FREE JULY 2020

New books by Kate Grenville, Tegan Bennett Daylight, Rebecca Huntley, Curtis Sittenfeld, Brit Bennett, Kevin Kwan and more

Announcing the 2020 Readings Young Adult Book Prize shortlist

page 16

BOOKS MUSIC FILM EVENTS

BOB DYLAN page 22

HONEYLAND KATE REBECCA ZANA JANE GODWIN page 21 GRENVILLE HUNTLEY FRAILLON page 18 page 5 page 11 page 17

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 READINGS.COM.AU A message from the Indigenous Literacy Foundation

To our valued supporters,

Indigenous languages and literacy matter

At this time, Australia is being asked to acknowledge the discrimination and disadvantage experienced by our First Peoples. Discrimination against Indigenous languages and systemic disadvantage in education for many Indigenous children are part of a larger justice story in this nation.

Every child in Australia, wherever they live, has the right to thrive and to excel in education. Every child should benefit from equity of opportunity. We can’t achieve justice for our First Peoples without setting First Nations children up to succeed in education. Education matters, because education opens doors.

We understand that early literacy is the cornerstone of success in education. We understand that encouraging early literacy requires children and their parents to have access to books. We understand that children learn to love books when they can see themselves in the stories they read: when they recognise themselves as heroes, as adventurers, as leaders, as friends. We understand that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children need to see that their culture is cherished and their stories are celebrated by all Australians. We believe they have a right to see their language in print.

Reading opens the doors of possibility. Holding a book in your hands, being able to read your own stories in your own language matters.

Thank you for partnering with us in this work.

Dr Marnie O’Bryan Anna Low Leitha Assan ANU, Chair, ILF Board Potts Point Bookshop, Exhibition & Public Programmes ILF Board member Manager, Culture, Art and Heritage Suzy Wilson Torres Strait Regional Authority, Riverbend Books, ILF Founder Mark Rubbo OAM ILF Board member Readings, ILF Board member Alicia Stewart Michael Aird Westpac, ILF Board member Merrkiwuy Ganambarr-Stubbs Director, Anthropology Museum, Principal, Yirrkala School, ARC Research Fellow, University of Karen Williams OAM ILF Board member Queensland, ILF Board member CEO, ILF Board member Yalmay Yunupingu Louise Sherwin-Stark Laura Harris, Director, Literature Production CEO, Hachette Australia, Penguin Random House, Centre, Yirrkala School, ILF Board member ILF Board member ILF Board member

You can make a donation to the ILF by visiting indigenousliteracyfoundation.org.au/donate

Readings is a proud supporter of the Indigenous Literacy Foundation NEWS July 2020 READINGS MONTHLY 3

Dumpling by Wai Chim, Ghost Bird by Lisa Literacy Foundation. Readings will match Fuller, Invisible Boys by Holden Sheppard, Stella Prize winner announced this donation, so that $4 will be donated to July Everywhere Everything Everyone by Katy In April, The Stella Prize for 2020 was the ILF for every print copy of Growing Up Warner and Take the Shot by Susan White. awarded to Jess Hill for her nonfiction book, Aboriginal in Australia sold in our shops or You can find out more about the shortlisted See What You Made Me Do, an unflinching through our website until 31 July. News titles and the prize on page 16. examination of Australia’s domestic violence emergency. The Stella Prize celebrates Australian women’s contribution Readings online events Signed copies of A Room Made of Leaves to literature, and offers prize money of In response to the COVID-19 health crisis, Thank you for your support Kate Grenville’s new novel, A Room Made of $50,000. You can find out more about the Readings has moved its events program We’d like to take a moment to thank all Leaves, will be released on 2 July. Readings Stella Prize and See What You Made Me Do online. Each month, we’re bringing you of our customers for their continued is lucky enough to have exclusive signed at thestellaprize.com.au an array of local and international authors support through the past few months. The copies of this long-awaited book, available discussing their books, all accessible and restrictions put into place due to COVID-19 for the special price of $32.99 in all seven of available to watch right from your home. brought about unprecedented changes our shops and online while stocks last. For Support for the Indigenous Literacy Highlights this month include Pulitzer for Readings, and having our customers’ more information about A Room Made of Foundation Prize-winner Richard Ford joining us for a patience and support has meant a great Leaves, see our review on page 5. Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia is lunchtime session on Thursday 9 July to deal. After a pause in production of the as essential now as it was when it was discuss his new collection of short stories newsletter in May and June, we’re delighted released in April 2018. For the month with journalist Jason Steger. For details on to be back with this issue of the Readings Pulitzer Prize winners of July, Black Inc. are donating $2 from how to watch, and to see what’s on offer Monthly, and to have all seven of our shops Colson Whitehead has been awarded the every sale of print copies of Growing Up across our whole events program, visit once again open to the public. You can find 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel, Aboriginal in Australia to the Indigenous readings.com.au/events out more about our shop’s opening hours The Nickel Boys. The judges called this and the safety measures we have in place book ‘a devastating exploration of abuse at readings.com.au/our-shops at a reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida that is ultimately a powerful tale of human perseverance, dignity and redemption’. Shopping online at Readings To find the full list of prize winners and If you can’t make it into any of our shops finalists visit: pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by- at the moment, you can shop online at year/2020 readings.com.au. For online orders $60 and over, we offer free shipping anywhere in Australia. For orders under $60, we Miles Franklin Literary Award shortlist charge a $5 flat delivery rate, Australia- announced wide. We also offer free gift-wrapping for The shortlist for the Miles Franklin Literary online orders, and you can purchase online Award 2020 has been announced. First Readings gift vouchers. awarded in 1957, the $60,000 prize is awarded each year to a novel that is of the highest literary merit and presents Readings Young Adult Book Prize shortlist Australian life in any of its phases. The announced six shortlisted novels are: The White Girl We’re excited to announce the shortlist for by Tony Birch, Islands by Peggy Frew, No The Readings Young Adult Book Prize 2020. One by John Hughes, The Returns by Philip The shortlisted titles are: Devil’s Ballast by Salom, Exploded View by Carrie Tiffany and Meg Caddy, The Surprising Power of a Good The Yield by Tara June Winch.

READINGS MONTHLY EDITOR DVDS CURATOR PRICES AND AVAILABILITY Free, independent monthly newspaper Elke Power Lou Fulco Please note that all prices and release published by Readings Books, Music & Film [email protected] dates in Readings Monthly are correct EVENTS & PROGRAMMING at time of publication, however prices SUBSCRIBE EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS Chris Gordon and release dates may change without You can subscribe to Readings Monthly Judi Mitchell & Ellen Cregan notice. Special price offers apply only for and our e-news by visiting our website: ADVERTISING the month in which they are featured in readings.com.au/sign-up PROOFREADERS Ellen Cregan Readings Monthly. Judi Mitchell, Ellen Cregan & Marie [email protected] DELIVERY CHARGES FOR Matteson COVID19 MAIL-ORDER PURCHASES GRAPHIC DESIGN While all title release dates were correct $5 flat rate for anywhere in Australia KIDS/YA CURATORS Cat Matteson at the time of going to press, due to the Angela Crocombe & Dani Solomon ongoing COVID-19 crisis the unexpected DELIVERY CHARGES FOR FRONT COVER may happen along the supply chain. ONLINE PURCHASES MUSIC CURATOR The July Readings Monthly cover features Please bear with us as we bring you books $5 flat rate for anywhere in Australia for Dave Clarke artwork from the cover of Kate Grenville’s in these rapidly changing circumstances. orders under $60. Free delivery on orders new novel, A Room Made of Leaves, $60 and over. CLASSICAL MUSIC CURATOR courtesy of the publisher, Text Publishing. Readings donates 10% of its profits each Phil Richards Book design by Imogen Stubbs. Cover year to the Readings Foundation: image by Lisla/Shutterstock. readings.com.au/the-readings-foundation 4 READINGS MONTHLY July 2020 COLUMNS

exciting discoveries, including those our reviewers recommend written by Megha Mark’s Dear Majumdar, Kevin Kwan, Yun Ko-eun, ‘An ambitious, Emma Straub, Samanta Schweblin, Rebecca Say Reader Dinerstein Knight, and Brit Bennett. Anna with Mark Rubbo with Alison Huber Downes’s The Safe Place is our gripping hilarious, Crime Book of the Month. The pandemic has diverted a lot of clever beast You might recall that in If you feel like your head attention away from the climate emergency my last column I will explode if you hear the (here’s hoping our government allows the of a novel.’ contemplated what the phrases ‘unprecedented experts take over on this matter too), so THE GUARDIAN impact of the escalating times’ or ‘new normal’ we need Rebecca Huntley’s How to Talk COVID-19 crisis might be again, then you are in the About Climate Change in a Way that Makes and grappled with how we would cope. As right place. Welcome to an experience that a Difference even more than we did when we went into lockdown, I was going to read will take you back to a more comfortable era, she was writing it. It’s our Nonfiction Book Middlemarch and hoped that some of you delivering a familiar kind of ‘old normal’ that of the Month. Our reviewers also draw might go on a similar journey. Our shops should bring you some feeling of nostalgic your attention to Patrick Mullins’s The might have been closed but, wonderfully, relief: perusing an excellent edition of the Trials of Portnoy, Tegan Bennett Daylight’s many of you shifted to buying from us Readings Monthly. This month’s issue is The Details, Dara McAnulty’s Diary of a online. It was so heartening, but the number overflowing with staff reviews and news, and Young Naturalist, and Matthew Colloff’s of online orders took my colleagues and me includes books hot off the press in July, but Landscapes of Our Hearts. We also republish by surprise. Our systems, our creaky also key titles from late May and June that our review of Tom Doig’s Hazelwood, software, and Australia Post being you might be yet to hear about. available to readers at last this month. overwhelmed made it tricky to keep up with Our Fiction Book of the Month is the Judith Brett has written about Australia’s this amazing outpouring of support. Added highly anticipated new work from Kate addiction to coal in the latest Quarterly to this was the fact that COVID had shut Grenville, A Room Made of Leaves. As Essay. Ambelin Kwaymullina’s Living on down most commercial flights into Australia ever, Grenville offers her readers a well- Stolen Land is a new kind of Australian so we couldn’t supply overseas books if they researched and immersive work of historical history writing. Look out for Julia Gillard weren’t already in the country. It took some fiction and we’re lucky to have signed copies and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s essential Women adjustments, but we did find our feet again on release (strictly limited, so get in quick!). and Leadership in mid-July. It’s wonderful and our small web team quickly rose to the It has been a great few months for Australian news that UQP has published a twentieth- challenge. We had two shifts working in our fiction, in fact. Debuts from Luke Horton, anniversary edition of Aileen Moreton- small warehouse social distancing every day Jessie Tu, Jo Lennon, and Imbi Neeme (who Robinson’s classic analysis of white of the week. Mistakes happened – one won the Penguin Literary Prize in 2019 for feminism, Talkin’ Up to the White Woman. customer ordered a gift for her father and he the unpublished manuscript of her book) This new edition coincides with renewed received the wrong book, but he liked it so already have lots of people talking. Robbie interest in a whole host of books about much he decided to keep it. I did quite a few Arnott’s follow up to his acclaimed debut racism, many of which were rushed into ‘Astonishing, deliveries in the local area and often there’d novel, Flames, is The Rain Heron, which our reprint in recent weeks as readers reached be a chat; one of our most regular and reviewer says has the power to ‘[steady] our out for books to inform and inspire, spurred very funny beloved customers even gave me a nice world just a little’ (a rather appealing notion, on by the Black Lives Matter activism at and always bottle of pinot noir. you must agree). Don’t miss catching up on home and abroad. You’ll find Moreton- deeply humane.’ As staff worked long hours and Chris Flynn’s Mammoth, Patrick Allington’s Robinson’s book plus some of the other exhaustion set in, we all got bit despondent Rise & Shine, and Elizabeth Tan’s Smart bestsellers relisted on page 14. CHRISTOS TSIOLKAS and had to remind ourselves that we’d Ovens for Lonely People (what a great title! And finally, dear reader, if one thinks AUTHOR OF DAMASCUS, successfully sent out over 20,000 orders and And already a hot staff pick). The Sweatshop about the year’s passing via literary THE SLAP AND BARRACUDA we’d had hundreds of messages of support Collective based at the University of Western milestones, it’s noteworthy that many of and thanks, that our hard work was getting Sydney has been very busy this year so far, the year’s literary prize announcements – books into the hands of our customers. It releasing a second issue of the Sweatshop longlists, shortlists and winners – took was also disconcerting during this time that Women anthology in April (we could barely place during our store closures. However, we had to suspend the Readings Monthly keep enough in stock during lockdown); in you can always catch up on those lists on and our public events programmes – two June, they released a fantastic anthology our blog: readings.com.au/news. With Readings’ activities of which I’m very proud. of writing speculating on our future circa those (and many other) milestones now ‘Curiously The Readings Monthly is back and our events 2050 called After Australia, written by First behind us, I realise, with alarm and relief programme is, for now, on Zoom, where Nations authors and writers of colour. in equal measure, that we are already moving. there have been some very memorable International fiction is full of so many halfway through 2020. events – Billy Bragg in conversation with I simply love Tony Birch and Judith Brett in conversation with Geraldine Doogue spring to mind. months, our commentators and authors this story.’ At the beginning of the crisis, many of my On have shared their experiences of writing, of ELIZABETH GILBERT, publishing colleagues and I thought that dreaming, and of creating in an online AUTHOR OF EAT, PRAY, LOVE this was the end, but we’ve all been amazed community that is resilient and kind. We AND CITY OF GIRLS by how resilient books have been. Of course, Events have not faltered, nor will we. we shouldn’t be; books are incredible with Chris Gordon Thank goodness for modern technology. sources of entertainment, joy, inspiration It has all worked so well that we reckon and knowledge. we will continue to offer events online. How did I go with Middlemarch? Not so It feels like it has been It means that we can chat with people well, I’m afraid; those long hours helping quite some time since I near and far, like Patrick Ness and Rutger ‘A tour-de-force, a send out online orders weren’t conducive. poured you a glass of Bregman. It means we can offer people who I have managed three books: Rutger wine, ducked behind a were previously unable to attend our events brilliant book, Bregman’s Humankind, a fascinating book bookcase to talk shop, or an opportunity join in on that part of our that debunks the notion that human beings checked that the shop’s microphone was community. Over the next month we have a witty vaccine are inherently selfish. It is long, fascinating working and that you could hear me loud discussions with Kate Grenville, Rebecca for the planet.’ and finishes with some very interesting and clear. Lately, my time has been spent Huntley and Tegan Bennett Daylight. All conclusions. Kate Grenville’s A Room Made looking at authors’ bookcases, or kitchens, you need to do is pop on to our website at SEBASTIAN BARRY, of Leaves also gave me much pleasure, and or very tidy lounge rooms. We ‘pivoted’, my readings.com.au/events to see the events AUTHOR OF THE SECRET Judith Brett’s latest Quarterly Essay, The friends, and the outcome has been glorious. calendar, online event instructions and book SCRIPTURE AND DAYS Coal Curse, is fascinating and concerning The Readings’ events programme is alive from there. I’ll send you the appropriate link WITHOUT END and should be read by anyone who has an and well and Zooming from home to home; one hour before the event. Soon we will be interest in the future of our country. sometimes across the world and other times able to offer a combination of online and At the beginning of the lockdown, jigsaw only metres from a Readings shop. As we all in-person events. I’m so looking forward to puzzles were one of our most popular items. buckled down, we have had authors talking with you to hear what you have been Since then, the tragic death of George Floyd celebrating debut and new releases, reading, watching and doing. I am excited sparked an avalanche of interest in books discussing world politics, reflecting on their to imagine all of us clapping and cheering about racism, and increased demand for childhoods and, in the case of Billy Bragg, together, knowing we have all just shared a books by and about Australia’s First Nations singing to us. I was incredibly moved by moment that cannot be taken from us. peoples. It gave me heart that out of these Bragg’s call for optimism and the insightful Till then, I’ll see you online. We can crises some change may come. questions Tony Birch asked him. In recent wave to one another. FICTION July 2020 READINGS MONTHLY 5

A Lonely Girl Is A Dangerous of the opening chapter. What follows Thing is a story of survival, an ecological New Jessie Tu thriller weighted with a mythological A&U. PB. $29.99 perspective, and a dystopian adventure Fiction Available 2 July story that comes full circle, feeling Jessie Tu has ancient in its future setting. worked as a What I am trying to say in all these classical violinist, words that circle as the Rain Heron does, Kate Grenville returns with a much-anticipated fourth teacher and journalist. is that this is a novel that beautifully BOOK OF THE novel considering Australia’s colonial past, and This is her first work of captures people at war with themselves, interactions between Australia’s First Nations peoples and with each other, with nature – and it’s a MONTH fiction and it is an colonists. Purporting to be the lost manuscript of the memoir astonishing debut. The taut, tense thriller at the same time. It is Australian of Elizabeth Macarthur, the wife of John Macarthur, A Room lonely girl at the heart timely in the way mythological quests Fiction Made of Leaves describes the awakening of a young woman of this novel is Jena always are. It is current in its concerns and the discovery of herself as someone she likes, even Lin. Jena’s grandfather was a famous for an environment searching for someone she admires. pianist and child prodigy in China. In balance. It is refreshing in its gendering Often described as the father of the wool industry in Australia, Jena was also once considered of the myth’s protagonists. Australia, the Macarthur here is an ambitious and brutish a child prodigy. By the age of fourteen she I thought it would be too much to bully. Forcing his attentions on the young Elizabeth, she has had won seven international violin read now, when all is upturned and we little recourse but to marry the young ensign. Macarthur is competitions and the chance to play a are distanced from each other, but I was posted to the infant British colony at Sydney Cove. As his solo with the New York Philharmonic at wrong. It is the perfect book to read now. wife, Elizabeth has no choice but to leave her beloved Devon Carnegie Hall. During the performance It brings us closer and it steadies the for the very different world of the colony. Macarthur has no she had a public meltdown and retreated world just a little. real affection for his wife; she is just a prized chattel that from the limelight. Her grandfather Marie Matteson is from Readings Carlton completes his position in the small community. always said that it was the destiny of the talented to suffer and to fulfill their In the Time of Foxes excessive needs at any cost. Purporting to be the lost manuscript of the Jo Lennan Now in her twenties, Jena lives in memoir of Elizabeth Macarthur, the wife of Scribner. PB. $29.99 A Room Made of Sydney and has begun to play the violin Available now Leaves John Macarthur, A Room Made of Leaves again. She is auditioning along with her In Jo Lennan’s Kate Grenville describes the awakening of a young woman best friend for a permanent orchestral varied, beguiling Text. HB. Was $39.99 and the discovery of herself as someone role in the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. debut short-story $32.99 Jena’s daily routine of practice and she likes, even someone she admires. collection, the Available 2 July rehearsal is relentless, and she can psychological qualities be unpleasant and prickly. She also Elizabeth subtly pushes back, cultivating her own often ascribed to foxes considers herself to be a sex addict. In friendships in the colony and establishing a weekly salon, which she hosts. At one are evoked as often as the absence of the attention and acclaim of her salons, she bemoans her lack of formal knowledge to the colony’s chronicler, their visual and given to a soloist musician she finds Watkin Tench. In return, he tells her about William Dawes, the colony’s astronomer and habitual distinctions. random sex with a variety of men almost engineer. Dawes is a recluse who lives on a headland at the edge of the settlement and is The foxes of these stories are creatures of as fulfilling. Her needs are excessive, but a mathematical prodigy, fluent in Latin and Greek, and a great botanist. Elizabeth asks beauty and interest, inspiring fear, she will meet them at any cost. Tench to see if Dawes will give her some lessons. admiration, revulsion, and guilt, but they Jena gets the job but loses her best Through Dawes, Elizabeth experiences things she has never known, and, also exist in parallel to their human friend in the process. She then meets through Dawes, meets several of the local First Nations people for the first time. It is her observers – there is no kinship here. Mark, who is in a long-term relationship relationship with Dawes that changes Elizabeth’s life. Meanwhile, Macarthur schemes The ruthless destruction and brazen with someone else. Mark is rich, middle and feuds in his efforts to gain power and fortune, finally managing to secure one wastefulness of a fox killing beyond its aged, racist and sexist, but self-sabotaging hundred acres of land in Parramatta to settle upon and farm. Macarthur is so erratic need for food, or perhaps self-catering Jena is drawn to him. She is lonely. There that it is Elizabeth who steers the venture to its success and influence; it is Elizabeth and to an impulse of indulgently specific is such a disconnect between Jena Lin her story that shine. Of course, the appropriation of First Nations peoples’ land and the culinary desire, echoes the climate crisis, the gifted Australian violinist and Jena displacement of the local population hangs like a heavy cloud in the time of Grenville’s or the vicious creative ecosystem within Lin the sex addict that the decisions novel, as it does still today. This story, told through Grenville’s sharp lens, is one that will the London theatre world. A woman she makes are heartbreaking. Jena then stay with the reader for a long time. struggles to deal with a fox infestation wins an internship with the New York Mark Rubbo is the managing director of Readings and her mother’s mental decline. A ‘fox- Philharmonic and her life seems about to faced’ young woman escapes a cult, but change for the better. She moves to New not her past. Faced with the return of York just as Trump is elected and the cancer, a war correspondent in a ‘post-fox experience is not quite what she expected. well as elements of his working and family environment’ is surprised by a different This is a fascinating and intense Australian life that have contributed to his anxiety mortal reckoning. Certainly, foxes are a debut that challenges systemic over the years. pervasive motif, but they are by no means Fiction racism and misogyny, particularly in The Fogging by Luke Horton is dense the focus. the progressive artistic world. It is in its themes and ideas. Mental health, These tales have in common moments confronting but it is also brilliant and human behaviour, family history, career of betrayal and survival. Not always the The Fogging original. Jessie Tu is an incredible new pressures, our reliance on technology moments themselves, at times it is the Luke Horton voice in Australian literature. Scribe. PB. $29.99 (with some clever jabs at our obsession instant in which a betrayal is realised, Kara Nicholson is from Readings online Available 2 July with apps) and relationship dynamics are or the pursuit of survival is chosen – On a plane to all significantly addressed in just over sometimes as a lucid decision to privilege Indonesia for a two hundred pages. The novel is vivid The Rain Heron the self over another, at others the holiday that struggling in its description without being florid, Robbie Arnott arrival of a sudden, energised defiance academics Tom and especially when describing Tom’s panic Text. PB. $29.99 of probability. Things are often not what Clara really can’t afford, attacks. By breaking the attacks down, we Available now they seem, and the interaction between Tom experiences a can understand their physical and mental ‘A farmer lived, past and present is fraught. Violence, sudden and intense toll on Tom and the way they make him but not well.’ The ambition, loyalty, structural sexism and panic attack (not his feel isolated and helpless. Additionally, opening line of Robbie harassment, extraordinarily tenacious ex- first) while his on-and- by moving back and forth in time, the Arnott’s second novel, boyfriends, ethical dilemmas – Jo Lennan off partner of fourteen years sleeps by his relationship between Clara and Tom in the The Rain Heron, grabs fossicks through a wealth of human side. By the time they land in Denpasar, present is given much more weight and you by the throat. The experiences, revealing her finds with the Tom has calmed himself down and Clara complexity. The book finishes strongly rest of the novel never skill and precision of an old hand. awakens none the wiser. During their stay with a revelation that puts previous events lets you go. In a In the Time of Foxes transports us near at a resort in Sanur, the couple meet in a new light and makes the ending of swirling display of rich, and far, but in every situation Lennan’s Madeleine, Jeremy, and their five-year-old the book one of the most devastating I descriptive language, of fraught acute eye for human preoccupations son, Ollie. Madeleine and Clara bond have experienced in recent memory. The interiority and dogged determination, and foibles – and light but sure hand quickly, especially over their dismay that Fogging may be set a few years before 2020 The Rain Heron pulls the reader through a dispensing the details that shift a the resort regularly sprays pesticide, but a lot of what it has to say about anxiety, landscape and culture horrific for its moment from everyday to life-altering – otherwise known as ‘the fogging’. During emotional triggers, and the importance uncanny likeness to our world today. make this book an absorbing distraction the holiday, Tom reflects on a previous of communicating with each other is well The ‘Rain Heron’ of the title is a bird you won’t be able (nor wish) to resist. overseas working trip that he and Clara observed and uncannily timely. of myth, able to save and destroy the Lennan is a talent to watch. took ten years ago in their mid-twenties, as Amanda Rayner is from Readings Carlton land, as recounted in the timeless fable Elke Power is the editor of Readings Monthly 6 READINGS MONTHLY July 2020 FICTION

Rise & Shine apparent judgement, but rather a telling Smart Ovens for Lonely in Brooklyn, but her father is perpetually Patrick Allington of how it is and why it is. It’s a messy People stoned and her family in Clapham are Scribe. PB. $27.99 story that flicks from decade to decade Elizabeth Tan preoccupied with their own struggles. Available now and sister to sister as we learn the truth Brio. PB. $29.99 Emma Straub masterfully ties these Patrick of this family. The sense of trauma Available now narratives together with the voice Allington’s within the sisters’ lives is beautifully A cat-shaped oven tells of the matriarch, Astrid. Astrid has second novel is a written; a feeling that is always apparent a depressed woman she something urgent and exciting to tell quick-moving and is that these women hold so much doesn’t have to be sorry her children and grandchildren, and lively tale set some needless pain and loneliness. Their anymore. A Yourtopia this announcement sets off a chain of thirty years after an connection to one another is tender, but Bespoke Terraria events that has everyone looking to the ecological collapse has it is not honest. I imagine many families employee becomes past and asking what it means to take rendered the earth live this way. paranoid about the responsibility in the present. almost uninhabitable. Neeme is a skilled navigator of mounting coincidences Annie Condon is from Readings Hawthorn Those who remain of the human race live turbulence. She builds the plot one in her life. Four girls in either Rise or Shine, two city–states memory upon another, slowly and gather to celebrate their fabulous A Burning gradually filling in the holes. It is a joy to that are locked in an almost constant war underwear. With her trademark wit and Megha Majumdar read – melancholic, certainly, but filled with each other. While all food and water slicing social commentary, Elizabeth Scribner. PB. $29.99 with grace. The Spill will be enjoyed by has become either incredibly scarce or Tan’s short stories are as funny as they Available now poisonous, citizens of these nations those who are drawn to family drama; are insightful. Already garnering literally feed themselves by watching readers of Anne Tyler or Thea Astley will the kind of praise videos of the war – either on the ever- feel in very safe hands. I’m already looking After Australia from high-profile present screens all over their cities or on forward to Imbi Neeme’s next offering. Michael Mohammed Ahmad (ed.) authors and their own personal devices, which are Chris Gordon is the programming manager Affirm. PB. $24.99 international reviewers never far from reach. for Readings Available now that a debut author The book follows a host of different Climate catastrophe, might only dare dream characters – a retired veteran, a self- Mammoth police brutality, white of, A Burning has the feel exiled scientist, an illegal grower of Chris Flynn genocide, totalitarian of one of the ‘must read’ plants – to fill out the world, though UQP. PB. $29.99 rule and the erasure of titles of 2020. Written by an author born for the most part we follow Walker, Available now black history provide and raised in India, but now living and the military leader of Rise who, along Narrated by a the backdrop for stories working in New York City, this book is a with his counterpart in Shine, Barton, 13,000-year-old extinct of love, courage and compellingly written portrait of orchestrated the war the populace relies American mastodon, hope. In this contemporary life in Kolkata, but is also a on for sustenance. The only problem is Mammoth is the story unflinching new story that taps into the issues facing many that now people have started dying off of how the skull of a anthology, eleven of Australia’s most nations around the world: the building from an unknown disease, with which Tyrannosaurus bataar, daring Indigenous writers and writers of forces of conservative and nationalist Walker may be afflicted. a pterodactyl, a colour provide a glimpse of Australia as we interests; anti-Muslim sentiment and the Rise & Shine is at its most successful prehistoric penguin, head toward the year 2050. impacts of religion in secular societies; the when read as an allegory. The book itself the severed hand of an desires of the individual in a community; is filled with odd bouts of calmness – in Egyptian mummy and the narrator the impacts of poverty, inequality, an interrogation a prisoner is called himself came to be on sale at a 2007 International corruption, racism, and terrorism; the on, and grilled about, their lack of natural history auction in Manhattan. By Fiction traces we leave of ourselves on social politeness, more than anything – and, tracing how the fossils were unearthed, media, and, chillingly, their potential to be for the most part, Rise & Shine concerns Mammoth traverses time and place to our undoing. itself with its maze-like bureaucratic reveal humanity’s role in the destruction All Adults Here These huge themes are played out dialogue and the intricacies of the of the natural world. Emma Straub in miniature, impacting a cast of small society’s structure. What does it mean Michael Joseph. PB. $32.99 and ordinary lives. Three intertwined if conflict is the only thing keeping us The Silk House Available 21 July characters star here in alternating chapters, going? If war goes on forever, what fills Kayte Nunn There have been each episode as involving as the last. the rest of our lives? Hachette. PB. $32.99 many novels Propelling the chain of events is an ill- Ultimately you have a book that’s Available now recently showcasing the considered Facebook post made by Jivan in more George Saunders than Cormac Australian history histories, rivalries, and the wake of a terrorist attack. In the blink McCarthy, a strange and somewhat teacher Thea Rust loyalties of adult siblings. of an eye (or, more fittingly, in the time it uplifting portrait of the world as it arrives at an exclusive These includes titles such takes to write a post), this young Muslim stumbles towards the end. boarding school in the as The Jetsetters by woman finds herself in deep trouble with Chris Somerville is from Readings online British countryside Amanda Eyre Ward, The the law, and at the mercy of a failing system only to find that she is Most Fun We Ever Had by of justice. PT Sir, the gym teacher at her The Spill to look after the first Claire Lombardo, and Your House Will Pay former high school harbouring growing Imbi Neeme intake of girls in its by Steph Cha. All Adults Here tells the story political ambitions, becomes implicated Viking. PB. $32.99 150-year history. She is of the Strick siblings; the title is an ironic in her fate, as does Lovely, an aspiring Available now to stay with them in Silk House, a nod to the myriad ways each sibling is not Bollywood star to whom Jivan had been The late, great Inga building with a long and troubled past. handling ‘adulting’. giving English lessons. Clendinnen had a Intoxicating, haunting and inspired by Elliot, the eldest son, is grappling with Most striking about this novel is the theory that history the author’s background, The Silk House insecurity about business ventures, and richness of detail that brings this captivating based on personal is an exceptional gothic mystery. a deep aversion to his home life where his moral tale to life. If you read books for recollections could be twin toddler sons run rampant. Elliot has ‘feelings’ – both those the characters considered, essentially, On a Barbarous Coast long-held beliefs that he just isn’t ‘good experience and your own as you read – then ‘fake news’ because we Craig Cormick & Harold Ludwick enough’ and he is nervous about a secret this book is for you. I couldn’t help but be all remember details A&U. PB. $29.99 business venture that could entirely caught in its grip. I think Megha Majumdar differently; what seems Available now change their small upstate New York is a name we will come to know well; her talent for storytelling is undeniable. true for one person may not appear true for On a night of raging town, Clapham. another. Imbi Neeme’s Penguin Literary winds and rain, Porter, the middle child, has decided to Alison Huber is the head book buyer for Prize-winning debut novel explores this Captain Cook’s have a baby on her own. However, she is still Readings very aspect of memory. Endeavour lies entangled with her (married) high school Centred on a family that is fractured splintered on a coral boyfriend, and she hasn’t managed to tell Hex by various misdemeanours, the story reef off the coast of far her family about her pregnancy … yet. Rebecca Dinerstein Knight enquires into the long-term effect of north Australia, a The youngest son, Nicky, is the only Bloomsbury Circus. PB. $29.99 hiding things, and of repression, and small band of sibling to have escaped Clapham. He and Available 2 July why all of these responses to events survivors huddling on his wife live in Brooklyn with their thirteen- The person who matter. Nicole and Samantha Cooper the shore. Watching these mysterious year-old daughter, Cecelia, who may well believes in you is the both remember the day when they were white beings, the Guugu Yimidhirr be the most mature member of the Strick most dangerous person in a car accident with their mother, Tina. people cannot decide if they are ancestor family. However, Cecelia has had a run- you know. The person Their recollections, though, are not the spirits to be welcomed – or hostile spirits in with the ‘Queen Bee’ of her friendship who believes in you can same, and therefore their lives take very to be speared. Fierce, intriguing and group, and Nicky and his wife have sent unbuild you in an different paths. thoughtful, On a Barbarous Coast is the Cecelia to stay with her grandmother, instant. Neeme has created these fragile story of a past and future that might Astrid. All Cecelia needs is an adult to help Nell Barber is not characters with kindness. There is no have been. her make sense of what happened to her having a good year. FICTION July 2020 READINGS MONTHLY 7

She’s broken up with her boyfriend, Tom. critique of the touristic urge for authentic She’s been expelled from her botany experience – of nature, of the events of PhD program at Columbia following the history, of local and Indigenous cultures. laboratory death of one of her colleagues. As the absurdist plot reveals itself, serious And, most significantly, she may be losing questions about the costs of travel – the interest of Professor Joan Kallas. economic, environmental, cultural, Surrounding herself with the psychic – and the myriad ways travel can poisonous plants responsible for her exploit people and places cannot help but READ IN 2020 colleague’s untimely demise, Nell begins play on the reader’s mind. A cast of well- to keep a series of journals all addressed drawn characters, sometimes verging on to Joan. As Nell’s admiration for the steely the grotesque, add to this novel’s appeal. professor creeps towards obsession, her The Disaster Tourist really is quite a journals veer between meticulous research trip, and I do recommend you take in its and painstaking confession. charms – from your armchair, of course. As it turns out, Nell is not the only one Alison Huber is the head book buyer for struggling to keep boundaries between her Readings professional and personal life. Although the novel takes place in New York City Little Eyes (8.3 million inhabitants and counting) it Samanta Schweblin is strangely insular, if not incestuous in Oneworld. PB. $29.99 its focus. The cast of characters is small: Limited stock available now, more in August Nell; her ex, Tom; her best friend, Mishti; Several friends Mishti’s boyfriend, Carlo; Joan; and Joan’s have remarked husband, Barry. Six people who make up a He watches. A vivid portrait The stunning ‘But that sounds like an He waits. of one woman’s new thriller strange professional, romantic and sexual episode of Black Mirror!’ hexagon with Joan at its centre. when I have explained He takes... struggle for from the master Clever, darkly funny and deliciously the premise of this book, Someone is fulfillment in a of modern witchy, Hex has instantly launched itself which is: people around watching you. society pivoting espionage. up to become one of my top books of the the world are buying between the year. It took all of my self-control not to dog kentukis, the latest traditional and ear every page of this book – every line is techno-craze. A kentuki is a cute plush toy the modern. perfectly crafted. Although the content is with cameras for eyes and small wheels; it completely different, Rebecca Dinerstein lives in your house like a battery-powered Knight’s use of language and metaphor pet. Unlike a pet, each one is connected at reminded me of Toni Morrison. Her writing random to a human ‘dweller’: somebody, is wholly original and completely devoid somewhere in the world who has bought a of cliché. I really can’t think of a better software access code, and can now look compliment for a writer. Clocking in at just through your kentuki’s eyes and control its over two hundred pages, Hex is a quick and limited movements. compulsively readable character study. Samanta Schweblin is not an author Tristen Brudy is from Readings Carlton who coddles her readers, and the book delivers bleak possibilities immediately: The Disaster Tourist in the first few pages a group of teenage girls attempting to cyberbully a classmate Yun Ko-eun & Lizzie Buehler (trans.) are brought up short when their kentuki’s Serpent’s Tail. HB. $27.99 dweller blackmails them via Ouija board. Available 2 July This vicious opening sets the tone perfectly Many forms of for a story which balances human cruelty travel and tourism and vulnerability on a knife’s edge. ‘Like a brewing are currently off the The story is told as a series of vignettes agenda, so it’s an storm on an from keepers and dwellers around the interesting time to world. A widow in Lima spends her days oppressive contemplate the needs as a pink rabbit in a German apartment; a that are not being sated summer day divorced father in Italy wonders about the , due to these pandemic- ‘toy’ that appears to enjoy babysitting his imposed restrictions. it builds towards son; a teenager in Antigua logs on furtively What precisely is it about being elsewhere when he should be doing homework, the thunderclap that we crave? To help you think about desperate to see snow. Some characters that, take a journey with The Disaster of its final pages. are sympathetic, some seem unhinged – ’ Tourist, a short novel that wonders about but their motives are never dull, and the ethical implications of our need to be JENNIFER DOWN, Schweblin presents their behaviour entertained by excursions to other places. author of Our Magic Hour frankly and without moralising. It’s an Yona Ka, the story’s protagonist, is intensely unsettling read that explores a member of the Jungle travel company the weird thrill of watching and being based in Seoul, with ten years’ experience watched, as well as the two-edged sword planning itineraries that send travellers to of escapism. It asks why intimacy with an locations where catastrophe has struck – anonymous stranger might seem easier or volcanoes, tsunamis, earthquakes, atomic more appealing than intimacy with one’s bombs and the like, causing death and own friends and family. It is a book that environmental devastation. Though takes no prisoners: I will be thinking about ‘A wonderful she is a loyal employee who works hard, it for ages. something is not quite right at Jungle. read. Every page When she experiences the indignity Eleanor Jenkins is from Readings Carlton of unwanted sexual advances from a will increase your colleague, she finds herself caught up in Sex and Vanity the company’s bureaucratic web following Kevin Kwan her complaint. She is eventually sent away Hutchinson. PB. $32.99 awe of birds.’ to survey a disaster travel experience on Available 2 July an island in Vietnam where sinkholes are Kevin Kwan has Tim Low the calamity of the moment. Here, Yona done it again. becomes enmeshed in an increasingly Told with his signature bizarre situation, where all is not as it wit and flair, his latest seems, and the role of the mysterious romantic comedy of Paul company is beginning to raise Yona’s manners pays homage suspicions. Will Yona’s expedition reach to A Room with a View, the point of no return? Pride and Prejudice, This surreal adventure is a perceptive and, strangely enough, 8 READINGS MONTHLY July 2020 FICTION

the nineties, Bennett skilfully juggles thousands of children, The Nickel Boys is multiple narrative strands as she traces a Pulitzer Prize-winning, devastating, the lives of the two sisters and their driven narrative essential to daughters over the years. This is the kind understanding the current reality of the of historical fiction that sets individuals United States. against the backdrop of grand events, illuminating how the political shapes One Day I’ll Tell You Everything the personal. Desiree and Stella, their Emmanuelle Pagano & Penny daughters Jude and Kennedy, the men Hueston (trans.) who revolve around them – these are Text. PB. $29.99 people who feel uneasy in the world. Available now There are the twins, bound by a shared After ten years away, traumatic memory and forever missing Adèle has returned to their ghostly other half. There’s Jude, drive the school bus in her dark skin marking her as an outcast the village in the within her own community. There’s Ardèche mountains Kennedy, resentful and wary of her where she grew up. Her unknowable mother. There’s Reese, a body has undergone transgender man at a time predating seismic surgical options in America. In a sense, transformations, just The Vanishing Half is a book of mirrors, like the landscape around her. No one the storylines playing off one another in recognises her. But when a snowstorm clever, often tender, ways, while never strands the bus on a mountainside, Adèle becoming exact copies. Reading this work and her passengers take shelter in a cave, will expand your heart, and that is always and the secrets begin to emerge. what I want fiction to do. Bronte Coates is the digital content manager Pilgrims for Readings Matthew Kneale Atlantic. HB. $34.99 The Constant Rabbit Available now Jasper Fforde The year 1289. A rich H&S. PB. $32.99 farmer fears he’ll go to Available now hell for cheating his Peter Knox lives quietly neighbours. A poor, in a small, peaceful ragged villager is country village. Until convinced his beloved Doc and Constance cat is suffering in the Rabbit move in next fires of purgatory. A door, upsetting the mother is convinced locals (many of them her son’s illness is punishment for her members of governing own adultery. These are among a group of political party United pilgrims that journeys from England to Kingdom Against Rabbit Population), Rome, where they hope all their troubles complicating Peter’s job as a Rabbit will be answered. But some in the party Spotter, and forcing him to take a stand, have their own, secret reasons for going. Crazy Rich Asians. Once again, we’re obvious that Kwan is familiar with, and moving from unconscious leporiphobe to whisked away to what could only be enamoured of, both places. My only active supporter of the UK’s amiable described as the wedding of the century complaint would be that Kwan doesn’t Tokyo Redux population of anthropomorphised rabbits. as Hong Kong heiress Isabel Chiu weds have the most delicate of touches, but David Peace Italian Count Adolfo Michelangelo De that itself is part of the fun. The novel is Faber. PB. $29.99 Vecchi in a week-long extravaganza on deliciously soapy and extravagant. Fracture Available 2 July the island of Capri. It is here that our Tristen Brudy is from Readings Carlton Andrés Neuman Tokyo, July 1949, heroine Lucie Churchill – only nineteen Nick Caistor & Lorenza Garcia (trans.) President Shimoyama, and therefore chaperoned by her cousin, The Vanishing Half Granta. HB. $29.99 Head of the National Charlotte – meets beefcake George Zao. A Britt Bennett Available 2 July Railways, goes missing man she finds both annoyingly self- Dialogue. PB. $32.99 In 2011, Mr Watanabe is a day after serving righteous and annoyingly irresistible. Available now in Tokyo when the notice of 30,000 job After being found in a somewhat (ahem) The Vignes twins earthquake that losses. Fifteen years compromising situation by the drones are like two halves precedes the Fukushima later and Tokyo is filming the wedding, Lucie is whisked of a whole: impulsive, nuclear disaster strikes. booming. As the city away by her cousin – seemingly never to smart-mouthed Desiree In the aftermath, he prepares for the 1964 Olympics and the see George Zao again. Fast forward five is a neat contrast to finds himself on a global spotlight, Hideki Murota, a former years and Lucie is engaged to ‘The Most careful, practical Stella. journey to Fukushima, a policeman during the Occupation period, Eligible Gentleman on the Planet’: Cecil Born in Mallard – a tourist of the current and now a private investigator, is given a Pike. At the tender age of twenty-four, unique black day tragedy that mimics his own case which forces him to go back to Lucie seems to have it all: a loving family community in experiences of World War II. A sweeping confront a crime he’s been hiding from for (give or take a few racists), a devoted Louisiana, set apart by the light skin of its novel written with intimacy and the past fifteen years. fiancé and a job she loves. What could inhabitants – they escape their town’s compassion, Fracture encompasses some possibly go wrong? Re-enter, stage left: confines as teenagers, running away to of the most urgent questions of The Vanishing Sky George Zao. New Orleans. Here, their paths diverge contemporary life, about collective L. Annette Binder Sex and Vanity veers wildly between when Stella, after taking a job under the trauma, memory and love. Bloomsbury Circus. PB. $29.99 delighted voyeurism and scathing satire. guise of a white woman, disappears. Available 2 July Kwan’s tongue is firmly in his cheek but Desiree marries, briefly, before returning The Nickel Boys Germany, 1945, and the he may also be wearing rose-coloured to her colour-obsessed hometown, a Colson Whitehead bombs are falling. In glasses: it’s ok to be filthy rich as long noticeably dark-skinned child in tow. Fleet. PB. $22.99 Heidenfeld, Etta and as you’re nice about it. But even amidst Thousands of miles away, her sister is Available now her husband Josef roam the frivolity and seemingly endless list grappling with the weight of her decision Elwood Curtis is about an empty nest: their of designer clothes, Kwan returns to the to pass as white, knowing her own child to enrol in the local eldest son Max is theme that defined Crazy Rich Asians: must forever be kept at arm’s length. A black college. But in fighting on the snobbery. Are you old money or new masterful exploration of inherited 1960s Florida, one frontlines, while money? WASP money or Asian money? trauma, this novel asks whether you can innocent mistake is fifteen-year-old Georg In many ways, it’s the perfect ever truly escape the past. enough to destroy his is at a Nürnberg school for the Hitler quarantine read: you get to travel and The Vanishing Half is Brit Bennett’s future, and so Elwood Youth. When Max is unexpectedly witness intimacy all from the safety sophomore follow-up to her terrific 2016 arrives at The Nickel discharged, Etta is relieved to have her of your own armchair. The best kind debut, The Mothers, and it does not Academy instead. Based eldest home and safe. But it soon becomes of escapism. Capri and Manhattan disappoint. A pacey and immersive read on the history of a real reform school in clear that the boy who left is not the same come alive in meticulous detail and it’s that spans the Jim Crow era through to Florida that destroyed the lives of boy that returned. FICTION July 2020 READINGS MONTHLY 9

Sorry for Your Trouble Jean investigates, the more her life Richard Ford becomes strangely intertwined with that Bloomsbury. PB. $29.99 of the Tilburys. And the story she’s Available now investigating seems to be causing dark A woman and man ripples across all their lives. reunite in a bar in New Orleans. A divorced Rodham suburban dad helps his Curtis Sittenfeld daughter pick out a card Doubleday. PB. $32.99 for her friend who’s Available now moving away. Two Growing up, Hillary is teenage boys sit in a smart, diligent, and a drive-in, the air thick bit plain. Then she goes with the scent of gin and popcorn and to college, and her star longing. Earthily humane and profoundly rises. At Yale, she wise, this collection of stories reconfirms continues to be a leader its author as a master of contemporary – and catches the eye of American fiction. driven, handsome and charismatic Bill. But The Mountains Sing when he proposes, Hillary says no. The Nguyẽ̂n Phan Qué̂ Mai rest, as they say, isn’t history. How might Oneworld. PB. $29.99 things have turned out for them, for Available 21 July America, for the world, if Hillary Rodham Hà Noi, 1972. Huong and had really turned down Bill Clinton? her grandmother cling to one another in their improvised shelter as Sci-Fi/Fantasy American bombs fall around them. Her father The Ballad of Songbirds and and mother have already Snakes: A Hunger Games Novel left to fight in a war that Suzanne Collins is tearing not just her Scholastic. PB. $29.99 country but her family apart. Seen through Available now the eyes of these two unforgettable women, Suzanne Collins’ The Mountains Sing captures their defiance Hunger Games and determination, hope and unexpected joy. series – a rollicking mishmash of Battle The Sandpit Royale and America’s Nicholas Shakespeare Got Talent – sparked Harvill Secker. PB. $32.99 endless copycats. But Available 21 July the master herself has When John Dyer returns returned for this to Oxford from Brazil bloody, bold and resolute prequel. with his young son Coriolanus Snow, the future President- Leandro, he doesn’t we-love-to-hate, is just an ambitious expect to find them both teenager with a controlling grandmother in danger. But the rainy and a rotten case of PTSD. The civil war streets of this English may have resulted in a Capitol victory, city turn out to be just as but it bankrupted the Snows. The Hunger treacherous as those he Games – in which each year a male and used to walk in the favelas. When Rustum female child from each of the twelve Marvar, Iranian nuclear scientist and father defeated districts are selected by lottery ‘If you love reading, of Leandro’s classmate, disappears, Dyer is to serve as ‘tributes’ and fight to the set onto a truly precarious path. (televised) death in an arena – are boring you’ll cherish this book and wildly unpopular. Ask Me Anything One of the deranged adults in for showing you why’ P.Z. Reizin Snow’s life hatches a plan to spice Charlotte Wood Sphere. PB. $32.99 up the bloodletting by providing the Available 14 July District tributes with Capitol mentors. Daisy is in her early Young Coriolanus sees it as a wonderful thirties, she’s not doing opportunity to better his lot in life. But brilliantly at work, her the District 12 tribute he gets is not all love life is haphazard and that she seems. her elderly mum seems to Most of the characters are the be losing her mind. Even adolescent, war-torn versions of the vile, Daisy’s smart technology aristocratic overlords we learnt to despise seems to be judging all those years ago. The original series her – the last text she made you imagine what you might do if received was from her fridge about the you were forced to fight your friends or die. mouldering pasta salad in its crisper. But This new thought experiment makes you Daisy doesn’t know that her smart fridge has picture what would you do if you had to big plans to improve her life. climb the social ladder in an authoritarian ‘A Burning signals the world (that made people fight their friends Small Pleasures or die). Shudder to think that Coriolanus arrival of a new voice Clare Chambers Snow is the Trump-era Katniss Everdeen: W&N. PB. $32.99 cynical, narcissistic, morbidly fascinated of immense talent and Available 14 July by the horror around him, and never one to When Gretchen Tilbury let a crisis go to waste. promise’ contacts the local paper Watching strutting peacocks to claim that her compliment each other at parties while Amitav Ghosh daughter is the result of plotting to murder one another is a a virgin birth, it is down mainstay of any number of genres, but to feature writer Jean throw in teenage angst and a gladiatorial Swinney to discover slave rebellion and everyone else might as whether she is a miracle well just go home. Welcome back, Panem. or a fraud. But the more Chris Dite is from Readings Carlton 10 READINGS MONTHLY July 2020 CRIME

The Other Passenger and her sister Lindsay in foster care for Louise Candlish years; and Easter, a previously conjoined Dead Write twin now imprisoned for murdering her S&S. PB. $29.99 with Fiona Hardy Available 8 July sister, and the possible subject of Nell’s Jamie enjoys the smug third book. Easter has a story about her feeling of commuting to sister that seems unbelievable, but she also Emily is a receptionist and an aspiring actress in work in the mornings knows something about Nell – that she’s BOOK OF THE London when her life falls abruptly apart. Fired from via riverboat instead of hiding the fact her four-year-old daughter her job, dropped by her agent and kicked out of her MONTH the Tube, but the Friday went missing while she was a teenage disgusting flat all at once, she’s at her very lowest point Crime after Christmas his parent. Now somebody on the outside is on when her old boss Scott comes to her with a proposition: usual companion, Kit, Nell’s tail, and danger is everywhere. This live in his French country home to help his wife renovate isn’t there at the stop is a tangled, juicy read to get your teeth their guest house. with him. Worse, when right into – and addictive as all hell. It sounds like a dream, and when Emily arrives, it truly is: he arrives at his usual destination, two a glorious, expansive estate with two houses, picturesque people are waiting there for him: police The Winter Agent gardens, animals, and the beach right nearby. It’s also officers, wanting to interview him. Kit’s Gareth Rubin isolated, without any mobile reception, and there’s gone missing, and Jamie was the last Michael Joseph. PB. $32.99 something in the main house that feels wrong. But Scott’s person to see him, on the same boat they Available now wife Nina is luminous, and their daughter Aurelia, while stand before, on Monday night. The night While the northern struggling with illness, is responsive to Emily. Life finally Kit and Jamie had a fight, and got off the hemisphere starts seems to be heading in a positive direction – as long as she boat together. It looks pretty bad for Jamie, banging on about follows the rules. And doesn’t look too closely behind the all up, but he didn’t do it, of course. summertime, we have crumbling façade of either the property or Scott’s damaged Though he is hiding some secrets, and the the rest of winter to family itself. evidence is building against him, but delight in frosty British crime has begun to feel very samey recently, The Safe Place surely Jamie didn’t kill his friend. Right? criminal dramas. Partly but Anna Downes – who now lives in Australia – has Anna Downes based on a true story, brightened up the English psychological thriller and has Affirm Press. PB. $32.99 this WWII espionage written a captivating book that kept me intrigued. Emily, Never Forget Available now thriller sees British agent Marc Reece despite the flaws that make you despair for her, is an Michel Bussi attempting to stop the Nazis while honest and palpably real companion to follow, as is Scott, W&N. PB. $32.99 simultaneously working a mission none of who gets his own chapters that make you lean into the pages, trying to figure out Available 14 July his fellow agents know about. When a plan what’s going on. With enough beautiful vistas to crack your heart right open, and a A man is running along goes violently wrong, he discovers there’s a wide-eyed child to make it bleed, this is a satisfying and devastating debut. the tallest cliff in Europe when he sees German spy in their midst – and there’s first a red scarf the sickening feeling it could be the hanging from a fence, woman he loves, who is now missing. In a The Bluffs A Double Life then the woman turbulent and freezing French winter, Kyle Perry Charlotte Philby standing on the cliff’s Marc will have to do everything to keep the Allied Forces’ D-day plans intact. Michael Joseph. PB. $32.99 HarperCollins. PB. $29.99 edge, staring at him. Available 2 July Available 8 July Then: the woman is In this unsettling, As her two children get dead, on the pebbles below, and the scarf Later this month otherworldly Australian ready for school one is around her neck. Now everybody debut, a group of morning and her thinks he pushed her, but of course, he schoolgirls vanish on an husband chides her didn’t. And you believe him, don’t you? Don’t Turn Around excursion in the bluffs about her day, This hyper-personal plea of a book, Jessica Barry of Tasmania’s Great Gabriela – a senior shrouded in sea mist and with the twist Harvill Secker. PB. $32.99 Western Tiers. This isn’t counter-terrorism ending Bussi is becoming known for, will Available 30 July keep you enthralled and have you asking: without precedent – negotiator – is forced to Cait Monaghan and is this a coincidence, or a larger plan? thirty years earlier, five act like today is a day Rebecca McRae are on girls disappeared nearby – and there’s a like any other. She’s back from seven a road trip from Texas legend that people speak of: The Hungry months in Russia that have changed her so Sticks and Stones to New Mexico. At Man. When a body is found, nothing much that she is barely the person she used Katherine Firkin least, that’s what it becomes any clearer. On the case is to be, on any level. Elsewhere, Isobel, a Bantam. PB. $32.99 looks like on the Detective Con Badenhorst, who knows that journalist for a local paper, walks home Available now surface, but the two humans can be as monstrous as anything from a squat party and sees a terrible attack If you want to keep local, women are strangers – an imagination can come up with – but – and someone knows she saw it. Isobel’s but need a reason to stay and they are both on with the town’s prime suspect also the investigation finds much more horror than indoors, then look no the run. So, can a car be fast enough to father of one of the missing girls and she realised, and the two women find their further than Katherine escape what they’re running from? With a hunting for his own answers, the paths are about to dangerously intersect. Firkin’s procedural narrative that leaps from Rebecca to Cait, breathtaking and haunting landscape is following DSC Emmett from before to now, from characters that holding on tight to the truth. Blacktop Wasteland Corban, who works at frame the whole car trip and back around S.A. Cosby Missing Persons – for again, this is a suspenseful, highway- Deadman’s Track Headline. PB. $32.99 now, anyway. A woman speed thriller for readers to puzzle their Sarah Barrie Available 14 July has gone missing, reported by her brother, way through. HQ Fiction. PB. $29.99 There are so many and it doesn’t seem urgent until she is Available 8 July great psychological found, a diamond carved into her torso. Also out this month While we’re still not thrillers, police When another woman vanishes, Emmett’s With police under the microscope at allowed to travel, it’s a procedurals, and leaving nothing to chance – but can he save the moment, check out the true crime good time to quench Scandinavian noirs out her, or will this killer strike again? This by Keith Banks with Ben Smith, Drugs, those voyager there, but if you need a richly populated, sinister and riveting tale Guns & Lies (A&U, PB, $29.99), which talks yearnings with a break from them, why will make you want to avoid all your about Banks’s past as an undercover romantic thriller that not try a caper? favourite Melbourne haunts. cop in corrupt 1980s Queensland; Gilly paints Hobart and the Beauregard Montage, Macmillan’s To Tell You the Truth nearby wilderness as better known as Bug, is a one-time The Broken Ones (Century, PB, $32.99), the story of a beautiful – and deadly. getaway driver, now a mechanic and a Ren Richards famous crime author full of secrets whose Tess Atherton is a tour guide whose family man. But living in a town racked Profile. PB. $29.99 husband goes missing; Karen Hamilton’s confidence in herself has been damaged with racial intolerance sees Bug strapped Available now The Last Wife (Wildfire, PB, $32.99), in by an accident on Federation Peak. for cash, and he has to take up a job Nell is a successful true which a woman’s dying wish for her best However, she still knows when it’s better stealing diamonds – just one last time. crime writer who’s just friend to help her family sees her take to set off with a new tour group and leave We’ve all heard that before, of course, and handed in the over the life she’d always coveted; Karin Hobart behind, even in winter. In the when things go pear-shaped, Bug faces manuscript for her Slaughter’s tenth Will Trent book, The meantime, Detective Senior Sergeant some hard choices. With enough torque second book. She Silent Wife (HarperCollins, PB, $32.99), Jared Denham is investigating a string of for fans of fast cars and more than enough spends her first day finally hits the shelves; G.R. Halliday’s crimes that leads to death, and Jai is in the way of characters for those who post-delivery in a prison second Monica Kennedy book Dark struggling to see a way out of financial aren’t, this is a strap-yourself-in, trust- visiting two people: her Waters (Harvill Secker, PB, $32.99) sees hardship. All along, danger is tracking nobody, double-crossing, out-of-control own mother, whose the DI tracking a serial killer with a them all, in this masterly mystery. ride from the start. attempted murder of her father saw Nell seriously creepy MO … and more! NONFICTION July 2020 READINGS MONTHLY 11

to act for our shared future. This book was fire should have been treated as a public a timely and fascinating read. health disaster immediately, however, as New Tom Doig uncovers, if it weren’t for the Margaret Snowdon is from Readings Carlton dogged persistence of community groups, Nonfiction The Trials of Portnoy the state government and the corporation responsible for the mine would largely Patrick Mullins have ignored the problem. Scribe. PB. $35 The Black Saturday bushfires had hit Available now Rebecca Huntley is one of Australia’s most the region five years earlier so authorities In 1969 Philip experienced and respected social researchers. As she and the mine owners should have been BOOK OF THE Roth’s Portnoy’s quips, ‘I make a living out of understanding why people aware that potential for disaster was high, Complaint – a book so MONTH think the way they do.’ Here, in her sixth book, Huntley but the ageing mine had been allowed to widely accepted now uses a tried and tested framework to examine our attitudes fall in to disrepair and safety precautions Environmental that it is deemed to the climate crisis facing us all. were reduced year after year. Doig set out Studies boring – was banned in to reveal the human cost of the emergency Australia. Undercover and he spent a total of seventy-two days The title of Huntley’s work could easily police raided in the Latrobe Valley conducting in-depth bookstores, charged be How to Talk About Anything in a Way interviews with residents and workers. The booksellers and seized all the copies they that Makes a Difference ... It is research result is a thoughtful and gripping account could find of this grotesque satire about a that could and should significantly of the experiences of locals who already sad Jewish man in New York City. contribute to our dialogue on how to endure the hardship of living in an area Patrick Mullins’ latest effort provides of Victoria with high unemployment and achieve the next sensible step forward in the most detailed account yet of this lower-than-average life expectancy. the climate crisis. embarrassing moment in our inglorious This book provides a crucial analysis of history. The courtroom antics themselves the complex relationship between political Firstly, she tells us why the issue matters to her, follows read like satire. Who knew so much of and socio-economic factors in the fallout with why it matters to us and then she examines why our taxpayer money historically went from one of Victoria’s worst environmental we feel like we do. Each chapter represents an emotion; towards paying puritanical lawyers to disasters and provides a voice to those who think of the list of capital vices and you get the picture. grill professors about the literary merits were most affected. How to Talk About Perhaps, for example, you feel guilt and that drives the of masturbation scenes? Kara Nicholson is from Readings online Climate Change in way you behave in regard to our climate crisis. On the Mullins staggers the Portnoy saga with a Way That Makes hand, perhaps you are frightened, or angry, or maybe you a shocking history of Australian literary a Difference simply feel an enormous level of despair when discussing censorship. Behind-closed-door scenes Quarterly Essay 78: The Coal Rebecca Huntley what we have done to our glorious planet. It’s possible of our great leaders discussing literature Curse – Resources, Climate Murdoch. PB. $32.99 you don’t even believe it is happening. By researching confirms that the governing cohort in and Australia’s Future Available 2 July and considering why climate change conversations create Australia has always seen itself as adults Judith Brett such mixed emotions, Huntley allows a range of voices to administering to a nation of children. Quarterly Essay. PB. $22.99 emerge. And she finds these emotional responses are helpful to the discourse because Mullins reveals how these arbiters Available now they can identify why we feel the way we do. This knowledge, in turn, can assist with of appropriateness beat the Nazis to Australia’s economic driving behavioural change. It can help us believe in hope. It certainly makes this book banning All Quiet on the Western Front – profile is heavy on raw a completely refreshing and optimistic read. presumably for depicting World War I materials, and low on Huntley dedicates a chapter towards the end of the book to the notion of love and as anything other than a fun, boys’ own innovation and skilled why that emotion is our tool going forward. (Of course, she also includes practical adventure. There was some consternation manufacturing. Once suggestions, hints, and a checklist as well.) Basically, by opening ourselves up to love, among the ruling elite years later that we rode on the sheep’s we open up our ability to share the load. The title of Huntley’s work could easily be How the banning of James Baldwin’s Another back for our overseas to Talk About Anything in a Way that Makes a Difference. Irrespective of the title, her Country would drive more people into the trade; today we rely on words will be a balm for your anxiety. It is research that could and should significantly arms of the Indigenous rights struggle. cartloads of coal and contribute to our dialogue on how to achieve the next sensible step forward in the Zola, Balzac, Brave New World, The tankers of LNG. In this insightful essay climate crisis. And it is championing a methodology that is kind and meaningful. Read Catcher in the Rye … every book you’ve about leadership, vision and history, it to feel inspired. It truly helps. ever had to read for school seems to have Judith Brett looks at the costs of Australia’s coal addiction and asks, where will we be if Christine Gordon is the programming manager for Readings been banned at some point, and the bans were often political as well as sexual. the world stops buying it? Australians have an overblown image of themselves as fun-loving, anti-authority Plastic Free the places that were important through types. Patrick Mullins’s book is an eye- Rebecca Prince-Ruiz & Joanna Australian generations (whether in Australia or opening reminder – if we needed one after Atherfold Finn Studies distant landscapes) and the many places the recent same-sex marriage ‘debate’ – NewSouth. PB. $32.99 that come to hold significance for us that more often than not the daily lives of Available 1 July throughout our lives. Through history, so many of us have been determined by a Plastic Free tells the Landscapes of Our Hearts science and impressive experience in the minority of austere fanatics. incredible story of how Matthew Colloff field, Colloff shows the many ways we Chris Dite is from Readings Carlton a simple community T&H. PB. $34.99 relate to country. initiative to reduce Available now Australians living in cities and urban Hazelwood plastic waste grew into Mathew Colloff landscapes are stepping up to save their Tom Doig one of the world’s most works at the green spaces and contribute to liveable Viking. PB. $34.99 successful Fenner School of cities, but Colloff knows from his years as Available now environmental Environment & Society a researcher that, of the non-First Nations In February 2014, movements. It also at the ANU, and prior people in this country, the remaining the Hazelwood shares tips from people around the world to that was a research farmers have accumulated the most open-pit brown-coal who have taken on the Plastic Free July scientist for twenty- knowledge of changing landscapes and mine caught fire and challenge and significantly reduced their three years at the climate. He has worked with them and burned out of control waste. This is a book about positive change CSIRO. So, although other growers who have changed their for forty-five days. and reminds us that small actions can this book is a very personal meditation farming practices to regenerative ones – Residents of the make a huge impact. and reflection on the meaning of sharing knowledge, building community impoverished Latrobe landscape, it is also a multi-layered and recognising that as the landscape Valley endured months Living on Stolen Land exploration of non-First Nations peoples’ changes, so must we. of toxic air pollution. Many became sick Ambelin Kwaymullina relationship to this country, with First We cannot live without nature – we and several workers in the mine, who had Magabala. PB. $22.99 Nations peoples’ relationships and need nature; nature doesn’t need us. Yet spent weeks fighting the fires, are now Available 1 July knowledge of country as an essential we continue to allow greed and self- chronically ill. Living on Stolen Land thread moving through the narrative. interest to destroy our environment. As The area is underprivileged in part due is a prose-styled look Colloff asks the question, ‘Can the Colloff writes, why wouldn’t we listen to to the privatisation of the mine, which saw at our colonial–settler rediscovery of landscape and history and learn from Australia’s First Nations jobs disappear from the region. Once a ‘present’. This book is truly help make real the prospect of peoples? They have successfully lived state-owned asset, Hazelwood at the time the first of its kind to national understanding and through climate change already on this of the fires was run by a multinational address and educate a reconciliation?’ continent. Through listening, respecting corporation. A changing energy market broad audience about ‘Landscapes of Our Hearts’ refers and sharing stories of connection to and uncertainty due to climate change led the colonial to the places we explored as children, landscape, we gain knowledge and hope to gross neglect of the power station. The contextual history of 12 READINGS MONTHLY July 2020 NONFICTION

Australia, in a highly original way. It pulls apart the myths at the heart of our Biography nationhood, and challenges Australia to & Memoir WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT come to terms with its own past. ZOONOSES SUCH AS COVID-19 AND HOW CAN WE KEEP THEM AT BAY? The Details: On Love, Death Natural and Reading Almost all pandemics and epidemics – History Tegan Bennett Daylight including SARS, Ebola and now Scribner. PB. $26.99 COVID-19 – have been caused by Available 8 July diseases that come to us from animals. Diary of a Young Naturalist Reading a book On Pandemics gathers the latest Dara McAnulty written about research to profile dozens of illnesses. Text. HB. $29.99 reading books involves a certain doubled type ‘A clear and compelling account of Available now of readerly attention how viruses have shaped our world.’ This book by a and produces an —Adjunct Professor BILL BOWTELL AO, young Irish equally doubled UNSW teenager is an extraordinarily readerly experience. beautiful seasonal That is, you have to diary of observing and keep track of at least two registers and appreciating nature, how they interact – the first is the book teeming with stunning that you are reading, the second is made descriptions of the up of the books that first book is reading. THE WAR IS NOT ENDING. natural world. As he observes the Okay, this sounds complex. But then, IT IS BEGINNING. changing of the seasons, the author shows think again, and realise that this is just a passion for the forest surrounding him the reality of a ‘readerly life’ – a life in The arresting, definitive story of the and displays an impressive knowledge of which the books you read are not just unfolding West Papua uprising told by birds, insects and trees. His depictions of delineated moments but composed in acclaimed journalist John Martinkus. the natural world are heartfelt and he part by, and in constant interaction with, displays wonder in the simple joys of the very texture of life itself. ‘It is a great read – beautiful, almost observing the quiet movements within Novelist and short-story writer Tegan angelic writing of tragic yet hopeful the forest. Bennett Daylight’s new memoir, The stories from an author who has literally Details: On Love, Death and Reading, is put his life on the line to tell us of an Dara McAnulty’s work is already undeniably a book for readers. There all but hidden war on our doorstep.’ esteemed; he was the youngest ever are incisive essays on Helen Garner, —DAMIEN KINGSBURY, Professor of winner of the prestigious Royal Society George Saunders, J.D. Salinger, Brian International Politics, Deakin University for the Protection of Birds Medal in 2019, an award previously won by Prince Dillon, Charlotte Wood and Jane Austen. Charles and David Attenborough. He Reading Bennett Daylight read these is also an activist for protecting nature writers, however – and this is why The from the ravages of modern society, who Details is in no way a straightforward uses his voice to protect the forests and example of literary criticism – is about so BLACKINCBOOKS.COM the planet. much more than books. McAnulty is autistic and sometimes Rather, The Details gives us a window struggles with large gatherings and rapid to a life organised through books and change; he has suffered bullying for writing: as a teacher striving to show much of his young life. His two siblings students why books are important further TRUE STORIES OF HOPE AND COURAGE and mother are also autistic, which helps to their place on the curriculum; as a them weather the storms together, and parent explaining how books can help the family is a very tight group. The influence that impossible choice of the lan-guage in the book is sophisticated person you want to become; as a lover in FATHER of the and beautiful, quite extraordinary dialogue with certain books, learning that considering McAnulty’s parents were perhaps love is the promise of a future LOST BOYS once told by a teacher that he would for a part of ourselves we do not possess Yuot A. Alaak never even be able to string a paragraph in the present. Books are centred as the present and the future of life – the still Told by his son, this is the story of how together, let alone write a book. Yet he can now count among his fans the nature point of the turning world. Mecak Ajang Alaak, teacher and community writer Robert Macfarlane, who has said Books are the past in life, too. leader, led the Lost Boys of South Sudan on ‘Dara’s is an extraordinary voice and Death and grief certainly form a not a journey of thousands of kilometres during vision: brave, poetic, ethical, lyrical.’ inconsiderable part of The Details. But the Second Sudanese Civil War. Enduring This uniquely talented young man is in what do books do better than bridge that attacks and starvation, Yuot’s father brought possession of extensive knowledge of the gap between the present and history? A 20,000 boys to the safety of a refugee camp natural world, as well as an exquisite way life lived and a life remembered? Bennett in Ethiopia. with language at such a young age. If you Daylight writes with such care, perception MEMOIR love nature writing, then you really must and intelligence on this link between what get your hands on this delightful book. we read and the life we lead – it will be impossible for the readers amongst us not Angela Crocombe is the manager of Readings to recognise its significance. Kids Jeremy George is from Readings State Library Victoria The Bird Way Jennifer Ackerman Enid: The Scandalous Life of As a child, Julie dreamed of making a Scribe. PB. $35 Available now a Glamorous Australian Who difference. Now she can’t wait to meet the From the author of The Dazzled the World nuns she will live with and the children Genius of Birds, here is Robert Wainwright she will provide physiotherapy for in a radical examination A&U. PB. $32.99 Ethiopia. But it’s hard sticking to convent of the bird way of being Available 2 July In early twentieth- rules and the path is not an easy one if – how they live and how they think. century society, when you truly want to be part of change. Drawing on personal women were expected TRAVEL MEMOIR TRAVEL observations, the latest to be demure and science, and her obedient, infamous bird-related travel around the world, Australian socialite Ackerman shows there is clearly no Enid Lindeman waltzed single bird way of being. As E.O. Wilson through life to the beat once said, when you have seen one bird, of her own drum. Enid you have not seen them all. captivated men with her beauty, outlived

14Readings Ad.indd 1 26/5/20 3:49 pm NONFICTION July 2020 READINGS MONTHLY 13

four husbands and earned the nickname University Professor at Harvard University, ‘Lady Killmore’. From Sydney to New York, argues that changing this framework is not London to Paris and Cairo to Kenya, Robert only a moral imperative for business, but Wainwright tells the fascinating story of a also the only way to remain competitive in life lived large on the world stage. our changing world.

Good Morning, Destroyer of Women and Leadership Men’s Souls Julia Gillard & Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala Nina Renata Aron Vintage. PB. $34.99 Serpent’s Tail. HB. $29.99 Available 12 July Available 21 July As a result of their Nina Renata Aron’s broad experience on the DR KATE GREGOREVIC story of her intense, world stage in politics, Dr Kate Gregorevic helps you toxic affair with drug economics and global discover how to thrive and live addict K is gripping, not-for-profits, Ngozi better for longer. poetic and darkly Okonjo-Iweala and amusing. But alongside Julia Gillard have some the late nights and strong ideas about the broken promises of her impact of gender on the own life, Aron builds a treatment of leaders. Here, by presenting bigger picture: the untold story of those the lessons that can be learned from who have loved and supported addicts women leaders, Gillard and Okonjo- through the ages. Exploring her own Iweala provide a road map of essential From the author of The Life-Changing journey of descent and recovery, Aron knowledge to inspire us all. Magic of Tidying Up asks painful and rarely discussed questions of addiction. Cultural The Last Lighthouse Keeper: Studies A Memoir John Cook with John Bauer MARIE KONDO A&U. PB. $32.99 How Do We Know We’re Doing Find your focus – wherever you’re working Available 2 July It Right?: Essays on Modern – with Joy at Work. Marie Kondo believes In Tasmania, John Life the key is creating a healthy environment, Cook is known as ‘The Pandora Sykes having a consistent routine, taking time Keeper of the Flame’. Hutchinson. HB. $35 to recharge and accepting that, yes, As one of Australia’s Available 21 July sometimes things are going to be chaotic. longest-serving Modern life is full of lighthouse keepers, choices. We’re told that John spent twenty-six happiness lies within years tending and we can be whoever Love talking about books? Tasmania’s well-known we want to be. But with Find us online at Pan Macmillan Australia kerosene ‘lights’ at Tasman Island, endless possibility Maatsuyker Island and Bruny Island. comes a feeling of Evocatively told, The Last Lighthouse restlessness; what does Keeper is a love story between a man and doing it right even look a dying way of life, as well as a celebration like? From faster-than-fast fashion to of wilderness and solitude. millennial burnout, the explosion of wellness to the rise of cancel culture, Money for Something: Sex Pandora Sykes interrogates the stories Work. Drugs. Life. Need. we’ve been sold and the ones we tell Mia Walsch ourselves. Echo. PB. $29.99 Available 2 July Outraged: Why Everyone ‘This is evidence that grassroots actions When nineteen-year- is Shouting and No One is can make a difference to the most wicked old Mia is fired from Talking of environmental problems. Hats off.’ her job at an insurance Ashley ‘Dotty’ Charles – Tim Winton company, she makes Bloomsbury. PB. $29.99 the choice to answer an Available 21 July ad in the newspaper. While we might’ve The ad says: ‘Erotic checked a bunch of Massage. Good Money. items off our outrage No Sex.’ While juggling shopping list, ours is a the demands of her new job, she battles society where many her problematic drug use, and the mental practice provocation: the illness that has shaped her life. But tactless but effective tool rather than needing saving from sex of pedalling outrage. work, it is the work that sometimes helps And we all too quickly ‘A must-read. Privacy is key to a to save Mia from herself. take the bait. If outrage has become free society and is eroding daily.’ abundant, activism has definitely become – Julia Baird subdued. This is the essential guide to Business living through the age of outrage.

Reimagining Capitalism: How Burn It Down!: Feminist Business Can Save the World Manifestos for the Revolution Rebecca Henderson Breanne Fahs (ed.) Portfolio. PB. $35 Verso. HB. $39.99 Available 2 July Available now Free market capitalism In this landmark is on the verge of collection spanning destroying the planet three centuries and ‘Liz Allen shows us who we are, and destabilising four waves of feminist and the country we should be. society in its single- activism and writing, A timely call to action.’ minded pursuit of Burn It Down! is a – George Megalogenis maximising shareholder testament to what is value. Here Rebecca possible when women AN IMPRINT OF UNSW PRESS Henderson, McArthur are driven to the edge. 14 READINGS MONTHLY July 2020 NONFICTION

The manifesto has always played a central account of the Trump Administration, and boldly asks science to answer to love, role in feminism, and it’s the angry, brash one of the few to date by a top-level official. History giving readers the tools with which to feminism we need now. Collecting over interpret and understand their own seventy-five manifestos from around the Hidden Hand Mussolini’s War: Fascist Italy connections with others, and to have world, Burn It Down! is a rallying cry and Clive Hamilton & Mareike Ohlberg From Triumph to Collapse, better, healthier relationships. a call to action. Hardie Grant. PB. $32.99 1935-1943 Available now John Gooch Science Politics In Hidden Hand, Clive Allen Lane. HB. $59.99 Hamilton and Mareike Available 2 July Ohlberg explore their John Gooch’s new book Sway: Unravelling People Without Power belief that the Chinese is the definitive account Unconscious Bias Thomas Frank Communist Party’s of Italy’s World War II Pragya Agarwal Scribe. PB. $29.99 influence across the experience. Beginning Bloomsbury Sigma. PB. $29.99 Available 15 July Western world has with the invasion of Available now Today, populism is seen grown in politics, Abyssinia and ending Experiments have as a frightening thing, a business, universities, with Mussolini’s arrest, shown that our brains term pundits use to think tanks and international institutions Gooch brilliantly categorise people by describe the racist such as the UN. With compelling prose, portrays the nightmare race in less than philosophy of Donald this book pursues ideas about the Chinese of a country with too incompetent a one-tenth of a second. Trump and European Communist Party’s threats to democratic leadership and too many fronts on which This means that we are extremists. But this is a freedoms and national sovereignty across to fight. This book rightly shows the labelling people mistake. The real story Europe and North America. centrality of Italy to the war, outlining the without even hearing of populism is an brief rise and disastrous fall of the Italian them speak. In Sway, account of enlightenment and liberation. Health military campaign. author Pragya Agarwal uncovers the People Without Power is a ringing science behind our unintentional biases. affirmation of a movement that is not the Rummage: A History of the Using real world stories underpinned by problem of our times, but the solution. Staying Alive Things We Have Reused, scientific theories and research, this Dr Kate Gregorevic Recycled and Refused to Let book unravels the way our unconscious Humankind Pan Mac. PB. $34.99 Go biases are affecting the way we Rutger Bregman Available now Emily Cockayne experience the world. Bloomsbury. PB. $32.99 By the time we turn Profile. HB. $34.99 Available now sixty, most of us will Available 3 July It’s a belief that unites still have one third of In this original and the left and right, our lives to live. How fascinating new history, Emily A psychologists and well we live these years philosophers, writers will depend on our Cockayne illuminates and historians. It health. In Staying Alive our relationship to our timely drives headlines and you’ll discover the rubbish. She exposes laws. From Machiavelli science on how you can the hidden work (often to Dawkins, the roots avoid or manage the major diseases that done by women) that return of this belief have sunk impact us as we age, including heart has gone into shaping deep into Western thought. Human health, diabetes and dementia, and the world for each future generation, and beings, we’re taught, are by nature improve your enjoyment of life. she shows what lessons can be drawn selfish and governed by self-interest. from the past to address urgent questions Humankind makes a new argument: that of our waste today. These essential antiracist reads are it is realistic, as well as revolutionary, to Cooking back in stock after selling out due to assume that people are good. Parenting recent high demand. Aegean: Recipes from the Shadow State: Murder Mountains to the Sea Talkin’ Up to the White Woman Mayhem And Russia’s Marianna Leivaditaki We Are Family (20th Anniversary Edition) Remaking Of The West Kyle Books. HB. $45 Susan Golombok Aileen Moreton-Robinson Luke Harding Available now Scribe. PB. $32.99 UQP. PB. $24.99 Faber. PB. $29.99 We all know the health Available 2 July Available 2 July Available 18 August benefits of a Our understanding of Persuasive and In Shadow State, Luke Mediterranean diet, what makes a family engaging, Talkin’ Up to Harding reveals how rich in olive oil, fresh has undergone a the White Woman is a Russian spies helped to vegetables and fruit, revolution in the last timely and necessary sway the 2016 US nuts, fish and whole few decades. Here, argument for the presidential elections grains, as well as the Professor Susan inclusion of Indigenous in favour of Trump and importance of how Golombok visits queer perspectives in the backed the campaign you eat and appreciate your food. parents, donor teachings and practices which resulted in Here, Marianna Leivaditaki offers conception parents, that impact on Brexit. From Salisbury achievable, yet delicious Mediterranean trans parents, and, more importantly, Australia’s pluralistic society. First to Helsinki, Washington to Ukraine, the dishes celebrating seasonal, fresh food their children, to learn about their published twenty years ago, this new Kremlin has attempted to reshape politics that you can take time to enjoy with experiences. This book tells the stories of edition proves the continued relevance of in their own mould; the future of Western friends and family. those families and celebrates love in all this classic work as a critique of the democracy is at stake as a result. its wonderful variations. whiteness of western feminism. Vegan Fakeaway The Room Where It Happened: Katy Beskow Strange Situation: A Mother’s Me and White Supremacy A White House Memoir Quadrille. HB. $29.99 Journey Into the Science of Layla F. Saad John Bolton Available 8 July Attachment Quercus. PB. $29.99 S&S. PB. $35 We all love a Bethany Saltman Available now Available now takeaway. It’s one of Scribe. PB. $35 In 2018, Layla Saad John Bolton served as life’s little pleasures, Available now ran an Instagram Donald Trump’s and a great way to try How can we create challenge under the National Security food from around the strong attachments hashtag Advisor from 2018– world in the comfort with our children and #MeAndWhite 2019. What Bolton saw of our own homes. But why does it matter? In Supremacy, for people astonished him: a when hankering after this intimate, rigorous with white privilege President for whom a plant-based treat, the takeaway menu book, a mother to unflinchingly getting re-elected was isn’t always the easiest thing to navigate. investigates the examine the ways the only thing that Vegan Fakeaway offers seventy recipes science of attachment that they are complicit in upholding the mattered, even if it meant weakening the for vegan takeaway classics that will theory while oppressive system of white supremacy. nation. This White House memoir is the make sure that you’re able to indulge, navigating her relationships with her The challenge catalysed a worldwide most comprehensive and substantial whenever the craving strikes. own daughter and mother. Saltman awakening for thousands of white- NONFICTION July 2020 READINGS MONTHLY 15 privileged people to begin to take How To Be an Antiracist ownership of their personal antiracism Ibram X. Kendi work. This workbook was born out of At Bodley Head. HB. $35 that challenge. Available now Not being racist is not home Why I’m No Longer Talking to enough. We have to be White People About Race antiracist. In this Reni Eddo-Lodge rousing and deeply in a Bloomsbury. PB. $19.99 empathetic book, Ibram Available now X. Kendi, founding This is the book that director of the pandemic sparked a national Antiracism Research with Chris Gordon conversation in the UK, and Policy Center, and it has a great deal shows that when it comes to racism, to teach Australia. neutrality is not an option: until we I know for many of you that spending family favourite: the meringues … with Exploring issues from become part of the solution, we can only time at home has meant that you whipped cream. North Melbourne’s eradicated black be part of the problem. have turned to food that brings Natalie Paull is gifting you her extensive expertise in this very pretty book. history to the political comfort. Apparently, Australia has purpose of white Talking To My Country eaten more sourdough bread, dominance, whitewashed feminism to Stan Grant How to Raise a Loaf and Fall in the link between class and race, award HarperCollins. PB. $24.99 banana bread, biscuits and Love with Sourdough winning journalist Reni Eddo-Lodge Available now casseroles than ever before. In my Roly Allen offers a timely new framework for how to Talking To My Country own household, we have baked, Laurence King. PB. $24.99 see, acknowledge and counter racism. is that rare and special bottled and fried an extraordinary Available now book that talks to every range of dishes. My family live in White Tears/Brown Scars Australian about their the north of Interestingly, after a few weeks we found Ruby Hamad country – what it is, Melbourne and it ourselves using the same cookbooks over MUP. PB. $34.99 and what it could be. It seems it was our and over again. Available now is not just about race, obligation to Upon reflection, I realised these When white people cry or about Indigenous make a loaf of cookbooks all share several common foul it is often people people but all of us, our sourdough during ingredients: of colour who suffer. shared identity. Direct, honest and the period of White Tears/Brown forthright, Grant is talking to us all, and » The instructions are suitable for isolation. It is a Scars blows open the wants us to keep on asking the question: any home cook, meaning anyone in fuss, that’s true, inconvenient truth how can we be better? our household could work their way but it is totally worth it because you then that when it comes to through a recipe without calling on have licence to discuss ‘starters’ ad race, white entitlement Growing Up Aboriginal in help. nauseam. This book is the equivalent of is too often masked by Australia » The dishes did not call for fancy, far- doing a cooking course; Roly Allen takes victimhood. Never is this more obvious Anita Heiss (ed.) flung ingredients. For example, we your hand gently and walks you through did not use black garlic nor cheeses than the dealings between women of Black Inc. PB. $29.99 each step. My family ate the loaf I we needed to make ourselves. colour and white women. What happens Available now prepared lovingly over a couple of days in one greedy sitting. when racism and sexism collide? What is it like to grow » Presentation was not crucial. Ruby Hamad provides some up Aboriginal in » The dishes were suitable for a family confronting answers. Australia? This of four (seemingly often hungry) Preserving the Italian Way anthology, compiled by adults. Pietro Demaio Between the World and Me award-winning author Our favourites include: Pietro Demaio. PB. $39.99 Ta-Nehisi Coates Anita Heiss, showcases Available now Text. PB. $27.99 many diverse voices, Falastin: A Cookbook This is the bee’s Available now experiences and stories Sami Tamimi & Tara Wigley knees of What is it like to in order to answer that Ebury. HB. Was $49.99 preserving inhabit a black body? question. Accounts from well-known $39.99 cookbooks. And how can America authors and high-profile identities sit Available now Melbourne-based reckon with its fraught alongside those from newly discovered The aroma the Pietro Demaio has racial history? Between writers of all ages. All of the contributors dishes create in gifted us the World and Me is speak from the heart – sometimes calling this wonderful generations of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ for empathy, oftentimes challenging cookbook will knowledge about attempt to answer stereotypes, always demanding respect. bring everyone in the best means of those questions, your house preserving vegetables, fruits and meats. presented in the form of a letter to his immediately away His instructions are simple, even adolescent son. Masterfully woven from from their screens. elegant, and always successful. Our lyrical personal narrative, reimagined Our family copy of this book is stained, a little history, and fresh, emotionally charged Support the favourite is the tattered on the corners and bent out of reportage, this is a transcendent vision Indigenous aubergine, chickpea and tomato bake, shape. Surely that tells you everything for a way forward. which is suitable to be served on its own you need to know. Literacy or as a side dish – or with toast the next Growing Up African in Foundation morning. We loved it because you pile Nonna Knows Best: Australia everything into one baking dish, pop it The Italian Art of Living Well Maxine Beneba Clarke (ed.) in the oven and walk away. Every recipe Jaclyn Crupi Black Inc. PB. $29.99 in this love letter to Palestinian cuisine is Affirm Press. HB. $24.99 Readings is a proud supporter of the Available now approachable and delicious. Available now Indigenous Literacy Foundation and Learning to kick a Melbourne donated $20,000 to the ILF in June 2020. Beatrix Bakes bookseller Jaclyn football in a suburban schoolyard. Facing For the month of July, Black Inc. are Natalie Paull Crupi generously racism from those who donating $2 from every sale of print Hardie Grant. HB. $45 shares her Italian should protect you. copies of Growing Up Aboriginal in Available now culture with us Dreading a visit to the Australia to the Indigenous Literacy Initially, my through a series of hairdresser. Being too Foundation. Readings will match this family found this memories, recipes black, or not being donation, so that $4 will be donated to book a little and top tips for black enough. Welcome the ILF for every copy of Growing Up overwhelming; living well. It is Aboriginal in Australia sold in our shops or to African Australia. Compiled by each recipe does true that my through our website until 31 July. award-winning author Maxine Beneba have many steps. family have cooked her tiramisu recipe

Clarke, with curatorial assistance from Do not let that put many times in the last few weeks. I know You can support the Indigenous Literacy you off. This is it’s a rich and decadent dessert but, writers Ahmed Yussuf and Magan Foundation and make a donation directly Magan, this anthology brings together at indigenousliteracyfoundation.org.au the real deal for goodness, there were times when we voices from the regions of Africa and the creating the most truly felt we deserved another bowl full African diaspora. delicious cakes, pies and slices. Our of creamy delight. 16 READINGS MONTHLY July 2020 YOUNG ADULT

Stacey refuses to believe, as most of the townsfolk do, that Laney has just run away with her boyfriend. There are darker forces at work and when Stacey starts to dream of terrifying monsters, she knows that she must find out what has happened to her sister – before it’s too late. This is a page-turning thriller set in an Australian country The town and featuring Indigenous Australian spirits with an unexpected role in Stacey’s quest to save Laney. This story will keep you up late at night! Suitable for readers aged 13+. Readings Invisible Boys Holden Sheppard Fremantle. PB. $19.99 Available now Nerd Zeke, punk Charlie, and Young Adult footy hero Hammer don’t appear to have anything in common. But appearances can be deceiving, and these three boys are all coming to terms with their sexuality in a Book Prize town where it is much safer for them to keep aspects of themselves invisible. Observed from their three points of view, with anonymous letters interspersed in between, this is a stunningly written novel that will open your eyes to what it’s like to live in a small town full of prejudice and 2020 hurt. Nobody is perfect, nobody is off the hook and nobody will ever be the same again after the explosive events that take place in this book. This is a raw, sometimes confronting story that is best suited to readers aged 15+.

shortlist Everywhere Everything Everyone Katy Warner Hardie Grant Egmont. PB. $19.99 Available now Angela Crocombe, manager of Readings Kids and Devil’s Ballast Sixteen-year-old Santee lives on the Meg Caddy chair of The Readings Young Adult Book Prize wrong side of town, and it seems no Text. PB. $19.99 2020 judging panel, shares why we can all be good can come from mentioning her Available now excited about this shortlist. dad, but, even so, she believes in the Anne Bonny was eighteen when she What an incredibly strong year it has been for safety of her world – that running ran away from her violent husband, Australian Young Adult fiction! The judges of The late for curfew will only mean being grounded, and that James, and teamed up with the pirate Readings Young Adult Book Prize for 2020 had a tough the government is working for the good of the community. Calico Jack. Now she’s passing as a task choosing our shortlist from around forty eligible But everything changes one night when Santee’s new cabin boy on Jack’s ship and playing novels, many of which were absolutely cracking reads. boyfriend’s car breaks down and they are stuck for the her part in a ruthless crew that is We feel so fortunate to live in a country where there is so night. When she tries to go home in the morning, Santee causing terror for all aboard the ships of the Caribbean. much topnotch literary talent. discovers that a wall has been built to divide the city and But James Bonny still wants her back and will do whatever that she is on the wrong side. The judges this year, all staff from our shops, include is necessary to get her. Based on the true story of the pirate Written from the perspective of an ordinary citizen two shop managers (Angela Crocombe, Readings Kids Anne Bonny, this is a swashbuckling adventure story set caught up in life-changing events, this fascinating novel and Claire Atherfold, Readings State Library Victoria), an on the high seas with fascinating and diverse characters examines the importance of freedom, rebellion and the academic studying young adult literature (Bec Kavanagh, and some really evil baddies. Every character has their precariousness of our everyday lives. Gentle romance and Readings Kids) and an actual young adult (Joe Murray, motivations and their quirks. This is smart writing and an family themes are also interwoven through the narrative Readings Kids). A varied but impressive bunch! absolute treat. Suitable for ages 13+. Our brief was to find six books among the debut or to make an absolutely captivating story. Suitable for second releases of Australian YA authors published in the readers aged 11+. last year that represented great YA fiction, had diversity The Surprising Power of a in style and subject matter, and were stories that young Good Dumpling Take the Shot people would enjoy. We are absolutely thrilled with the Wai Chim Susan White A&U. PB. $19.99 final shortlist. Not only do we want you to take note of Affirm. PB. $16.99 Available now each of these six amazing authors, but also to know that Available now there is a story here for every YA reader. Anna Chiu has her hands full with Bug is keeping a lot of secrets. We have a brilliantly realised swashbuckling Year 11, looking after her brother and After he is diagnosed with a health historical fiction loosely based on the true story of sister, and helping out at her family’s condition called Marfan syndrome, the pirate Anne Bonny (Devil’s Ballast by Meg Caddy). restaurant. Her dad’s new delivery he is advised to stay away from There is a heartwarming story of an immigrant family boy, Rory, is a welcome distraction fast-paced sports and take it easy. trying to make good with their restaurant while also and Anna loves spending time working on perfecting So, what does he do? Start a mixed coping with a parent with mental illness (The Surprising her dumplings. But her close-knit family isn’t without basketball team with some of his classmates at his new Power of a Good Dumpling by Wai Chim). There is an its complications – her mum has an untreated mental school and not tell any of his family about it. This isn’t a absolutely terrifying thriller about a disappeared girl illness and has been in her bed for months, her father is life-threatening disaster waiting to happen – not at all! incredibly strict, and life can so easily turn upside-down. that incorporates Indigenous Australian monsters and Bug is such a great character with witty comebacks to will have you too scared to turn out the light (Ghost Bird This is a nuanced tale of an immigrant Chinese- his bullies and a charm that brings him friends without by Lisa Fuller). We have a coming-of-age tale from the Australian family and how they navigate a mental illness. him even realising. A thoroughly engaging novel about perspectives of three young gay men growing up in a But it is also a charming coming-of-age story about first friendship, sport and dealing with challenges in life, this small country town in Western Australia (Invisible Boys love, managing responsibilities and finding joy in a is a story that even reluctant readers will absolutely adore. by Holden Sheppard). Then there is an utterly unique difficult life. Wai Chim has written a remarkable book that Suitable for ages 11+. take on dystopian fiction that looks at what it would be is an absolute delight to read. Suitable for readers aged 13+. like to live in a world where a wall suddenly divides your Somehow, we have to choose just one winner from among city in two and you are caught on the opposite side from Ghost Bird these six amazing and incredibly diverse Australian your family (Everywhere Everything Everyone by Katy Lisa Fuller novels. When we judges meet again to make our decision, Warner). Finally, we have a realistic story about a young UQP. PB. $19.95 we will be joined by the talented and generous YA author man whose passion is basketball but who has a disease Available now Amie Kaufman, who is donating her time as guest judge that means playing it could kill him (Take the Shot by Stacey and Laney are twins, yet they this year. We are looking forward to hearing her thoughts, Susan White). could not be more different from and we’ll be back to announce the winner in August! We hope you enjoy reading these wonderful and varied one another. Stacey works hard Australian stories and support these incredibly talented at school; Laney skips school and emerging authors. They will no doubt have many more sneaks out to meet her boyfriend. But Angela Crocombe, Readings Kids manager and chair of The great stories to tell in the years ahead. when Laney disappears one night, Readings Young Adult Book Prize 2020 judging panel. YOUNG ADULT July 2020 READINGS MONTHLY 17

Metal Fish, Falling Snow than Love is highly recommended for ages Cath Moore 13 up to (and including) adult, especially Young Adult for bookish readers who love language and Text. PB. $19.99 Available 2 July would savour the many references to books Her mother has passed from classic literature. away, and now Dylan Athina Clarke is from Readings Malvern The Lost Soul Atlas takes the classic story of the journey has to leave her small rural through the underworld and flips it. What if, instead of BOOK OF THE home town of Beyen, in the a hero’s journey through the underworld to save a lost soul, Again Again MONTH company of her mother’s the lost soul is the one on the journey to save the hero? And E. Lockhart boyfriend, Pat. Dylan and Young Adult what if the one who needs saving, in this metaphor, is A&U. PB. $19.99 Pat drive towards the ocean everyone who has ever lived? Available now and the boat that Dylan is convinced will Twig’s afterlife is a fraught one (though not without comic Adelaide Buchwald take her to Paris, in the country where her relief in the form of his hilarious, wise-cracking raven- has just been dumped mother was born. The road there is skeleton guardian), and it’s no surprise when we visit the by Mikey, who has winding, hot and dusty; beer salesman Pat memories of his time alive to find his life as a street kid in a gallivanted off to Puerto drops in on pubs along the way to check on dangerous city was just as treacherous. Rico for the summer, leaving his accounts, and to play the pokies too. Adelaide behind at The Lost Soul Atlas is everything we have come to expect Dylan and Pat are locked into their own Alabaster Preparatory from Zana Fraillon – a story about amazing, tough kids who have separate grief, and don’t understand each Academy. Adelaide plans to spend her been dealt a terrible hand by life but who refuse to have their other most of the time. Fourteen-year-old holidays walking the dogs of absent spirits broken – but it’s also something new: a rich and telling Dylan’s way of being in the world, and her professors and trying to complete the fantasy. The afterlife in The Lost Soul Atlas is honestly as full and unique internal logic, chafe against theatre design project that will save her robust as anything Philip Pullman has ever written, and I can everything around her, leading to a string from academic probation. Instead, she falls only hope this is the start of Fraillon’s career as a fantasy author. of accidents and incidents that test Pat’s in love at first sight with Jack at the dog Fraillon has always had a beautiful command of patience. When they reach their park, and rapidly becomes as obsessed with The Lost Soul language, and a topic as delicate as the afterlife – especially Atlas unexpected destination, Dylan comes face him as she previously was with Mikey. in a children’s book – could, with anyone else’s words, have to face with part of her family and a side of Zana Fraillon Adelaide and Jack’s story is told become too scary or, even worse, too mundane. Instead, herself she’s never wanted to own. with a twist; at the very moment they Lothian. PB. $19.99 in Fraillon’s hands, it’s a work of art, perfectly balancing This wonderful Australian debut paints meet, the narrative begins to fray. E. Available 14 July imagination and reality. Scary, sad and funny all at once, I a whirling, raging, intense portrait of a teen Lockhart presents multiple variants on cannot recommend this book highly enough. For ages 10+. who experiences the world in ways that their every interaction, conversation Dani Solomon is from Readings Kids she struggles to communicate to others. and text message, each leading to very The reader is taken deep into Dylan’s mind disparate outcomes for their relationship. and heart and senses, in ways that are No explanation is provided for this, but Clap When You Land Stars Like Us sometimes deeply humorous, and at other the ‘Illogic of the Multiverse’ conference Elizabeth Acevedo Frances Chapman times deeply painful. Layers of ideas about taking place on the campus provides Hotkey. PB. $19.99 HG Egmont. PB. $19.99 race, identity, grief and family run through one possible way of looking at it. Even this book, but the focus never wavers from Available early July Available 8 July with the unconventional format, Again Dylan’s funny and profound voice. This Clap When You Land is Every two years, the Again at first seems like a straightforward is a really moving, original and thought- a poignant novel in team at Hardie Grant romance – maybe even an anti-romance – provoking novel. For ages 13+. verse by National Book Egmont opens the inbox for but then other details start to emerge. Award-winner Elizabeth their prestigious Leanne Hall is the children’s specialist for Lurking behind Adelaide’s boy obsession is Acevedo that touches on Ampersand Prize and Readings online something she’s avoiding: her brother Toby themes of culture, encourages the submission has been in danger, sick, close to death. connection and identity. It is of manuscripts of YA and The End of the World Is Bigger The true nature of the family’s ordeal is the story of two girls separated by an ocean middle grade fiction by unpublished than Love revealed in slow morsels, and Adelaide’s who have never met each other and yet, writers. Stars Like Us by Frances Chapman Davina Bell emotional landscape is transformed into unbeknownst to either, share a father. is the triumphant recipient of the 2018 Text. PB. $19.99 something more raw. Camino lives in the Dominican Republic, Ampersand Prize, and it is very easy to Available now If this sounds like it could be gimmicky helping her aunt tend to the sick in their understand why even just a few pages into The End of the World Is or overly complex, please rest assured that neighbourhood whilst fighting for her dream this clever, sexy, LGBTQI+ YA novel. Bigger than Love is set Again Again is a thoroughly engrossing novel of becoming a doctor. Meanwhile, Yahaira is Liliana is a sixteen-year-old guitarist in a time when Earth has full of quirky and entertaining characters. a former chess-champion living in New York and songwriter. She’s also an exchange suffered an environmental Lockhart is such a confident writer that it’s who shares a fire escape with her girlfriend student attending the Henley-On- catastrophe of unimaginable easy to get swept up in her witty dialogue and struggles with strained family Thames Music Academy in London on a and epic proportions: and sheer verve. If you’re already a Lockhart dynamics. Following the death of their father scholarship, far from her home in Sydney Antarctica has lost the last fan you’ll recognise Alabaster Preparatory in the November 2001 crash of American and her girlfriend, Ellie. Homesick and of its ice, the blue whale is extinct and it’s Academy as the setting for Lockhart’s earlier Airlines Flight 587 bound for Santa Domingo, filled with longing for Ellie, Liliana the beginning of the end for life on Earth. novel, The Disreputable History of Frankie the two girls’ lives are overturned as they meets Carter, the charming, wealthy Struggling to survive are twin sisters Landau-Banks. Again Again made me cringe find each other in the midst of their grief. son of a famous surgeon AND a famous Summer and Winter, who, though with recognition at the mixed signals and Acevedo presents a poignant narrative jazz musician. Carter encourages her to outwardly ‘identical’ are very different patchy commitment of young love, laugh that exposes the raw souls of her characters, audition for his (non-school sanctioned, characters; Summer is loquacious, funny at the professors who were as confused as as well as their flaws and desires, in a secret) band – as a vocalist. It doesn’t take and imaginative while Winter is laconic the teens, and even tear up a little at what way that truly makes them feel three- long for real chemistry to develop between and reserved. But it’s soon obvious they’re Adelaide and Toby had been through. For dimensional. As Camino and Yahaira Liliana and Carter, or for their band to both unreliable narrators, their truth is ages 13+. both struggle with grief, you see them become a success, and things get even a slippery concept: one is more inventive Leanne Hall is the children’s specialist for grow as individuals as they each grapple more complicated from there. with the truth, the other unable to really Readings online with the various layers of their Dominican Before long, Liliana is faced with a examine it; each must find her own way to identities and come to understand their difficult choice – between a boy she finds overcome catastrophe and to survive. The Last Paper Crane newfound sisterhood. Their father is an ever more attractive and the girl she loves Dragged around the world by their Kerry Drewery & Natsko Seki (illus.) equally complex individual – neither a back home, and between the fame within fugitive father, the twins find themselves Hotkey. PB. $16.99 hero nor a villain, but simply an imperfect her reach and staying true to the music on a remote island, suffering the Available 2 July and utterly human figure caught up in two that matters most to her. monumental consequences of his actions. Japanese teenager Mizuki is different lives for reasons that are uncovered Chapman has written a smart, sassy When the mysterious Edward appears worried about her throughout the novel. and highly entertaining book that absorbs on the scene the sisters suddenly find grandfather, who is clearly Each chapter of Clap When You Land the reader in its messy but perfectly themselves at potentially dangerous odds. desperately upset about brims with lyrical and poetic prose executed drama right from the start. I was immediately immersed in this something from his past. that flows from one line to another. The Chapmans’ characters are loveable sumptuous creation of unfathomable We are taken to Hiroshima, protagonists’ voices are distinct and raw and just flawed enough, her dialogue is love, unimaginable grief, betrayal and an 1945, and Mizuki’s whilst giving the reader glimpses into the authentic, and her skill at crafting a pitch- ultimate sacrifice that left me breathless. grandfather is a teenage boy chatting at fascinating settings, communities and perfect love triangle is formidable indeed. Award-winner Davina Bell’s debut home with his friend Hiro. What follows is cultures of New York and Santa Domingo. I cannot wait to read what Chapman novel for young adults is an extraordinary, a searing account of the blinding flash, the Acevedo has written yet another meaningful writes next, so it’s fortunate that Stars Like marvellous work; the writing is staggeringly harrowing search for family and the read imbued with vivid imagery and Us is the kind of novel that begs to be read beautiful, the scope is majestic and breadth devastation both human and physical. A emotion that is sure to pull at heartstrings. more than once. For ages 13+. astonishing. A gigantic rollercoaster ride powerful novel that, despite its harrowing Xiao Xiao Kingham is from Readings Kids Tye Cattanach is from Readings Kids of emotion, The End of the World Is Bigger subject matter, has hope at its heart. 18 READINGS MONTHLY July 2020 KIDS

Featuring Gus Gordon’s trademark Melbourne-based illustrator Rovina Cai, this is a anthropomorphic creations, Finding François pays powerful story that can be enjoyed by a variety of Kids’ tribute to the realities of loss and the healing power of age levels. It could be used in schools to talk about friendship. Gordon explores some difficult feelings in storytelling or climate crisis, but it can also be enjoyed Books this work, rendering them accessible for small people as a parable in picture book format. Suitable for ages 5+. who will love his honesty and sly humour. His blend of Angela Crocombe is the manager of Readings Kids soft watercolour and pencil with mixed media gives the work a lovely tactile and nostalgic feel, and may have Pink! you planning a trip to France. This utterly charming Margaret Wild & Judith Rossell (illus.) book is among my favourites for the year. For ages 4+. HarperCollins. HB. $24.99 Bronte Coates is the digital content manager for Readings Available 8 July Pink is a small dinosaur who Sneaky Shadows stands out from the crowd. S.C. Manchild & Sam Caldwell (illus.) Hide-and-seek is her favourite BOOK OF THE Berbay. HB. $24.99 game, but her colour means she’s MONTH Available 8 July always the first one to be found. Middle Grade Sneaky Shadows is a very She doesn’t want to be pink simple premise, on one page anymore ... until her difference the reader is shown a silhouette helps her friends find their way home again. Pink! is an and asked to guess what it might adorable book about accepting yourself and finding be. The next page reveals the your strengths. answer. It starts out quite simple with a silhouette of two penguins Say Goodbye ... Say Hello (called Dave and Michelle, who are Cori Doerrfeld happily married with children and on a night out) but Scallywag. HB. $24.99 very quickly descends into silliness with a very clear Available 1 July silhouette of a camel turning out to be a llama balancing Say Goodbye ... Say Hello follows When Rain Turns jelly on her back. Kids will love trying to guess what the to Snow two best friends as they say shadows really are and will be delighted when the goodbye to snowmen, and hello Jane Godwin authors out-silly them every time. This is a great book to stomping in puddles. They say Lothian. PB. $16.99 for kids aged 3+. goodbye to long walks, Available now Dani Solomon is from Readings Kids butterflies, and the sun and hello to long evening talks, fireflies, and the stars. But the hardest goodbye of all comes Much-loved Melbourne author Jane Godwin’s Ellie’s Dragon when one of the friends has to move away. However newest book is an appealing and emotional novel Bob Graham even the hardest days come to an end, and you never about families and friendships. Lissa doesn’t know what Walker. HB. $27.99 know what tomorrow will bring. to do when a boy named Reed shows up on her doorstep Available 1 July after school one day with a five-month-old baby and With his latest picture book, some surprising questions about Lissa’s mother. Bob Graham has gifted Shapes and Colours Nothing about it makes sense and as she does her best small readers another heart-filled John Canty to help Reed and the sickly baby – providing them with tale celebrating imagination. Berbay. HB. $24.99 food and shelter – it seems that suddenly everybody else When Ellie, a very small girl, Available 8 July in Lissa’s family is keeping big secrets too. discovers a luminous newborn John Canty, the award-winning Missing her best friend, Lissa is also having an dragon sitting atop an egg box, it author–illustrator of the Heads increasingly difficult time navigating toxic friendships is friendship at first sight. She and Tails series introduces at school and people have been saying some troubling names the dragon Scratch and takes him home, where readers to a multi-tiered new things about her older brother. The book takes a she feeds him nasturtiums, chillies, burnt toast and concept book about shape and look at how and why harmful online behaviour barbecue coals – although Ellie’s mother, who can’t see colour sorting and object can play out. It’s a novel with some intense themes the house’s fiery new inhabitant, won’t let her give him identification. With fresh and that are approached compassionately and resolved the tops of matches! Over the years, the girl and dragon appealing illustrations and a thoughtfully. With a warm, satisfying ending it’s very share loving moments together (such as movie popcorn striking design, this is a future classic for modern kids. well pitched for an upper-middle grade or younger teen and sleepovers), as well as make exciting discoveries audience aged 11-14. on their own (such as dancing and flying). But then one Kim Gruschow is from Readings St Kilda day, Ellie realises that Scratch is starting to fade away, and it soon becomes clear they they’re growing apart. Junior Luckily, there’s always a home in need of a fully grown, house-trained, affectionate dragon ... Graham’s Grade distinctive gentle humour and soft, whimsical Picture drawings illuminate this bittersweet portrait of growing up. For ages 3+. Books Bronte Coates is the digital content manager for Readings Hodgepodge (How to Make a Pet Monster, Book 1) The Giant and the Sea Lili Wilkinson & Dustin Spence (illus.) Trent Jamieson & Rovina Cai (illus.) Albert Street Books. PB. $14.99 Finding François Lothian. HB. $26.99 Available 2 July Gus Gordon Available now When eleven-year-old Artie Puffin. HB. $24.99 This is a beautiful story that and his newly blended family Available 2 July feels like an ancient folk tale move into a creaky and rather Even though Alice loves but could also be a warning about spooky old house, he reminds his the cosy life she leads with human inaction on climate crisis. sensible science brain that he her grandmother (list-making! In The Giant and the Sea, a giant doesn’t believe in ghosts so the crème brûlée-eating! mermaid- protects the people by watching the house couldn’t possibly be haunted. drawing!), she does sometimes sea. One day, she tells a girl that a Anyway, the ‘not haunted’ house wish for someone her own size to machine in the city must be shut off isn’t even the spookiest thing in his new life, as that talk with. So, she boldly throws a or the sea will rise, but when the brave girl faces the would be his stepsister Willow — who has strong arms bottled message into the Seine, businessmen in charge of the machine, they laugh at from aikido and wears an angry face. When Artie finds where it floats into the sea and eventually washes up at her and refuse. Of course, there are grave an old spell book about monsters, he and Willow form the feet of François, the son of a lighthouse keeper. A consequences for ignoring the giant. an unlikely alliance and through mishap and mischief delightful wry correspondence ensues, true friendship Author Trent Jamieson is normally a horror writer work together to make a monster. Artie only helps blossoms … and then something terrible happens. and this is his first foray into picture books. The result because according to science, monsters don’t really Alice disappears inside her grief, and François begins is profoundly moving and a little terrifying. With exist. Right? But then Hodgepodge appears, a very ‘not to worry that he’s been forgotten. evocative, moody illustrations by award-winning scary’ monster who farts a lot! So begins a funny KIDS July 2020 READINGS MONTHLY 19

adventure romp, featuring a really bad, bad guy, an Brunswick, there is also a mysterious yarn bomber Kosovar refugees from the former Yugoslavian war zone endearing monster who eats smelly socks, and a hapless leaving knitted signs around town and an eccentric into places around Australia, including Point Nepean. pair of heroes. This is the new hot-hit series for young younger sister. Reminiscent of Playing Beatie Bow, this One of the refugees, a single, pregnant woman who is readers aged 7-10. is a charming novel that will be enjoyed by readers having a particularly hard time, becomes a focus for Natalie Platten is from Readings Doncaster aged 10+. Winifred. This is the story of a young girl for whom the Angela Crocombe is the manager of Readings Kids maps and pathways she has known throughout her What Zola Did on Monday childhood are all changing. Winifred must adapt and open up her world to new people and experiences, and Melina Marchetta The Pony Question the journey isn’t always easy. Puffin. PB. $12.99 Jackie Merchant This is a wonderful coming-of-age story for young Available now Walker. PB. $16.99 people about the meaning of family and friendship, and What Zola Did on Monday is a Available 1 July how to find your own moral compass. There is so much beautiful, heartwarming story Essie gave up on horses after heart and curiosity in the main character Winifred and for beginner readers. Bright, she was caught up in a cheating her entire extended family. Reading this story is a sheer determined Zola lives together with scandal with her last pony. Her dad delight that will enthral young people who enjoyed her mother and her nonna, and just was the parent who helped with her Wonder, How to Make a Movie in Twelve Days or The War over the fence from her cousin horse and riding events, anyway. that Saved My Life. Suitable for good readers aged 10-14. Alessandro. Nonna maintains the Now her parents have divorced, and home’s thriving garden, but Zola she lives with her mum in the Angela Crocombe is the manager of Readings Kids cannot see what is so great about it country. However, when she and her – that is, until a neglected community patch, some mum go to a farm sale, they The Mummy Smugglers of Crumblin special seeds, and an accident involving two lovable accidentally buy a starving, neglected pony that Castle dogs deepens her understanding. desperately needs their love. Pamela Rushby & Nellé May Pierce (illus.) This is the first children’s book from Melina This is a classic animal-rescue story with a strong Walker. PB. $17.99 Marchetta and it is an assured offering. Marchetta’s cast of characters, including Essie’s mum, helpful Available 1 July warm storytelling style really shines for this age group. neighbours and, of course, the feisty pony with 1873, England. Orphaned Hattie Her text is simple but engaging, and nicely paired unknown origins. There is a great deal to enjoy for those goes to live with her great uncle and with endearing illustrations from newcomer Deb who love horse stories, but the difficulties of having aunt in their crumbling castle in the Hudson. I also love how this book gently promotes separated parents and trying to find common ground English Fens. There, Great Aunt environmental themes, from the way Nonna uses again with a parent who has let you down are also Iphigenia hosts flamboyant shower water on her capsicums, to a brief DIY section explored. This is an engaging story for readers aged 9+. mummy-unwrapping parties to save showing kids how to grow their own tomatoes. Plus, Angela Crocombe is the manager of Readings Kids her home from ruin – until the What Zola Did on Monday is the first book in a seven- mummy supply runs out. On a part series (each named for a day of the week), which The Power of Positive Pranking dangerous search for more Hattie is means kids will be able to read along with Zola’s Nat Amoore haunted by these ancient souls and tries to free them adventures as they get more and more comfortable with unexpected consequences. A potent blend of Puffin. PB. $14.99 reading independently. For ages 5+. fantasy and history, this rambunctious story has it all. Available now Bronte Coates is the digital content manager for Readings Casey and her friends learn their local Mayor has nefarious Pizazz plans for their town – plans that Sophy Henn disregard the environment and rely Classic S&S. PB. $14.99 on the town’s voting-aged citizens Available 22 July remaining disengaged from their of the Month Being a superhero is the best thing civic duties. Thankfully, Casey – ever, right? Wrong! Hello! My name is inspired by her favourite photo of her Pizazz and I’m a superhero! You mum chained to a tree saving a local probably think that’s really awesome park – is not as apathetic as the adults of Watterson. A Wizard of Earthsea and while it can be, it’s also There are a lot of middle grade books out there Ursula K. Le Guin reeeeeeeaaalllly annoying. I’m always about all sorts of pranking, but until this book I don’t Puffin. PB. $16.99 dashing off to save the world right in think I’d come across one about productive pranking. Available now the middle of fun stuff and sometimes The Power of Positive Pranking shows examples of Among the diverse archipelago I just want to be, well, normal. The first in a super new how chaos and anarchy can be used to achieve good. of Earthsea, the island of Gont series from the amazingly talented Sophy Henn. There are lots of different ways to fight for what’s right, is famous for wizards and of the no matter what that may be. The Power of Positive Gontish wizards, the greatest is the Pranking shows another, slightly more fun way kids man called Sparrowhawk. Ursula K. can make a difference. Le Guin’s classic 1968 work of high Middle Dani Solomon is from Readings Kids fantasy tells the tale of Sparrowhawk’s origins: his humble Grade The Year the Maps Changed beginnings, the discovery of his Danielle Binks great power, his education at the School for Wizards on Lothian. PB. $17.99 the island of Roke. It is during a wizarding duel at school Available now that Ged (Sparrowhawk’s true name) stretches beyond his power. His spell goes awry, and a shadow beast rips The Secret Library of Hummingbird Eleven-year-old Winifred is its way through the fabric of the world – intent on taking House going through a tough year. over Ged’s body and his magic. Julianne Negri Her adopted dad has a new wife, she Affirm Press. PB. $16.99 has a new stepbrother, and a baby is The first of six books Le Guin would go on to write Available now on the way. She not only needs to get about this meticulously crafted universe, A Wizard of An abandoned mansion slated along with her stepbrother Sam at Earthsea feels truly mythic. The story here, written in a for destruction, an ancient home, but he’s also in her class at lyrical formal style, weaves itself around you like an epic mulberry tree that holds important school. Luckily, she has one of the from ages past: not just a story but a bardic song passed memories, and a family still working most wonderful schoolteachers in down. The wizardry is not the patchworked coziness out the terms of parental separation. Mr Khouri, who is so smart and encouraging that he of Hogwarts, but rather the rough-hewn mysticism These are the ingredients in makes geography seem like the most fascinating of monastic orders. It has everything a young fantasy Julianne Negri’s debut novel for subject on the planet. While he’s teaching his class nerd could want: magic lessons, school friends and middle fiction readers about Hattie about contour lines and drumlins he’s also showing enemies, legendary beasts, and pulse-quickening epic Maxwell, whose world has been them that geography is about what makes us human quests. And among its short 200 pages, Le Guin also uprooted and who is determined to fight for the house and how we can become better people. scatters profound wisdom about life, human nature and the balance of the natural world. This compassionate and tree she loves. Aided by a full moon, she manages Not only are there many challenges on the and beguiling book is an ideal bridge into the genre of to time-slip into the 1970s at Hummingbird House, and home front, but Winifred is also becoming aware of high fantasy for readers ages 10+ who may not be ready there she meets a girl who loves lost words. Their injustices that are occurring all over the world and on yet for the length of Tolkien or some of the more adult friendship helps both of them negotiate a difficult time home soil. Set on the Mornington Peninsula in 1999, this situations in YA fantasy. in their lives and may even rescue the mansion from heartfelt story is partly based on the real-life ‘Operation the hands of nefarious developers. Set in the streets of Safe Haven’ which temporarily resettled six thousand Jackie Tang is the digital marketing manager for Readings 20 READINGS MONTHLY July 2020 BARGAINS

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Proxima Hidden Film & TV $29.95. Available now Series 2 Sarah is a French astronaut $29.95. Available now training at the European After the body of a former Space Agency in Cologne. teacher is discovered in a The only woman in the Honeyland is a lyrical, realist documentary and an house on an estate in the arduous program, she DVD OF THE intimate character study of a resilient, wise woman. mining town of Blaenau struggles with feelings of Hatidze Muratova is in her fifties, living a simple life in a Ffestiniog, DCI John and DS MONTH parental guilt. When Sarah is chosen to remote and primitive mountain village in Northern Vaughan are called in to join the crew of a year-long space mission Documentary Macedonia where she cares for her bedridden mother and her investigate. The beautiful, eerie surrounds of called Proxima, it creates chaos in the wild honeybees with the same devotion. Hatidze makes a North Wales obscure many secrets in the mother–daughter relationship. modest living farming small batches of sticky golden honey second series of this hit crime drama. from bees nesting in the surrounding mountains and from others buried deep in the hollows of fallen trees, as well as Photograph Beecham House the apiaries on her own small plot of land. $29.95. Available now $29.95. Available now Hatidze and her mother are Macedonians of Turkish To satisfy his grandmother, Beecham House tells the epic descent, but Honeyland isn’t explicitly concerned with street photographer Rafi story of a grand mansion in geopolitics. Filmmakers Ljubomir Stefanov and Tamara sends her a photo of a shy the ever-expanding city of Kotevska confront the textures and rhythms of this unique stranger, claiming that the Delhi, and of the families place through the experience of one person, exemplified in the woman is his fiancée. When that live and work there. Set film’s meditative opening sequence which unwraps the specifics his grandmother insists on a at the beginning of British of Hatidze’s world before our eyes. The cinematography has an meeting, he tracks the woman, Miloni, down colonial rule, this series brims with intrigue epic sweep, which works beautifully alongside the filmmakers’ and asks her to pretend to be his betrothed. as it traces a fascinating web of intimate Honeyland ‘fly on the wall’ documentary approach. The pair develop a surprising connection. relationships and secrets in the house of the $29.95 Honeyland explores a tradition at risk of annihilation. enigmatic John Beecham. Available now That danger is stressed by the sudden noisy arrival of a The Extraordinary family of nine to the land next door to Hatidze’s. Their $29.95. Available now Fleabag chaotic energy violates her peace, but Hatidze makes room for them and tries to impart Bruno and Malik are in charge Series 2 what she knows about wild beekeeping – lessons she learned from her grandfather of two separate non-profit $24.95. Available now before her. Stefanov and Kotevska couldn’t have known when they pointed their camera organisations which train (Also available: Series 1 & 2 $34.95) at Hatidze’s life (they filmed her over a period of three years) that such impeccable young people from Fleabag is back for a second adversaries would unexpectedly roar into the frame. underprivileged areas to be bite, and this time she is ‘Half for me, half for you,’ Hatidze coos to her bees – it’s her work, and her life’s ethos, caregivers for autistic children going toe to toe with the man emphasising the sustainability of her humble enterprise. Honeybees are critical for a and teens. However, when they come under upstairs. In an unexpected healthy ecosystem and the balance between capitalism and the environment is a delicate the scrutiny of the government, they must twist of fate, our lost little one. Through restrained and humane filmmaking, Honeyland shows us just how easily fight for their communities. rascal meets a priest who and quickly it can all fall apart. jolts her into seeing the world in a different way. Picking up one year after Series 1 left Joanna Di Mattia is from Readings Carlton TV off, the next chapter of Fleabag’s life takes

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once again, the choices are unpredictable one of the worst mining disasters in and intriguing. American history. In ten deftly drawn, Popular Music roughly eloquent, powerfully conveyed Fetch the Bolt Cutters sonic portraits, Earle and his long-time Fiona Apple band the Dukes explore the historical role of coal in rural communities. $21.95 | Also on vinyl shift that rewards the risk, reorienting Available 17 July ALBUM Khruangbin’s transportive sound toward a Good Soul Better Angels new sense of emotional directness. ‘For longtime fans who OF THE are expectantly, perhaps Lucinda Williams MONTH $19.95 | Also on vinyl Pick Me Up Off the Floor giddily, steeling themselves for another Available now Pop/Rock Norah Jones brutal LP from Apple, Lucinda Williams $21.95 | Also on vinyl Fetch the Bolt Cutters will unabashedly takes on Available now not disappoint. Released with little warning some of the human, Rough & Norah Jones seventh nearly a decade after 2012’s The Idler social and political Rowdy Ways solo studio album Wheel …, the album sees the now-42-year- issues of our day with Bob Dylan features collaborations old songwriter proving that she’s still more her boldest and most $21.95 from Brian Blade to Jeff than capable of telling off partners, direct album to date, Good Souls Better Available now Tweedy. These songs detractors, and others who have done her Angels. During the course of her celebrated congeal into an album Also on vinyl wrong, all while picking apart the inner four-decade career Williams has never of tremendous depth and beauty Available 17 July workings of her frantic mind.’ – Rolling Stone rested on her laurels as she continues to connected by the sly groove of her piano push herself as a songwriter. Here, she has trios, lyrics that confront loss and portend Orange Crate Art much she needs to get out. 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Nestled within a Available now took their first stab at $22.95 global pandemic, panic, violence, protests Recorded between June SMiLE, and then they Available now on the streets, and an impending 1974 and January 1975, partnered again in 1972 Shane Howard’s songs presidential election, its timing and Homegrown was for the Beach Boys’ song “Sail on Sailor.” In rise out of a deep well of importance cannot be denied. intended to come out in the early Nineties, Parks began working on lived experience, Dylan’s thirty-ninth studio album is also 1975 before Neil Young Orange Crate Art, an album paying tribute underpinned by a his first collection of original songs in eight cancelled the release. to California, and, as he recalled ... he philosophy, as incisive years. That these tracks are new in no way The album has remained unreleased until knew from the start that he wanted Wilson as it is inclusive. Forty diminishes the quality. He quotes historical now. Recorded in analog, and mastered to sing on the record.’ – Rolling Stone years of singing, writing and journeying figures, and references pop culture, places, from the original master tapes, this the globe have dinted but not broken this cinema, song and literature – and gives us long-lost album is a wonderful addition to Temple unconventional and independent poet of ten tracks of legendary Dylan who sounds Young’s incomparable catalogue. Thao & the Get Down Stay Down modern song. This new album, Dark like he’s just starting all over again. $21.95 Matter, is his fourteenth solo offering, and Some of the tracks, such as the Punisher Available now continues to plumb the depths. seventeen-minute ‘Murder Most Foul’ and Phoebe Bridgers This addictive album the much shorter ‘I Contain Multitudes’, $21.95 | Also on vinyl melds elements of rock are practically spoken word poetry with Available now with bright, synthy Jazz a background wash of incidental music. Phoebe Bridgers doesn’t pop. It is among Thao’s ‘False Prophet’ is more of a rhythm and write love songs as most open and honest blues shuffle. It draws inspiration and Ella 100: Live at the Apollo much as songs about the work yet, finding her elements from a 1954 blues number from Various artists impact love can have on coming out in her public life after a long Billy ‘the kid’ Emerson. As a side note, $22.95 our lives, personalities, career in which she kept her queer the image accompanying the track on Available now and priorities. Punisher, identity quiet in an effort to avoid turmoil YouTube shows a person with a skeleton An all-star tribute to her fourth release and second solo album, with and alienation from a family and for a face and a shadow whose outline Ella Fitzgerald that was is concerned with that subject. The arrival culture she deeply loves. bears a striking resemblance to one D. recorded in celebration of Punisher cements Bridgers as one of the Trump. Listen and judge for yourself. This of what would have most clever, tender and prolific is a double album in which ‘Murder Most been the legendary songwriters of our era. Country Foul’ takes up a whole disc. artist’s 100th birthday. Dylan has often sung with a menacing The concert opens with a recreation of Reunions tone while at the same time telling tales of First Rose of Spring Ella’s 1934 appearance in an Apollo impending doom, always bringing us one Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit Willie Nelson Amateur Contest when, at the age of step closer to world’s end. However, his $21.95 | Also on vinyl $19.95 seventeen, she made a last minute decision trademark wit and turn of phrase adds a Available now Available 3 July to sing instead of dance. levity that balances out the rage. Reunions is Jason An atmospheric soulful Lou Fulco is from Readings Hawthorn Isbell’s seventh full- showcase of length studio album beautifully-written Jazz Special and the fourth released songs and poignant of the Month with his band, the 400 performances, First Pop/Rock Unit. Of the release, Rose of Spring is the Isbell shares, ‘There are a lot of ghosts on artist’s first new release since winning the Beyond the Missouri Sky this album. Sometimes the songs are about 2020 Best Country Solo Performance Charlie Haden & Pat Metheny Mordechai the ghosts of people who aren’t around Grammy Award. Alongside his new Was $26.95 anymore, but they’re also about who I used Khruangbin compositions on the album, Willie pays $11.95 to be, the ghost of myself.’ $21.95 | Also on vinyl musical tribute to a variety of pop and Available now country songwriters and performers. 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Beyond the prominently on nearly every song, a first is Joan’s second album twenty-nine men in that Missouri Sky conjures moody, rainy for the mostly instrumental band. It’s a reinterpreting songs by other artists and, state in 2010, making it afternoons with its subtle guitar grooves. MUSIC July 2020 READINGS MONTHLY 23

glowing textures the London Philharmonic emotional resonance, suggesting that weaves around her. Vladimir Jurowski Kelly stood on the threshold of greatness. Classical Music conducts with a clear eye on the work’s huge dimensions, and Benedetti, too, The Best of Tasmin Little shapes the violin’s restless music into long, Tasmin Little sinewy paragraphs.’ – The Guardian Chandos. CHAN201852. 2CDs. Was $29.95 century is littered with amazing works $24.95 written by remarkable composers who have ALBUM Bluetongue – Australian Guitar Following the somehow missed becoming part of the OF THE Quartets announcement by central repertoire. Oregon Symphony, with Guitar Trek Tasmin Little of her MONTH conductor Carlos Kalmar, are trying to Naxos. 8579060. $12.95 intended retirement Classical remedy that by performing and recording Australia’s premier from the concert some of the Pulitzer Prize-winning works guitar quartet Guitar platform, this new that have all but disappeared. Some readers Trek reflects life in recording, from the Chandos label, is a may have heard of Walter Piston, professor modern Australia with a tribute and celebration of her outstanding Purcell: The of music at Harvard, music theorist and programme that career as a performer. What better way to Fairy Queen, significant American composer. The other showcases works of do so than ask her to select her personal 1692 two composers, Morton Gould and Howard immense colour and rhythmic vitality. The favourites from her recorded career. It also Gabrieli Consort Hanson, are even less known. Gould was a energy, enthusiasm and affection of celebrates Tasmin’s recital partnerships & Paul McCreesh child prodigy who branched out into Australian quartet Guitar Trek for its with three outstanding pianists: Piers Signum. SIGCD615. Broadway repertoire while managing a 2CDs. Was $39.95 artistic mission surrounds this recording Lane, Martin Roscoe, and John Lenehan. career as a pianist and orchestral composer. $29.95 like an attractive aura. The album Hanson was director of music for forty highlights some of the best guitar quartets years at the Eastman School of Music, also James MacMillan: Symphony written by Australian composers. working as composer and conductor. The No.4 & Viola Concerto Purcell’s semi-opera The Fairy Queen bite-sized Symphony No. 4 (approximately Lawrence Power, BBC is loosely based on Shakespeare’s A twenty-two minutes long) by Hanson was Zemlinsky: Die Seejungfrau Philharmonic & Martyn Brabbins Midsummer Night’s Dream: there are fairies influenced by the death of his father and is Netherlands Philharmonic Hyperion. CDA68317. Was $29.95 and drunken poets; there is lust, passion, a particular gem. None of these works are Orchestra & Marc Albrecht $24.95 and confusion. Lovers are parted and Pentatone. PTC5186740. Was $29.95 long, but each is beautifully crafted. You MacMillan’s viola reunited; Titania falls in love with Bottom- can see why they were chosen as winners, $22.95 concerto was written for as-ass; a wedding is celebrated. Above all, but it’s harder to see why they have been Zemlinsky was a child of Lawrence Power, who there is beautiful music. almost completely forgotten. fin-de-siècle Vienna, brings a unique Following their 2019 recording of and for decades he has authority to this, its first Purcell’s King Arthur, Paul McCreesh and the Kate Rockstrom is a friend of Readings been overshadowed by recording. The fourth Gabrieli Consort have added The Fairy Queen colleagues such as symphony – a major addition to the to their discography, engaging a similar line- Death and the Maiden Gustav Mahler and repertoire – is a generous and appropriate up of singers, among them British soprano 12 Ensemble Arnold Schoenberg. 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Despite the lightness of her oeuvre of 12 Ensemble. clothed in cinematic fin-de-siècle music tone, Sampson is blessed with a superbly They are a string with Debussy-like evocations of the sea. rich upper register, which she employs to full orchestra that performs as a chamber Max Richter: From Sleep effect in ‘Ye gentle spirits of the air’. ensemble, with no conductor. This brings a Vivaldi & Piazzolla: Max Richter & American The Fairy Queen provides rare heightened sense of musicality to their The Four Seasons Contemporary Music Ensemble opportunity for opera singers to flex their performances. This second album is a Arabella Steinbacher (violin) & DG. 4795257. Was $24.95 comic muscles, such as in the dialogue technicolour blend of traditional classical Munich Chamber Orchestra $12.95 (Limited stock at this price) ‘Now the maids and the men are making works, twentieth and twenty-first century Pentatone. PTC5186746. Was $29.95 ‘The full version, Sleep, of hay’, for which the men put on their best repertoire, making for a perfect $24.95 is intended to actually West Country accents. ‘May the God of wit contemplative accompaniment to these Arabella Steinbacher send us to sleep, but inspire’, with its expertly rendered terraced times. There is some drama to get your presents Antonio From Sleep is a one-hour dynamics, is reminiscent of the chorus blood going in their arrangement of the Vivaldi’s world-famous offshoot during which ‘In our deep vaulted cell’ from Dido and Schubert String Quartet, Death and the The Four Seasons we’re supposed to stay Aeneas, and a highlight among the many Maiden, alongside a new commission by alongside Astor awake. Richter plays piano, organ, synths beautiful choruses. ‘Sing while we trip it’ Oliver Leith. Honey Siren is a three Piazzolla’s Cuatro and low-thrumming electronics; the never fails to bring a smile to my face, as – movement work that encapsulates Leith’s Estaciones Porteñas, creating a lively American Contemporary Music Ensemble in the hands of the singers on this recording ability to weave the mundane into more combination of baroque and tango. The adds soft-hewn vocals and strings. It’s a – Purcell manages to conjure the image of cerebral musical ideas. This musically enormous popularity of Vivaldi’s famous warm, slow-moving daydream with no fairies frolicking through their leafy idyll. challenging work is the perfect opportunity work tends to make us forget the original sharp edges and a self-consciously hazy With its cheer, humour and for 12 Ensemble to show their mettle in and ground-breaking nature of these sound, as if recorded next door or lightheartedness, The Fairy Queen is an their controlled use of pitch, silence and violin concertos. Coupling them with underwater.’ – The Guardian uplifting opera for hard times. Prepare tension. However one of the most delightful Piazzolla’s tango-inspired Four Seasons of to revel in the beauty of Purcell’s music, moments comes at the end of the album in Buenos Aires makes both pieces sound brought to life by the fine soloists, and the an arrangement of a Sigur Rós song, Schubert: Impromptus Op. fresher than ever before. musicians of the Gabrieli Consort. ‘Fljótavík’. Touching and heartfelt – a 90 & 142 & Sonata in A minor tribute to the ensemble’s time in Iceland – I ‘Arpeggione’, D821 Alexandra Mathew is from Readings State Frederick Septimus Kelly: Rudolf Firkusny, Mstislav Library Victoria now want them to do an entire album of these arrangements and currently have this Piano Music Rostropovich & Benjamin Britten song on repeat. Alex Wilson Diapason. 3701025805416. Was $14.95 Toccata Classics. TOCC0524. Was $29.95 $7.95 (Limited stock at this price) Kate Rockstrom is a friend of Readings Aspects of America: $22.95 This recording from the Pulitzer Edition Frederick Septimus French label Diapason Oregon Symphony & Carlos Elgar: Violin Concerto Kelly, born in Sydney in features a 1948 Kalmar Nicola Benedetti, London 1881, was on the way to performance from Pentatone. PTC5186763. Was $29.95 Philharmonic Orchestra & Vladimir becoming one of Czech-born, Czech– $22.95 Jurowski Australia’s most American classical As many people Decca. 4850949. $24.95 important early pianist, Rudolf Firkusny of the Schubert would be aware, Available 31 July composers when he was killed during the Impromptus. Also included is a 1961 classical repertoire can ‘Benedetti’s vibrant, Battle of the Somme in 1916. His Twelve performance of the ‘Arpeggione’ sonata take a long time to work beefy full-throttle tone Studies and Twenty-four Monographs are that is probably from Britten’s 1961 its way into the hearts of is made for the the most significant contributions to the Aldeburgh Music Festival. Although these listeners (J.S. Bach being concerto, and she’s an Romantic piano literature by any recordings are quite old, the sound quality an obvious one, only becoming popular assertive soloist, never Australian. Each piece, though a and performance from the three eighty years after his death). The twentieth disappearing into the ‘miniature’, contains a world of feeling and performers are excellent.