Summer Reading Guide

This season’s best books selected by your favourite independent bookseller 2 AUSTRALIAN FICTION ALL OUR SHIMMERING SKIES DOOM CREEK FACTORY 19 Trent Dalton Alan Carter Dennis Glover Trent Dalton took Australia by storm with December Release A satire on past, current and future his debut novel Boy Swallows Universe. Those readers who didn’t discover Alan political ideologies, Factory 19 imagines a Two years later, he has given us All Our Carter’s Marlborough Man on its release in David Walsh–like character transforming Shimmering Skies. There are similarities 2017 will be in for a treat when they read his MONA-ish site in Hobart into a town between the two – both feature the both that award-winning crime novel and straight out of 1948, complete with factory, perspective of a young person, consider life this equally impressive follow-up. Set in economy and society. Why 1948? It was on the margins, and are interwoven with New Zealand’s South Island, Doom Creek the last year it was possible to be fully elements of magical realism. But in his new follows former Geordie policeman Nick human, the eccentric billionaire declares, HarperCollins PB novel, Dalton transports the reader into the Fremantle PB Chester as he and his family, all part of a Black Inc PB a time when we weren’t under the thrall Was $32.99 past (Darwin, 1942), where the fantastical $32.99 witness protection programme, continue Was $32.99 of Bezos, Musk, Zuckerberg and their ilk. Now $26.99 elements of his writing are amplified. to establish a new life in the Marlborough Now $29.99 Our narrator heads up the factory and This is the tale of Molly, a gravedigger’s Sounds. Nick is now a policeman with takes deep pleasures in this new 1948, daughter. On her way to lift a family curse, the NZ force, and when a gun-toting where any digital technology is banned. Molly meets Yukio, a fallen kamikaze pilot, group of American survivalists move But this (very white-bread and blokey) and Greta, an actress, and the unlikely trio into his patch, he suspects trouble will Arcadia falters. It seems that little people travel through the outback together. With ensue. Add this to the murder of a miner won’t be able to win back the world… prose as lyrical as its title, this sweeping, (for which Nick himself is a suspect), upbeat work will burnish Dalton’s already and a particularly nasty cold case to be glittering reputation. investigated, and it becomes apparent that THE FIFTH SEASON Nick has an awful lot on his plate. Philip Salom CONSOLATION Twice shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Garry Disher Award, Philip Salom again shows his THE DRESSMAKER’S SECRET serious novelistic intent with The Fifth The third volume in Garry Disher’s Hirsch Rosalie Ham Season. If you love metafiction and series cements both the likeability of its At long last we can welcome this intellectual play mixed with weighty laconic protagonist and the excellence sequel to Rosalie Ham’s bestselling The themes, this is the book for you. This of its author’s plot-driven narratives and Dressmaker. We last saw a vengeful Tilly especially applies if you’re already a pared-back prose. Consolation opens Dunnage fleeing Dungatar in despair. In Salom fan, because The Fifth Season with Hirsch tracking down an underwear The Dressmaker’s Secret, she is working in Transit Lounge PB references some of his previous work. Its thief and acting on a report of a child in Melbourne as fashionable Melburnians main concern, though, is missing people. danger. And that’s just in the morning. $29.99 are gearing up for the coronation of Jack, an author staying in a small coastal Text PB Later, he must deal with a stalker, Irish Queen Elizabeth II. Tilly is desperately town to write a book about unidentified conmen, embezzlers, allegations about Was $32.99 Picador PB trying to conceal her past, but Sergeant bodies, meets Sarah who, driven by the financial irregularities on the part of one Now $26.99 Was $32.99 Farrat from Dungatar manages to find loss of her own sister, paints large murals of the region’s big shots, and a murder. For her. And so, the adventure begins. Ham of the missing in public spaces. As well as a sparsely populated rural town, Tiverton Now $29.99 is adept at leavening serious themes (eg, the focus on the missing and the found, certainly seems to be a hotbed of crime bullying and ambition) with humour and Salom demands that we confront ideas and it’s a big load for a small-town police warmth, and here she demonstrates just about art, mortality and identity. constable to cope with. But if anyone can, how sweet having the final word can be. it’s Hirsch. Top-drawer Aussie crime, from a master of the genre. HONEYBEE EVERYTHING IN ITS Craig Silvey DEATH IN DAYLESFORD RIGHT PLACE Western Australian writer Craig Silvey Kerry Greenwood Tobias McCorkell fulfils the promise of his much-loved Based in Melbourne but beloved Ford McCullen’s life is complicated. Jasper Jones with this poignant novel globally, Kerry Greenwood has written He lives in the working-class northern of despair and tenuous hope. Sam and 21 Phryne Fisher novels and seems to Melbourne suburb of Coburg with his Vic are both contemplating leaping off have no trouble conjuring up new plots, mum and grandparents, in a pair of units a bridge when they first meet, and a characters and settings in which to plunge right near the looming figure of Pentridge friendship begins when each wants to her intrepid, generous-spirited and Prison. His dad has moved away to live save the other. Ageing Vic is grieving wonderfully chic lady detective. Heading in country Victoria, having left the family Allen & Unwin PB the loss of his wife. And 14-year-old to the Victorian spa town of Daylesford Transit Lounge PB to be with a new, male partner. Through Was $32.99 Sam has had a rough start to life, with a Allen & Unwin PB in this outing, Phryne and Dot must $29.99 his paternal grandmother, Ford gets a Now $29.99 mother whose love and good intentions $29.99 deal with the mystery of disappearing chance to attend a private school south of are overshadowed by her frequent local women, a series of murders and a the river. It may be only a few kilometres absences. The care and compassion particularly incompetent local policeman. away from Coburg, but St Anthony’s is the two show each other makes Sam’s Meanwhile, back in Melbourne, Phryne’s a completely different world that Ford tentative steps to self-realisation adopted daughters Jane and Ruth must learn to navigate. Everything in its possible. As we revisit Sam’s childhood, investigate the death of a schoolmate, Right Place is a powerful and nuanced Silvey’s portrait of a troubled teenager impressing Dot’s intended, Detective debut novel about class, growing up, and shimmers. So too do questions around Sergeant Collins, in the process. figuring out your place in the world. masculinity and gender identity.

Literary Award Winners

THE DISCOMFORT HAMNET SEE WHAT YOU THE WIFE AND OF EVENING MAGGIE O’FARRELL MADE ME DO THE WIDOW MARIEKE LUCAS RIJNEVELD Tinder Press PB JESS HILL CHRISTIAN WHITE Faber PB $29.99 $32.99 Black Inc PB $32.99 Affirm PB $16.99 Awarded the 2020 This fictionalised Australian investigative A dual narrative and International Booker Prize, account of the short journalist Jess Hill was awarded brilliant plot twist are the this Dutch novel is an life and death of the 2020 Stella Prize for this hallmarks of this Australian extraordinary portrait of a Shakespeare’s son powerful book, which both novel, which won the 2020 farming family distorted by Hamnet was the winner draws attention to and suggests Ned Kelly Award for Best grief, as seen through the eyes of this year’s Women’s ways of resolving the national Crime Fiction. of its 10-year-old daughter. Prize for Fiction. crisis of domestic abuse.

GOOD GIRL BAD GIRL THE NICKEL BOYS TIBERIUS WITH THE YIELD MICHAEL ROBOTHAM COLSON WHITEHEAD A TELEPHONE TARA JUNE WINCH Hachette PB Fleet PB $22.99 PATRICK MULLINS Hamish Hamilton PB $19.99 This harrowing tale of Scribe PB $32.99 With this novel, Australian two boys sentenced to a $35 Wiradjuri woman Tara crime writer Michael hellish reform school in Winner of this year’s June Winch was awarded Robotham became one of 1960s Florida garnered National Biography Award, this year’s Miles Franklin the few writers to win the the author of the this book deals with the Award for her novelistic prestigious British Crime widely acclaimed The life and career of William exploration of the legacies Writer’s Association Gold Underground Railroad McMahon, the man often of colonial violence, shame, Dagger for Best Crime a second Pulitzer Prize described as Australia’s intergenerational trauma and Novel twice. for Fiction in 2020. worst prime minister. environmental destruction. AUSTRALIAN FICTION 3 INFINITE SPLENDOURS OUR SHADOWS Highly Recommended Sofie Laguna Gail Jones BLUEBIRD The latest novel by Sofie Laguna (The Eye of Despite having written eight novels, MALCOLM KNOX the Sheep) is a poignant, heart-wrenching Sydney-based writer Gail Jones has flown Allen & Unwin PB read. At 10 years old, Lawrence enchants his below the radars of many readers. Despite Was $32.99 Now $29.99 teachers, anchors his adoring little brother being highly regarded by her peers – she Set in a beachside suburb in and provides solace to his bone-weary mother. has been shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Sydney, this quintessentially But when Lawrence’s world is shattered, so on multiple occasions – she is yet to hit the Australian novel addresses too is all this optimism and sparkle. Trauma bestseller lists. Readers new to her work the myths that come to define snatches away Lawrence’s ability to function, will find Our Shadows an excellent entry families and communities, and Allen & Unwin PB and reverberates through the lives of everyone Text PB point. The multilayered narrative traces the lies that uphold them. Was $32.99 in his orbit. Laguna’s portrayal of childhood $32.99 the lives of three generations of a family in Now $29.99 borders on literary ventriloquism; she is a true Kalgoorlie but focuses predominantly on master. Grown-ups cannot be trusted, but the sisters Nell and Frances, who grew up in the THE BURNING ISLAND solace of art promises glimmers of hope. west but now live in Sydney. Jones addresses JOCK SERONG weighty themes here – generational trauma, Text PB grief, loss, dispossession – but her tightly $32.99 Who ‘couldn’t lead a flock of homing pigeons’? constructed plot and lyrical prose make this This literary thriller set in 19th- 1. novel as accessible as it is enjoyable. century Australia involves an exciting sea voyage taken by its Q strong female protagonist and IT’S BEEN A PLEASURE, SONG OF THE CROCODILE her ageing father. NONI BLAKE Nardi Simpson Claire Christian The Billymil family have lived in the small THE MORBIDS town of Darnmoor for three generations. EWA RAMSEY At the age of 36, Noni Blake has just faced the Through the years, the family has been end of her long-term, supposed-to-be-forever Allen & Unwin PB watched over by ancestral spirits as the $29.99 relationship. Despite returning to the dating world around them shifts and changes. Song An assured debut, this story world and pursuing encounters with all kinds of the Crocodile is the debut novel from about Caitlin, a 20-something of people, she’s still in a funk. So Noni decides Yuwaalaraay woman Nardi Simpson. As well to travel to Europe to try and reconnect Sydneysider battling mental as being a writer, Simpson is a musician, and illness, is in turn confronting, with a past flame, Molly. They were at school Hachette PB this fact is apparent in every page – her prose Text PB together, and had a brief dalliance that seemed funny and deeply compassionate. $32.99 has a rhythm to it. This is a powerful story of $32.99 very promising, but didn’t go anywhere. Now community, language and, above all, family. Noni wants to find out what might have been. THE MOTHER FAULT This joyful queer rom-com is a wonderful KATE MILDENHALL tribute to pleasure in all its forms. THE SURVIVORS Simon & Schuster PB Jane Harper $32.99 LIFE AFTER TRUTH In her strongest novel since the global Taking place in a near and Ceridwen Dovey phenomenon that was The Dry, Jane Harper terrifying future, this fast-paced Having been an undergraduate at Harvard travels to the fictional seaside settlement of literary thriller follows Mim University, writer Ceridwen Dovey is well Evelyn Bay on the north coast of Tasmania. as she and her children take a qualified to use the storied university as the Harper is known for her meticulous plotting perilous journey in search of setting in her third novel. Life After Truth is and strongly delineated characters, and The her missing husband. set on a 15th-reunion weekend in 2018, in Survivors showcases both of these skills. The story centres on Kieran, who returns the middle of the term of a Trump-like US THE NIGHT WHISTLER Macmillan PB to his childhood home for the first time in president. We join five former dorm mates – GREG WOODLAND famous actor Jules, successful businessman Was $32.99 three years. Tragic and mysterious events have unfolded in Evelyn Bay in the past, and Text PB Viking PB Jomo, academic Eloise, teacher Rowan and Now $27.99 $32.99 homemaker Mariam – as they weigh their another is about to occur. Are they related? $32.99 With plot twists and turns galore, as well as a Set in a small rural town in glittering academic careers against the reality 1960s Australia, this crime- of their present-day lives. Then the most strong and sympathetic protagonist, this novel cements Harper’s already stellar reputation. fiction debut has a gripping plot infamous member of the class of 2003, the involving stalking and murder, president’s obnoxious son, is murdered and with themes of domestic abuse, the reunion takes a decidedly strange turn…. THE TOLSTOY ESTATE racism and official corruption. Steven Conte THE LIVING SEA This powerful and romantic novel is set on POLY OF WAKING DREAMS Tolstoy’s estate Yasnaya Polyana during the PAUL DALGARNO Richard Flanagan German invasion of Russia in WW2. Conte Ventura PB In this surreal, dread-soaked novel, Booker was clearly inspired by War and Peace, $32.99 Prize winner Richard Flanagan sets a family and though he doesn’t include as much Replete with black humour, drama against the backdrop of the climate military detail in this novel as Tolstoy did, Poly follows Chris Flood, a crisis. After her ageing mother ends up in he powerfully evokes both the horror of the father of two with plummeting hospital, Anna returns to Tasmania, where battlefield and the deprivations suffered by self-esteem, and his bored wife she and her two brothers attempt to take Fourth Estate PB people on both sides of the combat. Most of Sarah as they embark on a new charge of the situation despite their mother’s Was $32.99 the action occurs at the military field hospital polyamorous life in Melbourne. Knopf HB resistance. Around this domestic unease, the set up on Yasnaya Polyana and revolves Now $27.99 around the relationship of German surgeon Was $32.99 world is in rapid decline and nobody seems to A ROOM MADE OF LEAVES have any answers. Meanwhile, Anna has been Paul Bauer and the estate’s Russian custodian, Now $27.99 Katerina Trusbetzkaya. Reminiscent of KATE GRENVILLE experiencing a medical drama of her own: the Text HB unexplained disappearances of her body parts. Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago, Conte’s novel is a moving and satisfying read. Was $39.99 Now $34.99 Exploring themes of grief and loss, Flanagan A return to the territory of delivers a topical and moving work. The Secret River, Grenville’s TRUST richly detailed historical novel LUCKY’S Chris Hammer takes the form of an imagined memoir by pastoralist Andrew Pippos Journalist Martin Scarsden and his partner Elizabeth Macarthur. When British journalist Emily travels to Mandalay Blonde could be forgiven for feeling Sydney to write an article on a defunct chain that life is unnecessarily complicated and – of diners named Lucky’s, she knows that her frankly – that they’re overdue for a break. After SORROW AND BLISS life is connected to the restaurant – her father making it through the murderous scenarios MEG MASON had mysteriously given her a painting of a of Hammer’s previous novels Scrublands and Fourth Estate PB Lucky’s storefront right before his death by Silver, they have settled down in the coastal $32.99 suicide. But as she interviews its founder, a town of Port Silver and are hoping for a Fans of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s story of coincidence, converging paths and Allen & Unwin PB quiet life. Alas, they hope in vain. Mandalay Fleabag will enjoy this sharp Picador PB serendipity is revealed. Spanning most of the Was $32.99 is kidnapped, and her past is about to come and savvy novel set in London Was $32.99 20th century and conjuring up a detailed and Now $29.99 back to hurt them both. Set predominantly in and Oxford, which recounts fond vision of migrant Australia in the years Sydney and dealing with corruption within that Martha’s battle with mental Now $29.99 following WW2, this debut novel from a city’s political, judicial and business elites, this illness and the disintegration of Greek-Australian writer is a total delight. rocket-paced thriller is a riveting read. her marriage. 4 INTERNATIONAL FICTION THE BETRAYALS THE DEVIL AND THE MILKMAN Bridget Collins DARK WATER Anna Burns With obvious parallels to today, The Stuart Turton Set in a city in Northern Island during Betrayals is both enigma and allegory. The year is 1694, and renowned detective The Troubles, an unnamed young Set in an increasingly fascist European Samuel Pipps is confined aboard a ship woman attracts unwanted attention state, where discrimination and travelling from the Dutch East Indies to from an older married man known persecution are rife and power is sought Amsterdam. When his journey ends, he simply as the ‘milkman’. Written in a at all costs, Leo, an ex-politician ousted will be tried and potentially executed. But distinctive style that feels unhooked from from the party because of his (mild) as the ship prepares to leave the docks, reality and defies easy categorisation, HarperCollins PB scruples, is exiled to the country’s a curse is laid upon it, setting off a series Milkman bristles with black humour and foremost university. Here students Bloomsbury PB of demonic occurrences. With Pipps in Faber PB adolescent angst. The young woman’s $32.99 are taught the grand jeu, a mysterious $29.99 shackles, his companion Arent Hayes and Was $29.99 attempts to renounce the world in which discipline that is at once game, music, noblewoman Sara Wessel must solve a Now $13.95 she resides are understandable, yet maths and philosophy. Very soon, the mystery – one that could send them all become increasingly futile as the novel personal, the philosophical and the to the bottom of the ocean. This Sherlock unspools. Anna Burns made literary political collide. Holmes–esque mystery is the second history with this brilliant novel when she book from the award-winning author of became the first Northern Irish writer The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, to be awarded the Man Booker Prize BOX 88 and it does not disappoint. for Fiction in 2018, and its provocative Charles Cumming exploration of surveillance and power will December Release continue to resonate with readers today. A spy thriller with the velocity of a fast 2. Which book is set in Evelyn Bay? train, this novel by the author of the award-winning A Foreign Country has a Q MR WILDER & ME plot that opens in Britain and France in Jonathan Coe 1989 before moving to Britain in 2020, JACK In 1977, Calista travels to a Greek island when intelligence operative Lachlan Marilynne Robinson to work for Billy Wilder, the famous Kite, recruited straight out of boarding Hollywood director of Sunset Boulevard In 2004, Marilynne Robinson’s novel HarperCollins PB school in 1989 and a trusted employee and Some Like It Hot. Young and naive, Gilead was released. Now, 16 years of the shadowy intelligence agency Box she has no idea who he is, nor that, more $29.99 later, she brings this magnificent series 88 ever since, is kidnapped by a group and more, he is being rejected by the to a close with Jack. This fourth and of Iranians. They’re after information industry and audiences that once loved final Gilead novel focuses on the life of about Ali Eskandarian, a businessman him. As she, Billy and screenwriter Iz Reverend Boughton’s son Jack. Here we implicated in the Lockerbie terrorist Viking PB Diamond travel across Europe on shoots find Jack having just been released from attack. But if there is one thing that for his creatively funded film Fedora, prison, and committed to removing Box 88 stresses to its employees, it’s $32.99 Calista learns much about the art of Virago PB himself entirely from the lives of that they should never, ever divulge filmmaking and about life. Jonathon anyone he believes he will harm. As he operational information to anyone $29.99 Coe, author of the bestselling Middle attempts to withdraw, Jack falls in love outside the organisation… England, clearly enjoyed researching and with Della – but in 1950s Missouri, writing this tender and often amusing their interracial relationship is illegal. fictional portrait of one of Hollywood’s Thoughtful, engrossing, moving and most important filmmakers, and readers THE COLD MILLIONS full of humanity, Jack is further proof will respond in kind. Jess Walter that Robinson is one of the greatest A very different – but even more American novelists working today. impressive – novel by the author of the bestselling Beautiful Ruins, this story OLGA set in Spokane, Washington, in the first MAGIC LESSONS Bernhard Schlink decade of the 20th century proves that Alice Hoffman Orphaned and raised by her Jess Walter is a prodigiously talented A prequel to her popular 1995 novel- grandmother, Olga is an idealistic, clever storyteller and wordsmith. The Cold turned-film,Practical Magic, Alice young teacher with limited options when Millions follows the travails of orphaned Hoffman’s latest book shares with the she meets and falls in love with Herbert, a teenager Rye Dolan and his older reader the origin of the famed centuries- wealthy, adventurous aristocrat. Although Viking PB brother Gig, part of the community of old curse of the Owens family. Following they are separated by differences in $32.99 itinerant impoverished workers adrift the lives of Maria Owens and her class and by Herbert’s travels – first to in America in the years after the 1890s daughter, it’s also a gripping historical colonial war in Africa, later to attempt to depression. With a richly delineated adventure tale in its own right, complete conquer the Arctic – their bond remains Weidenfeld & cast of characters including hobos, Simon & Schuster with a tantalising dash of magic. Opening unbroken. Told partly through Olga’s Nicolson PB tycoons, burlesque performers, corrupt PB in 1664 with an abandoned baby in rural letters to Herbert, this new novel from Was $32.99 cops, sinister PIs and revolutionaries $32.99 England and encompassing the heights the bestselling author of The Reader is an (including the real-life suffragette and of the Salem witch trials, Magic Lessons Now $29.99 intimate, yearning portrait not only of a firebrand Elizabeth Gurley Flynn), this is an immersive story about love and relationship, but of German progress and is one of 2020’s great novels. heartbreak, revenge and forgiveness. ambition throughout the 20th century.

Highly Recommended THE ABSTAINER BETTY A DEADLY EDUCATION THE EIGHTH LIFE IAN McGUIRE TIFFANY McDANIEL NAOMI NOVIK (FOR BRILKA) Scribner PB Weidenfeld & Nicolson PB $32.99 Del Rey PB NINO HARATISCHVILI $32.99 Inspired by her complex $32.99 Scribe PB $26.99 Set in Manchester in 1867, family history, McDaniel’s Described as ‘Hogwarts A global bestseller, this the latest novel by the harrowing coming-of- with higher stakes and sweeping saga recounts the author of the acclaimed age novel set in the Ohio sharper claws’, this first triumphs and heartbreaks The North Water is set Appalachians in the 1960s volume in a new fantasy of multiple generations against the backdrop of deals with issues including trilogy is set in a magic of one family amid the the underground war for rural poverty, sexual abuse, school and features a political turmoil of Georgia Irish Independence. racism and the healing hilarious female anti-hero. and Russia throughout the properties of nature. 20th century.

AGAINST THE BLUE IN CHICAGO EARTHLINGS FIFTY-TWO STORIES LOVELESS WORLD BETTE HOWLAND SAYAKA MURATA ANTON CHEKHOV SUSAN ABULHAWA Picador HB Granta PB $29.99 Penguin HB Bloomsbury PB $29.99 $34.99 From the author of the $49.99 This story of oppression, A collection of sharp, cult hit Convenience Store Spanning the full arc of resistance, resilience and wry and bittersweet stories Woman, this confronting the great Russian writer’s love by the author of written by American author novel follows alienated and career, this collection Mornings in Jenin is narrated Bette Howland (1937–2017), abused Natsuki as she tries includes a number of tales by Palestinian woman Nahr, described by Saul Bellow to carve a non-conformist translated into English for imprisoned in a high-tech as ‘one of the significant path through a drab, the first time. cement cube in Israel while writers of her generation’. morally vacuous world. awaiting trial as a terrorist. INTERNATIONAL FICTION 5 THE PERFECT WORLD OF A SONG FOR THE DARK TIMES Highly Recommended MIWAKO SUMIDA Ian Rankin THE INHERITORS Clarissa Goenawan When his daughter Samantha calls in the HANNELORE CAYRE Miwako Sumida is a student with a dead of night, John Rebus suspects it’s Black Inc PB $29.99 seemingly bright future. But after she not good news. He’s right – her husband Set in Paris in a period leaves college without notice to volunteer Keith has been missing for two days. Rebus spanning 1870 to the modern for a medical clinic in a rural town, she fears the worst and as a retired career-long day, the latest novel by the tragically dies by suicide. Miwako’s three policeman he knows that his daughter will author of The Godmother tells closest friends Ryu, Chie and Fumi are left be the prime suspect if his fears prove true. the darkly gripping story of a heartbroken by her death. Shocked, they Set on the windswept north coast of Scotland tainted family legacy. Scribe PB can barely believe that Miwako would take Orion PB and in Rebus’ usual patch of Edinburgh, $29.99 her own life, and try to figure out why she $32.99 Rankin’s 23rd Rebus novel follows two did it. Through the eyes of those closest storylines – one following the aged and THE LYING LIFE OF ADULTS to Miwako, Clarissa Goenawan paints an ailing detective as he works to vindicate his ELENA FERRANTE intricate portrait of this young woman – the daughter and another following his friend Europa PB $32.99 secrets that she held close and the troubles and former colleague Detective Inspector The latest novel by the author that drove her to an untimely death. Siobhan Clarke as she investigates the of the Neapolitan Quartet is murder of a wealthy Saudi student. another coming-of-age story set in Naples, this time set among PIRANESI the upper echelons of Neapolitan Susanna Clarke TO SLEEP IN A SEA OF STARS society in the early 1990s. Christopher Paolini Piranesi lives in the House, a vast labyrinth of cavernous halls and marble statues. He This epic novel comes from bestselling author Christopher Paolini (Eragon). MAYFLIES knows its contents precisely, but has no ANDREW O’HAGAN knowledge of the wider world, and his only Breaking away from classical fantasy tropes, his newest work instead focuses on Kira, Faber PB $29.99 visitor is the enigmatic figure of the Other. Underpinned by nostalgia As messages and memories start to filter a young xenobiologist on a bustling space station. While doing a routine planet survey, for the 1980s (especially its into the House, Piranesi begins to question music), the latest novel by one the nature of his existence and the true Kira discovers a decaying artefact and Bloomsbury HB unwittingly releases an ancient power. This of the UK’s most acclaimed motives of the Other. Clearly inspired by novelists deals with themes of $27.99 Jorge Luis Borges, Susanna Clarke, author Tor PB throws her headfirst into an ancient and deadly battle, one in which her family’s past friendship, masculinity, ageing of the global bestseller Jonathan Strange $32.99 and mortality. & Mr Norrell, fuses fantasy, gothic and seems to play an inexplicable role. Paolini supernatural elements in this dark and explores the core of what makes us human in otherworldly mystery. this epic galaxy-spanning novel, which will MONOGAMY appeal to both YA and adult readers. SUE MILLER Bloomsbury PB $29.99 RED PILL THE TOWER OF FOOLS Miller’s nuanced narrative Hari Kunzru focuses on newly widowed Andrzej Sapkowski Annie, who discovers With this provocative work, Hari Kunzru This first volume in a long-awaited English something about her late joins the list of writers attempting to make translation of Andrzej Sapkowski’s 2002 dark husband that makes her ponder sense of the Trump era through fiction. Set fantasy Hussite trilogy will be a hit with fans what makes a strong marriage in the months leading up to the 2016 US of the renowned fantasy writer’s The Witcher and a fulfilled life. election, this tense, atmospheric and wildly saga. Set in medieval Silesia, it follows young intellectual literary thriller explores ideas academic Reinmar, who finds himself on of surveillance and paranoia, authenticity the run after being discovered with his pants STATE HIGHWAY ONE and morality. The story follows an unnamed down (quite literally) in the company of SAM COLEY writer as he leaves his family in Brooklyn Hachette PB $32.99 Scribner PB Gollancz PB the daughter of a powerful noble. Pursued to attend an unusual writing residency in Dealing with themes of grief Was $32.99 $32.99 and caught, he is thrown into the notorious Berlin. Suspicious of his host’s motives, he ‘Tower of the Fools’. Trapped within this and what makes a home, Now $29.99 stays in his room watching episodes of a ruthless prison society, Reinmar uncovers a Coley’s award-winning debut violent cop show. Eventually, a meeting with sinister plot and must deal with the possibly novel follows siblings Alex and the show’s creator provokes a full-blown catastrophic impact of his previous actions. Amy as they road-trip along descent into darkness. New Zealand’s main highway, coming to grips with their past TRIO along the way. THE SEARCHER William Boyd Tana French One of Britain’s most prolific writers of TRANSCENDENT KINGDOM A Chicago ex-cop throws a handful of cash character-driven literary fiction, with 16 YAA GYASI at a real-estate website and finds himself on novels including the marvellous Any Human Viking PB $32.99 the West Coast of Ireland, breathing fine Heart to his credit, Scottish writer William This epic novel by the author of mist and stripping wallpaper from a mouldy Boyd deserves the many accolades that have the masterful Homegoing is set 90-year-old house. It’s a transatlantic been sent his way. In Trio, he follows three in contemporary America and seachange in the land of rolling green. But protagonists associated with a film shoot focuses on Gifty, the daughter the idyll doesn’t last: his spidey-senses are – producer Talbot, actor Anny and writer of Ghanaian immigrants, as tingling. It’s not long before the retired Viking PB Elfrida – as their lives spiral out of control. she comes to terms with her Viking PB detective is roped into the mystery of a $32.99 Set in the seaside town of Brighton in 1968, complicated heritage. $32.99 missing local teen. The eighth offering from the action unfolds against a backdrop of civil renowned Irish-American crime fiction unrest in France and the US, and balances its writer Tana French, this fast-paced thriller rumination on important questions (eg, what V2 about an outsider unwrapping a remote is it that makes life meaningful?) with an ROBERT HARRIS village’s secrets won’t disappoint. underpinning of humour. Hutchinson PB $32.99 Set against the backdrop of the V2 rocket strikes on London THE SILENCE UNQUIET in the tail end of WW2, Don DeLillo Linn Ullmann this thriller by the author of Fatherland and Enigma is When this sparse, evocative novella begins, In the 1960s, Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann further proof that Harris is a took Swedish director Ingmar Bergman a group of old friends are preparing to master of the genre. watch the Super Bowl together in a New as a lover. Their only child together, Linn York apartment. A plane crash and a global Ullmann, is now a Norwegian author and blackout send their plans careening off journalist. In this, her sixth book, ‘the WHAT ARE YOU course, heralding the quiet approach of mother’, an up-and-coming actress in her GOING THROUGH apocalypse and plunging them into a state twenties, gets together with ‘the father’, an SIGRID NUNEZ of alienation and existential confusion. auteur 20 years her senior. With plain and Virago PB $29.99 Don DeLillo is one of America’s greatest declarative prose, this autobiographical novel Picador HB Hamish Hamilton In her new novel, much- living writers, and in The Silence he offers PB is based upon six conversations recorded admired writer Sigrid Nunez $29.99 a surreal meditation on paranoia, mass in Bergman’s home on the Swedish island (The Friend) addresses themes consumption and the way our obsessive $32.99 of Fårö. Translated into English by Thilo including the meaning of life reliance on technology eclipses our Reinhard, Unquiet is a beautiful, fragmentary and death, and the value of connection to reality. exploration of structure, memory and family. companionship. 6 LANGUAGE, POETRY & ESSAYS ANTHOLOGY HOME BODY ROOTED: AN AUSTRALIAN OF AUSTRALIAN Rupi Kaur HISTORY OF BAD LANGUAGE PROSE POETRY After writing, illustrating and self- Amanda Laugesen Cassandra Atherton & publishing milk and honey, her first F***ing hell, what is it about Aussies and Paul Hetherington (eds) collection of poetry, aged only 21, swearing? We’ve got an international Poets and academics Paul Hetherington Indian-born Canadian Rupi Kaur went reputation for using bad language and and Cassandra Atherton present this on to release a second volume, the sun letting rip with a choice swear word selection of some of the best Australian and her flowers. Both became global or two. From the defiant curses of the prose poems written over the past 50 bestsellers. Now that this third volume convicts to the cheeky, often foul- years as their argument for the value has joined their ranks, it will no doubt mouthed, humour of WW1 diggers and MUP PB NewSouth PB of the prose poem. A literary form Simon & Schuster be given the same rapturous reception. on to the increasingly prevalent use of the PB $39.99 that has been underrepresented across Written using her trademark lower $32.99 previously taboo ‘c word’ in contemporary mainstream literary platforms, it has $24.99 case and minimal punctuation (only Australian conversation, the chief editor nonetheless been flourishing in recent full stops are employed), home body of the Australian National Dictionary here times. An impressive and diverse range muses on themes of love, acceptance, takes us on an engrossing journey through of writers features, including Ali Cobby community and family, and again the tumultuous history of Australia’s bad Eckermann, Shastra Deo, Bella L, features illustrations by the poet. language. Is it a form of liberation and David Malouf and Omar Sakr. subversion? A source of humour and creativity? Or something that should be THE MADMAN’S LIBRARY countered with the reintroduction of that BLUEBLOOD Edward Brooke-Hitching age-old punishment, washing the The life of rare book collector Edward mouth out with soap? Malorie Blackman Brooke-Hitching has been steeped in CINDERELLA LIBERATOR words and books. So who better to RUPI KAUR BOXED SET Rebecca Solnit compile a book about books so peculiar, they could fill The Madman’s Library? Rupi Kaur DUCKLING Masterfully researched, this curated Dubbed the ‘queen of Instapoets’ by Kamila Shamsie Simon & Schuster collection is a century-spanning hunt Rolling Stone in 2017, Rupi Kaur has left HB for the strangest works committed to the her poetical mark on million of readers HANSEL AND GRETA page and elsewhere. Alchemical scrolls, from all over the world. This eminently Jeanette Winterson $45 books written in blood, books that can giftable slipcase contains her first two kill and books you can eat are just a published poetry collections: milk and These retellings of classic fairy tales by few examples of what you might find. honey and the sun and her flowers. Kaur major literary figures are part of Vintage Always fascinating, and packed with is interested in what it means to be a Books’ ‘Fairy Tale Revolution’ series, Andrews McMeel Vintage HB strange facts, stories and images, this is a person in the world, and in both these which is designed to breathe new life compendium worthy of its title. PBs works she uses words and images to $27.99 each into old stories for the enjoyment of Was $49.99 explore universal themes: love and sex, both adults and children. Now $29.95 heartbreak and loss, trauma and healing. MANTEL PIECES This is poetry for the internet age: Hilary Mantel fragmented, confessional and inclusive. EX LIBRIS: She may not have been shortlisted for 100+ BOOKS TO READ this year’s Booker Prize as expected, but AND REREAD English literary superstar Hilary Mantel is WATSONIA: A WRITING LIFE Michiko Kakutani featuring on the book pages of broadsheet Don Watson December Release newspapers regardless – courtesy of this Celebrated historian, beloved essayist Long-time New York Times literary volume of 20 reviews, essays and pieces and former political speechwriter: Don critic Michiko Kakutani sees books of memoir originally published in the Watson is one of Australia’s wittiest and as magical objects that transport us London Review of Books. Her subjects most thoughtful writers. Watsonia brings through time, memory and space. They Fourth Estate HB range far and wide, and include the together a wide-ranging collection of his HarperCollins HB articles gathered from across a very full illuminate, teach and bring us shared Was $39.99 highly personal diary entry ‘Meeting $34.99 joy. Ex Libris collects her favourite My Stepfather’ (2003), her excoriating writing life. Topics traversed range from titles that deserve to be read (and Now $34.99 review of Christopher Anderson’s 1991 Mark Twain to the Loch Ness Monster; reread!) by everybody. Her selection book Madonna Unauthorized (her review Black Inc HB ABC to Anzac Day; biography, travel, of fiction, nonfiction, children’s books is titled ‘Plain Girl’s Revenge Made Was $49.99 nature and sports. Essays are peppered and poetry surpasses the androcentric Flesh’) and her much-publicised 2013 Now $39.99 with sensuous details of Australian Western canon, incorporating essay ‘Royal Bodies’, which explores the landscapes – 200-feet-tall blue gums, contemporary works and writing by place of royal women in society and our gullies full of tree ferns, red-bellied women and people of colour. With imagination. Also available: a boxed snakes – and are underpinned by a life beautiful illustrations by lettering artist gift set of Mantel’s acclaimed Thomas compelled by democratic socialism. With Dana Tanamachi, this is a sensuous, Cromwell trilogy: Wolf Hall, Bring Up a conversational tone and firm grasp of life-giving reading experience no the Bodies and The Mirror & the Light the Aussie vernacular, this collection is bibliophile will want to miss. (Fourth Estate HBs $139.99). both entertaining and insightful.

Highly Recommended

A BODY OF WATER THE FIRE OF JOY LIVES OF HOUSES MAAR BIDI BEVERLEY FARMER CLIVE JAMES KATE KENNEDY & ELFIE SHIOSAKI & Giramondo PB Picador PB HERMIONE LEE (eds) LINDA MARTIN $29.95 Was $34.99 Now $29.99 Princeton HB $44.99 Magabala PB This new edition of a Written in the last months Eminent novelists, poets, $24.99 long-out-of-print classic of Clive James’ life, this biographers and historians write A new collection by the late Australian anthology includes 84 about the homes of prominent of writings by a author mixes essay, poems that he knew by figures including Auden, Yeats, diverse group of memoir, fiction and folk heart and loved to speak Churchill and Sibelius, pondering young black Australian tale to portray one year aloud, accompanied by what these houses can tell us essayists, critics, in Farmer’s life. his commentary on each. about their former inhabitants. novelists and poets.

THE DICTIONARY OF GRIFFITH REVIEW 70: THE LOST SPELLS REBEL WITHOUT LOST WORDS GENEROSITIES ROBERT MACFARLANE & A CLAUSE PIP WILLIAMS OF SPIRIT JACKIE MORRIS SUE BUTLER Affirm PB ASHLEY HAY (ed) Hamish Hamilton HB Macmillan HB $24.99 $19.99 Griffith Review PB$27.99 $35 The former editor of the Dealing with the Writers including This sequel to The Lost Words Macquarie Dictionary compilation of the very Kristina Olsson, is a collection of acrostic poetry offers an entertaining first Oxford English Thomas Mayor, Claire G and artwork by landscape- and idiosyncratic Dictionary, Pip Williams’ Coleman, Kate Veitch and focused writer Robert take on common debut novel is one of the Allanah Hunt write on Macfarlane (The Old Ways) usage (or should that December Release December Release biggest-selling Australian the themes of generosity and illustrator Jackie Morris. be misusage?) of the books of 2020. and compassion. English language. BIOGRAPHY 7 BOY ON FIRE LOWITJA Highly Recommended Mark Mordue Stuart Rintoul BACHAR HOULI This biography of Nick Cave focuses on the Veteran journalist Stuart Rintoul tells the BACHAR HOULI WITH young musician’s life-defining early years. story of a remarkable woman in this engaging WALEED ALY Starting with his Wangaratta childhood, biography of activist and Yunkunytjatjara Ebury PB it moves to his boarding school days at woman Lowitja O’Donoghue. A member of Was $34.99 Now $29.99 Melbourne’s Caulfield Grammar and then to the Stolen Generations, the first Aboriginal The AFL’s most-prominent the formation of The Boys Next Door with woman to become a nurse in South Australia Muslim player talks about schoolmates Mick Harvey, Tracy Pew and and a prominent figure in Australian politics the experiences and beliefs Phill Calvert in the mid-1970s before arriving since the ’60s, O’Donoghue has borne that have underpinned his Fourth Estate HB at 1980, when the band left Melbourne for Allen & Unwin HB witness to many pivotal moments in our sporting success and made him Was $39.99 London. Mordue’s book is discursive and Was $45 nation’s history, even playing a role in some a leading voice for inclusion, understanding and tolerance Now $34.99 anecdotal, rather than strictly chronological, Now $39.99 of their outcomes. Anyone with an interest and also dips into the four decades that have in history, politics or social justice will be in Australian sport. since transpired. Nuanced and unflinching, intrigued by her story, and the frequent use this conversational collection of stories and of direct quotes from O’Donoghue imbues BELIEF reminiscences paints a compelling picture Rintoul’s telling of it with authority. MARLION PICKETT WITH of Cave, drawing on the friendships and DAVE WARNER creative influences that helped shape one of Simon & Schuster HB MARY’S LAST DANCE Was $39.99 Now $34.99 Australia’s most enigmatic sons. Mary Li The talented Indigenous Many Australians already know the AFL player tells the story of CATHY GOES TO CANBERRA remarkable tale of Li Cunxin, ‘Mao’s last his transformation from a Cathy McGowan dancer’. Now, his wife shares her own story. troubled young man jailed in Although she served as the member of Mary describes her childhood, career and rise Western Australia into a star parliament for the federal seat of Indi in to fame alongside Cunxin – right up to the of Richmond’s victorious 2019 north-east Victoria for two terms, Cathy point when they learn their daughter, Sophie, Grand Final team. McGowan doesn’t consider herself as Political is deaf. Determined to help Sophie succeed with a capital ‘P’. As an independent running in a hearing world, Mary steps away from the A DIFFERENT KIND on behalf of the grassroots organisation Voices Viking PB spotlight and plunges into unknown territory. OF SEEING for Indi in a traditionally safe Liberal seat, Was $34.99 This dramatic decision, and the years that MARIE YOUNAN WITH JILL SANGUINETTI she was more concerned with representing Now $29.99 follow, are described with a candour that is $29.99 Monash PB the people and making sure democracy refreshing and endearing. Mary’s Last Dance Scribe PB was actually working than with becoming was written with Sophie’s approval and the Born into a family of Assyrian $29.95 refugees and accidentally involved in the tit-for-tat nonsense beloved loving, occasionally combative, relationship blinded as a baby, Marie by Australian politicians. This warm-hearted between mother and daughter lies at the heart Younan’s journey from Syria memoir – subtitled ‘Doing Politics Differently’ of this moving memoir. to Lebanon, Greece and on to – tells the story of McGowan’s campaign to Australia is recounted in this win Indi and her time as a parliamentarian. MAX inspiring memoir. In so doing, it provides a manifesto for an alternative community-based politics. Alex Miller In fragments of memoir, travelogue, history FOR NOW and reflection, renowned Australian novelist EILEEN MYLES DOLLY PARTON: SONGTELLER Alex Miller tries to reconstruct the life of his Yale HB Dolly Parton friend and mentor, Max Blatt. Max rarely $26.95 Here, the perky queen of country music talked about his past as a politically active A raucous, erudite and witty (aka The Smoky Mountain Songbird, Iron Jew in Germany in the years of Hitler’s rise meditation on life from Butterfly or Backwoods Barbie) looks at her to power, and years after his death, Miller American poet, writer and life and career through the lens of lyrics to Allen & Unwin PB searches for Max’s story knowing that it can’t performance artist, Eileen Myles (Chelsea Girls, Inferno). 150 of her songs. Illustrated throughout with $29.99 be told in fiction. But even nonfiction cannot memorabilia and previously unpublished give a full and unbiased history – hence the December Release images, Dolly Parton: Songteller shares the fragmentary nature of this book. As much as Hodder & Stoughton personal stories, candid insights and many Max’s story, this is Miller’s story of the search HEALING LIVES Was $59.99 HB memories behind the songs that made her for the elusive past of a great friend. SUE WILLIAMS Now $54.99 famous. It is sure to delight her many fans. Macmillan PB $34.99 OLIVE, MABEL & ME The extraordinary story of Mamitu Gashe, whose life was FACE IT Andrew Cotter saved at Addis Ababa Fistula Debbie Harry After COVID-19 left sports commentator Hospital and who, encouraged In this tell-all memoir, the co-founder and Andrew Cotter at home and virtually by the hospital’s co-founder lead singer of Blondie pulls no punches when unemployed, he shot a light-hearted Catherine Hamlin, went on to charting her early life and her formative 90-second video of his two Labradors eating become an acclaimed fistula years immersed in the New York punk breakfast, gave it a sports-style commentary surgeon herself. scene of the late 1960s and early 1970s. voiceover and semi-reluctantly uploaded it Harry reminisces about her time rubbing to Twitter. Several million likes and shares – and a few more videos – later, Cotter tells shoulders with figures such as Andy Warhol, Text PB 3. What is Iz Diamond’s Iggy Pop, William Burroughs, David Bowie, the back-story of the dogs that went viral profession? HarperCollins HB Joey Ramone and the New York Dolls, $32.99 and describes daily life with the two Labs. Olive, Mabel & Me is a love letter to all things Q Was $45 before writing about how fame and the Now $18.95 relentless stress of life on the road led to the canine, with plenty of doggy stories and breakdown of her relationship with Chris adventures along the way. HYSTERIA Stein, bankruptcy and an addiction to what KATERINA BRYANT she calls ‘the great consolation’ (heroin). NewSouth PB $29.99 ONE DAY I’LL REMEMBER THIS: Bryant’s account of dealing with DIARIES 1987–1995 chronic illness blends memoir IS THIS ANYTHING? Helen Garner with literary and historical Jerry Seinfeld The second volume of Garner’s diaries analysis to investigate the Writer and comedian Jerry Seinfeld will provides glimpses into her hectic personal marginalisation of women in forever be associated with the long-running life, living in Sydney but still travelling to their own medical diagnoses sitcom he co-created and wrote with fellow Melbourne and retreating to Primrose Gully. and treatment. stand-up comedian Larry David. But before She falls in love, marries again and regrets the phenomenal success of the TV series, it. She buys a piano and begins lessons. The JUST IGNORE HIM Seinfeld cut his teeth on stand-up and the film of The Last Days of Chez Nous is released ALAN DAVIES TV chat-show circuit. Since those early Text HB to mixed reviews, and Cosmo Cosmolino Little, Brown PB $32.99 days, Seinfeld has filed away all the material $29.99 and her controversial The First Stone are The English comedian and actor Simon & Schuster (QI, Jonathan Creek) recounts HB he’s ever written. In this book – a kind of published. Throughout these events, Garner’s autobiography built around gags – he brings whip-crack commentary flicks through his traumatic childhood, Was $49.99 together his favourite joke writing, condensing the fields of philosophy, art, music, theatre blighted by the death of his Now $39.99 45 years of observational gag writing into a and literature. As always, her responses are mother and subsequent sexual 450-page master class in stand-up. incisive and acutely observed. abuse by his father. 8 BIOGRAPHY ONLY HAPPINESS HERE THE ROCK AN UNCONVENTIONAL WIFE Gabrielle Carey Aaron Smith Mary Hoban Most literature, Gabrielle Carey points December Release Historian Mary Hoban tells the forgotten out, is miserable. Elizabeth von Arnim, The author of this entertaining memoir story of Julia Sorell Arnold, the colonial then, is a rarity – an author who sought was the last editor of Australia’s most belle who fascinated Hobart society in out, expressed and celebrated happiness. northerly newspaper, The Torres News, a the mid-19th century. The prominent This Australian-born author who was small independent regional tabloid that men in Julia’s remarkable family tree writing in the early 20th century has folded in late 2019 after functioning for six have been written into history books fallen from view but in Only Happiness decades. Until its closure, the newspaper, – from her grandfather, the Lieutenant- Here Carey, perhaps best known for which was published out of Thursday General of Tasmania, to her grandsons, UQP PB writing Puberty Blues with Kathy Lette, Transit Lounge PB Island, catered to a predominantly Torres Scribe HB author Aldous Huxley and biologist $32.99 brings her back into the light. Giving $29.99 Strait Islander and Aboriginal readership Was $39.99 Julian Huxley. But Julia’s own story, while glimpses into Carey’s life as well as von scattered across some of the most remote Now $16.95 lesser known, is equally fascinating. Arnim’s, this is a guide to happiness that communities in Australia. Smith recounts Though she enjoyed immense privilege bears no resemblance to a self-help book. how, after being transplanted from his and educational advantages, she white-boy privileged suburban life, he nonetheless railed against the forms of became embedded in island life, albeit societal and marital disempowerment 4. Who boarded at Caulfield Grammar? as an outsider from a racial and she experienced as a woman of her era. Q cultural minority. UNSEEN A PROMISED LAND SOAR: A LIFE FREED BY DANCE Jacinta Parsons Barack Obama David McAllister One of a number of illness memoirs In the highly anticipated first volume of The release of David McAllister’s that have been published in Australia his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama memoir coincides with his retirement as this year, Unseen is about chronic illness tells the story of his improbable odyssey artistic director of the Australian Ballet rather than the short sharp kind of from young man searching for his identity and, while it will naturally be of interest disease that might come with a cure. ABC to the 44th President of the United States, to ballet lovers for its many behind- Melbourne presenter Jacinta Parsons the first African American to hold this the-scenes insights, the fact that it is an writes about her experience with Crohn’s office. Obama describes both his political engaging yarn means that it will have disease as a way of showing how chronic education and the landmark moments of a much wider appeal. McAllister is a Affirm PB illness affects every aspect of someone’s Viking HB the first term of his historic presidency, Thames & Hudson natural storyteller: warm and charming life – relationships, friendships, work. HB $32.99 Was $65 offering a unique and thoughtful with a self-deprecating sense of humour But most of all she portrays how chronic Was $39.99 that feels decidedly Australian. Soar Now $54.99 exploration of both the reach and limits illness affects someone’s relationship with of presidential power, as well as singular Now $34.99 describes his dance journey, from a themselves – not just their body but their insights into the dynamics of US partisan ballet studio in Perth to his golden days very identity. Parsons skilfully captures politics and international diplomacy. as a principal dancer for the Australian the physical and emotional reality of Ballet. It is both a candid account of being sick, of being in hospital, of dealing the resilience and single-mindedness with doctors who may or may not see you ROBERT MENZIES required to be an elite athlete, and a as a whole person, of how other people Troy Bramston personal reflection on McAllister’s respond to illness. And in doing so, she Many books have been written about struggles to embrace his sexuality. makes the unseen seen. Robert Menzies. Some have been hagiographies, others more diffident treatments. What they all have in THE TIME OF OUR LIVES WOMEN’S WORK common is an agreement that the Robert Dessaix Megan K Stack longest-serving prime minister of our The latest book by novelist, essayist and Subtitled ‘a personal reckoning with country left a considerable and lasting journalist Robert Dessaix is a long, witty labour, motherhood, and privilege’, the political legacy. In this book, journalist and intellectual conversational essay latest book by exceptional writer and Scribe HB Troy Bramston focuses on the man and about ageing. Literally conversational, journalist Megan K Stack (Every Man Was $49.99 his political manoeuvring. In Bramston’s because Dessaix reconstructs chats with in This Village Is a Liar) is a riveting Now $19.95 opinion, Menzies was ‘…more substantial friends and strangers to talk directly to read that asks the reader to consider than his critics allow and [had] more his reader – and it seems, to himself as their own position on the great gender faults than his admirers accept’. Known well. Browsing a cornucopia of topics and class divide of domestic labour. By for his healthy ego, Menzies had a higher Brio HB related to growing old, including death, Scribe PB exploring her own story of motherhood opinion of his leadership skills than did the soul, sex, other pleasures, the arts, Was $32.99 and the endless cycle of work it creates most of his colleagues (Billy Hughes said $32.99 travel and religion, he takes a nuanced with breathtaking honesty, Stack raises that he ‘couldn’t lead a flock of homing and often unpredictable approach to Now $12.95 necessary questions about the inescapable pigeons’) but was sensitive about some all. In typical Dessaix fashion, he roams (and often hidden) work of a family criticisms, most notably that he didn’t sign across many thinkers and writers while home. Brutally honest, Women’s Work up to fight in WW1 and later joined with doing so. And his conclusion? An inner reinforces the facts that the personal is Chamberlain to advocate appeasement life, born of curiosity and playfulness, is political, and that this truth cannot be with Hitler. A fascinating read. key to growing old well. ignored when considering our choices. Highly Recommended KRISTIAN FREDRIKSON: PHOSPHORESCENCE SON OF THE BRUSH UNTWISTED DESIGNER JULIA BAIRD TIM OLSEN PAUL JENNINGS MICHELLE POTTER Fourth Estate HB $32.99 Allen & Unwin PB $34.99 Allen & Unwin HB $34.99 Melbourne Books HB $59.95 Drawing on her The son of Australian Reflections on writing, This celebration of the life and work own memories and artist John Olsen tells of teaching and living of acclaimed stage designer Kristian experiences, Australian growing up in an artistic from the author of Fredrikson is replete with drawings journalist and writer Julia milieu, overcoming much-loved Australian and photographs of magnificent Baird ponders how we can alcoholism and building children’s books costumes and sets created for find and nurture within a career as a prominent including Round the companies including the Australian ourselves that elusive gallery owner. Twist and Unreal! Ballet and Australian Opera. thing known as happiness.

MEMORIAL DRIVE A REPURPOSED LIFE TRUTHS FROM AN THE WILD SILENCE NATASHA TRETHEWEY RONNI KAHN WITH UNRELIABLE WITNESS RAYNOR WINN Bloomsbury PB $27.99 JESSICA CHAPNIK KAHN FIONA O’LOUGHLIN Michael Joseph HB $35 Two-time United States Poet Murdoch PB $32.99 Hachette PB $32.99 After walking the Laureate Natasha Trethewey, A candid and inspiring Australian comedian 1000km South West the child of a black mother and memoir from the Sydney- Fiona O’Loughlin Coast Path in England a white father, writes about the based founder and CEO of writes of love, (The Salt Path), murder of her mother in the OzHarvest, which works marriage, motherhood, Raynor Winn and her 1960s, pondering issues such as to support economically melancholy and terminally ill husband sudden loss and absence, white vulnerable members alcoholism in her wry Moth follow new racism and domestic abuse. of our community and and uncompromisingly paths towards natural address Australia’s food- honest memoir. healing in Cornwall waste problem. and Iceland. POLITICS, PHILOSOPHY & CULTURAL STUDIES 9 CHINA’S GRAND STRATEGY TRUTH IS TROUBLE UPTURN: A BETTER AND AUSTRALIA’S FUTURE Malcolm Knox NORMAL AFTER COVID-19 IN THE NEW GLOBAL ORDER In 2019, Rugby Australia terminated the Tanya Plibersek (ed) Geoff Raby contract of its star player, Tongan-born Life as we know it has been turned upside Relations between China and Australia Israel Folau, due to his homophobic down. Who could have imagined the are at a seemingly combustible point. social media posts. The dismissal quickly COVID-19 new normal? Across the globe, How did it get to this point? In this became a cause célèbre, characterised by health and economic crises have drawn considered book, Geoff Raby analyses evangelical Christians and those on the back the veil on racist systems, poverty the relationship of these two countries populist right as an attack on both freedom and violent institutions. Australia will face and offers a vision for the future. As a of speech and religious belief. In Truth Is massive questions over the next few years MUP PB former Australian Ambassador to China, Scribner PB Trouble, Malcolm Knox gives a considered NewSouth PB as we reset and rebuild from the ground $34.99 Raby has spent most of his professional $32.99 analysis of the dispute, considering the $32.99 up. And so how can we be inspired by life either in or thinking about the large increasingly important role of sponsorship expressions of love and community spirit and populous nation, and in this book in sport; documenting the pivotal role that to reshape society? This collection of essays he delves into the historical, political and Martyn Iles and the Australian Christian edited by Labor MP Tanya Plibersek, cultural events that have contributed to Lobby played; discussing how the who was encouraged by Arundhati Roy’s China’s status in the world today. ‘momentary bloodlust’ of cancel culture assertion that ‘the pandemic is a portal’, is magnified by social media; raising what unites our country’s hopeful thinkers to he calls ‘the serpentine relationship of dream about a fair and just world. FIRE FLOOD PLAGUE colonialisation, religion and race’; and Sophie Cunningham (ed) placing this episode in the context of December Release Australia’s contemporary culture wars. WHAT IS TO BE DONE After a year that has challenged the world Barry Jones like never before, Australian writers come In this follow-up to the globally together to reflect on the present moment. TWILIGHT OF DEMOCRACY influentialSleepers, Wake!, written in Encompassing the summer bushfires, Anne Applebaum the early 1980s, Barry Jones confronts the Black Lives Matter movement, the Mixing the personal and the political, what he considers to be some of the most ongoing impact of COVID-19 and much Twilight of Democracy is an illuminating pressing issues facing society today: the more besides, this wide-ranging essay read for anyone looking to understand climate crisis, near-sighted politicians, Vintage PB collection illustrates the unprecedented the current state of global politics and, the ever-more divisive nature of the $29.99 toll 2020 has taken on the lives of humans, in particular, the rise of illiberalism and internet, the concept that truth can be animals and the environment. Editor authoritarianism in the Western world. Scribe PB turned into something subjective, and Sophie Cunningham has assembled 26 Anne Applebaum moves swiftly past Was $35 more. While so much has changed in the insightful and formidable contributors, simplistic explanations for this trend to nearly four decades since the original ranging from Tim Flannery on the need instead delve into the deeper motivations Now $29.99 book was published, Jones’ forward- Allen Lane HB for decisive political action to address at play. A Pulitzer Prize–winning historian thinking approach to the issues of the the climate crisis; to Christos Tsiolkas on $35 and a conservative with connections to world has not. Perhaps most importantly, globalisation and the privilege of travel; elite circles in Europe, the UK and the What Is to Be Done doesn’t just identify to Melissa Lucashenko on the colonial USA, Applebaum is uniquely placed the issues – it also pitches solutions. echoes of the pandemic and the resilience to tackle this topic. Astute readers will of First Nations communities. recognise many of her former friends, colleagues and acquaintances listed here, WITNESS and will appreciate how Applebaum Louise Milligan ON GETTING OFF: situates these personal remembrances in Investigative journalist Louise Milligan SEX AND PHILOSOPHY historical context to reveal chilling insights. knows the toll the pursuit of justice can Damon Young take. Through her extensive reporting Philosopher and writer Damon Young on Four Corners and her Walkley turns his inquiring mind to the erotic in THE TYRANNY OF MERIT Award–winning coverage of Cardinal this thought-provoking exploration of sex. Michael J Sandel George Pell’s trial and appeal, Milligan Mixing together history, cultural studies, We live in a world in which inequality has worked closely with victims of child art, memoir and literary criticism, this is a grows with each year. And we are more abuse, sexual assault and other legal lively work of pop philosophy. Young poses polarised, ungenerous and frustrated than Hachette PB cases that involve the most traumatised questions about everything from the cringe ever before. In his latest book, American $34.99 members of society; victims who, in Scribe PB to the kink, and his efforts to discern academic and writer Michael J Sandel many cases, are retraumatised by their $24.99 answers are marked by sincerity, generosity argues that to combat the inequality of experiences in court. In this bracing and humour. On Getting Off is frequently the world today, we must reassess how and essential book, Milligan interviews very funny (often at Young’s own expense) we think about success, failure and the judges, prosecutors and defence lawyers, and this element works beautifully to Allen Lane PB hierarchies that come with them. Sandel’s as well as victims, advocates and render a ‘taboo topic’ accessible. This is writing is accessible, but this is the kind survivors. With forensic, compassionate also a book that will likely incite a visit $35 of book that may require a bit of thinking clarity she lays bare the court system’s to the library or your nearest bookshop: space – it is full of nuance, many-layered most egregious contradictions, failings literature plays a major role in Young’s concepts and a list of citations that you and power imbalances, and calls for exploration of sex. will absolutely want to delve into. large-scale change. Highly Recommended BEST AUSTRALIAN FRIENDLY FIRE MEN AT WORK RECONNECTED POLITICAL CARTOONS 2020 AMI AYALON ANNABEL CRABB ANDREW LEIGH & RUSS RADCLIFFE (ed) Scribe PB $35 Black Inc PB $24.99 NICK TERRELL Scribe PB $32.99 A highly decorated Israeli An updated version of La Trobe PB $32.99 From Scott Morrison’s military officer, cabinet Crabb’s 2019 Quarterly The authors profile Hawaiian holiday to minister and former director Essay of the same name, successful community bushfires, COVID-19 and of the Shin Bet internal security with an afterword organisations and initiatives, the Black Lives Matter agency gives his enlightened addressing the great arguing that if more of movement – the year in perspective on what his working-from-home us follow their lead, we can forge stronger social politics as observed by our December Release country must do to achieve experiment that COVID- most amusing and incisive a lasting peace between the 19 has forced upon us. connections and make our political cartoonists. Israelis and Palestinians. communities more resilient.

THE COMEDY OF ERROR HOW TO THINK LIKE QE80: SEPARATED TRAGEDY JONATHAN SILVERTOWN SHAKESPEARE AT BIRTH TERRY EAGLETON Scribe HB $29.99 SCOTT NEWSTOK LAURA TINGLE Yale HB $41.95 Utilising old jokes Princeton PB $24.99 Quarterly Essay PB $24.99 Eminent literary critic and new science, This concise and ABC journalist Laura Terry Eagleton explores Silvertown, a professor entertaining guide draws Tingle ponders why, the nuances of tragedy in of evolutionary ecology on Shakespeare’s world and despite being so close, Western culture – from at Edinburgh University, works to give us the tools to Australia and New literature and politics to investigates what humour help us think more deeply, Zealand seem to know philosophy and theatre is and why evolution has write more effectively and December Release so little about each other. – looking closely at its made us laugh. learn more joyfully. And is there such a thing connection with periods of as national character? historical transition. 10 HISTORY AGENT SONYA THE GLAMOUR BOYS IN SEARCH OF THE WOMAN Ben Macintyre Chris Bryant WHO SAILED THE WORLD In the village of Great Rollright, in 1942, December Release Danielle Clode there lived a woman named Mrs Burton. In the 1930s, a group of young, queer Australian academic and writer Danielle She was a wife, a mother of three, and a British MPs travelled to Germany. Upon Clode brings her biologist’s eye to this member of this quaint little community. returning home, they warned Britain story of the French woman credited as But things are not always as they seem. about Hitler’s brutality, protesting being the first woman to circumnavigate Mrs Burton was, in reality, Ursula England’s deferential policies. Despised by the globe. The Bougainville scientific Kuczynski – a German Jew who helped Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who expedition departed pre-revolutionary bring down the Nazis, and a communist branded them ‘The Glamour Boys’ in a France in 1766 with Jeanne Barret Picador PB Viking PB spy. As well as keeping a house and Bloomsbury PB time when association with homosexuality aboard in disguise as valet to Philibert $35 caring for her children, Ursula was a $29.99 could incur a prison sentence, these men $34.99 Commerson, doctor and naturalist. colonel in the Red Army, funnelling campaigned for justice, some eventually Clode draws on Barret’s scant footprint information back to Russia from her dying in battle. A compelling work of in the historical record to explore who various outposts under the codename nonfiction that uncovers a secret history, she was and unravels her mythical ‘Sonya’. In this book, Ben Macintyre tells The Glamour Boys is written by Chris legacy. Having spent her childhood the story of Ursula’s remarkable life and Bryant, a former priest, a British Member living on a boat and schooling by offers us a work of history and biography of Parliament for 20 years, and the first gay correspondence, Clode’s affinity with the that is just as thrilling as any spy novel. MP to celebrate a civil partnership in the winds, currents and challenges of life at Palace of Westminster. sea enhances this fresh take on a truly DOMINION remarkable journey of exploration. Peter Ackroyd GREAT DIARIES In the penultimate title in his six-part This illustrated guide charts the THE INVENTION OF CHINA history of Britain, Peter Ackroyd turns human need to record thoughts in Bill Hayton his attention to the more general canvas diaries, journals, notebooks and letters, China is advancing rapidly into a of England. Dominion focuses on an era drawing on material from the age of the developed state. In this book, Bill Hayton, of immense change: the 19th century Pharaohs through to the present day. A an associate fellow at international and the reign of Victoria. The changing wonderfully varied and wide-ranging think tank Chatham House, examines fortunes of Britain’s prime ministers collection of musings by politicians, the geopolitical past that has motivated DK HB provide the book’s structure, but writers, artists, musicians, thinkers and China’s national interests in the modern Macmillan PB Ackroyd’s subject comes to life when he $39.99 explorers, it allows us to take a peek into global arena. Hayton juxtaposes the Was $32.99 looks at the period’s social changes. He the life and times of our greatest diarists. current proud, militarily chauvinistic Yale PB Now $13.95 charts the rise of the middle classes and Biographical chapters, excerpts and China represented by Xi Jinping during workers’ unions, and the population’s photographic reproductions accompany $26.95 2019’s Belt and Road Forum in Beijing shared mania for the new, from railways each entry, whetting the appetite to with its tumultuous, disenfranchised state and science to music halls and ‘shilling delve a little deeper. history, which he characterises as lacking shocker’ novels. With his pleasing turn identity and sovereignty. Hayton offers of phrase, Ackroyd captures the nuances THE HAUNTING a historical picture of the development of the Victorian world, including the of China’s identity by looking at changing role of women. OF ALMA FIELDING sources within its past dynasties and Kate Summerscale governments as well as the writings of British author Kate Summerscale foreign explorers and diplomats, making THE FREEDOM CIRCUS (The Suspicions of Mr Whicher) writes this stroll through the country’s rich Sue Smethurst intriguing historical narratives with history a pleasure to read. When journalist Sue Smethurst first the verve and detail of a novelist. Her learned how her husband’s parents came latest book concerns Alma Fielding, an to settle in Australia it was almost by ordinary young woman in 1930s London MOONLITE accident. Though the story was dismissed who claimed to be repeatedly visited by Garry Linnell by Mindla, her grandmother-in-law, Bloomsbury PB a phantom that wreaked destruction on Ned Kelly is undoubtedly the most as being ‘nothing special’, Smethurst $29.99 her home, belongings and body. Nandor mythologised of Australia’s bushrangers, didn’t agree, and embarked on a series Fodor, a Freudian psychoanalyst and but this imaginative work of history of long, deeply rewarding chats with Hungarian refugee, was fascinated by makes a compelling case for why Captain Ebury PB Mindla to learn the tale in full. These Alma’s story and began to investigate Moonlite should claim this honour. A $34.99 conversations, and those with other these visitations. This deliciously poet, a soldier, a thief, a preacher, a lover family members and friends, form the unsettling ‘true ghost story’, written as – Andrew George Scott was a man of basis of this novelistic account of how the historical narrative nonfiction, traces high drama and complex contradictions. couple – one a clown with the Staniewski Alma’s conviction that paranormal forces Michael Joseph PB In this epic tale of adventure and tragedy, Brothers Circus – managed to escape are at work and sets this alongside the $34.99 Garry Linnell tells Moonlite’s remarkable Poland during WW2. Bubbling with simultaneous rise of fascism in Europe, life story as well as those of the two men memorable details, The Freedom Circus is leading to reality and the supernatural who forever shaped it: one his beloved, an astonishing and compelling read. being inextricably intertwined. and the other his executioner. Highly Recommended THE BIBLE THE GETTING THE INVENTION LIVING ON IN AUSTRALIA OF GARLIC OF MEDICINE STOLEN LAND MEREDITH LAKE JOHN NEWTON ROBIN LANE FOX AMBELIN KWAYMULLINA NewSouth PB $32.99 NewSouth PB Allen Lane HB $49.99 Magabala PB $22.99 Awarded the 2019 Prime Was $32.99 Now $9.95 Written by an acclaimed Oxford Prose presented in a poetry- Minister’s Australian Food writer John Newton University classicist, this history like format, this compact History Prize, Meredith turns an anthropological of Greek medicine from manifesto challenges Lake’s revelatory book eye to Australia’s food Homer to Hippocrates includes Australia to come to terms describes how the history in this fascinating an analysis of the Corpus with its settler-colonial past Christian bible has played book, which tracks Hippocraticum, the seven volumes and, in so doing, forge a a defining and contested Australian food from of ancient medical wisdom decolonised future. role in this country. colonisation to now. attributed to Hippocrates. DIGGING UP THE GOLDEN MAZE LAND OF WONDROUS COLD PEOPLE OF THE RIVER ARMAGEDDON RICHARD FIDLER GILLEN D’ARCY WOOD GRACE KARSKENS ERIC H CLINE ABC HB Princeton PB $29.99 Allen & Unwin PB $39.99 Princeton PB $34.99 Was $39.99 Now $34.99 An engrossing account of This landmark history A fascinating account The host of Radio National’s 19th-century British, French of the Dyarubbin of the famous 1920s ‘Conversations’ presents a and American expeditions to (Hawkesbury-Nepean expedition mounted by chatty, personally curated Antarctica, and an exploration River) interweaves stories the Oriental Institute of biography of the city of of modern discoveries by of its traditional owners the University of Chicago Prague, recounting stories scientists looking at the effect and the white colonists to excavate the ancient about its turbulent history, that climate change is having on who settled here from the site of Megiddo (the postcard-perfect streetscapes the continent’s ice cap. mid-1790s. Biblical Armageddon). and noteworthy residents. HISTORY 11 MR GUILFOYLE’S POWER OF THE PEDAL SPINNING TOPS HONEYMOON Rupert Guinness & GUMDROPS Diana Hill & Edmée Cudmore (eds) In the 1880s, a new mode of transport was Edwin Barnard In 1890, after 17 years as director of introduced in Australia: the bicycle. In this Covering the years 1788 to 1900, this Melbourne’s Royal Botanic Gardens, the extensively researched and wonderfully National Library publication tells the ingenious landscaper William Guilfoyle illustrated book, sports journalist and story of six generations of Australians and his young wife Alice embarked on author Rupert Guinness explores the who grew up during the country’s a grand tour of European and British history of the bicycle in our country, NLA PB formative years. Combining memoir and gardens. Published as a series of articles NLA PB both in everyday life and in competitive Was $44.99 reminiscences, the book shines a light Miegunyah PB in 1896, Guilfoyle’s ‘tourist’s notes’ Was $39.99 sport. Guinness’ knowledge and love of Now $16.95 on the daily lives of ordinary children Was $45 describe and critique in vivid detail and Now $16.95 the subject makes for an illuminating, growing up in extraordinary times. From Now $17.95 elegant prose the plants and picturesque entertaining and informative history, with city streets to outback towns and rural elements of the gardens and parks they highlights including the ‘overlanders’ settlements, Edwin Barnard’s evocative visited and the scenery through which of the 19th century who cycled into accounts of the everyday are exquisitely they travelled. The notes offer insights uncharted territory, discovering Australia brought to life in the accompanying into the places that influenced Guilfoyle’s along the way. The book also details the collection of photos and illustrations. subsequent development of the Royal development of the bicycle as a mode of Botanic Gardens into one of the greatest commuter transport. landscape gardens in the world. This TROY edition includes his own sketches as Stephen Fry well as contemporaneous photographs, 5. Who designed the Series 7 chair? engravings and garden plans. Following the popular success of his two Q previous books about the gods, goddesses and myths of Ancient Greece (Mythos THE PALACE LETTERS THE SECRET CODE-BREAKERS and Heroes), the prodigiously talented Jenny Hocking OF CENTRAL BUREAU Stephen Fry has turned his attention to The 1975 dismissal of the Whitlam David Dufty the story of the ancient fortress city of Troy. In chatty prose, he recounts the city’s government remains one of the most Fans of The Bletchley Circle will be significant events in Australia’s political fate as told in the Iliad, introducing all intrigued by this lively work of military Michael Joseph PB of the main characters – Priam, Hecuba, history. Yet until July of this year, crucial history, which shares the true stories of details about what occurred have been Was $35 Hector, Paris, Helen, Agamemnon, Australian code-breakers during WW2. Achilles, Patroclus and Cassandra – and kept hidden in the National Archives. As one of two Allied Signals intelligence Now $29.99 In this gripping and true court drama, addressing the knotty issue of myth versus organisations in the Southwest Pacific reality, something that he characterises as Professor Jenny Hocking describes her area during those years, the Central Scribe HB ‘a narrative dance in which the deep but Scribe PB years-long legal battle to uncover letters Bureau played a role in a number of complementary pleasures of the real and $32.99 between the Queen and Governor- Was $49.99 key battles and events, including Japan’s General Sir John Kerr in which the two the unreal can be partnered’. One thing is Now $17.95 surrender in 1945. Yet, as was the case beyond dispute – this millennia-old story discussed the dismissal. Hocking also with those who worked at Bletchley provides piercing analysis of both the is as powerful and exciting today as it was Park, the roles of these people have gone when Homer first told it. extreme efforts made to stop her, and unacknowledged for years. This book what the letters themselves revealed. seeks to repair that omission by providing a detailed account of their successes and influence. It also incorporates personal UNDER THE RAINBOW interviews that provide a glimpse into life Richard Broinowski PHILIP & ALEXANDER during the war years. EW Cole was a truly extraordinary man. Adrian Goldsworthy Arriving in Gold Rush Melbourne in In this book, an acclaimed historian 1852, he swiftly realised that the way to of Ancient Rome takes us back to the SONGLINES: THE POWER strike it rich in the colony was not to ancient world and the two leaders AND PROMISE pan for gold, but instead provide gold who changed the course of history: Margo Neale & Lynne Kelly miners with their daily needs. In Cole’s Philip II of Macedon (r. 359–336 BC) This is the first volume in Thames case, he started small businesses selling and his son Alexander the Great (r. & Hudson’s new First Knowledges Miegunyah HB lemonade and sausages on the goldfields, 336–323 BC). During their rule, tiny series, which offers an introduction to Was $44.99 before relocating to Melbourne and Macedonia overtook Greece and crushed Indigenous traditional knowledges in vital selling first meat pies and then books. Head of Zeus HB a superpower, Persia. Their reigns areas and discusses their application to Now $39.99 With the latter, he found his true $49.99 saw the spread of Greek rather than the present day and the future. In it, the vocation, eventually opening the world- Athenian culture, and both kings were senior Indigenous curator at the National famous Cole’s Book Arcade in Bourke supreme military leaders. Alexander has Thames & Hudson Museum of Australia and a noted science Street and writing and publishing books a more prominent place in history, and PB writer explain the use of songlines, including the much-loved Cole’s Funny Goldsworthy sorts through the evidence $19.99 remarkable tools used by Indigenous Picture Book. This lavishly illustrated that remains to address this imbalance, Australians to store knowledge in memory history charts Cole’s life and career, including maps, battle plans and through the adaptation of song, art and, properly focusing on the fantastical book chronologies to assist the modern reader. most importantly, Country into their lives. arcade that he is best known for. Travel BEST DAY WALKS JAPAN: FROM THE SOURCE LOST AND FOUND WILD NATURE AUSTRALIA TIENLON HO, REBECCA KIP SCOTT JOHN BLAY ANNA KAMINSKI, MILNER & IPPO NAKAHARA Transit Lounge HB NewSouth PB $39.99 MONIQUE PERRIN ET AL Lonely Planet HB Was $59.99 Now $19.95 Naturalist John Blay’s poetic Lonely Planet PB $34.99 Was $34.99 Now $12.95 A stunning visual record of account of his long walk Subtitled ‘Easy Escapes A compendium of authentic perilously decaying structures in through the great native into Nature’, this full- and easily cooked Japanese Bengal (India) and Bangladesh forests of Australia’s south- colour guide includes 60 recipes presented with details featuring mansions and east investigates the history walks with maps. Every of each dish’s regional and other buildings that are often and ecology of these wild state is included, and cultural importance, as well as architectural hybrids of Mughal, places and warns about the walks are graded by evocative photographs. A steal Hindu and Western traditions. their threatened futures. degree of difficulty. at this price!

JAPAN: LONELY PLANET’S LOVING COUNTRY WITHOUT EVER BEAUTIFUL WORLD NATURAL WORLD BRUCE PASCOE & REACHING THE SUMMIT Lonely Planet HB OLIVER BERRY, ADAM SKOLNICK VICKY SHUKUROGLU PAOLO COGNETTI Was $29.99 Now $12.95 & ADAM WEYMOUTH Explore HB Harvill HB $24.99 This photographic Lonely Planet HB Was $45 Now $39.99 Cognetti’s account of trekking journey through Japan’s Was $45 Now $34.99 Surveying 18 Australian places across the Dolpa plateau on regions depicts visually Profiling 50 extraordinary natural with rich Indigenous associations, the Nepalese–Tibetan border arresting aspects of the environments across the globe, this invaluable guidebook covers is both a literary homage country’s natural world, this keenly priced photographic history, Dreaming stories and to Peter Matthiesson’s The as well as its most survey travels through forests traditional cultural practices, and Snow Leopard and a spiritual fascinating traditions and deserts, up mountains, along also lists cultural experiences and meditation on humanity’s and innovations. rivers and over seas. tours for each location. relationship with nature. 12 SCIENCE & NATURE BACKYARD INSECTS ENGLISH PASTORAL: HOW BIRDS BEHAVE Paul Horne & Denis Crawford AN INHERITANCE Wenfei Tong This updated edition of the bestselling James Rebanks Biologist and conservationist Wenfei book about bugs takes us into the In his follow-up to The Shepherd’s Life, Tong explains the science behind bird secret world of the creepy-crawlies English farmer James Rebanks extols behaviour in this highly engaging that call our gardens home. With over the joys, sense and sustainability of book. Covering everything from 100 listings, entomologist Dr Paul traditional farming methods. Working courtship rituals and nest building, Horne and writer/photographer Denis on the family farm in England’s Lake to food storage and risk-avoidance, Crawford have created an essential field District, Rebanks realised that he the information is conveyed in chatty CSIRO HB Miegunyah PB guide that both keen gardeners and would need to act to revitalise the land. prose packaged into bite-sized pieces Was $24.99 quizzical kids will enjoy. From primitive Allen Lane PB But unlike the many farmers around $39.99 and accompanied by glorious full- silverfish to exuberant butterflies, colour photography. Tong’s insights Now $11.95 the globe who have implemented Backyard Insects is clearly categorised $35 environmentally unfriendly ‘efficiency’ into how some birds are evolving to with easy-to-follow, informative text measures such as tree clearing and the adapt to the climate crisis, as well as and full-page close-up photographs. The liberal use of pesticides and artificial her emphasis on the individuality perfect companion for those who’d like fertiliser, he instead sought a way of each species, is especially to know more about the insect world forward by looking to the past. In illuminating. How Birds Behave will that inhabits their back garden. English Pastoral, this enlightened farmer be just as fascinating to the seasoned describes his sustainable, life-enhancing birdwatcher as it will be to the novice. approach to farming, one motivated by 6. Who is known as the ‘queen both experience and optimism. of Instapoets’? A HUMAN’S GUIDE Q TO THE FUTURE AN EYE FOR NATURE: Jordan Nguyen THE BEST AUSTRALIAN THE LIFE AND ART OF Considering the year that has been, it SCIENCE WRITING 2020 WILLIAM T COOPER can be hard to think of the future in an Sara Phillips (ed) Penny Olsen optimistic light. But Dr Jordan Nguyen December Release Natural-history writer Penny Olsen’s is here to change that. In A Human’s Science writing isn’t just for academics; biography of the late artist William T Guide to the Future, Nguyen offers a astronomers, birdwatchers, doctors and Cooper (1934–2015) is a meticulously vision of tomorrow in which technology researched account of a life that began has revolutionised the way we live gardeners are driven to interrogate the NLA HB Macmillan PB in the bush, instilling in the young for the better. Nguyen has appeared world around us, observe and report back Was $49.99 with wonder and amazement, encouraging Cooper a love of the natural world that $34.99 on our screens as a host on Catalyst readers to see with new eyes. Now in its Now $16.95 was to become a feature of his work as documentaries about engineering NewSouth PB 10th year, The Best Australian Science one of the country’s best illustrators of and robotics, and has also spoken at $32.99 Writing offers a collection that ranges from birds. Woven throughout the text are numerous science events around the genetics and grief ecology to complex sketchbook illustrations, photographs world. This book demonstrates that he is cattle relationships. Just as the time of and full-page colour plates of Cooper’s just as engaging a writer as he is a speaker Covid demands rapid technological and beautifully observed Australian – it is full of complex ideas that will scientific innovation, this anthology birds. With an introduction by David delight every tech-obsessed reader, but is describes the latest, strangest and most Attenborough, this wonderful biography also easy for the layperson to understand. promising developments. Pick this book and stunning pictorial is a must-have for fans of our feathered friends. up and be astonished. THE LAST ELEPHANTS Don Pinnock & Colin Bell CALL OF THE REED WARBLER FIGHT FOR PLANET A The African elephant is closer to Charles Massy Craig Reucassel extinction than many people know. This Three years after it was first published, this This practical guide to tackling climate hefty book combines image and text acclaimed book has been updated and change will empower anyone who to urge action to save these intelligent revised to remind us of the importance feels overwhelmed by the scope of the and empathetic creatures. Intimate of regenerative agriculture – a practice in environmental crisis and unsure how to portraits of family groups and majestic which farmers grow food and restore the most effectively take action in their daily Hardie Grant PB individuals dominate, but contrast earth. Author Charles Massy, described lives. Following the success of his recent Was $50 with a peppering of photographs of by Tom Griffiths as the ‘Rachel Carson TV show Fight for Planet A, comedian Now $19.95 devastated habitat, guns and elephants of the Monaro’, argues that regenerative and broadcaster Craig Reucassel (known killed for ivory. Though essays about UQP PB agriculture is the most effective and ABC PB for his work on The Chaser and War on successful attempts to stop poaching $39.99 cheapest solution to addressing climate $34.99 Waste) has written this factual, proactive and reclaim habitat give hope, we are change. This fascinating and at times book. It’s filled with useful information still confronted by the fact that elephant lyrical book is not just for farmers, but also and tips to reduce your carbon footprint numbers have dropped from several for anyone who eats food from the land. and make a difference at home, in your million to half a million in the last That is, everyone. community and for the planet we share. decade. It’s a sobering call to action. Highly Recommended A BIRD A DAY ENTANGLED LIFE THE GENES THAT MAKE US SHOW ME WHERE DOMINIC COUZENS MERLIN SHELDRAKE EDWIN KIRK IT HURTS Batsford HB $35 Bodley Head PB $35 Scribe PB $32.99 KYLIE MASLEN Beautifully presented, Subtitled ‘How Fungi Make Australian clinical geneticist Text PB $34.99 this title features Our Worlds, Change Our and genetic pathologist Maslen explores what descriptions of 366 birds Minds, and Shape Our Professor Edwin Kirk it is like to live with from around the world, Futures’, this book will leave demystifies genes – what they chronic illness and pain each accompanied by a the reader wonderstruck at are, how we’re affected by them, that is not perceived or colour photograph or these endlessly surprising and what moral issues arise acknowledged by others, illustration. A perfect organisms on which nearly through genetic screening and including members of gift for birders! all life relies. gene modification. the medical profession.

THE CLIMATE CURE FLOWER: EXPLORING THE LIFE & LOVE VESPER FLIGHTS TIM FLANNERY THE WORLD IN BLOOM OF THE FOREST HELEN MACDONALD Text PB $24.99 Phaidon HB LEWIS BLACKWELL Jonathan Cape HB $35 Could Australia’s Was $79.95 Now $69.99 Thames & Hudson HB The author of H is for relatively successful Art publisher Phaidon Was $80 Now $69.99 Hawk describes her response to COVID-19 showcases the diversity Celebrating the beauty collection of lyrically provide a blueprint and beauty of flowers in of forests and the written essays about for an action plan to this visual compendium interdependency of humans the human relationship address the climate of paintings, botanical and trees, this magnificent to the natural world as emergency? Flannery illustrations, sculptures, book showcases the work being ‘concerned with the argues that it could. textiles, jewellery and of nature photographers quality of wonder’. floral arrangements across the globe alongside across the ages. informative essays. SCIENCE & NATURE 13 A LETTER TO LAYLA THE PLANETS A SHORT HISTORY Ramona Koval Andrew Cohen with OF THE WORLD Writer and journalist Ramona Brian Cox ACCORDING TO SHEEP Koval, who has a background in the The BBC’s Andrew Cohen and Sally Coulthard sciences, has spent the last five years particle physicist Professor Brian Cox From the plains of ancient researching and thinking about how plunge readers headlong into the high- Mesopotamia to the rolling hills of our species has evolved, and where stakes drama of outer space in this medieval England to the vast modern- we might end up next. In A Letter HarperCollins HB large-format, glossy book. Featuring day stations of our own country, sheep to Layla (Layla being the author’s awe-inspiring NASA photography, Was $39.99 have been central to the human story. youngest grandchild), Koval balances The Planets offers up a wealth of Starting with our Neolithic ancestors’ Text PB her daily life as a grandmother with Now $19.95 information about the solar system. Head of Zeus HB first forays into sheep-rearing nearly $34.99 her travels and research, meeting How did early mathematicians discover $34.99 10,000 years ago, these remarkable with a dizzying array of scientists the secrets of Saturn’s rings? What is animals have fed us, clothed us, and thinkers along the way. Its blend the escape velocity to leave the Earth’s changed our diet and languages, helped of investigation, journalism and gravitational pull? What effect did us to win wars, decorated our homes storytelling makes this a warmly Jupiter and Saturn’s original orbits and financed the conquest of large accessible and intriguing look into our have on each other – and on us? A swathes of the earth. This fascinating past and our possible future. companion to the BBC television series book offers history, engaging anecdotes of the same name, this book answers and remarkable ovine facts galore, these questions and many more. demonstrating the massive impact that A LIFE ON OUR PLANET sheep have had on human history. David Attenborough This has been described as a legacy-defining book for Sir David Attenborough, and it’s an apt 7. Who worked at The French Laundry and Chez Panisse? descriptor. At 94 years of age, the iconic broadcaster has borne intimate Q witness to the devastating impact of the climate crisis, and his fears for the future come from experience and PLANTOPEDIA SWAINSTON’S Ebury HB passion. Attenborough’s overview of Lauren Camilleri & FISHES OF Was $39.99 the crisis is realistic, yet not without Sophia Kaplan AUSTRALIA Now $32.99 hope. In the book’s final section, he This lavishly styled and illustrated Roger Swainston discusses possible scientific solutions indoor-plant encyclopedia could not One of the most admired aquatic-life to reverse the planet’s decline – as long be timelier. For apartment-dwellers artists living today, Roger Swainston as we act now. Released to coincide working from homes with limited has decades of experience in the field of with a new film, A Life on Our Planet access to greenery, connecting with Viking PB ichthyology. This is his masterwork – a is an urgent wake-up call. Smith Street HB and nurturing indoor plants has Was $80 showcase of all the known species of Was $59.99 many therapeutic benefits. Every Australia’s marine and freshwater fishes. facet of greening interiors is covered, Now $69.99 It includes more than 1500 exquisite Now $49.99 LIVEWIRED from propagating and cultivating to illustrations as well as information on David Eagleman positioning and caring for indoor the taxonomy and biology of every plants. Not a green thumb? The foliage family of fishes recorded in Australian Neuroplasticity is the fascinating plants, cacti and succulents profiled waters. Fish range from the beautiful ability of neurons and brain systems include care levels for novices, green to the bizarre, and the author’s artistry to grow and change, adjusting thumbs and experts. And the plants and research makes this a truly and adapting to the surrounding themselves are real characters, with remarkable achievement. environment. So what does that inimitable habits and arresting colours, mean for human possibility? In forms and patterns. Livewired: The Inside Story of the Ever-Changing Brain, neuroscientist Canongate PB THERE ARE PLACES and internationally bestselling author IN THE WORLD $32.99 Dr David Eagleman explores dream, THE SCIENCE OF THE OCEAN memory and senses, and speaks WHERE RULES From beachfront shallows to the ARE LESS IMPORTANT to people around the globe about deepest of the deep, this handsome future scientific projects that could book is a captivating introduction to THAN KINDNESS harness the livewired power of our life in the watery world that takes up Carlo Rovelli brains. Written with an irresistible 68% of the planet’s surface. Produced Theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli’s enthusiasm and tremendous in conjunction with London’s Natural books have been translated into 41 excitement, this book is for anyone History Museum and magnificently languages, and his Seven Brief Lessons intrigued by popular science and how DK HB illustrated and photographed on Physics sold over one million our minds work. Was $59.99 throughout, it covers every aspect of Allen Lane HB copies. Here, he turns his mind to Now $54.99 marine life, revealing the secrets of $35 examine the great questions of science the seas from open oceans and coastal and humanity. Playing with ideas THE MUTANT PROJECT waters to coral reefs, mangroves and from Einstein, Newton, Nabokov Eben Kirksey salt marshes. and Dante, Rovelli explores animal consciousness, psychedelic drugs Genetic engineering is one of the 21st and the concept of atheism. Written century’s greatest ethical challenges. with clarity and wit, this is a perfect As we encounter new possibilities introduction to the work of one of our in altering human genomes, we’re THE SECRET LIFE OF STARS world’s most influential scientists. confronted with questions about Lisa Harvey-Smith wealth and access: how do market Astrophysicist Lisa Harvey-Smith’s forces determine the direction of latest book is a mind-bending, research? Who gains access to cutting- informative and enjoyable romp La Trobe PB edge genetic medicine? Will this across our galaxy. With around a WHAT IS LIFE? $32.99 produce more medical inequality? billion trillion stars in the observable Paul Nurse And the bigger questions: should universe to choose from, this Nobel Prize–winning geneticist Sir parents be allowed to choose their cosmic journey is full of astounding Paul Nurse has dedicated his career to children’s genetic makeup? What are Thames & Hudson encounters with galactic family studying life. Here, he distils a wealth the broader implications of genetic HB members including self-destructors, of knowledge into a small but mighty engineering for humanity? In The $34.99 runaways, cannibal stars, red dwarfs book. By understanding the world Mutant Project: Inside the Global and black holes. By personalising her around us and what makes life tick, Race to Genetically Modify Humans, subject matter, and with an astute flair Nurse believes we will be one step cultural anthropologist Eben Kirksey for description, Harvey-Smith guides closer to solving the many challenges meets the scientists and entrepreneurs the reader through an impressive Scribe HB faced by humanity today. What Is at the forefront of this science, as well amount of scientific facts and figures $24.99 Life? is a perfect book for fans of as people with alternative visions of a without ever losing sight of the sheer Brian Cox and David Attenborough genetically modified future. awe-inspiring nature of space. or for anyone keen to learn more about the world around us. 14 ART & DESIGN ACCIDENTALLY CHALET MONET LIVING OUTSIDE: REVIVING WES ANDERSON Richard Bonynge THE AUSTRALIAN Wally Koval Dominique Bersier’s photographs MODERNIST GARDEN December Release take centre stage in this sumptuously Sharon Mackay & Diana Snape Uncanny symmetry, block pastel produced visual tour of the Swiss This visually rich, collaborative work colours, ornate front-facing facades home of Dame Joan Sutherland and celebrates modernist design principles – Wes Anderson is known for his Richard Bonynge. Full- and double- and their influence on contemporary distinctive aesthetic. In 2018, an page images depict the drawing room, Thames & Hudson Australian landscapes. Today, much Trapeze HB online message board prompted a card room, dining room, studio, Melbourne Books HB can still be learned from mid-century $39.99 viral phenomenon in which users HB library and music room, as well as solutions to the challenge of growing our $70 began to share photographs of real- $95 private spaces such as bedrooms. cities whilst protecting our environment, world settings that looked like they’d All are crammed with paintings, health and wellbeing. The book is secretly been devised in the cult sculptures, textiles, artefacts and divided into three parts showcasing filmmaker’s studio. Accidentally Wes memorabilia (mostly opera related) the best examples of modernist garden Anderson goes beyond the images collected by the opera superstars over design. A predominantly native plant to share the stories behind these their decades together. Interspersed palette is used impressively in landscapes distinctive locations and architectural throughout are profiles of major ranging from wild coastal gardens to wonders, from the Pittsburgh Athletic operatic figures (Malibran, Lind, tranquil urban oases and city sanctuaries. Club to the Krka National Park in Melba, Zeffirelli) as well as text Captivating photography by Christopher Croatia. This is a quirky and inspiring by Bonynge recounting his and Frederick Jones contextualises the design book with wide appeal. Sutherland’s lives and careers. green spaces, highlighting their most innovative features.

Who sold lemonade and sausages MMXX: TWO DECADES THE ART BOOK 8. OF ARCHITECTURE IN THE DESIGN BOOK Q on the goldfields? AUSTRALIA Cameron Bruhn This new edition of Phaidon’s acclaimed The Art Book, an A–Z Curated by academic and writer guide to the most important artists THE HANDBAG OF Cameron Bruhn, this survey of nearly of all time, includes more than 60 influential, innovative and exciting HAPPINESS Australian structures erected during the Phaidon HB 40 new artists, some previously Alannah Hill overlooked and others contemporary past 20 years covers houses, apartments, Was $59.95 Employing plenty of self-deprecating Thames & Hudson cultural facilities such as museums practitioners. Also offered in a PB Now $49.99 compact new edition, The Design humour, fashion designer Alannah and libraries, educational buildings, Was $80 Book spans products manufactured Hill recounts stories about when her hospitals and public spaces. Celebrating from 1663 to 2019, showcasing life and career didn’t go according to Now $69.99 excellence and innovation, Bruhn design classics from across the globe plan. Provocative, defiant and witty, profiles works by long-established firms the stories proffer hard-won wisdom alongside projects by mid-career and – everything from Yale cylinder Hardie Grant HB locks (designed 1861), László Bíró’s from her long career in the fashion emerging practices; each entry includes BIC Cristal pen (1950) and Le $29.99 world and explain how she overcame a textual description, plans and at least Creuset’s classic cast-iron cookware adversity – and sometimes didn’t, one photograph. (1925), to luxury items such as the despite her best intentions. Rolex Oyster wristwatch (1926) and STREETON furniture such as Arne Jacobsen’s Wayne Tunnicliffe (ed) Phaidon HB Series 7 chair (1955). HUMANS Brandon Stanton Edited by the head curator of $29.95 Australian art at the Art Gallery of New New York photographer Brandon South Wales, this monograph on artist Stanton is the creator of the iconic Arthur Streeton covers his practice photo blog Humans of New York. from 1885 to 1940. It does justice to Humans is his new book and it’s a wildly Streeton’s sun-drenched impressionist ATLAS OF BRUTALIST ambitious project that feels startlingly Thames & Hudson landscapes from the 1880s, joyful ARCHITECTURE intimate. Demolishing borders, real HB depictions of Sydney beaches and December Release Macmillan HB and imagined, Stanton shares images harbour in the 1890s, and pastoral This lavishly illustrated landmark and stories of people from all parts of $70 Was $44.99 paintings from the 1920s and ’30s, survey of one of architecture’s most the world. These snapshots into other including paintings created in Australia controversial yet popular styles Now $39.99 people’s lives are tantalising in their as well as works made by the artist in is now available in a new edition. poignancy and brevity, and together Egypt, Venice, England, Italy and the Featuring more than 850 Brutalist form a powerful antidote against battlefields of WW1 France. Sixteen buildings – existing and demolished, an increasingly divided world. Also essays by historians and curators from Phaidon HB classic and contemporary – it includes included is a selection of Stanton’s around the country provide context. Was $100 well-known examples from the UK popular online essays reflecting on his and USA alongside lesser-known Now $79.99 process and discoveries. examples in Europe, Asia, Australia TRUTH BOMB and beyond. Abigail Crompton (ed) THE KINFOLK GARDEN Curated by the artistic director and John Burns founder of Melbourne-based design The latest pictorial book from the studio Third Drawer Down, Truth A CENTURY OF COLOUR team behind Kinfolk magazine takes Bomb is a celebration of contemporary IN DESIGN us into beautifully designed gardens artists who have challenged the David Harrison and green spaces around the world, establishment. Organised as Here, Sydney-based design journalist and also profiles the creative work Thames & Hudson a collection of interviews and and interiors stylist David Harrison of gardeners, florists, designers HB biographies alongside large images showcases 250 innovative objects and botanists innovating in their $49.99 of the artists’ works, it aims to guide (furniture, fabrics, lights, kitchenware Artisan HB professions. Highlights include a and inspire its audience by sharing and other household objects) that $59.99 reclaimed Mallorcan olive grove; the stories of 22 women working embody the collision of colour, design a Tangier garden project aiming in a variety of media, showcasing Thames & Hudson and culture. Harris’ choices include to rescue wild flora threatened by internationally recognised names HB works from the big guns of 20th- industrialisation and urbanisation; a such as Yayoi Kusama, Judy Chicago $39.99 century design – Walter Gropius, traditional garden in a Danish fishing and the Guerilla Girls, as well as Gerrit Rietveld, Marcel Breuer, Alvar village; an architect’s home sunk into Australian artists including Del Aalto, Eero Saarinen, Charles and Ray jungle in Buenos Aires; and a lush Kathryn Barton, Frances Cannon Eames, Marco Zanuso, Arne Jacobsen, secret garden on a Parisian rooftop. As and Kaylene Whiskey. The artists Richard Sapper, Marc Newson et well as the gorgeous photographs of range from being emerging to well al – but also make room for the gardens and the houses within them, established, and the book not only work of 21st-century stars including the book includes practical advice focuses on their inspirational artistic Tom Dixon, Michele De Lucchi and about plant care, flower arranging and practice, but also provides an insight Australian Brodie Neill. home gardening. into their personal lives and beliefs. FOOD & DRINK 15 AFRICOLA COOK, EAT, REPEAT Highly Recommended Duncan Welgemoed Nigella Lawson EAT AT THE BAR Adelaide’s Africola restaurant has garnered ‘More than just a mantra, “cook, eat, MATT McCONNELL & worldwide praise for serving a delicious no-fuss repeat” is the story of my life.’ So says JO GAMVROS range of African-inspired meals. This unusual British culinary superstar Nigella Lawson, Hardie Grant HB cookbook – subtitled ‘Slow Food, Fast Words, and her new book featuring narrative Was $49.99 Now $16.95 Cult Chef’ – offers recipes for meats, seafood, essays about food, over 150 new recipes The owners of Melbourne’s desserts, cocktails and condiments; but it and plenty of colour photographs attests Bar Lourinhã share recipes Murdoch HB also gives us an insight into the life of a chef to the importance of cooking and eating for Mediterranean-style $49.99 and his restaurant. Read this book because Chatto & Windus in her life. Dedicated chapters include ‘A dishes (both small and large you desperately miss Anthony Bourdain’s HB is for Anchovy’ (a celebration of what she plates) that are full of bold and risk-taking; trust this book because chefs as Was $49.99 calls the bacon of the sea) and ‘A Loving delicious flavours. prominent as Marco Pierre White do; and Defence of Brown Food’. Other chapters relish cooking from this book because you love Now $39.99 are devoted to family dinners, inspiration dishes that scream flavour, colour and attitude. for vegan feasts, solo suppers and new ideas for Christmas. 9. How many stars are in ALWAYS ADD LEMON the observable universe? Danielle Alvarez Q FLAVOUR After learning her art at legendary Californian Yotam Ottolenghi & Ixta Belfrage restaurants The French Laundry and Chez So relentlessly on-trend that he’s almost GOOD FOOD NEW CLASSICS Panisse, Cuban-American chef Danielle a cliché, Israeli-English chef, restaurateur ARDYN BERNOTH (ed) $39.99 Alvarez made her way to our shores, where and cookbook author Yotam Ottolenghi Simon & Schuster PB she now heads up the kitchen at Sydney has been showcasing casual, seasonal and Contributors including Danielle restaurant Fred’s. California’s loss was vegetable-based food ever since opening his Alvarez, Neil Perry, Andrew Hardie Grant HB Australia’s gain, a fact proven by this cracker eponymous delicatessen in London’s Notting McConnell, Adam Liaw and Kylie Kwong contribute classic $50 of a cookbook. Every recipe in Always Add Hill in 2002. In his eighth cookbook, the Lemon is achievable in the home kitchen, Ebury HB recipes with a contemporary third instalment in the veggie-based series twist to this cookbook from the and most are within the grasp of even novice Was $55 that started with Plenty, Ottolenghi sticks to cooks. Salads are a strength – the variety Good Food Guide crew. Now $44.99 his strengths, offering 100 or so vegetarian offered is truly exhilarating – and the section and vegan recipes that fall firmly within the devoted to fruit and vegetable dishes is replete skills base of the average home cook. With a MEAT with original ideas. Other sections focus on stunning front cover, plenty of photographs ADRIAN RICHARDSON pasta, seafood, poultry, meat, dessert and and useful ribbon bookmarks, Flavour makes Hardie Grant HB projects such as pastry, bread and pickles. a perfect gift, especially at this bargain price. Was $49.99 Now $19.95 Always wondered what the THE ART & SCIENCE difference is between chuck GOURMET TRAILS: AUSTRALIA and blade, shank and leg? Want OF FOODPAIRING to cook the perfect steak, pork Peter Coucquyt, Bernard Lahousse & & NEW ZEALAND Here are the recipes to 40 perfect foodie crackling and roast chook? If so, Johan Langenbick this book is for you. weekends away, selected by the travel experts If you’ve ever wondered whether oysters at Lonely Planet. From Byron Bay and should be paired with kiwi fruit (yes, because Margaret River to NZ’s Bay of Islands and PARWANA they share a ‘marine-like aroma note’), Marlborough, the itineraries are tailor-made DURKHANAI & FARIDA AYUBI then The Art & Science of Foodpairing is for COVID-safe travels in the trans-Tasman Murdoch HB for you. With the magnificent ambition of Was $45 Mitchell Beazley Lonely Planet HB bubble. The epicurean wander begins with Now $39.99 HB profiling every ingredient in the world, the Canberra’s coffee roasters and ends in Enhanced by Alicia Taylor’s food scientists at Foodpairing have analysed Was $59.99 $39.99 Nelson’s craft-beer hostelries, dropping in to gorgeous photographs, this over 3000 different ingredients, amassing Now $44.99 meet wine-makers, cheese-crafters, brewers, cookbook includes step-by- one of the world’s largest ‘flavour databases’. growers and breeders along the way. Each step instructions that will The molecular gastronomy craze may have destination includes tips on where to stay, make cooking a traditional and passed, but understanding why beetroot pairs what to do and what to celebrate, along with delectable Afghani feast in your so damn well with goat’s cheese, or sesame maps and enticing photos. kitchen eminently achievable. seeds with mango, will never go out of style. SIMPLY THE ARTISAN KITCHEN IN PRAISE OF VEG SABRINA GHAYOUR James Strawbridge Alice Zaslavsky Mitchell Beazley HB $39.99 This lovingly designed tome explores bread Always wanted to know how to prepare This follow-up to the global making, preserving, curing, smoking and and serve daikon, globe artichoke, zucchini bestseller Persiana draws on fermenting. British chef James Strawbridge flowers and okra? In Praise of Veg will show Ghayour’s Iranian heritage but brings a modern lens to age-old techniques, you how. Written by food educator Alice also takes inspiration from including brining (‘a one-way ticket to Zaslavsky, culinary correspondent for global cuisines, resulting in a flavour-town’), churning butter (‘extremely ABC News Breakfast and ABC Radio, this tempting collection of easily achieved family-friendly dishes. DK HB quick and fun to make’) and even making Murdoch HB illustrated kitchen companion includes fact- $49.99 your own cold smoker (‘easily built at home Was $59.99 packed entries for 73 vegetables. Each entry includes tips on buying, storing, prepping from scratch’). Whether or not you jumped Now $54.99 SPECIAL GUEST on the iso sourdough bandwagon, you’ll and cooking with the veg alongside ANNABEL CRABB & be brewing perfect kombucha and nailing easy-to-achieve recipes accompanied by WENDY SHARPE cheese-making before you know it. With full-colour photographs. Some of the dishes Murdoch HB beautiful images, thorough research and here include meat; others are vegetarian or Was $39.99 Now $17.95 careful indexing, The Artisan Kitchen is an vegan. All are healthy and delicious. A godsend for those of us who accessible and inspiring book. find entertaining a challenge, Special Guest offers easy-to- KINDNESS COMMUNITY achieve recipes for breakfast, AUSTRALIAN FOOD VEGAN COOKBOOK lunch, afternoon tea, drinks Bill Granger Put together by the staff, volunteers and and dinner catering. Bill Granger’s latest book sashays onto shelves supporters at Edgar’s Mission, a not-for- 27 years after his first restaurant opened, and profit farm sanctuary with a vision for a SPIRITED 20 years after his first book was published. humane and just world for all, this vegan ADRIENNE STILLMAN Featuring 100-odd recipes in his bright, beachy cookbook includes plenty of recipes Phaidon HB style, this is a cookbook you’ll actually use. Bill (including clever veganised versions Was $59.95 Now $49.99 has elevated the reputation of Australia’s cuisine Affirm PB of classic dishes) as well as practical A compendium of cocktails – around the world thanks to his restaurants in information for living a plant-based life Murdoch HB $35 everything from the refreshing Japan, the UK, Korea and Hawaii, and you can (vegan hacks, super substitutes and pantry spritz, sangria and Singapore Was $49.99 feel their culinary influence here. Australian essentials). The recipes were sourced sling to the classic dry martini, Now $44.99 Food will have you whipping avocado with from what the mission calls its ‘kindness margarita and mojito. Includes tofu, adding nashi pear to poached chicken and community’ – everyday home cooks, chefs recipes, photographs and reinventing Anzacs with macadamias. Healthy and nutritionists who really care about the information on ingredients but never puritanical. food on their plates. and equipment. 16 FOOD & DRINK MY SUBURBAN FARM TO ASIA WITH LOVE Gift Books Ainslee Costa Hetty McKinnon BILL BAILEY’S REMARKABLE Here, the creator of the popular My In her latest book, the beloved Hetty GUIDE TO HAPPINESS Suburban Farm Instagram feed shares McKinnon celebrates growing up between BILL BAILEY tips and inspiration for bringing the rustic two cultures, and pays tribute to the Quercus HB romance, craft aesthetic and grow-it- heirloom cooking of our mothers and $35 yourself joy of rural life into the urban and grandmothers. She’s the sort of easy-going The British actor and comedian suburban spheres. From the meditative chef who encourages you to use whatever (Black Books) utilises text and Affirm HB delights of craft (candle making, pottery noodles you have, and isn’t fussed about Plum PB illustrations to share some etc) to the practicalities of keeping chickens, what rice you use. McKinnon incorporates $35 Was $39.99 happiness-laden moments from the rewards of vintage shopping and the plenty of vegan recipes, and her famous his life and career. satisfaction of growing and cooking your Now $34.99 love of salads shines through (a ‘bright veggies, this book celebrates everything and lively’ potato salad!). Her fusing of handmade, homegrown and heart-warming. cuisines – think cacio e pepe udon and soy- CATLAND sauce brownies – is creative, ambitious and SARAH ARCHER inexplicably delicious. Countryman Press HB PIZZA $29.95 James Elliot & Thom Elliot Sometimes cute, sometimes Brothers James and Thom Elliot are obsessed TOKYO CULT RECIPES creepy, the photographs in this with pizza and have devoted nearly a decade Maori Murota full-colour gift book showcase to their ongoing ‘pizza pilgrimage’, which Tokyo-born, Paris-based cook Maori Murota the kitsch but powerful cat culture of Japan. commenced with a 2011 trip through Italy. explores her love affair with Japanese food This entertaining book, which has a cover in this stylish cookbook, which features resembling a pizza box, devotes sections to more than 100 recipes. Murota takes readers HALLIDAY POCKET WINE through different aspects of Japanese cooking Quadrille HB classic pizza destinations (Naples, Rome, COMPANION 2021 New York, Chicago), explaining their – from the basics of how to cook rice and JAMES HALLIDAY $39.99 particular pizza styles, profiling legendary Murdoch HB make your own dashi, to preparing delicate Hardie Grant HB businesses, listing recommended pizzerias Was $49.99 sweet treats such as Kabocha Chakin-Shibori $22.99 and sharing typical recipes. Want to know Now $29.95 (Twisted Pumpkin Balls). Incorporating Extracted from Halliday’s well- the best Italian tinned tomatoes to use, the her personal reflections of life in Tokyo and respected Wine Companion, this best way to cook pizza at home or how to illustrated with glossy photographs as well as guide identifies the best-value make chilli oil to add piquancy? You’ll find sweet hand-drawn diagrams, this is the kind Australian wines that will be the answers here. of cookbook that inspires as well as instructs. available in 2021.

SATURDAY NIGHT PASTA USE IT ALL KILLING TIME Elizabeth Hewson Alex Elliot-Howery & Jaimee Edwards JIMMY BARNES Elizabeth Hewson is as skilled at sharing No more vegetables wilting in the hidden HarperCollins HB Was $45 Now $39.99 her culinary knowledge as she is at depths of your fridge. No more egg yolks crafting pasta from scratch. Her Instagram festering after you’ve made meringues. And A collection of more than success proves how successful she is at no more throwing out half the bunch of 40 entertaining stories and anecdotes about the Aussie communicating, but it is her mastery of the herbs that didn’t suit the other meals you musician’s 50-year life on art of pasta that will inspire every home made that week. Deliciously addressing the the road. cook. Saturday Night Pasta takes us on a Murdoch PB problem of food waste, Use It All is chock- Plum PB tour of various pasta shapes and sauces, and Was $39.99 full of tips from Sydney’s Cornersmith team, $36.99 gives an indication of Hewson’s pragmatic who suggest shopping baskets of seasonal Now $34.99 NOTHING MUCH HAPPENS approach to living a balanced life. Consider ingredients that will create several meals, KATHRYN NICOLAI this book your friend – something to sides and snacks. There are also plenty of Allen & Unwin HB embrace every weekend, inspire ideas, and new ideas on how to use whatever’s left over, $29.99 and not just the Cornersmith trademarks of help you to create sensational pasta dough This collection of soothing and toppings. preserving and curing. stories by the creator of the popular podcast of the same name is aimed at those who SICILIANO VEGAN WITH BITE struggle to sleep or suffer Joe Vargetto Shannon Martinez from anxiety. Melbourne chef and restaurateur Joe This exciting cookbook is crammed with Vargetto, whose parents emigrated inspiring ideas for breakfast, dinner and from Sicily, has created this ambitious afters. The fact that the recipes are vegan is contemporary homage to Sicilian cooking. by-the-by, because for the author, it’s how 10. What was Ursula Siciliano is the work of someone who grew the dishes taste that really matters. The Kuczynski’s code name? up in a family of four with a mother who third book by Smith & Daughters’ whiz Q cooked for 10 – a culinary generosity that Hardie Grant HB Shannon Martinez is far from prescriptive, she has bequeathed to her son. Beautifully welcoming experimentation to swap photographed, and with endpapers $34.99 ingredients or, for meat eaters, to substitute THE SCANDINAVIAN reminiscent of the tiles found all around dairy-free and plant-based ingredients for SKINCARE BIBLE Sicily, Siciliano is for the adventurous cook. the real thing. The vegan larder section is a JOHANNA GILLBRO real eye-opener, with everything you need Scribe PB Melbourne Books It features dishes such as sea snail cappelletti to create these dishes with minimum effort HB with crustacean bisque, roasted duck with $35 pumpkin and liquorice, and smoked beef and maximum results. Revealing the science behind $49.95 with balsamic celeriac. healthy skin and exposing commercial exploitation by A YEAR OF SIMPLE the global cosmetics industry, 30-MINUTE VEGAN DINNERS FAMILY FOOD this book discusses effective Megan Sadd Julia Busuttil Nishimura skincare regimes, sunscreens, anti-ageing techniques and Food blogger Megan Sadd’s crash course The many fans of Busuttil Nishimura’s skin-friendly nutrition. in vegan cooking pulls out all the stops for debut cookbook Ostro will be equally those short-cutting their way to putting a delighted by this follow-up volume, which restaurant-quality, nutritious, plant-based again focuses on family-friendly seasonal THIS ONE AND meal on the table in record time. The 75 recipes for the Australian home cook. As PRECIOUS LIFE Page Street PB globe-spanning recipes cover everything with its predecessor, there are plenty of SARAH WILSON Plum PB Was $34.99 from Californian and pan-Asian cuisines Mediterranean-inspired dishes here, but Macmillan HB to home-style Italian and pub grub meals. $39.99 this time more space is given to modern $34.99 Now $15.95 Catering to both herbivores and omnivores, Asian options (think chicken miso ramen, Author and social-media star Sadd’s flavour hacks include strong herb and ocean trout rice bowls, sweet potato and Sarah Wilson (I Quit Sugar) spice flavourings to get depth into dishes in spinach curry). Once again, the desserts suggests ways in which we the shortest time possible. Healthy plant- are a highlight (we can personally attest to can find paths away from based cooking with a creative twist, all in less the deliciousness of both the classic baked disconnection and anxiety and than 30 minutes. What’s not to love? cheesecake and raspberry ripple cake). reconnect with life and self. KIDS 17 ANENOME IS NOT THE ENEMY THE DRAGON ARK Young Adult Fiction Anna McGregor Curatoria Draconis & Tomislav Tomic THE F TEAM Anemone lives in a rock pool with only the In this luxurious, large-format book, children RAWAH ARJA barnacles for company. Curious and lonely, are invited to step aboard the Dragon Ark Giramondo PB she longs for a friend, but unfortunately and enter into an apprenticeship with the $22.95 can’t help stinging everyone who comes formidable Curatoria Draconis, the world’s Tariq and his Lebanese- near – that is until a clownfish floats in with leading dragon conservationist. Structured as Australian besties at Punchbowl the rising tide. Anna McGregor’s scribbly sea a race-against-time journey around the world High are forced into playing creatures glimmer with bright neon hues in to find a mysterious and rare dragon, this Scribble HB Magic Cat HB in the same rugby league team this sweet, true-science tale of friendship, book introduces readers to plenty of other as ‘white’ boys from Cronulla, Was $44.99 $24.99 which describes the symbiotic relationship dragons along the way, all stunningly realised learning a lot about themselves between clownfish and sea anemones. Sharp- Now $39.99 by illustrator Tomislav Tomic. Underpinned and contemporary Australia in eyed young readers will also delight in a by a message about climate change, The the process. 13+ quirky subplot following a hermit crab on the Dragon Ark will appeal to dragon enthusiasts, hunt for a new home. 4+ art lovers, adventure-seekers, fact-collectors and keen activists alike. 8+ THE LEFT-HANDED BOOKSELLERS OF LONDON AT THE DOG PARK GARTH NIX Moira Court GLASSHEART Allen & Unwin PB $24.99 Visit the dog park in all its glorious variety Katherine Orton with this delightful picture book. Engaging, Set just after WW2, this fantasy adventure In a ‘New World’ London rhyming text begging for repeat reads is for middle readers follows 11-year-old of 1983, art student Susan is searching for her unknown Fremantle HB perfectly complemented by Moira Court’s Nona, orphaned during the London Blitz father when she encounters a distinctive illustrations, which incorporate and now living with her uncle Antoni, a $24.99 mysterious bookseller tasked woodblock prints, screen-printing and stained-glass artist. When Antoni is called with policing the legendary Old collage to satisfying effect. At the Dog Park is to the wild countryside of Dartmoor on World wherever it intrudes on an excellent way to start teaching opposites an urgent job, Nona accompanies him and the New. 14+ to babies and toddlers, as well as gently finds herself drawn into a life-and-death acknowledging the concepts of difference Walker PB situation on the moors involving powerful and acceptance. From clean to grubby, from $16.99 and dark magic, an imp who can transform THE LOOP skinny to chubby – there is truly a hound to into a crow, two benevolent spirits and one BEN OLIVER please every mood in this book. A treat for very scary sorcerer. This stirring story about Chicken House PB young animal lovers. 1+ determination, courage and the power of love $17.99 is a worthy successor to Orton’s debut novel, The first volume in a trilogy, the much-loved Nevertell. 9+ this action-packed thriller BINDI follows Luka Kane as he tries to Kirli Saunders & Dub Leffler break out of the AI-controlled prison for teenagers in which Creative and sensitive children will be wholly THE GRANDEST BOOKSHOP IN he has been incarcerated by an absorbed by this beautifully told verse novel THE WORLD authoritarian regime. 15+ from award-winning writer and Gunai Amelia Mellor woman Kirli Saunders. The inaugural winner Pearl and Vally Cole’s home is unlike any of Magabala’s Daisy Utemorrah Award for other. They live in a flat above Cole’s Book NONE SHALL SLEEP junior or YA fiction by an Aboriginal and Arcade, a huge and extraordinary Melbourne ELLIE MARNEY Torres Strait Islander writer, Bindi is the story bookshop. When the two find out that their Allen & Unwin PB Magabala HB of curious, art-loving 11-year-old Bindi, father has risked his arcade – and himself $19.99 $16.99 whose regular life in Gundungurra Country – in a deal with a sinister stranger called Inspired by Thomas Harris’ is disrupted by a string of unexpected events: Obscurosmith, they are forced to make their Silence of the Lambs and a broken wrist, an ambitious art project, Affirm HB own dangerous deal to save the situation. Netflix’s Mindhunter, Australian an injured garrall (black cockatoo) and a $19.99 However, solving the diabolically clever series YA author Ellie Marney places devastating bushfire. Minimalistic black- of challenges Obscurosmith sets won’t be easy. teenagers at the centre of the and-white sketches from Dub Leffler and the This exciting fantasy adventure set in 1893 nail-biting action in her latest inclusion of Gundungurra language render draws on the story of the real-life Cole family book. 18+ this book particularly special. 7+ and arcade, and will delight readers aged 9+. THE OTHER SIDE OF THE SKY AMIE KAUFMAN & THE BOOK OF HOLLOWPOX: THE HUNT FOR MEAGAN SPOONER MYTHICAL BEASTS MORRIGAN CROW Allen & Unwin PB AND MAGICAL CREATURES Jessica Townsend $19.99 Stephen Krensky & Pham Quang Phuc Lothian HB The many girls and boys The first instalment in a new series by the Starbound Imaginative youngsters will be enthralled Was $24.99 who enjoyed the first two by this handsome hardbound anthology of volumes in Townsend’s authors, this SF thriller follows mythical and magical creatures. Covering Now $19.99 acclaimed Nevermore a romance between the prince trilogy (Nevermore – The Trials of Morrigan of a hi-tech city in the sky and DK HB tricksters, shapeshifters, winged wonders and everything in between, this compendium Crow and Wundersmith – The Calling of the living goddess of an ancient Was $34.99 features a collection of creatures that ranges Morrigan Crow) are sure to have been land. 12+ Now $29.99 from Scotland’s Loch Ness Monster to the eagerly awaiting this third instalment in the Qalupalik of Inuit folklore. Accompanied by exciting adventures of Morrigan, a resilient THE RECKLESS AFTERLIFE full-colour illustrations from award-winning girl who escapes death and finds herself in OF HARRIET STOKER Vietnamese artist Pham Quang Phuc, these an extraordinary magical world. Volumes 1 LAUREN JAMES profiles are a mix of history lesson, cultural and 2 are also available at this extra-special Walker PB studies and fantasy, resulting in 100% price, offering a real treat for those new to $18.99 enchantment. Hours of entertainment the series. 8+ A ghost story with an exciting for ages 7+. plot and totally unexpected twist, this tale of student Harriet IF I WAS PRIME MINISTER Stoker is set in a dilapidated CATCH ME IF I FALL Beck Feiner & Robin Feiner university hall of residence with Barry Jonsberg Wife-and-husband team Robin and Beck a tragic past. 14+ This engaging and thought-provoking Feiner open this book with a question: What novel set in a dystopian Sydney in the would happen if kids ran Australia? Cue a THIS ONE IS OURS near future incorporates issues including range of testimonials from different children KATE O’DONNELL climate change, artificial intelligence and about what they would do if given the UQP PB economic inequality. The story is about chance. Some of the more fanciful proposals $19.99 identical twins Ash and Aiden, children ABC HB will have kids giggling (karate-chopping Australian schoolgirl Sofie, of a privileged family. After Aiden suffers Was $24.99 koalas! trampolining world leaders!), while in Paris on exchange during a serious accident at a school camp, Ash others will have even the grown-ups asking, the gilets jaunes (yellow vest) Allen & Unwin PB realises that her brother has changed. Now $12.95 huh, why don’t we have no car day? Fun, protests, nurtures her artistic $16.99 Defining this change is difficult enough for joyful and genuinely inspiring, If I Was passions, becomes politically Ash – accepting it may be impossible. For Prime Minister is sure to trigger empowering active and falls for cute advanced readers aged 10+. conversations with children aged 4+. schoolmate, Olivier. 14+ 18 KIDS INFOGRAPHIC GUIDE THE MIDNIGHT GUARDIANS THE SILVER ARROW TO THE GLOBE Ross Montgomery Lev Grossman Eliza Berkowitz & With his latest book, award-winning Kate is bored, so decides to write to Gwen Keraval author Ross Montgomery (Alex, the the mysterious and wealthy uncle Did you know that the tongue of a Dog and the Unopenable Door) offers she’s never met. She’s fishing for a blue whale weighs as much as an us an adventurous mix of history and birthday present, and that’s precisely entire elephant? That if you flew a fantasy. Col is a lonely and painfully what she gets. So begins The Silver Lonely Planet Kids plane from Earth to Pluto, the trip shy 10-year-old boy grieving the Arrow, a middle-grade novel in which HB would take more than 800 years? Or death of his father and missing Rose, Lev Grossman, best-selling author of $24.99 that Antarctica is both the coldest his beloved big sister. When Col’s The Magicians, delivers a deft mix of and the driest place on earth? This Walker PB imaginary friends (a tiger, a tweed- Bloomsbury PB the irreverent and worthy. This tale entertaining and educational book, $18.99 waistcoated badger and a child-sized $14.99 of Kate’s adventure with her brother which is chock-full of graphs, charts knight) come to life, Col must travel Tom and a train-full of talking and illustrations, offers these and to war-torn London to save Rose animals is a warm, cheeky romp with other fascinating facts about the solar before the Blitz wipes out the entire timely environmental overtones. The system and our marvellous planet. 8+ city. A timely reminder that even the message? Humans created climate small and weak can imagine – and change, so only humans can fix it. 8+ fight for – a better world. 9+

LITTLE LION SING ME THE SUMMER Saroo Brierley & THE 130-STOREY Jane Godwin & Bruce Whatley TREEHOUSE Alison Lester This illustrated book adapted from Andy Griffiths & A brand-new collaboration from two Brierley’s bestselling memoir A Long Terry Denton much-loved and highly acclaimed Way Home tells the story of how, Puffin HB Treehouse fans will know to expect Affirm HB picture-book creators, Sing Me at only five years old, he became the Summer is destined to become $24.99 lost and was alone on the streets of a real treat with this latest addition $24.99 to the bestselling Australian series. a permanent fixture on home Calcutta (now Kolkata) in India. bookshelves around Australia. Many children will be amazed to And newcomers should get ready to snort with laughter. Writer Andy and Rhyming text from Jane Godwin hear Brierley’s remarkable story is accompanied by Alison Lester’s of finding safety and a new life in illustrator Terry live in the world’s Pan Australia most incredible treehouse, where distinctive soft watercolours, which Australia before eventually reuniting focus on scenes of families spending with his Indian family. With almost PB $14.99 they make books together and get into all kinds of trouble, sometimes time outdoors. This irresistible photographic illustrations from Bruce HB $18.99 with their friend Jill. In the trio’s picture book pays tribute to the Whatley that capture the vivid colours natural world and the unique qualities of India, this is an incredibly moving latest adventure, they’re faced with an intergalactic death battle, a giant bog of our four seasons, while also memoir of a young boy’s life that will inviting readers to reflect on and have wide appeal. 5+ toad and, worst of all, a really, really annoying fly. 7+ cherish their own precious moments in daily life. 2+

THE LITTLE MERMAID AND PIERRE’S NOT THERE SKUNK AND BADGER OTHER FAIRY TALES Ursula Dubosarsky Hans Christian Anderson Amy Timberlake & The latest book from Australian Jon Klassen This keenly priced collection of 12 Children’s Laureate Ursula Solitary rock scientist Badger is of the Danish writer’s best-loved Dubosarsky is a charming novel fairy tales was designed by cult UK perfectly content living alone in perfect for middle-grade readers. his Aunt Lulu’s brownstone – until design studio MinaLima, the team During the school holidays, Lara behind the graphic props in the Harry Skunk arrives at the doorstep with a must tag along with her mother red suitcase and Aunt Lulu’s blessing Potter and Fantastic Beasts films. The while she works. When Lara meets a tales are accompanied by charming Allen & Unwin HB in hand… A classic-in-the-making, mysterious boy called Pierre hiding this charming tale of unlikely Harper HB illustrations as well as clever 3D Allen & Unwin PB in the rambling house her mother $22.99 Was $39.99 interactive elements including roommates will appeal to fans of the $16.99 is cleaning, she falls into a strange, Winnie-the-Pooh and Frog and Toad Now $15.95 an underwater world (The Little otherworldly adventure where Mermaid), a duckling turning into a books. Children will delight in Amy puppets come to life and humans Timberlake’s wit and whimsy, as well swan (The Ugly Duckling), a fold- become animals. Pierre’s Not There is out castle (The Steadfast Tin Soldier) as Jon Klassen’s distinctive, scratchy half-novel and half-play, and every illustrations. Suitable for independent and a towering pile of mattresses line hums with energy and humour. A concealing a pea (The Princess and readers aged 7+, Skunk and Badger also welcome reminder of why Dubosarsky makes for an ideal family read-aloud. the Pea). 9+ enjoys such acclaim. 8+

THIS SMALL BLUE DOT MADAME BADOBEDAH PIRATE STEW Zeno Sworder Sophie Dahl & Lauren O’Hara Neil Gaiman & A young girl attempts to explain Mabel lives in the Mermaid Hotel, a Chris Riddell everything she knows about the world seaside B&B. When the extraordinary Novelist Neil Gaiman and illustrator to a new baby. Her lessons range Madame Badobedah (rhymes with Chris Riddell have once again joined from small delights (making up silly ‘ooooh la la’) moves into Room 32 forces for this warmly humorous dances), to big ideas (why we need with innumerable bags and a shifty tale inspired by an idea Gaiman to be caretakers of our world), and tortoise called Boris, Mabel decides first wrote on a scrap of paper more Thames & Hudson include the ‘really important stuff’ Bloomsbury HB that the new resident is an ancient than a decade ago. When their HB (what are the best desserts). The first Walker HB supervillain on the run from the $22.99 parents go out for the evening, two book from Melbourne-based writer, Was $26.99 police. But after getting to know children are left in the dubious care $24.99 artist and family man Zeno Sworder, Now $16.95 Madame Badobedah – who has an of a boisterous pirate crew. A flying This Small Blue Dot is a whimsical, imagination almost as vivid as her ship, rum-guzzling galore, a swag of heartfelt tribute to a child’s inner own – Mabel realises that she is doughnuts and a magic stew seasoned world that is sure to appeal to fans in fact a kindred spirit and great with mermaid’s tears all feature in of Oliver Jeffers’ books. The bold friend. Lauren O’Hara’s charming this zany adventure. Told in rollicking artwork, which blends hyper-realistic illustrations complement Sophie rhyming text, Pirate Stew will appeal pencil sketches with bright chalk Dahl’s whimsical story in a book that to buccaneers at heart, both young drawings, may even inspire some will delight readers aged 5+. and old. 5+ home art projects. 3+ KIDS 19 TOOK THE CHILDREN AWAY WINDOWS Kids Science Archie Roach & Ruby Hunter Patrick Guest & Jonathan Bentley AMAZING WORLD ATLAS Written by musician Archie Roach and Inspired by his own experience of having ALEXA WARD illustrated by his late partner Ruby Hunter, to move out of his family home during the Lonely Planet Kids HB this picture-book version of Roach’s COVID-19 pandemic, Patrick Guest wrote $29.99 powerful song of the same name is inspired Windows. This story shows how a group of Covering every continent and Simon & Schuster by a shameful period in Australia’s history children discover ways to connect with the country on the globe, this atlas HB – when children of Australian Aboriginal outside world from the safety of their homes, Little Hare HB for junior readers uses plenty of $24.99 and Torres Strait Islander descent were and readers will discover many familiar photographs and illustrations forcibly removed from their families. An $24.99 moments – from a woman playing music to profile our endlessly amazing introduction gives context (Roach and on her balcony, to the sudden proliferation world. 8+ Hunter were both Stolen Generations of rainbows and teddy bears in windows. A children) before the song’s powerful lyrics tender evocation of life in 2020, Windows are highlighted alongside Hunter’s naïve pays tribute to human kindness and AUSTRALIA’S WILD WEIRD illustrations. It’s challenging content, but community spirit during difficult times. 2+ WONDERFUL WEATHER this is a story all young Australians need to STEPHANIE OWEN REEDER & know and the ending (‘One sweet day all the TANIA McCARTNEY children came back’) offers the promise of WOLFRED NLA HB reconnection and renewal. 8+ $24.99 Nick Bland Weather affects every aspect Aspiring writer Wolfred McFlea operates of our lives, and every type of THE UNWILLING TWIN the lift in the exclusive and luxurious weather is investigated in this Fancy Pants Towers. During work hours, informative and entertaining Freya Blackwood he silently observes the strange wonder picture book. 8+ Kate Greenaway Medal and CBCA winner around him, but as soon as each shift ends, Freya Blackwood is set to delight families he races off to write stories about what he’s EXPLORE YOUR WORLD: once more with this wry, sweet tale of twins Little Hare HB witnessed. An unwanted discovery, a sneaky who are not quite so identical as they believe DEEP DIVE INTO THE HarperCollins HB $24.99 kidnap attempt and a satisfying reward DEEP SEA – even if they do have matching birthmarks $24.99 all ensue in this quirky tale from beloved TIM FLANNERY & on their bottoms! Children will giggle over storyteller Nick Bland. Rhyming text moves SAM CALDWELL the incongruity of a little girl and a pig doing the narrative along at a brisk pace, and Hardie Grant HB everything together, and enjoy the gentle Bland’s lush artwork is filled with whimsical $26.99 turns in the narrative as the twins head details that encourage repeat reads. 3+ From scientist and explorer out for a day at the beach. A pitch-perfect Tim Flannery and illustrator portrayal of the lovingly antagonistic bond Sam Caldwell, this picture between siblings, The Unwilling Twin will THE WOLVES book profiles the incredible and appeal to children aged 3+. sometimes bizarre creatures OF GREYCOAT HALL hiding in the deep sea. 8+ Lucinda Gifford WE ARE WOLVES Great news! Wolves are being welcomed Katrina Nannestad back to Scotland. So Boris and his parents, a EXPLORING THE ELEMENTS dignified wolf family, decide to go there on SARA GILLINGHAM & Do we really need another WW2 novel? holiday. Boris is the sort of friendly young ISABEL THOMAS Turns out we do. In this story of Lisel, her wolf who dreams of spooky castles and Phaidon HB brother Otto and their adorable baby sister chocolate éclairs. He and his parents travel Was $34.95 Now $29.99 Mia, Australian author Katrina Nannestad in luxury in their matching tartan berets. Accessible and lavishly brings humanity and skill when giving the Walker HB But Scotland isn’t quite ready for holidaying illustrated, this guide to the perspective of innocent German children wolves – even charming ones! Heavily and periodic table covers all 118 living with the legacy of Hitler’s actions. We $19.99 lovingly illustrated by Australian writer- chemical elements and their ABC HB Are Wolves is set in 1945, after the Germans illustrator Lucinda Gifford, this book is uses. 8+ retreated and the Russians advanced $19.99 full of turreted castles, cranky millionaires, into East Prussia, and is inspired by the lupine titbits and LOTS of cake. 6+ abandoned German children known as THE HUMAN BODY Wolfskinder (wolf children) who survived by SURVIVAL GUIDE living wild, foraging for survival. 10+ GEORGE IVANOFF WRECK THIS PICTURE BOOK Puffin HB Keri Smith $24.99 Burps, farts and poo. Secretions, WHAT WE’LL BUILD Do you think books are meant to live a snot and sweat. This book Oliver Jeffers boring life up on a shelf? That a dog-eared explains how our bodies work, From one of the world’s most admired corner is a literary crime? That reading proving just how amazing, picture-book creators, this story of a father should be a quiet activity? Well, Wreck This complex and occasionally gross and daughter working together to build Picture Book is here to tell you all the reasons they are. 8+ a positive future offers gems of wisdom why you’re entirely wrong. This hilarious interactive book will have kids of all ages in – problems can be solved if we talk them Puffin HB through; we can build on dreams rather stitches. Whether you’re rolling a page up THE ILLUSTRATED HarperCollins HB than just on bricks and mortar; love is the $24.99 into a tube, hiding secrets between the two ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF DANGEROUS ANIMALS $24.99 strongest building tool of all – that will covers, or having a good old sniff of that SAMI BAYLY provide both inspiration and reassurance ‘new book smell’, this reading experience will change the way you think about books. 7+ Lothian HB for children in these unsettled times. Jeffers’ $32.99 vibrant and gently humorous illustrations are matched with rhyming text that will In her latest book, the creator of The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of appeal to children aged 2+. YOU MATTER Ugly Animals profiles 60 of the Christian Robinson strangest species on the planet, From Newbery Medal winner and presenting the reader with WHOSE BONES? Caldecott honoree Christian Robinson magnificent illustrations and Chihiro Takeuchi comes a radiant new picture book that fact-laden text. 8+ Acclaimed papercut artist Chihiro Takeuchi can be read on multiple levels. Robinson has crafted yet another wildly inventive and takes a simple but profound message of THE MYSTERIES fiendishly clever picture book. Featuring self-love and extrapolates from there, OF THE UNIVERSE Simon & Schuster her distinctive clean-cut lines and bold playing with perspective to illuminate WILL GATER, ANGELA RIZZA & Berbay HB hues, Whose Bones? challenges children HB the interconnectedness of life. Toddlers DANIEL LONG $24.99 to identify different animals by looking at $24.99 will respond to this book’s powerfully Dorling Kindersley HB their bones. The game gradually increases reassuring message and bold, tactile images, Was $39.99 Now $34.99 in difficulty with each page turn, allowing while older children will take pleasure in Aspiring astronomers will enjoy Takeuchi’s offbeat humour to shine through. discovering the illustrative clues that reveal this lavishly illustrated overview Children will particularly enjoy seeing their connections between the pages. Told in of the cosmos, which includes parents get bamboozled alongside them! sparse, poetic text, this elegantly crafted information galore about This interactive book is an excellent way to book further enhances Robinson’s glowing the Earth, stars, galaxies and encourage an interest in science. 2+ reputation in children’s literature. 3+ planets of the solar system. 8+ Order Form Order online at readings.com.au or by emailing [email protected] OR complete the form below and post to Readings, 309 Lygon St, Carlton VIC 3053 by Sunday 6 December for delivery by Christmas.

NAME Shop early

ADDRESS

POSTCODE TEL (BH) and shop local

EMAIL

CHEQUE ENCLOSED  PLEASE CHARGE MY CREDIT CARD: MC  VISA  AMEX  with Readings this CARD NUMBER EXPIRY / festive season! CVC NAME ON CARD

CARDHOLDER’S SIGNATURE

 Please send me information about your newsletter and events

Title Qty Price Readings Rewards in November Spend $250 in-store at Spend $500 in-store at Readings in November, Readings in November, and you'll receive a $25 and you'll receive a $50 Readings voucher Readings voucher

TERMS AND CONDITIONS: THE AMOUNT MUST BE SPENT IN ONE TRANSACTION. EXCLUDES LAY-BYS, SELECT ACCOUNT HOLDERS & GIFT VOUCHER SALES. OFFER ONLY VALID IN READINGS SHOPS IN THE MONTH OF NOVEMBER. NOT AVAILABLE ONLINE.

20% off (Express and overseas rates available on request) Subtotal $ (*Free delivery with orders of $120 or more) Plus delivery* $6.50 diaries and calendars Total $ For the month of November, Readings is Competition Entry offering 20% off 2021 diaries and calendars. Your chance to win a $1000 gift voucher! Come in-store to shop our full range, or To win a $1000 gift voucher: browse a select range online. • Pay close attention as you read the reviews in this guide • Answer the questions scattered throughout the guide • Fill in the form below with your answers • Attach the form to a receipt from the purchase of an item from this guide (NB: your purchase must be from one of our shops) • Return to one of our shops by THURSDAY 4 FEBRUARY 2021 Online orders I’d like to enter the competition. My answers are: If you're gift shopping online at readings.com.au, 1. we recommend placing your orders of in-stock items by midnight, Sunday 6 December, 2. for timely delivery by Christmas. 3.

4.

5.

6.

7. CARLTON MALVERN 309 Lygon St, Carlton 185 Glenferrie Rd, Malvern 8. 03 9347 6633 03 9509 1952

9. KIDS ST KILDA 315 Lygon St, Carlton 112 Acland St, St Kilda 10. 03 9341 7730 03 9525 3852

Entries are accepted from Saturday 14 November 2020 and must be received by 5pm on Thursday 4 February 2021. The prize DONCASTER STATE LIBRARY VICTORIA will be drawn at Gleebooks at 5pm on Friday 12 February 2021. The winner will be notified by post and announced in The Ground Lvl, Westfield Doncaster 285-321 Russell St, Melbourne Australian newspaper on Wednesday 17 February 2021. Employees of participating bookshops are not permitted to enter 03 9810 0891 03 8664 7540 the competition. The winner has 14 days from the date of the original draw to claim their prize; if unclaimed, a re-draw will take place at the same location on Thursday 4 March 2021. Gift voucher valid at the store where the winning entry was HAWTHORN ONLINE lodged. Promoter: Gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Road, Glebe NSW 2037. Tel: (02) 9660 2333. 701 Glenferrie Rd, Hawthorn readings.com.au 03 9819 1917 NAME For shop opening hours and special trading conditions, ADDRESS please visit readings.com.au/our-shops

POSTCODE TEL (BH)

EMAIL Project Manager: Virginia Maxwell. Reviews: Bronte Coates, Ellen Cregan, Angela Crocombe, Chris Gordon, Max Handsaker, Catherine Hannebery, Lorien Kaye, David Mcclymont, Michelle Martland, Virginia Maxwell,  Please send me information about your newsletter and events William Maxwell, Louise Omer, Hilary Rogers, Mandy Stroebel & Veronica Sullivan. Editor: Virginia Maxwell. Proofreader: Janet Austin. Cover Illustrator: Marc Martin. Designer: Cat Matteson. Printer: Ovato.