FREE JUNE 2019

Announcing the shortlist for the Readings Young Adult Book Prize 2019

page 16

New books from Tony Birch, Dominic Smith, Jeanette Winterson, Elif Shafak, Angela Saini, Geoffrey Blainey and more

BOOKS MUSIC FILM EVENTS

BRUCE THE NATIONAL PASCOE page 22 page 18 GREEN BOOK AMANDA R.W.R. PATRICE page 21 O’CALLAGHAN MCDONALD NEWELL page 7 page 11 page 13

CARLTON 309 LYGON ST 9347 6633 KIDS 315 LYGON ST 9341 7730 DONCASTER WESTFIELD DONCASTER, 619 DONCASTER RD 9810 0891 HAWTHORN 701 GLENFERRIE RD 9819 1917 MALVERN 185 GLENFERRIE RD 9509 1952 ST KILDA 112 ACLAND ST 9525 3852 STATE LIBRARY VICTORIA 285-321 RUSSELL ST 8664 7540 | SEE SHOP OPENING HOURS, BROWSE AND BUY ONLINE AT READINGS.COM.AU

NEWS June 2019 READINGS MONTHLY 3

Rodney Hall, The Death of Noah Glass The Readings Teen Advisory Board Readings’ Jazz Sale by Gail Jones, Too Much Lip by Melissa June Applications to join the Readings Teen Readings’ annual jazz sale is on throughout Lucashenko, Dyschronia by Jennifer Mills, Advisory Board in 2019/2020 are now open. June and features the biggest names from and The Lucky Galah by Tracy Sorensen. The Readings Teen Advisory Board is a the jazz world. The sale includes a huge The shortlist will be announced on 2 July, News volunteer group that meets once a month range of artists from Australia and around and the winner on 30 July. to chat about YA books, write reviews, the world, as well as a number of classic learn about careers in the book industry, ECM releases from as little as $9.95. We and provide feedback on a range of topics. also have Jazz LPs on sale from $19.95. The Man Booker International Prize Emerging Writers’ Festival 2019 We’re looking for a new intake of teenagers This sale is available in all Readings shops winner The Emerging Writers’ Festival (EWF) (aged 14–19) to join our board starting in (except Readings Kids and Readings State Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi is the returns from 19–29 June, showcasing some July 2019. To apply, please tell us why you Library Victoria) on in-stock, full-priced winner of the Man Booker International of Australia’s most creative and talented would like to take part, the types of books items until June 30. Selected titles are Prize 2019. Alharthi is the first female Omani literary newcomers, including writers, you like to read, and why you love visiting available online. novelist to be translated into English and editors, publishers and performers. This bookshops. Your application should be a the first author from the Arabian Gulf to win year’s program features several events at single page document of no more than the prize. The Man Booker International Readings State Library Victoria. For more 500 words, in either Word or PDF format The Miles Franklin Literary Award longlist Prize is awarded every year for a single information visit emergingwritersfestival.org. addressing the points above and including The longlist for The Miles Franklin Literary book which is translated into English and au, or pick up a printed program from any your name, age and contact details. Send Award 2019 has been announced. The published in the UK. Omani author Jokha Readings shop. it to [email protected]. titles are: The Lebs by Michael Mohammed Alharthi and translator Marilyn Booth will au by 5pm, Friday 21 June, 2019. For more Ahmad, Flames by Robbie Arnott, Boy share equally in the £50,000 prize. Visit information, please see readings.com.au/ Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton, A Sand themanbookerprize.com/international for Readings Young Adult Book Prize shortlist the-readings-teen-advisory-board Archive by Gregory Day, Inappropriation more information. announced by Lexi Freiman, A Stolen Season by We’re excited to announce the shortlist for The Readings Young Adult Book Prize 2019. Warehouse Sale The shortlisted titles are: What I Like About We are having a warehouse sale! The sale will Me by Jenna Guillaume, Highway Bodies take place on Saturday 15 June and Sunday by Alison Evans, The Learning Curves 16 June, and will run from 11am to 5pm on of Vanessa Partridge by Clare Strahan, both days. Come along and browse hundreds Unmasked (Young Readers’ Edition) by of amazing bargains handpicked by Readings Turia Pitt, Stone Girl by Eleni Hale, and managing director, Mark Rubbo. You’ll find Making Friends With Alice Dyson by Poppy the Readings Warehouse at Ground floor, Nwosu. You can find out more about the 314–318 Drummond Street, Carlton (tucked shortlisted titles and the prize on page 16. between Faraday and Elgin streets).

Melbourne Writers Festival Schools’ 3 for 2 Penguin Modern Classics Program Throughout June, we have a special offer on The Melbourne Writers Festival Schools’ a select range of Penguin Modern Classics. Program for 2019 has been announced. Buy two books, and choose a third book Highlights include sessions with authors in the range (of equal or lesser value) for Oliver Phommovanh, Tony Birch, Carly free! The range includes books by Virginia Findlay, Amie Kaufman, Will Kostakis and Woolf, Shirley Jackson, James Baldwin, many more. For more information on the George Orwell, and many more. This offer is MWF Schools’ Program, including the full exclusively available in all Readings shops list of events, see mwf.com.au/mwf-2019/ except Readings Kids until 30 June on schools-program/. Readings is the official stickered, in-stock items only, while stocks bookseller for Melbourne Writers Festival. last. This offer is not available online.

READINGS MONTHLY EDITOR EVENTS & PROGRAMMING PRICES AND AVAILABILITY Free, independent monthly newspaper Elke Power Chris Gordon Please note that all prices and release published by Readings Books, Music & Film [email protected] dates in Readings Monthly are correct at ADVERTISING time of publication, however prices and SUBSCRIBE EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS Ellen Cregan release dates may change without notice. You can subscribe to Readings Monthly Judi Mitchell and Ellen Cregan [email protected] Special price offers apply only for the and our e-news by visiting our website: month in which they are featured in the readings.com.au/sign-up PROOFREADERS GRAPHIC DESIGN Readings Monthly. Judi Mitchell, Ellen Cregan and Rosalind Cat Matteson DELIVERY CHARGES FOR McClintock Readings donates 10% of its profits each MAIL-ORDER PURCHASES FRONT COVER year to The Readings Foundation: $6 flat rate for anywhere in Australia KIDS/YA CURATORS The June Readings Monthly cover features readings.com.au/the-readings-foundation Angela Crocombe and Dani Solomon the cover image from This Taste for Silence DELIVERY CHARGES FOR by Amanda O’Callaghan. Book cover design ONLINE PURCHASES MUSIC CURATOR by Josh Durham. Image courtesy of the $6 flat rate for anywhere in Australia for Dave Clarke publisher, UQP. To find out more about the orders under $100. Free delivery on orders book see our review on page 7. $100 and over. CLASSICAL MUSIC CURATOR Phil Richards CARTOON Oslo Davis DVDS CURATOR oslodavis.com Lou Fulco 4 READINGS MONTHLY June 2019 EVENTS

winning author of Argosy and Lost Lake; and Monday 10 June, Tim Wright, whose first full-length collection, Tuesday 25 June, 6.30pm June 6.30pm 30 Suns, was published in January this year. IOLA MATHEWS IN ERNEST HUNTER IN Readings Carlton Events 309 Lygon Street, Carlton CONVERSATION WITH CONVERSATION WITH Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events MARGARET SIMONS GARY FOLEY Iola Mathews was one of the founders of Event times and locations are subject to change. Ernest Hunter’s Vicarious Dreaming: With the Women’s Electoral Lobby, a journalist For the most up-to-date information on events, Jack Idriess on Madman’s Island documents Wednesday 19 June, at The Age, and later an ACTU advocate please check readings.com.au/events a series of personal voyages between 6.30pm 3 for women workers during the Hawke- Cooktown and the Torres Strait that are 1 Keating government. In her honest and interwoven with accounts of exploration, GEORGIE DENT IN revealing memoir Winning for Women, she exploitation and escape. The travels and reflects on being one of the first generation tales coalesce around the works of Ion CONVERSATION WITH of women juggling a career and children, ‘Jack’ Idriess and the lives of solitary men at JAMILA RIZVI and takes the reader inside the day-to-day the edge of the world. Come along to hear At 24, life was good for Georgie Dent. groundwork required to bring about reforms Hunter discuss his book with Gary Foley. She’d graduated, landed her dream job at in areas like affirmative action, equal pay, a Sydney law firm and moved in with her superannuation, child care, parental leave ORIES Readings Carlton ST boyfriend. She had the world at her feet, but and work–family issues. Come along to AN 309 Lygon Street, Carlton LI within a year Dent was unemployed, living hear Mathews in conversation about her A Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events R with her parents and suffering crippling book with Professor Margaret Simons. T S anxiety. Breaking Badly is her must-read Readings Hawthorn U story of a nervous breakdown. Join Dent as A 701 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn Wednesday 12 June, 6.30pm she discusses her experiences, and writing Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events 50 Australian Stories about them, with Jamila Rizvi. PETER LEWIS IN event series Readings Hawthorn CONVERSATION WITH 701 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn Tuesday 25 June, JONATHAN GREEN Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events 6.30pm 3 Readings is celebrating our 2 Join us as Peter Lewis discusses his latest 50 year history in 2019. To book with Jonathan Green. In Webtopia, PETER honour the stories that have Lewis draws from conversations with Wednesday 19–29 June PAPATHANASIOU entrepreneurs, politicians, pastors, parents, emerged from the books on ON HIS EXTRAORDINARY our shelves, we are hosting teachers and journalists to argue that technology itself is not the problem: we EMERGING WRITERS FAMILY SECRET 50 special events that are. Engaging and wise, Webtopia traces FESTIVAL 2019 Peter Papathanasiou’s memoir, Little One, is illustrate passion, artistry and our digital journey to this crisis point and, We are delighted to be playing a small part a powerful story of family, love, sacrifice and Australian literature. We hope fearlessly, marks out a better route from here. and look forward to hosting various events an extraordinary secret. After emigrating from you will join our celebrations. (Lunchtime Lit, anyone?) in our beautiful Greece to Australia, Papathanasiou’s parents Readings Carlton Readings State Library Victoria shop. found out that they were unable to have 309 Lygon Street, Carlton children. Papathanasiou’s aunt and uncle in Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Readings State Library Victoria Greece offered to have a baby and give it to 285-321 Russell Street, Melbourne his parents to raise as their own in Australia. For details and to see the full programme visit Join us to hear Papathanasiou discuss the emergingwritersfestival.org.au amazing story of his childhood, family and adoption, and the tensions and joys between Europe and Australia during that time.

Readings Carlton 309 Lygon Street, Carlton Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events

Thursday 13 June, 6.30pm Monday 24 June, 6.30pm

LUKE CARMAN IN ERIK JENSEN IN Thursday 6 June, CONVERSATION WITH CONVERSATION WITH 6.30-9pm 29 JAMES LEY CHLOE HOOPER We are thrilled to be able to invite you We are delighted to have The Saturday to hear from Luke Carman, the author of ROCKY ROAD: Paper’s Erik Jensen joining us to discuss his the cult classic An Elegant Young Man. MOTHERHOOD NOW dazzling and insightful look at the federal His latest book, Intimate Antipathies, is a WITH ALICE ROBINSON, election, built from pen portraits and reports collection of essays that follow the writer from the campaign trail. In Quarterly Essay CLEMENTINE FORD AND through anxiety, outrage and ecstasy, and 74, Erik Jensen considers what went wrong NICOLA REDHOUSE explore the connections between writing for Labor and how Scott Morrison won his Wednesday 26 June at 5.30-6.30pm and dreaming, mental illness, and the We know becoming a parent is truly remarkable victory. Who are Morrison’s complications of family life. life changing, and that it is not always a ‘quiet people’? What did Shorten Labor KIDS pleasant road. It requires sacrifice and Readings Hawthorn fail to see? And will fear always trump patience and a whole heap of love. Join 701 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn hope in politics? Through interviews and JULIE KAGAWA IN authors Alice Robinson, Clementine Ford close observation, Jensen homes in on Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events CONVERSATION WITH and Nicola Redhouse as they discuss the insecurities that drive Bill Shorten and the highs and lows of motherhood with the certainties that helped Scott Morrison REBECCA LIM AND Readings’ events and programming manager win. He considers how each man reflects, LEANNE HALL Christine Gordon. These three authors have Monday 17 June, 6.30pm challenges and comforts the national We are delighted to have Julie Kagawa, the written, between them, a novel (Robinson’s character. This is a fresh, urgent look at the New York Times bestselling author of the Iron The Glad Shout), an exposé (Ford’s Boys Will WINTER POETRY READING meaning of the 2019 election. Legends series and the Talon saga, joining us Be Boys), and a memoir (Redhouse’s Unlike to talk about her new book Soul of the Sword, We are delighted to bring a little lyrical Church of All Nations the Heart) about parenthood. the second in her Shadow of the Fox series. loveliness to a Monday winter evening. Along 180 Palmerston Street, Carlton Readings State Library Victoria with Luke Beesley, we’ll welcome Emma Lew Tickets are $25 per person and include a copy Readings Kids 285-321 Russell Street, Melbourne and her much-anticipated Crow College: New of Quarterly Essay 74. Bookings are essential at 315 Lygon Street, Carlton and Selected Poems; Bella Li, the award- Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events readings.com.au/events. Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events EVENTS June 2019 READINGS MONTHLY 5

Jane Bennett (menstrual educator) in conversation with Mary Crooks (executive director, the Victorian Women’s Trust). Wednesday 5 June, 6pm Church of All Nations | Entry is $5 per person. Bookings essential at readings.com.au/events

The White Girl by Tony Birch Join Miles Franklin-shortlisted author Tony Birch for the launch of his new novel, The White Girl. In The White Girl, Birch shines a Tuesday 6 August, spotlight on the 1960s and the devastating 6.30pm–9pm 3 government policy of taking Indigenous 5 children from their families. SPECIAL EVENT Thursday 6 June, 6.30pm Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required.

A MARRIAGE OF The Autumn Murders by Robert Gott FLAVOURS FEAST WITH Join Robert Gott for the launch of The Wednesday 26 June, 6.30pm SCOTT PICKETT AT Autumn Murders, the latest stylish, witty, ESTELLE BISTRO historical whodunit in the series that began LEE KOFMAN AND with The Holiday Murders and continued Join us at Estelle Bistro in Northcote for ANDY JACKSON WITH with The Port Fairy Murders. a glass of wine, tasters from chef Scott Tuesday 11 June, 6.30pm CHRISTINE GORDON Pickett’s delightful new cookbook, Marriage Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. Join author Lee Kofman, poet Andy of Flavours, a two-course meal and a talk Jackson and Readings’ programming and from the chef himself. Lily Campbell’s Secret by Jennifer Bryce events manager Christine Gordon for a Tuesday 2 July, Scott Pickett’s respect for the classics Toni Jordan will launch Lily Campbell’s conversation about body diversity and body 6.15pm 3 and understanding of seasonality drew Secret by Jennifer Bryce. Set in 1913, it’s image. Jackson’s latest book, Music Our 4 a story about teenage pregnancy that him from his early training here to Europe, Bodies Can’t Hold, is written in the voices TARA JUNE WINCH where he honed his skills in some of the confronts issues of patriarchy, creativity, of forty-six different people who have, or IN CONVERSATION most rigorous Michelin-starred kitchens nationalism, and love. are thought to have had, Marfan syndrome. of London in the late 1990s, and back Thursday 13 June, 6.30pm Kofman’s most recent book Imperfect is We are thrilled to have novelist Tara June again. Today, Pickett’s highly acclaimed Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. based on a decade-long investigation into Winch joining us in Melbourne to talk about restaurants include Estelle Bistro, Saint Crossings by Alex Landragin body image driven by her need to better her new book, The Yield. This profoundly Crispin, Pickett’s Deli & Rotisserie and Join us as Jane Rawson launches Alex understand her own experience. moving novel is the story of a people and a Matilda. Join us for this delicious celebration Landragin’s debut novel, Crossings. It began culture dispossessed. It is also a celebration of the release of his second book. Readings Carlton of what can endure and a powerful as his blog, The Daily Fiction Project, for 309 Lygon Street, Carlton reclaiming of Indigenous language and the Estelle Bistro which he wrote and published a story every Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events art of storytelling. 243 High Street, Northcote. day for eight months. Tickets are $125 per person and include a glass Thursday 13 June, 6.30pm Cinema Nova of wine, a two-course meal and a signed copy of Readings SLV | Free, no booking required. 380 Lygon Street, Carlton Marriage of Flavours; or $210 per couple which Sunday 30 June, 2pm–3.30pm Nature, Post-Nature by Ren Gregorčič Tickets are $10 per person with proceeds going includes a glass of wine each, two two-course and Jessye Wdowin-McGregor to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation. Bookings meals and one copy of Marriage of Flavours. Join artists Ren Gregorčič and Jessye essential at readings.com.au/events Bookings essential at readings.com.au/events GAMES, GAMES & BOARD Wdowin-McGregor to celebrate the GAMES publication of their book Nature, Post- Come on down to Readings St Kilda and Nature, which was created as part of their join us for an afternoon of board games for Thursday 4 July, 10.30am recent sculpture and video-installation everyone! Games will be provided and a June exhibition, and explores climate change and Readings host will explain all the rules. This KIDS post-natural landscapes in Melbourne and is a chance to get out of the house and beat regional Victoria. the winter blues! SALLY RIPPIN IN Launches Thursday 20 June, 6.30pm CONVERSATION WITH Readings SLV | Free, no booking required. Readings St Kilda 112 Acland Street, St Kilda DANI SOLOMON Making Trouble (Tongued with Fire) by Suzanne Ingleton We are completely and utterly thrilled to The Nancys by R.W.R. McDonald Tickets are $10 per family and all ages are Join us for the launch of Suzanne Ingleton’s have the best-selling, award-winning Sally Join R.W.R. McDonald for the launch of The welcome. story of two extraordinary, rebellious spirits, Please book at readings.com.au/events Rippin joining us to talk all things Polly and Nancys, a gripping, glorious crime novel Making Trouble (Tongued with Fire): An Buster with our very own Dani Solomon. about family and courage for anyone who’s Imagined History of Harriet Elphinstone Dick They’ll be celebrating the release of The ever felt they were on the outside looking in. and Alice C Moony. Search for the Silver Witch, the third Polly Tuesday 4 June, 6.30pm Thursday 20 June, 6.30pm and Buster book. Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. Coming Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. Readings Kids Land of Fences by Mark Smith A Fixed Place by Kathleen Mary Fallon 315 Lygon Street, Carlton Michael McGirr will launch Mark Smith’s Marion May Campbell will launch A Fixed Land of Fences. This is the compelling Up Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Place: The Long and Short of Story by third and final novel in Mark Smith’s highly Kathleen Mary Fallon. This collection of acclaimed action-packed trilogy that began stories explores life through the second half with The Road to Winter. Tuesday 23 July, 4.30pm of the twentieth century. Tuesday 4 June, 6.30pm Thursday 27 June, 6.30pm Tuesday 2 July, Readings SLV | Free, no booking required. KIDS Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. 6.30pm 3 3 The Good Son by Pierre-Jacques Ober The Book of Dave by Peter Lingard & ANDY GRIFFITHS ON THE Join Pierre-Jacques Ober for the launch of DON WALKER IN Colours of Death: Sergeant Thomas’ 117 STOREY TREEHOUSE The Good Son, the tale of a young French Casebook by Robert New CONVERSATION WITH soldier facing execution for having deserted Join us for double book launch as Peter Goodness gracious, Andy Griffiths is his regiment for two days to visit his Lingard talks about his new novel, The MYF WARHURST back with the latest amazing Treehouse widowed mother at Christmas. Book of Dave, and Robert New discusses Come along to hear beloved Australian adventure: The 117 Storey Treehouse! Join us Wednesday 5 June, 6.30pm his latest book, Colours of Death: Sergeant songwriter Don Walker in conversation with as Andy shows us what happens when you Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. Thomas’ Casebook. Myf Warhurst about his memoir, Songs. get higher and higher in the sky. Thursday 27June, 6.30pm For over forty years, from Cold Chisel to About Bloody Time by Karen Pickering & Readings Hawthorn | Free, no booking required. Catfish, Tex, Don & Charlie to his solo Deakin Edge, Federation Square Jane Bennett work, Walker’s song-writing has captured Tickets are $25 per adult and $20 per child. The Victorian Women’s Trust is delighted While You Were Reading by Ali Berg & Australian experiences. Interspersed with Limited seats are available. Bookings essential to celebrate the release of their latest Michelle Kalus autobiographical sketches and anecdotes, at readings.com.au/events. book, About Bloody Time: The Menstrual Join Ali Berg and Michelle Kalus, authors Songs is a must-have for fans of Walker’s Please note that unlike in previous years, Revolution We Have to Have by Karen of The Book Ninja, for the launch of their brilliant, razor-sharp storytelling. tickets do not include a copy of The 117-Storey Pickering and Jane Bennett. Be treated latest book, While You Were Reading. It’s a Treehouse, but all of Andy Griffiths’ and Terry to an introduction from Clementine Ford, love story for book lovers that celebrates Readings St Kilda Denton’s books will be for sale on site and Andy feminist writer and foreword contributor more than romance. 112 Acland Street, St Kilda will be available for a photo opportunity and to to the book; and hear the co-authors, Friday 28 June, 6pm Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events sign books after the event. Karen Pickering (feminist organiser) and Readings Hawthorn | Free, no booking required. 6 READINGS MONTHLY June 2019 COLUMNS Mark’s Dear Say Reader

Not that I take much When Tony Birch comes notice of them, but into the shop, I’m always company mergers have keen to hear what he is always seemed fraught; reading. He reads the merger of two of the extensively, widely, and greatest English language publishers, thoughtfully, and that’s the way I believe his Random House and Penguin, in 2013 was new novel, The White Girl, will be read too. one I did take a keen interest in. The process This wonderfully crafted piece of writing is took many years and the Australian such an effective and affecting account of divisions of the two companies didn’t seem 1960s Australia because it has an historian’s to be immune from some strife. When they eye for detail paired with the dramatic merged they ended up with two publishing restraint of a born storyteller. It’s our Book of departments and two great publishers, Nikki the Month, and I just loved it. Tony’s Christer from Random house and Ben Ball publisher, UQP, has two other notable from Penguin. releases this month, both of them incredibly After five years, it was decided that the strong debuts: Amanda O’Callaghan’s merged company couldn’t support them arresting short story collection, This Taste both and Ben Ball left, much to the chagrin for Silence; and Elizabeth Kuiper’s novel of of some of the authors Ball had worked growing up in Zimbabwe, Little Stones. with. Tim Winton in particular was quoted What a great month of publishing, UQP! in the Sydney Morning Herald as saying We also recommend Alex Landragin’s ‘A publisher of Ben’s stature is so rare in ambitious, Crossings; the winner of the Australia and his departure diminishes the inaugural Penguin Literary Prize (a new company, the trade and the culture.’ After a award for an unpublished manuscript), year off, Ball has just started as publishing Kathryn Hind’s Hitch; and Dominic director of Scribner in Australia, the literary Smith’s The Electric Hotel, the follow up to imprint of Simon & Schuster. Prior to his role the international bestseller, The Last at Penguin Random House, Ball had worked Painting of Sara de Vos. for Scribner in the UK. In international fiction, you’ll know In related news, Nikki Christer has that you need to catch up on Jeanette resigned as publishing director at Penguin Winterson’s latest creation, Frankissstein, Random House to take on a newly created Kate Atkinson’s next Jackson Brodie position as publisher at large. This will enable installment, Big Sky, and Elizabeth her to return to a more hands-on role and Gilbert’s hotly anticipated City of Girls, but work more closely with her authors, among two more great reviews will also convince them Richard Flanagan. Taking on her role you to read books from Niven Govinden will be Justin Ractliffe, previously joint (This Brutal House) and Elif Shafak (10 managing director at Hachette Australia. Years 38 Seconds in This Strange World) Ractliffe has been instrumental in too. I loved Virginia Reeves’s debut, Work supporting the emergence of Hachette Like Any Other, and her second novel, Australia as a serious literary publisher, The Behaviour of Love, is close to the top including publishing Stephanie Bishop, of my teetering bedside pile. Poet Ocean Mark Brandi and Claire Coleman. All these Vuong has a fan in Max Porter, and since moves seem very positive to me and good I’m keenly listening to anything Max for Australian writers and readers. It’s good Porter says, Vuong’s debut novel, On Earth to have Ball back in the industry and to We’re Briefly Gorgeous, is on that pile too. see such talents as Christer and Ractliffe I also need to catch up on the happenings repurposed. There’s a long lead time in of Mona (star of Jen Beagin’s fabulous publishing but I’m sure we will see some Pretend I’m Dead): her story continues in good things for writers and readers come out Vacuum in the Dark. of these moves. Science journalist Angela Saini made Some of you may have attended our an impact with Inferior, her examination election party at the Church of All Nations of the ways in which misinformation about in Carlton. George Megalogenis (author differences between the sexes proliferates. of The Football Solution: How Richmond’s This month she turns her attention to the Premiership Can Save Australia) and the disturbing renaissance of ‘race science’ in Wheeler Centre’s Sally Warhaft (Well May We our Nonfiction Book of the Month, Superior. Say ... The Speeches That Made Australia) led Patrice Newell’s Who’s Minding the Farm the panel with guest commentary by Peggy is an important contribution to work on O’Neal (president of the Richmond football climate crisis, this time with a focus on club), actor and writer Rhys Muldoon, agriculture and land care. Alan Krueger’s academic Dennis Altman, former Gillard- Rockonomics convincingly uses the music staffer Michael Cooney and journalists industry as a bellwether case study for Margaret Simons and Michael Bachelard. global economics at large. I’m currently It was held in the heart of the Melbourne reading Luke Carman’s sometimes electorate which returned Greens MP Adam hilarious and always provocative essay Bandt with a record vote of around 75%, so collection, Intimate Antipathies. As a as you can imagine the mood became rather devotee of Faber’s publishing, I’m keen to subdued as the night progressed. A more read the inside story of that house, Faber energising recent event featured Stan Grant & Faber. Also out this month are memoirs and Nam Le, ostensibly talking about Grant’s from Geoffrey Blainey, Georgie Dent, and two new books, On Identity and Australia Peter Papathanasiou, and a major collection Day. Grant was as excited to meet and talk of Arundhati Roy’s political essays. to Le as Le was to meet Grant. Readings has And finally, dear reader, I adore reading been organising such events since 1983 and classics, and lament there are so many I don’t think I can recall one as riveting. You that I haven’t read. Perhaps you feel this can listen to the recording of this magical way too, and will take advantage of this conversation on the Readings Podcast at month’s 3 for 2 offer on a range of titles in readings.com.au/the-readings-podcast. the Penguin Modern Classics series. FICTION June 2019 READINGS MONTHLY 7

the assassination of J.F.K. The gruesome in her early twenties and has no family depictions of the victims of war leaves except her dog, Lucy, who is on the road New the reader without any doubt about the with her. When we meet Amelia, she is in horrors committed during this time. But the desert beside the Stuart Highway with Fiction his descriptions elsewhere in the book only a few mouthfuls of water left. She gives were equally convincing; indeed, those of the remainder of the water to Lucy, and we Australian stuntman Chip Spalding were soon realise this action is a part of a bigger ones for the ages. picture of self-denial and self-harm. In post-World War II Deane, a rural Australian town, I found myself at times to be so Hitch is sparely written; despite this BOOK OF THE Odette Brown cares for her granddaughter Sissy. They completely immersed in Smith’s the reader is drawn into the visceral live on Deane’s fringes, in a run-down mining area called unravelling of this era that I couldn’t details of the harsh Australian climate and MONTH Quarrytown, where the local police officer, soon to retire, help but wish that there really was a its impact on Amelia. Amelia has chosen Fiction often fails to enforce the Aborigines Protection Act. Odette movie out there somewhere in the ether this situation and environment to test and Sissy subsequently fly under the radar of the authorities, called The Electric Hotel, just waiting to herself, and the reader is witness to her who still regularly, forcibly take fair-skinned Aboriginal be rediscovered under the floorboards of battle between annihilation and survival. children away from their families. But the arrival of a some ancient, lonely hotel. As the novel progresses, we learn about the malicious new sergeant, intent on tightening the system’s Dianna Jarnet is from Readings Hawthorn trauma Amelia is running from. Keeping grip on the few remaining Aboriginal families in the area, this weighty secret has confused and threatens to disrupt Odette and Sissy’s life together. Crossings tormented her, and it was something she The overwhelming thought one has while reading Alex Landragin had hoped to disclose to her mother when award-winning author Tony Birch’s new novel is that there Picador. PB. Was $32.99 she was alive, but was unable to. will be so many of these stories that have never been told; $29.99 Inevitably, Amelia comes across a range of characters as she hitchhikes. never heard. Thousands of families have been torn apart, In the opening Every time a driver stops there are and more children have been taken from parents than can pages of Alex unspoken demands and dangers. There is most likely ever be fully known about, the stories of whom Landragin’s debut novel, Will, a kind young man who offers a bed will often be lost and fade away. Odette and Sissy may be Crossings, the reader is in addition to a ride, but whose brother is fictional characters, but their story, loss and heartache are immediately made aware The White Girl demanding and abusive. A strange middle- very real. The White Girl’s major strength lies in its ability to that this is no ordinary Tony Birch aged couple wants a family-like dynamic cause the reader to not just pause and reflect, but to listen. It tale. The first two UQP. PB. $29.95 as the woman organises for a roll-away bed is essential that stories like these are heard. sentences read: ‘I didn’t for Amelia in their motel room. And then Birch knows his story and characters well. His prose write this book. I stole it.’ there is ‘Pops’, who poses the biggest threat is beautifully handled and speaks with real, authentic pain but is restrained, never A Parisian bookbinder comes across a of all. All throughout her journey Amelia overbearing. The setting is evocative and deftly drawn; the symbolism of a rundown manuscript that consists of three separate is sustained by the thought of her best junkyard and a dying river flowing through the isolated town, a deep gash in the stories. The first is a letter by poet Charles friend, Sid, waiting for her, but reaching fractured landscape, is potent and elegant. The White Girl will resonate with readers, and Baudelaire, written to an illiterate girl; Melbourne is never a sure thing. it will rightly sit with them for a long time after the last page is turned. the second is a noir romance set during Hitch won the inaugural Penguin Literary Georgia Brough is the digital content coordinator for Readings Germany’s invasion of Paris; and the Prize for an unpublished manuscript. It is a third is an autobiography of a deathless very readable and compassionate book, and enchantress. the issues it raises about trauma and recovery The reader is given a choice as to how dynamic between two people shifts, or are timely and relevant. Australian Fiction when a moment or a thing is transformed to tackle the book: either in the traditional Annie Condon is from Readings Hawthorn by being viewed in a new light. It does all manner from first to last page to read three separate but seemingly connected stories, This Taste for Silence of this with grace. This is such a strong or follow a sequence of page numbers, Amanda O'Callaghan debut, and is the kind of book I know I’ll be Little Stones moving back and forth through the book UQP. PB. $22.95 making time to re-read soon. Elizabeth Kuiper as guided by the text. This reader chose the UQP. PB. $29.95 Short fiction is a Ellen Cregan is the marketing and events latter, and what unfolds is a daring, strange versatile and, in my coordinator for Readings Set in the last and compelling novel that spans 150 years. opinion, very useful form decades of Mugabe- Putting this choice in the reader’s of writing. A good short The Electric Hotel era Zimbabwe, Elizabeth hands could appear gimmicky but for the story can immerse you in Dominic Smith Kuiper’s debut novel bold imagination found within the book’s a totally new world over A&U. PB. Was $32.99 Little Stones is about pages. The reader is certainly asked to the course of a train trip, $29.99 grappling with identity. suspend their disbelief at such a wild, or help you consider Dominic Smith Hannah Reynolds is a tangled and fantastical tale but the writing things from a new point of view in continues his precocious eleven-year- is assured and inventive. minutes. Amanda O’Callaghan’s debut fascinating exploration of old energetically passing her days at It’s quite unlike anything I’ve read collection of short stories, This Taste for the progression of life private school with her best friend Diana, before, but, at times, felt reminiscent of Silence, is a stunning achievement that through art. This time her financier parents’ separate houses, and some of David Mitchell’s writing. The style does all of the above and more. around it is the her grandparents’ tobacco farm. She’s is in the tradition of storytelling of old, This book is mix of microfiction and beginnings of white and she’s privileged; some of the where tales are told rather than shown, more traditional short stories. While the filmmaking. It is 1962 and people she loves are also white and and somewhat like Scheherazade (who form differs throughout, there’s always an we find our protagonist, Claude Ballard, privileged, others are not one or not the is referenced in the book) the reader is element of the unexpected to these stories. living out the remainder of his life in other, others are neither. seduced by the telling. Characters don’t react the way that you think Hollywood at the Knickerbocker Hotel. He The story unfolds from Hannah’s point The noir thread running through the they will, interactions and objects are never is just one guest amongst a number of of view, but Kuiper also deploys Hannah’s book was particularly well executed, and quite what they seem. Long-hidden truths eccentric, lonely and forgotten individuals reflections to offer insights beyond her there are cameos by historical figures are revealed in unusual circumstances. from a time long past without a future to young protagonist’s comprehension into – Baudelaire, Walter Benjamin, Jeanne Whether it’s a dark secret coming out over look forward to. His days are filled with the complex dynamics – racial, personal, Duval and Coco Chanel (to name some) – dinner, or an oil painting with a sinister collecting and peeling mushrooms. and political – at work around her. While that will delight and confound the reader. magic power, O’Callaghan maintains a It is on one of these days that Claude it is clear from the beginning that her I look forward to revisiting the book from subtle, compelling sense of intrigue that is approached by Martin, a university parents are tensely divorced, elements of first to last page to see how it unfolds when makes each story highly readable without film student who is in search of an artist their fraught history emerge gradually read in the other direction. compromising the quality and detail of her whom he believes created one of the and it becomes apparent that Hannah’s writing. And while I did love each story’s greatest masterpieces in film, The Electric Deborah Crabtree is from Readings Carlton father is the kind of person some would plot (they’re all unique and fully formed), Hotel. A film that, after its initial release, euphemistically call ‘controlling’. As the skill with which O’Callaghan writes was disappeared forever, never to be seen again. Hitch petrol queues stretch for days, the water probably my favourite aspect of This Taste From that day we are transported back Kathryn Hind is intermittently cut off without warning for Silence. The book is full of sentences to Claude’s life in 1896, to the moment Hamish Hamilton. PB. Was $32.99 and traffic hurriedly pulls over to the side to linger over, vivid descriptions, and when Claude begins his foray into film and $29.99 of the road whenever Mugabe’s motorcade beautifully crafted dialogue. first meets Sabine Montrose. Sabine is the In her debut novel, passes, Hannah and Diana swim, study, Reading this book, I decided that ethereal, enigmatic stage siren who will Kathryn Hind has and dream, and Hannah’s family tensions O’Callaghan’s writing seeks to capture become the star of his ill-fated movie, as created a complex and escalate along with the conflicts beyond moments of disharmony – changes, well as his muse. She is the one who will vulnerable character, the security gates. misunderstandings, even moments in leave him heartbroken and bereft. Amelia, who is Hannah’s understanding of her world is which the supernatural encroaches on This is an expansive novel, taking the hitchhiking around constantly challenged. Her mother’s Shona an otherwise mundane life. Her writing reader from the silent era of filmmaking Australia following her housekeeper, Gogo, is beloved by Hannah explores what might happen when the to the trenches of World War I and on to mother’s death. Amelia is and her mother, but even at the end of 8 READINGS MONTHLY June 2019 FICTION

the novel Hannah realises she has more and impossible expectations, finds solace nineteen-year-old to the Big Apple to live concerned by the role of capitalism in to learn about the dimensions of their in radical faith. Real Differences is an with the family renegade, Aunt Peg, who pushing humanity to its limits. relationship. When it seems likely that emotionally resonant novel about owns a charming but disreputable Winterson shows us that the her grandparents may need to leave their idealism, ethical ambition and love, filled Manhattan revue theatre, the Lily Romantics are just as relevant as they farm due to the political situation, Hannah with unforgettable characters. It Playhouse. Once there, Vivian quickly ever were, and that their concerns are must make sense of the dramatic events ultimately asks us the most important creates – for herself! – the role of theatre ours, too. The links between Frankisstein that follow. Little Stones is a portrait, from question of all: What is our life for? seamstress and becomes indispensable to and the future Shelley imagined in The an explicitly defined perspective, of a Aunt Peg and the revue’s showgirls. Last Man, as well as Frankenstein, are country at a moment in its long history. The lives of the women that reside disturbingly strong. I think Shelley would Hannah’s story is infused with an aching International and work in the theatre are applauded, approve of Winterson’s novel, although love and sadness for her country, which is Fiction not judged, in this novel. Gilbert said, I don’t think she would be glad to know also Kuiper’s country of birth. ‘I have wanted to write a novel about that in 2019 we are hurtling toward Elke Power is the editor of Readings Monthly women who have a lot of sex, and who catastrophes she warned us about in 1818 Big Sky like it, and whose lives aren't destroyed and 1826. The Subjects Kate Atkinson by it.’ This philosophy generates delicious Georgia Delaney is from Readings Carlton reading. Of course, the central female Sarah Hopkins Doubleday. PB. Was $32.99 characters feel anger at the exploitation Text. PB. $29.99 $29.99 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this and hypocrisy faced by women, but they Daniel is a sixteen-year- Available 18 June Strange World don’t allow this to hinder their lifestyle. old drug dealer and he’s ‘It was a good day Elif Shafak They choose instead to adopt the jubilance going to jail. Then, when you saved Viking. PB. $32.99 and freedom that comes with living and suddenly, he’s not. A someone’s life. Even Available 18 June being part of a collective. There is so courtroom intervention. better when you didn’t die In the last few much joy to be found in this novel as it A long car ride to a big saving them.’ Lately, minutes of her life, explores the central characters’ concepts country house. Other that’s the kind of day Leila’s mind begins to of humanity and community, and, as they ‘gifted delinquents’: the happening quite often in recall some of the most age, the changing landscape and politics elusive, devastating Rachel, and Alex, so the life of private important moments of that form a backdrop to their lives. The tightly wound he seems about to shatter. investigator Jackson Brodie. In fact, a bit her existence. Each effect is an adventure story that captures a So where are they? It’s not a school, despite more frequently than he would care for. moment is accompanied kaleidoscope of colour and courage. the ‘lessons’ with the headsets and Having recently relocated to the East by the distinct memory Gilbert’s enchanting City of Girls is an changing images. It’s not a psych unit. It’s Coast of England, Brodie is busy trailing of an exquisite food and the personal epic novel that will delight readers of Meg not a jail, because Daniel’s free to leave. Or unfaithful spouses to earn his keep, in events that are attached to that food. Wolitzer, Maria Semple and our own Liane at least that’s what they tell him. the company of his aging labrador Dido Chapter by chapter, dish by dish, we Moriaty. It is the perfect novel with which (after the Queen of Carthage, not the learn of the events that have shaped to escape our winter blues. I truly enjoyed singer), and the help of his reluctant Leila’s short but eventful life. Some of the Allegra in Three Parts every page of this wondrous book. Suzanne Daniel teenage son Nathan, who’d rather be events are terrible and unthinkable, Christine Gordon is the programming and Pan Mac. PB. $29.99 Instagramming pictures of his breakfast while others are sweet and full of hope. cereal than memorising suspect licence events manager for Readings Eleven-year-old Allegra Importantly, we learn the personal plate numbers. When his investigation shuttles between her histories of Leila’s five closest friends crosses paths with detective constables grandmothers, who live Frankissstein: A Love Story and how they came to meet. 10 Minutes Ronnie and Reggie, who are investigating a next door to one another Jeanette Winterson and 38 Seconds in This Strange World new lead in an historical case, the sinister but couldn't be more Jonathan Cape. HB. Was $32.99 takes us from Leila’s birth to her buried past of this family-holiday coastal different. Matilde works $29.99 untimely death, weaving a rich narrative town threatens to emerge, and upset that follows her from far-east Turkey all all hours and instils Jeanette Winterson the easy-going lives of some respectable the way to Istanbul and is dotted with discipline, duty and returns with members of the community. important events that helped shaped the restraint. Meanwhile free-spirited Joy is another adaptation – this This novel is not typical of the crime country in the late twentieth century. full of colour, possibility and emotion. And time with Mary Shelley’s genre. It is a complex literary detective story then there's Rick, who lives in a flat out the much loved gothic horror I have now read a number of Elif that weaves together the fates of vulnerable back and finds distraction in gambling and novel, Frankenstein, Shafak’s novels and 10 Minutes and 38 adventurers searching for the promise of a solace in surfing. Allegra must orbit these drawn into a past-and- Seconds is one of her finest. Her writing better life, spirited survivors determined three conflicting worlds, until one day the present narrative about is beautiful and complex, yet easy to to change their fortunes, and a world of unspoken tragedy that's created this animation, artificial intelligence, bodies read. Her descriptions of Istanbul and garden parties, modern AGA kitchens, division explodes within the person they and gender. Turkish food are so vivid you can imagine golf clubs and the pursuit of a comfortable how they must look, smell and taste. all cherish most. Our protagonist is transgender man retirement under the sun with a piña colada Shafak also uses her narratives to push at and gifted surgeon Ry Shelley. Shelley at any cost. Told with witty humor and important (and sometimes controversial) A Lifetime of Impossible Days is in love with an egotistical tech genius touching humanity, Kate Atkinson shines points in Turkish history, highlighting Tabitha Bird named Victor Stein, who is developing a light into the cracks of a decaying society the deep and complex events that have Viking. PB. $32.99 technologies that will preserve trapped by its hidden demons. shaped it, and its many distinct cultures On one impossible day in consciousness beyond death. Winterson Kate Atkinson won the Whitbread Book that have thrived. I enjoyed reading 1965, eight-year-old Willa invites us to consider complex questions of the Year award for her first novel Behind this novel so much. Despite the many receives a mysterious box about the role of technology in medicine the Scenes at the Museum, and has been a injustices that occur throughout the containing a jar of water and identity through the eyes of a deeply regular dweller on the Readings bookshelves story, it does not end with a sense of and the instruction: ‘One ambivalent player – someone who can ever since. Big Sky is her fifth novel featuring hopelessness. Instead it leaves the reader ocean: plant in the never be or feel in one camp or another, detective Brodie. If you are a newcomer to with feelings of having learnt something backyard.’ So she does regardless of whatever binary is drawn the series, enter and read on, for this novel new about this country. – and somehow creates a around them. Through Ry and Victor’s will appeal to new acquaintances of Brodie, time slip that allows her to visit her future relationship, Winterson shows readers Julia Gorman is from Readings Carlton as much as to old friends. selves: a thirty-three-year-old on the brink of some of the prejudice and assumptions a decision that will have tragic Eva Sandoval is from Readings Carlton trans people face in their daily lives. As This Brutal House repercussions, and a ninety-three-year-old Shelley did before her, Winterson takes Niven Govinden with a disintegrating memory. Can the three City of Girls readers on what becomes, at times, Dialogue. HB. $35 Willas come together to heal their past and Elizabeth Gilbert an outrageous romp and, at others, an Available 11 June save their future, before it’s too late? Bloomsbury. PB. Was $32.99 unnerving tale of power, ego, and a thirst This Brutal House $29.99 for mastery. felt slightly Real Differences This generous novel The central plot follows the developing dystopian before I S.L. Lim is not for fans of use (and abuse) of AI and robotics for, realised I was immersed Transit Lounge. PB. $29.99 Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, often, selfish personal gratification. This in the language of drag Middle-class, clever and Pray, Love. Rather, it is for modern story is interspersed with that queens, vogue balls, white, Nick is a child of readers that want to be of the real Mary Shelley, as she begins runaways, and sex privilege while his best taken on a glorious, writing Frankenstein and is increasingly workers in New York City. friend Andie is the fictitious adventure haunted by the scope of her own creation. It’s a novel peopled by characters who are daughter of refugees. But through the 1940s and There are many parallels between the battling to live a full, valued life while City they share a conviction beyond. Set in New York, the narrative stories of Mary Shelley and Ry Shelley: Hall looks on with disdain, police bully that they can change the focuses on Vivian Morris’s life and her the discrimination that they face, their casually, and the rest of the community world for the better. inability to conform to societal ambivalence towards their work and their can be relied upon to be oblivious at best, Meanwhile, Andie's teenage cousin Tony, expectations. In desperation, her partners, and the social and political and violent at worst. burdened by his parents’ traumatic past conservative parents send her as a upheaval in their worlds. Both are also The children on the streets are going FICTION June 2019 READINGS MONTHLY 9

missing, but because they aren’t pretty, doctor. As their relationship grows more blue-eyed, and sexually unambiguous, complicated, Ed must weigh his they’re considered somehow lesser by professional responsibilities against his the rest of the community. ‘The Mothers’ personal ones and find a way to save both vent their concerns by staging a silent his job and his family. The Behaviour of protest on the steps of City Hall, a protest Love is an compulsive, poignant exploration that’s meant to last a day but ends up of marriage, lust, and ambition. stretching into weeks. Initially told from the point of view of the Mothers – the The Den ageing drag queens who have taken these Abi Maxwell street children under their wings and Tinder. PB. $32.99 given them comfort, food and shelter – Jane and Claire are the novel then shifts to the narrative of separated by time, but Teddy, one of the runaways the Mothers both reeling in the wake took in a few years back. of a sister going missing Teddy is one of the success stories of under mysterious the Mothers – a street kid who studied circumstances. As Jane hard and got himself a good job – but now and Claire search for their Teddy has the push/pull of working for missing sisters, each City Hall, even as the Mothers sit in silence uncovers the strange legend of Cold on the steps outside. Woven throughout Thursday and of a family apparently the novel are ‘the balls’: competitions that transformed into coyotes. But what does involve drag queens strutting their stuff this myth really mean? Are their sisters Sallie Muirden’s compelling fourth A distinctive new voice in and voguing down catwalks. dead, destroyed by the men who desired This book is incredibly timely and I novel, her first set in Australia, Australian literature. them? Or have they made new lives beyond would call it a must-read, not only for the explores a universal rite of passage, the watchful eyes of the community they heartbreaking beauty of its writing, its a single day of drama and change. ‘Real Differences grapples longed to escape? characters and its story, but because it’s with some of the most an urgent call for more kindness in a world ‘Shrewd, nostalgic Dry Milk profound questions faced by that seems to be getting more strident and Huo Yan & Duncan M. Campbell and intelligent.’ hardline by the minute. Loved it. anyone who wonders, What (trans.) TONI JORDAN, AUTHOR OF Gabrielle Williams is the Readings Foundation should I do with my life?’ Giramondo. PB. $22.95 THE FRAGMENTS grants officer John Lee is a lonely and LARISSA MACFARQUHAR, increasingly THE NEW YORKER, AUTHOR OF Girl, Woman, Other misanthropic Chinese STRANGERS DROWNING Bernardine Evaristo migrant who has lived in Hamish Hamilton. HB. $35 Auckland for thirty Teeming with life and years, running a second- crackling with energy, hand junk shop while told through many maintaining a distinctive voices, this relationship of disdain with his disabled novel follows the lives of wife. When he becomes infatuated with a twelve very different young international student who lodges characters. Mostly in their house, the dubious balance with women, black and British, which he has held his life together comes they tell the stories of their families, apart. Huo’s novella is a stark portrait of friends and lovers, across the country and social isolation, and of the experience of through the years. Joyfully polyphonic the emigrants that left China in the and sparklingly contemporary, Girl, period following the Cultural Revolution. Woman, Other is a gloriously new kind of history, a novel of our times – celebratory, Lost Property ever-dynamic and utterly irresistible. Laura Beatty Atlantic. PB. $29.99 Vacuum in the Dark In the middle of her life, Jen Beagin a writer finds herself in a Oneworld. HB. $29.99 dark wood, despairing at From Whiting Award- how modern Britain has winning author Jen Beagin become a place of greed comes this sequel to the and indifference. In an edgy and hilarious Pretend attempt to understand I'm Dead. As she tries to her country and her get over the heartache of species, she and her lover rent a van and an affair and the stirring roadtrip through 10,000 years of wars, currents of her traumatic borders, art, and revolutions. In seeing past, Mona ends up on an eccentric, the beauty beside the ugliness, the light moving journey of self-discovery that among the trees, the writer finally begins takes her back to her roots, offering a to see a way for her to go home. glimpse of a future that could one day be hers. With Vacuum in the Dark, Beagin has Mrs Everything created another gem of a novel that is Jennifer Weiner surprising, laugh-out-loud funny and Piatkus. PB. $32.99 utterly relatable. Available 11 June Jo and Bethie Kaufman The Behaviour of Love were born into a world Virginia Reeves full of promise. Growing Scribner. PB. $32.99 up in 1950s Detroit, their Behavioural psychologist roles in the family are Ed Malinowski has clearly defined. Jo is the realised most of his tomboy, the bookish dreams. He has the perfect rebel; Bethie is the career, a beautiful home, a pretty, feminine good girl, who dreams of wonderful wife. But then a traditional life. But the truth ends up he meets Penelope, a looking different from what the girls patient at the mental imagined. In this ambitious novel, institution he heads. She is intelligent, Jennifer Weiner tells a story of two sisters charming and slowly falling in love with her who, with their different paths, offer 10 READINGS MONTHLY June 2019 FICTION

answers to the question: How should a The Tenth Muse woman be in the world? Catherine Chung Little, Brown. PB. $32.99 On Earth We’re Briefly Available 11 June Gorgeous Katherine is a Ocean Vuong mathematician on a quest Jonathan Cape. HB. $29.99 to conquer the greatest On Earth We're Briefly unsolved problem of her Gorgeous is a letter from a time: the Riemann son to a mother. Written Hypothesis. Forced to when the speaker, Little rethink everything she Dog, is in his late knows of herself, twenties, the letter Katherine strives to take her place in the unearths a family's world of higher mathematics, reclaiming history that began before the voices of the women who came before he was born, and serves as a doorway her whose love of the language of numbers into parts of his life his mother has never connects them across generations. The known, all of it leading to an Tenth Muse is a brilliant, involving novel unforgettable revelation. At once a asking questions about who gets to tell the witness to the fraught yet undeniable story of intellectual endeavour. love between a mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, What Red Was class, and masculinity. Rosie Price Harvill Secker. PB. Was $32.99 Saltwater $29.99 Jessica Andrews Through their four years Sceptre. PB. $32.99 at university, Kate and When Lucy wins a place at Max are inseparable. For a London university, she him, she breaks her thinks the city will unlock solitude; for her, he leaves her future. Yet her his busy circles behind. transition to a new life is But loving Max means more overwhelming than knowing his family, the she ever expected. As she wealthy Rippons, all generosity, social works long shifts to make ease and quiet repression. Theirs is not ends meet and navigates chaotic parties, Kate’s world. At their London home, just she still feels like an outsider among her after graduation, her life is shattered fellow students. Lyrical and boundary- apart in a bedroom while a party goes on breaking, Saltwater explores the downstairs. A startling and sophisticated complexities of mother-daughter debut novel of modern love, sexual relationships, the challenges of shifting violence and toxic inheritance from a new class identity and the way that the British voice. strongest feelings of love can be the hardest to define. An Unquiet Heart Martin Sixsmith The Second Worst Restaurant Scribner. PB. $29.99 in France 1917. Russia is dying amid Alexander McCall Smith war, revolution and terror. Polygon. HB. $29.99 The birth pains of the new Paul Stewart has returned world are a foretaste of the to Scotland to write The cruellest century. At their Philosophy of Food in Six heart is Sergei Yesenin, Easy Chapters, a project twenty-two, a poet, lover, he relishes but that must wounded veteran, be delivered in six beautiful and afraid. An Unquiet Heart is ALLEGRA IN THREE PARTS CROSSINGS months. With this the extraordinary tale of this SUZANNE DANIEL ALEX LANDRAGIN deadline looming, Paul’s extraordinary man, who was revered by From Suzanne Daniel comes an ‘A magnificent, intricate machine of a cousin Chloe suggests a radical course of millions. Bursting with the real-life drama outstanding debut novel, capturing 1970s book that is a sheer delight to read. action. She has taken a lease on a house in Australia with compassion, humour and a With vivid characters and a brilliant of love in turbulent times, this is a distinctive voice. Full of quirky characters, premise, it is a puzzle, a love story a French village, and invites him to join magnificently wrought novel of passion this book radiates a rare warmth and an adventure.’ her. Once there, Paul finds his fortunes and violence, triumph and tragedy. and charm. CHRIS WOMERSLEY tangled up with the fate of one eating establishment in the village: the infamous second worst restaurant in France ... Sci-fi Shadowplay Joseph O’Connor Fall, or Dodge in Hell Harvill Secker. PB. $32.99 Neal Stephenson 1878: The Lyceum HarperCollins. PB. $32.99 Theatre, London. Three When billionaire Richard extraordinary people 'Dodge' Forthrast is begin their life together, pronounced brain dead, a life that will be full of his family and friends are drama, transformation, left devastated, and BIG LITTLE LIES KOCHIE’S 11-STEP MONEY PLAN and painful devotion to forced to make difficult LIANE MORIARTY FOR A BETTER LIFE art. Henry Irving is the decisions. Dodge's will leading man and impresario; Ellen Terry asks that his body be The #1 New York Times bestseller and DAVID KOCH novel that launched the hit TV series with is the most lauded actress of her given to a cryonics company. In the Friendly, clear and easy to use, this is the a special cover to celebrate the release of guide you need to reset your money generation; and ever following along coming years, technology allows Dodge’s Season 2 starring Meryl Streep. habits so you can learn more, worry less, behind them in the shadows is the brain to be turned back on, an ‘Funny and thrilling’ breathe easier and enjoy of the fruits of unremarkable theatre manager, Bram achievement that is nothing less than the BOOKLIST (starred review) your labour. Stoker. This exceptional novel explores disruption of death itself. This leads to an the complexities of love, the restlessness eternal afterlife – the Bitworld – being of creativity, and the experiences that led created, in which humans continue to exist to Dracula, the most iconic supernatural as digital souls. But this imagined state of tale of all time. perfection is not all that it appears to be. CRIME June 2019 READINGS MONTHLY 11

Night by Night In Cold Blood, of course, but what if Hickok Jack Jordan and Smith didn’t work alone? And what if Dead the third person involved, Jerry Beaufort, Corvus. PB. $29.99 Rose Shaw is leading a after spending nearly six decades in prison Write half-life: as well as being for a different crime, wanted to make sure with Fiona Hardy plagued by insomnia, she’s no one knew of their involvement? One hated by her husband, her piece of evidence belongs to the fresh, new surviving daughter and former-priest husband of retired FBI agent Eleven-year-old Tippy Chan lives in the poky New Zealand herself after a tragedy took Brigid Quinn – someone who doesn’t take BOOK OF THE town of Riverstone with her mother, her best friends, a her other child. On a dark retirement as a cue to avoid trouble. The MONTH suitably acerbic teen neighbour, and too many memories walk late one night, she collides with a inevitable clash between Beaufort and Quinn ratchets up the tension in a chilling Crime of her father. This is all very normal and fine, but this little stranger on the run. The only evidence that town is about to get quite a shake-up. Tippy’s spectacularly this happened is the journal he left behind, book of unsolved cold cases and the colourful hairdresser uncle, Pike, and his new fashion which starts with the line ‘If you’re reading white-hot present. designer boyfriend, Devon, are in town to look after her while this, I’m dead’. So her sleepless nights and her mother is away, and while the three of them promise to be wakeful days fill with the task of finding out Crushed very almost sometimes good, things are about to get chaotic. what happened to Finn Matthews, since the Kate Hamer police are uninterested and it brings up Faber. PB. $29.99 This is an absolute riot. Queer crime is parallels to the life of Rose’s long-dead Phoebe is a teenager standing, frustratingly thin on the ground and this brother. When she realises other men have dishevelled and terrified, by a also gone missing, she investigates – but is a sensational example of it that glitters bridge. She has a book in her will the search achieve anything apart from hand that she should not with originality completely detaching Rose from the family have. It’s Macbeth, but it is not she loves? A pacy and emotional thriller. the Macbeth of everyone’s After Tippy’s best friend falls off a bridge and lands in a school assignments – it is coma and her teacher becomes the victim of a grisly murder, The Paris Diversion something that has thrown her ordered The Nancys the three Nancy Drew fans decide to band together and form Chris Pavone world off-kilter. She had the book, then she R.W.R. McDonald their own detective agency, ‘The Nancys’, and figure out what Faber. PB. $29.99 had thoughts – bad ones – and then the hell is going on, all without getting murdered themselves, A&U. PB. $29.99 This Parisian day starts grey something happened. Something gruesome or – worse – busted by Tippy’s mother. and, for many of the city’s that the whole city will soon be talking about. This is an absolute riot. Queer crime is frustratingly thin inhabitants, completely But she’s not the only one with bad thoughts: on the ground and this is a sensational example of it that glitters with originality. Tippy normally. Kate Moore begins her friends – and sometimes not-friends – is observant, honest and frequently mystified by what everyone’s talking about. She still her morning at school Orla and Grace, are like her, living struggles with the painful aftermath of her father’s death and uses distraction to stop drop-off, with all those other claustrophobic lives at home. How they deal thinking too hard about what happened. Tippy’s delightfully camp uncle lights up the parents kiss-kissing each with what is in their heads, and how they act page as he navigates his semi-conservative childhood hometown and the people he once other’s cheeks. Her day-trader husband, with each other, in a world that pulses with knew. The characters are a scream, with the townsfolk harbouring much more interesting Dexter, plays tennis and contemplates an friction, makes for a book filled with dread. personalities than anybody expected. The Nancys is a cheerfully scattered tale of bad incoming change to his financial situation. The witches of Macbeth seem unnervingly interior design, beauty pageants gone haywire, and haphazard but smart investigation all It is not, however, a normal day: a tech CEO realistic in these slow-burn pages, where tied together in a saucy Phryne Fisher-esque package in which love and the families you watches his police escort abandon their inside thoughts can become outside actions make are everything. post; sirens start wailing all over the city; and three young women make a macabre and a man called Mahmoud steps into the journey to the book’s end. Louvre with a bomb underneath his jacket. This Storm that almost leap from the pages with verve. Nobody here is what they seem, least of all The Accusation James Ellroy He’s equally convincing whether writing Kate, who is in control of a French Wendy James Heinemann. PB. Was $32.99 from the point of view of his detestable substation of operatives – at least, for now. HarperCollins. PB. $29.99 Across one explosive day, this espionage $29.99 villains, such as the disturbed and Ned Kelly Award winner thriller starts calmly and then spins a story James Ellroy has a style. murderous Hitler-enjoyer George Starling Wendy James has crafted a so tight with tension you won’t be able to James Ellroy likes to write in or the lesser bastards that populate the puzzling and smoothly unravel yourself from it. short, sharp sentences. They book, or his heroes – including Detective executed story with The crackle with wit and with all Joe Sable, Homicide’s first female police Accusation. Ellie Canning, at the humour of the time. Its officer Helen Lord (who’s already been The Dangerous Kind eighteen years old, has been 1941, the very tail end. Pearl suspended from duty, thank you very Deborah O’Connor located on a country road Harbor is only in the much) and their colleagues and relatives. Zaffre. PB. $29.99 with undersized pyjamas and a tale to tell. too-fresh past. Rain batters L.A. and those Gott brings the story of Starling’s quest for Radio host Jessamine Gooch She had been held captive in the basement caught outside on the last night of the year: blood, and of Lord and Sable’s attempts to has been building up a belonging to a woman and the woman’s the corrupt cop, the Japanese lab tech save themselves – and everyone else – decent following for her mother. There she was fed from an old currently avoiding internment, the drunk completely and utterly alive. show, ‘Potentially Dangerous sippy-cup, and chained to a bed. And ex-Navy lieutenant, and the intelligence People’, so she’s not that Suzannah Wells – with her basement and officer who isn’t quite down the line either. Conviction surprised when somebody mother and the old sippy-cup belonging to There’s a dead body in a park and it’s going Mina Denise approaches her outside the the daughter that died – seems the most to kick off something big for the four of Harvill Secker. PB. $32.99 broadcaster’s office one day. Her show is likely suspect, not least when DNA shows them. Bigger. Biggest. It’s going to kick off It’s an ordinary day for Anna about the past lives of criminals, and how Ellie has been there. Suzannah’s shock at history. This Storm is the second in Ellroy’s McDonald when she wakes they could have been spotted earlier on. The being accused, and the past about to be L.A. Quartet, and for those who love his early to listen to a new woman who approaches her has a missing plumbed by those around her, begs the concentrated mayhem and the way events true-crime podcast. It’s about friend and suspicions about her friend’s question: what did happen to Ellie Canning, pulse on the page when he writes, this is for the death, a few years ago, of husband. While Jessamine was once that now held up as a powerful social media you: a roiling, sprawling novel of L.A. and a father and his two children kind of investigative journalist, those days darling? Was it Suzannah, or does the truth Mexico in wartime, here to blow your mind. on a yacht, and she’s already are behind her – but Cassie’s case draws her lie somewhere else entirely? interested before the host mentions the in regardless. Jessamine’s research into The Autumn Murders name of the father: Leon Parker. It’s a name Cassie’s disappearance intensifies, but will it Also out this month Robert Gott from another time – another life – and she’d blind her to the looming danger in her own Celebrating some tenth birthdays with Scribe. PB. $29.99 love to talk to her best friend, Estelle, all four walls? This is a winter-bound thriller Chris Carter’s tenth Robert Hunter book, I’m aware that I overuse the about it. Except that Estelle has arrived on heavy with snow and thick with tension. Hunting Evil (S&S, PB, $29.99), and Tim word ‘delight’ in this her doorstop that morning with a suitcase, Weaver’s tenth David Raker book, No One column every month, but because she’s about to head to Portugal on a We Were Killers Once Home (Michael Joseph, PB, $32.99); closer it’s honestly not my fault holiday with Anna’s husband and children. Becky Masterman to teenagerhood is Stuart MacBride’s that so many of the books Without Anna, who’s now been abandoned W&N. PB. $32.99 twelfth Logan McRae book with All That’s that pass my desk are by everyone she loves, and she has no Available 11 June Dead (HarperCollins, PB, $32.99); barely delightful. This month, I’m recourse to do anything about it, since going In Kansas in 1959, the Clutter into primary school but with quite the delegating my one ‘delight’ to the new to court for her children means revealing family were murdered in reputation all the same is Mick Herron’s Robert Gott, The Autumn Murders. Gott’s that she’s not actually Anna McDonald at all. their home, and Dick Hickok sixth Jackson Lamb thriller, Joe Country acerbic, witty and no-holds-barred prose At least this new time alone will give her an and Perry Smith were (John Murray, PB, $32.99, out on 25 June); never fails to delight, and he enthrals from opportunity to look into Leon’s case, but it convicted of the crime. You a non-series book (gasp) with Jo Baker’s the start with his excellently portrayed soon seems apparent that Anna’s past is may have heard of this from countryside-professor thriller The Body Lies Melbourne of the 1940s and characters about to catch up with her – no matter what. Truman Capote’s excellent (Doubleday, PB, $32.99) … and more! 12 READINGS MONTHLY June 2019 NONFICTION

parents’ home for the care she needed. Feeling like a failure and a burden, Dent Cultural Studies New admits she was not an easy patient. Aware that she was suffering Intimate Antipathies Nonfiction mentally as well as physically, Dent Luke Carman had no choice but to accept a referral Giramondo. PB. $24.95 to a psychiatrist who suggested that Intimate Antipathies is medication and a two-week stay in a the much-anticipated small, private psychiatric hospital would Superior is science journalist Angela Saini’s exploration new book by Luke help. It was not something that Dent BOOK OF THE of the rise, slight fall and second coming of ‘race science’. Carman, the award- had ever imagined occurring in her life, It’s the perfect antidote to the whirlpool of pseudoscience winning author of the MONTH but it did have profound and positive currently engulfing mainstream global politics. cult classic An Elegant Cultural consequences for her. Saini travels the world, talking to a range of scientists Young Man. In these Studies from different national contexts and asking a disturbing Dent tells her story with warmth and essays, Carman explores question: ‘Is there a biological basis to racial difference?’ humour. My only concern is the slightly the particular challenges faced by writers What emerges from her investigation is a compelling picture self-blaming subtitle of the book – ‘How who grow up in the contested borderlands of race as politically and socially constructed. The travel I Worried Myself Sick’ – as if she was of the suburbs – always returning to his aspect alone makes a strong case along these lines: nothing personally responsible for her physical great obsession, the home on a small makes ‘race science’ seem more ludicrous than hearing about symptoms and illnesses. This book may mountain in Sydney’s west, where his examples from social contexts you didn’t grow up in. well help anyone suffering from anxiety, antipathies with the real world first began Some of the cynical cases Saini explores are and provides a useful perspective on the to shape his imagination. breathtakingly brazen. There’s the rapid rehabilitation strengths of cognitive behavioural therapy. of the Neanderthal – from Stone Age thug to symbolic Annie Condon is from Readings Hawthorn The Fate of Food thinker – once it was discovered that Europeans actually Amanda Little share quite a bit of DNA with them. Or the eugenicist Little One Oneworld. PB. $29.99 Artemis Trust, convinced that there is a biological basis Peter Papathanasiou Available 17 June for poverty, dishing out hefty grants to assist with ‘fertility A&U. PB. $29.99 Amanda Little unveils control’ in ‘poorer communities.’ Superior: The Peter Papathanasiou’s startling innovations from Saini’s historical explorations really shine, and challenge Return of Race parents emigrated from the front lines of simplistic narratives. Many Britons and Australians are Science Greece to Australia in sustainable food (rightly) proud of fighting against Nazi Germany. But Angela Saini 1956 but were unable to production around the Saini’s investigation into the establishment’s warm pre- Fourth Estate. PB. $32.99 have children, a huge world: farmscrapers, and post-war embrace of eugenics (from the treatment of sorrow for them. Finally, cloned cattle, meatless Aboriginal people, to Winston Churchill’s vice presidency of in 1973, Peter’s uncle and burgers, edible insects, the international eugenics association, to creepy 1950s labs studying red-headedness in aunt in Greece offered to superbananas and microchipped cows. Wales) puts paid to the idea that our governments were ever really such good guys. have a baby and give it to his parents to She meets the most creative and Superior is never annoying nor didactic. It avoids simplistic generalisations. But it raise as their own in Australia. Peter was controversial minds changing the face of undoubtedly feels sinister from the first page. Not only does it delve deep into the dark, that baby. In this moving and compelling modern food production, and tackles fears genocidal recesses of historical ‘race science’, but there’s an eerie sense throughout that memoir of family and place, Peter traces over genetic modification with hard facts. humankind is poised to make another colossal mistake. his parents’ journey to Australia, their The Fate of Food is a fascinating look at the Chris Dite is from Readings Carlton struggle as migrants, and the very threats and opportunities that lie ahead as different world they came from. we struggle to feed ever more people in a changing world. Before I Forget: An Early siblings, parents and friends. We also hear Memoir Anthologies from the ‘mad’ themselves. Bedlam at Faber & Faber: The Untold Geoffrey Blainey Botany Bay looks at people who found Story Hamish Hamilton. HB. Was $45 themselves not only at the edge of the Toby Faber Split $39.99 Faber. HB. $39.99 Lee Kofman (ed.) world, but at the edge of sanity. It shows their worlds colliding. Available 18 June Faber and Faber is one of Ventura. PB. $32.99 Now in his late-eighties, the world’s greatest In this compelling Geoffrey Blainey is listed independent publishers. anthology of personal Biography by the National Trust as Literary superstars like essays, curated by a ‘Living Treasure’. Here, T.S. Eliot, William award-winning author Blainey reflects on his Golding, Ted Hughes, Lee Kofman, some of Breaking Badly humble beginnings as and Sylvia Plath are Australia’s most beloved Georgie Dent the son of a Methodist synonymous with the writers reveal, for the Affirm Press. PB. $29.99 Minister and school name Faber, as are the leafy squares of first time, powerful, Georgie Dent is an teacher, and a carefree childhood spent twentieth-century Bloomsbury. But what occasionally funny and often accomplished in rural Victoria. Warm, insightful and is the real tale behind the house that heartbreaking stories of significant journalist and public lyrically written, Before I Forget recounts brought together these authors? Detailing endings and their aftermath. Join speaker. She is the the experiences and influences that have each decade of the publishing house’s eighteen acclaimed storytellers in their contributing editor of shaped the mind of Australia’s most history, Faber & Faber shows us how candid and courageous reflections on the Women’s Agenda, and loved historian. But in this book Blainey publishing can shift a nation’s cultural intrinsic human experience of loss and tweets on feminist issues. has given us something more – a conversation, and speaks directly to the leaving, which acknowledge the price we But while her memoir, fascinating and affectionate social way we engage with literature today. can often pay for a much-needed end, or Breaking Badly, details her career rise as a history in and of itself. new beginning. journalist and public figure over the past My Seditious Heart ten years, it predominantly focuses on the I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You Arundhati Roy time she regarded herself as ‘breaking’ David Chariandy Hamish Hamilton. HB. $65 Australian and ‘broken’. Bloomsbury. HB. $24.99 Available 18 June Studies Dent describes how she worked her When a moment of quietly My Seditious Heart collects hardest to attain good marks at school to ignored bigotry prompted the work of a two-decade achieve her dream of studying law. During his three-year-old period when Arundhati Bedlam at Botany Bay her studies, she was aware that she over- daughter to ask ‘what Roy devoted herself to the James Dunk prepared and was prone to self-doubt. happened?’, David political essay as a way of NewSouth. PB. $34.99 She was also facing a barrage of health Chariandy began opening up space for What happened when complaints – she had been diagnosed wondering how to discuss justice, rights and people went ‘mad’ in the with severe endometriosis, and was with his children the freedoms in an fledgling colony of New also battling a painful and debilitating politics of race. Today, in a newly heated increasingly hostile environment. Taken South Wales? In this stomach complaint that was later era of struggle and divisions, he has together, the essays speak in a uniquely important new history, diagnosed as Crohn’s Disease. Dent tried completed a letter to his now thirteen- spirited voice, marked by compassion, we find out through the not to complain too much, but when her year-old daughter. With intimacy, clarity and courage. Radical and readable, correspondence of symptoms expanded to include extreme sensitivity and beauty, Chariandy shares they speak in defence of the collective, of governors and colonial dizziness, she was forced to take a leave the questions he is addressing to his the individual and of the land, in the face of secretaries, the descriptions of judges and of absence from her full-time corporate daughter – questions of immense the destructive logic of financial, social, doctors, and the heartbreaking letters of law job in Sydney and head back to her importance and resonance for us all. religious, military and governmental elites. NONFICTION June 2019 READINGS MONTHLY 13

A Fixed Place embrace their unique relationship with encouraging more young people back onto revolution and the people swept up in it, Kathleen Mary Fallon language. Montell’s irresistible intelligence the land, regenerating the land will also drawing connections between UWAP. PB. $24.99 and humour make linguistics not only mitigate the effects of climate change by contemporary politics and the ancient What was it like, living approachable but downright enthralling. storing carbon in the soil. past. The Buried is a work of Wordslut gets to the heart of our language, uncompromising intelligence and through the social, Michael McLoughlin is from Readings Carlton cultural and political sheds light on the biases that shadow women humanity that unearths a new world. in our culture and shows how to embrace upheaval of the last fifty Clearing the Air years of the twentieth language to verbally smash the patriarchy. Chanel’s Riviera Tim Smedley century in Australia? In A Bloomsbury Sigma. PB. $29.99 Anne de Courcy Fixed Place, we find Humour W&N. PB. $32.99 Air pollution has become moments of stasis, of hard- Terry Eagleton Available 11 June the world’s greatest won clarity, of sexuality, joy, confusion, Yale University Press. HB. $37.99 Far from worrying about environmental health compassion. Here, Kathleen Mary Fallon Written by an the onset of war, in the risk, and science is only has collected writings published across a acknowledged master of spring of 1938 the burning beginning to reveal its span from the 1980s in magazines and comedy, this study question on the French wide-ranging effects. ephemeral publications to make a picture of reflects on the nature of Riviera was whether one Sustainability journalist the act of creation through writing. humour and the functions should curtsey to the Tim Smedley has travelled it serves. Packed with Duchess of Windsor. It the world to try and find the answer, illuminating ideas and a was a golden, glamorous Hard to Love visiting cities at the forefront of the fight good many excellent life, far removed from politics or conflict. Briallen Hopper against air pollution, including Delhi, jokes, this book draws on a wide range of Featuring a sparkling cast of artists, Bloomsbury. HB. $32.99 Beijing, London and Paris. Air pollution is literary and philosophical sources. writers and historical figures, with the Briallen Hopper’s Hard to a problem that can be solved, and the Eagleton critically examines various enigmatic Coco Chanel at its heart, this Love honours the stories uncovered on this journey show us well-known theories of humour, from book is a captivating account of a period categories of loves and how. This is essential reading for anyone Aristotle to Freud, looking in particular at that saw some of the deepest extremes of relationships beyond who cares about the air they breathe. marriage, the ones that the psychoanalytical mechanisms luxury and terror in the whole of the underlying humour and its social and twentieth century. are often treated as The Rising Tide invisible or seen as political evolution over the centuries. Tom Bamforth secondary – friendships, Honourable Exit Hardie Grant. PB. $29.99 kinship with adult siblings, care teams Thurston Clarke Environmental Collectively the Pacific that form in times of illness, or various Scribe. HB. $49.99 nations are one of the alternative family formations. It is a series Studies In the last days of the most strategically of love letters to the meaningful, if Vietnam War, more than important regions in the underappreciated, forms of intimacy and 130,000 South Vietnamese Who’s Minding the Farm?: In world – for military community that are tricky, tangled, and were saved from an this Climate Emergency might, for energy tough, but ultimately sustaining. otherwise dire fate. During security and geopolitical Patrice Newell those final days, a number Viking. PB. $35 borders. Even more The Queen of Americans – diplomats, Available 18 June importantly, these nations are at the Josh Levin businessmen, soldiers, Let’s face facts: frontline of climate change, as rising sea Wildfire. PB. $32.99 missionaries, contractors, and spies – risked industrial levels, salinity, cyclones and pollution In the 1970s, Linda Taylor their lives and disobeyed orders to help their agriculture is about to put their very existence at stake. became a fur-wearing, translators, drivers, colleagues, neighbours, come to a grinding halt. We Gripping and beautifully written, The Cadillac-driving symbol friends, and even perfect strangers to know well what Rising Tide masterfully weaves the of the undeserving poor escape. This groundbreaking account by overgrazing and stories of people at the forefront of global – the original ‘welfare New York Times-bestselling author inappropriate crops have change around a broader narrative of queen’. In the press she Thurston Clarke uncovers a previously done to Australian soils: political mismanagement, culture, was the ultimate template untold story of bravery and honour. erosion, salinity, drought and flood are the diplomacy and identity. for this insidious common results. Ploughing in vast stereotype; but Taylor was demonised for Promise Me You’ll Shoot quantities of industrially produced the least of her crimes. She was a con Yourself fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides on our History artist, a thief, a kidnapper, maybe even a broad-acre monoculture crops may have Florian Huber & Imogen Taylor murderer, and certainly one of the most given us the Green Revolution, but it has (trans.) gifted and deranged criminals of modern Barbarians at the Wall Text. PB. $32.99 done nothing for soil health. A few years back times. This is the never-before-told story of John Man the UK environmental secretary said that In 1945, as the army a beguilingly complex American character. Bantam. PB. $35 due to loss of topsoil and poor soil health, the retreated, the German Available 18 June UK only has about 100 harvests left. No one people were surrendered The people of the first Webtopia seems to be talking about how many to the enemy. A wave of nomadic empire left no Peter Lewis harvests Australia has left; a country with suicides rolled across the NewSouth. PB. $32.99 written records, but they soils far less nutrient-rich than the UK’s. country as thousands changed the world. Their chose death rather than The arrival of the internet Patrice Newell is the latest in a line of rise cemented Chinese face the defeat of the Third promised a utopian, Australian farmers to broach the topic of unity and inspired the Reich and what they feared might follow. creative and democratic restoring soil quality and bringing people first Great Wall. Their Drawing on eyewitness accounts, historian future that would break back into contact with the land. After a heirs under Attila the Hun Florian Huber tells of the largest mass down traditional successful career as a model and television helped destroy the Roman Empire. Based suicide in German history and its institutions and replace presenter, Newell and her husband (ABC on meticulous research and new suppression by the survivors – a fascinating them with exciting Radio National’s Phillip Adams) bought a archaeological evidence, Barbarians at the insight into the feelings of ordinary people collaborative networks. But 4000 hectare farm in the Hunter Valley. By Wall traces their story, showing how the caught in the tide of history. twenty years on the world seems more farming with nature, rather than against nomadic cultures of the steppes gave birth divided and more distracted than ever, and it it, Newell is slowly healing her land from to a ‘barbarian empire’ with the wealth is this amazing technology that lies at the the two-hundred years of abuse and The Origin of Empire and power to threaten the order of the heart of many of our most pressing problems. neglect of a settler colonial mindset that David Potter ancient world. Riveting, engaging and wise, Webtopia traces sees land as something to be exploited, not Profile. HB. $59.99 our digital journey to this crisis point and, cared for. The property is now a successful In 264 BC, a Roman army fearlessly, marks out a better route from here. biodynamic farm producing garlic, olives, The Buried was poised to cross from beef and honey. Peter Hessler southern Italy into Sicily. Wordslut Throughout Who’s Minding the Farm? Text. PB. $34.99 They couldn’t know that Amanda Montell Newell offers a critical appraisal of our Fascinated by Egypt’s rich this crossing would be Black Inc. PB. $32.99 current fossil-fuel powered agricultural history, Peter Hessler Rome’s first step on its English is scattered with and industrial systems. More than moved with his family to journey from local perfectly innocuous words criticisms, however, Newell offers a Cairo just after the Arab republic to vast and that have devolved into multitude of suggestions as to how we Spring had begun. In the powerful empire. The Origin of Empire insults hurled at women. can make nutrient-rich and healing foods midst of the revolution, he traces the process of cultural, political and Feminist linguist Amanda right here in Australia by restoring healthy got to know the people in civic transformation which led to the Montell explains why soil and improving our agricultural his community. Telling creation of a monarchy and the acquisition words matter and why it’s practices. Moreover, Newell suggests that the lives of ordinary Egyptians, Hessler of territory. This is a lively, scholarly imperative that women by using local, holistic knowledge, and by creates a richly textured portrait of a approach to an essential era. 14 READINGS MONTHLY June 2019 NONFICTION

The Volunteer president is getting underway and ends excavates the real story behind America’s The Great Successor Jack Fairweather with the delivery of the Mueller report, dealing with the world and shows how the Anna Fifield W.H. Allen. PB. $35 Siege reveals an administration that is extremist forces that now threaten peace John Murray. PB. $32.99 Available 18 June perpetually beleaguered by investigations across the globe are the inevitable flowering Available 11 June In the Summer of 1940, and a president who is increasingly of America’s imperial designs of a national The Great Successor is an after the Nazi occupation volatile, erratic and exposed. security state. irreverent yet insightful of Poland, an quest to understand the life underground operative How We Fight White On the Other Side of Freedom of Kim Jong Un, one of the called Witold Pilecki Supremacy DeRay Mckesson world’s most secretive accepted a mission to Akiba Solomon & Kenrya Rankin Oneworld. PB. $22.99 dictators. One of the most uncover the fate of Bold Type Books. PB. $24.99 Five years ago, DeRay knowledgeable journalists thousands of people being This celebration of Black Mckesson quit his job as a on modern Korea, Anna interred at a new concentration camp on resistance offers a teacher, moved to Fifield has exclusive access to people close to the border of the Reich – Auschwitz. His blueprint for the fight for Ferguson, Missouri, and Kim. She has been able to create a captivating mission was to report on Nazi crimes and freedom and justice – and spent the next 400 days on portrait of the oddest and most isolated raise a secret army to stage an uprising. ideas for how each of us the streets as an activist, political regime in the world, and of its leader, This is an enthralling story of resistance can contribute. Many of helping to bring the Black ridiculous but deadly, and a man of our times. and heroism against the most horrific us are facing Lives Matter movement circumstances, and one man’s attempt to unprecedented attacks on into being. Now, in his first book, Mckesson change the course of history. our democracy, our privacy, and our civil lays down the intellectual, pragmatic, and Psychology rights. In these pages, leading organisers, political framework for a new liberation movement. On the Other Side of Freedom is a Mescaline: A Global History of artists, journalists, comedians, and The Talking Cure filmmakers offer wisdom on how they visionary’s call to take responsibility for the First Psychedelic Gillian Straker & Jacqui Winship fight white supremacy. This is a must-read imagining, and then building, the world we Mike Jay Pan Mac. PB. $32.99 Yale University Press. HB. $44.99 for anyone new to resistance work, and for want to live in. In The Talking Cure, the next generation of leaders building a Mescaline became a psychotherapists Gill popular sensation in the better future. Places and Names Elliot Ackerman Straker and Jacqui mid-twentieth century Winship bring us nine Allen Lane. HB. $39.99 through Aldous Huxley’s Never Ending Nightmare: inspiring stories of Available 18 June The Doors of Perception, The Neoliberal Assault on transformation through In a refugee camp in after which the word Democracy therapy. Whether you have southern Turkey, former ‘psychedelic’ was coined Pierre Dardot, Christian Laval & experienced therapy (or are marine Elliot Ackerman to describe it. Its story, Gregory Elliott (trans.) tempted to try it), or you are just intrigued by sits across the table from however, extends deep into prehistory: the Verso. HB. $34.99 the possibilities of a little-understood but Abu Hassar, who fought earliest Andean cultures depicted How do we explain the transformative process, this wise and for Al Qaeda in Iraq. They mescaline-containing cacti in their strange survival of the compassionate book will deepen your sense discover they had temples. Drawing on botany, forces responsible for the of what it is to be open to connection. pharmacology, ethnography, and the mind 2008 economic crisis, the shadowed each other for sciences and examining the mescaline worst since 1929? When some time, a realisation that brings them experiences of figures from William James the system broke, a to a strange kind of intimacy. At once a Philosophy to Walter Benjamin to Hunter S. Thompson, number of the world’s personal observation about the lure of this is an enthralling narrative of most prominent combat, and a meditation on the meaning mescaline’s many lives. economists announced that neoliberalism of the past two decades of strife, Places and A Summer with Montaigne was over. But reports of its death were Names bids to take its place among our Antoine Compagnon & Tina Kover greatly exaggerated. For Pierre Dardot and greatest books about modern war. (trans.) Politics Christian Laval, neoliberalism is no mere Europa Compass. PB. $24.99 dogma. Supported by powerful oligarchies, A Thousand Small Sanities In his writing and his it is a veritable politico-institutional Adam Gopnik person, Michel de Rockonomics system, one capable of perpetuating itself Riverrun. HB. $35 Montaigne embodied the Alan B. Krueger aggressively. The political confrontation A Thousand Small Sanities Humanist ideal. But what John Murray. PB. $32.99 with the neoliberal system and the is a manifesto rooted in does Montaigne have to Available 11 June oligarchical bloc has begun. the lives of people who tell us about how to think Drawing on interviews invented and extended the and live today? In forty with people in the music Licence to be Bad liberal tradition. Taking us short and lively chapters industry and using the written over a single summer, Antoine Jonathan Aldred from Montaigne to Mill, latest data on revenues, Compagnon seeks answers to that Allen Lane. HB. $45 and from Middlemarch to royalties, tour dates, and question. Compagnon and his subject are Available 18 June the civil rights movement, merchandise, Adam Gopnik argues that liberalism is not congenial, erudite companions. Both are Rockonomics takes readers Over the past fifty years, a form of centrism, nor simply another vivid reminders that while ever there are backstage to show how the way we value what is word for free markets. He shows us why people willing to consider carefully, the music industry really works, and offers ‘good’ has changed liberalism is one of the great moral observe passionately, and speak valuable lessons for what is in store for dramatically. Behaviour adventures in human history, and why, in measuredly, there is hope. other industries that are struggling to that to our grandparents’ an age of autocracy, our lives may depend adapt. Author Alan Krueger, former generation might have on its continuation. chairman of the Barak Obama’s Council of seemed stupid, harmful Science Economic Advisers, uncovers who makes or wicked now seems money and how much, and how the rational, natural, woven into the very logic The Three Dimensions of economics of the music industry has of things. And, asserts Jonathan Aldred, Freedom The Angina Monologues undergone a radical transformation during it’s economics that’s to blame. Licence to be Billy Bragg Samer Nashef Faber Social. PB. $14.99 the last twenty years. Bad tells the story of how a group of Scribe. PB. $29.99 economics theorists changed our world, We live in a world where In The Angina Siege: Trump Under Fire and how a handful of key ideas seeped into strongman politics are Monologues, Samer Michael Wolff our decision-making and, indeed, almost rising; neo-liberalism has Nashef tells heart- all aspects of our lives. hollowed out political Hachette. PB. Was $32.99 stopping stories of parties; and corporations $29.99 transplants, coronary have undermined Available 4 June The Management of Savagery artery bypasses, aorta democracy. In this short repair, and cardiac arrest. With Fire and Fury, Max Blumenthal and vital polemic, He also delivers humane Michael Wolff defined the Verso. PB. $29.99 progressive thinker and activist Billy advice about medical realities rarely first phase of the Trump Since the 1970s, America Bragg argues that accountability is the observed: the futility of obsessing over administration; now, in has supported extremists antidote to authoritarianism, and that diet, the necessity of calculating risks, the Siege, he has written an with money and hardware. without it, we can never truly be free. He role of decision making, the resilience of equally explosive book The Pentagon’s shows us that freedom requires three doctor and patient alike, and the about a presidency that is willingness to make dimensions to function: liberty, equality, threadbare brilliance of the NHS. Nashef under fire from almost alliances abroad have seen and accountability, and the result is a is a magnificently warm and likeable every side. A stunningly fresh narrative the war coming home with three dimensional space in which freedom doctor and writer; and he has the best that begins just as Trump’s second year as inevitable consequences, can be exercised by all. such as Islamic State. Max Blumenthal imaginable bedside manner. NONFICTION June 2019 READINGS MONTHLY 15

How Death Becomes Life Personal Kate Tempest to Maggie Rogers, from Joshua Mezrich Christine and the Queens to Ibeyi. Atlantic. PB. $32.99 Development At Leading transplant Then It Fell Apart surgeon Dr Joshua Moby home The Courage to be Happy Faber. PB. $29.99 Mezrich creates life from with Chris Gordon loss, moving organs from Ichiro Kishimi & Fumitake Koga In summer 1999, Moby one body to another. In A&U. PB. $24.99 released the album that this intimate, profoundly The Courage to be Happy defined the millennium, Gloriously Gluten Free moving work, he presents profound Play. Like generation- Frederique Jules examines more than one insights into living life defining albums before it, Murdoch. HB. $35 courageously and finding hundred years of remarkable medical Play was ubiquitous, and Before you turn up your happiness along the way. breakthroughs, connecting this catapulted Moby to nose at this title, It is a sequel to The fascinating history with the stories of his superstardom. Suddenly consider this: the Courage to be Disliked, own patients. Gripping and evocative, How he was hanging out with David Bowie and authors are French and which has changed lives Death Becomes Life takes us inside the Lou Reed, Christina Ricci and Madonna, all of the truly across the globe as an international operating room and presents the stark taking ecstasy for breakfast, drinking litres scrumptious recipes bestselling sensation. Drawing from dilemmas that transplant surgeons must of vodka, and sleeping with super models. come from their philosophy, and highlighting the changes it face daily. This is the human story behind And then it fell apart. The second volume of incredible Paris-based can bring to the way we live and think, this is the most exceptional medicine of our time. Moby’s memoir is a classic about the bakery, Noglu. Consequently, here are 80 a work that is truly life-changing in its power banality of fame. It is shocking, riotously easy, delicious, gluten-free recipes for and universally applicable in its scope. Superbugs entertaining, extreme, and unforgiving. sweet treats and celebration cakes. Get this Matt McCarthy book because you want to make your kids Memory Craft Scribe. PB. $32.99 Photography birthday cake to share at their school and Drug-resistant bacteria – Lynne Kelly because your Great Aunt June is coming A&U. PB. $32.99 known as superbugs – are for dinner. one of the biggest medical In her bestselling book The Only Human: Photographs by threats of our time. Here, a Memory Code Lynne Kelly Martin Parr Plantopia: Cultivate Create doctor, researcher, and uncovered the memory Phillip Prodger Soothe Nourish methods of the ancients. ethics professor tells the Phaidon. HB. $79.95 Camille Soulayrol Now, in her new book exhilarating story of his Only Human features Flammarion. HB. $39.99 Memory Craft she shows race to beat them and save unpublished work and Taking the houseplant how anyone can use countless lives. From the muddy trenches of never-before-seen trend to the next traditional methods to the First World War, where Alexander portraits of renowned Instagrammable level, expand their memory capacity and to Fleming searched for a cure for soldiers with personalities such as Camille Soulayrol’s memorise whatever they want. There are also infected wounds, to modern breakthroughs Alain de Botton, Anna joyful book offers simple strategies for anyone who has trouble that could revolutionise how infections are Wintour, Paul Smith, motivation for home remembering names or dates, and for older treated, McCarthy takes the reader on a Zadie Smith, and Vivienne Westwood. This decoration, crafting, people who want to keep their minds agile. roller-coaster ride through the history – and book also includes new essays and and even DIY natural Above all, she shows that memorising things future – of medicine. commentary on Parr’s photography by health and beauty projects using nature. can be playful, creative and great fun. curator and writer Phillip Prodger and an There are step-by-step plans for creating introduction by Grayson Perry. By turns terrariums and aquatic plant habitats, Theology Architecture witty, surprising, and ingenious, this decorative tips for showcasing plants at collection of Martin Parr’s photographs from home, and nature-inspired table-setting the last decade reveal the eccentricities of ideas using leaves and dried herbs. And, of The Lost Art of Scripture New Chinese Architecture modern life with affection and insight. course, very sound advice about how to Karen Armstrong Austin Williams look after your beloved plants. Bodley Head. PB. $35 T&H. HB. $59.99 Available 18 June This celebration of Visual Arts Saffron in the Souks Today we see the Quran twenty contemporary John Gregory-Smith being used by some to female Chinese Kyle Books. HB. $39.99 justify war and terrorism, Blooms and Brushstrokes architects features This is John Gregory- the Torah to deny Penelope Curtin & Tansy Curtin detailed profiles, Smith’s fifth cookbook, Palestinians the right to live Wakefield. HB. $65 exploring their routes to but certainly not his in Israel, and the Bible to This beautiful book, success, their first foray into condemn homosexuality authored by mother- inspirations and the challenges posed in their Lebanese food and and contraception. But as and-daughter team careers. Each profile is followed by a selection culture. He is Karen Armstrong, a world authority on Penelope and Tansy of recent works, from small-scale conceptual passionate about religious affairs, shows in this fascinating Curtin, will take you on a plans to city development projects. From travelling to far-flung journey through history, this narrow reading unique journey through exploring new ways to build with radical, destinations to learn about the food, and of scripture is a relatively recent the history of Australian sustainable materials to sensitively uses the cuisine as a way to understand the phenomenon. This is an urgent review of the art, one flower at a time, examining the honouring the vernacular traditions of the wider culture. He is all about local, home use and abuse of holy texts – and a call for blooms depicted in still lifes, floral country’s history, each architect brings their cooking and sizzling street foods. He understanding and compassion at a time portraits, decorative interiors and unique vision to the question of what brings us the very best of Lebanese cuisine when religion is viewed as a source of conflict. botanical illustrations by a long line of architecture means in China today. Australian artists. Spectacular, intimate, to become star players in your repertoire, engaging and meticulously researched, with recipes from vibrant souks of Tripoli Business Music Blooms and Brushstrokes is a book for art, and Beirut to the quiet calm of the Chouf flower and history lovers alike. Mountains and Qadisha Valley.

Bitcoin Billionaires A Seat at the Table The Flower Painter J.L. Jensen Japanese Style at Home Ben Mezrich Amy Raphael Marie-Louise Berner & Mette Thelle Olivia Bays Little, Brown. PB. $32.99 Virago. PB. $32.99 T&H. HB. $120 T&H. PB. $29.99 Ben Mezrich’s 2009 Available 11 June Johan Laurentz Jensen Working through your bestseller The Accidental In her 1995 book, Never (1800–1856), the only home one room at a Billionaires is the definitive Mind the Bollocks: Women fully fledged still-life time, this easy-to- account of Facebook’s Rewrite Rock, writer and painter in the Nordics, follow book highlights founding. Two of the critic Amy Raphael brought the international classic Japanese items story’s iconic characters interviewed twelve female style of flower painting to of furniture and are Harvard students Tyler musicians, from Courtney Denmark. He also signature accessories, and Cameron Winklevoss: Love to Kim Gordon, from painted porcelain and decorated the palace from tatami mats and twins, Olympic rowers, and legal foils to Björk to Kristin Hersh. As interiors of the Danish royal family. Despite paper lanterns to shoji (dividing screens). Mark Zuckerberg. This is the story of the Debbie Harry wrote in the foreword, each this, his work has been fairly neglected in art Olivia Bays demonstrates essential brothers’ redemption and revenge. On 26 artist’s life was ‘so different and similar and history literature. That shortcoming is now Japanese elements including the use of November, 2017, the Winklevoss brothers intriguing.’ Now, more than two decades finally remedied with this in-depth scholarly colour through various case studies that became the first bitcoin billionaires. This is on, Raphael asks a group of contemporary and richly illustrated documentation of his allow you to dream big. the story of how they got there. female musicians to tell their stories, from life and flourishing work. 16 READINGS MONTHLY June 2019 YOUNG ADULT

to-earth, conversational, fun-loving and even goofy. There are chapters interspersed throughout written by her husband, parents and closest friends which also serve as a tender reminder of the importance of support networks. The Readings Pitt is a tremendous voice for teens, modelling a type of resilience that is achievable and relatable to readers, while supporting them in turn. Young Adult For ages 12+. The Learning Curves of Vanessa Partridge Clare Strahan A&U. PB. $19.99 Book Prize Fifteen-year-old Vanessa Partridge spends every summer holiday at her wealthy family’s estate in beachside Shearwater, visiting her best friend 2019 shortlist at the caravan park, practicing her cello, and keeping up with her father’s demanding standards. This year, however, things We are delighted to announce the 2019 shortlist not starting a summer fling with Maisie’s crush. Maisie is are different. For one, her brother is bringing his best for the Readings Young Adult Book Prize. Now in definitely not supposed to be taking part in the Miss Teen friend Darith, and Van is positive good girls in plaits aren’t its third year, the prize was created to recognise Summer Queen pageant, but this summer, ‘supposed to’ supposed to have the thoughts she has about him. Then and celebrate new voices in Australian Young isn’t going to get in her way. there’s Bodhi, the older environmental activist who takes What I Like About Me tackles the issues of family a keen interest in her and in her father’s development Adult literature, and considers the first and second tensions, unrequited love, and body positivity with frank plans for the town. books of YA authors across Australia. realism and boundless sass. As DJ, or ‘Dear Journal', we In this funny and frank coming-of-age story, The six shortlisted books for this year are Highway Bodies witness Maisie’s side-splitting highs and bitter, scathing Clare Strahan addresses issues of consent, shame and by Alison Evans, What I Like About Me by Jenna Guillaume, lows. Guillaume navigates Maisie’s struggles with her agency. Van is a delightful character, insatiably curious Stone Girl by Eleni Hale, Unmasked by Turia Pitt, The confidence without being trite or patronising, and – true and hilarious, with an endearing tendency to rattle Learning Curves of Vanessa Partridge by Clare Strahan, and to the novel’s breezy beachside rom-com spirit – there are off esoteric facts to mask her (sometimes confused, Making Friends with Alice Dyson by Poppy Nwosu. plenty of poolside parties, perfect kisses and big romantic often embarrassing) inner thoughts. Strahan is a keen This year’s shortlist features a diverse chorus moments. A joyful and raucous read about self-doubt and observer of the messy inner lives of teenagers, with a of powerful voices. Expect stories that are raw and discovery, growing pains and owning yourself in front of sophisticated grasp on the uneven power dynamics of poignant, unguarded and silly, hopeful and strong. the world. attraction. She handles the very light and very dark Most of all, expect characters who are unabashedly and For ages 13+. moments (which may be triggering for some readers) with unapologetically themselves, whatever they’re up against. grace and compassion. This is a vital and entertaining These are books that will resonate deeply with readers, Stone Girl contemporary novel, punctuated with humour, open conversations, and invite new understandings. Eleni Hale entertaining sibling and friend dynamics, and the aching Above all, they exemplify the extraordinary ability books Penguin. PB. $19.99 poignancy of growing up. have to empower, evoke and inform. When twelve-year-old Sophie finds For ages 15+. The Readings staff members on the 2019 judging her mother dead, her life slips out panel include Jackie Tang (Readings’ digital marketing of her hands as she becomes a ward Making Friends With Alice manager), Dani Solomon (Readings Kids), Kate O’Mara of the state. Behind the veneer of a Dyson (Readings Hawthorn) and Georgia Phelan (Readings system meant to help, she quickly Poppy Nwosu Doncaster). You can read the judges' comments on each realises that her new world is where Wakefield Press. PB. $24.95 individual title below. children fall through the cracks, and Alice Dyson’s number one priority is rock bottom is a long way down. As she grows up kicking her future – nothing is going to get Highway Bodies around from home to home, Sophie lands with Gwen, in the way of her concentrating on Alison Evans Matty and Spiral, fellow casualties of abuse and neglect, her school work, nailing her exams Echo. PB. $19.99 struggling against the bureaucratic disempowerment and achieving the future her parents Highway Bodies follows three groups that has consumed their lives. Maybe with them Sophie always dreamed of. It’s easy to do of resilient teens who wake one can begin to untangle the pain of her past. when the people at school leave you alone, and you only morning to find the world they know Unforgiving and unforgettable, Stone Girl is a raw have one friend. But when Teddy Taualai crashes into is torn apart. A virus is ravaging dose of reality for older YA readers. Hale grips onto the Alice’s life and catapults her into the centre of attention Melbourne, twisting the population lives of her characters and pulls them to the surface, with a viral video and an onslaught of rumours, Alice’s into feral, violent zombies in its exposing the debilitating impact of institutionalisation best laid plans to get through Year 12 unnoticed are wake, and as our heroes make their on Australian youth, and the violence of a broken system thrown into chaos. way across this new post-apocalyptic landscape, they are which is equal parts well-intentioned and corrupt. Hale’s This gentle and tender contemporary romance thrown together in a desperate struggle to survive. prose is precise and powerful, deftly balancing bleakness from Poppy Nwosu finds friendship, compassion and Highway Bodies is a tense and visceral zombie thriller with glimmers of hard-won hope and inner steel. Stone understanding under the weight of other people’s set against the backdrop of urban and rural Australia. Girl is a crucial and heartbreaking contemporary story expectations. Alice is a true introvert, shy and a little You can sense the scrape of a bloody shovel on a cracked for an informed generation. naïve, closed off but never misanthropic, and her genuine highway road, the cawing magpies and the crunch of dried For ages 16+. kindness emanates from the pages. Nwosu bypasses gum leaves underfoot. Evans’ characters are fully realised toxic and high-stakes romantic tropes for a refreshingly – they are intelligent, resourceful, flawed and vulnerable. Unmasked nuanced and realistic dynamic, while still giving readers Featuring a range of queer and gender-non-conforming Turia Pitt & Bryce Corbett the slow-burn romance they crave: a gloriously heady mix protagonists, each with their own distinct voice, Highway Random House. PB. $17.99 of tentative self-consciousness, bittersweet longing and Bodies is a brilliant contribution to LGBTQIA+ representation In September 2011, fitness junkie and simmering tension. in Australian YA literature. This is a thrilling, gory and gutsy mining engineer Turia Pitt competed For ages 13+. zombie-slasher novel with a resonant message of finding in an ultramarathon out in the desert family amid chaos and of surviving in solidarity. of Western Australia’s Kimberley For ages 15+. region. During the race, she, along When the judges meet again to decide the winner, with a handful of other racers, were we will be joined by multi-award-winning author Cath What I Like About Me caught in a grassfire, which burned Crowley as our guest judge for 2019. Crowley is a much- Jenna Guillaume over 65% of her body and left her in a near-death state. In loved pillar of the Australian young adult literary scene Pan Mac. PB. $16.99 this young adult edition of her enthralling memoir, Pitt and we are delighted to have her help to determine Maisie Martin has spent most of her recounts the story of her painful and arduous recovery, her the winner. The judging panel will also take into life hiding her body. She won’t even goal-smashing success in Ironman challenges, and offers consideration feedback from the Readings Teen Advisory wear her swimmers to the beach, heartfelt advice on topics such as kindness, gratitude, Board and the winner will be announced in the August and even though she’s supposed to discovering one’s strengths, overcoming setbacks and Readings Monthly. To find out more about the prize, go to be having the summer of her life, finding the people who can lift you up and support you. readings.com.au/the-readings-young-adult-book-prize she’s stuck sweating on the sand in Unmasked is a memoir that demonstrates how a jeans and a t-shirt. But then, her dad unique experience can have a universal message. Pitt Georgia Phelan, chair of the 2019 Readings Young Adult Book was supposed to be with them, instead of going AWOL. recalls her long recovery with refreshing honesty and Prize judging panel, in consultation with and on behalf of the 2019 judging panel. And her best friend is supposed to be getting over her ex, optimism. Her attitude is infectious – she is direct, down- YOUNG ADULT June 2019 READINGS MONTHLY 17

and a mysterious hunter of the mountain people, both of whom vie for her Young affections in a classic love triangle. The characters’ relationships are complex Adult and engaging, keeping the narrative interesting, and the story ties itself up satisfyingly. But having introduced such an exciting world, any sequels will be Artemis was raised in a secluded forest in India, part of a tiny much awaited. Suitable for readers 12+. BOOK OF THE community trying to create a place where humans could live Joe Murray is from Readings Kids MONTH together in peace and harmony. Arty grew into a teenager without having any contact with the outside world: no The Rest of the Story Young Adult electricity, no internet, no money, and no violence. Her only Sarah Dessen knowledge of the world beyond came from old books and HarperCollins. PB. $17.99 vague conversations with the older group members about the Emma Saylor doesn't corruption of ‘the Wasteland’. remember a lot about her mother, who died when Readers can’t escape the sense she was ten. But she does that Arty is on a course to disaster. remember the stories her mother told her about the Yet, as terrible as the world appears, big lake that went on she still manages to celebrate its forever. Now it's just beauty, from the wonder of tasting Emma and her dad, and life is good … until Emma is unexpectedly sent to spend ice cream for the first time to the the summer with her mother's family. magic of cinema. This is a big-hearted novel about a girl The Girl Who who reconnects with a part of her family she hasn't seen since she was small – and Came Out of the Arty loves her safe, familiar life in the forest clearing, falls in love, all over the course of a Woods but when tragedy strikes she is forced to leave. Arty’s lack magical summer. Emily Barr of experience and her positivity make her charmingly naïve Penguin. PB. $19.99 and worryingly adventurous. Her worst nightmare already came true when she had to flee her beloved clearing, and yet Birthday a sinister note lingers in the air. As she explores the real world Meredith Russo she befriends strangers and realises that not everyone can be trusted. Chapters move Usborne. PB. $17.99 between Arty’s travels and someone, somewhere, imprisoned in a basement. Readers Meet Morgan and Eric: can’t escape the sense that Arty is on a course to disaster. Yet, as terrible as the world born on the same day, at appears, she still manages to celebrate its beauty, from the wonder of tasting ice cream for the same time and the first time to the magic of cinema. bonded for life. In this The Girl Who Came Out of the Woods is original in its concept. It has the feel of a moving dual narrative, thriller but it deals with issues ranging from the patriarchy and capitalism to social media we meet them every addiction. Full of evocative language, it captures the confusion and fear of navigating an birthday from the age of unfamiliar world. Suitable for readers 13+. thirteen, as Eric figures out who he is, as Morgan decides to live as Daniella Robertson is from Readings Malvern her true self, and as they realise they are inextricably part of each other. This is a beautiful, unconventional love story by Meat Market This is a compelling, fascinating read the bestselling #OwnVoices author of If I Juno Dawson about the ugly side of the world of beauty Was Your Girl. Quercus. PB. $17.99 from a well-respected, prolific British For those young author. I was utterly hooked. Suitable for Mindcull readers interested in readers 13+. K.H. Canobi the glamorous world of Angela Crocombe is the manager of Readings Ford Street. PB. $19.95 fashion and modelling, Kids Who can you trust when this novel provides a more nothing is as real as realistic look at the far River Stone (The Burning virtual reality? Sixteen- less enticing reality Days, Book 1) year-old Eila is shortlisted behind the scenes and the Rachel Hennessy in a competition by a dangers inherent for young models. MidnightSun. PB. $19.99 global technology giant. Sixteen-year-old Jana is hanging out In Rachel But then law enforcement at a theme park with a friend when she Hennessy’s vision of officers force her to spy for is unexpectedly accosted by a scout for the future in River Stone, them, underground activists reveal a a model agency. With her tall, skinny civilisation has been murderous plot and someone uses virtual body and androgynous look, she quickly devastated and humanity reality to fill her head with a stranger’s becomes the hot new model that all the has retreated into nature thoughts. Amid secrets, lies and fashion industry wants to book. She is sent to survive, living off the distortions, Eila must decide how far she to exotic locations, where her modelling land and leaving modern will go to protect innocent lives. shoots are anything but glamorous. technology behind. However, when a She travels to New York and is expected plague threatens the existence of The Tattooist of Auschwitz to live in a seedy ‘model apartment’ Pandora’s entire village, she is driven back (Young Adult edition) with a number of other models. There to the world her people had tried to forget. Heather Morris is also an unspoken expectation that In doing so, she discovers her family’s Echo. PB. $24.99 she shouldn’t eat much. She is making history and her own place in the world. In 1942, Lale Sokolov ridiculous amounts of money for her River Stone is a gripping Young arrived in Auschwitz- working-class family, but the constant Adult dystopia with a unique flavour, Birkenau. He was given travel and demands make it difficult for filling the genre’s bones with its vibrant the job of tattooing the her relationship with her boyfriend and characters, relentless storytelling and prisoners marked for her friends. But it’s not until she turns a phenomenal world. This is the future, survival. Waiting in line up at a ‘go-see’ with a notoriously sleazy but it feels more like the prehistoric past, to be tattooed, terrified photographer in a hotel room that we see and as the characters journey towards and shaking, was a young the true inequality of power in the industry. the city of Melney, they are shadowed girl. For Lale it was love at first sight. And What follows is a fascinating account by a violent history, one that the author he was determined not only to survive of the perils and possibilities in the uses to comment on present-day issues of himself, but to ensure this woman, Gita, #MeToo movement for young models. environmentalism and war. did too. So begins one of the most life- Dawson was briefly a model and has done On her journey, Pandora is affirming, courageous, unforgettable and extensive research, so this account of the accompanied by a cast of memorable human stories of the Holocaust: the love industry is spot-on and very authentic. teens, including the headstrong Matt story of the tattooist of Auschwitz. 18 READINGS MONTHLY June 2019 CHILDREN

Playing with Collage Lento and Fox try to grab our attention and outwit Jeannie Baker each other, with wonderfully creative and quirky ideas. Children’s Whose story will we end up reading? Walker. HB. $27.99 As a kid, I spent hours Quick and clever text, alongside engaging yet Books poring over every tiny simple illustrations. Great for ages 3+. detail in Jeannie Baker’s books. Claire Atherfold is from Readings State Library Victoria I’d get excited when I recognised a particular piece of material or When Billy Was a Dog plant she’d used in a picture, Kirsty Murray & Karen Blair (illus.) and still, to this day, I’m baffled A&U. HB. $24.99 about how she got the little boy to look invisible in If you can’t have a puppy, Where the Forest Meets the Sea. I even clumsily tried to maybe the next best thing is to recreate her style in my Grade 8 art class. I really wish be a puppy. Billy wants a dog. I’d had this book back then. He really really really wants Playing with Collage is a perfect book for any Jeannie one. Billy’s parents aren’t so BOOK OF THE Baker fan of any age, though it is skewed towards the sure. So one morning, Billy MONTH young. Baker breaks down making collages into simple takes matters into his own Nonfiction steps; she gives practical tips and advice to help your paws. A gloriously funny, warm and true story from own work take shape and also helps you look closely and the creators of Puddle Hunters. notice things about the materials around you and in front of you. I really love how simple she has kept her examples Baby Business – they aren’t finished, intimidating masterpieces, but Jasmine Seymour instead look completely achievable. This is an excellent Magabala. HB. $24.99 and very simple breakdown of Jeannie Baker’s process Young Dark Emu: Baby Business tells the story of the and I highly recommend it for any of her fans and any A Truer History baby smoking ceremony that budding artists out there aged 5+. Bruce Pascoe welcomes baby to country. The Dani Solomon is from Readings Kids Magabala. HB. $24.99 smoke is a blessing – it will protect the baby and remind them that Kind they belong. This beautiful ritual Young Dark Emu: A Truer History is a children’s Alison Green & Axel Scheffler (illus.) is recounted in a way young version of Bruce Pascoe’s incredibly popular Dark Scholastic. HB. $24.99 children will completely relate to. Emu – a book that explains that Australian Aboriginals Kindness can be as simple as at the time of British colonisation were not only hunter smiling at someone or just Flock: A Tree Keeper Adventure gatherers, but also people who made agricultural use of listening carefully. Sometimes it is Gemma Koomen their land. They were people who settled and built being humane to an animal, or Francis Lincoln. HB. $21.99 villages – something the British denied in order to welcoming newcomers and Sylvia prefers to be alone rather establish their own claim over the land. making them feel at home. This than play games with the other wonderful book, illustrated by Tree Keepers. But one day, she thirty-eight different artists from Young Dark Emu will give your child finds a baby bird in her favourite around the world, is bursting with inclusion and a thirst for our Indigenous cultures hiding place. As the two become acceptance – all the works were donated for this book and I cannot think of a better reason friends, Sylvia starts to learn that to The Three Peas charity. Three Peas is a small sometimes, things are better when to buy a book. organisation that gives vital, practical help to refugees you have someone to share them (you can find out more about it at threepeas.org.uk). with. This beautiful debut is a tribute to community This book is the perfect jumping board for families Philanthropic intentions aside, this book sings with and friendship. to talk about Australia’s historical treatment of our the colour and creativity of amazing illustrators and Indigenous peoples. It is full of diary entries of settlers children will love it. For ages 3+. from the time – many of which seem mind-blowingly Alexa Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn ignorant. It’s full of ingenious ways Aboriginals Middle Fiction worked and sustained the land for thousands and Lights Out, Leonard thousands of years. But more than anything, Young Josh Pyke & Chris Nixon (illus.) Insignificant Events in the Life of a Dark Emu is an interesting book. After reading it, Picture Puffin. HB. $19.99 Cactus your kids will want to know more – about our land, its Leonard doesn’t like Dusti Bowling native fauna and flora, its people and how they fought bedtime, especially when Sterling. PB. $12.99 off the Europeans. Young Dark Emu will give your child there’s a five-nosed, Aven thinks her dad has gone a thirst for our Indigenous cultures and I cannot think seven-tailed, eleven- crazy when he announces that of a better reason to buy a book. handed, scaly-waily the family are going to move to Dani Solomon is from Readings Kids monster hiding in the Arizona and manage a run-down old corner of his bedroom. It country-and-western theme park. She seems like Leonard will never sleep again ... until he dreads moving from her home town, discovers a mysterious book called How to Frighten where everyone knows her, to a whole Picture Books Monsters. A cheeky story about night-time fears from new place and school full of people Australian singer and songwriter Josh Pyke. staring at her, wondering how she eats or puts on pants with no arms. However, she’s not long at her new school Monty and the Poodles My Book (Not Yours): Lento & Fox before she meets Connor. Connor has Tourette Katie Harnett (Book 1) syndrome, also known as Tourette’s, and the two kids Flying Eye. HB. $24.99 Ben Sanders bond over their differences. Monty lives on the wrong Lothian. HB. $24.99 Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus never lets side of the tracks, while Author and illustrator Ben you forget Aven has no arms – the author makes sure Ginger and her pals luxuriate on Sanders from Ballarat has to remind you that Aven eats cheetos with her toes or the right side, at Poodle done it again. After his rollicking, puts pants on with a hook. It’s the same with Connor’s Mansions. So what does a rhyming text and retro design in Tourette’s – the challenges of being a person who barks homeless mutt have in common I’ve an Uncle Ivan, we now have the and spits food when he eats are never ignored. The with a refined poodle? It seems hilariously fun My Book (Not Yours) kids’ disabilities never overshadow who they are, but that friendship can blossom (Lento and Fox, Book 1). It’s the first they are also never pushed to the back. Very quickly, unexpectedly! All the dogs come up with a plan for in a new series, and we begin by their disabilities become almost unremarkable and, by Monty to live with them. When that comes unstuck, meeting Lento. He’s a sloth who is super-excited to share the end of the book, you’re just as happy joining them they realise being together doesn’t have to mean posh his book with us, but first he just, he must, have a nap. at the (hilarious) Tourette’s support group meetings as interiors because, as the old adage goes, home is where This is the opportunity that Fox has been waiting you are spending time with them solving the mystery the heart is. Young dog lovers will be charmed by this for! He is more than ready to jump in and steal the of the theme park. This is a great book for fans of very sweet tale. For ages 3+. limelight, and with his wit, talent, style and pizzazz, Wonder aged 10+. Alexa Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn he thinks we’ll enjoy his book more. Page after page, Dani Solomon is from Readings Kids CHILDREN June 2019 READINGS MONTHLY 19

Winston and the Wondrous Wooba but one part of this story, as this is also a story about readers with big ideas and big hearts. For ages 8+. Gymnastics Club the Vikings. It’s a compelling read with a fearless and Bec Kavanagh is from Readings Kids Tamsin Janu plucky heroine at its helm. For ages 9+. Omnibus. PB. $16.99 Natalie Platten is from Readings Doncaster Asha & the Spirit Bird Winston and his mum live in the Jasbinder Bilan country town of Wooba, home of Song for a Whale Chicken House. PB. $16.99 Big Bread, a towering monument to Lynne Kelly One of the great gifts of fiction local wheat farming, currently listed Piccadilly. PB. $14.99 for children is that it offers them as one of Australia’s Twenty Ugliest Iris is an extremely clever and the challenge and adventure of other Statues. Winston is proud of industrious kid. She spends her worlds within the safety and comfort everything in Wooba (especially the spare time fixing up old radios but of a book. Asha and the Spirit Bird is a decrepit Big Bread) and can’t wait to lately she’s been having a bit of a rough mystical and magical yet believable share it all with his new family from Dubbo, time. As the only deaf student in her tale set in contemporary India, where particularly his new sister Macy. school, Iris often feels lonely and desperate circumstances drive young But the move to Wooba dashes Macy’s dreams isolated. One day in science class, Iris Asha to leave her home in the Himalayan foothills in of being an Olympic gymnast and she’s making her learns of a whale named Blue 55, whose search of her father. feelings plain to all. Luckily, Winston is brimming with unique call is at a different frequency to other whales. Iris Together with her best friend Jeevan, she embarks on ideas and boundless energy and soon inspires the good is captivated by Blue 55. She contacts marine biology a long and dangerous journey across the world’s highest folk of Wooba to cobble together a training facility research organisations and is inspired to record a song at mountains to a distant city. Along the way, they face from makeshift sports equipment, raise a gymnastic the same frequency as the whale so that it will know it’s unbelievable dangers – hazardous mountain terrain, team from among the local kids and even rescue Big not alone in this world. unforgiving blizzards, and ravenous wolves. When they Bread from demolition. Iris is determined to get her song to Blue 55. She finally arrive at their destination further perils await Warm, funny and thoroughly engaging, this finds an unlikely ally in her grandma and the two of them. But Asha’s unshakable faith in her magical spirit- story about community, family and friendship has them boldly board a cruise ship headed for waters guide, combined with her own courage and quick-witted it all: quirky characters, plenty of laughs and lots of where the whale may appear. This proves an enriching resourcefulness, is enough to save both her and Jeevan. heart. Readers who loved Figgy in the World, Tamsin journey for both of them. Song for a Whale is a gorgeous This is a captivating adventure with lovable Janu’s first book, will also adore this one. Highly novel that is clearly well researched. It’s an inspiring protagonists and a perfectly happy ending, celebrating recommended for readers ages 8+. read, a beautifully written middle-grade novel that friendship and tenacity, and allowing human kindness Athina Clarke is from Readings Malvern explores communication, family and friendship. to prevail. Highly recommended for anyone aged 9+. Highly recommended for ages 9+. Athina Clarke is from Readings Malvern Pie in the Sky Kim Gruschow is from Readings St Kilda Remy Lai Walker. PB. $18.99 Sick Bay Nonfiction Jingwen, his mother and his Nova Weetman pesky little brother, Yanghao, UQP. PB. $16.95 Everest: The Remarkable Story of have just moved to Australia. It’s not In this beautifully written Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay easy starting a new life in a new dual-narrative story, two very Alexandra Stewart & Joe Todd-Stanton (illus.) country and Jingwen feels like an different Grade Six girls meet in sick Bloomsbury. HB. $24.99 alien. This book is part novel and part bay at school. Meg mostly has to look Available 17 June comic with indecipherable symbols after herself since her dad died and her This is the breathtaking story of how used cleverly to represent English mother has sunk into depression. In two very different yet equally words that Jingwen doesn’t yet understand. Jingwen sick bay, she gets attention and food determined men battled frost-biting finds comfort in cakes and the boys really miss their dad, from the office lady. Riley is a diabetic temperatures, tumbling ice rocks, who had dreams of starting his own fancy cake shop. but she’s trying to fit in with her cool, ‘mean girl’ powerful winds and death-defying While their mum is at work they secretly start to friends. This means hiding the fact that she needs to ridges to climb the world’s highest bake all of the epic cakes that their dad had planned to regularly test her glucose levels and monitor everything mountain. Join these two unlikely sell in his shop, even though mum has told them not she eats. If she doesn’t, she will get faint and nauseous. heroes on the most amazing of adventures and to use the oven. Yanghao is cheeky but their sibling Friendship between the two girls develops slowly, discover the impact of hundreds of men and women relationship is charming and this book is as funny as it but when they are both asked to give a speech at their that helped Hillary and Tenzing achieve their goal. is moving. Their passion for cakes is truly endearing. graduation they discover a lot about themselves, what Thankfully there’s a recipe for rainbow cake included ‘normal’ really means, and who their real friends are. at the end because young bakers will be inspired and This an emotionally intelligent novel by the author of Classic of the Month all readers will be left craving a big, delicious slice. The Secrets We Keep that will resonate powerfully in Looking at immigration, family and grief, this is the hearts and minds of readers aged 10–13. an exceptionally sweet book, featuring exceptional Angela Crocombe is the manager of Readings Kids Skellig sweets. Highly recommended for ages 9+. David Almond Kim Gruschow is from Readings St Kilda Secrets of a Schoolyard Millionaire Hodder. PB. $16.99 Nat Amoore ‘Do you know what shoulder She Wolf Puffin. PB. $14.99 blades are for? They’re where your Dan Smith Do you remember being a kid wings were, and where they’ll grow Chicken House. PB. $16.99 and imagining all the things you again.’ This quote from David Almond’s She Wolf is a fierce and stoic would do if you had a million dollars? Skellig holds the mystery that threads story about a young girl named Tess Heckleston, schoolyard this story together. A story that is Ylva who is determined to hunt down, entrepreneur, is always trying to make mythic and otherworldly and yet vital, and exact revenge upon, the three- money, so when her dodgy next-door real and ordinary too. It is a story about fingered brute who killed her mother. neighbour, Scotty, hides a million a young boy named Michael and his gravely ill baby This pursuit takes Ylva into the cold, dollars in her treasure chest just sister, who is fighting to survive an undisclosed illness snow-covered wilderness with few before he gets arrested, it doesn’t take much for Tess to that has kept her hospitalised for most of her short life. possessions to keep herself warm, fed convince herself that, finders keepers, the money is Emotions in Michael’s family are pained and or even armed. Ylva’s greatest strength is her fearless hers. What follows is a wild, big-hearted romp as Tess exposed, and life feels like it’s on tenterhooks for this warrior soul, to which she credits her Viking heritage, and her best friend and moral compass, Toby, try to family. But then Michael makes two significant friends; and her loyal dog, who offers wise counsel that only spend a million bucks. one, a strange being named Skellig who inhabits the she can understand. But spending that much money when you’re a kid derelict garage at the back of Michael’s house, and Mina, Blinded by her stubborn resolve to avenge her isn’t easy. Everyone wants to know where it’s come from, a young girl who has a way of looking at the detail of mother’s death, Ylva distrusts everyone and confuses and Tess is feeling a growing sense of guilt because, life and seeing the extraordinary. Some readers might the motivations of those who seek to help her with even though she’s trying to do good with the money, be drawn to Michael and his human struggle, others those who would do her harm. Ylva is a wild and things seem to be spiralling way out of control. It’s not to Skellig given his unearthliness but, for me, it was unpredictable character and the reader may find her long before her little sister’s in the hospital, her mum is Mina and her precocious insight; such as her comment, temperamental nature difficult to understand, but her locked in the basement of the theatre and Scotty, who ‘Evolution is never-ending ... we have to be ready to courage is never in doubt and one can only marvel at is actually a Really Bad Guy, is threatening her whole move forward.’ Almond’s Skellig is strange, beautiful and her tenacity as she throws herself into danger and risks family if she doesn’t get the money back to him. Secrets lyrical storytelling for the empathetic reader aged 10+. everything to fulfil her destiny. Ylva’s heroic quest is of a Schoolyard Millionaire is a lively, precocious book for Natalie Platten is from Readings Doncaster 20 READINGS MONTHLY June 2019 BARGAINS

colour. The perfect read-aloud from All the Light We Cannot See history. Biographer A.N. Wilson pulls back multi-award-winning author Lauren Child. Anthony Doerr the curtain to reveal the man behind the April mythic figure, shedding new light on Hitler’s HB. Was $35 Now $13.95 Ma’am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Winner of the 2015 Pulitzer personality, his desires, and his complex Bargains Princess Margaret Prize for Fiction and the relationship with the German people. Craig Brown Carnegie Medal for Fiction HB. Was $39.99 Now $13.95 All the Light We Cannot See is November Road Princess Margaret aroused a beautiful, deeply moving Lou Berney Florence: The Paintings & passion and indignation in novel about a blind French PB. Was $32.99 Now $12.95 Frescoes, 1250-1743 equal measures. In her 1950s girl and a German boy whose Frank Guidry knows too Ross King & Anja Grebe heyday, she was seen as one paths collide in occupied France as both try much about the crime of HB. 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DVDS June 2019 READINGS MONTHLY 21

cannot be explained away, Hynek begins to work non-stop as migrant arrivals follow suspect a larger conspiracy. one after another almost nightly. In the Film & TV midst of this, a terrible crime hits Vigata. Victoria: Series 3 The brutal murder of Elena Biasini seems $39.95 inexplicable but Montalbano will discover the lacerating truth behind her death. We only get a brief glance at the ‘Green Book’ referred to in When revolution sweeps DVD OF THE the title of Peter Farrelly’s Oscar-winning film. Regardless, across Europe, Victoria must MONTH that book, The Negro Motorist Green Book – a guidebook for scrutinise her relationship Documentary African-Americans to safely navigate the segregated South with her public, whilst Albert Film – informs every inch of the long drive Frank “Tony Lip” is filled with visionary plans They Shall Not Grow Old Vallelonga (Viggo Mortensen) and Dr Don Shirley (Mahershala for social change. How will $29.95 Ali) take from New York City deeper and deeper into America’s their marriage withstand the pressures of ‘Commissioned to make a southern states. Based on a true story, Green Book begins constitutional crises, scandals at court, and movie for the centennial of in 1962. Don, a black, classically trained pianist who plays the birth of even more children? After ten the Armistice, using original jazz for Park Avenue’s white elites, hires the unsophisticated years on the throne, life as a mother, wife, footage, Peter Jackson has Italian-American Tony, a bouncer at the famed Copacabana and Queen has never been more demanding. taken a mass of World War I nightclub, to be his driver and ‘muscle’ as he embarks on an archival clips from Britain’s eight-week tour into hostile territory. Baptiste: Season 1 Imperial War Museum and fashioned it Green Book is part road movie, part buddy comedy. It $29.95 into a brisk, absorbing and moving derives much of its warmth and humour from the unlikely Available 5 June experience.’ – The New York Times friendship that develops between this mismatched pair. Its Baptiste is a thrilling new dramatic elements spring directly from the world Don and drama from the writers of hit Tony drive through. Don, no stranger to racism, isn’t spared its series The Missing. Julien Film Green Book pernicious indignities even when he’s welcomed into hallowed Baptiste, an insightful but Was $39.95 $29.95 concert halls or the homes of the white and wealthy. Tony, who stubborn detective, moves to has absorbed all the prejudices of the period, finds them slowly Amsterdam where his skills On the Basis of Sex dismantled by his growing admiration and respect for his new boss. Ali and Mortensen are immediately required by the Chief of Was $39.95 $29.95 – two of the best American actors working today – play off each other in increasingly Police. 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When Joanna Di Mattia is from Readings Carlton Was $54.95 $44.95 Ruth takes on a Season four of Outlander groundbreaking tax case with her husband, continues the story of attorney Martin Ginsburg, she knows it could time-travelling 1960s doctor change the direction of her career and the events, investigations, crimes and politics Television Claire Fraser and her 18th way the courts view gender discrimination. intertwine as they endeavour to live a century Highlander husband normal life despite the ongoing mafia war. Jamie Fraser as they try to Transit Mafia Only Kills in Summer: make a home in the rough and dangerous $29.95 Seasons 1 & 2 Project Blue Book: Season 1 ‘New World’ of colonial America. In Christian Petzold’s $29.95 each $29.95 Meanwhile, in the 20th century, Claire and haunting modern-day Available 5 June Available 5 June Jamie’s daughter searches for proof that adaptation of Anna Seghers’s Set in 1979, this Based on real-life UFO cases her parents found each other in the past. 1942 novel Transit Visa, irreverent and from the 1950s, this new Georg, a German refugee intelligent drama follows college Inspector Montalbano: Volume 10 flees to Marseille assuming series offers a professor Dr J. Allen Hynek. $39.95 the identity of a recently deceased writer unique After being recruited by the The ‘Other End of the Line’ whose papers he is carrying. As German tongue-in- U.S. Air Force to spearhead a and ‘A Diary from 1943’ are troops advance on Paris, he delves into the cheek take on the Cosa Nostra’s brutal and clandestine operation, Hynek and his two brand new feature length refugee community and falls for a bloody criminal campaign of fear and partner, Air Force Captain Michael Quinn, episodes in the ever-popular mysterious woman named Marie. Petzold intimidation. Told through the eyes of a investigate UFO sightings around the Inspector Montalbano series. tells the story of a great love amid escape, young boy and his family, major historical country. However, when some encounters Montalbano and his staff exile and a longing for a place to call home.

TOLKIEN Opens June 13 (CTC) NT LIVE: ALL MY SONS Opens June 15 (E) NEVER LOOK AWAY Opens June 20 (CTC) Take a glimpse into the early days of the man who brought us tales of Arthur Miller’s blistering drama is directed by Jeremy Herrin (NT Live: Inspired by real events, BAFTA award-winning director Florian hobbits, elves and one particular ring with TOLKIEN, the new biopic This House / People, Places & Things) and filmed live from The Old Vic Henckel von Donnersmarck [The Lives of Others] returns with this from Dome Karukoski (Tom Of Finland). Nicholas Hoult plays master in London, starring Academy Award-winner Sally Field (Steel story about truth, art, power, and inspiration. We follow the story of fantasy J.R.R. Tolkien as his younger self: an orphaned young man Magnolias) and Bill Pullman (The Sinner). America, 1947. Despite hard of an art student, Kurt (Tom Schilling) who falls in love with fellow finding love and friendship in early 20th century Britain, before being choices and even harder knocks, Joe and Kate Keller are a success student, Ellie (Paula Beer). Ellie's father, Professor Seeband drawn into the fray of WW1. Experiences that would inspire Tolkien to story. They have built a home, raised two sons and established a (Sebastian Koch), a famous doctor, is dismayed at his daughter's write his famous Middle-Earth novels, TOLKIEN tells the story of how thriving business. But nothing lasts forever and their contented lives, choice of boyfriend, and vows to destroy the relationship. What one man found an entirely new world, while trying to navigate the already shadowed by the loss of their eldest boy to war, are about to neither of them knows is that their lives are already connected horrors of a war-torn real one. shatter. With the return of a figure from the past, buried truths come through a terrible crime Seeband committed decades ago... to the surface and the price of their American dream is laid bare. “An epic, intergenerational tale of art, love, tragedy and politics spanning “Karukoski’s entertaining film boasts flair and narrative ambition” – Empire "A thrill to watch” – The Telegraph three turbulent decades of 20th-century German history.” – Variety

Melbourne’s home of quality arthouse and contemporary cinema 22 READINGS MONTHLY June 2019 MUSIC

is an album that should excite existing is a delightful example of what happens fans of the band ... It also works well as a when the musical paths of two greats cross. Popular gateway for new fans as the songs are catchy, the music is well balanced and Finding Gabriel Music when the band hit that sweet groove it’s Brad Mehldau glorious.’ – Clash $19.95 | Also on vinyl ‘Following in quick Live in Dublin succession from his two 2018 For the first time in their storied career, The National is Lisa Hannigan releases, Seymour Reads the ALBUM OF bringing new voices into the fold. This, their eighth album, $19.95 | Also on vinyl Constitution! and After Bach, marries singer Matt Berninger’s distinctive baritone with THE MONTH Since beginning her career revered pianist Brad collaborators including Sharon Van Etten, Lisa Hannigan as backing singer for Mehldau throws something of a conceptual Pop/Rock/Alt and long-time David Bowie co-conspirator Gail Ann Dorsey, Damien Rice, Lisa curve-ball with this new nine-song suite introducing a fascinating new depth to a band that’s long been Hannigan has come a long inspired by his in-depth reading of The Bible. defined by a singular, masculine voice. way. She is well established Guest musicians include Kurt Elling, Sara Long-time fans will find glimpses of old favourites – Quiet as an acclaimed singer/songwriter in her Caswell, Joel Frahm and Becca Stevens, Light recalls 2007’s lilting staple Fake Empire, while the more own right. She now finds herself backed up among others.’ – Jazzwise Magazine experimental nature of 2017 record Sleep Well Beast also creeps by the graceful muscle of classical onto this new album – but the band isn’t resting on its laurels. orchestra, Stargaze. Live In Dublin sees the Transients Volume 1 On ‘Oblivions’, the call-and-response of male and female vocals, orchestra’s backing turn Hannigan’s Andrea Keller along with a gorgeous choral backdrop, imbues profound sense delicate folk into a widescreen experience. $24.95 of knowing. Irish singer Hannigan shines on the lovely ‘The Pull Andrea Keller created of You’, – here, both voices are given equal weight and Berninger I Am Easy to Find The Concert Collection Transients as a series of experiments with spoken-word sections before his usually The National 2012-2018 trios inspired by mentor low-register voice soars. On ‘So Far So Fast’, he almost takes a $27.95 | Also on vinyl Allan Browne’s musical backseat to the other singer; ‘Hairpin Turns’ is classic National, Archie Roach 3CD $29.95 philosophy and performed featuring mostly Berninger taking the lead in a welcome return. A stunning three-disc set throughout Australia. Dedicated to a As ever, the harmonies and arrangements here are sumptuous and stunning, countered of live recordings from collective approach to music making, the often by rhythm-keeping pianos to create an aural tapestry easy to lose oneself in. Short three of Archie Roach’s trios stem from a jazz tradition, which they interlude tracks focus on instrumentation and heaped, wordless vocals, but some of the most-loved albums: Into interpret with a sometimes unconventional, album’s most beautiful moments come when it’s all pared back – the title track and ‘Roman the Bloodstream, Let Love Australian accent. Transients Volume 1 Holiday’ don’t need bells and whistles to communicate their emotional heft. Rule, and Dancing with My Spirit. captures a cross-section of Transients and I Am Easy to Find is certainly more ambitious than any of the band’s previous releases, but Performed in Melbourne and Sydney many previously unrecorded compositions. that’s hardly a bad thing – it’s a joy to hear a group of musicians push themselves beyond the between 2012-2018, and featuring an familiar. Newcomers and diehard fans alike will find something to love on this thoughtful, incredible line-up of guest musicians intelligent record that sparkles with humanity. Celia including Paul Kelly, Dan Sultan, Vika & Angelique Kidjo Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen is from Readings Doncaster Linda Bull and Tiddas these recordings $24.95 are a must-have for any CD collection. ‘Angélique Kidjo is on a roll … [In Celia] Kidjo’s singing Pop/Rock/Alt musical history … Morby keeps the is powerful and assured instrumentation sparse but rich, with Soul/Funk throughout, from the horns, harps, piano, organ and backing upbeat revamp of Bemba choirs peppered throughout.’ – Rolling Stone Colorá to the brooding, chanting echoes of U.F.O.F. We Get By Big Thief Santería, the Afro-Cuban religion, on Mavis Staples Elegua and Yemaya, a tribute to the orisha $22.95 | Also on vinyl Curiosities $19.95 | Also on vinyl (spirit) of motherhood and ruler of the ‘Listening to Big Thief’s Nouvelle Vague For her twelfth studio seas, now set to an African juju beat. third album … it’s evident $26.95 album, We Get By, Mavis Magnificent.’ – The Guardian that it was informed more Since the release of their Staples partnered with the by where it was recorded self-titled album in 2004, singer-songwriter Ben – rural Washington state Nouvelle Vague have Harper. Over eleven tracks, Country – than by the band’s Brooklyn home. These experimented with various Harper’s conscious, expressive writing and exquisitely rendered folk-based songs are for musical paths. They have thoughtful production captures Staples at the most part hushed and gentle, while their been working within the genres of new wave the peak of her recent musical career as The Saint of Lost Causes elliptical lyrics reveal a fascination with and punk, and in this time have released five Justin Townes Earle feature albums. Their new album, she offers up love, hope and history during nature and the great outdoors. Full of subtle $19.95 | Also on vinyl Curiosities, celebrates this long, explorative a politically divided era. charm, it’s an album of deceptive depths in The Saint of Lost Causes is musical journey, and features unreleased which to immerse yourself.’ – The Guardian the eighth album from recordings from their fifteen-year history. Jazz/Blues American roots troubadour, Robyn Archer: Classic Cabaret Justin Townes Earle, and is Rarities Luna Low unflinching and Robyn Archer Art of Fighting Tryst unequivocal in its truth. While writing this $24.95 $19.95 Kate Ceberano & Paul Grabowsky album, Earle focused on a lesser-seen ‘Robyn Archer: Classic Available 7 June $24.95 America – that of the disenfranchised and Cabaret Rarities is a ‘Art of Fighting return ‘Tryst is a very personal the downtrodden. This album tells the story selection of French and with their first album in journey into words and of the individuals and communities in every German shows from Que twelve years. Entitled music by two of Australia’s corner of the country, struggling through Reste-t’il and Dancing on the Luna Low, the album is … most respected musicians the ordinary – and sometimes extraordinary Volcano ... The music is spirited and detailed, just as expansive, heartfelt reinterpreting of some of – circumstances of everyday life. the content of the songs both hilarious and and sublime as you could have hoped, but the great love songs of our time. Kate and biting, and as a whole the album paints a with a newfound wry sense of humour … Paul deliver achingly soulful renditions of There is No Other [and] after twelve years … makes it seem picture of classic European cabaret … Not for songs that connect on a deep emotional Rhiannon Giddens as if Art of Fighting just had a brief nap the superficial, this album is a genuinely level and have influenced both of them at $19.95 rare treat.’ – Undercover Music and awoke refreshed, to make their most some point in their lives.’ – Broadway World ‘What There is No Other compelling, rewarding and affecting resembles is a twenty-first album yet.’ – The Parlaé Oh My God Live In New York century version of Shirley Kevin Morby Kurt Elling & James Morrison Collins and Davy Graham’s $19.95 | Also on vinyl In League with Dragons $21.95 Folk Roots, New Routes, the ‘Kansas City indie-rock The Mountain Goats Grammy Award-winning landmark 60s folk-rock record that showed artist Kevin Morby is a $24.95 | Also on vinyl American jazz vocalist Kurt how unusual musical connections on paper secular guy with a spiritual ‘The most impressive thing Elling joins one of could sound utterly natural in the service of side, and on his fifth LP he about In League with Australia’s most popular song. Giddens’ instruments are the thinks deep (and Dragons is that it’s the jazz musicians, trumpeter minstrel banjo, octave violin, viola and her sometimes somewhat less deep) about the seventeenth Mountain James Morrison for a live concert recording wide-open, rangy, contralto voice … nature of religious devotion, tapping a rich Goats album, and Darnielle made at the famous Birdland jazz venue in Giddens is going supernova, and it’s a lineage of transcendentally-minded shows no signs of running on empty. This New York. Including nine tracks, this album blistering thing.’ – The Guardian MUSIC June 2019 READINGS MONTHLY 23

with frequent and unexpected shifts in living composers, Missy Mazzoli, Dan tempo, dynamic, and lyricism. Equally Visconti and Gabriel Prokofiev, I Classical worthy of mention is Leonardo Leo’s gravitated toward works that were striking bright, pastoral and at times suitably to me and in some ways unexpected … Music languorous ‘Or ch’é dal sol difesa’. A fine Each of these works are dramatic, visceral; recording from one of the great mezzo even ethereal and otherworldly … These sopranos of our time. works have taken me on a journey that I Alexandra Mathew is from Readings Carlton will continue to traverse.’ Melbourne’s own Tristan Lee recently emerged from a PhD, ALBUM OF for which he was researching the music of Beethoven and The New York Concert: Viola da Gamba Edition THE MONTH Liszt. His recording of Liszt’s Années de pèlerinage: Deuxième Mozart, Fauré & Dvořák Various année: Italie (Years of Pilgrimage: Second Year: Italy) is Classical Evgeny Kissin & Emerson String Brilliant Classics. 95779. 21CD $66.95 among the various fruits of his research labour. A truly local Quartet This extensive set undertaking, the album was recorded just around the corner DG. 4836574. 2CD $21.95 celebrates the vast from Readings in Carlton, at the University of Melbourne’s On this new repertoire of viola da Melba Hall. Lee is both a sensitive and virtuosic musician, recording from DG gamba music and and makes seemingly easy work of Liszt’s notoriously one of the world’s explores its challenging piano writing. most acclaimed contribution to the pianists, Evgeny European musical A truly local undertaking, the album Kissin and the landscape. In its entirety, this collection reveals the viola da gamba as an was recorded just around the corner equally impressive Emerson String Quartet team up for a extraordinary instrument capable of Liszt’s Italian from Readings in Carlton, at the chamber music live recording from a sold emotional depth and versatility. Pilgrimage University of Melbourne’s Melba Hall. out Carnegie Hall, in April 2018. A fusion Tristan Lee of musicians performing mesmerising Copland & Chávez: Move. MCD593. $26.95 Taking inspiration from Renaissance art and literature, repertoire: an exquisite Fauré, a stormy Pan-American Reflections and composed over a twenty-year period, each of the Mozart and a sweepingly sensual Dvořák. The Orchestra of the Americas & seven movements of Années de pèlerinage pays homage to The idea to play together reaches back a Carlos Miguel Prieto Linn. CKD604. $29.95 Raphael, Michelangelo, Petrarca and Dante. The music is tentatively programmatic, couple of years, and has been embraced and, like much of Liszt’s work, journeys to the depths of the heart as well as across enthusiastically by all five musicians. Under the baton of Italian cultural, historical and artistic landscapes. Not only that, the diverse colours of Carlos Miguel Prieto, Liszt’s piano writing in this vast musical mission showcase Lee’s exceptional playing. J.S. Bach: The Lute Suites known for his Case in point is the final movement, titled ‘Après une lecture du Dante’, which, at (played on guitar in their charismatic almost twenty minutes, is an entire musical journey in itself. Moving variously between original keys) conducting and striking fortissimo chords and dense, florid scalic passages, the Liszt’s score calls on Frank Halász dynamic, expressive an intrepid and confident pianist of the highest calibre. Lee rises to the challenge, and BIS. BIS2285. $29.95 interpretations, the pulls off the great feat with flair. The universal appeal Orchestra of the Americas performs Also included on the disc are Liszt’s expressive Deux Légends. The first, ‘Saint Francis of the music of Aaron Copland’s euphoric Third of Assisi’s Sermon to the Birds’, begins with an evocation of birdsong in the upper Johann Sebastian Symphony and Mexican composer Carlos register of the piano, immediately bringing to mind Nedda’s aria ‘Stridono lassù’ from Bach is such that Chávez’s rousing Symphony No. 2 Leoncavallo’s I Pagliacci, before giving way to a reverent chorale. The following ‘Saint most musicians, ‘Sinfonía India’. Both works showcase this Francis of Paola Walking on the Waves’ is epic and noble, and an impressive conclusion to regardless of their passionate, flamboyant and brilliantly Lee’s superb debut recording. instrument, long to incisive orchestra. play it. As a consequence, his works are Alexandra Mathew is from Readings Carlton constantly being arranged for other The Best of Peter Sculthorpe instruments. For this recording, Franz Various Halász has transcribed two of the suites ABC Classics. 4818197. 2CD $21.95 Gounod: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2 Iceland Symphony Orchestra bring himself, performing the others in Peter Sculthorpe Gounod’s orchestral music to bubbling, Iceland Symphony Orchestra & arrangements by Ansgar Krause. These captured the optimistic life. Yan Pascal Tortelier arrangements have made it possible to extremes of the record all four works in their original keys Chandos. CHSA5231. $29.95 Alexandra Mathew is from Readings Carlton country’s natural for the first time on the guitar. Being so landscape, and opera-centric Il Giardino dei Sospiri stirred the as I am, it was not Magdalena Kožená, Collegium Howells: Cello Concerto & An imagination of its until this CD fell into 1704 & Václav Luks English Mass people. From the wet season of the my hands that I Pentatone. PTC5186725. $29.95 Guy Johnston, Stephen Cleobury, Northern Territory in Kakadu to the discovered Gounod Magdalena The Choir of King’s College, brutality of the southern summer in Sun was in fact a great Kožená’s Cambridge, King’s Voices, Britten Music IV, from the seaside war memorial symphonist. Under the baton of Yan silvery mezzo Sinfonia and Christopher Seaman that inspired Small Town to the timeless Pascal Tortelier, the Iceland Symphony soprano voice is a Kings College. KGS0032. $36.95 connection between Aboriginal people Orchestra brings us a fine recording of fascinating one: she Stephen Cleobury and their land represented in Earth Cry. Gounod’s two epic symphonies, the first possesses a bright and the Choir of likely influenced by time spent with upper register King’s College, Bruckner: Symphonies friend Felix Mendelssohn, and the second befitting a coloratura soprano, and a rich, Cambridge celebrate Nos. 6 & 9, Wagner: Prelude paying obvious homage to Beethoven. penetrative depth throughout her range the powerful, from Parsifal and Siegfried Operatic drama links the two – which allows her voice to resonate well emotional and Idyll unsurprising, considering Gounod was above the orchestra, even when at a low exuberant music of Gewandhausorchester Leipzig & primarily an opera composer. It’s unusual pitch. Although Kožená began her career Herbert Howells with an album exploring Andris Nelsons to hear his music without singing, and at singing primarily baroque music, she has the finest examples of his choral and DG. 4836659. 2CD $24.95 some climactic points in either symphony broadened her repertoire to encompass all orchestral music, as well as his writing for On his new I did expect to hear a soprano soaring sorts, from Mahler to the music of her the organ. Recorded with Britten Sinfonia recording Andris above the orchestra. However, that is not Czech homeland to Cole Porter and and King’s Voices, this collection showcases Nelsons continues to say that Gounod’s symphonic music is beyond. For her first recording with the wide-reaching influence the College his journey in any way lacking – far from it. audiophile label Pentatone, Kožená has continues to have on musical culture. exploring the sound Symphony No. 2 is a lesson in fine returned to the baroque – a move she world of Anton symphonic writing, opening with two likens to ‘returning to my grandparents’ Edge of Youth: Works for Violin Bruckner. Along triumphant chords à la Beethoven’s loft’ for its warming familiarity. and Piano with his ‘superb’ (The Guardian) Leipzig ‘Eroica’ Symphony. As mentioned in Under the baton of Václav Luks and Janet Sung & William Wolfram orchestra they perform Bruckner’s the liner notes, the final movement accompanied by baroque ensemble Sono Luminus. DSL92230. $26.95 Symphony No. 6, which Bruckner himself begins with ‘superficial jollity’, but Collegium 1704, in Il giardiano dei sospiri Janet Sung writes of described as his ‘boldest’ and ‘most ‘Beethovenian seriousness’ is eventually Kožená presents a program featuring her new release: ‘In brazen’, and Symphony No. 9, which restored, and we are treated to a suitably scenes from 18th century secular cantatas. curating this Bruckner struggled with for a total of nine epic and uplifting finale. Symphony No. Some, such as Handel’s ‘Qual ti riveggio, collection of works years until his death. The Symphonies are 1 is by contrast gentler and perhaps even oh Dio’ may be familiar, others may not. by masters Britten, accompanied by Wagner’s Prelude to his more classical in style and occasionally The aria ‘Ombre, cure, sospetti’ from Enescu and three last complete opera, Parsifal, and the reserved manner. Tortelier and the Gasparini’s oratorio Atalia is dramatic young, dynamic lovely Siegfried Idyll.