Issue #181 July 2004 www.abbeys.com.au [email protected] MEET JOHN BIRMINGHAM Abbey’s knows history John Birmingham first came to notice with his hilarious tales of student life in He Died What is History Now? With a Felafel in His Hand (Pb $19.95). David Cannadine (ed) Pb $37.00 His tongue-in-cheek-yet-serious history of E H Carr's What is History? (Pb $33.00), Sydney, Leviathan (Pb $23.95), is the originally published by Macmillan in 1961, has most readable and entertaining biography since sold hundreds of thousands of copies of our city. As a joke, he toyed with the idea throughout the world. In this book, 10 of writing a blockbuster airport novel. He internationally renowned scholars, writing from a soon found that it range of historical vantage points, answer Carr's wasn’t so easy. question for a new generation of historians: What does it mean to study history at the start of the The resulting title is 21st century? This volume stands alongside Weapons of Choice Carr's classic, paying tribute to his seminal (544pp Pb $30.00), enquiry, while moving the debate into new territory which John will be signing at Abbey’s this month. to ensure its freshness and relevance for a new Light refreshments will be served. century of historical study. Michelle WED 14 JULY 5.30PM Axis of Deceit Andrew Wilkie Pb $29.95 Wilkie looks at how the case for war was made in Washington, London and Canberra. With unique A w a r d W i n n e r s insight, he explains how the three governments routinely skewed, spun and fabricated the relevant Australia’s most prestigious and richest single intelligence. literary prize, the Miles Franklin Literary Award, has been won by Shirley Hazzard for her first novel in 23 years, The Great Fire (Tp A Short History of Nearly Everything $28.00). Under the looming shadow the Second World War and of Asia's coming Bill BRYSON 687pp Pb $26.95 centrality in world affairs, an odd love affair When I heard that Bill Bryson was going to between a 31-year-old man and a 17-year-old write a book about science, I was unsure how girl develops. good it would be. After all, the best science The Orange Prize for Fiction is the UK's books are written either by scientists or people largest annual literary award for a single novel. Exclusively for, and who regularly write about science. This book, I judged by, women, this year’s winner is Andrea Levy for Small Island am happy to say, is an exception to the rule. It's (Tp $32.95). Returning to England after the war, Gilbert Joseph is one of the most enjoyable science books I have treated very differently now that he is no longer in uniform. Joined by read. The ‘science world’ seems to agree as it his wife Hortense, he rekindles a friendship with Queenie who takes in has been awarded the Aventis Prize for science Jamaican lodgers. Can their dreams of a better life in England books. It is full of fascinating facts and the overcome the prejudice they face? equally fascinating people who discovered Sponsored anonymously, the Samuel Johnson Prize is the UK's most them. People like Australia's own supernova- important prize for non-fiction. Despite Germany’s disapproval, this hunter extraordinaire Robert Evans and year’s winner is Australian Anna Funder for Stasiland: Stories from Thomas Midgley, the man who came up with the idea of putting lead in Behind the Berlin Wall (Tp $27.50), which tells extraordinary tales petrol and went on to invent chlorofluorocarbons! But the most enjoyable from the underbelly of the former East Germany. aspect of this book is the writing - you know you are in the presence of a great storyteller from page one. Dave Now making a welcome comeback, after being out of print or unavailable for years, Special Offer - 40 free double movie passes the popular Asterix series by René We have 20 double passes to give away for each of these Goscinny and brilliantly illustrated by two movies opening this month: Albert Uderzo are being reprinted. Now in Godsend, which opens nationally on 8 July, is a chilling paperback for $17.95, a few of our large thriller starring Robert de Niro, Greg Kinnear and Rebecca range are: Asterix and Cleopatra, Asterix Romjin-Stamos. and the Banquet, Asterix and the Class Spartan opens on 15 July. Written and directed by David Act, Asterix and the Golden Sickle and Mamet, it's a fast-moving political thriller which stars Val Asterix and the Goths. Upstairs in the Kilmer, William H Macy and up-and-coming star Derek Luke. Language Book Centre we also have The first 40 Abbey's Cardholders to buy any item and mention Asterix in many other languages, this offer will receive a Double Pass courtesy of Hoyts including Latin. Distribution, valid at any participating cinema. Fiction 100 Shades of White My Name is Legion Preethi NAIR 294pp Pb $22.95 A N WILSON 352pp Hb $49.95 A magical mixture of East meets West, mothers in conflict with daughters and the “The title, from Mark's gospel, provides the name of the healing power of food. “I cannot easily put into words why I told my children their newspaper at the centre of the novel, The Legion, (an evil rag that father had died. What was I supposed to tell them? The truth? Monu, Mol, your father peddles celebrity tittle-tattle and denounces asylum-seekers and has had enough of responsibility, he has another family, he's gone, left us.” Maybe ‘Belgian bureaucrats’ for ‘tampering with the good British there are 100 shades for explaining truth, a spectrum from light to dark, depending on Banana’) but it also alludes to one of the characters, Peter Tuli, an the vulnerability of those who have to hear it. Nalini is transplanted with her two young unbalanced south-London teenager troubled by voices (if not children from luxury in India to the bewildering confusion of London, only to be actually devils). Matters of faith are central to The Legion's abandoned by her negligent husband. At first, survival is a struggle, but Nalini turns to grotesquely immoral African proprietor, Lennox Mark. The what she does best: cooking. Her mouth-watering pickles bring financial stability and newspaper man wants to be rid of his belief in God and his domestic happiness, as well as affecting everyone who tastes them. Everyone, that is, nemesis, Father Vyvian Chell, a troublesome priest, who is except for her daughter Maya, who loves fish fingers, burgers and chips. She's not campaigning, in the military sense of the word, for the overthrow interested in her history; that died with her father. Resisting the pull of her family, she of a corrupt regime that keeps Mark's business empire afloat.” follows her own chaotic journey, which will take her back to India before she can face Travis Elborough - Amazon.co.uk. the truth about her parents, forgive them and herself - and admit that lime pickle is Better known for history, Wilson has delicious after all. written a savage satire on the morality of contemporary Britain - its One Last Look press, its politics, its church, its rich, its underclass. His London is a bleak, Susanna MOORE 288pp Hb $35.00 if occasionally hilarious, place: In January 1836, two sisters, Eleanor and Harriet, set sail for India, leaving their home murderous, randy, money-obsessed in England to accompany their brother Henry on his posting as Governor-General. and haunted by strange gods. Wilson After four months at sea, their ship docks in the Bay of Bengal and the figures has achieved a dismal ‘it's-all-gone- disembark to begin their new lives in the colonial society of Calcutta. Told through the to-hell-in-a-handcart’ vision of the engaging voice of Eleanor, this novel takes the reader to the heart of 19th century media and Britain, one that Martin India. Constantly surrounded by an entourage of servants and aides, overwhelmed by Amis seems to have been trying to suffocating heat and her own physical vulnerability, Eleanor begins to realise that achieve in Yellow Dog (now in nothing is as it seems. Will her brother's political ambitions lead them inexorably to paperback $22.95). Ann disaster? Is her sister's sanity under threat? As the fragile boundaries begin to dissolve, and desire and horror overcome her, it is clear that Eleanor's vision of this Brilliance of the Moon land and herself will be irrevocably transformed. (Tales of the Otori, Book 3) Ice Road Lian HEARN 368pp Hb $29.95 The long-awaited third instalment of the worldwide phenomenon Gillian SLOVO 564pp Pb $29.95 and bestseller Tales of the Otori. Set in an imagined medieval Leningrad, 1933. Loyalties, beliefs, love and family ties are Japan, this is a thrilling and surprising follow-up to the previous about to be tested to the limit in a fight to see who will adventures of Takeo and Kaede. Taking us into the complexities of survive one of the most crushing moments the world will the loyalties that bind the novel's characters at birth - the fates ever know. Boris Ivanov, the father who understands from which they cannot escape - this book goes beyond its politics and pragmatism; his daughter Natasha, a carefree, transcendent storytelling in demonstrating how we are shaped by delightful girl who will be almost crushed because of forces outside our control and yet must forge our own destinies political compromises; Anton, Boris's oldest friend, who in all the same.