FREE NOVEMBER 2015

BOOKS MUSIC FILM EVENTS

THE READINGS PRIZE FOR NEW AUSTRALIAN FICTION

Introducing the 2015 winner page 6

NEW IN NOVEMBER ISOBELLE CARRIE KERRY UTOPIA RYAN CARMODY BROWNSTEIN O’BRIEN SEASON 2 ADAMS $32.99 $32.99 $49.95 $29.95 $19.95 page 11 page 13 $39.95 page 21 page 22

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READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2015 3

News

READINGS SUBSCRIBER SHOPPING DAY Our annual Readings Subscriber Shopping Day is on Thursday 19 November! We’re offering all Readings Monthly and Readings e-news subscribers 20% off full-priced books, CDs, vinyl, stationery and calendars, and 10% off full-priced DVDs. If you subscribe to the Readings Monthly, simply bring this month’s cover sheet (with your name on it) into any Readings shop to redeem this offer. Otherwise, sign up to our e-news at readings.com.au before Friday 13 November and we’ll send you an email that you can bring into shops on Thursday 19 November. Please note, this discount does not include cards and magazines, is only available for items in stock (not valid for special orders or lay-bys) and is not available online.

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE Handpicked by our passionate music team, Mother’s Day crossword competition, WORLD BY STEPHANIE BISHOP our vinyl collection includes old favourites Shirley Bowman won dinner for four at WINS THE READINGS PRIZE FOR alongside terrific new releases. Come and the Meatball & Wine Bar, Paul Watson NEW AUSTRALIAN FICTION 2015 chat with our specialists in person and won two festival weekend passes to the We’re delighted to announce that complete your own collection. The sale Wangaratta Festival of Jazz and Blues, Stephanie Bishop has been named this runs from Friday 30 October to Tuesday 3 and Marlene Pietsch won a year’s coffee year’s winner of The Readings Prize November at Readings Carlton, St Kilda, subscription thanks to Market Lane for New Australian Fiction. Our judges Hawthorn and State Library of Victoria Coffee for our Father’s Day crossword described her second novel, The Other shops. The offer only applies to vinyl competition. We also celebrated three Side of the World (Hachette), as ‘elegant, currently in stock, and is not available winners for our Rivertime colouring-in profound and unforgettable’. Stephanie online. competition: Milla Bishop (age category Bishop will receive prize money of $4000. 5-7 years), Zara Chessell (8-10 years) and Caspa Wallis-Carnie (11-12 years). Thanks The Other Side of the World is available MAN BOOKER PRIZE WINNER from all Readings shops and online for a to all who submitted entries – best of luck This year’s Man Booker Prize winner is special price of $26.99 (was $29.99). For for our competitions next year! Readings Monthly Marlon James for his novel A Brief History more information see page 6. Free independent monthly newspaper of Seven Killings. Set across three decades, published by Readings Books, Music & Film Established in 2014, The Readings Prize the novel uses the true story of the attempt for New Australian Fiction (originally on the life of reggae star Marley to explore Editor known as the Readings New Australian the turbulent world of Jamaican gangs Elke Power Writing Award) supports published and politics. Michael Wood, the chair of [email protected] Australian authors of fiction and judges, said the decision to name James recognises exciting and exceptional new the winner was unanimous, and that the Editorial Assistant contributions to local literature. The work was ‘extraordinary … very exciting, Alan Vaarwerk award aims to increase the commercial very violent’. He added that people [email protected] success of first or second books by should not be daunted or put off by the Australian authors. The inaugural winner subject matter: ‘It is not an easy read, it Advertising of The Readings Prize was Ceridwen is a big book with some tough stuff and Stella Charls Dovey, whose short-story collection, Only a lot of swearing but it is not a difficult [email protected] the Animals, went on to become one of our (03) 9341 7739 book to approach.’ The Man Booker Prize bestselling books for 2014. for Fiction is a £50,000 literary prize Graphic Design awarded each year for the best original Cat Matteson SUMMER READING GUIDE & novel, written in the English language, and [email protected] READINGS’ BEST OF 2015 published in the UK. A paperback edition of Williams’ book is available now in all This year, instead of publishing a Front Cover Readings shops and online at readings. December–January edition of the Readings Monthly cover design by Cat com.au for only $22.99. Readings Monthly, we’re putting together Matteson using elements from the cover of a comprehensive guide to the best books, Stephanie Bishops’ second novel The Other music and film of 2015, as voted by all Side of the World, which won The Readings READINGS MONTHLY 2015 Readings staff. This eight-page guide Prize for New Australian Fiction 2015. The COMPETITION WINNERS will be available in all Readings shops Other Side of the World cover images courtesy Throughout 2015, we’ve been heartened throughout December and January, and of Hachette, design by Christabella Designs by the huge response to a range of will be mailed to all Readings Monthly and photographs courtesy of Trevillion. competitions we’ve run through the subscribers in the first week of December Readings Monthly. We’ve loved seeing along with the Summer Reading Guide. Cartoon all your completed crosswords and We hope you enjoy our recommendations! Oslo Davis colouring in, and reading your responses! oslodavis.com Congratulations to our winners: Bill Walsh 20% OFF VINYL SALE won a Pro-ject turntable valued at $599 Readings donates 10% of its profits each year to The Readings Foundation: Make the most of your Melbourne as part of our April vinyl sale, Stephanie readings.com.au/the-readings-foundation Cup weekend with 20% off all vinyl! Grayston won a Readings voucher for our 4 READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2015

November Events MAUREEN WORLD WRITINGS 12 O’SHAUGHNESSY 5 ANTHOLOGY ON LAKELAND Home Truths: An Anthology of Refugee and To launch her first novel, Lakeland, join Migrant Writing is a collection of stories, Maureen O’Shaughnessy for a conversation essays and poems written by a diverse with Helen Garner on the potential hazards group of writers from Africa and Asia. The of delving into family histories in the context anthology is filled with first-hand accounts of war. What sort of influence can the of what it means to endure often terrible horror of conflict and atrocity have on those wars and dislocations, or to be at odds with involved and their descendants? your own culture, and then find yourself Free, no booking required in Australia, full of hope – only to discover Thursday 12 November, 6.30pm nowhere is paradise. BOB BROWN ON Readings St Kilda Free, no booking required 10 GREEN NOMADS Thursday 5 November, 6.30pm FRANK Readings Carlton When former senator Bob Brown gave his home in Liffey, Tasmania to Bush Heritage 4 BONGIORNO IN Australia, he had no idea that it would be CONVERSATION NIKKI GREENBERG the start of a movement. Now, a number of WITH CLARE 8 ON THE beautiful places have become safe havens for WRIGHT NAUGHTIEST Australia’s wild places. In Green Nomads, Bob REINDEER AT THE takes us on a journey across Australia, visiting The Eighties brings to life the most Bush Heritage sites and sharing the beauty controversial decade in Australian history. ZOO and diversity they represent. Join Frank Bongiorno and author and Join us for more adventures of Ruby the Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events historian Clare Wright as they discuss the reindeer, as she returns with even more Tuesday 10 November, 6.30pm high-flying entrepreneurs booming and Christmas mischief. This time she’s landed at Readings St Kilda busting, torrid debates over land rights and the zoo. But is she behaving herself? She is not! immigration, the advent of AIDS, a harsh recession and the rise of the New Right. Free, no booking required ROBERT DREWE Sunday 8 November, 10.30am Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Readings Hawthorn 11 ON MEMOIR Wednesday 4 November, 6.30pm WRITING MAGGIE BEER ON Readings Carlton ON HER SUMMER DAVID PEPPERELL Robert Drewe, Australian author of the 12 prize-winning memoirs The Shark Net, HARVEST 9 & COLIN TALBOT BRIAN Montebello and his new book, The Beach, COLLECTION ON THE SWINGING presents a lecture exploring the complexity 5 MCFARLANE ON Adored cook Maggie Beer will be joining us 60s of writing a memoir. He will discuss the for afternoon tea and to talk about her new TWENTY BRITISH literary, personal and public issues involved 100 Greatest Australian Singles of the 60s, summertime recipe book, Maggie Beer’s FILMS in writing within this increasingly popular by local legends David Pepperell and Colin Summer Harvest Collection. Maggie will be Twenty British Films: A Guided Tour is for and often misunderstood art form. Talbot, reflects on the golden years of the in conversation with Christine Gordon, our anyone who has loved British films. In 60s, when Australian rock‘n’roll singles Free, but please RSVP to resident foodie. Together they will discuss choosing twenty films – many of them classics were as good as those made anywhere in [email protected]. food, life and, of course, love. of their kind – as well as some less well- the world. Take a trip back to these classic Wednesday 11 November, 6pm known titles, Brian McFarlane communicates records of the 60s, to listen once again and Boyd Centre, 207 City Road, Southbank. Tickets are $50 and include afternoon his enthusiasm for the sheer range of British remember those heady times when long hair tea, wine and a signed copy of Maggie cinema as well as a keenly critical interest and short skirts changed the world. Beer’s Summer Harvest Collection. in what makes these films stay in the mind, Please book at readings.com.au/events often after many decades and viewings. Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Thursday 12 November, 2pm–3.30pm Monday 9 November, 6.30pm North Fitzroy Star, 32–36 St Georges Rd South, Free, no booking required. Readings Carlton Fitzroy North Thursday 5 November, 6.30pm Readings Hawthorn

SULARI GENTILL IN MEET THE WINNER 9 CONVERSATION 11 OF THE READINGS ROBERT POWER WITH ANGELA PRIZE FOR NEW 5 ON TIDETOWN SAVAGE DON WATSON ON AUSTRALIAN 12 HIS WORST WORDS Nestled on a windswept coastline, life in To celebrate the release of the seventh book FICTION Tidetown is quiet and assured. But after in the award-winning Rowland Sinclair He’s back and he’s got things to say! Join us as a mysterious slave is shipwrecked on its Mysteries, join Sulari Gentill in conversation Stephanie Bishop’s second novel, The Don Watson takes us through his new work, shores, time-honoured traditions are with fellow sister-in-crime Angela Savage. Other Side of the World, has been named Watson’s Worst Words. The English language unsettled. In Robert Power’s masterful Give the Devil His Due offers an engaging mix this year’s winner of The Readings is complex and evolving, and can win minds, third novel, Mrs April, Brother Moses, of history, humour and humanity – this time Prize for New Australian Fiction. Our hearts and nations. Watson will make you Oscar and other much-loved characters that driven by black magic, kidnappings, movie- judges described this novel as ‘elegant, cringe with recognition, and perhaps shame, first appeared in the magical In Search of stars and, of course, murder! Sulari creates yet profound and unforgettable’. Join Bishop and encourage you to rise up against words the Blue Tiger reconnect in a mesmerising another intelligent mystery over a fascinating in conversation with Hannah Kent, guest that obliterate all song, meaning and beauty tale of adventure and spirit. backdrop of Australia and Europe in the 1930s. judge and author of Burial Rites. from communication.

Free, no booking required. Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Thursday 5 November, 6.30pm Monday 9 November, 6.30pm Wednesday 11 November, 6.30pm Thursday 12 November, 6.30pm Readings St Kilda Readings Hawthorn Readings Hawthorn Readings Carlton READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2015 5

WENDY WHITELEY & JANET HAWLEY 18 Mark’s News and views from Readings’ Managing Director, IN CONVERSATION Mark Rubbo We’re absolutely thrilled to be hosting an Say evening with Wendy Whiteley and Janet Hawley. The two will be in conversation One of the pleasures of my job is meeting authors and hearing about their books – and as about Hawley’s stunning new book that most booksellers and authors do enjoy a drink, we often meet in most convivial surroundings. shares the story behind Whiteley’s public A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of meeting Sydney author David Dyer, whose first novel, garden, Wendy Whiteley and the Secret The Midnight Watch, will be published by Penguin Random House in March next year. It’s an Garden. This evening is a must-attend for all historical story based on the sinking of the Titanic and centres on why the British freighter, gardeners and art lovers. the SS Californian, adrift a few kilometres north of the Titanic, did nothing when the Titantic sent off its distress rockets. Dyer has been fascinated by the Titanic since he was a child and is Tickets are $20 and include a glass of well qualified to write the book having served as a ship’s officer and worked for the law firm wine. Places are strictly limited, please book at readings.com.au/events that represented the Titanic’s owners. The book has excited publishers around the world and has been picked by publishers in the US and UK as well as Australia. Wednesday 18 November, 6.30pm North Fitzroy Star, 32–36 St Georges Rd South, If you are not doing anything in late January, you could do a lot worse than hop off to Fitzroy North the world’s most exciting literary festival, The Jaipur Literature Festival. I went last year on a tour organised by Marieke Brugman and had a fascinating time. As usual, this year’s guests are an eclectic mix including many from the sub-continent (who I’ve found most DAVID WILLIS ON interesting) but also guests from Europe and the United States, including Stephen Fry, ANNABEL CRABB 18 THE MAJESTIC Thomas Piketty, Margaret Atwood and Colm Toibin. Marieke is organising another tour for 2016, and as well as the Festival tour itself, Marieke is organising talks with renowned 13 & ADAM BANDT Join David Willis for a discussion of his Indian writers Amit Chaudhuri, Tishani Doshi and Ashok Ferrey. Broadcaster Caroline ON FOOD & new book and the Melbourne building that Baum will moderate the sessions at the heritage hotel, Castle Kanota, which was one of the COOKING it explores, The Majestic: Early Apartment locations for The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel film. The dates are 18–26 January and Living in St Kilda. With previously Set politics aside and join us for a tremendous details can be found at mariekesartofliving.com. unpublished letters, building plans, event with journalist and social commentator If you want some intellectual excitement earlier than January, you can get it from The newspaper reports and business ephemera, Annabel Crabb as she chats with Adam Bandt Wheeler Centre which is presenting its first ‘Interrobang – A Festival of Questions’ on 27 and Willis shares the spell-binding story of about all things delicious. Celebrating the 28 November. It’s a pretty exciting idea: each session is a question, hence the Interrobang, this architecturally and socially significant release of Crabb’s cook book, Special Delivery, which if you didn’t know, is a printing term for excited question – a merging of the exclamation Melbourne building. the night will include wine and tasty samples and question marks. Authors and thinkers from Australia and overseas will consider questions from her book. Free, no booking required such as: Are Cockroaches Attracted to Human Tears?; Truth is Stanger Than Fiction, Can Wednesday 18 November, 6.30pm Fiction be Stranger than Truth?; and, Why are People Nicer to You on Your Birthday? This event is sold out. Readings St Kilda Philosopher Raimond Gaita has got the answer to the last one, apparently! Participants include Friday 13 November, 6pm a whole range of interesting people from scientists to comedians, and Geraldine Brooks, Cory Readings Hawthorn Doctorow and New Yorker copy editor Mary Norris are flying in to lend a hand. It should be a STORY TIME WITH lot of fun, but stimulating too of course! Details and bookings at wheelercentre.com 21 ALISON LESTER We are delighted to have acclaimed author and illustrator Alison Lester reading from her wonderful new book, My Dog Bigsy. Dear Alison Huber, Free, but please book at Head Book Buyer readings.com.au/events Reader Saturday 21 November, 10.30am Readings St Kilda Dear Reader, Our book of the month is Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl, Carrie Brownstein’s utterly fabulous memoir. A number of us here at Readings have been hanging out for this book to arrive, and LAURA TINGLE IN like our reviewer, I am completely besotted by it. But I hear your concern, dear reader: you 23 CONVERSATION are worried that it’s ‘not for you’ because you’re not keen on music bios, or perhaps you have WITH DAVID MARR limited interest in the riot grrrl scene and its radical feminist politics, or maybe you are afraid to admit you’ve never heard of the author or her band, Sleater-Kinney. Don’t worry: Brownstein For a reflection on the year that was, join will win you over with her prose – it’s so, so good – and her irresistible account of finding (and us as David Marr and Laura Tingle discuss finding out) what matters. I really love this book! Speaking of iconic feminists, Gloria Steinem present-day political cases, examples from has also been writing a memoir – My Life on the Road – and it’s in stores now. It’s easy to take history and reflect on their interviews with for granted the ground that was won by Steinem and her generation of activists, but life as we leading political figures. Tingle’s latest know it would be very different had they not fought so hard. Coincidentally, the collection, I Quarterly Essay, Political Amnesia, reveals CLINTON WALKER Call Myself a Feminist, appears this month, with contributions from writers under 30, part of a a political culture suffering from profound growing ‘fourth wave’ of feminists. Allow me to be in the room should they ever meet up with 13 & ARCHIE ROACH memory loss; and Marr’s latest essay, Faction Brownstein and Steinem! IN CONVERSATION Man: Bill Shorten’s Path to Power, reflects on Brontë aficionados take note: Debra Adelaide uses Wuthering Heights as muse in her new a leader that may never be. Join Clinton Walker and Archie Roach for novel, The Women’s Pages, which explores the transformative powers of reading and writing. It’s another big month for international fiction releases, with Orhan Pamuk, Isabel Allende, a conversion to celebrate the launches of Tickets are $25 and include a copy of either Walker’s new, rebooted CD Buried Country Political Amnesia or Faction Man. Umberto Eco, Colum McCann and David Mitchell all releasing new work, as does one of the 1.5 and the new edition of his book, Buried Please book at readings.com.au/events originators of my love for the Big American Novel, John Irving. Speaking of such books, if Country, along with the 25th anniversary Monday 23 November, 7pm you’re looking for a whopping great tome to occupy your summer holidays, you couldn’t do edition of Roach’s Charcoal Lane. Church of All Nations better than the book that has set the US publishing world alight, Garth Risk Hallberg’s 900- 180 Palmerston Street, Carlton page epic, City on Fire: it’s on my ‘must-read’ list. Also on that ever-expanding list is another Free, but please book at book garnering a lot of praise internationally, Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer, a story set readings.com.au/events in Vietnam in 1975. And while I’m talking about 1975, people who were born that year probably Friday 13 November, 6.30pm MARLON don’t need reminding that they have (or have had) a significant birthday this year, but they Readings St Kilda 2 WILLIAMS might be interested to discover that they share that number with Ian McEwan’s first book, the Dec IN-STORE short story collection, First Love, Last Rites: a 40th anniversary edition is out this month. Readers of political non-fiction will be excited to learn of the publication of Kerry O’Brien’s MARK DAPIN IN We are truly excited to have singer and Keating, and Paddy Manning’s investigation into the life and times of our current PM in Born to songwriter Marlon Williams visiting our 16 CONVERSATION Rule. I know more than a few Ancient Rome history buffs will be hanging out for Mary Beard’s shop to celebrate his self-titled debut album. WITH CHRIS new work, SPQR. Meanwhile, foodies have loads to choose from this month too, including Described as ‘the impossible love child of books from hometown heroes George Calombaris and Karen Martini; and, at last, Black Inc. is FLYNN Elvis, Roy Orbison and Townes Van Zandt’, republishing the much-loved classic that has been out of print for many years, Mietta’s Italian Williams is a two-time New Zealand Music R&R is an exhilarating and darkly funny Family Recipes. Award winning singer–songwriter. novel of love, sex and murder set during And finally, dear reader, this is our last Readings Monthly for 2015. But fear not: our essential the Vietnam War. Join us as Mark Dapin annual catalogue that informs your seasonal reading, the Summer Reading Guide, is imminent discusses his new book with Chris Flynn. Free, no booking required Wednesday 2 December, 6.30pm and will be available in stores on Wednesday 18 November (and in The Age on Saturday 21 Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Readings St Kilda November); Readings Monthly subscribers will also receive it plus a special newsletter revealing our staff’s picks for the best books, music and DVDs of 2015 in the post (exact delivery date Monday 16 November, 6.30pm Readings St Kilda depends on where you live, but check your letterbox from 3 December). So you haven’t heard the last from us yet! In the meantime, happy reading … and congratulations Stephanie Bishop! 6 READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2015 Winner of The Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction 2015 Photo of Stephanie Bishop by Craig Peihaopa, courtesy of Hachette Australia. of Hachette courtesy Peihaopa, Craig by Bishop of Stephanie Photo

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE THE READINGS PRIZE 2015 & that as a whole contributed to a refreshingly READINGS PRIZE FOR JUDGES diverse and exciting shortlist. Without a doubt each of these authors will be a huge NEW AUSTRALIAN FICTION The judges for The Readings Prize for New part of Australia’s literary landscape in the The Readings Prize for New Australian Australian Fiction 2015 were Mark Rubbo, future and I look forward to reading each of Fiction was established in 2014. The Amy Vuleta (manager, Readings St Kilda), their future publications. inaugural winner was Ceridwen Dovey Danielle Mirabella (book buyer, Readings for her collection of remarkable stories, Hawthorn) and Elke Power (editor, THE WINNER Only the Animals. It has just been Readings Monthly). Once the shortlist had published in the US and The New York been decided, the Readings judges were The Other Side of the World was awarded Times reviewer wrote: ‘These stories delighted to be joined for the final round The Readings Prize, and Stephanie Bishop are strange and richly imagined, well of deliberations by Hannah Kent (Burial received $4,000 in prize money. researched and at times haunting and Rites), who returned for a second year as Amy captured the judges’ opinions when atmospheric.’ our guest judge. As an Australian author she described the winner of The Readings We started The Readings Prize and a judge, Hannah’s perceptions about Prize: because we were concerned that many the purpose and value of The Readings The Other Side of the World is a quiet, Australian writers were struggling to Prize were insightful: delicate novel, but, more so, I would describe it as bold and unflinching. It find an audience. Readings has always The Readings Prize for New Australian makes an allegory of displacement and prided itself on being a supporter of Fiction is an extraordinary opportunity for homelessness through looking at immigration Australian writing, but as many of you Australia’s debut and emerging authors. With and parenthood, and asks how we belong may be aware the book industry has limited criteria other than an insistence on anywhere if we suddenly lose our identity. literary merit, it supports and recognises the been in the doldrums over the last 3 It is sophisticated and polished, and its finest new voices in Australian fiction by or 4 years. Readings wasn’t immune narrative style is original and absorbing. and felt that we’d been neglecting the promoting and celebrating its shortlistees writers who most needed our support and winner, and demands that readers pay In response to the news that The Other Side attention. All too often, deserving titles in favour of those we felt would be more of the World had won, Stephanie Bishop escape the notice of the wider public for a ‘The Other Side of the World is a commercially appealing. It’s tough said: multitude of reasons. The Readings Prize for novel that will undoubtedly provoke for those writers starting out in their New Australian Fiction works to ensure that I’m so thrilled to receive this year’s Readings careers; a good sales figure for their discussion. Beautifully written and literature which deserves to be read finds its Prize – the shortlist was formidable and books may be as low as 3000 copies, and rightful audience. I was honoured to be in the company of atmospheric, Bishop illustrates the for many it’s half that. writers that I greatly admire, all of whom are deserving of recognition. Readings is deep ambivalence one woman feels We were thrilled with the response THE SHORTLIST to The Readings Prize; we sold an extraordinary supporter of Australian The shortlist for The Readings Prize 2015 towards marriage and motherhood 1400 copies of Only the Animals and writing in all its varieties and I’m incredibly included six original and memorable works grateful for this. Such an award makes a with breathtaking insight. Her skill as hundreds of copies of the short-listed of Australian fiction: Hot Little Hands by huge difference in the life of any writer: it books. It will be interesting to see how a writer is unquestionable: she has a Abigail Ulman, Heat and Light by Ellen van celebrates, validates and encourages you to this year’s winner, The Other Side of the Neerven, In the Quiet by Eliza Henry-Jones, face the next blank page. poet's eye for the world, particularly World, is received. It’s Sydney writer Last Day in the Dynamite Factory by Annah landscape, and her evocation of Stephanie Bishop’s second novel, and Congratulations to Stephanie Bishop and Faulkner, Arms Race by Nic Low, and The it has already sold very strongly and The Readings Prize shortlistees! 1960s Cambridge and Perth is Other Side of the World by Stephanie Bishop. met with critical acclaim. It’s less If you would like to know more about Danielle’s thoughts about the shortlist and exceptional. I look forward to seeing experimental in perspective than The Readings Prize, the winner, or the the judging experience this year reflect what she writes next.’ Dovey’s – Bishop’s is a story told from shortlisted books, visit readings.com.au/ how all the judges felt: human viewpoints! – but it is equally news. It was an honour to be a judge for The Hannah Kent, guest judge for well written and brave; I hope you all Elke Power, chair of judges 2015. The Readings Prize 2015 and like it! Readings Prize in a year that produced an outstanding selection of shortlisted titles. author of Burial Rites. Mark Rubbo, Readings managing director Each author offered unique works of fiction and judge for The Readings Prize 2015 READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2015 7

New Fiction contemporary poets and the pick of new no doubt personally encountered in his voices. Sometimes satirical, sometimes career. The Devil is a Black Dog is a worthy erotic, covering family, religion, war and companion to Phil Klay’s 2014 National TIDETOWN mortality, Geoff Page’s selection celebrates Book Award winning Redeployment, a Australian Fiction Robert Power the vital, the vigorous and the graceful similarly moving collection of exceptional Transit Lounge. PB. Available 2 November. voices that populate our poetry scene. stories written by a US Marine officer turned writer. Like Klay’s, Jászberényi’s THE WOMEN’S PAGES $29.95 THE FOX PETITION debut collection is sharply observed and Debra Adelaide Nestled on a windswept Jennifer Maiden intensely affecting. Picador. PB. $29.99 coastline, life in Giramondo. PB. $24 Stella Charls is the marketing and events The Women’s Tidetown is quiet and coordinator Pages is a novel assured. But after a Jennifer Maiden’s new collection was written in that pays homage to mysterious man is THE SYMPATHIZER words, pages and shipwrecked on its response to the social Viet Thanh Nguyen books written by shores, time-honoured crises that confront us women and about traditions are unsettled, now, dealing with Corsair. PB. $29.99 women. The main as rumours of war, xenophobia and the The Sympathizer is character, Dove, disease and corruption endanger the sleepy rejection of otherness, the debut novel nurses her ill mother town’s very existence. Will Mayor Bruin taking as its emblem the from Professor Viet and at her request, provide a vision for the future? Can Judge fox, representing our fear of the Thanh Nguyen. Told re-reads Wuthering Heights to her. After Omega keep evil at bay? Robert Power’s introduced and ill-reputed. Obama and through the recollections her mother’s death, rather than returning third novel sees much-loved characters Gandhi discuss political effectiveness, of an un-named to work, Dove finds herself captivated by from In Search of the Blue Tiger reconnect Kevin Rudd tries to explain Manus Island communist spy, who the story and also by the life of Emily in an unexpected and mesmerising tale of to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Keith doubles as a trusted Brontë. Adelaide describes Dove’s adventure and spirit. Murdoch and his son Rupert discuss their lieutenant to a South experience of re-reading Wuthering attempts at idealism in the glass penthouse Vietnamese General, it casts a wide net Heights, ‘The novel had unfolded again NAPOLEON’S LAST apartment of the latter. and a new, Vietnamese perspective over a and again to be something different every ISLAND war that has been largely mythologised and romanticised in American storytelling. time, and she was sick of it because it Tom Keneally International Fiction meant there would never be a final Vintage. HB. Available 2 November. The narrator, an American-schooled, half-Vietnamese soldier, recalls a story of reading of this book for her’. Dove also Was $45 32.99 feels compelled to write her own novel. war, betrayal and love in a confession to Living in exile on the THE DEVIL IS A BLACK She has never written before – her career his captor, the phantom entity known only island of St Helena, DOG: STORIES FROM is in graphic design – but finds it an as ‘Commandant’. He begins at the fall of Napoleon exerted an THE MIDDLE EAST AND addictive and organic process. Saigon, where the General’s compound extraordinary influence The chapters in Debra Adelaide’s book BEYOND is being evacuated, and the lieutenant is on young Betsy alternate between Dove’s experience in Sándor Jászberényi charged with making a list of family and Balcombe – her family the present, and the novel she is writing. Scribe. PB. $24.99 staff who will be rescued and relocated to befriended, served and The novel chapters are about a woman the United States. He manages to secure were ruined by their Hungarian war named Ellis (Wuthering Heights was first places for his closest friends, his ‘blood relationship with the correspondent published under the pseudonym Ellis brothers’ Man and Bon, who he is also emperor. How did Betsy get from Sándor Jászberényi’s Bell). Ellis has been brought up by her spying on. From the dangers and deaths of Napoleon’s side to the Australian bush? The Devil is a Black Dog father and a housekeeper and has never Viet warzone, the story shifts to a rather Tom Keneally recreates Betsy’s friendship is a fascinating collection known her mother, nor the story behind charming, espionage farce in Los Angeles. with the ‘Great Ogre’, her enmities and that sits somewhere on her mother’s absence. It is the 1950s, and Nguyen then takes us to Hollywood, alliances with his court, and her dramatic the plane separating Ellis is frustrated by the limited career where the lieutenant meets ‘the Director’, coming of age during her years on the fiction and nonfiction. options for women, and the expectation a stand-in for Francis Ford Coppola, who island, vividly sharing this remarkable tale These nineteen that all women desire only marriage and has recruited him to consult on a Vietnam and the beginning of an Australian dynasty. interconnected short children. Ellis is an independent thinker, stories work to reinforce the argument that War epic that vaguely resembles the film and I liked her a great deal. as readers we sometimes give too much Apocalypse Now. Though doubly, or triply, A FEW DAYS IN THE engaged in the mythology of the revolution, Adelaide’s book is a novel within COUNTRY AND OTHER value to this distinction. While many of a novel, with references to Wuthering these stories are told from the perspective the narrator must ultimately atone for his Heights thrown in for the astute reader. STORIES of our fictional narrator and war infidelities and watch his loved ones pay I would have preferred the whole book Elizabeth Harrower correspondent Daniel Marosh, the price for his treachery. to focus on Ellis and her story from the Text. PB. $29.99 Jászberényi’s own considerable experience Nguyen’s fresh perspective on America 1950s to today. The book is also about Internationally acclaimed covering conflict in the Middle East and (he arrived in the United States in the imagination, and how and why we use for her five brilliant novels, Africa gives The Devil is a Black Dog mid-1970s as a Vietnamese refugee) reads it. The purpose of Dove’s summoning Elizabeth Harrower is also remarkable power. These tales of war –marvellously! – as European; his style a of Ellis’s life and story comes into sharp the author of a small body correspondents, combatants and victims combination of Graham Greene’s Our Man focus at the end of the novel, and makes of short fiction. A Few Days are as affecting as any nonfiction. in Havana, but with a tragic, Camus-like for a satisfying conclusion. in the Country brings Jászberényi’s stories are set in existentialism bled out in its confessional framework. Nguyen also stirs much of Annie Condon is from Readings Hawthorn together for the first time countries the author has either lived in or her stories published in reported from, and all explore the human his dialogue into his prose, so it reads THE BEST AUSTRALIAN Australian journals in the side of war through myriad individual like a glass of wine, betraying the rigidity STORIES 2015 1960s and 1970s, along with those from her perspectives. From Cairo to the Gaza Strip, common to much historical fiction. One of from Benghazi to Budapest, we encounter the best books I’ve read this year. Amanda Lohrey (ed.) archives – including ‘Alice’, published this year in The New Yorker. Essential reading for mothers, soldiers and journalists. Each Jemima Bucknell is the online fulfilment Black Inc. PB. $29.99 Harrower fans, these finely turned pieces slice-of-life tale lends a relatable face to manager for Readings Award-winning author range from caustic satires to gentler the issue at hand. From across the globe Amanda Lohrey curates explorations of friendship. the concept of living each day within THIRTEEN WAYS OF twenty pieces of the parameters of a warzone is often too LOOKING exceptional short confounding or alien to even consider, Colum McCann fiction. Familiar let alone empathise with. Powerful Australian Poetry Bloomsbury. PB. $29.99 subjects are examined fiction like The Devil is a Black Dog set in In 2014, Colum from new perspectives: places rife with hardship that you might McCann was a teenage girl sneaks THE BEST AUSTRALIAN never travel to allow Western readers to assaulted in a one-punch into a famous film POEMS 2015 consider the violent reality that so many attack in Connecticut. In director’s study and steals his diaries; Geoff Page (ed.) face. This book offers a window into that Thirteen Ways of the life of Picasso is reimagined in Black Inc. PB. $24.99 reality, simultaneously and disturbingly Looking, the Irish miniature vignettes. The mother of a girl The Best Australian presenting the hardened insensitivity of novelist processes this with hearing difficulties watches her Poems is our annual the reporters and photographers who are traumatic event through child grow into increasing poetry anthology, expected to shine a light on these horrors multiple lenses. As independence. A young woman makes a showcasing the immense for the outside world. McCann writes in an afterword, the poignant voyage to the site of her and diverse poetic talent This is an exceptionally honest book, novella and three shorter stories, while brother’s suicide. Elegant, accomplished from the country’s best and an unsettling one. Jászberényi never not autobiographical, are all indelibly and evocative, these short stories move, and emerging writers. In risks glorifying war and violence, instead informed by the attack in some way. delight and inspire. this collection, you will using great sensitivity and a wry sense of The book’s titular novella opens on find the who’s who of humour to share the stories that he has 8 READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2015

elderly judge J. Mendelssohn, proud and smell the city as you turn the pages. an unravelling mystery and haunted by sharp-witted even as his body fails him, Isobel Moore is from Readings St Kilda the resurrected spectre of Mussolini, that bickering with his carer Sally, aching even his lack of belief in himself cannot for his late wife, preparing to meet his SLADE HOUSE extricate him from. feckless, cynical son for lunch – so it is a David Mitchell While the mood, the paranoid shock when the narrative suddenly jumps protagonist, and subject matter are Sceptre. HB. $27.99 forward to find detectives trawling through reminiscent of Alberto Moravia’s The security vision in the aftermath of his Slade House Conformist, the similarities end there. violent murder. As McCann jumps between came into being Numero Zero doesn’t have the brooding Mendelssohn and the detectives, the on twitter. A short energy or twists of The Conformist, or inevitability of those final moments add an 280-tweet story the intertextuality, depth and interest in extra layer of pathos to his raging against formed and from there tabula rasa, memory and perception seen the dying of the light. Mitchell found his way in Eco’s earlier works The Mysterious ‘What Time Is It Now, Where You into his latest novel. Flame of Queen Loana or In the Name Are?’ is an intriguing metafiction, built Slade House is a short of the Rose, however it does recount an around a writer on a deadline constructing novel and could be interesting time in Italy’s history, with the an initially trite tale of a soldier calling read as a collection of advent of stay-behind, the CIA, NATO, home from Afghanistan for New Year’s stories, all revolving around a mysterious Gladio and secret services. Eve. As the story is teased out, however, house hidden away in Slade Alley. Eco writes well and fluidly, and the characters become more authentic and Beginning in 1979 and ending in 2015, Numero Zero is a tightly packed, quick nuanced, quickly outgrowing their conceit. the book opens with the aforementioned read. The fake newspaper premise In ‘Treaty’, an elderly nun recognises the twitter story, fleshed out and developed for allows Eco to divulge the tricks of guerrilla who raped her when he appears the novel. Young Nathan and his mother cheap journalism: the art of denial, the on TV as a diplomat thirty years later. are invited to a soiree at the house, a police propensity for insinuation, conjecture, What begins as an exploration of memory, detective investigates some old missing even the freedoms of being able to coping and ageing is transformed by a persons cases and is invited into the house construct obituaries and horoscopes for disturbing sting in its tail. by a beautiful widow, a bunch of university a disdained and imaginary ‘readership’. ‘Sh’khol’ is the collection’s strongest students find themselves at a party there, a Consequently, one wonders if the and most harrowing piece, about a mother journalist follows a story that leads her to underlying commentary is more about whose son, a deaf adoptee still haunted by a Slade Alley, and a psychiatrist researching Berlusconi’s media empire during his time traumatic childhood in Russia, goes missing. an academic paper is given information as the longest-serving post-war prime The piece is racked with grief, anxiety and that requires a visit. minister of Italy, even if the novel is set longing, and McCann’s fascination with Slade House is a ghost story of sorts, two years before his rise to power. the body – its limitations, fallibility and but the world Mitchell creates is far However, it is difficult to tell what permeability – while present throughout the stranger than that. Readers familiar with Eco desired to convey with this novel. collection, is foregrounded here. his previous novel, The Bone Clocks, will Part middle-aged love story, part media Each of the stories in Thirteen Ways know the world of this novel well as it critique and conspiracy theory, the result converges around moments of trauma, mines the same territory, with time and is a satirical and entertaining novel varying in their perspective – some in the space behaving in unusual ways and souls from an accomplished author who is moments before, some years after, some entering bodies not their own. consciously hovering on the surface of a in the frantic present. While not a Grand Mitchell writes well, and apart from a larger conversation. couple of clunky moments of exposition- Novel in the same sense as McCann’s other Anaya Latter is from Readings St Kilda works, Thirteen Ways is an enlightening heavy dialogue this weird and imaginative and thought-provoking collection. tale is compelling. Slade House can be read as a stand- CITY ON FIRE Alan Vaarwerk is the editorial assistant for alone novel but readers might get more Garth Risk Hallberg Readings Monthly from it by reading The Bone Clocks first. HarperCollins. PB. $32.99 A STRANGENESS IN MY Mitchell has a habit of referencing his It’s New Year’s Eve, other books, with places and characters 1976, and New York is MIND appearing again in later novels. A little a city on the verge. As Orhan Pamuk gift, perhaps, to readers in the know, midnight approaches, Hamish Hamilton. PB. $32.99 and astute readers here will recognise a a blizzard sets in – and As someone who character from The Bone Clocks and have a the unmistakable enjoys a bit of clue to the ending before it arrives. sound of gunfire rings themed travel reading Readers might also like to check out out across Central I find myself @I_Bombadil on twitter where one of the Park. The search for frequently drawn to characters from Slade House has taken the shooter will bring authors whose work on a life of their own and the next novel together a rich cast of New Yorkers, from focuses upon a may very well be unfolding tweet by the reluctant heirs to one of New York’s particular country or increasingly strange tweet. greatest fortunes, to a couple of Long city. Orhan Pamuk’s Deborah Crabtree is from Readings Carlton Island punks – all connected to one relationship with another, and to the life still clinging to that Istanbul is certainly one of the great NUMERO ZERO body in the park. examples of such a focus and A Umberto Eco THE LITTLE RED CHAIRS Strangeness in My Mind is one of his Harvill Secker. PB. Available 5 November. greatest love letters to Istanbul. Was $32.99 Edna O’Brien The novel follows Mevlut Karata, as he $27.99 Faber. PB. Available 18 November. $29.99 leaves his tiny Anatolian village to move One of the greats of to Istanbul and sell the drink boza on the Early on in Numero Zero, Irish literature, Edna street. Naturally he will become rich along O’Brien returns with the way. And while things never quite Umberto Eco’s protagonist surmises, her first new novel in seem to work out for the hapless Mevlut, ten years. he accidentally elopes with the wrong ‘If you want to win, When a wanted girl and the whole fortune and riches you need to know just war criminal, thing evades him, he still manages to find one thing and not to masquerading as a the blessings in his life. Mevlut’s story is waste your time on healer, settles in a told from a variety of perspectives, both anything else: the small west coast Irish from a third party narrator and members pleasures of erudition village, the community are in thrall. One of his sprawling family, and this is a very are reserved for losers. The more a person woman, Fidelma McBride, falls under endearing and entertaining set up. knows, the more things have gone wrong.’ his spell– and in this searing novel, Pamuk’s novel is an easy, pleasant read, Eco’s protagonist, Colonna, a self- Edna O’Brien charts the consequence but one that does not shy away from the deprecating but nonetheless propitious of that fatal attraction. This is a story complexities of the ever-changing Istanbul ghostwriter finds himself at the heart of a about love, the artifice of evil and the and although Mevlut is the hero of the faux-tabloid newspaper in Milan in 1992, terrible necessity of accountability in our piece, the protagonist is certainly the city. bankrolled and conceived by a mysterious shattered, damaged world. This is a beautifully written story with benefactor as a bargaining chip for access richly drawn characters and so deeply to the inner sanctum of finance and invested in Istanbul that you can practically politics. Ultimately, Colonna is drawn into READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2015 9

THE JAPANESE LOVER THE AGE OF Isabel Allende REINVENTION Scribner. PB. Available 5 November. Karine Tuil Was $39.99 Atria. HB. $29.99 $32.99 Manhattan attorney In 1939, as Europe goes Sam Tahar appears to to war, Alma Belasco’s have it all – fame, parents send her to fortune, family – but safety in San Francisco. his charmed life is There she meets built on a lie. A Ichimei Fukuda, and a Tunisian immigrant’s tender love blossoms. son growing up in Following Pearl Harbor, Paris, Samir Tahar the two are pulled apart seemed destined to when Ichimei and stay on the margins – until he became thousands of Japanese Americans are friends with Samuel Baron. When the declared enemies by the US government. beautiful Nina came between the pair, Decades later, as a series of mysterious gifts Samir fled to America, assuming Samuel’s and letters are sent to Alma, a new identity and leaving his friend trapped in generation learns about Ichimei and this the French suburbs as a failed writer. Years extraordinary secret passion that has later, they meet again, and Samir’s carefully endured for nearly 70 years. constructed existence is blown apart. FIRST LOVE, LAST RITES AVENUE OF MYSTERIES Ian McEwan John Irving Vintage. PB. $19.99 Doubleday. PB. Available 2 November. Forty years on from Was $32.99 first publication, these $27.99 stories display Juan Diego’s thirteen- McEwan’s dazzling year-old sister Lupe early talent. Taut, thinks she sees the brooding and densely future – specifically, atmospheric, they are her own and her stories of sex and brother’s. What might loneliness, adolescence a young girl be driven and incest, love and to do if she thought she murder, and they linger in the mind long could change the An revealing and insightful collection after they are finished. This special edition future? As an older from one of Australia’s greatest novelists includes an introduction by the author man, Juan Diego travels to the Philippines, detailing how he came to write First Love, but his dreams and memories of his Last Rites and rare archive material childhood in Mexico, travel with him. including manuscript pages, early publicity Avenue of Mysteries is the story of what material and the cover of the first edition. happens to Juan Diego in the Philippines, his past colliding dramatically with his FIFTEEN DOGS future. Andre Alexis Serpents Tail. PB. $19.99 THE GREAT SWINDLE A pack of dogs are Pierre Lemaitre granted the power of Maclehose. PB. Available 10 November. $29.99 human thought to October, 1918: after settle a bet between the uncovering a callous gods Hermes and war crime by a Apollo. Suddenly commanding officer, capable of complex Albert Maillard is thought, the dogs are buried alive and left to torn between those face a horrific death who resist the new – until Edouard, Could Mussolini’s execution have been staged as In his inimitable way, John Irving explores how our ways of thinking, preferring the old ‘dog’ another soldier, digs part of a Fascist plot? Colonna may have stumbled on pasts reverberate in our presents and, indeed, our ways, and those who embrace the change. him out just in time, the scoop of a lifetime. The evidence? He’s working futures. When Juan Diego travels to the Philippines, Engaging and strange, full of unexpected binding the fates of the unlikely pair on it… Hoaxes, Mafiosi, love, gossip and murder: his dreams and memories travel with him. insights into human and canine minds, this together. Struggling to readjust to a society Numero Zero is the gripping new conspiracy thriller by And while he’s there, events from his past – the author of The Name of the Rose. in Mexico – collide with his future. contemporary take on the apologue is an whose reverence for its dead outweighs its extraordinary look at the beauty and perils care for the returned, Albert and Edouard of consciousness. conspire to enact revenge against the country that abandoned them, with a CARRYING ALBERT scheme to swindle the whole of France on HOME an epic scale. Homer Hickam HarperCollins. PB. $29.99 Colouring Homer Hickam (senior) has had enough of his wife’s pet alligator, THIS ANNOYING LIFE Albert. When Homer Oslo Davis finally tells her ‘it’s me Black Inc. PB. Available 18 November. $9.99 or the alligator,’ she Within This Annoying says she’ll give it some The language of business grows ever more depleted, New Year’s Eve, 1976 – two gunshots ring out Life you’ll find scenes of while politicians hide in thickets of platitudes and across New York’s Central Park. The search for the thought. After a while, angst and stress ready to clichés. Through this compendium of contemporary shooter brings together a disparate cast of New she concludes there is receive your creative cant, gibberish and jargon, Don Watson delivers a Yorkers. History and revolution, love and art, crime only one thing to do: carry Albert home. So flourishes. And why not call to arms. The English language can win minds, and conspiracy are all packed into a single shell, begins a thousand-mile adventure across hearts and nations. Why don’t we try using it? ready to explode… Then the lights go out. – we’re all in this mess America during the Great Depression with together and there’s a man, his wife and her pet alligator – the nothing we can do somewhat true tale of how one crazy road about it! So pick up your trip becomes a truly great love story. pencils and colour your way through the pain of everyday life. 10 READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2015

New Crime Dead Write THE CROSSING EVEN DOGS IN THE WILD Michael Connelly Ian Rankin with Fiona Hardy A&U. PB. Was $32.99 Orion. PB. Available 3 November. Was $32.99 Crime Book of the Month $26.99 $27.95 Harry Bosch may be Nothing says crime like a GOOD MONEY forcibly retired from the nemesis, and few do crime as J.M. Green LAPD, but since when did well as beloved Scot, Ian Scribe. PB. $29.99 a little retirement ever Rankin. So everyone’s happy This time is an unfair part of the year for picking my Book of the stop anyone? When his when John Rebus (no longer Month. When confronted with Gentill, Disher, Rankin, Galbraith half-brother, Mickey a detective, but still and more, somehow I’m supposed to make a decision? Of course, like ‘Lincoln Lawyer’ Haller, detecting), old friend D.I. you, dear reader, I’m just going to gather all the November titles into a asks for his help in a Siobhan Clarke and ex-Complaints now-cop big pile of happiness, hug them to my chest and make no plans for the murder case that on the Malcolm Fox team up, as it were, when Rebus next few weekends. And along with those delicious favourites, why not surface appears completely unwinnable, is the only one who can get through to his old dig into a debut novel, set in Melbourne’s west and introducing a main Bosch initially refuses. But when faced with enemy Big Ger Cafferty, after someone takes character with an arresting personality (and an excellent surname, if I do say so myself ) in the idea that if Mickey is right, a killer is still a shot through his window. He’s also received social worker Stella Hardy? out there, he puts his trust in Haller and steps a note – ‘I’ll kill you for what you did’ – the in to assist. But a cop helping a defence lawyer same as one found on a recently dead body. Hardy is called to a client’s house early one morning, finding a family in mourning over the is not how the force operates, and soon Bosch So to find out who wants to kill them, they’ll death of teenager Adut Chol. She does all she can to ease their grief, until a discussion with has something much more terrifying than his need to find out what they did – even if the the dead boy’s brother, Mabor, leads to a discovery that stops her in her tracks – her home unfair dismissal fight to deal with. victims aren’t entirely sure themselves. address in Adut’s notebooks. Stella knows this can only mean he knows about the one thing Stella can’t forgive herself for. As she tries to find out how much Adut knew, her friendly new neighbour goes missing, her errant brother returns to insinuate himself in her life, a MIDNIGHT SUN THE HEAT handsome artist asks for her number, Mabor makes some godawful friends, and the next Jo Nesbo Garry Disher thing she knows she is being escorted by limousine to luxurious apartments to chat with Harvill Secker. PB. Available 5 November. Text. PB. $29.99 high-profile business moguls connected to shifty mining practices. All of this without her $29.99 Disher’s back, and so is Wyatt old pal, cop Phuong Nguyen, to help her out – unless they both decide to let go of the past Running from his own – his whittled marble slab of and take hold of the future with a touch of make-up breaking-and-entering. betrayal, and his likely an anti-hero. From a Stella is wonderfully likeable – determined but as easily sidetracked as the rest of us, be end at the hands of the Melbourne more grimy than it by the internet (guilty) or handsome artists (also guilty). She is sometimes hopeful and criminal he betrayed, Jon you would ever notice from sometimes bitter about the world, her friends, and her family; as an outsider everywhere, hides so far north in its tourist-pocked city streets she is full of scathing remarks about people but willing to be called out on it. This is a Norway that they are in and beachside motels, to a powerhouse debut, full of excitement, jokes, brutality and scenic flights over Australia’s eternal daytime. With Noosa on the opposite side of the coin from dangerous red centre, and the very bad use of very good money. some help from locals, he family friendly, Wyatt cracks his knuckles and feels almost safe in a gets his teeth into some juicy crime. And not remote cabin, where, for a while, the biggest as a detective, you hear – Wyatt is more on GIVE THE DEVIL HIS DUE CAREER OF EVIL danger is his own mind in this endlessly the committing than the prevention side, but Sulari Gentill Robert Galbraith bright and disorienting landscape. But hey, no reader feels bad for a terrible person if protagonists can never escape their pasts for Pantera. PB. $29.99 Sphere. PB. Was $32.99 their painting gets stolen, do they? Disher’s long, and soon those who know his real story Wyatt, perfectly crafted in gripping, My colleagues have long $26.99 are coming for him. Expect long shadows, calculated prose, is someone you’ll happily since learned of my Sadly, this reviewer wasn’t heavy blinds, excellent characters and the follow into heists, thefts, and stopping their excitement about a new able to get her paws on strong writing Nesbo is renowned for. own murder. Sulari Gentill, and many this book until after are now series-long fans deadline, but here is what THE UNDESIRED THE DROWNING GROUND themselves after listening I’m going to assume about Yrsa Sigurdardottir James Marrison to me bluster excitedly it: I am going to read it in Hodder. PB. $29.99 Michael Joseph. PB. Was $32.99 about Rowland Sinclair an excited frenzy; I’m and his cronies every time a customer going to be thrilled at Looking for something a bit $27.99 brings one of her books to the counter. veteran detective on the unnerving side this Nothing says picturesque Rowly is a dashing young man of Australia’s Cormoran Strike and his colleague Robin month? Hoping to sit Cotswolds quite like a 1920s, well-bred, well-connected, and Ellacott being reunited for another case; indoors with most of the pitchfork through the neck, doesn’t give a hoot if such things get in the something gruesome is going to happen – in lights off and a harsh wind does it? Detective Guillermo way of a good time with his bourgeois pals. this one, the delivery to Robin of a severed leg sending branches scratching ‘Shotgun’ Downes – ex- And for all his adventures – this time, to – and I’m going to look at my Harry Potter at your window? You’d do Argentinian, two decades into take his handsome new wheels in a race on collection and be shocked that J.K. Rowling well to read The Undesired, then – the tale his posting, and still treated the Maroubra Speedway – he always runs (under the Galbraith pseudonym) can think of how two deaths at a juvenile detention like the new kid – knows the victim, Frank into trouble, fists-up, morals raised, and of such things; and when someone in the centre in the far reaches of (the already far Hurst, a man who’s been on the police radar ready to save the day. Endless fun, shop says to me, ‘I’m looking for a crime book from populous) Iceland tie in with a after the apparently accidental death of his historically fascinating, tense, gritty, as that–’ I’m going to press this into their hands modern investigation into abuse at the wife and the disappearance of two young girls always, these are everything you could before they get any further. same place. Odinn is a single father, loosely linked to him, though he was cleared want in crime fiction. grieving alongside his daughter for the wife of any involvement. Downes and new partner TOM & LUCKY AND he lost, when a colleague dies and leaves Sergeant Graves are determined to find the DARK CORNERS GEORGE & COKEY FLO the investigation unfinished. And the killer – and Downes to make good on the further he looks into it, the closer the Ruth Rendell C. Joseph Greaves promise he made to the girls’ parents years investigation gets to his own family ... earlier. A chilling psychological thriller. Hutchinson. PB. Was $32.99 Bloomsbury. PB. $29.99 $27.99 A book true to its name, THE HUNTER OF THE DARK THE HONOURABLE This is, sadly, the last of it’s the parallel stories of Donato Carrisi Rendell’s books, as she ASSASSIN Thomas E Dewey Little Brown. PB. Available 10 November. passed away in May, (prosecutor), Lucky Roland Perry $29.99 leaving a hole in crime (Charles Luciano, mob A&U. PB. Available 1 December. $29.99 The stylish Carrisi haunts bookshelves everywhere. boss), George Morton There’s nothing like a hearty bookshelves again, bringing Of course, that’s only if Levy (Lucky’s lawyer) and local murder to get readers Rome to life as much as any of you haven’t already bought Cokey Flo (a prostitute interested – and here, the characters in his work. her eighty-plus books – with the power to bring bestselling historian Perry This is a breathless pursuit of enough to fill a bookshelf Lucky down). Based on true events of the kills off a Mexican drug cartel a murderer by forensic on their own, really – and no better place to 1930s in mob-soaked New York, it centres on hitman in a laneway in our analyst Sandra Vega and the start, end, or remind yourself of her style, Lucky’s court case for his prostitution very own (now alarming) cryptic Marcus, from the Penitenzieri – a sort than with Dark Corners. This is the story of rackets. Dewey is gleeful to catch the Carlton. Journo Vic Cavalier finds himself of Pope-endorsed crime-fighting team seemingly average people who do not bring mobster at anything, even after Lucky’s sent to Bangkok to chase the story – and to against evil. Both are adept at finding light to the world – Carl, who indirectly morally ambiguous saving of Dewey’s life chase his own interests, namely the Mexican irregularities in scenes – Sandra from behind caused the death of a friend; the tenant after whacking the criminal planning on cartel that was seemingly involved in the a camera, Marcus from in front – and when a who finds out and blackmails him; the dead whacking Dewey. Heavily researched and disappearance of his daughter. From drug nun is found dead in the Vatican, and couples woman’s thieving friend – and an uneasy with characters as real as your frantic fingers trafficking in Melbourne to Thailand’s heady killed, it will take the best of their skills to yet brilliant and incisive look at humanity turning the page, this is an organised crime streets, Cavalier lives up to his name in find out who, or what, is causing these deaths. from a truly great writer. story you should organise yourself to buy. regards to his own personal safety in this suspenseful thriller. READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2015 11

New Young Adult Fiction was something I was intrigued by, and I’m sure it is one that young adults will find See books for kids, junior and middle readers on pages 18–19 interesting and exciting. Recommended for ages 14 and up. KD Young Adult Book of the Month THE RED QUEEN: OBERNEWTYN BOOK 7 ILLUMINAE: THE ILLUMINAE FILES_01 Isobelle Carmody Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff Penguin. PB. $32.99 A&U. PB. $19.99 The highly Illuminae is unlike anything I have ever read previously and I anticipated, loved every moment of it. Engrossing and encompassing, the dramatic format follows the structure of a series of documents in various conclusion to the styles, from email and instant messaging to more abstract much-loved illustrative pieces. There is enough plot in this book for at least Obernewtyn three books, it’s so densely packed in, and to say too much would Chronicles draws ruin the joy of discovery, but it follows Kady, who lives on an illegal to a close the mining colony at the edge of the universe in 2375. A rival tech journey of Elspeth corporation attacks the colony and massacres the workers and the survivors are forced to Gordie and the flee in damaged spaceships, and that’s just the very start of the book! Misfits. Before A truly original and inspiring read that shows great empathy to its characters, and Elspeth can introduced me to my new favourite character – the almost brutally determined Kady – it continue her journey to find Sentinel and manages to successfully be both fantastically inspiring and also possess a frank earthiness. prevent it unleashing the horrors of the The format does require the reader to work more than most books, but this just added a Great White, she must fight free of a weightiness and meat to the experience. Illuminae is a truly immersive read and well worth strange prison, where people are laid to checking out. We don’t give usually out star ratings in our reviews, but I’d like to make an sleep forever or cling to a suffocating exception in this case just so I can give it 6 out of 5! existence, believing the world beyond their Isobel Moore is from Readings St Kilda walls is already utterly annihilated. But at the end of her journey, nothing is as she imagined. She is drawn into the struggle for DARKMERE student has three days in a workplace. a kingdom, only to find the Destroyer is at Helen Maslin Leela is doing rounds with a doctor, the the heart of the turmoil, waiting for her. twins are at the local newspaper, Spud is Chicken House. PB. $17.99 Somehow she must do what she has sworn down the drains, Kat Kat will be helping Keen to fit in to do, for the sake of the world and all of its a reclusive rock star, and Vicky has with the cool creatures. The highly anticipated, dramatic been dumped into ‘Assistant Sandwich crowd at her new and conclusion to the much-loved Obernewtyn Maker’ at a law firm. But this law firm posh private school, Chronicles draws to a close the journey of just happens to do PR for the company Kate is over the moon Elspeth Gordie and the Misfits. behind the biggest soft drink in the world when the popular Leo – Liquidator. When Vicky stumbles upon invites her to SIGNS POINT TO YES a horrific secret that will destroy lives Darkmere, his newly Sandy Hall she will need most of the kids from her inherited castle, for St Martins. PB. $16.99 class and their ingenuity to stop it. Events the summer break. As build to a nail-biting climax at a globally Jane, a superstitious Leo and his gang pack themselves into their televised charity concert – Africa’s fangirl, takes a cars and head to the mystifying castle, Kate Weeping. Told in multiple voices and summer job can’t wait to be with Leo. However, once viewpoints, this is an exciting, fast-paced babysitting the they arrive at the castle Kate gets an uneasy adventure where the kids outsmart the siblings of her feeling about the place, as well as about Leo adults and change the world. Highly childhood friend himself. recommended for both boys and girls aged and new crush, Teo. As the group get into the party spirit 11 and up. Teo doesn’t dislike a strange encounter with a drowning girl Jane, but his best starts to spook them all and, as weirder Angela Crocombe is from Readings Carlton friend Ravi hates things start to happen, the group begin to her. So Teo’s only turn on one another other. WOLF BY WOLF hope for a peaceful summer is finally Darkmere reminded me of the old Ryan Graudin finding his birth father and a new, less slasher movies from the 90s, but without Orion. PB. Available 5 November. $19.99 awkward home. Meanwhile, Jane’s sister the slasher part! The slasher movies Call me naïve, Margo wants to come out as bisexual, but and Darkmere share an unpending of but I wasn’t she’s terrified of how her parents will react. expectations with party season and big really aware there In a summer filled with secrets and summer romances for teens being turned was a genre of fiction questions, even Jane’s Magic 8 ball can’t upside down by a murderous person, or, known as ‘alternative give them clear answers. in this case, an apparition with unfinished history’ until I was business. handed Wolf By Wolf JACKABY The nicely interwoven historical story to review. In this William Ritter of the castle and the hideous secrets it novel, author Ryan Algonquin. PB. $19.95 holds were probably what enthralled me Graudin is exploring the most, but YA readers who enjoy a ghost the idea of ‘what if’ Alone and newly story will have fun with the whole novel. Hitler had won World War II and, arrived in New Ages 15 and up. unsurprisingly, it’s grim. Fiddleham in 1892, Abigail Rook finds Katherine Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn Yael was only 6 years old when she was put into a concentration camp, along with work as the her mother. It was there that she became assistant to R. F. LIQUIDATOR Jackaby, an Andy Mulligan one of the children experimented on by the Nazis. As the experiments increase, Yael investigator of the David Fickling. PB. $19.99 feels herself changing, until she realises unexplained with From the that she can skin-shift, an ability to change the ability to see bestselling into other people she has seen or conjures supernatural beings. author of Trash, strap up. Hiding the results from the Nazi On her first day, Abigail finds herself in yourself in for a doctor, Yael skin-shifts her way out of the the midst of a thrilling case: a serial killer thriller where a class concentration camp where she eventually is on the loose in New Fiddleham. The of teenagers battle becomes part of a resistance group. police are convinced it’s an ordinary wits with an evil Now eighteen years old, Yael is ready villain, but Jackaby is certain the foul corporation that is for her first mission for the resistance: deeds are the work of the kind of creature trying to cover up to kill Hitler. I’m not usually one to read whose very existence the local police – malpractice and kill action-packed sorts of novels, but for with the exception of a handsome young an innocent child. some reason this one grabbed me. The detective named Charlie Cane – seem It’s work experience time at school and each idea of exploring an alternative history determined to deny.

8496_November_ReadingsAd.indd 2 15/10/15 4:23 PM 12 READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2015

Food & Gardening So if you are like me and reckon Greek street food, party food and family food is hands with Chris Gordon down the gift of gods, then this book is for you. All his mum’s and his yiayia’s favourites MIETTA’S ITALIAN are listed, and his own specials from his FAMILY RECIPES restaurants. The food is fine, not fancy and Mietta O’Donnell therefore completely accessible. The book is Black Inc. HB. $39.99 splashed with street art and there are even fun stickers included – like I said, there are a Welcome to Melbourne, few show tricks, but essentially the book is a where we pride celebration of really good, honest food for ourselves on having the each and every one of us. very best café and food landscape in Australia. TOKYO CULT RECIPES We have this landscape From Nobel Prize-winner Orhan Pamuk, an Wicketkeepers: the closest eyewitnesses to cricket’s Maori Murota unforgettable tale of an Istanbul street vendor and story, a unique breed and something of a club. At the because there are certain the love of his life. Told from the perspectives of heart of the action, they know the game better than families and undeniable Murdoch Books. HB. $49.99 many beguiling characters, this mesmerising modern anyone else on the pitch. Malcolm Knox re-examines creative identities that years ago fostered a We pride ourselves here in coming-of-age epic is sure to take its place among the history of Australian cricket through the eyes of culture so rich and welcoming that we, as a Melbourne as being the Pamuk’s finest achievements. these talented, resilient players at the centre of it all. city, have not dared to look back. Mietta food capital of the country. O’Donnell and her family and friends Melbourne, we say, has represent such culinary trailblazers. become the great culinary O’Donnell’s grandparents established a melting pot of the world, restaurant, Mario’s, when they first arrived celebrating every nation. here from Italy, which they ran for 30 I’m starting to believe, however, that Tokyo years. Influenced by their entertainment has taken over. It seems like everyone I know flair, in 1974 Mietta, along with her partner has just returned from Japan and all of those Tony Knox, opened up the restaurant people are talking about either the Japanese Mietta’s in North Fitzroy. And so it began: train system or the delicious fresh food. If we a Melbournian tradition of sharing and consider the glorious food in Tokyo Cult rejoicing. This beautifully presented Recipes, it does seem possible that Tokyo is cookbook is homage to such wondrous superior to us in both areas. times and provides a concise, pleasing This wonderful cookbook has over A fresh account of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam’s When he’s away from his restaurant kitchens, collection of recipes for classic Italian food. 100 recipes from Tokyo. Think Japanese 1975 Dismissal. New information leads to a dramatic George Calombaris cooks the food he grew up with There are recipes for every antipasto dish soul food with recipes for miso, sushi, soba reinterpretation of events, calling into question the – crafted with love and designed to be shared. you can imagine, recipes for pizzas and noodles, bentos, and sweets, and – wait for it roles and motivations of key figures. The book covers This is Greek food but not as you know it. George’s broths, for game and fish and for desserts. – burgers and spaghetti! There are also step- the lead-up to the stunning climax on Remembrance modern twists on traditional recipes reveal his by-step features on key essential cooking Day 1975, and reveals what happened next. unique and adventurous culinary spirit. Mietta’s Italian Family Recipes is also a history book. It is the tale of the people techniques which, in theory, make it all very and places in our city. Each section has accessible. Every recipe has a wonderful an introduction by Mietta musing on the image and dotted throughout the collection importance of music, art, or theatre, and are beautiful pictures of food markets, street the people whose talents delighted her. The scenes, divine Japanese kitchen interiors, as recipes in each section are simple, generous well as Japanese producers. and achievable. However, don’t buy this book just for the recipes. Buy this book because SIMPLY NIGELLA you are proud to be a Melbournian and you Nigella Lawson want to know more about many of the people Chatto & Windus. HB. Was $59.99 who have contributed to making this city $49.99 the cultural heart of Australia. Buy this book After a turbulent couple because you believe in living well, together. of years, Lawson has returned to what she SPECIAL DELIVERY knows best: simple, Annabel Crabb & Wendy Sharpe breezy food prepared Murdoch Books. HB. $39.99 with a minimum of fuss. This book makes me sing: Lawson understands the ‘For auld lang syne, we’ll rhythms of a busy person take a cup of kindness and her book is designed to be used with ease. yet…’ Here, in this truly There are no complicated ingredients or delightful cookbook, testing methods, but rather straightforward long-term friends have recipes like Asian-flavoured short ribs and created a collection of chocolate-chip cookie dough pots. Welcome recipes that is all about benevolence. Think back Ms Lawson, we are delighted to see you. Women’s Weekly, but with an air of grit and humour. As you can imagine, all the recipes NEW KITCHEN are there from Crabb’s Kitchen Cabinet Karen Martini television series, as well as some wonderful Plum. HB. Was $45 extras. There are handy tips at the back the $39.99 book on the art of giving food – from the You’ve been to dinner meaning behind ‘bring a plate’, to dropping parties where the talk of off food for new mums and grieving friends. the town is some new All in all, this cookbook is not only about diet fad, or some new Australians but also about being generous. grain or seed that is apparently essential to GREEK our way of life. Perhaps, George Calombaris like me, you have been Lantern. HB. Was $59.99 mystified by this talk, or confused by your $49.99 friend’s new dietary conditions, and have felt I reckon George Calombaris that to cook some wholesome new grain/ has been great for seed/leaf/root dish is beyond you and your Melbourne. His time. Free yourself with Martini’s new book. restaurants are innovative, Here is a collection of wonderful dishes that fun and the food served is celebrate our new vision of eating well delicious. Sure, there are a without all the drama. This is Martini’s few gimmicks, but I seventh cookbook, and it shows how neatly worship his feet every time I eat one of his her finger is on the pulse of our changing souvlakis – whatever time of the night it is. world of food. READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2015 13

New Nonfiction sat with, students she has argued with and KEATING media shock jocks she has talked with. She Kerry O’Brien says, ‘We need to be long-distance runners A&U. HB. This signed special edition is to make a real social revolution. And you Book of the Month exclusive to Readings and available only can’t be a long-distance runner unless you while stocks last. Was $49.95 have some inner strength.’ She counsels us HUNGER MAKES ME A MODERN GIRL $39.95 to look after ourselves, to remain alert to Carrie Brownstein discrimination, and to heed other stories. The life of one of Virago. PB. $32.99 For example, she talks about working with Australia’s most I don’t think I’d be exaggerating if I were to say that watching Hilary Clinton and the extraordinary means intriguing public Carrie Brownstein in Sleater-Kinney play a live show in by which people showed their hatred for figures, former Prime Brisbane in the early 2000s after the release of their album One Beat Clinton – until they met her. Minister Paul Keating, was a life-changing experience for me. Carrie Brownstein and Corin This intimate and beautifully written as told to the country’s Tucker’s voices seemed to come from every corner of the full, sweaty book exemplifies her profound devotion most influential venue; watching that show was like having everything I never knew to justice. She discloses her stories as if political interviewer, about feminism, the riot grrrl, queer, punk and post-punk we all live by her rules of conduct. It was Kerry O’Brien. Paul movements, and the transcendent potential of women in rock implanted into my ravenous Steinem who pointed out, after all, that Keating is widely twenty-one-year-old brain. the personal is political and the political credited as the chief architect of the most in turn is personal. My Life on the Road is significant period of political and economic ‘The idea that ‘hunger makes me a modern girl’ embodies inspiring and, hopefully, for all who read it, reform in Australia’s history. Twenty years completely and utterly insidious. I want to on, there is still no autobiography or everything that is crucial, desperate and awakening’ be as impatient as Gloria; it gets things done. memoir from the supreme storyteller of politics. Kerry O’Brien has spent many long Chris Gordon is the events manager for hours with Keating, teasing out the stories, In Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl, Carrie Brownstein lays out her own version of Readings this type of experience: of music fandom and a desire to perform, of her education by and testing the memories and the assertions, participation in a scene that was progressive, radical, and agitating, and of following those HOME IS BURNING and this book of revelations fills the gap, politics and that art through to engage with a much broader audience. She writes, ‘by with a treasure trove of anecdotes, insights, Dan Marshall reflections and occasional admissions – a the time Sleater-Kinney were a band, there was very little question that the context from H&S. PB. Was $35 which we came was one of fairly radical politics’, but at the same time, she acknowledges a biography unlike any other. $29.99 tension in that scene of the time, a ‘cringe at the elitism that was often paired with punk … Dan Marshall a movement that professed inclusiveness seemed to actually be highly exclusive’. The THE FORGOTTEN doesn’t care title of the memoir is a lyric from a song on Sleater-Kinney’s 2006 album The Woods. The NOTEBOOK whether or not you like idea that ‘hunger makes me a modern girl’ embodies everything that is crucial, desperate Betty Churcher him. From the half- and awakening about the band, about Brownstein’s place in the Pacific Northwest punk MUP. PB. $44.99 censored profanity on the scene through the 90s and early 2000s, and about what brought her there. She writes in In 2014, Betty Churcher middle of his memoir’s a way that is clear and direct, but also, typically, sharp and lyrical, about her own sense of discovered a forgotten front cover, this self- yearning and emptiness that saw her seeking out the fringe punk and riot grrrl scene of sketchbook from her proclaimed ‘spoiled white Olympia and later Portland. Music, and songwriting, was a way to be a part of something travels around the asshole’ is clear about one vital, to fill a void, to be loud, to be whole, witnessed, and present. galleries of the world. thing – having two parents diagnosed with a While I’m obviously a massive fan of Brownstein’s work, I am not especially partial to music From this she wrote a terminal illness doesn’t necessarily make biographies. Yet reading this particular story was an absorbing, fulfilling and urgent experience. final companion you the sweetest guy. Home is Burning is a Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl, is eloquent and honest, and it is effortless to read. volume to her frank, often caustic account of his own bestselling Notebooks Amy Vuleta is the manager of Readings St Kilda mid-twenties. At the age of 25, Marshall is series, but died shortly after completing forced to leave his ‘perfect life’ in Los the manuscript. Inspired by some of the Angeles, complete with corporate job and an world’s greatest artists, Betty’s sketches anecdote, Peter Guralnick’s book attractive girlfriend, and move back to Salt and notes bring their artworks to life as Music brilliantly tells how one man discovered Lake City, Utah to live at home and help his she explores the stories of their creation. Elvis, B. B. King, Johnny Cash, and Jerry siblings look after his dying parents. His The Forgotten Notebook showcases Betty Lee Lewis, and how his tiny record label mother Debi had been living with non- NOTES FROM THE Churcher’s greatest talent: sharing the revolutionised the world. Hodgkins lymphoma for 14 years when VELVET UNDERGROUND excitement of discovering meaning in the Marshall’s father Bob was diagnosed with Howard Sounes great artworks of the world. ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. As their Doubleday. PB. $39.99 Biography parents’ conditions rapidly weaken, the five In this in-depth, siblings in this Sedaris-like clan (or ‘Team EASILY DISTRACTED meticulously MY LIFE ON THE ROAD Terminal’, as Marshall puts it) are expected Steve Coogan researched and very Century. PB. $35 Gloria Steinem to pull together and support each other. entertaining book, This memoir doesn’t read like your Born and raised in 1960s Nero. HB. $29.99 respected biographer typical, sentimental ‘sick-lit’ – Marshall’s Manchester, Steve Howard Sounes We know about approach is to deal with adversity through Coogan was told from examines the life and Gloria, we women. humour, a technique evident in every page. an early age he should work of one of the We know that she has The move home is a huge shift for him in ‘be on the telly’. Once a most innovative and been supporting us, responsibility, and comes with more than tabloid fixture, Coogan intelligent American urging us and a hearty dose of self-pity. Yet his tendency is now a respected film songwriters of modern times. Drawing demanding us to speak to add in punchlines and profanities actor, writer and from interviews with over 140 people from up for decades now. works to soften the various blows dealt producer, with six every part of Lou Reed’s life, Sounes also She has travelled the with throughout these two years, both for BAFTAs and seven sheds entirely new light on the artist’s world to bring our Marshall and for the reader. ‘Now that I Comedy Awards. In Easily Distracted he lifts creative process, his mental health stories to a global was back taking care of my dying parents’, the lid on the real Steve Coogan, writing with problems, his bisexuality, his three platform. She is a tireless, considered Marshall recalls, ‘people started to treat distinctive humour and an unexpected marriages, and his addictions to drugs and narrator of hope and kindness. Recognised me like I was a tragic figure with a heart of candour about a noisy childhood surrounded alcohol. This book brings Lou Reed and his and admired worldwide for her social gold, instead of a dickhead.’ by foster kids, his attention-seeking teenage world alive. activism in the field of women’s rights, The news that the movie rights have years, and his emergence as a household Steinem’s opus has been to record already been picked up, to be directed by name with the birth of Alan Partridge. SAM PHILLIPS observations that make sense of our shared Jonathan Levine and to star Miles Teller, Peter Guralnick experience as women. She has constantly is proof that the balance of drama and THE LIGHTLESS SKY been on the move (thus the imaginative W&N. PB. $32.99 comedy in Marshall’s story should appeal Gulwali Passarlay title) and this book chronicles her travels In 1951, small-town to readers. For those who can look past Atlantic. PB. $29.99 Alabama native Sam from her first experience of social activism the explicit language, Home is Burning among women in India to her work as a Gulwali Passarlay fled Phillips made what is is, ultimately, a moving account of a Afghanistan at the age widely considered the journalist in the 1960s; from the founding of complicated (endearingly dysfunctional) Ms Magazine to the historic 1977 National of 12, after his father first rock ‘n’ roll record family dealing with personal tragedy. If was killed in a gun – Ike Turner and Jackie Women’s Conference. Showing tremendous sarcasm and dirty jokes make you chuckle, irony, humour and vigour, Steinem reveals battle, and endured a Brenston’s Rocket 88. it’s a refreshingly candid, frequently terrifying odyssey Just two years later, a her childhood to her life, at age 81, now. entertaining read. Her accounts are good-natured and across Europe at the shy kid named Elvis Stella Charls is the marketing and events often very funny. There are vignettes of hands of human Presley made his first record in Phillips’ coordinator for Readings traffickers. Somehow studio. An engaging mix of biography and people she has met, taxi drivers she has 14 READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2015 making it to Britain, Gulwali is now a young Afghanistan and South Sudan. Together, Campbell, Andrew Dyson, John Farmer, –brilliantly, convincingly, and with vitality man intent on changing the world and they tell stories of persecution, violence First Dog on the Moon, Matt Golding, Fiona and immediacy. In this volume, that voice highlighting the plight of the thousands who and starvation; families separated; life in Katauskas, Mark Knight, Jon Kudelka, Bill rings clear through some of his most risk their lives to leave behind the troubles mandatory detention; and the challenges of Leak, Alan Moir, Peter Nicholson, Bruce unforgettable writings, culled from nine of of their homelands. This harrowing memoir starting over in Australia. None of these Petty, David Pope, David Rowe, John his most popular and important books, as celebrates the triumph of courage and people chose to be refugees; all chose Spooner, Ron Tandberg, Andrew Weldon, well as never-before-published pages from determination over adversity. survival. A powerful, moving and inspiring Cathy Wilcox, Paul Zanetti, and many more. his unfinished second volume of memoirs. account of human resilience that every There never was, and never will be again, a AMAZING FANTASTIC Australian should read. THE EIGHTIES voice like this. INCREDIBLE Frank Bongiorno Stan Lee, Peter David & Colleen THE BEACH: AN Black Inc. HB. Was $45 I CALL MYSELF A Doran AUSTRALIAN PASSION $39.99 FEMINIST Simon & Schuster. HB. $45 Robert Drewe It was the era of Hawke Victoria Pepe (ed.) In this gorgeously National Library of Australia. HB. $39.99 and Keating, Kylie and Virago. PB. $32.99 illustrated, full-color From an Indigenous INXS, the America’s Cup Is feminism still a dirty graphic memoir, Stan food source to a and the Bicentenary. It word? Twenty-five of the Lee, comic book legend hedonistic was a time when brightest, funniest, bravest and co-creator of a legion playground, the beach Australians fought for young women from all of Marvel superheroes, has long been a social change – for land walks of life in the UK shares his iconic legacy national obsession. rights, women’s rights and were asked what being a and the story of how But the beach also has as part of a new feminist in 2015 means to modern comics came to a dark side as a place environmental movement. And there were the them. Is the word ‘feminist’ be. Moving from his impoverished childhood of tragedy, violence and danger, a place events that left many scratching their heads. still to be shunned? Is feminism still thought in Manhattan, through his military training where sharks attack prone surfers and prime Frank Bongiorno brings all this and more to of as anti-men rather than pro-human? Is films during World War II to the rise of the ministers disappear. Robert Drewe’s lyrical life. He uncovers forgotten stories and sheds this generation of feminists – outspoken, Marvel empire, this funny, moving, and examination of Australian beach culture new light on the ordinary and extraordinary funny and focused – the best we’ve had for incredibly honest memoir is a must-have for combines personal anecdotes with imagery things that happened to Australia and long while? Has the internet given them a collectors and fans of comic books and from some of Australia’s most celebrated Australians during this liveliest of decades. voice and power previously unknown? graphic novels of every age. photographers. It’s a book for Australians dreaming of the beach. GREAT SOUTH LAND THE SIMPLEST WORDS POUR ME Rob Mundle Alex Miller A. A. Gill THE BEST AUSTRALIAN ABC Books. HB. Was $45 A&U. PB. Was $39.99 Weidenfeld & Nicolson. PB. $32.99 ESSAYS 2015 $39.99 $34.99 A. A. Gill’s compulsive Geordie Williamson (ed.) For many, the colonial This collection, from one memoir of the lost year Black Inc. PB. $29.99 story of Australia starts of Australia’s most between the end of his In The Best Australian with Captain Cook in 1770, admired and thoughtful marriage and the end of Essays 2015, Geordie but it was some 164 years writers, brings together his drinking is about the Williamson compiles the earlier that Dutch seafarers short pieces written over black-outs, the collapse, year’s outstanding short discovered and mapped the last forty years. Taken the despair – but also non-fiction. Read Helen the vast, unknown waters together, they comprise a about the times of Garner on condescension, and land masses in the most insightful, optimum inebriation, DBC Pierre on travel, Indian and Southern Oceans. Rob Mundle intelligent and ruminative when it was all golden, when the drink and the Ceridwen Dovey on returns to the water with another sweeping meditation on family, friendship, truth, pleasure made sense and were brilliant. Full of autobiography, Tim and powerful account of Australian memory, and more. Personal and intimate as raw and unvarnished truths, exquisitely Winton on injury, Anna Krien on first love, maritime history, telling the story of the these pieces are, this collection forms a kind written throughout, Pour Me is about lost time and Nicolas Rothwell on the northwest European mariners who discovered and of assured autobiography, perhaps of the sort and self-discovery. Lacerating, unflinching, coast. With bracing essays on politics, music, mapped the majority of Australia, but made that only Alex Miller could write. Stories are, uplifting, it is a classic about drunken abandon. literature, history, art, sport and more, this no effort to lay claim to it. after all, in his blood. impressive anthology will entrance, BORN TO RULE stimulate and entertain. BOLD Paddy Manning Cultural Studies David Hardy (ed.) MUP. HB. Was $45 FROMELLES AND Rag & Bone Man. HB. $34.95 $39.95 POZIÈRES: IN THE AND YET … In Australia, the news is Born to Rule is the TRENCHES OF HELL Christopher Hitchens filled with debate around unauthorised biography Peter FitzSimons Bloomsbury. PB. $32.99 same sex marriage, and why we are the last that unravels the many Heinemann. HB. $49.99 The late Christopher English-speaking country layers of the man who In July 1916, Australian Hitchens was an to end this discrimination. has just become the 29th soldiers attacked unparalleled, prolific Headlines broadcast news Prime Minister of entrenched German writer, who raised the of sports people coming Australia. The highs and positions at Fromelles polemical essay to a new out, and stories of prominent transgender lows of Malcolm and Pozières in northern art form, over a lifetime people go viral on social media. Behind these Turnbull’s remarkable France – a bloodbath of thinking and debating stories, who are the people who have career are documented here in technicolour described as the worst in the defining issues of our championed the great changes in Australia detail by journalist Paddy Manning. Based on Australia’s entire history. times. This final volume and around the world? In this book, over 50 countless interviews and painstaking Yet nearly a century on of previously unpublished essays covers the people – including prominent activists such research, it is a forensic investigation into one from those battles, Australians know only a themes that define Hitchens the thinker – as Bob Brown, Sally Goldner and the Hon. of Australia’s most celebrated overachievers. fraction of what occurred. This book brings literature, religion and politics – and Michael Kirby – tell their stories. Will Turnbull crash and burn as he has the battles back to life, illustrating both the showcase the notorious contrarian’s genius before, or has his entire tumultuous life been heroism displayed and the insanity of the for rhetoric, offering sharp rebukes to a rehearsal for this moment? British plan. Peter FitzSimons shows why tyrants and the ill-informed everywhere. Science this is a story about which all Australians These essays remind us, once more, of the Australian Studies can be proud – and angry. fierce, brilliant and trenchant voice of Christopher Hitchens. ADAM SPENCER’S THE BEST AUSTRALIAN WORLD OF NUMBERS MORE TO THE STORY POLITICAL CARTOONS THE SPECTACLE OF SKILL Adam Spencer Rosemary Sayer 2015 Robert Hughes Xoum. PB. Was $34.99 Margaret River Press. PB. $27.95 Russ Radcliffe (ed.) Random House. HB. Was $79.99 $29.99 $69.95 More to the Story tells the Scribe. PB. $29.99 What’s a firkin? How fast human stories of refugees The year in politics as Robert Hughes wrote with is Usain Bolt – really? And and asylum seekers in observed by Australia’s brutal honesty about art, what’s the record for the Australia. Rosemary funniest and most architecture, culture, most lobster rolls eaten in Sayer writes with perceptive political religion, and himself. He 10 minutes? All these empathy and humility of cartoonists. With Dean translated his passions – of questions and more are her interviews with Alston, Peter Broelman, which there were many, answered in this refugees from Burma, Warren Brown, Pat both positive and negative fascinating snapshot of READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2015 15 the world of numbers by Australia’s funniest first Industrial Revolution. David mathematician. From the building blocks of Wootton’s landmark book changes our life, to the games we play and the food we understanding of how this great eat, this is a book for anyone who loves transformation came about, and of what puzzles and numbers, or is just plain curious science is. about the amazing world around us. THE BRAIN History David Eagleman Canongate. PB. $32.99 SPQR Locked away in the skull, Mary Beard the brain somehow Profile. HB. Available 18 November. $49.99 produces the multi- SPQR is the Romans’ sensory experience that own abbreviation for comprises human nature. their state: Senatus Bestselling neuroscientist Populus Que Romanus, David Eagleman shows ‘The Senate and People how the brain constructs of Rome’. SPQR is a new reality, allowing us to look at Roman history navigate a complex world of decision- from one of the world’s making. Along the way, he meets nuns, foremost classicists. It athletes, convicted criminals, genocide explores not only how Rome grew from an survivors, and multi-disciplinary experts insignificant village in central Italy to a from child psychologists to brain surgeons. power that controlled territory from Spain The accessible and definitive overview is a to Syria, but also how the Romans thought celebration of one of the most extraordinary about themselves and their achievements, stories on earth. and why they are still important to us today. THE BRAIN ELECTRIC THE INVENTION OF Malcolm Gay NATURE Text. PB. $32.99 Andrea Wulf Controlling a machine Quercus. PB. $35 or prosthetic with your Alexander von mind, ‘seeing’ through a Humboldt is the great camera located miles lost scientist: towns, away – such remarkable rivers, mountain ranges, feats are now within the animals are named after grasp of neuroscience. him – even a region on Malcolm Gay highlights the moon. Humboldt the researchers delving predicted human- into the intricate workings of the brain; of induced climate change the volunteers participating in these as early as 1800, and he inspired princes and groundbreaking experiments; and of the presidents, scientists and poets alike. The developing technologies that will improve Invention of Nature traces his ideas as they lives and potentially revolutionise human go on to revolutionise and shape science, capabilities. The Brain Electric challenges conservation, nature writing, politics, art our relationship with technology, our and the theory of evolution, and shows why bodies, and what it means to be human. his life and ideas remain so important today. THE HEART HEALERS THE CRIME AND THE James S. Forrester SILENCE Affirm. PB. $29.99 Anna Bikont One Australian dies Heinemann. PB. Available 2 November. $35 from heart disease On 10 July 1941 a every 12 minutes. But horrifying crime was hundreds of thousands committed in the small have lived thanks to Polish town of Jedwabne the greatest medical – the town’s entire breakthrough of our Jewish population were lives. World-renowned marched into the town cardiologist Dr James square and killed. Part S. Forrester tells the story of the misfits, history, part memoir, part mavericks and rebels who defied the investigation, Anna Bikont chronicles the accumulated scientific wisdom of the day sources of the hatred that exploded against to begin conquering heart disease. This is Jews. The Crime and the Silence is the story the pulsating chronicle of a disease and of a massacre told through oral histories of its cure – a disease that is still with us, survivors, witnesses and perpetrators, and but one that is slowly being worn away. a portrait of a Polish town coming to terms THE INVENTION OF with its dark past. SCIENCE THE MISTRESS OF PARIS David Wootton Catherine Hewitt Allen Lane. HB. $69.99 Icon. PB. $29.99 We live in a world Valtesse de la Bigne was a made by science. How celebrated 19th-century and when did this Parisian courtesan. happen? This book tells Immortalised in the the story of the scandalous novel Nana, extraordinary her rumoured affairs with intellectual and Napoleon III and the cultural revolution, future Edward VII kept kickstarted by the gossip columns full. But her glamorous discovery of America, that gave birth to existence hid a dark secret: she was born modern science and led to a new into abject poverty, raised on a squalid rationalism, killing off alchemy, astrology, Paris backstreet; the lowest of the low. and belief in witchcraft and leading to the 16 READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2015

Catherine Hewitt’s biography tells, for the side of the Syrian conflict, Hunting Season is philosophical gems, adding new ones that in Business, draws on her own experience first time ever in English, the forgotten a quest to uncover the truth about how and strike a chord. From Epicurus to Emerson of working in some of the world’s most story of a remarkable woman who, though why Islamic State came to target Western and Camus, each pithy extract is annotated successful businesses and looks at what her roots were lowly, never stopped hostages, who was behind it and why almost with Klein’s inimitable charm and insights. women can do to help themselves, and aiming high. no one outside a small group of people knew effect change on a more universal scale. anything about it until it was too late. THE OTHER PARIS Reference Luc Sante POSTCAPITALISM: A Sport & Recreation Faber. HB. $55 GUIDE TO OUR FUTURE Paris, the City of Light, the Paul Mason ATLAS OF CURSED city of fine dining and Penguin. HB. $49.99 PLACES P IS FOR PELOTON Suze Clemitson seductive couture and Over the past two Olivier Le Carrer intellectual hauteur, was centuries or so, Black Dog & Levanthal. HB. $29.99 Bloomsbury. HB. $29.99 until fairly recently always capitalism has A fascinating history and A perfect gift book for all accompanied by its undergone continual armchair journey to the cycling fans – the A-Z of shadow: the city of the change, emerging world’s most dangerous and cycling from Arriv.e to poor, the outcast, the transformed and frightful places, complete Zoetemelk. Beautifully criminal, the eccentric, the strengthened. Surveying with vintage maps and illustrated by renowned wilfully nonconforming. Richly illustrated this turbulent history, period illustrations. It cycling artist Mark and thoroughly researched, The Other Paris Paul Mason shows how, includes 40 locations rife Fairhurst, P is for Peloton is packed with fun gives us a panoramic view of that second from the ashes of the recent financial crisis, with disaster, chaos, paranormal activity, facts from the amazing to the bizarre, and metropolis, which has nearly vanished but we have the chance to create a more socially and death, such as the dangerous Strait of stories about the greatest riders in the sport. whose traces remain in the contemporary just and sustainable global economy. Messina, home of the mythical sea Ever wanted to know the difference city, in the culture of France itself, and, by Moving beyond capitalism, he shows, is no monsters Scylla and Charybdis and between your flamme rouge and your extension, throughout the world. longer a utopian dream – this is the first Aokigahara Forest in Japan, the world’s lanterne rouge? This is the book for you – or time in human history in which we can second most popular suicide location. the cycling obsessive in your life. THE WITCHES predict and shape, rather than simply react Stacy Schiff to, seismic change. MAKING A POINT Weidenfeld & Nicolson. PB. $32.99 David Crystal Gift A Pulitzer Prize- WINTER IS COMING Profile. HB. $29.99 winning author Garry Kasparov Behind every punctuation IT HAPPENED ON explores one of the Atlantic. PB. $29.99 mark lie a thousand A FISHING TRIP great mysteries of Garry Kasparov has been a stories. The punctuation Paddy O’Reilly (ed.) American history: the vocal critic of Vladimir of English, marked with Affirm. PB. $29.99 Salem witch trials. Putin for over a decade, even occasional rationality, is Fishing – we do it in Vividly capturing the leading the pro-democracy founded on arbitrariness ponds, creeks, great dark, unsettled opposition in the 2008 and littered with oddities. rivers, the deep sea. atmosphere of 17th- Presidential election. In this For a system of a few Some fall under the spell century America, Stacy Schiff’s magisterial bold and important book, dozen marks it generates a disproportionate of the chase, some spend history draws us into this anxious time. She Garry Kasparov argues that degree of uncertainty and passionate a lifetime trying to tie shows us how a band of adolescent girls Putin’s dangerous global ambitions have been debate. With characteristic wit, clarity and the perfect fly, some just like sitting on the brought the nascent colony to its knees, and ignored for too long – and he won’t be commonsense, David Crystal gives a pier for hours. These are tales of the fishing how quickly the epidemic of accusations, stopped unless the West stands up to him. fascinating history of every kind of adventures and misadventures of amateurs trials, and executions spun out of control. Argued with the force of Kasparov’s world- punctuation mark, and he offers sound and pros, one-time anglers, families and Above all, Schiff’s astonishing research class intelligence, conviction and hopes for advice on how punctuation may be used to friends, in the stunning landscape of Australia reveals details and complexity that few his home country, Winter is Coming is an meet the needs of every occasion and – stories, pictures and hilarious anecdotes other historians have seen. unmistakable call to action. context. from Australian writers, fishing royalty, and many more amateur enthusiasts. Politics Philosophy Travel Photography Humour AMERICAN SOCIALIST A GOOD LIFE GREEN NOMADS Kshama Sawant Mark Rowlands Bob Brown THE WAYWARD LEUNIG Verso. HB. $39.99 Granta. PB. Available 18 November. $29.99 Hardie Grant. HB. Was $45 Michael Leunig In 2013, Kshama $39.99 Myshkin was born on a Viking. HB. Was $59.99 Sawant became one of certain day and died on a The landscape and $49.99 the most unlikely and certain day – and he spent close-up photographs of Michael Leunig found most exciting his life trying to answer the Australia’s natural the process of selecting politicians in the ethical questions of what landscape are ethereal just 400 pieces for 2012’s United States, running came in between. yet familiar, calming yet The Essential Leunig so for Seattle City Council Discovered by his son after powerful. Green Nomads difficult that he set aside as a militant socialist, Myshkin’s death, A Good is a celebration of another 400 for a with a bold push to Life is one man’s life (birth, death, Australia’s wilderness areas, and a subsequent volume. The cartoons in The raise the city’s minimum wage to $15 an education, religion, morality, illness and so reminder that we surely have something to Wayward Leunig have also been selected hour, more than double the national on) told through a philosophical lens. celebrate. Paired with Bob Brown’s from five decades of work, and are just as standard. This is the story of how Sawant Profoundly funny and deeply serious, it is personal and insightful anecdotes, this wide-ranging, potent and original. toppled a 16-year incumbent and as readable as a novel and as provocative as book will appeal to travellers, tourists, reshaped Seattle’s political culture, and the best philosophy. conservationists, photography enthusiasts an inspiring call for more movements to and all those that enjoy the wilderness. Natural History speak to the scores of people looking for EVERY TIME I FIND THE alternatives to capitalism. MEANING OF LIFE THEY Business BIRDLAND HUNTING SEASON CHANGE IT Daniel Klein Leila Jeffreys James Harkin PQ. HB. Available 10 November. $49.99 Text. HB. $29.99 LEAN IN Orchard. PB. Available 10 November. $32.99 As a young college student Sheryl Sandberg In Birdland, Australian Hunting Season is James fine-art photographer studying philosophy, Ebury. PB. Available 2 November. $22.99 Harkin’s harrowing Leila Jeffreys draws Daniel Klein filled a In 2013, Sheryl Sandberg’s investigation into the birds out from their notebook with short Lean In became a cultural abduction, captivity, and leafy shadows and airy quotes from the world’s phenomenon and its title execution of American territories and presents greatest thinkers, hoping became an instant journalist James Foley a stunning encounter to find some guidance on catchphrase for and the fate of more than with some of the how to live the best life he empowering women. In two-dozen other ISIS world’s most beautiful birds. Her love and could. Now, from the vantage point of his Lean In, Sandberg, hostages. Based on three compassion for her subjects is evident eighth decade, Klein revisits the wisdom he Facebook’s COO and one of years of on-the-ground reporting from every throughout, and Jeffreys profiles nearly relished in his youth with this collection of Fortune magazine’s Most Powerful Women every species. READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2015 17

Art & Design thematic sections: ‘The Annihilation of Self-Identity’; ‘The Challenge of Otherness’; with Margaret Snowdon ‘The Moral Imperative’; and ‘The Tasks of Art and Poetry’. BUILDING ART Paul Goldberger PAINTING THE MODERN Doubleday. HB. Available 2 November. $69.99 GARDEN From Pulitzer Prize- Monty Don et al. (eds) winning architectural Royal Academy of Arts. HB. $100 critic Paul Goldberger, Within Europe, the comes this engaging, Impressionists were nuanced exploration of the among the first to life and work of Frank portray gardens directly Gehry, undoubtedly the from life, focusing on most famous architect of their colour and form our time. This first fully fledged critical rather than using them as a background for biography presents and evaluates the work historical, religious and literary themes. This of a man who has almost single-handedly volume explores the close, symbiotic transformed contemporary architecture in relationship between artists and gardens his innovative use of materials, design, and that developed during the latter part of the form, and who is among the very few nineteenth and the first part of the twentieth architects in history to be both respected by centuries, centring on Monet, a great critics as a creative, cutting-edge force and horticulturalist as well as a great artist. embraced by the general public as a Chapters explore the aesthetic importance popular figure. of gardens to these artists, and also their significance as utopian spaces of imagination NGARRA and reverie, as well as of spiritual refuge. Nick Tapper (ed.) Mossenson Art Foundation. PB. $49.95 PICTURING PEOPLE Count as you walk up Numerical Street. Every page has a numerical treat. As a young man Charlotte Mullins Get your pants altered, get your keys cut, Ngarra began a long T&H. HB. $60 Open the book before the shops shut. and successful career Figurative art is as cattleman. During currently riding high. rom the creators of bestselling Alphabetical Sydney comes a walk quiet times in the wet Contemporary works up busy Numerical Street, past its laundromats, cake shops, panel season he would walk the country, attending F depicting the human beaters and hair salons. A fresh look at familiar shops and businesses, to ceremonies of life, death and the afterlife: form grace the walls of the vibrant illustrations and playful verse of Numerical Street he was the senior lawman for ceremonies public institutions and celebrate the jostle and chaos of suburban streetscapes. throughout a vast swathe of the Kimberley. In commercial galleries his 70s Ngarra turned to art, developing an alike. Champions of electrifying and sophisticated style of paint, such as Katherine Bernhardt and www.newsouthpublishing.com painting and drawing, producing works in Adrian Ghenie; photographic artists, such as ochre, acrylic and texta. He boldly combined Gillian Wearing and Cindy Sherman; Charles his unparalleled cultural knowledge with a Avery’s drawings, Grayson Perry’s tapestries unique artistic vision. and Kara Walker’s silhouettes – these and many other artists from diverse backgrounds PHOTOGRAPHY IS MAGIC are working in a range of media to explore Charlotte Cotton (ed.) new ways to depict the human form. Aperture. PB. $31.99 This critical publication LISTENING TO STONE COOL, CALM AND COLLECTABLE surveys the work of a Hayden Herrera diverse group of artists, T&H. HB. Available 1 December. $55 all of whom are engaged Combining Isamu Noguchi’s with experimental ideas personal correspondence concerning photographic and interviews with those practice and its place in a closest to him – from artists, shifting photographic landscape being patrons, assistants, and reshaped by digital techniques. It draws lovers – Herrera has created together current ideas about the use of an authoritative biography of photography as an invaluable medium in one of the twentieth century’s most the contemporary art world. From Michele important sculptors. She locates Noguchi in Abeles and Walead Beshty to Daniel his friendships with such artists as Gordon and Matthew Lipps, Cotton has Buckminster Fuller and Arshile Gorky, and selected the artists around the idea of in his affairs with women including Frida magic, the properties of illusion and Kahlo and Anna Matta Clark. With the material transformation that uniquely attention to detail and scholarship that made characterise photography. her biography of Gorky a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Herrera has written a rich THE SURREALISM meditation on art in a globalised milieu. READER Dawn Ades et al (eds.) XS Tate. PB. $55 Lisa Baker Drawn mostly from French Braun. HB. $70 and Spanish surrealist Tiny houses have become journals, this new collection increasingly popular in From the streets of the world to your living room. gathers together a wide range recent years. Even though of texts dating from the 1920s there are many regional Renowned artist Kyle Hughes-Odgers brings up to the late 1990s, none of variations, all residences a new aesthetic to the stress-relieving pleasures which has ever been translated into English of this type share a major of colouring in. before. The Surrealism Reader features feature – on an area of up to 60 square writings by leading surrealists, including metres they provide all necessities of life. Aragon, Artaud, Bataille, Breton, Caillois, Nowadays, they are no longer designed by Crevel, Dali, Éluard, Mabille, Magritte, individual solo fighters but also by Morise and Tzara, and others largely renowned architects who take on the unknown to English readers, such as Georges simple yet challenging task and develop the UNIQUELY AUSTRALIAN STORIES Henein, René Alleau, Gérard Legrand and enthralling room concepts and spatial Annie Le Brun. It is divided into four solutions that are presented in this volume. 18 READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2015

MOVING TARGET Picture Books Junior Fiction Christina Diaz Gonzalez FAIRYTALES FOR MR BARKER HARRY MILLER’S RUN Scholastic. HB. $19.99 Jessica Ahlberg David Almond & Salvatore Rubbino A centuries old spear and a 21st century girl are on a collision Walker Books. HB. $19.95 Walker. HB. $17.95 course that could change the future Continuing on in the fine On the face of it, Harry Miller’s of the world. What’s the plan? Cassie tradition of her parents, Run describes a magic day in the has no plan when out of nowhere Jessica Ahlberg has created a early life of Harry (now an old man) her life is threatened and her father beautifully detailed and charming who once ran from Newcastle to South disappears. It turns out she is the fairytale story. The actual story is Shields for a dip in the sea with friends. Chosen One but will she live long sweet, a chase through various But beneath that lies a warm and enough to find out what that means? fairytales after a dog, but the true touching tale of the pleasure and Cassie must make life or death highlight here is the illustrations. So much to see on every wonder to be found in friendship, decisions and also learn who she can trust when she is page, down to a teeny tiny shopping list for the three bears human connection and community. thrust into the world of a secret organisation that she is (batteries for the burglar alarm) and ‘mud soap’ for the A multi-award winning author, best known for his intrinsically linked with. This is a compelling adventure pigs. Children will absolutely delight in the ‘look and find’ insightful and profoundly moving books for children that has plenty of mystery and danger to engage readers aspect of the storytelling, which really calls to mind one of including Skellig, The Savage and My Dad’s a Birdman, only as Cassie runs for her life in Rome. However, beware, you the pleasures of Each Peach Pear Plum. a master storyteller like David Almond could evoke such a may turn to the last page but the adventure is not over! Isobel Moore is from Readings St Kilda sense of place and time with so much joy. Ages 9 to 14. Alexa This is an exquisite book, beautifully illustrated CAN A SKELETON HAVE AN in muted, pastel tones and a story that defies easy OLIVE OF GROVES X-RAY? categorisation. Perfect for patient, thoughtful readers who Katrina Nannestad & Lucia Masciullo enjoy some depth. Kyle Hughes Odgers Harper Collins. HB. $19.99 Highly recommended for ages 7 and up, including adults. Fremantle Press. HB. $24.99 Olive of Groves is my choice- Athina Clarke is from Readings Malvern How does sound taste? Do colours pick for middle readers this smell? Why do onions make me cry? year! A delightful, hilarious read full Who builds the wings for birds to fly? THE BAD GUYS EPISODE 2: of suspense and drama that will keep Renowned artist Kyle Hughes-Odgers MISSION UNPLUCKABLE readers engaged from beginning to brings his unique vision to these and Aaron Blabey end. many other questions. From the Scholastic. PB. $12.99 As the newest arrival at Mrs practical to the philosophical, this The Bad Guys are back with a Groves’ Boarding School for Naughty book is guaranteed to fire young imaginations! daring plan to rescue 10,000 Boys, Talking Animals and Circus chickens from a high-security cage Performers, Olive finds herself fast- MY DOG BIGSY farm! But how do you rescue talking her way into admission at the school with outlandish Alison Lester chickens when one of you is known claims to talents she doesn’t possess. The headmistress, Penguin. HB. Was $24.99 as The Chicken Swallower? Join the Mrs Groves, is terrified of ‘ordinary little girls’ and puts Olive on probation to prove that she has the right ‘misfit $19.99 Bad Guys as they return for more characteristics’ to be a student there. Meet my dog Bigsy. He’s only small, dodgy good deeds with a new member of the team. And watch out Olive becomes quickly endeared towards a group of but everyone knows he’s the boss. talking rats that share her bedroom and who have the most Each morning he visits the animals for the super villain who might just be the end of them! Good deeds – whether you like it or not. peculiar proclivities, but no more than other students in the on the farm. Squawk, neigh, quack, school who are just as bizarre. Olive must contend with live moo, baa, oink, cluck, purr, ruff ruff human cannonballs propelled through walls, a pyrotechnic ruff! What a lot of noise! And all THE CLEO STORIES: A FRIEND AND A PET maniac that sets fire to everything and a compulsive butter- because of Bigsy! From Australia’s favourite picture book smearer who likes to grease all surfaces around the school. Libby Gleeson & Freya Blackwood creator comes this energetic story about a little dog who Olive’s biggest challenge is the school bully, Pig McKenzie, A&U. HB. $16.99 causes a big commotion. who is intent on seeing her expelled. Two more endearing stories about the Read on to discover how Olive earns her place in this SCARLETT, STARLET little girl who always finds a way to school of misfits, takes on the bully and rescues a friend Emma Quay have fun. Cleo’s best friend is away, from a terrible fate. HarperCollins. HB. $24.99 her parents are busy, and there’s Natalie Platten is from Readings Malvern Scarlett loved to dance, and her house nothing to do but count raindrops - or was always filled with rhythm. Her tidy her room. Just when she thinks LAUGH YOUR HEAD OFF parents would clap along, and Little she’ll never cheer up, Cleo has an idea. Various Jazzy Jo-Jo’s paws would tap-tap-tap in In the next story, Cleo longs for a pet Macmillan. PB Anthology. $19.99 time. But when Scarlett’s dreams of but her mum and dad say no. Perhaps dancing on a real stage finally come true, the answer is hidden somewhere unexpected. This is an anthology of short, funny will she find her own rhythm? Will she stories by nine of the top, award- shine like a star? From award-winning author Emma Quay winning authors in the kids’ publishing comes a gorgeous new picture book for every little girl Middle Fiction world, headlined by the King of Kids: who loves to dance. Andy Griffiths. The stories are for all THE BOLDS kinds of kids, both girls and boys, and Julian Clary there are all kinds of stories. There’s a Nonfiction Andersen Press. PB. Available 2 November. $18.99 story from Andy Griffiths about being a robot; a story from Jude Rossell about a When a couple of English- cranky fairy; Tristan Bancks explores DIARY OF A TIME TRAVELLER speaking hyenas migrate from Nits and Naplan in his story ‘NitPlan’. Nicholas Stevenson & David Long Africa to England and settle in a quiet Wide Eyed Editions. HB. $29.99 suburban street they soon realise they’ll need more than just their OLD SCHOOL: DIARY OF A WIMPY This fascinating book is not about KID BOOK 10 time travel at all but is actually a human disguise – soon they get jobs, history book looking at 25 key events and have pups and live an extraordinary Jeff Kinney time periods throughout human life. Penguin. PB. Available 3 November. Was $14.99 civilization. When Augustus claims that I loved this outrageous tall tale. $11.99 history is boring, he receives a mysterious It’s laugh-out-loud funny (with just Life was better in the old days. Or present: a time-travelling diary. All he the right amount of bottom humour) but also clever was it? That’s the question Greg needs is to write down the time and place he wants to visit and witty as it good naturedly pokes fun at humans who Heffley is asking as his town and he will magically travel there. Augustus journeys with perceive themselves as superior to animals. voluntarily unplugs and goes his professor and gains inspiration from some of the What’s not to like? Terrific line illustrations bring electronics-free. But modern life world’s finest explorers, inventors, leaders, writers, an extra layer of fun to a story that’s guaranteed to has its conveniences, and Greg isn’t composers and painters, including Albert Einstein in New have young readers laughing hysterically at the madcap cut out for an old-fashioned world. York, Mozart in Vienna, Shakespeare in London, and Nancy antics. This little gem of a book is the brainchild of With tension building inside and Bird-Walton in Australia. Concluding in 1969 when Neil entertainer, comedian, and now children’s author, Julian outside the Heffley home, will Greg Armstrong walks on the moon, this is a highly illustrated Clary and award-winning illustrator David Roberts. find a way to survive? Or is going and unusual look at history for readers aged 7 and up. Highly recommended for ages 6 and up. A comedy ‘old school’ just too hard for a kid like Greg? riot for the whole family. Athina Angela Crocombe is from Readings Carlton READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2015 19

Book of the Month

THE WONDER GARDEN Kristjana S Williams & Jenny Broom Wide Eyed Editions. HB. $35

Big, bold and beautiful, The Wonder Garden is a spectacular exploration of five natural regions of our amazing world. These are habitats that are home to fantastic creatures and plants, some well known and others more mysterious. Step into the brightly coloured jewel that is the Amazon Rainforest, home to more than 5 million species of plant, insect and animal life and over 1500 species of birds. Dive into the Great Barrier Reef where the weird and miraculous exist, next, brave the Chihuahuan Desert (the what, you ask?) in North America where conditions are fierce and the fearsome survive. Creep into the Black Forest, a dark and densely wooded region in Germany, and, finally, climb the Himalayan Mountains to encounter majestic wildlife that is remarkably good at camouflage.

Wide Eyed Editions maybe a new kid on the block but they are leading the way with captivating and dazzling nonfiction for children and The Wonder Garden is a perfect example of this. It is a must for nature-loving readers of any age.

Alexa Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn

New Kids’ Books RUBY REDFORT: PICK YOUR FASHION STUDIO POISON Helen Moslin Lauren Child Walker. Box. $29.95 HarperCollins. HB. $19.99 Create 50 fabulous outfits using Ruby Redfort: undercover agent, press-out patterns and designer Classic of the Month code-cracker and thirteen-year-old paper and tissue, complete with genius – you can count on her when accessories. Then display them in THE HUNDRED AND ONE you’re between a rock and a hard place. the chic fold-out studio! Use the DALMATIANS There’s a lot to lose sleep over in templates and techniques you’ve Dodie Smith Twinford: there’s the snakes and the learned to create new collections, in your own original Egmont. HB. $24.95 bivalves, but they aren’t half as style, season after season. This gorgeous set includes a Fans of the ever charming poisonous as the rumours. With so designer’s handbook with detailed step-by-step Dodie Smith are in for a treat many twists and turns it’s hard to know instructions, press out patterns, a fabulous fold-out studio with this new edition of The Hundred who to trust, particularly when no one trusts you. Will Ruby and notes on the couture origins of each look. The perfect and One Dalmatians. Illustrated by make it out in one piece? Well, happy endings are for fairy gift for fashion lovers and budding designers. the (almost!) equally charming Alex tales, bozo. T. Smith this really is the perfect pairing, and Dodie’s story, and the Classic masses of Dalmatians, are brought to Novelty life by Alex’s beautifully playful and LITTLE YELLOW DIGGER audacious illustrations. Even the BUILDING MACHINES TREASURY cover is perfection, with a sublimely Ian Graham Betty Gilderdale chic Cruella depicted on the jacket and a Dalmatian spotted Walker. HB. $24.95 Scholastic. HB. $24.99 hardback hidden beneath. The perfect introduction to When digging out a drain, the The real highlight here though is the story. Reasonably simple mechanics for budding little yellow digger gets stuck in different to the Disney film, the book is sweet and funny, engineers everywhere. Explore the mud. So they bring in a bigger and at times very stressful! The temperature drops below the giant vehicles used in the digger... Since the publication of freezing whenever Cruella slides onto the page, and Dodie construction industry – from the first story more than 20 years handles all of the Dalmatians with a deft hand. Her writing trucks and loaders to excavators ago. The much-loved stories is crisp and effortless, filled with verve and personality and and cranes – then build your about the Little Yellow Digger she has the skill to summon every character to fully appear. very own construction have spanned generations of readers to become classics. The novel is just perfect for pet lovers and fashion lovers machines! A must for budding engineers, this unique All five stories have been compiled in this delightful alike, for the young and the old, and certainly for anyone in interactive book contains all you need to put together 9 treasury collection, which features a special word from need of a fun and delightful adventure. IM working models. the author, over 20 years on. 20 READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2015

ALMOST DECADENT THE MAKING OF THINKING IN FRENCH Rennie Ellis HOME NUMBERS Sarah Turnbull HB. Was $69.95 Judith Flanders Daniel Tammet PB. Was $34 Now $39.95 HB. Was $45 HB. Was $49.99 Now $16.95 Now $11.95 With an introduction Now $19.95 Sarah Turnbull’s stint in by photographer and The idea of ‘home’ as Using anecdotes, everyday Paris was only supposed to last a week – but Rennie contemporary William Yang and an a special place, where we can be our examples, and ruminations on history, as the Sydney journalist navigates the highs essay by photographer and art critic Robert true selves, is obvious to us today – but, literature, and more, Daniel Tammet and lows of this strange new world, little by McFarlane, Decadent explores the rise of as Judith Flanders shows, ‘home’ is a allows us to share his unique insights and little she falls under its spell: maddening, the hedonism that we now associate with relatively new idea. In The Making of delight in the way numbers, fractions, mysterious, and charged with that French the wild, opulent, sometimes tacky and Home, Flanders traces the evolution of and equations underpin all our lives. His specialty – seduction. A delightful, fresh always decadent 1980s. Ellis’ boundary- the house across continents and centuries, provocative and inspiring new book will twist on the travel memoir, Almost French pushing, racy and sometimes voyeuristic and shows how the ‘homes’ we know change the way you think about numbers takes us on a tour fraught with culture works capture an Australia that seems today bear only a faint resemblance to and fire your imagination to view the world clashes but rife with deadpan humour. to be revelling in its abandonment of the ‘homes’ though history. with fresh eyes. politically charged 1970s. MORE THAN THE BORGIAS PERFUMES FRENCH TO THE LETTER G. J. Meyer Luca Turin & Tania Simon Garfield Sanchez Philippe Mouchel HB. Was $49.95 HB. Was $29.99 Now $19.95 HB. Was $39.99 HB. Was $39.95 Now $12.95 Now $16.95 Now $14.95 The startling truth behind To the Letter tells the story one of the most notorious In Perfumes: The Guide, More than French is the of our remarkable journey dynasties in history is scientist Turin and perfume first cookbook from Philippe Mouchel, a through the mail. revealed in a remarkable new critic Sanchez combine their talents and chef whose commitment to excellence is From Roman wood chips account, sweeping aside experience to review more than 1,200 matched by his training, technique, and the discovered near Hadrian’s the gossip, slander, and fragrances, separating the divine from depth of his cooking skills and recipes. A Wall to the wonders and distortion that have the good from the monumentally awful. collection of more than 100 recipes, More terrors of email, Simon shrouded the Borgias Through witty, irreverent, and illuminating than French is a comprehensive cookbook Garfield explores for centuries. G. J. prose, the reviews in Perfumes not only on cooking and preparing French-inspired how we have written Meyer offers an provide consumers with an essential guide dishes heavily influenced by Philippe’s to each other over unprecedented portrait to shopping for fragrance, but also make for work experience and travels, especially the centuries and of the infamous a unique reading experience. his time in Japan. Each recipe has been what our letters Bargain Renaissance family, thoroughly tested by renowned food writer reveal about our drawing from rarely THE 7 LAWS OF Rita Erlich, the cook to Philippe’s chef. lives. To the Letter is a examined key sources MAGICAL wonderful celebration of Table and bringing fascinating THINKING VALLEY OF letters in every form, and a new insight to the real people Matthew Hutson DEATH passionate rallying cry to keep within the age-encrusted myth. HB. Was $49.95 Ted Morgan writing. Now $14.95 HB. Was $55 NOISE Now $19.95 WHAT A Psychologists have documented a litany David Hendy of cognitive biases – misperceptions of Valley of Death is the untold WONDERFUL HB. Was $49.99 the world – and explained their positive story of the 1954 battle that, WORLD Now $16.95 functions. Now, drawing on evolution, in six weeks, changed the course of history. Marcus Chown Though we might see cognitive science, and neuroscience, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ted Morgan PB. Was $27.99 ourselves inhabiting a Matthew Hutson shows us that magical has written a rich and definitive account of Now $13.95 visual world, our lives thinking has been so useful to us that the remote valley where a great European have always been hugely Why do we breathe? What it’s hardwired into our brains. With power fell to an underestimated insurgent influenced by our need to hear and be is money? Does time really exist? How did wonderfully entertaining stories, personal army, ending French rule in Indochina – and heard. Based on the BBC Radio series, humans get to dominate the Earth? Why reflections, and sharp observations, leading inexorably to America’s Vietnam Noise explores the human dramas that have is there something rather than nothing? In Hutson reveals a completely irrational way War and the quagmire that was to come. revolved around sound at various points in What a Wonderful World, Marcus Chown the last 100,000 years, allowing us to think of making our lives make rational sense. HOW TO MAKE uses his vast scientific knowledge and in fresh ways about the meaning of our deep understanding of extremely complex collective past. MANDELA GRAVY processes to answer simple questions about Mac Maharaj & Ahmed Paul Kelly the workings of our everyday lives. Lucid, ON THE MAP Kathrada (eds) HB & CD Box Set. witty and hugely entertaining, it explains Simon Garfield HB. Was $59.95 Was $125 Now $49.95 the basics of our essential existence. PB. Was $29.95 Now $24.95 Over four nights in 2004 Now $12.95 Nelson Mandela occupies a Paul Kelly performed, in YEAR ZERO From the early explorers’ unique place in our world and in Mandela: alphabetical order, 100 of his songs from the Ian Buruma maps to Google Maps The Authorised Portrait the narrative of his previous three decades. In between songs he PB. Was $39.99 and smartphones, Simon epic journey to freedom is accompanied told stories about them, and from those little Now $12.95 Garfield explores the unique way that maps by a comprehensive collection of images tales grew How to Make Gravy, a memoir Drawing on hundreds relate and realign our history and reflect the and more than 60 specially commissioned like no other. This special edition slipcased of eye-witness accounts best and worst of us. Packed with fascinating interviews. World leaders, friends and package contains Paul Kelly’s much-loved and personal stories, this tales of cartographic intrigue, outsize associates have all contributed their memoir along with the companion A-Z sweeping book examines the seven months personalities, map folding methods and the individual stories to build a compelling Recordings box set and a 64-page booklet of (in Europe) and four months (in Asia) that strangest maps on the internet, On the Map picture of this inspirational man through colour photographs. followed the surrender of the Axis powers, is a rich historical tapestry infused with the eyes of those closest to him. DECADE from the fate of Holocaust survivors Garfield’s signature narrative flair. liberated from the concentration camps, HEARTLAND Rennie Ellis and the formation of the state of Israel, to THE CURIOUS Australian HB. Was $69.95 the incipient civil war in China, and the WORLD OF Conservation Now $39.95 allied occupation of Japan. WINE Foundation Decade: 1970–1980 Richard Vine HB. Was $49.95 showcases Rennie Ellis’ BAKING STYLE Now $24.95 contribution to photography and social HB. Was $39.95 Lisa Yockelson Now $14.95 Heartland is a commemorative history. The photographs, predominantly HB. Was $54.99 photographic book of around 200 The Curious World of Wine is a fascinating black and white, are accompanied by Now $29.95 photographs celebrating 50 years of the miscellany about the colourful characters, extended captions written by Ellis In Baking Style, Lisa Australian Conservation Foundation, celebrated places, and quirky events himself. Decade explores the cultures Yockelson presents what Australia’s oldest and largest national surrounding wine-making. Wine expert and subcultures of the 70s: the political has fascinated her during a lifetime of baking. environmental group. The uplifting and Richard Vine reveals the 400-year-old upheavals, alternative lifestyles and counter In 100 essays and more than 200 recipes, inspirational images capture the natural vineyard still producing grapes, the history culture, the women’s movement, festivals, along with 166 full-color images, Baking Style world across the continent and people of the word ‘plonk’ and the story behind the protests, and the emergence of a decadent is infused with discoveries, inspirations, and interacting with nature in a myriad of ways. custom of clinking glasses as a toast. This and hedonistic society that would later exacting but simple recipes for capturing the Heartland also features written pieces from book will keep any wine fan entertained. characterise the 1980s. art and craft of baking at home. various Australian writers. READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2015 21

New Film & TV films are among the few made before the places little faith in anyone: not the justice 1970s that are still regarded as classics… [his] system nor the police department, and with Lou Fulco films took audiences into places filmmakers, definitely not people themselves. But DVD of the Month even today, hesitate to go.’ – The Conversation while one or two individuals may stray, the herd will inevitably come together toward UTOPIA: SEASON 2 THE PRINCIPAL righteousness and redemption.’ $29.95 Available 4 November. $29.95 – The New York Times If you watched the first season of Utopia, you probably have high ‘The Principal begins as a well-made entry into a familiar expectations for the second. If you haven’t seen the show before, but Documentary are familiar with the uncannily accurate and hilarious 90s news-parody curriculum about inspirational Frontline, you’ll have some idea of the relentless deadpan satire of Utopia’s teachers … then bam: a student is found dead writers, Rob Sitch, Santo Cilauro and Tom Gleisner. The group’s signature on school grounds … Alex Dimitriades is AWAKE: THE LIFE style of humour works because it resonates; it isn’t merely cynical, it’s perfect in the lead role, bringing real heft and OF YOGANANDA gravitas.’ – The Daily Review insightful and ultimately finds meaning in human folly – and where it doesn’t find meaning, it Available 18 November. $29.95 offers comedic catharsis. MOOMINS ON ‘Fittingly enlightening, Awake: Utopia sends up large government departments, along with politicians and PR strategists with The Life of Yogananda is a penchants for slogans. In every episode you’ll find instantly recognisable moments of the absurd THE RIVIERA vivid, elegantly assembled portrait of the in everyday situations (Your taxi driver can’t find you, oh don’t worry, he’s found someone else!), and $24.95 savvy guru with the cherubic face and the often ludicrous and mundane frustrations of what goes on within institutions many love to ‘This yarn, based on Tove penetrating gaze who brought meditation to hate (No, that’s on the old server! or Perhaps it would be helpful if the position description included Jansson’s Moomins comic strip, the West.’ – Los Angeles Times the job title or mentioned that the role of office manager involves office management?). is a wistful and gentle affair, hand-drawn This season opens with the fresh hope and optimism of those quiet early weeks in every and far less brash than the typical animated BBC EARTH new year when people ride their bikes to work and swap caffeine for green smoothies. Their Hollywood feature … Its charm lies in its COLLECTION focus is fresh, their intentions are good and yet they are already behind on their annual report. understated quality.’ – The Independent Available 11 November. The excellent performances from Celia Pacquola, Rob Sitch and Kitty Flanagan continue, but Limited edition boxset. $99.95 this cast, across the board, does not miss a beat. SUITE One of the most appealing aspects of this show is that in the midst of all the unsettlingly ‘In every David Attenborough FRANCAISE show we are taken on a roller-coaster of plausible (even dangerously recognisable) soundbite-before-idea strategising and hilariously Available 11 November. $29.95 misdirected energy, there are genuinely appealing and equally true-to-life portrayals of emotion, screaming at the TV, holding back ‘Rewardingly complex and people who work in institutions like Utopia’s fictitious Nation Building Authority because tears and whooping for joy … [Life Story is] a disarmingly compassionate … they want to do good. hard but beautiful watch, packing in drama, This handsome adaptation tears and education.’ – The Daily Mirror Elke Power is the editor of Readings Monthly of Irène Némirovsky’s epic novel vividly depicts French rural life under the Nazis.’ – LISTEN TO ME The Guardian MARLON Film with aplomb … in large part thanks to the consistently riveting sight of two skilled actors ENID Available 12 November. $29.95 engaging in a battle of wits.’ – The A.V. Club ‘[Marlon] Brando gets the $19.95 portrait his fans deserve… Using THE FINAL DAYS ‘A dramatised biography of Enid THEY CAME BACK hundreds of hours of audio recordings, Steven OF ANNE FRANK Blyton … [Helena] Bonham Available 18 November. $19.95 Riley crafts a remarkable documentary that Available 4 November. $24.95 Carter’s performance never lost ‘A zombie flick like none offers unrivalled insight into what made the Anne Frank’s world-famous that faint tremor of self-doubt beneath her other, this quietly shivery, actor tick.’ – The Guardian diary comes to an abrupt end haughtiness, thereby ensuring she stayed intelligent French film … with shortly before she and her companions within the bounds of plausibility.’ – Sydney its understated atmosphere of dread, is as THE STAMP OF were arrested on August 4, 1944. With Morning Herald much a philosophical head-scratcher as it eyewitness testimony from camp survivors AUSTRALIA is a nifty nail-biter.’ – The New York Times and school friends, this is the story of $19.95 happened to Anne next, in the horror of the TV ‘[Saluting] 200 years of the Nazi camp system. CHARLES Australian postal service … CHAUVEL BROADCHURCH the story of the men, the women, and the DIPLOMACY COLLECTION indomitable spirit that conquered our tyranny SERIES 1 & 2 $29.95 Available 4 November. 8DVDs. of distance – and gave us communication Available 4 November. $44.95 ‘[A Swedish diplomat’s] effort $79.95 with the world.’ – TV Tonight to stop a Nazi commander from ‘Chauvel was a major director, producer and ‘After two gripping, inventive blowing up Paris [is] handled writer of early Australian cinema and his [series] endings … Broadchurch

END OF THE TOUR Opens December 3 (M) SUFFRAGETTE Opens December 26 (CTC) CAROL Opens January 14 (CTC) James Ponsoldt's conversational drama is inspired by the five- Sarah Gavon's thrilling drama tracks the story of the foot Set in 1950s New York, two women from very different day interview between Rolling Stone reporter David Lipsky soldiers of the early feminist movement; women who were backgrounds find themselves in the throes of love in CAROL. (Jesse Eisenberg) and acclaimed novelist David Foster Wallace forced underground to pursue a dangerous game of cat and As conventional norms of the time challenge their undeniable (Jason Segel), which took place right after the 1996 publication mouse with an increasingly brutal State. These women were attraction, an honest story emerges to reveal the resilience of of Wallace's groundbreaking epic novel, Infinite Jest. As the not primarily from the genteel educated classes, they were the heart in the face of change. Directed by Todd Haynes (Far days go on, a tenuous yet intense relationship seems to develop working women who had seen peaceful protest achieve nothing. From Heaven) and adapted from the novel The Price of Salt between journalist and subject. The two men bob and weave Radicalised and turning to violence as the only route to change, by Patricia Highsmith (author of Strangers on a Train and around each other, sharing laughs and also possibly revealing they were willing to lose everything in their fight for equality - The Talented Mr Ripley ), CAROL is a powerful romance fuelled hidden frailties - but it's never clear how truthful they are being their jobs, their homes, their children and their lives. by the suspense, danger and exhilaration of forbidden love. with each other. Exclusive to Cinema Nova.

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

New Music to epitomise the band’s sound. The album sung in English, Spanish and a mix of the journeys through a hybrid of reggae and two languages. jazz, with techno rhythms underpinning Album of the Month Freddy’s signature horns and Joe Dukie’s NIGHTINGALES IN THE soulful and introspective vocals. Bays ROSE GARDEN 1989 showcases a band truly comfortable in Saray Iluminado their skin. Ryan Adams $26.95 $19.95 BLUENOTE CAFÉ Saray Iluminado’s This is not my imagination, right? Taylor Swift’s 1989? first full-length Neil Young & album Nightingales Whilst winding my way through the tracks that Ryan Bluenote Café Adams chose to cover, I had the distinct feeling that he had in the Rose Garden Available 13 November. explores the musical traditions of Sevdah decided to perform each track as though he were covering $21.95 each one in the style of songs from great artists – such as and Sephardic music, and delves into the The latest ‘Performance early U2 with ‘Style’, Springsteen’s ‘I’m on Fire’ with ‘Shake alchemy of the Balkan soul. Featuring Series’ release from It Off’, Oasis with ‘Bad Blood’ and The Smiths with ‘All You Had to Do Was Stay’. violin, mandolin, lute, oud, clarinet Neil Young’s archives collects various I’m pretty sure that Adams isn’t having a laugh with this homage, but as a listener and and ney alongside Nela Trifkovic’s performances captured during his 1988 tour. a fan I do find it strange. Not that the songs aren’t everything you would expect of Ryan wailing vocals, the Melbourne four- The album documents one of Young’s most Adams: wonderfully produced, lush and intimate. His vocals sound personal, tortured, piece reveals the four reflections of the funky and heartfelt periods, featuring seven and relevant, as though he is singing to you alone. I suppose what annoys me is that the Balkan spirit: the Slavic, the Ottoman, the unreleased songs, and a searing 19-minute lyrics don’t hold up. Don’t get me wrong, Swift knows her fans and writes and sings to Mediterranean and the Jewish. version of the immortal ‘Tonight’s the Night’ them in a style they understand and appreciate. She has written what I believe to be from The Pier in New York City. some great songs across her varied albums but unfortunately, like many artists of her ilk, Jazz & Blues I think the image outside of the music also plays a huge role in her popularity. That, I can DARK SKY ISLAND truthfully say, is not something that interests me. Too old and too worn down, I’m afraid! I’m not one of the iPhone and selfie-obsessed generation. Enya AMBON Available 20 November. If I was hearing this without having heard Swift’s release (which, other than ‘Shake It Lloyd Swanton $21.95 Off’, I haven’t) then I would say that the lyrics lacked substance, that they were cute and 2CDs. $29.95 Enya, producer and romantic in a teenage way, and were wrapped in a nice package, but that as a Ryan Adams Best known for his work sound engineer Nicky release, they are ultimately disappointing. However, something tells me he has a lot up with The Necks and Ryan, and lyricist Roma his sleeve and that although this album is a curiosity to fans, there is enough on it to like. The Catholics, Lloyd Ryan release Dark Sky Island, a collection Highlights include ‘How You Get the Girl’, ‘Out of the Woods’ and ‘I Wish You Would’. Swanton developed a of songs built around themes of journeys Lou Fulco is from Readings Hawthorn suite of 12 compositions that draw from and islands, both incredibly diverse and the secret diary of his uncle, a World War innately unified in its sonic production. II prisoner of war on the Indonesian island Blending lavish layers of sound with sparse, of Ambon. Ambon brings together jazz, hymnal tracks and ethereal soundscapes, gospel, military and island music to create the album marks a new chapter in Enya’s something of beauty out of great horror, Pop & Rock LIMIT OF LOVE spectacular career. Boy & Bear offering insight into a little-known tragedy. $21.95 FIRST COMES THE NIGHT HEART OF A DOG RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL ARIA-award winning (SOUNDTRACK) Chris Isaak Sydney five-piece Boy & Joe Bonamassa Laurie Anderson Deluxe edition $24.95 Bear return with their CD & DVD. $34.95 $21.95 Recorded primarily third studio album, In January 2015, Joe in Nashville and Los fuelled by the momentum they gathered on The complete Bonamassa took the Angeles, First Comes the the road in 2014. Recorded the old fashion soundtrack recording of iconic Great Stage at Night is Chris Isaak’s way – live in the studio, straight to tape, Laurie Anderson’s new Radio City Music Hall 13th studio album, and the first recording with virtually no overdubs – Limit of Love feature film – her first for the first time for a sold-out, two- of all-original songs in over six years. There sees the band writing as a collective for the in 30 years – Heart of a Dog is a personal night run, fulfilling his lifelong dream of are some dark songs, funny songs and first time. essay encompassing joy and heartbreak performing in one of the world’s most romantic songs, building on Isaak’s stellar and memory, at the heart of which is a legendary venues. The recorded set reputation as one of the best and funniest THE LIGHT IN YOU lament for her late beloved dog. Heart features over 75 minutes of music as well of a Dog includes musical excerpts from live performers out there. Mercury Rev as over 2 hours of live footage and a special throughout Anderson’s career – closing $21.95 45-minute behind-the-scenes featurette. with a song by her late husband, Lou Reed. ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE US alt-rock legends THAT WOULD BE ME Jeff Lynne’s ELO Mercury Rev return COURTING THE SQUALL Available 13 November. with their eighth studio Harry Connick Jr Guy Garvey $19.95 album. Filled with $19.95 $21.95 Alone in the Universe is wondrous and voluminous kaleidoscopic Multiple Grammy and the first new ELO music detail, but also intimate moments of calm, After nearly 25 years as Emmy-award winning in 15 years, coming off The Light in You stands up to the very a member of Elbow, Guy Harry Connick Jr’s new a sold-out performance at BBC Radio’s best that this notable band of maverick Garvey is setting off alone album That Would Be Festival in a Day in September 2014. As explorers has ever created. for the first time with his Me was recorded in London and Nashville, with ELO’s previous chart-topping albums debut solo album. Driven by spontaneity and working with external producers Eg over 30 years, Jeff Lynne continues to serve REVOLVE experimentation, Garvey and a host of guests White and Butch Walker for the first time. as producer, songwriter, arranger, lead John Newman find a sweet spot between Manchester’s The result is a step out of Connick Jr’s baggy past, Tom Waits and mid-70s David singer and guitarist. Deluxe edition $24.95 comfort zone, a carefully crafted record Bowie, engendering a more clipped and John Newman, one of full of surprises and stirring musical direct vocal approach. IF I CAN DREAM the major breakthrough conjurations, delivering 11 new songs and Elvis Presley & the artists out of the UK in new insights into his artistry. Royal Philharmonic recent years, follows World Orchestra his new smash-hit single ‘Come and Get THE EPIC $19.95 It’ with his eagerly awaited second album. Kamasi Washington An exciting revisit The follow up to Tribute, Revolve looks set VIVIR SIN MIEDO $29.95 of Elvis’ work, If I to confirm the Yorkshireman as one of the Buika A carefully constructed Can Dream features classic Elvis vocal UK’s most singular talents and consistently $21.95 musical daydream, The performances with brand-new orchestral successful artists. A much loved Spanish Epic is the brazen new accompaniment, along with a duet with singer of West African release from young Michael Bublé, and appearances by Il Volo BAYS descent, Buika is known Los Angeles jazz giant, composer, and and Duane Eddy. Focusing on the iconic Fat Freddy’s Drop for her raw emotion bandleader Kamasi Washington. The artist’s unmistakable voice, the 14-track $19.95 and has been compared to Nina Simone, 172-minute, three-volume set includes a album features Elvis’ most dramatic The New Zealand Billie Holiday and Amy Winehouse. Her 32-piece orchestra and 20-person choir original performances augmented with based seven-piece music includes influences from jazz alongside an otherworldly ten-piece lush new arrangements by the Royal are back with Bays, a and flamenco to pop, soul and African band of the best young musicians on the Philharmonic Orchestra. 9-track LP that draws polyrhythm. Vivir Sin Miedo is Buika’s first planet – The Epic is unlike anything jazz on the lexicon of genres that have come album to contain her own compositions has ever seen. READINGS MONTHLY NOVEMBER 2015 23

New Classical Music THE COMPLETE RECORDINGS 1991-2007 Classical Album of the Month Maxim Vengerov Warner Classics 2564631514. 20CDs. $74.95 BACH & CHINDAMO: THE NEW The supreme violinist of GOLDBERG VARIATIONS his generation – declared Joe Chindamo & Zoë Black a talent ‘born once in a ALFI. ALFI15002. $24.95 hundred years’ by his first teacher – Maxim When you start listening to this recording, make sure Vengerov both embodies and renews the that ambient noises are at a minimum. The first few great Russian tradition in the mastery of notes on this sublime reinterpretation of Bach’s Goldberg his instrument. He will tour Australia in Variations will sweep you away into a world of tonal delight. November and December. Joe Chindamo and Zoë Black are making a habit of taking music that is old but still loved and creating new musical ideas from it. They interweave their musical presence with that FRANCESCO CAVALLI: of the original composer, in this case Bach, and have created, in a way not dissimilar to L’AMORE INNAMORATO Max Richter’s Four Seasons, a whole new work that pays homage to the master while Christina Pluhar & proving their own worth as musicians with each and every note. L’Arpeggiata Erato. 2564616642. ‘The first few notes on this sublime reinterpretation $24.95 of Bach’s Goldberg Variations will sweep you away into In April 2015, after a world of tonal delight.’ L’Arpeggiata performed L’Amore Innamorato at Carnegie Hall, James R. Oestreich wrote in his review According to folklore, Bach wrote the Goldberg Variations for Count Keyserling who in The New York Times: ‘In some ways, suffered from insomnia. The Count asked Bach to compose something that would lift his L’Arpeggiata represents the state of the art spirits on sleepless nights and that could be performed by his in-house harpsichordist, in early-music practice … These performers Johann Gottlieb Goldberg – hence the name Goldberg Variations. Although today see conjecture not as a worrisome chore historians are not convinced of this story, it’s nonetheless a perfect way to introduce a but as an opportunity; improvisation as a work that would indeed be just the thing if you suffered insomnia. The gentle opening matter of course; invention as a necessity.’ aria and slow unfolding of each of the 30 variations would be truly delightful drifting on the air at 3am. Chindamo is the compositional force behind the reimagining of these classic variations, RAVEL: PIANO with Black’s soulful violin a very clever antithetical timbre to the sometimes dry piano CONCERTOS textures from the original score. Bach was a big fan of borrowing from other composers Yuja Wang, Lionel and a firm believer in music evolving over time. This is a sentiment that many classical Bringuier & Tonhalle- musicians share with him and Chindamo. Listening to these Variations you can hear a fresh Orchester Zürich perspective on Bach that is inspiring both as a listener and a musician. I can’t wait to see DG. 4794954. $24.95 what they do next. Yuja Wang, young stellar Kate Rockstrom is a friend of Readings conductor Lionel Bringuier and celebrated Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich are the perfect match to inflame Ravel’s vibrant sound. The melding of Yuja’s legendary technical HANDEL: DUETTI E POULENC: PIANO skills with her interpretative intelligence TERZETTI ITALIANI CONCERTOS transforms this album into a profound musical experience with a haunting and Roberta Invernizzi Louis Lortie & Hélène Mercier, & jazzy sound. Glossa. GCD921517. $29.95 the BBC Philharmonic Although Chandos. CHAN10875 $29.95 German-born, Unlike any other, Classical Specials some consider Handel French pianist quintessentially and composer Francis English, thanks to the Poulenc possessed the THE ART OF JULIAN renown of his oratorios. ability to seamlessly BREAM In fact, he was as German as he was weave both farce and Julian Bream Banish awkward English as he was Italian, such was his sincerity into a single piece of music. As a ACMEM211CD. Was $19.95 extraordinary ability to set each language member of the group of composers known $9.95 while stocks last silences with as if it were his native tongue, and to as Les Six, Poulenc was greatly influenced During his years of adopt differing nationalistic styles into his by Satie, and many of his songs – performing Julian the in-laws, music as the occasion required. Aged 21, composed for his duo partner, baritone Bream was recognised Handel travelled to Italy in 1706, where Pierre Bernac – reveal a certain Satien as one of the world’s leading guitarists, stop hearing the he lived until 1710, during which time he irreverence. His mature piano works, some would argue, the greatest. His was influenced by the music of Corelli however, many of which appear on this 1959–60 recordings, made at the dawn of same old stories and Scarlatti. His Italian sojourn was recording by pianists Louis Lortie and an illustrious career, are the centre-piece of hugely important to his formation as Hélène Mercier, and the BBC this edition. Featuring works by composers from your great composer for the voice, and it was then Philharmonic, expose Poulenc’s darker, such as Malcom Arnold, Lennox Berkeley, that Handel wrote some of the lesser- more serious side. Rodrigo, Ravel Frescobaldi and Turina this uncle and give known duets and trios performed here by The Aubade, sub-titled ‘Concerto really is a must for lovers of the guitar and sopranos Roberta Invernizzi and Silvia chorégraphique’ (1929), one of the music lovers in general. your teenagers a Frigato, and tenor Thomas Bauer. earlier works presented here, is telling of The often contrapuntal-style vocal Poulenc’s then-depressed state. Angular MOZART STRING reason to switch writing is certainly different from the intervals and aggressive rhythms give QUARTETS lyrical music of the Messiah, but the result way to brief moments of tenderness, as o their screens. is no less moving. Invernizzi’s soprano Poulenc musically depicts the love-struck Belcea Quartet is well suited to this repertoire, and her huntress Diana. Lortie and Mercier join EMI. 3444552. Was $19.95 light voice easily negotiates the frequent forces for the final Élégie (1959), composed $9.95 while stocks last passages of coloratura. Less appealing is in memory of singer and pianist Marie- ‘This is Mozart playing Available at Readings Frigato, whose occasionally loose vibrato Blanche de Polignac, Poulenc’s dear friend of exemplary poise, gives the impression of poor intonation, and colleague. Poulenc’s grief is clear, but polish and intelligence… and all good book and but the two voices blend beautifully in the not overt: the opening bars of a sweet, The performers are as adept in balance as games stores. duet ‘Amor gioje mi porge’. However, all gently oscillating melody are eventually in solo refinement and the recorded sound told, this is a fabulous recording. drowned out by dissonant cabaret-like has all the requisite clarity and richness of Alexandra Mathew is from Readings Carlton chords. Led by conductor Edward Gardiner, detail.’ – Strad RRP $19.95 Lortie and Mercier assert themselves as supreme interpreters of this repertoire, and www.taoc.com.au remind us of Poulenc’s genius. AM