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SKYLARKING Emily Bitto interviews Kate Mildenhall about her debut novel, Skylarking

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NEW IN AUGUST BRIOHNY MAXINE ASHLEIGH OCCUPIED BERNARD DOYLE BENEBA CLARKE WILSON $39.95 FANNING

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READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2016 3

News

CLOSING DOWN SALE AT READINGS BARGAINS POP-UP SHOP The Readings Bargains pop-up shop is entering its final weeks, and as a last hurrah they’re hosting a big sale! Drop by the pop-up shop at 315 Lygon Street, next door to (across the little lane from) our Carlton shop, before mid-August and you’ll be able to pick up any book in-store for just $7, though only while stocks last. Our new children’s shop will be moving into the space and opening its doors in September. Please note, Readings gift cards cannot be redeemed at the Readings Bargains shop.

READINGS DONCASTER & READINGS KIDS OPENING SOON We’re thrilled to announce that our two new shops will be officially opening in September! Readings Doncaster (Westfield Doncaster, 619 Doncaster Rd, Doncaster) friendly streets of Wangaratta. Readings and our speciality children’s shop, Readings MELBOURNE WRITERS FESTIVAL is the official retailer of the Wangaratta Kids (315 Lygon St, Carlton) will both open 2016 & THE READINGS FESTIVAL Festival of Jazz and Blues. Tickets and their doors next month. To be the first to BOOKSHOP full program details are available at hear about our opening dates and special The Melbourne Writers Festival (MWF) wangarattajazz.com. events, sign up to the Readings enews at connects writers and stories to celebrate a readings.com.au/sign-up. Special ticket offer for Readings world of literature, explore universal ideas, customers: When booking your festival and inspire a global community of readers. tickets, enter the promotion code The 2016 Melbourne Writers Festival NATIONAL BOOKSHOP DAY READINGS16 prior to 30 September and runs from Friday 26 August to Sunday 4 Saturday 13 August is National Bookshop receive discounted tickets to the festival. September. This year, MWF welcomes Day! To celebrate, we’re offering 15% Australia’s preeminent literary voices off our special Readings branded including Maxine Beneba Clarke, Richard A NIGHT WITH ANDY GRIFFITHS Readings Monthly merchandise – which includes a range Flanagan and Helen Garner, as well as & TERRY DENTON, IN SUPPORT Free independent monthly newspaper of t-shirts and tote bags, and Readings internationally renowned writers and published by Readings Books, Music & OF THE INDIGENOUS LITERACY KeepCups. Offer only available in-store, artists including PJ Harvey, Yann Martel, Film FOUNDATION not online, and only on National Bookshop Alexei Sayle, Lionel Shriver and Tracy K On Tuesday 9 August, come along and join Smith. You can browse the full program and Editor Day. Plus, if you post a photo of yourself on Instagram holding a Readings tote bag Andy Griffiths, Terry Denton and special make bookings at mwf.com.au. Readings Elke Power guest Jill Griffiths in their spectacular new [email protected] or KeepCup, or wearing a Readings t-shirt, is proud to be the official bookseller of the and tag @readingsbooks, you’ll go in the 78-Storey Treehouse! This exciting event will Melbourne Writers Festival. Come and take place at 5pm at the Melbourne Town Editorial Assistant draw to win a $100 Readings gift voucher! visit the Readings Festival Bookshop, meet Hall. Tickets are $25 per person (one ticket Alan Vaarwerk authors in-store after their events and [email protected] is required per person so adults and children get your books signed. Open daily in the 3-FOR-2 OXFORD CLASSICS each need a ticket). Each ticket includes one Atrium at Federation Square. Advertising Looking to complete your collection of hour of complete madness and a signed first Stella Charls classics? Well, now is your chance – buy edition of The 78-Storey Treehouse which [email protected] any two Oxford Classics throughout August will be given out at the event. $2 from every ALL THE BUILDINGS IN (03) 9341 7739 and receive a third for free. From Anna ticket sale will be donated to the Indigenous MELBOURNE – FREE TOTE BAG Karenina to Ulysses, Austen to Shakespeare, Literacy Foundation (ILF), which aims WITH PURCHASE Graphic Design readers of classic literature will find much to raise literacy levels and improve the James Gulliver Hancock’s All the Buildings Cat Matteson to love here. This offer is available for opportunities for Indigenous Australians in Melbourne is a journey through colourcode.com.au in-stock titles only, while stocks last until living in remote and isolated regions. Melbourne, told through his unique and 31 August, 2016. The lowest-priced book Please book at readings.com.au/events. charming cityscape drawings that pay Front Cover is free of charge. Available in Readings tribute to the city’s diverse architectural Readings Monthly cover design by Cat Carlton, Hawthorn, Malvern, State styles. Organised by neighbourhoods, Matteson using Brett Whiteley’s 1967 Library and St Kilda. Not available online. MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL the book features iconic Melbourne artwork Remembering Lao Tse (Shaving FILM FESTIVAL 2016 Off a Second) as featured on the cover structures, such as the Arts Centre and of Brett Whiteley: Art, Life and the Other The Melbourne International Film Festival the iconic Flinders Street Station, as well Thing by Ashleigh Wilson published by, and WANGARATTA FESTIVAL (MIFF) is now upon us, showcasing the best as the everyday buildings that give the courtesy of, Text Publishing. Brett Whiteley: OF JAZZ & BLUES in contemporary cinema from around the city its character - the terrace houses in Art, Life and the Other Thing cover design The 2016 Wangaratta Festival of Jazz and world, as well as Australia’s own emerging Fitzroy, the Melbourne trams and our by W.H. Chong. See page 16 for more about Blues (28–30 October) showcases some of and established talent. Cinephiles can very own Readings Carlton! To celebrate the book. the world’s finest local and international burrow away into the heart of Melbourne this beautiful book, all customers who jazz and blues artists in a bounty of to take in an incredible line-up of features, purchase All the Buildings in Melbourne at Cartoon scintillating performances. Your weekend documentaries, retrospectives and tributes. Oslo Davis any Readings shop or online in August will in jazz country might also include sharing The festival runs from 28 July to 14 August. oslodavis.com receive a free tote bag, featuring artwork a picnic rug with friends and family in the For more information about the program from the book. Available while stocks last. Readings donates 10% of its profits each King George Gardens enjoying ‘cross-over’ and memberships, and to make bookings, year to The Readings Foundation: musical acts, great local food and wine, and please visit miff.com. au. Readings is a proud readings.com.au/the-readings-foundation live music and artistic installations on the sponsor of MIFF.

Readings Two new shops Readings Kids opening in September! Doncaster 315 Lygon St, Westfield Doncaster Carlton Sign up for details: readings.com.au/sign-up 619 Doncaster Rd, Doncaster  readingsbooks  @readingsbooks  @readingsbooks 4 READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2016

August Events

JOOST BAKKER & INTRODUCING PETER 1 MATT STONE ON 9 THE 78-STOREY 15 STEFANOVIC ON SUSTAINABLE FOOD TREEHOUSE LIFE AS A FOREIGN Join Joost Bakker and Matt Stone – two heroes Join Andy Griffiths, Terry Denton and special CORRESPONDENT of the Aussie sustainable food movement and guest Jill Griffiths in their spectacular new Journalist Peter Stefanovic’s memoir the blokes behind one-time zero-waste café 78-Storey Treehouse. They’ve added 13 new Hack in a Flak Jacket is a startlingly Brothl – as they chat about Stone’s new book levels including a scribbletorium, an all-ball honest account of experiencing war and The Natural Cook and discuss ingenious ways sports stadium, Andyland, Terrytown, a high- terrorism from the frontline. Join us as to eat and live sustainably. security potato-chip storage facility and an Stefanovic recounts his experiences of open-air movie theatre. Come on up! working in front of the camera, and the Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events toll to him personally behind the scenes. Monday 1 August, 6.30pm Tickets are $25 per person and include a signed Readings Carlton copy of The 78-Storey Treehouse. $2 from the sale of each ticket will be donated to the Indigenous Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Literacy Foundation. Monday 15 August, 6.30pm DISCOVER Please book at readings.com.au/events Readings Hawthorn 1 THE CHASER’S Tuesday 9 August, 5pm AUSTRALIA Melbourne Town Hall, AN HILARIOUS 90–130 Swanston St., Melbourne Join us to celebrate the release of The 15 EVENING WITH Chaser’s Australia, a comprehensive guide DAVE O’NEIL to the culture, history, politics, religion, DOMINIC SMITH ON Join us for a night of storytelling and fashion, media and the few remaining footy 9 ART, LITERATURE & laughter as Dave O’Neil, one of our most- heroes not currently facing criminal charges, HISTORY loved comedians, launches The Summer of that have made Australia one of the Top 196 Dominic Smith’s The Last Painting of Sara de ’82, his hilarious and heartfelt memoir of a countries in the world today. The Chaser Vos is a masterful work of Australian fiction boy becoming a man in suburban Australia. team will dissect where we stand politically that dives into the Golden Age of Dutch and ethically. Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events painting. Come along to hear Smith talk Monday 15 August, 6.30pm about his research and writing process. Tickets are $25 per person and include a signed Readings Carlton copy of The Chaser’s Australia. Please book at readings.com.au/events Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Monday 1 August, 6.30pm Tuesday 9 August, 6.30pm FAY ANDERSON Church of All Nations: 180 Palmerston St., Carlton Readings Carlton 17 AND SALLY YOUNG IN CONVERSATION MEET THE TEAM OUR SPORTING WITH MICHAEL 2 BEHIND 10 LIFE WITH GAWENDA GRIFFITH REVIEW ALIMENTARI! In Shooting the Picture, associate professors Alimentari literally means good food The latest issue of Griffith Review closely Fay Anderson and Sally Young tell the story and company and what better way to examines the culture surrounding sport in of Australian press photography from 1888 show that passion than by producing a Australia. Griffith Review editor Julianne to today. The two will be talk about their cookbook worthy of the title. Join us as the Schultz will be joined by writers Gideon work with journalist and former editor of creators discuss their wonderful venues in Haigh, Alicia Sometimes and John Harms The Age, Michael Gawenda. Collingwood and Fitzroy and their amazing for what is sure to be a highly entertaining Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events new cookbook, Alimentari. and thought-provoking panel. Wednesday 17 August, 6.30pm Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Readings Hawthorn Tuesday 2 August, 6.30pm Wednesday 10 August, 6.30pm Readings Carlton Readings Carlton BRAD NORINGTON 18 IN CONVERSATION TOM GRIFFITHS IN PETER MARES IN WITH NICK 3 CONVERSATION 11 CONVERSATION MCKENZIE ARTISAN WITH JAMES WITH MICHAEL Fairfax journalist Nick McKenzie joins ITALIAN DISHES CATHCART BUTTON veteran journalist Brad Norington to In The Art of Time Travel, eminent historian Join James Button and Peter Mares as discuss Norington’s new book Planet & HANDMADE and award-winning author Tom Griffiths they discuss Mares’ new book, Not Quite Jackson, a morality tale of modern politics conjures fresh insights into the history of Australian and the complex realities of this exploring how the HSU scandal exposed PASTA Australia through portraits of 14 historians. new era of temporary migration. Mares’ book deep problems at the heart of the union Join Griffiths and Michael Cathcart as explores student and work visas, the unique movement and the Labor Party. experience of New Zealand migrants, and our they discuss the craft of discipline and Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events highly politicised asylum-seeker policies. AWARD imagination that is the study of history. Thursday 18 August, 6.30pm Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Readings Hawthorn WINNING Wednesday 3 August, 6.30pm Thursday 11 August, 6.30pm Readings Carlton Readings Carlton KATE MILDENHALL WINE LIST 23 IN CONVERSATION RICHARD FIDLER IN RICHARD CORNISH WITH HANNAH 4 CONVERSATION 11 IN CONVERSATION KENT WITH MICHAEL WITH MAX ALLEN Melbourne literary journal Kill Your Darlings WILLIAMS Join award-winning food writer Richard and Black Inc. will host a one-off First Join broadcaster Richard Fidler as he talks Cornish and Max Allen for a meaty Book Club of the Month for August. Kate about his new book, Ghost Empire, with discussion about the ethics of food. Mildenhall will discuss friendship and loss BOOKINGS 03 9347 5610 Michael Williams. In 2014, Fidler and Cornish’s My Year Without Meat is a in her debut novel, Skylarking, with award- his son Joe made a journey to Istanbul in surprising and bittersweet meditation on winning author Hannah Kent. 313 DRUMMOND ST, CARLTON search of the rich history of the Byzantine ethical meat, an ode to vegetables and a LUNCH & DINNER 7 DAYS Free, but please RSVP to Empire. Ghost Empire shares the tales cautionary tale about our relationship to 11AM TILL LATE [email protected] of their trip and this fascinating era. food – as told by a self-confessed meat lover. Tuesday 23 August, 6.30pm  @MASANIDINING Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Readings Carlton  Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events MASANI_DINING Thursday 4 August, 6.30pm  Thursday 11 August, 6.30pm MASANI.DINING Readings Hawthorn Readings Hawthorn READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2016 5

CONVERSATION STAN GRANT IN Mark’s 27 News and views from Readings’ Managing Director, 27 AND TUNES WITH September CONVERSATION Mark Rubbo JAKE FEHILY WITH RICHARD Say Jake Fehily is a 19-year-old Australian singer FLANAGAN Later this month sees the Melbourne Writers Festival return to Federation Square with a and songwriter who’s caught our – and many Readings is honoured to host this very great line up of Australian and International guests. The Festival gets off to a wonderful other music lovers’ – attention. Drop by our special evening together with the Melbourne start on 26 August with the announcement of the winner of the Miles Franklin Award and St Kilda shop to meet this talented young Athenaeum and the Indigenous Literacy an address by Maxine Beneba Clarke, author of the powerful new book The Hate Race – if man, and to hear him play a few tunes as part Foundation. Join us as two award-winning you haven’t seen Maxine speak before I urge you to do so, she is a brilliant writer and orator. of St Kilda Festival’s Live N Local program. writers, journalist Stan Grant (Talking to my Readings is also pleased to be involved, presenting interviews with new Australian writers on Free, no booking required. Country) and author Richard Flanagan (The the Saturday and Sunday mornings of the Festival and we are also returning as the Festival Saturday 27 August, 3pm Narrow Road to the Deep North), discuss Bookseller. Helen Garner will talk about her magnificent book, Everywhere I Look; Helen Readings St Kilda politics, privilege and Australian culture. rarely gives appearances nowadays so this will be a pretty special event. There is a wonderful and diverse local and international line-up that includes, amongst many others, poet and Tickets are $30 per person or $25 concession. Proceeds will be donated to the Indigenous singer P J Harvey, comedian Alexei Sayle, and author Lionel Shriver. Literacy Foundation. In May the Australian Council for the Arts announced that more than 60 small to medium September Dates! Please book at readings.com.au/events arts organisations lost their funding. Literary organisations that missed out included magazines Tuesday 27 September, 6.30pm Quadrant and Meanjin and two Victorian organisations, Australian Poetry and Express Media. Melbourne Athenaeum, Australian Poetry is the peak body for poetry in Australia, working with publishers, teachers, SUSAN VARGA IN 188 Collins St., Melbourne readers and festival organisers and has its home at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne, as 1 CONVERSATION September does Express Media, which works with young writers and publishes Voiceworks magazine. WITH ANDREA Fortunately, last month both organisations received substantial funding from Creative Victoria GOLDSMITH which will hopefully keep them both around for some time. Creative Victoria also reaffirmed August Launches its commitment to the Emerging Writers’ Festival, the Melbourne Writers Festival and the Susan Varga’s new poetry collection, Rupture, Wheeler Centre. In its short five years the Wheeler Centre has established a national and is lucid, deft and unapologetic. Author Andrea international reputation for its year round programs of talks and innovative events. The Author Alec Patric´ will launch Ryan Goldsmith will join Varga for an insightful Wheeler Centre and the Arts Centre brought This American Life’s Ira Glass to Australia with his O’Neill’s unusual and playful second work of discussion of the work. dance and radio show, Three Acts, Two Dancers, One Radio Host. It was a delightful, if somewhat fiction, Their Brilliant Careers. incongruous, show and at the performance I went to we were all delighted when Ira called out Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Thursday 4 August, 6.30pm to a young woman who had something she wanted to get off her chest – a proclamation of love Thursday 1 September, 6.30pm Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. and a marriage proposal to her girlfriend of many years. Her girlfriend said yes, to the delight of Readings Carlton the audience and Ira. Hopefully, it won’t be too long before the two can tie the knot. Join us for the launch of Charlotte Young’s If you’ve been to Carlton over the last four or five years you may have noticed our pop- new young adult novel, Ora’s Gold, a bold HETTY MCKINNON up shop, Readings Bargains. It’s been a wonderful addition to our range and I know lots coming-of-age adventure. 6 of people have found many delights there. We’ll be starting work on our new children’s IN CONVERSATION Saturday 6 August at 4pm September bookshop there soon (which I’m excited about) so sadly Readings Bargains will have to WITH ROHAN Readings Hawthorn | Free, no booking required. close as we haven’t been able to find another site. It will stay open ’til mid August and we’re ANDERSON running a closing down sale – all books are only $7 in-store until the last day. Join us for the launch of Elisabetta Hetty McKinnon’s Community was our Minervini’s new cookbook, Mammissima, bestselling cookbook of last year, and we’re hosted in collaboration with the Istituto delighted to be hosting an event celebrating Italiano di Cultura and Bloomsbury Australia. her newest cookbook: Neighbourhood. Saturday 6 August, 5pm Dear McKinnon will be chatting with food activist Alison Huber, Readings St Kilda | Free, but please RSVP to Head Book Buyer Rohan Anderson about the inspiration she [email protected] Reader finds in her own neighbourhood. Adam Bandt MP and Overland’s Jacinda Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events I feel very lucky that my time on Earth coincides with that of Maxine Beneba Clarke’s and her Woodhead will launch Rjurik Davidson’s Tuesday 6 September, 6.30pm powerful talent. August brings us her much-anticipated memoir, The Hate Race, our Book of The Stars Askew, the sequel to his politically Church of All Nations: 180 Palmerston St., Carlton the Month. This book is a confronting story about the lived experience of racism in Australia. charged fantasy debut, Unwrapped Sky. It’s honest, shocking, and will provide readers with an alarmingly familiar depiction of the Monday 8 August, 6.30pm casual and overt racism commonplace in the Australia of the 1980s and 90s. It should therefore ROBERT FORSTER Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. make readers very, very angry, not least because it is also a depiction of the casual and overt 13 IN CONVERSATION racism that is commonplace in the Australia of today. At a time when our country is becoming September Join urban historian Graeme Davison for the WITH BRIAN less tolerant, less welcoming of diversity, less compassionate, we need the lessons of this book launch of his new examination of Australian more than ever, and it is absolutely essential reading. And quite aside from its peerless critique, NANKERVIS cities and imagination, City Dreamers. it’s also a beautifully written piece of creative non-fiction. In Grant and I, Robert Forster tells the story of Tuesday 16 August, 6.30pm Other non-fiction highlights this month include Kim Mahood’s memoir of landscape and Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. his creative partnership with Grant McLennan memory, Position Doubtful, a book which our reviewer calls ‘astonishing’; Keggie Carew’s in the 1980s, providing fans with a fascinating, Dadland, which is getting wonderful press in the UK and sits comfortably alongside the Join us for the launch of Brenda Fitzpatrick’s never-seen-before glimpse backstage with The imaginative memoir style of H is for Hawk and The Hare with Amber Eyes; and Ashleigh groundbreaking new analysis of rape as an Go-Betweens. Come along to our St Kilda shop Wilson’s newly researched biography, Brett Whiteley: Art, Life and the Other Thing. Comedians act of war against civilians, Tactical Rape in to hear Forster discuss songwriting, music and Amy Schumer and Dave O’Neil both publish memoirs this month, while ABC radio stalwart War and Conflict. more with Brian Nankervis. and former Doug Anthony All Star Richard Fidler brings us Ghost Empire, his story of travel Wednesday 17 August, 6.30pm and history in Istanbul. In Other Words is a collection of essays by Indonesian writer and public Free, but bookings are essential as places are Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. intellectual Goenawan Mohamad who will appear at this year’s Melbourne Writers Festival; strictly limited. Mikhail Gorbachev writes his insight on The New Russia; and two books are published to mark Please book at readings.com.au/events Join us as Tom Doig launches Briohny Doyle’s the fifty-year anniversary of the Wave Hill walk-off (Yijarni from Aboriginal Studies Press, and Tuesday 13 September, 7–8.30pm debut novel, The Island Will Sink, a gripping A Handful of Sand from Monash University Press). Readings St Kilda postmodern science fiction novel in the vein of In fiction, Australian blockbusting superstar Liane Moriarty’s new novel, Truly Madly Michel Houellebecq and Phillip K. Dick. Guilty has had staff readers abuzz with excitement, and our reviewer ‘urge(s) you to take the Thursday 18 August, 6.30pm CLEMENTINE FORD plunge’ if you are yet to read her work. Melbourne-based Kate Mildenhall’s debut, Skylarking, is Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. 26 IN CONVERSATION a quiet novel of friendship and rivalry based on historical events that took place in the isolation September of the Cape St George lighthouse in the 1880s. Ryan O’Neill messes with the genre of literary WITH JULIA BAIRD Join Laurie Steed for the launch of the biography and your head in his inventive novel, Their Brilliant Careers: The Fantastic Lives of anthology of thoughtfully curated stories Writer and social commentator Clementine Sixteen Extraordinary Australian Writers. I know I made our reviewer’s day when I sent her an from the 2016 Margaret River Short Story Ford’s quest to shine a spotlight on urgent advance proof of Megan Abbott’s You Will Know Me: her review indicates she enjoyed reading Competition, Shibboleth and Other Stories. feminist topics is unrelenting. Come along to it more than quite a bit. Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing has the feeling of one of those special books that Wednesday 24 August, 6.30pm hear Ford discuss her new book with Julia will make it onto a lot of ‘best of’ lists for 2016. I never did read Eowyn Ivey’s The Snow Child, Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. Baird. Part memoir and part polemic, Fight Like a finalist for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize and a favourite of a number of Readings staff, but I am A Girl will change the way you see the world. Join us for the launch of Margot Tasca’s currently reading her immersive new novel, To the Bright Edge of the World, a story set in the Alaskan wilderness in the 1880s told through a family archive of correspondence. Tickets are $45 and include a signed copy of Fight biography of an influential art-world figure, Like a Girl. Please book at readings.com.au/events Percy Leason: An Artist’s Life. And finally, dear reader, I must offer congratulations to the publishing team at the literary Monday 26 September, 6.30pm Thursday 25 August, 6.30pm journal The Lifted Brow on the release of their first novel, The Island Will Sink by Briohny Doyle. Melbourne Athenaeum Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required. The Lifted Brow has long been known for uncovering local literary talent (as well curating 188 Collins St., Melbourne an incredible array of local and international big names), and this move into book publishing promises to open up an important space for Australian long-form literary fiction. 6 READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2016

SKYLARKING Kate Mildenhall Black Inc. PB. $24.99 Available 1 August Photograph: Heath Warwick. Heath Photograph: Skylarking synchronicity at Cape St George

Harriet. She was also able to obtain the original transcripts Truth, and the blurry line between events and the way we Emily Bitto interviews from the inquest into the Cape St George tragedy, which allow ourselves to interpret them, is also at the centre of allowed her to access ‘Kate’s real voice’. Uncannily, this this novel. Kate Mildenhall about her voice from the past, and in particular Kate’s repeated use ‘It’s about how we remember, how we make meaning of the phrase I remember, was ‘a perfect fit’, with her own out of what we remember, and how we interpret the debut novel, Skylarking. imagined rendering. &gaps,’ Mildenhall says. While she stuck true to the inquest findings in her re-imagining of this story, Mildenhall t a low point during the writing of her debut Skylarking is viscerally alive with the light preserves a sense of ambiguity in her rendering of the case. novel, Skylarking, Kate Mildenhall wrote One thing she could not discover in her research was what herself a letter in the voice of her main and weather of its rugged coastal setting, happened to Kate after the events of the narrative. protagonist, a young nineteenth-century luminous with sea spray and salt air. ‘There’s every chance that someone will come forward womanA called Kate Gilbert. and say, “I know what happened,”’ she says. ‘And the ‘I don’t totally believe in that idea of channelling In another case of synchronicity, Mildenhall had curious part of me, and the historian part, absolutely characters,’ Mildenhall tells me, ‘but writing the letter did spent a lot of time during her teenage years camping on a wants to know. At the same time,’ she says, for her, ‘this is have the impact of being able to do that for me. She said to different isolated cape, at Point Hicks, and had even stayed what happened to these characters, and it couldn’t have me, this is what you need to tell. This is the part of my story in the lighthouse there. happened any other way.’ you need to get across.’ ‘That piece of the coast and the weather and the I have to ask her … what about her main protagonist’s Several examples of such channelling and synchronicity atmosphere and the landscape was what I kept as my name? Does their shared name represent a nod to their emerge as Mildenhall talks to me about the writing of touchstone,’ she tells me. And indeed, Mildenhall seems to similarity in some way? A post-modern device? A way Skylarking, a story inspired by real-life tragic events that have channelled this place, as well as her main character, of channelling her more easily? Or simply Mildenhall’s occurred on an isolated Australian cape in the 1880s. The during the writing process. Skylarking is viscerally alive respect for historical accuracy? novel centres on the deep and complex friendship between with the light and weather of its rugged coastal setting, She laughs. ‘When my editor first looked at the best friends Kate and Harriet, who grew up in the small luminous with sea spray and salt air. Kate and Harriet manuscript,’ she says, ‘she was like, “um … Kate’s name? lighthouse community at Cape St George, near Jervis Bay. spend their leisure time exploring the cape, swimming in Have you thought about changing it?” She kind of had to Mildenhall stumbled upon the story when camping with rock pools, hiding out in shady caves, or rock-hopping to point out to me that it was the same as mine. I was so deep her own best friend, whom she has known since childhood, a point that becomes accessible only at low tide. They lie in it that it hadn’t even occurred to me.’ and their respective husbands and children. on warm stone, ‘counting the beats between sprays as the I’ve sometimes heard of writers being gifted with ‘Between our camp and the shower block, there was waves shlock into the point’ or follow with their fingers particular stories, and this is clearly the case for Mildenhall one of those tiny white picket fences and a grave site … ‘the seagulls wheeling and diving above.’ Place, in this and Skylarking. ‘Lots of things with the process of this book As we went to look at things, we went to see the ruins book, as in so many other iconic Australian novels before it, have been serendipitous,’ she says. ‘It just felt right.’ of the lighthouse, and found out about the grave: that it exerts a presence as powerful as its human protagonists. Emily Bitto has a Masters in literary studies and a PhD in creative was a girl’s grave, and that she was the best friend of the Skylarking is also a quintessentially Australian coming- writing from the University of Melbourne. Her writing has appeared in lighthouse keeper’s daughter.’ of-age novel in that Kate and Harriet are deeply connected various publications, including the Sydney Morning Herald, Meanjin, The story sparked her interest, initially, she tells me, to the landscape they live in, their daily lives fitted to and Heat and the Australian Literary Review. The manuscript of her debut ‘Because I was camping with my best friend, and these girls determined by its rhythms, and yet they find themselves novel, The Strays, was shortlisted for the 2013 Victorian Premier’s were best friends,’ but the more she thought about those yearning for a more exciting or significant life they see as Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript. The Strays was girls, and the mystery surrounding them, the more they existing ‘elsewhere’. shortlisted for the 2015 Indie Prize and for the Dobbie Award and was the winner of the 2015 Stella Prize. She lives in Melbourne where she began to obsess her. It is partly Harriet’s first trip to Melbourne, which runs Carlton winebar Heartattack & Vine. Mildenhall was studying professional writing part-time separates her from Kate symbolically as well as physically, Kate Mildenhall is a writer and education project officer, who that sets in motion subtle changes in the two girls’ at RMIT, and on her return home, she checked whether currently works at the State Library Victoria and is studying part- anyone had written about the events at Cape St George. friendship. Ultimately, it is Mildenhall’s exploration of time at RMIT University in the Associate Degree of Professional ‘It seemed ridiculous that no-one would have,’ she says. the relationship between Kate and Harriet, with all its Writing and Editing. As a teacher, she has worked in schools, at Then, during a writing exercise in class, she began to complexity, ambivalence and ferocity of feeling, that forms RMIT University and has volunteered with Teachers Across Borders, experiment with the story herself. ‘It was just a really quick the beating heart of this novel. delivering professional development to Khmer teachers in Cambodia. exercise,’ she says, ‘but Kate’s voice was in that. And it stuck.’ ‘They are so formative, those early friendships,’ Skylarking is her debut novel. She lives with her husband and two Over the following year, she researched lighthouse- Mildenhall says. ‘They tell you who you are and who you’re young daughters in Hurstbridge, Victoria. keeping, visited lighthouses, and read journals written by not. And then it can take a while to either shake that, or to Skylarking is available in all Readings shops and online at readings.com.au young women who had lived at the same time as Kate and embrace it as truth.’ To read more about Skylarking, see our review on page 7. READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2016 7

New Fiction left me in awe of the novel’s structure as I be actively searching. Taking Elliot’s realised how well thought-out this 500-plus place on the crayfish boats, Paul soon page book is, and there isn’t a word wasted. learns how many opportunities there are in love with literature. Kate is rich in If you are already a Moriarty fan then you to disappear in the vast and lonely Australian Fiction imagination, and feels increasingly will need no encouragement from me to coastline. Fierce, evocative and constrained by the household chores her read this book (you are probably already memorable, this is a vividly Australian THE ISLAND WILL SINK mother imposes on her. reading it now). If, however, like me you story where mysterious influences are As Kate enters puberty, she senses she is Briohny Doyle have been curious as to why her books are so brought to bear on the inhospitable town embarking on a new world – one to which popular, I urge you to take the plunge. Truly and its residents. The Lifted Brow. PB. $29.99 Harriet has already been privy, but has kept Madly Guilty is a great place to start. Available 1 August secret from her. Kate’s growing awareness of AFTER THE CARNAGE Somewhere in the Amanda Rayner is from Readings Carlton the men within their midst – particularly the Tara June Winch latter part of the new and mysterious fisherman, McPhail – UQP. PB. $24.95 21st century, the planet THEIR BRILLIANT brings friction to the friendship. Kate Available 1 August has reached breaking witnesses romantic tension between McPhail CAREERS: A single mother point, the world and Harriet, although Harriet denies any THE FANTASTIC resorts to extreme watching grimly on as feelings for him. Harriet’s mother organises LIVES OF SIXTEEN measures to protect Pitcairn Island gradually, for Harriet to go to Melbourne for three EXTRAORDINARY her young son. A inexorably sinks into the months, to meet potential suitors, and Kate is AUSTRALIAN WRITERS Nigerian student Pacific. It’s a kind of conflicted with jealousy and loss. For the first Ryan O’Neill undertakes a United doomsday clock for humanity’s hopes of time she begins to wonder about her own Black Inc. PB. $27.99 Nations internship in averting catastrophe – and filmmaker Max future – and if she will ever escape the cape. Available 1 August the hope of a better Galleon sees the potential for the ultimate Female friendship is a hot topic in future. A recently immersive disaster film. Max outsources his literature at the moment, but in Skylarking In Their Brilliant divorced man starts a life completely to technology, archiving and the friendship is brought into sharp Careers, Ryan running group with members of an online replaying every conceivable piece of data to focus due to the isolation of the pair from O’Neill combines forum for recovering addicts. Ranging from the point where he can no longer retain broader society. The prologue foretells conventions of New York to Istanbul, from Pakistan to memories. His family are crippled by the of a catastrophic event, and the novel is biography and short Australia, these unforgettable stories chart anxieties of their time – his wife distant, his beautifully paced and tense leading to story in an exhaustively the distances in their characters’ lives, daughter obsessed with eco-efficiency, his this moment. Kate is a wonderful literary brazen blend of whether they have grown apart from the son with survivalism. Meanwhile, an character – chafing against the expectations Australian literary ones they love, been displaced from their enigmatic doctor suggests a new technique to of her gender in the 1880s, and wondering history and plausible yet homeland, or are struggling to reconcile allow Max to mentally connect with his what is possible for her beyond the roles gloriously bonkers invention. Each of these their dreams with reality. comatose brother. of wife and mother. An intriguing fact: connected stories is a mini-biography of an Readers of The Lifted Brow will be familiar imaginary Australian literary figure that Mildenhall has loosely based the novel INEXPERIENCE AND with the type of writing the literary magazine on real life events at the Cape St George has been, purportedly, under-celebrated or specialises in – provocative, challenging and Lighthouse in Jervis Bay. This is a great book forgotten. O’Neill has added an entirely OTHER STORIES experimental. The Island Will Sink, the Brow’s club choice, and one for fans of Favel Parrett new dimension to the existing literary Anthony Macris first foray into full-length book publishing, is and Hannah Kent. landscape and woven his characters UWAP. PB. $24.99 thus a natural fit. The world of Doyle’s novel, through one another’s stories. Available 1 August Annie Condon is from Readings Hawthorn O’Neill details the absurdities of human while practically unrecognisable from our Can a relationship endeavour and ambition; he spares no-one, own, is meticulously and cleverly realised, survive a long- TRULY MADLY GUILTY least of all himself. Readers will be amused from housing, transport and the sad irony of anticipated but Liane Moriarty by the fabricated antics of thinly disguised ubiquitous sustainability propaganda, to the disappointing world Macmillan. PB. Was $32.99 versions of Australian literary figures, and convergence of technology and the self. trip? Will a small- $27.99 will recognise other names where reality and The Island Will Sink is a satire, but an shopkeeper cope imagination intersect. While the intensely incredibly dark one. Like Don DeLillo’s White Available 20 July when pitted against an intertextual nature of this collection will Noise for the climate-change generation, the Australian writer emerging mega-mall? reward the well-read, the stories also work as novel is imbued with a deep nihilism – and Liane Moriarty’s How do we keep our tight, standalone comic pieces in their own it’s easy to transfer this sense of hopelessness success is phenomenal, sanity in the face of right. Readers less interested in the dissection to our world too. There are characters who with six international life’s obstacles – and when we don’t, what of reference and fact from fiction will enjoy are inscrutable, or obtuse, or speak only best-selling novels, can bring us back? Take a trip through the these stories for their satire, vivid characters in ideology – Max’s memory loss adds to translation into 39 world’s greatest cities and into the mind’s and galloping plots. this alienating effect, and the reader has languages and an HBO darkest places. Anthony Macris’ new O’Neill’s parodies of sacred works and to do some extra work to counter Max’s series starring Nicole fiction – a novella and accompanying story traditions within Australian literature – disconnectedness from himself and the world. Kidman and Reese cycle – deftly examines our fragile from seminal voices of the bush who have But there are moments of hope, too, small and Witherspoon currently in production. It is, relationships with travel, art, money and, never been further afield than Sydney, to precious as they are – and by the end of the however, sometimes easy to dismiss the especially, each other. book, a sense that uncertainty may be as much popular and if it hadn’t been for the digs such as ‘ruhtrA’s attack achieved the a blessing as a curse. enthusiastic tweeting of a former colleague near impossible: it united the poetry world, LORD OF THE against him.’ – are hilarious. It’s impossible to Alan Vaarwerk is the editorial assistant for while they were reading an earlier Moriarty even think of several of these parodic works DARKWOOD (TALE OF Readings Monthly novel, Big Little Lies, I might not have been SHIKANOKO BOOK 3) encouraged to give this writer a try. All I without laughing out loud (most notably SKYLARKING can say is thank goodness I did because anything relating to the excruciating success Lian Hearn of Pa and Pete). One cannot help suspecting Hachette. PB. $29.99 Kate Mildenhall Moriarty is one of those rare novelists who that in the biography of Rachel Deverall, Available 9 August Black Inc. PB. $24.99 writes for a wide audience but with a O’Neill referred to the likely experience of The rightful emperor Available 1 August nuance and depth that sets her stories well above the ordinary. readers of his own work when he wrote: is lost. Shikanoko is It is hard to believe Set in Sydney, Truly Madly Guilty ‘Despite her fatigue, Deverall stayed up all condemned to live that Skylarking is covers the period before, during and after night to finish the story. It was well written half-man, half-deer, an Kate Mildenhall’s debut a Sunday afternoon barbecue and follows and entertaining, stuffed with unbelievable outlaw in the novel, as her ability to the consequences of that event on the incidents and action, and without a doubt the Darkwood. The new create both character and three couples involved and their children most derivative book she had ever read.’ rulers of the Eight atmosphere is impressive. (and yes, in summary the plot may remind Elke Power is the editor of Readings Monthly Islands are prey to Skylarking is set on a you of The Slap but rest assured this is suspicion and illness, remote Australian cape in its own unique story). The book’s central THE WINDY SEASON and drought and the 1880s, and narrated by themes are obligation and guilt, and these famine overrun the realm. Only Shikanoko Kate Gilbert, daughter of the lighthouse Sam Carmody are represented through a number of the can bring healing by restoring the keeper. Kate is inseparable from her best A&U. PB. $29.99 relationships but centrally through the preordained ruler to the Lotus Throne – friend, Harriet, daughter of the lighthouse Available 1 August complicated friendship between Erika and and only one person can release him from assistant, and two years her senior. Together A young fisherman is Clementine. I am hesitant to say much the Darkwood. Against a background of they attend a rudimentary school until each missing from a small more about the content of the book as the wild forest, elegant castles and savage turns fifteen, and embark on walks, picnics West Australian town. way in which the story unravels through battlefields, Lian Hearn’s Tale of Shikanoko and horse rides. Kate is the daring one; There’s been no trace at flashbacks and different points of view is series draws to its thrilling conclusion. though she loves the isolated cape, she all of Elliot for some best left for readers to discover themselves. dreams of adventures far afield. It is Kate weeks – and Paul, his I loved this book – much more than I who reads the books Harriet’s aunt sends for younger brother, is the expected to. The concluding chapters pack her in the monthly supply ship, and she falls only one who seems to some unexpected emotional punches that 8 READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2016

THE SALAMANDERS HOMEGOING halfway through the novel. What separates TO THE BRIGHT EDGE OF William Lane Yaa Gyasi Sweetbitter from the cliché coming-of- THE WORLD age-in-New-York tale is that Tess has no Transit Lounge. PB. $29.95 Viking. PB. $32.99 Eowyn Ivey particular ambition; her focus is on her own Available 1 August Available 1 August Headline. PB. $32.99 development. After obtaining a coveted Arthur lives in a hut by Early reviews have position as a back waiter in a prestigious Available 9 August the Hawkesbury River, compared this Manhattan restaurant, Tess finds herself Lieutenant Colonel the detritus of suburban much-hyped debut from swept up in the world of hospitality Allen Forrester receives life gradually 26-year-old Yaa Gyasi to and fixated on two of her colleagues – the commission of a encroaching. When Toni Morrison’s Beloved, bartender Jake and server Simone. As we lifetime when he is Rosie, the adopted and it’s easy to see why. spend a year with Tess, these relationships charged to navigate daughter of his father’s Like Morrison, Gyasi steer her experiences and education Alaska’s hitherto second wife returns from sets out to reveal the in New York. While Jake and Simone impassable Wolverine England to visit, their truth through fiction, provide some interesting plot twists and River – the key to time together raises childhood memories of instead of fact, and she’s deeply inventive in turns (Tess’s infatuation with Simone, her opening up Alaska, and their father Peregrine, a famous and her approach. In truth, Homegoing is my mentor, is particularly intriguing), Danler its rich natural resources, to the outside controversial artist, and what happened at favourite kind of novel: wildly ambitious in really shines in sharing her knowledge of world. Forrester leaves behind his young a holiday by the ocean years ago. With premise and elegant in execution. the dynamic world of a restaurant with wife, Sophie, newly pregnant and dreading poetic, hallucinatory power, Lane explores The novel is laid out like a collection the reader. While occasionally slipping the prospect of a year alone in a military how art can become life, how we as adults of linked stories (think Elizabeth Strout’s into lyrical descriptions that verge on barracks. What Sophie does not anticipate cannot truly escape the past but can Olive Kitteridge, or Jennifer Egan’s A Visit pretentious, the strength of Sweetbitter lies is that their year apart will demand as embrace the beauty of the moment. from the Goon Squad). Two sisters are born with its vibrant cast of characters who are a much courage and fortitude from her as into different villages in eighteenth-century pleasure to spend time with. from her husband. Ghana; the first is married off to an English International Fiction Sweetbitter is at once a coming-of-age slave trader, the second is forced into slavery. story and a love letter to good food, better THIRST Each subsequent chapter is narrated from the wine and New York City. Lush, pacey and Benjamin Warner perspective of a descendant of either sister, YOU WILL KNOW ME addictive, this debut definitely lives up to Bloomsbury. PB. $27.99 alternating through the generations all the the hype. Available 1 August Megan Abbott way up to the present day. As the narrative Picador. PB. $29.99 On a searing summer unfolds, the characters’ lives also trace the Stella Charls is the marketing and events Available 26 July coordinator for Readings Friday, a mysterious evolution of the slave trade and its domino disaster takes place The interesting effect on future generations. This format – the power is out, and thing about allows Gyasi to construct a panoramic view of HARMONY there is no running Megan Abbott’s novels history by tackling multiple aspects of slavery, Carolyn Parkhurst water. The pipes and is that you’re never including Africa’s complicity within it. Sceptre. PB. $29.99 creeks have gone dry. quite certain about This distinctive structure is not without Available 9 August Eddie Chapman, his who you should be risk. Every chapter introduces a new Harmony is an wife Laura, and their looking at. There’s the character with additional context – all of empathic and neighbours suffer the story’s main character, which must be conveyed to the reader in topical novel about a effects of the heat, their thirst, and the usually a teenage girl a few pages without sounding laboured or family in crisis. The terrifying realisation that no one may be who possesses cursory. Happily, Gyasi is up to the challenge Hammond family has an coming to help. As violence rips through undeniable charisma and influence over and Homegoing is a remarkably confident eleven-year-old daughter, the community, Eddie and Laura are forced those around her. But then there’s the first work. The prose is compelling and Iris, and thirteen-year- to question their humanity. In crisp and actual protagonist, the close, third-person charged with a ferocious emotional intensity. old daughter, Tilly, who convincing prose, Benjamin Warner narrator. This is usually another girl or Gyasi has a gift for unusual, striking visual is on the autism compels readers to do the same. woman who is always there, next to her images: ‘In the Big Boat, Esi said, they were spectrum. Mother, Alexandra, is exhausted charismatic friend/mother/daughter/ stacked ten high, and when a man died on from advocating for Tilly’s needs, and finally sister/colleague, studying her closely, top of you, his weight would press the pile having to home-school her when yet THE COMET SEEKERS inching near but never putting herself down like cooks pressing garlic.’ This novel another school says they can’t cope with her Helen Sedgwick directly into the same frame, describing her thrillingly reminds me why I ever fell in love behaviour. Alexandra has implemented all Harvill Secker. PB. $32.99 with a complicated longing – wanting, with books in the first place. kinds of changes to assist Tilly, but when she Available 15 August while not wanting at all – to be the other Bronte Coates is the digital content coordinator becomes truly desperate she consults Roisin and François first girl, the one all eyes are on. Abbott executes for Readings parenting ‘guru’ Scott Beam. meet in the snowy white this so precisely that you find yourself Both Alexandra and her husband Josh expanse of Antarctica, looking there, too. You might see something SWEETBITTER are impressed with Scott’s ability to engage chasing a rare comet beautiful, or grotesque, or conniving, or both Tilly and Iris. Then Scott floats an idea: Stephanie Danler sighting. As we loop naïve. But what you don’t see is the effect would the Hammonds be willing to leave back through their lives, Oneworld. PB. $27.99 the narrator’s voice in your head is having their home in Washington DC permanently glimpsing each of them Available 1 August over everything that happens, the role she and work with Scott in setting up a camp only during a comet I read the hype is playing, standing off to the side. for families struggling with kids ‘on the event, we see how their surrounding I realise that this probably sounds like spectrum’ in New Hampshire? The lure of paths cross as they come closer and closer Sweetbitter before I read Megan Abbott has written the same book a fresh start, the natural environment and to this moment. Theirs are lives filled with the novel itself. This over and over again, but, believe me, that is freedom from technology beckons, and the love and hope and heartbreak, in a story brilliant debut by young not the case. There’s such poise and (I’ve Hammonds agree. that shows how the world can be as lonely American author said it before!) precision in this formula, and We experience ‘Camp Harmony’ with Iris or as beautiful as the comets themselves. in You Will Know Me it is executed with a Stephanie Danler has been as our narrator. Iris is warm and funny, and creeping, tense, suspenseful, and feverish in the spotlight for a few alternately adores and is embarrassed by her THE DAY BEFORE narrative skill that I feel Abbott has been months, after Knopf sister. Iris is observant but understandably HAPPINESS building to with all of her previous works. picked up the book in an attention-grabbing naïve given her age, which allows the reader Erri De Luca You Will Know Me is set in a small six-figure deal. It’s sat on the bestseller list in to sense that all is not as it should be, and to Penguin. HB. $24.99 community in an unnamed American town. the US for weeks – celebrities are posing for question Beam’s motives and practices. While Available 15 August At its centre is the BelStars gymnastics photos with it, along with hundreds of a bond grows between the three families academy, and their star athlete, Devon Instagram users. Reviewers are raving. Why involved in the Camp Harmony setup, and A young orphan boy Knox. Devon’s coach, mother Katie, father the fuss? Well, Danler herself is charming and the children in each family make progress, grows up in Naples, Eric, and little brother Drew basically personable in interviews, and has written a some of Scott’s expectations, rules and games playing football, don’t take their eyes off her, watching her novel based on her experiences. Her book is seem troubling. Alexandra puts her heart and roaming the city’s qualify higher and higher, the Olympics well fiction, but will definitely strike a chord with soul into believing this experiment will work, streets and hidden within her reach. Until one of their own, anyone who’s ever worked in hospitality, or but Josh remains skeptical. places. Then one day the handsome and charming boyfriend of eaten in a restaurant, or been 22 and trying to I really enjoyed the growing tension the boy sees a young girl the junior tumbling coach, is killed in a hit figure it all out. And it’s very, very good. in this novel. While Iris tells the ‘Camp standing at a window and run. Things threaten to unravel for all of As with Rachel Cusk’s Outline or Harmony’ story, Alexandra narrates – it’s an encounter that them as Katie, from whose perspective this Rachel Kushner’s The Flamethrowers, the family’s backstory from Tilly’s birth will haunt his life for story is narrated, tries to keep a hold of her Sweetbitter offers us a protagonist bearing onwards. Having the perspective of different years and, eventually, shape his destiny. family and her daughter who is the nucleus hardly any backstory: ‘Let’s say I was family members made me enjoy this novel Lyrical and exuberant, told with the of their entire world. This novel is fast and born in late June of 2006 when I came even more. This is a great winter read, and simplicity of a fairy tale and the intensity of a fevered and slippery, hard and sharp and over the George Washington Bridge at 7 book groups will find a lot to discuss about memory, The Day Before Happiness is the hot, and it’s Megan Abbott at her very best. a.m.,’ she says. Twenty-two-year old Tess parenting, and the autism spectrum. story of friendship, a city and what makes us doesn’t even reveal her name until at least who we are. Amy Vuleta is the manager of Readings St Kilda Annie Condon is from Readings Hawthorn READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2016 9

THE ESSEX SERPENT From the barren sweep of the Arctic to the Sarah Perry silence of space, Good Morning Midnight explores the ways we persist when faced Serpents Tail. HB. $29.99 with vast nothingness. Available 1 August Set in Victorian London HEROES OF THE and an Essex village in FRONTIER the 1890s, Cora Seaborne and Will Dave Eggers Ransome meet as their Hamish Hamilton. PB. $32.99 village is engulfed by Available 1 August rumours that the A mother and her two mythical Essex Serpent, young children rent a once said to roam the battered RV and marshes claiming embark upon a journey human lives, has returned. Cora, a keen through the Alaskan amateur naturalist is enthralled – but Will, wilderness. At first it the local vicar, senses a moral panic, a feels like a vacation – deviation from true faith. Told with but as Josie drives her exquisite grace and intelligence, this novel kids deeper into the is most of all a celebration of love, and the forest, dodging many different guises it can take. wildfires and increasingly eccentric locals, we learn more of what forced her to escape FORTY ROOMS her old life and seek redemption at the very Olga Grushin edge of civilisation. A captivating and Putnam. PB. $29.99 hilarious novel about family, loss and Available 15 August recovery, and a powerful examination of contemporary American life. Totally original in conception and THE LAST PHOTOGRAPH execution, Forty Rooms is mysterious, Emma Chapman withholding, and, Picador. PB. $29.99 ultimately, emotionally Available 26 July devastating. When the When award-winning protagonist finds her photojournalist Rook children grown and her Henderson suddenly husband absent, she must evaluate the finds himself a choices that led her away from her widower, all he can do bohemian poet dream and into a is escape, returning to comfortable marriage. Was it a life well Vietnam for the first lived? A life complete? Does such a life really time in decades. As e exist? Grushin deals with issues of women’s Rook reconnects with identity, of women’s choices, in a way no the changed landscape modern novel has explored so deeply. of Vietnam, he reflects upon a life defined through his work and a secret grief he’s THE GOLDEN SON never forgotten. When his son follows him Shilpi Somaya Gowda to Vietnam, seeking answers from the HarperCollins. PB. $32.99 father he barely knows, Rook is forced to Available 1 August reconsider the price he has paid for a life TRULY EAT REAL behind the lens. When his father dies, MADLY FOOD Anil Patel inherits the THE MEMORY STONES GUILTY COOKBOOK mantle of arbiter for all LIANE MORIARTY DAVID GILLESPIE his tiny Indian village’s Caroline Brothers disputes. But he is also Bloomsbury. PB. $27.99 An ordinary backyard David Gillespie, one of juggling a medical Available 1 August barbeque takes an Australia’s most trusted voices residency at a Texas Buenos Aires, 1976 – In unexpected turn in Liane in health and wellness, delivers hospital, and the the heat of summer, Moriarty’s latest bestseller. the follow-up to his bestselling difficulties of adjusting Osvaldo, a distinguished . Based on Liane deftly applies her unique Eat Real Food to a new culture have shaken his doctor, and his family scientific research, observational skills to the pillars Eat Real confidence. Back home in India, Anil’s escapes to the lush is your guide of our lives: marriage, sex, Food Cookbook closest childhood friend, Leena, struggles expanse of Tigre. Those to saying ‘no’ to the food the to adapt to her demanding new husband days will be the last the parenthood and friendship, manufacturers want you to eat and relatives. Tender and bittersweet, The family ever spends exploring how guilt can expose and ‘yes’ to the food vital to the Golden Son illuminates the ambivalence of together. On their the fragility of our relationships. people caught between past and present, return to Buenos Aires, health of your family. tradition and modernity, duty and choice. the Argentine military stages a coup and thousands disappear. Depicting the despair GOOD MORNING, and hope of one family seeking to rebuild THE MIDNIGHT after unimaginable loss, The Memory Stones 78-STOREY LOVE Lily Brooks-Dalton is a lyrical, devastating portrait of a country as it confronts its own history. TREEHOUSE YOU Weidenfeld & Nicolson. PB. $29.99 DEAD Available 9 August ANDY GRIFFITHS BLUE DOG TERRY DENTON PETER JAMES When a catastrophic event forces an Louis de Bernières evacuation of his remote Alfred A Knopf. HB. Was $29.99 Mad misadventures in the One city. One Roy Grace. Arctic research centre, $26.99 world’s coolest treehouse. One venomous new killer. ageing scientist Available 1 August Australia’s #1 author and ‘James writes meticulously Augustine insists on Mick loves living with illustrator are back with more researched police procedurals, staying behind – but his grandpa amid the crazy antics in their ever- so informed that you can afterwards, he discovers red dust of outback expanding treehouse – now smell the canteen coffee… a mysterious child. Western Australia, but with 13 new storeys! What are enthralling.’ – DAILY MAIL Meanwhile, an astronaut is aboard the things really spring to you waiting for? Come on up! Aether on its return flight from Jupiter – life after he saves a the first humans to delve this deep into kelpie pup from space – when suddenly, inexplicably, the drowning. The boy and www.panmacmillan.com.au ship loses contact with mission control. Blue the puppy quickly 10 READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2016

become inseparable pals, as Mick tackles for their own competing brands of personal, the sometimes unexpected obstacles of this bloody vengeance and you’re somewhat unforgiving landscape with a devoted hitting the ballpark of Nevernight. August’s To-Read List canine companion at his side. Told with Mia is a compelling protagonist, fierce verve and simplicity, Blue Dog is a and furious, and at no point did I want her beautifully nostalgic tale of a fearless young to ease off, rather, I wanted her to succeed boy on the cusp of adolescence and a in her training and get her vengeance. The rambunctious kelpie. world is fully built and Kristoff has drawn strongly from actual history but perfectly REPUTATIONS melded it with fantastic aspects, including Juan Gabriel Vasquez a rich depiction of a religion based around Bloomsbury. HB. $32.99 two warring deities. It’s beautifully written Available 1 August and the narration is full of personality. It should certainly get bonus points for having For Colombia’s famed one of the best opening lines I’ve read in a political cartoonist Javier while. Kristoff has written an exciting and Mallarino, a public enthralling read that will appeal both to fans celebration of his career of the genre and to those just in need of a has far-reaching Telling it as he sees it, this is a rare insight Paul Newman and Tom Jellett take you nice chunky story that they can really sink consequences: a figure into one of football’s most intriguing on a charming trip full of wild dangers and their teeth into. from his past, now a characters. extraordinary delights . . . and the joy of young woman, emerges Isobel Moore is from Readings St Kilda sharing a tall tale. from the crowd outside and forces Mallarino to confront an incident THE LAST DAYS OF NEW from half a lifetime ago, calling into question PARIS his reputation and the value of his life’s work. China Mieville Questioning the power of memory and the Macmillan. PB. $29.99 media, and their ability to distort, inform and Available 9 August destroy, Vasquez plays with the past, the In the chaos of wartime present, and our perception of truth. Marseille, an occult THE SUMMER THAT anti-Nazi group unwittingly unleashes the MELTED EVERYTHING power of dreams and Tiffany McDaniel nightmares, changing the Scribe. PB. $29.99 war and the world Available 15 August forever. Nine years later, a When local prosecutor lone fighter, Thibaut, and A captivating and hilarious novel of A charming story of a young boy and his Autopsy Bliss publishes an American photographer, Sam, walk a new, family, loss, and the curse of a violent dog adventuring through the outback. an invitation to the hallucinogenic Paris, where Nazis and the America. A powerful examination of Prequel to the bestselling Red Dog. devil to come to the Resistance are trapped in unending conflict, contemporary life and a rousing story heatwave-stricken and the forces of Hell and living Surrealist art of adventure. town of Breathed, Ohio, stalk the streets. To escape the city, all their nobody quite expects loyalties will be tested – to each other, to Paris that he will turn up, old and new, and to reality itself. especially not in the form of a tattered and bruised 13-year-old boy. The Blisses believe Poetry the boy, named Sal, is a runaway from a nearby farm town. But whether he’s a UNDYING: A LOVE STORY traumatised child or the devil incarnate, his Michel Faber eerily affecting stories of Heaven, Hell, and Canongate. HB. $24.99 Earth will mesmerise and enflame the entire town. Available 1 August A heartbreaking chronicle of losing the love of your Fantasy life by Michel Faber, the award-winning author of A magical debut novel that shows us As only he can, Mike Carlton The Book of Strange New the world can be as lonely, or as beautiful, tells the story of the HMAS Australia II and NEVERNIGHT Things. In Undying, as the comets that illuminate the skies the Pacific War on Japan. Jay Kristoff Michel Faber honours the above us. Harper Collins. PB. $29.99 memory of his wife, who Available 1 August died after a six-year battle Despite my with cancer. Bright, tragic, candid and true, excessive passion these poems are an exceptional chronicle of for Jay Kristoff’s what it means to find the love of your life, and Illuminae (which he what it is like to have to say goodbye. wrote with Amie Kaufman) I was a little WRITING TO THE WIRE worried about reading Dan Disney & Kit Kelen (eds) Nevernight. Fantasy is UWAP. PB. $24.99 one of the few genres I Available 1 August tend to steer clear of, The seeking of asylum in even though I LOVE sci-fi, but my excitement Australia has been about another offering from Kristoff won politicised in recent through and, to my relief, I absolutely loved it. decades, our national Nevernight follows the story of Mia If you let decisions happen to you, what will A compelling account of Australia’s conversation Corvere as she trains at an elite and secret desensitising the transpire? Can you become someone else bloodiest and most significant battle of school to be an assassin so that she can without the world noticing? the Vietnam War. Australian polity to take her revenge against the killers of her human suffering. What fallen family. Told by an unnamed narrator, impact does this have Nevernight is a tightly paced adventure, full upon our collective ethics and national to the brim with intrigue, plotting, a dash identity? Writing to the Wire is a collection of romance (but just a dash! Not too much) of poems about the idea of being Australian. and so, so many savage murders. This is It is about who we are and who we would not a book for the faint of heart. Imagine if rather be, offering new ways to understand Hogwarts was situated in Renaissance Venice injustice, to speak out and tell stories in a and populated entirely by sociopaths all out way our politics has failed to do. READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2016 11

New Crime Dead Write pasts and unspoken thoughts, on a youthful her early fifties, a widow who misses her friendship weighed at the time on uneven Archdeacon husband dearly, and who with Fiona Hardy scales. History never stays hidden in crime finds herself in unfortunate Crime Book of the Month fiction, but Way’s ability to wrong-foot her circumstances, which have led her to a life readers makes for a disconcerting, of solving crimes to keep her in 1850s-type addictive read. comforts like lots of coal, even more WILDE LAKE brandy and a helping of delightful- Laura Lippman THE FALLS sounding puddings. Here, in the first book Faber. PB. $29.99 B. Michael Radburn of (thankfully) many, she is called to Available 1 August Pantera Press. PB. $29.99 impersonate a governess and spy on a As usual, there was a fair internal fight about what should Available 1 August woman who has captured a rich man’s be this month’s Book of the Month (as I’m not allowed to Two hikers abseil down heart – but who is perhaps not the proper take up eight pages with my extended thoughts on each title), but the side of a cliff in young lady she purports to be. This is the something about the fallible intimacy of Wilde Lake had me drawn Victoria’s rugged east, literary equivalent of a comforting roast irresistibly to it, to this slice of life, so familiar and all-American searching for an old stew with a hearty dash of spice. – like baseball and freshman parties – yet so foreign. abandoned mine that has In Columbia, Maryland, two years after the planned community was built in 1967, slipped into local THE SERPENT’S STING Andrew Jackson Brant brings his family to their new house – or an old one, transported to mythology. Expecting an Robert Gott this new place beside a man-made lake. And he builds a legacy: a State’s Attorney raising untouched landscape Scribe. PB. $29.99 two children without the wife that died shortly after the birth of their daughter, Luisa. And and endless gold, they Available 1 August it is Lu who narrates the story, as both a seven-year-old and as a grown woman, widowed instead find a fresh footprint – and a dead Look, after a few and with two young children of her own, and now the first woman appointed to the same body, the blood still fresh on her chest. excellent yet grim crime job her father once had. Their panicked, heart-stopping escape back books, you often want to to civilisation is hampered by a fire on their get your serving of ‘Lippman has a fine, delicate hand for a story that runs deep and long tail, but one of the hikers knows that the carnage and criminal into a town’s history and a young girl’s memory, making the book a fire isn’t the only thing chasing them. When acts dished up alongside divine, red-wine pleasure to read.’ the police return to the site to find the a few laughs. Noted body, there is nothing to be found. But raconteur Robert Gott is Lu is dynamite, fiercely clever, engaged with the town she lives in, and absolutely never when there’s nothing to be found, there’s exactly that man to giving in to anyone. Except for two people: her cherished father and beloved brother, AJ. one man who can find it: Taylor Bridges, deliver, his glorious hero William Power It is her blind spot to these men that drives the story, as she begins her new job, eager to park ranger, and a man who has had more – actor, private detective, memoirist – the prove herself, and takes on a murder case that seems simple enough. A woman is beaten to than his fair share of experiences finding man to follow. It’s late 1942, and Will is death in her apartment, and the suspect, whose DNA is everywhere, seen by a neighbour dead bodies, and those who caused them. A short on money and shorter on patience lurking around the complex. But the case becomes immediately fraught when the accused regional thriller where you can feel leaves with his family; from his beloved but killer calls on Lu’s previous boss – the man she ran for Attorney against – as his defendant, crunching underfoot and the fire crackling untrustworthy brother Brian, to the dreary and everything in Lu’s life starts to get personal in more ways than one. in the bush, and where the horrors of the notion that his mother will soon wed her Lippman has a fine, delicate hand for a story that runs deep and long into a town’s past are still too close for comfort. fiancé and bring new, unwanted siblings history and a young girl’s memory, making the book a divine, red-wine pleasure to read. into his life. Will suffers the best kind of Lu’s arrogance as an adult and painful naivety as a youth deliver a solid, real character, one LIE WITH ME arrested development – all the playfulness who doesn’t always want to see the truth but will fight tooth and nail for it. An understated Sabine Durrant and recklessness of a small child, full of homage to To Kill a Mockingbird, and the successor that shed unfavourable light on its Victor Gollancz. PB. $32.99 melodrama, self-importance, endless characters, this story of old habits in a new city is a deep lake to lose yourself in. Available 26 July humour and wisecracks, and riotously, Be warned, fair reader unfairly entertaining to boot. And, of – much of this month’s course, his talents in the field of detection the prologue, there’s usually travel to all MAN IN THE CORNER reading will remind you are required when his soon-to-be kinds of international countries (or at least Nathan Besser that the past never really stepbrother asks him to do an investigation their bars/hotel rooms/abandoned Vintage. PB. $32.99 leaves you, so it’s best to into a possible murder, and a fellow actress warehouses), the main character knows Available 1 August clean those skeletons in the (literal) pantomime he finds himself how to handle themselves, someone gets in vanishes. Thrillingly local for our The day after David’s wife out of your closet before their comeuppance, people slam phones Carlton-based readers, and just excellent tells him that she was a you dive into these. Paul down in anger – you get it, and you love it for the rest, Gott’s fourth William Power sex worker before she met Morris is a writer too. Here, Carter Blake is five years past book is a continuing delight. him – a disclosure that getting by mostly on reputation and the Winterlong, a super-secret agency that doesn’t especially bother goodwill of others rather than any current does lots of super-secret stuff. He kept him – he suffers an success, and who is about to find himself WHY DID YOU LIE? their super-secrets the whole time, but unexpected brain injury. bereft of a place to live and returning to his Yrsa Sigurdardottir now Winterlong has decided he’s too As he recovers, his life mother’s home. A series of small Victor Gollancz. PB. $32.99 much of a loose cannon, and he needs to starts to go awry: his body embellishments lead him to rekindle old Available 9 August be dispatched. Unfortunately for them, he suffers side effects, his connection to the friendships and wheedle an invite to a final Iceland, January, 2014. knows all their tricks. Unfortunately for company he built begins to fray. Then, one summer hurrah in Greece, where he hasn’t Helgi, a photographer, him, they know all his. Worse trouble for day, he meets the distractingly charming Ben been for ten years, since he was younger has pulled off a coup: them (but good news for readers): Carter Strbic at a café, who claims to feel a and perpetually drunk. But Paul’s tiny little he’s heading to a remote Blake is part of a series! connection with David, and who suggests lies, only told to make himself seem less of lighthouse in the middle they would do well in business together. But a shambles amongst the friends he doesn’t of the sea, surrounded by the business he’s suggesting isn’t entirely WATCHING EDIE feel quite comfortable with, are not so four towering rock above-board, and David feels the pull away Camilla Way small when taken all at once…or taken by pillars. It’s a visually from his suburban Australian family HarperCollins. PB. $29.99 somebody else. beautiful spot, its existence and into the double life Ben has Available 1 August grandeur never properly captured on camera. He’s helicoptered in, with three planned for him, assuming the identity of one No one’s watching out THE SECRETS OF people tasked with upgrading the Herman Harry Green. And HH Green, who for Edie any more. Once WISHTIDE lighthouse, even though there’s barely has left his legacy in a series of journals, will a beautiful teenager full Kate Saunders enough room for one person on the entire leave an imprint on David’s life in more way of hopes and dreams Bloomsbury. PB. $27.99 rock, let alone four, let alone for more than than one. (and suffering and Available 1 August a day – let alone when you have the bad cattiness), a damaging Like many readers, I feeling Helgi does. On the mainland, THE TIME TO KILL incident in her youth has came to crime fiction by maligned police officer Nína has been sent her down a more way of Agatha Christie Mason Cross relegated to a job clearing out a storeroom sedate and isolated path and her ilk: delicious Orion. PB. $32.99 when she stumbles on part of a decades-old that expected. Now, at 33, she lives alone in tales of detectives who Available 9 August file about an old suicide that mentions her a small flat, just Edie – and her unborn are quick-witted, able to I really love picking up husband – who attempted suicide eight baby. The idea of mothering all on her own read people clearly, and a special-ops-type weeks before, and now lies motionless in a is overwhelming, until it turns out someone blend with anyone who thriller like Cross’s The hospital bed. Elsewhere, a family get home is watching out for her: Heather, a remnant can give them Time to Kill – they’re from a house-swap holiday to find their of her past life, someone she wanted information. And so now I come to always so supremely place not as it was – things missing, a desperately never to see again. And now, at Laetitia Rodd, a discreet private detective satisfying. Someone’s wrong feeling permeating the air. Three her very weakest, Heather is the only of the mid-nineteenth century, and a lady usually died in a different groups of people, connected by person there for her. But it’s a friendship who won me over almost instantly in the dramatic, sneaky one long-ago lie. that relies too heavily on secrets, on dark fashion by the end of way that the best Christies do. Letty is in 12 READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2016

New Nonfiction how sometimes those who love us best hurt destruction, and carried the burden of us most. those images – all while putting his own personal safety very much in the firing line. Book of the Month SALTWATER From flak jackets to tuxedos, celebrity Cathy McLennan funerals to natural disasters, this is a THE HATE RACE UQP. PB. $32.95 thrilling account of a life lived on camera, delivering the news wherever it happens. Maxine Beneba Clarke Available 15 August Hachette. PB. Was $32.99 Saltwater is the true story of a young DADLAND: $27.99 A JOURNEY INTO Available 9 August female barrister’s struggle for justice UNCHARTED TERRITORY Maxine Beneba Clarke’s father was the first in his family to go working with the university. They were working class, from Tottenham, a Keggie Carew Aboriginal Legal suburb of London. He’d shown a talent for mathematics and became Random. PB. Was $32.99 Service in Townsville an academic; her mother was an actress. They were a bright young $27.99 and Palm Island. couple with a bright future in England so people were surprised Available 15 August When four Aboriginal when Bordeaux Clarke accepted a teaching position at a University Keggie Carew grew up teenagers are charged in Western Sydney and he and his wife Cleo moved to Kellyville in Sydney’s west. There they in the gravitational with murdering a white man, McLennan proceeded to have three children. Their middle daughter, Maxine, grew up to become a poet field of an unorthodox must confront ingrained prejudices as and writer of great note. father who lived on his well as limited resources. With wits and dazzling determination and humour, she recounts charm. Tom Carew her challenges and successes living in the ‘You can’t read this book and not be affected by it; was a maverick, a community and fighting for the truth. As member of an elite you can’t read this book and not be astounded by the investigation plays out, McLennan military unit in the discovers the terrible truth of the killer’s the force of its writing.’ Second World War. As identity – the shockwaves of which still his memory begins to fail, Keggie takes us reverberate today. Apart from their education and culture, what made the Clarke family different from the on a spellbinding journey into her rackety usual English migrants was their Afro Caribbean heritage – they were black. What is it like English childhood, the poignant to be black in Australia? The Hate Race is an attempt to explain what it feels like to suffer THE GIRL WITH THE breakdown of her family and beyond. As a lifetime of constant slights that range from comments yelled from a passing car, ‘Fuck LOWER BACK TATTOO Keggie pieces Tom – and herself – back off, you black bitch’, to the more restrained but just as hurtful, ‘Maxine you are a very, very Amy Schumer together, she celebrates the technicolour nasty little black girl.’ To navigate this while growing up was a constant strain. Maxine’s HarperCollins. HB. Was $29.99 life of an impossible, irresistible, wonderful mother would try to support her, reminding her that they were only words, but $24.99 unstoppable man. words did hurt her, they ‘hurt inside my heart’. Available 17 August I felt a sense of shame reading this book; shame that I, that my society, were not better. In just a few short THE SUMMER OF ’82 But I also felt that this moving, beautifully crafted memoir was something that we should years, Amy Schumer Dave O’Neil all read because it could teach us how not to be. I wondered: could I hurt someone because has become a huge Nero. PB. Was $29.99 they were different, had I? You can’t read this book and not be affected by it; you can’t read movie star, Emmy and $26.99 this book and not be astounded by the force of its writing. It will be something you want to Peabody award winner Available 15 August discuss with your friends, with your world. and acclaimed as a Do you remember Mark Rubbo is the managing director of Readings subversive comic finishing your last genius. She’s Year 12 exam, outrageously funny, waiting for your the controlling father from Faludi’s past fantastically rude, results? Do you Biography seemed to be ever present, essentially provocative, unexpected and original, and remember going to keeping her prisoner in the house during so is her memoir – because as we all know, gigs, forming a band, her stay, and flying into a rage when Faludi IN THE DARKROOM Amy can’t see a limit without pushing it. getting bottles went ‘off script’. Susan Faludi Covering everything from losing her thrown at you by Examining – among other things – the virginity to abusive relationships, from her HarperCollins. PB. $32.99 skinheads, making a politics of sex reassignment surgery, this thoughts on make-up to the non-negotiable bomb and getting Available now book reads like a psychological thriller. It necessity of orgasms during sex, Amy dares arrested? You don’t? Did all this only If this book was shines a light on the politics of identity; to go where no other woman has before. happen to Dave O’Neil? That’s what this written as on the role family and religion plays in book is about – 10 weeks stuck in limbo in fiction, you’d never shaping us; on what exactly goes into ALL THIS IN 60 MINUTES the summer of ’82, and a hilarious and believe it because ‘making a person’. Nicholas Lee heartfelt journey of a boy becoming a man you’d think it was too This book is a fascinating read, a A&U. PB. $32.99 in suburban Australia. far-fetched. In 2004, slice of brilliance on the nonfiction Available 1 August Susan Faludi received bookshelves, and no doubt Faludi is a For more than thirty an email from her contender for her second Pulitzer with In years Nicholas Lee was Anthology father (whom she The Dark Room. hadn’t seen in a cameraman on 60 Gabrielle Williams is from Readings Malvern twenty-five years) telling her that he’d Minutes, Australia’s MY OLD MAN: undergone sex reassignment surgery in most-watched current TALES OF OUR FATHERS I’M SUPPOSED TO affairs program. All This Thailand and would now answer to Ted Kessler Stefanie, rather than Steve. PROTECT YOU FROM in 60 Minutes is the ALL THIS: A MEMOIR revealing and often Canongate. HB. $29.99 He thought maybe she might like to Available 1 August write a book about him – some kind of a Nadja Spiegelman hilarious memoir of his No two paternal trans-feminist memoir. Faludi thought Text. PB. $32.99 time with the show – of the crazy days of relationships are the that sounded like an excellent idea. After Available 3 August unlimited expense accounts, of late nights and bleary mornings, the fun and fear on same. Whether happy all, it’s not every day that one of the Nadja Spiegelman grew the road, and in the refugee camps and war or sad, fond or world’s most renowned feminists – who up the child of a famous zones. The result is a book that is fraught, the memories actually came to feminism in part as a father, Maus creator compelling, funny and utterly eye-opening. and stories we have reaction against her violent, controlling Art Spiegelman, and a about our dads stay father – gets to meet him 25 years later as mother, French-born HACK IN A FLAK JACKET with us forever. In a woman. New Yorker art director this collection, a Faludi went ‘to stay with my father Françoise Mouly, who Peter Stefanovic dazzling list of in her Hungarian Schloss’, (a schloss exerted a force over Hachette. PB. $29.99 contributors – being a German building similar to a reality that was both Available 9 August including Florence Welch, Paul Weller, chateau, palace or manor house – her dazzling and daunting. For almost ten years Leonard Cohen and many others – open father came from a wealthy Hungarian As Nadja’s body changed, her relationship Peter Stefanovic was up, some for the first time, about their family). While they spent the first few with her mother grew tense. Unwittingly, Channel Nine’s foreign paternal experiences. As universal as it is days getting reacquainted, her father they were replaying a drama from her correspondent in powerful, My Old Man offers a unique seemed keen to show off her new body – mother’s past. Françoise told her daughter Europe, Africa and the opportunity to reflect on our own sometimes wearing a robe which would difficult stories; Nadja’s grandmother’s Middle East. During relationships with our dads. slip, revealing more than Faludi wanted memories then contradicted them. Nadja that time he witnessed to see of the ‘new woman’ her father had emerged with a deeper understanding of more than his fair share become. But behind the coquettish façade, how each generation reshapes the past and of death and READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2016 13

A HANDFUL OF Australian Studies SAND: THE GURINDJI STRUGGLE, AFTER THE POSITION DOUBTFUL: WALK-OFF MAPPING LANDSCAPES Charlie Ward AND MEMORIES Monash University Press. PB. $29.95 Kim Mahood Available 1 August Scribe. PB. $29.99 Fifty years ago, a group Available 15 August of striking Aboriginal Position Doubtful stockmen in the remote is an astonishing, Northern Territory sprawling memoir of heralded a revolution in place. Returning the cattle industry and in annually to the Tanami Aboriginal affairs. A desert country in Handful of Sand tells the which she had lived as story behind the a child on a remote Gurindji people’s famous cattle station, Tanami 1966 Wave Hill Walk-off, and questions the Downs (though for her legacy of Gough Whitlam’s 1975 return of it is always Mongrel Downs), artist Kim their land. Charlie Ward reveals the path Mahood works with the traditional owners Vincent Lingiari and other Gurindji elders of the Tanami desert country to map the took to achieve their land rights victory, and landscape and memories of the region. how their struggles in fact began, rather than The mapping project begins in ended, with Whitlam’s handback. Mulan in 2004; its central purpose is, as Mahood relays, ‘to create a cross-cultural CITY DREAMERS: THE document that shows the interplay URBAN IMAGINATION IN between Aboriginal knowledge and AUSTRALIA western scientific knowledge in a form Graeme Davison that is easily accessible to both Walmajarri NewSouth Books. PB. $34.99 and kartiya [white people]’. At this first Available 1 August coming together, Mahood sets out a canvas map on which she has drawn a grid over City Dreamers restores a printed satellite image of the area. As Australian cities, and the first person starts to recount their those who created them, knowledge of the area, the bounds of the to their rightful place in map prove insufficient. Notations start the national imagination. to clutter the sides and when everyone Building on a lifetime’s leaves, Mahood adds extra strips of canvas work, Graeme Davison to the sides at odd angles to accommodate views Australian history the mapping of place that has been told. from 1788 through the In the way of that first map, Position eyes of those who battle to make and re-make Doubtful moves outwards, reaching back our cities. This extraordinary book excavates from the mapping into earlier annual trips the cultural history of the Australian city by that Mahood took, including her visits to focusing on ‘dreamers’ – and argues that the salt lakes near the station she grew up there’s a particular twist to the ways in which on, and her time living and working at the Australians think about and live in cities. art centre at Balgo. In the early 1960s, Mahood’s father HAMILTON HUME: OUR had sought to map stock routes over the GREATEST EXPLORER Tanami using an aeronautical map on Robert Macklin which the notation ‘Position Doubtful’ Hachette. PB. $32.99 appeared with some regularity, a notation Available 26 July Mahood takes as a metaphor for white While English-born Australian movement through the country. soldiers, sailors and In Position Doubtful, Mahood charts surveyors have claimed her experience of place and lays out a pride of place among space in which we can begin to see the Australia’s early multitudes of place and memory that explorers, the real create the country. pathfinder was a Marie Matteson is from Readings Carlton genuine native-born Australian. Hamilton YIJARNI: TRUE STORIES Hume led settlers from the cramped FROM GURINDJI surrounds of Sydney Town across the Blue COUNTRY Mountains to the vast fertile country that oenawan Mohamad is one of would sustain a new nation. Hamilton Felicity Meakins & Erika Charola GIndonesia’s foremost literary Hume tells the heroic tale of this young figures and public intellectuals. Aboriginal Studies Press. PB. $39.95 Australian man whose contribution to the This selection of translated essays, Available 1 August development of the colony was immense spanning 1968 to 2014, demonstrates In 1966, but downplayed in deference to explorers the breadth of his perceptive and approximately 200 of British origin. elegant commentary on literature, Gurindji stockmen faith, mythology, politics, history and and their families NO MAN IS AN ISLAND Indonesian life. In Other Words shows walked off Wave Adele Dumont a writer committed to Indonesia and Hill Station in the Hachette. PB. $32.99 engaging with universal themes and Northern Territory. struggles, offering a fascinating insight Available 26 July While it is well into questions that concern us all. In 2010, Adele Dumont known that the volunteered to teach Walk Off was driven by the poor treatment of English to men in Aboriginal workers, what is less well known is immigration detention the previous decades of massacres and killings, on Christmas Island. She stolen children and other abuses by early didn’t expect to find the colonists. Told in both English and Gurindji, work so rewarding, or these compelling and detailed oral accounts the people she met so www.newsouthpublishing.com are a fascinating and challenging record of the interesting. So when she frontier battles and the Stolen Generations. was offered a job working at Curtin 14 READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2016 detention centre in Western Australia, she THE WRITER’S ROOM architectural styles. James’ buildings are Cultural Studies took it. No Man is an Island is a unique Charlotte Wood colourful and packed with fun and offbeat personal story that makes the issue of details, yet they still capture the technical A&U. PB. $32.99 immigration detention accessible – a elements and the essence of the architecture REBELLIOUS DAUGHTERS Available 1 August vividly told story full of characters and that makes Melbourne such a beautiful city. Maria Katsonis & Lee Kofman (eds) Charlotte Wood’s online humanity, that all Australians need to read. Organised by neighbourhoods, the book Ventura. PB. Was $32.99 journal The Writer’s features iconic Melbourne structures, as Room has become NOT QUITE AUSTRALIAN: $27.99 well as the everyday buildings that give the essential reading for Available 1 August city its character. HOW TEMPORARY writers at all stages of MIGRATION IS CHANGING I firmly believe that short story their careers, and for THE NATION collections are not meant book lovers everywhere. History Peter Mares to be read from front Charlotte’s interviews Text. PB. $32.99 cover to back cover – with a wide range of Available 1 August they’re meant to be writers range in topic from the subject LES PARISIENNES: HOW A rise in temporary dipped in and out of at matter of the writers’ work to quite intricate THE WOMEN OF PARIS migration is redefining leisure; randomly flicked – and intimate – revelations about the ways LIVED, LOVED AND DIED Australian society, from through until a in which they work. Charlotte’s subjects are IN THE 1940S frank about the failures and successes, the wage wars and healthcare particular title jumps out and captures the Anne Sebba struggles and triumphs of the writing life, benefits, to broader ideas imagination. Rebellious Daughters, a Weidenfeld & Nicolson. PB. $32.99 and extremely generous in their revelations. of national identity and consciously controversial collection of short Available 26 July cultural diversity. Peter works by female Australian writers, is a A must-read for writers and readers. What did it feel like to be Mares draws on case feisty compendium of creative nonfiction. a woman living in Paris studies, interviews and Focused primarily on female from 1939 to 1949? Even personal stories to investigate the complex experiences, it showcases the variety of Music at the darkest moments realities of this new era of temporary pathways that rebellion can take and the of Occupation, with the migration. Mares considers such issues as the necessity of resistance in parent-daughter THE AGE OF BOWIE Swastika flying from the 457 work visa, the unique experience of New relationships. From Maria Katsonis’ Paul Morley Eiffel Tower, glamour Zealand migrants, the internationalisation of refusal to wear the mantel of the good S&S. HB. Was $45 was ever present. Why? Australia’s education system and our highly Greek girl to Susan Wyndham’s anxiety Anne Sebba shows how politicised asylum-seeker policies to about her dependency on her mother, $39.99 French women made life-and-death understand and challenge Australia’s growing these intimate stories explore how familial Available 1 August decisions every day, doing whatever they culture of temporary migration. relationships can fall profoundly prey to Respected arts needed to survive. Although politics lies at unpredictable feelings. Some contributors commentator Paul Morley its heart, Les Parisiennes is a fascinating have arguably had more to rebel against constructs the definitive WHERE ARE OUR BOYS? account of the lives of people of the city than others: Eliza-Jane Henry-Jones story of Bowie, that HOW NEWSMAPS WON and, specifically, in this most feminine of writes heartbreakingly in ‘Just Be Kind’ explores how he worked, THE GREAT WAR cities, its women and young girls. about sleeping with a knife under her played, aged, structured Martin Woods mattress because she was so terrified his ideas, invented the National Library of Australia. PB. $49.99 of her violent, Alzheimer’s-afflicted future and entered history Available 1 August Humour grandmother, and how later caring for a as someone who could In 1914, the newspaper father self-medicating with scotch and and would never be forgotten. A startling map supplied readers codeine affected her own relationship biographical critique of David Bowie’s legacy, THE CHASER’S AUSTRALIA with the geographical with alcohol. Rebecca Starford describes showing how he never stayed still even after The Chaser backdrop to the Great withdrawing from the spotlight, and his the fall-out effect of writing truthfully Black Inc. PB. $24.99 War. Day by day, for bloody-minded determination and about her fractious relationship with her Available 1 August every campaign and voluptuous imagination to create something mother in her 2015 memoir and Jo Case The Chaser’s Australia is battle, readers were amazing that was not there before. reflects on whether the act of rebelling as a comprehensive guide bombarded with a teenager has set her on a problematic to the culture, history, maps, drawn from scant news cables, out PRINCE: PURPLE REIGN course as an adult. politics, religion, of date cartography, and the writer’s By equal turns poignant, funny and Mick Wall fashion, media and imagination, a semi-fictional war story confronting, Rebellious Daughters is a Orion. PB. Was $32.99 heroes that have made emerged, of Australian and Allied exploits well-crafted anthology that raises some $27.99 Australia one of the Top abroad. Where Are Our Boys? tells the interesting questions. Does rebellion exact Available 9 August 196 countries in the story of these maps, sometimes beautiful, a price? Is it possible to be true to oneself Prince was an icon – one world today. Featuring sometimes misleading – and how they without raising hell with one’s nearest of the most talented and fewer verifiable facts than Wikipedia, but helped to convey the conflict and the and dearest? Mother’s Day may be many influential artists of all somehow still more accurate than an Andrew immense human costs of war. months away yet, but if you have a female time, and also one of the Bolt column, this definitive volume is the role model in your life whom you like to most mysterious. This perfect companion volume to an actual Wine & Cookery lock ideas with as well as horns, this is a book will open a door to proper book about Australia. The Chaser’s great book to share and discuss. Prince’s world like never Australia: everything you thought you wanted Hilary Simmons is from Readings Carlton before – from his to know about Australia, but didn’t. HALLIDAY WINE traumatic childhood and COMPANION 2017 IN OTHER WORDS: FORTY demonic pursuit of music as a means of James Halliday YEARS OF ESSAYS escape, to his rise to superstardom, Personal Development professional rivalries and personal tragedies. Hardie Grant. PB. Was $39.99 Goenawan Mohamad Mick Wall explores the historical, cultural $33.99 NewSouth. PB. $34.99 MAN UP: SURVIVING and personal backdrop that gave rise to a Available 4 August Available 1 August man who changed pop culture forever. MODERN MASCULINITY Keenly anticipated each Goenawan Mohamad is Jack Urwin year by winemakers, one of Indonesia’s Icon. PB. $27.99 collectors and wine foremost literary figures Gift Available 1 August lovers, the Halliday and public intellectuals, Jack Urwin’s father died Wine Companion is and this translated ALL THE BUILDINGS IN when he was 10. No one recognised as the volume of essays, from around him ever sat him industry benchmark for 1968 to 2014, MELBOURNE (THAT I’VE down to talk him through Australian wine. The demonstrates the DRAWN SO FAR) his grief. In his later 2017 edition has been breadth of his perceptive James Gulliver Hancock teens he suffered a completely revised to bring you up-to-the- and elegant commentary on literature, Hardie Grant. HB. $29.99 breakdown. In Man Up, minute information. In his inimitable style, faith, mythology, politics, history and Available 1 August Urwin explores what it James Halliday shares detailed tasting Indonesian life. With almost 100 short All the Buildings in means to be a man today, notes, each with vintage-specific ratings essays, most taken from his popular Melbourne is a journey tracing crises of masculinity, from post-war and advice on optimal drinking as well as columns in Tempo, the Indonesian- through Melbourne, told shell shock, to the mob mentality of football each wine’s closure, alcohol content and language news weekly, In Other Words through unique and terraces, to the disturbing rise in men’s price. The book also provides information shows a writer committed to Indonesia but charming cityscape mental health problems. Smart, funny and about the wineries, winemakers and other grappling with universal themes and drawings that pay tribute friendly, Man Up is the start of an essential important details. struggles, offering a fascinating insight into to the city’s diverse conversation for all men. questions that concern us all. READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2016 15

THE MIDDLEPAUSE: ON he travelled to Myanmar to meet ex- TURNING FIFTY political prisoners. Far and Away tells these and many other stories. A journalist and Marina Benjamin essayist of remarkable perception and Scribe. PB. $29.99 prescience, Solomon demonstrates both Available 1 August how history is altered by individuals, and In a society obsessed with From the Pulitzer Prize-winning how personal identities are altered when journalist and bestselling author of living longer and looking governments alter. younger, what does ‘Backlash’, an astonishing confrontation middle age mean? How with the enigma of her father and the should a fifty-something Psychology larger riddle of identity consuming be, in a world ceaselessly redefining age, youth, and our age. experience? Spurred by THE MEMORY ILLUSION her own brutal propulsion into menopause, Dr Julia Shaw Marina Benjamin weighs the losses, joys and Random. PB. $35 opportunities of our middle years, taking Available 1 August inspiration from literature and philosophical We all suffer memory example. Ultimately, she uncovers comfort lapses, or forget names. and guidance in memory, milestones and But what if our minds margins, and offers an inspired and have the potential for No. 1 New York Times bestselling expanded vision of how to be happily and more profound errors, author Daniel Silva delivers another harmoniously middle-aged. that enable the spellbinding international thriller -- one manipulation or even that finds the legendary Gabriel Allon outright fabrication of Photography our memories? In The grappling with an ISIS mastermind. Memory Illusion, Dr REFLECTIONS OF Julia Shaw uses the latest research to show ELEPHANTS the astonishing variety of ways in which our brains can indeed be led astray. Bobby-Jo Clow Fascinating and unnerving in equal Melbourne Books. HB. $39.95 measure, The Memory Illusion offers a Available 1 August unique insight into the human brain, GHOST EMPIRE is a rare Reflections of Elephants challenging how much we can ever truly treasure - an utterly captivating is a celebration of an know ourselves. unmistakeable and blend of the historical and the irreplaceable creature, contemporary, realised by a seen through the lens of Travel Writing master storyteller. acclaimed photographer Bobby-Jo Clow. From the rusty, red plains of Tsavo to the lush, green forests GHOST EMPIRE of Northern Thailand, Bobby-Jo has captured Richard Fidler every aspect of elephant life, from first step to ABC Books. HB. Was $39.99 untimely death. Her astonishing images have $34.99 been paired with the words of writers, poets, Available 1 August scientists, conservationists, students and In 2014, Richard everyday people, to produce unique Fidler and his son reflections of this most iconic animal. Joe made a journey to Istanbul. Fired by Richard’s passion for Politics the rich history of the dazzling THE NEW RUSSIA Byzantine Empire, we are swept into Mikhail Gorbachev some of the most Wiley. HB. Was $49.95 extraordinary tales in history. Turbulent $44.95 stories from the past are brought vividly to Available now life, while a father navigates the unfolding After years of changes in his relationship with his son. rapprochement, the Ghost Empire is a revelation: a beautifully relationship between written ode to a lost civilisation, and a Russia and the West is warmly observed father-son adventure far more strained now than it from home. has ever been in the past 25 years. In this new work, Russia’s elder statesman Writing Mikhail Gorbachev draws on his wealth of knowledge and experience to critique the performance and motives of the Putin regime, RELEASE THE BATS as well as wider problems in the region and DBC Pierre the world. The New Russia stands as a Faber. PB. $27.99 testament to one of the greatest and most Available 1 August influential statesmen of the twentieth century. When DBC Pierre burst onto the scene in 2003, FAR AND AWAY: he arrived with no REPORTING FROM THE particular literary BRINK OF CHANGE education. Finding he had something to say, Andrew Solomon he made the journey Chatto & Windus. PB. $35 solo to that place where Available 15 August dreams and demons In 1991 Andrew Solomon live, to try and turn rode a tank into Red feelings into words. Part biography, part Square in Moscow with a reflection and part practical guide, Release band of Russian protesters. the Bats explores the mysteries of why and In 2002 he was in how we tell stories, and the craft of writing Afghanistan following the fiction. DBC Pierre reveals everything he fall of the Taliban; in 2014 learned the hard way. 16 READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2016

Food & Gardening BEEF AND POTATOES Art & Design THE LEGACIES OF Jean-Francois Mallet BERNARD SMITH with Chris Gordon Murdoch. HB. $49.99 with Margaret Snowdon Jaynie Anderson Available 1 August Power. PB. $39.99 ALIMENTARI Ah, the meal of gods, of BRETT WHITELEY: Available 1 August Linda Malcolm & Paul Jones hungry workers, pregnant ART, LIFE AND THE Bernard Smith’s influence Hardie Grant. PB. $39.99 women, children all over OTHER THING on Australian cultural life Available 1 August and the main stays of every Ashleigh Wilson was immense, from the Alimentari literally carnivore cook across the Text. HB. Was $49.99 publication of Place, Taste means ‘good food and world. There are over 200 $44.99 and Tradition in 1945 until camaraderie’ and that is recipes in this book that centre just on two Available 1 August his death in September 2011. key ingredients: think roast beef sandwiches, just what is celebrated at The young Brett Whiteley Each of his publications olive oil chips, beef and gravy pies, and the adored cafes in arrived in Europe in 1960 nurtured an Antipodean view, whether art warming boeuf bourguignon. Presented Fitzroy. Full of classic determined to make an historical or anthropological, and opened up with an eye for art and humour this book cafe choices and The impression. Before long he new fields in Australian scholarship. The seems to me the complete accolade for the Very Best Sandwiches in was the youngest artist to Legacies of Bernard Smith arises from a most basic of delicious food. Jean-Francois Melbourne, Alimentari recipes are perfect have work acquired by the collaborative international conference Mallet studied at the renowned culinary arts for sharing and entertaining. It’s where Tate. After failing to break convened in 2012 between the Universities of school Ferrandi in Paris, and worked for Mediterranean meets Middle Eastern, so through in New York, he Melbourne and Sydney, and Art Gallery NSW. several of France’s top chefs before he think incredible salads, those sandwiches returned to Sydney where he soon became It is the most significant work on Smith’s became a food photographer and pulled and easy one pot dinners for entertaining or Australia’s most celebrated artist. Written impact to date, with over twenty contributing together this testimony to simple fare. for the family. If you love Ottolenghi, or the with unprecedented behind-the-scenes authors, and examines his legacies in dishes in Community, then this is your next access, and handsomely illustrated with Australian art history, museology, Pacific art source of inspiration. Beautifully presented PORNBURGER classic Whiteley artworks, rare notebook studies, Australian studies and Indigenous art. with photographs of café life, this book is a Mathew Ramsey sketches and candid family photos, this treasure for those wanting some easy Murdoch. HB. $39.99 dazzling biography reveals for the first time NEW DEAL PHOTOGRAPHY charm in their kitchen. It’s the type of book Available 1 August the full portrait of a mercurial artist. Peter Walther that makes you want to collect old Our obsession with eating Taschen. HB. $49.99 decorated tins and beautiful plates and the perfect burger is not REIGNING MEN: FASHION Available 1 August team with salads full of grains, colour and new. I learnt some time ago, IN MENSWEAR 1715–2015 The United States Farm sprigs of herbs. Alimentari could also mean: that it’s not about the place, Takeda, Spilker & Esguerra Security Administration this is Melbourne at its best. but the people you are with. So making the LACMA & Prestel. HB. $95 hired a number of perfect burger always seems the most Available now photographers to document MY YEAR WITHOUT MEAT sensible way to go. Clearly I’m not alone the lives of America’s rural This delightful book is Richard Cornish because Pornburger man Ramsey has a huge poor from 1935 to 1943. from the Los Angeles MUP. PB. $29.99 following (2,400,000 visitors) on his blog, This book records the full County Museum of Art Available 1 August (pornburger.me) about tasty burgers to be. reach of the FSA program, honouring its exhibition, which draws on There are recipes in this This collection is an extension of the craze vigour and commitment across subjects, their world-class collection book but not many and and gives you guidance for 80 pretty insane states, and stylistic preferences. Featuring the of textiles and costumes. It they are at the very end of sounding burgers. There are vegetarian work of Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, is so unusual to see such a this tale. My Year Without options, sweet and savoury options and all Marion Post Wolcott, Jack Delano, Russell sumptuous book on the history of men’s Meat examines what it with seriously outrageous names and a Lee and Ben Shahn, what unites all of the fashion – prepare to be dazzled not only by the meant to food writer collection of ingredients that could/would/ pictures is a commitment to the individuality original clothes and accoutrements, but also Richard Cornish to become should knock your socks off. This is not a and dignity of each subject. the satisfying juxtapositions with a vegetarian for a short book about ‘sliders’, this is a book about the contemporary outfits from the likes of amount of time. It is a rumination on eating unadulterated joy of a meal in a bun. Vivienne Westwood, Gucci, Marithe and THE NEW PAVILIONS ethically, it’s a bow to vegetables and an Francois Girbaud and Issey Miyake. Philip Jodidio insight into the life of a food journalist. As MILK MADE T&H. HB. $55 many of you know, Richard Cornish is Nick Haddow RENÉ MAGRITTE: Available 1 August hilarious and this book is full of laugh-out- Hardie Grant. HB. $55 Pavilions have many forms loud moments, but in equal measure it SELECTED WRITINGS Available 1 August and as many functions: accurately explores how and why Kathleen Rooney & Eric Plattner Straight from the romance of tents, bandstands, displays Australians consume food the way we do. Alma. HB. $39.99 another type of lifestyle, Nick – places for sitting, listening, My Year Without Meat is the opposite of a Available 1 August Haddow is the founder of Bruny seeing and being seen. didactic tale about the need to eat grains Available for the first time Island Cheese. The poor bloke They present unique and greens, but rather a journalist’s insight in English, this selection has had to travel through opportunities for architects and designers to into our meat industry. This book is an gives non-Francophone Europe, the US and Australia to meet and learn experiment with form, structure, surface, important contribution to those that wish readers the chance to from cheese makers. Here he shares the good, texture, construction and materials, and can to live better, longer and greener. encounter the many the bad and the ugly. The result is an be prototypes for larger buildings or purely incarnations of renowned encyclopaedia of cheese: how to eat it, store it artistic pursuits and play. The New Pavilions Belgian painter Rene THE NATURAL COOK and make it. Amongst others, there are recipes presents a selection of the best and most Magritte in his own words. Matt Stone for fondue, pizzas and saag. Then there are the exciting examples produced in recent years. Through whimsical personal letters, biting Murdoch. PB. $39.99 stories behind the cheeses and their makers. Each pavilion featured provides a lesson in apologia, appreciations of fellow artists, Available 1 August All of this knowledge is bound in a beautiful the extreme possibilities of built form and pugnacious interviews, farcical film scripts, Matt Stone is one of my book with stunning photos. I like it mostly demonstrates that many of the biggest ideas prose poems, manifestos and much more, heroes in the Melbourne because it shows far Australian cheeses have in architecture start small. food scene. I first saw come on the international market. the artist emerges as part Surrealist, part him in action when he literalist, part celebrity and part rascal. THE MELBOURNE opened the Greenhouse THE GREAT AUSTRALIAN FASHION + MUSIC STREET ART GUIDE with Joost Bakker; this BEER GUIDE Ewan McEoin & Din Heagney was a remarkable pop up Katie Baron James Smith T&H. PB. $29.99 restaurant that worked hard to reuse, LK. HB. $65 Hardie Grant. HB. $29.99 Available 1 August recycle and throw nothing away. It was Available 1 August Available 1 August This is the essential reference to fantastic, really, to imagine what our world From the Sex Pistols to Beer is a big international Melbourne’s dynamic street-art could be if we all lived like that. This book Madonna, Kylie Minogue to business, and Australia is scene. Focused on the art, is an illustration of how to live that dream, Lady Gaga, fashion has kicking goals all over the politics, people and places that step-by-step, and create food that is consistently amplified our world. There are now over make Melbourne an undisputed delicious, beautiful and completely understanding of the band 300 brewing companies hotspot for street art and seasonal. It’s all about using local foods, (and in many cases the operating in Australia producing a range of graffiti, this highly illustrated book delves into and using every last bit of each ingredient. brand) – fuelling the fantasy beer only ever seen before in Europe. This the inner worlds of the artist, collector and There are tricks and treats for those that and adding depth to artists’ wider agendas. book takes your hand and walks you curator to provide a holistic picture of want to bottle, ferment and steam, craft From pop videos to editorial shoots, through through the maze of options. Of course if contemporary Melbourne street art practice stock and sauces and dishes for sharing. some of the industry’s most significant you wanted to start your own backyard today. Maps for self-guided tours reveal where Stone says, ‘Start where you are, use what pairings/collaborations, this book focuses on venture, you’ll also find the information for to go and what to see, while short essays, you have, do what you can.’ Owning this the power of fashion as a make-or-break tool making whatever your taste buds desire – interviews and profiles provide an invaluable book would get you off the starting block. within the music industry’s creative process. beer-wise, that is. set of tools for any street art connoisseur. READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2016 17

New Young Adult Fiction year on, the Muslim New Year of Muharram gives promise to hope and new beginnings. See books for kids, junior and middle readers on pages 18–19 Natalie Platten is from Readings Malvern

Young Adult Book of the Month A STEP TOWARDS FALLING Cammie McGovern THE BOUNDLESS SUBLIME PanMac. PB. $16.99 Available 26 July Lili Wilkinson Emily has always tried to A&U. PB. $19.99 do the right thing – until Available 1 August one night when she does I’m always excited when Lili Wilkinson has a new novel, and the worst thing possible. after absolutely loving her last book, Green Valentine, I was keen She sees Belinda, a to see what she had in store for us. classmate with After an accident splits Ruby’s family apart, she feels like she is developmental barely alive. Ordering take-away meals for her depressed mother and disabilities, being attempting to turn up to school leaves Ruby wondering if things can ever get better. Can attacked. Inexplicably, she get out of the fog that has been following her since the accident? And can she ever she does nothing at all. Belinda manages to forgive her father and herself for what happened? save herself. When their high school finds out When Ruby initially spots Fox handing out bottles of water on a street corner, she what happened, Emily and Lucas, who was thinks she has seen an angel. He’s beautiful, and he seems to have spotted Ruby as well. also there that night, are required to perform As the two get to know each other, Ruby discovers that Fox belongs to a small community community service at a centre for disabled called the Institute of the Sublime and that he must leave Ruby to go back to live at the people. But can they do anything that will Institute. Feeling like life as it is isn’t going to get better, Ruby decides to follow Fox to the actually help the person they hurt most? Institute where she is welcomed with open arms. But before long, Ruby discovers that the Institute of the Sublime isn’t what she initially thought and that there is a much more THE BAD DECISIONS sinister side to the community. PLAYLIST The Boundless Sublime is definitely a different type of novel for Wilkinson, leaving behind the more happy-go-lucky stories she has written in the past and bringing a more Michael Rubens serious, dark novel to her audience. While I enjoyed the writing and the idea of the cult, I Penguin. PB. $19.99 found parts slightly far-fetched and didn’t feel as connected to her characters as I have in Available 1 August the past. However, this is a gripping story and the interesting twist kept me intrigued ’til A stranger rolls into the end. For ages 14 and up. town and everything changes for Austin Katherine Dretzke is a friend of Readings Methune. The stranger turns out to be his father, presumed dead, DRAG TEEN PROMISING AZRA and his father turns out Jeffery Self Helen Thurloe to be Shane Tucker, a Scholastic. HB.$24.99 A&U. PB. $19.99 big-time musician – just Available 1 August Available 1 August the role Austin wants for himself. But Austin has a long history of getting himself Drag Teen is a Helen Thurloe’s in trouble. And he’s in deep trouble really fun novel. Promising Azra is a now – the deepest ever. Perhaps Austin Unusually, and quite powerful human- has inherited more than talent from refreshingly, this is not a interest story. This work Shane, who also does drugs, screws up, coming-out novel, but casts a spotlight on the and drops out. rather a novel about clandestine practise of self-acceptance and forced marriage of body image. JT, a queer young women living in THE DIARY OF WILLIAM teen with secret conservative sectors of SHAKESPEARE, aspirations of drag queendom, just wants to the Australian Muslim community. GENTLEMAN get out of his tiny town and away from his For sixteen-year-old Azra Ajmal, a Jackie French parents, who don’t seem to be particularly first generation Australian of Pakistani HarperCollins. PB. $16.99 concerned about him at all. The ideal heritage, her personal ambition is to excel Available 1 August solution is, of course, to go away to college, academically. Her immediate concern is to Part comedy, part love but he has no money and misses out on the convince her parents to grant her permission story, the threads of scholarship he applies for. Enter boyfriend to compete in a national science competition. Shakespeare’s life can be Seth with a radical idea: JT and Seth, along Azra’s family adhere to strict Islamic drawn from his plays. He with bestie Heather, will go on a road trip to traditions where the honour of the family was a boy who escaped New York so that JT can compete in the is valued higher than that of the individual. small-town life to be the Miss Drag Teen Scholarship Pageant. JT Her uncle, Zarar Ajmal, the patriarchal head most acclaimed loves drag, but the one time he tried it he of her extended family, assumes control playwright of the land. A was booed off stage. over their lives. Azra doesn’t realise it but lover whose sonnets still Drag Teen certainly contains important her academic aspirations are about to be sing 400 years later; a glover’s apprentice themes about acceptance and self- overridden by a family pact to marry her to a who became a gentleman. The world knows confidence, but honestly, this is not a cousin in Pakistan. the name of William Shakespeare. This book serious book. This is a sweet, sparkly bite Azra’s innocence and naivety makes reveals the man – lover, son and poet. of fairy-floss of a book and I thoroughly her struggle against this arranged marriage enjoyed every moment of it. There are and the certain conflict this would cause THE MEMORY BOOK road trip high jinks, big-city dramas and so with her family nerve-racking to witness. Lara Avery many RuPaul’s Drag Race references I’m The penalty for her defiance would be Quercus. PB. $17.99 not entirely convinced that the book isn’t banishment from the family home and a Available 26 July Self’s written application to the show. It’s future living in hiding as protection against a really great examination of drag culture an honour attack against her. Faced with an Samantha McCoy has it that highlights everything good about the impossible choice, either decision brings all mapped out. First world whilst still touching on the darker with it great personal sacrifice. she’s going to win the side of rivalries. There’s a smattering of There is a symmetry to the structure of national debating relationship drama to keep the tension up, the work that accords with the significance championship, then but the bulk of the story is focused on JT’s of the Muslim calendar. The work opens she’s going to move to own journey. Such fun, and it has all my during Rajab, when conflict is forbidden New York and become a favourite things: road trip novel + sassy and there is a period of calm in Azra’s human rights lawyer. drag queens + a Dolly Partonesque fairy family experience. As the work moves But when Sam discovers dragmother = a very happy reviewer. I felt into Sha’ban, the month of separation, we that a rare disease is going to take away her supremely pandered to and I loved every see Azra shunned by her family for her memory, the future she’d planned so minute of it. Also, I now really want to hang independence. The month of Ramadan that perfectly is derailed before it starts. out with Jeffery Self. follows is a holy time of celebration and her Realising her life won’t wait to be lived, Sam sets out on a summer of firsts. Isobel Moore is from Readings St Kilda family plan her imminent wedding. But, one 18 READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2016

colourful picture book that celebrates cooking and Picture Books friendship. Adorable little Sweet Petite, who is a guinea pig, Junior Fiction loves cakes and fashion but she wants a friend to share FABISH: THE HORSE THAT these fun things with – but where to find one? Whoops, LUCY BRAVED A BUSHFIRE what has she tripped over? An egg! Better keep it warm, Randy Cecil Neridah McMullin & Andrew McLean (illus.) Sweet Petite. Candlewick. HB. $24.99 A&U. HB. $24.99 You can probably guess what happens next. Children Available 1 August Available 1 August will love Sweet Petite and they could help with the making Lucy is a handsome book that of any of the three cake recipes interwoven into the story. This is a true story from the occupies a space between picture Bright and happy fun for kids age 2 and up. AD Black Saturday bushfires in book and novel with lovely, soft 2009, written from the perspective of ADA’S IDEAS: THE STORY OF ADA duotone illustrations. a brave trainer, John Evett, and a Set in a quaint little town, this courageous horse, Fabish. LOVELACE, THE WORLD’S FIRST book chronicles the daily routines of An ex-racehorse, Fabish’s retirement COMPUTER PROGRAMMER a scrappy, energetic homeless pup; role was to look after the young horses (known as Fiona Robinson the kind young girl who sneaks her breakfast sausage to the dog; and her father, a skilled but yearlings) out in a back paddock. That fateful summer Abrams. HB. $24.99 erratic juggler. The moments when their stories unite when a hot wind brought fire to the property, the trainer Available 1 August become catalysts for a warm and fulfilling ending. opened the paddock gate and told Fabish to take the seven Ada Lovelace was the daughter It’s a lovely book to read with children who are moving yearlings to safety. While the trainer kept the racehorses of the poet Lord Byron and away from picture books or for independent readers aged in the barn all night, Fabish and the yearlings survived Anna Isabella Milbanke, a 6–9 years. surrounded by fire. This remarkable story is written mathematician. Her parents with an ear for the sound of language, and the paintings separated when she was young Kim Gruschow is from Readings Hawthorn by Andrew McLean of the horses and the landscape are and her mother insisted on a breathtaking. It is suitable for readers aged 5 and up, logic-focused education, MARGE IN CHARGE particularly in a classroom setting where you can discuss rejecting Byron’s mad love of poetry, but Ada remained Isla Fisher bushfire and its impact upon humans and animals. fascinated with her father and considered mathematics Piccadilly. PB. $14.99 Angela Crocombe is from Readings Carlton poetical science. She became involved in programming a Available 1 August precursor to the computer, thus becoming the world’s first Jemima and Jake’s new babysitter HERE COMES MR POSTMOUSE computer programmer. This is a compelling portrait of a doesn’t look too promising. In fact she Marianne Dubub woman who saw the potential for numbers to make art. looks very sensible, very old and very Book Island. HB. $26.95 small. But the moment their parents Available now ALL MY TREASURES: A BOOK OF JOY leave the house, Marge gives a wink, Jo Witek & Christine Roussey (illus.) takes off her hat and reveals a Follow Mr Postmouse on his fun marvellous mane of rainbow-coloured postal delivery, meet a variety of Abrams. HB. $21.99 hair! Marge is a babysitter like no other hilarious animal characters and Available 1 August and the children spend a wild evening explore their crazy habitats in a When a girl receives a beautiful with her. But if Jake and Jemima want her to babysit wonderful picture book full of the porcelain box from her again, they’ll need to take charge of Marge. absurdity and silliness children love. grandmother, she immediately Did you know rabbits grow carrots on wants something special to put the roof, that they sleep in bunk beds inside it. But what could it be? and have special rabbit toilets? Did you know bats have What does she love best? She loves Middle Fiction jumping in puddles on rainy days, beds on the ceiling? And wait until you see the inside of BELLE AND SEBASTIEN: CHILD OF Madame Dung Fly’s house. These and other wonders are blowing bubbles in the park and illustrated in a free and uninhibited, childlike fashion. watching her little sister’s first steps. As it turns out, life’s THE MOUNTAINS This is a picture book children (and adults) will love most precious treasures cannot be contained in a box! Cecile Aubry to pore over again and again; it’s full of hidden pictorial Beautifully packaged and hiding surprises, this story Alma. PB. $15.99 jokes – the more you look the more you see! reminds us to take pleasure in everyday moments. Available 1 August Athina Clarke is from Readings Malvern The son of a Gypsy, Sebastien is found as a baby in the Alps and MY BROTHER Nonfiction brought up by Guillaume and his Dee Huxley, Oliver Huxley & Tiffany Huxley grandchildren. Born on the same day, METROPOLIS Belle is a beautiful Pyrenean Working Title. HB. $24.99 Benoit Tardif Mountain Dog who has been Available now Big Picture. HB. $29.99 neglected and passed from owner to I was very moved by this Available 1 August owner, until one day she escapes poignant and beautiful book.The Yet another beautiful from a kennel. When Sebastien pages are haunted by a longing so illustrated nonfiction book rescues Belle from the wrath of the intense that you feel privileged to be from Big Picture Press, Metropolis villagers, the two form a lifelong friendship, embarking included as you read. takes the reader on a trip to thirty- on adventures together in the mountains. A gentle, sad creature has lost his two of the world’s greatest cities. brother and as he searches in places Whilst offering little in the way of BICYCLING TO THE MOON that bring to mind an Escher painting, Timo Parvela & Virpi Talvitie (illus.) his eventual outlook about his loss changes from despair to straightforward factual information Gecko. PB. $15.99 an understanding of what his brother and he shared. This and instead relying on stunning Available 1 August is an elegy to a lost sibling and as an adult your belief is that visuals to convey detail, this is a he’s died but children will take their own meaning from really fun and exquisite book to look over and makes This is the story of an odd it. The production of this story was a family affair and the comparing similarities and differences between cities couple, Barker the dog and overwhelming feeling is that there has been a profound loss vastly enjoyable. I loved the inclusion of a lot of modern Purdy the cat, and their whimsical for the Huxleys and that Dee Huxley, who is a well known architecture, and laughed at how many types of doughnuts adventures. An irrepressible visionary, children’s author and illustrator, has put her heart and soul into and bagels were included! There’s a lot of humour within Purdy is imaginative, impulsive, the pictures. A tender exploration of loss for 4 years and up. the pages that makes for a great family read-together. fanciful and dreamy! Barker is hardworking, loyal, tireless, and Alexa Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn Isobel Moore is from Readings St Kilda devoted to making Purdy’s impossible SWEET PETITE PANDAMONIA ideas come true. But Purdy thinks big. So when Purdy dreams of going to the moon by bike, Poh Ling Yeow & Sarah Rich (illus.) Chris Owen & Chris Nixon (illus.) Barker has his work cut out for him. Will Purdy make it to Hardie Grant. HB. $24.99 Fremantle Arts Centre Press. HB. $24.99 the moon? Will Barker find a way? Available now Available now This is a beautifully illustrated little book with quirky Past MasterChef contestant When you visit the zoo, whatever characters and hilarious stories. But at its wonderful core turned cooking-show you do, don’t wake the panda! Read it’s about the joys and challenges of friendship with all its presenter Poh Ling Yeow needs no along and join in the fantastic fun inevitable conundrums. I loved this wonderful duo and introduction.Now, with her good when one grumpy (and tired!) their countless exploits! friend and illustrator, Sarah Rich, panda is woken up by unsuspecting Highly recommended for confident independent she has turned her talents to the zoo visitors with unexpected readers (both boys and girls who enjoy a challenge) aged 7 world of children’s books. The results. Who knew a sleepy panda would set off a frenzy and up; an ideal read aloud the family will enjoy! AC outcome is this delightfully of wild partying? READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2016 19

Book of the Month

WELCOME TO COUNTRY Aunty Joy Murphy & Lisa Kennedy (illus.) Black Dog. HB. $24.99 Available 1 August New Finally, Melbourne has its very own picture book celebrating the original inhabitants of the city – the Wurundjeri people. Welcome to Country is a spectacular celebration of Indigenous land and culture that takes us through a beautiful Wominjeka (welcome) ceremony which gives yannabil (visitors) permission to enter traditional lands. Each community has its own way of welcoming to country, but in this book we learn about the tree sacred to the Wurundjeri – the River White Gum. We also learn of the creator spirit, Bunjil the eagle. The story has been written by well-respected Senior Wurundjeri Elder, Aunty Kids’ Joy Murphy. The stunning illustrations by Lisa Kennedy are painted acrylic depictions of waterways, night skies, native flora and fauna of the area, and images of the ancestors around campfires, gathering food and celebrating. Welcome to Country is a resoundingly beautiful book that invites us to recognise the traditional lands that lie beneath our feet and to celebrate local Indigenous culture. This book belongs on every home bookshelf and in every library so that all Australians can learn about and respect the cultural importance of a welcome Books to country.

Angela Crocombe is from Readings Carlton

THE STUPENDOUSLY SPECTACULAR SPELLING BEE Deborah Abela Random. PB. $14.99 THE UNCOMMONERS: THE Available 1 August CROOKED SIXPENCE India Wimple can spell. Brilliantly. Every Jennifer Bell Friday night, she and her family watch Corgi. PB. $17.99 the Stupendously Spectacular Spelling Available 1 August THE INVENTORY: IRON FIST Bee. When the Wimples suggest she enter, India says she’s not good enough, but her Ivy and Seb’s grandmother, Sylvie, Andy Briggs family won’t hear it and encourage her to has a mysterious past. She lost her Scholastic. PB. $15.99 sign up. There are plenty of obstacles to memory long ago in a car accident and Available 1 August remembers nothing about her life prior to reaching the finals, especially with Dev is stuck in sleepy little that night. Then one day, Sylvie ends up in Summer Millicent Ernestine Beauregard-Champion, a Edderton and he hates it. He has no hospital and Ivy and Seb get sucked into spoilt rich girl who is determined to win and isn’t afraid friends (even though he’s secretly the world of the Uncommoners. to step on anyone who gets in her way. intrigued by karate-kicking cool girl Lot), This is an assured debut, with full and he’s a constant target of Mason, the and confident world-building. Ivy is a very appealing school bully. Even the fact that his uncle protagonist and the adventure is a lot of fun, but also is in charge of The Inventory – a top- surprisingly scary in parts! I was on the edge of my seat secret, underground bunker full of Classic of the Month and absolutely raced through this book. Thankfully, it’s amazing inventions – isn’t much of a consolation prize, the start of a new series, so I’ll have more Ivy and Seb to THE SECRET GARDEN since Dev isn’t allowed to touch any of them. Though that sate me in the future. Frances Hodgson Burnett doesn’t stop him from taking the HoverBoots for a spin Puffin. PB. $14.99 Isobel Moore is from Readings St Kilda every now and then. Available 1 August After Lot and Mason pay Dev a surprise visit, The YONG: THE JOURNEY OF AN Inventory also receives a few more unwanted guests: a Frances Hodgson Burnett’s tender UNWORTHY SON gang of expert thieves hoping to infiltrate the bunker and wisdom has endured for over a century in The Secret Garden, a heartfelt Janeen Brian steal a piece of technology called the Iron Fist. Now Dev, tale that follows the life-changing Walker. PB. $16.99 Lot and Mason will have to outwit the thieves to stop the friendships of three children. Beginning Available 1 August Iron Fist from falling into the wrong hands. This is an action-packed read full of explosions, dramatically with the sudden death of Award-winning author Janeen Brian hacking and literal cliff-hangers that readers 10 and up ten-year old Mary Lennox’s parents, has based 13-year-old Yong’s will race through. Mary is then taken to the windswept incredible journey on real incidents of the moors of Yorkshire to live with her Uncle Archibald Craven Holly Harper is the online children’s specialist 1850s; famine forced many Chinese to seek in his expansive manor. their fortune in the goldfields of Ballarat. Burnett weaves an atmosphere of enchantment and Yong’s reluctant expedition to the THE 78 STOREY TREEHOUSE intrigue: strange cries filter down dark corridors leading goldfields is a long and harrowing ordeal Andy Griffiths & Terry Denton (illus.) to a forbidden room; a buried key unlocks a hidden door of bigotry, corruption, exploitation and PanMac. PB. $14.99 revealing a mysterious garden. With the help of an ethereal death. He’s also trapped in an unenviable dilemma of having Available 9 August robin redbreast and an endearing twelve-year-old animal- to guard his family’s honour and also an important secret; Join Andy and Terry in their spectacular charmer, secrets are uncovered, gardens blossom, and ultimately it’s a life or death decision. But Yong’s courage new 78-storey treehouse. They’ve added hearts flower. and adaptability in the face of such adversity is inspiring. 13 new levels including a drive-through As an adult I love the novel’s rich symbolism and The story explores many challenging themes: families car wash, a combining machine, a psychological insight, but as a child I was drawn to its torn apart by the forces of history, the clash of cultures, scribbletorium, an all-ball sports stadium, alchemical world. The Secret Garden not only describes and the challenges of ancient people in an alien land. Andyland, Terrytown, a high-security magical events, it redefines what magic is and that, to me, Recommended for dedicated readers of historical potato chip storage facility and an is its greatest charm. fiction – boys and girls ages 9 years and up. open-air movie theatre. Well, what are Carrie Croft is from Readings Hawthorn Athina Clarke is from Readings Malvern you waiting for? Come on up! 20 READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2016

CEZANNE: SUSPICIOUS Mozart’s music and challenging myths If the Iliad is the world’s greatest war A LIFE MINDS surrounding the composer, including those epic, The Odyssey is literature’s grandest about his health, religion and relationships. evocation of an everyman’s journey through Alex Danchev Joel Gold & Ian Gold life. Odysseus’ reliance on his wit and HB. Was $59.95 HB. Was $59.95 THE ULTIMATE wiliness for survival in his encounters with Now $19.95 Now $14.95 VEGETARIAN divine and natural forces during his ten- With brisk intellect, What if you woke up COLLECTION year voyage home to Ithaca after the Trojan rich documentation, and eighty-eight under the suspicion that you were being War is at once a timeless human story and Alison & Simon Holst colour and fifty-two black-and-white watched? Exploring the major categories of an individual test of moral endurance. illustrations, Danchev tells the story of delusion through fascinating case studies HB. Was $45 Now $19.95 an artist who was originally considered and marshaling the latest research in An inspiring collection with over ONE GOOD DISH a madman, a barbarian, and a sociopath. 400 recipes, this is the cookbook that schizophrenia, the Gold brothers reveal David Tanis From his teenage years to his first the role of culture and the social world in vegetarians have been waiting for. The HB. Was $44.95 exhibition at fifty-six, the book features the development of psychosis. Suspicious Ultimate Vegetarian Collection includes Now $14.95 a remarkable series of Cezanne s self- Minds presents a groundbreaking new every option under the sun from finger In this, his first non-menu portraits, reproduced in full color. This is a vision of just how dramatically our foods and snacks to desserts and cookbook, the New York biography not to be missed. surroundings can influence our brains. sweets. There is also useful information on Times food columnist offers 100 utterly vegetarian pantry staples, explanations of delicious recipes that epitomise comfort GIAP THE cooking techniques and a comprehensive food, Tanis-style. Individually or in James A. Warren weights and measures section. AUSTRALIAN combination, they make perfect little meals HB. Was $34.95 Now VICTORIES IN that are elemental and accessible, yet totally $12.95 THE MORAL FRANCE IN 1918 surprising – and there’s something to learn In Giap, James A. ARC John Monash on every page. With one irrepressible chapter Warren brings to life the Michael Shermer HB. Was $32.99 after another, one perfect food moment after revolutionary General Vo Now $19.95 HB. Was $33.99 another: this is a book with recipes to crave. Nguyen Giap to reveal the groundbreaking Now $19.95 First published in 1920, The Australian strategies that defeated world powers Victories in France in 1918 immediately From Galileo and Newton THE DARK against incredible odds. Forever changing garnered glowing praise as one of to Thomas Hobbes and Lemony Snicket & modern warfare Giap was one of the first the most entertaining and Martin Luther King, Jr., John Klassen to realize that war is more than a series thinkers throughout history informative accounts of war HB. Was $29.95 Now $12.95 of battles between two armies and that have consciously employed ever written. It is now Lazlo is afraid of the dark. victory can be won through the strength of scientific techniques to recognised as one of The dark lives in the same a society’s social fabric. better understand the the most important house as Laszlo. Mostly, though, the dark non-physical world. records of World stays in the basement and doesn’t come into PARIS IN STYLE In this provocative War I, revealing Lazslo’s room. But one night, it does. This is Janelle McCulloch and compelling book, the critical role the story of how Laszlo stops being afraid of PB. Was $39.99 Shermer explains how Australians played Bargain the dark. With emotional insight and poetic Now $12.95 abstract reasoning, on the Western Front economy, two award-winning talents team Janelle McCulloch thought rationality, empiricism, through the eyes up to conquer a universal childhood fear. she knew most of the best of General Sir John Table skepticism - scientific places in Paris to stay, Monash, regarded the best ways of thinking - have THE ANATOMY wander and explore. But allied commander of WWI. profoundly changed the way the more time she spent there, the more we perceive morality and, indeed, OF VIOLENCE she realised how much there was still to TRACKS move us ever closer to a more just world. Adrian Raine discover. Paris in Style reveals this city’s HB. Was $59.95 Now $19.95 Robyn Davidson most surprising and fascinating fashion, LETS EXPLORE Why do some innocent PB. Was $20 Now $10 design and style destinations. It is the DIABETES kids grow up to become ultimate insider’s guide for travellers Now a major motion WITH OWLS cold-blooded serial killers? For more than picture, Tracks depicts three decades Adrian Raine has been seeking style, creative inspiration and David Sedaris unforgettable experiences. Robyn Davidson’s perilous researching the biological roots of violence HB. Was $39.95 journey across 1,700 miles and establishing neurocriminology. In The Now $12.95 RIVER COTTAGE of hostile Australian desert to the sea with Anatomy of Violence, Raine dissects the With David Sedaris, the possibilities are only four camels and a dog for company. criminal mind with a fascinating, readable, LIGHT AND EASY endless, but the result is always the same: An extraordinarily courageous heroine and far-reaching scientific journey into the Hugh Fearnley- he will both delight you with twists of emerges in Davidson driven by a love of body of evidence revealing the brain to be a Whittingstall humor and intelligence and leave you deeply Australia’s landscape, an empathy for its key culprit in crime causation. HB. Was $49.99 indigenous people, and a willingness to cast moved. In Lets Explore Diabetes with Owls, Now $19.95 away the trappings of her former identity. Sedaris remembers his father’s dinnertime JEWISH If you ever lack the time or inspiration attire (shirtsleeves and underpants), his first HOLIDAY to cook a nourishing meal after a WAR LETTERS colonoscopy (remarkably pleasant), and the COOKING hectic day, forget takeaways, ready OF GENERAL time he considered buying the skeleton of a meals or heavy bowls of pasta. Hugh MONASH murdered Pygmy. Jayne Cohen Fearnley-Whittingstall has delivered HB. Was $59.95 Now $19.95 John Monash 170 wholesome delights with zero QUEEN ANNE In Jewish Holiday Cooking, Jayne Cohen HB. Was $45 Now $19.95 compromise on taste for all occasions Anne Somerset shares a wide-ranging collection of traditional These extraordinary, and all of the recipes are dairy-free and HB. Was $59.95 Now $19.95 Jewish recipes, as well as inventive new wheat-free. Here, Fearnley-Whittingstall intimate letters from General Sir John Anne Somerset’s fascinating creations and contemporary variations on creates solutions to easy, healthy and Monash to his wife and daughter, record his new biography is a portrait of the classic dishes. More than just a cookbook, nourishing meals. experiences throughout World War I. This this fraught, complex bond this is the definitive guide to celebrating the edition contains newly discovered letters, between two very different women: Queen Jewish holidays. Cohen provides practical from landing at Gallipoli to leading decisive SHANNON Anne, reserved, stolid, shrewd; and Sarah advice and creative suggestions on everything battles on the Western Front. Monash BENNETT’S Churchill, beautiful, wilful and outspoken. from setting a Seder table with ritual objects writes with remarkable insight, providing FRANCE The book tells the extraordinary drama of to accommodating vegan relatives. one of the most moving personal accounts how Sarah provoked the Queen beyond Shannon Bennett ever written of an Australian soldier at war. PB. Was $34.99 endurance and how her replacement, Abigail TEN MILLION ALIENS Now $12.95 MOZART Masham, became the royal confidante and, Sarah publicly claimed to great scandal, the Simon Barnes Shannon Bennett, chef and owner of Paul Johnson internationally renowned restaurant object of the Queen’s sexual infatuation. HB. Was $49.95 Now $19.95 HB. Was $29.99 Now $14.95 Vue de monde, takes you on the journey Life on planet earth is not One of the world’s most of a lifetime as he explores the country THE ODYSSEY weirder than we imagine, it’s enduringly popular he adores: France. Shannon and friends Homer weirder than we are capable of imagining. musicians, Mozart had review all their favourites, from three-star HB. Was $45 Now $15.95 And we’re all in it together. This fascinating a profound influence on restaurants to local bistros, from luxury The great epic of Western scientific foray into the animal kingdom Western music and on his contemporaries hotels to rooms with a view. This unique literature translated examines how the world’s creatures—weird, such as Beethoven and Haydn. In this guide is the perfect place to start in the with the benefit of wonderful, and everything in between—are insightful look into Mozart’s work and country famous for its food. modern advances in inextricably linked. Ten Million Aliens will his profound influence on Western music, textual scholarship by Stephen Mitchell. open your eyes to the real marvels of the Johnson focuses on the importance of planet we live on. READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2016 21

New Film & TV LABYRINTH THE LAST OF LIES KINGDOM: with Lou Fulco Available 3 August. $29.95 SEASON 1 DVD of the Month ‘Alexander Fehling plays Available 4 August. a prosecutor whose eyes $39.95 OCCUPIED are opened to genocide… ‘The Last Kingdom takes Labyrinth of Lies is an $39.95 place in 9th century eye-opening story about the importance The North Sea is a cold and desolate place. Ice and snow and England during a time of conflict… the of seeking the truth - even when it’s focus on character motivation and thematic freezing cold seas await any one or thing foolish enough to complicated, ugly and buried beneath years depth making sure that the show is more cross its barren path. Things heat up, though, in the new of secrecy and deceit.’ – Washington Post than just an excuse to watch Vikings and Norwegian drama based on an idea by famed author Jo Nesbø. Englishmen rip each other apart.’ – AV Club The premise, without giving too much away, goes like this. In VICTORIA a not too distant future (this is definitely not science fiction!) the $29.95 DOCTOR ruling Greens party in Norway has developed a new clean energy ‘It’s incredible that called Thorium. This new energy deems fossil fuels obsolete. THORNE: director Sebastian All the oil and gas platforms in the North Sea and coal production are ceased and this SEASON 1 Schipper was able to Available 11 August. $34.95 progressive parliament is hailed for its environmentally friendly initiatives. shoot a film of more than two hours in one take… ‘Doctor Thorne is a minor ‘Heroes are born, friends become enemies, Victoria is suspenseful and engagingly canvas, compared with subversive, creating a surreal sense of Downton Abbey, but [Julian] enemies become friends, and help is hard to find.’ anything-goes. The performances are Fellowes packs a lot of charm and amusement great as the sinewy plot goes from darkly into its 160 minutes. Fellowes emphasises [Anthony] Trollope’s humour without Of course the EU, which relies on these fossil fuels, has something to say about that. absurd to dangerous.’ – Toronto Star shortchanging the melodrama, and the When talks stall, the EU sends in the Russians to act as negotiators and overseers. Tensions production [pays] tribute to an earlier era of escalate, parliaments backpedal and splinter, the press has a field day and ordinary people THE DAUGHTER British film and television.’ – New York Times come into the firing line. Heroes are born, friends become enemies, enemies become $39.95 friends, and help is hard to find. ‘Deeply involving and This 10-part series ends on a cliffhanger, so a second season is a lock. The cast is emotionally searing, Documentary brilliant and, though the story can often require you to suspend your disbelief, you cannot The Daughter [marks] a help but find yourself getting sucked in to its fast paced, never ending ride of highs and confident and profoundly lows. Another piece of superior television by those crafty Scandinavians. moving bigscreen debut PUTUPARRI Lou Fulco is from Readings Hawthorn for established [Australian] theatre AND THE director Simon Stone. Stone has drawn RAINMAKERS extraordinary work from his cast across the Available 3 August. $24.95 board, [delivering] a powerful, low-key yet ‘Nicole Ma’s rich, engrossing achingly intense reimagining of Ibsen’s The and rewarding documentary Film Wild Duck.’ – Variety gives us a sense of time that operates on many levels... political and personal, serious and light-hearted, and never less than THE FINEST EYE IN THE TV HOURS SKY striking to look at.’ – Sydney Morning Herald $24.95 $39.95 SOUND- ‘Based on the true ‘Dealing with that BOSCH: story of the sinking of most pressing issue SEASON 2 BREAKING the oil tanker the SS in modern warfare, $46.95 $39.95 Pendleton… if you need drones… Director ‘The pleasures of Bosch ‘Five years in the making, a midstrength shot Gavin Hood has are narrow but intense. [legendary producer of maritime heroics set against insanely achieved something few could – he made The attention to the George] Martin and inclement weather, this simple affair will what is essentially 100 minutes of people details of investigative his son Giles recruited do just nicely.’ – Herald-Sun standing in rooms and staring at screens work and the texture of cops’ lives is over 150 artists to share behind-the- incredibly compelling. It’s a master class impressive… No other current series is as scenes stories about the art of recording, in suspense.’ – News.com.au conversant with the images, the moods sampling in hip-hop, the art of the music and, sometimes, the clichés of Southern video…and Giorgio Moroder’s impact on California noir.’ – New York Times dance music.’ – Rolling Stone

EMBRACE August 4 (MA15+) HIGH RISE August 18 (MA15+) SUNSET SONG September 1 (M) When body image activist Taryn Brumfitt posted an unconventional Adapted from the acclaimed 1975 novel by J.G. Ballard, Tom Terence Davies’ intimate epic of hope, tragedy and love at the before-and-after photograph in 2013, it was seen by more than 100 Hiddleston stars as Dr. Robert Laing, the newest resident of a dawning of the Great War is based on the 1932 novel by Lewis million worldwide and sparked an international media frenzy. luxurious apartment in a high-tech concrete skyscraper. Life seems Grassic Gibbon. A young woman’s endurance against the hardships Brumfitt continues her crusade in her directorial debut exploring the like paradise, but as building flaws emerge the regimented social of rural Scottish life is told with gritty poetic realism by Britain’s global issue of body loathing. Funny, touching, at times gut strata begins to crumble and the building becomes a battlefield in a greatest living auteur and stars Agyness Deyn, Peter Mullan and wrenching but above all, life changing. literal class war. Co-starring Luke Evans, Sienna Miller, Jeremy Irons Kevin Guthrie. Group bookings & private screenings available, and Elisabeth Moss. ‘the story of one woman’s true grit, told without sentimentality’ visit our website for details ★★★★ The Guardian The New York Times

380 Lygon Street Carlton Melbourne’s home of quality arthouse and contemporary cinema cinemanova.com.au 22 READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2016

New Music electro-funk-boogie album Family Tree showcases a voice that can run the Jazz gamut from soaring soul pyrotechnics to Album of the Month heart-wrenching tenderness. A regular TOGETHER AT LAST performer with the Bamboos, Kylie has Don Burrows & drawn comparisons to Diana Ross and Julie Anthony CIVIL DUSK Sharon Jones, and her energy on stage is Bernard Fanning electric with a huge dose of boogie power, $21.95 $21.95 providing an absolute dance experience Together at Last Bernard Fanning – remember him? Powderfinger? enjoyed by crowds worldwide. celebrates a musical Tea & Sympathy? Well, it’s been a while, 11 years in fact, match made in heaven! since he wished us all well. 2005 was the year that Tea & APACHE Enjoy the collaboration of two Australian Sympathy was released to critical acclaim. The country folk- Aaron Neville greats, jazz icon Don Burrows and one of this country’s greatest voices of all time, Julie inspired album which spawned numerous singalong tunes was a $19.95 throwback to west coast ‘70s America, when the great singer-songwriters were sprouting Anthony, as they team up on this recording of Featuring a cast of peace and love – Jackson Browne, Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young, to name a few. 2013’s their performances together on stage. contributors and Departures, while not as successful, was an evolution for Fanning, incorporating horns and special guests, Apache, beats into his songwriting repertoire. the new album from Vinyl Specials ‘At once familiar and personal, this album will stay with you and upon multiple Grammy award-winner Aaron Neville – member of the world-renowned further listens will keep you thinking’ Neville Brothers and one of the most ON THE BEACH recognisable voices in American music Neil Young Fanning is back from a stint in Spain with a new collection of songs and a recording history – celebrates Neville’s 75th $44.95 studio in Byron Bay (where else) where, along with longtime collaborator Nick DiDia, birthday, as well as the 50th anniversary they have put the finishing touches on what could be his most important release to date. On The Beach is the fifth of his first number one single, ‘Tell It Behind the stripped back tunes on Civil Dusk are messages that resonate in all facets of life. studio album by Neil Like It Is.’ Whether you view these songs as being about love, family, friends, politics or the world in Young, released in 1974 general, Fanning has managed to capture images and messages that will leave a mark no and lauded by critics as matter how you interpret them. Country an album where Young ‘was saying goodbye He is clearly a deep thinker and an intelligent man who likes to look outside of the to despair, not being overwhelmed by it.’ box. On describing the album, Fanning says: ‘Sometimes, particular decisions appear to be This remastered reissue retains Young’s the most sensible or realistic path to take. A civil, pragmatic compromise. But the passage MIDWEST FARMER'S preference for rough, monitor mixes of of time reveals those decisions to have been flawed and to have far deeper and wide DAUGHTER songs rather than polished studio sound, ranging consequences than predicted at the time. We all live with the consequences of our Margo Price complementing the bluesy, meditative decisions but have daily things to attend to.’ $21.95 mood of the album. At once familiar and personal, this album will stay with you and upon further listens Margo Price’s debut will keep you thinking, as I’m sure was Fanning’s intention to begin with. album Midwest Farmer’s Daughter is Coming Soon Lou Fulco is from Readings Hawthorn pure Nashville country music – full of grit and pristine musicality THE COMPLETE TRIO drenched in real-life experience. With been remastered in 24-bit high resolution COLLECTION her stupefying voice that could tumble Pop & Rock sound. A special edition set with a DVD of Dolly Parton, buildings, and songs that have one foot live footage from the Rainbow Theater is Emmylou Harris & firmly planted in Nashville’s past and the LOUD HAILER also available. Linda Ronstadt other in the present day, Margo’s music 3CDs $39.95 Jeff Beck does all the talking. $21.95 GIVE A GLIMPSE OF Available 9 September WHAT YER NOT Dolly Parton, Linda On Jeff Beck’s new Folk & World album Loud Hailer, his Dinosaur Jr Ronstadt, and Emmylou Harris have three first in six years, the $21.95 careers unparalleled in music history. legendary guitarist Alt-rock legends 75TH BIRTHDAY Together they have sold over 200 million joins forces with singer Rosie Bones and Dinosaur Jr return CELEBRATION albums worldwide and performed for with their 11th album decades in front of countless fans around guitarist Carmen Vandenberg to combine Joan Baez Give a Glimpse of What the globe. This legendary album recorded fluid fretwork with topical lyrics, making the 2CDs $26.95 album a powerful statement about the love Yer Not. The sound is great and roaring 2CD+DVD $31.95 by the female country holy trinity is newly of power and the power of love. As he has with J Mascis’ psychedelic guitar touches, DVD $29.95 remastered for the three-disc set and while Murph’s drums pound like Fred throughout his 50-year career, Beck makes This live recording packing with rare and unreleased music. Flintstone’s feet, and Lou’s bass weaves the fantastically difficult sound effortless. showcases Joan back and forth between proggy melodicism MY WOMAN Baez’s 75th Birthday and post-core thug-hunch. Mascis’ VULNICURA LIVE Celebration concert, among friends in Angel Olsen songwriting continues to pursue confusion, New York on January 27, at New York’s $21.95 Björk isolation and miscommunication as its historic Beacon Theater. The special Available 2 September $19.95 main themes. Performed live with event honoured her legendary 50-plus Indie-folk star Angel the Alarm Will Sound TAKE HER UP TO MONTO years in music with an intimate, career- Olsen’s new album spanning live performance, featuring an My Woman swaps the & Heritage Orchestras, Róisín Murphy array of special guests including Jackson crunchier, blown-out production of her and critically acclaimed $21.95 artists The Haxan Cloak & Arca, Vulnicura Browne, Judy Collins, Emmylou Harris, previous work for songs that place her Róisín Murphy’s Take Live is the live version of Björk’s highly- Damien Rice, Paul Simon, Mavis Staples disarming, timeless voice is front-and- Her Up To Monto is an and more. center. Yet, the strange, raw power and acclaimed eighth studio album. The album which crackles album is made up of Björk’s favourite slowly unspooling incantations of her with wild invention. AN OLD MAN OF THE SEA previous efforts remain. An intuitively performances from her 2015 tour, including Flights of disco fancy, dark cabaret, the smart, warmly communicative and fearlessly all songs on Vulnicura plus some favourites sonorities of classic house and electronica, Seaman Dan generous record. from previous works. the joy and heartbreak of pure pop, torch $24.95 song drama, Take Her Up To Monto has Henry ‘Seaman’ Dan is IT'S TOO LATE TO STOP everything Murphy’s always done – but truly an old man of the SKELETON TREE NOW... seen afresh. sea – his style mixes Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds Van Morrison blues, hula, slow jazz, $19.95 2CDs $24.95, folk and Torres Strait Islander music, all Available 9 September 3CD+DVD $59.95 Soul & Funk sung with his velvety voice and unique musical phrasing. His latest album features Originally a performance Often cited as one new songs such as ‘Walking Frame Blues,’ based concept, Nick of the best live FAMILY TREE and ‘Hook, Line and Plastic,’ along with Cave & the Bad Seeds return with their 16th albums ever made, Kylie Auldist several ageless songs of the sea such as studio album, Skeleton Tree. Released in Van Morrison’s highly acclaimed 1973 $24.95 ‘Beyond the Reef.’ accompaniment with feature film One More concert album, compiled from eight sets Available 5 August Time With Feeling, the project is stark, fragile of live performances recorded at The Australian vocalist and raw, and a true testament to an artist Troubadour, the Santa Monica Civic extraordinaire trying to find his way through the darkness. Center and The Rainbow Theater, has Kylie Auldist’s new READINGS MONTHLY AUGUST 2016 23

New Classical Music LEGENDE: WORKS FOR LOBO: LAMENTATIONS TRUMPET AND PIANO Martin Baker & Alison Balsom Westminster Classical Album of the Month & Tom Poster Cathedral Choir Warner Classics. Hyperion. BRAHMS: LIEDER AND 9029598772. $19.95 CDA68106. $29.95 LIEBESLIEDER WALTZES ‘They make a lovely ‘Nothing will prepare listeners for the beauty of Lobo’s Andrea Rost, Magdalena Kožená, Matthew sound together…I Lamentations…this, for me, is as good as it Polenzani, Thomas Quasthoff enjoyed the sweetness of Balsom’s muted gets both in terms of performance and in DG. 4796044. $26.95 tone in the central Sarabande of the Françaix, and the way that even while terms of a school of polyphony beyond the In 2003, at the Verbier Festival in the Swiss Alps, four articulating brilliantly through Goedicke’s works of Victoria.’ singers with fabulously contrasting voices got together Concert-étude, she can make her lines sing’ – Gramophone Magazine with James Levine on piano to perform Brahms’ chamber – Gramophone Magazine music. Thirteen years later Deutsche Grammophon made the welcome decision to RE:WORKS release the performance onto CD. Among the singers was Czech mezzo-soprano THE ART OF THE GUITAR Various Magdalena Kožená who has already featured in one of my reviews this year (Monteverdi), Various Artists Decca. 4760544. and I’m happy to be praising her vocal gifts once again. Warner Classics. $21.95 ‘Brahms, later than both Schubert and Schumann, and therefore 2564645399. 2CDs. Over the last few $16.95 years, the lines composing in a slightly more ‘Romantic’ esthetic, had a knack for writing The guitar weaves its between classical and beautiful, luscious melodies.’ subtle and irresistible contemporary electronic music have been magic in each of the 35 tracks on this blurred more than ever before. High-profile Brahms’ Liebeslieder Waltzes for four voices may not be in fashion – lieder these essential collection. Embracing composers orchestral collaborations from some of the days seems a more solitary, concert-hall pursuit than a community one – but unfairly so. from Vivaldi and Bach to the Spanish and scene’s leading figures have brought the According to the liner notes, Brahms referred disparagingly to his first set of Liebeslieder Latin American masters of the instrument, compatibility of these seemingly disparate as ‘trifles’. While some, such as ‘Rede, Mädchen, allzu liebes’ (‘Tell me, maiden dearest’), includes the entire Concierto de Aranjuez genres into sharp focus, opening doors to are at the lighter end of the lieder spectrum, they perfectly showcase the magnificent by Joaquín Rodrigo. Among the guitarists new avenues of musical exploration. On voices on this recording. Brahms, later than both Schubert and Schumann, and therefore featured are such players as Andrés this extraordinary recording the greatest composing in a slightly more ‘Romantic’ esthetic, had a knack for writing beautiful, Segovia, Julian Bream, Sharon Isbin, classical composers meet the world’s most luscious melodies. They’re certainly not an easy sing, and one can’t hide behind the Manuel Barrueco and Ángel Romero. innovative electronic music artists. voluptuous vocal line and rolling piano accompaniment. He requires his singers to mine the depths of their vocal range in one bar, and soar to great heights in the next. EARLY RECORDINGS MOZART’S LAST Take, for example, ‘Immer lieser wird mein schlummer’ (‘My slumbers grow lighter’). Martha Argerich SYMPHONIES A woman huddles in bed at night, waiting for her lover to arrive. With a vocal range DG. 4795978. $24.95 Richard Tognetti & of an eleventh, Kožená is stretched to her limits. She brings to the music drama and Australian vulnerability, and her steely tone cuts through the lush piano accompaniment. It’s a Martha Argerich’s Chamber Orchestra truly great interpretation. Thomas Quasthoff deserves a special mention for his stirring exhilarating early ABC Classics. 4812880. Sapphische Ode: his rich baritone will move even the hardest of hearts. recordings, released here for the first $21.95 Alexandra Mathew is from Readings Carlton time, include sonatas by Mozart and The Australian Chamber Beethoven that appear nowhere else in Orchestra, directed from the violin by her discography; Prokofiev’s Third Sonata Richard Tognetti, presents a triumphant SHOSTAKOVICH: SHOSTAKOVICH & is also a recording première. This set account of Mozart’s three final symphonies. PIANO TRIOS 1 & 2/ GLAZUNOV: displaying the young virtuoso includes This live recording captures the energy and VIOLA SONATA VIOLIN CONCERTOS her first recordings of Ravel’s Gaspard and vivacity of the performances given as part Vladimir Nicola Benedetti his Sonatine, as well as Prokofiev Seventh of the ACO’s 40th anniversary celebrations Ashkenazy Decca. 4788758. Sonata, full of mystery and verve. They in 2015 – concerts that were described as Decca. 4789382. $26.95 show her to be an eloquent and imaginative ‘magnificent’ by the Sydney Morning Herald $21.95 The always artist at the age of 18. and ‘miraculous’ by the Daily Telegraph. I begin with a talented Nicola confession: I Benedetti returns to OVERTURES FROM THE THE HAYDN ALBUM have listened to little the catalogue with a BRITISH ISLES VOL. 2 Australian Haydn of Shostakovich’s music, and am familiar recording of the historic Shostakovich Rumon Gamba & Ensemble with only his most famous compositions Violin Concerto and the lovely and BBC National ABC Classics. 4812806. such as The Gadfly and symphonies four underrated Glazunov Violin Concerto. The Orchestra of Wales $21.95 and five. I therefore knew not what to dark opening strains of the Shostakovich Chandos. CHAN10898. On their debut album, expect of his chamber music. Romance? concerto show his mental torment during $29.95 the Australian Haydn Sarcasm? Beauty? Shostakovich’s vast the 1940s, straight jacketed by the Russian ‘This most welcome Ensemble (AHE) champions three of the output over several decades covered a censorship at the end of World War II. second volume of British overtures serves finest and best-loved works by Joseph Haydn. A super-star group of musicians variety of styles, and the three works Premiered almost ten years after its initial to accentuate the sheer diversity of with a host of international experience, the presented here represent his permeable composition, it’s not just a triumph in works this country produced in the genre AHE is quickly establishing an international compositional technique. For this Russian composition but personal for between the 1890s and the 1940s and, reputation for its vivacious performances, experimentation he was denounced in Shostakovich in his inclusion in the DSCH moreover, where the lines of delineation between ‘serious’ and ‘light’ were blurred.... which are faithful to the sound-worlds that Pravda: ‘Muddle instead of Music,’ the theme (Dimitri Shostakovich). Benedetti What other riches, one wonders, will Haydn and his contemporaries would have infamous headline declared. with the Bournemouth Symphony inhabit Vol. 3?’ – Gramophone Magazine originally known. Case in point is the opening of the Orchestra brings out the depth of feeling finale of his second piano trio (1944), and occasional manic laughter found in composed mid-life and mid-career. IMOGEN COOPER'S this concerto, only then to switch into the Special of the Month Here, Shostakovich employed an overtly delightful Glazunov. An almost complete CHOPIN: WORKS FOR ‘Klezmer-like’ style – a bold choice for a contrast, this is has notes of sunlight and SOLO PIANO Soviet composer in the mid-1940s. And moments of true virtuosity from Benedetti. Imogen Cooper MOZART PORTRAITS I think that’s what appeals to me most I don’t know how I missed the Chandos. CHAN10902. about this music: Shostakovich’s tendency Cecilia Bartoli Shostakovich Violin Concerto No. 1, $29.95 to stick it to the man. By way of artistic Decca. 4757526. being such a devotee of his symphonies. ‘In the quieter lyrical expression he showed his support for the Was $16.95 Now $11.95 I cannot say that this will put a smile passages she finds a Jewish victims of World War II, at a time ‘There are relatively few on your face, it’s gut wrenching and rare poignancy that when few public figures spoke out for fear Italian mezzos, or sopranos will make your eyes water from the I find most affecting – and indeed it is of denunciation. I can assure you that for that matter, who sing a lot of Mozart, emotional outpouring in this work. The this element that is a constant feature of in the chamber music of Shostakovich, and Bartoli’s very Italian characteristics Glazunov is Russian quality and style and Cooper’s playing. She has always been performed so brilliantly by Vladimir are immediately identifiable: brilliance of perfect to finish this recording by those rightly lauded for her luminous, rich tone Ashkenazy and his fellow musicians, you execution, vitality of words, sharpness of with the true appreciation for Russian and it is deployed tellingly in Op. 61 and the will discover romance, sarcasm, beauty, mind. From the opening line Bartoli makes compositional genius. two late Nocturnes which follow.’ and more. AM other singers seem bland by comparison.’ – Gramophone Magazine Kate Rockstrom is a friend of Readings – Gramophone Magazine [1994]