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TIM WINTON Mark Rubbo asks Tim Winton about his new book, The Boy Behind the Curtain.

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Editor Elke Power [email protected] READINGS KIDS OPENING Whatever your travel style, Lonely friendly streets of Wangaratta. Readings WEEKEND Planet is brimming with inspiration is the official retailer of the Wangaratta Editorial Assistant We’re thrilled to announce that Readings to help you prepare for your perfect Festival of Jazz and Blues. Tickets and Alan Vaarwerk Kids is opening this month! Readings Kids trip. The sale is on in all Readings full program details are available at [email protected] is a speciality children’s bookshop right next shops and online at readings.com.au. wangarattajazz.com. door to Readings Carlton. It is home to books, Advertising music, film and more for kids and teens, and Stella Charls READINGS A RECIPIENT OF THE THE READINGS FOUNDATION welcomes families and people of all ages who [email protected] CITY OF LITERATURE KNOWN GRANTS OPEN (03) 9341 7739 enjoy children’s and young adult literature. BOOKSHOPS GRANT Our official opening celebration will take Applications for The Readings Foundation We are delighted to be a recipient of a grants 2017 are now open. The Readings Graphic Design place on Saturday 8 October, with guest Known Bookshops grant, a Melbourne Foundation was established in 2009 Cat Matteson appearances from Sally Rippin, Bob Graham, City of Literature office initiative. The colourcode.com.au Alice Pung, Mitch Vane, Danny Katz and to support Victorian individuals and Known Bookshops Fund provided up to Fiona Wood. Join us for a special teddy bear organisations that wish to further the $2, 000 to ten bookshops across Victoria Front Cover story time, meet your favourite author and development of literacy, community work to activate their shops and activities The October Readings Monthly cover celebrate all things bright and beautiful in our and the arts. Applications must be completed by working with artists in innovative features the cover image from Hannah brand new shop! For more information check and lodged electronically by 5pm, Monday Kent’s new novel, , and creative ways. Our grant supported The Good People out our events calendar on page 4. 31 October 2016. For more information courtesy of the publisher, Picador. The the creation of a mural by celebrated please visit readings.com.au/the-readings- Good People cover was designed by Melbourne artist Marc Martin in our new foundation Sandy Cull (gogoGingko) and features READINGS DONCASTER IS NOW children’s bookshop, Readings Kids. Marc’s an image by Mari Owen/Arcangel OPEN handpainted mural forms the centrepiece (Shutterstock). For more information MAN BOOKER PRIZE SHORTLIST about The Good People, see our review We’re equally excited to announce that of the shop’s design – do visit Readings 2016 on page 7. Readings Doncaster is now open. You’ll find Kids and see for yourself! For more us at Ground Level right next to David Jones, information on the Known Bookshop Fund The Man Booker Prize shortlist for 2016 has Cartoon stocked with the books, music and film you and recipients, visit cityofliterature.com.au been announced. Amanda Foreman, chair of Oslo Davis love to discover at Readings. To celebrate the 2016 judges, writes that the shortlisted oslodavis.com titles ‘reflect the centrality of the novel in Readings Doncaster, we have many special WANGARATTA FESTIVAL author signings scheduled in the lead up to modern culture – in its ability to champion Prices and availability OF JAZZ & BLUES Christmas – visit our events page at readings. the unconventional, to explore the Please note that all prices and release The 2016 Wangaratta Festival of Jazz and unfamiliar, and to tackle difficult subjects.’ dates in Readings Monthly are correct at com.au/events for more information. Blues (28–30 October) showcases some of The six books on the 2016 shortlist are: time of publication, however prices and the world’s finest local and international release dates may change without notice. The Sellout, Paul Beatty; Hot Milk, Deborah jazz and blues artists in a bounty of Special price offers apply only for the 25% OFF LONELY PLANET Levy; His Bloody Project, Graeme Macrae scintillating performances. Your weekend month in which they are featured in the Spring is upon us – what better time Burnet; Eileen, Ottessa Moshfegh; All That in jazz country might also include sharing Readings Monthly. to begin planning for your next travel Man Is, David Szalay; and Do Not Say We a picnic rug with friends and family in the adventure? Luckily, the Readings’ Lonely Have Nothing, Madeleine Thien. The prize Readings donates 10% of its profits each King George Gardens enjoying ‘cross-over’ Planet sale is on once more, with 25% is worth £50,000 and the winner will be year to The Readings Foundation: musical acts, great local food and wine, and off all titles from now until 31 October. announced on 25 October. readings.com.au/the-readings-foundation live music and artistic installations on the

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TEXT CLASSICS: WELCOME TO KRISTEL GEORGE GITTOES 4 RECLAIMING 8 READINGS KIDS 18 THORNELL IN 24 IN CONVERSATION AUSTRALIAN We’re thrilled to invite everyone along to CONVERSATION WITH JEMIMA AUTHORS the opening of our brand-new children’s WITH LUCY BUCKNELL bookshop! There will be author signings, OF THE PAST SUSSEX George Gittoes will be in conversation with a teddy bear story time, plus prizes, Readings’ own Jemima Bucknell about his Join us for a discussion about the depth and giveaways and more. Together with Sisters in Crime, we’re breadth of our literary heritage chaired by delighted to host an evening with new, illustrated memoir, Blood Mystic, which Text publisher Michael Heyward. In the Free, no booking required Kristel Thornell in conversation with chronicles the world-renowned Australian space of four years, Text Publishing has Saturday 8 October, all day: Lucy Sussex about the former’s new artist’s extraordinary life. released 100 Text Classics, most of them 10am: Meet Sally Rippin novel. On the Blue Train considers what Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events 11am: Meet Bob Graham and Alice Pung long out of print. This series has brought happened to Agatha Christie during Monday 24 October, 6.30pm 12.30pm: A teddy bear’s story time with our numerous extraordinary writers from her mysterious 11-day disappearance, Readings St Kilda Australia and New Zealand to domestic and favourite Walker bear (BYO teddy bear) just as she was on the cusp of fame. 2pm: Meet Mitch Vane & Danny Katz international attention, including Elizabeth 3pm: Meet Fiona Wood Harrower, Kenneth Cook, David Ballantyne, Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events GIDEON HAIGH IN Readings Kids (315 Lygon St, Carlton, Victoria) Amy Witting and Madeleine St John. Tuesday 18 October, 6.30pm 25 CONVERSATION Readings Hawthorn WITH FRANCIS Tickets are $15 and include a copy of one novel KAZ COOKE IN from the Text Classics series, as available on the LEACH 13 CONVERSATION night. Please book at readings.com.au/events L.A. LARKIN AND In Gideon Haigh’s new book, Stroke of Tuesday 4 October, 6.30pm WITH ALAN 19 JAMES PHELAN Genius, Haigh goes beyond the cricketing Cinema Nova, 380 Lygon St., Carlton BROUGH TALK ACTION legend to explore the real Victor Trumper. Kaz Cooke is the number one go-to advisor THRILLERS Haigh and broadcaster Francis Leach will TIM DUNLOP ON for Australian girls and women. Her latest discuss how Trumper became an icon, James Phelan and L.A. Larkin write heart- guide, Girl Stuff 8–12, is a fun, friendly and including the role of George Beldam’s famous 5 WHY THE FUTURE pounding, high stakes action thrillers, informative read for tweens – and for those ‘Jumping Out’ photograph, in creating the IS WORKLESS each with very different protagonists – of us who live and work with tweens. Cooke intersection of sport and art, and reality and ex-CIA operative Jed Walker and British Join us to hear Tim Dunlop discuss his will discuss the book with comedian, TV star myth, that is the Victor Trumper story we investigative journalist, Olivia Wolfe. new book, Why the Future is Workless, a and writer Alan Brough. know today. timely examination of the future of work. Together they will discuss the creative Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Dunlop will be joined in conversation by the Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events challenges of their genre. Tuesday 25 October, 6.30pm University of Melbourne’s Mark Davis. Thursday 13 October at 5pm Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Readings Hawthorn Readings Kids (315 Lygon St, Carlton, Victoria) Wednesday 19 October, 6.30pm Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Readings Carlton Wednesday 5 October, 6.30pm Readings Carlton A WORKSHOP 15 WITH BOOK SIGNING ILLUSTRATOR 20 WITH RICHARD LANCE BALCHIN ROXBURGH Lance Balchin’s Mechanica is a beautifully Come by our Doncaster shop to meet actor, illustrated field guide from the future. At this director and writer Richard Roxburgh – workshop, young artists 8 and up can learn the star of the popular TV drama, Rake. how to create their own steampunk-inspired Roxburgh will be signing copies of his new illustrations with help from Balchin. (and first) children’s book, Artie and the Grime Wave. Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Saturday 15 October, 11am Free, no booking required ARI SETH COHEN Readings Kids (315 Lygon St, Carlton, Victoria) Thursday 20 October, 4.30pm Readings Doncaster (Westfield Doncaster, 619 25 IN CONVERSATION Doncaster Rd, Doncaster, Victoria) WITH SARAH JANE A CONVERSATION BOOK SIGNING ADAMS & TUTTI 15 WITH JUSTINE 6 WITH TIM WINTON A DRAWING BENNETT CLARKE ON THE BOY 20 WORKSHOP WITH Ari Seth Cohen is the creator of Advanced BEHIND THE Come by our Doncaster shop to meet actress, OSLO Style. This project features the street style of singer and author Justine Clarke. Clarke will the New York 60+ set, and started as a blog CURTAIN Drawing Funny is a tongue-in-cheek be signing copies of her new picture book, before expanding onto the screen and page. how-to guide from illustrator, artist Join us for a rare view of Tim Winton’s The Gobbledygook and the Scribbledynoodle. Come along to our Carlton shop to hear and cartoonist Oslo Davis. At this adult imagination at work and play as the Miles Cohen talk about his new book, Advanced workshop, Oslo will demonstrate the Franklin Award-winning author reveals Free, no booking required Style: Older and Wiser, with Australian style basics of drawing for beginners. the real characters and events behind his Saturday 15 October, 11am icons Sarah Jane Adams and Tutti Bennett. bestselling novels in this intimate discussion Readings Doncaster (Westfield Doncaster, 619 Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events ranging across his boyhood, movies and Doncaster Rd, Doncaster, Victoria) Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Thursday 20 October, 6.30pm road-trips, family and faith to the natural Tuesday 25 October, 6.30pm Readings Carlton world, art and writing. Readings Carlton MEET THE This event has now booked out. 18 WINNER OF THE RICHARD KILL YOUR Thursday 6 October, 12.30pm READINGS PRIZE 20 ROXBURGH IN Readings Hawthorn 27 DARLINGS FIRST FOR NEW CONVERSATION BOOK CLUB: AUSTRALIAN WITH CHRIS BOOK SIGNING REBELLIOUS FICTION GORDON 8 WITH ANNA GARE DAUGHTERS Join us for the announcement of this Richard Roxburgh, the star of Rake has Come by our Doncaster shop to meet Melbourne literary journal Kill Your Darlings year’s winner of The Readings Prize for released his first children’s book! Artie and television personality and chef Anna Gare is hosting a special one-off First Book Club New Australian Fiction! The evening the Grime Wave is a madcap, illustrated – who has appeared as a judge on Junior featuring the new Australian anthology, will include a conversation between the adventure sure to entertain readers aged Masterchef and was co-host of Great Australian Rebellious Daughters. Come along to help winning author and our 2016 guest judge, 8–12. Roxburgh will talk about the book with Bake Off. Gare will be signing copies of her Kill Your Darlings celebrate writers’ stories Maxine Beneba Clarke. our own events manager Chris Gordon. new cookbook, Delicious Every Day. of rebellion and independence.

Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Free, no booking required Free, but please RSVP to Tuesday 18 October, 6.30pm Saturday 8 October, 11am Thursday 20 October, 6.30pm [email protected] Readings Carlton Readings Doncaster (Westfield Doncaster, 619 Readings Hawthorn Thursday 27 October 6.30pm Doncaster Rd, Doncaster, Victoria) Readings Carlton READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2016 5

SPINE-TINGLING October Launches Join us for the launch of Sarah Martin’s 31 FUN WITH new non-fiction book, Bush Heritage Australia, which tells the inspiring story of an JAMES LEE Professor Patricia Rich will launch Pauline organisation with big ambitions. Drop by Readings Kids on Halloween to Schokman’s new novel, The Other Side of Monday 24 October, 6.30pm meet James Lee, the author of the spine- Silence, a gripping account of a single week Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. tingling Ghostworks series. This event is in the life of a Melbourne doctor. suitable for ages 6–12, and the best costume Wednesday 5 October, 6.30pm Mal Walden is the longest serving newsman will win a complete pack of all Lee’s books, Readings Hawthorn | Free, no booking required. on Australian television. Join us for the signed by the author. launch of his memoir, The Newsman: 60 DON WATSON IN Join us for the launch of Kimberley Starr’s Years of Television. Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events 27 CONVERSATION Text Prize-winning YA novel, The Book of Wednesday 26 October at 6.30pm Monday 31 October, 4.30pm Whispers. Readings Hawthorn | Free, no booking required. WITH BARRIE Readings Kids (315 Lygon St, Carlton, Victoria) Thursday 6 October, 6.30pm CASSIDY Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. Join us for the launch of Emeritus Professor Robert Manne’s new non-fiction book, The We’re pleased to be hosting a necessary and Mind of the Islamic State, which offers a important discussion on the near eve of November Dates! Join us for the launch of M.E. McGuire’s new condensed and gripping history of political the American election. Don Watson’s latest biography of the remarkable woman who was jihadism. Quarterly Essay, The Enemy Within, is an Sidney Nolan’s wife, Cynthia Nolan. Wednesday 26 October, 6.30pm eloquent yet barbed look at the state of the JACINTA Tuesday 11 October, 6.30pm Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. union and the American malaise. Watson will 3 HALLORAN IN Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. November discuss the issues raised in his essay with CONVERSATION Join us for the launch of Kim Kane’s When Insiders’ Barrie Cassidy. Helen Garner will launch Catherine de Saint WITH LEAH Phalle’s new memoir, Poum and Alexandre, a the Lyrebird Calls, a time-slip children’s Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events KAMINSKY moving elegy to family and place. novel in which a young girl finds herself Thursday 27 October, 6.30pm Wednesday 12 October, 6.30pm transported back to 1900 Australia. Jacinta Halloran’s new novel, The Science Church of All Nations, 180 Palmerston St., Carlton Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. Thursday 27 October, 6.30pm of Appearances, explores an era of social Readings Kids | Free, no booking required. constraint and profound scientific discovery. Join us for the launch of Tania Chandler’s A DEATH Join us in St Kilda to hear Halloran discuss new psychological thriller set across rural Join us for the launch of Ricci Carr’s I Can the writing of her novel with fellow author 27 SALON Victoria and Melbourne, Dead in the Water. Sing, But Where Is My Voice?, a simple, holistic Leah Kaminsky. In acknowledgement of All Saints’ Eve, Thursday 13 October, 6.30pm guide for people wishing to learn basic singing our St Kilda shop is hosting an intimate Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. techniques. Monday 31 October, 6.30pm death salon. Join writers Gerard Elson Thursday 3 November, 6.30pm and Leah Kaminsky over a glass of Readings St Kilda When Manny Waks went public about Readings Hawthorn | Free, no booking required. wine as they discuss depictions of having been sexually abused at his Ultra- death in popular culture and literature. Orthodox Jewish school, he and his family A peek at November launches BOOK SIGNING were shunned and intimidated by their Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events 5 WITH MANU community. Join us for the launch of his Join us for the launch of Kathy Tsaples’ November Thursday 27 October, 6.30pm FEILDEL memoir, Who Gave You Permission?, which is Sweet Greek Life, the eagerly awaited follow- Readings St Kilda co-written with Michael Visontay. up to her bestselling cookbook, Sweet Greek. Come by our Doncaster shop to meet Thursday 13 October, 6.30pm Wednesday 2 November, 6.30pm passionate French chef Manu Feildel, who Readings St Kilda | Free, no booking required. Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. DI MORRISSEY IN has appeared on MasterChef Australia and 27 CONVERSATION My Kitchen Rules. He will be signing copies WITH TONI JORDAN of all his cookbooks. Di Morrissey is one of Australia’s favourite Free, no booking required storytellers. A former journalist who’s Saturday 5 November, 11am worked around the world, a bestselling Readings Doncaster (Westfield Doncaster, 619 author and an environmentalist and activist, Doncaster Rd, Doncaster, Victoria) Morrissey writes addictive novels that weave Banish awkward silences with the in-laws, stop hearing in environmental, political and cultural BOOK SIGNING issues. Join us at our Hawthorn shop to 9 WITH CADEL the same old stories from your great uncle and give your hear her talk about her new novel, A Distant November Journey, with fellow author Toni Jordan. EVANS teenagers a reason to switch o their screens. We are beside ourselves to have Cadel Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Evans visiting us to sign copies of his Thursday 27 October, 6.30pm autobiography, The Art of Cycling. Cadel Readings Hawthorn Evans AM is considered the greatest Australian cyclist of all time.

BOOK SIGNING Free, no booking required 28 WITH GUS Wednesday 9 November, 12.30pm GORDON Readings Carlton Drop by our new children’s specialty shop to meet the prolific Australian illustrator CLIVE HAMILTON and writer Gus Gordon. Gordon will be 10 ON HIS NEW signing copies of all his books including his November gorgeous new picture book, Somewhere Else. BOOK, WHAT DO WE WANT? Free, no booking required We are delighted to host a special event Friday 28 October, 4pm with Australian author and public Readings Kids (315 Lygon St, Carlton, Victoria) intellectual, Clive Hamilton. He will be talking about his new book, What Do We A SPOOKY Want?, which explores the forms of protest and social movements that have come to 29 HALLOWEEN define modern Australia. STORY TIME Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Dress up in your favourite costume Thursday 10 November, 6.30pm and come by our St Kilda shop for a Readings St Kilda special, spooky story time. There will treats (or maybe tricks …) for everyone.

Free, no booking required Saturday 29 October, 10.30am Available at Readings. $19.95 www.taoc.com.au Readings St Kilda 6 READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2016 Q&A with Tim Winton Mark Rubbo interviews Tim Winton about his new memoir, The Boy Behind the Curtain. Kordas Hank Photograph:

Mark Rubbo: Some of the pieces that appear in your new including class and conservation – how do the experiences of I look back and see how pivotal certain random and very memoir, The Boy Behind the Curtain, have appeared in writing about issues you are passionate about differ in each unwelcome passages of violence have shaped me. And not various journals, but some, like the title piece, only appear medium? just road accidents or beatings, either. I’m talking about now for the first time. What prompted you to collect these TW: In fiction ‘issues’ are accidental, sometimes the physical facts of life. I went to school for 12 years, and often very personal pieces in one volume? incidental. The place and the people it creates are uni for 4, but I learnt more about human existence in the Tim Winton: Well they’ve been written over quite a paramount. I never start with what lots of people think 30 hours it took my first child to be born than I did in all while, but they felt as if they belonged together. And I guess of as a subject or a theme. They’re school words, not art those years of study. (Could be I was paying more attention, it must be a time-of-life thing, looking back and trying to words. So, writing essays busts my arse because the art true.) What I’m saying so badly is we’re bred now to believe make some sense of who I am and where I’ve been. It’s a is in addressing the subject. I find it really difficult and we’re in control and should be in control. It’s when we’re weird thing, having to give an account of yourself, to try to monstrously time-consuming. In an essay I need to employ not … well, that’s when it’s interesting. And I don’t mean make sense of yourself for yourself. I’m not that old, but my imagination but it’s indentured in a way it’s not when that in any Rimbaud-deliberate disordering of the senses I have been writing fiction professionally for a long time I’m free to make everything up. way, either. True, I’m not keen on surprises nowadays. I tell now. I started so young and went so hard for so long. And MR: In The Boy Behind the Curtain, you write about the myself my thrillseeking days are behind me. But I frightened I guess it was about feeling I had the space to look over my ambition that drove you to become a writer. Can you share the tripe out of myself twice this week alone – for fun – so I shoulder. a little about what inspired this vision for yourself, and how suspect there’s some self-deception at work here. MR: Are you someone who naturally keeps a mental your feelings about it have evolved in the years since you first MR: Which is more intimidating: the blank page at the notebook – do you file moments from real life away for later discovered your vocation? beginning of a new work of fiction or nonfiction? Why? use in your writing? Do people close to you notice you doing TW: I wanted to be a writer all my life. Since I was 10. TW: The blank page doesn’t bother me. It’s the voice this? How do they respond? And then at a certain point I began to assume I was one, in my head (not always my own) that gives me the yips. It’s TW: No, I don’t consciously watch and file lived which is rich, I know. I didn’t meet a writer until I was worse when I’m not making stuff up. moments for my work. I have a couple of writer friends nearly an adult, so I had no idea what I’d bet the farm on. MR: Your father’s terrible accident prompted a spiritual who do that and it creeps me out, to be honest. I know There was no backup plan. I get queasy looking back at awakening for him and your mother and, by default, your people think I must do that too, but I don’t. But I do have the presumption of it, but I’m slightly in awe of the dopey whole family. You write about this in the book. To what a long memory. People close to me aren’t afraid of being conviction, the running-straight-at-the-ball courage of it. extent does faith inform your writing? used or exposed, I don’t think. But they do notice a certain Thing is, I didn’t know any better. I didn’t know enough to TW: Yeah, I think my parents were delivered from abstraction about me quite often. I guess I’m wandering – flinch and back down. I’m not boasting about this – the boy the conventional world of surfaces. Firstly by a terrible ‘thinking’ might be too flash a word for that sort of who did this is still with me somewhere, but I doubt I’m event. Secondly by what the bumper sticker would call ‘a vagueing-out. I doubt it’s a writerly thing, though. still him. random act of kindness’. Actually, it was a concerted act of MR: Do you ever find yourself responding to confronting MR: You also write about the tough times writers inevitably compassion. So I grew up in a family that believed love was moments in real life first as a writer – for example looking at experience, including the self-doubt and loneliness that come at work in the world. I guess that’s a religious idea, though a moment as a potentially revealing or interesting plot twist with spending a lot of time alone and in your head. Can you of course it needn’t be. Whatever you believe, you need or ethical conundrum for the people involved – by processing offer any advice to other writers about how to go on in times faith to get through the day. The notion that love is abroad an event analytically and creatively before the meaning of the of doubt? in the world has shaped my life. I guess it could have event begins to resonate for you as an individual? TW: I don’t think I’m qualified to give that sort of distorted my work, too. TW: Life events are mostly only interesting after the advice, any more than I have the nerve to give parenting MR: In your new essay collection there is a splendid breadth fact. I’m not that analytical in the moment. I can’t make advice. I’ve been a writer and a parent since adolescence, of tone – from serious to reflective, deeply compassionate to something ‘useful’ to me in a writing sense for a very long it feels like, and I’m still making both gigs up as I go along. energising, and beyond. Some of your stories are hilarious. time. I don’t have any journalistic instinct. And I do keep a I did both in different forms of isolation – too young by How important is the humour in life to you? journal, but it’s neither very revealing nor fruitful for work. conventional standards, too far off-grid culturally and TW: Humour’s the pay-off for all that existential Stuff just bubbles up from the swamp later. geographically. So my experience is probably too specific to horror. My kelpie is not burdened by the certainty of MR: You are known for exploring important issues in your be useful. None of us do this stuff the same way. We just try death and loss. Neither is she subject to low emotions like fiction and nonfiction – some of which you return to often, to endure and press on, I guess. schadenfreude. But when she farts it’s just … well, ‘atmos’ MR: Unexpected events feature in your life and your as we say in the movies. It’s deep background. She doesn’t work – what interests you about the way people respond find it funny, and that’s tragic. Humour is God’s special gift THE BOY BEHIND to havoc? How have your own feelings about surprises to humanity. Handy, because it turns out to be necessary. THE CURTAIN changed over time? Mark Rubbo is the managing director of Readings. TW: I suppose I’m interested in how domesticated Tim Winton has published 28 books for adults and children, and his Tim Winton life seems to be in this little pocket of post-modernity. Of work has been translated into 28 languages. Since his first novel, An Hamish Hamilton. HB. course most of that safety and order is illusory, or at least Special Readings edition. Open Swimmer, won the Australian Vogel Award in 1981, he has won highly contingent. Life is wild by definition. And organic the Miles Franklin Award four times (for Shallows, Cloudstreet, Dirt Was $45 existence is violent. Though I find this hard to accept. And Music and Breath) and twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize ( for $29.99 I know it goes against the cultural grain of therapeutic The Riders and Dirt Music). He lives in Western Australia. Available 28 September smoothing so dominant in what we like to call ‘cultural Tim Winton’s new memoir, The Boy Behind the Curtain is available discourse’. The kind of thinking that clogs the arteries of in all Readings shops and online at readings.com.au critics as much as columnists and bloggers. I don’t think For more about The Boy Behind the Curtain, see our review on p12. this denatured squeamishness does art any favours. I guess READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2016 7

1952, Harold is not long back from the mood’ shifts noticeably. Mark’s war, and has brought back many secrets Reminiscent of Jasper Jones or Emily News and views from Readings’ Managing Director, and resentments. Harold has high hopes Maguire’s An Isolated Incident, Goodwood Mark Rubbo for Tommy, and states that Tommy will approaches small-town violence through Say become a doctor, but he sees no good in a softer lens, but the undercurrents and Kip, despite Kip’s hard work at the family ramifications are no less chilling. As in By the time you read this Readings will be on the brink of having two new shops and a dairy. Jess, their mother, tries to protect her Maguire’s novel, there may be answers in slightly changed Carlton one. I’ve just returned from the first few hours of our new shop younger son, but she is bound to Harold in the end, but answers are often not enough. at Westfield Doncaster; it was a mighty morning welcoming the people coming to look at ways the reader doesn’t understand until Alan Vaarwerk is the editorial assistant for the shop and to buy. We were thrilled and so were they – a feeling of mutual excitement! later in the book. Readings Monthly And lots of discussions about books, about ebooks, the future of the book and an When Kip and Tommy discover an overwhelming consensus that books and bookshops matter – music to an old booksellers’ entrance to the underground cave system THE BIRDMAN’S WIFE ears but also an affirmation that bookshops, wherever they may be, have a role to play in near their home, they explore their Melissa Ashley the community. new underground playground at every Affirm. PB. Was $32.99 Readings has always been fiercely independent and some people expressed surprise opportunity. Despite being forbidden to $27.99 that we would open in a mall; it wasn’t something we sought and we were in fact play there, it becomes a haven for them Available 1 October approached by Westfield; they had had a Borders there and there was obviously an away from the farm, until one day Tommy appetite for books and there were few bookshops between the inner suburbs and Eltham. stirs up a rockslide and disappears from The Birdman’s It seemed like a perfect opportunity and an interesting one. We commissioned a local sight. Terrified, nine-year-old Kip tells Wife is a novel that architectural firm, Nest, to come up with a design that would reflect the independence the search party that Tommy is lost in the will appeal to bird of Readings yet fit in a shopping centre. The decision to choose Nest was based on their forest. This lie and its consequences haunt fanciers and devotees of portfolio, but was helped by the fact that the principal architect’s partner is a writer well him for the next fifty years. John Gould’s known to us – ‘They should have strong empathy for our project,’ we thought. They came The novel is narrated by Kip, and monographs. The story up with a motif of the pages of a book and their sensuous curves; it might sound a bit the farmhand, Squid, who remains on is told from the trite but it works really well in this medium-sized shop that holds enough stock to make the farm. We next meet the characters perspective of Gould’s it interesting and varied. I get the feeling that we’ll grow well into this space. in 2002, when Kip realises his secret wife, Elizabeth, and Our second shop is a dedicated children’s shop in Lygon Street. Children’s book sales is jeopardising his marriage and begins in 1828 when she is twenty-four, and are the success story of the publishing industry and those of you who know our Lygon relationship with his own son, and meets Gould for the first time. At this stage Street shop would have seen how our children’s section has been bursting at the seams. returns to make amends. Gould is working as a taxidermist, though The new shop is in a building that was originally designed by Melbourne architect Daryl The Better Son contains many once the couple marries, he decides to Jackson for the clothing company Esprit; it’s a lovely, simple building with beautiful beautiful images, and explores the specialise in the classification of species. natural light. Once again, we briefed Nest Architects; we wanted something that is emotional legacy of parental abuse. It is a Ashley has painstakingly researched playful and practical. They came up with an idea of a park full of picnic tables, full of good choice for book groups, and fans of Elizabeth’s life and world, and this is books – a few days out from opening, it’s looking rather exciting. In addition to the picnic Tony Birch’s novels. evident in her detailed narrative. She has also brought to the forefront Elizabeth’s theme, we’ve commissioned children’s book illustrator and author Marc Martin to do a Annie Condon is from Readings Hawthorn huge mural against the high walls. It wasn’t the best time for Marc as Penguin Random art, and the essential but largely House have just published his latest book, Lots, and I suspect that being perched high GOODWOOD unrecognised role Elizabeth played in her on scaffolding painting like Michelangelo within the Sistine Chapel wasn’t exactly how husband’s success. Bringing a modern, Holly Throsby he’d thought of preparing for publication. So, for us, the bookshop is still alive and well feminist perspective to her examination of A&U. PB. $29.99 and it’s thanks to you, dear readers, for your support; the new shops would not have been Elizabeth’s life, Ashley explores the conflict Available 1 October possible without it, so please, if you have a chance, we’d love you to visit some time soon. Elizabeth feels in attempting to balance Goodwood is a the roles of mother, wife and artist. This quintessential is most evident when John asks Elizabeth NSW country to come with him to Australia in 1838 to New Fiction town – sandwiched document species in the new land. She is between a river and a torn between the needs of her children, the two youngest of whom would remain for a traditional cure. The measures to mountain, known for at home in England, and the exciting Australian Fiction which the women resort in their pursuit its timber and its opportunity for her husband. She chooses of the restoration of the child’s vitality fishing – the sort of to go for the two years, but is constantly begin to arouse suspicion and the ardent town where not much THE GOOD PEOPLE aware of her distance from her two girls; a disapproval of the new priest, and events happens, everyone Hannah Kent distance made even more fraught when she escalate from there. knows everyone else’s business, and Picador. PB. Was $32.99 receives a letter from home telling of her The Good People is a heart-rending nobody much bothers with locking their $27.99 youngest daughter’s illness. parable about ignorance and fear that is doors. That is until 18-year-old Rosie Ashley has created a beautifully written Available 27 September convincing in its portrayal of nineteenth- White disappears without a trace, book, and I had no trouble believing it Hannah Kent’s century rural Ireland, and yet also followed a week later by Bart McDonald, was narrated by a figure from the 1800s. second novel, alarmingly reminiscent of issues rife in the town’s beloved local butcher. The It is a wonderful, fictional biography of The Good People, is our own society today. Fear of that which town is turned on its head – gossip and an exceptional woman whose life is best based on a true story, cannot be explained, and of difference, speculation turn into mistrust and summarised by Ashley’s own words: My as was her bestselling produces questionable behaviours even suspicion as secrets are revealed, and the husband loved me and had done well for us. and much-lauded now. Kent has written a timeless story townspeople’s lives intersect in We might make something of our union. And debut novel, Burial of human frailty and a gripping period unforeseen and unforced ways. Against all so I came to my decision: to keep his house, Rites. Both are drama. this is the coming-of-age of narrator Jean Brown, whose interest in the case mirrors to be mother to his children. To sketch the engrossing works of Elke Power is the editor of Readings Monthly historical fiction that that of the whole town – it upends feathered tribes that obsessed his mind. everything she thinks she knows about the bring to life little-known stories of real THE BETTER SON Annie Condon is from Readings Hawthorn women and the communities in which world, and is all she can think about – Katherine Johnson they live. except for an enigmatic new girl in town. ON THE BLUE TRAIN Ventura. PB. $29.99 The Good People is set in 1825 in a Best known and highly regarded as as a Kristel Thornell Available 1 October singer–songwriter, Holly Throsby’s debut relatively isolated small village in south- A&U. PB. $29.99 novel is lyrical without being abstruse, west Ireland, near Killarney, on the Flesk Katherine Available 1 October Johnson’s debut colloquial without being contrived. Her river. After the death of her daughter and On 4 December 1926, novel Pescador’s Wake characters, while familiar, are nuanced and then, mere months later, her husband, Nora Agatha Christie became was highly praised, authentic, and her depiction of small-town Leahy is left to care for her four-year-old Teresa Neele, resident and her original, life is bang-on in both its endearing and grandson alone. Once a thriving toddler, of the spa hotel, the descriptive language suffocating ways. by the time he came into her care the child Harrogate Hydro. Lying made her an Australian At multiple points while reading was a drastically altered being – he can to her fellow guests writer to watch. While Goodwood I was convinced that Holly no longer walk, speak or interact. Fearful about the death of a Pescador’s Wake was Throsby had based the titular town on of the villagers’ reaction, Nora keeps him husband and child, set on the rough seas the one I grew up in, which has had its hidden from all but her closest associates Teresa settles in to the of the far Southern Ocean, Johnson has own share of tragedy in recent years – the and the girl she has hired to help her care anonymity she so fiercely desires. Until chosen another intimidating landscape for close-knit cast of characters, the power of for him, fourteen-year-old Mary. Harry McKenna, bruised from the end of her second novel – the labyrinth of gossip as currency, even small details like As a particularly hard winter and a his own marriage, asks her to dance. In underground caves in rural Tasmania. the local-humour stubby coolers everyone spate of misfortunes increase tension in the this entrancing novel of creativity and The Better Son is the story of two seems to own, all ring remarkably true. small community, ill-will breeds and Nora grief, Kristel Thornell combines fact and brothers: younger, sensitive Kip, and Small towns react to tragedy differently becomes increasingly desperate. When fantasy to reconstruct Agatha Christie’s Tommy, a daredevil who is favoured by from big cities – the landscape seems neither priest nor doctor will help, Nora infamous lost days. turns to the resident wise woman, Nance, their abusive, alcoholic father. Set in changed, the all-pervasive sense of ‘local 8 READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2016

THE SCHOOLDAYS HAGSEED terrible famine and starved for hope, Anna OF JESUS Margaret Atwood quickly becomes a beacon for religious faith, and the local doctor – eager not to JM Coetzee Hogarth. PB. $29.99 seem superstitious and backwards in a Text. HB. Was $34.99 Available 6 October rapidly modernising world – enlists the Margaret $29.99 assistance of a 24-hour Watch to decide Atwood’s Available now once and for all whether the girl is a Hag-Seed, the fourth In the startling sequel miracle, or a fraud. novel in the Hogarth to The Childhood of Enter Lib Wright, the pragmatic, Shakespeare series, is Jesus, Davíd is the practical English nurse sent to uncover a contemporary small boy who is the truth behind Anna’s condition. Lib is retelling of always asking a sceptic who places her faith in science Shakespeare’s The questions. Simón and and process rather than religion, and she Tempest, his late- Inés take care of him is certain that it won’t take long before career tale of magic in their new town the truth of Anna’s deception can be and illusion. In Estrella. But he'll be uncovered. During her prickly interactions Atwood’s version the plot takes place in a seven soon – he should with the journalist, Byrne, Lib comes correctional facility (the Fletcher County be at school. And so, Davíd is enrolled in to the realisation that the case is more Correctional Institute) somewhere in the Academy of Dance. In his new golden complicated than she first believed, and Ontario. In Hag-Seed, Shakespeare’s play is dancing slippers, he learns how to call that her prejudices may be affecting her staged by ‘The Fletcher Correctional down the numbers from the sky. But the ability to discern what is at the heart of Players’, made up of medium-security Academy also brings troubling discoveries Anna’s fast. The Wonder is a beautifully inmates taking part in the ‘Literacy about what adults are capable of. realised historical thriller that examines Through Literature high school level the conflict between the old world and the program’ at the facility, under the direction new, but never loses sight of the human of Felix Phillips, former Artistic Director of International Fiction story at the heart of the mystery. Anna’s the Makeshiweg Festival. innocence and gentle piety contrasts with Felix – unceremoniously ousted from Lib’s rational atheism, and it’s clear that THE NIX his previous position years before by both of them have something to learn from Nathan Hill poxy, poisonous usurpers – seeks revenge the other. Picador. PB. $29.99 on said usurpers, and seeks to regain his Available now title. Having disappeared into private Lian Hingee is the digital marketing manager for Readings While Nathan exile, he stalks the ‘malignant, bawling, blasphemous, incharitable dogs’ – those Hill’s debut TODAY WILL BE novel The Nix is poxy usurpers – on the internet as they certainly ambitious, rise through the ranks of government DIFFERENT givent that it even as he is planning his revenge. In Maria Semple contains the Chicago the meantime, the story’s only ‘true’ W&N. PB. Was $32.99 riots of 1968, the relationship is revealed: that between Felix $27.99 invasion of Iraq, the and the daughter he lost at a young age. Available 11 October recent Occupy Wall This beautiful, magical relationship at the Eleanor Flood is Street movement, as heart of this story is only an illusion: his a well off well as online Miranda is gone, but he imagines her there, animator living in gaming, a new, minimal, social media, he talks to her, he comes home to find Seattle with her sports growing up in the suburbs of the ’80s and, her there, he misses her when she doesn’t surgeon husband Joe most notably, Norwegian ghosts, what appear. Illusion and magic infuse this story, and their 8-year-old binds this huge novel together is its cynical and Felix’s life; as a theatre director, he uses son, Timby. Eleanor is and somewhat ironic world-view. all the tools of illusion and deception at his generally depressed by You could chalk this up to the fingertips to take his revenge. her life, which is influence of Samuel Adresen-Anderson, Atwood uses cleverness and cheek outwardly full of the book’s main protagonist, a bored lit to tell this tale of revenge, insanity, and material comfort but unsatisfying. teacher who once had great promise as a grief. The play-within-the-play-within- Eleanor wakes each day deciding that writer, and who has managed to swing a the-novel is playful and perfect and suits today she is going to be her best self, that large advance and a position at a college Shakespeare’s Tempest to a ‘T’. Felix today will be different from all the other on a book that he never wrote. Now uses the magic of Prospero’s books and days in what she feels is a usually failed he’s bored and mostly stays in his office Shakespeare’s words to bring about his bargain with the world. But today will be playing an online role-playing game until revenge, achieving unexpected redemption different. the small hours. into the bargain. The evocative and In an escalating series of misadventures When his publisher threatens to sue haunting father–daughter relationship Eleanor careens through her day, him into bankrupcy, Samuel promises at the heart of the novel depicts a deep accompanied at different points by Timby, to write a book about his mother, who humanity in what is an almost-too-clever, her poet Alonzo, and Yo-Yo the dog, not abandoned him as a child and has recently tongue-in-cheek book. But – as always with to mention the reappearance of an old resurfaced in his life after being arrested Atwood – what cleverness, what tongue, employee she had fired who has made it for attacking a conservative senator with what cheek! big. It’s the set up for a broad and funny some gravel. Ed Moreno is from Readings Carlton satire on modern upper-middle class As Samuel investigates the mother he American living. Then it takes a turn. A never knew, we get a mix of characters THE WONDER third of the way into this screwball satire, and storylines including: fraternal twins, Emma Donoghue the Flood Sisters arrive. A graphic novel one of them a violin prodigy and love Picador. PB. $29.99 (or comic – depending on what you call it) of Samuel’s life, the other a bully and Available 27 September within the novel, the Flood Sisters, in 12 Samuel’s best friend; two students making intricate pages bring into focus the weight Emma Donoghue moves to get Samuel fired; a handful behind the comedy. is best known as of activists; a policeman obsessed with Maria Semple, whose earlier the author of the Samuel’s mother and role-playing power novel Where’d You Go, Bernadette was Booker Prize- user who is constantly failing to get his life shortlisted for the Baileys Women’s Prize nominated novel, The together. for Fiction, and who for 15 years wrote Room, which was While the book is definitely a comedy, for television on shows including Arrested adapted to become one what slowly emerges is an intricate Development, Ellen, and Mad About of the most critically portrait of a mother and son, both trying You, brings an assured, fast paced comic acclaimed films of to deal with the lackluster turnout of their sensibility to a very well realised portrait 2015. In The Wonder lives. In its strongest moments the novel of a woman suffering from depression and she goes back a hundred or so years to find also becomes something much weirder, family trauma. Maria Semple has achieved another child living in desperate and inventive and even touching. The Nix is something very difficult, and something unusual circumstances. definitely a ride worth taking. I much appreciated, in writing a fast- Anna O’Donnell is a healthy 11-year- reading, clever comedy that packs a real Chris Somerville is from Readings Carlton old Irish girl; unremarkable in every way, emotional punch. except that for four months she’s eaten nothing. In a country recovering from Marie Matteson is from Readings Carlton READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2016 9

TRANSIT SMALL GREAT THINGS Rachel Cusk Jodi Picoult Jonathan Cape. PB. $32.99 A&U. PB. Was $32.99 Available 17 October $27.99 In the wake of family Available 1 October collapse, a writer and her Roisin and François first Small town. Big secrets. two young sons move to meet in the snowy white London. The process of expanse of Antarctica, upheaval is the catalyst for chasing a rare comet In 1992, when Jean Brown a number of transitions sighting. As we loop is seventeen, a terrible thing – personal, moral, artistic, back through their lives, practical – as she glimpsing each of them happens. Two terrible things. endeavours to construct a only during a comet new reality for herself and her children. event, we see how their Filtered through the impersonal gaze of its paths cross as they come closer and closer keenly intelligent protagonist, Transit to this moment. Theirs are lives filled with offers up a penetrating and moving love and hope and heartbreak, in a story reflection on childhood and fate, the value that shows how the world can be as lonely of suffering, the moral problems of personal or as beautiful as the comets themselves. responsibility and the mystery of change. ... a town where everyone knows ORPHANS OF THE everyone. People die, but they AUTUMN CARNIVAL don’t just disappear. Ali Smith Carol Birch Hamish Hamilton. PB. $29.99 Canongate. PB. $29.99 Available 17 October Available 1 October The first installment in Julia Pastrana is the Ali Smith’s cyclical singing and dancing A warm, big-hearted novel novel quartet Seasonal, marvel from Mexico, Autumn is a witty heralded on tours about coming of age in a excavation of the across nineteenth- small town torn apart by present by the past that century Europe as fuses Keatsian mists much for her talent as rumour and tragedy, from and mellow fruitfulness for her unusual musician and songwriter, with the vitality, appearance. Yet few immediacy and can see past the thick Holly Throsby. colour-hit of Pop Art. The novel is a hair that covers her: she is both a stripped-branches take on popular culture, fascinating curiosity and a shunned, and a meditation, in a world growing ever unnatural beast. But what is her wonderful more bordered and exclusive, on what and terrible link to Rose, collector of lost e richness and worth are, what harvest treasures in modern-day London? In this means. A breathtakingly inventive new haunting tale of identity, love and novel from the Man Booker-shortlisted and independence, these two lives will connect Baileys Prize-winning author. in unforgettable ways. ECHOLAND CONCLAVE Per Petterson Robert Harris Harvill Secker. HB. $35 Hutchinson. PB. Was $32.99 EMMA HANNAH Available 17 October $27.99 DONOGHUE KENT Twelve-year-old Arvid Available 17 October and his family are on The Pope is dead. THE WONDER THE GOOD holiday, staying with his Behind the locked doors PEOPLE grandparents in of the Sistine Chapel, Denmark. He’s on the 120 Cardinals from all cusp of becoming a The chilling new novel from the The remarkable new novel from the over the globe will cast teenager, feeling bestselling author of Room. bestselling author of Burial Rites. their votes in the world’s awkward in his own skin, most secretive election. Set in the Irish Midlands in the 1850s, A story about the intersection of ‘reality’ and confused by the They are holy men - but The Wonder is a psychological thriller and folk traditions, an exploration of the underlying tension between his mother and they have ambition, and about a child’s murder threatening to thresholds between what we know and grandmother. As Arvid cycles around town, they have rivals. Over the next 72 hours, happen in slow motion before our eyes. what we don’t. down to the beach with its view of the one of them will become the most powerful Pitting all the seductions of fundamen- A thoroughly engrossing entrée into the lighthouse, his new-found freedom fuels spiritual figure on earth. A masterful, talism against sense and love, it is a macabre nature of a vanished society, his desire to experience life. Echoland is a intelligent thriller in which the power of searing examination of what nourishes its virtues and its follies and its lethal subtle and truthful snapshot of growing up God clashes with the ambitions of men. us, body and soul. impulses.’ TOM KENEALLY that will linger long after its final pages. DIVORCE IS IN THE AIR NICOTINE Gonzalo Torne HELEN MATT & Nell Zink Harvill Secker. PB. $32.99 HarperCollins. PB. $29.99 GARNER LENTIL Available 3 October Available 1 October PUBRICK Joan-Marc’s out of JOE CINQUE’S Penny Baker has rebelled work, he’s alone, he has CONSOLATION GROWN & against her bohemian a heart condition, his GATHERED family her whole life, by family is a mess – being the conventional An inspiring guide to real food and life’s otherwise, life is The masterwork from one of Australia’s one. But all that changes greatest writers, now released as a film. fundamentals, with recipes, advice and beautiful. But there’s a when her father dies, projects to help you grow, cook, preserve, lot his estranged second ‘Garner’s book is a writer’s profound and Penny inherits his trade without money and live well. wife doesn’t know about response to a tragedy and to questions childhood home in New him. From the failure of about human responsibility over time as Beautifully packaged with over 100 Jersey – which turns out his first marriage, a holiday taken in a well as at precise moments, questions nourishing wholefood recipes, to be occupied by a group of friendly Grown & last-ditch attempt to salvage a once about duty of care in a community, is perfect for those who want anarchist squatters, united in defence of Gathered passionate relationship, is triggered a about the law and its limits’. THE AGE to rediscover a more natural way of living smokers’ rights, who have renamed the life-story’s worth of flashbacks. The result and eating. property Nicotine. Baby-Boomer idealism is an unapologetic, daring, acerbic novel by and Millennial pragmatism clash in this an electrifying young writer about the end fierce and audaciously funny novel of family, of love, and the difficulty of letting go. www.panmacmillan.com.au obsession, and idealism. 10 READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2016

CHELSEA GIRLS: A NOVEL A GENTLEMAN IN Eileen Myles MOSCOW October’s To-Read List Serpent’s Tail. PB. $19.99 Amor Towles Available 1 October Hutchinson. PB. $29.99 In this inventive Available 3 October autobiographical novel, In 1922 Count Rostov is Eileen Myles transforms deemed an unrepentant her life into a work of aristocrat by a Bolshevik art. Suffused with tribunal, and is sentenced to alcohol, drugs, and sex; house arrest in the grand evocative in its Metropol Hotel. Rostov who depictions of the has never worked a day in hardscrabble realities of his life, must now live in an a young queer artist’s life; with raw, attic room as some of the most tumultuous flickering stories of awkward love, laughter, decades in Russian history unfold outside the and discovery, Chelsea Girls is a funny, cool, hotel’s doors. Brimming with humour and and intimate account of how one young beautifully rendered, this spellbinding novel female writer managed to shrug off the follows the Count’s endeavour to understand Passchendaele epitomises everything that Cadiz, Palermo, Copenhagen and more... imposition of a rigid cultural identity. what it means to be a man of purpose. was most terrible about the Western Front. Rick Stein goes in search of good food in It tells the story of a war of pure attrition at fabulous locations. BIT ROT GRIEF IS THE THING its most spectacular and ferocious. Douglas Coupland WITH FEATHERS Heinemann. PB. $32.99 Max Porter Available 3 October Faber. PB. $19.99 ‘Bit rot' is a term used in Available 1 October digital archiving to Part novella, part polyphonic describe the way digital fable, part essay on grief, files can spontaneously Max Porter’s extraordinary and quickly decompose. debut combines compassion Bit Rot the book and bravura to dazzling explores the ways effect. In a London flat, two humanity tries to make young boys face the sense of our shifting unbearable sadness of their consciousness. Coupland, just like the mother’s sudden death, their father imagining internet, mixes forms to achieve his ends. a future of emptiness. In this moment of Short fiction is interspersed with essays on despair they are visited by Crow – antagonist, all aspects of modern life, resulting in an trickster, healer, babysitter. As weeks turn to addictively satisfying collection of The Pope is dead and now one hundred Shakespeare’s play of magic and illusion months and the pain of loss gives way to observations about our world. Every page and twenty Cardinals will cast their votes reimagined by one of the world’s great memories, the little unit of three starts to heal. in the world’s most secretive election. literary innovators. of Bit Rot is full of wit, surprise and delight. THE ATOMIC THE LAST DAYS OF NIGHT WEIGHT OF LOVE Graham Moore Scribner. PB. $32.99 Elizabeth J Church Available 1 October Fourth Estate. PB. $29.99 Available now In New York, in the late 1880s, the miracle of In 1941, the spirited electric light is still in its Meridian Wallace wins a infancy. Thomas Edison has place at the University of won the race to the patent Chicago to study office for his electric light ornithology. When she bulb and is now suing his falls in love with her one remaining rival, George brilliant physics professor, Westinghouse, for the unfathomable one Alden Whetstone, who is billion dollars. Westinghouse makes a suddenly recruited to a surprising choice to defend himself, choosing From its humble beginnings Dinosaur In her third cookbook, Silvia embraces the mysterious wartime project in New Mexico, untested 26-year-old Paul Cravath as his Designs has become a beloved Australian healthy Mediterranean food she grew up with. Meridian defers her plans to join him, but attorney. Cravath’s task is truly daunting, and brand. This book celebrates the innovation La Dolce Vita offers authentic recipes catering finds her wings clipped – what was an the stakes are immense: the victor will hold and inspiration that have produced a to those with vegan, vegetarian, gluten-, grain-, electrifying intellectual partnership soon the monopoly on light itself. covetable body of homewares and jewellery. egg- and dairy-free dietary preferences. evolves into something quite different. A luminous and enthralling story of birds and science, ambition and sacrifice, and the late Science Fiction blooming of an unforgettable woman. THE EXPLOSION DEATH’S END: BOOK 3 CHRONICLES OF THE THREE-BODY Yan Lianke PROBLEM TRILOGY Text. PB. $29.99 Cixin Liu & Ken Liu (trans.) Available 17 October Head of Zeus. PB. $29.99 The village of Explosion Available 6 October was founded more than a Half a century after the millennium ago by Doomsday Battle, the refugees fleeing a volcanic uneasy balance of Dark eruption. But in the Forest Deterrence keeps the John Green meets Rainbow Rowell in this The remarkable true stories that reveal an post-Mao era, the name Trisolaran invaders at bay. irresistible story of first love, broken hearts, intimate and rare view of Tim Winton’s takes on a new The two civilisations are and the golden seams that put them back imagination at work and play. significance. Three major gradually learning to together again. families, linked by a co-exist peacefully – but complex web of loyalty, betrayal, desire and peace has made humanity complacent. Cheng ambition, are the driving force behind their Xin, an aerospace engineer from the early hometown’s transformation into an urban 21st century, awakens from hibernation in superpower. Brimming with intelligence and this new age. Reviving long-forgotten secrets, Read more at penguin.com.au wit, The Explosion Chronicles is a smart, her very presence may upset the delicate flamboyant and poetic tale of ambition, lies balance between two worlds. Will humanity and vice from China’s master satirist. reach for the stars or die in its cradle? READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2016 11

New Crime Dead Write anyone. But he’s soon back in Sydney once disused wartime mortuary, dead on a slab, he’s caught wind of what’s happened to the and the homicide team start their typical with Fiona Hardy wife and baby daughter he hasn’t seen for assessments, until one identifies the man as Crime Book of the Month months. The baby is in the care of her aunt. one Andrew Fisher – a local who was killed Harry’s wife, Jenny, was away for a brief and cremated twelve years earlier, his wife holiday, but is now on the run and wanted Lena just released from prison after being DR KNOX for murder. But who is the man Jenny has found guilty of his murder. But where has Peter Spiegelman theoretically murdered? What is his Fisher been for twelve years, and why did Headline. PB. $29.99 connection to Nordlund, the mining his wife accept her fate? When Lena Available now company with an unpleasantly recent vanishes, her sister Kat endeavours to find Adam Knox is a man of contradictions. Altruistic by day, he history with the Belltrees? And what is the her, along with Detective Constable Connie runs a clinic for the poor, the drug addicted, the prostitutes and connection to Slater Park, now named Childs and a police team working to survive homeless of downtown Los Angeles. Mercenary by night, Knox Slaughter Park in the press thanks to the the repercussions of incorrectly idenitifying makes home visits to criminals and those famous enough not to want dismembered body parts hanging by ribbons a dead man all those years earlier. Taut and to visit the emergency room, patching them up on a cash-only basis from a tree? Another blistering book from beautifully written, this is a cracker of a with the guarantee of silence. Thus Knox funds his clinic, which in the Ned Kelly Award-winning Maitland. mystery with genuine characters worth part seems to be an attempt to make amends for mistakes he made as a medic for an NGO staying up late for. in Africa, all of which ended in disaster. DEAD IN THE WATER So here we have it: the flawed doctor with a heart of gold. One night a woman turns up Tania Chandler THE SCHOLL CASE: at his clinic, a prostitute it seems, beaten and exhausted, with a boy in anaphylactic shock. Scribe. PB. $29.99 THE DEADLY END OF A Knox deals with the boy, only to find the woman has bolted out the back door. Our kind- Available 3 October MARRIAGE hearted doctor is drawn headfirst into the mystery, which threatens not only himself and Brigitte Serra and her Anja Reich-Osang his staff, but his best buddy Ben Sutter, an ex-Special Forces agent who despairs at and family have left Text. PB. $29.99 protects the good doctor. Melbourne – and the Available 3 October Cue Russian gangsters, an evil, rich industrialist, and some fast dialogue and brutal memories of Chandler’s violence as Knox and Sutter take up the cause of the kid who has been dumped on them. debut novel, Don’t Leave The day after her forty- Los Angeles looms large in this novel, with its petrochemical sunsets and iconic boulevards Me Here – for a small seventh wedding hosting the action in what can only be described as neo-noir. Plot complications build island in Gippsland and anniversary – December rapidly against the backdrop of a city that wears extreme inequality like a badge of honour, the comfort that being 29, 2011 – Brigitte Scholl as Knox and Sutter face corporate and criminal entities that send ever more brutal and away from the city disappeared. Her sadistic messages that they want – for reasons unknown – the mysterious boy back. provides. Here, all that’s outside their door is husband, the well- There is a lot going on here, but Spiegelman keeps the complicated plot flowing with squabbling koalas and the dark pull of the known Heinrich Scholl, snappy wise-cracking dialogue and bursts of tension and violence. I loved Knox, Sutter, and sea – but then a body is found in the water, had spent the day the heat of Los Angeles’ underbelly. The best part is that things seem set up for a sequel. and Brigitte’s old boyfriend Matt Elery –now checking in on his Robbie Egan is the operations manager for Readings a writer who has written a crime book called beloved south Berlin town of Ludwigsfelde, Dead in the Water –is in town for a signing. where he had been mayor for years. That Brigitte’s policeman husband Aidan is on night, he alerted his friends that his wife NEVER ALONE one, who has an unthinkable secret. And high alert, and now the sanctuary of their was missing; later, she and her dog were Elizabeth Haynes when it happens, and the world comes home is at risk, not only from unknown found in the woods, dead. Now, Heinrich crashing down, it will leave some of them Text, PB, $29.99 exterior threats but also that of Brigitte and Scholl sits in jail for her murder, protesting dead, some of them injured, and all of them Available 17 October Aidan’s own visceral suffering as the present his innocence, but the case still grips the struggling to cope with the aftermath. A Gosh, it’s an enchanting reveals afresh the trauma of violence in their German public, not least the award- tense, sombre read. notion, isn’t it? A past. The Ned Kelly and Davitt-shortlisted winning journalist Anja Reich-Osang, who Chandler has written another absorbing windswept farm in the THE ICE BENEATH HER intended to briefly visit the courtroom Yorkshire moors, thriller, shot with fear, crackling energy, and during his trial for a look into what was nothing but lush fields Camilla Grebe dynamic, flawed characters. happening and, instead, spent years and fluffy sheep out of Zaffre. PB. $29.99 investigating his case. Reich-Osang your cottage windows. Available 1 October MAGPIE MURDERS provides a powerful, beautifully written And so it is for Sarah, In fashion CEO Jesper Anthony Horowitz exposition into a murder that is as much living alone after the Orre’s beautiful mansion, Orion. PB. Was $32.99 about the world Scholl inhabits as it is death of her husband and her grown everything is just so: $27.99 about the man himself. children moving on and away from her in black lacquered kitchen Available 11 October the world – just her and her dogs on an counters, glossy surfaces, We do sometimes suspect THE TRESPASSER isolated property. Then Aiden, an old not much in the way of that our favourite authors Tana French friend, moves back to town and into the decoration –except for may be less favourable in H&S. PB. $32.99 spare cottage on her land, promptly the decapitated body in real life, and publisher Available now throwing Sarah’s life into an almost the hallway, the head Susan Ryeland both loves The wonderful thing welcome disarray – until a friend of Sarah’s arranged neatly so. Peter, a policeman at the and loathes the moment about Tana French’s estranged son starts to show up more than end of his enthusiasm for working homicide, she gets a new manuscript Dublin Murder Squad expected, Sarah’s closest friend vanishes, is on the case, even though there seems an by crime author Alan series is that they’re all and a storm closes in. A pulsating, sexy, obvious culprit – Jesper himself: strict Conway on her desk. Conway she is no fan excellent, but all very slow-burn thriller with a brutal British businessman, now vanished. But the case of, but his literary invention – post-war different at the same winter as visceral as the pages themselves. also has similarities with another, ten years German detective Atticus Pund, solving cosy time. Each book has One for ruining all fantasies of lifestyle earlier – and Hanne, the psychological British crimes in the 1950s – is wonderful. enough familiarity to changes to rural England. profiler on the case back then, has been And so Ryeland is devastated when the allow you to slip summoned out of retirement to help again, latest manuscript has no ending, and more effortlessly into the story, but not so much THE SILENCE BETWEEN despite Peter’s reservations about the past so when she discovers that Conway himself that the books seem repetitive or cookie- BREATHS they share –and despite Hanne’s own fears now has an ending – dead, apparently by his cutter. The Trespasser is the sixth book in the that the illness she is suffering, and its Cath Staincliffe own hand. But, as she –and we readers – series, and the second to feature Detectives impact on her memory, will impede the Headline. PB. $29.99 examine the manuscript, it seems that Antoinette Conway and Stephen Moran, investigation. And still, they don’t know who Available now Conway has hidden clues to an even more whose partnership was in its infancy in The the victim is. A chilling Scandinavian crime revealing and deadly mystery in the pages of On the 10.35 to London, Secret Place. The acerbic Conway holds the to freeze your nerves. his book. Just hope, dear reader, that no one Euston, a carriage full of reins in this new book, which is about a case has the pen poised above your own story as strangers ambles along that might not be the slam-dunk domestic SLAUGHTER PARK you read Horowitz’s. the rails, its inhabitants violence crime that it at first appears to be. Barry Maitland bored, frustrated, As Conway and Moran are drawn deeper Text. PB. $29.99 impatient for something. A DEADLY THAW into a web of secrets and conspiracies, it Available 3 October Meg and Diana are Sarah Ward becomes clear that someone on the squad is going on a walking The third and final book in Faber. PB. $29.99 determined to see them fail. The Trespasser holiday, but Meg is the Belltree Trilogy finds Available 1 October is a twisty, hard-edged thriller that leaves hiding something from her partner. Nick is Harry Belltree shielding It’s all very unassuming, of you feeling uneasy and on edge and fed up with his wife and children and their those around him from course, a book with a desperate to find out where the line lies never-ending needs. Jeff is on his way to a danger by hiding out in version of the word ‘dead’ in between truth and fiction. job interview. Rhona is regretting leaving Cape Tribulation where his the title, a misty cover. So Lian Hingee is the digital marketing manager her sick daughter at school for the sake of closest neighbour is a far, so British Crime Novel, for Readings her job. There are more: a disparate group crocodile named Marilyn but this is a book you can’t of humans, going about their day, except for who, handily, doesn’t need defending from shake. A man is found in a 12 READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2016

New Nonfiction responsibilities as a non-Indigenous absurd. Her life was as rich with incident, Australian whose family’s privilege was as vigorously modern, as unconventional, built on stolen land? After a four-decade and ultimately as tragic as anything in her Book of the Month absence, Webster returns to her hometown fiction. Meticulously researched and to reconnect with her former friends, and artfully constructed, Edmund Gordon THE BOY BEHIND THE CURTAIN to piece together Kurrawang’s story. uncovers a wealth of new details about the life of this extraordinary writer, and Tim Winton NUJEEN skilfully captures the remarkable Hamish Hamilton. HB Special Edition. Was $45 Nujeen Mustafa personality that left an indelible mark on $29.99 HarperCollins. PB. $32.99 English fiction. Available 28 September Available 1 October Helen Garner’s Everywhere I Look, a collection of personal A 16-year-old Syrian KARL MARX: essays and diary notes, delighted readers and it went on to girl with cerebral GREATNESS AND become one of our bestsellers. I’ve got a feeling that Tim Winton’s palsy, Nujeen Mustafa ILLUSION collection, The Boy Behind the Curtain, will hit the same mark. has the courage of a Like Garner’s, this book is a collection of pieces, some previously Gareth Stedman Jones lion. A strong, published and others appearing for the first time. Last year Allen Lane. HB. $79.99 extraordinary voice, Hamish Hamilton published another Winton collection, Island Home, featuring work on Available now Nujeen tells the story the landscape and environment. The Boy Behind the Curtain is much more personal and As the nineteenth of what it’s really like much more revealing and has, I believe, a much stronger appeal. century unfolded, to be a refugee, to have new economic, ‘Winton is arguably one of our most loved and respected grown up through war political, religious and left a beloved homeland to become and intellectual writers; … He is also an intensely private person … so that makes this dependent on others. It tells how the challenges book even more special. Syrian war has destroyed a proud nation transformed the and torn families apart. It is the story of industrial landscape. Winton is arguably one of our most loved and respected writers; he writes in a vernacular our times told through one remarkable One of the most that is distinctly his but one which resonates strongly with readers. He is also an intensely girl, determined to keep smiling. distinctive and private person who rarely appears comfortably in public, so that makes this book even more arresting voices to special. It’s probably the closest we’ll get to seeing the interior Winton. The pieces range DASHING FOR THE POST arise came from Karl Marx, the son of a across a number of topics, but the ones about his family resonated most strongly with me. Patrick Leigh Fermor Jewish convert in the Rhineland and a man His father, a country copper, was an important influence on his life, giving him a strong Victor Gollancz. PB. $35 whose entire life was devoted to making moral compass which was later reinforced by the family’s conversion to the Church of Christ Available 11 October sense of the puzzles and paradoxes of the and a literalist interpretation of the scripture. Some of the pieces where he deals with this Handsome, spirited nineteenth century. This remarkable book certainly made Winton the writer and the person click with me. There’s a lovely piece where and erudite, Patrick gives valuable new insight into the ideas he pays homage to Elizabeth Jolley who taught him writing at the West Australian Institute Leigh Fermor was a that shaped Marx’s world – and in turn of Technology, although, according to Winton, it was more as though: ‘We learnt to write war hero and one the made Marx shape our own. alongside her, or perhaps it’s more accurate to say in her wake.’ This is a brilliant collection of greatest travel writers insights. You’ll come away intrigued, delighted and perhaps a little bit wiser. of his generation. The MARGARET PRESTON: Mark Rubbo is the managing director of Readings letters in this RECIPES FOR FOOD collection span almost AND ART seventy years, sent to Lesley Harding the wit, acuity and outspokenness that we correspondents Biography MUP. PB. Was $45 came to expect from this inimitable including Deborah Devonshire, Ann $39.95 wordsmith. Bob Ellis: In His Own Words Fleming, Nancy Mitford, Lawrence Durrell, Available 3 October WORKING CLASS BOY honours Ellis’s prodigious writing legacy – Diana Cooper and his lifelong companion, a keepsake for fans that will also win him Jimmy Barnes Joan Rayner. His letters exhibit many of his Celebrated for her new admirers. vibrant and HarperCollins. HB. Was $45 most engaging characteristics: his zest for distinctive pictures $39.95 life, his unending curiosity, his exuberance WHO GAVE YOU of indigenous Available now and his tendency to get into scrapes. PERMISSION? flowers, artist Long before Jimmy Manny Waks & Michael Visontay HILLBILLY ELEGY Margaret Preston Barnes became a Scribe. PB. $35 J. D. Vance was an equally household name, colourful and Available 3 October HarperCollins. PB. $32.99 there was James outspoken Raised in an ultra- Available 1 October Dixon Swan – a personality. A Orthodox Jewish Former marine and working class boy generous and insightful teacher and keen family, Manny Waks Yale graduate J.D. whose family made cook who believed art should be within was sexually abused as Vance tells a true the journey from everyone’s reach, Preston published widely a teenager at a story of growing up in Scotland to Australia on a host of creative pursuits. Drawing on Melbourne religious a poor Rust Belt town, in search of a better handwritten recipes found in the National school. In mid-2011 that offers a broader, life. Raw, gritty, Gallery of Australia and richly illustrated Manny went public, probing look at the compassionate, surprising and darkly funny, with Preston’s paintings, prints and exposing his abusers struggles of America’s Working Class Boy is the story of how James photographs, this book sheds new light on and those who covered white working class. Swan became Jimmy Barnes. It is a powerful the fascinating private life of a much-loved up their crimes. For his courage in speaking Vance piercingly reflection on the traumatic and violent Australian artist. childhood that fuelled the excess and out, Manny and his family were intimidated shows how he himself still carries around recklessness that would define, and almost and shunned by their community. This is the demons of his family’s fight for destroy, the rock’n’roll legend. the story of a man on a mission to shatter a upward mobility. A deeply moving memoir Business powerful code of silence, and the with its share of humour and vividly BOB ELLIS: IN HIS OWN extraordinary toll it has taken on Manny colourful figures, Hillbilly Elegy is an WORDS and his loved ones. urgent and troubling meditation on the FEMINIST FIGHT CLUB loss of the American dream. Jessica Bennett Bob Ellis A TEAR IN THE SOUL Penguin. PB. $29.99 Black Inc. PB. Was $32.99 Amanda Webster THE INVENTION OF Available 17 October $29.99 NewSouth. PB. $29.99 ANGELA CARTER If this were an equal Available 3 October Available 3 October Edmund Gordon world, this book This book showcases As a child, Amanda Chatto & Windus. PB. $35 wouldn’t have to the best of Ellis’s Webster had assumed Available 3 October exist. But it’s not, celebrated and the Aboriginal kids on and we shouldn’t much-loved essays, One of the most the Kurrawang Mission wait around for speeches, diaries and important English near her Kalgoorlie somebody else to scripts, in addition to writers of the last home were well cared save us. We need to previously unpublished century, Angela for – but over the years, fight for ourselves. work, archival photos Carter’s work stands her questions Here is an arsenal of and reflections from out for its bawdiness accumulated: were her weapons for close friends and and linguistic zest, its friends members of the surviving in an unequal world – learn how family. Compiled by Ellis’s widow, Anne hospitality to the Stolen Generations? What was life at fantastical and the to fight micro-aggressions, correct Brooksbank, this collection contains all Kurrawang really like? What are her READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2016 13 unconscious bias, deal with male colleagues who can’t stop ‘manterrupting’ or ‘bro- Australian Studies propriating’ your ideas, and ‘lean in’ without falling over. Every woman needs SWALLOWED BY THE SEA this book, and they needed it yesterday. Graeme Henderson NLA. PB. $44.99 Cultural Studies Available 1 October Swallowed by the Sea tells the stories of FIGHT LIKE A GIRL Australia’s greatest and Clementine Ford most tragic shipwrecks, A&U. PB. Was $29.99 lost in raging storms, on $24.99 jagged reefs, under Available 1 October enemy fire, or through The shocking human error, treachery or incompetence. nature of From English and Dutch trading vessels in online abuse that the seventeenth century to emigrant ships Clementine Ford in the nineteenth century and the great has received for warships of the Second World War, her feminist Swallowed by the Sea explains how each writing is pretty ship was wrecked and discovered, and what widely known. In remains of the wrecks today. manda Webster is a sixth her first full-length Ageneration Australian descended book she fights FAIR GAME: THE from white settlers and the third back with a wholly INCREDIBLE UNTOLD generation to grow up in Kalgoorlie. justified vengeance. Ford describes this STORY OF SCIENTOLOGY When she turned five Amanda started book as ‘an exploration of my experience school and became friends with IN AUSTRALIA Aboriginal children from the nearby as a girl in this world’ and it begins with Steve Cannane Kurrawang Mission. Forty years later, her unwillingness as a teenager to HarperCollins. PB. $32.99 Webster meets Gregory Ugle, older identify with the feminist movement Available now brother of one of the “Mission kids” because she thought it was ‘irrelevant’ she remembers from school. He travels but really because she thought it might From rugby league players to Hollywood with her to her hometown and helps mean that boys wouldn’t like her. Ford her reconnect with her former friends. goes on to describe her experience with superstars and media moguls, Scientology has Webster is forced to confront her racist an eating disorder, her sexual awakening blunders, her cultural ignorance and recruited its share of and ongoing struggle with mental health. her family’s secret past. And so begins famous Australians – She positions all these experiences her journey of reconciliation, taking her despite Australia being against a backdrop of the structural into a world she hardly knew existed. oppression (patriarchy, capitalism etc.) the first place to ban Scientology. Numerous that shaped them. www.newsouthpublishing.com Importantly, Ford also acknowledges Australians have held senior posts in the that she is a privileged white woman organisation only to fall foul of the top brass and that unpacking privilege is an and lose their families as a result. Based on incredibly difficult but important years of interviews and research, Steve part of any movement. Ford’s writing Cannane’s extraordinary insight into is explosive, hilarious and incredibly Scientology in Australia is investigative accessible without dumbing down the journalism at its very best. big theoretical issues too much. In many ways this book is perfect for teenagers THE STORY OF New Indie Reads (I was going to write teenage girls but AUSTRALIA’S PEOPLE: it’s essential that boys read this kind of VOLUME II stuff too) and I certainly wish this book Geoffrey Blainey had been around when I was a teenager. Penguin. HB. Was $49.99 Reading it as an adult, I found that Ford $39.99 has a wonderful ability to crystallise Available 17 October all that swirling unease that surfaces Geoffrey Blainey whenever I hear a sexist comment or continues his account of joke but have become too complacent the history of our nation and lazy to call it out. Ford ends the and its people. When book with a reassurance that ‘it’s OK FICTION FICTION HISTORICAL Europeans crossed the YOUNG ADULT to be angry’, which is good because world to plant a new now that I’ve finished reading it I am After months of Big waves, black On Australia’s vast society in an unknown being trapped in a magic and mad southern oceans, reminded that there is still so much to be land, traditional life for shopping centre, Nox Aussie expats make sealers and their angry about. Australia’s first must confront what for dangerous surf. captives must Kara Nicholson is from Readings Carlton inhabitants changed forever. For the new happened outside. cooperate or die. arrivals, Australia was a land that rewarded, THE PROMISE OF THINGS tricked, tantalised and often defeated. From Ruth Quibell the gold rush to land rights and the digital MUP. PB. $27.99 age, Blainey brings to life the key events of COMING Available 3 October more recent times that have shaped us into SOON Some of our the nation and people we are today. strongest, most WINNER 2016 lasting relationships FROM THE EDGE NED KELLY AWARD FOR BEST CRIME are hidden in plain Mark Mckenna FICTION view – those we have MUP. PB. Was $34.99 CRIME CRIME with objects. What do $29.99 ADVENTURE TRUE our possessions do Available 3 October From piranha-infested The cowboy capitalists There’s a killer on for us? And how do From the Edge recounts waters to mining of Perth’s 1980s just the loose in Broome they do it? Ruth four extraordinary and company boardrooms, rode into town, and and it’s no croc. Quibell explores what largely forgotten triumphs and disasters PI Frank Swann is in on the gold trail. the firing line. our possessions say about us: who we Australian stories: the think we are, what we long for and shipwreck survivors struggle against. She invites us to think who walked from Bass about how we use things, what makes Strait to Sydney in 1797; them precious, and why we find it so hard the founding of a ‘new to throw these objects away. Singapore’ in Arnhem 14 READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2016

Land in the 1840s; Australia’s largest wildness. As Voigt writes, ‘Fish have long REVOLUTION: THE advice on dating, relationships, health, sex industrial development project nestled been our last wild food and, together HISTORY OF ENGLAND and much more. Coquette is an enigmatic amongst outstanding Indigenous rock art in with reptiles and amphibians, our last VOLUME IV anonymous author about whom little is the Pilbara; and the ever-changing story of wild pets.’ She writes about the impact of known, other than that she lives in LA and James Cook’s time in Cooktown in 1770. All domestication on fish and does not spare Peter Ackroyd holds down a high-ranking job while also of these forgotten stories feature herself her critique of the destruction this PanMacmillan. PB. $34.99 secretly authoring the Dear Coquette blog. encounters between Aboriginal and desire can cause. Reading this book, one Available 27 October Hers is an original and startlingly fresh non-Aboriginal Australians, shedding new cannot help hoping that the words of one The fourth volume of Peter voice – and she’s here to help. light on past moments. Borneo tribal headman are true: ‘Arowana Ackroyd’s enthralling is just like a ghost – he can disappear. The History of England begins in THE BUSH: arowana is not extinct but hiding.’ 1688, with William of Philosophy TRAVELS IN THE HEART Bronte Coates is the digital content coordinator Orange’s accession OF AUSTRALIA following the Glorious Revolution, and ends in 1815 AGAINST THE DOUBLE Don Watson OWLS: A GUIDE TO BLACKMAIL EVERY SPECIES with Napoleon’s defeat at Penguin. PB. $24.99 Waterloo. It was an era in which coffee Slavoj Žižek Anna Claybourne Available 3 October houses and playhouses boomed, gin flowed Penguin. HB. $24.99 Ivy. HB. $59.99 The bush: in Australia no freely and newspapers flourished. But it was Available 17 October Available 1 October word resounds like it, and also a time of extraordinary and As hundreds of thousands none is harder to define. The charm and mystique unprecedented technological innovation, of people cross the Part memoir, part travel of owls resonates which saw England utterly and irrevocably Mediterranean to seek document, The Bush is a through human history. transformed from a country of blue skies and refuge in Europe, Slavoj thought-provoking journey From ancient myth and farmland to one of soot and steel and coal. Žižek examines the through this distinctive superstition to popular European response, Australian landscape. Don modern children’s identifying two versions of Watson presents the bush in a way that stories, these beautiful, Music ideological blackmail: neither romanticises nor decries it as he deadly birds are either we open our doors as widely as probes our legends, from the axeman to the harbingers of good and bad news, icons of BORN TO RUN possible; or we try to pull up the swagman, looking deep into the stories we fear, wisdom and magic. Yet uncovering the drawbridge. Both solutions, he says, merely Bruce Springsteen like to tell and those we avoid – in everything reality of their lives is a tremendous prolong the problem, rather than tackle it. from history, literature and art, to the national challenge – new species are still being S&S. HB. Was $49.99 In this book, Žižek attempts to get to the myth and political debate. discovered, as are new insights into the $34.95 heart of one of the greatest issues habits of even the most familiar species. Available 1 October confronting Europe today, calling for global Owls brings together full descriptions and Over the past seven years, solidarity for the exploited and oppressed. Natural History distribution maps as well as stunning Bruce Springsteen has colour photographs. devoted himself to THE DRAGON BEHIND writing the story of his Politics THE GLASS life, with the same History honesty, humour and Emily Voigt WE ARE NOT SUCH originality found in his S&S. PB. $32.99 BLITZED songs. A revelation for THINGS Available 1 October Springsteen fans and Justine van der Leun Norman Ohler Journalist Emily newcomers alike, Born to Run is more than a HarperCollins. PB. $34.99 Penguin. HB. $49.99 Voigt’s first book is music memoir, it is a story written with the Available now Available 17 October a thrilling deep dive into lyricism of a singular songwriter and the In the final days of the strange and A bestseller in Germany, wisdom of a man who has thought deeply apartheid a young dangerous world of the Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi about his experiences. Rarely has a performer American student, Amy Asian arowana or Germany explores the told his own story with such force and sweep. Biehl, was murdered by a ‘dragon fish’. Inspired by murky, chaotic world of black mob in one of Cape a meeting with a pet drug use in the Third I AM BRIAN WILSON Town’s townships. Three Reich. The entire Nazi detective tracking an Brian Wilson & Ben Greenman young men were convicted regime was permeated illegal alligator sale in the Bronx, Voigt sets H&S. HB. Was $45 of her murder but the case out to learn more about the world’s most with drugs – cocaine, $39.95 was a strange one that was full of expensive aquarium fish and make sense of heroin, morphine and Available 11 October contradictions. Van der Leun spent four the cult that surrounds it. Renowned as a methamphetamines, the latter crucial to years trying to piece together the mystery, As co-founder of the symbol of prestige, power and luck, from troops’ resilience. While drugs cannot hunting out all the protagonists. In a Beach Boys in the 1960s, Malaysia to Wall Street, the arowana is the explain Nazi ideology, Norman Ohler selfless act Amy’s parents embraced the Brian Wilson created kind of fish people will even kill for. As Voigt investigates how their promiscuous use new South Africa, setting up a Foundation some of the most writes, it’s also ‘one of the most dramatic impaired and confused decision-making, to support young people in the townships groundbreaking popular examples of a modern paradox’ – bred by with drastic effects on Hitler and his and even employing two of the men music ever recorded. the hundreds of thousands in captivity, yet entourage, who, as the war turned against convicted of Amy’s murder after they were Derailed in the 1970s by almost extinct in its wild habitats. Germany, took refuge in ever more poorly released under the amnesty of the Truth mental illness, drug use, Voigt’s efforts see her traversing 15 understood cocktails of stimulants. and Reconciliation Commission. The story and the band’s shifting different countries over the course of mirrors the trajectory of post-Apartheid fortunes, Wilson came back again and again years. She clambers into infested swamps MEETINGS WITH South Africa: from the high hopes of over the next few decades. Now older, calmer at night, boats along the Içá – or Putumayo REMARKABLE Mandela’s Rainbow Nation to the current and filled with perspective, he weighs in for – river, and toys with the possibility of malaise of the ANC. Like Katherine Boo’s MANUSCRIPTS the first time on the exhilarating highs and becoming a fish smuggler for the glory award-winning Behind the Beautiful Christopher de Hamel debilitating lows. I Am Brian Wilson of discovering a new species. She finds Forevers, We Are Not Such Things immerses Allen Lane. HB. Was $69.99 unforgettably illuminates the man behind the her growing obsession with arowana us in the lives of ordinary locals – in this $59.99 music and the turbulent legacy. bewildering given her own ambivalence Available 17 October instance the lives of black South Africans. towards the creature. At one point in the It’s one of the most powerful books I’ve Christopher de Hamel book she asks herself: ‘How much was I read this year. invites the reader into Personal Development willing to risk to risk to go after a fish I intimate conversations Mark Rubbo is the managing director of Readings didn’t even think was good-looking?’ with twelve of the most The Dragon Behind the Glass is a smart [THE BEST OF] DEAR famous illuminated THE EURO and witty adventure tale, filled with manuscripts in existence, COQUETTE fascinating information and characters, Joseph Stiglitz exploring what they tell The Coquette such as Heiko Bleher, the ‘Indiana Jones Penguin. HB. $55 us about hundreds of Icon. PB. $29.99 of the tropical fish industry’, the woman Available 17 October years of medieval history, Available 12 October who attempted to smuggle an arowana and Designed to bring the and even the modern world. Part travel Taken from the immensely other fish into Australia under her skirt, European Union closer book, part detective story, Meetings with popular blog of the same and the herpetologist who wrote a guide together, the euro has Remarkable Manuscripts explores religion, name, Dear Coquette offers, to ‘the dangerously venomous snakes of actually done the art, literature, music, science and the history for the first time between Myanmar’ – only to die of snakebite in opposite: after nearly a of taste, and conveys the fascination and hard covers, Coquette’s Myanmar himself. decade without growth, excitement of encountering some of the searingly frank, helpful, At the centre of Voigt’s book lies our unity has been replaced greatest works of art in our culture. profane and often brutal very human desire to ‘own’ a piece of with dissent and READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2016 15 enlargements with prospective exits. HOW TO MAKE A Hoping to avoid the huge costs associated SPACESHIP with current policies, Stiglitz proposes Julian Guthrie two other alternatives: a well-managed Bantam. PB. $34.99 end to the common currency; or a bold, Available 3 October From Number One bestselling new system dubbed ‘the flexible euro.’ This important book, by one of the world’s From watching the moon picture book duo, David leading economists, addresses the euro- landing at the age of eight, Walliams and Tony Ross, crisis on a bigger intellectual scale than Peter Diamandis’s singular any predecessor. goal was to get to space. When comes this ssssspectacularly he realised NASA was VIKING ECONOMICS winding down manned space funny picture book. George Lakey flight, he set out on one of the great entrepreneurial adventure stories of our Melville House. HB. $44.99 time. If the government wouldn’t send him to Available 17 October space, he would create a private space flight In America, many industry himself. The story of the bullet- Democrats invoke shaped SpaceShipOne is an extraordinary Scandinavia as a tale of making the impossible possible, and promised land of the foundation for a new industry. equality, while most Republicans fear it as a hotbed of liberty- Architecture threatening socialism. But the left and right can usually agree on THE ART OF THE AIRPORT one thing: that the Nordic system is Alexander Gutzmer et al. impossible to replicate. But there’s nothing Frances Lincoln. HB. $49.99 inherently Scandinavian about greater Available 1 October equality – so why not try it? By explaining For most of us, airports that even Scandinavia’s grandest are endured rather than experiments in social equality are rooted in appreciated, with little recent political struggles, George Lakey thought for the quality of The Incredible Untold shows how other countries can achieve the architecture. No From Syria to Germany Story of Scientology in equality too. matter how hard even the world’s best architects have tried, it is in a wheelchair: the story Australia difficult to make a beautiful airport. And of our times told through Science yet such places do exist – cathedrals of the jet age that offer something of the one remarkable girl A DAY IN THE LIFE OF transcendence of flight even in an era of THE BRAIN mass travel and budget fares. Here are 21 of the most beautiful airports in the world. Susan Greenfield Penguin. PB. Was $32.99 $27.99 Sport & Recreation Available 3 October In this groundbreaking book, internationally THE ART OF CYCLING acclaimed Cadel Evans neuroscientist Susan ABC. HB. Was $49.99 Greenfield brings $44.95 together a series of Available 17 October astonishing, new, Cadel Evans is Australia’s empirically based greatest ever cyclist, and insights into one of our greatest consciousness as she sportsmen. From 1995 to traces a single day in the life of your brain. his final race in February From waking to walking the dog, working 2015, Evans has had a to dreaming, Greenfield explores how our spectacular career. Known daily experiences are translated into a as a meticulous trainer and tangle of cells, molecules and chemical an athlete who prided himself on his ability blips, thereby probing the enduring to ‘put it all on the road’, Evans writes about mystery of how our brains create our the triumphs, the frustrations, the training, individual selves. the preparation, the psychology of the sport, his contemporaries, past legends, how he EINSTEIN’S GREATEST maintained such amazing consistency and, MISTAKE always, his enduring love of cycling. David Bodanis Little Brown. PB. $35 Reference Available 27 September Widely considered the greatest genius of THE WORD DETECTIVE all time, Albert John Simpson Einstein Orion. PB. $32.99 revolutionised our Available 11 October understanding of the Language is always cosmos and helped to changing. No-one knows lead us into the where it is going but the atomic age. Yet in the best way to future-cast is to final decades of his look at the past. John life he was ignored by most working Simpson animates for us a scientists, his ideas opposed by even his tradition of researching and closest friends. In this intimate and editing, showing us both the enlightening biography of the celebrated technical lexicography needed to understand physicist, David Bodanis explores how a word, and the careful poetry needed to Einstein’s confidence in his own powers of construct its definition. He challenges both intuition proved to be both his greatest the idea that dictionaries are definitive, and strength and his ultimate undoing. the notion that language is falling apart. 16 READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2016

Food & Gardening pages are filled with the hows and whys of Art & Design MAD WORKS MAD unique floral sculptures and botanic ARCHITECTS installations. Spring is here and it’s time to with Chris Gordon with Margaret Snowdon Ma Yansong celebrate nature. First step: this book. Phaidon. HB. $100 AUSTRALIAN FISH AND CLAY SWEET GREEK LIFE Available now SEAFOOD COOKBOOK Amber Creswell Bell Internationally renowned Kathy Tsaples John Susman T&H. HB. $60 for its futuristic, organic Melbourne Books. HB. $49.95 Murdoch. HB. Was $79.99 Available 1 October and technologically Available 1 October $69.99 The experience of making a advanced designs, the There is something magic Available 1 October clay pot couldn’t be further work of Beijing-based about Kathy Tsaples: she’s all This enormous book is the from our digitally driven young architecture studio heart and it shows. This book, definitive guide to cooking lives where mass MAD embodies a contemporary a follow-up to her excellent and buying great, sustainable consumption has become interpretation of the Eastern affinity for Sweet Greek, is full of recipes fish. Written by the most the norm. The medium is nature and a preoccupation with creating a that will feed your street, your respected authorities on expressive of the handmade balance between humanity, the city and the family and yourself. The recipes are curated seafood in the country, this and of authenticity so it’s not surprising that environment. The book is illustrated with with easily found ingredients and simple remarkable tome contains all you need to pottery and ceramics are experiencing a photographs, architectural drawings, and 3D steps to follow. Classics receive stunning know about selecting and preparing over 60 revival of interest and enthusiasm last seen visualisations to provide a thorough makeovers, Western favourites are given a types of fish and seafood found here in in the 1970s. This lovely book surveys 60 exploration of MAD’s international portfolio Hellenic twist and all are easily achieved. Australia, including catching methods (if artisans with a behind-the-scenes approach. and future ideas. And of course there are pictures that will fill that’s your thing), notes on sustainability (so Emphasising the unique and eclectic within you with happiness and hunger! important), and recipes for everything from a global, contemporary framework, there is FABRIC OF VISION something to please and delight everyone. frying fish to the most scrumptious and easy PROVENCE TO Anne Hollander fish soups. This type of collection holds Bloomsbury. PB. $50 imperative knowledge for all of us that PONDICHERRY ON THE LOOM Available now cherish our environment. Think Stephanie Tessa Kiros Maryanne Moodie This beautiful book Alexander’s The Cook’s Companion, but fishy! Quadrille. HB. $49.99 T&H. HB. $39.99 explores the work of great Available 1 October Available 1 October artists over six centuries to JAMIE’S CHRISTMAS What is there not to love about Maryanne Moodie is an reveal how clothing and COOKBOOK Tessa Kiros? She is already Australian who has made drapery have brought Jamie Oliver renowned for her excellent good in the world by depth, emphasis and travel-based cookbooks and this Penguin. HB. Was $55 bringing another 1970s meaning to art. From Giotto particular collection takes us favourite, the small $49.95 to El Greco, Matisse to Cindy Sherman, the through the very romantic voyage across the hand-loom and weaving, Available 20 October author reveals through paintings, fashion world to discover French culinary influences into the 21st century. Her book makes this plates, photographs and film stills how Jamie Trevor Oliver is the in other destinations. Beautifully presented, as age-old craft ever so appealing with projects drapery in art evolved from Renaissance author of over 20 cookbooks always, Kiros’s latest book is a delight, and and designs that speak to her interest in things extravagance to Neoclassical simplicity at the and one may wonder if there again illustrates her leadership in exploring vintage yet are also fresh and new. Weaving is a end of the 18th century, and has extended to is anything left for him to the development of tastes and cuisines. craft that may seem daunting to the uninitiated infinite uses in all genres of modern art. A write about. Jamie’s but everything in this book feels do-able in the subject that fascinates artists and viewers, Christmas Cookbook shows RIVER COTTAGE A TO Z most enjoyable way and there are a variety of this is a re-issue of the 2002 catalogue from us that there is. This collection is packed Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall et al. projects to choose from. the National Gallery in London with a new with all the classics you need for the end of Bloomsbury. HB. Was $85 foreword by Valerie Steele. the year, as well as loads of delicious recipes $69.95 ARTISTS’ CHOICE for edible gifts, party food and innovative Available 1 October Art & Australia SLIM AARONS: WOMEN means for leftover meats and cakes. There Dott. HB. $110 are vegetarian options and a whole chapter The new rite of passage for Laura Hawk Available now dedicated to the humble potato, but my a chef is to produce their Abrams. HB. $110 favourite is the comestible gifts you can ultimate collection of From 1967 on Art & Available 1 October make. Just reading his ideas fills me with recipes. However, here Australia magazine Slim Aarons: Women hope for the end of the year. Hugh Fearnley- included an article by an explores the central subject Whittingstall is not alone in artist responding to a of Slim Aarons’s career – the GROWN AND GATHERED this awe inspiring work they admired in a extraordinary women from public institution. This Matt Purbrick & Lentil Purbrick encyclopaedia, but rather in true egalitarian the upper echelons of high style, he is joined by the entire River collection from the magazine’s archives is Plum. PB. $45 society, the arts, fashion, and Cottage team and they have produced the richly rewarding and features a broad Available 27 September Hollywood. The collection contains more guide to end all guides to nourishing and cross-section of art and artists. The pleasant than 200 images, the majority of which have This book is a nod to our delicious food. Each expert in their field recognition of a familiar work of art not appeared in previous books, along with agricultural past and indeed has a chapter in this collection. (For combined with the response of the artist detailed captions written by one of Aarons’s to our future. It is more than example Nick Fisher covers the seafood who has chosen it because they admire/ closest colleagues. Showcasing beautiful your average cook or chapter.) There are over 300 entries on love/are inspired by it has a personal quality women at their most glamorous in some of gardening volume, it’s an vegetables, fruits, herbs, spices, meat, fish, that elevates and relaxes, or presents a the most dazzling locations across the globe, illustrated guide to living fungi, foraged foods, dairy, oils, vinegar and different perspective on a piece passed by. this is a fresh look at the acclaimed sustainably and with integrity. The first much more. Each entry includes photographer through the muses who part of the book is Matt and Lentil’s guide information and a huge range of recipes PLANT inspired his most incredible photographs. to producing your own food. The suitable for any occasion. Hugh Fearnley- Phaidon Editors information, advice and projects can be Whittingstall has a huge following Phaidon. HB. $79.95 MILITARY STYLE used whether you have a farm or a worldwide and this impressive book shows Available now courtyard with planter boxes. The second INVADES FASHION us how deserving he is of his fame. part of the book features over 100 delicious This fresh and stunning Timothy Godbold survey celebrates the and nurturing recipes. Beautifully DELICIOUS EVERY DAY Phaidon. HB. $49.95 presented with romantic images extraordinary beauty and Available now Anna Gare throughout, this wonderful, quirky book is diversity of plants. It A celebration of military- Murdoch. PB. $39.99 full of philosophies and positive vibes. combines photographs inspired style in fashion and Available 1 October and cutting-edge focusing on the 21st century, LOOSE LEAF This book is not for ‘food micrograph scans with this book also acts as a watercolours, drawings and prints to bring Wona Bae & Charlie Lawler snobs’, but rather for busy reference guide and source of people wanting to produce this subject to life. Carefully selected by an Hardie Grant. HB. $45 inspiration for designers and meals that the whole family international panel of experts including Available 1 October fashion followers alike. The book is divided will enjoy. These drama-free botanists, horticulturalists, art historians It’s possible you’ve heard into thematic chapters such as Ceremony, recipes show you how to produce meals in and museum curators, the collection about this extraordinary Legionnaire, Nautical and Dazzle – which one pot, what to do with leftovers and how includes iconic work by artists, Melbourne couple and their was a form of camouflage from WWI to finish your meal off with something sweet photographers, scientists, and botanic design and botanic expertise. involving lots of stripes. Featuring more or something healthy. Gare believes you can illustrators, as well as rare and previously Their book is a beautifully than 180 photographs showcasing the work eat your cake as well as providing meals for unpublished images. It also includes a presented guide to living well of the world’s leading designers and brands, fussy, ungrateful children, adults and botanic art timeline, a glossary, biographies, and with grace; and, more specifically, how it brings new meaning to the expression friends. I love the ease that this collection an introduction to plant taxonomy and a to do so alongside your indoor plants. The ‘dressed to kill’. gives every busy provider. reading list. READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2016 17

New Young Adult Fiction GOLDENHAND the author is like a card-turner, coolly Garth Nix revealing each new scene, which puts the previous one into a new, more complex See books for kids, junior and middle readers on pages 18–19 A&U. PB. $24.99 light. Available 1 October The theme of cause-and-effect is Young Adult Book of the Month When it was put to great use as we observe the boys announced that see-saw emotionally. Each new (but Garth Nix’s excellent OUR CHEMICAL HEARTS chronologically older) conversation or Old Kingdom series Krystal Sutherland action has led to the situation we read would be continuing Penguin. PB. $19.99 about in the previous chapter. Confused? after a lengthy hiatus, Available 3 October You won’t be – Weetman tells this story fans were overjoyed to plain and true with lean sentences and you There’s already quite a bit of buzz about Krystal Sutherland’s debut learn that there was not soon get used to the backwards structure. novel, with comparisons being drawn to John Green and Rainbow only a prequel in the The penultimate chapter is worth waiting Rowell and a movie already in the works. It’s a big vote of confidence in works, but a sequel too. Goldenhand is for, and the final one absolutely sad. this young Queensland writer, and a good indicator of what’s to come from that sequel, the fifth book in what was A great read about the complexity of male her. Our Chemical Hearts is a funny and heartfelt story about first love and, of course, a story originally a trilogy. It introduces us to old friendship, perception, and consequences. about first heartbreak. Henry Page is a smart and self-aware teenager who’s happily managed characters and new, while immersing to make it to the ripe old age of seventeen without losing his heart to anyone. Content to hang readers in a darkly thrilling world of Emily Gale is a friend of Readings out with his friends (Murray, the Australian Steve Irwin parody; and Lola, the gay Chinese/ death and magic. Haitian ‘diversity triple threat’), avoid the scandal that dogged his older sister’s senior year, Lirael fans will be pleased to ZEROES 2: SWARM and secure his position as editor of the yearbook, Henry is totally unprepared for Grace Town. learn that our favourite Second Scott Westerfield, Margo Lanagan Greasy-haired, shrouded in men’s clothing, and burdened with a cane to help her walk, Assistant Librarian (now Abhorsen/ & Deborah Biancotti Grace is an unlikely romantic interest; but her closely-held secrets, enigmatic behaviour, and Remembrancer) is back. With Sabriel on a A&U. PB. $19.99 quick wit soon has Henry smitten. But is he falling in love with the girl, or the idea of one? much-needed holiday, Lirael is forced to Available 1 October Sutherland isn’t writing in a vacuum, and there’s a slightly manic immediacy to Our Chemical face the Old Kingdom’s undead creatures I have been Hearts that will be appealing to young readers who live in a fast-paced digital world. It’s on her own. While she’s answering desperately peppered throughout with pop-culture references and in-jokes, sly little nods and winks one such call, Lirael comes across her awaiting the next for experienced readers who are familiar with the tropes that crop up again and again in YA old friend Nick, as well as a nefarious instalment in this series fiction. Our Chemical Hearts acknowledges and pays tribute to the ever-popular genre of Free-Magic creature. After binding the since I finished the first Manic-Pixie-Dream-Girls-and-the-men-who-love-them, but turns it gently on its head by creature, Lirael decides to take Nick to book, Zeroes, late last developing into a story that proves that love is complicated and people more so. This is an her old home in the Clayr glacier to see year, and I have accomplished first novel and an enjoyable read that blends humour with heart. if something can be done about the Free definitely not waited in Lian Hingee is the digital marketing manager for Readings Magic running amok in his system. vain. Flicker, At the same time, a young tribe Anonymous, Crash, Scam, Glorious member named Ferin is on the run Leader, and Mob have been lying low, HOLDING UP THE from the terrifying Witch With No Face developing and testing their powers in THE OTHERLIFE and her sorcerous minions. Ferin has a their underground nightclub. But the Julia Gray UNIVERSE message for the Clayr, and will stop at relative peace and quiet is not meant to Andersen Press. PB. $19.99 Jennifer Niven nothing to get there, but how can one girl last, as they begin to discover that more Available now Penguin. PB. $19.99 hope to outrun the collected might of the and more Zeroes exist. As new powers Julia Gray’s The Available 4 October Free Magic tribes? emerge and new characters bring trouble Otherlife is an When I was first given Goldenhand is definitely one for the to the group of super-powered teens, the extraordinary read that Holding Up The fans – if you haven’t read the previous realisation that some of the group’s defies expectations. Norse Universe to review I wasn’t books in the series, you’ll need to before abilities may not be as pure as they think mythological themes are at overly taken with what the picking up this latest entry. And even if they are brings devastation and chaos in work here but this is not a blurb had to offer. I can’t put you have read the others, a re-read is a its wake. The nerve-racking adventures mythic adventure story in the my finger on why I felt this good idea because the worlds Nix crafts continue at the same breakneck pace as tradition of Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson way exactly, but as I started are so intricate that you won’t want to the first novel, and keeps your heart series. This book is firmly grounded in reading I realised it was because I was miss even the smallest of details. If you beating at matching speed from start to reality; myth brings meaning to this work worried this was just going to be another have a fantasy reader at home aged 12 and finish. I literally gasped as I read the final and to the struggles and complexities bullying book about an overweight girl. And up, this is one of the must-read series to line – while it is a painfully massive encountered by the lead characters. it is that, to an extent, but it is so much more. introduce them to. cliffhanger that will haunt me as I wait for The narrative focuses on the unlikely Libby Strout is overweight. After Holly Harper is from Readings Kids the next book, it does mean that there will friendship between two boys, Ben and the death of her mother, Libby’s weight need to be more books in the series! Hobie, who come from very different social skyrocketed to the point that she couldn’t EVERYTHING IS Westerfeld, Lanagan and Biancotti backgrounds. Their friendship is founded on roll over in bed anymore. But, she has lost CHANGED have expertly interwoven their own a mutual goal to secure a scholarship to an 302 pounds (approx 137kg) and is set to go Nova Weetman writing styles and the differing arcs of the elite private school. Both boys must submit back to school and face her demons. Libby UQP. PB. $19.95 characters into a seamlessly epic story. to a gruelling study program overseen by knows it isn’t going to be easy. People know Available 3 October The plot flows flawlessly from character to personal tutors employed to raise the boys’ what happened to her and she is ready for character: while each voice is completely There are many academic standard to the highest level. the bullying and the nastiness. What she distinct and they vary greatly, it seems ways to tell a story, Several years pass and Ben is struggling isn’t ready for is Jack Masselin. impossible that three very different authors but reverse chronology to maintain the standard of excellence Jack Masselin is a bit of a clown. have written the Zeroes books. Highly must be one of the least required in order to hold onto his Coming across as confident and slightly recommended for lovers of The Hunger common – there has to scholarship. His mother’s expectations, arrogant, Jack hangs out with a couple of Games, Divergent and Uglies series. be a good reason for too, weigh heavily on him. For respite, friends who get up to no good and find writing a story Jo Boyce is from Readings Kids Ben channels his anger and frustration the idea of harassing and belittling people backwards. Nova though heavy metal music and develops funny. But, to an extent, this is all an act Weetman had one such GIRL IN PIECES an addiction to painkiller medication. for Jack, he’s just trying to protect himself reason and in Everything Is Changed theme Kathleen Glasgow A chance encounter with Zara, Hobie’s from people finding out his secret. But and structure are perfectly complemented. HarperCollins. PB. $19.95 younger sister, triggers Ben’s recall of the when Jack decides to involve Libby in a This tale of two boys whose lives undergo Available 1 October competitive envy that once characterised really cruel game he unintentionally throws dramatic, slow-burning change in the his friendship with Hobie. It has been himself into the spotlight. Charlotte Davis has months following a split-second decision is years, too, since the Norse gods made their This is a brilliant novel about bullying. already lost more than an excellent read for teenagers. presence known to Ben and they return The character of Libby has been done most people lose in a Tension is high from the start as we with an important message to deliver: ‘He perfectly, showing a teenage girl who is lifetime. But she’s meet Ellie, girlfriend of one of the boys, is dead’. But they don’t say who. bullied horribly because of her weight learned how to forget it. who hints at the seriousness of what has It is at this point that the narration still stick to her guns and stand up for The thick glass of a occurred, how her own life is different by shifts to Hobie, a disturbed character who herself. She isn’t perfect, we all have flaws, mason jar cuts deep and association. Then Alex enters the scene finds depraved amusement in unbalancing but she is human. And while, at times, I the pain washes out the and something about his attitude is off; the equilibrium of those around him. found it hard to warm to Jack because of sorrow until there is he’s keeping his cool while around him Hobie’s preferred target is his sister Zara his behaviour, you see a young man with nothing but calm. Every new scar hardens everyone else is losing theirs. And then and he manipulates her cruelly, causing troubles of his own. Charlie’s heart just a little more, yet it we hear from Jake, terrified, remorseful: her great distress. But it is the fate of Ben’s Move over Katniss, a realistic heroine is still hurts so much. It hurts enough to not ‘We killed him’. The reader sympathises former mentor and tutor, Jason, that really taking your place. Highly recommended for care anymore, which is sometimes what with sorrowful Jake, the more emotionally provides the mystery and tension. ages 13 and up. has to happen to find your way back from engaged boy. For now. Because at this point the edge. Natalie Platten is from Readings Doncaster Katherine Dretzke is a friend of Readings 18 READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2016

Picture Books THREE LITTLE MONKEYS THE BOOK OF BEES Quentin Blake & Emma Chichester Clark Piotr Socha MOLLY & MAE HarperCollins. HB. $24.99 Thames & Hudson. HB. $35 Available 1 October Available 1 October Danny Parker & Freya Blackwood A lavishly illustrated bee encyclopedia for Little Hare. HB. $24.99 Hilda Snibbs had three little monkeys. children 6 and up. Learn about beehive Available 1 October Their names were Tim, Sam, and Lulu. They were very lively! This remarkable design, honey harvesting, honeycomb and The vicissitudes of friendship collaboration brings together two giants most importantly, bees themselves. How are perfectly portrayed in of the picture-book world to create a do bees communicate? What does a Molly & Mae: the fun, frivolity and funny, anarchic and utterly delightful beekeeper do? Who survived being stung sometimes the discord. As the two picture book that is sure to become a by 2, 443 bees? This book answers all these girls embark on a long train journey classic of the future. questions and many more, tracking the history of bees from from the country to the city, their the time of the dinosaurs to their current plight. playful antics are disrupted by a squabble. Oh dear, a sulky silence can make a lengthy trip seem so much longer. The Nonfiction illustrations perfectly illuminate the excitement and Junior Fiction boredom of a train trip. Freya Blackwood is one of the best IN FOCUS artists at depicting children in all their wonderful ways and Libby Walden THE BAD GUYS EPISODE 4: Daniel Parker’s succinct text allows for her to fill out the Little Tiger Press. HB. $29.99 APOCALYPSE MEOW story beautifully. A lovely story for 3 and up. Available 1 October Aaron Blabey Alexa Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn In Focus is a classic Scholastic. PB. Was $12.99 THE SOUND OF SILENCE encyclopaedia with a $9.99 modern design twist; each of the Available 1 October Katrina Goldsaito & Julia Kuo 10 chapters is brought to life by a Mr Wolf, Mr Piranha, Mr Snake and Little Brown. HB. $28.99 different illustrator and includes Mr Shark are back – this time around, Available now double-page spreads that open it’s a zombie kitten apocalypse! Should In a busy city like Tokyo the up to reveal cross sections, you panic? Should you cry? Should you idea of silence is almost cutaways and close-ups so the poop your pants? No! Just sit back and ridiculous. The Japanese have the reader gains a different perspective and greater watch the fur fly as the world’s word ‘Ma’ to explain the silence appreciation of their world. baddest good guys take on Mad between sounds and it is this From buildings to blue whales, from toilets to Marmalade’s meowing monsters! notion that inspires this quite space ships there’s a diverse but fascinating amount of lovely picture book. As young Yoshio revels in the sounds of introductory material for the curious child, the budding the city while he wanders about, he comes across the scientist or engineer in the family. This is a book that Middle Fiction wonderful music of a koto player. He asks the musician will appeal to a wide age range – ages 5 and up to 10 and what she considers the most wonderful sound to be and she possibly beyond, as curiosity has no age limit. I loved ARTIE AND THE GRIME WAVE replies, ‘ma’. Yoshio is perplexed: where can he find this layout and was especially taken with the sections on Richard Roxburgh silence? He finally understands that it is found in the everyday objects, and fruit and vegetables. A&U. PB. $16.99 moment of stillness when your mind is free from your Highly recommended and definitely one to share with Available 1 October surroundings. the whole family. Well-loved Australian actor The Sound of Silence depicts Japanese culture superbly Athina Clarke is from Readings Malvern Richard Roxburgh’s first children’s and the colours and vibrancy contrast perfectly with the book is a completely unhinged adventure muted shades when Yoshio finds his silence. I love the way LOTS and a celebration of friendship. Artie and it describes such an elusive concept and introduces young Marc Martin his friend Bumshoe discover evidence of people to the idea of contemplation and that they can find Viking. HB. $24.99 dodgy criminal behaviour happening in a peaceful place in a noisy world. Highly recommended for Available 3 October their town and are soon caught up in a 4 and up. AD whole lot of madcap danger among a cast Even the end pages are of absurd, cartoonish baddies. The two friends are used to perfection in Martin’s latest WE FOUND A HAT dealing with bullies, but taking on the villains who have been offering Lots, an exploration of Jon Klassen on a thieving spree in Grime and rescuing the town’s pets prevalent people, creatures and Candlewick Press. HB. $24.99 certainly requires some extraordinary efforts, industrious things in various places around the Available 11 October thinking and a very painful wedgie. Lively illustrations and world, depicted in vibrant Jon Klassen is back with another plenty of dark and extremely gross humour will certainly illustrations. The usual fare of Paris hat book! This time two turtles find make this a very good choice for readers who have been (lots of dogs), New York (taxis) and a hat. And the hat looks good on both of loving David Walliams’ books. Tokyo (vending machines) are them. But there are two turtles and only Kim Gruschow is from Readings Hawthorn included, but excitingly enough, they’re joined by less one hat. Both turtles agree that it’s only common places like Ulaanbaatar (yaks) and Reykjavik fair to leave the hat. Unlike the first two A MOST MAGICAL GIRL (people named Jon and Anna). Beautifully illustrated with in the hat trilogy, We Found a Hat has a very funny notes, Lenin is ‘accidentally’ almost described as Karen Foxlee much happier ending! Despite this, We Piccadilly Press. PB. $19.99 a member of The Beatles on the Moscow page, this is an Found a Hat is still as hilarious and naughty as all Klassen’s Available 1 October enjoyable addition to any budding adventurer’s bookshelf. hat books. And his simple but effective illustrations meant I A Most Magical Girl is an Isobel Moore is from Readings St Kilda couldn’t help but laugh out loud at the shifty eyes of the imaginative and beguiling tale set in turtle who is clearly intending to take the hat as soon as the Victorian London, where the city’s ageing second turtle is asleep. I loved this book, hopefully there are witches and wizards struggle against a still more Jon Klassen hat books to come but if this really is malevolent villain in a quintessential the last, it’s an excellent one to end on. battle of good and evil. Naturally, they turn Dani Solomon is from Readings Carlton to a magical girl to save the world. A reluctant and apprehensive heroine, OI DOG! Annabel believes herself an ordinary girl in extraordinary circumstances. But she and the ‘wild’ girl Kitty (a magical Kes Gray & Jim Field girl in her own right) are incredibly endearing; vulnerable Hodder & Stoughton. HB. $24.99 yet strong while battling both their internal fears and Available 11 October OPENS SATURDAY 8 OCTOBER external challenges. There’s a wonderful juxtaposition Cat insists that there are rules – only between prim and proper Annabel and tough and gritty mules sit on stools, hares sit on chairs Featuring a handpainted mural Kitty, and their fractious friendship borne of necessity but and dogs must sit on frogs. But Frog’s by Marc Martin (pictured here). (ultimately) mutual respect. had enough – he’s changing the status Karen Foxlee successfully draws the reader in with quo! Will Cat want to sit on gnats 315 Lygon Street, Carlton wonderfully appealing characters and a deliciously tense instead of cushy mats? Will spiders story line injected with a deft touch of wry humour. like sitting on gliders? Will whales be This is a magical adventure exploring the search happy to sit on nails? And, most importantly, where is Frog for identity, family and friendship that is perfect for going to sit? The hilarious sequel to the bestselling Oi Frog! independent readers aged 9, and it’s also an ideal read- will have children rolling around with laughter. aloud for the whole family. Highly recommended. Athina Clarke READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2016 19

Book of the Month

HOME IN THE RAIN Bob Graham Walker. HB. $24.99 Available 1 October New One of the many reasons I love Bob Graham’s books is that, for all their simplicity, his observations of the natural world and family life are always profound and loving, and children, ‘reading’ the pictures, see the wonder of their ordinary lives illuminated for them. This story of a drive home in the buffeting rain on the freeway is no exception. Francie and her Mum leave all the trucks and pull over into a rest area for a picnic in the car, where the windows steam up and Francie writes the family names on the windows. Daddy, Mummy, Francie, but who will the new baby sister be? There’s a blank rear window. Kids’

Later, they stop at a service station and while Francie is dancing in a little puddle and Mum is filling the car, a name comes to her. The perfect name in a timeless moment, to be shared with Dad later as they tumble in their front door. That’s it. An unremarkable little tale. But filled with radiance. Share it and pore over it with children aged 3 and up. It is quite special. Books Kathy Kozlowski is from Readings Carlton

Classic of the Month WHEN HITLER STOLE PINK RABBIT Judith Kerr HarperCollins. HB. $24.99 and PB. $14.99 THE SECRET HORSES OF BRIAR Available now HILL This story was a childhood favourite, Megan Shepherd & Levi Pinfold so it was exciting to delve back in Walker. HB. $19.99 again recently to see how it stood the test Available 1 October of time. This beautifully produced Based on the author’s own childhood, hardback book, with stunning the story begins in Berlin in 1933 when illustrations by Levi Pinfold, portrays the Anna is nine and her brother Max is imaginative world of childhood with twelve. The Nazi party is on the rise and incredible perception. it looks as if they will win the upcoming election. Anna’s It is 1941 and Emmaline is in Briar father is a political journalist and a Jew, who gets a tip-off Hill hospital, a home in the country that the police may be coming to take his passport, so for children who have tuberculosis. happen all at once. Mouse is flung from the wreckage. he escapes for Prague during the night. When the Nazis Emmaline has a secret and she won’t tell the other He wakes up in the dark, the snow hiding all traces of do win the election, Anna, her brother and mother pack children, but she will tell us. Only she can see the beautiful humanity, totally alone except for a sheep and Nonky, up their whole lives into two suitcases and leave for winged horses hidden in the mirror in the old mansion and but not a worn out old toy Nonky, a magnificent real-life Switzerland. Anna is only allowed to take a few things and only she can communicate with them. One day a winged (talking) horse! Mouse cannot remember how he got leaves behind her beloved pink rabbit. horse crosses worlds to hide in the garden of Briar Hill, there or what happened, all he knows is that, according to The family settles in Switzerland and the children recovering from a terrible blow to its wing. Emmaline Nonky, he has to find a castle. Now wearing a fine knight’s go to the local school, where they speak German. But races against time to protect the wounded horse, guided outfit, and with vague memories of a route he shouldn’t Anna’s father cannot find work as a journalist because the by letters from the enigmatic Horse Lord. But as she takes know about, Mouse, Nonky and the sheep march on newspapers are too scared of the Nazi regime to print his risks to hide the horse from the Black Horse chasing it, her through the snow. writing. Eventually, they decide to move to Paris, where health deteriorates and her world darkens. There are lots of stories that talk about the mystery Anna and Max find life a lot harder. They must learn a This captivating novel is perfect for readers of wartime and power of imagination, but none capture its new language and go to a school where lessons are taught stories such as The War that Saved My Life and anyone who capabilities and limitations quite so well as this beautiful entirely in French. Eventually, they learn enough French enjoys wonderful, imaginative storytelling. It deserves to and moving story. Recommended for kids aged 10 and up. to feel less alien, only to discover they must now move to become a contemporary classic and I highly recommend it Dani Solomon England. for readers aged 10 and up. Angela Crocombe Many Holocaust stories can be terribly harrowing HENRY AND THE GUARDIANS OF and unsuitable for younger readers, but this is a gentle THERE MAY BE A CASTLE THE LOST introduction to the horrors wrought by Hitler’s regime. Piers Torday Jenny Nimmo The reader is spared the more graphic aspects as Anna’s Quercus. HB. $26.99 Egmont. PB. $16.99 family escapes just in time and only occasionally get bad Available 11 October Available 1 October news back from Germany. In truth, this book can be read more as a refugee story. The sudden, dangerous dash for Mouse Mallory is 11 years old and Henry has a secret. He is twelve, but he safety in a foreign country, the necessity of taking only he’s very little for his age. It’s hasn’t aged a day since the moment he what you can carry, the need to constantly start again. The Christmas eve and Mouse’s mum is was thrust a hundred years into the story is really about the challenges of assimilation into hassling him to please help her out by future. Now his secret has put him in different cultures, different languages and the difficulties packing his bag and getting ready for danger – Less than 10 minutes after the of finding new friends. Anna is a stranger in a strange land the short drive across the moors to visit arrival of a mysterious yellow letter, and must adapt, as so many children must. Granny and Gramps. Finally, everyone is Henry is on the run with his Auntie Pearl, Written entirely from Anna’s perspective, this is a ready and in the car, Mouse still in his possibly never to return home. His only wonderful true adventure by a master storyteller. Children pyjamas sulking with his old stuffed toy hope is the protection of the Guardians of the Lost. A aged 7 and up will enjoy having it read to them and readers horse, Nonky, and they’re off. Just as the blizzard starts. spellbinding new tale from one of Britain’s best-loved aged 10 plus can read it themselves. This is a classic that is A short time later several things, none of them good, authors of fantasy adventure. definitely worth revisiting. Angela Crocombe 20 READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2016

JAMIE’S THE RIVER Rome at its zenith, the city transformed home as well: the gassed, the crippled, the COMFORT COTTAGE from a republic to an empire, whose model insane – all those irreparably damaged by FOOD AUSTRALIA of regal autocracy would survive in the war. Drawn from a unique collection of West for more than a thousand years. sources, including repatriation files, these Jamie Oliver COOKBOOK heartbreaking and deeply personal stories HB. Was $55 Now $14.95 Paul West THE STORY OF reveal a broken and suffering generation, and Jamie’s new cookbook brings together 100 HB. Was $45 Now $19.95 SPANISH an unflinching and remarkable social history. ultimate comfort food recipes from around Featuring recipes from the first three Jean-Benoit Nadeau, the world. Inspired by everything from series of River Cottage Australia, this is Julie Barlow BOAT childhood memories to the changing of the the cookbook that will reveal the delicious HB. Was $49.95 Now $14.95 Simon Griffiths seasons and sweet indulgences, it’s brimming dishes which presenter Paul West has been The Story of Spanish is the HB. Was $39.99 Now $16.95 with exciting recipes for treating yourself and creating on the farm. The book is divided first full biography of a language that shaped The boat – a vessel for the ones you love. Recipes include everything into seven chapters and includes more than the world we know, from the dollar sign to escape, adventure, trade and from mighty moussaka, steaming ramen 120 recipes such as pumpkin scones, baked barbecues, ranching, and cowboy culture. travel. This mode of transport is one of and katsu curry to super eggs Benedict and salmon, spiced aubergine salad, pig on a The authors give us a passionate and infinite variety and inspires serious passion, scrumptious sticky toffee pudding. spit, raw courgette salad and warm curb intriguing chronicle of a vibrant language whether made of workmanlike bolted steel, cake with honey rhubarb. OTTO that began as a dialect spoken by a handful sleek modern fibreglass or lovingly hand- burnished timber. Photographer Simon THE STORY: of shepherds in northern Spain, to become IN THE CITY the world's second most spoken language. Griffiths brings us a stunning salute to the Tom Schamp LOVE, LOSS & character and craftsmanship of all sorts of BB. Was $29.95 THE LIVES OF SILENCE: A boats and boatbuilders – from old whaling Now $15.95 WOMEN CHRISTIAN boats to elegant yachts, to paddle steamers, Otto and his father spot some weird and Victoria Hislop HISTORY rowboats and ferries. wonderful sights as they drive through the HB. Was $45 Now $29.99 village, along the highway, and into the Diarmaid MacCulloch SWEET Witty, heartbreaking, shocking, satirical: dazzling heart of the city. A bus carrying HB. Was $39.99 Now $14.95 the short story can excite or sadden, entice Alison Thompson a school of fish; Santa’s reindeer at the Religion is, for many, a HB. Was $49.99 Now $19.95 or repulse. The one thing it haven from the clamour of everyday shopping mall; pencil and pen-shaped cars! This new collection from can never be is dull. Now life, allowing us to pause for Taking in a cross-cultural mix of city sights, Alison Thompson, best- Victoria Hislop, one silent contemplation. But as Otto in the City is a charming celebration of selling author of Bake, celebrates desserts of Britain’s best Diarmaid MacCulloch shows, metropolitan life and the personalities who in every delicious form: creamy, fudgy, loved novelists, there are many forms of inhabit it. gooey, molten, fruity, refreshing, chocolatey, has collected 100 religious silence, from crunchy, chewy, light-as-air or sinfully stories from her contemplation and prayer STUART rich. From elaborate show-stoppers to favourite women to repression and evasion. RATTLE’S comforting family puddings, Alison’s clear, writers into one MacCulloch discusses MUSK FARM Bargain straightforward recipes guarantee sweet volume. Featuring the complicated fate of success, every time. Paul Bangay, Earl well-known silence in Protestant and Carter, Simon feminists and famous evangelical tradition, as well Griffiths wits, national treasures Table A PERSONAL as confronting the more sinister HB. Was $39.99 Now $16.95 and rising stars, The institutional forms of silence. GUIDE TO INDIA In 1998 Australian designer Stuart Rattle Story is the biggest and most AND BHUTAN purchased the dilapidated Musk schoolhouse beautiful collection of women’s MY NEW ROOTS Christine Manfield short fiction in print today. and surrounding grounds. Over the following Sarah Britton PB. Was $39.99 Now $16.95 few decades it was to become his sanctuary – PARIS HB. Was $44.99 Indians are renowned a true labour of love, with every detail of the Now $19.99 for their generosity and hospitality, and buildings and grounds carefully considered. Edward Rutherfurd Based on Sarah Britton’s the delights of travelling in India are Now, this tribute to the much-loved designer HB. Was $39.95 Now $14.95 successful healthy eating infinite. This personal tour from well- takes you through every room and garden, From the grand master of blog, the My New Roots cookbook is packed loved chef Christine Manfield is the result with stunning photography by Earl Carter the historical novel comes with over 100 simple and mouth-watering of years exploring India, the Himalayas and Simon Griffiths. A beautiful memento of a dazzling, epic portrait of vegetarian recipes that embrace all-natural and Bhutan – the perfect companion for an extraordinary person. the City of Light. Moving back and forth ingredients, so you can have as much as travellers who want to find the really across centuries, the story unfolds through special places to eat and stay. Each chapter PIET you want and know that it’s good for your intimate and vivid tales of self-discovery, body. With options that are free from dairy, contains essential sights, local eats, top MONDRIAN: divided loyalties, passion, and long-kept sugar and gluten, low carb and alkaline places to stay and the best places to shop. LIFE AND WORK secrets of characters both fictional and real. rich, these seasonal, healthy recipes are Cees De Jong With his unrivalled blend of impeccable designed to satisfy your appetite and make VEGETABLES, HB. Was $80 Now $39.95 research and narrative verve, Rutherfurd you feel fantastic. GRAINS AND weaves an extraordinary narrative tapestry Piet Mondrian’s rigorously geometric OTHER that captures all the glory of Paris. paintings in primary colours are icons RUSSIANS: GOOD STUFF THE PEOPLE of the 20th century that had a powerful PRISCILLA Simon Bryant impact on popular taste in art and design. BEHIND THE Nicholas Shakespeare PB. Was $39.99 This volume brings together more than POWER Now $16.95 240 superb paintings with documentary HB. Was $40 Now $14.95 Gregory Feifer Simon Bryant’s recipes are delicious proof images from the artist’s life. The book As a young boy, Nicholas HB. Was $49.95 Now $14.95 that vegies and grains are never boring. includes rare photographs of Mondrian’s Shakespeare had always Russians explores the seeming paradoxes Here, he shares his original takes on studios in Paris and New York City as well believed that his aunt was of life in Russia by unravelling the nature everyday dishes, and sweet delights, as well as reproductions of more than 1, 200 of a member of the Resistance and had been of its people: what is it in their history, as recipes for when you’re inspired to take Mondrian’s known works. tortured by the Germans. The truth turned things up a notch. What’s more, Simon gives out to be far more complicated. Piecing their desires, and their conception of you the lowdown on legumes, ancient grains, THE together fragments of his aunt’s remarkable themselves that makes them baffling to seaweed and sprouting, all while revealing and tragic story, Priscilla is at once a stunning the West? Using the insights of his decade SOURCEBOOK OF as a journalist in Russia, Feifer corrects how to shop wisely and with heart. CONTEMPORARY story of detection, a loving portrait of a flawed woman trying to survive in terrible pervasive misconceptions about the URBAN DESIGN times, and a spellbinding slice of history. country and its people, creating a rare THE I HATE Francesc Zamora Mola portrait of a unique land of extremes. KALE HB. Was $69.99 Now $19.99 THE TWELVE COOKBOOK WORLD WAR The Sourcebook of Contemporary Urban CAESARS Tucker Shaw ONE: A HISTORY Design is the first large-scale book of its kind Matthew Dennison HB. Was $17.99 Now $10 to showcase a complete and diverse range of HB. Was $49.99 Now $14.95 IN 100 STORIES The book includes 40 easy recipes that urban architectural innovations worldwide. Bruce Scates, An unforgettable depiction take into account what kale haters dislike – More than 300 case studies incorporate a Rebecca Wheatley, of the Roman Empire at texture, smell, taste – to help them open up diversity of urban space projects, indoor Laura James the height of its power and reach, and an their minds and change a hate into a love. and outdoor, making this lushly illustrated, elegantly sensational retelling of the lives HB. Was $59.99 Now $24.95 Or at least a like. With recipes that deliver information-rich book an invaluable resource and times of the twelve Caesars. Matthew This book remembers not just the men and on kale’s promise of deliciousness, collected that architects, architectural students, and Dennison explores the luxury, license, women who lost their lives during the battles in a slim, attractive, and giftable volume, urban planners will turn to again and again. brutality, and sophistication of imperial of World War I, but those who returned salvation is at hand. READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2016 21

New Film & TV JORDSKOTT the presidency for himself and has a Available 5 October. spin doctor of his own. This classy and absorbing political thriller lays bare the with Lou Fulco $29.95 machinations of government as rivals vie DVD of the Month ‘Produced by Sweden’s for power.’ – ABC state broadcaster, SVT, HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE and set in the ancient forests that cover more Available now. $29.95 Documentary than half the country, Hunt for the Wilderpeople is the fourth feature by Kiwi writer– 10-part mystery thriller Jordskott … draws director Taika Waititi (Eagle vs. Shark, Boy, What We Do in the heavily on deep, dark Norse mythology to THE FIRST Shadows). Ricky Baker is one foster house away from a juvenile set itself apart from its contemporaries. MONDAY IN detention centre. He is granted his last chance at a home when he is This is no ordinary murder-mystery placed with two nomads, Bella (Rima Te Wiata) and Hec (Sam Neill), a weekend.’ – The Guardian MAY couple who live self-sufficiently at the mouth of vast bush land, hunting Available now. $29.95 wild pigs and birds for food. THE SECRET: ‘A behind-the-scenes Despite his social worker’s insistence that he’s a troublemaker, Ricky’s sharp SEASON 1 peek at the making of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 2015 intelligence is only limited by a childish naivety; his crimes are acts of petty rebellion Available now. $34.95 like ‘loitering’ and ‘kicking things’. But it is obvious early on that Ricky’s lack of survival exhibition ‘China: Through the Looking ‘James Nesbitt is credibly instincts and nagging curiosity pose a threat to Hec’s zen-like autonomy, and when the two Glass’. Director Andrew Rossi charts the creepy in a devastating are suddenly on the run in the wilderness from police, social services, and bounty hunters, clash between a variety of old and new true-life tale … of an world forces … quietly and convincingly Ricky and Hec must get along in order to survive. adulterous affair gone [affirming] fashion’s legitimacy as an terribly wrong, [offering a] masterclass art form akin to that of other expressive ‘Wilderpeople is [Waititi’s] BEST film, and one that in the kind of overconfident, small-town mediums.’ – Variety you will want to watch over and over.’ charm that falls well short of charisma. As a study of mutually reinforced delusion The FORCES OF Secret was masterly.’ – The Telegraph (U.K.) The film is full of surprises, yet also pays homage to the likes of Terminator and Thelma NATURE WITH BRIAN COX & Louise. Julian Dennison’s Ricky has enough charm and personality to make Spielberg WALLANDER: blush, and Neill’s tragic Hec is his best performance in many years. Available 5 October. Waititi’s sense of humour is a flirtation with opposites: innocence paired with THE FINAL $29.95 slaughter; nurture with gross negligence; and Ricky’s softness and colourful dress with CHAPTER ‘[Professor Brian] Cox’s Hec’s grey roughness. Waititi is a sentimentalist (though it is his least sentimental film) and Available 5 October. new series, which was no matter the meanness of his antagonists, he always gives them a simulacrum of malice $29.95 three years in the making, also features underpinned by doubt, a self-conscious misstep to endear each of them to you. His films ‘It was gratifying to see some extraordinary footage … Using have an exponential nature, each project expanding in production and scope, along with Wallander get a suitably spectacular photography of some of the the director’s self-certainty. I can say with certainty that Wilderpeople is his BEST film, and powerful send-off in a final chapter that most astonishing sights on Earth and one that you will want to watch over and over. pitted the thoughtful Swedish cop not only erudite commentary, Cox reveals how our Jemima Bucknell is the online fulfilment manager for Readings against some Cold War-era treachery [but planet’s beauty is created by a handful of also] early onset Alzheimer’s disease … forces.’ – The Australian [Kenneth] Branagh was stupendous, Film TV and brought a real thump of emotion at LOUIS close.’ – The Telegraph (UK) THEROUX: MY SCIENTOLOGY MILES AHEAD INSPECTOR LES HOMMES MOVIE Available now. 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JOE CINQUE’S CONSOLATION October 13 (CTC) THE HANDMAIDEN October 13, exclusive (R18+) THE NEON DEMON October 20, exclusive (CTC) Based on Helen Garner's multi-award-winning book Joe Cinque's The new film from Korean auteur Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, Stoker), When aspiring model Jesse (Elle Fanning) moves to Los Angeles, Consolation: A True Story of Death, Grief and the Law, Sotiris THE HANDMAIDEN has been adapted from Sarah Waters’ novel her youth and vitality are devoured by a group of beauty-obsessed Dounoukos directs a riveting true crime drama set in Canberra. Fingersmith, transposed from its Victorian setting into 1930s Korea women who will use any means necessary to get what she has. University student Anu Singh is studying Law when she starts to during the Japanese occupation. A dangerous and sexually devious From the visionary director Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive), THE experience physical and mental health issues. While caring boyfriend tale filled with Park’s razor-sharp humour, THE HANDMAIDEN is a NEON DEMON is a visceral, stylish and wickedly original feast for Joe Cinque is unable to improve Anu’s condition, she increasingly delicious pleasure that will leave you gasping. Korean language, the eyes with a supporting cast including Jena Malone, Abbey Lee, speaks of taking her own life while also not wishing to die alone. English subtitles. Bella Heathcote, Christina Hendricks and Keanu Reeves. These ideas soon become more than just threats as Anu puts into ★★★★ ‘An erotic thriller that prioritises female sexuality, ★★★★★ "A glittering, etherised nightmare, drenched in cold motion a plan that would come to shock her friends, fellow students and exquisite set design, to intoxicating effect’ sweat, with a dark, coiled-panther energy… jaw-dropping" and the tight-knit community. The Guardian The Telegraph Season Premiere Q&A screening with director Sotiris Dounoukos & star Maggie Naouri, Friday October 7: 6.45pm Book now online or at the Cinema Nova Box Office. 380 Lygon Street Carlton Melbourne’s home of quality arthouse and contemporary cinema cinemanova.com.au 22 READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2016

New Music the band songwriter, who worked with in hospitals, the 16th volume in Hush’s an almost entirely new cast of musicians acclaimed series is an album of unrivalled for this album, most of them coming musical delight: a collection of songs Album of the Month from the jazz and avant-garde world. featuring the words of Australian children, This changing sound reflects the album’s set to music and performed by Lior, The writing, which came during a time of loss Idea of North and Elena Kats-Chernin. SHINE A LIGHT and change in Sheff’s life. Billy Bragg & Joe Henry LIVE IN SAN DIEGO $21.95 DAY BREAKS Eric Clapton Available now Norah Jones $24.95 I must confess I expected this album to be another version $21.95 Live In San Diego is a of Mermaid Avenue, the wonderful set of albums released Available 7 October fantastic, previously by Bragg and Wilco all those years ago using the lyrics of Woody Nine-time Grammy unreleased live Guthrie. I was a fair way off with my expectations. What takes Award-winner Norah recording of Eric place here is a lesson in timing, acoustics, history and harmony. Jones returns with Clapton and his band, recorded in March Day Breaks, a remarkable new solo album 2007 in San Diego, California. Clapton’s ‘Billy Bragg and Joe Henry (one of my favourite artists) jumped onto that finds her returning to her jazz long-time friend and collaborator, the late the train Texas Eagle at Union Station, Chicago, and rode its 2, 728 roots while also proving her to be this JJ Cale, features as a special guest on five miles all the way down to San Antonio, Texas and then across to era’s quintessential American artist, the tracks, ‘Anyway The Wind Blows’, ‘After purveyor of an unmistakably unique sound Midnight’, ‘Who Am I Telling You’, ‘Don’t Los Angeles, California.’ that weaves together the threads of several Cry Sister’ and ‘Cocaine’. bedrock styles of American music: country, Billy Bragg and Joe Henry (one of my favourite artists) jumped onto the train Texas Eagle folk, rock, soul, and jazz. at Union Station, Chicago, and rode its 2, 728 miles all the way down to San Antonio, Texas Jazz & Blues and then across to Los Angeles, California. At stops along the way they would get out, set up shop and record a song or songs, depending on how long they had to wait for their train 22, A MILLION to leave. Ambient noise and the recordings’ casual approach are the strength behind this Bon Iver CLIMB album. The partnership is loose and gives the album a campfire, sing-a-long feel. I do feel $19.95 Chris Abrahams Available 30 September that Joe Henry is the strength behind this album, but you can’t help getting caught up in $24.95 Billy Braggs’ sense of love for American stories and history, and there is no more important 22, A Million is part Available now love letter, part story that helped shape modern America than that of the development of the railroad. The Necks’ pianist final resting place Small-town America was suddenly connected to the big cities. East coast was connected to Chris Abrahams of two decades of west coast and north to south. All of sudden, people had hope. Hope that they could move releases his fifth solo searching for self-understanding like to a better life: jump on a train and you never know where you may end up or what you piano album, Climb, a stunning album of a religion. And the inner-resolution of may end up doing. meticulously curated pieces that stretch maybe never finding that understanding. The pair cover classic train songs by Lead Belly, Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams, Glen over a decade of solo piano work from one The album’s 10 poly-fi recordings are Campbell, Woody Guthrie, The Carter Family, Doc Watson and Gordon Lightfoot, to name of Australia’s most highly regarded pianists. a collection of sacred moments, love’s a few, and tell stories steeped in the history of the railroad. These are the stories of love, Characterised by Abrahams’ free-flowing torment and salvation, intense memories, hope, freedom and the search for a better life. It’s all about connecting. modal legato and psychedelic, cascading and examinations of signs that you can pin phrasing, Climb unfolds through its seven Lou Fulco is from Readings Hawthorn meaning onto or disregard as coincidence. tracks with a gorgeous fluidity that is both ambient and emotional. with The Castiles to 2012’s Wrecking Ball, THE COMPLETE BBC Pop & Rock the collected songs trace Springsteen’s SESSIONS SECULAR HYMNS musical history from its earliest days, Led Zeppelin Madeleine Peyroux KEEP ME SINGING telling a story that unfolds parallel to the 3CDs. $29.95 $21.95 Available now Van Morrison tales in the book. Available now. $21.95 The Complete BBC HEADS UP Madeleine Peyroux Available 30 September Sessions is an updated continues to explore The legendary Van Warpaint collection of live beyond the ordinary Morrison returns with $24.95 recordings selected from the band’s with Secular Hymns, a spirited and soulful Keep Me Singing, his Available now appearances on BBC radio between masterwork of sassy, feisty and sexy tunes much-anticipated 36th studio album. The After spending 2015 1969 and 1971. Newly remastered with delivered in a captivating mélange of funk, record consists of 12 original songs written apart working on solo supervision by Jimmy Page, the collection blues and jazz. With her seductive, expressive and performed by Morrison, as well as a projects, Warpaint includes eight unreleased BBC recordings, voice, Peyroux and her trio set out to record cover of the blues standard ‘Share Your Love reunited in January to record their third including three rescued from a previously in a live setting a collection of songs that have with Me’, previously recorded by artists such studio album, Heads Up. Teaming up once ‘lost’ session from 1969, and extensive their own hymn-like consciousness and a as Aretha Franklin and Kenny Rogers. again with producer Jacob Bercovici, with session-by-session liner notes written by spiritual essence. whom they had previously worked on their Dave Lewis. DEATH’S DATELESS NIGHT debut EP Exquisite Corpse, the album was recorded in pairs and alone rather than AMERICAN BAND Paul Kelly & Music Event as a full band, making for more creative Drive-By Truckers Charlie Owen freedom and an evolution for the band. $21.95 $21.95 Available 7 October UNSEEN Available 30 September On the way to a mutual One of the most well- The Handsome respected alternative friend’s funeral last Family year, Paul Kelly and Charlie Owen found country-rock acts $29.95 of the 2000s, Drive-By Truckers’ new themselves discussing the songs they had Available now played at other funerals, separately and album American Band is a powerful Husband and wife duo together. Death’s Dateless Night primarily and provocative work, hard-edged and Brett and Rennie Sparks finely honed. Fuelled by a just spirit of GRANT-LEE features songs written by others, such as Cole blend Appalachian holler, psych-rock and PHILLIPS LIVE AT Porter, Townes Van Zandt, Leonard Cohen, moral indignation and righteous rage, 21 Tin Pan Alley-inspired melodies on their American Band is protest music fit for the October READINGS ST KILDA Hank Williams, Lennon/McCartney, but also tenth studio album, Unseen, the follow-up stadiums, designed to raise issues and ire includes traditional funeral songs. to 2013’s Wilderness and their first new For more than 25 years Grant-Lee Phillips’ as the nation careens towards its most record since their True Detective theme music has been a river running through momentous election in a generation. CHAPTER & VERSE song ‘Far From Any Road’ introduced them the American music landscape. The Bruce Springsteen to millions of new fans across the world. HUSH VOLUME 16: A assured, contemplative alt-country of $19.95 his freshly minted album The Narrows PIECE OF QUIET Available now AWAY is evidence enough that he has secured Lior, The Idea of Chapter and Verse, the Okkervil River a position among the American music North and Elena audio companion to $21.95 greats. Come along to our St Kilda shop Kats-Chernin Bruce Springsteen’s Available now to hear him perform at an intimate gig. $24.95 extraordinary forthcoming autobiography The eighth studio Born to Run, features 18 tracks, five of album from Texas Originally developed to Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events which have not been previously released. band Okkervil River reduce stress and anxiety Friday 21 October, 6pm From teenaged Springsteen’s recordings represents a turning point for Will Sheff, felt by both patients and their families Readings St Kilda READINGS MONTHLY OCTOBER 2016 23

New Classical Music SCHUBERT: LIEDER substantial dignity, their zing coming Florian Boesch & from their actual tone and lucid textural Malcolm Martineau balance … a great listen’ – Gramophone Classical Album of the Month Onyx. ONYX4149. $29.95 LOVE STORY: PIANO VERISMO Available now THEMES FROM CINEMA’S GOLDEN AGE Anna Netrebko ‘Boesch confirms DG. 4795013 CD and DVD. $24.95 himself as the baritone’s answer to pianist Valentina Lisitsa Available now Mitsuko Uchida, daring a range of hushed Decca. 4789454. $21.95 dynamics in Schubert that seem to echo the Available now In 2001, aged only 30, Anna Netrebko made a cameo composer’s reported words: “Sometimes it Valentina Lisitsa appearance as ‘opera’s new rising star’ in the film The seems as if I do not belong to this world at explores the glorious Princess Diaries, singing Verdi’s ‘Sempre Libera’. She is now all.” … In tandem with the ever-perceptive music of cinema’s among the top flight of opera singers in the world, and while Malcolm Martineau (a model of clarity, unparalleled golden era. Valentina looks she still possesses the same warm tone as she did fifteen and especially good at animating and back to the cinematic glory days of the years ago, her voice has developed to become larger and more present. Verismo – colouring Schubert’s bass-lines), Boesch’s big screen, performing the finest piano Netrebko’s latest album – is a selection of dramatic soprano arias, most of which have been concentrated Innigkeit can be haunting, concerto music composed especially for recorded by Maria Callas, Angela Gheorghiu and Renee Fleming. above all in the many songs of loneliness, film. A genre originally influenced by alienation and sorrowful regret.’ Rachmaninov’s popular piano concertos, ‘Netrebko is sensitive to the risk of comparisons, – Gramophone these pieces are arresting original scores which she articulates well in the accompanying for piano and orchestra composed for JS BACH: movies of the 1940s and 1950s including DVD … her individual interpretation will THE ART OF FUGUE Dangerous Moonlight, Stagefright, and The Rachel Podger & Apartment. undoubtedly move listeners.’ Brecon Baroque Channel Classics. REICH: DOUBLE SEXTET When listening to Netrebko, it’s hard not to draw comparisons with other singers, CCSSA38316. $32.95 & RADIO REWRITE especially in Catalani’s ‘Ebben? Ne andrò lontana’. Netrebko is sensitive to the risk of Available now Brad Lubman & comparisons, which she articulates well in the accompanying DVD: ‘When you are ‘A new recording Ensemble Signal touching this repertoire, it is almost like you are about to lose the battle. You probably will from violinist Rachel Podger is always Harmonia Mundi. not be better than [the other sopranos], but what you have to try to do is to bring something worth attention. And before you even get to HMU907671. $29.95 from yourself. Be very truthful to the musical text, and try to understand how to perform appreciating the first-class performances – Available now it your own way.’ Does Netrebko succeed? I think yes. She imbues ‘Ebben?’ with grief and faithful realisations of Bach’s Art of Fugue ‘Ensemble Signal’s playing in Double Sextet is longing, and her individual interpretation will undoubtedly move listeners. skilfully arranged for strings – you notice so crisp and precise that it’s easy to forget its Netrebko possesses an immediately distinctive, rich and broad tone, which is given the immediate, vibrant presence of the rhythmic and contrapuntal complexities. At full reign in Puccini’s ‘Un bel dì vedremo’. Although she occasionally pushes sharp and instruments … Channel Classics has been the same time the harmony’s slightly gritty her vibrato sometimes undulates too wildly, she sings with conviction into the sweeping doing this forever; we just may have qualities are preserved, and just the right phrases, and commits to the drama of the text. Her ‘wildness’ is, therefore, a worthy forgotten how special it is when it’s done amount of articulation given to the sustained sacrifice in her pursuit of operatic truth. Tenor Yusif Eyvazov – Netrebko’s husband – joins right.’ – Classics Today pitches and chords, which quite literally bind her in extracts from Manon Lescaut, which is a highlight of the CD. Their voices together each section together.’ – Gramophone are exciting and fearless, just as great opera should be. AGONY AND ECSTASY Alexandra Mathew is from Readings Carlton Emma Matthews GERSHWIN: AN ABC Classics. 4814236. AMERICAN IN PARIS & $21.95 PIANO CONCERTO IN F MOZART BACH Available now Steven Richman, Richard Galliano Nemanja Emma Matthews – Lincoln Mayorga & DG. 4812662. $26.95 Radulovic renowned as the finest Harmonie Ensemble/ Available now DG. 4795933. $21.95 Australian soprano of her generation – New York Have you ever Available now unveils her triumphant third album: Agony Harmonia Mundi. and Ecstasy wondered Bach has been . Inspired by words from Verdi’s HMU907658. $29.95 opera La Traviata, the album presents a what might’ve recorded, Available now rich and timeless journey through the many happened if Mozart re-recorded and ‘The Concerto in F hasn’t sounded so fresh, faces of love, drawing on an opera that had been born a Parisian busker rather then re-done, re-worked and re-recorded so idiomatic and so rhythmically alive employed the power of music to bring alive than an Austrian composer? Neither had I again. But never have I heard such an since Earl Wild’s classic RCA recording, experiences of the heart as never before. until I heard virtuoso French accordionist arrangement of J.S. Bach’s Toccata and no small thanks to piano soloist Lincoln Richard Galliano’s Mozart album. Fugue in D Minor as this on Nemanja LEYENDAS: WORKS FOR Mayorga’s ability to fuse his brilliant classical technique with a genuine feeling Normally I am a purest, and find that any Radulovic’s latest album. I’ve heard this SOLO GUITAR attempt to ‘improve’ Mozart’s music is in work done for wind band, piano and many for Gershwin’s syncopated language and Thibaut Garcia fact to vitiate it. However, I have been unlikely combinations, but this particular bluesy inflections … No Gershwin fan should Erato. 9029595463. unexpectedly charmed by Galliano’s arrangement is engaging and uses all the miss this disc.’ – Gramophone $19.95 Mozart arrangements. Surprising, string instruments to their full potential in Available now considering that I wasn’t a big fan of his a fascinating new prism through which to A Frenchman with Reissue of the Month previous Vivaldi album: I found the experience Bach’s most famous work. Spanish blood, 22-year- accordion too cumbersome an instrument Along with new arrangements of the old guitarist Thibaut Garcia makes his for the sprightly and brilliant Four Chaconne and Air on a G String, this is also Erato debut with Leyendas (Legends), an BEETHOVEN: COMPLETE Seasons. Radulovic’s debut as a viola soloist. atmospheric recital of music by Spanish PIANO SONATAS Rondo alla Turca – the third movement In the early twentieth century, two and Argentinian composers: Albéniz, Falla, Artur Schnabel of Mozart’s Piano Sonata No. 11 – is brothers made many ‘startling’ discoveries Rodrigo, Tárrega (his famous, shimmering Warner Classics. 8CDs. probably one of the most recognisable of lost works of some of the great Recuerdos de la Alhambra), Manjón and 9029597505. $36.95 pieces of classical music in the Western composers, including Johann Christian Piazzolla. Available now canon, and it has been performed, Bach’s Viola Concerto. However not all Artur Schnabel’s arranged and rearranged practically to was as it seemed, as it turns out these CPE BACH: CELLO complete Beethoven death. Its overuse in no way lessened my brothers, Henri and Marius Casadesus CONCERTOS Piano Sonatas, recorded between 1932 utter, undefiled enjoyment at Galliano’s were writing the works themselves in Nicolas Altstaedt, and 1938, constitute a monument of the version of it, performed by Galliano with the style of their purported composers. Jonathan Cohen & catalogue. In 1937 Gramophone wrote: ‘To vim and vigour. The accordion lends Although complete frauds, this does not Arcangelo [his] technical mastery Schnabel adds and itself particularly well to the solo part detract from the interesting compositional Hyperion. CDA68112. fuses an intensely intelligent, not merely in Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto. Here, take they had on the style of the period. $29.95 ‘intellectual’ mind … The result is a perfectly the orchestral accompaniment has been Before I did my research I thought there Available now blended interpretation of the music as arranged for string quintet, and the was something odd but interesting about ‘Nicolas Altstaedt and the sinewy warmth a spiritual expression and as a musical resulting texture is similar to that of the this concerto and now I know why and it’s of his 1760 Gigli are a great fit for this organism.’ Newly remastered from the Clarinet Quintet. Galliano’s Mozart is the worth visiting. often rather wild music … Arcangelo under original 78s, these legendary recordings can perfect blend of joie de vivre and classical Kate Rockstrom is a friend of Readings Cohen breathe the music, capturing the now be enjoyed in audio of unprecedented elegance. AM frequent storminess but also bringing truthfulness and quality.