Free september 2012 Readings Monthly

Deborah Robertson on Amy Espeseth • Father’s Day Gift Ideas P11) (s EE r EVIEW GAYSIA from Benjamin L aw’s Cover image: detail

Benjamin Law’s new book Gaysia

September book, CD & DVD new releases. More inside.

aus fiction fiction Fiction Memoir kids DVD POp CD CLASSICAL $29.95 e$17.99 $29.99 $24.95 $32.95 $24.95 $34.95 $24.99 $59.95 $19.95 Box Set Sale >> p4 >> p7 >> p7 >> p11 >> p15 >> p17 >> p18 >> p19

September event highlights : David Marr on Tony Abbott, Chloe Hooper with Jeff Sparrow, Andrew Croome with Tony Birch. More inside.

All Readings shops are open 7 days, except our Brain Centre (Parkville) shop, which is open Monday – Friday. See opening hours at readings.com.au. Carlton 309 Lygon St 9347 6633 Hawthorn 701 Glenferrie Rd 9819 1917 Malvern 185 Glenferrie Rd 9509 1952 St Kilda 112 Acland St 9525 3852 Readings at the State Library of Victoria 328 Swanston St 8664 7540 Readings at the Brain Centre, Parkville 30 Royal Parade 9347 1749 See more new books, music and film, read news and reviews, check event details, and browse and buy online at www.readings.com.au 2 Readings Monthly September 2012

From the Books Desk Mark’s Say

This is the sort of month where you could News and views from Readings’ read every day and still have a raft of books This Month’s News Indigenous Literacy Day Readings Tour of managing director Mark Rubbo left over that you’d be desperate to get to. I Wednesday 5 September marks Indigenous the Jaipur Literature often think of my job as working in a lolly Literacy Day (ILD) for 2012, an annual Festival 2013 Peter Temple’s novel store, and this September is indeed a veritable celebration that aims to raise awareness and Bad Debts was first Fifty Shades of Lindt. Together with Peregrine, help improve the lives and opportunities we’re delighted to be offering published in 1996. In So bear with my sugar high (and pardon the of Indigenous communities around a small group of engaged it he introduced Jack pun) but as with any new Ian McEwan, Sweet Australia. Each year, the Indigenous Literary booklovers the chance to take Irish, a former criminal Tooth is naturally a big publishing event. This Foundation (ILF) raises crucial funds to buy a 10-day tour of the Jaipur lawyer. Jack’s wife had been time he locates his story in the world of books and resources, and Readings is proud Literature Festival (24-28 brutally killed by a deranged client who espionage in the early 1970s. At the same time to support this initiative once again by January 2013), the largest then killed himself, and in the months he has some fun with his own coming-of-age donating 10% of all sales for the day to the and most vibrant literary after her death, Jack drifted, more often as a writer, with a distinct nod to the literary ILF. Show your support in store or at celebration in the Asia-Pacific. Held at the than not drinking himself into a stupor world of the period. It’s a big call, but our www.indigenousliteracyfoundation.org.au. beautiful heritage property of the Diggi Palace until he was rescued by a partner in his reviewer reckons McEwan is at his finest here, in the Rajasthani capital, Jaipur, the festival will former law firm. After that he dropped and that’s obviously saying something. Readings Foundation host a range of readings, debates and criminal law – doing a few jobs collecting Grant Applications performances with a stellar international unpaid debts, tracing people and hanging One of the highlights of my recent trip to Established in 2009 by Readings’ managing lineup. Travelling with Readings’ managing out with race fixer Harry Strang. Bookexpo in NYC was getting to hear Zadie director Mark Rubbo, The Readings Foun- director, Mark Rubbo, and events coordinator, Smith talk about her new, much-anticipated When Danny McKillop, a former client, dation aims to support a range of creative Christine Gordon, as well as a local novel, NW. She spoke of an episode in her tries to contact him asking for help, Jack projects by individuals and organisations that Peregrine guide, you’ll have the chance to own life that had provided an early spark for doesn’t get the message until it’s too late, wish to further their development in literacy, savour the sounds and sights of this the novel – a stranger knocking on her door and Danny is found shot dead in a hotel community or the arts. Applications for the breathtaking country. asking for help. This got her thinking about car park by the police. In attempting to coming year are open to those with Deductible all of those people whom life fails in one way make amends, Jack uncovers a web of Gift Recipient (DGR) status on 1 September Cost of the tour will be up to $3000 per or other, which in turn got her thinking about corruption and scandal reaching down 2012 and will close at 5pm on 31 October person (depending on final tour numbers), Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, nowadays from the highest levels of politics. 2012. The recipients will be announced on excluding flights. Airfares can be arranged at considered a ‘problem play’ in the way it sits Friday 30 November. For more information an additional cost with Peregrine. The tour Temple’s Jack Irish is the quintessential between comedy and tragedy. Might NW, the or to download an application form, please will depart from Melbourne on Sunday 20 outsider; his world is that of inner-city tragi-comedy Smith has wrought from this visit www.readings.com.au. January 2013 and return on Wednesday Melbourne, and the odd country race initial inspiration, be indeed her best novel yet? 30 January 2013. track. With extra funding for drama, On the local front, a sign of the calibre of Readings Ebook Sale To express your interest, please contact Chris- the ABC has started to bring some debut novelist Amy Espeseth is that she’s We’re holding a fantastic sale of ebooks by tine Gordon at [email protected] Australian stories to the screen, starting already delivered two novels to her local authors for just $9.99 each – or less. by Friday 28 September. Hurry as places last year with Christos Tsiolkas’s The Slap publisher – it was simply a matter of deciding Titles include Benjamin Law’s Gaysia, Helen are extremely limited! For more informa- and Kerry Greenwood’s Phryne Fisher which one to publish first! On the strength Garner’s The Spare Room, this year’s Vogel- tion about the festival, please visit series. In 2012, they’ve turned to Bad of Sufficient Grace, we can welcome a writer of winner Eleven Seasons, Tony Birch’s Blood and www.jaipurliteraturefestival.org. Debts. An advance screening at this year’s tremendous talent, who delivers a close-to-the- many more. Sale takes place September 3-16. Melbourne International Film Festival bone and altogether riveting coming-of-age tale See www.ebooks.readings.com.au. Entries Open for ABR’s played to a packed house and the response set in god-fearing rural Wisconsin. Peter Porter Poetry was rapturous. And rightly so: it was one Readings Academic of the most enjoyable two hours I’ve spent New novels from Chloe Hooper, Toni Jordan, Prize 2012 in a long time. Patrick Holland, Andrew Croome and – also Book Sale Entries to the ninth annual Peter Porter Poetry on debut – Edwina Preston round out a huge We’re holding our first academic book sale Prize – named in memory of the late, great Temple doesn’t give any description of month for local fiction, and of course I must for the month of September at Readings Australian writer – are now open. The prize is Irish in his book, so if you’ve read Bad mention Sebastian Faulks, Junot Díaz and at the Brain Centre, where there will be a one of the most lucrative and respected awards Debts then you’ve probably created your Howard Jacobsen among the internationals. huge range of psychology and psychotherapy for poetry in Australia, with $4000 going to own image in your mind’s eye. Initially See what I mean!? books from $12 each. Hurry – only while the winning entry and the final shortlist of you may not have picked Guy Pearce, but stocks last! The Brain Centre shop is open six published in the Australian Book Review. he is such a fine actor that he fits very Turning to non-fiction, this time of the year is 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday, and is Competition closes 30 November 2012. For snuggly into my image of Jack. Pearce one in which traditionally men at least receive located at 30 Royal Parade, Parkville. Visit guidelines and entry forms, please visit is supported by a great cast that includes a book, if not read it – Father’s Day! Great www.readings.com.au for details. www.australianbookreview.com.au. Aaron Pedersen, Colin Friels, Shane presents abound, from Benjamin Law’s Gaysia: Jacobson, Marta Dusseldorp, Steve Bisley, Adventures in the Queer East to the long- Roy Billing and many others who help awaited second volume of Jenny Hocking’s shape the many pieces of this intricate Gough Whitlam biography and the final work underworld puzzle. Written by Andrew of the great Christopher Hitchens, Mortality, Knight and directed by Jeffrey Walker, it not to mention The Midnight Promise, a fab brilliantly establishes Australian noir as a new Melbourne crime fiction from Zane genre in its own right. It’s gritty and vio- Lovitt, which pretty much sums up what a lent but full of themes and vignettes that stellar month this is. give it that dry and typically self-deprecat- —Martin Shaw, ing Australian sense of humour. None of Readings Books Division Manager it feels forced or unnatural. It’s a visually striking production as well, and the thrill of seeing Melbourne pre- Readings Monthly sented so honestly and with such rough beauty adds immensely to the experience. Readings Monthly is a free independent Much of it was filmed around Fitzroy monthly newspaper published by Readings and Brunswick and these places look Books, Music & Film. menacing, familiar, grungy and comforting Editorial enquiries: Jessica Au at all at the same time. Having watched the [email protected] adaptation I had to go and reread Bad Advertising enquiries: Ingrid Josephine at Debts – it’s as fresh and exciting as the [email protected] or adaptation. I urge you to do the same – call 03 9341 7739. read Bad Debts (Text, PB, $22.95) and see the adaptation when it screens soon. Thank you to Readings staff members and contributors for your reviews. Oslo Davis www.oslodavis.com Readings Monthly September 2012 3 Danielle Tyson 25 Sex, Culpability and the Defence of Chocolate & Wine Provocation (Taylor & Francis, PB, $51) Masterclass directly addresses the debates about reform Together with Brown Brothers we are excited of the provocation defence across different SeptemberFor more information and updates, please Events to be offering an opportunity for you to jurisdictions. Join us in launching this visit the events page at readings.com.au. 15 sample wines with a range of chocolate important book, and for a discussion consid- Please note that bookings do not Creative Workshop treats. The class will be conducted by Brown ering the representation of sexual difference necessarily guarantee a seat, and that with Anna Walker Brothers wine educator, Andrew Harris. and legal narratives in intimate partner some events may be standing room only. homicide. Monday 17 September, 6pm, Join local artist Anna Walker as she reads Tuesday 25 September, 6.30-7.30pm, Readings Hawthorn (upstairs). $10 per per- Readings Carlton. Free, no need to book. gold coin donations from her new book, Peggy (Scholastic, HB, $24.99), about a chook named Peggy and son, includes wine and tastes. Please book on Benjamin Law We’re now asking for people who attend her adventures in the big city. Includes a 9819 1917 or at [email protected]. our events to please make a small donation, craft session for kids to make their very own Benjamin Law considers when possible, to The Readings Foundation. feathery friend! Saturday 15 September, 10.30- himself pretty lucky to live in The Readings Foundation was established by 11.30am, upstairs at Readings Hawthorn. $25 26 Australia, but as the child of Readings’ managing director Mark Rubbo per child, includes workshop and a signed migrants, he’s also curious Jeff Sparrow about how different life in 2008 in order to develop community, copy of Peggy. Suitable for ages 4 to 8. Places in conversation literacy and the arts, and is funded through are limited so please book on 9819 1917 or might have been had he a percentage of our profits, as well as via the at [email protected]. with Justin Clemens grown up in Asia. So he set support of Readings customers. There will In the spirited tradition of off on a whirlwind trip and be a tin for gold coin donations at each Louis Theroux, Jeff Sparrow result is Gaysia (Black Inc., PB, $29.99), a event. All contributions over $2 are tax 18 sets out to explore the fascinating quest told in Law’s trademark deductible and can be made at any Readings Joe Camilleri relationship between porn entertaining, witty and always moving style. shop. Thank you for your support. and censorship, and what it Wednesday 19 September, 6.30pm, Joe Camilleri (of Jo Jo Zep and The Falcons reveals about ourselves, in Readings Carlton. Free, but please book on and The Black Sorrows) talking tunes and his new book Money Shot 9347 6633 or at [email protected]. 6 signing copies of the DVD Australia’s Maltese (Scribe, PB, $29.95). Jeff Rita Erlich Falcon ($24.95), a documentary about will be in conversation with the University A.S. Patric his life in the music business. Tuesday 18 of Melbourne’s Justin Clemens. Wednesday A.S. Patrić’s latest collection, Melbourne by Menu (Slattery September, 6pm, Readings Carlton. Free, no 26 September, 6.30pm, Readings Carlton. Las Vegas for Vegans (Transit Media Group, PB, $34.95) is need to book. Free, but please book on 9347 6633 or at Lounge, PB, $29.95), takes us a fascinating history of the [email protected]. everywhere, from a hotel in city’s restaurant scene. Rita Rome to the shores of the Erlich has been a food writer 20 Danube, all the while for over 30 years and this Chloe Hooper brimming with humour and evening is a must for anyone 27 compassion. Thursday 27 interested in our culinary in conversation Brown Brother Pages September, 6pm, Readings St Kilda. Free, no history. Brown Brothers will be serving wine. with Jeff Sparrow to Poetry Festival need to book. Thursday 6 September, 6.30pm, Readings Chloe Hooper’s latest novel, Jennifer Harrison, who has just received the Hawthorn. Free, but please book on 9819 The Engagement(Hamish Christopher Brennan Award for lifetime 1917 or at [email protected]. Hamilton, PB, $29.99), is a achievement in poetry, will be reading from haunting psychological thriller her collection Colombine: New & Selected for the modern age. Join us as Coming in October 10 Poems (Black Pepper, PB, $28.95). She’ll be Jeff and Chloe talk writing, the joined by Brendan Ryan, whose latest book 2 Rachel Sommerville transition from non-fiction to is Travelling Through the Family(Hunter, PB, Alan Gould in conversation novelling and all the falls $19.95), and emerging poet and critic Tim and Finlay Lloyd between. Thursday 20 September, 6.30pm, with Robin Bowles Wright. Thursday 27 September, 6.30pm, Join us in celebrating the launch of two True crime writer Robin Bowles will chat Readings Carlton. Free, but please book on Readings Carlton. Free, no need to book. 9347 6633 or at [email protected]. fabulous books on the one evening: with Rachel Sommerville about her new Finlay Lloyd’s Lost Art and Alan Gould’s The book California P.I. (New South, PB, $29.99) Seaglass Spiral. Tuesday 2 October, 6.30pm, – a passionate account of one woman’s Readings Carlton. Free, no need to book. journey from genteel, middle-class Adelaide 24 to the ghettos and prisons of America. Andrew Croome DLaunchesean Mason Monday 10 September, 6.30pm, Readings in conversation Terry Melvin, key founder and manager of 3 Hawthorn. Free, but please book on 9819 with Tony Birch MensLine, will launch Daddy’s OK (New 1917 or at [email protected]. Matthew Evans Andrew Croome, winner of Holland, PB, $29.95) – a collection of stories All the way from Southern the 2008 Australian/Vogel that looks at the true experiences of 14 men Tasmania, Matthew Evans Literary Award, is back with going through separation or divorce by Dean 11 (of Gourmet Farmer fame) his latest novel Midnight Mason. Sunday 2 September, 4pm, Readings will talk through his latest Jenny Hocking Empire (A&U, PB, $27.99) Hawthorn. Free, no need to book. book and harvesting in conversation – set in the heady world of adventures. Wednesday 3 with Barrie Cassidy Las Vegas where all that Edwina Preston October, 6.30pm, Readings Gough Whitlam: His Time glitters is not gold. Andrew Edwina Preston’s fantastical Hawthorn. $20 per person, (MUP, HB, Normally will be in conversation with Melbourne’s and Dickensian debut novel, includes tastings and wine by Brown $49.99, Our special price very own Miles Franklin-shortlisted Tony The Inheritance of Ivorie Brothers. Please book on 9819 1917 $39.95) is the second volume Birch. Monday 24 September, 6.30pm, Hammer (UQP, PB, $29.95), or at [email protected]. in Jenny Hocking’s biography Readings Carlton. Free, but please book on announces the arrival of a of the former Labor prime 9347 6633 or at [email protected]. wonderful new talent. It will minister. She’ll be in conver- be launched by publisher 4 sation with Insiders’ Barrie John Hunter. Thursday 6 Kass Hall Cassidy on Whitlam as he was, from his 24 September, 6-7.30pm, The Wesley Anne, Steve Lillebuen We will launch Melbourne artist Kass Hall’s historic 1972 win to the political tragedy that 250 High Street, Northcote. Free, no need first book, Zentangle Untangled (North Light, followed. Tuesday 11 September, 6.30pm, In The Devil’s Cinema (Penguin, PB, $29.99), to book. PB, $29.99). Thursday 4 October, 6.30pm, Readings Carlton. Free, but please book on Melbourne-based journalist Steve Lillebuen Readings Carlton. Free, no need to book. 9347 6633 or at [email protected]. provides a gripping investigative account of Hap Hayward the notorious ‘Dexter Killer’ – the infamous Join us for the launch of local writer Hap case of a young horror filmmaker and the killer Hayward’s new book Songs About You 10 13 who lured his victims into his suburban house (PB, $21.95). Wednesday 12 September, David Marr by impersonating women online. Monday Tessa Kiros 6.30pm, Readings Carlton. Free, no need Much-loved author Tessa Quarterly Essay 47 24 September, 6.30pm, Readings Hawthorn. In (Black to book. Kiros is coming to Australia Inc., PB, $19.95) David Free, but please book on 9819 1917 at [email protected]. for her first national tour. Marr turns his investigative Alice Melike Ülgezer Her books are a celebration eye to prime minister-in- Join us for the launch of The of the heritage of Italy as well waiting Tony Abbott. Join us Memory of Salt (Giramondo, as a tribute to the women in for an in-depth discussion 25 PB, $27.95), a story set our lives – mothers, mothers- that goes beyond the clichés Peter Craven across the world but with its in-law and grandmothers. to discover a deeply religious To celebrate the re-release of Patrick White’s heart in Melbourne. Thurs- Don’t miss out. Wednesday 10 October, and deeply determined politician and his Happy Valley (Text, HB, $29.99), join critic day 13 September, 6.30pm, 6.30pm, Readings Hawthorn. $20 per hand in our nation’s future. Thursday 13 Peter Craven as he discusses White’s legacy, Readings Carlton. Free, no person, includes tastings and wine from September, 6.30pm, Readings Hawthorn. then and now. Tuesday 25 September, 6.30pm, need to book. Brown Brothers. Please book on 9819 1917 Free, but please book on 9819 1917 or at Readings Carlton. Free, but please book on or at [email protected]. [email protected]. 9347 6633 or at [email protected]. 4 Readings Monthly September 2012 New Australian Writing Feature

TheDeborah Robertson interviewsthings Amy Espeseth aboutthey her debut novel, Sufficientcarried Grace.

of nature is not a romantic one. Espeseth doesn’t write the natural world as a lyrical backdrop to human life: her two worlds are interdependent, not only in material ways – the seasons determining the movements of her characters, the satisfaction of needs – but in matters of the spirit too. ‘People on the land live close to the beginnings and ending of life,’ Ruth tell us. ‘Death ain’t a scary thing that creeps in now and again in the night, slipping away with a surprised somebody and leaving shocked folks behind in the light of morning. We are people that raise, hunt and butcher; meat don’t come wrapped up nice. Well, it does, but you got to peel off the feathers or fur and fat to get down to the bone. Meat is wrapped just like my soul: sometimes there’s got to be a bit of blood shed before you get down to it.’ Along with her clear-eyed rendering of the natural world, one of Espeseth’s distinctive talents as a writer is the musical quality of her prose, its rhythms sometimes driving and insistent, sometimes incantatory, often song-like. I ask her whether she thought Image Credit: Philip Castle her religious upbringing had influenced her prose style. Born in rural Wisconsin, ‘For as much as I notice the small little ‘There’s a rhythm in me,’ she replies, ‘and Amy Espeseth came to details of the world,’ says Espeseth, ‘I tend I think that old scriptures, whether they Melbourne in the 1990s. to be pretty blind and ignorant about the ‘[O]ne of Espeseth’s be Judeo-Christian or other traditions, are Her first novel, Sufficient details in my writing, and I would never based on this same rhythm that we find (Scribe, PB, Grace have thought that I was writing about my distinctive talents as comforting – whether it’s the rocking within $29.95), is a haunting tale childhood until it was pointed out to me our mother’s womb or the heartbeat or the of faith and violence in a that Ruth is very similar in nature and sound of the trees maybe. I think these closed-off, deeply religious a writer is the musical background and appearance and a lot of are innate, natural rhythms. So my child- world. Here, she talks to other things to me, so probably it was the hood immersion into these old hymns and Deborah Robertson. quality of her prose, closest I could get to writing in my own songs, as well as memorisation of tons of voice without writing a memoir.’ its rhythms some- scripture, alters the way you speak, just as Ruth’s voice – a seductive mix of the folksy our accents are altered by how the people and poetic, scriptural and earthy – is one of times driving and around us speak. Growing up in a tradition rom the moment the terrorist the many pleasures of the novel: ‘Ruth talks where people spoke oftentimes in an old- attacks on New York’s World Trade the way that folks in Wisconsin talked in the insistent, sometimes fashioned way, in prayer or in prophecy, it Center set the climate for the 70s and 80s, earlier than that,’ says Espeseth. affects the way that you speak, it leaves its new century, the West has been ‘She has a very raw, [slightly] uneducated little fingerprints everywhere.’ analysing Islamic fundamentalism. incantatory, often voice … she hasn’t read much outside of There’s always something special about a But what do we really know of fundamentalist scripture and there are certainly people within Christian faiths? How well do we understand song-like.’ first novel. No matter its subject or style, it’s fundamentalist religious families where that always a time when a writer draws together Ftheir moral orders, and their dictates on the would be their experience [for] their whole hearts and minds of followers? the threads of the life they’ve lived, and speaks lives – they’re scholars, in a way, of scripture coping mechanisms reflects the worry that a back to the powerful homogenising forces in In her entrancing debut novel, Sufficient and hymn, but have little contact with the lot of fundamentalist children grow up with. society that would have us all look and think Grace, winner of the 2009 Victorian Premier’s outside world as far as literature and music When you’re constantly dividing what is and feel alike. And a first novel such as this Literary Award for an unpublished manuscript, go. I think Ruth talks the way that I imagine right and true, and what is of the world, or one, which generously opens a hidden world, Amy Espeseth takes us into a community of I would have spoken if my mother and her of Satan, oftentimes you get confused about a way of life, to our scrutiny, is a fascinating Pentecostal fundamentalists and tells a mighty mother and her mother before her hadn’t what is acceptable and what isn’t, and Ruth’s contribution to our understanding of the tale of sin and retribution, intimately been elementary school teachers.’ way of slipping into the world of animals is many different ways in which people strive examining the lives of people whose religion Ruth’s life is one of marked dualities. Her definitely a pagan idea. Obviously it’s a to make meaning of their time on earth. is a warm yet claustrophobic embrace. world is divided into light and dark, good coping strategy for the pressure she’s under and what she endures, but she would be ‘I hope that I’ve convinced you by the end,’ Set in rural Failing, Wisconsin, the novel is and evil, order and chaos, sin and absolution; says Espeseth. ‘Because empathy to me is the it is this great tension between absolutes always interrogating her heart to see that narrated by thirteen-year-old Ruth: ‘Daddy what she does is truly right.’ project of writers. If I can convince you by says you can tell a lot about a man’s heart that both powers the drama of the novel and the end of the book that a horrific decision from the way he kills a deer. First off, a body offers readers a visceral experience of felt life Within her small extended family, Ruth is is the correct one, I feel as if I’ve completed don’t shoot if he ain’t willing to take it all within such a faith. ‘I put my heart inside also anguished by a frightening secret. This my task.’ the way. A guy takes a bad shot and wounds the animals,’ Ruth tells us, ‘and even inside may go against her faith, ‘but now and then something good, he best get himself ready the ground. When the world presses too a body needs to keep its own secret space, The winner of this year’s CAL/Scribe for some long trails tracking.’ hard, I don’t press back; I fly apart. By the maybe running down the middle of the soul Fiction Prize, Amy Espeseth’s second novel, Holy Spirit, I move beneath their outsides like a candlewick’. While Ruth’s knowledge Trouble Telling the Weather, is scheduled for Sufficient Grace is not a novel built from re- and push within them … My people don’t grows in darkness, threatening to break her publication next year. This is a first novel to search or flights of fancy, but one that is deeply know about my travelling, my minutes and world apart, she has the natural world to celebrate; a gifted new writer is among us. embedded in its author’s own experience. Of hours inside the dirt and clouds. It is my escape to – a strength that also runs through Norwegian descent, Amy Espeseth was born sign and wonder alone. Even Grandma and her soul – and one that provides the novel Deborah Robertson’s first book,Proudflesh, into a fundamentalist Pentecostal family in Mom and Naomi don’t know. If they knew, with its slow-pulsing beauty. won the Steele Rudd Award, and her first Barron, Wisconsin, in 1974. She has lived in it may not be called holy.’ novel, Careless, won the Colin Roderick Australia for the past 16 years, but given her Sufficient Grace is a story of snow and ice, Award and the Nita B. Kibble Award. Her novel’s keen sense of authenticity and rooted- I ask Espeseth if she felt that Ruth’s religion coyote and deer, the peeling black and latest novel is Sweet Old World (Vintage, PB, ness, it was inevitable when we met that I ask subjected her to psychic pressures: ‘Some- white bark of birch trees, the bleeding Normally $32.95, Our special price $27.95). her about autobiographical influences. times Ruth’s hesitation about any of her sap that feeds the tiny ant. Ruth’s view Readings Monthly September 2012 5

Meet the bookseller Book of the Month with … Best Books for Father’s Day Leaving the Angela Crocombe, Readings St Kilda Our top picks for dads of all sorts for Father’s Day on Sunday 2 September. Atocha Station Ben Lerner Antarctica Granta. PB. Normally $27.99 David Day My Journey Our special price $23.95 Vintage. HB. Normally $44.95 Jim Stynes Ben Lerner, a talented Our special price $34.95 Penguin. HB. Normally $39.95 American poet, has now For nearly two centuries, Our special price $34.95 written a novel about the race to claim exclusive When the president of the poetry, but don’t let that possession of Antarctica Melbourne Football Club, put you off. While has gripped the imagination Jim Stynes, was diagnosed Lerner’s poetry is often of the world. Drawing with cancer and given nine difficult, in a clever, upon writings from months to live in 2009, he Why do you work in books? self-defeating sort of way, numerous archives, David gave his all to trying to his novel, concerned similarly with the I have been obsessed with books and Day spins a fascinating beat the disease. My failure of language, is a delight to read. the knowledge contained within them narrative of personal triumph and Journey is an extraordinary since I was a small child. Happiness to commercial gain in this epic history. insight into the life and fight of a father, Adam Gordon is a young and neurotic me is a room full of interesting books. husband and mentor, as well as the story American poet on a scholarship in Mortality of one of our great sporting icons. Madrid, where he is supposed to be What’s the best book you’ve read lately Christopher Hitchens writing a ‘long, research driven poem and why? A&U. HB. $26.99. Ebook $11.99 The Marmalade Files exploring … the literary legacy of the Spanish Civil War’. Leaving the I was unexpectedly moved by John Mortality is an unsparingly Steve Lewis & Chris Uhlmann Atocha Station is, at least nominally, an Green’s novel The Fault in Our Stars, honest account of HarperCollins. PB. Normally $29.99 account of this ‘project’ and a sort of about two teenagers who fall in love Christopher Hitchens’ Our special price $24.95 ironic indictment of the bureaucratic despite their cancer prognosis. I rarely fight with cancer, which he When seasoned news- texts artists are obliged to produce cry but this book had me sobbing on continued to document for hound Harry Dunkley is as justification for all that govern- the couch by the end. Vanity Fair until his death slipped a compromising in 2011, and a moving photograph one frosty ment funding. ‘The first stage of my project,’ Adam writes in the opening What have you noticed people buying lately? meditation on the nature Canberra dawn, he knows he’s on to something big. sentence, ‘involved waking up weekday All That I Am by Anna Funder is racing of suffering and life itself. An imaginative romp mornings in a barely furnished attic out the door after its well-deserved through the dark underbelly apartment ... then putting on the rusty awards. I thought it was brilliant. Sweet Tooth Ian McEwan of politics by two veteran Canberra insiders. stovetop espresso machine and rolling a spliff while I waited for the coffee.’ What’s the strangest experience you’ve had Jonathan Cape. PB. Normally $32.95 in a bookshop? Our special price $24.95 The Second World War One of Adam’s many problems is that In 1972, Serena Frome has Antony Beevor he knows almost nothing about the There is a local man who walks into the a brief affair with an older Orion. HB. Normally $49.99 Spanish Civil War or its legacy. Nor bookshop every day around 3pm and man during her final year Our special price $39.95 does he have much interest in learning goes to a certain spot. He stands there at Cambridge and finds Writing with clarity and about it. He is deeply apolitical, for about 30 seconds and then walks herself being groomed for compassion, Antony unconvinced of his own talent and, out again. It took me a while to figure the intelligence services, Beevor assembles a indeed, of art’s ability to elicit any real out that he must have some sort of throwing her into close gripping narrative of effect other than perhaps its own failure obsessive-compulsive disorder and that contact with the promising World War II that extends to affect anything at all. When he sees this is part of his daily routine. Now I young writer Tom Haley. A brilliant new from the North Atlantic to a man crying before a painting in a can’t help wondering how he manages novel from the masterful Ian McEwan. the South Pacific, all the gallery, Adam cannot bring himself to Christmas Day, the only day of the year while never failing to lose believe that this person might in fact we are closed. Zoo Time sight of ordinary soldiers and civilians. be having a ‘profound experience of Howard Jacobson art’. Chances are, he thinks, this man What’s your favourite book of all time Bloomsbury. PB. Normally $29.99 QF32 is a performance artist, feigning real and why? Ebook $22.99 Richard de Crespigny emotion, reflecting back to us our own Different books are needed for different Our special price $24.95 Pan Mac. PB. $34.99. Ebook $19.99 mediated, longed for, but inaccessible times. When I was obsessed with the Struggling with universal A riveting blow-by-blow relationship with authenticity. For meaning of life in my early twenties, despair, author Guy account of the near-disaster Adam – prone to panic attacks, addicted Jean-Paul Sartre’s Nausea, Albert Ca- Ableman is horrifed to that was Qantas flight to tranquilisers and self-conscious in a mus’ The Myth of Sisyphus and Milan learn his wife is writing a QF32, which threatened remarkably astute way – fraudulence Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of novel herself. He decides to become one of the is the point where we begin, and from Being had a profound effect on me. to seduce his mother-in- worst air crashes in where we spiral out in ever widening law, reasoning this history, as told by the circles of unreality. Later, I delighted in the strange worlds experience will allow for captain himself. The fifth stage of Adam’s project begins created by Haruki Murakami, particu- one more great book. with the 2004 Madrid train bombings. larly in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. James Halliday: Thrust into the public protests that Discovering Australian expatriate writers The Midnight Promise Australian Wine ensue, hung-over and self-consciously out Kate Jennings, Shirley Hazzard and Zane Lovitt of place, Adam retreats to his apartment Madeleine St John was a revelation. Companion 2013 Text. PB. $29.99. Ebook $19.47 where he refreshes The New York Times Right now, the most treasured book James Halliday At the centre of each of homepage, watches the death toll rise in my collection is Carl Jung’s The Red Hardie Grant. PB. Normally $36.95 these ten intriguing stories and reads about the helicopters he can Book, a beautiful object that documents Our special price $32.95 is private investigator John hear circling above him. Even in the a remarkably fertile and transformative Respected critic and Dorn and the crimes and face of tragedy, Adam remains largely period in his life, illustrated with extraor- vigneron James Halliday criminals that are forever incapable of experiencing something like dinary paintings from his lucid dreams. shares his best picks and taunting him from the tips for the year ahead. a ‘real experience’ whatever that is. And city’s cold underworld. A ‘whatever that is’, is precisely the issue Name a book that has changed the way With detailed tasting notes brilliant new collection of that Leaving the Atocha Station drama- you think – in ways small or large. and vintage specific mystery and redemption from local author ratings, this is the ultimate tises so well. Reading Germaine Greer’s The Female Zane Lovitt. guide for winemaker and As a portrait of an artist as a young man Eunuch was certainly a rite of passage. wine lover dads alike. She may sometimes have some crazy Harry Curry: in the 21st century, Lerner’s novel is a ideas, but she is also a brilliant thinker comic masterpiece. Adam is a wonder- The Murder Book Tony Speaks! fully unreliable narrator: brilliant, petty, and a potent feminist. She changed the Stuart Littlemore way I feel about being a woman. Black Inc. deceitful, profoundly self-aware, funny, HarperCollins. PB. Normally $29.99 Black Inc. PB. $9.99. Ebook $4.99 endearing, and, on second reading, I Our special price $24.95 What was your favourite book as a kid? For dads who love a laugh, think, loveable as well. As a meditation Renegade barrister Harry here are the sayings of on art and reality post 9/11 and as a Winnie-the-Pooh and the poems of Curry and his elegant Tony Abbott – Opposition reassessment of narrative form in a A.A. Milne were treasured favourites partner, Arabella Engineer, Leader, irrepressible mad world of internet porn, news, tourism, throughout my childhood. As I grew return in yet another monk and champion of terrorism and instant messaging, Leaving older I loved them even more for their instalment of this thrilling the budgie smuggler – the Atocha Station stands well above most perfect evocation of friendship and crime series, continuing packaged into one American novels written this century. Zen-like appreciation for just ‘Doing their tireless work in hilarious volume. Hear the Nothing’. I now delight in reading defence, although perhaps man himself speak on issues ranging from Miles Allinson is from Readings St Kilda these timeless stories to my daughter. at the cost of their own relationship. poverty to women’s rights and more. 6 Readings Monthly September 2012

Nine Days follows the fortunes of one family, the Westaways, from 1939 until the present day. The family, and their inner-city life in Richmond, are introduced through the eyes of teenager Kip who works as a stable hand. New Fiction Lively and perceptive, Kip understands all too customs of this culture, Mischa has also never applied herself to learn the language or well that his family’s status changed forever Australian Fiction connect directly with Vietnamese people. when his drunken father died after falling from Sufficient Grace Instead, she has formed superficial a tram. This, and the beginning of World War Amy Espeseth friendships with the expat community and II, affects the family more than they could ever imagine. Kip’s twin brother Francis learns life Scribe. PB. $29.95. Ebook $17.99 these friends, who are occasionally comic lessons; his sister Connie experiences first love Deep in the heart of rural relief and more frequently obnoxious, read and its aftermath; and, in a beautifully written Wisconsin, two small dangerously close to being caricatures. chapter full of pathos, Mrs Westaway accounts families eke out a harsh but In contrast, Maguire’s reimaging of Vietnam for her devastating actions. In the next part of simple living, dictated to is compelling and vibrant, complete with the novel, Kip’s daughters tell their own stories. both by the ancient rhythms the smell of ‘fish sauce and sewerage and We encounter Charlotte, a yoga teacher, on of the land around them, as charcoal and pork’, and ‘whole roasted dog a day she can no longer contain a secret. We well as by their insular, in the marketplace’. This book vividly captures meet Stanzi, who is deeply unhappy with her deeply rooted faith. Ruth, the atmosphere of being overwhelmed by a life and using food to deal with her pain. her brother Reuben, and her cousins Samuel strange city, positioning Mischa as our guide and the adopted Naomi make up the four The structure of this book – encountering nine for learning more about the hidden culture. focal points of this novel, each of them characters on pivotal days for each – means For someone who has never travelled there, uneasily coming of age in a community there is dramatic tension in every chapter. I felt it very much came to life for me closed off from much of the outside world. The rich characterisation and distinctive within these pages. structure reminded me of Jennifer Egan’s Now a resident of Melbourne, Amy Espeseth Bronte Coates is the online and Readings Pulitzer-winning A Visit from the Goon was herself raised within a fundamentalist Monthly assistant at Readings Squad – one of my favourite reads. With a Pentecostal family in rural America. And background of war, and an inner city while it would be altogether too simplistic The Darkest Little Melbourne setting, this is a fine and to make a sweeping statement about auto- Room memorable Australian novel. biography here, it’s undeniable that this time Patrick Holland Annie Condon is from Readings Hawthorn has been fictively brought to the surface with Transit Lounge. PB. $29.95 Sufficient Grace. Far from being a crutch, Following his simply brilliant as can sometimes be the case with debuts, The Engagement collection of essays, Riding Espeseth’s knowledge and eye for detail give Chloe Hooper the Trains in Japan, Patrick the novel a beautiful authenticity and depth Hamish Hamilton. PB. $29.99 Holland has returned to that is, from the start, mesmerising and To follow up an acclaimed much grittier fictive grounds very real. debut must be one of in his latest novel, The literature’s fraughtest feats. It is the telling here that is truly to be Darkest Little Room. Set When a proof copy of The savoured. Like Daniel Woodrell’s thick- among the black-lit rivers and Engagement landed on my mouthed Ozarks parlance, Espeseth inhabits filthy, sparkling streets of Saigon, this desk, my first response was every inch of her blasted, biblical snow-cov- slow-burning thriller is also something of a simply joy – for it’s a good ered world. Ruth’s voice, while dense, pitches tribute to the bygone era of correspondent 10 years now since the and yaws with the hear-quickening cadence noir. Joseph, a disillusioned foreign journalist, international success of A Child’s Book of of her holy knowledge, and with the brutal makes a living reporting on the city’s more True Crime turned Chloe Hooper into one poetry of her own surrounds: ‘The sins are gruesome crimes, occasionally dabbling in of Oz-lit’s hottest properties. 2008’s on both sides... For every buck deer that his own ventures of blackmail and extortion. impassioned The Tall Man was of course an breaks a trail through the corn and eats half One night, he finds the body of a girl washed extraordinary achievement in the interim an ear off of each stalk, there is one of our up by the river with strange, brutal marks on – but the long-rumoured ‘Western District neighbours crouching in a stand, high up in her skin, a discovery that eventually leads him novel’ is what fans like me have been waiting a tree, aiming to shoot it dead.’ Equally, it is to ‘the darkest little room’ in Saigon – a patiently for all this time. the two girls that form the dark emotional place where it is rumoured stolen girls are heart of this novel. Both are caught up in the subjected to unspeakable desires. But And what a boldly told, intriguing tale it wrongs and loves of previous generations, Joseph’s own past collides violently with his is. Hooper attempts nothing less than an and both will bear the brunt of a much more investigation at the infamous Club 49 when investigation of the possibility of personal sinister violence within their own family, he encounters Thuy, a woman he believes to transformation against the backdrop of as well as its devastating denouement. A be the girl he once loved and lost, yet sterile modern society. Liesel Campbell is a thankfully unafraid and resonant debut. someone whom he can never be quite sure of young Englishwoman who designs feature- Jessica Au is editor of the Readings Monthly as well. less apartments for a living in London. But as the GFC bites and her debts mount, she’s Holland places this novel within the tradition Fishing for Tigers up for a change, so she takes a job in the (still of Graham Greene, Conrad, Hemingway and booming) real estate scene in Melbourne. Emily Maguire co. and indeed it is easy to see why. There is With one client in particular, however, Picador. PB. $29.99. Ebook $16.99 a directness and spareness to the prose that Alexander Colquhoun – a landowner from Mischa is a 35-year-old beautifully balances out the action and the the Grampians district – a certain frisson de- woman who left her abusive more traditional elements of the plot, and velops, and private viewings instead become marriage six years ago to the slow, meditative tension easily calls to the site of intimate (paid) rendezvous. When settle in Vietnam. When she mind the dark romance of Greene’s The Liesel flags her impending departure to the meets Cal, a passionate and Quiet American. Yet apart from pure mystery, UK, the infatuated Alexander invites her to attractive 18-year-old, they it seems to me that this is a novel very much stay the weekend on his estate – but the final begin an affair. Cue steamy about what it means to be enamoured with a ‘dirty weekend’ instead becomes something sex scenes. The relationship place you can never truly understand, to be much more sinister (or so it appears). between Mischa and Cal is a challenging a stranger in a city where you feel yourself to one. Maguire doesn’t try to kid us that Cal is be most bound. As Joseph reflects, ‘I thought The Engagement thus becomes a psychodrama: a mature-for-his-age young man ready for how the night was beautiful and cool on the what starts as a seeming erotic game becomes this relationship; she openly explores the back of a motorbike at speed through the a struggle to hold on to one’s identity as each complex dynamic that could develop between radiant locales of inner Saigon and I thought player seeks to overlay their version of reality a grown-up woman and a sometimes-sulky about how awful and strange this place was on the other. Indeed, is marriage, for instance, teenager who are attracted to each other, and how I did not ever want to leave.’ the institution whereby you truly come to know both physically and mentally. This attraction Jessica Au is editor of the Readings Monthly your partner and yourself, or is it a mutual self- is not easy to define; there’s motherly annulment that must be escaped at all costs? affection in there and definite lust. Mischa Nine Days Where are we more trapped: inside or outside thinks almost obsessively of Cal’s physicality, Toni Jordan relationships? as though seeking to reclaim her youth and, Text. PB. $29.99. Ebook $19.47 From a wobbly beginning (I suspect Liesel’s except for one scene where Mischa expresses Toni Jordan is well known Lustprinzip will be a challenge for many surprise that Cal is interested in her at all, for her bestselling debut, readers to accept), I found that the novel she seems relatively disinterested in her Addition, which introduced became increasingly convincing as it played own body. Grace Vandenberg, an off this dialectic between a yearning for the Yet the underlying love affair in this novel is obsessive-compulsive, truth about oneself and erasure. Like the jag- the one Mischa has with her chosen home, ultra-witty antihero. She ged Grampian peaks that are its backdrop, Hanoi, and again this is more complicated followed this with Fall Girl, The Engagementis at once an alluring and than it first appears. While Mischa’s strong another superbly comic book forbidding novel, and a fascinating addition feelings for Vietnam are evident, there’s a in its own right. Now, in novel number to Hooper’s steadily growing oeuvre. strange disparity here. Despite being three, Jordan has turned to the ‘serious side’, Martin Shaw is Readings Books obviously eager to discover the folklore and a move that her readers are sure to enjoy. Division Manager Readings Monthly September 2012 7 Midnight Empire Their wives, Gwen and Aviva, are the Andrew Croome Berkeley Birth Partners, a pair of local A&U. PB. $27.99 midwives. Set against the desperate, hopeful Who are we underneath it all? background of pre-Obama America, Does it matter which country Telegraph Avenue observes the precarious we come from, and will that nature of its characters’ everyday lives as they Q&A with change our reaction when the navigate the borderlands of race, gender, chips are down, in a time of sexuality, economy and personal history. war? These were the questions The novel’s two main narrative threads JessicaPatrick Au interviews Patrick Holland Holland about The Darkest Little Room running through my mind – dudes in a record store on the verge of when I finished Andrew shutting down, midwives negotiating the (Transit Lounge, PB, $29.95) Croome’s Midnight Empire. At points philo- politics of home-births, hospitals, doctors and sophical, at others a fast-paced thriller, this is women’s bodies – are at times conflicting and an oddly whimsical look at the War on Terror disparate, but will hold something special and its impact upon one Australian man. for all readers as Chabon weaves a story that Daniel Carter works for a small company in will ensnare and entertain. His sentences are Canberra, specialising in developing secure at once sharp, loose and messy, sprawling computer networks. Snapped up by the and sometimes hard to follow, like a jazz American Air Force, he travels to that clichéd solo. At the end of Telegraph Avenue’s ‘A’ side and unreal city of Las Vegas to help them the turntable spins on, playing out a single, implement this new technology into their sprawling sentence that lasts for 12 pages. drones over in Afghanistan. A total fish out of But, soon enough, the record is flipped, and water, he tries to live up to his ideals of good the story charges on, keeping a steady pace, and evil and discovers that things are not pregnant with rich, evocative descriptions always what they seem. There is love, there is that are equal parts self-deprecating Jewish friendship, there is work, and there is, strangely humour and 1970s jive-talking sass. enough, an awful lot of poker. A glimpse into the world of casino living is contrasted Telegraph Avenue will appeal to readers who dramatically with that of the Air Force base, enjoyed Wonder Boys and The Yiddish Police- We can see elements of the Books of the Odyssey. Graham Greene allowing Croome to flesh out the characters, so men’s Union, as well as Nick Hornby’s High genre at work here – the achieves it almost every time he shoots that when all hell breaks loose, we can see why Fidelity and Jonathan Lethem’s The Fortress troubled foreign journal- for it. But then he’s a master. Daniel makes the choices he does. As our of Solitude. Its themes will be familiar to ist, the kidnapped girl, the protagonist, Daniel is endearingly flawed. We readers of Chabon’s recent work – flying horrifying twist. Yet there’s Your last book, Riding the Trains in feel he’s always a half step to the left from machines, a talking parrot and that sense of a contemplativeness that Japan, documented your time around everyone else, and while this occasionally overwhelming nostalgia, grief and loss that also pulls against the Asia, and The Darkest Little Room makes for a bumpy narrative, it doesn’t detract motivates all of his male characters. makeup of a ‘typical’ beautifully evokes the city of Saigon. What’s from the underlying tension. This will enthrall Amy Vuleta is from Readings St Kilda thriller. How did you approach the novel the process by which experiences travelling anyone interested in computer programming with regards to the wider tradition of the might make their way into your writing? literary mystery? and philosophical discussions on war, as well as Sweet Tooth Things just seep in. The writers I love those who like a good thriller. Ian McEwan I think of the novel in the tradition were/are often, in some sense, Kate Rockstrom is from Readings Carlton Jonathan Cape. PB. Normally $32.95 of Graham Greene’s literary thrillers, adventurers, like Kipling, Greene and Our special price $24.95 like The Honorary Consul, The Power Hemingway, and also travel writers like The Inheritance of It is grating, though perhaps and the Glory and The Quiet American. Dalrymple and Chatwin, so I guess Ivorie Hammer inevitable, that the press But also in the tradition of writers like it was inevitable I would be drawn Edwina Preston around Sweet Tooth will Hemingway, Kipling and Conrad, who to writing about farther shores. It is UQP. PB. $29.95. Ebook $14.95 probably eclipse the book. I guess are more action-adventure than certainly not important for every writer When brothers Arcadia and Ian McEwan is, after all, a mystery. (Although Kipling does have a to travel. Many that I read and love Otto Cirque arrive in a man in the literary spotlight. handful of wonderful mystery stories.) didn’t: Tolstoy, Juliana Horatia Ewing, A Booker Prize winner in Emily Brontë. Yet, even though these fading gold-mining town I’ve always loved mystery, everybody does, 1998 with Amsterdam, he is three were largely stationary when they with their travelling circus, but as a younger writer I was educated today one of Britain’s leading literary and wrote their books, those books are still Saturnalia, the life of young into believing there was something Marianne Ward will never be commercial exports, an author with the rare adventurous. luck of the guaranteed bestseller. inferior about it. I must be honest and the same again. Decades say that for me the majority of the To be honest, I view those books about later, Ivorie Hammer In 1970s Cold War Britain, Serena Frome Sherlock Holmes stories confirmed ‘everyday life’ and the writers who write discovers that her own origins are not as she (‘rhymes with plume’) is a young Cam- that. But then I picked up a volume them with a sense of wonder and even thought, and that her own history might bridge graduate. Her older lover quietly of Chesterton’s stories, and after that bafflement. Because it’s something I just also be tied to the mysterious deaths and recruits her to MI5. Her mission, ‘Sweet Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, can’t do. True, I don’t read much of that disappearances in the town of Pitch. Tooth’, is to enlist Tom Haley, a young and realised that really good writing that sort of thing. Often I’ll pick up a book liberal writer, to an imaginary foundation was also mystery writing was possible. It by such a writer and the blurb will read The Burial where he will unknowingly contribute didn’t have to be founded on doubtful something akin to, ‘Jenny’s sister has Courtney Collins to the cultural Cold War (into which the conceits, like a detective knowing that a moved back in with her, but will the A&U. PB. $27.99. Ebook $16.99 Western world ‘poured hundreds of certain man had just come from Brazil arrival of a new baby and a job change Twenty-two-year-old Jessie millions’). In this ambiguous web of secrecy because the ash from his cigarette had bring them to breaking point?’ ... and the has served a two-year and confusion, Serena and Tom fall in love. the scent of a particular paper they use thing will be 800 pages long, longer than sentence for horse rustling. It’s a shame to spoil the twists and intricacies to wrap tobacco in that country. my entire output through five books, in As a condition of her release, of this subtle spy novel – suffice to say, in which I’m dealing with things like horse There’s often an element of mystery in she is apprenticed to McEwan’s own words, that it plays fascinating theft, drug addiction, murder, incest, Greene’s work, as there is in mine, cer- Fitzgerald ‘Fitz’ Henry, who ‘games with perspective’. religious faith, crises of doubt, abductions tainly in The Mary Smokes Boys and some wastes no time blackmailing and knife fights ... I seriously take my of the stories in The Source of the Sound, her into a life of theft once Like all McEwan’s novels, the devil really is hat off to the writers of the everyday, and but I never really write detective fiction. again. One catastrophic night turns Jessie’s in the detail. I think McEwan is at his finest obviously, going by current sales phenom- I think I’ve done it once, in a story life on its head and she must flee – the here, writing the devastating nuances of ena, they’re a lot closer to the zeitgeist called ‘The Lost Country’, which is in the mountains beckoning as a place of escape, if secrecy, competition and alienation into love than I am. And I don’t mean to sound aforementioned volume. For me, straight only she can bury the evidence of her past. with his first female narrator since Atonement’s condescending – a writer like Cheever detective fiction often falls into the trap of Briony. Men ‘writing women’ are often makes idle middle-class life as exciting presenting the reader with a mental puzzle hauled over the coals, but I am genuinely and mysterious, even more so, than many only, and so lacks those mysterious things impressed with McEwan’s Serena. His a crime writer makes detective work. International seductive prose captures perfectly the strange that make a person love a book and want weightlessness of one’s twenties – uncertain- to read it again. Take Eco’s The Name of But, like I say, I have to travel. To ty, boredom, recklessness, infatuation – and the Rose, I remember enjoying that constantly be renewing the well-springs Fiction immaculate research supports his characters, immensely, but the thrill of the of my imagination, as it doesn’t function Telegraph Avenue ‘whodunit’ aside, there isn’t much there when I’m sedentary. It’s a sense of wonder Michael Chabon rather than dominating or crushing the story (as it does at points in both Saturday and to love. There are plenty of things to about far-off places, perhaps even a sense Released 11 September Solar). Incidentally, McEwan once revealed ‘like’ – wise, parenthetical observations that that elusive home or heaven I have HarperCollins. PB. Normally $29.99 in an interview that he even applied to MI5, about literature and philosophy in the sought is just another train ride away, that Our special price $24.95 but was unsuccessful. Middle Ages, for one, but little that hits keeps me going. As for the practice of do- Pulitzer Prize-winning you in the gut, nothing visceral. ing it, I used to take lots of notes and then American writer Michael Sweet Tooth is not a moral riddle photos and try to write off those, but now A balance between a well-woven Chabon’s latest novel is an (Amsterdam) or a thriller (Enduring Love) – I simply remember. Memory has flaws, mystery or thriller plot and that vital, epic of the ordinary and the it’s a romance, stiller and more elegant than but applied to story it’s less intrusive intangible, beautiful thing you might in-between. Archy and Nat much of McEwan’s work. It’s also a than breaking off for perfectly accu- even call ‘truth’ is possible. Le Carré and are co-owners of Brokeland bittersweet celebration of all things British. rate descriptions. Records, a used vinyl store Though McEwan is quick to downplay Christie sometimes achieve it. Zachary located on the titular East nostalgia, cameos of friends and publishers – Mason achieves it frequently in The Lost Full interview at www.readings.com.au Bay avenue between Berkeley and Oakland. Martin Amis, Ian Hamilton, Tom Maschler 8 Readings Monthly September 2012

– seem to surround a younger incarnation Oxford Street for a quote to get his hand- children. In the near future, a father brings a Powers has a tendency to over-describe that of the author himself in Haley’s character. me-down car from his father repaired. Mostly young boy home to his wife and daughter; can be problematic; sometimes you need a At times the novel seems oddly distant, based over one spring and summer, ‘Host’ the boy and the girl form a bond that endures cleaner sentence tucked in there to highlight distinctly lacking in pace, but McEwan’s tells of Natalie and Leah’s early childhood over time and separation. In a nineteenth- the more evocative moments. This could famous goal of ‘inciting a naked hunger’ friendship and, later in their mid-thirties, we century French village, an old servant under- be due to his background as a poet and his for information in his reader is hidden, not meet the women again – apparently happily stands the meaning of the Bible story her emphasis on portraying the psychological missing, and the reader is quickly hooked. married and professionally employed. How- master is reading to her. An English rock and emotional impact of war over telling a ever, in ‘Crossing’ we discover they are both musician, living in the Catskills, discovers a good story. At times his descriptions become McEwan writes the timeless dramas of his engaged in forms of secretive, potentially dan- young and incredibly talented singer. Together, forced, rather than beautiful, and this makes relationships with an eye to the world and gerous rebellion against their domestic lives. they grapple with her talent, her career and her the plot feel a little contrived. Despite these this is no exception. An interesting take on fears but it is a relationship that can’t last. problems The Yellow Birds is still an emotive the spy novel – understated yet compelling, Zadie Smith’s vibrant depiction of the streets novel, a war story told for a literary-minded and a fantastic read. of NW London is so vivid that my time These five sections are exceptionally moving audience, and I don’t doubt some people will living there over a decade ago seems like and beautifully and simply written. For me Imogen Dewey is from Readings Carlton love it. BC only yesterday. The smells of the shisha pipes the central theme was that of acceptance This is how you of Edgeware Road, the glorious fresh air, trees and struggle, with the protagonists cutting and grass of Hampstead Heath, the sounds of through what life has thrown at them – The Guilty One lose her Lisa Ballantyne Junot Díaz Halal and phone shops of Willesden and the something that’s probably true for most of us. rushings and brushings of Kilburn. Why this Faulks’s A Possible Life is a wonderful work, Piatkus. PB. $24.99 Faber. PB. $27.99 book didn’t make the cut for the Man Booker intensely pleasurable and at times, dare I say Lisa Ballantyne wrote this, her Junot Díaz’s writing is longlist is a complete mystery. it, profound. It is a worthy successor to his first novel, during nights and arresting, his prose style great World War I novel, Birdsong. weekends while working full deeply affecting. and his Emily Harms is Readings Marketing Manager Mark Rubbo is managing director of Readings time at Glasgow University. characters are fallible and Straight away the manuscript memorable – am I gushing Triburbia was picked up by an agent, too much already? Díaz is a Karl Taro Greenfeld Zoo Time then a leading publisher, and bit of a rock star for his fans Atlantic. PB. $27.99 Howard Jacobson at the Frankfurt Book Fair (obviously not excluding Welcome to Triburbia. Well, Bloomsbury. PB. Normally $29.99 caused such a buzz that rights to the book myself) and with such long waits between Tribeca, actually. Karl Taro Ebook $22.99 immediately sold worldwide. his books, the release of his second short- Greenfeld’s debut novel, set Our special price $24.95 story collection has been hotly anticipated. in New York’s trendy lower Howard Jacobson’s The Daniel Hunter is a London criminal This new collection speaks directly to his Manhattan district, is a Finkler Question took out the solicitor with a conscience, determined to earlier work, notably Drown, and has at its clever, witty and no doubt Booker Prize in 2010, and help those that others won’t touch. When centre, Yunior – a character past readers thinly veiled chronicle of his his next offering is quite a Daniel agrees to represent 11-year-old will recognise. In previous interviews, Díaz own neighborhood and the different fish. Author Guy Sebastian, who is accused of murdering his has admitted he considers Yunior his ‘alter characters that inhabit it – hip, creative types Ableman is struggling to playmate in a horrifically violent attack, ego’ so it’s perhaps not a surprise he appears residing in capacious lofts, preoccupied with match the success of his first the case affects him with an unexpected again here. the small displeasures of their lives. novel. He’s also in lust with intensity. Daniel is drawn back to memories his mother-in-law Poppy – the beautiful, of his own troubled childhood spent in and The voice is undoubtedly Díaz, with a large After dropping their kids at school each morn- redheaded double of his beautiful, redheaded out of foster homes, neglected as a cost of dash of second-person narrative and a heady ing, a group of dads congregate at their local wife Vanessa, who, worryingly, is trying to his mother’s drug addiction – a cycle only mix of Spanglish. The stories are linked but, cafe for breakfast and banter – among them a write a book of her own. Moreover, the literary broken when tough but loving foster mother as with Drown, there is no linear narrative. sound engineer, a writer, a photographer and industry is in sulky tatters. His first editor is Minnie took him in at her farm. Minnie Rather they act as riffs on his trademark a gangster. But amidst the conversation, dead, his second recently suicided. Readers became the only person able to teach him to themes such as dysfunctional relationships these men are quietly commiserating over resent him for being too misogynist and trust and to guide him towards a better life. and the contemporary immigrant experience. the myriad of dysfunctions creeping into sordid, or not misogynist and sordid enough. But by the time he encounters Sebastian, their airy lofts – affairs, bad marriages and Daniel has not spoken to her for fifteen years Very occasionally, there’s a hint that Díaz is wicked kids being the most ubiquitous. As After reading Jacobson’s essays, collected getting ready to experiment with new ideas, due to something in their shared past that he each chapter traverses a different street of in Whatever It Is, I Don’t Like It, it’s easy to is unable to forgive. notably in the story ‘Otravida, Otravez’, the neighborhood – 113 North Moore, 145 see more than a few similarities between which features the voice of a 28-year-old Greenwich, 65 Hudson – we are introduced the author and his protagonist. Both hold a The key to this story’s success is the com- female immigrant. It’s always a risk when not only to each of the dads, but also to long-running grudge against Harry Potter, are bination of a criminal narrative alongside a writing linked stories to include one so their wives, children and even their nannies. obsessively devoted to Henry Miller and sex, deft exploration of human relationships – markedly different from the others, and Over the course of a year, we are privy to have an overwhelming love of words and are with all their imperfections and good inten- the piece did feel out of place when read in their dreams, ambitions, secrets and misgiv- full of bitterly humorous indictments on a tions. Ballantyne maintains suspense during context of the book. But when I reread this ings. Ultimately, though, these people are public that seems to be shutting them down. the ongoing case with the accused child on its own I was surprised at how moving I plagued with first world problems, Zoo Time covers familiar ground for the murderer Sebastian while gradually digging found it. exacerbated by the global financial crisis. author, especially as regards Jewish identity, down into Daniel and Minnie’s history, Díaz walks a fine line between depicting Ruined by too much choice, they are the but the terrain is lighter. I liked this Jacobson making this a book where I just had to find violence and sexism and glorifying it. He same as every other suburbanite… only more than the character of Finkler, but he is out what happened. The psychological depth uses vulgar language, his characters treat one perhaps a touch uglier. undoubtedly recognisable. Generous literary to both the story and the characters sets The references sprinkle the page, but Zoo Time is Guilty One apart from others of its kind. another badly and there are undertones of While Greenfeld’s novel begins as an insight- misogyny. But there is something unbearably less Updike or Roth to me than it is a sort of Robyn Greber is from Readings Carlton ful look at modern fathers, it sinuously modern, book(trade)ish Lucky Jim. tender and genuinely hilarious in his work – changes tone, becoming more about the I feel enormous affection for his characters. neighborhood than anything else. Tribeca Ableman/Jacobson doesn’t offer any answers The Daylight Gate While this collection didn’t hit me with as itself feels somehow more alive and real than in this rude and entirely timely satire, but Jeanette Winterson much force as his earlier writing, it still left the characters whom Greenfeld portrays. maybe it doesn’t matter. A grim and hilarious Hammer. HB. $24.95 me gutted. BC Still, there is a wonderful curiosity and ob- introspection for anyone who works with, or An atmospheric new novella servance about the evolution of a likes, books. ID from the award-winning NW neighbourhood and a city village, one that author of Oranges Are Not Zadie Smith has gone from being home to the edgy and The Yellow Birds the Only Fruit and Why Be Hamish Hamilton. PB. $29.99 bohemian, to a hub for the wealthy and Kevin Powers Happy When You Could Be Zadie Smith – renowned vaguely creative. Apparently, money can’t Sceptre. PB. $26.99 Normal, The Daylight Gate author of the bestselling buy happiness, not even in New York City. Kevin Powers is a young revisits the haunting legacy White Teeth, as well as the Nicole Mansour is assistant manager at veteran of the Iraq war. His of Lancashire’s Pendle Orange Prize-winning On Readings St Kilda debut novel, The Yellow Birds, Witches. Here, Winterson weaves an Beauty – has chosen to base is the story of two soldiers intricate and magical tale about the her new novel mostly in A Possible Life who make a pact not to let animosity and anger between the accused Kilburn, North West London Sebastian Faulks the conflict kill them, and it and the accusers that tore the community (or NW), and its surrounds. Hutchinson. PB. Normally $32.95 has been described as a apart in the seventeenth century, and a Born and bred there herself, she provides a Our special price $29.95 fictional account of Powers’s slice of history that is still felt in the topography of the psyche of modern Britain This book is described as a time in service. Over the past few months this present day. like no other. Brilliantly written through the novel, but in fact it’s more like slim novel has been swamped with publicity colourful tongue of characters’ Leah, Natalie, five parables tenuously with some reviews calling it ‘already a modern Also out now Felix and Nathan, the nuances of class, sex, connected by the vicissitudes classic’ and Miles Franklin shortlisted author The Elephant Keepers’ Children, Peter Høeg and education are revealed as they try to of life. In the first section, a Favel Parrett naming it a ‘special book’. (Harvill Secker, PB, $32.95) make adult lives outside of Caldwell, the young teacher enlists in The Fall of the Stone City, Ismail Kadare council estate of their childhood. The writing is lyrical and there is a decidedly World War II – as an dream-like feel to the story as the protagonist, (Text, PB, $22.99, Ebook $16.07) NW is a place of extreme contrasts, and the intelligence officer he is John, drifts in and out of different times and The Orchardist, Amanda Coplin (W&N, novel is divided into five distinct sections. captured and sent to work in the death lucidity. There are some powerful moments PB, $29.99) ‘Visitation’ opens and closes the book with camps. He escapes the horrors by imagining where he slips into a raw, confessional tone, Merivel: A Man of His Time, Rose Tremain the story of a woman who came to Leah that he is on a midsummer English cricket as though writing for a diary. In particular, I (Chatto & Windus, PB, $29.95) Hanwell’s door asking for help, forcing her ground. In nineteenth-century England, a found John’s relationship with his mother, as A Cat, a Hat, and a Piece of String, Joanne out of her isolation. ‘Guest’ places you in young boy is sent to the poorhouse by his she struggles to reconcile his decision to go to Harris (Doubleday, PB, $32.95) NW6, Kilburn district, where Felix Cooper parents because they can’t afford to keep him; war with the consequences, very compelling. meets Tom Mercer outside Topshop in he determines that that won’t happen to his Readings Monthly September 2012 9 New YA Fiction New release Young Adult fiction titles. See books for middle readers on page 15.

command of a beautiful but Machiavellian girl named Arden. Friday’s bewilderment in Book of the Month the city is lifted when she eventually returns Into That Forest to the outback with the group, who have Louis Nowra become a dangerous blend of friends, family A&U. PB. $19.99. Ebook $17.99 and enemies. And, as the band falls apart, it’s ‘Me name is Hannah O’Brien up to Friday to define their ending, and so and I be seventy-six years old. her search for self truly begins. Me first thing is an apology – me language is bad cos I lost Wakefield’s first novel, All I Ever Wanted, it and had to learn it again ...’ revealed her as an important voice in Aus- So begins Hannah’s profound tralian literature. This beautiful, brave book and compelling story of cements that position. Written for a teenage survival, family, love and audience, it has the scope for a broader appeal. belonging, a story that captivated me until Emily Gale is from Readings Carlton long after I’d mourned and cried at its unforgettable and devastating conclusion. The Testament Now an old woman, Hannah tells the story of Jessie Lamb of two little girls (herself and her older friend Jane Rogers Becky) stranded in the Tasmanian wilderness, A&U. PB. $19.99 but who are rescued and adopted by a pair of It’s highly unusual for a young Tasmanian tigers. What follows is an intense adult novel to be longlisted for and remarkable exploration of dislocation the Booker, but this powerful and connection, as the girls abandon their story did just that back in human ways, exchanging their native tongue 2011 and is now finally being for barks and coughs. Over time they learn published locally. In a possible the true meaning of loyalty and family and not-too-distant future, a virus discover the simple pleasures of shelter, a has been unleashed that is warm patch of earth, the sunlight on their carried by all but only kills women when they skin and a full belly. become pregnant. Who is to blame and why are questions that are never really answered, The first young adult novel from Louis Nowra, but are somehow besides the point as ordinary a widely celebrated playwright and author, Into people try to deal with this brave new world. That Forest is an extraordinarily imaginative and mesmerising story that snared me com- Jessie and her friends are some of the last of pletely; day turned into night as I inhaled 170 humanity – children born before the virus pages in one sitting. Highly recommended. made pregnancy impossible. They are going to college, but wonder why they should bother Athina Clarke is from Readings Malvern when the world seems to be coming to a grinding halt. Jessie’s father is a scientist at the White Ninja front line of research using human embryos Tiffiny Hall and ‘sleeping beauties’ – women who are HarperCollins. PB. $14.99 impregnated either naturally or through IVF Thirteen-year-old Roxy Ran and put into a coma so that the baby will wishes she was popular and gestate and be born before they die – and there beautiful like her big sister, is fierce debate going on over the ethics of this, Electra, and that the school as well as who owns the orphaned child. bully, Heroshi, would stop tormenting her. Roxy’s We learn at the beginning that Jessie is being mother is Japanese and a held captive, and that this is her testament part-time ninja, but Roxy about the events that led up to her incarcera- doesn’t realise her own talents until her tion and why she has made one of the toughest hands flash invisible and she can suddenly decisions possible in this dark world. Likened jump onto buildings and fight. She begins to The Handmaid’s Tale and Never Let Me Go, ninja training and learns that samurai, this book deals with a future not too far along including Heroshi, are her mortal enemies. humanity’s current path and forces us to ques- There’s also the ancient legend of a White tion how it will impact upon the young. It is Warrior who must be awakened, but first both a thought-provoking read and a powerful Roxy must fight four ancient ninjas in the cautionary tale. Highly recommended. Cemetery of Warriors and defeat Heroshi. Angela Crocombe. This book is perfect for any young readers interested in martial arts, but it’s also The Rise of Nine: empowering and inspiring. It’s the first book Lorien Legacies Book 3 in a trilogy and John Marsden has given it Pittacus Lore an impressive endorsement. Penguin. PB. $19.99 Angela Crocombe is from Readings St Kilda The third instalment of Pittacus Lore’s Lorien Legacies Friday Brown series (after the bestselling I am Vikki Wakefield Number Four and The Power of Text. PB. $19.99. Ebook $13.97 Six) sees what’s left of the In her second novel, South powerful nine (aliens who look Australian Vikki Wakefield just like human teenagers) still gives us another superb cast on the run from the deadly of characters led by Liliane Mogodorians. Guaranteed addictive action ‘Friday’ Brown, who spends from start to finish. her childhood dragged between remote country Secret Girls’ Business towns and isolated bushland Maggie Hamilton by her larger-than-life mother. Vivienne Viking. PB. $19.99 Brown’s big personality and wild stories Secret Girls’ Business is for any about the past are like a strangler vine girl who likes to be a bit around her daughter’s identity, and when she different. Full of stories, craft dies, Friday is left at seventeen with a and fashion tips, recipes and mixture of naivety and hardness. The grip of advice, this book will inspire her past loosens enough to send her into the readers to develop their city in search of her father, but she’s side- artistry, discover different tracked when she meets a group of young cultures, experiment with style squatters living like city rats under the and revel in the joys of friends and family. 10 Readings Monthly September 2012

with Fiona Hardy New CrimeThe GDeadeneva Trap Writeto find out who is wreaking havoc on the The Beautiful Mystery Stella Rimington rich. Black is the deliciously criminal alter Louise Penny Book of the Month Bloomsbury. PB. $29.99. Ebook $22.99 ego of Booker-winner John Banville. Sphere. PB. $29.99 The Midnight Promise: The Cold War is long past Quebecoise inspectors A Detective’s Story now, but tensions between The Vanishing Point Gamache and Beauvoir are the In Ten Cases Russians and the English are Val McDermid first outsiders in centuries to Zane Lovitt still rife in the world of Little, Brown. PB. Normally $32.99 enter an isolated monastery, Text. PB. $29.99. Ebook $19.47 Rimington’s literary heroine, Our special price $27.95 known previously only for its Private investigator and MI6 boss Liz Carlyle. A celebrity, powerless to magnificent Gregorian vocal Melbournite John Dorn is Someone has vital information help her child, leaves him recordings – and now for a down and out, surrounded for the West, and Carlyle is the with the only person she murder as well. The choirmas- by crooks and his own slowly only one he’ll speak to. But is it actually Russia, can trust. But when the ter is dead and the brothers the only suspects. disintegrating world. But or a mole in the ranks? guardian is waylaid by John is determined, quietly airport security, it only Death in Sardinia honest, and smart enough to Last to Die takes a moment for some- Marco Vichi stand back and look at the Tess Gerritsen one to lead the boy away H&S. PB. $29.99 reasons why crimes play out the way they Bantam. PB. $29.95 and vanish him into the mass of people. Is It’s 1965 in Florence and a do. So we get the story of JD’s darkest days Teddy Clock, just 14 years old, the kidnapper a deranged fan, or a loan shark is dramatically in ten tales – like the small-time criminal has seen two of his families dangerous person much closer to home? murdered, stabbed in the with guns mysteriously all over his house, slaughtered – his biological throat with a pair of scissors. the man researching his future wife, or JD’s one, and then his foster The Shadow Girls Inspector Bordelli is final search for a missing teenager. All of parents. Worse still, the school determined to catch the them challenge the reader’s views, with Henning Mankell he is sent to reveals other Harvill. PB. $32.95 killer, despite the fact that characters behaving unexpectedly or students with horrifyingly everyone around him is expecting the world to bend to them. Not quite the dark crime similar pasts. Detective Mankell’s fans are used to, not-so-quietly revelling in the man’s death. Zane Lovitt is a judge’s clerk and these Rizzoli and ME Isles are the women who must The Shadow Girls follows stories are based on true cases, smacking of search for the truth and a reprehensible killer. comically long-suffering Life and Limb grit and realism, which is not to overlook the poet-turned-crime writer Elsebeth Egholm fact that The Midnight Promiseis flat-out one A Wanted Man Jesper Humlin as he meets Murdoch. PB. $29.99. Ebook $9.99 of the most enjoyable crime books out there. Lee Child three women who have Journalist Dicte Svendsen is Australian noir with a nod to Raymond Bantam. PB. Normally $32.95 immigrated to Sweden from always keen on leads, not Carver – there’s lots of drinking, dark streets, Our special price $27.95 painful backgrounds. They have stories least for the most recent and wisecracks that you’ll grin like mad over. Child’s indomitable Jack Humlin does not want to hear but that he crime she’s investigating: the Every story is its own little world, all Reacher is hitchhiking finds himself getting tangled in nonetheless. death of a young woman, completely satisfying but so involving you’ll along a highway when a car minus some body parts. But put the book down wishing for more. stops. His senses dulled Bones are Forever when a convict offers with pain, he gets in with Kathy Reichs information at the price of three friendly looking Dicte’s own kidney, she realises the corrupt The Uncommon Appeal strangers who just happen William Heinemann. PB. Normally $32.95 trade is more political than expected. of Clouds: Isabel to let him accompany them Our special price $27.95 Dalhousie Book 9 on what turns out to be a violent and Early last year I travelled to Wakool Crossing Alexander McCall Smith terrifying journey. Yellowknife, a freezing Mike Richards mining town in northern Little, Brown. PB. $29.99 Scribe. PB. $27.95. Ebooks $18.99 Canada, to visit my cousin, The ninth Isabel Dalhousie Vengeance In 1916, Hazel Hood, resident book – McCall Smith must Benjamin Black and you can be sure that this is a world brought of the Australian town of sleep-write to publish as Mantle. PB. $27.99 Wakool Crossing, washed up many consistently good vividly to life by the In 1950s Dublin, a prominent excellent Kathy Reichs, as in a river a week after her books as he does – has our businessman invites a disappearance at a dance. heroine navigating the usual Temperance Brennan follows a grotesque colleague out on a sailing trail of murdered babies from Montreal to Some 90 years later, Mike amount of drama in her own trip. In the water, he takes Richards – her great-nephew home and that of her friends, the diamond mines via her own deep out a gun and shoots himself personal crisis. – takes it upon himself to find alongside a stolen piece of art she is helping in the chest. Pathologist out the truth about the lovable Hazel and to guide back from the thieves into its Quirke and DI Hackett tread her terrible murder in this brilliant true rightful home. lightly through Dublin’s elite crime investigation. Readings Monthly September 2012 11 You see, Benjamin Law is a really good writer My Journey and Gaysia, a book exploring homosexuality Jim Stynes and its reception in Asia is a fantastic read. Michael Joseph. HB. Normally $39.95 Benjamin starts his journey in Bali, talking to Our special price $34.95 both the (sometimes barley legal) moneyboys In June 2009, the president New Non-Fiction and the bulés (cashed-up Caucasians who hire Hogan’s account will offer a very different of the Melbourne Football and/or date them). He travels through China reading experience. Don’t expect a feel-good Club, Jim Stynes, was to talk to participants of fake marriages – an travelogue here. While there are plenty of diagnosed with cancer and Australian interesting phenomenon where gay and lesbian elegant descriptions of majestic landscapes, given nine months to live. couples marry each other to keep their highly this excursion to Australia’s desert heart is also The news caught him by Non-Fiction traditional families happy (the other way of Money Shot: a a challenging journey that should raise a lot of surprise – he was 43, healthy, keeping your parents happy if you were a gay questions – and considerable discomfort – for and a busy father, husband journey into porn man would be to marry a straight woman. If people living in the affluent, urban enclaves and mentor. Knowing his odds weren’t good, and censorship you did this, your wife would be a tongqi). Jeff Sparrow of the previous books in the series. How a Jim gave his all to trying to beat the disease, embracing life and fighting on for another Scribe. PB. $29.95. Ebook $17.99 ‘Springian’ might read this book is another In Myanmar, Benjamin handles with an two years. This is the extraordinary story of a Money Shot is one of the most matter entirely. impressive amount of hardy delicacy the dark humour of the HIV infected. In India, man who lived fearlessly and his will to get thought-provoking, intelligent Hogan’s uncompromising narrative is based he talks to a swamji who claimed to be able the most out of every single day. and entertaining non-fiction on her experience living in Alice Springs to cure homosexuality though yoga and books I’ve read in a long time. between 2005 and 2010 to work as a policy breathing. Benjamin throws himself into Toyo: A Memoir Jeff Sparrow, editor of officer in Aboriginal services. Looming large every challenge he’s given, occasionally to Lily Chan Overland and co-author of is a disparate population. Some residents are the detriment of his own personal health, Radical Melbourne, has quite non-Indigenous expats from capital cities Black Inc. PB. $29.99. Ebook $14.99 and recalls it all (including the evangelistic literally taken a journey into who have relocated to ‘make a difference’ as Blending the intimacy of priest in Malaysia who claimed to be able porn and censorship in Australia. As well as part of the town’s welfare economy. Others memoir with an artist’s to ‘heal’ the ‘sexually broken’) with warmth, interviewing commentators on all sides of the are the Aboriginal recipients of this welfare, vision, Toyo is both the story sympathy and humour. Gaysia ends with a debate, Sparrow visits a sex cinema, attends many of whom Hogan shows to be living in of a remarkable woman and a heartwarming revelation on Benjamin’s part Sexpo, completes a crash course in censorship serious disadvantage born from dispossession, vivid picture of Japan before that left me (a ‘sexually regular’ person) feeling and heads up north to try and understand how and made even more difficult by seemingly and after World War II. Lily oddly proud of homosexuality myself. the issues have manifested themselves as a unending cycles of alcohol, violence, Chan has reinvented her result of the Northern Territory Intervention. poverty, bureaucracy and exploitation. These Dani Solomon is from Readings Carlton grandmother’s story, from her birth into the traditional world of Osaka He critically looks at the argument that the depictions are not based on idle impressions, but are supported by a public servant’s eye Quarterly Essay 47: where she must keep her parents’ true lucrative pornography market of today is a Political Animal: The relationship a secret to the rain of American positive outcome of the sexual revolution, and for statistics and policy documents and a journalist’s skill in interviewing prominent Making of Tony Abbott bombs that uproot her entire existence. An his thoughts here offer fascinating insight into unpredictable tale of courage and change. the neoliberal transformation of our society community members. Lives led in this place David Marr more generally. Sparrow reminds us that for of extremes are difficult, but are cross-cut Black Inc. PB. $19.95. Ebook $9.99 with the pleasures of community that exist in Get Well Soon! the sexual revolutionaries of yesteryear, sexuality Leading biographer and My (Un)Brilliant was not circumscribed by consumption. And regional centres, and the importance of sport, investigative journalist David art, friendship, family and culture. Marr turns his brilliant eye to Career as a Nurse after a couple of trips to Sexpo he is left in Kristy Chambers no doubt about the increasing marketisation A tough portrait of life in a beautiful but Opposition Leader Tony UQP. PB. $24.95. Ebook $14.95 of sexuality and the male orientation of the harsh landscape of contradictions, Alice Abbott. Here, Marr goes Kristy Chambers spent industry. ‘In contemporary society, vast Springs is as much a series of general questions beyond the clichés – the mad almost a decade working as a inequality has been utterly normalised … about living ethically as it is Hogan’s memoir monk, the budgie-smuggling nurse with patients ranging amid such gross final disparities, why would of being an outsider looking in. gym junkie – to look at the man as he is and reveal what kind of prime from drug addicts to cancer anyone expect sexual egalitarianism?’ Alison Huber is from Readings Carlton minister he might be: part reactionary, part sufferers. Along the way she The book left me curious about how the im- pragmatist, deeply religious and deeply met some wonderfully brave mense popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey, which Gaysia: Adventures political. But is Abbott a figure from the past people. As for the others, has been labelled by some as pornography for in the Queer East or a leader for the future? A unique portrait well, you’ll need to read the women but has a chauvinistic male lead, might Benjamin Law of a unique politician, guaranteed to be one book to believe it. Full of honesty, heart, fit in to the debate (admittedly not curious Black Inc. PB. $29.99. Ebook $14.99 of the most discussed pieces of the year. black humour and compassion, Get Well enough to actually read the book). There are Our special ebook price $9.99 from Sept 3-16 Soon! shows us more than ever the incredible no easy answers in Money Shot and the debate Benjamin Law is making a Gough Whitlam: work done by nurses around Australia. is far from one sided so I would urge anyone, name for himself. I was His Time (Vol II) regardless of their standpoint on these issues, to reading Gaysia on my tram The Rise of the Fifth read this insightful and comprehensive analysis. Jenny Hocking ride home, learning about MUP. HB. Normally $49.99 Estate: social media Kara Nicholson is from Readings Carlton Homolasians, Bi-Mese, Our special price $39.95 and blogging in Laosbians and Shandykes In this much-anticipated Australian politics when a fellow passenger Alice Springs second volume, Jenny spotted the cover and Greg Jericho Eleanor Hogan Hocking takes us behind the interrupted my reading with a small, Scribe. PB. $29.95. Ebook $17.99 New South. HB. $29.99. Ebook $16.99 political intrigue to reveal a mostly one-sided conversation about how Social media has emerged as This handsome book is the devastated Gough Whitlam much of a fan he was. Normally having a powerful new force in latest addition to New in the aftermath of the my own personal opinions validated by Australian politics and here South’s justly successful series Dismissal. With unearthed strangers leaves me with a smile on my Greg Jericho tackles the about Australian cities, archival material and face and a bounce in my step (nothing like phenomenon head on, focusing this time on the extensive interviews with Whitlam, his having someone tell you you’re right!) but examining everything from capital of ‘Centralia’, Alice family, colleagues and foes, Hocking skilfully this time however, while I appreciated his the motivations of bloggers Springs. Countless readers depicts his eventual political renewal and the enthusiasm I couldn’t help but feel to the vitriolic nature of have relished the nostalgia enduring partnership that underpinned his life. comments and the treatment of female invoked by these literary love letters, but annoyed at the distraction.

random Ad mURDOCH Ad 12 Readings Monthly September 2012

participants. The truth is that the new anyone who’s read his work. Hitchens wears social media is here to stay, and its political his atheism on his sleeve (which he then wraps influence bound to increase. The real around your face); he complains bitterly of question is how structures will absorb this pain and waste, fear and waiting-room eti- new force, and be changed by it in turn. quette. His black humour courageously weaves the process of dying vibrantly and inextricably Hell’s Battlefield to life. There are no spoilers here: the writer Phillip Bradley passed away in December last year. The final A&U. HB. $49.99 chapter is poignantly and simply unfinished Hell’s Battlefield is a notes, giving a great insight into his process. comprehensive and Everybody should read this. We must detailed documentation of all deal with death as much as life, and the conflict between Hitchens tackles both with equal parts Australian troops and love, bite and wisdom. Japanese soldiers in New Imogen Dewey is from Readings Carlton Guinea during World War II. Conducting extensive research into official and private records, Joseph Anton as well as delving into the recollections Salman Rushdie of the Papua New Guineans themselves, Released 18 September Phillip Bradley covers the battles that Random. PB. Normally $35 raged on land, air and sea from inva- Our special price $29.95 sion in 1942 right through to the brutal On 14 February 1989, endgame in 1945. Salman Rushdie was telephoned by a BBC The Price of Valour journalist and told that he John Hamilton had been ‘sentenced to death’ by the Ayatollah Khomeini. Pan Mac. PB. $34.99. Ebook $19.99 His crime? To have written a When Hugo Throssell joined novel called The Satanic the Light Horse during Verses. So begins the extraordinary story of World War I, he was seen as how a writer was forced underground, a symbol of youth, courage moving from house to house, with the and idealism. And when he constant presence of an armed police killed himself in 1933, he protection team. He was asked to choose an remained as emblematic to alias that the police could call him by. He his country as he’d been in thought of writers he loved – Conrad and those heady days of 1914 – forever darkened Chekhov – and so became Joseph Anton. by the tragedy of war. This is an intimate and compassionate portrayal of Throssell: winner of the Victoria Cross, husband to Hope Street, Jerusalem novelist Katharine Susannah Prichard and, Irris Makler for a time, fallen hero, thanks to his public HarperCollins. PB. $29.99 denunciation of the war. Moving to a strange city always takes courage, but Tell the White Man never more so than in a place Buludja (as told by so full of daily expressions of love and hate, where the Eric Thonemann) simple choice of a table by PB. $29.95 the window can turn out to Buludja was an Aboriginal be a life or death decision. woman who spent her life Hope Street is Irris Makler’s bittersweet at The Elsey, a 5000 square tribute to her beloved adopted city of kilometre cattle station in Jerusalem, following on from her bestselling the Northern Territory run Our Woman in Kabul. by the Thonemann family. Eric Thonemann managed House of Stone this station from 1914 to Anthony Shadid 1961, and set out to ensure that the lives, culture and beliefs of the Mungari Granta. PB. $24.99 Aborigines was recorded. Here he relates In spring 2011, Anthony Buludja’s story, providing a unique first Shadid was one of four New person account of the motives and York Times reporters captured strength of the Mungari. in Libya as the country was seized by revolution. When he was freed, he went home. Not to Boston or Beirut, but to his great-grandfather’s estate in MBiographyortality Lebanon – a house that, over three years Christopher Hitchens earlier, Shadid had begun to rebuild. There, A&U. HB. $26.99. Ebook $11.99 he continued to work on the battle-scarred home, in a journey of renewal and rebirth Mortality is an edited that would culminate in the healing of his collection of the articles own jostled spirit. that Christopher Hitchens wrote for Vanity Fair following his diagnosis with oesophageal cancer in 2010. The author, journalist and VCulturalagina: A N Studiesew critic was a central and controversial figure in contemporary Biography culture, whose writing constantly Naomi Wolf provoked disagreement (women aren’t Virago. PB. $29.99 funny, Iraq was a good idea and so on), Released 11 September and Mortality seems like a fitting cap- From the Greeks and the stone to his enormous body of work. Like Romans to Freud, from Hitchens himself, it refuses to be defined pornography and health to along standard divisions. It rails. It does goddesses, from worship to not go gentle into that good night. denigration and even mutilation, here is a history Hitchens documents his crossing from of the vagina, the ‘dark ‘the Land of the Well’ into ‘Tumorville’ to continent’ of female demystify, grieve and reflect, as well as to sexuality. Feminist and bestselling author of laugh, and he is a marvellous writer. Barely The Beauty Myth Naomi Wolf examines the a page in, I was reading out passages to my embarrassment and cultural stigma housemate, underlining and memorising – associated with this loaded word and its appreciating the blend of anger, wit, humour impact on women and how they are and sheer breadth of knowledge familiar to encouraged to see themselves. Readings Monthly September 2012 13 How to Read a Novelist John Freeman Text. PB. $29.99. Ebook $19.47 Science As the editor of Granta, John The Violinist’s Thumb Freeman has interviewed Sam Kean nearly every name in the Doubleday. PB. $34.95 literary world. In this Understanding DNA helps collection, he brings together us understand how our the most insightful and bodies and minds work and, fascinating of his conversations by extension, what our limits and articles, including Paul are. Here, Sam Kean talks us Theroux on the state of sex in America, through some of these key Margaret Atwood on invention, John Updike mysteries, starting with our on relationships and Geoff Dyer on being animal and primate England’s hippest middle-aged novelist, ancestries and culminating in the emer- alongside Siri Hustevdt, Doris Lessing, Toni gence of cultured human beings. Morrison and Kazuo Ishiguro. Missing Out: In Praise Superman is an Arab of the Unlived Life Joumana Haddad Adam Phillips Saqi. PB. $19.95 Hamish Hamilton. HB. $45 Superman is a lie, and Clark All of us lead two lives: the Kent nothing more than a one we actually engage with metaphor of his schizophrenia. and the one we fantasise From monotheist religions to about. Drawing deeply on the institutionalised machismo, works of Shakespeare and of Joumana Haddad, the author Freud, psychoanalyst Adam of I Killed Scheherazade, Phillips describes experiences examines the concept of the – missing out, getting away ‘Übermensch’ in the third millennium. Mixing with it, getting out of it and not getting it personal experiences with global research, – that suggest this unlived life may in fact be Haddad reflects on masculinity and patriarchy essential to a life fully lived. in the Arab world and beyond, in what could be considered a sequel of her exploration of Zero Degrees Islam and womanhood. of Empathy Simon Baron-Cohen Positive Linking Penguin. PB. $19.99 Paul Ormerod We have always struggled to Faber. PB. $29.99 explain why some people are Our instinct to copy the ‘evil’ and others are ‘good’. behaviour of others – other- This book urges us to put wise known as the network aside these terms and consider effect – has never been so each individual as part of an pervasive. The internet and empathy spectrum, where high-density urban living positions are affected by both have resulted in a massive genes and environments. From the Nazi increase in our awareness of concentration camps of World War II to the decisions and opinions of others. In children’s playgrounds, Simon Baron-Cohen Positive Linking, Paul Ormerod claims that examines cruelty and understanding in this conventional economics fails to comprehend challenging new book. the vital nature of these links and argues for a newer model of connected policy for the modern world. Humour Moranthology Caitlin Moran History Ebury Press. PB. $29.95 The Deadly Sisterhood Caitlin Moran is one of Brit- Leonie Frieda ain’s best-loved columnists Orion. HB. $49.99 and critics, and Moranthol- This is an epic saga of the ogy presents some of her best Italian Renaissance that and funniest writings to follows the lives of eight date. Here, she tackles a remarkable women who ruled wide range of subjects for a time in place of their including Ghostbusters, men, including memorable Twitter, caffeine, panic attacks, Michael historical figures such as the Jackson’s memorial service, Doctor Who, ‘Lioness of the Romagna’ and Downton Abbey, pandas, crying on Paul the ‘Weeping Duchess’. Leonie Frieda, author McCartney’s guitar and life as a middle- of Catherine de Medici, spins a grand new tale class marijuana addict. where women are presented with riches and fortune, yet also endure banishment, poverty and indescribable loss. Reference The Swerve: How the Guinness World Renaissance Began Records 2013 Stephen Greenblatt Guinness World Records Released 18 September Guinness. HB. Normally $42.99 Vintage. PB. $19.95 Our special price $37.95 Nearly six hundred years Discover a whole new world ago, a short, cannily alert of superlatives in this most man took an old manuscript recent edition of the world’s off a library shelf and bestselling record book. If ordered that it be copied. you’ve ever wondered who The book was the last the world’s youngest polar surviving text of an ancient explorer is, or how big the Roman philosophical epic, largest commercially On the Nature of Things by Lucretius – a available hot dog is, or whether a mohawk thrillingly beautiful poem of dangerous hairdo is taller than the shortest living man, ideas. The transcribing and translation of then this is the book to answer all your this work fuelled the Renaissance, inspiring questions and more. artists, thinkers and revolutionaries in a rich historical movement now brought vividly to life by Stephen Greenblatt. 14 Readings Monthly September 2012

WithFood Chris Gordon,& Wine Readings Carlton WithArt Margaret & Snowdon,Design Readings Carlton Melbourne by Menu New Paris Style Rita Erlich Danielle Miller & Richard Powers Slattery Media Group. PB. $34.95 T&H. HB. Normally $49.95 In Melbourne by Menu, Rita Our special price $39.95 Erlich, best known as the This publication presents a former editor of The Age Good fresh look into the private Food Guide, charts the city’s dwellings of the most restaurant scene during the exciting creative talents in 1980s. This was a decade of Paris – individuals from the invention and imagination music, fashion, design, film where Melbourne truly and art worlds. The 27 cemented its place as Australia’s cosmopolitan properties photographed exclusively for the food capital. This book is essential for anyone book are loosely arranged by their location with a passing interest in food and our very across the city’s grooviest, on-the-edge own history. Includes essays on the most arrondissements – from the elevated famous restaurants, interviews and recipes. bohemianism of the Left Bank to the trendy Marais and the edgier 13th and Belleville. The Gourmet Farmer Deli Book The Sartorialist: Closer Matthew Evans, Nick Haddow Scott Schuman & Ross O’Meara Penguin. PB. $35 Murdoch. HB. $49.99 Following his enormously An essential for every home popular first book, Scott chef, this cookbook boasts a Schuman looks more deeply wonderful two-fold approach and with greater breadth at to food. First, it celebrates the human style, telling diverse delicious items you’d typically and compelling stories of its find in your local deli – from expression around the cheese to smoked meats and world. Encompassing the sausages – and the artisans varied tastes and visual attitudes of people behind them. Second, it provides simple as far afield as Seoul, London, Miami and recipes for the use of those ingredients. Paris, the images in this new collection Beautifully photographed, The Gourmet continue to reflect the author’s unique Farmer Deli Book celebrates age-old tech- sensibility and vision. niques of creating and sharing, which is after all, the true joy of food. Unstill Life Stephen Eastaugh Jerusalem HB. $125 Yotam Ottolenghi Artist Stephen Eastaugh & Sami Tamimi was born in Melbourne in Ebury. HB. Normally $49.95 1960 and, inexplicably, has Our special price $39.95 two fathers. Both were Everything you know about sailors and both were either these extraordinary chefs is the cause or inspiration for right – they are truly deserving Eastaugh’s self-diagnosed of their international reputa- disease: an unremitting, uncontrollable and tion in culinary excellence. incurable need to travel. Under the themes Here, Yotam Ottolenghi and of artist-as-raconteur, traveller-as-artist and Sami Tamimi explore the lost-confused-and-fuzzy, Eastaugh’s Unstill vibrant cuisine of their home Life explores three decades of travel and art city and its diverse Muslim, Jewish, Arab, on the road. This delightful book was Christian and Armenian communities, written at Mawson Base during the Antarctic creating unique cross-cultural dishes like winter of 2009 as part of the Australian braised meatballs with sour cherries. There are Antarctic Arts Fellowship and comes in a 120 recipes in this beautifully presented limited print run of 500. cookbook, allowing you to capture a little of this remarkable place in your own home. Living Modern Tropical Phyllis Richardson Nigellissima: Instant T&H. HB. $59.95 Italian Inspiration Following in the footsteps of Nigella Lawson Living Modern, this new title applies the same principles Chatto & Windus. HB. Normally $49.95 to tropical living – clean Our special price $39.95 lines, sophisticated colour We know her, don’t we? combinations, outdoor We are safe with Nigella rooms, great design objects and her practical recipes and open areas for relaxing and eating. The created for ease and effect. book is organised into ten sections: nature, In her new book, she takes architecture, outdoors, elements, function, inspiration from Italian light, furniture, details, materials and water. cooking to bring the spirit Regardless of where you live, here are of the country into the hundreds of design ideas that will provide kitchen and onto the plate, pronto. There are inspiration for every room in the house. over 100 delicious dishes, including no-churn ices and panna cotta. These recipes will excite the taste buds without stressing the cook. Breakthrough! Alex Cornell The Age Good Food PAP. PB. $26.95 Guide 2013 All of us struggle at one time or another with creative Janne Apelgren blocks – an inevitable part of Fairwinds Press. PB. $24.99 the artistic process. Fortu- No need to talk too much of nately helpful tips are this book, except to say The available in easily accessible Age Good Food Guide has books such as Steal Like an been working well for 33 Artist and 101 Things to years, and this year – it’s a Learn in Art School. This lively compilation beauty! Make it your bible offers strategies by leading graphic design- for 2012 and 2013 – after all ers, typographers, cartoonists, photogra- good food, company, and phers, illustrators, musicians, writers and kindness makes the world a better place. other creative professionals. Readings Monthly September 2012 15 discover about Georges and Safer that is more Classic of the Month surprising in this incredibly touching, funny, clever story for ages 9 and up. Tom’s Midnight Garden Philippa Pearce Emily Gale is from Readings Carlton OUP. PB. $15.95 New Kids’ Books A magical tale of friendship Book of the Month Herman and Rosie The 26-Storey Gus Gordon and adventure, Tom’s Mid- Unforgotten Treehouse night Garden was awarded the Tohby Riddle Viking. HB. $24.99 Andy Griffiths & Carnegie Medal in 1958 and A&U. HB. $35 Herman and Rosie live next Terry Denton (illus.) has been read and loved ever Every now and then a door to each other in the big Pan Mac. PB. $12.99. Ebook $7.99 since, which is remarkable picture book comes along city. They both have similar Join Andy and Terry in their when you consider how much that stops you in your tracks. interests but continue to pass newly expanded treehouse, the world of the child has Artistically you understand it each other by unwittingly. which now features 13 brand changed over that time. The adventure begins but emotionally it perplexes We know they are made for new storeys. These include a late one night when Tom, sent to stay with his and challenges you. Who is each other and we know dodgem car rink, a skate aunt and uncle in their small flat, hears the it for and is the author being they should be making music together! Then ramp, a mud-fighting arena, grandfather clock downstairs strike thirteen. disingenuous? Unforgotten got me thinking on a full moon night their love of groovy little an anti-gravity chamber, an He decides to investigate and, to his amaze- about its intended audience but I never jazz numbers is the catalyst for a spontaneous ice-cream parlour with 78 ment, discovers that the tiny outdoor area has doubted its integrity. Tohby Riddle has meeting – the one we have been hoping for. flavours run by a serving robot called transformed into an incredibly beautiful shown his gentle humanity in his impressive From the author of the zany and famous Edward Scooperhands, and the Maze of garden in full bloom where time disobeys all backlist of quietly wry stories and picture Wendy comes this utterly charming picture Doom – a maze so complicated that nobody convention and nothing is quite what it books, and now he has taken his empathy book and, like a mellow riff on a breezy who has gone in has ever come out again ... seems. Together with his mysterious new- and artistry to a new level. Fusing atmo- summer’s evening, we fall under its spell. For Not yet, anyway. found friend Hattie, Tom finds himself in an spheric photographs with superimposed ages 6 and up. AD intriguing adventure that challenges young angels, he has created an eerie and ethereal Nanny Piggins minds to solve a conundrum that spans across book. And it’s not just the images that haunt Sky High and the Daring Rescue time. Read this classic story aloud to children – Riddle’s poetry merges with the dark Germano Zullo & Albertine (illus.) R.A. Spratt and just watch their faces, especially at the illustrations to create an elegiac whole. Chronicle. HB. $24.95 Random. PB. $15.95 wonderful, final twist. Sky High is for Iggy Peck When Mr Green rings from a Unforgotten hints at the immensity and Athina Clarke is from Readings Malvern Architect fans and for lovers of tropical island, begging to be mystery of life and beyond. Riddle’s angels capricious and rather tall picture rescued, Nanny Piggins’s first come to earth with gentle healing work to Kids’ Classics books. Two fanciful men try to instinct is to say no. However, do, but one becomes overwhelmed by the outdo each other in their house no-one kidnaps her employer The Further Tale enormity of need and falls to rest, it too building, and what house – at least not without written of Peter Rabbit requiring care and nurturing. Reading building it is! Grand, intricate permission from her – and so Emma Thompson Unforgotten in a quiet and solitary time and bombastic, the designs get she sets out to save the hapless Warne. HB. $24.99 accentuated its cathedral-like atmosphere more convoluted and ridiculous tax lawyer. On the way she dabbles in a spot In low spirits, Peter decides he and the images of star-laden skies. However, with each addition. Could they also be of bungy jumping, deceives immigration needs a change of scene and its underlying truth rests on the importance getting just a teensy bit unstable? This is not officials wearing a fake moustache and seduces squeezes under the gate into of even the smallest individual and how we so much ‘reading’ a picture book as it is the President with her most powerful weapon: Mr. McGregor’s garden, can care for them. For ages 11 and up. poring over one. As each house grows there is the dance of the seven cakes. intending to steal a lettuce. Alexa Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorne so much crazy detail to marvel at that Lovingly told by Emma budding artists and architects may be inspired Gods and Warriors Thompson and delightfully Picture Books to do their own design and drawings. Lofty Michelle Paver illustrated by Eleanor Taylor, Peter Rabbit is This Moose Belongs fun for ages 6 and up. AD Puffin. PB. $16.99 back and he’s as charming, as mischievous To Me During the Mediterranean and as playful as ever. Oliver Jeffers Peggy Bronze Age, long before the HarperCollins. HB. $24.99 Anna Walker Greek myths, a 12-year-old Around the World Oliver Jeffers’ recent visit to Scholastic. HB. $24.99 goatherd and a fugitive in Eighty Days Australia won him a whole Peggy lives in a small house young priestess are thrown Jules Verne & Robert new fan base with his in a quiet street. Then, one together by unexpected Ingpen (illus.) day, a big gust of wind sweeps quirky illustrative style and forces. Helped by animal Walker. HB. $39.95 down, scoops Peggy up and delightful Irish accent, so allies – a dolphin, a falcon To fulfil a wager made at blows her into the city. Here it’s exciting to finally have and a lion cub – they must overcome their the Reform Club in she discovers strange new his new book, This Moose differences to defeat tyranny and withstand London, Phileas Fogg and things, but when it’s time to go home, she Belongs to Me, in store. The moose in the elemental powers of the gods. This is the his newly appointed realises she doesn’t know how. question is a quiet and hungry fellow, more first book in a new series from the bestselling manservant, Passepartout, interested in eating apples than obeying the author of Chronicles of Ancient Darkness. embark on the race of a endless rules of his ‘owner’, Wilfred. But Junior Fiction Suitable for ages 8 to 12. lifetime to circumnavigate when Wilfred and the moose are out having Clementine-Rose and Novelty the globe in just eighty days. This thrilling an adventure one day, they discover the Surprise Visitor and unlikely voyage of a quintessential someone else who thinks she owns the Jacqueline Harvey Star Wars: Book of English gentleman is accompanied by moose. Oh, no! Paintings of mountainous Random. PB. $12.95 Sith: Secrets from beautiful illustrations from Robert Ingpen. backgrounds enhance Jeffers’ illustrations Clementine-Rose lives at the Dark side and really add to the atmosphere. A Penberthy Floss in a large Daniel Wallace Beauty and the Beast poignant and thought-provoking book. ramshackle house with her Scholastic. HB/Box Set. $99.99 Ursula Jones & Sarah Gibb (illus.) Angela Crocombe is from Readings St Kilda mother, the butler and a very As various Sith Lords Orchard. HB. $26.99 sweet teacup pig called rose to power, they Enter a world of enchant- Olivia and the Fairy Lavender. When scary Aunt recorded their thoughts ment with this magical Princesses Violet arrives unexpectedly, and plans to take retelling of Beauty and the Ian Falconer the household is thrown into control of the galaxy. Beast, illustrated with S&S. HB. $19.99 disarray. Clementine-Rose is determined to Years later, in his quest exquisite style by Sarah Gibb. Olivia the Pig is a breath of find out why Aunt Violet has come to visit, for domination, Darth Sidious recovered Award-winning author Ursula fresh air! Her new book looks and exactly what she keeps in that mysterious what remained of these five pivotal texts and Jones tells the story with deceptively like the standard black bag. added his own manifesto. Together, these elegance and humour, fairy princess fluff, sure to documents, along with several Sith artifacts, capturing all the magic and excitement of this delight a certain demograph- Middle Fiction create the Book of Sith. Press the button, open timeless fairytale. ic of 3-5 year-olds and drive Liar & Spy the case, and unleash the darkness within ... their parents crazy. But no, Rebecca Stead Snippets this is one brilliantly Text. PB. $16.99. Ebook $12.74 The Science Ten years ago the spooky subversive picture book. Olivia is dreadfully Smart, sensitive Georges is and Inventions Coraline by Neil Gaiman tired of all that pink frippery (aren’t we all?) having a rough time of it – Creativity Book was published and has gone and prefers a princess from Thailand, Africa he’s bullied at school, he Ruth Thomson on to be a modern classic. or India clothed in traditional dress with hardly sees his mum and, Walker. PB. $19.95 Three new editions are not a smidgen of pink. She finds dressing up when his dad is made Science-crazy young inven- being published to celebrate as a warthog much more fun and is inspired redundant, the family have to tors can learn how to build a this milestone, all with by the avant garde style of dancer and leave their beloved home and robot, make the perfect paper Chris Riddell’s atmospheric provocateur Martha Graham. She simply move into an apartment. But aeroplane or draw up a illustrations. Along with a new paperback does not understand why all the little pink it’s there that Georges meets Safer, an blueprint for a spaceship. The edition (A&U, $14.99) there is a hardback princesses want to look the same (hear, eccentric boy whose friendship is set to book includes stickers, (Bloomsbury, $29.99) and a limited hear!) and instead Olivia embarks on a change his life. With Safer in charge, the boys stencils, pull-out craft paper, edition slipcase volume (Bloomsbury, journey to be unique. This book may just begin to spy on the mysterious Mr X, a man bite-size facts about famous $49.99), all with a foreward by Gaiman. inspire those pink princesses to find their who lives in the building. But it’s what we inventors and inventions, and more. Get spooked by a master. own path too! AC 16 Readings Monthly September 2012

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The Tuscan Sun Boomerang: Guantanamo: The Vivisector Cookbook The Meltdown Tour My Journey Patrick White Frances Mayes & Edward Mayes Michael Lewis David Hicks HB. Was $45. Now $24.95 HB. Was $35. Now $14.95 HB. Was $39.95. Now $15.95 HB. Was $49.95. Now $10 Hurtle Duffield, a painter, is In all of Frances Mayes’ Michael Lewis’s investigation Initially, Hicks was after incapable of loving anything bestselling books about of bubbles across Europe adventure and the experience except what he paints. The Tuscany, food plays a starring (which, as he discovers, is of travelling the Silk Road. men and women who court role. It transports, comforts, rapidly becoming the new But events would set him on him during his long life are, seduces and conveys perfectly Third World) is brilliantly, a different path. He would be above all, the victims of his the friendly, warm and sadly hilarious. But America deemed a terrorist and art. This is a beautiful improvisational spirit of can’t be too complacent incarcerated in the world’s limited-edition hardback. Tuscan life. either. When he turns a most notorious prison, merciless eye on California and Washington Guantanamo Bay, for five and a half years, Why Italians Love to Indulge DC, we see that the final reckoning awaits suffering horror, torture and abuse while Talk About Food Rowie Dillon the greediest of all the debtor nations too. Australians were told who he was by Elena Kostioukovitch PB. Was $39.99. Now $14.95 politicians, the media and foreign govern- PB. Was $35. Now $10 Dillon’s book will totally The Communist ments. Everyone had an opinion on him. Why Italians Love to Talk change people’s perception Manifesto But only he knew the truth. About Food is a fascinating of gluten-free cooking and Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels mix of history, culture, gluten-free cookbooks, PB. Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition. Oriental Vegetables language and cuisine. ensuring that this is a Was $19.95. Now $9.95 Joy Larkcom Covering each of Italy’s 20 must-have on the shelf The Communist Manifestois PB. Was $29.95. Now $14.95 diverse regions, along with of every home chef in one of the most important An indispensable guide to chapters on general themes the country. and influential political growing and using Oriental such as olive oil, slow food theories ever formulated. vegetables based on 10 years of and the Mediterranean diet, this is a Hiroshima Nagasaki This fine paperback edition research in China and the wonderful gastronomic and cultural guide. Paul Ham by Penguin is designed to be author’s own garden. Larkcom HB. Was $49.95. Now $19.95 kept and treasured. A truly shows that many lesser-known Love, Sex, Death & Ham describes the political wonderful object. Oriental vegetables thrive Words: Surprising manoeuvring and the regardless of season and includes over 50 of Tales from a Year scientific race to build the The Penguin Guide her own delicious recipes. in Literature new atomic weapon. He also to the 1000 Finest Historic Maps and John Sutherland gives powerful witness to its Classical Recordings & Stephen Fender destructive nature through Views of Rome Ivan March & HB. Was $45. Now $14.95 the eyes of eighty survivors, Edward Greenfield George Sinclair Love, sex, death, boredom, from 12-year-olds forced to HB. Was $49.95. Now $14.95 PB. Was $32.95. Now $12.95 ecstasy, existential angst, work in war factories to wives and children This guide is far more than a The 24 unique, fascinating political upheaval – the who faced it alone, reminding us that these listing – it also includes an and beautiful maps in this history of literature offers a two cities were full of ordinary people who essay on downloads, a history book date from the twelfth rich and varied exploration suddenly, out of a clear blue summer’s sky, of recording and a short guide century to the present day and of the human condition felt the sun fall on their heads. to composers, ballet and include some of the earliest across the centuries. In this known views of Rome, as well as topographical Alone in Berlin opera. What makes it truly absorbing companion to exceptional is the many years maps, transit maps, maps used for advertising, literature’s rich past, arranged by days of the Hans Fallada of warmth and enthusiasm its roads and bicycles and much, much more. year, acclaimed critics and friends Stephen HB. Slipcase Edition. Was $45. Now $16.95 writers bring to their great subject. Fender and John Sutherland turn up the Otto, an ordinary German Comrades most inspiring, enlightening, surprising or living in a shabby apartment The New Self-Sufficient Robert Service curious artefacts that literature has to offer. block, tries to stay out of Gardener PB. Was $29.99. Now $10 trouble under Nazi rule. But John Seymour Two decades have passed The Soup Book when he discovers his only since the collapse of commu- HB. Was $55. Now $19.95 Sophie Grigson son has been killed fighting at nism in Eastern Europe and John Seymour’s classic guide PB. Was $29.95. Now $12.95 the front, he’s shocked into an the USSR. Robert Service, gives you the knowledge Discover over 150 tried-and- extraordinary act of resistance. one of our finest historians of and expertise to create your tested soup recipes organised modern Russia, sets out to own self-sufficient garden by ingredient. From pasta Who, or Why, or Which, examine the history of and produce what you need. and noodles to meat and or What...? communism throughout the Whatever the size of your winter vegetables, turn world. His uncomfortable conclusion – and John Oldale space, discover how to surplus food in your fridge an important message for the twenty-first HB. Was $39.95. Now $12.95 garden organically and into mouth-watering meals. century – is that although communism in its Who was the only modern maximise your harvest, without the need for original form is now dead or dying, the leader to return fire during radical changes to your lifestyle. Vesuvius an assassination attempt? poverty and injustice that enabled its rise are Gillian Darley still dangerously alive. Why is kissing on trains Mathematics of Life PB. Was $35.00. Now $13.95 banned in France? Which Ian Stewart Volcanoes continue to grab island used to be home to a Voss HB. Was $39.99. Now $14.95 our imagination – and crocodile that jumped on Patrick White In this book mathematicians Vesuvius is the most famous of its prey from trees? What HB. Was $45. Now $24.95 and biologists confront them all. There have been was the first song to be sung in outer Set in nineteenth-century nature’s enigmas, picking nearly 30 major eruptions space? With a reasonable claim to be the Australia, Voss is the story of apart the hidden complexity since AD 79, but none has most useful book ever written, John the secret passion between an of animals and plants to matched the cataclysm of the Oldale’s Who, or Why, or Which, or explorer and a naïve young throw new light on the eruption that destroyed What...? is a cornucopia of history, travel, woman. This is a beautiful behaviour of organisms and Pompeii within hours. Since then Vesuvius has politics, wildlife, language – indeed, a limited-edition hardback how changes in diversity been speculated about, feared and celebrated celebration of everything that makes this from the master himself, affect the planet’s ecological balance. by writers, artists and hordes of visitors. planet so fascinating. Patrick White. Readings Monthly September 2012 17 Grand Designs Australia: Season 2 $39.95 with Gerard Elson Architectural enthusiasts New Release DVDs can enjoy a fresh dose of DVD of the Month (Easy A) and Elizabeth Banks (Slither) co-star Chaplinesque simplicity. It’s a satisfying and in a film that The Age’s Philippa Hawker distinctively lovable film.’—Peter Bradshaw, home-builder’s wish Boardwalk Empire: fulfillment with this second Season 2 said balances ‘fidelity to [its] source material The Guardian. with an inventiveness about its translation season of the popular Released 5 September. $59.95 onto the screen’. Sons of Anarchy: lifestyle program. In our Blu-ray $69.95 Season 3 homegrown version, ‘Nucky’ Thompson (Steve The Way award-winning architect Buscemi) is back, along with $54.95 Peter Maddison oversees the planning and everyone left standing at the $34.95 Jax’s (Charlie Hunnam) infant construction of a host of all-new Australian conclusion of the first season The Way of St James (or El son is kidnapped, leading the houses, each bold, ambitious and, naturally, of this Prohibition-era Camino Santiago) is the gang to Belfast, and Gemma problem-fraught, all the while documenting gangster drama from HBO. pilgrimage route to the (Katey Sagal) is framed for the emotional vicissitudes of the people Bootlegging, malfeasance, Cathedral of Santiago de murder in the third season of behind them. poetic violence and those Compostela in northwestern this celebrated bikie crime spruce Jazz-age threads again take centre Spain, where the apostle St series that continues to grip Jamie’s 30 Minute frame in this series that’s fast become James is said to be interred. like a pair of premium Meals: Volume 2 In The Way, Martin Sheen Goodyears. Darkly witty, this series has compulsory viewing. With a sterling support $29.95 cast filling out a fascinating gallery of rogues plays an American ophthalmologist who developed into one of the most compelling makes the long trek on foot himself shows out there. ‘A distant and infinitely Filmed in real-time, this – including Kelly Macdonald (No Country zippy show demonstrates for Old Men) and a triumvirate of Michaels: following the death of his son on the trail. more sophisticated relation of Paul Haggis’s Directed by Sheen’s own son, Emilio 2005 film, Crash.’—The New York Times. how several nutritious, Pitt (Hedwig and the Angry Inch), Shannon delicious, multiple-course (Take Shelter) and Stuhlbarg (A Serious Man) Estevez, the film was prompted by a roadtrip Sheen took with Estevez’s son Bored to Death: meals can be prepped, – it’s little wonder The Guardian hailed this cooked and plated within lustrous production as ‘starting to look like a Taylor (who serves as producer) along the Season 3 Camino in 2003. half an hour. Over 14 masterpiece’. Released 5 September. $39.95 eye-opening episodes, Jamie In this final season of the hit Oliver imparts enough culinary nous to Café de Flore The King of Devil’s HBO comedy, struggling- Island satisfy long-time pros and connoisseurs, all Released 12 September. $39.95 novelist-turned-amateur-P.I. the while upholding his reputation as the Named for one of Paris’s Released 12 September. $29.95 Jonathan Ames (Jason most egalitarian of celebrity chefs. Too tired? most iconic coffeehouses – a Stellan Skarsgård is at his Schwartzman) adds a search Too busy? Too unskilled? Not anymore. haunt of Sartre, de Beauvoir stern-mouthed and furrow- for his true father to his and Camus – this surprising browed best in this studiedly seemingly ceaseless list of The Atheism Tapes frosty tale of oppression, drama has one foot set in anxieties and frustrations. $29.95 modern-day Montreal and defiance and emancipation Meanwhile, George (Ted Danson) opens a set in early twentieth-century Nontheism is discussed by the other in 1960s France. In haute cuisine restaurant in lower NYC and six leading men of letters the period strand, Vanessa Norway. The film is based falls in love with his singing coach, while on true events that occurred and science with neurologist- Paradis (Heartbreaker) is the fiercely Ray (Zach Galifianakis) enjoys the compan- turned-playwright Jonathan protective single mother of a son with at a reform school for ‘maladjusted boys’ ionship of an older woman. on a freezing and isolated island and, for Miller. In these six half-hour Downs’ Syndrome (Marin Gerrier), while in episodes, Richard Dawkins the contemporary storyline, a DJ navigates Xan Brooks of The Guardian, is marked by Two Greedy Italians: ‘robust acting and crisp direction’. and Arthur Miller – lumi- his complicated love life. Season 1 naries who need no intro- Le Havre $29.95 duction – share their views along with The Hunger Games Join Antonio Carluccio and lesser-known figures such as philosophers $39.95. Blu-ray $49.95 $29.95 Gennaro Cotaldo for a Daniel Dennett and Colin McGinn, Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s This dry-witted modern culinary escapade marinated theologian Denys Turner and physicist Bone) is Katniss Everdeen in fairytale from Aki Kaurismäki in memory. Over four Steven Weinberg. this adaptation of the (The Man Without a Past) hour-long episodes, the twin bestselling novel. In a finds a French coastal kings of Italian cuisine return Also out now community banding together not-too-distant future, in the to their homeland to acquaint Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey at the behest of an ageing ($29.95) ruins of what once was themselves with the changing Dumb, Drunk & Racist bohemian (Andre Wilms) to ($29.95) North America, 12 teenagers face of the country’s gastronomy, sharing Salmon Fishing in the Yemen protect a young Gabonese ($39.95) are pitted against each other regional recipesBrand identity usage both traditional and contem- Absolutely Fabulous: Ab Fab at 20 immigrant (Blondin Miguel). ‘The drollery ($29.95) in an annual bout of survivalist death sports, porary as they go. Good-humoured and Wish You Were Here and deadpan in Kaurismäki’s style in no way ($39.95) which are televised, Olympics-like, for the self-effacing, the pair make this a poignant, Beaconsfield($24.95) entertainment of the masses. Stanley Tucci undermine the emotional force of this tale; enlightening and decidedly candid journey. they give it a sweetness and an ingenuous,

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Inventive Labs: Bookish Brand Identity

These titles and many more on sale, September 3-16, at ebooks.readings.com.au 18 Readings Monthly September 2012

Love This Giant follow-up, Close Your Eyes. The album is a David Byrne & St. Vincent classic collection of blues, jazz and pop Released 7 September. Normally $24.95 songs, including her version of new hero Joni Our special price $19.95 (for a limited time Mitchell’s ‘Big Yellow Taxi’. Sarah has also just New Release CDs only). Vinyl also available been offered a full scholarship to the Berklee David Byrne, former College of Music in Boston. Hysteria and the country-tinged What Rhymes frontman of Talking Heads, with Cars and Girls. Tim shows yet again that is no stranger to collabora- he knows how to write beautiful songs with CD of the Month tion, from his early efforts his trademark lyrical wit and eloquence. Election Special with Brian Eno right Blues Ry Cooder The Moment PRIVATEERING through to his recent live $19.95.Vinyl also available album with Caetano Veloso. On Byrne’s Mia Dyson It’s difficult to think of any Mark Knopfler latest release he teams with Annie Clark (aka $24.95. Vinyl also available other guitar player that has 2CDs. Normally $26.95 St. Vincent), who was previously a member Three years ago award- mastered the range of styles Our special price $21.95 of The Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens’ winning blues based singer- that Ry Cooder has. This Vinyl also available band. Since meeting in 2009, the two have songwriter and guitarist Mia new album is, as the title Mark Knopfler returns contributed to each other’s projects. Love Dyson departed our shores suggests, a scathing look at with his first album in This Giant sees the pair sharing the lyrical to further her career in the the current election process in America and years. This two-CD set and vocal duties equally, and the track ‘Who’ tough US market. Despite the main players. Cooder stands for the contains all original songs meshes brass, beats and guitars with an setbacks, Dyson has channelled her frustra- working man and the unions, and his anger that were written on both infectious, upbeat energy. MAS tions in love and career into a tight and focused at the greed and the damage done to society sides of the Atlantic, bunch of songs that are easily her best to date. gets a loud voice in these songs. It’s vintage spanning themes, locations and characters The Carpenter The album was financed by her loyal local fan Cooder and just wonderful. that inhabit these two worlds. Although The Avett Brothers base and it shows. Dyson lays down a solid Knopfler has a rambling, storyteller style, Alice Bisits is from Readings Malvern Released 14 September. Normally $26.95 bunch of punchy grooves, taking us through a he continues to cross genres and the album Our special price $21.95 (for a limited time varied collection of songs that strongly feature contains many blues-style tracks as well as a only). Vinyl also available themes of love lost and sporadic observations sense of soulfulness. The band, as always, After 2009’s wonderful I & of life in her adopted home. There are slow- comprises the best of studio musicians and Pop/Rock Love & You, North burn bluesy numbers like ‘Tell Me’, which is accompanied this time by guests Kim Centipede HZ Carolina’s Avett Brothers feature economical but expressive guitar licks Wilson (The Fabulous Thunderbirds), Tim Animal Collective have once again joined and of course that powerful voice. Compari- O’Brien and singer Ruth Moody (Wailin’ Released 31 August. Normally $26.95 forces with producer Rick sons with Lucinda Williams and Bonnie Raitt Jennys), among others. Our special price $21.95. Vinyl also available Rubin for their new album (whom Dyson has toured with) are inevitable; this could be the album that takes her career Animal Collective’s Tempest The Carpenter. The first single ‘Live & Die’ Merriweather Post Pavilion sets the tone for another fantastic record to the next level. was my favourite album of Bob Dylan exploring themes of love, life, loss and death. Paul Barr is from Readings Carlton 2009 by far, and one that I Released 7 September. Normally $24.95 No other band out there blends roots music come back to repeatedly. Our special price $19.95 (for a limited time with a rock’n’roll attitude quite like this Centipede HZ continues a only). Deluxe edition $24.95. sibling-led outfit, and The Carpenter is trend of album covers about as chaotic as the Vinyl also available another worthy addition to what’s becoming Country multilayered songs themselves. Some tracks His Royal Bobness is an impressive body of work. DM WRECK & RUIN are a perfect mess of electronic madness, celebrating the 50th Kasey Chambers & with an underlying rhythm buzzing behind anniversary of his first Coexist Shane Nicholson Avey Tare’s vocals that isn’t always clear but album and we, his The XX subjects, get to enjoy Released 7 September. Normally $26.95 is still relentlessly moving. Others are softer, Released 7 September. Normally $24.95 album number 35 from Our special price $21.95 melodic snapshots of an electro-folk Our special price $19.95. Vinyl also available the great man. Its title has led fans to Deluxe edition $29.95 landscape you wish you could live in. A band that frequently speculate that it may be his last album, for It’s been five years since Fiona Hardy is from Readings Carlton ends up on the Readings The Tempest was the last play Shakespeare Kasey Chambers and Carlton turntable during ever wrote. What we do know is that Dylan Shane Nicholson released Sun long sunny Sunday has been in great form, with his last four their platinum album Cat Power afternoons, the yearning albums among the best of his career. Rattlin’ Bones in 2008, Released 31 August. Normally $24.95 alt-pop of The XX is almost which won them a host of Our special price $19.95 (for a limited time Dave Clarke is from Readings Carlton a physical comfort. Romy Madley Croft fills awards. Now, they return with their only). Vinyl also available in all the quiet corners with her velvet-lined second collaboration, Wreck & Ruin, Singer/songwriter Chan Shields vocals. From a soulful nod to Portishead on which was recorded over eight days at Marshall, who performs Grizzly Bear the opening single ‘Angels’ to the steadier Foggy Mountain in a cabin at the foothills under the alias Cat Power, Released 14 September. Normally $24.95 clap of the drum line on indie-dance track of the Hunter Valley. This 13-track album has released an exciting new Our special price $19.95 (for a limited time ‘Swept Away’, The XX are a chain letter in captures each of the various elements of record of original material, only).Vinyl also available band form: hear them, pass it on and watch the pair’s love for music – from roots to which arrives four years Brooklyn’s Grizzly Bear it take over the world. FH gospel to bluegrass to folk – while always after her covers album Jukebox, and six years became the indie darlings remaining country to the core. Wreck & after her last release of original work, The of 2009 with Veckatimest, I KNOW WHAT LOVE ISN’T Ruin opens with the hymn-inspired ‘Til Greatest. Sun was performed and produced an admittedly glorious Jens Lekman Death Do Us Part’, before launching into by Marshall after a difficult break-up with record that makes the Normally $26.95 the title track, a mixture of banjo and her longtime partner, and features eleven new release of Shields hotly Our special price $21.95 bruised fiddle work all purposefully built tracks including the fabulous single ‘Ruin’. anticipated to say the least. Opening track I Know What Love Isn’t was around country influences. Miranda La Fleur is from Readings St Kilda and first single ‘Sleeping Ute’ is a bold born out of a break-up. The statement on an album littered with songs are full of essential Just Tell Me That You trademark inventiveness and harmonic human experiences and Want Me: A Tribute to sophistication. In short, another gem from emotions that, while not Soundtrack Fleetwood Mac one of the best bands working today. necessarily new, explore the Lawless Various Declan Murphy is from Readings St Kilda grey areas that come with falling in and out of Nick Cave & Warren Ellis Normally $26.95 love. The album also marks a shift in style for Normally $26.95 Our special price $22.95 Algiers Lekman – the huge orchestral arrangements Our special price $21.95 A diverse range of creative Calexico are gone and have been replaced with a few After collaborating to forces have drawn upon the Released 7 September strings, a flute, saxophone or an upright produce the remarkable numerous hits of Fleetwood Normally $26.95 piano. You almost don’t notice the separation soundtracks to director Mac and presented us with a Our special price $21.95. Vinyl also available between instrument and voice at all. It is this John Hillcoat’s The Road daring collection. We have Joey Burns and John economy of production that truly brings the and The Proposition, Nick MGMT, The Kills, Mari- Convertino of Tucson stories to the fore. Cave and Warren Ellis anne Faithfull and Lykke Li among many Arizona’s alt-country band have teamed up once again for Hillcoat’s others, presenting their favourite Mac song Calexico have played latest, Lawless, a gangster film set during with fresh sounds and killer interpretations. AB music together for over 20 the United States Prohibition era (1919- years. Algiers is their first Jazz 1933). Performing with Martyn Casey, Rogers Sings Rogerstein release in four years, as well as the band’s Close your eyes David Sard and George Vjestica, the core Tim Rogers first for the ANTI- label (home of Tom Sarah McKenzie group members have appropriately named Normally $26.95 Waits, Mavis Staples and Joe Henry). The $21.95 themselves The Bootleggers, and they Our special price $21.95 track ‘Para’ epitomises the Calexico sound Young Australian jazz singer tackle both new songs and covers such as A brand new solo album and builds slowly to a big brass crescendo. Sarah McKenzie burst onto the Velvet Underground’s ‘White Light/ from You Am I front man, Calexico continue to meld their West Coast the scene last year with her White Heat’ and Townes van Zandt’s ‘The Tim Rogers, Rogers Sings roots with Latin infusions to great effect. debut, Don’t Tempt Me, and Snake Song’. The Bootleggers are accom- Rogerstein sits somewhere Michael Awosoga-Samuel is from she has quickly moved to panied by special guests for the project between the orchestrated Readings Carlton confirm her reputation including Mark Lanegan, Emmylou Harris leanings of Luxury of among this country’s finest artists with her and Willie Nelson. MLF Readings Monthly September 2012 19

FabulousExtraordinary performances. Classical Extraordinary Box recordings. Set Up to 50% Sale off. Over 80 titles available

JS Bach: The Complete Beethoven: Complete Kathleen Ferrier: Tchaikovsky: Keyboard Works Pianos Sonatas The Complete EMI Symphonies & Angela Hewitt. Hyperion. Nos. 1-32 Recordings Orchestral Music CDS4442135. 15CDs Paul Lewis. Harmonia Mundi. Kathleen Ferrier. EMI. Andrew Litton & Was $128.95. Now $86.95 HMX290190211. 10CDs 9562842. 3CDs Bournemouth SO. Virgin. ‘[The] finest exponent of Was $129.95. Now $89.95 Was $19.95. Now $13.95 5618932. 6CDs Bach’s keyboard music.’ ‘[One] of the most highly ‘The voice is unmistakable: Was $29.95. Now $18.95 —Gramophone. ‘Her prized recording marathons richly textured, darkly ‘These Tchaikovsky [Bach] has long been a thing of wonder.’ of recent years … an coloured, ringed with performances … are —Daily Telegraph. unmissable benchmark.’—Gramophone. nobility, sadness too … Even now almost 60 superb, full-bodied, and wide ranging and years on, her death still leaves a hole.’ brilliant.’—Gramophone. JS Bach: Complete Chopin: Complete Works —The Times. Works for Violin Garrick Ohlsson. Hyperion. Mendelssohm: String Benjamin Schmid. Oehms. CDS443516. 16CDs The Handel Collection Quartets Nos. 1-6 OC318. 5CDs Was $94.95. Now $66.95 Harry Christophers & The Cherubini Quartet. EMI. Was $59.95. Now $35.95 ‘This is an outstanding Sixteen. Coro. 5008572. 3CDs. ‘Performances with more achievement, which any COR16080. 12CDs Was $14.95. Now $9.95 interest per bar than most genuine Chopin lover and Was $117.95. Now $79.95 ‘Solidly constructed and can manage for entire student of Romantic music should own … ‘The Sixteen’s most exciting intensely expressive with an sonatas.’ —Gramophone. A landmark in the recording of Chopin’s achievement in its impressive irresistible sense of rhythm, music.’—International Record Review. Handel discography.’—Gramophone. the Cherubini’s performances are instantly JS Bach: Cello Suites engaging.’—James Leonard, Rovi Music. Pablo Casals. EMI. Espana Antiqua Joan Sutherland: 0852902. 2CDs Jordi Savall & Hesperion A Portrait Magnificat: 500 Years Was $16.95. Now $11.95 XX. Virgin. 5619642. 8CDs Regis. RRC3013. 3CDs of Choral Masterpieces ‘Casals still seems to be Was $39.95. Now $27.95 Was $20.95. Now $12.95 Various. Decca. the standard against which ‘This is a beautiful set, ‘In her own time there 4783640. 50CDs other performances are containing 8 discs of was a tendency to take Was $149.95. Now $119.95 measured, and these recordings are masterpieces performed Sutherland for granted, so ‘These treasures are brought indispensable to any serious collector.’ perfectly – this is the finest anthology of consistent were her high by many of the greatest —All Music Guide. early Spanish music you can find.’—Music standards of technique, musicianship and, interpreters of the past 50 Web International. yes, acting. Her total command of the stage years … This set will take time to explore Bach: Masses was always formidable.’—Gramophone. and uncover – a lifetime is not too much.’ Philippe Herreweghe & Lumieres: Music of the —Barney Zwartz, The Saturday Age. Chorus & Orchestra of Enlightenment Joseph Haydn: Collegium Vocale. Virgin. Various. Harmonia Mundi. 27 String quartets Karajan 1960s: 3728562. 5CDs HMX290860130. 30CDs Amadeus Quartet. DG. The Complete DG Was $29.95. Now $18.95 Was $69.95. Now $41.95 4778116. 10CDs Recordings ‘This budget box set is a ‘Harmonia Mundi have Was $112.95. Now $66.95 great way to discover Philippe Herreweghe’s Herbert Von Karajan somehow contrived to ‘This is poised and civilised DG. 4790055. 82CDs fine recordings, and hear some of Bach’s telescope that most indus- music-making, much of Music Was $239.95. Now $199.95 most wonderful compositions.’— triously inventive of musical centuries into which is familiar and all of Web International. Few conductors have had the this 30CD set, by dint of ingenious thematic it intensely thoughtful and revealing.’ lacerating impact of Karajan programming … it’s an indisputable bargain —The Guardian. and his Berliner Philhar- Beethoven: box.’—The Independent. Complete Symphonies moniker. With brilliant playing and audacious Sibelius Edition Volume programming, these albums are a must-have. & Overtures Jacqueline Du Pre: 5: Theatre Music Jos Van Immerseel & Anima The Complete EMI Neemi Jarvi & Osmo The Decca Sound Eterna. Zig Zag. Recordings Vanska. BIS. Various. Decca. ZZT0804026. 6CDs Jacqueline Du Pre. EMI. BISCD191214. 6CDs 4782826. 50CDs Was $77.95. Now $27.95 0919342. 17CDs Was $92.95. Now $49.95 Was $149.95. Now $119.95 ‘Indeed, from the first Was $69.95. Now $54.95 ‘For dedicated Sibelius The Decca Sound is a limited- bristling chords, Anima ‘Anyone enamored with du aficionados, Vol. 5 in BIS’ edition 50-CD box-set of Eterna’s playing held me on the edge of my Pré’s unmistakable sound complete Sibelius will be mandatory listen- legendary recordings from the seat.’ —Gramophone. would do well to have this ing ... uniformly cool, clear, colourful, and past 55 years, starring a galaxy of interna- set.’—All Music Guide. vivid.’ —All Music Guide. tionally acclaimed artistic talent.

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