FREE NOVEMBER 2017

BOOKS MUSIC FILM EVENTS

THE READINGS PRIZE FOR NEW AUSTRALIAN FICTION

Introducing the 2017 winner

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NEW IN NOVEMBER

A.S. PATRIC´ ALEXIS PETER KEDI ANOUAR WRIGHT CAREY BRAHEM $29.99 $29.95 $39.99 $39.99 $24.95 page 7 page 21 $34.99 $29.99 page 22

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CARLTON 309 Lygon St 9347 6633 KIDS 315 Lygon St 9341 7730 DONCASTER West eld 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 328 Swanston St 8664 7540 See shop opening hours, browse and buy online at www.readings.com.au

READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2017 3

News

READINGS SUBSCRIBER SHOPPING DAY Our annual Readings Subscriber Shopping Readings Monthly Day is on Thursday 16 November! Free, independent monthly newspaper published by Readings Books, Music & Film We’re offering all Readings Monthly and Readings e-news subscribers 20% off full- Subscribe priced books, CDs, vinyl, stationery and You can subscribe to Readings Monthly and calendars, and 10% off full-priced DVDs. our e-news by visiting our website: If you subscribe to the Readings Monthly, readings.com.au/newsletters-and-e-news simply bring this month’s cover sheet (with your name on it) into any Readings Postal charges for mail-order shop to redeem this offer. Otherwise, sign purchases up to our e-news at readings.com.au/sign- Melbourne Metro: $6.50 up before Monday 13 November and we’ll Regional VIC: $7.50 send you an email invitation. Please note, Rest of Australia: $7.95 this discount does not include cards and magazines, is only available for items in Editor stock (not valid for special orders or lay- Jo Case bys) and is not available online. [email protected]

Editorial Assistant READINGS’ 12 DAYS OF Judi Mitchell CHRISTMAS Hamid, Elmet by Fiona Mozley, and Pung, Hannah Kent and Garth Nix, among [email protected] Every day for 12 days we’ll be offering Autumn by Ali Smith. The prize is worth others. You can also catch up on a special a special Christmas deal to Readings £50,000. For more information visit episode with Readings’ own Mark Rubbo! Editorial Intern Isabel Baranowski e-news subscribers. The 12 Days of themanbookerprize.com/fiction. Find out more at thegarretpodcast.com. Christmas special offers will run from Proofreaders Monday 20 November until Friday 1 SUMMER READING GUIDE & THE WORLD OF THE BOOK AT Isabel Baranowski, Judi Mitchell, December. To receive information about Bel Monypenny each offer, sign up to our e-news at READINGS’ BEST OF 2017 STATE LIBRARY VICTORIA readings.com.au/sign-up. As in recent years, instead of publishing Explore a world of ideas and imagination Kids/YA Curator a December–January edition of the in this free State Library Victoria Alexa Dretzke Readings Monthly, we’re putting together exhibition showcasing the history of SAM CARMODY WINS THE a comprehensive guide to the best books, book design, production and illustration, Music Curator READINGS PRIZE FOR NEW music and film of 2017, as voted by all from the Middle Ages to today. See rare Dave Clarke AUSTRALIAN FICTION 2017 Readings staff. This eight-page guide medieval manuscripts and sacred texts, We’re delighted to announce that Sam will be available in all Readings shops magnificent natural history and botanical Classical Music Curator Carmody has been named this year’s throughout December and January, and illustration, stunning modern artist Phil Richards winner of The Readings Prize for New will be mailed to all Readings Monthly books and fine-press editions, as well as Australian Fiction. Our judges described subscribers in the first week of December pioneering Australian classics, children’s DVDs Curator his debut novel, The Windy Season (Allen along with the Summer Reading Guide. We books, graphic novels and comics. The Lou Fulco & Unwin), as a book that ‘demands hope you enjoy our recommendations! exhibition opens on 10 November. For attention and a place in our literary more information, please visit slv.vic.gov. Advertising cannon. The language is immersive, the au/world-of-the-book. The accompanying Stella Charls pace relentless. It roars down and batters KAZUO ISHIGURO WINS 2017 book, The World of the Book by Des Cowley [email protected] the senses. It is, in a word, unforgettable’. NOBEL PRIZE and Clare Williamson, is available through (03) 9341 7739 Sam Carmody will receive prize money This year’s Nobel Prize for literature has Readings, in-store or online. of $3,000. The Windy Season is available been awarded to Kazuo Ishiguro. Ishiguro Graphic Design from all Readings shops and online for a was born in Nagasaki, Japan, and moved Cat Matteson with his family to England when he was 2018 GLOBAL ATHEIST colourcode.com.au special price of $26.99 (was $29.99). For more information see page 6. five. He is the author of seven novels, four CONVENTION: REASON TO HOPE Building on the success of The Rise Front Cover of which have been nominated for the of Atheism (2010) and A Celebration The November Readings Monthly cover Man Booker Prize, including The Remains features the cover image (adapted from a GEORGE SAUNDERS WINS 2017 of the Day, which went on to win the of Reason (2012), in 2018 the Atheist photo by Stewart Thorn) from Tinkering: MAN BOOKER PRIZE prestigious prize in 1989. The Swedish Foundation of Australia is excited The Complete Book of John Clarke, by Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders Academy praises Ishiguro, ‘who, in novels to host the third Global Atheist John Clarke, courtesy of Text Publishing. has been named the winner of this year’s of great emotional force, has uncovered Convention, Reason to Hope. The See page 15 for more about the book. Man Booker Prize for Fiction. Chair the abyss beneath our illusory sense of convention features an amazing line- of 2017 judges, Baroness Lola Young, connection with the world’. For more up of national and international talent: Cartoon writes: ‘The form and style of this utterly information visit nobelprize.org. hear from authors Sir Salman Rushdie, Oslo Davis original novel, reveals a witty, intelligent, Richard Dawkins, Ben Goldacre, oslodavis.com and deeply moving narrative. This tale Clementine Ford, Tracey Spicer, Peter of the haunting and haunted souls in the SEASON 4 OF THE GARRET FitzSimons and Leslie Cannold, plus Prices and availability afterlife of Abraham Lincoln’s young Season 4 of The Garret, a literary podcast Please note that all prices and release many more, as they discuss the role of dates in Readings Monthly are correct at son paradoxically creates a vivid and featuring Australian writers talking science and evidence-based reasoning time of publication, however prices and lively evocation of the characters that about their craft, has just kicked off with in a ‘post-truth’ world. The convention release dates may change without notice. populate this other world. Lincoln in the an interview with Isobelle Carmody. will take place at the Melbourne Special price offers apply only for the Bardo is both rooted in, and plays with The podcast is hosted by Nic Brasch Convention & Exhibition Centre from 9 month in which they are featured in the history, and explores the meaning and and produced by Astrid Edwards, and - 11 February. For more information and Readings Monthly. experience of empathy.’ Alongside Lincoln is supported by Readings, State Library tickets, visit atheistconvention.org.au. in the Bardo, the shortlist included 4 3 Victoria, Swinburne University and Readings will be the official bookseller at Readings donates 10% of its profits each 2 1 by Paul Auster, History of Wolves by Writers Victoria. Coming up on Season year to The Readings Foundation: the 2018 Global Atheist Convention. readings.com.au/the-readings-foundation Emily Fridlund, Exit West by Mohsin 4 are interviews with Don Watson, Alice

november @WORDFORWORDFEST #W4W2017 17-19 2017 WORDFORWORDFESTIVAL.COM.AU 4 READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2017

November Events PATRICK WHITE CHAMPAGNE 16 AWARD 23 TASTING WITH CHRIS MASTERS Join us to honour this year’s winner of the ROBERT Patrick White Literary Award, for their WALTERS 15 IN CONVERSATION outstanding contribution to Australian Just in time for the festive season and its long, WITH NICK literature. MCKENZIE balmy evenings, we are delighted to bring you Free, no booking required. this session on the wonders of champagne. Chris Masters has long been one of Australia’s Thursday 16 November, 6pm Robert Walters’ book Champagne shatters finest investigative journalists, with a Gold Readings Carlton old myths and reveals new truths, with verve Walkley and over 20 years on the staff of and sparkling wit. Warning: this will be an ABC TV’s Four Corners. No Front Line is his interactive session with tastings! extraordinary investigation into the war in TONY Afghanistan, undertaken over ten years. He 16 MARTIN Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events gives voice to the soldiers, takes us to the Thursday 23 November, 6.30–7.15pm Funny man Tony Martin has written an centre of some of the fiercest combat Australia Readings Doncaster absolute ripper of a novel: Deadly Kerfuffle. has ever experienced, and provides the most This is a smart, riveting and incredibly funny intimate examination of what it is like to be a novel inspired by actual letters to the editor in CLAIRE HIGGINS member of this country’s elite fighting forces. a local newspaper. Through biting satire and a But he also asks difficult questions that reveal 27 IN CONVERSATION cast of unforgettable characters, it’s an insight controversial clouds hanging over our Special WITH JULIAN into the kind of paranoia that could only ever Operations mission in Afghanistan. No Front blossom in the quietest and safest of places. BURNSIDE Line will find a place as one of Australia’s finest Claire Higgins’ Asylum by Boat: Origins books on contemporary soldiering. He’ll talk Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events of Australia’s Refugee Policy explores how about it all with another giant of Australian Thursday 16 November, 6.30pm governments and policymakers have dealt investigative journalism, Nick McKenzie, Readings Doncaster with the confluence of issues emerging recipient of multiple Walkley Awards. JIMMY BARNES from the end of the White Australia 1 BOOK SIGNING Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events policy, a recognition of international Wednesday 15 November, 6.30pm responsibilities, and shifting public opinion Jimmy Barnes is one of Australia’s most Readings Hawthorn on asylum seekers. Higgins’ important successful rock stars. In his critically book is driven by the question of how we acclaimed bestseller, Working Class Boy, he moved from a humanitarian approach spoke straight to the hearts of Australian to policies of mandatory detention − readers with his tale of a childhood he was including on remote islands − and boat inspired to record after memories evoked turn-backs. She will be in conversation by watching Snowtown. Working Class with the much-loved Julian Burnside AO Man is the hugely anticipated sequel – a QC, an Australian barrister, human rights spellbinding and searingly honest reflection and refugee advocate, and author. on success, fame and addiction. Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Free, no booking required. Monday 27 November, 6.30pm Wednesday 1 November, 2pm–3pm Readings Hawthorn Readings St Kilda AWARD-WINNING AUSMUSIC MONTH AUTHOR PETER HELEN GARNER IN RICHARD DENNISS 16 BOOKSHOP GIGS 13 IN CONVERSATION CAREY 20 CONVERSATION WITH SEAN AT READINGS WITH MARY Peter Carey AO is one of our finest ST KILDA CROOKS writers. He has won the Miles Franklin O’BEIRNE To celebrate Ausmusic Month, we’ve Award three times, the Man Booker twice Join us to celebrate Helen Garner’s 75th Together with the Victorian Women’s Trust, arranged a host of fantastic Australian and is frequently named as Australia’s birthday and hear about her writing life, we are delighted to present an important artists to perform live at our St Kilda shop next contender for the Nobel Prize in which spans 50 years of work – from her conversation about greed and opulence. every Saturday in November. All gigs begin Literature. He now resides in America. Australian classic Monkey Grip, to the Richard Denniss, the chief economist and at 2pm. Keep an eye on readings.com.au/ We are thrilled to share that Carey will be brilliant literary true crime book This House former executive director of The Australia events to see who’s playing, or simply ask visiting Melbourne for one night only to of Grief, and her recent collected works, Institute, will be joined by Mary Crooks, one of the friendly staff at our St Kilda shop talk about his latest work of fiction, A Long two beautiful hardbacks assembled in executive director of the Victorian Women’s for an update. Way from Home. This novel is a celebration honour of this occasion: True Stories and Trust. The two will discuss Denniss’s latest and interrogation of the Australia of Peter Stories. Garner is one of Australia’s greatest work, Curing Affluenza, which explores Free, no bookings required. Carey’s childhood, and looks set to be his writers and we are thrilled to invite you the dissatisfaction of wasteful consumerist Every Saturday in November, 2pm most ambitious work yet. along to this special evening. lifestyles. Readings St Kilda Entry is $40 per person and includes a signed Entry is $55 per person, and includes signed Entry is $20 per person and $15 concession. first-edition hardback of A Long Way from Home. copies of True Stories and Stories: Collected Proceeds from the ticket price will be split Please book at readings.com.au/events Short Fiction, editions created for this occasion. Coming up between The Readings Foundation and Thursday 16 November, 6.30pm–7.30pm $5 per ticket will be donated to The Readings Breakthrough Actions for the Victorian Women’s Cinema Nova, 380 Lygon St, Carlton Foundation, of which Helen is the chair. Trust. Please book at readings.com.au/events Bookings essential: readings.com.au/events HUGH WHITE ON Monday 13 November, 6.30pm–7.30pm Monday 20 November, 6.30pm 4 HIS QUARTERLY Church of All Nations, 180 Palmerston St, Carlton NICK TOSCANO Church of All Nations, 180 Palmerston St, Carlton Dec. ESSAY 16 & BEAU DONELLY Join us for the last Quarterly Essay POH LING YEOW Journalists Nick Toscano and Beau Donelly ANGUS STEWART conversation for the year, as Hugh White reveal the real story about the notorious Belle 13 IN CONVERSATION 23 WORKSHOP looks at the fading of America and the rise WITH MATT Gibson in The Woman Who Fooled the World. of China. He considers China’s growing They show how the Melbourne wellness We are thrilled to have Angus in the shop PRESTON assertiveness in our region, the leadership author and entrepreneur convinced the world giving us (and you) the very best tips for of Donald Trump, and American decline Poh Ling Yeow is known as the host of Poh’s she had cancer – and unravel the mystery and turning your outside into an oasis of plants. – and analyses what all of this means for Kitchen and Poh & Co, and is also a co-owner of motivation behind her deception, as well as His latest book, Grow Your Own: How to Be Australia, looking at marines in Darwin, the Adelaide destination cafe and bakery Jamface. looking at the wellness industry and the lure an Urban Farmer shows you how to become Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the In Poh Bakes 100 Greats, she shares the secrets of alternative medical treatments. Importantly, one of the world’s 200 million (and counting) role of Japan, fears of Chinese interference, to 100 of her favourite baked delights. We are they highlight the dangers and powers of social urban farmers. It’s the definitive ‘how-to’ and more. Hugh will be in conversation thrilled to have her visiting us at Hawthorn to media within the current media landscape. guide to growing food in the city. This is your with Nick Bisley from La Trobe Asia. talk about the art and joy of baking. Poh will be Join us for a compelling evening of discussion opportunity to get the very best advice for joined in conversation by Matt Preston. about this sad and sorry case. growing nutritious food in city environments. Entry is $25 per person, and includes a copy of the Quarterly Essay. Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Please book at readings.com.au/events Monday 13 November, 6.30pm Thursday 16 November, 6.30pm Thursday 23 November, 6.30pm Monday 4 December, 6.30pm Readings Hawthorn Readings Hawthorn Readings St Kilda Church of All Nations, 180 Palmerston St, Carlton READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2017 5

I HEART ROME creator of all. Australia is spectacularly good 6 WITH MARIA at modern cities. So, how did the land of the Mark’s Dec. golden fleece become the land of golden cities? News and views from Readings’ Managing Director, PASQUALE Thursday 2 November, 6.30pm Mark Rubbo Enjoy your very own slice of Rome and settle Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. Say back to enjoy tales from the Italian kitchen, as chef, internationally adored lifestyle blogger I’ve just read Peter Carey’s latest novel, A Long Way From Home (you can read my short Pilgrim Lee’s beautiful illustrations of and author Maria Pasquale explains why she review in these pages) and can highly recommend it. I’ve always loved Carey’s work – the classic song The 12 Days of Christmas loves Rome, why you love Rome and why some more than others – and admired his way of putting words together in a style that’s provide the perfect holiday read for your together, we should rejoice in the glory of distinctly his, yet quintessentially Australian. Up until the sixties, Australia’s pubs had to child. With a partridge in a pear tree on page Italian food. Maria is an unabashed romantic: close at 6pm and workers had little over an hour to down as much booze as they could one, two turtle doves on page two, and three Rome is her one true love. She is the creator before closing time; Carey describes this in the new book as the ‘wobbly hour’; what French hens on page three, Lee’s stand-out of popular food, travel, and lifestyle blog Heart a wonderful phrase that is. Whether Carey made it up or found it somewhere doesn’t artwork, reminiscent of Pat Hutchins, is a Rome, which has readers in over 100 countries really matter: what matters to me is that he used it, and in a few words, it describes a beautiful take on the classic Christmas song. and has been featured in Vogue. If your heart is whole cultural and social phenomenon. Carey hasn’t resided in Australia for many years, Thursday 2 November, 6.30pm set on a European trip – but frankly, your wallet yet still retains an amazing ear and sensibility for this culture. He and J.M. Coetzee Readings Kids | Free, no booking required. is saying no – this is the perfect way to let your share the honour of being the only authors to have won the Booker Prize more than tastebuds travel without boarding a plane. once. Carey’s expatriate status possibly works against him and I feel that his stature Kirsty Murray will launch award-winning here is unfairly diminished by it. His previous book, Amnesia, was set in Melbourne’s Entry is $100 per person: includes meal, wine, biographer Brenda Niall’s insightful, moving north and contained a prescient dig at Julian Assange. Before the book was published, welcoming prosecco and a signed copy of the and uniquely personal new book, Can You his publisher informed us that Readings was in the book (and so was I); when the book book. Please book at readings.com.au/events Hear the Sea? Niall tells the story of her arrived, I pored over it and read that one of the characters stole a book from our shelves. Places are very limited. grandmother, Aggie: a fiercely independent In my pantheon of hated persons, shoplifters are up there with Donald Trump and Peter Wednesday 6 December, 6.30–9pm and intelligent woman who braved a new Dutton, so I was a bit disappointed. On a visit to mark the local publication, Carey made Jimmy Watson’s, 333 Lygon St, Carlton country as a single woman, teaching in a amends and ‘returned’ the book that had been stolen. We are pretty excited that Peter country school, before marrying a Riverina is returning to Australia to talk about A Long Way From Home, a book that I believe will LORIN CLARKE & grazier, whose large, powerful family was come to be regarded as one of his best. We are even more excited that his publishers, wary of the newcomer with ideas of her own. 12 KAZ COOKE ON Penguin Random House, have produced a special hardback edition of the book for us that Dec. Wednesday 8 November, 6.30pm we’ll be able to sell for the price of the paperback. Peter will be talking about the book for JOHN CLARKE Readings Hawthorn | Free, no booking required. Readings on 16 November. The edition is beautifully produced and will be included in the We finish 2017 with a celebratory event, ticket price for this very special event. The annual Indigenous Literacy Foundation’s fund-raising trivia night is on again at looking at the life and work of the legendary Gerald Murnane will launch Elisabeth John Clarke, who sadly passed away this Hanscombe’s The Art of Disappearing, a brave, the Fitzroy Town Hall on 29 November. Hosted by Rockwiz frontman Brian Nankervis, the year. Clarke’s daughter Lorin, an ABC radio unflinching memoir of surviving a childhood questions are, of course, of a literary nature and a chance for you to show off your literary regular, author, script editor and theatre- navigating around a violent and abusive father, nous, raise money for a wonderful cause and have a lot of fun doing it. Organise a table and maker, will chat with long-time friend Kaz whose brooding menace lurks on every page. pit yourselves against other literati. Book at trybooking.com/book/event?eid=307235. Cooke about what made John so special – Psychologically astute and unusually vivid. This is the last issue of the Monthly for the year. I know I’m biased but I think it’s a and allowed him to frequently channel our Thursday 9 November, 6.30pm wonderful publication – unique in Australia and possibly the world – and I hope you collective bewilderment into his sharply Readings Hawthorn | Free, no booking required. find it useful and enjoyable. Many Readings staff contribute and it wouldn’t be possible observant comedy. Tinkering: The Complete without their support and the support of our publisher friends. This year our editor has Book of John Clarke represents his work been the wonderful Jo Case, who has done a truly wonderful job as editor while editor from the 1970s in both Australia and New Fiona Wright, Kate Middleton, and Elizabeth Elke Power has been on maternity leave; I, for one, am truly grateful for her dedication Zealand, and includes his writing for radio, Allen are joining forces to celebrate each of and professionalism. television, stage and screen, as well some their new poetry collections – and you’re all previously unpublished pieces. This event is invited! Fiona Wright’s Domestic Interior supported by Cinema Nova. draws together varieties of suburban experience and imagination, charting places that are vibrant, plangent and comical. Entry is $35 per person: includes a copy of Dear Alison Huber, Kate Middleton’s third collection, Passage, Tinkering: The Complete Book of John Clarke. Head Book Buyer Please book at readings.com.au/events continues her preoccupation with terrestrial Reader Tuesday 12 December, 6.15pm and other landscapes, both real and imagined. Cinema Nova, 380 Lygon St, Carlton Elizabeth Allen’s Present is bound by recurrent themes and preoccupations: family, friendship, Huge congratulations to Sam Carmody, author of The Windy Season, winner of this year’s loss and acceptance, and the attempt to gain Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction. By now you will be familiar with the high quality MICHELLE meaning from the experiences of daily life. of the prize-winning books, selected by our group of dedicated, close-reading judges who 12 GRATTAN IN Thursday 9 November, 6.30pm undertake a unique task: to read and assess all the eligible first or second books written by Dec. CONVERSATION Readings St Kilda | Free, no booking required. Australian writers published over the course of a year (over 70 for this year’s prize). Carmody now shares a very special place in Readings’ esteem with previous winners Ceridwen Dovey It’s time to reflect on the year with Michelle (2014), Stephanie Bishop (2015) and Zoë Morrison (2016). Grattan, as she takes us through the stories Celebrate the past five years of The Lifted Congratulations also to A.S. Patric´, our Readings St Kilda colleague and resident Miles from her new book, The Conversation Yearbook Brow magazine, by joining us for the launch Franklin award-winning author, on the publication of his new novel, Atlantic Black, our 2017. Brought to you by Readings together of The Best of the Lifted Brow: Volume Two! Fiction Book of the Month. Reading Alec’s writing is described by our reviewer as ‘an almost with MPavilion. Thursday 9 November, 6.30pm physical act’. An immersive experience awaits the reader: Patric´ ‘will toss you and turn you, Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. Free, no bookings required. and never let you go’. Meanwhile, fellow Miles Franklin winner, Alexis Wright, publishes Tuesday 12 December, 6.30pm Tracker this month, her account of the life of Leigh Bruce ‘Tracker’ Tilmouth. Our reviewer MPavilion, Queen Victoria Gardens, St Kilda Rd. Tania Lacy will launch her new book Tracy calls this book by one of Australia’s most interesting creative minds ‘a landmark work’: it Lacy for Classy Captain with a reading from simply had to be our Non-fiction Book of the Month. it, and her previous book Tracy Lacy is Along with these three essential reads, there are numerous November titles that had me November Launches Completely Coo Coo Bananas. These super-fun, thinking, ‘surely everyone needs a copy of this book’. Exhibit A: A Pleasure to Be Here: The Best quirky graphic novels comedically interpret of Clarke and Dawe 1989-2017. Things don’t seem quite right since the untimely halt to Clarke pre-pubescent struggles with identity. and Dawe’s iconic satirical segment on ABC TV earlier this year; this collection might help Graeme Simsion will launch Fran Cusworth’s Sunday 19 November, 10.30am alleviate that feeling, along with Exhibit B: Tinkering: the Complete Book of John Clarke. And The Near Miss, a novel that explores the Readings St Kilda | Free, no booking required. who wouldn’t covet the beautiful packages of Helen Garner’s collected fiction and non- reactions of a near-death accident which fiction, Stories and True Stories? You can buy the two from us for $49.99. Stephen Fry plus throws three very different people together, Greek myths seems too good to be true, but it isn’t: that’s Mythos. I suspect I will be forever with far-reaching consequences. Pasquale Palmieri’s Love You Dad is A restocking Saga Land, in which dream team Richard Fidler and Kári Gíslason investigate Wednesday 1 November, 6.30pm testosterone-charged tale of fear, friendship, the Icelandic sagas (Iceland! Vikings!!). And then there’s the new books arriving from Peter Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. love, musical passion and single parenthood. Carey, Alex Miller, Louise Erdrich, Umberto Eco, Masha Gessen, Gerald Murnane, Han Monday 20 November, 6.30pm Kang, Ali Smith, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Jimmy Barnes, Irving Yalom, Christine Milne, Walter Readings St Kilda | Free, no booking required. Glyn Davis will launch Land of the Golden Isaacson, Matthew Kneale, Oliver Sacks … and an incredible new collection of portraits by Cities: Australia’s Extraordinary Prosperity star photographer-of-stars, Annie Leibovitz. and the Culture that Made It, by professor Join us for the launch of Kate Downey’s new And finally, dear reader, may I ask, do you subscribe to our e-news? If not, now is the time emeritus of sociology, John Carroll. Here he books for young readers: Lucy Star 7 and to sign up in-store (or online at readings.com.au) to get the lowdown on our brilliant 12 Days explores the quarter-century since 1990, which Lucy Star 13. These compelling books follow of Christmas super-duper special offers (this year we’ll have daily deals for both adults and has witnessed an unprecedented economic the journey of a trans and gender-diverse kids), plus handy gift-giving guides, alerts to signed copies, and more. November marks the performance by Australia. While the usual girl at two especially important ages. official end of our Readings Monthly year, but you’ll soon receive our annual Summer Reading explanations are economic and political, Carroll Saturday 25 November, 4pm Guide and our special newsletter outlining our staff’s picks for 2017’s best books, music and argues that our culture has been the greatest Readings St Kilda | Free, no booking required. DVDs, so more recommendations head your way soon. Be safe and well, and see you in 2018! 6 READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2017

THE WINDY SEASON Sam Carmody A&U. PB. Was $29.99 $26.99

Winner of the Readings Prize 2017 continent, nearly tipping into the wild Indian Ocean, Stark is When told of his win, Carmody said, ‘Just to be a place where sharks and brutality are always close at hand. shortlisted among such formidable peers was flooring, and Sam Carmody wins the Readings It is the kind of town where tourists go for their summer especially in this rare prize founded by a great Australia holidays, and then leave well alone the rest of the year. bookseller. Like many people, whenever I feel a bit weary Prize for New Australian Fiction Tsiolkas says: ‘Carmody has an instinctive grasp of with the world I step into a bookshop. They are of course narrative and character – he knows exactly how to tell a vital refuges for the diversity, the radical honesty, and the he winner of the Readings Prize for New story – but what impresses most is the clarity of his voice. beauty that books give us. So it is truly humbling to have my Australian Fiction in 2017 is The Windy Season The dissection of masculinity, the understanding of the novel receive this recognition from Readings. Thank you to by Sam Carmody. layers of caste and history that dominate outback life, the all the judges and booksellers.’ The Readings Prize for New Australian descriptions of working life at sea – all of this is conveyed This year’s shortlist was characterised by originality, TFiction is uniquely situated in the Australian literary with economy and precision and brings the world of the great voice, and beautiful prose. Tsiolkas strongly landscape. It is one of three literary prizes managed novel alive. Carmody had me hooked from the get-go. recommended readers investigate the entire shortlist. He entirely by Readings bookshop – all of which seek to raise And he kept reeling me in. The Windy Season is a very writes: ‘From Melanie Cheng’s stunning story collection the profile of exciting new writers – and considers first and impressive achievement.’ Australia Day to the inventiveness and control of Marija second works of fiction by Australian writers. This year’s Pericˇic´’s The Lost Pages and Jane Rawson’s From the Wreck, guest judge, the award-winning author and screenwriter from the humanity and craft of Heather Taylor Johnson’s Christos Tsiolkas, commented on the importance of this Jean Harley Was Here to the richly imagined savage folktale decision. He says: ‘Works by emerging writers can easily ‘It roars down and batters of Hannah Kent’s The Good People – this is a shortlist that get lost in the white noise generated by the marketing and sings in a wonderful choral of voices.’ We are excited to reviewing of more established writers.’ the senses. It is, in a word, read what every one of them does next. Tsiolkas and managing director Mark Rubbo both As this year’s winner, Carmody will receive $3,000 in joined a judging panel of Readings booksellers to decide the unforgettable.’ prize money. Previous winners of the Readings Prize for New winner from an exceptionally strong shortlist. Carmody’s Australian Fiction include Ceridwen Dovey’s remarkable story debut, which flew under the radar when it was first collection Only the Animals, Stephanie Bishop’s beautifully released, was a unanimous choice. crafted novel The Other Side of the World, and Zoë Morrison’s The Windy Season very much deserves to stand out from All at once a mystery, a family drama, and an examination moving debut Music and Freedom. the white noise Tsiolkas describes. Twenty-year-old Paul of masculinity and violence, as well as a meditation on travels from Perth to the fictional West Australian fishing Australian coastal landscapes, The Windy Season demands village of Stark in search of his missing older brother, Elliot. attention and a place in our literary cannon. The language is It’s no coincidence that Carmody chose the name of Stark immersive, the pace relentless. It roars down and batters the Gabrielle Williams, chair of the judging panel and for this book’s setting – perched on the edge of our harsh senses. It is, in a word, unforgettable. bookseller at Readings Malvern READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2017 7

New Fiction A LONG WAY FROM the reader, become a trespasser into this HOME land of anguish. In an interview last year, Miller said he had been trying to write this Peter Carey novel for 20 years. It is essentially about Fiction Book of the Month Hamish Hamilton. HB. Was $39.99 his time with his first wife, Australian artist $29.99 Anne Neil, who has since died. ATLANTIC BLACK One of my The Passage of Love is a gift. It tells us A.S. Patric´ favourite books is about living with a undeniable creative Transit Lounge. PB. $29.99 Peter Carey’s Illywhacker, force and the consequences of being When I finished reading Alec Patric´’s latest book, I was with its outrageous utterly transparent in one’s desires. It is an surprised to find myself in the same room as I was when I narrator Herbert observation, a sharing of knowledge, and a started reading. Surely something must have changed. I had been Badgery and the transcript of a life lived with yearning. The swept away on a journey and yet had nothing to show for it sprawling basalt plains Passage of Love is quite extraordinary. except my heart beating faster. This is the effect of Patric´’s of Bacchus Marsh. It Chris Gordon is events manager at Readings writing. He will toss and turn you, and never let you go. It makes was a riot of fun that hid reading his work an almost physical act. a message about this country of ours, for us DEADLY KERFUFFLE Over a mere 24 hours, the action takes place on a cruise and the world to see. A Long Way From Tony Martin ship heading away from Europe, crossing the Atlantic Ocean – Home returns to Bacchus Marsh with the Affirm Press. PB. $29.99 on the brink of 1939. It’s a huge boat, with multiple decks, rooms and corridors. We are joy, exuberance and absurdity of Illywhacker A smart, riveting, privy to the meandering nature of the boat, the guests on it passing through common – but with a lot more, besides. incredibly funny novel spaces and their own private cabins as if searching for a new distraction. But 17-year-old Suspended schoolteacher (‘chalk by D-Generation alumni Katrina Klova and her mother are instead swept up in the trauma of their past. Klova’s and talker’) and quiz-show king, Willie Tony Martin, one of mother suffers an immense breakdown and withdraws. Her daughter is left to navigate Bachuber, is smitten when the diminutive Australia’s comedy the ship on her own, with only letters from her older brother to keep her anchored. It’s yet perfect couple, Mr and Mrs Titch greats, this comes not nearly enough. Katrina is offered a variety of diversions, but this only increases her Bobbs, move in next-door with their recommended by Shaun alarm, and therefore the reader’s. Patric´writes in intricate detail: reading this novel, you children and an assortment of motor Micallef and Sam Pang ... can feel the cold, smell the damp and the cigarette smoke, and understand that there vehicles. Titch has one desire – to own the and was inspired by really is no escape. Ford franchise for Bacchus Marsh – but actual letters to the editor in a local Patric´, whose work nods to writers like Patrick White, is already regarded as Mrs Bobs knows the future is with Holden newspaper. It’s 2006, and terror one of Australia’s great writers. Atlantic Black will take you, as the reader, to another (ironic given Holden has no future now); scaremongering in the media has rattled claustrophobic place – right in your very own room. Certainly, this compelling novel is she swings the deal and what better way to the residents of sleepy, suburban Dunlop not for the faint-hearted. launch the new venture than by entering Crescent. When a Maori family moves into Chris Gordon is events manager at Readings the famous round-Australia endurance race, the Redex Trial. Mr and Mrs Bobs number 14, the local cranks assume they are will be the drivers. ‘Driving a car is all in Middle Eastern terrorists hell-bent on the bum and Mrs Bobs’ bum is a perfect destroying the Australian way of life. Australian Fiction MRS. M instrument for the job.’ But she can’t be Rumour has it that they plan to turn their Luke Slattery the navigator – Willie can. And so this odd house to face Mecca. This sets off an Fourth Estate. HB. $29.99 extraordinary chain of events that embroils BORDER DISTRICTS group embarks on a wild ride around the Over the course country, where they encounter, among the entire neighbourhood as well as cynical Gerald Murnane of a long, other things, Willie’s past and Australia’s media figures, bumbling anti-terrorist Giramondo. PB. $24.95 sleepless night, future. police, and a gang of white supremacists If you’ve ever read Elizabeth Macquarie It’s hard not to be drawn into this with a radical plan to wake up the country Gerald Murnane composes an epitaph amazing book, with Carey’s use of language and ‘preserve Australian values’. At the before, you’ll have some for her husband, and vernacular shining through the pages. centre of it all is Gordon, a retired widower, idea of what to expect Governor Lachlan As Molly Meldrum famously said: do who just wants a bit of peace and quiet. with Border Districts, his Macquarie. From yourself a favour … thirteenth book and, widowhood on the STORIES: THE Mark Rubbo is managing director of Readings apparently, his final work Isle of Mull, she revisits their part in the COLLECTED SHORT of fiction. It’s esoteric, tumultuous life of colonial Australia. FICTION THE PASSAGE OF LOVE thought-provoking and In Mrs. M, Luke Slattery creates a TRUE STORIES: THE difficult to describe – for the purposes of wonderfully vivid and subtly subversive Alex Miller COLLECTED SHORT this review, though, let’s call Border Districts a voice. Elizabeth Macquarie is a fine A&U. PB. Was $32.99 nonlinear meditation on the (nameless) observer – a singular, independent $29.99 NON-FICTION narrator’s life in ‘mental images’. woman with an acerbic wit and hidden I don’t suppose Helen Garner The novel – or, as the narrator prefers to passions. She chronicles the world of Alex Miller is Text. HB. $29.99/$39.99 call it, ‘report’ – begins with a description early Sydney with a refreshing clarity. religious – nor am I, for OR both books for $49.99 of a church in the town that the author has With boundless belief in reform and that matter – however, I I know I’m not the just moved to. This inspires a reflection rehabilitation, the Macquaries are a did think of Corinthians only Melbourne on his Catholic schooling in the 1950s, partnership of dreamers caught in an 13:8 when reading writer whose motto, at Christianity in general, the story of a priest ongoing war of attrition, with a privileged Miller’s new book, The my laptop, is WWHGD he knew in the past, the loss of faith – all few who wish Australia to remain a place Passage of Love. It goes (what would Helen in the first 20 pages – without ever naming of punishment and cheap labour. Pivotal something like this, Garner do?). From any places or people directly. The narrator’s to their dreams is Francis Greenaway, the depending on the translation: ‘Love never Monkey Grip – Readings’ voice is steady and controlled, the sentences convict architect, who designs many of fails. But where there are prophecies, they first Australian beautifully and complexly constructed, such the early buildings that are intended to will cease; where there are tongues, they bestseller – to last year’s that you’re never quite sure what tangent fill the population with civic pride and will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it collected non-fiction, the narrator’s mind will go off on next. ambition. Though a loving dutiful wife, will pass away.’ It seems to me that the Everywhere I Look, Rather than a straightforwardly plotted in Slattery’s telling of Elizabeth’s story it multi-awarded novelist is tackling these Garner has dominated story, Border Districts charts the movements is with Greenaway that Elizabeth finds very issues in this, his grand and wonderful the shelves of local of its narrator’s mind and memory. her true soulmate. Sydney’s lush natural fictional autobiography. book-lovers, and Indeed, the narrator bears a suspicious environment provides a sensual backdrop Here, we meet Robert Crofts and follow continually redefined resemblance to Murnane himself – he lives for the increasing sexual tension in their him as he searches for a place to be still, what a writer can do, in a small town near the western border of relationship. loved, and creative. He marries a beautiful particularly in terms of Victoria, has never left his home state in his As Slattery himself acknowledges, he artist, Lena: together and separately, they the tightrope line she 70-plus years, and has an affinity for horse- takes liberties with the facts of Elizabeth strive to live an absolute truth. They treads between fiction and non-fiction, racing. A short novel, it is nonetheless an and Greenaway’s relationship. But who travel the country and finish up living simply by writing her stories in her own immersive experience that demands to be is to say what really happened between together in isolated country Victoria. The distinctive way, seemingly ignoring the read in one or two sittings. The 146 pages them? For this reader, the fabrications relationship proves unsustainable – and constrictions of genre until it’s time to of text, uninterrupted by chapters or even were very satisfying – he manages to in those crumbling, lonely years where publish and classify. These two beautiful paragraph breaks, carry you away with the bring to life a part of Australian history it disintegrates, this beautiful novel hardback collections celebrate Garner’s author’s subconscious, marooning you on a that I’ve always found a bit impenetrable. becomes heartbreaking. Miller explores 75th birthday. long and remote road that you’re reluctant In Mrs. M, Slattery not only gives us notions of masculinity, marriage and trust It’s telling that, genre-busting aside, to stop on, for fear of getting lost. As a an epitaph for Lachlan Macquarie: we as he conjures up the alienating forces True Stories is approximately three result, Border Districts is hard to put down; come away with an epitaph for the entire of the country around him, and of his times the size of Stories. This mammoth you’re compelled to keep moving forward, era and the bit-players just outside the protagonist’s hopes and dreams. These book begins with a stunning new piece, exploring ‘the borders of the mind’. spotlight of official history. passages allow a view into the private mind ‘Why She Broke’, exploring the case of Kelsey Oldham is from Readings Hawthorn Susan Stevenson is from Readings Malvern of one of our most acclaimed authors. You, the traumatised Sudanese widow and 8 READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2017 mother of six who drove her car into a the day before Christmas, to a floating mother collides with the apocalypse. past, the narrator finds herself haunted by lake, killing three of her children – with disembodied head. She is alone in her large Evolution is going backwards: women the story of her older sister, who died just Garner’s trademark blend of intelligence, house in Cornwall, except for the floating are miscarrying, births are increasingly two hours after birth. A fragmented insight, radical empathy and careful head, which has been there for four days. traumatic, and the babies who are born exploration of white things – the research. It’s made more poignant and ‘Christmas Eve morning, 10am, and the are not humans as we know them, but swaddling bands that were her shroud, the essential by her background with the disembodied head was dozing.’ Her son variations on an earlier genetic code that’s breast milk she did not live to drink, the eerily similar Robert Farquharson case, Art is due for Christmas. Art was stuck been mysteriously triggered. It’s not just blank page on which the narrator herself as documented in This House of Grief. ‘My in the Ideas Store (which used to be the us, it’s all life on earth: animal and plant. A attempts to reconstruct the story – unfold Child in the World’, a starkly beautiful reference room), using a public computer, new, church-based, system of government in a powerfully poetic distillation. account of watching her young daughter driven from his phone and laptop by a fight is forming; new technology is obsolete. skirt the edges of her schoolyard social with his partner, who has taken over his A barter system evolves. People alternately HEATHER, THE TOTALITY group, snagged at my heart. Three books blogging identity, Art in Nature. help and betray one another. And new laws Matthew Weiner are collected here: True Stories, The Feel of As many (northern hemisphere) are passed that require pregnant women to Canongate. HB. $24.99 Steel and Everywhere I Look. Christmas stories do, Winter contains an be locked up and monitored … I was excited to The much slimmer Stories collects 14 old house, hauntings, a knowledgeable While the imaginative landscape of read the first novel of Garner’s best short stories, including stranger, unexpected arrivals and acts of this book makes it impossible to put down, from Matthew ‘Mad Men’ the iconic ‘Postcards from Surfers’. She goodwill. It also gently and yet puckishly what really entranced me were its moments Weiner – not just is here, too – as vividly, sometimes more, gives a context to what is happening of hope or human connection. Cedar on because he’s the than in the ‘true’ stories. In ‘My Hard now, drawing on everything from Charlie a summer afternoon: ‘There will never meticulous craftsman at Heart’, an emotionally resonant story Chaplin to Cymbeline, from Dickens to be another August on earth, not like this the helm of one of my about being blindsided by divorce, and its Barbara Hepworths’ sculptures in stone, to one; there will never be this sort of ease favourite screen stories, attendant grief, we see glimpses of what make everything a little less overwhelming. or precision. The birds will change, the but because he’s often will manifest in Cosmo Cosmolino, and only- Ali Smith has masterfully done what squirrels will fall, and who will remember cited 1950s American literature (John Helen-Garner images like ‘when I sat on she always does. She has written a novel in how to make the wine?’ On a larger scale, Cheever, Richard Yates) as a key influence a cushion on the doorstep and played my which ‘the human will always surface’. there is the idea that this has all happened on Mad Men. Heather, The Totality proves ukulele I saw that the flower clumps were Marie Matteson is from Readings Carlton before – that disintegration and adaptive that, like the writers he admires, Weiner full of bees’. These are books to treasure rebirth are part of the evolutionary cycle, and can write a crisp, cold, beautifully wry and revisit. Happy birthday, Helen. DEVIL’S DAY the civilisation and species we can’t imagine sentence. His observations about class, Jo Case is editor of Readings Monthly Andrew Michael Hurley ending represent a tiny fraction of a moment gender relations, privilege and parenting John Murray. PB. $32.99 in the history of our planet. Life will go on, are often sharply perceptive, and his prose ADA Andrew Michael even if we’re not there to witness it. is as devastatingly stylish as his sets. This extraordinary novel is Children Kaz Cooke Hurley’s debut novel, How’s this for a seductive opening? ‘Mark of Men crossed with The Handmaid’s Tale, Viking. PB. $32.99 The Loney, was declared and Karen Breakstone got married a little combined with Erdrich’s unique vision Kaz Cooke invites you to a rare instant modern late in life. Karen was nearly 40 and had and voice. an audience with the classic by the Sunday given up on finding someone as good as Jo Case is editor of Readings Monthly amazing Ada: a showgirl Telegraph, and her father and had begun to become bitter pronounced ‘amazing’ about the seven-year relationship she’d and a storyteller with a THE DIARIES OF trunk full of stories and by Stephen King. Devil’s had after college with her former art secrets. Miss Ada Delroy Day, his second book, is EMILIO RENZI teacher. In fact, when she was set up with and her famous already being hailed as a worthy follow-up. Ricardo Piglia Mark, she nearly turned the date down vaudeville troupe Every autumn, John Pentecost returns to Restless Books. PB. $32.99 because Mark’s only prominent quality stormed five continents, the farm where he grew up to help gather The highly anticipated, was his potential to be rich.’ enchanting royalty, miners and larrikins the sheep down from the moors for the autobiographical life’s The story of Karen and Mark’s alike with her wit, illusions, and winter. This year, his grandfather – the work from the visionary Manhattan marriage and their perfect, breathtaking dances. Under the costume Gaffer – has died and John’s new wife, Argentine novelist who perfectly beautiful daughter, Heather, made from 100 yards of billowing silk was a Katherine, is accompanying him for the brought Latin American who insidiously takes the place of each woman who couldn’t help being both first time. Each year, the Gaffer would letters out from Borges’ other in their affections, runs parallel to a fabulous and disreputable. Down on her redraw the boundary lines of the village, shadow and into the less privileged one. Bobby, born to a New luck in a rented room in Melbourne, with pen and paper, but also through the postmodern era Jersey heroin addict and an unknown morphia cocktail in hand, Ada receives a remembrance of tales and timeless bookended by Roberto father, learns to use his background as visitor. Is she ready to share her secrets? communal rituals, which keep the sheep Bolaño and David Foster Wallace. leverage to get what he wants. The budding safe from the Devil. But as the farmers of Argentine novelist Ricardo Piglia was sociopath (a product of nature, nurture, or the Endlands bury the Gaffer, and prepare known for stories, novels, operas, both?) graduates from torturing animals International Fiction to gather the sheep, they begin to wonder screenplays, and essays, but his magnum to sexual predation – and when he takes a whether they’ve let the Devil in after all. opus is one that he poured into 327 secret job working on a construction site above notebooks over nearly six decades, in teenage Heather’s apartment, she becomes WINTER FUTURE HOME OF THE which he imagined himself as his literary a distant obsession; inevitably, their Ali Smith LIVING GOD alter ego, Emilio Renzi. Like Philip Roth’s narratives will converge. Hamish Hamilton. PB. $29.99 Louise Erdrich Nathan Zuckerman, Renzi stars in many of Weiner builds tension beautifully, and Available 13 November Corsair. PB. $29.99 his creator’s works. In the novels, Renzi is raises interesting questions about how For around 20 Available 14 November a detective; in the notebooks that personalities are shaped. Bobby and Heather are both canny observers of human nature, years, Ali Smith Following Trump’s comprise The Diaries of Emilio Renzi, he is talented in moulding others to their will. has had a quartet of election, classic something more complex – a multilayered This novella is somewhat flawed (the novels, named simply dystopias like 1984 and reconstruction of the self that the reader, privileged narrative is more authentic than after the seasons, in the The Handmaid’s Tale performing her own detective work, teases Bobby’s underdog), but fascinating. I look back of her head. Winter have resurfaced on out over these intricate, illuminating forward to Weiner’s next venture into print. is the second of these bestseller lists. In our pages. As Piglia develops as a reader and novels. The first, mid-climate-change, writer, falls in love, and tussles with his Jo Case is editor of Readings Monthly Autumn, was shortlisted post-truth, resource- tyrannical father, we get eye-opening for this year’s Booker Prize. depleted, racist-and- perspectives on Latin America’s WINTER In a TLS podcast last year, Ali Smith sexist-backlash world, where we’re on the tumultuous twentieth century. Karl Ove Knausgaard discussed the form of the novel. The word brink of the biggest technological and Harvill Secker. HB. $35 novel means new, and ‘the novel has always structural change since the Industrial THE WHITE BOOK Available 13 November formally been about what is new, the Revolution, the future is ever-present. Han Kang The second volume in newness of its form’. The novel is about Multi-award-winning Native American Portobello. HB. $24.99 his autobiographical time, and the sequential. Yet Ali Smith writer Louise Erdrich (LaRose, The Round Available 22 November quartet based on the is interested in how the novel’s interest House) is one of America’s best – and in From the winner of the seasons, Winter is an in now, and sequential time, exists in the this immersive, deeply moving novel, she Man Booker achingly beautiful now that is cyclical, the experience of time delivers a devastating take on the end of International Prize for collection of daily recurring seasonally, the now layered by the world as we know it, with characters The Vegetarian comes meditations and letters the past and the future. And so, the quartet whose fate we’re desperately invested in. South Korean master addressed directly to continues with Winter, out a year after Set between a reservation and suburban Han Kang’s most Karl Ove Knaugsaard’s Autumn and taking place in the northern Minneapolis, it’s narrated from the autobiographical and unborn daughter, as her birth draws near. hemisphere winter that’s just past. It is the perspective of Cedar Hawk Songmaker (as experimental book to In preparation for her arrival, he takes winter of the election of Donald Trump, named by her white adoptive parents), date. Written on a stock of the world, seeing it anew. While coming after the autumn of Brexit. as the moment of her unplanned pregnancy writer’s residency in Warsaw, a city new life is on the horizon, the earth is also In Winter, Sophia Cleeves wakes up, and reconnection with her biological palpably scarred by the violence of the in hibernation, waiting for the warmer READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2017 9 weather to return. He writes about be so simply defined. That said, the key everything from the moon, winter boots relationship is between Nana and Satoru, and messiness, to owls and birthdays. and we are privy to many of Nana’s ‘It’s a delight to go thoughts: often witty, sometimes harsh, THE DREAMS OF yet always honest. I expected this book to through things and pull at the heartstrings and it does – but in BETHANY MELLMOTH remember their worth.’ William Boyd the best possible way, without becoming overly sentimental. At its centre, this is a Viking. PB. $32.99 novel about the importance of friendship, Available 13 November connection and loyalty; whether it be with A philandering art Margareta Magnusson a childhood friend with whom you once dealer tries to give up ran away from home, or a four-legged is a Swedish grandmother casual love affairs – companion who refuses to leave your side. seeking only passionate who has moved house 17 This is a novel with wide appeal. I predict it kisses as a substitute. A times. She knows what will make a popular gift come Christmas. man recounts his she’s talking about. personal history Amanda Rayner is from Readings Carlton through the things he has stolen from others THE SILENT COMPANIONS throughout his life. A couple chart the Laura Purcell journey of their five year relationship Raven Books. PB. $24.99 Seriously good books. backwards. And a 24-year-old young Inspired by the work of woman, Bethany Mellmoth, embarks on a Shirley Jackson and year-long journey of wishful and tentative Susan Hill and set in a self-discovery. These stories are funny, crumbling country surprising and moving. mansion, The Silent Companions is an GRACE unsettling gothic ghost THE STORY OF Paul Lynch story to send a shiver THE ICONIC Oneworld. HB. $24.99 down the spine. Newly PENTRIDGE With winter close at hand married, newly PRISON widowed Elsie is sent to see out her and Ireland already AS TOLD BY suffering, Grace is no pregnancy at her late husband’s crumbling longer safe at home. And country estate, The Bridge. With her new THOSE WHO so her mother outfits servants resentful and the local villagers LIVED IT. Grace in men’s clothing actively hostile, Elsie only has her and casts her out. When husband’s awkward cousin for company. Or her younger brother Colly so she thinks. For inside her new home lies follows after her, the two a locked room, and beyond that door lies a set off on a lifechanging odyssey in the 200-year-old diary and a deeply unsettling Seriously good books. looming shadow of the Great Famine. This painted wooden figure – a Silent Time of Light is an epic coming-of-age novel, Companion – that bears a striking and a poetic evocation of the Irish famine as resemblance to Elsie herself ... it has never been written. ‘What grips is the merging, through grief and desperation, of SUGAR MONEY the dead and the living. When you’re Jane Harris starving, Lynch seems to be asking, are you Faber. PB. $29.99 truly alive? Without resorting to make- Based on a remarkable believe, he carefully and inexorably explores and little-known true the confusion.’ – The New York Times story, Jane Harris’s third novel is both a THE TRAVELLING CAT heartbreaking trip into a The sequel to the CHRONICLES troubled colonial past, Hiro Arikawa and a stunning act of Number 1 Bestseller Doubleday. HB. $29.99 literary ventriloquism. Available 13 November Martinique, 1765, and Working Class Boy A bestseller in brothers Emile and Lucien are charged by Japan and now their French master, Father Cleophas, with internationally, The a mission. They must return to Grenada, Travelling Cat Chronicles the island they once called home, and (translated by Murakami smuggle back the 42 slaves claimed by translator Philip Gabriel) English invaders at the hospital plantation takes us on the road with in Fort Royal. While Lucien, barely in his Nana and his owner teens, sees the trip as a great adventure, the Satoru. Taken in by older and worldlier Emile has no illusions Satoru as a stray, Nana can’t understand why about the dangers they will face. after five years of living together, Satoru is determined to find him a new place to live. THE ACCIDENT Together they travel throughout Japan, ON THE A35 visiting people from Satoru’s childhood Graeme Macrae Burnet (plus a number of animals) along the way. Text. PB. $29.99 The purpose behind Satoru’s trip soon From the author of the becomes obvious, but the joy of this book Man Booker shortlisted is in becoming involved in the journey His Bloody Project. The and invested in its characters. Each of methodical but troubled the people Satoru visits gives important Chief Inspector Georges background to Satoru’s personality, as well Gorski visits the wife of as providing their own individual story a lawyer killed in a road and revelations. There is Kosuke, with accident, the accident on whom Satoru experiences a family tragedy; the A35. The case is Yoshimine, who finds peace in farming to unremarkable, the visit routine. Mme From one of Australia’s escape physically and emotionally distant Barthelme – alluring and apparently foremost journalists, Luke parents; and Sugi and Chikako, who now unmoved by the news – has a single A gripping blend of family mystery, Slattery, comes a bravura run a pet-friendly B&B. question: where was her husband on the contemporary stories and the Despite the obvious presence of the night of the accident? The answer might literary achievement feline, I would urge people not to dismiss change nothing, but it could change beautiful and bloody Viking tales this as a ‘cat book’: it is too much about everything. And Gorski sets a course for human interaction and relationships to what can only be a painful truth. 10 READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2017

THE ZANZIBAR WIFE ARTEMIS features essays on queer life, Aboriginal Deborah Rodriguez Andy Weir history, and the adult industry, fiction that Bantam. PB. Was $32.99 Del Rey. PB. $32.99 rewrites the local literary canon, and poetry November from some of the world’s best writers. $29.99 Available 13 November To-Read List A bewitching novel of The bestselling author The Martian clashing cultures and of returns Poetry conflicting beliefs, of with a twisty, smart, mystery and magic, by high concept thriller the author of The Little about a heist set on the DOMESTIC INTERIOR Coffee Shop of Kabul. Into moon. Jazz is a small- Fiona Wright Oman, a place where time criminal, Giramondo. PB. $24 tales of evil spirits and subsidising work as a When I was at uni, eerie phenomena porter on the moon with one of my favourite abound, comes three remarkable women: smuggling a little contraband. When she’s tutors gave me an Rachel, an American war photographer offered the chance to get rich quick she excellent, simple piece of struggling to shed the trauma of her career jumps at it. But planning the perfect crime advice on writing poetry. for a simpler, gentler life; her ‘fixer’ Ariana in 1/6th gravity was never going to be easy, She said the title of the Khan, a bubbly Brit struggling to keep up especially as there’s a conspiracy at the poem should be treated with the glitz of Dubai and ready to give up heart of Artemis. as its first line, and on love; and Zanzibar’s Miza, the second ideally set the tone for the piece of writing wife of Tariq, who remains a secret from Covering Australian Rules, League, to follow. I think Fiona Wright must have Union, soccer, cricket, the Olympics and his terrifying ‘other’ wife – until one day, he Anthologies been given this advice at some point too; much more, Titus tackles the big topics, fails to come home. Domestic Interior is an excellent title. It is like how not to cheat the salary cap. THE BEST succinct, enticing and in just two words, it reveals the heart of this stunning collection Science Fiction AUSTRALIAN ESSAYS 2017 of poetry. The interiors of this collection are Anna Goldsworthy GNOMON many. There is the literally domestic – the Nick Harkaway interiors of homes, as well as streetscapes THE BEST and depictions of places, both foreign Heinemann. PB. $32.99 AUSTRALIAN and well known. Place is central to these Available 13 November STORIES 2017 poems. While some of the poems are set In the near future Maxine Beneba in faraway places, most of them deal with Britain has Clarke urban Australia, namely Sydney. In all become a place of cases, they wrap themselves around the complete and utter outside world, showing it to the reader transparency. Every THE BEST from a brand new perspective. utterance is recorded. AUSTRALIAN These poems are so successful at Parliament has been POEMS 2017 capturing the places they are situated in Volume one of a major new biography disbanded. But this is Sarah Holland-Batt because Wright’s perspective is established of arguably our greatest (and one of no hackneyed North Black Inc. PB. sharply. The ‘I’ is a heavy presence across our most underrated) Prime Ministers, Korea. Everyone sees, hears and votes on $29.99/$29.99/$24.99 Domestic Interior. Rather than making the who shaped modern Australia. everything, and the market reigns Black Inc.’s annual Best poems feel diaristic, this gives great insight supreme. Citizens are encouraged-but- Australian series is one of to the metaphoric interiors of the book. not-forced to take part in weekly mass the Christmas season’s These are often Wright’s own mindscapes, voting, and the ever-helpful System offers most loved bookish but they also bring into view those of them gentle reminders like ‘smooth traditions. As always, others. In several instances, Wright does economic flow and creative justice … are these volumes feature this via snippets of things she sees and also inherent parts of plebiscite-regulated the cream of Australia’s hears. In one poem, ‘Coastal Walk (with market democracy.’ Paradise. writing crop … and a new Tanktops)’, Wright punctuates scenes When writer Diana Hunter attempts generation of names you’re yet to discover. of women jogging along the beach with (criminally) to live off the grid, the This year’s editors – Anna Goldsworthy ‘inspirational’ fitness slogans. The result is full weight of this ‘free’ system comes (essays), Maxine Beneba-Clarke (stories) a stark sense of contrast that subtly coaxes crashing down on her and she dies under and Sarah Holland-Batt (poems) – have larger issues from the picturesque scene. interrogation. Enter detective Mielikki mined our journals, anthologies and their Wright’s verse is quietly powerful. It’s Neith, passionate partisan of the System. submissions to find literary gold. almost as if she is reaching out into her It’s her role to investigate how the readers’ minds and opening up windows interrogation machine that reads suspects’ THE BEST AUSTRALIAN into her own experiences. This collection is life history accidentally killed poor Diana. Peter Carey has twice won the SCIENCE WRITING 2017 one to read twice. Booker Prize for his explorations of Neith pores through the neural recordings Michael Slezak Australian history. A Long Way from of this futuristic water-boarding session Ellen Cregan is from Readings Doncaster. NewSouth. PB. 29.99 Home is his late-style masterpiece. and finds not one Diana, but four (and also This annual collection none). Where the writer should have been celebrating the finest there was instead a medieval alchemist who Graphic Novel voices in Australian shacked up with St Augustine, a banker, science writing is the an anti -fascist artist and a time travelling perfect way for science GOING INTO TOWN: assassin from the future with four specific aficionados and curious victims in mind. Is it all an elaborate riddle? A LOVE LETTER readers alike to catch up A sick joke? A treasonous plot? Some meta- TO NEW YORK on the best in the field. combination of all three? Roz Chast Contributors include Sure there are the standard shades Bloomsbury. HB. $36.99 Peter Singer, Cordelia Fine, Jo Chandler, of 1984 and Bentham’s Panopticon here, Quintessential New James Bradley and Elizabeth Finkel. but there are also less likely digs at the Yorker Roz Chast’s unquestioned dominance of the market, graphic memoir is a and the contradictions of political THE BEST OF THE LIFTED hilarious illustrated ode participation in a profit-driven society. BROW: VOLUME TWO to Manhattan. A native Nick Harkaway takes us on a journey The Lifted Brow Brooklynite-turned- Spellbinding, informative and moving, through some dark but familiar times. suburban commuter, for Brow Books. PB. $29.99 Stephen Fry’s Mythos perfectly captures He’s crafted a rollicking, hallucinatory Australia’s most Chast, adjusting to life outside the city was the Greek myths for the modern age - in romp into the dark possibilities unleashed irreverent literary surreal (you can own trees!? you have to all their rich and deeply human relevance. when capitalist freedom couples with magazine was once drive!?). But the reverse was true for her unquestioned surveillance. But it’s also described by Margaret kids. Going Into Town is part New York an exploration of the insane, hilarious Atwood as having the stories (the ‘overheard and overseen’ of and all-too-human things we try to hide: ‘cheek of Dame Edna, the island borough), part personal and vanity, lust, pride, cowardice, obsession and the weirdness of practical guide to walking, talking, renting, and apathy. wombats’. The Best of The and venting – an irresistible, one-of-a-kind Read more at penguin.com.au Chris Dite is from Readings Carlton Lifted Brow: Volume Two love letter to the city. READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2017 11

New Crime Dead Write DEADLIER big-hitters: P.I. Snowy Lane and D.I. Dan Sophie Hannah (ed.) Clement. Almost two decades ago, Lane with Fiona Hardy Head of Zeus. HB. Was $44.99 was hired to find three women who Crime Book of the Month $39.99 vanished from outside a Perth nightclub, but he never found out what happened to When you love reading them. Now, when another young woman crime, sometimes you LITTLE SECRETS goes missing, Lane is again put on the case settle into the cosiness of Anna Snoekstra – but now, he’d risk anything to find out reading only the authors Harlequin. PB. $29.99 what happened to her, and to the women you feel safe with. You The regional Australian town of Colmstock is rife with he’s never been able to forget. Warner’s wait for Kathy Reichs to desperation. Since the closing of the town’s automotive factory sharp wit and western grittiness are on full release something new, caused the job market to fall apart, much of the population has display here, in a story as broad as Western hope for translations of slumped into misery, including Rose Blakey’s family. Her mother now Australia itself. works at a grim poultry factory that leaves her too exhausted to care Karin Slaughter’s books from years ago, or wait 45 minutes for a new James Patterson. properly for Rose’s three younger siblings, and her long-haul trucker THE DARKEST DAY stepfather wants her to move the hell out – like, now. Rose, of course, For those readers – or for those who Håkan Nesser can’t imagine anything better than doing exactly that: leaving her dusty hometown for the voraciously gobble up anything on the crime Mantle. PB. $32.99 city, courtesy of the journalism cadetship she’s gone for at The Sage Review, a job she’s so shelves – this is the book for you: 100 short confident about that she’s already packed. So when the rejection email comes through, and stories from some of the best female crime The first in a new series Rose is left with nowhere to live and no job to go to, she’s faced with the reality she can’t writers around. Edited by Sophie Hannah, by Swedish stalwart escape. A job pouring drinks for the cops and other customers at Eamon’s Tavern Hotel, and with stories from Val McDermid, Håkan Nesser starts avoiding the flirting of Senior Sergeant Frank Ghirardello, who spells out for her the doom Daphne Du Maurier, Emma Viskic, Agatha with a birthday party in that is Settling Down and Staying. The only way out that Rose can see comes through writing Christie, Kerry Greenwood, Margaret the small town of the journalistic scoop of a lifetime. And Colmstock has mystery to burn: in the aftermath of a Atwood, Enid Blyton, Ellen Davitt (of the Kymlinge, where the deadly fire that killed a young boy, someone is leaving little porcelain dolls on the doorsteps prestigious Australian Davitt Awards), Ngaio Hermanssons get of the little girls in town – dolls that look exactly like them. And so, keyboard at hand, Rose Marsh, Angela Savage, and many, many together to celebrate sets about investigating everyone in town, including the questionable yet fascinating Will, the more, this is packed full of excellent stories father and daughter hotel’s only resident. But Rose’s power in writing about these dolls may do more to the for all tastes. Karl-Erik and Ebba in another year’s community – and bring more danger – than she ever expected. journey around the sun. But whereas most Snoekstra – shortlisted for a Ned Kelly Award in 2017 for her debut work of fiction, SLEEP NO MORE: SIX family parties end in tears over who has to Only Daughter – has created, with her hyperreal Australian style, a visceral world of heat, MURDEROUS TALES take their copy of season one of The Bridge dust and sweat. With every moment detailed and crisply told, you can feel Rose’s need P.D. James back to the shop after everyone buys it for to escape – from Colmstock, from her stepfather, from her sticky, burning job. Rose can’t Faber. HB. $24.99 their dad, the Hermanssons have a different outcome … not every family member will help but consider everyone around her as bleakly as she feels about the town, discarding If missing out on P.D. still be around by the end. With the their humanity and feelings in her quest to break through to the journalistic paradise she James in the Deadlier philosophical Inspector Barbarotti on hand imagines. Much like the protagonist of Sarah Bailey’s bestseller The Dark Lake, the flawed collection stuck in your to investigate the disappearances, this character of Rose, who rails against everything that holds her to the community, elicits craw, never fear: here are family may no longer be able to hide the sympathy from readers who want her to escape, even though sometimes you want to reach six stories from one of unsettling knot of secrets it has been – into the pages and shake her. Full of twists, grit, and secrets not so very small at all, this is a crime’s most sorely unless he’s too late to make a difference. sweltering summer read. missed writers. Featuring never-before-collected stories from magazines MISS KOPP’S MIDNIGHT BONFIRE now a detective constable, determined to and the like, tales include ‘The Girl who Loved CONFESSIONS Krysten Ritter bring those in the wrong to justice, no Graveyards’ and ‘The Yoyo’. It’s recommended Amy Stewart matter how hard she has to work for it. Hutchinson. PB. $29.99 that you read them in order. You’ll find Scribe. PB. $32.99 When a woman is found murdered near Available 13 November yourself thoroughly spooked by James’s skills Available 13 November the pub her father runs – a woman who, Krysten Ritter – of as a storyteller, earning her status as the In Hackensack, New it’s discovered, has ties to Maryanne Doyle Jessica Jones/Breaking master of the whodunit – as you’re taken for a Jersey, sheriff’s deputy – Cat feels the past as clear as the present. Bad fame – has always ride in the mind of a multitude of characters: Constance Kopp is up to Is the father she once revered truly cultivated a persona of from those who commit the perfect murder, her ears in problems. As capable of murder? Is her suspicion alone scary-clever darkness to those who keep the darkest of secrets. the matron of the local enough evidence? With a likeable cast of in the roles she plays, jail’s women’s section, she characters and murky moral decisions, so transferring those THE WRONG CHILD can’t help but become this is a thrilling, entertaining debut. skills to the scary- Barry Gornell frustrated at the reasons cleverness that is crime Orion. PB. $29.99 THE HOUSE women are imprisoned fiction at its best is a logical transition. A dark meditation on – for unmarried cohabiting (a crime your Abby Williams is an environmental Simon Lelic grief and revenge, set in a gentle reviewer is also guilty of, but has yet to lawyer who has perfected the new life Penguin. PB. $29.99 small Scottish town, this be jailed for), for waywardness, for she has in Chicago, but her hometown of Available 13 November follows a chain of events suggestiveness. Despite the usual opposition Barrens, Indiana, is pulling her back. Her If you want to put in the past and the encountered by a lady officer of the law in new case has her investigating Optimal yourself right off the present: the lead-up to 1916, Constance will fight for women not to Plastics, the company that almost idea of buying a home the accident that claimed have their small-scale problems of the past singlehandedly keeps Barrens afloat, and – wise in the current the lives of 21 ruin their future. Respecting women’s choices her pursuit of truth sees her facing things real estate market, schoolchildren six years is all well and good, of course … until she’d hoped to never face again, from her really – read Simon before, and the present day, where the single Constance’s own theatrical younger sister, father to the memory of Abby’s vanished Lelic’s disarming The child still alive now roams the town like an Fleurette, decides to join the circus. Between childhood friend, Kaycee. Soon, she House. When young animal, abandoned by his guilt-ridden Fleurette and young Minnie Davis (who’s on realises that Optimal Plastics has more couple Syd and Jack put parents, and hated by the townsfolk for the a path to reform school there’s no easy way connections to Kaycee’s disappearance in an offer for a perfect home (one they loss he represents. As the chapters lead up to back from), Constance will need to use all her and other unsettling circumstances than know to be far too low), they don’t expect the mysterious accident that befell the powers – and a few more – to help them both. she ever thought, and the tight grip the at all to get it. But the owner accepts their children, we find out why Douglas Evans company has on the town will need all offer, wanting a young couple to move in, – now known as ‘Dog’ – leads the life he now her strength to loosen it. and the pair take on all that the rickety does, and how a small village can become so Also out this month home requires, including cleaning out the twisted by vengeance and hate. SWEET LITTLE LIES previous owner’s belongings. As we follow Caz Frear Syd and Jack in alternating journal entries, CLEAR TO THE HORIZON John Sandford’s Deep Freeze (S&S, PB, Zaffre. PB. $29.99 we discover that the attic led to a most Dave Warner Was $32.99, special price $27.99), Michael Connelly’s Two Kinds of Truth (A&U, When eight-year-old disturbing discovery, and that the find, in Fremantle Press. PB. $29.99 turn, led to some unfortunate decisions. PB, Was $32.99, special price $27.99), Cat Kinsella hears her After winning the Ned And that’s all before someone is found Jack Reacher returns in Lee Child’s The father lie to police Kelly Award in 2016 murdered behind their home – and the Midnight Line (Bantam, PB, Was $32.99, about knowing (during a memorable police decide to keep an eye on them. But special price $27.99), Faye Kellerman Maryanne Doyle – a event that involved him the house has more than its share of leading into summer with Killing Season seventeen-year-old-girl singing one of his secrets … and some of its possessions have (HarperCollins, PB, $29.99), David who later goes missing greatest hits), the far too much in common with Syd and Baldacci’s End Game (Pan Mac, PB, $32.99), – it fractures her excellent Dave Warner Jack’s past. A haunting, smartly written Janet Evanovich’s Hardcore Twenty-Four relationship with him is back with two of his psychological thriller. (Headline, PB, $29.99) … and more! permanently. Nearly 20 years later, Cat is greatest literary 12 READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2017

New Non-fiction philosophers to support their painstakingly and a decline in traditional ways of life accessorised worldview. It all contributes and rural work. Wigtown is Scotland’s to a world of appealing, seductive surfaces, ‘National Book Town’, a status which, Non-fiction Book of the Month carefully constructed, with not enough Bythell observes, has reinvigorated its care or attention paid to their underlying economy and brought together all sorts substance – or lack of it. of people for whom farming and distilling TRACKER Gibson is a celebrity for our age; she no longer provide an income. There is Alexis Wright fooled us because we wanted to believe, Nicky, his only other permanent employee, Giramondo. PB. $39.95 or didn’t care enough to look closely. This whose love of dumpster-diving provides $34.99 cautionary tale is directed at all of us … and much amusement, a parade of house- A fiercely intelligent and provocative writer, Alexis Wright it’s criminally enjoyable. and shop-guests, and a stream of odd is one of the most important voices in our literary Jo Case is editor of Readings Monthly customers and eccentric types trying to landscape. Her singular books – whether a richly surreal sell their book collections. imagining of the future (The Swan Book), or an eye-opening AN ACTIVIST LIFE Bythell describes his buying trips account of grassroots activism (Grog War) – interrogate Christine Milne around Scotland and the people he meets, contemporary Australian life and deepen our understanding of UQP. PB. $32.95 and his hill-climbing, mountain-biking and Aboriginal culture. Her latest book is a ‘collective memoir’ of Available 13 November fishing interludes in the beautiful Galloway, charismatic Aboriginal leader, Leigh Bruce ‘Tracker’ Tilmouth. Former Greens leader where he lives and works. These diary Christine Milne tells the entries are an important reminder of work– ‘With Tracker she is again pushing new boundaries story of her life as an life balance. They confirm to certain wage- activist and slaves, including your reviewer, that such of the written form ... This is a landmark work – environmental warrior things are possible and important, even in through 18 objects, a 24/7 economy choked by aggressively epic in its scope and empathy.’ interweaving the competitive business models like Amazon’s. personal and political. Shaun’s reflections on these changes and Tracker looms large in the national consciousness. An Arrente man from the Alice They span the butter their devastating outcomes for diversity Springs region, he was known for his activism and bold ideas, as much as for his irreverent pats in her kitchen that represent her and local knowledge are extremely relevant sense of humour and lively antics. His life and work intersect with a key period in the journey from farm girl to environmental now. I urge you all to read this book. I political life of Australia. He was a member of the stolen generations, taken from his family and human rights activist, to the Pride laughed aloud on most pages of this book and raised in a mission on Croker Island. Throughout his adult life, he fought, passionately T-shirt she wore walking in Mardi Gras and highly recommend it to anyone who and tirelessly, for Aboriginal self-determination, including in his role as director of the next to her son, after years of fighting for reads books and would like to be able to do Central Land Council. In crafting this work, Wright has interviewed Tracker’s friends, the legal reform of gay rights in Tasmania. so in the future. family and colleagues, as well as the man himself, interweaving their distinct voices to George Delaney is from Readings Carlton create something that is intimate and expansive. The book’s unusual structure is testament to the value and role of storytelling in Aboriginal life. Wright comments: ‘this is what Biography LEONARDO DA VINCI Aboriginal people understand, that it takes the voices of many to tell the stories of country, Walter Isaacson the story lines.’ Her books have always drawn from an oral storytelling tradition, and with S&S. HB. Was $49.99 Tracker she is again pushing new boundaries of the written form, creating new spaces for WORKING CLASS MAN $39.99 her community. Jimmy Barnes In this work, every person has a chance to speak and we read about the same events HarperCollins. HB. $49.99 A substantial new biography of one of from multiple perspectives, always with new and surprising details. The nuanced portrait $39.99 of Tracker that emerges from these collected fragments reveals the impact he made on so history’s undisputed Jimmy Barnes’ first many lives. This is a landmark work – epic in its scope and empathy. greats, Leonardo da memoir, Working Class Vinci, from the Bronte Coates is digital content coordinator at Readings and manager of the Readings Prizes. Boy, was a smash-hit acclaimed biographer of bestseller that won Steve Jobs (his book was awards and critical filmed with a script by vote for them. Also covers Jacqui Lambie, acclaim. In this hugely Australian Studies Aaron Sorkin) and Clive Palmer and Derryn Hinch, and anticipated sequel, he Albert Einstein (adapted into a series movements like Reclaim Australia. reveals how he used the starring Geoffrey Rush). Da Vinci created fuel of the childhood JOHN CURTIN’S WAR the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, but was as THE WOMAN WHO trauma he explored in his first book to ignite John Edwards absorbed in science and engineering as his FOOLED THE WORLD and propel Australia’s greatest rock’n’roll Viking. HB. $49.99 art. This enduring recipe for creativity. was Beau Donelly & Nick Toscano story. But beyond the combustible merry-go- $45 completed with his ease at being a misfit: Scribe. PB. $32.99 round of fame, drugs and rehab, across the Available 13 November illegitimate, gay, vegetarian, left-handed, Available 13 November Cold Chisel, solo and soul years – this is a John Curtin became easily distracted, and at times heretical. You don’t need to spellbinding and searingly honest reflection Australia’s prime have heard about on success, fame and addiction. minister eight weeks NOT FOR THE Belle Gibson, the before Japan launched FAINT-HEARTED Instafamous ‘wellness THE DIARY OF A war in the Pacific. warrior’ who made a Kevin Rudd Curtin’s struggle for BOOKSELLER fortune and built an empire Pan Mac. HB. Was $44.99 power against Joe Lyons Shaun Bythell on her claim to have treated $39.99 and Bob Menzies, his Profile. HB. $29.99 her brain cancer (which In 2007, Kevin Rudd dramatic use of it when I was reluctant to she didn’t have) with diet and lifestyle. Then defeated (and unseated) he took office in October 1941, and his make a start on this again, most people have heard of her: she’s John Howard, the determination to be heard in Washington diary because I suspected infamous as a hoaxer whose app, book and longest-serving and London as Japan advanced, is a political it might, in the spirit of brand The Whole Pantry was backed by Apple conservative prime epic unmatched in Australian experience. its ur-text, Black Books, and Penguin (neither of whom fact-checked minister since Menzies, This landmark biography (the first of two engender short-tempered her claims) and who raised copious funds for in the Kevin07 campaign. volumes) places Curtin as a man of his times. job dissatisfaction and charities … that she never passed on. Here, Rudd responds to make me feel like I was What makes this book such a his critics in writing for ROGUE NATION repeating my workday fascinating and necessary read is that the first time – with a level of self-reflection Royce Kurmelovs every time I opened it. Thankfully, it’s not simply an extensive takedown of and capacity for sending himself up rarely Hachette. PB. $32.99 however, it had the opposite effect: Diary of Gibson the individual by the investigative seen in political autobiography. Available 28 November a Bookseller is a love letter to everyone’s journalists who uncovered her. It’s also favourite anti-vocation and to the Working for Senator a thoughtful, somewhat gossipy (though THE FOOTY LADY communities we serve. Shaun Bythell’s Nick Xenophon, Royce meticulously reported) systematic diary does indeed detail the more Stephanie Asher Kurmelovs saw how investigation into the multi-million-dollar humorous and exasperating episodes of his MUP. PB. $29.99 denizens of Canberra ‘wellness’ industry, internet fame, and the days spent inside The Book Shop in Susan Alberti has were underestimating mechanics of building and maintaining it. Scotland’s Wigtown, but it is also a portrait battled boardrooms, One Nation; in his own Beau Donelly and Nick Toscano take us of his small town and its quirky community, courts, lymphoma and life, though, he knew behind the scenes at Apple, Penguin and both sharp-tongued and loving. adult diabetes – and people who were in with the developers who created Gibson’s Bythell has been running the shop was one of the driving favour of the resurrected bestselling app. They create an almost for 15 years and in that time has seen the forces behind the AFL’s party. He wanted to understand the gleefully damning picture of the wellness fortunes of both rural Scotland and its recent move into disconnection between our leaders and the milieu, skewering the mystically infused bookshops shift and respond to pushes women’s football. When people who are, increasingly, deciding to not pseudoscience preached by its lifestyle from both multinational corporations her first husband was READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2017 13 killed by a truck, Susan took over their THE BEST FILM I NEVER construction business. When her daughter MADE: AND OTHER was diagnosed with type-1 diabetes she STORIES ABOUT A LIFE embarked on a mission to find a cure. And confronted with the exclusion of women IN THE ARTS from AFL, the Western Bulldogs vice- Bruce Beresford president battled to open the game to all. Text. PB. $29.99 Australian filmmaking CAN YOU HEAR legend Bruce Beresford THE SEA?: MY (Breaker Morant, Driving GRANDMOTHER’S STORY Miss Daisy) shares a series of breezy, Brenda Niall opinionated, wryly Text. HB. $29.99 engaging stories and Brenda Niall (The Boyds) reflections. He shines a has turned her award- spotlight on the real-life winning biographer’s eye side of the business, offering fascinating to a personal subject: her glimpses of Madeleine St John, Clive grandmother, Aggie. She James and Margaret Olley. tells the story of a fiercely independent and intelligent woman who Cultural Studies nce upon a time, hand-painted braved a new country as signs brought colour and a single woman, teaching in a country O school, before marrying a Riverina grazier, CURING AFFLUENZA vibrancy to Australian cities and towns. Artful, kitsch, and at times whose large powerful family was wary of Richard Denniss the newcomer with ideas of her own. hilarious, Brady Michaels and Dale Black Inc. PB. $27.99 Readers who loved Kate Grenville’s Campisi team up again to record Richard Denniss’s biography of her mother, One Story, will these now fading signs – from powerful essays in The embrace this beautifully written story of a old-time ads for household goods Monthly have won him woman at once ordinary and extraordinary, to garages, Chinese restaurants, an avid readership. In by one of our finest writers. motels, milk bars – a vibrant record this sparkling book of of Australian social history is found IN SHOCK ideas, the chief economist of The along the way. Dr. Rana Awdish Australia Institute Bantam. HB. $29.99 shows we must An intensive care doctor distinguish between consumerism (the becomes a dying patient love of buying things), which is in this gripping memoir. undeniably harmful to the planet, and At seven months materialism (the love of things) which pregnant, Rana Awdish can in fact be beneficial. With www.newsouthpublishing.com suffered a catastrophic contributions from Bob Brown, Bill medical event, McKibben and more. haemorrhaging nearly all of her blood volume. She spent months fighting for her life in her own ASSEMBLY hospital, and was unexpectedly faced with Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri her fellow doctors’ inability to see and OUP. HB. $43.95 acknowledge human suffering, the result of Each year, a new a self-protective barrier hard-wired in eruption of ‘leaderless’ medical training. For readers of Atul social movements Gawande and Paul Kalanithi. leaves journalists, political analysts, WHERE THE PAST police forces, and BEGINS governments Amy Tan disoriented and perplexed. Activists, Fourth Estate. PB. $32.99 too, struggle to understand and evaluate In this intimate, the power and effectiveness of horizontal insightful memoir, movements. Drawing on the ideas bestselling author Amy developed through their well-known Tan (The Joy Luck Club) Empire trilogy, Hardt and Negri have reflects on her life as a produced a timely proposal for how writer, her childhood current large-scale, horizontal and the symbiotic movements can develop the capacities for relationship between political strategy and decision-making to fiction and emotional effect lasting and democratic change. memory. She shares her traumatic childhood, confessions of self-doubt from her journals, and heartbreaking letters to BETWEEN ETERNITIES and from her mother. Javier Marías Penguin. PB. $32.99 THE LAST GIRL Available 13 November Nadia Murad This exhilarating, Virago. PB. $32.99 far-ranging collection Available 14 November features non-fiction Nadia Murad, a 23-year- writing published old Yazidi woman and together in English for Nobel Peace Prize the first time. nominee, tells the story Following in the of losing family members essayistic tradition of and being sexually Montaigne, Between enslaved to ISIS. She Eternities ranges widely from the literary to takes us from her the philosophical to the autobiographical, peaceful childhood in a from football to cinema, comic books to remote Iraq village, through loss and mortality to ‘Why Almost No One Can Be brutality, to safety in Germany. Features a Trusted’. Marias shows why he’s often foreword by Amal Clooney. cited as Spain’s greatest living writer. 14 READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2017

CHRONICLES OF A GOD: A HUMAN HISTORY from the Soviet Union) led to the THE RUNAWAY SPECIES LIQUID SOCIETY Reza Aslan inability of Russians to know themselves. David Eagleman & Anthony Brandt Without sociologists, political scientists, Umberto Eco Bantam. PB. $35 Canongate. PB. $32.99 philosophers and psychologists working Harvill Secker. HB. $45 Available 13 November What is special about the together to try to understand human Available 13 November Reza Aslan sheds new human brain that enables behaviour, it has been impossible for light on mankind’s us to innovate? In this, Umberto Eco’s Russians to critique their own actions. relationship with the Neuroscientist David last collection, the Notably insidious is the way in which the divine and challenges Eagleman and composer popular and intellectual so-called ‘gay propaganda’ law (banning our perspective on faith Anthony Brandt explore giant brings his the promotion of homosexuality to minors) and the birth of the need for novelty, the erudition and curiosity has been used as a weapon of control. One religion. From the simulation of possible to bear on the modern of Gessen’s interviewees was born in 1985, origins of spiritual futures, and the social components that drive world, in essays and is a gender and queer studies academic thought to the concept the inventiveness of our species, leading a tour originally written for his who was forced to resign his university of an active, engaged, divine presence that of human creativity. regular column in position and leave the country. His story underlies all creation, Aslan examines how l’Espresso magazine. He explores popular is fascinating and chilling. This book on the idea of god arose and was gradually culture and politics, being seen, the whole is a brilliant examination of a personalised, endowed with human traits Psychology conspiracies, the old and the young, mobile complicated but very pertinent subject. phones, mass media, racism, good manners and emotions, then transformed into a Kara Nicholson is from Readings Carlton and the crisis in ideological values. single divine personality. BECOMING MYSELF THE YEAR OF VOTING Irvin D. Yalom History Politics DANGEROUSLY Scribe. PB. $35 Maureen Dowd Irvin D. Yalom has made a career of investigating Twelve. PB. $26.99 MYTHOS A WORLD OF THREE the lives of others. In In this perilous and this profound memoir, Stephen Fry ZEROES shocking 2016 he turns his writing and Michael Joseph. PB. Was $32.99 Muhammad Yunus campaign, much-loved his therapeutic eye upon $27.99 Scribe. PB. Was $32.99 Pulitzer prize-winning himself. Yalom’s Available 13 November $29.99 New York Times reflections on his life The Greek myths are columnist Maureen The bestselling author of and growth invite us to amongst the greatest Dowd traced the Banker to the Poor and reflect on the origins of our own selves and stories ever told, passed psychologies and co-winner of the Nobel the meanings of our lives. down through millennia Peace Prize outlines his pathologies in one of the and inspiring writers radical economic vision nastiest and most significant battles of the and artists as varied as for tackling inequality, sexes ever. Dowd has covered Donald Travel Writing Shakespeare, joblessness, and Trump and Hillary Clinton since the 90s. Michelangelo, James environmental Joyce and Walt Disney. degradation, and GO BACK TO WHERE SAGA LAND They are embedded deeply in the traditions, describes the worldwide movement already YOU CAME FROM Richard Fidler & Kári Gíslason tales and cultural DNA of the West. Stephen working to make it a reality. Muhammad Sasha Polakow-Suransky ABC Books. HB. Was $39.99 Fry’s Mythos perfectly captures these stories Yunus, the Bangladeshi economist who Hurst. HB. $39.99 $34.99 for the modern age – in all their rich and invented microcredit, argues that the From Australia to the US Personally, I could deeply human relevance. capitalist system is broken. In its current form, and beyond, bore anyone on the it inevitably leads to rampant inequality and opportunistic politicians subject of Iceland, but this ROME: A HISTORY IN devastating environmental destruction. have exploited economic book won’t bore you at all! SEVEN SACKINGS crisis, terrorist attacks As it seems anyone who Matthew Kneale THE FUTURE IS HISTORY and an influx of refugees has been to Iceland does, Atlantic. HB. Was $39.99 Masha Gessen to bring hateful and Richard Fidler and Kári $35.99 Granta. PB. $32.99 reactionary views from Gíslason want to tell the Available 22 November As I read the final the margins of political stories of this strange and fascinating land. A fascinating history of chapters of Masha discourse into the corridors of power. Sasha Fidler and Gíslason met over a radio the city of Rome, seen Gessen’s latest book on Polakow-Suransky’s on-the-ground interview and immediately hit it off. As through the eyes of its Russian politics, it is reportage and interviews with the rising firm friends, who Kári describes as having most significant sackings, reported that hundreds stars of the new right tell the story of how a conversation that will never end, it from the Gauls to the of protesters have been we got here. Polakow-Suransky spent six seemed to make sense when Kári said he Nazis and everything in arrested in cities across weeks in Australia interviewing politicians, was off to Iceland, and Richard said he’d between – written by the Russia. Putin’s number- opinion shapers and former detainees. An go with him. Saga Land starts as many good Booker shortlisted author one political opponent indispensable account of why xenophobia Icelandic sagas have: two men head off on of The English Passengers. Alexei Navalny had just been jailed for went mainstream in countries known an adventure. Along the way, they stop to tell Afflicted by earthquakes, floods, fires and organising the anti-government protest, but historically as defenders of human rights. stories of the past, to encounter new people, plagues, it has most of all been repeatedly thousands went out to march anyway, and to reaffirm their friendly and familial ravaged by roving armies. Matthew Kneale risking arrest and physical violence. Gessen’s bonds. In alternating chapters, Richard and examines the most important attacks, book seeks to explain how it has come to Science Kári travel to Iceland with the intention of revealing how they transformed Rome. this – how totalitarianism has managed to recording a radio series about the sagas, as reclaim Russia. Gorbachev was thought to THE RIVER OF they travel to the places they belong to. The 1947: WHERE NOW have revolutionised Soviet politics in the Icelandic Sagas form one of the great bodies BEGINS 1980s, creating a more open and democratic CONSCIOUSNESS of literature. Written during the twelfth and Oliver Sacks Elisabeth Åsbrink society, but today under Putin’s rule, things thirteenth centuries, they tell the stories look very different. Picador. PB. Was $32.99 of the Icelanders: from the establishment Scribe. PB. $29.99 Gessen has a wonderful ability to $29.99 of Reykjavik in 874 (dated by a volcano Elisabeth Åsbrink write about her subject in a way that is eruption) up until the time of writing. They chronicles the creation of This posthumous both engaging and deeply insightful. She also include the most complete remaining the modern world, as the collection from the great suggests that this book is a ‘nonfiction novel’ account of Norse mythology. forces that went on to Oliver Sacks is a parting which includes a cast of ‘characters’, Russian While the sagas capture and hold the govern our lives for the gift, in ten essays. ‘We citizens from various walks of life whom she imagination as Richard and Kári travel next 70 years were first get to spend time again interviewed in depth over several years. She around Iceland, another family saga closer born. Production begins with Sacks the botanist, likens other attempts to explain the country to home is woven through the tale. Kári’s of the Kalashnikov, the historian of science, of her birth to the fable of the blind men and relationship to his Icelandic heritage has Christian Dior creates the the marine biologist and, the elephant. Most books on Russia are only always been complicated by his relationship New Look, Simone de Beauvoir writes The of course, the able to describe just the elephant’s trunk or with his Icelandic family, which had been Second Sex, the first actual computer bug is neurologist. [This collection] reflects the its tail, whereas her ‘ambition this time was unacknowledged for much of his childhood. discovered, the CIA is set up, a clockmaker’s agility of Sacks’s enthusiasms, moving from to both describe and define the animal’. In one of their rare meetings, his father had son draws up the plan that remains the goal forgetting and neglect in science to Freud’s Particularly interesting is her thesis mentioned a connection to the sagas that of jihadists to this day, and a UN Committee early work on the neuroanatomy of fish; that the loss of the social sciences under Kári had never anticipated. Now was the is given four months to find a solution to the from the mental lives of plants and Stalin (academics and intellectuals were time to find the end of the tale. problem of Palestine. A striking look at how invertebrates to the malleability of our systematically executed or expelled history is made in the present. perception of speed.’ – The Guardian Marie Matteson is from Readings Carlton READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2017 15

VOYAGE OF THE Natural History SOUTHERN SUN Michael Smith Black Inc. PB. $34.99 BIRDMANIA CHRISTMAS GIFTS Michael Smith built a Bernd Brunner multimillion-dollar global A&U. PB. $34.99 FOR EVERYOnE business fitting out movie Packed with intriguing theatres, before restoring facts and exquisite and Melbourne’s Sun Theatre. rare artwork, Birdmania After a business deal went showcases an eclectic bad, shaken by how close and fascinating selection he’d come to being wiped of bird devotees. Meet out, Smith took an even Karl Russ, the pioneer of bigger risk: to become the first person to fly ‘bird rooms’ and lover of solo around the world in an amphibious plane. the Australian budgerigar, who had difficulty renting For lodgings when landlords realised who he Humour was. George Lupton, a wealthy Yorkshire adventurers lawyer, commissioned the theft of uniquely For readers patterned eggs every year for 20 years from who love A PLEASURE TO BE HERE: the same unfortunate female guillemot, who sparkling THE BEST OF CLARKE & never had a chance to raise a chick. And new ideas DAWE 1989-2017 Tibbles the nineteenth-century cat who John Clarke collected many of Lord Walter Rothschild’s Text. PB. $29.99 bird samples. John Clarke and Bryan Dawe’s weekly mock- For interviews (with Bryan Interior Design budding as the interviewer and feminists John playing any one of MORE GREAT a wide cast of public PROPERTIES OF figures) were an COUNTRY VICTORIA Australian TV And for institution for 30 years. Richard Allen & Kimbal Baker budding This brilliant, skewering, deadpan hilarious Miegunyah. HB. $59.99 readers collection brings together just a few of the The Western District best ‘interview’ scripts, all written by John, squatters of the 1870s with a foreword from Bryan. It’s a real were speculators and pleasure to read, re-read and remember. investors, whose entrepreneurship built TINKERING: THE great wealth and blackincbooks.com COMPLETE BOOK OF elaborate mansions, employing the JOHN CLARKE best-known landscape architects of the day. John Clarke This stunning sequel to the bestselling Text. HB. $34.99 Great Properties of Country Victoria takes us NOT FOR THE FAINT-HEARTED Available 24 November into the private world of 13 notable Kevin Rudd The sudden death of properties, in images and words. Who was the man behind the phenomenal success John Clarke in April of the Kevin07 campaign? This is an optimistic book, 2017 cut short the life of written with passion, conviction and insight, chronicling a man who was not only the unlikely rise of the ‘boy from Eumundi’ to the most Visual Arts powerful office in the land. a great and much-loved entertainer and satirist, but a wonderful writer. ANNIE LEIBOVITZ: Tinkering represents his PORTRAITS 2005–2016 work from the 1970s Annie Leibovitz DARE NOT LINGER in both Australia and New Zealand, and Phaidon. HB. $120 Nelson Mandela includes his writing for radio, television, The story of Mandela’s In this new collection presidency, drawing heavily stage and screen, plus some previously from one of the most on the memoir he began to unpublished pieces. There are also moving influential write as he prepared to finish recollections of people and places, many photographers of our his term as president, but of which he wrote towards the end of his was unable to finish. Now, the time, iconic portraits sit acclaimed South African writer, life. Introduced by his daughter, Lorin side by side never- Mandla Langa, has completed Clarke, this beautiful illustrated hardback before-published the task using Mandela’s is the perfect way to remember the genius photographs. Each of unfinished draft. who made us all laugh at ourselves and our the photographs documents contemporary society for so many years. culture with her artist’s eye, wit, and uncanny ability to personalise even the YOU CAN’T SPELL most recognisable figures. MEMOIRS AMERICA WITHOUT ME Mike Willesee CITY OF CROWS Mike Willesee has Alec Baldwin & Kurt Andersen SONGLINES: TRACKING Chris Womersley been Australia’s most Ebury. PB. $34.99 THE SEVEN SISTERS revered television “One of the unrepentantly journalist for over fifty Alec Baldwin, whose Margo Neale daring and original talents in the years. And behind the National Museum of Australia. PB. $49.95 landscape of Australian fiction” Trump impersonations lens, a businessman, Sydney Morning Herald on SNL are as loved by This stunning powerbroker, trailblazer liberals as Trump is companion to the From award-winning author and enduring enigma. Chris Womersley comes an After thousands of loathed by them, has National Museum of extraordinary historical novel set stories, a legend finally teamed up with Kurt Australia’s blockbuster in seventeenth-century Paris, its tells his own. Andersen, co-founder of Indigenous-led streets thronged with preachers, the satirical Spy exhibition, Songlines: troubadours and rogues. magazine (which has Tracking the Seven taken aim at Trump since he was just a Sisters, explores the grandstanding real-estate billionaire). history and meaning of songlines, the ‘We’ll be channeling and amplifying the Dreaming or creation tracks that crisscross real Trump,’ says Andersen, confirming this the Australian continent, of which the Seven www.panmacmillan.com.au will be a narrative satire, not just sketches. Sisters songline is one of the most extensive. 16 READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2017

oo enin Women’s Association. This cookbook holds exactly the same philosophy, with recipes with Chris Gordon for sausage rolls and perfect brioche buns. (There’s even a recipe for your pet puppy!) COOKING WITH Like the Poh we know, it’s all heart. KINDNESS Explore every day Edgars Mission THE MODERN COOK’S Affirm Press. PB. $35 YEAR This wonderful Anna Jones Discover the hottest, must-visit cookbook gives and Fourth Estate. HB. $49.99 destinations for 2018. gives. The recipes are There are huge fans of gathered from all over Anna Jones in our office. Now in it’s 13th edition, Lonely Planet’s Australia, representing Best in Travel 2018 ranks the top ten Her recipes are an countries, regions and cities to visit. the very best from the indispensable addition Drawing on the knowledge and passion of kitchens of our most to every cook’s Lonely Planet’s staff, authors and online famed chefs. Each bookshelf, and show you community, we present a year’s worth of recipe is sourced from a restaurant that how to make the most of travel inspiration to take you out of the serves amazing meals, without an animal in ordinary and into the unforgettable. seasonal produce, using sight. Included are recipes from such Fitzroy unassuming, hugely inventive flavours and favourites as Smith & Daughters, ingredients. Divided into six seasons Transformer and more. All royalties go to (perfect for Australia’s climate), this book Edgar’s Mission, a not-for-profit sanctuary contains over 250 delicious vegetarian that provides a safe haven for over 450 recipes, interspersed with tips on everything rescued farm animals. All in all, this would from seasonal music playlists, to seasonal be a perfect gift for those wanting their book flowers. It’s a pretty edition and it’s set to of choice to have a little conscience to it. influence and entice you into greener (vegetarian) pastures. THE GREAT AUSTRALIAN COOKBOOK THE TIVOLI ROAD BAKER Various Michael James with Pippa James Journey through 200 of Echo. HB. $50 Hardie Grant. HB. $60 the world’s most astonishing You may have queued at urban destinations. Speaking of cookbooks that are good and do the Tivoli Road Bakery in Refreshed and updated, this edition of good, The Great the early hours of the Lonely Planet’s The Cities Book is the ustralian Cookbook is weekend, in the hope that perfect companion to help any traveller decide on their next getaway. Each of the back, with another you’ll get your hands on 200 cities profiled is accompanied by wonderful array of your favourite sourdough vivid photography and recommendations recipes from all over. loaf. It’s that sort of place, from Lonely Planet’s travel experts on OzHarvest will once and for good reason: its where to go and what to see. again receive royalties, to support its work baked goods and salads are absolutely nourishing those in need. The book delicious. Michael James shares his secrets features 165 recipes from our most famed of baking and creating, and the growers vital chefs (with snapshots in their homes), to his success. Included in this compilation including Melbourne’s own Stephanie are seasonal favourites, including Christmas Alexander, George Calombaris, Frank cake, plus the inventive use of native Camorra, Matt Wilkinson and many more. Australian flavours such as red gum honey NEW BOOK OUT NOW and wattle seed A flawless collection of MATT MORAN’S recipes that are already well loved. AUSTRALIAN FOOD Matt Moran CHAMPAGNE: Murdoch. HB. $45 A SECRET HISTORY Matt Moran appears Robert Walters on television, in A&U. PB. $32.99 Available 22 November newspapers, and Did you know that the seems like a regular- very first champagne type person heading an was not a wonderful, empire of great food tightly-bottled collection and service. It’s all of delighted bubbles, but very impressive, as is rather a still wine? his latest cookbook – a type of reference Bubbles were considered book sharing all the food he loves to make a mistake. The history of for his family and friends. Inspiration has how we started there and finished with a been taken from his various locations, from heady collection of sparkling wines all over Sydney Harbour to his farm, but none of the world is answered in this book, by wine the recipes are difficult – and all of them merchant Robert Walter. This volume will honour fresh, colourful ingredients. Say help you determine the ideal bottle of what you like, but this bloke knows exactly bubbles to bring to the next party. what he is doing. GROW YOUR OWN POH BAKES 100 GREATS Angus Stewart & Simon Leake Poh Ling Yeow Murdoch. PB. $45 Murdoch. PB. $39.99 Deep breath, everyone Poh said in a recent out there sprouting a interview, ‘I love green thumb (or simply baking so much I’ve a willingness to get your been known to park hands dirty): it’s time to myself in front of the sow seedlings! And oven to watch a cake having a small outdoor ‘Michael James is one of the cook, like television.’ If space is simply no greatest bakers of his generation.’ that doesn’t give you a excuse. These authors have been knee-deep BEN SHEWRY, ATTICA clear idea of what this gorgeous book is in soil for years now – and this important, about, then consider the menu at her incredibly detailed book shares the breadth Adelaide destination cafe and bakery, of their knowledge. Listed are the steps hardiegrantbooks.com Jamface. She describes the Jamface baking needed to plant food on your rooftop, down philosophy as the love child between a the side of your home, in your courtyard, or Parisian patisserie and the Country even on your apartment windowsill. READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2017 17

New on t iction their persecutors. Survival is the ultimate defiance. But hope takes real courage as See books for kids unior and middle readers on pages – like a razor-thin edge ... each time you put your hand on it, it cuts you. Young Adult Book of the Month Natalie Platten is from Readings Doncaster

THIS MORTAL COIL 36 QUESTIONS THAT Emily Suvada CHANGED MY MIND Puffin. PB. $17.99 ABOUT YOU You may at first think, on picking this book up, that you’ve Vicki Grant already read a lot like this. From the post-apocalyptic Hotkey. PB. $19.99 wasteland blighted by plague to the preternaturally capable young Two strangers meet and hacker prodigy Catarina (child of a genius scientist, no less), many decide to partake in a of the usual YA dystopian tropes are present. There’s the 36-question study to malevolent evil corporation (Cartaxus) and an underground hacker see if they’ll fall in love. organisation that may or may not have good intentions (The Skies).

But Hildy and Paul CRIME There’s gene-tech implanted in every human, and someone of the have very different opposite gender who simply turns up one day and you just shouldn’t trust them, yet have reasons for getting no choice. That someone also happens to be kind of cute … involved in the In Broome, a spate of local Wonderfully, however, Suvada is a gifted storyteller and in her hands these teen-lit psychology test: for thefts puts Snowy Lane standards are transformed into a book of great beauty. Right from the opening scenes of Paul it’s money, but for Hildy the reasons and Dan Clement on the Catarina literally outrunning the plague (the disease is transmitted by late-stage victims are complex. Together, theyll laugh and trail of a notorious cold- exploding and releasing toxic clouds into the atmosphere), the writer weaves an entertaining cry, lie and throw things, then run away case serial killer. and suspense-filled narrative – with spectacular plot twists you may not see coming. only to come back again. But will they fall The author’s background is maths and science, and she’s used this knowledge to in love? Inspired by the real study build a world (controlled by genetic science, mass outbreaks and futuristic tech) that’s popularised by the ‘Modern Love’ New York highly imaginative, yet eerily plausible. Coding geeks will delight in the beautifully Times column. described virtual reality hacking scenes that will look wonderful on screen if (when?) this and its planned sequels make it to the movie house, and adrenaline junkies won’t ALMOST MIDNIGHT be left disappointed by the high-stakes action. There’s political intrigue, a strong dose Rainbow Rowell of conspiracy and a touch of romance (not too much) – basically, something for almost everyone. Even if you think you never want to read another dystopian thriller again, I urge Pan Mac. HB. $19.99 you to give this a chance. This gift edition contains two illustrated stories: Kate Mara is from Readings athorn ‘Midnights’ (previously featured in the My True A SKINFUL OF SHADOWS THE LIBRARIAN OF Love Gave to Me anthology) and ‘Kindred Frances Hardinge AUSCHWITZ Spirits’ (first published Pan Mac. PB. $24.99 Antonio Iturbe & Lilit Thwaites as a World Book Day Set during the start trans. title). In ‘Midnights’, of the English civil Henry Holt. HB. $26.99 Noel and Mags meet at the same New War, Skinful of Shadows Available 14 November Year’s Eve party every year, falling a little tells the story of The Librarian of more in love each time. In ‘Kindred Spirits’, Makepeace, a girl uschwit is based Elena queues for the new Star Wars movie plagued by nightmares of on the true story of Dita and meets Gabe, a fellow fan. CRIME ghosts tearing her apart, Kraus, a 14-year-old girl looking for the chance to imprisoned, together KIDS LIKE US Nick is hiding from a man possess her. Her mother, with her mother and Hilary Reyl a cold, tight-lipped woman who chose a with a grudge, and hunting father, in the family Text. PB. $19.99 puritan village for their home, ‘treats’ these camp at Auschwitz. The a killer in New Zealand’s Martin is a teenager on nightmares by telling Makepeace ‘you can family camp was an Marlborough Sounds. the autism spectrum. only run from the wolves for so long before experimental initiative of the Nazis, to He falls for Gilberte- you need to sharpen a stick’ and forcing her create a false representation of life in the Alice, who he mistakes daughter to spend nights locked in a camp to the outside world in order to hide for a character in a church, in a graveyard full of desperate, genocide. At its peak, 17,500 prisoners were novel he’s obsessed clawing spirits. assigned to the family camp at Auschwitz. with – Marcel Proust’s When an act of rebellion leads to the Tragically, only 1294 survived. In this masterpiece n Search of death of Makepeace’s mother, Makepeace section of the camp, family members were Lost Time. Gradually, he learns she is the illegitimate daughter of allowed to mix and there was even a realises she is not the fantasy girl, aristocrat Lord Fellemotte and is shipped purpose-built childrens block where Gilberte, but a real person named Alice. off to the ancestral home of Grizehayes to children received basic lessons and could The act of falling in love, in all its work as a kitchen girl. Makepeace finds play games. But these prisoners did not unpredictability, teaches Martin that he little of comfort at the secretive and cruel benefit from any special conditions; they can connect to people. Grizehayes, and after James, a slightly suffered from hunger, cold, exhaustion, older boy who claims to be her brother, illness and poor sanitation like any other tells her what the Elder Fellemottes of the prisoner at Auschwitz. RENEGADES house have in store for them, Makepeace is Antonio Iturb has drawn on research Marissa Meyer determined to escape. As the years pass and and personal interviews with actual Pan Mac. PB. $18.99 war heats up, loyalties to the king and the survivors of the family camp for his Available 14 November FICTION / SPECULATIVE MYSTERY parliament are tested and the Fellemottes fictionalised retelling of this disturbing From the bestselling are getting desperate. Determined not to record of human suffering. In this way, we author of The Lunar be an unconsenting vessel for ancestors meet the heroine of this story, Dita, whos Chronicles comes a new From the Arizona Desert she loathes, Makepeace at last escapes given the challenging task of librarian high-stakes world of to the South China Sea, Grizehayes and embarks on a journey that and caretaker of contraband books, of adventure and passion. sees her become a spy, a prophet, a saviour, which there are eight paperbound and The Renegades are brilliant intelligence an unsung hero – and at last, her own person. six living (ie. those shared orally through prodigies, humans with analyst Richard Worse Skinful of Shadows is simply sublime. storytelling). To be discovered with banned extraordinary abilities is dodging bullets and Frances Hardinge’s use of languages paints material would mean certain death for Dita, that emerged from the cracking codes. vivid pictures, adding depth and bringing so being custodian of these precious few ruins of a crumbling society to establish a the simplest scene or statement to life. The books places her at great personal risk. But sense of peace and order to the chaos. descriptions of the ghosts entering new this is a risk Dita feels emboldened to take Nova has reason to hate the Renegades, vessels genuinely made me press my back as the exchange of ideas, knowledge and and she is seeking vengeance. As she gets against my couch, check behind me and education is a form of rebellion and gives closer to her target, she meets Adrian, a pull my feet up. Magnificent, haunting and hope in a hopeless situation. Renegade who believes in justice – and in thoughtful. I loved this book. 14 Hope carries the characters of this Nova. But her allegiance is to a villain who Dani olomon is from Readings Kids story forward with resistance against has the power to end them both. 18 READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2017

Book of the Month

THE GIRL WHO DRANK THE MOON Kelly Barnhill Piccadilly Books. PB. $16.99 The 2017 winner of the Newbery Medal is available to Australian readers in a new paperback edition. Xan is a good and kind witch. Each year she makes a journey to rescue a child who’s been left in the woods as a sacrifice by the people of an oppressive and gloomy town, delivering it to a new, loving home. One year Xan accidentally feeds a baby moonlight. The baby becomes magical and Xan, naming the child Luna, adopts and raises her as family, alongside a tiny dragon with a giant heart and an ancient monster/poet of the bog. As Luna grows up, her magic is irrepressible – and truths begin to emerge about the place and people she came from. There’s so much to love in this vivid, heartening and utterly absorbing book that champions the power of hope, love and rebellion in the face of fear and cruelty. Kim Gruschow is from Readings St Kilda

thoughtful and cautious – he’s certainly not looking for THE GIRL, THE DOG AND THE Middle fiction risk! When Biter, the enchanted talking sword with a mind WRITER IN ROME and will of its own, knights Odo and appoints Eleanor as Katrina Nannestad ICE SEA PIRATES his squire, the quest of a lifetime begins. Odo reluctantly ABC Books. PB. $16.99 accepts knighthood and adventure, while Eleanor is excited Frida Nilsson For the first ten years of Freja’s life, she by their undertaking, but exasperated and resentful of her Gecko. PB. $19.99 and her mother Clementine have roamed assignment. This exciting Nordic adventure the Arctic in search of zoological wonders. Led by the arrogant magic sword, the pair face many story has just been translated Happy, content, together. But now, ordeals and trials; in challenging false knights and even from the Swedish. When ten year-old Clementine must send Freja away to live a mighty dragon, Odo finds courage and Eleanor learns a Siri and her sister are out picking with her old friend Tobias, a bestselling little humility. With Garth Nix and Sean Williams at the berries one day, Siri’s sister is stolen by crime writer and possibly the most helm, it’s no surprise this laugh-out-loud adventure is one pirates to work in the diamond mines absent-minded man on earth. Tobias isn’t boys and girls will love. Highly recommended for ages 9+! of evil Captain Whitehead. Rather used to life with a child, and Freja isn’t than allow her frail father to attempt a Athina Clarke is from Readings Malvern used to people, but together they’ll stumble into an Italian rescue, brave Siri sets off to find the adventure that will change things forever. For readers aged 8+. pirate ship and return her sister. Along THE EXTREMELY INCONVENIENT the way she encounters many unique seafaring characters, ADVENTURES OF BRONTE THE SECRETS WE SHARE including a ship’s cook, Frederik, who has also lost a sister METTLESTONE Nova Weetman to the pirate and who befriends Siri. She meets a young Jaclyn Moriarty & Kelly Canby (illus.) UQP. PB. $16.95 mermaid baby, becoming a temporary mother to it, and A&U. HB. $22.99 The highly anticipated companion to must outwit many villains during her journey to the lair of Jaclyn Moriarty is one of the most Nova Weetman’s critically acclaimed Captain Whitehead. This is an exciting story with a very inventive and refreshing voices in The Secrets We Keep. Clem is slowly brave heroine and an exotic landscape of ice and snow. It contemporary young adult literature, rebuilding her life after a house fire includes beautiful illustrations by David Barrow that from the authentic teen voices in her destroyed everything. She’s about to capture the frozen world and its characters. The author is a Ashbury Brookfield novels to the start high school with her two best bestseller in Sweden and has won the Astrid Lindgren incredible world of her Colours of friends and she’s finally settled into Prize, so it is exciting to discover her in English. Madeleine series. The Extremely living with her dad in their tiny flat. Guaranteed to cool you down on a hot summer’s day, this Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte But when her mum unexpectedly sea adventure will be enjoyed by readers aged 8 to 12. Mettlestone is her first book for middle moves in, Clem feels like there’s no Angela Crocombe is from Readings Kids grade readers and it’s exactly the kind of space for her. Then she meets Matt, a funny and rebellious ironically whimsical offering that only Moriarty can give us. 14-year-old with family troubles of his own. HAVE SWORD, WILL TRAVEL When ten-year-old Bronte Mettlestone learns that her Garth Nix & Sean Williams reckless adventure-chasing parents have been killed by THE WHIZ MOB AND THE A&U. PB. $14.99 pirates she’s not surprised. But then she learns that their GRENADINE KID Have Sword Will Travel is a hilarious magical will requires her to leave her home with Aunt Colin Meloy & Carson Ellis (illus.) and exciting adventure set in a Isabelle, and journey alone to visit her ten other aunts Viking. HB. $24.99 fantastical ‘medieval like’ time where across the kingdoms. Our sensible young heroine knows From the creators of the bestselling gender equality is the norm – ‘brave there’s no point arguing with Faery cross-stitch, and so off Wildwood Chronicles comes an original, knight’ is a job description for anyone she heads for a daring adventure of her own. Moriarty’s humorous, and fast-paced middle capable, whether male or female! world-building is wonderfully imaginative and uniquely grade novel about a band of child Our heroes are the most appealing hers, while Kelly Canby’s energetic illustrations are a pickpockets: The Invention of Hugo characters: plucky, diminutive delight. This jam-packed, chunky novel is ideal for book- Cabret meets Oliver Twist. It is an Eleanor is desperate to become a devouring readers in upper primary school. ordinary Tuesday morning in April knight like her mother and always Bronte Coates is digital content coordinator and manager of when bored, lonely Charlie Fisher ready for adventure, whereas her burly friend Odo is more the Readings Prizes. witnesses something incredible. READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2017 19

Right before his eyes, in a busy square in Marseille, a group THE WOLF, THE DUCK ATLAS OF DINOSAUR of pickpockets pulls off an amazing robbery. As the bandits AND THE MOUSE ADVENTURES appear to melt into the crowd, Charlie realises that he was Mac Barnett & Jon Klassen (illus.) Emily Hawkins & Lucy Letherland (illus.) one of their marks. Candlewick Press. HB. $24.99 Wide Eyed Editions. HB. $35 Fans of fractured fairy tales and Travel back in time to lock horns with a fables will be satisfied by this triceratops, stalk prey with a T-Rex, and Picture Books delicious addition to the genre. learn to fly with a baby Pteranodon. When a woeful mouse is swallowed With hundreds of things to spot and BIG WORDS FOR LITTLE up by a wolf, he quickly learns he is facts to learn, this is the biggest Atlas GENIUSES not alone: a duck has already set up adventure yet! Susan & James Patterson & Hsinping Pan (illus.) digs and, boy, has that duck got it Arrow. HB. $24.99 figured out! Turns out it’s pretty nice Available 13 November inside the belly of the beast – there’s Big words come to life in this clever delicious food, elegant table settings and, best of all, YAYOI KUSAMA: FROM HERE picture book. The colourful artwork dancing. And no more fear of being eaten by a wolf! Life’s TO INFINITY! by artist Hsinping Pan will have not so bad, considering the alternatives. That is, until a Sarah Suzuki & Ellen Weinstein (illus.) your child completely immersed in hunter shows up … MoMA. HB. $29.99 these fun big words – why should Yayoi Kusama is one of the most your little genius’s first word be cat exciting artists working today. when it can be catawampus? Come Non-fiction Once you have seen one of her dot and join the fun with this delightful picture book. paintings, books or installations, she is M IS FOR MUTINY impossible to forget. This picture-book MALALA’S MAGIC PENCIL John Dixon biography follows her life from a young Malala Yousafzai Berbay BPublishing. HB. $29.95 child who saw dots everywhere in Puffin. HB. $24.99 nature, growing up in Japan, to moving Next time you see a $20 Malala Yousafzai’s first beautifully to New York at the age of 28, struggling note check out the sweet illustrated picture book will inspire to survive until her first exhibition and her eventual success. old lady on it; she was a convict! young readers everywhere to find As the pages progress, we see more and more dots on each As an introduction to a the magic all around them. Growing page, perhaps representing Kusama’s success and her host of historical figures & up as a child in Pakistan, Malala fascination with infinity. At the end of the book are pictures of events, M is For Mutiny engages wished for a magic pencil that she many of Kusama’s most famous paintings and installations. with its unsentimental and, could use to redraw reality. She The illustrations by Ellen Weinstein are stunning and well at times, tongue in cheek, representation of Australia’s would give gifts to her family, erase suited to Kusama’s work, with every page showing flourishes invasion by the British. The birth of the white man’s Oz is the smell from the rubbish dump near her house and sleep of dots and patterns that reflect the art. This is a fascinating dramatically portrayed by the artist Bern Emmerichs; he an extra hour in the morning. As Malala grew, so did her introduction to a very accessible contemporary artist that will richly captures the excitement & narrative of some of our wishes, and she saw a world that needed fixing. Even be enjoyed by children aged 5 to 8 – and art lovers of any age. most important historical episodes. without a magic pencil, Malala realised that she could This is a vibrant alphabet that will whet the appetite Angela Crocombe is from Readings Kids make her wishes come true by working hard. for more exploring & research for children (particularly MY LAZY CAT for middle to upper grade at school). I hope subsequent editions will add an index to what is otherwise a Christine Roussey Graphic Novels distinctive book for 8 to 12 year olds. Abrams. HB. $21.99 Alexa Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn NORTHERN LIGHTS: Meet Boomer, a roly-poly cat. He’s always in a happy mood, and he’s THE GRAPHIC NOVEL the best friend of one little girl. But NORSE MYTHS Philip Pullman boy is Boomer lazy! From morning Kevin Crossley-Holland Doubleday. HB. $45 to night, Boomer can be found & Jeffrey Alan Love (illus.) The stunning graphic novel adaptation lounging around the house, snoring Walker. HB. $32.99 is available in hardback for the first and snoozing. The little girl, on the I’m a known collector of time. Follow Lyra’s story once again, in other hand, is much too busy for a fancy editions of timeless a way you’ve never experienced it nap. She’s got judo, swimming, yoga, tales, and a sucker for all things before, as the arrival of her fearsome painting, rugby, and biking to do! mythological, so I was very uncle, Lord Asriel, draws her to the She does not have a minute to herself, and she can’t be late! excited to pick up Kevin Crossley- heart of a terrible struggle. This edition But one particularly jam-packed morning, Boomer Holland’s illustrated Norse Myths: combines all three illustrated volumes accidentally keeps the girl from getting out the door. Tales of Odin, Thor and Loki. of the story. Instead of panicking, she decides to take the day at Crossley-Holland is the author of Boomer’s pace for once. the Penguin Book of Norse Myths for an adult audience, and he has very ably adapted his THE POESY RING knowledge into thrilling tales for children and teens. Classic of the Month Bob Graham Artist and illustrator Jeffrey Alan Love has contributed THE WAVE Walker. HB. $24.99 marvellously to this hardcover edition, which uses the Morton Rhue A romantic, hopeful, exquisitely interplay of words and images to reinforce the epic nature illustrated story. It’s 1830 in County of these stories. Love’s silhouettes cut across the page, Puffin. PB. $16.99 Kerry, Ireland, and a gold ring is creating atmospheres of enormity, foreboding and action. The history of Nazi Germany and thrown into the wind by a young The book begins with an illustrated cast of gods, the Holocaust holds a disturbing woman on a black horse … As the goddesses, dwarfs and giants, and a map of the Norse and vexed fascination for many of us. seasons pass, and then the years, worlds. Readers new to these myths will be helped The question of how the Nazis were so the little treasure finds itself on the enormously by the character descriptions of Odin, Thor, effective in orchestrating this atrocity most astonishing journey. Will the Loki et. al, and the map of Yggradsill (the tree of life) and securing the collusion of the ring, inscribed with ‘love never cutting through the three levels of Asgard, Midgard German people, to this end, is dies’, ever fulfil its destiny, and find the finger of a and Niflheim. Crossley-Holland’s 20 lively, rollicking unfathomable. Why didn’t anyone try woman truly loved? retellings based on the Prose Edda take us full circle to stop them? When students at a from the origins of all, to the end of the worlds. We hear Californian high school raised these THE VERY NOISY BABY about the walls of Asgard being built, Thor regaining his same questions, in 1967, their history teacher decided to Alison Lester hammer, Balder’s death, Loki’s treachery, killer wolves, conduct an experiment to show his students just how possible it was to brainwash and unify the many under a Affirm Press. HB. $24.99 a magical nine-legged horse, and feats of brawn, smarts, trickery and bravery. shared belief and purpose; however heinous the objective. Here is the story of a very noisy Young readers who’ve encountered these myths The result was the establishment of an organisation called baby. She could bellow like a through Rick Riordan’s Magnus Chase series, or Neil the Wave that actively recruited members via a model of buffalo. And roar like a lion. And Gaiman’s Odd and the Frost Giants (or, let’s be honest, reward and punishment that encouraged allegiance to the howl like a wolf for a very long the Hemsworth incarnation of Thor) will get a lot out of group and penalised dissenters. The Wave is a fictionalised time. The baby loves to make all Norse Myths. As Crossley-Holland says in his charming retelling of this social experiment and the disturbing kinds of sounds. She’s really very foreword: ‘When I first read these stories as a boy, I yelled findings it came to regarding subversive power and the loud. But when some animals in the town go missing, can and laughed and cried a little, and I knew myself a bit manipulation of the masses. the very noisy baby help? Find out in this wonderfully better.’ Recommended for ages 10+. boisterous story, full of action, fun (and noise!) from Natalie Platten is from Readings Doncaster Australia’s most-loved picture book creator. Leanne Hall is from Readings Kids 20 READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2017

three centuries and traces the courses of absence. He structures the book around the PETTY: THE such formidable illnesses as smallpox, four elements – Earth, Air, Fire, and Water BIOGRAPHY while exploring the advent of vaccines and – insisting on the primacy of nature to this Warren Zanes biological warfare, offering insight into unique cityscape. ‘A fabulously idiosyncratic HB. Was $39.99 the modern world’s achievements in the small masterpiece ... so good it takes your Now $14.95 areas of HIV and polio. World-renowned breath away.’ – Carmen Callil, The Times immunologist John Rhodes charts our fight An intimate account against these plagues. NEVER A of the life of the DULL iconic rock-and-roll star traces his rural Bargain CITIES OF MOMENT EMPIRE Southern upbringing, the stories behind his David Hepworth most famous songs, and his collaborations Tristram Hunt HB. Was $45 with such fellow artists as George Harrison, Table HB. Was $59.95 Now $14.95 Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash. Now $16.95 1971 saw the release of An original history several monumental RED NILE of the most enduring albums and the arrival Robert Twigger colonial creation, the THE 40S of the stars who would dominate the next HB. Was $49.95 The New Yorker city, explored through 40 years: Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, the Now $14.95 ten portraits of powerful urban centres the HB. Was $39.99 Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Marvin Gaye, In this dazzling, Now $14.95 British Empire left in its wake, from the Carole King, Joni Mitchell and more. This idiosyncratic journey shores of Puritan Boston to Dublin, Hong ‘If the 1940s gave book tells the story of rock’s golden year. from ancient times to Kong, New Delhi, Liverpool, and beyond. the United States its the Arab Spring, award- ‘It is a great idea, and Hunt achieves his “Greatest Generation”, NORA winning author Robert purpose superbly, with panache and in fine then it would seem WEBSTER Twigger weaves a Nile narrative like no style.’ – Financial Times from this collection Colm Toibin other. As he navigates a meandering course that it also gave The New Yorker magazine its THE FISHING HB. Was $39.99 through the history of the world’s greatest greatest decade.’ – The Washington Post Now $14.95 river, he plucks the most intriguing, FLEET The fiercely intelligent colourful and dramatic stories. ANONYMOUS Anne de Courcy Nora Webster is living SOLDIERS HB. Was $39.99 in a small Irish town, THE SIMPLE Bruce Hoffman Now $16.95 in the 1960s, looking ART OF HB. Was $59.95 ‘Anne de Courcy’s after her four children, trying to rebuild her VEGETARIAN Now $15.95 girl’s-eye view of the life after the death of her husband. ‘This was COOKING ‘Between 1917 and Raj makes clear the one of my favourite novels for 2014; it has a Martha Rose 1947 in Mandate damage imperialism haunting beauty that stays with you forever Shulman Palestine, the Irgun did not just to India but to the imperialists and it’s a book I return to just for the sheer HB. Was $49.99 and its splinter group, themselves … As an account of husband- pleasure of its writing.’ – Mark Rubbo Now $16.95 the Lehi, were determined to oust the hunting, The Fishing Fleet is thorough This accessible book teaches basic dishes British and establish Jewish independence and serviceable. As an account of how THE NUNS OF via templates: master recipes with simple by whatever means necessary. Bruce to screw up two societies at once, it’s SANT’AMBROGIO guidelines for creating an essential dish, Hoffman’s Anonymous Soldiers is a gripping unparalleled.’ – The Guardian Hubert Wolf such as a frittata, stir-fry, rice bowl, pasta narrative history of that struggle.’ – Wall HB. Was $39.95 dish, or soup – and then how to swap key Street Journal THE GAP OF TIME Now $14.95 ingredients in and out as desired, based on ‘Wolf’s absorbing seasonality and freshness. THE Jeanette unravelling of the Winterson BROTHERS Inquisition trial WHEN LIONS HB. Was $39.99 GRIMM FOLK convincingly recovers a lost world of Now $14.95 ROAR TALES rancidly overheated religiosity, rendered Jeanette Winterson’s Thomas Maier Brian Alderson toxic by the force of a monstrous ego. It cover version of The HB. Was $49.99 (trans.) & Michael also opens a disturbing window on a closed Winter’s Tale vibrates Now $14.95 Foreman (illus.) ecclesiastical establishment in which with echoes of Shakespeare’s original. ‘A ‘Weaving the life HB. Was $44.99 unquestioning support for authority might shining delight of a novel … Winterson stories of nearly Now $19.95 excuse almost anything.’ – The Guardian wrestles wonderfully with a perplexing text 30 Churchills and This volume brings together 31 of the and emerges with a complicated, satisfying Kennedys into a best-known tales collected by the Brothers PACIFIC and contemporary tale that stands wholly seamless narrative, Maier smartly anchors Grimm. Brian Alderson’s translation is Simon Winchester on its own, despite the Bard’s significant his reportage on the clans’ larger-than- faithful to the dark tone of the originals, HB. Was $39.99 shadow.’ – The New York Times life cornerstones: Winston Churchill and Now $15.95 while Michael Foreman’s illustrations Joseph Kennedy. The sheer accumulation capture their mystery and beauty. HOW ADAM Simon Winchester of colorful anecdotes in When Lions Roar SMITH CAN tells the story of the makes for riveting reading from start to DISCIPLES world’s largest body of finish.’ – The Washington Post Douglas Waller CHANGE water, and – in matters HB. Was $49.95 YOUR LIFE economic, political and WHEN PARIS Now $15.95 Russ Roberts military – the ocean of the future. ‘If you’re WENT DARK HB. Was $39.99 the type who ever wondered whether ‘The disciples in this Ronald C. Now $12.95 there was once an albatross conference in book are the four future Rosbottom Adam Smith became Tasmania (yes) or if there’s a nation that CIA directors who HB. Was $49.99 straddles all four hemispheres (again, yes served under William J. the patron saint of capitalism with The Now $14.95 “Wild Bill” Donovan in Wealth of Nations. But few have read The – Kiribati, a pixelated bunch of islands and This book tells the the Office of Strategic Services, the Theory of Moral Sentiments, his epic book on atolls), this book is unquestionably for you.’ extraordinary story of American spy agency during World War the behaviour of individuals, the way we – The New York Times Germany’s capture and II: Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, William perceive ourselves, the way we treat others, occupation of Paris, Hitler’s relationship Colby and William Casey ... a textured and the decisions we make in pursuit COLLECTED with the City of Light, and its citizens’ adventure story that emerges from Waller’s of happiness. Economist Russ Roberts LYRICS, attempts at living in an environment that command of the archival material and his examines Smith’s forgotten masterpiece. 1970-2015 was almost untouched by war, but which fluid writing style.’ – The Washington Post Patti Smith 30 DAYS IN had become uncanny overnight. Using HB. Was $45 memoirs, interviews and published eye- THE END OF SYDNEY Now $14.95 witness accounts, Rosbottom expertly PLAGUES Peter Carey Patti Smith is a multi- weaves a narrative of daily life for both John Rhodes HB. Was $29.99 disciplined artist. occupier and the occupied. He shows its HB. Was $45 Now $10 Her work is rooted in effects on the Parisian celebrity circles Now $14.95 In the midst of the poetry, which infused her 1975 landmark of Pablo Picasso, Simone de Beauvoir, This history of the battle 2000 Olympic games, album, Horses. On the fortieth anniversary of Colette, Jean Cocteau, and Jean-Paul against the world’s most Peter Carey returns to the album, Collected Lyrics has been revised Sartre, and on the ordinary citizens of its deadly diseases spans Sydney after a 17-year and expanded, with more than 35 new songs. 20 arrondissements. READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2017 21

New Film & TV many different perspectives when looking through the prism of life.’ – The Film Pie Documentary with Lou Fulco DVD of the Month ALL GOVERNMENTS LIE TV $19.95 KEDI Available 25 October $29.95 FORTITUDE ‘All Governments Lie uses Available now SEASON 2 interviews with contemporary journalists ‘Kedi’ is the Turkish word for cat and an ideal title for this $39.95 and anti-establishment documentary by director Ceyda Torun, which focuses on the cats Available 1 November of Istanbul. Thousands of cats roam the city streets; one of the figures and historical film ‘Fortitude’s second season strengths of this film is that it focuses on just seven of them. to demonstrate the need is suffused with a kind of These cats are presented to us as seven distinct personalities, each for a truly free press and its icy dread. These people with their own story and purpose. There is Sari, who must hustle role in a democracy. Featuring footage from are on the precipice of food for her young kittens; the affectionate Bengü; the temperamental Psikopat; Deniz, the last six decades … [it] is a timely, some kind of disaster – who hangs around one of the local markets; Aslan Parcasi, who earns his way by keeping a convincing documentary that will cause personal ones for many of restaurant free of rodents, and Duman (my personal favourite), who patiently waits outside audiences to question what they see and the characters and a likely a cafe for his gourmet cheese and turkey. And finally, there’s Gamsiz, who is always looking read.’ – Los Angeles Times environmental one that won’t spare any of to protect his territory from new arrivals. Filmed with a special camera rig which follows them.’ – Paste Magazine the subjects at ‘cat-eye level’, we get to experience how they see the spaces around them: GREAT BRITISH the dangers, the temptations and their fellow felines. RAILWAY JOURNEYS THE EXPANSE The other main character of Kedi is Istanbul and its people. The cats are dependent on SERIES 7 & 8 SEASON 1 their surroundings and Kedi is primarily concerned with the way the cats adapt and interact $49.95 each $34.95 with their environment. We see routines of both the cats and the people who care for and Available 8 November Available 8 November love them – and from this, we get a real sense of what each offers the other. Kedi is a beautiful, Michael Portillo continues life-affirming film and there are also some fabulous laughs along the way (if there was a The Expanse, based on the to chart the great British cat TV reality show, Psikopat would be the star). When I saw this film at the cinema, the series of novels by James romance with the railways audience was incredibly responsive and it is a definite crowd-pleaser. I highly recommend it S.A. Corey, is a space opera in this phenomenally to any cat- or animal-lover, but also to anyone who appreciates the documentary art-form. set 200 years in the future, successful series. Armed Amanda Rayner is from Readings Carlton after mankind has with his copy of George colonised the solar system. Bradshaw’s famous A hardened detective and railway handbook, he BABY DRIVER a rogue ship’s captain come together for Film retraces journeys that Was $39.95 $29.95 what starts as the case of a missing young were first documented in Available 1 November woman – and evolves into a race across the the Victorian guide, solar system to expose the greatest UNA ‘Baby Driver has it all: witnessing what’s changed conspiracy in human history. $29.95 thrills, laughs, sex, nonstop and discovering how our Available now action, a killer soundtrack, love of the railways began. ‘It would be an ugly stretch a star-making performance THE WHITE PRINCESS to call Una ... a love story, from Ansel Elgort and a SEASON 1 I AM HEATH LEDGER though it does portray the director – Edgar Wright $39.95 $24.95 fevered relationship – who can knock the wind Available 1 November Available 8 November between a much older man out of you.’ – Rolling Stone Based on Philippa ‘I Am Heath Ledger is most (Ben Mendelsohn) and the Gregory’s book, The White persuasive as a study of an 13-year-old he seduces A MONSTER CALLS Princess ‘tells a actor learning and (played by Ruby Stokes and later Rooney $24.95 fictionalized version of evolving. Like Marlon Mara) without cleaving to a straightforward Available 1 November just a sliver of one of the Brando, Ledger began his narrative of predator and prey ... the movie ‘A Monster Calls is a most complicated career as a hunk but belongs to Mendelsohn and Mara, two beautiful coming-of-age moments in English became so much more. His caged animals circling. Una’s raw, deeply drama with some monarchy. The drama is an enjoyable, skills, climaxing in Brokeback Mountain dis­comfiting dance between obsession and wonderful visual imagery. ridiculous romp through the early days of and The Dark Knight, seemed to form like exploitation isn’t easy to watch by any It delves into the ways we the first Tudor king, Henry VII, and his the concentric growth circles of a tree, metric; they make it hard to look away.’ deal with grief whilst also marriage to Elizabeth of York, the titular visually evolving with the passing of time.’ - Entertainment Weekly reminding us that there are white princess.’ – Variety – The Guardian

BRAD’S STATUS November 9 (M) THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEERNovember 16 (CTC) THE DISASTER ARTIST November 30 (M) Exclusive to Cinema Nova Premiere season exclusive to Cinema Nova A trip to Boston with his college-bound son triggers a crisis of From the Oscar-nominated director of The Lobster, Yorgos Lanthimos, James Franco produces, directs and stars in one of the most confidence for Brad Sloan (Ben Stiller) as he reassess his own life comes a pitch-black comedy of impossible decisions and the dangers anticipated films of 2017. Based on Greg Sestero’s memoir of choices in a bittersweet comedy from writer and director Mike White of procrastination. Steven (Colin Farrell), a surgeon married to the making of Tommy Wiseau’s so-called ‘worst film of all time’, (writer - Beatriz at Dinner). Co-starring Jemaine Clement, Michael ophthalmologist Anna (Nicole Kidman), is forced to make an The Room, THE DISASTER ARTIST depicts the actor-turned-author’s Sheen, Luke Wilson and Jenna Fischer, BRAD’S STATUS turns a crisis unthinkable sacrifice when the behaviour of a teenage boy he has friendship with Wiseau (Franco). Co-starring Dave Franco as of confidence into an examination of how what society deems as taken under his wing turns sinister. This is a sensational thriller Sestero, and featuring Alison Brie, Zac Efron, Seth Rogen, success may not necessarily line up with our own desires and brimming with unsettling humour and riveting suspense. Sharon Stone, Jacki Weaver and dozens of cameo appearances. capabilities. NOVA FILM CLUB advance screening: Wed Nov 8 at 6.30pm. Now in its 8th hit year, THE ROOM screens at Cinema Nova on the “Ben Stiller is beyond compare in the terrific midlife-crisis comedy” first Saturday of every month. “As allegories of extreme discomfort go, this one is masterfully The Los Angeles Times orchestrated” Variety HHHH “James Franco’s ode to bad film-making is a riot” The Guardian

Melbourne’s home of quality arthouse and contemporary cinema 22 READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2017

New Music FIFTEEN such as blues, soul, Italian music and The Wailin’ Jennys Cester’s own broad musical history to create something unlike anything else in his $24.95 | Also on vinyl oeuvre.’ – The Music Album of the Month The Wailin’ Jennys celebrate their fifteenth THE QUEEN IS DEAD BLUE MAQAMS year together with this (DELUXE EXPANDED album. The band again Anouar Brahem EDITION) $24.95 brings its own The Smiths Blue Maqams is the thirteenth release on ECM for arrangements and 3 CDs & DVD deluxe edition $59.95 Tunisian oud-master/composer Anouar Brahem. harmonies to some of its favourite covers. Brahem has achieved great success for the label with his Also on vinyl as 5 LP deluxe edition ability as a crossover artist, taking his audience way beyond HURRY HOME 2 CDs $19.95 the jazz scene. His early career was spent creating music for The Deslondes Considered to be one of films and stage; his mastery of mood and atmosphere is in $19.95 | Also on vinyl the greatest albums ever abundance here. Is it jazz, classical, North-African folk music, or a fusion of all three? ‘The self-described made, the deluxe CD Brahem’s mission statement was to take the oud out of its role as an accompaniment to Americana band takes edition includes a 2017 singers, putting it firmly within a solo context. Here, Brahem has recruited one of the great Woodie Guthrie- master of the album, rhythm sections of our time: Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette, with wild card, British inspired folk techniques demos, B-sides and The piano player Django Bates. Bates’ playing fits like a glove; his solos are a pleasure to listen to, and blends it with Queen Is Dead film by Derek Jarman. particularly on the atmospheric opening tracks. ‘Maqams’ refers to the Arab music system: the harder riffs and Reviewing the original in 1986, Rolling Stone sound here is a North-African Kind of Blue. By track four, ‘Baha’, Brahem is ready to step out and psychedelic rock. The Deslondes have said: ‘There’s no mistaking Morrissey’s take the lead with some very distinctive riffing. It recalls classic rock riffs within an acoustic found a comfortable sound to create art in, Edith Piaf-on-the-dole vocals or Johnny oud context. ‘La Passante’ has an Erik Satie minimalist feel; Bates takes over before Brahem and it serves them well.’ – Vice Marr’s wall o’ guitars.’ punctuates with some very melancholic notes, creating one of the album standouts. The pace picks up around track six with the Latin-flavoured ‘Bom Dia Rio’, giving Holland a solo. MASSEDUCTION Sound-wise this recording is perfect. Avatar Studios (former rock-star recording Pop/Rock St. Vincent powerhouse for the likes of Bowie, Madonna, Roxy Music) is reputedly one of the best $21.95 | Also on vinyl acoustic spaces around and has been used extensively for reverb sampling. Every cymbal ASH Masseduction is the brush, every note, from this small acoustic combo is captured. Brahem’s compositions – culmination of years of and the improvisations of all musicians involved – make this a multi-layered beauty. Ibeyi writing, with songs Paul Barr is from Readings Carlton $21.95 | Also on vinyl crafted from voice ‘The second album from memos, text messages, French–Cuban twins and snippets of melodies Naomi and Lisa-Kaindé that came to St. Vincent while travelling the Folk/World Soul/Funk Diaz updates the themes globe. Themes of power and sex, imperilled and techniques of their relationships, and death slice through the modern–ancient music, album, which swirls with guitar and piano, SPINIFEX GUM WORLD WIDE FUNK which refracts African–Cuban roots synths and strings, and drum beats that Spinifex Gum Bootsy Collins through a 21st-century digital prism … punch with purpose. $19.95 | Also on vinyl $21.95 Inspired in part by Beyoncé and in part by Cat Empire’s Felix Riebl The funk runs deep and present politics, Ash’s girl-positive content THE WEATHER STATION and Ollie McGill have rich on Bootsy Collins’ is high and its wider messages outward- The Weather Station combined with the first studio album since looking.’ – The Guardian $21.95 Gondwana Indigenous 2011. Join a Bootsy- ‘Toronto-dwelling Children’s Choir to create curated posse of fresh LOW IN HIGH SCHOOL singer–songwriter the music collective new artists, on a record Morrissey Tamara Lindeman Spinifex Gum, and this extraordinary album. that embraces everything from the classic $21.95 | Also on vinyl records as The Weather P-Funk sound Bootsy pioneered, to the Available 17 November Station, and has been closest Collins has ever come to Weaving a narrative as making quietly beautiful radioactive, boots-on-the-ground, Jazz/Blues only he can, Low in High and insightful folk-pop albums and EPs friendly fire. School is everything you since last decade. [This] self-titled record TEAM AQUATIC expect from a Morrissey represents the breadth of what Lindeman is album — his typically capable of, from hushed acoustic miniatures Aron Ottignon Country assertive lyrics to bigger-than-life folk-rock anthems with $21.95 chastising political figures, questioning gently symphonic string swells.’ – Spin Following a string of authority and regaling old-fashioned love acclaimed EPs, virtuoso ALL AMERICAN MADE stories. It is entertaining, provocative, THE OOZ experimental jazz Margo Price insightful and intelligent. King Krule pianist Aron Ottignon is $21.95 $21.95 | Also on vinyl set to release his debut Delivering on the PHASES full-length album. ‘Big Archy Marshall’s first promise of her debut Angel Olsen full-length album under gestures, fat sounds and monster grooves, – and then some – the $19.95 | Also on vinyl the King Krule name with a youthful energy that’s yoked to songs on All American Available 10 November since 2013’s 6 Feet genuine musical ability.’ – The Guardian Made, written by Margo Angel Olsen’s Phases is ‘a Beneath the Moon spans a Price and husband hefty 19 songs. Marshall Jeremy Ivey, were born ‘while traveling collection of rarities and Jazz Special of the Month demos spanning her finally takes the crown as poet laureate for America – between the highways and the dazed and confused generation, hotel rooms, in the crowded airports and career thus far, including a number of never-before- painting a bleak and sometimes harrowing all-night diners and, occasionally, on the picture of a rapidly splintering London. A MULTITUDE OF ANGELS green grass of our Tennessee home’. released tracks. Balancing Keith Jarrett tenacity and tenderness, Phases acts as a ZINC 4 CDs. Was $64.95 deep-dive for long-time fans, as well as a THIS SWEET OLD Caiti Baker $24.95 Limited stock at this price WORLD fitting introduction to Olsen’s sprawling This epic four-CD set of sonics for the uninitiated.’ – Thank Folk for That $21.95 recordings from a series Lucinda Williams Darwin musician Caiti of solo concerts in Italy $21.95 SUGAR RUSH Baker has been turning documents the Lucinda Williams says Nic Cester heads both here and abroad with her sultry conclusion of Keith that the difference in $21.95 soul, hip-hop style since Jarrett’s experiments production between the Available 3 November 1992 original and this releasing ‘Wolf’ as a with long-form. ‘A Multitude of Angels tells the After nearly a decade as re-cut version is ‘like preview to her debut album Zinc. music world what Keith Jarrett fans already frontman of hugely night and day’. Recorded Combining the blues, soul and big band knew — that the man could be an endless successful noughties to mark the 25th anniversary of the original influences ingrained in her since birth, fountain of music, a one-man jam-band that Melbourne band Jet, Nic album’s release, it features all-new with the R&B, new-jack swing and hip-hop only needed 88 keys to balance the Law of Cester has released his renditions of the 12 songs, some of them of her adolescence, you have a sound, an Fate with the Law of Accident (according to first solo album. ‘The dramatically rearranged and rewritten. energy, and a presence like no other. his liner notes).’ – Pop Matters 12-track [Sugar Rush] draws on influences READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2017 23

New Classical Music TELEMANN: COMPLETE J.S. BACH: TRIO SONATAS WITH BRANDENBURG Classical Album of the Month RECORDER AND VIOL CONCERTOS Steven Devine & Da Camera Reinhard Goebel & Berliner Barock Chandos. CHAN0817 Solisten PAUL STANHOPE: LUX AETERNA $29.95 Sony. 88985361112 Sydney Chamber Choir & Paul Stanhope The specialist $29.95 ABC Classics. 4816296 early-music ensemble In the new recording $21.95 Da Camera marks the with the Berliner Lux Aeterna is Latin for ‘eternal light’. Paul Stanhope’s 250th anniversary of Barock Solistens, the works often have dense harmonic ideas, but here, Telemann’s death legendary early music there’s a constant sense of lightness – both in the with this unique artist, Reinhard musicianship of the Sydney Chamber Choir and in these recording of original Goebel, has also eloquent melodic ideas. Paul Stanhope has collaborated with trio sonatas involving recorder and viol. allowed his the Sydney Chamber Choir many times (so much so that he was their musical director for a The ingenuity and variety of music, musicological investigations to inform his while). Straight away, you can feel the choir’s ease with Stanhope’s style. There are some structures, and instrumental ensemble, interpretation, especially with regard to fiendishly difficult moments in these works, but they seem to handle them effortlessly, combined with fascinating notes by the scoring. The result is an exciting and bringing out Stanhope’s distinctive choral style. This choir often specialises in baroque recorder player Emma Murphy, make this beautifully sensitive recording of one of the repertoire. Here, there’s a light touch throughout the works that otherwise could have album a must-have for everyone, from most famous instrumental cycles in become stodgy in the concentrated harmonies. I’m going to listen again with the original Telemann’s many enthusiasts, to those baroque music repertoire. texts in front of me, along with translations, because I think there’s more to learn about curious about early music. each of these works. I’ve listened to almost all of Stanhope’s recorded works and I find THE PAUL BADURA- something new to discover with each subsequent hearing. This complex and fascinating SILENCE AND MUSIC: SKODA EDITION exploration of different texts from across the world (and through the ages) almost needs TH 20 CENTURY ENGLISH Paul Badura-Skoda repeat listens to truly understand and appreciate all it has to offer. CHORAL MUSIC DG. 4798065 20 CDs Kate Rockstrom is from Readings Carlton Paul McCreesh & Gabrieli $89.95 Signum Classics. SIGCD490 To celebrate his 90th $26.95 birthday, Paul the Double Sens chamber orchestra, and SCHUBERT: PIANO ‘Sometimes the best Badura-Skoda has the instrument’s rich, darker voice works SONATAS D959 & D960 discoveries in music curated this selection remarkably well. Krystian Zimerman aren’t pieces that from his Westminster DG. 4797588 LAST LEAF you’ve never heard recordings. In these 20 $21.95 before, but those you discs there are Danish String Quartet I think I need have, made new by concertos, solo and chamber works, in which ECM. 002894815746 to be honest remarkable we witness the artistic integrity of an artist $24.95 and say I’ve been on interpretations … At the recital’s heart is a who is as celebrated for his technical abilities a bit of a Schubert The Danish String breath-catching performance of James as he is for his scholarly interpretations. bandwagon lately – Quartet is widely MacMillan’s Burns setting The Gallant though mostly his recognised as the Weaver … This is a beautifully constructed CELLO NAPOLETANO symphonic and most exciting young programme, sung with consummate Catherine Jones & Van Dieman’s Band string quartet of the chamber repertoire – so it was a delight to assurance and self-effacing artistry.’ – BBC ABC Classics. 4816359 present moment, review this piano album. I started listening Music Magazine $21.95 bringing new insights to contemporary to it in the background as I prepared for This album unveils a composition and core classical repertoire. the day, but kept getting distracted – this THE HANDEL ALBUM rich and much- In parallel, they have also made album draws the ear and brain into Philippe Jaroussky neglected artistic surprising and impressive forays into the listening intently. Zimerman hasn’t made a & Ensemble Artaserse culture. At the centre world of Nordic folk music. Now they solo recording in about 25 years and on Erato. 9029575966 of the album stands bring their folk project to ECM with a this one, recorded in Japan, his $19.95 Nicola Fiorenza, a stirring new recording. performance is a work of art – not to On this album, which composer and violinist mention the beauty of the music itself. The DOMENICO SCARLATTI: focuses on arias from with a famously eccentric and hot-blooded keys inserted on Zimmerman’s piano for Handel’s more rarely temperament. His Cello Concertos, four of this recording were handcrafted by him SONATAS, VOL. 2 performed operas, which are presented here, are by turns and create an amazingly smooth sound/ Angela Hewitt Jaroussky brings his urgently virtuosic and stunningly rhapsodic. tone. It is the first time that Zimerman has Hyperion. CDA68184 impeccable Also featured are a Sinfonia by Alessandro recorded these two late piano sonatas of $29.95 Handelian Scarlatti and a Concerto Grosso by Francesco Schubert’s: he’s very careful about creating ‘Again, she has credentials to an entire album devoted to Geminiani, all of which show the irresistible a natural and unforced performance, and cleverly organised arias by the composer. Praising Jaroussky influence of the artform that was popular in doesn’t want to create ‘definitive’ her selection into in Handel, the New York Times has described Naples at the time – opera. recordings, as he believes that being a satisfying subgroups him as ‘incomparable … thrilling of voice’. A musician is so much more fluid than that. linked by key and number of these operas were written for Don’t let this worry you – this is a flowing mood. We begin in the famous castrato Senesino, who created Classical Special of the and delightful recording of two of declamatory mode many leading roles for Handel. Month Schubert’s mature works. with the theatrical sonata in D major Kate Rockstrom is a friend of Readings Kk491 followed by the sultry Iberian SCHUBERT: PIANO flavours of Kk492 and Kk146 and so on.’ QUINTET IN A MAJOR ECHOES OF TIME: TCHAIKOVSKY: VIOLIN – The Observer ‘TROUT’/NOTTURNO WORKS FOR VIOLIN CONCERTO & ROCOCO FOR PIANO TRIO Lisa Batiashvili, Hélène Grimaud, DVORˇ ÁK: STRING VARIATIONS Anne-Sophie Mutter Symphonieorchester des Nemanja Radulovic´ QUARTET OP 105 & & Daniil Trifonov Bayerischen Rundfunks & Esa- & Sascha Goetzel STRING QUINTET OP 97 DG. 4797570 Pekka Salonen DG. 4798089 Takács Quartet & Lawrence Power $21.95 DG. 477929. Was $26.95 $26.95 Hyperion. CDA68142 Anne-Sophie Mutter $11.95 Limited stock at this price Backed by the $29.95 and Daniil Trifonov ‘Few if any [recordings Borusan Istanbul A new release from have joined forces of the Shostakovich] Philharmonic the Takács Quartet is with three are finer than this one Orchestra, Rudulovic guaranteed to be a outstanding young ... Batiashvili’s gives a thrilling highlight of the string-playing reflective, almost performance of musical year, and this alumni of the Mutter weightless approach in Tchaikovsky’s Violin one easily exceeds all Foundation at the Baden-Baden Festspielhaus the opening Nocturne Concerto, full of imaginative touches and expectations. The to perform Schubert’s Piano Quintet in A ... is rendered more distinctive by the resonant risk-taking, and offering numerous ‘American’ quintet dates from Dvorˇák’s major, popularly known as the ‘Trout’ Quintet. acoustic of the empty Herkulessaal ... the edge-of-seat moments. The graceful sojourn in the New World, the quartet from They also explored the composer’s Notturno, passacaglia is exceptionally poised and the Rococo Variations is stolen from the cellists his return to old-world Prague; both are a sublime late work for violin, cello and piano, cadenza more sheerly musical than usual. The and played on the viola with terrific marvellous works, sounding here every bit and arrangements of his songs ‘Ständchen’ finale whizzes to its end without undue panache and great understanding alongside the masterpieces they undoubtedly are. and ‘Ave Maria’ for violin and piano. triumphalism.’ – Gramophone The race of a lifetime

on the road less travelled. Read more at penguin.com.au