FREE NOVEMBER 2011 Readings Monthly Allington on Frank Moorhouse • Shaw on Steven Amsterdam URDOCH). SEE PAGE 12. URDOCH). SEE PAGE M ( INA C MOVIDA CO IMAGE FROM COVER OF THE NEW COOKBOOK Murakami’s Masterpiece p 8 Highlights of November book, CD & DVD new releases. More inside. FICTION AUS FICTION AUS FICTION BIOGRAPHY YA DVD POP CD CLASSICAL $39.95 $29.95 $24.95 $32.95 $27.95 $29.95 $24.95 $22.99 $34.95 $26.95 $14.95 $33.95 $19.95 >> p8 >> p5 >> p4 >> p10 >> p8 >> p17 >> p18 >> p19 ebook $13.95 ebook $23.16 ebook $13.79 November event highlights : Tim Flannery at Cinema Nova; plus chefs Luke Nguyen & Adriano Zumbo at Readings Hawthorn. More on p3. All shops open 7 days, except State Library shop, which is open Monday - Saturday. 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 Readings at the State Library of Victoria 328 Swanston St 8664 7540 email us at [email protected] Browse and buy online at www.readings.com.au and at ebooks.readings.com.au MARTIN WALKER ‘A winning combination ... One THE of the most enjoyable books I’ve read in a long time’ CROWDED Sunday Telegraph GRAVE brunochiefofpolice.com 2 Readings Monthly November 2011 From the Buyer Meet the bookseller with … When Jo Case, esteemed editor of this ThisWIN A MASTER CLASSMonth’s UBUD WRITERS News AND Robbie Egan, Readings Carlton publication, asked me to pen this column WITH FRANK CAMORRA READERS FESTIVAL 2011 this month, I started to realise quite what a MoVida Cocina gives you a closer look at bumper publishing year we’ve had, and how the people, venues and dishes that have late 2011 is going to be all that and more! made the MoVida bars and restaurants So first up – Oz fiction is in almightily what they are today. Acclaimed chef and good health if 2011 is anything to go by. owner Frank Camorra takes us behind the Our book reviewers have had their hands scenes to reveal special techniques, signa- full with new work by a clutch of much- ture dishes and the pure joy of cooking that loved writers: Alex Miller, Elliot Perlman, infuses his life and work. Together with seven amazing women readers from Melbourne, I travelled to the Steven Carroll, Frank Moorhouse (the To celebrate the release of MoVida Cocina ‘Edith Trilogy’ is finally complete!) and Ubud Writers and Readers Festival to enjoy Why do you work in books? Readings has an exclusive offer – buy a the frenetic pace of Bali and to listen to Janette Turner Hospital – all published MoVida Cocina copy of and go in the draw many of the great thinkers and writers of I was 25 years old with a young daugh- within a few short months of each other. to win a masterclass for two with Frank A novel that seems to me to be particularly our time. High up in the hills, surrounded ter and I’d been living in London for Camorra in the MoVida Aqui kitchen. It’s by rice paddies, we embraced the tropical a couple of years and suddenly had worth looking out for is Gillian Mears’s the opportunity of a lifetime! Foal’s Bread (A&U, PB, Normally $32.99, lushness that is Ubud. We tramped over responsibilities. The only thing I wanted Our special price $29.95), ten years in the Terms and Conditions: To be eligible, the broken footpaths and through jungle vines to do was work in a bookshop. I loved making! book must be purchased at a Readings shop to hear extraordinary people talk about reading and writing and I was lucky or online at www.readings.com.au. A valid their writing and thoughts on life now. One enough to get a job at Dymocks in the But perhaps even more pleasing is the receipt needs to be attached to a completed of the highlights was prolific poet, writer old Melbourne Central. quality of the up-and-coming generation entry form available at all Readings shops, and commentator Chris Abani, who said: with their debuts or early-career efforts. What’s the best book you’ve read lately and and details need to be completed in the ‘The only concern in the world is a sense of why? The Stella Prize, if it gets up and running in notes field online. Only the winner will be purity.’ He had the audience laughing and 2012, will have a particularly rich longlist notified. crying as he talked about his life lived in Jim Shepard’s collection of stories, You to examine: Charlotte Wood, Anna Funder, various countries. (Read whatever you can Think That’s Bad. I like his style of sto- Kirsten Tranter (mid-December release) EARLY RELEASE DATE FOR by him!) rytelling, and that he seems to have no and Favel Parrett seem shoe-ins! And STEVE JOBS BIOGRAPHY fear of any topic. He often writes about with the likes of Wayne Macauley, Steven This is the first time Readings has taken people with high technical knowledge By now you will all have Amsterdam (my book of the year inciden- a tour to an international literary festival. but looks at the emotional side of these heard the sad news that tally, domestic division) and Tony Birch We met at meals (and cocktail hour) and over-achievers, which tends to be con- Apple guru Steve Jobs lost rounding out the list with their fabulous swapped notes on who we had heard. We trastingly inadequate. novels, the summer holidays can’t start soon his long battle with cancer attended a wonderful dinner party for all enough for your reading pleasure. and passed away late last the authors set in a courtyard lit by fairy What have you noticed people buying month. Soon after the news lights. We danced to and with Paul Kelly, lately? Speaking of Tony Birch, he raved to me the broke, the UK and US and we fell more in love with Australian All That I other day about Charles Frazier’s Night- moved forward their release Anna Funder’s first novel, writer Alex Miller. To share this experience Am, woods (Hachette, PB, Normally 32.99, Our date for his book, and so Steve Jobs: The is flying off the shelves, as is Julian together however was the real highlight. To Sense of an Ending Design special price $29.95), and with the likes of Exclusive Biography by Walter Isaacson (HB, Barnes’ . be with a group of women with different Sponge is doing well – a lovely book of Eugenides, Murakami, Eco, DeLillo, Houel- Little, Brown) is now available at Readings backgrounds and ages and explore themes lebecq, Barnes and Ondaatje all in excellent for the special price of $34.95 (was $45). home design ideas that comes from a of our own lives in light of diverse speakers blog of the same name. form too, amongst the other internationals, was really where the magic was. As Rodaan I need not steer you further surely! But no, I SCARLETT STILETTO al Galidi, a Dutch poet said in his session What’s the strangest experience you’ve had will: Téa Obreht’s The Tiger’s Wife (Hachette, AWArd on happiness: ‘Big things make you power- in a bookshop? PB, $19.99) was still my highlight of 2011. ful, but little things make you happy.’ The 18th Scarlet Stiletto Awards ceremony Dymocks had a camera on the erotica To Festival Director Janet de Neefe, to On the non-fiction front: David Marr will be held on Friday November 25, 8pm section. Not nice … promises some perspective on our rather at The Rising Sun Hotel, Corner Raglan Intrepid Travel, to the women I travelled strange political times with Panic (PB, Black St and Eastern Rd, South Melbourne. with, to Mark Rubbo for making this pos- What’s the best experience you’ve had in a Inc., $29.95), and Paul Keating will no Readings are proud to sponsor the Scarlett sible – a huge thank you. bookshop? Stiletto Awards again in 2011. For more doubt continue to reflect on what might Chris Gordon is the events coordinator Too many to nominate one. In recent information visit www.sistersincrime.org.au have been with After Words: The Post-Prime at Readings. times … I was in New York and walked Ministerial Speeches (A&U, HB, Normally into a small bookshop to find that Jim $59.95, Our special price $49.95). Speaking Shepard was giving a reading that night. of reflection, I can’t imagine there will be a I heard one of my favourite authors more fascinating autobiography this season read, met him and had a chat about than Jeanette Winterson’s Why Be Happy American football-writing. He was a re- When You Could Be Normal? (Jonathan ally smart, self-deprecating, funny guy. Cape, HB, Normally $29.95, Our special price $24.95). What’s your favourite book of all time and why? And now to the rest, which I will simply award some out-and-out rankings! Best At the time I read it, I would say The cookbook: a tie between The Art of Pasta Road by Cormac McCarthy. I sat up un- (Lantern, HB, $59.95) and Cumulus (Lan- til the early hours reading it, and cried tern, HB, $59.95); best book to impress: so hard when I finished that I woke my The Letters of Samuel Beckett, Vol 2, 1941–56 wife.