Free n o v e m b e r 2009 Readings Monthly

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The Mind and Times of Reg Mombassa : Event p 3 November book, CD & DVD new releases. More new releases inside.

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November Event Highlights at Readings. See more events inside. anne manne drawing a line mungo stephanie At readings At state library maccallum dowrick hawthorn of victoria At cinema nova At readings hawthorn

All shops except SLV open 7 days. SLV closed Sundays. Carlton 309 Lygon St 9347 6633 Hawthorn 701 Glenferrie Rd 9819 1917 Malvern 185 Glenferrie Rd 9509 1952. Port Melbourne 253 Bay St 9681 9255 St Kilda 112 Acland St 9525 3852 State Library of Victoria 328 Swanston Street 8664 7540 email [email protected] Find information about our shops, check event details and browse or shop online at www.readings.com.au

The first man to speak our language

A beautiful new volume of Afferbeck Lauder’s collected works STRINE TEXTPUBLISHING.COM.AU 2 Readings Monthly November 2009

From the Editor Something Wild ThisPenguins Naughty Month’sAndersen, PB, $19.95); News and Hunger Games as Muller's best novel, The Land of Green (Suzanne Collins, Scholastic, PB, $18.99). Plums (Granta, PB) is a beautifully written The long-awaited film version But Nice and unflinching portrayal of life under the of Maurice Sendak’s children’s Banned Book Week is an oslo's Annoying Life totalitarian regime of Ceausescu's Romania. classic Where The Wild Things annual event that takes place Hurrah! Angst returns to the The Passport(Serpents Tail, PB), Muller’s first Are (Red Fox, PB, $19.95; in the last week of September gallery walls! Oslo Davis’ first work to be released in English, is a beautiful, Random, HB, $34.95) is across the US. It commemo- major solo exhibition, titled haunting novel whose subject is a German finally here – and the author rates the benefits of intellec- ‘This Annoying Life’, opens village in Romania caught between the sti- has been doing the rounds of tual freedom and draws this month at Lamington fling hopelessness of Ceausecu's dictatorship US television, newspapers and attention to the harms of Drive gallery. Oslo will and the glittering temptations of the West. magazines, along with filmmakers Spike Jonze censorship by highlighting exhibit a collection of his new Muller's most recent book to be translated, and Dave Eggers. ‘In plain terms, a child is a books that have been banned or been the and used cartoons, many of The Appointment will also soon be available. complicated creature who can drive you crazy,’ subject of banning attempts. This year, which have appeared in The Age, Meanjin, Keep an eye on our shelves for these books. Sendak told Associated Press. ‘There’s a cruelty Penguin Australia noted Banned Books Week and the Sleepers Almanac. A centre piece will to childhood, there’s an anger. And I did not on its Facebook page, along with the fact that be a brand new cartoon Oslo’s done for Going TUESDAY want to reduce Max to the trite image of the 56 of the 100 titles on the ALA’s Banned-and- Down Swinging. This will be a great chance to good little boy that you find in too many Challenged-Classics list are available from PHILOSOPHY CLUB see (and buy) Oslo originals, prints and books.’ He told Jonze: ‘You have to just make Penguin. Ah, irony ... two weeks later, We meet at 11am every second and fourth rarely-seen sketches and cartoons. Opening something bold and not pander to children Australia Post proved that censorship of books Tuesday of the month at Readings Port 6pm, Thursday 19 November at Lamington and make something that’s as dangerous for is not, as we might imagine, something that Melbourne. Our topics for discussion vary Drive, 89 George St Fitzroy. Running until its time as the book was in its time.’ When the we in Australia can exclaim over from afar, or and are set by the members twice each year. December 23. www.lamingtondrive.com book was published, in 1963, it won the remember sagely. On 15 October, Crikey We welcome new members who have a pas- Caldecott medal, and went on to sell ten reported that two weeks earlier (ie. during sion for discussion and thought. For more million copies. It was controversial for its Banned Books Week), staff at 848 Australia A Stylish Booker Win information contact Greg on 96817441 or portrayal of childhood as a tempestuous Post outlets nationwide were ordered to pull As most readers will know by email [email protected]. rather than a whimsical place, and for its three Popular Penguin titles from their shelves now, Hilary Mantel won this frankly scary journey into the wilds of a child’s after ‘customer complaints’. The offending year’s Man Booker Prize for READINGS CHRISTMAS imagination (and back to real life, in time for books were Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, The Wolf Hall (Harper Collins, SHOPPING NIGHT tea). Sendak says Max ‘wouldn’t be invited to History of Sexuality by Michel Foucault and PB, $32.99), her story about Shop early for Christmas, enter the draw to Winnie the Pooh’s house – and if he had been, The Delta of Venus by Anais Nin (all Penguin, Henry VIII and Anne, told win an Annie’s Lane hamper, and save at the he wouldn’t have gone’. He told Newsweek PB, $9.95). Interestingly, though – as Crikey from the point of view of annual Readings Shopping Night. To thank that the sanitised world of Disney is ‘terrible’ pointed out – Lady Chatterley’s Lover (D.H. Thomas Cromwell. Post- you for your support throughout 2009 we for children and, asked what he’d say to Lawrence), another Popular Penguin, and the decision, Booker judge John Mullan declared are offering 20% off all full-priced books parents who complain the film Wild Things is subject of a famous 1960s ban in Australia, on the Guardian’s blog: ‘I love it not for its and CDs and 10% off all full-priced DVDs too scary, he says: ‘I would tell them to go to escaped censorship. An Australia Post subject, but its style … Mantel has not so currently in stock in all shops, except our new hell. That’s a question I will not tolerate.’ spokesperson told Crikey the books were much rewritten history as unstitched it, shop at the State Library. One night only: What a man! Dave Eggers, whose novelisation ‘inappropriate for a mainstream shop like returning the explanations that historians are Wednesday 25 November, 6–8pm. Subscrib- of the film is out this month (Wild Things, Australia Post’. Sigh. Here’s hoping the ban bound to offer to the sheer contingency of ers will be mailed the Summer Reading Guide Hamish Hamilton, HB, $35), recalls his first will entice some curious buyers into sampling human hunches and human reactions … by Friday 20 November, so get your Christ- experience of the book: ‘My mother thought the forbidden fruits of these bestselling Intellectually, its appeal is that it plays off mas shopping list ready for Shopping Night. I would love it, because I was that barbaric kid classics. our knowledge of this well-known story, so The Summer Reading Guide will be inserted in that Maurice was talking about – really hyper we know that such a brilliant novelist could The Age on Thursday 26 November. and wild. But it scared me, mainly because Win naughty penguins retell the same story any number of ways.’ of the nuances of the monsters. It just wasn't For your chance to win all three of the Popu- DECember/JANuary clear if they were good or bad, if they were lar Penguins Australia Post don't want you nobel winner Herta Readings Monthly going to eat Max or not.’ to read (or see on their shelves), courtesy of Muller in English The December/January edition of Readings Penguin, simply answer this question: Which The works of Nobel Prize winner Herta Monthly will be inserted in The Age again reading The Reader Philip Roth novel was famously banned from Muller are making their way back into Eng- on Tuesday 8 December and will be mailed The Emerging Writers Festival has moved import or sale in Australia in 1969? Email lish following her win, as publishers move to only to regional and interstate customers on into publishing. The Reader (PB, $24.95), the your answer with ‘Naughty Penguins’ in the reprint editions of her work. Widely regarded Monday 23 November. first of what festival director David Ryding subject header and your name, addresss and a hopes will be an annual affair, is an impressive contact phone number in the email to clare. (and attractive) publication. It’s packed with [email protected]. engaging, entertaining and informative writ- ing about ... well ... writing. The 40-plus con- Inky Awards tributors are a great mix, too, with recently The State Library of Victoria’s Centre for established writers like Steven Amsterdam (on Youth Literature has announced the shortlist workshops), Krissy Kneen (on ‘not writing for their annual awards, The Inkys. Longlists about sex’) and Kathy Charles (on shameless of ten Australian books and ten international self-promotion) alongside still ‘emerging’ and books are chosen by CYL staff, then a panel first-time writers. Talking about the genesis of six judges decides a shortlist. Readers then of the book, Ryding says, ‘We looked at what vote for their favourite book and a winner will the festival did – which is, in essence, writers be announced on Thursday 6 November. The talking to other writers, and looked for anoth- contenders for the Golden Inky (Australia) er avenue for that.’ Taken together, the pieces are: Broken Glass (Adrian Stirling, Penguin, on writing are like a group of passionate, like- PB, $19.95); Where the Streets had a Name minded people sitting at a pub having a frank, (Randa Abdel-Fattah, Pan, PB, $16.99); often funny, ultimately productive chat about Jarvis 24 (David Metzenthen, Penguin, PB, their craft – only, they’ve come prepared with $19.95); Worldshaker (Richard Harland, really, really good lines. ‘Everyone just wants A&U, PB, $17.99); Everything Beautiful to know how to get published, but there’s a (Simmone Howell, Pan, PB, $16.99). The thousand different stories on how to do that. contenders for the Silver Inky (International) The festival’s a place where people can discuss are: Exposure (Mal Peet, Walker, PB, $16.95); them. And hopefully it’s enjoyable. I didn’t re- Paper Towns (John Green, Harper Collins, ally want a book that was all writer’s exercises, PB, $15.99); Skim (Mariko and Jillian Tama- “ On the up side, no more independently-published short story collections.” because that would be quite crap.’ ki, Walker, PB, $24.95); The Absolutely True —Jo Case Diary of a Part-Time Indian (Sherman Alexie, Oslo Davis www.oslodavis.com

CINEMA NOVA RECOMMENDS ERIC BANA RACHEL McADAMS Book now, online or at From Oscar-nominated director of Shine, the cinema box office. Scott Hicks and based on the novel Clive Owen by Simon Carr. TheTime C I N E M A The Traveller’s BOYS Wife 380 LYGON ST CARLTON ARE BACK Based on the www.cinemanova.com.au bestselling novel by Join our e-news for updates on the Met Opera, OPENS NOV 5 Audrey Niffenegger. National Theatre and other stage spectaculars. NOVEMBEROPENS NOV 20 12 Readings Monthly November 2009 3

2 Stephanie Dowrick In the madness of Christmas, join us for a little quiet time with Stephanie Dowrick, EventsAll our Readings book and music eventsin are November and Mark Knight: editorial cartoonist Herald who will talk about her new book, In the free, unless otherwise stated. Bookings do not 16 Sun. Russ Radcliffe will chair the evening. Company of Rilke (Inspired Living, PB, $35). guarantee a seat, but rather indicate to us the Frank Camorra Thursday 26 November, 6.30pm, Village Wednesday 2 December, 6.30pm, Read- number of people to expect. To see more events Dinner Roadshow Theatrette, State Library of ings Hawthorn. Free, but please book on or for updates on new events, please visit the Victoria, Entry 3, Latrobe Street, Mel- 9819 1917. Standing room only. events page at www.readings.com.au. We are able to offer a special bourne. Free, but please book on 9347 night at the new Movida 6633. restaurant, which will include 10 The Chaser Boys 4 a Spanish feast, drinks and a talk by acclaimed chef Frank 26 The blokes are back – come and get The Robert Forster Camorra about his new book Chaser Annual 2009 (Text, PB, $29.95), In The 10 Rules of Rock and Roll (Black Inc., Movida Rustica (Murdoch, Kelly Doust signed by the creators of chaos! Thursday 10 PB, $27.95), Robert Forster takes readers HB, $59.95). We all know Kelly’s book The Crafty Minx (Murdoch, December, 12pm, Readings Carlton. on an exhilarating trip through the past and that a booking at any Movida restaurant is HB, $39.95) is about making gorgeous present of popular music. Robert Forster was nearly impossible, but not tonight. Monday things from pre-loved, remnant and vintage a founding member of The Go-Betweens. 16 November, 6.30pm, Movida, 500 Burke items, written especially for non-crafters. His most recent solo album is The Evangelist. Street, Melbourne. $140 per person, which Join us over a glass of wine as Kelly shows us Wednesday 4 November, 6pm, Readings will include dinner, drinks and a signed copy how to create easy craft projects. Thursday Launches Carlton. Free, please book on 9347 6633. of Frank’s new book. Book at www.readings. 26 November, 6.30pm, Readings Port Frank Woodley will launch Parlour Games com.au or by calling Chris on 9341 7740. Melbourne. Free, but please book on 9681 for Modern Families (Scribe, PB, $35) by 9255. Myfanwy Jones and Spiri Tsintziras – a book 5 that sets out to revive the tradition of indoor Larissa Behrendt family games. Sunday 8 November, 2pm, 19 Readings Hawthorn. Free, no need to book. Larissa Behrendt is the Professor of Law and Maria Benardis 27 Director of Research at the Jumbunna Indig- My Greek Family Table (Lantern, HB, Catherine Deveny Join us – and Bruce – for the launch enous House of Learning at the University $39.95) is all about people, eating and shar- Join Catherine as she signs copies of her of Bruce Dawe: Life Cycle (Stephany Evans of Technology, Sydney. Join us as she talks ing. Join us for a nip of ouzo, some great latest collection: Free To A Good Home (Black Steggall, Ginninderra Press, PB, $30). Mon- about her latest novel, Legacy (UQP, PB, cooking tips and to meet the wonderful chef Inc., PB, $24.95). Friday 27 November, day 9 November, 6pm for 6.30pm, Readings $24.95). Thursday 5 November, 6.30pm, Maria. Thursday 19 November, 6.30pm, 1pm, Readings Carlton. Free, no need to Carlton. Free, no need to book. Readings Carlton. Free, but please book on book. Readings Port Melbourne. Free, but book- Ghassan Hage will launch Socialism and 9347 6633. ings essential on 9681 9255. Modernity (University of Minnesota Press, PB, $47.95), the prolific Peter Beilharz’s first 28 collection of essays, tracking his writing on 9 22 28 Ann James socialism and labour, culture and power over Gideon Haigh Where the Wild Join us as Ann James demonstrates the the past 20 years. Features jazz from the Andy in conversation Things Are! process of creating the illustrations for her Sugg Group. Tuesday 10 November, 6.30pm, with Chris Ryan Join us for a reading of Where new picture book Chester and Gill by Carol Readings Carlton. Free, no need to book. Gideon Haigh’s forthcoming the Wild Things Are, in Faulkner and Ann James (Scholastic, HB, Saturday 28 November, 2pm, Kevin Donnelly’s Australia’s Education Revo- book The Ashes 2009 (MUP, anticipation of the cinema $26.99). Readings Port Melbourne. lution: How Kevin Rudd Won and Lost the PB, $27.99) captures the release on 3 December. Kids: Education Wars (Connorcourt, PB, $29.95) season’s whip-sawing come dressed as your traces the rise and fall of Rudd’s policies. Dr fortunes, ready for readers favourite wild thing, or draw Kevin Donnelly is Director of The Educa- while the embers of the a picture of them and bring 30 tion Standards Institute. Tuesday 10 Novem- Ashes are still warm. Gideon it along. Prizes will be Reg Mombassa ber, 6.30pm, Readings Hawthorn. Free, no and Chris are two of awarded for the wildest wild thing. Plenty of Together with Palace need to book. Australia’s best known cricket writers. activities for the kids and a dose of nostalgia Theatres, we are pleased to be Monday 9 November, 6.30pm, Readings for the parents. Readings Port Melbourne: able to bring you artist and Arnold Zable will launch Left Unsaid (Margo Hawthorn. Free, but book on 9819 1917. Sunday 22 November, 11am. Free, but musician Reg Mombassa. O’Beirne), the story of Margo and her broth- please book on 9681 9255. Readings St Reg Mombassa is the er’s long wait for their missing mother and life Kilda: Saturday 28 November, 11am. Free, pseudonym of Chris in an institution during the 1950s and 60s. 11 but please book on 9525 3852. O’Doherty, founder and Wednesday 11 November, 6.30pm, Readings Anne Manne former member of Mental As Carlton. Free, no need to book. in conversation with Anything, member of Dog Trumpet and In Alzheimer’s: A Love Story (Scribe, PB, Raimond Gaita 26 artist. He is perhaps best known for his $32.95), Vivienne Ulman records with ten- irreverent designs for surfwear company At age seven, after her parents’ marriage had Jack Charles & der lyricism and searing honesty the progress Mambo. Monday 30 November, 6.30pm, broken down, Anne Manne travelled with Amiel Courtin-Wilson of her mother’s Alzheimer’s. Thursday 12 Palace Westgarth, Northcote. Free, but November, 6 for 6.30pm, Readings Carlton. her mother and sisters to the central Victo- To celebrate the DVD release of Bastardy please book on 9347 6633. rian countryside to begin a new life. So This ($39.95), please join us for a chat with Free, no need to book. is Life (MUP, HB, $34.99) is the story of the director and Jack Charles. Provocative, It's that time of year again. The 3CR Seeds what she learned. Wednesday 11 Novem- funny and profoundly moving, Bastardy is Of Dissent Calendar launch – our favourite ber, 6.30pm, Readings Hawthorn. Free, but the inspirational story of Jack Charles as party! Friday 13 November, 6.30pm, Read- please book on 9819 1917. he has juggled a life of crime with another ings Carlton. Free, no need to book. successful career – acting. Filmmaker Amiel December Events Courtin-Wilson followed Jack over seven 1 Join us for the launch of Peter Donovan’s 13 years. Thursday 26 November, 6.30pm to Mungo MacCallum 2012: Nibiru Rising (Zeus, PB, $25.95). 7pm, Readings Carlton. Free, but please Saturday 14 November, 4pm, Readings Port Sir Neville Marriner Mungo MacCallum has long been one of book on 9347 6633. Standing room only. Melbourne. Free, no need to book. The founder of the legendary Academy of Australia’s most influential and amusing po- St Martin in the Fields will be joining us litical journalists. His second Quarterly Essay, Peter Batchelor, the Victorian Minister for for a short talk and to sign CDs. He will be Australian Story: Kevin Rudd and the Lucky Communities, will launch Jenny Lewis’ third performing with the Melbourne Chamber 26 Country (Black Inc., PB, $16.95) is a charac- book, Connecting and Cooperating: Social Orchestra at the Melbourne Recital Centre, DRAWING A LINE teristically barbed and perceptive look at the Capital and Public Policy (New South, PB, 15–19 November. See page 19 for concert To celebrate the launch of challenges facing the Rudd government and $49.95). Tuesday 17 November, 6.30pm, details. Friday 13 November, 12.30– two great cartoon collections, Australia. Tuesday 1 December, 6.30pm, Readings Carlton. Free, no need to book. 1.15pm, Readings Carlton. Free, but please Cinema Nova, Carlton. Matt Golding’s new book Free, but please book Peter Davis’ Abraham’s Pictures (Hybrid, PB, book on 9347 6633. Three-Second Thoughts on 9347 6633. $32.95) will be launched by Alex Miller. (Scribe, PB, $27.95) and Sunday 22 November, 2.30pm, Readings Russ Radcliffe’s annual Best Hawthorn. Free, no need to book. 15 Australian Political Cartoons 2 Anna Pignataro 2009 (Scribe, PB, $29.95), a Jack Thompson Mick Gatto will launchThe Dark Side(Roger panel of cartoonists will talk about their Rogerson, PB, Kerr, $24.95), which tells the Anna Pignataro will read Australia’s most loved actor favourite political cartoons of the year, the story of Australia’s most famous ex-detective. Princess and Fairy: Most will be in the shop at difference between gag and political Wednesday 25 November, 6.30pm. Read- Charming Flower Girls exactly 5.30pm to sign cartooning, what makes a great cartoon, the ings Port Melbourne. Free, no need to book. (Scholastic, HB, $19.99), copies of his CD collection, sources of creativity in cartooning and with activities and prizes for The Bush Poems of A.B. Catherine Deveny's latest book, Free to a whatever else comes up. Joining us will be the most colourful flower (Banjo) Paterson ($19.95). Good Home (Black Inc., PB, $24.95) will Matt Golding, editorial cartoonist, Sunday girls. Sunday 15 November, Wednesday 2 December, 5.30pm, Read- contain all her best columns from the year. Age; Firstdogonthemoon (aka Andrew 11am, Readings Port ings Carlton. Free, no need to book. Thursday 26 November, 6–8pm, Bella Union Marlton): editorial cartoonist for crikey.com Melbourne. Free, but book on 9681 9255. Bar, Trades Hall. Free, no need to book. 4 Readings Monthly November 2009 New Australian Writing Feature A Multi-layered Treat Angela Meyer interviews Alex Miller about his latest novel, Lovesong

ity, empathy, and experience. ‘The imagi- nation is the ability to empathise,’ Miller tells me, ‘it’s the ability to – not necessarily LOVESONG consciously, quite unconsciously – find that Alex Miller you’re hugely sympathetic to someone else’s A&U. HB. situation. So much so, that you imagine a Normally $39.99. full realisation of it.’ In Lovesong, we not only Our special price $32.95 have an insight into this process (through Ken, an ageing Ken), but we are free to empathise with the writer, returns to characters in John and Sabiha’s story, and Melbourne from with Ken, this grieving, seeking writer who, Venice to find a when asked about himself says: ‘There’s not new addition to a lot to know. My life’s in my books.’ his neighbour- hood, a smart It also becomes unclear whose version of the pastry shop story we are actually experiencing. When I say called Figlia this, Miller smiles. ‘Well it’s a triple-play,’ he Fiorentino. says. ‘It’s very ambiguous.’ When Ken invites The proprietor is an attractive John and Sabiha for dinner, Sabiha insists: middle-aged dark woman: ‘We cook for our friends … you are part of North African, he assumes. our story now.’ Ken reads it a permission to Ken's life appears to be in limbo; write the story and it ‘enlivens his own imagi- his wife has died and he shares the nation and sensitivities towards Sabiha’. Ken family home with his 38-year-old likes to read her statement that way because daughter, professionally but not that’s what he wants out of it. emotionally successful. His most John and Sabiha’s story, set in Paris, is roman- recent novel, The Farewell, was to Alex Miller is one of Australia’s most respected Sabiha, a Tunisian woman living in Paris tic, yet poignantly ephemeral. Miller says he be his last. One day at the local – and widely read – literary writers. He who runs a restaurant with her widowed ‘wrote the book purely for pleasure. Normally baths he observes a middle-aged has won multiple awards, attracted critical aunt Houria. Falling in love happens quickly. I have a whole complex of reasons and senses Australian man playing with a acclaim, and many of his novels have been But staying in love is complex, interrupted of responsibility … and a need to get stuff young child, obviously his daughter bestsellers. Crikey literary blogger Angela Meyer by different kinds of longing – for distant out that’s been with me for years and years.’ yet much darker in complexion. is well known for her passionate fandom when homelands, for a child. Love is constricted The essence of this pleasure comes across in He has seen them at the pastry shop. it comes to Miller’s work. When it came time by compromise, and the difficulty of under- the novel. The first flush of romance is as de- They strike up a conversation and for Readings to find an interviewer to high- standing the solitary needs of one’s romantic lectable as the sweet treats Sabiha bakes with so a friendship begins. light Alex’s ninth novel, Lovesong (A&U, HB, partner. ‘I lived in Paris for a year in the 70s, her aunt Houria, but is weighted by the fact John Patterner has a story that he Normally $39.99, Our special price $32.95), and Paris and Tunisia are part of the landscape we have already witnessed ‘sadness’ in Sabiha’s needs to tell to someone he can as part of our New Australian Writing feature of my memory, and therefore the landscape of eyes later in life. As in some of Miller’s other trust. It began years ago when, as series, we thought it would be nice to showcase my imagination,’ says Miller. ‘A great amount works, something is sought outside the mar- a young teacher backpacking a cross-generational conversation between this of this story came out of a concoction. There riage – but here, the motivations are more through Europe, a wrong train land- up-and-coming young literary journalist and was no recipe. But I was the cook and I had defined (by the obsessive desire for a child). ed him in a migrant working-class the revered, long-established novelist. all these ingredients, and they were what was But these dark and very human moments are area of Paris and a Tunisian cafe, there, available to me, and that’s how it came compelling – and drive the reader on. Chez Dom. The cafe was run by about. Then it surprised me.’ Miller’s unadorned prose has a sneaking Houria and her niece Sabiha. John was immediately attracted to Sabiha wo-time Miles Franklin Miller’s ‘surprise’ was the third character, Ken, effect. Simple moments between characters an ageing writer who catch you up hours, or and returned the next day. The winner Alex Miller (for attraction was mutual and Sabiha Journey to the Stone Country ‘discovers’ Sabiha and even days, later. I relay John’s story when he this to Miller with the and John married. When Houria in 2003 and The Ancestor Game died, John and Sabiha continued in 1993) is celebrated as an perceives the ‘sadness ‘I’ll keep going until example of Landscape in the depths of of Farewell. There is to run the cafe, but for both of author who appeals equally to the emotions them their desire to have children and the intellect. His new romantic and cel- [Sabiha’s] dark brown I fall off the chair, or a scene where Max, eyes’. Lovesong is thus the German character, was paramount. John, too, wanted Tebratory novel, Lovesong, echoes many of the to return to Australia with his bride framed by contempo- until I lose vigour or is fetched a cane by themes Miller is known for – longing, desire, and child and go back to teaching. transience, the secret inner life – but is also rary Melbourne and a Dougald, his Aborigi- writer who can’t ‘not momentum.’ nal friend and tempo- A move to Australia would not be somewhat of a departure from his previous possible until Sabiha had a child works. For Miller, it was a delight write’, absorbed by rary housemate. I was the story he slowly gathers from John. Ken telling my sister about how much I loved this and returned to Tunisia to show to write, coming straight after the ‘very her father and family. challenging’ Landscape of Farewell, which first sees Sabiha at a pastry shop. ‘There are moment – the way Max imagines Dougald’s left him ‘very empty’. heaps of pastry shops like that around now. perception of him as an old man, and accepts As John's story unfolds, so does Especially out in the suburbs,’ says Miller. ‘So this – and I searched for the moment in the Ken's desire to take it and refashion After finishing Landscape, Miller took time it really is the story behind this very average, book to read it to her, as I mark my favourite it. Lovesong is a beautiful novel, off to read. Sitting by the fire with his daugh- ordinary – these days – Australian family. passages by turning the pages down. I was very different to Miller's last four ter, he was on the last few pages of Edward It was never going to be talked about, surprised to find I had not marked the pas- books. In some ways it is reminis- Said’s Musical Elaborations when his daughter unless someone like him [Ken] came along sage at the time – the moment in the story cent of Conditions of Faith, which asked him what he was going to do next. and wrote it. So in a sense it’s a celebration of had only resonated much later. also had French and Tunisian Miller had just read Said’s memory of seeing their secret story. But it’s also the story connections, but it is not only the Louis Malle’s film Les amants, which went of how Ken can’t really give up writing. What In this ‘simple romance’, Miller has absolutely gripping story of Sabiha something like this: ‘An innocuous tale of a does he do after that?’ created many moments of resonance, such and John that makes this book so man, an unknown unnamed stranger who as the devastation caused by two fragrant, interesting, but the experience of Thankfully, Miller can’t give up writing either. comes down the road and meets an unknown honey-dipped briouats and the light brush the ageing writer, who is sucked ‘I’m now writing a novel based on the life of unnamed woman, and they become lovers, so of a woman’s hip against a man’s shoulder. back into telling a story. Lovesong Sidney Nolan. You know, what are you going then he moves on and everybody’s happy.’ Lovesong is a tender, astutely charming and confirms my view that Miller is to do? I’ll keep going until I fall off the chair, He told his daughter, ‘I’m going to write a multi-layered treat. one of Australia's best and most or until I lose vigour or momentum.’ The simple love story’. And she said, ‘Dad, love’s interesting writers. not simple, you should know that’. framing story therefore plays with the reader’s Angela Meyer’s blog LiteraryMinded is interpretation of fiction – allowing them to hosted by Crikey – http://blogs.crikey.com.au/ Mark Rubbo is Managing Director Love is not simple in Lovesong, but it is question the author’s and characters’ truths literaryminded. She is the acting editor of Readings celebrated. John, an Australian man, meets and motivations, mixing in their own curios- of Bookseller+Publisher magazine. Readings Monthly November 2009 5

Q&A with Rachel Cusk Rachel Cusk is a constantly and its reality. At other times, characters fail Readings Book of the Month intriguing writer, known for to really see or understand each other because her cool powers of observa- their pre-conceived perceptions stand in the way. parrot and olivier pair ventures into the new world of 1830s tion, her dry wit and her What appealed to you about exploring these America. corruscating honesty. Her ideas in this book? in america first novel, Saving Agnes Peter Carey In parallel narratives they tell of their Well, this is something I’ve got more interest- (1993), won the Whitbread Hamish Hamilton. HB. experiences and reactions to this young Award for Best First Novel ed in lately. I teach an MA in creative writing, nation, its people and its form of govern- and my students are so often people who have Normally $49.95. and she was shortlisted for the Whitbread for Our special price $39.95 ment. America is the place where fortune The Lucky Ones in 2003, the same year she been led to an interest in writing by exactly awaits anyone who is prepared to work those questions of authenticity. The questions In much of his previous hard, where the lowliest may become the was nominated by Granta magazine as one of work, most notably 20 Best British Novelists. She was shortlisted relate to life, but these people sense that the highest. For the aristocrat Garmont, such answers are to be found in art. My teaching Illywhacker and The True ideas are threatening; for Parrot, they for the Orange Prize for Arlington Park in Story of the Kelly Gang, 2006. The Guardian recently called her has led me to conclude that there is a particu- challenge his notion of the master/servant lar time in life when it becomes imperative to Peter Carey has explored relationship. As they journey on, Olivier motherhood memoir, A Life's Work (2001) the psyche of Australia. 'probably the most powerful book on bring the two together, to reconsider experi- becomes more and more seduced by the ence via the discipline and morality of art. In Parrot and Olivier, he ideas of democracy, especially aided by his motherhood ever written'. Jo Case spoke to turns his gaze to America. her for Readings about her seventh novel, Tonie and Thomas find it difficult to swap roles, love for Amelia, the daughter of a The Bradshaw Variations(Faber, PB, $29.99). locating her primarily in the world of work, him Parrot (the nickname for John Larrit, son Connecticut Yankee. Parrot, too, sees the primarily in the home, with no defining outside of a journeyman printer from Devon) opportunity for a new kind of life that Your previous novel, Arlington Park, was identity. Do you think this is about social condi- and Olivier (Olivier-Jean-Baptiste de does not include servitude. The relation- concerned with themes of justice and equality Clarel de Garmont, son of the Comte ship between the two changes. in human relationships – within families, in tioning, inherent gender differences, or simply a problem these characters have? and Comtesse de Garmont) are thrown In the end, Olivier rejects notions of particular. The Bradshaw Variations seems to together as an unlikely pair on a tour of continue to explore these questions, and to go I’ve been very struck in adult life by the dif- democracy, while Parrot embraces the new democracy of America. Par- them. For Olivier, democracy ensures the deeper into them by looking at what happens ficulty people seem to have challenging tradi- rot, through circumstances beyond his when one couple reverse the traditional gender tion. There seems to come a point at which ‘awful tyranny of the majority’; for Parrot control, has fallen into the service of M. it represents opportunity. roles some years into their marriage. Do you see being different from one’s parents or from a de Tilbert, a French aristocrat who has the two novels as linked at all? Do you see those traditional ‘norm’ becomes virtually impos- fallen on hard times. Parrot had ambitions In this marvellous book, Carey will no themes reflected inThe Bradshaw Variations? sible, like swimming against a current that of becoming an engraver, an artist, but his doubt antagonise and provoke some Arlington Park was conceived as a political gets stronger and stronger the older you get. skills are at Tilbert's beck and call. critics: firstly for his departure from an novel: I always felt that the suburb was merely And there’s a great deal of fear, too, involved Australian theme and secondly for his in striking out on your own The Garmonts narrowly escaped the guil- unabashed admiration for the principles one of several possible repre- lotine of the first republic, but Olivier’s sentations of these politics. and defying the unwritten of the American democratic tradition. rules you were brought up mother, fearing the imminent ascendancy In spite (or because) of this, it is a grand, But it was a world I knew of the second, contrives to send him on a well at the time, a world with. Many women know magisterial story, full of great characters consciously that there’s mission to America to examine the prison and stories. Above all, it is one of his built around the early phases system there on behalf of the French Min- of family life, in which there nothing wrong with them most important books and a major working as mothers, but istry of the Interior. She enlists the help development in his writing career. are strong – perhaps irresist- of her old friend M. de Tlibert to provide ible – urges to renounce in- nonetheless they feel they’re doing something wrong, a companion who can act as servant and Mark Rubbo is Managing Director dividuality and to atone for minder for Olivier. And so this unlikely of Readings the ways in which one has something that will have rebelled against an idealised vaguely terrible conse- ‘norm’. So it seemed natural quences. And it’s the same, to use that as my template. perhaps, for men as domes- The family world of Brad- tic creatures. So I wanted my shaw belongs to a different characters to inhabit exactly phase, and is far more the ‘Many women know this place between knowing and feeling, and for the sense novel’s actual subject. Some consciously that of the same issues, of course, of a punishment to be fully Love, desire recur, but in a less represen- there’s nothing wrong realised. with them working tational guise. In Bradshaw You say that your mother- and inspiration ... I’m talking about the reality as mothers, but hood memoir, A Life’s Work, of certain tensions in men nonetheless they which gives a starkly honest and women’s relationships. feel they’re doing account of the emotional expe- Your sibling is your other self And about the new moral rience of being a new mother, struggle that characterises something wrong’ has given the erroneous this second phase, between impression of you being a bleak A dazzling collection of award-winning writers discipline and self-expression. person. I thought it was a very tender and hopeful dissecting the life-long resentments, alliances You’re very good at capturing the rhythms of how book, too. Do you think this impression of bleakness and affections between brothers and sisters. people speak; the way conversations are so often is due to our cultural taboos about saying anything defined by the subtext – what people don’t say, negative about motherhood? Were you hoping to or the tones they use – as much as what they do challenge these taboos in writing your book or say. Is there a lot of work involved in getting that simply to report honestly on your experience? balance right, and making the dialogue ring I certainly didn’t know how far I was trespass- Moral questions have no true? Or does it come naturally? ing into the unsaid and the unsayable when A Life’s Work For me, somewhat oddly perhaps, it is in dia- I wrote . I didn’t really know any- simple answer logue that I make my greatest efforts towards thing at all about the culture of motherhood. honesty. Working out exactly how the way All I knew was how it had been for me, and an The resonating tale of a marriage of two a person speaks makes me feel – for reasons ability to be honest about personal experience has always formed the substance of my writing cultures lived in a third and of lives ultimately that go back to my very earliest memories – is undone by desire. absolutely central to my process. But I also process. So I was rather taken aback when it find other people extremely useful as com- didn’t work at all in the usual way; and worse, mentators in this area. I am someone who is when a sort of witch-hunt ensued in which completely unable to give a ready reply to a this idea of a mother as bleak or depressive Nature is culture verbal challenge, so I am rather fascinated by really seemed to terrorise people. It was my people who can. I spend a lot of time not just first experience of something that is very ugly listening to what a person says but listening to in human nature – the primitive operation of A ground-breaking exploration of the crucial how other people interpret what’s been said. the taboo, as you say – and it certainly made me unhappy for a while. I saw it as a small role of nature in shaping and inspiring our For me, what I think is absolutely unrelated most enduring artists and writers. to what I say. And so I can’t understand what example of a much greater problem of intoler- other people are saying either. It’s a sort of ance. And of course, in the end, it is possible disability, I suppose, on my part: I get com- to feel sorry for those who are intolerant, and pletely the wrong end of the stick, and have to feel glad that my book still exists in spite of to work very hard to compensate for it. them. It continues to do its job, I think; I still hear from new mothers who have found it The gap between the imagined and the real, the and been fortified by it. imitation and the authentic, seems a central thread of the novel. Often, characters are sur- Read the extended version of this interview prised by the gap between the idea of something at www.readings.com.au. 6 Readings Monthly November 2009

CHRISTMAS PRESENCE New Books Fiction on the verge of becoming an All Black until Mathilda Savitch A wonderfully a sports mishap up-ended that dream and a Victor Lodato evocative Australian Fiction more prosaic existence began. Lionel and Fourth Estate. PB. $27.99 account of Sons of the Rumour Roly, too, seem to have lived under a shadow It’s been nearly a year since youth that will David Foster – but does the key to that lie in their sinister Mathilda Savitch’s big sister, surely take its Picador. HB. Normally $39.99 childhood friend Clyde Buckley? What we Helene, died at the age of place among Our special price $34.95 have here, it seems to me, is almost an sixteen. Mathilda herself, the classics This is a raucous and bawdy Antipodean ‘speak memory’ – the sights, though, is very much alive. of Australian tale weaving The Tales of a smells and characters of the small town of And, unlike her woefully childhood. Thousand and One Nights Loomis, the pains and secrets of families, distant parents, she is with the story of Al Morrisey, and the allure and ache of memory recalled. determined to uncover the a middle-aged, Anglo-Irish- A truly magical book! truth about who really killed her sister, and man. Escaping a failed Martin Shaw is from Readings Carlton why. Mathilda Savitch is the kind of book marriage, and experiencing you might pick up one lazy afternoon ... and A must for Freudian daydreams of his The Bradshaw then suddenly you’re heading inexorably to anyone who mother and disturbing Persian nightmares, Variations the final page without realising it’s become loves to cook Al is on a quest to reconnect with his youth Rachel Cusk dark outside. It’s a murder mystery, it’s a or feast on ... meanwhile Scheherazade weaves her Faber. PB. $29.99 coming-of-age story, it’s a fascinating study seafood, stories, but is King Shahrban really enam- Rachel Cusk is a deft hand at of the impact of family and sibling place- with recipes oured of her tales, or is it something else? dissecting the social and ment – it’s all this and more, narrated by the ranging from David Foster won the Miles Franklin Award domestic; laying bare the unique Mathilda in language lyrical, open fire to the for The Glade Within the Grove. subconscious rhythms and distinctive and addictive. So engrossing is stove-top, and patterns of human interac- the story – and so captivating its narrator from bivouac to tion. In Arlington Park, a – that it was not until days after finishing dinner party. novel which paid a kind of the novel that I realised how many potential International homage to Virginia Woolf’s pitfalls Victor Lodato had avoided in the Mrs Dalloway, she traced the web of writing of it. But this book is not false, or This new, Fiction interactions between the denizens of a patronising, or too depressing. Instead, illustrated The Lacuna well-off English suburb over 24 hours, Lodato has combined several elements to biography Barbara Kingslover concentrating on the experiences of the create something beautiful and new and, includes more Faber. PB. Normally $34.99 women, most of them at-home mothers. most importantly, compulsively readable. It’s than 150 Our special price $29.95 Here, she delves further into the domestic a wonderful achievement. images and Barbara Kingsolver, acclaimed realm by concentrating on one family over a Olivia Mayer is a freelance reviewer never-before- author of The Poisonwood year, the Bradshaws: three brothers, their published Bible, returns to fiction after partners and children, and their ice-cold The Cry of the Sloth material. elderly parents. At the centre of the book are Sam Savage

BOOKS WITH SPINE BOOKS WITH SPINE BOOKS WITH SPINE BOOKS WITH SPINE BOOKS WITH SPINE BOOKS WITH SPINE BOOKS WITH SPINE BOOKS WITH SPINE BOOKS WITH WITH SPINE BOOKS WITH SPINE BOOKS WITH SPINE BOOKS WITH SPINE BOOKS WITH SPINE BOOKS WITH SPINE BOOKS WITH SPINE BOOKS WITH SPINE BOOKS BOOKS nine years with her much- anticipated historical novel, Tonie and Thomas. She has been offered a Weidenfeld & Nicolson. HB. $35 The Lacuna: one man’s promotion ‘too good to refuse’ at work, Given that Sam Savage’s BOOKS WITH SPINE moving from part-time to full-time; he has debut novel Firmin was www.mup.com.au journey from the warm heart of Frida Kahlo’s Mexico to the quit his job for the domestic realm, with the about a literature-loving rat, cold embrace of Joseph McCarthy’s America. new hobby of mastering the piano. Their I wasn’t sure what to expect In 1930s Mexico, young Harrison Shepherd, families are doubtful about their decision (‘A with his second, Cry of the born in the US and brought up in a series of man isn’t a man if he’s in the house all day’), Sloth. A loving tribute to households in Mexico, finds work helping but as time passes, Tonie grows used to her those two and three-toed? UQP SUMMER famed revolutionary muralist Diego Rivera. renewed sense of autonomy and Thomas A moving soliloquy on the Making himself useful in the household of enjoys his new intimacy with his daughter – order Xenarthra? Thankfully, Sloth instead READS Rivera, wife Frida Kahlo and exiled Bolshevik even as they each experience twinges of follows the life of Andy Whittaker, misun- jealousy and loss as a result. But will it last? derstood curmudgeon and editor of Soap: THE UMBRELLA leader Leo Trotsky, Shepherd is inspired and What unseen damage might be done? In a A Journal of the Arts. We get to know Andy CLUB throws in his lot with art and revolution. series of evocative vignettes, Cusk cleverly through a series of notes and letters sent to David Brooks Through a series of dramatic events, he finds himself back in the US during World War II. questions the roles we play and the extent to the people who drift in and out of his world: which they are governed by expectations. His ex-wife Jolie, old flame Anita, any num- A new novel from In Carolina, he remakes himself in America’s Jo Case is Editor of Readings Monthly ber of rent-dodging tenants and a series of Miles Franklin- hopeful image. But as political winds push hopeless and helpless aspiring writers. What shortlisted author him between north and south, he becomes a An Expensive starts as comic soon turns poignant however, of The Fern Tattoo. danger to the famous Mexican household that had taken him in, as he is sought out by Education as the story grows ever more heartbreak- $32.95 / Fiction Oct authorities as a double agent. Kingsolver is a Nick McDonnell ing. Main character Andy combines elderly HEARTLESS writer of great integrity who puts into practice Text. PB. $32.95 frailty with an ever increasing madness, but Tasma Walton her social beliefs. She continues to inspire From the turmoil of civil war who is he really, once you strip away old with this exceptional novel. in an unnamed African wounds? Cry of the Sloth deserves multiple It can take just Michael Awosoga-Samuel is from Readings country to academic life with readings, as many of its nuances are missed minutes to lose Carlton all its rivalries and competi- the first time around. Even on the first read, love, but a whole tion at Harvard, America’s however, Savage shows a meditative, human- lifetime to find it Access Road top Ivy League university, istic compassion for Andy, a man we might again. Maurice Gee Nick McDonnell’s third otherwise label lost on life’s journey. Laurie Steed is a freelance reviewer $24.95 / Fiction Oct Penguin. PB. $29.95 novel, An Expensive Educa- LEGACY Just sometimes, in the annual tion, creates compelling landscapes and Larissa Behrendt whirl at this time of year of characters. The links are absorbing. At a Change in Altitude big-name authors with new Harvard, Professor Susan Lowell has won a Anita Shreve A novel about novels for the yuletide Pulitzer Prize for her book about Hatashil, Little Brown. PB. $32.99 fathers and season, along comes a slender an East African freedom fighter in the civil Anita Shreve’s latest novel daughters, and jewel of a book like Maurice war. Not everyone is happy with the book, explores the intimacies of how the past is Gee's Access Road. Gee, a and Susan receives a series of threats. Her marriage against the back- always present. giant of New Zealand letters sole African student, David Ayan, is missing drop of an ex-pat community with more than 40 books to his credit, is all home and struggling to make sense of in 1970s Kenya. Margaret $24.95 / Fiction Nov but unknown in this country (compare the Harvard’s cliques and clubs. His white girl and Patrick are newlyweds SLOW DEATH BY similar scenario of Lloyd Jones until Mister friend, Jane, is from a privileged background when they move to Africa for RUBBER DUCK Pip came along), but I suspect that is all and this also causes confusion and misunder- Patrick’s work. After an Rick Smith & about to change with this exquisite novel. It standings. Michael Teak, a Harvard gradu- accident while mountain climbing, Margaret Bruce Lourie is the story of the Beach family – in particu- ate, is working as an American intelligence is troubled by guilt and the realisation that lar, the siblings Lionel, Roly and Rowan – as operative. He is in constant danger and we her marriage is not all she hoped it would Fantastically narrated by the latter to her journal amidst meet him just before a horrendous massacre be. Her work as a photographer leads her important – an the everyday goings-on of life in retirement. in Ayan’s relative’s village. Nick McDonnell into the dark world of Kenya’s social and indispensable guide. As her brothers have moved back to the has reported from both Sudan and Iraq and political turmoil, and on a journey of

$34.95 / Non-fiction Dec Tim Flannery family home, her visits there bring memories is acutely aware of the political and social self-discovery, challenged by her attraction to pouring back – of youthful escapades, pressures that lead to poverty and bloodshed. a young, mixed-race journalist. UQP adolescent fumblings, and those moments in An Expensive Education helps us to under- www.uqp.com.au life that seemed to shape their destinies stand some aspects of a troubled continent. forever. Rowan's husband, for instance, was Annie Condon is a freelance reviewer Readings Monthly November 2009 7 The Well and the Mine books the trip on the pretence of a pilgrim- New from Palgrave Macmillan Gin Phillips age to the grave of a young local soldier Q&A with Tony Birch killed during the war. But things take a Virago. PB. $29.99 China Safari Through an engaging cast of completely different turn when half a dozen Jo Case interviews Tony locals get wind of the idea and decide to go Michel Beuret and Serge Michele characters, Gin Phillips Birch about his wonderful Where others only see captures the complexities of along. new short story collection, chaos, the Chinese see life in a small, poverty-strick- Father’s Day (Hunter, opportunities. With no A Song in the Daylight colonial past and no en Alabama mining town. PB, $24.95). political preconditions, At the height of the Great Paulina Simons China is bringing The stories in your first Depression, it is a daily Fourth Estate. PB. $32.99 investment and (interlinked) collection, needed infrastructure struggle for families to stay The much-loved author of Shadowboxing, were semi-autobiograph- to a continent that alive: the work is dangerous and food is Tully and The Bronze ical. Did you draw on life for any of these has been largely scarce. When nine-year-old Tess Moore Horseman is back, with a ignored by Western stories – and if so, to what extent? witnesses a woman throw a baby into a deep sweeping saga that spans the companies or nations. The authors tell well, the community becomes deeply upscale New Jersey suburbs, The stories in Father’s Day are not au- the story of China’s divided. Race, class and the bonds of family the slums of Manila and the tobiographical, in the sense of drawing economic ventures in are all tested in this carefully crafted debut. Australian outback. The on my own experience and memories Africa. What they find beautiful Larissa Stark has is tantamount to a geopolitical earthquake: the too strongly, although the story ‘The possibility that China will help Africa direct its own Lost in Translation played many roles in her life: wife, mother, Chocolate Empire’ is a notable excep- fate and finally bring light to the so-called “dark Nicole Mones devoted friend. But a chance encounter with tion. It is closely based on being stuck continent,” making it a force to be reckoned with internationally. Harper Collins. PB. $29.99 a stranger leads her to question everything in the famous Melbourne flood of 1971 – and to contemplate the unthinkable. $29.95 Pb, ISBN 9781568586069 Nicole Mones’s personal after having wagged school for the day. I Publish November 2009, 336 pages experiences travelling and Paullina Simons explores the question: how put myself in one of the situations that Nation Books working in China add a rich does one woman follow a divided heart? wayward teenagers dread. The Father’s authenticity to this, her Day stories do though reflect my view Tell Me How This Ends debut novel. Alice Man- of, and maybe even preoccupations Linda Robinson negan, an American inter- with two issues. Firstly, the relationship Tell Me How This Ends between men and their families, and is an inside account preter, is hired by an Anthology of General David archaeologist in search of the Brothers and Sisters men and boys in particular. Secondly, I Petraeus’s attempt remains of Peking Man lost at the end of Charlotte Wood (ed.) am attracted to, and interested in lives of to turn around a A&U. PB. $32.99 men who live on the margins of society, failing war. Bestselling World War II. As their research draws them author Linda Robinson into the heart of Mongolia, Alice’s fascina- This excellent anthology, either by choice, or as an outcome of be- had unprecedented tion with Chinese men charts a sexual edited by the acclaimed ing estranged from both family and so- access to Petraeus, journey of no less intensity. ‘Thought-pro- author of The Submerged ciety due to some past transgression. But interviewing him and sitting in on his daily voking, sometimes disturbing and undeni- Cathedral and The Children, while Shadowboxing was a hard book, briefings. The result ably entertaining.’ – New York Times takes a creative look at in that one of the key characters, Mick is the only book that sibling relationships. The Byrne, the punch-drunk father, was ties together military an unlikable character in many ways, operations in Iraq The Man in the pieces here are a mix of and the internecine Wooden Hat fiction and non-fiction – in- generally the men in Father’s Day have political drama that is at the heart of the civil war. Jane Gardam cluding the first new short story by Nam Le redeemable, even admirable qualities. $29.95 Pb, ISBN 9781586487669 to be published since The Boat. Other writers Publish November 2009, 448 pages Chatto & Windus. HB. $49.95 Once again, these are very Melbourne Public Affairs For those of you who loved include Christos Tsiolkas, Cate Kennedy, stories, firmly anchored in settings like Gardam’s Old Filth, this is the Tony Birch, Virginia Peters and Robert Sydney Road, Brunswick; the Yarra; or perfect companion. Old Filth Drewe. the St Albans train line. How important traced the life of Sir Edward is place to you in your writing? Feathers: judge, expat and Raj Best Australian orphan, whose relationship Stories 2009 I never consciously set out to write with his wife, while central to Delia Falconer (ed.) ‘another Melbourne story’, but I am a his story, was mostly ambiva- Black Inc. PB. $29.95 dedicated wanderer (and runner), so I lent. Here Betty is centre stage: educated and This selection of the best tend to discover the seed of a new story capable, but defined by a life-long love for her Australian stories of the year while I am out walking or running. It husband’s biggest rival. Compelling in their is perfect summer reading – may just be an observation, something I own right, the two stories enrich each other; great to dip in and out of, or overhear, or perhaps see out of the cor- they explore a distinctive time, class and read all at once, depending ner of my eye. Some of these moments place, and the often-unexpected highs and on your mood. Authors vanish while others stay with me. They lows of an enduring marriage. ‘People and include Cate Kennedy, nag at me, demanding to be written into places, the past and the present, are woven D.B.C. Pierre, Georgia Blain, story. When the time comes to write into threads of narrative which, drawn togeth- Karen Hitchcock, Robert Drewe and Steven the story I will reflect back on the place, er, give the writing a marvellous lilting power.’ Amsterdam. the location of the original idea, which – Guardian is generally somewhere around the inner city of Melbourne – a place and a landscape that I know well and have Last Night in great affection for. The only place that I Twisted River Poetry have a self-conscious desire to return to John Irving Best Australian again and again is the Yarra River. I love Bloomsbury. PB. Normally $35 Poetry 2009 it, and the stories it holds. My ultimate Our special price $29.95 Alan Wearne (ed.) ambition as a writer is to produce ‘the In his twelfth novel, John UQP. PB. $24.95 great river novel’ – although I guess that Irving revisits the rural It’s the time of year for ‘best Mark Twain has done that already. American life he so deftly of’ collections, and this is explored in some of his best one of the best. Alan A recurrence in these stories is imperfect novels, including The Cider Wearne’s imaginative and families – and the depth of seemingly House Rules. In a small entertaining selection from precarious bonds. What attracts you to logging settlement in New Australia’s print and online exploring those relationships? Hampshire in 1954, a young journals includes Robert I have seen many perfect families. They boy accidentally kills the sweetheart of the Adamson, Rosemary were in black and white and came into local constable, who relentlessly pursues the Dobson, Les Murray and Peter Porter, my life from America, via television in boy and his father beyond the demands of among others. the 1960s and 70s. Family life is complex justice. The fugitives go on the run, traveling and sometimes difficult. As I get older I to Boston, across Vermont and in to Canada. Best Australian feel that I am a little like the narrator in Their story, which spans 50 years, has the Poems 2009 the title story of the book, ‘Father’s Day’. authenticity and emotional depth of the best Robert Adamson (ed.) This man is stuck, in a way, between his of Irving’s work. Black Inc. PB. $24.95 young son, who will not communicate This series is the definitive with him, and his own father, who he Pilgrims annual collection of the best also has an awkward relationship with. Garrison Keillor local poems of the year. It’s I really like this story because it takes a Faber. PB. $32.99 the usual mix of new voices little magic, in the form of the invisible Garrison Keillor returns to and known names, including giant rabbit from the wonderful movie Lake Wobegone and its Alan Wearne, Alicia Some- Harvey to create a moment of beauty and

eccentric community in his times, Luke Davies, Lisa tenderness. It is just a moment, one of latest novel. Margie Kreb- Gorton and many more. those brief gestures I like to create. But sbach hopes a holiday in I hope that it is full of meaning and reso- Rome will rekindle the nance, and that it contains hope itself. passion in her marriage, but See www.readings.com.au for the full interview. unable to ask outright, she 8 Readings Monthly November 2009

with Pip Newling NewYes, just asCrime Kate was Another Fiction release this month also examines DeadHarry Bosch instalment.Write Nine Dragons Chief of Police in Washington D.C., is calm swanning about in Sweden, I the ripple effect down the generations of (A&U, PB, Normally $32.99, Our special and extremely competent to Mace’s impul- was sitting down and reading tragedies experienced in World War II. Lou- price $27.95) sees Bosch traversing the LA sive and streetwise ‘chip on the shoulder’ the crime releases for ise Penny’s next Inspector Gamache story, streets and the Hong Kong markets, dealing personality. This first book focuses on Mace November. Have you The Brutal Telling(Headline, PB, $29.99) with his ex-wife, his child, his wife’s new obtaining her ‘true blue’ status back – be- exhausted the October begins with a tale told by an old man and lover, triads, tattoos, guns and fumbling with coming a respected policewoman again. releases yet? If you have the threat is clear – ‘Chaos is here, old son,’ new technology like video phones. Is this devoured Larsson, Rankin he says, with the ‘here’ being the picturesque book really just about the trials and tribula- in brief and Temple and are looking for the next village of Three Pines, just outside Montreal, tions of parenting? Perhaps. But it is also a Continuing the focus on the effects of good read, Joseph Kanon has one for you. the location Penny uses for all her Gamache terrifically told action packed mystery. World War II, Danish writer Leif David- Stardust (S&S, PB, $32.99) is Kanon’s next crimes. Clearly, nothing and no one are as sen’s TheWoman from Bratislava (Arcadia, release after his very successful The Good they appear in this landscape of forest, hills The Golden Mountain PB, $22.95) is a political thriller moving German and again it looks at the fallout of and history. As the thoughtful and charm- Murders (Nero, PB, $22.95) between Denmark and Slovakia. John World War II. Set in Hollywood in the ing Gamache works his way around the is David Rotenberg’s last Grisham’s new release is his first collection months just after the end of the war, town’s personalities, the truth is revealed in a chapter in detective Zhong of short stories and while they aren’t crime Kanon’s mystery starts on a train and never compelling story of greed and belonging. If Fong’s world of Shanghai. per se, Ford County (Doubleday, HB, $44) really stops. On the train is Ben (or Reuben, you enjoy the mood and feel of the BBC TV Rotenberg’s crime is always takes us back to Ford County, Mississippi to use his non-Anglicised full name), a show Midsomer Murders, you will no doubt contemporary, even in the where his first book A Time To Kill was set. still-serving US Army man just back from appreciate Inspector Gamache and this labyrinths of the Shanghai Inspector Singh Investigates a Bali Conspiracy Europe. Ben is finishing a film of the first atmospheric many-layered story. slums, and this story is frighteningly real. Most Foul (Piatkus, PB, $22.99) is Shamini footage from the death camps but he is also Out in the Chinese countryside in Anhui Flint’s next book in the Singh series and attending the funeral of his brother, who R.J. Ellroy’s The Anniversary Province, poor people are selling their blood this time, Singh is dealing with terrorism apparently committed suicide. Reaching Man (Orion, PB, $32.99) is to ‘blood heads’. As a result, AIDS is in Bali. Martina Cole’s next cab of the rank back to the historical allegiances of Europe out this month and it is a endemic. Detective Fong is caught up in the is Hard Girls (Headline, PB, $32.99). Set before and during the war and reaching cracker of a read. Sure, we unraveling of the international trade of in London’s East End, as many of Cole’s forward into the ‘Reds under the bed’ are in the land of American blood products and the web of money leads stories are, prostitutes are being killed and witch-hunt of communists and unionists in serial killers and retribution, to Vancouver, the Golden Mountain. Blackly it is up to DCI Annie Carr to catch the vil- Hollywood from 1947, Kanon embeds his but Ray Irving, the lead funny but with a moral sense, Fong’s path is lain and Walking in Pimlico (Headline, PB, fictional crime in accurate historical fact and detective, is an un-clichéd a fascinating look at modern life and the vast $32.99) by Ann Featherstone is a compel- includes actors, producers, agents, gossip police investigator – a rarity in crime writing differences in cultures, expectations and ling psychological thriller set in a brilliantly columnists (and some glorious silk gowns) these days. Sharp dialogue and precise boundaries. He is also a romantic at heart. I depicted nineteenth-century England. Matt that did literally walk the starred pavement descriptions of people, their habits and their highly recommend the whole series. Hilton’s second Joe Hunter book, Judgement of Hollywood Boulevard in the late 1940s. vulnerabilities (or should I say ‘our’ vulner- and Wrath (Headline, PB, $32.99) is like Hollywood is glamorous, seductive and abilities) provides the background for a David Baldacci is another prolific crime his first, a fast-paced action-packed thriller apparently welcoming of all, but just as page-turner. Yes, it does get a little silly in writer. True Blue (Macmillan, PB, $32.99) and Tania Carver’s new character DI Philip Mulholland Drive weaves across the the end, but it has made me want to read is the first in a new series. The book starts Brennan, is on the hunt for a person who is ridgeline of the Hollywood Hills, Kanon’s more of his work. just as a young female detective, who has stealing babies in The Surrogate (Sphere, PB, Stardust twists and turns, becoming a the unlikely name of Mace, is released after $32.99). Provocative and chilling, it is only personal and evocative story of loss, The prolific Michael Connelly has another spending time in jail for a crime she didn’t for those who don’t scare easily. memory and dreams of something better. new book out this month and it’s the next commit. Her sister, Beth, who happens to be

children. In an irate – but very funny – essay deriding the easy credit men get for simply Biography being out in public with their children, he Why You Are points out that he does do real parenting, but Australian: A Letter that’s not what he’s being praised for at the Books Non-fiction supermarket. (‘I cook and clean, do the are perfect to send to friends and relatives to My Children dishes, get the kids to their appointments, overseas for Christmas. Other calendar Nikki Gemmell etc.’) If I wasn’t already in love with him, designs range from Inuit art to maps for Harper Collins. HB. $29.99 2010 Calendars those words and sentiments would’ve done it. underground rail systems and everything in My friends wait with I fell for Chabon’s intellectual charms a between! anticipation for the next & Diaries couple of months ago, when I read one of the book by Gemmell. They like essays from this book in The New York Review We also have a large range of the raw honesty of her work. of Books, ‘The Wilderness of Childhood’, diaries, including the I’m not one of those people; lamenting the contemporary loss of child- Australian Art Diary 2010 however, I picked up this one hood freedom due to false anxiety over safety, ($36), which showcases more because the topic was close to reflecting on what that loss of free play – free than 120 stunning images my heart. Essentially, of adults – will do to the imaginations of the from Australian artists and Gemmell’s book is a long letter to her next generation. This book is full of wonder- the Foodies Diary ($29.95). children justifying the choices she is making ful, thoughtful, affecting and amusing person- This stunning diary for food in relation to parenthood and the decision to al essays on raising children and being raised, lovers provides inspiration on what to eat return back to sunny ground after living in being a husband, being a brother. This and cook based on the best fresh produce London for over ten years. I lived in England Pulitzer Prize winning author (The Amazing available each month of the year. with young children and made the decision Adventures of Kavalier and Clay) needs no to return to Australia for many reasons. It is only the beginning of November and Hurry!! Get in quick before we sell out! For comparisons, but I have to make them: Adam I’m going to give this book to my children already we are seeing calendars and diaries the complete range, see our website: www. Gopnik and David Sedaris. Enough said. to read, because Nikki has covered the racing out our doors! Moleskine have added readings.com.au. Read this book and fall in love. (Or in manly emotional, the political and the financial a Desk Calendar ($36.95) to their popular admiration, of course.) reasons right here. In doing so, she exposes range of diaries. The calendar’s black hard- Jo Case is Editor of Readings Monthly cover folds back to turn into a stand and the meaning of family, the changes in Aus- features an elastic strap for secure closure. tralia and the longing any parent feels to give Gift their children the very best on offer. This is In Conversation We love to support local projects and Wooden Book Rest not a novel, but rather a transcript of a mo- Ben Neparstek once again Readings Carlton will host $55 ment in time; and although without a plot Scribe. PB. $32.95 3CR’s Seeds of Dissent Calendar launch Made from Canadian Alder, the Wooden as such, it is a love story. A good one, too! Ben Neparstek is best known (see page 3 for details). This year Face Up Book Rest is adjustable to hold all size books Chris Gordon is Events Coordinator at Readings these days as the 23-year-old To The Future!, 3CR’s fifth Seeds Of Dissent and folds flat for easy storage and transporta- wunderkind who was the Calendar looks ahead to imagine a future tion. It is ideal for holding cookbooks and Manhood for surprise choice as new editor we want to live in, while also celebrating can sit on your bookshelf as a display unit. Amateurs of The Monthly. But aficiona- Australia’s radical history. They asked 12 Michael Chabon dos of the literary interview artists who are part of Australian activ- Harper Collins. PB. $32.99 may have quietly noticed him ist culture to contribute an artwork that No wonder Michael Cha- earlier as a skilful and prolific reflects their idea of the future. bon’s wife, Ayelet Waldman, practitioner of the form, often appearing in The Age dared risk the ire of Oprah ’s literary pages and elsewhere. Kids have not been forgotten. We have Neparstek shares his guiding strategy in his Curious George Dr Seuss Charlie and (and America in general) to , , preface: ‘I always endeavour to maintain a Lola Original Peter Rabbit declare, in her memoir Bad and calendars, sceptical eye when asking questions of people to name a few! We also have a range of Mother, that she loved her husband more than her much more distinguished than myself.’ It’s Australian photography calendars, which one that has served him well. Here, 39 of the Readings Monthly November 2009 9 over 100 interviews he has conducted are Diaries collected. It’s an enviable list, too: Paul Auster, George Orwell From the acclaimed author of YARRA Carlos Fuentes, Seamus Heaney, Tobias Harvill Secker. HB. $59.95 Wolff, Robert Fisk, Janet Malcolm, Haruki George Orwell was, of comes a fascinating portrait of our city, Murakami, Toni Morrison. These are, of their course, one of the most MELBOUR NE nature, glimpses – snapshots in time. But celebrated writers of the when it was the they’re particularly telling ones: polished, twentieth century – with stylish, starkly observant and studded with good reason. He was also a capital of Australia insights. A fascinating read. committed keeper of diaries, 1901–27 Jo Case is Editor of Readings Monthly 11 of which are presented in this handsome volume. Alzheimer's: Covering the period 1931–1949, they follow A Love Story Orwell from his early years as a writer to his Vivienne Ulman last literary notebook. Included here are the Scribe. PB. $32.95 seeds of great books such as The Road to In this beautifully written, Wigan Pier (in the form of notes from his bittersweet memoir, Vivienne travels through industrial England), Down Ulman tells the story of the and Out in Paris and London and 1984. gradual loss of her mother to Alzheimer’s. It’s the kind of Stitches: A Memoir story that will no doubt be David Small CAPITAL told increasingly frequently; a Norton. HB. $39.95 K R ISTIN OTTO tale of the so-called sandwich Fourteen-year-old David Small awoke from a generation – people who have just completed supposedly harmless operation to discover he the most arduous years of caring for their was unable to speak. He found his throat was children when it becomes their duty to care heavily crossed with stiches and that he had for their parents, too. The last of Ulman’s four been operated on for throat cancer that was Kristin Otto children had left home when her mother’s expected to kill him. In this graphic memoir, symptoms first became evident. While her Small reveals how he was subsequently sub- has written a mother’s condition was still mild, Ulman and jected to extraordinary X-rays by his radiologist her husband moved from Melbourne to a father and tormented by his unhappy mother. lively history small farm in Tasmania. ‘We were tree-chang- AUSTR Two years later he fled his unbearable home, ALIAN ing, empty-nester baby boomers,’ she reflects on a difficult journey to becoming a prize- wryly. Here, she details – with stark honesty winning children's author and illustrator. – her struggle to be there for her mother, her father, her daughters, her husband, and to Shakespeare: retain some remnant of self. She sharply The Illustrated Edition evokes the maelstrom of feeling sparked by her mother’s condition: fierce love, equally Bill Bryson fierce grief and anger, and fathomless Harper Collins. HB. $39.99 nostalgia for her lost mother. Amid the grief Bill Bryson brings the great and the loss, this is, more than anything, a Bard to life in this highly celebration of her mother’s life, her long illustrated edition. He marriage – and the enduring devotion of her examines the myths and misapprehensions that husband. A gorgeous book. AVA ILA BLE NOW TEXTPUBLISHING.COM.AU Jo Case is Editor of Readings Monthly surround the life of the greatest playwright of the Diaries 1980-1988: English language. He celebrates the particularly Shakespearian Halfway to phrases and language that have survived into Hollywood modern day, while trying to come to terms Michael Palin with the man behind the myth. It includes Weidenfeld & Nicolson. HB. Normally $55 paintings, drawings, portraits, documents Our special price $44.95 and photographs that bring to life Elizabe- Michael Palin describes than England and the characters and himself as a ‘neat, anally passions that made up Shakespeare’s world. retentive little list keeper’. As the Guardian reviewer of this Flying with volume points out, that Paper Wings makes him ‘a rather good Sandy Jeffs diarist’. For someone as Vulgar. PB. $32.95 creatively prolific as Palin, Poet Sandy Jeffs writes simply a record of who he met, what he did, honestly and movingly about and what he thought and felt would be her long struggle with pretty fascinating. But this book also offers a schizophrenia – and the wealth of detailed observations and amusing solace she has found in or telling quotes. Covering the post-Python poetry, ‘a personal saviour’. years, these diaries chronicle their final She tells the story of her performance in 1983, writing and acting in upbringing in a family torn films and television, including his first BBC by domestic violence in the 1950s and 60s, television journey and the smash-hit A Fish coming to terms with her sexuality as part of Called Wanda. an alternative family in the 1970s and the onset of schizophrenia aged 23. Anne Dreaming of Dior Deveson calls this ‘an exceptional record of Charlotte M. Smith someone who is still gravely ill, and yet is Harper Collins. PB. $35 able to surface over and over again, with A gorgeously quirky memoir mind and humour still intact’. about a fabulous, but somewhat different, inheri- tance: a priceless vintage clothing collection. Hong Kong born, American raised, Essays Charlotte Smith had Best Australian NOW A travelled the world before Essays 2009 MAJOR MOTION settling in Australia’s Blue Mountains. After Robyn Davidson (ed.) PICTURE starring her godmother died, her house was inun- Black Inc. PB. $29.95 Eric Bana and dated with boxes containing over 3000 This much-awaited selection Rachel McAdams treasures, from Dior and Chanel originals to of the best essays from the a pioneer woman’s mended best dress. When past year is finally here, she discovered the notebook of stories about with much to entertain, the dresses and who had worn them, inform and satisfy. Authors Charlotte realised that her inheritance wasn’t include David Sedaris, simply a collection of beautiful things – it Chloe Hooper, David Marr, Keep in touch with great book news by visiting was a wealth of stories and artefacts about J.M. Coetzee, James Bradley, www.randomhouse.com.au women’s lives. Drusilla Modjeska and Tim Winton. 10 Readings Monthly November 2009 evolved into the heart of an international tion cut to the heart of what being Catholic the Invention of metropolis. Hoskins shows how it acts as means. In this book, writers ‘of all stripes’ the Jewish People Australian Studies both a means of connection and a barrier consider the issue. Martin Flanagan profiles Shlomo Sand Capital: Melbourne between; that rouses passionate and ongoing Peter Kennedy, Michele Gierck gathers his Verso. HB. $59.95 debate about its place in the future. parishioners’ stories, and theologians and cul- at the Centre of the Igniting a lively debate, tural commentators reflect on the situation. World 1901–1927 Shlomo Sand argues that the Kristin Otto The Men Who Killed idea of Israeli nationhood has Text. PB. $39.95 Qantas its origins in the nineteenth Kristin Otto made the Matthew Benns century, when Jewish familiar newly intriguing in Heinemann. PB. $34.95 Politics historians reconstituted an her delightful history of Matthew Benns details the history of Qan- First as Tragedy, imagined people in order to Melbourne’s iconic river, tas and examines the myths that surround then as Farce model a future nation. He Yarra. Now, she once again its status as an Australian icon. From the Slavoj Zizek asks whether or not the Jewish people should lets us in on the forgotten boardroom to the hangar room, he inves- Verso. PB. $26 regard themselves as genetically distinct and secrets of our city’s history in tigates the decisions that have brought the Marx argued that history identifiable or should that doctrine now be this fascinating story of the engineers battling against the accountants repeats itself – first as tragedy left behind. If the myth of the Jewish state is years in which Australia was governed from to keep up the high safety standards Aus- then as farce. Zizek claims dismantled, could this open a path toward a Melbourne, while Canberra was being built. tralians expect. It is an exposé that gives an the financial meltdown more inclusive Israeli state, content within She also chronicles the birth of modern insight not only into Qantas but also into proves that the global its borders? Australia, and a changing wider world – Australian corporate culture and one that capitalist model doesn’t work. from Helena Rubinstein and the invention any airline passenger will want to read. Just a few months before the of the cosmetics industry, to the world’s first crash the world's priorities feature film, to confectionery king Mac A Place to Remember: seemed to be global warming, AIDS, and Environment Robertson, packaging pioneer and author of A History of the Shrine access to medicine, food and water. The Our Choice: the city’s first motor car fatality. And she of Remembrance, financial implosion changed the priority to A Plan to Solve traces, with the lightest of touches, the web Melbourne that of money. Do we need further proof, the Climate Crisis of influence, friendship and sheer coinci- Zizek argues, that capital has become more dence that held it all together. Bruce Scates Al Gore CUP. HB. $59.95 important to us than even the most pressing Bloomsbury. PB. $35 Hoax Nation Slipcased limited edition $199 problems of our natural and social world. In the highly acclaimed An Simon Caterson In 1934 The Shrine of Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore Arcade. PB. $18 Remembrance was dedicated laid down the serious to the 114,000 Victorian climate change issues .OTFORNOTHINGDID-ARK4WAINDESCRIBE!USTRALIAN Melbourne literary journalist HISTORYAS@READINGLIKETHEMOSTBEAUTIFULLIES Simon Caterson has been servicemen that served in confronting the planet. In World War I. Bruce Scates History this follow-up, he provides Hoax Nation intrigued by Australian Hiroshima: Australian Fakes and Frauds, traces the history of this the solutions to address from Plato to Norma Khouri hoaxes for years. And with The World’s Bomb 3)-/.#!4%23/. good reason – we have some striking monument in the Andrew J. Rotter these core problems. In his changing physical and absolute corkers in our OUP. PB. $31.95 clear and concise style and with the aid of cultural landscape. He uses archival images, history, from ancient times to Andrew Rotter investigates diagrams and photos, Gore tackles climate personal stories and state records to build a the present. In this book, he the global technological and change at the personal, community, picture of what the shrine has represented to unearths our rich (and highly entertaining) moral developments that led national and international levels. A veterans, their families and community in its legacy of hoaxes – modern art frauds, literary to the bombing of Hiro- young-reader’s edition (for ages 11 and up) 70-year history. scandals, impostures – from the Tichborne shima. He argues that will be available in December. Claimant, to Ern Malley, to Norma Khouri. scientists in several nations, Fascinating reading. Great Australian including New Zealand, The Climate Speeches Austria, Germany and of Australia Letters Home: From Pamela Robson ultimately the US were all striving to create ASP. HB. $64.95 Gallipoli and Beyond Pier 9. PB. $34.95 the weapon itself, each building on the This practical, fully illus- Doug and Margot Anthony The selection shows the great success of the others. And the technological trated guide from the Bureau A&U. HB. $35 breadth of speech making in developments went hand-in-hand with a of Metereology draws An old school case, tied with this country, from colonial shift in moral thinking that could condone together our knowledge a leather strap, was recently times to the present day, targeting a city full of innocent people. This about Australia’s climate, uncovered in a barn on the including Kevin Rudd’s is a clear-sighted investigation into one of past and present. It looks at Anthony family property. apology to indigenous the most controversial and devastating typical and extreme weather Inside were found the letters, Australia in 2008. It moments of the twentieth century and its patterns, long-term variabil- diary entries and postcards of includes speeches from the impact on the future. ity and the effects of climate change – and young infantryman Hubert famous and the infamous; from Miles contains detailed maps and tables, full- Anthony, written during Franklin to Dame Nellie Melba; and Sir In Our Time colour photographs of a variety of Austra- World War I. The letters not only detail the Robert Menzies to Ned Kelly. It also Melvyn Bragg lian landscapes shaped by climate, and case studies of extreme weather events. It horrors of Gallipoli, but also show a sensitive includes photographs and biographies that Hodder Headline. PB. $35 includes a CD-Rom with a full set of young man’s deep affection for his mother, place the speakers in the context of their This is a companion volume monthly climate maps. A unique and whose life story becomes part of this fascinat- time, creating a thoroughly interesting and to Melvyn Bragg’s BBC comprehensive reference. ing tale of war and a rural life left behind. historic document. Radio 4 program of the same name. With the help of Side by Side: A Season Frontier, Race, Nation: experts from the fields of with Collingwood henry reynolds and philosophy, science, politics, Peter Ryan australian history religion and the arts, he takes Food & Wine Bain Atwood & Tom Griffiths us on a journey through the Melbourne: The Geoff Slattery. HB. $49.95 Making of a Drinking Peter Ryan has spent the ASP. PB. $49.95 defining moments of our history and the 2009 season in the inner It is often said that Henry Reynolds has individuals and ideas that have shaped our and Eating Capital sanctum of the Collingwood altered Australian history, and this book illu- world. Bragg is the highly successful author Michael Harden Football Club. Author of minates the extraordinary significance of his of several fiction and non-fiction works, Hardie Grant. HB. Normally $49.95 The Australian Game of personal and public roles as historian, writer most recently a grand tour of the English Our special price $39.95 Football, Ryan examines the and commentator. By expanding and chal- language in The Adventure of English. From the writer of the pressure, passions and lenging Reynolds’ contribution, the authors sumptuous Lygon St comes personalities that make it one of each chapter broaden our understanding Aristocrats another journey into the of the favourite teams in the competition: of the legacy of this man from a national and Lawrence James foodie heart of Melbourne. the one you love, or the one you love to international perspective, discussing issues Little Brown. HB. $65 Prior to the 1988 changes to hate. surrounding frontier settlement, land rights, This entertaining and liquor licensing laws, sovereignty and race. wide-ranging history traces Melbourne had little to Sydney Harbour: the fortunes of the British recommend to the lover of A History Peter kennedy: aristocracy over the past 900 fine food. But the new laws enabled Ian Hoskins St Mary’s in Exile years. It’s a kind of compan- restaurateurs to develop a new wining and and the Church. ion to James’ earlier book, dining experience. Harden shows how local New South Books. HB. $49.95 restaurants, like Jimmy Watson’s, Pellegrini’s Ian Hoskins takes us on a Martin Flanagan The Middle Class: A History, which chronicled the recent and Grossi Florentino began changing to historic journey around one & Michele Gierck suit the new mood and how Meyer’s Place of the most recognisable One Day Hill. PB. $29.95 rise of the middle-class. This is a story of wars, intrigue and extremes of both became the first ‘laneway bar’ now synony- landscapes in the world. In February 2009, Father Peter Kennedy was mous with the Melbourne scene. Traditionally a spiritual place sacked from his South Brisbane church, St selflessness and greed, with an emphasis on for Aboriginal communities, Mary’s, for stretching the bounds and defini- social life and behaviour, including the it has shaped and been tions of community to include non-Catholics, aristocracy’s obsession with hunting, horse shaped by those living on its gays and divorcees. When he refused to be racing and boxing – the latter two allowing shores. It defined the means for transport removed, after years of devoting himself to his noblemen to display their wealth through and communication in a new colony and congregation, it caused an uproar. The situa- gambling. Readings Monthly November 2009 11 Larousse Gastronomique Larousse Cultural Studies Hodder Headline. HB. $145 Eating Animals First printed in the 1930s, Jonathan Safran Foer Larousse Gastronomique is the Hamish Hamilton. PB. $32.95 HeZX^VaEg^XZ HeZX^VaEg^XZ international kitchen bible. In this riveting expose, ))#.* ')#.* Thoroughly edited and renowned novelist Jonathan updated for 2009, it has Safran-Foer (Everything is comprehensive information Illuminated) presents a on ingredients, chefs, recipes, coherent argument for =6A;L6NID=DAANLDD9 NDJ7:II:GCDI8GN food origins and more. vegetarianism. He shows the price paid by the environ- B^X]VZaEVa^c 6j\jhiZc7jggdj\]h Designed for the home cook, it contains 900 I]^hadc\VlV^iZYhZXdcY 6XVjhi^XVaan[jccnVcYbdk^c\ new colour and black and white photo- ment, the government, the kdajbZ^hVh]^aVg^djhVh 8]g^hibVh[gdbi]ZWZhihZaa^c\ graphs to help you along the way. Third World and animals for our desire to i]ZÒghi# Vji]dgd[Gjcc^c\L^i]HX^hhdgh# eat meat, and explores possibilities for those who do eat meat to do so more responsibil- ity. This is also a first-person intellectual '.#.. Science journey, presenting Safran-Foer’s personal )*#%% Seeing Through engagement with and attraction to vegetari- Illusions anism – he was inspired to write this book in Richard Gregory order to think out the issue and ‘get it right’. OUP. HB. $54.95 Surviving Against How do we see, hear, taste, touch, smell? Eminent the Odds: Village neuropsychologist, Richard Industry in Indonesia 8DC;:HH>DCHD;6 I=:L:AA6C9I=:B>C: Gregory, explains how we S. Ann Dunham CDI"HD"H:8G:I6<:CI <^cE]^aa^eh perceive our world. He Duke University Press. HB. $47.95 E=daYZg0=B^aaZg 6cVhhjgZY!^che^g^c\cdkZa =VggnBB^aaZg]VheaZcind[hidg^Zh reveals fascinating details December release l]^X]YZbdchigViZhi]ZedlZg President Barack Obama’s VWdji]^\]"egdÒaZeZdeaZVcYi]Z6! d[i]Z]jbVche^g^iid\^kZ about the long evolutionary 7VcY8a^hih^c"WZilZZc# Xdb[dgi^ci^bZhd[]VgYh]^e# development of our sensory mother, S. Ann Dunham, physiology from life beneath the sea. He was an anthropologist who explains how we combine reception of specialized in social and outward signals with active interpretation economic development in Indonesia. This book is based that builds our sensory experience. And A6GDJHH:<6HIGDCDB>FJ:Ä on her 14 years of research through case studies and experiments with C:L:9>I>DC &)*#%% illusions he shows how the mind can be among craftsmen in Java, the :kZgnWjYY^c\BVhiZgX]Z[Éhbdhi ‘tricked’ into perceiving something other island home to nearly half Indonesia’s ZhhZci^Vae^ZXZd[`^iX]ZcZfj^ebZci# than what the senses receive. population. A work of economic anthropol- ;jaanjeYViZYVcYgZk^hZY[dgi]^h ogy, Surviving against the Odds reflects WgVcYcZlZY^i^dc!egZhZciZY^cV Terra: Tales Dunham’s commitment to helping small- \dg\Zdjhha^eXVhZ# of the Earth scale village industries survive. Richard Hamblyn Picador. HB. $49.99 With devastating earth- quakes, tsunamis, floods and Humour fire all causing havoc around You Better Not Cry the world in recent times, it is Augusten Burroughs fascinating to read about four Orion. PB. Normally $29.99 moments in history of equal Our special price $24.95 destruction that helped Last year we had a Christ- explain much about the mas-themed comic memoir geography of the earth. Author of The from David Sedaris ... this Invention of Clouds, Hamblyn conjures year, it’s Augusten Burroughs’ personal accounts of the Lisbon earthquake turn. This collection of ALZHEIMER’S: PARLOUR GAMES of 1755; the weather-panics of the summer seasonal reflections and A LOVE STORY FOR MODERN of 1783; the eruption of Krakatau in 1883; exploits ranges from dry- and the Hilo tsunami of 1946. In sections witted childhood memories Vivienne Ulman FAMILIES defined as earth, air, fire and water, Hamblyn (like eating off the face of a life-size wax ‘A heart-rendingly Myfanwy Jones explores how the earth’s desire for equilib- beautiful book.’ & Spiri Tsintziras Santa) to poignant adult meditations, like – Raimond Gaita rium, brings about these cataclysmic events. the Christmas he spent with a lover dying ‘Who knew you could from AIDS, and the Christmas a decade have this much fun without power cords? later when he finally felt he was ready to get I love this book.’ his first Christmas tree since his lover’s – Catherine Deveny Games death. This is vintage Burroughs: alternately Parlour Games for moving and hilarious – and sometimes both. Modern Families Myfanwy Jones Best Australian IN CONVERSATION: CHEATING DEATH & Spiri Tsintziras Political Cartoons 2009 ENCOUNTERS Sanjay Gupta, MD Scribe. PB. $35 Russ Radcliffe (ed.) WITH 39 GREAT ‘Cheating Death Sick of electronic fun? Scribe. PB. $29.95 WRITERS is an account Suffering from screen fatigue? It’s been another action- Ben Naparstek of modern-day Looking for ways to lure scientifi c miracles packed year in politics, with Personal and . . . which expand square-eyed children away plenty of scandal and debate provocative portraits the very boundaries from their iPod, DS or PSP? – providing ample material that illuminate of life itself.’ This gorgeous book sets out for our best cartoonists. Russ what makes great – Oliver Sacks to revive the tradition of Radcliffe has gathered their writers tick. indoor family games. It’s best work here, in his ‘best packed with games of logic and memory, of’ annual selection. wordplay, card games, role-play and rough Cartoonists who’ve made the cut include THE INFORMANT and tumble – all set out with clear rules and Firstdogonthemoon, Bill Leak, Peter BESTB AUSTRALIAN instructions. All the equipment you’ll need is Nicholson, Bruce Petty, John Spooner, Kurt Eichenwald ‘The most riveting PPOLITICAL probably lying around in a drawer some- Andrew Weldon and Cathy Wilcox. CCARTOONS 2009 where already: a pack of cards, a dictionary, tale of recent years . . . a fast-paced RRuss Radcliffe (ed.) an hourglass, dice, paper and pen. Good What Would Keith race car of a book.’ times guaranteed! A subversive fi rst draft Richards Do? – Salon.com ofo history, and the Jessica Pallington West essentiale guide to the Bloomsbury. PB. $19.99 newn Labor era. ‘I’ve never turned blue in someone else’s bathroom. I consider that the height of bad manners.’ A die-hard Stones fan, Pallington West has put together this sanguine collec- tion of Keith-isms. From bathroom etiquette www.scribepublications.com.au 12 Readings Monthly November 2009 to fashion, and politics to philosophy, the more than two hundred interviews with The Wire Primers: great survivor has had something to say. specialists in psychology, sociology, market- A Guide to Modern Sometimes obscure, often politically incor- ing and communication, the book presents Music New in November rect, but almost always funny, this is a collec- compelling stories of individuals and tion to keep around for when the absurdities institutions – on and off the internet – that Rob Young (ed.) of life wear you down. show the impact strangers have on business, Verso. PB. $39.95 creativity, the work environment, our Since it was founded in Up in the Block Hole physical and mental health and the strength 1982, The Wiremagazine has Tom Gleisner of our communities. covered a vast range of alternative, experimental and Hardie Grant. PB. Normally 29.95 underground music. The KINGMAKERS Our special price 24.95 Wire Primers The Invention draws together Australian cricket legend some of the most visionary, of the Modern Warwick Todd is back, in his Middle East Philosophy inspiring, subversive and first book in more than a Heidegger and a Hippo radical musicians both past and present. Norton s PB s $29.95 decade. Here, he reflects on his Walk Through Those Each chapter surveys the music of a particu- career and shares his diary of Pearly Gates lar artist, group or genre. Genres surveyed Kingmakers is the gripping story of how the 2009 Ashes Tour, recorded and explained include P-funk, musique the modern Middle East came to be, as in excruciating detail. ‘How do Thomas Cathcart & Daniel Klein Viking. HB. $33.95 concrète, turntablism, Brazilian Tropicália, told through the lives of the Britons and you sum up a 20 year career in avant metal and dubstep. Americans who shaped it. Some are just a few hundred pages? The answer is, you Philosophy with a healthy famous (Lawrence of Arabia and Gertrude can't, and it's ridiculous to try except for the dose of humour, on one of Bell); others infamous. fact you've signed a publishing deal and already the most serious of all spent most of the advance, so here goes ...’ subjects – death. The authors of Plato and a Platypus Walk Art & Design into a Bar take us on a tour The Mind and Times of philosophy, theology and 'of Reg Mombassa the psychology of mortality Murray Waldren WoBusinessmen, Work and and immortality. Along the way, they share WHISKEY AND Harper Collins. HB. $75 the Art of Savoir wisdom and insight from great thinkers such Our special price $63.95 PHILOSOPHY as Sartre, Camus, Nietzsche and Schopen- Faire: Business Sense Reg Mombassa has been hauer, cracking jokes as they go. A Small Batch of and Sensibility creating art and music in Spirited Ideas Mireille Guiliano Australia for over thirty years. Wiley s PB s $32.95 Atria. HB. $35 Mental As Anything became From Mireille Guiliano, who one of Australia’s most Everyone becomes a philosopher with a explained why French Women Music popular bands in the 80s, drink in hand, but Whiskey and Philosophy Don’t Get Fat, comes a The 10 Rules and who didn’t have a takes this natural pairing to a new level. working guide for how of Rock n Roll Mombassa-designed Mambo It explores a range of philosophical topics women can have their cake Robert Forster t-shirt in the 90s? His cheeky sense of related to whiskey through engaging and eat it too! Using her Black Inc. PB. $27.95 humour mixed with politics, religion and reflections written by philosophers, experience in the interna- The 10 Rules of Rock and Roll popular culture produced some of the whiskey writers and others. tional business world (she is retrospective journey into best-loved art of the time leading to his was spokesperson for Veuve Cliquot for over popular music: a musical extraordinary display at the Sydney Olym- 20 years), Guiliano blends her own special endoscopy which covers pics. This collector’s edition contains mix of anecdotes, life lessons and even almost the whole gamut of photographs, posters and band memorabilia recipes, to help women reach their business as well as nearly 300 original artworks. It is www.wiley.com the art and its genres. From potential. She discusses everything from the juvenescent to the also available in a slip-cased edition for interview presentation to mentorship and geriatric; from the coy to the $150. communication to leadership, while camp; from Delta Goodrem and Kasey maintaining a happy work–life balance. Chambers, to ageing rockers like AC/DC. Junky Styling This is a mélange of very tasteful reviews on Wardrobe Surgery albums, books, concerts and writings. As one Annika Sanders might expect, Dylan features highly as a & Kerry Seager Psychology reference point throughout the work. Forster A & C Black. PB. $49.99 Readings and Writings Consequential is an absolutely fabulous writer. He knows Junky Styling, a UK based Strangers: the power his music and how to critique it without label, make fabulous clothing Readings and Writings is a new book of people who don't denigrating the artist or their work. He out of recycled textiles, specially commissioned to mark writes from the heart and for everyone. If offering off-the-peg collec- seem to matter ... you’re not into Diamond or Campbell, forty years of Readings bookshops. but really do tions as well as their ‘ward- CK there’s always Cohen or Mouskouri. Artists

O robe surgery’ service. Clients Readings and Writings includes new C Melinda Blau N who, despite their age, are prepared to get up

A and fans include Kate Moss, stories by Christos Tsiolkas, Cate H & Karen L. Fingerman on stage and affirm their place amidst the Sadie Frost, Sienna Miller, Kennedy, Alex Miller, Kate Holden, ER Norton. HB. $42.95 pantheon of musicians. There’s plenty to Gwen Stefani and Russell Brand. This book Elliot Perlman and more. Psychologist Karen Finger- choose from this smorgasbord of talent. One features their very cool creations and gives S G U L L I V man, who coined the term thing is certain however – age does not patterns for the home sewer such as a Available now from all Readings shops. AME ‘consequential strangers’, define talent. In fact, the older the better. 50s-style skirt made of recycled trouser legs. Paperback. $24.95. All proceeds from the sale collaborates with journalist Dimitri Gonis is a freelance reviewer of this book will go to The Readings Foundation. Included is useful information about the I O N B Y J Melinda Blau to explain why properties of natural and synthetic fabrics, Find out more at www.readings.com.au strangers expand our TRAT Canyon of Dreams: The and cleaning tips. emotional and physical Magic AND The Music Margaret Snowdon is Art & Design Buyer ILLUS eSupporting Community, Literacy and theFoundation Arts. www.readings.com.au horizons. Drawing on Blau's of Laurel Canyon at Readings Carlton Harvey Kubernik Sterling. HB. $49.99 Atlas Monographs Max Pam th Estate Harvey Kubernik, the author of this lovingly produced T&G Publishing. HB. $120$ tribute to an American music Atlas Monographs is a Mad World Manhood for mecca, has lived in Laurel compression of nine travel 9780007243761 Amateurs Canyon all his life. A much- journals, beginning with 9780007257874 respected music historian, Pam’s most recent work An engaging portrait journalist and producer, his (Karakoram 2006) and about one of Michael Chabon, knowledge and passion for his shifting back through the England’s greatest the Pulitzer Prize- subject is evident on every page of this frankly decades to his first journals, novelists, and the winning author of stunning book, lavishly illustrated with one of begun in 1970. The journals glamorous, The Adventures of a kind photographs and scrapbook-style map – through text, photo and marks on eccentric, debauched Kavalier and Clay memorabilia and boasting candid interviews paper – his engagement with the cultures he has travelled through. Just as importantly, and ultimately tragic and The Yiddish with a ‘who’s who’ of music, yielding a trove of amazing anecdotes. While the area is best the journals provided the engine room for family that provided Policeman’s Union, known today for its association with 60s his development as a photographer, a writer him with the most significant friendships offers his first major work of and 70s icons such as The Doors, Joni and an artist. Max Pam is one of Australia’s of his life and inspired his masterpiece, nonfiction, an autobiographical Mitchell, Frank Zappa and The Eagles, most important contemporary photogra- Brideshead Revisited. narrative as inventive, beautiful and Kubernik takes us on a journey through phers. Working as a professional since the powerful as his novels. several eras, from Jazz Age denizens such as early 1970s, he is among a handful of Greta Garbo and F. Scott Fitzgerald to the Australians to make a substantial impact on musicians working there today. the intensely competitive international photographic scene. MS Readings Monthly November 2009 13 Crackle: nosity, for everyone else, Georgia has her own Contemporary Art glossary at the back of her books – hilarious!). from the Middle I’m not going to say much, as fans will know what to expect, however, after all these years, of Nowhere who really is the boy for Georgia?! Stuart Koop Kids’ Books Picture Books Treasure Island Katherine Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn IMA Brisbane. PB. $30 Wanted: The Robert Louis Stevenson Crackle showcases the work of 17 contem- & John Lawrence (illus.) Eragon’s Guide porary Australian artists: James Angus, Kate Perfect Pet Fiona Roberton Walker. HB. $39.95 to Alagaesia Benyon, Pat Brassington, A Constructed Christopher Paolini World, Michael Doolan, Fiona Foley, Marco Viking. HB. $24.95 This beautiful, new, full-text Doubleday. HB. $45 Fusinato, Simryn Gill, Andrew Hurle, ‘It is common knowledge edition of the Stevenson This is a full-colour Mathew Jones, Danius Kesminas, Callum that a dog is the perfect pet classic that shaped our exploration deep into the Morton, Patricia Piccinini, Tim Silver, Ricky for a boy,’ says Henry, who childhood ideas of pirates world of Alagaesia, as told Swallow, Louise Weaver and Ah Xian. It is tired of pet frogs. So he comes just in time for Christ- by Eragon himself. Find out includes short essays on each artist by Stuart advertises for a dog, but a mas. It is an impressive, much more about dragons, Koop and lots of pictures. Supported by the duck in a comedic disguise robust and bold edition (as elves and the history of Besen Family Foundation, Crackle includes appears instead. However, it is hard to do befits the content), with Alagaesia. Includes fold-out booklets, jewels short essays on each artist and over 100 doggy things when you are a duck, and all is dramatic vinyl-cut illustrations by John and other additions to this fascinating world. colour reproductions. MS revealed. Henry and duck are both disap- Lawrence that bring to life the rough-and- ready period of seafaring derring-do. Let pointed, but a resourceful and empathetic Shiver Bauhaus Women: Henry thinks laterally and a sympathetic these evocative new illustrations – which feel carved from a past of wood, tar and lantern Maggie Stiefvater Art Handicraft Design reassessment of the situation results in a delightful outcome. Wanted is a charmingly light – bring to life young Jim Hawkins’s Scholastic. HB. $29.99 Ulrike Muller adventure of a lifetime. Just when I thought I Flammarion. HB. $75 illustrated story of making the best of an imperfect situation and finding friendship. Marie Matteson is from Readings Port Melbourne couldn’t take yet another Women were enthusiastic supernatural romance, along participants in most of the Ages 3+ Alexa Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn This month Walker Books comes Shiver to blow that ground-breaking art and are publishing four notion out of the water! design movements of the The Princess who beautiful but quite different Shiver is the unashamedly early twentieth century. No books, all of which romantic story of a teenage doubt desperate to get away had no Kingdom celebrate the rich tradition girl, Grace, who falls in love from hobbling garments and Ursula Jones of fairy tales in Western with a werewolf, Sam. Grace has had a overstuffed and frilly florals, & Sarah Gibb (illus.) culture. In Goldilocks and the Three Bears lifelong fascination with wolves after you can see some of their beautifully subtle Orchard. HB. $28.99 (HB. $27.95), Emma Chichester-Clark gives surviving a harrowing wolf attack when she and innovative work in this new book and Once there was a princess us a mischievous heroine in her blonde was younger. Shiver puts an interesting twist several others. Gunta Stolzl: Bauhaus Master who had no kingdom. All contemporary Goldilocks; while Bagram in standard werewolf mythology: the (Hatje Cantz, HB, $77), covers the career of she had was a pony and Ibatoulline’s illustrations for Brian Alderson’s werewolves are human during the warmer the head of the Bauhaus weaving workshop, cart, and a red umbrella to retelling of Thumbelina (HB, $27.95) are months and become wolves in cold weather. from student days to field artist and Red keep her dry from the rain. classically elegant. Snow White (HB, $29.95), When Grace finally meets Sam as a human, Cross nurse during World War I, to the What she lacked in wordly with Jane Ray’s signature glowing artwork, is he is in his last summer before changing establishment of her own hand-weaving possessions though, she made up for in a stand-up pop-up book with the text behind permanently into a wolf. The two teenagers business. Dada’s Women, (Ruth Hemus, Yale kindness, cleverness and beauty. doors, which open on the side of each scene. have to fight the dropping temperature, and UP, HB, $120) looks at the careers of Emmy Finally, a good antidote to the formulaic other dangerous forces in town, to keep their Hennings, Sophie Taeuber, Hannah Hoch, Three Little Culottes mass-market princesses around is Amy love alive. Told in the alternating voices of Suzanne Duchamp and Celine Arnauld. Sylvie Chausee Ehrlich’s A Treasury of Princess Stories (HB, Grace and Sam, Shiver stands out from the Anticipated for December is a new book on & Anne Letuffe (illus.) $29.95) illustrated by Gary Blythe, which pack, due to its poetic language, successful surrealist Leonor Fini, Sphinx: The Life and Berbay. HB. $29.95 has six best-loved stories including ‘The evocation of a cold Minnesota town and the Art of Leonor Fini (Peter Webb, Vendome Sisters Lucette, Paulette Princess and the Pea’ and ‘The Wild Swans’, surrounding woods, and the believable Press, HB, $180). MS and Marie-Antoinette are with illustrations full of magic and including romance between its main characters. three strong-spirited little some miniature pop-up scenes. Leanne Hall is from Readings Carlton Casa Mediterranea piglets. One night their Massimo Listri culottes are stolen, so they younger readers I Lost my Mobile Thames & Hudson. HB. $75 go in search of the thief. Edie Amelia and the at the Mall The Mediterranean attracts This is a unique variation of the classic fairy Monkey Shoe Mystery Wendy Harmer visitors from around the tale The Three Little Pigs. Random. PB. $17.95 world, thanks to its sun- Sophie Lee Pan. PB. $12.99 My mother will accuse me of being lazy, un- drenched landscape, rich Prince of Peas grateful and plain old stupid. My best friend history, enticing traditions Plucky Edie Amelia has a very important Sylvie Chausee mystery to solve. One of her much-loved will kill me because there’s a photo in my mo- and welcoming lifestyles. & Anne Letuffe (illus.) bile of her standing next to Hugh Jackman. If This book showcases a monkey shoes has disappeared and her birth- Berbay. HB. $29.95 day party outfit will be sullied. Enlisting the I don’t get it back my life is not worth living! sumptuous selection of some This illustrated children’s book is a play on of the most beautiful houses found around help of Mister Pants, her dog, and her not- the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale The so-friendly friend Cheesie Chompster, Edie Alice in Love and War the Mediterranean, captured by the lens of Princess and the Pea. Princess Antoinette’s Ann Turnbull renowned architecture photographer sets out to discover what has happened to mother hides a pea under the mattress of her her shoe – and along the way, helps her ec- Walker. PB. $16.95 Massimo Listri. Following on from the suitors to identify the true Prince of Peas. Set during the English Civil War, this won- delights of Casa Mundi, these stunning centric inventor father reclaim his job back. This is a fun story about family, acceptance derfully engrossing story tells of a country photographs vary between sweeping girl who leaves everything to follow her panoramas of the houses in their glorious All Kinds of Families! and friendship and of course the moral is Mary Ann Hoberman ‘shoes maketh the girl’. Hopefully, Edie will handsome young soldier fighting for the settings to close-ups of specific rooms, king. Though rich in period detail, it is the furniture and design details. These houses & Marc Boutavant (illus.) go on to solve more mysteries. Ages 7+. AD Little Brown. HB. $33.95 timeless dilemmas of young love, of friend- provide glorious fodder for dreaming as well ship, betrayal and loyalty in a time of great as a concrete source of inspiration for The rhyme in All Kinds of Families! is spar- middle & ya readers kling and spirited, however it is the artwork hardship that gives the novel its power. Ann creating one’s own Sequels arriving in November to gladden Turnbull, who has been shortlisted for both personal style. MS that enlivens the words and teases the imagi- the hearts of lots of readers include Alex nation to visualise all kinds of families. Yes, the Whitbread Children’s Book Award and Rider Book Eight, Crocodile Tears (Anthony the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize, says Outlaws! Adventures there are many permutations of human re- Horowitz, Walker, PB, $17.95); Ranger’s lationships, but consider the cutlery drawer, of the book and her fascination with the of Pirates, Rebels, and Apprentice Book Nine, Halt’s Peril (John English Civil War: ‘I wanted to explore how or even chalk for the board! The world is Flanagan, Random, PB, $16.95); Children Other Scoundrels full of all types of interconnecting kinships these great events felt at the time to ordinary Marechaux Laurent of the Red King Book Eight, Charlie Bone people caught up in the thick of them.’ Rec- and children’s minds will be dazzled by the and the Red Knight (Jenny Nimmo, Ran- Flammarion. HB. $75 ommended for mid-teen to adult readers. tempo, language and colourful vibrancy of dom, PB, $16.95); and The Chronicles of Whether pirates, gunslingers, Kathy Kozlowski is from Readings Carlton this charming picture book. Ages 3+. AD Ancient Darkness Book Six, Ghost Hunter gangsters or desert fiends, (Michelle Paver, Orion, HB, $29.99). these rebel outlaws rose up classics non-fiction against injustice. From the The Magical World Are These My Basoomas The Greatest monopoly of the maritime Intergalactic Guide powers to the advent of of Milligan I see Before Me? Spike Milligan Louise Rennison to Space Ever industrialism, they defied The Brainwaves & everything – and in doing so Virgin. HB. $39.95 Harper Collins. HB. $19.99 they signed their own death warrants. A A sparkly new compendium that gathers Well, the time has come to say farewell to Lisa Swerling (illus.) collection of 50 astonishing stories featuring together a grand selection of Milligan favou- our pally pal, Georgia Nicolson and the & Ralph Lazar (illus.) hero-villains ranging from Robin Hood to rites, including such delightful poems and crazy Ace Gang. It’s been ten years of fab Dorling Kindersley. HB. $35 Buffalo Bill, and from Calamity Jane to Bon- stories as ‘On the Ning Nang Nong’, ‘The confessions from our little mate and the fi- Following the success of their Most Stupen- nie and Clyde – this fascinating book is hard Terrible Monster Jelly’ and lots of Twits. nal, Are These My Basoomas I See Before Me?, dous Atlas of the Whole Wide World, this new to tear yourself away from. MS is just the icing on the cake shop of love (for book will take you on an out-of-this-world us fans, all this nonsense makes total sense- tour of the Universe. 14 Readings Monthly November 2009 Readings Monthly October 2009 15 Frost Thomas Bernhard HB. Was $47.95. Now $16.95 A writer of world stature, ReadingsBargains on the web: New books are Bargai regularly added to our nwebsite. Table Click on the Bargains tab at www.readings.com.au. Thomas Bernhard combined a searing wit and an unwav- ering gaze into the human The Complete Tales White Tiger Delizia: The Epic condition. Frost follows an of Beatrix Potter Aravind Adiga History of the Italians unnamed young Austrian Beatrix Potter PB. Was $32.95. Now $16.95 and their Food who accepts an unusual HB. Was $75. Now $35.95 Balram Halwai is the white John Dickie assignment. tiger – the smartest boy in This complete and un- PB. Was $35. Now $14.95 Hideaways: abridged collection contains his village. His family is too For a thousand years, Italy’s all 23 of Beatrix Potter’s tales poor to afford for him to cities have been magnets for Cabins, Huts and in one deluxe volume with all finish school and he has to everything that makes for Tree-House Escapes their original illustrations. work in a teashop, breaking great eating: ingredients, Sonya Faure coals and wiping tables. talent, money and power. PB. Was $55. Now $19.95 Every adult can recall the serene kind of safety they felt The Stuff of Thought in their childhood ‘special The Wisdom of Birds: Steven Pinker place’ – a platform in a HB. Was $49.95. Now $16.95 The Penguin Guide to backyard tree, a secret corner An Illustrated History The author of The Language of Ornithology Recorded Classical Mu- of a garden, or a well-hidden Instinct explains how the sic 2008 fort in the woods. Tim Birkhead mind works in a completely HB. Was $65. Now $29.95 new way – by examining how Ivan March et al. In The Wisdom of Birds, we use words. For example, PB. Was $59.95. Now $16.95 Women Travelers: Birkhead takes the reader on our use of prepositions and The 2008, completely revised edition of this popular A Century of a journey that not only tells tenses taps into human Trailblazing us about the extraordinary concepts of space and time. reference title surveys the lives of birds – from concep- major classical recordings Adventures, 1850–1950 tion and egg, through issued and reissued over the Alexandra Lapierre The Complete past five decades. territory and song, to Chronicles of Narnia HB. Was $75. Now $39.95 migration and fully fledged An award-winning novelist breeder – but also shows how, over centuries, C.S. Lewis brings to life the stories of we have overcome superstition and untested HB. Was $75. Now $29.95 the greatest women adven- ‘truths’ to know what we know, and how A beautiful hardback edition Echoes: The Complete turers in history. From recent some of that knowledge is. that contains the complete History of Pink Floyd deserts and jungles to Narnia books. A wondeful Glenn Povey mountains and icebergs, they Bomb, Book gift or addition to your own PB. Was $75. Now $39.95 faced unimaginable dangers and Compass shelves. A culmination of many years as they crossed all five Simon Winchester of hard investigative work, continents, often armed with little more than a corset and an umbrella. PB. Was $32.95. Now $16.95 and a clear love of the band, Before fate intervened, this book really deserves a place on your shelves. Italia: The Recipes and Joseph Needham was a Concise Atlas of the Customs of the Regions distinguished biochemist World performing research at Antonio Carluccio Cambridge University, Dorling Kindersley HB. Was $59.95. Now $19.95 married to a fellow scientist HB. Was $69.95. Now $29.95 The breathtaking visual and an ardent member of the From the defining boundaries Acts of Love: Ancient content of this book local communist party. In of the Balkan states to the icy Greek Poetry from celebrates the gastronomic 1937 he was asked to supervise a young terrain of Antarctica, over 400 Aphrodite’s Garden life of Italy with stunning Chinese student named Lu Gwei-Djen, and maps, created with the latest Selected and translated by photographs of countryside in that moment began the two great love digital mapping techniques George Economou and architecture, of people and satellite data, bring you and food products, and of affairs of his life – Lu and China. HB. Was $45. Now $13.95 Earth in stunning detail. mouthwatering recipes. The ancient poetry gathered Outliers: The Story in Acts of Love pays tart and of Success The Story of Yiddish: Young Stalin tender tribute to passion and How a Mish-Mosh Malcolm Gladwell Simon Sebag Montefiore to the power that Aphrodite PB. Was $32.95. Now $16.95 and her son, Eros, hold over of Languages PB. Was $30. Now $12.95 Malcolm Gladwell looks mortals – male and female, Saved the Jews Stalin remains, like Hitler, behind the myths to show young and old. With vivid Neal Karlen. HB. Was $45. Now $16.95 the personification of evil. what can explains exception- and surprisingly modern Underlying Neal Karlen’s This enthralling biography ally successful people. language, these poems and epigrams remind unique, brashly entertaining, reads like a thriller and Gladwell argues that, when us how little, in ways of the heart, the yet thoroughly researched reveals the extraordinary we try to understand success, human condition changes over time. telling of the language’s story journey of the Georgian we ask ‘what is this person is the notion that Yiddish cobbler’s son who became the like?’ when we should really is a mirror of Jewish history, ask: ‘where are they from?’ Red Tsar. thought and practice – for better and worse.

Olivier is a young aristocrat, born in France just after the Revolution. Parrot wanted to be HEAD-BANGING an artist but has ended up in middle age as a servant. COMES OF AGE… When Olivier sets sail for the New World – to avoid yet another revolution – Parrot is sent with him, as spy, protector, foe and foil. Throughout their adventures they make an Based on the internationally acclaimed, award- unlikely pair. But where better for unlikely winning documentary, (EAVY-ETALIN"AGHDAD things to flourish than in the glorious, brand- is the powerful story of the Iraqi heavy metal new experiment, America? band Acrassicauda, whose members struggled to survive as their country fell into bloody insurgency.

(%!69-%4!,)."!'($!$ | BY ANDY CAPPER | PAPERBACK | $24.99 Readings Monthly November 2009 15 New Release DVDs Somers Town DVD of the Month Released 4 November. $29.95 30 Rock: Season 3 From the acclaimed director of This Is England comes Released 11 November. $39.95 Somers Town, a black-and- Enjoy the complete third white study of a social season of the award-winning environment in London, comedy 30 Rock all over concentrating on a pair of again. Show creator Tina Fey unlikely new friends and the and Alec Baldwin star as TV girl they both fancy. They writer Liz Lemon and spend their days bickering over which of corporate executive Jack them loves her the most. Donaghy. Together, Jack and Liz manage the workplace chaos with no The Sweet Hereafter help from Liz’s loose-cannon stars Tracy Jordan and Jenna Maroney and hapless NBC Released 11 November. $29.95 page Kenneth Parcell. The end result is Tragedy strikes the residents topless break-dancing, professional tetherb- of a small town. Soon after, a all, geriatric kidnapping, bird murder, sexual big city lawyer, driven by his espionage, Appalachian witchcraft, patricide, own demons, stirs up the gay lion tattoos and important life lessons anger of the townspeople. learned from sasquatches. The box-set of In the ensuing atmosphere seasons 1–3 is also available ($79.95). of suspicion and doubt, can a teenager manage to regain her dignity, her courage and re-unite the What Just Happened community? $39.95 Boy A A winningly sharp comedy about two nail-biting, Released 5 November. $29.95 back-stabbing, roller-coaster Jack is a young man just weeks in the world of a released from prison for a middle-aged Hollywood crime he committed when he producer as he tries to juggle was just a boy. He manages an actual life with an to build a new life – friends, outrageous series of crises in a job, a girlfriend – until the his day job. It features a powerful ensemble ghost of his past returns to cast, including Robert De Niro, Bruce haunt him. Can Jack escape Willis, Robin Wright Penn, Sean Penn, his violent past, or will the mistakes of his Catherine Keener and Kristin Stewart. youth lead to tragic consequences? Based on a true story. Disgrace The Long Good Friday $39.95. Bluray $49.95 Based on the Booker $19.95 Prize-winning novel by J.M. Bob Hoskins stars as Harold Coetzee and starring John Shand, a London mobster Malkovich, Disgrace is a film fast losing control of his rich in texture – and an gangland empire. Helen emotionally engaging Mirren shines as his classy experience. After having an moll. John McKenzie’s stylish affair with a student, a Cape thriller is a cult crime flick Town professor moves to the Eastern Cape, that critics have compared to where he gets caught up in a mess of The Godfather and Scarface as one of the post-apartheid politics. greatest gangster films of all time. Sunshine Cleaning Mona Lisa $34.95 $19.95 In order to raise the tuition Writer/director Neil Jordan’s to send her young son to breakthrough film is a private school, a mother brilliant, noir-infused love starts an unusual business – story. Bob Hoskins plays a biohazard removal/crime George, a small-time loser scene clean-up service – with employed by underworld her unreliable sister. In the kingpin Mortwell (Michael vein of Little Miss Sunshine Caine) as a chauffeur to an and starring Amy Adams, Emily Blunt and enigmatic, high-class call girl (Cathy Tyson). Alan Arkin, Sunshine Cleaning is a heart- His fascination with her leads him on a warming and poignant indie comedy. dangerous quest through the sordid underbelly of London, where love is a ' Last Ride weakness to be exploited. Released 4 November. $34.95 The Pure Hell of St When his father bundles him into the car in the middle of Trinian's the night, ten-year-old Released 4 November. $19.95 Chook knows something is They’re not girls in the fourth wrong. As the two escape form at St Trinian’s – they’re into the desert facing an monsters. They can turn a unknown future, their schoolroom into a battlefield troubled relationship and the in minutes. Their pastimes need to survive sees them battling the range from poker to plaster- elements, and each other. Poetically spare ing parents with paint. They 5.$%2s!6!),!",%./6 and emotionally tense, Last Ride is an can drink whisky with the unforgettable love story between parent and best, and their motto is ‘mayhem’. But their child. latest trick is the best ever. They burn down St Trinian’s. The result? The whole school has www.beyondhomeentertainment.com.au to stand trial – at the Old Bailey! 16 Readings Monthly November 2009

Les Enfants Terribles Extras: The Complete The Chaser’s War on $29.95 Collection Everything: Series 3 This is an elegant adaptation Released 5 November. $79.95 Released 5 November. $34.95 of Jean Cocteau’s immensely This five-disc box set stars After an 18 month ceasefire, popular wicked novel about Ricky Gervais and Stephen the Chaser team returns with the wholly unholy relation- Merchant in all 12 hilarious an all-new series of The ship between a brother and episodes from series 1 and 2, Chaser’s War on Everything. sister. Elizabeth and Paul plus the special TV movie. The eight episode season sees close themselves off from the Cameo performances by the team escalating their outside world, by playing an Hollywood’s finest are assault on politicians, increasingly intense series of mind games featured throughout this business leaders and the with the people who dare enter their lair – collection, as well as numerous DVD extras, media – and they’ve also expanded the war until romance and jealousy intrude. including ‘behind the scenes’, deleted scenes, beyond Australia’s borders, taking aim at THE STRANGER 1946 Nazis are infiltrating the Melville’s operatic camera movements and out-takes and audio commentaries. new unsuspecting targets in the USA, UK, USA by sly & subtle means Cocteau’s perverse, poetic approach to Asia, Norway and Liechtenstein. – Edward G Robinson is on their case! character merge to create one of French KIDS cinema’s greatest meetings of the minds. Where the Wild MUSIC BOX SETS Things Are The Rolling Stones: HE WALKED $14.95 Stones In The Park 1969 BY NIGHT 1948 MGM Film Noir Claustrophobic thriller Beautiful animation and $24.95 galvanized by great $49.95 melodies bring classic There has never been a performances from John Garfield and Shelley Winters. Ranging from 1946 to 1959, Maurice Sendak stories to life. concert like it. There never the films cover the second Stories include Where The could be again. It was July phase of the genre commenc- Wild Things Are, The Nutshell 15, 1969, two days after the HE RAN ALL ing with Orson Welles’ The Kids and In the Night Kitchen. tragic death of guitarist Brian THE WAY 1951 Stranger through to Robert This is not to be confused Jones, when half a million A cop-killer is hunted all the Wise’s 1959 character study way round the streets, and with the highly anticipated people gathered in Hyde sewers of LA. Docu-noir! Odds Against Tomorrow. Also film adaptation being released later this year. Park to pay homage to the includes He Walked by Night, pop group described as the greatest rock ’n’ and He Ran all the Way. Films come in a the Fox and the Child roll band in the world, The Rolling Stones. quality hard-case cover suitable for book- Released 11 November. $34.95 This is a fascinating film of what will go ODDS AGAINST shelves, and includes an essay with annota- Narrated by Kate Winslet down in history as an extremely momentous TOMORROW 1959 tions. A must-have for fans of film noir. A tense heist story is and set against a stunning occasion. leavened with a racism sub- backdrop, filmed in the Ain plot, and a great jazz score. Gerry Anderson region of France and the Deluxe Box Sets Bruzzo National Park in Italy, Australian Cinema Sale Released 11 November. $29.95 each The Fox and the Child recounts the story of a magical, life-changing 4DVD encounter between a wild fox and a young BOXSET girl. Director Luc Jacquet offers audiences OUT NOW an unprecedented journey into the magical, secret world of this most elusive and enigmatic creature.

SPECIAL INTEREST Don’t forget our limited range of Young @ Heart Australian Cinema titles are on sale till the Supermarionation in all its glory! Brilliant $29.95 end of November. Prices from $12.95. sets, spectacular explosions, espionage and Get ready to rock with the Titles include. We also have a new range intrigue, what more could you possibly want most entertaining ‘golden of Australian titles at $14.95, including BASTARDY EVENT in a TV series? Gerry Anderson at his genius Don’t miss director oldies’ you’ll ever meet, a Romulus My Father, The Home Song Stories, best! Series include Captain Scarlett (He is Amiel Courtin-Wilson fun-loving senior citizens’ Lucky Miles, Ten Canoes, Candy, Kokoda, indestructible. You are not! Remember this!), and Jack Charles at choir called Young @ Heart Lantana and Chopper. Joe 90 (the world’s smartest secret agent is Readings Carlton, – average age 81. Watch only nine years old!), Stingray (Standby for talking about the as they prepare to perform a action! We are about to launch Stingray!), new documentary range of tunes from The Wire and Space 1999 Year 1, Thirtieth Anniversary Bastardy. See p3 for James Brown to Coldplay, and prove that The Wire Seasons 1–4 are available for Collection. Pure gold! more details. hard rock is hard work, especially when $29.95 each, while stocks last! you’re hard of hearing.

“For some of us, Max Ophuls was the best French filmmaker” François Truffaut

“His camera could pass through walls” OPHULS Stanley Kubrick

Two exquisitely beautiful films from one of cinema’s finest exponents

Influential Cinema from Around the Globe

DIRECTORSSUITE.COM.AU Readings Monthly November 2009 17 New Release CDs Declaration of MY FRIENDS ALL DIED Album of the Month Dependence IN A PLANE CRASH Cosmic Egg Kings of Convenience Cocoon $24.95 $29.95 Wolfmother The third album from the This French duo release an album with the Normally $29.95. Our special price $24.95 Norwegian pop-folk duo saddest title this year. Mark Daumail and Wolfmother took the world (Erik Boe and Erlend Oye), Morgane Imbeaud combine on this beauti- by storm in 2005 with the Declaration of Dependence is ful new album, self-described as a folk-pop release of their self-titled the story of two people version of The White Stripes. A nod to the album, spawning the living two very different new folk sound of Sufjan Stevens and De- Grammy win for Woman. lives, sensing that they are immensely more vendra Banhart, along with a penchant for The success of the album powerful together than apart. In that sense it dark nursery rhymes. Well worth checking kept the band on the road touring for over is the most adult, the most mature record out. DC two years. Now, Wolfmother return with Kings of Convenience has ever made. That it Cosmic Egg and prove true to form, deliver- is their most gripping, their most revealing GEE WHIZ THIS IS ing their aggressive and classic sound laced is, if anything, just a by-product of that A LONELY TOWN with crunching guitars, muscular rhythms honesty and their endeavour – and this Moriarty and soaring vocals. New band members join shines through in their songs. LF Andrew Stockdale and the extra guitarist $29.95 gives the band an added edge to their sound. Moriarty takes its cue from the worlds of BQE Depression-era American folk and Euro- Cosmic Egg is bound to take its fans into Sufjan Stevens another sonic dimension. pean cabaret. This stripped-back ensemble Lou Fulco is from Readings Carlton CD/DVD $34.95 comprises four men on various acoustic Sufjan is famously attempt- instruments, fronted by the haunting vocals ing to make an album for of the enigmatic Rosemary. Also singing in Strict Joy every state in the union, English and with a sound that’s been vari- Swell Season but has slowed down of ously described as early Neil Young, folk, late; this is his first release country, blues, jazz and even Americana, the Normally $27.95. Our special price $21.95 in over three years. The one absolute of this mysterious group is that Glen Hansard and Marketa BQE is the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, their sound is irresistible. It’s rather hard to Irglova are back from their but it is unclear if this is his New York believe this band originate from France! DC Oscar-bothering turn in album. Commissioned by the Brooklyn the indie sensation that Academy of Music, the resulting album COLOUR ME FREE was the film and sound- might be best described as a grand creative Joss Stone track of Once. Featuring franchise – incorporating movie, symphony, backing from Hansard’s other band (The Normally $27.95. Our special price $22.95 comic book, dissertation, photography, Last year, Ms Stone Frames), Swell Season has delivered another graphic design and a 3-D Viewmaster reel – emotionally charged, beautiful record. threatened to forfeit her in which a songwriter’s interrogation of one contract with EMI over From opening track Low Rising to the truly of New York’s ugliest landmarks expands haunting I Have Loved You Wrong, it’s clear their lack of support. It was athletically to forums and formulas outside going to cost her two that the depth and honesty that made their of the song itself. In fact, the BQE is first release so memorable is back in spades. million pounds to do this, everything but a song. so reluctantly she agreed to stay. This is her Gorgeous stuff. Dave Clarke is from Readings Carlton Declan Murphy is from Readings St Kilda fourth and final album with the company and after several delays, it is finally released. MILWAUKEE AT LAST It shows all her trademark guts and groove; Embryonic Rufus Wainwright Flaming Lips her voice is just amazing and the arrange- CD $21.95. CD/DVD $29.95 ments are so slick. The track Free Me is an $21.95 Recorded, not surprisingly in Milwaukee, on obvious dig at her recent battle with EMI The Lips are back with an Rufus’ world tour of 2007. The CD contains and will attract attention for all the right astrology-themed record of ten songs and is very much a teaser to the reasons. Seasoned musicians Jeff Beck and sorts. Gemini Syringes and DVD, which is the complete concert as well David Sanborn appear on tracks and clearly Scorpio Swords abound as some behind-the-scenes footage sure to raise the bar with their professionalism. Aquarius Sabotage amidst tempt his fans. DC Alice Bisits is from Readings Port Melbourne and Sagittarius Silver Announcements. You get the picture, right? CHRISTMAS IN THE HEART LOVE 2 Join Coyne and co. on their cosmic bus as Bob Dylan they journey into the very fabric of the Air Standard CD $19.95. Deluxe edition $24.95 universe. Genius. DM Our special price $22.95 The first Christmas album Recorded in Paris, Love 2 The Life of the from the legendary is a record that sees Air World to Come singer-songwriter, Christ- produce more of the bliss- mas in The Heart is Dylan’s ful sounds that asserted Mountain Goats 47th album. In a commit- its reputation with the $24.95 ment to ending hunger, all awesome Moon Safari. This John Darnielle and his ever-changing of Bob Dylan’s current and future royalties highly anticipated release from the French Mountain Goats have released 17 albums for this album will be donated in perpetuity duo seduces listeners with chilled beats and in 18 years – an impressive output indeed. to Feeding America, guaranteeing that more cheeky electronica. Incorporating synth Their latest effort takes inspiration from than four million meals will be provided to melodies, minimal vocals and a sprinkling biblical verses and weaves them into earnest over 1.4 million people in need. The 15 of psychedelia, Love 2 delivers a heady mix and thoughtful ruminations on life and tracks include Here Comes Santa Claus, that could well be the ultimate soundtrack all that it encompasses. If stripped back, Winter Wonderland, Have Yourself A Merry to summer. thought-provoking folk is your thing this Little Christmas and many others. DC Ali Meehan is from Readings Port Melbourne is sure to please. DM SOUND RELIEF CONCERT SWEETHEART RODEO GIVE UP THE GHOST Various Dawn Landes Brandi Carlile 4 DVD set. $35 $25.95 $21.95 The set features nine hours of footage from With Sweetheart Rodeo, Brandi Carlile’s star is very much on the the concerts held simultaneously in Sydney Dawn Landes delivers an rise in Australia, and fans of the 2007 The and Melbourne earlier this year to raise enthusiastic country/pop Story will be pleased to hear that her work funds for the terrible fires on Black Saturday record, leaving listeners has continued in a similar vein with her new (and the Queensland floods). All proceeds unsurprised that this true release. The guitars and drums still propel from the sale of this DVD go to the Red American gal was raised in many tracks, and in between, sweet mo- Cross. Featured is a real who’s who of past Missouri and Kentucky. Never taking itself ments of folk and country peek through. and current Australian music (and a few too seriously, the record showcases Landes’ Produced by Rick Rubin and featuring guest big international names – Coldplay and modern perspective on old traditions, appearances by Elton John and RHCP’s Kings of Leon), from the Hoodoo Gurus to mixing traditional guitar, double bass and Chad Smith, all framing Brandi’s spectacular Midnight Oil, Augie March to Paul Kelly. harmonica with ‘Suzanne Vega-esque’ vocals voice, this album is sure to be a radio Hunters & Collectors, Icehouse, Jet, Kasey and witty storytelling – the track Love is a mainstay for much of the summer. Chambers, Split Enz, Presets and Barry Gibb great example. A playful release to match the Tom Hoskins is from Readings Carlton with Olivia Newton John. DC summer mood. AM

*Specially priced for a limited time only. Design © 2009 Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved. and Paul Hampton’s Sea ofHeartbreak. LF a duetwithBruce Springsteen onHal David duet withJeff Tweedy onLongBlack Veil, and by theNumber (withElvis Costello),aspooky North, Harlan Howard’s Country Heartaches well. Songs includeBobDylan’s Girl from the they’ve become his daughter’s treasures, as restatement ofherfather’s passions,onlynow, as much as it belongs to her; a beautiful testament tolife,anditbelongsherfather timelessness. The List isarenewal anda which brimswithakindofredemptive and now she’s drawn on it for this recording, essential American songs. Cash kept that list, gave her a list of what he considered 100 forward. When Cash turned 18, her father redemptive outingthatlooksbacktogo instead found a more measured, lovely and song. On The List, it is clear that she has to give us a bleak look inside her thoughts in Dan Gries isfrom Readings Carlton genre-tripping tourdeforce. among agreat manyotherthings,a frontal lobe, I Told You I Was Freaky is, melodies thatalwayslodgefirmlyinthe cated withtheirarrangements,crafting Unflinching intheirlyricalstance,sophisti- long piece.DC have onceagainimprovised astunninghour- the US)thanhere. On albumthey thisnew highly regarded inEurope (andincreasingly and overseas. In facttheyare probably more themselves audiences here andfoundnew 15–20 years. Theyhave continuallystretched most interesting Australian groups ofthelast The Necks are withoutdoubtoneofthe $29.95 Necks SILVERWA Jazz $27.95 Rosanne Cash The List Country affecting, melodic,andmelancholic.DG throwncountry intothemix,The Amazing is Acoustic folk with a bit of bluegrass and Catherine’s gorgeouslydelicatesmokyvoice. sonal, clever and amusing, all delivered with strings, coupledwithlyricsare atonceper- - contains melodiesthatwilltugatyour heart presents hersecondalbum,The Amazing. It Sydney singer-songwriterCatherine Traicos $24.95 Catherine Traicos Amazing $ TBC Flight oftheConchords I ToldYouwas Freaky Miranda laFleur isfrom Readings Carlton moresomewhat off-beatand sparse. EP release Blood Bank (early 2009), though perimental albumwhichisakintoBonIver’s Waits, Unmap atmosphericandex - isavery of the irregular jangling arrangements of Tom distortion of Vernon’s vocals and a suggestion and organic sounds, an unusual reshaping and of Bees. A fusion of curious loops, electronic Vernon and the band Collections of Colonies piece from theassemblyofBonIver’s Justin Unmap is the first full-length collaborative $24.95 Volcano Choir Unmap 18 Readings TER

Monthly ing Rosanne Cash was going have been excused for think- two-year period, we could mother, all within a mother, fatherandstep- After the death of her withstand their artistry. unearth a genre that can Conchords has yet to I Was Freaky, Flight of the displayed here onI Told You Judging from the range

November

2009 Morgana Keating isfrom Readings Hawthorn credibility andchildlikeinnocence. creative result isaninspiringscore ofrock This combinationworks so well –the rockers and anuntrainedchildren’s choir). the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, ofindie anassortment moods andcolours andshiftingtempos.PB contemporary set stro Karol Lynch, are equally bouzouki(fiddle) andnew rhythmmae- Custy brilliant on a mostly Breton musician Sylvain Barou (flute), Tola the Irish scene, Rynne (accordion) are already big nameson tal album. Paul McSherry (guitar) of launchingthemselves- withalive all-instrumen piece for sheer virtuosity, let alone the audacity Not manytraditionalbandscantouchthisfive- $31.95 Guidewires Live Paul Barr isfrom Readings Carlton intoa classicslipjig. morphs backandforth tunes, withriffingharmonicaanddobro that interpretation of one of the great Celtic pipe lagher, and a (for me, standout) blues-soaked tune passedonviaIrish Gal bluesmanRory - ing Stones tuneNo Expectations, a Leadbelly folkyversion oftheRollunexpected butvery - are lotsofgreat moments,here includingan with a great sense of fun and drive .There American jub band and blues tunes, played romp through Irish tunesandsongs,oldtime Epping, a dynamic harmonica player, on a dolin. They are joined by Californian Rick O’Dowd, whoalsoplaysdobro andman- Jordan (guitar, bouzouki) and fiddler Seamie featuringthesweet vocalsDervish, ofCathy side project forleadingIrish traditionalband An extremely enjoyable albumfrom anew $31.95 Unwanted Atlantic Fringe Music Folk & World Normally $29.95.Our special price$21.95 Karen O&TheKids Things Are Where Soundtrack Hall andCarnegie cert RM performances. Koln Con- communal ecstasyofthelegendary done, buildinginsteamtothetranscendent, new melodic invention as anything he’s ever while London is as densely packed with rich sion. Paris isthespikieroftwoconcerts, searching for thesingularessenceofanocca- cent willingnesstoexplore pieces,while short in improvised pianism.He continueshisre- confirm that Jarrett remains the greatest force Two complete solo concerts from late 2008 3 CDset.$51.95 Keith Jarrett P Richard Mohr isafriendofReadings falls forroutine. Amajorachievement. Davis, Stanko keepsgettingbetterandnever flights ofbrilliance.Likehishero Miles melodic statementsgive wingtoextended voice here –hishypnotic,incantatory Stanko’s isstillthemain singulartrumpet pulsing electricbass.Make nomistake, ofthegroup isnowheartbeat aprimal, Danish quintet. He’s addedguitar, andthe favourite, unveilsyoung his new Finnish/ The great Polish trumpeter, longa Readings $32.95 Tomasz StankoQuintet Dark Eyes Test a ris/ ament L F ondon T ro

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! Readings Monthly November 2009 19

a tenor is able to display, in the space of one disc, the lyrical and flawless legato so neces- sary for Tamio in The Magic Flute, and then finish with the big arias from Wagner’s Par- first rate: from O’Dette’s superb playing on sifal – complete with the required baritonal New Classical CDs quality. This is all impressively achieved, and the lute, The Parley of Instruments’ wonder- CD of the Month Classical Specials ful accompaniment and of course Hyperion’s guided tastefully by the musical intelligence Air: A Baroque Journey J.S. Bach: Keyboard warmly sympathetic recorded sound. PR of Claudio Abbado and the Mahler Cham- N.B. All titles are in limited supply ber Orchestra. The arias from Lohengrin Daniel Hope Concertos highlight the near ideal interpretation from DG. 4778094. $29.95 2 CD set. CDA6760708. the combined talents of this group of musi- On this new recording Was $59.95. Now $36.95 Classic 100 Symphony Various cians. Kaufmann’s next disc from Decca is from violinist Daniel Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin– what new Hope, he takes us on a J.S. Bach: Cello Suites 8 CD set. ABC Classics. 4802842. $84.95 standards will he set for this much-recorded musical journey that, in his 2 CD set. CDA675412. The Classic 100 series is cycle? own words, shows ‘how Was $59.95. Now $36.95 now a part of the classical Maurice Smith is classical music buyer for the diverse Baroque music was music landscape in City of Boorondara …’ What this recording does is bring four Vivaldi: Music for Lute Australia and over the years unique composers, three of whom were & Mandolin the popularity of these below icon collections has been second virtuoso violinists and one lutenist – Fal- CDA66160. Was $33.95. Now $19.95 Lucia Popp coniero, Matteis and Geminiani from Italy, to none. So now we have the Classic 100 Symphony box-set and I’m sure, like the EMI Classics. 6985152. $49.95 and Westhoff from Germany – to the Again for this month, we other sets, it will cause great debate within From EMI’s latest releases attention of the record-buying public. This are featuring three titles the classical music scene. As with the other in the Icon series comes a can only be a good thing. The playing from from the always popular recordings in this series, the recordings have seven-disc set devoted to all concerned is excellent and the music is Hyperion Records cata- come from all the major record labels, the the art of Lucia Popp. This beautiful. Throw in some old favourites like logue. First up is the great artists and great ensembles. Highly splendid box-set, at bargain Bach, Pachelbel and Telemann, and we have brilliant Angela Hewitt’s recommended. PR price, shows Lucia Popp at one of the best releases of the year. recording of J.S. Bach’s Keyboard Concertos Phil Richards is from Readings Carlton. her very best across all her many achieve- with the Australian Chamber Orchestra and Istanbul: Dimitri ments: Handel and Mozart arias, Schubert Richard Tognetti. It’s all here from Hewitt: Cantemir 1673-1723 and Strauss lieder and her fabulous unique Glass, Tavener, Nyman: the pearly tone, the gentle touch, the lilt with Viennese Operetta. There is not a impeccable technique, the warm-hearted but Jordi Savall, Hesperion XXI moment to be missed in this wonderful Works for Soprano cool-headed interpretations are the same and guests compilation from a much-loved artist. Who Saxophone and qualities that distinguish her playing in his Alliavox. AVSA9870. Normally $34.95 else can create the mystery of Song to the Orchestra concert works. Our special price $29.95 Moon, the charm of Vilja or the agility of the Amy Dickson Savall based this wonderful Schubert’s Trout with such style? Other sets Sony. 88697376792. $21.95 Next is J.S. Bach’s Suites for recording mainly on The in this latest Icon series release are, Richard This is the second release solo cello, played by Steven Book of Science in Music, Tauber, Menuhin and Grapelli, Leopold from Australian Amy Isserlis. Highly acclaimed at published in 1710 by Stokowski and Nathan Milstein. MS Dickson – and what an the time of release, this CD Moldavian prince Dimitri excellent CD it is. On this was the 2007 Gramophone Cantemir after his years ROSARIO recording she has done magazine award winner for spent in Istanbul. Augmenting this manu- Rosario La Spina arrangements of the Philip best instrumental recording of the year. As script are contemporary pieces of Armenian ABC Classics. 4763483. $21.95 Glass Violin Concerto, John Tavener’s one reviewer wrote: ‘What Isserlis is and Sefaran repertoire. The cream of Turkish Once again, it is good to see another Protecting Veil and Michael Nyman’s Where interested in, and perhaps even obsessed and Armenian players, such as Kudsi Erguner, Australian artist appearing on disc. Tenor the Bee Dances, a work written for saxophone with, is the intense beauty of the music. Yair Dalal, Georg Minassian and many more Rosaria La Spina has sung with Opera Aus- and orchestra. Her arrangements for the Rarely have the preludes sounded so free and feature. A worthy expansion on the themes tralia and is now making a name for himself Glass and Tavener are very faithful to the so fantastic; rarely have the minuets sounded explored in the classic Orient Occident; a disc in Europe and North America. This disc original scores. In fact, she had to learn so light and so bright; and rarely have the that only the soulless could find unmoving. showcases his talents, mainly in the Italian circular breathing so she didn’t have to leave sarabandes, especially the Sarabande of the Richard Mohr is a friend of Readings repertoire, and shows how comfortably Ro- anything out. Her tone and playing are of Fifth Suite, sounded so deep and so true.’ saria sings in the lyric, spinto and dramatic the highest standard; her star is definitely on MOZART SCHUBERT tenor roles. This is an enjoyable disc and a the rise. Highly recommended. PR. And last but not least is a BEETHOVEN WAGNER good souvenir for those who have enjoyed beautiful recording from Jonas Kaufmann Rosaria in Opera Australia productions. Lutenist Paul O’Dette Decca. 4781463. Normally $29.95 The booklet notes with this disc are excel- performing Antonio Our special price $21.95 lent, explaining the tenor categories, range Vivaldi’s works for Lute In this, his second disc for Decca, Jonas along with a history of the tenor voice in and Mandolin. This is a Kaufmann sings exclusively from the Ger- opera. Rosaria is to sing Radamés in Mel- classic recording from the Hyperion man opera repertoire, Mozart, Schubert, bourne for Opera Australia. MS Catalogue. All aspects of this recording are Beethoven and Wagner. It is not often that

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It’s hard to imagine a more knowledgeable and inspiring guide to the vibrant world of Thai street food than internationally renowned chef and Thai food expert David Thompson. Join him on a whirlwind tour of the curry shops and stirfry stalls of Thailand: afloat on the canals of Bangkok, on the streets and in the markets – then try your hand at cooking the fast, fresh and irresistible food that sustains a nation. Thai Street Food effectively captures the atmosphere of Thailand’s streets and markets as if you were there.