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AUGUST 2018

Read an extract from Trace by Rachael Brown

page 6

Meet the winner of the 2018 Readings Young Adult Book Prize

page 16

BOOKS MUSIC FILM EVENTS

COWBOY JUNKIES page 22 MYSTERY MELISSA RACHAEL ZOYA PATEL SISONKE ROAD LUCASHENKO BROWN page 13 MSIMANG page 21 page 7 page 13 page 13

CARLTON 309 LYGON ST 9347 6633 KIDS 315 LYGON ST 9341 7730 DONCASTER WESTFIELD DONCASTER, 619 DONCASTER RD 9810 0891 HAWTHORN 701 GLENFERRIE RD 9819 1917 MALVERN 185 GLENFERRIE RD 9509 1952 ST KILDA 112 ACLAND ST 9525 3852 STATE LIBRARY VICTORIA 328 SWANSTON ST 8664 7540 | SEE SHOP OPENING HOURS, BROWSE AND BUY ONLINE AT WWW.READINGS.COM.AU From the bestselling author of Community and Neighbourhood

Family food isn’t fancy or complex. Its roots are humble, stemming from recipes passed on through generations, and food rituals born from daily cooking. Most importantly, great family recipes are ones that nurture our souls, our hearts and our tummies. Family food is comfort food. In Family, Hetty McKinnon shares her approach to modern, uncomplicated, hearty and healthy food that is powered by vegetables.

OUT NOW READINGS MONTHLY 3 August 2018

you could win free books for a year! After make bookings at mwf.com.au, or pick up a as Kedi and I Am Not Your Negro, a range of August purchasing your book, fill out our competition printed program from any Readings shop. Studio Ghibli titles, and classic movies like form at the counter and tell us in 25 words or Wake in Fright, Metropolis and Great Beauty. less why you love Readings. You’ll go in the With prices beginning at $9.95, this sale is News draw to win a Book of the Month subscription The Melbourne International Film Festival not to be missed. The sale is available in – a free copy of either our fiction, non-fiction 2018 all of our seven shops as well as a select or children’s Book of the Month, every month The Melbourne International Film Festival range online at readings.com.au. for 12 months, starting from September has launched their 2018 program. This year’s 2018. Terms and conditions apply. See the festival runs from 2–19 August, and festival Readings Carlton has reopened competition form for further details. features films of all genres from both local The Golden Man Booker Prize We are pleased to announce that our and international filmmakers. To find out more, Michael Ondaatje has been announced as Carlton shop is now officially open again, buy passes or become a MIFF member, the winner of the Golden Man Booker prize following its renovation. The beautiful new Leanne Hall awarded Children’s Literature please visit miff.com.au, or pick up a printed for his novel The English Patient, which won space was designed by Nest architects, Fellowship 2018 program from any Readings shop. the Man Booker prize in 1992. This special who also worked on our award-winning Readings staff member and award-winning one-off award was given to the best work Kids and Doncaster shops. We can’t wait author Leanne Hall has been awarded the of fiction from the last five decades of the for you to see our new look. State Library Victoria’s $15,000 Children’s Madman DVD sale prize, as chosen by five judges and then Literature Fellowship, for a research project As part of our celebration of this year’s voted for by the public. All 51 previous exploring aspects of children’s book Melbourne International Film Festival, we winners were considered by the judging The winner of the Readings Young Adult publishing, writing or illustrating. Hall will are holding our annual Madman DVD sale panel before the selected books from each Book Prize 2018 be working on her forthcoming YA novel throughout August, featuring a wide range decade faced a month-long public vote on After lively debate among the judging panel The celestial about celebrity, politics, race, of releases including documentaries such the Man Booker website. – consisting of Readings staff and author performance and identity in Melbourne on Melissa Keil – we’re proud to announce the eve of WWII. For more information, visit that Amelia Westlake by Erin Gough is the the fellowships page on the State Library winner of this year’s Readings Young Adult Victoria’s website at slv.vic.gov.au Book Prize. Chair of Judges Nina Kenwood describes this book as “Part queer rom- com, part feminist heist, [and] a joy to The Melbourne Writers Festival 2018 read”, and special guest judge Keil says The 2018 Melbourne Writers Festival “Gough’s writing is steeped in humour, wit runs from Friday 24 August to Sunday and warmth, and deftness of touch that 2 September. Some highlights of this allows her characters to navigate the ups year’s festival include international guests and downs of a romantic comedy narrative”. Ta-Nehisi Coates, Ronan Farrow, Mara Congratulations to Erin Gough, who receives Wilson, Juno Dawson and Irvine Welsh, as $3000 in prize money. We’d like to extend our well as local authors Tim Winton, Magda congratulations to the other five shortlisted Szubanski, Jimmy Barnes, Kitty Flanagan books for offering such strong competition. and Michael Robotham. Readings is the More information about the Prize and Amelia official bookseller of the Melbourne Writers Westlake can be found on page 16. Festival. The Readings Festival Bookshop is open daily in the Atrium at Federation Square – come and visit us, browse the Love Your Bookshop Day shelves, meet authors in-store after their Buy a book from any Readings shop on Love events, and get your books signed. You Your Bookshop Day (Saturday 11 August) and can browse the full festival program and

READINGS MONTHLY EDITOR ADVERTISING PRICES AND AVAILABILITY Free, independent monthly newspaper Elke Power Ellen Cregan Please note that all prices and release dates published by Readings Books, Music & Film [email protected] [email protected] in Readings Monthly are correct at time of publication, however prices and release SUBSCRIBE EDITORIAL ASSISTANT GRAPHIC DESIGN dates may change without notice. Special You can subscribe to Readings Monthly Judi Mitchell Cat Matteson price offers apply only for the month in and our e-news by visiting our website: [email protected] colourcode.com.au which they are featured in the Readings readings.com.au/sign-up Monthly. PROOFREADERS FRONT COVER DELIVERY CHARGES FOR Marie Matteson and Ellen Cregan The August Readings Monthly cover features Readings donates 10% of its profits each MAIL-ORDER PURCHASES the image cover of Sisonke Msimang’s new year to The Readings Foundation: $5 flat rate for anywhere in Australia KIDS/YA CURATOR memoir, Always Another Country. Book readings.com.au/the-readings-foundation Angela Crocombe and Dani Solomon cover design by Imogen Stubbs and photo by DELIVERY CHARGES FOR Nick White. Image courtesy of the publisher, ONLINE PURCHASES MUSIC CURATOR Text Publishing. Readings Monthly cover $5 flat rate for anywhere in Australia for Dave Clarke design by Cat Matteson. For more on this orders under $100. Free delivery on orders book, see page 13. $100 and over. CLASSICAL MUSIC CURATOR Phil Richards CARTOON Oslo Davis DVDS CURATOR oslodavis.com Lou Fulco

EVENTS CURATOR Chris Gordon

YOUR LOCAL, INDIE CINEMA IN THE HEART OF THORNBURY. Open Tuesday - Sunday, screening a mix of new releases, cult & classic films, kids’ movies, documentaries and festival favourites. 802 HIGH ST THORNBURY 3071 • THORNBURYPICTUREHOUSE.COM.AU 4 READINGS MONTHLY EVENTS August 2018

lost to popular memory. Cochrane will literary critic in the inter-war period. Edited discuss his illuminating new book with ABC and introduced by Deborah Jordan, Loving Thursday 23 August, 6.30pm August broadcaster Michael Cathcart. Words: Love Letters of Nettie and Vance Palmer, 1909–1914 is a snapshot of Australian MARGARET MORGAN IN Readings Hawthorn, history. Come along to hear Jordan discuss Events 701 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn CONVERSATION the book with Judith Brett. Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events In a fractured nation, two women are left Readings Hawthorn, with a choice – risk all to bring humanity 701 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn together or let it fall apart. Dark, thrilling, and Event times and locations are subject to change. Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events compulsively readable, The Second Cure Tuesday 7 August, 6.30pm For the most up-to-date information on by Margaret Morgan is a provocative debut events, please check readings.com.au/events novel about control, courage and belief. RACHAEL BROWN IN Come along to hear more about the book. CONVERSATION WITH Thursday 16 August, 6.30pm BARRIE CASSIDY Readings Carlton, Thursday 2 August, 6.30pm HANNAH RICHELL IN 309 Lygon Street, Carlton Rachael Brown’s Trace: Who Killed CONVERSATION WITH Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Maria James? goes behind the scenes of PHILLIPA MCGUINNESS Australia’s number one true-crime podcast, GABRIELLE WILLIAMS ON THE YEAR EVERYTHING Trace. This podcast earned Brown and Hannah Richell’s latest novel, The CHANGED her team a Walkley Award for innovation, Peacock Summer, is an utterly compelling Thursday 23 August, 6.30pm and led to the reopening of the cold case story of secrets and betrayals from the Join Phillipa McGuinness, acclaimed investigation into the murder of Maria internationally bestselling author of Secrets nonfiction publisher and author of The Year LUKE HOWARD ON James, who was killed in the back of her of the Tides. Join one of Australia’s most- Everything Changed: 2001, for a discussion CONTEMPORARY Thornbury bookshop in 1980. Brown will beloved authors as she discusses her new of the significant changes that Australia discuss the podcast and book with veteran book with Readings bookseller and award- CLASSICAL MUSIC and the world experienced at the turn of political journalist Barrie Cassidy. winning author Gabrielle Williams. Luke Howard is one of Australia’s foremost the new millennium. practitioners of contemporary classical Readings Carlton, Readings Hawthorn, Readings St Kilda, music. Come along to hear him speak 309 Lygon Street, Carlton 701 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn 112 Acland Street, St Kilda about his latest album, Open Heart Story, Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events and get your copy signed. Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Readings Hawthorn, 701 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn Saturday 11 August, 2.30pm Saturday 18 August, 10.30am Sunday 5 August, 2pm–3.30pm Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events KIDS A BOOK-MAKING JUDITH DURHAM WORKSHOP WITH SKYE Come along to hear Australian singer, musician STORY TIME: CAROLINE Thursday 30 August, 6.30pm ROGERS and lead singer of The Seekers Judith Durham MAGERL READING MAYA speak about her new solo album, So Much AND CAT Join Skye Rogers, artist and author of More, and get your copy signed. PAOLA BACCHIA ON Paper Bliss, for a workshop to create your We have a special treat for you all! Join us ADRIATICO: RECIPES AND own unique, mixed-media, handmade Readings Hawthorn, as renowned author and illustrator Caroline STORIES FROM ITALY’S 701 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn book on the theme of ‘home’. All materials Magerl reads from her new picture book, ADRIATIC COAST will be supplied, and poetry, music and Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Maya and Cat. It’s an inspiring picture book inspirational ephemera will help inspire about friendship and resilience. We are thrilled to be part of the you to make something beautiful and celebration of Adriatico: Recipes and Readings Kids, meaningful to take ‘home’. Stories from Italy’s Adriatic Coast by one Tuesday 14 August, 6.30pm 315 Lygon Street, Carlton of Australia’s most popular bloggers, Readings Hawthorn, Free, no booking required. Paola Bacchia. Join Bacchia as she 701 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn SALLY PIPER IN Suitable for ages 3–9 years. discusses her foodie journey along the Tickets are $60 per pair or $45 per individual. CONVERSATION length of the Adriatic coastline. Ticket price includes a signed, hardback copy of Paper Bliss and refreshments. Places are very Come along to hear Sally Piper discuss her Readings Carlton, Monday 20 August, 6.30pm limited. Please book at readings.com.au/events new novel, The Geography of Friendship, 309 Lygon Street, Carlton which examines the lives of three young Free, no booking required. women who set off on a hike through the RICK MORTON IN wilderness for the adventure of a lifetime, and CONVERSATION WITH Tuesday 7 August, 8pm–9.30pm retrace their steps in their forties, after years of estrangement, to salvage what they lost. MICHAEL ROWLAND GEORGE MEGALOGENIS, Award-winning journalist Rick Morton’s Coming Readings Hawthorn, One Hundred Years of Dirt is an unflinching CHRISTOS TSIOLKAS & 701 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn memoir and meditation on poverty, on WALEED ALY ON FOOTBALL Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events the anger and fear of others, and on an Up At a time when politics is increasingly obsession with real and imagined borders. full of one-eyed tribalism, captain’s calls Morton will discuss his book with ABC and policy dictated by the Newspoll News Breakfast’s Michael Rowland. Tuesday 14 August, 6.30pm scoreboard, football is more relevant than Readings Carlton, Monday 3 September, 6.30pm–7.30pm ever. Come along as Waleed Aly, Christos 309 Lygon Street, Carlton Tsiolkas and George Megalogenis launch BEN DOHERTY IN Megalogenis’s new book, The Football CONVERSATION WITH Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events TARYN BRUMFITT IN Solution: How Richmond’s Premiership Can ELIZABETH MCCARTHY CONVERSATION WITH Save Australia, with a panel discussion Ben Doherty’s novel Nagaland is a powerful JESSICA SMITH chaired by Sally Warhaft. Wednesday 22 August, 6.30pm and evocative literary work that traverses Taryn Brumfitt is the fiercely passionate The Melbourne Athenaeum, new ground in the hinterland between thought-leader behind The Body Image 188 Collins Street, Melbourne biography and mythology. Come along to HETTY MCKINNON ON Movement, the author and director of hear Doherty in conversation with 3RRR’s Tickets are $50 ($45 concession) and include FAMILY FOOD WITH the inspiring social-change book and a signed copy of The Football Solution. Please Elizabeth McCarthy. SHARLEE GIBB documentary Embrace: My Story from book at readings.com.au/events Body Loather to Body Lover, and an Readings Carlton, In Family, bestselling author Hetty international keynote speaker. Come along 309 Lygon Street, Carlton McKinnon shares her approach to modern, to an event supported by the Victorian Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events uncomplicated, hearty and healthy food Women’s Trust to hear her discuss her Tuesday 7 August, 6.30pm powered by vegetables. These classic new book, Embrace Yourself: Learn to Love recipes are the multicultural meals she serves the Skin You’re In, with former paralympian around her own family table. Come along to PETER COCHRANE IN Wednesday 15 August, 6.30pm Jessica Smith. CONVERSATION WITH hear McKinnon discuss her secrets to and passion for family food with Sharlee Gibb. Church of All Nations, MICHAEL CATHCART DEBORAH JORDAN IN 180 Palmerston Street, Carlton Readings Hawthorn, Peter Cochrane’s Best We Forget examines CONVERSATION WITH Tickets are $35 per person and include a 701 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn how the racial preoccupations that JUDITH BRETT signed copy of Embrace Yourself: Learn to shaped Australia’s preparation for and Tickets are $5 per person and bookings are Love the Skin You’re In. Nettie Palmer was Australia’s most important commitment to World War I have been essential. Please book at readings.com.au/events Please book at readings.com.au/events EVENTS + COLUMNS READINGS MONTHLY 5 August 2018

Monday 3 September, 6.30pm Monday 1 October, 6.30pm August Dear MATT AND LENTIL CLARE WRIGHT IN PURBRICK ON THE CONVERSATION WITH Launches Reader VILLAGE SALLY WARHAFT After the success of their debut cookbook We are completely thrilled to have Grown and Gathered, Matt and Lentil historian Clare Wright joining us to These Wonderful Spring Days by Jeremy Some time last year, it have followed up with The Village. In their talk about her excellent new book, You Stock seemed like everyone I second cookbook they share more about Daughters of Freedom: The Australians Join us as Justin Clemens launches Jeremy know was talking about a growing, cooking and eating together, and Who Won the Vote and Inspired the World. Stock’s original and innovative work, These true crime podcast called , which explores the making the most of every meal. We are Come along to hear Wright discuss Wonderful Spring Days ‘Trace’. The crime – a ideas of progress and transience. thrilled to have Matt and Lentil joining us women’s suffrage with Sally Warhaft. terrible unsolved murder with scandalous to share top tips with our friends from Veg Wednesday 1 August, 6.30pm connections to a major institution – Church of All Nations, Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. Out St Kilda Farmers’ Market! happened in 1980, not far from where I live. 180 Palmerston Street, Carlton. After the Lights Go Out by Lili Wilkinson The victim, Maria James, was killed in her Readings St Kilda, Tickets are $10 per person and funds will go to After the Lights Go Out is a gripping new home, a residence behind the bookshop she 112 Acland Street, St Kilda the Victorian Women’s Trust and the Readings YA novel from Lili Wilkinson about a family owned. While I wanted to know more, I find Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Foundation. Please book at readings.com.au/events of Doomsday preppers. Come along to the no space in my leisure time for podcasts. novel’s launch and to hear Wilkinson in Fortunately the story eventually found conversation with fellow author Amie Kaufman. me – in the form of a bound manuscript. Wednesday 12 September, 6.30pm Wednesday 3 October, 6.30pm Thursday 2 August, 6.30pm Trace is a fascinating account of Rachael Readings Kids | Free, but please RSVP to Brown’s research into the evidence, but in [email protected] FIONA PATTEN ON LEIGH SALES IN book form is also about the making of the CONVERSATION WITH Beautiful Revolutionary by Laura podcast, its impact on the cold case, and the SEX, DRUGS AND THE Elizabeth Woollett way that the obsession that became Trace ELECTORAL ROLL RAFAEL EPSTEIN Join Laura Elizabeth Woollett for the launch affected Brown herself. It’s gripping stuff, We are delighted to have Fiona Patten As a journalist, Leigh Sales often of her novel, Beautiful Revolutionary, a brilliantly told, and is our Nonfiction Book joining us to discuss her book, Sex, Drugs encounters people experiencing the worst meticulously researched, elegant, and of the Month. Read an extract on page 6. engrossing fictionalised account of the true and the Electoral Roll: My Unlikely Journey moments of their lives in the full glare of August also brings us two fantastic events leading up to the Jonestown massacre. from Sex Worker to Member of Parliament. the media. But one particular string of bad memoirs about identity and belonging from Thursday 2 August, 6.30pm Sex worker, fashion designer, anti- news stories – and a terrifying brush with two new but already essential voices: Zoya her own mortality – sent her looking for Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. censorship activist, fierce campaigner, Patel’s No Country Woman and Sisonke answers about how vulnerable each of us political lobbyist, and Member of The Madonna of the Mountains by Elise Msimang’s Always Another Country. is to a life-changing event. In her latest Parliament – Fiona Patten’s life has been Valmorbida Imprisoned refugee and writer Behrouz nothing if not eventful! book, Any Ordinary Day, she asks what Join Amanda Johnson as she launches Elise Boochani’s No Friend But the Mountains: happens when the worst does happen? Valmorbida’s The Madonna of the Mountains, Readings Carlton, writing from Manus Prison gives voice to the Come along to hear Sales in conversation an inspiring novel and epic story of one 309 Lygon Street, Carlton desperate situation caused by successive with fellow ABC journalist Rafael Epstein. woman’s survival in the hardscrabble Italian governments’ policies made in our name. Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events countryside and her determination to protect Melbourne Athenaeum, Sam Twyford-Moore’s The Rapids takes her family throughout World War II. 188 Collins Street, Melbourne. readers into the experience of mania; Jill Monday 6 August, 6.30pm Tickets are $45 per person and include a Stark follows her acclaimed memoir High Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. Sunday 23 September, 2.30pm signed copy of An Ordinary Day. Please book at Sobriety with Happily Never After. I admit readings.com.au/events Jane Doe and the Cradle of All Worlds by my lack of AFL comprehension, but still get Jeremy Lachlan the excitement around the publication of DON WATSON IN Brooke Davis will launch Jeremy Lachlan’s Bob Murphy’s Leather Soul. Rejoice too for CONVERSATION Jane Doe and the Cradle of All Worlds, an Family, the new cookbook from Readings Thursday 1 November, 6.30pm exhilarating and unforgettable blockbuster With characteristic wit, Don Watson has favourite, Hetty McKinnon. You’ll also adventure about the world between worlds. updated his classic essay On Indignation find new books from Edmund White, Mark for our post-truth world. Join Watson for Monday 6 August, 6pm SHAUN MICALLEF ON THE Kurlansky, Parker Posey, Adam Hills, a champagne afternoon tea as he traces Readings Kids | Free, no booking required. UNCOLLECTED PLAYS OF George Megalogenis, Steven Orr, Bernard this seemingly ineradicable emotion in a A Blank Canvas by Robert Hollingworth Keane, Matt Haig, Jamie Oliver, Rachel journey that takes us, via Flaubert and SHAUN MICALLEF Set in the jungle of contemporary art, Khoo, and James Halliday, and a timely The Sopranos, from the Old Testament to The Uncollected Plays of Shaun Micallef A Blank Canvas is a deeply moving and revised edition of Henry Reynolds’ classic, Donald Trump. are wildly inventive, laugh-out-loud funny beautifully written novel about fraud and and now, without doubt, collected. We This Whispering in Our Hearts Revisited. friendship. Join Robert Hollingworth to Cinema Nova, delighted that Shaun Micallef will be My verbosity has left me with little celebrate the launch of his novel. 380 Lygon Street, Carlton joining us to share tales of his long career. room to discuss adequately the array of Wednesday 8 August, 6.30pm Tickets are $45 per person and include a August’s fiction. In short, you must read our Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. champagne afternoon tea courtesy of Cinema Church of All Nations, Fiction Book of the Month, Too Much Lip, 180 Palmerston Street, Carlton Nova and a copy of On Indignation. A Superior Spectre by Angela Meyer the excellent new novel from multi-award- Please book at readings.com.au/events Tickets are $5 per person and bookings are Join Angela Meyer for the launch of A winning author Melissa Lucashenko. Look essential. Please book at readings.com.au/events Superior Spectre, her highly accomplished out for two dazzling local debuts – Angela debut novel which reminds us that the Meyer’s A Superior Spectre and Lexi Freeman’s scariest ghosts aren’t those that go bump in Inappropriation – and new work from Laura Tuesday 25 September, 6.30pm–8pm the night, but those that are born and create Thursday 8 November, 6.30pm–7.30pm Elizabeth Woollett (Beautiful Revolutionary) a place for themselves in the human soul. and Ruby J. Murray (The Biographer’s Lover). CLEMENTINE FORD IN Thursday 9 August, 6.30pm Another rural Australian crime blockbuster is MARKUS ZUSAK IN Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. CONVERSATION coming our way: Chris Hammer’s Scrublands. CONVERSATION WITH In international fiction, you’ll see new books In Boys Will Be Boys, bestselling and The Biographer’s Lover by Ruby Murray ground-breaking author Clementine MAGDA SZUBANSKI Join Ruby Murray for the launch of her second from Megan Abbott, Yan Lianke, Jasper Ford dismantles the age-old idea that Join us for an incredible conversation novel, The Biographer’s Lover. This elegant and Fforde, Marie Darrieussecq, Sabri Louatah, entitlement, aggression and toxicity are between two of Australia’s most-loved engrossing novel explores how we value and Sofka Zinovieff, Jonas Jonasson, Simon natural realms for boys, and reveals how authors, Markus Zusak and Magda celebrate art and artists’ lives, and reminds us Mawer, Sjón, Cixin Liu, and Becky Chambers, the patriarchy we live in is as harmful Szubanski. Zusak’s Bridge of Clay is that all memory is an act of curation. plus a buzzworthy debut from Ontario-based to boys and men as it is to women his highly anticipated latest novel and Thursday 16 August, 6.30pm Sarah Selecky, Radiant Shimmering Light. and girls. Join us to hear Ford discuss tells the coming-of-age story of the Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. And finally, dear reader, congratulations her incendiary new book in an event five Dunbar brothers, including Clay, as to the winner of 2018’s Readings Young Ting Ting the Ghosthunter by Gabrielle supported by the Victorian Women’s Trust. they learn the secret of their father’s Wang Adult Book Prize, Erin Gough. Amelia disappearance. We are excited to offer Join Gabrielle Wang for the launch of Ting Westlake is celebrated by our judges as ‘part Melbourne Athenaeum, you the opportunity to hear these two Ting the Ghosthunter, the sequel to her queer rom-com, part feminist heist and a joy 188 Collins Street, Melbourne. extraordinary writers in conversation. award-winning A Ghost in My Suitcase and a to read’. The competition was so fierce this Tickets are $50 per person ($45 concession) powerful magic-realist story for young readers year, our judges wished they could award and includes a first edition, signed copy of Melbourne Athenaeum, about ghost-hunting, finding yourself, Chinese multiple prizes! NB: By the time you read Boys will Boys. 188 Collins Street, Melbourne. mythology, and culture. this, you’ll be able to visit Carlton’s old/new Tickets are $25 per person and bookings are Please book at readings.com.au/events Saturday 1 September, 2pm essential. Please book at readings.com.au/events digs again at 309 Lygon Street. We can’t wait Readings Hawthorn | Free, no booking required. to see you there. 6 READINGS MONTHLY EXTRACT August 2018

Trace: Who Killed career as a journalist with the ABC, but I’ve never worked ‘They were inside sealed plastic, so it’s not as though Maria James? with him personally. He’s 61, burly, and he wears that people could come in and open up and look at them, but Rachael Brown appraising stare, synonymous with any cop. But there’s he made a big deal about this in church and actually Scribe. PB. Was $32.99 a gruff warmth about him, a reassuring presence. He’s referred specifically to my mum, which was a little odd known for his no-bullshit approach and his compassion because at the time there were a few other shops in the $29.99 towards victims, families, and even crooks. area that had similar or worse material, and he made no For more, see our review ‘Most aren’t bad people,’ he tells me. ‘They just make mention of them, just of my mum. She was embarrassed on page 13. bad choices in life.’ He has a certain knack. I’ve watched and humiliated. It upset her a lot.’ a killer go to water in an interview room when Ron put It was actually Father Bongiorno who broke the tragic a hand on his shoulder and said, ‘It’s a big burden to news to Mark, with the delicacy of a sledgehammer. carry, don’t let it eat you up.’ The killer dragged his chair Usually after his weekly bowling excursion, the bus forward, put his hands around Ron’s, and confessed. would drop Mark off at the bookshop, as it was on the way. I remember a fellow journalist commenting, ‘If I had This time, the bus went straight back to his high school, anything to confess, I’d confess to Ron’. Immaculate Heart College, Preston, where his local parish The lines on Ron’s forehead and around his piercing priest was waiting for him. blue eyes read like a diary of those 60-hour shifts he’s ‘I remember Father Bongiorno was there. I think there spent at horror scenes. And there’s something of myself I was a police car there as well. We were heading towards recognise in him — sheer stubbornness. But this has made the school office and he broke the news to me, and I could him a divisive figure within the Victorian police force. Ron barely stand up … I was in shock, I kind of collapsed is part of the old guard, a copper who’ll buck the system and had difficulty walking. I would’ve expected Father by releasing information if he feels it’ll help a case. Which Bongiorno to pick me up and to help carry me, but he is why I need him. He’s approaching retirement from his wasn’t really doing much. He was having to half-drag position as secretary of the Police Association, the police me into the principal’s office. I’ve reflected on the way he union. It’ll mean handing in his badge — number 18150 said it. It didn’t appear to come out in a compassionate — for good. He should be daydreaming about fishing or sympathetic way — it was more like something he just trips with his son off the coast of Cairns, or bike rides, or, wanted to get over, you know, finish off and get it over with. finally, getting some decent sleep. Instead, he’s graciously I think Father Bongiorno and I drove back either in a police fielding questions from me, about his very first case, car or in a taxi to the bookshop. Police were everywhere.’ which still grates like hell. ‘It was almost like my life stopped. Everything just stopped dead. I can see the flurry of activity, the police An extract June 1980 are there, later on the media arrived, there are passers- Ron Iddles’ crew moves into the ill-fated bookshop on by standing around watching, and there are also some High Street, hoping the walls might talk. Or that the locals shopkeepers, and these people were all agitated obviously, from Trace interested to know what transpired. Everyone was upset.’ will. The thinking is that the detectives’ presence might encourage people to drop in with information about the ‘My dad was there. He’d been crying, and he was giving by Rachael stabbing. Sixty-eight wounds. Christ. This tells Ron that me hugs and he was in shock. He just told me that Mum the killer’s emotions have outrun their intelligence. It was had been murdered, he didn’t give me any other details.’ unplanned, he suspects, but furious all the same. He’s Then the two bereft sons were shipped off to their dad’s Brown seen death before, but this is something else. And the force with nothing more than the school uniforms on their backs. doesn’t employ cleaners, so each time he walks past the — bedroom he sees the victim’s blood soaked into the carpet. For this Homicide rookie, it feels very strange for his 2002 crew to be treating this house like their own. A woman Trace: Who Killed Maria James? is ABC broadcast Maria James’s exhibits are back from the forensics lab, has been viciously killed in here, and they’re going about journalist Rachael Brown’s gripping account of her and, two decades on, police have their strongest lead yet. their lives as if it’s all normal. They’re using her cutlery, Ron was always pretty confident that some of the blood investigation into a 38-year-old cold case, which crockery, kettle, even the outside barbecue for dinners, found on Maria’s pillow would have belonged to her killer. became the Walkley and Quill Award-winning as they usually don’t knock off till 22:00 or 23:00 most That pillow has now yielded a male DNA profile, which podcast, Trace, and led to the re‑opening of the nights. Then they go home, shower, maybe chat to their detectives can use to compare against that of suspects — wives, pass out, and return by 07:00 to do it all again. His case. This is an edited extract from the book. Mario Falcucci, for example, whose twine and bloodied crew has turned the dining table — a billiard table with trousers have long bugged Ron. He finds Mario in a a board perched on top — into their communal desk. It’s nursing home, but Mario, now elderly, no longer has all April 2016 now a nest of paperwork being peered over by detectives his faculties, so Ron seeks permission from Mario’s sister 1.00pm Coroners Court w Ron sporting brown suits and moustaches. — Diary note, 21 April 2016 for a buccal swab. The old man licks the cotton bud like an Ron spots Mark James, the victim’s 13-year-old son. ice-cream, and the sample is sent away for comparison to I wince at Maria’s bruised face in the autopsy photos. Her Mark and his little brother, Adam, have been shipped off Maria’s pillow. It turns out to be no match. left eye is slightly opened; the right, swollen and closed. to live with their dad, but Mark’s occasionally allowed Her skin looks puffy and translucent. Her scalp is missing back in for clothes. Ron quietly wonders about Mark, what — some clumps of her dark hair. I wonder whether this was he’s making of all this, of his house being commandeered, A decade sails by, frosting over the trail of Maria’s killer. the killer’s doing, or the pathologist’s. I’ve seen post- his home forever lost. This equates to around 120 homicide investigations for mortem photos before, during my days as a court reporter. — Ron, including the 2001 disappearance of arts graduate Some days, during those grim prosecution sessions Elisabeth Membrey, the 2005 murder of Fairfield solicitor aimed at swaying a jury, I’d look; other days, I’d drift. David Robinson, and the 2006 shooting of security guard Common journo distractions were newspapers, Sudoku, March 2016 Erwin Kastenberger. Time, and evil, march on. doodling, or scratching one’s initials into the Supreme I would’ve got as many photographs as I could of mum. She Then, in 2013, Adam James drops a bombshell that Court media desks. I have no doubt this would have looked was a Christian woman, and I would’ve liked to have taken Ron never saw coming. Adam’s revelation alerts Ron to disrespectful to those crammed into the rigid wooden her cross, and I would’ve taken my toys, I had a remote- the possibility that at Maria’s funeral, when detectives pews of the public gallery. But once you see, you can’t control car. were scrutinising the congregation for her killer, maybe unsee. And these pictures can creep into your dreams, so — Mark James’s interview with Rachael Brown, they were all looking in the wrong direction. Maybe they sometimes it’s best not to look. 14 March 2016 should’ve been looking up at the altar. Today I have to, because a seeming contradiction in It was Father Anthony Bongiorno who presided over this cold case has inspired my promise to Maria’s sons Maria’s funeral at her parish, St Mary’s Thornbury. that I’ll look into it. A promise, for two boys, now middle- But that’s all a blur for Mark James. He tells me all he Rachael Brown is a broadcast journalist. In 2002, aged men, who’ve lived in a holding pattern for as long as remembers is white noise. The church was crawling with after graduating from RMIT, she began her career I’ve been alive. It’s promises that can be our undoing, I’ll cops, and it made him anxious. with the ABC, where she has held several later learn from [veteran homicide detective] Ron Iddles. postings, including Europe correspondent from — For now, as I look at all the white crumbs on Maria’s black 2010 to 2013. In 2008, she won her first Walkley jumper, which turn out to be her white shirt peeking The local church had loomed large in the family’s life. Award, for Best Radio Current Affairs Report, for her investigation into the Victorian Medical Practitioners Board whose through the slashes in the wool, I make her a silent pledge Mark was an altar boy, Maria James would regularly make negligence contributed to the sexual assaults of a dozen women. that I’ll do my best. the short trip three doors down for masses, and sometimes Brown is the creator, investigator, and host of the ABC’s first true-crime When Ron arrives to walk me through this final photo she’d leave Adam with Father Bongiorno. The 11-year-old podcast, Trace, which won the 2017 Walkley Award for Innovation. The album of Maria James’s life, he says he can’t look at these demanded a lot of attention, with his cerebral palsy and podcast also won two 2017 Quill Awards: for Innovation, and for Best photos through the same sentimental prism I’m using. Tourette’s, so his time with the priest also allowed Maria Podcast. Rachael lives in Melbourne. My sad crumbs are his priceless clues. ‘I see that as part to run errands or have some quiet time. of a jigsaw puzzle,’ he tells me. ‘If I looked at that in some But Mark says the brash Italian priest had upset his devout other way, I don’t think I would’ve lasted 25 years.’ He’s Catholic mother in a very public roasting, the year she died. It To find out more about Trace: Who Killed Maria James? read our review been a constant figure at police doorstops throughout my was about those magazines she kept under the counter. on page 13. READINGS MONTHLY 7 August 2018

remoteness of Scotland. Once there, he I’m not sure Woollett entirely New abuses a technology that allows him to convinces us of Jones’ appeal but she enter the consciousness of Leonora, a certainly furnishes us with a portrait woman living in the Scottish Highlands of a fabulous narcissist. Jones never Fiction in the 1860s. As Leonora grapples with the waivers in his sense of self-belief despite move from the countryside to Edinburgh, the Machiavellian lengths he has to along with her own burgeoning sexual go to in order to maintain control – he desires that are at odds with social even manages to use his brazen sexual Melissa Lucashenko’s last novel, Mullumbimby, opened me conventions, she must also contend with exploitation of the congregation as a sign up to a conversation about feminism, culture and land rights BOOK OF THE the effects of sharing her mind with Jeff: of his altruism and self-sacrifice. that has stayed with me for years, so I was excited to read MONTH strange thoughts and visions of a world Beautiful Revolutionary is perfect for her new book. Too Much Lip returns readers to Bundjalung she has never known. fans of Emma Cline’s The Girls and The Fiction country in Northern New South Wales and brilliantly Comparisons with Diana Gabaldon’s Family by Chris Johnston and Rosie Jones. showcases Lucashenko’s talent for constructing funny, Outlander series are unavoidable: both fraught and powerful stories driven by complex characters Susan Stevenson is from Readings Malvern feature Scotland, time travel, and a and compelling, true-to-life dramas. captivating sensuality. That being said, The Biographer’s Lover Meyer has crafted a much stranger and Ruby J. Murray Lucashenko combines sexy, foul- much darker beast. Alternating between Black Inc. PB. $29.99 mouthed and charming comedy with the future and the present, and between If you enjoyed the Jeff and Leonora, Meyer’s blend of science moving and incisive representations recent work of Gail fiction and historical fiction is much more of contemporary Goorie politics and Jones, this novel about the disorienting than Gabaldon’s – a deliberate struggles … worth of art, set in authorial choice that destabilises the Melbourne’s north and reader but also keeps them coming back Geelong, will also delight The Salter family is in crisis: Pop Owen Addison, their for more. Tackling hot-button issues such you. I loved to read about respected, powerful, violent patriarch, is dying and Jim as feminism, forbidden desires, self- the brick terrace in Carlton, the attic Too Much Lip Buckley, Patterson’s bent mayor and greedy real-estate destruction, abandonment, gender, mental bedroom in Geelong, the drive over the Melissa cowboy, has designs on Salter ancestral country. Prodigal health, and social boundaries, this book Westgate Bridge and the minor characters Lucashenko daughter Kerry has avoided home, her family and prison for is bound to challenge and confront the that play into this book. UQP. PB. $29.95 years, but returns to Durrongo on a stolen motorbike, freshly modern-day reader. The novel centres on a young writer single. When she and her siblings get wind of Buckley’s plot, A Superior Spectre is not an easy who is hired to write about the life of an ripples of revolutionary fervour begin to mobilise the local read. However, it is endlessly captivating unknown woman artist. This ‘assignment’ Indigenous community, but they also dredge up the traumatic roots of the Salter siblings’ and rewarding for the reader looking for is a vanity project driven by a family dysfunctional childhood and disaffected adulthood. If this weren’t enough tension, innovation and a literary challenge. It’s obsessed with their own legacy. However, avowed lesbian Kerry finds herself falling for a white, male boxing coach. And no one can an exciting debut from a local talent and the scope of the project changes when she forget their missing sister, Donna, now gone nineteen years with no word. if you care about the future of Australian sees the work of the late Edna Cranmer. I loved Too Much Lip, and read it almost in one sitting. Lucashenko combines sexy, fiction, look no further. foul-mouthed and charming comedy with moving and incisive representations of Cranmer’s studio is filled with canvases Tristen Brudy is from Readings Carlton contemporary Goorie politics and struggles, again making land and property a central in various sizes with wonderful painted issue. This is a novel about violence – colonial, domestic and social – and redemption. images of family members, and of women It had me biting my nails as the characters mustered for a fight while wrangling their Beautiful Revolutionary working in war zones, in fields or at home. demons. Lucashenko writes brilliant Indigenous women, and she complicates the Laura Elizabeth Woollett The biographer recognises that this is tensions between Indigenous ownership and Settler theft of country with feminist Scribe. PB. Was $32.99 the work of a brilliant painter and that struggle in an impoverished, ‘redneck’ town, drawing characters into a conflict which $29.99 her virtuosity could have far-reaching is incredibly entertaining and intensely thought-provoking. We are fortunate to have It is hard to imagine a consequences for the family, the artist and writers like Lucashenko, who has given us such a triumphant next move. society so herself. Murray’s writing allows you to be swept into the lives of the artist’s family Georgia Delaney is from Readings Carlton disillusioned it could be seduced by a character like and of the narrator. Jim Jones – and hard to The Biographer’s Lover reiterates that believe someone could be as memory and fame in any form is an act charismatic as he obviously of curation. Sadly, as we know, there have Australian Fiction once more, completely isolated. In her was. In order to write Beautiful always been compromises made for women’s hour of need, she turns again to Haraway, Revolutionary, Laura Elizabeth Woollett art to be part of our cultural identity. experimenting with transhumanism by spent years researching the Jonestown Murray’s second, evocative novel could be Inappropriation strapping her brother’s go-pro to her head. massacre. She interviewed surviving considered a coming-of-age story, but it is Lexi Freiman This is a perfect example of Freiman’s members of the People’s Temple and the also about how and why we respond to art. A&U. PB. $29.99 humor – she takes intricate concepts families of those who died, creating an In many ways this novel is also a depiction of from academia and applies them literally, Ziggy Klein is fifteen in-depth portrait of an era and one of its two cities, and of education and desire. But on teenagers, the result of which is both years old, and has just most extreme manifestations. it’s primarily about art and truth, and where bizarre and thought-provoking. left her comfortable, Jewish The narrative unfolds principally they fit into our psyche. When I finished Inappropriation is as intelligent as it high school for the chaos of through the eyes of Evelyn and Lenny, reading this excellent novel, I looked up the is amusing – the conversations between the uber prestigious young newly married pacifists who work of Edna Cranmer. I was delighted with Ziggy and her friends about all the -isms Kandara Girls School, where escape the draft by working in a country my search results. they’ve read about on the internet are Sydney’s elite send their mental hospital. Isolated in small-town Christine Gordon is the events manager for hysterical. While this novel has the teenagers. Surrounded by cliques and California, they come into the orbit of Readings personality of an American satire, it is not confusing new social pecking orders, she the Reverend Jim Jones and his People’s devoid of warmth. Every character seems struggles to fit in. At home, Ziggy is Temple. With his vision of an egalitarian, The Book of Ordinary People to take a stereotype and turn it totally on confronted by her therapist mother’s racially integrated community, Evelyn, Claire Varley its head. Ziggy is an excellent heroine – aggressively gendered second-wave in particular, is seduced by the charms Pan Mac. PB. $32.99 she is uncertain, pubescent, extremely feminism, her father’s potentially of the evangelical preacher and finds her Set in the northern serious and unwittingly hilarious. This is adulterous behaviours, her holocaust- calling in his temple and his bed. suburbs of a sharply humourous social commentary, survivor grandmother’s love of bejeweled Within the congregation there is a Melbourne, The Book of and one of the strongest Australian debuts kaftans and her younger brother’s internet feverish adoration of Jim Jones ‘The Ordinary People by Claire I have read in quite some time. obsession. Everywhere she turns, Ziggy Father’, and he exploits this ruthlessly. Varley is simply, as the title feels out of step with the world around Ellen Cregan is the marketing and events With an uncanny insight into his followers suggests, a book about her – like a freak. Eventually she falls in coordinator for Readings vulnerabilities, he micromanages their lives ordinary people. It follows with Lex and Tessa, fellow social outcasts, and requires proof of loyalty in the form of the separate stories of five strangers, and Kandara’s most radical feminists. The A Superior Spectre increasingly bizarre sexual demands. whose lives occasionally intersect, as they trio spend their days hanging out at the Angela Meyer As the community grows so does Jones’ go about their everyday business. local mall and discussing Donna Ventura. PB. $29.99 megalomania and paranoia, culminating There’s Evangelina, a woman in Haraway’s A Cyborg Manifesto. In the near future, in his decision to move to Guyana. Here, mourning, who is trying to make sense This book is so extremely funny, I Jeff is dying. Haunted supposedly isolated from the corrupting of her mother’s seemingly unremarkable couldn’t stop giggling. When Tessa and by his dark past and influences of their families and the life. DB is a man who spends so much time Lex turn to more conventional ways current deterioration, he decadent capitalism of the United States, trying to create the ideal life for himself of life, eschewing feminist theory for abandons Melbourne, and the story moves inexorably towards the and his family that he risks losing the very finding boyfriends and planning their his long-suffering partner grisly climax of the Jonestown massacre – people who are important to him. Rik is a formal gowns, Ziggy is devastated and, Faye, for the relative forty years ago this year. failed journalist, who has returned from 8 READINGS MONTHLY FICTION August 2018

a war zone overseas, and now spends his Coach Fitz challenging Jeanie’s self-image and sense time trying to hide from his past. Then Tom Lee of identity. Themes of growing old, fidelity there’s Nell, an idealistic young lawyer who Giramondo. PB. $26.95 and identity run through this unique and desperately wants to make a difference. Tom Lee’s debut novel tells gritty novel, in which all are asking the A MASTERFUL At the heart of the novel though is the story of a young jogger ultimate questions about life, death and Aida, a young Iranian journalist, who is who is in a relationship with the purpose of it all. seeking asylum in Australia. Unable to an older woman: his coach CULT NOVEL return to her homeland and her family for and his mentor, Coach Fitz. fear of persecution, Aida waits patiently, She seeks to instil a International Fiction constantly checking her letterbox, for philosophy of running ‘Utterly intoxicating’ news that her visa application has been which combines ‘controlled intensity’ with a successful. With dignity and pride, Aida curiosity about places and their histories. Early Riser Sarah Schmidt works for cash-in-hand wages, that often Coach Fitz is an exploration of the outdoor Jasper Fforde amount to half as much as her co-workers mentality that plays such a dominant role in H&S. PB. $29.99 receive. It is through Aida that we come the Australian psyche, and examines the Jasper Fforde – ‘Completely gripping’ to understand how frustrating it must emotions and aspirations of youth, and the master of absurdity, be to be held hostage to the whim of Bri Lee complications these engender. champion of satire, governments, and the toll it takes on the ridiculer of bureaucracy, mental health of those seeking asylum. Hey Brother and proud Welshman – is Using fragments from the journals, Jarrah Dundler back. If that sentence emails and articles of her characters at the A&U. PB. $29.99 doesn’t fill you with a thrill start of each chapter, Varley explores the Before leaving for of excitement then you’ve obviously never political and social issues of our times. The Afghanistan, Shaun Black encountered Fforde’s particular brand of Book of Ordinary People is a heart-warming gives his little brother literary lampoon, and you should remedy and thought-provoking novel that reminds Trysten a mission of his own. that immediately. Early Riser is being us to value what matters most – our families, Keep out of trouble. Trysten touted as Jasper Fforde’s first standalone our friends and humanity as a whole. tries, but with Mum hitting novel (giving hope to fans still waiting on Sharon Peterson is the manager of Readings the bottle harder than ever the follow-up to 2009’s Shades of Grey) and St Kilda and his dad not helping, Trysten responds it’s a fantastic introduction to an author the only way he knows how: by acting out. who’s not nearly as well-known as he The Apology Hey Brother tells the story of a kid from the deserves to be. Ross Watkins bush whose world comes crashing down on Charlie Worthing is the newest UQP. PB. $29.95 his shoulders. But with his own blend of member of The Winter Consul, an elite When Adrian Pomeroy, an fury, resilience and deadpan humour, band of individuals tasked with protecting English teacher at a boys’ Trysten proves to be up for every challenge. the hibernating human population school, finds himself at the from Nightwalkers (zombies), Villians centre of an allegation that The Second Cure (Englishmen), and Wintervolk (Fairytales. might end his career, his life Margaret Morgan Probably.). Stranded in the dangerous starts to unravel. With a Vintage. PB. $32.99 Sector 12 after being tasked with delivering police investigation A pandemic is racing a Nightwalker for reprogramming, Charlie underway, Adrian turns to his detective through our world, finds himself caught up in a conspiracy brother for help, but Noel is battling changing people subtly but involving unethical corporations, viral crippling demons of his own. The Apology is irrevocably. Scientist dreams, and a battle between an illegal a gripping psychological drama about Charlotte Zinn is close to a splinter group named RealSleep, and A FIERCE FEMINIST family, betrayal and the limits of forgiveness cure when her partner the company that has made millions off and a shocking portrait of the lies we tell becomes infected. Reporter monetising hibernation, HiberTech. RETELLING ourselves and each other in order to survive. Brigid Bayliss is determined to uncover Set in a universe that’s real-world- the dark truth behind the religious adjacent (They have Fawlty Dormitorium OF BEOWULF Beneath the Mother Tree response to the outbreak. Brigid and instead of Fawlty Towers, and Grand Theft D.M. Cameron Charlotte find themselves on the frontline Pantry is a crime punishable by death. Rick MidnightSun. PB. $32.99 of a world splintering into far left and far Astley’s still the same though.), Early Riser is filled with all the documentary-style On a small island, right, with unexpected power to change excerpts, running jokes, and wordplay that ‘Headley is a genius’ something sinister is at the course of history. But at what cost? readers have come to expect from Fforde. play. Resident alcoholic Carmen Maria Machado It’s an hilarious, fast-paced, smart, and Grappa believes it’s the Far The Hunter and Other Stories socially conscious novel that deserves to be Dorocha, dark servant of of Men read by anyone who loves Terry Pratchett, the Faery queen, whose David Cohen ‘A work of magic’ Douglas Adams, or Monty Python. seductive music lures you Transit Lounge. PB. $27.99 Victor Lavalle into their abyss. His granddaughter Ayla A property developer fears Lian Hingee is the digital marketing manager has other ideas, especially once she meets that a burgeoning ibis for Readings the mysterious flute player she heard on population will prevent the the beach. Can the mystery at the heart of construction of a high rise Give Me Your Hand the island be untangled before it is too apartment complex; a bus Megan Abbott late? Wrought with sensuousness and stop outside a dementia Picador. PB. $29.99 lyricism, D.M. Cameron’s debut novel is a care facility in Düsseldorf Megan Abbott was a thrilling journey, rhythmically fierce and suffers its own identity crisis; a young guest of the Melbourne eagerly awaited. man’s new job requires him to pose as a Writers Festival in 2017, and I woodcutter and wave at a trainload of heard her speak in a session The Botanist’s Daughter tourists; a backpacker in Israel has a titled, ‘The Dark Side of Kayte Nunn bizarre religious experience. In these Womanhood’. Abbott, a Hachette. PB. $29.99 award-winning stories, David Cohen literary thriller writer, spoke In Victorian England, explores the oddities of human behaviour about her enjoyment of creating female headstrong Elizabeth takes with wit, affection and startling brilliance. characters who are seen as ‘transgressors’ – up her late father’s quest for women who challenge white, middle-class a rare, miraculous plant. The Wounded Sinner female norms. She described her characters She faces a perilous sea Gus Henderson as having strong wills and unrivalled voyage, unforeseen dangers Magabala. PB. $19.95 ambitions, and often harbouring secrets and treachery that Matthew’s father, Archie, is that set them apart from their peers. threatens her entire family. In present-day dying and Matthew must Abbott’s new novel, Give Me Your Australia, Anna finds a mysterious metal care for him in ‘The Hand, begins with a teenage friendship box containing a sketchbook of dazzling Wounded Sinner’, his grand, that turns sour. Kit enjoys study sessions watercolours, a photograph inscribed decaying home. Whilst and a burgeoning friendship with school ‘Spring 1886’ and a small bag of seeds. It Matthew is away, Jeanie newcomer Diane, until one day Diane sets her on a path far from her safe, stays and works as a teacher reveals a weighty secret that overwhelms carefully ordered life, and on a journey and looks after their five children. Their Kit. She distances herself from Diane, that will force her to face her own demons. eldest is hitting adolescence and is however they are rivals for a college FICTION READINGS MONTHLY 9 August 2018 scholarship program and still must Orchid & the Wasp work closely together in their advanced Caoilinn Hughes science classes. Oneworld. PB. $29.99 Ten years later, Kit is working for her Orchid and the Wasp academic idol, Professor Severin. Kit is the opens outrageously first in the laboratory and the last out – and does not miss a beat determined to prove she should be chosen from there: ‘It is our right to for the Professor’s prestigious research be virgins as often as we project. But just weeks before the research like, Gael told the girls … team is announced, Professor Severin Gael was eleven. It was her introduces the staff to a new addition she last term in primary school. Perhaps that has poached from another laboratory – was why the proposition backfired.’ This Diane. Kit is stunned and unsure how to central character, Gael Foess, is a deal with Diane. And she is also concerned wonderful contribution to literature, as is Diane may have been recruited specifically Orchid and the Wasp. With Gael’s for the research project she had her heart unwelcome meddling in the lives of her set on. Kit has to decide whether to let her loved ones, Orchid and the Wasp has former friend back into her life, and if she echoes of a modern-day Emma – if Emma should reveal Diane’s secret. were the rebellious Irish child of a national Abbott’s writing is direct and orchestra conductor and a Barclays banker. personable, and the tension builds as she Gael is precocious, her moral compass tells the story of the blighted friendship. in many areas (but not all) varies with Diane’s secret is revealed a third of the interest rates, and while she frequently way into the book, however, the chain makes decisions that will break your heart, of events that occur when Diane comes she will win it back, again and again. We to work at the lab makes for explosive follow Gael and her evolving family (initially action, and the revelation of many other conductor and composer mother Sive; secrets. I particularly enjoyed the fine banker and Christian but ethically flexible detailing of laboratory life, and the strong father, Jarleth; and sickly, principled little characterisation for which Abbott is known. brother Guthrie) through the years leading Annie Condon is from Readings Hawthorn up to and beyond the Global Financial Crisis, both before and after Jarleth leaves them. Radiant Shimmering Light For Gael, this time encompasses school, Sarah Selecky then university at King’s College (though Text. PB. $29.99 she delegates much of her study), several Available 20 August entrepreneurial endeavours (some might term them ‘capers’, though their results are Eleven Novak’s name nothing to sniff at), the Occupy Wall Street is her brand; a teacher movement, a brief stint in jail, negotiating of enlightenment and the New York art scene and, of course, trips spirituality with a powerful home to Dublin. online presence. Eleven is beautiful, inspirational and Caoilinn Hughes’ sharp and, at times, successful and each year hilarious observations call to mind the takes a group of followers through her unblinking writing and dysfunctional famous transforming ‘Ascendancy families not only of Jane Austen, but also Program’. Lillian Quick is forty, Canadian Christina Stead and Jonathan Franzen. and Eleven’s cousin. She hasn’t seen The full cast of characters is memorable Eleven for over 20 years – back then she and original, but Gael in particular knew her as Florence. Lillian currently challenges and charms. Orchid and the Be blown away from lives in Toronto and scrapes by as an artist, Wasp is a deceptively entertaining novel painting pictures of animals and their about merit and ambition, society and auras. When Eleven visits Toronto to responsibility, and self-determination and fate, in which Hughes upends expectations the very first page recruit people into her Ascendancy Program, Lillian and Eleven reconnect and and asks big questions, especially about Lillian moves to New York to work at obligation and love, without breaking Eleven’s temple. stride, even for a moment. ‘Superbly drawn.’ I haven’t read a book like Radiant Elke Power is the editor of Readings Monthly Mark Brandi, Shimmering Light for quite some time and it author of was a refreshing change. Selecky has written Leila Wimmera a satirical and contemporary novel about the Prayaag Akbar enlightenment and life-branding industries. Faber. HB. $24.99 ‘Compelling … Emails, texts and twitter posts are narrative Sixteen years ago, Shalini’s Highly devices used to great effect alongside Lillian’s daughter was snatched from recommended.’ point of view to make clever observations her third birthday party. Dervla McTiernan, about the differences between real life and Despite everything that has author of online presence. Our reliance on electronic followed – months spent The Ruin devices and social media is especially topical confined like a prisoner, at the moment and I found my reactions to slaving in the searing white ‘A force of Lillian’s relationship with her phone were a heat; living at the margins of the city, nature. mixture of disbelief and recognition. where the air settles like grime in her chest A must-read What takes this novel beyond a – Shalini has never stopped looking for her for all crime straightforward satire, however, are the daughter. Now she believes her search is fiction fans.’ characters of Eleven and Lillian, and the finally drawing to a close. Leila is a parable Sarah Bailey, relationship between them. By taking us about what happens when the few live at author of back to when Lillian and Florence were the expense of the many. The Dark Lake children, the author provides some insight into why in particular Eleven has evolved CoDex 1962 into who she is, what her motivations are Sjón and even a hint about the meaning behind Sceptre. PB. $32.99 her new name. Josef Loewe enters the Margaret Atwood and Karen Joy Fowler world as a lump of clay are already lavishing this novel with praise. I carried in a hatbox by his A dead river. A dying town. A killer’s secrets. think it is an intriguing novel which will elicit Jewish father Leo, a fugitive a wide range of responses from readers. I can’t in WWII Germany. Taking think of a more perfect novel for a book club. refuge in a small-town Amanda Rayner is from Readings Carlton guesthouse, Leo discovers a 10 READINGS MONTHLY FICTION August 2018

kindred spirit in the young woman who Claire is obsessed with uncovering the Alexander Dubcek’s ‘socialism with a nurses him back to health and together truth. This novel is a razor-sharp take on human face’ is smiling on the world. Yet the they shape the clay into a baby. At once privilege, wealth and class. wheels of politics are grinding in the playful and profoundly serious, this background. The Soviet leader, Leonid This elegant and remarkable novel melds multiple genres The Distance Home Brezhnev is making demands of Dubcek into a unique whole: a mind-bending read Paula Saunders and the Red Army is massed on the borders. engrossing novel and a biting, timely attack on nationalism. Picador. PB. $29.99 How will the looming disaster affect those Available 14 August fragile lives caught up in the invasion? explores how we value Invitation to a Bonfire In 1960s rural America two Adrienne Celt siblings grow up in a place of The Accidental Further and celebrate art and Raven. PB. $29.99 love and turmoil. Rene and Adventures of the Hundred- Available 20 August Leon share a talent for dance, Year-Old Man artists’ lives. Zoya Andropova, a young a gift their father adores in his Jonas Jonasson Russian refugee, finds daughter, and loathes in his Fourth Estate. PB. $24.99 The Biographer’s Lover herself in an elite New son. These two children may Available 9 August Jersey boarding school. be best friends, but life promises to take It all begins with a hot air reminds us that all Having lost her family, her them down very different paths. The balloon trip and three home and her sense of Distance Home is the story of two children bottles of champagne. Allan memory is an act purpose, Zoya struggles to growing up side by side – one given and Julius are ready for belong, a task made more difficult by her opportunities the other misses – and the some spectacular views, but of curation. new country’s paranoia about Soviet spies. fall-out in their adult lives. they’re not expecting to land When she meets charismatic fellow Russian in the sea. Nor could they émigré Leo Orlov, everything seems to The Mere Wife ever have imagined that the captain of the change. But she soon discovers that Leo is Maria Dahvana Headley North Korean ship that rescues them would bound by the sinister orchestrations of his Scribe. PB. $29.99 be harbouring a suitcase full of contraband brilliant wife, Vera, and that their To those who live there, uranium. Soon Allan and Julius are at the relationship is more complex than Zoya Herot Hall is a paradise. But centre of a complex diplomatic crisis. could ever have imagined. to those who live secretly Things are about to get very complicated. along its periphery, it is a The Day the Sun Died fortress guarded by an The Arid Sky Yan Lianke intense security network. Emiliano Monge Text. PB. $32.99 Dylan and Gren live on Restless Books. PB. $27.99 Available 20 August opposite sides of the perimeter, neither boy Mexican literary star One dusk in early June, aware of the barriers erected to keep them Emiliano Monge’s English- fourteen-year-old Li apart. When Gren crosses the border into language debut is an Niannian notices something Herot Hall and runs off with Dylan, the two artistically daring, strange about his town. worlds collide, the ensuing events echo gorgeously wrought, and Instead of settling down for Beowulf, giving sharp, startling currency to eviscerating novel of the night, the residents start the ancient epic poem. biblical violence. Set on a appearing in the streets and desolate, unnamed mesa, this novel fields. There are people everywhere. Set Our Life in the Forest narrates the signature moments in the life over the course of one night, The Day the Marie Darrieussecq of Germán Alcantara Carnero: a man who Sun Died sets chaos and darkness against Text. PB. $27.99 is both exaltedly, viscerally real and is an the sunny optimism of the ‘Chinese dream’. In the near future, a woman ageless, nameless being capable of We are thrown into the middle of a strange is writing in the depths of a embodying entire eras, cultures, and ‘A delight to read. waking nightmare as Li Niannian and his forest. Her body is falling conflicts. Monge’s roadmap takes readers father struggle to save the town, and apart, as is the world on a journey to the core of humankind that Ruby J. Murray enters persuade the sun to rise again. around her. Before, in the posits a challenge of the kind only great the mind of an ambitious city, she travelled literature can pose. Eagle & Crane fortnightly to visit her ‘half’, young biographer Suzanne Rindell Marie, her spitting image, who lay in an The Biggerers Allison & Busby. PB. $27.99 induced coma, her body parts available Amy Lilwall to assemble a moving Available 20 August whenever the woman needed them. This is Point Blank. HB. $29.99 portrait of a mysterious Louis Thorn and Haruto a clever novel of suspense that challenges The Biggerers is set in a ‘Harry’ Yamada – Eagle our ideas about the future, organ- dystopian future where Australian painter.’ and Crane – are the star trafficking, cloning, identity, and the place everyone gets a playmate: Carrie Tiffany attractions of Earl Shaw’s of the individual in a surveillance state. about a foot tall, naked, very Flying Circus, a daredevil affectionate, not too flying act that traverses The Plotters intelligent. The two heroes, ‘An accomplished Depression-era California. Un-su Kim Bonbon and Jinx, spend When the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor Text. PB. $29.99 their days gathering stones and feathers and memorable novel and one of Shaw’s planes mysteriously In Seoul’s corrupt for their basket, and waiting to be fed by about the gaps left in our crashes, two charred bodies discovered underworld, the important their owners. But it’s not long before inside it, authorities conclude that the thing is not who pulls the getting sick, falling in love and wondering inherited history, and victims were Harry and his father, trigger but who’s behind the why they can’t eat with a spoon pushes Kenichi. Thus begins an investigation person who pulls the trigger them to realise they are the same as their the imperfect storytellers into what really happened to cause the – the plotters, the owners, only smaller. we entrust to fill them. crash, and why no one involved seems masterminds working in the willing to tell the truth. shadows. In this world, Reseng is destined The Impossible Fairytale Beautifully constructed.’ to be an assassin. That is, until he breaks Han Yujoo Abigail Ulman A Double Life the rules, teaming up with a trio of young Brow Books. PB. $27.99 Flynn Berry women who have an extraordinary plot of The nameless ‘Child’ W&N. PB. $29.99 their own. The Plotters is a cracking noir struggles to make a mark on Claire’s father is a thriller combined with the soul, wit and the world, and her privileged man: handsome, lyricism of a highly original literary voice. classmate Mia, whose brilliant, the product of an spoiled life is everything aristocratic lineage and an Prague Spring the Child’s is not. At school, expensive education, Simon Mawer their fellow students seem surrounded by a group of Little, Brown. PB. $32.99 consumed by an almost murderous rage. devoted friends who would It’s the summer of 1968, and Adults are nearly invisible, and the society do anything for him. But when he students Ellie and James set the children create on their own is marked becomes the prime suspect in a horrific off to hitch-hike across by soul-crushing hierarchies and an OUT NOW attack on Claire’s mother, a scandal Europe with no aim in mind underlying menace. The Impossible erupts. Claire’s father disappears, his car but discovery. They decide, Fairytale is a fresh and terrifying BLACKINCBOOKS.COM abandoned, blood on the front seat. on a whim, to visit exploration of the ethics of art making and Thirty years after that hellish night, Czechoslovakia where of the stinging consequences of neglect. FICTION READINGS MONTHLY 11 August 2018

Putney into compost which grows the plants they Sofka Zinovieff eat? Do I talk about how suffocating it Bloomsbury Circus. PB. $29.99 is for a teenage boy to stay on this small Ralph Boyd’s first glimpse of fleet when there is literally a galaxy full Discover nine-year-old Daphne will be of aliens and planets to join? Do I talk etched on his mind forever. about the human born on another planet a new favourite But Ralph is twenty-five and who visits the Exodus out of a sense of Daphne is only a child, and loss the same way a third-generation even in the liberal 1970s a immigrant might visit their grandparent’s Napolean’s Australia fast-burgeoning relationship home country? Do I talk about the alien Terry Smith Ghuh’loloan who studies us with the The armada’s mission was the between a man and his friend’s daughter invasion of Sydney, and its must be kept secret. Years later, after a same profound curiosity as someone who inspiration and its fate were turbulent youth and a failed marriage, studies apes (though with much more interwoven with one of history’s respect and self awareness)? greatest love stories – that of Daphne is finally forced to confront her own Napoleon and Josephine. childhood and its shocking truths. Record of a Spaceborn Few does what all Becky Chambers’ books do. It Endeavour Peter Moore Savages 2: The Spectre tells deeply personal stories set in an unimaginably vast setting. It’s an epic No one has ever told Endeavour’s Sabri Louatah complete story before. Peter space adventure where everyone matters Corsair. PB. $29.99 Moore sets out to explore the and no one is expendable. It’s a story that different lives of this remarkable Available 14 August ship, from the acorn that grew has you turning the final page buoyant In an already tense crowd on into the oak that made her, to her with feelings of optimism and hope for the rich and complex legacy. election night, France’s first future of the human race. Arab presidential candidate “A thundering roar of appreciation Dani Solomon is from Readings Kids Chaouch is shot at close for those who make us laugh range by the young and and make us think.” naive Krim Nerrouche. As Ball Lightning HIGH FIVE TO THE BOYS shock pulses through the Cixin Liu High Five to the Boys nation, Paris is put on high alert, because Head of Zeus. PB. $29.99 Various although Krim’s finger pulled the trigger, it Available 14 August Australia has some ace men becomes clear he was not the mastermind When Chen’s parents are who have broken new ground, and achieved incredible things. behind the attack. Now, he must survive incinerated by a blast of ball High Five to the Boys is an endless interrogations with the anti-terrorist lightning, he devotes his life uplifting and illuminating read police without revealing the location of the to cracking the secret of the for all ages. cousin he is fiercely protecting. mysterious natural Clock Dance phenomenon. The more he Anne Tyler Strangers with the Same Dream learns, the more he comes to Clock Dance brings us the Alison Pick realise that ball lightning is just the tip of everyday life of a woman who an entirely new frontier in particle physics. decides it’s never too late to Tinder. PB. $32.99 change direction, and choose Available 14 August Chen’s investigation draws him into your own path. In 1920s Palestine, a group conflict with soldiers and scientists who of Jewish pioneers, many have motives of their own: an army major Read more at penguin.com.au escaping violent obsessed with dangerous weaponry, and a homelands, come together physicist who has no place for ethics in his to found a kibbutz on a pursuit of knowledge. patch of land that will later become part of Israel. This Snapshot novel shows us a utopian dream punctured Brandon Sanderson by messy human entanglements. This is Gollancz. HB. $26.99 also the story of present-day Israel and Within the re-created Palestine, and reveals the way the Snapshot of May 1st, newcomers chose to ignore the fact that detectives Davis and Chaz their valley was already populated, home are the ultimate authorities. to a people that they did not want to see. But the crimes the detectives are sent to investigate seem like RELENTLESS NO FRIEND BUT THE drudgery, until they stumble upon a mass Science Fiction Sam Mitchell MOUNTAINS killing that the precinct headquarters Behrouz Boochani orders them not to investigate. That’s one With four premierships, 329 games and a Brownlow Medal, Sam Mitchell In 2013, Kurdish journalist Behrouz order they have to refuse. The hunt is on. Record of a Spaceborn Few is a true AFL legend. Relentless is Boochani was illegally detained on Becky Chambers And though those in the replica city have an extraordinary book – as honest, Manus Island. He has been there ever H&S. PB. $29.99 no future once the Snapshot is turned off, original and entertaining as Sam since. A lyric first-hand account, this is a ‘From the ground, we that doesn’t mean that Davis and Chaz will Mitchell himself. vivid portrait through five years of exile. stand. From our ships, make it out alive. we live. By the stars, we hope.’ These are the final words chanted by all Poetry present at the end of a Naming Day ceremony – the celebration of new life performed by Aqua Spinach symbolically adding the footprint of the Luke Beesley newly born to the archives on the Exodus Giramondo. PB. $24 Fleet. The Exodus Fleet is a collection of Aqua Spinach rounds out a huge city-sized ships the last generations trilogy of books interested of Earth-born humans spent their lives in the affinities between A SHRINK IN THE CLINK building as the Earth died. The fleet was poetry and other media – FODMAP Friendly sent into space, the humans upon it visual arts, music, and Tim Watson-Munro Georgia McDermott swearing to start afresh and leave the particularly in this No one gets closer to Australia’s bloody ways of their past behind. collection, cinema. The craziest characters than ‘Doc’ Tim Over 90 low-FODMAP recipes for all It’s very hard to talk about this book poems in Aqua Spinach blend observation, Watson-Munro. An extraordinary occasions that are not only delicious, journey into the shadows and a in under 300 words. Do I talk about how memory and anecdote, producing but will help relieve the uncomfortable brilliant insight into the shifting symptoms of an unsettled gut. humans have made a nearly completely surrealistic imagery as they pivot and twist realities of the criminal mind. successful self-sustaining society – one from image to image. They are infused with with nary a sinister corporation or the atmosphere of surrealist cinema, government in sight? Do I talk about their mimicking the films’ focus on dreams, rituals – how deeply important it is when fragments and humour, while also speaking their loved ones die that they are turned to the author’s quotidian Melbourne milieu. 12 READINGS MONTHLY CRIME August 2018

not in the game – accusations that this Pieces of Her hardass new mother will not take lying Karin Slaughter Dead down. (Since new parents never get any HarperCollins. PB. $32.99 sleep.) This is a witty, fast-paced spy The improbably named Write thriller with enough twists and kicks to and empirically with Fiona Hardy the head to keep any winter blues away. popular Karin Slaughter is back with Resin one heck of a story. Decades after a youthful Paul Verhoeven inadvertently sees Ane Riel Laura and her grown BOOK OF THE a crime scene photo that he’s never been able to shake, he sits Doubleday. PB. $32.99 daughter Andrea are MONTH down with his ex-cop father John to find out why. Why he Available 20 August out at a diner one True Crime couldn’t shake it, how his father coped with so much worse, On a Swedish island normal day, having a and how videogame reviewer and pop-culture nerd Paul called The Head, a friendly chat with some people they know, veered so much away from the paths of action and danger family lives all alone, when a man comes into the diner with a both of his parents barrelled headfirst into. What follows is surrounded by the trees ten-gallon hat and a six-shooter and puts the story of John Verhoeven’s trajectory from a tired factory that they craft into five bullets into their two friends. When worker who sees an ad with a spunky cop in it to police furniture for a living. Laura – mild-mannered, locally loved, officer with a reputation for getting shit done right – but this There is a mother and a grey-haired Laura – stops the killer with doesn’t really summarise Verhoeven’s book. This is not a father, and their two stone-cold ease, it ends more than his life. straightforward memoir; it’s as much about John as a person children, and there was With their family dynamic shattered and and the Verhoevens as a family unit as it is about car chases also a grandmother, but she died when police asking hard questions, Andrea, still and shenanigans. the father killed her on Christmas deep in shock, realises that her mother is The casual, intimate way of writing feels as loose as its morning. It was for the best, though, not who she thought, and may be in title, like a warm chat on the porch looking over the winter everyone agrees. And in a house full right danger – unless it’s everyone else who’s in mist on the trees beyond – a conversation you’re more than to the roof with things – stolen things, danger. Another blood-drenched vice- happy to brave the cold to listen to. This same familiarity can borrowed things, made things – nothing grip of a thriller from Slaughter. Loose Units make it hard to know what you’d do yourself, in these same is quite normal, including the past that Paul F. Verhoeven situations: faced with colleagues who are needlessly violent, led them to now, when Liv, the daughter, Jar of Hearts and could direct that at you, what would you do? Viking. PB. $34.99 is finally talking about her childhood. Jennifer Hillier Paul’s admiration and pure belief in his father pours About the trees, and the game they played Corvus. PB. $29.99 out of every page, but it doesn’t stop him probing those with everyone on the mainland where Georgina Shaw, known moments that you expect in these sorts of stories. From the hard-knock eighties cops, they got to take things left out for them, as Geo to some and V.P. a time of Roger Rogerson and no mobile phones or recording devices tracking what the but you couldn’t talk about it. And about of Shipp force is doing, you come away from this book thinking thank god that has changed! There how resin can heal things. And protect Pharmaceuticals to is violence, and damage, and profiling; there are bodies moved to keep paperwork to a them. And never let them go. others, is in the middle minimum; there were times I had to put the book down and look away. (Let’s face it, I’m of a presentation when a crime reviewer and pop-culture nerd, and I couldn’t cut it as a cop either.) It’s grim Now You See Her the police finally come stuff, but it’s also, often, genuinely laugh-out-loud funny. The story is mostly John’s, with Heidi Perks for her. They have Paul occasionally interjecting with a topical movie reference, or his father’s insistent Century. PB. $32.99 finally found her best corrections when he thinks his son might get too fancy with descriptions; these are a riot Available 20 August friend, Angela Wong, who went missing (but the good kind). John himself is a blast, even though sometimes there are some loose To continue this year’s when they were sixteen years old. They morals to go along with those loose units. It’s a different, personal kind of true crime, with theme of missing have found her not that far from her heart – and many other organs besides. children (sob), this is home, not whole, and with her comes the the story of Harriet and knowledge that Geo knew that she was Charlotte, friends, dead, all this time. That it was her confidantes, mothers – boyfriend, Calvin James. That Geo had Scrublands Vietnam to see about some screenwriting and in for police been there when it happened and sees five Chris Hammer work and get the hell away from LA. But questioning. Harriet years’ jail time for her part in it. But still, A&U. PB. Was $32.99 everything’s not as peachy in Saigon as needed someone to look the dead bodies pile up, and Geo knows $27.99 they’d hoped, and it’s not long before after her four-year-old daughter, Alice, that something is wrong, and that A year after the quiet they’re caught up in a world of dead and Charlotte was the natural – if not only something ties right back to her. A Riverina town of bodies, poisonings, disappearances, fuzzy – choice in the matter. With four children chilling assault of a read. Riversend is rocked to animals out for blood and grown men out to look after at the school fête, Charlotte its dusty core by a for it too. It’s going to take Danny and Zan looks away for a moment, and it’s just horrific crime – one in just about all they have to get underground enough time for Alice to vanish. But who Also out this month: which a priest opened and get on top of this fresh chaos – and the took her? How can a friend let you down fire on his own readers are just along for the ride. so badly? More importantly, how can the secrets these women hold on to lead to parishioners – Much to many readers’ something as horrific as the journalist Martin Killing It devastation, the final book disappearance of a helpless child? A tense Scarsden makes his way back there to Asia Mackay in Ann Cleeves’ Shetland British psychological thriller. write the story of the town’s recovery for Zaffre. PB. $29.99 Series, Wild Fire (Pan the newspaper that won awards for its All right, readers, hold Mac, PB, $29.99); some coverage of the tragedy. In the fearsome on to your hats, Sins As Scarlet historical post-Hamilton heat of drought-stricken Australia, and because this one’s a Nicolás Obregón crime in Paddy Hirsch’s The confronted with a town beset with grief, blast. A big, action- Michael Joseph. PB. $32.99 Devil’s Half Mile (Corvus, it’s all Martin can do to keep himself packed secret service After the success of Blue PB, $29.99); some juicy together, but Riversend isn’t done with thriller is always Light Yokohama, spy goodness in Daniel carnage just yet. When two more bodies something I’m on board Obregón returns with Silva’s eighteenth Gabriel appear in a dam, and the questions keep for, but of course, after Inspector Kosuke Allon thriller, The Other coming about the crime his paper had seventy hundred James Iwata – grinding Woman (HarperCollins, wrapped up with a bow, Martin needs to Bond movies they can seem a little stale. through his days as a PB,was $32.99, special price see through the dust to the truth – before it In Killing It, crack MI8 agent Alexis Tyler private investigator in $29.99); Claire Askew’s All goes up in flames. is welcomed to her first day back on the L.A., spending his the Hidden Truths (H&S, team that has missed her after six months nights not alone, but PB, $32.99); J.P. Delaney’s Tunnel Vision of maternity leave, and while now she’s still lonely. He’s doing everything he can Believe Me (Quercus, PB, Jimmy Thomson worrying about her daughter (whose carer not to think about Tokyo, and about the $32.99); mainstay Peter Affirm Press. PB. $29.99 has been under months of surveillance, of family he no longer has, until his wife’s Robinson’s Careless Love With ex-sapper course) and leaking formula powder sister, Meredith, is found strangled behind (H&S, PB, was $32.99, scriptwriter Danny and getting in her gun (at least, Lex thinks, it Skid Row. Police are dismissive of special price $29.99); Jordy script editor Zan finally mostly looks like cocaine), she’s thrilled Meredith’s death, thinking that it was a Rosenberg’s Confessions free of the Hollywood to be back at the top of her game. What hate crime, but Iwata needs to find out the of the Fox (Atlantic, PB, $29.99); Lisa shenanigans of their follows is a wild ride of parenting jokes, truth, and not just for himself. From 1970s Ballantyne’s Little Liar (Piatkus, PB, $29.99); first book, Perfect advice for disposing of interrogated Tokyo to present-day California by way of James Oswald’s No Time to Cry (Wildfire, PB, Criminals, the two of villains, grand theft auto, attempted Mexico – with a detour into Iwata’s own $29.99); Caroline Kepnes’s Providence (S&S, them head to Zan’s hacks of basically everyone, motorbike past – this is the gritty, brutal underbelly PB, $32.99); Shari Lapena’s An Unwanted home country of chases, and accusations that her head’s of California’s most sparkling city. Guest (Bantam, PB, $32.99) … and more! READINGS MONTHLY 13 August 2018

we love, in turn, might help resolve identity, and the often confusing Australia’s political impasse. experience of identifying as Fijian-Indian, New Australian, both and neither – sometimes The Mess We’re In: How Our all at once. Nonfiction Politics Went to Hell and Eloquent yet accessible, Patel’s writing Dragged Us with It beautifully conveys the complexities Bernard Keane of culture, as well as the pitfalls of A&U. PB. $32.99 seemingly progressive politics. She doesn’t shy away from tackling big At number 736 High Street Thornbury on 17 June 1980, A tide of populism and issues – one chapter addresses the BOOK OF THE Maria James was stabbed sixty-eight times in a frenzied xenophobia is sweeping the confronting experience of witnessing attack at the back of the bookshop she owned and lived in. western world. Disillusioned MONTH poverty firsthand in India as someone Fast forward thirty-eight years and the case has still not voters are turning to True Crime from the diaspora, realising that her own been solved. political outsiders and life could easily have turned out the same Ron Iddles is a cop’s cop. He is the kind of detective that increasingly rejecting the way if even one circumstance had been restores your faith in the police force. Ron has had a ninety- liberal economic solutions of different. Another unpacks the stereotype nine percent strike-rate of cases solved throughout his stellar out-of-touch elites. Despite having access to of the hardworking Indian small business career, 320 homicides to be exact, but the case of Maria more information than at any time in owner, and its effects on Patel’s own work James, his first, still plays on his mind after all these years. human history, we are turning our backs on ethic; yet another dissects the whiteness He simply cannot let it go. experts, evidence and facts themselves in a of feminism, as Patel muses on Indian Award-winning investigative journalist Rachael Brown new era of electronic ignorance. Crikey marriage traditions and the West’s has, with this book and her absolutely gripping podcast of correspondent Bernard Keane explains how quickness to dismiss cultural practices the same title, put this case back on Victoria Police’s map. a perfect storm of historical developments as anti-feminist when the reality is much Brown’s relentless quest for the truth shines through in this has left us fearing that a Dark Age is fast more nuanced. book, yet she never compromises the dignity of and respect approaching, how things are also better for Maria James and her family. In recent times, James’s two than they seem and how it can be fixed. Elsewhere, she reflects on the privilege adult sons’ new testimonies blow the case out of the water of vegetarianism, and compares her and all the way into the Catholic Church, where two priests experience moving to Scotland with This Whispering in Our Hearts her partner to her parents’ decision to Trace: Who Killed who were previously dismissed as suspects are now centre Revisited stage in this unbelievable story. relocate to Australia for a better life – the Maria James? Henry Reynolds After reading this book, I devoured the podcast in one strange divide between ‘expatriate’ and Rachael Brown NewSouth. PB. $32.99 sitting. New episodes are made by the author as soon as any ‘migrant’. Throughout, Patel mourns the Scribe. PB. Was $32.99 Henry Reynolds now-classic new evidence, news or updates come her way. It is totally loss of her Fijian-Indian identity through $29.99 book The Whispering in Our gripping and will leave you asking yourself many questions. her desperation to fit in as a teenager – a Hearts constructed an I think I may have become slightly obsessed with Trace, the concept that many second-generation alternative history of case and the podcast, and have turned myself into an inner-city Sherlock Holmes. kids will identify with. Australia through the eyes Trace the book will appeal to fans of the mega-popular Serial and S-Town podcasts Patel is highly critical of aspects of of those who felt disquiet from This American Life, that have helped catapult this genre into the mainstream. both Fijian-Indian and Australian culture, and disgust at the brutality Thanks to the incredible research by Brown, the police admitting to an evidence but never condescends – her thoughts of dispossession. These men and women bungle and new information from the public, the case has now been re-opened and all are lucid and often accompanied with fought for justice for Indigenous people suspects, leads and evidence will be re-assessed. Stay tuned via the podcast for updates. academic references, but written plainly even when doing so left them isolated and enough to be widely understood. Reading Anna Rotar is from Readings Carlton criticised by their fellow whites. Revisiting this collection is like having a fascinating this history, in this new edition Reynolds conversation with a friend, sharing their brings fresh perspectives to issues we constantly evolving thoughts about the Captured Lives: Australia’s grapple with still and shows how much intricacies of existence. Australian Studies remains to be done. Wartime Internment Camps At once heartwarming and an urgent Peter Monteath call to arms, No Country Woman is Adani and the War Over Coal National Library of Australia. PB. $39.99 The Fierce Country: intelligent, thought-provoking and fresh, Quentin Beresford Captured Lives peers True Stories from Australia’s pleading for empathy in a world often NewSouth. PB. $34.99 behind the barbed wire Unsettled Heart, 1830 to Today lacking it. Coal is the political, veil that was drawn Stephen Orr Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen is from Readings Wakefield Press. PB. $27.95 economic and cultural around people – both Doncaster totem for debates about civilian internees and In this nail-biting book climate change. Yet prisoners of war – deemed combining the notorious Always Another Country: Australian politicians have threats to Australia’s and little-known, A Memoir of Exile and Home had a love affair with coal, security during the two world wars. acclaimed author Stephen Sisonke Msimang which has helped lock our Civilians from enemy nations, even if born Orr has collected true Text. PB. Was $32.99 stories that have shaped politics and country into the fossil fuel in Australia, were subjects of suspicion $29.99 and locked away in internment camps. and continue to haunt the age. This searing book takes apart the Perth-based South Richly illustrated it includes sketches and Australian psyche: mysteries, pivotal role of the Adani Carmichael mine African writer watercolours made by internees that serve disappearances, mistreatment and in the conflict over coal. Looking into the Sisonke Msimang was as firsthand references of the conditions murder. From the kidnapping of a school social, environmental and economic raised in exile in the 1970s and life in the camps. teacher and students en masse in the elements of this big fight, and of Gautam and 80s by her South 1970s to the fateful day Peter Falconio Adani, this book tells the full story of one African freedom-fighter pulled over beside a desert highway, these of the lightning rod issues of our time. The Football Solution: How parents. Her childhood tales chart an undercurrent of shifting Richmond’s Premiership Can and early adulthood were spent in cultural tensions as Australians find, lose Best We Forget: The War for Save Australia Zambia, Canada, Kenya and the United and question who we are. White Australia, 1914-18 George Megalogenis States. After apartheid, her family was Peter Cochrane Viking. PB. Was $32.99 finally able to return to South Africa, but Text. PB. $32.99 $29.99 as it turned out, that wasn’t to be In the half-century A sport unlike any other in Biography Msimang’s last move. preceding the Great War the world, football has To read this memoir is to witness there was a dramatic shift always been Australia’s a personal and political response to in the mindset of Australia’s bellwether. But at a time No Country Woman: oppression in remarkably recent history. political leaders, from a when politics is A Memoir of Not Belonging Msimang is explicit about who she profound sense of safety in increasingly conducted Zoya Patel is, where she has come from and the the Empire’s embrace to a like sports – full of Hachette. PB. Was $32.99 battles she has fought – and continues deep anxiety about abandonment by one-eyed tribalism, captain’s calls and $29.99 to fight. She is also frank about how her Britain. Before the war, Commonwealth policy dictated by the Newspoll Available 14 August family’s experience differs from those in governments were concerned not with scoreboard – football is the one Zoya Patel was born positions of greater, and lesser, privilege. enemies in Europe but with perils in the institution that’s more relevant than in Fiji to Indian Msimang’s writing is full of hard- Pacific. In this vital and illuminating book, ever. Using his beloved Richmond and parents, and came to earned personal insight, and astonishing Peter Cochrane examines how the racial the events leading to their 2017 Australia at three years old. empathy. Many striking moments preoccupations that shaped Australia’s premiership George Megalogenis reveals In her thoughtful debut leave a painful, permanent impression: preparation for and commitment to the how football has been shaped by the essay collection, she ‘And then, one day, in the middle of war have been lost to popular memory. nation that invented it and how the game grapples with the idea of everything that was becoming mundane 14 READINGS MONTHLY NONFICTION August 2018 and ordinary, on a day just like the ones The Rapids: Ways of Looking navigate, a life of poverty and drug like George Orwell and Hannah Arendt, that had come before it, I was called an at Mania addiction. One Hundred Years of Dirt is an whose work is again eerily relevant. African monkey.’ Sam Twyford-Moore unflinching memoir in which the mother Kakutani offers a provocative diagnosis of It is not possible to do this book NewSouth. PB. $32.99 is a hero who is never rewarded. It is a our cultural condition and a path forward justice in so few words. Msimang engages Sam Twyford-Moore’s meditation on the anger, fear of others and for our truth-challenged times. with recurring issues: racism, feminism, The Rapids examines an obsession with real and imagined and class; but this is also a story of a mania and bipolar disorder borders. Yet it is also a testimony to the young girl’s childhood, coming of age, in art and popular culture. A strength of familial love and endurance. History and family; of politics, democracy, series of interlinked essays fighting for ideals, and seeing idols fall. peppered with references to The Unpunished Vice: Above all, it is a story of a search for and film, literature, music and A Life of Reading Milk!: A 10,000-Year Food construction of identity. television, the book – Twyford-Moore’s first Edmund White Fracas Always Another Country is eloquent – looks at just how much manic-depressive Bloomsbury. PB. $29.99 Mark Kurlansky and powerful. Msimang’s explication of disorder may or may not influence Blending memoir and Bloomsbury. HB. $32.99 what it means to be from – but not of – a creativity. Drawing on his own experience literary criticism, Edmund Profoundly intertwined place is profoundly moving. [See also with the disorder, Twyford-Moore pastes White’s The Unpunished with human civilization, Zoya Patel’s memoir, No Country Woman, together a collage of different literary styles, Vice is a compendium of all milk has a compelling and which is out this month and addresses including imagined interviews, numbered the ways reading has a surprisingly global story this subject too.] Msimang deserves to be lists, short paragraphs and streams-of- shaped his life and work. to tell. Mark Kurlansky, widely read and fans of Roxane Gay and consciousness, in an attempt to achieve his White’s larger-than-life historian and best-selling Maxine Beneba Clarke, in particular, will self-described aim of replicating, to some presence on the literary scene lends itself author of Cod and Salt, not be disappointed. extent, the thought processes that make up to fascinating, intimate insights into the traces the liquid’s diverse history from Elke Power is the editor of Readings Monthly the brain of a person experiencing mania. lives of some of the world’s best-loved antiquity to the present. With recipes The short paragraphs, meandering cultural figures. With characteristic wit throughout Kurlansky details milk’s thoughts, and non-sequiturs that make up Happy Never After: and candour, he remembers his life curious and crucial role in cultural The Rapids make for a disjointed reading Why the Happiness Fairytale through the books he read including evolution, religion, nutrition, politics, experience – and, in that sense, achieve is Driving Us Mad (and How I reading Henry James to Peggy and economics. their goal. It’s obvious that Twyford-Moore Flipped the Script) Guggenheim in her private gondola in has a large catalogue of literary and pop- Venice, and phone calls at eight o’clock in Jill Stark The Bulldog Track culture knowledge stored in his brain, the morning to Vladimir Nabokov. Peter Phelps Scribe. PB. $35 which he draws on liberally to illustrate Hachette. PB. $32.99 Five years after his points. Just some of the lives and work You’re on an Airplane: A Self- March 1942: the world is at publishing High he looks at in-depth are those of Carrie Mythologizing Memoir war. Too old to fight and Sobriety, Jill Stark returns Fisher, Kanye West, Spike Milligan and, Parker Posey with jobs scarce at home, with Happy Never After, somewhat perplexingly, Matthew Newton Virago. PB. $32.99 Tom Phelps found work in somewhere between a and Andrew Johns. The most interesting From the ‘Queen of the the goldfields of the New follow-up memoir and chapters (reflections on icons Fisher and Indies’ and star of films Guinea Highlands. No one investigative journalism. Spalding Gray) sit alongside those that such as Waiting for expected the Japanese to Where High Sobriety explored examine the behaviour of more problematic Guffman, Best in Show, Cafe attack in the Pacific. But they did. Stark’s and the general community’s figures like Newton and Johns – men whose Society and Dazed and Travelling by foot, raft, canoe, schooner, relationship with alcohol, here she struggles with violence and mental health Confused comes an train, luck and courage, Phelps, half- turns her sights to her battle with Twyford-Moore attempts, not altogether irreverent, hilarious, and starved and suffering malaria, would mental health. She recounts in great convincingly, to defend. enchanting memoir full of personal eventually make it home. This is the story detail her experience with panic Twyford-Moore makes the case for stories, whimsical how-tos, recipes, and of Tom Phelps and the ‘other Kokoda Track’. attacks, bursts of depression, and being a more nuanced understanding and eccentric illustrations. With remarkable Seventy-five years later, Tom’s grandson, inside a psychotherapist’s room, while acceptance of mental health disorders like candour and a refreshing perspective on actor and writer Peter Phelps, shares this researching the physiological and bipolar by exploring the creative lives of life in the spotlight, Parker Posey opens up inspiring tale of resilience and survival. cultural factors that play a part in the those who manage to make art about their about the art of acting, life on the set, and concerning rise of mental health issues condition – even if it is just to survive. And the realities of its accompanying fame. in developed nations. The Persecution of the while he never does quite find answers to Templars With the same keen eye evident in the questions he poses – like whether or not Alain Demurger her previous book, Happy Never After art incites mania, or vice versa – The Rapids Profile. HB. $49.99 is full of far-reaching and astoundingly provides an interesting perspective on an Cultural Studies The trial of the Knights thorough research. Stark addresses issue that has long hidden in plain sight. the affirmation trends in the 80s and Templar is one of the most Kelsey Oldham is from Readings Hawthorn how they evolved into contemporary 2062: The World That AI Made infamous in history. bestsellers such as Mark Manson’s The Toby Walsh Accused of heresy by the No Friend But the Mountains: Subtle Art Of Not Giving A Fuck and La Trobe University Press. PB. $34.99 king of France, the Templars Writing from Manus Prison Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules For Life, while 2062 is the year by which we were arrested and Behrouz Boochani drawing on Russ Harris’s research into will have built machines as imprisoned, had their goods Picador. PB. Was $32.99 happiness as a cultural enterprise and intelligent as us. This is what seized and their monasteries ransacked. the discovery of neuroplasticity, as $29.99 leading AI and robotics Under brutal interrogation and torture, spearheaded by Norman Doidge (author ‘Where have I come from? experts predict. But what many made shocking confessions: denial of of The Brain That Changes Itself). While From the land of rivers, the will this future actually look Christ, desecration of the Cross, sex acts the title and the cover look set to appeal land of waterfalls, the land of like? When the quest to build and more. This is a striking account of the to a fairly specific audience, Happy Never ancient chants, the land of intelligent machines has been successful, relentless persecution, and the oft- After is far broader in scope than an mountains.’ In 2013, Kurdish how will life on this planet unfold? Expert underestimated resistance, of the once- attempt to dismantle the illusion of the journalist Behrouz Boochani Toby Walsh considers the impact AI will mighty Knights Templar. fairytale wedding. was illegally detained on have on work, war, politics, economics, Stark walks us through her Manus Island. He has been there ever since. everyday life and death, and describes the psychotherapy sessions, revealing the This book is the result. Laboriously tapped choices we need to make today to ensure Humour long and exhausting process of facing out on a mobile phone and translated from the future remains bright. the root of her anxiety and finding new the Farsi. It is a voice of witness, an act of ways to work through it without letting survival. A lyric first-hand account. A cry of The Death of Truth Best Foot Forward it become destructive. At times the resistance. A vivid portrait through five Michiko Kakutani Adam Hills candidness with which she opens up to years of incarceration and exile. HarperCollins. HB. $24.99 Hachette. PB. $32.99 the reader made me feel uncomfortable, How did truth become an Adam Hills is one of but that just makes it all the more One Hundred Years of Dirt endangered species? In The Australia’s biggest comic important in breaking down the stigma. Rick Morton Death of Truth, former New personalities. From the quiet With public awareness of these issues MUP. PB. $29.99 York Times critic Michiko primary school kid, to his gaining momentum, this is a must-read Violence, treachery and Kakutani takes a early years on the Australian for anyone who has either struggled cruelty run through the penetrating look at its comedy scene, touring the with mental health themselves or knows generational veins of Rick decline. In this book, world’s comedy festivals, the someone who has – and according to Morton’s family. A horrific Kakutani identifies the trends that have magic of Spicks and Specks, his hit UK TV Stark, that’s most of us. accident thrusts his mother combined to elevate subjectivity over show The Last Leg and everything in Tom Davies is from Readings Doncaster and siblings into a world factuality, and returns to the words of the between this charming and witty memoir is impossible for them to great critics of authoritarianism, writers a lesson in following your heart, being NONFICTION READINGS MONTHLY 15 August 2018 positive and discovering that what makes future of America and of reason itself, this Scandi-noir lovers out there. Khoo’s recipes you different also makes you unique. scathing collection of Frank’s incisive are ideal to be pared with the latest wintery commentary is a booster shot of energy, Food & drama on SBS: think meatballs but also reality, and moral outrage. smoked sausage stroganoff and fish tacos, Music Gardening Swedish style. And of course, then there are the photos throughout that make you want with Chris Gordon Science to revamp your own tableware, or at least Jeff Buckley: From Hallelujah your kitchen linens. to the Last Goodbye Family: New Vegetable Made By Humans Pizza de Luxe Dave Lory with Jim Irvin Classics to Comfort and Ellen Broad Post Hill Press. HB. $45 Nourish Stefano Manfredi MUP. PB. $29.99 Murdoch. HB. $16.99 For the first time since Jeff Hetty McKinnon Buckley’s untimely death on Who is designing AI and Did you know that pizza Plum. PB. Was $39.99 May 29, 1997, his manager how is their world view is the most popular food $32.99 Dave Lory reveals what it shaping our future? In in the entire world? If Drum roll please: was like to work with one of Made By Humans elite data you don’t believe me, ask wonderful Hetty McKinnon rock’s most celebrated and expert Ellen Broad explores pizza master Manfredi. is back with another influential artists. Go on the our role and responsibilities Here, in his sixth cook soon-to-be-used-every- road and behind the scenes with Jeff, from in automation. Roaming book, he takes us on a tour of how to create single-week cookbook that the release of his debut EP Live at Sin-é to from Australia to the UK and the US she the healthiest, tastiest pizza this side of rejoices in gatherings and the second album Buckley never completed. talks to world leaders in AI about what we Naples. Recipes include traditional innovative, simple recipes. There are The definitive book on a singer and iconic need to do next. It is a personal, thought- favourites and innovative ideas. Known for pastas to make, soups to comfort, salads cult hero who made just one record but provoking examination of humans as data his famous Sydney restaurants and that scream for crowds to enjoy and all inspired a generation of rock musicians. and humans as the designers of systems appearances on television, Manfredi is the with that familiar sense of warmth, colour that are meant to help us. perfect person to give us the right advice and delicious tastes. There is something about making the very best pizza. very liberating about McKinnon’s When Galaxies Collide Apparently it’s all about the flour! Use the Personal cookbooks and I think it’s because she Lisa Harvey-Smith very best you can. understands the way families move MUP. PB. $29.99 Development through the week. This is a wonderful, Humans are the only known big-hearted collection of recipes for us all. Taco-topia astronomers in the universe. Deborah Kaloper Notes on a Nervous Planet When we look up at the Smith Street Books. HB. $29.99 Cauliflower is King: 70 Recipes Matt Haig night sky, we are linked to In my home, tacos are the Canongate. HB. $27.99 to Prove it our ancestors. But all that go-to meal when the kids Leanne Kitchen The world is messing with will change. The are cooking us a meal. I’m Murdoch. PB. $19.99 our minds. Rates of stress Andromeda Galaxy is going to be leaving this This is a cracker of a cook and anxiety are rising. A rushing towards us at 400,000 kilometres terrific ode to tacos lying book: simple to use and full fast, nervous planet is an hour. When Galaxies Collide will guide around in the hope that my of top ideas. Who knew that creating fast and nervous you to look at the night sky afresh. It peers kids pick up some fresh ideas about what the cauliflower is absolutely lives. We are more 5.86 billion years into the future to consider to pop in those nourishing corn-chip the go-to vegetable for pretty connected, yet feel more the fate of Earth and its inhabitants. Will boats. Here, Melbourne-based California much any savoury dish you alone. How can we stay sane on a planet the solution be to live in space without a native Deborah Kaloper goes beyond the can hope for? This imaginative collection that makes us mad? How do we stay planet to call home? Will one of the other basics and includes new ideas to fill soft of recipes includes instructions for human in a technological world? How do 100 billion planets spawn life? and hard tortillas in this sweet, beautifully cauliflower rice, cauliflower flour, we feel happy when we are encouraged to illustrated cookbook. I’m going to make cauliflower burgers and the list goes on to be anxious? Matt Haig takes a personal Outnumbered sure the kids skip the mac and cheese and vital look at how to feel happy, human give you the inspiration to grab that David Sumpter tacos option though and encourage and whole in the 21st Century. beautiful flower-head and start chopping. Bloomsbury Sigma. PB. $29.99 instead the slow-cooked, braised-bean Cauliflower is King is an easy to use Available 18 August tacos. Whatever rocks your taco boat, this cookbook and suitable for all. Algorithms are running book has the answer to the questions you Politics our society, and as the didn’t even know to ask. Jamie Cooks Italy Cambridge Analytica story Jamie Oliver has revealed, we don’t Halliday Wine Companion 2019 Michael Joseph. HB. Was $49.99 The Four Flashpoints: How really know what they are James Halliday Asia Goes to War up to. Our increasing $44.99 Hardie Grant. PB. Was $39.99 Available 9 August Brendan Taylor reliance on technology and $33.99 La Trobe University Press. PB. $29.99 We will never tire of Jamie, the internet has opened a window for This is what we know about In this timely and will we? His recipes are so mathematicians and data researchers to James Halliday: we know that revelatory analysis, accessible and fun, and his gaze through into our lives. In this book he has been creating his Wine strategic expert Brendan latest book (this is his 30th) David Sumpter explains how mathematics Companion book every year Taylor examines the four is a celebration of the joy of and statistics work in the real world, and since 1986. We know that he Asian flashpoints that are Italian food. Jamie wants to what we should and shouldn’t worry has written about wine for over most likely to erupt in share his affection for all things Italian with about. A lot of people feel outnumbered 40 years. As the young people would say, sudden and violent conflict: accessible recipes that bring the pleasure by algorithms – don’t be one of them. he’s solid. He knows a thing or two about the Korean Peninsula, Taiwan, the South and passion of the world’s favourite cuisine Australian wine and his latest guide is China Sea and the East China Sea. Drawing to your kitchen at home. There are chapters indeed an incredible resource for a growing on history, contemporary sources and on antipasto, on salads, rice, and pasta with Sport Australian industry. Again, Halliday shares in-depth reports he argues that crisis can a wonderful mix of fast- and slow-cooking, his extensive knowledge of wine through only be averted by understanding the familiar classics with a ‘Jamie twist’. detailed tasting notes with points, price, dynamics of these global hotspots and the Whether cooking for yourself or cooking for Leather Soul: A Half-Back value symbol and advice on best-by complex interrelations between them. friends and family, the aromas and tastes Flanker’s Rhythm and Blues drinking, as well as each wine’s closure and will hopefully transport you straight to the Bob Murphy alcohol content. Again, this is the go-to landscapes of Italy. Rendezvous with Oblivion Nero. HB. Was $39.99 guide for making the right decision about Thomas Frank $34.99 what to drink, and why. Scribe. PB. $27.99 Bob Murphy has never been The Little Swedish Kitchen With his sharp eye for a typical footballer. Music Rachel Khoo detail, Thomas Frank takes buff,Age columnist and Michael Joseph. HB. $49.99 Also out this month: us on a wide-ranging tour Winnebago driver, he is as I fell in love with Ms Khoo through present-day comfortable in a quiet corner some time ago when she America, showing us a of a Fitzroy café or the front showed us how to produce Former MasterChef Billy Law’s third book, society in the late stages of bar of a grungy pub as he is scrumptious French-style XXL: Epic Food, Street Eats & Cult Dishes disintegration, and in the locker room. In this unique memoir he meals out of the tiniest from Around the World (Smith Street describing the worlds of both the winners takes the reader inside his seventeen-year kitchen in the world, Books, HB, $39.99) and excellent advice in and the losers – the sprawling mansion career, including his three years as captain dressed in the very best outfits. She’s back the form of Slow Down and Grow Something districts as well as the lives of fast-food of the Western Bulldogs, exploring the and this time her wee kitchen is based in by Byron Smith with Tess Robinson workers. For those who despair of the people, places and events that shaped him. Sweden! This book is perfect for all you (Murdoch, PB, $39.99). 16 READINGS MONTHLY August 2018

Announcing the winner of the Readings Young Adult Book Prize ‘It is by turns heart-breaking and hilarious, cerebral and cheeky, and an incredibly 2018! important work.’ – Fiona Wright

he Rapids, an extraordinary debut, Tis a literary memoir and cultural The winner of this year’s Readings Young exploration of the condition of mania. Adult Book Prize is Amelia Westlake by Creative and courageous, it is a personal Erin Gough (Hardie Grant, PB, $19.99). story peppered with film and literary The Prize considers first and second represented – each thoroughly different, criticism, as well as family history. works of young adult fiction and memoir but all deserving of an accolade. I hope from Australian authors. This year’s that the Readings Young Adult Book Prize shortlist included Between Us by Clare helps shine a light on these emerging Atkins, Beautiful Mess by Claire Christian, YA voices, and gives all six authors the Small Spaces by Sarah Epstein, Untidy Towns opportunity to reach a new and wider by Kate O’Donnell, This Mortal Coil by Emily audience for their work. Suvada as well as Gough’s Amelia Westlake. Amelia Westlake struck a chord with Amelia Westlake follows the story of this reader, not solely because of its biting www.newsouthpublishing.com Harriet Price (rule-abiding prefect) and social commentary and blisteringly Will Everhart (rule- relevant, timely breaking slacker). The themes, but because two girls strike up an of its delightful unlikely friendship execution. Erin when they decide to Gough’s writing is publish a controversial steeped in humour, cartoon about a wit and warmth, and sexist teacher in the deftness of touch that school newspaper allows her characters under the pseudonym to navigate the ups and Our history Amelia Westlake – downs of a romantic an act that leads to comedy narrative, further rebellion, while at the same and a romantic spark time finding their way explained between Harriet and through the complex, Will. Part queer rom- thorny issues that com, part feminist the novel raises. Both heist, Amelia Westlake female protagonists is a joy to read. are beautifully real Amelia Westlake and relatable, funny, was chosen as the flawed and imperfect, winner by our panel and following their of judges, including individual journeys and their budding Readings YA book specialists Athina Clarke relationship was a true pleasure to read.’ (Readings Malvern), Georgia Delaney As winner of the Prize, Gough is (Readings Kids) and Mike Shuttleworth awarded $3000. Gough said of her win: (Readings Hawthorn), as well as Readings ‘Thank you Readings, I am so marketing manager Nina Kenwood. The grateful for this honour. Readings and judging panel was rounded out by our guest its dedicated booksellers do such an judge, award-winning YA writer Melissa amazing job promoting Australian stories Keil, author of Life in Outer Space, The and connecting readers with books – this Incredible Adventures of Cinnamon Girl, and award is just one of the many ways it The Secret Science of Magic. The judging supports local authors. I feel especially panel also received input from the Readings honoured to have been shortlisted with Teen Advisory Board. five remarkable writers, whose work is Reflecting on the judging process, a testament to the range of stories and guest judge Melissa Keil said: breadth of talent in Australian YA. My ‘It was an honour to participate in the delight is matched only by that of Amelia judging panel for the 2018 Readings Young Westlake herself who, upon hearing the Learn about the great forces that have Adult Prize – though I was immediately news, was rendered speechless.’ presented with the challenging task of shaped humanity as we know it. whittling down the wonderful shortlist to just one winner. The six books represent You can find out more about the Readings Young the enormous breadth of Australian young Adult Book Prize at readings.com.au/the-readings- adult writing talent, with a diverse range dk.com.au young-adult-book-prize of genres, themes and writing styles READINGS MONTHLY 17 August 2018

The Finder Young Kate Hendrick Text. PB. $19.99 Adult When Lindsay meets Elias the signs aren’t promising. She’s a grungy introvert and The title of Emily Gale’s latest young adult novel is inspired he’s a teen fashionista. But since Lindsay BOOK OF THE by an Emily Dickinson quote: ‘I am out with lanterns, looking for myself’. This simple yet evocative metaphor sets the focus tracked down a runaway MONTH for this work and the existential enquiry that drives self- kid, word’s got around Young Adult awareness for its characters. that she knows how to find people. And Elias is looking for his Gale returns to the lives of Summer and Wren Jackman, birth mother. But Lindsay wasn’t actually and their immediate neighbours Milo and Sophie Witkin, trying to find the runaway. It’s just how she from her most recent work, The Other Side of Summer, but looks at the world because she is searching also introduces a wider group of young people. This allows a for her identical twin Frankie, who broader exploration of themes relating to identity, sexuality disappeared when they were eight. Since and difference. This more expansive character pool brings then, her parents have kept themselves together an eclectic mix of creative types – loveable misfits busy – and angry. In Elias, despite their and non-conformists from the local public school – and differences, she might have found sets them at odds with the young alpha-males from the someone to look with. neighbouring private school; a mostly homogenous group that wear their privilege with a sense of entitlement. The community Gale creates is as multi-cultural and socio- The Happiness Quest economically varied as Melbourne itself. Richard Yaxley There is something satisfyingly social and community Omnibus. PB. $18.99 I Am Out With focused yet personable about this work. Gale gives her Tillie Bassett is sad, and Lanterns characters real-life personality, quirks and charm. The story she doesn’t understand Emily Gale is punctuated by humour and wit: ‘If you need something why. Her parents and Random. PB. $17.99 emotional from Dad, you give him very specific instructions friends suggest very and maybe some kind of Allen key ... Mum often hangs different, allegedly her feelings all over the house like underwear, so there’s helpful, remedies. But it nowhere you can look that isn’t confronting.’ These are characters that feel so real and is the suggestion of her familiar that as a reader you can’t help reflecting that they could be your friends, family counsellor, Gilbert the or neighbours. Goldfish, that the Readers of Gale’s earlier work will enjoy re-engaging with familiar characters, but new answer may lie in finding the nature of readers will not be disadvantaged for not knowing the back-story as this work holds its happiness. As Tillie embarks upon her own. This is OzYA at its best! project she discovers that nothing is quite as it seems. Secrets are uncovered, old Natalie Platten is from Readings Doncaster tensions resurface, relationships tangle and untangle, and Tillie realises that everyone struggles balancing sadness and happiness, and living truthfully. The Survival Game After the Lights Go Out Nicky Singer Lili Wilkinson Before I Let Go Hodder Children’s. PB. $16.99 A&U. PB. $19.99 Marieke Nijkamp Mhairi is 14 and on Lili Wilkinson’s Sourcebooks Fire. PB. $16.99 a journey toward latest novel is a Days before Corey is to her grandmother’s home page-turning thriller set return home to the snow in Scotland. It’s the in a post-disaster world. and ice of Lost Creek, not-so-distant future. Pru’s single father is a Alaska, to visit her best The ice-caps no longer doomsday prepper – friend, Kyra dies. Corey form and countries have which means he has a is devastated – and euthanasia policies in hidden bunker with confused. The entire place for population supplies to last for years Lost Creek community control. This is a world of checkpoints and and he makes his three daughters do speaks in hushed tones drones. Borders are protected by soldiers regular drills, practising for the apocalypse. about the town's lost daughter, saying her with machine guns and identity papers When a solar flare triggers a shutdown of all death was meant to be. And they push mean everything. power and electronics, Pru’s father is away Corey away like she's a stranger. Corey Mhairi has travelled huge distances at work on the mines hundreds of miles knows something is wrong. Lost Creek is and endured great trauma; her survival away and she must take charge of her two keeping secrets. But piecing together the tactics reflect her desperate need to stay younger siblings. Pru also provides a truth about what happened to her best alive, whatever the cost. When a small helping hand to Puerto Rican American friend may prove as difficult as lighting the boy joins her things change for Mhairi, Mateo, a newbie in town who is all alone sky in an Alaskan winter. and despite her wariness she finds herself while his mum is also working at the mines. doing everything she can to protect him After the lights go out, the community Reign Of The Fallen too. Their battle to survive informs us must learn to band together and help one Sarah Glenn Marsh that small, thoughtful acts can be life- another to survive. Pru and Mateo quickly Razorbill. PB. $19.99 saving. become romantically involved but will Pru Odessa is one of Much of Mhairi’s world will be already tell anyone about her family bunker filled Karthia’s master sadly familiar to readers who have been with supplies or keep quiet and watch necromancers. following our news cycle over the past people suffer? And what has happened to Whenever a noble dies, few years. She walks great distances Pru’s father? it’s Odessa’s job to only to be met with hostility and spends This is an action-packed, realistic retrieve their soul from a time in harsh detention facilities. It is thriller that is fascinating to read and had dangerous shadow world impossible to read this book without me thinking about brushing up on my called the Deadlands. considering the present day treatment survival skills. Each character is beautifully But there is a cost – the of, and attitudes toward, refugees. In drawn and there are some fantastic, diverse Dead must remain totally shrouded, or risk this way readers are asked not only what secondary characters, including Peter Wu, turning into monsters known as Shades. A would you do? but also what can you do? the Shakespeare-loving local preacher, and dramatic uptick in Shade attacks reveals a and what should we do?. Violet Gumbuna, an elder and authority disturbing conspiracy: someone is figure. Lili Wilkinson’s writing is on fire and The Survival Game is a powerful and intentionally creating Shades, and using this story will appeal to a broad range of relevant read for mature teen readers. It them as weapons. Odessa is faced with a readers aged 14+. has a truly startling ending that might terrifying question: what if her bring on some tears. Angela Crocombe is the manager of necromancer’s magic is the weapon that Kim Gruschow is from Readings St Kilda Readings Kids brings Karthia to its knees? 18 READINGS MONTHLY KIDS August 2018

Sonam and the Silence The Extraordinary Gardener Eddie Ayres & Ronak Taher (illus.) Samantha Boughton Children’s A&U. HB. $24.99 Tate Publishing. HB. $16.99 Sonam is a young girl who Joe is a boy just like any Books lives with her family in other, but he loves to Kabul and earns money by imagine. Joe lives in a pretty selling chewing gum on the city ordinary tower block, in a streets. Sonam’s world is rather ordinary city. flooded with beauty and joy However, he spends his time when she hears an old man imagining a wonderful world playing music on her way home, filled with exotic plants and unusual animals. One and she returns each day to day Joe decides to plant a seed on his balcony and listen. The old man gives Sonam his instrument, a the chain of events that follow prove just how rubab, but music is forbidden in Afghanistan, and wonderful nature can be. Sonam must defy her family’s fear, and her own despair, to find this joy again. A Day at the Show Ayres has built a charming fable around the true Gwyn Perkins story of a resilient love of music, which was banned Affirm Press. HB. $24.99 in Afghanistan by the Taliban. Ayres draws from Doreen the hen has laid Board his time teaching music in Afghanistan and his another perfect egg! Little moving, lyrical story is beautifully illustrated by Iggy and Grandad think she Iranian-Australian artist Ronak Taher. Best suited to deserves a prize. What follows Books children aged 3+. is a family trip to the Georgia Delaney is from Readings Carlton colourful chaos of the Show, filled with spinning tea cups, Little Boat Maya & Cat merry-go-rounds, lots of animals and some healthy Taro Gomi Caroline Magerl competition. Here is a story about family Chronicle. BB. $12.99 Walker. HB. $24.99 adventures, the magic of the show, and the joy of When you’re small and on the In exquisite poetic running one tiny car into another. go, there’s a lot to watch out language, author and for – big boats, waves, rain illustrator Caroline Magerl clouds, and more! But Little tells the story of a girl who Boat can handle whatever finds a shivering wet stray cat on the roof, befriends it with Nonfiction comes his way, braving the elements and the unexpected sardines and then kindly tries with his initiative, confidence, to find where it belongs. Maya and positive attitude. This colourful follow-up to visits many homes that feature rabbits, dogs and Little Truck by beloved author/illustrator Taro Gomi other cats in their multitudes while Cat looks on Puffin the Architect is perfect for toddlers sailing toward big adventures. somewhat perplexed. Cat eventually leads the way Kimberly Andrews and Maya is given a wonderful surprise when she Puffin. HB. $24.99 But First, We Nap: finally discovers Cat’s true home. Maya is a quirky Puffin is an architect who always A Little Book for Nap Time character trailing her feather boa and wearing a hat exceeds her clients’ that looks remarkably like the ears of Cat. The ink expectations, well that is, until David Miles & Darya Dremova and watercolour drawings are just beautiful and the she takes on the toughest clients Familius. BB. $14.99 faces on the characters so expressive and ever – her own pufflings! Puffin Sloth wants to nap. Rabbit humorous. This is a delightful picture book for all takes her tricky new clients on doesn’t. Who will win in the animal lovers that will be pored over by children an inspirational tour of her end? For every parent who’s aged three and up. builds including Otter’s floating struggled to get their child to home and Platypus’s cosy underground bakehouse. nap, But First, We Nap is a Angela Crocombe is the manager of Readings Kids The pufflings are unimpressed. Will Puffin come up hilarious book to replace the with a puffling-perfect home design? This gorgeous naptime wrestle. Funny The Honeybee story will spark a brand new generation of architects, illustrations depict Rabbit Kirsten Hall & Isabelle Arsenault (illus.) engineers and interior designers. upping his antics while the ever-patient sloth Atheneum. HB. $26.99 repeats, ‘But first, we nap’. Finally worn out, Rabbit Buzz from flower to flower with gives in, and the pair – and hopefully your child – a sweet honeybee in this timely, snuggle and nod off. clever, and breathtakingly gorgeous picture book from Junior critically acclaimed author Kirsten Hall and award- Picture winning illustrator Isabelle Fiction Arsenault. With zooming, vibrant verse this celebration of Books the critically important honeybee is a honey-sweet treasure of a picture book. Yours Troolie, Alice Toolie Kate Temple Great Dog A&U. PB. $12.99 How Did I Get Here? Davide Cali & Miguel Tanco (illus.) Meet Alice Toolie – seriously Philip Bunting T&H. HB. $21.99 famous Youtuber, and lead Omnibus. HB. $24.99 A pup and his father contemplate jellyfish in the school jazz ballet. The (unauthorised) biography his grand future while looking at Something very bad has happened of you, and the story of all of other Great Dogs in their family. to Alice Toolie. Her secret diary us. Charting from the Big Will he be a marathon runner like has been read by her worst enemy Bang to birth, Philip Bunting Uncle Tibor, the fastest dog in the – Jimmy Cook. It’s war! Until Ms takes us on a journey back to family? Or maybe a teacher like Fennel decides that Alice and the start of time (in about the Uncle Scooter, respected by all? Jimmy need to make peace and time it takes to eat your No matter what, says his father, become pen pals for the term. A laugh-out-loud book breakfast!). A hilarious and he will be a GREAT dog! With filled with sparkle and slime, from the CBCA beautifully illustrated book designed to raise more tongue-in-cheek writing and funny illustrations these award-winning writers of the Captain Jimmy Cook questions than it answers. dogs will have readers giggling from start to finish. Discovers series. KIDS READINGS MONTHLY 19 August 2018

Jane Doe and the Cradle of All Worlds witch who turns into a cat, lives with a landlord who’s Jeremy Lachlan a chicken and falls in love with a young woman who Middle turns into a sparrow – but as both stories move on HG Egmont. PB. $19.99 Jane Doe has grown up in the fantasy and history blend and reveal themselves for Fiction basement of a couple who what they are. In the hands of a less skilled writer hate her; with a bedridden dad the ‘reveal’ could have been almost jarring – the way who’s incapable of communication; reality suddenly appears on top of this story about in a town that regularly burns talking animals and ogres – but instead – the shift effigies of her; and her only friend is from an English-style folk story to Australian history the 8 year old pyromaniac daughter was a thrill. Another magnificent book from Emily BOOK OF THE of her reluctant landlords. Rodda. For ages 9+. MONTH With a life like this you can be Dani Solomon is from Readings Kids Middle Fiction forgiven for greeting every unwanted challenge flung at you with a smart-alec comment, which is something Jane The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl Doe does to great aplomb. Her exasperated bluntness Stacy McAnulty made me laugh out loud on more than one occasion RH USA. PB. $16.99 and Jeremy Lachlan does a good job of acknowledging Available 14 August the frustrating tropes of children’s fantasy without ever Lucy Callahan was struck by making the book or characters seem self-aware, or even lightning. She doesn’t remember it, changing them. When Jane snaps at the tight lipped but it changed her life forever. The maybe-bad guy to drop the mystery guy act and just tell zap gave her genius-level math skills, her his big secret already I cheered! How often have you and ever since, Lucy has been read a fantasy book and thought the exact same thing? home-schooled. Now, at 12 years old, It’s a completely natural reaction and very refreshing to she’s technically ready for college. The Relic of the read. And on top of all this there is a fantastic fast paced She just has to pass one more test Blue Dragon: exciting adventure set in a magical labyrinth of a manor – middle school! Stacy McAnulty’s Children of the with rooms that shift, booby traps and a classic bad guy smart and thoughtful debut reminds us all to get out of Dragon Book 1 who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. I highly our comfort zones and embrace what makes us different. Rebecca Lim recommend this book for kids 11+. A&U. PB. $14.99 Dani Solomon is from Readings Kids Nowhere Boy Katherine Marsh Natural Born Loser Roaring Brook Press. HB. $22.99 Harley Spark isn’t sure why he’s drawn to the Oliver Phommavanh Newly arrived in Belgium, fourteen- dusty vase sitting outside the local antique Puffin. PB. $16.99 year-old Ahmed fled Syria, losing warehouse. Harley’s mum, Delia, has always Grade Sixer Raymond is his father on the perilous journey to counselled him to be honest, not least because his resigned to his fate as a natural Europe. Now, with no one to trust dad Ray’s criminal activities were the reason his born follower but when a new and nowhere to go, Ahmed’s losing parents got divorced. But when Harley can’t resist principal arrives at Barryjong hope. Until he meets Max, an taking the vase, his actions reanimate a feud that Primary School determined to shake American boy, who is also lonely spans continents and millennia. The vase releases things up, he somehow finds himself and homesick. Set against the Qing, a Chinese girl from a long-ago dynasty, who cast in the role of a leader. Even backdrop of the Syrian refugee has uncanny abilities and a desperate mission to worse, he and the other Prefects crisis, this is a story of resilience, friendship and find her lost sisters. have made an impossible promise to everyday heroes. get air conditioning for the classrooms... Uh oh. Natural Born Loser is a sweet tale about a reluctant Kids will love Lim’s skilful hero who proves we aren’t restricted by other people’s blend of ancient events, expectations – not even our own. While Barryjong Classic Primary School is fictional, Australian children will dragon shape-shifting, find it a familiar setting, and many will relate to Raymond’s worries as he navigates the politics of the of the Month international organised classroom. They may also feel empowered by seeing crime and kung fu young people take matters into their own hands to instigate larger change. mastery Oliver Phommavanh’s warm, inviting voice and Goodnight Mister Tom episodic storytelling make this book a great pick for Michelle Magorian The Relic of the Blue Dragon is a unique mash-up independent readers of ages 8 to 11. Puffin. PB. $14.99 of Chinese myth, a modern-day Australian setting, Bronte Coates is the digital content coordinator and the Goodnight Mister Tom follows the and an Australian family with Chinese heritage. Readings Prizes manager life of Willie as he is evacuated from Once Qing enters the Spark family’s life, the action London in the build-up to World is fast and furious. His Name Was Walter War Two. Small and afraid, he Kids will love Lim’s skilful blend of ancient Emily Rodda blossoms under the kindness of events, dragon shape-shifting, international HarperCollins. HB. $22.99 Mister Tom, the gruff old man who organised crime and kung fu mastery (who doesn’t After their bus breaks down takes him in. Mister Tom on the want to know more about the Northern Praying on a school excursion four other hand, having isolated himself Mantis style?). Harley and Qing are given a pleasing kids, including Colin and their from the rest of the town ever since amount of agency, while the collision of ancient schoolteacher, take shelter from a his wife passed away, is surprised to find how much he and modern life injects humour into their perilous huge storm in a nearby deserted opens up now that Willie is in his care. situation. Readers who are drawn to the Percy mansion. While there, Colin Sometimes I think this classic was the inspiration Jackson series but struggle to maintain focus with discovers a secret drawer that for Kimberly Brubaker Bradley’s The War that Saved longer books will find The Relic of the Blue Dragon contains an old book with strange My Life, which makes it a wonderful way to dive back an inspiring and manageable introduction to vivid drawings and a handwritten into the world of Ada and Susan while meeting an contemporary fantasy. story about a boy called Walter entirely new cast of characters. Although the war is The book ends with a clear, ongoing quest for who was found abandoned and was raised in a definitely a brooding shadow that follows Willie and Harley and Qing, an inevitable meeting with the beehive-orphanage. The five start to read it to pass Mister Tom, this story focuses less on the battles than shadowy Diamond King, and lingering questions some time and while he tries to rationalise the feeling, The War that Saved My Life does, and more on the daily about Ray Spark’s true motivations. Children of the Colin feels strongly compelled to keep going after the activities of Tom, Willie, and Willie’s newfound friends Dragon will be a two-book series. For ages 9 and up. teacher calls for it to be put down. in the town of Little Weirwold, making it feel a little Leanne Hall is the online children’s specialist for Readings The story within the story at first seems like nonsense more light-hearted. – a boy raised by bees, who works for mice, meets a Tom Davies is from Readings Doncaster 20 READINGS MONTHLY BARGAINS August 2018

the far edges of space with an out-of-this- books including a detective adventure, a Where My Heart Used to Beat world lift-the-flap-book! Packed with romance, and a quest. But the real hero is Sebastian Faulks August stunning illustrations and fascinating you, the reader. HB. Was $39.99 Now $12.95 facts about the planets, stars, comets and On a small island off the Bargains satellites that surround us. Lift the flaps on All the Light We Cannot See south coast of France, every page to discover more about our Anthony Doerr Robert Hendricks, an neighbours in the amazing Solar System. HB. Was $34.99 Now $12.95 English doctor who has This stunningly seen the best and the A Brief History of Seven Killings worst the twentieth Sam and Dave Dig a Hole ambitious novel, winner Marlon James of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize century had to offer, is Mac Barnett & Jon Klassen (illus.) HB. Was $35 Now $12.95 for fiction, tells the story forced to confront the HB. Was $24.99 Now $12.95 Spanning three decades of a blind French girl and events that made up his life. Daring, With perfect pacing, and crossing continents, a German boy whose ambitious and in the end profoundly the multi-award- this novel, winner of the paths collide in occupied moving, this is Faulks’s most remarkable winning, best-selling 2015 Man Booker Prize, France as both try to book yet. team of Mac Barnett chronicles the lives of a survive the devastation of World War II. It and Jon Klassen dig host of unforgettable illuminates the ways, against all odds, down for a deadpan A World on Fire characters. Gripping and people try to be good to one another. tale full of visual Amanda Foreman inventive, ambitious and HB. Was $59.99 Now $15.95 humour. Sam and Dave mesmerising, A Brief History of Seven Dig a Hole offers a humorous look at the The Evolution of Type: Between 1861 and 1865, Killings is one of the most remarkable pleasures of outdoor play and its often A Graphic Guide to 100 thousands of British and extraordinary novels of the twenty- surprising rewards. The interplay of text Landmark Typefaces citizens volunteered for first century. and art makes this a great read-aloud. Tony Seddon service on both sides of HB. Was $45 Now $13.95 the Civil War. Through the A Kind of Victory: Captain eyes of these volunteers The Day the Crayons Came The Evolution of Type Charles Cox and His we see the struggle for life Home takes you on a journey Australian Cavalrymen and the powerful forces Drew Daywalt & Oliver Jeffers through the Craig Wilcox that threatened to demolish a nation. This (illus.) development of type PB. Was $44.99 Now $12.95 design and typographic groundbreaking work cements Amanda HB. Was $24.99 Now $12.95 In 1899, on the eve of style from the mid-15th Foreman’s position as one of the influential Watch out – the crayons the Boer War, Captain century to the present historians of our time. are back and they’re Charles Cox from day, by way of 100 crosser than ever! One Parramatta took 100 typefaces. This book gives a fascinating day Duncan receives a The Complete Works of Primo Australian cavalrymen insight into the history of the typefaces we set of postcards from Levi to train with the British have been reading for decades. his crayons who have Primo Levi army in England. In A been lost, forgotten, broken – even stuck HB. Was $189.95 Now $69.95 Kind of Victory, Wilcox tells the story of to a pair of underpants! Hilarious text and Made at Home Primo Levi has largely these men and their experiences fighting joyful illustrations combine to show that Giorgio Locatelli been considered a heroic alongside the British, and the crayons have feelings too in this laugh- HB. Was $49.99 Now $12.95 figure in the annals of consequences of this for Australia. out-loud book. With recipes that twentieth-century reflect the places literature for If This Is a Toto: The Dog-Gone Amazing Moab is My Washpot Giorgio Locatelli calls Man, his haunting Story of the Wizard of Oz Stephen Fry home, this is a account of Auschwitz. Yet Michael Morpurgo & Emma PB. Was $19.99 Now $10 celebration of favourite Levi’s body of work Chichester Clark (illus.) Stephen Fry’s bestselling vegetables, along with extends considerably beyond his HB. Was $32.99 Now $10 memoir tells how, sent to generous fish and meat experience as a survivor. This collection gathers Levi’s fourteen books – memoirs, From master storyteller a boarding school 200 dishes and cakes to essays, poetry, and fiction – into three Michael Morpurgo, and miles from home at the share. Locatelli also takes favourite slip-cased volumes. illustrated in stunning age of seven, he survived ingredients and develops them in four colour by the award- beatings, misery, love, ways, from mozzarella and ham winning Emma Chichester ecstasy, carnal violation, calzoncini to fresh fruit sorbets to round Flying the Southern Cross: Clark, comes a surprising, expulsion, imprisonment, off a meal in true Italian style. Aviators Charles Ulm and charming and uplifting criminal conviction, probation and Charles Kingsford Smith twist on The Wizard of Oz, told by a very catastrophe to emerge, at eighteen, ready The Magic Faraway Tree Retro Michael Molkentin special and unforgettable character: to try and face the world in which he had Illustrated PB. Was $34.95 Now $10 always felt a stranger. Dorothy’s pet dog, Toto. A perfect, collectible Enid Blyton Australian aviators gift for all children (and children at heart). HB. Was $24.99 Now $12.95 Charles Kingsford The Glass Bead Game When their cousin, Smith and Charles Some Rain Must Fall: My Hermann Hesse Rick, comes to stay, Ulm, along with Struggle Book 5 PB. Was $14.99 Now $10 Joe, Beth and Frannie Americans Jim Warner Karl Ove Knausgaard In the remote Kingdom of can’t wait to show him and Harry Lyon made HB. Was $49.95 Now $11.95 Castalia, scholars play the Faraway Tree - the the first trans-Pacific As the youngest student the Glass Bead Game – an oldest, most magical flight in 1928 in an aircraft constructed to be admitted to elaborately coded game tree in the world! largely of timber and fabric. In this book, Bergen’s prestigious that is a fusion of all Travel to new and Michael Molkentin brings to life the Writing Academy, Karl human knowledge. exciting lands with the children and airmen themselves, four men who made Ove arrives full of Joseph Knecht becomes their enchanting friends, Moon-Face and aviation history. writerly aspirations. Soon consumed with Silky the Fairy! though, he is stripped of mastering the game, and as he fulfils his God’s Bankers: A History his youthful illusions. He life-long quest he must contend with Reaching Down the Rabbit of Money and Power at the gives up writing, and the beginnings of an unexpected dilemmas and the longing for Hole Vatican adult life take shape. That is, until his a life beyond the ivory tower. Dr Allan H. Ropper & Gerald Posner self-destructive binges and the irresistible Brian David Burrell PB. Was $35 Now $11.95 lure of the writer’s struggle pull him back. If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller HB. Was $39.99 Now $12.95 From a master chronicler Italo Calvino What is it like to try to of legal and financial The Solar System PB. Was $14.99 Now $10 heal the body when the misconduct, this book (Lift-the-flap book) You go into a bookshop mind is under attack? In traces the political Jeremy Harwood & and buy If on a Winter’s this book, Dr. Allan intrigue and inner Steven Wood (illus.) Night a Traveller by Italo Ropper and Brian Burrell workings of the Catholic HB. Was $24.99 Now $11.95 Calvino. But there is an take the reader behind Church. Part thriller, part A lift-the-flap error in your copy. You the scenes at Harvard financial tell-all, this book with 4 bonus return it, but the Medical School’s book shows with extraordinary precision sheets of glow-in- replacement contains a neurology unit to show how a seasoned how the Vatican has evolved from a the-dark space different story. This diagnostician faces down bizarre, foundation of faith to a corporation of stickers. Explore remarkable novel leads you through many life-altering afflictions. extreme wealth and power. READINGS MONTHLY 21 August 2018

Breath Requiem Film & TV $29.95 $34.95 Based on Tim Winton’s award- From the makers of The Missing winning novel of the same comes this haunting series name, Simon Baker’s feature which blends mystery, suspense, Not all movies can make the jump to television with the ease film directorial debut Breath follows two and the supernatural to create an atmosphere DVD OF THE with which Mystery Road does. When I first saw the 2013 Ivan teenage boys, Pikelet and Loonie, growing reminiscent of the classic horror films of MONTH Sen movie I found myself thinking that it was a perfect tale of up on the remote Western Australian coast. the late 1960s and 70s. In the aftermath of TV culture, conflict and intrigue, an Australian western. Goldstone, The pair form a friendship with Sando, a her mother’s suicide Matilda, a professional the 2016 sequel carried on the storytelling arc of a man caught mysterious older surfer, who pushes the cellist, and her devoted accompanist travel to between two worlds whilst belonging to neither. boys to take risks that will profoundly a Welsh village in search of a missing girl. Director Rachel Perkins (Radiance, One Night The Moon, impact their lives. Bran Nue Day) takes the reins with this series, which sees Jay The Tunnel: Vengeance Swan (Aaron Pedersen), assigned this time to investigate the Rodin Season 3 disappearance of two farm hands. $29.95 $34.95 Deborah Mailman stars as Kerry Thompson, whose son, ‘Most movies about artists Stephen Dillane returns, with a local football star, is one of the missing. Her family has tiptoe reverentially around the Clemence Poesy, in the Emmy already suffered great damage from a previous crime involving art and focus instead on the award-winning Anglo-French crime her brother (the brilliant Wayne Blair). Joining Pedersen and tortured life. Rodin is very much about the thriller The Tunnel. This emotionally Mailman in a leading role is Judy Davis as local cop Emma work … Less a narrative than a collection charged finale is set amidst post-Brexit James. Also starring are Ernie Dingo, Madeleine Madden, Tasia of evocative scenes, the film gives us Rodin hysteria, an escalating refugee crisis Zalar, and the criminally under-utilised Tasma Walton, whose as a monomaniac without boundaries and the threat of terror occasioned by performances all add great punch to a wonderful storyline. and an un-self-consciously untutored disenfranchised, exiled souls on whom Mystery Road Perkins and Sen are two of the most prominent Indigenous $29.95 innovator with form.’ – NPR society has turned its back. directors working today, and it’s exciting to see how Perkins Available 15 August translates Sen’s film to the small screen. In the original iteration Here and Now of Mystery Road, Sen employed a wide cinematic style that lent TV Season 1 itself well to the big sky beauty of the Australian outback. While in Perkins’ series, she finds the $39.95 intimacy of the Kimberleys in all their harsh glory, and focuses in on relationships, conflict and Available 8 August family. Silence can be deafening and the landscape talks as loud as anyone. Aaron Pedersen Salamander: Created by award-winning may have a lot on his plate acting-wise, but let’s not wait too long for Jay Swan to return. Blood Diamonds writer-director Alan Ball and starring Tim Lou Fulco is from Readings Hawthorn $49.95 Robbins and Holly Hunter Here and Now is a ‘‘It’s five years since hangdog provocative and darkly comic meditation on cop Paul Gerardi got involved the forces polarising present-day American in a case that centred on a shadowy secret culture, as experienced by the members society with contacts in the highest echelons Film helplessly? That’s The Death of Stalin for you, of a multi-ethnic family and a progressive of Belgian society … Called to investigate a slapstick tragedy – and for the funniest, Muslim family, headed by a psychiatrist who the murder of a refugee, Gerardi makes a fiercest comedy of the year so far – from is treating one of their children. Isle of Dogs the fertile mind of Armando Iannucci, the disquieting discovery. Further flavouring $39.95 British political satirist behind the HBO’s the brew, the new case involves the illegal ‘Wes Anderson’s joyous stop- Veep and the sensational, Strangelovian In jewel trade … and a link to Gerardi’s nearest Documentary motion feature looks and sounds the Loop (2009).’ – Rolling Stone and dearest.’ – The Guardian like nothing we’ve encountered before … [It] tells a touching tale of outcast The Other Side of Hope Call My Agent! David Attenborough’s dogs and a faithful boy, and does so with $29.95 Season 1 Tasmania ultralively deadpan wit. My only regret after Winner of the Silver Bear $39.95 $19.95 seeing it at a screening was that I couldn’t for Best Director at the 2017 Call My Agent! is a very sleek Tasmania lies on the stay and see it again.’ – Wall Street Journal Berlin Film Festival, the and stylish comedy surrounding Australian continent, but hilarious and poignant new comedy from an actor’s agency in crisis. Chock full of is a world apart. Trees here tower to The Death of Stalin beloved director Aki Kaurismäki is a richly French cinema and TV stars The Globe and one hundred metres and green lights $29.95 enjoyable and compassionate crowdpleaser Mail says ‘[t]he characters are fully rounded, dance in the southern sky. As the last ‘Who’d have thought the demise about the friendship between a newcomer there is no stereotyping and no embracing of landfall heading south before Antarctica, of a kill-happy Russian dictator to Helsinki and a budding if completely the impulse to be vicious about this peculiar Tasmania’s isolation, cooler climate and could leave you laughing inexperienced restaurateur. world of movies and TV stars’. distinct seasons influence everything.

ON CHESIL BEACH August 9 (CTC) BLACKKKLANSMAN Opens August 16 (CTC) McQUEEN September 6 (CTC) Adapted for the screen by Ian McEwan from his own novel, ON CHESIL From filmmaker Spike Lee comes the incredible true story of an Directed by Ian Bonhôte and co-directed/written by Peter Ettedgui, BEACH is a gripping, heart-rending account of a loving relationship American hero. Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) becomes MCQUEEN is a personal look at the extraordinary life, career and battered by outside forces and influences first formed in childhood, in a the first African-American detective on the Colorado Springs Police artistry of Alexander McQueen. Through exclusive interviews with society with strict, inflexible rules about uniformity and respectability. Department, and along with his Jewish partner Flip Zimmerman his closest friends and family, recovered archives, exquisite visuals Insightful, delicate and ultimately quietly devastating, ON CHESIL (Adam Driver), sets out on a dangerous mission: to infiltrate and and music, MCQUEEN reveals an unmatched talent who expressed BEACH is a showcase for the talents of Saoirse Ronan and Billy Howle expose the Ku Klux Klan. Offering an unflinching, true-life his darkest fantasies and greatest ambitions through his in a story of young love thrown on the rocks by the destructive inability examination of race relations in 1970s America, BLACKKKLANSMAN revolutionary designs and runway shows. MCQUEEN is an to say what one truly feels. is just as bracingly relevant in today’s tumultuous world. authentic celebration and thrilling portrait of an inspired yet tortured fashion visionary. “A completely heartbreaking story brought to exquisite life via “Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman Is Stylish, Hilarious, and Utterly immaculate writing, directing and acting.” Los Angeles Times Uncompromising.” Variety HHHH The Telegraph “In the crowded field of fashion docs, this one stands tall.” Hollywood Reporter HHHH The Guardian

Melbourne’s home of quality arthouse and contemporary cinema 22 READINGS MONTHLY MUSIC August 2018

Secularia Out of the Blues Popular Eliza Gilkyson Boz Scaggs $24.95 $16.95 Gilkyson’s music, in the From his early West Coast Music classic folk music tradition, rock and soul bands, has always offered a vivid through his smooth ‘70s reflection of the times we years, to his recent live in. Secularia, the explorations in R&B and It is 1989 and I’m driving home from a friend’s 21st birthday long-awaited follow-up to The Nocturne jazz, Boz Scaggs has created a highly ALBUM OF party out in the Yarra Valley. I am a young man who feels a Diaries, is a collection of spiritually charged personal, unfailingly soulful repertoire. This THE MONTH little out of place at the party so decide not to take up the offer songs that don’t fit within the parameters of latest album finds Scaggs, born in Ohio and Pop/Rock to stay over and camp the night on his parent’s farm (still not traditional religious beliefs and challenge raised in Texas and Oklahoma, reconnecting a fan of camping!). As I drive home to my inner city house us to embrace a more inclusive perspective. with his earliest musical loves. (that hasn’t changed either) I turn up very loud the Cowboy Junkies album Trinity Sessions (which was one of my favourite Back Roads and Abandoned albums of that time). The beauty of the landscape I am driving Pop/Rock/Alt Motels through is matched by the beauty of Margo Timmins voice and The Jayhawks the familiar songs makes me feel as if I am floating home. $19.95 | Also on vinyl Thirty years later I still love listening to that album, the The Nomad Produced by Gary Louris, Cowboy Junkies have of course released many more fine Guy Pearce John Jackson and Ed albums over the decades, this is their 16th album…and now the $24.95 Ackerson at Flowers Studio, day after I turn fifty I am listening to their new album All That Acclaimed actor and Minneapolis, Back Roads Reckoning. Not much has changed, yet everything is different. All That accomplished musician, and Abandoned Motels finds A band who have at times had great success, and just as many Reckoning Guy Pearce has released the current incarnation of The Jayhawks times out of the spotlight, a flame kept alive by their devoted Cowboy Junkies his second album. The expanding the group’s repertoire with 11 new followers. This new album will hopefully see more of the former, $24.95 Nomad is a collection of performances. This album is destined to an album in tune with the political times ( a reckoning) as well deeply personal songs, all written by become a classic in The Jayhawks’ catalogue as the personal. Margo and her brothers Michael & Peter with Pearce, each one reflecting upon the childhood friend Alan Anton have recorded their first album of new material in six years. dramatic changes in his life since releasing Michael’s lyrics and guitars are much tougher here, matching the times we live in. More Free Spirit his debut album, Broken Bones in 2014. darkness than light, but sometimes beauty lurks in the shadows. Paul Rodgers $34.95 CD & DVD Dave Clarke is the music and DVD manager for Readings Metaphora This 16-song collection Jill Barber filmed in London, England $19.95 returned Paul Rodgers to Having deftly delved into his roots, bringing fans an Jazz/Blues Dyna-Mite folk and vintage jazz on extraordinary evening Jon Cleary prior records, Jill Barber is celebrating the music of Free. Paul $19.95 now setting her sights on performs rock classics like “All Right Now,” Both Directions at Once: After winning his first feel-good pop. While some “Wishing Well,” “Fire and Water,” and The Lost Album Grammy and constantly narrow-minded long-time fans may yearn many deep tracks-some of which were John Coltrane touring the world, New for the more traditional folk or jazz sounds never performed live by the original band. $21.95 Orleans piano player and of her earlier work, Barber’s true believers Also available 2CD deluxe edition $31.95 songwriter Jon Cleary will applaud this brave step out of her prior High as Hope comfort zones. – Exclaim! Unheard until now, these returns with his ten-song LP Dyna-Mite, a Florence & the Machine recordings by the John moveable R&B and funk feast that puts you $21.95 | Also on vinyl Coltrane Quartet are, as right in the French Quarter. Cleary’s Everything is Love More organic and natural, Sonny Rollins says in the fingerprints are omnipresent throughout The Carters (Beyonce & Jay-Z ) this is Florence laid bare. $19.95 liner notes, ‘like finding a with his hip-shaking piano that blends Free of too many bells, new room in the Great Pyramid.’ This together a diversity of moods and textures. Everything is Love is the whistles and a contrived album represents an influential group in instantly iconic, surprise sense of scale, she’s free to music history performing in a musical drop album from The be herself more so than ever before. Carters. This long-awaited style it perfected, and reaching in Soul/Funk Stripped to the bare bones of her soul and exploratory directions that would affect collaborative album from the sentiment, her truth shines – and the trajectory of jazz. Beyoncé and Jay-Z reflects on the mythology there’s a beauty in that. – NME Night Time People of their own relationship and family dynasty while delving into themes of media worship, Vanished Gardens The Bamboos Our Country: Americana Act II wealth, fame and Black pride. Charles Lloyd & The Marvels + $19.95 | Also on vinyl Ray Davies Lucinda Williams The Bamboos eighth studio $19.95 | Also on vinyl $21.95 Live 1962-1966: album is shaping up to be the Our Country: Americana When Lucinda Williams Rare Performances from the record that capitalises on Act II is an album borne joined Charles Lloyd & The Copyright collections their previous success. The from Davies’ vision of Marvels at UCLA’s Royce Bob Dylan eleven tracks on the album America - how it shaped Hall in April 2017, the $19.95 reinvigorate the familiar arrangements and him and evolved through musicians beamed with In a career spanning six grooves of early funk-soul with the depth of a the years. His reflections on his unbridled joy. That same energy buzzed decades, Bob Dylan’s impact contemporary songwriting style and all sung experiences in America instigate personal through the sessions in a Los Angeles on popular music and by Kylie Auldist: one of the most distinctive reformation, and eventually rediscovery studio that brought us the luminescent culture is immeasurable. voices in Australia. and celebration of his own origins. music on Vanished Gardens, the radiant Live 1962–1966 shines a light new album from the six-piece. on some great performances that were Country initially overlooked, with most of the Vinyl Re-issue Elegant Gypsy & More: Live recordings now near impossible to find. Al Di Meola $19.95 All Ashore Boxer: Live in Brussels Achtung Baby Al Di Meola’s ongoing Punch Brothers The National U2 fascination for rhythmic $19.95 $21.95 $59.95 2LP set | Also released Zooropa syncopation combined Punch Brothers return The National have Recorded over 6 months in with provocative lyrical with All Ashore, their first established themselves as 1991, Achtung Baby was melodies and album since 2015’s The mainstays of arenas and U2’s seventh studio album. sophisticated harmony has been the Phosphorescent Blues. The festivals with sold-out The album was awarded heart of his music throughout a career band wrote all nine songs performances and the Grammy for Best Rock that has spanned decades. With Elegant on the album, which they self-produced headlining slots around the world. To Performance and became one of the most Gypsy & More Live; partly recorded on his and recorded in Los Angeles. ‘It’s a celebrate the 10-year anniversary of their acclaimed records of the nineties and of “Elegant Gypsy – 40th Anniversary” meditation on committed relationships in acclaimed album Boxer, they performed this U2’s career. As Bono said at the time, it was Tour, Al Di Meola proves once again that the present day,’ says Chris Thile, record from beginning to end at a special ‘the sound of four men chopping down the jazz music “rocks”. ‘particularly in the present climate.’ show in Brussels on November 9th, 2017. Joshua Tree’. MUSIC READINGS MONTHLY 23 August 2018

Shumann: String Quartets Op. Violin in D major op. 35a is considered a 41 Nos. 1-3 transitional work in Busoni’s repertoire, in Classical Engegård Quartet perfect balance between a ‘mild BIS. BIS2361. $29.95 modernity’ and a warm late Romantic Music Robert Schumann cantabile style. rated the string quartet genre very Delibes: Coppélia highly, describing it Orchestra Victoria & Barry Many regulars at Readings will know of Jordi Savall, the as ‘noble’ and Wordsworth ALBUM OF viola de gamba player and truly awe-inspiring early music considering it to be ABC Classics. 4817212. 2 CDs $21.95 THE MONTH specialist from Spain. Since the 1970s, Savall has been one of the most Léo Delibes’s Classical revolutionising period music one obscure manuscript at a revealing in terms of compositional Coppélia might not time. Having explored the Celts and the famous Baroque craftsmanship. It took almost 15 years have the profile of musicians, he has now cast his eyes to Peru. This is the before he was ready to fully commit to the Tchaikovsky’s great first complete recording ever of this manuscript, created idea. During some hectic summer weeks ballet scores, but it is by a Spanish bishop in 1782, known as the Codex Martínez in 1842, he completed the three string every bit as Compañón (c.1782–1785). It’s a bright manuscript of 1411 quartets of his Op. 41. important. Rarely watercolours and twenty musical scores depicting life in his recorded in its entirety, Coppélia is a diocese of Trujillo in Peru. Beethoven: Piano Trios Op. 1 charming and beautiful ballet featuring Nos. 1-3 irresistible and iconic melodies. This You never, ever need to worry about the Trio Goya sparkling work comes to life in this precision of these recordings. Everything Chandos. CHAN08222. $29.95 recording by Orchestra Victoria under the Bailar Cantando: they do is perfect, and if it’s not – it’s done on In this new Chaconne baton of Barry Wordsworth, one of the Fiesta Mestiza en purpose to show off some aspect of the style release, Trio Goya world’s most celebrated ballet conductors. el Peru of the era. Over fifteen years in the making, offers unique Hespèrion XXI & this album is meticulously researched and accounts of Shostakovich: Symphonies Jordi Savall presented. Beethoven’s early Nos. 4 & 11 Alia Vox. AVSA9927 piano trios, revealing Boston Symphony Orchestra & on period instruments $29.95 Like many of Savall’s chosen manuscripts, it’s a funny Andris Nelsons and in the magical acoustic of the Britten- DG. 4835220. 2 CDs $29.95 blend of styles. Clearly recognisable as Baroque music at Pears Auditorium at Aldeburgh’s Snape times, at others the influence of Indigenous folk tunes is Andris Nelsons is the Maltings, the extraordinary range of colours evident. The fusion of these styles is where the true magic happens. Adding interest, Music Director of the and narratives that these pieces suggest. too, is the inclusion of some of the languages common in the region, the colonial Boston Symphony Spanish but also the languages of the Indigenous Quechua and Mochica people. Orchestra and is one of the most As always the musicianship of Hespèrion XXI with Savall at the helm is superb. Weiss: The Dresden renowned, exciting You never, ever need to worry about the precision of these recordings. Everything they Manuscript and innovative do is perfect, and if it’s not – it’s done on purpose to show off some aspect of the style Roberto Barto & Karl-Ernst conductors on the international scene of the era. Over fifteen years in the making, this album is meticulously researched and Schröder today. Continuing the widely acclaimed presented. It is a fascinating look into an era of music people almost never get to hear Glossa GCDC80024. $26.95 cycle of Shostakovich Symphonies, he and outside of Peru itself. If you need a gift for the classical music lover who has everything, Both Roberto the Boston Symphony Orchestra now turn this is perfect. Barto and the late Karl-Ernst their attention to the extrovert Fourth and Kate Rockstrom is a friend of Readings Schröder have dramatic Eleventh. been linked to the Schola Cantorum Bernstein: A Quiet Place Basiliensis in Montreal Symphony Orchestra & Handel: Acis and Galatea Debussy: Songs Volume 4 Switzerland for many years. On this 1998 Kent Nagano Lucy Crowe, Early Opera Lucy Crowe & Malcolm Martineau recording originally released on Decca. 4833895. $34.95 Company & Christian Curnyn Hyperion. CDA68075. $29.95 Symphonia, the two lutenists present the ‘Conducted with Chandos. CHSA04042. 2 CDs $34.95 Lucy Crowe, it rarely heard but achingly beautiful music missionary fervour No sooner have would seem, is for lute duo by Sylvius Leopold Weiss. by Kent Nagano, who Acis and Galatea the soprano of the had worked with declared their love hour. I admit, I am Bernstein on the 1986 than the evil giant biased in her favour Scriabin: Preludes, Etudes & premiere, the latest (read: sexual predator) after witnessing her Sonatas Nos. 4 & 5 revision seems to Polyphemus tears glorious 2017 Vadym Kholodenko bring A Quiet Place into sharper focus than their union asunder. performance in the title role of Janáček’s Harmonia Mundi. HMM902255. $29.95 its baggy predecessor ... this is a very After doggedly but unsuccessfully pursuing Cunning Little Vixen with the Berlin Scriabin occupies a personal meditation on loss and its Galatea, a jilted Polyphemus retaliates by Philharmonic. I was first dazzled by place apart in the consequences, and Nagano’s cast ... make ingloriously crushing Acis under a rock. Crowe in 2011 after listening to her solo history of Russian its seriousness very clear.’ – The Guardian Finally, with great poise, Galatea exerts her debut recording Il Caro Sassone – Handel music: refusing power divine by immortalising her beloved in Italy. Her top register rang like a bell, influences from the Acis. This fantastic new Chandos recording and her luscious middle register only folkloric tradition, of Handel’s pastoral opera Acis and Galatea hinted at the beautifully rich sound she his evolution is Classical Special of features the remarkable soprano of Lucy is capable of producing today. Not only constant and spectacular from the works the Month Crowe as our anguished heroine, and, for its that, Crowe has now reaffirmed that, as influenced by Chopin and Liszt through to charming melodies and affecting choruses, in 2011, she is a sensitive and musical the tonal deconstruction of the final reminds us why Handel remains the great performer, and makes intelligent sense of works. This recording bears witness to this Wagner: Der Ring des master of baroque opera. her text whether it be in English, Italian, through the exhilarating and sensitive Nibelungen (Complete) Not since Sophie Daneman has there Czech, or French. playing of Vadym Kholodenko. Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and been a lovelier and more earthly Galatea. For this fourth instalment of Debussy Chorus & James Levine So far, Crowe has spent much of her career songs on the Hyperion label, Crowe is Malipiero & Busoni: Violin DG. 0734770. 8 DVDs. Was $139.95 specialising in baroque music, and only accompanied at the piano by Malcolm Concertos $69.95 Special price for a limited time. recently has she diversified into bel canto Martineau, and is joined on occasion Domenico Nordio ‘Kaufmann and repertoire. The change is noteworthy – while by baritone Christopher Maltman, Sony Classical. 19075865302. $19.95 Westbroek project the she still possesses impressive agility, her soprano Jennifer France, and harpist Malipiero considered right kind of sexual and voice has taken on a richer, deeper quality. Lucy Wakeford. Again, Crowe is by far his solo concertos emotional intensity to Her Galatea, therefore, sounds womanly and the standout performer. In Mandoline, composed in the carry the drama in the wise – she is alternately attuned to both the Crowe demonstrates her capacity for fertile years ‘prayers’. very bare setting that excitement and disappointment of love, and fast, energetic singing, and her final, The Venetian they’re in, a tension tormented by grief. If Daneman’s Galatea blink-and-you’ll-miss-it high C is a composer wanted to matched elsewhere only by Waltraud was a fresh-faced portrait of a love-struck lesson in control and precision. Beau emphasise his Meier’s masterclass of a Waltraute ... young nymph, then Lucy Crowe’s recording Soir, on the other hand, reveals the concept of an ‘anti-virtuoso’ concert Elsewhere there is solid singing from the with the Early Opera Company is a portrait expansive, beautiful quality Crowe’s lyric performance, obtained by including the “baddie” basses ... and much evidently for a post-#MeToo world. instrument. Highly recommended. soloist in a dialogue with the primus inter enjoyed hard work from Deborah Voigt’s Alexandra Mathew is from Readings Carlton Alexandra Mathew is from Readings Carlton pares orchestra. Busoni’s Concerto for Brünnhilde.’ – Gramophone Magazine