynn is given an old loves his dog, taking that someone else may have been involved key that leads him photos and hiking, but in Meg’s death. through a door into 1830s London where a he also has cancer. I must admit, originally I thought, ‘not mystery that exists in the present day When his illness another teen suicide book,’ but this one was began. AJ is faced with many challenges in returns, Mark decides very different to what I imagined. Not only both time zones and is also trying to solve he’s had enough of does it have a slight psychological thriller the mystery of his unknown (to him) hospital. With his small aspect, it tackles far more than suicide, father and how that has affected him and dog Beau, he sets out to climb a mountain looking into family life, first love, and the his embittered mother. AJ is a sensitive – and he’s not going to give up until he’s large role that the internet can play in teenager who is loyal to his two close done it. our lives. I Was Here is an emotional and friends and as all the mysterious strands compelling read for ages 14 and up. come together he is presented with the AKARNAE: MEDORAN Katherine Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn difficult choice of which era to remain in. CHRONICLES BOOK 1 Gardner is a masterful storyteller with a Lynette Noni A SMALL MADNESS lot of heart and the juxtaposition of the Pantera Press. PB. $19.99 Dianne Touchell two vastly different times in history is Dreading her first day at A&U. PB. $16.99 handled skillfully. A very enjoyable novel for ages 13 and up. a new school, Alex walks This is a through a doorway and beautifully Alexa Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn finds herself stranded in crafted, cautionary tale Medora, a fantasy world. for teenagers on the MOON AT NINE Only a man named perils of unprotected Deborah Ellis Professor Marselle can sex and the dangers of A&U. PB. $16.99 help her return home ... keeping the truth Fifteen-year-old Farrin but he’s missing. While hidden. has many secrets. waiting for him to reappear, Alex attends Michael and Rose Although she goes to a Akarnae Academy, Medora’s boarding are both good kids school for gifted girls in school for teenagers with extraordinary going into their final year at high school Tehran, as the daughter gifts. She soon starts to enjoy her bizarre – studious, involved in extra-curricular of an aristocratic new world, but strange things are activities and with close families. They mother and wealthy happening at Akarnae. An unwilling pawn are also naiïve, inexperienced and very father, Farrin must in a deadly game, only Alex can save the much in love. Ill-equipped to cope keep a low profile. It is Medorans, but what if doing so prevents with the pregnancy that results from 1988; ever since the her from ever returning home? Will Alex their first sexual experience, they deny Shah was overthrown, the deeply risk her entire world - and maybe even her what is happening to Rose’s body until conservative and religious government life - to save Medora? circumstances take over. controls every facet of life in Iran. If the

7797_February_ReadingsAd.indd 2 16/01/15 2:05 PM 12 READINGS MONTHLY FEBRUARY 2015

New Non-Fiction Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, really works, significantly broadening the Alabama. Lauded as a real-life Atticus field from traumatic brain injury to all Finch, Stevenson has championed the manner of diseases and conditions. Based on Music Biography rights of the disenfranchised and most astonishing case studies, Norman Doidge disadvantaged: assisting clients on death presents exciting, cutting-edge science with row, challenging excessive punishments, practical real-world applications, and SCHUBERT’S WINTER ON IMMUNITY: AN helping disabled prisoners and assisting illustrates how anyone can apply the JOURNEY: ANATOMY OF INOCULATION children incarcerated in adult prisons principles of neuroplasticity to improve AN OBSESSION Eula Biss facing life-without-parole convictions. their brain’s performance. Ian Bostridge Text. PB. $29.99 Stevenson presents extensive case studies that document inherent injustices Faber & Faber. HB. $39.99 Eula Biss’s sanctioned by law enforcement and Cultural Studies Sitting through a elegant legitimised through abusive justice systems performance of examination of our within the US. Most notable is the case of Schubert’s Winterreise fear of vaccination FURY: WOMEN WRITE Walter McMillian, an African American can be a harrowing opens with Achilles wrongfully accused of a murder and ABOUT SEX, POWER experience. We follow being dipped into the unlawfully put on death row as a pre- AND VIOLENCE the protagonist as he, River Styx and closes trial detainee. As Stevenson worked on Samantha Trenoweth (ed.) in the darkness of with the metaphor of a Walter’s defence he uncovered appalling Hardie Grant. PB. $27.95 night, embarks on a garden. In between, lawlessness not only on the part of law winter’s journey with Biss talks about It’s too easy to read enforcement officers, but also a grave only the light of the moon as his milkmaids and scientists, about triclosan statistics on miscarriage of justice through the court companion. Restlessly he dreams of his and thimerosal, about Rachel Carson’s violence against women system. Stevenson testified that evidence beloved, and when he wakes he finds Silent Spring and Voltaire’s Candide. Her and do nothing. The stats had been wilfully ignored in order to himself cold and alone with no end to his ability to draw connections between are alarming, but they expedite Walter's conviction to appease torment in sight. Set to poetry by Wilhelm disparate ideas is thrilling. She links rarely instigate change. the community with a crime solved and a Müller, Franz Schubert composed vaccination to slavery, communism, Giving a voice to what’s criminal punished. Winterreise towards the end of his short vampirism, class struggles – and, always, being called a ‘silent The statistics cited by Stevenson life (he died of syphilis, aged only 31, in you are in safe hands with Biss. Her work epidemic’ needs more are damning. America has the highest 1828), and many consider the cycle to be has been compared with the writings of than numbers. Fury: rate of incarceration in the world with an expression of the composer’s confused significant female essayists, including Women Write About Sex, Power and Violence, a disproportionate African American and depressed psychological state. Sontag, Didion and Solnit, and it’s easy to edited by Samantha Trenoweth, anthologises representation among the prison In Schubert’s Winter Journey: Anatomy see why with her deep empathy for the the sometimes controversial, always rational population. According to Stevenson the of an Obsession, singer and scholar Ian subject, her ranging intellect and her cool and very loud voices of twelve women privatisation of US prisons has corrupted Bostridge sets out to explore the origins sophistication. writers. Together, their disparate opinions initiatives that focus on rehabilitation and of the cycle, giving it historical, social, Biss is particularly interested in the and styles form an immovable mountain of instead contribute to mass incarceration. political, and personal context. Bostridge different ways language and stories are human experience. They are defiant in the In particular, the pursuit of profit has seen is a renowned interpreter of the work, used in relation to immunity. She considers face of decades of ingrained ideology, cultural the creation of new crimes and harsher having performed it countless times over our predilection for using metaphors of taboo and cyclical behavioural oppression. sentences ensuring that more people are the course of his illustrious career, and war to describe bodies, our obsession They examine and name the roads to locked up and for longer terms. while he concedes to be no musicologist, with achieving ‘purity’ and our belief that successful activism and call out helpless Stevenson’s legacy is not limited to his his insights are profoundly interesting. ‘natural’ is always superior. She writes, sympathy and wilful indignation. Theirs is a successes in achieving landmark social The book follows the structure of the ‘We seem to believe, against all evidence, collective critique of the abuser: the justice reform but also his reputation as cycle, and each of the 24 songs is given that nature is entirely benevolent.’ The individual, society at large, the media, policy a crusader of mercy and compassion. A a chapter, starting with Bostridge’s vampire is a recurring motif. For Biss, the and governance. profoundly important work. own English translations of the original personal significance of this creature has its Beginning with a fictional story (that German texts. Illustrations and musical roots in her son’s birth. After an otherwise Natalie Platten is from Readings Malvern may or may not be based on true events) examples are provided throughout, uncomplicated delivery, her uterus burst Trenoweth has ordered the anthology enabling the reader to follow each chapter and she later received a blood transfusion GUANTANAMO DIARY carefully and thoughtfully. In the first few as though sitting through a performance of for the two litres she’d reportedly lost. Biss Mohamedou Ould Slahi pages of prose Australian culture and the the cycle. describes this event in gorgeously evocative Canongate. PB. $29.99 associated attitude towards gender roles Although sometimes distractingly prose, which stayed with me long after Since 2002, Mohamedou comes under attack. Though the story would tangential, Bostridge’s writing is engaging finishing the book: ‘the lapping of small Ould Slahi has been do well to come with a trigger warning (as and intelligent without seeming grandiose. waves as the blood pooled’, ‘Human hands imprisoned at the would each chapter that follows) it’s also Unlike most singers of Bostridge’s calibre, were in me’. detainee camp at a deliberately cautious toe dipped into the he has no formal music qualifications, But Biss’s vampire goes far beyond Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. pond before some much harsher facts and which means he writes to be understood the personal. She writes, ‘Our vampires, In all these years, the more impacting stories are revealed. by a similar readership. Of interest whatever else they are, remain a reminder United States has never Anne Summers takes us back to the are anecdotes from Bostridge’s own that our bodies are penetrable. A reminder charged him with a tumultuous beginnings of the first feminist performance experience, which enliven that we feed off of each other, that we need crime. Although he was women’s refuge of the modern era, Elsie. the text and contemporise the subject each other to live.’ Over and over again, ordered to be released by a federal judge, Fahma Mohamed and Lisa Zimmerman take matter, particularly in the final chapter, Biss’s reflections reveal the importance the US government fought that decision, a stand against female genital mutilation and ‘Der Leiermann’. This beautiful book is a of community. Fittingly, this metaphor and there is no sign that the United States Clem Bastow despairs of ‘online activism’, must-read for lovers of Schubert’s lieder. extends even into the structure of her book. plans to let him go. His diary is not merely a asking for more than just a #hashtag response This release coincides with Schubert: Biss’s ideas don’t fit together like a jigsaw vivid record of a miscarriage of justice, but a to misogyny. 3 Song Cycles (3CDs + DVD) by Ian puzzle but, rather, they overlap in layers. deeply personal memoir – terrifying, darkly It’s a quick, easy read, though the Bostridge (see page 19). Her chapters leak – like us, they bleed. humorous, and surprisingly gracious. seriousness of the issues is never taken lightly. Each of the writers Trenoweth has assembled Alexandra Mathew is from Readings Carlton Bronte Coates is the digital content coordinator and the editorial assistant for the is courageous in her storytelling and never Readings Monthly Science claims a universalised female experience. EARTH DANCES: MUSIC The strength of the book is undoubtedly its IN SEARCH OF THE JUST MERCY: A STORY collective voice, calling for collective change. PRIMITIVE THE BRAIN’S WAY OF OF JUSTICE AND Tara Judah is from Readings St Kilda HEALING Andrew Ford REDEMPTION Black Inc. PB. $29.99 Norman Doidge THE UTOPIA Bryan Stevenson Earth Dances is an Scribe. PB. Was $35 Scribe. PB. $32.99 EXPERIMENT original investigation of $29.99 For advocates of Dylan Evans how primitivism and In The Brain That social justice Just Picador. PB. $29.99 music intersect – a Changes Itself, Dr Mercy presents a In 2006, behavioural dazzling journey Norman Doidge scathing exposé of the psychologist Dr Dylan through music and described the most inequalities, racial bias Evans abandoned his culture. Alternating important development and discrimination that life, sold his house and between chapters of in our understanding of has characterised the belongings, and moved criticism and interviews the brain in 400 years, US justice system, most to the Black Isle in (including with Brian Eno), author and the discovery of notably in the South. It Scotland to found a broadcaster Andrew Ford explores the neuroplasticity. Now, documents the self-sufficient relationship between primal forms of music The Brain’s Way of indefatigable dedication of social justice community in a remote and the most refined examples of the art. Healing shows how this amazing discovery lawyer Bryan Stevenson, founder of the valley with a group of READINGS MONTHLY FEBRUARY 2015 13 acolytes recruited online. The project was THE AUSTRALIAN called the Utopia Experiment, and the MOMENT idea was to imagine the conditions that George Megalogenis might exist in the aftermath of society’s collapse. As the months went by, what Hamish Hamilton. PB. $32.99 began as an experiment became deadly Respected political and earnest. Factions formed with different economic writer George views about the future of the human race, Megalogenis examines and competition and fighting broke out. how we developed from The yurts they lived in leaked, the a closed economy vegetables they farmed wouldn’t grow, racked by oil shocks, and Dylan began to fear for his sanity, and grappled with then his life. This is the story of Evans’s deregulation and experiment in Utopia, but also an survived consecutive examination of the millenarian impulse economic crises to - why do these doomsday scenarios become the last developed nation standing fascinate us? Is there any sensible way we in the 2000s. Drawing on declassified can prepare for the worst? documents and interviews with former prime ministers, The Australian Moment reveals how our leadership and community Australian Studies have underestimated each other’s contribution to the nation’s resilience. This edition, with new afterword and appendix, EVERYTHING YOU is the book of the forthcoming TV series, NEED TO KNOW ABOUT Making Australia Great. THE REFERENDUM TO RECOGNISE INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIANS Politics Megan Davis & George Williams NewSouth. PB. $19.99 RED NOTICE: HOW I There are strong BECAME PUTIN’S NO. 1 arguments on ENEMY both sides of the debate Bill Browder for changing the Bantam. PB. $35 Australian Constitution Bill Browder to recognise Indigenous comes from a Australians and this text family with an looks at the legal and impressive communist constitutional pedigree. His ramifications of making grandfather, Earl such a change. The book aims to educate Browder, was the leader the reader about what they would need to of the Communist Party know to make an educated decision if or USA and his parents are when a referendum is called on this topic by well-respected left- looking at the Australian Constitution, the wing academics. Browder feels himself to be 1967 referendum, what changes may be out of place in his family. Neither as likely and how to go about this for the best academic as his brother nor as esteemed as chance of success. his parents, he rebels in the only way he Never having read the Australian knows how – by embracing capitalism. Red Constitution before, I found the section on Notice follows Browder from his year in the document fascinating, revealing, but boarding school, through university and into unsurprising in its treatment of Indigenous the world of business. Browder becomes Australians and initially other non-white fascinated with the opportunities for ethnic groups: it was born at the time of investment that present themselves with the the White Australia Policy. The authors, privatisation of Eastern Europe after the fall experts on Indigenous and constitutional of the Berlin Wall. This leads him to Russia, law, have created a book with deliberately where he founds Hermitage Capital accessible language, which does not Management and becomes one of the largest alienate, and it is not expected that the foreign investors in Russia. reader have a prior knowledge of things But Browder is soon to learn that the legal or constitutional. playing field in Russia is far from fair, and The content however is not unbiased; that corruption hinders progress at every it leans heavily towards voting Yes. When turn. He begins to work to expose fraud and discussing the 1967 referendum the authors the punishment is swift and frightening. note the lack of a No campaign at the time – After conducting business in Russia for 10 I feel as though this accurately matches years, he is detained on a return trip from uentin Beresford illuminates the lack of the No side of the debate in this London and deported, declared a threat to for the first time the dark book. The majority of the book is spent Q national security and forbidden to return. corners of the Gunns empire. discussing why changes should be made, And there are consequences for angering He shows it was built on close what they should be and how to achieve the Russian oligarchs that are worse than relationships with state and federal them, but I only found a few examples deportation, something that the death governments, political donations where the other side of the argument was of Browder’s lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, and use of the law to intimidate and even discussed. A very brief mention is tragically demonstrates. Red Notice gives silence its critics. Gunns may have made that some Indigenous leaders have an interesting insight into the day-to-day been single-minded in its pursuit reservations, particularly about recognition corruption that plagues modern Russia, of a pulp mill in Tasmania’s Tamar only being symbolic and it taking away stifles its growth – both economically and Valley, but it was embedded in an from campaigns towards recognition of anti-democratic and corrupt system culturally – and threatens its citizens. Indigenous sovereignty and treaty. of power supported by both main There have been several books concerning The book’s title and chapter headings parties, business and unions. Fearless and forensic in its modern Russia in the last few years – do allude to its Yes leaning, so in that sense analysis, the book shows that Tasmania’s decades-long quest Masha Gessen’s The Man Without a Face the authors have not swayed from what I to industrialise nature fails every time. is a spectacular book for those looking for read their intention to be – to inform about further reading. Browder’s perspective is the constitution in such a way as to educate an interesting one, as he brings his very and influence the reader towards a Yes American sensibilities to combat what is a vote. www.newsouthpublishing.com uniquely Russian problem. Suzanne Steinbruckner is from Readings St Kilda Brigid Mullane is a freelance reviewer 14 READINGS MONTHLY FEBRUARY 2015

Food & Gardening New Film & TV GONE GIRL $39.95 with Chris Gordon with Lou Fulco Available 4 February This thriller is based on the THE GREENGROCER’S DVD of the Month FELONY best selling crime fiction DIET $39.95 novel by Gillian Flynn, starring Ben Affleck and Judy Davie Three detectives become THE Rosamund Pike. On the day Macmillan. PB. $39.99 embroiled in a tense struggle of their fifth wedding Some of you may have FALL: after a tragic accident that anniversary, Nick Dunne heard of this concept: SEASON leaves a child in a coma. One reports his wife, Amy, missing. Under ‘Eat food that is in 2 is guilty of a crime, one will pressure from the police and a growing season, eat less and $29.95 try to cover it up, and the media frenzy, Nick’s portrait of a blissful limit luxurious food The third will attempt to expose union begins to crumble. Soon his lies and items like chocolate’. second it. Written, produced and starring Joel strange behaviour have everyone asking the Davie, author and series of The Edgerton, this potent thriller explores the same dark question: did he kill his wife? creator of The Fall picks up blurred lines between right and wrong, loyalty Greengrocer’s Diet already has a huge 10 days after and betrayal and the extraordinary ripple CLARKE AND DAWE: following because of her nifty website with the end of series one, so if you haven’t effect of one lie. informative and encouraging blog posts. The seen that I’ll wait while you go and OPERATIONAL MATTERS recipes are easy, divided into seasons and are watch 5 hours of absorbing, glacial HAWKING $29.95 suitable for the whole family, even those not darkness. A crime drama revolving $19.95 A regular feature in the watching their weight. It’s another great around a serial killer at work in Belfast, Benedict Cumberbatch stars Australian media for 25 idea, another great plan to eat as we should The Fall immediately seems to slot into in this biographical drama, years, Mr Clarke and Mr and a top kick up the backside to make 2015 a tradition of serial killer vs police documenting the life and Dawe continue to provide the year you became health conscious. procedurals. From the start, though, The work of theoretical physicist a balanced perspective at Fall offers something different. In the Professor Stephen Hawking the national broadcaster. RACHEL KHOO’S first episode of series one we are who, despite being diagnosed In this fine collection they KITCHEN NOTEBOOK introduced to DSI Stella Gibson (Gillian with motor neurone disease seek to understand events in the troubled Rachel Khoo Anderson) a high-ranking police officer at the age of 21, galvanised the scientific world period between 2011 and 2015. Michael Joseph. HB. $39.99 imported from London to investigate with his groundbreaking work on the nature Rachel Khoo is a the local constabulary. We are also of the universe. A COUNTRY ROAD: THE terrific writer, spirited introduced to Paul Spector (Jamie NATIONALS adventurer and cook Dornan), grief counsellor, family man, MAYDAY $19.95 and knows exactly and an escalating serial killer. The Fall is $29.95 Hosted by Heather Ewert, A how to package all her not a whodunit, a search for a monster. Mayday is a gripping new Country Road: The Nationals loves into one It is, rather, as some reviewers have crime story set against the is a rollicking political delicious bundle so suggested, a whydunit, a meditation on picture-perfect backdrop of history of the National Party that they become your male violence. a traditional town, one that featuring larger-than-life loves too. Based in the Series 2 opens on Stella Gibson hunting is thrown into a sinister and characters such as Bob UK where she has a successful BBC show for a suspect and Spector trying to paranoid world as its Katter, Clive Palmer and and twitters to trillions, Khoo’s book occupy his time away from killing. As community discovers the Barnaby Joyce as well as old-timers such as shares her travels across Europe seeking Spector returns to Belfast and Gibson gruesome murder of a young girl. Doug Anthony and Malcolm Fraser. out delicious national dishes. Filled with escalates the search for evidence we photos, her own illustrations and stories, are pulled back in. This series has she has tracked down the perfect dish for always been deliberate in its pacing drinks with friends, food for large groups but it is this very slow inexorable ACADEMY AWARD ® NOMINEE and tastes for everyone. creep of anticipated violence that is so compelling. The Fall is not concerned A COOK’S STORY with finding the monster who did it. As Scott Pickett & Rita Erlich Stella repeatedly corrects, the killer is a EBK. HB. $49.95 man, not a monster. What is monstrous is the way that in perpetrating such Scott Pickett, local violence he seeks to dehumanise the owner–chef of women he kills. Gibson won’t let the tremendous north-side women he has killed be forgotten. restaurant Estelle fame, Neither will the series. Spector moves asks what does it mean to his rage from mannequin to woman to be a great cook? And, mannequin repeatedly, emphasising the actually, what does it take complete objectification of his victims. be an owner and a chef? Stella Gibson brings it back to the Pickett began his career at the age of 14 in a women killed, their names, their habits, winery restaurant and has learnt his craft their humanity. The Fall’s great strength with some of the greats – Phil Howard of is in making very human something we The Square in London, Philippe Mouchel would rather see as an aberration. The in Melbourne. A Cook’s Story tells of a life result is truly horrifying. that combines a passion for food with the art and crafts of cooking. Marie Matteson is from Readings Carlton BABY PIP EATS Amie Harper THE GREAT AUSTRALIAN HB. $29.95 RACE RIOT I love the combination $29.95 of practical yet quirky Available 4 February in a cookbook and this The Australian race riot is a book is the winner for distinctive and enduring downright sweetness part of the way our country and sensibility. Baby Pip works. Major race riots Eats is filled with happen here only slightly recipes for food babies will eat, or mash, or less often than we compete throw, or explore. Food stylist and author in the Olympics, yet they are Harper has captured the need for colours accommodated by none of our national myths. and textures in baby’s first experiences with This series, presented by Peter FitzSimons, food. Included in this wonderful collection not only reclaims the dramatic stories, heroes are gems like gooey duck-in-a-hole eggs and and villains of tribe-on-tribe street fighting steamed baby zucchinis. This book is a but also reframes our race riots as a vicious 380 Lygon Street Carlton perfect gift for parents of 6-month-old cinemanova.com.au but vital part of our polity and progress. babies through to toddler menaces. READINGS MONTHLY FEBRUARY 2015 15

GOOD LIVING CONTEMPORARY teams up with legendary chef Guillaume discography, bibliography and new STREET AUSTRALIAN Brahimi for a celebration of the footnotes. incredible breadth and diversity of Tim Bonyhady GARDEN DESIGN French food traditions. Some of the HOW TO BE John Patrick & PB. Was $35 world’s most celebrated French culinary Now $12 Jenny Wade WELL READ masterpieces feature alongside beautiful PB. Was $39.99 John Sutherland Tim Bonyhady’s great- rustic family favourites in this gorgeous Now $12.95 HB. Was $49.95 grandparents were cookbook, with simple recipes that Now $14.95 leading patrons of the arts in fin de siècle Gardening Australia’s design guru John Patrick anyone can cook at home. Vienna: Gustav Klimt painted his great- and garden enthusiast Jenny Wade take you In the course of over 500 grandmother’s portrait. In 1938, when on a tour of 20 of Australia’s most beautiful THE TIMES witty and informative pieces, literary sleuth and academic the family fled Vienna to escape the Nazis gardens. Featuring the work of leading COMPLETE for a small flat in a harbourside suburb of designers including Paul Bangay, Catherine John Sutherland gives us his own very Sydney, they brought along their private Shields, Jamie Durie and Kate Cullity, this is HISTORY OF personal take on the most rewarding, collection of art and design. In Good Living an essential read for every gardener. THE WORLD most remarkable and, on occasion, most Street, Bonyhady follows the lives of three Richard Overy shamelessly enjoyable works of fiction generations of women in his family. THE STORY OF HB. Was $50 ever written. How to be Well Read is the PHILOSOPHY Now $29.95 perfect reading list for the would-be literary expert. FOAL’S BREAD James Garvey & Edited by leading modern historian Gillian Mears Jeremy Stangroom Professor Richard Overy, here is the ultimate work of historical reference. THE GENIUS PB. Was $32.99 HB. Was $24.99 From cavemen to the Cold War, from Now $12 Now $16.95 OF DONALD Alexander the Great to global warming, Set in hardscrabble At heart, philosophy is a FRIEND from warfare through the ages to the farming country and passionate, exhilarating quest for human Donald Friend great voyages of exploration, The Times around the show-jumping understanding that cannot be reduced to HB. Was $39.95 Complete History of the World is the circuit in rural New dry categories or simple definitions. Packed Now $15.95 authoritative text in one breathtaking South Wales prior to with intriguing anecdotes and fascinating The Genius of Donald Friend presents historical source. the Second World War, Foal’s Bread detail, The Story of Philosophy is the ideal a representative selection of the tells the story of two generations of the introduction for anyone who wants to gain a RYSZARD extraordinary drawings from the Donald Nancarrow family and their fortunes as new perspective on philosophy’s biggest ideas. Friend diaries held in the National dictated by the vicissitudes of the land. KAPUSCINSKI Library of Australia. Witty, moving and This is a love story of impossible beauty ELIZABETH Artur Domoslawski evocative, these drawings chronicle the and sadness, framed against a world both DAVID ON HB. Was $49.99 brilliance of one of Australia’s finest tender and unspeakably hard. VEGETABLES Now $16.95 draughtsmen over four decades. The The life and work volume is an essential purchase for all Elizabeth David THE CRANE of Polish journalist lovers of Australian art and culture. HB. Was $39.95 WIFE and writer Ryszard Now $19.95 Patrick Ness Kapuscinski was dangerously bold and ZENBU ZEN Culinary legend PB. Was $27.99 deeply enigmatic. In this controversial Jane Lawson Elizabeth Now $12 biography, Artur Domosławski HB. Was $69.99 David revolutionised British One night George Duncan travels the globe, following Now $16.95 cooking, her recipes is woken by a noise in his in Kapuscinski’s footsteps, In this collection bringing the colour and garden. Impossibly, a great delving into his private of superb Japanese vibrancy of sunnier white crane has tumbled to earth shot conflicts and anxieties recipes, food writer climes to kitchens through its wing by a giant arrow. George and discovering the and Japanophile Jane everywhere. This helps the crane, and from the moment he relationships that Lawson reveals the restorative power of collection celebrates watches it fly off, his life is transformed. were the catalyst Japanese food. Stressed and unhappy, Elizabeth’s best and The next day he meets and falls in love for his unique Jane retreats to peaceful Kyoto to seek most-loved vegetable Bargain with the enigmatic Kumiko, but it is a style of ‘literary balance and equilibrium in her life. Her recipes, spanning passion that comes at a terrible price. reportage’. The result personal story offers an insight into the her lifetime’s cooking is a compelling and artistry of Japanese cuisine and explores and featuring a range Table uncompromising portrait the concept of Zenbu Zen: ‘everything THE BLIND of delicious, timeless of a conflicted and brilliant is zen’. MAN’S dishes filled with irresistible GARDEN individual. flavours and scents. Elizabeth SACRED Nadeem Aslam David on Vegetables is a must-have for CREATIVE PLACES PB. Was $29.99 anyone wishing to give vegetables a LIVES Now $12 starring role in the kitchen. Philip Carr-Gomm Penelope Hanley Set in Pakistan and HB. Was $45 HB. Was $34.95 Afghanistan in the THE COMPLETE Now $19.95 Now $13.95 months following 9/11, The Blind Man’s MIDDLE Journeys to sacred Penelope Hanley Garden is a story of war and of the places or shrines EASTERN delves into the papers of 22 well-known simplest, most enduring, human impulses. undertaken as acts of religious veneration COOKBOOK Australian literary and artistic figures Jeo and Mikal, foster-brothers from or penance have been a feature of Tessa Mallos to provide an insight into their creative a small Pakistani city, secretly enter religious observance from the earliest HB. Was $59.95 lives. The papers of these writers and Afghanistan in the hope of helping and times. In this lavishly illustrated book, Now $29.95 artists are held at the National Library caring for wounded civilians. But it soon Philip Carr-Gomm tells the stories of 50 of Australia and contain amazing stories becomes apparent that good intentions This is a completely revised and updated sacred sites across all five continents, such as convict James Tucker’s gruesome can’t keep them out of harm’s way. edition of Tess Mallos’s iconic The including sites venerated by all of the Complete Middle Eastern Cookbook. floggings, Judy Cassab’s outwitting of world’s major religions. COOKING FOR Written with the home cook in mind, the Nazis, and the attempted sueing of Thomas Keneally for plagiarism. CLAUDINE Mallos’s recipes are straightforward, THE simple to follow and work every time. TESTAMENT John Baxter Recipe and chapter introductions give NO DIRECTION OF MARY PB. Was $22.99 valuable information about how local HOME Now $12 Colm Tóibín dishes are prepared and served, while Robert Shelton When John Baxter, HB. Was $19.99 the comprehensive glossary explains HB. Was $39.95 acclaimed film critic Now $12.95 unfamiliar ingredients. Now $15.95 and food lover, fell in In the ancient town of love with a French woman, his sceptical Robert Shelton Ephesus, Mary lives FRENCH became Bob Dylan’s in-laws charged him with cooking the FOOD SAFARI alone, years after her son’s crucifixion. next Christmas banquet – for eighteen friend, champion, and biographer. First She has no interest in collaborating with people in their ancestral country home Maeve O’Meara & published in 1986, No Direction Home the authors of the Gospel – her keepers, – as a test of his love. Baxter’s memoir Guillaume Brahimi took 20 years to complete and is the who provide her with food and shelter of his year-long quest takes readers HB. Was $55 most comprehensive biography ever and visit her regularly. This tour de force Now $19.95 with him through misadventures and written about Bob Dylan. This updated of imagination and language is a portrait so vivid and convincing that our image of delicious triumphs. As part of the much- edition includes parts of the manuscript loved Food Safari series, Maeve O’Meara not originally included, an updated Mary will be forever transformed. 16 READINGS MONTHLY FEBRUARY 2015 Picture Books COUNT WITH MAISIE, CHEEP, CHEEP, CHEEP! MIGLOO'S DAY Lucy Cousins William Bee Walker Books. HB. $19.95 Walker Books. HB. $24.95 Count from one to ten with Maisy in A cast of many is introduced in this this farmyard game of hide-and-seek! very busy ‘find it’ book and It’s bedtime, but where have all of children with patience and a keen eye Mummy Hen’s chicks gone? Maisy is will have plenty of fun with it. Migloo is soon on the case to search for them, a little dog who goes exploring in and you can help too! Lift the flaps Sunnytown, visiting lots of different along the way to see who’s hiding in places that will appeal to children and the stable, in the tractor, or up in the apple tree. Cluck, meeting many people with different jobs. cluck, cheep, cheep - find all ten chicks and make sure He is very enthusiastic and his wagging tail is even translated they get home safely! into human language! There is much to look for, including occupations to match with the characters at the start of the book, as well as extra puzzles at the end of the book. This Junior Fiction may be an activity book but young kids will also learn a lot as they pore over the colourful illustrations. Children 2 and up LEROY NINKER SADDLES UP will be very well entertained. Kate DiCamillo & Chris Van Dusen (illus.) Alexa Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn Walker Books. HB. $19.95 Leroy dreams of being a AS AN OAK TREE GROWS cowboy; he’s got a hat, a lasso G. Brian Karas and boots – everything except Penguin. HB. $24.99 something to ride! So when Maybelline, an old horse with few, The 200 year history of a tree yet specific, needs (lots of love, may seem a little dull, but believe compliments and food) comes into me this picture book is a gorgeous his life, it’s the beginning of a introduction to history and nature. beautiful relationship! From a seedling planted in 1775 by a But disaster strikes when the little boy, every 25 years we see the forgetful Leroy is remiss with his true love’s care and so, development of the tree and the like any good cowboy, he must rescue the horse of his surrounding land as it becomes a busy dreams. riverside town. The only consistent things are the house next to the tree, the church and the river and watching the Full of fun illustrations, this gorgeous little treat is for seasons change and the advances in transportation, younger readers who’ve graduated to chapter books. communication and even occupations is magical. The oak, Best of all, it’s the first in the series, Tales from Deckawoo withstanding all manner of progress and weather, steadfast Drive. (Readers may also recognise familiar characters and majestic, is like a guardian angel over the town. I loved from the delightful Mercy Watson books.) I loved this this book and spent a long time enjoying the details of the humorous tale of friendship, love and dreaming big. ever-changing landscape. It’s a history lesson that is fun Kate DiCamillo, the only author to win the prestigious and while interest is aroused you could also introduce the Newberry award twice, has once again woven her magic Little House On the Prairie series as a read aloud or Jeannie words into a story any child is sure to love. Highly Bakers’ fantastic Window and Belonging picture books. For recommended for ages 6 and up and a wonderful read 3 and up. AD aloud for the whole family. Athina Clarke is from Readings Malvern ARMADILLO IN PARIS Julie Kraulis THE JOLLEY-ROGERS AND THE Tundra. HB. $29.99 GHOSTLY GALLEON Arlo is an armadillo who is always Jonny Duddle up for adventure. His grandfather, Koala Books. PB. $11.99 Augustin, loved adventure too. The small town of Dull-on-Sea When Arlo was born, Augustin is ransacked by pirates every full wrote travel journals about his moon, baffling the police force and favourite places for Arlo to use throwing its inhabitants into panic. when he was old enough to go Matilda enlists the assistance of her exploring on his own. When Arlo reads about Paris and best friend, Jim Lad, a pirate from the the mysterious La Dame de Fer, or Iron Lady, he decides Jolley-Rogers, to put an end to this it’s time to strike out on his first adventure. He travels to situation. Matilda and the crew of the France and, guided by Augustin’s journal, discovers the Jolley-Rogers are soon caught up in a joys of Paris: eating a flakey croissant at a café, visiting the swashbuckling adventure involving marauding, ghostly Louvre, walking along the Seine and, of course, meeting pirates with a dastardly plan. This is a fun, easy-to-read the Iron Lady... But who is she? Each spread has a clue chapter book for junior readers. With illustrations on every about her identity, and kids will see hints of her scattered page, this laugh-out-loud adventure is guaranteed to throughout the book. This book is like a gorgeous stroll entertain. Recommended for ages 7 and up. AC through Paris with an adorable new friend – a stroll you’ll want to take again and again. DOUBLE DARE YOU: ELLA DIARIES 1 AND THE BAND PLAYED Meredith Costain & Danielle McDonald WALTZING MATILDA Scholastic. PB. $6.99 Eric Bogle & Bruce Whatley (illus.) It’s a new school year, and everything A&U. HB. $24.95 is perfect. Ella has a new uniform, The iconic song about the Battle of glittery stationery and can’t wait to Gallipoli, written by Eric Bogle in 1972 meet her new teacher. Until class at the height of the anti-war movement, starts, that is – and everything goes re-imagined by esteemed children’s wrong. She can’t believe she has to sit illustrator Bruce Whatley. ‘But the band next to her absolute worst enemy ever, played “Waltzing Matilda” when we Peach Parker! No matter how far she stopped to bury our slain. We buried moves her pencil case across the desk, Peach is in her ours, and the Turks buried theirs; then we started all over space. Where’s her BFF Zoe? Can this year get any again.’ Eric Bogle’s famous and familiar Australian song worse? Tune into the secret thoughts of Ella as she about the Battle of Gallipoli explores the futility of war battles the school bully and turns a lunchtime curse into with haunting power. Now Bruce Whatley’s evocative a lunchtime craze! illustrations bring a heart-rending sense of reality to the tale. READINGS MONTHLY FEBRUARY 2015 17

Book of the Month THE PILOT AND THE LITTLE PRINCE Peter Sis Pushkin Press. HB. $24.99 Peter Sis is one of the most extraordinary and talented author–illustrators working today. Born in Czechoslovakia and now residing in the US, Sis is an artist with a penchant for incredible detail who writes from real life. His stunning Caldecott Honor book, Tibet Through the Red Box, is the story of his father’s journey to Tibet. Sis has also created picture book biographies of Charles Darwin, Galileo and Columbus. He now turns his attention to the life of author and pilot, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. particularly those with morbid fascinations. Perfect for There are three levels of text that invite exploration. The main narrative is a bare bones ages 8 and up. biography of Saint-Exupéry’s life, from his birth in 1900 during the early days of aviation Kim Gruschow is from Readings Hawthorn history to his mysterious death while flying 44 years later. In between, the story traverses his involvement in the beginnings of air mail, two world wars and the writing of many books. DARKMOUTH The second, italicised narrative provides more detail to the story, and embedded within the illustrations themselves are many fascinating tidbits. Just when you think the pages might Shane Hegarty become too busy, you’ll turn the page to an exquisite double-page illustration. HarperCollins. PB. $19.99 Suitable for readers aged from 5 years right through to adults, this is a truly marvellous A monstrously funny debut from the new book. Those interested in biography and the history of flight will be particularly star of middle-grade adventure. Legends intrigued. Peter Sis admirers, old and new, will be thrilled that he has captured (also known as terrifying, human-eating the essence of such a fascinating adventurer in his inimitable style. monsters) have invaded the town of Darkmouth and aim to conquer the world. Angela Crocombe is from Readings Carlton But don't panic! The last remaining Legend Hunter – Finn – will protect us. Finn: 12 years-old, loves animals, not a natural fighter, but tries really, really hard, and we all know good intentions are the best weapons against a hungry Minotaur, right? On second thoughts, panic. Panic now! PENNYROYAL ACADEMY LETTERS TO LEO M. A. Larson Amy Hest & Julia Denos (illus.) Putnam. HB. $19.99 Candlewick Press. PB. $16.95 Pennyroyal Academy: Seeking bold, The joys and trials of fourth grade – and courageous youths to become tomorrow's of life with her father now that her New princesses and knights ... Come one, come mother is gone – play out in charming all! A girl from the forest, with no name letters from Annie to her dog, Leo. and no idea why she is there, arrives in a Genuine and funny, Amy Hest’s first- bustling kingdom only to find herself at the person narration revisits a winning centre of a world at war. She enlists at young character as she takes on a new Pennyroyal Academy, where princesses year – and a new dog – with humour, Kids’ and knights are trained to battle the two great menaces of honesty, and resilience. the day: witches and dragons. There, given the name 'Evie,' she must endure a harsh training regimen under the steely glare of her Fairy Drill-sergeant, while also navigating an Middle Fiction entirely new world of friends and enemies. As Evie learns what it truly means to be a princess, she realises surprising BEYOND THE LAUGHING SKY Books things about herself and her family, about human Michelle Cuevas & Julie Morstad (illus.) compassion and inhuman cruelty. And with the witch forces Dial Books. HB. $19.99 find yourself laughing out loud while reading Arthur’s moving nearer, she discovers that the war between This is a small gem of a novel funny, upbeat story. And that’s surprising given that he’s princesses and witches is much more personal than she which, with graceful, sensitive recently lost his mum. But what’s most unusual (and could ever have imagined. prose, opens up the possibilities that wonderfully refreshing) about this story is its lack of come with difference. It champions traditional narrative. Arthur’s life is revealed through his being true to yourself and learning to schoolwork: assignments, revealing essays, poems, live your one precious life. cartoons and drawings; emails to and from students and teachers; and his reading journal, in which he confides Classic of the Month Nashville hatched from an egg and he all. This is an incredibly funny and bittersweet story, is a boy with some birdlike features, a I CAPTURE THE CASTLE exploring big themes including identity, friendship, changeling who is loved by his family Dodie Smith discovering tolerance and making sense of loss. Highly and marvelled at by his community. Vintage. PB. Was $12.99 recommended for ages 9 and up. AC He understands nature, particularly birds, but he feels $9.99 constrained by his humanness; he yearns to be free and THE 9 LIVES OF ALEXANDER Cassandra Mortmain lives in you want to weep at his sweet oddness. If you like your BADDENFIELD a crumbling castle in the tales to be a little bit eccentric with a touch of magic English countryside with her John Bemelmans Marciano & Sophie Blackall then this lyrical gift of a story is for you. As the good eccentric family. Life seems to her (illus.) folk of Nashville’s town say ‘there ain’t nothing that’s as though it’s just rolling on slowly Puffin. PB. $9.99 impossible’. For ages 8 to 11. AD – then the Cottons arrive. A Alexander Baddenfield is a wealthy American family, they A YEAR IN THE LIFE OF A TOTAL dreadful and cruel young boy have just inherited the nearby AND COMPLETE GENIUS from a family of rich yet historically Hall. Stacey Matson ill-fated villains. He manages to steal I Capture the Castle is a beautiful Scholastic. PB. $12.99 his cat’s nine lives and, emboldened and sweet coming of age novel, written when Smith was by his improved odds, he embarks on Arthur Bean is no shrinking living in California during World War II. Smith’s own a series of reckless adventures, violet. The exceptionally bright homesickness and nostalgia seeps through, creating a hastily clocking up deaths. Each 13-year-old boastfully broadcasts his delicate and tender picture of a place and time that was chapter is a dangerous and tragic extraordinary abilities, especially his already ceasing to exist even as she was writing about it. adventure: there’s electrocution, outstanding literary talents. If you Cassandra’s voice is so strong throughout that it cannot drowning, a killer python and a hare-brained flight think he sounds like a challenging be possible to finish this novel and not feel as though a attempt from the top of the Empire State Building. It’s a personality, you’d be right. He has one friend has been found for life. hilarious read, enriched with brilliant gothic friend and is too blunt and tactless to illustrations by Sophie Blackall and, like any good Isobel Moore is from Readings St Kilda make any new ones. However, you’ll cautionary tale, will be very appealing to children, 18 READINGS MONTHLY FEBRUARY 2015

New Music down for a 5-piece band. We knew these New Classical Music songs extremely well. It was all done live. Maybe one or two takes. No overdubbing. No vocal booths. No headphones. No Album of the Month separate tracking, and, for the most part, BEETHOVEN: COMPLETE mixed as it was recorded. ’ PIANO SONATAS (8 CDS) MODERN BLUES Maurizio Pollini GIRLS IN PEACETIME WANT TO DANCE DG. 4794120. $64.95 Waterboys Belle & Sebastian Winning the 1960 $21.95 $21.95 International When I was asked to write this review I couldn’t help Chopin Piano In true Waterboys style, a indulging in nostalgia for the time I lived in Glasgow. It was Competition in Warsaw at spirit of exploration defines the ’90s and the popular book/music shop where I worked in the hip West End was the age of 18 kicked off an the album. Few bands have a revolving door of established and soon-to-be cultural icons, both literary and extraordinary career for Italian pianist changed as much as this one. musical – think Alasdair Gray, Irvine Welsh, Teenage Fanclub and The Pastels.I Maurizio Pollini. His recording of Formed in 1983, on their first once served John Peel, or, rather, his minder on behalf of Mr Peel, who was Beethoven’s piano sonatas began in the three albums, The Waterboys sculpted a standing in the background. You get the picture, and yes, I am bragging a little! mid-1970s with an award-winning reading layered post-punk sound, culminating in Enter Belle & Sebastian. They were hardly more than a twinkle in the Scottish of the late sonatas, and he only completed 1985’s sky-scraping This is the Sea. Since music scene’s eye yet without the help of social media had already sold out of the cycle (32 in total) in 2014. Pollini is then, their music has never ceased to evolve the 1000 copy vinyl pressing of their debut album, Tigermilk, and people were famous for crisp, clear precision, a – from the hugely influential mix of Celtic clamouring for more. I still can’t believe that was 18 years ago. They were regular dazzling technique and lightning speeds, folk, gospel, country and rock on the classic customers who came to listen to, buy and enthuse about music. I suspect no one but never to the point of obfuscating the Fisherman’s Blues, to the fired-up poetic in the band would have predicted what was to follow – but who does? I remember emotional intensity of these magnificent passion of An Appointment with Mr Yeats. hearing them for the first time in a small venue where the audience sat on the works. He has been accused of clinical Modern Blues is an electric, eclectic, soulful, floor, cross-legged and captivated. It’s a completely different story now, with intellectual detachment, but even a bold and gloriously freewheeling rock‘n’roll sell-out concerts worldwide, but to me their music retains a touch of innocence cursory listen to the Adagio sostenuto record. from those early days. Their fans are still enthralled and fiercely loyal; they’ve just movement of the ‘Hammerklavier’ and the collected more and more along their extraordinary journey. opening movement of the ‘Moonlight’ ANOTHER DAY ANOTHER render such assessments ridiculous. Belle & Sebastian have always passionately embraced their musical and artistic TIME influences and their long-awaited ninth studio album, Girls in Peacetime Want Pollini’s ‘Appassionata’ is particularly to Dance, is no exception. The range of the album is indicative of how much they Various noteworthy, and I have never recovered enjoy challenging themselves as musicians and, consequently, the band’s evolution. 2CD $34.95 from seeing him perform it at Carnegie Opening track ‘Nobody’s Empire’ is lyrically the most personal and from there A one-night-only concert Hall in 2013, during which I was on the you’ll find everything from dancefloor number ‘The Party Line’,infused with an was held at the New York edge of my seat. This is a masterful set that ’80s electro-pop sensibility, to ‘Cat With the Cream’, a beautiful ballad with lush City Town Hall late in 2013 is both an excellent starting point and an strings and vocal harmonies. They have even dared to set a song about Sylvia Plath, to celebrate the music of the essential complement to other core cycles. ‘Enter Sylvia Plath’, to a wonderful, driving disco beat! It may come as a surprise to Coen brothers’ film Inside And priced at $64.95, it’s an absolute steal. some fans that this album is so danceable, but the superbly crafted songs are still Llewyn Davis. This album features Lisa MacKinney is from Readings Hawthorn full of their trademark style. Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance is a story about love, performances by The Secret Sisters, Lake and life, but it’s also a joyous celebration of ‘pop’ power. Street Dive, The Milk Carton Kids, STRAVINSKY: CONCERTO Rhiannon Giddens, Punch Brothers, Joan Judi Mitchell is from Readings Carlton FOR PIANO AND WIND Baez and Elvis Costello, The Avett Brothers, ORCHESTRA Colin Meloy, Marcus Mumford, Conor Oberst, Willie Watson, Gillian Welch, and Jean-Efflam Bavouzet In practice, Jones became a new band Jack White. Chandos. CHSA5147. $29.95 member during the months of rehearsing, Country On his latest recording and he is a guest on a couple of tracks. The pianist Jean-Efflam Third is a unique, self-penned studio album SYLVIE Bavouzet (who toured ABSENT FATHERS that sets Kitty, Daisy & Lewis apart from Sylvie Simmons Australia in late 2014) Justin Townes Earle anyone else today. The stories in this album $19.95 explores the complete $21.95 resonate with moods and melodies that works for piano and touch you in ways that are both uplifting The label Light In The orchestra of one of the greatest and unnerving. With three different writers Attic has an impeccable Absent Fathers was composers of the twentieth century: Igor and multi-instrumentalists in the band, reputation for uncovering recorded alongside Single Stravinsky. Beginning with the expressive each track is a sparkling gem that reflects a rare and precious albums Mothers, the critically and weighty ‘Concerto for Piano and different facet of experience. from the past. Their acclaimed album released Wind Instruments’ a work that Bavouzet latest release, Sylvie, is in September 2014. The considers one of the greatest concertos of the debut album by esteemed writer and two were originally THE PHOSPHORESCENT the twentieth century, the listener is Leonard Cohen biographer Sylvie conceived as a double album, but as Townes BLUES quickly drawn into this work with its Simmons. It is haunting and out-of-time, Earle began to sequence it, he felt each half Punch Brothers strong rhythms and polyphony and but it is also a brand-new album, by a needed to make its own statement and they $21.95 Bavouzet quickly sets the tone of this singer-writer who has been making music took on their own identities. These two After working with fascinating new recording. Next the since she was a little girl but just for albums perfectly showcase exactly why T-Bone Burnett numerous ‘Capriccio’, a piece that Stravinsky herself. The raw, delicate, and sensual Justin Townes Earle is considered a times – most recently on composed as a repertoire alternative to songs about love and love gone wrong are forefather of contemporary Americana. the soundtrack for the his concerto. This is followed by the performed on a ukulele, which here Joel and Ethan Coen film antitonal, twelve-tone idiom of sounds like a broken harp or a Inside Llewyn Davis ‘Movements’ which represents Pop heartbroken guitar. – they decided to join forces with the Stravinsky’s experiments in the use of multiple Grammy Award–winning I LOVE YOU HONEYBEAR serial techniques. And the final work is THE THIRD producer for their new record. Thile Petrushka. Here the piano is not a solo Father John Misty explains one of the ways the music on The instrument but rather part of the Kitty, Daisy & Lewis $19.95 Was $21.95 Phosphorescent Blues reflects the band’s orchestral fabric. Moreover, Bavouzet view of modern life. himself has described blending in with Joshua Tillman is back the fortissimos of the orchestra as ‘one of SHADOWS IN THE NIGHT with I Love You the best musical experiences of my life’. Kitty, Daisy & Lewis have Bob Dylan Honeybear, his second spent the last three years release under the Father $21.95 THE FLATTERER: CECILE writing songs and building John Misty moniker. The CHAMINADE PIANO a new 16-track analogue songs are a narration of Upon the announcement MUSIC studio. Once they got their Josh Tillman’s experience of falling in love, of the album’s forthcoming hands on their new studio space, they knew which he says ‘means different things to Joanne Polk release, Bob Dylan that they wanted to take the third album to different people, but which I found Steinway & Sons. STNS30037. $29.95 commented, ‘I’ve wanted another level with the songwriting, style incredibly inspiring, personally and Joanne Polk, noted to do something like this and production. An early fan, Mick Jones creatively.’ What came out is something pianist and champion of for a long time but was (The Clash) was keen to get involved, and meticulous but natural, dense but still music by female never brave enough to approach 30-piece as producer he immediately started weekly spacious. composers, makes her rehearsals, learning and playing the songs. complicated arrangements and refine them debut on the Steinway READINGS MONTHLY FEBRUARY 2015 19

recreated in González’s ‘Preludio’. On collaborative process. This release Classical Album of the Month his third recording on the Naxos label coincides with Ian Bostridge’s new book Chilean guitarist Jose Antonio Escobar on ‘Winterreise’, Schubert’s Winter takes the listener on a joyous ride and Journey: Anatomy of an Obsession (see GABRIEL FAURÉ: REQUIEM OP. 48 his playing is a delight from beginning to review on page 12). GOUNOD: AVE VERUM IN E FLAT end. This recording is definitely one to MAJOR/ LES SEPT PAROLES DU savour. CHRIST SUR LA CROI Herve Niquet/Flemish Radio Choir SCHUBERT: 3 SONG Classical Special Evil Penguin. EPRC015. $27.95 CYCLES (3CDS + DVD) Fauré’s Requiem is masterpiece. Robust as it is intimate, the combination of Ian Bostridge RICHARD WAGNER – choir, soloists, organ, and orchestra creates astonishing dramatic impact. Warner. 2564620418. $32.95 GREAT RECORDINGS Fauré worked on the setting over a thirteen-year period, during which time it Particularly renowned (40 CDS) received at least three performances. The original five-movement version, titled for his insightful and Un Petit Requiem, was performed at an architect’s funeral, conducted by the sensitive performances, Various composer and with treble soloist in the famous ‘Pie Jesu’. acclaimed tenor Ian Sony. MSWK543504.2. Was $149.95 Bostridge is on fine $39.95 (while stocks last) ‘Robust as it is intimate, the combination of choir, soloists, organ, and form in these three This 40CD box set major Schubert song cycles. Alongside orchestra creates astonishing dramatic impact.’ contains complete his affecting interpretation of ‘Die operas and recitals schöne Müllerin’ and deeply felt This new recording, conducted by Hervé Niquet and featuring the Flemish Radio alongside orchestral ‘Winterreise’ is his celebrated recording Choir and Brussels Philharmonic, seems closer to the second iteration of the works and piano of ‘Schwanengesang’, which won golden work, complete with seven movements and larger orchestral and choral forces. transcriptions. Features opinions for its ‘marvellously haunting There are some unusual features, the most obvious being a group of sopranos recordings of legendary artists such as expression’ (Gramophone). This three- performing ‘Pie Jesu’, which is usually the preserve of either soprano or treble Kirsten Flagstad, Lauritz Melchior, Helen disc set includes a bonus DVD of soloist. However, different doesn’t necessarily mean worse, and the fullness of Traubel & Gösta Winbergh as well as ‘Winterreise’ with pianist Julius Drake, women’s sound, while without the purity of a single voice, lends a lusciousness more recent recordings featuring such this is a unique dramatisation of to the movement it often otherwise lacks. Baritone Andrew Foster-Williams gives leading artists as Leonard Bernstein, Schubert’s terrifying and deeply-moving his operatic all in ‘Libera Me’, a highlight of the work and of this particular CD. Herbert van Karajan, Lorin Maazel, portrayal of human desolation. Studio The recording occasionally features idiosyncratic Latin pronunciation, which is Zubin Mehta and many more. Also sets, actors, costumes and props lead the again a difference rather than a deficit. included is the complete Ring Cycle song cycle a new close-up dynamism, conducted by Marek Janowski. The following ‘Ave Verum’ and ‘Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross’, both extend its interpretative possibilities by Gounod, although less grand than the Fauré, are still dramatic and grave, and uncover fresh allusion and meaning. exquisitely performed by the Flemish Radio Choir. The absence of orchestra Also included on the DVD is the highlights the precision and delicious blend of the choir, and their capacity for documentary film Over the Top with well-controlled dynamic variation. Franz. This documentary illuminates the If you are a stickler for the pure, English brand of choral music, this is not the difficulties of bringing ‘Winterreise’ to recording for you. However if, like me, you love the sound of a full-bodied choir the screen. Focusing on the developing with a luscious soprano section balanced out by a dramatic and weighty bass, relationships of the artists, from first then your record collection is not complete without this fantastic CD. rehearsal to final day of filming, this is a Alexandra Mathew is from Readings Carlton rare and humorous insight into the label with this irresistible collection of discoveries in an old family chest, some Cécile Chaminade’s piano works. are still familiar to us now. The melody Coming of age in Paris in the second half of the Elvis Presley hit ‘Love Me Tender,’ of the 19th century, Cécile Chaminade’s for example, can be traced back to the major models were Berlioz, Meyerbeer, mid-19th-century tune ‘Aura Lea,’ while DID YOU KNOW…? Gounod, Bizet and Franck – all ‘Shall We Gather at the River?’ and renowned composers of serious Stephen Foster’s ‘Hard Times’ remain THE DECCA SOUND Romantic music. When she reached her standards in the American treasury of The Mono Years own compositional maturity in the song. With this release, Anonymous 4 70 years ago, amidst 1880s, she made her first mark writing in completes a trilogy of Americana war-time privations, genres associated with these recognised recordings, begun with ‘American a small team at Decca masters. Yet her true voice emerged Angels’ and ‘Gloryland’. As with their made technological breakthroughs that later, writing smaller character pieces previous Americana albums, brought hi-fi to the world. for piano. Her so-called ‘salon’ pieces Anonymous 4 – sought out This is its story told over are the same kind of short works that collaboration within the folk music 53 CDs recorded from Brahms and Chopin made popular – community. The featured guest on 1865 1944–56 (with original sleeves) encased in a many are true virtuoso works, equal in is Bruce Molsky, whose fiddle, banjo, luxury box. technical difficulty to any of the concert guitar and vocals are a galvanising etudes of Chopin or Liszt. Based on this presence. This is their final recording small collection of Chaminade’s music, after nearly 30 years together. PRE-ORDER NOW and RECEIVE A BOXED we can only wonder why she has had to SET “MUSIC OF THE MONARCHS” wait so long to be admitted to the GUITAR MUSIC OF * pantheon of great French Romantic COLUMBIA ABSOLUTELY FREE *only while stock lasts, so hurry and place your pre-order with Readings now! composers. Jose Antonio Escobar Naxos. 8573059. $14.95 1865: SONGS OF HOPE DIANA KRALL Colombia’s thriving Wallflower AND HOME-SONGS OF cultural heritage derives Diana Krall tells the story of the music that meant so THE AMERICAN CIVIL from Spanish, African much to her as she was growing up including WAR and Amerindian California Dreamin’, Desperado, Don’t Dream It’s Over Anonymous 4 elements. The rich blend and other songs that of colour and rhythmic vitality found in are so much part of Harmonia Mundi. HMU807549. $29.95 everyone’s lives. the synthesis of dance forms and styles, The songs of the Civil notably the sharply accented Andean War era tell a story about bambuco (‘pursuit dance’), the flowing, #ESCAPE life in volatile times, with graceful pasillo and the traditional, What’s your perfect escape? Here is music to chill, the feelings evoked by the relax and detox to: William Orbit, club DJ Schiller, rhythmic guabina, recurs throughout music and lyrics – Ólafur Arnalds, Norah Jones join you for your this programme. Poignant longing and grief, faith summer at the beach, for your ideal getaway. expressiveness and intricate virtuosity and patriotism, nostalgia and hope – are features of Montaña’s ‘Suite utterly resonant for us even 150 years Colombiana’ Nos. 2 and 3. Saboya’s ‘Suite after the conflict’s end. These are deeply Ernestina’ includes characteristically human feelings, universal and timeless. South American melodies and rhythms, While many of these songs are like while Caribbean rhythmic patterns are