FREE AUGUST 2011 Readings Monthly Meg Mundell on Adrian Hyland • Steven Carroll • Amos Oz SEE PAGE 5 SEE PAGE MELBOURNE cover image from of sophie cunningham’s Sophie Cunningham’s Melbourne p 12 Highlights of August book, CD & DVD new releases. More inside. NON-FICTION AUS FICTION FICTION AUS FICTION YOUNG ADULT DVD POP CD CLASSICAL $32.95 $27.95 $29.95 $30 $24.95 $27.95 $19.95 $39.95. $26.95 $21.95 $21.95 Ebook $14.96 >> p5 >> p7 Ebook $16.38 Ebook $14.95 Blu-ray $44.95 >> p18 >> p19 >> p4 >> p6 >> p10 >> p17 August event highlights : Liam Jurrah at Readings Carlton. Plus: MoVida’s Frank Camorra & Richard Cornish at Readings Hawthorn. More inside. 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 The new look Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards are here. Discover the 21 shortlisted titles across five categories: Fiction, Non-Fiction, Drama, Poetry and Young Adult. Cast your vote for the People’s Choice Award before the winners are announced on 6th September. Go to wheelercentre.com and get reading. 2 Readings Monthly August 2011 From the Editor Meet the bookseller with … It’s just past the mid-year ThisPRIME MINISTE R’s Month’sREADINGS News MIFF DVD SALE Dani Solomon, Readings Carlton mark, and I’ve been thinking LITERARY AWARD ON TO 31 AUGUST about my favourite books of WINNERS MIFF is celebrating its sixtieth anniversary the year (so far). That list is The winners of this year’s PM’s Literary in July 2011 and Readings are celebrating on our website. Here, I with a DVD sale at all shops (except State thought I’d share a couple of Awards have been announced. The fiction prize went to Perth-based, New Zealand- Library) and online. A wonderful selection 2011 books that at first of titles including cult, art-house, Australian passed me by, but I’ve born writer Stephen Daisley for his debut novel, Traitor (Text, PB, $23.95), about a and foreign films are all on sale for $19.95 recently read and loved. The first is Dominic until August 31. Titles include: Coco Chanel, Smith’s Bright and Distant Shores (A&U, PB, New Zealand soldier and a Turkish doctor bound together in the chaos of Gallipoli. Control, Down by Law, Exit Through the Gift $29.99, March), a historical novel (not my Shop, Harvie Krumpet, In the Loop, Lantana, usual thing), set between the islands of the The non-fiction winner was Rod Moss for Hard Light of Day Let the Right One In, The September Issue, Ten South Pacific and the skyscrapers of Chi- (UQP, PB, $39.95). Why do you work in books? This brilliant blend of reportage and memoir Canoes, Wake in Fright, When You’re Strange cago. The pivotal characters are Argus, a and Paris, Texas. MIFF runs from 21 July to It really is as simple as I love reading Melanesian houseboy in love with Western (our New Australian Writing feature title last May) reports back on the writer’s 30 7 August 2011. Readings are a proud spon- books, so what better place to work civilisation – particularly books and Christi- sor. www.miff.com.au than a place that sells them? anity, and Owen Graves, an explorer, years spent living and working alongside the Arrente people of Alice Springs. It’s illustrat- collector and entrepreneur, who hopes to JAMES HALLIDAY OFFER What’s the best book you’ve read lately make enough money from his latest voyage, ed with 50 colour reproductions of Moss’s and why? James funded by insurance king Hale Gray, to paintings. The young adult fiction prize was Buy a copy of the Graffiti Moon Halliday Australian Wine I really enjoyed Steve Hely’s How I finally marry his girlfriend of four years, won by Cath Crowley’s (Pan, PB, $16.99), a novel that spends an intense Companion 2012 at Readings Became a Famous Novelist. It appealed Ada. The catch? First, Owen must bring to my natural cynicism of ‘bestseller’ along Hale’s dilettante son, a keen amateur and exhilarating 24 hours in the lives of in August and be in with a four teenagers on the verge: of adulthood, chance to win a dozen bottles books while at the same time allowing naturalist, and a dolt. Second, his commis- me to still secretly love them. sion includes bringing back ‘several natives of HSC, of finding out just who they are of wine from Kooyong and related by blood’ for Hale to exhibit on the and who they want to be. And the children’s Port Phillip Estate, the What have you noticed people buying Shake rooftop of his new skyscraper. Third, Ada fiction prize went to the picture book Australian Wine Compan- lately? a Leg has a strong social conscience and disap- (A&U, HB, $24.99), a collaboration ion’s Winery of the Year for 2012. There’s a between an indigenous author from North case of wine to be won at every shop (except George R.R. Martin’s A Dance with proves of the idea of transplanting people as Dragons, the fifth book in the Song of live sideshows. There’s a lot going on in this Queensland, Boori Monty Pryor, and West online). Fill out an entry form, attach your Australian illustrator Jan Ormerod. receipt and hand in at the counter at any Ice and Fire series. It despairs me that absorbing novel, which is rich with ideas some people refuse to class sci-fi and and beautifully written and characterised. Readings shop. Competition closes 31August. READINGS FOUNDATION: Please note only winners will be notified. fantasy as literature, so I’m always very Admittedly, the first 50 or so pages are a APPLICATIONS OPEN! happy when they sell well. bit overwritten, but it’s very much worth OSLO DAVIS: persevering with. The Readings Foundation supports Victori- What’s the strangest experience you’ve an individuals and organisations that wish to DRAWN FROM LIFE had in a bookshop? Another one is Me and Mr Booker (Text, further the development of Literacy, Com- Readings’ resident cartoonist Oslo Davis PB, $32.95, March), the debut novel from munity work and the Arts. A grant from has been hard at work lately ... and not I once had a customer refer to the Cory Taylor about a 16-year-old growing The Readings Foundation is a wonderful op- just working on the cartoon on this page! biography section as ‘True Fiction’, a up in a large regional town who, bored and portunity for individuals and arts organisa- He’s the editor of a free graphic newspaper, phrase which I love and have taken surrounded by aimless adults, gets involved on as my own. tions with Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR) Drawn from Life, created for the Melbourne in an affair with droll, debonair English status to be able to bring their creative or Writers’ Festival and distributed at train sta- newcomer Mr Booker, a 35-year-old film What’s the best experience you’ve had in literacy-related projects to life. Applications tions across Melbourne on Friday 26 August. a bookshop? lecturer. I’d heard feedback on this from two open Wednesday 31 August 2011 and must It’s an amazing project, featuring some of extremes – some who hated it, finding the be lodged by 5pm on Friday 28 October Australia’s – and the world’s – best graphic Every time I serve a customer who buys teen narrator too knowing and the set-up a book I like!! 2011. Final decisions about projects will artists, including Shaun Tan, Mandy Ord, and characters unrealistic, while others be made by the Board of Trustees by Bruce Petty, Nicki Greenberg, First Dog on LOVED it. Benjamin Law, who reviewed What’s your favourite book of all time Wednesday 30 November 2011. For the Moon, Judy Horacek and international and why? it for Readings in April, was one of the more information or to download an cartooning superstar Jim Woodring. It will enthusiasts, as was Krissy Kneen (author application form (available from 31 August), also be available free at MWF. For details, Not so much a book as an author. of Affection). Then I saw it discussed on please visit www.readings.com.au. see www.mwf.com.au. Don’t miss out! Terry Pratchett taught me you can say the ABC’s First Tuesday Book Club, with far more with a dragon and a magic panelists Jennifer Byrne, Marieke Hardy, sword than you can with a human Jason Steger, David Vann (brilliant author of alone. Before I got into his Discworld Legend of a Suicide and Caribou Island) and series I left sci-fi and fantasy alone, Anh Do. Though there was a bit of to-and- thinking it had nothing much for any- fro, the general consensus was positive. Da- one over the age of 16. Now most of vid Vann said, ‘it’s a coming-of-age story via my favourite books have a little bit of a very smart and funny voice who sees that magic in them somewhere! problem that all the adults are having and is trying not to go there, really’.