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ACUTE MISFORTUNE

Kate Jennings on Erik Jensen’s biography of Adam Cullen page 6

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PETER GRAEME ERIK GARDENING LUCINDA CAREY SIMSION JENSEN WITH SOUL WILLIAMS $32.99 $29.99 $32.99 $29.95 $24.95

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READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2014 3

News

2-FOR-1 TICKET SPECIAL FOR Samson & Delilah and Ten Canoes. Don’t THE VICTOR HUGO EXHIBITION miss out on this wonderful opportunity If you haven’t had a chance to visit the to own a cut of Australian film history. magnificent Victor Hugo: Les Misérables Available from now until 31 October in all – From Page to Stage exhibition at the Readings shops and online at State Library of Victoria, then now is readings.com.au. Only while stocks last. your chance. We have a limited number of flyers offering 2-for-1 tickets to the 25% OFF LONELY PLANET exhibition available in each of our Spring is upon us, and what better time shops, redeemable at the State Library than now to begin planning for your next box office (offering a saving of $15). travel adventure. Whatever your travel Featuring rare items from the collections style – cruisy resort holidays, brave jaunts of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, in the jungle, deep desert explorations or Maisons de Victor Hugo, Musée Rodin just plain culture shock – Lonely Planet and Cameron Mackintosh, and including is brimming with inspiration to help you original drawings and watercolours by choose your next escape. To celebrate this Victor Hugo, costumes from the musical exciting time of year, Readings is offering production and Academy Award-winning 25% off all Lonely Planet books in all film and rare scripts, scores, designs and Readings shops and online at posters from the 1985 theatre production, readings.com.au. Sale on now until this exhibition is a wonderful journey 31 October. from nineteenth-century Paris to today’s blockbuster stage musical currently on at Her Majesty’s Theatre. Don’t miss MELBOURNE FESTIVAL 2014 your chance to set eyes on Victor Hugo’s Melbourne Festival is a 17-day showcase original handwritten Les Misérables of international acts and exhibitions, manuscript, which will be returning to celebrating the essence of creativity. France on 17 October. Through cross-platform collaborations and unique works, expect the city to BEST AUSTRALIAN FILMS explode with music, dance, theatre and UNDER $20 visual arts, with a special focus this year on the constantly evolving genre of With all the wonderful international film circus. Embrace the city as it opens its festivals in town, it’s sometimes easy to creative limbs, stretching your perspective lose sight of one’s roots. In celebration of Readings Monthly and inspiring your world. Readings is a our local talent, Readings has a selection Free independent monthly newspaper proud sponsor of Melbourne Festival, of Australian films on offer for less than published by Readings Books, Music & Film running from 10–26 October. Visit $20 each. Take home memorable classics melbournefestival.com.au for such as Picnic at Hanging Rock, Monkey Editor more information. Belle Place Grip and Lantana, and cult dramas such as [email protected]

Editorial Assistant Bronte Coates [email protected]

Advertising Tate Jerrems [email protected] (03) 9341 7739

Graphic Design Cat Matteson theartdept.com.au

Contributors Kate Jennings Peter Carey

Front Cover The cover image is a detail from the jacket of Erik Jensen’s Acute Misfortune, published by Black Inc. Photograph: Tamara Dean www.tamaradean.com.au

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A spellbinding story with a powerful Indigenous voice Fri 17 – Tue 21 Oct ARTS CENTRE MELBOURNE, PLAYHOUSE HIPBONE BOOK NOW STICKING melbournefestival.com.au OUT BIG HART 4 READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2014

October Events SEA OF RHYTHM READINGS FROM 25 FESTIVAL LAUNCH 30 MELBOURNE MEET MATT TIM COLEBATCH In anticipation of Sea of Rhythm – a brand SUBJECTIVE 2 MORAN 9 IN CONVERSATION new festival of rhythm, music and dance set To celebrate its release, contributors Kevin over three days in November – we’re hosting Brophy, Antoni Jach, Lea Weaver and Gaylene Acclaimed Australian chef Matt Moran WITH GEORGE a Q&A with festival performers about the Carbis will perform readings from Melbourne shares his passion for Aussie produce in MEGALOGENIS history of jazz music and dance culture. For Subjective – at once a critique, homage, future his fourth cookbook, Matt’s Kitchen Garden Tim Colebatch will chat with George more on the festival, visit seaofrhythm.com. vision and intimate portrait of Melbourne. Cookbook. Inspired by the market garden Megalogenis about his new political biography, at his Sydney restaurant Chiswick, as well Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Dick Hamer: The liberal Liberal. Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events as time spent visiting producers all around Saturday 25 October, 2pm Thursday 30 October, 6pm Australia for his TV series Paddock to Plate, Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Readings St Kilda Readings Carlton this cookbook is accessible and delicious. Thursday 9 October, 6.30pm Readings Hawthorn Entry is $65 per person and includes BARRIE CASSIDY antipasto and wine, as well as a 27 ON PRIVATE BILL Book Launches signed edition of Matt’s Kitchen POP-UP Political commentator Barrie Cassidy talks Garden Cookbook. Please book at Nicole Highet will launch Madeleine Morris 10 WORKSHOP about his new book, Private Bill, in which readings.com.au/events and Sasha Howard’s non-fiction book, Guilt- he shares his father’s experiences as a POW Thursday 2 October, 12.30pm Corrie Allegro will reveal the ins and Free Bottle Feeding. during WWII. Readings Hawthorn, upstairs outs – and the ups – of the pop-up craft by Wednesday 1 October, 6.30pm demonstrating how to make a pop-up card Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Readings Hawthorn based on a Moomintroll character. Allegro Monday 27 October, 6.30pm SHAUN MICALLEF will bring some treasures from his archives to Sally Rippin will launch Chloe Twohig’s Readings Hawthorn 2 ON AMERICAN share with the children. picture book, Little She-Wolf, illustrated by PRESIDENTS Kia Maddock. Entry is $20 per person, which SIDNEY BLOCH ON Saturday 4 October, 2pm Shaun Micallef is celebrating the release of includes all materials and a copy Readings Hawthorn, upstairs his new book, The President’s Desk. Each of Moominvalley for the Curious 28 PSYCHIATRY Professor Peter Stanley will talk about chapter revolves around a different American Explorer. This workshop is suitable Award-winning author and emeritus his latest book, Lost Boys of Anzac, and President, with the desk as a central theme. for children aged 8 to 12. Please book professor at the University of Melbourne Honest History, which promotes balanced at readings.com.au/events Sidney Bloch talks about Psychiatry: Past, Entry is $10 per person and the ticket price consideration of Australian history. Friday 10 October, 4pm Present, and Prospect and offers his own is redeemable if you purchase a copy of The Monday 13 October, 6.30pm Readings Hawthorn, upstairs views about the state of contemporary President’s Desk at the event. Please book at Readings Carlton readings.com.au/events psychiatry. An audience Q&A will follow. Thursday 2 October, 6.30pm BLEDDYN Paul Ramadge will launch Agnieszka Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Readings Hawthorn 13 BUTCHER IN Sobocinska’s new non-fiction book, Visiting Tuesday 28 October, 6.30pm the Neighbours: Australians in Asia. CONVERSATION Readings Hawthorn Wednesday 15 October, 6.30pm DEREK LANDY ON Photographer Bleddyn Butcher will chat Readings Carlton with Readings’ own Gerard Elson about his 5 SKULDUGGERY INTRODUCING THE Caroline Hogg, AO, will launch Trendyville: new photography book, A Little History, PLEASANT 28 WINNER OF THE The Battle for Australia’s Inner Cities by Renate which celebrates rock god Nick Cave. Derek Landy is coming to Melbourne! Landy READINGS NEW Howe, David Nichols and Graeme Davison. is the creator of the much-loved Skulduggery Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events AUSTRALIAN Thursday 16 October, 6pm Church of All Nations, 180 Palmerston Pleasant series which features plenty of Monday 13 October, 6.30pm WRITING AWARD spooky mystery for kids. Prizes will be given Readings St Kilda Street, Carlton Join us to celebrate the winner of the for the very best costumes so make sure you Join us for the launch of Lee Kofman’s inaugural Readings New Australian Writing dress to impress. memoir The Dangerous Bride. MEET GRUG Award. Hannah Kent, author of Burial Rights Saturday 18 October, 5pm Entry is $10 per person and the and guest judge of the award, will be joining 18 To celebrate his new book, Grug Readings St Kilda ticket price is redeemable if you the Superhero, Grug will be touring the festivities. The six shortlisted titles can purchase any one of Derek Landy’s Readings. Come along to meet Australia’s be found on p. 10. Join us for the launch of Julian Davies’s books at the event. Please book at favourite hairy creature. Suitable for all ages. novel, Crow Mellow. readings.com.au/events Free, no booking required Monday 20 October, 6.30pm Sunday 5 October, 3.30pm Free, no booking required Tuesday 28 October, 6pm Readings Carlton Cinema Nova, 380 Lygon Street, Carlton 3053 Saturday 18 October Readings St Kilda Join us for the launch of Maggie Jackson’s Readings St Kilda, 10.30am memoir, A Woven Cloth of Life. JULIA GILLARD Readings Malvern, 12pm WORDS WITH Readings Hawthorn, 2pm Thursday 23 October, 6.30pm 7 ON HER STORY Readings Carlton, 3.30pm 29 WOMEN Readings St Kilda Together with the Wheeler Centre, we’re Come along to a lively panel featuring Join us for the launch of Michael Gerard delighted to host an evening with Julia PAUL DALEY ON authors Kylie Ladd (Mothers and Daughters), Plastow’s non-fiction book, What Is a Child?: Gillard as she celebrates the release of her Maggie Joel (Half the World in Winter) Childhood Psychoanalysis, and Discourse. 21 CHALLENGE autobiography, My Story. Gillard will be in and Fiona Higgins (Wife on the Run) in Thursday 23 October, 6.30pm conversation with Kate Langbroek. Already known and respected for his non- conversation about love and books, and Readings Carlton fiction work, Paul Daley has released his everything in between. Please visit readings.com.au/events for Join us for the launch of David Schembri’s first book of fiction. Challenge is a fast- information on ticket prices and booking details graphic collection, Unearthly Fables. paced tale of Australian politics. Entry is $10 per person and includes a glass Tuesday 7 October, 7.15pm of champagne. Please book at Saturday 25 October, 2pm The Regent Theatre, 191 Collins Street, Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events readings.com.au/events Readings Hawthorn, upstairs Melbourne 3000 Wednesday 29 October, 6.30pm Tuesday 21 October, 6.30pm Join us for the launch of Evan Jones’ poetry Readings Hawthorn Readings Carlton collection, Selected Poems. Monday 27 October, 6pm ELLEN VAN SALLY WARHAFT STEPHANIE Readings Carlton NEERVEN IN 7 22 IN CONVERSATION 29 ALEXANDER IN Join us for the launch of Raden Dunbar’s CONVERSATION WITH CLARE CONVERSATION non-fiction book, The Secrets of the Anzacs. WITH MAXINE WRIGHT Stephanie Alexander is regarded as one of Thursday 30 October, 6.30pm BENEBA CLARKE Australia’s great food educators – for her Readings St Kilda Sally Warhaft will discuss the new edition of cookbook, The Cook’s Companion, and her Award-winning author Ellen van Neerven her book, Well May We Say…: The Speeches work with the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen For more information and updates, will chat with slam poet and author Maxine that Made Australia, with Clare Wright, Garden Foundation. Join her in conversation please visit the events page at Beneba Clarke about her debut work of winner of this year’s Stella Prize for her with our own resident foodie Chris Gordon. readings.com.au/events. fiction, Heat and Light. history book, The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka. Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Please note bookings do not necessarily Wednesday 29 October, 5pm Tuesday 7 October, 6.30pm Wednesday 22 October, 6.30pm guarantee a seat and some events may Readings St Kilda Readings Carlton Readings Carlton be standing room only. READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2014 5

Mark’s News and views from Readings’ Managing Director, Say Mark Rubbo

If you are the parent or grandparent of boys aged between five to 12, chances are you are familiar with Minecraft, a computer game. Minecraft has spawned a range of official books, rather ugly affairs, which the developers insist can only be printed at one particular European printer. As the whole demographic worldwide wants these books, it’s often hard for the printer to keep up. For local publisher, Hardie Grant Egmont, the book has been a bonanza. In November, the Minecraft Blockopedia will be published and will retail for $59.95. One large Australian retailer reputedly wants 100,000 copies. We want quite a few too. But the Minecraft books are creating a bit of confusion on our shop floor. A customer recently asked one of our children’s specialists if we had Minecraft. ‘Of course,’ she answered, ‘it’s in the children’s section.’ ‘What? You keep it in the children’s section?’ ‘Oh yes, it’s very popular with five to 12-year-old boys.’ ‘I can’t believe that Mein Kampf could appeal like that!’ Red faces all round! A few years ago a publisher friend opined quite emphatically that the printed book and the bookshop were doomed; that the market for print books would become so small it would no longer be justifiable to print them. It wasn’t one of my happiest conversations and our declining sales seemed to confirm her prediction that most readers would migrate to ebooks. But some recent US research suggests that the generation growing up with digital technology at their fingertips is more likely to have read a print book than their elders. A survey of 6000 Americans aged 16 and over, undertaken by Pew Research Centre, found that 88 per cent of those aged under 30 have read a book in the past year, compared with 79 per cent of those aged 30 and older. In Australia, a survey undertaken by Dymocks showed that 95 per cent of the respondents under 30 preferred a print book to digital. Our experience at Readings also suggests this might be the case, with the decline in book sales arresting. This month sees the publication of Julia Gillard’s memoir, My Story. The book is strictly under wraps at the time of going to print, so we can only speculate about its content. Despite this, we have more preorders for this book than for any other I can recall. Madonna’s Sex or one of the Harry Potter books may have come close! Around 2000 tickets to our joint event with the Wheeler Centre on 7 October were sold within weeks (there may be some tickets left). It will be a publishing phenomenon and Readings’ staff are already taking bets on how many we will sell. And, finally, Readings and the Readings community contributed close to $10,000 to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation on Indigenous Literacy Day. If you missed the day you can still contribute at www.indigenousliteracyfoundation.org.au.

From the BOOK A BREAK Books Martin Shaw, LAST CHANCE Desk Readings Books Division Manager SPECIALS

A couple of years back I had the honour of judging the Commonwealth Book Prize for a best first book. When it came to final deliberations, it was an almost unbearable choice between two of the regional winners: Lisa O’Donnell’s terrific The Death of Bees, and Nayomi Munaweera’s wondrous Island of a Thousand Mirrors. O’Donnell got the gong, as it turned out, but I’m ever so glad to see that Munaweera, formerly published only in Sri Lanka, is now getting a wider release through Penguin. I share NoViolet Bulawayo’s (author of We Need New Names) observation that it is ‘by turns tender, beautiful and devastating, and a deeply resonant tale of an unraveling Sri Lanka … Incredibly moving, complex, and with prose you may want to eat, this debut is a triumph.’ While we’re talking in superlatives, my colleague Bronte Coates has been banging on about Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels for ages now. Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, the third volume in the series, is no exception. Bronte writes: ‘No other author has ever captured my imagination in quite the same way as Ferrante, who is able to effortlessly destabilise and dismantle my notions of self through her characters … In this series of novels, Ferrante has created something astonishing and exceptional.’ With Richard Flanagan also a recent convert, it’s clearly time we all found out what the fuss is about! Among the big literary names, we have story collections from Margaret Atwood (Stone Mattress) and Hilary Mantel (The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher), and new novels from the irresistible Colm Tóibín (Nora Webster) and Marilynne Robinson (Lila). Generating considerable excitement too is 10:04, the second novel from Ben Lerner (of Leaving the Atocha Station fame). In terms of local fiction, a new Peter Carey is always an event, and that Amnesia is partially set in Carlton and mentions a certain local bookseller is just one of its many attractions. Graeme Simsion also returns with a sequel to the much- loved The Rosie Project. The Rosie Effect promises high entertainment, as Don confronts his greatest challenge: Rosie’s baby bump! In non-fiction there are some real gems: Erik Jensen, with Acute Misfortune, has SATHE DAVETE written a fascinating portrait of the short, squandered life of Sydney artist Adam Cullen. And we get a rare insight into the establishment and philosophy of MONA through the enigmatic David Walsh’s A Bone of Fact. Meanwhile, in The Bush, Don Watson has written a sobering account of that icon of the Australian imagination, and Lee Kofman, on debut with The Dangerous Bride, produces a compelling exploration of love and desire in the pursuit of ‘ethical non-monogamy’. Finally, I suggest it will be Julia Gillard’s My Story – which shares its publication month with John Howard’s The Menzies Era – that will zoom right to the top of every bestseller list in the land. 6 READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2014

New Australian Writing

In 2008 the artist Adam Cullen invited journalist Erik Jensen to stay in his spare room and write his biography. Here, Kate Jennings talks with Jensen about writing Acute Misfortune, a compelling portrait of the life and death of one of Australia’s most celebrated artists. Acute Misfortune Kate Jennings interviews Erik Jensen about his biography of Adam Cullen

n one point Erik Jensen is that became his life. I wanted to watch, to emphatic when discussing his write things down, but never tell the reader book Acute Misfortune: The how to think about them. I refused to recoil Life and Death of Adam Cullen: from any detail, but I refused to judge O‘This book is not about art. It’s a character anything I saw.’ Dear reader, make up your Erik Jensen study.’ Adam Cullen was a Sydney artist own mind. No redemption in this story. who flamed out in his forties on alcohol Cullen was trapped by his Erik clearly remains fond of Cullen despite biographer. This is the result. Erik is now the and drugs. He won the Archibald Prize mythologising of himself but also the his klaxon-like faults. His history with ripe old age of 25. He is a seasoned journalist, for his portrait of David Wenham but was mythology of a culture that tolerates Cullen began when he interviewed the the editor of a burgeoning newspaper, and also notorious for his headline bad-boy drunkenness, and idealises those who artist for the Sydney Morning Herald. Erik now has a first-rate book under his belt. behaviour. Because I live in New York, I crash and burn. When I say this to Erik, he was 19 at the time. The artist liked what he Needless to say, he is seen as ambitious, a had never heard of Cullen. Not his grunge says immediately, ‘A culture that celebrates wrote and asked if he would be interested young man in a hurry. As anyone with sense art, not his adolescent antics, not his early drunkenness.’ He has a point. Addiction in doing a biography of him; Thames & does, Erik readily acknowledges the role death from pills, booze and smack. is better understood these days, but there Hudson wanted one. Erik, being ‘young and of luck in his life: ‘Journalism is a career I knew Erik, however. He’d remains a stubborn notion that a fine old impulsive’, moved into Cullen’s spare room. of accidents and luck, and I get through looked me up when he and his boss, Morry piss-up and getting falling-down drunk is ‘I was attracted to his studied disobedience; on a fair bit of both. On the strength of Schwartz, were hatching The Saturday part of the Aussie national character. And his mischief,’ he writes in the book. Not to some music criticism, the editor of the Paper as an antidote to the ailing, attenuated that alcohol and drugs fuel creativity when forget his outsized personality, his intensity, Sydney Morning Herald had the mad idea press presence in Australia. I liked Erik it’s the opposite; they are the enemy of and what Erik remembers as a glint in his to give me job. He decided to chance on my immediately because he was willing to promise. Cullen’s best art was done early in eyes that couldn’t be extinguished by his ludicrous inexperience. I’ve been chancing engage in gutsy debate, and we became his career before he was drinking a bottle of squalid existence. That glint could have been on my ludicrous inexperience since.’ friends. Another point in his favour vodka or two to get the nerve to paint. intelligence or just a waggish boy on the Was Erik worried by the reception was that he’d joined the Sydney Morning I want to know if Adam ever lookout for the next prank. The biography of the book? Yes, he admitted, he was, but Herald at 18. Once upon a time, this sort of talked about shaping up, flying straight. ‘No. part was a ruse; Cullen was lonely. his concern was not reviewers. He was apprenticeship was called being a cadet Never. Adam lived the way he did because Cullen’s work and its reception worried how Kevin Cullen, Adam’s father, journalist. He was whacked into shape by he wanted to be sure he would run out of does, of course, come up in the course of would react. ‘After a long silence, I receive a seasoned practitioners instead of university life before he ran out of talent. He was shy the book. As recounted by Erik, Cullen's brief but blissful message from Adam’s dad,’ professors. Experience instead of theory. of his gift and if it caught up with him he art and his enthusiasms seem to be very says Erik. ‘He would rather some things Refreshing. would have to confront its size: big or small.’ much of their time. He first drew attention had been left unsaid, but accepted that I’d read Acute Misfortune as a And there it is. The vexing question of to himself through stunts such as dragging Adam would have wanted to say them.’ Erik friend before I was asked to interview talent. If whatever talent Cullen possessed around the rotting head of a pig chained to describes Kevin as a man of inestimable Erik. I have nothing but admiration for was extinguished by booze and drugs, he his ankle. Shades of Damien Hirst. He had grace. He also thought the book was ‘a his accomplishment: a sober book about a had a wide range of schtick to replace it. a penchant for koans, plentiful in the art helluva read’. ‘And with that, a great knot man who was anything but. A clear-eyed, He played the role of enfant terrible to world. Some of his koans were admittedly in my stomach was undone.’ Yes, a helluva careful account of a squandered life that is the hilt or became a sensitive soul if that amusing, tinged with Aussie larrikinism. read. The exploits of someone living on the generous and unusual in Erik’s refusal to would draw you into his web. He was called He claimed Goya, Joseph Beuys and Martin edge can make excellent vicarious reading, condemn or opine about a man who was a a faux-naive painter, with the emphasis on Kippenberger as influences, but his studio whether you are horrified or merely stew of wretched characteristics common faux, as one critic cleverly noted. Will the was littered with books of tattoos. He had fascinated. And his portrayal of Adam’s to an addict: bombast and grandiosity real Adam Cullen stand up? And that’s what pilfered bon mots from Bukowski, Kubrick parents is especially poignant: beautiful hiding terminal insecurity; charisma as a kept Erik digging. Underneath all Cullen’s and the like; outright plagiarism has also writing, observed with close affection. tool to manipulate everyone around him. calculation? Most likely mental illness. He become fashionable. Postmodern critics But Erik’s book is a good read The constant feeling of being a fraud, an was bi-polar and self-medicating. Enabling love him because you can read anything for another reason: the questions it raises imposter. A fucked-up fibbing fabulist. A his substance abuse: the art world. And, you want into his art. about mythologising anyone bent on man-child. unbelievably, plenty of denial, even by Erik started keeping company self-destruction. We would do well to I ask Erik about the book’s those close to him, about his wildman with Cullen first as a journalist, but the remember that Adam died by destroying level tone, which is an extraordinary rampaging. All of it, an old, old story. relationship morphed into a friendship, his insides bit by bit with alcohol and drugs. achievement, extremely difficult to realise. Cullen was always testing a real one, or as real as it could be with Rotting himself. Instead of a decaying His reply: ‘I decided early that I wanted to friendships, pushing them to the limits. someone layered with falsity like Cullen. pig head attached to his ankle, he himself write the book without moral judgement or His erratic, controlling, and increasingly Some have questioned the ethics of his role decayed. He became the pig’s head. speculation. It would be too easy to damn insane behaviour caused most of his friends in Cullen’s life and the book he has written Adam for his selfishness, for the sadness to scuttle, to bar the door. In conversation, about it. Cullen took him onboard as Kate Jennings is a writer. READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2014 7

New Fiction not-so-discreet filming of children playing turn Toosey is confronted by the Irish in the park, assisting with the birth of a calf transportee Fitheal Flynn and his and partaking in a single-sex-relationship companion, the hooded man, to whom parenting study. The ‘average person’ may Toosey owes a debt that he must repay. Book of the Month have been able to navigate pre-parenthood matrimony with little trouble, but not JOVIAL HARBINGER LILA Don. Unable to detect subtlety, nuance or OF DOOM sarcasm in others, and with little capacity Marilynne Robinson Laurie Clancy for deceit, Don conceals his questionable Little, Brown. PB. $29.99 Gininderra Press. PB. $35 activities from Rosie in order to minimise Available 14 October A master of the potential danger of cortisol crossing melancholic wit, In Lila, Marilynne Robinson returns to Gilead – the her placenta wall (i.e. ‘stress’), and Laurie Clancy was one setting of her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Gilead and unwittingly places their relationship at of Australia’s most the Orange Prize-winning follow-up Home – and to the risk of becoming unstuck. versatile short-story characters that reside in this secluded town of refuge and I love the way Graeme Simsion writers. Equally at religion. In the newest instalment of this suite, we see the writes, particularly his vivid character home in the pub or Reverend John Ames, the letter writer of the epistolary Gilead, portraits. He has a knack for storytelling the seminar room, in through the eyes of his new bride, Lila. In the previous novels and devising creative plot twists, ensuring I literary journals or the Lila hovers on the periphery, a seeming paragon of quiet dignity. In Lila, we learn of want to keep reading page after page. Like columns of daily her life before Gilead. Neglected as a baby and kidnapped as a child by the troubled but The Rosie Project, The Rosie Effect is fresh, newspapers, Clancy was a wickedly astute fiercely loyal Doll, Lila has led a nomadic life of odd jobs and hard work. She roams the funny and engrossing, bound to reward but compassionate guide to the vagaries of country with Doll and a ragtag bunch of fellow drifters who become a family of sorts. Simsion’s fans and capture the imagination the human heart. This posthumous When a murder separates her and Doll, Lila is on her own for the first time and is left of a new readership. to use the skills learnt on the road to forge a new life for herself. selection shows him at his finest, as a Alexandra Mathew is from Readings Carlton practitioner of fiction’s shorter forms. ‘Their relationship is tentative, playful and untrusting – neither party POOR FELLOW MY is convinced that Lila will be able to stay put long enough for their COUNTRY International baby to be born.’ Xavier Herbert HarperCollins. HB. Was $49.99 THOSE WHO LEAVE AND In the town of Gilead, Lila finds shelter after a lifetime of roaming and $39.99 THOSE WHO STAY homelessness. At the centre of Lila is the story of her struggle to accept the safety of this The winner of the 1975 town and the adoration of her new husband, Ames. Their relationship is tentative, playful Elena Ferrante Miles Franklin Award Text. PB. $29.99 and untrusting – neither party is convinced that Lila will be able to stay put long enough is back in print with a Elena Ferrante’s for their baby to be born. Robinson handles the uncertainty and affection skilfully. new introduction by Neapolitan Read alone, Lila is a beautiful work of fiction. It is a stunning tale of acceptance, Russell McDougall. In novels are relentless trust and hesitation. Read as part of a trio with Home and Gilead, the book becomes an Poor Fellow My and ferocious, and exquisitely nuanced work. It is a layered and considered representation of small-town Country, Xavier wholly absorbing. America, and the lives lived within. Herbert returns to the With each new book, region he made his Brigid Mullane is a freelance reviewer the story of Elena own in Capricornia: Greco and her friend, Northern Australia. With enduring Lina Cerullo, credibility as these are familiar characters, portraits of a large cast of local and intensifies, and in Australian or appear to be so, but with a sort of slapstick international characters, Herbert parallels Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay the quality. Carey’s depiction of the places an intimate personal narrative with a tale of two women are now in the midst of the Gaby spent her early life – around Carlton approaching war and the disconnect AMNESIA volatile landscape of late 60s and early 70s and Coburg – are particularly evocative. As between modern Australia and its first Peter Carey Italy. This climate – inhabited by the Australia stands at some kind of crossroad, inhabitants. Will we ever reach the dream Hamish Hamilton. PB. Was $32.99 powerful Solara brothers, members of the seemingly ready to abandon the grand of ‘Australia Felix’ – the happy south land? $29.99 infamous Camorra criminal organisation visions of universal health care and access to – infiltrates every aspect of the women’s Despite its more education, Amnesia is the novel for our times. CROW MELLOW serious subtext, lives. Part of the brilliance of these novels is Mark Rubbo is Managing Director of Readings Julian Davies & Phil Day (illus.) Amnesia is a very funny Ferrante’s ability to portray the Finlay Lloyd. PB. $28 simultaneous horror and normalcy of book and is Peter Carey THE ROSIE EFFECT at the height of his Crow Mellow, Julian poverty and violence, to entrench the powers. I read it a Graeme Simsion Davies’s sixth novel, is domestic within the political. second time because I Text. PB. $29.99 a contemporary social Elena is a haunted figure. She’s wanted to savour it I first met Don satire closely based on plagued by her past, one she fears she again for its structure Tillman while Aldous Huxley’s first never truly escaped; by her failures, and its writing. Carey living in London. One novel, Crome Yellow. as a mother, a friend, a writer; and by doesn’t put a word or sentence in the wrong morning a parcel This playful response is Lina, whom Elena constantly compares place – they all have meaning and purpose appeared through the furthered by the text herself with. Early in the first novel, My within the narrative. His Australian readers, small letterbox in my being surrounded by Brilliant Friend, Elena recognises that she and especially those who have an interest in front door. Inside was almost 400 of Phil is of a dissimilar disposition to Lina, but the state of our nation, or Carlton, will a fluorescent orange Day’s drawings. In this understands that her traits (obedient, hard- absolutely love his acerbic take on the book entitled The Rosie lively collaboration working, docile) are deserving of praise media and power, and his nostalgic stroll Project. I sat atop my between words and pictures, the while Lina’s (charismatic, wilful, talented) through Carlton of the seventies. bed in my West Kensington flat, with a illustrations form a parallel visual text. Set attract punishment. In many ways, Elena Gaby Baillieux releases a computer view of Earl’s Court Station through my in multimillionaire Mitchell Rimbush’s is only ever capable of viewing herself in virus that cracks US software controlling the bedroom window, and, as Don charmed me bush retreat, where artists on the make and relation to Lina, and as one (particularly locks of our prisons and detention centres, with his eccentricities, I found myself their wealthy admirers gather, conversation odious) character cruelly jokes to Elena, opening all their doors. Her virus also opens swiftly transported back to Melbourne. is the one constant prerequisite. ‘In my opinion you and Lina made a secret doors in the US, and the US is baying for Having lived in London for a year, I was agreement: she does nasty things and you her blood when she is bailed by millionaire soon due to return to my home city, and The TO NAME THOSE LOST write them.’ property developer Woody Townes. Townes Rosie Project welcomed me back, reminding Rohan Wilson However, as both their lives is of the left but is ostentatiously rich and me of everything I loved about faraway A&U. PB. $29.99 progress, it’s clear that neither has a true used to getting his own way. He cajoles and Melbourne. I was very excited, then, to It is the summer of 1874 advantage. Lina is deprived of education blackmails his old journalist mate, Felix discover there would be a sequel: The Rosie and Launceston teeters and sentenced to a life of limitations, yet her Moore, who he has known since the Whitlam Effect, this time set in New York. on the brink of anarchy. sharp intelligence still wins her the respect days, to write a hagiography on Gaby. As Felix Now married, Don and Rosie After abandoning his and love of the ones Elena admires. Elena delves into Gaby’s life, he recollects the era of are expecting, an event bound to wreak wife and child many has access to education, art and culture, yet the early seventies when the new Whitlam havoc in Don’s orderly life. Don, in an years ago, the Black finds herself deeply unhappy in marriage, government heralded a brave new age. effort to come to terms with his impending War veteran Thomas unable to communicate her desire to her One of Carey’s devices is to weave fatherhood, is ‘in danger of prosecution, Toosey must return to husband. (Ferrante’s candid accounts of real people, places and incidents into his deportation and professional disgrace’. the city to search for sexual relations between characters are story, but often they are distorted or made He embarks on a highly entertaining, William, his now precisely wrought.) Indeed, on discovering into caricatures. Along with Carey’s black albeit occasionally implausible, journey motherless 12-year-old son. Desperate to feminist theories, Elena comes to believe humour, this gives the book strength and of knowledge acquisition, involving the find William amid the destruction, at every she has done everything wrong. As her 8 READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2014

Interview From Manhattan to the Albion Readings Managing Director Mark Rubbo in conversation with Peter Carey about his new novel, Amnesia

mnesia seems to me to be light of recent revelations, to be more why an individual with a left wing parent not always blissful, still personally and about Australia’s relations than credible. might choose to act against US interests. intellectually rich. It was the perfect place with the US: it begins with For those who are interested, The result of these musings led, for my characters to begin facing the the little known Battle of William Blum’s Killing Hope: U.S Military finally, to Amnesia which is clearly not events and consequences of 1975. Along the BrisbaneA in 1942, which saw fighting and CIA Interventions Since World War II ‘about’ Julian Assange, but a young woman way I had a lot of fun, with my left leg in between Australian and US troops over gives a detailed history of US interference in whose life and motives for her actions downtown Manhattan, and my right on the two days, but the novel also includes the affairs of many of its friends, for instance are very different, starting in the field of bar rail at the Albion. a substantial critique by one of the Italy in 1947–1948, also China, Greece, the environmental activism. Having said that, Amnesia is often a very funny book, due characters of the US role in Gough Philippines, Iran: it’s a long, long list and we I think Assange has changed the history of in no small part to two of the central Whitlam’s dismissal. Is this a correct don’t get our turn until page 244. our time, and so his influence is undeniably characters: the shambolic left wing assessment and how much do the there, but not in a literal way. The core of the story is a hacking journalist, Felix ‘Feels’ Moore, and character’s views align with yours? attack on the US, undertaken by a This is the first of your books for quite a Wodonga ‘Woody’ Townes, the charming I wanted to explore the complicated shadowy group perhaps not dissimilar while that is strongly located in Australia, yet ruthless millionaire property relationship between Australia and the to Wikileaks. You’ve said that your US both geographically and intellectually. developer who bankrolls left wing causes. US. Many serious writers (John Pilger in publisher approached you about ghost Even though you now live overseas, is They seem like caricatures of some A Secret Country being one of them) have writing Julian Assange’s memoir but it still important to you to have that prominent Australians. Are they? pieced together the circumstances of the you turned him down. Did you decide to Australian sensibility? They are my creatures. They were born Whitlam dismissal in 1975 and concluded fictionalise that instead? It’s not just important. It’s who I am. Not inside my head and they are shaped to that our government was brought down by I need to emphasise what I actually said even New York City can wipe my memory live inside the pages of my novel. But how a complex storm system in which the CIA to The Bookseller in the UK. During a and reprogram me. Australia is my place wonderful they could inhabit the streets played an active role. conversation with my American publisher of birth, and where I grew up. I woke up you know so well. Isn’t this what every The right has devoted 40 years about Assange’s historical importance, he in Australia almost every morning for 47 novelist dreams of: their inventions getting to labelling these views as ‘conspiracist’ said, in an aside: ‘I don’t suppose you want years. My journey to New York was not up and walking off the page? and ‘phoney’, a view much repeated to write the book.’ As this was not in any a rejection of my own experience, or a in certain parts of the media that (for You have two characters steal some sense an offer, I could not possibly turn it repudiation of my most vivid memories. those not old enough to remember) took Tolkien books from me at Readings. You down. We both knew there were all sorts Australia is my lens. I cannot see the world an active part in the overthrow. These must know I hate shoplifters! of reasons that this should be left in the in any other way. voices continue to insist that it is mad Mark, you may not know that this very act realm of interesting ideas, not least that I and unimaginable for our powerful ally A significant section of the book is set of shoplifting you mention is the substance am a novelist and don’t have that sort of to interfere in Australia’s internal affairs. in Carlton, which of course I love, and it of one of the many charges still facing skill. The conversation lasted, perhaps, Recently, however, the world has had a reads like a bit of paean to Carlton of the Gaby Baillieux and Frederic Matovic. Of two minutes. startling public education. 1970s. The hacker’s godmother is Betty course they have been on the run for a My publisher and I had reason During the period I wrote Burstall, the founder of La Mama Theatre, number of years, and I admit that it seems to recall those two minutes later because Amnesia, the secret workings of American and there are Carlton institutions of that possible they will never be brought to it was during this conversation that I said agencies were exposed to various bright era referenced too, such as King & Godfree ‘justice’. There is nothing I wish to do to how significant it was that Assange was white lights. First came Wikileaks, and and Johnny’s Green Room. Did you want change this. However, you might fruitfully Australian. The US media was certainly not then, when I was midway through the to give Carlton that nod or did it just serve chat to another character, Felix Moore. thinking how his nationality might affect novel, Edward Snowden showed how a purpose? Felix has done so well with ‘Barbie and him. But of course, he could not possibly be the US spies not only on its enemies but I lived in Parkville and Carlton in the very the Deadheads’ he might be nice enough a ‘traitor’ as many Americans believe. As an also its friends and allies. The argument early 60s and then again, in Carlton, in to make good your loss. We’re out of touch Australian, I could imagine many reasons that the novel engages with seems, in the the 70s. My days there were alive and, if now, but I guess he’s still living in Rozelle. sister-in-law says to her in sympathy, ‘You’re Tóibín’s beautiful prose, skilful STONE MATTRESS ‘Alphinland’ a jilted lover retreats to write really a good girl, poor you.’ Towards the characterisation and reflective dialogue Margaret Atwood fantasy novels after she walks in on her end of Those Who Leave and Those Who give form and shape to this impressive earthy poet and his mistress, after which Bloomsbury. HB. Was $34.99 Stay, Elena rebels against this reputation work. But the book’s power comes from we visit the poet in ‘Revenant’ when fame $29.99 and her actions cause ripples that remain the evocative and deeply intimate portrayal has had its way with him, followed by the uncharted. No doubt, the full impact will be of Nora and the grief she suffers following How remarkable mistress in ‘Dark Lady’. All this swings revealed in the next novel. the death of her husband, her greatest it must have been between the 1960s and contemporary No other author has ever captured love. A mother of four, Nora must navigate to witness the time reminiscences of wizened bohemians, my imagination in quite the same way her heartbreak while tending to the needs when genre slipped and it’s difficult to extricate the image as Ferrante, who is effortlessly able to of her children, whose own suffering through the literary of Atwood herself. But that is probably destabilise and dismantle my notions of manifests in disturbing ways. Nora’s gates, from the two-bit the point. She tells us that there are tales self through her characters. In this series intuitive empathy as a mother pulp and horror heap about tales in here, and this will niggle her of novels, Ferrante has created something casts a light on the shadows of this family’s towards the ensconced adoring fans for many book clubs to come: astonishing and exceptional. sorrow. But fear is also her companion, throne of the literati. Stone Mattress is a sage and devious telling and Nora must learn to mediate difficult With Margaret of the adulterous longings buried deep Bronte Coates is the Editorial Assistant for Atwood, the grand dame of Canadian Readings Monthly relationships with extended family without within each of us. her husband’s harmonising effect. gothic, she warns that these are not stories, but tales with a taste for the folklorish and Luke May is a freelance reviewer NORA WEBSTER Place, too, is important in this story. Set in the close-knit community of Wexford, magical. Her nine tales cast characters who Colm Tóibín ISLAND OF A THOUSAND Ireland, where Tóibín himself grew up, are mostly elderly and writerly, authors of a Picador. PB. $29.99 MIRRORS the smothering experience of small-town fantasy series or international bestsellers. Good reads bring politics is played out – it’s a place where In ‘I Dream of Zenia with the Nayomi Munaweera us into close everybody knows your business. Nora feels Bright Red Teeth’ our narrator regrets Penguin. PB. $29.99 encounters with stifled by her community’s well-meaning yet how we once knew where we stood with Island of a remarkable characters intrusive enquiries into her wellbeing and vampires, their morality now blurred Thousand – a metamorphosis struggles to know herself separate to others’ by contemporary TV. There is Sam, the Mirrors tells the takes place and we expectations of her. And yet it is the support protagonist of ‘The FreezeDried Groom’, stories of two Sri merge with that of the community that gives her the strength who is caught in his own detective noir Lankan women, and character, their lived to come into herself as never before. tale, unable to imagine life outside his own their families, as they experiences feeling as The political unrest of Bloody murder mystery, but ‘Stone Mattress’ is grow up in a country if they were our own. Sunday, which saw civil rights protestors the most haunting of the bunch. Atwood torn apart by civil war. Nora Webster, the protagonist of Colm shot down by the British Army, forms a reminds us that age collects our more The novel begins Tóibín’s latest masterwork, is one such backdrop to this story and adds to the sense vengeful and murderous inclinations gently with the history unforgettable character destined to live of emotional upheaval that accompanies with a dainty dollop of the grotesque. It’s of Yasodhara, a Sinhalese girl of Colombo. beyond the page, eternally memorialised in destabilising life experiences. hilarious. Yet the winning ingredients There are sparkling descriptions of family the minds of readers. are the first three interwoven sagas. In life and a childhood by the ocean, with Natalie Platten is from Readings Malvern READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2014 9 only a few signs of the ethnic tensions that out by young men of the nineteenth be otherwise,’ laments the narrator. ‘It is the that contact with any foreign surface will lead to civil war. When Yasodhara’s century, before he goes off to university. invalid child’s consolation, the prisoner’s last might contaminate his sample, it becomes family moves to the USA, the emotions At least this is the idea, before Connie hope.’ More than one of these transgressive clear that Lerner himself is the long- and events of their lives as new tells Douglas that she intends to leave tales left a ghostly, bitter aftertaste, but the suffering butt of his own jokes. immigrants relate deeply and inescapably him as soon as they get back. Predictably, overall effect is gripping and Mantel’s prose Aortic dissection (thanks to the place they have left behind. the family trip does not quite go to plan, is masterfully compulsive. However, be to a recently diagnosed bung heart) The book intensifies as it though this is not to say that Nicholls’s warned. While these bite-sized stories may and meteorological calamity are the progresses: the characters age, there are narrative unfolds in a predictable way. fit efficiently into your commute, they pack chronic fears of Lerner’s narrator. One love affairs, marriages and heartaches. Douglas, a biochemist, would be ridiculous a punch that will leave you squirming for threat is individual and internal, almost The civil war escalates. Saraswathie, the if not for his sincerity, and the same hours afterwards. infinitesimal; the other – menacingly second narrator, is from a Tamil family might be said about Connie, an artist, Sian Williams is from Readings Carlton present in the form of hurricanes Irene of the north, who has been directly and who is nearly a caricature, but also so and Sandy, and recurrent allusions to irreparably affected by the war. Her story much more. Nicholls manages to make 10:04 global warming – is communal, the ruin is truly harrowing. The book is cautiously his somewhat stereotypical characters it wreaks devastatingly obvious. What Ben Lerner balanced, and both families are swept feel real, fully realised and relatable, makes 10:04 more vital than any number A&U. PB. $27.99 up in unavoidable conflict and suffer retrieving this otherwise standard odd- of other parsings of the same NYC literati brutal losses. couple-journeying story and turning it Every moment is milieu is Lerner’s refusal to settle for Nayomi Munaweera’s stunning into something with edges, darkness and charged with mere witty solipsism. He is at times language evokes powerful sights, sounds genuine emotion. illimitable potential in stultifyingly aware of the macro, and the and smells of the setting, and from the first Us is as heartbreaking as it is Ben Lerner’s great novel is lent an egalitarian polyphony in page it is clear that the central character heartwarming, and as sad as it is funny, second novel, and the anecdotes offered by characters of of this novel is Sri Lanka – Island of a balancing light-hearted humour and every action pregnant, varying backgrounds throughout. Lerner Thousand Mirrors is as much a coming- profundity with grace. Ultimately, Nicholls however involuntarily, is beautifully attuned to the metabolic of-age story for the nation as it is for is a writer of such talent as to make you, with the played stirrings of his metropolis, where every the protagonists. The ending brings the by turns, laugh out loud and question the narratives of both individual operates as an autonomous node narrators together in a close that is tragic meaning of life, love, youthfulness and history and personal – a living, thinking atom – to make up a yet still optimistic. This is a compelling ageing, and the relationships we collect past. As with Lerner’s accomplished debut, sublime greater whole. Leaving the Atocha Station (2011), 10:04’s debut with a big scope; at just over 200 along the way. Gerard Mason is from Readings St Kilda pages, it has an emotional weight that unnamed narrator is a fictive refraction of Amy Vuleta is from Readings St Kilda its thirty-something author, a New York- seems to surpass its length. The sharp, SOME LUCK intimate detailing of events makes it based poet–critic turned in-demand THE ASSASSINATION OF Jane Smiley extremely memorable, and it is sure to novelist. The novel’s first scene sees him MARGARET THATCHER Mantle. PB. $29.99 leave a whole reel of striking moments being greased by his agent to expect a with any reader. Hilary Mantel ‘strong six-figure’ advance. It’s a Some Luck may be HarperCollins. HB. $29.99 charmingly neurotic start to a novel: a Jane Smiley’s Kim Gruschow is from Readings Hawthorn Unlike Hilary commemoration of the point when a work fourteenth novel, but of literary merit is seized from the realm it’s the first work I’ve US Mantel’s historical fiction, such as Wolf Hall of the notional to become a promised read of hers and, I have David Nicholls and Bring up the Bodies, commodity. to say, it’s left me Hodder Headline. PB. $29.99 this unsettling Such tensions are Lerner’s stock- wanting to read more! David Nicholls’s collection of brilliantly in-trade. It is therefore no surprise to Set in Iowa, in latest novel deals oblique short stories is find 10:04 is prompted less by narrative America’s Midwest, the in a similar brand of situated firmly in a impulse than by a drive to interrogate novel follows a farming situation and modern England, the paradoxes of vocational artisanship family, the Langdons, from the 1920s relationship comedy as observed through the in the late-capitalist West. While the through to the early 1950s. Each chapter his past works (the eyes of Britain’s peripheral people. From narrator’s struggles are mostly discrete takes us through one year in the life of the bestselling One Day, closeted nurses to sickly, paranoid expats, to an individual of Lerner’s geopolitical, family. The story flips from one Langdon to and the earlier Starter all of Mantel’s characters are self involved, educational and socio-economic footing the next, beginning with the patriarch, for Ten and The morally ambiguous and almost entirely (in other words, first world problems), they Walter Langdon, as the family lives through Understudy). However, powerless. Though just below the surface lies are widely relatable thanks to Lerner’s self- some of the most pivotal moments of where these books tended towards the a secret, a deeper, darker something that effacing wit, which is outwardly attuned. American history: the Depression, World generic or light, Us offers readers makes each of them very intriguing. As a financially secure white American War II and the Cold War. Often the narrative something far more substantial. That is, it Mantel has spoken extensively male, the narrator’s position of relative is told from the viewpoint of an infant, a connects with some universal dilemmas we about her ongoing battle with ill health, privilege is never lost on him or Lerner. device Smiley uses quite successfully. For all face in our relationships: How do we and it is a theme that runs throughout this This hypervigilance is exploited often to each of the five children born to Walter and truly relate to those we love? How do we collection, from the semi-autobiographical great comic effect. his wife, Rosanna, the reader is given an keep love going? What is the most we can ‘Sorry to Disturb’; to the unwell protagonist Having agreed, after much toing insight into their young minds, emphasising expect? And is it the journey that matters in ‘Comma’; to the young girl, starving and froing, to play donor for his best the individual personalities of the siblings. or simply how it ends? and delusional, in ‘The Heart Fails friend Alex’s intrauterine insemination, Like a parent, the reader gets to watch the The narrative follows a small without Warning’. In the title story, ‘The he finds himself alone in a room at children grow and develop into remarkable family – Douglas and Connie and their Assassination of Margaret Thatcher’, Mantel the IUI clinic – the ‘masturbatorium’ adults. While each child follows a different 17-year-old son, Albie – on a Grand Tour paints a plausible reimagining of Thatcher’s – shuffling back and forth between a path, with only one of them choosing the around Europe. The idea is that Douglas death. According to Mantel, this was inspired sink and a TV screening an unappealing farming life, the children always return to, and Connie want to give Albie, an aspiring by a hallucination she had while on morphine porno. Pants around his ankles and and are forever emotionally bound to, the artist, a ‘real’ education, the kind sought during a hospital stay. ‘History could always obsessively washing his hands, anxious land on which they were raised.

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This novel is essentially about and its little ways. But then something ELLA MORRIS living and getting on with your life, despite happens that will change everything. John David Morley what’s thrown at you. There is nothing fast- Hachette. PB. Was $34.99 paced about it, nor does anything overly CONSUMED $29.99 dramatic occur. Yet, there is something David Cronenberg Following Hitler’s rise absorbing about it. Finishing the story is HarperCollins. PB. $29.99 to power, Ella almost like leaving some very dear friends Film director David behind. Smiley intends this to be the Andrzejewski escapes Cronenberg’s debut Soviet-occupied beginning of a trilogy, which will see the novel follows lovers Langdon family well into the twenty-first Europe and finds a safe Naomi and Nathan, haven in England. She century. I only hope I don’t have to wait nomadic freelancers in too long for the second instalment! marries George Morris, pursuit of sensation and but falls in love with Sharon Peterson is from Readings Carlton depravity. Naomi’s Claude de Marsay, a interest is aroused by French student 10 THE LAST ILLUSION Celestine and Aristide years her junior. While the effects of Ella’s Porochista Khakpour Arosteguy, Marxist traumatic past continue to be felt, Europe Bloomsbury. PB. $29.99 philosophers and libertines. When Celestine lurches towards another conflict, and Ella’s In the 13 years is found dead in her Paris apartment, family struggles to find peace in a continent since the 9/11 Aristide has disappeared. Nathan, off still reverberating with the echoes of war. terrorist attacks, many photographing the work of a controversial novelists have tackled surgeon, sleeps with one of his subjects and LEAVING TIME contracts a rare STD. While searching for their meaning and Jodi Picoult the doctor who identified the disease, impact, both head on A&U. PB. Was $32.99 Nathan finds a young woman whose bizarre or obliquely, through $29.99 behaviour masks a devastating secret. their fiction. Think Available 14 October Netherland, Saturday or OUTLINE Alice Metcalf was a Falling Man. Iranian– devoted mother, loving Rachel Cusk American author Porochista Khakpour’s wife and accomplished Faber. HB. $29.99 second novel is set in the years leading up scientist. It’s been a to 9/11, navigating Y2K paranoia and A woman writer goes decade since she concluding with a re-imagined version of to Athens in the height disappeared, leaving the event itself. of summer to teach a behind her small Blending fabulist, magical realist writing course. She daughter and husband, and allegorical elements, The Last Illusion becomes the audience and the animals to is a wildly unconventional coming-of-age to a chain of narratives which she devoted her story, based on a Persian folktale, with a as the people she meets life. All signs point to abandonment – or highly unusual protagonist. Zal, of Iranian tell her, one after worse. Jenna – 13 years old and orphaned legend, is an albino child, abandoned by his another, the stories of by a father maddened by grief – refuses to parents and brought up by a mythical giant their lives. In the believe in her mother’s desertion. She bird to become, against all odds, a great stifling heat and noise of the city, the decides to approach the two people who warrior. Fast forward 1000 years to New sequence of voices begins to weave a might be able to help her find Alice. York, where a feral Iranian boy, also named complex human tapestry. Outline is a novel Zal, is stumbling into adulthood while about self-effacement and self-expression, struggling to suppress his avian urges for about the desire to create and the human Anthology flight and ingesting insects. art of self-portraiture in which that desire The characters and plot here finds its universal form. wouldn’t be out of place in a Woody Allen AUSTRALIAN LOVE film: a boy raised as a bird escapes a crazy THE SURFACING STORIES mother, is rescued from Iran by a childless Cormac James Cate Kennedy Manhattan child psychologist, then falls Text. PB. $29.99 Inkerman & Blunt. PB. $28.99 for an uptown anorexic aspiring artist and Morgan is second-in- This volume presents clairvoyant. He becomes enamoured with command of the brig stories about love in all an impossibly vain illusionist, thwarts a Impetus, dispatched in its forms. There are creepy analyst and falls in love with his 1852 to the Arctic in imaginary lovers, girlfriend’s obese sister. Zal’s misadventures search of Franklin’s unattainable lovers, are both funny and macabre: he gets a lost expedition. It is star-crossed lovers and job frying chicken, develops a crush on a late in the year and the predestined lovers. canary, fantasises about being fed in a nest ice is closing in when There is straight love, and forces himself to cover mirrors. His Morgan, ensconced in same-sex love and quest to be normal is never easy. this wholly masculine some very curious Khakpour’s lyrical prose crackles world, learns that the ship is carrying a love. Edited by acclaimed short-story with energy, both playful and deadly serious, stowaway – a woman, pregnant with his writer Cate Kennedy, Australian Love creating a painful picture of otherness that child. It is too late to turn back. Morgan Stories features words from Bruce Pascoe, offers a fascinating window to the pre- The winner of the Award will must set out on a voyage of deliverance Jon Bauer, David Francis, Carmel Bird, 9/11 state of mind. This is an enthralling, receive $4,000 and will be across a bleak expanse as shifting, stubborn Lisa Jacobson, Tony Birch and more. richly layered read that illustrates how announced in the November and treacherous as human nature itself. profoundly fiction can assist us in reflecting Readings Monthly and Summer on and making sense of reality. Reading Guide. THE LOVE SONG OF MISS Poetry Sally Keighery is a freelance reviewer QUEENIE HENNESSY readings.com.au/the-readings- Rachel Joyce POETRY NOTEBOOK new-australian-writing-award THE GUEST CAT Doubleday. PB. Was $32.99 Clive James Takashi Hiraide $29.99 Picador. HB. $32.99 Picador. PB. $19.99 Please join us to celebrate When Queenie For Clive James, poetry A couple in their thirties the winner of the New Hennessy discovers has been nothing less live in a small rented Australian Writing Award that Harold Fry is than the occupation of cottage in a quiet part of walking the length of a lifetime. Here he at Readings, 112 Acland Tokyo. They work at England to save her, presents a distillation of Street, St Kilda on Tuesday home as freelance and all she has to do is all he’s learnt about the writers. They no longer 28 October, 6pm- 7pm. wait, she is shocked. art form that matters to have very much to say Free but bookings essential on Her note had explained him most. A formalist to each other. One day readings.com.au/events she was dying. How and commentator, a cat invites itself into can she wait? Queenie thought her first James offers close their small kitchen. letter would be the end of the story. She readings of individual poems and poets (from Life suddenly seems to have more promise was wrong. This is a novel about the Shakespeare to Larkin, Keats to Pound), and for the husband and wife; they go walking journey we all must take to learn who we in some cases rereadings late in life – just to together, talk and share stories of the cat are, and about loving and letting go. be sure he wasn’t wrong the first time. READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2014 11 The Shop Floor

News from around the Readings shops

HAWTHORN Yotam Ottolenghi is universally adored by the staff here at Hawthorn and after a long, cold winter we are happy to be celebrating spring and its produce by cooking recipes from Ottolenghi’s new book Plenty More. We’ve been busy with lots of events, the rowdiest of which was Andy Griffiths’s, who entertained a packed shop and signed books like a rock star. He is so popular that some kids had finished his newest book, The 52-Storey Treehouse, by the time they made it to the front of the queue! The lovely Alice Pung also popped into the shop and chatted to us about her upcoming young-adult novel, Laurinda, which is available on 22 October – we are looking forward to reading it. Kim Gruschow is from Readings Hawthorn CARLTON Readings Carlton is known for its wonderful book events program, but we also host amazing music events. None of us will ever forget Patti Smith, Martha Wainwright or Daniel Lanois. In September we hosted Émelie Simon, whose presence in the bathroom upstairs flustered a few of our staff, not to mention her balancing precariously on a ladder in high heels! Simon has a sweet voice but there is an edge to it that cuts through the pop sensibility. We had an enthusiastic crowd packing out the rear of the shop, the only problem being that we all had to work and couldn’t absorb the event fully. Simon was all charm, full of effusive thanks for our staff and happy to stay back to sign CDs and banter with fans. A classic, lovely Readings Carlton evening was had by all. Robbie Egan is the Manager of Readings Carlton STATE LIBRARY Things have been hectic at the SLV with the continuing success of the Victor Hugo: Les Misérables – From Page to Stage exhibition; the pop-up gift shop has seen copies of Les Misérables flying off the shelves. In the main store we’ve been visited by Wayne Swan, who launched his memoir The Good Fight at the library; Michael McKernan, who spoke about and signed copies of Victoria at War: 1914–1918; and Elizabeth Morrison, who launched her biography, David Syme: Man of the Age. Heading into October, we’re all desperately looking forward to Ben Lerner’s new novel, 10:04, and the inevitable excitement that will come cycling in surrounding Graeme Simsion’s sequel The Rosie Effect. Tom Hoskins is the Manager of Readings State Library MALVERN Following a big September, the Malvern shop has been busy. By far our happiest customers of late have been our young treehouse enthusiasts. Andy Griffiths’s latest book is The 52-Storey Treehouse, and its release has been greeted with great delight – just Journey with Frank Camorra as he searches What do we mean by ‘the bush’, for the traditional recipes of Andalusia in and how has it shaped us? imagine a new treehouse level for juggling chainsaws. Other important books for us have the south of Spain – a land of ancient cities, At once magisterial in scope and alive been Helen Garner’s This House of Grief, the new Ian McEwan, The Children Act, and whitewashed villages, olive groves with wry detail, The Bush lets us see and vineyards. Along the way, he takes in Haruki Murakami’s Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage. Malvern staff our landscape and its inhabitants afresh, riotous spring festivals, lively markets and examining what we have made, what we have loved Jessie Burton’s The Miniaturist and Karen Joy Fowler’s We Are All Completely peaceful sherry bodegas, and reveals his have destroyed, and what we have become favourite places to eat, drink and stay. Beside Ourselves, which was recently shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. The Readings in the process. No one who reads it will look at this country the same way again. classical box set sale has been a big success at Malvern, with wonderful recordings at fantastic prices. Have a look for the new Robert Plant album, too, which is our album of the month. We have also recently enjoyed selling books at a Kingston Library event for Sally Rippin’s new Hey Jack! title, The Other Teacher. Bernard Vella is the Manager of Readings Malvern ST KILDA There’s not much that happens around Readings St Kilda that doesn’t have a Nick Cave soundtrack, and I think it’s safe to say that 50 per cent of the month of October will be pulsing with the moody, resonant hum of the art-rocker’s voice. To start with, we’ve just received a sizeable stack of the latest Island magazine so that everyone who comes to the counter can look at Nick Cave’s face. Inside this quarterly, you’ll find an article penned by our very own bookseller, Gerard Elson, that’s all about Cave the writer. The photos accompanying the essay were taken by Bleddyn Butcher, who’s soon to publish a book of them called A Little History, and we’re excited to be hosting an event in-store with the When Gaby Baillieux releases the Angel Worm Before civil war tears the tapestry of photographer himself later in the month. Of all things St Kilda, Cave, and local rock ’n’ into the computers of Australia’s prison system, Sri Lanka apart, the lives of two young roll, Gerard has this to say: ‘St Kilda is teeming with revenants of its post-punk past … freeing hundreds of asylum seekers, she sets women from two very different families are off a chain reaction. These prisons are run fatefully linked by one chance encounter. Cave and his contemporaries still hum apocalyptically loud in the local imagination (as by U.S. companies, and so the doors of A powerful saga that strikes mercilessly well they should!). As a fan(atic) myself, I’m thrilled to be interviewing Bleddyn about his some 5,000 American institutions have at the heart of war, Island of a Thousand also opened. And to some watching eyes, Mirrors marks the arrival of a spellbinding new book right here in St Kilda, where so many of these legendary talents cut their now the secrets of both… new literary talent. dagger-sharp teeth.’ Amy Vuleta is the Assistant Manager of Readings St Kilda 12 READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2014

New Crime Dead Write Makutsi has just launched to more Meet excitement, drama and problems than you the with Fiona Hardy could shake a tuba at. If only she knew Bookseller someone with the knack to deal with such Crime Book of the Month problems. GRAY MOUNTAIN Tara Judah, Readings St Kilda MALICE John Grisham Keigo Higashino Hachette. HB. Was $39.99 Little, Brown. PB. $29.99 $34.99 I am not a perfect reader. I can get impatient, huffing if a Samantha Kofer Why do you work in books? book hasn’t grabbed me by page three. And then I read headed happily into If I were to build a fort with walls of something like Malice and it serves as a lesson that giving a book 2008; she had a job knowledge, the final result would be a the chance to get its claws dug in can reward you with that working in a bookstore. I want to live peacefully in a fort grinning, page-turning excitement that good literature delivers. flourishing law firm in of knowledge. At Readings, the fort is also Malice starts with the fairly clinical notes of children’s book New York City and friendly. author Nonoguchi Osamu, as he goes to pay his dear friend, the was expecting success. What book would you happily spend a bestselling novelist Kunihiko Hidaka, one last visit before the What actually weekend indoors with? latter jets off to start afresh in Vancouver with his new wife, Rie. They talk, they laugh, happened was the Anything by Elizabeth Harrower. I’m so and they part ways when another visitor arrives – a woman angered at Hidaka’s recession, and instead pleased that Text Classics are republishing portrayal of her brother in a fictional account of their youth. Later that afternoon, Osamu of bright lights and a skyscraper-high her fiction. I love her exploration of the gets an unnerving call from his friend, asking him to come over in the evening. But when career trajectory, she found herself psychological diaspora that really pulses he arrives, no one answers the door. Hidaka is home, yes – but he’s no longer alive. looking at a year’s unpaid work in a legal in postcolonial Australia. She writes aid clinic in Appalachia. But this job gives characters whose isolation isn’t the product ‘The women aren’t wispy (as they often are in crime fiction), the plot Samantha experiences that New York of loneliness so much as alienation. The surprisingly didn’t, like the chance to severe crisis of communication in her isn’t clichéd, and the truth is always just a little further away than you fight the good fight inside of a real stories also resonates with me. Harrower might think.’ courtroom, to deal with a more humane captures something quintessential about set of humans, and – well, it is John the problems of society, gender and class, I felt terribly smug when I thought I knew the outcome for this whole scenario, Grisham, not a soft-focus telemovie – the and I’m a total sucker for that stuff. until it turned out (unsurprisingly) that Keigo Higashino, an award-winning author, opportunity to face a violent and Your job entails recommending good is actually much smarter than I am. Malice changes from a quiet and everyday case overwhelming foe. reads: how do you balance personal taste of someone being coshed on the head then strangled to a complex and completely with customer nous? enthralling story of a very clever killer and the methodical detective who is FORENSICS: AN Not everyone wants to read feminist film determined to separate fact from fiction. The women aren’t wispy (as they often are ANATOMY OF CRIME theory and capitalist critique so I can’t just in crime fiction), the plot isn’t clichéd, and the truth is always just a little further away reach for Laura Mulvey or bell hooks when Val McDermid than you might think. An utterly revealing and exciting book on the unwavering trust Profile. PB. $32.99 someone asks me, ‘What’s good?’ But I also the reader puts in the writer. remember when I was growing up how Surely one indication much I valued the expertise of my local of having made it in video store clerk – years before I knew film the crime-writing would become such an important part of my CRUCIFIXION CREEK THE BEAT GOES ON: world is getting a life – so it’s about finding the connection. If Barry Maitland THE COMPLETE REBUS mortuary named after someone wants scandal and intrigue they Text. PB. $29.99 STORIES you – Val McDermid might not instinctively pick up a copy of Harry Belltree is a Ian Rankin recently has, at Hollywood Babylon, but I’m always at the homicide detective Orion. PB. $29.99 Scotland’s University of Dundee. Here, in an ready to at least throw it into the mix. whose father is – was DI John Rebus is a absorbing non-fiction Describe your own taste in books. – the first Aboriginal fiery smartarse for the account, she takes one of crime fiction’s When I’m not reading from the cinema or judge appointed to the ages, and a policeman most interesting areas – forensics – and cultural studies shelves, I like fiction that Supreme Court of whose exploits have explains exactly what this means for those reflects my anti-capitalist and feminist NSW. Then Harry’s made for some two involved in an investigation, from the values. Plus, I like unhappy (realistic) parents were killed, decades of bestselling crime scene to the autopsy suite. Including endings. I’m still making my way through and his wife injured, in reads and dedicated interviews with top-level scientists, case many of the classics, and there are hoards a suspicious car readers. Here, all of the studies and everything you could possibly brimming with characters that share in my accident. In nearby Crucifixion Creek, Rebus short stories are want to know as an interested crime disillusionment with the world – I’m looking there has been a recent spate of violence: rounded up into one reader or writer (but not murderer – you forward to reading East of Eden next. an elderly couple are found dead in their book – stories you may favourite cafe, and a man has been stabbed just back away right now, buddy), this Name a book that has changed the way have read, some sneaky unpublished ones, to death in the middle of a road. It’s Harry’s book is jam-packed with fascinating you think, in ways small or large. and two entirely new stories, ‘The brother-in-law, and Harry suspects these knowledge. Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark by Brian Passenger’ and ‘A Three-Pint Problem’, murders might be connected to the Kellow really affected my own writing. I which Ian Rankin has crafted exclusively mysterious death of his parents by more ROSE GOLD don’t read much biography because I’m for this essential collection. Grab yourself a than just location. Walter Mosley not particularly interested in the personal pint (or three, apparently) and tuck in. Orion. PB. $29.99 lives of the people whose art I admire. But CHALLENGE Kellow uses Kael’s own words to chart a THE HANDSOME MAN’S Thirteen clever, tightly trajectory of her success as a film critic. Paul Daley DE LUXE CAFÉ written books into this MUP. PB. Was $29.99 series, and in the I think examining her body of work is a Alexander McCall Smith $24.99 depths of the 1960s, respectful way to tell her life story. Little, Brown. PB. Was $34.99 private detective Easy What’s the best book you’ve read lately Our political leaders $29.99 aren’t always beloved, Rawlins has carved and why? Jeez, Alex, get some but you can’t deny it out a bit of a niche for I’m just making my way through Roxane rest, would you? I don’t must be one hell of an himself: he’s a man Gay’s Bad Feminist: Essays and it’s pretty know how he finds any unpleasant job. with just the right great. She’s an academic who knows how time to practise the Opposition leader know-how to solve to write as if she were your best mate tuba he holds in his Daniel Slattery, all tricksy problems. So when the police telling you a funny story. The ideas are author pictures when bootstraps, morals and chief’s assistant arrives at his house one solid and the words are entertaining. It’s a he’s always writing or bluster, is now in the Sunday afternoon, his know-how is light read but it doesn’t leave you feeling publishing something bad days of his requested – well, required – to locate like you’ve just inhaled ideological toxins. new. Anyway, more leadership – as he says, his colleagues Rosemary Goldsmith, daughter of a Who has the best book cover? luck to us: here he is have suddenly become petrified that he’s weapons manufacturer, who has been David Vann with Goat Mountain. The with the fifteenth No. 1 Ladies’ Detective not sufficiently vanilla, even though they kidnapped by the leader of a revolutionary landscape depicted looks serene, but it’s Agency book, and Mma Precious Ramotswe liked his promise of a bit of Neapolitan. cell and threatened with a public stamped with a silhouetted stag head that has allowed Grace Makutsi to become a full With gritty finesse but mistrust on all execution if his demands aren’t met. With brings soullessness to the foreground. partner (well, almost) even as Mma sides, he’s got to find out who’s trying to Easy’s most useful friend rendering The story is about the death of beauty as a Makutsi has a new baby to contend with. destroy his political career, if they know himself useless with too much drink, and a patrilineal connection to the land begins to Or two, if you count the Handsome Man’s the real dirt on him, and whether Daniel missing kid taking up part of his time, it’s corrode. The cover’s colour palette alone De Luxe Cafe, the business that Mma is the one getting him into trouble. no easy task – unless you’re Easy Rawlins. evokes the novel’s melancholic tone. READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2014 13

New Young Adult Fiction BELZHAR Meg Wolitzer See books for kids, junior and middle readers on pages 18–19 S&S. PB. $16.99 Jam isn’t Young Adult Book of the Month interested in life anymore after the NONA & ME death of her boyfriend, Reeve, and even though Clare Atkins the pair only knew Black Inc. PB. $19.99 each other for 41 days, The ‘me’ of the title is Rosie, a Year 10 girl who lives in the 26 of which they Northern Territory and is going through some familiar actually went out, Jam trials: separated parents, a confusing friendship group, and a has not gotten over his crush on her friend’s older brother. What lifts this story is that death almost a year later. Without knowing Rosie, a white Australian, lives outside of the mining town where what to do with her anymore, Jam’s parents all her white friends live, in Yirrkala, an Aboriginal community. send her to the Wooden Barn, a school for An insecure teen, Rosie is desperate to hide just how much a teenagers who have significant problems. part of the Yolnu people she is, and what they’ve meant to her. Once there, Jam is selected to be in Special Until the age of nine, Rosie counted an Aboriginal girl, Nona, as not only her best friend Topics in English, a class that is for a very but also her sister. Now things are different, and Rosie’s struggle is her fear of being select few, and no one really knows why judged versus her strong sense of connection with Nona and her extended family. certain people are selected and others not. Like in many excellent stories before it, the most intriguing character is the one In this class, they are to read Sylvia Plath’s who remains at a distance: Nona. Through flashbacks we get to understand the bond The Bell Jar and study the book in depth, as that existed between the girls as children, and the thrill of having a warm and fearless well as write a journal. It is through this friend, but this remains Rosie’s story. A significant part of it explores her first romance, assignment that these few teenagers will the growing distance between her and her mother, and the fact that she sees her absent visit Belzhar, a place so special they may father as the better parent. There’s a lot going on, and this debut author does a fine job not want to leave. of keeping it all relevant. Highly recommended for ages 14 and up. Belzhar is a novel about loss, grief Emily Gale is from Readings Carlton and wallowing, as well as first love and the devastating effects it can have on the teenage psyche. I must admit, this book will not be concerned with unfolding the hows and STATE OF GRACE for everyone, but it is for young-adult readers whys of Cooper’s death. That I felt Hilary Badger looking for a novel with a unique story and completely invested in the romance between Egmont. PB. $19.95 interesting twist. For ages 13 and up. KD Cooper and Libby was my favourite aspect Wren lives in the of the novel. There’s a brilliant to-ing and perfect world. SKINK: NO SURRENDER fro-ing going on: one minute you’re deep in a There are all the organic romantic story and the next you’re Carl Hiaasen fruits and vegetables wrenched out of it by a reminder that their Orion. PB. $19.99 one can eat, perfect relationship has been cut short. The points As a bestselling swimming lagoons and of view switch regularly, which makes for a adult and days spent having all the cracking pace. Misconceptions formed in children’s author, Carl fun you want, high school are brought to light as the Hiaasen has carved out surrounded by beautiful characters live through those slightly adrift the swampy, alligator- people. Created almost a post-graduation years, and the past turns up infested backwaters of year ago, Wren has always loved her life – and to haunt their future. A fantastic page- Florida as his unique as the completion ceremony nears, Wren turner for ages 15 and up. EG literary landscape. And wants to make sure she does everything she Skink, a retired can to be ‘chosen’ by their creator. But Wren THE CALLING: ENDGAME ex-governor of Florida turned one-eyed is having weird visions. Worried they might BOOK ONE homeless vigilante for animals and the interfere with her chance at completion, she environment, is one of his most beloved James Frey & Nils Johnson- tries to banish them from her mind, yet characters. In Hiaasen’s latest novel for Shelton strange things start to occur in her world, teens, Skink makes a comeback to help HarperCollins. PB. $24.99 making Wren wonder if there is more to life Richard, a teenager on a rescue mission. than what she has been led to believe. In the tradition Richard immediately thinks State of Grace is hard to review of The Hunger something is up when his cousin, Malley, as the main point of the book cannot be Games, The Calling is sends herself off to boarding school early. mentioned without spoiling the whole the first installment in That is not the Malley he knows. When thing. That said, this book tackles some what promises to be an he discovers that Malley has actually issues that very much affect us in today’s explosive series that disappeared with some guy she met online, society. While in parts I found it slow-going will draw readers into he panics. So Richard and Skink, who and slightly repetitive, this is a good novel a game of apocalyptic become friends after catching a loggerhead for young adults interested in the dystopian proportions. Twelve turtle poacher, decide to take the law into genre. For ages 13 and up. highly trained and their own hands with a road trip to rescue skilled Players – who represent the 12 Katherine Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn Malley. But will she welcome their efforts or tribe-lines that populate present-day Earth just run away again? This is a hilarious, hell- COOPER – are called to action to fight against one raising thriller populated with eccentrics, BARTHOLOMEW IS DEAD another to the death. Endgame is a ruthless sassy one-liners and roadkill dinners. Highly competition that has been designed by recommended for readers aged 12 and up. Rebecca James higher-order intelligent beings. There are A&U. PB. $19.99 no rules in Endgame. Angela Crocombe is from Readings St Kilda Australian author Much like the principle of Darwin’s Rebecca James natural selection, only the fittest Player will AFTERWORLDS writes with the sort of survive, securing the genetic survival of Scott Westerfeld sharp, unpretentious their tribe. But a Player’s triumph is not only Penguin. PB. $19.99 style that makes her dependent on their being lethal assassins Darcy puts college on books seem – they must also solve challenging riddles hold to publish her straightforward when to secure the tools that will ensure their teen novel, Afterworlds. actually this is a success. The battleground is the whole of Contract in hand, she difficult story to pull Earth and the search for clues has Players arrives in NYC with no off. In her third novel travel from country to country. When apartment and no – part romance, part thriller – she gives us alliances are formed among the Players, friends, but she’s taken four different points of view. There are some begin to wonder whether a united under the wing of some Cooper and Libby, pitched as the ‘good guys’, front could ensure the survival of all tribes. writers. Woven into and Sebastian and Claire, who are moodier, An online game built by Google’s Niantic Darcy’s personal story is that of her novel, a suspicious characters. To start out knowing Labs means readers can play their own thriller about a teen who slips into the that the romantic hero of the novel is already version of Endgame in real time. ‘Afterworld’ – a place between the living dead is potentially challenging. The story is Natalie Platten is from Readings Malvern and the dead – to survive a terrorist attack. 14 READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2014

New Non-Fiction For 10 months he was incarcerated in a long struggle for justice, and one man’s Curtin Detention Centre in Western gradual disillusionment with the institution Australia, before being freed in 2000. Now, that he had signed up to fight for. Biography she embarks on a personal exploration of 14 years later, he is one of the world’s the world of ethical non-monogamy. leading osseointegration surgeons, A FIG AT THE GATE Meeting with suburban swingers, cross- transforming the lives of amputees. Walking Kate Llewellyn dressers and polyamorists, artists and ACUTE MISFORTUNE: Free is Munjed’s extraordinary account of A&U. PB. $27.99 THE LIFE AND DEATH OF migrants, she asks how the introduction of his journey. another changes the dynamic of a Following the joyful ADAM CULLEN crafting of her gardens relationship – for better or worse. NOT THAT KIND OF GIRL Erik Jensen Weaving the narratives of famous in the Blue Mountains Lena Dunham Black Inc. HB. $32.99 figures and interview subjects through and north of HarperCollins. HB. Was $29.99 In 2008, the Kofman’s own experience – from her Wollongong, Kate $24.99 Archibald arrival as a migrant in Melbourne to a Llewellyn creates a Prize-winning artist tryst at a Perth writers’ retreat – The Not that Kind of Girl new garden near the Adam Cullen invited Dangerous Bride is neither a how-to brings together a sea in Adelaide – Erik Jensen, now guide, nor a cautionary tale. Rather, the collection of personal planting olives, plums, founding editor of The story is one of exploration, and Kofman’s essays from Lena limes and blood Saturday Paper, to changing understanding of love, sexuality, Dunham, the acclaimed oranges, learning how to keep poultry and write his biography. culture and her own desires. Kofman creator and star of setting a duck on eggs. In this joy-filled Cullen cited a book unashamedly uses her research as a way of HBO’s Girls. Dunham’s memoir, Kate shares the beauties and contract, from Thames navigating the issues within her marriage fearless, smart and frailties of the human condition, and & Hudson, though it later transpired this – indeed, the book is, as much as anything, sometimes delights in the gifts ageing can bring. never existed. The invitation marked the the story of its own creation. heartbreaking stories beginning of a four-year relationship, and Kofman’s writing is infused – about everything from getting your butt DICK HAMER the time the two spent together, largely at with breathtaking, visceral descriptions touched by your boss to showing up to ‘an Tim Colebatch Cullen’s home and studio outside of of love and pain and longing. Each lover, outlandishly high-fashion event with the Scribe. HB. $59.99 Sydney, forms the guts of this masterful partner and interviewee is painted with crustiest red nose you ever saw’ – are He was the reformer character study of a deeply troubled, a humanity and warmth that brings out perfect for readers of Nora Ephron, Tina who made Victoria a compelling painter. the multitudes within them. Kofman, too, Fey and David Sedaris. leader in social This is ultimately a story of is wistful and introspective, but brutally equality, the arts and decline – Cullen died in 2012 aged 46 from honest in her analysis of herself – it’s SO, ANYWAY... the environment. He excessive drinking and drug-taking: ‘In impossible not to identify with her as John Cleese and his government the end, Adam did not need to overdose. she wrestles with both the desire to be Random House. PB. Was $35 built the underground Drugs had been working quietly on his body loved and the desire to be free. Tender $29.99 rail loop, for two decades. At times, more loudly.’ and challenging, The Dangerous Bride John Cleese shares his decriminalised Jensen’s prose is bewitching, and he draws strikes an exquisite balance between the life journey, from his homosexuality and out clarity, even as Cullen intentionally investigative and the deeply personal that nerve-racking first abolished capital punishment. Yet Dick disrupts stories with mistruths, incessantly typifies the very best memoir writing. public appearance at St Hamer was a Liberal: a Toorak boy rewrites his past, and baits Jensen to take Alan Vaarwerk is a freelance reviewer Peter’s Preparatory educated at Victoria’s best schools, on his self-mythologising. Cullen’s own School at the age of who served for years under the voice looms large, even at his most pensive, MY STORY eight and five-sixths, to conservative Sir Henry Bolte. Dick Hamer and Jensen, for much of the book, elegantly is the first biography to be written of this Julia Gillard his first encounter with positions himself around it. When he places remarkable man. Knopf. HB. Was $49.99 the man who would be himself physically in the story, sitting beside his writing partner for $39.99 Cullen on his couch, he seems almost an over two decades, Graham Chapman, and IT’S NOT YOU, intruder – it’s an interesting repositioning, This is Julia Gillard’s on to his dizzying ascent via scriptwriting GEOGRAPHY, IT’S ME as it actually signals the inevitable chronicle of her for Peter Sellers, David Frost, Marty Kristy Chambers withdrawal of Jensen from Cullen’s life. turbulent time as Feldman and others, before finally landing UQP. PB. $24.95 Jensen’s depiction of Cullen’s father, Kevin, Australia’s prime at the heights of Monty Python. is warm and telling. Though essentially a minister, a candid It’s Not You, Geography, peripheral character, Kevin’s commentary, self-portrait of a MORE FOOL ME It’s Me is a hilarious and banter, serves to shift, again, the shape political leader seeking and brutally honest Stephen Fry of Cullen – another layer on the layers. to realise her ideals. memoir about travel, Michael Joseph. HB. Was $45 Though this isn’t a work about My Story is peppered depression and $39.99 art, strictly, the handsome production of with wry humour and awkward massages. the book is worth noting. A selection of personal insights, and Gillard does not shy Writer and comedian Believing that Cullen’s work is depicted in a series of away from her mistakes, admitting freely Stephen Fry’s third happiness can be found colour plates, and the endpapers show to misjudgements and policy failures, as volume of memoirs in other geographical an ink work, Heart Valve Penis. Viewing well as detailing her political successes. continues where he left locations, Kristy this series of Cullen’s work situated Here is an account of what was hidden off in The Fry Chambers jets off with her unreliable travel with Jensen’s biography is both achingly behind the resilience Gillard showed as Chronicles. As the 1980s companion, depression, in tow. On her intimate and shiver inducing. As an offering prime minister, and a reflection on what it drew to a close, Fry travels she finds herself stalking puffins in to a deceased artist this book, as artefact means to be a woman leader in discovered a most Reykjavik, rebuffing mariachi singers in alone, is a reminder of both Cullen’s beauty contemporary politics. enjoyable way to burn Mexico City, and sampling Weasel coffee in and vulgarity. Whether you know of Cullen the candle at both ends Hanoi. Naturally, comedy ensues. or his work is not important. Here is an WALKING FREE and took to excess like a duck to astounding, seductive and unwittingly Munjed Al Muderis with breadcrumbs. A high-functioning addict, FLYING ON BROKEN moving portrait – an addictive read. Patrick Weaver Fry was so distracted by the high life he WINGS could hardly see the inevitable, headlong Belle Place is Editor of the Readings Monthly A&U. PB. Was $32.99 Carrie Bailee tumble that lay ahead. $29.99 Affirm Press. PB. $29.99 THE DANGEROUS BRIDE In 1999, Munjed Al IN THE COMPANY OF Carrie Bailee was nine Lee Kofman Muderis was a young COWARDS when she was sold into MUP. PB. $29.99 surgical resident a paedophile ring. At Michael Mori Lee Kofman loves working in Baghdad 20, she fled Canada Viking. PB. $29.99 her husband when a squad of and arrived in deeply, and he loves military police marched Having grown up as an Australia where she her. But in a marriage into the operating all-American boy, was assisted by a full of romance but theatre and ordered the Michael Mori joined number of Australian increasingly devoid of surgical team to the US Marine Corps at women, and ultimately sexual passion, the mutilate the ears of 18. After training and encouraged to apply Russian-born Israeli three busloads of army deserters. When the serving as a military for refugee status. So began her battle to writer – addicted to head of surgery refused, he was executed in lawyer, he accepted a be granted asylum in Australia. Her story freedom and pleasure front of his staff. Munjed’s choices were position as a defence brings to light the dark underbelly of child and strangeness – begins to feel this isn’t stark – comply, refuse and face certain counsel for the military sexual abuse and organised crime rings in enough. Inspired by figures such as Anaïs death, or flee. That day, his life changed commissions set up in our privileged, first-world neighbourhoods. Nin and Iris Murdoch, and seeking to learn forever. He escaped to Indonesia, where he the wake of 9/11. Then, David Hicks’s case This is the story of one young woman’s from a past open relationship turned toxic, boarded a refugee boat, bound for Australia. file landed on his desk. What followed was heroic struggle to survive, escape and READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2014 15 soar above her shocking childhood THE WRITING LIFE experiences, and her powerful David Malouf journey to freedom and a beautiful Knopf. HB. $29.99 life in Australia. BY PAUL DALEY, JOURNALIST AND From Christina Stead, Les Murray and Patrick BESTSELLING AUTHOR KEVIN RUDD: TWICE White to Proust, PRIME MINISTER Shakespeare and Patrick Weller Charlotte Brontë, A blistering novel of MUP. PB. $34.99 David Malouf reads political treachery and paranoia It was a very different and examines the work Kevin Rudd who of writers who have returned to office in challenged, inspired 2013. Kevin 07 was a and entertained us for fresh face and a new generations. He also explores his own work image: the convivial, and the life of the writer, where the danger Mandarin-speaking is spending too much time talking about nerd who seemed so writing and not enough doing it. different from past leaders. By 2013 Rudd A SLIP OF THE retained some of his popularity but none KEYBOARD: COLLECTED of his novelty. The Opposition could say NON-FICTION nothing derogatory about him that his Terry Pratchett colleagues had not already said. His Doubleday. HB. Was $45 second term was to be short, brutal and $35 nasty. Political scientist and biographer Patrick Weller’s biography is a revealing Terry Pratchett has account of the man who became prime earned a place in the minister – twice. hearts of readers the world over with his bestselling Discworld Cultural Studies series, but in recent years he has become ‘Gripping, funny, lewd and tough ... equally well known as a THE WIFE DROUGHT campaigner for causes A highly superior political thriller’ Annabel Crabb including Alzheimer’s Ebury. PB. Was $34.99 research and animal rights. A Slip of the MARK DAPIN $29.99 Keyboard brings together the finest Journalist and examples of Pratchett’s non-fiction writing: TV personality from musings on mushrooms to why banana Annabel Crabb is daiquiris are so important and speculation AVAILABLE NOW interested in the about Gandalf’s love life. domestic lives of the mup.com.au career-driven. Her television show, Visual Art Kitchen Cabinet, takes us into the kitchens of A BONE OF FACT some of our most David Walsh powerful politicians, and The Wife Drought Picador. HB. Was $55 delves deep into the domestic sphere of $49.99 ordinary Australians. Crabb argues that having a wife at home to raise children and David Walsh take care of the housework is as crucial to a – Tasmanian, woman’s career as it is to a man’s. Yet more mathematician, often than not, women don’t have the gambler and museum luxury of a wife and as such they are unable owner – still seems like to put in the same hours afforded to men to something of a fiction. advance their careers. Despite an extended While this in itself is not a new profile published in argument, Crabb doesn’t want to focus The New Yorker, on the usual barriers for women entering written by Richard Flanagan, and multiple the workforce but rather the barriers sightings around Hobart, a sense of men face on leaving it to stay at home. insubstantiality remains around the Popular thinking on the subject, such as likelihood of his very existence. That the bestseller Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg, Walsh’s lengthy memoir is titled A Bone of tends to focus on why women aren’t Fact seems almost to be a counterbalance to encouraged to be more career driven. this outlandishness and, indeed, much of n Trading Places, Tim Harcourt Crabb’s point is that we are looking at the book discusses the statistically – also known as the Airport things the wrong way around; instead, unlikeliness of his very good fortune, while I Economist – takes you around she questions why men aren’t encouraged also documenting how he put that good the globe, talking to businesses, to stay at home. It’s an interesting way of fortune to use: conceptualising and governments, union officials, NGOs looking at the problem and reveals the ugly building the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA). and others in the community to truth that domestic duties just aren’t valued understand what makes each (either economically or socially) in the If MONA stands as a stark contrast of formal setting (a million dollar museum economy tick. He reveals where same way as paid employment. the opportunities are, identifies the development cut into a cliff ) and radical Crabb is a great writer and she risks, and provides insider tips on content (sex, death and the rest), then successfully manages to illustrate her doing business in each destination. the publishers and Walsh have certainly arguments with statistical research that, Trading Places is essential reading attempted to evoke this in the design of rather than making for dry reading, is for business travellers, students A Bone of Fact – an illustrated, gilt-edged presented with characteristic humour of economics or business, and and intelligence. This book makes an black book that scurries between raves and anyone who wants to understand important contribution to the debate about rants. Walsh is a better writer than many the complexities of our modern women in the workforce, particularly as it might expect him to be; he was brought globalised world. doesn’t rehash the same old arguments but up on a heavy diet of science fiction and approaches the topic from a refreshing and openly states that he wants his memoir to important angle. read like Kurt Vonnegut. www.newsouthbooks.com.au Still, there is a sense of resistance Kara Nicholson is from Readings Carlton in his writing; Walsh includes many 16 READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2014 footnotes and subtitles where he reminds BATTARBEE AND WORLD ORDER Personal Development readers he’s doing this for the cash or NAMATJIRA Henry Kissinger because the publisher told him to – though Martin Edmond Allen Lane. HB. $49.99 this unwillingness gives the book a restless Giramondo. PB. $34.99 World Order is the THE ART OF BELONGING energy. This is not a neat, orderly catalogue, summation of Henry Hugh Mackay but it is far from being a dispassionate one. From their first Kissinger’s thinking Pan Mac. PB. $32.99 He tears down some while lovingly profiling encounters in the early about history, strategy The Art of Belonging friends and family, and affectingly recounting 1930s to Namatjira’s and statecraft. As if advances Hugh the tragic death of his brother. Walsh fronts death in 1959, the taking a perspective Mackay’s argument put up his wild opinions on the wasteland of Las relationship between from far above the forward in The Good Vegas; life lessons from pokies, dog races and Battarbee, a white globe, Kissinger Life that ‘a good life’ is working at the ATO; and an unlikely treaty Australian from examines the great one lived at the heart of on the survivalist nature of penguins. It all Warrnambool, and tectonic plates of a thriving community. gives the reader the Walsh we seem to want Namatjira, an Aboriginal history and the motivations of nations, Drawing on his – a defiant iconoclast – and he delivers this of the Arrernte people, asking how historical change takes place, experiences as a social invention of himself to us direct. had a decisive impact on Australian art. In this biography, Martin Edmond looks closely how some leaders shape their times and researcher, Mackay Sam Twyford-Moore is Director of the at the nature of their friendship and portrays others fail to do so, and how far states can creates a fictional suburb populated with Emerging Writers Festival the personal and social complexities the stray from the ideas that define them. characters who struggle to reconcile their two men faced, while at the same time need to belong with their desire to live life 33 ARTISTS IN 3 ACTS illuminating larger cultural themes. POLITICAL ORDER AND on their own terms. Through a series of Sarah Thornton POLITICAL DECAY interconnected stories, Mackay examines Granta. PB. $32.99 TRENDYVILLE Francis Fukuyama this symmetry of the human condition. 33 Artists in 3 Acts Renate Howe, David Nichols & Profile. HB. $49.99 draws on hundreds of Graeme Davison In The Origins of Sport personal encounters Monash University Publishing. PB. $34.95 Political Order, Francis with the world’s most Australia’s inner cities Fukuyama took readers important artists, to ask experienced an from the dawn of ADAM GILCHRIST what it means to be upheaval in the 1960s mankind to the French Adam Gilchrist making artworks in and 70s that left them and American Affirm Press. HB. $59.99 different parts of the changed forever. Revolutions. Here, in This illustrated world today. 33 Artists People from all walks the second instalment, autobiography provides is divided into three of life who valued their he continues his unprecedented access distinct ‘acts’ of Politics, Kinship and Craft, suburbs – places like account of mankind’s to Adam Gilchrist, one and Sarah Thornton is an expert guide as Balmain, Battery Point, emergence as a political animal. This is the of the most loved she rummages through artists’ studios, Carlton and story of how state, law and democracy sportsmen of his homes and solo shows, inquiring about Indooroopilly – resisted large-scale developed after these two cataclysmic generation, both on and everything from their bank accounts to development projects for freeways, ‘slum events, how the modern landscape evolved off the field. Featuring their bedrooms. The result is an anti- clearance’ and mass-produced high-rise. and how in developed democracies, personal photographs, monograph about truth, integrity, This is an examination of the consequences unmistakable signs of decay have emerged. stories and keepsakes from ‘Gilly’s’ private credibility and recognition. of urban protest in a democracy, and shows life and illustrious career, along with how it changed the built environment as anecdotes from friends, family and many of History Australian Studies well as its participants. the biggest names in Australian and world cricket, Adam Gilchrist is the ultimate book WELL MAY WE SAY… CIVIL WAR for cricket enthusiasts. THE MENZIES ERA Sally Warhaft Peter Ackroyd John Howard Text. PB. $34.99 Pan Mac. PB. $34.99 Travel Writing HarperCollins. HB. Was $59.99 Memorable speeches In Civil War, Peter $49.99 define a people and a Ackroyd continues his place: they define a Here, John Howard account of England’s CHASING EL DORADO nation. It is impossible turns his attention to history, beginning with Aaron Smith to imagine Australia’s the Menzies era, the progress south of Transit Lounge. PB. $29.95 past without Peter canvassing the longest the Scottish king, Get ready for a risk- Lalor’s rallying cry at unbroken period of James VI, who on the taking ride through the the Eureka Stockade or government for one side death of Elizabeth I favelas of Rio Di Ned Kelly’s last words of politics in Australia’s became the first Stuart Janeiro and the wayside from the dock. This history. Covering the king of England, and towns and jungles of second edition of Well May We Say… impact of the great ends with the deposition and flight into South America in features a new introduction and the Labor split of 1955 as exile of his grandson, James II. England’s search of the secrets of addition of defining speeches from the past well as the recovery of the Labor Party under turbulent seventeenth century is vividly shamans and 10 years, among them the Apology to Whitlam’s leadership in the late 1960s and laid out before us, but so too is the ayahuasca, ‘the vine of Australia’s Indigenous Peoples and Julia the impact of the Vietnam War on Australian cultural and social life of the period, the soul’. Aaron Smith Gillard’s misogyny speech. politics, this book offers a comprehensive lived out against a backdrop of disruption is on a journey to save his own soul, but assessment of the importance of the Menzies and uncertainty. instead falls headfirst into the kaleidoscope era in Australian life, history and politics. Politics of South American culture and ultimately Howard’s thoughtful analysis of Menzies discovers the truth that lies deep in the the man and the politician, and of his legacy Science jungle or, sometimes, even closer to home. make this a highly significant book. AN INCONVENIENT GENOCIDE THE BUSH BEING MORTAL Cookery Geoffrey Robertson Don Watson Atul Gawande Vintage. PB. Was $34.99 Profile. PB. $27.99 Hamish Hamilton. HB. $45 $29.99 HISTORIC HESTON Part memoir, part In Being Mortal, Atul In 1915, 1.5 million Heston Blumenthal travel document, The Gawande confronts the Armenian people were Bloomsbury. HB. $79.99 Bush is a thought- realities of ageing and murdered by the British gastronomy has provoking journey dying, as well as the Ottoman Turkish a grand old tradition through this distinctive limits of what he can government. Yet to this that has been lost over Australian landscape. do as a surgeon. He day, Turkey continues to time, but Heston Don Watson presents emerges with a tale of deny an Armenian Blumenthal still finds the bush in a way that science, history and Genocide ever happened. his greatest source of neither romanticises remarkable characters, Here, Geoffrey inspiration in the nor decries it as he one that penetrates Robertson proves that unique food that Britain probes our legends, from the axeman to the people’s lives as well as the systems that have the horrific events of 1915 constituted genocide once produced. With Historic Heston, he swagman, looking deep into the stories we evolved to govern our mortality. Gawande without question, and condemns all those who charts a quest for identity through the best like to tell and those we avoid – in observes how these systems routinely fail try to justify the mass murder of children and of British cooking that stretches from everything from history, literature and art, to serve people’s needs beyond mere civilians in the name of military necessity. medieval to late-Victorian recipes. to the national myth and political debate. survival, with devastating consequences. READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2014 17

Art & Design ARCHITECTURE: THE Food & Gardening classics. The recipes are affordable enough WHOLE STORY to feed the whole family and can all, thank goodness, be made from basic supermarket with Margaret Snowdon Richard Rogers, Philip with Chris Gordon ingredients. Gumuchdjian & Denna Jones PLENTY MORE 100 PAINTERS OF T&H. PB. $39.99 Yotam Ottolenghi MOVIDA SOLERA TOMORROW Following in the Ebury Press. HB. Was $49.99 Frank Camorra & Richard Cornish Kurt Beers excellent footsteps of $39.99 Lantern. HB. $59.99 T&H. HB. $70 Art: The Whole Story, I actually love Frank This intriguing and volumes on Honestly, what is there Camorra: I love his collection of artists is photography, cinema, not to love? What this restaurants, his food the result of a major textiles and fashion, bloke can do to a and his cookbooks. In project to find the 100 this new title is an vegetable is Frank’s latest and most exciting up-and- accessible introduction extraordinary and that brightest, he uncovers coming painters at to the history of means you too can turn traditional recipes of work today. Their work architecture. From ancient and classical the humble cauliflower Andalusia, Spain’s spans an extraordinary masterpieces to cutting-edge buildings, into a meal that is so largest and southernmost range of styles and the book draws its examples from all good and so delicious region – a land of ancient cities, olive groves techniques, from abstraction to figuration, around the globe. It is a richly illustrated that even the kids will be asking for more. and vineyards. Frank has gone on one of minimalism to magical realism, and straight and comprehensive account of the All hail Ottolenghi, for your gift to us those enviable tours where he meets local oil-on-canvas to installation-based painting. architects, plans, designs and meat-and-three-veg people is vast. We can farmers, fishermen, chefs and cooks who This is a fascinating collection of new constructions that over the centuries have now concentrate on combining spices, share with him the recipes they have cooked painting and is highly recommended for most engaged our minds, inspired our grains and root vegetables into a banquet of in their kitchens for generations. From an those who are inspired by creative renewal imaginations and raised our spirits. colours, tastes and wonderful aromas. and fresh approaches to traditional forms. Picking up where Ottolenghi’s bestselling olive picker’s breakfast to cuttlefish in MID-CENTURY MODERN vegetarian bible Plenty left off, Plenty More saffron sauce and smoky lamb skewers (be SUPERLIGHT offers 120 new dishes, this time organised still, my beating heart) called pinchitos COMPLETE morunos, MoVida Solera is a celebration of Phyllis Richardson by cooking method. Dominic Bradbury Andalusian food and culture. T&H. HB. $39.95 T&H. HB. $120 MR HONG Subtitled ‘Lightness in This is perhaps the Dan Hong THE NEW EASY Contemporary Houses’, definitive survey of one Murdoch. HB. $49.99 Donna Hay the allure of the homes of the most popular, Sydney-based Dan HarperCollins. HB. $49.99 in this book is simple – collectable and Hong is trendy, street Don’t mock the title but most people would dynamic periods of cool and very rather embrace the happily live in all of international design. successful. His concept: here is a book them, or living in them With over 1000 restaurants – Mr filled with the quickest, would contribute to illustrations, this is a Wong, El Loco and simplest recipes their happiness. The premise of the must-have for any design aficionado, Ms. G’s – are fusions of suitable for each and collection is Glenn Murcutt’s dictum that collector or reader seeking inspiration for all the elements that every occasion. Donna buildings should ‘touch the earth lightly’. their home. Mid-Century Modern Complete make Australia a Hay is a woman with a The projects included combine two strands offers a rich overview of all aspects of the fantastic place to live. This wonderful very clear vision; all her recipes are of thinking: that lightweight buildings can subject – furniture, lighting, glass, ceramics, collection of recipes includes the recipe for accessible, nutritious and delicious. Each have minimal impacts on their textiles, product design, industrial design, the great cult dish of 2014 – Stoner’s is presented with little fuss, beautiful environments, and that this lightness – graphics and posters, as well as architecture Delight (honestly, there is nothing wrong pictures and simple instructions. There is visually, materially, ecologically – can and interior design, use of innovative and with combining chips, marshmallows and no fanfare or story. Instead, Hay offers a create beautiful, ethereal houses. affordable materials and forms of mass candied bacon). The more classic dishes are straightforward text devoted to providing manufacture, and newly developed on offer, too – think mini pork banh mi, you with great results. PLACE & ADORNMENT precepts of ‘good design’. Damian Skinner & Kevin Murray drunken chicken and steamed lobster. Full points for design, and full points for dashes SEPIA: THE CUISINE OF Bateman Publishing. HB. $69.99 THE ESSENTIAL of flair and humour. MARTIN BENN This comprehensive CY TWOMBLY Martin Benn history of contemporary Simon Schama SUZY SPOON’S Murdoch. HB. $75 jewellery in Australia T&H. HB. $100 and New Zealand tells VEGETARIAN KITCHEN This is a glorious Cy Twombly (1928– the story of how two Suzy Spoon cookbook that might 2011) created art that countries have Plum. PB. $39.99 not be filled with easy was remarkable for its contributed to an Suzy Spoon has opened recipes, but is certainly versatility, sensitivity international art form, the first vegetarian beautiful and grand. If and originality. transforming jewellery from an imitation of butcher in Australia. you have been fortunate Throughout his career, European taste into an original expression You can buy any cut of enough to visit he followed his own of place. In this richly illustrated book, ‘meat’ here, and this Sydney-based artistic pathway, one detailed analysis of objects and historical book shows you how to restaurant Sepia and that was independent from contemporary sources show how contemporary jewellery cook those mushroom pay witness to its Art Deco glory, you will trends, and for a long time his work went offered ways to negotiate relationships snags or roast that soy. immediately understand the design of this unnoticed by a wider audience. By the time between settler and Indigenous cultures, to This cookbook is perfect for vegetarians, of tome. Based around degustation menus, this of his death in Rome at the age of 83, he was appreciate the natural environment, and to course, but also those who don’t eat meat cookbook highlights the detailed steps that internationally recognised as one of the test conventions of art, gender and identity. on Mondays, those who don’t eat meat all are needed for Japanese cuisine of the greatest and most idiosyncratic artists of the the time, or those with kids who don’t eat highest order. This is not for everyday use, twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. PRINT: FASHION, vegetables unless disguised. but more for dreaming of what could be. INTERIORS, ART HOW TO BE PARISIAN WYCHWOOD Simon Clarke ADAM’S BIG POT: EASY WHEREVER YOU ARE Karen Hall & Peter Cooper Laurence King. HB. $60 MEALS FOR YOUR Anne Berest et al. Murdoch. HB. $59.99 This book showcases 32 Random House. HB. $34.95 FAMILY international designers Adam Liaw This book is a glimpse How to Be Parisian and artists currently Hachette. PB. $39.99 into a beautifully deconstructs the designed open space at working with print in Here is a sensible French woman’s views the foot of the Great the fields of fashion, cookbook for families. on culture, fashion and Western Tiers in interiors and fine art, Adam Liaw understands attitude. The authors Northern Tasmania. revealing – often in that cooking family are accomplished Despite the cold, Peter their own words – the meals is not always a French women, Cooper and Karen Hall inspiration and methods behind their creative process, so he bohemian free-thinkers have created a beautiful and cutting-edge designs. To takes a more practical and iconoclasts, and gardenscape of the most elegant and quote Toronto-based creative studio approach, creating new they are not afraid to cut through some of sustainable design. This is a book for those Rollout, ‘The challenge for an artist is to flavours from ingredients you already know the myths of what it really means to be a who crave organic design, and for anyone create work that’s of our time, that’s in one big wok, pan, dish or pot. There are Parisienne: how they dress, entertain, have who celebrates the dedication and relevant to our increasingly complex world, recipes for Vietnamese salads, simple South fun and attempt to behave themselves. creativity of gardeners. but also embodies a strong personal vision.’ African curries and one-pot Japanese 18 READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2014 Picture Books Junior Fiction LITTLE DOG AND THE CHRISTMAS THE PRINCESS IN BLACK WISH Shannon Hale, Dean Hale & Corinne Fenton & Robin Cowcher (illus.) LeUyen Pham (illus.) Black Dog. HB. $24.95 Candlewick Press. HB. $19.95 I know it seems a little early to Who says princesses don’t wear talk about Christmas books, but black? Princess Magnolia may you may want to catch the overseas be having tea with Duchess Wigtower Christmas mail and send this to a and pretending to be a delicate, homesick Victorian – or you may just proper princess, but she has a very want to enjoy a charming story. A small big secret. She is actually a superhero white terrier gets a fright in a thunderstorm and escapes in disguise and when the monster from home to find his young owner. This picture book is set alarm rings, she must politely make in what looks like the 1950s, and as Little Dog searches her excuses so that she and her trusty steed, Blacky, can through the streets he passes well-known Melbourne change costumes and rush to the rescue. But will the establishments and landmarks. I love seeing my city Duchess discover her secret identity before she can depicted in a book and children will enjoy putting names to return from fighting monsters? places. They will also empathise with the sweet Little Dog This is a gorgeous, action-packed adventure as he wearies from his long day of scouring the town. Will story that delightfully overturns the princess myth. With his Christmas be a happy one? Readers and dog-lovers aged colourful artwork on every page, it’s perfect to read to 3 and up will be keen to find out. aspiring adventurers aged 4 and up. Seven-year-olds will delight in reading it to you. Here’s hoping for more Alexa Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn adventures from the intrepid Princess in Black! SYLVIA Angela Crocombe is from Readings St Kilda Christine Sharp UQP. HB. $24.95 THE CLEO STORIES: THE From the author and illustrator of Bea NECKLACE AND THE PRESENT comes a gorgeous and gregarious Libby Gleeson & Freya Blackwood (illus.) picture book celebrating snails and the A&U. HB. Was $16.99 heartache of unrequited love. Sylvia $14.99 Snail is in love with Simon Green and The collaboration of author his luscious lettuce, choice cucumbers Libby Gleeson and illustrator and buttery beans. But Sylvia is just a small snail in a Freya Blackwood has produced some gigantic garden, so how can she get him to notice her? This extraordinarily beautiful works, is a succulent tale about Sylvia Snail and her glittering trail including Amy & Louis and Look, set on the garden path. a Book! Their newest project, The Cleo Stories, is about an imaginative THE WILD ONE young girl and her world. Cleo’s Sonya Hartnett & Lucia Masciullo (illus.) house, her neighbourhood and her Viking. PB. $24.99 family and friends are all lovingly rendered with Charlie met the wild one when he was Blackwood’s pencil drawings. young. Together they caught tadpoles, Cleo is a wonderful character, free-spirited and watched spiders weaving webs. and creative, possessed with all the open curiosity of But as the sun rose and fell, Charlie childhood. Text and colour illustrations work in perfect forgot the wild one’s magic – until it harmony, such as when Cleo accidentally superglues Story time was almost too late to remember. From her fingers to a bowl and a series of six images show the READINGS CARLTON an acclaimed picture-book partnership comes a celebration frustrating process of trying to get it unstuck. This is a Mondays 11am – 11.30am of the wonders of childhood, the beauty of nature and the gorgeous hardback that will resonate with readers aged 6 wild that lives in us all. and up, or make a delightful present to be read and pored READINGS ST KILDA over repeatedly. AC Saturdays 10.30am – 11am NONI THE PONY GOES READINGS MALVERN TO THE BEACH Middle Fiction Thursdays 10.30am – 11am Alison Lester A&U. HB. $24.99 Each week, Readings’ staff will read RACE TO THE END OF THE their favourite picture books (new or Come to the beach with Noni – the WORLD: THE MAPMAKER classic) for pre-school children (0-6 nicest pony you could ever meet – in CHRONICLES BOOK ONE years old). Story time is free and there’s this delightful rhyming story for young A.L. Tait no need to book. children by the much-loved Alison Hachette. PB. $14.99 For half an hour after Story Time, Lester. You may have met Noni already Readings offers a 20% discount off all in Noni the Pony. Noni loves going down to the beach when The king has declared a full-priced children’s books. it’s sunny. With her two very best friends Dave Dog and competition: the first person Please note: all children must be Coco the Cat, and the cows from next door, it’s going to be who can deliver to him a complete accompanied by an adult as this is not map of the world will receive a child-minding service. a wonderful day. whatever they wish, be it money, READINGS ST KILDA HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MADAME power or fame. After Quinn is picked to train as a mapmaker, he soon finds Saturday 25 October, 10.30am CHAPEAU himself aboard the Libertas, bound With the very Andrea Beaty & David Roberts (illus.) for adventure. But surviving the entertaining Mini Abrams. HB. $19.99 treachery of the other contestants Goss, author of Too This is the tale of a lonely hat maker Hot for Spots and will be hard enough, even without the dangers of who matches customers to the perfect Too Cold for a Tutu. undiscovered lands. hat but lacks her own perfect match in Part fantasy quest, part peril on the high seas, Saturday 18 October, 10.30am life. Once a year, Madame Chapeau Race to the End of the World is rollicking fun. Not since Come and meet Grug himself ventures out in her favourite bonnet. Emily Rodda’s Deltora Quest series has there been such an for the release of his new book, This time, a crow snatches her hat and exciting adventure tale from an Australian author. Echoes ! Grug the Superhero flies away. Mon dieu! As she chases it of Robinson Crusoe make this feel like a classic with a through the streets of Paris, a baker, a new twist, and it’s perfect for readers aged 8 to 12 who policeman, a cowboy and others offer are looking for some escapism in the sea of contemporary her their own hats. But no one can find her the perfect hat, stories. Monsters, stowaways, jealous courtiers and lost until one special little girl comes along. This is a very islands – this is a great start to a series that promises a stylish story about love, community and friendship, with lot to come. some fancy hats thrown in from the bestselling team Holly Harper is from Readings Carlton behind Iggy Peck, Architect and Rosie Revere, Engineer. READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2014 19

Book of the Month Did you know ... ? SAM & DAVE DIG A HOLE The first time Alison Lester Mac Barnett & Jon Klassen (illus.) rode a horse was as a baby in her Walker. HB. $24.95 father’s arms. She still lives in Rejoice readers, two of children’s literature’s celebrated creators are back the country and rides her horse, together again with their wry humour and unique take on the world. Sam and Dave Woollyfoot, whenever she can. are on a mission to find something ‘spectacular’. This involves digging and quite a lot of it. They dig a dirty big hole and find nothing spectacular – in fact, they find nothing! Maybe they need to change direction, so instead of down they head across. Are you getting the picture? Is there treasure in the ground? Their dog seems to know Non-fiction but unfortunately Sam and Dave aren’t paying too much attention to him. To tell more would spoil it. However, let me guarantee you this: you will chuckle at what you ANIMALIUM: WELCOME TO THE can see and Sam and Dave cannot. You will also delight in Jon Klassen’s masterful MUSEUM BOOK ONE ownership of the page as he quietly lets uncluttered expanses tell the story of that quintessential kids’ activity of digging for treasure. Mac Barnett has thrown in Katie Scott & Jenny Broom some classic twists and in an Alice in Wonderland-type climax, where Sam Five Mile. HB. $39.95 and Dave go falling, falling down the hole, he plays with your powers of If you know what a Sirenia or a observation and asks the existential question: which reality are they Pinnipedia are, you may think really in? Kids’ picture books don’t get any better than this and, of you don’t need this book, but oh yes course, it will win awards. For ages 3 and up. you do! Looking like some forgotten volume that has surfaced from a Alexa Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn nineteenth-century explorer’s library, Animalium features stunning illustrations in superb hues printed on deliciously thick paper. It is a beautiful keepsake. Tempted yet? No? Then maybe the fascinating animal facts contained within this biblio- museum will win you over. Take the awesome Gila monster (Heloderma suspectum), which if you go underground in North America you may encounter. It’s a THE ICICLE ILLUMINARIUM venomous lizard, so don’t get too close – meet one in this book instead. To put this large and handsome book into N.J. Gemmell the hands of children is to offer a world that is majestic Random House. PB. $16.99 and amazing. Come on, be dazzled! For adventurers and In the sequel to The Kensington nature-lovers of all ages. AD Reptilarium, Kick, Bert, Scruff and Pin New are rejoicing because Dad’s been CHILDREN’S BOOK OF MAGIC found! But he’s ill from his wartime Dorling Kindersley experiences, and he’s sent away to Dorling Kindersley. HB. $29.99 recover. Then a hint from the butler sets their hearts racing. Could their Trace the history of magic from ancient mother still be alive too? The four Kids’ Egypt to the present day and explore siblings begin a wild goose chase to the secrets behind some of the greatest search for clues. But it all goes terribly magicians from Harry Houdini to wrong when they’re kidnapped and imprisoned in The Albertus Magnus. From coin tricks to Icicle Illuminarium, the coldest, loneliest and most sleight of hand, this book explains the falling-down mansion in England. best magic tricks for kids through Books engaging step-by-step sequences. With AWFUL AUNTIE eight schools of magic and 20 magic tricks inside, you’ll learn how to cut a person in half, make objects levitate or even David Walliams disappear! HarperCollins. PB. $19.99 Novelty From larger than life, tiddlywinks- THE 52-STOREY TREEHOUSE obsessed Awful Aunt Alberta to her DIARY 2015 pet owl, Wagner, this is an adventure Classic of the Month with a difference. Aunt Alberta is on a Andy Griffiths & Terry Denton (illus.) mission to cheat the young Lady Stella Pan Mac. HB. $12.99 THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH Saxby out of her inheritance – Saxby $9.99 Norton Juster Hall. But with mischievous and As there are 52 weeks in the year, it’s HarperCollins. PB. $12.99 irrepressible Soot, the cockney ghost definitely time for The 52-Storey For a child reader, there are of a chimney sweep, alongside her, Treehouse Diary 2015. With each week books that, on first reading, Stella is determined to fight back. And corresponding to a level of the create an immediate and enduring sometimes a special friend, however different, is all you treehouse (Week One, Level One, and impression. These books feel deeply need to win through. so on), this diary is guaranteed to personal, and seem to speak directly excite all treehouse fans, who can now to the reader. In Norton Juster’s The GOTH GIRL AND THE FETE explore each crazy layer of Andy Phantom Tollbooth, first published in WORSE THAN DEATH Griffith and Terry Denton’s treehouse 1961, Milo is feeling bored and Chris Riddell as they plot their way through the year. increasingly detached from the Pan Mac. HB. $19.99 world around him. Returning home THE ULTIMATE CONSTRUCTION Preparations for the Ghastly-Gorm from school one afternoon, he finds a parcel waiting in his Garden Party and bake-off are SITE BOOK bedroom. Unwrapping it, Milo discovers a magic underway. Celebrity cooks are Anne-Sophie Baumann & Didier Balicevic tollbooth. Driving through in his toy car, Milo enters a arriving at the hall for the big event Chronicle Books. HB. $29.95 strange world, inhabited by creatures such as the lazy and and, true to form, Maltravers, the The sounds, sights and activity of a time-wasting Lethargarians; a watchdog named Tock, indoor gamekeeper, is acting construction site provide endless with an alarm clock for a body; and the princesses Rhyme suspiciously. Elsewhere at Ghastly- fascination. Packed with more than 60 and Reason. Milo’s journey and adventures have a lasting Gorm, Ada’s wardrobe-dwelling lady’s tabbed moving parts to pull, lift and impact, allowing the young hero to see the real world in a maid Marylebone has received a explore, and crammed with meticulous new way. Comparable to Alice in Wonderland and The marriage proposal. Ada vows to aid the course of true love detail of vehicles, buildings and Wizard of Oz, Juster’s book is a delightful and inventive and find out what Maltravers is up to, but amid all this techniques, here’s a book that will fantasy, full of energy and creative wordplay. activity, everyone, including her father, appears to have satisfy even the most curious of kids. Mark Azzopardi is from Readings Hawthorn forgotten her birthday! A wonderful companion to The Ultimate Book of Vehicles. 20 READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2014

ANGELINA’S HANDMADE THE SLOW FIX THE MEN WHO CINDERELLA HOUSES AND Carl Honore UNITED THE Katharine Holabird OTHER HB. Was $35 STATES & Helen Craig BUILDINGS Now $16.95 Simon Winchester HB. Was $24.99 John May The Slow Fix extends PB. Was $29.99 Now $14.99 the movement defined HB. Was $29.95 Now $15.95 Angelina’s Cinderella is a gorgeous picture Now $15.95 by Carl Honore in the The Men Who United the bestselling, In Praise book for all budding ballerinas to treasure, Handmade Houses and Other Buildings States is a lively and erudite look at the way of Slow. In this new book Honore offers complete with a pop-up finale that includes looks at everyday structures all over in which the most powerful nation on earth a recipe for problem-solving that can be a theatre stage and pull-out characters. In the world, made in ways that offered came together. Simon Winchester follows applied to every walk of life. He reveals this story about everyone’s favourite mouse practical solutions to the challenges of in the footsteps of America’s most essential how the problems today are bigger and ballerina, Angelina is working hard as the climate or terrain. Based on the principles explorers, thinkers and innovators, whose more urgent than ever before, and why it’s lead in the Cinderella Dance Tour. When immemorial that define vernacular achievements forged and unified America. not worth settling for short-term solutions. an accident happens it’s up to Angelina and architecture, these buildings show ways in Throughout, he ponders whether the her friends to save the show. historic work of uniting the States has which humans have worked out how to live THE VALLEY in harmony with their surroundings. succeeded, and to what degree. CATASTROPHE OF Max Hastings MY AMAZEMENT PANORAMA HB. Was $50 BARCELONA Amy Tan OF THE Now $24.95 KITCHEN HB. Was $39.99 CLASSICAL In 1914, Europe plunged Now $16.95 Sophie Ruggles WORLD into the twentieth Spanning 50 years and HB. Was $45 Nigel Spivey & century’s first terrible two continents, The Valley Now $24.95 Michael Squire act of self-immolation of Amazement dramatises the Inspired by her day-to-day PB. Was $33.95 – what was then called The Great War. In collapse of China’s imperial encounters as a local in Now $19.95 Catastrophe: Europe Goes to War 1914, Max dynasty and the secret the heart of Barcelona, This illustrated reference book brings Hastings seeks to explain how the conflict life of the courtesan Australian-born Sophie Greeks, Etruscans and Romans to vivid life came about, and what befell millions of house. In this novel Ruggles brings to for the general reader, and even significantly men and women during the first months of Amy Tan returns life this vibrant city expands the knowledge of the professional strife. His narrative pricks myths and offers to the compelling with her colourful scholar. Drawing not only from original some controversial judgements. territory of The Joy collection of recipes, Bargain sources, but also on the fascinating new Luck Club and with approaches to Classical life and civilization stories and images. THE her characteristically that have been developed in recent decades, My Barcelona Kitchen elegant humour, she Panorama of the Classical World is relevant COMPLETE displays the full culinary Table conjures a story of the to contemporary discussions. ASIAN diversity Spain has to offer, inheritance of love. COOKBOOK from authentic recipes such as A HISTORY OF Charmaine Solomon a hearty Catalan fishermen’s stew SILENCE: A CRICKET IN HB. Was $59.95 and a melt-in-the-mouth baked caramel Now $24.95 custard, to irresistible modern tapas treats. CHRISTIAN 100 OBJECTS Charmaine Solomon’s influential and iconic HISTORY Gavin Mortimer The Complete Asian Cookbook covers 800 MUSIC AT Diarmaid HB. Was $24.99 classic and contemporary dishes from MIDNIGHT MacCulloch Now $13.95 fifteen countries including India, Pakistan, John Drury HB. Was $39.99 A History of Cricket in Now $14.95 Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, HB. Was $49.99 100 Objects presents a captivating century Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Now $16.95 Diarmaid MacCulloch unravels a of tales through objects. Award-winning sports author Gavin Mortimer has brought the Philippines, China, Korea and Japan. In this most satisfying polyphony of silences from the history together a cast of salt-of-the-earth Written with the home cook in mind, biography of an of Christianity and beyond. Besides Yorkshiremen, American billionaires and her recipes are easy to follow, while her exceptional English poet, John Drury prayer and mystical contemplation, there dashing Indian princes to tell the strange introductions to chapters and recipes share places George Herbert’s poetry in the are shame and evasion, careless and and remarkable tale of cricket’s journey, valuable information about how dishes are context of the poet’s life and times. The purposeful forgetting – many deliberate from medieval village sport of ‘club-ball’ to normally prepared and presented. Herbert he presents is not the saintly silences are revealed. the global media circus. figure who has come down to us from John COOKED Aubrey, but a man knowingly torn between THE WORLD Michael Pollan worldly ambition and the spiritual life. UNTIL FREEMASONRY PB. Was $29.99 YESTERDAY W. Kirk MacNulty Now $12.95 PINOCCHIO Jared Diamond HB. Was $49.95 Now $24.95 Michael Pollan’s most Michael Morpurgo PB. Was $29.99 recent book is a clarion- & Emma Chichester Now $14.95 Written by a practising call for the virtues and Clark (illus.) Jared Diamond reveals Freemason, this values of proper cooking. HB. Was $29.99 how tribal societies offer illustrated survey explores the origins, In a series of encounters with chefs from Now $14.95 an extraordinary window history, beliefs and symbolism of this famously secretive and frequently around the world, Pollan takes us on a In this playful into how our ancestors lived for millions misunderstood Order. Completely journey through the fundamentals of interpretation of the classic story, Michael of years. Reflecting on his experiences international in its outlook, the book has cooking, uncovering the inner mysteries Morpurgo allows Pinocchio – ‘just about working and living in New Guinea, an island that is home to 1,000 of the world’s also had the special assistance of the United of everything from tiny specks of yeast the most famous puppet the world has 7,000 languages, The World Until Yesterday Grand Lodge of England, the oldest and to a whole hog roast. The result is both ever known’ – to tell his story in his own is his most personal book to date, and foremost Masonic body in the world. extremely funny, and surprisingly heartfelt. inimitable, cheeky way. Illustrated by the brilliantly original. acclaimed Emma Chichester Clark, here is a EDWARD III charming adaptation of a much-loved tale. BOYHOOD AND THE EAT: THE ISLAND TRIUMPH OF A ROUGH LITTLE BOOK Karl Ove ENGLAND RIDE TO THE OF FAST Knausgaard PB. Was $33 Richard Barber FUTURE FOOD Nigel Slater Now $12.95 HB. Was $49.99 James Lovelock HB. Was $45 The third book of the Now $16.95 HB. Was $35 Now $24.95 My Struggle cycle is set With Edward III and the Triumph of Now $13.95 Eat is a highly innovative classic from cook in a world where children and adults live England, author and historian Richard Independent scientist, parallel lives, ones that never meet. Karl and food writer Nigel Slater. Returning to Barber has created a fascinating portrait of environmentalist and Ove Knausgaard writes of a child’s growing the territory of his bestselling Real Fast one of England’s most charismatic monarchs futurist James Lovelock is the great scientific self-awareness, of how events of the past Food, this cookbook is bursting with simple and the world he inhabited so completely. visionary of our age. In A Rough Ride to the impact on the present, and of the desire and quick-to-cook recipes, all packaged in This is a book about knighthood, battle Future, he contends that instead of feeling for other ways of living and other worlds a stylish and practical flexible format that’s tactics and grand strategy, but it is also guilty about our impact on the Earth’s within what we know. easy to read and use anywhere. a book about fashion, literature and the atmosphere we should recognise what is private lives of everyone from queens to happening and prepare for change, so we can freebooters. contribute to the next evolution of Gaia. New books are regularly added to our website – visit the bargains page at readings.com.au for more. READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2014 21

New Film & TV life. First released in 1977, this film is happily available again after spending years DVD of the Month with Lou Fulco in the DVD wilderness. A YOUNG DOCTOR’S QUIRKE GARDENING WITH SOUL $29.95 NOTEBOOK: SEASON 1 $29.95 Available 8 October $29.95 Set against a rich, ‘You like gardening – review this,’ so said the Readings DVD Jon Hamm and Daniel smouldering backdrop of buyer. Yes, I do like gardening, though I’m not a keen Radcliffe star in this whiskey-soaked bars and documentary watcher. But my protests fell on deaf ears and I found pitch-black comedy about a elegant houses brimming myself spending a Sunday evening watching Gardening with Soul, a young doctor beginning his with sexual tension, Quirke feature-length documentary about Sister Loyola Galvin, head new life in a small, is a bold drama adapted gardener at the Home of Compassion convent in Island Bay, New backwards Russian village from the books of John Zealand. I was expecting to pick up a few gardening tips (I did learn that mixing seaweed full of superstitious, poorly Banville. A consultant into your compost is a good thing), but the gardening element is more a backdrop for the educated patients. The medical graduate’s pathologist in the Dublin city morgue in the story of a very extraordinary life. The documentary is broken up into the four seasons, brutal introduction to his practice is 1950s, Quirke (Gabriel Byrne) is more at beginning with the winter of Sister Loyola’s ninetieth year. As she potters around, she narrated by his older, more experienced ease among the cold silent slabs than the explains what needs to be done in the garden each season while reflecting on her life. self. Set on the eve of the Russian company of his fellow men. His fascination She tells of the special bond with her father, her determination to become a nurse during Revolution, the show is based on Mikhail with unlocking the secret to these cadavers’ Bulgakov’s A Country Doctor’s Notebook, a deaths leads him to turn detective, and to ‘I was expecting to pick up a few gardening tips ... but the gardening collection of short fictions largely based on delve deep into the secrets of Dublin. his own experiences. element is more a backdrop for the story of a very extraordinary life’ UTOPIA the war, of losing the love of her life and of making the decision to become a nun. We HOMELAND: SEASON 3 $39.95 meet some of the people she has influenced over the years, as a carer for disadvantaged $54.95 Available 3 October children and as an advocate for community gardens. The third season of In this new eight-part In the end, I did enjoy watching Gardening with Soul. Sister Loyola is a spirited, Homeland opens during the political satire series, lively old lady, who isn’t afraid to say what she thinks. She denounces child abusers, aftermath of the horrific acclaimed Australian both inside the church and out. I remember a particular moment when she likens terror attack that comedy team Working Dog children to young seedlings, saying if they have a bad start in life, they struggle to decimated the US take a look at the un-costed thrive. This is a heart-warming documentary that you don’t have to be a gardener to intelligence apparatus and grand dreams and white enjoy – there are little pearls of wisdom for everyone. prompted a global manhunt elephants that have become Sharon Peterson is from Readings Carlton for the world’s most wanted terrorist: Nick the new political currency of Australia, Brody. As Carrie and Saul begin to pick up including desalination plants, very fast the pieces of their shattered professional trains, broadband networks and property torture and death, and the series sheds lives, they are swept up in the political and developments. Utopia is the perfect follow- new light on a dark and bloody chapter media firestorm surrounding the terror up to their 2008 show The Hollowmen, of European history. attack and the subsequent search for which was a hilarious look at the spin Brody’s whereabouts. doctors behind our leading politicians. THE TRIP TO ITALY $29.95 THE LAST WAVE INQUISITION Available 8 October $19.95 $29.95 In the follow-up to the Available 8 October Directed by Peter Weir, and smash hit The Trip, Steve starring Richard In more enlightened Coogan and Rob Brydon Chamberlain and David times, it is almost embark on a new culinary BEST Gulpilil, The Last Wave is a impossible for us to road trip across Italy, where haunting journey into the understand the power and they enjoy mouth-watering AUSTRALIAN depths of the unknown, a influence of religion in meals in the gorgeous FILMS UNDER $20 place where nightmares years gone by. Next to the surroundings of Liguria, Tuscany, Rome, Readings has a selection of Australian conspire as one. When royalty, the clergy were Amalfi and Capri. As they dine and drive, films on offer for less than $20 each, with lawyer David Burton is assigned to defend a the most powerful people, and the eyes they riff on subjects as varied as Batman’s memorable classics such as Monkey Grip group of Indigenous Australian men, he is and the ears of the Inquisition were vocal register, Pompeii, the artistic merits of and Ten Canoes. Now available in all Readings shops and unprepared for the dangerous and strange everywhere. Inquisition is a saga of nearly Jagged Little Pill and, of course, who can do online at readings.com.au until 31 October. mysteries the case will reveal in his own 500 years of bigotry, fear, persecution, the best Michael Caine impression.

From October 23, advance screenings Oct 17-19 380 Lygon Street Carlton Melbourne’s home of quality arthouse and contemporary cinema cinemanova.com.au 22 READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2014

New Music POPULAR PROBLEMS Leonard Cohen Album of the Month $21.95 Pop & Rock DOWN WHERE THE SPIRIT MEETS In his thirteenth studio THE BONE album, Leonard Cohen Lucinda Williams LAURA JEAN delves deep into the $24.95. 2CDs Laura Jean avenues of our dreams, of $19.95 hope and despair, of grief Since coming to and joy. An astonished lover rocking to the Lucinda Williams must be one of the best American artists prominence with her 2006 human condition as ‘the soul unfolds in of the past three decades, both as a songwriter and singer. debut release Our the chambers of its longing’, Cohen’s Her career took a long time to get going; Williams achieved initial success when Swansong, Laura Jean has legendary basso resonates as never before others began to cover her songs. Most notably, Mary Chapin Carpenter released risen to become a singular with a presence and urgency that arises ‘Passionate Kisses’ in 1993 – it became a Top 5 hit and won a Grammy Award for Best voice in Australian music. In this self-titled from the depths of the heart. The clarity Country Song. Williams’s own recording career took off with the release of Car album, recorded with producer John and strength of these nine hypnotic songs Wheels On a Gravel Road in 1998, for which she won a Grammy and would sell close Parish, Jean alternates between honest is undeniable, and will not disappoint fans. to a million copies. Her recording output has increased since then, with no let up in portraits of domestic life and allegorical quality: Essence (2001), World Without Tears (2003), West (2007), Little Honey tales of a dream world. The album’s tone is HAVENS DUMB (2008) and Blessed (2011) are all excellent albums and well worth buying if you don’t sparse and delicate – only occasionally Augie March already own them. Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone is Williams’s first double album. It breaking out into full-bodied arrangements $21.95 as in ‘June’ and ‘Don’t Marry the One You includes a song crafted from a poem written by her father, the poet Miller Williams, One of Australia’s best- who has described the similarities in their work: ‘My poetry and her songs, you could Love’ – yet, what at first seems beguilingly loved bands of the past few gentle, insistently pulls you in deeper and decades, acclaimed deeper with every listen. Melbourne indie rockers ‘As listeners, we have lived her heartbreak many times; she is a Augie March return after a songwriter who has always exposed her own life, particularly her DEAD MAN’S TOWN: A five-year hiatus. Distilled from ‘thirty-odd personal relationships.’ TRIBUTE TO BORN IN tracks’ and inspired by ‘times passing, loss, THE U.S.A. dislocation, distance, new hope and healthy say they both have dirt under the fingernails.’ It’s also an apt description of the life- Various anger’, Havens Dumb was recorded over a hardened characters who appear in Williams’s songs. As listeners, we have lived her $21.95 year in two Melbourne studios, before heartbreak many times; she is a songwriter who has always exposed her own life, vocals and overdubs were completed in To celebrate the thirtieth particularly her personal relationships. This songwriting matched with her well-lived Hobart, Brunswick and Yarraville. The anniversary of Bruce voice is a wonderful combination. album is mixed beautifully by old friend Springsteen’s landmark This album is peppered with some exceptionally familiar names, including and engineer illuminati Paul McKercher. 1984 album, Born in the long-time Elvis Costello collaborators Pete Thomas and Davey Faragher, guitarist Bill Frisell, iconic Faces keyboardist Ian McLagan, guitarist Stuart Mathis from the U. S. A., Luther Dickinson OZ of North Mississippi Allstars has stripped Wallflowers, vocals from Jakob Dylan, and the distinctive guitar tones of Tony Joe Springsteen’s 12 indelible original tracks to Missy Higgins White. The 20 new songs here might quite possibly make for the album of Williams’s the core on the premise that ‘any of those $21.95. Deluxe book edition $54.95 career, which is no small statement when you consider the quality of her previous songs could be played with acoustic guitar Missy Higgins’s latest albums. This release, in my opinion, currently leads the album of the year stakes. alone and still be great’. This powerful release OZ is a beautiful, Dave Clarke is from Readings Carlton tribute album features contributions from clothbound edition of a Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires, Low, covers album with an Nicole Atkins, Justin Townes Earle, accompanying book of Ross Hannaford, Greg Macainsh, Red Affect is a perfect blend of soul, hip-hop, Trampled By Turtles, Blitzen Trapper, Joe essays. In the album, Higgins re-imagines 15 Symons and Shirley Strachan, as well as dub and reggae-esque influences. Pug and more. Australian songs that were originally author Helen Garner. Taking its title from recorded by a diverse set of artists including the famous song by the scene’s best-known STANDING IN THE The Angels, Slim Dusty, Something for Kate, band, Skyhooks, the album also presents a Jazz BREACH Warumpi Band, Paul Kelly and the Drones. glimpse of the birth of Melbourne’s hugely In the book, Missy uses each of those Jackson Browne influential 3RRR-FM. LAST DANCE $21.95 recordings as the starting point for her writing. The album and book can also be Keith Jarrett & Charlie Haden Singer–songwriter SYRO bought separately. $24.95 Jackson Browne’s Aphex Twin Keith Jarrett and Charlie fourteenth studio album, $19.95 THIS IS ALL YOURS Haden broaden the scope Standing in the Breach, is a alt-J of their duo project to collection of 10 songs, at Aphex Twin is the $21.95 showcase jazz classics like turns deeply personal and political, pseudonym of British Thelonious Monk’s ‘Round exploring love, hope and defiance in the electronic musician Midnight’ and Bud Powell’s ‘Dance of the face of the advancing uncertainties of The much-anticipated Richard D James and Syro Infidels’. Love songs make up the body of modern life. Accompanying Jackson on second album from alt-J is is his first album in more their selection, with tenderly wrought the album are longtime bandmates: Val finally here. A triumph of than 13 years. In true Aphex Twin style, the versions of ‘My Old Flame’, ‘My Ship’, ‘It McCallum (guitar), Mauricio Lewak pop-infused melodrama, details around the album’s release have been Might as Well Be Spring’ and more. The (drums), Jeff Young (keyboards) and Bob This Is All Yours features mysterious and cryptic. In an interview with music of Last Dance was recorded at Keith Glaub (bass), with the addition of lush music of cinematic scope, indelible Rolling Stone, James said Syro only grazes Jarrett’s home studio at the same time as acclaimed multi-instrumentalist Greg melodies and Joe Newman’s instantly the surface of his recent work: ‘It’s about a their lauded Jasmine album of 2010. Leisz (guitar, lap steel, pedal steel). recognisable vocals. The album’s fifth of what I’ve done in the last 10 years. spellbinding lead track, ‘Hunger of the Pine’, One album out of many possible ones.’ ART OFFICIAL AGE & samples Miley Cyrus’s song, ‘4x4’. The Folk & World PLECTRUMELECTRUM majority of songs on This Is All Yours were CAUSE ’N AFFECT Prince written during alt-J’s tour of their Mercury- Radical Son prize winning album, An Awesome Wave. $21.95 each $24.95 UNCLE This month sees the Available 10 October Frank Yamma WHEN THE SUN SETS $24.95 release of two new studio OVER CARLTON Effortlessly crossing albums from music icon genres from soul to Available 24 October Various Prince: Art Official Age, a hip-hop and beyond, Frank Yamma is one of $34.95. 2CDs solo album; and Radical Son is a standout Australia’s most significant Available 10 October PlectrumElectrum, created together with his vocalist and songwriter Indigenous songwriters. band 3rd Eye Girl. The former is a This deluxe 2CD release like no other. Drawing on his Indigenous He has the ability to cross contemporary concoction of soul, R&B and documents the arts- and heritage from the Kamilaroi nation of cultural and musical funk featuring rich, solid vocals, while the politics-infused rock Australia and the South Pacific nation of boundaries: when he sings, you listen and latter is an electrifying funk-rock statement. scene that gave Tonga, Radical Son’s music and stories travel with him. This eagerly anticipated Yet, both are classic Prince, featuring Melbourne and Australia conjure uncompromising visions of follow-up to Countryman shows the decidedly seductive lyrics and immediate such multi-faceted cultural icons as Paul mercilessly deconstructing what is, and continuity of a musician that is hitting his melodies that take full advantage of the Kelly, Joe Camilleri, Stephen Cummings, forever imagining what could be. Featuring peak with grace and conviction, and features musician’s astonishing vocal range. Jane Clifton, Peter Lillie, Ross Wilson, spoken word by Archie Roach, Cause ’n songs of country, protection, travel and love. READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2014 23

New Classical Music WALTON & HINDEMITH: piece: ‘Over the years composers have used CELLO CONCERTOS pre-existing music (folk or classical) as material for new pieces of their own. Christian Poltéra Classical Album of the Month “Radio Rewrite”, along with “Proverb” BIS. BIS2077. $29.95 (Perotin) and “Finishing the Hat – Two Paul Hindemith and BRAHMS: THE PIANO TRIOS Pianos” (Sondheim), is my modest William Walton enjoyed a contribution to this genre.’ He continues, Oliver Schnyder Trio long friendship, and just a ‘Being a composer who works with musical Sony. 88843095422. 2CDs. $24.95 few months before notation I chose to reference two songs When I listen to Brahms’s Piano Trio No. 1 in B Major, the Hindemith’s death in 1963 from Radiohead for an ensemble of thought always crosses my mind that it was so close to Walton celebrated the association with his musicians playing non-rock instruments: being destroyed. Brahms destroyed all his early works, including orchestral Variations on a Theme by “Everything in Its Right Place” and “Jigsaw the ones that everyone else praised. And then he continued this habit if something Hindemith, based on the principal theme of Falling into Place”.’ didn’t meet his strict ideas of perfection. He laboured over every note to create ‘pure the slow movement of Hindemith’s Cello music’, unlike other composers of the time such as Liszt, who liked to write music Concerto. Both works are expansive ESCAPE TO PARADISE: with a story attached. This ‘Piano Trio No. 1’, however, does not sound laboured in its three-movement pieces, employing large THE HOLLYWOOD ALBUM forces – Walton’s concerto memorably performance by the Oliver Schnyder Trio. By some miracle, this is the only work to Daniel Hope survive in two versions, and luckily for us we have both on this recording: the includes a vibraphone, while Hindemith, in DG. 4792954. $24.95 original composition from Brahms’s twentieth year of 1854 and a revised one from his finale, gives the celesta an important 1891. Both are exquisite in their own way, the first being fresh from a composer at the role. As a contrast to these two powerful On his latest album, Daniel beginning of his stellar career, and the second with a few tweaks here and there and mid-century scores, Christian Poltéra also Hope shines a new light on the value of hindsight. By contrast, the other two piano trios are from later in his life, performs Hindemith’s Sonata for Solo Cello Hollywood scores as he with ‘Piano Trio No. 3 in C Minor’ from his fifty-third year. Although this Trio feels and Walton’s Passacaglia for Solo Cello. On takes a widescreen musical heavier compared to the lightness found in Trio No. 1, as if life has weighed him the cello concertos he is given great journey, seeking out the down, it’s rich in detail and you can tell that there is not a note out of place. support by Frank Shipway and the São echoes of exiled European composers, such Premiered by Brahms himself after it was completed while he was on holidays, Paulo Symphony Orchestra. as Miklos Rózsa, John Waxman, Hanns this is a work that caught me and kept me enthralled. The Oliver Schnyder Trio Eisler and Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The really do a marvellous job on these works, bringing every aspect we love about YOU MEAN THE WORLD centrepiece is the famous Violin Concerto Brahms to the fore. Precise rhythms, and flowing and rich dynamics – this is such TO ME by Korngold. The album also contains soundtrack classics such as Schindler’s List, delightful recording. Do not let it disappear to history like Brahms consigned so Jonas Kaufmann many of his works. American Beauty and Cinema Paradiso to Sony. 88843087712. $24.95 reflect on the strong musical influence these Kate Rockstrom is a friend of Readings Jonas Kaufmann dedicates exiled composers had and still have on his new album to the contemporary film composers. Guest artists JS BACH: CELLO of the Bach Cello Suites stands proudly golden era of German featuring on this record includes Sting, who SUITES 1–6 beside those of Casals, Rostropovich, and music that flourished in performs in a new arrangement on ‘The of course du Pré. Berlin between 1925 and Secret Marriage’, a Hanns Eisler Nina Kotova 1935. He shows an undeniable mastery of composition, and German singer Max Raabe Warner Classics. 2564639411. 2CDs. $24.95 Alexandra Mathew is from Readings Carlton this demanding repertoire, which was on the famous ‘Speak Low’ by Kurt Weill. Of all the recordings TOMKINS: WHEN DAVID written for the leading tenors of the time. In of the Bach Cello particular, ‘Das Lied vom Leben des HAYDN: PIANO HEARD Suites, since Pablo Casals Schrenk’ by Künneke has only been CONCERTOS rediscovered the suites at Freddie James, Choir of St John’s recorded three times before and is hugely Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Manchester the end of the nineteenth- College & Andrew Nethsingha challenging vocally. The repertoire ranges Camerata & Gábor Takács-Nagy century, remarkably few Chandos. CHAN0804. $29.95 from the Lehár–Tauber hits of the Roaring Chandos. CHAN10808. $29.95 are by women. Perhaps women have been Thomas Tomkins, born in Twenties until the heyday of the mid 1930s, hesitant to enter what has hitherto been a 1572, was one of the most which saw the eventual expulsion and Jean-Efflam Bavouzet is very male-dominated sphere for fear of accomplished and versatile banning of the composers, lyricists and recognised today as one of being branded comparatively unfit for the English composers of his singers who had defined the genre, and the world’s finest epic task. Of course, Nina Kotova stands era. A total mastery of draws from three strands of musical history interpreters of Haydn’s out for more than just her gender, but that contrapuntal technique and expressive (talking movies, operetta and polystylistic piano works. In this she is one of a handful of women since intensity are hallmarks of his style. Here, the composers). The album naturally also concerto recording he performs in Jacqueline du Pré (suites 1 & 2, 1962) to Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge, includes operetta evergreens by the partnership with the conductor Gábor record the suites is astonishing. Although performs a collection of choral works unbeatable composer–tenor pairing of Takács-Nagy, the two united by an relatively young, the Russian-born cellist complemented by several pieces for organ. Franz Lehàr and Richard Tauber. admiration for Haydn’s infectious good has racked up an impressive CV, giving her Canticles from two of Tomkins’s services are humour and art of the unexpected. Of the first solo performance with orchestra aged included, the pieces from the complex and STEVE REICH: RADIO 12 keyboard concertos carrying Haydn’s only 11. Kotova’s recording demonstrates a ambitious Third Service contrasting with REWRITE name, the third, fourth and eleventh, raw emotion and gutsiness belying the recorded here, are the best known. The those of the more modest Sixth. The four Alan Pierson & Alarm Will Sound angelic portrait photo on the CD cover, concertos in F and G major are early works, fine verse anthems recorded here reveal the Nonesuch. 7559795470. $24.95 and an intelligence that could only be range in Tomkins’s expressive capabilities. simply constructed with graceful keyboard Co-commissioned for and possessed by the most worldly-wise Four full anthems are also performed, writing. One finds plenty of Haydnesque recorded by Alarm Will musician. She plays with intention and including the famous ‘When David Heard charm and spirit in these scores, both of Sound, the title piece precision, and enviable virtuosity that Absalom Was Slain’, a portrayal of the which also feature specially touching slow references two songs by the especially apparent during the Suite grief that King David experienced at the movements. By contrast, the Keyboard English band Radiohead. number 6 in D major. Interestingly, Kotova death of his son. This melancholic mood is Concerto in D Major is full of strikingly Alan Pierson conducts this premiere plays the Du Pré Stradivarius, formerly continued in the best-known of the dramatic contrasts and characteristic wit. recording of ‘Radio Rewrite’, which was played by du Pré herself. Kotova’s tone is keyboard works on this disc, ‘A Sad Pavan The infectious Hungarian Rondo finale composed in 2012. Reich says of his new rich, earthy and warm, and her recording for These Distracted Times’. brings the concerto to a rousing conclusion.

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from Text, the Small Publisher riveting reads of the Year 2012, 2013, 2014

The irresistible sequel to Ambitious, meticulously Sydney detective Harry Morgan is second-in- The stunning third novel in the The Rosie Project, an researched and spectacularly Belltree isn’t looking too command on the Impetus, the celebrated Neapolitan international smash hit. illustrated, this large format hard at a case involving the brig in search of novel series. Lila and Don and Rosie are married hardback depicts the an elderly couple’s suicide Franklin’s lost Arctic Elena, now in their thirties, and living in New York. everyday lives of the 73,000 pact—not until he links it expedition. As the ice are determined to forge Then Rosie drops a men, women and children to the car crash that killed closes in, the ship’s their own futures to flee a bombshell: she’s pregnant. transported to Van Diemen’s his parents, and goes captain begins to behave life of poverty, ignorance Professor Tillman is facing Land. off-grid to investigate. erratically. Then Morgan and submission. his greatest challenge yet. ‘A fascinating thrill-ride of A gripping thriller by learns there is a stowaway ‘The best angry woman ‘Clever, funny, and convict esoterica.’ bestselling author Barry aboard—a woman, writer ever.’ John Waters moving.’ Bill Gates Nick Cave Maitland. pregnant with his child.

Book club notes available at textpublishing.com.au

This fresh and delightful memoir is a literary gem.

A vivid return to a 1950s ‘I am deeply impressed with School Days. It’s beautifully written and provokes Australian country childhood elegiac feelings.’ … a hilarious and revealing — John Legge, lecturer and author

insight into Methodist ‘This frank and searching narrative is, in fact, Ladies’ College and its a compelling social document. The author boarding house of the day … demonstrates a remarkable ability to recall the details of her life in the middle of the a spiritual journey through 20th century in Australia, and to construct demons of teenage angst to from her joys and sorrows a memoir that is warm, thoughtful and inspirational.’ understanding and celebration. — Carmel Bird, author of Writing the Story of Your Life ‘The book intimates the pains of boarding school without becoming maudlin and ‘A meticulously documented and touching self-indulgent. The tone is perfect; the memoir of a sensitive and creative schoolgirl author gives everything its weight, but at boarding school in the early 1960s — a keeps a critical perspective which honours place where she was often cold, hungry and contradictory feelings without indulging sad, but also a place of astonishing discovery...’ ISBN 9780980757095 | 256pp | RRP $29.95 them … It’s quite magical.’ — Ursula Dubosarsky, author of www.wilddingopress.com.au — Valmai McDonald, educator and author The Golden Day [email protected]