Free August 2012 Readings Monthly

Paddy O’Reilly on Jacinta Halloran • Jessica Au on Josephine Rowe ntage C lass i cs d K i pl ng’s The Jungle Book , Vi ntage i l from cover of R u d yar Image: Deta New Vintage Children’s Classics

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

aus fiction fiction biography Politics kids DVD POp CD CLASSICAL $29.95 e$19.99 $29.99 e$19.47 $29.99 $29.95 e$14.95 $27.99 $29.95 $26.95 $21.95 $24.95 >> p4 >> p7 >> p5 >> p11 >> p15 >> p17 >> p17 >> p19

August event highlights : Robert Manne with Adam Bandt at Parkville, Michael Chamberlain at Readings Hawthorn. More inside.

All Readings shops are open 7 days, except our Brain Centre (Parkville) shop which is open Monday – Friday. See opening hours at readings.com.au. Carlton 309 Lygon St 9347 6633 Hawthorn 701 Glenferrie Rd 9819 1917 Malvern 185 Glenferrie Rd 9509 1952 St Kilda 112 Acland St 9525 3852 Readings at the State Library of Victoria 328 Swanston St 8664 7540 Readings at the Brain Centre, Parkville 30 Royal Parade 9347 1749 See more new books, music and film, read and reviews, check event details, and browse and buy online at www.readings.com.au 2 Readings Monthly August 2012

From the Books Desk Mark’s Say

A certain industry scallywag regularly opines News and views from Readings’ managing about ‘booksniffers’ (NB: as this gentleman is nationalThis Bookshop Month’s Day Readings News at Arts director Mark Rubbo somewhat of a Trojan of the digital book, there Saturday 11 August marks National Bookshop Centre melbourne is some self-interest going on), which makes day for 2012 and Readings is thrilled to be Each year around this We are thrilled to announce that Arts Centre time, a group of my me all the more tempted to send him Julian taking part in the festivities celebrating book- Melbourne will now be selling a small range Barnes’s little essay A Life with Books – a splen- shops around . Andrea Goldsmith, colleagues and I gather of books, CDs and DVDs, selected by Read- together with publishers to did account of what it means to live by, for and Catherine Deveny and Helen Garner will be ings, in the foyer and the newly reopened with books. The excerpt I read was most enter- reading from their favourite novels at Readings decide what books we will Hamer Hall (part of the Victorian Govern- put in our annual Summer taining, recounting Barnes’s lifelong foraging in Carlton at 3pm. See page 3 for details. ment’s recent $135.8 million redevelopment). Reading Guide. We see about 20 different the world of antiquarian bookshops, a pastime Visit www.artscentremelbourne.com.au for I’m rather fond of myself. publishers and probably close to 1000 Vintage Classics details and upcoming shows. books; it’s an interesting process. Someone who I’m sure would have grown up Children’s Collection surrounded by books is Hermann Melville’s The Vintage Classics are Readings signs up At this stage, the finished copies of the great-great-great-granddaughter, Liza Klauss- adding to their fabulous to Businesses for books aren’t available, although often ad- mann, who has now written her first novel. range with a brand new a Clean Economy vance reading copies are. We listen to the Of course there was never any expectation! Children’s Classics collection, Readings is proud to be supporting Busi- publishers and, after doing this for some Yet Tigers in Red Weather more than delivers aimed at ages 8 to 12 for just nesses for a Clean Economy, a new initiative time, you have an idea of whose judge- – it’s one of the picks of the summer season $9.95 each. The launch-list that aims to bring together companies that ment to trust. Our own experience also in the US. As Vogue puts it, ‘there’s some- of 21 books includes Dodie support a price on carbon pollution. Find out inevitably always helps us in our choices – thing about a story anchored in the summer Smith’s I Capture the Castle more at www.b4ce.com.au. for a bookseller the greatest thrill is to pick months that makes deception a little juicier, and Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, the book that readers will want to buy, and desire a little sultrier, and murder just a little among many others. See our review of Ian Triple R Radiothon one that we will love to promote and sell. more wicked’. This tale of family summers at Serraillier’s The Silver Sword on page 15. Triple R’s annual Radiothon is on again We were pleased to see that a Readings Martha’s Vineyard in the aftermath of World from August 17-26 and will be packed full bookseller, A.S. Patrić, has a collection of War II has, by all accounts, a rather unexpect- Get Reading! of great tunes, special offers and wild action. short stories, Las Vegas for Vegans, com- ed and controversial ending as well. Get Reading! is a month-long, nationwide 102.7 FM is a truly independent, non-profit ing out for Christmas. Author Wayne Remaining with fiction, on the local front we campaign that encourages all Australians to community radio station that relies on Macauley has read an advance copy and have two much-heralded second and third pick up a book and get reading! For 2012, listeners’ subscriptions to keep running, so the publisher showed us his comments: books, from Jacinta Halloran and Josephine the 50 Books You Can’t Put Down guide will tune in to ‘Answer the Call’ and keep it live ‘A.S. Patrić is one of our most daring new Rowe respectively. Halloran follows up her feature all-Australian authors. You can pick and kicking for another year. writers. Las Vegas for Vegans shows how acclaimed Dissection with a novel entitled up your copy at any Readings shop from daring he can be.’ Chris Grierson, a former Pilgrimage, which, true to its title, concerns 1 September, as well as download the first Win $10 000 with manager of our Port Melbourne shop, has the journey of a mother and her daughters to chapters from www.getreading.com.au. Lonely Planet written a book on Squizzy Taylor; John Romania in search of a miracle cure for the Lonely Planet is giving travellers the chance Hunter, Chris’s publisher, describes Touch mother’s terminal illness. It will also be the Advance Book Club to win a $10 000 Jetstar travel card or one the Black as poetic. Our next Advance Book Club will give occasion for much soul-searching for these of ten $2500 Jetstar flight vouchers. Loads Last year was a big one for Australian fic- readers the chance to delve into The Yellow characters around the fractures of the past, of luggage, cameras and copies of Lonely tion and while there aren’t as many new Birds by Kevin Powers (out 11 September and the interplay of faith and hope in an im- Planet’s The Travel Book are also up for local works out this season, Michelle de with Hachette) – a novel that is already perfect world. Seldom one to rave, our editor grabs. Just purchase any specially stickered Kretser and Murray Bail both have new being hailed as a modern classic on the Jessica Au raves about this novel. Lonely Planet guide book at your local novels coming – their first for some time. psychological impact of war. Come along As for Josephine Rowe, she’s been impressing Readings bookshop and enter online. to our lovely new events space upstairs at Publishing, like most other industries, is me and many others for a long time now with Readings Hawthorn on Wednesday 12 always looking for the ‘next big thing’, and her adroit fictions, so it’s a delight to see her Readings Monthly September from 6.30pm-7.30pm for wine in bowled us all over when second collection, Tarcutta Wake, between and nibbles and a chance to share your As the September Readings Monthly will be they arrived with some statistics on a series covers and not just setting alight the literary thoughts with the publishers themselves. inserted into The Age on Tuesday 28 August, of three erotic books for women by E.L. journals. No less a genius than Wells Tower This is a free event but please RSVP to we will only be mailing it out to regional James. Published at the beginning of April, has called them ‘potent machines of emotion, [email protected] by Friday and interstate subscribers. Melbourne read- Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shades Darker miraculous for the human vastnesses they 10 August with your postal address for an ers can pick up their copy at any of our and Fifty Shades Freed have sold 2 million sound by the sparest and surest of means’. advance copy of the book! shops or in The Age itself on the day. copies in Australia. This phenomenon has Finally, do look out too for the latest edition broken a heap of publishing records here. of classy US journal McSweeney’s. Melbourne’s The printer, Griffin Press, used as much own literary main-man Chris Flynn has cu- paper as they use in a year in a few months rated a section devoted to Aboriginal writing, just producing these books. The bestselling which includes work from the likes of Tara Harry Potter books only sold 1.1 million June Winch, and a story by Tony Birch (author of course of the Miles Franklin- copies in Australia. At the current rate of shortlisted Blood). ‘The best thing he’s ever sale, the Fifty Shades books will have sold written,’ attests his publisher; and when I put 4 million copies in the next month or that to Tony, he did indeed nod in agreement! so (the phenomenal Twilight series sold 4 million copies but that was over a few —Martin Shaw, years). In addition, James has sold 400,000 Readings Books Division Manager copies as ebooks. Penguin have the first in their erotic series Readings Monthly out now. It’s called Bared to You by Sylvia Day and they assure us it’s better than Fifty Readings Monthly is a free independent Shades ‘in every way’. We are more inter- monthly newspaper published by Readings ested in a French erotic novel, Monsieur by Books, Music & Film. Emma Becker. A bestseller in France, it de- Editorial enquiries: Jessica Au at scribes the relationship between a younger [email protected] woman and an older man. Independent Advertising enquiries: Ingrid Josephine at publisher Scribe has commissioned the [email protected] or English translation, and we can expect call 03 9341 7739. to see a heap more in this genre. Just to think, a few years ago the ‘big thing’ was Thank you to Readings staff members cookbooks – now, it’s erotica. and contributors for your reviews. Oslo Davis www.oslodavis.com Readings Monthly August 2012 3

30 Meet the bookseller Brown Brothers Pages to Poetry with … Winter Festival Chris Dite, Readings Carlton AugustFor more information and updates, pleaseEvents Sample some poetry and a visit the events page at www.readings.com.au. 13 glass of Brown Brothers wine Please note that bookings do not Nicki Reed on this festive wintry night, necessarily guarantee a seat, and that in conversation featuring Nathan Curnow on some events may be standing room only. with Chris Flynn his latest collection, a double-header with Kevin gold coin donations Debut author Nicki Reed will be talking with literary Brophy entitled Radar We’re now asking for people who attend man-about-town Chris (Walleah Press), Nick Powell our events to please make a small donation, Flynn about her book on his Thomas Shapcott Award-winning when possible, to The Readings Foundation. Unzipped (Text, PB, $29.99) book Water Mirrors (UQP, PB, $24.95), and The Readings Foundation was established by – a novel full of laughter, Michael Farrell on his much-anticipated new Readings’ managing director, Mark Rubbo, sex, accidents and romance collection Open Sesame (Giramondo, PB, $24). Thursday 30 August, 6.30pm, in 2008 in order to develop community, that reminds us who you can Readings Carlton. Free, no need to book. literacy and the arts, and is funded through love, and just how much. Monday 13 Why do you work in books? a percentage of our profits, as well as via the August, 6.30pm, Readings Carlton. Free, support of Readings customers. There will be but please book on 9347 6633 or RSVP to It’s an opportunity to push your tastes [email protected]. a tin for gold coin donations at each event. 30 onto other people. But more than that, the All contributions over $2 are tax deductible Anna Solding social capital is intense. I don’t think there’s and can be made at any Readings shop. Anna will be reading from any other retail job people actually envy you for. It’ll also be nice to look back on Thank you for your support. her latest book, The Hum of 15 when I’m older and tell my grandkids (who Bill Leak Concrete (Wakefield, PB, $24.99), an evocative novel won’t care), ‘I worked in a bookshop when Cartoonist, painter and everyone started to panic about the end of 2 about five people whose lives all-round contrarian dramatically intersect in the bookshops.’ Very important, historically. Sisters in Crime: Bill Leak will be in the L.A. Larkin multicultural city of Malmo shop talking art, in Sweden. Thursday 30 What’s the best book you’ve read lately in conversation observation and his new August, 6.30pm, Readings St Kilda. and why? collection of illustra- with Carmel Shute Free, but please book on 9525 3852 Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Drowned Cities tions, UnAustralian Hear novelist L.A. Larkin or RSVP to [email protected]. (his follow-up to Ship Breaker) was of the Year (Scribe, PB, $29.95). talk about her latest enviro- awesome: a post-climate change adventure Wednesday 15 August, 6.30pm, Readings thriller, Thirst (Murdoch, PB, novel for teenagers where the protagonists Hawthorn. Free, but please book on 9819 $29.99), with Sisters in are child soldiers in a flooded, Mad 1917 or RSVP to [email protected]. Crime national co-convenor, Max-style America. Beth Revis’s A Million Carmel Shute. Larkin will Launches Suns was pretty decent, too. A revolution discuss her recent research Roger Averill on a spaceship is the perfect combination adventures in Antarctica, Richard Freadman will launch including crevasse rescue, polar medicine 16 Exile: The Lives and Hopes of of epic and claustrophobic. and survival, as well as the ins and outs of Werner Pelz (Transit Lounge, Michael Chamberlain What have you noticed people buying lately? the craft of crime. Thursday 2 August, Chamberlain’s book, Heart of Stone: Justice PB, $32.95). This biography 6.30pm, Readings Hawthorn. Free, but for Azaria (New Holland, HB, $35), is a and memoir explores the truly A few months back heaps of people were please book on 9819 1917 or RSVP to amazing journey of a man buying 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About [email protected]. comprehensive account of his case and the campaign to have a national inquiry into the described as one of our most Capitalism, but they’ve moved on and now administration of justice in Australia. Join us original thinkers, and was everyone’s into the feminist classic, Fifty written by Pelz’s former student and lifelong Shades of Grey. 4 for an overview of this landmark fight and indeed an extraordinary slice of Australian friend, Roger Averill. Sunday 5 August, 3pm, Danny Katz history from the perspective of the casualty. Readings Hawthorn. Free, no need to book. What’s the strangest experience you’d had in Well-loved Age columnist, Thursday 16 August, 6.30pm, Readings a bookshop? children’s book author and Hawthorn. Free, but please book on 9819 Peta Tait all-round funny man Danny It’s a toss up between a woman asking 1917 or RSVP to [email protected]. Tait’s latest book, Wild and Dangerous Per- me who wrote The Diary of Anne Frank Katz will be signing copies of formances (Palgrave, HB, $115), is a highly S.C.U.M. the other day and my old boss making his new book, readable account of the ways in which (A&U, PB, $15.99), a me introduce Andrew Wilkie at his book circus animals, particularly big cats (lions, launch in 2004 because she thought hilarious novel for teens 23 tigers, leopards) and elephants, respond Adrian Mole there might be government assassins in described as Max Allen on an emotional level to, even develop a meets Summer Heights High. Saturday 4 the audience. Probably the latter. Come and join us for an rapport with, their trainers. Tuesday 14 August, 11.00am, Readings Hawthorn. Free, evening of Brown Brothers August, 6.30pm, Readings Carlton. Free, no need to book. What’s the best experience you’ve had in wine-tasting under the no need to book. a bookshop? guidance and expertise of the one and only Max Allen. This little kid came in once to ask for a 7 Max will be discussing the Politics at La Trobe Bruno Mars CD but he’d forgotten Bru- David Day local industry, and sharing Join us for the launch of the following three no’s name. To describe it to me he showed A collective biography rather than a tra- his stories of the wine books: Professor Nick Bisley’s Great Powers me the cover of Ray Charles’s album Mod- ditional history book, it took David five families and regions across the country in in the Changing International Order (Lynne ern Sounds in Country and Western Music. years to gather the relevant documents to celebration of his latest book, The History of Rienner, HB, $75), Dr Daniel Bray’s complete the writing of Antarctica (Vin- Australian Wine (MUP, HB, $49.99). Pragmatic Cosmopolitanism: Representation What’s your favourite book of all time and why? and Leadership in Transnational Democracy tage, HB, Normally $44.95, Our special Thursday 23 August, 6.30pm, Readings I’ll regret any answer I give, but I’ll go (Palgrave, HB, $132) and Perfecting Justice price $34.95). Join David as he discusses Hawthorn. Free, but please book on 9819 out on a limb and say Vasily Grossman’s in Rawls, Habermas and Honneth: A De- his journey through libraries and archives 1917 or RSVP to [email protected]. Life and Fate. around the world, and his eternal fascination constructive Perspective (Continuum, HB, $150) by Dr Miriam Bankovsky. Wednesday with the last continent on earth. Tuesday 7 Name a book that has changed the way you 15 August, 6.00pm, Readings Carlton. August, 6.30pm, Readings Hawthorn. Free, 29 think – in ways small or large. but please book on 9819 1917 or RSVP to The Monthly Talks Free, no need to book. Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and [email protected]. We are thrilled to be involved The Arab Revolutions probably set the tone for my in this new series in partner- lifestyle over the past decade. ship with fabulous and Muslims in the West 11 Melbourne-based magazine Join us for the launch of two very important What was your favourite book as a kid? National Bookshop Day The Monthly on the ideas and books: The Arab Revolution in Context: Civil Join us in celebration of debates central to modern Society and Democracy in a Changing Middle I loved Emily Rodda’s Teen Power Inc., bookshops around Australia Australia. First up, Professor East (MUP, $49.99) edited by Benjamin which follows this gang of kids who run a and their treasured place Robert Manne talks through Isakhan, Fethi Mansouri and Shahram newspaper/detective agency sort of thing. in the community and the his latest article, ‘Have Climate Sceptics I actually co-founded a private investiga- Akbarzadeh, and Muslims in the West and arts. Andrea Goldsmith, Won?’ with MP Adam Bandt. Wednesday tors’ club in primary school because of Catherine Deveny and Helen 29 August, 6.30pm, Kenneth Myer Building the Challenges of Belonging, edited by Fethi that series. I was also a big Tomorrow When Garner will be reading from Theatre, University of Melbourne. Free, but Mansouri and Vince Marotta (MUP, PB, the War Began fan, though I was shattered their favourite books to help please book on 9347 1749 or RSVP to $49.95). Monday 27 August, 6.30pm, when John Marsden said recently that he out in a day of storytelling and sharing. [email protected]. Readings Carlton. Free, no need to book. wrote it because he thought people weren’t Saturday 11 August, 3pm, Readings Carlton. taking national security seriously enough Free, no need to book. at the time! 4 Readings Monthly August 2012 New Australian Writing Feature

ComingPaddy O’Reilly interviews Jacinta throughHalloran about her second novel, G Pilgrimage.race

The first of the griefs hollowing out Celeste’s life is the death of her father when she was ten. Three years later her mother married the feckless drifter Lionel and, even after Nathalie was born, Celeste could not accept Lionel as anything except the usurper. As much as she adored her baby sister, she despised this useless stepfather who could barely hold on to a job. A few years later he vanished, taking the family’s savings with him, leaving both daughters with a terrible emptiness, a longing for what they had lost. ‘I had been writing the book for a while, and it was on a residency that it came to me – the absent father was something that could hold the book together. The disappearing father haunts people. The impending death of her mother became a catalyst for Celeste to go back to the past and remember the loss of her father.’ Underneath her character’s irritation and frustration, Halloran writes a profound sor- row in Celeste, a submerged, aching desire for something more than the satisfaction of her work healing children. Halloran master-

Image Credit: Anna Gilbert fully reels Celeste’s deepest concerns to the surface in her interactions with her mother and sister, and particularly with their gallant Melbourne writer Jacinta That may be the case, but the doctrine of and formal Romanian guide, Stefan, whose Halloran returns with her the Catholic Church leaves its own ineradi- polite yet direct questions challenge Celeste’s second novel, Pilgrimage cable traces. When it came to writing the ‘Where Dissection firmly held beliefs. With sudden and sympa- (Scribe, PB, $29.95, scenes of Celeste’s youth in the Church, thetic insight he also tears open her carefully ebook $19.99). Here, she Halloran found ‘when you want to write was a reflective, papered-over grief at the other absence in talks to Paddy O’Reilly about being brought up in the Catholic her life: the child she is unable to conceive. about medicine, growing faith, you have a lot of vivid memories. As sorrowful unravelling While her rational mind knows this is not a up Catholic and gentle a child, you feel inculcated into the whole matter of blame, she is still tormented by a reincarnations of belief. mystery of it – the wanting to be touched suspicion that she is somehow at fault, and by the Holy Spirit and to be a good person. of a woman’s carefully that she has failed her husband. And then there’s the hypocrisy you see constructed life … One of Halloran’s significant achievements when you become a teenager. You see the in this book is the fine balance of a number f a pilgrimage is a journey guided by pomp and ceremony, and on the other Pilgrimage has of interwoven themes. At no point does the a moral or spiritual imperative, what hand those people are actually living bad work feel stretched by its thematic complexi- then is a pilgrimage undertaken by lives. It is hard to keep the faith.’ the quality of a ty. Rather, the narrative is propelled inexora- one who doesn’t believe? Jacinta bly and gracefully forwards by tributaries of Halloran’s new novel asks that ques- Despite this, Halloran writes her believers doubt, guilt, loyalty and longing. tion when Celeste, a paediatrician who has with sympathy and respect. In the contem- contemplative long ago abandoned her Catholic faith, sets porary secular world, priests have taken on Working as a GP, Halloran spends her time Iout to accompany her sister and her termi- the role of their old foe, the devil – pre- awakening, a passage ‘listening to what people are saying and try- nally ill mother to Nicula, a Romanian town sumed to be guilty of the worst kind of ing to hear what’s behind it. There’s a huge where the Virgin Mary has been reported to corruption. But Halloran’s priest, who was a from complacency amount of richness in what I do. People appear to locals and effect miracle cures. powerful presence in Celeste’s childhood and tell me things, and working out how those who is there to counsel her mother when the stories affect them and lead them to present Pilgrimage pits medical science against through pain and illness is diagnosed, is gentle and kind, not with certain symptoms is fascinating. The faith, a daughter’s beliefs against those of the overbearing bogeyman she could blame sense of how they tell their story. When a her mother, and follows the physical and darkness towards joy.’ for her mother’s determination to set out stoic comes in complaining of pain, I take it emotional journey that will test both of on this pilgrimage. There are no grand pro- very seriously.’ For Halloran the occupations them. Halloran’s first novel, Dissection, also nouncements from the Church here, only a of writer and doctor fit together perfectly. examined the limits of medicine and the The bridge builder between mother and suggestion that ‘It will be time for the three ‘Once you start to write it’s great for medi- people who practise it. She says, ‘Medicine daughter in their uncomfortable and of you to spend together. Your mother wants cine. You have a better understanding of has a great deal to offer but when it comes sometimes exasperated communication this very much: this, in itself, is good enough stories and the meaning behind them.’ to things that western medicine can’t offer is Nathalie, Celeste’s younger sister who reason to go. Don’t you think so?’ hope for, what belief system do people then has failed to achieve almost all of Celeste’s Where Dissection was a reflective, sorrowful embrace? How do you find a sense of hope?’ benchmarks of maturity and self-reliance. unravelling of a woman’s carefully constructed Beneath the questions of where one can Yet Nathalie’s willingness to give uncon- life and moral universe, Pilgrimage has the For Celeste, turning towards religion for place one’s trust and hope are the deeper ditional support to her mother’s journey quality of a contemplative awakening, a that hope is foolish and irrational. Despite currents that begin to surface as the trip brings an optimism and lightness to the passage from complacency through pain and her dogged determination to accompany her progresses. Celeste’s pilgrimage is about far story. Halloran says, ‘Nathalie was a relief darkness towards joy. Halloran speaks of mother on the pilgrimage, she must con- more than her mother’s illness. What seems in the writing for me. She’s open and love- Marilynne Robinson’s Home as an inspiration, stantly fight the urge to convince her of the at first to be a story of the world of Chris- able and lively. And I was happy that she and it is easy to see the gentle trajectory of pointlessness of the journey. Halloran herself tian miracles measured against the tenets of could eventually take on responsibility.’ Pilgrimage as a homage to Robinson’s grave works part-time as a GP and knows the western medicine soon opens a vein of fam- Through Nathalie’s eyes, it seems that no and beautiful writing. The novel is testament power of the medical ethos. ‘I often wonder ily trauma and the residual bitterness and matter what the outcome of the pilgrimage, to a restoration of belief – not in the potency if I hadn’t done medicine how I would see resentment born of distant injuries, real and the trip itself is of value. She too has suf- of medicine and science, a faith Celeste has the world. Medicine is almost like being imagined. Halloran brings a clinical eye to fered disappointments, but she is more able never lost, nor in religious miracles, but in the sworn into a brotherhood in the way you Celeste and yet, ‘You can feel sympathy with to release them, to leave them by the side of enduring and healing power of love. think because you’re so young when you go her once you know the whole story. There’s a the road, while Celeste begins the journey to university. You don’t question what you’re quick-witted hardness about her but under- burdened by of every wrong Paddy O’Reilly’s most recent novel is The Fine given at that age, and medicine is taught as neath it all she is full of love for her mother, decision, every unfair blow of fate. Colour of Rust (HarperCollins, PB, $24.99, for her husband.’ though it is all-knowing.’ ebook $4.99). Readings Monthly August 2012 5

Book of the Month Winter Journal New FictionIn the title story, a group of friends and fam- Paul Auster Faber. PB. $29.99 ily gather there to release the ashes of a dead In a piece for The Paris Australian Fiction man into the river: ‘We walk single or dou- Pilgrimage ble file along the side of the highway until Review, the interviewer Jacinta Halloran finally we stand by the pitiful creek, eleven comments that in Paul Scribe. PB. $29.95. Ebook $19.99 of us, our good shoes sinking into the mud.’ Auster’s novel Levia- When her mother is diag- The soggy middle ground between hope and than, the lead character nosed with a terminal illness, despair is Rowe’s natural territory. In another Peter Aaron not only Celeste, 49, prepares herself story, the sound of a man singing somewhere bears Auster’s initials, to assume the role of a carer. in the building next door somehow redeems but is also married to a woman whose A paediatrician, she is willing the narrator’s drab suburban share-house ex- name is that of Auster’s wife’s spelt to arm them both with the istence: ‘His voice made these things better backwards. Additionally, his memoirs logic of science: of cold than they were, lifting them above the seedy The Invention of Solitude and Hand to medical fact, PEGs and the and the broken and the dangerous, so that Mouth detail his life as a struggling possibility of a life-saving drug trial. they became something else.’ writer. Through poetry, plays, screen- But her mother, a devout Catholic, is seek- For Rowe too, ordinary objects are at once plays, criticism and translation, Auster ing other remedies. She fixes on the idea of revelatory and oppressive: damp cardboard has examined the notion of self and the Nicula – an ancient wooden church in boxes that haven’t been unpacked, someone identity again and again. It is in his Eastern Europe rumoured to be a Lourdes- else’s old blood stains on a mattress, or the latest memoir, Winter Journal, however, like site of miracles and healing, craving random, nearly aphoristic, nearly meaningless where Auster is allowed to excavate the comfort of a faith that Celeste chose titles of old books glanced at, unthinkingly, in a moment of tragedy. Rowe has a wonder- what he does best. long ago to give up. And so, along with her flighty younger sister Nathalie, Celeste finds ful eye for these tiny moments of domestic The memoir is written directly to herself reluctantly making a journey across significance, the ambiguous, brimming detail, ‘you’, that pesky second person point the globe to Romania, caught between love, and while some of these stories work better of view that often comes across as con- obligation and her own lack of belief. than others, her prose always manages to be fronting or, at the very least, irritating. both startling and mysterious without ever But by its very nature, Auster’s ‘you’ is Central to Jacinta Halloran’s second novel parading itself or feeling fought for. Dissection gripping – talking purely, often times (her first, , was published in 2008) This is a book to be read slowly and savoured. authoritatively (and no less romanti- is the question of perspective – not simply And, while I promised myself that I wouldn’t cally), to the many versions of his in the religious sense, but in terms of our be- use the word exquisite to describe these younger self. Much of the early book liefs about the world, and how they collide. stories, knowing in advance something of is dedicated to the women he’s loved Faith, or the lack of it, it could be argued, what to expect, that’s exactly what they are. I – including second wife and novelist is simply the way we choose to process the kept finishing them and hearing myself say, Siri Hustvedt – but Auster is also lucid complexities and pains of a life over which ‘Wow’, out loud, involuntarily, as if I had about his experiences, turning a care- we have little control. just watched some intricate origami thing ful eye over his actions. Nowhere else Celeste’s atheism and wariness swerves unfolding on its own, like magic. has an autobiographer been so criti- and crashes against her mother’s gentle yet cal – and in doing so, Auster’s words unwavering devotion, as well as her sister’s Miles Allinson is from Readings St Kilda implicate the reader in a powerful and romanticism. Is it better then to let others, compelling way. especially our loved ones, hold on to beliefs The Memory of Salt Alice Melike Ülgezer Each paragraph is a discrete episode that clash so heavily with our own, or to bring them back to our own truth? As Tom, Giramondo. PB. $27.95 – in the same interview with The The Memory of Salt, by Alice Paris Review, Auster talks about how Celeste’s husband, reminds her, ‘No doctor is going to give her a shred of hope. Don’t you Melike Ülgezer, is a rare work the paragraph is his ‘natural unit of of fiction that engages with composition … at least for me’ – and think it right that she chooses how to live with what time she has?’ multiculturalism not just as in this memoir it is clearly his strongest an idea or principle, but as a suit. Events do not necessarily lead to It’s tensions like these, as well as Celeste’s total and inescapable one another; instead, they traipse along beautiful dimensions as a voice and character, experience of life. One half in a non-linear fashion, stopping off to that make Pilgrimage one of the best Austra- of the story is the love affair paint a scene and then just as noncha- lian novels I’ve read all year. I read it in one between a young paediatrician from lantly moving on again, as if the events sitting and much of it has stayed with me Melbourne, Mac, and a Turkish circus were unfolding in real life itself. since. Contemporary, elegant and serious, performer and musician, Ahmet. When the The result is both delightful and jolt- Halloran does a near-perfect job of capturing two meet in Afghanistan, Mac is completely ing. In one section of the book Aus- the nuance of what it means to be a daughter taken by Ahmet’s wild, carefree approach to ter moves swiftly from the thoughts and a mother and a wife – to be stirred with anything and everything, and goes with him, of a five-year-old admiring his body both rage and empathy, and to long for life’s for better or for worse, to Istanbul to meet in the bath to a 55-year-old in the car answers as deeply as happiness itself. his family. The story that unfolds from there accident that nearly cost not only his Jessica Au is editor of the Readings Monthly. is extravagant and breathless. own life, but also those of his wife The second half is the journey their child, and daughter. Later, a single paragraph Tarcutta Wake Jospehine Rowe Ali, takes many years later in order to will describe both the absurdity and discover where her father is from and, the horror of his father’s death. It UQP. PB. $19.95. Ebook $12.95 ultimately, who she is herself. Ali, who is a rare writer who can move from Josephine Rowe is a is largely the narrator, has been raised in curiosity to pathos in a few mere Melbourne writer who has Australia by Mac and only really knows lines; Auster, when at speed, gallops been quietly accumulating stories – some charming, some horrifying through them all. adulation for some years – about her unstable, magnetic father. (So now. In truth, Tarcutta Wake Towards the end of the book, Aus- convincing and compelling is Ali’s voice is her fourth collection of that I couldn’t help wondering how much, ter describes an epiphanic moment very short stories, although when watching a group of dancers if any, autobiography might have gone into the first two were self- making this novel – not that it matters.) in rehearsal leaping and twisting published and were more like artworks than through the air. This event, he states, books, and the third, How a Moth Becomes a Shifting and cutting between different eventually leads him to write his first Boat, with minor changes, was a re-publica- decades, continents, languages and cul- prose poem, White Spaces, after a long tion of the second. tures, Ülgezer’s narrative navigates the often period of insecurity and self-doubt. treacherous waters of identity politics. The It is also the moment when on the Rowe’s stories are nearly always very short. descriptions that she uses are visceral and opposite side of the city, unbeknownst A couple of pages usually. Sometimes only a physical, allowing the reader to occupy the to him, his father is dying. One could paragraph. Her characters are normally lost, multiple identities of her characters. For infer from such an event that Auster’s in a vague way, sidelined somehow by mild Australian readers unfamiliar with Turkish life is filled with unfortunate coin- poverty, by mild addiction, recovering from culture, many passages of this novel will be cidences – the sudden death of his barely disclosed past lives or from relation- filled with fascinating details about mysti- 14-year-old friend in a field, struck ships that seem perpetually unresolved. It’s cism and Sufism (Ülgezer is completing a by lightning, being another – but it is fitting then, that this, her latest collection, PhD on the Qadiri Dervishes of Kurdistan). only in his hands that such events are is named after Tarcutta, a town halfway The greatest strength of the book, however, turned into wondrous things, filled between Melbourne and , and well is Ülgezer’s ability to creatively highlight and with deep sorrow, but also hope. known round those parts as a changeover contrast two cultures, which, one suspects, Nicole Lee is from Readings St Kilda point for truck drivers. she loves equally. Will Heyward is from Readings St Kilda 6 Readings Monthly August 2012 Black Mountain traits of these two lead protagonists to be so Venero Armanno vivid. It is because these people, Emil and UQP. PB. $29.95. Ebook $14.95 Hannah, are so real that we as the reader Venero Armanno’s latest become engaged, interested and, most of novel, Black Mountain, is in all, hopeful that they will be together. many ways a rich and roman- Thirdly – and this will please many – tic journey epic – driven Castles is clearly well researched. The details forwards by the life and of the struggles of war prisoners, soldiers, survival of a singular women, refugees, dissidents and survivors character through exotic are all recorded with reverence. cities, histories and times, but with a decidedly chilling twist. Some say this book is similar to Anna Funder’s recent Miles Franklin winner, All A boy named Sette (‘Seven’ in Italian) That I Am. I’m not sure of that; however, remembers little else but his harsh life as if you need a story to take you around the part of the country’s cruel underground world and home again, here it is. If this slave trade. He is eventually sold to Sicily’s were a movie, the closing scene would have sulphur mines and put to work harvesting bluer skies, some mountains and a house what was once known as biblical brimstone. with smoke coming from the chimney. If Starved, beaten and abused, he mysteriously that’s not hope and the ending that we all survives the harshest wounds and punish- need, well... what story will please you? ments, eventually making his escape to the Chris Gordon is events coordinator at Readings slopes of the volcanic Mount Etna.

There, he is saved by a man named Don The Marmalade Files Domenico, a kind-hearted aristocrat who Steve Lewis & Chris Uhlmann takes it upon himself to give the boy a HarperCollins. PB. Normally $30. new beginning and an education. Grandly Ebook $16.99 renamed Cesare Montenero after the black Our special price $24.95 mountain on which he was found, he When seasoned newshound journeys through the regions of and the Harry Dunkley is slipped a decadent streets of Paris, only to slowly un- compromising photograph cover a darker meaning to his own origins, one frosty Canberra dawn, and his saviour’s, which find their roots in a he knows he’s onto some- new yet rudimentary science. thing big. There’s something equally gritty and baroque In pursuit of the scoop, he is about this novel, a tone that is at its height forced to negotiate the deadly corridors of during Armanno’s richly textured descrip- tions of the sulphur mines and the poor power, where the minority Toohey Gov- carusi who suffer there. The book perhaps ernment hangs by a thread – its stricken could have done without the contemporary Foreign Minister on life support, her heart prologue and epilogue, which, while aiming maintained only by her singular desire for to extend the dramatic reach of the unfold- revenge. From the teahouses of Beijing to ing events, end up feeling slightly under- the beaches of Bali, The Marmalade Files is developed and unnecessary. Equally, for such a knowingly referential romp through the a tightly written first half, the conclusion dark underbelly of politics by two of our spirals a little in its attempt to reconcile its foremost journalists – News Limited’s Steve many threads. Lewis and the ABC’s Chris Uhlmann. Yet at its core Black Mountain is still lush, ambitious storytelling that gives historical fiction a dark and unexpected inflection, as well as grappling with those eternal ques- International tions of fate and identity. Jessica Au is editor of the Readings Monthly Fiction The Dinner Hannah & Emil Herman Koch Belinda Castles Text. PB. $29.99. Ebook $19.47 A&U. PB. $29.99. Ebook $11.99 The ’ Herman Already I can see the Koch may be considered (by opening movie scene: some, at least) a remarkably through the dirt and talented man. A successful darkness of war trudges a screenwriter, producer, handsome man, boots worn, playwright and novelist in collar pulled tightly to keep Europe, his novel, The the wind out, the streets are Dinner, will no doubt wet but the twinkle in his introduce him to a wider international eyes, ladies and gentleman, the twinkle I audience, if for no other reason than its tell you, lets us settle back. It allows us to prickly subject. A blurb for this book might make a cup of tea. We know that this is the seem more like a trailer for a film than beginning of an epic love story. anything else: four parents, one dinner and an inescapable decision… or is it? It has all the right ingredients. Devastating and devastated German soldier Emil survives Paul Lohman and his prime-ministerial the Great War and meets Hannah, a Rus- candidate brother, Serge, are going out sian Jew living in London, who is educated, to dinner with their wives. Paul expects passionate and courageous. Despite the the night to be painful in the extreme: a bloody turmoil of ensueing conflict, their pretentious, overpriced restaurant coupled love endures both geography and politics. with his brother’s infuriating overly charis- matic behaviour is only the beginning of the This third novel of Castles’ works for several unpleasantness. But this get-together will be reasons. Firstly, and most importantly, it is even more distasteful than usual, because at the true story of two people surviving ex- this dinner, Paul and his brother and their traordinary odds to live together peacefully, wives have something very important to talk based on Castles’ very own grandparents. about. Once the small talk has petered out, It is perhaps for this reason that the narra- the conversation takes an unexpected turn – tive retains poignancy where so many other to their teenage sons, the terrible thing that novels of this ilk become mere fairy tales. they have done, and how far these parents will go to protect their children from the Secondly, Castles is a powerful writer. Her consequences of their actions. second book, The River Baptists won The Aus- tralian/Vogel’s Literary Award after all. She is What begins as an acidly funny setting up able to create a sense of wonder and pain with of the dinner gradually becomes more sinis- a seemingly effortless turn of phrase. It is ter. Paul’s credibility as a narrator soon be- her descriptions of the creases and the lines gins to fade and the seriousness of the boys’ in her characters’ faces that allow the por- actions comes to light. It is an intriguing Readings Monthly August 2012 7 premise, one that is likely to rouse a debate that Intisar’s new fiancé is none other than between readers about right and wrong. It the head of state security, the Hand of God is lucid to the end, though the main course himself, and he wants the Alf Yeom at any and dessert lack the dark humour of the cost. Desperation drives Alif deeper into the dinner’s aperitif and appetiser. There are Empty Quarter, the occult underbelly of the also elements of the story that appear and City, and closer to the unbelievable truth Q&A with are then dropped rather suddenly later on. about the book. Nevertheless, Koch has produced a strange Alif the Unseen and compelling read, a taut family drama is billed as G. Willow Wil- with a distinctly dark edging. son’s debut novel, but she is a writer of expe- Josephine Rowe rience, having penned an acclaimed memoir, Jessica Au interviews Josephine Rowe about her new short story collection Nicole Mansour is assistant manager at The Butterfly Mosque, and several graphic Tarcutta Wake (UQP., PB, $19.95. Ebook $12.95) Readings St Kilda novels. As a convert to Islam and a part- time resident of Cairo, Wilson is uniquely Tigers in Red Weather positioned to tell this story that riffs on Liza Klaussmann Middle Eastern politics and Arab society – Picador. PB. $27.99. Ebook $14.99 attitudes about class and race, relations with Let me first deal with two the West, and the simmering tension of the items of publicity that will Arab Spring. inevitably precede this book – one, it is the debut novel If this all sounds like a big, hot mess, then by Herman Melville’s let me reassure you: Alif the Unseen works on great-great-great-grand- every level. It’s a supernatural action story daughter, Liza Klaussmann, tinged with yearning and romance; a satire and two, it was reportedly with sharp, political teeth; and a homage acquired by Picador in an eight-way auction, to the power of myth, words, names and securing the author a two-book deal and a computer codes. ‘six-figure sum’. Leanne Hall is from Readings Carlton Yet this ancestry and hype should neither encourage nor deter. Rather, readers should The Woman who tackle Tigers in Red Weather because it’s actu- Dived into the Heart ally a wonderful novel. If you read a book of the World You have a strong eye for Writing is essentially a rag and bone for well-drawn characters you can imagine Sabina Berman visual detail – dust the trade – you collect things, not know- living well beyond its covers, a vivid sense of S&S. PB. $29.99 ‘[c]olour of dirty goose ing whether they’ll be of value further place evoked through atmospheric prose and Left alone in a sprawling feathers’, ‘anodised along. I carried this little scrap of a sharp dialogue, and a story you’ll ponder mansion, Karen grows from a aluminium cups’. phrase around for almost a year, and long after you’ve finished, then this is your small child who does not How much do you feel eventually the story sort of accumulated book of the season. understand the world into an writing can turn on around it. I’ve never been a linear writer autistic girl-woman who objects and atmosphere? – I’d like to be, but I just don’t think In a five-part narrative, each giving voice to a insists on enjoying life and that way. I’m tangential. For this story, different character over the span of 20 years, I thought a lot about relics and the value the moments in it. From her the process mirrored the setting, in a Klaussmann takes us into a culture of wealth of objects when I was writing Tarcutta first memories of being way – it takes place in a coastal holiday and excess inhabited by Nick and her cousin, Wake. The early stories in the collection pulled into the world by her Aunt Isabelle house filled with mismatched, accu- Helena. The story is set in the shadow of – ‘Suitable for a lampshade’, ‘Brisbane’, after being left wild, right through her mulated objects that make sense when Tiger House, a family estate on Martha’s ‘Scar from a trick with a knife’ – all dealt schooling and university where she studies viewed as a whole. Vineyard, and begins as World War II draws with relics in some way or another, in Animal Husbandry so she can take over the to a close and life is in transition. As rations, either a tangible or abstract sense, and I family tuna business, the novel rests entirely You’ve also taken part in the University of austerity and separations end, relationships decided to run with this theme for the on her perspective. Iowa’s International Writing Program (a must begin again as the characters try to find rest of the collection. school that counts John Kinsella and Alice their way in the world following a time of As a character, Karen does not engage So, looking specifically at objects: why Pung amongst its alumni). What was your immense turmoil. with many social norms, failing to con- is stuff not just stuff? How do things time there like? nect with her own name or, for example, to However, their lives prove no less tumul- become valuable to us? I think that an understand the cruelty of humans against It was surreal; 37 writers from 35 tuous, and the plot is brimming with the object we’re sentimental about is the animals. Yet this does not prevent us from countries split between two hotels, living fabulous alcohol-soaked parties, illicit affairs, abstract made artifact; time, memory, sympathising with her, or from hoping and working and drinking together for family secrets and gruesome murder that desperately for her success and happiness. an idea we have of ourselves or some- three months – it sounds like a pitch for make this an escapist read worthy of a lan- There are many colourful characters that body else’s feeling for us. A postcard or a reality TV show. Actually I think that guid afternoon perched atop a beach towel. she meets along the way and, although a letter from a loved one generally holds some years ago, a Georgian writer wrote But the real surprises to be found in this they seem somewhat cartoonish through more sentimental value than, say, an a bestseller based on his time at the IWP. novel, and its satisfying substance, are in its her eyes, we can easily see the shadows of email that contains the same message. I was living in Iowa House, alongside poets from Palestine, Nigeria and the quiet and measured attention to the darker people we know in them: the haughty uni- The postcard is something that we can side of a privileged life that will appeal to versity professor, the lonely sea captain and, Philippines, a journo from South Africa, pick up, hold in our hands, something fiction writers from Granada, China, lovers of The Great Gatsby, Brightness Falls, of course, the loving aunt. that was held in theirs. (I do realise and (dare I say it?) Downton Abbey. A liter- Haiti and Venezuela and a playwright This is a book that will make you rethink this sounds hopelessly romantic and ary novel with a populist heart that will leave from . society. How we treat people with disabilities nostalgic, which is probably why I’m you chilled and exhilarated. and how, in many cases, we should follow such a terrible hoarder – I have trouble Most of us had projects that kept us in Alison Huber is from Readings Carlton their example rather the forcing them to throwing anything away. Maybe that our respective rooms, at our respective follow the less-than-impressive leadership says something about the spareness of desks during the day. I was working on the stories from Tarcutta Wake, looking Alif the Unseen of so called ‘normal’ people. Touching and my writing.) G. Willow Wilson out my window at squirrels and pines heartfelt – all of those words can be applied If I write ‘anodised aluminium cups’, A&U. PB. $29.99. Ebook $14.99 and the Iowa River, and writing about to this book, but really all you need to know what it might say to you as a reader, de- rural NSW and crumbling art deco Alif is an Arab-Indian is that you need to read it. pending on who you are, is ‘picnics at the blocks in St Kilda. But at five o’clock, hacker-for-hire in an Kate Rockstrom is from Readings Carlton happy hour would usually coax us out, unnamed Middle Eastern beach with my parents’ or ‘those awful things that were everywhere when I was and our evenings were spent crowded emirate with a digital around tables, discussing everything policing system so effective The Girl on the Stairs a kid’ or ‘picnicware from an era I didn’t Louise Welsh belong to’. In any case, they work as a from the death of narrative in Ameri- it’s referred to as the Hand of can poetry to untranslatable words and God. In an already rightfully Hodder Headline. PB. $29.99 kind of visual shorthand for ‘something concepts to the best place to buy fries in paranoid community, Alif’s While Scottish writer Louise that was that now isn’t’. Iowa City. Welsh has come across my chosen occupation is fraught. But it is his ‘Suitable for a lampshade’ is a beautiful story radar from time to time, I’d That’s to say nothing of the incredible clandestine affair with the aristocratic Intisar of grief, guilt and repair. Take us through never had a chance to read opportunities that kept falling into our that truly precipitates his downfall. the process how did this piece evolve her until now, and was – laps, but that was the real meat of it for you? When Intisar’s parents organise her betrothal immediately struck by this for me – my world view just expanded to a prince, she is forced to end her relation- tense, personal thriller. ‘Suitable for a lampshade’ started with at those plastic outdoor tables. I came ship with Alif. Her last communication with just the title. I was visiting a friend, away with very different ideas of fair- him is strange: she sends him an original As with her third novel, The and she’d just picked up a book about ness and unfairness, spending time edition of the Alf Yeom, an ancient book Bullet Trick, The Girl on the Stairs is set in crochet and macramé that she was with writers who’d been imprisoned of unusual provenance that is allegedly a Berlin. Jane, a young Scottish girl, moves numerous times because their work subversive take on the classic The Thousand into an apartment block with her long-time going to give someone as a birthday present. I flipped through the chapter was seen as anti-government. ‘I used and One Nights and purportedly dictated by partner, Petra. What was once a new and to write fiction,’ one of the poets said, headings and got to ‘Suitable For a a jinn. exciting relationship has cooled somewhat, ‘but now I write poetry. They don’t Lampshade’, which I thought was a as Petra moves up through the rich, corpo- know how to read poetry.’ When Alif’s computer is breached by state rate banking world, and Jane – now seven very beautiful phrase, so I wrote it into security, he goes into hiding with his loyal months pregnant – finds herself spending my notebook. Full interview at www.readings.com.au best friend, Dina. Investigations soon reveal the bulk of her time on her own. 8 Readings Monthly August 2012 Increasingly curious of her surroundings, I Am Forbidden especially in a foreign country, Jane wit- Anouk Markovits nesses an altercation between a father and Vintage. PB. $19.95 his daughter in the neighbouring apartment. Sweeping from the Central Her maternal instincts kick in and she im- European countryside just Q&A with mediately wants to protect the girl, yet Petra before World War II to Paris remains circumspect. Jane’s investigations to contemporary Williamsburg, lead her further into the dark history of the Brooklyn, I Am Forbidden Alice Melike Ülgezer building where she lives – a past filled with brings to life four generations Will Heyward interviews Alice Melike Ülgezer about The Memory of Salt war secrets and even ghosts. (Giramondo, PB, $27.95) of one Satmar family – the Welsh expertly heightens our fear for Jane’s orphaned Josef, Mila and her safety throughout – a unique and intrigu- beloved step-sister Atara. A beautifully ing thriller. crafted, emotionally gripping story of what Michael Awosoga-Samuel is from happens when unwavering love, unyielding Readings Carlton law and centuries of tradition collide, I Am Forbidden announces the arrival of an Mesmerized extraordinarily gifted new voice. Alissa Walser (translated by Jamie Bulloch) Quercus. PB. $22.99. Ebook $14.99 In Mozart’s Vienna, where TSciencehe House Fiction of Rumour Europe’s finest minds vie for Jake Arnott imperial favour through Sceptre. PB. $29.99 experimentation and Larry Zagorski spins wild intrigue, Franz Anton tales of fantasy for pulp Mesmer is developing a magazines but, as World War series of controversial II hangs in the balance, he cure-alls for the body and begins to discover that the mind. When he is asked to help restore the lines between imagination The Memory of Salt tells narratives and fleshing them out with my sight of a blind musical prodigy favoured and reality are starting to the story of Ali, the own experiences and what I have heard by the Empress herself, he senses that fame, blur. Thrown into a world in daughter of a Turkish from Afghanis. and even immortality, is within his grasp. which London spymasters work together circus musician and a But scandal threatens to engulf him, as with occultists in the war of propaganda, young doctor from As to the how of describing these places, Melbourne, and of her I suppose the fact that there are char- Mesmer struggles to gain both the girl’s and where Nazis astrologists plot for parents’ romance. Writers acters in the novel who are originally trust and her fragile talent. domination over the East, Larry unearths a often mine their own lives from these places, others who travelled conspiracy that will ripple through the for first novels – how personal is this story to them, and others still who form some Inside decades to come. and how much of you went into the sort of residual diaspora makes for a Alix Ohlin multi-faceted and varied representation. character of Ali? Quercus. PB. $27.99. Ebook $14.99 One thing I must say first of all is that Your writing engages directly with mysti- In 1996, Grace, a psychia- the gender of Ali is never disclosed in the cism and spirituality, which is often embod- trist, juggles a suicidal HPoetryere novel. This was very deliberate and is im- ied by Ali’s father, ‘Baba’. How is this way boyfriend and a young Wislawa Szymborska portant to me as a writer. There are some of thinking and being important to you? patient’s impending abor- (translated by Clare Cavanagh instances where the gender is hinted at, A dear friend told me an old story the tion. Ahead in 2002, Annie, and Stanislaw Baranczak) a struggling actress, takes for example on page 279, when Baba other day – it goes like this: there were a Mariner. PB. $20.95 pity on a homeless girl and says that he hopes one day Ali will lead group of Mevlevi dervishes and they were In these 27 poems, Polish him in prayer. Traditionally women do invites her into her New doing sema (the whirling ritual). Sud- Nobel Laureate Wislawa not lead men or their fathers in prayer. denly there was a loud knock at the door York apartment and, in 2006, Mitch, a There is also another instance where divorced counsellor, finds that listening to Szymborska considers life on and a voice shouted, ‘Brothers! It’s time earth, from the microbe to Ali and a gypsy girl flirt on a bridge in to pray!’ After a time they called back, other people’s problems takes his mind off the apocalypse. Here is a Istanbul together. ‘We are praying.’ his own. Inside is the moving story of three lives over ten years, and the simple truth verse study of teenagers, For me as a writer it was very important It is this kind of personal, unmediated that can be found in putting yourself on divorce, Ella Fitzgerald, to maintain this ambiguity and play and un-institutionalised relationship with the line in order to help others. Vermeer’s Milkmaid, dreams, with it here and there, as in the shop-top Source that is important to me. I feel that traffic accidents, TV, the vagaries of memory, scene between Zeki and Ali. The reasons when religion becomes institutionalised The Blue Book Madame Atropos and even poetry itself. A for this gender ambiguity are personal. it can betray its origins and become true treasure of form, line and thought. I drew from my own experience of hav- A.L. Kennedy muddied by the clay and fear of politics. Vintage. PB. $19.95 ing a father who, in either a Turkish or Prayer isn’t something to do once a week Australian cultural context, didn’t treat or five times a day, it’s a way of being. Elizabeth Barber is crossing me like a daughter but more like a son or the Atlantic by ocean liner Much of the story is relayed via memory. a mate. The process of writing Ali with with her perfectly adequate McSwAnthologieseeney’s (Issue 41) ambiguous gender was very intuitive and Your narration is very concerned with boyfriend, Derek. But in it wasn’t until very recently, in fact after I visceral experience – taste, sight and sound fleeing the UK, Elizabeth is Dave Eggers (ed.) had finished the writing, until I realised – and particularly with music. What’s the also running from her past McSweeney’s. HB. $27.00 why it made such sense to me. connection between these two? – her charismatic ex-lover, The latest incarnation from Arthur, and a life of deception indie publishing darling A lot of what happens takes place in parts I have always written, but from a young age I was also trained as a musician. For in which they duped the vulnerable into McSweeney’s takes on the of the world – and Afghanistan, form of a lightning-lashed for example – that might seem ‘exotic’ to many years I wrote and played equally. believing that their loved ones were trying to But then at one point I turned away make contact from beyond the grave. A hardcover, featuring stories of Australian readers. How do you describe ill-fated river trips and the mystery of these places without making from music altogether. Yet the experi- compelling new novel from the Costa lovelorn robots. A special them seem too otherworldly? ence of it, its breath and textures, the Award-winning author of Day. way my ear was tuned to the world, Terra Australis section, After having spent over 15 years going saturated me. Music is physiological, an Dark Diversions curated by Melbourne’s very own Chris back and forth between here and Turkey, embodied experience. The playing of John Ralston Saul Flynn, includes fiction by Indigenous writers my perception has of course altered and it, the listening to it, the creation of it. Viking. PB. $29.99 Tony Birch, Ellen van Neerven-Currie, Tara shifted. It was very important to me in Having turned from music, I focused In Dark Diversions, John June Winch and Melissa Lucashenko. writing this book to describe Turkey as more and more on writing. So I guess I experienced it from the inside, replete Ralston Saul stages a black in a sense there is a musician in me who comedy of international Shadow Show: All New with all the droll and foibled stuff of any chose a pen instead. people. I did not want to represent it as a proportions. When he’s not Stories in Celebration something that would reinforce notions As for the relationship between memory encountering dictators in of Ray Bradbury of the mysterious, exotic other. I feel and music, music is a way of reciting Third World hot spots, Sam Weller & Mort Castle (eds.) these sorts of representations of cultures and remembering as much as language Saul’s unnamed journalist HarperCollins. PB. $22.99. Ebook $10.99 and places only create a false sense of is. From a young age I listened to music narrator moves in privileged Shadow Show is a moving divide between people. with lyrics that were not in English. circles on both sides of the Atlantic, literary tribute to the worlds I remember singing along to Turkish insinuating himself into the lives of As for Afghanistan, well, that is differ- of Ray Bradbury, the master songs not even realising that I didn’t well-to-do aristocrats. Through his of speculative and dystopian ent. I haven’t experienced that country understand the lyrics. Because in fact I exploits, we experience a fascinating world myself. Rather I was brought up with fiction who passed away in did. My musical diet hasn’t changed, it of secret lovers, exiled princesses, death by stories about it – stories from memories has only grown richer, and I still do this. June of this year. Featuring that, over the years, have shifted, and veganism and religious heresies. But as he short fiction by Neil Gaiman, For me, music was learnt along with becomes further enmeshed, the outsider become discrete experiences in them- language. The two are inseparable. Margaret Atwood, Audrey selves. So when I wrote the early scenes status of the narrator grows ambiguous: Is Niffenegger and more, this anthology in Afghanistan, I was drawing upon these Full interview at www.readings.com.au he a documentarian of privileged foibles or celebrates the man who brought us timeless an embodiment of the very ‘dark diver- classics such as Fahrenheit 451, The Martian sions’ he chronicles? Chronicles and Dandelion Wine. Readings Monthly August 2012 9 New YA Fiction New release Young Adult fiction titles. See books for middle readers on page 15. strange young man called Jack and a horned beast trampling the backyard, as well as an Book of the Month impending showdown that threatens to Goldrush: Vanguard engulf Perth. Prime Book 1 Steven Lochran No Such Thing as mURDOCH Ad Penguin. PB. $14.99 Forever: Girl Heart Boy The first book in this series Ali Cronin introduces us to Sam Penguin. PB. $19.99 ‘Goldrush’ Lee, a teen who’s Four girls and three boys – all just discovered his own turning 18 during their final superpower and, as a result, year at school. Cass is Ms scores a membership with the Monogamy, Ashley is a player elite force Vanguard Prime and Donna is a party girl, but on the largest warship in the what about Sarah? Her friends world. Despite Sam’s misgivings about his tease her for being uptight, ability to fit in, the youngest-ever member but she’s waiting for The One. soon finds himself on a deadly mission Now she’s found him, but is he forever – or is against The Overman, a telekinetic goodie- Sarah just his summer fling? turned-baddie. ‘A labour of love’ is how Puffin describes this Kingdom of the debut novel and that’s exactly what stops Wicked: Skullduggery it from being the formulaic story that it Pleasant Book 7 might appear to be. Lochran lets his sense of Derek Landy humour shine through in a way that is en- HarperCollins. PB. $19.99. Ebook $11.99 tirely appropriate for a comic-book-inspired The latest adventure of our superhero series. Sam is a character we can all favourite wisecracking skeleton get behind – the plot is fast-paced and, along detective and his teenage with the fact that the elite squad contains partner, Valykrie Cain, is a some strong and capable female superheroes, fun, exciting read. Infected by random Ad I’m more than happy to recommend this to a rare strain of magic, normal readers of 10 and up. people are developing wild and Emily Gale is from Readings Carlton unstable powers. Once infected, Kitana and her friends become The Probability of powerful and corrupted, and are set to tear the Miracles city apart unless someone can stop them… Wendy Wunder Puffin. PB. $16.95 The Storm Begins: The Any work of fiction where the History Keepers Book 1 main character has a terminal Damian Dibben disease can be tricky. How to Corgi Childrens. PB. $16.95 Brand identity usage get right and avoid The Djones family has a over-sentimentality? There secret. They belong to the have been two standout History Keepers – a society young adult books about that travels through time teens with cancer in recent preventing enemies from years. First came Jenny Downham’s Before I meddling with the past. So Die with a character who was feisty, funny when Jake’s mum and dad go and a downright pain at times; the voice was missing, he knows they could spot on and the ending was incredibly be in any place, any time. In his quest to find New books moving and just right. And, earlier this year, e them, Jake is whisked to nineteenth-century John Green gifted us with Hazel in The Fault France, the headquarters of the History in Our Stars, which is as perfect as a book can Keepers, where he learns the truth of his be – Hazel is funny, quirky and intelligent parents’ disappearance and encounters the and the voice, once again, is spot on diabolical Prince Zeldt. Inventive Labs: Bookish Brand Identity Now we have 17 year-old Cam who, like the previous two characters, is in the final stages S.C.U.M. of cancer and has pretty much given up, but Danny Katz her mother, of course, will not. How do you A&U. PB. $15.99. Ebook $9.99 watch a child die? You don’t without fighting The Students Combined with every fibre of your being. So they up Underground Movement stumps to a place where it appears miracles (S.C.U.M.) is a society for Foal’s Bread Tarcutta Wake Hannah and Emil have happened and there they find a summer outcasts and weirdos. At Gillian Mears Josephine Rowe Belinda Castles of health and hope. A summer of love and be- their headquarters on the Paperback $32.95 Paperback $19.95 Paperback $29.99 longing, where the idyllic setting becalms and bench, beside the bin, ebook $9.99 ebook $12.95 ebook $11.99 Cam learns to pay attention to coincidences behind the canteen, they (even if some are a little far-fetched) and plot their revolutionary enjoy the sweetness of the moment. Cam is ideas for a better schoolyard. Divided they a wonderful character and although at times may be weak, and as S.C.U.M., they’re still she seems a bit too detached you just want weak, but at least they have somewhere to her to get the cool guy and live a long and sit. A hilarious read about hormones, healthy life. That would need a miracle! school and social hierarchy. Alexa Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn The Traitors Fire in the Sea Tom Becker Myke Bartlett Scholastic. PB. $16.99 Text. PB. $19.99. Ebook $13.97 When Adam Wilson betrays In 2011, Myke Bartlett won his best friend, he is kid- the Text Prize for Young Adult napped and taken to the Dial: Eat My Words American Stories Mine-Field: The Dark and Children’s Writing with a twilight world where Mungo MacCallum Michael Brissenden Side Of Australia’s this fast-paced, thrilling teenage traitors are forced to Paperback $24.99 Paperback $29.95 Resource Frenzy adventure. Sadie is 16 and atone for their treachery. The ebook $11.99 ebook $14.95 Paul Cleary bored with life in Perth – at Dial is a harsh and terrifying Paperback $24.99 least until something comes prison, and legend has it that ebook $10.99 out of the sea and she finds only one person has ever made it out before, herself caught in the middle of a dark, ancient but Adam is determined to be next. Available in August at readings.com.au conflict. There’s a mysterious inheritance, a 10 Readings Monthly August 2012

with Fiona Hardy New CrimeThe KDeadeeper of Writeliving peacefully in NSW after leaving his The Devil’s Cave Lost Causes high-strung career in England – is forced to Martin Walker Book of the Month Jussi Adler-Olsen return to old ground. The gristly murder Quercus. PB. $29.99. Ebook $16.99 Norwegian by Night brings Koopman back to a place of retribu- . PB. $23.95 The latest in Walker’s Bruno, Derek B. Miller tion and long-held grudges. Carl Mørck is full of guilt Chief of Police series follows Scribe. PB. $32.95. Ebook $19.79 and rage at surviving a our eponymous hero to St. This book was smartly shooting that many of his Harry Curry: Denis, France, where he is not discovered by Henry friends did not. He’s been The Murder Book just the chief but also the only Rosenbloom, pal of relocated to Department Q Stuart Littlemore officer on duty. Bruno will do Readings and publisher at with an unwelcome new HarperCollins. PB. Normally $30 anything to defend his town, Scribe, so Australian co-worker, cold case files Our special price $24.95 and when a seemingly Satanic audiences have a chance to and ’s investigative Stuart Littlemore, a particu- death turns up overnight he adds it to the read it before the rest of the resources at hand. His first case seems larly notable Australian QC, schedule of other things on his mind – not least world joins the party. unsolvable. A politician went missing five returns with another book the loneliness he feels without his adored pet Miller is an American living in Norway, as years ago and the last known witness, her starring entertaining barrister and female fanbase. Delectable in both the is the book’s protagonist – the elderly and brother, is unreliable. With his savvy new Harry Curry. As our hero delicious meals Bruno is served and in the increasingly confused ex-Marine Sheldon assistant prodding him into action, Mørck makes his way through a writing itself, yet still with the menace of death. Horowitz. After his wife’s death, he moves might just get his head around this barrage of murder cases, each to Oslo with his granddaughter Rhea and investigation, and more besides. with a particularly compel- Say You’re Sorry her husband Lars, his last familial connec- ling quirk to lift them beyond the typical Michael Robotham tion since his son was killed at war. Years Creole Belle ‘psychotic killer gets angry’ territory, he and Little, Brown. PB. $29.99 later, Sheldon is still ill-reconciled with his partner, the lovely Engineer, Two teenage girls go missing. the death, continuing to equate being a James Lee Burke Orion. PB. Normally $30 find it’s tricky to continue a rosy relationship Three years later a couple is soldier with manhood and the victim of a when distance separates them – even if it is murdered during a hellish slowly increasing paranoia. Our special price $24.95 At the end of The Glass just from Sydney to beautiful Merimbula. storm – killed in the same One day he takes it upon himself to help Rainbow, Burke left every- However, their acquaintances are more than room where one of these girls hide a woman and her son from a brutal one’s favourite Louisiana happy to interfere. lived. Neither girl has ever abuser. Yet when the police arrive, the heroes – Dave Robicheaux been found and it is suspect- woman is dead, and Sheldon and the boy and his partner Clete Purcel ed they are still alive. This The Fallen Angel recent attack causes their case to be re- are gone. Not trusting the system and – down on the ground after a Daniel Silva in an attempt to atone for past wrongs, opened, and clinical psychologist Joe climactic shootout. Laid up HarperCollins. PB. $29.99. Ebook $16.99 Sheldon decides to take the child on the in hospital with a gunshot O’Loughlin, along with ex-police officer run, using his street-smarts and society’s There’s something about Vincent Ruiz, is determined to discover wound and enough medical assistance to put Vatican thrillers that is so allowance for old men to be loud, bizarre his addictive personality back in danger, what happened. and belligerent to get by. The police, exhilarating and naughty that Robicheaux isn’t sure if the visits he’s getting I’m especially pleased when however, are not as daft as Sheldon thinks from singer Tee Jolie Melton are real or a Paving the New Road – and neither are the men who want both they make it into the Dead Sulari Gentill hallucination, especially when it turns out Write list. When a woman the boy and the secrets he hides. she and her sister are missing. Pulitzer- Pantera. PB. $29.99 falls to her death in St Peter’s In 1933, is quickly This book enables the reader to be truly nominated Burke is a Readings favourite Basilica, the highest echelons and one of the sharpest authors around. turning into the horrifying present in the minds of its characters. of the Vatican want this solved in the fascist regime Hitler managed Norway, America, war and history all shadows, and Gabriel Allon – trying his to inspire. Across many the way back to biblical times are beauti- Watching the Dark hardest to retire from the Israeli Secret Peter Robinson oceans, the influence of the fully deconstructed by Sheldon and those Service and relax into his new life as an art Reich is creeping into around him, while never detracting from Hodder & Stoughton. PB. $32.99 restorer – is one spy who knows his way DCI Banks is always willing Australia, but the nation’s best the immediate tension of the story. Nor- around delicate situations. His investigations and brightest are not willing wegian by Night is peppered with points of to rise to a challenge but soon lead him to discover ties into Hezbol- this time it’s different: no to let it take over. Gentill’s artistically minded difference – a hero plagued with arthritis lah, the black market, and the prelude to a detective Rowland Sinclair is shipped to and the onset of dementia, who views one ever wants to investi- crime bigger than he ever anticipated. How gate fellow police officers. Germany to defend Australia’s political the Scandinavian landscape from afar can you resist a plot this juicy? climate. The novel is populated by those that instead of within – but what really makes When DI Bill Reid is killed at a police rehab centre, have gone down in history for their deeds, this book my pick of the month is the good (Charles Kingsford Smith) and bad incredible writing: fluid and enchanting, fingers are pointed at the Bed of Nails force itself and, in order to curtail corrup- Antonin Varenne (Eric Campbell), but ultimately the best story suspenseful and engaging, crime as serious is often about those who fly below the radar. literature. tion, Banks is accompanied on his case by Maclehose Press. PB. $29.99 an outsider, Inspector Passero. Things Darkly humorous and never go well when someone is looking providing deep insight into Blind Goddess In the Darkness over your shoulder and, when the case the human psyche, Bed of Anne Holt Karin Fossum seems linked to an English girl missing in Nails sees Inspector Richard Atlantic. PB. $29.99 Vintage. PB. $32.95 Estonia six years earlier, Banks must travel Guérin banished down to the Norwegian crime is very While we’ve been enjoying to Tallinn – where it soon becomes clear Suicides division after a much my pick of the Karin Fossum’s Inspector that there are connections to those preying controversial incident of month, and Holt offers Sejer books for a while, it’s on migrants much closer to home. which he is accused of being even more with this taken until now for the very complicit. Now, confronted with naked, complex tale in which the first one to be translated A Dark Place to Die self-inflicted deaths, he begins to believe they victims are divided by into English. (Spoiler alert: Ed Chatterton are part of something much bigger. When a socioeconomic status but he survives this tale.) Single Bantam. PB. $32.95 civilian, John Nichols, arrives to identify one linked by the violence of mother Eva is close to Recently arrived in Australia of these men – dead from blood loss after drugs. Like Karin Fossum’s newest release, Blind Goddess financial devastation when she encounters from the UK (so, already a being suspended by hooks onstage – he also Holt’s also marks the belated an old friend who offers her a way to earn clever man then), Ed grows suspicious and his research shines a English translation of the first book in a some quick cash. Later, she is walking along Chatterton has shaken off his new light onto the incident. Paris is not series that has already attracted a strong a river with her daughter when a body awards for children’s litera- quite the place we remember from postcards following in Australia – the Hanne floats to the surface of the icy water – but ture and written a gritty in this gritty and devastating novel. Wilhelmsen police procedural novels. In it’s not the police that Eva contacts with the debut to a new crime series. this first story, Hanne and offsider Hakon information. When the body of his son is Sand are connecting dots that lead them discovered strung up on scaffolding in to the horrifying discovery of lawyers Liverpool, DI Menno Koopman – now embroiled in dealing drugs. Readings Monthly August 2012 11

years. In this wide-ranging and thoughtful memoir, he reflects on his ambition to make a difference, from his family’s loyal support of the Labor Party to his time as a left-wing New Non-Fiction university radical. This incisive look at an insight into the inquisitive mindset of a Steve’s life and career encompasses not only foreign correspondent. his thoughts on the Labor Party, but on the Australian state of Australian politics both then and We also get a good sense of the compro- today. mised natures of President Barack Obama ANon-Fictionntarctica: and Republican nominee Mitt Romney, of Eat My Words their limitations and failures, and of Amer- Mungo MacCallum A Biography ica’s deterioration into a polemic stalemate. HarperCollins. PB. $24.99. Ebook $11.99 David Day Honest, but not without hope, Brissenden Vintage. HB. Normally $44.95 gives us an excellent snapshot of contempo- For his eighth book, Mungo Our special price $34.95 rary America. MacCallum, one of Austra- Chapter 11 of this epic lia’s wittiest and most biography of the frozen Robbie Egan is the manager of incisive political journalists, continent is titled ‘This Readings Carlton tackles epicurean pleasures bloody flag-raising business’ Review first published in Bookseller+Publisher past and savoured: pre-dinner and this sentiment just about (www.booksellerandpublisher.com.au) drinks and drugs with sums up the content of David on the Day’s latest work of historical Two Frank Thrings Greek isles, lunching with lobbyists in the investigation. Peter Fitzpatrick fleshpots of Canberra, and cooking and writing on the NSW north coast. This Beginning in the 1770s with Captain Cook’s Monash University Publishing. HB. $49.95 unlikely memoir of food and friends (and failed mission to find the ‘missing continent’, The rise of commercial the occasional rant about tofu) includes a cinema in Australia and the each chapter covers a span of a few years and generous helping of Mungo’s favourite nascence of our independent the book continues in this detailed fashion recipes to cap off the meal. right up until the 1960s. The final chapter film industry provide a only briefly covers 1961 until 2012, so in fascinating backdrop to this meticulous academic Exile: The Lives and this sense Antarctica is more a historical Hopes of Werner Pelz study of discovery rather than an up-to-date biography of the two Frank biography. Cook was in fact the first official Thrings, father and son. Roger Averill explorer to cross the Antarctic Circle, and he A self-styled citizen of the world, Thring Transit Lounge. PB. $32.95 unknowingly came within 120 kilometres of Snr was the nouveau riche movie magnate Like the best adventures, the the Antarctic coastline but was turned back who oversaw the construction of some of story of Werner Pelz is by the impenetrable ice-covered sea. Australia’s most luxurious movie palaces in stranger than fiction. Forced the 1920s, including Melbourne’s Regent to flee Nazi Germany for The race to sight and then set foot on Ant- Theatre. Later, he founded Australia’s first being Jewish, he was then arctica, and claim ownership of the various talkies studio, Efftee Films, securing the interned in two countries for land formations and the surrounding seas and Thring family fortune in the process. Frank being German. Shipped to islands is painstakingly detailed by Day, who Jr, however, was flamboyantly gay and had Australia on the notorious has trawled through an extensive collection little interest in dynasty. A sybarite and a HMT Dunera, he later embarked on a of original diaries, letters and official docu- personality beyond compare, he courted spiritual quest that would lead him to the ments. Explorers claimed ownership for their both fame and acclaim as a character actor, Anglican church, a writing career and, country in a variety of ways (from firing shots treading the boards of London’s stages and finally, to a position at La Trobe University. from the ship to scrambling ashore to plant a chewing the scenery in king-sized Hol- Exile is the account of one man’s remark- flag). Disputes were inevitable with different lywood productions such as Ben Hur. The able search for a truth unbound by ortho- nations keen to bring Antarctica under their Thring dynasty died with him. doxy, written by his former student and control, not only for commercial gain but also Fitzpatrick has drawn on an exhaustive lifelong friend Roger Averill. for national glory. Once the continent itself range of sources, from public records and had been fully mapped, the race was on to surviving promotional materials from the Mine-field: The Dark claim a ‘first’ – the first to the South Pole, the day to his own interviews in researching Side of Australia’s first to cross the continent, the first to fly an this book. His prose might lack the vim of Resource Frenzy aeroplane and even the first child to be born. a Peter Biskind, but with subjects as osten- Paul Cleary tatious as these, his book certainly doesn’t Black Inc. PB. $24.99. Ebook $10.99 I found the more recent scientific discover- want for incident or appeal. Definitiveness ies and international agreements to protect is what’s called for here, and on that front Australia is in the grip of a Antarctica’s resources from exploitation more Fitzpatrick delivers. bad habit that won’t be easy to break – the so-called engaging and these are covered interestingly Gerard Elson is from Readings St Kilda in the final chapter, but if you like reading mining boom. As royalty- about human feats of discovery, this is an Review first published inBookseller+Publisher hungry governments license excellent and detailed summary. (www.booksellerandpublisher.com.au) the development of our resources at breakneck Kara Nicholson is from Readings Carlton Michael Kirby: speed, people, families and American Stories: Tales Law, Love & Life industries are being steamrolled. Politicians Daryl Dellora consider them expendable victims as they of Hope and Anger push forward one big project after another, Penguin. HB. $45 Michael Brissenden leaving many farmers and families with UQP. PB. $29.95. Ebook $14.95 For most of his life, Michael Kirby has been a man on a hundreds of coal-seam gas wells on their ABC TV’s Michael Brissen- tightrope. As a judge of properties. The implications are enormous den has written a sharply Australia’s High Court, he and often irreversible. This is a ground- observed and hugely had to balance the potent, breaking piece of reporting by the author of entertaining collection of sometimes contradictory Too Much Luck on the true human and essays on contemporary impulses of passion and economic costs of Australia’s short-term American life. He covers the duty, while at the same time mineral addiction. expected turf – healthcare, hiding his real self from the the war on drugs, asylum world for decades. Drawing on a wealth of Vietnam seekers, race relations – but delivers much previously unavailable letters, as well as Bruce Davies with Gary McKay more than that. interviews with Kirby and – for the first A&U. HB. Normally $55 time – his partner of more than 40 years, Our special price $49.95 American Stories explores the release of Johan van Vloten, this intimate biography Canadian grey wolves into Yellowstone For many, Vietnam remains explores the life of one of our most beloved one of most difficult – National Park, an act of conservation by the and brilliant citizens. Fisheries and Wildlife Service that informs and controversial – wars in recent history, with its the cultural renewal of the Nez Perce Indians A Premier’s State in Oregon. In Detroit we move beyond the vast record of loss, violence first generation of unionised autoworkers Steve Bracks with Ellen Whinnett and political domination. to suffer income depreciation to find artists MUP. PB. $34.99. Ebook $14.95 On the fiftieth anniversary embracing the vast derelict spaces, igniting At 38, Steve Bracks made a of Australia’s first involve- the potential of an arts-based urban renewal. promise to himself that he ment, Bruce Davies and Gary McKay take Brissenden moves easily from Los Angeles to would one day be premier of a journey back to the front line, accom- Mexico, Miami to Cuba, always with an eye Victoria. By 1999, he had panying two Australian veterans as they for the contested space, be it land, ideol- done exactly that – coming retrace the footsteps of soldiers, politicians ogy or identity. The chapters segue neatly into an office he would and villagers. A meticulously researched to provide both the hint of a narrative and occupy for a further eight study that charts the experience of battle as never before. 12 Readings Monthly August 2012 QF32 Thinking in Numbers Richard de Crespigny Daniel Tammet Pan Mac. PB. $34.99. Ebook $19.99 Hodder Headline. PB. $29.99 On 4 November 2010, In Daniel Tammet’s world, Qantas flight QF32, en numbers are beautiful and route from Singapore to mathematics illuminates our Sydney, came within a lives and minds. Here, he knife’s edge of being one of shares his unique insights the world’s worst air and delight in the way that disasters. In other hands, the patterns, fractions and plane might have been lost equations underpin all our with all 469 people on board, but a lives, inspired by everything from the supremely experienced flight crew, led by complexity of snowflakes to Anne Boleyn’s Captain Richard de Crespigny, managed to sixth finger. An elegant equation of sense, land the crippled aircraft safely. Tracing logic and imagination. Richard’s life and career up until that fateful flight, this is a blow-by-blow James Halliday: account of the disaster, as told by the A Life in Wine captain himself. James Halliday Hardie Grant. HB. $45 Batavia Known for his witty and Peter Fitzsimons informative writing about . PB. Normally $34.95 wine, as well his immensely Our special price $29.95 popular annual Wine In 1629, the pride of the Companion, James Halliday Dutch East India Company, is one of our most respected the Batavia, sailed on its critics and industry veterans. maiden voyage from His career of over 40 years Amsterdam to the Dutch has taken him from Coldstream Hills in the East Indies, laden down Yarra Valley to Bordeaux and Burgundy, and with the greatest treasure here he recounts, in his inimitable style, the ever to leave Holland. Yet events, people and, most importantly, the magnificent ship was also boiling over vintages that have shaped his life to date. with a mutinous plot just about to break open, and when it struck an unseen reef in the middle of the night off the coast of Western Australia, the result was a bloody and chilling shipwreck that would become FHistoryishing Fleet: Husband one of the greatest and most brutal stories Hunting in the Raj of our history. Anne De Courcy W&N. PB. $29.99 From the late nineteenth- century, when the Raj was at Biography & its height, many of Britain’s young men went to India to Memoir work as administrators, A Life with Books soldiers and businessmen. Julian Barnes With the advent of steam . PB. $4.95 travel, countless young In this beautifully designed women (suffering at the lack of eligible men long essay, Booker Prize- in Britain) followed in their wake. The story winning novelist Julian of this amorphous band of daughters, friends Barnes (The Sense of an and sisters – known as the Fishing Fleet – is Ending) writes eloquently on brought to vivid life by Anne De Courcy. his early encounters with literature – from his youngest memories to his obsession with book-collecting, as well as his time spent in second-hand bookshops OPoliticsur Kind of People across the globe. Specially commissioned to Uzodinma Iweala support Independent Booksellers Week, A John Murray. PB. $29.99 Life with Books is an ode to the physical HIV/AIDS is more divisive object and its long-term survival. and destructive than any other disease – tearing apart The Search for communities and ostracising Anne Perry the afflicted. In Our Kind of Joanne Drayton People, novelist Uzodinma HarperCollins. PB. $32.99 Iweala embarks on a remark- In 1994, director Peter able journey across Africa, Jackson released the film meeting people from all walks of life who are Heavenly Creatures, based struggling with the epidemic. This is a on the infamous 1950s heart-breakingly honest account of the crisis matricide committed in and a continent’s desperate struggle. by two teenage girls embroiled in Winner Take All: an obsessive relationship. At the race for the the time of the films release, crime writer world’s resources Anne Perry was publically outed as Juliet Dambisa Moyo Hulme, one of the murderers, shedding Allen Lane. HB. $45.00 new light on her personal life and her Dambisa Moyo cuts through novels, which often featured gruesome the misconceptions and noise deaths. Now, acclaimed biographer Joanne surrounding resource scarcity Drayton turns her eye to Anne herself, with her sharp and cutting interspersing her story with an examina- analysis. As she examines the tion of her writing, characters and her operations of commodity books, which deal with miscarriages of markets and the geopolitical justice, family secrets exposed, punish- shifts they have triggered, she ment, redemption and forgiveness, themes reveals the hard facts behind the insatiable global made all the more poignant in light of demand for economic growth. Instead of Anne’s real-life past. another polemic, Winner Take All is a clear-eyed look at the realities we need to face in order to start planning for a balanced and peaceful global economy in the twenty-first century. Readings Monthly August 2012 13 Now You See It: how technology ACultural History of Studies the and brain science World in 100 Objects will transform Neil MacGregor schools and business Penguin. PB. $24.99 for the 21st century A golden galleon, a Stone Cathy N. Davidson Age tool, a credit card – Viking. PB. $23.95 every object tells a story. In Now You See It, Cathy N. This astonishing history Davidson argues that our records the world and our schools and businesses are place in it in an entirely new designed for the last century, way, through 100 things we not for a world in which have either admired or pre- technology has reshaped the served, used or broken, salvaged or thrown way we think and learn. away. It will take you on a journey back Backed by extensive research in time and across the globe, to see how that uses a combination of scientific we have shaped our surrounds, and been research and real-world application, shaped by them in turn. Davidson presents us with a possible future of work and education, from schools with curriculums built around video games to workplaces that use virtual environments to HPhilosophyow Much is Enough? train employees. Money & The Good Life Robert & Edward Skidelsky Fifty Minerals that Penguin. HB. $35 Changed the Course In recent years, economic of History growth has been regarded as a Eric Chaline self-evident good. But now A&U. HB. $35 there are signs that this shared This is a fascinating compen- assumption is weakening. dium of the metals, alloys, Anger at ‘greedy’ bankers and rocks, organic minerals and their bonuses has given way to gemstones that humans have a deeper dissatisfaction with used as the building blocks of an economic system geared overwhelmingly their material cultures. From to the accumulation of money. In How Much flint and obsidian to bronze is Enough? Robert and Edward Skidelsky and iron, it explores industry argue that wealth should not be thought of as and trade from their earliest histories, and an end in itself, instead offering a radical new marvels at the extraordinary works of art model in which income distribution is based produced in gold, silver, ivory and jade by the on happiness, environmental impact and great civilisations. what human beings might really want. Minding the Earth, Mending the World Susan Murphy Science Picador. PB. $32.99. Ebook $16.99 Chickens In this passionate and Peter Doherty surprisingly optimistic book, MUP. PB. $29.99. Ebook $14.95 Susan Murphy reminds us of Throughout history, birds of the astounding resourceful- all kinds have been recruited ness of nature that exists by humans to help us under the strain of the interpret our increasingly developing catastrophe. By unpredictable world, sampling the atmosphere, using fresh eyes to view the oceans and forests, and current state of emergency, she delivers a signalling toxic and environ- fascinating rethink of the crisis we face, mental dangers. Studying birds has helped challenges the stories we tell ourselves us to understand the nature of human about the world, and suggests ways cancer and malaria, and contributed to the humanity might become the solution rather development of new vaccines and cures. than accept its role as the problem. Applications Open Soon Through personal stories and fascinating examples, Nobel Prize-winner Peter Doherty explains the wonders of avian Every year, 10% of Readings profits go to The Readings biology, and argues for the close and Humour sustained care of our feathered friends. Tony Speaks! The Foundation. The Foundation makes grants to support Wisdom of the Abbott Subliminal: Black Inc. individuals and organisations that work for the the revolution of Black Inc. PB. $9.99. Ebook $4.99 the unconscious Opposition Leader Tony development of literacy, community, and the arts. and what it teaches Abbott – Australia’s irre- us about ourselves pressible mad monk and 2013 Project Grant Applications will be open from Leonard Mlodinow purveyor of infinite gems of Allen Lane. PB. $27.99 political wisdoms. As the September 1, 2012. Over the past two decades Bible says, by his words you scientific researchers have shall know him. In the This is a wonderful opportunity for individuals and arts developed remarkable tools grand tradition of Bushisms for probing the subliminal and The Wit of Whitlam, here are the organisations with Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR) workings of the mind, sayings of Tony Abbott packaged into one leading to amazing new hilarious volume. Hear the man himself status to be able to bring their creative or literacy-related discoveries. In this highly speak on issues ranging from poverty (‘We readable book, Leonard just can’t stop people from being homeless projects to life that otherwise would never have had the Mlodinow employs his trademark wit to if that’s their choice’), honesty (‘One man’s funds. For all enquiries, or to make a donation to The unravel the complexities of the subliminal lie is another man’s judgement call’), self and reveals how the unconscious mind climate change (‘absolute crap’) and Readings Foundation, email [email protected]. shapes our experience of the world far more women’s rights (‘But what if men are by than we realise, from our relationships with philosophy or temperament more adapted family, friends and business associates to to exercise authority or to issue com- the way we handle money and even our mand?’). All this and much, much more. own pasts. 14 Readings Monthly August 2012 Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops WithFood Chris Gordon,& Wine Readings Carlton WithArt Margaret & Snowdon,Design Readings Carlton Jen Campbell Murdoch. HB. $14.99 Polpo: A Venetian The Nightingale First sparked by a John Cookbook (Of Sorts) and the Rose Cleese tweet about pet Russell Norman Oscar Wilde & Del Kathryn peeves, Weird Things Bloomsbury. HB. Normally $55 Barton (illus.) Customers Say in Bookshops Our special price $44.95 Dott Publishing. HB. $79.95 has morphed from hugely As if you didn’t know this – Del Kathryn Barton came to popular blog to hilarious Polpo is the hottest restaurant wider notice when she won book. Here you’ll find a in London town and here the Archibald Prize in 2008 collection of the most Norman serves up traditional and her large-scale, distinc- peculiar, entertaining and absurd requests Venetian food that is fussy, tive watercolours have since that are bandied about the shop floor (‘Can innovative and absolutely gained a dedicated following. books conduct electricity?’, ‘My children delicious. This collection of Barton’s subject matter is are just climbing your bookshelves: that’s 140 recipes shows you how to frequently dream-like or ok... isn’t it?’ and ‘Excuse me... is this book recreate a little of the great floating city in surreal, and Oscar Wilde’s beautiful fairy tale edible?’). Accompanied by wonderfully your own kitchen. There are recipes for fizzy The Nightingale and the Rose is a perfect comic illustrations by the Brothers McLeod. Bellinis, warm duck salad with wet walnuts vehicle for her work. This special, limited and beets and, of course, tiramisu! The edition publication includes 20 paintings photography of Jenny Zarins, as well as the and drawings that celebrate the wild energy mouth-watering dishes, makes this cookbook and transformational power of love. far from typical. GrJournalsiffith REview 37: Parkett 90 Small World Simon Bryant’s Vegies Bice Curiger (ed.) Julianne Schultz (ed.) Simon Bryant Parkett. PB. $89.95 Text. PB. $27.99. Ebook $12.96 Penguin. HB. $39.99 Self-described as the most As a nation girt by sea, Simon Bryant, star of comprehensive and innova- Australia has always consid- ABC’s The Cook, has tive series on contemporary ered travel central to its brought forward a vibrant art worldwide, Parkett is identity: from Indigenous and inspiring collection of cherished by art-lovers, people to the passengers of delicious and exciting artists, museums and the First Fleet. We are a (really) vegetarian recipes in galleries – and rightly so. nation of immigrants, his latest outing. Here, he The series is published twice tourists and expats who are provides inspiration by creating wonderful a year and showcases a range of important more at home than ever in the global village combinations of vegetables as the centre of artists. This particular instalment caught where boundaries and borders are constant- a meal, shares brilliant tips for selecting my eye because it features El Anatsui, a ly shifting. Small World explores the way we quality fresh produce and enlightens his Ghanain sculptor in his late sixties only travel now, whether it’s exploring wild, audience with cooking techniques that will recently discovered by the West. His works dangerous or weird places, or journeying make any ingredient shine. This book is an here are amazing massive sculptural abroad not as passive tourists but as absolute godsend in a world of blanched ‘curtains’ constructed from recycled metals. engaging individuals. This edition also vegetables. More at www.parkett.com. considers how technology – from planes and television to social media and interna- Home-Made Europe: tional banking – has changed our sense of James Halliday Contemporary Folk the world and our place in it. Australian Wine Artefacts Companion 2013 Vladimir Arkhipov James Halliday Fuel. HB. $39.95 Hardie Grant. PB. Normally $36.95 In this book, Vladimir Arkhi- Our special price $32.95 pov gathers together objects TrMusicy Whistling This: James Halliday’s Australian made by everyday people Writings on Music Wine Companion is the who have been inspired to number one bestselling create something unique, guide to wineries and wine Black Inc. PB. $32.99. Ebook $14.99 rather than buy manufac- in Australia. Keenly antici- tured goods. His archive Perceptive and entertaining, pated by winemakers and Try Whistling This is a includes hundreds of objects wine lovers alike, the 2013 created with idiosyncratic functional journey through music, edition has been completely ideas, sound and history. qualities: an Austrian ski-bob made using an revised and updated to bring you up-to- old bicycle frame, a device from Germany Based on Andrew Ford’s the-minute information. acclaimed radio show, Music that enables a musician to play three brass and Fashion, this collection Halliday shares his extensive knowledge tubas at once. These items are born not only brings together writings on of wine via detailed tasting notes, each of necessity, but also from enjoyment of the everything from dirty dancing in the of which includes vintage specific ratings homemade, or in pursuit of a hobby. The sixteenth century to the bugbear of and advice on optimal drinking, as well as book features 230 individual artifacts from Australian musical identity, as well as alcohol content, price and a value rating. right across Europe, accompanied by profiles on Brett Dean, Cole Porter and He provides important details on wineries commentary from the makers. Bob Dylan. A brilliant exploration of the – including opening times, contact details, intersection of words and music and, above vineyard sizes and websites – in addition to Vassilieff and His Art all, the art of listening. biographies on each and information about Felicity St. John Moore the winemakers. Macmillan Art. PB. $69.95 Danila Vassilieff is a passion- Abbey Road The History of ate, freedom-loving Cossack Alistair Lawrence who burst upon the Austra- Bloomsbury. HB. $79.99 Australian Wine lian art scene in the mid-30s The first photographic Max Allen and is posited here as the celebration of the most MUP. HB. $49.99 missing link in the story of famous recording studio in The History of Australian twentieth-century painting the world, Abbey Road is an Wine is an account of in Australia. This critical iconic piece of musical firsthand recollections from survey of Vassilieff’s works and sculptures is history. With unprecedented winemakers, cellar hands, richly illustrated, documenting his creative access to the studio’s archive, business leaders and grape output in both areas and exploring the this stunning hardback growers, offering personal leavening effect he had on the art of Nolan, features glimpses of recording artists such as insights into how Australian Tucker, Hester, Perceval, Blackman and Edward Elgar, and Kate Bush, as wine has received its Boyd (namely, how his unconventional well as material on the engineers, technology phenomenal and well-deserved international vibrancy gave them courage in a conservative and the history of Abbey Road itself. For reputation. Allen takes us from the time of culture). We also discover the moving story anyone who values music and how it’s made. the horse-drawn plough in the vineyards to of a legendary character who died poverty- innovative winemaking technology that is stricken in 1958 at the age of 60 – a moving used today, giving an insight into the personal struggle of an artist and an indi- pioneers of this vast industry. vidual worthy of a novel. Readings Monthly August 2012 15 cryptic crosswords and even a recipe for his Novelty famous meatloaf. In amongst all this MoMA Play town madness, there is a rather intriguing story Museum of Modern Art about two very different but equally clever twins, their slightly eccentric but very & Laura Ljungkvist (illus.) New Kids’ Books Hardie Grant. $32.95 The Magical Life brilliant inventor father and his obsessive of Mr Renny ex-student. It’s great fun and the illustrations Build a colourful, slot- by Jeremy Holmes are fabulous. AC together cityscape and fire Book of the Month Leo Timmers up imaginations with this Empty Fridge Gecko Press. PB. $15.99 The Beginner’s Guide unusual set. Artist Laura Gaetan Doremus Mr Renny’s paintings are Ljungkvist has helped to Wilkins Farago. HB. $27.99 so good they almost appear to Revenge design this innovative new It’s been a busy day, you real, but no one seems to Marianne Musgrove toy that includes illustrated haven’t even thought of pay them any attention Woolshed Press. PB. $15.95 buildings for you to finish colouring – and dinner, and when you look in until a strange man offers Young teens Romola and Seb plenty of space to add your own artistic the fridge it’s empty. What to to bring them to life. don’t have their dads at inclinations. This is a gorgeous addition to any do? How about visiting the Entranced, Mr Renny home. Romola’s is a soldier nursery, playroom, classroom or coffee table. neighbours to see if together begins to paint as many wonderful posses- in Afghanistan, and Seb’s is you might have enough food sions as he can – a car, a four-tier cake, a just AWOL from his family, The Sounds of to make a meal? That is the dirigible – but has he sold out, and what his place about to be filled by Star Wars simple premise of this delightful picture book about his art? A beautiful tribute to the work a new man. Seb can’t handle set in a busy five-storey apartment block. of Belgian surrealist René Magritte. it and wants to get his own J.W. Rinzler back. When Romola’s plans for a fresh start Scholastic. HB. $69.99 Each household is drawn with intimate detail, In this aurally astonishing from the homeless man with his shopping Ten Tiny Things at school are scuppered by a mean girl, she gets a taste for revenge too. But where will it and visually engaging book, trolley at the bottom of the stairs through the Meg McKinlay New York Times bestselling bike-mad bachelor and the busy family. Each & Kyle Hughes-Odgers (illus.) end? The dual narrative works brilliantly and readers will love Romola and Seb and their author J. W. Rinzler reveals of the neighbours is given a different colour Press. HB. $24.99 genuine, platonic relationship. A moving the illuminating history of representing the food they contribute, and as Tessa and Zachary have a read for sophisticated ages 9 and up. EG the sounds that make the they climb the stairs the colours amass. machine that is swift and Star Wars universe so believable. An attached In the top-floor apartment, Rose gets a splendiferous. Every day it sound module lets readers listen to more than carries them from here to On Two Feet and Wings brainwave to make a quiche. Everyone works Abbas Kazerooni 250 effects, while more than 300 photographs together to cook their communal meal and there and back again. Then, illustrate the epic’s memorable scenes. one morning, the machine A&U. PB. $15.99. Ebook $12.79 when they take it outside, they discover that Abbas is alone in Istanbul the whole neighbourhood has gathered to eat breaks down and Tessa and Zachary are Classic of the Month forced to venture into the world beyond its after fleeing Tehran to avoid together, with music, merriment and laughter. becoming involved in the The Silver Sword This beautiful evocation of modern living metal walls – a place of secret somethings Ian Serraillier and hidden happenings. Getting from here Iran-Iraq war. As a nine-year- and the pleasures of sharing by French author Vintage. PB. $9.95 to there may never be the same again. old boy forced to leave his and illustrator Gaetan Doremus was first parents and trying to make it This classic tale of a family published in France and won a prominent Junior Fiction to safety, family and educa- torn apart by war still kids’ choice award there in 2010. It has been tion in England, he is resonates as much today as lovingly translated and published in English Judy Moody and the cautious and industrious, growing up fast as when it was first written so that now everyone from three-year-olds to NOT Bummer Summer he navigates his way around a dangerous city. nearly 60 years ago. Based on adults can enjoy its delectable delights! Megan McDonald Abbas is a delightful character, able to protect true accounts from Angela Crocrombe is from Readings St Kilda & Peter H. Reynolds (illus.) himself in risky situations, form valuable during and after World War Walker. PB. $15.95 friendships and find ways to make money. II, three children must fend It’s bad enough that Mum Based on the author’s own true story, this is for themselves after their parents are taken Picture Books and Dad are heading to an exciting account of courage and survival. away by Nazis. Then they meet Jan, a ragged California, leaving Judy and Kim Gruschow is from Readings Hawthorn homeless boy and discover the silver sword, DADS: A Field Guide Stink with Aunt Awful (er, given to him by their father. Hope and Justin Ractliffe & Cathie Glassby Opal), but now Judy’s two Phyllis Wong and courage propel this extraordinarily powerful Random. HB. $19.95 best friends are going the Forgotten story as they all make the perilous journey to Well, as we know dads are splitsville. Just when it looks Secrets of Mr Okyto be reunited with their family in . pretty special. Not only did like her summer is going to Geoffrey McSkimming It’s now available in the new Vintage Classics they help make us but they Children’s Collection and is well worth be bor-ing, Judy comes up with the most A&U. PB. $14.99. Ebook $11.99 do a lot of dad things and rediscovering or reading for the first time. AC thrill-a-delic plan. Get ready for a race – This is an enthralling book this book celebrates them. involving tightrope walking, monster- They come in all shapes and full of myths, magic and wave-surfing and more. mystery. Phyllis Wong enjoys The Joy of Fairy Tales sizes, and whether they play Gill Davies (ed.) footy or cook, are small or big, we are very learning magic tricks, and Middle Fiction her father, Harvey Wong, Worth Press. HB. Normally $29.99 lucky to have them. All Readings shops have a Our special price for August $24.95 great range of books about dads and kids, Star says she has inherited her Catherine Bateson great-grandfather’s love. Yet This elegant and stunningly including My Dad Thinks He’s Funny by illustrated collection includes Katrina Germain and Tom Jellet (Walker, PB, Omnibus. PB. $16.99 when Phyllis sees her friend, Star and her mum try to get Mrs Lowerblast, life becomes much more a wonderful array of fairy $16.95), My Dad’s the Coolest by Bruce tales: Aladdin, Cinderella, Whatley and Rosie Smith (Scholastic, PB, on with their lives after her than magic tricks. One of Mrs Lowerblast’s dad dies, but it’s not easy with most expensive pieces is stolen and replaced Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, $16.99), Brilliant Stuff to Do with My Dad by The Emperor’s New Clothes, Michael Cox (Scholastic, HB, $12.99) and unpredictable artist Charlie with a fake before her very eyes. and his bratty kids hanging The Ugly Duckling and more. Big Brave Daddy by Smiljana Coh (Random, Only Phyllis can unravel this mystery, but around. Star desperately wants The book also traces the HB, $22.95). can she find out who stole it and how? a best friend, and for most of development of these well-loved stories, Alexa Dretzke is from Readings Carlton When Phyllis links disappearances of rare the story the reader fills that exploring how each developed, changed and and expensive things, her quest to find the role, making this a gorgeously intimate book. spread – and discovers authors and illustrators robber will become more difficult and dan- The Frank Show While Star’s grief is genuine, it’s not oppressive who’ve lent their voices and art to these gerous. Phyllis Wong and the Forgotten Secrets David Mackintosh and the story is fun as well as moving. She classics along the way. of Mr. Okyto is a book full of fantasy and HarperCollins. HB. $24.99 needs someone to listen to her thoughts and I magic. I loved it! In his first picture book was very happy to, but as she already has plenty Snippets (Marshall Armstrong is of grown-ups in her life, give this lovely book Review by Kate Taylor (12 years old) In a first, A Monster Calls New to Our School) to girls ages 9 and up. (Walker, PB, $16.95) by Marshall was so eccentric Emily Gale is from Readings Carlton After Patrick Ness and Jim Kay that he became cool. In Morris Gleitzman (illus.) has recently won both this new book he has to The Templeton Twins Viking. PB. $19.99 the Carnegie and Kate give a talk to the class have an Idea: Book 1 The next instalment of the Greenaway medals. Based on about a family member story begun in the award- a concept by Siobhan Dowd, and he only has his grandad, Frank, avail- Ellis Weiner Holmes & Jeremy herself an award-winning Holmes (illus.) winning Once is now out. In able. Other kids seem to have far more this book Felix faces perhaps author (who died before the book was interesting family members to talk about but Hardie Grant. HB. $22.95 his greatest challenge – to published), Ness’s writing is powerful and what can he say about his old fashioned If you like books that are a find hope when he’s lost honourable, raw and unsentimental. The grandfather? It turns out Frank actually has bit silly, very funny and almost everything, including haunting artwork is compelling and darkens interesting stories to tell and is a big hit with teach you weird stuff, then his parents. As Europe goes the story with appropriate menace. This sad, the kids. What do you know of your you will love this book. The through the final stages of the war, Felix harrowing, but at the same time uplifting, grandparents? Maybe it’s time to hear some narrator is a rather finds some consolation in a new friend but book deserves all the accolades it has got. stories about the ‘olden days’. I love both of self-absorbed character who he’s afraid he might lose her as well, and he these books; they celebrate individuality and is constantly telling you struggles to reconcile his hatred with his champion the unexpected hero, and the how fabulous he is, asking need to heal. artwork is lots of fun. AD you questions about the story and giving you strange tidbits of information like how to do 16 Readings Monthly August 2012

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Turkey: recipes and The Great LIFE Charles Dickens: A Life Footprints in Paris tales from the road Photographers Claire Tomalin Gillian Tindall Leanne Kitchen LIFE Magazine HB. Was $39.95. Now $16.95 PB. Was $32.95. Now $12 HB. Was $69.99. Now $29.95 PB. Was $45.00. Now $24.95 Charles Dickens: A Life is the This unique, involving book Take an evocative journey This book brings together examination of the Dickens evokes the texture and into the diverse cuisines work from renowned LIFE we deserve. It gives full atmosphere of a hidden Paris and culinary customs of photographers and includes measure to his heroic that has survived against all regional Turkey. The the odds. Gillian Tindall is 100 portfolios, including stature, while observing his recipes in this book traverse Alfred Eisenstaedt, Margaret well known for her ability to the extremes of sophistica- failings with an understand- Bourke-White, Carl Mydans, breathe a passionate life into tion, from the refined ing but unblinking eye. Gordon Parks, W. Eugene the generations of those who cooking of the Ottoman have walked this earth before us. Here, using court to the rustic simplicity of peasant food. Smith, Robert Capa, Ralph Civilization: the west a handful of lives and a specific location to Morse, Nina Leen and more. and the rest MoVida Cocina exemplify, she focuses on a few of the oldest Hitch-22 Niall Ferguson streets in the city’s Latin Quarter. Frank Camorra & HB. Was $49.95. Now $16.95 Richard Cornish Christopher Hitchens HB. Was $39.95. Now $16.95 What was it about Western Einstein’s Riddle HB. Was $49.95. 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But the question today ing, the puzzles challenge is whether the West has lost its monopoly on our preconceptions, tell us about how we Bourke Street Bakery If the Dead Rise Not these six things. reason and provide a rigorous intellectual Paul Allam & David Philip Kerr workout. McGuinness Tasting India PB. Was $21.95. Now $10 HB. Was $69.95. Now $29.95 This time, it’s 1954 and Christine Manfield Peter the Great The original Bourke Street Bernie Gunther has resur- HB. Was $89.95. Now $39.95 Derek Wilson Bakery is situated in the faced in Havana. Life is Journey through India PB. Was $39.95. Now $12 foodie enclave of Sydney’s relatively peaceful, but the with Christine Manfield, There has never been a more Surry Hills, a cosy nook world-weary ex-cop discovers tracing the food, spices remarkable national leader in selling artisanal baked goods. that he cannot outrun his and culture of this modern history than the amazing country. Cook Their book is the ultimate past when he collides with an Russian Tsar, Peter the Great your way through more companion for both novice old lover and a vicious killer (1672-1725). He was a giant home bakers and profession- than 250 recipes and in every way – physical from his life in Berlin. Alternating between plan your travels using the extensive als of the crust-and-crumb world. stature, willpower, enthusi- the flamboyant corruption of Batista’s Cuba directory of recommended places to stay, eat and Nazi Germany during the build-up to and shop. asm, energy and libertinism. I Kill the 1936 Olympiad, this is the story of one Refusing to accept old conventions, he stood Giorgio Faletti of the great characters in crime fiction. The Most Beautiful head and shoulders above his contemporaries PB. Was $32.95. Now $10 Mozart Manuscripts and grew up in an atmosphere of fear, A detective and an FBI Life suspicion and violent court rivalries. agent embark upon the most Keith Richards Gilles Cantagrel HB. Was $105.00. Now $19.95 harrowing case of their HB. Was $39.95. Now $16.95 Are We There Yet? An abundantly illustrated careers as they attempt to The long-awaited autobiography Alison Lester track down an enigmatic work that provides a HB/Gift set. Was $29.95. Now $15.95 of the guitarist, songwriter biographical guide to the killer; he announces his and founding member of the From much-loved heinous acts in advance with great genius himself through Rolling Stones, Keith his most beautiful manu- children’s author Alison desperate phone calls before Richards, who, during his Lester comes this gift set mutilating his victims. scripts, including letters and time with the legendary scores in Mozart’s own hand, containing the classic Are We Atlas Pocket group, created the songs that as well as portraits, contem- picture book roused the world. porary testimony and documents. There Yet?, a 200-piece Travellers: France jigsaw puzzle and a pack Robert Louis Stevenson, Tiepolo Pink Little Bird of Heaven of specially designed playing cards. James Fenimore & Edith Roberto Calasso Joyce Carol Oates Gastronaut Wharton (Introduction by HB. Was $75.00. Now $15 PB. Was $22.95. 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The of the mysterious conjunc- culinary experiences, arcane Cooper’s Gleanings in France life of an epoch swirled around him, and tion between erotic romance and tragic information and practical and Edith Wharton’s A while his contemporaries appreciated and violence returns to the emotional terrain of recipes for all of us who will Motor-flight through France. This set is a admired him, they failed to understand him. Oates’s previous bestsellers. spend over sixteen percent of our lives cook- must-have for any Francophile. ing and eating. The Illustrated Revolution in Mind The Bookshop, Gormenghast Trilogy George Makari Thucydides: the The Gate of Flowers Mervyn Peake HB. Was $45.00. Now $10 reinvention of history & The Blue Flower HB. Was $45.00. Now $19.95 In this brilliant, engaging Donald Kagan Penelope Fitzgerald Enter the world of Gor- and accessible history, PB. Was $39.95. Now $12 HB. Was $33.95. Now $16.95 menghast. The vast crum- renowned psychoanalyst The grandeur and power of Penelope Fitzgerald began bling castle to which the George Makari goes past the Thucydides’ The Pelopon- her writing career in 1975 at seventy-seventh Earl, Titus heated debates to tell the nesian War has enthralled the age of 59 and over the Groan, is Lord and heir. fuller story of the origins of readers, historians and next two decades published Titus is expected to rule this psychoanalysis. Beginning statesmen alike for two and a three biographies, nine Gothic labyrinth, but things with the great changes in half millennia. A work that novels and a collection of are changing in the castle late nineteenth-century to science, medi- has had an enduring short stories. Three of her and Titus must contend with a kingdom cine and philosophy, Makari traces the influence on international acclaimed works are about to implode beneath the weight of field’s diverse intellectual influences and the relations and war, from the time of its author gathered here in one volume. centuries of intrigue, murder and treachery. fascinating characters right up until 1945. until present day. Readings Monthly August 2012 17 Sporting Nation $29.95 with Gerard Elson The man behind The Games New Release DVDs asks the question: what’s with Australians and sports? Over A Separation The Rum Diary three hour-long episodes, $39.95. Blu-ray $49.95 Released August 8 John Clarke interviews star DVD of the Month This year’s Oscar-winning $39.95. Blu-ray $44.95 athletes, chats with fanatics Le Quattro Volte Best Foreign Language Film Johnny Depp + Hunter S. and meets cynics all in an $29.95 arrives on home formats Thompson + Bruce Robin- effort to get to the bottom of The list of films prompted by comfortably swaddled in son, director of Withnail and this national passion. the writings of Pythagoras near-universal acclaim. I. Need I say more? This long-gestating adaptation of must surely be brief. Indeed, Detailing the legal, social and The West Wing were it comprised of nothing Thompson’s fictionalised (Complete Series) emotional quagmires an account of his post as a but this remarkable debut Iranian couple must negoti- $99.95 from Milanese filmmaker journalist in San Juan in the ate after attempting to file for divorce, this is Across 44 discs and 154 Michelangelo Frammartino, it late 1950s is as raucous, caus- scintillating drama, both surprising and tic and bleary-eyed as fans of the writer – or episodes, Aaron Sorkin’s would still represent a trailblazing US presidential formidable tribute. Taking the ancient Greek morally complex. ‘This is one of the best Depp’s previous turn playing him in Fear films of the year.’ —Paul Byrnes, The Age. and Loathing in Las Vegas – could hope. drama unfolds in its full thinker’s notion of ‘transmigration’ – that is, idealistic, razor-tongued the soul’s passage through the four stages of glory. With Sorkin’s The A Dangerous Method Powell and earthly being: human, animal, plant, mineral Pressburger Classics Newsroom the current toast – as its throughline, Frammartino’s playful $39.95. Blu-ray $49.95 of TV, there’s never been a better time to docudrama details the life cycle in and around Michael Fassbender is Carl $9.95 each revisit – or acquaint yourself with – this a rustic, contemporary Calabrian community. Jung and Viggo Mortenson Available for the first time on modern classic of American television. (plus cigar) is Sigmund Freud DVD as standalone releases Here, dust swept from a church floor is in this country, each of these ingested by an elderly goatherd for its believed in this elegant period drama four films from the legendary Downton Abbey: remedial properties, and the four-legged stock about the early days of filmmaking partnership of Season 2 are themselves delightfully framed as the psychoanalysis from David Michael Powell and Emeric $44.95 farmyard’s natural physical comics. Fram- Cronenberg (Cosmopolis, A Pressburger is a towering Julian Fellowes’ wonderful martino’s camera has a way of prefiguring History of Violence). Compli- classic. 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With this, Frammartino berg] is also one of the most scrupulous and reawakened sexuality of a convent of nuns in the conflict will undoubtedly announces himself as a readymade master Black Narcissus is both destabilising and change the great house and searchingly intelligent.’—Philippa Hawker, brilliantly executed. Meanwhile, The 49th – simply put, Le Quattro Volte is a near- The Age. its inhabitants forever. With an all-star cast masterpiece. Parallel and The Life and Death of Colonel including Dame Maggie Smith, Hugh Blimp are no less than two of the finest films Bonneville, Elizabeth McGovern, Brendan set during wartime ever made. The Kid with a Bike This Must Be the Place Coyle, Joanne Froggatt and Dan Stevens. $29.95 Released August 8 $39.95 Blu-ray $44.95 The Ealing Comedy Few filmmakers understand Collection Muddy Waters & The the urgencies of childhood Sean Penn as a shock-haired Rolling Stones: Live as well as the Belgian goth rocker? It happened. Released August 15 at The Checkerboard brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Moreover, writer/director $34.95 Paolo Sorrentino (Il Divo) Each film in this five-disc Lounge Dardenne (Rosetta, The $19.95 Child). Their newest offering managed to convince the box-set is a much-beloved notoriously self-serious actor classic from the studio Way back in 1981, The – the story of a 12-year-old Stones were in the midst of a to become not just an responsible for giving British boy abandoned to foster care comedy its good name. massive American tour. When by his irresponsible father – is, improbably, absurdly ageing scarecrow of a Generously priced – it works they hit Chicago, they perhaps their loveliest yet. First centring on muso, but one who resolves to track down the out at just $7 per film – this stopped off at The Checker- itchy-footed Cyril’s twin quests for his Nazi war criminal who tormented his father, is a superb opportunity to board Lounge to catch the set absconded father and his suspiciously no less, making this about the unlikeliest star revisit your favourites, or acquaint yourself of one of their true heroes, the missing bicycle, the arrival of a compassion- vehicle we’re likely to see this year. ‘Penn finally with the signature works of the late, great Muddy Waters. ate hairdresser (Cécile de France) opens this shows us something we hadn’t seen much world’s oldest continuously operating film Not only was the fiery old bluesman in fine up beautifully into newish territory for the from him before – a sense of humour.’—Peter studio. Includes Passport to Pimlico, Whisky form, he also hauled Mick, Keith, Ronnie and Dardennes: the neo-realist urban fairytale. Bradshaw, The Guardian. Galore!, The Lavender Hill Mob, The Maggie Ian Stewart up on stage for an all-star jam. A and School For Scoundrels. beautifully remastered release.

New Release CDs CD of the Month Pop/Rock Broken Brights Cut the World (Live) Bear Creek Slay Me in My Sleep Angus Stone Antony & the Johnsons Brandi Carlile Grand Salvo Normally $26.95. Our special price $21.95 Normally $29.95. Our special price $22.95 $19.95 $24.95 Deluxe edition $34.95 Antony Hegarty is always This is album number four Melbourne musician Another solo project from striving for purity of vision for Carlile and it’s a sweet Paddy Mann has been the sibling duo Angus & and Cut the World is his and soulful collection. She quietly going about his Julia Stone. This time round closest manifestation of it. has such an expressive voice business for some years it is Angus’s turn. After big Recorded live in Copen- that works so well with her now under the guise of sister Julia charmed us with hagen in September 2011 indie/country-rock inspired Grand Salvo. His sixth her second solo effort By the with the Danish National Chamber Or- songwriting. Think Alison Krauss meets album, Slay Me in My Sleep, has seen him Horns, Angus releases an even better album. chestra, the new record showcases Antony’s Bonnie Raitt and you’ll know whether this is shift to Berlin, and producer Nils Frahm impressive catalogue. The title track is a new the girl for you. Her lyrics reflect on her life as has fleshed out Mann’s stark sound with A huge step forward from his previous album composition, and the album also include a maturing artist, and even at only 30 she some lovely arrangements and some Smoking Gun, this is full of great songs, my two half-minute monologues of Antony’s seems a little nostalgic for her recent youth. singularly beautiful piano playing. Also on own favourite being the first track, ‘River aspirations for a matriarchal world. This But it’s all fun anyway, according to her songs, board are local favourites Laura Jean and Love’, a slow-building Mumford & Sons-style beautiful record succeeds in highlighting Luluc’s Zoe Randell for a of folk-rock gem. The whole album has a great and that’s all that matters. Antony’s musical genius. star-crossed lovers and another gorgeously feel to it with – dare I say it – a touch of Neil Alice Bisits is from Readings Malvern Michael Awosoga-Samuel is understated addition to Mann’s impressive Young sensibilities when he decides to from Readings Carlton turn up the volume. One of my Australian body of work. albums of the year. Declan Murphy is from Readings St Kilda Dave Clarke is from Readings Carlton 18 Readings Monthly August 2012 Another Country Cassandra Wilson $29.95 New Release CDs continued You have to acknowledge Hundred Dollar that this is an artist whose Valentine appeal and longevity Chris Smither The Tarnished Gold Last Laugh for comes not just from a $26.95 Beachwood Sparks the Landscape beautiful voice, but the The first thing that strikes $24.95 The Single Men’s ability to adapt and remain you when listening to Life moves in slow motion, Drinking Club creative over the years. The album is a Hundred Dollar Valentine time to smell the freshly $21.95 tribute to a sense of self and place. Be it is just how much the feel mown grass, gaze at the Melbourne-based five- New Orleans, Italy or New York, these and tone is steeped in the stars and watch the ocean piece The Single Men’s songs express the attraction and ambience past, yet also manages to roll in. Welcome to the Drinking Club are known of the places Wilson obviously adores. It’s sound so in the now. Smither has delivered world of Beachwood for their intense, hard- bluesy, it’s bossa, it’s nostalgic and at times a traditional roots-laden album with Sparks and their warm, dreamy journey hitting live shows. In this, meditative and always enjoyable. Think rhythms and vibes anchored in today. Since through summer afternoons or log fire their debut album, the outdoor café, summer and the sea. AB the 60s he’s been giving us sparse songs of winter nights. The Tarnished Gold, their first band captures the essence of these perfor- love, longing and loss delivered in his world release since 2003, sees the Californian mances with a powerful 11-track collection. weary voice, with his trademark and band continue on from previous gems with Many of these songs have been their bread unmistakable acoustic guitar. Amazingly more atmospheric, roots alt-rock, pedal- and butter of the last year or so. this is his first album of self-penned tunes, steel charm. From the warm and beautiful Country of which the conversational hymn-like ‘On Combining violins, Hammond organ and Traveler opener, ‘Forget The Song’, to the sensitive Jerry Douglas the Edge’ is a highlight. LF closer, ‘Delicate’, and everything in driven , frontman Tom Hoskins between, Beachwood Sparks deliver a weaves dirty, dark twisted tales over urban $21.95 classic. backdrops with an almost Australian feel. Jerry Douglas’s Dobro Stand-outs are ‘Prostitutes and Cigarettes’, skills have made him the Lou Fulco is from Readings Hawthorn ‘The Getaway (I Know)’ and the downbeat, top player in Nashville. Folk/World loungey ‘Dirty Love’. His distinctive tone has Songs for Desert Mid Air graced some 1800 sessions Dave Mather is from Readings Carlton Refugees Paul Buchanan and been featured on the Various $26.95 The Soul of wonderful BBC series Transatlantic Sessions, $26.95 Paul Buchanan, the lead fusing Celtic and country. Douglas is also a This benefit CD features singer for The Blue Nile, Spain gigging musician with his own band and $24.95 electric guitar-based music has finally released his first has been a part of Alison Krauss and Union from the Southern Sahara/ solo album, Mid Air, eight Spain’s 1995 debut, Blue Station since 1998. Traveler is very much Moods of Spain, promised Northern Mali regions. All years after the last Blue an exploration of American roots music, the right names are here: Nile record. Buchanan’s so much but subsequent and this time Douglas explores the musical releases failed to excite. Tinariwen, Tamikrest, voice is graced with the hushed tonality of a grounds of New Orleans, helped out by Tartit and newcomer Bombino, with Sinatra-era crooner and the record is Now, after a significant artists like Dr John, Keb Mo, Paul Simon, hiatus, Josh Haden (son unreleased material. It’s all good, but a essentially a collection of ballads that sits Mumford & Sons, Alison Krauss and fierce acoustic piece called ‘Blues du Desert well with the plaintive quality of timeless of jazz great Charlie Haden) and band have sometimes Dobro player Eric Clapton. returned with an offering reminiscent of the (Part 1)’ from the Ibrahim Djo Experience Blue Nile classics A Walk Across the Rooftops and an incandescent 13-minute live slice of and Hats. Until that final Blue Nile release, excellence of their first album. Moody, slow There are highlights aplenty here – including tempo songs of love and loss abound and the truly rocking lap steel instrumental ‘So electric guitar alchemy from Bombino are we have this cherished offering as well as mighty impressive. PB Allan Brown’s excellent book on the group, with a couple of pleasantly rockier excep- Here We Are’, a gritty version of Simon’s ‘The Boxer’ and the funky ‘High Blood Nileism. MAS tions, this is liquored-up late night music The Tel Aviv Session at its best. Pressure’ with Dr John and Keb Mo, as well Anastasis as the beautiful Dobro medley ‘American The Toure-Raichel Collective Dead Can Dance Tune/Spain’. $24.95 Paul Barr is from Readings Carlton Every now and again Released August 17 musicians who have never $21.95 Soundtrack Uncaged played before get together to Vinyl also available (released August 27) The Sapphires have a musical conversation It has been 16 years since Various Zac Brown Band $19.95 and create sound magic. the recently reunited group $21.95 This is one of those very rare Dead Can Dance released The 1968-set Australian Zac Brown Band have become one of America’s spontaneous collaborations that comes along their last album, Spirit- film musical The Sapphires and exceeds all expectations (Ry Cooder and chaser. The core, founding – written by the son of one most heralded acts, with their first two albums Vishwa Mohan Bhatt’s Meeting by the River members of the group, of the band’s original springs to mind). Raichel is a big star in Israel Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrrad, say the members – received a selling squillions and winning a host of major and he is a man on a musical mission, but his title for their new album comes from a standing ovation at Cannes considerable chops as a piano player require a Greek word ‘that roughly translates as and is preparing for much local adoration awards. The band has toured extensively and has become a staple on the festival more sympathetic setting than his band “rebirth” or “resurrection”, which we felt and toe-tapping. The soundtrack features normally allows him. Toure has the famous was a suitable title for our reunion’. renditions of the catchiest 60s soul tunes as circuit – for a primarily country act this is quite rare, yet the truth is that their tunes family name and rising status as an African Simply put, Anastasis is a beautiful and sung by some of Australia’s best indigenous guitar hero. This time round his relatively vocal talent, including the incredible Jessica appeal to fans of all music. The songs are an impeccably executed album. It continues amalgam of pop, country, bluegrass, reggae unheard virtuosity as an acoustic player has along a very similar path to that of their Mauboy. Along with songs already in your emerged in spectacular fashion. head by the end of this review like ‘I Can’t and Caribbean, not unlike Jimmy Buffett previous work in its remarkably atmo- but with a bigger sound. There is a lot to The two had only met briefly on the way spheric combination of European folk Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)’ and ‘I Heard it Through the Grapevine’, the like here and it is hard not to get caught up to somewhere else and finally got down to elements (particularly from the Renaissance in their infectious havin’-a-good-time jam in a Tel Aviv studio for a few hours. and Middle Ages), ambient pop and world original modernised-60s track ‘Gotcha’ will delight and entertain. sound. Assured and confident, this is a Toure brought with him his percussionist and music references. band at the top of its game. LF Raichel a player friend. There were no Fiona Hardy is from Readings Carlton Miranda La Fleur is from Readings St Kilda plans – they just played, and as the rhythm Carry Me Back section locked into some grooves, some- Swing Lo Magellan Old Crow Medicine Show thing happened. What does it sound like? Dirty Projectors $22.95 Imagine a leaf floating down a river going $24.95. Vinyl also available Jazz Who loves a hootenanny? over pebbles and waterfalls, lingering in Swing Lo Magellan is a Sleeper Well batten down the rockpools and coming to rest in a peaceful collection of moments: Keith Jarrett hatches, folks, because one lake. PB accidental, fortuitous, $39.95 of the best old-timey string spontaneous – and the This long awaited double bands around are back in Also Out Now band’s finest album to CD release sees Keith town and my how we’ve Sarah McKenzie / Open Your Eyes date. The performances Jarrett’s ‘European missed them. Recorded at the legendary Elton John vs Pnau feel warm and imperfect. It’s an album that Quartet’ of Jan Garbarek, Sound Emporium studios in Nashville, Karise Eden / My Journey comes from the hearts of one of the most Palle Danielsson and Jon Carry Me Back is the fourth studio album Return to Forever / Mothership Returns fearlessly thoughtful bands of the last ten Christensen here on this from the barn storming OCMS. For fans Soundtrack / Treme (Season 2) years. Dirty Projectors have both the live recording from 1979. This remarkable and newcomers alike, it’s all here on this Liz Green / O Devotion handmade intimacy of a love letter and the album reveals anew the unique and record. Carry Me Back is a fantastic sonic Robert Randolph / Live in Concert widescreen grandeur of a blockbuster, and compelling sounds of this band and is a representation of this wonderful band’s Neil Diamond / Hot August Night 40th An- if that sounds like a paradox – it’s because it most welcome release from one of jazz’s career to date yet also pushing their sound niversary Edition was until now. greatest artists. and songwriting in a new direction. Giddy Frank Zappa / Catalogoue reissues up! DM Readings Monthly August 2012 19

J.S. Bach: Motets self-contained, single-acts but were originally John Eliot Gardiner, composed to be performed together. Il the Monteverdi Trittico comprises of ‘Il Tabarro’, ‘Suor & English Baroque Soloists Angelica’ and the very famous ‘Gianni Schicchi’. This production was conducted by Classical CDs SDG. SDG716. $26.95 Antonio Pappano at the Royal House passionate personalities of the time. This Firstly, although, yes, it’s in 2011. They’re quite unusual productions 5-CD box-set covers the full gamut of very shallow, I love the cover visually, but I found them extremely Classical CD emotions, from the happiness of the Pastoral of this album. I feel like it engaging, along with the high quality of the Symphony to the majesty of the Symphony sums up Bach in a single musical interpretation unleashed on these of the Month No. 9. Daniel Barenboim leads the West- picture – we’re always teeter- three DVDs. KR Tchaikovsky: Eastern Divan Orchestra beautifully and his ing on the edge of possibili- The Seasons love for this music is obvious in every phrase. ties while being grounded enough to casually Mozart: He once commented that ‘Beethoven’s music hold our shoes in one hand. Sir John Eliot Grigoryan Brothers Gardiner is our guide through the Motets of Mark Wigglesworth & Which Way Music. WWM014. $24.95 is for everyone, everywhere’ – and I think this Teddy Tahu Rhodes with small but significant set proves it. KR Bach and since he’s had the treble parts It seemed like the Grigo- memorised since he was 12, I think he’s ryan Brothers hadn’t Tchaikovsky: Complete impressively suited to the role. Immediately Opera Australia. 3 DVDs. OPOZ56023DVD. recorded classical music for Orchestral Suites apparent from the opening notes, he got me $39.95. Also available in CD ($31.95) and quite a while, so when this on the moments of silence in which you Blu-ray ($43.95) recording came across my Sir Neville Marriner literally hold your breath waiting for the next Right from the first desk I was pleased and Brilliant Classics. 94372. 2 CDs. $12.95 note. These are lovingly recorded and a must spine-tingling chords of curious to see how these pieces, written for I am a devoted and, to be for any fan of Bach or vocal music. KR drama, I was hooked to piano, would work in a guitar duo setting. honest, almost obsessive fan this new Opera Australia I needn’t have worried. From the opening of Tchaikovsky’s ballets, so Song of the Reeds production of Don notes you are drawn into the music and in I was horrified when I Albrecht Mayer Giovanni. With Mark realised that I didn’t know no time at all you’ve forgotten that these are Decca. 4783564. Normally $26.95. Wigglesworth at the his Orchestral Suites. This arrangements of piano pieces. They have Our special price $21.95 helm, this was always going be solid and been skilfully arranged by Edward Grigo- reissue from the Brilliant Classics label, full There is something truly delightfully fantastic at the same time. Teddy ryan, the father of Slava and Leonard, who of the soaring tunes we know and love, is marvellous about a really Tahu Rhodes is gorgeous and the first we see is a very fine musician in his own right. welcome indeed. Sir Neville Marriner is the good oboist, and Albrecht of him is a figure climbing down a ladder in The playing of the brothers is of course of conductor of the Radio-Sinfonieorchester Mayer is considered one of teeny-tiny black shorts – but don’t let that the highest quality, and you would expect Stuttgart and you can certainly feel his deft the best in the world. His distract you. Everyone is equally as strong in nothing less from these talented musicians. touch in these works. KR choice of repertoire is, as acting and singing, particularly Conal Coad If you’ve never heard these works before then always, inspired with a seamless blending of as Leporello. Have a night at the opera from this is a great place to start. Stradella: La Susanna traditional and contemporary music. Markus the comfort of your own home with this Phil Richards is from Readings Carlton Claudio Astronio/ Becker is the pianist – as well as the composer DVD. KR Harmonices Mundi – on the album and they’re joined by Tabea Joan of Arc: Brilliant Classics. 94345. 2CDs. $14.95 Zimmermann on viola and Marie-Luise Batailles & Prisons Oratorio is a genre of Neunecker on French Horn. Just delightful. KR Jordi Savall composition sometimes left Classical Special Alia Vox. AVSA9891. 2CDs & Book. $62.95 by the wayside beside the Thames Diamond larger spectacle of opera. of the Month Joan of Arc is one of the Jubilee Pageant Borodin: String most romanticised saints Alessandro Stradella was David Parry & the London in popular culture. Her life composing during the Quartets 1 & 2 height of its popularity and La Susanna is Philharmonic Orchestra and death were so dra- LPO. LPO0063. $29.95 Borodin Quartet matic that she continues to considered something of a swan song for this Chandos. CHAN9965. Normally $26.95. flamboyant composer (as well as part of the To celebrate Queen inspire artists today. Jordi Elizabeth’s Diamond Our special price $14.95 (while stocks last) Savall originally wrote the soundtrack for sub-genre of ‘erotic oratorios’). Although This recording, which I based on the Bible, it’s the story of the Jubilee, the London Jacques Rivette’s movie Jeanne la Pucelle Philharmonic Orchestra believe was done in 1979 and, inspired by that vision, dedicates his woman who is constantly seduced and and 1980, is a perfect accused of adultery. There’s some stunning has recorded and released new album to the ‘mother figure’ of French an official companion CD. example of what happens independence. It is full of compositions singing in this recording and it is a fantastic when great music is rendition of a great oratorio. KR This is unashamedly naff, with songs like from Joan of Arc’s era, infused with the the Radio 4 UK theme, as well as that of performed by great Hesperion XXI attention to detail and James Bond, alongside Fantasia on musicians. From the opening bars, the musicality. While each track seems some- Bruckner: Borodin Quartet play so brilliantly that the Symphony No. 7 Greensleeves and the Overture to HMS what imbued with sadness, this 2-CD Pinafore. Just for fun and to celebrate a listener is swept away with the sheer beauty of release with accompanying book will be a Daniel Barenboim pretty amazing woman and her untiring these works. Borodin is one of those compos- wonderful addition to any collection. DG. 4790320. $24.95 efforts. KR ers who to me is often neglected, but his Kate Rockstrom is from Readings Carlton Anton Bruckner’s life and ability to write beautiful melodies is unques- works are so opposite in tioned and these quartets only reaffirm that. Beethoven for All: style that you wouldn’t Highly recommended. PR Symphonies 1–9 believe they were in any way tied to the same artist. PClassicaluccini: Il Tr DVDsittico Daniel Barenboim and next month & The West-Eastern The grandiose symphonies, Antonio Pappano & the Royal especially the Symphony No. 7, nicknamed Opera Chorus & Orchestra Keep a lookout for our fabulous Classical Divan Orchestra ‘Lyric’, cannot be further from his simple Box Set Sale in September, which will include Decca. 4783511. $42.95 Opus Arte. OA1070D. 3DVDs. $49.95 taste and total humility in the face of On 14 December 1918, 50% off a range of extraordinary performances Ludwig van Beethoven was overwhelming popularity. We’re lucky to and recordings. A full list will be available not only considered one of Puccini had three have Daniel Barenboim with the Staatska- premiered by the Metro- at www.readings.com.au at the start of next the greatest composers who pelle Berlin tackle this work and, with the month. Don’t miss out. ever worked in the Western politan Opera. These three vigour of a live recording, this is a great one performances are quite Art Music Tradition but was to add to the collection. KR also one of the most unique in that they are each

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