books music film events - Readings

JUNE 2015

FREE

BOOKS

MUSIC

FILM

E V E N TS

NEW IN JUNE ANN TURNER $29.99 page 5

ZOË NORTON LODGE $24.99 page 5

CAITLIN DOUGHTY $27.99 page 10

ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK

EMMYLOU HARRIS & RODNEY CROWELL

$39.95

$21.95

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News READINGS’ MARK RUBBO RECIPIENT OF LLOYD O’NEIL AWARD

Readings Monthly Free independent monthly newspaper published by Readings Books, Music & Film

Editor Elke Power [email protected]

Editorial Assistant Alan Vaarwerk [email protected]

Advertising Stella Charls [email protected] (03) 9341 7739

Graphic Design Cat Matteson [email protected]

Front Cover Readings Monthly cover design by Cat Matteson with images from the cover of Almost Sincerely by Zoë Norton Lodge, courtesy of Giramondo Publishing. Almost Sincerely cover design and illustration by Georgia Norton Lodge.

Cartoon Oslo Davis oslodavis.com Readings donates 10% of its profits each year to The Readings Foundation: readings.com.au/the-readings-foundation

We’re delighted to share that at the 2015 ABIA gala dinner on Thursday 21 May, Readings’ own managing director Mark Rubbo was announced as the 2015 recipient of the Lloyd O’Neil Award. This is a major award for a person who has made a significant, dedicated contribution to the development and reputation of the Australian book industry. Lloyd O’Neil was made a member of the Order of Australia in 1991 in recognition of his distinguished service to the local publishing industry. The award that commemorates this exceptional figure recognises the long service of similarly outstanding individuals in the Australian book world. Previous winners include former head of publishing at Penguin, Robert Sessions (2013); Margaret Fulton (2011); chairman of Allen and Unwin, Patrick Gallagher (2010); and David Malouf (2008). In his acceptance speech, Mark shared moving and astute reflections about the book industry and literary culture. We proudly share a small selection of his words here: ‘It’s a great honour to receive this award; Lloyd O’Neil was a publisher who helped set the stage for a truly Australian publishing industry. Without him perhaps we would not be where are today. When I started selling books in 1976, it was, I believe, the birth of the contemporary Australian publishing industry and the main drivers of that were the reforms first put in place by Prime Minister John Gorton. It was the establishment of the Australia Council and the Literature Board that provided the money to give writers the time to write books and also to mitigate the risks for the brave publishers who took on those books. Those small investments helped create Australia’s most successful cultural industry. It worries me that the arm’s length, peer-assessed funding of the Arts that has been so successful and so vital to our intellectual and cultural success is now in danger of being radically compromised. We need to encourage people to take risks, to fail, to produce obscure and groundbreaking works. If we look at what cultural artefacts survive worldwide, it is the works that were, at the time, provocative, contrary and often difficult to understand. I don’t know what Minister Brandis is trying to achieve, cutting over $100 million dollars from the Australia Council, but I think we should be worried and I think he needs to explain. Are we in danger in the arts of climbing onto a slippery slope to mediocrity and partisan support?’

READINGS’ GERARD ELSON WINNER OF YOUNG BOOKSELLER OF THE YEAR

We’re thrilled that Gerard Elson from Readings St Kilda has been recognised as the Young Bookseller of the Year at the 2015 Australian Booksellers Association (ABA) conference. The ABA Penguin Random House Australia Young Bookseller of the Year Award acknowledges and rewards the excellence of a bookseller aged 35 or under, and promotes bookselling as a career choice for young people. Gerard is an invaluable member of our Readings St Kilda team. St Kilda store manager Amy Vuleta notes that: ‘Gerard will stand whole-heartedly behind books that he believes in with unending enthusiasm for communicating with the public about the books he loves’. He runs both fiction and non-fiction book clubs at the store, and he has been instrumental in setting up a great number of successful in-store events drawing sell-out crowds. Gerard also contributes to the Australian book industry more widely, as the interviews editor for local literary journal Kill Your Darlings, and as a contributor of reviews, interviews and feature pieces to a number of other Australian publications and media sources such as The Wheeler Centre blog, Island magazine, The Big Issue, Books+Publishing, Crikey and Kill Your Darlings.

THE 22ND BLOOMSDAY IN MELBOURNE FESTIVAL Melbourne readers’ unabated hunger for James Joyce is fed annually by the Bloomsday in Melbourne Festival, which brings together seminars and lectures, gatherings, and original theatrical adaptations. This year’s festival runs from 10–16 June at Library at the Dock, 107 Victoria Promenade, Docklands. For more information and to book for events, please visit bloomsdayinmelbourne.org.au.

HYPERION CLASSICAL MUSIC SALE Readings Carlton, Hawthorn and Malvern will be offering selected titles from the prestigious Hyperion Records catalogue at up to 40% off from 10–30 June (or while stocks last), featuring recordings from Angela Hewitt, Marc-André Hamelin, Leslie Howard, Ian Bostridge, Stephen Hough and groups such as Gothic Voices, St. Petersburg String Quartet, The Cardinall’s Musick and The King’s Consort. With approximately 400 titles in the sale this is the perfect time to complete your classical music library. Please note that limited stock is available and when we run out of stock of a particular title it cannot be reordered at the discounted price.

NON-FICTION BOOK CLUB AT READINGS ST KILDA Readings St Kilda runs a non-fiction book club on the third Wednesday of each month. Members discuss a selection of books across history, politics, biography and cultural studies. We are opening up spaces for only $20 per session including drinks and snacks. The next book club runs from 7–8:30pm on Tuesday 30 June, where Helen Macdonald’s scintillating H is for Hawk will be discussed. For more information, please contact convenor and Readings staff member, Gerard Elson, on 03 9525 3852 or [email protected].

2015 MILES FRANKLIN LITERARY AWARD SHORTLIST The shortlist for the 2015 Miles Franklin Literary Award has been announced. First awarded in 1957, the $60,000 prize is awarded each year to the novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases. The shortlisted books are: Golden Boys by Sonya Hartnett (Penguin); The Eye of the Sheep by Sofie Laguna (A&U); The Golden Age by Joan London (Random House); After Darkness by Christine Piper (A&U); and Tree Palace by Craig Sherborne (Text). The winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award will be revealed on 23 June.

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June Events

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STUART MACINTYRE IN CONVERSATION WITH GIDEON HAIGH

Author and journalist Gideon Haigh will talk with historian Stuart Macintyre about Stuart’s new book, Australia’s Boldest Experiment: War and Reconstruction in the 1940s. Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Monday 1 June, 6.30pm Readings Carlton

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SAM LIPSKI IN CONVERSATION WITH MICHAEL GAWENDA

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Join us for this Emerging Writers’ Festival event with fiction authors (and Readings staff ) Miles Allison (Fever of Animals), Leanne Hall (This is Shyness) and Alec Patric (Black Rock White City) as they discuss how they got published, with Readings’ Books Division Manager and next big thing-spotter Martin Shaw. Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Thursday 4 June, 6.30pm Readings St Kilda

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Author and journalist Michael Gawenda will talk with Sam Lipski about Sam’s new book, Let My People Go: The Untold Story of Australia and the Soviet Jews 1959–89. Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Monday 1 June, 6.30pm Readings St Kilda

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LAUNCH OF STEVEN CARROLL’S FOREVER YOUNG

The award-winning author of The Art of the Engine Driver and The Gift of Speed will launch Forever Young, his extraordinary new novel about life in Australia in the 1970s. Free, no booking required Tuesday 2 June, 6.30pm Readings Carlton

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ABDI ADEN IN CONVERSATION WITH CATHERINE DEVENY

THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD TO GETTING PUBLISHED

DAVID BLUMENSTEIN IN CONVERSATION WITH NAT PESTANA

What are pick-up artists really like? Cartoonist David Blumenstein wanted to know, but in signing up for a free seminar with international pick-up artist (PUA) instructor Julien Blanc, David found himself witness to one of the most successful antiPUA campaigns launched by the feminist community. Join David and Nat Pestana, an organiser of Reclaim the Night, for a fascinating discussion.

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GEORGE MEGALOGENIS IN CONVERSATION WITH BARRIE CASSIDY

Author, comedian and journalist Catherine Deveny will talk with Abdi Aden about his new book Shining (co-authored with Robert Hillman). Shining tells Abdi’s story – from fleeing Somalia’s vicious civil war, surviving as a refugee in Romania and Germany, to arriving in Melbourne at just seventeen and succeeding against the odds. Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Wednesday 3 June, 6.30pm Readings Carlton

Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Wednesday 10 June, 6.30pm Readings Hawthorn

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David Karoly, atmospheric scientist and joint winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize will launch Deborah Hart’s Guarding Eden, which tells the stories of twelve ordinary people who were so concerned about climate change that they altered their lives to do something about it. Free, no booking required Thursday 4 June, 6pm Readings Carlton

KLAUS NEUMANN IN CONVERSATION

Across the Seas by Klaus Neumann discusses Australia’s response to refugees and asylum seekers, now and in the past. Join us for a lively and important discussion as the history of Australia is examined. Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Tuesday 16 June, 6.30pm Readings Carlton

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OSAMAH SAMI IN CONVERSATION WITH TONY AYRES

Meet Osamah Sami: a schemer, a dreamer and a madcap antihero of spectacular proportions whose terrible life choices keep leading to cataclysmic consequences despite his best-laid plans to be good. His story, Good Muslim Boy, is a hilarious and heartbreaking memoir of love, loss and family. It’s about what we’ll do to live up to expectations – and what we must do to live with ourselves. Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Tuesday 16 June, 6.30pm Readings St Kilda

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IAN BOSTRIDGE IN CONVERSATION WITH LISA MACKINNEY

Historian and classical music specialist Lisa MacKinney will talk with acclaimed English tenor Ian Bostridge about his new book, Schubert’s Winter Journey: Anatomy of an Obsession. Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Saturday 13 June, 2pm Readings Hawthorn

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TIM SOUTPHOMMASANE ON RACISM

Tim Soutphommasane, Australia’s Race Discrimination Commissioner’s book I’m Not a Racist But…: 40 Years of the Racial Discrimination Act, reflects on the national experience of racism and the progress that has been made since the introduction of the Racial Discrimination Act in 1975. Published to coincide with the Act’s fortieth anniversary, this book gives a timely and incisive account of the history of racism, the limits of free speech, the dimensions of bigotry and the role of legislation in our society’s response to discrimination. Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Thursday 25 June, 6.30pm Readings Carlton

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ALEXANDRA ROGINSKI’S THE HANGED MAN AND THE BODY THIEF

The Hanged Man and the Body Thief is a nuanced story about phrenology, a biased legal system, the aspirations of a new museum, and the dilemmas of a theatrical third wife. It is most importantly a tale of two very different men, collector and collected, one of whom can now return home. Free, no booking required Monday 29 June, 6.30pm Readings Carlton

Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Tuesday 9 June, 6.30pm Readings Carlton

Join us for a conversation between George Megalogenis and Barrie Cassidy about George Megalogenis’ TV program Making Australia Great. Megalogenis’ three-part series asks an important question about what Australia can do, having avoided the world’s greatest economic disaster in almost a century, to keep its unique winning streak on track. In this investigation of our past, present and future, he enlisted the support of every former PM and treasurer from 2013 back to the 1970s.

DEBORAH HART’S GUARDING EDEN

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KILL YOUR DARLINGS FIRST BOOK CLUB

June’s Kill Your Darlings First Book Club event features Rochelle Siemienowicz discussing her frank and compelling debut memoir, Fallen: A Memoir About Sex, Religion and Marrying Too Young. Rochelle will be in conversation with Kill Your Darlings’ online editor, Veronica Sullivan. Drinks provided. Free, but please RSVP to [email protected] Thursday 18 June, 6.30pm Readings Carlton

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THE LIFE AND WORK OF VINCE VOZZO

World-acclaimed sculptor Vince Vozzo talks about his book, The Life and Work of Vince Vozzo, which charts the journey of a second-generation Italian kid from the western suburbs of Sydney from dyslexic, cartoon-obsessed school boy to sand sculptor on Bondi beach and art student, and then to prolific and acclaimed artist. Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Wednesday 24 June, 6.30pm Readings Carlton

JORDANA SILVERSTEIN’S ANXIOUS HISTORIES

Joy Damousi will launch Jordana Silverstein’s book, Anxious Histories: Narrating the Holocaust in Jewish Communities at the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century which addresses memories and narratives of the Holocaust that have played a significant role in constructing Jewish communities. Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events Tuesday 30 June, 6.30pm Readings Carlton

Coming Up in July

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TRAVIS MCKENZIE’S THE DRAGON AND THE CROW

Join us for the release of Travis McKenzie’s latest young adult fantasy novel, The Dragon and the Crow, the first book in the new Magickless series. Free, no booking required Wednesday 1 July, 6.00pm Readings Hawthorn

For more information and updates, please visit the events page at readings.com.au/events. Please note bookings do not necessarily guarantee a seat and some events may be standing room only.

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Mark’s Say

#MIFF2015

News and views from Readings’ Managing Director, Mark Rubbo

For those of you who’ve read Drusilla Modjeska’s most recent novel, The Mountain, you’ll be aware of her affection for the people of Papua New Guinea. The Mountain is set primarily in the lower reaches of Mt Lamington, an active volcano in Oro Province. Modjeska first went to PNG as the wife of a young academic, in the late 1960s, at a time full of optimism as the nation was preparing for independence. She began returning to PNG many years later researching The Mountain, often travelling with the late Sydney art dealer David Baker. Baker had been going to PNG for many years collecting works for his gallery and during that time had provided assistance to many people in the remote communities, but his assistance was given in a rather ad hoc manner. When Baker died, Modjeska was inspired to provide lasting assistance to the people she’d grown so fond of. The communities were rich in cultural traditions but struggling to find a place and identity in a modern world; for many in the community literacy and education were the most important tools they needed to survive. So Drusilla founded SEAM – Sustain Education Art Melanesia – to help the communities. She teamed up with supporters and advisors who included writer and publisher Hilary McPhee and architect Stephen Collier. The problem they wanted to solve was how to get effective educational resources into communities that can only be accessed by water or narrow tracks, and where the humid tropical conditions destroy resources exposed to the elements. Collier and Modjeska grappled with the problem, first thinking of a floating facility that could travel between communities. That idea was abandoned and Collier came up with the idea of a weatherproof box that could contain a couple of resource centres that would fold out with work spaces, blackboards, computers, books and other resources. The box would also contain a tent-like roof with drinking water collection facilities and solar panels to provide power. I was so taken with the idea that The Readings Foundation gave some support to SEAM and a few weeks ago I travelled to PNG with Drusilla and Stephen to present the concept to the communities. Stephen brought with him a scale model of the newly named Schoolmate, or Wanskul in Pidgin, to show to the local communities. Over the week we travelled to different villages and attended meetings as Stephen presented and listened to comments; ‘This is how we think it will work; what do you think? What resources do you think you’ll need in it? How do you think it can best be used? Can you build the platforms to base it on? Will it be useful?’. At one meeting a man focused on the portability, thinking that the Schoolmate would not stay in the community. ‘I’m heartbroken,’ he said. Stephen was able to reassure him: ‘No, no, it’s portable so that you can carry it into your community; once you build the platform and set it up, it will stay in the village.’ In the village of Tainabuna we spent the day in the local school helping the kids to make books – chaotic and fun – and enlisting members of the community to become ambassadors for the project. It wasn’t hard – Lucy, a dynamic and articulate woman with three children in the school, volunteered to help form a committee to lay the groundwork for the project. ‘It is a very good thing, a very good thing, that Drusilla and Stephen do for us.’ The challenge now is to raise the money to build some prototypes – if you’d like to find out more or support the project, go to seamfund.org.

From the Books Desk

Martin Shaw, Readings’ Books Division Manager

So we’re all fresh from our annual conference which, as ever, re-charged the bookselling batteries with previews of the many highlights on the literary calendar for the remainder of 2015. Perhaps the book carrying the biggest buzz was the latest novel from Jonathan Franzen – Purity – advance copies of which naturally disappeared fast. But there were also some home-grown authors causing a stir – Readings’ own Miles Allinson gave an introduction to his lauded debut novel The Fever of Animals, and I noticed proof copies were a hot item at the Scribe stand at the trade show the next day. Several other Australian writers made big impressions: the legendary Tom Keneally spun a wonderful tale when talking about his forthcoming novel, Our Great Friend, based on Napoleon’s exile on the island of St Helena, and the connection that exists with a family who settled in Mt Martha on our very own Mornington Peninsula. Then there was film director-turned-author Shirley Barrett with her wonderful novel set in Eden, Rush Oh!, which recounts its whaling history and, most notably, the killer whales there who routinely assisted the whalers with their hunt. A personal highlight, too, was hearing Stephanie Bishop talking about her forthcoming novel, The Other Side of the World. It’s been ten years since her debut, The Singing, but it’s been worth the wait. This novel about a family whose identity is torn three ways – between England, Australia & India – is a compulsive and enormously affecting read. There was also a presentation from Gail Jones about her fascinating-sounding novel A Guide to Berlin; Charlotte Wood also captivated listeners with the story behind her disturbing and provocative novel The Natural Way of Things; and George Megalogenis offered some intriguing insights into where Australia is going wrong in a discussion of his forthcoming book, Australia’s Second Chance.

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New Fiction Book of the Month THE LOST SWIMMER Ann Turner S&S. PB. $29.99

I knew The Lost Swimmer had won me over when I was standing in line at the supermarket and all I could think about was what was going to happen next in Ann Turner’s impressive debut novel. This suspenseful and dramatic thriller centres on archaeology professor Rebecca Wilding who is struggling with financial pressures in her department, emerging accusations of fraud and a growing suspicion that her husband Stephen is unfaithful. When Rebecca and Stephen embark on a conference trip to Greece, Italy and Paris, she has the chance to explore the source of the fraud allegations as well as face old demons regarding her father’s tragic death. When Stephen disappears, Rebecca has to consider just how deep her husband’s betrayal goes.

‘I knew The Lost Swimmer had won me over when I was standing in line at the supermarket and all I could think about was what was going to happen next in Ann Turner’s impressive debut novel.’

takes her home where his widowed mother offers the young family shelter. When Alma falls pregnant her daughter, Molly, is born secretly and in shame. Many years later, Anna falls in love with the dashing young man from the family next door; when she becomes pregnant, Neil abandons her and her family shunts her off to a Salvation Army home for unmarried mothers where she is forced to give up her baby. Meanwhile, Alma’s daughter Molly is childless and yearns for a child. Years later, all three families’ lives intersect, offering some hope that the secrets and their attendant sadness will come to some positive resolution. If you like Colm Toíbín’s work, I’m sure you will love this book. The Mothers is a terrific achievement for Jones and will, I hope, introduce him to many new readers. Mark Rubbo is the managing director of Readings

ALMOST SINCERELY Zoë Norton Lodge

One of the most impressive elements of this book is Turner’s ability to maintain a feeling of uneasiness and suspense throughout almost the entire novel; especially memorable is an incident concerning a kangaroo and her joey (an incredibly harrowing three pages to read) as well as vivid descriptions of driving the perilous roads on the Amalfi coast. Further adding to the tension is the reader’s gradual awareness that Rebecca may not be the most reliable narrator, and while she is able to identify counterfeit jewellery in seconds, one starts to query if she is able to accurately identify what is happening around her. Continuing with this theme is the clever parallel between Rebecca’s field of archaeology and the personal ‘digging’ that she has to do in order to discover who might be deceiving her. These elements take The Lost Swimmer beyond a simple thriller to an insightful observation of people and their behaviour, and also make it a deeper study of loss, trust and what is hidden underneath. It also really made me want to travel again – although under completely different circumstances! Amanda Rayner is from Readings Carlton

Australian Fiction LEAP Myfanwy Jones A&U. PB. $26.99

Three years on from a tragedy that claimed the love of his life, twenty-something Joe loses himself in menial work, parkour and his mentorship of a teenage delinquent, using burnout and exhaustion as a coping mechanism. When a beautiful nurse temporarily moves into his spare room and a mysterious Facebook profile wants to reminisce about his dead girlfriend, he begins to wonder if there is more out there for him. Meanwhile, middle-aged artist Elise becomes obsessed with the tigers at Melbourne Zoo, visiting them in a secret weekly ritual that allows her an escape from her crumbling marriage and her own spiralling sense of loss that threatens to overtake everything. Myfanwy Jones’ writing pulses, pushed along with an irrepressible dynamism that echoes its protagonists. Rather than wallowing in self-pity or drug-addled selfdestruction, what makes Joe’s character so compelling is his nihilistic energy and battle against his own ambition. Jones captures with a real clarity the swirling mix of rage, hope and world-weariness of the millennial male. This energy make’s Joe’s narrative arguably the stronger of the two, but it’s thrown into relief by Elise’s quieter, more introspective storyline. The women in Joe’s life, to varying degrees, seem intent on redeeming him – pushing back against his guilt, grief and

insistence that he’s not worth their trouble. The nurse who moves in is unnamed and interacts with no-one else in the novel – deliberately one-dimensional, transient, barely real. But then there are other characters, like Joe’s co-worker Lena, so vibrant and full of life they practically leap off the page. While the narrative at times feels a little crowded with motifs and characters, some left unresolved, each element is enjoyable and contributes to the boisterous, buzzing tone of the novel. Stylistically similar to the most recent novels of Chris Flynn and Chris Womersley, Leap is a pleasure to read and a compelling piece of Australian contemporary fiction. Alan Vaarwerk is the editorial assistant for Readings Monthly

THE MOTHERS Rod Jones Text. PB. $29.99

I vividly remember Rod Jones’ 1986 novel Julia Paradise (Text Classics, $12.95), the story of a Scottish psychoanalyst and his eponymous patient set in pre-war China. It quite justifiably caused a sensation with its exploration of female sexuality and earned the then young author accolades. The Mothers is Jones’ sixth novel. It’s a quietly moving story of three secrets and three women whose lives intersect over three generations. When her husband brings home his mistress, Alma takes her two children and leaves. It’s 1917 in the midst of the war in working-class Footscray. Alma has nowhere to go and a young man takes pity on her and

Giramondo. PB. $24.99

Zoë Norton Lodge is one hysterically funny lady. A born performer and storyteller, she’s skilled in combining traditional forms of comedy like stand-up with a narrative form. She started a yarnspinning night called the Story Club, which grew into a sell-out live event/somewhat obscure TV show on ABC2, and worked as a writer and presenter on The Checkout and The Chaser’s Media Circus. Norton Lodge has made me laugh until I had tears streaming down my face – on multiple occasions. At last year’s Emerging Writers’ Festival program launch, I had the pleasure of hearing Norton Lodge read her story ‘The Devil Wears a Denim Winter One-Piece’, about a children’s drama company ‘in the throes of its last attempt to wreak unhappiness and alcoholism on the world’. Later at Amazing Babes, an event at that same festival, Norton Lodge read a second story – ‘Yia Yia on Papou’ – a dramatic ode to her Greek grandparents and their decades-long resentment of each other (aka ‘a short discourse on how the colander is actually a weapon’). Both stories are included in this superb collection, Almost Sincerely. This book proves that while Norton Lodge is a brilliant, animated performer, she’s just as funny on the page. Reading these absurd tales of suburban mayhem in Annandale, Heartland of Sydney’s Inner West, I giggled on public transport, in the State Library, in line to pay at the supermarket. Even her bio made me chuckle: ‘Zoë was born in Annandale in 1984, where she was essentially a normal person until she went to a Performing Arts High School where she received an A for Wanker, a B+ for Smoking and a Dolphin for Maths’. With a charming cover illustration of Annandale by Norton Lodge’s younger sister, ‘Little Georgia’, Giramondo have again produced a physically beautiful book. In interviews, Norton Lodge often refers to the fact that her mum, dad and sister consistently sat in the front row at Story Club events, laughing madly while simultaneously turning beetroot. In this way Norton Lodge’s focus on her own family in this collection is never intended to embarrass them. Instead she offers an affectionate love letter to those dearest to her. Almost Sincerely celebrates belonging

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to a community, albeit an eccentric one. These stories are told with genuine warmth and heart and are truly a joy to read. Stella Charls is Readings’ marketing and events coordinator

FOREVER YOUNG Steven Carroll HarperCollins. PB. $29.99

The latest novel by acclaimed novelist Steven Carroll, Forever Young, is set against the tumultuous period of change and uncertainty that was Australia in 1977. Radicals have become conservatives, idealism is giving way to realism, relationships are falling apart, and Michael is finally coming to accept that he will never be a rock and roll musician. Forever Young is a subtle and graceful exploration of the passage of time and our yearning for the seeming simplicities of the past, by one of our greatest authors.

CHARLIE ANDERSON’S GENERAL THEORY OF LYING Richard McHugh Hamish Hamilton. PB. $32.99

Charlie Anderson is sure of himself. He’s sure he’s the best consultant in town, and a first-class liar and seducer. But what happens when he meets someone who can outplay him? Or when his CEO wife’s rising star threatens to outshine his own? Ranging from the politics of the bedroom to the post-GFC economy, Charlie Anderson’s General Theory of Lying is a funny, provoking and confronting debut novel that shows us afresh the world we live in now.

WEST OF SUNSET Stewart O’Nan A&U.PB. $29.99

In 1937, F. Scott Fitzgerald was a troubled, uncertain man whose literary success was long behind him. In poor health and his finances in ruin, he struggled to make a new start as a screenwriter in Hollywood. The last three years of Fitzgerald’s life, often obscured by the glamorous legend, are the focus of Stewart O’Nan’s heartfelt new novel, a wise and intimate portrait of a man trying his best to hold together a world that’s falling apart, if not gone already.

THE GOLDEN AGE Joan London Vintage. PB. $19.99

Shortlisted for the 2015 Miles Franklin award, The Golden Age evokes a time past and a yearning for deep connection. It is a rare and precious gem of a book from one of Australia’s finest novelists. It is 1954 and thirteen-year-old Frank Gold, refugee from wartime Hungary, is learning to walk again after contracting polio in Australia. At the

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Golden Age Children’s Polio Convalescent Home in Perth, he sees Elsa, a fellow patient, and they form a forbidden, passionate bond.

International Fiction FIND ME Laura van den Berg Del Ray. PB. $32.99

Laura van den Berg’s first two books, the short-story collections What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us and Isle of Youth, established her as an incredibly inventive writer with a clear grasp on the inner workings of human relationships. No matter the setup – a struggling actor finding work dressing up as Bigfoot and chasing willing participants through a forest, or a teenage girl helping her mother’s magic act while also pickpocketing the crowd – van den Berg always managed to plumb each story’s emotional heart. Van den Berg’s third book, Find Me, is also her first novel, and is narrated by Joy, a young grocery store employee, orphan, and cough-syrup addict who also happens to be immune to the virus that is working its way through America. ‘It is an epidemic of forgetting,’ Joy tells us. ‘First: silver blisters, like fish scales, like the patient is evolving into a different class of creature. Second: the loss of memory. The slips might be small at first, but by the end the patient won’t remember the most basic details of who they are.’ When the novel opens, Joy is part of a study in an isolated hospital somewhere in Kansas where she spends most of her time fighting off extreme boredom and doing arbitrary tests set up by the hospital staff. When order starts to break down at the hospital, Joy sets off across the ruins of America to try and find her estranged, ocean-exploring mother. As a plot device this journey plays to van den Berg’s interest in the mundane side of the fantastical. In a world where the preservation of memory has become the most important thing, Joy is able to share insignificant details and yet they resonate as precious. No matter the turns this book takes, van den Berg has created an incredibly nuanced character for us to follow along with. Chris Somerville is from Readings Carlton

DIETLAND Sarai Walker Nero. PB. $29.99

Plum is a 29-yearold, 300-pound woman who is scheduled for weightloss surgery. She believes that once she loses weight her real life will begin: ‘The real me, the woman I was supposed to be, was within reach. I had caught her like a fish on a hook and was about to reel her in.’ In the meantime, Plum secretly buys clothes for her future thinner self, and works quietly from home at her job of answering fan mail written to the editor of a teen magazine. She hides herself away and grapples with her self-worth, but at the same time Plum is a wry, funny narrator of the world around her.

Plum’s life changes drastically when she meets an underground women’s collective. Broader societal changes then begin to happen in the novel, too, as a terrorist group called Jennifer starts unleashing horrific violence against misogynistic men. Dietland is a smart, ambitious debut that takes a few unexpected narrative turns and tackles (with varying degrees of success) some big issues – this isn’t the book you think it’s going to be at the beginning. Dietland has a lot of fascinating things to say about what it’s like to be a fat woman in today’s society. It’s not a safe or simple read, and Sarai Walker doesn’t offer easy answers or cookie-cutter happy endings. There’s no romance in this book – Plum isn’t saved by a man, and she doesn’t find self-worth through someone else loving her. Instead, the novel delves into Plum’s interior life and changing perception of herself, while exploring feminism, violence, the media, dieting, female friendships and women’s bodies. Despite the raft of serious topics, Dietland is highly entertaining and lots of fun to read. Plum is a complex, interesting character and a delight to spend time with. Nina Kenwood is Readings’ digital marketing manager

MISLAID Nell Zink

for the close-knit community of people on the ground. Inspired by real events, Judy Blume interweaves the stories of three generations of families, friends and strangers whose lives are forever changed in the aftermath. In The Unlikely Event is an unforgettable novel, written with the same warmth and authenticity that won the hearts and minds of readers the world over for decades.

THE HARDER THEY COME T.C. Boyle Bloomsbury. PB. $29.99

On a cruise to Central America, Vietnam veteran Sten Stensen unflinchingly kills an armed robber menacing a busload of tourists. The reluctant hero is relieved to return home, only to find that his son, Adam, has become involved with a rightwing anarchist group. As Adam’s mental state fractures, he becomes increasingly delusional until a schizophrenic breakdown leads him to shoot two people. Inspired by a true story, T.C. Boyle explores the roots of violence and anti-authoritarianism inherent in the American character.

HarperCollins. PB. $27.99

LUCKIEST GIRL ALIVE

Mislaid, like Nell Zink’s first novel, The Wallcreeper, is a confident and clever work, but what is most striking is its peculiar style. It’s a bizarre domestic satire about a very dysfunctional family spanning from the 1960s to the 1980s in Virginia. Peggy, who decides at a young age that she is a ‘thespian’ (which she has confused with ‘lesbian’), attends Stillwater, an oldfashioned girls’ college. There she meets Lee Fleming, a young poet whose homosexuality led his old-money family to banish him to teach literature. Lee and Peggy embark on an unlikely affair which ends in a marriage and children. Zink’s tale of the separation and reformation of this family incorporates enormous cultural shifts and iconography, including beat poets, modern business-school universities, the aftermath of segregation in the south, and the characters’ engagement with race and gender politics. Political incorrectness and the stuff of real family trauma are treated lightly here, but somehow Zink makes it original and subversive, filling her novel with deadpan humour and enviable one-liners. Woven throughout all of this is a very interesting exploration of a woman’s decision to leave an oppressive relationship and make a life on her own terms, and it’s a brilliantly funny read.

Jessica Knoll

Georgia Delaney is from Readings Carlton

IN THE UNLIKELY EVENT Judy Blume Macmillan. PB. $29.99

When three planes crashed in Elizabeth, New Jersey within the space of three months in the early 1950s, Newark airport was closed for a year. Each of these disasters was devastating not only for those on board, but also

Macmillan.PB. $29.99

As a teenager, Ani FaNelli endured a shocking, public humiliation that left her desperate to reinvent herself. Now, with a glamorous job, expensive wardrobe, and handsome fiancé, she’s close to living the perfect life she’s worked so hard to achieve. But there’s something else buried in her past that still haunts her, something private and painful that threatens to bubble to the surface and destroy everything. Will breaking her silence destroy all that she has worked for – or will it set her free?

LEAVING BERLIN Joseph Kanon S&S. PB. $29.99

Alex Meier, a young Jewish writer, fled the Nazis for America before the war. But the politics of his youth have now put him in the crosshairs of the McCarthy witch-hunts. Facing deportation and the loss of his family, he makes a desperate bargain with the CIA to act as their agent in his native Berlin. But almost from the start, things go fatally wrong. Filled with intrigue and conflicted loyalties, Leaving Berlin brings a shadowy period of history vividly to life.

OUR SOULS AT NIGHT Kent Haruf Macmillan. HB. $32.99

Addie Moore’s husband died years ago; so did Louis Waters’ wife, and as neighbours they have long been aware of each other. With their children now far away both live alone in houses empty of

family. The nights are terribly lonely, especially with no one to talk to. Then one evening, Addie pays Louis an unexpected visit. Their brave adventures, pleasures and difficulties form the beating heart of Kent Haruf’s final novel, a moving story about love and growing old with grace.

PRINCESS BARI Hwang Sok-Yong Scribe. PB. $27.99

Princess Bari tells the story of a young girl who escapes famine and death in North Korea in the 1990s. Crossing oceans in the hold of a cargo ship, she finally disembarks in London. Alone in a strange land, Bari will have to fight, through pain and sadness, to find love and the will to stay alive. Hwang Sok-Yong entwines an old Korean myth, of an abandoned princess travelling to the ends of the earth, against the backdrop of the modern world.

SPILL SIMMER FALTER WITHER Sara Baume Heinemann. PB. $32.99

A misfit man, Ray, finds a misfit dog, One Eye. Both are accustomed to being alone, unloved, outcast – but as spring turns to summer, their relationship grows and intensifies, until a savage act forces them to take to the road. Spill Simmer Falter Wither is a wholly different kind of love story: a devastating portrait of loneliness, loss and friendship, and of the scars that are more than skin-deep. A heartbreaking debut by a major new talent.

THE UNDERWRITING Michelle Miller Text. PB. $29.99

Todd Kent is young, hot, and on his way to the top of Wall Street when the eccentric founder of a popular dating app handpicks him to lead its floating on the stock exchange. Given just two months to pull it off, Todd and his investment banking team race to close the deal of the decade. But nothing is what it seems in Silicon Valley, and when tragedy strikes there’s no telling where the sparks will fly.

COLORLESS TSUKURU TAZAKI AND HIS YEARS OF PILGRIMAGE Haruki Murakami Vintage. PB. $19.99

Tsukuru Tazaki had four best friends at school whose last names all contained a colour. One day his friends announced that they didn’t want to see him or talk to him ever again. Since that day Tsukuru has been floating through life, unable to form intimate connections with anyone. But then he meets Sara, who tells him that the time has come to find out what happened all those years ago. A mesmerising mystery story from the internationally bestselling author of Norwegian Wood and 1Q84.

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TIGHTROPE Simon Mawer Little, Brown. PB. $29.99

In the sequel to The Girl Who Fell from the Sky, Marian Sutro has survived Ravensbruck and is back in dreary 1950s London trying to pick up the pieces of her pre-war life. Where, in the complexities of peacetime, does her loyalty lie? When a mysterious Russian diplomat emerges to draw her into the ambiguities and uncertainties of the Cold War, she sees a way to make amends for the past and to renew the excitement of her double life.

MUSE Jonathan Galassi Text. PB. $29.99

Paul Dukach is heir apparent at Purcell & Stern, one of the last independent publishers in New York. Though things are shaky in the age of conglomerates and digital, Paul remains obsessed by one dazzling writer: poet Ida Perkins, whose life and verse have shaped America’s literary landscape, and who entrusts Paul with her greatest secret – one that will change their lives forever. A brilliant, haunting book about the beguiling interplay between life and art, and the eternal romance of literature.

A TIME FOR EVERYTHING Karl Ove Knausgaard Granta. PB. $19.99

Karl Ove Knausgaard’s major novel, A Time For Everything is about God and his angels. It posits that angels are real, that God exists and religious tracts, including the Bible, are empirical evidence

of the supernatural world. It posits, further, that heavenly beings evolve, and that even God may be subject to change. Written with Knausgaard’s characteristic style – level, patient, and intensely readable – it is a dazzling and innovative examination of the relationships between humans, angels and God.

FLOOD OF FIRE: IBIS TRILOGY BOOK 3 Amitav Ghosh Hodder. PB. $29.99

It is 1839 and tension has been rapidly mounting between China and British India following the crackdown on opium smuggling by Beijing. With no resolution in sight, the colonial government declares war. Flood of Fire follows a varied cast of characters from India to China, through the first opium war to Britain’s seizure of Hong Kong. A thrillingly realised and richly populated novel, imbued with a wealth of historical detail, and a compelling conclusion to an epic trilogy.

THE ASSASSINATION OF MARGARET THATCHER Hilary Mantel HarperCollins. PB. $19.99

A brilliant and transgressive collection of short stories from the double Man Booker Prize-winning author of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. In these ten bracingly subversive tales, all Mantel’s gifts of characterisation and observation are fully engaged, summoning forth the horrors so often concealed behind everyday facades. Whether set in a claustrophobic Saudi Arabian flat or on a precarious mountain road in Greece, these stories share an insight into the darkest recesses of the spirit.

Science Fiction THE WATER KNIFE Paolo Bacigalupi Orbit. PB. $29.99

I’ve neglected adult sci-fi in my adult life as it’s something that I read a lot of it as a teenager, and this novel has reminded me that sci-fi often mirrors what is happening today. It is often fobbed off merely as entertainment. The Water Knife, although highly engaging, holds at its centre an environmental message and with much of the world in drought at the moment, including California, it’s a message which is highly prescient. Bacigalupi envisions a near future where the Southwest of the United States is an arid wasteland. The states of Arizona, Nevada and California have closed their borders and are quarrelling amongst themselves over the water rights to the Colorado River. Boss of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, Catherine Case, is known for her luxury developments, or ‘archologies’, multi-leveled structures that house the wealthier members of society. Case’s power depends on holding onto water supplies and to do so she requires ‘Water Knife’, Angel, Case’s very own spy, assassin and muscle. Angel is sent to Phoenix to investigate a possible new business development for Case at the same time that a journalist is found slain in the street. Lucy Monroe, a friend and colleague of the dead journo, investigates, and uncovers a world of corruption. It is here that her path crosses with Angel and a young Texan refugee named Maria. Bacigalupi won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for his last adult novel, The Windup Girl. He is a master world builder and this dystopian novel could very well be seen as a prophetic vision of the future where the scarcity of

water has splintered the world into a politically and economically fragmented place and where lawlessness and a societal degradation are commonplace, while our poor are left, quite literally, in the dust. But it’s also a riveting futuristic thriller that begins as a complex slow burn which is worth enduring as the last three quarters are an exceptionally thrilling ride. Jason Austin is from Readings Carlton

SEVENEVES Neal Stephenson HarperCollins. PB. $29.99

When a catastrophic event renders the earth a ticking time bomb, it triggers a feverish race against the inevitable. An ambitious plan is devised to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere. But unforeseen dangers threaten the intrepid pioneers, until only a handful of survivors remain. Five thousand years later, their progeny – seven distinct races now three billion strong – embark on yet another audacious journey into the unknown, to an alien world utterly transformed by cataclysm and time: Earth.

THE VORRH Brian Catling Victor Gollancz. PB. $29.99

Next to the colonial town of Essenwald sits the Vorrh, a vast – perhaps endless – forest. Sentient and magical, the Vorrh bends time and wipes memory. Now, a renegade English soldier aims to be the first human to traverse its expanse. But some fear the consequences of his mission, and a native marksman has been chosen to stop him. Everyone’s fate hangs in the balance, under the will of the Vorrh.

An unforgettable novel about love and trust available now wherever books are sold

ann turner

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Meet the 2015 ABA Young Bookseller of the Year

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t Kilda staff member Gerard Elson was named Young Bookseller of the Year at the 2015 Australian Booksellers Association conference. Here, Gerard shares his favourite books to match with readers and thoughts on the future of books. What are your favourite books to match with readers you meet in the shop?

Two books I always enjoy sending to good homes are Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love and Sarah Bakewell’s genial but sagacious biography of Michel de Montaigne, How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer. Dunn’s novel is sui generis among modern American fiction yet never quite gained the foothold on the popular consciousness it deserved, while Bakewell’s biography is a charming and clear-sighted primer on one of the most influential – and delightful! – writers who ever lived. Witold Gombrowicz’s Diary is another book I’m forever entreating the right customers to read. More recently, I’ve loved connecting readers with John Darnielle’s Wolf in White Van, Deborah Levy’s slim but weighty volume Things I Don’t Want to Know, Elena Ferrante’s astonishing Neapolitan novels, Antonio Muñoz Molina’s equally jaw-slackening Spanish civil war epic In the Night of Time and my friend and colleague A.S. Patric’s Black Rock White City. What’s the most memorable thing that has happened to you in a bookshop?

I’ll decline the easy route of the celebrity anecdote and instead recall the day a dustcaked and grizzled old timer with a face John Ford would’ve loved lumbered up to me, thumped his heavy, callused hands on the counter and, fixing me with a bugged and bloodshot eye, drawled, ‘Where’s ‘ya gold prospectin’ section, matey?’ Who is an important author to you?

Montaigne really had a huge impact on me when I began reading him intently about four or five years ago; his famous sceptical remark, ‘Que sçay-je?’ (‘What do I know?’) somehow gave me permission, both as an aspiring writer and indeed as a human being, to be okay with dwelling in doubt, equivocation and ambiguity. Keats’ idea of negative capability is similarly resonant to me. I’ve long been suspicious of all things and people resolute and unbudging. Forming my own understanding of Montaigne’s ability to question received wisdom, quite radical in its day, and to hold every thought, however trivial, up to the light and examine all its facets has played a major part in developing the sense of fertile uncertainty with which I try to meet the world. How do you see the future of bookshops?

The critical advantage that bricks-andmortar bookshops have, over retailers like Amazon, are the relationships we form with customers. Booksellers are proselytisers for the church of literature – books form our pantheon – and no-one wants to feel like a shill by preaching through gritted teeth about some false idol. So, we need good books. For bookselling as we know it to remain culturally viable, publishers need to keep booksellers’ faith alive – encourage us to spread the word! – by continuing to produce daring and wonderful books to engender a rich and heterogeneous literary culture.

New Crime

Dead Write with Fiona Hardy

Crime Book of the Month BEFORE IT BREAKS Dave Warner Fremantle Arts Centre Press. PB. $29.99

DI Daniel Clement lives in a patchy so-called apartment on top of a supply store by the wharf, trying to piece his life back together after abandoning his excellent career in crime-prone Perth to become a DI on Western Australia’s far-northern coastline. Forsaking that life to follow his estranged wife and young daughter back to his hometown seems like the right thing to do, but Clement feels ostracised from the place of his youth and everyone who lives in it – especially when a brutal murder is discovered in a crocodileinfested creek, and old friends are as suspicious as the new, unfamiliar faces. Now, the detection skills dampened by his low-rent life in low-homicide Broome have an opportunity to return as the case grows in both mystery and body count. ’70s punk-rocker Warner nails laconic Australian characters but has infused Before It Breaks with a sharp writing style. So immersive in its description of the outback that you could almost swat at the words on the page like the ever-present flies and use the pages to fan yourself from the heat, it bleeds casual realism, honest but never dreary, regarding the non-blockbuster limitations of technology on blurry pictures, office procedure and officers learning the ropes on their first murder, or the determination needed to traverse through hundreds of kilometres of searing West Australian space just to interview one person. A cyclone rampages its way towards them as the case gathers speed: just put on your raincoat and hang onto your book – it’s a wild ride.

BLACK RUN Antonio Manzini HarperCollins. PB. $24.99

Don’t let the book’s snowy cover fool you – this is not Sweden, but the Italian Alps, where cranky Deputy Police Chief Rocco Schiavone is now located after getting the boot from Rome. Desperate to get back to his beloved city, and not appreciating his cold and unexciting new hometown (apart from the ladies who live there), he is virtually thrilled when a murder occurs. A body torn to pieces by a snowcat is almost unidentifiable, apart from the tattoo that leads Schiavone to a local trattoria and a hopeful business deal. The irascible Schiavone is also a man with a shady business to take care of, and it’s worth shaking your head and following him on his darkly funny first outing.

BLACK WIDOW Carol Baxter Allen & Unwin. PB. $29.99

When Michael Collins, Louisa Collins’ second husband, died of a strange illness in 1888, the doctor was suspicious that Louisa was behind it, and tests proved there was arsenic in his system and in his glass of milk – and, worse, in the promptly exhumed body of her first husband, too. The trial and accompanying tale of the six months leading up to her gruesome execution in January 1889 is a bizarre story of hung juries, a motiveless death, evidence unfairly entered, heated politics, and more. Carol Baxter’s meticulous research and intelligent storytelling serve the long-dead, and, let’s face it, probably guilty, Collins well.

THE DROWNED BOY Karin Fossum Harvill Secker. PB. $32.99

Chief Inspector Konrad Sejer is called to the harrowing scene of a drowning by Inspector Skarre: a 16-month-old boy has wandered off and drowned in the family’s backyard pond, his parents

unable to resuscitate him. Yet Sejer was summoned for a reason: Skarre felt something was off-kilter with the mother’s story, and the autopsy proves him right. Carmen then confesses that the boy drowned in the bathtub while she had an epileptic seizure, but even after her admission, Sejer can’t shake the case off. Fossum knows her strengths in Sejer, returning for the first time in nearly five years, and her own ability to plumb humanity’s cavernous depths.

PALACE OF TEARS Julian Leatherdale Allen & Unwin. PB. $29.99

In the Blue Mountains, there is a hotel known by outsiders for its luxury and by locals as the Palace of Tears. On a searing January day in 1914, a sparkling party is held by the owner for his son – but by the end of the day, disaster will eclipse the glamour and leave the Fox family scarred. One hundred years later, Lisa, the owner’s descendant, sets out to find out what happened in the hotel that keeps its grim nickname to this day. Fiction set in the early twentieth century in Australia is having quite the glory moment with Leatherdale joining, among others, Greenwood and Gentill – I really couldn’t be happier about it.

WAKE Elizabeth Knox Constable & Co. PB. $29.99

This is horror both in the glorious literary sense, and in the sense that the world around us is full of horror: full of people whose failings seem everyday in the normal world, but expand when the world falls apart – as things do for a town full of people in Kahukura, New Zealand, when a gruesome madness sees almost everyone dead. For those few survivors, trapped with something unseen, something that wants to pull their emotions into little pieces, the bravery of looking after each other and the town itself may be the only solution.

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New Young Adult Fiction See books for kids, junior and middle readers on pages 14–15

Young Adult Book of the Month PIECES OF SKY Trinity Doyle A&U. PB. $16.99

Lucy’s brother Cam died in a night surfing accident, which has rocked their small coastal town. Each of the family members is grieving in their own separate way and Lucy, once a champion swimmer, is unable to venture back into the water. Adrift from the all-encompassing world of the swim team, she reconnects with an old friend, wild child Steffi, who is secretive and rebellious. Lucy is desperate to know if her brother’s death was just an accident or intentional. She becomes obsessed with text messages that appear on her brother’s phone and also has an unhealthy fascination with her brother’s best friend, Ryan. New boy at school, Evan, seems into her but her messy emotions about her brother keep getting in the way. Death and its aftermath are rendered complex and chaotic in this stunning debut novel. There are no trite answers to the aftermath of tragedy, just a gradual discovery of the capacity to endure. Pieces of Sky is beautifully written, packed with longing and sadness, but also filled with hope. I inhaled it in enormous gulps like briny sea air and felt more passionately alive. Angela Crocombe is from Readings Carlton

HOW TO BE BAD E. Lockhart, Sarah Mlynowski & Lauren Myracle Hot Key. PB. $16.95

These three wellknown Young Adult authors have come together to write a novel about a trio of very different girls and their life-changing road trip across Florida. Each girl is struggling with her own problems. Vicks’ boyfriend has just moved away for college and she’s having trouble adjusting to the realities of adulthood. Her best friend, Jess, has become grumpy and anti-social as she secretly deals with her mother’s cancer diagnosis by turning to God. Mel, the new girl in town, wants to shed her identity as the ‘rich girl’ and finally find the friends she never had. Each with their own reasons, the girls drive across Florida from backwater Niceville to Miami, with hilarious encounters along the way. This is a fun, flirty read for girls 14 and up. Julia Gorman is from Readings Carlton

IT’S ABOUT LOVE Steven Camden HarperCollins. PB. $16.99

Don’t be misled, It’s About Love is about so much more. It’s about where you’re from and how you’re judged; revenge, confidence and the unresolved issues of the past; and the gulf between what we feel and what we’re prepared to face. It’s about a young man who dreams of becoming a film-writer but who struggles to find confidence in his own voice. Before he can succeed he must overcome his background, negotiate a new relationship with his older brother and bridge the ever-widening gulf between his new life and his old friends. I found myself drawn to Luke’s passions and his foibles; he’s a sensitive and introspective artist of great potential, if he can only overcome his own self-doubt. Let author Steven Camden take you deep into

the heart of a fascinating and compelling character through an artful combination of first person narrative mixed with film directions and ideas from Luke’s notebooks to experience Luke’s vivid and enticing world. Highly recommended for ages 14 and up (and especially for boys). Athina Clarke is from Readings Malvern

I’LL GIVE YOU THE SUN Jandy Nelson Walker Books. PB. $17.95

Phenomenal from the very start, I’ll Give You the Sun is about the fractured relationship between twins Jude and Noah. Each tells their side of the story, Noah as a thirteenyear-old and Jude, three years later, at sixteen. The twins are both so easy to spend time with, despite being broken and drowning. This is an expansive story and the title references a game that the twins play, in which they divide up ownership of the natural world around them as if they are ‘gods’. They feel powerful, but also sad and confused, as they struggle to find their way back to one another. Beautifully written by Jandy Nelson, I cannot recommend this enough. Isobel Moore is from Readings St Kilda

KISSING IN AMERICA

trip to California to see Will. With cowboys, crazy bus people and annoying aunts to deal with along the way, Eva will return from the trip with a new understanding of love. Kissing in America isn’t just about first crushes and teenage love. It’s about grief and how different people cope with it. Although at times I found the idea of following one’s crush across the country a little far-fetched, I did have to remind myself that as a teenager I probably would have attempted the same thing! Great for those 13 and up who want a fun romance with a bit of humour and emotion thrown in. Katherine Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn

SEED Lisa Heathfield Egmont Books. PB. $19.95

Seed is the community in which Pearl grew up in, ruled over by the sinister Papa S. Seed is all she has ever known and when a group of outsiders join the community, including the fifteen-year-old Ellis, cracks start to appear in the tranquillity of their small society. This is a slow, subtle read, with darkness bubbling below the innocent surface. Pearl’s journey is realised in beautiful detail with Heathfield painting a full picture of the cult and each increasingly dark layer. Seed will pull you in and refuse to let you go. IM

BECOMING KIRRALI LEWIS Jane Harrison Magabala. PB. $19.99

Set within the explosive cultural shifts of the 1960s and 1980s, Becoming Kirrali Lewis chronicles the journey of a young Aboriginal teenager as she leaves her home town in rural Victoria to take on a law degree in Melbourne in 1985. Adopted at birth by a white family, Kirrali doesn’t question her cultural roots until a series of life-changing events force her to face up to her true identify. Her decision to search for her biological parents sparks off a political awakening that no-one sees coming, least of all Kirrali herself as she discovers her mother is white and her father is a radical black activist. The generational threads of human experience are the very things that will complete her. If only she can let go.

Margo Rabb

TO HOLD THE BRIDGE

Penguin. PB. $19.99

Garth Nix

It’s been two years since Eva’s father died and to help numb the pain she’s taken up reading romance novels, where love and happy endings help her believe that things can turn out ok. When her dreams of the perfect romance turn to reality through attention and a kiss from her crush, Will, Eva can see her romance novels finally coming true. But out of the blue Will leaves to live in California with his father and Eva is left to wonder what could have been. Not willing to let the romance die, Eva devises a plan with her best friend, Annie, to road

A&U. PB. $19.99

Far to the north of the magical Old Kingdom, the Greenwash Bridge Company has been building a bridge for almost one hundred years. It is not an easy task. Despite the danger, Morghan wants nothing more than to join the Bridge Company as a cadet. But the company takes only the best and trains them hard. For the night might come when even an untried young cadet must hold the bridge alone against the most devastating of foes.

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New Non-Fiction Biography SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES: AND OTHER LESSONS FROM THE CREMATORIUM Caitlin Doughty Canongate. PB. $27.99

Funny, gruesome and thoughtprovoking, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes is Caitlin Doughty’s candid account of her early experiences working with dead bodies, first as a crematorium operator and then at mortician school. Doughty, who’s been rather aptly described as a ‘hipster mortician’ by the Huffington Post, is well known as the creator of YouTube series Ask a Mortician, and is founder of the growing death acceptance organisation The Order of the Good Death. She’s an engaging storyteller and her wry descriptions of her daily tasks are strange and unexpectedly delightful from the opening: ‘A girl always remembers the first corpse she shaves.’ You should pick up this book if only to read lines like this one. Corpses aside, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes is packaged as a fairly straightforward coming-of-age story. The essays are linear and throughout Doughty writes endearingly about the anxieties that often plague the early twenties. She frets about earning the respect of her coworkers, worries about The Future and falls in love with a boy living across the country. Yet, Doughty also casually slips other little titbits alongside her personal anecdotes, everything from witch burnings to mortuary cannibalism, and reflects on them. Time and time again, she reminds the reader that Western attitudes towards death are not the only option, that things have not always been this way. She implores the reader to ask why we think about death the way we do, to question what the accepted stories about death mean as opposed to blindly accepting them. At heart, her ‘memoir’ is really a passionate argument for reconsidering our relationship with the dead and it is an argument that convinced me. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes will change the way you think about death, and for the better. Bronte Coates is Readings’ digital content coordinator

SHINING: THE STORY OF A LUCKY MAN Abdi Aden HarperCollins. PB. $29.99

Abdi’s world fell apart when he was only fifteen and Somalia’s vicious civil war hit Mogadishu. Unable to find his family, he fled with some sixty others, heading to Kenya. Eventually Abdi made his way to Romania, then to Germany, finally arriving in Melbourne at just seventeen. He had no English, no family or friends, no money, no home. Yet he not only survived, he thrived. A remarkably warm-hearted, uplifting and inspiring story of one boy’s survival against the odds.

GOOD MUSLIM BOY Osamah Sami Hardie Grant. PB. $32.95

Osamah Sami is a madcap antihero of spectacular proportions. By the age of thirteen, Osamah had survived the Iran– Iraq War, peddled fireworks and chewing gum on the Iranian black market, proposed ‘temporary marriage’ not once but three times, and received countless floggings from the Piety Police for trying to hold hands with girls in dark cinemas. And the trouble didn’t stop when Osamah emigrated to Australia. A hilarious and heartbreaking memoir about what we’ll do to live up to expectations and what we must do to live with ourselves.

THE SHORT LONG BOOK Martin Flanagan Vintage. PB. $17.99

In 1995, Aboriginal footballer Michael Long quietly revolutionised Australian sport by refusing to let a racial insult pass during the Anzac Day match between Essendon and Collingwood. A decade later, he again had an impact on the nation when he set out to walk from Melbourne to Canberra to confront the Howard government over Aboriginal issues. Funny, incisive and revealing, The Short Long Book is a compelling portrait of a man who could be described as the soul of the game, as seen by Australia’s greatest sportswriter.

A DOUBLE SHOT OF HAPPINESS Judy Sharp A&U. PB. $32.99

When Judy Sharp took her three-year-old son Tim to a paediatric specialist, he was diagnosed with autism so severe that she was told he would never be able to talk or learn to live in a normal household, and that he was incapable of love, even towards his own mother. A Double Shot of Happiness is Judy’s beautiful and heartfelt account of Tim’s odyssey from that terrible diagnosis to his emergence as an acclaimed international artist and a fulfilled, loving and loved young man.

MAVERICK MOUNTAINEER Robert Wainwright HarperCollins. PB.$32.99

George Ingle Finch, mountaineer, soldier, scientist, rebellious spirit, boy from the bush, was in his day one of the most famous men in the world. In 1922 he climbed Everest, he pioneered the use of oxygen in climbing and was a hero of both World Wars. So why has he vanished from the pages of history? In this first full-length biography, Robert Wainwright surveys the man now best known as the father of

Academy award-winning actor Peter Finch – but who was so much more.

THE BOOK OF JOAN Melissa Rivers Viking. PB. $32.99

Joan and Melissa Rivers had one of the most celebrated mother-daughter relationships of all time. If you think Joan said some outrageous things to her audiences as a comedian, you won’t believe what she said and did in private. Her love for her daughter knew no bounds – or boundaries. In The Book of Joan, Melissa Rivers relates funny, poignant and irreverent observations, thoughts, and tales about the woman who raised her and is the reason she considers valium one of the four basic food groups.

GITTINS Ross Gittins A&U. PB. $32.99

For 40 years and 16 elections, Ross Gittins has had a ringside seat as the Australian economy has gone through radical change. Few economic journalists have earned such respect for their views, and throughout the book he critiques without fear or favour the ministers and bureaucrats who have shaped our economic wellbeing. He dissects the newspaper game and lays down some hard facts about a hard future. Honest, robust and intelligent, Gittins is as insightful and entertaining as the man himself.

BREAKTHROUGH: HOW ONE TEEN INNOVATOR IS CHANGING THE WORLD Jack Andraka Scribe. PB. $24.99

Jack Andraka was just 15 when he invented an early detection test for three types of cancer. After a family friend passed away, Jack created a test that can detect pancreatic, ovarian, and lung cancer in its earliest stages and, at 17, is now a renowned scientist. In Breakthrough, Jack encourages members of his generation to approach their pursuits with determination and optimism. In doing so, he illustrates how the curiosity and perseverance of one teen could potentially save the lives of millions.

LOST RELATIONS Graeme Davison A&U. PB. $32.99

Through the lives of two generations of his forebears, one of Australia’s most respected historians tells the story of English free settlers arriving in the mid-19th century, who built the Australia we know today. A widow and her eight older

children are uprooted from their farm and thrown on an emigrant ship with thirtyeight distressed London needlewomen. How they came to be on the boat, and what happened afterwards, is a vivid tale of family ambitions and fears, successes and catastrophes.

NOT MY FATHER’S SON: A FAMILY MEMOIR Alan Cumming A&U. PB. $21.99

A beloved star of stage and screen, Alan Cumming’s life and career have been shaped by a complex and dark family past – full of troubled memories, kept buried away. But then an unexpected phone call from his long-estranged father unravels everything he thought he knew about himself. Not My Father’s Son is the story of his journey of discovery, both a memoir of his childhood in Scotland, and an investigation into his family history which would change him forever.

Anthology THE SIMPLE ACT OF READING Debra Adelaide (ed.) Vintage. PB. $29.99

A collection of essays and memoir pieces on the topic of reading, in particular what it means for writers to be readers and how that has shaped their life. The Simple Act of Reading will support Sydney Story Factory by emphasising the importance of reading in shaping an individual’s future. Contributors include Debra Adelaide, Joan London, Delia Falconer, Sunil Badami, Gabrielle Carey, Luke Davies, Tegan Bennett Daylight, Kate Forsyth, Andy Griffiths, Anita Heiss, Wayne Macauley, Fiona McFarlane, David Malouf, Rosie Scott, Carrie Tiffany and Geordie Williamson.

Australian Studies ACROSS THE SEAS: AUSTRALIA’S RESPONSE TO REFUGEES – A HISTORY Klaus Neumann Black Inc. PB. $34.99

Australia’s response to asylum-seeking ‘boat people’ is a constant star in the political news cycle, but lacks the historical perspective necessary for informed debate. Have we ever taken our fair share of refugees? Have our past responses been motivated by humanitarian concerns or economic self-interest? Historian Klaus Neumann examines both the government policy and the public attitude towards refugees and asylum seekers since Federation. He places the Australian

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story in the context of global refugee movements, and international responses to those movements.

NO, MINISTER

NO SMALL CHANGE: THE ROAD TO RECOGNITION FOR INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIA

Nothing prepares a person for the job of chief of staff to a Commonwealth Minister. There are no professional development courses, recruitment agencies or training manuals. In 2009, Allan Behm became chief of staff to Greg Combet, the minister responsible for managing carbon pricing and the pink batts crisis. A seasoned troubleshooter, Behm had an uncanny ability to anticipate and deflect political crises. By his measure success was being an invisible force.

Frank Brennan UQP. PB. $32.95

In 1967, Australians voted overwhelmingly in favour of altering aspects of the Constitution relating to Indigenous Australians. Nearly fifty years later, there is a groundswell of support for our Indigenous heritage to be formally recognised in the Constitution. As we await the new referendum, Frank Brennan considers how far we’ve come, and yet how much work lies ahead. Written by one of our most respected commentators on legal and human-rights issues, No Small Change is a vital contribution to our understanding of indigenous affairs.

SILENT SHOCK: THE MEN BEHIND THE THALIDOMIDE SCANDAL AND AN AUSTRALIAN FAMILY’S LONG ROAD TO JUSTICE Michael Magazanik Text. PB. $32.99

Lyn Rowe was born in Melbourne in 1962, seven months after her mother was given a new morning sickness ‘wonder drug’ called thalidomide. In 2011 Lyn Rowe launched a legal claim against the thalidomide companies and, against the odds, won a multimillion-dollar settlement. Former journalist Michael Magazanik is one of the lawyers who ran Lyn’s case. In Silent Shock he exposes a fifty-year cover up concerning history’s most notorious drug – an epic account of corporate villainy against a backdrop of heroic personal struggle and sacrifice.

SUPERMARKET MONSTERS: THE PRICE OF COLES AND WOOLWORTHS’ DOMINANCE Malcolm Knox Black Inc. PB. $19.99

In hardware, petrol, merchandise, liquor and above all in groceries, Coles and Woolworths now jointly rule Australia’s retail landscape. On average, every man, woman and child in this country spends $100 a week across their many outlets. What does such dominance mean for suppliers? And is it good for consumers? Journalist and author Malcolm Knox reveals the unavoidable and often intimidating tactics both companies use to get their way. In return for cheap milk, he argues, consumers are risking much more: quality, diversity and community.

Allan Behm MUP. PB. $34.99

AUSTRALIA’S BOLDEST EXPERIMENT Stuart Macintyre New South. PB. $34.99

In this landmark book, Stuart Macintyre explains how a country traumatised by World War I, hammered by the Depression and overstretched by World War II became a prosperous, successful and growing society by the 1950s. An extraordinary group of individuals re-made the country, planning its reconstruction against a background of wartime sacrifice and austerity, seeking to fashion a new world order that would bring peace and prosperity. This book shows the 1940s to be a pivotal decade in Australia.

JOH FOR PM Paul Davey New South. PB. $29.99

In 1987 the Queensland Premier, Joh BjelkePetersen, launched an audacious bid to break the federal Opposition Coalition, replace Ian Sinclair as National Party leader and become Prime Minister. Trench warfare waged between the Sinclair and Joh forces during one of the most bizarre and divisive periods in Australian politics. Paul Davey reveals what went on behind closed doors, and the strategies aimed at thwarting the Joh campaign and reuniting the party at state and federal levels.

Business ONLINE GRAVITY Paul X. McCarthy S&S. PB. $32.99

Why have local video shops disappeared and been replaced by Netflix? Why are hotels being replaced by Airbnb? Why is your taxi driver from Uber? They are all under the influence of online gravity, the unseen force changing the face of work and employment. In this must-have guide to negotiating your future in an increasingly digital world, Paul X. McCarthy shows us what online gravity is, how it works and how we can harness it for our own success.

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n this landmark book, Stuart Macintyre explains how a country

traumatised by World War I, hammered by the Depression and overstretched by World War II became a prosperous, successful and growing society by the 1950s. An extraordinary group of individuals, notably John Curtin, Ben Chifley, Nugget Coombs, John Dedman and Robert Menzies, re-made the country, planning its reconstruction against a background of wartime sacrifice and austerity. This

book shows the 1940s to be a pivotal decade in Australia and reminds us that key components of the society we take for granted – work, welfare, health, education, immigration, housing – are not the result of military endeavour but policy, planning, politics and popular resolve.

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WHEN TO ROB A BANK Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner Penguin. PB. $29.99

Over the past decade, the blogs of Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner have entertained us and changed the way we understand the world. Now the very best of these have been carefully curated into a book – with added extras – for the millions of readers who love all things Freakonomics. When to Rob a Bank demonstrates the counterintuitive, irreverent brilliance that has made Levitt and Dubner’s books an international sensation.

Cultural Studies KEEP IT FAKE Eric G. Wilson Macmillan. HB. $34.99

Tell it like it is. Keep it real. We love these commands because they invoke what we love to believe: that there is an authentic self to which we can be true. But while we mock Tricky Dick and Slick Willie, we invent identities on Facebook, pay thousands for plastic surgery, and tune into news that simply verifies our opinions. Eric G. Wilson draws on neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, art and his own life to explore the possibility that there’s no such thing as unwavering reality.

Humour MUSINGS FROM THE INNER DUCK Michael Leunig Penguin. PB. $24.99

Musings From the Inner Duck, Michael Leunig’s poignantly hilarious new cartoon collection, ranges from Curly Flat to the Global Positioning Sausage, accompanied by the direction-finding duck. This collection of 138 cartoons tilts towards the whimsical, the wise and the sublimely misaligned; it’s less heavily political than previous collections, although the political system cops a serve here and there.

Military History ARDENNES 1944: HITLER’S LAST GAMBLE Antony Beevor Penguin. HB. $49.99

On 16 December, 1944, Hitler launched his ‘last gamble’ in the snow-covered forests and gorges of the Ardennes. The offensive, with more than a million men involved, became the greatest battle of the

war in western Europe. American troops, taken by surprise, found themselves fighting two panzer armies. While many American soldiers fled or surrendered, others held on heroically, creating breakwaters which slowed the German advance. Antony Beevor tells the story of the Germans’ ill-fated final stand.

Personal Development ALTRUISM: THE POWER OF COMPASSION TO CHANGE YOURSELF AND THE WORLD Matthieu Ricard Atlantic. PB. $29.99

Matthieu Ricard delivers a rousing argument that altruism – genuine concern for the well-being of others – could be the saving grace of the 21st century. Altruism is, he believes, the vital thread that can answer the main challenges of our time: the economy in the short term, life satisfaction in the mid-term, and environment in the long term. Ricard’s message has been taken up by major economists and thinkers, including Dennis Snower, Amartya Sen, Joseph Stiglitz, and George Soros.

Philosophy PHILOSOPHY FOR MILITANTS Alain Badiou Verso. PB. $12.99

This concise, accessible volume captures the relationship between politics and philosophy as it is conceived in Alain Badiou’s work. Harking back to his mentor Louis Althusser, Badiou explains how politics conditions philosophy, while suggesting that philosophy itself may be needed to clarify the truths produced within the political condition. Badiou also offers an intriguing take on what he calls the four major ensembles of Western society today, in which new emancipatory forms of politics are emerging: students, the young, workers and immigrants.

Politics THE EXTREME CENTRE: A WARNING Tariq Ali Verso. PB. $19.99

Britain is a nation without an opposition. Westminster is in the grip of an extreme centre: yes to austerity, to imperial wars, a failing EU, increased security measures, and yes to the status quo. Euro-immigration is becoming an English obsession, even though it was this

country that expanded the EU so that it lost any chance of social or political coherence. What is to be done? Britain’s leading radical delivers an eviscerating attack on the indistinguishable political elite of the UK.

DON’T TRUST, DON’T FEAR, DON’T BEG

Science HEALTHY BRAIN, HAPPY LIFE: HOW TO ACTIVATE YOUR BRAIN & DO EVERYTHING BETTER

Ben Stewart

Dr Wendy Suzuki & Billie Fitzpatrick

Faber. PB. $27.99

Heinemann. PB. $34.99

The plan was to attach a Greenpeace pod to Gazprom’s platform and launch a peaceful protest against oil being pumped from the icy waters of the Arctic. However, heavily armed commandos flooded the deck of the Arctic Sunrise, and the Arctic Thirty began their ordeal at the hands of Putin’s regime. Told in the activists’ own words and for the first time, this is a dramatic and inspiring story of incarceration and the ensuing emotional campaign to bring the protestors home.

Nearing forty, Dr Wendy Suzuki was at the pinnacle of her career, but was overweight, lonely and tired, and knew that her life had to change. Starting simply at an exercise class, she began to not only get fit, she also became sharper, had more energy, and her memory improved. Being a neuroscientist, she wanted to know why. Taking us on an amazing journey inside the brain, Suzuki helps unlock the keys to neuroplasticity that can change our brains or bodies and, ultimately, our lives.

Psychology THE GOOD STORY: EXCHANGES ON TRUTH, FICTION AND PSYCHOTHERAPY JM Coetzee & Arabella Kurtz Harvill Secker. PB. $32.99

Arabella Kurtz and JM Coetzee consider psychotherapy and its social context from different perspectives, but at the heart of both approaches is a concern with stories. Working alone, the writer is in sole charge of the story he or she tells. The therapist, on the other hand, collaborates with the patient in telling the story of their life. Drawing on great writers and psychoanalysts, the authors offer illuminating insights into the stories we tell of our lives.

Reference LOST IN TRANSLATION: AN ILLUSTRATED COMPENDIUM OF UNTRANSLATABLE WORDS

THE SOUL OF AN OCTOPUS: A PLAYFUL EXPLORATION INTO THE WONDER OF CONSCIOUSNESS Sy Montgomery S&S. HB. $24.99

In 2011 Sy Montgomery wrote a feature for Orion magazine about her friendship with a sensitive, sweetnatured octopus named Athena and the grief she felt at her death. It went viral, indicating the widespread fascination with these mysterious, almost alien-like creatures. Since then Montgomery has practised true immersion journalism, from New England aquarium tanks to the reefs of French Polynesia and the Gulf of Mexico, pursuing these wild, solitary shape-shifters. Octopuses have varied personalities and intelligence they show in myriad ways, from endless trickery to escape enclosures and get food to jetting water playfully to bounce objects like balls. Montgomery chronicles this growing appreciation of the octopus, but also tells a love story.

Theology

Ella Frances Sanders

THE BOOK OF THE PEOPLE

Random. HB. $29.99

A.N. Wilson

Did you know that the Japanese have a word to express the way sunlight filters through the leaves of trees? Or that there’s a Swedish word that means a traveller’s particular sense of anticipation before a trip? Lost in Translation brings the nuanced beauty of language to life with 50 beautiful ink illustrations. From the lovely to the funny, this is a collection full of surprises that will make you savour the wonderful, elusive, untranslatable words that make up a language.

Atlantic. PB. $29.99

In The Book of the People, A.N. Wilson explores how readers and thinkers have approached the Bible, and how it might be read today. Charting his own relationship with the Bible over a lifetime of writing, Wilson argues that it remains relevant even in a largely secular society, as a philosophical work, a work of literature and a cultural touchstone for the western world. Erudite, witty and accessible, The Book of the People seeks to reclaim the Good Book.

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Travel Writing THE WHIRL: MEN, MUSIC & MISADVENTURES Jane Cornwell HarperCollins. PB. $29.99

Travelling the world in search of love, great music and good stories, London-based journalist and music critic Jane Cornwell collects relationships the way the rest of us pick up souvenir tea towels or snow domes. This is also one woman’s journey through music, a tribute to music’s power to heal, inspire and transport. A fearless and funny quest for love, connection and a faithful man who can dance, The Whirl is a truly sexy memoir for the adventurer in all of us.

THE DIRECTOR IS THE COMMANDER: COME ON A UNIQUE JOURNEY INSIDE NORTH KOREA’S PROPAGANDA MACHINE Anna Broinowski Viking. PB. $32.99

Looking for respite from her crumbling marriage and determined to stop a coal seam gas mine near her home, filmmaker Anna Broinowski finds wisdom and inspiration in the strangest of places: Kim Jong-il’s manifesto The Cinema and Directing. Broinowski travels to North Korea to collaborate with directors, composers and movie stars to make a powerful anti-fracking propaganda film. Meeting and befriending artists, defectors and loyalists, Broinowski offers new insight into the world’s most secretive regime, and propaganda in general.

Visual Arts

Art & Design with Margaret Snowdon

ARCHITECTS’ HOUSES Stephen Crafti Murdoch Books. HB. $79.99

Architects’ Houses offers an insight into how contemporary architects live in the homes they have designed specifically for themselves and their family. In the absence of a ‘client’ and a formal brief, architects can be truly adventurous.

AGNES MARTIN

Every day the heroic police dogs and handlers of the Victoria Police Dog Squad are fighting crime and keeping citizens safe. The Dog Squad brings together their unique stories of bravery to give rare insights into the high-octane world of police dog work, and the bonds that exist between dogs and handlers.

David Gonski, company chairman and director, patron of the arts and philanthropist, has become a household name after his report into education funding. In this collection of speeches, he provides personal insights into some of the biggest issues in Australian society – the observations of one of our leading thinkers.

Since her father died, sixteen-year-old Eva has found comfort in reading romance novels. Then she meets Will and her romantic fantasies become reality. When Will moves to California, Eva and her best friend decide to drive west and find him. As their road-trip unfolds, they confront the complex truth about love.

In December 1944, Hitler launched his ‘last gamble’ in the snow-covered forests and gorges of the Ardennes. The goal? To split the Allies via the largest offensive in Western Europe. Taken by surprise, the Allies would have to hold on heroically in order to break the back of the Wehrmacht.

Nancy Princenthal T&H. HB. $55

This is the first biography of the visionary artist who was one of the most influential and original painters of the postwar period. Over the course of a career that spanned fifty years, Agnes Martin’s austere, serene work anticipated and helped to define Minimalism, even as she battled psychological crises and carved out a solitary existence in the American Southwest.

MAKING DESIGN Cara McCarty et al. Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. PB. $60

Designed by Irma Bloom, and containing over 1,200 images from the museum’s collection, this book is indeed ‘provocative, lyrical, funny, unexpected, ravishing, somber, and exquisite’ as described by Caroline Baumann, director of the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. With 54 essays on selected objects, pairing and sequencing of images, a process glossary and extended captions, this is a glorious collection.

penguin.com.au

KEEPING AN EYE OPEN Julian Barnes Jonathan Cape. HB. $45

SIDNEY NOLAN: A LIFE Nancy Underhill New South. HB. $49.99

Crashing through the myths around Australia’s most famous artist, many of which he created himself as a masterful selfpromoter, this book gives us, finally, the biography that Sidney Nolan deserves. In an authoritative biography that fully charts Nolan’s life and work, Nancy Underhill peels back the layers from a complicated, expedient and manipulative artistic genius. She carries the story from Nolan’s birth in 1917 to his death in 1992, tracing his early life, his experience as a commercial artist, his involvement in the Angry Penguins magazine, his painting and set design, his difficult marriages and his even more difficult friendships with some of the twentieth century’s most famous figures: Patrick White, Albert Tucker, Benjamin Britten, Robert Lowell, Stephen Spender and Kenneth Clark.

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Julian Barnes began writing about art with a chapter on Gericault’s The Raft of the Medusa in his 1989 novel A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters. Since then he has written a series of remarkable essays, chiefly about French artists, tracing the story of how art made its way from Romanticism to Realism and into Modernism.

ARCADIA BRITANNICA Henry Bourne T&H. HB. $39.95

Folklore enthusiasts are alive and thriving in contemporary Britain. Through taking portraits at key events and festivals, Henry Bourne takes a fond look at Morris dancers, practising witches, warlocks and others who actively celebrate a rich tradition honouring our connection with the seasons, the land and community.

In 1995, Aboriginal footballer Michael Long gave the AFL its ‘Mandela moment’. He quietly revolutionised Australian sport by refusing to let a racial insult pass during the Anzac Day match. A decade later, he again impacted on the nation when he set out to walk from Melbourne to Canberra to confront the Howard government over Aboriginal issues. Funny, incisive and revealing, The Short Long Book is a compelling portrait of a man who could be described as the soul of the game, as seen by Australia’s greatest sportswriter.

Annie Barrows, celebrated co-author of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, once again evokes the charm and eccentricity of a small town in her new novel, The Truth According to Us. When Layla Beck is sent to write the history of a little mill town in West Virginia, everyone involved is transformed – and their personal histories completely rewritten. Quirky, loveable and above all human, this heart-warming novel explores how little we really know about the people we know best.

randomhouse.com.au

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Baby Board Books BABY’S VERY FIRST SLIDE AND SEE: UNDER THE SEA

Jo Williamson

Usborne. BB. $19.99

Scholastic. PB. $15.99

HELP! THE WOLF IS COMING!

Enjoy weekly readings from a range of new release picture books (and some old favourites).

Cedric Ramadier Gecko. BB. $16.99

Oh no! The wolf is coming! He’s getting closer and closer – you’d better turn the page, tilt the book, shake it, and then slam it shut. In this book, you need to follow the instructions to make sure the wolf won’t get you. He’s a bit scary – maybe he wants to eat us! But if we hold the book on a lean, maybe the wolf will slip and fall, or disappear. Let’s try!

Picture Books MY NAME IS LIZZIE FLYNN: A STORY OF THE RAJAH QUILT Claire Saxby & Lizzy Newcomb

Carlton Fridays 10.30am - 11am 309 Lygon St, 9347 6633

Malvern Thursdays 10.30am - 11am 185 Glenferrie Rd, 9509 1952

St Kilda Saturdays 10.30am - 11am 112 Acland St, 9525 3852

20% off* any full-priced kids books for all who attend the story time session.

Black Dog Books. HB. $24.95

In 1841 Lizzie Flynn is being transported on the ship The Rajah from England to Australia. Her punishment for stealing a shawl is to serve seven years as a convict in the penal colony of Van Diemen’s Land. Ship life is hard and as she struggles with it Lizzie is befriended by Mollie, who teaches her how to sew so she can join the other women in making a quilt for the Governor’s wife. The conditions on those long voyages were cramped, unhygienic and diseases such as cholera were rife. Sadly, Mollie dies, leaving Lizzie to start her new life in a strange land on her own. The story is based on true events and after being lost for 147 years, The Rajah Quilt is now in the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra. Hauntingly told and beautifully illustrated, Lizzie’s story will resonate with a young and older audience. For readers aged 5 and up. Alexa Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn

THE MOST WONDERFUL THING IN THE WORLD Vivian French & Angela Barrett Walker. HB. $27.95

*Discount valid for 30 minutes after completion of each story time session. Please note: Story time is not a child-minding service. We ask that parents stay with their children for the reading.

HOW TO BE A DOG

Fiona Watt & Stella Baggott (illus.) An engaging, interactive board book, specially designed for very young children, full of vivid colours, stylish illustrations and friendly sea creatures. Simple slider mechanisms allow the pictures to be transformed as a hermit crab emerges from its shell, and more.

Have fun with stories brought to life by our Children’s Storytellers!

catching letters from one of his fans. Who is she? And why does Fuzz’s funny, too-short ear start twitching every time he replies to her shocking notes?

Oh my, this book is so pretty and the detail in the pictures so exquisitely delightful, I didn’t want it to end. In the way of so many fairytales, a suitable husband must be found for the princess and the edict is that to win her hand ‘he’ must present the King and Queen with ‘the most wonderful thing’. While this is happening the princess has requested that before she has to settle down she would love to explore their city. As all manner of grand and bewitching items are paraded before the royal parents by hopeful suitors, the princess is quietly and unobtrusively finding her own Wonderful Thing! Vivienne French is a fine storyteller and Angela Barrett has long been one of my favourite illustrators and together they have created an enchanting story for children 3 and up. AD

FUZZ MCFLOPS Eva Furnari Pushkin. PB. $14.99

Fuzz McFlops is one of the most famous rabbit-writers in the land, but ever since his classmates teased him about his lopsided ears at school he’s lead a lonely life, writing sad stories. Now he’s started receiving some scandalous, outrageous and rather eye-

What do dogs really want? To catch a ball and never let go? To scare the pesky vet away? To have gloopy mud baths (not bubble baths!)? Food, more food and even more food! The charming, heartwarming illustrations show how dogs choose their owners, where it’s best to sleep in the house and how to pretend you haven’t been fed yet. A picture book that gives children and grown-ups a warm, happy glow!

Non-Fiction TRUE FACE Siobhan Curham Faber. PB. $13.99

We are living in the age of the perfect image. From the bombardment of air-brushed photos, to celebrities and social media, young women are under pressure as never before to project a persona of perfection. True Face shows you how to resist the pressure and proudly reveal your true self to the world. Siobhan Curham encourages young women and girls to be honest, dream big, and create lives that are happy and fulfilling.

FIELD GUIDE: CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL Lucy Engelman Quarto. PB. $24.99

This is the first book in a series of illustrated guides to popular subjects such as natural history and fashion, beautifully presented as a book of high-quality decorative black-and-white prints featuring animals from all corners of the globe, with information on each species included on the reverse of each print. Pull out each of the 36 prints and colour them in, then hang them up on your wall or give them away as presents.

YOU ARE HERE: AN INTERACTIVE BOOK OF MAPS AND WORLDS Kathrin Jacobsen Cicada. PB. $29.99

A playful introduction to maps and global geography. Interactive, diverse illustrations allow young readers to learn and engage with the fundamentals of maps by drawing maps of their room, house, and town. Cities’ and countries’ resources, foods, languages, and landmarks are brought to life by doodling, completing, redesigning, and embellishing the illustrations. Weather maps, climate change, bird migration, and ocean geography also find their place.

GUARDING EDEN Deborah Hart A&U. PB. $17.99

Guarding Eden tells the personal stories of twelve ordinary people who were so concerned about climate change that they altered their lives to do something about it. Some did quiet backroom work in research, drafted submissions or wrote to politicians; others decided to go public – one was part of the team occupying a 160-metre power-plant chimney, one went on a hunger strike publicised around the world, another started the Lock the Gate Alliance. They come from all walks of life: there’s a nurse, a musician, an insurance broker, a teacher, a lawyer, a vet. Surprisingly touching, Guarding Eden makes an issue as complex and controversial as climate change feel human and deeply real – great for readers 13 and up.

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Middle Fiction Book of the Month THE UNLIKELY ADVENTURES OF MABEL JONES Will Mabbitt

I KILL THE MOCKINGBIRD Paul Acampora

Puffin. PB. $14.99

St Martin’s. PB. $12.99

Fond memories of reading Andy Stanton’s inventive and hysterically daft Mr Gum series as a family were brought to mind from the very beginning of this pirate adventure, which hurtles along at breakneck speed and manages to pack in a great deal of plot. Our hero Mabel Jones takes her kidnapping by a motley crew of anthropomorphic animal pirates in her stride. Though the captain never warms to her, being far too consumed by his mission to collect all the pieces of a mysterious broken X (which marks an ingenious spot, in this case), the rest of the team admire Mabel’s qualities, especially her ability to read, her bravery and her kindness. That she also picks her nose makes her an even better feminist role model (yes, girls are gross too). This is no run-of-the-mill pirate mission, and the place where Mabel has been taken is gradually revealed to be a lot further away from home than she first thought. Highlights include the superbly named and vengeful loris Omynus Hussh, lively illustrations of all the inventive animal characters, a brilliantly disguised little boy who shows up at an opportune moment just when the plot is at its thickest, and of course the pirate-speak, which never fails to amuse. For strong readers over 8 or a fun family read. Emily Gale is Readings’ online children’s specialist

Surprising and funny things can happen when a literary classic enters the brave new world of social media. Lucy and her two best friends begin their summer holidays with an uninspiring reading list for school. Reminiscing about the only book their favourite teacher set for the summer before, they also lament his untimely death. To Kill a Mockingbird was the book and, as a long summer awaits them, the three friends hatch a plan to create a demand for it. As Lucy’s mum, who is recovering from cancer, says, ‘Life is good, death is a mystery, the bird needs work.’ Funny and wise, playful and touching, I Kill the Mockingbird is about how one story can make a difference but it is also about the power of friendship, remembering those gone and cherishing those still with us. I loved this book. I love that it is about an old story but sharing the love in a very contemporary way. For readers 10 and up. AD

Classics PUFF William Wondriska Rizzoli. HB. (Pic Bk) $29.95

Junior Fiction ZOMBIFIED! C.M. Gray ABC Books. PB. $14.99

Ben and his best friend Sophie are slightly zombie-obsessed. Zombie video games, movies, comics – you name it. But now their obsession with the living dead is starting to spill over into everyday life, and they’re starting to see creepy things wherever they look, like the secret room Ben finds at school, or the way the mysterious Mr Slender keeps popping up where he’s not wanted. Ben knows something sinister is happening inside the hidden room, but is uncovering the secret worth becoming a member of the undead horde? Zombiefied! is a perfect first introduction to horror for kids aged 7 and up who, like Ben, are slightly zombieobsessed. While there’s some definite creep factor here, it never becomes nightmare-inducing, so it’s safe to put into the hands of younger readers if they’re not quite ready for Stephen King-level scary. Holly Harper is from Readings Carlton

COCO BANJO IS HAVING A YAY DAY N.J. Gemmell Random. PB. Was $14.99 $11.99

Coco Banjo loves her life. She sleeps in a tiger onesie, wears her mum’s diamonds just because she can, and has dolphins and penguins for friends. Today Coco’s planning a Yay Day of fun on her secret island home in the middle of Sydney Harbour. But wait, what’s that Secret Signal? Oh no, Narianna (known as N) is

New Kids’ Books

being bullied! Coco sets off for school to rescue her. But when cranky school principal Miss Trample sees Coco’s school uniform (customised, thank you very much), Coco might be in even more trouble than her best friend. How will she get out of this one?

Middle Fiction NOT AS WE KNOW IT Tom Avery Andersen Press. PB. $17.99

Set on a small British island in the mid 1980s, Avery tells the story of twin brothers Ned and Jamie and their final adventure. Ned is sick, and the brothers hope that the discovery of a mysterious creature from the sea will somehow save him. This is an emotionally complex, beautifully bittersweet story, sublimely illustrated throughout by Kate Grove. Not As We Know It is a thematically big book, but is appealingly simply written, making it an easy read that achieves much more than I think it set out to. Isobel Moore is from Readings St Kilda

A reprint of a rare 1960s-era children’s book beloved by the graphic design world and children’s book collectors. Puff is an old-fashioned small steam engine who lives a very unexciting life in a train yard, and daydreams of travelling to distant lands like Egypt, India, France, and even outer space. When a newer modern engine pulling circus cars breaks down during a snowstorm, Puff’s chance to prove his mettle finally arrives.

Classic of the Month WATERSHIP DOWN Richard Adams Penguin. PB. $19.99

When I picked up Watership Down a month ago I thought to myself ‘how exciting can a book about rabbits be?’ Well, what can I say, this book has everything! Not only was I up ’til all hours of the night pacing around trying to stay calm over what might happen next, but I was brought to tears one minute and cheering and whooping the next. Forget The Hunger Games, if you want a thrilling, suspenseful, slightly terrifying novel look no further than this brilliant classic. Brothers Hazel and Fiver were living peacefully in a full warren in Sandleford until Fiver had a vision of a horrible destruction that is to be brought upon the warren. Unable to convince the chief rabbits that such horrors are going to occur, Hazel and Fiver rally together a group of misfits who believe in Fiver’s vision and are willing to leave the warren. As the rabbits journey to find a safe place they encounter all sorts of predators, from humans to preying birds. However, it’s the other rabbits that just might be their biggest threat. Watership Down was originally published in 1972 and has not aged one bit. This brilliant classic beats any new suspenseful dystopian novel hands down. Highly recommended for ages 10 and up, and also available in a beautiful hardback edition with gorgeous illustrations by Aldo Galli (Oneworld, 9781780746623). Katherine Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn

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THE TRUTH ABOUT THE HARRY QUEBERT AFFAIR Joël Dicker HB. Was $39.99 Now $17.95

In the summer of 1975 Harry Quebert fell in love with fifteen-yearold Nola Kellergan. Thirty-three years later, her body is dug up from his yard along with a manuscript copy of his career-defining novel. Quebert is the only suspect. Marcus Goldman – Quebert’s most gifted protégé – throws off his writer’s block to save his mentor from the electric chair. But with Nola, in death as in life, nothing is ever as it seems.

A CITY LOST & FOUND Robyn Annear PB. Was $19.99 Now $12.00

The demolition firm Whelan the Wrecker was a Melbourne institution for 100 years. Its famous sign – ‘Whelan the Wrecker is Here’ – was a laconic masterpiece and served as a vital sign of the city’s progress. Over three generations, the Whelan family changed the face of Melbourne, demolishing hundreds of buildings in the central city alone. Robyn Annear brings to light fantastic stories about Melbourne’s building sites.

CHRISTIAN ART Rowena Loverance HB. Was $79.95 Now $19.95

Palm mats and pilgrim tokens, manuscript illuminations and church frescoes, Russian icons and Mexican murals. What makes these works of art Christian? And what distinguishes them from other works? These are the questions at the centre of this sumptuously illustrated study of Christian art over time and across the globe.

AMSTERDAM

INSIDE MAD

Russell Shorto

MAD Magazine

PB. Was $32.99 Now $10

HB. Was $45 Now $15.95

Amsterdam is not just any city. It has stood alongside its larger cousins – Paris, London, Berlin – and has influenced the modern world to a degree that few other cities have. Sweeping across the city’s colourful thousand-year history, Russell Shorto’s masterful biography looks at Amsterdam’s central preoccupations as the wellspring of liberalism.

LIVES

SPEECHLESS

Peter Robb

James Button

PB. Was $32.99 Now $13.95

PB. Was $27.95 Now $12

Peter Robb has an uncanny ability to get into the skin of other people. In Australia, Italy and elsewhere, Robb immerses the reader in the worlds of real people behind the public image. Featuring much previously unpublished material, this is a fascinating exploration of some notable lives – in all their variety, glamour and idiosyncrasy.

NIGHT GAMES

HB. Was $36 Now $13.95

With over 600 original images from the Kobal Collection, one of the world’s finest archives of motion-picture stills, Great Movies: 100 Years of Cinema examines 100 of the greatest films ever. It takes an in-depth look at ten genres – thrillers, romance, musicals, comedies, historical, action, war, family, fantasy and drama – and includes special features on sub-genres such as film noir.

THE AGE OF EMPIRES Robert Aldrich (ed.) HB. Was $60 Now $29.95

In the modern period of Western history, empires in one form or another have been a constant feature of the political landscape. From the disappearance of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires, to Germany and Italy’s short-lived overseas dreams and the US and Soviet Union’s unofficial imperialistic activity, this is the story of thirteen modern empires, told with rich illustrations drawn from a wide range of vivid, authentic sources.

James Button spent a year writing speeches for Kevin Rudd. Before that, he reported on politics for Fairfax. But James also has politics in the blood: his father was the larger-than-life senator John Button. Speechless is James’ highly personal account of a year working in Canberra, seen from both the inside and the outside, and a reflection on how far the Labor Party has moved from the idealism and pragmatism of his father’s generation.

Anna Krien

THE AMERICAN FUTURE

PB. Was $19.99 Now $12

Anna Krien follows the rape trial of an Australian Rules footballer, taking a balanced and fearless look at the dark side of footy culture. Both a courtroom drama and a riveting work of narrative journalism, Night Games was shortlisted for the Walkley Book Award 2013 and the Adelaide Festival Award for NonFiction 2014, and won the 2014 William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award in the UK.

Simon Schama HB. Was $65 Now $15.95

The 2008 presidential election marked a moment of truth about America’s identity as a nation and its place in the world. Written in the leadup to the campaign, The American Future: A History takes the long view of how the United States came to find itself in multiple crises and how an America that began as ‘the last, best hope of Earth’ came to be so suspected and vilified around much of the world.

Bargain Table

GREAT MOVIES Marcia Pointon

It has long been assumed that anyone who wasted their formative years reading MAD would wind up a complete failure. But it turns out some readers actually went on to be successful! For the first time ever, some of these successful readers (including Roseanne Barr, Dane Cook, Paul Feig, Whoopi Goldberg and more) share what MAD meant to them.

VAN DIEMEN’S LAND James Boyce PB. Was $29.95 Now $13

Almost half of the convicts who came to Australia came to Van Diemen’s Land. There they found a land of bounty and a penal society, a kangaroo economy and a new way of life. James Boyce shows how the convicts were changed by the natural world they encountered – behind the official attempt to create a Little England was a story of adaptation, in which the poor, the exiled and the criminal made a new home in a strange land.

LIFE: THE BEATLES FROM THE INSIDE Robert Whitaker & LIFE Magazine HB. Was $45 Now $15.95

When Beatlemania exploded, young Australian photographer Robert Whitaker was along for the wild ride, hired by the Beatles manager Brian Epstein and soon to become their friend. After years of collaborating with LIFE magazine, here are his best photographs and reminiscences.

LETTY FOX: HER LUCK Christina Stead PB. Was $24.99 Now $12

Letty Fox: Her Luck, Christina Stead’s sixth novel, was first published in New York in 1946, and banned in Australia for its salaciousness. Set in wartime Manhattan and told in Letty’s own spiky and exuberant voice, the novel follows her successes and failures in the game of ‘being somebody’. Letty’s tireless pursuit of love and sex provides the setting for Stead’s brilliant satire of marriage, desire and the conventions that surround them.

THE ANDY GOLDSWORTHY PROJECT Various HB. Was $70.00 Now $19.95

In 2003 British sculptor Andy Goldsworthy was invited to create a work of art for the National Gallery of Art, Washington. The book traces the development of Goldsworthy’s project from conception to completion and features the only fully illustrated catalogue documenting his commissioned installations – over 120 works.

THESE ARE THE NAMES John S. Levi HB. Was $99.99 Now $19.95

Between 1788 and 1850, more than 1500 Jewish men and women came to Australia either as convicts or as free settlers. This important biographical dictionary presents the details of these pioneers. Rabbi John Levi’s painstaking research through the fragmentary and often contradictory colonial records has culminated in an invaluable reference work and resource.

THE VOGUE FACTOR Kirstie Clements PB. Was $29.99 Now $10

In May 2012 Kirstie Clements was unceremoniously sacked after 13 years as editor at Vogue Australia. Here she tells the story behind the headlines, and takes us behind the scenes of a fast-changing industry. From her humble beginnings to her brilliant career as a passionate and fierce custodian of the famous brand, Clements invites us into a universe that brims with dazzling celebrities, fabulous lunches, exotic locales and, of course, outrageous fashion.

WHY THE GERMANS? WHY THE JEWS? Götz Aly PB. Was $39.99 Now $12

Why did the Holocaust happen in Germany, of all places? How did a country known for its culture and refinement turn so rabidly anti-Semitic? German historian Gotz Aly documents how German anti-Semitism was rooted in a more basic emotion: material envy. Aly’s account of this fatal social dynamic opens up a new vantage point on the greatest crime in history and is sure to prompt heated debate.

ANIMALS Keith Laidler HB. Was $99.95 Now $29.95

Embark on an incredible journey through the complexity and majesty of the animal kingdom. Animals showcases some of the most astonishing wonders of the natural world in spectacular detail. Organised according to scientific classification, each chapter focuses on a different family of animals, starting with an introductory essay alongside over 350 amazing images taken by the world’s best wildlife photographers.

WILL YOU PLEASE BE QUIET, PLEASE? Raymond Carver PB. Was $14.99 Now $8.95

First published in 1976, Raymond Carver’s first collection breathed new life into the short story. In the pareddown style that has since become his hallmark, Carver showed how humour and tragedy dwell in the hearts of ordinary people, and won a readership that grew with every subsequent brilliant collection of stories, poems and essays that appeared in the last eleven years of his life.

R E A D I N G S M O N T H LY J U N E 2 0 1 5

New Film & TV with Lou Fulco

DOWNTON ABBEY: SEASON 5

THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING

$44.95

Available 11 June. $39.95

‘Downton is rebooted slightly, with a lot more story, and the theme of noblesse oblige would drive you batty, if it weren’t all so campy.’ – Globe and Mail

DVD of the Month ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK SEASON 2 $39.95

Set in a fictional American women’s minimum security prison (Litchfield), the arrival of Orange is the New Black garnered a lot of well-deserved praise for its portrayal of women so rarely seen in TV or film. When asked what they thought of season one, Readings staff pointed to the amazing cast, made-up almost entirely of women – women of varying ages, ethnicities, sexualities and social classes – and to stories of experiences otherwise given very little attention. Our introduction to the world of Litchfield minimum-security prison was with white, middle-class, fish-out-of-water Piper. In reviews of season one, Piper was described as an audience surrogate, but show creator Jenji Kohan more tellingly described Piper as a Trojan horse. In season one Piper’s disorientation was our disorientation, but in season two we see immediately the extent to which Litchfield has become a familiar world – for Piper and for us. The first episode sets the season’s tone, undercutting the expected narrative as Piper is isolated and sent away from what has become the relative safety of Litchfield. It is a wonderfully unsettling start, which establishes for the audience how comfortable we have become in the prison we think we know. Capitalising on that familiarity, season two widens its scope and moves its focus to characters we were only just starting to know in season one, to others who had barely registered at all and, most unnervingly, to characters we thought were familiar, making us realise how little we know them. If season one was Piper’s descent into darkness, season two is our arrival in this new world. A world in which the protagonist remains important but in which there are so many important protagonists. As Piper and fellow inmate Nicholls take stock near the beginning of the season they spell out the overarching mandate of this series: Piper comments, ‘I spent a lot of time wondering if it would matter if I died.’ Nicholls replies, ‘In the macro sense, no. You’re one cheerio in the bulk box of life. But you f **king tickle me so I think it would matter.’ Marie Matteson is from Readings Carlton

‘A compassionate and inspiring look at an extraordinary life, anchored by two of the best performances of the year.’ – Empire

BABYLON: SEASON 1

FOXCATCHER

$39.95

$39.95

‘The tone is fresh and rigorously untraditional … tackling serious issues of hazing, internal politics, PTSD and infidelity in a strangely riveting brew. This is a series worth tracking down and watching.’ – Hollywood Reporter

‘Steve Carell offers a tour de force of slow-burning menace. Foxcatcher, one of the year’s very best films, exposes the diseased underbelly of American exceptionalism.’ – Rolling Stone

POLDARK $39.95

‘There are rare occasions when a popular drama series breaks free of its clichés and delivers something that properly belongs to art … Aidan Turner [earns] every ounce of praise that has been heaped upon him.’ – Telegraph (UK)

Documentary COBAIN: MONTAGE OF HECK $29.95

‘[Cobain’s] story is undoubtedly a tragedy and [Brett] Morgen paints it like it was, in a stylish juxtaposition of traditional biography and adventurous, raw filmmaking.’ – The Australian

FORTITUDE: SERIES 1 Available 10 June. $39.95

‘The wintry new psychological thriller about murder, the Arctic, and environmental collapse [is] one of this season’s most visually interesting new shows, a scientific twist on Cronenbergian body horror.’ – New Republic

TV THE GAME: THE COMPLETE MINISERIES

MISS FISHER’S MURDER MYSTERIES: SERIES 3, VOLUME 1

Film

$29.95

$29.95

‘Today’s high-tech espionage thrillers have their appeal, but there’s still great pleasure to be mined from good oldfashioned spycraft … in this throwback miniseries set in the early 1970s.’ – The AV Club

Available 11 June. $39.95

‘Season 3 offers a new and unique world in each episode ... Fisher’s estranged father returns from overseas to create trouble, and Dot takes on a Watson-like role to Miss Fisher’s Holmes.’ – news.com.au

BIRDMAN ‘Michael Keaton is astounding in this brilliantly conjured piece of stream-ofconsciousness cinema by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu … Prepare to be enthralled, dazzled, delighted and disturbed.’ – 3AW

Also coming soon WOLF HALL (17 June) WILD (17 June) THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ELEANOR RIGBY (17 June) THE NEWSROOM: SEASON 3 (17 June) SELMA (18 June) PAPER PLANES (24 June) ROALD DAHL’S ESIO TROT (24 June) RAY DONOVAN: SEASON 2 (24 June) BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (24 June) CITIZEN FOUR (24 June) MAKING AUSTRALIA GREAT (24 June) A MOST VIOLENT YEAR (25 June)

PARTISAN

THE EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES

FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD

Starring Vincent Cassel (Black Swan) and premiering at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Ariel Kleiman's ambitious Australian production is a chilling depiction of a childhood lived under the auspices of an overwhelming and dangerous personality in cult-like conditions.

Michael Winterbottom, celebrated director of The Trip, joins forces with actor, comedian and provocateur Russell Brand for the most unlikely of documentary approaches: an uproarious critique of the world financial crisis.

Oscar-nominated Director Thomas Vinterberg (The Hunt) teams up with Carey Mulligan (An Education), Matthias Schoenaerts (Rust and Bone) and Michael Sheen (The Queen) in this stunning adaptation of author Thomas Hardy’s 1874 literary classic.

“Made with the same crusading zeal and humour as Michael Moore’s best docs…Brand puts across a familiar message in a very lucid and entertaining fashion.” The Independent

★★★★ “Extremely well done and well-acted, it’s an attractive, appealing, involving adaptation” Empire

“A beautifully crafted yet equally disturbing thriller” FilmInk Opens May 28 (CTC)

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Opens June 25 (M)

Opens June 11 (CTC)

Melbourne’s home of quality arthouse and contemporary cinema

380 Lygon Street Carlton cinemanova.com.au

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R E A D I N G S M O N T H LY J U N E 2 0 1 5

New M us ic

Jazz

Album of the Month

DEE DEE’S FEATHERS Dee Dee Bridgewater, Irvin Mayfield & the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra

THE TRAVELING KIND Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell $21.95

These long-time friends and musical cohorts have waited three years to follow their long-promised and award-winning duet project Old Yellow Moon. The Traveling Kind is another beautifully produced (Joe Henry) collection of country, folk and rock with blues, jazz and Cajun hues and would comfortably sit in what today would be labelled Americana. Opening with the haunting title track, the two singers pay tribute to songs and poets of the past amid gorgeous harmonies and evocative mandolin. Most of the songs are co-written with Crowell, some with Harris, and all display great humour and wit in examining the joys and sorrows of relationships from an older but wiser perspective. In one way or another Harris and Crowell were there when country music crossed over and found a rock audience in a big way in the 1970s with the Hot Band and its array of guitarists such as James Burton and Albert Lee. Crowell met Harris when she began covering his songs and the pair hit it off so well that he was taken on as rhythm guitarist and back-up singer. Crowell had been part of the thriving but not mainstream Austin music scene that was fermenting the cosmic-cowboy and outlaw-country songwriters, including Townes Van Zandt, Steve Earle, Guy Clarke and Jerry Jeff Walker to name just a few. Harris was also becoming a sought-after session singer for the likes of Neil Young and Linda Ronstadt. After a few years their careers moved in different directions, but the pair always swore to work together again and The Traveling Kind is a testament to two mature artists who love making music together and made good on that promise. Track three, ‘Bring it on Home to Memphis,’ is a tough, rocking paean to Lucinda Williams that features some smoking electric and slide guitar. A few tracks later they cover Lucinda’s breakthrough tune ‘I Just Wanted to See You So Bad’. If it’s the more traditional sounds of fiddle, mandolin and pedal-steel guitar that you like, there’s plenty of that too in the soulful ‘You Can’t Say We Didn’t Try’. The album ends with a romp in English and French, ‘Le Danse De La Joie’. The Traveling Kind more than delivers on the fine work begun on Old Yellow Moon. Paul Barr is from Readings Carlton

Pop & Rock MARLON WILLIAMS $21.95

Rising alt-country star Marlon Williams releases his eponymous debut album. Recorded in Lyttelton, NZ with his longtime producer Ben Edwards, the album showcases why Williams has been called ‘the impossible love child of Elvis, Roy Orbison and Townes Van Zandt’.

IN COLOUR Jamie xx $21.95

Jamie xx is a founding member and producer of The xx, and creator of electronic and club orientated music. In Colour – a bold, celebratory, emotional record featuring collaborations with his The xx bandmates as well as Young Thug, Popcaan and Four Tet – delivers his definitive artistic statement.

HAIRLESS TOYS Róisín Murphy $21.95

Hairless Toys is the third album by former Moloko frontwoman Róisín Murphy, featuring 51 minutes of extended jams, fusing electronic, trip-hop and jazz-influenced sounds resulting in a welcome return for the former ‘The Time Is Now’ and ‘Sing It Back’ hit-maker.

TALK Daniel Johns $21.95

After putting his band Silverchair on ‘indefinite hiatus’, Daniel Johns steps out on his own

Country

with a completely fresh approach. Dollops of lush R&B are laced with cruisy electro flavours and some dark glitchy bedroom production touches to create a stylish take on modern soul.

HOW BIG, HOW BLUE, HOW BEAUTIFUL Florence & the Machine $22.95

$19.95

Recorded in a reconverted historical church badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina, Dee Dee’s Feathers is a journey through the history of New Orleans as told through song, a modern exploration of the music and culture that makes New Orleans a city and place unlike any other.

TEN SAILS Luke Howard & Nadje Noordhuis $19.95

This first collaboration between Australian pianist and composer Luke Howard and Brooklyn-based trumpeter Nadje Noordhuis comprises ten exquisite minatures written by both peripatetic composers. Noordhuis melds classical rigor, jazz expression and world-music accents into a sound that is distinctively her own.

THE BAD PLUS JOSHUA REDMAN $21.95

In 2011, The Bad Plus invited saxophonist Joshua Redman to join them for a week of performances at the Blue Note in New York City. Their collaboration, recorded late last year, includes seven new tracks and two new arrangements of Bad Plus favourites.

CURRENCY OF MAN Melody Gardot $21.95

How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful is the highly anticipated third album from Britain’s Florence & the Machine. Live-sounding, tune-rich, and unhinged in all the right places, How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful is powerful in all the best ways. In voice and outlook, Florence has never sounded better.

The highly-anticipated Currency of Man is an intensely creative milestone, transcending musical distinctions of jazz, blues and R&B, to offer a stirring social and musical statement. Melody Gardot takes her gift for songwriting in a completely different direction.

EVERYTHING SINGS TONIGHT

MOOROOLBARK

Lucie Thorne An exquisite collaboration between Melbourne singersongwriter Thorne and long-time musical partner Hamish Stuart. In the midst of a European tour late last year, Lucie and Hamish spent two days in Berlin, recording an album which marks a bold and musically adventurous new direction for the pair.

SOL INVICTUS

CREATION

Faith No More $21.95

The unparalleled Faith No More return with their their first release in 18 years. Produced by founding member and bassist, Billy Gould, and including the reinvigorated band’s classic lineup, Sol Invictus features ten brand new songs, including the new single ‘Superhero’.

Eilen Jewell $26.95

Sundown Over Ghost Town was recorded in her hometown of Boise, Idaho. The album is composed of twelve stunning, original compositions that feature some of her most personal stories yet, blending influences of surf-noir, early blues, rockabilly, and 1960s-era rock and roll.

MONTEREY The Milk Carton Kids $21.95

With their third album Monterey, The Milk Carton Kids have evolved their signature sound. Written on the road, the singers’ acclaimed harmonies move farther apart so that the quirks and kinks of two individual identities emerge, the harmonies all the while remaining lush and soaring.

Folk & World POWER IN THE BLOOD Buffy Sainte-Marie $24.95

Buffy Sainte-Marie has been an untiring champion for Native American people and the environment, through her music, art and political action. Power in the Blood, her first new album in six years, includes odes to the sanctity of life, the splendour of Mother Nature, and scathing political and social commentary.

THE LONGEST RIVER Olivia Chaney $21.95

London-based folk singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Olivia Chaney makes her album debut with The Longest River. Known for her acclaimed live performances and collaborations, Chaney balances her original compositions with a selection of newly arranged covers that illustrate the broad sweep of her taste.

Barney McAll Available 5 June. $21.95

Barney McAll’s new album is a sonic reflection upon the distance in miles and in music he has travelled. The composer– pianist’s works exhibit diverse colours and influences, ranging from gospel to Afro Caribbean styles, anchored by a distinctive compositional approach that is all McAll’s own.

$24.95

SUNDOWN OVER GHOST TOWN

Keith Jarrett $29.95

Creation features music selected by Keith Jarrett from his improvised solo concerts recorded in 2014 in Tokyo, Toronto, Paris and Rome. Jarrett zeroes in on the most revelatory moments from six different concerts, giving us the most up-to-the minute account of his spontaneously created music.

Coming Soon BEFORE THIS WORLD James Taylor Available 12 June. $24.95

On the iconic singersongwriter’s first album since 2002, Taylor continues to explore many of the themes that have absorbed him throughout his recording career. Produced by Taylor and Dave O’Donnell, it features ten songs, nine of which are brand new Taylor compositions.

THE OTHER SIDE OF DESIRE Rickie Lee Jones Available 19 June. $24.95

Written and produced in her home town, New Orleans, Rickie Lee Jones’ first album of all new material in almost a decade evokes the backdrop of The Big Easy.

R E A D I N G S M O N T H LY J U N E 2 0 1 5

SCHUBERT: CHAMBER WORKS

New C la ss i ca l M u s i c Classical Album of the Month

Tasmin Little & Piers Lane Chandos. CHAN10850. 2CDs. $29.95

GUERRE & PAIX: 1614–1714 Jordi Savall Alia Vox. AVSA9908. $49.95

Jordi Savall’s latest offering, Guerre & Paix: 1614–1714, recalls the bloody events of the century preceding the Siege of Barcelona. This is an impressive compilation: comprising two CDs and an almost 400page booklet, each piece of music represents an historical event, from the Thirty Years’ War to a celebration of the end of the War of Spanish Succession. In presenting music of battle Savall urges us to ‘acquire new ways of relating to each other if we are to reconcile differences in a world that is fertile in action, word and thought’. The theme is a timely one for Australians: 2015 marks the 100th anniversary of ANZAC landings at Gallipoli, which serves as a solemn reminder of the atrocities of war. As his many recordings attest, Savall is a fine gambist, although there are few opportunities to experience the beauty of his solo instrument on Guerre & Paix. Instead, he shines as an assured director, which is no small feat considering the array of styles covered over the two CDs, from a traditional Ottoman ‘makam’ to Handel’s Jubilate Deo. Perhaps the most poignant moment is the ‘Hymne de la Catalogne’ (also known as Els Segadors, the Catalonian anthem), performed by La Capella Reial de Catalunya, whose unison singing is particularly stirring. Traditional Catalan music elicits great passion from the group, as demonstrated in ‘El Cant des Aucells’. Here, in this brief moment of musical peace to mark the 1705 military alliance between England and Catalonia, the women sing with palpable tenderness and warmth. Ultimately, percussionist Pedro Estevan remains the standout. What is a battle march without the thunderous roll of the drums? His playing provides a sense of both nationalistic fervour and solemnity, as the moment requires. Immaculately presented and performed, Guerre & Paix is a triumph for Savall. Alexandra Mathew is from Readings Carlton

VIGNETTES Emma Sholl & Jane Rosenson

RAVEL: DAPHNIS ET CHLOE

0889211409983. $24.95

Philippe Jordan

A comment you often hear when talking about Australian classical music is: ‘Oh yes, but in Europe they do it so much better.’ From personal experience, however, I believe that is not true. Vignettes is proof that Australian musicians and composers are capable of creating engaging and appealing recordings. This album has something for everyone, beautiful classical music, jazz-infused chamber and contemporary repertoire from Australian composers. The album consists of works for flute and harp, with a bit of bass and percussion to give occasional flavour. Emma Sholl is currently working as Associate Principal Flute with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and doubling her workload as Lecturer in Flute at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and yet she can still produce this amazing music of the highest quality. Her counterpart is Jane Rosenson, who is glorious in her musicianship and precise in her technique. Kees Boersma and Daryl Pratt complete the ensemble on bass and percussion respectively. Vignettes is a delightful recording with interesting contemporary music that is also beautiful and is worthy of repeated listens.

Erato. 2564616684. $19.95

Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloe is not only his longest work but one of his most popular (in its Suite form). Often recorded and frequently performed even in Melbourne, most classical music enthusiasts are familiar with the Impressionistic work. I have over seven different recordings in my collection alone, however there is so much room for interpretation both by the conductor and the individual musicians that I love hearing new versions. This recording with the Orchestre de l’Opera National de Paris started with what felt like a single breath of air and expanded into one of the most beautiful versions of this seminal work that I have ever heard. The orchestra, under the baton of Philippe Jordan, originally started rehearsals for Daphnis as a season of the complete ballet at the Paris Opera Bastille, with the Benjamin Millepied, of Black Swan fame, as choreographer. However, this recording was made after the season was finished and it’s obvious that each and every musician knows their exact place, which only comes from repeated performances. They have buffed out any musical indecision and present the most wholehearted performance. It doesn’t sound like an orchestra of 70 odd people, it sounds like one natural organism living and breathing Daphnis et Chloe.

Kate Rockstrom is a friend of Readings

Kate Rockstrom is a friend of Readings

MOZART: VIOLIN CONCERTO NO. 5; VIEUXTEMPS: VIOLIN CONCERTO NO. 4

MOZART: PIANO SONATAS

Hilary Hahn & Paavo Jarvi DG. 4793956. $24.95

‘(Hahn’s) Mozart is elegant, stylish and played throughout with beautiful tone ... The Vieuxtemps, though, is remarkable.’ – Gramophone

Marc-André Hamelin Hyperion. CDA68029. 2CDs. $29.95

Eight of Mozart’s divinely inspired Piano Sonatas here receive performances of mercurial inspiration from consummate-musician cum virtuoso-wizard Marc-André Hamelin. This new Mozart will not disappoint.

The electrifying partnership of Tasmin Little and Piers Lane returns in this unique double-album featuring the complete works by Schubert for violin and piano.

VOYAGE Lavinia Meijer Sony Classical. 88875046402. $21.95

With her new album Voyage, Lavinia Meyer continues to explore new repertoire for the harp and juxtaposes wellknown and contemporary composers, such as Debussy, Ravel, Satie and Yann Tiersen.

COMPLETE CONCERTO RECORDINGS ON DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON Maria João Pires DG. 4794370. 5CDs. $44.95

Pires has developed a musical voice focused on the essence of a work’s communicative qualities, powered by love, intuition and an unworldliness that allows every note to feel emotionally genuine.

SIBELIUS: SYMPHONIES NO. 2 & 7 Thomas Søndergård & BBC National Orchestra of Wales Linn. CKD462. $29.95

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‘Søndergård’s Sibelius Two is breathtaking in its speedy pacing, lightness of foot, and command of the internal fluctuations of pace, mood and momentum ... The playing of BBC N.O.W., in line with its conductor’s evident vision, is astonishing in its sophistication ...’ – The Herald (Glasgow)

ENGLISH HYMN ANTHEMS The Choir of Kings College, Cambridge & Stephen Cleobury King’s College. KGS0004. $29.95

English Hymn Anthems, the first release of 2015 from the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, continues the choir’s active commitment to expanding the popular understanding of choral repertoire through original research and recording.

HYPERION CLASSICAL MUSIC SALE Readings Carlton, Hawthorn and Malvern will be offering selected titles from the prestigious Hyperion Records catalogue at up to 40% off from 10–30 June (or while stocks last), featuring recordings from Angela Hewitt, Marc-André Hamelin, Leslie Howard, Ian Bostridge, Stephen Hough and groups such as Gothic Voices, St. Petersburg String Quartet, The Cardinall’s Musick and The King’s Consort. With approximately 400 titles in the sale this is the perfect time to complete your classical music library. Please note that limited stock is available and when we run out of stock of a particular title it cannot be reordered at the discounted price.

MELBOURNE THEATRE COMPANY AND KAY + McLEAN PRODUCTIONS PRESENT

THE INTERNATIONAL STAGE PREMIERE OF HITCHCOCK’S CLASSIC THRILLER!

NOW PLAYING ARTS CENTRE MELBOURNE BOOK NOW MTC.COM.AU CAST NICHOLAS BELL, IAN BLISS, JUSTIN STEWART COTTA, MATT DAY, SHERIDAN HARBRIDGE, MATT HETHERINGTON, JOHN LEARY, TONY LLEWELLYN-JONES, AMBER McMAHON, DEIDRE RUBENSTEIN, LUCAS STIBBARD, LACHLAN WOODS DIRECTOR & SET DESIGNER SIMON PHILLIPS SET & LIGHTING DESIGNER NICK SCHLIEPER COSTUME DESIGNER ESTHER MARIE HAYES COMPOSER & SOUND DESIGNER IAN McDONALD ASSISTANT DIRECTOR JOHN KACHOYAN VOICE & DIALECT COACH LEITH MCPHERSON AV DESIGNER JOSH BURNS BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT WITH WARNER BROS. THEATRE VENTURES