FREE SEPTE MB ER 2 0 0 9 Readings Monthly your independent book, music and dVd newsletter • eVents • new releases • reViews E 9) G (SEE PA TINGS R READINGS AND W ILLUSTRATION BY JAMES GULLIVER HANCOCK FROM ILLUSTRATION Readings and Writings : Forty Years of Books p 2 September book, CD & DVD new releases. More new releases inside. FICTION AUST FICTION AUST POETRY POLITICS SCIENCE DVD POP CD CLASSICAL BOX SET SALE $39.95 $32.95 $24.95 $59.95 $49.95 $35 $29.95 $29.95 $29.95 >> p5 >> p4 >> p7 >> p9 >> p10 >> p16 >> p17 >> p19 September Event Highlights at Readings. See more events inside. JEFF LINDSAY PAUL KELLY, RICHARD TRACY CHEVALIER AT READINGS JULIA GILLARD LOWENSTEIN AT READINGS HAWTHORN & STEVE BRACKS & OLLIE OLSEN HAWTHORN AT CAPITOL THEATRE AT READINGS CARLTON All shops except SLV open 7 days. SLV closed Sundays. Carlton 309 Lygon St 9347 6633 Hawthorn 701 Glenferrie Rd 9819 1917 Malvern 185 Glenferrie Rd 9509 1952. Port Melbourne 253 Bay St 9681 9255 St Kilda 112 Acland St 9525 3852 State Library of Victoria 328 Swanston Street 8664 7540 email [email protected] Find information about our shops, check event details and browse or shop online at www.readings.com.au PRESHIL Q & A Achievement through being yourself Open minds. Preshil invites you to a unique opportunity to engage with a panel of teachers and guest Open dialogue. alumni in a special night about Preshil’s philosophy and educational approach. Open eyes. Open doors. THURSDAY OCTOBER 15 AT 7.30 PM THE KEVIN BORLAND HALL 395 BARKERS ROAD, KEW Private tours welcome. For appointments call 9817 6135 or visit www.preshil.vic.edu.au 2 Readings Monthly September 2009 From the Editor NOT THE VOGEL AWARD This Month’s News OSLO DAVIS JOINS For Australian aspiring writers, 35 is a READINGS MONTHLY landmark age. It’s the final year in which Readings is delighted to welcome cartoon- you can enter the country’s most prestigious ist and illustrator Oslo Davis to our pages, literary prize for an unpublished manuscript, starting this month. Oslo is the much- The Vogel Australian Literary Award, which loved creator of the 'Overheard' series in comes with guaranteed publication by Allen The Sunday Age's M Magazine and has also & Unwin and $20,000. In a welcome move – been published in The New York Times and and thanks to sponsorship from the Copy- elsewhere. See the bottom of page 5 every right Agency Limited (CAL) – Scribe has month for Oslo's bookish cartoon series. now announced the CAL Scribe Fiction Prize (with publication and $12,000 as a prize), for Readings’ Leanne HaLL Australian authors aged over 35. And it’s quite WINS TEXT PRIZE! deliberately ‘not the Vogel’. ‘For a number We’re all tremendously proud and excited of years it has concerned us that the Vogel to announce that Leanne Hall, children’s Prize is only for writers under 35,’ says Scribe specialist bookseller at Readings Carlton, has Fiction Acquisitions Editor Aviva Tuffield. ‘It won the 2009 Text Prize for Young Adult seems that many novelists, especially women, READINGS AND WRITINGS: and Children’s Writing for her young adult only find the time and have acquired the life whom had completed writing or publishing manuscript This is Shyness. Congratulations experience to write novels later in life.’ As FORTY YEARS IN BOOKS courses. Michael Williams, head of program- to Leanne from all of us. examples, she cites Elizabeth Jolley (first novel It’s not every aspiring editor who gets writers ming at Melbourne’s new Centre for Books at 53), Annie Proulx (won the PEN/Faulkner like Cate Kennedy and Alex Miller interested Writing and Ideas (and former editor at Text Publishing) was invited on board as co-editor, PORT MELBOURNE book award for her debut novel aged 58) in their project, but that’s what happened to BOOK CLUBS and Raymond Chandler, who published his Jason Cotter, editor and originator of Read- lending his considerable experience to the first short story aged 45. For entry forms and ings and Writings, an anthology celebrating project. ‘He was very keen and said he’d love Join us the second Tuesday of each month at information, visit http://www.scribepublica- Readings’ fortieth birthday. to do it regardless of our budget,’ recalls Cot- 6pm for a new book club at Port Melbourne, tions.com.au/prize. ter. Emma Schwarcz and Mary Small from Book Talk at Port. Focusing on a different ‘I was working in the warehouse with Mark Hardie Grant mentored Cotter through the theme each quarter, the club will kick off AGE BOOK OF THE YEAR [Rubbo], unpacking remainders, and we were editorial process. Various publishers helped by tackling the world of ‘Power and Corrup- The AgeBook of the Year talking about publishing,’ he recalls. ‘I asked out with suggestions on authors to approach. tion’ in Patrick Allington’s new novel, Figure- winners have been an- him if he’d ever like to get into publishing head (Black Inc., PB, $29.95). Enquiries to himself and he said he would, someday.’ Cot- The resulting anthology is as professional as [email protected]. nounced. We at Readings you’d expect from all that expertise – hand- are thrilled that Steven ter, who was studying writing and editing at RMIT, ‘dashed off’ a proposal early the next somely designed and a cracker of a read. It’s INDIGENOUS Amsterdam's debut fiction, not just a number of good stories; it’s cohesive Things We Didn't See Coming morning and sent it to Mark, Readings’ man- LITERACY DAY aging director, who gave the project a tentative and varied – a good collection. There’s a savvy (Sleepers, PB, $24.95), mix, offering the best of some of our most Buy a book at Readings on Wednesday our March New Australian green light, and suggested that it be published 2 Sept and a percentage of sales will be to mark the upcoming special occasion. beloved local writers and a range of welcome Writing Feature title, has won not only new voices, as any really good anthology does. donated to remote indigenous communities. Fiction Book of the Year, but the overall The result, after almost two years of hard See the ad on page 11 for details. prize for Book of the Year. Congratulations work, is an impressive collection of short fic- Cotter worked hard to get that variation, in to Steven – and to Sleepers Publishing for tion boasting a wonderfully quirky foreword both experience and style. ‘I had a lot of dark READINGS FABULOUS winning such a prestigious prize for their from Shane Maloney, a fascinating histori- stories at first, so I was halfway looking for CLASSICAL BOX SET SALE first full-length published fiction. cal overview of Readings by Mark Rubbo, some lighter, happier ones.’ The themes vary Up to 50% on selected titles including Bach Non-Fiction Book of the Year went to and stories from a range of established and wildly, from Christos Tsiolkas’s confronting Beethoven Brahms Verdi Puccini. Limited Guy Rundle's Down to the Crossroads: emerging writers. Christos Tsiolkas, Cate piece about a couple disastrously estranged stock at these prices, don't miss out! See page On the Trail of the 2008 US Presidential Kennedy, Alex Miller, Elliot Perlman and from their homosexual son and forced to 19 for details. Visit www.readings.com.au for Election (Penguin, PB, $24.95) and Poetry Peter Goldsworthy are just some of the ‘name’ confront his life too late, to Leanne Hall’s a full list of available titles. Book of the Year to Better Than God writers represented. ‘They’re top-shelf stories,’ contemporary twist on the Icarus myth. And (Peter Porter, Picador, PB, $29.95). says Cotter excitedly. ‘It’s a real testament to there were certain other themes Cotter was OCTOBER: FOODIES' the regard that people hold for Readings that particularly pleased to include. ‘Maybe it’s MONTH AT HAWTHORN! GENERATION KILL we were lucky enough to get them. It was just odd for a book with 24 stories, but we have two on football – of course, footy’s a pretty Enjoy a glass of Annie's Lane wine at five David Simon’s The Wirehas been lauded as great to work with those people.’ special foodie events at Readings Hawthorn. the greatest television show ever made. His big player in Victoria. And I thought because He’s equally enthusiastic about the emerging Matt Preston's event is free, but tickets are classic reportage books Homicide and The we’re a music shop too, it would be great writers in the collection, particularly a couple $15 for all other event, which include tastes Corner (with Wire co-creator Ed Burns), in to include some music writers. Thankfully, who’ve recently crossed the line to become from the chef's cookbook. Please book your which he intricately mapped the territory we received a story from Mark Seymour [of new members of the literary establishment place online at www.readings.com.au. Matt of Baltimore’s mean streets that was to form Hunters and Collectors fame].’ – Kalinda Ashton (The Danger Game) and Moran: Thursday 1 October, 6.30pm. Matt the backdrop of The Wire, have been reborn Steven Amsterdam (Things We Didn’t See The final ingredient in the mix is the inclu- Preston: Monday 12 October, 6.30pm. Rick as top sellers. In his latest project, the HBO Coming). Of Amsterdam’s story, he says ‘I sion of five Readings staff (past and present), Stein: Tuesday 13 October, 6.30pm.