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Announcing the winner of the Readings Children’s Book Prize

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NEWS May 2021 READINGS MONTHLY 3

News Sales & Promotions Mother’s Day Readings Children’s Book Prize winner The Stella Prize winner It’s Mother’s Day on Sunday 9 May. We’ve We are thrilled to announce the winner of The Stella Prize for 2021 has been included some handy gift ideas in this issue the 2021 Readings Children’s Book Prize awarded to Evie Wyld for The Bass Rock, of the Readings Monthly to help you find is As Fast As I Can by Penny Tangey! This a compelling novel that explores three 20% off all books at Readings the perfect bookish present. You’ll also find thrilling and entertaining sporty adventure generations of women, hundreds of years Malvern plenty of ideas in our seven shops. Please will delight readers ages 8 to 12. As the apart, all linked by a shared trauma. The We’re offering 20% off all books at note that our online shipping deadline 2021 winner, Tangey will receive $3,000 in Stella Prize celebrates the best books by our Malvern shop from Monday 17 has passed, and delivery is no longer prize money. The Readings Children’s Book Australian women and non-binary writers, to Sunday 23 May. This special sale guaranteed to arrive in time for Mother’s Prize aims to raise the profile of exciting and offers prize money of $50,000. Find out is available in-store only and is not Day, but our shops are all open and our emerging Australian children’s authors. For more about the prize and The Bass Rock at available at any other Readings shop well-read staff are readily available to assist more information about the prize and our thestellaprize.com.au or online. The discount applies to the you with finding the perfect gift. full judges’ report, head to page 5. recommended retail price and is not valid with any other offers or discounts. Queenscliffe Literary Festival Queenscliffe Literary Festival is on again in 2021, bringing a program of events 25% off Princeton University designed to stimulate thought and Press titles discussion. This year’s theme is ‘Rethink’ We are offering 25% off an exclusive and the festival will run across three range of paperbacks from Princeton weeks, from 14 to 30 May. To see the full University Press until 31 May at our program and to purchase tickets, visit Carlton and Hawthorn shops, as well queenscliffeliteraryfestival.com.au as online (use the code PRINCETON at check-out). Offer valid on stickered, in-stock titles only. Not applicable with 3MBS live broadcast at any other offer. Readings Carlton On Friday 14 May, 3MBS will be broadcasting live inside Readings Carlton Penny Tangey special prize pack from 4 to 7pm. We are offering 10% off To celebrate Penny Tangey winning classical music CDs and DVDs for 3MBS the 2021 Readings Children’s Book subscribers during the month of May. This Prize we are offering a special price on offer is available in our Carlton, Hawthorn Tangey’s middle-grade books As Fast and Malvern stores, and is not valid with As I Can and Stay Well Soon. The pack any other offers or discounts. The discount will be $26.99 (save $5). Offer available applies to the recommended retail price. while stocks last.

READINGS MONTHLY EDITOR ADVERTISING PRICES AND AVAILABILITY Free, independent monthly newspaper Jackie Tang Lucie Dess Please note that all prices and release published by Readings Books, Music & Film [email protected] [email protected] dates in Readings Monthly are correct at time of publication, however prices SUBSCRIBE EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS GRAPHIC DESIGN and release dates may change without You can subscribe to Readings Monthly Judi Mitchell & Lucie Dess Cat Matteson notice. Special price offers apply only for and our e-news by visiting our website: the month in which they are featured in readings.com.au/sign-up PROOFREADER CARTOON Readings Monthly. Joanna Di Mattia Oslo Davis DELIVERY CHARGES FOR COVID-19 MAIL-ORDER & OVER-THE- KIDS & YA CURATORS FRONT COVER While all title release dates were correct PHONE PURCHASES Angela Crocombe & Dani Solomon The May Readings Monthly at the time of going to press, due to the $6.50 flat rate to anywhere in Australia for cover features artwork by Emma Currie. ongoing COVID-19 crisis the unexpected orders under $120. Free shipping for orders MUSIC & DVD CURATOR See more at www.emma-currie.com may happen along the supply chain. $120 and over. Dave Clarke Please bear with us as we bring you books in these rapidly changing circumstances. DELIVERY CHARGES FOR CLASSICAL MUSIC CURATOR ONLINE PURCHASES Phil Richards $6.50 flat rate to anywhere in Australia for Readings donates 10% of its profits each orders under $120. Free shipping for orders year to the Readings Foundation: EVENTS & PROGRAMMING $120 and over. readings.com.au/the-readings-foundation Chris Gordon 4 READINGS MONTHLY May 2021 COLUMNS Mark’s Dear Reader THE Say with Alison Huber CHIEF with Mark Rubbo Jamie Marina Lau was shortlisted for the 2018 Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction for her standout debut, Pink Mountain on Locust Island. This unique novel won the author many fans, with many of our WITNESS I was doing a bit of tidying staff among its greatest champions. Lau’s follow-up is the brilliantly titled up the other week and Gunk Baby. Largely set in the hermetic world of a shopping centre, this stumbled upon our clever narrative is cut through with incisive critiques of consumer culture and commentary Christmas catalogue for on the hard work it takes to be in the company of other people. Lau’s is an exciting and 1988. It was a modest distinctive voice, and Gunk Baby is our Fiction Book of the Month. Also out this month are production and interestingly a lot of the Australian debuts from Clare Moleta, Hugh Breakey, and Angela O’Keefe, and an historical A shocking books we advertised then are still in print, epic from Anita Heiss. The Sweatshop literacy movement from Western Sydney has and I was struck by how the prices then produced an excellent new anthology on the topic of racism; Ellen van Neerven had edited depiction of one aren’t much different now. In 1988 Bruce Flock, a collection of short fiction by First Nations writers. Chatwin’s The Songlines was $12.95. Using In international news, our reviewers recommend the new work from Rachel Cusk, of the world’s the RBA’s inflation calculator that would Jhumpa Lahiri, Jon McGregor, Jeff VanderMeer, Sunjeev Sahota, Maggie Shipstead and make it $30.21 in today’s dollars, but instead, Rahul Raina. There’s much else besides, but I’m definitely on the lookout for the new novel most ruthless it’s only $14.99. It was also the year Salman by Robert Seethaler (I loved A Whole Life). If you have missed reading the magnificent Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses came out; the Shuggie Bain (famous for winning the 2020 Booker Prize, as well as being The Last Book I regimes — and hardback was $29.95, or in today’s dollars, Read Before the Pandemic Began), it’s out in a new edition this month. It’s exciting that a $69.86. Interestingly, a movie ticket in 1988 couple of our resident staff experts/artists have reviewed two books in graphic format this was $6.30 and now it’s $20.50. So in 1988, month: Two-Week Wait and Still Alive. Our poetry enthusiast this month recommends the story of one The Songlines was double the cost of a movie Lucy Van’s The Open. ticket and today it’s 27% less. Commentators Kathryn Heyman’s memoir, Fury, is our Nonfiction Book of the Month. The timing of woman’s fight to often talk about modern technology this outstanding example of life writing couldn’t be more apposite. As a young woman, becoming cheaper but one of the oldest and Heyman’s experience as the victim in a sexual assault trial compounded her trauma, escape China. most precious forms of technology, a book, setting her on a path of self-discovery that is unusual and compellingly told. This well- is considerably less than it was 33 years ago. crafted book is a voice of reckoning, and a gift for readers whose collective fury has been It’s also interesting to note that our 1988 galvanising in recent months. Also out this month is Kaya Wilson’s anticipated memoir, As catalogue only featured one cookbook. Beautiful as Any Other, which our reviewer calls courageous and stunning; Kate Holden’s A few weeks ago, when I opened wide-ranging investigation into the killing of environmental officer, Glen Turner, The the review section the Australian, I was Winter Road, compared favourably here to the great works of crime reportage; Stranger delighted to see a whole page devoted to Care from the original hand of Sarah Sentilles, who takes readers deep into her experience three new Australian YA books. One of them, of being a foster carer; and Krissy Kneen’s intimate memoir of family history, The Three The Gaps, was by my colleague Leanne Hall Burials of Lotty Kneen. who has worked with Readings for many Stan Grant has written a blistering provocation for Black Inc.’s Writers on Writers series, years, and whose previous books have won focusing on Thomas Keneally’s The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith; if you’re yet to read a several awards. The reviewer speculated book in this series, please don’t miss this one. New publishing kids on the block, Ultimo that The Gaps could well be the best YA Press (I should clarify – this company actually comprises some of the most accomplished novel published this year. It’s a brilliant professionals in the industry), have their first book hit the shelves this month: The Last novel about the abduction of a teenage girl Correspondent by Michael Smith. The excellent First Knowledges series is a collaboration and of the unlikely friendship that develops between First Nations and non-First Nations writers exploring different themes; Songlines between two students at a privileged girls (October 2020) was the first book, and Design is out this month. Other nonfiction school in response to the abduction. This highlights include new writing from Richard Flanagan, Malcolm Gladwell, Janine Burke, year, three more of my colleagues will have Geoffrey Robertson, Patrick Radden Keefe, and Irvin and Marilyn Yalom, as well as books published. In September, Readings selected writings of the late, great historian, Inga Clendinnen. Prize manager and Readings Foundation And finally, dear reader, this time last year, Mother’s Day celebrations across Victoria were grants officer Gabrielle Williams will publish likely conducted over Zoom, Houseparty, FaceTime, or perhaps the ancient technology of the her fifth YA novel. Titled It’s Not You, It’s Me; telephone. Hopefully they’ll be in real life this year. If you’re looking for gift suggestions for the the premise is very intriguing, involving time maternal figure in your life, turn to page 12 and 13 for some ideas, from our family to yours. travel, body shifting and a mystery. Sean O’Beirne had his collection of short stories, A Couple of Things Before the End, published just before lockdown last year. Helen Garner has been a great supporter of Sean’s writing, On Events having read a draft of the collection, and with Chris Gordon launched the finished book with a lovely speech at Readings Carlton. Sean is also a ‘If you great admirer of Helen’s work and has been Goodness I have felt worn out these last few weeks by the behaviour of so commissioned by Black Inc. to write on many of our leaders. I find listening or reading other people’s stories the thought Helen for its Writers on Writers series. This easiest way to sidestep the blues. I know I always feel better when I get to comes out in October – I suspect it will be a share, laugh or learn from my community. another labour of great love. Finally, Miles Allinson We are completely spoilt for choice this month, but I admit to being has a follow-up to his marvellous novel, Fever very excited to be spending some time with Judith Lucy. She is drop-dead funny, and of Animals, coming out in September. Miles she will be talking about her new book, Turns Out, I’m Fine in person at The Collective in Holocaust received a State Library Victoria Creative Carlton (Tue 11 May). This is her most candid and insightful book yet, where she figures out Fellowship to work on the new book, In what went wrong and then turns her attention to forgetting other people’s expectations to could never Moonland. It’s a portrait of three generations, find out what her life might look like if it went right. each grappling with their own mortality. I’m Another wonderful woman, historian Dale Kent, stopped listening to other people a long aware of at least a few more ‘Readings’ books time ago. Together with the Future Women club, we are delighted to bring you a discussion happen, pick that are in the pipeline too. between Kent and Clare Wright as they discuss Kent’s The Most I Could Be (Wed 19 May). In this University High School is one of feminist memoir spanning continents and a lifetime of scholarship, Kent recounts the battles up this book.’ Melbourne’s most prestigious government she faced as a female scholar. Linda Jaivin would also be familiar with such battles. She and CLIVE HAMILTON schools and fittingly, its library has a her friend Kevin Rudd joins us to discuss her new book The Shortest History of China (Thu 27 marvellous collection. A lot of that was May). Her book is a view of China from its philosophical origins to its various political systems, down to the work of Rob Castles and his and I am sure discussion will lead to the country’s more recent history as well. colleague Kate Marquad. Rob sadly passed Of course, I am thrilled that this month we also have events with such kind and generous away a few weeks ago after a long battle men like activist Scott Ludlam (Tue 6 May), philosopher Peter Singer (Thu 13 May) and Hugh with cancer. A week or so before that, he Mackay (Wed 12 May). Mackay’s latest book, The Kindness Revolution, reflects on the lessons we contacted me and I asked him how he was are learning from the pandemic – about making personal sacrifices for the common good and going. He replied: ‘This dying business is valuing our relationships. Imagine how different our society could be if we were to apply those tedious and hard work though I have to say. lessons more widely. Imagine how our leaders could lead. Imagine who our leaders would be. Can’t say I’d recommend it to anyone!’ The Be sure to visit readings.com.au/events to book tickets to these fabulous conversations staff at Readings Carlton will miss him. and for more information about our online and in-person events. PRIZE WINNER May 2021 READINGS MONTHLY 5

As Fast As I Can Penny Tangey UQP. PB. $16.99 Available now

We’re beyond excited to share As Fast As I Can with new readers, and are pleased to offer it in a prize pack with Tangey’s previously shortlisted book, Stay Well Soon, at the special price of $26.99 (was $31.99).

The Readings Children’s Book Prize

2021 Winner Claire Penelope by Photo

Introduced by Clare Millar, who works for praised how realistic the primary school setting and Congratulations again to the five authors who were Readings Online and is the chair of the Readings friendships felt, as well as Tangey’s ability to handle shortlisted alongside Tangey: Nat Amoore (The Power Children’s Book Prize 2021 judging panel. sensitive topics and changes in Vivian’s family. Gale said: of Positive Pranking), Danielle Binks (The Year the Maps Changed), Maxine Beneba Clarke (Aussie Kids: Meet ‘Tangey’s depiction of a primary Taj at the Lighthouse), Amelia Mellor (The Grandest We are thrilled to share that the winner of the Readings Bookshop in the World) and Kirli Saunders (Bindi). Our Children’s Book Prize is As Fast As I Can by Penny school felt like a real and down-to- judging panel wouldn’t be the first to note the absolute Tangey! This thrilling and entertaining sporty adventure earth slice of Australian life, and I excellence of Australian children’s books in 2020. will delight readers ages 8–12. loved her deft handling of friendships Emily Gale was instrumental in establishing this Ten-year-old Vivian has her life sorted already – she’s and family dynamics. Above all, prize in 2014 to celebrate books that children and determined to go to the Olympics. She just doesn’t know families will love, and to raise the profile of exciting Vivian’s humour, honesty, hopefulness in which sport! She’s tried nearly everything, but once emerging Australian authors. Seven years later, it she finds her love of cross-country running, she becomes and grit make her a memorable and is a privilege to work with Gale again and hear her even more determined and trains hard. Everything enduring character.’ invaluable thoughts on Australian children’s publishing. changes however, when a family illness is discovered. About the prize, she said: As Fast As I Can is a beautiful story about dreams, This is the second time Tangey has been shortlisted resilience and determination. Vivian is a fierce character, for this prize; her first middle-grade fiction novel, ‘Awards that actively promote whose honesty and, at times, stubbornness drive the plot. Stay Well Soon, was shortlisted in 2014. Her young Australian literature to the public, When Vivian’s dream is challenged, Tangey demonstrates adult novels, Clara in Washington and Loving Richard and remunerate emerging writers, an exceptional ability to navigate the reader through Feynman, are also both acclaimed. difficult changes in the family, while also maintaining a In response to her win, Tangey said: are crucial in a landscape where light humourous touch. Tangey is a natural and funny homegrown books have to fight storyteller, and her book will be eagerly devoured by independent readers – especially those looking for ‘I am extremely surprised and excited relentlessly for space. I relished every something sporty – as well as being a fantastic choice for that As Fast As I Can has been book on this list; they all deserve the a family read-aloud. awarded the Readings Children’s Book attention of booksellers, librarians, As Fast As I Can was chosen by a panel of Readings Prize. My eight-year-old is adamant teachers and of course children children’s book specialists – Angela Crocombe (manager of Readings Kids), Sam Kelly (bookseller at Readings that I don’t deserve it. (I won’t say across Australia and beyond.’ Doncaster and host of Doncaster’s middle fiction book which shortlisted book he thinks club), Tye Cattanach (bookseller at Readings Kids), and should have won.) Readings aren’t me – along with our 2021 guest judge, author Emily Gale. just a business they are part of the We were unanimous in our awe for this book. Tangey As the 2021 winner, Tangey will receive $3,000 in prize has crafted a timeless story about finding passions and community and I am personally very money. For more information on the Readings Children’s strength, and listening to our bodies and families. We grateful for their work in promoting Book Prize visit readings.com.au/the-readings-children-s- book-prize were inspired by Vivian’s drive. The judges particularly Australian children’s writing.’ 6 READINGS MONTHLY May 2021 FICTION

Dreams): ‘Using Wiradjuri language on the publisher Scribe into the field of graphic cover of my novel (and throughout the text) novel publishing, which is very exciting for New makes a strong statement … regarding the those of us with our eye on this artform. reclamation and maintenance of the It is a beautifully drawn, heartfelt, real- Fiction traditional language of my family.’ feeling examination of the struggle to However, this love story Heiss has written become parents. gives us more than just statements; it gives Bernard Caleo is from Readings Carlton us the means to engage with our past. When I first picked up Jamie Marina Lau’s debut, Pink Based on true events, Bila Unsheltered Yarrudhanggalangdhuray centres on the Mountain on Locust Island, back in 2019, I was instantly Clare Moleta BOOK OF THE life of Wagadhaany and her life by the intrigued by the sparsely filled pages and short-prose S&S. PB. $29.99 MONTH powerful and beautiful Murrumbidgee structure. It was captivating; almost like reading poetry. Lau’s Available 5 May River. While this novel is essentially a Australian ability to weave a whole novel into only a few staccato In a landscape story of romance, it also encapsulates Fiction sentences filled with emotive language and powerful rent by an an enduring love of Country. When adjectives made me fall in love with both the voice of her undefined climate Wagadhaany meets Wiradjuri stockman character and Lau herself as an author. I had never come catastrophe, societal Yindyamarra (Yindy) they dream of a life across a book like it, distinct not only in subject matter but in breakdown and possible away from ‘White Man’s Law’. We already its ability to ask the fundamental question, ‘what is a novel?’ armed conflict, a know how that turns out, but along the network of refugee riverbanks we are privy to their dreams camps, settlements and Gunk Baby is a beautifully unique novel and aspirations. We are shown how life supply stations house which will be loved by both new and old was and how it could have remained. what remains of humankind. Though it fans of Lau’s work. Heiss’s writing here is different to has echoes of the Australian terrain, the her past work, and she wants readers land beyond the camps remains a largely to take away some important lessons. So naturally when Gunk Baby was announced, I was not hostile environment for its inhabitants. This novel is an epic depiction of First only excited to read Lau’s latest work but to again have my Li’s eight-year-old daughter Matti is out People’s lives before and during white understanding of character, voice and form challenged. When there somewhere. colonisers’ brutality. By recalling the I finally got my hands on the book after a year of waiting, I For Li, on a perilous journey across past against a backdrop of romance, Gunk Baby was surprised to see the format was that of any other novel the uncertain country in search of Heiss’s writing elicits a gut-wrenching Jamie Marina Lau and worried that Lau’s return to a conventional writing style Matti, obstacles and challenges are a response; this is what an excellent writer Hachette. PB. $32.99 indicated the loss of all that made her debut revolutionary. constant: shortages of water, food and can do with their stories. With Bila Available now Thankfully, I was wrong. Gunk Baby is a riveting story, medical supplies are twinned with the Yarrudhanggalangdhuray, Heiss has given told through the eyes of 24-year-old Leen, a young woman threat of epidemics and illnesses. The us a rollicking good read that also offers whose tumultuous past has left her with a fixation for determination and fortitude of Li and some important means of reflection. shopping centres and their ubiquitous nature. Within one of these shopping centres Leen the survivors who aid her search offer hopes to provide human connection and relief by opening a studio dedicated to healing, Chris Gordon is the programming and events fleeting glimpses of optimism, despite offering services such as massage, cupping and ear cleaning. However, Leen soon finds manager at Readings the hardships they all face. In this barren her ability to trust and connect with others challenged by the manipulation, pressure and environment, the rare sense of humanity consumerism inherent to her beloved shopping centre, and by extension, the world. Two-Week Wait: An I.V.F. Story between survivors is a crucial lifeline. The While this book does fit the traditional structure of a novel, Lau maintains her flowing Luke C. Jackson, Kelly Jackson & stakes are raised as time progresses; as prose and evocative language. Staying within the noir tradition of her previous book, Lau Mara Wild (illus.) Li’s search for Matti draws on, her anxiety interweaves her characters’ mundane thoughts and wandering observations with harsh Scribe. PB. $35 and uncertainty regarding her daughter’s realities of violence and unresolved trauma. Gunk Baby is a beautifully unique novel which Available 4 May survival is transferred to the reader. will be loved by both new and old fans of Lau’s work. The suspense and tension created This graphic by debut author Clare Moleta is of the Izzy White is from Readings Carlton novel is a stressful, teeth-clenching variety, as you fictional story based will Li across the dystopic wasteland. on the real-life Will she make it? Will they both make experience of it? Yet, for all the bleakness of this book her away without an explanation, but as Melbourne-based Australian – and by Jove, it is bleak – this novel is a time slips by, he knows he will have to wife-and-husband tour de force. Moleta’s writing is superb, Fiction disappoint her. As she helps him complete writer team Kelly and offering readers a vivid and wholly the task set by past Robbie, he tells her Luke Jackson. The unsettling picture of what may befall what it means to him, describing the work authors are in-vitro fertilisation veterans future generations. As I read this book, The Beautiful Fall he has done and its ultimate destruction as themselves and have interviewed other IVF the soundtrack my brain offered me was Hugh Breakey the ‘beautiful fall’. Robbie realises that his couples in order to create the script for this Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring: at times Text. PB. $32.99 feelings for Julie are similar. He has fallen story of Conrad and Joanne, a couple in harrowing and relentless, yet ultimately Available 4 May in love, and it is a beautiful fall, but it could their late thirties who decide to have a engrossing. This is a sensational debut Thrice now, 179 also end up devastating both of them. child but face fertility hurdles in their way. from a new writer now based in Aotearoa, days apart each Hugh Breakey has imagined a Cue their entry into the demi-monde of and a great addition to the growing time, Robbie Penfold seemingly impossible set of choices for IVF procedures: sperm donation, climate-fiction canon. Read this if you has lost his mind. He the characters in this romantic and quietly endometriosis surgery, embryo loved Weather, The Glad Shout, Parable of suffers from a form of philosophical novel. The importance of implantation … The book demystifies the the Sower or The Road. amnesia which wipes memory and our individual concept of technical processes of IVF for readers, and his memory clean every the past are reoccurring themes, as is the tracks the ups and downs (there are a lot of Julia Jackson is from Readings Carlton six months. No one beauty of finishing something that means downs) on the couple’s emotional knows if it will happen the world to you. rollercoaster. This graphic novel delivers a Flock: First Nations Stories again, but Robbie has to assume it will, and Kate McIntosh is the manager of Readings narrative drenched in technical IVF Then and Now he lives his life accordingly, shut up safely Doncaster procedural detail as well as personal and Ellen van Neerven (ed.) in his apartment, away from everyone, just emotional scenes. There is a lot at stake. It UQP. PB. $29.99 in case. The previous Robbie, the one who Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray is dramatic material. Available 4 May had already forgotten everything once Anita Heiss But it is a graphic novel too, and there is This wide-ranging and before, left him a letter and a box of S&S. PB. $32.99 the vital contribution of the artwork to the captivating anthology mementos, as well as a daily task to help fill Available 5 May ultimate tone of the book. The drawings, showcases both the in the time. He follows these instructions For details on the event for this book, by the talented German illustrator Mara power of First Nations and believes everything the letter tells him. visit readings.com.au/events Wild, are full of light and air. They extend writing and the Why wouldn’t he? Why would former We need more of a friendly hand to the reader of this satisfaction of a good Robbie lie to future Robbie? Surely, if these stories; more necessarily dark, medical, emotional tale. short story. Curated by there’s one person on earth you can trust, novels that reflect Wild’s character design, page layout and award-winning author it’s yourself. Isn’t it? Australia’s colonial past loose, expressive linework make the book a Ellen van Neerven, With less than two weeks to go before through the eyes of First pleasure to read. Her limited colour palette Flock brings together voices from across the forgetting is likely to strike again, Nations women. Anita and pencil-textured drawings make for a the generations. Featuring stories by Tony Robbie meets a woman. The attraction Heiss, award-winning cartooning style which builds an aesthetic Birch, Melissa Lucashenko and Tara June is immediate and appears to be mutual. author and proud both serious and vulnerable, and which Winch, as well as rising stars such as Adam He knows he can’t let her in, not now, but member of the Wiradjuri provides a well-judged complement to the Thompson and Mykaela Saunders, Flock she keeps coming back, and she makes Nation of Central NSW, said in the writing subject matter. confirms the ongoing resonance and life worth living. He doesn’t want to turn of Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray (River of Two-Week Wait marks the entry of local originality of First Nations stories. FICTION May 2021 READINGS MONTHLY 7

The Little Boat on Trusting relationships, with the serve and return of Lane tennis as a metaphor for the ways that we Mel Hall relate to each other, even as we often ignore Fremantle Press. PB. $29.99 bigger issues, encapsulated in Van’s image Available 4 May of Manus detainees on another television Richard runs his screen nearby when she watches the tennis. alternative healing This collection is for a confident poetry centre from an old reader – especially one interested in houseboat in a decolonisation. With long and theoretical scrapyard on Trusting prose poems referencing Foucault Lane. While Richard and Kristeva, as well as poets such as plies his new-age Bishop and Plath, some readers may feel wisdom, disciples Finn overwhelmed. However, Van’s absolute and August help to run strength is infusing small images with the the centre. But warning letters from the emotions of decolonisation. council are piling up and the arrival of a Clare Millar is from Readings online new mystic, Celestiaa Davinaa, is about to rock their world. How many alternative I Said the Sea Was Folded: healers can one small boat hold before the Love Poems enterprise capsizes? Erik Jensen Black Inc. PB. $22.99 Night Blue Available 4 May Angela O’Keeffe For details on the event for this book, Transit Lounge. PB. $27.99 visit readings.com.au/events Available 1 May From award-winning Potent, haunting and writer Erik Jensen lyrical, Night Blue is a comes a tender and debut novel like no other, involving narrative a narrative largely told in sequence of short love the voice of the painting poems. Startling in their Blue Poles. Moving simplicity and their between New York and honesty, the poems Australia, the 1970s and chart the first three the modern day, this years of Jensen’s relationship with his truly original novel explores the artistic life partner, a non-binary composer and of Jackson Pollock and his wife Lee musician. They are love poems, written Krasner, the cultural legacy of Whitlam’s against the complexity of understanding purchase of the painting, and the power of another person. Together they form a art to change lives, and, by turns, a nation. fragmentary memoir of hope, disagreement and love. Australian Poetry International Fiction The Open Lucy Van China Room Have your pick of the bunch Cordite Press. PB. $20 Sunjeev Sahota Available now Harvill Secker. PB. $32.99 I was immediately Available 4 May this Mother’s Day intrigued by My son-in-law’s Merlinda Bobis’s cousin was married introduction to The a few months ago to a Open in which she Punjabi man she’d never describes Lucy Van’s met. The marriage, by poetry as having ‘all her own report, is going doors open’. This is true well. For some of us in – not just in the the West, the idea of an frequent imagery surrounding doors in this arranged marriage seems collection – but that poetry allows Van to completely alien. For Booker Prize- walk through history, while still living with shortlisted novelist Sunjeev Sahota, who the effects of colonisation. It is an explores these relationships in his new invitation to the reader to walk with her. novel, China Room, the arranged marriage The Open comprises four sections: can have tragic consequences. Hotel Grand Saigon, The Esplanade, Mehar grows up in a loving family, Australian Open I and Australian Open albeit one in which she is trained to run II. The first three sections are long poems a household, look after and be obedient broken into parts, with the final section to her husband, and be respectful to her comprising mostly unconnected poems. mother-in-law. Her idyllic childhood is In ‘Hotel Grand Saigon’, Van goes back to disrupted one day when her family is Vietnam to visit her extended family and visited by some awful strangers. These are learn more about her father. At one point, the parents of her husband-to-be, come Van is stuck in a gift shop, unable to speak to inspect her, her cousin tells her. In 10 much of either French or Vietnamese, years they will come for you, he says, and further estranged from her own history. they do. Mehar is married to one of three ‘Possession is a grammatical category. brothers and comes to live in their home. Contraction is a poetic category. Poetry is a She doesn’t see her husband; she doesn’t possessive contraction’ is a line that I was know his name. Occasionally she is told to thinking about for a long time after I read wait in a darkened room, the China Room, it; Van uses poetry to explore not just how and is visited by a man who is kindly but Vietnam and Australia have been and still instructs her on what to do; she doesn’t are possessed by colonisers, but also to try see his face. But there is another man who to unfurl her father’s migration story. visits who is tender and excites her. Which Visit thamesandhudson.com.au At times gritty and grungy, ‘The is her husband? for the whole gift range Esplanade’ and ‘Australian Open I’ explore Many years later Mehar’s great- Australian identity, and friendships and grandson arrives from England; he has 8 READINGS MONTHLY May 2021 FICTION

a problem with drugs and alcohol and under each arm, rather than going down has been sent by his father to stay with with the ship – an act that lands him in his uncle to dry out and get clean. As his prison. The twins run wild while being withdrawal symptoms become evident, ‘raised’ in Montana by their uncle – an his uncle decides to send him to the now excellent painter, a frequent drunk and a abandoned family farm outside the town. very bad gambler. His uncle’s wife despises her husband; she More than a decade later, 13-year-old was in love with another man when her Marian witnesses two pilots performing marriage to the uncle was arranged. At the exhilarating rolls, dives and loops in their farm, the man begins to grapple with his beat-up biplanes. Desperate to fly, she problems of identity and starts trying to leaves school in search of work to fund understand the causes of his behaviour. flying lessons, landing in the world of The two stories weave in and out of each the older, wealthy Barclay Macqueen, other in this wonderful and moving novel. a bootlegger supplying illegal alcohol Mark Rubbo is the managing director of during prohibition. Readings Marian sacrifices everything to harness the same control over her life as she feels Lean Fall Stand when she is flying. In 1949 she attempts Jon McGregor what no one has done before – fly the Fourth Estate. PB. $29.99 great circle around the earth via the North Available 5 May and South Poles. Her plane disappears We start in peril. in Antarctica and she is presumed dead. This is Antarctica; Years later when her journal is discovered the weather can, and we learn the truth of her final flight. will, change without a In the modern day, troubled moment’s notice. This Hollywood star Hadley Baxter is cast to is the first season play the part of Marian Graves in a biopic. working at the bottom Hadley immediately feels a strong bond of the earth for Thomas with Marian as both were orphaned as and Luke whereas children and raised by uncles. As she digs Robert, or ‘Doc’, is an old hand at this, more deeply into the life of her subject, with over thirty years’ experience. But Hadley begins to question whether Marian even Robert isn’t prepared for what goes did actually die. wrong during the storm. What happens Damaged and deeply human, both changes the lives of all three men, and the Marian and Hadley are defiant women lives of their families back home. But desperate to free themselves from what went wrong, and whose fault it is, is constraints and chart their own courses not clear. Robert may have the answers, in life. Both are fearless and determined but he can no longer communicate them. to form connections and push the social Burdened with caring for him, his wife boundaries of their era. This is a wildly Anna’s life is also irrevocably changed exciting story of a female daredevil aviator by the crisis. who refuses to be crushed by society’s Even with its thrilling beginning, I was expectations. Maggie Shipstead’s writing initially unsure if this new novel by Jon is superb and Great Circle is an intensely McGregor was for me. I absolutely adored satisfying read. his Booker longlisted work Reservoir 13, Lou Ryan is the manager at Readings Carlton but I couldn’t quite reconcile the quiet Pick something they’ll love this power of that domestic drama with this How to Kidnap the Rich Antarctic thriller. My concerns, however, Rahul Raina were misplaced. Lean Fall Stand moves Little, Brown. PB. $32.99 Mother’s Day effortlessly from thriller to a much more Available 11 May heart-wrenching story of family and Working his way survival. As always, McGregor’s greatest from being the talent lies in his ability to see every son of an abusive chai one of his characters as a fully-fledged seller to the ‘manager’ human being. Even the most peripheral of one of India’s most of characters has an undeniable humanity beloved television game and a completely original personality. show hosts, Ramesh I don’t think he could write a stock Kumar has done many character if he tried. things, including Once again, McGregor has produced securing the top place at the All India a bold, moving and stunning work of exam, the most important university literature. This is a novel of survival in the entrance exam for school students. The harshest conditions – the terrain of the catch? He sat it for someone else. Antarctic – and in the wake of unspeakable Soon Ramesh is working with his new tragedy and hardship. ‘boss’ – the man he sat the exam for – to Tristen Brudy is from Readings Carlton become as wealthy as he possibly can, escape the poverty that plagued much of Great Circle his childhood and make amends for the Maggie Shipstead mistakes he believes he made in the past. Doubleday. PB. $32.99 But Ramesh finds out the hard way that Available 4 May getting rich is not as easy as he thought. Great Circle is a First, he must prevent his boss from giving brilliantly away their examination secret, while also researched 20th-century avoiding the wrath of a temperamental epic set across Montana, and sleazy TV producer with an agenda Alaska, New Zealand of his own. Plus, Ramesh is falling in love and wartime London. with a beautiful and trusting colleague. A In 1914 Marian sudden kidnapping throws his plans into Graves and her twin chaos and soon Ramesh and his boss are brother Jamie are involved in an increasingly complicated rescued as tiny babies from a sinking web of lies from which they need to Visit thamesandhudson.com.au ship. Their troubled mother deliberately untangle themselves. for the whole gift range disappears as the ship goes down. Their How to Kidnap the Rich is Rahul father, the ship’s Captain chooses to save Raina’s debut novel and touches on a wide his babies, jumping on a lifeboat with one range of issues in India. From a critique FICTION May 2021 READINGS MONTHLY 9

of Western intervention to the treatment writing. Lahiri said in a recent interview of women, to caste, class and corruption, with the New Yorker that she never would Raina’s writing opens a window into the have written this novel in English, and it multifaceted realities of growing up in is indeed starkly different to her earlier India. How to Kidnap the Rich is a fast- works of fiction. paced and darkly humorous novel and Told in sparse, short chapters, the will appeal to those who enjoyed Aravind novel’s unnamed narrator is a single, Adiga’s The White Tiger. middle-aged woman, who is a writer and Julia Gorman is from Readings Carlton somewhat reluctant teacher at a university. The city she lives in is never named, but Second Place she knows it and its people intimately. Much of the novel is made up of her Rachel Cusk small, intimate moments: a conversation Faber. PB. $27.99 overheard at her local swimming pool, a Available 4 May run-in with a stranger at a friend’s dinner Rachel Cusk’s party, a chance encounter with a former Outline trilogy lover. These events are often understated, challenged my and mostly unconnected, but almost understanding of the always punctuated by beautiful moments novel. It is so unlike of clarity and small revelations. Reading what I expect from plot Whereabouts, I couldn’t help thinking or character, that I now of Rachel Cusk’s recent Outline series. no longer read Although different on many levels they contemporary fiction the share this quality where their narrator’s same way. As described in the New Yorker, inner-being is reflected back at them Cusk effected a ‘gut-renovation’ of the through conversations and observations of ‘Astonishing … HUGH MACKAY ‘Searing, thrilling form, crumbling literary conventions, and the world around them. This book will ignite shows how to find and redemptive. her latest novel, Second Place, continues It should be said that readers hoping dinner tables and the best in ourselves A demonstration this revamp in riveting ways. for an armchair tour will be disappointed. Zoom groups all over and in our society, of how courage and Second Place begins with the narrator, Only the tiniest clues are given that we are M, a writer, describing an unnerving the country, which is and how crises can fury and words can in Italy, and maybe Rome, but otherwise encounter with a devil-like figure on a just as it should be.’ turn out to be the save you.’ Lahiri’s lack of use of the classic Italian Paris train. This encounter, along with making of us. tropes are stark and pointed in their the art exhibition she viewed the day CLEMENTINE ANNA omission. This is a novel about its narrator before, completely uproots M’s life. The FORD FUNDER and the people around her. paintings, by L, have a profound effect on her – immediate and free, they are Joe Rubbo is the operations manager at bold declarations of a self that contains Readings the whole world. Fifteen years later, now living on a salt marsh on the English Love in Five Acts coast with her second husband Tony, the Daniela Krien & narrator invites L to stay on their land, in Jamie Bulloch (trans.) the ‘second place’. She thinks the artist will MacLehose. PB. $32.99 truly see the landscape where others have Available now failed. But she also hopes he will see her, Paula, Judith, Brida, and show her who she really is. Malika and Jorinde. Love M is a quintessential Cusk character in Five Acts explores – smart, a little hazy around the edges; what is left to these five a woman in crisis, stirring things up. women when they shake Her quest for freedom teeters on the off their roles as wives, destructive. Cusk has drawn inspiration mothers, friends, lovers, from Lorenzo in Taos, Mabel Dodge Luhan’s sisters and daughters. As memoir of D.H. Lawrence’s fraught visit teenagers they witnessed to her artists colony in New Mexico. Cusk the fall of the Berlin Wall, but freedom calls Lawrence her ‘mentor’; The Rainbow brings with it another form of pressure: the is one of her favourite books. While a brief pressure of choice. epilogue explains that Second Place is a tribute to Luhan’s spirit, it is arguably The End of Men also Cusk’s exploration of her own artistic Christina Sweeney-Baird relationship to Lawrence’s legacy. HarperCollins. PB. $29.99 Cusk’s novels sit between reverie Available 5 May and reality; she’s always at the centre Dr Amanda Maclean is of them, even if she’s tangibly invisible. called to treat a young For fiction, Second Place is painfully man with a mild fever. unfictitious about relationships, desire, Within three hours he and art. I love it for this. dies. The mysterious Joanna Di Mattia is from Readings Carlton illness sweeps through the hospital with deadly Whereabouts speed. The victims are Jhumpa Lahiri all men. Told in Bloomsbury. PB. $26.99 alternating first-person narratives, this Available 4 May heart-in-mouth debut asks: what would our world truly look like without men? Whereabouts is Jhumpa Lahiri’s first novel written in Black Buck Italian – a remarkable Mateo Askaripour feat considering she John Murray. PB. $32.99 learnt the language Available now later in life. It’s Meet Buck. Before Buck incredible then to was the Muhammad Ali discover that after the of sales, floating like a Italian publication Lahiri also translated butterfly and selling like the work back into English herself. It’s a demon, he was Darren: debatable whether having this context an unambitious 22-year- prior to reading is necessary, although it’s old living at home and hard not to notice, and be fascinated by, working at Starbucks. All how this Italian filter has changed her that changes when a 10 READINGS MONTHLY May 2021 FICTION chance encounter with the silver-tongued Circus of Wonders addiction. Daughter of a Cuban immigrant, remaining three. Can they survive CEO of NYC’s hottest startup results in Elizabeth Macneal she is determined to learn more about her together without her? Sharply observed Darren joining the company’s elite sales Picador. PB. $32.99 family history. This is a sweeping debut on and excruciatingly funny, The Weekend team. What unfolds is a hilarious, razor- Available 11 May the choices of mothers and the tenacity of explores growing old and growing up, and sharp skewering of office culture. An outsider due to the women who choose to tell their stories. what happens when we’re forced to birthmarks that pepper uncover the lies we tell ourselves. The Field her skin, Nell lives an The Rules of Revelation Robert Seethaler & isolated life in her Lisa McInerney Charlotte Collins (trans.) village. When Jasper John Murray. PB. $32.99 Science Picador. PB. $32.99 Jupiter’s Circus of Available 11 May Fiction Available now Wonders arrives in town, Musician Ryan Cusack If the dead could speak, Nell is kidnapped; her is back in Ireland to what would they say to the father has sold her, record a new album. Hummingbird Salamander living? From their graves promising the circus its very own leopard Former sex-worker Jeff VanderMeer in the field, the oldest part girl. As she settles into her new life, Nell Georgie wants the truth Fourth Estate. PB. $29.99 of Paulstadt’s cemetery, begins to wonder if joining the show is the about Ryan’s past out Available now the town’s late inhabitants best thing that has ever happened to her. there. Mel returns from ‘Jane Smith’ is a tell stories from their lives. Brexit Britain, ill- security consultant From the author of the Male Tears equipped to deal with wary of search engines, International Booker- Benjamin Myers the resurgence of a family scandal. Karine who mistrusts all her shortlisted A Whole Life, Robert Seethaler’s Bloomsbury Circus. PB. $29.99 is battling a terrible secret that tugs the rug colleagues, has disabled The Field is a book of human lives – each one Available 4 May from under her. A riotous blast of sex, her smart-fridge as a different, yet connected to countless others In this collection of scandal, obsession, feminism, gender, privacy precaution, and – that ultimately shows how life, for all its stories that span 15 years music, class and transgression from the keeps an emergency fleetingness, still has meaning. of work, Benjamin Myers author of the 2016 Women’s Prize-winner ‘go-bag’ in her gym lays bare the male psyche The Glorious Heresies. locker even though she isn’t entirely sure Cowboy Graves: Three in all its fragility and why. So when she is handed the key to a Novellas complexity. Farmers, Under the Wave at Waimea storage unit holding only a taxidermied Roberto Bolaño fairground workers and Paul Theroux hummingbird and a cryptic note, she Picador. PB. $19.99 wandering pilgrims, Hamish Hamilton. PB. $32.99 surprises herself by trying to trace this Available 4 May gruesome gamekeepers, Available 4 May mysterious object to its source. Roberto Bolaño’s and ex-cons, the characters who populate Now in his sixties, Jane’s increasingly stark indifference boundless imagination these unsettling, wild and wistful stories big-wave surfer Joe as she loses more and more of her life and and seemingly form a multifaceted, era-spanning portrait Sharkey has passed his health to her obsessive search begins to inexhaustible gift for of just what it means to be a man. prime. The younger mirror the loss of stability in the world shaping the chaos of his surfers around the around her – pandemics and natural reality into enduring Cunning Women breaks on the north disasters are mentioned as though they fiction is unmistakable Elizabeth Lee shore of Oahu still call were passing inconveniences, political in these three Windmill. PB. $32.99 him the Shark, but his unrest is an increasingly common hazard exhilarating novellas: Available 4 May sponsors are looking to be dodged, and people grow more and ‘Cowboy Graves’, ‘French Comedy of 1620s Lancashire. elsewhere. When Joe accidentally hits and more accustomed to the green-grey tint Horrors’ and ‘Fatherland’. Found in the Away from the village kills a man near Waimea while driving the sky has taken on. author’s archive and published for the first lies a small hamlet, home from a bar, it seems he’ll never Hummingbird Salamander is time, this collection of three novellas is a abandoned since the rebound. Under the direction of his Anthropocene fiction delivered via the joy for the many fans and followers of this Plague, where only one devoted girlfriend Olive, he throws himself medium of psychological thriller, and it titan of Latin American literature. family dwells. Young into uncovering his victim’s story. thrums with oppressive paranoia. Come Sarah Haworth and her for the coldly dreamlike prose, witness Early Morning Riser family are outcasts by the nerve-racking descent into violent Katherine Heiny day, but at night the New chaos, and make sure you stay for the Fourth Estate. PB. $27.99 villagers come to them for help: a healing Formats uncompromising and cathartic release of Available now balm or more, should the need arise. When the book’s finale. Jane easily falls in love a new magistrate arrives to investigate the There is great beauty here, wrapped with Duncan: he’s village, he has his eye on one family alone. Shuggie Bain deeply in layers of deftly portrayed tension charming, good-natured And a torch in his hand. Douglas Stuart and alienation. VanderMeer’s novel and handsome. He’s also Picador. PB. $19.99 meets the depths of climate despair with slept with nearly every The Road Trip Available now important questions: what might it take woman in Boyne City, Beth O’Leary Winner of the 2020 to make humanity recognise our effect on Michigan. Jane wonders Quercus. PB. $32.99 Booker Prize. The the world and work to change it? If, like how the relationship is Available now unforgettable story of the salamander, we were more permeable to our environment and its warning supposed to work with The last thing Addie and young Hugh ‘Shuggie’ signs, how would we live differently? all these people in it, but any notion she her sister are expecting Bain, a sweet and lonely What can humans learn from a migratory has on that matter changes with one tragic on their epic road trip to boy who spends his hummingbird that has any bearing on accident. Following her celebrated novel a friend’s wedding is for 1980s childhood in our modern lives? And why do we prevent Standard Deviation, Katherine Heiny’s Addie’s ex, Dylan, to run-down public ourselves from caring? latest book is a wise, joyful tale of love, slam into the back of housing in Glasgow, disaster and unconventional family. their car. Since Dylan Scotland, attempting to save his proud Ele Jenkins is from Readings Carlton and his mate are also mother, Agnes, from her addiction. The Final Revival of Opal heading to the wedding, Against the backdrop of Thatcher’s The Beautiful Ones and Nev Addie has no choice but to offer them a decimation of working-class families, Silvia Moreno-Garcia Dawnie Walton ride. With 400 miles ahead of them in one Shuggie is also struggling to somehow Jo Fletcher Books. PB. $32.99 Quercus. PB. $32.99 very crammed car, is this really the end of become the normal boy he desperately Available now Available now the road for Addie and Dylan? longs to be. They are the Beautiful Opal is a fiercely Ones, Loisail’s most independent young Of Women and Salt The Weekend notable socialites, and woman, a Black punk Gabriela Garcia Charlotte Wood this spring is Nina’s artist before her time. Picador. PB. $32.99 A&U. PB. $19.99 chance to join their When the aspiring Available 11 May Available 4 May ranks. But the Grand British singer– 1866, Cuba. María Isabel Shortlisted for the 2020 Season has just begun songwriter Neville is the only female Stella Prize. Four older and already Nina’s Charles discovers her worker at a cigar factory. women have a lifelong debut has gone one night, she takes him But these are dangerous friendship of the best disastrously awry, as she struggles to up on his offer to make rock music political times, and the kind: loving, practical, control her telekinesis. When renowned together. Decades later, as Opal considers a sounds of war are frank and steadfast. But entertainer Hector Auvray arrives in town, 2016 reunion with Nev, music journalist S. approaching. In when Sylvie dies, the Nina is dazzled by this man who sees her Sunny Shelton seizes the chance to curate present-day Miami, ground shifts not as a social outcast but as someone ripe an oral history about her idols. Jeanette is battling dangerously for the with magical potential. CRIME May 2021 READINGS MONTHLY 11

Vanished links between the victim, a local group of James Delargy metal-detectorists (or ‘Nighthawkers’) and Dead a plant smuggling racket. A satisfying S&S. PB. $29.99 Available 5 May conclusion brings this murky plot to an Write Detective Emmaline end, in spite of the consequences to Adam’s relationship with firefighter Paul. with Julia Jackson Taylor is assigned to investigate the This is a solid follow-up to the first Christmas instalment in Russ Thomas’s DS Adam Tyler series, Firewatching. I advise readers This stunning debut is one of the best books I’ve read disappearance of the start with that book first to fully appreciate this year (so far). Melbourne-based author Jacqueline Maguire family from BOOK OF THE the characters in this procedural thriller. Bublitz has crafted a haunting story about grief, limbo, abandoned mining MONTH transition and friendship that’s by far the most literary of town Kallayee, Crime this month’s crime picks. Echoing Alice Sebold’s The Lovely somewhere on the True Bones, this finely crafted novel traces the stories of Alice and gibber plains east of Kalgoorlie. Why they expat Melburnian Ruby Jones, as told by the spectral Alice, were there in the first place is one Crime whose tragic death kicks off this book. question, but there are other suspicious factors to consider, and the investigation We Own This City: A True This literary crime novel reads as a soon expands into a much darker plot involving a shady trio up to even shadier Story of Crime, Cops and moving meditation on the loss of women activities. The eerie and harsh conditions Corruption in an American to male violence, as well as the resolve it of Kallayee are a great setting for this new City takes to bring about justice. outback noir offering. Justin Fenton Faber. PB. $29.99 After a period of stagnation in which Ruby realises the The Khan Available 4 May futility of her own position as ‘the other woman’ in an illicit Saima Mir This month’s major affair, she escapes to New York to give herself physical and Oneworld. PB. $29.99 crime nonfiction emotional distance, only to find herself even more alone. A Available 4 May release is from Before You Knew newcomer to the city, she is shocked to encounter a body in a Prodigal daughter Jia Baltimore Sun My Name nearby waterway while out jogging. Seeking to make sense of Khan returns to lead journalist Justin Jacqueline Bublitz this distressing discovery, Ruby is drawn to learn more about her family’s Yorkshire- Fenton. We Own This A&U. PB. $29.99 this unknown young woman, and a new tribe of friends offer based organised crime City charts the Available 4 May support and strength in her efforts to provide this Jane Doe network following the formation of Baltimore Police’s Gun Trace Task with some dignity and respect in death. As Ruby’s sense of murder of her father. autonomy and self begins to flourish, brief encounters with It’s a new era for this Force (GTTF), a squad of plainclothes a sharply-dressed, smooth-talking man threaten to destabilise her newfound security, Pakistani network ‘knockers’ tasked with the targeted provoking conflicting feelings about her distant lover and new, local love interest. borne out of a deep removal of guns from the streets, against This book is imbued with sadness, mostly tied to Alice’s unfortunate end and her distrust of the British legal system and the backdrop of 25-year-old Freddie status as an unknown Jane Doe in the morgue. For all that occurred during Alice’s embedded racism at all levels of society. Gray’s death while in police custody in short and troubled life, in death she leaves an indelible mark. Both Alice and Ruby Think The Wire, transplanted from 2015. The GTTF soon transformed into a have had their lives ruined physically and emotionally by dreadful men, but Bublitz’s Baltimore, with a woman who’s a mashup criminal enterprise, a racket where drugs narrative also offers a sense of optimism and redemption. Like Louise Doughty’s of Stringer Bell and Avon Barksdale at the and money once confiscated were Platform Seven, this literary crime novel reads as a moving meditation on the loss of top. When a rival vies to overtake the pocketed by task force officers. It was a women to male violence, as well as the resolve it takes (manifested by Ruby’s actions) network, Jia must realise her full source of huge embarrassment and to bring about justice . capabilities, even as she attempts to shame for a city where huge efforts were reveal very little to her once-estranged made to improve policing and family. This is an edgy thriller with a community engagement. A fascinating strong lead character and a shocking read for anyone still experiencing The revelation at its conclusion! Wire withdrawal symptoms! Dial A for Aunties The discovery of skeletal remains on the Jesse Sutanto blustery ‘back beach’ near Blairgowrie HQ Fiction. PB. $29.99 awakens long-held suspicions and The First Day of Spring Available 5 May conflicts in the local community. Could Nancy Tucker Winning the award for these be the remains of missing teenager Hutchinson. PB. $32.99 ‘Most Fun Crime Novel Cecilia May, who disappeared some 20 Available 18 May So Far’ is this gem from years earlier? In this layered mystery, Extreme poverty, abuse debut author Jesse secrets lurk among a cast of intriguing and and neglect are Sutanto. Meddy Chan, a broken characters, ensuring that the truth constants in eight-year- wedding photographer stays hidden until the end. Perfect for fans old Chrissie’s life amid in her family’s of Christian White’s coastal noir The Wife the row houses and business, is unhappy in and the Widow, this book is an excellent throng of children in the love and ready to shake read for the wintry nights ahead. village. Twenty years up her life. But things go drastically later, and with a new downhill when a blind date dies. What Girl, 11 identity as Julia, she ensues is a hilarious caper involving her Amy Suiter Clarke struggles with feelings of inadequacy as a mother and aunties, as the group rush to Text. PB. $32.99 single parent and an overhanging fear of dispose of the body at the resort wedding Available 4 May social services’ intervention. The twin of a billionaire couple. Amid the chaos narratives of a young Chrissie and her For details on the event for this book, Also out bigger problems emerge, including her visit readings.com.au/events older self gradually reveal the terrible former flame, and it falls to Meddy to put In a weird parallel events of that first day of spring when this month: things right. There are lots of laughs to be version of 2020 toddler Steven was found dead. This had here, and this book makes for a debut, from psychologist-novelist Nancy unaffected by the Other thrillers to look out for include: delightful antidote to some of the Tucker, is bleak and tense, with a distant coronavirus, Elle a new Davenport-Flowers novel, Ocean grimmer topics on offer this month. light shaft of redemption. Castillo is hard at work Prey, from John Sandford, marking the researching and 31st in the Prey series (S&S, PB, $32.99); a The Girl Remains presenting her cold case Nighthawking newly-translated standalone novel from Katherine Firkin podcast sensation Russ Thomas Icelandic crime master Ragnar Jónasson, Bantam. PB. $32.99 ‘Justice Delayed’. S&S. PB. $29.99 The Girl Who Died (Michael Joseph, PB, Available 4 May Doggedly determined to solve the serial Available 5 May $32.99); Left You Dead (Pan Mac, PB, Katherine Firkin’s killings of The Countdown Killer (TCK), A grisly find at the $32.99), which marks sweet 17 for Peter debut Sticks and Stones Castillo unwittingly unleashes a new spate Sheffield botanic James’s Roy Grace procedurals (also newly ended up as one of our of kidnappings, eerily similar to the gardens has Detective adapted for TV starring John Simm); and ‘Lockdown Favourites’ original modus operandi, resulting in the Sergeant Adam Tyler the return of Quebec’s favourite forensic in 2020. This highly revelation of her own dark connection to and co investigating a anthropologist in Kathy Reichs’s The anticipated follow-up the case. But will time run out for Castillo missing persons cold Bone Code (S&S, PB, $32.99), in which new presents another grim and law enforcement? If you listen to true case. Roman coins on bodies and cold cases combine, while the cold case for Detective crime podcasts, this white-knuckle the body soon lead the threat of a flesh-eating bacterial plague Emmett Corban and co. page-turner is for you. team to explore the (why not?) hangs over the novel. Tipping Anna George Fiction Viking.PB. $32.99 NONFiction An Instagram scandal at a Klara and the Sun grammar school sparks outrage in The Believer: Encounters Kazuo Ishiguro an exclusive bayside suburb and with Love, Death & Faith Faber. PB. $32.99 upends the lives of the families Sarah Krasnostein In this stunning new novel, Nobel involved. However, it might also Text. PB. $34.99 laureate Kazuo Ishiguro has once prove to be the tipping point Weaving together the stories of six again created a world that is required to change the school, and extraordinary ordinary people, The futuristic, lonely and tender, asking the wider community, for the better. Believer explores the power of belief what does it mean to love? A thrilling and the stories we tell ourselves to feat of world-building told with Transient Desires deal with the distance between the impeccable restraint. Donna Leon world as it is, and the world as we’d William Heinemann. PB. $32.99 like it to be. The Performance Donna Leon’s 30th Commisario Claire Thomas Brunetti novel is as powerful as any Hachette. PB. $32.99 she has written, testing Brunetti to Emotional Female As bushfires rage outside the city, his limits, forcing him to listen very Yumiko Kadota three women watch a performance carefully for the truth in the spiderweb Viking. PB. $34.99 of a Beckett play. As the performance of pathways in his native Venice. Emotional Female is Yumiko unfolds, so does each woman’s story. Kadota’s passionate account of This tightly woven examination of A Room Called Earth the toxic culture of bullying and women’s inner lives is enthralling, Madeleine Ryan overwork that junior doctors can profound and deeply human. Scribe. PB. $29.99 experience in the workplace as part of their training. With great A young woman gets ready to go to a vulnerability Kadota explores party. She arrives, feels overwhelmed, A Million Things burnout and what it takes to leaves, and then returns. This Emily Spurr walk away. Text. PB. $32.99 deceptively simple set-up forms the basis of this knockout debut from a Narrated in the vivid and unforgettable neurodiverse author that explores voice of brave 10-year-old Rae, this a young woman’s sensitive, and shattering novel perfectly captures Heartsick: Three Stories passionate inner world. the pain of love, the warmth of finding About Love and Loss and families and the long shadow of grief. What Happens In Perfect for fans of Sofie Laguna. Born Into This Between Adam Thompson Jessie Stephens Pan Mac. PB. $34.99 Love Objects UQP. PB. $29.99 A remarkable debut short story Based on three interwoven stories Emily Maguire collection that crackles with wit, of the ways love can bruise, break A&U. PB. $32.99 swagger and rage, and assuredly and build us, Heartsick is achingly By the acclaimed author of An introduces Tasmanian Aboriginal specific but wholeheartedly Isolated Incident, Love Objects is writer Adam Thompson as a fresh universal. It reminds us that a clear-eyed, heart-wrenching new voice to follow in the Australian emotional pain can make us as it and deeply compassionate novel fiction landscape. breaks us, and that storytelling has about love and family, betrayal and the ultimate healing power. forgiveness, and the things we do to fill our empty spaces. Turns Out, I’m Fine The Bass Rock Judith Lucy Evie Wyld Scribner. PB. $32.99 Vintage. PB. $32.99 In the space of 24 hours, Judith Winner of the 2021 Stella Prize. Set Lucy came apart; a broken heart along the wild Scottish coast and became the catalyst for a complete spanning centuries – from the witch existential meltdown. In her most trials of the 1700s to the aftermath of Hamnet candid book yet, Lucy figures out the Second World War to the modern Maggie O’Farrell what went wrong and then turns her Tinder Press. PB. $22.99 day – The Bass Rock is a compelling attention to trying to set it right. exploration of three generations of women, all linked by a shared trauma. My Rock ‘n’ Roll Friend The Lady with the Gun The Yield Tracey Thorn Asks the Questions Tara June Winch Canongate. PB. $29.99 Kerry Greenwood Penguin. PB. $19.99 In 1983, backstage at the Lyceum in A&U. PB. $29.99 London, Tracey Thorn and Lindy The elegant Miss Phryne Fisher Morrison of the Go-Betweens first returns in this scintillating met. In this intimate memoir, Thorn collection, which features four The Vanishing Half takes stock of 37 years of friendship, brand-new stories. 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began a 10-year journey to understand who Smuggled: An Illegal History of she was, and an investigation into the history Journeys to Australia Nonfiction and misconceptions of the fertility industry. Ruth Balint & Julie Kalman NewSouth. PB. $34.99 Gender Politics: Navigating Available 1 May Political Leadership in Australia ‘People smugglers’ are At a time when it often feels impossible to take a Zareh Ghazarian & the pariahs of the breather from the overwhelming injustices and BOOK OF THE Katrina Lee-Koo (eds) modern world. There is inequalities that warrant outrage, you might hesitate to UNSW Press. PB. $39.99 no other trade so MONTH pick up a book called Fury. This memoir by prolific Available now demonised yet so used Biography Australian writer Kathryn Heyman is an account of her Gender is a powerful by Australian politics. traumatic sexual assault trial at the age of 20; the childhood force that shapes Based on original of poverty and family violence that preceded it, and the Australia’s politics. It research and interviews, reckless adventure that followed as a deckhand on a fishing influences the public Smuggled recounts the trawler in the Timor Sea. lives of all political journeys to Australia of refugees and their leaders. Yet there is a ‘smugglers’ since the Second World War, Fury vibrates with energy, remarkable lack of diversity in and provides a compelling insight into a physicality, clear-eyed rage and a leadership, and defining yet unexplored part of our history. clever, fiery wit that frequently left me accusations of a toxic breathless. culture in our political parties are rife. So Sorry and Beyond: Healing the what might be done about it? Gender Politics Stolen Generations is a provocative and urgent collection that Heyman’s story is definitely a heavy one, but it never once Brian Butler & John Bond re-examines the way we navigate power and drags the reader under. Instead, Fury vibrates with energy, Aboriginal Studies Press. PB. $39.95 leadership in Australian politics. remarkable physicality, clear-eyed rage and a clever, fiery Available mid-May Fury wit that frequently left me breathless. Heyman’s story is At age 12, Brian Butler’s Kathryn Heyman unputdownable, made even more compelling by her expert The Last Correspondent: grandmother was taken A&U. PB. $29.99 narrative structure and incredible control of language. While Dispatches from the Frontline from her family. Twenty Available 4 May Fury spans over two decades of tough experiences, these of Xi’s New China years later her daughter, For details on the fractured pieces of a life come together so powerfully; the Michael Smith Brian’s mother, was event for this book, effect is far greater than the sum of its parts. This is Heyman’s Ultimo Press. PB. $34.99 taken. Thousands of visit readings.com. Available now au/events story, one that stands alongside the best adventure memoirs First Nations families of women’s survival (such as Cheryl Strayed’s Wild or Robyn A late-night visit by have been coping with Davidson’s Tracks), but it also offers an original reflection on China’s secret police the trauma of child issues of class and the oppressions (both harrowing and ordinary) that girls face every day. triggered a diplomatic removal for more than a century. Sorry and ‘But I don’t have a machete, I don’t have a sword, I don’t have a knife. I just have words. storm that abruptly Beyond tracks the growth of the grassroots Thousands and thousands of them, and each time I swing another one, now, decades after ended Michael Smith’s movement that exposed the truth about all of this, I feel my stomach tighten and the fear rise.’ As readers we are very lucky that stint as one of Australia’s these shameful policies, and the Heyman has turned some of these words into this galvanising memoir. Fury is a thrilling last foreign community initiatives working to heal this and vital read, and its release couldn’t be more timely. correspondents in China. national trauma. After five days under Stella Charls is from Readings Carlton consular protection, Smith was evacuated Toxic: The Rotting Underbelly out of the country. The Last Correspondent is of the Tasmanian Salmon Smith’s account of Xi Jinping’s China – from Industry Xinjiang’s re-education camps to the Richard Flanagan to a larger examination of Australia’s protests in Hong Kong – and what its rise Penguin. PB. $24.99 Australian Studies relationship with the land, and the crimes, means for the world. Available now conflicts and dilemmas it has produced Richard Flanagan’s ever since European invasion. It is also Inga Clendinnen: The Winter Road: A Story of exposé of the salmon the starting point of many questions. Selected Writings Legacy, Land and a Killing at farming industry in Does owning land give someone the right James Boyce (ed.) Croppa Creek Tasmania is chilling. In to break down ecosystems and create La Trobe University Press. PB. $34.99 Kate Holden the way that Rachel loss or extinction of native flora and Available 4 May Black Inc. PB. $32.99 Carson took on the fauna? How do we find the right balance An internationally Available 4 May pesticide industry in her (and timing) between production and celebrated historian and For details on the event for this book, groundbreaking book preservation of land? And finally, as we try highly original thinker, visit readings.com.au/events Silent Spring, Flanagan to introduce new methods and strategies Inga Clendinnen There is a type of tears open an industry that is as secretive towards environmental regeneration, compelled readers to true crime book as its practices are destructive and its what support and guidance do landowners re-examine accepted that surpasses others in product disturbing. For anyone who cares and those overseeing compliance need to histories from new the genre due to its about what they eat or the environment, implement them? Holden explores these angles. This selection literary merit and unique this is a must read. issues through her meticulous research; approach to the subject. covers the full scope of including references to Bruce Pascoe’s Truman Capote’s In Cold her writing, from Tiger’s Eye to Aztecs, from Dark Emu, Charles Massy’s Call of the Reed Blood, John Berendt’s Boyer Lectures to essays on all manner of Biography Warbler, the work of artist Shaun Tan and Midnight in the Garden topics. This rich volume is introduced by marine biologist Daniel Pauly’s fascinating of Good and Evil and Helen Garner’s Joe acclaimed historian James Boyce. ‘shifting baseline syndrome’. Cinque’s Consolation are all excellent As Beautiful As Any Other: After I had finished The Winter Road, I examples. Now we have a new addition to Racism: Stories on Fear, Hate A Memoir of My Body was emotionally and mentally exhausted, but the list – The Winter Road, the long-awaited and Bigotry Kaya Wilson it was worth it. This is essential reading by return to a full-length book by Australian Winnie Dunn, Stephen Pham & Picador. PB. $34.99 one of Australia’s finest nonfiction writers. writer Kate Holden. Phoebe Grainer (eds) Available now On 29 July 2014, the sun was setting Amanda Rayner is from Readings Carlton Sweatshop. PB. $19.95 I confess to feeling on Talga Lane, near Croppa Creek in Available now completely at a northwest New South Wales. Glen Turner (a Brave New Humans Are we a nation of loss for how to review compliance officer with the NSW Office of Sarah Dingle racists? From the Kaya Wilson’s Environment and Heritage) and a colleague Hardie Grant. PB. $34.99 Western Sydney literacy breathtaking memoir As were visiting the area where they would Available 5 May movement Sweatshop Beautiful As Any Other. meet farmer Ian Turnbull the next day. Journalist Sarah Dingle comes this new fearless How on earth will I be Although Glen Turner had not seen Ian was 27 when she learnt collection of short able to do it justice? I Turnbull for two years, they had a history that her identity was a lie. stories, poems and must begin somewhere regarding Ian’s non-compliance of land Over dinner one night, essays from the margins and so I begin with a word that keeps clearing, resulting in a verbal threat from her mother casually of Australia. Featuring pushing itself front of mind: gratitude. One Turnbull. Suddenly a car pulled up and Ian mentioned Sarah had 39 vital writers intent on confronting our of the great gifts of reading is that we gain Turnbull emerged with a rifle. Six shots been conceived using a darkest truths, contributors to this insight, understanding, compassion and later, Turner was dead. sperm donor. As the anthology include: Mark Mariano, Daniel empathy from reading about another’s The Winter Road takes the horrific shock receded, Sarah Nour, Shirley Le, Tyree Barnette, Meyrnah lived experience. I am so deeply grateful crime at Talga Lane as the starting point began to investigate her own existence. Thus Khodr, Sara Saleh, Sarah Ayoub and more. that Wilson has gifted the world with this NONFICTION May 2021 READINGS MONTHLY 15 moving, lyrical and thought-provoking Alongside these personal testimonies, account of women’s lives – how those lives Debesa: The Story of Frank exploration of his deeply personal and Still Alive also covers the decades-long are changed and shaped into personal and Katie Rodriguez challenging journey. Beginning with his history of Australian immigration policy stories of parenting, friendships and Cindy Solonec survival and recovery from a horrific clearly and concisely, explaining how legacy. In her earlier memoir, Affection, we Magabala. PB. $24.99 near-death surfing accident, Wilson shares we arrived at a system of indefinite and met Kneen’s family, including the Available now with us his coming out to his family as offshore detention, and why Australia’s towering matriarchal figure of her When former transgender, his father’s death and the actions constitute an abuse of human grandmother, Dragica (Lotty) Kneen, who Benedictine monk discovery of a silenced, hidden family rights. Read it, feel it as deeply as the cast long shadows on Kneen’s own life. Frank Rodriguez met history of queerness. Wilson tells us right content demands – and then share it with Lotty arrived as a migrant in Australia Katie Fraser, they fell from the outset, ‘This is a trans story. But anyone who still needs convincing that having escaped war. She was an in love. Together, they it’s also my story.’ I have no doubt it has immigration detention must end. extraordinarily gifted storyteller with a established Debesa taken enormous courage and strength to Ele Jenkins is from Readings Carlton persistent and intense spirit that made her Station, where they write it, and Wilson has done so beautifully. wonderfully suited for a creative life. She raised their family As Beautiful As Any Other is unlike any Stranger Care: A Memoir of did not disclose much of her past to her with the rich cultural memoir I have read. It is so much more Loving What Isn’t Ours family, but she did gift Kneen with her heritage of their Spanish, Nigena and than the sharing of experience, the telling fortitude and a love of fairytales. Sarah Sentilles English ancestors. Debesa is a sweeping of trauma or a recount of life-altering Kneen’s 2015 poetry collection, Eating Text. PB. $34.99 social history of one family’s struggles events. It is a deeply immersive reflection My Grandmother, was a grief-stricken ode Available 4 May and triumphs set against the backdrop of on human identity, our search for it, our to her grandmother after her death. Now, the beauty of the West Kimberley. For details on the event for this book, need to understand not only who we are, this compelling and beautifully written visit readings.com.au/events but also how others perceive us and how memoir is the next chapter, formed as a If you don’t know Crying in H Mart we in turn strive to identify others. It is deeply personal travel memoir with the Sarah Sentilles, Michelle Zauner an exploration of our culture, our societal obligatory photos included. Armed with you should seek her Picador. PB. $32.99 constructs, our preconceived notions and her grandmother’s ashes, Kneen and her out. Go read her earlier Available now biases, conscious or unconscious. It also partner Anthony visit Slovenia and Egypt, books. She’s a writer of With humor and heart, reflects on our connection to the planet, the countries her grandmother lived in uncommonly beautiful Michelle Zauner tells her and the vital role place plays in shaping before she ended up in the middle of creative nonfiction, her story: of growing up the parts of our identity and as such, the Queensland, surrounded by handmade pages filled with grace only Korean-American desperate need for us to protect our earth. cardboard characters from the stories she and honesty. kid at school, of chafing As Fiona McGregor so eloquently wrote told Kneen as a child. A road map filled In her award-winning book Draw against her mother’s in her review: ‘There is so much more to with many women’s voices, recipes and Your Weapons, she wrote about the link high hopes even as she this book than meets the eye. Wilson is able memories, this memoir is the evidence of between art and war – whether art might would bond with her to do that rare thing, fuse the personal with Lotty’s life and legacy. offer us the way forward in remaking the over plates of food. But universal, the scientific with the emotional, Already lauded as Kneen’s best writing world. Her brilliant new book, Stranger when her mother was diagnosed with without losing the impact of either. Instead, yet, The Three Burials of Lotty Kneen is Care, is a memoir that charts how she terminal pancreatic cancer, an adult they are enhanced.’ This is a stunning a portrait of resilience. Read this book and her husband make the decision to Zauner was finally forced to reckon with memoir and an absolute must read. because all our stories started with our foster a child (with the hope of adopting). her identity, driving her to reclaim the mothers and our mother’s mothers. Read it Tye Cattanach is from Readings Carlton The classes, the forms, the decisions that gifts of taste, language, and history her because Kneen’s journey to understand her have to be made are overwhelming and mother had given her. past is, in the end, universal. Still Alive: Notes from confronting: will you take a child who has Australia’s Immigration been sex trafficked, will you take a baby Chris Gordon is the programming and events manager at Readings Detention System who is addicted to meth, will you take Cultural Safdar Ahmed a child with severe behavioural issues? Studies Twelve Panels Press. PB. $30 Sarah and Eric finally get a phone call The Chief Witness: Available now from the social worker – there’s a three- Escape from China’s Modern- day old baby girl who needs to go into care day Concentration Camps For details on the event for this book, The Sum of Us: What Racism visit readings.com.au/events immediately. From the moment they pick Sayragul Sauytbay & Costs Everyone and How We It is difficult to up Coco from the hospital, they fall madly Alexandra Cavelius Can Prosper Together find the right in love. Dangerous territory, considering Scribe. PB. $35 Heather McGhee words when you want they might need to give her back at any Available 4 May Profile. PB. $32.99 to recommend a book moment. Part of the foster carer package Born in China’s north- Available 4 May that made you feel is Evelyn – Coco’s mother. Sentilles drives western province, What would make a sick with rage. So I will for hours, twice a week, to facilitate Sayragul Sauytbay society drain its public start by telling you supervised visits with Evelyn; sends trained as a doctor swimming baths and fill how important it is photos of Coco to her; sits on her side of before being appointed a them with concrete that this book exists, the court as a support person; and helps senior civil servant. But rather than opening in spite of all the odds stacked against it, her bond with her baby. her life was upended them to everyone? and against the people whose lives it Sentilles is uncommonly wise and when the Chinese Political researcher describes. I want you to know how brave. Fostering is not easy, and she’s authorities incarcerated Heather McGhee sets profound an experience this graphic novel remarkably candid about the conflicting her. Her crime: being Kazakh, one of China’s out across America to offers its readers. feelings she has – trying to love Evelyn, ethnic minorities. This rare testimony learn why White voters so often act against Safdar Ahmed is a Sydney-based artist at the same time as wanting to adopt the reveals not only the full, frightening scope their own interests. Why do they block and Walkley Award winner who works delightful Coco. The honesty and humanity of these incarceration camps, but also the changes that would help them, and even with Villawood detainees as part of the in this book is astonishing. This is a story resilience and courage of its author. destroy their own advantages, whenever Refugee Art Project. In Still Alive he writes about love. The hardest type of love. people of colour also stand to benefit? about the strength of art in addressing The love that has to consider the idea of Mother and I: The History of a trauma and he collaborates with refugees handing back a delightful and adored baby, Wilful Family On Thomas Keneally: to tell their stories. Much of the imagery after ten months of caring for her full time. Ianto Ware Writers on Writers used throughout the book is drawn by Gabrielle Williams is from Readings Malvern Hunter Publishers. PB. $29.99 Stan Grant the refugees themselves, resulting in a Available 5 May Black Inc. HB. $17.99 powerful collaboration between artists. The Three Burials of Lotty After his mother’s Available 4 May Part of what this graphic novel Kneen: Travels with My death, Ianto Ware In the Writers on Writers restores is the humanity and agency of Grandmother’s Ashes revisits his childhood in series, leading authors its storytellers. Even in the midst of a Krissy Kneen suburban Adelaide, reflect on an Australian harrowing boat journey, Hadi recalls his joy Text. PB. $34.99 where his mother writer’s work. In the at seeing real dolphins. Amir recounts the Available 4 May waged a four-decade latest instalment, Stan terror and danger of detention on Manus Much loved and war on her conservative Grant weaves literary Island, before explaining how he and other admired author neighbourhood, criticism, philosophy detainees clubbed together to donate Krissy Kneen is back primarily through the and memoir to shed light medical equipment to Lorengau hospital with another heartfelt medium of gardening. Driven by humour, on Thomas Keneally’s after their release. Despite the trauma exploration of her insight and love, this is part memoir, part The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith. Drawing these refugees have experienced, Still Alive personal history, but history of working-class life, and part parallels with First Nations writers Tara refuses to let its subjects be reduced to pure because this is a Krissy homage to suburban eccentricity. Mother June Winch and Bruce Pascoe, Grant victimhood. As Ahmed points out: ‘There Kneen book, we are and I celebrates the force of character that brilliantly re-examines Keneally’s novel, are no “good” or “bad” refugees – only taken on a greater defies conformity and the love that raising questions about identity, people who deserve basic rights.’ journey than just her own. This book is an prevails against bigotry. modernity and storytelling. 16 READINGS MONTHLY May 2021 NONFICTION

Empire of Pain: The Secret Reading Like an Australian photography and ceramics to performance History History of the Sackler Dynasty Writer and sound art, the book explores the way Patrick Radden Keefe Belinda Castles (ed.) art interacts with our society, highlights Picador. PB. $34.99 NewSouth. PB. $34.99 lesser-known artists, and provides a Letters to Camondo Available now Available 1 May snapshot of the art world as it is today. Edmund de Waal The Sackler family is This is a love letter to C&W. HB. $32.99 one of the richest in the the magic of reading. Available 4 May world. The source of the Here, 26 writers take us Nature & From the author of The family fortune was through the dog-eared the Environment Hare with Amber Eyes vague, however, until it pages of their favourite comes this sequence of emerged that the books. 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NATIONAL THEATRE LIVE - ENCORES!

Captured live in high definition at London’s National Theatre, NT Live presents the greatest performers, directors and productions to come out of the British theatre scene on the cinema screen. FIRST COW Opens April 29 (PG) MY NAME IS GULPILIL Opens May 27 (M) Kelly Reichardt’s (Meek’s Cutoff) directs an early nineteenth David Gulpilil has been an iconic figure of Australian cinema for A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE Opens May 1 (E) century tale of human connection set against the wilderness. fifty years. From his breakthrough performance in Walkabout, "Outstanding” - The Times Loner Cookie (John Magaro, The Big Short) has travelled west to Gulpilil is known throughout the world for his unforgettable seek his fortune, finding connection and a like-mind in Chinese performances in films including Storm Boy, The Tracker, Rabbit FOLLIES Opens June 5 (E) immigrant King Lu (Orion Lee, Star Wars: The Last Jedi) - and the Proof Fence and Goldstone among many more. Gulpilil, now two hatch a plan to make money by secretly using a nearby nearing the end of his life, generously shares his own story with "Stunning. An extraordinary cast” - Time Out landowner’s prized milking cow. Sensitively portraying the us in MY NAME IS GULPILIL. Directed by Molly Reynolds and peculiar rhythms of daily living, Reichardt’s film beautifully produced by Rolf de Heer, the actor, dancer, singer and painter NO MAN’S LAND Opens July 3 (E) captures the immense, unsettling quietude of rural America. takes us boldly on the journey that is his extraordinary, "McKellen and Stewart are unmissable”- Daily Telegraph culture-clashing life.

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Visit our website for film information and tickets, plus Australia's largest selection of quality cinema and special events. NONFICTION May 2021 READINGS MONTHLY 17 sweeping 400-year history, Paul Strathern Psychology Penang Local: Cult Recipes examines the city and people at the heart of from the Streets That Make this cultural explosion. At the City A Matter of Death and Life Aim Aris & Ahmad Salim The Bomber Mafia Irvin D. Yalom & Marilyn Yalom home Smith Street Books. HB. $39.99 Malcolm Gladwell Scribe. PB. $29.99 with Chris Gordon Available 5 May Allen Lane. PB. $35 Available 4 May This is one of those Available 4 May Irvin D. Yalom devoted books that makes Most military thinkers in his career to counselling We are so fortunate that we are travel easy: simply the years leading up to those suffering from not in another country battling pour yourself a cold World War II saw the anxiety and grief. But a pandemic, but rather here in lager, settle into a airplane as an never had he faced the Australia living in relative peace. comfy spot and open the pages to be met afterthought. But a small need to counsel himself There are some things we can do band of strategists held a until his wife, esteemed with the bustling to acknowledge that privilege and different view. This author Marilyn Yalom, food markets of ‘Bomber Mafia’ asked: was diagnosed with it can start at our kitchen table. It Penang, filled with the colour of spices, the what if precision air cancer. In A Matter of Death and Life, does not seem much but honouring smell of chilli and coriander and the strikes could, by taking out critical choke Marilyn and Irv share how they took on our produce and our creators does warmth of roasting nuts and hot bowls of points, cripple the enemy and make war far profound new struggles: Marilyn to die a add to our well-being and culture, noodle soups. Included alongside these vibrant images are the best recipes from less lethal? Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book good death, Irv to live on without her. and the cookbooks below pay delves into questions of how technology and Penang, a region obsessed with food. best intentions collide in the heat of war. respect to the culinary cultures that Malaysian cuisine is perfect for any Travel Writing lie at the heart of our communities. occasion – I find laksa the morning after a Food can be such a simple way to big night very helpful – and Penang Local Philosophy & express gratitude, and all you have celebrates the traditional cuisine that is Politics My Forests: Travels with Trees to do is cook up a perfect soup or cherished by locals and fervently adored by Janine Burke visitors, while embracing the multicultural salad or pasta dish, and of course, The Miegunyah Press. HB. $39.99 influences that continue to shape this acknowledge how bloody lucky we Why We Are Restless: On the Available 4 May vibrant and historic food scene. Best of all, Modern Quest for Contentment Join art historian Janine are to be able to do so. we can get all the ingredients needed for Benjamin Storey & Burke in this enchanting these recipes right here. Jenna Silber Storey and illuminating Artichokes and Village Greens: Princeton University Press. PB. $32.99 meander along forest Treasured Vegetarian Recipes Vietnamese: Simple Available now trails within art, myth, from a Greek Mother’s Kitchen Vietnamese Food to Cook at We live in an age of history and present day. Fofi Gourlas Home unprecedented Travel the ancient Cru Agency. PB. $35 Uyen Luu prosperity, yet Incense Road with the Available now Hardie Grant. HB. $45 Biblical Magi. Enjoy the everywhere we see signs My neighbours are Available 19 May dancing Olive groves of Tuscany. This that the pursuit of Greek and often on a Put your Ubereats or restorative, enlightening book is an ode to happiness has proven Sunday the noise from Menulog account the connections between trees and people, fruitless. In Why We Are their backyard reaches away right now. I past and present. Restless, Benjamin and delicious crescendos of completely Jenna Storey offer a laughter and song. My understand the desire profound and beautiful reflection on the place seems quite staid to have a steaming roots of this malaise and examine how we Personal in comparison. Sydney bowl of rice and egg might begin to cure ourselves. Development Markets Plaza Café noodles within the owner Fofi Gourlas is a passionate home cook hour, but in Bad People and How to Be Rid who, I reckon, learnt to cook at those Vietnamese, Uyen Luu demonstrates that of Them: A Plan B for Human The Kindness Revolution traditional Greek Sunday feasts. Her Vietnamese food is just as easy to whip up as Rights Hugh Mackay speciality is serving a vegetarian banquet. making that order – all you need is a good Geoffrey Robertson A&U. PB $32.99 This book is a treasure trove of vegetarian bottle of fish sauce and a little tenacity. This Vintage. PB. $32.99 Available 10 May recipes, ranging from traditional Greek meze glorious collection includes traditional Available 4 May For details on the event for this book, to soups, from salads and greens to pasta, recipes that are easy to prepare. Some have a Over the course of the visit readings.com.au/events pies and tarts. There is also a handy section modern twist on an old classic, but that 20th century, global Hugh Mackay reflects with traditional Greek biscuits, sweets, cakes simply makes it easier to make right now. human rights law was on the challenges we and desserts. You will need to provide your The recipes are simple yet impressive, and it crafted to punish crimes faced during 2020’s own dimotiki music but follow Gourlas’s easy will illustrate how much money you can against humanity. And year of upheaval and steps and you will have a Greek banquet save just by doing it yourself. yet today it is rarely the questions many of before you can say cucumber. applied. What recourse us have asked. What Maggie’s Harvest do we have in today’s age? really matters to me? My Darling Lemon Thyme: Maggie Beer Distinguished human What sort of society do I Every Day Lantern. HB. $80 rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson argues that want us to become? Emma Galloway Available 4 May our most powerful weapon is Magnitsky laws. Generous, erudite, optimistic and candid, HarperCollins. HB. $49.99 It’s possible you have Bad People sets out a Plan B for human rights, Mackay encourages us to find the best in Available now this copy of Maggie offering a new blueprint for global justice. ourselves and in our society in both good Emma Galloway is Beer’s signature and troubled times. definitely not a lazy recipes already, but The Frontiers of Knowledge: woman. She is a perhaps your copy is What We Know About Some Achieve Greatness former chef, food splattered with Science, History and the Mind John Bell & Cathy Wilcox (illus.) photographer and vincotto or smeared A.C. Grayling Pantera. PB. $29.99 the creator of the with quince paste or Viking. PB. $35 Available 4 May multi-award-winning stained by pheasant Available 4 May Around the globe people food blog My Darling pâté. Perhaps you know someone who does What do we know? How have been crying out for Lemon Thyme. This not own this slice of Australian food do we know it? And ‘leadership’. As someone is her third book, and it is wonderful. There history, in which case, this is your what have we learnt who has spent a good are over 100 vegetarian recipes, flavour- opportunity to introduce them to this about the obstacles to deal of time studying, packed and gluten-free, which are super beautiful re-jacketed cookbook classic. knowing more? In a time performing and quick to make. Yes, you heard it here first. Divided into four chapters based on the of deepening battles directing Shakespeare’s Here are recipes you can trust, for every seasons, this book highlights Beer’s over what knowledge plays, John Bell has season and for every day. This collection of philosophy of using the freshest and best and truth mean, these absorbed valuable recipes passes my Tuesday evening test: seasonal produce available and treating it questions matter more lessons in life, character and empathy from can you pick up this book, follow a recipe simply. It provides information on the local than ever. A.C. Grayling seeks to answer the Bard. In Some Achieve Greatness, Bell on a Tuesday eve, while also listening to seasonal ingredients that Maggie is most them in this ambitious and gripping history shares those lessons, drawing on his your kids doing homework and your dog passionate about, which she either grows of science, thought, life on earth and the extensive relationship with Shakespeare and pleading for a walk? Yes, you can. Take it on her farm and orchard in the Barossa, or human mind itself. his own experience as a cultural leader. from someone who is lazy. sources from local suppliers. 18 READINGS MONTHLY May 2021 KIDS

Bear and Rat Christopher Cheng & Middle Grade Stephen Michael King (illus.) Puffin. HB. $24.99 Available 4 May A powerful and uplifting story about loving friendship, even through the hardest of times. BOOK OF THE Bear and Rat are the best of MONTH friends who do everything Middle Grade together, but Rat wonders if Bear will always be there to hold her hand, no matter what happens ...

Florence and Fox Zanni Louise & Anna Pignataro (illus.) Walker. HB. $25.99 Available 5 May Florence can’t share her toys with Fox today because today is Elsewhere Girls not Sharing Day. In fact, Picture Books Emily Gale & Sharing Day is not for hundreds Nova Weetman of days. Fox has never heard of Text. PB. $16.99 Sharing Day and he has some Available 4 May Arno and His Horse questions, but luckily Florence Jane Godwin & Felicita Sala (illus.) has all the answers. Two Scribble. HB. $24.99 talented Australian creators team up for a delightful Available 4 May book for any child who finds it difficult to share. Separated by more than a hundred years, Fanny Most kids have a special and Cat seem strikingly different; Fanny is a toy that they love to carry A Human for Kingsley passionate swimmer in 1908 who dreams of a future everywhere. Arno’s most Gabriel Evans when women can compete in the Olympics, whereas precious item is a little wooden Little Hare. HB. $24.99 modern-day Cat struggles to find the motivation to horse that his grandpa carved Available 5 May train. Yet both are fearless and surrounded by loving supporting families. for him. After a day’s Kingsley had decided to own a adventuring with friends, Arno human. This was not a realises that his horse has been decision to be taken lightly. Inspired by determined real-life left behind. The children After all, owning a human is a women and told in alternating retrace their steps to the playground, the cubby house responsibility. But finding the chapters, beloved local Melbourne and across the countryside to see if they can find it. right human is much harder authors Emily Gale and Nova When they can’t locate it, Arno is despondent. It’s not than Kingsley expected. Some until later that night when Arno’s grandfather comes to are too bossy. Some are too Weetman intertwine their unique him in his dreams, young and full of energy as he rides busy. And some just don’t seem to appreciate a dog the voices to weave this heartfelt, his own horse through the river, that Arno recalls the way they should. Will Kingsley find a human that is insightful and humorous tale. hiding spot of his beloved wooden horse. exactly right? A delightful rhyme scheme and Felicita Sala’s When time slips and the two young women switch beautiful watercolour illustrations of the landscape, Let’s Build a House bodies and centuries, Fanny and Cat have to navigate as well as of Arno and his friends, make this poignant Mike Lucas & Daron Parton (illus.) the realities of each other’s world. Suddenly confronted tale truly special. I particularly loved the depiction of Lothian. HB. $24.99 with the challenges of life in 1908, Cat realises that the strong bond between grandparent and grandchild Available now natural talent without passion is unfulfilling, that through a keepsake. Arno and His Horse is an utter Slip on your overalls, pop on freedoms should never be taken for granted, and how delight for kids ages 3+. your hard hat and jump in fortunate she really is. Ultimately, Cat also realises how Angela Crocombe is the manager of Readings Kids the digger – let’s build a important her family, especially her sister, is to her. In house! A step-by-step look at 2021, Fanny learns how far women have come in 100 The Rock from the Sky how a house is constructed, years and that she must pursue her dreams because Jon Klassen from digging the foundations women can do anything. Both of these two brave young Candlewick. HB. $27.99 and laying the bricks through women find a renewed sense of self and the confidence Available now to fitting the drains and to overcome any obstacles. For details on the event for this book, painting the walls. Let’s Build a House is a high-energy, Inspired by determined real-life women and told in visit readings.com.au/events gorgeously illustrated picture book written by a alternating chapters, beloved local Melbourne authors The newest offering from real-life engineer. Emily Gale and Nova Weetman intertwine their unique Caldecott winning author/ voices to weave this heartfelt, insightful and humorous illustrator Jon Klassen is full of tale. I loved this wonderful adventure. It’s perfect for delightful musings on the minutiae readers who love a time-slip story with the added twist of day-to-day life. The tension is Junior Grade of a body swap. Highly recommended for ages 10+. apparent from the beginning: a Athina Clarke is from Readings Malvern turtle in a bowler hat declaring how much he loves his favourite standing spot. Turn the page and The Underdogs Catch a Cat Burglar uh-oh, a huge rock is ominously falling. We then meet a (The Underdogs, Book 1) A Glasshouse of Stars behatted armadillo/mole creature, who warns the turtle Kate and Jol Temple & Shiloh Gordon (illus.) Shirley Marr he has a bad feeling about said spot. The dialogue Hardie Grant. PB. $12.99 Puffin. PB. $16.99 between the two continues, interspersed with images of Available 5 May Available 4 May the rock continuing to fall. As the story progresses, we also The Underdog Detective Agency Meixing and her family have meet snake and a futuristic alien creature up to no good. has a proud tradition of sniffing arrived in a new country to Spanning five sections and 90 pages, this longer out trouble (plus sniffing each pursue a life with more picture book is full of deadpan dialogue, potentially other’s butts). They’re on a opportunities and yet, their plausible situations and the spot-on comic timing we mission to catch Dogtown’s overwhelming feeling is they don’t have come to love from Klassen. The Rock from the Sky elusive cat burglar but they’re belong, particularly as they don’t is sure to be another favourite for those familiar with going to need help. Enter Fang. speak the language. It feels like they Klassen and a great introduction for families that have Letting a scruffy street cat join the have lost more than they have yet to discover his brand of unique humour. For ages 4+. Underdogs is a bold move, but gained in this new land. Meixing Morgana is from Readings Hawthorn sometimes you’ve got to risk it to get the (dog) biscuit.​​ ​ finds school terrifying and new friendships elusive; she KIDS May 2021 READINGS MONTHLY 19

wants to fit in but all she does is stand out. to Mac-Tonic™ wouldn’t also stop at nothing to turn a An old glasshouse at the back of their new home profit, no matter the cost of life. Nonfiction becomes a refuge, a place where her imagination can Pop! is a terrifically fun and very motivating book to flourish. Here Meixing is able to enter a world where read. Great for readers ages 10+. the past, present and future mix, and where seeds of Dani Solomon is from Readings Kids hope spring and ghosts can eventually be laid to rest. Shackleton’s Endurance: This is a hopeful novel and even when Meixing seems Eliza Vanda’s Button Box An Antarctic Survival Story overwhelmed by her circumstances, I always felt she Emily Rodda Joanna Grochowicz would quietly and steadfastly rise above the difficulties. HarperCollins. HB. $22.99 A&U. PB. $16.99 A Glasshouse of Stars illuminates the hardships Available 5 May Available 4 May of immigrants, the loss of a way of life, and the Milly is feeling like she’s in a In 1914, Ernest Shackleton and his importance of family and friendships. Meixing faces all bit of an in-between spot, stuck men set sail for Antarctica, these challenges but then begins to build a new world on the way to somewhere she’s not determined to cross the uncharted for herself with persistence and the help of a few good sure she wants to be. She’s about to continent on foot. In January 1915, people. Shirley Marr is a first-generation Chinese– finish primary school and she’s not his ship, the Endurance, becomes Australian writer who wants people to understand the quite ready for high school; and locked in pack ice. To survive, immigrant experience and this fine story beautifully although she’s excited for her baby Shackleton and his crew must conveys some of what newcomers to this country can sister to come home and take her old undertake a trial even more extreme encounter. I loved this book and will look forward to room she’s not so sure she’s ready to give it up. So when than their planned crossing of the recommending it to ages 9–12. Eliza Vanda, a soft, eccentric seamstress, comes to stay frozen continent. Joanna Grochowicz’s narrative Alexa Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn at her father’s seaside cabin, she’s just the distraction nonfiction for middle-grade readers brings to life the Milly needs. After all, how can you possibly be worried remarkable true story. Oddity about a new bedroom when you suddenly find yourself Eli Brown on an errand in a magical world with beautiful Uncomfortable Conversations with a Walker. PB. $18.99 clockwork birds, unicorns, and princes who have been Black Boy Available 5 May turned into frogs? Emmanuel Acho Eli Brown’s debut novel for Eliza Vanda’s Button Box is a gentle adventure; Pan Mac. PB. $16.99 younger readers introduces us while it doesn’t have huge life-or-death stakes, it is the Available 11 May to an alternate 1800s America, where kind of story that feeds your imagination a feast and An accessible book for children to the Louisiana Purchase has not leaves you hungry for more. Fantastic for ages 7+. learn about systemic racism, come to pass, and the Unified States Dani Solomon is from Readings Kids Uncomfortable Conversations with a is on the verge of war with Black Boy creates a safe, judgment- Bonaparte’s France and the fictional Wednesday Weeks and the Tower of free space for curious children to Sehanna Confederation. Mixed up in Shadows (Wednesday Weeks, Book 1) voice questions about race and all this are the fabled and much- Denis Knight & Cristy Burne privilege they may feel afraid to desired Oddities: rare items of wonder and magic that Lothian. PB. $16.99 ask. Inspired by Emmanuel Acho’s can appear harmless, such as the wineglass that is Available now viral video series, this engaging children’s book will help support parents and teachers always full, or the matches that once struck, freeze time Wednesday Weeks never wanted to in their efforts to dismantle racism among our for the period that they burn. However, many also have be a sorcerer's apprentice. She'd youngest generation. volatile natures that once provoked or misused can rather study science than magic. But have dangerous and wild consequences. when her cloak-wearing, staff- Thirteen-year-old Clover Elkin is thrust into this wielding grandpa is captured by a perilous world when her father, a Russian physician, is power-hungry goblin king, killed and she is left to protect the secret Oddity he has Wednesday must find a way to Classic kept hidden, even from her. Her father hated Oddities, embrace her magical heritage and but he said this one was neobkhodimyy – necessary. rescue him from the dreaded Tower of the Month Unsurprisingly there are several characters who wish of Shadows. With her best friend Alfie (a prime-number to collect and control these Oddities for different fan and robotics expert) by her side, Wednesday is in for reasons: some from a thirst for knowledge, others for an epic adventure involving parallel universes, swords domination, and some out of sheer desperation. Clover of power, and a wise-cracking talking skull. The Happy Lion crosses paths with them all and learns what she is Louise Fatio & Roger Duvoisin (illus.) capable of, and why, from each encounter. Drum Roll Please, It’s Stevie Louise Scallywag Press. HB. $24.99 | PB. $16.99 As Clover’s journey takes her across a war-ravaged Tanya Hennessy & Leigh Hedstrom (illus.) Available now land full of enchantment and chaos, readers are swept Albert St Books. PB. $14.99 A happy lion is along in this wonderful historical romp that is at times Available 4 May comfortable in his zoo, far funny, but also heart-wrenching. For ages 10+. Meet Stevie Louise. She’s an from his home, in ‘a lovely Claire Atherfold is the manager of Readings SLV entrepreneur, an entertainer, and an French town with brown-tile extrovert on the inside (is that a roofs and grey shutters’. Pop! thing?). Stevie has a plan: have fun, He is an insouciant fellow Mitch Johnson make money, and most importantly, with a ‘bonjour’ here, an ‘au Orion Children’s. PB. $15.99 make sure the Brooke Street kids stay revoir’ there, always enjoying Available 11 May best friends forever. But when a new the music each Sunday played When Mac-Tonic™, the most neighbour threatens to derail all on the bandstand (waltzes and polkas, mostly). He powerful company in the US, Stevie’s efforts, and when real is a happy lion. Well, until one day the keeper leaves loses the top-secret recipe for its disaster strikes, Stevie’s dedication to professionalism the door open, and the lion goes off to visit all those world-famous sugar-laden soft is put to the test. friends who greet him so warmly. So why, as he walks drink, a girl called Queenie finds it the cobblestone streets, are people fainting when he and quickly becomes the target of a Night Ride into Danger says ‘bonjour’, and why are those normally so happy to see him now running away screaming? And why countrywide hunt led by the Jackie French the sirens? powerful corporation. HarperCollins. PB. $16.99 Louise Fatio’s text is a joy to read aloud – its The CEO and board of Mac- Available 5 May humour subtle, its charm powerful – while Roger Tonic™ are almost cartoonishly evil, casually talking Six mysterious passengers and Duvoisin’s pen and charcoal images are energised with about how climate change equals profit, and using seven dark secrets. Who can be splashes of tawny yellows and geranium reds. The advertising to subtly manipulate an entire country trusted? It’s a dangerous journey for book’s themes of empathy and the power of friendship into vilifying Queenie. Their ruthlessness only makes the Cobb and Co night mail coach, are as fresh as when The Happy Lion first appeared, this middle-grade adventure about standing up to but when his coach-driver father is nearly 70 years ago. corporate power even more brilliant. It feels so real, injured, young Jem must take the Two further titles by Fatio and Duvoisin, The there barely seems to be much difference between reins. But there are six passengers Happy Lion Roars and The Three Happy Lions, Mac-Tonic™ and real multi-billion/trillion-dollar on the coach tonight, each with a continue the adventure. All are highly recommended companies now – it’s hardly a stretch to believe that secret. And if Jem can’t get them all for ages 3+. they’re all owned by the same person or the same to their destination by morning, the seventh secret groups of people, and that the real-life counterparts could be deadly... Mike Shuttleworth is from Readings Hawthorn 20 READINGS MONTHLY May 2021 YOUNG ADULT Young Adult

Gone are the long nights of revising and fretting over BOOK OF THE textbooks for recent high school graduates Zoë, Samira and Dahlia. With exams finally done and dusted, MONTH they are ready to go on Schoolies, a week of fun, sun and Young Adult partying that promises to be the break they need after the intensity of Year 12. But not everything is perfect: Zoë, who has her heart set on a career as a doctor, is unsure if she’ll be accepted into her first preference university; Samira is feeling increasingly isolated from her friends; and Dahlia is still grieving the loss of her childhood best friend, who died a year ago and whose passing she has not fully processed. Amid the heady swirl of clubs, concerts, foam parties and theme parks, the three friends must also overcome their growing anxieties about who they are and what the future holds in store for them. The end of year 12 is a weird time for students. It’s a time when, after 13 years of constant and guided education, you’re finally expected to go out into the world and make your own choices. This can be confusing, stressful and complex, even Can’t Say It Went for the most prepared of high school leavers. In Can’t Say It to Plan Went to Plan, Gabrielle Tozer manages to accurately depict Gabrielle Tozer and explore this unique situation, while also tackling more HarperCollins. PB. $19.99 sensitive topics, such as grief, mental health issues and Available 5 May friendship troubles, in a way that is engaging, honest and, most of all, inspiring. As someone who recently completed year 12 (and Schoolies!) I deeply connected with Zoë, Samira and Dahlia’s fear. Tozer handles each of the characters respectfully and realistically, and readers will find something to identify with in these three girls, whether they have been through year 12 or not. Perfect for ages 14+. Ngaire Bogemann is from Readings Kids

The Ones We’re Meant to Find Kate in Waiting Joan He Becky Albertalli Text. PB. $19.99 Penguin. PB. $16.99 Available 4 May Available 4 May This beautiful story Contrary to popular belief, set in a fascinating Kate and Anderson are not future is narrated in co-dependent best friends. alternating chapters by But when Kate and Andy’s DR ANDREW BROWNING 16-year-old Kasey latest long-distance crush From Ethiopia to Sierra Leone, Dr Andrew Browning has been helping Mizuhara and her older shows up at their school, women affected by obstetric fistulas for nearly two decades. This is the sister Celia. These very everything goes off-script. uplifting story of Andrew’s life, from the challenges faced along the different young women From bestselling author way to the stories of the women whose lives he has forever changed. have become physically separated and are Becky Albertalli comes a new novel about searching for one another. Their world has daring to step out of the shadows and into the been ravaged by climate change and the spotlight in love, life and, yes, theatre. fortunate few now live in eco-cities set in the clouds. The rest of humanity must tough Way of the Argosi it out on the surface of the harsh planet. Sebastien de Castell KAYA WILSON Rather than having real experiences, most Hotkey. PB. $19.99 When Kaya Wilson came out to his parents as transgender, he was met people hologram themselves to places to Available 4 May with a startling family history of concealed queerness and shame. In this save resources. People are ranked based on Ferius Parfax has a plan: powerful and lyrical memoir, Wilson makes a case for the strength we their ancestor’s impact on the planet – the find when we confront the complexities of our identity with compassion. kill every last inhabitant descendants of heavy polluters are punished of the spell-gifted nation with very low rank and minimal benefits. that destroyed her family. Kasey is an introvert whose sister But then she meets Durral disappeared three months prior, presumed Brown, a wandering Women s Health dead at sea. Celia was the life of the Nutrition Guide philosopher gifted in the party, with many friends and boyfriends, arts of violence who and Kasey is the opposite. Searching for Research-based advice from the CSIRO on the critical role of instead overcomes his opponents with lifelong healthy eating as the cornerstone of overall good health answers about what happened to her sister shrewdness and compassion. Will Durral for women. This is the essential guide to what women can do forces her out of her shell. hold the key to defeating her enemies, or throughout their life, to make a difference to their long-term Celia is stuck on a deserted island, will he lead her down a path of destruction? health and wellbeing. with few memories, desperately trying to escape. She lives in someone’s abandoned Heartstopper: Volume Four house, survives on taro plants and is Alice Oseman building a boat that she hopes will sail her Hodder. PB. $22.99 back to her sister. She is all alone until a Available 11 May naked boy washes up on the shore. GEORGIE CARROLL Charlie didn’t think Nick This story of separated sisters is set in Stories full of infectious, hospital-grade humour and loads of heart, could ever like him back, a highly imaginative world. For readers from Australia’s favourite nurse. Georgie Carroll lets you peek but now they’re officially behind the curtains to see the inner workings of a hospital. This is who liked Davina Bell’s The End of the boyfriends, and Charlie’s a laugh-out-loud funny celebration of the big-hearted, no-bullsh*t World Is Bigger than Love this is an equally nurses who, sooner or later, play a huge role in all of our lives. feeling ready to say those challenging and rewarding read that three little words. Summer shows how the bonds of love transcend a turns to autumn and a Love talking about books? dystopian world. For ages 14+. new school year begins in Find us online at Pan Macmillan Australia Angela Crocombe is the manager of the fourth volume of this heartwarming Readings Kids LGBTQIA+ graphic novel series. BARGAINS May 2021 READINGS MONTHLY 21

visual inspiration as well as the stories bohemian existence marked by ambitious book continues Pinker’s behind each creation and design. extraordinary achievements, intense exploration of the essence of human nature. Bargains heartbreak and enduring love. Sunday’s Kitchen: This Life: Food & Living at Heide Adventures on Earth Why Mortality Makes Us Free Lesley Harding & Kendrah Morgan Simon Tyler Martin Hägglund The Accordionist PB. Was $34.99 Now $14.99 HB. Was $24.99 Now $10.99 PB. Was $32.99 Now $12.99 Fred Vargas & Sian Reynolds (trans.) Sunday Reed was a Graphic illustrator Simon Would Heaven be boring? Do PB. Was $32.99 Now $11.99 passionate cook and Tyler explores the you want to live forever? When two Parisian women gardener, who believed in extremes of our planet, Philosopher Martin are murdered in their homes, home-grown produce, and the people who Hägglund embarks on an the police suspect young seasonal cooking and a venture there. Learn in-depth inquiry into the accordionist Clément communal table. Richly about the highest and questions of existence. Via Vauquer. As he was seen illustrated with art, deepest, hottest and engagements with some of outside both of the photographs and recipes from Sunday’s coldest places on Earth and discover its the greatest philosophers and theologians in apartments in question, it personal collection, Sunday’s Kitchen tells most wild terrain. Also find out how these history, he takes aim at two great adversaries, seems like an open-and-shut case. Desperate the story of food and living at the home of regions are under threat from issues such religion and capitalism, to return us to life for a chance to prove his innocence Clément John and Sunday Reed, two of Australia’s as global warming and learn what we can itself in all its fragility. A great work of seeks refuge with old Marthe. She calls in most significant art benefactors. do to conserve them. existentialist philosophy of the 21st century. ex-special investigator Louis Kehlweiler who soon faces his most complex case. Sunday’s Garden: A Beer in the Loire The New Silk Roads Growing Heide Tommy Barnes Peter Frankopan Big Sky Lesley Harding & Kendrah Morgan HB. Was $29.99 Now $12.99 PB. Was $27.99 Now $13.99 Kate Atkinson PB. Was $34.99 Now $14.99 Tommy Barnes was at From Europe through to PB. Was $32.99 Now $11.99 When Sunday and John breaking point when he China, by way of Russia and Jackson Brodie has Reed purchased Heide it found himself taking off to the Middle East, The New relocated to a quiet, seaside was a neglected former France with girlfriend Rose Silk Roads reminds us that village. It’s picturesque, but dairy farm. At the end of to pursue his dream of we live in a profoundly there’s something darker their lives, it was unique brewing beer. Settled in a interconnected world. Peter lurking behind the scenes. among Melbourne’s dilapidated house in the Frankopan takes a fresh look His current job, gathering parklands, with a beautiful Loire they are plagued by calamities, at the network of relationships being proof of an unfaithful kitchen garden the jewel in its crown. boisterous neighbours and an unexpected formed along the length and breadth of husband for his suspicious wife, is fairly Sunday’s Garden explores the growing of pregnancy. Not to mention, Burt the Satanic the Silk Roads today, assessing the global standard, but a chance encounter with a Heide and how it connected art with nature dog who truly has it in for his master. reverberations of these continual shifts in desperate man on a crumbling cliff leads and created a nourishing environment for the centre of power. him into a sinister network – and back the artists they championed. ‘Til Wrong Feels Right: across the path of someone from his past. Lyrics and More Big City Atlas Mr Guilfoyle’s Shakespearian Iggy Pop Maggie Li Quichotte Botany HB. Was $49.99 Now $15.99 PB. Was $24.99 Now $10.99 Salman Rushdie Diana E. Hill & From fronting the Join cheerful PB. Was $32.99 Now $11.99 Edmée H. Cudmore (eds) legendary proto-punk globetrotter Penguin on Struggling writer Sam PB. Was $45 Now $14.99 band The Stooges to a world tour of 28 DuChamp creates William Guilfoyle, credited collaborating with an amazing cities. Packed Quichotte, a courtly, addled as the architect of eclectic mix of artists, with information and salesman obsessed with Melbourne’s Royal Botanic Iggy Pop has proved facts about every city, television, who falls in gardens, was an eminent himself to be one of this is an entertaining and educational impossible love with a TV landscape designer, music’s most influential, enduring and children’s book that enables you to travel star. Together with his botanist and writer. Here endearing icons. Here for the first time are the world from your own home. It includes (imaginary) son Sancho, Quichotte sets off are his collected writings his collected lyrics, complete with stunning cities such as New York, Rio de Janeiro, on a picaresque quest across America to on the dozens of plants, fruits and flowers original photographs, illustrations and London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Rome, prove worthy of her hand. Meanwhile his William Shakespeare referred to in his plays reflections on a genre-defining music Cairo, Istanbul, Dubai, Mumbai, Beijing, creator, in a midlife crisis, has equally and poems. Each entry is accompanied by career that spans five decades. Tokyo, Auckland and Sydney. urgent challenges of his own. A dazzling Basilius Besler’s illustrations and delicate Don Quixote for the modern age. watercolours by Jacques le Morgues. Living with the Gods: Dr. Seuss’s Horse Museum On Beliefs and Peoples Dr. Seuss & Andrew Joyner (illus.) Warlight The Forgotten Notebook Neil MacGregor HB. Was $27.99 Now $11.99 Michael Ondaatje Betty Churcher HB. Was $65 Now $16.99 Based on a manuscript PB. Was $29.99 Now $11.99 PB. Was $44.99 Now $15.99 Using a kaleidoscope of and sketches from Dr. It is 1945, and London is In the 1990s Betty objects, monuments and Seuss, and brought to life reeling from the Blitz and Churcher drew her way ideas, Neil MacGregor’s by acclaimed illustrator years of war. Fourteen-year- around the galleries of history of belief traces how Andrew Joyner, this is a old Nathaniel and his sister the world as she arranged societies have understood thoroughly Seussian are apparently abandoned artwork loans for and articulated their place exploration of the world of by their parents, left in the blockbuster exhibitions in the cosmic scheme. He art. With reproductions of more than 30 care of an enigmatic figure, at the National Gallery of examines mankind’s beliefs not from the iconic pieces of artwork and cameo the Moth, and his eccentric crew of Australia. Churcher’s sketches and notes perspective of institutional religions, but appearances from beloved Dr. Seuss friends. But who are they really? A dozen bring their artworks to life as she explores by focusing on the shared narratives that characters this book is totally unique. It years later, Nathaniel begins to uncover all the stories of how they were created and have shaped societies, and on what will inspire Seuss fans, artists and horse he didn’t know or understand in that time. reveals each artist’s influences. This is happens when different narratives run up lovers – of all ages. the final volume of her bestselling against each other. The Anatomy of Treehouses: Notebooks series. La Belle Sauvage New Buildings from an Old The Better Angels of Our (The Book of Dust, Volume 1) Tradition Modern Love: The Lives of Nature: Why Violence Has Philip Pullman Jane Field-Lewis John and Sunday Reed Declined PB. Was $32.99 Now $11.99 HB. Was $49.99 Now $16.99 Lesley Harding & Kendrah Morgan Steven Pinker Eleven-year-old Malcolm The treehouse in its PB. Was $45 Now $15.99 PB. Was $32.99 Now $13.99 Polstead’s Oxford life has most simple and Modern Love explores the Are we living in the most been one of routine, ordinary fundamental form lives of modernist peaceful moment in our even. He is happiest playing enables us to escape pioneers John and Sunday species’ existence? In his with his daemon, Asta, in from the everyday Reed whose remarkable gripping and controversial their canoe, La Belle pressures of modern partnership championed book, Steven Pinker shows Sauvage. But now as the rain life and feel closer to nature. It can also be successive generations of that despite the ceaseless builds, the world around them is set to an architectural wonder. Covering topics Australian artists and news stories, violence has become increasingly far from ordinary. such as planning, structure and materials writers and altered the course of art in been in decline over long stretches of Finding himself linked to a baby by the this beautiful book shows how the Australia. It is a story of rebellion against history. Exploding myths about name of Lyra Belacqua, Malcolm is forced to treehouse can be many things. It offers their privileged backgrounds and of a humankind’s inherent violence, this undertake the challenge of his life. 22 READINGS MONTHLY May 2021 MUSIC & DVD

First Time Really Feeling Latest Record Project Volume 1 three young boys and her mother struggle Liz Stringer Van Morrison to adjust to their new situation, an unlikely Music ally enters their world in the form of an $19.99 | Also on vinyl $22.99 2CDs | Also on vinyl Available 30 April Available 7 May injured baby magpie they name Penguin. Beloved equally for her Van Morrison’s 42nd rock stylings, knee- studio album explores High Ground Jazz/Blues/Soul buckling ballads and a the classic and timeless $29.99 Available 5 May world-class lyrical and quality of the blues from Set against the stunning storytelling prowess, a fresh perspective. landscapes of 1930s Arnhem Fire It Up Liz Stringer’s First Instinctive walking Land, High Ground Steve Cropper Time Really Feeling showcases a musician basslines, colourful backing vocals, and chronicles young Aboriginal $22.99 | Also on vinyl at the top of her game. Featuring 10 songs organ melodies bring warmth to his latest man Gutjuk, who in a bid to Available now that document a recent reckoning and release. Equal parts blue-eyed soul shouter save the last of his family Steve Cropper is a metamorphosis, this album is emotional, and wild-eyed poet-sorcerer, Van teams up with ex-soldier Travis to track guitarist’s guitarist, just unflinching, expansive and revealing. It Morrison’s status as an artist of musical down Baywara – the most dangerous ask Brian May or Eric is Australian music at its finest and distinction is self-evident. warrior in the Territory, who is also his Clapton. Seven decades Stringer at her best. uncle. As they earn each other’s trust the into a career of soul, Sixty Summers truths of Travis’ past are revealed and it is blues and rock ‘n’ roll Endless Arcade Julia Stone he who becomes the hunted. stardom he played with Booker T. & the Teenage Fanclub $22.99 | Also on vinyl M.G.’s and became one of the Stax label’s $22.99 | Also on vinyl Available 30 April My Salinger Year main producers, songwriters and $29.99 Available now Available 30 April Sixty Summers arrives as guitarists. Cropper’s first album of new It’s the mid-1990s: idealistic Their first album with a powerful rebirth for material in 10 years is an instant classic 20-something Joanna the new line-up, Endless one of Australia’s most combining sounds of yesterday with impulsively quits graduate Arcade is quintessential prolific artists, Julia eternally infectious grooves. school to pursue her dream Teenage Fanclub, with Stone. Eight years since of becoming a published melodies that are equal her last solo record she poet. In New York she lands Smoke from the Chimney parts heartwarming and emerges from the wildernesses of folk and a coveted role as assistant to a brusque Tony Joe White heartaching – guitars chime and distort; indie-rock, and dives headfirst into the and old-fashioned literary agent. My $22.99 | Also on vinyl keyboard lines mesh and spiral; harmony- world of late-night, moonlit pop. It is Stone Salinger Year is a compassionate depiction Available 7 May coated choruses burst out like sun on a at her truest, brightest self, a revered icon of a pre-digital world, the value of Tony Joe White’s stormy day. There is nothing quite like a finally sharing her long, secret love affair mentorship, and the lasting impact of posthumous album, Teenage Fanclub album to reaffirm that all with this vibrant and complex genre. self-expression in all its forms. Smoke from the Chimney, is not lost in this world. showcases previously ‘Til We Meet Again (Live) Another Round unknown home She Walks in Beauty Norah Jones $24.99 Available 5 May recordings by the Marianne Faithfull & Warren Ellis $21.99 legendary songwriter and musician. A Heartened by a theory that $24.99 | Also on vinyl Available now pioneer of the Louisiana swamp rock sound, we should be born with a Available 30 April Nearly two decades into the album captures his signature style in its small amount of alcohol in Marianne Faithfull, in her storied career, purest form and serves as a living testimony our blood, and that modest collaboration with nine-time Grammy- to one of the most gifted lyricists and inebriation opens our minds, composer and multi- winning singer, storytellers music has ever known. Martin and three of his instrumentalist Warren songwriter, pianist and friends, all weary high-school teachers, Ellis, releases one of the 2020s most live- embark on an experiment to maintain a most distinctive albums streamed artist, Norah Jones, delivers her Pop/Rock/Alt constant level of intoxication throughout of her extraordinary life and career. A first full live album. The 14-track collection the workday. Who knows what a few drops long-held ambition to record an album of spans global performances across the U.S., might do for them and their students? Celebrate the Music of Peter poetry with music she recites 19th- France, Italy, Brazil and Argentina held Green & and the Early Years of century British Romantic poets including between 2017–2019 and includes some of Fleetwood Mac Keats, Shelley and Byron alongside her most well-known compositions. Documentary Mick Fleetwood & Friends musical friends Nick Cave, Brian Eno and $24.99 2CDs | Also on vinyl cellist Vincent Ségal. Amy Winehouse: At the BBC Zappa Available 30 April Amy Winehouse $24.99 Available now In February last year Sweep It into Space $44.99 3CDs | Also on vinyl Alex Winter’s Zappa legendary drummer, Dinosaur Jr. Available 7 May presents an intimate portrait Mick Fleetwood $21.99 | Also on vinyl Originally released in of one of music’s most enlisted an all-star cast Available now 2012, this re-issue of Amy important and iconoclastic for a one-of-a-kind Dinosaur Jr. has a Winehouse’s posthumous figures, Frank Zappa, whose concert honouring the signature sound and on live collection is a fitting prolific work changed music early years of Fleetwood Mac and its Sweep It into Space the tribute to her peerless and the music industry for ever, and founder, Peter Green. Recorded at the band continues to artistry, phenomenal whose cultural impact was far-reaching London Palladium, this stunning expand their personal talent and extraordinary powers as a and enduring. With unprecedented access recording of that once-off celebration universe without losing songwriter, a singer, and an interpreter of to his archives, interviews and unseen features Neil Finn, Christine McVie, Billy their central core. Lou Barlow writes and classics. Chronicling her many remarkable footage, Zappa will open your mind to a Gibbons, David Gilmour, Pete Townshend, sings two of the album’s dozen tunes and performances, the set includes her earliest man way ahead of his time. John Mayall, Steven Tyler, Zak Starkey, Murph’s pure-Flinstonian drumming BBC Radio sessions, as well as unheard gems, Noel Gallagher and many more. drives the record like a go-cart from hell. rarities and unique covers. Featuring guest artist Kurt Vile. Classic Film Cry Forever Amy Shark Hard Up re-release $19.99 | Also on vinyl The Bamboos DVDs Available 30 April $22.99 | Also on vinyl Big Night Multi ARIA award- Available 7 May $19.99 Available now winning, singer– The Bamboos find the Chef Primo and businessman songwriter Amy Shark sweetest spot yet Film Secondo are immigrant unleashes her highly between soul and funk brothers from Italy who open anticipated second on Hard Up, their 10th their dream restaurant, album. Cry Forever, studio album. Alongside Penguin Bloom Paradise, in New Jersey. which includes the hit single ‘Everybody long-time stellar vocalist $29.99 Available now However, Primo’s authentic Rise’ sees her exceptional songwriting on Kylie Auldist are guests Durand Jones, Joey Naomi Watts stars in the true food is too unfamiliar for the local tastes, full display and is an evolution from her Dosik and Ev Jones. Even after 21 years, story of Sam Bloom, a young and the restaurant is struggling. When debut. Says Shark: ‘These are some of the The Bamboos once again manage to mother whose world is famous bandleader Louis Prima is most personal and confronting songs I’ve reinvigorate a classic sound, seamlessly shattered after a near-fatal scheduled to appear at Paradise, they put ever written, and I can’t wait to share incorporating contemporary influences to accident leaves her paralysed. all of their efforts into a meal which will them with everyone.’ create something altogether brand new. As Sam, her husband, their likely decide the restaurant’s fate. MUSIC May 2021 READINGS MONTHLY 23

Ligeti: The 18 Études relishes being in a position to let the brass Danny Driver entirely off the leash when the opportunity Classical Music presents itself.’ – Presto Classical Hyperion. CDA68286. $29.99 ‘With their exhilarating brilliance and mesmerising beauty, Pat Metheny: Road to the Sun is new territory for jazz Classical Specials these pieces have guitarist Pat Metheny. The winner of 20 Grammy ALBUM OF captured the of the Month Awards, Metheny has truly embraced a new musical horizon imagination of players THE MONTH with this classical opus. Spread over 11 tracks, the album and audiences alike ... These works are here Classical features two new major pieces composed specifically for the Baroque to stay, in the distinguished line of études classical guitar by Metheny (‘Four Paths of Light’ and the Various artists stretching back via Debussy to Chopin. They titular ‘Road to the Sun’), followed by a rendition of Arvo Brilliant Classics. 95886. 25CDs. Was $119.99 require even more virtuosity, sometimes of a Pärt’s ‘Für Alina’. Metheny himself only plays guitar on a few $39.99 (limited stock at this price) brain-teasing sort, and Danny Driver tracks. The 17th and 18th supplies it all.’ – BBC Music Magazine centuries marked the era of Enlightenment, A richly rewarding experience, this Prism III: album is highly recommended for overseas exploration, Beethoven, Bartók, Bach unprecedented Metheny fans, classical guitar listeners Danish String Quartet European economic ECM. 4855417. $29.99 and anyone looking for an entry into expansion and a flourishing of art and Pat Metheny: modern classical music. The third volume of the culture, not to mention the birth of the Road to the Sun Danish String Quartet’s greatest composers in history. From ongoing Prism series, Jason Vieaux, Los The music in these new compositions is diverse and joyful concertos to fantasias, suites to sonatas, which shows how the Angeles Guitar with a great sense of rhythm and melody. It may not sound this collection presents a comprehensive radiance of Bach’s fugues Quartet & Pat like your typical Metheny album but his musical stamp is and concise overview of this innovative is refracted through Metheny clear. First up is ‘Four Paths of Light’, a 20-minute, four- and groundbreaking period in musical Beethoven’s quartets to illuminate the work Modern Recordings. movement piece featuring classical guitar sensation Jason history, the Baroque era. 538639322. $24.99 of later composers. Here the quartet follow Vieaux. Vieaux has not been afraid to arrange modernists like the beam from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Piazzolla for guitar before, and has even recorded a whole Cello Concertos Fugue in C-sharp Minor through Ludwig van album of Metheny pieces for classical guitar. Their collaboration here is wonderful. Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 14 to Béla Various artists The second work is a six-part 30-minute opus, ‘Road to the Sun’. This work was Brilliant Classics. 95782. 15CDs. Was $66.99 Bartók’s String Quartet No. 1. originally commissioned by the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet back in 2016 and has since $21.99 (limited stock at this price) been performed three times. Metheny himself contributes some powerful strumming to French Duets: This set brings together parts two and five of this suite. I listen to a lot of steel string guitar from a rock and folk outstanding perspective, and the interplay between the four guitarists and their incredible attention Works for Two Pianos Paul Lewis & Steven Osborne performances of to tone production on nylon strings makes for fantastic listening. With influences from landmark works from Hyperion. CDA68329. Was $29.99 Latin and Flamenco music, Metheny’s composition here has opened the world of classical the full range of the cello $24.99 (limited stock at this price) guitar to me. The album is beautifully rounded out with Metheny’s breathtaking rendition concerto’s relatively In a true meeting of of Arvo Pärt’s ‘Für Alina’. Playing a bespoke 42-string guitar, Metheny uses deep bass notes short history, from the Baroque to the end of musical minds, the two and harp strums to render an incredible performance of Pärt’s masterwork. the 20th century. The deep resonant and superb pianists team up A richly rewarding experience, this album is highly recommended for Metheny fans, eloquent sound of the cello is able to express once again for a classical guitar listeners and anyone looking for an entry into modern classical music. the widest spectrum of human emotions, delectable programme of Paul Barr is from Readings Carlton from intimately whispering, mournfully miniatures by Fauré, lamenting to passionately singing. Poulenc, Stravinsky, Debussy and Ravel. French Duets features a bewitching programme of music often associated with Virtuoso Piano Etudes French Music for the Stage: Pergolesi: Stabat Mater & childhood – works which amply reward the Various artists Auber, Boieldieu, Delibes, Rossell: Salve Regina care lavished on them by Paul Lewis and Brilliant Classics. 95571. 22CDs. Was $69.99 Massenet, Thomas Giulia Semenzato, Lucile Steven Osborne in these exquisite accounts. $24.99 (limited stock at this price) Estonian National Symphony Richardot, Ensemble Resonanz & This unique set offers Orchestra & Neeme Järvi Riccardo Minasi Tapeo: an extensive anthology Chandos. CHAN20151. Was $29.99 Harmonia Mundi. HMM902637. Was $32.99 Works for Cello and Piano of the piano étude. $24.99 (limited stock at this price) $26.99 (limited stock at this price) Cameron Crozman & Philip Chiu During the centuries For their latest album, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater Atma Classique. ACD22820. $29.99 the étude has Neeme Järvi and his is one of the miracles of Spanish music is the transformed from a Estonian National 18th-century sacred focus of Tapeo, a new simple technical exercise to an elaborate Symphony Orchestra music. Nourished by recording by cellist tone-poem, in which the technical issue is present a delightful their experience of Cameron Crozman and aimed at conveying a deep musical programme of lesser- ‘setting in resonance’ pianist Philip Chiu. meaning and expressing the whole gamut known stage music from the nineteenth early and contemporary repertories, Works by Gaspar of human emotions. A mind-blowing set of and early twentieth centuries. The Riccardo Minasi and the Hamburg Cassadó, Manuel de Falla, Joaquín Turina staggering virtuosity, pianistic glitter and Overtures by Thomas, Auber and Boieldieu musicians shed an astonishingly modern are performed on ‘El Tiburon’, a circa-1769 brilliance, but also of human warmth, were all composed for works staged at the light on these moving pieces, in which the Spanish cello. ‘Each of the short pieces on introspection and melancholy. Opéra-Comique in Paris, and are wonderful voices of Giulia Semenzato and Lucile this album was chosen for its own unique examples of the period. Richardot intertwine in the most sublime flavour and will give you a musical taste of Choral Classics from of communions. Spain’s incredibly diverse and rich Cambridge Verklärte Nacht: Schoenberg, culture,’ says Crozman. Choir of King’s College, Choir of Fried, Lehár, Korngold Occurrence: ISO Project, Vol. 3 St John’s College, Choir of Clare Christine Rice, Stuart Skelton, Pekka Kuusisto, Mario Caroli, Lise Davidsen: Beethoven, College & Corydon Singers BBC Symphony Orchestra & Iceland Symphony Orchestra & Verdi, Wagner Brilliant Classics. 9234. 5CDs. Was $39.99 Edward Gardner Daníel Bjarnason Lise Davidsen, London $14.99 (limited stock at this price) Chandos. CHSA5243. Was $32.99 Sono Luminus. DSL92243. $26.99 Philharmonic Orchestra & This set showcases the $26.99 (limited stock at this price) ‘[Bjarnason’s] Violin Sir Mark Elder celebrated choral music ‘[The Schoenberg] in its Concerto opens the Decca. 4851507. $24.99 tradition at the heart of orchestral version, is the album with a ‘Beethoven’s Cambridge’s Clare pivotal piece on this spectacular notoriously unforgiving College, King’s College recording, and it finds performance by soloist two-octave leaps and and St John’s College. Edward Gardner Pekka Kuusisto. breath-sapping long Featuring a collection of popular choral drawing playing of Intensely virtuosic, the violin is phrases seemingly favourites from composers such as Mozart, sumptuous intensity but also ravishing nonetheless always part of a greater whole: [pose] no problem at all Elgar, Mendelssohn, Brahms and Purcell, delicacy from the strings of the BBC from folky, whistled tunes to roaring and for Davidsen’s formidable lung-capacity and an in-depth exploration of Symphony Orchestra ... But it’s the rest of growling on the detuned bottom string, and seamlessly-integrated instrument … Renaissance lamentations, this set also the repertoire that makes this disc especially storms of colour are unleashed for the Elder’s tempi are often luxuriously features a recording of Evensong and interesting ... Gardner always seems to bring orchestra to absorb and rework in surging spacious, capitalising on his soloist’s Vespers at King’s, evoking the college’s out the best in Skelton.’ – The Guardian textures.’ – BBC Music Magazine rock-steady breath-control, and he clearly tradition of daily choral singing.