FREE DEC 2007 – JAN 2008 Readings Monthly 9/52).$%0%.$%.4"//+ -53)#!.$$6$.%73,%44%2s%6%.43s.%72%,%!3%3s2%6)%73 PHOTO BY JAMES BRAUND FROM THE SLOW GUIDE: MELBOURNE Best Books, CDs and DVDs for Summer And the best book, CD & DVD new releases. More inside >> POP CD CLASSICAL In Rainbows Hush Volume 7 Radiohead Paul Grabowsky $29.95 $24.95 FICTION NON-FICTION NON-FICTION DVD >> p23 >> p26 Normally $32.95 $35.00 $24.95 Lucky Miles Our price $27.95 >> p11 >> p10 $34.95 >> p5 >> p20 Pick up a copy of our Summer Reading Guide. It’s packed with special off ers; books, CDS and DVDs for Summer; and your chance to win a library worth at least $5000. !,,3(/03/0%.$!93sCARLTON 309 LYGON 34sHAWTHORN 701 GLENFERRIE RD 9819 1917 s MALVERN 185 GLENFERRIE RD 9509 1952 s PORT MELBOURNE 253 BAY ST 9681 9255 s ST KILDA 112 ACLAND ST 9525 3852 s WWW.READINGS.COM.AU s EMAIL [email protected] Best Books of 2007 Readings staff and our guest revewers give you their choice of the best books of the year. We’ve been fortunate this year to have Whirligig Tour of the Basics of Science of-age novel set in the Norwegian SALLY MADSEN enthusiastic staff reviewers and some (Scribe, PB, $32.95), Nicole Angier countryside. Ian McEwan’s I really enjoyed the keen eyed guest reviewers from the manages to make science under- On Chesil Beach (Jonathan Cape, latest books of two world of books. Here, a few of our standable and readable. Everyone HB, $29.95) was ... well ... just favourite authors: regulars share their favourite books should read it. delightful! A masterpiece of restraint Alice Munro’s The from 2007. Thanks to all of them! Mark Rubbo is Managing and understatement. Beautifully View from Castle Director of Readings written and surprisingly touching. Rock (Vintage, PB, MARK RUBBO $24.95) and Philip And lastly, the I loved Buying A MIKE PATERSON Roth’s Exit Ghost absolute best read Piece of Paris (Ellie The Damned Utd (David Peace, (Jonathan Cape, HB, special price for me this year was Nielsen, Scribe, PB, Faber, PB, $22.95) is a remarkable $39.95), and two books by authors Patrick White’s $29.95), an novel; a fever dream of 1970s Eng- new to me: Out Stealing Horses by Vivisector (Vintage, account of buying lish football that lives, breathes and Per Petterson and Arlington Park by PB, $35) – a an apartment in alcoholically consumes its subject. Rachel Cusk (Faber, PB, $22.95). fabulous reminder Paris – fulfils my Mike Paterson is from And the book that I’d love to give of just how great a Paris fantasies and Readings Port Melbourne EVERYONE for Christmas is writer he was – not just as an makes me hunger for the real thing Seven Hundred Penguins (Penguin, Australian but internationally. ... one day! Discovery of France MARTIN SHAW PB, $49.95), collecting 700 One of the most incredible books (Graham Robb, Picador, HB, My discovery of favourite Penguin covers from over I’ve ever read (which I think I have $59.95) is a fascinating, erudite and the year was the last seventy years. Just to look felt about every White novel). immensely readable book that is Brunswick author at them evokes the wonder and Andrew Cornish is Manager both a travelogue and scholarly Wayne Macau- pleasure of reading. of Readings Carlton history – a rare achievement! I keep ley. For anyone Sally Madsen is from banging on about how everyone who thrills to a KATHY KOZLOWSKI Readings Carlton should read The Upside of Down hypnotic prose Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s (Thomas Homer-Dixon, Text, PB, style and incisive MICHAEL life to date, from $35), a perceptive analysis of where social satire, I would urge you to AWOSOGA-SAMUEL a traditional Soma- the world is and where we’re discover his work! His most recent Debra Curtis’s lian Muslim child- heading – read it! novella is Caravan Story (Black book on her hood through her Pepper, PB, $24.95). husband Ian and Koch’s novels are years in Holland, Joy Division, few and far between On the interna- to become the Touching From a – when they come tional front, four international figure Distance (Faber, they are well worth books completely living under guard she is now, is PB, $24.95) was a the wait. The captured my told with such sympathy and intel- very real and Memory Room imagination: the ligence in Infidel (Ayaan Hirsi Ali, honest look at a young marriage (Christopher Koch, latest from that Free Press, PB, $34.95). torn apart by the pressures of Vintage, PB, marvelously Kathy Kozlowski is Kids’ Book Buyer fame and epilepsy, and a $32.95) is a wonderful spy novel entertaining great at Readings Carlton self-destructive personality. that isn’t. Gail Jones is one of my dame of French crime fiction, Fred Michael Awosoga-Samuel is favourite Australian writers. Sorry Vargas, with Wash this Blood Clean JO CASE from Readings Carlton (Vintage, PB, $27.95) is her novel from my Hands (Vintage, PB, My absolute about an eccentric family in remote $24.95); Coetzee’s Diary of a Bad favourite book of JUDITH LORIENTE Western Australia. Gift of Rain (Tan Year (Text, HB, $35), a cultural 2007 (and perhaps For me, there were Twan Eng, Scribe, PB, $32.95) is a intervention of great courage, ever) was Nicola two outstanding luscious and exotic historical novel with a good dose of self-parodic Barker’s Booker- fiction highlights set in Penang prior to and during humour to boot (from an shortlisted of the year: Jeremy World War II that centres on the author oft-caricatured as cold and Darkmans (Fourth Blachman’s friendship between a young austere!); a ripper of a psychological Estate, PB, $35), a Anonymous Lawyer Eurasian man and a mysterious novel from Sebastian Faulks in sprawling, eccentric, darkly funny (Vintage, PB, Japanese diplomat. Engleby (Hutchinson, PB, $32.95); novel of ideas set in a nondescript $23.95) and and a completely unexpected English town against the backdrop In Landscape of Torsten Krol’s Callisto (Picador, delight in Janet Frame’s posthu- of history – personified by the Farewell (Alex PB, $32.95). Both were brilliantly mously issued Towards Another sinister jester John Scogin, who Miller, A&U, HB, funny, with plenty of laugh-out- Summer (Vintage, PB, $23.95). seems to possess one of the Special Price loud jokes and a fine sense of the Martin Shaw is Books Buyer at characters. And I would probably $29.95), two absurd. In particular, I thought Readings Carlton read Maria Tumarkin’s shopping list, elderly men, one Callisto proof alone that satire is were she to publish it – her evocative German, one not obsolete: no greater satire on ANDREW CORNISH writing and original thinking is just Aboriginal, form an the contemporary US, and the po- Per Petterson’s that good. Courage (MUP, PB, unlikely friendship and in doing so tential injustices of its war on ter- Out Stealing Horses, $32.95) is a fascinating exploration come to terms with their respective ror, will probably ever be written. winner of the 2007 of that most prized virtue. pasts – a beautiful, almost perfect Judith Loriente is from IMPAC (Vintage, Jo Case is Editor of novel that demonstrates the ability Readings Hawthorn PB, $27.95) was Readings Monthly of fiction to present big ideas. my surprise read Science is a mystery to me – it for the year. A shouldn’t be. In The Canon: A stunning coming- 2 Best Books of 2007 Readings staff and our guest revewers give you their choice of the best books of the year. BRUNO MORO ANNIE CONDON SYBIL NOLAN ently battled for, ferociously. In I liked that Let the Northern Patrick Marnham’s Towards the Light (Bloomsbury, the Booker judges Lights Erase Your wonderful HB, $49.95), philosopher A.C. rewarded The Name (Vendela biography of Mary Grayling presents a lucid historical Gathering (Anne Vida, Atlantic, PB, Wesley, author of account of conflict over Western Enright, Jonathan $24.95) takes you The Camomile ideas of democratic life. Cape, PB, $32.95), on a fascinating Lawn, (Wild Mary, In What is the an unflinching tale physical and Vintage, PB, What (Hamish of family life. emotional journey $24.95) is a Hamilton, PB, Bruno Moro is Assistant Manager – including to a hotel constructed bracing account of what it took to $32.95), Dave of Readings Malvern entirely of ice in Lapland. What is be a published writer and an Eggers takes on the What (Dave Eggers, Hamish independent woman in 1940s and the voice of DANIELLE MIRABELLA Hamilton, PB, $29.95) gives an 50s Britain. You don’t need to have African refugee I can’t decide on amazing insight into the plight of read Wesley’s books to be fascinated Achak Deng just one book the lost boys and girls of Sudan – in- by her life. David Malouf’s The with astonishing authenticity and so my ‘picks’ of the sight I wish some politicians could Complete Stories (Knopf, HB, enables the reader to experience year are share. Dodging the Bull (Paul $45.00) delivers character-driven a lifetime of violence, revelation, On Chesil Beach Mitchell, Wakefield, PB, $22.95) is short stories that are slices of hope, death and liberation through (Ian McEwan, a down-to-earth, wholly Australian authentic Australia filtered through one man’s experience. Though she is Jonathan Cape, collection of short stories. This book one of our finest literary sensibilities. often deemed ‘quirky’, Miranda July HB, $29.95) deserves more attention.