FREE FEBRUARY 2019

The most anticipated books of 2019

Our head book buyer Alison Huber on the books to look out for this year.

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BOOKS MUSIC FILM EVENTS

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN page 22 WESTWOOD SONIA GRAEME JACQUELINE ANGIE page 21 ORCHARD SIMSION KENT THOMAS page 8 page 8 page 12 page 17

CARLTON 309 LYGON ST 9347 6633 KIDS 315 LYGON ST 9341 7730 DONCASTER WESTFIELD DONCASTER, 619 DONCASTER RD 9810 0891 HAWTHORN 701 GLENFERRIE RD 9819 1917 MALVERN 185 GLENFERRIE RD 9509 1952 ST KILDA 112 ACLAND ST 9525 3852 STATE LIBRARY VICTORIA 285-321 RUSSELL ST 8664 7540 | SEE SHOP OPENING HOURS, BROWSE AND BUY ONLINE AT WWW.READINGS.COM.AU

NEWS February 2019 READINGS MONTHLY 3

note, this is not a childminding service. We Doncaster. The first 2019 book clubs will run information about the Hot Desk fellowships, ask that parents stay with their children for for four months and membership will cost please see wheelercentre.com February the reading. $50. Sessions for 2019 commence in March. For more information about the Readings book clubs at Readings State Library or Celebrating Eighty Years of Puffin Books News The Readings Foundation grants other Readings shops, and instructions on In 2019, beloved children’s book publisher announced how to join, see readings.com.au/book- Puffin Books is celebrating its 80th The Readings Foundation has announced clubs Birthday. To celebrate, we have special $146,700 worth of grants to support commemorative Puffin book bags to give 3 for 2 Nonfiction favourites a range of projects and organisations away. Purchase two titles in a specially Throughout February, we’re offering a within Victoria in 2019. This year, the Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellowships selected range of Puffin books to receive a special deal on a select range of award- grant committee has chosen to allocate In 2019, as in previous years, Readings is free book bag. This special offer is available winning and popular non-fiction titles. If funding to organisations that are delivering supporting The Wheeler Centre’s Hot Desk at all Readings shops except for Readings you purchase two books, you can choose strong literacy and education support to Fellowships. The Hot Desk Fellowships Carlton and Readings State Library Victoria a third book in the range (of equal or the most disadvantaged people in our offer twenty writers the space and time to while stocks last. Not available online. lesser value) for free! The range includes community. Readings donates 10% of its write throughout the year. Each recipient The Tall Man by Chloe Hooper; The Wife overall profit to The Readings Foundation will receive a $1000 stipend and workspace Drought by Annabel Crabb; The Bush by each year, and the generous donations in the Wheeler Centre over a 10-week Costa Book Awards Don Watson; Educated by Tara Westover; from Readings’ customers make a crucial period. This year there are three additional The 2018 Costa Book Awards have been Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari; Stasiland contribution. The successful grant fellowships for regional or interstate writers. announced. These awards honour some by ; The Body Keeps the recipients for this year are: Aboriginal These three writers will be provided with a of the most outstanding books of the year Score by Bessell van der Kolk and many Literacy Foundation ($20,000); Ballarat five-week residency at the Norma Redpath written by authors based in the UK and more. This offer is exclusively available in Foundation ($19,700); Banksia Gardens Studio in Carlton. Managing Director Mark Ireland, across five different categories. The all Readings shops except Readings Kids Community Service ($20,000); Church of Rubbo says: ‘It’s been a great pleasure winners in each category are: The Seven until Thursday 28 February on stickered, All Nations ($20,000); Kids Under Cover to see the development of the Wheeler Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart in-stock items only, while stocks last. This ($5,000); Mallee Family Care ($10,000); Centre Hot Desks Fellowships and the Turton for first novel, Normal People by offer is not available online. Parkville College ($20,000); The Smith important role they play in nurturing new Sally Rooney for novel, The Cut Out Girl by Family ($12,000); and the The Wheeler and emerging writers and their fascinating Bart van Es for biography, Assurances by Centre ($20,000). For more information projects. The addition of the residential J.O. Morgan for poetry, and The Skylarks’ Indie Book Awards shortlist about the Readings Foundation, see Fellowships, thanks to CAL and the War by Hilary McKay for children’s books. The Indie Book Awards have announced readings.com.au/the-readings-foundation University of , is a particularly For more information about these awards, their shortlists for the best Australian exciting and welcome development adding including a list of all the shortlisted titles, books of 2018, as chosen by independent a new level to the Fellowships.’ For more please see costa.co.uk/costa-book-awards booksellers around the country. The Readings Prizes guest judges announced fiction shortlist includes The Lost Man by We’re delighted to announce the three Jane Harper, Shell by Kristina Olsson, The brilliant authors that will be the guest Shepherd’s Hut by and Bridge judges for our literary prizes in 2019. Zana of Clay by Markus Zusak. The nonfiction Fraillon will be the guest judge for the shortlist includes The Land Before Avocado Readings Children’s Book Prize 2019, Cath by Richard Glover, The Arsonist by Chloe Crowley will be the guest judge for the Hooper, Eggshell Skull by Bri Lee and Readings Young Adult Book Prize 2019, Any Ordinary Day by Leigh Sales. See and Jennifer Down will be the guest judge indiebookawards.com.au for the full shortlist for the Readings Prize for New Australian in every category Fiction 2019. In each case, the guest judge joins our staff judging panel after the shortlist has been decided, and helps the Readings Story Times panel to select a winner. Readings offers a free weekly half-hour children’s story time at our Kids, Doncaster and Malvern shops. These sessions Book clubs commence at 10am on Fridays at Readings In 2019, we will be running four new book Kids and Readings Doncaster, and 10.30am clubs at our State Library shop: a fiction on Thursdays at Readings Malvern. Our book club, a YA book blub, a nonfiction children’s book specialists would be happy book club, and a queer book club. Each to assist you in choosing books for your of these book clubs will be convened by family following the session, whatever their a Readings staff member. We will also be age, reading ability or interests. Please continuing our book clubs at Readings

READINGS MONTHLY EDITOR ADVERTISING PRICES AND AVAILABILITY Free, independent monthly newspaper Elke Power Ellen Cregan Please note that all prices and release published by Readings Books, Music & Film [email protected] [email protected] dates in Readings Monthly are correct at time of publication, however prices and SUBSCRIBE EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS GRAPHIC DESIGN release dates may change without notice. You can subscribe to Readings Monthly Judi Mitchell and Ellen Cregan Cat Matteson Special price offers apply only for the and our e-news by visiting our website: colourcode.com.au month in which they are featured in the readings.com.au/sign-up PROOFREADERS Readings Monthly. Marie Matteson and Ellen Cregan FRONT COVER DELIVERY CHARGES FOR The February Readings Monthly cover by Readings donates 10% of its profits each MAIL-ORDER PURCHASES KIDS/YA CURATORS Cat Matteson. year to The Readings Foundation: $6 flat rate for anywhere in Australia Angela Crocombe and Dani Solomon readings.com.au/the-readings-foundation CARTOON DELIVERY CHARGES FOR MUSIC CURATOR Oslo Davis ONLINE PURCHASES Dave Clarke oslodavis.com $6 flat rate for anywhere in Australia for orders under $100. Free delivery on orders CLASSICAL MUSIC CURATOR $100 and over. Phil Richards

DVDS CURATOR Lou Fulco

EVENTS CURATOR Chris Gordon 4 READINGS MONTHLY February 2019 EVENTS

mother by his side, Platypup discovers that his home by the river is just as lovely in the February dark of night as it is during the day!

Readings Kids 315 Lygon Street, Carlton Events TORIES Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events S AN LI Event times and locations are subject to change. A R T For the most up-to-date information on events, S please check readings.com.au/events U A 50 Australian Stories Friday 1 February, 6.30pm-7.30pm event series BOOKED OUT YOTAM OTTOLENGHI IN Readings is celebrating our CONVERSATION WITH 50 year history in 2019. To MAEVE O’MEARA honour the stories that have For one night only, we are delighted to emerged from the books on give you an opportunity to hear from one our shelves, we are hosting of the greatest food commentators and 50 special events that creators of our time, Israeli-British chef illustrate passion, artistry and Yotam Ottolenghi. The author of several Australian literature. We hope bestselling cookbooks including Plenty you will join our celebrations. and, most recently, Simple, Ottolenghi will talk about the joy of remaining simple in your approach to food, life and love with award-winning Australian food writer, Monday 25 February, broadcaster and television producer Maeve 6.30pm 50 AUSTRA LIA N ST O’Meara. Both Ottolenghi and O’Meara will O Tuesday 19 February, 6.30pm R IE sign copies of their books, which will be MARK BRANDI IN S Thursday 28 February, 6.30pm available for purchase, following the event. CONVERSATION WITH JANE CARO IN TESSA KIROS IN Melbourne Town Hall CONVERSATION WITH HANNIE RAYSON 90-130 Swanston Street, Melbourne CONVERSATION WITH MARY CROOKS We are thrilled to have Mark Brandi, the local, bestselling author of Wimmera, joining SHARLEE GIBBS Accidental Feminists by author, journalist us to talk about his powerful new urban Together with Fully Booked Women, we are and social commentator Jane Caro Friday 1 February, 10.30am crime novel, The Rip, with renowned writer delighted to bring you a special evening examines and celebrates the contribution Hannie Rayson. with beloved cookbook author Tessa women over fifty-five years old have made KIDS Kiros. Tessa Kiros was born in London to a to the world. We are thrilled to have Jane Readings Carlton Finnish mother and a Greek-Cypriot father. Caro in conversation with Mary Crooks, the 309 Lygon Street, Carlton STORY TIME: The family moved to South Africa when director of the Victorian Women’s Trust, to THE ADVENTURES OF MR Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events she was four, and at of eighteen discuss , passion and getting older. C. BY ANISSA PAPADAKOS Kiros set off to travel. She has cooked at London’s The Groucho Club and in , Join us as local author Anissa Papadakos Readings Hawthorn 701 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn Athens and Mexico. On a trip to Italy to reads from her charming picture book, The Tuesday 26 February, 6.30pm study the language and food, she met her Adventures of Mr. C Mr Harry C. is a cupid Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events 50 AUSTRA LIA N husband and they now live in Tuscany with ST who sets out on an adventure with his 2O R IE their two children. Kiros is the author of friends to find his missing glasses. GRAEME SIMSION IN S CONVERSATION WITH books including one of Readings’ favourite Readings Doncaster Wednesday 20 February, 6.30pm cookbooks of all time, Apples for Jam. Westfield Doncaster, KATHERINE COLLETTE Readings Hawthorn 619 Doncaster Road, Doncaster Graeme Simsion was an information systems KATE RICHARDS IN 701 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn Free, no booking required. CONVERSATION WITH consultant before he won the 2012 Victorian Premier’s Unpublished Manuscript Award for Tickets are $20 per person and includes a glass of wine on arrival. TONI JORDAN his debut novel, The Rosie Project. The book Please book at readings.com.au/events Come along to hear Kate Richards, the has since sold more than 3.5 million copies Thursday 7 February, 6.30pm award-winning author of Madness: A in over forty countries. We are delighted Memoir, discuss her compelling first novel to bring you Simsion in conversation with J.P. POMARE ON CALL with Toni Jordan. Lyrical and poetic, Fusion rising star and fellow Text author Katherine Thursday 28 February, is a unique and haunting modern-gothic 6.30pm-7.30pm Collette to talk about the craft of writing, the 50 AUSTRA ME EVIE LIA N tale that has at its heart questions of ST stories that come from Melbourne, about 3O R We are thrilled to have J.P. Pomare, an IE selfhood, dependency, difference and love. Melbourne, and why good news stories are GERALD MURNANE S exciting new voice in local thriller writing, now more important than ever. joining us to talk about his debut novel, Readings Hawthorn IN CONVERSATION Call Me Evie. Set between the atmospheric, 701 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn Readings Carlton Gerald Murnane was born in Melbourne chilling wilds of the author’s home-country, Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events 309 Lygon Street, Carlton and has been a primary school teacher, New Zealand, and his current hometown Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events an editor and a university lecturer. His of Melbourne, Call Me Evie plays deftly debut novel, Tamarisk Row (1974), was with the reader, pulling and tugging at the followed by ten other works of fiction, strands of a terrible truth. Thursday 21 February, 6.30pm including The Plains and, most recently, Wednesday 27 February, 6.30pm Border Districts, which won the 2018 Readings Carlton BERNARD KEANE AND Prime Minister’s Literary Award. In 1999, 309 Lygon Street, Carlton CLINTON FERNANDES ON MADS PEDER NORDBO Murnane won the Award Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events POWER IN AUSTRALIA IN CONVERSATION WITH and in 2009, the Melbourne Prize for Literature. In his 80th birthday month, we Join Crikey political editor Bernard Keane CHRISTIAN WHITE are delighted to have Murnane join us (The Mess We’re In) and Professor Clinton Join us to hear Danish-born, Greenland- to celebrate the release of his two new Saturday 16 February, 10.30am Fernandes (Island off the Coast of Asia) for based crime writer Mads Peder Nordbo works: A Season on Earth and Green KIDS a fascinating conversation about the ways discuss his novel The Girl Without Skin with Shadows and other poems. that power is wielded in Australia. They will bestselling local author Christian White STORY TIME: SLEEP TIGHT, discuss the covert and overt influences (The Nowhere Child). Already a bestseller in Church of All Nations 180 Palmerston Street, Carlton PLAT YPUP WITH RENÉE of corporations, and intelligence agencies Denmark, The Girl Without Skin combines and neoliberal ideology on domestic and Inuit folklore, Arctic politics and a haunting, There are three ticket options for this event: $10 TREML foreign policymaking. page-turning mystery. for entry only; $40 for entry with a first edition, Join us for a sweet nature-themed story signed copy of A Season on Earth; and $55 for time with Renée Treml, author of Sleep tight, Readings Carlton Readings Carlton entry with first edition, signed copies of both A Platypup. This charming book tells the story 309 Lygon Street, Carlton 309 Lygon Street, Carlton Season on Earth and Green Shadows and other poems. Please book at readings.com.au/events of Platypup’s fear of the dark. But with his Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events EVENTS + COLUMNS February 2019 READINGS MONTHLY 5

Talk of Treasure by Jane Carswell Thursday 28 February, 6.30pm Jane Carswell’s Talk of Treasure is a literary memoir about how to be a writer and, Coming Mark’s SULARI GENTILL IN simply, how to be. Join us as Roger Averill CONVERSATION WITH launches this wise and insightful reflection Up Say on books, writing, travel and meditation. ROBERT GOTT Thursday 14 February, 6.30pm Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. Sulari Gentill is the author of the award- A recent study by the winning and best-selling Rowland Sinclair Misrule by Jodi McAlister Authors Guild in the mysteries, the Greek mythology adventure Join us as Ellie Marney launches the third United States has shown series The Hero Trilogy and the literary thrilling book, Misrule, in Jodi McAlister’s that the median income novel Crossing the Lines, which won the page-turning Valentine series. for writers in the US Ned Kelly Award last year. We are delighted dropped 42% between 2009 and 2017. The she’ll be joining us to talk crime, writing and Thursday 14 February, 6.30pm director of the Authors Guild, Mary how to grow a black truffle with fellow crime Readings Kids | Free, no booking required. writer Robert Gott. Rasenburger, said that in the mid-twentieth The Squid, the Vibrio and the Moon by century a good literary fiction author could Ailsa Wild, Aviva Reed, Briony Barr and Readings St Kilda Gregory Crocetti with Linda Blackall earn a middle-class living just by writing. 112 Acland Street, St Kilda Join us for the launch of The Squid, the Royalties and advances are down almost Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Vibrio and the Moon by Ailsa Wild, Aviva 30% and other sources of income from Reed, Briony Barr and Gregory Crocetti newspapers and magazines have also with Linda Blackall. It’s a beautifully declined. Ms Rasenburger said this is largely illustrated storybook about the Hawaiian because of the growth of Amazon, and its bobtail squid and the bioluminescent subsidiary Book Depository; their disruption Launches Friday 8 March, bacteria that help it glow in the moonlight. of the market and drive for lower prices has 6.30-7.30pm Sunday 17 February, 2pm 50 AUSTRA led to diminishing returns for publishers, LIA N ST Readings Kids | Free, no booking required. 4O particularly small and independent R IE The House on the Mountain by Ella CHOICE WORDS ON S publishers, which in turn has led to lower Holcombe & David Cox When One Person Dies The Whole World INTERNATIONAL advances and royalties for authors. The Come along to see Tom Doig launch Is Over by Mandy Ord picture is the same in the UK where a study The House on the Mountain by Ella Join us for the launch of Mandy Ord’s WOMEN’S DAY personal and affecting non-fiction diary has shown that earnings for professional Holcombe and illustrated by David Cox, an To acknowledge International Women’s Day comic When One Person Dies the Whole authors has plummeted 42% since 2005. The atmospheric and intensely moving story of and the reality of women’s lives and their World Is Over, which centres on the search CEO of the Australian Society of Authors, a family who experience a bushfire. own freedom to choose, we are thrilled for meaning in the everyday. Juliet Rogers, says that there is not much Thursday 31 January, 6.30pm to bring you a panel of important voices data on Australian authors, although in Readings Kids | Free, no booking required. Monday 18 February, 6.30pm straight from the newly released Choice Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. 2013–14 Macquarie University did a survey of Words: An Anthology on Abortion. Among Heyer Society with Jennifer Kloester Australian authors which showed a median The Year of the Beast by Steven Carroll those joining us for this event supported by Join us for a celebration of Heyer Society – income of $12,900 from their creative Join us as Morag Fraser launches The Year the Victorian Women’s Trust will be editor Essays on the Literary Genius of Georgette writing. “We are working on getting up-to- of the Beast, the new novel from acclaimed Louise Swinn and social commentator and Heyer. With a foreword by Jennifer Kloester, date figures so that five years down the line author Steven Carroll. Returning to the writer Clementine Ford. scholars, authors and bloggers pay tribute we can compare. I would be hugely surprised beginning, Carroll brings his sweeping to Georgette Heyer. Church of All Nations, if this figure had improved,” she said. Glenroy series to a magnificent close. 180 Palmerston Street, Carlton Tuesday 5 February, 6.30pm On a brighter note, Melbourne boy Bram Tuesday 19 February, 6.30pm Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. Tickets are $5 per person and bookings are Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. Presser has won the Goldberg Prize for Debut essential. Please book at readings.com.au/events Highway Bodies by Alison Evans Fiction in the National Jewish Book Awards Join us for the launch of new young adult Two Men Drawing by Peter Mills and in the US for his novel The Book of Dirt. Bruce Harvey novel Highway Bodies from award-winning Published by Text in 2017, The Book of Dirt Join us as the Hon. Barry Jones launches author Alison Evans. It’s a genre-bending is a fictional version of the life of Presser’s Two Men Drawing by Peter Mills and Bruce zombie apocalypse story featuring queer grandfather, a survivor of Theresienstadt Harvey, a collection of these two friends’ and gender non-conforming teens. and Auschwitz, who rarely spoke about his sketches capturing, in their distinct styles, Wednesday 6 February, 6.30pm experiences to his family. It also won the over forty years of everyday Melbourne life. Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. NSW Premier’s Prize for Literature in 2018. Thursday 21 February, 6.30pm If you’ve spent time in Lygon Street or Readings Hawthorn | Free, no booking required. Eat Like an Athlete by Simone Austin around our shop in Acland Street you will Join sports dietician Simone Austin for the The Orchardist’s Daughter by Karen have noticed a dramatic rise over the past launch of her book Eat Like an Athlete, in Viggers few years in the number of people asking which she shares practical tips for everyone Join us as Kylie Ladd launches The for money on the streets. When I go to work on how to boost energy and performance Orchardist’s Daughter, the new novel from early in Lygon Street I sometimes see ten to through nutrition. bestselling author Karen Viggers. Set in the fifteen people curled up asleep in doorways Thursday 7 February, 6.30pm wilds of southern Tasmania, it’s a story of and shopfronts. It makes me feel ashamed, Readings Hawthorn | Free, no booking required. freedom and forgiveness. disgusted and sad that such a wealthy and Imperfect by Lee Kofman Tuesday 26 February, 6.30pm privileged society as ours can tolerate the Readings Hawthorn | Free, no booking required. Lee Kofman’s powerful new book Imperfect fact that our fellow citizens are forced to live will be launched by the wonderful Alice The Glad Shout by Alice Robinson in such dire circumstances. I’ve had contact Pung. Imperfect blends memoir with Join us as Clementine Ford launches Alice with some of the people on the street, heard cultural criticism to delve into the way we Robinson’s second novel, The Glad Shout. Monday 25 March, 6.30-7.30pm their stories, and made friendships of sorts. view our bodies. Starkly visual and compelling, it’s a moving As quickly as they appear they disappear Saturday 9 February, 3pm homage to motherhood and the struggles and you wonder if things have become Readings St Kilda | Free, no booking required. REBECCA HUNTLEY & faced by women in difficult times. better for them. Their stories are rarely told. MAXINE MCKEW ON Homelessness is an issue that many of us Women in Retirement & The Psychology Thursday 28 February, 6pm of Retirement by Doreen Rosenthal and Readings State Library | Free, no need to book PROGRESS AND POLITICS just want to go away. In his new novel The Susan Moore Rebecca Huntley is one of Australia’s Rip, Mark Brandi tells the story of a homeless Join us for the release of two informative Islands by Peggy Frew foremost social researchers. In the latest couple. It’s a brave move but it’s a compelling titles by Doreen Rosenthal and Susan Join us as Jen Cloher launches Islands by Quarterly Essay, Huntley looks at the state and moving story. Brandi was drawn to Moore, addressing the concerns and much-loved author Peggy Frew. Islands is of the nation and asks: what does social- the idea over a number of years; he used to celebrations of life after age fifty-five: a riveting portrait of a family in crisis by the democratic Australia want, and why? A work in the city around the corner from the breathtakingly talented author of House of Women in Retirement and The Psychology majority of Australians have been saying Salvation Army centre and encountered Sticks and Hope Farm. of Retirement. they want change, yet recent attention has homeless people there. Over time he became Wednesday 13 February, 6.30pm Monday 4 March, 6.30pm focused on the angry, reactionary minority. drawn to their stories and so the idea for Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. Readings Hawthorn | Free, no booking required. But is there a progressive centre? Join the book and the central character began to us for a fascinating discussion of these Small Blessings by Emily Brewin The Hollow Bones by Leah Kaminsky form. While part of Brandi’s hope is that his essential questions. Join us for the launch of Emily Brewin’s Join Leah Kaminsky for the launch of The book will help people pay more attention and delightful second novel, Small Blessings. It Hollow Bones, her lyrical new novel about Church of All Nations care a little more, he really wanted to give is a poignant and uplifting novel of secrets, a little-known Nazi villain and how quickly 180 Palmerston Street, Carlton voice to his character and to the story. With a recent study showing that Victoria spends motherhood, friendship and what we’re human relationships and an affinity with Tickets are $25 and include a copy of the willing to do for love. nature can be buried under cold ambition. Quarterly Essay OR $5 per person for QE half as much on social housing as does NSW, Wednesday 13 February, 6.30pm Wednesday 6 March, 6.30pm subscribers. Bookings are essential, please book let’s hope The Rip is successful on both Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. Readings St Kilda | Free, no booking required. at readings.com.au/events fronts – it’s out at the beginning of March. 6 READINGS MONTHLY February 2019 FEATURE

The most anticipated books of 2019

Dear Reader, You probably know a person or It seems entirely appropriate that in such an (2018 winner for her story collection, Pulse Points) has two who was born in 1969. This year, auspicious year, there are no fewer than four Readings a second novel, due out in September. Melanie Cheng much to their surprise I’m sure, they staff members publishing books: look out for the book (2017 shortlistee for her story collection Australia Day) will find that they turn fifty, just as almost no one knew was being written until it won the publishes her debut novel, Room for a Stranger, in May. Readings will. Also turning fifty in Text Prize, Nina Kenwood’s YA novel, It Sounded Better in Lucy Treloar (2016 shortlistee for her debut novel, Salt Alison Huber 2019 are Margaret Atwood’s brilliant My Head (August); Miles Allinson’s follow up to his award- Creek) will bring us Wolfe Island due in September. There Readings’ first novel, The Edible Woman, Kurt winning and outstanding novel, Fever of Animals, called are lots more debut novels to put on your radar. First, head book Vonnegut’s metafiction classic, In Moonland (September); Text Prize shortlistee and some names you will know: Anna Krien is best known buyer Slaughterhouse Five, Maya Angelou’s Readings Monthly’s ‘Dead Write’ columnist Fiona Hardy’s as a writer of nonfiction – Into the Woods and Night groundbreaking literary memoir, middle-fiction debut, How to Make a Movie in Twelve Games have surely become classics – but she has also I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Days (September); and Gerard Elson’s highly anticipated been writing a novel called Act of Grace (October); Kate and Eric Carle’s essential tale of project about Melbourne musician Rowland S. Howard, Richards wrote an acclaimed memoir called Madness excess and rebirth, The Very Hungry Something Flammable (November). Well done everyone! I (2013) and her novel Fusion is out this month, which Caterpillar. Which of the books am not just being collegial when I say that I can’t wait to our reviewer calls a ‘strange, bold, [and] eerie’ work of published in 2019 will be as loved, as read the finished copies of all these books – these smart Australian Gothic; Anna Goldsworthy has written two popular, as influential as these books, people are authors you really do need to watch, and I have works of memoir, and this year publishes her debut fifty years from now? I hope I’ll be no doubt that their work will be brilliant. novel, Melting Moments (May); Leah Purcell won many around in 2069 to find out, but in the In other exciting news concerning the Readings accolades for her play, The Drover’s Wife, and she is meantime, here’s our annual wrap up extended family, three alumnae of the Readings Prize working on a novel of the same name (September); you’ll of books to look out for this year. will bring us new novels this year too. Jennifer Down remember Martin McKenzie-Murray for 2016’s A Murder FEATURE February 2019 READINGS MONTHLY 7

Without Motive, and he publishes a debut work of satire, Country with Australia Day (May). Judith Brett won overwhelmed (and I know I certainly am), I’m sorry but The Speechwriter (November). Then there are some the 2018 National Biography Award for The Enigmatic I’m nowhere near finished yet, because there are the names you mightn’t yet know but soon will: the winner Mr Deakin; this year she publishes the brilliantly titled books we feature in this month’s Readings Monthly to of Penguin Random House’s inaugural Literary Prize From Secret Ballot to Democracy Sausage (March), telling catch up on. First up, we have our Fiction Book of the was Kathryn Hind for the manuscript of her novel, Hitch a history of compulsory voting in Australia. Michelle Month, Sonia Orchard’s Into the Fire, a novel that explores (June); Felicity McLean’s atmospheric literary mystery Arrow publishes The Seventies (March) about that heady the devastating events of a house fire. Our reviewer is The Van Apfel Girls are Gone (April); scientist Susan decade of change in Australia. Kate Legge explores the commends this as a ‘novel of ideas, not just characters’, Hurley’s debut medical thriller is Eight Lives (April); fascinating story of environmental pioneers Gustav and hints that the writing has ‘Garner-esque’ qualities, Alex Landragin has written the epic-sounding Crossings, Weindorfer and Kate Cowle, who fell in love with each which is high praise indeed. Watch out for debuts from Molly which promises much for fans of Roberto Bolaño and other and Cradle Mountain in Tasmania a century ago: Murn and J.P. Pomare, Emily Brewin’s second book, Small David Mitchell (June); editor and translator Elizabeth the book is called Kindred: A Cradle Mountain Love Story Blessings, Debra Adelaide’s short stories, Zebra, and Mandy Bryer will publish From Here On, Monsters (August); and (March). Hannah Gadsby’s star continues to rise, and Ord’s new graphic novel, When One Person Dies, the Whole Melissa Ferguson has written a dystopian debut, The her memoir, Ten Steps to Nanette, will be justifiably huge World is Over. Shining Wall (April). here and overseas I’m sure (it’s due in the second half of Gerald Murnane (who incidentally also has a A number of emerging writers bring us their second the year). Sophie Cunningham has an essay collection significant birthday in 2019) was at last recognised on the novel: Claire G. Coleman wowed us with Terra Nullius out in April, City of Trees. prize circuit, winning 2018’s Prime Minister’s Literary in 2017, and she’s back with another literary work of Music journalist Andrew Stafford’s love letter to Award in the Fiction category for Border Districts in speculative fiction, The Old Lie (September); Christian Brisbane and its music scene, Pig City, is a standout December, topping off a year of renewed interest in White had massive success with his debut, The Nowhere of Australian music writing, so I’m keen to read his his unique writing. This month, Giramondo publishes Child, in 2018, and he’ll publish his follow-up, The Wife memoir, Something to Believe In (July). Anwen Crawford a new collection of his poetry, Green Shadows and and the Widow, in July; Mark Brandi’s debut was the writes so very well about music in The Monthly; her new Other Poems, while Text releases A Season on Earth, a acclaimed novel Wimmera (2017), his second novel, The work of nonfiction, Kindred, is due this year too. Bruce handsome hardback that is the novel that sits between Rip, is due in March, and anticipation is already building; Pascoe published Dark Emu in 2014 and it has become Tamarisk Row and The Plains (half of which has never Dervla McTiernan’s The Rúin won her many fans who something of a phenomenon at Readings, finding an been published before; the other half was published as A will be awaiting her second novel, The Scholar (March); ever-growing readership. His Collected Works are out in Lifetime on Clouds). Graeme Simsion is one of Australian Peter Polites’s uncompromising debut, Down the Hume, is August. Novelist Neal Drinnan turns his hand to true writing’s greatest successes of recent years. The Rosie followed this July by The Pillars. Alice Robinson’s Anchor crime in The Devil’s Grip (September), which is being Project, followed by The Rosie Effect, became the kind of Point was longlisted for the Stella Prize; her second touted as ‘Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil meets international sensation of which most authors (and their novel, The Glad Shout, is out in March. Miriam Sved’s Wake in Fright’. Scribe had a huge political publishing publishers) can only dream. This month, Simsion draws Game Day was her acclaimed debut; her second novel A hit with Niki Savva’s The Road to Ruin, the exposé of Don and Rosie’s story to a close with The Rosie Result. Universe of Sufficient Size (April) is based on the story of the behaviour of Tony Abbott and his chief of staff Peta Also coming to an end this month is Steven Carroll’s epic her mathematician grandparents’ escape from Budapest Credlin in the lead up to Abbott’s demise. This July, Glenroy series, with Year of the Beast, the sixth book in during World War II. Katherine Collette of The Helpline Savva will turn her gaze towards Malcolm Turnbull’s the cycle spanning one hundred years of Melbourne’s fame publishes Swallow in October. downward trajectory in Highway to Hell. Psychologist history: our reviewer calls this work a ‘gift’ to readers. A new book from local legend Tony Birch is always and parenting expert Steve Biddulph reboots two of This time last year I wrote about the sensation that a welcome event, and this year his novel, The White his classics, publishing Raising Girls in the Twenty-first was Kristen Roupenian’s ‘Cat Person’, the New Yorker Girl, arrives in July. Dominic Smith had huge local and Century in May and The New Manhood in the Twenty-first short story that made the author famous in an internet international success with The Last Painting of Sara de Century in August. You can also expect memoirs in April instant. This month, Roupenian’s debut collection Vos back in 2016; this year, look out for The Electric Hotel from Jocelyn Moorhouse, Jessica Rowe, Kitty Flanagan, appears, You Know You Want This (and you know you in June. Andrea Goldsmith’s Invented Lives (April) is her and from Archie Roach and Clare Bowditch later in the want to read it and judge whether said fame will hold). first novel since The Memory Trap, which won 2015’s year, plus the diaries Richard Lowenstein kept while The winner of the 2015 Man Booker Prize, Marlon Melbourne Prize for Best Writing. Chris Womersley shooting Dogs in Space (May). Our love and admiration James, has an ambitious new project: his Dark Star publishes his first collection of short fiction, A Lovely and for Helen Garner has no end, and so it’s fantastic news trilogy is being called ‘an African Game of Thrones’, Terrible Thing in May. Look out, too, for Peggy Frew’s that Text will publish volume one of her diaries in and its first volume, Black Leopard, Red Wolf is out this Islands (March); Leah Kaminsky’s The Hollow Bones November, covering 1978–1986. month. Shortlisted for the Man Booker in the same year (March); Favel Parrett’s There Was Still Love (September); My colleagues in our children’s books department was Chigozie Obioma; his new novel, An Orchestra of Carrie Tiffany’s Exploded View (also March); Rohan tell me they are very excited about Wilam: A Birrarung Minorities, adds a Nigerian voice to the current interest in Wilson’s Daughter of Bad Times (May); Nikki Gemmell’s Story by Aunty Joy Murphy (it’s Angela Crocombe’s most- reworking and retelling Homer’s Odyssey. Our reviewers historical novel, The Ripping Tree (September); Melina anticipated release of the year!); Leigh Hobbs’s Mr Chicken also recommend Delphine de Vigan’s Loyalties, Karen Marchetta’s The Place on Dalhousie (April); Wayne All Over Australia (beloved author, beloved chicken); Thompson Walker’s The Dreamers, Caroline Lea’s The Macauley’s novella, Simpson Returns (April); Andrew another stunning picture book, Fashionista, from writer, Glass Woman, Julie Cohen’s Louis & Louise, and Jasmin B. McGahan’s The Rich Man’s House (November); Peter and now also illustrator, Maxine Beneba Clarke; Adam Frelih’s In/Half. Watch out too for new books from John Goldsworthy’s first novel in over a decade, Minotaur Cece’s final book in the Huggabie Falls middle fiction Lanchester, Roberto Bolaño, Yangsze Choo, Ben Okri, (July). Two Stella Prize recipients have new novels out in series; Land of Fences, the final in Mark Smith’s The Road and Emiliano Monge. I have just finished reading The October: Charlotte Wood and Heather Rose. Tara June to Winter YA series; the first book by Yassmin Abdel- Friend by Sigrid Nunez, the 2018 winner of the National Winch’s novel, The Yield (July), sounds amazing, gathering Magied for the YA market, You Must be Layla; Sick Bay Book Award for Fiction. Now available in a local edition together current concerns about the environment, by well-loved YA local author Nova Weetman; and the from Virago, this brilliant book captures perfectly the Indigenous agriculture, water, place and belonging. beginning of a new series by superstar writing duo Jay pleasures of reading and writing, and says beautiful Christos Tsiolkas’s last novel was Barracuda, Kristoff and Amie Kaufman, Aurora Rising. things about grief, friendship, the devastations of suicide, published in 2013, and while he has since then published On top of all that, there are some major releases and the love of and for our animal companions on the a book of short stories (Merciless Gods) and a short work coming our way from international authors, including journey. It’s also quite funny. It deserves all its acclaim: I about Patrick White (in Black Inc’s Writers on Writers (and my deepest apologies for this completely and utterly really loved it. series), it’s very exciting news that his new long-form unembellished list) Elizabeth Gilbert, Colson Whitehead, Our Nonfiction Book of the Month is Beyond Words: work, Damascus, is due in the second half of the year. This Deborah Levy, Ian McEwan, Toni Morrison, Bret Easton A Year with Kenneth Cook, Jacqueline Kent’s gorgeous story set during the establishment of the Christian church Ellis, Dave Eggers, Jared Diamond, Oliver Sacks, Virginia account of her too-brief love affair with the Wake in will be written with the ambition and imagination that Reeves, Amy Hempel, Mark Haddon, Ann Leckie, Marie Fright author, which our reviewer calls ‘a delight to only Tsiolkas can deliver: a highlight of 2019, no doubt, in Darrieussecq, Ronan Farrow, Simon Schama, Zadie Smith, read’. Activist Carly Findlay’s inspiring memoir, Say a year that looks very strong for Australian fiction. William Dalrymple, Siri Hustvedt, Bill Bryson, Max Porter, Hello, is her frank and fearless story of living with a rare Black Inc. published the groundbreaking collection Mary Norris, Amitav Ghosh, Elizabeth Strout, T.C. Boyle, skin condition. Jane Caro writes about the women she Growing Up Asian in Australia (ed. Alice Pung) way Leïla Slimani, David Vann, Jeanette Winterson, Maja calls Accidental Feminists, the generation of women back in 2008; ten years later, they revived the concept Lunde, Helen Oyeyemi, Philip Kerr, James Ellroy, Naomi over fifty-five who found themselves at the coalface of of a themed essay collection assembled around identity Wolf, Téa Obreht, Nell Zink, Michel Houellebecq, Alice a revolution in gender politics. Peter Seamer writes an with the brilliant Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia, Hoffman, Ann Beattie, Ali Smith, Erin Morgenstern, Karl important critique of Australia’s urban development in which was one of our staff favourites and bestselling Ove Knausgaard, Arundhati Roy, Isabel Allende, Louis de Breaking Point. Computer scientist Cal Newport teaches books in 2018. This year they’ll bring us two more Bernières, Herman Koch and a new translation of Beowulf new essential skills in Digital Minimalism. Dr Michael collections: one on growing up African edited by Maxine from Maria Dahvana Headley, who in 2018 published a Mosley hones his fasting technique for weight loss in The Beneba Clarke (in April) and one on growing up queer modern take on the text, called The Mere Wife, and was a Fast 800. Nobody’s Looking at You is Janet Malcolm’s new edited by Benjamin Law (in August). Meanwhile, Pan guest of Melbourne Writers Festival. collection of essays. Deborah Lipstadt’s Antisemitism: Macmillan will publish a timely collection of essays, But, dear reader, there can surely be no greater, Here and Now provides a potent reminder that this form #MeToo: Stories from the Australian Movement (May). no more exciting news in international fiction than of hate is not yet consigned to history. Melbourne University Publishing’s ‘On’ essay series that announced in November last year: that Margaret And finally, dear reader, my genuine apologies for continues to grow, with contributors this year including Atwood is writing a sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale. those books and genres I have not had space for here (my Sally McManus (On Fairness), Tim Soutphommasane The publication of The Testaments in September 2019 is editor is going to scold me for length already), and of (On Hate), John Birmingham (On Father), Natasha Stott nothing short of a worldwide literary event (plus there is course there will be the many, many books that we didn’t Despoja (On Violence), and Stan Grant (On Identity). also a graphic novel adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale see coming … the ones that gather momentum all of their Stan Grant has another book coming out this year due in April just for good measure!). own. Sometimes these are the most exciting releases of too, following up his hugely successful Talking to My Hold on, though: for those feeling slightly any year: I can’t wait to see what they are.  8 READINGS MONTHLY February 2019 FICTION

suspects that Jim is actively manipulating In this regard, Steven Carroll is a her recollection of events to his advantage. generous and convivial author. His Glenroy New Call Me Evie jumps between ‘Before’ series has spanned one hundred years of and ‘After’ and it’s not until the very last Melbourne life and his latest novel, The Year Fiction pages that you find out precisely what is of the Beast, is the sixth and final volume. It meant by ‘Before’ and who is implicated centres on pregnant Maryanne, who is living in ‘After’. It’s a tight, claustrophobic in our great city as World War I rips open read that slowly circles in on itself; the everything. Told as if we are all observers A literary trend I’m enjoying very much is the novel focusing tension ramping up as Evie aka Kate works looking at Maryanne from afar and from BOOK OF THE on the tribulations of female friendship. Think Elena through her trauma-induced amnesia. Is within, Carroll writes of her despair at the her mind slowly unravelling or gradually war, the Church and the law. He records the MONTH Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet; Marlena by Julie Buntin; The Burning Girl by Claire Messud and Give Me Your Hand by righting itself? As a debut novel, Call Me momentum of the war festering as if it were Fiction Megan Abbott. In these novels, the narrator has often arrived Evie nails both the fragmented narrative a separate entity in the city. It becomes a at a traumatic event or point of reckoning with a close friend and the unreliable narrator format. If you beast, a force that cannot be stopped despite and so retraces the relationship to make sense of events. like twisty psychological thrillers such as the cries from the Women’s Peace Army, the At the beginning of Sonia Orchard’s Into the Fire, we All These Perfect Strangers or I’m Thinking newspapers and Maryanne. know Lara’s friend Alice has died in a mysterious house fire, of Ending Things, you’ll love this. The Year of the Beast is written with a leaving her partner and three children behind. We then learn Hilary Simmons is a member of the Readings perfect poetic pace that gives us a chance of Lara and Alice’s burgeoning friendship at the University of events team to view and feel both the minute and the Melbourne in the early nineties. These chapters were some of expanse of the times in which it is set. The the best for me – capturing time and place with Garner-esque Fusion historical, linear narrative presents an recall and tenderness. Alice and Lara bond in their Women’s Kate Richards opportunity for us all to ponder how and when personal action determines what Studies classes; they chat into the night and challenge each Penguin. PB. Was $32.99 happens – on a given day, in a particular other personally and politically. Lara gradually sees the $29.99 world differently and develops ambitions for herself she life, for that person, for others, and on other Conjoined twins would never have imagined in her suburban life. days, in other lives, for us and for others. Sea and Serene live When the charismatic ‘Crow’ (short for his surname, Melbourne is Carroll’s city and it is through in an isolated shack in Into the Fire ‘Crowley’) appears on campus, he is adored for his carefree this new novel, this seamless, delicious the Australian Alps with Sonia Orchard attitude and rock-star looks. Both Lara and Alice fall under read, that he presents a story of our home to Wren, the young man Affirm Press. PB. $29.99 his spell, but it is Alice who enters a relationship with him. us, and for us. A rare gift indeed. who cares for them. Up It is then that the first cracks appear in Lara and Alice’s among the snow gums Christine Gordon is the events manager for friendship. Crow is an intense brooding man, and before long Alice is pregnant and living Readings they grow their own on the coast with him. vegetables and ferment Orchard succeeds in making this novel about ideas, not just characters. Focusing their own wine. Largely self-sufficient, The Rosie Result on a period of fifteen years, she examines how one’s values and ambitions change. Her they’ve turned their backs on a world that Graeme Simsion characters are women attempting to balance work, study, travel, relationships and turned on them. One day, Wren discovers a Scribe. PB. Was $29.99 motherhood, and Orchard demonstrates the personal cost when those roles and priorities woman badly injured and unconscious on $24.99 become overwhelming. This novel is a great choice for book club discussion. the side of the road. He brings her home but Don Tillman and Rosie Annie Condon is from Readings Hawthorn fears the worst. The twins slowly nurse her Jarman are back in back to health like the many birds and Australia after a decade mammals they’ve found injured around in New York, and they’re their homestead. about to face their most Australian Fiction Murn weaves these layers of mourning Used to solitude and protected from the important challenge. together: from the recent loss of Nell to all judging eyes of others, the household first Their son, Hudson, is the secret ways in which Nell herself had meets the stranger with fear. The twins struggling at school: he’s Heart of the Grass Tree mourned, and back to the original mourning worry about her reaction when she awakens socially awkward and Molly Murn of Kangaroo Island’s first permanent to their strangeness and to the outré not fitting in. Don’s spent a lifetime trying to Random House. PB. Was $32.99 settlers. Heart of the Grass Tree is a story, existence the three of them have carved fit in—so who better to teach Hudson the richly told, of the landscape of Australian $29.99 out. The three slowly prepare themselves skills he needs? Hilarious and thought- history – both emotional and physical – and for the inevitable moment when sleeping provoking, with a brilliant cast of characters, Before Nell died, the way we record these stories of place. beauty will awaken. The Rosie Result is the triumphant final she knew she instalment of the much-loved and needed to record a story, Marie Matteson is from Readings Carlton This beautiful and unknowable stranger internationally bestselling Rosie trilogy. a story she had found becomes a welcome distraction, bringing very hard to share, a Call Me Evie a new perspective to the asocial group. But story that stretches back J P Pomare soon enough the new dynamic threatens Driving into the Sun before her time. After Hachette. PB. Was $29.99 to break the peace the three of them have Marcella Polain Nell dies, her daughter $26.99 cultivated, high up and away from everyone Fremantle Press. PB. $29.99 else. The more time she spends there, the to whom she said little, Novels with For Orla, living in the more unanswerable questions develop, and her granddaughters to whom she said fragmented suburbs in 1968 on the revealing the tragic pasts of all involved. more, gather to mourn. They gather on narratives are not for cusp of adolescence, her Fusion is a dark Australian Gothic Kangaroo Island, Nell’s home – always. As everyone – but with the father is a great shining fairy tale in a lyrical mode. At its heart, Uncle Jim says, Kangaroo Island has rise of psychological light, whose warm and the novel questions identity, dependence, always been a place for mourning. thrillers such as Gone powerful presence fills isolation and difference. Despite a deep Pearl has returned to Kangaroo Island Girl and The Girl on the her world. But in the vein of grief, loss, and isolation that runs to bury her grandmother. It is the place Train, they’re becoming aftermath of his sudden through the novel, it never stops offering of her happy childhood. For Diana, Nell’s increasingly popular. death, Orla, her mother an alternative to despair: hope. It is a daughter, it is a place she returns to Fragmented stories can make for gripping and her sister are left in a no-man’s-land, a strange, bold, eerie debut novel from the reluctantly, a place that has always stifled reading, especially when the non-linear place where the rights and protections of author of Madness: A Memoir. her. She has come to bury a mother who narrative is told from the perspective of a the nuclear family suddenly and always eluded her. character who can’t necessarily be trusted. Michael McLoughlin is from Readings Carlton mysteriously no longer apply, and where In her debut novel, Molly Murn reaches Piecing together the plot becomes a question the path between girl and woman must be out to draw together the threads of a family of picking up on the lies and omissions as The Year of the Beast navigated alone. with many secrets from one another and well as the truths and certainties. Steven Carroll weave them into the history of settlement Call Me Evie is structured on a slick HarperCollins. PB. $29.99 A Season on Earth on Kangaroo Island. It is a history long and disturbing premise. A young woman is We have certain Gerald Murnane elided. It is a history of brutal conquest, being held captive in a remote New Zealand expectations of a Text. HB. Was $39.99 and a history of contested ownership. beach town by a man who says his name is novel, don’t we? We $34.99 In the past other mothers and daughters Jim. She is scared, sedated and supposed to read to take a journey This is Murnane’s have come to Kangaroo Island. Maringani have committed some sort of terrible crime that we cannot second novel as it was comes to Kangaroo Island holding on back in Melbourne. Whatever it is, it’s so influence. We want to intended to be, bringing to the arm of her mother, who had been bad that Jim claims there are people after be swept along and if, together all of its four kidnapped and brutalised by sealers. Later, her and that her confinement is for her own by the means of our sections – the first two of Maringani chooses not to leave Kangaroo protection. Whether or not this is true, Evie reading, we learn more which were published as Island and her story is woven into the isn’t sure – she only remembers that her about our humanity then that is an added A Lifetime on Clouds in history of Indigenous women on the island, real name is Kate. The rest of her memories bonus. A fresh perspective is the gift that 1976 and the last two of which is always visible if you look for it. are too muddled to be relied on, and she a novelist can offer us. which have never been FICTION February 2019 READINGS MONTHLY 9 in print. A hilarious tale of a lustful teenager insights from the point of view of a self- Louis & Louise secrets and motivation both to keep quiet in 1950s Melbourne, A Lifetime on Clouds has proclaimed ‘nice guy’. Throughout this Julie Cohen and to dispel lies wherever possible, making been considered an outlier in Gerald collection Roupenian compiles a catalogue Hachette. PB. $29.99 it difficult to discover the truth. Like Rosa, Murnane’s fiction. That is because, as of the everyday horrors of heterosexual Lou Alder is one I felt isolated and needed to know exactly Murnane writes in his foreword, it is ‘only relations. But she also distorts these person, but exists what happened which kept me turning the half a book and Adrian Sherd only half a horrors, in stories like ‘Bad Boy’ and ‘Biter,’ in two separate pages as quickly as I could. character’. Here, at last, is sixteen-year-old to push at the fine line that exists between realities: one in which This is a great historical mystery that Adrian’s journey in full. Adrian Sherd is one desire and disgust. he is Louis, and one in uses Iceland’s pastoral landscape to its of the great comic creations in Australian You Know You Want This speaks to which she is Louise. advantage. As the snow builds so does the writing, and A Season on Earth is a revelatory the #MeToo movement and women’s The prolific Julie mystery, and it is only when the ice melts portrait of the artist as a young man. increasing anger at men’s abuses of power. Cohen’s latest book is a that the truth is revealed. If you loved Roupenian’s writing is smart, sharp, and Sliding Doors-esque Hananh Kent’s Burial Rights, Jessie Burton’s Small Blessings clear. There is violence here – emotional, tale, exploring what a person’s life would The Miniaturist and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Emily Brewin physical, and sexual. But while Roupenian’s look like if they’d been born another gender. Eyre, you will enjoy The Glass Woman. Allen & Unwin. PB. $29.99 stories are shocking, they are also often There are parts of Lou’s existence that Rose Maurice is from Readings State Library funny. Roupenian’s characters know what Rosie Larson doesn’t are the same in both lives – their best friends Victoria they want, but they often hate themselves trust people – and with (twins Allie and Benny), the workers’ strike for wanting it. You Know You Want This good reason. Her violent that tears their small town of Casablanca Loyalties gains its power, I think, not because it ex-boyfriend, Joel, is out apart, their eventual relocation at eighteen Delphine de Vigan locks women and men into just being – or of jail and she’s to New York City – but there are parts that Bloomsbury. PB. $29.99 wanting – one thing or another, but from determined he won’t find are incredibly different, too. Louis is an Available 18 February presenting us as creatures who contain her or their eleven-year- almost-divorced author, and Louise is a Delphine de Vigan contradictory and complex impulses and old son. For Isobel school teacher and single mother. Their has been flavour of who have to find a way to live with them. Hutchins, the cost of relationships with their parents and friends the month in Paris these success is proving high. Her impressive Joanna Di Mattia is from Readings Carlton are different in each timeline, as are their past couple of years, career can’t protect her from the need to face reasons for leaving Casablanca in the first especially after her book her past. When tragedy strikes, Rosie and An Orchestra of Minorities place. But their shared reason for returning – Based on a True Story Isobel are thrown together despite their Chigozie Obioma their dying mother – makes all the ugly and topped the bestseller beautiful parts of their lives come to the fore. differences.Small Blessings is a poignant and Hachette. PB. Was $32.99 lists. And with the Louis & Louise offers a sentimental, often uplifting tale of secrets, motherhood, $29.99 release of her new book innocence and heartache, and ultimately moving glimpse into the everyday aspects Chigozie Obioma Loyalties, this French writer is in the what we’re willing to do for love. of two lives, and how the minutiae of our received spotlight all over again. relationships with others – and single, international acclaim Set in current-day Paris, Loyalties kicks seemingly innocuous actions – can affect Zebra for his first novel The off with the story of Helene, a teacher who us years into the future. Hopping back and Debra Adelaide Fishermen, which was feels unsettled as she watches one of her forth in time between Louis’ and Louise’s Macmillan. PB. $29.99 shortlisted for the Man students, Theo, disengage from the world perspectives – with chapters simply from A body buried in a Booker Prize in 2015, around him. Everything about Theo reminds the perspective of ‘Lou’, the same either way suburban backyard. A won several her of her own abusive childhood, but as a – it gently unfurls stories that illustrate the love affair born in a international prizes for reader it’s unclear whether she’s projecting redemptive power of forgiveness, and the bookshop. The last days emerging writers, and led him to be named onto him, or if there really is a problem. simultaneous simplicity and complication of Bennelong. And a as one of Foreign Policy magazine’s 100 Then it’s Theo’s turn. The somewhat of both romantic and familial love. Cohen very strange gift for a Leading Global Thinkers in 2015. He is one wayward twelve-nearly-thirteen-year-old has called it her most personal work yet, and most unusual Prime of the voices in the new generation of son of divorced parents, Theo’s busy trying it shows – this book trembles with feeling, Minister. Tantalising, Nigerian literature. In 2019, Obioma to negotiate a smooth path between both spanning the spectrum from joy to sorrow, poignant, wry, and just returns with An Orchestra of Minorities, a parents, while at the same time aiming for anger and everything in between. a little fantastical, this subversive contemporary retelling of Homer’s Odyssey oblivion to block out the toxic influence A great summer read for fans of collection of short fiction – and one punctuated with Igbo cosmology – mainly each parent has on his life. contemporary family fiction, with a dash singular novella – from bestselling author that of the chi, the spirit. Next, Theo’s best friend Mathis tells his of romance. Debra Adelaide reminds us what twists of The spirit of Chinonso, a young Nigerian side of the story: he’s a follower of the more fate may be lurking just beneath the poultry farmer, narrates the novel. While Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen is from Readings strong-willed Theo, and we start getting surface of the everyday. the spirit observes and protects Chinonso, Doncaster a sense that things are about to go very it cannot interfere with his decisions or wrong indeed. emotions. The story opens as Chinonso finds The Glass Woman And then, finally, we have Cecile, International a distraught woman, Ndali, contemplating Caroline Lea Mathis’s mother, who tells the story from Fiction jumping off a highway bridge. She is moved Penguin. HB. $29.99 her perspective, including a slow-burn when he sacrifices two of his chickens to Available 19 February reveal of the things she’s discovered on her show her that jumping would be fatal. Caroline Lea sets husband’s computer. You Know You Want This Months later, they meet again and fall deeply her novel of All four storylines weave together, with Kristen Roupenian in love, bound by their connection at the intrigue and deception conflicting endgames for all involved. The Random House. HB. $29.99 bridge. Chinonso’s odyssey begins here; he against the cold characters’ backstories aren’t at all what I As with many sets out to improve himself for Ndali’s family backdrop of an isolated expected to find, and the shades of grey in explosions on the by leaving Nigeria to attend a university rural community in 1686 each of the relationships are one of the things internet, I was a little slow in Cyprus. Thoughts and visions of Ndali Iceland. The novel that makes this story so interesting. to smell the fire caused by plague him in this unfamiliar world. follows Rosa after she Translated from the French by George Kristen Roupenian’s short ‘I have seen it many times’ is the refrain agrees to marry a Miller (who also translated Based on a True story, ‘Cat Person,’ when of the spirit, who has resided in many hosts wealthy stranger. Moving to his village, Story), this book is insightful and beautifully it appeared in the New over seven-hundred human years. The away from everything and everyone she written. If you feel like something cool and Yorker in December 2017. chi’s knowledge and connection to the past knows, she longs for companionship and a French, give Delphine de Vigan a go. Thankfully, I’m now collides with Chinonso’s suffering from home. Instead, Rosa finds a township full of Gabrielle Williams is from Readings Malvern caught up. That story, with its detached yet heartbreak, deceit, and poverty, often leaving mistrust and gossip, a husband who is intimate account of a bad date between a Chinonso lonely and full of rage, and the detached, a locked room, and tales of how In/Half college student and an older man, went reader desperately hoping everything will his last wife, Anna, mysteriously Jasmin B. Frelih work out for Chinonso, Ndali and those who disappeared. With no one to confide in, viral for a number of reasons, depending on Bloomsbury. HB. $29.99 help them along the way. Rosa attempts to patch together the which corner of the internet you inhabit. Twenty-five years Obioma employs rich language suspicious villagers’ conflicting hearsay For women, young and older, ‘Cat Person’ into the future, the that scatters dust over the poultry accounts to figure out what did happen to was deeply perceptive about what dating earth has been ripped farm, vacuums over Cyprus, and fades Anna and what may happen to herself. today feels like. For men, it held up a mirror apart by a glitch in the Chinonso’s dreams. The chi’s purpose may As the novel unfolds, I found myself to some uncomfortable truths about their global communications be to look out for its host, to communicate assuming that I knew exactly what was part in this fraught dynamic. system. What remains is a its knowledge and suggest a path forward going to happen. Yet I was mistaken and ‘Cat Person’ occupies the central spot in world at once completely through life, but humans must experience tripped a couple of times on the unforeseen Roupenian’s debut short-story collection, outside human possibility the magnetic pulls of love and heartbreak, twists that dotted the pages. Lea masterfully You Know You Want This – twelve dark tales and alarmingly close to poverty and pride, and fortune and loss. controlled the information necessary to that explore gender, sex, and power in often the pressing fears of our decade. In jolted Obioma’s epic confirms his place in the unpack the mystery and kept key details uncanny and uncomfortable ways. There is prose that leaps across continents and Nigerian literary tradition. hidden until the precise moment they ‘The Good Guy,’ which is a natural cousin voices, Jasmin B. Frelih follows three became essential. All the characters have to ‘Cat Person,’ but offers its disturbing Clare Millar is from Readings Hawthorn disillusioned millennials, ex-best friends 10 READINGS MONTHLY February 2019 FICTION

who have slowly lost touch. more universal and symbolic meaning as relationship. The Great Wide Open is an desperately in love. At the same party, Evan, a theatre director based in Edo, reality and dreams begin to blur. It provides immensely ambitious and compulsive lawyer Annie meets the man of her falls into drug addiction and follows the richness and depth to a novel that lingers in saga; a novel which will speak volumes to dreams, and across the city, Violet, who is hallucinatory back streets of Tokyo for a fix the mind beyond the final page. anyone who has marvelled at that pain afraid of almost everything, is making of the elusive mAk, all the while evading Amanda Rayner is from Readings Carlton that can only be caused by family itself. another discovery of her own: that for the robot ‘minders’ and a trail of heartbroken first time in her life she’s falling in love women. Kras, an ex-Slovenian war minister, Professor Chandra Follows His The Binding with a woman. attempts to celebrate his upcoming fiftieth Bliss Bridget Collins birthday with his extensive family, but Rajeev Balasubramanyam HarperCollins. PB. $32.99 The Freedom Artist they are rapidly descending into madness, Chatto & Windus. PB. $29.99 Emmett Farmer is Ben Okri hysteria and infighting. Zoja, an anarchist Professor Chandra is an working in the fields Head Of Zeus. PB. $29.99 poet, stands bare-chested in front of an expert at complex when a letter arrives In a world expectant audience in Brooklyn. Her adoring problems. There’s just summoning him to uncomfortably like our crowd is desperate for a sense of community one he can’t crack: the begin an own, a young woman in an increasingly dangerous, hostile city. As secret of happiness. In apprenticeship. He called Alamantis is the novel culminates, the three friends find the moments after a will work for a arrested for simply themselves thrown together one last time, bicycle accident, Bookbinder, a vocation asking a question. on the edge of the world, estranged and yet Professor Chandra that arouses fear, When Alamantis haunted by the joys of their former lives. doesn’t see his life flash superstition and prejudice – but one disappears, her lover Reading Frelih’s work is like decoding before his eyes, but his life’s work. All this neither he nor his parents can afford to Karnak goes looking for a puzzle. Sentences drop off midway work. All this success. All this stress. It’s refuse. In a vault under his mentor’s her. Karnak’s search leads him into a through, paragraphs subvert the reader’s killing him. He needs to take a break, start workshop, row upon row of books – and terrifying world of lies, oppression and expectations, frequently drifting into enjoying himself. In short, Professor memories – are meticulously stored and fear at the heart of which lies the Prison. lengthy philosophical, dream-like prose Chandra should just follow his bliss. He recorded. Then one day Emmett makes an Then Karnak discovers that he is not the that begs to be read and re-read a second, doesn’t know it yet, but he is about to astonishing discovery: one of them has only one looking for the truth. The third or fourth time. In a place of hellish, embark on the trip of a lifetime. his name on it. The Binding is an Freedom Artist is an impassioned plea for dystopian nightmare, Evan, Kras and Zoja unforgettable, magical novel, and a justice and a penetrating examination of still take the time to discuss their failures, The Night Tiger unique literary event. how freedom is threatened in a post- their fears, and the lost loves they have tried Yangsze Choo truth society. to recreate. In a disorienting, pulsating Hachette. PB. $32.99 Katalin Street debut that has now been translated from Available 12 February Magda Szabó The Friend Slovenian into six languages and counting, Young Ren has a Hachette. PB. $29.99 Sigrid Nunez Frelih expertly depicts a world weighted by mission: to find his In pre-war Budapest Virago. PB. $22.99 pornography, addiction and danger; a place dead master’s severed three families live side When a woman of near complete loneliness where no one finger and reunite it by side on Katalin unexpectedly loses a and nothing belongs. with the body. Ji Lin, Street. Their lives are lifelong friend and Caitlin Cassidy is from Readings Carlton an apprentice torn apart in 1944 by mentor to suicide, she dressmaker, the German finds herself burdened The Dreamers moonlights as a occupation, which only with the unwanted dog Karen Thompson Walker dancehall girl to pay one of the families he has left behind. Her Simon & Schuster. PB. $29.99 her mother’s debts. One night, Ji Lin’s survives intact. Then, own battle against grief dance partner leaves her with a in the postwar regime, they struggle to is intensified by the Reading The gruesome souvenir. In their journey to come to terms with social and political mute suffering of the dog, a huge Great Dreamers leading keep a promise and discover the truth, change, and unstated feelings of Dane that had been devoted to its up to Christmas, I’ll Ren and Ji Lin’s paths will cross in ways survivor’s guilt. Magda Szabó conducts a suddenly vanished master, and by the admit that a book about they will never forget. Woven through clear-eyed investigation into the ways in threat of eviction: dogs are prohibited in people drifting into a with Chinese folklore and a tantalising which we inflict suffering on those we her apartment building. The Friend is seemingly peaceful and mystery, this novel is a page-turner of love. Katalin Street is a poignant, sombre, both a meditation on friendship, loss and prolonged sleep had its the highest order. harrowing book, but beautifully bereavement, and a celebration of the appeal. This is, however, conceived and unforgettable. wonder and healing power of the human- no fairytale but a canine bond. contemporary novel revolving around a Black Leopard, Red Wolf: Dark viral outbreak in a Californian town that Star Trilogy Book 1 At The Wolf’s Table sends the infected into an unwakeable sleep Marlon James Rosella Postorino The Spirit of Science Fiction and into a world of dreams. Penguin. PB. Was $32.99 Simon & Schuster. PB. $29.99 Roberto Bolaño Karen Thompson Walker delivers a book $29.99 Germany, 1943: Rosa Macmillan. HB. $27.99 that is rewarding on two levels. Firstly, as a Tracker is known far Sauer’s parents are Two young poets, Jan compelling disaster novel (I was reminded and wide for his skills as gone, and her husband and Remo, find of movies such as Outbreak and Contagion) a hunter – and he always is away fighting on the themselves adrift in and, secondly, as a deeper meditation on works alone. But when front lines. Alone, she Mexico City. Obsessed dreams, consciousness and time. Thomson he is engaged to find a has little choice but to with poetry, and, Walker is an assured and vivid writer who child who disappeared leave Berlin for a village above all, with science effectively builds the tension right from three years ago, he must near the Wolf’s Lair: fiction, they are eager the start. The choice of virus has great break his own rules, Hitler’s hidden to forge a life in the dramatic implications; sleep is something joining a group of eight headquarters. Afraid of poison, Hitler literary world – or we normally associate with relaxation very different mercenaries working conscripts ten women, including Rosa, to sacrifice themselves to it. As close as and rejuvenation but here it is given an together to find the boy. Drawing from vivid be his food tasters. As the war outside these friends are, the city tugs them in undertone of menace. How can one tell African history and mythology, Marlon goes from bad to worse, Rosa must figure opposite directions. Roberto Bolaño’s if someone is sick or just sleeping? How James weaves a saga of breathtaking out how she can stay alive as it becomes The Spirit of Science Fiction is a story of do you protect a newborn if you succumb adventure and powerful intrigue – a clear that she and her friends, her Hitler, youth hungry for revolution, notoriety, to the disease? How are thousands of mesmerising, unique meditation on the everyone she knows, are on the wrong and sexual adventure, as they work to sleeping people kept alive when they are nature of truth and power. side of history. construct a reality out of the fragments outnumbering their carers? The author of their dreams. also deftly examines the complications and The Great Wide Open A Love Story for Bewildered logistics of a medical disaster: the need for Douglas Kennedy Girls My Coney Island Baby quarantine, the strain on resources, the Random House. PB. $32.99 Emma Morgan Billy O’Callaghan inevitable hysteria and the unrelenting This great American Penguin. PB. $29.99 Jonathon Cape. PB. $32.99 presence of the media. Most effective is the epic follows young book Available 19 February On a bitterly cold parallel of these extraordinary events with editor Alice Burns as Grace has what one afternoon, Michael and the everyday lives of characters trying to she navigates high might call a ‘full and Caitlin escape their navigate relationships, desires and personal school bullying, first interesting life’ which marriages to keep an loss alongside this extreme situation. love and sexism at an is code for not married illicit rendezvous. Once As satisfying as the novel’s plot is, it is elite college, a spell in and has no kids. But a month, for the past the thematic closing chapters that are the 1970’s Ireland, and when she meets a quarter of a century, book’s strength. Dreaming and time are put tragedy. But it is also beautiful woman at a Coney Island has been in a historical and philosophical context, the tale of her endlessly complex parents party, she falls their haven. But now, and the characters’ experiences take on a and brothers, and the implosion of their suddenly and amid the howling of snowstorm, it feels FICTION February 2019 READINGS MONTHLY 11

like the edge of the world. My Coney Island Baby condenses, within the Graphic Novel course of a single day, the moments of wonder that constitute the shared life of When One Person Dies The two people. This is a book full of sorrow, Whole World Is Over but also radiant with beauty, longing Mandy Ord and desire. Brow Books. PB. $29.99 When One Person Dies Beside Myself The Whole World Is Over Sasha Marianna Salzmann is a quietly enthralling Text. PB. $32.99 and keenly intimate work Beside Myself is the about the search for disturbing and meaning in the everyday, exhilarating story of a and what it might mean family across four to belong. It’s about ageing, love, and loss, generations. At its heart and how we might try to balance work and is one woman’s search family and art in this confusing modern for her twin brother. In world. Funny, sad, and perfectly magnetic, it a city steeped in draws you in deep; before you know it you’re political and social caring intensely about the lives into which changes, Ali’s search – for her missing we are given some precious glimpses. brother, for her identity – will take her on a journey for connection and belonging. This is a brilliant literary debut about Poetry belonging, about family and love, and about the enigmatic nature of identity. Green Shadows and Other Poems The Death of Murat Idrissi Gerald Murnane Giramondo. PB. $24 Tommy Wieringa Gerald Murnane, now in Scribe. HB. $29.99 his eightieth year, began Thouraya and Ilham, his writing career as a are liberated, European poet. After many years as women, the children of a writer of fiction, he only immigrants from North returned to poetry a few Africa. When they travel years ago when he moved together to Morocco, to Goroke, in the Western they are deprived of the Districts of Victoria, after the death of his freedoms they’re wife. The forty-five poems collected here accustomed to back are in a strikingly different mode to his home. So, when the spry Saleh presents fiction – without framing or digressions, himself as their guide and saviour, they and with very few images, they speak embrace his offer. He extracts them from openly to the reader of the author’s a tight space, only to lead them inexorably memories, beliefs and experiences. into an even tighter one: and from this far darker space there is no exit. Magical Negro Among The Lost Morgan Parker Hachette. PB. $22.99 Emiliano Monge Available 12 February DON’T FOOL YOURSELF & Frank Wynne (trans.) Magical Negro is an archive Scribe. PB. $32.99 of Black everydayness, a THAT THE INNOCENT Estela and Epitafio catalogue of contemporary were trafficked, grew folk heroes, an ethnography NEVER GO TO JAIL up together in a brutal of ancestral grief, and an orphanage, fell in love, inventory of figureheads, but were ripped apart. idioms and customs. This A chilling new story They have played an volume connects themes of ugly role in the very from Australia’s queen loneliness, displacement, grief, ancestral system that abused of true crime trauma and objectification, while exploring them, but have never tropes and stereotypes of Black Americans. forgotten the memory of their own In these poems are living documents, pleas, shackles. Like the immigrants whose latent traumas, inside jokes and unspoken hopes they extinguish, they long to be anxieties situated as firmly in the past as in free; free to be together and alone. Here the present – timeless Black melancholies in an unnamed land, lives are spent, and triumphs. bartered and indentured for it. Must all be bankrupt among the lost? Sci-Fi The Wall John Lanchester BY THE AUTHOR OF Faber. PB. $29.99 The City in the Middle of the Night Kavanagh begins his Charlie Jane Anders COMFORT ZONE life patrolling the Wall. Titan Books. PB. $19.99 If he’s lucky, if nothing January is a dying planet – goes wrong, he only divided between a ‘A compelling adventure in the has two years of this. If permanently frozen unpredictable world of the Carlton he survives and gets darkness on one side, and crew, the construction industry, off the Wall, he never endless sunshine on the and the homelessness crisis.’ has to spend another other. Humanity clings to day of his life life, spread across two PETER GORDON anywhere near it. Along with the rest of archaic cities built in the his squad, he will endure cold and fear sliver of habitable dusk. Sophie, an exiled day and night. But somewhere, in the student and reluctant revolutionary, is dark cave of his mind, he thinks: supposed to be dead. Saved only by her wouldn’t it be interesting if something unusual bond with the enigmatic beasts who did happen, if they came, if you had to roam the ice, Sophie vows to stay hidden from fight for your life? the world, but fate has other plans. 12 READINGS MONTHLY February 2019 NONFICTION

significant contributions to multiple fields with her husband and two young boys including the , from Hungary in 1956 and her time in two New post-colonialism, human rights, and many concentration camps, her girlhood as an more. This volume is a tribute to her work ambitious photographer, and the Nonfiction and a recognition of her enduring unknowable fate of her vanished family in influence and leadership in the profession. Transylvania. This is a captivating book born of curiosity, of guilt and of love.

In 1985, Jacqueline Kent was living in Sydney and working Biography Unwinding of the Miracle BOOK OF THE as a freelance book editor. At a dinner party, she met Julie Yip-Williams MONTH Kenneth Cook, author of classic Australian novel Wake in Fridays With My Folks Random House. PB. $32.99 Fright. The two quickly fell in love, and married in early Amal Awad Born blind in Vietnam, Biography 1987. Sadly, Kent’s time with Cook was to be brief – he died Random House. PB. $34.99 Julie Yip-Williams unexpectedly while they were on a camping trip together narrowly escaped Amal Awad's life shortly after their wedding. euthanasia planned by changed when her Beyond Words is not a biography of Cook’s life, nor is it her grandmother, only father was diagnosed a straightforward memoir of Kent’s. It is the story of their to have to flee the with kidney failure. On relationship and the time they spent together. Kent writes political upheaval of the a mission to help her beautifully and concisely, with an idiosyncratic voice that late 1970s with her father and support her never wavers, even when revisiting painful memories: family. She eventually mother, Amal began the complex financial strife her husband was often in, the made it to America, where a surgeon gave spending every Friday breakdown of her relationship with her adult step-children, her partial sight. Julie became a Harvard- with her parents, which and of course, Cook’s sudden death. As well as telling the educated lawyer, with a husband, a family, prompted her to explore how Australians story of this relationship, Beyond Words captures a portrait a life. Then, at the age of thirty-seven Julie are ageing, how sickness affects the of a specific side of 1980s Australia. Kent writes as an insider was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and a afflicted and those around them, and of the literary world of this time, and the book contains different journey began. Inspiring, what solutions exist when hope seems interesting anecdotes about what it was like to write and work instructive, and shattering, this is not just lost. Fridays with My Folks shares honest Beyond Words: with writers at this time. She writes about how the industry a tale about dying – it is a powerful story stories, and although it stems from A Year with worked pre-internet, how common it was for authors to be about living. personal experiences, it expands to a Kenneth Cook resistant to anything more than the lightest of edits before much wider, more universal discussion Jacqueline Kent publication, and even how Kenneth Cook was made to go on about life, suffering, coping and hope. We Are Displaced UQP. HB. $29.95 tour in a Driza-Bone coat and an Akubra hat, two items of Malala Yousafzai clothing he had never before worn in his life. Say Hello Orion. PB. $29.99 This book is a delight to read, and could easily be finished Carly Findlay Nobel Peace Prize over the course of a couple of days, or even an afternoon. Jacqueline Kent is a wonderful HarperCollins. PB. $32.99 winner Malala writer, and this bittersweet account of the relationship between two creative people, Yousafzai’s experiences This honest, outspoken and of literary culture in Australia in the 1980s, is guaranteed to stay with you long after visiting refugee camps and thought-provoking you’ve turned the final page. caused her to reconsider memoir by award- her own displacement – Ellen Cregan is the marketing and events coordinator for Readings winning writer and first as an Internally appearance activist Displaced Person as a Carly Findlay will young child in Pakistan, challenge all your and then as an international activist who fascinating visual archive for the first assumptions and beliefs Australian Studies could travel anywhere in the world except time, profiling Krefft and Barnes’s about what it is like to to the home she loved. In a time of remarkable partnership, innovative work have a visibly different appearance. Carly immigration crises, war and border Breaking Point: The Future of and the Australian Museum’s urgent quest lives with a rare skin condition, Ichthyosis. conflicts, We Are Displaced is an important Australian Cities to become more scientific in its practices. What she faces every day, and has to live reminder that every displaced person is an Peter Seamer with, will have you cheering for her and individual with hopes and dreams, and Black Inc. PB. $32.99 The Change Makers 25 her courage, and irrepressible spirit. This that everyone deserves universal human How can we create leaders in their own words is both a moving memoir and a proud rights and a safe home. affordable housing for Shaun Carney manifesto on disability and appearance everyone and still get MUP. PB. $32.99 diversity issues. them to work in the Now more than ever we Imperfect morning? What does need leaders who can be Talk of Treasure Lee Kofman sustainable urban strong yet humble, bold Jane Carswell Affirm Press. PB. $32.99 development look like? and assertive when it Transit Lounge. PB. $29.99 In a captivating mix of memoir and cultural In this timely critique of counts but also have the In her writing life, Jane critique, Lee Kofman our nation’s urban capacity to listen and Carswell has explored casts a questioning eye development and planning culture, Peter learn, who can motivate the transformation on what it’s like to live in Seamer argues that vested interests often and influence, and who between the interior a body that deviates distort rational thinking about our cities. can get the best out of worlds of reading and from the norm. She talks Looking to the future, he sets out cogent those around them. In this collection of meditation and the to people of all shapes, new strategies to resolve congestion, essays, twenty-five outstanding Australian exterior world of sizes and configurations transport and expenditure problems, leaders from diverse worlds such as publication, and and takes a hard look at the way media and offering a blueprint for multi-centred science, the police force, a netball team, a between the books we culture tell us how bodies should and Australian cities that are more localised, spy agency, emergency medicine, read and treasure and those we write. shouldn’t be. Illuminating, confronting urban and equitable in nature. business, politics, and unionism share Here, Carswell invites us into her world and deeply personal, Imperfect challenges their insights and lessons on the essence of and its jostling demands of music us all to consider how our bodies shape the Capturing Nature inspiring leadership. teaching, writing, friends and family, and people we become. Vanessa Finney travels to a world of meditation. Lyrical NewSouth. PB. $49.99 Contesting Australian History: and literary, Talk of Treasure is a In the mid- Essays in Honour of Marilyn compelling memoir about how to be a Cultural Studies nineteenth century, Lake writer, and more simply, just how to be. some of the earliest Joy Damousi & Judith Smart (eds) adopters of the new Monash University Press. PB. $34.99 The Photographer at Sixteen Accidental Feminists art form of One of Australia's George Szirtes Jane Caro photography were leading scholars and a Hachette. PB. $29.99 MUP. PB. $32.99 scientists. At the highly distinguished In July 1975, Magda Accidental Australian Museum, professor of history, Szirtes died at the age of Feminists is a curator Gerard Krefft Marilyn Lake has forged fifty-one. In The celebration of the and taxidermist Henry Barnes began a career that has Photographer at Sixteen, women who came after experimenting with photography in the spanned several her son, celebrated poet the Australian women 1860s, preparing and staging their decades across a George Szirtes, delves who won the right to specimens and capturing them in number of universities. into her past. He takes vote. These second- thousands of beautiful and arresting Lake’s intellectual endeavours encompass readers through her exile wave feminists grew up images. Capturing Nature reveals this many subjects, and she has made in England, her flight earning money most of NONFICTION February 2019 READINGS MONTHLY 13 their lives, a fact that is phenomenal in Nobody’s Looking at You: itself. This era introduced baby boomers, Essays the pill and tampons. These women, Janet Malcolm whether consciously or not, paved the way Text. PB. Was $32.99 Discover for women today just by being in the $29.99 workforce. Becoming economically In every piece in this a new favourite independent brought a huge range of volume of previously benefits, including freeing women from uncompiled writings, unhappy marriages. But has society mainly from The New LOVE! Zoë Foster Blake actually kept pace with women? Yorker and the New York Jane Caro is the winner of the 2018 With her trademark warmth, Review of Books, Janet wit and realism, Australia’s Walkley Women’s Leadership in Media Malcolm looks closely favourite relationship advisor Award, won for her focus on ‘ageing’ and Zoë Foster Blake is here and with impunity at a to benevolently guide you the ‘illegitimacy of women in high office’. broad range of subjects, through the murky, magnificent spectrum of love. Caro explores the gender pay gap, the idea of from Donald Trump’s TV nemesis Rachel ‘merit’ and asks why the caring jobs are paid Maddow, to the stiletto-heel-wearing Fusion and valued less. Why does society devalue pianist Yuju Wang, to ‘the big-league game’ Kate Richards caring work so much? of Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Lyrical and poetic, Fusion is As Caro demonstrates, most women Nobody’s Looking at You consolidates a unique and haunting modern- gothic tale that questions selfhood, have to fit into male-curated workplaces Malcolm’s reputation as one of the greatest dependency, difference and love. where most men are only responsible at nonfiction writers at work today. The compelling first novel by the the office, while women are sacrificing award-winning author of Madness: A Memoir. seniority and job security for flexibility. A Writer of Our Times: John “Being single is not a waiting room for a Study after study shows that the bulk of Berger caring for children, emotional labour, and relationship. You’re not waiting to be saved Joshua Sperling or rescued from your life” housework still fall to women. Accidental Bloomsbury. HB. $39.99 LOVE! BY ZOË FOSTER BLAKE Feminists also shines a light on the John Berger was one of Black Leopard, Red Wolf women who are struggling to survive on the most influential Marlon James the Newstart Allowance and those with Drawing from vivid African thinkers and writers of fewer savings and less superannuation history and mythology, post-war Europe. He Marlon James weaves a saga because of the sacrifices they have made remained a revolutionary of breathtaking adventure and due to care-giving responsibilities. powerful intrigue from the Man up until his death in Caro scrutinises the often-denied Booker Prize-winning author of January, 2017. In A A Brief History of Seven Killings. economic barriers women encounter Writer of Our Times, and draws particular attention to the Heart of the Grass Tree Joshua Sperling places fact that women over fifty often face the Molly Murn Berger's life and works within the historical double whammy of sexism and ageism, Heart of the Grass Tree is an narrative of post-war Britain and beyond. exquisite, searing and hope-filled especially when job-seeking. Accidental debut about mothers and daughters Drawing on interviews, close readings and a Feminists is a powerful reminder that and family stories, about country wealth of archival sources, this book brings and its living history. women have to fight to be taken seriously. the many different faces of John Berger It’s a must-read for all people, of all ages, together and shows him as one of the most who care about equality. vital and brilliant thinkers of our time. Read more at penguin.com.au Cindy Morris is from Readings Carlton Political Correctness Gone Betraying Big Brother: The Mad? FROM THE CREATOR OF THE 5:2 Feminist Awakening in China Stephen Fry, Jordan B. Peterson, Leta Hong Fincher Michael Eric Dyson & Michelle Verso. PB. $29.99 Goldberg On the eve of Bloomsbury. PB. $16.99 International Women's The term ‘political Day in 2015, the correctness’ is one that Chinese government dominates contemporary arrested five feminist public discourse. Is activists. The ‘Feminist political correctness an Five’ became a global enemy of free speech, cause célèbre, with sparking needless Hillary Clinton conflict? Or is it a weapon speaking out on their behalf, and activists in the fight for equality, inundating social media with messages of restoring dignity to the downtrodden? How support. Through interviews with the should we talk about the things that matter Five and other leading Chinese activists, most in an era of rapid social change? In Leta Hong Fincher illuminates the this book, four notable thinkers of different challenges, and the joy, of their defiance. political convictions take on one of the Betraying Big Brother is a story of how the most heated debates in the culture wars of movement against could the twenty-first century. reconfigure China and the world. Merchants of Truth: Inside the Bookends: Collected Intros News Revolution and Outros Jill Abramson Michael Chabon Random House. PB. $35 HarperCollins. PB. $27.99 Merchants of Truth by In Bookends, Pulitzer Jill Abramson, former Prize winning author editor of The New York Michael Chabon offers a Times, is the gripping compilation of pieces and definitive in-the- about literature – age- room account of the old classics as well as his revolution that has own work – that presents swept the news industry a unique look into his over the last decade and literary origins and reshaped our world. Drawing on revelatory influences, and the books that shaped his access, Abramson takes us behind the taste and formed his ideas about writing and scenes at four media titans during some of reading. Ultimately, this thought-provoking the most volatile years in news history. compendium is a series of love letters and Exposing the people and decisions that thank-you notes, unified by the simple brought us to now, this major book breaks theme of the shared pleasure of discovery. the ultimate news story of our times. 14 READINGS MONTHLY February 2019 NONFICTION

Theology desperate of circumstances. It is as much Antisemitism: Here and Now Personal about identity, protest, memory and Deborah Lipstadt politics as it is about craft and artistry. An Scribe. PB. $32.99 Development Four Horsemen: The eloquent blend of history and memoir In the past few years with a unique understanding of craft, this there has been a decided Discussion that Sparked an Love!: An Enthusiastic is an evocative and moving book about rise in acts of Atheist Revolution & Modern Perspective on the need we all have to tell our story. antisemitism worldwide. Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Matters of the Heart Daniel C. Dennett & Christopher In Antisemitism, Deborah Lipstadt argues that this Zoë Foster Blake Hitchens Environmental Penguin. PB. $45 Random House. HB. $24.99 problem comes from With her trademark Available 19 February Studies both ends of politics. She exposes those who use warmth, wit and Known as the ‘four realism, Australia’s horsemen’ of New antisemitic imagery to attack Israel, and Quitting Plastic favourite relationship Atheism, these four big challenges those supporters of Israel who Clara Williams Roldan & Louise equate criticism with antisemitism. Written advisor Zoë Foster thinkers of the twenty- Blake is here to first century met only Williams as an imagined exchange of letters with a A&U. PB. $19.99 college student and colleague who are benevolently guide once. Their electrifying you through the examination of ideas on Where do you start if perplexed by this resurgence, Lipstadt gives you want to reduce the us her own superbly argued responses to murky, magnificent this remarkable occasion spectrum of love. Love for yourself! A love was intense and wide- plastic in your life? these troubling questions. Especially when most of being single! Love for the journey of ranging. The dialogue was recorded, and is finding love, rather than just the now transcribed and presented here with of us are wearing it, eating and drinking Science destination! And of course, wholehearted new introductions from the surviving three and respectful love for others. This book is horsemen. With a sparkling introduction from it, sitting on it, walking on it, and an indispensable and empowering from Stephen Fry, Four Horseman is Breaking and Entering: The probably even ingesting it. Anywhere you reference guide to the heart. Read it with essential reading for all their admirers, and Extraordinary Story of a go, plastic is within easy reach. This an open mind, and an open heart. for anyone interested in exploring the Hacker Called ‘Alien’ practical guide to removing throw-away tensions between faith and reason. Jeremy N. Smith plastics from your daily life will help you Bolder Scribe. PB. $32.99 eat healthier food, de-clutter, and even Carl Honoré History become friendlier with your local The hacker now known Simon & Schuster. PB. $35 community, all while doing something as Alien entered MIT in Ageing is inevitable. In great for the environment. 1998, intending to this time of longer Last Days in Old Europe: Trieste major in aerospace lifespans, however, we ’79, Vienna ’85, Prague ’89 engineering. Almost have the potential to age Richard Bassett Philosophy immediately, she was better than ever before. recruited to join a Penguin. HB. $49.99 Having travelled the secret student group globe to meet the Part memoir, part Chinese Thought: From scaling walls, breaking pioneers who are reflection, this book will Confucius to Cook Ding into buildings, pulling elaborate pranks, and redefining ageing, Carl bring to life central Roel Sterckx exploring computer systems. And Alien’s Honoré explores the cultural, medical and Europe during the last Penguin. HB. $45 adventures were only beginning. Breaking technological trends that will help us make ten years of the Cold Available 19 February and Entering is a history of the last twenty the most of our longer lives. Bolder is an War. It begins in Trieste We are often told that years of hacking and cybersecurity. In this essential and inspiring read to help all of us in 1979, moves to the the twenty-first century tell-all book, Alien reveals the forces at work make ageing a bonus rather than a burden. darker, claustrophobic is bound to become behind our everyday technology. world of Cold War China’s century. Never Vienna in 1985, and then shifts to Prague The Revolution of Man before has Chinese in 1989 during the long-awaited opening Gene Eating Phillip Barker culture been so Allen & Unwin. PB. $29.99 up of the east. With enormous charm, wit Giles Yeo physically, digitally, and insight, Richard Bassett recreates Hachette. PB. $32.99 As a journalist, Phil economically or through his personal encounters the elegy, Drawing on the very Barker has written aesthetically present in farce and tragedy of Central Europe in the latest science, and his extensively about what it everyday life in the Western world. In this last days of communism. own genetic research at is to 'be a man', and has enlightening book, Roel Sterckx takes us Cambridge University, found himself seeing the through centuries of Chinese history, Dr Giles Yeo has written male experience in a The Human Tide from Confucius, to Daoism, to the the seminal ‘anti-diet’ completely new light. Paul Morland Legalists. With evocative examples from diet book. Exploring the Men are forced into a Hachette. PB. $32.99 philosophy, literature and everyday life, history of our food, performance of Every phase since the he shows us how the ancient Chinese have debunking marketing masculinity that is suffocating, limiting and advent of the industrial shaped the thinking of a civilization that nonsense, detoxifying diet advice and damaging. The Revolution of Man shows us revolution – from the is now influencing our own. confronting the advocates of clean eating, how to rethink what it means to be a man fate of the British Giles translates his pioneering research into and urges men to reconnect with their Empire, to the Arab an engaging, must-read study of the human emotions so they, and the people they love, Spring, to the Politics appetite. Inspiring and revelatory, filled with can start leading happier, healthier and presidency of Donald lively anecdotes and fascinating detail, Gene more meaningful lives. Trump – can be better How to Lose a Country: The Eating is an urgent and essential book that explained when we 7 Warning Signs of Rising will change the way we eat. Digital Minimalism appreciate the meaning of demographic Populism Cal Newport change across the world. The Human Tide Ece Temelkuran Influenza: The Quest to Cure Penguin. PB. Was $32.99 seeks to address to the underestimated HarperCollins. PB. $27.99 the Deadliest Disease in History $29.99 influence of population as a crucial factor How to Lose a Country is Jeremy Brown Addiction to digital tools in almost every major global shift and an impassioned plea, a Text. PB. $32.99 is costing us both event of the last two centuries. warning to the world While influenza is now productivity and peace. that populism and often thought of as a mild But giving them up Threads of Life nationalism don’t march disease, it kills thousands completely isn’t realistic. Clare Hunter fully-formed into each year. In Influenza, Texting, Instagram, Hachette. PB. $32.99 government; they creep. Dr Jeremy Brown talks Facebook and Twitter Available 12 February Author and journalist with leading provide real value in the Threads of Life is a Ece Temelkuran, epidemiologists, policy form of connection, history of sewing and identifies the early-warning signs of this makers, and researchers, community, affirmation, and information, embroidery, told phenomenon sprouting up across the to offer both a but can also disrupt our ability to focus on through the stories of world in order to define a global pattern, comprehensive history and a roadmap for meaningful work and living. In Digital the men and women and arm the reader with the tools to root understanding what’s to come. This book is Minimalism, Cal Newport outlines a practical who have used the it out. No longer can the reasonable an enlightening and unnerving look at a philosophy for a mindful, intentional use of language of these arts to comfort themselves with ‘it couldn’t shapeshifting deadly virus that has been technology. This book can lead you to make their voices heard, happen here.’ It is happening. And soon it around since long before people and will increased control over your time, attention, even in the most may be too late. most likely be with us for a long time to come. energy and, ultimately, a richer life. NONFICTION February 2019 READINGS MONTHLY 15

Not Working Josh Cohen Food & Granta. HB. $32.99 More than ever before, we live in a culture that Gardening excoriates inactivity and with Chris Gordon demonises idleness. Little wonder so many of us are burning out. Here, psychoanalyst Josh Cohen considers four faces of inertia – the burnout, the slob, the daydreamer and the slacker. Drawing on personal experiences and stories from his consulting room, Cohen gets to the heart of the apathy many of us feel when faced with the demands of contemporary life, and asks how we might Food & Gardening trends to live a more fulfilled existence. look forward to in 2019 As world politics bring more despair to us all, our yearning for the simple things in life like Travel Writing meals with family and friends will increase. We will look for ways to make our life easier and more considerate. Consequently, I Built No Schools in Kenya the food we prepare will be kind to the Kirsten Drysdale environment and nurturing to our souls. Vintage. PB. $34.99 This year the flavours will be unpretentious, In September 2010, the ingredients will be local and you will Kirsten Drysdale was be using cooking techniques that your tricked. Her friend great, great grandparents used. Proof in called with a job offer: a the pudding of this theme is the enormous cruisey gig as a carer for success last year of Ottolenghi’s Simple. a rich old man in Kenya. You’ll need to line up your household tools All expenses paid, and ensure you have a trough, a watering Unlike many diets with rigid, one-size-fits-all guidelines, Sahara Rose Ketabi, plenty of free time to can, a ball of twine and secateurs because Ayurveda is a lifestyle that recognises the ever-changing Internationally bestselling travel. It was only on this year you are going to be cooking with needs of each individual. Use Eat Feel Fresh to identify your author and host of #1 ranked arrival in Nairobi that she discovered the your very own garden ingredients. You dosha, or mind-body type, and find out what foods are best Religion & Spirituality for your body. podcast, Highest Self. rich old man’s family was fighting a war will also need a barbeque for grilling meat around him, and that she would be on the or faux meat alongside sliced vegetables front line. I Built No Schools in Kenya is a flavoured only by fire, fat and salt. travelogue-tragedy-farce about wealth, This year plenty more cookbooks will dk.com.au love, family, nationhood, benzodiazepines, be vegetarian-based, although they won’t monkeys and whisky. be using that word in the title. For example, David Frenkiel and Luise Vindahl’s Little Green Kitchen (April) focuses on simple and Health comforting dishes that are easy to like, adapt and cook. Ingredients have been minimised so that everyone will find the recipes Conquering Fat Logic inspiring and useful. Whole by Harriet Nadja Hermann Birrell (aka Natural Harry), out this month, Scribe. PB. $32.99 also strikes the perfect balance between After years of failed diets, healthy, humble and satisfying food. The Dr Nadja Hermann philosophy these books share is about weighed 150 kilograms at enjoying friends and family while keeping the age of thirty. All meal times effortless and meat-free. throughout her life, she Ross Dobson’s latest cookbook Weekend had heard and read about BBQ (March) is also about guaranteeing a THE MOTHER-IN-LAW ZEBRA: AND OTHER STORIES hundreds of reasons why straightforward approach to cooking. A SALLY HEPWORTH DEBRA ADELAIDE diets wouldn’t work for barbecue is the seamless way to gather ‘Hepworth turns up the tension in her latest Tantalising, poignant, wry, and just a little her. But when her weight friends together and to honour cooking Australian-set domestic suspense novel. fantastical, this subversive collection of started to seriously affect her health, she A masterful depiction of how much is short fiction reminds us what twists and eating outdoors. Drawing on culinary looked at the science and realised that most said in the silences...’ of fate may be lurking just beneath influences from around the globe, including the surface of the everyday. of what she believed about dieting was a Booklist, starred review Asia, the Middle East and Europe, plus old- myth. Using humour, insight, and a dose of school favourites, ensures Dobson’s book is science, Hermann debunks widespread lies absolutely part of the present zeitgeist. about weight loss, and shows how it is Joining the trend for wonderful pared possible to attain a healthy weight. down meals is Morgan McGlynn’s brilliant The Modern Cheesemaker (March). The aim The Fast 800 of this charming book is to show you how to Dr Michael Mosley make delicious cheeses such as halloumi, Simon & Schuster. PB. $29.99 pecorino, mozzarella and paneer at home. Six years ago, Dr Michael Who knew it was so easy? And look out for Mosley started a health the ultimate baking guide with Margaret revolution with The 5.2 Fulton’s Baking Classics (April). With her Fast Diet. In this new easy instructions and reliable tips you can book he brings together impress everyone with your light Victoria THE RUIN OF KINGS MENTORS: HOW TO HELP all the latest science to sponge, scones and brownies. JENN LYONS AND BE HELPED create an easy-to-follow There will be cookbooks on creating the ‘Literary magic. Epic fantasy fans looking for RUSSELL BRAND programme based perfect sauerkraut; there will be books on a virtually un-put-down-able read should Bestselling author Russell Brand around consuming 800 food options for mending your gut. There look no further’ explores the idea of mentoring and shares calories a day – an amount high enough to will also be pages and pages dedicated Kirkus, starred review what he’s learned from the guidance of his be manageable but low enough to speed to cauliflowers (the new wonder food), own helpers, heroes and mentors. weight loss and trigger desirable metabolic Hawaiian food, and an extraordinary range changes. The Fast 800 offers a flexible way to of grains. It will be the year we hanker to help you lose weight, improve mood and create and share our locally grown food. It reduce inflammation and blood sugars. Take will be in those shared moments that the your future health into your own hands. outside world will seem far away. 16 READINGS MONTHLY February 2019 CRIME

alongside a tramp, and the papers – the world (Can I stop asking questions in reviews?) An – declares Sonny returned. Despite intriguing idea brought fully to life. Dead assurances, is it the real Sonny, after all this time? And when another mother claims the Flight Risk Write boy is hers, who will the world believe – and Michael McGuire with Fiona Hardy what is the truth? Based loosely on a true Allen & Unwin PB, $29.99 story, this is the kind of gripping, devastating Ted Roberts is a pilot tale that makes you wish for a future when with a fairly patchy Jamie Brandt has just about had enough of her two girls – in you can install GPS trackers in your children. history – both at work BOOK OF THE the same way any parent who loves their kids can also tire and at home, where he MONTH of them after a long week – when she leaves them in the car Village of the Lost Girls hasn’t spoken to his Crime outside Kmart to pick something up. But by the time she Agustin Martinez estranged daughter in gets back to her car, they are both gone. And so Jamie’s aunt Hachette. PB. $32.99 years. Now he works for a hires Alice Vega – private detective, finder of people, robust Years ago, in the Spanish secretive government of character – who has a one hundred percent success rate at mountains, two girls went organisation that uses finding missing people, though not a one hundred percent missing. Suspicion fell his knowledge of flying when the need arises: success rate at finding them alive. In turn, Vega hires ex-cop and lifted, lives were for example, if a flight to Jakarta simply Max Caplan for help in getting through to the overworked ruined and slowly vanishes above the sea. A shocking enough police that aren’t getting anywhere in the case. In this repaired, and the town occurrence – as we all know – until more turbulent, razor-sharp book, Vega and Cap won’t stop until remembered, but moved planes go missing, and Ted finds himself they get somewhere, and you’d take this book anywhere with on. Until the day that a confronted with the chance to get on a plane you to follow them. car drives off the side of a that may just be the next one to disappear. So mountain and inside is a dead man and one do you disappear too, or hope you can In this turbulent, razor-sharp book, of the girls, very much alive – and alone. So change the course? This is a high-velocity Vega and Cap won’t stop until they get where is the other girl? And where have they thrill-ride for those absolutely not catching any planes anywhere for the start of the year. somewhere, and you’d take this book been all these years? In the treacherous Two Girls Down landscape and the falling snow that anywhere with you to follow them. Louisa Luna dominates January and February-release All the Tears in China Text. PB. $29.99 books (for which we are grateful; they’re like Sulari Gentill A good plot can of course barrel a book along at pace, cheap air-conditioners), it’s all the Bloomsbury. PB. $32.99 but it’s great characters that can truly flesh it out. Luna has investigators can do to rail against the case’s Sulari Gentill’s pre-war given us two of them here: the highly strung Vega, always happy to use her knuckles but poorly handled past and find the missing girl and eternally unwilling to sleep or eat; and the maligned Cap, surprisingly not bitter about the unfair before the town is torn apart once more. A entertaining Rowland break in his career trajectory, mostly just happy to be a father to his teenage daughter Nell beautifully evocative and mountainous read. Sinclair mysteries are while making money busting men for cheating on their wives. As the two of them follow always satisfying, and every lead to find Kylie and Bailey Brandt – and there are many the town’s understaffed The Hunting Party Rowly’s ninth outing – police force aren’t tracking – there are threads that tighten and loop around and tie the Lucy Foley this time in 1930s book together like a parcel delivered straight to the part of your brain that produces HarperCollins. PB. $29.99 Shanghai – is no adrenaline. Not every path trodden will be pleasant – fair warning to readers – but this is British crime books love exception. Sent there by a beautifully taut firecracker of a read. suspicion: novels where his long-suffering brother to represent the nobody on any page can family wool business, and stay out of the way be trusted. (American of a country that currently isn’t his greatest characters have loyal fan, Rowly is on his very best behaviour, at An Anonymous Girl haunted by secrets and a decades-old friends and colleagues, least until somebody is murdered rather too Greer Hendricks & Sarah orphanage with a sinister past (do they ever while Scandi thrillers are close to his place of repose and Rowly finds Pekkanen have cheerful pasts?), Battaglia must battle often filled with himself under suspicion. Armed as always Macmillan. PB. $29.99 to save its residents while also saving disgruntled police taking with his trusty band of comrades (in every Makeup artist Jessica herself from her ailing health. An ice-cold down an unknown, external killer.) Lucy sense of the word), Rowly must wade Farris is working on a police procedural. Foley’s The Hunting Party ramps up that through the glamour and political college student’s suspicion tenfold: a group of friends go to an minefields of early twentieth-century China flawless face when she The Flower Girls isolated hunting lodge in the Scottish and the boundaries the world has set – to overhears her talking Alice Clark-Platts Highlands for their New Year’s celebrations. which he has never, to be honest, been very about a psychological Bloomsbury. PB. $29.99 They’re hoping for fun, booze, reconnection, good at paying much attention. study she’s thinking of In another unsettling and to shoot a deer or two. What they get is a blowing off the next day. snowbound once-in-a-lifetime snowstorm that blocks Also out this month When she realises that psychological thriller for any way home. When one of the guests is Elsewhere in the Readings Monthly you’ll it’s paid – five hundred dollars, no less – she this month, a hotel on found dead, the question that blows in with find a review of J.P. Pomare’s Call Me Evie turns up the following morning in the the coast of Devon is the weather is this: is the killer an outsider, (Hachette, PB, was $29.99, special price student’s place. What follows is a series of struck by a storm just as or someone so close you can’t really see them $26.99, review on page 8)! Also out this questions on morality and ethics that turn a child goes missing. at all? A chiller on many levels. month: my favourite author name and title Jess from a last-minute replacement into a Nineteen years earlier, combo with Niklas Natt och Dag’s The Wolf test subject called on for more questions, Laurel and Rosie were The Silent Patient and the Watchman (Hachette, PB, $32.99); the more tasks – and who finds herself more two young girls who met a little girl down at Alex Michaelides animal theme kept with Jens Lapidus’s Top and more under the study’s control. With the park, a day that ended with one of them Hachette. PB. $29.99 Dog (Atlantic, PB, $29.99); Ned Kelly Award money a necessity and her psychological convicted of murder and the other under a One sweltering summer winner Candice Fox’s Gone by Midnight welfare taking a back seat, trust becomes new identity. Now, the Flower Girls are back day in London, fashion (Random House, PB, was $32.99, special price something slippery –and dangerous. in the public eye – and the past is about to photographer Gabriel $29.99); Alan Parks’ second month-based come crashing right back into the present. Berenson goes on an procedural, February’s Son (A&U, PB, $29.99); Flowers Over the Inferno all-day shoot while his Barry Maitland’s new literary themed Brock Ilaria Tuti Half Moon Lake artist wife, Alicia, stays and Kolla mystery The Promised Land (A&U, Hachette. PB. $32.99 Kirsten Alexander home to paint. Half an PB, $29.99); Gytha Lodge’s She Lies in Wait Available 12 February Random House. PB. Was $32.99 hour after he arrives (Penguin, PB, $32.99); Renee Knight’s The There is a mountainous $29.99 home that night, Secretary (Doubleday, PB, was $32.99, special theme in this month’s In 1913, the wealthy gunshots are heard. Gabriel is found, bound price $29.99); Fiona Barton’s Suspect (Bantam, books, and here, too, in Davenport family – to a chair, shot to death. The only PB, $32.99); Jeff Noon’s Slow Motion Ghosts the Italian Alps, life isn’t mother, father, three fingerprints on the gun are Alicia’s. That (Doubleday, PB, $32.99); Hanna Jameson’s quite as beautiful as the young boys – are at their was six years ago, and since then, Alicia The Last (Penguin, PB, $32.99); Laura Sims’ surroundings. When a holiday home by the lake hasn’t said a single word. In those Looker (Hachette, PB, $29.99); Tony Kent’s man is found dead with when Sonny, the intervening years, psychotherapist Theo Marked for Death (S&S, PB, $29.99); James his eyes gone and a youngest, vanishes into Faber has thought many times that he has Lee Burke’s New Iberia Blues (Hachette, PB, scarecrow wearing his the forest. It is all they the skills to fix her, and when a job opening $29.99); Andrea Camilleri’s The Overnight clothes watching over him, Superintendent can do to survive what appears in the psychiatric hospital Alicia is Kidnapper (Macmillan, PB, $29.99); Lynda La Teresa Battaglia is called in to assess the follows, as the townspeople help to search for housed in, he takes the job. Why did Alicia Plante’s Widows’ Revenge (A&U, PB, $29.99); murder. It’s gruesome, brutal, and it won’t Sonny, as the reporters turn up at their door, Berenson kill the man she loved? Why did EG Scott’s The Woman Inside (Hachette, PB, be the last – and when a baby goes missing as Mary, Sonny’s mother, falls apart. A long she paint a self-portrait alluding to sacrifice $29.99); Jonathan Kellerman’s The Wedding too, time squeezes even tighter. In a place and broken year follows until a boy is found afterwards? Can Theo make her speak? Guest (Century, PB, $32.99) … and more! YOUNG ADULT February 2019 READINGS MONTHLY 17

The Light Between Worlds And while Norse mythology is a large Laura Weymouth part of this story, it doesn't bring it to the Young modern day; instead, The Twisted Tree PB. Chicken House. $16.99 The journey from drags both its protagonists and its reader Adult childhood to deep into its ancient past. An excellent adulthood can be summer read for ages 13+. challenging; beyond Dani Solomon is from Readings Kids the physical Angie Thomas’s debut novel, The Hate U Give, was an transformation of our King of Scars absolute knockout – a bestselling, award-winning novel from BOOK OF THE bodies and the Leigh Bardugo 2017 that eloquently portrayed racism in America and gave a rollercoaster of our MONTH PB. Hachette. $22.99 young adult voice to the Black Lives Matter movement. emotions awaits the As enemies gather at Young Adult On the Come Up traverses similar territory – racism, struggle to understand who we really are, Ravka’s weakened structural inequality and poverty – but this time through to discover our tribe and, ultimately, borders, the young the voice of an aspiring rapper, Brianna. She’s sixteen and where we belong. king, Nikolai, must find not interested in studying for school exams. Instead, she’s Now, imagine living some of those a way to stop a rising eager to follow in the footsteps of her rapper dad, who was difficult years in an extraordinary, threat to the once-great famous for his music but died a victim of gang warfare. Bri magical woodland where you and your nation. Yet every day a is full of talent and passion, but life is giving her numerous siblings are heroes; what would life be dark magic within him challenges, both at home and at school. like once you’d returned to the ordinary grows stronger, world? Would you adjust? Or be filled with threatening to destroy all he has built. longing for the past? That’s the challenge Angie Thomas is one of the most Nikolai will risk everything to save his facing Evie and (to a lesser extent) her two important new voices writing in country and himself, but some secrets elder siblings. contemporary YA. She asks you to aren’t meant to stay buried. This is the Their story begins in 1944 during a first novel in a new Grishaverse Duology. check your privilege and engage with London air raid. As bombs fall, Evie what it feels like to be confronted by wishes that she, her sister Phillipa and On the Come Up I, Claudia Angie Thomas daily racism. brother James could be transported away from this terror – and suddenly it happens Mary McCoy PB. Walker. $17.99 Walker. HB. $27.99 This engaging story provides an education in the as the trio find themselves in an idyllic Claudia McCarthy language of the street and what it feels like when there’s woodland kingdom of Evie’s imagination! enters high school no food in the cupboard and the electricity is shut off because your mum can’t afford But when, years later, the three return determined to keep her to pay the bills. A cast of brilliantly drawn secondary characters makes the world feel to their ordinary lives, they find it hard head down and not be authentic, including Bri’s Aunt Pooh, who helps out the family but makes her money to adjust and poor Evie is completely lost. noticed. With her limp selling drugs, and Bri’s complicated relationships with her best friends, for one of whom Isolated and desperate to belong, she and her stutter she she has romantic feelings. longs for the world that was her spiritual wants to avoid being Angie Thomas is one of the most important new voices writing in contemporary YA. home. It’s a powerful story, written from bullied at all costs. But She asks you to check your privilege and engage with what it feels like to be confronted two distinct perspectives – that of the then she gets sucked by daily racism. In a gripping story with characters you can utterly empathise with, On troubled Evie, and of her big sister, who into the world of the school's patrician the Come Up is, quite simply, a must-read. For ages 13+. struggles to make sense of it all. Senate and finds that power can be A mesmerising and lyrical tale intoxicating – and corrupting. Is Claudia Angela Crocombe is the manager of Readings Kids laced with the poetry of such greats as going to be able to make a difference at her Tennyson and Dickinson, this is a must school, or is she just going to get chewed up for those who enjoy magical realism, and spit out by her fellow classmates? beautifully realised. Highway Bodies Two Can Keep a Secret Highly recommended for ages 14+. The Dead Queens Club Alison Evans Karen M. McManus Athina Clarke is from Readings Malvern PB. Echo. $19.99 PB. Penguin. $17.99 Hannah Capin PB. HarperCollins. $19.99 In Alison Evans’ The author of the The Twisted Tree latest novel the bestselling young Henry has it all: he’s Rachel Burge zombie apocalypse has adult mystery One of Us sporty, smart and the PB. Hot Key. $16.99 hit Australia with is Lying has come brooding bad boy. Available 4 February force. Highway Bodies through with a new Which explains why Martha can read is written from the thriller that will not he’s on his sixth people by perspective of three leave her fans girlfriend in two years. touching their clothes, different teens, all of disappointed. But it doesn’t explain as if their memories and whom are forced to Twins Ellery and why two of them are emotions have been lean on those close to them in this harsh Ezra have been sent to live with their dead. If your school’s absorbed by the cloth new reality. grandmother in the small town of Echo homecoming king had a little too much in they wear. This strange Dee and her bandmates escape Ridge. It’s a picturesque place where their common with Henry VIII, would you ‘gift’ started when she to a secluded bush cabin on a post- mother grew up. It’s also the place where survive with your head attached? became blind in one eye graduation trip. Upon emerging from their aunt disappeared when she was as a result of falling out of an ancient, their isolation, they find no signs of life seventeen. Greeted by a dead body on a twisted tree while on holiday at her in the nearby towns. rainy night, the twins find their first weeks mormor’s (grandma’s) house on the small A social media blackout, limited in the new town are far from peaceful. island of Skjebne in Norway. Graphic television programming and no phone There’s creepy, jarring vandalism, then a Since the accident, her mother seems to signal leaves Jojo and her sister Rhea, missing cheerleader. Keen on true crime, be doing her absolute best to keep Martha Novel who are used to being saturated in Ellery can’t help but start looking into from her beloved mormor. Desperate information, in the dark. these incidents. The book is also voiced to see her mormor, and to get answers, And a third, unnamed-until-the-end by Malcolm; a kid whose older brother is a Martha tells her mum she’s staying with Heartstopper: Vol. 1 character, affirms her identity as a trans girl murder suspect. her dad and flies to Skjebne. She arrives at Alice Oseman and finds partnership in a time of crisis. With a small-town setting, a dead her mormor’s cabin to find a strange boy PB. Hachette. $19.99 The characters’ stories overlap in homecoming queen and a theme park living there. When confronted, the boy Available 12 February a gripping narrative. While trying to formerly known as Murderland, this book tells Martha that her mormor died a week When Charlie and Nick find answers, and ultimately survive, has an American aesthetic that brings to ago and he's been hiding out in her cabin are made to sit together the teens are made to navigate issues mind R.L. Stine-style high-school horrors ever since. Before she can truly come to at school, they quickly of friendship, gender, and identity. of the nineties. Rest assured though, terms with this news, strange things start become friends. Soon Think Tomorrow When the War Began- Karen McManus delivers a quality book. happening: a terrifying beast appears to be Charlie is falling hard style survival camaraderie, but with She skilfully balances a page-turning plot roaming the land, the twisted tree seems for Nick, even though contemporary teens and lots of zombies. with interesting characters not lacking in to be calling her, and her blind eye can he doesn’t think he has depth. This is really good, entertaining If you enjoyed Evans’ 2017 novel suddenly see ... ghosts. a chance. But love Ida, this will definitely be another hit. reading. There are twists galore and The Twisted Tree is relentlessly creepy. works in surprising Highway Bodies is for fans of LGBTQIA+ readers will be guessing ’til the very end. As each mystery is solved another three ways. Heartstopper encompasses the fiction, and anyone who loves a good It’s everything you want from a teen or four are uncovered, causing you to small stories of Nick and Charlie’s lives, post-apocalyptic adventure. For ages 14+. mystery. For ages 13+. read even faster, leaning into the book, together making up something which Kealy Siryj is from Readings Kids Kim Gruschow is from Readings St Kilda desperate to find out what's happening. speaks to all of us. 18 READINGS MONTHLY February 2019 KIDS

Children’s Picture Books Books

Sleep tight, Platypup Renee Treml HB. Penguin. $19.99 Available 5 February Poor Platypup is frightened of the dark. But with his mother by his side, the little platypus ventures out of his burrow to Junior explore. Platypup discovers that his home by the river is Fiction just as lovely in the dark of night as it is during the day, and that’s not scary at all. Join us for a special story time reading of Sleep tight, Melody Trumpet Platypup at Readings Kids on Saturday 16 February at Gabrielle Tozer 10.30am. For more information, see page 4. PB. Harper. $16.99 ‘Melody Trumpet burst into Harold Snipperpot’s Best Disaster Ever the world with a screech that Beatrice Alemagna rattled the windowpanes of HB. Thames. $24.99 Trumpet Manor. It was a perfectly Harold is turning seven years old. ordinary sound for a newborn He’s never had a real birthday baby…’ party. His parents are too But Melody is a Trumpet. As grumpy. But this year is going to the daughter of Viola Trumpet, be different. Thanks to an the opera superstar, and Barry T. amazing man named Mr. Ponzio, Trumpet, the renowned conductor, Melody is meant something incredible is going to to be extraordinary, a musical genius to carry on the happen on Harold’s birthday Trumpet legacy, not ordinary. – and it’s going to be absolutely Ten years on and many, many musical extraordinary. instruments and hours of lessons later, Melody is still searching for her melodic talent. This is Wrestle! a secret so big that it threatens to destroy the Maya Newell, Charlotte Mars, Trumpets’ reputation as iconic musical visionaries. Gus Skattebol-James & Tom Jellett (illus.) In desperation, Melody is kept away from the world; HB. A&U. $24.99 if only secrets could stay hidden and the Battyville Available 4 February Elite School for Musically Gifted Children Debut Gala wasn’t so soon. Wrestlers are big and tough, with really huge muscles. But With a little help from some unexpected friends what do you do when all your – Clementine, Freddie and The Workshop – Melody heroes are wrestlers, and may just find her talent and her perfect place. But your mums have made it very she will have to start believing in what she can do, Board clear that they don’t like rather than what she can’t. fighting? Wrestle! is a funny This fun and clever story by the Gold Inky award- Books story about identity, family winning Gabrielle Tozer is her first for junior readers, and dressing up, inspired by the award-winning and it’s a great adventure about finding your own voice documentary, Gayby Baby. and being happy with who you are. For ages 7+. Claire Atherfold is from Readings State Library Pop-Up Jungle & Pop-Up Park The House on the Mountain Ingela P. Arrhenius Ella Holcombe & David Cox Charlie & Mouse BB. Walker. $14.99 each HB. A&U. $24.99 Laurel Snyder & Emily Hughes (illus.) These colourful Available 4 February PB. Chronicle. $12.99 first pop-up There is a fire coming, and Join brothers Charlie and books of the everyone must move quickly. Mouse in their very first book jungle and the Mum and Dad start packing as they: talk to lumps, take the park are perfect bags, grabbing woollen neighbourhood to a party, sell for tiny hands. blankets, the first-aid kit, some rocks, and invent the There’s so torches, and then the photo bedtime banana. With much to see in these bright, vivid pages, with fifteen . Atmospheric and imagination and humour, pop-ups and beautifully stylish illustrations by Ingela moving, this is the story of a Laurel Snyder and Emily P Arrhenius in both volumes. These are two pop-up family experiencing a bushfire, Hughes paint a lively picture of brotherhood in four books to treasure. its devastating aftermath, and the long process of irresistible stories that readers will relish. healing and rebuilding. Colours Stella the Unstoppable and the Talent Chihiro Takeuchi Toto Show Fiasco BB. Berbay. $19.99 Ximo Abadía Richard Newsome Beloved author and illustrator HB. Templar. $24.99 PB. Affirm. $14.99 Chihiro Takeuchi has created Living in a small town, Toto Stella’s excess energy and a mishap another original and wishes to escape the inevitable life with a fire extinguisher (and the innovative book with her in front of him and become an class guinea pig) have caught the intricate paper cut artwork. astronaut! He packs his bags, attention of Principal Hinchliffe. In Find a red fire truck, a green kisses his parents goodbye and a bid to channel some of that energy alligator or a black cat. This sets off for the big city. An into less destructive areas, Stella is wonderfully vibrant board endearing tale illustrated with given the challenge of creating a book will bring about hours of fun and engagement for vivid surrealist artwork, this story play for the annual talent show. The young children. is as imaginative as it is bold. result is a hilarious romp. KIDS February 2019 READINGS MONTHLY 19

The Dog Runner Twin Spin BOOK OF THE Bren MacDibble Adam Cece MONTH PB. A&U. $16.99 PB. Scholastic. $16.99 Available 4 February Picture Book Anna and Steph are identical twins, The people who survive when but they couldn’t be more different. the world turns upside down Anna is a super-organised junior are the first ones who learn how to TV reporter, and Steph is an walk on their heads. impulsive rap artist, obsessed with Ella and her brother Emery are a boy-band called Odd Socks. But learning to survive in a world that’s when they’re forced to pretend to be been tipped upside down. Australia each other for a week, everything has succumbed to a fungus that goes into a spin. has wiped out grass and led to worldwide famine. Ella, Emery, and their five loyal Hello Lighthouse dogs make their way across a ravaged landscape, Sophie Blackall where food is scarce and kindness even more so. Nonfiction HB. Hachette. $24.99 Ella’s unique voice guides the reader through Available 12 February the story. She is young, but not naïve – aware that the world she finds herself in is unforgiving to the small and the vulnerable. But her hope carries her, China: A History giving her the strength to survive and to grow. In a The Field Museum Lighthouses have an iconic charm, but beyond time where young readers find themselves facing the HB. Thames. $35 the pristine whiteness fables of shipwrecks and uncertainty of climate change and global warming, In this wonderfully detailed book, smugglers swirl around them. And then, there is the The Dog Runner is a powerful imagining of things to young readers will discover the reality of staffing and maintaining them which was a come, and a reminder of the importance of kindness history of one of the world’s most twenty-four-hour, year-long occupation before in the midst of uncertainty. influential civilizations. This automation. Bec Kavanagh is from Readings Kids book is a go-to resource for young readers looking to learn about The dramas and seasons are this amazing nation, from The Way Past Winter atmospherically portrayed with a prehistoric China, to the reign of Kiran Millwood Hargrave emperors and dynasties, to understanding how delicate sensitivity HB. Chicken House. $19.99 China’s culture developed. This story is mythic in stature Sophie Blackall’s splendid aerial perspectives and and full of wonder and The Australian Students’ Guide to gorgeously rendered weather patterns show the drama enchantment. It is a tale about a Writing and Grammar and isolation of this life, but luckily the lighthouse keeper family living remotely on a harsh Claire Duffy in this story is joined by his wife and the loneliness is land where winter has an icy hold PB. NewSouth. $27.99 alleviated. The dramas and seasons are atmospherically and threatens to freeze all life to the In this easy-to-use and fun guide to portrayed with a delicate sensitivity and just the right bone. Following the death of their writing and grammar, children, amount of prose to appeal to an audience of 3+. mother, and abandonment by their their parents, and teachers will learn Alexa Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn father, sisters Mila, Sanna and Geir all they need to know about the are struck another blow with the sudden elements of grammar. With practical disappearance of their brother, Oskar. Brave and tips on punctuation, spelling, and tenacious Mila defies her older sister Sanna and sentence construction, and helpful Sanna’s pessimistic belief that Oskar abandoned them. step-by-step examples, this book Convinced that foul play and a malevolent will help students master everything Middle Fiction enchantment are to blame, Mila embarks on a hero’s from apostrophes to essay writing. quest to rescue her brother from the evil influence that has ensnared him. This exacting quest is a punishing challenge for its hero and follows a compelling arc 47 Degrees from the call to adventure onwards through many tests Justin D’Ath and obstacles, confrontation with the anti-hero and, Classic of the PB. Penguin. $16.99 ultimately, a fight for survival. Only through great risk Readers of Justin D’Ath’s and adversity may the ‘way past winter’ be found. Month Extreme Adventures series, Natalie Platten is from Readings Doncaster particularly the second book, Bushfire Rescue, may be shocked when they realise that this new The Dog Who Saved the World Tuck Everlasting story of survival, loss and ruin is Ross Welford Natalie Babbitt based on his own life experience PB. HarperCollins. $14.99 HB. Bloomsbury. $16.99 surviving the Black Saturday Twelve-year-old Georgie is the I have reread Tuck Everlasting bushfires, ten years ago this month. test-subject for a thrilling new twice in the last three years In this fictionalised retelling, twelve-year-old Zeelie virtual reality experiment: a 3D and am always struck by the beauty and her family live in Flowerdale, ninety-five version of the future. Then a deadly and simplicity of Natalie Babbitt’s kilometres north-east of Melbourne. virus threatens to wipe out every writing; why use many words when We meet them on that scorching day in February dog in the country, and worse is still one perfect word conjures 2009 when the temperature soared to forty-seven to come. As the world is thrown into everything that needs saying? degrees. As fire reports come through, Zeelie is home chaos, Georgie embarks on a Tuck Everlasting explores with her father. Her mother and brother have made a desperate quest to save it – without the implications of immortality dash to the city to deal with her brother’s suspected actually leaving the room … in a quiet and thoughtful way. The Tuck family broken arm. In their haste to leave, a phone is left drank from a spring that, for better or worse, has behind and rash decisions are made that will prove Speechless granted them everlasting life. On a hot summer’s detrimental as events unfold. Adam P. Schmitt day they return to this hidden spring and their lives Zeelie frets, privately, as her father keeps to his HB. Walker. $22.99 dramatically intersect with a bored and cosseted stay-and-defend fire plan. She worries that her mother Jimmy has just learned that he has child, Winnie. This compact gift of a story thrums and brother may not know it is unsafe to return. to say a few words at his cousin with the stifling heat of summer and cools down with Tension builds as power and communication go down, Patrick’s funeral. But how do you forest shade. It gives us the scuffed and delightful the daytime sky turns dark with smoke, and a change give a eulogy when you can’t think Tucks, a family of optimists and realists, and Winnie, in wind direction brings the deafening roar of the of one good thing to say? A a spoilt but plucky girl who is ultimately faced with fire directly into their path. This is a gripping story poignant, funny, and candid look at life and death. based on Australia’s worst bushfire and is a crucial grief, family secrets, difficult Tuck Everlasting, once read, stays with you, true springboard for discussion about fire survival plans. people, and learning to look behind to its name. It’s not to be missed. For ages 10+. Natalie Platten is from Readings Doncaster the facade. Alexa Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn 20 READINGS MONTHLY February 2019 BARGAINS

Say Zoop! she is drawn into a mystery that will take Not I: Memoirs of a German Herve Tullet her on a metaphysical journey and change Childhood February her in ways she could never have imagined. HB. Was $28.99 Now $12.95 Joachim C. Fest & Martin Make some noise! Shout Chalmers (trans.) Bargains Oh! Whisper oh! Sing Sour Heart PB. Was $29.99 Now $12.95 Oooooooh! Herve Jenny Zhang Born in 1926, historian, Tullet’s book magically PB. Was $24.99 Now $10 biographer, journalist, and responds with dots, Centred on a community of critic Joachim Fest The Art Of Daniel Clowes bubbles, and bursts of immigrants who have experienced firsthand the Alvin Buenaventura ed. colour, shapes, and motion, and empowers traded endangered lives as rise of the Nazis, World War HB. Was $69.99 Now $24.95 readers by letting their imaginations run artists in China and Taiwan II, and a catastrophically Throughout his twenty- free. Say Zoop! invites a journey of for life on the poverty line defeated Germany, thus five-year career, alternative imagination, whimsy, and sheer fun that in 1990s New York City, becoming a vital witness to these difficult cartoonist/screenwriter extends well beyond the books’ pages. these stories examine the years. This is a portrait of an intellectually Daniel Clowes has always ways family can weigh us down, and lift rigorous German household opposed to been ahead of artistic and The Tale of Kitty-in-Boots us up. Fuelled by Zhang’s singular voice the Nazis and how its members suffered for cultural movements. The Beatrix Potter & Quentin Blake (illus.) and sly humour, Sour Heart introduces a their political stance. Art of Daniel Clowes: HB. Was $24.95 Now $12.95 bright new force in literary fiction. Modern Cartoonist is the first monograph on From the creator of Peter NW this award-winning, New York Times- Rabbit comes the tale of Going into Town: A Love Letter Zadie Smith bestselling creator. It includes all of Clowes’s Miss Kitty: a serious, to New York PB. Was $22.99 Now $10.95 best-known illustrations as well as rare and well-behaved young black Roz Chast Zadie Smith’s brilliant previously unpublished work, all reproduced cat, who leads a daring HB. Was $36.99 Now $19.99 tragi-comic NW follows from the original art. double life defeating vile A native Brooklynite- four Londoners after villains. This utterly turned-suburban they’ve left their childhood The Silver Spoon Quick and entertaining tale is filled with mistaken commuter deemed the council estate and moved Easy Italian Recipes identities, devious villains, and even an quintessential New on to different lives. From HB. Was $49.99 Now $19.95 appearance from Peter Rabbit. Yorker, Roz Chast has private houses to public With this cookbook, one always been intensely parks, at work and at play, their city is in Phaidon’s bestselling Flora and the Peacocks alive to the glorious brutal, beautiful and complicated. A Silver Spoon series, you Molly Idle spectacle that is Manhattan. Told through portrait of modern urban life, NW is can make easy, delicious HB. Was $29.99 Now $12.95 her singularly zany, touching, and true funny, sad and urgent – as brimming with and authentic Italian The darling, dancing cartoons, Going into Town is part New vitality as the city itself. meals in minutes. Each Flora is back, and this York stories, part personal and practical recipe has been time she’s found two guide to walking, talking, renting, and Revolution: The History of thoroughly tested and is accompanied by new friends: a pair of venting – an irresistible, one-of-a-kind England, Vol. 4 a colourful photograph. Recipes range peacocks! But amidst love letter to the city. Peter Ackroyd from classics such as spaghetti carbonara the fanning feathers HB. Was $49.99 Now $16.95 and mushroom risotto to fish, soups, and and mirrored movements, Flora realises Buildings that Revolutionized This fourth volume of luxurious desserts. that the push-and-pull between three Architecture Peter Ackroyd’s enthralling friends can be a delicate dance. Will this Isabel Kuhl and Florian Heine History of England begins The Larousse Book of Bread trio find a way to get back in step? HB. Was $59.99 Now $19.95 in 1688 with a revolution, Recipes to Make at Home Why do some buildings and ends in 1815 with a Éric Kayser Television: A Biography stand the test of time? famous victory. Ackroyd HB. Was $49.99 Now $29.95 David Thomson What makes a building masterfully describes a The Larousse Book of Bread HB. Was $45 Now $19.95 unique, or ground- period that was a time of religious, features more than 80 home In just a few years, what breaking? How do cultural and unprecedented baking recipes for breads and used to be an immobile function, environment, technological innovation, which saw pastries from two of France’s piece of living room and technology impact England transformed from a country of most trusted authorities. No furniture morphed into a an architect’s vision? These questions blue skies and farmland to one of soot, matter if you are creating glowing cloud of screens and more are answered in this wide- steel and coal. simple breads or gourmet with access to a near- ranging tour of 100 of the world’s most treats like croissants or sweet brioches, this endless supply of content. important man-made structures. This Understanding Power: The book is the ideal baking resource for both With Television, critic and film historian book is an invaluable introduction to the Indispensable Chomsky home cooks and professionals. David Thomson has finally turned his world of architecture. Peter R. Mitchell & John Schoeffel unique powers of observation to the (eds) The Modern Cook’s Year medium that has swallowed film whole. What Makes Me A Me? PB. Was $39.99 Now $14.95 Anna Jones Ben Faulks & David Tazzyman Noam Chomsky is HB. Was $49.99 Now $29.99 Great American Railroad PB. Was $14.99 Now $10 universally accepted as With a year’s worth of Journeys What makes you a you? one of the world’s leading one-pot meals, healthy Michael Portillo Are you like a sports intellectuals of the breakfasts and the HB. Was $49.99 Now $16.95 car – lightning fast? Or modern era. This book quickest suppers, this will This lavishly illustrated maybe you’re like a tree? gathers the best of become your go-to book tie-in to the Great Do your arms stick out Chomsky’s talks on the time and time again American Railroad like branches? This politics of power. Highlighting America’s whether in deepest winter, Journeys series captures funny and thought- myriad of social inequalities and the first warm days of spring or the height Michael Portillo’s epic provoking look at what makes us us is political issues while offering timely of summer. These simple yet special journey across the United guaranteed to feed the imagination. A advice for much needed change, recipes by beloved vegetable chef Anna States, from New York celebration of being who we are is perfect for Understanding Power is definitive Jones will take your cooking to a new level. and Boston to the deep south of Atlanta inquisitive (and inventive!) little minds. Chomsky. and New Orleans, and beyond. This Steam Train Dream Train collection of essays and vignettes is The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Daring Greatly Sherri Duskey Rinker and Tom perfect for any armchair traveller and Hidden Inheritance Brené Brown Lichtenheld fans of nineteenth-century US history. Edmund de Waal PB. Was $24.99 Now $13.95 HB. Was $29.99 Now $13.95 PB. Was $24.95 Now $12.95 Dr. Brené Brown challenges The dream train pulls Forest Dark When world-famous everything we think we into the station, and Nicole Krauss ceramicist Edmund de Waal know about vulnerability, one by one the train PB. Was $24.99 Now $10 inherited a collection of tiny and dispels the widely cars are loaded: polar A novelist leaves her Japanese carvings called accepted myth that it’s a bears pack the freezer husband and children netsuke, he wanted to know weakness. Daring Greatly is car with ice cream, behind in Brooklyn and who had touched and held the culmination of twelve elephants fill the tanker cars with paints, arrives at a Tel Aviv hotel, them, and how they had years research across the home, kangaroos stuff the hopper car with balls hoping to unlock her writer’s survived. And so begins this extraordinarily relationships, work and parenting. It is an (while zebras referee). Sweet and silly block. But when a retired moving memoir and detective story as de invitation to be courageous; to show up dreams are guaranteed for any budding professor of literature Waal discovers both the story of the netsuke and let ourselves be seen, even when there train enthusiasts! recruits her for a project involving Kafka, and of his own family. are no guarantees. DVDS February 2019 READINGS MONTHLY 21

Joanna Lumley’s artist Ally. She has just about given up on Silk Road her dream to make it big as a singer, until Film & TV Adventure Jack coaxes her into the spotlight. But $19.95 as Ally’s career takes off, the personal Joanna Lumley side of their relationship is breaking embarks on a grand and down, and Jack must battle with his own ‘I’m just totally bored talking about this. But you need it, challenging journey into internal demons. DVD OF THE so I’ll tell you.’ So starts Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist, the heart of the Silk Road. Starting in with a discernible friction between camera and subject that MONTH Venice, birthplace of the Silk Road’s most ultimately makes this documentary about British fashion Bohemian famous traveller Marco Polo, Joanna Documentary designer Vivienne Westwood the fascinating film that it is. Rhapsody moves on to Albania, Turkey, Georgia, $39.95 Whenever filmmaker Lorna Tucker asks Westwood direct Azerbaijan, Iran, Uzbekistan and Available 13 February questions she remains hesitant to answer, yet Westwood: Kyrgyzstan, taking in beautiful cities Punk, Icon, Activist is striking for its intimate access. It Bohemian Rhapsody and stunning landscapes. benefits from Tucker’s friendship with Westwood in the is a foot-stomping years prior to the film’s making. In an early scene we see the celebration of Queen, designer rolling out of bed in the morning; later at her atelier, Studio 54 the their music and their extraordinary we witness a lengthy outburst over the width of a hem. Documentary lead singer Freddie Mercury, tracing the meteoric rise of the band through their Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist delivers all the vital $29.95 iconic songs and revolutionary sound. information: how Westwood started making her own clothes Studio 54 was the This is the story of a band that continues aged eleven; her decision to drop out of art school because she epicentre of ‘70s to inspire outsiders, dreamers and music couldn’t imagine making a living from creative pursuits; her hedonism – a place that lovers to this day. young marriage and motherhood and the end of that marriage not only redefined the Westwood: Punk, when she met Malcolm McLaren in the late 1960s. But Tucker nightclub, but also came to symbolise an Ladies in Black Icon, Activist doesn’t spend as much time as expected on what famously entire era. Now, thirty-nine years after the velvet rope was first slung across the Was $39.95 $29.95 came next – the Sex Pistols, and the birth of a visual aesthetic, via Westwood, that delivered the punk movement to the world. club’s hallowed threshold, this feature $29.95 The past, we understand, is the past for Westwood. documentary tells the real story behind In the summer of 1959, What emerges from Tucker’s smart film is a view of Westwood’s iconoclasm that the greatest club of all time. the impact of European extends beyond punk into every aspect of her life. The mother of reinvention, in recent migration and the rise years Westwood has remade herself as an ardent activist for causes such as climate of women’s liberation is change. Although Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist doesn’t really come to grips with Film about to change Australia forever. Lisa questions of sustainability and waste in an industry rife with the latter, it’s an honest takes a summer job at the prestigious portrait of a woman who continues to do what she wants, the way she wants to. And that’s Sydney department store, Goode’s. There always thrilling to watch. Fahrenheit 11/9 she meets the ‘ladies in black’, who will $29.95 Joanna Di Mattia is from Readings Carlton change her life forever and awaken her to Available 6 February a world of possibilities. Academy Award winner Michael Moore is back, Custody as he turns his attention $29.95 TV to examine Donald Available 6 February Trump’s election win on 8 November 2016, This heart-stopping travelling across America to get a sense of A Discovery of Discovering Britain French drama charts a the social, economic and political impact Witches Series 1 family’s struggles with of the Trump Presidency. Fahrenheit 11/9 $34.95 $34.95 the fallout of divorce. is a provocative and comedic look at the Brilliant historian Diana In the ultimate When the magistrate rules in favour of times in which we live. Bishop is a witch denying celebration of Britain’s joint-custody of Miriam and Antoine’s her own heritage. She finds outdoors, history, culture young son, the boy is thrown directly herself thrown into the and tradition, Maureen A Star is Born into the middle of an escalating parental heart of a dangerous mystery – and into Lipman and Larry Lamb will be getting to Was $34.95 conflict. Superbly observed and flawlessly the path of the enigmatic geneticist and the heart of what makes British heritage $29.95 acted, Legrand’s precise dissection of this vampire Matthew Clairmont. Their unlikely so unique. With expert local guides from Available 6 February family dynamic masterfully builds into a alliance threatens to violate age-old taboos every corner of the nation, we travel to Seasoned musician Jack pulse-pounding thriller. and shake the fragile peace that exists palaces, parks and country fairs, meeting a discovers – and falls in between their species. host of colourful characters along the way. love with – struggling

MET OPERA: MARNIE Opens Feb 9 (E) AT ETERNITY’S GATE Opens Feb 14 (CTC) IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK Opens Feb 14 (CTC) When a compulsive thief is caught red-handed and blackmailed into Willem Dafoe embodies the most volatile and inspired of artists, Following his Academy Award® winning Moonlight, writer/director marriage, the strange new arrangement might hold the key to unlock Vincent Van Gogh, in Julian Schnabel’s (The Diving Bell and the Barry Jenkins adapts James Baldwin's acclaimed novel IF BEALE her mysterious past. Nico Muhly’s MARNIE, based on the novel which Butterfly) sensitive and grounded biopic, AT ETERNITY’S GATE, which STREET COULD TALK. Set in early 1970s Harlem, a young woman inspired Alfred Hitchcock’s lauded psychological thriller, has its U.S. follows the painter through the last years of his life. Financially reliant struggles against a corrupt justice system, after her fiancé is premiere at the Met this season. Costume design is by Madonna’s on his brother Theo (Rupert Friend), constantly falling in and out with framed for a crime, in this timeless and moving love story. A lyrical collaborator of twenty years, Arianne Phillips, who created every item his best friend and fellow artist Paul Gaugain (Oscar Isaac), and failing ode to romance that soars in a racially biased world, IF BEALE seen on stage in this stylish, vivid production. Mezzo-soprano Isabel to impress the Parisian art world, Van Gogh struggles to find STREET COULD TALK is a brilliantly crafted and poignant drama. Leonard stars in the title role opposite baritone Christopher Maltman equilibrium between reality and art. "Barry Jenkins creates one of the year's 10 best films by celebrating as her blackmailing husband Mark Rutland. “Schnabel has made not just an exquisite film but an argument for art” black love and a human connection that can raise you up and move you “Isabel Leonard and the rest of the cast are spellbinding and New York Times to tears” Michael Mayer’s direction makes this a must-see” OperaWire

Melbourne’s home of quality arthouse and contemporary cinema 22 READINGS MONTHLY February 2019 MUSIC

one of her most immediately gorgeous In addition to the film’s score, Burwell also melodies yet. But that doesn’t mean it composed a handful of original songs used Popular came easily.’ – Rolling Stone in the film. Music Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared? Country Deerhunter $22.95 | Also on vinyl The Imperial Towards the end of 2016, Bruce Springsteen had just released Deerhunter’s eighth LP The Delines OF his much-anticipated autobiography, Born to Run, and forgets the questions and $24.95 completed The River Tour, which celebrated the thirty-fifth THE MONTH makes up unrelated “The Imperial has a very anniversary of his hit 1980 album, The River. A well-earned answers. It gets up, walks sleek, wooded over matte Pop/Rock/Alt break was presumably on the cards for the then sixty-seven around, it records itself in aesthetic that wouldn’t be year old. However, he instead began an eight-week residency several strategic geographic points across out of place at the end of a at the Walter Kerr Theatre in N.Y.C. which then turned into North America. It comes home, bittersweet drama season a two-year stay, celebrating his life through his songs, his restructures itself and goes back to bed to finale. It is also music that one might piano and guitar, and his stories. In addition, the recording avoid the bad news. This album is as imagine being played in a small town features a special appearance by Patti Scialfa. thrilling, haunting, and unpredictable as Texan bar late at night. A fine album to Interspersed throughout the collection of highlight reels anything in their fifteen-year career. begin 2019” – Sungenre are his tales of his motivation, his upbringing, his faith and his family. It is clear his loving mother and a difficult relationship Olympic Girls with his father played a role in the creation of subject matter Tiny Ruins Folk/World for his songs. When he went looking for characters to inhabit Springsteen on $19.95 | Also on vinyl Broadway his stories he needed to look no further than those closest Olympic Girls was patiently to him. He wears his father’s clothes and lives his father’s Un Autre Blanc Bruce Springsteen built in the same grind of a life in his songs. It is the ultimate testament to a Salif Keita $24.95 2CDs | underground lair – Paquin man he could not relate to. As he has said: ‘Now, I’ve never $26.95 Also on deluxe vinyl Studios at The Lab in the held an honest job in my entire life. I’ve never done any hard “Salif Keita, Mali’s prolific band’s hometown of labour. I’ve never worked 9.00 to 5.00. I’ve never worked 5 golden voice of Africa, has Auckland – as their previous record Brightly days. I’ve never seen the inside of a factory yet it’s all I’ve ever released his swansong … Painted One. This new album was made written about. Standing before you is a man who’s become wildly successful writing about After an illustrious career over a drawn-out period of spontaneity and something of which he has absolutely no personal experience. I made it all up. That’s how that has spanned fifty experimentation spanning a year, and good I am.’ years, the new album, Un Autre Blanc has stridently reaches beyond the band’s Yes, that is indeed how good he is. We have heard these songs before. Fans would say been announced as his last. The album, formerly minimalist domain. many times before, but my god, the power and emotion in his voice and the conviction in which features ten brand-new songs, his stories is something magical. continues Salif’s advocacy for the human Lou Fulco is from Readings Hawthorn Tip of the Sphere rights of people with Albinism …” Cass McCombs – Capital FM Kenya $19.95 | Also on vinyl Available 8 February Miri Pop/Rock/Alt groan of their instruments, every “McCombs took a different Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba detuned note, and all the amp buzz and approach for recording Tip $29.95 of the Sphere than previous technical malfunction being left in the Available 15 February endeavors… As a result, a Buoys cracks of the songs. Bassekou Kouyate is one of confidence emerged that Panda Bear the true masters of the heightens McComb’s sound – the rock | Unseen In Between ngoni, an ancient $21.95 Also on vinyl songs have more fervor and the ballads are Steve Gunn traditional lute found Available 8 February more beautiful; the sounds of jazz and $22.95 | Also on vinyl throughout West Africa. The sixth album from Latin music creep in through the back He is a virtuoso, innovator, and stronghold Animal Collective For over a decade, Steve window.” – Anti of tradition all at the same time, and Miri founding member Noah Gunn has been one of is an album about love, friendship, family Lennox (aka Panda Bear), American music’s most and true values in times of crisis. Buoys features bright, pivotal figures. On his Soul/Funk sincere vocals and a beatific approach to breakthrough fourth melodic structure. Buoys retains a deep album, The Unseen In Between, he explores Jazz / Blues layer of experimentation coursing through his own emotional landscapes with his Live In London its hyper-modern production – a hallmark most complex, fully realised songs to date. Mavis Staples of Panda Bear releases that will feel This immaculately recorded album forces $19.95 | Also on vinyl The Gravity Project a reassessment of Gunn’s standing in the intimately familiar to fans of Lennox’s Available 15 February Paul Grabowsky & Robert Burke pantheon of the era’s great songwriters. decade-plus body of work. Mavis Staples’s Live in $24.95 London was recorded over The Gravity Project, led by two nights at London’s Drift Code Remind Me Tomorrow Paul Grabowsky, (plus Rob Union Chapel (which she Rustin Man Burke) is a nine-piece calls “the best place in the $21.95 | Also on vinyl $19.95 | Also on vinyl ensemble presenting world to sing”) and produced by Staples Drift Code is the second Remind Me Tomorrow contemporary musical herself. Live in London reveals that the album from Rustin Man reckons with the life that experimentation in composition and singer retains astonishing power after (aka Paul Webb), following gets lived when you put improvisation. Artistically, the overarching seventy years as a performer and that his 2002 collaboration off the small and aim for The Gravity Project is to create a while her repertoire continues to expand with Beth Gibbons. inevitable maintenance in transcultural musical dialogue through a her philosophy is unchanged. Recorded at his Essex home, a converted favour of something more present. collaboration of Japanese and Australian barn three miles from the nearest village, Throughout, Van Etten veers towards the musicians. the record has a warm, wise kind of driving, dark glimmer moods that have Soundtrack euphoria to it, coupled with an acute illuminated the edges of her music and Survivor Blues sense of storytelling and surreality. pursues them full force. Walter Trout Ballad Of Buster Scruggs $19.95 | Also on vinyl Gallipoli Quiet Signs Carter Burwell Walter Trout is no ordinary Beirut Jessica Pratt $34.95 | Also on vinyl artist, and this is no $21.95 | Also on vinyl $19.95 | Also on vinyl The Ballad of Buster ordinary covers album. Inspired by the Available 8 February Scruggs features an From the day he conceived surroundings of Puglia, ‘On Quiet Signs, [Jessica original score composed by the project to the moment Italy, where the album was Pratt’s] writing feels frequent Coen collaborator he counted off the first song in the studio, finished, Gallipoli is closer to the heart than and Academy Award Walter Trout had a bolder plan for Survivor unintentionally more ever. The jazzy, swooning nominee Carter Burwell. His compositions Blues . “I wanted to do old, obscure songs visceral than Beirut’s more recent “Here My Love” could be serve as the perfect companion to these that have hardly been covered. And that’s albums, alive with an energy that is described as her first love song, while tales of violence and fortune in the Wild how Survivor Blues started,” said the US further enhanced by every creak and early single “This Time Around” features West, and rank amongst his finest works. blues titan. CLASSICAL February 2019 READINGS MONTHLY 23

Baïka: Works by Khachaturian, Schumann: Frage (vocal works Rimsky-Korsakov & for baritone and piano) Classical Aleksandar Sedlar Christian Gerhaher & Gerold Nemanja Radulovic Huber Music DG. 4797545. $21.95 Sony Classical. 19075889192. $21.95 On his new ‘There is no doubt recording, that Schumann Nemanja brings the very Florence Price, the first African American woman to gain Radulovic now best out of ALBUM OF recognition as a symphonic composer, was remarkable. embarks on a [Gerhaher]...there THE MONTH Celebrated contralto Marian Anderson championed and journey through is no sense of any recorded Price’s vocal music, and, in 1932, Price’s Symphony Classical different musical kind of routine on No. 1 in E minor won first prize in a major competition and was regions. From the this album. Such given its premiere the following year by the Chicago Symphony Armenia of Khachaturian he takes us to freshness is as obvious in his performance Orchestra. Yet, despite her early-twentieth century success and Rimsky-Korsakov’s fairy-tale Arabia before of some of the slighter numbers as it is in recognition, Price is overlooked in the Western musical canon. reaching the shores of the Black Sea with the authentically great songs of the Kerner According to Alex Ross, much of Price’s music ‘came perilously Aleksandar Sedlar. To record Aram set, the best of them as fine as anything in close to obliteration’ until being mercifully discovered in an Khachaturian’s violin concerto, Nemanja Dichterliebe.’ – abandoned house and subsequently donated to the University chose Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic of Arkansas. Anna Beer’s fantastic book on female composers, Orchestra conducted by Sascha Goetzel. Sounds and Sweet Airs, fails to even mention Price. Is this The Borusan and its conductor brilliantly Classical Specials because we, as consumers of Western classical music, are racist, complement Radulovic’s approach with Florence sexist, or both? As this recent Naxos recording of the first and their own dynamics. Beatrice Price: fourth symphonies attests, her relative obscurity certainly isn’t J.S. Bach: Works for Solo Symphonies 1 & 4 because of the quality of her music: Price was without doubt an George Antheil: Symphonies Piano exceptional symphonist. John Jeter & Fort 3 & 6 Nelson Freire Smith Symphony John Storgårds & BBC Decca. 4788449. Was $24.95 Naxos. 8559827. $12.95 Her relative obscurity certainly isn’t because Philharmonic $11.95 (limited stock) of the quality of her music: Price was Chandos. CHAN10982. $29.95 ‘This, Nelson without doubt an exceptional symphonist. Following his Freire’s first disc early devoted to Bach, is experimentations predictably Symphony No. 1 in E minor is American by way of Bohemia: Price’s primary inspiration with modernist personal. It speaks was Antonín Dvorák’s Symphony No. 9, From the New World (1893). The influence is ideas as an enfant of a long obvious, particularly in the principle motif of the first movement: there is a similar terrible in 1920s acquaintance with lightness, and playfulness and jollity in the syncopated rhythmic patterns. Optimism Paris, the stylistic the works on offer pervades the entire piece, particularly in the third movement titled ‘Juba Dance’, based trajectory of and you only need to sample the Fourth on a traditional African-American dance of the same name. Symphony No. 4 is similar George Antheil’s symphonies over the next Partita’s Sarabande to hear how lovingly in its grand scale, finesse and buoyancy. The players of Fort Smith Symphony, under the decades mirror his self-confessed desire to he caresses the music, giving it a raptness baton of John Jeter, prove brilliant exponents of Price’s symphonies. I have no hesitations learn more orthodox compositional that rivals Perahia.’ –Gramophone in recommending this recording, and Florence Price’s music in general: her remarkable techniques. This album explores two more compositions deserve to be heard and celebrated. of his symphonies: Symphony No. 3 The Originals: 8 Legendary Alexandra Mathew is from Readings Carlton (completed in 1946) and Symphony No. 6 Recordings from the Deutsche (completed in 1950), in which the Grammophon Catalogue influences of Shostakovich and Ives make Various Handel: Italian cantatas Schumann: Cello Concerto & themselves heard. DG. 8CDs. 4794110. Sabine Devieilhe & Lea Desandre works for Cello and Piano Was $59.95 Erato. 0190295633622. $29.95 Sol Gabetta Salut d’Amour $29.95 (limited stock) The violent Sony Classical. 88985352272. $19.95 Sueye Park & Love Derwinger This eight-CD and One of the Bis. BIS2382. $29.95 collection of confronting tale of most On her latest outstanding Lucretia’s rape at heartbreaking recoding, South- recordings from the hands of the things I read Korean violinist the DG catalogue evil Tarquinius when doing my Sueye Park features titles has, for reasons I’d research for this presents violin such as Carlos rather not ponder, review was that a favourites such as Kleiber’s inspired countless works of great art. piece that is loved Elgar’s tender masterful recording of Beethoven’s 5th Paintings, plays, narrative poems, operas and adored around the world today was Salut d’amour and and 7th symphonies, Eugen Jochum and cantatas all set out to depict elements never premiered during the composer’s Tchaikovsky’s Mélodie, as well as more conducting Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana of Lucretia’s tragic demise. Among those to lifetime. The composer never had the virtuosic fare, such as Wieniawski’s Scherzo- with Gundula Janowitz and Dietrich have drawn inspiration from our chance to see how the work was not only Tarantelle. Performed with equal measures Fischer-Dieskau, Dvorák’s 8th and 9th tragedienne is Handel, and his La Lucrezia appreciated for its own merits but also of poetic sensitivity and effortless Symphonies with Rafael Kubelik. There is one of the works presented on this went on to inspire and change the course virtuosity, this is a recital to dip into as well are also outstanding recordings from Anne album of Handel’s Italian cantatas. of composition for the instrument and as to listen to from start to finish. Sophie Mutter, Wilhem Kempff, Martha In Handel’s setting, an agonised genre. That is the case for Schumann’s Argerich, Rostropovich and Herbert von Lucretia vows revenge on Tarquinius in Cello Concerto, which was written Debussy: Les Trois Sonates Karajan. Highly recommended. hell, and finally drives a sword into her astonishingly swiftly in two weeks in Isabelle Faust & Alexander own breast. Loraine Hunt-Lieberson, 1850. So many of his contemporaries were Melnikov Mahler: Des Knaben aching with pathos, made what is arguably put off by his forward-thinking Harmonia Mundi. HMM902303. $29.95 Wunderhorn considered the benchmark recording of compositional style; it wasn’t until four ‘Isabelle Faust Thomas Hampson the cantata. Young Italian mezzo-soprano years after his death that it was finally and Alexander DG. 4779289. Was $24.95 Lea Desandre is the soloist here, and she performed. Melnikov’s $11.95 (limited stock) certainly impresses. Hers is a youthful Today we have the fantastic and very account of the ‘Mahler’s whole interpretation, and among Desandre’s skills popular Sol Gabetta taking as many of Violin Sonata, world is here, is her capacity for coloratura. Possessed Schumann’s cello works as she could get Debussy’s last rendered in a of a voice light at the top and rich at the her hands on and cramming them into this completed score, fabulously piercing bottom, Desandre aptly navigates the many delight of an album. Starting with the ‘Five embraces and tender fiendishly difficult passages with which Songs in a Folk Style’, she also presents the exquisite fragility and strength in equal performance ... It’s Handel challenges the singer, particularly Adagio and Allegro and the three Fantasy measure ... Jean-Guihen Queyras and partly to do with in the vengeful aria ‘Il suol che preme’. Pieces with her friend, French pianist Javier Perianes’s performance of the the reduced Sabine Devieilhe’s performances cannot Bertrand Chamayou. Then, she finishes Cello Sonata, noble in manner and grand chamber scoring used by the Vienna go unmentioned, however, considering she with the epic Cello Concerto, which in scale, balances the austere grief of the soloists, which makes Mahler’s orchestral is one of the great sopranos of our age, and nowadays is generally considered one of opening movement with understated wit colours seem unusually vivid. But Hampson her part in the cantata ‘Aminta e Fillide’ is the top three greatest Romantic concertos in the Sérénade ... Listen to it in a single is also on superb form, catching the music’s spectacular. A superlative recording. ever written for the instrument. sitting, and in the right playing order: it’s emotional complication as well as its Alexandra Mathew is from Readings Carlton Kate Rockstrom is a friend of Readings extraordinarily moving.’ –Gramophone folk-like simplicity.’ – The Daily Telegraph OUT 26 FEB