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READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2015 3

News

3-FOR-2 ROUTLEDGE CLASSICS MELBOURNE WRITERS FESTIVAL competition entry form over the counter Looking to complete your collection of Melbourne Writers Festival is Melbourne’s with their receipt attached, or send the form classics? Well, now is your chance – buy annual, two-week celebration for everyone and receipt together to: Readings Marketing any two Routledge Classics throughout who reads. The festival brings together writers Department, PO Box 1238 Carlton 3053. August and receive a third for free*. From from around the world to celebrate literature, Competition closes on Monday 31 August. Sartre’s Being and Nothingness to Derrida’s explore ideas, and inspire readers through a Only the winner will be notified. Good luck! Writing and Difference, readers of cultural vibrant program of storytelling, conversation, theory and philosophy will find much to debate, performance, music, art and digital AUSTRALIAN SKETCHBOOK: THE love here. This offer is available in our events. Fall in love with Louis De Bernières’ ART OF S.T. GILL Carlton, Hawthorn, St Kilda and Malvern new literary blockbuster. Learn from Naomi Encounter the people and places of colonial shops only, while stocks last. Klein, one of the world’s leading voices on Australia in this free exhibition at State Library *The lowest-priced book will be free of charge. climate change and capitalism. Be enchanted Victoria, celebrating a significant and popular by performed stories, challenged by Will artist of the mid-nineteenth century. This Self and Sarah Waters, and question your first-ever retrospective brings a lifetime of MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL definitions of ‘wife’ and ‘mother’. Melbourne FILM FESTIVAL S.T. Gill’s work to light, showcasing more than Writers Festival runs from 20 to 30 August 200 paintings, drawings, watercolours and The Melbourne International Film Festival 2015. To explore the program of more than prints. Take a piece of colonial Australia home is now upon us, showcasing the best in 500 events featuring over 500 local and by picking up the stunning new publication, contemporary cinema from around the international writers visit mwf.com.au. S.T. Gill & His Audiences by curator Professor world, as well as Australia’s own emerging Sasha Grishin from Readings for $39.99 (in and established talent. Cinephiles can store and online). For more information visit burrow away into the heart of Melbourne MILES FRANKLIN LITERARY slv.vic.gov.au/whats-on/Australian-sketchbook to take in an incredible line-up of features, AWARD WINNER documentaries, retrospectives and This year’s Miles Franklin winner is Sofie tributes. The festival runs from 30 July Laguna, for her already much-loved The Eye WANGARATTA FESTIVAL OF to 16 August. For more information about of the Sheep. First awarded in 1957, the Miles JAZZ & BLUES the program and memberships, and to Franklin Literary Award is presented annually Exciting changes at the 2015 Wangaratta make bookings, please visit miff.com. to a novel which is of the highest literary Festival of Jazz and Blues (30 October – 2 au. Readings is a proud sponsor of MIFF. merit and presents Australian life in any of its November) include a new stage in the phases. Signed copies of The Eye of the Sheep King George Gardens, a move for the are available now in all Readings shops and NATIONAL BOOKSHOP DAY festival precinct to the Riverside, and the online at readings.com.au. WITH MARKET LANE COFFEE introduction of ‘cross-over’ acts to introduce a new generation to the world of Jazz and Saturday 8 August is National Bookshop Blues. Readings is the official retailer at Day, a special day to rejoice in all things MEATBALLS: THE ULTIMATE the festival again and will be selling at all tactile and readable. To celebrate, bring GUIDE COMPETITION events at the Wangaratta Performing Arts your takeaway coffee cup from our friends Meatballs like you’ve never seen them Centre and the Blues Marquee. Tickets at Market Lane to any of our five shops and before – 60 fabulous recipes for meatballs, and full program details are available at we’ll give you 10% off all full-priced books! plus recipes a further 60 recipes for sides, wangarattajazz.com We are also delighted to announce a very sauces and garnishes. To celebrate the Special ticket offer for Readings customers: special Story Time with children’s author release of Meatballs: The Ultimate Guide by When booking your festival tickets, enter Readings Monthly extraordinaire, Tony Wilson. Bring the kids Matteo Bruno we’re running a competition the promotion code READINGS101 prior to Free independent monthly newspaper along to Readings St Kilda at 10.30am to throughout the month of August: buy a copy September 30 and receive discounted tickets published by Readings Books, Music & Film hear Tony read from his quirky new book, of Meatballs: The Ultimate Guide at Readings to the festival. Competition for Readings The Cow Tripped Over the Moon, all about and go in the draw to win a lavish dinner customers: We have two Festival Weekend Editor nursery rhymes emergencies. Dress as your for four at any of The Meatball & Wine Bar Passes to give away, plus three nights’ Elke Power favourite character from a nursery rhyme – restaurants (Flinders Lane, Richmond or accommodation at Lindenwarrah Country [email protected] parade prizes will be given and morning tea Collingwood), valued at $500. Purchase House Hotel Milawa. For your chance to served. For more information please visit online at readings.com.au to automatically win, email [email protected] Editorial Assistant readings.com.au/events. go into the draw. In‑store customers will Alan Vaarwerk need to complete and hand in the supplied with ‘Jazz & Blues’ in the subject line and [email protected] tell us in 25 words or fewer who you’re most interested in seeing at the festival, and why! Advertising Competition closes on Monday 31 August. Stella Charls Only the winner will be notified. [email protected] (03) 9341 7739 INDIGENOUS LITERACY DAY Graphic Design The Indigenous Literacy Foundation (ILF) Cat Matteson aims to raise literacy levels and improve the [email protected] opportunities of Indigenous Australians living in remote and isolated regions. Join Front Cover us in acknowledging Indigenous Literacy Readings Monthly cover design by Cat Day with Martin Flanagan at 6.30pm on Matteson. Photo of Gurrumul by Nic Walker, Wednesday 2 September at Readings courtesy of Nic Walker, Skinnyfish Music and Carlton, as he discusses new biography, MGM Distribution. The Short Long Book. A compelling portrait of an immensely important footballer and Cartoon Australian public figure, Michael Long, by Oslo Davis oslodavis.com one of Australia’s greatest sportswriters. The event is free, but please book at readings.com. Readings donates 10% of its profits each au/events. 10% of funds from books sold in year to The Readings Foundation: our shops on Wednesday 2 September will be readings.com.au/the-readings-foundation donated to ILF.

Available 28th of July 4 READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2015

August Events SUCHEN CHRISTINE 17 LIM ON THE JEFF APTER IN STEPHEN CRAFTI RIVER’S SONG 5 CONVERSATION 11 IN CONVERSATION In the 50th year of Singapore’s independence, WITH MICHAEL WITH ALAN DAVIES Suchen Christine Lim will read from and talk about her latest novel, The River’s Song, a DWYER Join Stephen Crafti as he discusses his new beautiful exploration of identity, love and loss, Jeff Apter’s Tragedy: The Sad Ballad of book, Architects’ Houses, with Alan Davies set against the social upheaval created by the the Gibb Brothers explores the turbulent of Crikey’s ‘The Urbanist’. Architects’ Houses rise of Singapore. We are delighted that Lim, history of the Bee Gees brothers. Join Jeff allows home voyeurs and design fans a one of Asia’s foremost writers, will be joining Apter and music writer Michael Dwyer fabulous view into the ways contemporary us in Melbourne. for a discussion about the Gibb brothers’ architects live in the homes they have incredible careers and the Gibb ‘curse’. designed specifically for themselves and Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events their families. Monday 17 August, 6.30pm Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Readings Carlton Wednesday 5 August, 6.30pm Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Readings St Kilda Tuesday 11 August, 6.30pm Readings Hawthorn MORNING TEA 8 WITH TONY RENATA SINGER WILSON FOR 12 ON LIVING NATIONAL AUDACIOUSLY IN KILL YOUR BOOKSHOP DAY OLDER AGE 13 DARLINGS’ FIRST BOOK CLUB: ELIZA Tony Wilson will be reading from his quirky It’s an honour to have world-renowned new book, The Cow Tripped Over the Moon, a author and activist Renata Singer join us to HENRY-JONES book all about nursery rhyme emergencies. talk about her new book, Older and Bolder. August’s Kill Your Darlings’ First Book Club Come and join the party, you could even Singer contrasts the stories of pioneers event features Eliza Henry-Jones discussing come dressed as your favourite character of active, productive old age against the her heartbreaking and uplifting debut novel, from a nursery rhyme! (And that means you anxieties of those facing the milestone of In the Quiet. Eliza will be in conversation too, carers and parents!) Parade prizes will turning sixty, considering each viewpoint with Kill Your Darlings’ online editor, be given and morning tea will be served. in the light of revealing research. Older Veronica Sullivan. Drinks provided. and Bolder is her rallying guide to living Free, but please book at audaciously in the last third of your life. Free, but please RSVP to readings.com.au/events [email protected] Saturday 8 August, 10.30am Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Thursday 13 August, 6.30 for 7pm Readings St Kilda Wednesday 12 August, 6.30pm Readings St Kilda Readings Hawthorn ROBIN BOWLES ON GRETA BRADMAN 10 STUART RATTLE & 13 IN CONVERSATION MICHAEL O’NEILL WITH LISA JOEL DEANE In her latest book, Smoke and Mirrors, MACKINNEY 19 AND GEORGE Robin Bowles examines the series of Greta Bradman will discuss her operatic MEGALOGENIS events that culminated in the murder of career and the inspirations for her new album IN CONVERSATION prominent Melbourne interior designer My Hero. She may even sing a little for us! Stuart Rattle by his partner, Michael Joel Deane’s Catch and Kill: The Politics of Power is a sweeping tour-de-force written O’Neill. Bowles delves into Michael and Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events from the inside. Join Joel Deane and George Stuart’s relationship, their design clients Thursday 13 August, 6pm Megalogenis for a discussion about how four and suppliers, friends, family and the fragile Readings Hawthorn state of all these links as their partnership friends – Steve Bracks, John Brumby, John and relationship teetered towards ruin. Thwaites and Rob Hulls – beat the factions, ALICE ZASLAVSKY’S won office in Victoria, achieved progressive Free, no booking required 15 FOOD A–Z reforms and tried to hijack Canberra. Monday 10 August, 6.30pm Readings Hawthorn Join us for a very special story time with Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Alice Zaslavsky, author of Alice’s Food A–Z. Wednesday 19 August, 6.30pm Alice will take us on an exciting culinary Readings Hawthorn adventure through some of her favourite ANDY GRIFFITHS story and picture books for kids of all ages. 12 AND TERRY DENTON BARBARA JEAN Free, but please book at 20 DAVIS ON ON THE readings.com.au/events 65-STOREY Saturday 15 August, 10.30–11am ART THERAPY TREEHOUSE Readings St Kilda Join us for the launch of Mindful Art Therapy: A Foundation for Practice, the result of many Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton live in an years work by practitioner Dr Davis in this incredible ever-expanding treehouse and THE HUSH important field of wellbeing. DINNER WITH create very silly books together. Andy writes 15 TREASURE BOOK the words and Terry draws the pictures – Free, no booking required 10 SIMON BRYANT Join us for the very special release of The Hush well, when they’re not too distracted by Thursday 20 August, 6.30pm The Chef is here! Simon Bryant, of ABC Treasure Book. Created for the Hush Music all the amazing things going on in their Readings Hawthorn TV’s The Cook and the Chef fame, will be in Foundation, famous for its original calming incredible ever-expanding treehouse! Join Melbourne for one day only and Readings music albums used in hospitals all around us, on the day of release, for their next is delighted to be hosting an evening event the world, this book is a glorious collection adventures with The 65-Storey Treehouse. PATRICK LENTON with him in partnership with Hawthorn’s of stories, poems and pictures from thirty There will be balloons, there will be jokes 20 IN CONVERSATION Crabapple Kitchen. Please join us for a much-loved children’s authors and illustrators. and there will be nonsense. WITH LUKE RYAN delicious meal and a chance to meet one of As with the annual Hush Collection CDs, our culinary heroes as he talks about his latest Tickets are $20 per person and all money raised through sales of The Hush Join Patrick Lenton and Luke Ryan (A Funny book, Vegetables, Grains & Other Good Stuff. include: a signed first edition of The Treasure Book will go to the twelve children’s Thing Happened on the Way to Chemo) for a 65-Storey Treehouse, an exclusive gift hospitals and wards involved in the Hush lively discussion about Lenton’s short-story Please book at readings.com.au/events. from The 65-Storey Treehouse and one hour of Music Foundation, including the Royal collection, A Man Made Entirely of Bats, as well Tickets for this special event are $100 complete madness. (Parents – you’ll get a copy Children’s Hospital in Melbourne. as writing, comedy and living in Melbourne. per person which includes a signed of the book too for your very own collection!) first edition of the book and a 2-course meal 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 with matching wine. Wednesday 12 August, 5.15pm Saturday 15 August, 10.30am Thursday 20 August, 6.30pm Monday 10 August, 6.30pm The Athenaeum, Collins Street, Melbourne Readings Hawthorn Readings Carlton Crabapple Kitchen, 659 Glenferrie Rd, Hawthorn READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2015 5

August Launches Coming up in September Join us for the launch of Heartland, a book that celebrates 50 years of the Australian ANDREW FULLER Conservation Foundation. 2 ON UNLOCKING Tuesday 4 August, 6.30pm September YOUR CHILD’S Readings Carlton GENIUS Come along to the launch of award-winning Join Andrew Fuller for a glass of wine and a writer Lucy Treloar’s novel Salt Creek. discussion about how Unlocking Your Child’s Wednesday 5 August, 6.30pm Genius reveals ways in which parents can Readings Carlton support their children in unleashing their talents. Fuller will also discuss how parents Join us for the launch of much-loved can discover their own genius and be great Melbourne writer Lili Wilkinson’s new YA role models for their children. novel, Green Valentine. Thursday 6 August, 6pm Free, but please book at FIONA WOOD IN Readings Carlton readings.com.au/events. Wine will be served. FRANK WOODLEY Wednesday 2 September, 6.30pm 25 CONVERSATION Join nonviolent peace advocate Dave Readings Hawthorn 22 INTRODUCES WITH EMILY GALE KIZMET, GRETCHEN Andrews for the launch of his latest book, From the author of Six Impossible Things The Jihad of Jesus: The Sacred Nonviolent INDIGENOUS & DETECTIVE Struggle for Justice. and the winner of the 2014 Children’s Book 2 LITERACY DAY: SPENCER Council of Australia Book of the Year for Monday 10 August, 6.30pm September Readings Carlton MARTIN From Frank Woodley, comedian, Older Readers, Wildlife, Fiona Wood brings storyteller and talented artist, comes a us Cloudwish. Vân Uoc doesn’t believe in FLANAGAN ON Celebrate the launch of Gillian Wills’ hilarious series about an inquisitive young fairies, zombies, vampires, Father Christmas MICHAEL LONG or magic wishes. She believes in keeping a inspirational memoir Elvis and Me. girl, a cheeky currawong bird and a Join us in acknowledging Indigenous low profile: real life will start when school Tuesday 11 August, 6.30pm bumbling detective. Join us as Woodley Literacy Day with Martin Flanagan as he finishes. But when she attracts the attention Readings Carlton reads from his new series about Kizmet, discusses his funny, incisive and revealing Gretchen and Detective Spencer. And of Billy Gardiner, she finds herself in an Angela Meyer will launch Carmel Bird’s new biography, The Short Long Book. This because it’s Frank Woodley there will be unwelcome spotlight. Fiona Wood will be in new short-story collection, My Hearts Are is a compelling portrait of an immensely laughs and general mayhem. conversation with Readings’ very own YA Your Hearts: Twenty New Stories and Their important footballer and Australian public specialist, Emily Gale. Free, but please book at Origins. figure, Michael Long, by one of Australia’s readings.com.au/events Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Wednesday 12 August, 6.30pm greatest sportswriters. Saturday 22 August, 10.30–11.30am Tuesday 25 August, 6pm Readings St Kilda Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events. Readings St Kilda Readings Hawthorn 10% of funds from books sold on the day will be Jon Faine will launch a new collection of donated to the ILD Fund. reflections edited by Susan Blackburn, Wednesday 2 September, 6.30pm TRAVIS MCKENZIE Breaking Out: Memories of Melbourne. Readings Carlton 26 ON THE DRAGON Wednesday 12 August, 1pm AND THE CROW Readings St Kilda

Join us for the release of Travis McKenzie’s Join us for the launch of Ali MC’s travel latest young-adult fantasy novel, The Dragon memoir, The Eyeball End. and the Crow. Thursday 13 August, 6.30pm Readings Carlton Free, no booking required Wednesday 26 August, 6.30pm Andrew Rule will launch Steve Harris’ new Readings Hawthorn biography, Solomon’s Noose: The True Story of Her Majesty’s Executioner of Hobart Town. Tuesday 18 August, 6pm Readings Hawthorn

Meet Mic Conway at the launch of Captain Matchbox and Beyond: The Music & Mayhem of Mic & Jim Conway. SHIRLEY Tuesday 25 August, 6.30pm 3 BARRETT IN Readings Carlton September CONVERSATION Join us for the launch of the Jan Bauer’s new Shirley Barrett, of award-winning Love graphic novel, The Salty River. LARISSA DUBECKI BREAKING WAVES: Serenade renown, is best known for her work 31 FEMINIST WRITING Thursday 27 August, 6.30pm as a screenwriter and director. Join us as she 23 AT POPE JOAN Readings Carlton NOW discusses her first novel, Rush Oh!, a book Before she was one of Australia’s top about family, whales, unlikely bonds and trying restaurant critics (including six years as chief Together with The Lifted Brow, Readings September Launches to come to terms with life’s disappointments. critic at The Age Good Food Guide) Larissa is delighted to bring you a panel of Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Dubecki was one of its worst waitresses. A commentators, authors and editors discussing Graeme Simsion will launch Leah Thursday 3 September, 6.30pm loving homage to her ten-year reign of dining- the importance of breaking barriers in Kaminsky’s new novel, The Waiting Room. Readings St Kilda room terror, Prick With a Fork takes you writing. Ellena Savage, editor of The Lifted Tuesday 1 September, 6.30pm where a diner should never go. Join us for a Brow, Cat Pacat, author of the Captive Readings St Kilda feast and the launch of this hilarious memoir. Prince trilogy, and Sarai Walker, author of ROSIE BATTY IN the novel Dietland, discuss the raunchy, Tickets are $95 for four-course meal, Gary Foley will launch Clare Land’s 21 CONVERSATION the marginalised and the disaffected with September cooked by Pope Joan’s own Matt Readings’ own Amy Vuleta. Decolonizing Solidarity: Dilemmas and WITH RAFAEL Wilkinson and Vanessa Mateus, with Directions for Supporters of Indigenous EPSTEIN matched wine. Please book at popejoan.com.au Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Struggles. Sunday 23 August, 7pm Monday 31 August, 6.30pm Thursday 3 September, 6.30pm Join Australian of the Year Rosie Batty as she Pope Joan, 77–79 Nicholson Street, Brunswick East Readings St Kilda Readings Carlton discusses her new memoir, A Mother’s Story with Rafael Epstein.

Tickets are $10 per person and all funds will go to the Readings Foundation. Please book at readings.com.au/events For more information and updates, please visit the events page at readings.com.au/events. Please note bookings do not necessarily guarantee a Monday 21 September, 6.30–7.30pm seat and some events may be standing room only. Church of All Nations, 180 Palmerston St Carlton 6 READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2015

Mark’s News and views from Readings’ Managing Director, Dear Alison Huber, Say Mark Rubbo Reader Head Book Buyer

The Australia Council was formed in 1967 by then Prime Minister Harold Holt and it Dear Reader, was given statutory authority by the Whitlam government in 1975. Modelled on the It’s time to introduce myself as Readings’ new head book buyer! I’m not really properly successful Canada Council, it took on many of its features including arms-length funding new, though; visitors to Carlton might recognise me because I’ve been working part time to organisations and artists decided by groups of peers. Over its life it has periodically at the shop for the last twelve years (including recently as a buyer of specialist titles). I’ve suffered attacks from many sectors in the community; unsuccessful applicants accuse it of been bookselling for twenty years or so while pursuing a parallel academic career path, but being cliquey, commentators such as Andrew Bolt have accused it of being a leftist cabal I’m now a self-described ‘recovering academic’ because I’ve reset my course to follow my and governments of various persuasions have tried to mould and influence it. first love – books – and I couldn’t be happier. This really is the coolest job. The most recent incident was with last year’s Sydney Biennale which received flak But what a month to take over from Martin Shaw! After a long handover, including a from a number of artists because it was partly funded by Transfield, which has the contract potentially futile attempt on my part to obtain ‘the knowledge’ (NB: this tutorial would to run some of our detention centres. When a group of prominent international and local have taken until about 2030) followed by a big shindig/farewell to acknowledge his artists threatened to withdraw from the Biennale unless it severed its ties with Transfield, contribution to the industry, I’m now working solo and my goodness I’ve really had to hit the Biennale did. Angered, the Arts Minister George Brandis tried to pressure the Australia the ground running: we buyers have been busy in meetings this month getting ready for Council, another Biennale supporter, to punish the Biennale and other organisations that Christmas – yes, you read that right. We’ve started seeing some of the big books that will refuse sponsorship on political grounds. be on your shopping and reading wish lists for the 2015 festive season, and I must say there Perhaps in response to this incident, Brandis announced in May’s budget that around are going to be some fantastic offerings this year that we’ll be excited to introduce in the $104 million would be stripped from the Australia Council’s budget to be used to establish coming months. the National Program for Excellence in the Arts (NPEA) which would be administered by In the meantime, what an August we have, with a truly excellent array of mid-winter Senator Brandis’ department. Little is known about the NPEA; draft guidelines from the reads. Gail Jones’s new novel is our book of the month. ‘Masterpiece’ is not a word that gets Arts Ministry don’t reveal much apart from the fact that the money won’t go to individuals, used lightly in the world of literature, but that is Mark Rubbo’s compelling description of A and will go to organisations that have other income streams. The Ministry will appoint Guide to Berlin, and I am, therefore, compelled to sit up and take notice. Like our reviewer, assessors for applications – a nod to arms-length funding, but only a nod, as the Minister I too was impressed by Lucy Treloar’s debut novel, Salt Creek, and its delicate examination and his department will have considerable influence. of some crucial truths of Australia’s colonial history. Another historically informed piece of Many in the arts community are upset; that the funding has the potential to be partisan new Australian writing comes in the form of Eleanor Limprecht’s Long Bay, an exploration and preferential is, I believe, indisputable. I wouldn’t mind so much if not for the fact that of female confinement as lived experience and as metaphor. Elsewhere, Mireille Juchau the money has been taken out of an already shrinking Arts Council budget. My knowledge adds her erudite voice to the literature of climate change in The World Without Us. Sonja of the Australia Council is mainly through its impact on writing and publishing. When I Dechian’s debut short story collection, An Astronaut’s Life, is further evidence of the depth started my career in bookselling in the ‘70s, there was no Australian publishing industry of Australia’s talent in the short form. to speak of. Today, despite its recent challenges, this industry is probably Australia’s most Haruki Murakami’s many fans have been waiting patiently for his first two novels, Hear successful creative industry, employing thousands of people in publishing, retail, transport the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973, to be available in English outside Japan, and finally they and printing. appear this month, published in a beautiful reversible hardback format. Also in translation This is in addition to the major cultural and national benefits of a set of uniquely are two more works from the extensive oeuvre of the 2014 Nobel Prize-winner, Patrick Australian stories. These stories have been created by Australian writers who, in the Modiano: Little Jewel and Paris Nocturne. overwhelming majority of cases, would not have been able to produce them without the I really loved Poe Ballantine’s 2013 memoir, Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of support of the Australia Council. Recent surveys of author’s income showed that only Nowhere; his new collection of essays, Guidelines for Mountain Lion Safety, is on my ‘must around 18% earned $50,000 or more from their writing and nearly half earned $10,000 or read’ list. Also on my list is the 2015 Pulitzer Prize winner, All the Light We Cannot See, and less. Without Australia Council support many writers just wouldn’t have the time to write it’s back in stock again this month. Our reviewer makes an extremely convincing case for any of the stories that are now central to our national identity. Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me, a book that is making a huge impact in the But the Australia Council doesn’t just support writers; it provides a whole range of United States for its frank discussion of that country’s politics of race. It sounds like a book support to the writing and publishing ecosystem, including to writer’s festivals, publishers that will be important for years to come. and exciting innovations such as the Stella Prize. I strongly believe that without Australia If you missed Ali MC’s anarchic self-published travel memoir, The Eyeball End, the first Council support over the years we wouldn’t have the vibrant, successful and independent time around, don’t make the same mistake twice – it was a bit of an underground hit here industry that we do have; it would have been a very different beast dominated, like our at Readings last year, and it’s available again this month through Australian independent film industry, by overseas products. Over the years the Australia Council has developed publisher, Xoum. considerable expertise in arts funding, and developed a pretty good idea of what works. I like the sound of Gisela Kaplan’s Bird Minds, a book that should give one pause before Stripping $104 million from the Australia Council to fund a Ministry for the Arts slush fund using the term ‘bird-brained’ as a derogatory term again. seems to me a pretty silly thing to do. Sure, it might be okay if the government was awash Readers of political writing have much to choose from this month, from the republished with money but we know it is not! writings of John Monash, to the biography of controversial figure B.A. Santamaria, to Joel Michael Zifcak, long-time head of Collins Booksellers, passed away last month. He was Deane’s account of the Bracks-Brumby government, Catch and Kill, and the memoirs from 96. Michael was a charming, urbane man and was a very significant force in Australian Stephen Loosely and Chris Bowen. book industry in the latter half of the twentieth century. An accountant by profession, he And finally, dear reader, is your bookshelf bereft of Butler? Devoid of Derrida? Low on and his wife fled Czechoslovakia after the Soviet invasion in 1948. In 1951 he began work Foucault? If so, then the time is right to come in and peruse our 3-for-2 sale on Routledge as an accountant at Collins Booksellers, which then consisted of four stores. Eventually, Classics (in all our stores except the State Library). It’s a great opportunity to stock up on under his auspices, Collins grew to more than 50 shops; and Michael was managing key titles in cultural theory, philosophy, history, psychology and literary studies, and it’s on director for 50 years. He also founded Hill of Content Publishing with Michelle Anderson for the whole month (while stocks last). and was president of the Australian Booksellers Association, president of the International Booksellers Federation, and founded the National Book Council. He was awarded an OBE for services to literature, and was a cultural ambassador for UNESCO and Chair of the UNESCO Committee on the Book. Michael became a mentor to me and encouraged me to get involved in the book industry. We always had a friendly rivalry and he often grumbled that his son preferred to buy books from Readings rather than Collins. READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2015 7

$27.99 Buy a copy of A Guide to Berlin and receive a complimentary copy of Gail Jones’ IMPAC Award shortlisted book (2008) Dreams of Speaking.

A Guide to Berlin is the name of a short story written by Vladimir Nabokov in 1925, when he was a young man of 26, living in Berlin. In Gail Jones’ novel, a group of six international travellers meet in empty apartments in Berlin to share stories and memories. Each is enthralled in some way to the work of Vladimir Nabokov, and each is finding their way in deep winter in a haunted city. A moment of devastating violence shatters the group, and changes the direction of everyone’s story. Here, author Gail Jones discusses her novel (which our reviewer calls ‘a masterpiece’ – see page 8) with David Haworth. A Guide to Berlin Gail Jones discusses her latest novel with David Haworth Photo of Gail Jones by Heike Steinweg.

David Haworth: This is your second to the beauty of frail or transient things, me that there are dangers here, too, that perspective. It’s also revealed that a cyclone novel in a row that borrows its title from so that it invokes both lovely melancholy in what has been called ‘empathetic plays an important role in one character’s a previously existing work – in this case a and deep contemplation. I’m attracted to unsettlement’ we must not forget who personal history. Why is the weather such a story by Nabokov –and also vividly evokes a Japanese aesthetic principles in relation the real historical victims are. But I do potent force in this novel? particular city. In very Nabokovian fashion, to considering certain things in the world; believe that affective responses may also GJ: My first real stay in Berlin was the novel is brimming with small, tender these principles assume not consumption, link to ethical understandings, and this is in the winter of 2013, an exceptionally details – one could call them easter eggs – or even desire, as central precepts of an issue I wanted to think about. cold winter. So the novel is actually set in which seem specifically designed for lovers encounter, but intimacy, integrity and that winter, during which, at that time, of Nabokov and lovers of Berlin. What drew simplicity of understanding – a kind of DH: Like Nabokov, Borges or Calvino, you there was a tent city of refugees also you both to Nabokov and to Berlin in the meditative attitude to the moments of sometimes refer to ‘phantom literature’: in the centre of the city. I’m interested writing of this novel? tenderness we feel – watching afternoon other books or writers that don’t actually in the radical transformation of the Gail Jones: I spent 2014 living light disappear, or blossoms fall, or the exist. You describe the childhood fantasies world in a European winter – something and working in Berlin on a writing dissolution of footprints in falling rain. devised by one character and his sisters, most Australians have not experienced fellowship. The literary archive of the Very romantic and anti-modern, in some which reminded me of the Brontë juvenilia, growing up here – and the way this place is fascinating, but so too is its ways. So yes, I’m interested in things and but also make repeated references to strangely enlivens perceptions of both unique history as a city, and the oddly re-imagining subject–object relations, but another ‘Guide to Berlin’ being written by mortality and of aesthetic experience. difficult combination of artistic life and also in fleeting moments in which we are another character. Is there any relationship Australia is also, of course, a place of historical catastrophe. So I became very intercepted by a special sense of self in between these three separate and rather extreme weather events – bushfires, interested in how personal narratives relation to time. idiosyncratic ‘Guides’ to Berlin: Nabokov’s cyclones, floods and so on. These link to past time, and what kinds of story, your novel and your character’s are markers of suffering, but often intimacy might be possible in the face of DH: Many of the characters have a work-in-progress? beguilingly beautiful as well: I was trying such overwhelming historical meanings connection to a particular historical GJ: Yes, there are three Guides to in part to think through this kind of and memorialisations. Nabokov’s story calamity, such as the Holocaust or the Berlin implicated here, but also, in a contradiction. from 1925 honours the ordinary present 1995 Tokyo subway attack. It’s interesting, sense, an infinite number: there is no (and owes something to Vertov, I think, though, that often it’s an indirect supremely authoritative guide to any Gail Jones is the author of two short-story in its mobile view of the city) but it also connection to the historical event rather city or history. Originally I’d planned to collections, a critical monograph, and the novels imagines how everyday details might than direct experience of it. Is there include part of the invented Guide as one Black Mirror, Sixty Lights, Dreams of Speaking, establish future recollections – an idea something about this peripheral experience of the chapters in the novel, but decided Sorry and Five Bells. Three times shortlisted for that interests me. I didn’t think that of history that interests you? that it was better, in the end, left as one of the Miles Franklin Award, her prizes include the publishers would accept this title, but the GJ: I think this novel is in part a the unsolved (or untold) enigmas of the WA Premier’s Award for Fiction, the Nita B. Kibble story was a kind of guide for me to the serious contemplation on historical text. I did have the Brontës in mind when Award, the Steele Rudd Award, the Age Book of placement of a damaged figure in the act knowledge: how do we know the past? I was insisting that close siblings might the Year Award, the Adelaide Festival Award for of assessing his own place… How do we engage with our own pasts, create a narrative world of preposterous Fiction and the ASAL Gold Medal. She has also been and those of our families, let alone the and ingenious invention; indeed that the shortlisted for international awards, including the DH: One thing that struck me while densely historical … Berlin is full of creative capacities of children’s stories IMPAC and the Prix Femina. Her fiction has been reading the novel is your dedication to historical museums – orderly and calm don’t always persist into adulthood. translated into nine languages. exploring the world of ‘things’, and the – but there are other apprehensions ways that everyday objects can absorb of historical understanding that feel DH: Lastly, something your fiction has David Haworth is a freelance writer and a meaning, memory and history. In addition much more disordered, personal and always shared with Nabokov’s writing has doctoral candidate in the School of Culture and to describing what you call the ‘Nabokovian interruptive. As you say, there’s also a been the use of precise, sensuous imagery, Communication at the University of Melbourne. regard for the weird vibrancy of things’, you sense here of the peculiar charge, often and that is on full display in this novel, His doctoral research explores the relations between also explore the Japanese concept of mono personal, of peripheral histories, the especially in your piercing description of nature and art in twentieth-century literature and no aware. Could you elaborate on what ways in which tangential relations might the weather in Berlin as winter progresses, visual culture. mono no aware means to you? be real relations, and deeply affecting. which includes a brilliant evocation of To read our review of A Guide to Berlin, see page 8. GJ: Mono no aware refers in particular Reading Holocaust memoirs reminds snow from a snow-deprived, Antipodean 8 READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2015

New Fiction having their lives ruined by the Internet, remains. While the locals speculate on form a terrorist cell in an attempt to set who has gone missing from the transient everything right, or ‘The Falling’, where hinterland town, a charged encounter Book of the Month a group of friends go camping in a world with a runaway Sydney teacher propels where all the birds have gone extinct. Evangeline’s past into the present and In each case it is the characters that sparks a change in all their lives. Told A GUIDE TO BERLIN keep us going. Dechain wisely allows them from the perspective of six Gail Jones to push the plots forward, rather than interconnected characters, The World Random House. PB. Was $32.99 circumstances they find themselves in. Without Us is an elegy for a denatured $27.99 Buy a copy of A Guide to Berlin and receive a complimentary copy Even in the most realist story ‘Nights at the landscape. of Gail Jones’ IMPAC Award shortlisted book (2008) Dreams of Speaking. House’, which focuses on an unemployed I’ve always felt that Gail Jones is yet to receive the recognition woman and her strained relationship with SURVEILLANCE she deserves. This is her sixth novel and it is, I believe, a her girlfriend, starts with the police digging Bernard Keane masterpiece. It is a beautifully constructed novel that builds slowly up their backyard after a tip-off from a A&U. PB. $29.99 to its horrific and violent conclusion. The title comes from a short prisoner on his deathbed. A ruthless online story by the Russian writer Vladimir Nabokov. In Jones’ novel, a At times it does feel like Dechian hasn’t activist group has young Australian woman, Cass, arrives in Berlin in the middle of a explored the idea as much as she might, hacked into top-secret cold winter. She’s not exactly sure what she’s there for or what she wants to do with her life. since occasionally we’re only getting into Cabinet information, She has come to be fascinated by the life and work of Nabokov. an idea before the story’s over, but it’s still creating widespread great reading the work of such an inventive panic and ‘This is her sixth novel and it is, I believe, a masterpiece.’ writer, and I’m incredibly interested to see embarrassing a where she takes us next. government intent on Chris Somerville is from Readings Carlton hunting them down. One day her wanderings take her to the apartment building that Nabokov lived with his Journalist and wife Vera from 1932 to 1937. Outside she is approached by a handsome Italian, Marco, who LONG BAY cyber-expert Kat Sharpe is chosen by the quotes a line from Nabokov to which Cass responds in kind. Marco is delighted and takes Eleanor Limprecht group to break news of their operations, Cass for a coffee where he asks her to join his group of fellow Nabokov devotees including Sleepers. PB. $24.95 but as she gets closer to the group and its his friend Gino; an American academic, Victor; and a Japanese couple, Yukio and Mitsuko. supporters, she realises something doesn’t He instructs Cass, ‘Come tomorrow at 5pm.’ Long Bay add up. Surveillance is a thrilling, timely Over the course of six evenings, each member of the group, in homage to Nabokov’s immediately novel about the price we pay for our autobiographical novel Speak, Memory, reveals something deeply personal, something summons the spectre of security, and the lengths companies – and deeply hidden. Separately, Cass explores relationships with each member of the group imprisonment. Long Bay governments – will go to hide the truth. learning about them, about herself and about Nabokov. Marco has crazy theories about Gaol is to Sydney as Pentridge is to everything, says Gino; ‘Don’t trust him,’ he implores Cass, aware that she is attracted to EVERYTHING IS TEETH Marco. In the background is the cold, ice-bound city, dangerous and with hidden secrets. Melbourne and the Evie Wyld & Joe Sumner (illus.) The bonds that form as they tell their stories become stronger as they reveal themselves, shadow of the gaol Random House. HB. $39.99 but even those revelations conceal mysteries. Each ‘speak memory’ is complete in itself, hangs over the and each is intensely interesting and compelling. This is a great novel with complex, recreation of Rebecca Evie Wyld was a girl fascinating layers upon layers; I can’t recommend it enough. Sinclair’s life. Beginning with a letter obsessed with stating, ‘an inmate of the reformatory … is sharks. Spending Mark Rubbo is the managing director of Readings being transferred to your hospital for the summers in the purpose of being confined’, Long Bay slowly brutal heat of coastal develops as a narrative about the multitude New South Wales, Australian Fiction themselves. The exception is Tully, a young of ways in which Rebecca is confined. she fell for the boy, who is taken in by the Finches, joining Immediately after establishing creatures. Their in the children’s lessons and working on the Rebecca’s dire situation, as she waits to teeth, their skin, SALT CREEK property. It is through Tully that the younger give birth shackled to a bed, Limprecht their eyes; their hunters and their victims. Lucy Treloar Finches, and indeed the reader, come to turns back to the beginning of Rebecca’s Everything is Teeth is a delicate and intimate Picador. PB. $29.99 respect his different culture and understand story – one of growing up in the working collection of the memories she brought I have spent a how misguided Stanton actually is. class slums of Paddington at the turn of the home to England, a book about family, love number of family Salt Creek is a very readable novel. The twentieth century. The detailed recreation and the irresistible forces that pass through camping trips in the characters remain in the mind long after of Sydney at the time is immersive and life unseen, ready to emerge at any point. Coorong, a distinctive reading the final pages. Treloar has perfectly impressive and the streets of the inner city landscape south-east captured the sense of isolation and history are rendered full of life. This vibrancy turns R&R of Adelaide, that spans that is still present in the Coorong today. increasingly oppressive as it is contrasted Mark Dapin more than 130 Sharon Peterson is the assistant manager at with the confinement of Rebecca to small Viking. PB. $32.99 dark rooms shared with her sisters and kilometres of the Readings Carlton John ‘Nashville’ Grant is mother; sewing continuously in order not South Australian an American military to starve and constantly watching other coastline. No wonder I AN ASTRONAUT’S LIFE policeman in the R&R opportunities slip away. was attracted to the title of Lucy Treloar’s Sonja Dechian town of Vung Tau, In Rebecca we are presented with an first published novel, Salt Creek, a town at Text. PB . $29.99 tucked safely behind the unsentimental portrait of a girl growing up the mouth of the Coorong. The settings in front lines of the cognisant all the time of the limits of her In 1855, Stanton Finch relocates his An Astronaut’s Vietnam War, keeping world, of the confinement of poverty and family from a respectable home in Adelaide Life, Sonja Dechian’s the peace by keeping his gender. She is smart but stuck, aware and to the harsh environment of Salt Creek, debut collection of head down. When resentful, self-serving and naïve. She is an where the nearest neighbours are at least short stories, are another MP shoots a ordinary young woman. 10 miles away. His intention is to tame the planted both within corpse in a brothel, the delicate balance Limprecht has taken the historical landscape and build a fine home. Supposing the familiar and between the military police, South sources regarding the real Rebecca Sinclair’s the low-built structure they arrive at is a outlandish. The opener Vietnamese gangsters and the Viet Cong is life, court records and prison correspondence, stable, Hester, the eldest daughter, soon ‘After Francis Crick’ upset. Nashville and his partner are drawn and created a fully realised young woman and realises that it is in fact their new home. works not only as a into the heart of the matter, to uphold the law her vivid and relatable life. When Long Bay As her mother, unable to cope with her story, but also as a primer for what’s to and eventually to take it into their own hands. finally emerges from the shadows its role is as family’s reduced circumstances, withdraws come. Told in second-person, a man wakes unexpected as Rebecca’s own story. further and further into herself, Hester is from a coma and tries to get back into his forced to assume responsibility for keeping life, trying to ignore how disconnected he Marie Matteson is from Readings Carlton Australian Poetry the household in order. As the story feels from his wife and mother, while also progresses and scheme after scheme fails, THE WORLD WITHOUT US vividly remembering the life he dreamed he THE SUBJECT OF FEELING Stanton becomes almost maniacal in his spent, while in the coma, with the Mireille Juchau Peter Rose efforts to make money and repay his debts, neuroscientist and molecular biologist, Bloomsbury. PB. $29.99 UWA Publishing. PB. $24.99 tearing his family apart in the process. Francis Crick in a large mansion. After a fire destroys her Hester vows to one day free herself from It’s this duality, the strangeness of family’s commune Peter Rose observes the the confines of Salt Creek and to live a life domestic life coupled with the fantastical, home, Evangeline is human condition and its of her own choosing. that propels the bulk of these stories. forced to start afresh forms of expression with Always in the background are the Dechian’s strength is posing an almost with her child, and keen insight and wit. Of Ngarrindjeri people, whose home and high-concept setup and then letting us partner Stefan. Years his latest collection of livelihood is decimated by these new see the fallout. As in ‘Charles Darwin’s later, Stefan discovers a poems, The Subject of settlers. The Ngarrindjeri mostly keep to Revenge’ where a group of people, after car wreck and human Feeling, Andrea Goldsmith wrote, ‘Youth and READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2015 9 maturity, love and infatuation, memory, collection at the library where he works, music, loss, landscape, Peter Rose exposes he understands the value and import of the human experience in poems that are the historical record. When an old gorgeously lucid and often profound. The leather-bound journal mysteriously Subject of Feeling reveals a fearless wisdom, arrives on the doorstep of his home his a wry wit and a quiet depth. These poems professional curiosity is piqued. What he stop you in your tracks.’ Also regarding the doesn’t anticipate is the bewitching collection, David McCooey wrote, ‘The power the book will hold over him and poetry of Peter Rose moves from classical the mystic secrets it protects. Rome to contemporary Australia; from Tension builds from the outset as mordant comedy to moving elegy; from the family home Simon has inherited is searing clarity to teasing obliquity. In his precariously close to falling into the sea. brilliant anatomies of the relationship between Storm surge and coastal erosion have ‘art’ and ‘life’, the public and the private, Rose undermined the foundations of the home shows himself to be a master stylist.’ and its impending collapse serves as a metaphor for the crisis in his personal life as well. His job at the library is under International Fiction threat due to funding issues and his younger sister, Enola, is unstable and he A WHOLE LIFE worries for her failing mental health. Overshadowing these immediate concerns Robert Seethaler is the legacy of his parent’s tragic death, Picador. HB. $29.99 and the burden he took on as a teenager This small book in becoming his sister’s guardian in the makes a huge aftermath of this loss. impact. It has been a As Simon explores the significance bestseller in its original of the journal – and the background of German language the antiquarian bookseller that sent it to publication (selling him – he’s unnerved by the synchronicity some 150,000 copies) of dates and events with his own family and readers can now story. The journal is the private memoir join in this thoroughly of Hermelius Peabody, a carnival manager deserved enthusiasm in of a troupe of travelling entertainers in English translation. late eighteenth-century America. Life for Andreas Egger is born in 1898, though these entertainers seems cursed and a his exact birth date is unknown: he was disturbing threat casts a dark shadow over left orphaned at a young age and sent to the lives of the generations that follow. live with a farmer uncle and his family A sense of foreboding warns Simon that in a village nestled in the Austrian Alps. fate may deal a tragic hand if he doesn’t His early years are difficult, and include confront the secrets of the past. routine beatings by his reluctant guardian, This is a work about dark secrets, one of which is so severe that it leaves him obsession and tragic loss. to walk with a limp. But as a young man, Natalie Platten is from Readings Malvern he is able to quit this situation and make his own way, eventually meeting a woman YOU DON’T HAVE TO with whom he falls in love, before he leaves the village to serve in World War II. LIVE LIKE THIS Set against the backdrop of an awesome Benjamin Markovits natural world, this is a life lived modestly, Faber. PB. $29.99 often in solitude, and in consternation at On a trip back to the changes taking place around him as his the US from his village transitions from provincial enclave dead-end academic to tourist destination during the later years posting in Wales, Greg of the twentieth century. ‘Marny’ Marnier is A Whole Life offers a simple story. In wooed by an old college a sense, not much seems to happen in friend, tech entrepreneur the life of this ordinary man, but at the Robert James, to be part same time so much does. As it is for all of a large-scale of us, Egger’s existence is given shape by experiment: James, the mundane events and relationships having bought-up thousands of cheap on the personal scale (family, love, work, homes in recession-ravaged Detroit, seeks loss) as they intersect with the larger to establish a new, harmonious incidents of wide-ranging impact (war, community from scratch – the ‘Groupon natural calamity, technological change). A model for gentrification’. comparison to John Williams’s wonderful What starts as a redemptive tale of Stoner may seem inevitable here but is gentrification and urban renewal slowly not at all off the mark: Seethaler too uses morphs into a sprawling microcosm a seemingly unremarkable character as a of 21st-century racial tensions – from way of explaining what it is like to be in the predominantly white, middle-class the world, and beautifully articulates the newcomers in a predominantly black city, profound pleasure and special privilege of to Marny’s own tendency to over-think being alive. A quiet delight. his relationships with African-American Alison Huber is the head book buyer for Readings residents, such as his girlfriend Gloria and the enigmatic and unpredictable THE BOOK OF local artist Nolan Smith. SPECULATION Marny is well-meaning but naïve, his soft liberalism and aversion to conflict Erika Swyler becoming almost pathetic in the face Atlantic Books. PB. $29.99 of an intractable divide. Writing with Books hold straight-talking realism, Markovits’ harsh significance for realities about inequality in modern Simon Watson, the America make for at-times uncomfortable protagonist in Erika reading – straightforward crimes Swyler’s The Book of become politicised and overanalysed by a Speculation. As a narrative-hungry media, and a jaded cop’s young archivist frank account of the rape prosecution dedicated to securing process is hard to stomach. funding for a rare Reminiscent of The Wire and Don 10 READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2015

Delillo’s White Noise, Markovits’ a relationship with a girl with nine fingers. Pissarro.Growing up on the idyllic island of The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet seventh novel is a timely meditation Three years later, in Pinball, 1973, he finds St Thomas in the early 1800s, Rachel follows a cheerfully motley crew of on the multiple layers of rot in modern himself haunted by memories of his dreams of life in faraway Paris. When her humans and aliens as they drift around America – the law, politics (complete short-lived obsession with playing pinball husband dies suddenly and his handsome galaxies punching holes through space with a mildly absurd cameo from Barack in J’s Bar. This sends him on a quest to nephew Frédéric arrives from France to to create intergalactic wormhole tunnel Obama), and business – particularly the find the exact model of pinball machine he settle the estate, Rachel seizes control of things. arrogance of Silicon Valley and its utopian used to enjoy so much. her life, beginning a defiant, passionate love Kizzy, one of the techs, explains it aspirations. There’s no neat resolution to affair that sparks a scandal affecting her much better than I just did and she uses these problems. By the end of the novel, CIRCLING THE SUN entire family. props. Rosemary – the clerk and most things are as bleak and complicated as Paula McLain recent (human) crew-member – is as ever, both for Marny and for Detroit. The Cassell. PB. $29.99 PARIS NOCTURNE new to it all as we are, having grown up novel drags in its first half, and groans at sheltered by a wealthy family on Mars. The author of The Patrick Modiano times under the weight of its large cast of She is welcomed aboard the Wayfarer by Paris Wife brings us Text. PB. $27.99 characters. But by bringing these tensions Captain Ashby (human); Pilot Sissix (an another true story. As In the opening scene of to the surface, You Don’t Have To Live Anndrisk); Techs Kizzy and Jenks (both a young girl, Beryl Paris Nocturne, the Like This proves challenging, illuminating humans, one a little person); Chef and Markham was nameless narrator is hit and necessary. Doctor, Dr Chef (a Grum), Fuel specialist brought to colonial by a car. He and the Corbin (human); Lovey (the AI and voice Alan Vaarwerk is the editorial assistant for Kenya from Britain by woman driving the car of the ship) and the navigator Ohan (a Readings Monthly parents dreaming of a are taken to hospital. Sianat pair); most of whom are delighted new life. After being He’s sure he has met her by the new company. KITCHENS OF THE catapulted into a somewhere. Waking up Though it is set in huge expanses of GREAT MIDWEST disastrous marriage and scandalising high in hospital, the woman, black empty space in a galaxy full and J. Ryan Stradal society with her errant behaviour, Beryl Jacqueline Beausergent, has vanished. Does busy with hundreds of different aliens left her husband and became the first she have the answers to the narrator’s Quercus. PB. $29.99 and cultures to become accustomed to, woman ever to hold a professional questions about the past, about his father? If you reckon all of The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet racehorse trainer’s licence. But a complex He will comb the city’s cafes and stations to us, here in the is a sweetly personal story. Though the love triangle set tragedy in motion, while find her. In Paris Nocturne, Patrick Great Indulgent Western destination and events of the conclusion awakening Beryl to her truest self, and to Modiano relentlessly explores the elusive World, are turning into were worthy of any season finale I’ve her fate: to fly. nature of memory. complete tossers about seen on TV, the journey itself was what food then this debut mattered the most. It didn’t take me long novel is for you. Already ALL THE LIGHT WE THE REVOLVING DOOR OF LIFE: A 44 SCOTLAND at all to fall completely in love with each receiving huge CANNOT SEE of the crew and by the end of the book I enthusiasm in the United Anthony Doerr STREET NOVEL felt like I’d just finished a long road trip States, Kitchens of Great HarperCollins. PB. $19.99 Alexander McCall Smith with the kind of housemates you’ve had Midwest is written by writer, editor and When Marie-Laure goes Birlinn. HB. $29.99 for so long that your conversations are producer funny-man J. Ryan Stradal. It is the blind, aged six, her father The tenth title in the seventy-percent in-jokes and a hell of a story of orphaned Eva Thorvald growing up builds her a model of their hugely successful 44 lot of laughter. obsessed with food, tastes and origins. This Paris neighbourhood, so Scotland Street series, Dani Solomon is from Readings Carlton unusual novel is often funny, frequently she can memorise the written by one of the poignant and has the added bonus of having streets with her fingers. world’s best-loved THREE MOMENTS OF AN recipes here and there. But when the Germans authors. Once more, we EXPLOSION: STORIES Stradal, a Californian, floats various occupy Paris, father and catch up with the China Mieville writing styles into his one epic story of Eva daughter flee to the delightful goings-on in Macmillan. PB. $29.99 endeavouring to find her culinary feet, and Brittany coast. Elsewhere, Werner, a the fictitious 44 indeed her birth mother. At times Stradal’s specialised tracker of the Resistance, travels Scotland Street from Alexander McCall In this writing is successfully hilarious, although through the heart of Hitler Youth until his Smith. With customary charm and deftness, extraordinary I suspect that many food-lovers out there path converges with Marie-Laure. Winner of McCall Smith gives us another instalment series of stories, will feel like their hand has been bitten. the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Doerr in this popular series, now running in its defying definitions Each chapter explores the genesis of a illuminates the ways, against all odds, people ninth season in the Scotsman. Anything and literary certain dish and explores how Eva uses try to be good to one another. could happen to Bertie and the gang. stereotyping, that taste to inform her next life move. glistening icebergs The chilli chapter is unforgettable and LITTLE JEWEL THE STORIES float above urban illustrates a Monty Python-esque humour horizons; a burning Patrick Modiano Jane Gardam from the author. Revenge has never been so stag runs wild Text. PB. $27.99 Little Brown. PB. $22.99 audacious. It’s a laugh out loud moment. through the city; One day in the Stradel’s debut novel is in the end, Throughout her career, the ruins of industry emerge unsteadily corridors of the metro, though, essentially an assessment of Jane Gardam has been from the sea. Ranging from portraits of nineteen-year-old how preoccupied and pretentious our writing glorious short childhood to chilling ghost stories, from Therese sees a woman culture has become with food. It seems stories, each one dystopian visions to poignant evocations in a yellow coat. Could the wealthy world can be divided into hallmarked with all the of uncanny love, this collection this be her mother, those that desire butter, and those that are poignancy and wry questions what it is to be human in an who called her Little content with margarine. So if you are in comedy of her longer unquiet world. It is a humane and Jewel? But didn’t her need of a rollicking good tale about finding fiction. From Wimbledon unsentimental investigation of our mother die in contentment, and can survive the guilt of gardens to London buses society, our world, and ourselves. Morocco years earlier? having so many food choices, then grab and industrial backstreets, Gardam’s cast is She follows the woman, hoping to find your single-source coffee, your notebook wide and wonderful. With a mischievous ear ARMADA answers to questions that have haunted for dialogue and a capacious understanding for jotting down clever dinner-party recipes Ernest Cline her since childhood. As Therese describes of the human heart, Jane Gardam’s stories and settle in. Century. PB. $32.99 her elusive memories, travelling around will captivate, sadden and delight. Chris Gordon is the events manager for Readings Paris, she reveals how every corner of the Zack Lightman city recalls the past. knows the WIND/PINBALL: TWO Science & Fantasy Fiction difference between NOVELS THE MARRIAGE OF fantasy and reality. Haruki Murakami OPPOSITES He knows that in THE LONG WAY TO A the real world, Random House. HB. Was $35 Alice Hoffman SMALL, ANGRY PLANET aimless teenage $29.99 Simon & Schuster. PB. $29.99 Becky Chambers gamers with anger Hear the Wind Sing From the bestselling Victor Gollancz. PB. $29.99 issues don’t get and Pinball, 1973 are author of The chosen to save the Haruki Murakami’s If Firefly and Red Dovekeepers comes a universe. And then earliest novels. In Dwarf had a baby love story about one he sees the flying saucer. Even stranger, Hear the Wind Sing and it was raised by The of history’s most the alien ship he’s staring at is straight the narrator is home Hitchhiker’s Guide to captivating ‘invisible’ out of the videogame he plays every from college, the Galaxy and the cast women: Rachel, the night. And his skills, as well as those of drinking beer and of Girls, and the baby mother of millions of gamers across the world, are smoking in J’s Bar, was a novel, it would be Impressionist going to be needed to save the earth from thinking about The Long Way to a painter Camille what’s about to befall it. writing and pursuing Small Angry Planet. READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2015 11

New Crime Dead Write EVEN THE DEAD: that enthrals Justine on their first trip to A QUIRKE MYSTERY Devon, a boy who may or may have not been expelled from Ellen’s school, or who with Fiona Hardy Benjamin Black (John Banville) may not exist at all – who knows what is Viking. PB. $32.99 Crime Book of the Month the truth and what isn’t? About once a year I write ‘Booker Prize- NO CURE FOR LOVE KINGDOM OF THE STRONG winning author’ on Peter Robinson Tony Cavanaugh this list – and it Victor Gollancz. PB. $29.99 Hachette. PB. $29.99 should be more, of Not exactly a new Darian Richards is a lost man. A man he has hunted for course – and it’s Peter Robinson, but years has vanished again, presumably overseas. His lover that time again: new to Australia, No is gone. The Noosa River, the one bank of water that affords John Banville is Cure for Love was him peace, is not doing its job. Early retirement is looking like back with his released 20 years it is not for him. But then: a visitor to the cabin he has seventh Quirke ago and has only just retreated to. Victorian Police Commissioner Copeland Walsh – novel. A vivid and arrived on our nicknamed Copland for his dedication – asking for his help. He typically taut book from a man as shores – but, of needs to retire, and be replaced. But his replacement, Nick beautifully efficient with words as he is course, it’s worth Racine, has a cloud over his past, involving an unresolved death of an 18-year-old with plot, this follows Quirke, pathologist the wait, and in our woman in 1990. The case needs closing, and Richards, no longer part of Melbourne’s in 1950s Dublin, as he tries to avoid the era of social media police politics, is the one for the job. Of course, Darian says yes, as he always will to any doctor’s orders for peace and quiet (is there a support group for doctors upset at threats, people sending alarming letters being ignored by overly heroic crime to celebrities is, of course, as relevant as ‘Cavanaugh’s writing is tight as a clenched fist, and this book is late- protagonists?) and follows up on a ever. A standalone thriller with Threat Management Unit detective Arvo night tension, knife-edge danger, pulsating anxiety in your fingers reported suicide that does not convince Quirke at all. And the series of events that (presumably short for Afternoon?) when you turn the page.’ follows leads Quirke to a brutal Hughes as its hero, this follows the realisation that a conniving political growing fears of cop-show actress Sarah Broughton, who is being sent Copland, the man who made Darian into the police officer he is today – decent and world may have a more personal threatening letters – and who one day dedicated to justice beyond everything else – he always will. And after summoning connection than he ever knew. finds a dead body on the beach in front Queensland Senior Constable Maria Chastain and unstoppable tech whiz Isosceles, of her house. Sarah claims no knowledge Darian will find out what happened to Isobel Vine: for the outgoing and incoming PLEASE DON’T LEAVE of the stalker, but Hughes thinks there’s commissioners; for Isobel’s father, still fighting every day to prove his daughter did ME HERE more to her past than she’s letting on. not kill herself; and for his own sanity. Tania Chandler Cavanaugh’s writing is tight as a clenched fist, and this book is late-night tension, Scribe. PB. $29.99 I’M TRAVELLING ALONE knife-edge danger, pulsating anxiety in your fingers when you turn the page. For Early one morning every moment that slips out of realism – when Darian’s best friend and Maria’s lover, Samuel Bjork in 1994, Brigitte is the slightly criminal yet perpetually honest Casey Lack stumbles around on the page, Random House, PB, $32.99 the victim of a or when Isosceles manipulates the internet so effortlessly – you are more than paid Put your thermals hit-and-run back in Darian’s dogged pursuit of Isobel’s last few hours, spent in the company of far on for this accident in too many bad people. atmospheric Melbourne’s east. Often, when I read crime novels, I’m repulsed and horrified and appalled, Scandinavian It’s a surprise to frequently swimming through a mire of emotions about the bad things people do. thriller, because the everyone that she’s Sometimes, there is enough distance between a victim and a reader that when premise alone will there that early in someone in the pages cracks a joke, I can laugh at it. But I can’t remember the last chill your heart: the first place – time I cried in a crime book – and I cried in this, for Isobel. I was horrified, too, of police investigator and that there’s a course. The world is not always a lovely place. This fictional world, though, is almost Holger Munch is man beaten to a tangible one. Melbourne is a vivid map in this book, but not the kind you’d pass tasked with death in her Carlton apartment. (Readings to tourists: everywhere Darian travels, he remembers which crimes he was solving reassembling his books on her bookshelves, let’s hope.) The there, the streets of Melbourne hiding a bloodthirsty history. Lygon Street gets a homicide team, to track down the person car accident has wiped all memory of what mention, but don’t expect to be flattered by it. Kingdom of the Strong is devastating; who strung a six-year-old girl from a happened on that morning, and, fourteen gather your strength and read it. tree, with the only clue an airport tag years later, she’s married to the detective around her neck that reads: ‘I’m who helped with her case, living a happy travelling alone’. Munch’s team is life with him and their twins, when the fractured after a bloodthirsty event case is reopened and her life shatters. Did involving his ex-colleague Mia Kruger, MADE IN SWEDEN PART I: THE UNEXPECTED she really lose her memory? Can people who is, as Munch contacts her, planning really change? An excellent release from a her exit from this life; only the case itself THE FATHER INHERITANCE OF new local author. Anton Svensson INSPECTOR CHOPRA brings her back from the edge, just one last time. And Mia does find something: Sphere. PB. $29.99 Vaseem Khan A GAME FOR ALL THE a delicate number 1 etched on the girl’s Victor Gollancz. PB. $24.99 They were called FAMILY fingernail. Which means, of course, The Military I picked up this Sophie Hannah there will be a number 2. League – bank brightly-coloured, Hodder & Stoughton. PB. $29.99 robbers who swept moustachioed Ah, Sophie Hannah. EUROPA BLUES through Sweden, book and thought She loves a twist, a Arne Dahl thieving and I’d just have a tale that will leave Random House. PB. $32.99 revelling in it: a little flick through you desperately, father and his sons, and see what it Stylish, addictive, happily confused, a team despite the was like. But then and laced with with more father’s violent I thought I’d just humour, Arne Dahl’s questions than past. This book is a read a bit more. Intercrime series answers. Expect all fictional account of Then suddenly I continues to shine. her books to be a true story of a true spate of armed was halfway Paul Hjelm and compared to Gone robberies, and – hold on to your hats – through, with Kerstin Holm are Girl, as if no one Anton Svensson is a pseudonym for seemingly no time passing at all, but who part of the team that had written a twist authors Anton Roslund and Stefan could put down a book about a police deals with violent before (the admittedly excellent) Gillian Thunberg, the latter supplying the inside officer that retires on the same day he international crime Flynn. In A Game For All The Family, the knowledge one can only have by being inherits an elephant – the very same day in Sweden. In titular family are the Merrisons: Justine, something quite special: a brother, son and a crime occurs that his replacement is Europa Blues, this involves the death of a Alex, and Ellen, an ex-TV executive, opera friend to the criminals. So how does a not taking seriously. Even though Greek gangster at the hands (or paws, as singer and pouty teenager respectively. splintered family unit come together again Ashwin Chopra has been forcibly retired it were) of the animals at the Skansen They are moving to Devon from London to plan something as complicated as a due to his health, he will not let a little Zoo, the disappearance of eight women at so Justine can recharge and do absolutely heist? What kind of family breeds this type heart problem – or even the literal a refugee centre, and the execution of a nothing for a living, but of course, things of thief? Come for the plot, stay for the elephant in the room – stop him from professor at a Jewish cemetery. In their go deliciously awry. Unnerving telephone writing – and brace for the sequel. (And doing his best to assist everyone in the search for justice for these crimes, they calls, an assignment Ellen is working on the upcoming movie!) Mumbai he adores. must scour Europe for the culprits and, that shocks her mother, an ugly old house ultimately, for the truth. 12 READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2015

New Non-Fiction OLDER AND BOLDER AUSTRALIAN VICTORIES Renata Singer IN FRANCE IN 1918 MUP. PB. $34.99 John Monash Biography for Between the World and Me, allowing For the first time in Black Inc. HB. $45 Coates to be both personal and universal history, women can First published in 1920, in his scope. Time and time again, he expect to live well into GUIDELINES FOR The Australian Victories returns to fear and the realities of living their nineties. A drab in France in 1918 is now MOUNTAIN LION SAFETY with this emotion on a daily basis. And existence of retirement, recognised as one of the Poe Ballantine while Coates fears for the black body in a disease and disconnection most important records Transit Lounge. PB. $29.95 broad sense, this book is very much about is not an option for this of World War I, Poe Ballantine is fear for his son’s body, which he knows he generation of women. In revealing the critical building a fine cannot protect. Undoubtedly, this same Older and Bolder, Renata role Australians played body of work, in fear is what propelled Cormac McCarthy Singer contrasts the stories of the pioneers on the Western Front. particular his tragicomic to write The Road, but Coates does not of active, productive old age against the General Sir John Monash reveals the nonfiction in which he need to create a fictional dystopia to raise anxieties of those facing the milestone of challenges he faced in leading tens of explores and chronicles the stakes in telling of his fear. Between the turning 60 with revealing research. Older thousands of troops, and the decision- his own and America’s World and Me is about what is happening and Bolder is her rallying guide to living making and innovations in the field that frailties, absurdities right now. audaciously in the last third of your life. turned the tide of the war. Republished in and shortcomings. A national correspondent for the full, this edition features a new foreword by Guidelines for Mountain Atlantic and award-winning journalist, THE ORPHEUS CLOCK Bruce Haigh, colour reproductions of Lion Safety is Ballantine’s new collection of Coates has been lauded as one of Simon Goodman original maps and new photos. America’s most important writers on the essays, and it is his most emotionally honest Scribe. PB. $35 subject of race. I simply can’t imagine work to date. Ballantine is never short of Simon Goodman’s BREAKING OUT the person who could possibly remain self-commentary, but here he achieves a grandparents came from Susan Blackburn (ed.) unmoved by this book. Within the first lighter touch that better balances his often German-Jewish banking Hale & Iremonger. PB. $34.95 brutal self-deprecation with openness and few pages, I was swept up by Coates’ dynasties, and perished in This book celebrates tenderness. fierce intellect and raging passion as concentration camps. The Melbourne in heady times. Booze and drugs are subjects often though I’d stepped into a fast-moving Gutmanns had amassed a Sixteen contributors visited. Not in judgement or nostalgia, current. I read with my heart in my throat world-class art collection remember the turbulent but as natural elements of our unresolved and for the final 50 or so pages I cried that included works by 1970s, a vibrant and creative longings. ‘The Fine Art of Quitting’ is a without stopping. Between the World and Degas, Renoir, Botticelli, decade in Melbourne. beautiful examination of alcoholism in Me attests to the power of literature. It Guardi, and many others. It was only after his Anything seemed possible: a family that ponders the reasons three would be foolish (and insensitive) for me father’s death that Simon began to piece alternative approaches people – the author, his sister and his to claim I now completely understand together the clues about the Gutmanns’ stolen sprang up for everything from education to father – resort to drink. It is one of the Coates’ life and position as a black father legacy, the Nazi looting machine and his radio broadcasting, theatre, legal services and most enlightening essays on the subject I in America. Rather, this book revealed father’s efforts to recover their family’s prized suburban living. Starting with the massive have read, and gave me pause to consider something true to me, and it showed me possessions. Through painstaking detective opposition to Australia’s involvement in the my own behaviours and the yearnings that what that might be like. work, Simon has been able to successfully Vietnam War and ending with efforts to drive them. In this way Ballantine invites Bronte Coates is the digital content secure the return of many of these works. combat its role in East Timor, contributors us in, by engaging with how the exigencies coordinator for Readings. recall the protests against environment of life push us in directions we cannot quite SANTAMARIA policies and the administration of universities. believe we are taking, even as they unfold. WAR LETTERS OF Gerard Henderson These are stories of scrappy jobs and GENERAL MONASH MUP. HB. $59.99 THE CHANGI BOOK cheap hotels, hangovers and cigarettes and John Monash B.A. Santamaria was one coffee. Businesses fail and travel adventures Lachlan Grant (ed.) Black Inc. HB. $45 of the most controversial go awfully wrong. There are suicides and NewSouth . HB. $59.99 These extraordinary, Australians of our time. rapes and cruel evictions, clumsy fights Changi is synonymous intimate letters from An ardent anti‑Communist, and fumbling romances. It is not a book with suffering, General Sir John devout Catholic and a that flinches, it is one that celebrates the hardship and the Monash to his wife and key figure in the simpler joys that become apparent the Australian prisoner- daughter record his tumultuous split of the longer we manage to hang around. All the of-war experience in experiences Australian Labor Party, while Ballantine is writing, barely at first, World War II. It is throughout World War he was fiercely then badly a lot, as he scratches around for also a story of ingenuity, I, from landing at intelligent, a natural leader and public a living and for some scent of who he is. resourcefulness and Gallipoli to leading commentator, polarising the community. Life may be no more than what we do while survival. Containing decisive battles on the Western Front. Published for the 100th anniversary of living, but it’s paying attention that really essays, cartoons, paintings, and Regarded as the best allied commander of Santamaria’s birth, Santamaria: A Most counts. Thank goodness for Poe Ballantine, photographs created by prisoners of war, World War I, Monash writes with Unusual Man is an authoritative biography for while he is around we have someone The Changi Book provides a unique view of remarkable insight, providing one of the from Gerard Henderson, a close colleague wise and perceptive paying attention for us. the camp: life-saving medical innovation, most moving personal accounts ever until a disagreement saw the two men machinery and tools created from spare Robbie Egan is the manager of Readings Carlton written of an Australian soldier at war. estranged and never reconciled. parts and scrap, black-market dealings, This edition, reprinted in full for the first sport and gambling, theatre productions, BETWEEN THE WORLD time since 1935, contains newly and the creation of a library and university. AND ME discovered letters and photos. Australian Studies The story of Changi, told by those who Ta-Nehisi Coates lived through it. Text. PB. $27.99 WOMEN I’VE CATCH AND KILL UNDRESSED Described as Joel Deane GRIFFITH REVIEW 49: required reading Orry-Kelly UQP. PB. $32.95 NEW ASIA NOW by Nobel laureate Toni Ebury. HB. Was $39.99 Catch and Kill is an Julianne Schultz (ed.) Morrison, Ta-Nehisi $34.99 inside account of the Text. PB. $27.99 Coates’ searing missive Hollywood designer unholy trinity of to his 15-year-old son Orry-Kelly created The Asian Century is in politics – the winning, Samori is one of the magic on screen, from full swing, generating the wielding, and the most powerful pieces of Casablanca and The unprecedented economic losing. Drawing on writing I’ve ever read. Maltese Falcon to Some and social power. In dozens of interviews Through anecdotes and reflections, and Like It Hot. He won coming decades this will with key figures, Joel analysis of history and language, Coates three Oscars for profoundly change the Deane provides a describes what it means to inhabit a black costume design and world, and the lives of all candid insight into the body in America today and, ultimately, dressed all the biggest stars. He was an those living in the triumphs and failures of Victoria’s Bracks– provides a compelling argument for why Australian. Yet few know who Orry-Kelly world’s most populous Brumby government, as well as those of its the past is inseparable from our present. really was – until now. Discovered in a region. New Asia Now takes a journey federal and state counterparts. A gripping Coates writes to Samori: ‘Here is what I pillowcase, Orry-Kelly’s long-lost through the region’s diversity with a new work of narrative non-fiction, Catch and would like for you to know: In America, it memoirs reveal a wildly talented and generation of literary stars, writing about Kill delivers a slice of political gothic, is traditional to destroy the black body – it cheeky rascal from Kiama who lived a big the people and places they know with venturing inside the heart of the is heritage.’ life, on and off the set. Funny and passion, flair and insight, shaping the way contemporary Labor Party in search of the The open letter is often misused, but outspoken, Women I’ve Undressed reveals we understand the complexities of culture, nature of power. it fits perfectly as the framing device a wickedly delicious slice of it. politics and modernisation. READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2015 13

Cultural Studies Music

LATEST READINGS GUDINSKI Clive James Stuart Coupe Yale University Press. HB. $29.95 Hachette. PB. $32.99 In 2010, Clive James was Often referred to as the diagnosed with terminal father of the Australian leukaemia. This volume music industry, Michael contains his reflections Gudinski has nurtured the on what may well be his careers of many artists – last reading list – old Kylie Minogue, Jimmy favourites as well as some Barnes and Paul Kelly to recent discoveries. This name just a few – and his book also offers a company has toured a who’s who of the arena revealing look at the level international music scene. Who is this author himself, sharing his evocative musings tough and impassioned businessman who has on literature and family, and on living and shaped Australian popular culture? Rock dying. This is a valediction to a lifelong journalist Stuart Coupe gives us a backstage engagement with the written word from one pass to 40 years of Australian rock. of the great literary minds of our time. THE SEX MYTH Natural History Rachel Hills Viking. PB. $32.99 BIRD MINDS Fifty years after the sexual Gisela Kaplan revolution, we are told that CSIRO. PB. $45 we live in a time of Bird Minds shines a critical unprecedented sexual and scientific light on the freedom. But beneath the cognitive behaviour of veneer of glossy hedonism, Australian land birds. millennial journalist Rachel Gisela Kaplan describes Hills argues that we are complex behaviours such controlled by a new brand of sexual as grieving, deception, convention – where once we were dirty if we problem solving and the did have sex, we are now defective if we don’t use of tools. Many Australian birds cooperate do it enough. The Sex Myth exposes the and defend each other, and exceptional ones invisible norms and unspoken assumptions go fishing by throwing breadcrumbs in the that shape the way we think about sex today. water, extract poisonous parts from prey and use tools to crack open eggshells and mussels. A LITERARY TOUR OF Bird Minds demonstrates how intelligent and ITALY emotional Australian birds can be. Tim Parks Bloomsbury. HB. $35 An acclaimed author of Personal Development novels and short stories, A POWERFUL NEW Tim Parks has delighted A FORCE FOR GOOD audiences around the Daniel Goleman AUSTRALIAN VOICE world with his finely Bloomsbury. PB. $29.99 observed writing on all For decades, the Dalai aspects of Italian life and Lama has travelled the customs. From Boccaccio world, meeting with people and Machiavelli through from a wealth of countries to Eco and Saviano, from the Stil Novo to the who differ greatly in their Divisionismo, across centuries of history and background, social status intellectual movements, this volume and viewpoint, bringing contains a selection of his best essays on the them his own individual literature of his adopted country and will wisdom and compassion. Now, as he turns give English readers the lay of the literary 80, the Dalai Lama gives us his vision of a land of Italy. better future, one that puts the concerns of humanity at large, and explains how we can Journalism get there. In his unique manifesto, the Dalai Lama presents a new perspective on the world as we know it. THE WAR ON JOURNALISM Andrew Fowler Politics Random House. PB. $34.99 Racked by public distrust, BECAUSE WE SAY SO cowed by government Noam Chomsky surveillance and powerful Hamish Hamilton. PB. $32.99 corporations, the In 1962, the eminent mainstream media is in statesman Dean Acheson crisis. Newspapers which enunciated a principle that flourished for centuries has dominated global and TV networks that politics ever since: that once ruled the world are failing. Drawing when the United States on personal interviews and his responds to a challenge to background in investigative journalism, its ‘power, position, and Andrew Fowler traces the sackings, prestige’, no legal issues arise. In short, cutbacks and self-censoring editors, deals, whatever the world may think, US actions are threats and government standover tactics ‘EVOCATIVE AND ACCOMPLISHED’ legitimate – because they say so. Spanning the that have turned the public’s right to know impact of Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing PRAISE FOR LUCY TRELOAR into a battleground, and how the media and Palestinian–Israeli relations to deeper helped write its own epitaph. reflections on philosophy and the importance 14 READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2015

of a commons to democracy, Noam Chomsky themselves, in their families, or as a Art & Design takes American imperialism head on. medical or treatment professional. with Margaret Snowdon MACHINE RULES THE NAKED SURGEON Stephen Loosely Samer Nashef NGANAMPA MUP. PB. $34.99 Scribe. PB. $29.99 KAMPATJANGKA UNNGU The best decision of Ever since his days as a Tjala Arts (ed.) Stephen Loosley’s life medical student, Samer Wakefield Press. HB. Was $79.95 was to go into Labor Nashef has challenged $65 A STORY OF politics. The second best the medical profession to Tjala Arts is the home decision he ever made be more open and more and meeting place of AUSTRALIA was to leave it. But does a accurate about the many important artists. powerbroker like success of surgical The current art centre Loosley ever leave the procedures, for the sake is the result of much political world? In his of the patients. Here he hard work and candid memoir, he writes about defending unclothes his own determination and has the indefensible, the best way to start and profession to demonstrate, with clarity and a long history, kill off rumours, the value of truth in wit, the paradox at the heart of the cardiac including the early land rights movement in campaigning, how to use humour to squash surgeon’s craft: the more an operation is likely the 1970s. I didn’t know very much about a scandal, the key to fundraising and why to kill you, the better it is for you. Tjala Arts, although much familiar, dirt always comes back to smother you. beautiful and powerful work is produced there, and I loved reading about it in the THE MONEY MEN Sports & Recreation artists’ own words. Beautifully illustrated Chris Bowen with images of the art and artists, this is MUP. PB. $34.99 TIME AND SPACE both a wonderful introduction and document of Indigenous culture. How much do we know James Coventry about the second most ABC Books. PB. $32.99 important office in the ALEXANDER GIRARD In this groundbreaking nation? The Money Men is Todd Oldham & Kiera Coffee book, James Coventry the first in-depth look at Ammo. HB. $110 reveals the secrets behind the twelve most notable This 672-page book the tactics of Australian and interesting men to covers virtually football. You’ll meet the have held the office of every aspect of the German gymnast who Treasurer of Australia. career of one of the taught Geelong how to With revealing interviews of the last five most prolific and break the game from its treasurers, former treasurer Chris Bowen versatile mid- rugby roots; the two Test brings a unique insider perspective to the twentieth century designers, documenting cricketers who became footy’s first great lessons learned from the successes and his iconic textile designs for Herman Miller coaches; and the water polo player who failures of those who went before him. (1952–1975), his typographic designs for La shaped the modern AFL. Time and Space is Fonda del Sol restaurant (1960), his essential reading for any fan who wants to celebrated retail store Textiles and Objects know why their team does what it does, Reference (1961), and other work. and why it wins or loses. SIMPLY ENGLISH TIMOTHY COOK Seva Frangos Simon Heffer Travel Photography UWA Press. PB. $49.99 Cornerstone. PB. $22.99 Timothy Cook is a In Simply English, Simon LOST MELBOURNE maverick artist – Heffer offers an entertaining Heather Chapman non‑conformist, and supremely useful A-Z Pavilion. HB. $29.99 individualistic, original guide to frequent errors, Lost Melbourne looks at and inventive, straddling common misunderstandings the cherished places in the modern and ancient and stylistic howlers. What the city that time, fashion with confidence. His work is the difference between PERFECT and progress have swept inhabits a place and space where innovation amend and emend, aside – the old cinemas, might seem impossible against a background between imply and infer, FOR the outdated hotels, the of tradition and ritual. In this stunning and between uninterested and disinterested? FATHER’S Victorian buildings in the wrong place. The monograph he realigns artistic and cultural How does one use an apostrophe correctly book looks back at all kinds of Melbourne boundaries and re-explores being Tiwi. and avoid the perils of the double negative? DAY! institutions that have vanished from the Simply English is the essential companion for city’s cultural and architectural life – sites ACROSS THE ARCTIC OCEAN anyone who cares about the language and such as the palatial Federal Coffee House, Sir Wally Herbert & Huw Lewis-Jones wants to use it correctly. old Spencer Street Station, the original MCG T&H. HB. $55 grandstand, Victoria Docks, and Hegarty’s On February 21, 1968, Wally Science Royal Gymnasium Baths at St Kilda. Herbert, three companions and forty huskies set out from Point Barrow, Alaska, THE BIOLOGY OF DESIRE Travel Writing embarking on a route that Mark Lewis would take them 3,800 Scribe. PB. $29.99 THE EYEBALL END miles over sixteen months, The psychiatric Ali MC across the North Pole and the frozen Arctic Ocean via its longest axis. It stands today as establishment in the Xoum. PB. $24.99 Western world has one of the greatest expeditions of all time. Beginning with an unanimously branded acid-fuelled night in the addiction a brain WHY YOU CAN BUILD IT Kimberley, the first disease. But as LIKE THAT decade of the 21st renowned century sees Ali MC John Zukowsky developmental travelling the globe in T&H. PB. $22 neuroscientist and an attempt to The latest title in this clever recovered addict Marc Lewis argues in this understand the yet accessible series examines compelling and controversial book, forgotten corners of the buildings from the past half addiction is not in fact an incurable illness world. Beaten and shot century that pushed the but a developmental learning process at along the way, The Eyeball End takes the boundaries of what was resulting from the normal functioning of reader on a unique and challenging journey architecturally acceptable the human brain. The Biology of Desire is into the human condition. when they were built. One vital and enlightening reading for anyone hundred striking international examples who has wrestled with addiction reflect form as well as society. READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2015 15

Food & Gardening The book is divided into seasons with recipes for every meal, every occasion and with Chris Gordon with every single vegetable you can think of. This cookbook is all about eating well FRIED CHICKEN and remaining well without ever telling & FRIENDS: THE you to. Thank goodness. HARTSYARD FAMILY COOKBOOK FOOD + BEER: GREAT Gregory Llewellyn & Naomi Hart FOOD TO EAT WITH Murdoch. HB. $49.99 BEER Recipe for a perfect Ross Dobson evening: turn up loud Murdoch Books. HB. $45 some sweet Louisiana Happiness is a Saturday tunes, perhaps a little afternoon with the sun jazz and open this shining through the glorious cook book to cold, an ale and a plate Quick-Fire Fried of something delicious. Chicken. Mix yourself a If you are like me and whiskey sour and begin the process of consider this scenario a frying, sharing, dancing and celebrating true gift to humanity, then Southern-style cooking in all its glory. this is the book for you. Dobson has pulled Hartsyard is a go-to restaurant in Sydney but together some ripper recipes from all over hen Greg Fisher was a child don’t let that deter you from embracing the the world and matched them with a beer. Whis mother said he’d either be warmth of this cooking style brought to you For example, slow cooked lamb with stout very successful or end up in jail. After by married couple Llewellyn and Hart. The surely is a perfect match for any weekend a comfortable upbringing in Sydney’s collection includes treats I didn’t even know gathering. The recipes are very easy to eastern suburbs, Greg Fisher married, existed, such as school prawn popcorn with follow and the advice for pairing is sound. had a child and started making his sour yoghurt dip, which is actually delicious The book is divided into sections from way up the corporate ladder. But when watching Mad Men. This beautifully starters (‘Kicking Off’) to meal times after coming out and leaving his wife, presented cookbook is a terrific (‘Bigger Critters’) making it a terrific Greg’s life veered into the fast lane and by the early 2000s his high-stakes representation of American-style cooking reference book. I reckon that even if you lifestyle began to spiral dangerously written for Australians, a much needed are teetotaller or an oenophile, you will out of control. Eventually jailed for addition for the global hunter and collector. know someone who will love this book. corporate fraud and drug dealing, It’s a gratifying treat for any beer Greg spent almost eight years in prison, sharing a cell with enthusiast. NAKED CAKES: SIMPLY some of Australia’s most notorious criminals – and began BEAUTIFUL HANDMADE THE BLENDER GIRL the slow process of rebuilding his life. Greg, now general CREATIONS manager of Our Big Kitchen, tells his extraordinary story of Lyndel Miller SMOOTHIES: 100 ambition, addiction and redemption. Murdoch. HB. $49.99 GLUTEN-FREE, VEGAN There is no point & PALEO-FRIENDLY www.newsouthpublishing.com denying this solid RECIPES fact: this book is for Tess Masters artists and aspirational Random. PB. $24.99 cooks. It is not for The smoothie craze is you, oh harried now a lifestyle. Smoothies ‘Thoughtful, revealing, engaging and mother cooking for are a foolproof means of the school fete, making sure that you are optimistic, this is a book that reinforces the unless you want to show off. And getting your five pieces of positive liberation of women’s later years. goodness, what an impressive way to vegies or fruit every strut your stuff at said fete. Miller does single day – also they’re Older and bolder? You bet!’ ITA BUTTROSE give good easy instructions for those with easy and fun. Masters has both a rose garden and time on their created an almost unimaginable hands. For example, the almond and collection of smoothie options, all tried lemon cake covered with buds of roses and tested with delicious results. You can, and buttercream icing looks like it seems, have your cake and eat it too by something from a still life – but it is following these simple recipe ideas: actually accessible, and would be a huge brownie batter smoothie anyone? Or hit at the cake stall. I’d buy it for sure. perhaps you are more of a pecan pie This book is glorious and full of divine lover? There is a smoothie in here for decorated cakes that will inspire you to you. Seriously. twirl a little magic into your cake baking regime. Go on, be aspirational: in this MEATBALLS: THE case it’s fun. ULTIMATE GUIDE VEGETABLES, GRAINS Matteo Bruno AND OTHER GOOD Murdoch Books. HB. $35 Matteo Bruno’s STUFF Meatball & Wine Bar Simon Bryant has won the hearts of Lantern. PB. $39.99 Melburnians, and now I trust Simon – and not we are fortunate just because he cooks enough to have the with Maggie Beer. I power to replicate trust him because his some inner city, cookbooks are filled authentic cool in our own kitchens with with brilliantly simple, one single book. Meatballs: The Ultimate ‘Smart, funny, wise—this book is innovative yet basic Guide is much more though than simple delicious recipes. I’m a straightforward recipes. This book has indispensable for anyone careering towards huge user of his previous work Simon pages on tools, meats, and techniques Bryant’s Vegies and I expect that this book needed alongside sauces and sides their latter days.’ MAGDA SZUBANSKI will also be in high service. Here, as the needed to make your ball stand out in a title suggests, is a terrific range of crowd of aspirational copycats. The vegetarian meals with grains and pulses. recipes come with recommended sides, I’m particularly taken for a Saturday lunch garnishes and sauces. The recipes are AVAILABLE NOW idea: goat’s cheese, onion and cognac tart designed so that your average teenager mup.com.au followed by lentil brownies. Get the drift? could pull these puppies off. Impressive. 16 READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2015 #LoveOzYA Emily Gale on Australian YA: the quiet achiever

rofessionally, you’d have to be a little short of have found a particularly fine specimen: Scot Gardner’s Earth logic to give your heart away to young The Dead I Know. Not a movie, nor a series, but a fantastic adult (YA) fiction in this country. The challenges Australian stand-alone story, illustrative of what Australian come from all sides. YA is about. PYou’re up against industry snobbery, for a start, despite It’s natural for those who work on, read and write the fact that children’ and YA books as a category is that Australian YA to get defensive. To be told that the books rare beast: a print publishing and bookselling growth area. you are passionate about are not valued very highly is to be Martin Amis skimmed us a casual slur in 2011, summing woefully misunderstood. Or, worse, to feel as though you’ve up many people’s inside-thoughts: ‘If I had a serious brain simply got it all wrong. That you have no proper place. injury I might well write a children’s book.’ Inflammatory This feeling translates neatly into why surrendering to comments deserve nothing more than an eye-roll, but Amis the invisibility of Australian YA is not an option. Ultimately, is not alone in suffering from a careless misunderstanding Australian YA is for and about Australian young adults. If of how difficult it is to write a book that young people they’re not finding it, they’re missing out on the stories actually want to read. that reflect their lives. They deserve the pleasure of finding The snobbery extends into mainstream media. There in a story a recognisable place, bird, tree, turn-of-phrase is precious little review space or airtime for Australian or history. They deserve access to the kind of YA that is year the number one spot so far belongs to Melbourne’s YA. Rare newspaper articles are often scaremongering or brimming with ideas, observations and themes that are Gabrielle Williams (The Guy, The Girl, The Artist and His derisory. For example, accusing YA of being too dark for particular to their experience; the plot-steady, fine prose Ex), followed closely by Alice Pung (Laurinda) at number 3. teenagers (usually based on a casual reading of the back and originality of Australian YA. The US bestsellers dominate the Top 10, but nipping at their cover blurb), or mocking anyone over 18 who still reads This is an argument that, privately, I go around in heels are: Nona and Me by Clare Atkins, Every Move by Ellie YA as if it’s the literary equivalent of sucking your thumb. circles with. While I believe in the importance of finding Marney, Pieces of Sky by Trinity Doyle, and A Small Madness At literary festivals, you won’t find Australian YA authors yourself in stories, I think you can do that just as well with by Dianne Touchell. programmed on panels – on any theme or topic – with characters who are – superficially, at least – not like you Readings has long been known for promoting writers of adult fiction, even though the stats show that at all. (Is that my white, straight, middle-class privilege Australian fiction, and, more recently, Australian children’s the YA market is slightly dominated by those who are, speaking?) I get twitchy with any kind of flag-waving, fiction (see the Readings Children’s Book Prize). Now it in fact, adults, and readers of both adult and YA fiction. and I love reading YA fiction from all over the world (for intends to put even more weight behind Australian YA. I’ve To put it bluntly, within the industry few are taking instance I’d love to see more translated fiction here, too). Australian YA seriously. Finally, I’m not Australian. Does that basic fact disqualify There’s further need for a thick hide outside the me from being an OzYA champion, I sometimes wonder? industry if you’re a writer, editor or bookseller. Even your But what I keep returning to are two points that reassure friends and relatives may at some point in your career me about how I spend my time and energy. The first is that utter these damning words: ‘When are you going to write/ Australian YA is something of a badge of quality to me – it edit/sell a proper book?’ All of those challenges and snubs, is the most impressive of underdogs. And the second is however, are not specific to Australian YA, and probably simply that if Australia can’t look after its nice things, we say more worrying things about the way we think about our won’t get to keep them. young people – particularly our teenagers – than what we Fortunately, Australia’s YA community swiftly faced up think of people who write/edit/sell books for them. to the depressing results of the library survey, as well as What is more concerning is that homegrown stories are the 9:1 ratio of international buy-ins to homegrown books, being utterly overshadowed by American ones. Whereas by using this struggle as a springboard for change. They American YA is booming as a category that extends beyond rallied. First order of business, a hashtag – #LoveOzYA– the bookshop and into the movie theatre, Australian YA and from there a whole range of simmering ideas and, is overlooked. When Readings asked teenage book group most importantly, a sense of group energy. It’s a very Level 87 (from the 100 Story Building organisation) why friendly, Australian kind of movement based on mateship, this might be, members said that although Australian YA mutual respect and the will to build something that will be was as good as, if not better than, American YA, they simply effective long-term. didn’t hear of it as much. #LoveOzYA had its first real-life mass conversation This wasn’t always the case. My Readings colleagues– at Readings Hawthorn in July, when 100 people turned who grew up reading Australian YA, whereas I did not– up on a very wintry night to hear a panel talk about testified to this. They recall a fever over writers like John what Australian YA is doing right (fine prose, originality, Marsden and Melina Marchetta, the desperate wait for the thoughtful themes) and what it could do better at (more next book, and of Margaret Clark novels passing from hand diversity: both characters and authors). Recognising to hand in high school. By contrast, they don’t remember that every one of the bestselling US YA books had a huge much American YA. juggernaut to spread news of its existence into every last But this new-generation lack of visibility was confirmed crevice is exactly the kick up the backside we needed. We’ll in a recent survey of national libraries, which found that have our own juggernaut! Only, we don’t want to replicate Photo of Emily Gale courtesy Aaron Smith of the Top 10 most-borrowed young adult books, only two what happens in the US to create blockbusters, we want were by Australians. (One of those – The Book Thief by to work together to make sure that the Australian market no doubt that other establishments will follow, and places Marcus Zusak – was published in this country as fiction; knows where to find – and why to find – Australian YA. like the Centre for Youth Literature will continue to do it was the US who re-classified it as YA.) It was left to To borrow a phrase from a recent close study of YA in most excellent things, but perhaps now with more cohesive Castlemaine author Ellie Marney, relatively new to the America compared to Australia, written by Allen & Unwin support from the rest of the industry. We need to play the scene with her excellent trilogy of YA crime novels, to fly commissioning editor Susannah Chambers, Australian long game here. the flag alone at number 8. YA is our ‘quiet achiever’. But even quiet achievers need Yes, you’d have to be a little short of Earth logic to give Although it would be easy to dismiss this as the usual attention and reassurance. Susannah used the phrase to your heart away to young adult fiction in this country. And, cultural domination by the overwhelming force of the US, describe how YA used to operate in the US, before YA fortunately, so many of us are. in other categories – adult fiction, adult non-fiction and books became global phenomenons, but I think it works younger children’s books – Australians held their own. It to describe Australian YA of the past and present and it’s Emily Gale has worked in children’s book publishing in a number of seems that teenagers are surrounded by so much global a status we should preserve. Writing produced for young roles: editor, reader for a literary agent, and book buyer. In 2014 she noise when it comes to book choices that they’re missing people is at the heart of any culture, and Australian culture was the prize manager for the inaugural Readings Children’s Book out on stories growing in their own backyards. shouldn’t dress the same as US culture; it needs to pick out Prize. Her writing includes books for pre-schoolers, the junior series The very bald facts of the survey made all the its own clothes. Eliza Boom’s Diary, and two young adult novels (Girl, Aloud in 2009, mainstream papers, which added to the sting. If journalists Speaking of attention and reassurance, Readings have and Steal My Sunshine in 2013). Her new novel, set in London and had looked under the heavy rock of the Top 10, they’d conducted our own survey of YA sales, and found that this Melbourne, comes out next year with Penguin Random House. READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2015 17

New Young Adult Fiction that Summer is deaf. Will is determined to bridge the See books for kids, junior and middle readers on pages 18–19 communication divide and dedicates himself to learning sign language. The Young Adult Book of the Month relationship that develops brings together their eclectic interests in fishing, sailing, photography and animal rescue. Not GREEN VALENTINE everybody is onboard, however, and Will’s Lili Wilkinson best friend Cully proves a disruptive A&U. PB. $16.99 influence as he (he or she?) seeks to Lili Wilkinson, you’ve done it again! Not only have you sabotage this relationship. created a brilliant love story that is unique and sexy, you This is a story about navigating one’s have brought to YA fiction global environmental issues as well own course against the tide of social as the importance (and fun) that gardening brings to oneself conformity and meeting life head on. and to communities. Astrid is hell-bent on trying to bring Natalie Platten is from Readings Malvern awareness to her dull community on the environmental impact everyone’s choices make and how we can all help to save the REMIX planet. However, she is trying to do this in a lobster suit, which, Non Pratt needless to say, isn’t working. But it does get the attention of one very cute boy named Walker Books. PB. $16.95 Hiro, who isn’t really interested in the environment, he’s more interested in who’s Remix follows under the lobster suit. two girls, Ruby ‘However, she is trying to do this in a lobster suit, which, needless to and Kaz, throughout the course of a say, isn’t working.’ weekend at a music festival. They go to Another chance encounter at school brings these two together and what ensues escape reality and is the epitome of cool ... Guerilla Gardening. Taking the peaceful activist approach in have some fun, but tackling political events starts to get the community talking, however both Astrid and their trials follow Hiro have different ideas on where they want their activism, and lives, to go and conflict them in the form of soon arises. ex-boyfriends, family Green Valentine is not only a page-turner full of romance and friendship, it’s also dramas and the shadows of their changing about caring for something so massive that it sometimes it feels like you can never win. circumstances. I really loved Remix. The I’m so excited to have a book that brings environmental issues (and midnight gardening) energy is exuberant and it’s packed with to teens that I can barely contain myself. Read it, it’s brilliant. Ages 14 and up. exactly the kind of emotional roller- Katherine Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn coasters that come along with a weekend away as a sixteen-year-old. The characters are all very fully realised, flawed but pretty upsetting events. FAMOUS LAST WORDS lovable and the friendship between the Limpet, Steffan and Jared have all been Jennifer Salvato Doktorski two girls is beautifully and realistically through a lot together but when Limpet’s St Martins. PB. $14.99 drawn in its intensity. A great coming-of- mum dies and Steffan announces that he and This extremely age story set against the backdrop of a his father are moving to America, the group enjoyable story heady summer weekend. decides to have one last hurrah, jumping introduces us to into Steffan’s clapped-out old car for a road- Isobel Moore is from Readings St Kilda 16-year-old Sam’s trip. As the group travel, the different places summer internship at they visit all bring back difficult memories, THE BEAUTY IS IN THE the local newspaper. but the friends are there for each other to WALKING Her chief duty is help work through the grief. James Moloney compiling and writing Fun, sarcastic banter between the HarperCollins. PB. $16.99 obituaries and even friends keeps this novel from being though she anticipated more glamorous Everyone thinks they depressing, portraying a realistic tasks she learns that writing about dead know what Jacob friendship between three people who people is actually more about living and O’Leary can and can’t have had a rough time. Those looking for life stories than she realised. At this old do – and they’re not a light read that still has some substance school newspaper headed by crusty shy about telling him to it will enjoy The Last Summer of Us. journalists who are a dying (no pun either. But no one – not For readers aged 13 and up. KD intended!) breed, Sam has to find her way, even Jacob – knows what he’s truly capable learn to fit in and also make her mark. TALK UNDER WATER She is a very likeable girl who is of. And he’s desperate mostly comfortable in her own skin even Kathryn Lomer for the chance to work if at times she questions herself and her UQP. PB. $19.95 it out for himself. When a shocking and friends. Sam’s coming of age summer Advancements in confounding crime sends his small country sees her dazzled by the handsome cad at communication town reeling, and fingers start pointing at work while nearly oblivious to a possible technology and the the newcomer, Jacob grabs the chance to get romance right under her nose. Smart and explosion of social out in front of the pack and keep mob rule at funny, warm and engaging, Famous Last media platforms have bay. He’s convinced that the police have Words is realistically written YA fiction for dramatically changed accused the wrong guy; that the real villain ages 12 and up. the way young people is still out there. And he’s determined to connect with one prove it – and himself – to everyone. Alexa Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn another. Maintaining THE LAST SUMMER OF US online connections ADRIFT can be to the detriment of face-to-face Paul Griffin Maggie Harcourt communication and other diverse social Text. PB. $19.99 Usborne. PB. $14.99 experiences. Best friends Matt and It seems that YA Will and Summer, characters in John are spending the fiction is loving a Kathryn Lomer’s novel Talk Under Water, summer working. On road trip story at the find different channels for connection the beach, Driana, Stef moment as I swear I that open them up to real experiences and JoJo invite the have read about five in in the great outdoors. Their friendship boys to a party, and the last six months. develops as they follow Jessica Watson’s when Stef decides to go And I’m not blog in her attempt to become the windsurfing, the others complaining either as youngest person to sail solo around the race out on the water to they are fun, full of world. As Will and Summer share posts make sure she’s safe. adventure and packed on Watson’s website they discover that But with no land in sight and a broken boat with romance. The Last Summer of Us has they are neighbours from the same town engine, it’s not just Stef they have to worry managed to tick all these boxes, while also in coastal Tasmania. Chatting online may about. And as the hours turn into days, the tackling grief and the impending end to a be smooth sailing but meeting in person prospect of rescue seems further and friendship group that has survived some brings complications as Will discovers further away. 18 READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2015

captures her in all her ethereal brilliance. Her dedication KIZMET AND THE CASE OF THE Picture Books to her art was legendary but she never forgot her poor and TASSIE TIGER humble start and wanted to share her dance with rich and Frank Woodley BOB THE RAILWAY DOG poor alike, so she travelled the world performing. Her Puffin. PB. $9.99 Corinne Fenton story is told with poetic poignancy and the pictures Black Dog. HB. $24.95. shimmer with an exquisite grace. Future ballerinas of 3 This junior detective story is narrated by an unusual sidekick, a This is not Corinne and up will be spellbound by Swan. AD currawong named Gretchen. The Fenton’s first picture book heroine, Kizmet, is a feisty young about a dog and like the one in BRAVE AS CAN BE investigator with the wits of Sherlock The Dog on the Tuckerbox, Bob is Jo Witek Holmes and the nose of a sniffer dog. a loyal dog, but his faithfulness is Abrams. HB. $19.99 Her father, Detective Spencer, is more to the trains that travelled The life of a toddler can be full of assigned a variety of unusual cases that throughout southern Australia in frightening things: the dark, the Kizmet must solve, because her father is the 1880s than to one person. neighbour’s dog, and thunderstorms, more of a liability than a super sleuth. In their first case, Sent by train with a cargo of just to name a few. In this lyrical, it’s an alleged sighting of the extinct Tasmanian tiger other homeless dogs to be outback rabbit hunters, Bob insightful picture book, an older that brings them to Tasmania to solve the crime. catches the eye of the train’s guard and is adopted by him, sister explains to her younger sister The Kizmet series, written by comedian Frank lucky Bob! Bob loves his owner but he loves jumping from all the things she used to be afraid of, Woodley, will appeal to both boy and girl readers aged train to train a bit more and eventually becomes along with some tricks to help, 7–9, particularly lovers of physical humour and tricks, renowned among the railway community. He is a whether it’s a special blanket for bedtime or singing during and those who like a good detective story. Books 1 and 2 wanderer and although he remembers his original guard a storm. This playful portrait of fear and bravery empowers are released initially with more to follow. Angela owner and visits him, he yearns to travel more widely and young readers to confront once-scary situations. so stays with many train workers over the years. Folklore has him attending many historic occasions and his NETBALL GEMS 1: HOOKED ON photograph is still displayed at the Adelaide rail museum. Activity Books NETBALL Bob’s adventurous ways are perfectly captured in words Lisa Gibbs & Bernadette Hellard and pictures in this charming book for ages 3 and up. THE SCHOOL OF ART Random House. PB. $12.99 Alexa Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn Teal Triggs & Daniel Frost Maddy can’t wait to play her first Frances Lincoln Children. HB Activity. $29.99 game of netball with her new team. THE MARVELLOUS FLUFFY This is a gorgeous publication She’s been training hard and can’t wait SQUISHY ITTY BITTY that describes the to try out her skills. But Maddy’s nervous things might not go exactly as Beatrice Alemagna fundamentals of art practice for she imagined. What position will T&H. HB. $27.99 young students. Using five characters, known as the ‘professors coach Janet put her in? What if she The youngest member of a gets asked to sit on the bench? brilliant family, Edith thinks she’s of art’, the book takes the reader through 40 lessons from the basic Suddenly, the netball courts are the not very good at anything. But when last place Maddy wants to be! Perhaps Edith – who lives in Paris and is elements of art (including lines, 3D and texture), through basic colour some inspiration from an Australian Diamonds star will five-and-a-half years old – goes in finally get Maddy hooked! search of the perfect birthday gift for theory, and the design rules of art. There is also a section on her mother, something magical putting the acquired art knowledge into practice. An happens. Her quest is to find ‘a activity accompanies each lesson and there are beautiful Middle Fiction marvellous fluffy squishy itty bitty’. graphics of the professors illustrating each lesson that are With the help – and sometimes the hindrance – of her both instructive and entertaining. This is a book that makes THE BAKEHOUSE art theory fun and would be great to use in a classroom favourite shopkeepers Edith succeeds – marvellously! Joy Cowley Through the eyes of a child we encounter a Paris setting. Independent art enthusiasts aged 9 and up will also Gecko. PB. $15.99 that is familiar and fresh, while joyous wordplay adds to find it informative and entertaining. Bert and his sisters Meg and Betty the pleasure. If you like fine picture books then you will Angela Crocombe is from Readings Carlton live in a small town in New Zealand certainly want your own ‘marvellous fluffy squishy itty bitty’. ARE WE THERE YET? LIFT THE during World War II. Bert is eleven when Mike Shuttleworth is from Readings Hawthorn he discovers a secret entrance to the old FLAP AND PLAY I-SPY! Geronimo Bakehouse which is completely HOW THE SUN GOT TO COCO’S Alison Lester boarded up and deserted. He decides to HOUSE Viking. HB Activity. $19.99 clean up the old bakehouse so that his Bob Graham A fabulous lift-the-flap book family can use it as a bomb shelter if Walker. HB. $24.95 from one of Australia’s most necessary and the children start going A new picture book by Bob loved picture book creators, there to play. Soon an adventure begins which is both Graham is always cause for Alison Lester, adapting her dangerous and exciting. celebration. How the Sun Got to Coco’s classic book Are We There Yet? One of the best elements of this book is the way the House embraces the beauty of an Join Grace and her family on author places the reader in the time and place beautifully. everyday miracle – how our sun journeys their adventurous and The language is of the era, and we get an understanding from one side of the world to the other sometimes funny expedition. A warm, heartfelt story based of living on rations, of how life changes in the town when and connects us all: how it skims mighty on an actual journey undertaken by the award-winning American soldiers move in, and of the very real fear of oceans and dances over mountains and author and illustrator. Specially adapted for younger enemy invasion. This is an engaging story for those who deserts; how it wakes sleepy villages and restless cities; and children, this fun and playful story centres on everyone’s enjoy realistic historical fiction. Recommended for readers lights the lives of all creatures great and small. favourite travelling game, I-spy! aged 10 and up. Like all of Bob Graham’s stories this celebrates the Kate Campbell is from Readings Hawthorn profound interconnectedness of life: of home and family, of friendship and communities; and all living things. Junior Fiction THE CUT OUT There’s so much to love and share in this wonderful book THE SECRETS OF THE STONE: A Jack Heath with its beautiful illustrations and tender words. This is a A&U. PB. $14.99 beautiful, imaginative story you’ll want to savour with the LOTTIE LIPTON ADVENTURE There is action aplenty in this whole family; a book you’ll want to read repeatedly. Highly Dan Metcalf James Bond-esque thriller from recommended for all ages – young and old. Bloomsbury. PB. $12.99 Jack Heath. High-school student Faro Athina Clarke is from Readings Malvern Welcome to the British Museum, lives in the politically conflicted Kamua, home to Lottie Lipton: nine-year-old long at war with neighbouring Besmar. SWAN investigator extraordinaire! After a After being mistakenly arrested by the Laurel Snyder late night break-in, Lottie discovers a police, it turns out that he’s identical to a Hardie Grant Egmont. HB. $29.95 mysterious clue on the Rosetta Stone known Besmari spy and so he is sent that leads to the legendary Trident of One night a little girl is taken to undercover into Besmar to save his Neptune. Can Lottie and her friends see her first ballet concert and as country! But nothing is as it seems and there are twists solve the clue and find the Trident her heart sings with the joy of it a and turns in this chaotic, fast-paced plot. Good fun, with a before the canny thief, Bloomsbury dream is born. The time was the likeable hero in the confused Faro, The Cut Out is a Bill, beats them to it? Perfect for 1800s, the place Russia and the girl well-formed, fulfilling adventure that leaves room for the developing and newly confident readers, Lottie Lipton was Anna Pavlova. To this day she is possibility of more Faro tales. Adventures are packed with action, adventure and considered one of the world’s greatest Isobel Moore is from Readings St Kilda puzzles to solve. ballerinas and this stunning book READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2015 19

THE ACB WITH HONORA LEE Kate De Goldi Book of the Month Longacre. PB. $22.99 I was madly in love with De Goldi’s THE HUSH TREASURE BOOK The 10pm Question a few years ago, so expectations were high for the new book by The Hush Foundation this New Zealand author. This wonderful A&U. HB. $29.99 story only made me love her work even more. Perry is very literal, a bit of an ‘Treasure’ is a perfect word to describe this curated collection of gems from a golden line-up outsider, and referred to as ‘unconventional’ of much-loved Australian authors and illustrators. The Hush Music Foundation is known for by her parents. She is delighted to learn that producing soothing music for use in children’s hospitals and they have now created a book and her grandmother, Honora Lee, who has recently moved to a accompanying CD that is filled with comforting, imaginative titbits of the highest quality. nursing home near their house, is also considered Much of the content is rhyming and will capture the imagination of a wide audience. There are ‘unconventional’. Although her grandmother suffers from gentle bedtime poems by Doug MacLeod and Glenda Millard that tell of night-time and nature and Alzheimer’s and doesn’t remember Perry’s name, she still has can be read aloud like lullabies. For slightly older readers there are plenty of funny moments and plenty of attitude. Perry enjoys going to visit her and decides a very mysterious story by Jackie French. There is even a maze page and an absolutely charming to embark on creating a unique alphabet book for her ‘Recipe to Catch a Wish’ by Jacqui Grantford that will enchant young dreamers. grandmother and the other nursing home residents. Quirky and witty, this is a heartwarming story about intergenerational With contributions from Shaun Tan, Margaret Wild, Alison Lester and so many other significant friendship and embracing difference. Stunning illustrations talents, this book will be a lovely and valuable addition to your family bookshelf. It’s perfect and cover flaps also make it a physically beautiful book that for reading together or for a child to quietly dip into as they enjoy and revisit their most- readers old or young (and in between) will treasure. Angela cherished pages. My own favourite is Bob Graham’s offering: a brief yet moving piece about a man and his dog.

Kim Gruschow is from Readings Hawthorn Nonfiction

As with the annual Hush Collection CDs, all money raised through sales STEVE JOBS: INSANELY GREAT of The Hush Treasure Book will go to the twelve children’s hospitals Jessie Hartland and wards involved in the Hush Music Foundation, including Random House. HB. $19.99 the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne. This biography in graphic-novel format is at once stylish, irreverent, and smart – like Steve FUZZY MUD Jobs himself. Jobs’ remarkable life reads like a history of the personal technology industry. He Louis Sachar started Apple Computer in his parents’ garage Bloomsbury. PB. $19.99 and then molded it into the world’s most Similar to Sachar’s superb novel valuable business. Jessie Hartland’s innovative Holes (1998), Fuzzy Mud has one biography illuminates the meteoric successes, devastating foot in reality and the other in a world setbacks, and myriad contradictions that make up Steve Jobs’ of greater narrative possibilities – in extraordinary life and legacy. this case, a biochemical leak that creates a revolting, toxic substance. THE WHITE MOUSE: THE STORY While the school setting allows Sachar New OF NANCY WAKE to explore some of the mechanics of Peter Gouldthorpe persistent, low-level bullying, the Omnibus. HB. $26.99 forbidden woodland surrounding the school is the setting for the biochemical mishap that three The Gestapo called her the White Mouse kids get embroiled in – a quiet, conscientious Grade 5 and they wanted her, dead or alive. Nancy student called Tamaya, her neighbour (and secret crush) Kids’ Wake was an Australian who joined the Marshall, and Marshall’s bully, Chad. French Resistance during World War II and In between the main narrative, we read excerpts from became the most wanted woman in France. an investigation into nearby Sunray Farm, producers Parachuting behind enemy lines, blowing of ‘Biolene’, the substance invented by a sort of nutty up bridges and smuggling refugees across borders, Nancy professor. We also get first a subtle and then a graphic fought fiercely against the enemy and became the most Books decorated Australian woman in any war. understanding of how one mutated organism can multiply and cause disaster. Like Holes, the pacing of this story is spot-on and the main characters are easy to like and STAR OF DELTORA: SHADOWS OF have some depth to them. My 11-year-old raced through it THE MASTER Classic of the Month straight after me and gave it a double thumbs-up too. An Emily Rodda exciting and thoughtful read that suits around 9 and up. Scholastic. PB. $9.99 PETER PAN: ILLUSTRATED EDITION Emily Gale is the online children’s specialist for Readings As a young girl in a post-Shadow J. M. Barrie Lord Deltora, Britta has two HarperCollins. HB. $39.99 LEO DA VINCI VS THE ICE-CREAM choices – work in her mother’s shop, The story of Peter Pan is over 100 DOMINATION LEAGUE exiled to the outskirts of her village, or years old, first appearing as a play fulfil her lifelong dream of becoming a Michael Pryor in 1904 and then published in book form Trader and sailing the Star of Deltora, Random House. PB. $14.99 in 1911. What can a story written all this the finest ship in Del. Ignoring her time ago have to offer children raised on Writing for a younger age group for mother’s pleas, and with the iPads and video games? Well, the answer the first time, here’s much-loved enthusiastic encouragement of old is just about everything – fairies, pirates, Australian author Michael Pryor with a Captain Gripp, Britta enters herself in lost boys, adventure, crocodiles, and, of new series that centres on an inventor – the centuries-old competition for young girls to become course, Peter Pan and Wendy. It will 10-year-old Leo Da Vinci – who is bright apprenticed to the Trader Rosalyn, the most famous trading delight all those yet to discover it and those, like me, who and adventurous but, owing to his total empire in the lands. Among her competition are foreigners want to revisit it. This enchanting gift edition is destined to preoccupation with righting wrongs, Sky of Rithmere and tall, dark Jewel of Broome; and Vashti, become a treasured keepsake for fans of all ages. It is filled slightly socially awkward. Leo’s inventions the daughter of a local trader, who has been trained for the with all new illustrations and special removable 3D features are part-home appliance, part- position since birth. With her father’s shadowy past hanging designed by brilliant graphic design duo Miraphora Mina sophisticated materials that ordinarily a over her Britta will need to work even harder than her fellow and Eduardo Lima, the team behind the Harry Potter film child wouldn’t have access to, and I enjoyed this interpretation contestants to win the right to the Star of Deltora. graphics. There are no detailed illustrations of the main of a child’s natural ability to invent using what they see around Shadows of the Master is the first book in the Star of characters as they have left us to imagine them ourselves. them as well as ‘special ingredients’ that they’ve heard about or Deltora series. It is the beginning of many adventures for There are no Disney Peters here; we can picture our own seen on TV. The somewhat cheesy tone of the story continues both Britta and us. In the books to come it is suggested that ‘lovely boy clad in skeleton leaves and the juices that ooze with details such as Leo pausing mid-battle to go home for Britta may sail to the island of Dorne from the Three Doors from trees.’ Reading this beautiful edition reminded me dinner, as well as with a talking pig and robot. The arrival of trilogy and possibly even as far as the ocean of the Maris what a delightful story this is and how vibrant is its prose. outgoing, enthusiastic Mina provides Leo with his first human from the Rowan of Rin series. As a huge, long-time fan (22 ‘So come with me, where dreams are born, and time is never friend. What he admires about her is a tender aspect of this years!) of all the Deltora books I cannot think of anything planned. Just think of happy things, and your heart will fly story. The chapters are short, the text nicely spaced, and several more exciting! on wings, forever, in Never Never Land!’ of Jules Faber’s illustrations are brilliantly detailed, so this is perfect for readers of 8 and over. EG Dani Solomon is from Readings Carlton Wendy Rubbo is a friend of Readings 20 READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2015

AMNESIA GREAT THE BROKEN LASTING Peter Carey EXPECTATIONS ROAD ELEGANCE PB. Was $32.99 Charles Dickens Patrick Leigh Fermor Michael Hall Now $13.95 HB. Was $45 HB. Was $49.99 HB. Was $130 When Gaby Baillieux Now $10 Now $16.95 Now $29.95 releases the Angel The classic bildungsroman A Time of Gifts and The great English Worm into the as young Pip grows into Between the Woods and country house tradition computers of Australia’s a gentleman, beautifully the Water were the first reached its apotheosis in the nineteenth prison system, hundreds of asylum repackaged in the Penguin Drop Caps series two volumes in a projected trilogy that century. Houses were larger, more seekers walk free. Worse, an American with the delightful D for Dickens on the would describe the walk that Patrick Leigh elaborate, and more lavishly furnished corporation runs prison security, so the cover. The orphan Pip is destined to become Fermor undertook at the age of 18 from than ever before. With over 150 superb malware infects some 5,000 American a blacksmith like his brother-in-law Joe. the Hook of Holland to Constantinople. It photographs highlighting the century’s places of incarceration. Doors spring But when Pip meets the beautiful Estella remains unfinished but The Broken Road most significant houses and their architects open. Both countries’ secrets threaten Havisham, he yearns for a gentleman’s completes an extraordinary journey. and an authoritative commentary by to pour out. Amnesia is Carey at his best: education to woo her. Michael Hall, this book provides a dark, funny and exhilarating. It is a novel THE GENIUS OF thorough overview of a major period in that speaks powerfully about our history MADAME DOGS British architectural history. but most urgently about our present. BOVARY Vanessa Woods & Gustave Flaubert Brian Hare MILLER’S CLOUDSTREET HB. Was $45 PB. Was $29.95 20TH Tim Winton Now $10 Now $13.95 CENTURY HB. Was $19.95 The French masterpiece In the past decade, DESIGN Now $12.95 of provincial malaise, breakthroughs in cognitive science have Judith Miller Two rural families – the beautifully repackaged proven dogs have a kind of genius for PB. Was $39.95 Pickles and the Lambs – with a fetching F for Flaubert on the cover. getting along with people that is unique Now $15.95 flee to the city after Emma Bovary is the original desperate in the animal kingdom. In The Genius of Miller’s 20th Century separate catastrophes. housewife. Beautiful but bored, she is Dogs, Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods lay Design is the perfect handbook for the They find themselves married to the provincial doctor Charles out what research is revealing about how new and established collector. It explains sharing a great, breathing, shuddering Bovary, yet longs for passion, and seeks your dog thinks, and how we humans can who the iconic designers were and shows joint called Cloudstreet, where they escape in sentimental novels, fantasies of have even deeper relationships with our hundreds of desirable pieces: furniture, begin their lives again from scratch. Tim high romance, in voracious spending and, best four-legged friends. glass, ceramics, metalwares and more, with Winton’s funny, sprawling saga is an eventually, in adultery. wonderful photography, hints and tips and epic novel of love and acceptance. It is a MI6 price codes. With in-depth analysis and a celebration of people, places and rhythms MIDDLEMARCH Keith Jeffery comprehensive selection of images, you can of life that has become one of Australia’s George Eliot HB. Was $69.95 be confident in choosing the very best pieces favourite novels. HB. Was $45 Now $19.95 from a period of intense innovation. Now $10 SILENT HOUSE This unprecedented This essential Victorian study is the authoritative KITCHEN Orhan Pamuk realist fiction, embodying account of the best- GARDEN PB. Was $24.95 the social known intelligence organisation Now $14.95 COMPANION changes in the world. Essential & JOURNAL Nobel Laureate Orhan of an English town, reading for anyone Stephanie Alexander Pamuk’s second novel beautifully repackaged interested in the history HB. Was $125 is the moving story with an elegant E for of espionage, the two Now $59.95 of a family, gathering Eliot on the cover. world wars, modern together in the summer before the Turkish Middlemarch explores British government Follow in the footsteps of one of Australia’s best-loved cooks and military coup of 1980. An old widow, mostly a fictional 19th century and the conduct food writers as she reveals the secrets bedridden, is attended by her faithful Midlands town in of international Bargain of rewarding kitchen gardening. Be servant, sharing memories, and grievances, the midst of change. relations in the encouraged by detailed gardening notes of the early years. But it is Hassan, a high The proposed Reform first half of the that explain how adults and children alike school dropout and fervent right-wing Bill promises political twentieth century, this can plant, grow and harvest 73 different nationalist, who will draw the visiting revolution; and the railway Table groundbreaking book vegetables, herbs and fruit, and try some family into the growing political cataclysm. promises social upheaval. is a uniquely important of the 250 recipes that will transform your examination of the role and fresh produce into delicious meals. FARTHER THE SECRET significance of intelligence in the AWAY GARDEN modern world. KITCHEN Jonathan Franzen Frances Hodgson GARDENS OF HB. Was $39.95 Burnett GIRLS STYLE AUSTRALIA Now $12.95 HB. Was $24.95 BOOK Kate Herd Now $15.95 In Farther Away, which Yoshiko Tsukiori PB. Was $39.99 gathers essays and When spoiled, rude Mary HB. Was $29.95 Now $16.95 speeches written mostly Lennox is sent to live in her uncle’s lonely Now $12.95 Whether you want to reduce your carbon in the past five years, Franzen returns with house on the moors, she is miserable and Japanese craft books footprint, save money, become more self- renewed vigour to the themes, both human alone. Then one day she discovers the key to are loved the world over sufficient or just enjoy the taste of fresh and literary, that have long preoccupied a locked garden, and she discovers the beauty for their beautiful and produce, there has never been a better him. Exploring environmentalism, that life can offer. This Egmont Heritage practical design, unique aesthetic, and time to create a kitchen garden. Join Kate technology, love and death, these essays edition of this best-loved tale features their clear, meticulous and educational Herd on her journey around Australia to 18 show a unique and mature mind wrestling the gorgeous 1911 colour illustrations by instruction. Translated into English for diverse kitchen gardens. For each one, Kate with itself, with literature, and with some renowned illustrator Charles Robinson. the first time, Girls Style Book contains provides a detailed garden plan and stories of the most important issues of our day. 24 projects for gorgeous dresses, blouses, of the people who tend it. CLASSIC outfits and accessories for girls aged 4–10. JANE EYRE TALES OF MICHEL ROUX: Charlotte Bronte OSCAR WILDE SHED THE COLLECTION HB. Was $45 Oscar Wilde Simon Griffiths Michel Roux Now $10 HB. Was $27.95 HB. Was $39.99 HB. Was $59.99 The Penguin Drop Caps Now $14.95 Now $15.95 Now $15.95 series collects 26 collectable Five stories collected A shed is a place of In this generous hardcover editions, to show Oscar Wilde at his best; moving, possibility; it can be compendium, legendary chef and each with a type cover witty and wise. A fantastic addition to the anything you want it to be. Photographer bestselling author Michel Roux has showcasing a letter of the alphabet gorgeously Egmont Heritage range, this collection of Simon Griffiths has an eye for the beauty of gathered together more than 250 superb illustrated by typography superstar Jessica Oscar Wilde stories represents the very ordinary things. From fabulously cluttered recipes from his extensive repertoire. Hische. B is for Brontë – Jane Eyre is a novel best in children’s literature. This book artists’ studios overflowing with creativity Mouth-watering contemporary dishes are of intense power and intrigue, dazzling and also features the sumptuous artwork of and inspiration to evocative abandoned featured, along with interpretations of shocking readers with its passionate depiction Charles Robinson. ruins, these sheds will make you look at great classics – food for all seasons and for of a woman’s search for equality and freedom. your own in a new light. all occasions. READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2015 21

New Film & TV 12 MONKEYS: SEASON 1 SAMBA Available 6 August. $44.95 Available 5 August. $36.95 with Lou Fulco DVD of the Month ‘Perfectly paced, smartly adapted ‘[Omar Sy] plays a troubled, and studded with moments of intuitive sort of character. The philosophy and emotion … 12 film has unusual grace notes and HOUSE OF CARDS: SEASON 3 Monkeys works beautifully as a an unpredictable, angular Available 6 August. $49.95 fast-paced sci-fi thriller that is construction … a rare House of Cards Season 3 begins not at Episode 1 but at Chapter 27. It actually far more complex.’ – Los Angeles combination of high emotion and human has become apparent that House of Cards is not a show structured Times comedy.’ – Sydney Morning Herald season by season, but rather as a grand morality play, and we are about to watch the third act. At the end of Act II Frank Underwood finally gained BANISHED THE SECOND BEST EXOTIC the power we have been watching him manipulate his way towards since Available 5 August. $39.95 MARIGOLD HOTEL Episode 1. He is now the President of the United States of America, the ‘Glorious, and cleverly soapy, and $39.95 power he has sought is seemingly within his grasp. intriguing … this was all Oz, and ‘Fans of the first film will be As Frank looks to govern with sweeping new policy and Claire moves to gain power in her beaches and bastard redcoats and pleased to know [John] Madden own right, Season 3 resets the pieces for a new power play. It is hard at times not to see heaving corsets and filthy and his terrific ensemble cast echoes of that other great American show concerned with the White House. In The West personal musket-politics, and so deliver more of the same … Wing though, philosophical arguments are concerned with explicating the legitimacy of much moreish for that.’ – The Observer whimsical yet wise comedy. the American way. In House of Cards the White House features not for itself but because Feelgood with a capital F.’ – The Australian it is the seat of power and the pursuit of power is the meat of House of Cards. But as is the DEATH: A SERIES ABOUT case in Shakespearean tragedy, the gaining of power is simply the precursor to losing power. LIFE A LITTLE CHAOS In keeping with this Shakespearean sensibility, Spacey as Frank Underwood declaims Available 5 August. $29.95 $36.95 his thoughts to the fourth wall, his asides laying clear his intentions as the onscreen ‘The Norwegian team behind ‘Any detectable chaos is indeed machinations become ever more labyrinthine. this five-part series travelled to very small in this polished This mortal quest for absolute power is perfectly encapsulated early in the season. more than 25 countries, period drama … that delivers on After an exchange with a priest about the right to power Frank spits at a statue of Jesus in exploring various sides to death, the promise of all talent a show of anger and defiance then looks behind him in a moment of fear. We all know the from the weapons industry and involved. [Kate] Winslet carries fate of humans who would seek to emulate the gods. In a series so theatrical it can be easy religious talismans to modern medicine and proceedings both meaningfully and to overlook the cinematic storytelling on display, yet the cinematography of House of Cards the funeral industry.’ – The Australian effortlessly.’ – The Herald Sun continues to provide the cool, even glacial, patina that contrasts so effectively with the Underwoods’ passion for power. CAKE Marie Matteson is from Readings Carlton Film Available 12 August. $29.95 ‘Jennifer Aniston has taken her well-honed comic gifts and its time, weaving its various plots together in a BIG EYES dipped them in acid. Her TV way both tantalising and occasionally $39.95 performance as a chronic pain maddening.’ – Los Angeles Times ‘Tim Burton’s study of the sufferer and royal pain-in-the strange case of Margaret and THE HOLLOW CROWN: butt … is one of the best of the past year.’ JAMAICA INN Walter Keane is a diverting SERIES 1 – The Times (UK) Available 12 August. $29.95 black comedy which dramatises Available 5 August. Was $44.95 ‘This was superb. [Jessica Brown relevant questions about sexual $34.95 Findlay] acts wonderfully in her stereotype and artistic authorship.’ – The ‘Bringing together four of the Also coming soon appointed role as “simmering, Guardian Shakespearean English history bruised, headstrong storm” … plays … The Hollow Crown feels as INHERENT VICE WAYWARD PINES: SERIES 1 (19 August) Du Maurier would surely have THE KNICK: SERIES 1 (19 August) good as TV Shakespeare is going $39.95 approved.’ – The Guardian WELCOME TO ME (20 August) to get.’ – The Telegraph (UK) ‘A trip in every sense of the EFFIE GRAY (20 August) word – a hazy and melancholic DEVIL’S PLAYGROUND DIOR AND I (26 August) DIG detective story … Inherent Vice $34.95 BOYCHOIR (26 August) Available 5 August. $34.95 is crazy enough to entertain ‘The best Australian television LEVIATHAN (26 August) ‘Although designed for high- while illuminating the sad series for many years. This is a FELL (26 August) octane enjoyment – marketplace reality of never quite getting what you show that Australia should love, BANKSY DOES NEW YORK (26 August) chase scenes, shootouts, embrace and be proud of.’ – The want.’ – Sydney Morning Herald mysterious talismans – Dig takes New Daily

19 classic British films rarely seen on the big screen, digitally restored. Highlights include: The Tales of Hoffmann (1951) (G) The Third Man (1949) (PG)

COMES TO CINEMA NOVA EXCLUSIVELY

An exhilarating filmed version of Offenbach, A classic noir suspense film, scripted by combining opera and ballet and introduced Graham Greene, and filmed on location AUGUST by Martin Scorsese. Australian Premiere. in post-war Vienna. Australian Premiere. 6-19 Book tickets and see the full list of films online 380 Lygon Street Carlton Melbourne’s home of quality arthouse and contemporary cinema cinemanova.com.au 22 READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2015

New Music HELL BREAKS LOOSE studio album, featuring guest appearances Shane Nicholson by Van Morrison, Joss Stone, Kim Wilson and Billy Gibbons. Guy reminisces about $16.95 Album of the Month the good old days with his friend Muddy A little distance can be Waters, and dedicates the heartfelt ‘Flesh a good thing for any & Bone’ to the late, great B.B. King. THE GOSPEL ALBUM songwriter. You can hear Gurrumul it in the bones of Shane $21.95 Nicholson’s Hell Breaks Loose, the sixth Folk & World The Gospel Album is the third proper solo album solo album from the Australian singer- from the Elcho Island-based Indigenous singer songwriter, written over several years and Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu. Gurrumul’s self-titled during a period of personal change. Relaxed HOME album from 2008 was a surprise breakthrough and one of and natural, Nicholson explores everything Anoushka Shankar the outstanding success stories of the modern era in from folk to country, bluegrass and rock. $21.95 Australian music. At present, Gurrumul is touring his Four times Grammy latest collection of songs through the US and can count among his legion of fans Elton Country nominated sitarist and John, Sting and Quincy Jones. composer Anoushka The Gospel Album is a return to some of the roots that have made his sound unique Shankar continues her journey exploring and captivating. It features original and re-imagined gospel songs from the Christian THE TRACKLESS WOODS modern and fresh ways to reinterpret Mission song catalogue he grew up singing in his childhood and songs he was taught Iris DeMent and keep alive Indian musical tradition. by his relatives. Michael Hohnen, music producer and Skinnyfish co-owner, is once $26.95 Inspired by her classical training and again behind the boards. Opening track ‘Jesu’ is classic Gurrumul: soulful music with Considered one of teaching by her legendary father Ravi gently picked acoustic guitar, wordless intro, cello and acoustic bass and then multiple the great voices in Shankar, this album offers both meditative harmonies of his own over the gorgeous melody. This music radiates peace and calm, contemporary popular and virtuoso Indian classical raga for solo and Gurrumul’s native Yolngu language allows the full emotion to come through. music, Iris DeMent has sitar with ensemble. The album expands on the arrangement front with additional instruments and returned with an album unlike any other in adventurous musical settings. There’s a larger rhythm section here compared with the her illustrious career. Featuring original music REMEMBERING previous two albums. Track 6, ‘Baptism’, features incredibly spacious and atmospheric and melodies by Iris, The Trackless Woods sets MOUNTAINS: UNHEARD production with echoing strings and reverberating guitar, opening up a whole new 18 poems by acclaimed 20th century Russian SONGS BY KAREN direction for Gurrumul’s music. Later tracks feature more guitar (acoustic and poet Anna Akhmatova to life. electric) and violin fills. The Gospel Album offers greater variety of mood than either DALTON Various of Gurrumul’s previous albums hinted at. The beautiful version of ‘Amazing Grace’ WATKINS FAMILY HOUR features multiple overlaid harmonies with minimal instrumentation and the album $29.95 Watkins Family Hour is rounded out by ‘Riyala (there is a river)’ with lovely touches of folk violin. This is a Karen Dalton recorded $29.95 whole new take on gospel music. two studio albums during For singer–songwriter Paul Barr is from Readings Carlton her lifetime, neither of multi-instrumentalists which contain any songs she wrote. Her lost Sara and Sean Watkins, lyrics were found by legendary guitarist Peter the Watkins Family Hour is a laboratory Walker, who oversees Karen’s estate, and BORN IN THE ECHOES where they can try out new material or Pop & Rock are now given voice by other great women The Chemical cover beloved songs. Their monthly show of song, including Sharon Van Etten, Diana Brothers in LA is a convivial, communal event Cluck and Lucinda Williams. featuring an array of musical guests – CURRENTS Deluxe $24.95 this album beautifully captures the Tame Impala The undisputed freewheeling spirit of their shows. $21.95 masters of brain- Coming Soon On Tame Impala’s altering, transcendent hotly anticipated electronics return with a magnificent Soul & Funk STUFF LIKE THAT THERE collection of lean, propulsive machine third album Currents, Yo La Tengo driven music. Featuring a stellar cast of frontman Kevin Parker Available 28 August. collaborators including Q-Tip, St Vincent COMING HOME addresses a blindingly colourful panorama $24.95 of transition in the most audacious, and Beck, the album sees a reinvigorated Leon Bridges Fresh from celebrating adventurous fashion he’s yet captured on Chemical Brothers creating some of the $19.95 their 30th anniversary, record. Musically the most playful, bold most mind-expanding music of their Twenty-five-year-old Ira Kaplan, Georgia and varied Tame Impala record to date, career to date. Texan Leon Bridges Hubley and James McNew reunite with Currents sees Parker embracing change as beautifully mixes classic former member Dave Schramm on electric the only constant. SOMETHING MORE soul and R&B to create guitar as they revisit the original concept THAN FREE something completely fresh. Bridges, a trained of their beloved Fakebook album – a mix choreographer and dancer, is celebrated for TUNNEL AT THE END OF Jason Isbell of covers, reworked Yo La Tengo songs, his strong live presence, and his debut album THE LIGHT $21.95 and brand new originals – on its 25th and first full-length effort Coming Home Tex Perkins & The Jason Isbell’s most anniversary. Dark Horses sonically diverse album follows numerous sold-out shows. $19.95 to date, Something More DEPRESSION CHERRY Than Free features Languid, meditative, Beach House Southern-inspired vignettes of working- Jazz & Blues elemental, Tunnel at the Available 28 August. class men, women and traditions that End of the Light follows on from 2011’s Was $24.95 permeate these 11 new songs. The self-titled album and 2012’s critically TOKYO ADAGIO $19.95 (limited time only) honesty and authenticity of Isbell’s poetic lauded Everyone’s Alone. The dynamics Charlie Haden & lyrics and soulful vocals have connected Beach House’s fifth full- and contrasts are vast – gently bubbling Gonzalo Rubalcaba deeply with so many, and they shine as length record shows a return to simplicity, sonics gurgle underneath spacious $24.95 brightly as ever. with songs structured around a melody and rhythms, sweetly simple repetitive From the archived a few instruments, with live drums playing guitars, lush backing harmonies and SLOW GUM recordings of Charlie a far lesser role. After the success of albums brooding bass lines. Haden comes a delightful concert recorded Fraser A. Gorman Teen Dream and Bloom, Depression Cherry in 2005, in collaboration with Cuban sees the band evolve while returning to their $21.95 VENUS pianist and composer Gonzalo Rubalcaba. natural tendencies. After releasing a flurry Joy Williams Haden and Rubalcaba contrast lyrical of singles and an EP $19.95 sections and grand, sweeping arcs with NO NO NO since 2012, Fraser A. Formerly a member of rhythmically complex smaller motifs. Gorman’s collection Beirut the four-time Grammy A posthumous treasure for fans of the of funny, heartfelt and super-infectious Available 11 September. Award-winning duo The legendary bassist. tunes finally come to fruition on his $24.95 Civil Wars, Joy Williams’ solo album debut album. A 23-year-old serial Coming four years after The unabashedly recounts a more honest, BORN TO PLAY GUITAR collaborator obsessed with American Rip Tide, and recorded over human story of one woman’s journey out rock’n’roll, Gorman expresses himself Buddy Guy two weeks during one of the coldest New of darkness. More than a coming-of-age through wry poetry, bent tropicalia, $19.95 York winters – with blizzard after blizzard album, it shows how Williams has come country–soul and rock. Legendary award-winning raging outside – Beirut’s fourth studio album to live her truth – the good, the bad, the blues icon Buddy Guy is songwriter and frontman Zach Condon’s petulant and honourable. releases his brand-new most vibrant and spirited record to date. READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2015 23

New Classical Music Can you keep a secret? Classical Album of the Month

JAMES HORNER: PAS DE DEUX Mari and Hakon Samuelsen Mercury. 4811487. $21.95 Betrayal The first time I listened to the premiere recording of James Horner’s Pas de Deux, a double concerto for by Harold Pinter violin and cello, I was unaware of his recent and tragic death. I immediately enjoyed the music for its rich orchestral texture and cinematic atmosphere. I thought it beautiful. When my colleague told me Horner had died only days beforehand, the music took on new meaning. To my ears, the opening notes from the cello transformed from romantic to elegiac, and the soaring violin from pastoral to plaint. In life Horner was best known as a film composer, writing scores for Titanic and Avatar among many others, but perhaps in death he will be remembered simply as a composer whose music bridged the gap between commercial and classical. I certainly hope so. This disc features Norwegian sister and brother duo Mari Samuelsen (violin) and Hakon Samuelsen (cello), and, accordingly, the two share a sympathetic musical rapport, particularly evident in Paul Bateman’s arrangement of Ludovico Einaudi’s Divenire. ««««« Mari describes the piece as keeping a ‘unity of sound’, and while both are individually ‘The greatest, talented, the duo certainly plays as a team rather than as competing soloists. and most moving, In choosing repertoire for the album, the siblings wanted a selection of contemporary of all Pinter’s plays.’ pieces with ‘a melody, or a beautiful piece of harmony’, and to ‘give audiences something The Telegraph (UK) to remember’. Among the selection, Pärt’s Fratres (by no coincidence meaning ‘brothers’ in Latin) will be most recognisable to listeners, in this version scored for solo violin, strings and percussion. Here, Mari’s playing is unmistakably soloistic. She is an assertive Alison Bell stars in a violinist with a pure tone and impeccable intonation. Hakon similarly shines in Giovanni theatrical masterpiece Sollima’s Violincelles, Vibrez!, performed with Alisa Weilerstein. This CD is a fitting of love and deception. tribute to Horner and a wonderful celebration of contemporary music. Alexandra Mathew is from Readings Carlton

ISLAND SONGS ADOLPHE ADAM: GISELLE From 26 August Amy Dickson & Sydney Symphony Nicolette Fraillon & Tasmanian Southbank Theatre Orchestra Symphony Orchestra Book Now ABC Classics. 4811703. $21.95 ABC Classics. 4811710. $21.95 mtc.com.au/betrayal A State Theatre Company of South Australia production I’ve noticed over The ballet Giselle the years that was written over 170 saxophonist Amy years ago but is still one of Dickson has become a the most popular ballets to true champion of be performed around the contemporary classical world. Often seen here in music. Often presenting modern music in Australia, the magic of a prince in disguise, a way that is accessible to everyone, she broken hearts and the Wilis (vengeful Who’s your also excels at the technical and musical spirits) always ensure a sell-out season. I challenges this music presents. Island grew up listening to this music and ? Songs is her latest album and is an remember being taken as a child to see a understated celebration of contemporary production of this glorious ballet. I was GRETA BRADMAN Australian music with works by the late spellbound watching the Wilis float out on MY HERO lamented Peter Sculthorpe, the always stage, finding out years later that this was Australian soprano Greta Bradman’s interesting Brett Dean and the ever one of the first ballets to utilise pointe international operatic debut on Decca brilliant Ross Edwards. shoes and mist to create the effect of recorded with Richard Bonynge and The works here are oddly both floating spectrals. the English Chamber Orchestra brings accessible and challenging to listen In this new recording, the Tasmanian favourites from the world of opera and operetta as well as songs like Edelweiss to. With all the hallmarks of modern Symphony Orchestra is guided by and When You Wish Upon A Star. repertoire, the outrageous rhythms, Nicolette Fraillon, music director at Many of these she fi rst encountered sudden dynamic contrasts and complex the Australian Ballet. I don’t know how when growing up and listening to melodic ideas Dickson manages to tie many seasons she must have conducted recordings with her grandfather, all this music together with her sinuous of this ballet but I can imagine it’s quite Sir Donald Bradman. sound and mastery of her instrument. a few. She guides them through a solid There are moments that seem to be pulled and exacting performance which, as the from the very depths of the orchestra and extra tracks suggest, is perfect for use by saxophone to create anarchy that dissolves ballet schools around Australia in their ANOUSHKA SHANKAR into brilliant sunshine. This recording own performances of the ballet, whole HOME is yet another feather in the hat of this or in part. This probably won’t win any Inspired by her classical upbringing brilliant musician and her colleagues at music awards but it is a very satisfying and teaching by her legendary father, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. and enjoyable recording of one of the most Ravi Shankar, this album offers both meditative popular ballets ever written. KR and virtuoso Indian classical raga for solo sitar Kate Rockstrom is a friend of Readings with ensemble.

HERMANN, GERSHWIN, MENDELSSOHN, GRIEG WAXMAN & COPLAND: & HOUGH: CELLO GENEVIEVE LACEY AMERICAN CHAMBER SONATAS MUSIC JAMES CRABB Steven Isserlis & HEARD THIS The Nash Ensemble Stephen Hough Hyperion. CDA68094. $29.95 Hyperion. CDA68079. $29.95 AND THOUGHT OF YOU Music crossing half a millennium and two ‘A fascinating and enjoyable ‘The performance couldn’t hemispheres, performed by James Crabb selection, played with be more persuasive and (classical accordion) and Genevieve Lacey panache and style by top the two players are beautifully recorded.’ (recorders). Features refl ections on the music musicians.’ – ABC Classic FM – Gramophone by notable Australian writers. 08—25 october 2015

Melbourne Festival in association with Philip and Caroline Cornish presents + direct from the West end

A“ chilling, ingenious 101 minutes. ★★★★★ 1984 Independent (UK) ” A“ work of extraordinary by GeorGe orwell quality and intensity. A new AdAPtAtion CreAted by robert iCke And dunCAn MACMillAn ★★★★★ headlong (UK) the tImes (UK) ”

Fri 16 —Sun 25 october Arts Centre Melbourne, PlAyhouse book now www.festival.melbourne #melbfest