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NEW IN JUNE ARUNDHATI INGA BRIOHNY RIVER FLEET ROY SIMPSON DOYLE FOXES $29.95 $32.99 $32.99 $29.99 $21.95 page 21 $27.99 $27.99 page 5 page 22
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3 FOR 2 BEST OF INDEPENDENT PUBLISHING Australia’s independent publishers are the lifeblood of our book industry and publish exciting books covering a wide range of topics: from great Australian stories, to Readings Monthly ground-breaking ideas on how to live; Free, independent monthly newspaper from the way our world works and how published by Readings Books, Music & Film it could be changed, to what it means to be Australian; from the best of overseas Subscribe writing, to just plain good reads. You can subscribe to Readings Monthly and Throughout June, we’re proud to our e-news by visiting our website: showcase some of our favourite independent readings.com.au/sign-up publishers – Scribe Publications, Text Publishing, Melbourne University Publishing, Editor Black Inc., Fremantle Arts Centre Press, and Jo Case the University of Queensland Press – with [email protected] a special offer on a select range of award- winning and popular titles from these Editorial Assistant publishers. Buy two books, and choose a third Judi Mitchell [email protected] book in the range (of equal or lesser value) for free! The offer features titles from Magda Kids/YA Curator Szubanski, Georgia Blain, Helen Garner, Alexa Dretzke Elena Ferrante, Peter Temple, Anna Funder Treehouse by Andy Griffiths & Terry Denton Girl, Amani Al-Khatahtbeh. Readings and Kate Grenville, among many others. (Book of the Year for Younger Children), is proud to be the official bookseller of Music Curator Rediscover old friends, discover new talent The Bone Sparrow by Zana Fraillon (Book the Melbourne Writers Festival. You can Dave Clarke and see why we should be so proud of our of the Year for Older Children), The Road browse the full Schools’ Program and make wonderful publishers and writers. to Ruin by Niki Savva (General Non-fiction bookings at mwf.com.au/schools. Classical Music Curator This offer is exclusively available in all Book of the Year), The Last Painting of Sara EMERGING WRITERS’ FESTIVAL Phil Richards Readings shops until 30 June, on stickered, de Vos by Dominic Smith (Literary Fiction in-stock items only, while stocks last. It is Book of the Year) and Fight Like a Girl by The Emerging Writers’ Festival (EWF) DVDs Curator not available online. Clementine Ford (Matt Richell Award returns 14–23 June, uniting some of Lou Fulco for New Writer of the Year). For all the Australia’s most creative and talented THE READINGS YOUNG ADULT winners, see abiawards.com.au. literary upstarts, from writers and editors Advertising BOOK PRIZE SHORTLIST to publishers and performers. Readings are Stella Charls We’re delighted to announce the shortlist MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL thrilled to be presenting two events as part of [email protected] for The Readings Young Adult Book Prize JAZZ FESTIVAL the EWF program: Literary Dystopias with (03) 9341 7739 2017. The shortlisted titles are: Boone Shepard From 2–11 June, Melbourne will come Sally Abbott and Daniel Findlay (20 June), by Gabriel Bergmoser (Bell Frog Books); alive with Australia’s largest jazz festival, and Meet the Creators of Eyes Too Dry (22 Graphic Design Freedom Swimmer by Wai Chim (Allen & entertaining aficionados and newcomers June), both in Readings Carlton. For more Cat Matteson Unwin); The Bone Sparrow by Zana Fraillon alike. With a Modern Masters series, information visit emergingwritersfestival.org. colourcode.com.au (Hachette); Becoming Aurora by Elizabeth intimate club gigs, artist workshops and au, or pick up a printed program from any Kasmer (UQP); The Road to Winter by Mark daily free concerts, there’s something for Readings shop. Readings is a proud supporter Front Cover Smith (Text); and Our Chemical Hearts by everyone to enjoy. Visit melbournejazz.com of the Emerging Writers’ Festival. The June Readings Monthly cover features Krystal Sutherland (Penguin). This year’s for the full program and bookings. Readings the cover image from Adult Fantasy THE GARRET PODCAST SEASON 3 by Briohny Doyle, courtesy of Scribe guest judge, author Lili Wilkinson, will help is a proud supporter of the Melbourne Season 3 of The Garret Podcast, a literary Publications. The cover of Adult Fantasy select the winner, to be announced in the International Jazz Festival. was designed by Laura Thomas and the August edition of Readings Monthly, from this podcast featuring writers talking about cover image is by Marcel, from Stocksy. shortlist. Find out more on page 6. READINGS’ JAZZ SALE their craft, will launch on 1 June. Authors com. See page 5 for more about the book. Readings’ annual jazz sale is on throughout in Season 3 include Ian McGuire, Sofie LEANNE HALL WINS NSW June and features the biggest names from Laguna, Adrian McKinty, and Christos Cartoon PREMIER’S LITERARY AWARD the jazz world. The sale includes a huge Tsiolkas. Look out for a special bonus Oslo Davis Readings staff member and author Leanne range from the US and Europe, and hundreds episode with Readings’ own Mark Rubbo! oslodavis.com Hall has won The Patricia Wrightson Prize of titles with prices from $9.95, including The series is hosted by Chair of Writers at this year’s NSW Premier’s Literary recordings from Blue Note, ECM, Verve, Victoria, Nic Brasch and produced by Correction to May 2017 Awards for her novel Iris and the Tiger. The Columbia and more. This sale is available in Astrid Edwards. For more information In the May issue of Readings Monthly, prize is awarded to a work of fiction, non- all Readings shops (except Readings Kids) visit thegarretpodcast.com. Readings are a Holly Harper, one of our Readings Kids’ fiction or poetry written for young people of Book Prize judging panel, and a bookseller until 30 June. It is not available online. proud partner of The Garret Podcast. at Readings Kids, was incorrectedly secondary school level, and offers $30,000 MELBOURNE WRITERS FESTIVAL REFUGEE LEGAL APPEAL identified, due to a typo in her surname. prize money. Congratulations Leanne! For We apologise for this error. more about the awards and to see other SCHOOLS’ PROGRAM 2017 Refugee Legal is Australia’s largest provider winners, visit sl.nsw.gov.au. Melbourne Writers Festival has announced of free specialist legal assistance to people Prices and availability their 2017 Schools’ Program, running seeking asylum, refugees and disadvantaged Please note that all prices and release READINGS WINS INDEPENDENT from Monday 28 August until Thursday 31 migrants. For over 28 years, Refugee Legal dates in Readings Monthly are correct at BOOK RETAILER OF THE YEAR August. Each program session is designed has been providing wide-ranging legal time of publication, however prices and Readings was honoured to be jointly named specifically for primary, secondary or VCE assistance to people from culturally or release dates may change without notice. Independent Book Retailer of the Year, students. Festival guests will address key linguistically diverse backgrounds. Readings Special price offers apply only for the along with Potts Point Bookshop, at the 2017 topics on themes of identity and belonging, is a proud supporter of Refugee Legal in month in which they are featured in the Australian Book Industry Awards. Other Readings Monthly. gender and race. This year’s program their 2017 End of Financial Year Appeal winners on the night included The Dry by features leading Australian voices, including and we encourage our readers to donate at Readings donates 10% of its profits each Jane Harper (Gold ABIA for Book of the Randa Abdel-Fattah, Maxine Beneba Clarke, refugeelegal.org.au/donate. A tax deductible year to The Readings Foundation: Year), Working Class Boy by Jimmy Barnes Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff, and creator gift of more than $2 made before June 30 readings.com.au/the-readings-foundation (Biography Book of the Year), The 78 Storey and editor-in-chief of global website Muslim will be matched by Gandel Philanthropy. READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2017 3
June Events SHEILA 10 FITZPATRICK IN July SAMAH SABAWI HARRY POTTER CONVERSATION 5 AND STEPHEN 26 TRIVIA NIGHT WITH JOY DAMOUSI ORLOV Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is International authors Samah Sabawi and turning 20! We’re celebrating with a special Join world-renowned historian Sheila Stephen Orlov co-edited Double Exposure: Harry Potter trivia night at our Hawthorn Fitzpatrick (a Russian specialist) to talk Plays of the Jewish and Palestinian Diasporas, shop, with a fan quiz, prizes and a sorting about her new, unusually personal history: the first English-language anthology in any hat that will assign you to a Hogwarts house. Mischka’s War, about her late husband. genre of prose, poetry or drama by Jewish and Put on your favourite Harry Potter costume, Mischka Danos (who later learned he was Palestinian writers worldwide. We are thrilled board at platform 9 ¾ (or, you know, take a part Jewish) escaped conscription into the to host them reading from their plays and tram or your car) and join your fellow Harry Waffen-SS in 1943 by going on a student talking about the anthology they co-edited. Potter fans. Refreshments provided. exchange to Germany. He then narrowly escaped death in the Allied fire-bombing Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events of Dresden, lived as a ‘Displaced Person’ in Monday 5 June, 6.30pm Monday 26 June occupied Germany, and later resettled, with Readings St Kilda 4.30pm - 5.30pm: Trivia for children 12 and under his mother, in the US, where he met Sheila. 6pm - 7pm: Trivia for teenagers and adults In Mischka’s War, Sheila pieces together Photograph © Nicole Cleary © Nicole Photograph Readings Hawthorn her late husband’s story through diaries, NIKKI GEMMELL IN correspondence and recollections. 13 CONVERSATION SAMI SHAH IN WITH SOPHIE THE STATE OF 30 CONVERSATION Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Monday 10 July, 6.30pm CUNNINGHAM 27 BEING EQUAL: WITH JACINTA OVERCONSUMPTION Readings Hawthorn In After, Nikki Gemmell shares her experience PARSONS We are excited to present this Readings event of losing her mother, who chose to end her own We are thrilled to have funny man Sami Shah, MONICA life. She’ll talk to Sophie Cunningham about series in 2017. The State of Being Equal is a straight from the Melbourne International forum intended to make sure we trump Trump 13 MCINERNEY ON losing parents, and the after-effects of having Comedy Festival to us, to chat about his July a loved one make the decision for themselves politics by exploring how society can be more new book, The Islamic Republic of Australia: HER NEW NOVEL equitable and just, rather than divisive and Muslims Down Under, covering everything by themselves. This will be a deeply personal Bestselling Australian author Monica bellicose. Each event will examine a new title from hijabs to jihad. This funny and conversation about euthanasia. McInerney is back with her highly that is relevant to global and sexual politics. informative book explores Islam in Australia anticipated new novel, The Trip of a Lifetime. Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Robert Crocker, author of Somebody Else’s and breaks down stereotypes along the way. Set in the Clare Valley of South Australia and Tuesday 13 June, 6.30pm Problem: Consumerism, Sustainability the Irish countryside, The Trip of a Lifetime is Readings Hawthorn and Design will talk to Virginia Lee, the Entry is $35 per person and includes a signed first a big, bold and beautiful novel of family, love Elisabeth Murdoch Chair of Landscape edition of The Islamic Republic of Australia. Please book at readings.com.au/events and secrets, which explores the true meaning Architecture, about the environmental ANNA KRIEN IN of home. This book will resonate across the problem of overconsumption. They’ll Friday 30 June, 6.30–7.30pm 19 Church of All Nations, 180 Palmerston St, Carlton generations for anyone who has ever found CONVERSATION concentrate on the juggernaut of our escalation their family exasperating. WITH CHLOE of consumption, and the way it’s overlooked by HOOPER most policies. They’ll explore how the world Coming up Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events of cheap and easy access, and an expanding Quarterly Essay 66: The Long Goodbye Thursday 13 July, 6.30pm array of additional products, increases the explores the psychology and politics of a Readings Hawthorn environmental problem facing us all. warming world. Talking to coal workers and scientists, lobbyists and activists, she Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events considers where climate change is taking Tuesday 27 June, 6.30pm us, and assesses where effective action is to Readings Carlton be found. Anna, one of Australia’s leading narrative journalists, will talk about it all with another one: Chloe Hooper (The Tall Man).
Entry is $25 per person and includes a copy of the Quarterly Essay. Please book at readings.com.au/events Monday 19 June, 6.30–7.30pm Church of All Nations, 180 Palmerston St, Carlton
SALLY ABBOTT AND 20 DANIEL FINDLAY JENNY VALENTISH Join Sally Abbott and Daniel Findlay, debut 28 AND BRIGID Australian novelists, for a lively discussion DELANEY JAMILA RIZVI IN about writing dystopian futures, and their Journalists Jenny Valentish and Brigid 3 CONVERSATION own pathways to publication. They will be in July conversation with Readings’ own Stella Charls Delaney explore women’s health from WITH SUSAN and hosted for the Emerging Writers Festival. different angles, weaving in their personal CARLAND, WITH ANDY GRIFFITHS experience. In Woman of Substances, Jenny CLARE BOWDITCH 8 & TERRY DENTON: Free, but please book at Valentish investigates the female experience August emergingwritersfestival.org.au of drug and alcohol addiction, exploring Jamila Rizvi is the warm, witty and wise THE 91-STOREY Tuesday 20 June, 6.30pm early predictors of addiction and charting friend that the next generation of Australian TREEHOUSE Readings Carlton her own journey to rock bottom and out women leaders have been waiting for. Her The 91-Storey Treehouse is the seventh instalment again. Brigid Delaney uses herself as a book, Not Just Lucky, will give you the in Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton’s brilliantly guinea pig in Wellmania: Misadventures in ALICE CHIPKIN AND tools you need to ditch the doubt and fight wacky treehouse adventures. Join Andy and the Search for Wellness. Starting with a brutal for success. In the past five years, Jamila Terry, along with special guest Jill Griffiths, 22 JESSICA TAVASSOLI 101-day fast, Brigid travels the world to test Rizvi has firmly established herself as the for hilarious antics as we launch this wild new things that are meant to make us clean and Hear from the creators of graphic memoir prominent voice of young Australian women book into the world. Eyes Too Dry about heavy feelings, queer serene. She tries colonics, meditation, silent online. The former editor-in-chief of the friendship and the therapeutic possibilities of retreats, group psychotherapy and oodles of Mamamia Women’s Network, she was also Entry is $25 per person and includes one hour making comics. They will be in conversation yoga, working out what is helpful and what a political staffer for former Prime Minister of madness and a signed first edition of The with The Lifted Brow founder Ronnie Scott is just expensive hype. Join them to talk Kevin Rudd and Minister Kate Ellis. She is 91-Storey Treehouse (given out at the event). and hosted for the Emerging Writers’ Festival. about women’s health across the spectrum, one of Australia’s 100 Women of Influence. One ticket is required per person, so adults and from illness to wellness. children need a ticket each. Free, but please book at Entry is $50 per person ($45 concession) and Please book at readings.com.au/events emergingwritersfestival.org.au Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events includes a signed first edition of Not Just Lucky. Tuesday 8 August 4.30pm–5.30pm Tuesday 22 June, 6.30pm Wednesday 28 June, 6.30pm Monday 3 July, 6.30–7.30pm Melbourne Town Hall Readings Carlton Readings Carlton Melbourne Athenaeum, 188 Collins St, Melbourne 90–130 Swanston St, Melbourne 4 READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2017
June Launches His Ex. Funny and heartfelt, it explores rage, regret and the pitfalls of life in the digital age. Mark’s Thursday 8 June, 6.30pm News and views from Readings’ Managing Director, Eliza Henry-Jones’s stunning debut novel, Readings Hawthorn | Free, no booking required. Mark Rubbo In the Quiet, was shortlisted for the 2015 Say Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction and the NSW Premier’s Award, and longlisted Broken: A Memoir describes Emma White’s A year ago I joined the board of the Indigenous Literacy Foundation. In May, I went with for the ABIA and Indie Awards. Join us to journey, four and a half months after the Foundation on a field trip to Melville Island, the largest of the Tiwi Islands. Melville launch her long-awaited second novel, Ache. her boyfriend became a paraplegic in a has two primary schools and a secondary boarding school, Tiwi College, on the island. The Thursday 1 June, 6.30pm motorbike accident, on a 15,000 kilometre main purpose of the trip was to run programs for both primary schools and the College. We Readings Hawthorn | Free, no booking required. backpacking trip around Australia with him. were accompanied by singer and ILF ambassador Josh Pyke, and authors and illustrators Tuesday 13 June, 6.30pm Alison Lester, Gregg Dreise, Marc McBride and Karen Wyld. Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. Josh led song-writing classes and Alison helped kids create beautiful illustrations; at Storm Whale, a captivating and beautifully earlier ILF workshops, Alison had helped produce the delightful picture book, No Way illustrated story about three sisters who find Yirrikipay. Gregg ran workshops about Indigenous culture and introduced the Tiwi kids a stranded whale on the beach, celebrates ABC Classic FM’s Stephen Snelleman will launch to boomerang painting – boomerangs weren’t ever used on Tiwi – and Marc, whose work the majesty and vulnerability of nature and Tuning the Antipodes, by Melbourne academic draws heavily on mythology, taught nifty airbrush techniques to create impressive dragons. our place in it. Author Sarah Brennan and Simon Purtell. This fascinating history of pitch Karen’s creative writing workshops elicited some great ideas. Some of the students will travel illustrator Jane Tanner will be with us to standards in Melbourne over 100 years involves to Melbourne in September to work with Penguin Random House to refine their ideas, and launch their powerful, poetic book. famous local and touring singers, including hopefully turn them into a publication. The fruits of a similar trip last year, to Sydney-based Thursday 1 June, 6.30pm Nellie Melba, and conductors and organists. children’s publisher, Scholastic, will be published as Shallow in the Deep End this month (see Readings Kids | Free, no booking required. John Poynter AO OBE will speak briefly on the history of Lyrebird Press Australia and its page 18). We set up ‘bookshops’ at each school and every student could choose two books to founder, Melbourne-born Louise Hanson-Dyer. take home. It was lovely to see the excitement and pleasure on their faces as they chose. Helen Garner has called Anaesthesia: The Gift Wednesday 14 June, 6.30pm The ILF’s support for literacy has three strands. The first, is to gift culturally and age of Oblivion and the Mystery of Consciousness ‘a Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. appropriate books free of charge to over 250 remote communities around Australia – since work of splendid richness and depth, driven by the program began, over 200,000 books have been distributed. The second is Book Buzz, a curiosity so intense that it hazards at times an early childhood literacy program. And the third is community publishing of books the extreme boundaries of the sayable’. She’ll Briohny Doyle explores the complexities written and conceived by local communities, either in language or English. launch Kate Cole-Adams’ second book. of new millennium adulthood in a rapidly I spoke to Ian Smith, the outgoing principal of Tiwi College, about the ILF and whether he Monday 5 June, 6.30pm changing world, in Adult Fantasy. Readings thought its work was helping. ‘Indigenous education is a slow process; we have to deal with many Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. Monthly editor Jo Case will launch, and chat complex cultural and social issues that don’t arise in an urban setting. Often kids growing up to Briohny about how to live a meaningful in remote communities don’t see the relevance of a traditional Western curriculum, especially adult life when so-called adult milestones (a boys. We have to learn how to engage them. We’ve loved having the ILF come in and run their Wayne Macauley has been described as mortgage, marriage, children) are either out programs.’ Ian spoke very passionately about the community publishing. ‘The community is so ‘thought-provoking and brilliant’ (Guardian) of reach, not for you, or both. proud of the books that have come out of the program – it affects everyone.’ It was inspiring to and ‘a major Australian writer’ (Readings Thursday 15 June, 6.30pm meet vice principal Ailsa MacFie: Tiwi College have an arrangement with Melbourne’s Scotch Monthly). His new novel, Some Tests, is a darkly Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. whereby a group of Tiwi boys spend a week at Scotch and a group of Scotch boys spend a week surreal satire of modern medical systems, at Tiwi. Ailsa was a Scotch teacher who brought up a group of boys; she was so inspired that she asking us to reconsider how we live and die. left Scotch and joined the Tiwi teaching staff. Ailsa, too, was very positive about the ILF. ‘We get a Tuesday 6 June, 6.30pm Join an impressive line-up of Melbourne number of organisations wanting to come up here; there aren’t many that we value as much as the Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. talent, as Adam Bandt, Tony Birch, Shakira Hussein and Aamer Rahman launch Ghassan ILF.’ And it was good to meet Gladys Puruntatameri and Jessica Stass, two recent Tiwi graduates Hage’s latest work, Is Racism an Environmental and former participants in the ILF’s community publishing program, who had returned to the Join us for the launch of Roland Perry’s The Threat? Hage proposes that both racism and college as staff members. With the end of the financial year coming up, the Indigenous Literacy Assassin on the Bangkok Express, a sequel humanity’s destructive relationship with the Foundation is a wonderful cause. You can donate at indigenousliteracyfoundation.org.au. to The Honourable Assassins. This new environment emanate from the same mode of series of thrillers incorporates actual events, inhabiting the world, looking at Islamophobia criminal organisations and key figures in the as the dominant form of racism today. underworld of Asia as they play out globally. Friday 16 June, 6pm Dear Wednesday 7 June, 6.30pm University of Melbourne, Linkway, 4th floor, Alison Huber, Readings St Kilda | Free, no booking required. John Medley Building, Grattan St, University of Head Book Buyer Melbourne | Free, no booking required. Reader In How to Grow a Playspace, Katherine Knowing I am among friends, I can confess to expressing inappropriate book-related outrage Masiulanis (with co-editor Elizabeth Bren MacDibble’s How to Bee is a beautiful and on occasion. ‘What do you mean you haven’t read The Handmaid’s Tale?’, I exclaimed to a Cummins) provides a global perspective of fierce novel for younger readers, about family, colleague last year. So strong is my feeling that this book must be read, the words involuntarily the different stages of child development loyalty, kindness and bravery, set against an all- escaped my mouth. One must be careful, of course, in casting this kind of judgement, because, and the environments that engage children too-possible future where climate change has let’s face it, we all have our own list of Very Important Books we haven’t read. My list is, like in play around the world. It’s also a practical forever changed the way we live. yours, upsettingly long. I don’t mind telling you that it contains Arundhati Roy’s The God of guide to supportingS playspace projects, Sunday 18 June, 2pm Small Things. It’s been 20 years since its publication, and Roy has now written a second novel, with advice on teams, budgets, community Readings Hawthorn | Free, no booking required. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, our Fiction Book of the Month. Our reviewer’s beautiful engagement and maintenance. assessment of this work has utterly convinced me to move Roy out of my ‘yet to be read’ Wednesday 7 June, 6.30pm Fiona Zandt and Suzanne Barrett’s Creative list. Our Nonfiction Book of the Month is the new work from staff favourite, Inga Simpson. Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. Ways to Help Children Manage Big Feelings Simpson’s writing already has the feel of nature about it, and Understory expands into an has been designed as a practical guide for experiment in the nature memoir; it will wholly satisfy those who have already read and loved Moira Burke’s Losing It, first published in 1998, clinicians, with games and imaginative her work, and should bring new attention to her excellent works of fiction. is a vivid and visceral account of 1980s working- activities to help children aged 4–12 to Make further room next to your bed for new novels from Australian writers, including class Melbourne. This coming-of-age story is a express and understand their feelings. Wayne Macauley, Eliza Henry-Jones, Melanie Joosten and Anna Spargo-Ryan, and the first heartbreaking portrait of an intelligent young Monday 26 June, 6.30pm novel for adults from prize-winning YA author Felicity Castagna. Several hotly anticipated woman desperately looking for a way to make Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. books appear on the international front too, including: the third instalment in Kevin Kwan’s sense of her life, grappling with feelings of Crazy Rich Asians series; a novel from Single, Carefree, Mellow author, Katherine Heiny; and repulsion and love for her alcoholic father. Rachel Khong’s Goodbye, Vitamin, which is as good as our reviewer says it is. Tom Malmquist’s Geoff Field, aka The Coach, will launch Thursday 8 June, 6.30pm semi-autobiographical novel In Every Moment We Are Still Alive, a prize-winner and bestseller Andrew Marmont’s Their Finest Hour: A Readings St Kilda | Free, no booking required. in Sweden, explores loss and parenthood, and should make an equal impact in translation. History of the Rugby League World Cup in Some strong nonfiction titles must join that pile: including Briohny Doyle’s personal 10 Matches, with an in-depth chat about the exploration of ‘adulthood’, Adult Fantasy; Jenny Valentish’s reflection on addiction, Woman Gravity Well, the long-awaited second novel book, and the history of the World Cup. of Substances; Anna Krien’s new Quarterly Essay on climate politics; the timely provocation from Melanie Joosten, the author of Berlin Thursday 29 June, 6.30pm from the UK, Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race; volume one of humourist Syndrome, is a striking and tender tale of Readings Hawthorn | Free, no booking required. David Sedaris’s diaries, Theft By Finding; Client Earth, in which two lawyers who represent the friendship and family: both the family we are planet explain their case; and a book that provides a plan for resistance and activism in the born to, and the family we choose. Join us for Judy Horacek is a Melbourne icon. Her many age of Trump from the incomparable Naomi Klein, No Is Not Enough. the launch of this heartrending portrait of how fans will be delighted to discover her hilarious, It’s a big month for children’s books, as we announce and celebrate the finalists for the we rebuild when the worst has happened. thought-provoking new book, Random Life. Readings Young Adult Book Prize. We also congratulate two members of our Readings Thursday 8 June, 6.30pm This eclectic cartoon collection is typically family: Leanne Hall, on winning the Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children’s Literature at the Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. wide-ranging, covering everything from NSW Premier’s Awards (for Iris and the Tiger); and Gabrielle Williams, on the publication of anxiety to superheroes to zebras. her new YA novel (and, fittingly, our YA Book of the Month), My Life as a Hashtag. #awesome My Life as a Hashtag is the new novel from Thursday 29 June, 6.30pm And finally, dear reader, I feel compelled to return to where I began, to suggest – in the most Gabrielle Williams, the highly acclaimed Bella Union Bar, Trades Hall, 2 Lygon St, gentle, non-judgemental terms – that if The Handmaid’s Tale holds a place on your ‘yet to be read’ author of The Guy, the Girl, the Artist and Carlton | Free, please book at readings.com.au list, the moment to read it is now. Margaret Atwood has always been ahead of her time. NEW AUSTRALIAN WRITING READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2017 5
ADULT FANTASY Briohny Doyle Scribe. PB. $29.99 Available now
For more about the book, see our review on page 13.
skipping (mile)stones
another and judging anyone with a different experience. without getting fired. It makes it harder for workers to Jamila Rizvi interviews Briohny How can we connect to the structural realities that unionise and collectivise ... it makes us weaker.’ This has Doyle about her memoir of make us when all we can do is yell and scream and have changed the coming-of-age experience for millennials in a tantrums? We all act like babies about this stuff, from way that hasn’t been fully explored, Doyle argues. ‘adulthood’, Adult Fantasy. grandparents to teenagers.’ Adult Fantasy isn’t preachy. The voice is unashamedly Instead of reducing those dubbed ‘the Peter Pan complex and incongruous. In parts, I feel annoyed by Doyle generation’ to a bunch of stereotypes, Doyle unpacks the as she critiques life choices I myself have made, but on riohny Doyle and I are seduced by the same kinds complexities and allows for contradictions, including the next page I find her an endearing narrator once more, of clickbait. those within her own experience. She explores marriage imagining a hypothetical future in which we’re good mates. Acknowledged collectively with the hybrid and questions its relevance, while admitting she desires Her writing exposes my own vanities and hypocrisies. In term ‘listicle’, these are the stories Buzzfeed her own sparkly-ring-and-white dress moment. Staunchly this same vein, Doyle has personal anxieties about how Bpioneered but that are now produced en masse by everyone disinterested in having children of her own, in one scene the book will be received. ‘I hope people see that I’ve used from Cosmopolitan to Business Insider. Thirty things you Doyle becomes a captive to time while watching kids play my own experience to catalyse a deeper investigation,’ she should know by thirty, 12 signs you’re ready to settle down, at the local school. She turns her nose up at the linear says earnestly. ‘If people disagree, I hope they can see how What percentage ‘grown up’ are you really? and, of course, model of career success, but remains anxious about not I came to it and that it could start a discussion. I don’t want How many smashed avocados would you have to sacrifice to having a ‘grown-up’ job. this to add to the noise.’ buy a house? They promise shrewd and simple assessments Work and the fragmentation of the workforce, issues of I ask about the personal nature of the book and why of your hot mess of a life, alternatively delivering either casualisation and job insecurity, are central themes of Adult was it so important to use Doyle’s own experience as reassurance or degradation. Occasionally both. Fantasy. While stressing that the multiple adult ‘milestones’ the foundation for a largely analytical work. ‘I wanted to Adult Fantasy, Doyle’s first nonfiction work, appeals to she canvasses are interconnected, Doyle says the changing make it personal because work, family, identity, all of this the same consciousness that prompts us to click on those nature of work is probably the most significant. She is is [personal]’ she replies. This book is about ‘connecting articles. By contrast though, Doyle’s exploration of what frustrated by unregulated management of small businesses, the common to the common and the specific to the maturity and adulthood mean for the millennial generation management that she says impacts the personal lives of specific. In theory we have heaps more choice [than is thoughtful, insightful and genuinely worth the time. workers; many of them young, unsure and disempowered. generations before] but in practice we don’t. I’m supposed Weaving together historical context, observation and her ‘It’s also linked to the welfare system … the fact that to have all of these options but I don’t see a single path own laugh-out-loud-funny experiences, Adult Fantasy is universities sell study as buying a readymade identity,’ right now that works ...’ cleverly written and very readable. It moves effortlessly Doyle says. ‘More than ever we go to university and we go Doyle trails off before talking to me about the past. Of from inconsequential, even silly, anecdotes to well- into debt to get a degree that is said to be an investment in friends and suicide, helplessness and longing, of young researched philosophical and cultural critique. our future. But it doesn’t turn out that way.’ people giving up on life when they felt they were out of Doyle’s academic smarts lend the book a kind of cred options. She goes quiet for a while, reflective, before saying that this topic might not otherwise attract. An Endeavour Doyle brings rigour to a subject – part defensive and part jokingly – ‘it’s not that they were Award recipient who studied at Yale and the University entitled young arseholes’. It’s the same criticism levelled of California Santa Cruz, Doyle brings rigour to a subject usually shrouded in hysteria and daily at millennials, a criticism Doyle has beautifully and usually shrouded in hysteria and outrage. The media compellingly debunked. Adult Fantasy is the beginning of fodder of pitting generations against one another isn’t what outrage. The media fodder of pitting a conversation about generationalism that Australia sorely Doyle is about. Adult Fantasy doesn’t contain a defence of generations against one another isn’t needs to have. And Briohny Doyle has kicked it off in a millennials or generation Y, but rather a sensitive, mostly careful, considered and compassionate way. supportive, examination. Boomers and generation X will what Doyle is about. get just as much out of reading Adult Fantasy as younger people will. Doyle values diversity, while acknowledging I wonder aloud why unionism doesn’t feature in the homogeny of feelings around coming of age. the book and ask if this is emblematic of a generation’s Jamila Rizvi is a writer, commentator, radio host ‘Generationalism allows us to lump a whole lot of experience. Doyle is a member of her union, but is and author of the forthcoming book Not Just different, nuanced people in together based on one aspect reflective about why that element of her working life Lucky (Viking, July). See page 3 for details of her of their lives and destroy them,’ Doyle tells me. ‘We need doesn’t feature. ‘The way that casualisation works is that event with us next month. to be able to talk about this stuff without accusing one it fragments the workforce,’ she says. ‘You can get fired 6 READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2017
he Readings Young Adult Book Prize is a new friend Jimmie and his rubber duck Shakespeare. award that celebrates emerging Australian The Bone Sparrow addresses significant aspects of voices in youth literature. The Prize considers contemporary Australian life with unwavering attention first and second young adult books by to the authentic voice of an individual child, and an TAustralian authors, and the Prize is awarded to the best uncompromising ending. While Subhi’s perspective new contribution to Australian young adult literature. protects him, the reader stays aware of the constant danger The six books shortlisted for the inaugural Readings and tenuousness of camp life. Young Adult Book Prize reflect the broad and freewheeling nature of Australian YA. The shortlist includes stories of post-apocalyptic survival, time-travelling investigative journalists, teenagers caught up in major historical events, BECOMING AURORA and the rollercoaster of first love. Issues that impact young Elizabeth Kasmer people today are reflected in these engaging and creative UQP. PB. $19.95 works – including offshore detention of asylum seekers, Rory is required hate crimes, grief, depression and political freedom. to complete court-ordered community The six shortlisted titles are; Boone Shepard by Gabriel service at an aged care facility, after Bergmoser, Freedom Swimmer by Wai Chim, The Bone taking the fall for a racially motivated Sparrow by Zana Fraillon, Becoming Aurora by Elizabeth crime. Her community service results Kasmer, The Road to Winter by Mark Smith and Our in a tentative friendship with Jack, a Chemical Hearts by Krystal Sutherland. retired boxer and trainer. Through Jack’s gentle challenges, and a new boxing training regime with migrant BOONE SHEPARD Essam, Rory reassesses her existing loyalties and beliefs. Gabriel Bergmoser Becoming Aurora confronts simmering racial Bell Frog Books. PB. $19.99 tensions and violence in Australia by taking the little- Boone Shepard is seen perspective of a perpetrator. Rory is a complex and unlike any young man you’ve ever sympathetically drawn character who carries a heavy met. He’s an Australian-born burden of grief and guilt, clings to historical friendships, journalist trying to climb the ranks of and is required to take on more domestic responsibilities London newspaper, The Chronicle, in than your average teenager. This is a quiet and thoughtful two different centuries, thanks to a book that demonstrates the benefits of seeking friendships roughshod but surprisingly effective beyond your age and cultural background, and offers a time machine. Intrepid and ambitious, realistic and hopeful depiction of transcending intolerance. Boone does everything he can to file his bestselling stories, stop others from finding out about his troubled past, and save the woman he loves (a pistol-packing bodyguard who, quite THE ROAD TO WINTER frankly, can handle herself ). Mark Smith Boone Shepard is rife with derring-do and death-defying Text. PB. $19.99 scenarios, witty repartee, unhinged villains, time travel and Finn is surviving references to the literature of Oscar Wilde, Arthur Conan alone in his family home after an Doyle, Bram Stoker and more. This is zany, hilarious and epidemic has swept Australia, leaving action-packed storytelling with a loveable and enjoyably only pockets of survivors. Finn’s exasperating cast of misfits and scoundrels. temporary peace ends with the panicked arrival of a teenage girl, Rose. Finn’s decision to protect Rose from FREEDOM SWIMMER the pursuing Wilders gang, and help her find her lost sister, Kas, brings Wai Chim danger and consolation. Rose and Kas A&U. PB. $16.99 are Sileys – asylum seekers who are traded as slaves – and Orphaned peasant their violent owner is desperate to capture them. Ming and upstanding Red Guard Li are The Road to Winter is a smart and streamlined action thrown together by a ‘re-education’ thriller that combines survivalism with ethical questions program that introduces urban Chinese around asylum seekers, gendered violence and human to rural ways of life. Despite their equality. The coastal Victorian setting is palpable, different backgrounds, the teenage boys providing the perfect battleground for believable post- form a friendship through swimming apocalyptic chaos. The resourcefulness, bravery and lessons and Ming’s tentative courtship of kindness of the young characters offset the darker independent local girl, Fei. Swimming is elements of the novel, creating a story with broad appeal. a valuable skill in a coastal village, where it is possible, though treacherous, to swim through shark- infested waters to the freedom of Hong Kong. Inspired by the real-life experiences of the author’s father, OUR CHEMICAL HEARTS Freedom Swimmer is a sensitive book that vividly depicts the Krystal Sutherland resilience of young people during the Cultural Revolution, Penguin. PB. $19.99 and illuminates a well-known period of history from a unique Henry’s long- perspective. Teen bravado, bullying, jealousy and gossip have running ambition to be the editor of his serious consequences in this heightened political setting. high school newspaper hits a bump when a co-editor is appointed. New girl Grace is a tempting enigma – oddly THE BONE SPARROW dressed, unkempt and barely concealing Leanne Hall, a recent trauma. Henry plummets Chair of Judges Zana Fraillon towards first love, first heartbreak, and Lothian. PB. $19.99 some sobering realisations about Born in an romantic idealisation and the The Readings staff judges for the Prize – Angela Crocombe Australian detention camp, ten-year- devastating, unavoidable effects of grief and loss. (Readings Kids), Leanne Hall (Readings Kids), Lian Hingee old Subhi lives in trying and cramped Chock-full of pop culture references, youthful in-joking (Digital Marketing Manager), and Natalie Platten (Readings conditions with his ill mother, teenage and energetic group dynamics, Our Chemical Hearts blends Doncaster) – will be joined by guest judge, acclaimed YA sister and countless other refugees. the dark and light aspects of teenage life with ease. Mental author Lili Wilkinson, to select the winner from the six Subhi is a born optimist, a lover of health struggles are given due weight and respect, while shortlisted books. The winner will be announced in late July, stories, and views the world of the allowing for moments of genuine levity and humour. This and will receive prize money of $3,000. camp through a dreamy, childlike lens fresh novel kicks the manic-pixie-dream-girl trope to that softens his daily experiences. His the kerb and replaces it with complex relationships, the Find out more about the Readings Young Adult Book Prize world is full of human connection: collected wisdom and folly of an ensemble cast of teenagers, at readings.com.au/the-readings-young-adult-book-prize. with guard Harvey, his older streetwise friend Eli, new and a realistic ending. READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2017 7
New Fiction reaches of outer space.’ Lotte is chasing Literary Award. This latest is a family what she believes was her late mother’s drama about an unconventional professional dream to be a world-class breakdown, suffered by Antonio Martone, a Fiction Book of the Month astronomer, however her pursuit comes at post-war Italian migrant who has been great personal cost. Eve, a sound engineer, pushed into retirement after an accident at wants meaningful work and to create the his building site, in which he was injured THE MINISTRY OF UTMOST stable family she never experienced. and his best friend killed. HAPPINESS Gravity Well is exceptionally written. When we think about migration and Arundhati Roy Joosten’s meditations on friendship, diaspora, we often dwell on memory; Hamish Hamilton. PB. Was $32.99 ambition and family life are wise and current scholarship is interested in $27.99 thought-provoking. She has created fully intergenerational memory and inherited Available 6 June rounded and credibly flawed characters, cultures. Castagna, very astutely, draws It’s unusual to come across a novel that makes you feel like you with an authorial gaze moving seamlessly a link between migrant histories and the are part of a world, and simultaneously totally ignorant of every between the broad and the telescopic. forgetting and distancing which happens aspect of that world. This paradox of belonging is what I’ve Annie Condon is from Readings Hawthorn between first- and second-generation taken away from Arundhati Roy’s long-awaited second novel, migrants as they encounter social and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. At the centre of this book is a THE GULF economic pressures to fit another powerful and mesmerising woman: Anjum, a Hijra matriarch and landlady of a guesthouse Anna Spargo Ryan cultural mould. The results are explored as the Martone family’s fundamental she built herself (in a cemetery, no less). Everything seems either to come from, or come Picador. PB. $29.99 misunderstandings of each other unravel back to, Anjum. At times, this focus is direct, but often Anjum’s story flits in and out of the Available now against the backdrop of the Tampa crisis spotlight. I found this to be a fascinating way to craft a protagonist. This is a book in 2001. The wave of bigotry and fear that Roy’s prose crackles with electricity, and has an irresistible poetry to it. Something that tears your flows out of Canberra and into the streets that fascinates me about Roy is that I find her writing to be at its best when she writes heart out. At times of Parramatta adds to Antonio’s confusion about unpleasant things. As in her first novel, The God of Small Things, Roy makes traumatic you may even stop and isolation, as he is seduced by an odd incidents visceral, but in a bizarrely respectful way. When she does write about terrible reading, and flinch, group of right-wing troublemakers in his things, she does so in a way that forces you to realise that sadness is just one of many as if the words on front room. Antonio’s incongruous racism, threads woven into life’s rich tapestry. the page could portrayed as a sort of madness, rocks This is what I like to term a ‘big’ book. Its characters are many, its plot sprawling and physically hurt you. his family and mirrors the dislocating its setting ever-changing. Reading becomes immersive experience. There’s a distinct Yet, for all that, it is and alienating events happening in Dickensian aftertaste to it – its characters are at once larger than life and entirely lucid and contained. politics – the effects of which we are still believable. It does not, however, have the distinctly rigid narrative arc that is so common Anna Spargo-Ryan is encountering now. to Dickens’s novels. Roy is not interested in tying her ends up neatly – this unruly story a writer in command of every sentence, who No More Boats is a striking work of bleeds out beyond its beginning, middle and end. This is a novel of unlikely mothers, lucky somehow makes the unspeakable succinct. suburban Australian realism. Though the children, trauma, war, happiness, belonging and identity. It’s one of those rare, wonderful The story follows Skye, a sixteen-year- premise seems to belong to an absurdist books that truly feels like real life. old loner living with her single mother novel, it’s grim and absolutely relevant to Ellen Cregan is from Readings Doncaster and prodigal ten-year-old brother, Ben. our present, disappointingly similar as it Their life in Adelaide is fairly normal and is to the new-old rhetoric of assimilation uneventful, until her mother introduces and blatant xenophobia that is hurled grief counsellor has obviously given her her latest boyfriend, Jason. Jason is a crude around by politicians now. Castagna makes Australian Fiction a valuable insight into how people cope and tattooed thug with a menacing manner. an essential point about the connection with trauma; she has used this to great At first, Skye thinks they just have to wait between our long history of cognitive effect in her writing. I’m looking forward him out and that her mother will lose ACHE dissonance when it comes to settlement, to catching up on In the Quiet and I hope a interest like she has done with previous Eliza Henry-Jones migration and dispossession, and how third novel won’t be too long in coming! boyfriends. But things move confusingly 4th Estate. PB. Was $29.99 necessary it is that we try to remember and Sharon Peterson is assistant manager of fast, and suddenly her mother is working $26.99 connect in order to maintain our humanity. Readings Carlton for the self-employed Jason and they are all Available now moving to his hometown of Port Flinders. Georgia Delaney is from Readings Carlton Eliza Henry- GRAVITY WELL Located in South Australia’s Gulf Jones signed a SOME TESTS Melanie Joosten region, Port Flinders is the small town three-book deal with from which the book takes its title. But Wayne Macauley Scribe. PB. $29.99 Harper Collins, the ‘gulf’ here is not just geographical: it’s Text. PB. $29.99 Available now making her debut the gulf between rich and poor; between Available now novel, In the Quiet, a We are told not opportunity and disadvantage. Most When Beth much anticipated to judge a book poignantly, it’s the gulf between Skye and wakes one release in 2015. It by its cover, but the her mother as their home life becomes morning feeling a bit even made it onto stunning image on increasingly dysfunctional. As Skye tries off, she decides not the shortlist for our the cover of Melanie to take care of herself and her brother, the to push through very own Readings Joosten’s Gravity Well decisions that she is forced to make are what could just be Prize for New Australian Fiction. A year on, portrays her increasingly dangerous for both of them. the malaise of I have the privilege of reviewing Ache, her compelling But it’s not all bleak. Countering the modern life. Instead, second novel, which I’m sure will be protagonists exactly gloominess of the plot is a wonderful she sees a doctor. received with an equal amount of as they are when the friendship between Skye and her brother, From there her life enthusiasm. novel opens. Eve, and a convincing coming-of-age story. quickly unravels as Ache is the story of a family and a distressed and alone, has taken a bus down Spargo-Ryan’s prose is viscerally direct, she trails around the sprawling suburbs of community recovering from a recent the coast to Lorne in mid-winter, with a tent throwing the reader into the (at times, Melbourne for days, after rebates and bushfire. The central character, Annie, and meagre provisions. The reader is aware deeply disturbing) action. Evocative referrals. Like Alice down the rabbit hole, lives with her husband and daughter in the that something devastating has occurred, descriptions like ‘everything had a gumleaf she falls into the bewildering network of suburbs, but she was at the mountain home and the novel builds to this revelation. smell’ embed Skye’s experience in readers’ ‘Third Tier Professionals’, who, with of her childhood at the time of the fire. The juxtaposed image, of astronomer, imaginations. Overall, the story may be enigmatic intentions, provide a weird but Forced to flee on horseback with her young Lotte, in the desert with only a telescope ugly, but the storytelling is cathartic. intriguing alternative to the mainstream daughter, Pip, in tow, the moment is caught for company, speaks to her solitude. Lotte Hilary Simmons is from Readings State medical system. on camera and published in newspapers. is preparing to return from South America Library and the Readings events team Wayne Macauley’s latest satirical Thoughts of the mountains and the day of to Australia after five years, however she novel, Some Tests, is teeming with ideas. He the fire continue to haunt Annie. A call from hasn’t told anyone about her plans or the challenges the limits of duty of care. He her uncle, concerned about the mental state tragic reason behind them. Once Lotte and NO MORE BOATS questions the point of advances in medical of Annie’s mother, prompts her to return, Eve were firm friends, but when they need Felicity Castagna technology that create a gruelling cycle with Pip, in the hope that it may be a healing each other most, they are estranged. Giramondo. PB. $26.95 of increased testing, increased diagnoses, experience for herself and her family. Joosten uses metaphors and allusions Available now increased treatment, increased false hope Although Ache is very much a story of to astronomy to explore these characters’ No More Boats and then further testing. He queries the loss and grief, it’s by no means a sad story. back stories and relationships. Lotte recalls follows two point at which we should accept death, Rather, it is one of hope for the future. It is her mother describing interpersonal previous works of and how that should be done. There’s the beautiful and gently flowing, written with relationships as a solar system and each fiction by Australian politics of the patient–doctor relationship, a maturity hard to believe of such a young person as a planet: ‘Drift too close to author Felicity the socioeconomic inequalities of the author (I think she’s only 27!). another and you risk falling down a planet’s Castagna: a health system, and how illness can For most people, it is hard to imagine gravity well, being destroyed on its surface; collection of short sometimes be a haven in which we hide the devastating effects of a bushfire, stay too far away and you risk being cut stories and a YA from our lives. This conceptual cacophony but Eliza Henry-Jones’s experience as a loose, discarded into the ever-growing novel, which won the Prime Minister’s beautifully mirrors the disorienting journey 8 READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2017
we face when confronted by the unsettling taking him to work at Tangalooma, then (in nature of illness, the logistics and politics of 1961) the largest whaling station in the the health system, or death itself. southern hemisphere. This is the devastating You would expect these thought- story of a gentle boy trying to make sense of provoking topics to be heavygoing, but the terrible reality of whaling and the Macauley’s prose is so tight, clean and cruelty and alienation of his new world: the accessible that we glide through, in much the world of men. same way that Beth succumbs to the ‘experts’ and her increasingly bizarre journey. THE BARRIER Some Tests is a completely unique Shankari Chandran offering among the recent spate of books Pan Mac. PB. $29.99 about illness, death and Western medicine. Available now With eerie touches of strangeness that Twenty years ago, an quickly progress to the surreal, Macauley Ebola epidemic turns the mundane consultation into brought the world to utterly compelling reading. You will never the edge of oblivion. see a waiting room the same way. The West won the Bel Monypenny is from Readings Doncaster war, the East was isolated behind a LOSING IT wall, and a vaccine Moira Burke against Ebola was Text. PB. $22.99 developed. Peace June’s Must Reads Available now prevailed. Now Helen Garner ‘read it Agent Noah Williams is being sent over the Year of the Orphan Beyond Veiled Cliches No Middle Name Lee Child in one gulp’. Kill Your barrier to investigate a rogue scientist who Daniel Findlay Amal Awad Jack ‘No Middle Name’ Reacher, risks releasing another plague. But why In a post-apocalyptic future in the Amal Awad spoke with women in lone wolf, ex military cop and Darlings’ Rebecca would a once-respected academic threaten harsh Australian outback living the Arab world and Arab Australian righter of wrongs, is the most iconic Starford calls it rough in the remnants of our ruined women to discover what their lives hero for our age. This is the first ‘addictive, powerful the enforced vaccination program that world, an orphan with her own are really like. The breadth, variety time all Lee Child’s shorter fiction and raw’ and praises ensures humans are no longer an featuring Jack Reacher has been brutal past must decide if what’s and beauty of what she discovered the way it ‘lays bare endangered species? Hunting for answers left of humanity is worth saving. will surprise you. collected into one volume. the unflinching amid shootouts, espionage and murder, The Girl in Kellers Way The Captain Class The Ministry of Utmost realities for a Noah will have to confront a fundamental Megan Goldin Sam Walker Happiness Arundhati Roy teenager trapped in a question: In the fight for survival, can our When a body is found buried near The ground-breaking theory of Here is a cast of unforgettable spiral of self- humanity survive too? characters caught up in the tide the desolate forest of Kellers Way, how the most unlikely leaders destruction’. First published in 1998, Losing Julie West is the only person who create sport’s greatest successes. of history. Told with a whisper, YEAR OF THE ORPHAN can help to identify the victim. But The Captain Class is guaranteed to with a shout, with tears and with It has now been reissued by Text, for a new how much help can she be when spark endless debate and heated laughter, it is a love story and a generation to enjoy. In 1980s Fawkner, Daniel Findlay she questions her own sanity? argument among sport fans. provocation. Josie’s father is drinking himself to an ugly, Bantam. PB. $32.99 appalling death. Josie’s mother is a factory Available now machinist, bringing home piecework to keep In a post-apocalyptic the family afloat. And Josie is surviving, or future, survivors not – self-destructive sex, excessive alcohol, scavenge in the harsh drugs, brutalised friendships. A Australian outback. heartbreaking portrait of an intelligent Living rough in the young woman desperately looking for a way remnants of our THE GULF to make sense of her life. ruined world, an Anna Spargo-Ryan orphan with her own ‘A literary star is born.’ Australian Women’s Weekly THIS WATER: FIVE TALES brutal past must Skye’s sixteen, and her mum’s got yet another new boyfriend. Trouble is, Jason’s bad news. Really bad. Now mum’s quit her job Beverley Farmer decide if what’s left and they’re all moving north to Port Flinders, population nobody. Giramondo. PB. $26.95 of humanity is worth She’d do anything to keep her ten-year-old brother safe. And when Available now saving. Fans of this book include Isobelle Jason gets violent, she’s got to get Ben out and their mum’s useless Beverley Farmer is Carmody, queen of dystopic fiction, who as. The train home to Adelaide leaves first thing each morning and says: ‘The ravaged land and the intense, they both need to be on it. one of Australia’s great prose stylists. visceral voice of the Orphan make this an DANCING WITH DEMONS She’s won the NSW extraordinary and compelling read.’ Sold, Tim Watson-Munro Premier’s Literary then raised hard in the System, the Orphan 'Doc' Tim Watson-Munro is famous for his association with the Award for Fiction, carries secrets about the destruction that infamous. As Australia's leading criminal psychologist he assessed and been shortlisted brought the world to its knees. And she’s over 20,000 'persons of interest' in some of the country's most about to discover that the past still holds notorious court cases. for the Miles power over the present. Given an impossible But the frontline of psychology is not a world for the faint-hearted, Franklin. This is and such close proximity to evil wrought a devastating effect on likely to be the last choice, will the Orphan save the only home Tim's private life. But his low road provided him with even more work by this pioneer of women’s writing. she knows, or see it returned to dust? insight into the minds of those he assesses. After all, when you're These five tales are each a fragmentary love dancing with demons it takes one to know one... story, with a nameless woman at the centre, and a mythic dimension, rooted in the International Fiction THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS power of nature. In these stories, the Rebecca Skloot women speak, act, think for themselves, in STANDARD DEVIATION Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. opposing or escaping from situations Katherine Heiny She was a poor black tobacco farmer who worked the same ordained by authority. Fourth Estate. PB. $24.99 land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells – taken without her knowledge – become one of the most important tools in modern Available 1 June medicine. TO BECOME A WHALE Katherine Heiny Intimate in feeling, astonishing in scope, and impossible to put Ben Hobson blew me away down, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks captures the beauty and A&U. PB. $29.99 with her short-story drama of scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences. Available now collection, Single, This vivid, haunting Carefree, Mellow, and it THE BARRIER novel echoes Craig became my go-to Shankari Chandran Silvey, Favel Parrett Christmas present in Twenty years ago an Ebola epidemic brought the world to the and Tim Winton, in 2015. When I heard edge of oblivion. The West won the war, the East was isolated its juxtaposition of her novel was behind a wall, and a vaccine against Ebola was developed. Peace the beautiful and the prevailed. forthcoming, I could cruel, and its setting only hope that the Now Agent Noah Williams is being sent over the barrier to investigate a rogue scientist who risks releasing another plague. deep within the strong characterisation and subtle wit of her In the fight for survival, can our humanity survive too? Australian landscape. stories would transfer into the longer format. After his mother I had no reason to fear – Standard Deviation is dies, 13-year-old Sam a triumph of storytelling, from a writer with www.panmacmillan.com.au lives with his silent, hitherto absent father, an authentic voice and much to say. who decides to make a man out of his son by The novel is told from the perspective READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2017 9 of Graham, who has been married to Audra with Goodbye, Vitamin, Khong has asserted for 12 years. Approaching 60, this is his herself as an exciting new voice in literary second marriage, and he and Audra have an fiction, with a tender, brilliantly original Asperger’s ten-year old, Matthew. Graham storytelling style that’s completely her own. is both an introvert and an over-thinker Here she has reinvented the slacker comedy (also slightly world-weary, if not clinically to produce a wry, witty and heartfelt family depressed), so his perspective on marriage drama – a complete joy to read. and parenting is wry and considered. Stella Charls is marketing and events Audra, by comparison, is extroverted, coordinator at Readings energetic, highly dramatic and verges on being a pathological liar. Graham often feels ELEANOR OLIPHANT IS exhausted just by being around her. When COMPLETELY FINE Graham’s first wife, Elspeth, comes back Gail Honeyman into their life by chance, Graham cannot HarperCollins. PB. $29.99 imagine how he married such different Available now women. Audra welcomes Elspeth into their life and Graham is provoked into not quite Eleanor a mid-life crisis, so much as an existential Oliphant lives crisis. What (and whom) does he want? in Glasgow, is about A strength of Standard Deviation is that to turn 30 and has Matthew’s Asperger’s diagnosis is not set up worked in the same as the problem to be ‘solved’, rather it is just office for nine years. one aspect that impacts Graham and Audra’s Everything about day-to-day life. Matthew is a young boy with her life is structured: quirks, an origami obsession, and great love from the clothes she for his parents. They try their best to nurse wears to the food him through new experiences (friendship she eats and the dynamics, school camp) and this is rendered vodka she drinks every weekend. One day, beautifully. This is a brilliant, laugh-out- Eleanor meets the man of her dreams and is loud novel; an exploration of the intimate determined to change. relationships that frustrate and test us, but You would be forgiven for thinking ultimately sustain us. A good choice for book from the above description that Eleanor groups, also for fans of Jonathan Franzen Oliphant is Completely Fine is a contemporary and Meg Wolitzer. romantic comedy. Gail Honeyman’s novel is indeed witty (I laughed out loud several Annie Condon is from Readings Hawthorn times) but it is also gut-wrenching, moving and completely surprised me. As the title GOODBYE, VITAMIN suggests, this is a book about ‘what is Rachel Khong underneath’ and explores the psychological Scribner. PB. $29.99 effects of childhood trauma through the Available 1 June fascinating protagonist Eleanor Oliphant. I doubt I will Eleanor carries both physical and emotional enjoy another reminders from her past; Honeyman book in 2017 more gradually feeds us information (Eleanor’s than Rachel Khong’s scars, her weekly Wednesday phone call Goodbye, Vitamin. This with her mother) till we feel we have the small miracle of a whole story, only to continually realise that novel about family, we don’t. Some readers may find Eleanor a friendship and little isolating (at least initially). memory is equal This is the author’s enormous task that parts laugh-out-loud she’s set herself: to get readers to identify hilarious and acutely with and connect to a character with such a moving. contradictory nature. Eleanor is both clever Thirty-year-old Ruth Young has been and naïve, childlike and opinionated, harsh left by her fiancé for another woman. and vulnerable. Yet Honeyman writes her Heartbroken and directionless, Ruth with such affection and commitment that I quits her job and heads home to spend started to truly get a sense of how Eleanor the holidays with her parents. Her father saw the world and how deeply affecting Howard, a prominent history professor some interactions that many of us take for beloved by his students, has been diagnosed granted are for her. To see the world from with Alzheimer’s disease and is only different viewpoints is one of the great A groundbreaking collection of erratically lucid. Her mother begs Ruth to purposes of literature and Eleanor’s story essays on the Israeli occupation stay for a year to help care for him, despite is an important one. It is, in my opinion, an After the loss, from writers including Howard’s insistence that he’s absolutely impressive achievement by the author – Geraldine Brooks and Dave Eggers fine. As Howard’s memory deteriorates, especially for a debut novel. comes the healing Ruth trawls through her father’s records of Amanda Rayner is from Readings Carlton their relationship in an effort to remember her childhood and come to terms with the RICH PEOPLE PROBLEMS cracks in her parents’ marriage. Kevin Kwan Goodbye, Vitamin is masterfully Doubleday. PB. Was $29.99 structured, told in compelling glimpses. Khong’s prose evokes the pithy, clear-eyed $26.99 observations that made Jenny Offill’s Dept. Available now of Speculation such a revelatory reading The third in the experience. Here, the story is told in much-loved, chronological vignettes spanning the course blockbusting Crazy of a year. Ruth’s vivid narration is intimate Rich Asians series is and vulnerable, littered with small, deeply as wickedly funny, funny details that gather in force to tell what rollickingly plotted is ultimately an immensely poignant story and excess-packed about patience, forgiveness and what it as its predecessors. means to care for the people in your life. ‘Mr. Kwan knows Khong is the former editor of food how to deliver guilty reinvent your career Everyone knows magazine Lucky Peach. Her fictional debut pleasures,’ wrote and work as long Janet Maslin in the New York Times. ‘He it's hard to make will appeal to fans of Miranda July, Maria as you want Semple, Nell Zink or Miriam Toews; like keeps the repartee nicely outrageous, the new friends them she writes honestly and with empathy excess wretched and the details wickedly about love, loss and everyday survival. But delectable.’ When Nicholas Young hears 10 READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2017
that his grandmother, Su Yi, is on her JEWS QUEERS family, Salim must face devastating truths deathbed, he rushes to be by her bedside GERMANS: A NOVEL about himself and those closest to him. – but he’s not alone. The entire Shang- Martin Duberman Young clan has convened from all corners IN EVERY MOMENT WE Seven Stories. PB. $32.99 of the globe, ostensibly to care for their Available now ARE STILL ALIVE matriarch, but truly to stake claim on her This breathtaking Tom Malmquist massive fortune. This sweeping novel historical novel Sceptre. PB. $29.99 takes us from the elegantly appointed recreates the Available now mansions of Manila to the secluded intimate milieu This prize-winning private islands in the Sulu Sea, from a around Germany’s Swedish novel is schoolyard kidnapping to a gold-leaf Kaiser Wilhelm heavily dancefloor spattered with blood. from 1907 through autobiographical, THE COMPLETE STORIES the 1930s, a period tragic and of great human redemptive, Anita Desai suffering and marking the arrival C&W. HB. Was $45 destruction, and of a stunning new $39.99 also of enormous freedom and creativity. It voice in European Available now revolves around three men: Prince Philipp fiction. Tom’s ‘If you’ve never read von Eulenburg, Kaiser Wilhelm II’s closest heavily pregnant anything by Anita friend, who becomes the subject of a girlfriend Karin is Desai, you’re out of notorious 1907 trial for homosexuality; rushed to hospital with severe flu. While excuses,’ declares Magnus Hirschfeld, a famed Jewish the doctors are able to save the baby, they Ron Charles, books sexologist who gives testimony at the trial; are helpless in the face of what transpires editor of The and Count Harry Kessler, a leading to be acute leukemia, and in a moment as Washington Post. One proponent of modernism, and the keeper of fleeting as it is cruel, Tom gains a daughter of India’s most a famous set of diaries which lay out in but loses his soulmate. The story of a year celebrated writers, intimate detail the major social, artistic and that changes everything, as Tom must she’s come close to political events of the day and allude to his reconcile the fury of bereavement with the winning the Man own homosexuality. responsibility of raising his daughter Booker Prize three times. Charles alone. describes her work as the ‘deceptively THE END WE subtle, slightly surreal and profoundly START FROM THE NOTHING insightful fiction of a world-class writer’. Hanif Kureishi Megan Hunter The Complete Stories is the perfect chance Faber. HB. $24.99 Picador. HB. $19.99 to immerse yourself in her work: it gathers Available now Available now together the short-story collections ‘This is as close to a A story of new Diamond Dust and Games at Twilight and the noir thriller as motherhood in a novellas of The Artist of Disappearance, with anything Kureishi terrifying setting. a new preface from the author. Desai has ever written,’ Startlingly beautiful, observes human behaviour unflinchingly says The Guardian. Megan Hunter’s The but not unkindly, recognising our Waldo, a feted End We Start From is ordinariness and our strangeness, and filmmaker, is a gripping novel that capturing both with quiet precision. confined by old age paints an imagined and ill health to his future as realistic as DEFECTORS London apartment. it is frightening. In Joseph Kanon Frail and the midst of a S&S. PB. $29.99 frustrated, he is mysterious environmental crisis, as London Available now cared for by his lovely younger wife, Zee. is submerged below flood waters, a woman Simon Weeks But when he suspects that Zee is gives birth to her first child, Z. Days later, and his older beginning an affair with Eddie, ‘more than the family are forced to leave their home in brother Frank had an acquaintance and less than a friend for search of safety. As they move from place to promising careers in over thirty years’, Waldo is pressed to place, shelter to shelter, their journey traces the United States action: determined to expose the couple, both fear and wonder as Z’s small fists intelligence he sets himself first to prove his suspicions grasp at the things he sees, as he grows and services. Members correct – and then to enact his revenge. stretches, thriving against all the odds. of a respected Boston family, their GRAVEL HEART YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT. careers and life Daniel Kehlmann Abdulrazak Gurnah trajectories were riverrun. HB. $26.99 Bloomsbury. PB. $24.99 mapped out for them. However, Simon’s Available 13 June Available now career was destroyed when Frank was On retreat in the Moving from revealed as a KGB operative and fled to wintry Alps with his revolutionary Moscow with his wife Joanna. Leaving the family, a writer is Zanzibar in the 1960s agency, Simon embarks on a career as a optimistic about to restless London in moderately successful publisher. completing the the 1990s, Gravel Years later, he is approached by his sequel to his Heart is a powerful brother from Moscow. Frank has written breakthrough film. story of exile, a book, with Soviet approval, and wants Intruding on his migration and Simon to publish it. He can get permission peace of mind, the betrayal, from the for Simon to travel to Moscow to go demands of his Booker Prize- through the final draft. Frank’s life in four-year-old shortlisted author of Moscow is mysterious; he is constantly daughter splinter open long-simmering Paradise. It’s the 1970s and Zanzibar is accompanied by his enigmatic minder, arguments with his wife. Guilt and changing. Tourists arrive, the island’s white Boris and a social life that consists of expectation strain at his concentration, sands obscuring the memory of the bloody sad drunken dinners and weekends at a and strain, too, at the walls of the house. revolution that delivered independence. gated country estate inhabited by other Then the words start to appear in his When his father moves out, retreating into Western defectors, the likes of Burgess notebook; the words he didn’t write. dishevelled introspection, Salim is confused and Maclean. As Simon discovers, all is Familiar and forbidding by turns, this is an and ashamed. His mother explains neither not as it seems, and he is drawn into a electrifying experiment in form by one of this nor her absences with a strange man; sinister web of intrigue by his forceful and Europe’s boldest writers. The ordinary silence is layered on silence. When charismatic brother. struggles of a marriage transform, in glamorous Uncle Amir, now a senior Kanon creates a perfect world of Kehlmann’s hands, into a twisted fable diplomat, offers Salim an escape, the lonely Russia at the height of the Cold War: a that stays darkly in the mind. ‘A beautifully teenager travels to London for college. But world of espionage and betrayal. One for crafted exercise in terror from one of nothing has prepared him for this hostile Le Carré fans. Germany’s most celebrated contemporary city. Struggling to find a foothold, and to authors.’ – Kirkus Reviews Mark Rubbo is managing director of Readings understand the darkness at the heart of his READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2017 11
DEAR READER Poetry Mary O’Connell Affirm Press. PB. $29.99 Available now ARGOSY Dear Reader is a Bella Li wildly Vagabond Press. PB. $35 imaginative, Available now fiercely funny In my other life, as a story just perfect poetry editor for a for booklovers. youth-oriented Set over the quarterly journal, I course of a day, consistently find it’s the story of an myself frustrated by English literature the lack of works in teacher who goes the Australian missing and poetry scene that Flannery, the student who dabble in the uncharacteristically skips school to find historical. Bella Li’s her. Her only guide? Miss Sweeney’s debut poetry collection, Argosy, fills this gap annotated copy of Wuthering Heights, which with subtlety and style. becomes a kind of roadmap. Along the The collection begins with a series of way, Flannery meets a tall, handsome boy collages that combine black-and-white named Heath. This love-letter to books colonial sketches of southern hemisphere and those who love them celebrates the explorations with often brightly coloured joy of finding your people, on the page and depictions of wildlife. Butterflies and conch in real life. shells obscure the faces of the island’s inhabitants. Animals are spliced with other animals. In my favourite collage, a Science Fiction mountain-sized woman emerges from the centre of a body of water, watched by a THE RISE AND FALL OF group of puny, gun-toting colonists. This D.O.D.O. image is equal parts horrifying and curious. As monstrous as she is, this woman forms Neal Stephenson & Nicole Galland part of the landscape and dwarfs the men HarperCollins. PB. $32.99 who seek to harm her. From here, Li delves Available 19 June into a suite of complementary prose poems A captivating and that describe an ill-fated ocean voyage to complex near- a strange and frightening place. As I read, future thriller that I kept turning the pages back to look more questions the very closely at the preceding collages, and this foundations of the amplified the speaker’s voice. There’s a modern world. wonderful disharmony to these poems: they Magic has faded radiate wonder and doom at the same time. from the minds of Following this first section are mankind, until an more prose poems – this time more encounter contemporary, and with more explicit between narratives, this time accompanied by a Melisande Stokes, combination of collages and photographs. LATEST RELEASES linguistics expert at Harvard, and Tristan These later sections feature women – Lyons, shadowy agent of government, their ideas, work, bodies, and their place uncovers a distant past. After translating a in the world. Prose poems can often series of ancient texts, Melisande and be delegated to an in-between space Tristan discover the connection between somewhere beyond conventional poetry. science, magic and time travel, and start a However, as I was reading these poems, mission to fix the present, via the past. I felt like Li’s choice of form furthered the intertwining of narrative and illustration already present in her work. Anthologies Argosy is the sort of book that will bounce between your bedside, bookshelf and GRANTA 139: coffee table, and is a fantastic example of BEST OF YOUNG contemporary Australian poetry that deals AMERICAN NOVELISTS 3 in the historical. Sigrid Rausing Ellen Cregan is from Readings Doncaster and Granta. PB. $24.99 is a poetry editor of Voiceworks Available now Granta’s Best New THE CONFERENCE OF Novelists series are THE BIRDS iconic, known for Attar & Sholeh Wolpé (trans.) presciently W.W. Norton. HB. $36.95 highlighting the Available now best up-and- Award-winning coming names in translator Sholeh literary fiction, Wolpé recaptures once every ten the beauty of one of years. Past Persian literature’s honourees include most celebrated Jeffery Eugenides, Lorrie Moore, Jonathan masterpieces for Franzen, Anthony Doerr, Karen Russell modern readers, for and Yiyun Li. Just some of this year’s the first time. celebrated authors (chosen by a panel Considered by including A.M. Homes and Patrick Rumi to be ‘the DeWitt) include Emma Cline (The Girls), master’ of Sufi mystic poetry, Attar is best Catherine Lacey (The Answers), Ottessa known for his epic poem ‘The Conference Moshfegh (Eileen) and Lauren Groff (Fates of the Birds’, a magnificent allegorical tale and Furies) – as well as some of the future about the soul’s search for meaning. favourite writers you haven’t met yet. 12 READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2017
New Crime Dead Write NO MIDDLE NAME DEAD LETTERS Lee Child Caite Dolan-Leach with Fiona Hardy Bantam. PB. Was $32.99 Atlantic Books. PB. $29.99 Crime Book of the Month $27.99 Available now Available now Ava Antipova is in SECURITY You know what you’re Paris, living her Best Gina Wohlsdorf in for with a Lee Child Life (a Furthest From Workman. PB. $29.99 book. You’ll spend a Her Family Life), Available 1 June bunch of time with when she gets a brief, blistering email from On the Californian coastline, a glorious new hotel awaits its Jack-None-Reacher, her mother: her twin opening. Manderley Resort will be the most sophisticated of ex-military giant, hero sister, Zelda, is dead, places to stay, thanks to highly detailed planning: from the opulent and terror: of no fixed burned alive in the surrounds and the luxurious seasonal food prepared by the most address, but always barn. Even before she melodramatically French of chefs, all the way to the experienced with somewhere to be gets home, Ava is suspicious of the sister staff and state-of-the-art technology taking care of every little and someone to save who always loved to play games, and problem that could arise. For example, a stray branch in the hedge maze – Sid the or ruin. Here, all of his short stories and wonders if Zelda is really dead at all, a fact gardener is onto that. Or the strange red mark on the carpet outside room 1516? Vivica, novellas are collected together for the first exacerbated by her ailing mother’s who’s an expert at stain removal, is taking care of that. The dead body in the bathtub – time, in a hearty stack of satisfying, unwillingness to recognise her. After well, you could consider that already taken care of. Tessa, who is in charge of the hotel no-nonsense thriller writing that will see slipping back into her old life, and her old when the hotel’s actual owner isn’t there to ruin everyone’s day, knows everything about Reacher in the likes of diners, hospitals, ways – sometimes even her sister’s ways it. Hell, she designed most of it. But she doesn’t know about the body in the tub. And the English countryside, run-down hotels – Ava discovers letters and emails from while she knows about the security cameras, she doesn’t know about all of them. How and his own past – all in the time it takes Zelda, taking her, from A to Z, from a they watch over the entire hotel. How they see everything. How they see that the killer is you to get to work. loving childhood to someone who would not yet done. MARLBOROUGH MAN vanish and leave her sister in a whole ‘This is a literary game of cat-and-mouse and a Alan Carter barnyard of trouble. Ava is sharp and Fremantle Arts Centre Press. PB. $29.99 scathing, bitter and betrayed, and this is an excellent, entertaining journey through wholly original, blood-splattered ride to be on.’ Available now Alan Carter’s won a the alphabet of an avenging angel. Security takes the usual omnipresent third-person narrator and turns it into something Ned Kelly Award and fresh, tight and thrilling, with surveillance the main character. Some pages are split into a bunch of fans with THE DARK LAKE parallel stories when the action happens on more than one camera; everyone’s secrets laid his WA-set Cato Sarah Bailey bare and their pasts on file – from Tessa, everyone’s friend and no one’s, to the unlikeable, Kwong series, but now A&U. PB. Was $32.99 ever-pranking manager Franklin, and the rest, up and down the resort’s floors. With a he’s crossed the $27.99 skeleton crew putting the final touches on the hotel before it opens, and a deadly force in Pacific to New Available now the hotel who seems perfectly happy to turn them into literal skeletons, this is a literary Zealand. New in town There’s too much game of cat-and-mouse and a wholly original, blood-splattered ride to be on. – not that where he keeping police lives, on the side of a detective Gemma hill, is exactly ‘town’ – Nick Chester is a Woodstock in the THE MARSH KING’S is. Beautifully dressed, even after sergeant on the police force without too regional town of DAUGHTER spending nearly a decade buried in the much to do, except waiting to be discovered Smithson: too much dirt, Melanie can’t match her to a missing Karen Dionne by his old life and have everything fall family, too much pain. person until someone points her to a down. Meanwhile, he lives in desolate Her life weighs on her: Little, Brown. PB. $29.99 long-solved murder. There, she finds a beauty on NZ’s South Island, by the the only light in it, the Available 13 June connection to Julie West, the strung-out Marlborough Sound, the kind of place clandestine affair with Decades ago, a wife of a university professor trying where everyone knows each other. Which her partner, until all is shattered with the teenager was desperately to hang onto her sanity in the makes it all the more unsettling when two murder of schoolteacher Rosalind Ryan. kidnapped and held face of her scattered thoughts and boys end up dead, and no one can figure out Everyone in town knew Rosalind, and for prisoner in the memory lapses, and the recollection of who’s behind it – who the Pied Piper, as the Gemma, the memories of their schooldays marshland of rural narrowly avoiding a deadly, deliberate car media dubs the killer – could possibly be. together scratch at the edges of the Michigan. She gave accident – one that seems not to be on And wherever Nick runs, it’s never far investigation. Her closeness to the situation birth to her record. Set in the States but by a debut enough to be safe from visceral danger. sees danger lurk closer to both her and her kidnapper’s daughter. (and local!) writer, this is a harrowing Carter’s laconic style and small-town chills family, while the net of suspicion is cast When said child is 12, tale of suspicion and doubt. are excellently placed to ease you into a wide upon a town where everyone sees the Marsh King was long winter in front of the fire. each other’s secrets. A haunting, captured and imprisoned. Helena tries PARTY GIRLS DIE disconcerting procedural, not to be read – how she tries – to live a normal life, to LYCKE near any type of rural Australian lake. embrace electricity for the first time, to IN PEARLS finally go to school, meet other people. But Plum Sykes Mikaela Bley Bloomsbury. PB. $27.99 Scribe. PB. $32.99 nature, foraging, hunting – it’s always been Also out this month: a part of her. So when the Marsh King Available now Available 19 June violently escapes during a prison transfer, When you’re On a cold and stormy I love when a month has a theme, and she knows it could be decades until he is overcome by too Friday in May, a young with Dead Letters and Nir Hezroni’s discovered, again. And the only way to many heavy serial girl disappears Three Envelopes (One World, PB, $26.99) prove that she isn’t her father’s daughter, killer stories without a trace from we harken back to ye olde days of that she is trustworthy, is to become populated by outside Stockholm’s communication. exactly who he made her: a hunter, out depressing detectives Royal Tennis Hall. The Keep your eye out, there in the marsh that she calls home. who spend all their missing girl is Lycke, too, for: John Helena is strong, smart, flawed, and this time full of angst and assigned to report Grisham, Camino book is strong, smart, and utterly gripping. about real-life on her story is TV4’s personal problems, hot-headed crime Island (Hodder & the antidote is probably something like reporter Ellen Tamm. As the police begin Stoughton, PB, Was THE GIRL IN $32.99, Now $27.99), KELLERS WAY Plum Sykes. Freshman Ursula their search, Ellen starts her own Flowerbutton arrives at Oxford on a investigation, delving into Lycke’s life: her James Swallow, Exile Megan Goldin scholarship to study modern history and family, the nanny, the kids who taunted her (Zaffre, PB, $29.99), Michael Joseph. PB. Was $32.99 write for the paper, and lands herself a at school. As Ellen is drawn deeper into a Gin Phillips, Fierce $27.99 title-chasing roommate, a solid crush, tangle of secrets, lies, and betrayals – and Kingdom (Doubleday, Available now a dashing teacher, and a violent murder. frustrated by the odd behaviour of Lycke’s PB, $32.99), Kristina Ohlsson, Buried Lies When flooding Compelled to solve the case, Ursula family, as well as corrupt police, her upstart (Simon & Schuster, PB, $32.99), Melissa reveals the body of a realises that while everything appears new boss, and the disturbing threats being Scrivner, Love – Lola (Bloomsbury, PB, girl in her forties frothy on campus, there’s real danger made against her – she becomes more and $26.99), Ruth Ware, The Lying Game buried in the forest, lurking underneath. Written with a more possessed by the task she has been (Harvill Secker, PB, $32.99), Matt Detective Melanie generous serving of ham, dotted with given, tortured by the echoes of her own Wesolowski, Six Stories (Affirm Press, PB, Carter is given the footnotes to bring forth a collegial past, of the darkness that haunts her. ‘The $19.99), Andrew Wilson, A Talent for Murder task of figuring out chuckle and set in a bubblegum-bright, story of Lycke is a powerful story, which (Simon & Schuster, PB, $29.99), Martin who killed her – decadent mid-eighties, Dr Dead Write invites you to look for the evil inside your Walker, Templars’ Last Secret (Quercus, PB, starting with figuring prescribes a dose of this after your next house. Mikaela Bley is the new queen of the $32.99), Imran Mahmood, You Don’t Know out who the hell she dismembered corpse. Swedish thriller.’ – Vanity Fair Me (Michael Joseph, PB, $32.99). READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2017 13
New Nonfiction THE SECRET CODE- examines the appalling lack of medical BREAKERS OF trial data on female subjects (even male CENTRAL BUREAU rats are preferred because they don’t have Nonfiction Book of the Month the hormonal fluctuations of a female rat). David Duffy Well-researched and nuanced, it Scribe. HB. $49.99 UNDERSTORY acknowledges the deep underlying triggers Available 19 June that can precipitate risk-taking or self- Inga Simpson A groundbreaking work destructive behaviours, without becoming Hachette. PB. Was $32.99 of Australian military maudlin. Valentish describes the book as $27.99 history, The Secret a research/memoir hybrid and it certainly Available now Code-Breakers of Central does blend these two genres, in a way ‘I see the world through trees. Every window and doorway Bureau tells the story of alleviating the intensity of its personal frames trunks, limbs and leaves.’ Inga Simpson’s memoir the country’s significant revelations by examining the scientific, Understory, in the tradition of the best nature writing, leads us code-breaking and social and cultural levers that also play a into an internal landscape made external, and an external signals-intelligence part in addiction. That said, there are some landscape internalised. achievements during quite troubling and traumatic events in Taking the chance to plunge into the writing lives they want World War II. It reveals how Australians early childhood that characterise Valentish’s to live, Simpson and her partner buy a cabin in the bush. It is an built a large and sophisticated intelligence (and others’) descent into addiction; but she impulsive move, one they are not quite prepared for, that happens faster than they expect. network from scratch, how Australian also articulates a clear path out of habitual It’s immersive; we are all thrust into the woods, into the hinterland of the Sunshine Coast. code-breakers cracked Japanese army and use and the range of mechanisms she relied air force codes, and how the code-breakers on to support that journey. ‘This memoir is the story of a writer embracing played a vital role in the battles of Midway, It certainly transcends mere memoir to Milne Bay, the Coral Sea, Hollandia, and weave an intricate and thought-provoking the craft she has always wanted to practice, as the Leyte. The book also reveals Australian look at our society and its use of substances. involvement in the shooting down of Anaya Latter is from Readings Carlton life she has hoped to one day lead emerges.’ Admiral Yamamoto near Bougainville in 1943, and how on 14 August 1945, following What follows, as Inga Simpson merges with her environment, is a story told through Japan’s offer of surrender, an Australian ADULT FANTASY: MY trees, both literally and figuratively. It’s told in three parts: beginning in the heights of the intelligence officer established the Allies’ SEARCH FOR TRUE canopy, ‘where all trees aspire to be’, down through the trunks of the middle storey, where first direct radio contact with Japan since MATURITY it is hard to find a view out from the woods, down to the understorey, where everything the war had begun. Briohny Doyle starts and eventually ends. This memoir is the story of a writer embracing the craft she has Scribe. PB. $29.99 always wanted to practice, as the life she has hoped to one day lead emerges. TOUR DE OZ Available now The frame of the tree holds the internal and external experience carefully, as Simpson Bret Harris Briohny Doyle is a situates herself within the bush and starts to look around, to contemplate each tree as it HarperCollins. PB. $29.99 thirty-something expresses a drive to reach the canopy from the understorey. Chapters focus in on individual Available now millennial. The only trees and open out into the memory of the land, the memory of the writer. Did you know that daughter of a pair of The writer as tree, the nature writer in situ, frames this beautiful memoir, yet it is the Australia mounted a middle-class, educated everyday detail of moving to a new and challenging environment, the all-consuming and national cycling race baby boomers, Doyle yet completely mundane triumphs and setbacks that characterise trying to make your four years before the has a PhD but works as imagined life real, that carry the emotional weight of the book. inaugural Tour de a greengrocer; she has a Marie Matteson is a book buyer at Readings Carlton France? On 24 long-term partner, but November 1896, a wiry they live in separate sharehouses. The bushman, Arthur questions about adulthood that plagued troops, and an Australian population that Australian Studies Richardson, left her in the lead-up to, and in the aftermath would go to great lengths to avoid being Coolgardie for Adelaide by bicycle. of, her thirtieth birthday form the enslaved. From January 1942, a team Thirty-one days later he became the first foundation of Adult Fantasy. A QUARTERLY ESSAY 66: frantically pulled together secret plans for a man to pedal across the Nullarbor. Within Frankenstein-like investigation that THE LONG GOODBYE ‘scorched earth’ strategy. The goal was to three years, Richardson had set his sights incorporates memoir, ethnography, prevent the Japanese from seizing sociology and feminism, Adult Fantasy is an Anna Krien on becoming the first person to ride around resources for their war machine as they the vast island continent. On 5 June, 1899, engrossing and enlightening read. Black Inc. PB. $22.99 landed, and capturing Australians as slaves he left Perth, heading north, carrying no The book is organised around the Available 13 June as they had done in Malaya and elsewhere more than a swag and a pistol. But he had perceived milestones of adulthood: Anna Krien (Night in Asia. From draining domestic water competition … another party of cyclists. education, marriage, babies, work, home Games) is one of tanks to sinking dinghies and burning ownership, and retirement, examining Australia’s leading crops, from training special citizen squads why we’re getting further away from non-fiction writers; she to evacuating coastal towns, ‘Total war, Biography attaining these milestones, and whether writes with the total citizen collaboration’ was the motto. or not they’re even relevant in the cut-glass observational twenty-first century. The research is prose and burrowing, WOMAN OF CARDINAL meticulous and fascinating, arguing that intelligent curiosity of Louise Milligan SUBSTANCES ‘intergenerational sledging’ is really a Helen Garner, and the MUP. PB. $34.99 Jenny Valentish scapegoat for the true social and political political savvy of the best investigative Available now Black Inc. PB. $32.99 forces that are responsible for today’s journalists. In this urgent essay, Krien The Royal Commission Available now twenty- and thirty-somethings’ bewildered explores the psychology and politics of a into Institutional Jenny Valentish trudge towards adulthood. warming world. She visits frontlines in Responses to Child presents a raw, but I loved this book. I found myself Australia’s climate wars: the Great Barrier Abuse has brought to relatable, account of her underlining so much of it that I thought Reef, the Hunter Valley, the Coalition party light horrific stories encounter with I may as well give up annotating, lest room. She looks at the global state of play. about sexual abuse of addiction. Woman of I render it unreadable; often I found Talking to coal workers and scientists, the most vulnerable and Substances is eminently myself reading it on the tram and nodding lobbyists and activists, she considers where provoked public anger readable, honest and vigorously in agreement. While this climate change is taking us, and assesses at the extent of the revealing, not just about is partly because Doyle and I have a where effective action is to be found. cover-up. George Pell has always Valentish’s personal life lot in common, including gender, age, and traumatic events in it, but also about SCORCHED EARTH portrayed himself as the first man in the and politics – not to mention mutual Church to tackle the problem. But the politics of addiction and its treatment. existential crises about university Sue Rosen questions about what the Cardinal knew, Full of interesting facts and analysis, education and work, renting and ageing A&U. PB. $32.99 and when, have persisted. The nation’s Woman of Substances looks through a – Adult Fantasy, framed around Doyle’s Available now most prominent Catholic is now the gendered lens at how alcohol and drug own life and the great characters in Hidden for 75 years, the subject of a police investigation into treatment – and even the science of it – it, is an absorbing mix of memoir and top secret government allegations, spanning decades, that he too is skewed towards the male body, even social critique for anyone curious about documents outlining abused children. Louise Milligan is the though there is extensive evidence that millennial ennui. I want to give this book preparations for the only Australian journalist who has been women are affected in quite different to everyone I know, from my parents to event of a Japanese privy to the most intimate stories of biological and neurological ways. Taking high-schoolers, because it illustrates and invasion of Australia in complainants. She pieces together a series a fresh look at the effects of substances explains just what it’s like to be a young 1942 have finally been of disturbing pictures of the Cardinal’s on the female body, both through her person in Australia today. discovered. They reveal knowledge and his actions, many of which own experience and through interviews Kelsey Oldham is from Readings Hawthorn an extraordinarily are being told here for the first time. and research into the topic, Valentish comprehensive plan to thwart Japanese 14 READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2017
THEFT BY FINDING: Her first contribution to the American admired the ‘deadpan perversity’ of her endless loop of alternating permissiveness DIARIES VOLUME 1 press came at the Hamburg trial of a 9/11 fiction. At 20, unhappy debutante and censure, from the notorious Normans, jihadist, where she met the widow of a New Carrington ran away to Paris with surrealist whose military might depended on David Sedaris York firefighter, angry that the public Max Ernst, after being a fixture in the masculine loyalty, and the fashionable Little, Brown. PB. Was $29.99 hadn’t been made more aware of the source surrealist social scene in London (famously female transvestism of the 1620s, to the $26.99 of rage against America. In her position as a captured, cavorting naked, in a Lee Miller frenzy of executions for sodomy in the early Available now Muslim Westerner, Mekhennet balances photograph taken at a party with Man Ray, 1800s and the ‘gay plague’ in the 1980s. David Sedaris’s diary has the two sides of herself to attempt a Ernst and Paul Eulard). She was long been famous, and a mediating voice between the two cultures. incarcerated in a Spanish asylum, settled in BEYOND VEILED CLICHES performance highlight at In this fascinating memoir, she shares the Mexico, attended Frida Kahlo’s wedding to Amal Awad his sell-out shows. Now, fruits of her reporting, from the German Diego Rivera, was friends and neighbours Vintage. PB. $34.99 for the first time, a book neighbourhoods where the 9/11 plotters with Dali, and held her own as an artist at a Available now packed full of four were radicalised to the Iraqi time when women were more often muses. Amal Awad set out to decades’ worth of neighbourhoods where Sunnis and Shia This marvellous book brings to life a explore the lives of Arab carefully selected diary turned against one another, and formidable woman – and illuminates a women, in Australia and entries – never before culminating on the Turkish/Syrian border friendship formed late in life, between the Middle East, available in print form – is available for you region where ISIS is a daily presence. In family members who’d never met. travelling and to dive into. Characteristically funny, quirky, her travels across the Middle East and interviewing more than tender and illuminating, Theft by Finding North Africa, she documents her chilling 60 women about offers insights into the career development run-ins with various intelligence services Cultural Studies feminism, intimacy, love, and inner life of one of the world’s most and shows why the Arab Spring never lived sex and shame, trauma, loved comic writers. up to its promise. war, religion and culture. DEAR IJEAWELE: OR, A THE BRIGHT HOUR: A KARL MARX: GREATNESS FEMINIST MANIFESTO IN MEMOIR OF LIVING AND AND ILLUSION FIFTEEN SUGGESTIONS Politics DYING Gareth Stedman Jones Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Fourth Estate. PB. $17.99 Nina Riggs Penguin. PB. $29.99 Available now NO IS NOT ENOUGH Text. PB. $29.99 Available 19 June Anyone who has a Naomi Klein Available 19 June As the nineteenth daughter (or is one) Penguin PB Was $29.99 ‘I’m hoping that century unfolded, its can take something $26.99 writing my way inhabitants debated an away from this wise Available 13 June through this new unparalleled range of new book by suspicious country economic, political, What’s the perfect tool of Chimamanda Ngozi will help me figure it religious and intellectual resistance in the age of Adichie, bestselling all out,’ says Nina challenges. One of the Trump? A new book by author of Americanah Riggs, after she finds most distinctive and bestselling author and and We Should All Be out that her breast arresting contributions outspoken activist Naomi Feminists. It began as a response to a dear cancer has spread to this debate was made by Karl Marx, the Klein! No Is Not Enough friend asking for advice on how to raise throughout her body. son of a Jewish convert in the Rhineland reveals, among other her baby girl a feminist, then became a In this book, she shares how to live and a man whose entire life was devoted to things, how Trump’s book after her Facebook post on the with dire news when you have a career, making sense of the puzzles and paradoxes election was not a subject went viral. ‘The main proposition friendships, a partner and children. Her of the nineteenth-century world. When so peaceful transition, but a corporate takeover, of Dear Ijeawele is that feminism is a experiences, written as articles – some many things were changing so fast, would one using deliberate shock tactics to project that necessarily binds mothers and of which have been published in various the coming age belong to those enthralled generate wave after wave of crises – and daughters, and that raising a daughter American journals, others that seem to by the revolutionary events and ideas force through radical policies that will feminist has as much to do with what you belong only with her family – are passages which had brought this world into being, or destroy people, the environment, the tell yourself as what you tell her,’ says The that can easily tear you apart, with equal to those who feared and loathed it? economy and national security. ‘Trump, as dread and admiration. The writing is New York Times. extreme as he is, is less an aberration than a excellent, poetic in parts (she did teach THE MANY WAYS OF logical conclusion – a pastiche of pretty poetry), and is used as a barrier against the SEEING WHY I’M NO LONGER much all the worst and most dangerous TALKING TO WHITE trends of the past half century,’ says Klein. cold, medical language that describes her Nick Gleeson descent. Riggs’s mother dies of cancer. Her Ventura. PB. $29.99 PEOPLE ABOUT RACE young sons head off to a cancer support DOUGHNUT ECONOMICS Available 1 June Reni Eddo-Lodge camp. Her back hurts. Her doctor remains Kate Raworth Blind since the age of Bloomsbury. PB. $27.99 optimistic and yet we know, yet she knows, Random. PB. $35 seven, Nick Gleeson has Available 1 June that there is only one ending for this story. Available now spent his life learning to Exploring issues from There does seem to be an increase in In Doughnut ‘see’ without seeing. eradicated black the number of books currently published Economics, Oxford Peter Bishop, Creative history to the political that deal with recording the last months of academic Kate Director of Varuna, the purpose of white life (Riggs died after finishing this book). Raworth identifies Writers’ House, has dominance, It has its own title: grief literature. The seven critical ways in mentored Nick in writing whitewashed feminism common thread in memoirs of this type is which mainstream about his physically to the link between that we know, as the reader, that the author economics has led us adventurous life: scaling basecamp at class and race, award- is uninhibited by loss. This is true of Riggs’s astray, and sets out a Everest and the top of Kilimanjaro; and winning journalist Reni memoir. There are no answers in this book, roadmap for bringing being a Paralympic athlete, a marathon Eddo-Lodge offers a but there is integrity and wit. You will cry. humanity into a sweet runner, a skydiver. An inspiring story about timely new framework for how to see, You will think about her family. And you spot that meets the needs of all, within the determination, and the relationship between acknowledge and counter racism. will consider your own good life. ‘Dying,’ means of the planet. ‘I see her as the John mentor and writer. said Riggs’s mother, ‘is not the end of the QUEER CITY Maynard Keynes of the 21st century,’ says world’. The Bright Hour is the proof. George Monbiot. ‘Read her book, then THE SURREAL LIFE OF Peter Ackroyd demand that those who wield power start Chris Gordon is events manager at Readings C&W. PB. $35 LEONORA CARRINGTON working towards its objectives: human Available now Joanna Moorhead prosperity within a thriving living world.’ I WAS TOLD TO Virago. PB. $35 Acclaimed ‘biographer’ COME ALONE Available now of London, Peter THE FATE OF THE WEST Ackroyd, looks at the Souad Mekhennet A fascinating biography Bill Emmott Virago. PB. $32.99 great city in a whole of Leonora Carrington Profile. PB. $32.99 Available 13 June new way in this impish – artist, fiction writer Available now Souad Mekhennet, a exploration of the and cultural icon – by When faced with global Muslim born in history and experiences her second cousin, who instability and Germany, was inspired of its queer population. travelled to Mexico to economic uncertainty, to become an In Roman Londinium meet the black sheep of it’s tempting for states investigative journalist homosexuality was her family, and quickly to react by closing by All the President’s Men. considered admirable. Then came the became her friend, borders and hoarding Now, she’s national Emperor Constantine, with his bishops and confidante and biographer. Carrington’s wealth. How do we security correspondent clergy, monks and missionaries. His rule many fans include Madonna and Bjork, Ali counter this? ‘Emmott for the Washington Post. was accompanied by the first laws against Smith and Angela Carter. Marina Warner uses plenty of facts and queer practices. What followed was an READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2017 15 figures to support his argument, which is with our funny non-being during surgery for profoundly one of ideas.’ – Kirkus Reviews a long time, and Anaesthesia feels like a book that’s taken over a decade to write, which it KINGDOM OF OLIVES is. It also feels like you’re having a decade’s AND ASH worth of conversations with a dogged, but Michael Chabon & Ayelet Waldman generous and resourceful thinker, with (eds) someone (she is both a journalist and a Fourth Estate. PB. $27.99 novelist) who can crack open a complex Available 1 June idea, and then run with it. She has spent these years travelling to conferences and This illuminating talking to prominent researchers, surgeons, anthology, edited by anaesthetists and psychologists, as well literary couple Michael as reading the not entirely clear research Chabon and Ayelet to work out what exactly we know about Waldman, bears witness anaesthesia, the brain, memory, what it to the everyday means to have consciousness. She also consequences of Israel’s talks to other medical staff, and friends and occupation of the West family, and is brilliant at knowing which of Bank, on the occasion of her own experiences are illuminating. Most its fiftieth anniversary. The couple organised of us have gone under, some of us many a tour of the area by an impressive times. And it’s almost always fine, and is international literary line-up (including likely not to be your greatest concern. But Colm Toibin, Geraldine Brooks, Eimear ward-winning novelist and there are instances where things have been McBride, Dave Eggers and Madeleine critic Gerard Windsor asks the deeply unsettling, or just strange, sometimes A Thien), who met with community big questions about philosophy and even in good ways. organisers, workers, activists, soldiers, religion in this extraordinary book. Anaesthesia is part memoir, part science families, Israeli settlers and disillusioned Starting with how you get religion in writing, part cultural essay, but particularly soldiers there. Their responses to what they the first place, The Tempest-Tossed brings to mind superb nature writers witnessed, says Publisher’s Weekly, are Church grapples with the existence like Helen McDonald (H is for Hawk) and collectively ‘moving, heartbreaking, and Michael Pollan (Second Nature), for the and nature of God, the gospels, infuriating, testifying to the chilling cruelty way it uses this octopus concept to open and winds down with the present of Israel’s policy toward Palestinians’. philosophical questions, and to reflect. realities – the factions within current Catholicism, scandal, sexual THE DILEMMAS Oliver Driscoll is from Readings Doncaster abuse, argument and bigotry. OF LENIN Tariq Ali ASTROPHYSICS FOR Verso. HB. $26.99 PEOPLE IN A HURRY Available 1 June Neil deGrasse Tyson On the centenary of the W.W. Norton. HB. $26.95 Russian Revolution, Available now intellectual giant of the What is the nature of www.newsouthpublishing.com left, Tariq Ali, explores space and time? How do the two major influences we fit within the on Lenin’s thought – the universe? How does the turbulent history of universe fit within us? In Tsarist Russia and the digestible chapters and birth of the international succinct, witty, accessible labour movement – and explains how prose, Neil deGrasse Lenin confronted dilemmas that still cast a Tyson explains the basics INSIGHTFUL, RIGOROUS, BRUTALLY HONEST shadow over the present. Is terrorism ever of the cosmos, from the Big Bang to black a viable strategy? Is support for imperial holes, from quarks to quantum mechanics, wars ever justified? Can politics be made and from the search for planets to the search without a party? Was the seizure of power for life in the universe. in 1917 morally justified? SCIENCE IN THE SOUL Richard Dawkins Science Bantam. PB. $35 Available 19 June ANAESTHESIA Richard Dawkins, one of Kate Cole-Adams the world’s most renowned thinkers, Text. PB. $32.99 makes a case for the Available now scientific way of It varies, but if thinking in a post-truth you’re sinking into world. The essays, a general anaesthetic, a journalism, lectures and number of things are letters gathered here happening, or could be range over subjects from evolution and happening. Your Darwinian natural selection to the role of consciousness (whatever scientist as prophet, whether science is that is) is being switched itself a religion, the probability of alien life off (whatever that in other worlds, and the beauties, cruelties means, though it may mean the channels and oddities of life in this one. between parts of the brain are blocked). You’re being paralysed so you don’t flinch IN PURSUIT OF MEMORY and kick and punch and rattle around during the operation. Quite possibly, Joseph Jebelli John Murray. PB. $32.99 painkillers are numbing your absent self. ‘Valentish takes us on a fi eld trip through her vulnerabilities Again, whatever that means. Finally, and Available now perhaps most strangely, you might be given This compelling insider’s and then, like a tour guide in a foreign land, fl ag aloft, account of Alzheimer’s an amnesiac, stopping the possibility of she provides a path back from the abyss.’ Deborah Conway formation of memories, at least conscious just might be the ones. All of this speaks to the complications definitive book on the involved in anaesthetising a patient safely subject. Dr Joseph Jebelli and effectively, but also to the psychological has dedicated his career and philosophical questions around to understanding OUT NOW BLACKINCBOOKS.COM consciousness and memory. Alzheimer’s disease, Kate Cole-Adams has been fascinated which affects millions 16 READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2017 worldwide – including his own grandfather. and overuse of antibiotics have wiped out Food & Gardening Art & Design In this book, Jebelli explores the past, present many ‘good’ gut bacteria, leading to a and future of Alzheimer’s disease and the modern plague of allergies, food with Chris Gordon with Margaret Snowdon search for a cure, from the first recorded case intolerances and obesity. Mosley provides to the cutting-edge research done today. scientifically proven ways to control your SO FRENCH, SO SWEET CO-ART: ARTISTS appetite and boost your mood – with Gabriel Gaté ON CREATIVE delicious, healing recipes, menu plans, Hardie Grant. HB. $29.95 COLLABORATION Environmental Studies checklists and tips. Available now Ellen Mara De Wachter From the very first Phaidon. PB. $49.95 Melbourne celebrity CLIENT EARTH Art history is traditionally Parenting chef comes a presented as the James Thornton & Martin Goodman wonderful collection individual’s lone struggle Scribe. PB. $35 of recipes sure to THE STRENGTH SWITCH for self-expression, yet over Available now increase your appetite the past 50 years, the Who will stop the Lea Waters for a sweet end to number of artists making planet from Ebury. PB. $34.99 your meal. You work collaboratively has committing ecological Available now already know that grown exponentially. Co-Art: Artists on suicide? James This game-changing Monsieur Gaté’s recipes are easy to follow. Creative Collaboration explores this Thornton stands at the book reveals the I consider his food writing one of the most phenomenon through engaging and candid head of a new legal extraordinary results of accessible of all instructions for the home conversations with 25 leading artist duos army, comprised of focusing on our cook. So French, So Sweet will make it and collectives, who offer their insights passionately children’s strengths possible for you (and here I do mean into how to work creatively and effectively purposeful lawyers, rather than always anyone) to make cakes and tarts, sorbets with others, revealing the benefits and who provide new environmental rules to trying to correct their and ice creams, mousses and crèmes and challenges of joining forces. legislatures, see that they are enforced, and weaknesses. By showing puddings. The only problem with this keep us informed. us how to throw the beautifully presented book is that we know ROBOT HOUSE ‘strength switch’, Dr Lea Waters the French would advise us to taste only a Peter Testa demonstrates how we can help our little, but sadly this book makes me want T&H. HB. $75 Psychology children build resilience, optimism and everything, often. achievement. This approach is proven to Robotics is the fastest- IN WRITING enhance self-esteem and energy in both OKLAVA: RECIPES FROM growing and most exciting children and teenagers. A TURKISH–CYPRIOT area of development in Adam Phillips architecture and Hamish Hamilton. PB. $35 KITCHEN architectural education. It Available 1 June History Selin Kiazim offers new paradigms and For Adam Phillips (as for Mitchell Beazley. HB. $39.99 breathtaking new techniques for design and Freud and many of his A BOLD AND Available 13 June fabrication, yet although schools and followers), poetry and Kiazim is not practices around the world are installing poets have always held an DANGEROUS FAMILY: someone who just robotic machines, few have the experience to essential place, as both THE ROSSELLIS AND pulses her chickpeas appreciate the full design potential of their precursors to and THE FIGHT AGAINST and opens a bottle of application. Robot House is an in-depth survey, unofficial collaborators in MUSSOLINI wine for dinner, but manual and manifesto, written by the leading the psychoanalytic Caroline Moorehead she does make pioneer of robotics in architecture, and project. What, Phillips cooking dips, fritters features projects produced by the most C&W. PB. $35 wonders, at the start of this deeply engaging and roasted meats as advanced robotics design studio in the world. Available 19 June book, has psychoanalysis meant for writers? easy as pouring that Acclaimed biographer And what can writing do for psychoanalysis? glass of wine. She has been pushing the Caroline Moorehead SOPHIE CALLE: boundaries of Middle Eastern fare since draws on letters and RACHEL, MONIQUE ... she began cooking, and now with her own diaries never previously Sophie Calle & Monique Szyndler Personal Development London restaurant in full flight, she has translated into English to Editions Xavier Barral. HB. $135 focused on communal eating and reveal – in all its intimacy This is the haunting story of conversations. I’m a huge fan of her THE COURAGE – a family driven by Sophie Calle’s mother, as told vegetable dishes and am obsessed with TO BE DISLIKED loyalty, duty and courage. through diary excerpts and chilli roasted cauliflower. Oklava translates Ichiro Kishimi & Fumitake Koga The Rossellis were family photographs selected simply as ‘rolling pin’ and is a clear hint as members of the antifascist resistance that by the artist from family A&U. PB. $24.99 to the type of food this book promotes. pushed back against Mussolini, from 1924, albums: based on Calle’s Available now Oklava will inspire entertaining choices when his assassins went too far, until his installation Rachel Monique at the Palais de The Courage to be Disliked from this point onwards. is already a bestseller in death in 1945. The weapons he used included Tokyo, in which the artist honoured a Asia, with over three arson, murder, destruction of homes and SRI LANKA: daughter’s complicated relationship with her offices, bribes, intimidation and the forcible mother and deeply felt grief. In this volume, million copies sold. THE COOKBOOK Using a conversation administration of castor oil (all handled by designed collaboratively with the artist, between a philosopher his black-shirted thugs). Moorehead reveals Prakash K. Sivanathan embroidered text features on the cover with and a young man to how one family fought back. & Niranjala M Ellawala embossed texts throughout, creating a illustrate its premise, Frances Lincoln. HB. $39.99 precious object. This is a uniquely personal Kishimi (‘the Marie Kondo of happiness’) THE HUSBAND HUNTERS Available now and moving book, intimate and universal in demonstrates how to unlock the power Anne de Courcy Visiting Sri Lanka is on its expression of mourning and memory. within yourself to be the person you truly W&N. PB. $32.99 my bucket list, which want to be, free of past experiences, doubts Available now is growing more SHANE PICKETT: and the expectations of others. Richly entertaining expensive by the day. MEEYAKBA society historian Anne A much more Nick Tapper (ed.) responsible and de Courcy tells the tale Mossenson Art Foundation. PB. $79.95 mature approach to Health of the ‘Dollar This beautiful book about my yearnings would Princesses’, young Nyoongar artist Shane Pickett simply be to commit to cooking from this American heiresses who covers the diversity of his THE CLEVER GUTS DIET gorgeously presented cookbook for the rest married into English painting, from very early Dr. Michael Mosley of the year. There are certainly enough aristocracy, in this works (with influences of S&S. PB. Was $29.99 recipes to cover the days, and the imagery sparkling social history. Albert Namatjira and the $26.99 of the dishes presented is truly luscious. From 1874 – the year that Jennie Jerome, Heidleberg school) to his later development of Available now It’s as if I can smell the curry and the the first known ‘Dollar Princess’, married a distinctive, powerful abstraction, referencing tamarind rinds from the very pages. Think: A groundbreaking new Randolph Churchill – to 1905, dozens of his cultural traditions and inheritance. It has a range of curries, including crab and egg, a book by Michael Mosley, young American heiresses married into been a long time in development, with input variety of fried snacks, and sweet dishes author of the smash-hit the British peerage, bringing with them all from family, friends and colleagues, and that made from coconuts. Through the recipes, 5:2 diet (published as The the fabulous wealth, glamour and care shows. It depicts a fascinating man who it’s easy to see that Sri Lankan cuisine has Fast Diet). This time, he sophistication of the Gilded Age. Anne de appears to have been a gentle yet powerful taken the best of its neighbouring countries takes us on a revelatory Courcy sets the stories of these young voice, straddling huge chasms of historical and created a cuisine that is rich and journey through the gut, women and their families in the context of events and cultures, remaining inextricably diverse. I’m all in. showing how junk food their times. linked to his country and its landscapes. READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2017 17
New Young Adult Fiction wetting and nightmares, teenager Kane is crumble as we learn about the unique driven towards expressions of anger and pressures and complications of their See books for kids, junior and middle readers on pages 18–19 violence, demonstrating how easily cycles adolescent lives. We are drip-fed deep, of violence are perpetuated. dark secrets about each student – secrets This is an intensely compassionate that Simon had been planning to publish, Young Adult Book of the Month novel that deals with difficult and hurtful secrets seemingly so ruinous they could be situations without shaming or blaming. considered motive to kill. MY LIFE AS A HASHTAG While Dean is ultimately seen as being This is a fantastic, totally fun YA debut Gabrielle Williams toxic and irredeemable, the reader and the author has done a really great job A&U. PB. $19.99 witnesses the warm beginnings of his of writing a plot that features a lot of social Available now marriage, showing both why Angie finds media but never comes across as corny. My Life as a Hashtag brings the reader into the company it hard to end the relationship, and the While there are similarities with Gossip Girl, of an eclectic group of friends, siblings and their wider role that alcoholism has played. Similarly, this book is much more robust and real. social network. At its core this social group forms a tight, if while many of Mr Bailey’s prejudiced Fans of Pretty Little Liars will absolutely eat not enmeshed, tribe made up of hip, quirky and fiercely beliefs and actions are hard to swallow, he it up and I won’t be at all surprised if we intense teenagers that you'll love hanging out with. is clearly suffering from PTSD and is able see One of Us Is Lying become a movie or Social life for these teens is inextricably linked with social to demonstrate love and good intentions Netflix series in the future! media forums such as Instagram, SnapChat and Facebook that within his family relationships. Kim Gruschow is from Readings Kids provide a platform for them to showcase their lives to a wider Despite the raw subject matter, this audience. It's a network so large that in its manifest form, it has is a generous and hopeful look at the SPELLBOOK OF THE global reach, encompassing communities with imagined connections between them. possibilities of contemporary Australian LOST AND FOUND life. It’s the younger generation of Sam, Moira Fowley-Doyle Gugulethu, Kane and Ada who are able to ‘MC’s life is full of angst and discomfort as Corgi. PB. $19.99 transcend the hands they have been dealt, Available 19 June and exercise choice, restraint and kindness she ... is confronted by the cringe-crazy fact that One stormy summer towards their neighbours. A highly night, Olive and her recommended read for ages 14+. her mum is on Tinder. An exquisite blend of best friend, Rose, begin hilarity and embarrassment ensues.’ Leanne Hall is from Readings Kids to lose things. It starts with simple items like THE POSSIBLE hair clips and This is the social experience of young people today, where trawling through social Tara Altebrando jewellery, but soon it’s media feeds is as habitual and second-nature as breathing. Marie-Claude, or MC as she Bloomsbury. PB. $16.99 clear that Rose has lost prefers to be called, is no exception to the new teenage prototype. MC's life is full of angst Available 1 June something bigger; and discomfort as she comes to terms with her parents’ separation and is confronted Another twisty something she won’t by the cringe-crazy fact that her mum is on Tinder. An exquisite blend of hilarity and psychological suspense talk about. Then Olive meets three wild, embarrassment ensues. But things really get serious when falling for the same bad guy from the author of The mysterious strangers: Ivy, Hazel and creates a rift between friends and MC finds herself outed, blocked on social media and not Leaving, where a teen Rowan. Like Rose, they’re mourning losses invited to the party of the year. searches for answers – and holding tight to secrets. When they A profound sense of injustice overwhelms MC and she vents her frustration in an online about her mother’s discover the ancient spellbook, full of rant that goes viral. What follows unleashes a ‘dangerous, buzzing swarm’ of troll attacks, dark history, hand-inked charms to conjure back lost public shaming and online harassment on a grand scale. Catharsis comes through painful telekinesis, and the things, they realise it might be their chance self-awareness and a preparedness to confront one's own bully nature. Not many of us have power of will. What if to set everything right. Unless it’s leading the fortitude or moral mettle to face that kind of unguarded honesty about ourselves. MC is no one knows the truth them towards secrets that were never such a character: somewhat flawed, yet brave, with a cautionary tale to tell. about you? It’s been 13 years since Kaylee’s meant to be found ... Natalie Platten is from Readings Doncaster biological mother, Crystal, once infamous for her supposed telekinetic ability, got a STILL LIFE WITH BALLAD FOR A MAD GIRL LIVING ON HOPE STREET life sentence for killing Kaylee’s little TORNADO brother in a fit of telekinetic rage. Today, Vikki Wakefield Demet Divaroren A.S. King Kaylee’s living a normal life with her Text. PB. $19.99 Text. PB. $19.99 A&U. PB. $19.99 adoptive parents and almost never thinks of Available now Available now Available now Crystal. Until a woman shows up on Sixteen-year-old The latest novel from Living on Hope Kaylee’s doorstep, asking to interview her Sarah has been master storyteller Vikki Street is the for a podcast about her mother. Was the drawing as long as Wakefield crosses the impressive debut novel whole telekinesis thing a hoax, or does she can remember line from realism to of Turkish–Australian Crystal have some kind of special powers? – but now, she can’t. skirt the world of the writer and co-editor of Is she having an supernatural. Right the acclaimed Coming ONE OF US IS LYING existential crisis, or after notorious of Age: Growing Up Karen Mcmanus finally waking up to risk-taker Grace Foley Muslim in Puffin. PB. $17.99 the tornado that is accepts a challenge to Australia anthology, Available now her family? After walk a pipe, she’s Demet Divaroren. Kicking off with a decades of staying together ‘for the kids’ haunted by voices and visions. As she’s Brothers Kane and Sam remain scene reminiscent and building a family on a foundation of drawn deep into a 20-year old mystery constantly vigilant around their volatile fly- of The Breakfast Club, this lies and domestic violence, Sarah’s parents surrounding a missing girl, the thin veil in/fly-out father, Dean. When their mother book begins with five have reached the end. Now Sarah must between this world and the next begins to Angie is hospitalised after another violent Bayview High students come to grips with years spent slip. Everything about her is changing – her attack, Kane and Sam are taken into the in detention. There’s a sleepwalking in the ruins of their toxic body, her thoughts, even her actions. Grace care of their elderly neighbour, Mrs Aslan. jock, a bad boy, a beauty marriage. A vivid portrait of abuse, is losing herself, and her friends don’t Mrs Aslan dotes on the boys, a particularly and a brain. There’s also survival and resurgence that will linger understand. Is she moving closer to the cherished task as she’s estranged from her Simon: an outcast with readers long after the last page. truth, or heading for madness? own daughter and yearns to be part of her responsible for creating granddaughter Ada’s life. In other houses the school’s popular and totally ruthless gossip NEVER SAY DIE (ALEX on Hope Street, Vietnam War veteran Mr PIECES OF YOU app. Simon dies a perplexing death in that Bailey silently judges and is baffled by his Eileen Merriman RIDER BOOK 11) detention room and the other four teens neighbours, and little Gugulethu copes Penguin. PB. $17.99 Anthony Horowitz suddenly find themselves under investigation with her family’s recent arrival in Australia. Available now Walker. PB. $16.99 for murder. Divaroren weaves together the multiple A witty, compulsive Available 1 June This is a suspenseful, entertaining and narratives of Kane, Sam, Mrs Aslan, Angie, love story about facing In this brand new, highly addictive novel; it’s a clever thriller Mr Bailey, Gugulethu and Ada to create your demons. Fifteen- explosive adventure in with some nice touches of humour and a gripping, moving and authentic picture year-old Rebecca the number-one a little romance. The book is narrated in of multicultural Australia. Together the moves with her bestselling series, Alex turns by our crew of high school clichés. narrators present perspectives from parents to a new city. Rider is trying to get They find themselves banding together as different levels of maturity, cultural Lonely but trying to fit his life back on track they try to figure out what really happened backgrounds, sexual identities, family in, she goes to a party, after the traumatic to Simon, and who among them is lying, makeup and past experiences. The ripple but that’s where things events of his last as the attention of the entire community effects of domestic violence are felt really fall apart. Until mission. But even Alex shifts towards the group, and accusations throughout Living on Hope Street. While she meets Cory Marshall, who helps her can’t fight the past … and rumours begin to swarm. Surprising younger brother Sam reacts with pants- piece her life back together ... before he especially when it holds a deadly secret. depths of character emerge and stereotypes shatters it all over again. 18 READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2017
storm drive them dejectedly back to their holiday home. DAISY DREAMER AND THE Picture Books What will the morning bring? Visually stunning and TOTALLY TRUE IMAGINARY poetically stirring, Storm Whale represents the seaside FRIEND IS BEAR HERE? world in all its imposing grandeur. For ages 2 and up. AD Jonathan Bentley Holly Anna & Genevieve Santos (illus.) Little Hare. HB. $24.99 S&S. PB. $9.99 Available 1 June Novelty Books Available 1 June The boy and the bear are An easy-to-read illustrated chapter back. Having delighted us in NO, NANCY, NO! book that’s perfect for emerging Where is Bear?, this companion Alice Tait readers – and comes in a series, volume sees the little boy Walker. HB. $24.99 making finding follow-up reads easy. returning home with a full Available 1 June Daisy Dreamer loves to draw and shopping trolley, only to exclaim, Vogue and Chanel illustrator Alice invent games, with her best friends ‘What happened to bear?’ He Tait is renowned for her beautiful, Lily and Jasmine. One day she meets retraces his steps shadowed by a charismatic illustrations of London. a new friend ... by drawing a picture very large ‘obtrusively’ hidden bear. It’s quite the quest – In picture-book form for the first in her special journal that comes to and the illustrations are funny and colourful, with another time, comes a stylish lift-the-flap life, with his own story to tell. surprise ending. Perfectly pitched for ages 18 months and riotous run through London, as up, Is Bear Here? will be a hit. mischievous Nancy and her dog MINIWINGS 1: GLITTERWINGS BOOK WEEK BLUNDER Alexa Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn Roger careen past Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London and more. Grown-ups will Sally Sutton NANNA’S BUTTON TIN savour the art, while young readers will delight in the Scholastic. PB. Was $12.99 Dianne Wolfer & Heather Potter (illus.) chaos, and Roger’s catchy refrain, ‘NO, NANCY, NO!’ $6.99 Walker. HB. $24.99 Available 1 June Available 1 June If you’re a parent, DON’T read on ...
This beautiful story about the Junior Fiction this is a secret. Clara and xxxx have a herd of tiny, talking, glitter-twinkly, memories and stories that shape a TO THE LIGHTHOUSE family perfectly depicts the flying horses. Really! Book Week Cristy Burne relationship between grandchild becomes a magical mess when the and Nanna – through an Fremantle Press. PB. $14.99 naughty Miniwings get involved. exploration of Nanna’s button tin, Available now as together they hunt for one When opposites meet, the special button for teddy. Every chances are that things will button has a different story to tell. Warm and wise, this is come unstuck somewhere along the a great way to introduce young readers to the idea of way. Emmy and Isaac meet on a memory and storytelling. holiday island. Emmy is a dare-devil and Isaac is cautious, due to an HOT DOG! PARTY TIME! NOT QUITE NARWHAL over-protective mum. Slowly but Ahn Do surely their escapades become more Jessie Sima Scholastic. PB. $12.99 challenging, until inevitably an S&S. HB. $24.99 Available 1 June adventure proves a little too Available 1 June Junior readers’ favourite Ahn Do is challenging! This is a terrific little This is a delightful ugly back with another hilarious story in junior novel: well-written, with just the right balance of duckling story about Kelp his new Hot Dog! series. It’s Kev’s naughtiness and retribution. For ages 7 and up. AD the unicorn, who is born in the birthday, so Hotdog and Lizzie are throwing him a surprise party! There ocean and believes himself a SHALLOW IN THE DEEP END narwhal, but just can’t get the will be cake, games and magic tricks! Tiwi College Al Alalinguwi Jarrakarlinga hang of swimming and doesn’t But will a rude rooster and a cranky like the taste of octopus. When & Jared Thomas donkey ruin the day? Kelp pops his head out of the Omnibus Books. PB. $12.99 ocean and sees high upon a cliff a majestic unicorn, he Available 1 June realises that maybe there is a place in the world with Erica wants a dog. So dad brings creatures just like him. He journeys to find the unicorns home a new pet ... a baby water but misses his friends in the ocean. Just what is a sea buffalo! Shallow the buffalo and her Middle Fiction unicorn to do? Not Quite Narwhal celebrates individuality friend Bruno the dog have a lot of fun, and the importance of bringing different groups together, get in a lot of trouble and create a lot TOM GATES 12: FAMILY, FRIENDS presented with gorgeous illustrations and gentle humour. of havoc. Ten young women from the AND FURRY CREATURES It’s already one of my favourite picture books of 2017! senior girls’ class from Tiwi College Liz Pichon worked with author Jared Thomas to Scholastic. PB. $16.99 Angela Crocombe is manager of Readings Kids create this fantastic book, in a Available 1 June OVER AND UNDER THE POND partnership facilitated by the Mr Fullerman has a class assignment: a Indigenous Literacy Foundation. family tree. Tom’s ready to learn all Kate Messner & Christopher Silas Neal (illus.) Thomas said he was ‘completely blown away by the range of about the Gates family, his friends and a Chronicle. HB. $29.99 ideas from the girls’ and acknowledged that not only have furry creature (or two!). But just what Available 1 June the students released a wonderful book into the world, but *is* that squeaking sound coming from This gorgeous book brings a secret they have also ‘provided readers with the joy, connection and Tom’s shoes? ‘The book is laid out in underwater world to life, as a youth of the Tiwi people, country and culture’. A terrific way cartoon style with lots of drawings. It is mother and son canoe over a pond, to introduce young readers to Indigenous stories and culture. Tom’s diary and the writing looks like discovering a world of watery handwriting not print. You can even see creatures below, from crayfish and DOTTY DETECTIVE the smudgy page where he scribbled turtles to bullfrogs and beavers. Clara Vulliamy something then dripped water on it because he forgot to do Author notes explain how wetland HarperCollins. PB. Was $14.99 his homework and didn’t want to get told off! I would rate ecosystems work, and the important $4.99 this book 10 out of 10.’ – The Guardian (children’s reviewer) role each creature has to play in it. Available 1 June An educational delight, from the Dot loves super-sour apple sherbets, THE FALL creators of Over and Under the Snow. running fast and puzzles – especially Tristan Bancks STORM WHALE if they’re fiendishly tricky. And with Random. PB. $16.99 the help of her trusty sidekick, Beans, Available now Sarah Brennan & Jane Tanner (illus.) and TOP DOG, McClusky, she’s Sam Garner doesn’t know why A&U. HB. $24.99 always ready to sniff out a mystery. he does all the things he does to Available now So when mean girl Laura seems set annoy his mum, but evidentally he Storm Whale starts off on a on sabotaging the school talent show, pushed too far – and she finally caves windy day when three sisters Dot is determined to find out how, and lets him go stay with his dad, walk into town and are confronted and save the day. The Guardian’s Harry, a crime reporter Sam has with the tragic sight of a beached children’s reviewer says: ‘I like this book because it is funny idolised his whole life (but has never whale. The girls valiantly spend the and it is written by one of my favourite authors ... This book actually met). While at his dad’s, Sam day bucketing water over the is set as a diary and I would recommend this book for hears two men having an argument massive beast, until dusk and a bookworms aged 7-11 who love funny mystery stories.’ and witnesses one push the other off READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2017 19
Book of the Month
THE WAYWARD WITCH AND THE FEELINGS MONSTER: POLLY AND BUSTER BOOK 1 Sally Rippin HG Egmont. HB. $19.99 Available 1 June Polly is not very good at being a witch: she muddles up spells and has trouble reading her potions book, because the letters dance around the page. After a particularly disastrous day at school, Polly knows there is only one person in the entire world who can make her feel better – her best friend Buster. Buster is a monster – and monsters and witches are not supposed to be friends, so they have to keep their friendship a secret and pretend they’re strangers, even if they see each other in the street. Buster is a wonderful monster who feels emotions so strongly they make him grow (when he’s happy) and shrink (when he’s sad). When Polly and Buster see each other at a museum, Buster can’t help himself and calls out to Polly excitedly. Polly, who’s only just become friends with the most popular girl in the school, Malorie, angrily ignores him – and Buster shrinks into the tiniest, saddest, greyest monster and his monster classmates start cruelly teasing him. As the teasing increases, Polly feels something building up inside her and soon a powerful protective spell erupts from her fingertips. Malorie witnesses it all and spins it into an exciting story about how Polly saved her from being attacked by horrible monsters. Soon witches everywhere are calling for a solution to the ‘monster problem’. At first Polly enjoys the newfound attention and popularity, but when some witches start a monster hunt and try to hurt Buster, Polly accepts that only she can stop the war of the witches against monsters. I adored this book. I felt my own heart shrink and swell with Buster’s as I read this wonderful tale of friendship, peer pressure, hope and doing what’s right (even if it feels scary or too big for you). Polly and Buster is the kind of book I want everyone I know to read, adult and child! Dani Solomon is from Readings Kids
a sixth-floor balcony. Shortly after, while trying to take a LOVE FROM LEXIE photo of the murderer in accordance with Rule 1 of his (THE LOST AND FOUND) father’s Ten Commandments of Crime Reporting (gather as many details as you can about the crime), Sam is Cathy Cassidy spotted by the killer. Now there’s a murderer after him, Puffin. PB. $16.99 Classic of the Month his father has disappeared and he’s all alone. The Fall is a Available 19 June tense and exciting thriller with a healthy dose of reality. It Life has been pretty chaotic ever since reads like a Jacqueline Wilson book, with a male Lexie’s mum vanished: new homes, THE CALL OF THE WILD protagonist crossed with all of the coolest, gritty noir, new places, new people, always Jack London changing. But Lexie never gives up crime novels you’ve ever read. It’s perfect for kids 10+ Puffin. PB. $14.99 hope that her mum will come back one who love action. DS Available now day and continues writing her letters On re-reading The Call of the Wild, that return unanswered. While she’s RUNNING ON THE ROOF I was struck by how powerful waiting for her mum to rescue her, OF THE WORLD and evocative Jack London’s prose is. Lexie decides to do a bit of saving At times, I could almost hear the Jess Butterworth herself – everything from salvaging an old railway carriage freezing wind whistling by the Orion. PB. $15.99 to campaigning for the local library and the Syrian refugee window: a chill, as if snow was on the Available 13 June crisis. She’s about to realise that sometimes you have to get way, crept over me. Twelve year-old Tash lives in lost to find yourself again ... The first in a gorgeous new Reading this at 12 years old, I Tibet, where her village has series from the bestselling author of The Chocolate Box Girls remember not taking much note of been overrun by Chinese soldiers and and the perfect next step for fans of Jacqueline Wilson. everyone lives in fear of being thrown the author’s writing style, and was only interested in the in jail. After a man sets himself on fire exciting and gruelling tribulations of a most astounding to protest the repressive regime, her Non-Fiction dog. Set in the late 1890s along the West Coast of the US – parents are seized. Tash and her best and north, into Canada and Alaska, the story follows Buck, friend Sam are determined to escape WILD ANIMALS OF THE SOUTH a formidable dog living a comfortable, domesticated life to Nepal and seek guidance from their Dieter Braun on the property of a Californian judge. His misadventure leader and hero, the Dalai Lama. They Flying Eye. HB. $39.99 begins when he is stolen and sold into a kind of slavery, to manage to borrow two yaks, Eve and Bones, to help them Available 1 June become a sled dog for various masters during the Klondike carry provisions, but two children and two yaks This stunning illustrated, scientifically gold rush. He is passed harshly from hand to hand, some attempting to travel across the peaks of the Himalayas just accurate book of wild animals (with cruel and ignorant and hateful, some fair and relatively before winter proves to be dangerous indeed. Tash and snippets of facts on each) is another kind, and one particular salt-of-the-earth type person you’ll Sam show incredible courage and determination to impressive offering from German wish there were more of. achieve their goal. illustrator Dieter Braun, following Wild This book is about a dog; it’s also about nature, and This strong, beautifully packaged debut helps readers Animals of the North. Meet ocelots in the instinct, and survival. It’s exciting, short enough for limited learn about Tibetan culture and landscape from an Amazon and alpacas in the Andes, plus attention spans, and beautifully written for readers who author who has experienced living in the region. It’s an koalas and kangaroos from our own want a bit of a challenge. I’d recommend this for ages 12 exciting and exotic Himalayan adventure story that is not (metaphorical) backyard. Anyone who’s loved Charley and up, but do note that it is quite violent in parts. for the faint-hearted, but will appeal to adventure lovers Harper’s stylish animal illustrations will adore this book George Munn is from Readings Hawthorn aged 9–12. AC – children and adults alike. 20 READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2017
THE FOOD Leibovitz to places that she could explore OLIVER SACKS OF SPAIN with no agenda and she chose subjects simply because they meant something Claudia Roden COLLECTION to her. ‘From the beginning … it was an HB. Was $59.99 exercise in renewal,’ Leibovitz says. ‘It Now $29.95 To accompany the recent publication of taught me to see again.’ Join Claudia Roden Bill Hayes’ intimate memoir Insomniac as she takes a journey THE HOLLOW City: New York, Oliver and Me (HB, $29.99), already a Readings bestseller, to the regions, history, people and culture OF THE HAND Bargain at the heart of Spain – and the delicious we are offering four classic Oliver Sacks food and recipes which bind it together. P.J. Harvey & titles at a super bargain price. This definitive, passionate and evocative Seamus Murphy A perfect opportunity to re-acquaint (or cookbook includes recipes passed down PB. Was $35 introduce) yourself to Sacks’ oeuvre. Table Now $12.95 through generations, from rustic tapas to cakes and desserts. Between 2011 and 2014, P.J. Harvey and Seamus GREAT Murphy set out on a series of journeys to I’M YOUR Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Washington, MAN: THE CONTINENTAL RAILWAY D.C., collecting words and images. This LIFE OF project became The Hollow of the Hand, a LEONARD JOURNEYS landmark chronicle of our life and times, COHEN Michael Portillo marking the first publication of Harvey’s HB. Was $45 Sylvie Simmons poetry, with Murphy’s indelible images. Now $19.95 PB. Was $24.99 Now $13.95 A companion to the BBC series of the A FIRST same name, this lavishly illustrated book I’m Your Man BOOK OF covers every journey Michael Portillo has is the definitive FAIRY TALES undertaken across Europe. It captures all biography of the late Leonard Cohen – Mary Hoffman the colour, beauty, excitement and fervour AWAKENINGS singer-songwriter, musician, poet, and & Julie Downing of his exploration across this historic Oliver Sacks novelist. Renowned music journalist (illus.) continent. A must-have for any armchair PB. Was $24.99 Now $12.95 Sylvie Simmons draws on Cohen’s private HB. Was $19.95 Now $10 fan of award-winning travel programming. archives and a wealth of interviews in this Fourteen classic stories retold: with portrayal of one of the most important and THE beautiful illustrations and a sprinkle of influential songwriters of our time. VIVISECTOR story magic, bedtime will never be the same again. Enchant your child with AL DENTE: Patrick White favourite tales like Cinderella and Jack and MADNESS, HB. Was $45 the Beanstalk, or tell them some wonderful Now $10 BEAUTY new ones. A beautiful collection to quietly Hurtle Duffield, a enjoy together. AND THE painter incapable of FOOD OF loving anything except A YEAR OF ROME his own art, cruelly dissects the weaknesses STORIES: David Winner of the people who enter his life – and uses AND THINGS PB. Was $22.99 them as fodder for his art. Only when he Now $10 meets an egocentric adolescent does he TO DO Al Dente is an intriguing and original experience a deeper, more treacherous Shirley Hughes MUSICOPHILIA emotion in this tour de force of sexual and HB. Was $55 portrait of Rome’s history, culture, art Oliver Sacks and religion, taking the form of a book psychological menace that sheds brutally Now $16.95 PB. Was $24.95 Now $12.95 about food that’s not really about food at honest light on the creative experience. This wonderful treasury from Shirley all. Winner is a master of wit. He provides Hughes takes you through the year with a veritable trifle of Roman cosmos and NUMERO best-loved stories and poems for every counterculture: to be devoured with gusto. ZERO month and mood. As well as classics such Umberto Eco as Ella’s Big Chance, Alfie’s Feet, Alfie Wins HOW THE HB. Was $49.99 a Prize, and Bobbo Goes to School, this WORLD Now $10.95 collection includes activities and ideas to explore. WORKS Fuelled by media hoaxes, Noam Chomsky Mafiosi, love, gossip and murder, Numero GUESS HOW PB. Was $27.99 MUCH I LOVE Now $13.95 Zero reverberates with the clash of forces YOU How the World that have shaped Italy since World War II. Works is a collection This gripping novel from the author of The Sam McBratney of speeches and Name of the Rose is told with all the power PB + DVD. Was $19.95 interviews with of a master storyteller. Now $10 Chomsky, by David Barsamian. Originally The story of Little SEEING VOICES published as four individual short books, BIG MAGIC: and Big Nutbrown Hares’ efforts to express Oliver Sacks it includes What Uncle Sam Really Wants, CREATIVE their love for each other has become a PB. Was $24.99 Now $12.95 The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many, LIVING publishing phenomenon, selling more than Secrets, Lies and Democracy, and The BEYOND FEAR 18 million copies worldwide. This classic story is presented here with a DVD to Common Good. Elizabeth Gilbert watch and listen to together. PB. Was $29.99 SAMUEL Now $10 USBORNE JOHNSON: Readers of all ages and A PERSONAL walks of life have drawn inspiration from SLOT- HISTORY Elizabeth Gilbert. Now, this beloved author TOGETHER Christopher digs deep into her own life to share her THEATRE Hibbert wisdom and unique perspective about Anna Milbourne PB. Was $29.99 creativity. Big Magic cracks open a world of Kit. Was $45 Now $10 wonder and joy. Now $12.95 Drawing on extensive Press out the pieces and slot them research, Christopher Hibbert delivers PILGRIMAGE together to build a stunning model theatre. intimate glimpses into the life of writer Annie Leibovitz Create your very own shows using the AN ANTHROPOLOGIST Samuel Johnson. From his time as a HB. Was $69.99 scenery, characters and stage directions ON MARS schoolboy to his eccentricities as an Now $29.95 for performances of The Nutcracker and Oliver Sacks Oxford undergraduate, to his slow rise as An ambitious and Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream PB. Was $24.99 Now $12.95 the legendary figure he became, Hibbert wide-ranging collection, – and you can even download specially offers a compelling and readable account. Pilgrimage took Annie recorded music. READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2017 21
New Film & TV is shipped off to his grandfather’s cattle of a close working relationship that is at station in remote WA, he prepares for times tetchy, at others bordering on close with Lou Fulco a life of dull hardship.Instead, he finds friendship, but always convincing and so DVD OF THE MONTH myth, adventure, and friendship with a very human.’ - The Guardian one-of-a-kind dog. THE HALCYON RIVER SEASON 1 MANCHESTER SEASON 1 $29.95 BY THE SEA $39.95. Available 7 June $39.95 Available now *SPOILER ALERT* Fifteen minutes into British crime drama Available now The Halcyon centres on a River and you are hooked. River (Stellan Skarsgard) and his ‘A death opens old wounds bustling five-star hotel partner ‘Stevie’ (Nicola Walker) discuss the virtues of singing out loud before becoming the catalyst at the centre of 1940s London. Set to a and releasing one’s inhibitions, accompanied by a backing track of the for change. In his [Oscar-winning role], soundtrack from the era, it shows London 70s disco hit ‘I Love To Love’ by Tina Charles. Here lies the difference Casey Affleck delivers a haunting, internal life through the prism of war and its between these two partners of the Metropolitan Police Force. River is performance as a man whose anger has impact on families, politics, relationships moody, easily agitated, brooding, not one to talk and open to fits of rage. ‘Stevie’ is fun-loving, rendered him numb – until he is forced to and work, across every social strata. says what she thinks and is constantly goading River into expressing his feelings. The affection confront his demons.’ – Urban Cinefile between the two, though, is clear to see. Oh, and did I mention that ‘Stevie’ is also dead? INSPECTOR Don’t for a minute think that this is some kind of The Sixth Sense meets The Bill. The HIDDEN police procedural still plays an important role in the series, but front and centre is Rivers’ MONTALBANO slow mental disintegration. Coupled with his frustration and anger at losing a friend are FIGURES VOLUME 8 his conversations with what he calls manifests: ‘Stevie’, ghosts of victims, and criminals he $39.95 $34.95. has encountered in his job. For good measure, his main tormentor comes from the pages of Available now Available 7 June a book he is reading. Thomas Neill Cream, played brilliantly by Eddie Marsen, is a real-life The incredible story of three Suave, impatient – and serial killer from the nineteenth century known as the Lambeth Poisoner and he acts as brilliant African-American improbably brilliant as a detective – Rivers’ inner self-doubt. women working at NASA: the brains Inspector Montalbano is back! This volume As the series unfolds we learn more about ‘Stevie’s’ dysfunctional criminal family and behind the launch into orbit of astronaut contains two film-length episodes, A Nest her past cases that involve illegal immigration. The support cast is exceptional, especially John Glenn, an achievement that turned of Vipers and According to the Practice. the role of his police shrink and also his new partner, who is thrown into the deep end around the Space Race. dealing with River and his ghosts – or demons, as may be the case. Rivers’ affection for ‘Stevie’ is such an emotional trigger within the show and the DOCUMENTARY emotions it dredges up – love, loss, grief and death – drive the series. Definitely one of my TV favorite programs of the past few years, I’m sort of hoping they don’t make a new series, as THE FAMILY this is a perfect stand-alone piece of art. HINTERLAND $24.95 Lou Fulco is from Readings Hawthorn SERIES 3 Available 7 June $34.95 Convinced she was a living Available 7 June god, Hamilton-Byrne headed AQUARIUS After the dramatic climax an apocalyptic sect called FILM $29.95 of the last series, Season 3 The Family, prominent in Melbourne Available now finds DCI Tom Mathias seeking to heal his from the 1960s to 1990s. This confronting PERFECT ‘Music critic, cancer survivor scars. He’s thrown back into an old case documentary exposes the cult, and how STRANGERS and widowed mother of three that threatens to drive an irreconcilable rift the conservative Melbourne community through the team. allowed it to flourish. $29.95. Clara (Sonia Braga) lives in a beachside apartment bequeathed by a beloved Available 7 June BROADCHURCH DAVID LYNCH: Winner of two David di aunt in the eastern Brazilian city of Recife. So, Donatello awards for when a property developer tries to bully her SERIES 3 THE ART LIFE best film and best screenplay, this new into selling up, she refuses to budge.’ – Empire $39.95 $14.95. comedy of manners from director and Available now Available 7 June co-writer Paolo Genovese explores ‘the RED DOG: The third and final series Infused with his art, music consequences, when long-time friends TRUE BLUE of the critically acclaimed and early films, David lay their phones on the dinner table and Was $39.95 Broadchurch begins when Ellie and Hardy Lynch takes us on an intimate journey allow the ensuing phone calls, text and $29.95 attend a woman who’s reported a sexual through his formative years: from his WhatsApp messages to be fodder for Available 7 June assault. She’s definitely been raped: but idyllic upbringing in small-town America scrutiny.’ – Urban Cinefile When 11-year-old Mick where, when, and by whom? ‘A portrait to the dark streets of Philadelphia.
WHITNEY: CAN I BE ME June 15 (CTC) A QUIET PASSION June 22 (PG) LADY MACBETH June 29 (CTC) “Can I be me?” was Whitney Houston’s favourite expression, according Cynthia Nixon gives a career-best performance as the 19th Century Rural England, 1865. Katherine (Florence Pugh in her award- to her band members. WHITNEY: CAN I BE ME explores, via candid poet Emily Dickinson in the luminous and moving new film from winning breakout role) is sold into a loveless marriage to a bitter interviews and performance footage, the central dilemma that Houston award-winning filmmaker Terence Davies. Stunning in its sumptuous man twice her age, and his cold, unforgiving family. When she faced: even though she had made millions of dollars, had more production design and also in the respect and love for its subject, embarks on a passionate affair with a young worker on her consecutive number one hits than The Beatles, and was recognised as the seamless manner in which Dickinson’s sharp-sighted verse is husband’s estate, a force is unleashed inside her so powerful that having one of the greatest voices of all time, she still couldn’t do what integrated into the narrative is one of the film’s many joys. Davies’ she will stop at nothing to get what she wants. An electrifying story she wanted to do, either professionally or in her personal life. What’s portrait may be the perfect match of filmmaker, actress and subject. of love, passion and betrayal, LADY MACBETH charts a young created is a portrait of a remarkable woman who needed more help woman’s struggle to assert herself in an unfeeling world, and the “An absolute drop-dead masterwork.” New Yorker than she received, and an unflinching, gripping and wholly committed chaos that ultimately springs from her will leave you gasping. *Advance matinee screening with tea, coffee and cookies plus a exploration of talent given and taken away. “Noir-tinged… deliciously amoral… Seductive mix of sex, murder, poetic discussion with Australian Poetry's Jacinta Le Plastrier “A bisexual subtext is the documentary’s most powerful reveal” IndieWire proto-feminist subtext and fabulous frocks.” The Hollywood Reporter included in the ticket price. Friday 19 June, 10.30am. Book now!
Melbourne’s home of quality arthouse and contemporary cinema 22 READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2017
New Music debut album. The legendary Mavis Staples features on the title track. COUNTRY
Album of the Month PLANETARIUM MANIC REVELATIONS Sufjan Stevens, Bryce Dessner, Pokey LaFarge Nico Muhly, James McAlister CRACK-UP $26.95 Fleet Foxes $24.95 | Also on vinyl Available now $21.95 | Also on vinyl Available 9 June Pokey Lafarge says: Available 16 June Sufjan Stevens unites ‘This album is about with The National’s It’s been six quiet years between drinks for Fleet confronting yourself. Bryce Dessner, Foxes fans and it’s fair to say the fans are thirsty. It’s about confronting composer Nico After one listen to the long awaited album Crack-Up, it’s your city, its relation Muhly, and drummer clear that those years have not been wasted. Quite the with the world, and James McAlister, for opposite: it seems they have proven to be richly all its people.’ an original rejuvenating for Robin Pecknold and company. composition inspired by the solar system. KIDS IN THE STREET From lush piano ballads to rock anthems, ‘awash with gorgeously layered harmonies and an classical cadenzas to electronic beats, with Justin Townes Earle intricacy of arrangement that at times astonishes’ Stevens’ distinctive vocals, the album $21.95 | Also on vinyl explores ideas around mythology, astrology, Available now science, astronomy and the intricacies of ‘When I wrote songs The band announced the album in March to much online frenzy by unveiling the almost human consciousness. in the past, I was nine-minute opus ‘Third of May/Odaigahara. This song and the equally epic opener ‘I looking in on what I Am All That I Need/Arroyo Seco/Thumbprint Scar’ in many ways encompass the scope THE FOLLOWING was feeling, but this of ambition that’s present throughout a record that is awash with gorgeously layered MOUNTAIN record’s more about harmonies (those harmonies!) and an intricacy of arrangement that at times astonishes. In looking outward on Sam Amidon the very best way it’s a record of towering highs and hushed lows. The music lulls and lifts what’s happening,’ $29.95 shimmers and shifts. reflects Earle. It ‘also has more of a soul Available now A fan recently posited the theory online that ‘Grown Ocean’, the final song on 2011’s influence to it, and it’s got a deeper Helplessness Blues, felt unfinished and even went so far as to suggest that the opening song Experimental folk connection to the blues.’ on the next record might begin with a missing F chord. He even made a demo to bridge artist, singer and the gap. Crazy right? Pecknold himself joined the forum to say: ‘First note on new album instrumentalist Sam is F for exactly this reason. Never thought anyone would think about it besides me but you Amidon says his first FOLK/WORLD nailed it!’ Full-circle for the Fleet Foxes, then. May the circle be unbroken. album of original music ‘is still linked Declan Murphy is from Readings St Kilda to the Appalachian SAMBA music I love, as well as improvisation, Vieux Farka Touré album. David Bridie’s songwriting genius, beats, Don Cherry, Vermont, London’. $24.95 POP/ROCK combined with strings and other elements, Available now provides the band’s unique sound. WAITING ON A SONG The ten songs on SGT. PEPPER’S LONELY Dan Auerbach Samba are all brand THE JOSHUA TREE $21.95 | Also on vinyl new. Given Touré’s HEARTS CLUB BAND TH natural musical TH (30 ANNIVERSARY) Available 2 June (50 ANNIVERSARY) curiosity, the U2 The Black Keys’ Dan The Beatles far-reaching blend of $34.95 2CD Auerbach describes $24.95. 2CD version $34.95 Malian blues and Available 2 June his second solo album Available now praise song, funk, reggae, and rock make To celebrate its as a ‘love letter to To celebrate the this his most mature, well-rounded effort thirtieth Nashville’. His fiftieth anniversary to date. anniversary, U2 are collaborators include of this landmark reissuing their Duane Eddy, Jerry album, it’s been FOLK SONGS seminal album The Douglas, and John Prine – who co-wrote newly mixed by Kronos Quartet Joshua Tree. First several songs with him. Giles Martin and released on March 9, $24.95 Sam Okell in stereo, 1987, it went on to sell more than 25 STARING AT YOU Available 9 June sourced directly from the four-track million copies worldwide, reached No.1 STARING AT ME In 2014, the Kronos masters and guided by the original, on the US charts and won a Grammy for Underground Lovers Quartet joined forces Beatles-preferred mono mix produced by with label mates Sam album of the year. $19.95 | Also on vinyl his father, George Martin. Amidon, Olivia Available now Chaney, Rhiannon LINDSAY BUCKINGHAM Staring At You Staring IS THIS THE LIFE WE Giddens, and Natalie CHRISTINE MCVIE At Me defies singular REALLY WANT? Merchant for the Lindsay Buckingham analysis. Elements of Roger Waters concert Folk Songs. They later recorded the & Christine McVie pop, shoegaze, $21.95 songs, most of them traditional with $16.95 | Also on vinyl synth-rock and Available 2 June contemporary arrangements. Available 9 June pounding bass Roger Water’s first After more than 40 feature throughout, studio album since years together as but rarely at the same time. It pays homage 1992’s Amused to Death JAZZ / BLUES members of to the band’s hometown of Melbourne, is said to be an Fleetwood Mac, showcases their undeniable and varied ‘unflinching Lindsey Buckingham talents and proves that guitar riffs fused SMALL TOWN commentary on the and Christine McVie with synth-pop are a timeless mixture. Bill Frisell & Thomas Morgan modern world and have joined to record $29.95 uncertain times’ and a natural successor to their first-ever album as a duo: one packed GOTHS Available now such classic Pink Floyd albums as Animals with fresh and familiar moments. The Mountain Goats Continuing his and The Wall. $21.95 | Also on vinyl long affiliation THE REVIVAL MEETING WITNESS Available now with ECM Benjamin Booker Goths focuses on its Records, guitarist My Friend the Chocolate Cake Bill Frisell, with $24.95 | Also on vinyl namesake’s culture, $24.95 bassist Thomas Available 2 June with the added Available now Morgan, presents New Orleans-based perspective of time. After 28 years of an album of duets recorded live at New songwriter Benjamin ‘While John delivering haunting, York’s Village Vanguard. As well as several Booker digs deep [Darnielle] writes exhilarating and Frisell originals, the program pays homage into his passion for the songs ... it feels enduring pop music, to jazz greats Lee Konitz and Paul Motian, eccentric soul, R&B, more than ever like he’s speaking for all ARIA-winning and finishes with John Barry’s iconic and blues, never of us in the band, erstwhile goths (raises Australian pop-noir ‘Goldfinger’. straying too far from hand) or otherwise,’ bassist Peter Hughes icons My Friend the told Rolling Stone. Chocolate Cake release their eighth studio the garage-punk intensity of his 2014 READINGS MONTHLY JUNE 2017 23
New Classical Music HENRICUS ISAAC: IN THE Bayerischen Rundfunks and the TIME OF LORENZO DE’ Münchner Rundfunkorchester. Under the MEDICI AND MAXIMILAN I, choir’s current artistic director Peter Classical Album of the Month Dijkstra, here they demonstrate their deep 1450-1519 familiarity with the subtle sound-world of CHACONNES AND FANTASIAS: Jordi Savall & Hesperion XXI Arvo Pärt. Alia Vox. AVSA9922 MUSIC OF BRITTEN AND PURCELL $29.95. Available now DEBUSSY: L’ENFANT Emerson String Quartet This new album is not PRODIGUE & Decca. 4815204 only the opportunity $21.95. Available now RAVEL: L’ENFANT ET to discover the music LES SORTILÈGES At first glance, you might think Purcell and Britten have of Heinrich Isaac Mikko Franck & Chœur et Orchestre de nothing in common bar their English origin. However, under the inspired Radio France when you dig deeper you find that Britten was somewhat of a direction of Jordi Erato. 9029589692 fanboy of Purcell and frequently looked to his predecessor (by Savall; it’s also the $29.95. 2CDs. Available now over 200 years) for inspiration. With this in mind, the American Emerson String Quartet portrait of an era during which the Hundred paired these two composers and their most closely aligned works on this new album. Years War ended, the Medici family reached Recorded live in its peak, the idea of the Reformation surged Paris, these two ‘an interesting and eminently repeatable and Charles V was crowned at the head of contrasting music an empire that redefined the idea of Europe, dramas on the theme recording.’ as did the music of this time. of an errant child are written by two supreme French Using Britten’s own performing score of the Purcell Chacony, there are so many HOWARD SKEMPTON: composers and performed by a starry similarities bet ween the two composers, it’s quite startling on a first listen of the album. THE RIME OF THE line-up of francophone singers. Mikko Britten looked to this work, Chacony in particular (performed as the first track on this ANCIENT MARINER Franck, in his role as music director of the album) to inspire the last movement of his String Quartet No 2. However, Britten’s use Martyn Brabbins Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio of the Chaconne form (a consistent repeated pattern throughout a movement) has been & Roderick Williams France, conducts Debussy’s L’Enfant updated and tweaked to reflect the modern ideas of rhythm and form. These are the NMC. NMCD234 Prodigue and Ravel’s L’Enfant et les sortilèges. type of works that are worth listening to, studying with a score and returning to again to $29.95. Available now understand the full impact of the composer’s ideas. Skempton brings RUSSIA: ROMANCE This is the first recording for the Emerson String Quartet on the Decca Gold label and Coleridge’s epic poem & REVOLUTION also with their new cellist, Paul Watkins. Each of these musicians are highly accomplished ‘The Rime of the Various Artists performers in their own right, but the question that’s always important in chamber music is: Ancient Mariner’ to ABC Classics. 4815248 do they play well together? In music like this, however, it’s not quite that simple. With each life, using just solo $64.95. 8 CDs. Available now part being quite soloistic in style, they must make their own voices clear – and in this, they voice (baritone) and Passionate and excel. Somehow they blend their tone colours, while maintaining their autonomy in each of small chamber powerful, bold their musical phrasings, to create an interesting and eminently repeatable recording. ensemble. A stunning, hypnotic journey led and beautiful: Kate Rockstrom is a friend of Readings by the magnetic presence of Roderick the music of Williams, for whose voice and dramatic Russia is as vast capabilities the piece was conceived. À MADAME: BEL CANTO: as the land itself. 50 PIANO MASTERWORKS This collection DIVERTISSEMENT POUR THE VOICE OF THE showcases the ADÉLAÏDE VIOLA Various Artists most popular masterworks and hidden Julien Chauvin & Olivier Baumont Antoine Tamestit DG 4828045. $31.95. 3 CDs. Available now treasures from a rich musical heritage, with Aparte. AP138 & Cédric Tiberghien Deutsche wonderful performances from Australia’s $29.95. Available now Harmonia Mundi. HMM902277 Grammophon, home finest orchestras and musicians. to the greatest 2017 is the year for $29.95. Available now pianists, presents a music from the The butt of collection of the most court of Versailles. musicians’ jokes, CLASSICAL SPECIALS essential piano First there was La the viola is often masterworks, Harpe Reine, then overlooked as a presenting the world’s best composers, MONTEVERDI Henriette: The solo instrument. popular works, and outstanding Magdalena Kozena, Andrea Princess of the Viol, Not quite as high performances – from Horowitz, Gilels, Marcon & La Cetra and now À as a violin, and Richter, Argerich, to the younger generation: DG. 4794595. Was $24.95 Madame: Divertissement Pour Adélaïde. I’m nowhere near as Seong-Jin Cho, Alice Sara Ott, Vikingur $12.95 (while stocks last). Available now not complaining – the repertoire is, quite low as the cello, the viola’s most common Ólafsson, Hélène Grimaud, Yuja Wang. literally, music to my ears. For À Madame function is to pad out harmonies or ‘Kožená uses violent violinist Julien Chauvin and harpsichordist provide accompaniment. But in the right accents, straight Olivier Baumont present compositions hands, the viola has an exquisitely mellow, VOLODOS PLAYS BRAHMS tones and extreme associated with and dedicated to Princess unusual timbre. In Bel Canto: The Voice of Arcadi Volodos dynamics to great Marie Adélaïde of France, sister of gambist the Viola, violist Antoine Tamestit and Sony. 88875130192 effect yet retains Henriette. The recording, which took place pianist Cédric Tiberghien redress the $19.95. Available now plangent at Versailles, is luscious and energetic, and balance, performing beauties from the Volodos has played vulnerability ... The the natural acoustic creates the feeling of a wealth of nineteenth-century French the Brahms solo disc’s highlight is Kožená’s aggressive and live – as opposed to studio – recording. repertoire. French Romanticism pieces around the virtuosic rendition of the great scena Il Further, the relaxed interaction between represents an important watershed in the world, to critical Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda.’ musicians captures the intimacy of a instrument’s history. In 1848, a specialised acclaim for his – Opera News chamber performance. viola program was introduced at the Paris unique ability to To evoke the Versailles atmosphere, Conservatoire. create a magic SCHUMANN: chimes from Madame Victoire’s drawing- Although a violinist by trade, Franco– sound. Volodos played every piece over WORKS FOR PIANO room clock bookend the recording, and Belgian composer Henri Vieuxtemps and over to develop his idea of structure & ORCHESTRA carillons from Louis-Joseph’s clock marks possessed a penchant for the viola, and and sound, then chose the best version of Jan Lisiecki & Antonio Pappano each piece. the halfway point. Chauvin and Baumont, his compositions for the instrument DG. 4795327. Was $24.95 on eighteenth-century instruments, take feature. The final Capriccio for solo $12.95 (while stocks last). Available now turns performing individually and as an viola is almost Bachian in style, with ARVO PART: LIVE ‘This Polish- ensemble. Claude Balbastre’s Aria Gratioso its harmonic language and frequent Peter Dijkstra Canadian pianist may is a lovely standout for its legato violin use of double stops, but the beautiful, BR Klassik. 900319 be just 20, but his melody over the undulating arpeggiated lugubrious melody is undeniably French, $26.95. Available now account of the harpsichord accompaniment. Also stunning and emphasises the unique sonorities Pärt’s music concerto’s opening is Jean-Pierre Guignon’s two-violin of the viola. Tamestit’s interpretation of demands the greatest movement is arrangement of Rameau’s Les Sauvages, but all repertoire presented here is virtuosic care in execution judicious, suggesting the second violinist is neither named nor and expressive, matched equally by from those a coiled energy beneath the surface credited on the CD. À Madame is a welcome Tiberghien. A wonderful and unusual performing it – and tenderness, and taking advantage of the addition to the flourishing collection of chamber music recital disc. this has been music’s intermittent licence to dream; his Versailles-inspired recordings. Alexandra Mathew is from Readings Carlton masterfully realised touch has a chaste beauty, with no hint of Alexandra Mathew is from Readings Carlton in this new recording by the Chor des histrionics.’ – BBC Music Magazine THE WHEELER CENTRE PRESENTS WHAT’S ON This July, the Wheeler Centre returns to The Toff in Town with four special events, and travels to regional Victoria with the Wheeler Kids THIS JULY series. Don’t miss out. Book now at wheelercentre.com. Wheeler Kids FREE goes regional EVENTS
Under the Love Umbrella Alan Brough with Charlie Storytelling and Illustration Workshop and the Karaoke Cockroaches In this workshop, author Davina Bell and illustrator Allison Colpoys will share how they work Join Alan Brough as he shares another epic tale from the life of Charlie Duncan, sings some songs, together to create their delightful picture books. Budding authors and artists will learn how to pair and chats about what makes for a hilarious yarn. words and pictures – and pops of colour – to tell the stories that matter most to them. Suitable for 7–12 year olds. Suitable for 5–10 year olds.
KYNETON – WEDNESDAY 5 JULY BALLARAT – WEDNESDAY 12 JULY KYNETON – WEDNESDAY 5 JULY BALLARAT – WEDNESDAY 12 JULY
at Kyneton Town Hall at the Museum of Australian Democracy at at Kyneton Town Hall at the Museum of Australian Democracy at Time: 10.30am – 11.45am, FREE Eureka, Ballarat Time: 1.00pm – 2.00pm, FREE Eureka, Ballarat Presented in partnership with Macedon Ranges Time: 10.30am – 11.45am, FREE Presented in partnership with Macedon Ranges Time: 1.00pm – 2.00pm, FREE Shire Council Presented in partnership with M.A.D.E. Shire Council Presented in partnership with M.A.D.E.
BENALLA – FRIDAY 7 JULY BENDIGO – THURSDAY 13 JULY BENALLA – FRIDAY 7 JULY BENDIGO – THURSDAY 13 JULY
at Benalla Performing Arts Centre at The Capital, Bendigo at Benalla Performing Arts Centre at The Capital, Bendigo Time: 11.00am – 12.15pm, FREE Time: 10.30am – 11.45am, FREE Time: 1.30pm – 2.30pm, FREE Time: 1.00pm – 2.00pm, FREE Presented in partnership with BPACC Presented in partnership with Bendigo Writers Festival Presented in partnership with BPACC Presented in partnership with Bendigo Writers Festival Bookings essential. BOOK NOW at wheelercentre.com The Wheeler Centre at The Toff Presented in partnership with The Toff in Town
Nailed It! Take it Something For the first time in Melbourne, Nailed It! From Me Trumpy with brings comedians, journalists, politicians, broadcasters and authors together for polemic Modern love is a minefield, and trust us … Political Asylum the last thing you want to do is turn to Yahoo with spin. Host James Colley will introduce Dee Stand-up comic and writer Toby Halligan hosts Fidge, Jess McGuire, Nayuka Gorrie and First Answers for advice. When you have a romantic problem, it’s best to ventilate it, get it out in the an event that offers you the chance to cackle Dog on the Moon as they present feelpinions, bigly at the funnier side of America’s ruling cadre. and think-pieces, live on stage. So. Much. This. open, let that conundrum breathe! With this in mind we present the return of Take it From Me, a Only one thing’s clear. If you can’t stop thinking forum for strangers to dissect your love life and about alternative facts, ‘wire tapping’ or some Poetry in dish out ill-informed and context-free advice. particularly salty kompromat, you’d better grab Commotion your ticket – don’t even wait. It should be an EASY D! Missing out would be your worst call by far. A Night of Performance Poetry At this event – part performance, part discussion – we’ll hear from contemporary, local poets with new ideas about the possibilities of poetry. Dee Fidge Jess McGuire Nayuka Gorrie Jess McGuire Sami Shah Toby Halligan Matthew Kenneally Claire Hooper See, hear and experience boundary-pushing poetry from the people who write it at a very special night at the Toff in Town. Featuring host Michelle Dabrowski, Kylie Supski, Christine Burrows, Anna Forsyth, Roshelle Fong and visual collaborator ReVerse Butcher.
James Colley First Dog on the Moon Presented in partnership with Girls on Key Maureen Matthews Zoe Coombs Marr Gerard McCulloch Isabel Angus Demi Lardner
MONDAY 3 JULY MONDAY 10 JULY MONDAY 17 JULY MONDAY 24 JULY at the Toff in Town at the Toff in Town Time: 6.30pm – 7.30pm Time: 6.30pm – 7.30pm at the Toff in Town at the Toff in Town Tickets: $15, plus 30c booking fee. Tickets: $15, plus 30c booking fee. Time: 6.30pm – 7.30pm Time: 6.30pm – 7.30pm This event will be Auslan interpreted. This event will be Auslan interpreted. Tickets: $15, plus 30c booking fee. Tickets: $15, plus 30c booking fee.
BOOK NOW AT WHEELERCENTRE.COM