FREE

OCTOBER 2018

New books from Shaun Tan, Liane Moriarty, William Boyd, Kate Atkinson, Markus Zusak, Clementine Ford, Haruki Murakami, Rosalie Ham, Clare Wright, Leigh Sales, Gillian Triggs, Fiona Wright and more!

BOOKS MUSIC FILM EVENTS

CAT POWER page 22

SHAUN TAN MARINA HARUKI MARKUS CLEMENTINE page 19 ABRAMOVIĆ MURAKAMI ZUSAK FORD IN BRAZIL page 6 page 6 page 12 page 21

CARLTON 309 LYGON ST 9347 6633 KIDS 315 LYGON ST 9341 7730 DONCASTER WESTFIELD DONCASTER, 619 DONCASTER RD 9810 0891 HAWTHORN 701 GLENFERRIE RD 9819 1917 MALVERN 185 GLENFERRIE RD 9509 1952 ST KILDA 112 ACLAND ST 9525 3852 STATE LIBRARY VICTORIA 285-321 RUSSELL ST 8664 7540 | SEE SHOP OPENING HOURS, BROWSE AND BUY ONLINE AT WWW.READINGS.COM.AU A chilling debut thriller A subversive, Ophelia possesses two When Romans invade When Australia’s from the new master entertaining noir novel secret gifts: she can Iron-Age Wales, Ailia suffrage campaigners of Arctic crime. and an unconventional read the souls of objects, must return from exile were the first to win the When hunters find a crime story from the and travel through and embrace her destiny vote, the world looked mummified Viking out winner of the 2018 Man mirrors. A Winter’s as a Songwoman to the trailblazing on the remote ice sheet, Booker International. Promise, the first book to save her people. young Federation journalist Matthew In a remote Polish in the bestselling French For fans of Game of for inspiration. A Cave is sent to cover village, eccentric fantasy series The Mirror Thrones and Outlander, groundbreaking work the story. The next day Duszjeko recounts the Visitor, will appeal to fans Songwoman is the story of storytelling and the mummy is gone, and events surrounding the of Philip Pullman and of one woman's quest scholarship from Clare the policeman guarding disappearance of Cornelia Funke. to defend her culture Wright, historian and it has been gutted her two dogs. ‘Stands on the and an exploration Stella Prize winner of and flayed. Now Matt ‘A strongly voiced same shelf as Harry of the ties between The Forgotten is in danger and only existential thriller.’ Potter.’ Elle people and their land, Rebels of Eureka. Tupaarnaq, a young Inuit Guardian and what happens ‘A reminder of our woman, can help him. when they are broken. proud legacy and a ‘A sparkling piece of clarion call for who we writing.’ Jane Rawson can be.’ Penny Wong

A revealing scientific The long-anticipated The long-awaited final The laugh-out-loud A stunning full-colour investigation of Europe's final instalment to the instalment of the series sequel to the 2017 book pairing unique formation and its role international bestselling that began with New Text Prize winner objects from the in the evolution of life Every Day series is here. York Times bestseller The Extremely Weird Tasmanian Museum on Earth, from one For A, life has always The Shadow of the Wind. Thing that Happened and Art Gallery with brilliant original writing of Australia’s most meant waking up in Daniel Sempere can in Huggabie Falls Now brilliant minds. This a different person’s never be happy, plagued encourages young about the island by in a new enthralling ecological body each and every by the mystery of his readers to embrace Heather Rose, Errol format history will change our day. A always thought mother’s death. Then the their fears. Everyone’s Flynn, Bob Brown and understanding of the there wasn’t anyone beautiful and enigmatic worst fears are turning more. Through diverse formation of species, else who had a life like Alicia Gris emerges from up and scaring them items such as a thylacine including our own. this. But A was wrong. the shadows to reveal out of town. Can Kipp, pincushion and a film ‘No one tells it better ‘Wise…wildly unique.’ the secret history of Tobias and Cymphany star’s travelling suitcase, than Tim Flannery.’ Entertainment Weekly his family, though at work out who is behind Island Story tells anew David Suzuki a terrifying price. the unbelievably scary the remarkable history 'A romantic fantasy for things and save the town of the southern state. book lovers.' Sydney of Huggabie Falls? Edited by Ralph Crane Morning Herald ‘Wonderfully weird and Danielle Wood. textpublishing.com.au and lots of fun!’ Andy Griffiths NEWS October 2018 READINGS MONTHLY 3

merit that presents Australian life in any of at the Norma Redpath Studio in Carlton. 3 for 2 sale on Haruki Murakami books its phases. Congratulations to de Kretser For more information about the Melbourne October To celebrate the release of Haruki for a well-deserved win. Prize for Literature, including a full list Murakami’s new novel, Killing of finalists in each category, please visit Commendatore, we are holding a 3 for 2 melbourneprize.org News sale on a selection of his backlist titles. Melbourne Prize for Literature 2018 Titles include favourites such as Norwegian finalists announced Wood, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, After The finalists in the Melbourne Prize for Man Booker Prize 2018 shortlist announced the Quake and many more classics to Literature 2018, Best Writing Award 2018 The Man Booker Prize shortlist for 2018 Readings State Library shop relocation discover or revisit. This offer is available in and the new Readings Residency Award has been announced. The six books on The Readings State Library shop has all Readings shops except Readings Kids 2018 have been announced. The finalists the 2018 shortlist are: Milkman by Anna moved! We are now situated at the newly until 31 October. Not available online. for the Melbourne Prize for Literature 2018 Burns; Washington Black by Esi Edugyan; opened Russell St entrance of State Library include authors Tony Birch, Gideon Haigh, Everything Under by Daisy Johnson; Victoria. Our new shop is much bigger, with Alison Lester, Christos Tsiolkas and Alexis The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner; an expanded children’s section, comfortable Readings Foundation grants 2019 Wright. The finalists for the inaugural The Overstory by Richard Powers and leather couches, and room for events. Applications for the Readings Foundation Readings Residency award are Marlee Jane The Long Take by Robin Robertson. The Find us just inside the library’s doors at Grants 2019 are now open. Established by Ward, Micheline Lee, and Jamie Marina prestigious prize is worth £50,000, and 285-321 Russell St, or via the library’s new Readings’ Managing Director Mark Rubbo Lau. The winner of the Readings Residency the winner will be announced on Tuesday accessible entrance on La Trobe Street. in 2009, the Readings Foundation assists award will receive $5,000 cash, a travel 16 October. Victorian organisations that support the voucher of $2,500 and a writer’s residency development of literacy, community work 25% off Lonely Planet and the arts. Readings donates 10% of its What better time than Spring to begin overall profits to the Readings Foundation planning for your next travel adventure? each year, and funds are also raised Luckily, the Readings Lonely Planet sale from donations by Readings’ customers. is on again, with 25% off all Lonely Planet To read about eligibility and previous titles throughout October. Whatever your grant recipients, as well as to apply for a travel style, Lonely Planet is brimming with grant please go to readings.com.au/the- inspiration to help you prepare for your readings-foundation perfect trip. The sale is on in all Readings shops and online at readings.com.au. Miles Franklin Literary Award 2018 winner Michelle de Kretser has been named 20% off vinyl the winner of this year’s Miles Franklin Readings is offering 20% off all full- Literary Award for her novel, The Life to priced vinyl for the month of October. Come. This is the second time de Kretser Handpicked by our music specialists, our has won the prestigious award. The Miles vinyl collection includes old favourites Franklin judges say The Life to Come ‘is alongside exciting new releases. Come a powerful novel that effortlessly blends in and chat with our music staff and sharp satire of the literary world with complete your own collection. This offer deeply compassionate portraits of lonely is available until 31 October. The discount people and their strategies for survival’. The applies to all full-priced, in-stock vinyl, Miles Franklin Literary Award is presented and is not available online. annually to a novel of the highest literary

READINGS MONTHLY EDITOR ADVERTISING PRICES AND AVAILABILITY Free, independent monthly newspaper Elke Power Ellen Cregan Please note that all prices and release published by Readings Books, Music & Film [email protected] [email protected] dates in Readings Monthly are correct at time of publication, however prices and SUBSCRIBE EDITORIAL ASSISTANT GRAPHIC DESIGN release dates may change without notice. You can subscribe to Readings Monthly Judi Mitchell Cat Matteson Special price offers apply only for the and our e-news by visiting our website: [email protected] colourcode.com.au month in which they are featured in the readings.com.au/sign-up Readings Monthly. PROOFREADERS FRONT COVER DELIVERY CHARGES FOR Marie Matteson and Ellen Cregan The October Readings Monthly cover Readings donates 10% of its profits each MAIL-ORDER PURCHASES features Shaun Tan’s illustration from the year to The Readings Foundation: $6 flat rate for anywhere in Australia KIDS/YA CURATORS cover of his new book, Tales from the Inner readings.com.au/the-readings-foundation Angela Crocombe and Dani Solomon City (A&U, HB, $35). For more about this DELIVERY CHARGES FOR book, see page 19. ONLINE PURCHASES MUSIC CURATOR $6 flat rate for anywhere in Australia for Dave Clarke CARTOON orders under $100. Free delivery on orders Oslo Davis $100 and over. CLASSICAL MUSIC CURATOR oslodavis.com Phil Richards

DVDS CURATOR Lou Fulco

EVENTS CURATOR Chris Gordon 4 READINGS MONTHLY October 2018 EVENTS

October Wednesday 3 October, 8pm–9pm Friday 5 October, 11am–12pm Thursday 11 October, 6.30pm SARAH WILSON ON KIDS FIONA WRIGHT IN Events HEALTHY EATING WITH A WRITING WORKSHOP CONVERSATION WITH ZERO-WASTE WITH KELLY GARDINER ANGELA MEYER Join us to hear Sarah Wilson talk about her AND AMIE KAUFMAN Come along to hear Fiona Wright discuss Event times and locations are subject to change. new book, I Quit Sugar: Simplicious Flow, Join authors Kelly Gardiner and Amie her brilliant new essay collection, The World For the most up-to-date information on events, and how to cook gut-healing, nutritionally Kaufman on a story-telling adventure to Was Whole, with Angela Meyer. See our please check readings.com.au/events dense, delicious food in less time, for less celebrate the release of Gardiner’s new review of The World Was Whole on page 12. money and with virtually no waste. novel, Brimstone, the first of The Firewatcher Readings Carlton, Chronicles. Kaufman and Gardiner will talk Melbourne Athenaeum, 309 Lygon Street, Carlton about writing cracking adventure stories, Monday 1 October, 6.30pm 188 Collins Street, Melbourne Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events and then we’ll all write one – together! Tickets are $50 per person, and include a signed CLARE WRIGHT IN first edition of I Quit Sugar: Simplicious Flow Readings Kids, Please book at readings.com.au/events 315 Lygon Street, Carlton CONVERSATION WITH Thursday 11 October, 6.30pm Tickets are $5 per person, redeemable off one of SALLY WARHAFT the books on the day, and places are very limited. We are thrilled to have historian Clare Wright Thursday 4 October, 6.30–7.30pm This workshop is suitable for readers aged 7+. JOHN NEWTON IN joining us to talk about her new book, You Please book at readings.com.au/events CONVERSATION Daughters of Freedom: The Australians Who Come along to hear food writer John Won the Vote and Inspired the World. Come SHAUN TAN IN CONVERSATION WITH Newton discuss his new book, The Getting along to hear Wright discuss women’s political Friday 5 October, 12.30–1.15pm of Garlic: Australian Food from Bland to activism with Sally Warhaft. BERNARD CALEO Brilliant, with Recipes Old and New, and how We are delighted to give you the opportunity Australian food has changed over the years. Church of All Nations, STEALTH RAIDERS: 180 Palmerston Street, Carlton to hear much-loved artist and author Shaun Readings St Kilda, Tan talk about his new book, Tales from the HISTORY AT LUNCHTIME Tickets are $10 per person and funds will go to 112 Acland Street, St Kilda Inner City, with cartoon artist Bernard Caleo. WITH LUCAS JORDAN the Victorian Women’s Trust and the Readings Grab a sandwich and join Lucas Jordan as Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Foundation. Church of All Nations, he discusses his new book, Stealth Raiders: Please book at readings.com.au/events 180 Palmerston Street, Carlton A Few Daring Men in 1918, a gripping account Tickets are $35 per person and include a signed of a distinctively Australian phenomenon on Sunday 14 October, 10.30am–11.30am copy of Tales from the Inner City, or $5 per the Western Front. person without the book. Bookings are essential, Wednesday 3 October, 6.30pm KIDS please book at readings.com.au/events. Readings Hawthorn, THE ENVIRONMENT 701 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn A KIDS’ GRAPHIC NOVEL AWARD FOR CHILDREN’S Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events WORKSHOP WITH JAMES LITERATURE SHORTLIST Thursday 4 October, 6.30pm FOLEY To celebrate the Melbourne-based authors Come along to hear James Foley discuss Saturday 6 October, 10.30am on the 2018 Environment Award for KRISSY KNEEN IN Gastronaut, the latest book in the S. Tinker CONVERSATION WITH Inc. series about the world’s foremost inventor Children’s Literature shortlist, come along KIDS to hear authors Anna Walker, Meredith ANGELA MEYER under the age of twelve. Then he’ll show you how to make your own graphic novel. Costain, Samantha Grover and illustrator Come along to hear Krissy Kneen discuss STORY TIME: WISP WITH Camille Heisler talk about the books that her thrilling new novel, Wintering, with ZANA FRALLION Readings St Kilda, sparked their connection with nature. fellow author Angela Meyer. 112 Acland Street, St Kilda Join the acclaimed and much-loved Zana Tickets are $15 per person and include a signed Readings Hawthorn, Readings Carlton, Frallion as she reads her new book, Wisp, copy of Gastronaut. This workshop is suitable 701 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn 309 Lygon Street, Carlton a refugee story of extraordinary power and for 7–12-year-olds. Places are very limited, Free, no booking required. beauty, at a special story time. Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events please book at readings.com.au/events. Readings Kids, 315 Lygon Street, Carlton Wednesday 3 October, 6.30pm Thursday 4 October, 6.30pm Suitable for all kids aged 5–10-years old. Monday 15 October, 6.30pm Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events LIVE PERFORMANCE BOOKED OUT KERRY-ANNE WALSH IN IN-STORE GIG WITH THE A DINNER TO CELEBRATE Tuesday 9 October, 6.30pm CONVERSATION WITH DINGOES’ BRODERICK MIRKA & GEORGES MORA MARY CROOKS SMITH Join us in celebrating the release of Mirka A PUPPET SHOW IN Join Kerry-Anne Walsh, author of The Join Australian music legend Broderick Smith & Georges: A Culinary Affair by Lesley Stalking of Julia Gillard, as she discusses her for an in-store gig and celebration of the Harding and Kendrah Morgan. Hear HONOUR OF MURAKAMI new book, Hoodwinked: How Pauline Hanson simultaneous release of his new album and previously untold anecdotes about these Join us in celebrating Haruki Murakami’s Fooled a Nation, and the state of Australian his first book, both titled Man Out of Time. influential cultural and culinary figures and new novel, Killing Commendatore. There’ll politics with Mary Crooks, the executive enjoy a curated meal of classic French be sake and readings as Bernard Caleo director of the Victorian Women’s Trust. Readings St Kilda, recipes at the Tolarno Eating House & Bar, presents a kamishibai story and opens a 112 Acland Street, St Kilda home to a number of Mirka’s iconic murals. discussion about the book. Church of All Nations, Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events 180 Palmerston Street, Carlton Tolarno Eating House, Readings Carlton, Tickets are $10 per person and all funds will 42 Fitzroy Street, St Kilda 309 Lygon Street, Carlton go to the work of the Victorian Women’s Trust This event is booked out. and the Readings Foundation. Please book at Wednesday 3 October, 6.30pm Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events readings.com.au/events LEIGH SALES IN Friday 5 October, 10am Thursday 11 October, 6.30pm CONVERSATION WITH Tuesday 16 October, 6.30pm RAFAEL EPSTEIN KIDS DAVID MALOUF IN As a journalist, Leigh Sales often encounters STORY TIME: BABY + ME HOLLY THROSBY ON people experiencing the worst moments of CONVERSATION WITH their lives in the full glare of the media. In WITH LAUREN GARDINER MARK RUBBO CEDAR VALLEY her latest book, Any Ordinary Day, she asks Come along to a special story time to hear We are honoured to have David Malouf in From the author of the bestselling novel, what happens when the worst does happen? Lauren Gardiner read her new book, Baby conversation about An Open Book, his new Goodwood, comes a compelling mystery set Come along to hear Sales in conversation + Me. This thoughtful and interactive book book of poetry, with Readings very own deep within the heart of regional town Cedar with fellow ABC journalist Rafael Epstein. was created to help big brothers and sisters Mark Rubbo. Valley. Join us to hear musician and author prepare for the arrival of a new sibling. Holly Throsby discuss her much-anticipated Melbourne Athenaeum, Cinema Nova, new novel, Cedar Valley. 188 Collins Street, Melbourne Readings Doncaster, 380 Lygon Street, Carlton Westfield Doncaster, Readings Carlton, Tickets are $45 per person and include a signed Tickets are $30 per person and include a signed 619 Doncaster Road, Doncaster 309 Lygon Street, Carlton copy of An Ordinary Day. first edition of An Open Book. Please book at Please book at readings.com.au/events Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events readings.com.au/events Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events EVENTS October 2018 READINGS MONTHLY 5

Tuesday 23 October, 6.30pm Wednesday 31 October, 6.30pm Thursday 8 November, 6.30pm–7.30pm Launches KRISTINA OLSSON IN A PANEL DISCUSSION ON MARKUS ZUSAK IN CONVERSATION WITH THE BOOK INDUSTRY CONVERSATION WITH The Civilisation of Port Phillip by Thomas ALAN DAVIES A bookseller, a publisher, an author, and MAGDA SZUBANSKI James Rogers Shell by Kristina Olsson is a big, bold and a publicist all walked into a room … what Join us to hear two of Australia’s most-loved Join Thomas James Rogers for the launch of hauntingly beautiful story that captures happened next? John Purcell’s novel The authors in conversation. Markus Zusak his book The Civilisation of Port Phillip, which a defining moment in Australia’s history. Girl on the Page gives a ferocious insight (The Book Thief) and Magda Szubanski tracks the violent history of the first years of Come along to hear Olsson in conversation into a world that is often hidden. Come (Reckoning) will discuss Bridge of Clay, British settlement in the Port Phillip district. about the novel with Crikey’s The Urbanist, along to hear Purcell in conversation with Zusak’s highly anticipated new novel. Monday 1 October, 6.30pm Alan Davies. fellow publishing figures. Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. Melbourne Athenaeum, Readings Hawthorn, Readings Carlton, 188 Collins Street, Melbourne Christ-Centred Mindfulness by Katherine 701 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn 309 Lygon Street, Carlton Thompson Tickets are $25 per person and bookings are The Reverend Tim Costello will launch Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events essential. Please book at readings.com.au/events Christ-Centred Mindfulness by academic and mental-health worker Katherine Thompson, which highlights mindfulness- Thursday 25 October, 6.00pm Thursday 8 November, 6.30pm related practices in use within the church Coming for hundreds of years. STEPHANIE ALEXANDER ANNABEL CRABB IN Friday 5 October, 6.30pm IN CONVERSATION WITH Up CONVERSATION WITH Readings Hawthorn | Free, no booking required. CHRISTINE GORDON SHARLEE GIBB The Rise of Nerd Politics by John Postill Join John Postill for the launch of The Rise of Gather your young chefs and cooks, and Come along to hear the brilliant Annabel Nerd Politics, which raises urgent questions bring them to meet Stephanie Alexander as Crabb and Sharlee Gibb talk about Crabb’s about the impact of digital activism on she discusses her new book, The Cook’s new cookbook, Special Guest, and how to Thursday 1 November, 6.30-7.30pm political systems around the world. Apprentice: Tips, Techniques and Recipes host friends and family with easy, basic fare Monday 8 October, 6.30pm for New Foodies with Readings’ resident in real homes without stress. foodie, Christine Gordon. THE UNCOLLECTED Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. Church of All Nations, Inclusive Education Isn’t Dead, It Just Readings Hawthorn, PLAYS OF SHAUN 180 Palmerston Street, Carlton Smells Funny by Roger Slee 701 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn MICALLEF Tickets are $40 per person and include a signed Join Roger Slee for the launch of Inclusive Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events We are thrilled to have Shaun Micallef joining copy of Special Guest. Education Isn’t Dead, It Just Smells Funny, us to discuss his latest work, The Uncollected Please book at readings.com.au/events which posits inclusive education as a Plays of Shaun Micallef, a hilarious collection cornerstone of democracy, social equality of his plays with funny introductions about Saturday 27 October, 7pm and effective education. how he came to write them. Sunday 18 November, 12pm Wednesday 17 October, 6.30pm Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. JANE HARPER ON THE Church of all Nations, LOST MAN 180 Palmerston Street, Carlton A LUNCHTIME FOOD SAFARI The Dragon and Saint George by Rod Ticktets are $5 per person, or $35 per person Giblett We are thrilled to have Jane Harper, author WITH MAEVE O’MEARA with a signed copy of the book. Professor Lyn McCredden will launch of the international bestsellers The Dry and Bookings essential at readings.com.au/events To celebrate the release of Maeve O’Meara’s Rod Giblett’s novella The Dragon and Force of Nature, joining us to discuss her new book, Food Safari: Earth, Fire, Water, we Saint George, which retells the legend thrilling new crime novel, The Lost Man. are delighted to invite you to lunch and to hear from an environmentally and animal- from the star herself about the importance of friendly perpective. Readings St Kilda, Thursday 1 November, 6.30pm celebrating our senses through food. 112 Acland Street, St Kilda Thursday 18 October, 6.30pm Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. Free, but bookings essential at TONI JORDAN IN Rumi Restaurant, readings.com.au/events 116 Lygon Street, East Brunswick My Two Blankets by Irena Kobald and CONVERSATION WITH Tickets are $90 per person and include a signed Freya Blackwood (illus.) CHRISTINE GORDON first edition of Food Safari: Earth, Fire, Water, Join us to celebrate the publication of three and a two-course meal. Please book at readings. bilingual editions of the gorgeous picture Saturday 27 October, 10.30am Join us to hear Toni Jordan – the award- book My Two Blankets by Irena Kobald and winning, bestselling author of Addition com.au/events illustrated by Freya Blackwood. See page 18 KIDS and Nine Days – discuss her new novel, for more information about the book. The Fragments, with Readings’ Christine Thursday 25 October, 6.30pm STORY TIME: ALL THE WAYS Gordon. Wednesday 21 November, 6.30pm–7.45pm TO BE SMART WITH DAVINA Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. Readings Carlton, Books That Saved My Life by Michael BELL & ALLISON COLPOYS 309 Lygon Street, Carlton DAVID MARR IN McGirr Join Davina Bell and Allison Colpoys, the Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events CONVERSATION Join Michael McGirr for the launch of his award-winning creators of The Underwater Come along to hear David Marr, one of uplifting new collection of reminiscences Fancy-Dress Parade and Under the Love Australia’s most unflinching reporters about a life in books, Books That Saved My Umbrella, as they read from their new book, of political controversy and eloquent Life: Reading for Wisdom, Solace and Pleasure. All the Ways to Be Smart, a joyful ode to Thursday 1 November, 7pm for a 7.30pm biographers, discuss My Country, the Sunday 28 October, 2.30pm all the unique and wonderful qualities that seating definitive collection of his writing to date. Readings Hawthorn | Free, no booking required. make children who they are. A MEAL WITH THE BAR Church of All Nations, Preservation by Jock Serong Readings Kids, 180 Palmerston Street, Carlton Join award-winning author Jock Serong for 315 Lygon Street, Carlton LOURINHÃ DUO the launch of his new book and first historical Enjoy a delicious meal while you hear Tickets are $40 and include a signed, first- Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events novel, Preservation, which is based on the the fabulous Bar Lourinhã duo, Matt edition hardback copy of My Country. Please book at readings.com.au/events true story of the wreck of the Sydney Cove. McConnell and Jo Gamvros, chat with Monday 29 October, 6.30pm Melbourne Editor and Food Critic for Monday 29 October, 6.30pm Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. Australian Gourmet Michael Harden about their wonderful new cookbook. In Eat Thursday 29 November, 6.30pm Boone Shepard: The Silhouette and the CHLOE HOOPER ON THE at the Bar: Recipes inspired by travels in Sacrifice by Gabriel Bergmoser ARSONIST Spain, Portugal and Beyond, McConnell HELEN GARNER ON HER Come along to celebrate the release of and Gamvros share their love of Europe’s Gabriel Bergmoser’s latest book in the On the day that became known as Black bar dining culture through incredible, EARLY CAREER DAYS Boone Shepard YA series, Boone Shepard: Saturday, one man deliberately lit two fires vibrant recipes from tapas to mezethes. To celebrate the new hardback release of The Silhouette and the Sacrifice. near the small town of Churchill in Gippsland, They explore the amazing flavours and Australian classics Monkey Grip and The Thursday 1 November, 6.30pm then sat on the roof of his house and watched. relaxed hospitality that inspired them to Children’s Bach, we are delighted to have Readings Kids | Free, no booking required. The Arsonist is the story of that man, the fires embrace and redefine bar dining culture in Helen Garner joining us to talk about the he lit, and the people who were killed. Join us Night Walk by Alison Binks Melbourne. impact on her writing life of these two novels. to hear Chloe Hooper, the acclaimed author of Join Alison Binks for the launch of her new The Tall Man, discuss her new book. Bar Lourinhã, Church of All Nations, picture book Night Walk, a captivating story 37 Little Collins Street, Melbourne 180 Palmerston Street, Carlton about a little boy’s adventurous night out Readings Hawthorn, while camping. 701 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn Tickets are $110 per person and include a meal Tickets are $35 per person and include your and a signed copy of Eat at the Bar. Places are choice of one of the two signed books. Please Thursday 1 November, 6.30pm Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events strictly limited, book at readings.com.au/events book at readings.com.au/events Readings St Kilda | Free, no booking required. 6 READINGS MONTHLY October 2018 FICTION Mark’s Dear New Say Reader Fiction

Victoria’s State Library is Haruki Murakami made Smoothly, calmly, Haruki Murakami leads us out to the latest undergoing a massive headlines this September, BOOK OF THE outpost of his fictional universe. We survey the hillside and transformation with choosing to withdraw MONTH the lonely house in which the narrator has come to live. Once, internal spaces being himself from contention it belonged to the father of a friend of his, a famous painter. reconfigured and others for the New Academy Prize Fiction And now, the narrator, a painter himself, but not famous, has reopened and repurposed, including the for Literature, the Swedish award set up as landed up there. We know, of course, we readers, that there glorious Queens Hall. The design of the the alternative to the 2018 Nobel Prize in will be something else out in those woods. Something other. refurbishment is a collaboration between Literature while the old academy regroups Something that has been waiting for this not-famous painter- Australasian design firm Architectus and following scandals revealed earlier in the narrator to take up residence in the remote cabin. Something Scandinavia’s Schmidt Hammer Lassen year. Murakami is making good on that old is waiting for him, and it will insinuate itself into his life and Architects. The first stage of the acceptance speech adage that ‘it’s an honour then invert it. There will be meals and sex and weirdness, redevelopment was completed in late just to be nominated’; he’s choosing to shy and we readers will not blink. We’ll take it all in. Or, okay, we September with the reopening of the away from media attention to focus on his will blink, but not often. This painter’s life, and ours, will get library’s Russell Street entrance. The space writing instead. There is something pretty inverted, then inverted again. There’s something out there, that was once home to the racehorse Phar cool about that. Meanwhile, fans across the waiting, in the woods. Lap has been stripped back and its Victorian English-speaking world have been waiting grandeur revealed again for the first time in for the translation of his most recent novel, As in other fiction by Murakami, I many years. It is the location of our new Kishidancho Goroshi, published in Japan in bookshop space at the library. Our manager 2017. We will come to know it as Killing am almost convinced that he is as there, Tom Hoskins, worked closely with the Commendatore, or perhaps as our reviewer Killing surprised and delighted as I am by library and the architects on the vision for puts it, ‘a great big joyous elephant of a book’. Commendatore what turns up on the page. the space. Huge windows facing Russell It arrives in store on 10 October, and is our Haruki Murakami Street flood the space with light, and walls Fiction Book of the Month. Harvill Secker. HB. Was $45 Haruki Murakami’s new novel is a great big joyous elephant flanked by timber bookshelves are bulging Alongside this, we have some bona of a book. The care that he takes with the set-up of the $39.99 with books; it’s a perfect place for relaxed fide home-grown blockbusters sharing ‘normal life’ of the protagonist, followed by the narrative’s Available 10 October browsing – it’s almost double the size of our the shelves: Marcus Zusak’s Bridge of spiral into multiple strangenesses, means that the reader has previous space in the library. Clay and Liane Moriarty’s Nine Perfect a reliable backdrop of calm against which to position, almost Sadly, the impact of online shopping Strangers. Rosalie Ham of The Dressmaker to arrange, the arrival of the inevitable weird elements. As in other fiction by Murakami, and rising CBD rents has led to the closure fame returns with The Year of the Farmer; I am almost convinced that he is as surprised and delighted as I am by what turns up of many bookshops in the CBD. While the Scribner launches its Australian imprint on the page. In some of his other books, this improvisatory effect has extended into the previous Readings space restricted the range with Shell by Kristina Olsson; and new conclusion of the book, making the endings unsatisfactory. But in Killing Commendatore, and activities we could offer, this new space novels appear from Shirley Barrett, Ilke Murakami meticulously constructs a physical space from which to unfurl unconventional firmly establishes Readings State Library as Tampke, and Holly Throsby. I particularly ideas and characters, then he carefully folds those extraordinary things back out of sight, a significant bookshop in the CBD. The new admired Alice Nelson’s The Children’s but not out of mind. Russell Street Welcome Zone also features a House, an excellent work of literary fiction, Bernard Caleo is a member of the Readings events team. beautiful mural by local artist and children’s generous in its exploration of trauma and author Tai Snaith – it’s a marvel! There’s also the different ways we make family. Guild Café, run by the Almond Milk Co., and In international fiction, we recommend a huge space for reading. This is just the first new books from Miriam Toews, Sarah Australian Fiction from local materials. stage of the redevelopment of one of our most Perry, Javier Marías, Gary Shteyngart, Reading this novel is like watching important cultural icons. Funded by the Kate Atkinson, William Boyd, Ian Reid and an old black-and-white film; there is State Government, together with significant Hwang Sok-yong. Japanese authors seem to not a glance out of place, every move philanthropic contributions, this project have a thing for writing about the life lessons Bridge of Clay is loaded and linked, and every gasp of is inspirational and judging by our new that cats can teach us, and we really do Markus Zusak understanding reveals a little more about space, one of Melbourne’s greatest public love to read about that (remember Takashi Picador. HB. Was $39.99 a family torn apart by tragedy and brought institutions will become one of our most Hiraide’s The Guest Cat and Hiro Arikawa’s $29.99 together again by determination. To be precious and accessible assets. You must get The Travelling Cat Chronicles?); this year Available 9 October honest, it took me some time to adjust to along to see this! look out for If Cats Disappeared from the Markus Zusak’s Zusak’s writing of this epic tale. It took me The recent passing of Mirka Mora was World by Genki Kawamura. It has sold more previous book, The time to find the stride and the heart of this very sad; like the Library, Mirka was part than a million copies in Japan. Book Thief, first novel, but once I was in there was no going of the fabric of Melbourne. For many years, At a time when it seems that being published in 2005, has back. This is not a novel to be left, bereft Mirka lived in St Kilda and she did a deal outspoken about any issue also involves a spent more than a decade on your bedside. As in The Book Thief, with the then owners of Readings St Kilda, decision about whether you can stand the on the New York Times there are lessons to be learnt: to hope is Helen and Jack Halliday, to do a mural for takedowns and abuse that might follow, bestseller list, has been to do, to dream is strength, and to remain their shop in exchange for books. That mural we are incredibly lucky to have a woman translated into over forty conscious of desire is human. Bridge of is still there and if you are in St Kilda, well and a writer like Clementine Ford amongst languages, has been made into a movie Clay may well be Zusak’s finest move. worth a look. Like Mirka’s other works, it is a us. 2016’s Fight Like a Girl was a publishing and is one of my favourite books of all Christine Gordon is the events manager for vibrant, colourful celebration of life and love. sensation, and, more importantly, an agenda- time. These facts, except the last one, Readings While you are there you can pick up a copy of setting line in the sand. Ford returns without have made Zusak a household name. It Mirka & Georges which concentrates on their compromise: Boys Will Be Boys continues her took Zusak thirteen years to write the careers as restaurateurs and their impact on urgent reassessment of toxic masculinity and much-anticipated Bridge of Clay, but he Cedar Valley Australia’s culinary and artistic landscapes. the enduring tedium of the patriarchy. It’s our has said in many interviews that he has Holly Throsby Also out now is a project that is very Nonfiction Book of the Month. In fact, Ford is actually been thinking about this A&U. PB. $29.99 dear to our hearts; last year the Readings in company with a sisterhood of inspirational particular story since he was twenty years Cedar Valley, Holly Foundation agreed to fund an Asylum Australian women, with standout books on old. It’s not surprising then that one of the Throsby’s second Seekers Resource Centre project for the the way from Clare Wright, Leigh Sales, Fiona constant themes in his beautiful new novel, exists in the same translation of the children’s book, My Wright, Gillian Triggs, and Chloe Hooper (her novel is the difficulty of artistic creation. world as her first novel, Three Blankets, into Arabic, Farsi and brilliant The Arsonist is out on 10 October and This novel is a far-reaching Australian Goodwood. It’s an area a Dari. The book, by Irena Kobald and Freya I’ll be reviewing it in full in the November family saga, stumbling back and forth in couple of hours south of Blackwood, is a moving story about the RM). And there’s much more besides, with time, until we are left with the story of five Sydney, near the coast, refugee experience. The translations sit books about memory, capitalism, physics, wild and troubled brothers – the Dunbar near a large regional side by side with the English text and have maths, geese, identity politics, bees, the boys – who are trying to make sense of the town, and very firmly situated in the early come up beautifully. The books will make Western Front, sheep, mothers, Donald world and the return of their father. Told 1990s. Cedar Valley is a small town, wonderful presents. Also, if you work in the Trump … really, something for everyone! from the perspective of the eldest brother, seemingly much beloved by its inhabitants not-for-profit area promoting literacy and And finally, dear reader, to help celebrate Matthew, the central narrative focuses on and oft visited by weekend tourists who reading, your organisations may be eligible the event that is the release of Killing another of the brothers, Clay, and his quest come to enjoy antiquing and fantastic for a grant from the Readings Foundation. Commendatore, we’ll be offering a 3 for 2 deal to build something beautiful. Together country pies. On this summer day, two For details visit Readings online at on Murakami’s backlist, both fiction and with his father, Clay is inspired by the work new inhabitants arrive: Benny, a young readings.com.au/the-readings-foundation nonfiction. Time to complete your library! of Renaissance artists to construct a bridge woman who has just finished uni and is FICTION October 2018 READINGS MONTHLY 7 looking for sanctuary; and an unknown unlikely of places. feel like he might be the last. Nothing The Bus on Thursday but extremely well-dressed man who sits The Children’s House is a beautiful, seems to have gone right since his Shirley Barrett down on the footpath and dies while hope-filled novel about how we carve a childhood sweetheart left for the city; A&U. PB. $29.99 people go about their afternoon. place for ourselves in the world. and now between the packs of wild dogs Freshly single and thoroughly In Cedar Valley Holly Throsby has Caitlin Cassidy is from Readings Carlton slaughtering his lambs, the uncooperative traumatised from the ordeals crafted a quiet mystery which brims with weather, the scheming wife, and the of breast cancer, Eleanor the energy of its characters’ inner lives. increased demands of the State Water Mellett starts a new job as a Nine Perfect Strangers Benny wants to know the mother she never Authority, Mitch is barely surviving. But teacher in a remote mountain Liane Moriarty knew. The local detective sergeant wants there’s a change coming, and nothing is hamlet. It’s certainly peaceful Pan Mac. PB. Was $32.99 to solve the mystery of the unknown dead going to be the same again. enough, almost too peaceful. $27.99 man more out of a need for activity and The Year of the Farmer captures that But what’s become of the previous teacher, control than any sense of law and order. I have sold brittle, brutal feel of a community on the saintly Miss Barker, who has disappeared Cora, outside whose antique shop the man hundreds of Liane the edge of extinction perfectly. It’s a abruptly under mysterious circumstances? died, feels the stirrings of existential fear Moriarty books in my place where death and decay go hand-in- Darkly funny, deeply unsettling and for the first time. time at Readings, but I hand with rebirth; where blood might be surprisingly poignant, Shirley Barrett’s The What is wonderful about Cedar Valley hadn’t read one myself thicker than water, but you can’t water Bus on Thursday is a strange and wild ride for is the sense of a complete community. until a friend suggested I your crops with it. The Year of the Farmer all fans of Helen Fielding, Maria Semple, Throsby keeps a skilful pace, checking in read Truly, Madly, Guilty. also boasts one of the most satisfactorily David Lynch and Stephen King. with the towns inhabitants, both old and I was instantly hooked! loathsome villains I’ve read in a while, new. She moves you along so well at the Like all Moriarty fans, I was very excited at and as the story accelerated towards an Jungle Without Water the prospect of a new novel coming out. pace of the people of Cedar Valley that you explosive showdown, I was rubbing my Sreedhevi Iyer In Nine Perfect Strangers, Moriarty has do not realise straightaway the ways in hands together waiting for them to get Gazebo. PB. $24.99 which she is subverting the expectations strayed slightly from her usual suburban their comeuppance. Ham’s talent for This debut short-story of the small-town mystery. Unlike the setting. This time the action takes place in black comedy and satire shines through collection delves into the quiet small town with a mysterious death Tranquillum House, a health and wellness the narrative, and her grasp on the rural shifting boundaries and and a new arrival in which the visiting resort in rural New South Wales. Nine existence puts readers smack-dab in human displacement of our investigator solves the mystery, Cedar people sign up for a ten-day retreat, all the middle of the oncoming storm, the era. Of Indian-Malaysian Valley, and before it Goodwood, solve their for different reasons, but all hoping their stink of sheep and dust and spilled beer background, Sreedhevi Iyer mysteries internally. All that you will learn lives will be transformed. Frances, an permeating every page. is adept at locating tensions in Cedar Valley you will learn from the author of romance novels, is trying to get Lian Hingee is the digital marketing manager within her own diaspora while also casting inhabitants of Cedar Valley, old and new. over an internet romance scam and a bad for Readings a forensic eye on Australian social and And that is a very satisfying journey. review of her most recent book. Ben and cultural attitudes. Iyer has a gift for Jessica want to save their marriage. The Marie Matteson is from Readings Carlton Shell radiant prose, from simple riffs on Marconis are struggling to come to terms Kristina Olsson backyard suburbia to the magic realism of with a family tragedy. Then there’s Tony, S&S. HB. Was $35 a narrative told by a ‘divine’ coconut. Her The Children’s House a former football hero and divorcee, who $29.99 wit and sense of irony bring stories of Alice Nelson needs to find a purpose in life. Carmel, also refugees, inter-racial tension and human Vintage. PB. Was $32.99 recently divorced, lacks self-esteem and When most people prejudice profoundly into our sights. $29.99 is desperate to lose weight. Finally, there’s see the Sydney The Children’s Lars, a health resort junkie, who feels his Opera House, they think of House begins in the relationship is on the brink of collapse. sails on the harbour. But Songwoman Ilka Tampke sweltering heat of Enter Masha, Tranquillum House’s Kristina Olsson (and her Text. PB. $29.99 summer in New York’s director. Formerly a high-flyer in the character Axel Lindquist) AD 47. Rome has colonised eclectic Harlem. The year corporate world, Masha reinvented herself is reminded of shells you southeast Britain. Ailia is 1997, three years after after suffering a near-death experience. might find on the beaches returns from the Welsh the Rwandan genocide. Her mission is to transform her guests’ of Sweden. Set in the 1960s, Shell focuses on forest to a world that has Marina Hirsch, a young lives, just as she once transformed her two seemingly unrelated historical been turned upside down. professor teaching at Columbia, has just own. The retreat begins innocently events – the building of the Opera House The tribespeople invest their moved into the neighbourhood with her enough, with the usual massages, and the deadly lottery of Vietnam War hope in the charismatic psychoanalyst husband, Jacob, and meditation and yoga, but it is not long conscription – and binds them together in war-king, Caradog, who has been leading a stepson, Ben. It is here that Marina, by before the guests get more than they two deeply personal stories. guerrilla campaign. Ailia proves herself an chance, witnesses Constance, a Rwandan bargained for. Pearl Keogh is a journalist who’s been indispensable advisor to the war-king, but refugee woman, leave her young child in Nine Perfect Strangers is Liane ‘banished’ to the women’s pages after she must overcome sabotage and subdue the middle of the footpath. Rushing to the Moriarty’s eighth novel. Once again she she was photographed at an anti-war her attraction to Caradog. The soul of her aid of the boy, Marina enters into a has created a thoroughly enjoyable page- demonstration. Axel Lindquist is a visionary country will only survive if Ailia succeeds tentative, faltering relationship with turner, with a plot full of unexpected twists glass blower who’s obsessed with creating in becoming a Songwoman. Constance, and finds herself developing a and turns. Her characters are larger than a unique piece of art for the Opera House deep attachment with the young boy. life, but ones to which we can all relate. foyer, something that will adequately reflect Alice Nelson’s articulately crafted Moriarty fans are definitely in for a treat! Jørn Utzon’s masterpiece. The Girl on the Page Pearl hasn’t seen her family for a John Purcell novel is an exploration of family, of home, Sharon Peterson is the manager of Readings number of years, but with conscription and of where our identity and selfhood St Kilda Fourth Estate. PB. $32.99 lie. Weaving through all the characters looming and her two younger brothers of Having turned an average in The Children’s House are stories of fighting age, she’s desperate to find them thriller writer into a Lee trauma, abandonment and grief: the loss The Year of the Farmer and somehow save them from going to Child, hot-shot young book of a father, or a brother, too young; the Rosalie Ham war. Axel has arrived from Sweden to work editor Amy Winston is given detachment of a mother’s love; or what it Picador. PB. Was $32.99 with Utzon, and through him we witness the unenviable task of means to be displaced from one’s roots. $27.99 the outsider’s view of Australia in the steering literary great Helen Marina and Jacob were each born on No one does ’60s: the tall poppy syndrome, the racism, Owen back to publication. a kibbutz in Israel, where the raising of a Australian Gothic the banality, but also the simplicity, the When Amy arrives at their townhouse in child was seen as a collective, communal quite like Rosalie Ham. honesty, and the hard yakka that people London, Helen and her husband, novelist affair rather than one between a child Her sun-soaked revenge willingly put in to build monumental Malcolm Taylor, are conducting a silent and their parents. However, Jacob soon fantasy, The Dressmaker, projects like the Opera House and the war. The townhouse was paid for with the returns to New York with his parents and captured a particular side Snowy River Scheme. seven-figure advance Helen was given for sister, and Marina’s mother’s inability to of rural Australia – one Pearl and Axel’s stories run parallel the novel Malcolm thinks unworthy of her. offer love and warmth taints Marina’s life, steeped in malice, to each other until they finally meet and The novel Helen has yet to deliver. The and her brother’s, both on the kibbutz and jealousy, bitter rivalries, and tightly held connect. It is through this meeting of minds novel Amy has come to collect. after their migration to New York. This grievances. It’s to this world that Ham (and bodies) that our two historic events has deep implications for Marina, and returns in her new novel, The Year of the merge and melt into one another. Matryoshka devastating consequences for her brother. Farmer. The residents of a tiny NSW Kristina Olsson is a master of writing Katherine Johnson Jacob’s son, Ben, is also fractured after country town are at war: Townies versus about the push-pull of human emotions: Ventura. PB. $29.99 being abandoned by his mother at an early Farmers, Ferals versus Riparians, and regrets, opportunities, beauty, ugliness, A Russian post-war age after his parents’ disastrous marriage. everyone against an unsympathetic and humanity, callousness – all are laid bare on immigrant, Sara’s Yet it is in this environment that Nelson corrupt local Water Authority Board. the page, but interwoven with enormous grandmother lovingly eloquently, intricately points to the ways Mitch Bishop comes from a proud beauty and depth. This is a fantastic, raised her. A geneticist, Sara in which, despite, or perhaps as a result line of farmers who have been growing thought-provoking read that I expect will longs to know the identity of displacement, trauma and loss, we crops and raising sheep at Bishop’s Corner be up for any number of awards this season. of her father. Now, find families, love and home in the most for over a century, but it’s starting to Gabrielle Williams is from Readings Malvern estranged from her mother 8 READINGS MONTHLY October 2018 FICTION

and her husband, Sara returns to her late high school and university whereas most for resettlement in space. The first stage of grandmother’s Tasmanian cottage to raise of his peers stopped school much earlier to this process is known as the ‘instillation’ and her own daughter, hoping to spare her the help their parents’ businesses. Junior has been selected via a lottery to join feeling of abandonment she experienced. This novel is a character study of a man the longlist as a participant. Junior’s wife, When Sara meets an Afghani refugee who has achieved all he thought would Hen, will remain on Earth but, should Junior separated from his beloved family, she satisfy him, and a portrait of a country make the final cut, Outermore will ensure tries to repair relations with her mother. rushing to ‘catch up’ after turbulent times. her life will continue as before. In fact, she But a lie from years before begins to As Minwoo reflects on his personal life won’t even notice that Junior has gone. unravel and a dark truth is revealed. and the people he grew up with, he realises I cherish reading experiences like Foe. It how his ambition has perhaps blinded is a perfect example of a high-concept novel him to others’ concerns and priorities; that does not sacrifice character or themes. International even those of his wife and children. By keeping the scope small (the book Neighbourhoods like the one he grew up hardly ever moves beyond the three central Fiction in have disappeared, and it is his company characters or the physical location of Hen and the often-corrupt construction and Junior’s property), Iain Reid has created companies they work with who have a claustrophobic and tense atmosphere Love is Blind robbed people of homes and livelihoods to further enhanced by deliberate omissions. William Boyd make way for ‘development’. The questions How far in the future is Foe set? And where Viking. PB. Was $32.99 At Dusk raises are timeless, and perfect for exactly in the world do Hen and Junior live? $27.99 more serious book-group discussions. By keeping these details vague, the focus I have to confess Annie Condon is from Readings Hawthorn moves to the relationship between Hen that William Boyd is and Junior and the way they each respond one of my favourite Berta Isla to Junior’s impending mission and the increasingly intrusive presence of Terrance. authors; his Any Human Javier Marías Heart is probably his best Hamish Hamilton. PB. Was $32.99 Reid’s pacing is superb. Grabbing my attention right from the start, I was but Love is Blind comes $29.99 riveted for the entire duration of the novel. close. It’s an exotic and Available 15 October Predominantly short chapters maintain sad love story that kept Impermanence and the momentum, and the revelations are me wanting more. identity are at the beautifully timed. The author is always Love is Blind is set in Edinburgh, heart of Javier Marías’ just that one beat ahead and just when I Paris, Nice, St Petersburg, Trieste and the latest work, a literary spy thought I had caught up, I was floored by Andaman Islands in the late nineteenth tale in which Oxford one final twist. century. Brodie Moncur escapes from undergraduate Tomás is Foe has been suggested for fans of the constraints of his evangelist father, recruited into the British Black Mirror and Stranger Things and the famous preacher Malky Moncur, and secret service after events while these are apt comparisons, I would takes a position at the showrooms of the in the town leave him no choice. Back in also recommend it to anyone who enjoys Scottish piano manufacturers, Channon. Madrid, he marries long-time girlfriend immersive and intelligent fiction. A piano-tuner by trade, Brodie is Berta but quickly becomes a stranger to sent to help at Channon’s Paris branch. her. Following in the footsteps of his Your Amanda Rayner is from Readings Carlton An ingenious idea to raise the profile Face Tomorrow trilogy, Berta Isla uses the of the Channon brand brings Brodie in spy genre to explore the human condition: Melmoth contact with the charismatic pianist John to what extent are we our actions? Does our Sarah Perry Kilbarron and his mistress, the Russian identity belong to us or to others? And Serpent’s Tail. PB. $29.99 singer Lika Blum. Dubbed the ‘Irish Liszt’, should we fear the passive life, as outcasts Available 10 October Kilbarron and his machiavellian brother, from the universe, as he puts it, not Melmoth is Malachi, are intrigued by Brodie’s ‘shaping the world’? watching every dark proposal to provide pianos for Kilbarron Tomás is suitably charming; capable, and wicked act. You can in return for his endorsement. but easily so, he’s a joy to accompany in feel her eyes on you Boyd is a masterful storyteller and early chapters before the focus shifts to wherever you are. Her his characters and their environs leap Berta. She is wilful and thorough, and eternal loneliness draws off the page. Love is Blind is suspenseful, her research into military intelligence her to those who believe intriguing and heart wrenching. This is a becomes our spy story in place of Tomas’s they can’t be redeemed. novel to immerse yourself in. escapades, kept secret from us as well as She is both feared and longed for by those Mark Rubbo is the managing director of from Berta. Marías weaves history and who wish to be taken away from all the Readings politics with Shakespeare and refrains of despair, guilt and shame. T.S. Eliot, which come and go like errant Inspired by Charles Maturin’s gothic 1820 At Dusk thoughts but linger long after. tale Melmoth the Wanderer, Sarah Perry’s Hwang Sok-yong This is the closest prose comes to Melmoth follows the style of her British Book Scribe. PB. $27.99 poetry. We need literature like this, Award-winning novel The Essex Serpent, At Dusk is a small however ,what stops me from calling Berta taking an established tale and bringing the but powerful novel Isla a masterpiece is Marías’ tendency to historical period to compelling life. from one of South Korea’s digress, with lines of dialogue separated by Helen Franklin lives in Prague in most esteemed novelists. pages of theorising that break momentum self-imposed exile as punishment for her Hwang Sok-yong, born in and put distance between the reader and misdeeds. When a strange manuscript 1943, has witnessed the characters; the characters themselves is delivered to her, Helen delves into enormous political and read like Marías rather than individuals in the testimonies of those haunted by historical change in his their own right. The keen gaze that made Melmoth. These testimonies draw on homeland and was a political prisoner for me fall in love with Marías is less incisive historical atrocities and show the power five years. He has won numerous literary here because it is less concise. As a novel that people’s stories can have. Sarah awards at home and overseas, and At Dusk it is excellent, but as a story it struggles Perry’s characterisation is beautiful and has already won the (French) Emile beneath the weight of the author. moving despite the dark content. Melmoth Guimet Prize for Asian Literature. Paul Goodman is from Readings Hawthorn makes you question human transgression, The narrator of At Dusk, Park Minwoo, morality, social injustice and your own is a successful architect. We meet him Foe conscience; and ’what it means to be good, when he is giving a guest lecture; at the Iain Reid but to do evil’. conclusion a woman approaches him from S&S. PB. $29.99 The historical atrocities parallel the audience with a note. It contains the Living in isolation today’s: the denial of countries’ contact details of a woman he knew in his amid farming land oppressions through the unlawful youth. Minwoo is in the ‘dusk’ of his life, predominantly owned by detention of migrants, deportations and and much of book focuses on the memories big industry and the fatalities that comes from mistrust of that emerge when he sees the woman’s government, Hen and other cultures. There’s also the ignorance details. We learn that he came from a Junior receive a late-night of those complicit to their country’s deeds, poor family and grew up in a slum outside visitor. Terrance is an who think themselves blameless because Seoul. His family cooked fishcakes to sell employee of Outermore; an they are not the ones committing the and worked extremely hard. Minwoo was organisation originally specialising in acts. We are complicit in our silence. As studious and was able to keep studying at self-driving cars but who are now preparing Melmoth bears witness, so should we bear FICTION October 2018 READINGS MONTHLY 9

witness to what must not be forgotten. heads back to 1940, from where the bulk Cindy Morris is from Readings Carlton of the novel’s action unfolds. We see Juliet at eighteen, plucked from a secretarial pool in Security Services by the tweed- Women Talking clad Perry Gibbons to be his ‘girl’ in a Miriam Toews vague corner of MI5. Juliet’s weapon is Faber. HB. $29.99 a typewriter. Her assignment – to spend Please note that this review may be her days in an apartment transcribing triggering for some as it deals with conversations taking place in the adjoining disturbing and true events. Unplug room between a spy, Godfrey Todd, and Between 2005 and the ‘home grown evil’ (Nazi sympathisers) 2009, in a remote who divulge their secrets to him. Before Mennonite colony in long, Juliet has her own undercover Bolivia, hundreds of girls identity, bringing her closer to the chilling, and women would wake often ludicrous nature of spy work. every morning feeling Written with smart, sharp, funny bruised, abused, and prose, Transcription’s multiple pleasures battered. This was and thrills are frequently unexpected. attributed for many years to ghosts, demons, In Juliet, Atkinson has fashioned a or Satan himself punishing the women for protagonist at first innocent then their sins. The truth was much more prosaic scathing of what she sees. The theme of and much more horrifying. It was found that ‘transcription’ takes on a deeper meaning at least eight men from the colony had been as Juliet learns that the dark shadows of using an animal anaesthetic to knock out the espionage and war are protracted and women and rape them. The victims were inescapable. I couldn’t put Transcription between the ages of three and sixty-five. down. I think it’s a page-turner of the Women Talking is Miriam Toews’ highest calibre. fictionalisation of the aftermath of these Joanna Di Mattia is from Readings Carlton The incendiary new Bridget Jones From Holly Throsby, events, as a group of women from the book about toxic meets The Exorcist the author of the colony debate whether or not it is possible Lake Success to carry on living in the community or if masculinity and in a devilishly bestselling novel, Gary Shteyngart their only real option is to leave the only Hamish Hamilton. PB. Was $32.99 misogyny from funny new novel Goodwood, comes home they have ever known. $29.99 Clementine Ford, from the acclaimed a compelling Toews’ work is, of course, highly Barry Cohen, master of the political. It’s interested in the ways author of the best- filmmaker, mystery set deep universe, has just had a that communities and societies tend to selling feminist screenwriter and within the hearts of very public meltdown undervalue, dismiss, or stifle female labour involving a dinner party, an manifesto, author of Rush Oh! Cedar Valley and its and women’s voices. The women of the novel insider trading seem both utterly foreign – illiterate, deeply Fight Like A Girl. Shirley Barrett. inhabitants. investigation and a $30,000 religious, and agrarian – and painfully bottle of Japanese whisky. familiar – angry, victimised, and made So he flees New York City, leaving behind powerless by a patriarchal society. his beautiful young wife and son, but It should come as no surprise that this remembering to bring his six favourite wasn’t an easy read. The subject matter is designer watches. Zig-zagging south dark and painful and the writing doesn’t through Trump’s America on a Greyhound shy away from the brutal realities. However, Bus pilgrimage he is singularly unprepared this darkness is exactly what makes it such for, Barry heads to Texas - to find his old an important read and I would urge anyone college girlfriend and, with her, a second who wouldn’t be directly triggered by the chance at life. content to seek out this novel. Regardless of whether you come from an Anabaptist community or the left-leaning inner suburbs The Order of the Day of Melbourne, we all need to hear more Éric Vuillard Picador. PB. $29.99 women’s voices and Women Talking is an outstanding contribution to the chorus. Éric Vuillard’s gripping novel The Order of the Day Tristen Brudy is from Readings Carlton tells the story of the pivotal meetings which took place Transcription between the European Kate Atkinson powers in the run up to Doubleday. PB. Was $32.99 World War II. What $27.99 emerges is a fascinating and incredibly Kate Atkinson has a moving account of failed diplomacy, gift for blending broken relationships, and the fiction with historical catastrophic momentum which led to detail. Life After Life (2013) conflict. Vuillard makes it impossible to and its companion, A God ignore the fact that the world was in Ruins (2015), are brilliant brought to the brink of war because of evocations of England, set the actions of, and decisions made by, predominantly during those in power. World War II and its aftermath, that use their period settings to investigate complex Paris Echo stories about the mutability of identity. Sebastian Faulks Atkinson’s latest novel, Transcription, mines Hutchinson. PB. Was $32.99 a similar historical period. It’s inspired by $27.99 real events the author uncovered in National American postdoctoral Archive files, in particular, the story of a researcher Hannah and British spy who posed as a Gestapo officer runaway Moroccan during the so-called ‘Phoney War’ (1939-40). teenager Tariq have little Transcription begins with a short in common, yet both are sequence set in 1981 in which Juliet susceptible to the daylight Armstrong has an awkward encounter ghosts of Paris. Hannah with a ghost from her past. Shifting back listens to the extraordinary witness of to 1950, we see Juliet working for the women who were present under the BBC’s school’s programming division, German Occupation. Out in the migrant helping them repackage British history for suburbs, Tariq is searching for a mother educational purposes. Atkinson swiftly he barely knew. In this urgent and deeply 10 READINGS MONTHLY October 2018 FICTION

moving novel, Faulks deals with shattering and mesmerising. questions of empire, grievance and identity. Paris Echo asks how much we The Cold Summer Discover really need to know if we are to live a Gianrico Carofiglio & Howard valuable life. Curtis (trans.) a new favourite Text. PB. $29.99 If Cats Disappeared from the Maresciallo Pietro World Fenoglio, an officer of the Any Ordinary Day Genki Kawamura & Eric Selland Carabinieri, must contend Leigh Sales (trans.) with gang war in southern The day that turns a life Picador. PB. $18.99 Italy in the early nineties upside down usually starts like any other, but what happens Estranged from his family, while his marriage falls the day after? Dual Walkley living alone with only his apart. When the young son Award-winner Leigh Sales cat, Cabbage, for company, investigates how ordinary of a mafia boss is found dead, and the people endure the unthinkable. our narrator was suspected killer agrees to collaborate with unprepared for the the authorities to bring down the Apulian The Children’s House doctor’s diagnosis that he mafia, it seems like justice will prevail. But Alice Nelson has only months to live. the mystery of the boy’s murder must still Reminiscent of Colm Toibin’s Brooklyn, this is a But then the Devil appears with a special be solved, and the prosecutors are hard to breakthrough novel from a offer: in exchange for making one thing distinguish from the prosecuted. humane and perceptive writer exploring the traumas that in the world disappear, he can have one divide families and the love extra day of life. And so begins a very Drive Your Plow Over the and hope that creates them. bizarre week. This beautiful tale is Bones of the Dead “The things you think you wouldn’t be translated from the Japanese by Eric Olga Tokarczuk & Antonia Lloyd- able to survive, you probably can.” Selland, who also translated The Guest Jones (trans.) Cat by Takashi Hiraide. ANY ORDINARY DAY Text. PB. $29.99 BY LEIGH SALES In a remote Polish village, Killing Commendatore The Labyrinth of the Spirits Duszejko, an eccentric Haruki Murakami Carlos Ruiz Zafón & Lucia Graves woman in her sixties, The ambitious major new novel from this internationally (trans.) recounts the events celebrated writer, on the scale Text. PB. $34.99 surrounding the of his bestselling 1Q84. As a child, Daniel Sempere disappearance of her two discovered a book that The Cook’s Apprentice dogs. When members of a Stephanie Alexander would change his life local hunting club are found murdered, For younger readers, forever. Now a grown man, she becomes involved in the investigation. the companion to Stephanie he is just one step away Alexander’s classic work, Duszejko is reclusive, preferring the The Cook’s Companion: from solving the mystery of company of animals to people; she’s destined to be another his mother’s death when a unconventional, believing in the stars, and go-to cookbook for families across Australia. new, dark plot is revealed. Then Alicia Gris she is fond of the poetry of William Blake. appears to lead Daniel to the heart of This is a subversive, entertaining noir darkness and reveal the secret history of novel from the winner of the 2018 Man Read more at penguin.com.au his family – at a terrible price. This is the Booker International Prize. final chapter in the story that began with The Shadow of the Wind and brings it to a XX grand finale. Angela Chadwick Dialogue Books. PB. $32.99 Little Available 9 October Edward Carey When Rosie and Jules Gallic Books. PB. Was $29.99 discover a ground- $26.99 breaking clinical trial that In 1761, a tiny girl named enables two women to Marie is born in a village in have a female baby, they Alsace. After her parents jump at the chance. die, she is apprenticed to Fear-mongering an eccentric wax sculptor politicians and right-wing movements and whisked off to Paris, are quick to latch on to the controversies where they meet a surrounding Ovum-to-Ovum (o-o) domineering widow and her son. technology and stoke the fears of the Together, they create an exhibition hall public. In this toxic political climate, for wax heads; the spectacle becomes a Jules and Rosie try to hide their baby sensation. As word of her talent spreads, from scrutiny. But when news of Rosie’s Marie is called to Versailles. Outside the pregnancy is leaked to the media, palace the revolutionary mob is they’re forced to question the loyalty of demanding heads, and at the wax those closest to them. museum, heads are what they do.

The Oblique Place Poetry Caterina Pascual Söderbaum & Frank Perry (trans.) MacLehose. PB. $29.99 An Open Book The discovery of David Malouf photographs – of her UQP. PB. $29.95 Spanish grandfather who David Malouf’s third new joined Hitler’s Wehrmacht poetry volume in nearly and her father in the forty years is a significant uniform of Franco’s army publishing event. Malouf – leads Caterina Pascual continues to meditate and Soderbaum to explore her family’s links reflect on themes of to some of the most abhorrent passages mortality and memory. of twentieth-century history. This The poems in An Open Book revisit and imaginative rediscovery of her family’s reimagine some of the key themes that disturbing history is fused with vividly have resonated with readers over his captured episodes from other lives and impressive career. Like the ‘small times, and the threads of evil that she comfort of light ... as night comes on’, lays bare are described in language so Malouf’s new poems hold close the painterly that her odyssey is at once precious and tender. CRIME October 2018 READINGS MONTHLY 11

like Ian – non-violent, loved by his friends now: a husband, a son, a mostly successful and considered a hard worker – to take the career as a therapist. So when a young Dead lives of others? Could it really be down to woman named Isabelle comes through her Ian’s neighbours constantly using the dirt door, it’s a complete shock to Stella when she Write track behind his house, stirring up a bit of immediately recognises her as the now-adult with Fiona Hardy dust that ruined Ian’s water tank and Alice. But how could it be, when she died all washing on the line? Or was it something those years ago? And how can she maintain more – was it really, as someone had said, the illusion that she doesn’t know who she There are few in the crime world quite as capable at both solving that Ian had done everyone a favour? is? And for Isabelle, consumed with rage at BOOK OF THE mysteries and baking an excellent sourdough as Corinna Tackling interviews with those left behind, her ruined life and with only one place to MONTH Chapman: baker extraordinaire, sometime detective, and and following the court case itself, Maryrose direct it – at the seemingly put-together Cuskelly has taken a crime that the papers Stella – how can she survive her hatred? A Crime general lady-about-town. Kerry Greenwood – of Phryne Fisher fame – returns to the present with another tale of Corinna’s made out to be trivial and unearthed its dense, suspenseful psychological thriller. industrious adventures, this time involving the quest for a depths in this absorbing true-crime story. missing dog, violently stolen from a recently returned Scottish Lethal White: Cormoran Strike, soldier desperate to be reunited with the canine that helped In a House of Lies Book 4 keep him alive in Afghanistan. Of course, nothing is quite as Ian Rankin Robert Galbraith simple as that: there are also historical tomes to be translated, Orion. PB. Was $32.99 Sphere. PB. Was $32.99 breakings-and-enterings to stop-and-kick-back-out, suburban $27.99 $27.99 gang wars to avoid, cyber warfare to defeat, and a lot of It’s hard to know what to As this was sadly under a impatient cats to be reassured. And when you live in a multi- write in an Ian Rankin strict embargo until after the level block of apartments like Corinna’s beloved Insula, there review. He’s been the master date this review was due and are always the domestic issues of having so many interesting of Scottish crime and the I’m yet to be close personal neighbours to contend with as well. Honestly, the 4am wake-up police procedural in general friends with Galbraith’s alter every weekday is the least of Corinna’s problems. for so long that it seems ego J.K. Rowling, I can only Greenwood has created another vibrant character with redundant to write about it speculate that this will be The Spotted Dog Corinna – here on her seventh outing – a woman who rises at all. Of course it’s instantly readable, of another addictive Cormoran Strike Kerry Greenwood off the page as if the font was printed with yeast. Resolute in course the characters jump off the page, of masterpiece. In this, Strike’s fourth outing, A&U. PB. Was $29.99 her ways, she talks as passionately of wine and tea and felines course it’s excellent and of course you’d all he’s now much more well-known and unable as she does of crime and violence. She boldly holds forth $26.99 be reading it even if this entire review was to sneak about as he used to do, which is opinions on just about everyone and everything happening just a bunch of arrows pointing at the title. difficult when he is trying to track down a around her and the diverse variety of people (and animals) (Note to self: try that next time?) Still, here’s death that happened years earlier – if it who populate this earth. If a problem arises, Corinna knows the person who can solve it, the gist: after a group of squabbling boys happened at all. The young man who came from her private detective lover Daniel to her ferociously loyal friends and neighbours find a car hidden in a gully – and a skeleton to Strike with the story has vanished, but – and sometimes you need a little help to get the bad guys to talk … or do a little breaking- in the boot – DI Siobhan Clarke is on the Strike isn’t willing to let the tale he heard go and-entering of your own. Best enjoyed in a warm lavender bath with a glass of something team summoned to find out what’s been without investigating first. With now- suitably fancy – but don’t keep your Kevlar vest too far out of reach. hiding there all these years. When the body partner Robin Ellacott on hand and their turns out to be a missing private investigator unclear relationship ready to bruise them and the original case is reopened, Clarke both, they will traipse through the city, realises that a lot went unnoticed in the Perfect Ten papers and prison, The Forty, a real-life gang through parliament, and into the country – original investigation – not least that the and hopefully come out alive for book five. Jacqueline Ward of thieves headed by Alice Diamond, are gully had been searched all those years ago Corvus. PB. $29.99 making demands of one Louisa Cannon. – and that everyone involved needs to be Miss Kopp Just Won’t Quit Dr Caroline Atkinson is living asked some questions that may lead to a The Forbidden Place Amy Stewart a ruined life: cloaked in fresh hell for those involved. And one of Susanne Jansson Scribe. PB. $32.99 misery, she’s surrounded by those names is, of course, John Rebus. boxes of goods bought during Mulholland Books. PB. $29.99 In Hackensack, New Jersey, drunken shopping-channel Nathalie is a biologist Deputy Sheriff Constance sprees, with a kitchen full of working on her dissertation The Way of All Flesh Kopp has been part of the dishes and a secret hoard of when she travels to Sweden’s Ambrose Parry force for a while now but, Canongate. PB. $29.99 stolen goods. Her husband, Jack, left her and north to investigate the alas, it is 1916 and folks still he took the kids so she can never see them, wetlands – a job that she Ambrose Parry is the aren’t used to it. Constance and now she has nothing, until one day Jack’s jumped at when it came up, pseudonym of the bestselling is constantly (sorry) luggage accidentally turns up at her door and, and not just because Christopher Brookmyre and harangued and mocked for being a woman, within it are all the secrets Jack has been Mossmarken’s peat bogs were so directly in the anaesthetist Dr Marisa but is far too good at her job to do anything keeping. Armed now with a journal naming her field of interest. As she drives the town’s Haetzman. With a vast but continue to successfully run the – and rating – all the women Jack assured her streets and inhales the smell of the damp, knowledge of excellent women’s jail and chase salami thieves he’d never slept with, Caro can take the high rich atmosphere, she remembers her writing and medical history through people’s backyards. But now that road – or she can get revenge as public as childhood there – one that swallowed up they have brought upon us this tale of an election has come about and the role of she’d ever wished for. This is a deliciously everything she used to be and led her to the Edinburgh in 1847. A city full of drink and sheriff itself is up for grabs, anything she vengeful tale of someone driven to despair inward life she lives now, in the city. In this debauchery and new ideas, it is also the home does is ripe for a controversy that could see and of the world that didn’t believe her. dark, cold and unsettling location, where of Will Raven, the medical student and her job on the line. Despite this, Constance people once used to leave sacrifices and general troublemaker about to start an cannot help but do all she can when Bright Young Dead offerings to the gods, Nathalie starts to find apprenticeship in the house of the famed Dr confronted with the removal of a seemingly Jessica Fellowes things – and people – in the swampy depths. Simpson, the pioneer of anaesthetic sane woman to an asylum on her husband’s techniques. Also in Simpson’s house is Sarah Sphere. PB. $29.99 Something dangerous lies in this wetland, word alone, proper consultation with a Fisher, a maid with no time to learn Available 9 October and Nathalie’s past will come bubbling to doctor be damned. This is an excellent everything she is sharp enough to know, and If you enjoy a taste of the the surface before the truth will. series; both the writing and Constance whose interest in the spate of deaths plaguing early twentieth century herself are full of fine entertainment and Edinburgh coincides neatly with Will’s own. upper-classes – just a taste, Wedderburn: A True Tale of adventures based loosely on real events A grimy, well-researched (but never mind you, don’t get above Blood and Dust that could not have been anywhere near as laborious) stab right into the heart of the past. your station here – then you Maryrose Cuskelly glorious as the books themselves. would do quite well to A&U. PB. $29.99 indulge in Jessica Fellowes’ One warm night in October Tell Me You’re Mine Also out this month: the most deeply second Mitford Murders book, part of her 2014, Ian Jamieson killed Elisabeth Norebäck unnerving title award goes to Mads Peder series where Fellowes follows (sorry) Louisa three of his neighbours: first Allison & Busby. PB. $27.99 Nordbo’s The Girl Without Skin (Text, PB, Cannon, nursery maid to the vast number of he stabbed Greg Holmes to After a quiet few years, $29.99); finally the title tables have turned Mitford siblings, who becomes entangled in death, then he went back Scandinavian crime is with Stephen Giles’s The Boy at the Keyhole all sorts of mischief while not particularly inside his house, picked up slinking its way to the (Michael Joseph, HB, $29.99) (though, of trying to. The second Mitford sister, Pamela, two guns, and walked across forefront again, not least with course, it’s an actual child involved); Adele is planning her coming-out party when it is the road to the home of Peter and Mary this disquieting tale of a Parks’s I Invited Her In (HQ Fiction, PB, taken over by London’s fashionable set, who Lockhart, Greg’s mother and stepfather. long-dead child and the $29.99); Andrew Gross’ The Last Brother (Pan plan one of the treasure hunts for which they There, he shot both of them. Then he went mother who never truly forgot Mac, PB, $29.99); Lou Berney’s November have become so famed. When the hunt turns back home to make some calls: to his friends about her. Stella was a teenager when her Road (HarperCollins, PB, $32.99) rocking up to violence and one of London’s Brightest to ask them to look after his wife, and to the daughter Alice went missing, presumed a month early for its name; Lisa Gabriele, The Young Things ends up dead, it is quite the police to let them know that he had just drowned, and it’s taken everything she has Winters (Michael Joseph, PB, $32.99) rocking headline. All the while, keeping out of the committed murder. What could cause a man to rebuild her life and gain what she has up a month late for its season … and more! 12 READINGS MONTHLY October 2018 NONFICTION

terrifying brush with her own mortality My Squirrel Days – sent her looking for answers about how Ellie Kemper New vulnerable each of us is to a life-changing H&S. PB. $29.99 event. Warm, candid and empathetic, this Available 9 October Nonfiction book is about what happens when ordinary Comedian and star of The people, on ordinary days, are forced to Office and Unbreakable suddenly find the resilience most of us Kimmy Schmidt Ellie Kemper don’t know we have. delivers a hilarious and Just as she did with the title of her first book, Clementine Ford uplifting collection of essays BOOK OF THE has taken another well-known expression and repurposed it Speaking Up about one pale woman’s MONTH for the title of her second. Ford reclaimed Fight Like A Girl Gillian Triggs journey from Midwestern and framed the idea as a positive; with Boys Will Be Boys Ford MUP. HB. Was $45 naïf to Hollywood semi-celebrity to Cultural Studies challenges the assumed and oft-quoted wisdom of that idiom. $39.99 outrageously reasonable New Yorker. My In making the case that many of the current prevailing As president of the Human Squirrel Days is a funny, free-wheeling tour notions of masculinity are deeply problematic, Ford stipulates Rights Commission, Gillian of Ellie’s life – from growing up in suburban that the issues of toxic masculinity are cultural, not biological. Triggs advocated for the St. Louis with a vivid imagination and a crush Yet, as any regular reader of Ford’s Fairfax columns would disempowered, the on David Letterman to moving to Los expect, this is not a book that sets out to make excuses for disenfranchised, and the Angeles and accidentally falling on Doris unacceptable behaviour. And thank goodness it’s not – at marginalised. She withstood Kearns Goodwin. the time of going to press, less than a year after the Harvey relentless political pressure Weinstein revelations and the advent of #MeToo, the backlash and media scrutiny as she defended the She Wants It: Desire, Power, against those who spoke out, and continue to speak out, is rife, defenceless for five tumultuous years. and Toppling the Patriarchy and ample space and support is being given to this backlash Speaking Up shares with readers the values Jill Soloway by reputable media. Ford demands better than this for, and that have guided Triggs’ convictions and the Ebury. HB. $35 from, everyone: for all people, of all ages, across the gender causes she has championed. Triggs will not Available 15 October spectrum who are imbibing insidious and overt cultural rest until Australia has a Bill of Rights, and When Jill Soloway’s father, messages every day about who they are, who they should be, her passionate memoir is an irresistible call whom they had always and how they should interact with others. Boys Will Be to everyone who yearns for a fairer world. understood to be male, came Boys: Power, Example after example lands like punch after punch of out as transgender, Patriarchy and how our limited and rigorously policed notions of masculinity Made In Scotland: My Grand everything shifted. For one, the Toxic Bonds are causing harm to all. While she is under no illusions Adventures in a Wee Country the moment became the of Mateship about the immense privileges patriarchy affords men, Ford Billy Connolly inspiration to push through Clementine Ford is just as concerned by the harms it inflicts upon them – BBC Books. PB. $35 the male-dominated landscape of Hollywood particularly while they are growing up – as she is about the A&U. PB. Was $32.99 Available 15 October and create the award-winning TV series damage it indubitably does to women. Boys Will Be Boys is an $27.99 Accompanying a new BBC Transparent. Exploring identity, love, impassioned call for societal change from a writer who has series, legendary comic Billy sexuality, and the blurring of boundaries, the become a stand-out voice of her generation (and has the trolls Connolly returns to his roots. show gave birth to a new cultural to prove it) and an act of devotion from a mother to her son. ‘After my knighthood was consciousness, and the lines on Jill’s own Elke Power is the editor of Readings Monthly announced, a woman from gender map began to be erased. This is the the BBC came to Glasgow to wildly candid story of that journey. interview me. We sat down in subsequent international struggle – a lovely hotel in a nice part of town, and she Australian Studies through the eyes of five remarkable players: hit me with her first question: “This must Business Vida Goldstein, Nellie Martel, Dora mean a lot to you, with you coming from Montefiore, Muriel Matters, and Dora nothing?” I looked at her, and I laughed. I did’nae come from nothing: I come from The Arsonist: A Mind on Fire Meeson Coates. Once again, Wright brings The Barefoot Investor for Scotland. And this book is about why I will Chloe Hooper a fresh perspective to Australian history. Families: The Only Kids’ always be happy and proud that I do.’ Hamish Hamilton. PB. $34.99 Money Book You’ll Ever Need Available 15 October Hoodwinked: How Pauline Scott Pape In My Mind’s Eye Stay tuned for a full review of this exceptional Hanson Fooled a Nation Barefoot Publishing. PB. $29.99 Jan Morris book in the November Readings Monthly, but it Kerry-Anne Walsh In the eagerly anticipated would be remiss of us not to mention here that Faber. HB. $32.99 A&U. PB. $29.99 follow-up to Scott Pape’s this will be published on Monday 15 October. In this collection of diary The infamous Pauline phenomenal money guide, After Black Saturday, arson pieces written for the Hanson claims to represent The Barefoot Investor, squad detectives arrived at a Financial Times over the the average Australian, but Pape’s mission is to make plantation on the edge of a course of 2017, former Kerry-Anne Walsh has sure your kids are 26,000-hectare burn site in soldier and journalist, and discovered nothing could be financially strong so they the Latrobe Valley. The police one of the great chroniclers further from the truth. The never get sucked into the traps that middle- close in on someone they of the world for over half a acclaimed author of The aged bankers have devised. Pape lays out the believe to be a cunning century, Jan Morris shares her thoughts on Stalking of Julia Gillard uncovers the many only ten money milestones kids need to have offender; and defence lawyers seek to the world, and her own place in it, as she faces and phases of Pauline Hanson: nailed before they leave home, and it’s all understand the motives of a man who, they turns ninety. In her characteristically accidental local councillor, surprising structured around one family ‘money meal’ claimed, was a naïf that had accidentally intimate voice – funny, perceptive, wise, national figure (1996), resurrection (2016), each week (so roughly 20 minutes). It’s that dropped a cigarette. This is the story not only touching, wicked, scabrous, and above all, and, throughout, the careful profile building. simple, and it’s never too early or too late. of this fire – how it happened, the people who kind – she writes about everything from There are the friends she’s used and died, the aftermath for the community – but cats to cars, travel to home, music to discarded, the men who control her, and the of fire in this country. As she did in The Tall writing. It’s a cornucopia of delights from money trail. It’s a wild ride with disaffected Cultural Studies Man, Chloe Hooper reveals something buried a unique literary figure. but essential in our national psyche. voters through a political system that has allowed chancers such as Hanson to flourish. In Pieces You Daughters of Freedom: Sally Field The World Was Whole The Australians Who Won the Biography S&S. HB. $45 Fiona Wright Vote and Inspired the World From Gidget’s sweet-faced Giramondo. PB. $29.95 Clare Wright ‘girl next door’ to the dazzling This is the second Text. HB. Was $49.99 complexity of Sybil to the non-fiction book $44.99 Any Ordinary Day Academy Award-winning from acclaimed Australian For the ten years from 1902, Leigh Sales ferocity and depth of her role writer Fiona Wright. In 13 when Australia’s suffrage Hamish Hamilton. PB. Was $34.99 in Norma Rae and Mary Todd essays, she delves into the campaigners won the vote $29.99 Lincoln, Sally Field has spaces we inhabit – our for white women, the world As a journalist, dual Walkley stunned audiences with her artistic range bodies and our homes – looked to this trailblazing Award-winner Leigh Sales and emotional acuity. In Pieces brings readers and explores what it means when these democracy for inspiration. often encounters people behind the scenes for not only the highs and shelters become destabilised. Clare Wright, the author of experiencing the worst lows of Field’s star-studded early career in Wright is concerned with the ordinary the Stella Prize-winning The Forgotten moments of their lives. But Hollywood, but deep into the truth, in her details of life, with routine and disruption Rebels of Eureka, tells the story of that one particular string of bad own words, of her life as a woman in the and by embracing the fluidity of the essay victory – and of Australia’s role in the news stories – and a second half of the twentieth century. form, bringing together memoir, social NONFICTION October 2018 READINGS MONTHLY 13 commentary, cultural studies, poetry Call Them by Their True Names: Rage Becomes Her: The Europe: A Natural History and more, she gives us a work that is at American Crises (and Essays) Power of Women’s Anger Tim Flannery once specific and expansive. The World Rebecca Solnit Soraya Chemaly Text. PB. $34.99 Was Whole is less self-contained than Granta. PB. $24.99 S&S. PB. $32.99 It is hard to overstate just how Wright’s earlier collection, Small Acts of Beginning with the election Influential feminist Soraya unusual Europe was towards Disappearance, which centred on the of Donald Trump and Chemaly illuminates how the end of the age of the author’s eating disorder. Here, her illness is expanding into American and why women repress dinosaurs. It was a dynamic considered in the context of the domestic history, surveillance, anger, revealing the harm island arc whose individual sphere, both from within it and outside violence against the that this causes, and the landmasses were made up of of it. While the book is largely set in the individual, the liberating power of owning diverse geological types. suburbs of Australian cities, we also travel denormalising of misogyny our anger and marshalling it When the first modern humans arrived in overseas – to the volcanos of Iceland, the and the rehumanising of public space, this as a vital tool for positive change. Just as Europe 40,000 years ago, they began to exert thriving public spaces of Shanghai. Themes is an essential new collection of essays Quiet brought about a new embrace of an astonishing influence on the continent’s overlap throughout the work, revealed in from the bestselling Rebecca Solnit. Calling introversion, Rage Becomes Her will bring flora and fauna. This enthralling ecological the small moments that echo one another for reflection and context, activism and about an embrace of female anger that will history is more than the story of Europe and across different essays. I’m constantly awed hope, the ultimate focus of this National leave women feeling liberated, inspired and the Europeans, it will change our by Wright’s capacity for empathy; reading Book Award longlisted collection is climate connected to an entire universe of women understanding of life itself. her makes me want to be a better person. and feminist activism, as Solnit brings her who are no longer interested in making nice. Sections of this book are harrowing; trademark deep analysis to bear on a range The Spy and the Traitor Wright’s intimate relationship with her of contemporary crises, and again shows us None of My Business Ben Macintyre illness is laid bare and there are no easy how to hope. P.J. O’Rourke Viking. PB. $35 answers to be found. I cried in ‘The Grove Press. PB. $29.99 On a warm July evening in Gravity Problem’ when she reflected on Dangerous Ideas About After decades covering war 1985, a middle-aged man in a learning to accept her illness as chronic, Mothers and disaster, bestselling suit stood on the pavement of on leaving what she calls ‘the rhetoric of Camilla Nelson & Rachel author and acclaimed satirist a busy avenue in the heart of recovery’ behind: ‘I’m still hoping, even as Robertson (eds.) P.J. O’Rourke takes on his Moscow, holding a plastic I recognise it as one of the great deceptions UWAP. PB. $29.99 scariest subjects yet: Safeway bag. A senior KGB of the disease, that I might transcend my Mothers are a topic on business, investment, officer, this man had supplied body and its weaknesses entirely.’ But it’s which almost everybody has finance and the political his British spymasters with a stream of important to note that The World Was Whole an opinion, and always has. chicanery behind them. But P.J.’s approach is priceless secrets. The Safeway bag was a is far from being unhappy. The essays are Now, however, those different. For example, he takes the risks for signal: to activate his escape plan. This is an animated by Wright’s humour and honesty, opinions are funnelled into you in his chapter ‘How I Learned Economics extraordinary tale of espionage, betrayal and by her imagination and her evident love of and amplified on social by Watching People Try to Kill Each Other’, raw courage that changed the course of the language. Some moments are radiant with media, where conversations and he proposes ‘A Way to Raise Taxes That Cold War forever. pleasure, such as in descriptions of her dog turn ugly and advice is commercialised. We’ll All Love’ – a 200% tax on celebrities. in the book’s final essay, ‘Much as That Dog This book confronts the issues that do not This is P.J. O’Rourke at his finest. D-Day: The Soldiers’ Story Goes’. Here Wright again demonstrates appear in many discussions of mothering, remarkable insight into human nature: Giles Milton and makes room for those marginalised by John Murray. PB. $35 ‘It feels harder, more vulnerable, even regular conversations around mothers and defenceless, to be writing about joy.’ To end Environmental D-Day was an epic battle that motherhood. Contributors include Anne on this sentiment is to imbue her book with involved 156,000 men, 7,000 Manne, Catharine Lumby, Danielle Wood, Studies hope. Wright is a remarkable writer. ships and 20,000 armoured Maria Tumarkin, Josephine Wilson, Quinn vehicles. The desperate Bronte Coates is the digital content Eades, and Timmah Ball. struggle that unfolded on 6 coordinator and the Readings Prizes manager Dominion: The Race to Save June was, above all, a story of Kafka’s Last Trial: The Case of Earth individual heroics. In an Can We All Be Feminists? a Literary Legacy Paul Lussier overview that is both meticulous and vast, June Eric-Udorie (ed.) Benjamin Balint William Heinemann. PB. $35 ‘the longest day’ is revealed as never before. Virago. PB. $32.99 Picador. PB. $29.99 The science of manipulating Less a masterpiece of strategic planning than In Can We All Be Feminists?, When Franz Kafka died in the earth’s climate (and a day on which thousands of scared young seventeen established and 1924, his loyal friend Max nature itself) is known as men found themselves staring death in the emerging writers from Brod could not bring himself ‘geoengineering’, and is face, this is the story told through the eyes of diverse backgrounds explore to fulfil Kafka’s last looked to, by many, as the those who took part. what feminism means to instruction: to burn his only way to save our planet. them in the context of their remaining manuscripts. Dominion is an authoritative Erebus: The Story of a Ship other identities – from a That betrayal led to an examination of the history, science and Michael Palin hijab-wearing Muslim to a disability rights international legal battle over which mechanics of the various geoengineering Random. PB. $35 activist to a body-positive performance artist country could lay claim to Kafka’s legacy: schemes, their possible implications, and the HMS Erebus was one of the to a transgender journalist. Edited by the Germany or Israel? A brilliant biographical extraordinary cast of characters – scientists, great exploring ships, a brilliant, galvanising, nineteen-year-old portrait of the influential group of writers entrepreneurs, despots, ecologists, veteran of groundbreaking feminist activist and writer June Eric-Udorie, and intellectuals known as the Prague politicians – involved. Instructive, explosive expeditions to the ends of this impassioned, thought-provoking Circle, Kafka’s Last Trial also offers a and urgent, Dominion is a landmark account the Earth. In 1848, it collection showcases marginalised women gripping account of the controversial trial. of the race to save the planet, by one of the disappeared in the Arctic, its whose voices are so often drowned out and Ultimately, Benjamin Balint invites us to world’s foremost experts on climate science. fate a mystery. In 2014, it offers a vision for a new, comprehensive question: who owns a literary legacy? was found. Michael Palin – Monty Python feminism that is truly for all. star, television globetrotter, master explorer The Lies That Bind: Rethinking History and storyteller – brings the remarkable On J.M. Coetzee: Writers On Identity Erebus back to life, following it from its Writers Kwame Anthony Appiah launch in 1826 to the epic voyages of Ceridwen Dovey Profile. PB. $29.99 The Golden Thread discovery that led to glory in the Antarctic Black Inc. HB. $17.99 Identity is often thought of Kassia St Clair and to ultimate catastrophe in the Arctic. In the Writers on Writers as personal. But the John Murray. HB. $39.99 series, leading writers reflect identities that shape the Available 9 October The Western Front Diaries of on another Australian writer world, our struggles and our All textiles begin with a twist. Charles Bean who has inspired and hopes are social and shared From colourful 30,000-year Peter Burness (ed.) fascinated them. As a child, with countless others: old threads found on the floor NewSouth. HB. $79.99 Ceridwen Dovey observed family, nationality, culture, of a Georgian cave to the Charles Bean, Australia’s with fascination her mother’s class, race and religion. Taking these Indian calicoes and chintzes official First World War immersion in Coetzee’s writing as she broad categories as a starting point, that powered the Industrial correspondent, saw more worked on what would become the first Professor Appiah, the best-selling author Revolution, and the Silk of the Australian Imperial critical study of his early novels. With of Cosmopolitanism, challenges our Roads to the woollen sails of the Vikings, our Force’s actions and battles tenderness and insight, Dovey draws on this assumptions about how identity works continuing reinvention of cloth tells on the Western Front than personal history to explore the Nobel and demonstrates that identities are fascinating stories of human ingenuity. Fabric anyone. Bean’s extensive Prize-winner’s work – how his books ‘do created from conflicts and confusions. has allowed us to achieve extraordinary private wartime diaries, held by the theory’ on themselves – while also tracing This radical new thinking will change things and survive in unlikely places. Kassia Australian War Memorial, form a unique the intellectual heritage that has been forever the way we think about ourselves St Clair, the author of The Secret Lives of and personal record of his experiences passed from mother to daughter. and our communities. Colour, shows you how – and why. and observations throughout the war and 14 READINGS MONTHLY October 2018 NONFICTION

were the basis of his monumental be going crazy, that it made me want to start the New Left to the alt-right, he traces multi-volume official war history. Bean’s my own little family of geese. Personal changing attitudes to democracy and Western Front diaries are published here Well, maybe one day. Development trauma, symbolism and liberation, in an for the first time, edited by esteemed Tom Davies is from Readings Doncaster exhilarating history of ideas and movements. historian Peter Burness, and Trigger Warnings is a bracing polemic and a accompanied by over 500 remarkable persuasive case for a new kind of politics. Bees of Australia Dare To Lead photographs, sketches and maps. James Dorey Brené Brown CSIRO Publishing. PB. $49.99 Vermillion. PB. $29.99 Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, Bees are the darlings of Available 15 October Science 1945-1975 the insect world. Many Brené Brown spent the past Max Hastings people recognise the two decades researching the HarperCollins. PB. $34.99 worth of bees, as well as emotions that give meaning to Diving For Seahorses: The Max Hastings has spent the that they face many our lives. Over the past seven Science and Secrets of Memory past three years threats, but very few years, she found that leaders Hilde Østby & Ylva Østby interviewing scores of know about the diversity in organisations ranging from NewSouth. PB. $29.99 participants on both sides of and importance of our native bee species. small entrepreneurial The enticing one of the most devastating There are an estimated 2000 to 3000 bee start-ups and family-owned businesses to introduction to Diving international conflicts of the species in Australia, yet we know very little non-profits, civic organisations and Fortune for Seahorses poses the twentieth century, as well as about the vast majority of these. Bees of 500 companies, are asking the same question, if our cells researching a multitude of American and Australia introduces some of our incredible questions: how do you cultivate braver, more constantly turn over, what Vietnamese documents and memoirs, to native bees, many of which, if you look daring leaders? And, how do you embed the are we? Our physical matter create an epic narrative of an epic struggle closely, can be found in your own garden. value of courage in your culture? Dare to being temporary, maybe ‘we that killed two million people. In his Lead provides actionable strategies and real are our memories’. Diving into memory can inimitable style, Hastings blends a political examples from her new research-based, be a risky business, at once opening a and military narrative of the entire conflict On Sheep: Diary of a Swedish Shepherd courage-building programme. treasure trove and Pandora’s box. The with heart-stopping personal experiences seahorses the Ostby sisters want to take you Axel Lindén and lessons for the twenty-first century diving for are indeed memories, and if you Quercus. HB. $19.99 about the misuse of military might. are going to take the plunge, having this pair Alex Linden has ditched his Politics for guides is about as good as it gets. With literary doctoral studies in one a neuropsychologist and leading expert order to move to a working Natural History in memory function, the other a writer with farm in the country with his Fear: Trump in the White House a Masters in the History of Shared Ideas, and family. As he gradually Bob Woodward then the fact that they are siblings, with settles into the rhythm of S&S. HB. Was $45 shared history and memories, offering Papa Goose: One Year, Seven shepherding, he has stark $39.99 active data and diverging examples to Goslings, and the Flight of My realisations about what is now his everyday With authoritative reporting interrogate? You couldn’t write it. Life life. He finds himself applying his honed through eight Except that’s exactly what they have Michael Quetting experiences of animal husbandry to consider presidencies from Nixon to done, and it is beautiful to read. From a man Black Inc. PB. $29.99 our place – as individuals and as a collective Obama, author Bob who couldn’t form new memories to one who In 2017, various organism – in the universe. The result is a Woodward reveals in could not forget, notable figures in memory institutes across sensitive and entertaining meditation on the unprecedented detail the research become rich characters in Hilde Germany and Russia joined small wonders in our world. teams to form the harrowing life and explosive Ostby’s prose. Lush, descriptive detail of International Cooperation debates inside President Donald Trump’s scenes, people and even the neural processes Poached: Inside the Dark White House and precisely how he makes of both contemporary and historical memory for Animal Research Using World of Wildlife Trafficking Space, better known as decisions on major foreign and domestic research activate the reader’s imagination – Rachel Love Nuwer ICARUS. The idea was to use satellites to policies. Woodward draws from hundreds of and with it their memory too. Scribe. PB. $35 track population levels of endangered hours of interviews with firsthand sources, Episodic and context-specific memories Journalist Rachel Love species, changes in climate, the spread of meeting notes, personal diaries, files and rely on a level of sensory and emotional Nuwer plunges the reader pathogens, and much more, by monitoring documents. Fear is the most intimate stimuli to be prioritised in our personal into the underground of the global movements of animals. portrait of a sitting president ever published archives. This book itself becomes a global wildlife trafficking, a When Michael Quetting (pronounced during the president’s first years in office. memory experiment: the Ostby sisters’ topic she has been Kfetting) is chosen to lead a small part imaginative writing delivers information in investigating for nearly a of ICARUS at the Max Planck Institute The Future of Capitalism a way that makes you more likely to be able decade. Illegal wildlife trade where he works, he can’t begin to imagine Paul Collier to draw on their book’s material about how now ranks among the largest contraband the emotional impact it will have on him. Allen Lane. HB. $45 and why your brain is responding, shaping, industries in the world, yet compared to His task is to hatch and raise a family of Available 15 October retaining and forgetting information. drug, arms, or human trafficking, the goslings so that one day, when they’re Deep new rifts are tearing What a gift. The next time a memory wildlife crisis has received scant attention ready to fly, he can equip them with the apart the fabric of Britain and attacks or protects you, a friend, or even and support, leaving it up to passionate gear that will record weather patterns from other Western societies: broader society (through the shared memory individuals fighting on the ground to try to an altitude to which we’ve never before had thriving cities versus the that is history), you’ll have a profoundly ensure that elephants, tigers, rhinos, and this kind of access, and transmit the data to provinces, the highly skilled enhanced grasp of why. But memory is not more are still around for future generations. the ICARUS computers. elite versus the less educated, just about the past, it is about the future. Talking to them through the eggs and wealthy versus developing Understanding and activating memory holding them so they become familiar countries. As these divides deepen, we have function with intentionality can also help with his smell, his voice, his very presence, Humour lost the sense of ethical obligation to others shape more desirable future responses and Quetting ensured that when they hatched that was crucial to the rise of post-war social realities. If we are our memories, there are they would imprint on him and think of him democracy. Drawing on his own solutions as huge rewards to be gained by individuals and as ‘Papa Goose.’ He didn’t expect, however, One Good Turn well as ideas from some of the world’s most societies from paying attention to what our that he, too, would feel as though he Mary Leunig distinguished social scientists, celebrated memories are doing and why. imprinted on them, and that he would feel Brow Books. PB. $24.99 economist Paul Collier shows us how to save Leanne Hermosilla is from Readings Carlton the need to raise and protect them as if they Mary Leunig’s capitalism from itself. were his own children. drawings demand Brief Answers to the Big Translated from German by Jane attention and Trigger Warnings: Political Questions Billinghurst, who worked on The Hidden Life challenge the status Correctness and the Rise of Stephen Hawking Of Trees by Peter Wohlleben, Papa Goose is quo with their content the Right John Murray. HB. Was $32.99 written with warmth and a quirky sense of – there’s no artist who Jeff Sparrow $29.99 humour as it follows Quetting’s escapades combines dark humour Scribe. PB. $29.99 Available 16 October with the geese. From watching them get with confronting ideas like she does. This The unlikely rise of Donald J. Even as his theoretical work excited over jumping in puddles, to falling striking full-colour collection will get eyes Trump exemplifies the took his mind to the furthest asleep with them huddled under his jumper staring and chins trembling. With a design political paradox of the reaches of space, Stephen and waking up covered in their shit. that harks back to her earlier books, this twenty-first century. In Hawking always believed that Papa Goose is such a wonderfully new book will remind old readers of the Trigger Warnings, Jeff science could also be used to lighthearted story, asking questions about sharpness and relevance of Mary Leunig’s Sparrow excavates the fix the problems on our planet. our relationship with nature, and how it art, and dumbfound those who wonder development of a powerful The final book from one of the can teach us a thing or two about keeping it why she was ever relegated to the scrap new vocabulary against progressive causes. greatest minds in history is a personal view together when the world around us seems to heap in the first place. From the Days of Rage to Gamergate, from on the challenges we face as a human race, NONFICTION October 2018 READINGS MONTHLY 15

and where we, as a planet, are heading next. A pertinent today as it was then, and this percentage of all royalties will go to the Motor landmark publication is a fitting tribute. Neurone Disease Association and the Stephen Hawking Foundation. My Thoughts Exactly Lily Allen Rewording the Brain Viking. PB. $34.99 David Astle Lily Allen is one of the most A&U. PB. $29.99 iconic musicians of the In this entertaining and beginning of the twenty-first essential book, cryptic century, winning NME and crossword guru David Astle Brit awards across four explains how your brain albums. She’s opinionated, a responds to and benefits people-pleaser, spoilt, and from attempting these needy. She has been broken. She contradicts crosswords. A growing body herself, and tries to do good. She has been of research suggests cryptic crosswords are much maligned by tabloids for over a decade. the ideal workout for your brain, and Astle When women share their stories, loudly and shows how regular training of this kind can clearly and honestly, things begin to change be fun as well as fundamental. If you’ve – for the better. My Thoughts Exactly is Lily always been intimidated by cryptic Allen’s story, told in her own words. crosswords, fear not! Rewording the Brain is an accessible guide to developing and Tina Turner: My Love Story ‘UNFORGETTABLE – so many fascinating sharpening your puzzle talents. Tina Turner people, stories and brilliant techniques. Century. PB. $35 I’ll never trust a memory again.’ Available 15 October Woo’s Wonderful World of — Robyn Williams Maths From her early years picking Eddie Woo cotton in Nutbush, Tennessee iving for Seahorses off ering an Pan Mac. PB. $29.99 to her rise to fame alongside Dilluminating look at one of our most Why is a rainbow curved? Ike Turner, and finally to her fascinating faculties: our memory. Sisters Why aren’t left-handers phenomenal success in the Hilde and Ylva Østby – one an acclaimed extinct? How is a sunflower 1980s and beyond, beloved writer the other a neuropsychologist— musical icon Tina Turner like a synchronised skilfully interweave history, research candidly examines her personal history, from swimmer? Why is ‘e’ a magic and personal stories in this fascinating her darkest hours to her happiest moments number? The answer to these exploration of the evolving science of and everything in between. Brimming with questions is contained within memory from its Renaissance beginnings one simple word: MATHS. Because maths is her trademark blend of strength, energy, heart to the present day. all about patterns, and our universe is and soul, My Love Story is a gripping, extraordinarily patterned. With enthusiasm, surprising memoir, as memorable and humour and heart, Eddie Woo shows how entertaining as any of her greatest hits. card tricks, conspiracy theories, teacups, www.newsouthpublishing.com killer butterflies, music, lightning and so much more illuminate the spellbinding Travel Writing world of maths that surrounds us.

Magic Music Jan Golembiewski Transit Lounge. PB. $29.99 A young man heads off on a Led Zeppelin by Led Zeppelin journey to find out if magic Led Zeppelin still exists in the world, to Reel Art. HB. Was $99 know its wonder, and to see if $79.99 it might save him when his Led Zeppelin by Led own life is unexpectedly at Zeppelin is the first and stake. Instead of retreating only official illustrated book after being deported from Mexico, or beaten to be produced in up in Guatemala, he travels to the Caribbean, collaboration with the the Americas, Europe and, ultimately, to members of the band. Africa. Magic is the story of an incredible Celebrating 50 years since their formation, journey, both physical and spiritual, that it covers the group’s unparalleled musical reverberates with adventure. career and features photographs of Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham on and offstage, in candid Visual Arts moments and in the recording studio. This definitive 368-page volume includes unseen photographs and artwork from the Mirka & Georges: A Culinary Led Zeppelin archives and contributions Affair from photographers around the world. Lesley Harding & Kendrah Morgan Miegunyah Press. HB. Was $55 Imagine John Yoko $49.99 John Lennon & Yoko Ono The impact of Mirka and T&H. HB. $65 Georges Mora on Available 9 October Australian art and food has In 1971, John Lennon and been remarkable. Arriving Yoko Ono conceived and in Melbourne in 1951 from recorded the critically Paris, they energised local acclaimed album Imagine. society and transformed Imagine John Yoko tells the the culinary and artistic landscapes. Their story of this intensely apartment became a hub for the bohemian creative period. It transports readers to home set, and their cafés and restaurants brimmed and working environments through artfully with sophisticated food, sexual intrigue and compiled narrative film stills, Yoko’s closely creative endeavours. Mirka’s distinctive art, guarded archive photos and artefacts, and now collected by major galleries, was a vital text from published and unpublished part of this heady mix. Mirka & Georges sources, complemented by comments from gloriously illustrates and celebrates the Yoko today. Imagine is as universal and Moras’ extraordinary story. 16 READINGS MONTHLY October 2018 NONFICTION

Lateral Cooking Food & Niki Segnit Bloomsbury. HB. $45 This innovative cookbook Gardening is completely ingenious with Chris Gordon and a breath of fresh air for any home cook or chef. You know how you often The Cook’s Apprentice: Tips, add a little of your own to Techniques and Recipes for a recipe, substitute herbs, New Foodies or add a dash of wine to Stephanie Alexander your broth? Well this cookbook takes that Lantern. HB. Was $45 sneaky personal move into account! This $39.99 groundbreaking book is designed to help This informative book is you develop your own recipes from the full to the brim with base of a particular dish. It’s almost like a everything new ‘foodies’ Choose Your Own Adventure cookbook. need to know to become Lateral Cooking encourages improvisation, relaxed and confident in resourcefulness, and, ultimately, the the kitchen. I would buy knowledge and confidence to cook the way this book for kids who you want. The result is surely greater are watching food creativity in the kitchen. shows, smelling lime leaves and questioning what type of tofu you are The Getting of Garlic buying. Not only are there excellent recipes, John Newton but there are also tips about essential tools, NewSouth. PB. $32.99 classic cooking terms and what flavours John Newton is one of work together. I’m buying this book in hope the great food chroniclers that it inspires my teenage kids! of our time. In The Getting of Garlic, he I Quit Sugar: Simplicious Flow delves into the history Sarah Wilson and influence of this fine Pan Mac. PB. $45 ingredient. This food The bestselling Sarah history of Australia Wilson is back with shows we held onto another directive that British assumptions about produce and can only be good: cooking for a long time and these fed our with over 300 recipes views on racial hierarchies and our place in she shows us how to the world. Newton visits fine-dining eat well with zero restaurants and cafés to explore what people waste. It’s amazing. have cooked and eaten over centuries using The recipes are straightforward and do use garlic as a staple. His observations, and enormous amounts of vegetables but, as recipes old and new, show that we haven’t promised, there is no waste! This book is changed as much as we might think we have. perfect for those wanting fuss-free, positive-action type food. I promise it’s not Eat at the Bar rocket science! Matt McConnell with Jo Gamvros Hardie Grant. HB. $50 Smith & Deli-cious: Jo Gamvros and Matt Food from our Deli (That McConnell share the Happens to be Vegan) helm at Melbourne’s Shannon Martinez & Mo Wyse beloved Bar Lourinhã. Hardie Grant. HB. Was $50 If you have ever eaten $44.99 there then you will The second cookbook already know that the from Smith and genius of the food Daughters’ Shannon served is the European flair and the Martinez & Mo Wyse is absolute tastiness of it all. Recipes are

the type of book that you taken from all over Spain, Greece, Portugal

dip into when you have and Italy to bring together the greatest a crowd at your doorstep small sharing dishes of all time. This is or you’re just about to both a travel book and cookbook, pack the car to head to the hills for a beautiful aspirational and inclusive, warm and picnic. All of the recipes are vegan, but you inviting. It’s perfect for those of us won’t notice because all you’ll be thinking dreaming of a European summer. about is how mouth-watering it all is. The Broadsheet Italian Love, Laugh, Bake! Cookbook Silvia Colloca Broadsheet Media Plum. PB. $39.99 Broadsheet Media. HB. $49.95 Silvia Colloca, Broadsheet cookbooks passionate home-cook are terrific; they are and baker, says there is easy to follow, nothing more satisfying represent our daily city than baking. Well I’m lives well and have not sure if that’s true, glorious photos of but I too enjoy contributors and combining the simplest dishes. This is an of ingredients and seeing them transform assembly of recipes from the best Italian

into the most scrumptious creations to share restaurants in our country taken from our

with friends and family. In Love, Laugh, five larger cities. The book also includes Bake Silvia shares the tricks and trades of information and recipes from Italian food baking, including her fresh take on gluten- institutions, delicatessens and farmers. free, and also vegan, baking. Think of this This is for all who consider pasta a family book as an easy means of ensuring baking favourite as well as the ultimate comfort success with a touch of Italian flair. dish, and for whom cheese is a way of life. YOUNG ADULT October 2018 READINGS MONTHLY 17

does it in a way that is informative and compelling. This book is a must-read for Young fans of mysteries and other novels such as Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon Adult and Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper. For readers 12+. Pilgrim Hodgson is from Readings Kids

Elodie has an iron will – with a stepfather who loathes her The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats BOOK OF THE and a mother who does nothing to defend her, it’s the only and Piracy MONTH way she's been able to survive her hard upbringing. When she Mackenzi Lee receives word that she’s being sent off to work as a servant HarperCollins. PB. $19.99 Young Adult in the mysterious Black Oak Cottage, Elodie knows she’ll Felicity Montague need all the courage and determination she can muster to is determined to overcome this new challenge. study medicine. Unfortunately, A Curse of Ash and Embers is a dark eighteenth-century but engaging coming-of-age tale full society has other ideas of mystery that will have fans 13+ about what a woman is hooked. supposed to do with her life (i.e. marry the kind baker and bear children), and despite A strange journey involving fortune-telling wizards and her obvious talent, Felicity faces constant curse-casting figures in black brings her to the door of the rejection in her efforts to achieve her witch Aleida. Despite her magical powers, Aleida is having ambition. When she learns that her a similarly hard time of things: her predecessor was a witch estranged childhood friend, Johanna, is A Curse of Ash named Gyssha Blackbone, and her penchant for making engaged to a renowned and eccentric and Embers monsters has left Aleida with a mess to clean up. With physician, she sees it as a unique Jo Spurrier Elodie’s grit and Aleida’s cunning, the pair will face down opportunity and accepts the aid of a Voyager. PB. $19.99 restless ghosts, angry warlocks and demonic trees. mysterious female pirate, Sim, in Australia has a strong tradition of rich, inventive YA travelling uninvited to the wedding. Soon, fantasy thanks to authors like Garth Nix, Isobel Carmody all three young women are ensnared in a and Alison Croggon, and now we can add Jo Spurrier’s name to the list with her first far riskier, and more thrilling, quest than book for teens. A Curse of Ash and Embers is a dark but engaging coming-of-age tale full any could have predicted. of mystery that will have fans 13+ hooked. This promises to be the start of a new series Felicity, Sim and Johanna form that will greatly appeal to readers looking for intriguing world building supported by a the heart of this book and I loved how twisting plot. distinctive all three were from one another. Holly Harper is from Readings Kids Through them and their relationships, Mackenzi Lee demonstrates that there is no ‘right’ way to be a woman, and challenges popular notions that romantic love is the What the Woods Keep missing mother before realising its her only truly fulfilling form of love. Felicity is Katya de Becerra eyeless, pointy toothed corpse; ravens recognisably asexual and aromantic, while A&U. PB. $16.99 appearing at your window or flooding both Sim and Johanna have strong passions When Hayden was the skies above you … This is not a book and attachments outside of the romantic eight her mother, you want to read right before bed! A great sphere that give their lives meaning. Ella, disappeared in the supernatural story with enough genuinely The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and woods near their creepy moments to keep you up at night. Piracy is a companion novel to Lee’s small-town home of For readers 14+. award-winning The Gentleman's Guide Promise. Not long after, Dani Solomon is from Readings Kids to Vice and Virtue and fans of the former Hayden was expelled will be delighted to learn that Felicity’s from school due to an Girl in the Window brother Monty and the lovely Percy play a incident, and her Penny Joelson part in her story too. However, newcomers physicist dad was fired after trying to HG Egmont. PB. $16.99 will not miss anything by diving straight into this novel. Just as practical, pithy convince his students that Nibelungs Kasia is mostly Felicity is a different creature to the (German fairy creatures) are real. stuck in her room roguish, reckless Monty, so is a story with Ten years of homeschooling and after a case of tonsillitis her at the centre. Felicity’s story is one of therapy later, Hayden is living her own leaves her with the resilience, feminism, friendship, claiming life in Brooklyn with her friend Del when debilitating condition your identity, and yes, sea monsters too. she gets a call from her parents’ lawyer. myalgic A tribute to bold women in history, Her mum – long since declared ‘dead in encephalomyelitis The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy absentia’ – has left her childhood home, (chronic fatigue). Too is a funny, swashbuckling historical Holland Manor, to Hayden, along with the weak to attend school, adventure for ages 12+. instructions to find her gifts and to finish she watches life passing by her bedroom what Ella started. window. One evening she sees what looks Bronte Coates is the digital content Hayden considers herself to be very like the kidnapping of a little girl – and she coordinator and Readings Prizes manager rational and attempts to write these strange notices that someone else in the window instructions off as signs of her mother’s opposite hers has witnessed what Dry fragile mental state. But when birds start happened too! She calls the police to Neal Shusterman & Jarrod dropping out of the sky, causing hidden investigate, but they and her neighbours Shusterman memories to come crashing back, she both claim there’s no young girl living Walker. PB. $16.99 convinces herself going back to Promise, there. Is Kasia losing her mind? How can The California drought and the forest, is the only way to solve the she find out more about this girl in the has been going on for a mystery of her mum’s disappearance. window when even a trip downstairs wipes while. Life has become When Hayden and Del arrive in Promise her energy out? an endless list of don'ts: and strangers greet Hayden by name, the Girl in the Window is a compulsive don’t water the lawn, eerie small town seems like something page-turner and, like Penny Joelsen’s first don’t fill up your pool, straight from the sci-fi–horror films novel I Have No Secrets, it’s an interesting don’t take long showers. the girls adore watching. The mystery exploration of life for someone with Until the taps run dry. surrounding the town and who, or what, limited abilities. Kasia struggles to accept Suddenly, Alyssa’s quiet Hayden is deepens. her physical limitations, and most of suburban street becomes a warzone as What the Woods Keep really is like her school friends fail to understand the neighbours and families turn against one a horror film: sleepwalking figures seriousness of her invisible illness. Girl in another on the hunt for water. When her with glazed eyes frantically digging the Window raises some pertinent themes parents don’t return and her life – and her in basements til their fingers bleed; surrounding community, friendships and brother’s – is threatened, Alyssa has to nightmares of being hugged by your support for vulnerable people, and Joelson make impossible choices. 18 READINGS MONTHLY October 2018 KIDS

All the Ways to be Smart The Antlered Ship Children’s Davina Bell & Allison Colpoys (illus.) Dashka Slater, Terry Fan & Eric Fan (illus) Scribe. HB. $24.99 Frances Lincoln. HB. $24.99 Available 15 October Marco the fox has a lot of Books A radiant celebration of the questions. But none of the many different talents children other foxes share his curiosity. can have, All the Ways to be Smart is So when a magnificent ship certain to be one of the picture books with a deer for a captain of the year. The third release from arrives at the dock looking for Australian duo Davina Bell and a crew, Marco volunteers. And, at last, amid adventure Allison Colpoys (The Underwater and intrigue, Marco finds the answer to his most Fancy-Dress Parade and Under the important question of all: What’s the best way to find a Love Umbrella), this book is funny and tender, exuberant friend you can talk to? and whimsical, and an absolute joy to pore over. All the Ways to be Smart is a great book for nurturing a child’s confidence, and those who feel different from their friends will be reassured by the Junior Fiction book’s varied descriptions of what makes someone smart. Examples include the practical (‘knowing where you’re going’), the creative (‘building ships to Mars’) and emotional (‘kindness when there’s Rosie Revere and the Raucous crying’). Colpoys’ distinctive illustrations fizz with her Riveters: The Questioneers, Book 1 trademark charm and vivacity; the colours burst out of Andrea Beaty & David Roberts (illus.) Picture Books the page with wild abandonment. For ages 2+. Abrams. HB. $16.99 Bronte Coates is the digital content coordinator and the Andrea Beatty and David Roberts Readings Prizes manager – the minds behind such wonderful picture books as Rosie A House for Mouse Revere, Engineer; Iggy Peck, Architect; Gabby Dawnay & Alex Barrow (illus.) Dragon Post and Ada Twist, Scientist – now bring us T&H. HB. $21.99 Emma Yarlett this delightful chapter book for young readers. It’s the story of a little engineer, Mouse decides it’s time to Walker. HB. $24.99 Rosie, and her latest challenging move house and ‘with a flick of When Alex finds a dragon living project – to create a device so that a friend, whose arms his whiskers and twinkling eyes, he in the cupboard under the stairs, are in casts, is able to paint. The catch is there’s a deadline packed up his stuff and said his he knows just what to do. He of two days! Championed by her creative family and goodbyes’. Leaving the only home writes letters to many different supported by her buddies Iggy and Ada, Rosie is he’s known and all his friends, people – including the fire encouraged in her mission. Mouse begins his exploring. First, he brigade and the butcher – to ask Just like any budding scientist, Rosie faces failure finds three little pigs whose homes how he should take care of his but she persists; brainstorming and recycling old ideas, seem interesting but actually appear to have some surprise visitor. With envelopes to open and letters to developing and evaluating designs at each step until she structural problems! Onward and upward, he spies a read, children will love this fiery story about finally succeeds! tower that could have some grand views, but it friendship and asking for help from award-winning becomes apparent the only way in is via a long plait; author and illustrator Emma Yarlett. This first book in a series is a must for the budding starting to get the picture? entrepreneur; short chapters with plentiful illustrations and an appendix with useful information guarantee House hunting can be challenging and Mouse is Giraffe Problems also starting to get lonely, but then he spies a castle … engagement. Celebrating camaraderie, the scientific Jory John & Lane Smith (illus.) Will the adventurous rodent find what he is looking for method and the importance of persistence, it’s a winner! Walker. HB. $24.99 there? This is a fun, rhyming read-aloud that is also Highly recommended for boys and girls aged 7+. In this laugh-out-loud companion an imaginative introduction to a few of the best-loved to Penguin Problems, Edward the Athina Clarke is from Readings Malvern nursery tales. For age 2+. giraffe can’t understand why his Alexa Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn neck is as long and bendy and The Adventures of Catvinkle ridiculous as it is. He’s tried Elliot Perlman & Laura Stitzel (illus.) My Two Blankets disguising it, dressing it up, and Puffin. HB. $19.99 Irena Kobald & Freya Blackwood (illus.) strategically hiding it behind Catvinkle is used to being top cat. Little Hare. PB. Bilingual edition $16.99 bushes. But just when he’s So she is horrified when Mr Sabatini My Two Blankets is a exhausted his neck-hiding options, a turtle ambles in brings home a lost Dalmatian beautiful book that tells the with some great advice. named Ula. To her surprise, story of the strangeness of a new Catvinkle likes Ula. But a cat and a world for a little girl who has moved Here Comes Stinkbug! dog can’t be best friends - can they? to Australia with her auntie. The Tohby Riddle And will Catvinkle be brave and words people are speaking sound A&U. HB. $24.99 join her new friend on a mission to strange and clanging. Even the Stinkbug can really stink. But help two sad children, or will she wind feels strange to her. The only when the stink starts bugging his leave Ula to face the danger alone? comfort she finds in this unfamiliar world is the blanket friends, Stinkbug wonders if it’s she brought with her from her old world. But then she time to stop doing what stink meets a little girl in the park who starts teaching her bugs do best. This is a funny bug words, new phrases that she can weave into her old story from the much-loved, Middle Fiction familiar blanket, covering her with the comfort of being multi-award-winning author of able to communicate in the new world. Unforgotten, Milo, and My Uncle’s The Readings Foundation (which promotes literacy Donkey. in all its forms) awarded a grant of $11,000 to the Asylum Louisiana’s Way Home Seekers Resource Centre (ASRC) for My Two Blankets There’s a Baddie Running Through This Kate DiCamillo to be translated into three languages: Farsi, Arabic and Book Walker. HB. $19.99 Dari. The impact of a beautifully produced picture book, Shelly Unwin & Vivenne To (illus.) Though Louisiana, our in the language of an asylum seeker’s home country, A&U. HB. $19.99 plucky young heroine, cannot be overestimated. It gives a legitimacy to asylum A very sneaky baddie is on the appears in Kate DiCamillo’s seekers, letting them know that we, in Australia, loose. He will make the reader Raymie Nightingale, this is a welcome them and want them to feel at home. This book look for him everywhere – up standalone novel and, in my is a real, feel-good read (and not only because it’s such a and down, and around and opinion, even better than the first! delightful story). The translated language in each version around, until the very last page! Louisiana is woken by her runs alongside the original English text. This is one of ten This is a fast-paced story about a granny in the middle of the night projects supported by the Readings Foundation. baddie on the run with playful text that invites both and told it is the day of reckoning Gabrielle Williams is the Readings Foundation grants officer child and reader to interact with the book. and they must flee immediately. She doesn’t at first KIDS October 2018 READINGS MONTHLY 19

realise that this time it’s not just one of Granny’s little negligence and loneliness, particularly when her brother reflect our human natures and pretensions. ways or ideas, but that her whole life, everything she is sent to boarding school. Despite all this, the delightful Each short tale is accompanied by a stunning believed to be true, will be turned upside down and Clarry thrives because she is resilient and hopeful, and in painting depicting human and animal connecting with gone forever. To whom can a young girl, alone in a her quiet way achieves her goals. one another. Tan has created a deeply moving, elegant strange town, turn? Only to those around her, who may One of her first goals is to get an education, and while and sophisticated collection of stories and paintings or may not fail her. her father does not see her worth, other people do. Then that will ask people to reflect on their relationship with Young readers are in the hands of a wise, kind World War I rears it tragic head and a time of uncertainty, animals as well as their own place in the world. This is author who will set their imaginations alight and show anguish and separation begins. But it is also a time of a profound work of art that rewards repeat reading and them a life quite different from their own. What more possibility for women as the war effort needs all the help is a necessary addition to any bookshelf. It will delight could one ask? Highly recommended for ages 9+ it can get and so many will get their chance to shine. readers aged 10+. Kathy Kozlowski is from Readings Kids The Skylarks’ War is a terrific read and I loved every Angela Crocombe is the manager of Readings Kids minute of it. Ages 10+ Alexa Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn Zenobia Morten Dürr & Lars Horneman (illus.) BOOK OF THE Tilly and the Bookwanderers: Pages UQP. PB. $19.95 MONTH and Co., Book 1 This heartbreaking Danish Middle Fiction Anna James graphic novel calls our HarperCollins. HB. $19.99 attention to the thousands of Tilly Pages arrives home people who each year go missing sopping wet on the last day or die during migration, of term. Pages and Co., the particularly those deaths that bookshop where she lives, is run happen at sea. Millions of Syrians by her grandparents, who are also have fled their country since the her guardians ever since her onset of war and this is the story of mother, Beatrice, mysteriously Amina. Her parents gone, she starts a journey. A disappeared not long after Tilly’s crowded boat capsizes and as she falls into the deep birth. blue ocean Amina thinks of hide and seek, and of Everything I’ve The shop is a multi-level affair and even has a small cooking dolmas with her mother. She also thinks of Never Said café, which is run by Jack, who conjures up literary- Zenobia, the ancient queen of Syria, a warrior of Samantha Wheeler themed sweets. Tilly’s holidays are looking solitary, tea- inspiring strength. UQP. PB. $16.95 and sweet-filled, and likely to involve hiding in a good Readers are given plenty of space to reflect on the book – until Tilly discovers a box of books buried at the heavy events of this book. The text is very sparse; wordless back of the pantry. The contents of which set off a chain pages and large panels highlight the vastness of the sea Queensland author Samantha Wheeler is already of events and a rollicking adventure. and the journey. It’s a powerful, vividly illustrated book a Readings’ favourite, with two of her middle Peppered by appearances of favourite book and will be useful in a classroom or at home as a starting grade novels previously shortlisted for The Readings characters both recent and old, as well as fun characters point for discussion about the Syrian refugee crisis. of Anna James’s own creation (‘sidekick’ Oskar Roux is Children’s Book Prize. Her latest is an incredible piece Kim Gruschow is from Readings St Kilda of writing that feels very personal and intimate. a particularly favourite), Tilly and the Bookwanderers Written from the perspective of eleven-year-old Ava, blurs the line between reality and fantasy. It’s a love who has Rett syndrome, it is a beautiful, empathetic letter to getting lost in a good book. story that may have you in tears. James has created an exciting world that I can’t Classic Rett syndrome is a rare neurological disorder found wait to explore further. But, for now, I’m going to be in females which renders a young child unable to walk, diving in for a second helping and maybe even a detour of the Month move without help, or speak. Ava is fully functioning into a classic or two. on the inside, yet frustrated that she is forced to watch Ford Thomas is from Readings online TV shows that are for young children, she is dressed in clothes she doesn’t like, and she can’t physically Inkling The Bromeliad articulate for herself apart from the ability to scream, Kenneth Oppel (Trilogy – Omnibus Edition) which she does when she’s scared or unhappy. Of Walker. PB. $14.99 Sir Terry Pratchett course, this is hugely embarrassing to her big sister, When magical ink jumps out of Corgi. PB. $24.99 Nic, and makes life tough for her parents. When Ethan’s father’s sketchbook, a When you are tiny, less than tragedy strikes the family, they must work together strange series of events is set into 10cm small, and you have like never before. motion. To Ethan’s younger sister, spent your entire life living as Written with great insight and empathy for Ava’s Inkling is Lucy, her beloved dog; comfortably as generations before plight, this is a story that wears its heart on its sleeve to his father, Inkling is a second you in the walls and floors of a large and shows the very real hardship of a family struggling chance. Friends and enemies department store, you might be with major challenges. This magnificent book will alike try to use Inkling, but to forgiven for thinking the store was appeal to readers of Wonder by R.J. Palacio or Out of My Ethan, Inkling is his friend – and all that ever existed. If a small group Mind by Sharon Draper, but will also be devoured by he must save him. of nomes appeared out of nowhere almost anyone with a heart. Do yourself a favour and claiming to come from ‘Outside’, it might be read it immediately, but bring some tissues. Suitable understandable for you to want to deny they exist even for age 9 to adult. while they stand in front of you. But if they claimed the Angela Crocombe is the manager of Readings Kids Graphic Novel store was going to be demolished and they brought evidence, you might want to stop squabbling and start working together. For the sake of Nomekind. While The Bromeliad trilogy is full of little Easter The Skylarks’ War Tales from the Inner City eggs for its adult readers (there is a wonderful reference Hilary McKay Shaun Tan to some Nina Simone lyrics in the first one!) these are Pan Mac. PB. $14.99 A&U. HB $35 never at the expense of the series’ intended audience. For all the children who loved We are very lucky to have a The Bromeliad trilogy is full of young people pushing The War That Saved My Life second Shaun Tan in one for the change that will save them and stubborn old folk and its sequel by Kimberly Brubaker year – this time a companion piece refusing to accept it until the very last minute (though Bradley, this beautiful story is an to the beautiful short-story if you listen to their grumbling carefully some of what excellent addition to the genre. collection, Tales from Outer they’re saying is quite useful!). I had such a ball re- Clarry and her brother live Suburbia. This is an extraordinary reading it, it was a joy to rediscover the Book of Nome (a a dreary London life with their collection of mythical tales about Nomish bible which asserts that Outside is a myth) and disengaged father. They yearn for our relationship with animals, to laugh at the silliness of nomish politics, which are not their Cornwall summer holidays with both real and imagined. It’s also a dissimilar to our own! The huge variety of characters their charming cousin at their grandparents’ house. It reminder that we, too, are merely animals in a and their witty dialogue make The Bromeliad trilogy an is the early 1900s and not only are girls deprived of an complicated world that is often beyond our excellent read-aloud bedtime story that everyone can education and professional prospects as adults (unless comprehension. Whether they’re living just next door, on enjoy! Great for 6+ (if being read to!) they are servants) but Clarry also has to endure emotional the office floor above, or up in the sky, these animals Dani Solomon is from Readings Kids 20 READINGS MONTHLY October 2018 BARGAINS

drawings from the magazine’s archives. A information. How We Learn is a practical, his art celebrated the emerging gorgeous keepsake it includes contributions playful, and endlessly fascinating guide to quintessential Australian character. October from Margaret Atwood, Roald Dahl, Haruki what we really know about learning and Murakami and Jean Rhys. memory today – and how we can apply it to Salads & Vegetables Bargains our own lives. Karen Martini The Evolution of Everything: PB. Was $39.99 Now $15.95 How New Ideas Emerge Listening to Stone: The Art Karen Martini is one of Matt Ridley and Life of Isamu Noguchi Australia’s most respected By the Book HB. Was $59.99 Now $12.95 Hayden Herrera chefs, and is well known for Pamela Paul (ed.) The New York Times bestselling HB. Was $55 Now $19.95 her show-stopping salads. PB. Was $29.99 Now $10 author Matt Ridley returns with A master of what he called This collection celebrates Every Sunday, readers of The a fascinating, brilliant argument ‘the sculpturing of space’, fresh produce at its absolute New York Times Book Review for evolution that definitively Isamu Noguchi was a vital best and draws on her genius turn with anticipation to see dispels a dangerous, widespread figure in twentieth-century in teaming gorgeous produce with cheese, who will be the subject of the myth: that we can command art and design. Never nuts, pastry, legumes, herbs and spices to popular By the Book feature. and control our world. As compelling as it is feeling like he belonged create delicious and nourishing vegetable-led These wide-ranging controversial, authoritative as it is ambitious, anywhere Noguchi spent dishes that you’ll make again and again. interviews are conducted by its editor Pamela Ridley’s stunning perspective will his life assembling identities through his Paul and here she brings together sixty-five of revolutionise the way we think about our sculpture, landscape architecture and The Sellout the most intriguing and fascinating world and how it works. design. Using personal correspondence and Paul Beatty exchanges, featuring personalities as varied as interviews Hayden Herrera creates a PB. Was $19.99 Now $10 David Sedaris, Hilary Mantel, Michael The Garden Apothecary: moving portrait of an artist compulsively Born in the ‘agrarian ghetto’ Chabon, Khaled Hosseini, Anne Lamott, and Homemade Remedies for driven to reinvent himself. of Dickens – on the southern James Patterson. Everyday Ailments outskirts of Los Angeles – the Reece Carter Lives of the Ancient Egyptians narrator of The Sellout is Cook Japan: Stay Slim, Live PB. Was $39.99 Now $15.95 Toby Wilkinson raised by his single father, a Longer We eat clean and we detox HB. Was $75 Now $16.95 controversial sociologist, and Reiko Hashimoto our pantries, but what about Revealed through the lives of spends his childhood as the HB. Was $35 Now $14.95 our medicine cabinets and 100 men and women who subject in racially charged psychological Reiko Hashimoto explores the lotions and potions we experienced it first hand, studies. In his trademark absurdist style, Paul the benefits of the Japanese use on our skin? Shouldn’t we Lives of the Ancient Egyptians Beatty’s Man Booker Prize-winning novel is diet – slim physique, stable take as much care with those offers unique and remarkable an outrageous and entertaining indictment blood sugar, increased joint as we do with food? Take hold of your insights into the history and of our time, showcasing a comic genius at the flexibility and a longer health with ‘Herb Nerd’ Reece Carter who culture of the Nile Valley. Illustrated with top of his game. lifespan – and provides an makes herbal medicine new again with this works of art and scenes of daily life it treats insight into key Japanese fresh and store vibrant guide to making your own clean the reader to very personal glimpses of a The Seven Continents of the cupboard essentials. With easy to follow and natural remedies for everyday ailments vanished world, and a fresh perspective on a World: Book and Floor Puzzle instructions the 100 recipes vary from and beauty needs. bewitching civilisation. Hui Skipp (illus.) basics to technically complex and are ideal Mixed Media. Was $19.99 Now $10.99 for all those wishing to perfect the art of Happiness by Design: Finding New Kitchen Find your place in the Japanese home cooking. Pleasure and Purpose in Karen Martini world with this Everyday Life HB. Was $39.99 Now $15.95 beautifully illustrated A Force for Good: The Dalai Paul Dolan The way we cook and eat and colourful floor Lama’s Vision for Our World HB. Was $39.99 Now $12.95 has changed dramatically puzzle and book set. Daniel Goleman Enough has been written on over the past decade as Children will love HB. Was $39.99 Now $12.95 how to think happy. With wit people experiment with putting together the large puzzle pieces and With the help of his long-time and perception Professor Paul new dishes and ingredients. creating a beautiful map of the world. Learn friend Daniel Goleman, Dolan brings the latest Full of instruction, advice more about the seven continents in the bestselling author of Emotional cutting-edge research in and recipes, Karen Martini accompanying book. Contains 48 giant Intelligence, the Dalai Lama behavioural science together draws inspiration from around the globe as puzzle pieces. Suitable for puzzlers aged 3+. explains how to turn our with the current evidence on well as locally and looks at the culinary compassionate energy happiness to create a new route to happiness factors influencing us all, from our love of What to Bake & How to Bake It outward. This revelatory and inspiring work – it’s not just how you think, its how you act. wholefoods to our desire to learn how to Jane Hornby provides a singular vision for transforming Happiness by Design is about how to behave make things from scratch once again. HB. Was $45 Now $14.95 the world in practical and positive ways and happy and how to incorporate these recent What to Bake and How to is arguably the most important work from findings into our everyday lives. Poetry Notebook: 2006-2014 Bake It is the ultimate one of the world’s most influential spiritual Clive James cookbook for amateur and political figures. Historic Heston HB. Was $32.99 Now $12.95 bakers looking to master Heston Blumenthal Clive James is one of our finest the classics and expand Bejewelled Treasures: HB. Was $79.99 Now $17.95 critics and best-loved cultural their repertoires. Each of The Al-Thani Collectiion British gastronomy has a voices. He is also a prize- the 50 recipes is accompanied by Susan Stronge grand old tradition that has winning poet. Since he was first photographs of every step and a stunning HB. Was $70 Now $19.95 been lost over time but enthralled by the mysterious finished dish shot, ensuring foolproof This sumptuous book Heston Blumenthal, whose power of poetry, he has been a results. All elements of the bakers craft are invites the reader to name is synonymous with dedicated student. In fact, for James, poetry covered, from everyday cakes and cookies examine in exquisite detail, cutting-edge cuisine, is out has been nothing less than the occupation of to special occasion breads and pastries. spectacular jewelled and to reclaim it. Historic Heston charts a quest a lifetime. Filled with insight and enthusiasm enamel objects, drawn from for identity through the best of British Poetry Notebook presents a distillation of all You Say You Want a a single private collection, cooking that stretches from medieval to he’s learned about the art form that matters Revolution?: Records and and to explore the broader themes of tradition late-Victorian recipes. This glorious book to him most. Rebels, 1966–1970 and modernity in Indian jewellery. Highlights offers an idiosyncratic culinary history of Geoff Marsh & Victoria Broackes include a rare jewelled finial from the throne Britain and also gives a unique insight into S.T. Gill & His Audiences HB. Was $79.99 Now $19.95 of Tipu Sultan, Mughal jades and a stunningly the way Heston works. Sasha Grishin The late 1960s were a period carved dagger owned by Shah Tajan. HB. Was $39.99 Now $19.95 of great turbulence and How We Learn: The Surprising Samuel Thomas Gill was rapid social and political The Big New Yorker Book of Cats Truth about When, Where, and Australia’s most change. You Say You Want a Anthony Lane (foreword by) Why it Happens significant and popular Revolution? examines that HB. Was $69.99 Now $16.95 Benedict Carey artist of the mid- moment when youth Look what The New Yorker HB. Was $29.99 Now $12.95 nineteenth century. For culture drove an optimistic idealism, dragged in! It’s the purr-fect In the tradition of The Power of his contemporaries he motivating people to come together and gathering of talent celebrating Habit and Thinking, Fast and epitomised ‘Marvellous Melbourne’ question established power structures our feline companions. This Slow award-winning science basking in the glow of the gold rushes and across every area of society. Here, essays bountiful collection, reporter Benedict Carey sifts left some of the most memorable images of on music, politics, the counter-culture, beautifully illustrated in full through decades of research urban and rural life in colonial Australia. A social living, mind-altering experiences, colour, features articles, fiction, humour, and studies to uncover the passionate defender of Indigenous festivals and more chart revolutions across poems, cartoons, cover art, drafts, and truth about how our brains absorb and retain Australians and of the environment, Gill in media and culture. DVDS October 2018 READINGS MONTHLY 21

Ismael’s Ghosts formidable mother and headstrong sister, $24.95 she takes on cases for London’s wealthy and Film & TV well-known. Following a bitter argument, Available 3 October Twenty-one years ago, she ran Hannah leaves the family business to join away. And twenty-one years a rival firm. Written by BAFTA-winner later, Carlotta is back from the void. But Abi Morgan and starring Nicola Walker, For over 40 years, Marina Abramović, the self-anointed Ismael has been busy rebuilding a life for The Split is described by The Guardian as DVD OF THE ‘grandmother of performance art,’ has used her body to himself with Sylvia and working on his a ‘gorgeously slick, witty and thoroughly MONTH challenge audiences. In Marco Del Fiol’s film, Marina Abramović next feature film. As Ismael’s trials and grown-up tale of high-end divorce lawyers’. in Brazil: The Space in Between, she travels through Brazil to heal Film tribulations unfurl, so too do those of his that body, both physically and spiritually, after an emotionally film’s protagonist: the idle, funny and tumultuous period in her life. Abramović is worried that, in the Picnic at Hanging reckless diplomat Ivan Dédalus. Marion aftermath of a divorce, she might die of a broken heart. ‘I can Rock: Miniseries Cotillard, Charlotte Gainsbourg and $39.95 deal with physical pain; emotional pain gives me trouble.’ Mathieu Amalric star in this vibrant film. Available 3 October Extending her concern – last seen in Marina Abramović: ‘If Weir’s film was a romantic, The Artist is Present (2012) – with the physical limits of the surreal, shimmering mystery – Twin body, Abramović seeks a cure in the Brazilian countryside for TV Peaks by way of John Keats – the new what ails her. On her journey, she encounters various ways to Hanging Rock is a more Gothic work of deal with her pain. Beginning with seemingly benign herb horror, revealing the rot that permeates and crystal treatments, she then visits the so-called ‘psychic Unforgotten: Series 3 the blooms of the Victorian bouquet ... surgeon,’ John of God (like me, you might need to cover your $29.95 But there are still scenes that are achingly eyes for this rather gruesome sequence). Abramović also Available 10 October beautiful.’ – The Atlantic submits herself to what she calls the worst experience of her life, ‘Unforgotten deals, like all drinking the hallucinogenic tea, ayahuasca. Marina crime dramas, in the modus Abramović is unsurprisingly unguarded in her interactions Abramović in operandi and psyche of killers, without Documentary with the Brazilian landscape and its people. The ‘space in Brazil: The Space revelling in them. Unlike its peers, its chief between’ referred to in the film’s title is the space where you in Between concern is for the damage done, the price discard the old and make yourself ‘open to destiny and new $29.95 paid for human weakness, bad decisions The Song Keepers ideas.’ For Abramović this means connecting her present to Available 3 October or simple bad luck … An emotionally $29.95 her past experiences and using her memories, whether happy intelligent script, sinuous narrative, pitch- Available 3 October or not, to enhance her creative practice. Posing the artist perfect casting and a genuine interest in The four generations of song against exotic, striking landscapes, Del Fiol’s film expresses the idea that there is more to people: Unforgotten should be remembered women that make up the life than what we know of it, and draws a line between performance art and spiritual ritual. for many years.’ – The Times (UK) Central Australian Aboriginal Women’s Marina Abramović in Brazil: The Space in Between strengthens both the artist’s – and Choir go on an historic journey to take audience’s – belief in the power of art to transform individuals and the world. The Durrells: Series 3 back the hymns that were given to their Joanna Di Mattia is from Readings Carlton $29.95 ancestors by the German missionaries, but Available 10 October in their own ancient Aboriginal languages The beautiful island of Corfu and on their own terms. Come on an continues to work its magic adventure as the unlikeliest band on earth Film The Party on the eccentric Durrell family. Even a goes on tour – to the other side of the world! $29.95 visit from Aunt Hermione isn’t the usual ‘This is a beautifully conceived dreaded experience as the formerly Westwind: Djalu’s The Bookshop and executed chamber formidable matriarch has embraced Legacy $29.95 comedy/drama with tragedy the laid-back Greek attitude and found $29.95 Based on Penelope Fitzgerald’s at its core. [Sally] Potter’s characters are romance. According to The Guardian, Available 3 October novel of the same name and committed to a better world even as they ‘Keeley Hawes is bloody marvellous … The Westwind: Djalu’s Legacy starring Emily Mortimer, make their own modes of living completely Durrells is easy, sunny and nostalgic, and is an enlightening and powerful film Patricia Clarkson and Bill Nighy, The dysfunctional … The Party is a fierce, rolls along charmingly.’ which profiles internationally revered Bookshop tells the story of a young war trenchant look at how prevailing social musician, craftsman and spiritual widow who puts grief behind her and opens mores coopt political commitment when The Split: Season 1 leader Djalu Gurriwiwi. As an important a bookshop in a sleepy English seaside town. we’re not even looking … [It is] shot in a $29.95 custodian of Aboriginal culture, Djalu Fighting damp, cold and considerable local velvety widescreen black-and-white [and] Available 3 October and his community must find a new voice apathy she struggles to establish herself but performed with utmost commitment by its Hannah Defoe is a brilliant and leader to carry their Songlines and soon her fortunes change for the better. unimpeachable cast.’ – rogerebert.com divorce lawyer. With her traditions through future generations.

A STAR IS BORN October 18 (CTC) WESTWOOD October 18 (CTC) Metropolitan Opera AIDA from October 20 (E) A STAR IS BORN stars four-time Oscar nominee Bradley Cooper With exclusive, unprecedented access, WESTWOOD: PUNK, ICON, An opulent masterpiece, the Egyptian-inspired epic returns! The (American Hustle, Silver Linings Playbook) and multiple award-winning, ACTIVIST is the first film about the grande dame of punk and enfant story of an Ethiopian princess caught in a love triangle with the Oscar-nominated music superstar Lady Gaga, in her first leading role in terrible of British fashion, Vivienne Westwood. Since igniting the punk heroic Radames, be swept up by Verdi's monumental score and the a major motion picture. In this new take on the tragic love story, a movement with ex-partner and Sex Pistols’ manager Malcolm shimmering glory of this world-class production from Sonja Frisell musician (Cooper) helps a young singer and actress (Gaga) find fame, McLaren, Westwood has been redefining British fashion for over 40 with choreography from Alexi Ratmansky. In what should be a even as age and alcoholism send his own career into a downward years. An intimate and remarkable story, this documentary explores highlight of the new season, soprano Anna Netrebko sings her first spiral. Marking his directorial debut, Cooper also co-wrote and one of the true icons of our time, as she fights to maintain her brand’s Met AIDA, going toe-to-toe with mezzo-soprano Anita Rachvelishvili produced this critically acclaimed drama. integrity, her principles – and her legacy. as her formidable rival, Amneris. "A Star Is Born" is that thing we always yearn for but so rarely get to see: “British fashion maven Vivienne Westwood gets the doc her fascinating The Met: Live in HD series, transmitting performances to 71 a transcendent Hollywood movie.” Variety HHHHH The Guardian life and career demands.” Time Out HHHH The Guardian countries around the world, continues for its 13th season.

Melbourne’s home of quality arthouse and contemporary cinema 22 READINGS MONTHLY October 2018 MUSIC

Bridges Jazz / Blues Popular Josh Groban $19.95 Josh Groban is a multi- Bad Mouthin’ Music platinum award-winning singer/songwriter and Tony Joe White global superstar who has $19.95 sold more than 500,000 Known widely as a swamp- Six years after her electronica-influenced album Sun, Chan albums in Australia alone. His last album rock legend, Tony Joe ALBUM OF Marshall returns with a pared-back, self-produced album Stages reached number two on the ARIA White returns to his roots THE MONTH that she has dedicated to all those who wandered before her, charts. Groban’s new album Bridges includes on this latest album. Taking its name from the first song Pop/Rock/Alt a notion that weaves its way through each song. Wanderer original music for the first time since 2013, sounds like it could be performed on porches, in a sunlit field, was recorded in different cities worldwide, he ever wrote and recorded, Bad Mouthin’ in living rooms, or in the hot, dusty desert: it rings with the and includes songs in several languages. features classic covers from the blues sound of spurs on a plain, or echoing voices falling like rain. musicians and songwriters White has long From the opening title piece, a wistful, beautiful vocal track In the Blue Light admired including Lightnin’ Hopkins, Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker, as well with something of Kurt Cobain’s earnestness tempered by Paul Simon Marshall’s raw-honey tones, it is clear that each layer she as originals never before released. $19.95 | Also on vinyl adds to Wanderer is carefully considered. In the Blue Light finds Marshall’s reverence for the folk singers and blues singers Love is Here to Stay legendary musician Paul of generations before – along with a nod to country singers Tony Bennett & Diana Krall Simon and his long-time in some of her best songs – is evident. Wanderer is both $21.95 | Also on vinyl producer Roy Halee joining classic and modern: Marshall understands what has come Tony Bennett and Diana Wanderer forces with a talented cast before, though nothing is quite like Cat Power. In ‘You Get’, Krall celebrate their shared Cat Power of musicians – including Wynton Marsalis Marshall repeatedly insists ‘you get what you get’ and it feels love of the music of George $21.95 | Also on vinyl and Bill Frisell – to lend fresh perspectives bold and determined; in ‘Black’ she tells a compact, chilling and Ira Gershwin and their Available 5 October on ten of Simon’s favourite (though story – something of a campfire legend, but with the ring of 20-plus-year collaboration perhaps less-familiar) songs. truth – with a dark guitar and a voice that could haunt you on their first album together. Recorded for days. Piano soars over strings in ‘Stay’, a ballad to broken with the Grammy award-winning Bill And Nothing Hurt souls; ‘Woman’, featuring Lana Del Rey, speeds from a shadowy, glorious twang lamenting Charlap Trio, Love is Here to Stay is a the unwanted opinion of others to the two declaring in a clamouring chorus: ‘I’m a woman’; Spiritualized® subtle, sophisticated and beautifully ‘Horizon’ feels like the prairie, as understated and expansive as its name, and a call to $19.95 | Also on vinyl rendered love letter to the Gershwins’ family: mother, father, sister, brother. ‘Wanderer/Exit’ finishes the album with a variation ‘If this is Spiritualized’s music and their status as one of the on its beginning, and closes it off with distant horns that call forth timeless, wide-open last – and [Jason] Pierce premiere songwriting teams of the spaghetti westerns, and a sound – and artist – that cannot be contained. hasn’t fully rowed-back on American popular standard. Fiona Hardy is from Readings Carlton that threat, given his lucubrations drove him Anthem “crazy” – it’s a very satisfying denouement. Madeleine Peyroux If not, it’s still a stellar addition to the $21.95 Spiritualized® catalogue, matching the Egypt Station ‘It’s been a quick 22 years Pop/Rock/Alt vitality of ‘Songs in A&E’ or the richness of Paul McCartney since Madeleine Peyroux’s “that famous one from 1997”...’ – Clash $31.95 | Also on vinyl breakthrough with Dreamland and ten years Good Citizens ‘Even after decades of Home penning classic songs … since her last album of Cash Savage & the Last Drinks John Butler Trio McCartney somehow still original songs. Yet, Anthem stands as $19.95 | Also on vinyl $22.95 | Also on vinyl has more to say on Egypt Peyroux’s greatest work to date … This is a Following on from 2016’s Station, the 17th (seriously) Largely recorded and challenging album that moves in and acclaimed One Of Us, Good solo album in his long and winding produced in a more solo out … of jazz into uncharted contemporary Citizens raises the stakes. career ... the former Beatle still knows his format with long-time friend territory where few would dare to venture. The politics hit home all the way around a pop tune, and can and producer Jan Peyroux, though … always rises to harder for their juxtaposition comfortably keep pace in a modern music Skubiszewski, Home reflects daunting challenges, and delivers in her amongst songs that are deeply, passionately world he helped define.’ – Boston Globe the deeply personal, critical yet redemptive singular voice, which is undeniably personal. Even as it peers into the abyss of nature of the inner and outer worlds John beautiful.’ – Glide the anger and brutality that rock our times, Butler was experiencing and observing Good Citizens burns with a fierce flame of Nature during the most recent chapter of his life. belief in the goodness that may yet prevail. Paul Kelly Country $21.95 | Deluxe $24.95 | Also on vinyl Between You & Me Available 12 October Folk / World Lior One of Australia’s most My Way $22.95 loved and revered Willie Nelson Lior is one of Australia’s wordsmiths brings together Cavalier $19.95 most successful singer- poems from Dylan Thomas, Eddi Reader ‘ [P]aying homage to friend songwriters, renowned for Walt Whitman, Sylvia $24.95 and fellow music icon Frank his beautiful voice and Plath, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Phillip ‘A celebration of Ms Reader’s Sinatra … My Way features songs that radiate truth and Larkin, alongside his own for this latest four decades in the music Nelson’s versions of songs sincerity. He has collaborated on a number of album. Kelly says of the album: ‘What links industry, Cavalier is a closely associated with brilliant, diverse musical projects including the songs is the natural world ... and human 16-track, near hour-long Sinatra, whom Nelson first heard at 10 years Compassion with composer Nigel Westlake nature’s small place in that world.’ journey through … [her] old when Sinatra joined the radio program and a series of concerts with Paul Grabowsky. evolution from potential teenage punk rebel Your Hit Parade … [and] lovingly illustrates Between You & Me is Lior’s first solo project Imagine & Gimme Some Truth and naive busker to worldly wise folk sage … the lessons in unique phrasing Nelson since 2014 and showcases his amazing talent. John Lennon Eddi Reader only knows one way how to sing, learned from Sinatra.’ – Rolling Stone DVD $21.95 from the heart.’ – Spalding Today Distant Sky: Live in Copenhagen Available 5 October Wouldn’t It Be Great Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds This fantastic double 13 Rivers Loretta Lynn EP | Vinyl only feature includes the Richard Thompson $19.95 $31.95 original Imagine film, $24.95 Wouldn’t It Be Great is the Filmed at Copenhagen’s produced and directed in ‘Richard Thompson’s first eagerly awaited new studio Royal Arena in October 2017, 1971 by John and Yoko and self-produced set in over a album from Loretta Lynn and screened worldwide including numerous guest decade … is a powerful, and one of the most deeply earlier this year, Distant Sky stars such as George intelligent, multi-faceted personal projects of her captured an extraordinary Harrison, Fred Astaire, Andy Warhol, Dick and beautifully performed career. Comprising only songs written or and triumphant live concert from Nick Cave Cavett, Jack Palance, and Jonas Mekas. selection of consistently strong pieces. It’s co-written by Lynn, it includes the premiere & the Bad Seeds. This four-song vinyl EP of Gimme Some Truth is the groundbreaking, also a ton of fun and a genuine high point of new compositions alongside her classics, audio from that electrifying show features Grammy Award-winning film that in Thompson’s career; a record that should including soulful reinterpretations of ‘Jubilee Street’, ‘Distant Sky’, ‘From Her to chronicles the creative process that be chewed on and discussed for many several. It demonstrates Loretta’s enduring Eternity’ and ‘The Mercy Seat’. brought the Imagine album into being. years to come.’ – Folk Radio (UK) strength – within herself and her music. MUSIC October 2018 READINGS MONTHLY 23

Wagner: Die Meistersinger von festante chamber orchestra. Discovered in Nürnberg archives, some of these cantatas were Classical Michael Volle, Philippe Jordan & reconstructed for the recording. Five of the Bayreuther Festspiele cantatas are world premiere recordings. Music DG. 0735450. 2 DVDs $44.95 ‘... The cast is a mixture Six Evolutions – Bach: Cello of Bayreuth veterans and Suites debutants, and both Yo Yo Ma For me, the drawcard of mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato’s camps cover themselves Sony Classical. 19075854652. 2 CDs $19.95 ALBUM OF latest album, recorded live in Wigmore Hall, is not Jake in glory ... At the heart of ‘The most affecting, THE MONTH Heggie’s song cycle Into the Fire, but DiDonato’s moving it all is Michael Volle’s dramatic and Classical Richard Strauss interpretations. Mark Steinberg, first towering interpretation humane violinist of the Brentano String Quartet, has transcribed of Sachs/Wagner: he interpretation of for strings and voice Strauss’s best-known lieder, including inhabits both personae with tremendous this divine music ‘Morgen!’ and ‘Du meinen Herzens Krönelein’. Although a authority … It’s an immensely thought- that I have heard ... mezzo-soprano, DiDonato possesses a high-set voice, and she provoking and ultimately very moving Time and again Ma sings the lieder in their original soprano keys. In this range, take on this most conflicted of operas.’ – enlivens the suites’ formal patterns with her voice has the shimmer of a soprano, but evidence of the Katherine Cooper (Presto Classical) dazzlingly various textures and tones: depth of a mezzo-soprano. And, considering her voice type, husky, velvet, thrusting, singing … she lends the vulnerability of a singer exploring a range with Chopin: Cello Sonata & Instead of studiously tracking the music which she has perhaps not always been so comfortable. Schubert: Arpeggione Sonata note for note, he’s living inside it and the Those familiar with ‘Morgen!’ may also know its origins Steven Isserlis & Dénes Várjon results are incomparably thrilling ... as Strauss’s wedding gift to his soprano wife. The exquisite Hyperion. CDA68227. $29.95 Perfect.’ – The Times Into the Fire: Live song expresses a deep and profound happiness that comes at Wigmore Hall Cellists have cause from simple companionship. Originally composed with piano to be thankful for Huw Watkins: Flute Concerto, Joyce DiDonato accompaniment, and later arranged for orchestra by Strauss the impracticality Violin Concerto & Symphony & Brentano String himself, Steinberg’s string transcription sits somewhere in Quartet and swift demise of Adam Walker, Alina Ibragimova, between, lacking the fullness of both piano and orchestra. the arpeggione, Erato. 9029564219 Hallé & BBC Symphony Orchestra However, the disparate string parts create a breeziness that which allowed the NMC. NMCD224. $29.95 $19.95 complements the poetic descriptions of sun, sky, and earthly appropriation of ‘Three scores uniting love, and the gossamer thread of DiDonato’s pianissimo. Schubert’s wonderful sonata for their own a powerful Also on the album are Heggie’s voice and strings instrument. Dénes Várjon’s 1851 Érard imagination and transcriptions of Debussy’s 3 Chansons de Bilitis, much in a similar vein to Steinberg’s lends characterful zest both here and in craft. The 2010 Violin transcriptions. Being altogether different repertoire (although roughly contemporaneous), Chopin, while bonuses include Steven Concerto, beautifully this version of the Debussy magnifies some aspects of the music, rather than vastly Isserlis’s own transcriptions of songs by interpreted with the changing the aural landscape. If anything, Heggie’s rereading of the accompaniment both composers. soloist Alina sounds even more impressionistic than the original. Now, DiDonato gives us the full Ibragimova and Gardner in its Proms breadth and depth of her voice, demonstrating the power of her lower register even when Shostakovich: Symphony No. 7 world premiere, has an impassioned singing quietly. A highly recommended recording of a singer at the peak of her career. London Philharmonic Orchestra & andante. The alluring three-movement Alexandra Mathew is from Readings Carlton Kurt Masur Flute Concerto (2013) puts strange LPO. LPO0103. $26.95 expressive weight on birdsong-like ‘[Masur] generally curlicues, but Adam Walker’s superb solo takes the work at a playing carries it’ – The Sunday Times Calling the Muse: Saint-Saëns: flowing pace, giving Old & New Pieces for Theorbo Piano Concertos Nos. 2 & 5 & its opening a Johann Sebastian Bach Bruno Helstroffer Pieces for Solo Piano Beethoven-like Víkingur Ólafsson Alpha. ALPHA391. $29.95 Bertrand Chamayou, Orchestre nobility and vigour DG. 4835022. $21.95 Bruno National de France & Emmanuel … If the finale feels The simply named Helstroffer is a Krivine rather discursive in this performance … Bach album features master theorbist. Erato. 9029563426. $24.95 Masur and the LPO nevertheless draw the original works In Calling the Eight years ago, threads together for a powerful final alongside inspired Muse he draws on on a trip to peroration, the Symphony’s opening adaptations by his experience as Paris, I visited theme emerging battered yet composers including blues guitarist and Saint-Saëns’s tomb at recognisable.’ – BBC Music Magazine Rachmaninov, early music specialist, depicting a broad Montparnasse Busoni and Ólafsson himself. Renowned landscape for the repertoire of his Cemetery. Not out of Callas in Concert: for his innovative musical projects, the instrument. That said, the album isn’t some kind of morbid The Hologram Tour pianist here offers listeners a very personal an exploration of aggressive non- curiosity, but instead to commune with a Maria Callas vision of Bach’s intricate keyboard music classical music alongside baroque; it’s a composer whose music I love but feel is now Warner Classics. 0190295653569. in all its rich variety. beautiful, well-synthesised program of unfairly overlooked for the more imposing 2 CDs $16.95 Helstroffer’s own compositions and Romantics. Bertrand Chamayou’s recording Although Maria compositions by Bach, Kapsberger and of Saint-Saëns’s piano music is a timely Callas died aged just Satie among others. His playing is reminder of the composer’s brilliance and fifty-three in Classical mesmerising: on his theorbo Helstroffer inventiveness. Not only that, the album September 1977, she is capable of producing sound like the serves to highlight Chamayou’s formidable remains the epitome Special of the finest lace, as well as creating thick, pianistic talent. Although no pianist myself, of the operatic diva: robust textures. I would hazard a guess that Saint-Saëns’s the American-born Month Of particular note are his renderings dramatic and superabundant Piano Greek soprano who defined, and even of the Minuet from Bach’s Cello Suite Concerto No. 2 is rather a fiendish beast for redefined, opera in the 20th century. No. 1 and Satie’s Gnossiene No. 1. The your average musician. Chamayou, however, Callas in Concert: The Hologram Tour is a former is reminiscent of Leo Kottke’s is no slouch, and from the unaccompanied full live concert experience that brings Steve Reich: Music for 18 1969 arrangement of Jesu, Joy of Man’s opening arpeggiated chords and scalic runs Maria Callas back to the stage via Musicians Desiring for its moving simplicity and of the first movement, to the playful hologram, singing with the Steve Reich Ensemble gentle, folk-like sonorities. Gnossiene skipping melody of the second movement, accompaniment of a full live orchestra. ECM. 8214172. Was $26.95 No. 1 is hypnotic at the best of times, that he remains in command is, frankly, $19.95 Special price for a limited time. and on Helstroffer’s theorbo Satie’s absolutely commanding. Telemann: Sacred Cantatas ‘All Reich’s music sounds as at home as it does on In Saint-Saëns’s music there is no rest Klaus Mertens & L’arpa festante experiments came piano. Frequent collaborator Rosemary for the wicked, and the following Piano DHM. 19075832892. $19.95 together in this tour Standley joins Helstroffer for the eerie Concerto No. 5 is similarly virtuosic and This new recording de force of ultra- ‘Comme un beffroi’, and Jean-Luc challenging in its demands of the pianist. features bass- disciplined bliss ... Debattice lends his gravelly speaking While the solo works – a mazurka, a handful baritone and You can feel the sheer voice in ‘Dans le chambre de mon of etudes, and the Valse nonchalante – Telemann expert force of the composer theorbe’, à la Simon and Garfunkel’s provide the listener’s ears with a rest from Klaus Mertens driving this performance of almost ‘7 O’Clock News’. Calling the Muse is Saint-Saëns’s occasionally grandiloquent performing superhuman finesse; every note glistens in testament to Helstroffer’s versatility and orchestral writing, Chamayou is again put to undiscovered sacred a perfectly balanced, glowing recording.’ brilliance. AM task, and – naturally – impresses. AM cantatas for bass solo with the L’arpa – BBC Music Magazine