FREE
AUGUST 2016
BOOKS
MUSIC
FILM
E V E N TS
SKYLARKING
Emily Bitto interviews Kate Mildenhall
about her debut novel, Skylarking
page 6
NEW IN AUGUST
BRIOHNY
DOYLE
MAXINE
BENEBA CLARKE
ASHLEIGH
WILSON
$29.99
$32.99
$49.99
page 7
$27.99
page 12
$44.99
page 16
OCCUPIED
$39.95
page 21
BERNARD
FANNING
$21.95
page 22
R E A D I N G S M O N T H LY A U G U S T 2 0 1 6
3
News
CLOSING DOWN SALE
AT READINGS BARGAINS
POP-UP SHOP
The Readings Bargains pop-up shop is
entering its final weeks, and as a last hurrah
they’re hosting a big sale! Drop by the
pop-up shop at 315 Lygon Street, next door
to (across the little lane from) our Carlton
shop, before mid-August and you’ll be able
to pick up any book in-store for just $7,
though only while stocks last. Our new
children’s shop will be moving into the
space and opening its doors in September.
Please note, Readings gift cards cannot be
redeemed at the Readings Bargains shop.
READINGS DONCASTER &
READINGS KIDS OPENING SOON
We’re thrilled to announce that our two
new shops will be officially opening in
September! Readings Doncaster (Westfield
Doncaster, 619 Doncaster Rd, Doncaster)
and our speciality children’s shop, Readings
Kids (315 Lygon St, Carlton) will both open
their doors next month. To be the first to
hear about our opening dates and special
events, sign up to the Readings enews at
readings.com.au/sign-up.
NATIONAL BOOKSHOP DAY
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
colourcode.com.au
Front Cover
Readings Monthly cover design by Cat
Matteson using Brett Whiteley’s 1967
artwork Remembering Lao Tse (Shaving
Off a Second) as featured on the cover
of Brett Whiteley: Art, Life and the Other
Thing by Ashleigh Wilson published by, and
courtesy of, Text Publishing. Brett Whiteley:
Art, Life and the Other Thing cover design
by W.H. Chong. See page 16 for more about
the book.
Cartoon
Oslo Davis
oslodavis.com
Readings donates 10% of its profits each
year to The Readings Foundation:
readings.com.au/the-readings-foundation
Readings
Kids
315 Lygon St,
Carlton
Saturday 13 August is National Bookshop
Day! To celebrate, we’re offering 15%
off our special Readings branded
merchandise – which includes a range
of t-shirts and tote bags, and Readings
KeepCups. Offer only available in-store,
not online, and only on National Bookshop
Day. Plus, if you post a photo of yourself
on Instagram holding a Readings tote bag
or KeepCup, or wearing a Readings t-shirt,
and tag @readingsbooks, you’ll go in the
draw to win a $100 Readings gift voucher!
3-FOR-2 OXFORD CLASSICS
Looking to complete your collection of
classics? Well, now is your chance – buy
any two Oxford Classics throughout August
and receive a third for free. From Anna
Karenina to Ulysses, Austen to Shakespeare,
readers of classic literature will find much
to love here. This offer is available for
in-stock titles only, while stocks last until
31 August, 2016. The lowest-priced book
is free of charge. Available in Readings
Carlton, Hawthorn, Malvern, State
Library and St Kilda. Not available online.
WANGARATTA FESTIVAL
OF JAZZ & BLUES
The 2016 Wangaratta Festival of Jazz and
Blues (28–30 October) showcases some of
the world’s finest local and international
jazz and blues artists in a bounty of
scintillating performances. Your weekend
in jazz country might also include sharing
a picnic rug with friends and family in the
King George Gardens enjoying ‘cross-over’
musical acts, great local food and wine, and
live music and artistic installations on the
friendly streets of Wangaratta. Readings
is the official retailer of the Wangaratta
Festival of Jazz and Blues. Tickets and
full program details are available at
wangarattajazz.com.
Special ticket offer for Readings
customers: When booking your festival
tickets, enter the promotion code
READINGS16 prior to 30 September and
receive discounted tickets to the festival.
A NIGHT WITH ANDY GRIFFITHS
& TERRY DENTON, IN SUPPORT
OF THE INDIGENOUS LITERACY
FOUNDATION
On Tuesday 9 August, come along and join
Andy Griffiths, Terry Denton and special
guest Jill Griffiths in their spectacular new
78-Storey Treehouse! This exciting event will
take place at 5pm at the Melbourne Town
Hall. Tickets are $25 per person (one ticket
is required per person so adults and children
each need a ticket). Each ticket includes one
hour of complete madness and a signed first
edition of The 78-Storey Treehouse which
will be given out at the event. $2 from every
ticket sale will be donated to the Indigenous
Literacy Foundation (ILF), which aims
to raise literacy levels and improve the
opportunities for Indigenous Australians
living in remote and isolated regions.
Please book at readings.com.au/events.
MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL
FILM FESTIVAL 2016
The Melbourne International Film Festival
(MIFF) is now upon us, showcasing the best
in contemporary cinema from around the
world, as well as Australia’s own emerging
and established talent. Cinephiles can
burrow away into the heart of Melbourne
to take in an incredible line-up of features,
documentaries, retrospectives and tributes.
The festival runs from 28 July to 14 August.
For more information about the program
and memberships, and to make bookings,
please visit miff.com. au. Readings is a proud
sponsor of MIFF.
Two new shops
opening in September!
Sign up for details: readings.com.au/sign-up
 readingsbooks  @readingsbooks  @readingsbooks
MELBOURNE WRITERS FESTIVAL
2016 & THE READINGS FESTIVAL
BOOKSHOP
The Melbourne Writers Festival (MWF)
connects writers and stories to celebrate a
world of literature, explore universal ideas,
and inspire a global community of readers.
The 2016 Melbourne Writers Festival
runs from Friday 26 August to Sunday 4
September. This year, MWF welcomes
Australia’s preeminent literary voices
including Maxine Beneba Clarke, Richard
Flanagan and Helen Garner, as well as
internationally renowned writers and
artists including PJ Harvey, Yann Martel,
Alexei Sayle, Lionel Shriver and Tracy K
Smith. You can browse the full program and
make bookings at mwf.com.au. Readings
is proud to be the official bookseller of the
Melbourne Writers Festival. Come and
visit the Readings Festival Bookshop, meet
authors in-store after their events and
get your books signed. Open daily in the
Atrium at Federation Square.
ALL THE BUILDINGS IN
MELBOURNE – FREE TOTE BAG
WITH PURCHASE
James Gulliver Hancock’s All the Buildings
in Melbourne is a journey through
Melbourne, told through his unique and
charming cityscape drawings that pay
tribute to the city’s diverse architectural
styles. Organised by neighbourhoods,
the book features iconic Melbourne
structures, such as the Arts Centre and
the iconic Flinders Street Station, as well
as the everyday buildings that give the
city its character - the terrace houses in
Fitzroy, the Melbourne trams and our
very own Readings Carlton! To celebrate
this beautiful book, all customers who
purchase All the Buildings in Melbourne at
any Readings shop or online in August will
receive a free tote bag, featuring artwork
from the book. Available while stocks last.
Readings
Doncaster
Westfield Doncaster
619 Doncaster Rd, Doncaster
4
R E A D I N G S M O N T H LY A U G U S T 2 0 1 6
August Events
1
JOOST BAKKER &
MATT STONE ON
SUSTAINABLE FOOD
Join Joost Bakker and Matt Stone – two heroes
of the Aussie sustainable food movement and
the blokes behind one-time zero-waste café
Brothl – as they chat about Stone’s new book
The Natural Cook and discuss ingenious ways
to eat and live sustainably.
Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events
Monday 1 August, 6.30pm
Readings Carlton
1
DISCOVER
THE CHASER’S
AUSTRALIA
Join us to celebrate the release of The
Chaser’s Australia, a comprehensive guide
to the culture, history, politics, religion,
fashion, media and the few remaining footy
heroes not currently facing criminal charges,
that have made Australia one of the Top 196
countries in the world today. The Chaser
team will dissect where we stand politically
and ethically.
Tickets are $25 per person and include a signed
copy of The Chaser’s Australia.
Please book at readings.com.au/events
Monday 1 August, 6.30pm
Church of All Nations: 180 Palmerston St., Carlton
2
ARTISAN
ITALIAN DISHES
& HANDMADE
PASTA
AWARD
WINNING
WINE LIST
BOOKINGS 03 9347 5610
313 DRUMMOND ST, CARLTON
LUNCH & DINNER 7 DAYS
11AM TILL LATE
 @MASANIDINING
 MASANI_DINING
 MASANI.DINING
MEET THE TEAM
BEHIND
ALIMENTARI!
9
INTRODUCING
THE 78-STOREY
TREEHOUSE
Join Andy Griffiths, Terry Denton and special
guest Jill Griffiths in their spectacular new
78-Storey Treehouse. They’ve added 13 new
levels including a scribbletorium, an all-ball
sports stadium, Andyland, Terrytown, a highsecurity potato-chip storage facility and an
open-air movie theatre. Come on up!
Tickets are $25 per person and include a signed
copy of The 78-Storey Treehouse. $2 from the sale
of each ticket will be donated to the Indigenous
Literacy Foundation.
Please book at readings.com.au/events
Tuesday 9 August, 5pm
Melbourne Town Hall,
90–130 Swanston St., Melbourne
9
DOMINIC SMITH ON
ART, LITERATURE &
HISTORY
Dominic Smith’s The Last Painting of Sara de
Vos is a masterful work of Australian fiction
that dives into the Golden Age of Dutch
painting. Come along to hear Smith talk
about his research and writing process.
Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events
Tuesday 9 August, 6.30pm
Readings Carlton
10
OUR SPORTING
LIFE WITH
GRIFFITH REVIEW
Alimentari literally means good food
and company and what better way to
show that passion than by producing a
cookbook worthy of the title. Join us as the
creators discuss their wonderful venues in
Collingwood and Fitzroy and their amazing
new cookbook, Alimentari.
The latest issue of Griffith Review closely
examines the culture surrounding sport in
Australia. Griffith Review editor Julianne
Schultz will be joined by writers Gideon
Haigh, Alicia Sometimes and John Harms
for what is sure to be a highly entertaining
and thought-provoking panel.
Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events
Tuesday 2 August, 6.30pm
Readings Carlton
Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events
Wednesday 10 August, 6.30pm
Readings Carlton
3
TOM GRIFFITHS IN
CONVERSATION
WITH MICHAEL
CATHCART
11
PETER MARES IN
CONVERSATION
WITH JAMES
BUTTON
In The Art of Time Travel, eminent historian
and award-winning author Tom Griffiths
conjures fresh insights into the history of
Australia through portraits of 14 historians.
Join Griffiths and Michael Cathcart as
they discuss the craft of discipline and
imagination that is the study of history.
Join James Button and Peter Mares as
they discuss Mares’ new book, Not Quite
Australian and the complex realities of this
new era of temporary migration. Mares’ book
explores student and work visas, the unique
experience of New Zealand migrants, and our
highly politicised asylum-seeker policies.
Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events
Wednesday 3 August, 6.30pm
Readings Carlton
Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events
Thursday 11 August, 6.30pm
Readings Carlton
4
RICHARD FIDLER IN
CONVERSATION
WITH MICHAEL
WILLIAMS
Join broadcaster Richard Fidler as he talks
about his new book, Ghost Empire, with
Michael Williams. In 2014, Fidler and
his son Joe made a journey to Istanbul in
search of the rich history of the Byzantine
Empire. Ghost Empire shares the tales
of their trip and this fascinating era.
Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events
Thursday 4 August, 6.30pm
Readings Hawthorn
11
RICHARD CORNISH
IN CONVERSATION
WITH MAX ALLEN
Join award-winning food writer Richard
Cornish and Max Allen for a meaty
discussion about the ethics of food.
Cornish’s My Year Without Meat is a
surprising and bittersweet meditation on
ethical meat, an ode to vegetables and a
cautionary tale about our relationship to
food – as told by a self-confessed meat lover.
Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events
Thursday 11 August, 6.30pm
Readings Hawthorn
15
PETER
STEFANOVIC ON
LIFE AS A FOREIGN
CORRESPONDENT
Journalist Peter Stefanovic’s memoir
Hack in a Flak Jacket is a startlingly
honest account of experiencing war and
terrorism from the frontline. Join us as
Stefanovic recounts his experiences of
working in front of the camera, and the
toll to him personally behind the scenes.
Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events
Monday 15 August, 6.30pm
Readings Hawthorn
15
AN HILARIOUS
EVENING WITH
DAVE O’NEIL
Join us for a night of storytelling and
laughter as Dave O’Neil, one of our mostloved comedians, launches The Summer of
’82, his hilarious and heartfelt memoir of a
boy becoming a man in suburban Australia.
Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events
Monday 15 August, 6.30pm
Readings Carlton
17
FAY ANDERSON
AND SALLY YOUNG
IN CONVERSATION
WITH MICHAEL
GAWENDA
In Shooting the Picture, associate professors
Fay Anderson and Sally Young tell the story
of Australian press photography from 1888
to today. The two will be talk about their
work with journalist and former editor of
The Age, Michael Gawenda.
Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events
Wednesday 17 August, 6.30pm
Readings Hawthorn
18
BRAD NORINGTON
IN CONVERSATION
WITH NICK
MCKENZIE
Fairfax journalist Nick McKenzie joins
veteran journalist Brad Norington to
discuss Norington’s new book Planet
Jackson, a morality tale of modern politics
exploring how the HSU scandal exposed
deep problems at the heart of the union
movement and the Labor Party.
Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events
Thursday 18 August, 6.30pm
Readings Hawthorn
23
KATE MILDENHALL
IN CONVERSATION
WITH HANNAH
KENT
Melbourne literary journal Kill Your Darlings
and Black Inc. will host a one-off First
Book Club of the Month for August. Kate
Mildenhall will discuss friendship and loss
in her debut novel, Skylarking, with awardwinning author Hannah Kent.
Free, but please RSVP to
[email protected]
Tuesday 23 August, 6.30pm
Readings Carlton
R E A D I N G S M O N T H LY A U G U S T 2 0 1 6
27
CONVERSATION
AND TUNES WITH
JAKE FEHILY
Jake Fehily is a 19-year-old Australian singer
and songwriter who’s caught our – and many
other music lovers’ – attention. Drop by our
St Kilda shop to meet this talented young
man, and to hear him play a few tunes as part
of St Kilda Festival’s Live N Local program.
Free, no booking required.
Saturday 27 August, 3pm
Readings St Kilda
September Dates!
1
September
SUSAN VARGA IN
CONVERSATION
WITH ANDREA
GOLDSMITH
Susan Varga’s new poetry collection, Rupture,
is lucid, deft and unapologetic. Author Andrea
Goldsmith will join Varga for an insightful
discussion of the work.
Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events
Thursday 1 September, 6.30pm
Readings Carlton
6
September
HETTY MCKINNON
IN CONVERSATION
WITH ROHAN
ANDERSON
Hetty McKinnon’s Community was our
bestselling cookbook of last year, and we’re
delighted to be hosting an event celebrating
her newest cookbook: Neighbourhood.
McKinnon will be chatting with food activist
Rohan Anderson about the inspiration she
finds in her own neighbourhood.
Free, but please book at readings.com.au/events
Tuesday 6 September, 6.30pm
Church of All Nations: 180 Palmerston St., Carlton
13
September
ROBERT FORSTER
IN CONVERSATION
WITH BRIAN
NANKERVIS
In Grant and I, Robert Forster tells the story of
his creative partnership with Grant McLennan
in the 1980s, providing fans with a fascinating,
never-seen-before glimpse backstage with The
Go-Betweens. Come along to our St Kilda shop
to hear Forster discuss songwriting, music and
more with Brian Nankervis.
Free, but bookings are essential as places are
strictly limited.
Please book at readings.com.au/events
Tuesday 13 September, 7–8.30pm
Readings St Kilda
26
September
CLEMENTINE FORD
IN CONVERSATION
WITH JULIA BAIRD
Writer and social commentator Clementine
Ford’s quest to shine a spotlight on urgent
feminist topics is unrelenting. Come along to
hear Ford discuss her new book with Julia
Baird. Part memoir and part polemic, Fight Like
A Girl will change the way you see the world.
Tickets are $45 and include a signed copy of Fight
Like a Girl. Please book at readings.com.au/events
Monday 26 September, 6.30pm
Melbourne Athenaeum
188 Collins St., Melbourne
27
September
STAN GRANT IN
CONVERSATION
WITH RICHARD
FLANAGAN
Readings is honoured to host this very
special evening together with the Melbourne
Athenaeum and the Indigenous Literacy
Foundation. Join us as two award-winning
writers, journalist Stan Grant (Talking to my
Country) and author Richard Flanagan (The
Narrow Road to the Deep North), discuss
politics, privilege and Australian culture.
Tickets are $30 per person or $25 concession.
Proceeds will be donated to the Indigenous
Literacy Foundation.
Please book at readings.com.au/events
Tuesday 27 September, 6.30pm
Melbourne Athenaeum,
188 Collins St., Melbourne
August Launches
Author Alec Patric´ will launch Ryan
O’Neill’s unusual and playful second work of
fiction, Their Brilliant Careers.
Thursday 4 August, 6.30pm
Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required.
Join us for the launch of Charlotte Young’s
new young adult novel, Ora’s Gold, a bold
coming-of-age adventure.
Saturday 6 August at 4pm
Readings Hawthorn | Free, no booking required.
Join us for the launch of Elisabetta
Minervini’s new cookbook, Mammissima,
hosted in collaboration with the Istituto
Italiano di Cultura and Bloomsbury Australia.
Saturday 6 August, 5pm
Readings St Kilda | Free, but please RSVP to
[email protected]
Adam Bandt MP and Overland’s Jacinda
Woodhead will launch Rjurik Davidson’s
The Stars Askew, the sequel to his politically
charged fantasy debut, Unwrapped Sky.
Monday 8 August, 6.30pm
Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required.
Join urban historian Graeme Davison for the
launch of his new examination of Australian
cities and imagination, City Dreamers.
Tuesday 16 August, 6.30pm
Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required.
Join us for the launch of Brenda Fitzpatrick’s
groundbreaking new analysis of rape as an
act of war against civilians, Tactical Rape in
War and Conflict.
Wednesday 17 August, 6.30pm
Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required.
Join us as Tom Doig launches Briohny Doyle’s
debut novel, The Island Will Sink, a gripping
postmodern science fiction novel in the vein of
Michel Houellebecq and Phillip K. Dick.
Thursday 18 August, 6.30pm
Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required.
Join Laurie Steed for the launch of the
anthology of thoughtfully curated stories
from the 2016 Margaret River Short Story
Competition, Shibboleth and Other Stories.
Wednesday 24 August, 6.30pm
Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required.
Join us for the launch of Margot Tasca’s
biography of an influential art-world figure,
Percy Leason: An Artist’s Life.
Thursday 25 August, 6.30pm
Readings Carlton | Free, no booking required.
Mark’s
Say
5
News and views from Readings’ Managing Director,
Mark Rubbo
Later this month sees the Melbourne Writers Festival return to Federation Square with a
great line up of Australian and International guests. The Festival gets off to a wonderful
start on 26 August with the announcement of the winner of the Miles Franklin Award and
an address by Maxine Beneba Clarke, author of the powerful new book The Hate Race – if
you haven’t seen Maxine speak before I urge you to do so, she is a brilliant writer and orator.
Readings is also pleased to be involved, presenting interviews with new Australian writers on
the Saturday and Sunday mornings of the Festival and we are also returning as the Festival
Bookseller. Helen Garner will talk about her magnificent book, Everywhere I Look; Helen
rarely gives appearances nowadays so this will be a pretty special event. There is a wonderful
and diverse local and international line-up that includes, amongst many others, poet and
singer P J Harvey, comedian Alexei Sayle, and author Lionel Shriver.
In May the Australian Council for the Arts announced that more than 60 small to medium
arts organisations lost their funding. Literary organisations that missed out included magazines
Quadrant and Meanjin and two Victorian organisations, Australian Poetry and Express Media.
Australian Poetry is the peak body for poetry in Australia, working with publishers, teachers,
readers and festival organisers and has its home at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne, as
does Express Media, which works with young writers and publishes Voiceworks magazine.
Fortunately, last month both organisations received substantial funding from Creative Victoria
which will hopefully keep them both around for some time. Creative Victoria also reaffirmed
its commitment to the Emerging Writers’ Festival, the Melbourne Writers Festival and the
Wheeler Centre. In its short five years the Wheeler Centre has established a national and
international reputation for its year round programs of talks and innovative events. The
Wheeler Centre and the Arts Centre brought This American Life’s Ira Glass to Australia with his
dance and radio show, Three Acts, Two Dancers, One Radio Host. It was a delightful, if somewhat
incongruous, show and at the performance I went to we were all delighted when Ira called out
to a young woman who had something she wanted to get off her chest – a proclamation of love
and a marriage proposal to her girlfriend of many years. Her girlfriend said yes, to the delight of
the audience and Ira. Hopefully, it won’t be too long before the two can tie the knot.
If you’ve been to Carlton over the last four or five years you may have noticed our popup shop, Readings Bargains. It’s been a wonderful addition to our range and I know lots
of people have found many delights there. We’ll be starting work on our new children’s
bookshop there soon (which I’m excited about) so sadly Readings Bargains will have to
close as we haven’t been able to find another site. It will stay open ’til mid August and we’re
running a closing down sale – all books are only $7 in-store until the last day.
Dear
Reader
Alison Huber,
Head Book Buyer
I feel very lucky that my time on Earth coincides with that of Maxine Beneba Clarke’s and her
powerful talent. August brings us her much-anticipated memoir, The Hate Race, our Book of
the Month. This book is a confronting story about the lived experience of racism in Australia.
It’s honest, shocking, and will provide readers with an alarmingly familiar depiction of the
casual and overt racism commonplace in the Australia of the 1980s and 90s. It should therefore
make readers very, very angry, not least because it is also a depiction of the casual and overt
racism that is commonplace in the Australia of today. At a time when our country is becoming
less tolerant, less welcoming of diversity, less compassionate, we need the lessons of this book
more than ever, and it is absolutely essential reading. And quite aside from its peerless critique,
it’s also a beautifully written piece of creative non-fiction.
Other non-fiction highlights this month include Kim Mahood’s memoir of landscape and
memory, Position Doubtful, a book which our reviewer calls ‘astonishing’; Keggie Carew’s
Dadland, which is getting wonderful press in the UK and sits comfortably alongside the
imaginative memoir style of H is for Hawk and The Hare with Amber Eyes; and Ashleigh
Wilson’s newly researched biography, Brett Whiteley: Art, Life and the Other Thing. Comedians
Amy Schumer and Dave O’Neil both publish memoirs this month, while ABC radio stalwart
and former Doug Anthony All Star Richard Fidler brings us Ghost Empire, his story of travel
and history in Istanbul. In Other Words is a collection of essays by Indonesian writer and public
intellectual Goenawan Mohamad who will appear at this year’s Melbourne Writers Festival;
Mikhail Gorbachev writes his insight on The New Russia; and two books are published to mark
the fifty-year anniversary of the Wave Hill walk-off (Yijarni from Aboriginal Studies Press, and
A Handful of Sand from Monash University Press).
In fiction, Australian blockbusting superstar Liane Moriarty’s new novel, Truly Madly
Guilty has had staff readers abuzz with excitement, and our reviewer ‘urge(s) you to take the
plunge’ if you are yet to read her work. Melbourne-based Kate Mildenhall’s debut, Skylarking, is
a quiet novel of friendship and rivalry based on historical events that took place in the isolation
of the Cape St George lighthouse in the 1880s. Ryan O’Neill messes with the genre of literary
biography and your head in his inventive novel, Their Brilliant Careers: The Fantastic Lives of
Sixteen Extraordinary Australian Writers. I know I made our reviewer’s day when I sent her an
advance proof of Megan Abbott’s You Will Know Me: her review indicates she enjoyed reading
it more than quite a bit. Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing has the feeling of one of those special books that
will make it onto a lot of ‘best of’ lists for 2016. I never did read Eowyn Ivey’s The Snow Child,
a finalist for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize and a favourite of a number of Readings staff, but I am
currently reading her immersive new novel, To the Bright Edge of the World, a story set in the
Alaskan wilderness in the 1880s told through a family archive of correspondence.
And finally, dear reader, I must offer congratulations to the publishing team at the literary
journal The Lifted Brow on the release of their first novel, The Island Will Sink by Briohny Doyle.
The Lifted Brow has long been known for uncovering local literary talent (as well curating
an incredible array of local and international big names), and this move into book publishing
promises to open up an important space for Australian long-form literary fiction.
6
R E A D I N G S M O N T H LY A U G U S T 2 0 1 6
SKYLARKING
Kate Mildenhall
&
Skylarking
Photograph: Heath Warwick.
Black Inc. PB. $24.99
Available 1 August
synchronicity
at Cape St George
A
Emily Bitto interviews
Kate Mildenhall about her
debut novel, Skylarking.
t a low point during the writing of her debut
novel, Skylarking, Kate Mildenhall wrote
herself a letter in the voice of her main
protagonist, a young nineteenth-century
woman called Kate Gilbert.
‘I don’t totally believe in that idea of channelling
characters,’ Mildenhall tells me, ‘but writing the letter did
have the impact of being able to do that for me. She said to
me, this is what you need to tell. This is the part of my story
you need to get across.’
Several examples of such channelling and synchronicity
emerge as Mildenhall talks to me about the writing of
Skylarking, a story inspired by real-life tragic events that
occurred on an isolated Australian cape in the 1880s. The
novel centres on the deep and complex friendship between
best friends Kate and Harriet, who grew up in the small
lighthouse community at Cape St George, near Jervis Bay.
Mildenhall stumbled upon the story when camping with
her own best friend, whom she has known since childhood,
and their respective husbands and children.
‘Between our camp and the shower block, there was
one of those tiny white picket fences and a grave site …
As we went to look at things, we went to see the ruins
of the lighthouse, and found out about the grave: that it
was a girl’s grave, and that she was the best friend of the
lighthouse keeper’s daughter.’
The story sparked her interest, initially, she tells me,
‘Because I was camping with my best friend, and these girls
were best friends,’ but the more she thought about those
girls, and the mystery surrounding them, the more they
began to obsess her.
Mildenhall was studying professional writing part-time
at RMIT, and on her return home, she checked whether
anyone had written about the events at Cape St George.
‘It seemed ridiculous that no-one would have,’ she says.
Then, during a writing exercise in class, she began to
experiment with the story herself. ‘It was just a really quick
exercise,’ she says, ‘but Kate’s voice was in that. And it stuck.’
Over the following year, she researched lighthousekeeping, visited lighthouses, and read journals written by
young women who had lived at the same time as Kate and
Harriet. She was also able to obtain the original transcripts
from the inquest into the Cape St George tragedy, which
allowed her to access ‘Kate’s real voice’. Uncannily, this
voice from the past, and in particular Kate’s repeated use
of the phrase I remember, was ‘a perfect fit’, with her own
imagined rendering.
Skylarking is viscerally alive with the light
and weather of its rugged coastal setting,
luminous with sea spray and salt air.
In another case of synchronicity, Mildenhall had
spent a lot of time during her teenage years camping on a
different isolated cape, at Point Hicks, and had even stayed
in the lighthouse there.
‘That piece of the coast and the weather and the
atmosphere and the landscape was what I kept as my
touchstone,’ she tells me. And indeed, Mildenhall seems to
have channelled this place, as well as her main character,
during the writing process. Skylarking is viscerally alive
with the light and weather of its rugged coastal setting,
luminous with sea spray and salt air. Kate and Harriet
spend their leisure time exploring the cape, swimming in
rock pools, hiding out in shady caves, or rock-hopping to
a point that becomes accessible only at low tide. They lie
on warm stone, ‘counting the beats between sprays as the
waves shlock into the point’ or follow with their fingers
‘the seagulls wheeling and diving above.’ Place, in this
book, as in so many other iconic Australian novels before it,
exerts a presence as powerful as its human protagonists.
Skylarking is also a quintessentially Australian comingof-age novel in that Kate and Harriet are deeply connected
to the landscape they live in, their daily lives fitted to and
determined by its rhythms, and yet they find themselves
yearning for a more exciting or significant life they see as
existing ‘elsewhere’.
It is partly Harriet’s first trip to Melbourne, which
separates her from Kate symbolically as well as physically,
that sets in motion subtle changes in the two girls’
friendship. Ultimately, it is Mildenhall’s exploration of
the relationship between Kate and Harriet, with all its
complexity, ambivalence and ferocity of feeling, that forms
the beating heart of this novel.
‘They are so formative, those early friendships,’
Mildenhall says. ‘They tell you who you are and who you’re
not. And then it can take a while to either shake that, or to
embrace it as truth.’
Truth, and the blurry line between events and the way we
allow ourselves to interpret them, is also at the centre of
this novel.
‘It’s about how we remember, how we make meaning
out of what we remember, and how we interpret the
gaps,’ Mildenhall says. While she stuck true to the inquest
findings in her re-imagining of this story, Mildenhall
preserves a sense of ambiguity in her rendering of the case.
One thing she could not discover in her research was what
happened to Kate after the events of the narrative.
‘There’s every chance that someone will come forward
and say, “I know what happened,”’ she says. ‘And the
curious part of me, and the historian part, absolutely
wants to know. At the same time,’ she says, for her, ‘this is
what happened to these characters, and it couldn’t have
happened any other way.’
I have to ask her … what about her main protagonist’s
name? Does their shared name represent a nod to their
similarity in some way? A post-modern device? A way
of channelling her more easily? Or simply Mildenhall’s
respect for historical accuracy?
She laughs. ‘When my editor first looked at the
manuscript,’ she says, ‘she was like, “um … Kate’s name?
Have you thought about changing it?” She kind of had to
point out to me that it was the same as mine. I was so deep
in it that it hadn’t even occurred to me.’
I’ve sometimes heard of writers being gifted with
particular stories, and this is clearly the case for Mildenhall
and Skylarking. ‘Lots of things with the process of this book
have been serendipitous,’ she says. ‘It just felt right.’
Emily Bitto has a Masters in literary studies and a PhD in creative
writing from the University of Melbourne. Her writing has appeared in
various publications, including the Sydney Morning Herald, Meanjin,
Heat and the Australian Literary Review. The manuscript of her debut
novel, The Strays, was shortlisted for the 2013 Victorian Premier’s
Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript. The Strays was
shortlisted for the 2015 Indie Prize and for the Dobbie Award and was
the winner of the 2015 Stella Prize. She lives in Melbourne where she
runs Carlton winebar Heartattack & Vine.
Kate Mildenhall is a writer and education project officer, who
currently works at the State Library Victoria and is studying parttime at RMIT University in the Associate Degree of Professional
Writing and Editing. As a teacher, she has worked in schools, at
RMIT University and has volunteered with Teachers Across Borders,
delivering professional development to Khmer teachers in Cambodia.
Skylarking is her debut novel. She lives with her husband and two
young daughters in Hurstbridge, Victoria.
Skylarking is available in all Readings shops and online at readings.com.au
To read more about Skylarking, see our review on page 7.
R E A D I N G S M O N T H LY A U G U S T 2 0 1 6
New Fiction
Australian Fiction
THE ISLAND WILL SINK
Briohny Doyle
The Lifted Brow. PB. $29.99
Available 1 August
Somewhere in the
latter part of the
21st century, the planet
has reached breaking
point, the world
watching grimly on as
Pitcairn Island gradually,
inexorably sinks into the
Pacific. It’s a kind of
doomsday clock for humanity’s hopes of
averting catastrophe – and filmmaker Max
Galleon sees the potential for the ultimate
immersive disaster film. Max outsources his
life completely to technology, archiving and
replaying every conceivable piece of data to
the point where he can no longer retain
memories. His family are crippled by the
anxieties of their time – his wife distant, his
daughter obsessed with eco-efficiency, his
son with survivalism. Meanwhile, an
enigmatic doctor suggests a new technique to
allow Max to mentally connect with his
comatose brother.
Readers of The Lifted Brow will be familiar
with the type of writing the literary magazine
specialises in – provocative, challenging and
experimental. The Island Will Sink, the Brow’s
first foray into full-length book publishing, is
thus a natural fit. The world of Doyle’s novel,
while practically unrecognisable from our
own, is meticulously and cleverly realised,
from housing, transport and the sad irony of
ubiquitous sustainability propaganda, to the
convergence of technology and the self.
The Island Will Sink is a satire, but an
incredibly dark one. Like Don DeLillo’s White
Noise for the climate-change generation, the
novel is imbued with a deep nihilism – and
it’s easy to transfer this sense of hopelessness
to our world too. There are characters who
are inscrutable, or obtuse, or speak only
in ideology – Max’s memory loss adds to
this alienating effect, and the reader has
to do some extra work to counter Max’s
disconnectedness from himself and the world.
But there are moments of hope, too, small and
precious as they are – and by the end of the
book, a sense that uncertainty may be as much
a blessing as a curse.
Alan Vaarwerk is the editorial assistant for
Readings Monthly
SKYLARKING
Kate Mildenhall
Black Inc. PB. $24.99
Available 1 August
It is hard to believe
that Skylarking is
Kate Mildenhall’s debut
novel, as her ability to
create both character and
atmosphere is impressive.
Skylarking is set on a
remote Australian cape in
the 1880s, and narrated by
Kate Gilbert, daughter of the lighthouse
keeper. Kate is inseparable from her best
friend, Harriet, daughter of the lighthouse
assistant, and two years her senior. Together
they attend a rudimentary school until each
turns fifteen, and embark on walks, picnics
and horse rides. Kate is the daring one;
though she loves the isolated cape, she
dreams of adventures far afield. It is Kate
who reads the books Harriet’s aunt sends for
her in the monthly supply ship, and she falls
in love with literature. Kate is rich in
imagination, and feels increasingly
constrained by the household chores her
mother imposes on her.
As Kate enters puberty, she senses she is
embarking on a new world – one to which
Harriet has already been privy, but has kept
secret from her. Kate’s growing awareness of
the men within their midst – particularly the
new and mysterious fisherman, McPhail –
brings friction to the friendship. Kate
witnesses romantic tension between McPhail
and Harriet, although Harriet denies any
feelings for him. Harriet’s mother organises
for Harriet to go to Melbourne for three
months, to meet potential suitors, and Kate is
conflicted with jealousy and loss. For the first
time she begins to wonder about her own
future – and if she will ever escape the cape.
Female friendship is a hot topic in
literature at the moment, but in Skylarking
the friendship is brought into sharp
focus due to the isolation of the pair from
broader society. The prologue foretells
of a catastrophic event, and the novel is
beautifully paced and tense leading to
this moment. Kate is a wonderful literary
character – chafing against the expectations
of her gender in the 1880s, and wondering
what is possible for her beyond the roles
of wife and mother. An intriguing fact:
Mildenhall has loosely based the novel
on real life events at the Cape St George
Lighthouse in Jervis Bay. This is a great book
club choice, and one for fans of Favel Parrett
and Hannah Kent.
Annie Condon is from Readings Hawthorn
TRULY MADLY GUILTY
Liane Moriarty
Macmillan. PB. Was $32.99
$27.99
Available 20 July
Australian writer
Liane Moriarty’s
success is phenomenal,
with six international
best-selling novels,
translation into 39
languages and an HBO
series starring Nicole
Kidman and Reese
Witherspoon currently in production. It is,
however, sometimes easy to dismiss the
popular and if it hadn’t been for the
enthusiastic tweeting of a former colleague
while they were reading an earlier Moriarty
novel, Big Little Lies, I might not have been
encouraged to give this writer a try. All I
can say is thank goodness I did because
Moriarty is one of those rare novelists who
writes for a wide audience but with a
nuance and depth that sets her stories well
above the ordinary.
Set in Sydney, Truly Madly Guilty
covers the period before, during and after
a Sunday afternoon barbecue and follows
the consequences of that event on the
three couples involved and their children
(and yes, in summary the plot may remind
you of The Slap but rest assured this is
its own unique story). The book’s central
themes are obligation and guilt, and these
are represented through a number of the
relationships but centrally through the
complicated friendship between Erika and
Clementine. I am hesitant to say much
more about the content of the book as the
way in which the story unravels through
flashbacks and different points of view is
best left for readers to discover themselves.
I loved this book – much more than I
expected to. The concluding chapters pack
some unexpected emotional punches that
left me in awe of the novel’s structure as I
realised how well thought-out this 500-plus
page book is, and there isn’t a word wasted.
If you are already a Moriarty fan then you
will need no encouragement from me to
read this book (you are probably already
reading it now). If, however, like me you
have been curious as to why her books are so
popular, I urge you to take the plunge. Truly
Madly Guilty is a great place to start.
Amanda Rayner is from Readings Carlton
THEIR BRILLIANT
CAREERS:
THE FANTASTIC
LIVES OF SIXTEEN
EXTRAORDINARY
AUSTRALIAN WRITERS
Ryan O’Neill
Black Inc. PB. $27.99
Available 1 August
In Their Brilliant
Careers, Ryan
O’Neill combines
conventions of
biography and short
story in an exhaustively
brazen blend of
Australian literary
history and plausible yet
gloriously bonkers invention. Each of these
connected stories is a mini-biography of an
imaginary Australian literary figure that
has been, purportedly, under-celebrated or
forgotten. O’Neill has added an entirely
new dimension to the existing literary
landscape and woven his characters
through one another’s stories.
O’Neill details the absurdities of human
endeavour and ambition; he spares no-one,
least of all himself. Readers will be amused
by the fabricated antics of thinly disguised
versions of Australian literary figures, and
will recognise other names where reality and
imagination intersect. While the intensely
intertextual nature of this collection will
reward the well-read, the stories also work as
tight, standalone comic pieces in their own
right. Readers less interested in the dissection
of reference and fact from fiction will enjoy
these stories for their satire, vivid characters
and galloping plots.
O’Neill’s parodies of sacred works and
traditions within Australian literature –
from seminal voices of the bush who have
never been further afield than Sydney, to
digs such as ‘ruhtrA’s attack achieved the
near impossible: it united the poetry world,
against him.’ – are hilarious. It’s impossible to
even think of several of these parodic works
without laughing out loud (most notably
anything relating to the excruciating success
of Pa and Pete). One cannot help suspecting
that in the biography of Rachel Deverall,
O’Neill referred to the likely experience of
readers of his own work when he wrote:
‘Despite her fatigue, Deverall stayed up all
night to finish the story. It was well written
and entertaining, stuffed with unbelievable
incidents and action, and without a doubt the
most derivative book she had ever read.’
Elke Power is the editor of Readings Monthly
THE WINDY SEASON
Sam Carmody
A&U. PB. $29.99
Available 1 August
A young fisherman is
missing from a small
West Australian town.
There’s been no trace at
all of Elliot for some
weeks – and Paul, his
younger brother, is the
only one who seems to
7
be actively searching. Taking Elliot’s
place on the crayfish boats, Paul soon
learns how many opportunities there are
to disappear in the vast and lonely
coastline. Fierce, evocative and
memorable, this is a vividly Australian
story where mysterious influences are
brought to bear on the inhospitable town
and its residents.
AFTER THE CARNAGE
Tara June Winch
UQP. PB. $24.95
Available 1 August
A single mother
resorts to extreme
measures to protect
her young son. A
Nigerian student
undertakes a United
Nations internship in
the hope of a better
future. A recently
divorced man starts a
running group with members of an online
forum for recovering addicts. Ranging from
New York to Istanbul, from Pakistan to
Australia, these unforgettable stories chart
the distances in their characters’ lives,
whether they have grown apart from the
ones they love, been displaced from their
homeland, or are struggling to reconcile
their dreams with reality.
INEXPERIENCE AND
OTHER STORIES
Anthony Macris
UWAP. PB. $24.99
Available 1 August
Can a relationship
survive a longanticipated but
disappointing world
trip? Will a smallshopkeeper cope
when pitted against an
emerging mega-mall?
How do we keep our
sanity in the face of
life’s obstacles – and when we don’t, what
can bring us back? Take a trip through the
world’s greatest cities and into the mind’s
darkest places. Anthony Macris’ new
fiction – a novella and accompanying story
cycle – deftly examines our fragile
relationships with travel, art, money and,
especially, each other.
LORD OF THE
DARKWOOD (TALE OF
SHIKANOKO BOOK 3)
Lian Hearn
Hachette. PB. $29.99
Available 9 August
The rightful emperor
is lost. Shikanoko is
condemned to live
half-man, half-deer, an
outlaw in the
Darkwood. The new
rulers of the Eight
Islands are prey to
suspicion and illness,
and drought and
famine overrun the realm. Only Shikanoko
can bring healing by restoring the
preordained ruler to the Lotus Throne –
and only one person can release him from
the Darkwood. Against a background of
wild forest, elegant castles and savage
battlefields, Lian Hearn’s Tale of Shikanoko
series draws to its thrilling conclusion.
8
R E A D I N G S M O N T H LY A U G U S T 2 0 1 6
THE SALAMANDERS
HOMEGOING
William Lane
Yaa Gyasi
Transit Lounge. PB. $29.95
Viking. PB. $32.99
Available 1 August
Available 1 August
Arthur lives in a hut by
the Hawkesbury River,
the detritus of suburban
life gradually
encroaching. When
Rosie, the adopted
daughter of his father’s
second wife returns from
England to visit, their
time together raises childhood memories of
their father Peregrine, a famous and
controversial artist, and what happened at
a holiday by the ocean years ago. With
poetic, hallucinatory power, Lane explores
how art can become life, how we as adults
cannot truly escape the past but can
embrace the beauty of the moment.
Early reviews have
compared this
much-hyped debut from
26-year-old Yaa Gyasi to
Toni Morrison’s Beloved,
and it’s easy to see why.
Like Morrison, Gyasi
sets out to reveal the
truth through fiction,
instead of fact, and she’s deeply inventive in
her approach. In truth, Homegoing is my
favourite kind of novel: wildly ambitious in
premise and elegant in execution.
The novel is laid out like a collection
of linked stories (think Elizabeth Strout’s
Olive Kitteridge, or Jennifer Egan’s A Visit
from the Goon Squad). Two sisters are born
into different villages in eighteenth-century
Ghana; the first is married off to an English
slave trader, the second is forced into slavery.
Each subsequent chapter is narrated from the
perspective of a descendant of either sister,
alternating through the generations all the
way up to the present day. As the narrative
unfolds, the characters’ lives also trace the
evolution of the slave trade and its domino
effect on future generations. This format
allows Gyasi to construct a panoramic view of
history by tackling multiple aspects of slavery,
including Africa’s complicity within it.
This distinctive structure is not without
risk. Every chapter introduces a new
character with additional context – all of
which must be conveyed to the reader in
a few pages without sounding laboured or
cursory. Happily, Gyasi is up to the challenge
and Homegoing is a remarkably confident
first work. The prose is compelling and
charged with a ferocious emotional intensity.
Gyasi has a gift for unusual, striking visual
images: ‘In the Big Boat, Esi said, they were
stacked ten high, and when a man died on
top of you, his weight would press the pile
down like cooks pressing garlic.’ This novel
thrillingly reminds me why I ever fell in love
with books in the first place.
International Fiction
YOU WILL KNOW ME
Megan Abbott
Picador. PB. $29.99
Available 26 July
The interesting
thing about
Megan Abbott’s novels
is that you’re never
quite certain about
who you should be
looking at. There’s the
story’s main character,
usually a teenage girl
who possesses
undeniable charisma and influence over
those around her. But then there’s the
actual protagonist, the close, third-person
narrator. This is usually another girl or
woman who is always there, next to her
charismatic friend/mother/daughter/
sister/colleague, studying her closely,
inching near but never putting herself
directly into the same frame, describing her
with a complicated longing – wanting,
while not wanting at all – to be the other
girl, the one all eyes are on. Abbott executes
this so precisely that you find yourself
looking there, too. You might see something
beautiful, or grotesque, or conniving, or
naïve. But what you don’t see is the effect
the narrator’s voice in your head is having
over everything that happens, the role she
is playing, standing off to the side.
I realise that this probably sounds like
Megan Abbott has written the same book
over and over again, but, believe me, that is
not the case. There’s such poise and (I’ve
said it before!) precision in this formula, and
in You Will Know Me it is executed with a
creeping, tense, suspenseful, and feverish
narrative skill that I feel Abbott has been
building to with all of her previous works.
You Will Know Me is set in a small
community in an unnamed American town.
At its centre is the BelStars gymnastics
academy, and their star athlete, Devon
Knox. Devon’s coach, mother Katie, father
Eric, and little brother Drew basically
don’t take their eyes off her, watching her
qualify higher and higher, the Olympics well
within her reach. Until one of their own,
the handsome and charming boyfriend of
the junior tumbling coach, is killed in a hit
and run. Things threaten to unravel for all of
them as Katie, from whose perspective this
story is narrated, tries to keep a hold of her
family and her daughter who is the nucleus
of their entire world. This novel is fast and
fevered and slippery, hard and sharp and
hot, and it’s Megan Abbott at her very best.
Amy Vuleta is the manager of Readings St Kilda
Bronte Coates is the digital content coordinator
for Readings
SWEETBITTER
Stephanie Danler
Oneworld. PB. $27.99
Available 1 August
I read the hype
surrounding
Sweetbitter before I read
the novel itself. This
brilliant debut by young
American author
Stephanie Danler has been
in the spotlight for a few
months, after Knopf
picked up the book in an attention-grabbing
six-figure deal. It’s sat on the bestseller list in
the US for weeks – celebrities are posing for
photos with it, along with hundreds of
Instagram users. Reviewers are raving. Why
the fuss? Well, Danler herself is charming and
personable in interviews, and has written a
novel based on her experiences. Her book is
fiction, but will definitely strike a chord with
anyone who’s ever worked in hospitality, or
eaten in a restaurant, or been 22 and trying to
figure it all out. And it’s very, very good.
As with Rachel Cusk’s Outline or
Rachel Kushner’s The Flamethrowers,
Sweetbitter offers us a protagonist bearing
hardly any backstory: ‘Let’s say I was
born in late June of 2006 when I came
over the George Washington Bridge at 7
a.m.,’ she says. Twenty-two-year old Tess
doesn’t even reveal her name until at least
halfway through the novel. What separates
Sweetbitter from the cliché coming-ofage-in-New-York tale is that Tess has no
particular ambition; her focus is on her own
development. After obtaining a coveted
position as a back waiter in a prestigious
Manhattan restaurant, Tess finds herself
swept up in the world of hospitality
and fixated on two of her colleagues –
bartender Jake and server Simone. As we
spend a year with Tess, these relationships
steer her experiences and education
in New York. While Jake and Simone
provide some interesting plot twists and
turns (Tess’s infatuation with Simone, her
mentor, is particularly intriguing), Danler
really shines in sharing her knowledge of
the dynamic world of a restaurant with
the reader. While occasionally slipping
into lyrical descriptions that verge on
pretentious, the strength of Sweetbitter lies
with its vibrant cast of characters who are a
pleasure to spend time with.
Sweetbitter is at once a coming-of-age
story and a love letter to good food, better
wine and New York City. Lush, pacey and
addictive, this debut definitely lives up to
the hype.
TO THE BRIGHT EDGE OF
THE WORLD
Stella Charls is the marketing and events
coordinator for Readings
On a searing summer
Friday, a mysterious
disaster takes place
– the power is out, and
there is no running
water. The pipes and
creeks have gone dry.
Eddie Chapman, his
wife Laura, and their
neighbours suffer the
effects of the heat, their thirst, and the
terrifying realisation that no one may be
coming to help. As violence rips through
the community, Eddie and Laura are forced
to question their humanity. In crisp and
convincing prose, Benjamin Warner
compels readers to do the same.
HARMONY
Carolyn Parkhurst
Sceptre. PB. $29.99
Available 9 August
Harmony is an
empathic and
topical novel about a
family in crisis. The
Hammond family has an
eleven-year-old daughter,
Iris, and thirteen-yearold daughter, Tilly, who
is on the autism
spectrum. Mother, Alexandra, is exhausted
from advocating for Tilly’s needs, and finally
having to home-school her when yet
another school says they can’t cope with her
behaviour. Alexandra has implemented all
kinds of changes to assist Tilly, but when she
becomes truly desperate she consults
parenting ‘guru’ Scott Beam.
Both Alexandra and her husband Josh
are impressed with Scott’s ability to engage
both Tilly and Iris. Then Scott floats an idea:
would the Hammonds be willing to leave
their home in Washington DC permanently
and work with Scott in setting up a camp
for families struggling with kids ‘on the
spectrum’ in New Hampshire? The lure of
a fresh start, the natural environment and
freedom from technology beckons, and the
Hammonds agree.
We experience ‘Camp Harmony’ with Iris
as our narrator. Iris is warm and funny, and
alternately adores and is embarrassed by her
sister. Iris is observant but understandably
naïve given her age, which allows the reader
to sense that all is not as it should be, and to
question Beam’s motives and practices. While
a bond grows between the three families
involved in the Camp Harmony setup, and
the children in each family make progress,
some of Scott’s expectations, rules and games
seem troubling. Alexandra puts her heart and
soul into believing this experiment will work,
but Josh remains skeptical.
I really enjoyed the growing tension
in this novel. While Iris tells the ‘Camp
Harmony’ story, Alexandra narrates
the family’s backstory from Tilly’s birth
onwards. Having the perspective of different
family members made me enjoy this novel
even more. This is a great winter read, and
book groups will find a lot to discuss about
parenting, and the autism spectrum.
Annie Condon is from Readings Hawthorn
Eowyn Ivey
Headline. PB. $32.99
Available 9 August
Lieutenant Colonel
Allen Forrester receives
the commission of a
lifetime when he is
charged to navigate
Alaska’s hitherto
impassable Wolverine
River – the key to
opening up Alaska, and
its rich natural resources, to the outside
world. Forrester leaves behind his young
wife, Sophie, newly pregnant and dreading
the prospect of a year alone in a military
barracks. What Sophie does not anticipate
is that their year apart will demand as
much courage and fortitude from her as
from her husband.
THIRST
Benjamin Warner
Bloomsbury. PB. $27.99
Available 1 August
THE COMET SEEKERS
Helen Sedgwick
Harvill Secker. PB. $32.99
Available 15 August
Roisin and François first
meet in the snowy white
expanse of Antarctica,
chasing a rare comet
sighting. As we loop
back through their lives,
glimpsing each of them
only during a comet
event, we see how their
paths cross as they come closer and closer
to this moment. Theirs are lives filled with
love and hope and heartbreak, in a story
that shows how the world can be as lonely
or as beautiful as the comets themselves.
THE DAY BEFORE
HAPPINESS
Erri De Luca
Penguin. HB. $24.99
Available 15 August
A young orphan boy
grows up in Naples,
playing football,
roaming the city’s
streets and hidden
places. Then one day
the boy sees a young girl
standing at a window
– it’s an encounter that
will haunt his life for
years and, eventually, shape his destiny.
Lyrical and exuberant, told with the
simplicity of a fairy tale and the intensity of a
memory, The Day Before Happiness is the
story of friendship, a city and what makes us
who we are.
R E A D I N G S M O N T H LY A U G U S T 2 0 1 6
THE ESSEX SERPENT
Sarah Perry
Serpents Tail. HB. $29.99
Available 1 August
Set in Victorian London
and an Essex village in
the 1890s, Cora
Seaborne and Will
Ransome meet as their
village is engulfed by
rumours that the
mythical Essex Serpent,
once said to roam the
marshes claiming
human lives, has returned. Cora, a keen
amateur naturalist is enthralled – but Will,
the local vicar, senses a moral panic, a
deviation from true faith. Told with
exquisite grace and intelligence, this novel
is most of all a celebration of love, and the
many different guises it can take.
FORTY ROOMS
Olga Grushin
Putnam. PB. $29.99
Available 15 August
Totally original in
conception and
execution, Forty Rooms
is mysterious,
withholding, and,
ultimately, emotionally
devastating. When the
protagonist finds her
children grown and her
husband absent, she must evaluate the
choices that led her away from her
bohemian poet dream and into a
comfortable marriage. Was it a life well
lived? A life complete? Does such a life really
exist? Grushin deals with issues of women’s
identity, of women’s choices, in a way no
modern novel has explored so deeply.
THE GOLDEN SON
Shilpi Somaya Gowda
HarperCollins. PB. $32.99
Available 1 August
When his father dies,
Anil Patel inherits the
mantle of arbiter for all
his tiny Indian village’s
disputes. But he is also
juggling a medical
residency at a Texas
hospital, and the
difficulties of adjusting
to a new culture have shaken his
confidence. Back home in India, Anil’s
closest childhood friend, Leena, struggles
to adapt to her demanding new husband
and relatives. Tender and bittersweet, The
Golden Son illuminates the ambivalence of
people caught between past and present,
tradition and modernity, duty and choice.
GOOD MORNING,
MIDNIGHT
Lily Brooks-Dalton
Weidenfeld & Nicolson. PB. $29.99
Available 9 August
When a catastrophic
event forces an
evacuation of his remote
Arctic research centre,
ageing scientist
Augustine insists on
staying behind – but
afterwards, he discovers
a mysterious child.
Meanwhile, an astronaut is aboard the
Aether on its return flight from Jupiter –
the first humans to delve this deep into
space – when suddenly, inexplicably, the
ship loses contact with mission control.
From the barren sweep of the Arctic to the
silence of space, Good Morning Midnight
explores the ways we persist when faced
with vast nothingness.
HEROES OF THE
FRONTIER
Dave Eggers
Hamish Hamilton. PB. $32.99
Available 1 August
A mother and her two
young children rent a
battered RV and
embark upon a journey
through the Alaskan
wilderness. At first it
feels like a vacation –
but as Josie drives her
kids deeper into the
forest, dodging
wildfires and increasingly eccentric locals,
we learn more of what forced her to escape
her old life and seek redemption at the very
edge of civilisation. A captivating and
hilarious novel about family, loss and
recovery, and a powerful examination of
contemporary American life.
THE LAST PHOTOGRAPH
Emma Chapman
Picador. PB. $29.99
Available 26 July
When award-winning
photojournalist Rook
Henderson suddenly
finds himself a
widower, all he can do
is escape, returning to
Vietnam for the first
time in decades. As
Rook reconnects with
the changed landscape
of Vietnam, he reflects upon a life defined
through his work and a secret grief he’s
never forgotten. When his son follows him
to Vietnam, seeking answers from the
father he barely knows, Rook is forced to
reconsider the price he has paid for a life
behind the lens.
THE MEMORY STONES
Caroline Brothers
Bloomsbury. PB. $27.99
Available 1 August
Buenos Aires, 1976 – In
the heat of summer,
Osvaldo, a distinguished
doctor, and his family
escapes to the lush
expanse of Tigre. Those
days will be the last the
family ever spends
together. On their
return to Buenos Aires,
the Argentine military stages a coup and
thousands disappear. Depicting the despair
and hope of one family seeking to rebuild
after unimaginable loss, The Memory Stones
is a lyrical, devastating portrait of a country
as it confronts its own history.
e
TRULY
MADLY
GUILTY
EAT REAL
FOOD
COOKBOOK
LIANE MORIARTY
DAVID GILLESPIE
An ordinary backyard
barbeque takes an
unexpected turn in Liane
Moriarty’s latest bestseller.
Liane deftly applies her unique
observational skills to the pillars
of our lives: marriage, sex,
parenthood and friendship,
exploring how guilt can expose
the fragility of our relationships.
THE
78-STOREY
TREEHOUSE
ANDY GRIFFITHS
TERRY DENTON
BLUE DOG
Louis de Bernières
Alfred A Knopf. HB. Was $29.99
$26.99
Available 1 August
Mick loves living with
his grandpa amid the
red dust of outback
Western Australia, but
things really spring to
life after he saves a
kelpie pup from
drowning. The boy and
Blue the puppy quickly
David Gillespie, one of
Australia’s most trusted voices
in health and wellness, delivers
the follow-up to his bestselling
Eat Real Food. Based on
scientific research, Eat Real
Food Cookbook is your guide
to saying ‘no’ to the food the
manufacturers want you to eat
and ‘yes’ to the food vital to the
health of your family.
LOVE
YOU
DEAD
PETER JAMES
Mad misadventures in the
world’s coolest treehouse.
One city. One Roy Grace.
One venomous new killer.
Australia’s #1 author and
illustrator are back with more
crazy antics in their everexpanding treehouse – now
with 13 new storeys! What are
you waiting for? Come on up!
‘James writes meticulously
researched police procedurals,
so informed that you can
smell the canteen coffee…
enthralling.’ – DAILY MAIL
www.panmacmillan.com.au
9
10
R E A D I N G S M O N T H LY A U G U S T 2 0 1 6
August’s To-Read List
become inseparable pals, as Mick tackles
the sometimes unexpected obstacles of this
unforgiving landscape with a devoted
canine companion at his side. Told with
verve and simplicity, Blue Dog is a
beautifully nostalgic tale of a fearless young
boy on the cusp of adolescence and a
rambunctious kelpie.
REPUTATIONS
Juan Gabriel Vasquez
Bloomsbury. HB. $32.99
Available 1 August
Telling it as he sees it, this is a rare insight
into one of football’s most intriguing
characters.
Paul Newman and Tom Jellett take you
on a charming trip full of wild dangers and
extraordinary delights . . . and the joy of
sharing a tall tale.
For Colombia’s famed
political cartoonist Javier
Mallarino, a public
celebration of his career
has far-reaching
consequences: a figure
from his past, now a
young woman, emerges
from the crowd outside
and forces Mallarino to confront an incident
from half a lifetime ago, calling into question
his reputation and the value of his life’s work.
Questioning the power of memory and the
media, and their ability to distort, inform and
destroy, Vasquez plays with the past, the
present, and our perception of truth.
THE SUMMER THAT
MELTED EVERYTHING
Tiffany McDaniel
Scribe. PB. $29.99
Available 15 August
A captivating and hilarious novel of
family, loss, and the curse of a violent
America. A powerful examination of
contemporary life and a rousing story
of adventure.
A charming story of a young boy and his
dog adventuring through the outback.
Prequel to the bestselling Red Dog.
When local prosecutor
Autopsy Bliss publishes
an invitation to the
devil to come to the
heatwave-stricken
town of Breathed, Ohio,
nobody quite expects
that he will turn up,
especially not in the
form of a tattered and
bruised 13-year-old boy. The Blisses believe
the boy, named Sal, is a runaway from a
nearby farm town. But whether he’s a
traumatised child or the devil incarnate, his
eerily affecting stories of Heaven, Hell, and
Earth will mesmerise and enflame the
entire town.
Fantasy
A magical debut novel that shows us
the world can be as lonely, or as beautiful,
as the comets that illuminate the skies
above us.
As only he can, Mike Carlton
tells the story of the HMAS Australia II and
the Pacific War on Japan.
NEVERNIGHT
Jay Kristoff
Harper Collins. PB. $29.99
Available 1 August
If you let decisions happen to you, what will
transpire? Can you become someone else
without the world noticing?
A compelling account of Australia’s
bloodiest and most significant battle of
the Vietnam War.
Despite my
excessive passion
for Jay Kristoff’s
Illuminae (which he
wrote with Amie
Kaufman) I was a little
worried about reading
Nevernight. Fantasy is
one of the few genres I
tend to steer clear of,
even though I LOVE sci-fi, but my excitement
about another offering from Kristoff won
through and, to my relief, I absolutely loved it.
Nevernight follows the story of Mia
Corvere as she trains at an elite and secret
school to be an assassin so that she can
take her revenge against the killers of her
fallen family. Told by an unnamed narrator,
Nevernight is a tightly paced adventure, full
to the brim with intrigue, plotting, a dash
of romance (but just a dash! Not too much)
and so, so many savage murders. This is
not a book for the faint of heart. Imagine if
Hogwarts was situated in Renaissance Venice
and populated entirely by sociopaths all out
for their own competing brands of personal,
bloody vengeance and you’re somewhat
hitting the ballpark of Nevernight.
Mia is a compelling protagonist, fierce
and furious, and at no point did I want her
to ease off, rather, I wanted her to succeed
in her training and get her vengeance. The
world is fully built and Kristoff has drawn
strongly from actual history but perfectly
melded it with fantastic aspects, including
a rich depiction of a religion based around
two warring deities. It’s beautifully written
and the narration is full of personality. It
should certainly get bonus points for having
one of the best opening lines I’ve read in a
while. Kristoff has written an exciting and
enthralling read that will appeal both to fans
of the genre and to those just in need of a
nice chunky story that they can really sink
their teeth into.
Isobel Moore is from Readings St Kilda
THE LAST DAYS OF NEW
PARIS
China Mieville
Macmillan. PB. $29.99
Available 9 August
In the chaos of wartime
Marseille, an occult
anti-Nazi group
unwittingly unleashes the
power of dreams and
nightmares, changing the
war and the world
forever. Nine years later, a
lone fighter, Thibaut, and
an American photographer, Sam, walk a new,
hallucinogenic Paris, where Nazis and the
Resistance are trapped in unending conflict,
and the forces of Hell and living Surrealist art
stalk the streets. To escape the city, all their
loyalties will be tested – to each other, to Paris
old and new, and to reality itself.
Poetry
UNDYING: A LOVE STORY
Michel Faber
Canongate. HB. $24.99
Available 1 August
A heartbreaking chronicle
of losing the love of your
life by Michel Faber, the
award-winning author of
The Book of Strange New
Things. In Undying,
Michel Faber honours the
memory of his wife, who
died after a six-year battle
with cancer. Bright, tragic, candid and true,
these poems are an exceptional chronicle of
what it means to find the love of your life, and
what it is like to have to say goodbye.
WRITING TO THE WIRE
Dan Disney & Kit Kelen (eds)
UWAP. PB. $24.99
Available 1 August
The seeking of asylum in
Australia has been
politicised in recent
decades, our national
conversation
desensitising the
Australian polity to
human suffering. What
impact does this have
upon our collective ethics and national
identity? Writing to the Wire is a collection
of poems about the idea of being Australian.
It is about who we are and who we would
rather be, offering new ways to understand
injustice, to speak out and tell stories in a
way our politics has failed to do.
R E A D I N G S M O N T H LY A U G U S T 2 0 1 6
New Crime
Dead Write
with Fiona Hardy
Crime Book of the Month
WILDE LAKE
THE FALLS
Laura Lippman
Faber. PB. $29.99
Available 1 August
B. Michael Radburn
As usual, there was a fair internal fight about what should
be this month’s Book of the Month (as I’m not allowed to
take up eight pages with my extended thoughts on each title), but
something about the fallible intimacy of Wilde Lake had me drawn
irresistibly to it, to this slice of life, so familiar and all-American
– like baseball and freshman parties – yet so foreign.
In Columbia, Maryland, two years after the planned community was built in 1967,
Andrew Jackson Brant brings his family to their new house – or an old one, transported to
this new place beside a man-made lake. And he builds a legacy: a State’s Attorney raising
two children without the wife that died shortly after the birth of their daughter, Luisa. And
it is Lu who narrates the story, as both a seven-year-old and as a grown woman, widowed
and with two young children of her own, and now the first woman appointed to the same
job her father once had.
‘Lippman has a fine, delicate hand for a story that runs deep and long
into a town’s history and a young girl’s memory, making the book a
divine, red-wine pleasure to read.’
Lu is dynamite, fiercely clever, engaged with the town she lives in, and absolutely never
giving in to anyone. Except for two people: her cherished father and beloved brother, AJ.
It is her blind spot to these men that drives the story, as she begins her new job, eager to
prove herself, and takes on a murder case that seems simple enough. A woman is beaten to
death in her apartment, and the suspect, whose DNA is everywhere, seen by a neighbour
lurking around the complex. But the case becomes immediately fraught when the accused
killer calls on Lu’s previous boss – the man she ran for Attorney against – as his defendant,
and everything in Lu’s life starts to get personal in more ways than one.
Lippman has a fine, delicate hand for a story that runs deep and long into a town’s
history and a young girl’s memory, making the book a divine, red-wine pleasure to read.
Lu’s arrogance as an adult and painful naivety as a youth deliver a solid, real character, one
who doesn’t always want to see the truth but will fight tooth and nail for it. An understated
homage to To Kill a Mockingbird, and the successor that shed unfavourable light on its
characters, this story of old habits in a new city is a deep lake to lose yourself in.
MAN IN THE CORNER
Nathan Besser
Vintage. PB. $32.99
Available 1 August
The day after David’s wife
tells him that she was a
sex worker before she met
him – a disclosure that
doesn’t especially bother
him – he suffers an
unexpected brain injury.
As he recovers, his life
starts to go awry: his body
suffers side effects, his connection to the
company he built begins to fray. Then, one
day, he meets the distractingly charming Ben
Strbic at a café, who claims to feel a
connection with David, and who suggests
they would do well in business together. But
the business he’s suggesting isn’t entirely
above-board, and David feels the pull away
from his suburban Australian family
existence and into the double life Ben has
planned for him, assuming the identity of one
Herman Harry Green. And HH Green, who
has left his legacy in a series of journals, will
leave an imprint on David’s life in more way
than one.
THE TIME TO KILL
Mason Cross
Orion. PB. $32.99
Available 9 August
I really love picking up
a special-ops-type
thriller like Cross’s The
Time to Kill – they’re
always so supremely
satisfying. Someone’s
usually died in a
dramatic, sneaky
fashion by the end of
pasts and unspoken thoughts, on a youthful
friendship weighed at the time on uneven
scales. History never stays hidden in crime
fiction, but Way’s ability to wrong-foot her
readers makes for a disconcerting,
addictive read.
the prologue, there’s usually travel to all
kinds of international countries (or at least
their bars/hotel rooms/abandoned
warehouses), the main character knows
how to handle themselves, someone gets
their comeuppance, people slam phones
down in anger – you get it, and you love it
too. Here, Carter Blake is five years past
Winterlong, a super-secret agency that
does lots of super-secret stuff. He kept
their super-secrets the whole time, but
now Winterlong has decided he’s too
much of a loose cannon, and he needs to
be dispatched. Unfortunately for them, he
knows all their tricks. Unfortunately for
him, they know all his. Worse trouble for
them (but good news for readers): Carter
Blake is part of a series!
WATCHING EDIE
Camilla Way
HarperCollins. PB. $29.99
Available 1 August
No one’s watching out
for Edie any more. Once
a beautiful teenager full
of hopes and dreams
(and suffering and
cattiness), a damaging
incident in her youth has
sent her down a more
sedate and isolated path
that expected. Now, at 33, she lives alone in
a small flat, just Edie – and her unborn
baby. The idea of mothering all on her own
is overwhelming, until it turns out someone
is watching out for her: Heather, a remnant
of her past life, someone she wanted
desperately never to see again. And now, at
her very weakest, Heather is the only
person there for her. But it’s a friendship
that relies too heavily on secrets, on dark
Pantera Press. PB. $29.99
Available 1 August
Two hikers abseil down
the side of a cliff in
Victoria’s rugged east,
searching for an old
abandoned mine that has
slipped into local
mythology. Expecting an
untouched landscape
and endless gold, they
instead find a fresh footprint – and a dead
body, the blood still fresh on her chest.
Their panicked, heart-stopping escape back
to civilisation is hampered by a fire on their
tail, but one of the hikers knows that the
fire isn’t the only thing chasing them. When
the police return to the site to find the
body, there is nothing to be found. But
when there’s nothing to be found, there’s
one man who can find it: Taylor Bridges,
park ranger, and a man who has had more
than his fair share of experiences finding
dead bodies, and those who caused them. A
regional thriller where you can feel leaves
crunching underfoot and the fire crackling
in the bush, and where the horrors of the
past are still too close for comfort.
LIE WITH ME
Sabine Durrant
Victor Gollancz. PB. $32.99
Available 26 July
Be warned, fair reader
– much of this month’s
reading will remind you
that the past never really
leaves you, so it’s best to
clean those skeletons
out of your closet before
you dive into these. Paul
Morris is a writer
getting by mostly on reputation and the
goodwill of others rather than any current
success, and who is about to find himself
bereft of a place to live and returning to his
mother’s home. A series of small
embellishments lead him to rekindle old
friendships and wheedle an invite to a final
summer hurrah in Greece, where he hasn’t
been for ten years, since he was younger
and perpetually drunk. But Paul’s tiny little
lies, only told to make himself seem less of
a shambles amongst the friends he doesn’t
feel quite comfortable with, are not so
small when taken all at once…or taken by
somebody else.
THE SECRETS OF
WISHTIDE
Kate Saunders
Bloomsbury. PB. $27.99
Available 1 August
Like many readers, I
came to crime fiction by
way of Agatha Christie
and her ilk: delicious
tales of detectives who
are quick-witted, able to
read people clearly, and
blend with anyone who
can give them
information. And so now I come to
Laetitia Rodd, a discreet private detective
of the mid-nineteenth century, and a lady
who won me over almost instantly in the
way that the best Christies do. Letty is in
11
her early fifties, a widow who misses her
Archdeacon husband dearly, and who
finds herself in unfortunate
circumstances, which have led her to a life
of solving crimes to keep her in 1850s-type
comforts like lots of coal, even more
brandy and a helping of delightfulsounding puddings. Here, in the first book
of (thankfully) many, she is called to
impersonate a governess and spy on a
woman who has captured a rich man’s
heart – but who is perhaps not the proper
young lady she purports to be. This is the
literary equivalent of a comforting roast
stew with a hearty dash of spice.
THE SERPENT’S STING
Robert Gott
Scribe. PB. $29.99
Available 1 August
Look, after a few
excellent yet grim crime
books, you often want to
get your serving of
carnage and criminal
acts dished up alongside
a few laughs. Noted
raconteur Robert Gott is
exactly that man to
deliver, his glorious hero William Power
– actor, private detective, memoirist – the
man to follow. It’s late 1942, and Will is
short on money and shorter on patience
with his family; from his beloved but
untrustworthy brother Brian, to the dreary
notion that his mother will soon wed her
fiancé and bring new, unwanted siblings
into his life. Will suffers the best kind of
arrested development – all the playfulness
and recklessness of a small child, full of
melodrama, self-importance, endless
humour and wisecracks, and riotously,
unfairly entertaining to boot. And, of
course, his talents in the field of detection
are required when his soon-to-be
stepbrother asks him to do an investigation
into a possible murder, and a fellow actress
in the (literal) pantomime he finds himself
in vanishes. Thrillingly local for our
Carlton-based readers, and just excellent
for the rest, Gott’s fourth William Power
book is a continuing delight.
WHY DID YOU LIE?
Yrsa Sigurdardottir
Victor Gollancz. PB. $32.99
Available 9 August
Iceland, January, 2014.
Helgi, a photographer,
has pulled off a coup:
he’s heading to a remote
lighthouse in the middle
of the sea, surrounded by
four towering rock
pillars. It’s a visually
beautiful spot, its
grandeur never properly captured on
camera. He’s helicoptered in, with three
people tasked with upgrading the
lighthouse, even though there’s barely
enough room for one person on the entire
rock, let alone four, let alone for more than
a day – let alone when you have the bad
feeling Helgi does. On the mainland,
maligned police officer Nína has been
relegated to a job clearing out a storeroom
when she stumbles on part of a decades-old
file about an old suicide that mentions her
husband – who attempted suicide eight
weeks before, and now lies motionless in a
hospital bed. Elsewhere, a family get home
from a house-swap holiday to find their
place not as it was – things missing, a
wrong feeling permeating the air. Three
different groups of people, connected by
one long-ago lie.
12
R E A D I N G S M O N T H LY A U G U S T 2 0 1 6
New Nonfiction
how sometimes those who love us best hurt
us most.
Book of the Month
SALTWATER
Cathy McLennan
THE HATE RACE
Maxine Beneba Clarke
Hachette. PB. Was $32.99
$27.99
Available 9 August
Maxine Beneba Clarke’s father was the first in his family to go
university. They were working class, from Tottenham, a
suburb of London. He’d shown a talent for mathematics and became
an academic; her mother was an actress. They were a bright young
couple with a bright future in England so people were surprised
when Bordeaux Clarke accepted a teaching position at a University
in Western Sydney and he and his wife Cleo moved to Kellyville in Sydney’s west. There they
proceeded to have three children. Their middle daughter, Maxine, grew up to become a poet
and writer of great note.
‘You can’t read this book and not be affected by it;
you can’t read this book and not be astounded by
the force of its writing.’
Apart from their education and culture, what made the Clarke family different from the
usual English migrants was their Afro Caribbean heritage – they were black. What is it like
to be black in Australia? The Hate Race is an attempt to explain what it feels like to suffer
a lifetime of constant slights that range from comments yelled from a passing car, ‘Fuck
off, you black bitch’, to the more restrained but just as hurtful, ‘Maxine you are a very, very
nasty little black girl.’ To navigate this while growing up was a constant strain. Maxine’s
wonderful mother would try to support her, reminding her that they were only words, but
words did hurt her, they ‘hurt inside my heart’.
I felt a sense of shame reading this book; shame that I, that my society, were not better.
But I also felt that this moving, beautifully crafted memoir was something that we should
all read because it could teach us how not to be. I wondered: could I hurt someone because
they were different, had I? You can’t read this book and not be affected by it; you can’t read
this book and not be astounded by the force of its writing. It will be something you want to
discuss with your friends, with your world.
Mark Rubbo is the managing director of Readings
Biography
IN THE DARKROOM
Susan Faludi
HarperCollins. PB. $32.99
Available now
If this book was
written as
fiction, you’d never
believe it because
you’d think it was too
far-fetched. In 2004,
Susan Faludi received
an email from her
father (whom she
hadn’t seen in
twenty-five years) telling her that he’d
undergone sex reassignment surgery in
Thailand and would now answer to
Stefanie, rather than Steve.
He thought maybe she might like to
write a book about him – some kind of a
trans-feminist memoir. Faludi thought
that sounded like an excellent idea. After
all, it’s not every day that one of the
world’s most renowned feminists – who
actually came to feminism in part as a
reaction against her violent, controlling
father – gets to meet him 25 years later as
a woman.
Faludi went ‘to stay with my father
in her Hungarian Schloss’, (a schloss
being a German building similar to a
chateau, palace or manor house – her
father came from a wealthy Hungarian
family). While they spent the first few
days getting reacquainted, her father
seemed keen to show off her new body –
sometimes wearing a robe which would
slip, revealing more than Faludi wanted
to see of the ‘new woman’ her father had
become. But behind the coquettish façade,
the controlling father from Faludi’s past
seemed to be ever present, essentially
keeping her prisoner in the house during
her stay, and flying into a rage when Faludi
went ‘off script’.
Examining – among other things – the
politics of sex reassignment surgery, this
book reads like a psychological thriller. It
shines a light on the politics of identity;
on the role family and religion plays in
shaping us; on what exactly goes into
‘making a person’.
This book is a fascinating read, a
slice of brilliance on the nonfiction
bookshelves, and no doubt Faludi is a
contender for her second Pulitzer with In
The Dark Room.
Gabrielle Williams is from Readings Malvern
I’M SUPPOSED TO
PROTECT YOU FROM
ALL THIS: A MEMOIR
Nadja Spiegelman
Text. PB. $32.99
Available 3 August
Nadja Spiegelman grew
up the child of a famous
father, Maus creator
Art Spiegelman, and a
mother, French-born
New Yorker art director
Françoise Mouly, who
exerted a force over
reality that was both
dazzling and daunting.
As Nadja’s body changed, her relationship
with her mother grew tense. Unwittingly,
they were replaying a drama from her
mother’s past. Françoise told her daughter
difficult stories; Nadja’s grandmother’s
memories then contradicted them. Nadja
emerged with a deeper understanding of
how each generation reshapes the past and
UQP. PB. $32.95
Available 15 August
Saltwater is the true
story of a young
female barrister’s
struggle for justice
working with the
Aboriginal Legal
Service in Townsville
and Palm Island.
When four Aboriginal
teenagers are charged
with murdering a white man, McLennan
must confront ingrained prejudices as
well as limited resources. With
determination and humour, she recounts
her challenges and successes living in the
community and fighting for the truth. As
the investigation plays out, McLennan
discovers the terrible truth of the killer’s
identity – the shockwaves of which still
reverberate today.
THE GIRL WITH THE
LOWER BACK TATTOO
Amy Schumer
HarperCollins. HB. Was $29.99
$24.99
Available 17 August
In just a few short
years, Amy Schumer
has become a huge
movie star, Emmy and
Peabody award winner
and acclaimed as a
subversive comic
genius. She’s
outrageously funny,
fantastically rude,
provocative, unexpected and original, and
so is her memoir – because as we all know,
Amy can’t see a limit without pushing it.
Covering everything from losing her
virginity to abusive relationships, from her
thoughts on make-up to the non-negotiable
necessity of orgasms during sex, Amy dares
to go where no other woman has before.
ALL THIS IN 60 MINUTES
Nicholas Lee
A&U. PB. $32.99
Available 1 August
For more than thirty
years Nicholas Lee was
a cameraman on 60
Minutes, Australia’s
most-watched current
affairs program. All This
in 60 Minutes is the
revealing and often
hilarious memoir of his
time with the show – of the crazy days of
unlimited expense accounts, of late nights
and bleary mornings, the fun and fear on
the road, and in the refugee camps and war
zones. The result is a book that is
compelling, funny and utterly eye-opening.
HACK IN A FLAK JACKET
Peter Stefanovic
Hachette. PB. $29.99
Available 9 August
For almost ten years
Peter Stefanovic was
Channel Nine’s foreign
correspondent in
Europe, Africa and the
Middle East. During
that time he witnessed
more than his fair share
of death and
destruction, and carried the burden of
those images – all while putting his own
personal safety very much in the firing line.
From flak jackets to tuxedos, celebrity
funerals to natural disasters, this is a
thrilling account of a life lived on camera,
delivering the news wherever it happens.
DADLAND:
A JOURNEY INTO
UNCHARTED TERRITORY
Keggie Carew
Random. PB. Was $32.99
$27.99
Available 15 August
Keggie Carew grew up
in the gravitational
field of an unorthodox
father who lived on his
wits and dazzling
charm. Tom Carew
was a maverick, a
member of an elite
military unit in the
Second World War. As
his memory begins to fail, Keggie takes us
on a spellbinding journey into her rackety
English childhood, the poignant
breakdown of her family and beyond. As
Keggie pieces Tom – and herself – back
together, she celebrates the technicolour
life of an impossible, irresistible,
unstoppable man.
THE SUMMER OF ’82
Dave O’Neil
Nero. PB. Was $29.99
$26.99
Available 15 August
Do you remember
finishing your last
Year 12 exam,
waiting for your
results? Do you
remember going to
gigs, forming a band,
getting bottles
thrown at you by
skinheads, making a
bomb and getting
arrested? You don’t? Did all this only
happen to Dave O’Neil? That’s what this
book is about – 10 weeks stuck in limbo in
the summer of ’82, and a hilarious and
heartfelt journey of a boy becoming a man
in suburban Australia.
Anthology
MY OLD MAN:
TALES OF OUR FATHERS
Ted Kessler
Canongate. HB. $29.99
Available 1 August
No two paternal
relationships are the
same. Whether happy
or sad, fond or
fraught, the memories
and stories we have
about our dads stay
with us forever. In
this collection, a
dazzling list of
contributors –
including Florence Welch, Paul Weller,
Leonard Cohen and many others – open
up, some for the first time, about their
paternal experiences. As universal as it is
powerful, My Old Man offers a unique
opportunity to reflect on our own
relationships with our dads.
R E A D I N G S M O N T H LY A U G U S T 2 0 1 6
Australian Studies
POSITION DOUBTFUL:
MAPPING LANDSCAPES
AND MEMORIES
Kim Mahood
Scribe. PB. $29.99
Available 15 August
Position Doubtful
is an astonishing,
sprawling memoir of
place. Returning
annually to the Tanami
desert country in
which she had lived as
a child on a remote
cattle station, Tanami
Downs (though for her
it is always Mongrel Downs), artist Kim
Mahood works with the traditional owners
of the Tanami desert country to map the
landscape and memories of the region.
The mapping project begins in
Mulan in 2004; its central purpose is, as
Mahood relays, ‘to create a cross-cultural
document that shows the interplay
between Aboriginal knowledge and
western scientific knowledge in a form
that is easily accessible to both Walmajarri
and kartiya [white people]’. At this first
coming together, Mahood sets out a canvas
map on which she has drawn a grid over
a printed satellite image of the area. As
the first person starts to recount their
knowledge of the area, the bounds of the
map prove insufficient. Notations start
to clutter the sides and when everyone
leaves, Mahood adds extra strips of canvas
to the sides at odd angles to accommodate
the mapping of place that has been told.
In the way of that first map, Position
Doubtful moves outwards, reaching back
from the mapping into earlier annual trips
that Mahood took, including her visits to
the salt lakes near the station she grew up
on, and her time living and working at the
art centre at Balgo.
In the early 1960s, Mahood’s father
had sought to map stock routes over the
Tanami using an aeronautical map on
which the notation ‘Position Doubtful’
appeared with some regularity, a notation
Mahood takes as a metaphor for white
Australian movement through the country.
In Position Doubtful, Mahood charts
her experience of place and lays out a
space in which we can begin to see the
multitudes of place and memory that
create the country.
Marie Matteson is from Readings Carlton
YIJARNI: TRUE STORIES
FROM GURINDJI
COUNTRY
Felicity Meakins & Erika Charola
Aboriginal Studies Press. PB. $39.95
Available 1 August
In 1966,
approximately 200
Gurindji stockmen
and their families
walked off Wave
Hill Station in the
Northern Territory.
While it is well
known that the
Walk Off was driven by the poor treatment of
Aboriginal workers, what is less well known is
the previous decades of massacres and killings,
stolen children and other abuses by early
colonists. Told in both English and Gurindji,
these compelling and detailed oral accounts
are a fascinating and challenging record of the
frontier battles and the Stolen Generations.
A HANDFUL OF
SAND: THE GURINDJI
STRUGGLE, AFTER THE
WALK-OFF
Charlie Ward
Monash University Press. PB. $29.95
Available 1 August
Fifty years ago, a group
of striking Aboriginal
stockmen in the remote
Northern Territory
heralded a revolution in
the cattle industry and in
Aboriginal affairs. A
Handful of Sand tells the
story behind the
Gurindji people’s famous
1966 Wave Hill Walk-off, and questions the
legacy of Gough Whitlam’s 1975 return of
their land. Charlie Ward reveals the path
Vincent Lingiari and other Gurindji elders
took to achieve their land rights victory, and
how their struggles in fact began, rather than
ended, with Whitlam’s handback.
CITY DREAMERS: THE
URBAN IMAGINATION IN
AUSTRALIA
Graeme Davison
NewSouth Books. PB. $34.99
Available 1 August
City Dreamers restores
Australian cities, and
those who created them,
to their rightful place in
the national imagination.
Building on a lifetime’s
work, Graeme Davison
views Australian history
from 1788 through the
eyes of those who battle to make and re-make
our cities. This extraordinary book excavates
the cultural history of the Australian city by
focusing on ‘dreamers’ – and argues that
there’s a particular twist to the ways in which
Australians think about and live in cities.
HAMILTON HUME: OUR
GREATEST EXPLORER
Robert Macklin
Hachette. PB. $32.99
Available 26 July
While English-born
soldiers, sailors and
surveyors have claimed
pride of place among
Australia’s early
explorers, the real
pathfinder was a
genuine native-born
Australian. Hamilton
Hume led settlers from the cramped
surrounds of Sydney Town across the Blue
Mountains to the vast fertile country that
would sustain a new nation. Hamilton
Hume tells the heroic tale of this young
Australian man whose contribution to the
development of the colony was immense
but downplayed in deference to explorers
of British origin.
NO MAN IS AN ISLAND
Adele Dumont
Hachette. PB. $32.99
Available 26 July
In 2010, Adele Dumont
volunteered to teach
English to men in
immigration detention
on Christmas Island. She
didn’t expect to find the
work so rewarding, or
the people she met so
interesting. So when she
was offered a job working at Curtin
G
oenawan Mohamad is one of
Indonesia’s foremost literary
figures and public intellectuals.
This selection of translated essays,
spanning 1968 to 2014, demonstrates
the breadth of his perceptive and
elegant commentary on literature,
faith, mythology, politics, history and
Indonesian life. In Other Words shows
a writer committed to Indonesia and
engaging with universal themes and
struggles, offering a fascinating insight
into questions that concern us all.
w w w. n e w s o u t h p u b l i s h i n g . c o m
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detention centre in Western Australia, she
took it. No Man is an Island is a unique
personal story that makes the issue of
immigration detention accessible – a
vividly told story full of characters and
humanity, that all Australians need to read.
NOT QUITE AUSTRALIAN:
HOW TEMPORARY
MIGRATION IS CHANGING
THE NATION
Peter Mares
Text. PB. $32.99
Available 1 August
A rise in temporary
migration is redefining
Australian society, from
wage wars and healthcare
benefits, to broader ideas
of national identity and
cultural diversity. Peter
Mares draws on case
studies, interviews and
personal stories to investigate the complex
realities of this new era of temporary
migration. Mares considers such issues as the
457 work visa, the unique experience of New
Zealand migrants, the internationalisation of
Australia’s education system and our highly
politicised asylum-seeker policies to
understand and challenge Australia’s growing
culture of temporary migration.
WHERE ARE OUR BOYS?
HOW NEWSMAPS WON
THE GREAT WAR
Martin Woods
National Library of Australia. PB. $49.99
Available 1 August
In 1914, the newspaper
map supplied readers
with the geographical
backdrop to the Great
War. Day by day, for
every campaign and
battle, readers were
bombarded with
maps, drawn from scant news cables, out
of date cartography, and the writer’s
imagination, a semi-fictional war story
emerged, of Australian and Allied exploits
abroad. Where Are Our Boys? tells the
story of these maps, sometimes beautiful,
sometimes misleading – and how they
helped to convey the conflict and the
immense human costs of war.
Wine & Cookery
HALLIDAY WINE
COMPANION 2017
Cultural Studies
REBELLIOUS DAUGHTERS
Maria Katsonis & Lee Kofman (eds)
Ventura. PB. Was $32.99
$27.99
Available 1 August
I firmly believe
that short story
collections are not meant
to be read from front
cover to back cover –
they’re meant to be
dipped in and out of at
leisure; randomly flicked
through until a
particular title jumps out and captures the
imagination. Rebellious Daughters, a
consciously controversial collection of short
works by female Australian writers, is a
feisty compendium of creative nonfiction.
Focused primarily on female
experiences, it showcases the variety of
pathways that rebellion can take and the
necessity of resistance in parent-daughter
relationships. From Maria Katsonis’
refusal to wear the mantel of the good
Greek girl to Susan Wyndham’s anxiety
about her dependency on her mother,
these intimate stories explore how familial
relationships can fall profoundly prey to
unpredictable feelings. Some contributors
have arguably had more to rebel against
than others: Eliza-Jane Henry-Jones
writes heartbreakingly in ‘Just Be Kind’
about sleeping with a knife under her
mattress because she was so terrified
of her violent, Alzheimer’s-afflicted
grandmother, and how later caring for a
father self-medicating with scotch and
codeine affected her own relationship
with alcohol. Rebecca Starford describes
the fall-out effect of writing truthfully
about her fractious relationship with her
mother in her 2015 memoir and Jo Case
reflects on whether the act of rebelling as
a teenager has set her on a problematic
course as an adult.
By equal turns poignant, funny and
confronting, Rebellious Daughters is a
well-crafted anthology that raises some
interesting questions. Does rebellion exact
a price? Is it possible to be true to oneself
without raising hell with one’s nearest
and dearest? Mother’s Day may be many
months away yet, but if you have a female
role model in your life whom you like to
lock ideas with as well as horns, this is a
great book to share and discuss.
Hilary Simmons is from Readings Carlton
James Halliday
IN OTHER WORDS: FORTY
YEARS OF ESSAYS
Hardie Grant. PB. Was $39.99
Goenawan Mohamad
$33.99
Available 4 August
Keenly anticipated each
year by winemakers,
collectors and wine
lovers, the Halliday
Wine Companion is
recognised as the
industry benchmark for
Australian wine. The
2017 edition has been
completely revised to bring you up-to-theminute information. In his inimitable style,
James Halliday shares detailed tasting
notes, each with vintage-specific ratings
and advice on optimal drinking as well as
each wine’s closure, alcohol content and
price. The book also provides information
about the wineries, winemakers and other
important details.
NewSouth. PB. $34.99
Available 1 August
Goenawan Mohamad is
one of Indonesia’s
foremost literary figures
and public intellectuals,
and this translated
volume of essays, from
1968 to 2014,
demonstrates the
breadth of his perceptive
and elegant commentary on literature,
faith, mythology, politics, history and
Indonesian life. With almost 100 short
essays, most taken from his popular
columns in Tempo, the Indonesianlanguage news weekly, In Other Words
shows a writer committed to Indonesia but
grappling with universal themes and
struggles, offering a fascinating insight into
questions that concern us all.
THE WRITER’S ROOM
Charlotte Wood
A&U. PB. $32.99
Available 1 August
Charlotte Wood’s online
journal The Writer’s
Room has become
essential reading for
writers at all stages of
their careers, and for
book lovers everywhere.
Charlotte’s interviews
with a wide range of
writers range in topic from the subject
matter of the writers’ work to quite intricate
– and intimate – revelations about the ways
in which they work. Charlotte’s subjects are
frank about the failures and successes, the
struggles and triumphs of the writing life,
and extremely generous in their revelations.
A must-read for writers and readers.
Music
THE AGE OF BOWIE
Paul Morley
S&S. HB. Was $45
$39.99
Available 1 August
Respected arts
commentator Paul Morley
constructs the definitive
story of Bowie, that
explores how he worked,
played, aged, structured
his ideas, invented the
future and entered history
as someone who could
and would never be forgotten. A startling
biographical critique of David Bowie’s legacy,
showing how he never stayed still even after
withdrawing from the spotlight, and his
bloody-minded determination and
voluptuous imagination to create something
amazing that was not there before.
PRINCE: PURPLE REIGN
Mick Wall
Orion. PB. Was $32.99
$27.99
Available 9 August
Prince was an icon – one
of the most talented and
influential artists of all
time, and also one of the
most mysterious. This
book will open a door to
Prince’s world like never
before – from his
traumatic childhood and
demonic pursuit of music as a means of
escape, to his rise to superstardom,
professional rivalries and personal tragedies.
Mick Wall explores the historical, cultural
and personal backdrop that gave rise to a
man who changed pop culture forever.
architectural styles. James’ buildings are
colourful and packed with fun and offbeat
details, yet they still capture the technical
elements and the essence of the architecture
that makes Melbourne such a beautiful city.
Organised by neighbourhoods, the book
features iconic Melbourne structures, as
well as the everyday buildings that give the
city its character.
History
LES PARISIENNES: HOW
THE WOMEN OF PARIS
LIVED, LOVED AND DIED
IN THE 1940S
Anne Sebba
Weidenfeld & Nicolson. PB. $32.99
Available 26 July
What did it feel like to be
a woman living in Paris
from 1939 to 1949? Even
at the darkest moments
of Occupation, with the
Swastika flying from the
Eiffel Tower, glamour
was ever present. Why?
Anne Sebba shows how
French women made life-and-death
decisions every day, doing whatever they
needed to survive. Although politics lies at
its heart, Les Parisiennes is a fascinating
account of the lives of people of the city
and, specifically, in this most feminine of
cities, its women and young girls.
Humour
THE CHASER’S AUSTRALIA
The Chaser
Black Inc. PB. $24.99
Available 1 August
The Chaser’s Australia is
a comprehensive guide
to the culture, history,
politics, religion,
fashion, media and
heroes that have made
Australia one of the Top
196 countries in the
world today. Featuring
fewer verifiable facts than Wikipedia, but
somehow still more accurate than an Andrew
Bolt column, this definitive volume is the
perfect companion volume to an actual
proper book about Australia. The Chaser’s
Australia: everything you thought you wanted
to know about Australia, but didn’t.
Personal Development
MAN UP: SURVIVING
MODERN MASCULINITY
Jack Urwin
Icon. PB. $27.99
Available 1 August
Gift
ALL THE BUILDINGS IN
MELBOURNE (THAT I’VE
DRAWN SO FAR)
James Gulliver Hancock
Hardie Grant. HB. $29.99
Available 1 August
All the Buildings in
Melbourne is a journey
through Melbourne, told
through unique and
charming cityscape
drawings that pay tribute
to the city’s diverse
Jack Urwin’s father died
when he was 10. No one
around him ever sat him
down to talk him through
his grief. In his later
teens he suffered a
breakdown. In Man Up,
Urwin explores what it
means to be a man today,
tracing crises of masculinity, from post-war
shell shock, to the mob mentality of football
terraces, to the disturbing rise in men’s
mental health problems. Smart, funny and
friendly, Man Up is the start of an essential
conversation for all men.
R E A D I N G S M O N T H LY A U G U S T 2 0 1 6
THE MIDDLEPAUSE: ON
TURNING FIFTY
Marina Benjamin
Scribe. PB. $29.99
Available 1 August
In a society obsessed with
living longer and looking
younger, what does
middle age mean? How
should a fifty-something
be, in a world ceaselessly
redefining age, youth, and
experience? Spurred by
her own brutal propulsion into menopause,
Marina Benjamin weighs the losses, joys and
opportunities of our middle years, taking
inspiration from literature and philosophical
example. Ultimately, she uncovers comfort
and guidance in memory, milestones and
margins, and offers an inspired and
expanded vision of how to be happily and
harmoniously middle-aged.
Photography
REFLECTIONS OF
ELEPHANTS
Bobby-Jo Clow
Melbourne Books. HB. $39.95
Available 1 August
Reflections of Elephants
is a celebration of an
unmistakeable and
irreplaceable creature,
seen through the lens of
acclaimed
photographer Bobby-Jo Clow. From the rusty,
red plains of Tsavo to the lush, green forests
of Northern Thailand, Bobby-Jo has captured
every aspect of elephant life, from first step to
untimely death. Her astonishing images have
been paired with the words of writers, poets,
scientists, conservationists, students and
everyday people, to produce unique
reflections of this most iconic animal.
Politics
THE NEW RUSSIA
Mikhail Gorbachev
Wiley. HB. Was $49.95
$44.95
Available now
After years of
rapprochement, the
relationship between
Russia and the West is
more strained now than it
has ever been in the past 25
years. In this new work,
Russia’s elder statesman
Mikhail Gorbachev draws on his wealth of
knowledge and experience to critique the
performance and motives of the Putin regime,
as well as wider problems in the region and
the world. The New Russia stands as a
testament to one of the greatest and most
influential statesmen of the twentieth century.
FAR AND AWAY:
REPORTING FROM THE
BRINK OF CHANGE
Andrew Solomon
Chatto & Windus. PB. $35
Available 15 August
In 1991 Andrew Solomon
rode a tank into Red
Square in Moscow with a
band of Russian protesters.
In 2002 he was in
Afghanistan following the
fall of the Taliban; in 2014
he travelled to Myanmar to meet expolitical prisoners. Far and Away tells these
and many other stories. A journalist and
essayist of remarkable perception and
prescience, Solomon demonstrates both
how history is altered by individuals, and
how personal identities are altered when
governments alter.
Psychology
THE MEMORY ILLUSION
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning
journalist and bestselling author of
‘Backlash’, an astonishing confrontation
with the enigma of her father and the
larger riddle of identity consuming
our age.
Dr Julia Shaw
Random. PB. $35
Available 1 August
We all suffer memory
lapses, or forget names.
But what if our minds
have the potential for
more profound errors,
that enable the
manipulation or even
outright fabrication of
our memories? In The
Memory Illusion, Dr
Julia Shaw uses the latest research to show
the astonishing variety of ways in which
our brains can indeed be led astray.
Fascinating and unnerving in equal
measure, The Memory Illusion offers a
unique insight into the human brain,
challenging how much we can ever truly
know ourselves.
Travel Writing
GHOST EMPIRE
Richard Fidler
ABC Books. HB. Was $39.99
$34.99
Available 1 August
In 2014, Richard
Fidler and his son
Joe made a journey
to Istanbul. Fired by
Richard’s passion for
the rich history of
the dazzling
Byzantine Empire,
we are swept into
some of the most
extraordinary tales in history. Turbulent
stories from the past are brought vividly to
life, while a father navigates the unfolding
changes in his relationship with his son.
Ghost Empire is a revelation: a beautifully
written ode to a lost civilisation, and a
warmly observed father-son adventure far
from home.
Writing
RELEASE THE BATS
DBC Pierre
Faber. PB. $27.99
Available 1 August
When DBC Pierre burst
onto the scene in 2003,
he arrived with no
particular literary
education. Finding he
had something to say,
he made the journey
solo to that place where
dreams and demons
live, to try and turn
feelings into words. Part biography, part
reflection and part practical guide, Release
the Bats explores the mysteries of why and
how we tell stories, and the craft of writing
fiction. DBC Pierre reveals everything he
learned the hard way.
No. 1 New York Times bestselling
author Daniel Silva delivers another
spellbinding international thriller -- one
that finds the legendary Gabriel Allon
grappling with an ISIS mastermind.
GHOST EMPIRE is a rare
treasure - an utterly captivating
blend of the historical and the
contemporary, realised by a
master storyteller.
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R E A D I N G S M O N T H LY A U G U S T 2 0 1 6
Food & Gardening
with Chris Gordon
ALIMENTARI
Linda Malcolm & Paul Jones
Hardie Grant. PB. $39.99
Available 1 August
Alimentari literally
means ‘good food and
camaraderie’ and that is
just what is celebrated at
the adored cafes in
Fitzroy. Full of classic
cafe choices and The
Very Best Sandwiches in
Melbourne, Alimentari recipes are perfect
for sharing and entertaining. It’s where
Mediterranean meets Middle Eastern, so
think incredible salads, those sandwiches
and easy one pot dinners for entertaining or
for the family. If you love Ottolenghi, or the
dishes in Community, then this is your next
source of inspiration. Beautifully presented
with photographs of café life, this book is a
treasure for those wanting some easy
charm in their kitchen. It’s the type of book
that makes you want to collect old
decorated tins and beautiful plates and
team with salads full of grains, colour and
sprigs of herbs. Alimentari could also mean:
this is Melbourne at its best.
MY YEAR WITHOUT MEAT
Richard Cornish
MUP. PB. $29.99
Available 1 August
There are recipes in this
book but not many and
they are at the very end of
this tale. My Year Without
Meat examines what it
meant to food writer
Richard Cornish to become
a vegetarian for a short
amount of time. It is a rumination on eating
ethically, it’s a bow to vegetables and an
insight into the life of a food journalist. As
many of you know, Richard Cornish is
hilarious and this book is full of laugh-outloud moments, but in equal measure it
accurately explores how and why
Australians consume food the way we do.
My Year Without Meat is the opposite of a
didactic tale about the need to eat grains
and greens, but rather a journalist’s insight
into our meat industry. This book is an
important contribution to those that wish
to live better, longer and greener.
THE NATURAL COOK
Matt Stone
Murdoch. PB. $39.99
Available 1 August
Matt Stone is one of my
heroes in the Melbourne
food scene. I first saw
him in action when he
opened the Greenhouse
with Joost Bakker; this
was a remarkable pop up
restaurant that worked hard to reuse,
recycle and throw nothing away. It was
fantastic, really, to imagine what our world
could be if we all lived like that. This book
is an illustration of how to live that dream,
step-by-step, and create food that is
delicious, beautiful and completely
seasonal. It’s all about using local foods,
and using every last bit of each ingredient.
There are tricks and treats for those that
want to bottle, ferment and steam, craft
stock and sauces and dishes for sharing.
Stone says, ‘Start where you are, use what
you have, do what you can.’ Owning this
book would get you off the starting block.
BEEF AND POTATOES
Jean-Francois Mallet
Murdoch. HB. $49.99
Available 1 August
Ah, the meal of gods, of
hungry workers, pregnant
women, children all over
and the main stays of every
carnivore cook across the
world. There are over 200
recipes in this book that centre just on two
key ingredients: think roast beef sandwiches,
olive oil chips, beef and gravy pies, and
warming boeuf bourguignon. Presented
with an eye for art and humour this book
seems to me the complete accolade for the
most basic of delicious food. Jean-Francois
Mallet studied at the renowned culinary arts
school Ferrandi in Paris, and worked for
several of France’s top chefs before he
became a food photographer and pulled
together this testimony to simple fare.
PORNBURGER
Mathew Ramsey
Murdoch. HB. $39.99
Available 1 August
Our obsession with eating
the perfect burger is not
new. I learnt some time ago,
that it’s not about the place,
but the people you are with. So making the
perfect burger always seems the most
sensible way to go. Clearly I’m not alone
because Pornburger man Ramsey has a huge
following (2,400,000 visitors) on his blog,
(pornburger.me) about tasty burgers to be.
This collection is an extension of the craze
and gives you guidance for 80 pretty insane
sounding burgers. There are vegetarian
options, sweet and savoury options and all
with seriously outrageous names and a
collection of ingredients that could/would/
should knock your socks off. This is not a
book about ‘sliders’, this is a book about the
unadulterated joy of a meal in a bun.
MILK MADE
Nick Haddow
Hardie Grant. HB. $55
Available 1 August
Straight from the romance of
another type of lifestyle, Nick
Haddow is the founder of Bruny
Island Cheese. The poor bloke
has had to travel through
Europe, the US and Australia to meet and learn
from cheese makers. Here he shares the good,
the bad and the ugly. The result is an
encyclopaedia of cheese: how to eat it, store it
and make it. Amongst others, there are recipes
for fondue, pizzas and saag. Then there are the
stories behind the cheeses and their makers.
All of this knowledge is bound in a beautiful
book with stunning photos. I like it mostly
because it shows far Australian cheeses have
come on the international market.
THE GREAT AUSTRALIAN
BEER GUIDE
James Smith
Hardie Grant. HB. $29.99
Available 1 August
Beer is a big international
business, and Australia is
kicking goals all over the
world. There are now over
300 brewing companies
operating in Australia producing a range of
beer only ever seen before in Europe. This
book takes your hand and walks you
through the maze of options. Of course if
you wanted to start your own backyard
venture, you’ll also find the information for
making whatever your taste buds desire –
beer-wise, that is.
Art & Design
with Margaret Snowdon
BRETT WHITELEY:
ART, LIFE AND THE
OTHER THING
Ashleigh Wilson
Text. HB. Was $49.99
$44.99
Available 1 August
The young Brett Whiteley
arrived in Europe in 1960
determined to make an
impression. Before long he
was the youngest artist to
have work acquired by the
Tate. After failing to break
through in New York, he
returned to Sydney where he soon became
Australia’s most celebrated artist. Written
with unprecedented behind-the-scenes
access, and handsomely illustrated with
classic Whiteley artworks, rare notebook
sketches and candid family photos, this
dazzling biography reveals for the first time
the full portrait of a mercurial artist.
REIGNING MEN: FASHION
IN MENSWEAR 1715–2015
Takeda, Spilker & Esguerra
LACMA & Prestel. HB. $95
Available now
This delightful book is
from the Los Angeles
County Museum of Art
exhibition, which draws on
their world-class collection
of textiles and costumes. It
is so unusual to see such a
sumptuous book on the history of men’s
fashion – prepare to be dazzled not only by the
original clothes and accoutrements, but also
the satisfying juxtapositions with
contemporary outfits from the likes of
Vivienne Westwood, Gucci, Marithe and
Francois Girbaud and Issey Miyake.
RENÉ MAGRITTE:
SELECTED WRITINGS
Kathleen Rooney & Eric Plattner
Alma. HB. $39.99
Available 1 August
Available for the first time
in English, this selection
gives non-Francophone
readers the chance to
encounter the many
incarnations of renowned
Belgian painter Rene
Magritte in his own words.
Through whimsical personal letters, biting
apologia, appreciations of fellow artists,
pugnacious interviews, farcical film scripts,
prose poems, manifestos and much more,
the artist emerges as part Surrealist, part
literalist, part celebrity and part rascal.
FASHION + MUSIC
Katie Baron
LK. HB. $65
Available 1 August
From the Sex Pistols to
Madonna, Kylie Minogue to
Lady Gaga, fashion has
consistently amplified our
understanding of the band
(and in many cases the
brand) – fuelling the fantasy
and adding depth to artists’ wider agendas.
From pop videos to editorial shoots, through
some of the industry’s most significant
pairings/collaborations, this book focuses on
the power of fashion as a make-or-break tool
within the music industry’s creative process.
THE LEGACIES OF
BERNARD SMITH
Jaynie Anderson
Power. PB. $39.99
Available 1 August
Bernard Smith’s influence
on Australian cultural life
was immense, from the
publication of Place, Taste
and Tradition in 1945 until
his death in September 2011.
Each of his publications
nurtured an Antipodean view, whether art
historical or anthropological, and opened up
new fields in Australian scholarship. The
Legacies of Bernard Smith arises from a
collaborative international conference
convened in 2012 between the Universities of
Melbourne and Sydney, and Art Gallery NSW.
It is the most significant work on Smith’s
impact to date, with over twenty contributing
authors, and examines his legacies in
Australian art history, museology, Pacific art
studies, Australian studies and Indigenous art.
NEW DEAL PHOTOGRAPHY
Peter Walther
Taschen. HB. $49.99
Available 1 August
The United States Farm
Security Administration
hired a number of
photographers to document
the lives of America’s rural
poor from 1935 to 1943.
This book records the full
reach of the FSA program, honouring its
vigour and commitment across subjects,
states, and stylistic preferences. Featuring the
work of Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans,
Marion Post Wolcott, Jack Delano, Russell
Lee and Ben Shahn, what unites all of the
pictures is a commitment to the individuality
and dignity of each subject.
THE NEW PAVILIONS
Philip Jodidio
T&H. HB. $55
Available 1 August
Pavilions have many forms
and as many functions:
tents, bandstands, displays
– places for sitting, listening,
seeing and being seen.
They present unique
opportunities for architects and designers to
experiment with form, structure, surface,
texture, construction and materials, and can
be prototypes for larger buildings or purely
artistic pursuits and play. The New Pavilions
presents a selection of the best and most
exciting examples produced in recent years.
Each pavilion featured provides a lesson in
the extreme possibilities of built form and
demonstrates that many of the biggest ideas
in architecture start small.
THE MELBOURNE
STREET ART GUIDE
Ewan McEoin & Din Heagney
T&H. PB. $29.99
Available 1 August
This is the essential reference to
Melbourne’s dynamic street-art
scene. Focused on the art,
politics, people and places that
make Melbourne an undisputed
hotspot for street art and
graffiti, this highly illustrated book delves into
the inner worlds of the artist, collector and
curator to provide a holistic picture of
contemporary Melbourne street art practice
today. Maps for self-guided tours reveal where
to go and what to see, while short essays,
interviews and profiles provide an invaluable
set of tools for any street art connoisseur.
R E A D I N G S M O N T H LY A U G U S T 2 0 1 6
New Young Adult Fiction
See books for kids, junior and middle readers on pages 18–19
Young Adult Book of the Month
THE BOUNDLESS SUBLIME
Lili Wilkinson
A&U. PB. $19.99
Available 1 August
I’m always excited when Lili Wilkinson has a new novel, and
after absolutely loving her last book, Green Valentine, I was keen
to see what she had in store for us.
After an accident splits Ruby’s family apart, she feels like she is
barely alive. Ordering take-away meals for her depressed mother and
attempting to turn up to school leaves Ruby wondering if things can ever get better. Can
she get out of the fog that has been following her since the accident? And can she ever
forgive her father and herself for what happened?
When Ruby initially spots Fox handing out bottles of water on a street corner, she
thinks she has seen an angel. He’s beautiful, and he seems to have spotted Ruby as well.
As the two get to know each other, Ruby discovers that Fox belongs to a small community
called the Institute of the Sublime and that he must leave Ruby to go back to live at the
Institute. Feeling like life as it is isn’t going to get better, Ruby decides to follow Fox to the
Institute where she is welcomed with open arms. But before long, Ruby discovers that
the Institute of the Sublime isn’t what she initially thought and that there is a much more
sinister side to the community.
The Boundless Sublime is definitely a different type of novel for Wilkinson, leaving
behind the more happy-go-lucky stories she has written in the past and bringing a more
serious, dark novel to her audience. While I enjoyed the writing and the idea of the cult, I
found parts slightly far-fetched and didn’t feel as connected to her characters as I have in
the past. However, this is a gripping story and the interesting twist kept me intrigued ’til
the end. For ages 14 and up.
Katherine Dretzke is a friend of Readings
DRAG TEEN
PROMISING AZRA
Jeffery Self
Helen Thurloe
Scholastic. HB.$24.99
Available 1 August
A&U. PB. $19.99
Available 1 August
Drag Teen is a
really fun novel.
Unusually, and quite
refreshingly, this is not a
coming-out novel, but
rather a novel about
self-acceptance and
body image. JT, a queer
teen with secret
aspirations of drag queendom, just wants to
get out of his tiny town and away from his
parents, who don’t seem to be particularly
concerned about him at all. The ideal
solution is, of course, to go away to college,
but he has no money and misses out on the
scholarship he applies for. Enter boyfriend
Seth with a radical idea: JT and Seth, along
with bestie Heather, will go on a road trip to
New York so that JT can compete in the
Miss Drag Teen Scholarship Pageant. JT
loves drag, but the one time he tried it he
was booed off stage.
Drag Teen certainly contains important
themes about acceptance and selfconfidence, but honestly, this is not a
serious book. This is a sweet, sparkly bite
of fairy-floss of a book and I thoroughly
enjoyed every moment of it. There are
road trip high jinks, big-city dramas and so
many RuPaul’s Drag Race references I’m
not entirely convinced that the book isn’t
Self’s written application to the show. It’s
a really great examination of drag culture
that highlights everything good about the
world whilst still touching on the darker
side of rivalries. There’s a smattering of
relationship drama to keep the tension up,
but the bulk of the story is focused on JT’s
own journey. Such fun, and it has all my
favourite things: road trip novel + sassy
drag queens + a Dolly Partonesque fairy
dragmother = a very happy reviewer. I felt
supremely pandered to and I loved every
minute of it. Also, I now really want to hang
out with Jeffery Self.
Helen Thurloe’s
Promising Azra is a
powerful humaninterest story. This work
casts a spotlight on the
clandestine practise of
forced marriage of
young women living in
conservative sectors of
the Australian Muslim community.
For sixteen-year-old Azra Ajmal, a
first generation Australian of Pakistani
heritage, her personal ambition is to excel
academically. Her immediate concern is to
convince her parents to grant her permission
to compete in a national science competition.
Azra’s family adhere to strict Islamic
traditions where the honour of the family
is valued higher than that of the individual.
Her uncle, Zarar Ajmal, the patriarchal head
of her extended family, assumes control
over their lives. Azra doesn’t realise it but
her academic aspirations are about to be
overridden by a family pact to marry her to a
cousin in Pakistan.
Azra’s innocence and naivety makes
her struggle against this arranged marriage
and the certain conflict this would cause
with her family nerve-racking to witness.
The penalty for her defiance would be
banishment from the family home and a
future living in hiding as protection against
an honour attack against her. Faced with an
impossible choice, either decision brings
with it great personal sacrifice.
There is a symmetry to the structure of
the work that accords with the significance
of the Muslim calendar. The work opens
during Rajab, when conflict is forbidden
and there is a period of calm in Azra’s
family experience. As the work moves
into Sha’ban, the month of separation, we
see Azra shunned by her family for her
independence. The month of Ramadan that
follows is a holy time of celebration and her
family plan her imminent wedding. But, one
Isobel Moore is from Readings St Kilda
year on, the Muslim New Year of Muharram
gives promise to hope and new beginnings.
Natalie Platten is from Readings Malvern
A STEP TOWARDS FALLING
Cammie McGovern
PanMac. PB. $16.99
Available 26 July
Emily has always tried to
do the right thing – until
one night when she does
the worst thing possible.
She sees Belinda, a
classmate with
developmental
disabilities, being
attacked. Inexplicably,
she does nothing at all. Belinda manages to
save herself. When their high school finds out
what happened, Emily and Lucas, who was
also there that night, are required to perform
community service at a centre for disabled
people. But can they do anything that will
actually help the person they hurt most?
THE BAD DECISIONS
PLAYLIST
Michael Rubens
Penguin. PB. $19.99
Available 1 August
A stranger rolls into
town and everything
changes for Austin
Methune. The stranger
turns out to be his
father, presumed dead,
and his father turns out
to be Shane Tucker, a
big-time musician – just
the role Austin wants for himself. But
Austin has a long history of getting himself
in trouble. And he’s in deep trouble
now – the deepest ever. Perhaps Austin
has inherited more than talent from
Shane, who also does drugs, screws up,
and drops out.
THE DIARY OF WILLIAM
SHAKESPEARE,
GENTLEMAN
Jackie French
HarperCollins. PB. $16.99
Available 1 August
Part comedy, part love
story, the threads of
Shakespeare’s life can be
drawn from his plays. He
was a boy who escaped
small-town life to be the
most acclaimed
playwright of the land. A
lover whose sonnets still
sing 400 years later; a glover’s apprentice
who became a gentleman. The world knows
the name of William Shakespeare. This book
reveals the man – lover, son and poet.
THE MEMORY BOOK
Lara Avery
Quercus. PB. $17.99
Available 26 July
Samantha McCoy has it
all mapped out. First
she’s going to win the
national debating
championship, then
she’s going to move to
New York and become a
human rights lawyer.
But when Sam discovers
that a rare disease is going to take away her
memory, the future she’d planned so
perfectly is derailed before it starts.
Realising her life won’t wait to be lived,
Sam sets out on a summer of firsts.
17
18
R E A D I N G S M O N T H LY A U G U S T 2 0 1 6
Picture Books
FABISH: THE HORSE THAT
BRAVED A BUSHFIRE
Neridah McMullin & Andrew McLean (illus.)
A&U. HB. $24.99
Available 1 August
This is a true story from the
Black Saturday bushfires in
2009, written from the perspective of
a brave trainer, John Evett, and a
courageous horse, Fabish.
An ex-racehorse, Fabish’s retirement
role was to look after the young horses (known as
yearlings) out in a back paddock. That fateful summer
when a hot wind brought fire to the property, the trainer
opened the paddock gate and told Fabish to take the seven
yearlings to safety. While the trainer kept the racehorses
in the barn all night, Fabish and the yearlings survived
surrounded by fire. This remarkable story is written
with an ear for the sound of language, and the paintings
by Andrew McLean of the horses and the landscape are
breathtaking. It is suitable for readers aged 5 and up,
particularly in a classroom setting where you can discuss
bushfire and its impact upon humans and animals.
Angela Crocombe is from Readings Carlton
HERE COMES MR POSTMOUSE
Marianne Dubub
Book Island. HB. $26.95
Available now
Follow Mr Postmouse on his fun
postal delivery, meet a variety of
hilarious animal characters and
explore their crazy habitats in a
wonderful picture book full of the
absurdity and silliness children love.
Did you know rabbits grow carrots on
the roof, that they sleep in bunk beds
and have special rabbit toilets? Did you know bats have
beds on the ceiling? And wait until you see the inside of
Madame Dung Fly’s house. These and other wonders are
illustrated in a free and uninhibited, childlike fashion.
This is a picture book children (and adults) will love
to pore over again and again; it’s full of hidden pictorial
jokes – the more you look the more you see!
Athina Clarke is from Readings Malvern
MY BROTHER
Dee Huxley, Oliver Huxley & Tiffany Huxley
Working Title. HB. $24.99
Available now
colourful picture book that celebrates cooking and
friendship. Adorable little Sweet Petite, who is a guinea pig,
loves cakes and fashion but she wants a friend to share
these fun things with – but where to find one? Whoops,
what has she tripped over? An egg! Better keep it warm,
Sweet Petite.
You can probably guess what happens next. Children
will love Sweet Petite and they could help with the making
of any of the three cake recipes interwoven into the story.
Bright and happy fun for kids age 2 and up. AD
ADA’S IDEAS: THE STORY OF ADA
LOVELACE, THE WORLD’S FIRST
COMPUTER PROGRAMMER
Fiona Robinson
Abrams. HB. $24.99
Available 1 August
Ada Lovelace was the daughter
of the poet Lord Byron and
Anna Isabella Milbanke, a
mathematician. Her parents
separated when she was young
and her mother insisted on a
logic-focused education,
rejecting Byron’s mad love of poetry, but Ada remained
fascinated with her father and considered mathematics
poetical science. She became involved in programming a
precursor to the computer, thus becoming the world’s first
computer programmer. This is a compelling portrait of a
woman who saw the potential for numbers to make art.
ALL MY TREASURES: A BOOK OF JOY
Jo Witek & Christine Roussey (illus.)
Abrams. HB. $21.99
Available 1 August
When a girl receives a beautiful
porcelain box from her
grandmother, she immediately
wants something special to put
inside it. But what could it be?
What does she love best? She loves
jumping in puddles on rainy days,
blowing bubbles in the park and
watching her little sister’s first steps. As it turns out, life’s
most precious treasures cannot be contained in a box!
Beautifully packaged and hiding surprises, this story
reminds us to take pleasure in everyday moments.
Nonfiction
METROPOLIS
Benoit Tardif
Big Picture. HB. $29.99
Available 1 August
I was very moved by this
poignant and beautiful book.The
pages are haunted by a longing so
intense that you feel privileged to be
included as you read.
A gentle, sad creature has lost his
brother and as he searches in places
that bring to mind an Escher painting,
his eventual outlook about his loss changes from despair to
an understanding of what his brother and he shared. This
is an elegy to a lost sibling and as an adult your belief is that
he’s died but children will take their own meaning from
it. The production of this story was a family affair and the
overwhelming feeling is that there has been a profound loss
for the Huxleys and that Dee Huxley, who is a well known
children’s author and illustrator, has put her heart and soul into
the pictures. A tender exploration of loss for 4 years and up.
Yet another beautiful
illustrated nonfiction book
from Big Picture Press, Metropolis
takes the reader on a trip to thirtytwo of the world’s greatest cities.
Whilst offering little in the way of
straightforward factual information
and instead relying on stunning
visuals to convey detail, this is a
really fun and exquisite book to look over and makes
comparing similarities and differences between cities
vastly enjoyable. I loved the inclusion of a lot of modern
architecture, and laughed at how many types of doughnuts
and bagels were included! There’s a lot of humour within
the pages that makes for a great family read-together.
Alexa Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn
Isobel Moore is from Readings St Kilda
SWEET PETITE
PANDAMONIA
Poh Ling Yeow & Sarah Rich (illus.)
Chris Owen & Chris Nixon (illus.)
Hardie Grant. HB. $24.99
Available now
Fremantle Arts Centre Press. HB. $24.99
Available now
Past MasterChef contestant
turned cooking-show
presenter Poh Ling Yeow needs no
introduction.Now, with her good
friend and illustrator, Sarah Rich,
she has turned her talents to the
world of children’s books. The
outcome is this delightfully
When you visit the zoo, whatever
you do, don’t wake the panda! Read
along and join in the fantastic fun
when one grumpy (and tired!)
panda is woken up by unsuspecting
zoo visitors with unexpected
results. Who knew a sleepy panda would set off a frenzy
of wild partying?
Junior Fiction
LUCY
Randy Cecil
Candlewick. HB. $24.99
Available 1 August
Lucy is a handsome book that
occupies a space between picture
book and novel with lovely, soft
duotone illustrations.
Set in a quaint little town, this
book chronicles the daily routines of
a scrappy, energetic homeless pup;
the kind young girl who sneaks her
breakfast sausage to the dog; and her father, a skilled but
erratic juggler. The moments when their stories unite
become catalysts for a warm and fulfilling ending.
It’s a lovely book to read with children who are moving
away from picture books or for independent readers aged
6–9 years.
Kim Gruschow is from Readings Hawthorn
MARGE IN CHARGE
Isla Fisher
Piccadilly. PB. $14.99
Available 1 August
Jemima and Jake’s new babysitter
doesn’t look too promising. In fact she
looks very sensible, very old and very
small. But the moment their parents
leave the house, Marge gives a wink,
takes off her hat and reveals a
marvellous mane of rainbow-coloured
hair! Marge is a babysitter like no other
and the children spend a wild evening
with her. But if Jake and Jemima want her to babysit
again, they’ll need to take charge of Marge.
Middle Fiction
BELLE AND SEBASTIEN: CHILD OF
THE MOUNTAINS
Cecile Aubry
Alma. PB. $15.99
Available 1 August
The son of a Gypsy, Sebastien is
found as a baby in the Alps and
brought up by Guillaume and his
grandchildren. Born on the same day,
Belle is a beautiful Pyrenean
Mountain Dog who has been
neglected and passed from owner to
owner, until one day she escapes
from a kennel. When Sebastien
rescues Belle from the wrath of the
villagers, the two form a lifelong friendship, embarking
on adventures together in the mountains.
BICYCLING TO THE MOON
Timo Parvela & Virpi Talvitie (illus.)
Gecko. PB. $15.99
Available 1 August
This is the story of an odd
couple, Barker the dog and
Purdy the cat, and their whimsical
adventures. An irrepressible visionary,
Purdy is imaginative, impulsive,
fanciful and dreamy! Barker is
hardworking, loyal, tireless, and
devoted to making Purdy’s impossible
ideas come true. But Purdy thinks big.
So when Purdy dreams of going to the moon by bike,
Barker has his work cut out for him. Will Purdy make it to
the moon? Will Barker find a way?
This is a beautifully illustrated little book with quirky
characters and hilarious stories. But at its wonderful core
it’s about the joys and challenges of friendship with all its
inevitable conundrums. I loved this wonderful duo and
their countless exploits!
Highly recommended for confident independent
readers (both boys and girls who enjoy a challenge) aged 7
and up; an ideal read aloud the family will enjoy! AC
R E A D I N G S M O N T H LY A U G U S T 2 0 1 6
Book of the Month
WELCOME TO COUNTRY
Aunty Joy Murphy & Lisa Kennedy (illus.)
Black Dog. HB. $24.99
Available 1 August
Finally, Melbourne has its very own picture book celebrating the original inhabitants
of the city – the Wurundjeri people. Welcome to Country is a spectacular celebration
of Indigenous land and culture that takes us through a beautiful Wominjeka (welcome)
ceremony which gives yannabil (visitors) permission to enter traditional lands. Each
community has its own way of welcoming to country, but in this book we learn about the tree
sacred to the Wurundjeri – the River White Gum. We also learn of the creator spirit, Bunjil
the eagle. The story has been written by well-respected Senior Wurundjeri Elder, Aunty
Joy Murphy. The stunning illustrations by Lisa Kennedy are painted acrylic depictions of
waterways, night skies, native flora and fauna of the area, and images of the ancestors
around campfires, gathering food and celebrating.
Welcome to Country is a resoundingly beautiful book that invites us to recognise the
traditional lands that lie beneath our feet and to celebrate local Indigenous culture.
This book belongs on every home bookshelf and in every library so that all
Australians can learn about and respect the cultural importance of a welcome
to country.
19
New
Kids’
Books
Angela Crocombe is from Readings Carlton
THE STUPENDOUSLY
SPECTACULAR SPELLING BEE
Deborah Abela
Random. PB. $14.99
Available 1 August
THE UNCOMMONERS: THE
CROOKED SIXPENCE
Jennifer Bell
Corgi. PB. $17.99
Available 1 August
Ivy and Seb’s grandmother, Sylvie,
has a mysterious past. She lost her
memory long ago in a car accident and
remembers nothing about her life prior to
that night. Then one day, Sylvie ends up in
hospital and Ivy and Seb get sucked into
the world of the Uncommoners.
This is an assured debut, with full
and confident world-building. Ivy is a very appealing
protagonist and the adventure is a lot of fun, but also
surprisingly scary in parts! I was on the edge of my seat
and absolutely raced through this book. Thankfully, it’s
the start of a new series, so I’ll have more Ivy and Seb to
sate me in the future.
Isobel Moore is from Readings St Kilda
YONG: THE JOURNEY OF AN
UNWORTHY SON
Janeen Brian
Walker. PB. $16.99
Available 1 August
Award-winning author Janeen Brian
has based 13-year-old Yong’s
incredible journey on real incidents of the
1850s; famine forced many Chinese to seek
their fortune in the goldfields of Ballarat.
Yong’s reluctant expedition to the
goldfields is a long and harrowing ordeal
of bigotry, corruption, exploitation and
death. He’s also trapped in an unenviable dilemma of having
to guard his family’s honour and also an important secret;
ultimately it’s a life or death decision. But Yong’s courage
and adaptability in the face of such adversity is inspiring.
The story explores many challenging themes: families
torn apart by the forces of history, the clash of cultures,
and the challenges of ancient people in an alien land.
Recommended for dedicated readers of historical
fiction – boys and girls ages 9 years and up.
Athina Clarke is from Readings Malvern
THE INVENTORY: IRON FIST
Andy Briggs
Scholastic. PB. $15.99
Available 1 August
Dev is stuck in sleepy little
Edderton and he hates it. He has no
friends (even though he’s secretly
intrigued by karate-kicking cool girl Lot),
and he’s a constant target of Mason, the
school bully. Even the fact that his uncle
is in charge of The Inventory – a topsecret, underground bunker full of
amazing inventions – isn’t much of a consolation prize,
since Dev isn’t allowed to touch any of them. Though that
doesn’t stop him from taking the HoverBoots for a spin
every now and then.
After Lot and Mason pay Dev a surprise visit, The
Inventory also receives a few more unwanted guests: a
gang of expert thieves hoping to infiltrate the bunker and
steal a piece of technology called the Iron Fist. Now Dev,
Lot and Mason will have to outwit the thieves to stop the
Iron Fist from falling into the wrong hands.
This is an action-packed read full of explosions,
hacking and literal cliff-hangers that readers 10 and up
will race through.
Holly Harper is the online children’s specialist
THE 78 STOREY TREEHOUSE
Andy Griffiths & Terry Denton (illus.)
PanMac. PB. $14.99
Available 9 August
Join Andy and Terry in their spectacular
new 78-storey treehouse. They’ve added
13 new levels including a drive-through
car wash, a combining machine, a
scribbletorium, an all-ball sports stadium,
Andyland, Terrytown, a high-security
potato chip storage facility and an
open-air movie theatre. Well, what are
you waiting for? Come on up!
India Wimple can spell. Brilliantly. Every
Friday night, she and her family watch
the Stupendously Spectacular Spelling
Bee. When the Wimples suggest she enter,
India says she’s not good enough, but her
family won’t hear it and encourage her to
sign up. There are plenty of obstacles to
reaching the finals, especially with
Summer Millicent Ernestine Beauregard-Champion, a
spoilt rich girl who is determined to win and isn’t afraid
to step on anyone who gets in her way.
Classic of the Month
THE SECRET GARDEN
Frances Hodgson Burnett
Puffin. PB. $14.99
Available 1 August
Frances Hodgson Burnett’s tender
wisdom has endured for over a
century in The Secret Garden, a heartfelt
tale that follows the life-changing
friendships of three children. Beginning
dramatically with the sudden death of
ten-year old Mary Lennox’s parents,
Mary is then taken to the windswept
moors of Yorkshire to live with her Uncle Archibald Craven
in his expansive manor.
Burnett weaves an atmosphere of enchantment and
intrigue: strange cries filter down dark corridors leading
to a forbidden room; a buried key unlocks a hidden door
revealing a mysterious garden. With the help of an ethereal
robin redbreast and an endearing twelve-year-old animalcharmer, secrets are uncovered, gardens blossom, and
hearts flower.
As an adult I love the novel’s rich symbolism and
psychological insight, but as a child I was drawn to its
alchemical world. The Secret Garden not only describes
magical events, it redefines what magic is and that, to me,
is its greatest charm.
Carrie Croft is from Readings Hawthorn
20
R E A D I N G S M O N T H LY A U G U S T 2 0 1 6
CEZANNE:
A LIFE
SUSPICIOUS
MINDS
Alex Danchev
Joel Gold & Ian Gold
HB. Was $59.95
Now $19.95
HB. Was $59.95
Now $14.95
With brisk intellect,
rich documentation, and eighty-eight
colour and fifty-two black-and-white
illustrations, Danchev tells the story of
an artist who was originally considered
a madman, a barbarian, and a sociopath.
From his teenage years to his first
exhibition at fifty-six, the book features
a remarkable series of Cezanne s selfportraits, reproduced in full color. This is a
biography not to be missed.
GIAP
James A. Warren
HB. Was $34.95 Now
$12.95
In Giap, James A.
Warren brings to life the
revolutionary General Vo
Nguyen Giap to reveal the groundbreaking
strategies that defeated world powers
against incredible odds. Forever changing
modern warfare Giap was one of the first
to realize that war is more than a series
of battles between two armies and that
victory can be won through the strength of
a society’s social fabric.
PARIS IN STYLE
Janelle McCulloch
PB. Was $39.99
Now $12.95
Janelle McCulloch thought
she knew most of the best
places in Paris to stay,
wander and explore. But
the more time she spent there, the more
she realised how much there was still to
discover. Paris in Style reveals this city’s
most surprising and fascinating fashion,
design and style destinations. It is the
ultimate insider’s guide for travellers
seeking style, creative inspiration and
unforgettable experiences.
RIVER COTTAGE
LIGHT AND EASY
Hugh FearnleyWhittingstall
HB. Was $49.99
Now $19.95
If you ever lack the time or inspiration
to cook a nourishing meal after a
hectic day, forget takeaways, ready
meals or heavy bowls of pasta. Hugh
Fearnley-Whittingstall has delivered
170 wholesome delights with zero
compromise on taste for all occasions
and all of the recipes are dairy-free and
wheat-free. Here, Fearnley-Whittingstall
creates solutions to easy, healthy and
nourishing meals.
SHANNON
BENNETT’S
FRANCE
Shannon Bennett
PB. Was $34.99
Now $12.95
Shannon Bennett, chef and owner of
internationally renowned restaurant
Vue de monde, takes you on the journey
of a lifetime as he explores the country
he adores: France. Shannon and friends
review all their favourites, from three-star
restaurants to local bistros, from luxury
hotels to rooms with a view. This unique
guide is the perfect place to start in the
country famous for its food.
What if you woke up
under the suspicion that you were being
watched? Exploring the major categories of
delusion through fascinating case studies
and marshaling the latest research in
schizophrenia, the Gold brothers reveal
the role of culture and the social world in
the development of psychosis. Suspicious
Minds presents a groundbreaking new
vision of just how dramatically our
surroundings can influence our brains.
THE
AUSTRALIAN
VICTORIES IN
FRANCE IN 1918
Mozart’s music and challenging myths
surrounding the composer, including those
about his health, religion and relationships.
THE ULTIMATE
VEGETARIAN
COLLECTION
Alison & Simon Holst
HB. Was $45 Now $19.95
An inspiring collection with over
400 recipes, this is the cookbook that
vegetarians have been waiting for. The
Ultimate Vegetarian Collection includes
every option under the sun from finger
foods and snacks to desserts and
sweets. There is also useful information on
vegetarian pantry staples, explanations of
cooking techniques and a comprehensive
weights and measures section.
THE MORAL
ARC
John Monash
Michael Shermer
HB. Was $32.99
Now $19.95
First published in 1920, The Australian
Victories in France in 1918 immediately
garnered glowing praise as one of
the most entertaining and
informative accounts of war
ever written. It is now
recognised as one of
the most important
records of World
War I, revealing
the critical role
Australians played
on the Western Front
through the eyes
of General Sir John
Monash, regarded the best
allied commander of WWI.
HB. Was $33.99
Now $19.95
From Galileo and Newton
to Thomas Hobbes and
Martin Luther King, Jr.,
thinkers throughout history
have consciously employed
scientific techniques to
better understand the
non-physical world.
In this provocative
and compelling book,
Shermer explains how
abstract reasoning,
rationality, empiricism,
skepticism - scientific
ways of thinking - have
profoundly changed the way
we perceive morality and, indeed,
move us ever closer to a more just world.
Bargain
Table
TRACKS
Robyn Davidson
PB. Was $20 Now $10
Now a major motion
picture, Tracks depicts
Robyn Davidson’s perilous
journey across 1,700 miles
of hostile Australian desert to the sea with
only four camels and a dog for company.
An extraordinarily courageous heroine
emerges in Davidson driven by a love of
Australia’s landscape, an empathy for its
indigenous people, and a willingness to cast
away the trappings of her former identity.
WAR LETTERS
OF GENERAL
MONASH
John Monash
HB. Was $45 Now $19.95
These extraordinary,
intimate letters from General Sir John
Monash to his wife and daughter, record his
experiences throughout World War I. This
edition contains newly discovered letters,
from landing at Gallipoli to leading decisive
battles on the Western Front. Monash
writes with remarkable insight, providing
one of the most moving personal accounts
ever written of an Australian soldier at war.
MOZART
Paul Johnson
HB. Was $29.99 Now $14.95
One of the world’s most
enduringly popular
musicians, Mozart had
a profound influence on
Western music and on his contemporaries
such as Beethoven and Haydn. In this
insightful look into Mozart’s work and
his profound influence on Western music,
Johnson focuses on the importance of
If the Iliad is the world’s greatest war
epic, The Odyssey is literature’s grandest
evocation of an everyman’s journey through
life. Odysseus’ reliance on his wit and
wiliness for survival in his encounters with
divine and natural forces during his tenyear voyage home to Ithaca after the Trojan
War is at once a timeless human story and
an individual test of moral endurance.
ONE GOOD DISH
David Tanis
HB. Was $44.95
Now $14.95
In this, his first non-menu
cookbook, the New York
Times food columnist offers 100 utterly
delicious recipes that epitomise comfort
food, Tanis-style. Individually or in
combination, they make perfect little meals
that are elemental and accessible, yet totally
surprising – and there’s something to learn
on every page. With one irrepressible chapter
after another, one perfect food moment after
another: this is a book with recipes to crave.
THE DARK
Lemony Snicket &
John Klassen
HB. Was $29.95 Now $12.95
Lazlo is afraid of the dark.
The dark lives in the same
house as Laszlo. Mostly, though, the dark
stays in the basement and doesn’t come into
Lazslo’s room. But one night, it does. This is
the story of how Laszlo stops being afraid of
the dark. With emotional insight and poetic
economy, two award-winning talents team
up to conquer a universal childhood fear.
THE ANATOMY
OF VIOLENCE
Adrian Raine
HB. Was $59.95 Now $19.95
LETS EXPLORE
DIABETES
WITH OWLS
David Sedaris
HB. Was $39.95
Now $12.95
With David Sedaris, the possibilities are
endless, but the result is always the same:
he will both delight you with twists of
humor and intelligence and leave you deeply
moved. In Lets Explore Diabetes with Owls,
Sedaris remembers his father’s dinnertime
attire (shirtsleeves and underpants), his first
colonoscopy (remarkably pleasant), and the
time he considered buying the skeleton of a
murdered Pygmy. Why do some innocent
kids grow up to become
cold-blooded serial killers? For more than
three decades Adrian Raine has been
researching the biological roots of violence
and establishing neurocriminology. In The
Anatomy of Violence, Raine dissects the
criminal mind with a fascinating, readable,
and far-reaching scientific journey into the
body of evidence revealing the brain to be a
key culprit in crime causation.
JEWISH
HOLIDAY
COOKING
Jayne Cohen
HB. Was $59.95 Now $19.95
QUEEN ANNE
Anne Somerset
HB. Was $59.95 Now $19.95
Anne Somerset’s fascinating
new biography is a portrait of
this fraught, complex bond
between two very different women: Queen
Anne, reserved, stolid, shrewd; and Sarah
Churchill, beautiful, wilful and outspoken.
The book tells the extraordinary drama of
how Sarah provoked the Queen beyond
endurance and how her replacement, Abigail
Masham, became the royal confidante and,
Sarah publicly claimed to great scandal, the
object of the Queen’s sexual infatuation.
THE ODYSSEY
Homer
HB. Was $45 Now $15.95
The great epic of Western
literature translated
with the benefit of
modern advances in
textual scholarship by Stephen Mitchell.
In Jewish Holiday Cooking, Jayne Cohen
shares a wide-ranging collection of traditional
Jewish recipes, as well as inventive new
creations and contemporary variations on
the classic dishes. More than just a cookbook,
this is the definitive guide to celebrating the
Jewish holidays. Cohen provides practical
advice and creative suggestions on everything
from setting a Seder table with ritual objects
to accommodating vegan relatives.
TEN MILLION
ALIENS
Simon Barnes
HB. Was $49.95 Now $19.95
Life on planet earth is not
weirder than we imagine, it’s
weirder than we are capable of imagining.
And we’re all in it together. This fascinating
scientific foray into the animal kingdom
examines how the world’s creatures—weird,
wonderful, and everything in between—are
inextricably linked. Ten Million Aliens will
open your eyes to the real marvels of the
planet we live on.
R E A D I N G S M O N T H LY A U G U S T 2 0 1 6
New Film & TV
with Lou Fulco
DVD of the Month
OCCUPIED
$39.95
The North Sea is a cold and desolate place. Ice and snow and
freezing cold seas await any one or thing foolish enough to
cross its barren path. Things heat up, though, in the new
Norwegian drama based on an idea by famed author Jo Nesbø.
The premise, without giving too much away, goes like this. In
a not too distant future (this is definitely not science fiction!) the
ruling Greens party in Norway has developed a new clean energy
called Thorium. This new energy deems fossil fuels obsolete.
All the oil and gas platforms in the North Sea and coal production are ceased and this
progressive parliament is hailed for its environmentally friendly initiatives.
‘Heroes are born, friends become enemies,
enemies become friends, and help is hard to find.’
Of course the EU, which relies on these fossil fuels, has something to say about that.
When talks stall, the EU sends in the Russians to act as negotiators and overseers. Tensions
escalate, parliaments backpedal and splinter, the press has a field day and ordinary people
come into the firing line. Heroes are born, friends become enemies, enemies become
friends, and help is hard to find.
This 10-part series ends on a cliffhanger, so a second season is a lock. The cast is
brilliant and, though the story can often require you to suspend your disbelief, you cannot
help but find yourself getting sucked in to its fast paced, never ending ride of highs and
lows. Another piece of superior television by those crafty Scandinavians.
Lou Fulco is from Readings Hawthorn
Film
THE FINEST
HOURS
EYE IN THE
SKY
$24.95
$39.95
‘Based on the true
story of the sinking of
the oil tanker the SS
Pendleton… if you need
a midstrength shot
of maritime heroics set against insanely
inclement weather, this simple affair will
do just nicely.’ – Herald-Sun
LABYRINTH
OF LIES
‘Dealing with that
most pressing issue
in modern warfare,
drones… Director
Gavin Hood has
achieved something few could – he made
what is essentially 100 minutes of people
standing in rooms and staring at screens
incredibly compelling. It’s a master class
in suspense.’ – News.com.au
Available 3 August. $29.95
‘Alexander Fehling plays
a prosecutor whose eyes
are opened to genocide…
Labyrinth of Lies is an
eye-opening story about the importance
of seeking the truth - even when it’s
complicated, ugly and buried beneath years
of secrecy and deceit.’ – Washington Post
VICTORIA
$29.95
‘It’s incredible that
director Sebastian
Schipper was able to
shoot a film of more than
two hours in one take…
Victoria is suspenseful and engagingly
subversive, creating a surreal sense of
anything-goes. The performances are
great as the sinewy plot goes from darkly
absurd to dangerous.’ – Toronto Star
THE DAUGHTER
$39.95
‘Deeply involving and
emotionally searing,
The Daughter [marks] a
confident and profoundly
moving bigscreen debut
for established [Australian] theatre
director Simon Stone. Stone has drawn
extraordinary work from his cast across the
board, [delivering] a powerful, low-key yet
achingly intense reimagining of Ibsen’s The
Wild Duck.’ – Variety
TV
THE LAST
KINGDOM:
SEASON 1
Available 4 August.
$39.95
‘The Last Kingdom takes
place in 9th century
England during a time of conflict… the
focus on character motivation and thematic
depth making sure that the show is more
than just an excuse to watch Vikings and
Englishmen rip each other apart.’ – AV Club
DOCTOR
THORNE:
SEASON 1
Available 11 August. $34.95
‘Doctor Thorne is a minor
canvas, compared with
Downton Abbey, but [Julian]
Fellowes packs a lot of charm and amusement
into its 160 minutes. Fellowes emphasises
[Anthony] Trollope’s humour without
shortchanging the melodrama, and the
production [pays] tribute to an earlier era of
British film and television.’ – New York Times
Documentary
PUTUPARRI
AND THE
RAINMAKERS
Available 3 August. $24.95
‘Nicole Ma’s rich, engrossing
and rewarding documentary
gives us a sense of time that operates on
many levels... political and personal, serious
and light-hearted, and never less than
striking to look at.’ – Sydney Morning Herald
BOSCH:
SEASON 2
SOUNDBREAKING
$46.95
$39.95
‘The pleasures of Bosch
are narrow but intense.
The attention to the
details of investigative
work and the texture of cops’ lives is
impressive… No other current series is as
conversant with the images, the moods
and, sometimes, the clichés of Southern
California noir.’ – New York Times
‘Five years in the making,
[legendary producer
George] Martin and
his son Giles recruited
over 150 artists to share behind-thescenes stories about the art of recording,
sampling in hip-hop, the art of the music
video…and Giorgio Moroder’s impact on
dance music.’ – Rolling Stone
EMBRACE August 4 (MA15+)
HIGH RISE August 18 (MA15+)
SUNSET SONG September 1 (M)
When body image activist Taryn Brumfitt posted an unconventional
before-and-after photograph in 2013, it was seen by more than 100
million worldwide and sparked an international media frenzy.
Brumfitt continues her crusade in her directorial debut exploring the
global issue of body loathing. Funny, touching, at times gut
wrenching but above all, life changing.
Group bookings & private screenings available,
visit our website for details
Adapted from the acclaimed 1975 novel by J.G. Ballard, Tom
Hiddleston stars as Dr. Robert Laing, the newest resident of a
luxurious apartment in a high-tech concrete skyscraper. Life seems
like paradise, but as building flaws emerge the regimented social
strata begins to crumble and the building becomes a battlefield in a
literal class war. Co-starring Luke Evans, Sienna Miller, Jeremy Irons
and Elisabeth Moss.
★★★★ The Guardian
Terence Davies’ intimate epic of hope, tragedy and love at the
dawning of the Great War is based on the 1932 novel by Lewis
Grassic Gibbon. A young woman’s endurance against the hardships
of rural Scottish life is told with gritty poetic realism by Britain’s
greatest living auteur and stars Agyness Deyn, Peter Mullan and
Kevin Guthrie.
‘the story of one woman’s true grit, told without sentimentality’
The New York Times
Melbourne’s home of quality arthouse and contemporary cinema
21
380 Lygon Street Carlton
cinemanova.com.au
22
R E A D I N G S M O N T H LY A U G U S T 2 0 1 6
New Music
Album of the Month
CIVIL DUSK
Bernard Fanning
$21.95
Bernard Fanning – remember him? Powderfinger?
Tea & Sympathy? Well, it’s been a while, 11 years in fact,
since he wished us all well. 2005 was the year that Tea &
Sympathy was released to critical acclaim. The country folkinspired album which spawned numerous singalong tunes was a
throwback to west coast ‘70s America, when the great singer-songwriters were sprouting
peace and love – Jackson Browne, Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young, to name a few. 2013’s
Departures, while not as successful, was an evolution for Fanning, incorporating horns and
beats into his songwriting repertoire.
‘At once familiar and personal, this album will stay with you and upon
further listens will keep you thinking’
Fanning is back from a stint in Spain with a new collection of songs and a recording
studio in Byron Bay (where else) where, along with longtime collaborator Nick DiDia,
they have put the finishing touches on what could be his most important release to date.
Behind the stripped back tunes on Civil Dusk are messages that resonate in all facets of life.
Whether you view these songs as being about love, family, friends, politics or the world in
general, Fanning has managed to capture images and messages that will leave a mark no
matter how you interpret them.
He is clearly a deep thinker and an intelligent man who likes to look outside of the
box. On describing the album, Fanning says: ‘Sometimes, particular decisions appear to be
the most sensible or realistic path to take. A civil, pragmatic compromise. But the passage
of time reveals those decisions to have been flawed and to have far deeper and wide
ranging consequences than predicted at the time. We all live with the consequences of our
decisions but have daily things to attend to.’
At once familiar and personal, this album will stay with you and upon further listens
will keep you thinking, as I’m sure was Fanning’s intention to begin with.
Lou Fulco is from Readings Hawthorn
Pop & Rock
LOUD HAILER
Jeff Beck
$21.95
On Jeff Beck’s new
album Loud Hailer, his
first in six years, the
legendary guitarist
joins forces with singer Rosie Bones and
guitarist Carmen Vandenberg to combine
fluid fretwork with topical lyrics, making the
album a powerful statement about the love
of power and the power of love. As he has
throughout his 50-year career, Beck makes
the fantastically difficult sound effortless.
VULNICURA LIVE
Björk
$19.95
Performed live with
the Alarm Will Sound
& Heritage Orchestras,
and critically acclaimed
artists The Haxan Cloak & Arca, Vulnicura
Live is the live version of Björk’s highlyacclaimed eighth studio album. The
album is made up of Björk’s favourite
performances from her 2015 tour, including
all songs on Vulnicura plus some favourites
from previous works.
IT'S TOO LATE TO STOP
NOW...
been remastered in 24-bit high resolution
sound. A special edition set with a DVD of
live footage from the Rainbow Theater is
also available.
GIVE A GLIMPSE OF
WHAT YER NOT
Dinosaur Jr
Often cited as one
of the best live
albums ever made,
Van Morrison’s highly acclaimed 1973
concert album, compiled from eight sets
of live performances recorded at The
Troubadour, the Santa Monica Civic
Center and The Rainbow Theater, has
APACHE
Aaron Neville
$19.95
Featuring a cast of
contributors and
special guests, Apache,
the new album from
multiple Grammy award-winner Aaron
Neville – member of the world-renowned
Neville Brothers and one of the most
recognisable voices in American music
history – celebrates Neville’s 75th
birthday, as well as the 50th anniversary
of his first number one single, ‘Tell It
Like It Is.’
Country
MIDWEST FARMER'S
DAUGHTER
Margo Price
$21.95
Margo Price’s debut
album Midwest
Farmer’s Daughter is
pure Nashville country
music – full of grit and pristine musicality
drenched in real-life experience. With
her stupefying voice that could tumble
buildings, and songs that have one foot
firmly planted in Nashville’s past and the
other in the present day, Margo’s music
does all the talking.
Folk & World
$21.95
Alt-rock legends
Dinosaur Jr return
with their 11th album
Give a Glimpse of What
Yer Not. The sound is great and roaring
with J Mascis’ psychedelic guitar touches,
while Murph’s drums pound like Fred
Flintstone’s feet, and Lou’s bass weaves
back and forth between proggy melodicism
and post-core thug-hunch. Mascis’
songwriting continues to pursue confusion,
isolation and miscommunication as its
main themes.
TAKE HER UP TO MONTO
Róisín Murphy
$21.95
Róisín Murphy’s Take
Her Up To Monto is an
album which crackles
with wild invention.
Flights of disco fancy, dark cabaret, the
sonorities of classic house and electronica,
the joy and heartbreak of pure pop, torch
song drama, Take Her Up To Monto has
everything Murphy’s always done – but
seen afresh.
Van Morrison
2CDs $24.95,
3CD+DVD $59.95
electro-funk-boogie album Family Tree
showcases a voice that can run the
gamut from soaring soul pyrotechnics to
heart-wrenching tenderness. A regular
performer with the Bamboos, Kylie has
drawn comparisons to Diana Ross and
Sharon Jones, and her energy on stage is
electric with a huge dose of boogie power,
providing an absolute dance experience
enjoyed by crowds worldwide.
Soul & Funk
FAMILY TREE
Kylie Auldist
$24.95
Available 5 August
Australian vocalist
extraordinaire
Kylie Auldist’s new
75TH BIRTHDAY
CELEBRATION
Joan Baez
2CDs $26.95
2CD+DVD $31.95
DVD $29.95
This live recording
showcases Joan
Baez’s 75th Birthday
Celebration concert, among friends in
New York on January 27, at New York’s
historic Beacon Theater. The special
event honoured her legendary 50-plus
years in music with an intimate, careerspanning live performance, featuring an
array of special guests including Jackson
Browne, Judy Collins, Emmylou Harris,
Damien Rice, Paul Simon, Mavis Staples
and more.
AN OLD MAN OF THE SEA
Seaman Dan
$24.95
Henry ‘Seaman’ Dan is
truly an old man of the
sea – his style mixes
blues, hula, slow jazz,
folk and Torres Strait Islander music, all
sung with his velvety voice and unique
musical phrasing. His latest album features
new songs such as ‘Walking Frame Blues,’
and ‘Hook, Line and Plastic,’ along with
several ageless songs of the sea such as
‘Beyond the Reef.’
Jazz
TOGETHER AT LAST
Don Burrows &
Julie Anthony
$21.95
Together at Last
celebrates a musical
match made in heaven!
Enjoy the collaboration of two Australian
greats, jazz icon Don Burrows and one of
this country’s greatest voices of all time, Julie
Anthony, as they team up on this recording of
their performances together on stage.
Vinyl Specials
ON THE BEACH
Neil Young
$44.95
On The Beach is the fifth
studio album by Neil
Young, released in 1974
and lauded by critics as
an album where Young ‘was saying goodbye
to despair, not being overwhelmed by it.’
This remastered reissue retains Young’s
preference for rough, monitor mixes of
songs rather than polished studio sound,
complementing the bluesy, meditative
mood of the album.
Coming Soon
THE COMPLETE TRIO
COLLECTION
Dolly Parton,
Emmylou Harris &
Linda Ronstadt
3CDs $39.95
Available 9 September
Dolly Parton, Linda
Ronstadt, and Emmylou Harris have three
careers unparalleled in music history.
Together they have sold over 200 million
albums worldwide and performed for
decades in front of countless fans around
the globe. This legendary album recorded
by the female country holy trinity is newly
remastered for the three-disc set and
packing with rare and unreleased music.
MY WOMAN
Angel Olsen
$21.95
Available 2 September
Indie-folk star Angel
Olsen’s new album
My Woman swaps the
crunchier, blown-out production of her
previous work for songs that place her
disarming, timeless voice is front-andcenter. Yet, the strange, raw power and
slowly unspooling incantations of her
previous efforts remain. An intuitively
smart, warmly communicative and fearlessly
generous record.
SKELETON TREE
Nick Cave & the
Bad Seeds
$19.95
Available 9 September
Originally a performance
based concept, Nick
Cave & the Bad Seeds return with their 16th
studio album, Skeleton Tree. Released in
accompaniment with feature film One More
Time With Feeling, the project is stark, fragile
and raw, and a true testament to an artist
trying to find his way through the darkness.
R E A D I N G S M O N T H LY A U G U S T 2 0 1 6
New Classical Music
LEGENDE: WORKS FOR
TRUMPET AND PIANO
BRAHMS: LIEDER AND
LIEBESLIEDER WALTZES
Andrea Rost, Magdalena Kožená, Matthew
Polenzani, Thomas Quasthoff
DG. 4796044. $26.95
In 2003, at the Verbier Festival in the Swiss Alps, four
singers with fabulously contrasting voices got together
with James Levine on piano to perform Brahms’ chamber
music. Thirteen years later Deutsche Grammophon made the welcome decision to
release the performance onto CD. Among the singers was Czech mezzo-soprano
Magdalena Kožená who has already featured in one of my reviews this year (Monteverdi),
and I’m happy to be praising her vocal gifts once again.
‘Brahms, later than both Schubert and Schumann, and therefore
composing in a slightly more ‘Romantic’ esthetic, had a knack for writing
beautiful, luscious melodies.’
Brahms’ Liebeslieder Waltzes for four voices may not be in fashion – lieder these
days seems a more solitary, concert-hall pursuit than a community one – but unfairly so.
According to the liner notes, Brahms referred disparagingly to his first set of Liebeslieder
as ‘trifles’. While some, such as ‘Rede, Mädchen, allzu liebes’ (‘Tell me, maiden dearest’),
are at the lighter end of the lieder spectrum, they perfectly showcase the magnificent
voices on this recording. Brahms, later than both Schubert and Schumann, and therefore
composing in a slightly more ‘Romantic’ esthetic, had a knack for writing beautiful,
luscious melodies. They’re certainly not an easy sing, and one can’t hide behind the
voluptuous vocal line and rolling piano accompaniment. He requires his singers to mine
the depths of their vocal range in one bar, and soar to great heights in the next.
Take, for example, ‘Immer lieser wird mein schlummer’ (‘My slumbers grow lighter’).
A woman huddles in bed at night, waiting for her lover to arrive. With a vocal range
of an eleventh, Kožená is stretched to her limits. She brings to the music drama and
vulnerability, and her steely tone cuts through the lush piano accompaniment. It’s a
truly great interpretation. Thomas Quasthoff deserves a special mention for his stirring
Sapphische Ode: his rich baritone will move even the hardest of hearts.
Alexandra Mathew is from Readings Carlton
SHOSTAKOVICH:
PIANO TRIOS 1 & 2/
VIOLA SONATA
Vladimir
Ashkenazy
Decca. 4789382.
$21.95
I begin with a
confession: I
have listened to little
of Shostakovich’s music, and am familiar
with only his most famous compositions
such as The Gadfly and symphonies four
and five. I therefore knew not what to
expect of his chamber music. Romance?
Sarcasm? Beauty? Shostakovich’s vast
output over several decades covered a
variety of styles, and the three works
presented here represent his permeable
compositional technique. For this
experimentation he was denounced in
Pravda: ‘Muddle instead of Music,’ the
infamous headline declared.
Case in point is the opening of the
finale of his second piano trio (1944),
composed mid-life and mid-career.
Here, Shostakovich employed an overtly
‘Klezmer-like’ style – a bold choice for a
Soviet composer in the mid-1940s. And
I think that’s what appeals to me most
about this music: Shostakovich’s tendency
to stick it to the man. By way of artistic
expression he showed his support for the
Jewish victims of World War II, at a time
when few public figures spoke out for fear
of denunciation. I can assure you that
in the chamber music of Shostakovich,
performed so brilliantly by Vladimir
Ashkenazy and his fellow musicians, you
will discover romance, sarcasm, beauty,
and more. AM
LOBO: LAMENTATIONS
Martin Baker &
Westminster
Cathedral Choir
Hyperion.
Alison Balsom
& Tom Poster
Classical Album of the Month
SHOSTAKOVICH &
GLAZUNOV:
VIOLIN CONCERTOS
Nicola Benedetti
Decca. 4788758.
$26.95
The always
talented Nicola
Benedetti returns to
the catalogue with a
recording of the historic Shostakovich
Violin Concerto and the lovely and
underrated Glazunov Violin Concerto. The
dark opening strains of the Shostakovich
concerto show his mental torment during
the 1940s, straight jacketed by the Russian
censorship at the end of World War II.
Premiered almost ten years after its initial
composition, it’s not just a triumph in
Russian composition but personal for
Shostakovich in his inclusion in the DSCH
theme (Dimitri Shostakovich). Benedetti
with the Bournemouth Symphony
Orchestra brings out the depth of feeling
and occasional manic laughter found in
this concerto, only then to switch into the
delightful Glazunov. An almost complete
contrast, this is has notes of sunlight and
moments of true virtuosity from Benedetti.
I don’t know how I missed the
Shostakovich Violin Concerto No. 1,
being such a devotee of his symphonies.
I cannot say that this will put a smile
on your face, it’s gut wrenching and
will make your eyes water from the
emotional outpouring in this work. The
Glazunov is Russian quality and style and
perfect to finish this recording by those
with the true appreciation for Russian
compositional genius.
Kate Rockstrom is a friend of Readings
Warner Classics.
9029598772. $19.95
‘They make a lovely
sound together…I
enjoyed the sweetness of Balsom’s muted
tone in the central Sarabande of the
Françaix, and the way that even while
articulating brilliantly through Goedicke’s
Concert-étude, she can make her lines sing’
– Gramophone Magazine
THE ART OF THE GUITAR
Various Artists
Warner Classics.
2564645399. 2CDs.
$16.95
The guitar weaves its
subtle and irresistible
magic in each of the 35 tracks on this
essential collection. Embracing composers
from Vivaldi and Bach to the Spanish and
Latin American masters of the instrument,
includes the entire Concierto de Aranjuez
by Joaquín Rodrigo. Among the guitarists
featured are such players as Andrés
Segovia, Julian Bream, Sharon Isbin,
Manuel Barrueco and Ángel Romero.
EARLY RECORDINGS
Martha Argerich
DG. 4795978. $24.95
Martha Argerich’s
exhilarating early
recordings, released
here for the first
time, include sonatas by Mozart and
Beethoven that appear nowhere else in
her discography; Prokofiev’s Third Sonata
is also a recording première. This set
displaying the young virtuoso includes
her first recordings of Ravel’s Gaspard and
his Sonatine, as well as Prokofiev Seventh
Sonata, full of mystery and verve. They
show her to be an eloquent and imaginative
artist at the age of 18.
OVERTURES FROM THE
BRITISH ISLES VOL. 2
Rumon Gamba &
BBC National
Orchestra of Wales
Chandos. CHAN10898.
$29.95
‘This most welcome
second volume of British overtures serves
to accentuate the sheer diversity of
works this country produced in the genre
between the 1890s and the 1940s and,
moreover, where the lines of delineation
between ‘serious’ and ‘light’ were blurred....
What other riches, one wonders, will
inhabit Vol. 3?’ – Gramophone Magazine
IMOGEN COOPER'S
CHOPIN: WORKS FOR
SOLO PIANO
Imogen Cooper
Chandos. CHAN10902.
$29.95
‘In the quieter lyrical
passages she finds a
rare poignancy that
I find most affecting – and indeed it is
this element that is a constant feature of
Cooper’s playing. She has always been
rightly lauded for her luminous, rich tone
and it is deployed tellingly in Op. 61 and the
two late Nocturnes which follow.’
– Gramophone Magazine
23
CDA68106. $29.95
‘Nothing will prepare
listeners for the beauty of Lobo’s
Lamentations…this, for me, is as good as it
gets both in terms of performance and in
terms of a school of polyphony beyond the
works of Victoria.’
– Gramophone Magazine
RE:WORKS
Various
Decca. 4760544.
$21.95
Over the last few
years, the lines
between classical and
contemporary electronic music have been
blurred more than ever before. High-profile
orchestral collaborations from some of the
scene’s leading figures have brought the
compatibility of these seemingly disparate
genres into sharp focus, opening doors to
new avenues of musical exploration. On
this extraordinary recording the greatest
classical composers meet the world’s most
innovative electronic music artists.
MOZART’S LAST
SYMPHONIES
Richard Tognetti &
Australian
Chamber Orchestra
ABC Classics. 4812880.
$21.95
The Australian Chamber
Orchestra, directed from the violin by
Richard Tognetti, presents a triumphant
account of Mozart’s three final symphonies.
This live recording captures the energy and
vivacity of the performances given as part
of the ACO’s 40th anniversary celebrations
in 2015 – concerts that were described as
‘magnificent’ by the Sydney Morning Herald
and ‘miraculous’ by the Daily Telegraph.
THE HAYDN ALBUM
Australian Haydn
Ensemble
ABC Classics. 4812806.
$21.95
On their debut album,
the Australian Haydn
Ensemble (AHE) champions three of the
finest and best-loved works by Joseph
Haydn. A super-star group of musicians
with a host of international experience, the
AHE is quickly establishing an international
reputation for its vivacious performances,
which are faithful to the sound-worlds that
Haydn and his contemporaries would have
originally known.
Special of the Month
MOZART PORTRAITS
Cecilia Bartoli
Decca. 4757526.
Was $16.95 Now $11.95
‘There are relatively few
Italian mezzos, or sopranos
for that matter, who sing a lot of Mozart,
and Bartoli’s very Italian characteristics
are immediately identifiable: brilliance of
execution, vitality of words, sharpness of
mind. From the opening line Bartoli makes
other singers seem bland by comparison.’
– Gramophone Magazine [1994]