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STEPHANIE ANTONIA GIULIA THAT SUN KIL BISHOP HAYES ENDERS SUGAR MOON $29.99 $32.99 $29.99 FILM $21.95 $29.95 $26.99 $27.99 page 14 page 22 page 21 page 8 page 8

READINGS MONTHLY JULY 2015 3

News

TRACE BALLA’S RIVERTIME WINS memoir about his relationship with the witty novel of grief, love, sexuality and THE READINGS CHILDREN’S love of his life, John Caleo. The festival shape-shifting identity.’ The shortlist BOOK PRIZE will also feature the world premiere included five other authors: Rachel Cusk After fierce debate amongst the judging of the powerful documentary Another (Outline), Laline Paull (The Bees), Kamila panel – consisting of Readings’ children’s Country, screening as part of a David Shamsie (A God in Every Stone), Anne book buyers and author Sally Rippin – Gulpilil retrospective, which explores Tyler (A Spool of Blue Thread), and Sarah we’re proud to announce Trace Balla as the fundamental clash between the Waters (The Paying Guests). The Baileys the winner of the Readings Children’s Indigenous way of life and government Women’s Prize for Fiction, formerly Book Prize. Her book, Rivertime, is a policy. The full program will be launched known as the Orange Prize, was launched tender and beautifully illustrated tale of on Tuesday 7 July, with tickets going on in 1996 to celebrate the best novel written a boy and his bird-watching uncle, on a sale on Friday 10 July. To find out more, by a woman in the English language. It is paddling trip on Australia’s Glenelg River. buy passes or become a MIFF member, widely recognised as having had a huge Prize manager Angela Crocombe said, please visit miff.com.au. Readings is a impact on the promotion of women’s ‘Rivertime is a stunning debut that heralds proud sponsor of MIFF. writing worldwide, including being one the arrival of an exciting new Australian of the key inspirations for Australia’s very author–illustrator.’ More information own Stella Prize. about the Prize and Rivertime can be MADMAN DVD SALE found on page 17. Congratulations to To celebrate this year’s Melbourne BASTILLE DAY FRENCH FESTIVAL Trace Balla who received $4,000 in prize International Film Festival, we are holding Do you love all things French? Join money. Launched in 2014, this new prize our annual Madman DVD sale throughout Melbourne’s Francophone and at Readings recognises and celebrates July, featuring a wide range of releases that Francophile community and be a part books that families love reading together, includes The Great Beauty, Only Lovers Left of a unique celebration of the French or that children tell their friends about and Alive, The Trip to Italy, What We Do in the National Day. The French Revolution can’t put down. We’d like to extend our Shadows, Gardening with Soul and more. will take the State Library of Victoria by congratulations to the other five shortlisted With prices from $12.95 each, this sale is storm on Saturday 18 and Sunday 19 July. books for offering such strong competition. not to be missed. Get down to your local Come and enjoy a traditional French Readings to check out the full range. The festive atmosphere with family and sale will be available in all of our five shops MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL friends. With free entry over two days and as well as online at readings.com.au. FILM FESTIVAL 2015 something for everyone, immerse yourself Readings Monthly The Melbourne International Film in French culture, cinema, food, wine Free independent monthly newspaper Festival has released the First Glance of WINNER OF THE 2015 BAILEYS and don’t miss the chance to win a trip published by Readings Books, Music & Film their 2015 program, which includes an WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION to France in the Grand Raffle. For more information and program details, visit exciting string of titles – new Australian Ali Smith has been named this year’s Editor bastilledaymelbourne.com.au. Readings films, international festival hits and winner of the Baileys Women’s Prize for Elke Power is a proud supporter of the Bastille Day eye opening documentaries. This year’s Fiction, for her sixth novel How To Be [email protected] French Festival. Centrepiece Gala feature is Holding Both. Chair of Judges Shami Chakrabarti the Man, a film adaptation of Timothy Editorial Assistant said: ‘Ancient and modern meet and speak Conigrave’s funny, tragic and touching Alan Vaarwerk to each other in this tender, brilliant and [email protected] OPENING OF THE LIDO CINEMA Melbourne cinephiles rejoice! The new Advertising Lido Cinemas in Hawthorn were unveiled Stella Charls on 25 June. The eight-screen artiplex, [email protected] located near our Hawthorn shop, will show (03) 9341 7739 both commercial and art-house films and host Australian premieres and exclusive Graphic Design releases. Lovingly restored by owners Cat Matteson Eddie and Lindy Tamir, the Lido is the [email protected] first venue in mainland Australia to offer a rooftop cinema as well as indoor cinemas. Front Cover Opening with the 8K Radius film series, in Readings Monthly cover colouring competition partnership with the City of Boroondara, featuring cover art from Rivertime by Trace the Lido is also working on exciting Balla, courtesy of Trace Balla and Allen & partnerships with Swinburne University’s Unwin. prestigious film & TV department. Cartoon Readings looks forward to working with Oslo Davis the Lido to bring exciting new events and oslodavis.com promotions to Hawthorn locals.

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$50 Colour in our Rivertime cover for your chance to win a $50 Readings Gift Voucher! For your chance to win one of three $50 Readings gift cards, please complete the form below and send, along with your coloured in cover of the Readings Monthly newsletter, to Readings Marketing Department, PO Box 1238 Carlton 3053 or drop it in to any Readings shop.

Name Age group: ¨ 5-7 years GIFT CARD Address ¨ 8-10 years This card is made from biodegradable materials

11-12 years Entries close 10am Monday 3 August 2015. Postcode Tel (bh) ¨

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Terms and conditions: This colouring in competition is only open to 5-12 year olds. One $50 Readings gift card will be awarded in each of the following categories: 5-7 years, 8-10 years, 11-12 years. Entries close 10am Monday 3 August 2015. Only winners will be notified. 4 READINGS MONTHLY JULY 2015

July Events

LOST BOY & OTHER NICHOLAS J. 2 STORIES 8 JOHNSON ON Join us for the launch of the annual FAST AND LOOSE Margaret River Short Story Competition Nicholas Johnson’s new book, Fast and Loose, collection. This year’s anthology, edited will be launched at the Melbourne Magic by Estelle Tang, includes ten writers from Festival. The novel follows the great anti-hero Victoria and will be launched by Mark Joel Fitch. Joel used to be a con artist, but then Smith, winner of the 2015 Josephine his final scam paid off and his life went belly Ulrick Literature Prize. Margaret River up. Now Joel has a mattress full of cash and no Short Story Competition first-prize winner idea what comes next. Enter Danny Hemming, Melanie Napthine, second-prize winner journalist for television’s trashiest current- Eva Lomski and other contributors will affairs program and one of Joel’s former scam read their stories. victims, looking for someone to give him the inside scoop on the latest scams. Free, no booking required Thursday 2 July, 6.30pm Free, no booking required Readings Carlton Wednesday 8 July, 6pm Northcote Town Hall, High Street, Northcote

STEPHANIE WHERE’S 7 BISHOP IN 14 AUSTRALIAN CONVERSATION YOUNG ADULT WITH EMILY HARMS FICTION Extraordinary emerging writer Stephanie HEADING? Bishop’s second novel, The Other Side of the Join us and Melbourne literary journal Kill World, has been heralded as a story of beauty Your Darlings for a lively discussion about and heartbreak. We are delighted that young adult fiction in Australia: Who’s Stephanie Bishop will be in conversation reading it, and why? Are there enough with our very own Emily Harms. diverse voices? How can we all do it better? Panellists Marisa Pintado (commissioning Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events YA editor for Hardie Grant Egmont), Tuesday 7 July, 6.30pm Melissa Keil (inaugural Ampersand Project- Readings Carlton winning author), Susan La Marca (Head of Library and Information Services at Genazzano FCJ College) and Danielle Binks (reviewer and blogger at Alpha Reader) will chat about how they view the current state DAVID LAWRENCE of OzYA in their respective fields, as well 5 AND CYRIL RIOLI as answer questions from teens. Readers, bloggers, writers, teachers, publishers, ON FOX SWIFT GREGORY DAY IN reviewers, enthusiasts all welcome. AND THE GOLDEN 9 CONVERSATION Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events BOOT WITH ELLY Tuesday 14 July, 6:30pm Fox Swift and the Golden Boot is the third VARRENTI Readings Hawthorn title in the Fox Swift series by comedian David Lawrence with Hawthorn football Gregory Day’s latest novel, Archipelago player Cyril Rioli. While AFL football is the of Souls, is a novel exploring the difficult backdrop to the Fox Swift series, important realities of nationhood, war, morality and love. topics such as bullying, teamwork and Compelling and beautifully realised, Day’s racism are cleverly woven into the plot with novel delves into the meaning of identity. a healthy dose of humour, making the book Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events accessible to everyone. We are delighted to Thursday 9 July, 6.30pm be hosting the launch of this important Readings Carlton book for younger readers. Free, no booking required TIM FISCHER ON CAT THAO Sunday 5 July, 2pm 8 SIR JOHN MONASH 9 NGUYEN’S Readings Hawthorn AND THE CALL WE ARE HERE FOR RECOGNITION ROD JONES IN We Are Here is a memoir that begins in 15 CONVERSATION Who was the most innovative general of 1975. Cat Thao Nguyen’s family escaped World War I? For Tim Fischer, who served persecution through the horrific jungles of WITH MARK as Deputy Prime Minister in the Howard Khmer Rouge Cambodia and the crowded RUBBO refugee camps of Thailand before, finally, Government from 1996 to 1999, the answer Celebrated novelist Rod Jones will be the Nguyens were allowed to board a has to be Australia’s ‘Maestro’ Sir John in conversation about his new work, the Qantas plane to a freedom they wanted Monash, a man who, for all the recognition semi-autobiographical novel The Mothers. desperately. But the suburban landscapes of he received in his lifetime and after, has This is a gripping novel of times past and western Sydney were not the unalloyed arguably not been given his proper due. stories that weave between generations. blessing they’d imagined. Join us as Mr Fischer talks about his latest We are delighted to have Readings’ own work, Maestro John Monash. Free, no booking required Mark Rubbo leading the conversation. Thursday 9 Hawthorn, 6.30pm Read all about Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Readings Hawthorn our 2015 winner Wednesday 8 July, 6.30pm Wednesday 15 July, 6.30pm on page 17 Readings Carlton Readings Carlton

For more information and updates, please visit the events page at readings.com.au/events. Please note bookings do not necessarily guarantee a seat and some events may be standing room only. READINGS MONTHLY JULY 2015 5

July Events Coming up in August

NATIONAL 8 BOOKSHOP DAY ALEX HAMMOND August 16 IN CONVERSATION Tony Wilson, author extraordinaire, will be WITH ANGELA reading from his quirky new book, The Cow SAVAGE READINGS Tripped Over the Moon, a book all about nursery rhymes emergencies. Come and The Unbroken Line, Alex Hammond’s 28 CHILDREN’S BOOK join the party, you could even come dressed second Will Harris novel, creates a PRIZE as your favourite character from a nursery remarkable portrait of power, revenge and PRESENTATION rhyme! (And that means you too, carers and corruption. If you like your novels dark and parents!) Parade prizes will be given and blistering, join us for a discussion of how Please join us in celebrating the winner morning tea will be served. power corrupts and destroys. of the Readings Children’s Book Prize for 2015. This year’s winner, Trace Balla, Rivertime Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events author and illustrator of Rivertime (A&U), Free, no booking required Thursday 16 July, 6.30pm will be in conversation with special guest Saturday 8 August, 10.30am by Trace Balla Readings Carlton judge Sally Rippin, author of over 50 Readings St Kilda children’s books.

ANDREW Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events 20 JOBLING’S Tuesday 28 July, 4.30–5.30pm ACCIDENTAL Readings Hawthorn AUTHOR “Rivertime Accidental Author is a whirlwind tour of novel-writing advice from former AFL reminds us to slow player Andrew Jobling. Join us for the down and open launch of this interesting insight into the art of writing. our eyes to all the

Free, no booking required beauty around us.” Monday 20 July, 6.30pm - Sally Rippin Readings Hawthorn Children’s author and Readings Children’s Book Prize judge. CARRIE 21 EDWARDS-BRITT & SPONKY THE PUPPY ANDY GRIFFITHS Join us for the celebration of a brand new 12 AND TERRY series of books all starring Sponky, the August DENTON: THE cutest puppy of all time. This interactive 65-STOREY lift-the-flap book will have your child mesmerised and entertained! TREEHOUSE Andy and Terry live in an incredible ever- Free, no booking required KILL YOUR expanding treehouse and create very silly Tuesday 21 July, 6pm 30 DARLINGS’ FIRST books together. Andy writes the words and Readings Hawthorn BOOK CLUB: Terry draws the pictures – well, when they’re OLIVER MOL not too distracted by all the amazing things TED TODD’S A July’s Kill Your Darlings’ First Book Club going on in their incredible ever-expanding 23 DOUBTFUL event features Oliver Mol discussing his treehouse! Join us, on the day of release, for INHERITANCE funny, energetic and original coming-of- their next adventures with The 65-Storey age story, Lion Attack!. Oliver will be in Treehouse. There will be balloons, there A Doubtful Inheritance is a novel of conversation with Kill Your Darlings’ online will be jokes and there will be nonsense. ‘autobiofiction.’ The story is about obsession, editor, Veronica Sullivan. Drinks provided. Tickets are $20 per person and include: memory and the migrant experience. The a signed first edition of The 65-Storey Treehouse, Colour in this issue’s front protagonists are children of the Holocaust Free, but please RSVP to an exclusive 65-Storey Treehouse gift and one and what follows is a sweeping tale from [email protected] cover for your chance hour of complete madness. a Siberian POW camp through to Vienna, Thursday 30 July, 6.30 for 7pm to win one of three $50 (Parents – you’ll get a copy of the book too for Readings gift cards! Argentina and Australia. Readings Carlton your very own collection!) Please book at readings.com.au/events See page 3 for details. Free, no booking required Wednesday 12 August, 5.15pm Thursday 23 July, 6.30pm The Athenaeum, Collins Street, Melbourne Readings Hawthorn 6 READINGS MONTHLY JULY 2015 From the

Mark’s News and views from Readings’ Managing Director, Books Martin Shaw, Say Mark Rubbo Desk Readings’ Books Division Manager

The Australian merger of two publishing giants Penguin and Random House will be all This is my last ever column for Readings Monthly – sob! I’ve always likened my job to but completed in early August as their distribution facilities merge into one combined working in a lolly shop because, as you can imagine, getting to look at new books each and facility. The process of merging the two companies will have taken almost 3 years every day is a pretty wonderful thing, and something that I will miss enormously. So as a since the original announcement. The merged companies will have a market share in way to go out, it seemed a nice idea to reflect on some of my favourite books published over Australia of close to 30%; in addition, Penguin and Random House provide different the course of my career at Readings. How on earth was I going to be able to recall 21-years’ levels of sales and distribution services for a range of Australian and international worth of books? It didn’t help that my personal library was already packed up in boxes, publishers including Hardie Grant, Scribe, Text, Black Inc., Melbourne University ready to be shipped off to my new life in Germany! Publishing, University of Queensland Press and Freemantle Arts Centre Press, among I started thinking about OzLit and the debuts that I seem to gravitate to – the particular others. thrill of reading a first book by an unknown author and knowing that I’m holding Other publishers view the merger with some trepidation, fearing that the new something really special in my hands. Being in the wonderful position to evangelise about entity will use its size to acquire books or concepts developed by comparatively smaller a book’s quality has been one of the most satisfying aspects of my role. This is certainly not publishers. In Australia, the two companies Penguin and Random House separately a definitive list of the best books written in the period – if space permitted, I’d mention have built up solid reputations as local publishers of quality fiction and non-fiction Romy Ash, John A Scott, Ellen van Neerven, Robert Gott, and many, many more. Rather, and have both contributed positively to the Australian publishing ecosystem. It will be here are some of the books that meant a lot to me at the time of reading, and that I still urge interesting to see how this publishing giant develops, but whatever happens, many of upon people today, if given half the opportunity. the books we buy and read will be touched by Penguin Random House in some way. A Child’s Book of True Crime by Chloe Hooper: This book is from way back in 2002, Eddie Tamir and his wife Lindy are mad about cinemas. They had two, the Classic and I have some memory of opinion being divided over this debut from Hooper, particularly in Elsternwick, and the Cameo in Belgrave and now they’ve added a third, the Lido in about the sections that included animal narrators. My strongest memory though is simply Glenferrie Road Hawthorn, which opened in late June. The Lido, when it opened 100 being heartily impressed by the risks that were taken. Ambition in fiction always gets a big years ago, was a cinema but hasn’t been until its reincarnation as an 8 screen venue tick from me, and this book delivers in spades. Years later, of course, Hooper wrote the non- with a rooftop cinema for summer. fiction classic, The Tall Man. I intend to read every word Hooper ever writes. Eddie and Lindy took me on a tour just before it opened; they have done a beautiful Blueprints for a Barbed-wire Canoe by Wayne Macauley (2004, republished 2012): job retaining features of the old building where appropriate. The main auditorium is a I’ve been thinking lately of Macauley’s second novel, Caravan Story, a must-read which beautiful space with the original pressed tin ceiling. Years ago, we used to hold literary is remarkably prescient of our current Brandisean arts regime. What got me started on events in that room and seeing it restored brought back some fond memories. The Lido Macauley was a very slender black-spined little novel that appeared in 2004 called Blueprints will program an eclectic range of films ranging from art house to family and including for a Barbed-wire Canoe. I don’t remember how the book came to my attention back then but some short films they’ve especially commissioned. I do remember being stunned by its hypnotic prose and exquisite satirical conceit. Two writers I greatly admire have books coming out in the next few months and I The Boat by Nam Le (2008): I think the publication of The Boat must have marked urge you to look out for them. The first is A Guide to Berlin by Gail Jones, which comes some sort of watershed for local publishing. Its considerable commercial success made that out in August. It’s a novel set, of course, in Berlin and is about six travellers in Berlin previously-neglected species in OzLit – the short-story collection – something publishers sharing stories. The next, due in October, is Drusilla Modjeska’s memoir, Second Half were prepared to consider more positively. I must admit, it was partly my anguish about what First; a reflection on her later life. If you know Drusilla’s work you know it will all be I presumed would be the fate of this book that made me so determined to try and make it very good. Drusilla and I are going to be talking about the book in October, so keep a success. I ordered 500 copies up-front (a cooler head would have suggested 30, or at the your eyes peeled. most, 50) and, well, the rest is history. Of course I eagerly await Le’s promised debut novel. For more than 20 years Martin Shaw has been my colleague at Readings. For much Things We Didn’t See Coming by Steven Amsterdam (2009): Amsterdam is the author of that time Martin has helped shape Readings’ offering, but most importantly he has of two books now but this, his first, rocked my world in 2009. I actually wrote in my become a champion for good Australian writing. He and his partner are moving to review: ‘Who would have seen coming – so soon after the supernova that was Nam Le in Germany this month and we will miss him, as will many authors and publishers. the Australian literary firmament in 2008 – that already in early 2009 we would be blessed with another debut of the most sublime conception and tender execution?’ I said at the time that Things We Didn’t See Coming was ‘bound’ to become a contemporary classic, and after many years on the VCE list, it’s really pleasing to see that we still regularly sell a copy or two every month. The Mary Smokes Boys by Patrick Holland (2010): Another year, another star. In my July review, I called The Mary Smokes Boys ‘a beautiful beautiful novel … that has a language as Elke Power pure and magical as I have read in a long time’. This was actually Holland’s second novel Readings Monthly Editor but the first I came across, and he’s gone on to write a further four books. His is a career to highlights watch – I’m convinced that one day, Holland will write a book that breaks him out on an international scale. We will miss Martin Shaw when we wave him and his family on their way to their new The Last Thread by Michael Sala (2012): In 2013, I had the wonderful privilege of adventure in Germany, but as oceans are no barrier to flurries of emails about new being a judge on the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize. Of all the longlisted books for the book discoveries, we will be saying bon voyage to Martin, not goodbye. We are excited Oceania region, I immediately knew I’d be pushing Sala’s terribly moving debut. My fellow to welcome Alison Huber to the role of head book buyer – we’re already in the habit of judges agreed with me, and we awarded Sala the Regional Prize. In my review from 2012 I exchanging book recommendations with Alison as she is moving from part-time Readings wrote: ‘A gutsy, moving, beautifully wrought and utterly compelling work … a hymn to love book expert to full-time in her new role. In next month’s issue you’ll hear from Alison in that I don’t think will be forgotten by any reader’. her new column. Only the Animals by Ceridwen Dovey (2014): There’s nothing I like more than a In this issue, you’ll find the inside story of the judging process for the Readings book that at first makes me scratch my head (‘What on earth is this?’) before I start to Children’s Book Prize, directly from the prize manager, Angela Crocombe. You’ll see understand (and marvel at) the tremendous fictional accomplishment in my hands. The adorable and creative reader responses to the announcement of the winner, the wonderful 2014 winner of our New Australian Writing Prize, I think Michelle de Kretser put it best Rivertime by Trace Balla. As you might have noticed on the cover of this Readings Monthly, when she described Only the Animals: ‘wholly extraordinary’. we are celebrating Rivertime’s win by running a colouring competition. You can find the Foreign Soil by Maxine Beneba Clarke (2014): When I first reviewed Clarke’s much- details under News on page 3. lauded debut pre-publication, I said, ‘these are tales of sheer storytelling prowess’, and it’s As for fiction and non-fiction, I have never seen so many rave reviews – our reviewers enormously gratifying to see the huge response to the collection. I also said at the time that all loved their books. This is a great month to be stuck inside in front of the fire – take your Foreign Soil’s publication marked ‘the arrival of a major new voice in the Australian literary pick, you can’t go wrong, especially if you choose from among the fantastic Australian landscape’, and already, barely a year after publication, Clarke feels like she’s been around writers featured in these pages. As you can see on the opposite page, I was delighted to for years. She’s such a boon for Australian literary culture. speak with the talented Antonia Hayes about her debut novel, Relativity, a book with a Black Rock White City by A.S. Patric (2015): I came to A.S. Patric’s book with a divisive issue at its heart that is sure to become a book club favourite. Further highlights dreadfully guilty conscience – despite Alec being a Readings staffer of many years within Australian fiction include In the Quiet by Eliza Henry Jones and Six Bedrooms by standing, I was yet to read a word of his work. To say I devoured Black Rock White City Tegan Bennett Daylight. Our book of the month, Stephanie Bishop’s outstanding second is no understatement, and when you see all the laudatory reviews it’s been receiving, it’s novel The Other Side of the World, has already been touted as one of the books of the year. clear that I was not alone. I’ve gone on the record to say: if this is not on the Miles Franklin shortlist next year, there must be a riot! Finally, I’m really thrilled that in the last month of my career at Readings there are two exceptional works of Australian fiction appearing. One is Antonia Hayes’ Relativity – please don’t miss it! The other is Stephanie Bishop’s The Other Side of the World, which impressed me as much as any of the other novels I’ve talked about here. This book, along with Hayes’, is bound to be going head-to-head in all the major prizes over the next year. My advice is to read both of them as soon as you can. READINGS MONTHLY JULY 2015 7

New Australian Writing

Antonia Hayes’ debut novel Relativity is set in Sydney where Ethan, an extraordinary, sweet boy obsessed by physics and astronomy, has begun asking his mother, Claire, about the father he can’t remember. For Claire, the best way of continuing to protect her adored son is becoming increasingly difficult to calculate. Mark has been on the other side of the country, far away from his family and the tragic event that blew their shared world apart. When a letter arrives and Ethan falls dangerously ill in an echo from the past, their lives are fractured anew. Here, Hayes talks with Elke Power about relative truth and the ties that bind.

Relativity by Antonia Hayes Viking. PB. Was $32.99 $27.99 Relativity Antonia Hayes talks about her debut novel with Elke Power

our debut novel, Relativity, view. After getting 20,000 words into that Antonia Hayes, photo courtesy of Alison Fairley, 2015. has been likened to A Beautiful draft, I hit a wall. Telling the story from Mind and The Curious a single voice was really limiting and the Incident of the Dog in the more I learned about physics, the more I with the recollection. As we look back, intensity of their dynamic is based on our Night-timeY. However, it seems likely that realised I needed to approach writing the the past becomes an ever-changing echo mother–son relationship in real life. another comparison will be hard to avoid, novel from several angles. of an echo in our minds. So I didn’t want E: One of the strengths of your book and that is between Relativity and Christos Einstein’s theory of special relativity to only explore how Claire and Mark lost is that despite there being multiple ideas Tsiolkas’ award-winning, bestselling novel is about how time changes according themselves in the immediate aftermath and themes at work, the story moves The Slap. Without wanting to reveal one to the speed of a moving object relative but how, over twelve years, they were at a cracking pace and keeps the reader of the compelling central questions at the to the observer. So in other words, your both forced to remake their lives and find guessing. Did you always know where the heart of Relativity, can you tell us a little experience of time can differ from someone themselves again. And Ethan is in the same story was going? about how you came up with the idea for this else’s experience of the same moment. position as the reader: he doesn’t remember Not at all! Pacing was one of the final original story? Ethan, Claire and Mark see the same event the original event so needs to untangle his things that fell into place while I was A: To be honest, the characters arrived through their own individual lens, but they parents’ versions of the past and figure out redrafting and editing. Earlier versions had before the story. Ethan came first, and then clash over their varying impressions of it. what happened himself. lots of flashbacks that didn’t really advance his love of physics came second. I’ll need For the three main characters to clash, E: Finding ways to establish and the plot. After writing the first draft, I to make an embarrassing confession now: their attitudes and personalities had accommodate reality is a major issue in your needed to zoom out and try to think about when I was at school, I went to Maths to be at odds with one another. Mark’s book. Were you interested in how people try, Relativity as a complete picture rather than Camp. I was one of those weird kids with an understanding of physics meant his or refuse, to accommodate, terrible truths a messy cluster of scenes. It took a lot of aptitude for patterns and numbers. Later, character was systematic and cerebral about themselves or their actions – or about deleting, rewriting and reshuffling to find I discovered that the language of physics but Claire needed to be the opposite; those they love? the story’s momentum and figure out its was also the language of storytelling. That she’s more kinetic and intuitive. Writing A: As I was developing the characters, ultimate destination. the laws of science – tension, friction, Ethan’s voice was probably the easiest. I become really interested in how our own E: With so many elements to discuss, momentum, resonance – applied to He’s a little like me at twelve years old: perceptions of reality can vary so widely. Relativity will become a highlight for book fiction too. So before I knew exactly what curious, fearless, impulsive and, maybe Different people often have completely clubs everywhere for years to come. If you Relativity was about, I knew that physics problematically, imaginative. different memories of the same event. So were to begin the discussion, what question would be the novel’s backbone. At the same time, I wanted to create the major point of conflict within Relativity would you most like to see people explore? I was also a really accident-prone kid similarities between Ethan and both his revolves around how each character has Or, what question would you most like to and I’ve spent a lot of time in children’s parents, and for there to be magnetism their own reality – and how impossible it hear discussed if you were a fly on the wall? hospitals – as a patient and later as a parent – between Claire and Mark. So I juggled the can be to budge from what we believe is the A: Honestly, I have no idea! I’d just so some ideas for Relativity came from disconnection between all three characters truth. Everyone is at the centre of their own like people to read Relativity and take hospital wards and waiting rooms. Lots with how they’re connected as well. universe but it takes empathy to change our something away from it – whether readers of books inspired small pieces of the story E: In a book that entwines a growing impression of what’s true or real and make find the story and characters confronting, as well: The Man Who Mistook His Wife understanding of the physics of the world the universe realign. comforting, challenging, problematic or for a Hat by Oliver Sacks; Arcadia by Tom around us with the central characters’ E: The friendship between Ethan and enjoyable is totally up to them. Stoppard; Playing Beatie Bow by Ruth Park, changing concepts of self, it is particularly Alison is compelling. There are many kinds and Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. interesting that the moment we first of love in Relativity, and several types of Antonia Hayes is an Australian author who grew up E: Relativity is primarily told from three encounter the family members is almost heartbreak. Which were the most rewarding in Sydney, spent her twenties in Paris and currently perspectives, those of your main characters: twelve years after the original life-changing relationships for you to write about? lives in San Francisco. Her work has been published Claire, professional ballet dancer and event. What made you choose to look at the A: My favourite relationship in the in Best Australian Essays, Meanjin, The Sydney mother; Mark, physicist and father; and their longer-term ramifications of the event when novel is between Ethan and Claire. When Morning Herald, The Age, Daily Life and others. young son, Ethan, a charming, quixotic boy Ethan was a baby, rather than just the fallout Amy Poehler writes about her kids in Antonia has worked in publishing as a publicist and who is incredibly gifted but also mysteriously in the years immediately afterwards? Yes Please, she says, ‘The bond between a bookseller, and co-directed Australia’s National affected by a childhood incident. How did A: I suppose I’m curious about the mothers and sons is powerful stuff, Young Writers’ Festival. you create such a distinctly different mindset way that time shifts and bends memories, man.’ I couldn’t agree more; that love is and voice for each of these characters? and also shapes and reshapes people. overwhelming. Relativity is dedicated to Elke Power is the editor of Readings Monthly. A: My first attempt at Relativity was Neuroscience says that when we recall a my son. He’s completely different to Ethan, To read our review of Relativity, see page 8. written entirely from Ethan’s point of memory, we rewrite the original memory and I’m not like Claire, but the strength and 8 READINGS MONTHLY JULY 2015

New Fiction from her afterlife. But In the Quiet isn’t at press onto people and encourage them to all concerned about where Cate is, or what read. Highly recommended. is happening to her in death. It’s firmly Chris Somerville is from Readings Carlton Book of the Month focused on the living, and letting us see their lives unfold through Cate’s eyes. PERIPHERAL VISION The novel follows Cate’s three teenage Paddy O’Reilly THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD children, along with her husband, her UQP. PB. $19.95 Stephanie Bishop sister, her best friend and her best friend’s Hachette. PB. $29.99 nephew, as they deal with their grief over A book of short $26.99 Cate’s unexpected death and the general stories is usually named after one of the Stephanie Bishop’s The Other Side of the World is a brilliant ups and downs of everyday life. Set on a stories, one that seems work of art. Bishop’s intensely visceral writing has a haunting farm in rural Victoria, the book is filled to sum up the overall beauty reminiscent of the writings of Emily Brontë and Virginia with dirt, dust and plenty of horses. Time feeling of the Woolf. Set in the 1960s, The Other Side of the World hones in on the is slippery in In The Quiet, and Cate herself collection. This story fractured relationship between British-born Charlotte and Indian- often doesn’t know how much time is then becomes the ‘title born and British-raised Henry. Trying to balance parenting with passing, and must piece it together as she story’. When I realised limited time for herself to paint, Charlotte is struggling. Henry wants watches her loved ones. that Paddy O’Reilly life to return to how it used to be before they had children, and believes everything will be Eliza Henry Jones is a young author hadn’t done this, I was curious to know alright again – if they can just avoid another English winter by moving to Australia. Too (only twenty-five) and she writes with what ‘Peripheral Vision’ meant to her as a exhausted to fight, she ends up ‘lost’ on the other side of the world. remarkable maturity. She clearly loves her title. In an interview with the industry Stephanie Bishop provides rare and intimate insights into the magnitude and the characters and knows them intimately, and magazine Bookseller+ Publisher, she minutiae of motherhood, the power of passion and the constant search for love and that shines through in the writing, which said, ‘… most of the stories in the collection happiness and a sense of ‘home’. Returning to India to see his elderly and sick mother for the is filled with a deep empathy. In The Quiet contain a moment where a character first time since he was there as a young boy, Henry wonders, ‘what it would be like to belong is a gentle story, but it doesn’t shy away glimpses another world, another life, somewhere and never doubt it. To not be constantly pestered by the knowledge of your own from the gritty, difficult parts of grief and growing up. It isn’t sickly sweet or overly another possibility that may not have ‘Bishop’s intensely visceral writing has a haunting beauty reminiscent sentimental, and Henry Jones is especially occurred to them before.’ Many of the of the writings of Emily Brontë and Virginia Woolf.’ skilled at writing teenage characters and characters in these stories would be capturing all of the mess, uncertainty and relieved to glimpse a different life. O’Reilly is a master of writing about those on the foreignness ... How much can we be expected to give in the name of love and how can we heartbreak of that age. fringes of society. ever be reconciled to what is lost? ... Is it easier to love a child than it is to love a wife?’ I found In the Quiet is an accomplished first In ‘The Salesman’, Marly is waiting, myself reading and rereading the questions posed throughout. book from an exciting new talent. I fell in in the northern suburbs of Melbourne Bishop’s writing guides you through the full spectrum of emotions one feels in love and love with it slowly, over the course of many on a scorching day, for her boyfriend and with loss in a dream-like state with a calm self-assuredness. Bishop bravely dissects what chapters. It’s a quiet book (appropriately his mate to return. She has no credit on it means to be human, questioning everything taken for granted. So real are her characters named) and an utterly lovely one. her phone, no transport, and needs a beer and their complex emotions that they go straight to your core and stay with you long Nina Kenwood is the digital marketing desperately. When an Indian salesperson after finishing. So evocative is her writing that I could feel the biting winds and damp of manager for Readings comes to her door, she is captivated by an English winter, the scorching hot sun of a Perth summer and the pungent scents and his politeness. Marly thinks she has been mayhem of an Indian village. SIX BEDROOMS lucky in attracting her boyfriend, Shaun, In 2006, Stephanie Bishop was named one of the Sydney Morning Herald’s Best Young Tegan Bennett Daylight because he has not hit her in the eleven Australian Novelists for her debut novel, The Singing. This, her second novel, was shortlisted Vintage. PB. $29.99 months they’ve been together. But she is for the 2014 Australian/Vogel’s Literary Award. There is no doubt that The Other Side of the The stories in surprised by her attraction to Pran, and World will launch Stephanie Bishop’s career as a major new international literary talent. Tegan Bennett feels protective of him when the men This is definitely my pick of 2015 and I would even go as far as saying that it’s now made it Daylight’s Six return and the situation begins to look into my top 10 books of all time. I urge you all to read this truly great work. Bedrooms, her fourth dangerous for him. Emily Harms is the head of marketing and communications for Readings book, are mostly In ‘One Good Thing’, Natalie and focused on the highs Klara are primary school best friends, and lows of teendom, inseparable and happy. But as they age, and the awkwardness Natalie realises Klara’s family is not as Australian Fiction physics and astronomy, shifts his focus back from this that never perfect as she once thought, and her trust and forth between the immediate and the really leaves us. The is betrayed in a terrible way. When Natalie theoretical. As he precociously tests his setups are on a small scale – a young encounters Klara again as an adult, she RELATIVITY theories, so too are the reader’s assumptions woman moves to London with her more witnesses firsthand Klara’s denial and Antonia Hayes and perceptions tested. The exhilaration glamorous sister, a teenage girl lures a boy coping mechanisms. Viking. PB. Was $32.99 of pushing the boundaries of knowledge is away from a boring party and gets him These eighteen stories are high $27.99 juxtaposed against the potential futility of drunk – but there’s a tension in each story, quality – from those of striking social Panic, like pain, is trying to quantify the ephemeral. Rather it always feels like there’s so much at realism to others with elements of magic hard to remember than running alongside the story, these stake. Throughout this remarkable realism. They demonstrate O’Reilly’s after it passes. Hayes preoccupations shape the characters’ collection we also get the same narrator, immense abilities, and why her work pulls you into the attempts to make sense of their lives, and Tasha, in a handful of the stories, and this, should not fall into the periphery, but be moment like you’ve inform the reader’s eager guesswork. as well, helps bind the book together. kept in a very clear line of sight. It also helps that Tegan Bennett unexpectedly pin- Relativity upends expectations and holds Annie Condon is from Readings Hawthorn dropped through you in its thrall as Hayes asks unsettling Daylight is an incredibly gifted writer, Antarctic ice. Having questions about the frailties of memory especially on a line level. ‘Fern’s mother ARCHIPELAGO OF seized your attention, and love. died on a cruise. A ferry cruise, a movable SOULS Relativity has been likened to A party, the sort that patrols the harbour she then introduces the Gregory Day three main characters of Relativity, a little Beautiful Mind and The Curious Incident on weekends,’ begins one story. ‘I hated Picador. PB. Was $32.99 more than twelve years after the tragic of the Dog in the Night-time, both of which Judy’s first boyfriend, as expected. He $27.99 incident that first changed all their lives. are apt comparisons. However, with its was shaped like a sweet potato,’ starts Claire was a professional ballet dancer; suspenseful plot and frequent lens changes, another. The prose here is honed down Step onto the now she works for the Sydney Ballet Christos Tsiolkas’ The Slap also comes to and sharp. Bennett Daylight hasn’t chariot that is Company in corporate relations. Mark was mind. An Australian debut not to be missed. wasted a word. Gregory Day’s Another skill is her tracking of the Archipelago of Souls a theoretical physicist, but for the last few Elke Power is the editor of Readings Monthly and years he’s been avoiding the past in WA. shifts between characters, the sudden canter through the dark Their son, Ethan – gifted, impish, lonely IN THE QUIET realisations which never feel forced or emotions and turgid convenient for the sake of narrative. ruminations of a man’s and twelve – has begun asking questions Eliza Henry Jones Each of the stories turns in a way that troubled soul. about the father he can’t remember. All HarperCollins. PB. $29.99 three are still grappling with the fallout feels both inevitable and completely Like other soldiers I approached this from the tragedy, even if Ethan, like the unpredictable. For a book that focuses on returned from World debut Australian reader, does not yet know what happened. stark realism, it’s a tiny bit exhilarating War II, Wesley Cress carries a burden novel with some When a letter arrives, it sets off a chain of that sometimes these shifts are sparked of unspeakable trauma. Serving as an caution, because it events that will change everything again. by characters having dreams, or jumping Australian soldier in the underground centres on a literary To say more would be to spoil things, ahead into the future. resistance of German-occupied Crete, device that I can find but the fabric of this story flexes and bends It all comes together as one of the best he’s confronted with the brutality of war off-putting: main around a contentious central issue as we books of the year. This is an incredibly and the heinous acts man is capable of character Cate is dead hear from each of these protagonists. Ethan, well written and thoughtful, sad and funny committing – including his own. and narrating the story who loves to interpret the world through work, and the kind of book you want to In the aftermath of this experience, READINGS MONTHLY JULY 2015 9 he seeks distance in the wild and remote explores the notion that we are only truly landscape of King Island, Tasmania. There alive when taking risks and living according he stakes his claim on a plot of land called to our deepest moral values. Readers are Wait-a-While, a fitting name for a place left to contemplate the brutal realities of to seek refuge. But far from offering him ageing in an economy increasingly driven an escape, it becomes a purgatory where by selfishness over goodness. an undercurrent of tumultuous emotions Sally Keighery is a freelance reviewer churn and fester, rearing their ugly heads in the form of an infected tooth that must LAST DAY IN THE be lanced. DYNAMITE FACTORY On a bender at the local pub – intent on anaesthetising his pain – he finds the Annah Faulkner unwelcome and surprising counsel he Picador. PB. $32.99 needs. He must confront his demons and Christopher Bright is a purge his story through the cathartic act of well-respected Every day, specialist emergency physicians do Roberto Saviano maps the international cocaine trade, writing. The confession that emerges holds conservation architect, extraordinary things. They deal with high emotions, investigating the evolution of traffi cking right through his most pained and private revelations. father, good neighbour and make life-or-death decisions under immense to money laundering on Wall Street. From South He shares them with Leonie Fermoy, an and friend. His life is pressure. A collection of incredible stories from America to the US, on to Africa, Europe and Asia, orderly, yet he’s the front line in emergency departments across Saviano follows the human trail of users, victims and islander with her own anguish to bear. Australia and New Zealand. traffi ckers to paint a global picture of the drug trade. Underpinning this real human drama is haunted by an an allegory steeped in myth and intuition. unresolved question: Wesley’s relationship with the feminine Who was his birth also requires healing and, like the hero father? When his Theseus, he must traverse the labyrinth adoptive mother dies, information emerges to rescue the maiden in order to find the that becomes the catalyst for changes he redemption he needs. has never imagined. As his quest for This is an eloquent, emotionally information reveals not only the truth about complex and layered work firmly grounded his mother’s life but exposes the fault lines in human experience and yet reaching in his own, Chris finds the price of towards the divine. knowledge increasingly heavy. Nevertheless, the truth must be told – or must it? Natalie Platten is from Readings Hawthorn THE LAST WILL AND THE GIRL WITH THE TESTAMENT OF HENRY DOGS Anna Funder Defence lawyer Will Harris is attacked by masked A compelling, chilling, true story of murder, miscarried HOFF men with a clear message: back off. Instead, he goes justice and a lifetime of secrets. On a warm evening Penguin Special. PB. $9.99 John Tesarsch looking for answers. An unexpected source points in December 1949, two young people met by chance Amid the debris of their him towards Melbourne’s corridors of power. But it’s at Flinders Street Railway Station. The next morning, Affirm Press. PB. Was $24.99 friends’ marriages, Tess only when those close to him are threatened too that one of them, twenty-year-old typist Beth Williams, When Henry and Dan have hit the Will realises how near he is to the deadly truth. was found dead on Middle Park Beach. Hoffman dies middle years relatively unexpectedly his unscathed. But Tess children are forced to senses she’s at a hinge execute a will they penguin.com.au moment, poised didn’t know existed. between the life she There’s some prime thought she wanted and Yarra Valley real estate the one she long ago at stake and unexpected decided against. Sent to London for a beneficiaries. Few conference, she’s unable to resist the pull of families are immune to the grubby battle that relinquished life. The Girl with the that invariably accompanies a contested will Dogs is a poignant and beautiful novella and the Hoffmans are no exception. from the Miles Franklin Award winner. Available Henry’s untimely death leads to a July 14 forensic excavation of his past, casting PRINCE’S GAMBIT: doubt on his testamentary capacity and unlocking a secret history that stuns and CAPTIVE PRINCE fractures his family, unearthing a legacy of TRILOGY BOOK 2 betrayal, suspicion and self-doubt between C.S. Pacat the siblings. When a cryptic second will Penguin. PB. $19.99 appears, socially awkward academic Damen, rightful heir to Eleanor, anxious pianist Sarah, and Robbie, the throne of Akielos, Discover the next chapter of the world’s Set against the backdrop of the Great War, The Dust that Falls From Dreams follows the lives the black sheep with a talent for big dreams favourite novel. When Scout Finch returns serves the prince of an to Maycomb to visit her father Atticus, she must of an unforgettable cast of characters searching and bad investments, begin to wonder if enemy nation as a grapple with personal and political issues as she tries for happiness among the ruins of the old world. they knew their father at all. pleasure slave. With to understand the place she spent her childhood. A magnifi cent and moving novel from the author of Tesarsch’s own obsessions, music and their countries on the Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and Birds Without Wings. law, are deeply resonant in this engrossing brink of war, Damen and family saga that explores our struggle his master, Prince to balance both reason and passion in Laurent, exchange the our lives. Like in his first novel, The palace for the battlefield Philanthropist, death becomes a starting as they travel to the border to avert a lethal point to reexamine life. plot. Despite himself, Damen is increasingly Told from multiple points of view, the drawn to the dangerous, charismatic Laurent. plot roves across three continents, from But with the future of both their nations at Melbourne during the Rudd era, to San stake, a single misstep could be fatal. Francisco, and back in time to Vienna during the German occupation, where a ON BRUNSWICK tragic and compelling love story unfolds. GROUND Henry emerges as a hard but decent Catherine de Saint Phalle man who devoted his life to solving a Transit Lounge. PB. $27.99 mathematical puzzle, echoing the novel’s Can a man face down the devil without losing As the American Civil War rages on, two ships, In the Melbourne preoccupation with ideas of value: his soul? From the internationally bestselling author captained by sworn enemies, are embroiled in a duel personal, moral and material. Tesarsch suburb of Brunswick, an of the acclaimed novel The Power Of The Dog comes that could determine the outcome of the war. stealthily dissects his character’s scruples unnamed female The Cartel, a gripping true-to-life epic of power, Hold tight for an explosive cat-and-mouse chase and corruption, revenge and justice spanning the past high-stakes adventure from the multimillion-selling with the expertise of a barrister cross- narrator meets Bernice, decade of the Mexican-American drug wars. phenomenon John Flanagan. examining his witnesses. Melbourne itself a radio personality, in is portrayed as a city busily ignoring its her late thirties and moral compass. flirting with IVF. Later Although never prescriptive, Tesarsch on, she befriends a bar randomhouse.com.au owner, Sarah, and her 10 READINGS MONTHLY JULY 2015 daughter, Mary, who has suddenly of Insignificance reminds us that Kundera’s So the question becomes – what would Boy to serve and protect him. Mark has been converted to Islam and donned a burqa. work is extraordinary, delivering an happen if the human race were suddenly lucky in his Master: Dain has treated him The lives of these women are characterised inimitable understanding of modern times given access to infinite natural resources and well. But as his time as a Day Boy draws to a by love and loss, and are woven together by that will be read well into the future. land, with the only limitation being we can’t close, there are choices to be made. Trent a shared grief. Lucy Van is a freelance reviewer take metals from one Earth to another? With Jamieson reimagines the elements of the the exception of a few extremist religious vampire myth in a wholly original way. CHINA RICH GIRLFRIEND groups, the majority generally deal with this Australian Poetry Kevin Kwan new paradigm quite happily, and the day THE SONG COLLECTOR of the online discovery becomes known as A&U. PB. $29.99 Natasha Solomons Step Day. Human history has been changed Hodder & Stoughton. PB. $29.99 INSIDE MY MOTHER ‘Her entire forever. Though, predictably, governments Celebrated composer Ali Cobby Eckermann existence immediately attempt to impose restrictions Giramondo. PB. $24 revolved around the Harry Fox-Talbot and, later, high taxes to the pioneers who wants to be left in Indigenous poet Ali acquisition and move out to other Earths. peace – his beloved Cobby Eckermann was preservation of fortune,’ In The Long Utopia, 30 odd years have wife has died, and he’s tricked away from her writes Kevin Kwan in passed since Step Day. The core cast returns: unable to write a note mother as a baby, his latest novel China Lobsang has retired, married Sister Agnes of music. When he repeating the trauma Rich Girlfriend. Such a and adopted a child; Josh is looking deep discovers his her mother suffered statement sums up most into his past; the Next are more organised troublesome four-year- when she was taken characters in this book, (whether this is a good thing remains to old grandson is a piano many years before. which documents the fictional lives of be seen) and a small boy’s discovery that prodigy, the music returns and Fox is Eckermann in turn had Singaporean family dynasties. China Rich you can step forwards, backwards and now compelled to re-engage with life and to give her own child up for adoption. In Girlfriend picks up a couple of years after sideways leads to the discovery that the confront an old family rift involving Inside My Mother, she explores the distance Crazy Rich Asians left off, and we find Long Earth is in danger and this time the beautiful wartime singer Edie Rose. This is between the generations created by such ourselves in London, following a terrible car danger isn’t from us. As with all the Long a tale of passion and music, ancient songs experiences, marked by sadness, accident involving the mysterious young Earth books, The Long Utopia slowly builds and nostalgia, of the ties that bind and withdrawal, yearning and mistrust – but lit millionaire Carlton. Meanwhile, Rachel and up to a spectacular ending and reading it those we are prepared to sever. by dreams and scenes of ritual and Nick are happily planning for their will put you right back at the Adventure upcoming Californian wedding. Nick’s commemoration, chief amongst them the Playground again, wanting to be everything JUNE separation and reunion of mother and child. estranged mother Eleanor will do anything and everywhere at once. to attend the wedding (to which she is not Gerbrand Bakker Dani Solomon is from Readings Carlton invited), and Rachel still hopes she might Scribe. PB. $27.99 International Fiction find out the identity of her father before the GO SET A WATCHMAN On a hot summer’s day big day. in June 1969, everyone Harper Lee THE FESTIVAL OF Everybody drives around in big cars, gathers to welcome stays in swanky hotels, lives in unimaginably William Heinemann. HB. Was $45 Queen Juliana. Little INSIGNIFICANCE opulent mansions, flits around the world $31.99 Hanne Kaan and her Milan Kundera in private jets, and dresses in head-to-toe The greatly-anticipated mother Anna arrive late Faber. PB. $24.99 designer gear. No extravagance is too great, second novel from – the Queen strokes the Milan Kundera’s but any show of overt ostentatiousness is Harper Lee is set during little girl’s cheek and last novel, severely frowned upon by the social elite. the mid-1950s and offers Anna her hand Ignorance, was As your average Melbourne student, all this features many of the – but the day turns to published in 2000. Over seems more utopian fantasy than standard characters from To Kill tragedy when Hanne is knocked down by a a decade later, it’s no fiction to me, but if Kwan says this is how A Mockingbird some 20 van. Years later, Jan Kaan arrives to tidy his stretch to call The the filthy rich live, I’ll willingly suspend my years later. Scout (Jean sister’s grave, and is overcome again with Festival of Insignificance disbelief and go along for the ride. Louise Finch) has grief and silent fury as the ripples from one one of the world’s most China Rich Girlfriend, for all its glitz, returned to Maycomb tragic incident spread through a community, anticipated novels from will surely provide readers with a colourful from New York to visit her father Atticus, a family and down the generations. one of the greatest living escape from the humdrum of their, and is forced to grapple with issues both novelists. Many will delight at Kundera’s comparatively, dull lives. That said, while personal and political as she tries to THE LAST FOUR DAYS OF playful title, its dash recalling the tragi- it’s fun to read about lavish parties and understand both her father’s attitude PADDY BUCKLEY comic titles of his classic middle-period such who ranks higher on China’s rich-list, it’s toward society, and her own feelings about Jeremy Massey clear that money can’t buy happiness, or as The Book of Laughter and Forgetting and the place where she spent her childhood. Riverhead. PB. $32.99 The Unbearable Lightness of Being, breaking – if you’re happy to go along with Kwan’s Paddy Buckley has from the solemn single-word titles that generalisations – good taste and social THE DUST THAT FALLS worked for years at characterise his later work (Immortality, aptitude. Unexpected highlights of the book FROM DREAMS Gallagher’s, a long- Slowness, Identity). Already topping sales are Kwan’s frequent and detailed descriptions Louis de Bernieres established Dublin lists in Italy, Spain and France, this novel has of food, and often-hilarious English Harvill. PB. Was $32.99 funeral home. Driving commentators again speculating on the translations of Mandarin expressions. China $27.99 home one night, Paddy author’s chances for the Nobel Prize. Rich Girlfriend is a light but addictive read, hits a pedestrian – it’s What a pleasure it is to return to sure to brighten a wintry day. In the brief golden years Donal Cullen, brother Kundera-world, where, enthralled by the of the early 1900s, Rosie Alexandra Mathew is from Readings Carlton of one of Dublin’s most bravura of minimal gestures, I can think McCosh and her sisters notorious mobsters. of no other writer who can do so much are growing up in an THE LONG UTOPIA And he’s dead. Shocked and scared, Paddy with so little. At 115 pages the work is no eccentric household in drives away. The next morning, the hostage to its brevity: Kundera is a master Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter Kent. But their days of Cullen family calls Gallagher’s to arrange of references, where a few lines of prose Doubleday. PB. Was $32.99 childhood adventure are the funeral – and Paddy is given the task immediately conjure expansive histories, $27.99 shadowed by the of meeting with crime boss Vincent philosophies, narratives and moods. The When I was a kid approach of war that Cullen. When events go awry, Paddy is structure of this short novel relies on the visiting Adventure will engulf them on the plunged into unexpected intrigue, deceit allegorical, but for all the condensation Playgrounds, I always cusp of adulthood. Confused by her love for and treachery. and compression, the work is always vital, entered thinking, ‘This two young men she has to navigate her way through extraordinary times to build a new animated by Kundera’s facility for the comic. place is built for me and UNCLAIMED TERRAIN ‘My dear friend, I lack only one thing: a good in it I can be anything, life out of the opportunities and devastations mood,’ Ramon informs his friend, Caliban. and anything can of the Great War. Ajay Navaria Invoking Hegel, Ramon continues that, ‘only happen.’ Reading Terry Giramondo. PB. $19.95 from the heights of a good mood can you Pratchett and Stephen DAY BOY Ajay Navaria’s stories observe below you the eternal stupidity of Baxter’s The Long Earth Trent Jamieson examine the prejudices men, and laugh about it.’ series brings back those feelings. The premise Text. PB. $29.99 of India’s caste system, Accordingly, Festival navigates multiple of the series is that someone has leaked the In a post-traumatic but they speak of terrains of absurdity, drawing Stalin schematics to build a small box that allows you future, the Masters – inequality wherever it eavesdropping by a urinal alongside a to simply step into a parallel Earth, one that is formerly human, now occurs. As complex as philosophical reflection on the tenderness almost exactly the same as our Earth but practically immortal – they are political, his of friendship, with some audaciously literal without any signs of humanity ever having rule the human characters are neither navel-gazing to boot. Funny, intelligent, existed. From this Earth you can either step population upon which black nor white, neither clearly good nor engaging on every level, Kundera’s elegant back to our Earth or take another step forward they feed. Invincible by evil. The stories in Unclaimed Terrain little meta-fiction brings his oeuvre into the into another Earth. This goes on forever, each night but helpless by day, suggest as many solutions as there are post-millennial age. Nobel or no, The Festival Earth gradually differing with each step taken. each relies on his Day crises, and that some of those solutions are READINGS MONTHLY JULY 2015 11 themselves crises. History pounces New Crime Dead Write around in the cocaine trade and outlines without warning, people wield the his view that the drug is so prevalent that smallest details against each other, and the with Fiona Hardy its distribution drives the modern reader emerges from the pages of this economy. Saviano speaks to informers, fierce book wiser. Crime Book of the Month addicts, kingpins, travelling and writing expansively, researching further than the MRS ENGELS countries traditionally accused of keeping THE UNBROKEN LINE Gavin McCrea a powdered finger in the pie. Alex Hammond Scribe. PB. $29.99 Michael Joseph. PB. $32.99 In September 1870, THE ENGLISH SPY Defence lawyer Will Harris has barely recovered from being Lizzie Burns, a poor Daniel Silva hospitalised after going rogue in his first book, Blood Witness, worker from the Irish HarperCollins. PB. $29.99 when he and his lover Eva are attacked and threatened by strangers slums, leaves for Silva’s art restorer- who tell him to back off. Will, who doesn’t enjoy danger as much as London with her lover, slash-spy-slash- it enjoys him, would oblige if only he knew what he was supposed the wealthy mill-owner assassin (aren’t we all to back off from. He’s already busy fighting a complaint accusing Frederick Engels, the such multi-taskers?) him of some suspicious activity (of which he’s not entirely vision of a life of peace Gabriel Allon is one of innocent) and grappling with his newly minted law firm, a business and comfort taking the most beloved spies partner who is never around, and defence cases he’d prefer to avoid. Now, of course, he’s shape before her eyes. in modern crime got something else on his plate – finding out who assaulted them and caused Eva to flee But while Frederick and his friend Karl fiction – a man who from Will and the violence that surrounds him. Marx try to spur revolution among the many love to follow as working classes, Lizzie, haunted by her first he travels the world to love and burdened by a sense of duty to ‘If you’ve ever wondered how it feels to be a defence lawyer, read this and bring justice and vengeance to those who right past mistakes, is compelled to wonder no longer: if it’s half as complicated and tense as this book, we should need it. In The English Spy, Allon is on the undertake a revolution of another kind: of hunt for elusive bomb-maker Eamon the heart and the soul. all just stick to being armchair lawyers, even if the pay isn’t as good.’ Quinn, a man whose grim skills Allon suspects have just despatched one the A FORTUNATE AGE most famous women in the world – the If you’ve ever wondered how it feels to be a defence lawyer, read this and wonder no Joanna Smith Rakoff ex-daughter-in-law of the Queen of longer: if it’s half as complicated and tense as this book, we should all just stick to being Bloomsbury. PB. $27.99 England. And, as happens when you’re a armchair lawyers, even if the pay isn’t as good. Will’s exhausting day-to-day life of successful assassin, when you’re on the Living in crumbling interviews and solving murky problems into crystal-clear defences and juggling any kind of Brooklyn apartments, hunt for someone, there are others on the private life is something else – and obviously fictionalised enough to be interesting (Will is hunt for you. holding down jobs as a media darling following his adventures in the Ned Kelly Prize-shortlisted Blood Witness, actors and writers and after all), while retaining memory of enough paperwork out of the ears to be realistic, if not LONDON RAIN eschewing the middle- slightly depressing for trees. Nicola Upson class sensibilities of their This is one for Readings locals – as Will gallivants around town from east to west and parents, Lil, Beth, Sadie, north to south, getting into crashes in the Burnley Tunnel and going for drinks in bars as Faber. PB. $29.99 Emily, Dave and Tal familiar as the one you were in just last weekend, it’s a heady tale of local intrigue that During the coronation believe anything is spans contemporary Melbourne and a grim part of Australia’s history. of King George – no, possible in late-1990s New York – but the I often take notes on my phone when I’m reading, to help me remember good lines not the adorable reality of rent, marriage, children and family (or make up my own! Like this one just now.) I wrote ‘moral quandary’ on its own, toddler – in 1936, will test them all. From the decadence of the because the idea infuses every page of the book. Will is a serious man who tries to do crime author dot-com boom through to September 11 and good in a career and a world that seems desperate to stop him. And he’s not some shining Josephine Tey is in the years that followed, this ambitious debut white knight, here to save everyone from his ethically stabled high horse – he twists glittering London for novel captures the hopes, anxieties and himself in knots that can’t be untangled without assistance. The legal world is one soaked the production of one dreams of a generation. in privilege, with all the good and evil that come with it, and Will, with his family ties to of her radio plays. All the industry, is part of the problem. Can he overcome this to prove himself, and which is going delightfully A CURE FOR SUICIDE lines will he refuse to cross? until BBC broadcasting favourite Albert Jesse Ball Beresford is killed, and then so is his Text. PB. $29.99 mistress, who is also the lead in Tey’s play. All seems horribly but swiftly A man and a woman find them. They do not exist, and neither THE HAND THAT FEEDS cut-and-dried with an obvious suspect, move into a small house does Bennett, apparently: no one by that YOU but Tey has her own suspicions that the in a small village. The name had his job or lived his life where AJ Rich deaths have more of a thread in the woman is an ‘examiner’, he told her. Now feeling dejected as well murky past than anyone wants to believe. charged with teaching S&S. PB. $29.99 as guilty, Morgan’s investigation into Perfectly set in its time, Upson’s seventh the man, her ‘claimant’, I’m never sure about Bennett’s deception leads her to others he Josephine Tey novel is a cleverly crafted a series of simple the idea of two authors has targeted – and the realisation that not psychological tale. functions: this is a chair, collaborating to everyone survived his ruse. this is a fork, this is how write – surely, there Following Morgan as she pulls at the you meet people. One would just be constant threads of their life together is an unsettling THE CARTEL day, the examiner brings him to a party, fighting about where experience, raising questions about the Don Winslow where he meets Hilda, who throws to put commas? – but notion of responsibility, and how you expect Heinemann. PB. $32.99 everything into question. What is this from the first few those around you to respond when your pets This glorious, hefty village? Why is he here? And who is Hilda? pages of this book I savage another person. It’s also unnerving tome, sequel to was immediately that as a reader you find yourself with a Winslow’s legendary LET ME DIE IN HIS compelled: together Amy Hempel and Jill surprising desire to see some big ol’ gentle organised crime epic Ciment create a personal, immersive FOOTSTEPS puppies saved from certain execution by The Power of the Dog, writing style that feels akin to travelling Lori Roy a savvy lawyer even after you find out – in has been years in the alongside a character as they work out Text. PB. $29.99 detail – what they did to Bennett. making and it shows. what is happening, instead of watching Everyone knows It’s a chilling skill these authors have: It is well-researched, them, popcorn-in-hand, while they blast Hollerans don’t go near using the most attractive of writing to hide gritty, violent and, through the world hurling wisecracks Baines. It’s been that the most unpleasant of scenes. presumably, printed (which, don’t get me wrong, is also an way since Joseph Carl with adrenaline in the ink because this excellent literary choice). Baine was hanged in ZERO ZERO ZERO story follows one hell of a pursuit. Art Even as protagonist Morgan Prager – 1936. But on a dark Roberto Saviano Keller is a DEA agent who destroyed his student of victimology, soft touch when Kentucky night in 1952, Allen Lane. PB. $32.99 own life, and that of many others, to get it comes to sad-looking dogs, and newly Annie Holleran crosses After the publication cartel boss Adan Barrera behind bars. minted fiancée – comes home to find over into forbidden of his first book, But Barrera’s connections and wealth Bennett, the man she loves, mauled to territory. Local Gomorrah – which led mean that prison is not quite like it is for death by her three beloved pets, it’s a superstition says she’ll see her future in the to him being granted the rest of us (locked up for stealing time gruesome scene that breaks your heart Baines’ well. What she sees instead is a dead a permanent police to read more books) – and when he rather than makes you cover your eyes. woman – and suddenly the events of 1936, escort after being inevitably escapes and puts a two- And when she recovers from that discovery that twisted and shaped the lives of Annie and threatened by more million-dollar bounty on Keller’s head, a enough to leave the hospital she’s been her kin, are brought back into the present. than one godfather- bloodthirsty, decade-long hunt ensues. put in to try and find his parents and type – in Zero Zero break the news to them, Morgan cannot Zero, Saviano sniffs 12 READINGS MONTHLY JULY 2015

New Non-Fiction absurdist satire of the politics of the uncovering the past. turbulent Middle East. There are some occasions where the LETTERS TO MY sparseness of Keret’s prose almost feels has occasion to discuss many hot-button GRANDCHILDREN Biography frustrating – Keret writes, for example, literary and journalistic issues of the David Suzuki about his Holocaust-survivor parents’ moment, including the nature of truth in NewSouth. PB. $29.99 relationship, and about how the ever- AFTER THE BLAST highly confessional narratives and ethical In this inspiring series present threat of bombs and warfare Garth Callender problems surrounding intoxication and of letters to his pervades day-to-day Israeli life with Black Inc. PB. $29.99 sexual consent. It’s a wry, self-deprecating grandchildren, David a sort of fatalistic abandon – these are As I read this story told with the bloggy rhythms you’d Suzuki offers themes that warrant more exploration memoir of an expect of a writer who has been covering grandfatherly advice and contemplation, and presenting Australian soldier’s pop culture for magazines such as Salon mixed with stories them as pithy anecdotes felt somewhat experience in Iraq and over the course of her career. from his own unsatisfying. The best pieces, however, Afghanistan, I have the Hepola’s story is a more light-hearted remarkable life and are tightly-packed and feel variously like slow and steady take on what is becoming the classic explores what makes conversations with an old friend, tender impression that this is a addiction narrative: one that moves from life meaningful. He challenges his moments frozen in time or astonishing different, and a personal, inarticulable sadness into wild grandchildren – and us – to do pieces of blistering satire. Brevity and specifically modern, intoxication, staggers towards visceral everything at full tilt. He explains why craftsmanship blend with insight and kind of war story. guilt, and falls finally on that mainstay of sports, fishing, feminism and failure are observational humour like that of David the form – recovery. Her story contains important; why it is dangerous to deny While Callender’s account makes it clear Sedaris, making The Seven Good Years a moments of darkness and poetry, of our biological nature; and why First that being at war is made up of extremes, vibrant and highly enjoyable read. intensity, and adrenaline in the moment, course, such as when she recalls first Nations must lead a revolution. Offering Alan Vaarwerk is the editorial assistant for the focus is on the aftermath of an attack, getting blackout drunk at age eleven, how up a lifetime of wisdom, Suzuki inspires Readings Monthly the post-traumatic condition, and the she formed the little rituals addicts use to us all to live with courage, conviction keep from being discovered, and where and passion. often lethargic bureaucratic processes VERA surrounding the day-to-day of the she describes drinking as allowing for occupying forces in the Middle East. In this an otherwise impossible ‘Ecstasy when Vera Wasowski & Robert Hillman MY STORY way, After the Blast is about the moments everyone is gone but still you are held.’ Black Inc. PB. $29.99 Julia Gillard and spaces in between, leading up to, But Hepola’s vignettes aren’t the Vera Wasowski was just Random. PB. $34.99 tales you’d usually hear at an Alcoholics seven years old when and after the action. Upon deployment, With new material and Anonymous meeting, full of rage and German soldiers Callender writes, ‘We went to war like fresh insights, this is sadness. Hepola instead finds humour and marched her and her so many soldiers of my generation – by Julia Gillard’s chronicle insight in her misadventures. Her core family into the Lvov commercial air travel.’ Towards the end of her turbulent time as motif for doing so is in the titular blackout, Jewish ghetto in of his account, Callender describes cases Australia’s prime that drunken state where long-term Poland. After the war, of post-traumatic stress disorders: from minister, a candid memories cannot be formed, the one that Vera migrated to those in charge who bear the weight of self-portrait of a tends to separate those people you know Australia with her their decisions so heavily, and those not political leader seeking who enjoy drinking from those people husband and young son to escape rising physically injured at the time of a blast, but to realise her ideals. My you worry about. Hepola, for many years anti-Semitism. Here she would carve out whose wounds endure far beyond the end Story is peppered with wry humour and a dedicated member of the latter group, a bold career as a TV researcher and of their military service. personal insights, and Gillard does not shy is open about the irony and difficulty of producer at the ABC on pioneering Callender’s prose is colloquial away from her mistakes, admitting freely constructing a memoir around a void, but programs such as This Day Tonight. yet articulate and nuanced, and his to misjudgements and policy failures, as it is this focus on anti-memories where the Celebrated biographer Robert Hillman observations acute and canny. His well as detailing her political successes. book succeeds in telling a different story captures the fierce and passionate life of account is divided into three parts, Here is an account of what was hidden about addiction. It’s a story where drinking an amazing Australian. describing his three deployments, to Iraq behind the resilience Gillard showed as can be an empowering activity – the in 2004 and 2006, and to Afghanistan prime minister, and a reflection on what it natural psycho-chemical accoutrement to in 2009. He is badly injured in an IED HERE COMES THE SUN means to be a woman leader in radical personal change – while it is also (Improvised Explosive Device) blast Jeremy Oxley & Mary Oxley contemporary politics. during his first deployment, but he simultaneously the unwanted ghost that Griffiths volunteers again and again. stalks and fogs her memories, her consent A&U. PB. $29.99 and eventually her identity. In The Missing of the Somme, Jeremy Oxley was Australian Studies Geoff Dyer writes about war as a great Dave Little is from Readings St Kilda diagnosed with fracturing event in cultures, history, and schizophrenia aged 22, OLD MAN’S STORY lives. Everything that happened before THE SEVEN GOOD at the height of his fame is so thoroughly and irrevocably cleaved YEARS as lead singer of the Bill Neidjie & Bill Lang from that which comes afterwards; our Etgar Keret Sunnyboys. Terrified Aboriginal Studies Press. PB. $34.95 relationship to the time before is rendered Scribe. PB. $27.99 and in denial, he Old Man’s Story untouchable and pure, like a memory of contains the last Israeli writer alienated friends and youth. The fracturing event of the long, thoughts of the late Etgar Keret is family alike, shutting protracted war in the Middle East is, for Kakadu elder and widely regarded as one himself off from any kind of life or those living through it in the present era, a activist, Bill Neidjie. of the leading figures in support. Mary Griffiths was a nurse who blast in ultra-slow motion. For most of us His two previous contemporary flash was able to see through Jeremy’s illness in Australia, this time immediately ‘after books, Kakadu Man and fiction. In The Seven and recognise the sensitive, beautiful and the blast’ will be characterised by the Story About Feeling, are Good Years, the author frightened man within. Their story is told marked absence of effect, probably for a often read as poetry, but are also important of The Bus Driver Who here for the first time, tracing Jeremy’s very long time. And that, I believe, is where articulations of an environmental Wanted To Be God and remarkable journey from the depths of Callender’s account comes in – it tells the philosophy grounded in feeling. The trope Suddenly, A Knock on the Door moves for despair to hope and love. story of Australian soldiers in Iraq and of the elder telling ancient stories might the first time into non-fiction, bringing his Afghanistan in a way that is real, relatable be seductive and sentimental, but what signature wit to a collection of personal MY LIFE IN RUINS and, importantly, present. Neidjie is doing, committing secret essays covering the seven years from the Adam Ford knowledge to print, is a response to a very Amy Vuleta is the manager of Readings St Kilda birth of his son – Keret and his wife ABC Books. PB. $29.99 modern problem – our increasingly rushing to hospital in the middle of a Adam Ford is an exploitative and unequal consumption of BLACKOUT bombing – and the death of his father from archaeologist. From our planet. Neidjie reflects on how his Sarah Hepola cancer of the tongue. The years in Cold War bunkers in community has changed in his living John Murray. PB. $29.99 between, both as a father and a son, are England to remote caves memory, recalling stories of his childhood Sarah Hepola’s full of wonder, frustration and worry. in the Jordan Valley and and family. This sometimes melancholic debut book is a Aside from being organised more or burials in Barbados, narration is interwoven with Mark Lang’s coming-of-age memoir less chronologically, the pieces are largely Adam has dug, dived, memoir and photographs of his time in that explores her unconnected and stand as individual abseiled and trekked his Kakadu with Neidjie over a cycle of relationship with booze vignettes – when taken together, they give way into history. He has seasons. as if the liquid were a a patchwork effect of a life made up of lived in some of the most remote locations It is impossible to leave this beguiling, troubled and confusing, episodes. Keret reflects on travel, family, in the world and suffered the back-breaking poetic book without reconsidering the on-again off-again religion and the writing life, moving and soul-destroying monotony of shifting way settler society privileges ‘objective‘ partner. Through her between anecdotes and sketches, cringe tonnes of dirt with a shovel. Part memoir, knowledge. Describing ‘country’ as rendering of drunken afternoons, forgotten comedy (particularly in an excruciating part potted history of civilisation, My Life something which can be felt in a bodily evenings and sick, ruined mornings, Hepola battle of wits with a telemarketer), and in Ruins is the account of a life lived in way, Neidjie maps out a vulnerable READINGS MONTHLY JULY 2015 13 connection between humans and the rest of our environment. ‘Do something, with Cinema your feeling,’ advises Niedjie, ‘it not too late.’ The conversations in this book open LIFE MOVES PRETTY up complex ideas about places in our FAST recent history which are easy to overlook. Hadley Freeman The act of telling these (hi)stories is a way of confirming our extraordinary ecological HarperCollins. PB. $29.99 present, but also of understanding each If you’re looking other. Having a story is the equivalent of for something fun being alive, and as readers, and writers – and frothy to read as you and booksellers – it’s a philosophy for snuggle under the doona which we should crusade. this winter, Life Moves Pretty Fast would be an Georgia Delaney is from Readings Carlton ideal pick. Hadley BLOCKBUSTER! Freeman’s personalised handbook to North Lucy Sussex American movies from Text. PB. $32.99 the 1980s is a friendly blend of cinephilia Before there was and autobiography. As a guide, Freeman is Arthur Conan Doyle’s charming with limitless enthusiasm for her Sherlock Holmes, topic. She’s more fangirl than critic and, in there was Fergus Part memoir, part pottedtruth, history Life Moves of Pretty civilisation, Fast is really My a loveLife in Hume’s The Mystery letter disguised as a book – an ode to Baby’s ofRuins a Hansom is the Cab account – the ofdance a life montage lived in in Dirty uncovering Dancing, to theAndie past. biggest-selling Walsh’s ugly prom dress in Pretty in Pink, detective novel of the and to ‘uber-nerd’ Rick Moranis. 1800s, and Australia’s In many ways, Life Moves Pretty Fast first literary is a product of the digital age (Freeman blockbuster. Blockbuster! is the is already known as a fashion journalist engrossing story of a book that would and columnist, and runs a blog about help define the genre of crime fiction, eighties films) and has that snappy, gossipy and a portrait of a great city in full bloom. quality I associate with the internet. The Rigorously researched and full of chapters close with lists of things like arresting detail, this captivating book is a ‘Best Love Songs’ or ‘Steve Guttenberg must-read for all fans of true crime, Moments’, while footnotes often lead to history and crime fiction alike. funny remarks, or forays into scandals. I was particularly fascinated by Freeman’s analysis of Hollywood, and how it has Cultural Studies changed over the last thirty years – her chapters on Steel Magnolias and Eddie THE ROAD TO Murphy were stand-outs. CHARACTER Given Freeman’s zeal, it helps to already be a fan of eighties movies which, David Brooks happily, I am. I was all too willing to be Allen Lane. HB. $45 swept up by Freeman’s gusto – at least, for We live in a culture the most part. I was not so easily swayed that encourages us to by her chapter on Tim Burton’s Batman, in think about how to be which she criticises Christopher Nolan’s wealthy and adaptation, but I suspect this has much successful, but which to do with my own personal obsession leaves many of us with the superhero story. And Freeman, inarticulate about how for her part, is endearingly candid to cultivate the about her own obsessions and makes no deepest inner life. apology for simply selecting the films Subsumed by the that matter to her. She writes, ‘This is day-to-day, the deepest parts of who we not an encyclopaedia of eighties moves. are go unexplored and unstructured. The If you want that, buy an encyclopaedia Road to Character connects us once again (although probably the last time you saw to an ancient moral tradition, asking us to an encyclopaedia was in the eighties).’ confront our own weaknesses and grow Bronte Coates is the digital content in response, rather than shallowly focus coordinator for Readings on our good points.

THE PLEASURE OF Environmental Studies READING Antonia Fraser (ed.) THE END OF PLENTY Bloomsbury. PB. $19.99 Joel Bourne First published in 1992, Scribe. PB. $35 this new edition Modern agriculture has includes essays from driven the greatest global ten new writers as well population boom in as original contributors history – but left behind including Margaret ecological devastation and Atwood, Germaine an unsustainable status Greer, Ruth Rendell, quo. Now, with more Tom Stoppard and mouths to feed than ever Jeanette Winterson. In before, tightening global food supplies have this delightful collection, much-admired spurred riots and reform around the world. writers explain what first made them Part history, part reportage, part advocacy, interested in literature, what inspired The End of Plenty takes readers across the them to read and what makes them globe, searching for new solutions that can continue to do so. Royalties generated go sustainably feed us all. It is a wake-up call to Give a Book, a charity that seeks to get for anyone concerned with what the books to places where they will be of coming decades will hold. particular benefit. 14 READINGS MONTHLY JULY 2015

differences, and Armitage himself is Health Music Politics consistent in his opinion that whilst the walk is beautiful, it’s no Pennine Way, but GUT THE BAKEHOUSE MISBEHAVING that really isn’t the point. Giulia Enders PROJECT Richard Thaler The heart of this book is the gentle humour of the character observations Scribe. PB. $29.99 Helen Marcou & Quincy McLean Allen Lane. HB. $45 along the way. Armitage is affectionate Black Inc. HB. $49.99 Economist Richard Anyone who in his descriptions, but forthright, and Thaler has spent his enjoyed Norman Bakehouse Studios in his father’s repeated phone calls are a career studying the Doidge’s bestselling The Richmond is a highlight. Armitage seems amused by notion that humans are Brain That Changes Melbourne music his father’s own amusement at the walk, central to the Itself will find much to landmark, with around and the result is sweetly entertaining. economy – and that appreciate in Gut: The 400 musicians passing His frank storytelling is at its best when we’re error-prone Inside Story of Our through their rehearsal tackling his own awkwardness and individuals, not Body’s Most Under- rooms every week. In embarrassment, including his irrational predictable Rated Organ. While October 2013, as a tribute to the passing of fears whilst spending the night in a automatons. Now these two organs may Lou Reed, Bakehouse pasted up two giant witchcraft museum. It’s beautifully behavioural economics is changing the not appear to have much in common, and to rock posters on the front of their iconic written, poetic, but in a manner far way we think not just about money, but have vastly different interest ratings, the studios. Following an overwhelming and more akin to Armitage’s own blunt style about ourselves and our world. Coupling gut has more effect on the way we think emotional response to the work, visual than the flowery images that the word recent discoveries in human psychology and feel than most of us realise. artists were invited to re-imagine the ‘poetry’ projects. Walking Away rolls with a practical understanding of Enders is currently studying for her interiors with immersive installations in along at a pace far more relaxing than incentives and market behaviour, Thaler medical doctorate in Germany and was the old rehearsal rooms. From the lyrical to the walk it describes. partly drawn to the field by a frustrating enlightens readers about how to make the audacious, this book documents and Isobel Moore is from Readings St Kilda and protracted misdiagnosis in her late celebrates a year of art at Bakehouse. smarter decisions in an increasingly teens. She is a lucid and friendly guide to mystifying world. the latest research and an advocate for the COBAIN: MONTAGE OF Visual Arts judicious sharing of knowledge, where HECK Psychology the risks are few, in a more timely fashion Brett Morgen & Richard Bienstock than most peer-reviewed publications LIVES OF THE ARTISTS, Hachette. HB. $39.99 generally enable. BLACK SHEEP LIVES OF THE In the same way that, prior to the More than twenty ARCHITECTS years have passed Richard Stephens publication of The Brain That Changes Hans-Ulrich Obrist Itself, neuroplasticity was not something since Kurt Cobain took John Murray. PB. $29.99 Allen Lane. PB. $45 about which most people were aware, Gut his own life in April From the man who won looks set to change popular conceptions 1994. Today, his legacy the Wellcome Trust Hans-Ulrich Obrist about health and our understanding of continues to fascinate, Science Writing Prize has been having the relationships between the various inspire, and haunt us. 2014 comes a book of ongoing conversations enigmatic systems in our bodies. Two Featuring exclusive weird and wonderful with the world’s key areas addressed in Gut are likely to interviews with the family and friends who psychological greatest living artists be on the public mind in years to come: knew him best and never-before-seen experiments and since the age of the brain–gut link and its ramifications photographs and artwork, this riveting fascinating research from seventeen. Here he for mental as well as physical health; companion to Brett Morgen’s highly the far-flung corners of chooses nineteen of and the urgency of us all updating our anticipated documentary paints an human experience. Expect ingenious the most influential understanding of the purpose and value of illuminating and honest portrait of the methodology and dazzling findings across contemporary artists ‘good bacteria’ and bacteria balance. Nirvana frontman, capturing the sex, addiction, bad language and fast and architects and presents the Gut is rich but not dense with contradictions that made up his character. driving. Expect drunkenness, hangovers, conversations they’ve had over the years, fascinating facts, perspective-altering It is the ultimate book for fans of Nirvana love, split-second emergencies and close in cafes and studios, on aeroplanes and research anecdotes, and practical advice. and of Kurt Cobain. brushes with death. And on top of it all, trains, walking or sitting at home. Lives of While those who have read Slow Death expect conclusions about the benefits of the Artists, Lives of the Architects offers by Rubber Duck might be dismayed to see CAPTAIN MATCHBOX & being bad that you really won’t have seen the reader a rare insight into the creative that plastic chopping boards are the most BEYOND coming. process as well as a unique exploration of hygienic (but not too hygienic), others Catherine Fleming & John Tait the meaning of art today. will feel smug about their regular yoghurt Melbourne Books. HB. $39.95 Travel Writing and sushi-eating ways. Enders demystifies This book uncovers Cookery allergy and intolerance issues, clarifies the zany world of the connections between our external and Captain Matchbox, WALKING AWAY internal environments and puts forward a and goes far beyond by Simon Armitage A MODERN WAY TO EAT great case for making a concerted effort to following the Faber. PB. $32.99 Anna Jones support the good bacteria we’ve apparently extraordinary careers The first time I Fourth Estate. HB. $49.99 been working with since we first crawled of Mic and Jim heard a poem by A Modern Way to out of the sea. You are unlikely to think Conway. After Simon Armitage, I was Eat is my new about food choices the same way again! Matchbox finally in our shared homeland, favourite cookbook Elke Power is the editor of Readings Monthly struck out, the brothers were intimately Yorkshire. I was in a and conversation topic. involved with the Pram Factory and Circus year ten English class I have already made its Oz. Jim Conway eventually broke free of and I very clearly vegetarian versions of History ‘novelty’ to become one of Australia’s remember the moment, burgers and pies premier blues musicians, while the name because prior to that (sausages to come). Mic Conway has become synonymous with HOW THE FRENCH moment, I had never Both received thumbs up from my ‘new vaudeville’ in Australia. THINK heard or read any poem that sounded like housemates and truth be told, I’m yet to come across a recipe that I don’t like. Sudhir Hazareesingh me, or related to my life in any way. It was HOW MUSIC GOT FREE somewhat of a revelation, and I have to The cookbook opens with a foreword Allen Lane. HB. $49.99 Stephen Witt confess to having an emotional by Jamie Oliver and the recipes do have In France, intellectual Vintage. PB. $29.99 predilection to Armitage since that something of his relaxed and generous activity is regarded not How Music Got Free is a moment. Needless to say, I very much attitude to cooking, but Anna Jones’ so just as the preserve of the blistering story of enjoyed his previous book Walking Home, called ‘modern’ attitude to cooking is all thinking elite but for obsession, music and in which he walked the Pennine Way her own. It’s an attitude that expects our almost everyone. French obscene money. This is backwards ending up in his Yorkshire food to be sustainable and affordable, thought can sometimes be the story of how one hometown in the North of the country. healthy and tasty, easy to prepare and austere and often opaque, man’s crime snowballed Walking Away follows a similar impressive to look at. Somehow, Jones yet it is undeniably bold into an explosive moment tread. Armitage walks along the south- manages this. BC and innovative, and driven by a relentless in history, how suddenly west coast of England, taking no money quest for the regeneration of humanity. all the tracks ever but supporting himself through poetry Sudhir Hazareesingh traces its tumultuous recorded could be accessed by anyone, for readings and the kindness of strangers, history in an enjoyable and original free. It is also the story of the music only this time, how will he fare away manner, showing how the French ways of industry – the rise of rap, the death of the from home turf? Pretty much the same, thought and life connect. album, and how an industry ate itself. to be entirely honest. There are certainly READINGS MONTHLY JULY 2015 15

Art & Design Winter Cookbooks

with Margaret Snowdon with Chris Gordon GREEN, HIDDEN AND MAGGIE BEER’S WINTER ABOVE HARVEST RECIPES Sybylle Kramer Maggie Beer Braun. HB. $70 Lantern. HB. $29.99 Different methods of I associate Maggie Beer tree house construction with quinces, with differ substantially from pheasant pâtés, other types of building, mushrooms, and with requiring a profound delicious slow-cooked knowledge of the country cooking. This materials to be used. In delightful collection of terms of use and design, recipes has everything this special architectural discipline is full of you could expect for cold nights. The surprises. The projects assembled for this recipes are from the winter section of volume show the extraordinary variety of Maggie’s bible, Maggie’s Harvest. Included possibility for tree house design. in this collection are detailed descriptions of meals (think perfectly planned menus DIGITAL HANDMADE for you to copy, step-by-step) with family n this inspiring series of letters to Lucy Johnston and friends. I love this glimpse into Ihis grandchildren, David Suzuki T&H. HB. $60 Maggie’s life, her warmth and generosity offers grandfatherly advice mixed with stories from his own remarkable Subtitled Craftsmanship shows with her meal plans and with those life and explores what makes life and the New Industrial she keeps around her. Maggie Beer makes meaningful. Drawing on his own Revolution, this is a cooking obtainable for everyone. Also, I experiences and the wisdom he has dazzling survey of love her pâtés! gained over his long life, he decries designers who fuse SLOW COOKER the lack of elders and grandparents digital fabrication in the lives of many people, especially techniques with CENTRAL immigrants, and champions the traditional Paulene Christie importance of heroes. As he ponders craftsmanship and handwork. Today’s ABC Books. PB. $24.99 life’s deepest questions and offers up digital technologies have given rise to Paulene started a a lifetime of wisdom, Suzuki inspires entirely new working methods, skill sets, phenomenon. She us all to live with courage, conviction, and consumer products that don’t eliminate, popped a few recipes and passion. but enrich traditional hand techniques. about slow cooking in a slow cooker onto a FIONA HALL: WRONG website and then before WAY TIME she knew it she had www.newsouthpublishing.com Linda Michael (ed.) trillions of followers Piper Press. HB. $39.95 and people sharing In Wrong Way Time, Fiona recipes left, right, and centre. This book Hall brings together is a collection of more than 250 recipes hundreds of elements, from her Slow Cooker Central website and each embedded with her insanely popular Slow Cooker Recipes READINGS MADMAN layers of meaning. The 4 Families Facebook page. This is what works focus on global I’ve learnt flicking through this marvel: conflict, world finances you can make cakes, jams, and soups in and the environment, which come together slow cookers. I knew all about the magic in what Hall says is a ‘minefield of madness, power of slow cooking lamb for hours, badness and sadness in equal measure’. This but this book allows you to create menus is the catalogue for Venice Biennale and of little fuss and great taste. Ironically, Australian tour 2016. this book is a winner for all those in a rush most of the time. DVD CHINA: THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS THE CHEF GETS HEALTHY Andrew Bolton et al. Metropolitan Museum of Art. PB. $69 Tobie & Georgia Puttock Lantern. PB. $39.99 This stunning publication explores the influence of Honestly, I am full of Chinese aesthetics on admiration for any designers, including married couple that can SALE Giorgio Armani, Christian work together so Dior, Jean Paul Gaultier, already my hat is off to Over a hundred terrific titles Karl Lagerfeld, Ralph the Puttocks. My Lauren, Alexander McQueen, and Yves Saint admiration grew when from $12.95 each Laurent. Drawing upon Chinese decorative I realised that their arts, cinema, and costume, their designs are work of love is all about living longer fantastical pastiches of anachronistic motifs. together by creating and eating healthy food. Georgia said to Tobie, ‘Tobie, your PIERO FORNASETTI: diet is going to have to change if you are PRACTICAL MADNESS going to live as long as me.’ And he said, in return, ‘Okay, I’m going to change my bad, Patrick Mauries et al. fatty habits.’ T&H. HB. S100 Anyway, long story short, here is the Fornasetti’s endless invention perfect cookbook for couples supporting is celebrated here in a book one another in making choices that published to coincide with a involve kale as opposed to cheesecake. The major retrospective recipes, in a similar vein to Tobie’s good Sale on now until 31 July at all shops and online. exhibition in Paris. His visual friend Jamie Oliver’s, are filled with quick puns and decorative devices and easy steps for truly delicious food are set out in the context of from morning to night-time snacks. This his paintings, little considered is the perfect book for those who strive for until now. His designs endure in an perfection. Proud sponsor of MIFF astonishing variety of forms. 16 READINGS MONTHLY JULY 2015

New Young Adult Fiction convention that Zak usually attends. What See how these readers ensues is a hectic first date of sorts, as they See books for kids, junior and middle readers on pages 18–19 search for Ana’s brother, encountering celebrated Rivertime’s win! some creepy and far-out characters that Young Adult Book of the Month make their night a living hell. The Improbable Theory of Ana and Zak is a fun romance full of witty banter and FREEDOM RIDE crazy antics that, while at times a little far- Sue Lawson fetched, will entertain readers who loved Black Dog. PB. $17.95 novels like Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist. Student activists have long been the agents of social change. For ages 13 and up. KD Following the ‘Freedom Rides’ held in the USA in 1961 to protest against discriminatory segregation of Black Americans, a BECAUSE YOU’LL NEVER group of Sydney students embarked on a protest of their own. The MEET ME students launched the Australian Freedom Ride in 1965 and Leah Thomas sought to challenge entrenched bigotry and prejudice levelled at Bloomsbury. PB. $15.99 Aboriginal Australians, taking their protest to rural towns in Written entirely in letters, from the Australia where racist attitudes were most evident. point of view of two teenage boys, History has many examples of social justice activism of this kind. The 1967 Referendum one in the States and one in Germany, to remove two references in the Australian Constitution that discriminated against Because You’ll Never Meet Me tells the Aboriginal Australians was in part brought about by the efforts of students like these story of two people who who, through their campaigning, cast a spotlight onto injustice. But when individuals can never meet. Moritz stand up on their own and fight for what’s right, even as it sets them apart from their has a pacemaker, and family, friends and community, now that is inspiring! Ollie is allergic to Robbie, the protagonist of Sue Lawson’s Freedom Ride, has just such a story. Unsettled electricity, so meeting by the discriminatory treatment of Aboriginal people and the parochial attitudes of his Moritz would kill him. hometown, Robbie finds the courage, with the support of a new friend, to speak out against While the story plays this behaviour and then becomes a target of the very bigotry he seeks to confront. However, with their emotional by the time the Freedom Ride rolls into town, Robbie has found the freedom to set his own connection and has a course, on his own terms. great twist along the way, the real appeal This is an inspiring and historically significant work that forces us to confront the of this book is the relationship between racism of our past. For readers 13 and up. the two boys as they go through their very Natalie Platten is from Readings Hawthorn heightened and stressful adolescence. Their growing friendship is realistic and vital, and it’s really great to see such an interesting friendship as the focus of the Maggie begins by documenting the year FRANKIE AND JOELY novel. Nova Weetman before she turned 12, taking us back to the moment when her 11th birthday doesn't Isobel Moore is from Readings St Kilda UQP. PB. $19.95 kick off as planned. An announcement from This is a novel that, in the current her parents makes her feel a little anxious: RISK market, might be called ‘quiet’. For Maggie’s dad has quit his job and instead Fleur Ferris me it was as much of a her mum is going to take up employment. Random House. PB. $19.99 page-turner as anything Maggie isn’t completely sure what’s going you’ll find on the YA Taylor and Sierra have been best friends on, but she is pretty sure it has to do with shelves because it’s a their whole lives. But Taylor’s fed up. her dad’s arms and legs, which are now generous, intense study of From kissing Taylor’s crush to stealing ‘sleeping’, and keeping him wheelchair- that most important the guy they both met online for herself, bound. Not willing to let things lie, Maggie subject: friendship. Sierra doesn’t seem to takes it upon herself to find out what is Frankie and Joely, two notice when she hurts her wrong with her dad and how to cure him. city girls, go on holiday to friends. So when Sierra The Meaning of Maggie is a beautiful an outback farm owned by Joely’s warm and says Jacob Jones is the book about a warm, caring and loving welcoming aunt and uncle. Once in Joely’s one and asks her friends family living with a loved one who has territory their friendship is put to the test. to cover for her while she multiple sclerosis. Maggie is a hilarious Frankie is a mischief-maker, who hides her goes to meet him for the character whose voice resonates perfectly vulnerability like a pro, while Joely scowls first time, Taylor rolls her with the confusion and anxiety that an resentfully in her shadow. eyes. But Sierra doesn’t 11-year-old might feel living with a parent The author deftly hops between several come back when she said she would. One with an unexplained illness. Highly different teenage heads. Although slightly day. Two days. Three. When Taylor finally recommended for ages 11 and up. dizzying at first, this turns out to be a tells Sierra’s mum that her daughter is brilliant device. As much as we sympathise Katherine Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn missing, Taylor and her friends are thrown with one girl because the other is physical into a dark world they never knew existed. perfection and turns every boy’s head, in the THE IMPROBABLE THEORY next breath we see how worthless that is for OF ANA AND ZAK LOTTERY BOY Michael Byrne the beautiful girl who longs for family but Brian Katcher Walker Books. PB. $16.95 only knows how to be desired. Two brothers, HarperCollins. PB. $19.99 one tough and dominant, the other more Since his mother’s death, Bully has lost his Straight-A student Ana is always busy sensitive, also get a useful point-of-view. old life. Living rough with his dog, Jack, with extracurricular activities that I found my teenage self in these pages, he can’t imagine his future. But one day, in she hopes will help her get a scholarship to and wish that I had actually read a book like the last birthday card she ever gave him, a college of her choice, although, that’s if this at the time. Subtle and perceptive, for he finds a winning lottery ticket, a last her overprotective parents even let her ages 13 and up. gift from his mum that choose her own college. suddenly offers hope. If Emily Gale is Readings’ online children’s specialist On the other hand, Zak only he can get to his prize doesn’t think much about on time. Life is not that THE MEANING OF MAGGIE his future since his dad simple. Bully’s struggle Megan J Sovern died and mum remarried, to survive has just got a Hardie Grant. PB. $11.95 preferring to slack off. whole lot harder. They’re Maggie is overachieving, precocious That is, until he is forced after him on the streets, and very funny. She has been given a to join the quiz-bowl team and, even if he does claim beautiful leather-bound to make up for a failed all that money, will he really be winning Join the fun for your journal for her 12th Health assignment that could otherwise see what he needs the most? birthday. Naturally, she him flunk his final year. chance to win a voucher! decides to start While Ana can’t stand Zak’s laid-back Colour in the picture of Rivertime on documenting her life for approach to life, she finds herself in need the cover of this Readings Monthly and when she becomes of his help when her brother sneaks out of follow the instructions on the entry form President of the United the hotel the quiz-bowl team is staying in on page 3 to enter the competition to win States of America. and heads to Washingcon, an annual comic a $50 Readings voucher! READINGS MONTHLY JULY 2015 17 2015

Readings ‘Rivertime reminds us to slow down and open our eyes to all the beauty around us. We may not be lucky enough to travel up a river for days on end, but most of us can still take our children for a stroll through a park, meander along a Children’s creek or even just peer underneath a leaf to uncover the world hidden there. In a time where we are bombarded by so much choice in how to fill our child’s day, Rivertime reminds us that Book Prize it’s often the quietest moments that will be the most dearly remembered.’ – Sally Rippin, winner! Readings Children’s Book Prize special guest judge

‘I have so much respect for Readings bookshops that I am really honoured to win this prize – thank you.’ – Trace Balla, author of Rivertime

Rivertime by Trace Balla (A&U. HB. $24.99) The inside story on the winning story t’s always so hard to choose a Prize for 2015, which pretty much rules our encourage reluctant readers as well as invite for families to share. Families can peruse favourite from among books you universe. eager readers to slow down and take in what its pages together, perhaps outdoors while love. It’s even harder for five We chose Rivertime as the 2015 winner the images, as well as the words, are saying. engaging in some bird-watching and animal booksellers and a famous author for many reasons: it is unique, we love It is also a thrill to choose a book spotting. This is a book to be cherished Ito choose one book from a shortlist of six its artistry and it is a stunning debut that that is so clearly about engaging with and enjoyed over many years and we look to be the winner of this year’s Readings heralds the arrival of an exciting new our natural world and taking an active forward to sharing our love of Rivertime Children’s Book Prize. It’s like choosing a Australian author–illustrator. The attention role in its conservation. In an age when with the wider world. We thank the author, favourite child! to detail in Rivertime is extraordinary, environmental concerns have never been Trace Balla, for creating it and we are The judges engaged in a heated and engrossing you in the exquisite flora and so worrying, children are spending less and delighted that there is a sequel coming in passionate discussion, but finally after fauna on each page as you follow the action. less time outside interacting with nature. 2016. many tears and sighs we plucked that And then there are the stunning double- Rivertime encourages us to remedy that – Angela Crocombe favourite child from the line-up and said, page spreads that allow the eye to relax and with its wonderful evocation of the simple Readings Children’s Book Prize manager we adore you so much we want to make the brain to go ‘aaahh’. joys of paddling up a river. you Ruler of the Universe – well, actually, It is exciting that this year’s winner is Rivertime is suitable for readers aged winner of the Readings Children’s Book a graphic novel, a form of writing that can 6–10, but we also know it is a fabulous book 18 READINGS MONTHLY JULY 2015

they will take in this choose-your-own-adventure-style PIP BARTLETT’S GUIDE TO Baby Board Books picture book illustrated by the wonderful, irrepressible MAGICAL CREATURES Neal Layton. Readers will find themselves in all kinds of Jackson Pearce & Maggie Stiefvater A LINE CAN BE … crazy places with all kinds of dangerous critters. Maybe Scholastic. PB. $14.99 Laura Ljungkvist they will even encounter the dreaded bugaboo! There’s a Powerhouse. BB. $14.99 ghost disco, a sour-faced troll, a flailing witch and countless Pip lives in a world filled with magical creatures and she has a From much-lauded artist Laura other hilarious scares within the pages of this absolutely special skill that no-one else has – she Ljungkvist comes a playful board book thrilling picture book. It’s interactive and will lend itself to can speak to them. Her talent can also perfect for toddlers and sure to please countless reads and provoke tons of laughter. get her into big trouble, such as the parents who are fans of modern design. Kim Gruschow is from Readings Hawthorn unfortunate (but hilarious) incident of Starting on the front cover, and winding the unicorn stampede. its way across each page to the end, a MR HUFF single line forms different shapes that Pip’s aunt is a vet for magical creatures Anna Walker and when Pip gets to help her for the demonstrate opposites (‘clean’ or ‘messy’) in Ljungkvist’s Viking. HB. $24.99 signature modern style. summer it’s a dream come true. But then the Fuzzles Award-winning and much-loved author take over the town, bursting into flames at the worst PEEK-A-BOO ZOO and illustrator Anna Walker gives us a possible moments. Pip and her new friend, Tomas, who poignant and wise picture book sure to is allergic to practically everything, must figure out how Joyce Wan delight all ages. Mr. Huff is a story about to control them before the town burns to the ground. Scholastic. BB. $9.99 the clouds and the sunshine in each of This is a fun magical adventure for animal lovers, Lift the flaps and play peek-a-boo with our lives. Bill is having a bad day. Mr Huff brought to life by Jackson Pearce’s talent with words and the animals at the zoo! From the is following him around and making Maggie Stiefvater’s trademark witty and fun illustrations. adorable world of Joyce Wan comes a everything seem difficult. Bill tries to get rid of him, but Mr An enjoyable read for ages 8 and up. sweet animal board book filled with Huff just gets bigger and bigger! Then they both stop, and a Angela Crocombe is from Readings Carlton large lift-the-flaps illustrations. Join in surprising thing happens. on the classic game of peek-a-boo with TRIPLE MAGIC: TRICKSTARS 1 a lion, a bear, and more zoo animals by SIXTEEN STRING JACK AND THE lifting the flaps to reveal each cute creature’s joyful face. A GARDEN OF ADVENTURE Karen Wood perfect board book to read aloud, with a simple interactive A&U. PB. $9.99 Tom Pow & Ian Andrew (illus.) component babies and toddlers will love. A Trickstars Adventure with Ruby, Birlinn. HB. $22.99 Lexie and Kit, the fantastic trick- Daisy’s grandmother takes her to an riding triplets. Ruby and her sisters Picture Books overgrown garden where, many years dream of a life far from Windara Farm, before, Sixteen String Jack and Dare performing spectacular tricks on their GRANDAD’S ISLAND Devil Dick had played, fighting pirates beautiful gypsy cob horses. Then Ruby Benji Davies till the sun went down. But it was only discovers an old trunk in the stable Sixteen String Jack whose fame would S&S. PB. $14.99 loft, full of family secrets and a touch never die – he grew up to become J.M. Barrie, creator of There is a mystery within of magic. Why has Grampy kept the Peter Pan. In this poignant and beautifully illustrated story, Grandad’s Island and it is up to past hidden for so long? Will he allow Tom Pow and Ian Andrew seek the magic that would each reader to decide for themselves the triplets to follow in the stirrups of their ancestors? produce the most famous character in children’s literature. what lies at the heart of this lovely, gentle book by Benji Davies, who gave Middle Fiction us the wonderful Storm Whale. Activity Books One day, Syd visits his grandad in his neighbouring house, CIRCUS MIRANDUS but things are different. He has to climb up to the attic WHERE IN THE WORLD IS Cassie Beasley where he hasn’t been before. He finds grandad up there, KONEKO CAT? revealing a door through to a boat! Chicken House. PB. $17.99 Asuka Satow The next thing Syd knows, they are sailing to their There’s so much to love about the Andrews McMeel. PB. $18.99 destination of a stunning tropical island. Here they find mystery of Circus Mirandus, a a perfect place where grandad reveals he’d like to stay. Join Koneko Cat on a fantastic wonderfully imagined adventure with Syd returns home alone knowing he will miss his grandad journey around the world to the a fresh magical spin. This book has it very much. The question is, has grandad died, or has Pyramids, Taj Mahal, Easter Island, all: the importance of love and he gone into care? Either way, Syd prefers to fantasise the Coliseum, and beyond! Color the friendship; the wonders of the world about him in his new and better place. Whatever you whimsically detailed fine-point pen – both real and imagined – and the decide, this colourful and touching story is a salute to the pictures of scenes from every power of illusion under the big top of tender relationship that a grandchild shares with their inhabited continent on earth, and the Circus Mirandus. But most grandparent. Highly recommended for readers 3 and up. seek and find Koneko and her friends. Bon Voyage! importantly, it’s a heart-warming celebration of the magic of childhood. Alexa Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn Micah and his friend Jenny are the most endearing LITTLE HOUSES Junior Fiction characters – a wonderful confluence of magic and science. Micah is imaginative and sensitive with a strong belief in Helen Musselwhite THE BAD GUYS: EPISODE 1 the reality of magic, but tenacious in his quest to save his Laurence King. HB. $21.99 Aaron Blabey most beloved grandfather. Jenny is clever and questioning Little Houses is a counting book that Scholastic. PB. $9.99 with a strong belief in scientific reasoning, but prepared to is a delicious smorgasbord of Aaron Blabey has made a name suspend disbelief in order to help her friend. Together this different houses from around the world all for himself with his highly duo is unstoppable, anything is possible. created by gifted paper artist, Helen original picture books. His bold This is a wonderful adventure with a satisfyingly Musselwhite. From a simple crofter’s humour and eye-popping, mischievous surprising ending, perfect for independent readers 8 years cottage in Scotland to intricately crafted artwork are a perfect foil for and up. A tale to share with the whole family – highly Swiss chalets, this is a stunning portrayal unexpectedly tender moments and recommended. of architecture, nature and numbers. You may be thinking off-the-wall characters. This translates Athina Clarke is from Readings Malvern that this sounds way too sophisticated for small children, but perfectly into a new series for young they will be busy finding, counting and looking amongst the readers, which presents traditionally ‘bad guys’ (a NOOKS AND CRANNIES houses for cute creatures and colourful objects and the fairy-tale wolf, a thuggish shark, a droll snake and a adults will be admiring the genius of the artist. Bold and Jessica Lawson wise-cracking, gassy piranha) in a quest to turn their lives delicate at the same time, this is art at its playful best. For S&S. HB. $22.99 around. Their first mission is to rescue puppies from the kids 2 and up. AD Charlie and the Chocolate Factory meets city pound. Poor wolf, the mastermind of this scheme, has Clue when six children navigate a a huge challenge ahead of him because the other three mansion full of secrets in this humorous WHERE THE BUGABOO LIVES just want to eat everything. But he is determined to twist mystery with heart. Sweet, shy Tabitha Sean Taylor & Neil Layton (illus.) his own fairytale and change his reputation. The story Crum, the neglected only child of two Walker. HB. $27.95 works like a very long picture book or a very short graphic parents straight out of a Roald Dahl Ruby has warned Floyd about the novel in the sense that the illustrations are of equal book, doesn’t have a friend in the world Bugaboo that lurks in the shadowy importance, and the text is very spare. This new series – except for her dear pet mouse, valley behind the houses. But when will be devoured, whole, by 6-9 year olds with a cheeky Pemberley. But on the day she receives Floyd’s best ball rolls away into the sense of humour. one of six invitations to the country estate of wealthy darkness they must go down there to try Emily Gale is the online children’s specialist for Readings Countess Camilla DeMoss, her life changes forever. Upon and retrieve it. You decide which paths the children’s arrival at the sprawling, possibly haunted READINGS MONTHLY JULY 2015 19

Book of the Month

GRANDMA’S HOUSE Alice Melvin Tate Gallery. HB. $29.99

Alice Melvin’s previous book, the highly acclaimed and bestselling The High Street, was a charming evocation of a more genteel, less hurried time when shopkeepers displayed their wares with pride and careful presentation. With her new book, Melvin revisits her own grandmother’s house with some creative licence and obviously great affection. We follow a young girl as she pops into her grandmother’s home for a visit and, as she comfortably follows her routine, also keeps an eye out for grandma: where is she? Flaps and windows reveal snippets of other rooms and the possibility of grandma’s presence.

Every room is a pleasurable and welcoming depiction of a much loved home. As the young visitor goes in search of her grandparent you feel this is a sanctuary that has nurtured a family over many years. Melvin’s style is precise and measured; the colours are rich and tasteful. Here is a world that cocoons the reader in the sure knowledge that Non-Fiction everything is as it should be, even if grandma is proving a little elusive. Grandma’s House pays homage to the precious bond that families share. Go ahead and ANIMAL ARCHITECTS: AMAZING share it with your family, you won’t be disappointed. For ages 3 and up. ANIMALS WHO BUILD THEIR HOMES Alexa Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn Julio Antonio Blasco & Daniel Nassar Laurence King. HB $22.99 This is a fantastic, original exploration of how animals build their homes and the fascinating structures they create. Each spread contains a beautiful, colourful illustration of each animal and its home, plus a unique fold-out information panel, with statistics and a simple architectural diagram showcasing the creation of the ‘architect’. Look inside chimpanzee nests, beaver dams, New termite mounds, stork nests and many more – and get to Kids’ know the clever animals who build them! Classics of the Month SEACROW ISLAND & mansion, it turns out the countess has a big secret that will MIO, MY SON change their lives forever. Then the children beginning Books Astrid Lindgren disappearing, one by one. So, Tabitha takes a cue from her New York Review of Books. HB. $33.95 & $35.95 favourite detective novels and, with Pemberley by her side, This year will see the 70th attempts to solve the case and rescue the other children, anniversary of the first publication who just might be her first real friends. MOLLY AND PIM AND THE of Astrid Lindgren’s beloved story, Pippi MILLIONS OF STARS Longstocking. After the success of Pippi, WESLEY BOOTH, SUPER SLEUTH Martine Murray Lindgren went on to head a Swedish Adam Cece Text. PB. $14.99 children’s publisher for many years and Omnibus Books. PB. $15.99 Molly’s mother is not like other write over 40 books, plays and Hub Hill Primary School is in the grip mothers: she rides a yellow bike and screenplays. The richest children’s book of a crime wave. Wesley Booth is a collects herbs and makes potions. prize in the world is named in her honour. To celebrate Super Sleuth, which is like a detective, Molly wants to be normal, and watch Lindgren’s achievements, two titles long out of print have only ‘awesomer’, and this is his biggest television and eat food that comes in just been republished in stunning bound editions by the (and first) real case. It’s not easy when packets. But when Molly’s mother New York Review of Books. he has to deal with an archenemy, accidentally turns herself into a tree, Seacrow Island is a realistic story of a father and his traitorous friends, incompetent Molly turns to the strange and three children who rent a cottage on an isolated island for assistants and over 81 million suspects. wonderful Pim for help. Martine the summer, meet the locals and have many adventures. But he has to work out who the Heister Murray’s novel is a whimsical story It is suitable for readers aged 10 and up, and is a beautiful is before his detective equipment gets about friendship and individuality and learning to see the evocation of the carefree joy of summer holidays. confiscated and he is grounded forever. freshness and wonder in the world. Mio, My Son is a gorgeous fairytale with similarities to Lindgren’s Brothers Lionheart. Mio is an orphan THE GRIMSTONES COLLECTION SOON who feels unloved, but one day he disappears and finds himself in Farawayland, where he is the son of the king, Asphyxia Morris Gleitzman long prophesised to save the land from the evil Sir Kato. A&U. PB. $24.99 Penguin. PB. Was $19.99 With his new best friend Pompoo and flying horse, Meet Martha Grimstone. Martha has a $15.99 Miramis, he must travel to Outer Land to defeat evil. This great secret – one day she’s going to be Felix hoped the Nazis would be is a wonderful fantasy that many children will become Lady Martha the Magnificent. She defeated – and they were. He hoped engrossed in and is suitable for readers 7 doesn’t know what her special talent the war would be over – and it was. and up. is yet, but she hopes to find it any day He hoped they would be safe – but Both stories are fantastic classics now. The Grimstones Collection they aren’t. Soon continues the and these new editions are wonderful contains four gothic fairytales told in a incredibly moving story of Felix, a additions to the Astrid Lindgren canon collage of words, photos and drawings, Jewish boy still struggling to survive currently available in English. about a giant egg, a magical doll's in the wake of the liberation of Angela Crocombe house, a stubborn whirlwind, and a Poland after the end of World War II. school of very great tradition. 20 READINGS MONTHLY JULY 2015

THE GRAND LAKE EYRE BETJEMAN biography follows Preminger throughout LITERARY Paul Lockyer A.N. Wilson his varied career, penetrating his carefully constructed public persona and revealing CAFES OF PB. Was $35 HB. Was $54 the many layers of his work. EUROPE Now $14.95 Now $14.95 Noel Riley At the heart of John Betjeman was by THE BIG Australia, Lake Eyre is most of the time a far the most popular poet Fitch & Andrew SCREEN Midgley vast salt pan, eerily empty, devoid of all life. of the twentieth century; But when the rains come, an astonishing his collected poems David Thomson HB. Was $59.95 transformation takes place: the landscape sold more than two million copies. As poet HB. Was $59.95 Now $19.95 fills with colour and life. Accompanied by laureate of England, he became a national Now $16.95 This beautifully illustrated book takes stunning photographs, Paul Lockyer tells the icon, but behind the public man were The Big Screen tells the the reader on a tour of the grand literary remarkable story of the lake, its landscape, doubts and demons. Drawing on hundreds enthralling story of the cafes of Britain and Europe, looking characters and amazing history. of letters, this is a celebration of a much- movies: their rise and at the famous writers and artists who loved poet and public performer. spread, their remarkable influence over us, frequented these historic places, the THE KITE and the technology that made the screen book celebrates their architecture, RUNNER BRING UP THE as important as the images it carries. David history, tradition, and food and drink, Khaled Hosseini BODIES Thomson takes us around the globe and and provides an insight to their enduring through time to tell the complex, gripping, HB. Was $29.95 Hilary Mantel charm and popularity. paradoxical story of the movies and their Now $14.95 HB. Was $39.95 signal role in modern life. VOSS The unforgettable, Now $14.95 Patrick White heartbreaking story The sequel to Hilary MADDADDAM of the unlikely friendship between a Mantel’s best-selling HB. Was $45 Margaret Atwood Now $13.95 wealthy boy and the son of his father’s Wolf Hall delves into the heart of Tudor servant, set in a country that is in the history. Henry is disenchanted with Anne HB. Was $35 Set in nineteenth- process of being destroyed. The Kite Boleyn – she has failed to give him a son, Now $16.95 century Australia, Runner explores betrayal, redemption and Thomas Cromwell stands ready to A man-made plague has Voss is the story of and the power of reading; and the power bring her down. Over three terrifying swept the earth, but a the overwhelming, of fathers over sons – their love, their weeks, Anne is ensnared in a web of small group survives, obsessive passion sacrifices, their lies. conspiracy, but she and her family will along with the green-eyed between an explorer and a naïve young not yield without a fight. Crakers, a gentle species bio-engineered woman. From the careful delineation OBJECTS OF to replace humans – but the Crakers’ of Victorian society to the sensitive VIRTUE JOURNALISM reluctant prophet, Snowman-the-Jimmy, is rendering of hidden love to the stark hallucinating. Meanwhile, giant Pigoons and Luke Syson & Dora Joe Sacco narrative of adventure in the Australian malevolent Painballers threaten to attack. Thornton HB. Was $39.95 desert, Patrick White’s novel is a work of Told with wit, dizzying imagination, and PB. Was $59.95 Now $13.95 extraordinary power and virtuosity. dark humour, MaddAddam takes us further Over the past decade, Now $16.95 into a challenging dystopian world. THE You are what you own – Joe Sacco has so believed many of the elite men and increasingly turned VIVISECTOR THE SIMPSONS to short-form comics Patrick White women of Renaissance Italy. journalism to report from AND THEIR HB. Was $45 Objects of Virtue explores the sidelines of wars MATHEMATICAL Now $13.95 the multiple meanings and values of the objects around the world. SECRETS Hurtle Duffield, a with which influential From Saharan Simon Singh painter, is incapable of families surrounded refugees, Chechen PB. Was $19.99 loving anything except themselves. This war widows, and Now $10 what he paints. The men and women lavishly illustrated Egyptian smugglers You may have who court him during his long life are, volume examines to Abu Ghraib watched hundreds of episodes of The above all, the victims of his art. It is Bargain the complicated and the Iraq War, Simpsons without ever realising that only when Hurtle meets an egocentric relationships between Sacco’s darkly funny, they contain enough maths to form adolescent that he experiences a deeper, the so-called ‘fine arts’ revealing reportage an entire university course. With wit, more treacherous emotion, in this tour Table clarity and a true fan’s zeal, Simon Singh – painting and sculpture – confirms his standing de force of sexual and psychological and furniture, jewellery, and as one of the foremost war explains how the brilliant writers, some menace. of them mathematicians, have smuggled storage vessels. correspondents working today. in mathematical jokes throughout the GURRUMUL: THE FSG cartoon’s twenty-five year history. HIS LIFE AND THE WORLD BOOK OF MUSIC UNTIL WHITE BEECH TWENTIETH- Germaine Greer Robert Hillman YESTERDAY CENTURY HB. Was $65 Jared Diamond HB. Was $39.99 ITALIAN Now $15.95 Now $19.95 HB. Was $59.95 Part road trip, part biography, Robert Now $19.95 POETRY One bright day in 2001, Germaine Greer found Hillman’s account of Geoffrey Gurrumul Drawing extensively from Geoffrey Brock herself confronted by an Yunupingu’s life and music offers rare decades of field work in HB. Was $70 irresistible challenge in 60 hectares of insights into the sources of his inspiration. the Pacific islands, as well as evidence Now $19.95 dairy farm, abandoned after a century Featuring interviews with family and from Inuit, Amazonian Indians, Kalahari A surprising and illuminating collection, of logging and devastation. By restoring friends, song lyrics and exclusive San people, and others, The World The FSG Book of Twentieth-Century Italian the land, she was in search of heart’s photographs, Gurrumul’s story is one of a Until Yesterday provides a mesmerising Poetry invites the reader to examine ease. White Beech is a memoir, a slice great talent revealed and of an astonishing firsthand picture of traditional societies, the works of 75 poets in context and of Australian history and an exuberant musical gift that has left audiences all over and considers what the differences conversation with one another. Edited exploration of our botanical heritage. the world spellbound. between that past and our present mean by the poet and translator Geoffrey for our lives today. Brock, these poems have been beautifully GARDEN rendered into English by some of our finest DRUNK TANK Jennifer Stackhouse ANDREW’S English-language poets. PINK Adam Alter HB. Was $35 BRAIN Now $14.95 E. L. Doctorow THE WORLD PB. Was $29.95 Now $13.95 Australian gardening PB. Was $29.99 AND ITS Most of us go through life expert Jennifer Now $13.95 DOUBLE believing that we are in Stackhouse provides In this suspenseful and Chris Fujiwara control of the choices we make. But in detailed advice on and insights into groundbreaking novel, PB. Was $35 fact our environment shapes our thoughts maintaining a garden – from the plants Andrew is thinking, Now $10 and actions without our permission or to the paving – all year round. Featuring Andrew is talking, Andrew is telling the Otto Preminger was one knowledge. Armed with surprising data plenty of photographs, helpful tables and story of his life, loves, and tragedies. And of Hollywood’s first truly independent and endlessly fascinating examples, Adam tips, as well as a seasonal maintenance as he peels back the layers of his strange producer-directors, who sought to address Alter illustrates that the truth behind our calendar, this is the ideal book for anyone story, we are led to question what we know the major social, political, and historical feelings and actions goes much deeper than who wants a healthy, flourishing garden to about truth and memory, brain and mind, questions of his time in films designed to the choices we take for granted every day. enjoy throughout the year. personality and fate. appeal to a wide public. Chris Fujiwara’s READINGS MONTHLY JULY 2015 21

New Film & TV SELMA WOLF HALL $39.95 $29.95 with Lou Fulco ‘Ava DuVernay’s look at Martin ‘Anchored by Mark Rylance’s DVD of the Month Luther King’s 1965 voting- towering central performance, rights march against racial Wolf Hall is a very quiet THAT SUGAR FILM injustice stings with relevance masterpiece, visiting the court to the here and now. David of King Henry VIII minus the Available 1 July. $29.95 Oyelowo’s stirring, soulful performance perfume and airbrushing.’ – Variety Australian actor Damon Gameau’s documentary opens with the deserves superlatives.’ – Rolling Stone sweetest montage I’ve ever seen. Colourful lollies, bright bottles of soft-drink, the rainbow displays that line our supermarket shelves. This PAPER PLANES Documentary movie is all about sugar, and with Depeche Mode’s ‘Just Can’t Get $39.95 Enough’ blaring through the speakers the message is clear from the ‘A flight of creative imagination start. We’re addicted. THE SALT OF THE EARTH … with plenty of humour, rapid Available 8 July. $29.95 This opening sequence sets the tone for Gameau’s accessible approach editing, colours and unabashed ‘Serving as a retrospective of to the science behind what sugar is doing to our health. In the vein of Morgan Spurlock’s use of computer animation to photographer Sebastiao Salgado habit-changing stunt-turned-doco Supersize Me, Gameau’s tactic is a personal one. He follow the paper planes as they … it’s nothing short of puts himself through a targeted experiment in order to observe the effects of a high sugar zoom through the air.’ – Sydney fascinating, intimate and moving; diet on his own body. After three years sugar-free, Gameau documents two months eating Morning Herald 40 teaspoons of sugar a day (the Australian average for 19-30 year olds, according to the [exposing] both the strength and ABS), with his pregnant partner behind the camera and a team of medical experts closely weakness of mankind.’ – Filmink monitoring the impact on his health and state of mind. What makes this experiment TV revelatory is that Gameau only looks at sugars in foods commonly perceived as ‘healthy’. CITIZENFOUR That Sugar Film shines a light on the vast quantities of sugar that have infiltrated our food $29.95 supply, demonstrating how much of a marketing construct the concept of ‘wholesome’, low-fat THE SECRET RIVER ‘Laura Poitras’s Oscar- processed food is. As soon as Gameau’s first breakfast of muesli with yoghurt and a glass of $29.95 nominated documentary is apple juice blows half of his day’s sugar allowance, it’s clear that the challenge might expose ‘Things start out ugly – as they proof that you can make an just how badly ‘healthy’ packaging is deceiving consumers. The effect of the experiment on do in Kate Grenville’s novel – espionage thriller without car Gameau’s mood, as well as his weight and liver condition is striking, suggesting that sugar, [but] the television adaptation chases, bikini babes or martinis. rather than fat, may be the main culprit behind rising levels of obesity and related ills. manages to transcend what was Not only is Citizenfour thrilling, it is Gameau and his team present their scientific findings in a humourous, easily digestible way, already fabulous source chilling because it is real.’ – The Australian with guest appearances from Stephen Fry and Hugh Jackman, among others. Special effects work material.’ – Sydney Morning Herald brilliantly to soften the talking heads interview footage with industry professionals, ensuring the GEORGE MEGALOGENIS’ documentary will entertain high school audiences, as well as inform. Yet there’s a serious message THE NEWSROOM: MAKING AUSTRALIA GREAT beneath That Sugar Film’s bright packaging – definitely one worthy of our attention. SEASON 3 $29.95 Stella Charls is the marketing and events coordinator for Readings $39.95 ‘Megalogenis is a natural TV ‘Set in the days during and storyteller, fluent and articulate. following the 2013 Boston He teases out some fascinating WILD Film Marathon bombings, ACN is patterns … to demonstrate how $39.95 scrambling to just get by, the we made economic history as ‘Reese Witherspoon was characters simultaneously the last rich nation standing in the global ROALD DAHL’S ESIO excellent and quite deserving of bursting with potential and destined to financial crisis.’ – The Australian TROT her Oscar nomination … The waste it.’ – The AV Club $24.95 film captured the loneliness of ‘Starring Dustin Hoffman and the trail really well, and also the THE HEAVY WATER WAR Also coming soon Judi Dench, this is a warm, fear Strayed felt at times.’ – Nina Kenwood Available 8 July. $34.95 witty and whimsical A six part Norwegian series THE SECOND BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD adaptation of Roald Dahl’s STRANGERLAND dramatising one of the most HOTEL (22 July) 1990 novel … with its Available 8 July. $36.95 exciting stories from World BIG EYES (22 July) idealised London setting, cutesy comedy ‘Strangerland flirts with the War II – the Nazis’ efforts to INHERENT VICE (22 July) and irresistible romance.’ mystic and the primal ... develop an atom bomb and the A LITTLE CHAOS (27 July) – The Telegraph (UK) subverting the usual missing Allies’ desperate struggle to stop them. HOUSE OF CARDS: SEASON 3 (9 August) child-genre trappings where it finds them.’ – SBS Movies

AMY: The Girl Behind the Name I AM BIG BIRD: The Caroll Spinney Story MADAME BOVARY From the award winning team behind Senna, AMY tells the The heart-warming story of Caroll Spinney, Sesame Street's Big Mia Wasikowska (Tracks) stars in this adaptation of incredible story of six-time Grammy-winner Amy Winehouse - Bird and Oscar the Grouch, traces Caroll's journey from bullied child Gustave Flaubert’s classic novel. Bringing to life one of in her own words. Featuring extensive unseen archival footage to celebrated icon. At 81 years old, the tenacious performer has literature’s greatest anti-heroines, MADAME BOVARY chronicles and previously unheard tracks, AMY is a moving and vital film. been named a living legend and does not intend on slowing down. a woman trapped by convention and tempted by passion. “Sensitive and extraordinary. A surprisingly seamless biographical “A joy to watch" The Globe and Mail “Stunningly moving and powerful: intimate, passionate, documentary. Gracefully whole.” The Village Voice “Your heart will melt." Twitch Film often shocking, and almost mesmerically absorbing” The Guardian Opens July 2 (CTC) Opens July 9, exclusive (CTC) Opens July 9 (M)

380 Lygon Street Carlton Melbourne’s home of quality arthouse and contemporary cinema cinemanova.com.au 22 READINGS MONTHLY JULY 2015

New Music DRONES Folk & World Muse Album of the Month CD $19.95 CD & DVD $21.95 AKÖ Stadium rockers Muse Blick Bassy UNIVERSAL THEMES release their seventh album $32.95 Sun Kil Moon Drones, undoubtedly one of Cameroonian artist Blick $21.95 the most anticipated albums of the year. The Bassy’s third album, sung in 2014 was quite the year for former Red House Painter Mark album explores the journey of a human, from his native Basaa language, Kozelek. After quietly releasing the subdued masterpiece their abandonment and loss of hope, to their diverges from the ornamentation of his Benji in March, he later became involved in a very public spat and indoctrination by the system to be a human earlier work to deliver an elegant minimalism. somewhat spiteful war of words with The War on Drugs’ Adam Granduciel. Kozelek drone, to their eventual defection from their Accompanied by guitar, cello, trombone, went as far as to pen a song about the tiff, the title of which I shall refrain from oppressors. harmonica and samples, Akö signals a unique mentioning here in the interests of good taste. Incidentally, his apparent nemesis’s new direction in African world music. 2014 release, Lost in the Dream, was for many reviewers in a dead heat with the BEFORE THIS WORLD aforementioned Benji for record of the year. Funny that. James Taylor STILL Given the sluggish pace at which the majority of artists release records these days, it’s CD $21.95 Richard Thompson fair to say that the release of a new Sun Kil Moon record just over a year later will have CD & DVD $29.95 Available 3 July. CD $26.95 many a fan and critic beside themselves, giddy with anticipation. On Before This World, the 2CD Deluxe $29.95 Universal Themes is a slight change in direction for Kozelek (let’s face it, he is Sun Kil iconic singer–songwriter’s Richard Thompson’s Moon) in that there is more instrumentation here than the mostly solitary, finger-picked first album since 2002, Taylor continues dedication to the craft of guitar that made Benji so effective. This can perhaps be attributed to the influence of Sonic to explore many of the themes that have songwriting has resulted in an unparalleled Youth’s Steve Shelly, who provides percussion on the new record. What has remained on absorbed him throughout his recording career now spanning five decades, from his Universal Themes, however, are the obscure pop culture references and the deeply personal career. Produced by Taylor and Dave years with folk-rock alchemists Fairport nature of the observational, languid, stream-of-consciousness style of songwriting for O’Donnell, Before This World features ten Convention to his acclaimed solo work. On which he is acclaimed. songs, nine of which are brand new James Still, Thompson enlists Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy Such is the uniqueness of Kozelek’s approach to songwriting that it’s hard to say if Taylor compositions. as producer, introducing new energy. the themes on the record are indeed universal. What can be said, however, is that he is an unflinchingly brave and honest – at times to a fault – artist, whose droll ruminations on TEN SONGS FROM LIVE topics from a boxing match in New Orleans to a possum losing a fight to a cat will be music AT CARNEGIE HALL Coming Soon to many ears. Ryan Adams Declan Murphy is from Readings St Kilda $19.95 CURRENTS Ryan Adam’s Ten Songs Live From Carnegie Hall Tame Impala Pop & Rock and environmentally-focused. For this features 10 career- Available 17 July. $21.95 guitar-centric, full steam-ahead and spanning live tracks from On Tame Impala’s hotly highly-charged rock album, Young is two special performances at New York’s anticpated third album SORRY I LET IT COME joined by LA-based rock band Promise legendary Carnegie Hall in November 2014. Currents, frontman BETWEEN US of the Real, fronted by Lukas and Micah Including fan favourites as well as cuts from Kevin Parker addresses a Saskwatch Nelson, who have performed with their his most recent Grammy-nominated blindingly colourful panorama of transition $21.95 father, Willie Nelson, and Young on eponymous album and live performances of in the most audacious, adventurous fashion he’s yet captured on record. Musically Sorry I Let It Come previous occasions. two new previously unreleased songs. the most playful, bold and varied Tame Between Us is an Impala record to date, Currents sees Parker evolutionary album for the BLACK & WHITE LOW FIDELITY (SONGS embracing change as the only constant. Melbourne band. Shifting Colleen Hewett BY REQUEST VOLUME 1) $19.95 and sliding between guitar heavy pop, bluesy Rob Snarski SING INTO MY MOUTH melancholy and soulful ballads, the new 15 years after her last $19.95 Iron & Wine album offers an emotionally assertive voice album, Black & White These recordings were & Ben Bridwell matched equally in musical intricacies, a sees Colleen Hewett set made by Rob Snarski in raw, solemn and sparse collection of genre- her stirring vocal ability his home, singing songs Available 17 July. $29.95 jumping songs. free. Covering genres ranging from requested by fans. From Nina Simone Longtime friends Ben emotional ballads, to country and soulful to Lou Reed, Pulp, Willie Nelson and Bridwell (Band of Horses) THE OTHER SIDE OF blues tracks, she takes the listener on a Spiritualized, the 18 tracks are warm, rich, and Iron & Wine’s Sam Beam release their DESIRE journey that traces her family history, stripped-back and honest. first ever collaborative album, Sing Into My Rickie Lee Jones her ancestry and experience with Mouth. A loving homage to 12 songs that domestic violence. have had indelible influence on both of its $21.95 AGE AGAINST THE creators, the album includes interpretations Written and produced MACHINE FFS of familiar classics and deep cuts from in her home town of Jim Keays FFS Talking Heads, Sade and El Perro del Mar. New Orleans, Rickie $21.95 $21.95 Lee Jones’ first album of all new material The highly anticipated FFS – the unique THE GOSPEL ALBUM in almost a decade could not have been follow-up to 2012’s collaboration between Gurrumul written without the backdrop of The Big acclaimed Dirty, Dirty – Franz Ferdinand and Available 31 July. $21.95 Easy; its river, trains, barroom ghosts and and, sadly, Jim’s final album. But what a Sparks – release their sudden bands all playing the same song. way to go out! 10 more obscure garage-rock As a small boy Geoffrey self-titled album. Formed out of mutual classics from the unmistakable voice of The Gurrumul Yunupingu was appreciation and recorded during an STICKY FINGERS Master’s Apprentices. not only influenced by the intense 15-day period in late 2014, FFS Rolling Stones traditional music of his clan but by the gospel is very much a ‘new’ project – it doesn’t music he heard every Sunday. Gurrumul’s 2CD Reissue. $24.95 truly sound like either band, but a third studio album is a re-imagining of the One of the most revered Jazz & Blues striking and fascinating mutation. spiritual songs of north-east Arnhem Land, albums in the Rolling bringing an expanded sound and a uniquely Stones’ catalogue, the 1971 I DON’T WANT TO LET PASSION WORLD Indigenous approach to the hymns. classic Sticky Fingers showcased the ever YOU DOWN Kurt Elling more inventive songwriting of Mick Jagger $24.95 LOYALTY and Keith Richards, and formidable guitar Sharon Van Etten Kurt Elling’s eleventh licks from Mick Taylor. This reissue arrives EP. $14.95 The Weather Station album is his most as the Rolling Stones continue to captivate One of music’s most $21.95 worldly album to date; audiences around the world with their astute cartographers Loyalty is the third the renowned vocalist has cast his net far stunning live performances. of the heart, Sharon album from the Canadian Van Etten is able to and wide, from Brazil to Ireland, Germany folk band The Weather THE MONSANTO YEARS squeeze enormous sentiments into to France, Scotland to Cuba to Iceland. Station. The eleven emotionally-charged especially small spaces. Van Etten Passion World is also Elling’s most star- Neil Young & vignettes bring a self-examining gaze, offers up documents of surrender and studded album, featuring a small battalion Promise of the Real and emotional and musical control to disappointment, admission and longing of guest collaborators working with the CD & DVD. $24.95 The Weather Station’s songs, and show a with her new 5 song EP, I Don’t Want to singer’s much-travelled quintet. Neil Young’s 36th studio natural progression in frontwoman Tamara Let You Down. album is ecologically Lindeman’s songwriting practice. READINGS MONTHLY JULY 2015 23

New Classical Music BLISS its thrilling climaxes, that make the Brett Dean & Opera greatness of the music unmistakable.’ – The Guardian Classical Album of the Month Australia ABC Classics. 4811820. 3CDs. $34.95 BRAHMS, SCHUMANN TERRY RILEY: SUNRISE OF THE ‘Bliss can only add joy to & MAHLER: PIANO PLANETARY DREAM COLLECTOR the operatic firmament. Long may it live.’ QUARTETS Kronos Quartet – The Age Daniel Hope, Wu Han, Nonesuch. 7559795036. $24.95 David Finckel & Paul No matter what music the Kronos Quartet decide to record, they POULENC: COMPLETE Neubauer always take my breath away with the strength of their technical MUSIC FOR SOLO PIANO DG. 4794609. $26.95 prowess and their decisive musicality. When they choose to record the music of Antony Gray ‘The four participants American composer Terry Riley though, we are in for an even bigger treat. ABC Classics. 4811835. move instinctively with the music and The Kronos Quartet has been working with Riley for more than 35 years. That is a 5CDs. $39.95 with one another, the piano (Schumann’s staggering amount of time for a composer to dedicate so many works to one group and also Australian pianist Antony own instrument) blending in rather for a chamber music ensemble to last. What is immediately apparent from the very first Gray, internationally than dominating. The fugal flurries of sustained notes is that these musicians understand Riley’s music in a way no other person acclaimed for his unique blend of musical the finale are articulated with terrific could and that Riley understands the strengths of each musician in the ensemble. Unlike a insight and technical mastery, places panache and togetherness ... The affinity lot of string quartet music, with a single melodic line in the first violin and accompanying his remarkable talents at the service with style that shines through the in the other parts, Riley has created a many-headed beast with each part forming an of Poulenc’s genius in this landmark Schumann is equally evident in Brahms’ element of the foundation of work. It put me in mind of Baroque polyphony, where each collection. G minor Piano Quintet.’ part is completely independent but nonetheless will fail without the support of the other – Daily Telegraph three. When the tracks progress and more instrumentalists and vocalists join, the Kronos YSAYE: SIX SONATAS FOR Quartet sit solid in the centre of each work directing the performance effortlessly. SOLO VIOLIN OP. 27 CLASSICAL SPECIAL OF As the founder of the American Minimalist movement, Riley’s music is often Alina Ibragimova THE MONTH considered an acquired taste. However, I find when I listen to the Kronos Quartet that Hyperion. CDA 67993. $29.95 For the month of July Readings will they milk every emotion from every note and encourage you to dive deep into this world be offering 22 new and recent releases of repetition, mysticism and beauty. If you’ve always been curious about contemporary ‘Alina Ibragimova is a superb from the Warner Classics and Erato classical music but have been a little too shy to try, this recording is a perfect place to start. advocate; nothing here sounds like a mere showpiece, and her catalogue at special prices for a limited Kate Rockstrom is a friend of Readings performances brim with lyricism and wit.’ time. Featuring recordings from pianist Note: Also available is a 5CD collection – One Earth, One People, One Love: Kronos Quartet – The Guardian Martha Argerich, singers Natalie Dessay, Plays Terry Riley (7559795131. $79.95) which includes the recording reviewed above. Joyce Didonato, Diana Damrau, cellist REICH: MUSIC FOR 18 Nina Kotova and conductors Sir Simon MUSICIANS Rattle and Antonio Pappano. Available at Readings Carlton, Hawthorn, Malvern Ensemble Signal and online at readings.com.au. I WAS FLYING IF THE OWL CALLS Harmonia Mundi. Sally Whitwell AGAIN HMU907608. $29.95 ABC Classics. 4811704. $21.95 Christianne Stotijn ‘There’s tremendous, unstoppable energy in Sally Whitwell’s Warner Classics. 5419639375. $21.95 this performance, an urgent edge to debut recording Christianne Stotijn’s its textures and a surging power to Mad Rush, featuring solo voice is hauntingly piano music by Philip beautiful. Her intimate Glass, was a rare treat. In singing may not a market full of Romantic immediately capture your piano recital discs – invariably performed attention, but if you stop to 100 Ways to Relax toMusic by musicians of the European school – listen – really listen – you’ll surely be struck Whitwell’s all-Glass program was by her warm tone and nuanced delivery of 8 refreshing, and earned her the 2011 Aria poetry. The Dutch mezzo-soprano, whose –CD– THE CLASSIC 100 SWOON Award for Best Classical Album. A couple profile is relatively low in Australia, has We all like to slow down in the winter of albums and another Aria Award later, her released numerous recital, opera, and concert months. What’s better than a weekend latest offering, I Was Flying, is the first to recordings, and her most recent, If the Owl curled up on the couch being soothed by feature all original songs and instrumental Calls Again, is a meditation on the wisdom of the classics? Nothing to make you bump music. Now, Whitwell has proved herself to the owl. ‘The call of the owl is like a cry of your glass of wine or scare the cat. be as talented a composer as she is brilliant pain, of life and of death. It’s a call for The Classic 100 – Swoon: completely a recitalist. humanity to return to its mission, to the voted for by the Australian public. Anybody lucky enough to have seen reason we exist,’ Stotjin explains. Whitwell perform live will be familiar with Accordingly, the CD features interesting, her warmth and intelligence, her musicality, diverse, and often little-known art-song GIDON KREMER NEW SEASONS and a certain indefinable kookiness. I repertoire. A personal favourite is the Philip Glass’s Second Violin Concerto is a Was Flying is all that. From the charming ‘Kaddish’ from Ravel’s Deux Mélodies sensory, mesmerising experience and is now cutout birds on the cover, to the heartfelt Hébraïques. Here, Stotijn’s singing is recorded by Kremer (who also recorded the dedication to her partner Glennda on the truly magnificent and moving, and her First) for DG. Also included are works of sleeve notes within, and to such dream-like delivery of the Hebrew is both grief- Arvo Pärt and Giya Kancheli. compositions as ‘She Walks in Beauty’, the stricken and otherworldly. It’s a treat to album is consistently enchanting. Soprano hear Stotijn sing in her native Dutch in the Alexandra Oomens, featured throughout the 2 three Fant de Kanter songs, particularly –CD– CD, is a beautiful interpreter of Whitwell’s the unaccompanied ‘Abboen’. Various SIMON TEDESCHI music. While pure and agile, her voice has a instruments perform throughout, including THE GERSHWIN COLLECTION distinctive richness. Simply put, behind the flute, double bass, viola, and duduk, working Australian virtuoso pianist Simon Tedeschi breezy exterior of this album is music with to evoke the image of the splendid owl, as will make you swing, sway and romp to real heart. Stotijn set out to achieve. A superb album. the music of Gershwin. Features special Alexandra Mathew is from Readings Carlton AM guest James Morrison. And look out for a new album from Simon coming out in September. J.S. BACH: CELLO GILBERT & SULLIVAN: SUITES 1-6 OPERETTAS David Watkin Sir Malcolm Sargent & 4 Resonus. RES10147. $42.95 Glyndebourne Festival –CD– TRUE BLUE . ‘Watkin’s profound Chorus True Blue runs the whole compass of Blue Note musicianship is more than Warner Classics. 2564612877. artistry – from Thelonius Monk to Gregory Porter, enough to accelerate this 16CDs. $69.95 with Norah Jones, Herbie Hancock, John Coltrane recording of Bach’s Cello Suites to the From Trial by Jury to The Gondoliers, this set and Horace Silver putting in an appearance top of the tiny league of “definitive” featuring Sir Malcolm Sargent’s celebrated amongst the 44 tracks on this 4-CD set. recordings...’ – Gramophone recordings brings together the best of Gilbert & Sullivan’s comic operas.