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Summer News
From the Editor
my best books of 2009
I was particularly excited by two local
novels of ideas this year – Kalinda Ashton's
devastatingly accomplished debut The
Danger Game (Sleepers, PB, $24.95) and
Andrea Goldsmith's brilliant Reunion
(Fourth Estate, PB, $32.99). Both engage
with a changing Melbourne and Howardera politics, but are dominated by virtuoso
writing and finely etched characters.
Sonia Orchard’s debut novel The Virtuoso
(Fourth Estate, PB, $27.99) is an absorbing story of obsessive love, delusion and
the seductive power of great art that riffs
off the true story of Australian pianist Noel
Mewton-Wood. I know nothing about classical music, but somehow that didn't matter.
Anna Goldsworthy’s memoir Piano Lessons
(Black Inc., PB, $27.95) is ostensibly about
her development as a concert pianist under
the guidance of her extraordinary teacher.
But it works on a deeper level as an inspiring
tale of passion, dedication and creativity –
and a startlingly good coming-of-age story.
I recommended Patrick Allington’s debut,
Figurehead (Black Inc., PB, $29.95) to
everyone I knew with an interest in politics
and fine writing. Allington (who had J.M.
Coetzee as his mentor) counts Orwell as an
influence, and it shows in this admirably
polished ‘absurdist version of history’. It's
a sharply satirical novel about questions of
culpability, responsibility and idealism as
played out in Pol Pot’s Cambodia and the
decades that followed, with characters based
on controversial journalist Wilfrid Burchett
and Pol Pot’s right-hand man.
Like everyone else, I was blown away by the
chiselled perfection of Wells Tower’s Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned (Granta,
PB, $32.99), a story collection to rival Nam
Le’s in the ‘deserves the massive hype’ stakes.
Lorrie Moore's wry, satirical A Gate at the
Stairs (Faber, PB, $32.99), follows a smalltown college student nannying for a well-off
couple and their adopted child – a job
that will accumulate significant ethical and
emotional freight. In one year, she loses her
innocence in a variety of ways. An almost
unbearably poignant book exploring race
and class in the US.
It’s almost a cliché to be a Wire tragic, but
I plead guilty. This year I was hooked by
two landmark works of reportage that laid
the groundwork for the show. For Homicide
(Canongate, PB, $26.95), David Simon
took leave from his newspaper to embed
himself in Baltimore's homicide department,
reporting on its inner workings. In The
Corner (Canongate, PB, $34.95), he and Ed
Burns spent a year on one neighbourhood's
drug corners.
Jeff Sparrow's intellectual page-turner, Killing
(MUP, PB, $32.95), is up there with The
Tall Man as an example of Australia's finest
reportage. A confronting, deeply personal
journey into the dark heart of his subject.
And a late discovery: Charlotte Wood's
anthology Brothers and Sisters (A&U, PB,
$32.99) is packed with superb stories, from
writers like Wood, Nam Le, Christos Tsiolkas,
and the marvellous Virginia Peters. Dark,
funny, moving, but never sentimental.
—Jo Case
John Clarke
at Readings Carlton
John will be signing copies of
The Catastrophe Continues:
Selected Interviews (Text, PB,
$23.95). This collection of
21 years of interviews by the
irrepressible comic team of
John Clarke and Bryan Dawe
is intelligent, irreverent and
deeply, wonderfully bizarre. Readings
Carlton, Friday 11 December, 12.30pm.
Free, no need to book.
Free Wine!
Enjoy a free glass of wine* with your new
book at Markov Place on Thursday nights!
Present your receipt from Readings Carlton
and receive a free glass of red or white house
wine. Offer valid until 31 January 2010 and
only for the date on the receipt.
*House red or white wine only. Markov
Place, 328 Drummond St, Carlton 3053.
Ph: 03 9347 7113. E: info@markov.com.au.
Tai Snaith Exhibition
We’re lucky to have some
very talented staff here at
Readings. If you enjoy the
small animal illustrations on
the headers of Readings
Monthly, you’re sampling the
work of one of them – Tai
Snaith. To see a whole lot
more of Tai’s gorgeous illustration, come
along to her exhibition, Leading one hundred
horses to water, to see the culmination of a
series of ideas formed during her Australia
Council residency in Tokyo in 2009. It’s a
playful investigation of the unruly stead that
is human potential and an examination of
what leaks out of the self when presented
with such an opportunity to grow. Exhibition dates: November 27–18 December.
Kings ARI Gallery.
Melbourne Prize
Winners: Gerald
Murnane & Nam Le
The winners of the lucrative
bi-annual Melbourne Prize
for Literature were announced last month. The
innovative, much-admired
Gerald Murnane took out
the main prize, while bright
young thing Nam Le won
the prize for new writing, just a week after
grabbing the $100,000 Prime Minister’s
Literary Prize. I could say that his win
surprised no one, but I wouldn’t be 100 per
cent accurate – while he was a hot favourite,
onlookers were predicting a close race
between him and Chloe Hooper, also
nominated. The pair has swept the fiction
and non-fiction categories respectively of
many of the big local literary prizes over the
past year. Readings’ Martin Shaw, who was
in the small crowd watching the ceremony,
observed that Le ‘graciously related in his
acceptance speech that with Chloe on the
shortlist he had only rated himself a three
per cent chance – it was nice to see that the
prize announcement was a genuine surprise
to him’.
SEASON’S
LOVELY
BONES
And for Nam Le fans curious
to see what he might do next,
a glimpse of what’s to come is
available in the anthology
Brothers and Sisters (edited by
Charlotte Wood, A&U, PB,
$32.99), which includes Le’s
first story published since
The Boat, ‘Yarra’. This intense, disturbing
story is a remarkable work of the imagination,
taking as its jumping-off point the Salt nightclub murders, where two men and a teenager
died after being chased from the Chapel
Street nightclub by men wielding samurai
swords and knives. In 'Yarra', he gets inside
the head of a young man whose brother was
one of the samurai-wielding assailants.
It's provocative, surprising, and deeply
moving – and for me, it’s Le’s best writing yet.
Public chooses
a good daughter
Young Melbourne writer
Amra Pajalic has been selected
by the public to receive The
Melbourne Prize for Literature's Civic Choice Award
2009 for her first novel,
The Good Daughter
(Text Publishing 2009).
The Civic Choice Award 2009 is supported
by Readings and Hardie Grant Books.
From Oscar-winning director
Peter Jackson comes the
highly anticipated adaptation of
Alice Sebold's bestselling novel.
OPENS DECEMBER 25
I
N
The Readings Foundation made its first grants
last month. The Foundation was launched
this year to celebrate Readings' fortieth
birthday and funds come from a share
of Readings profits, individual donations
and proceeds from the Readings ‘window’
and gift-wrapping. Thank you to all those
Readings customers who have contributed.
The Foundation raised $68,000 in the last
financial year and after meeting long standing commitments to the Brotherhood of St
Laurence's HIPPY program and the Sacred
Heart Mission, had $52,000 to distribute.
The Foundation was established to support
community, literacy and the arts, and received
over 30 applications for funding, totalling
over $460,000. The selection panel included
writer and Foundation Trustee Helen Garner,
Trustee Gerald Smith and Readings staff.
All the applications had great merit and the
panel wished that more money was available.
Ultimately, four projects were selected that
seemed to best suit the aims of the Foundation – The Aboriginal Literacy Foundation
to provide tutoring to Aboriginal youth in
the Swan Hill area; Somebody's Daughter
Theatre Company to provide creative arts
program for at risk youth; Fitzroy Learning
Network to upgrade their music studio used
by disadvantaged youth; and Olympic Adult
Education to provide literacy training for older migrants. At Readings we are very excited
to be able support such wonderful projects
and look forward to keeping you informed
about progress of the grants. All contributions
to the Foundation over $2 are tax deductible
and can be made at any Readings shop. For
more information visit www.readings.com.au.
abr poll: Favourite
Australian Novel
Charlie Parr is one of the greatest musicians
and human beings. So many country-blues
artists are crippled with retro-ism and
purism, but he has brought wonder and
excitement to this music. Even Charlie's foot
coming down on the floor boards screams
with more soul and life than most anything
– past or future. Readings Carlton, Monday
18 January, 6pm. Free, no need to book.
Opportunity for
Writers: Writing Rights
port melbourne
makeover
The Human Rights Arts and Film Festival
is holding a short story and poetry writing
competition around the subject of human
rights. The winning entrants will be published in 30,000 festival programs and the
winning poem will be performed at the
Festival Poetry Slam. And there is $1000
each in prize money, plus other prizes up for
grabs. Entries are due 29 January 2010. See
www.hraff.org.au for more details.
Readings Carlton
Wins Aria!
We are thrilled and proud to announce that
Readings Carlton was the winner of the
ARIA Retail Award for Best Independent
FROM
Book now, online or at
the cinema box office.
C
Readings Foundation
Grants announced
Australian Book Review is running a poll to
discover Australia’s favourite novel. Not only
will the result be fascinating to see, but voters are eligible for one of a range of truly enticing prizes, including a complete set of 99
Popular Penguins (valued at nearly $1000)
and a deluxe leather-bound Shorter Oxford
English Dictionary, valued at $410. To vote,
email poll@australianbookreview.com.au
with the author and title of your favourite
Australian novel and your contact details.
Votes close 15 December 2009 – hurry!
CHARLIE PARR
at Readings Carlton
GREETINGS
MARK
RACHEL
SUSAN
STANLEY MICHAEL SAOIRSE
WAHLBERG WEISZ SARANDON TUCCI IMPERIOLI RONAN
THE
Gerald Murnane’s latest
novel, Barley Patch (Giramondo, PB, $27.95) was
released in October 2009.
Nam Le’s The Boat (Penguin,
PB, $24.95) – and Chloe
Hooper’s The Tall Man
(Penguin, PB, $24.95) – are
still flying off our shelves, with good reason.
If you know anyone who enjoys good
writing and hasn’t yet read them, all of these
books are sure-fire Christmas picks.
Music Retailer 2009 (Victoria). The award is
recognition of the hard work that our music
team has brought to the music industry
through supporting chart artists, helping
break new acts and fostering Australia’s
lifelong love affair with music.
E
M
A
380 LYGON ST CARLTON
www.cinemanova.com.au
Join our e-news for updates on the Met Opera,
National Theatre and other stage spectaculars.
Our Port Melbourne shop
has had a makeover, just in
time for Christmas. Located
in the heritage-listed post
office in Bay Street, the shop
has been transformed into a
beautiful, bright space
featuring expanded children's, cooking and lifestyle sections and
plenty of room to hold fabulous author
events. And there's now more space to
browse our diverse range of CDs and DVDs.
So drop in to our revamped shop for your
Christmas shopping – or for a fabulous
summer read in the new year. We look
forward to seeing you soon.
CINEMA
GEORGE
CLOONEY
NOVA
MERYL
STREEP
NTASTIC
FAMR.FOX
Based on the beloved
book by Roald Dahl,
Wes Anderson's
stop-motion tale is
an instant family classic.
OPENS JANUARY
Readings Monthly Dec 09 / Jan 10 3
New Australian writing Best Books 2009
The authors showcased in this year's Readings New Australian Writing feature choose their best books of 2009, and we look back at their books - some of our picks of 2009
Sonia Orchard
This year I’ve caught up on some big titles
that have sat, unread, on my bookshelf for
years. Ian McEwan’s Atonement (Vintage,
PB, $24.95), Lionel Shriver’s We Need to
Talk about Kevin (Text, PB, $23.95) and
Siri Hustvedt’s What I Loved (Hodder,
PB, $24.99) are three that stood out. My
favourite novels tend to be about memory
– a study of a character at a particular time,
with the burden of that character’s past
pressing up against each moment. I like to
really feel the weight of a character’s life.
I re-read John Banville’s The Sea (Picador,
PB, $22.95) and W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz
(Penguin, PB, $22.95) every year: they
both always bring me to tears, inspire me
to write, yet at the same time make me
feel I should give up immediately. I’ve also
read some fantastic books by local writers:
Gerald Murnane’s Barley Patch (Giramondo, PB, $27.95) Chloe Hooper’s The Tall
Man (Penguin, PB, $24.95), Jeff Sparrow’s
Killing (MUP, PB, $34.99) and Kalinda
Ashton’s The Danger Game (Sleepers, PB,
$24.95).
Sonia’s gorgeously clever debut novel set in
post-war London features a classically unreliable narrator obsessed by Australian composer Noel Mewton-Wood. Jacinta Halloran interviewed her about The Virtuoso
(Fourth Estate, PB, $27.99) for Readings in
February and wrote: ‘The Virtuoso stands as
testament to the idea that fiction can further
our understanding of what has been.’
Steven Amsterdam
When I wasn’t pretending to be making
headway with Moby Dick, I really enjoyed Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives by
David Eagleman (Canongate, PB, $22.95).
Speculative in the truest sense, it offers 40
dream-like alternatives for what will happen to us after this. Written in the present
(and usually unforgivable) second-tense by
a neuroscientist, the stories stuck with me
because of their rare balance of dark irony
and childlike loveliness. Pick up the book,
try one, and see. In The Brief and Wondrous
Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz (Faber, PB,
$23.95), Díaz does what you can’t – he combines high global culture with scabby street
talk and keeps you under his power. It’s the
intersection of history, of minor American
military occupations in the Caribbean and
torturing dictators, with sci-fi nerds and
Grandpa Simpson that makes the Pulitzer
Prize winner here. The book debut for Steven Amsterdam (and
Sleepers Publishing) was the much-praised
Things We Didn’t See Coming (PB, $24.95),
winner of the Age Book of the Year 2009.
Writing for Readings in March, Kevin Rabalais called it: ‘that all-too-rare book which
will incite a cult following, while simultaneously welcoming popular appeal.’
Steven Carroll
I’ve just finished reading Alex Miller’s superb
new novel Lovesong (A&U, HB, normally
$39.99, our special price $33.95). The writing is classically poised, disarmingly simple
and moving, drawing the reader into a highly atmospheric, complex world (the action
alternating between poorer parts of Paris and
Melbourne) of love, and, in a sense, fated
lives. Irene Nemirovsky’s All Our Worldly
Goods (Chatto & Windus, PB, $24.95) can
be read as a companion piece to the hugely
successful Suite Française. It’s a tale of a small
town, social ritual, love, class and the impact
that two world wars and a depression have
on it all. The ‘message in a bottle’ factor
notwithstanding, Nemirovsky is a terrific
writer. Finally, some vague impulse took me
back to Wordsworth’s autobiographical narrative poem ‘The Prelude’. The imagery, that
sense of setting out on the journey of life, is
as powerful as it ever was.
We selected Steven Carroll’s seductively
enchanting novel The Lost Life (Fourth Estate, PB, $29.99), about two pairs of lovers
– one of them T.S. Eliot and his childhood
sweetheart, Emily Hale – for our April feature. Chris Wallace-Crabbe interviewed the
award-winning writer for Readings about his
‘elegant, deeply moving work of fiction’.
Craig Silvey
I think my standout pick for the year would
have to be Everything Ravaged, Everything
Burned by Wells Tower (Granta, PB,
$32.99). It’s a tight, energetic and profound
collection of short stories that have rattled
and excited me the same way Drown (Junot
Diaz) and Jesus’ Son (Denis Johnson) did,
and that’s the highest praise I can offer anybody. He has a terrific turn of phrase, lasting
characters, and great pacing. He’s absolutely
raised the bar for me. Can’t recommend
it enough. It’s brilliant. Another notable
mention would be American Rust by Phillip
Meyer (A&U, PB, $32.99).
Craig Silvey’s much-anticipated Jasper Jones
(A&U, PB, $29.95) – a touching, very
funny and very Australian novel with echoes
of To Kill a Mockingbird – won this year’s Indie Award for Fiction and will be published
worldwide. Tony Birch called it ‘an engrossing and immediate page-turner that evokes
an influential literary history while producing an original and rewarding narrative in its
own right’.
Brian Castro
At about 1000 pages, 2666, by Roberto
Bolaño (Picador, PB, $25.00) is, for me, a
masterpiece of unrestrained narrative drive,
a rhythm section wildly percussive and
unstoppable; a melody-lead which seems to
go nowhere until the very end, slowed by a
miasma of intertextuality. But between the
documentary and the fiction, the unique
world of literature reconstructs itself in neobaroque moments of astonishment and deromanticised sensitivity worthy of the greatest writers you may never have read: José
Lezama Lima, Alejo Carpentier, Guillermo
Cabrera Infante. Bolaño knows instinctively
how to mix violence with song and the
archive with poetry. His political and historical instincts are not of the third world, but
of the coming one. This is the writing of the
future. Try reading it in Spanish.
In June, Giramondo’s Ivor Indyk told us that
‘writer’s writer’ Brian Castro was one of the
reasons he started publishing books. In a
slightly unorthodox approach, he interviewed
Castro for us about his exhilarating new
novel The Bath Fugues (Giramondo, PB,
$29.95). He observed: ‘Castro’s art of
variation and return is surprising, funny,
beguiling, consoling.’
M.J. Hyland
I’ve been listening to The New Yorker fiction
podcasts, usually on Sunday morning and
usually in bed and, after hearing Roger
Angell reading John Updike’s brilliant
short story, ‘Playing with Dynamite’, I read
Updike’s My Father’s Tears & Other Stories
(Hamish Hamilton, PB, $32.95). After
hearing Mary Gaitskill reading Nabokov’s
perfect short story, ‘Symbols and Signs’,
I read The Collected Stories of Vladimir
Nabokov (Penguin, PB, $29.95). And
likewise, after hearing T. Coraghessan Boyle
reading Tobias Wolff’s classic short story,
‘Bullet in the Brain’, I read more of Tobias
Wolff’s stories in Our Story Begins: New &
Selected Stories (Bloomsbury, PB, $27.99).
All three collections are superb.
M.J. Hyland’s devastatingly accomplished
third novel This is How (Text, PB, $32.95)
was the eagerly anticipated follow-up to the
Booker shortlisted Carry Me Down. In July,
Gregory Day interviewed her for Readings
and admitted ‘it is hard not to read the
novel fast, such is the sawn-off intensity of
its rhythms, its terse dialogue and compulsive narrative traction’.
Kalinda Ashton
Killing by Jeff Sparrow (MUP, PB, $34.95)
is a subtle but defiant reflection (and the
sort of self-interrogation that comes from
interviewing executioners in byway American towns) on state-sanctioned murder in
the United States and a much-needed and
courageous exposition of the hypocrisy
and damage of the war in Iraq. Little White
Slips by Karen Hitchcock (Picador, PB,
$29.99) is a triumph of a short story collection ... clever, relentless, empathic, bizarre
and tender. Let’s hope this heralds a brief
reprieve for short fiction, which has been
snubbed by the publishing houses on the
dubious but much-worshipped ‘wisdom of
the market’. I know Christos Tsiolkas’ The
Slap (A&U, PB, $32.95) was last year, but
I feel it has to be acknowledged for producing an incredible turnaround in Australian
fiction. In this gutsy, elegant mosaic of a
book, contemporary Australia is observed
with incisive, curious tenderness: the novel is
part-condemnation, part-confrontation and
wrought with ambiguity and the nostalgia
of lost radicalism and fury. The politics of
private life are ruthlessly exposed.
Kalinda Ashton’s stellar debut, The Danger
Game (Sleepers, PB, $24.95) was our July
pick. Readings interviewer Rebecca Starford
observed of this intricately written, intensely
observed novel of ideas: ‘This quietly brutal
debut introduces a vigorous, assured voice
into the contemporary literary sphere ... It is
prose of the highest order.’
Cate Kennedy
In a year of great reading, I feel obliged to
name the two ‘favourite reads’ that have
stayed with me most clearly. Wells Tower’s
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned
(Granta, PB, $32.99) – a wonderful collection of short stories from this young US
author, brimming with a kind of quirky authority and vision. Just a pleasure to absorb
this fresh, confident voice. And The Ghost
Poetry Project (Puncher & Wattman, PB,
$24) by local boy Nathan Curnow – a striking collection of poems inspired by visiting
ten ‘haunted’ sites around Australia. It’s not
what you expect and it’s work that packs a
sly sideways punch, most memorably when
performed by the author. A startling find
from an author I’ll be looking out for.
One novel dominated the local literary landscape in September – short story aficionado
Cate Kennedy’s thoughtful and affecting
debut novel, The World Beneath (Scribe, PB,
$32.95), about an estranged middle-aged
couple stuck in the past and their precarious
relationships with their teenage daughter.
Gail Jones interviewed her for Readings and
concluded: ‘It's a feisty tale wonderfully told;
rigorous, clever, and yes, highly recommended.’
Anna Goldsworthy
I’ve always found Alice Munro the most
devastating of writers. She creates these
understated textures and then fells you with
a sentence. Too Much Happiness (Chatto
& Windus, HB, normally $45, our special
price $39.95) is a collection of transgressions, essentially. As I read these stories, I
believed they were happening to me: for
days afterwards I still felt violated. Not sure
why I liked this, but I did.
In her debut book, Piano Lessons (Black
Inc., PB, $27.95), Anna Goldsworthy
writes about learning to be quietly – and
deeply – accomplished, rather than showy.
It’s a quality that resonates in her prose.
Interviewing Goldsworthy for Readings in
October, Andrea Goldsmith wrote: ‘Anna
Goldsworthy’s wonderful and generous
memoir Piano Lessons shows what it is to be
driven – obsessed – by music, by ambition,
by excellence.’
Alex Miller
My choice of a 2009 book will be Shirley
Walker’s wonderful memoir The Ghost at the
Wedding (Viking, PB, $32.95) – an unqualified masterpiece. The most moving account
of love and war I’ve ever read. And I’ve just
read Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria (Giramondo, PB, $26.95) for the second time. It is the
great Australian novel. An astonishing epic
act of the human imagination that warps the
moral and linguistic face of the Australian
novel in a completely new direction. She
is without a doubt Australia’s most grandly
inventive writer. The most important Australian novel in 100 years!
In November, we asked renowned – and vocal
– fan Angela Meyer to interview her literary
idol Alex Miller about Lovesong (A&U, HB,
normally $39.95, our special price $33.95).
She said: ‘Lovesong echoes many of the themes
Miller is known for – longing, desire, transience, the secret inner life ... a tender, astutely
charming and multi-layered treat.’
4 Readings Monthly Dec 09 / Jan 10
Book industry Best Books 2009
A selection of Australian writers, publishers, editors, and other canny book industry staffers choose their best books of the year.
Ben Ball
Putting aside books I’ve
published this year, here’re
the best things I’ve read.
David Malouf ’s Ransom
(Knopf, HB, $29.95) is a
little gem, a delicate and
refined work of art about
blood and grief. Colm Toibin
is one of the finest writers of our time, and
Brooklyn (Picador, PB, $32.99) is as transporting and transforming as The Master,
which is saying something. Michael Cathcart’s The Water Dreamers (Text, PB, $34.95)
is a brilliantly original and dashing work of
Australian history, perhaps too dashing to
have been praised in the way it ought to
have been. And Anna Goldsworthy’s Piano
Lessons (Black Inc., PB, $27.95) starts as a
delightful, controlled character piece
(Goldsworthy is generous enough in spirit to
make a character of herself as well as her
piano teacher) but goes on to introduce just
enough bass notes to make it soar. Finally,
David Foster Wallace’s This Is Water (Little
Brown, HB, $19.95) can be mistaken for a
trifle, but it can also be used as a tiny key to
unlock the work of one of the great souls.
Ben Ball is Publisher at Penguin
Sophie Cunningham
Here are my picks of the year. Dog Boy by
Eva Hornung (Text, PB, $32.95): Hornung’s
immersion, and thus ours, in the world of
a child and the pack of dogs it lives with is
complete. Exhilarating. The City and the City
by China Mieville (Picador, PB, $34.99):
Futuristic thriller noir (shades of 1984) combined with a new pared-back style from the
super-smart Mieville. Diary of a Bad Year
by J.M. Coetzee (Text, PB, $23.95): It took
me a couple of years to get to this but it was
worth it. Some are frustrated by the split
narratives but I found it totally engaging and
profound. Killing by Jeff Sparrow (MUP,
PB, $34.99): Tough ideas that need thinking
about held together by an exuberant gonzo
style. Both Look Who’s Morphing by Tom
Cho (Giramondo, PB, $24.99) and Things
We Didn’t See Coming by Steven Amsterdam
(Sleepers, PB, $24.95) push the form of the
short story into something else – the unsexy
phrase ‘discontinuous narrative’ doesn’t quite
cut it. Both are clever, incisive and thought
provoking – and Cho is extremely funny.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg
Larsson (Maclehose, PB, $24.95) is a smart,
political, well-written thriller (first in a trilogy) with a terrific female lead. Addictive.
And Reunion by Andrea Goldsmith (Fourth
Estate, PB, $32.99) – a moving novel thats
effect builds slowly and then continues to
haunt long after you are done.
Sophie Cunningham is editor of Meanjin.
Her latest book is Bird (Text, PB, $32.95).
Peter Temple
In a good year of reading, four books come
to mind: Cate Kennedy’s remarkable debut
The World Beneath (Scribe, PB, $32.95);
Adrian McKinty’s tight-as-a-fist Fifty Grand
(Serpent’s Tail, PB, $32.99); Andrew Roberts’ masterly new history of World War II
The Storm of War (Allen Lane, HB, $59.95);
and Vincent Bugliosi’s Four Days in Novem-
ber (Norton, PB, $29.95), surely the last
words on J.F. Kennedy’s assassination.
Peter Temple’s most recent novel is Truth
(Text, PB, $32.95).
Louise Swinn
The new Peter Temple,
Truth (Text, PB $32.95) was
definitely worth the wait;
as was the debut from
Karen Hitchcock, Little
White Slips (Picador, PB,
$29.99), a dazzling collection
of stories, complemented by
Wells Tower’s whip-smart Everything Ravaged,
Everything Burned (Granta, PB, $32.99). The
surprise was Madeleine
St John’s The Women in Black (Text, PB,
$29.95), which was an absolute treat –
evocative, delightful and sharp as lemon.
Louise Swinn is Editorial Director
at Sleepers Publishing.
Aviva Tuffield
In my day job I spend a lot
of time reading unbound
books without proper covers
(i.e. manuscripts) so I always
make sure I’ve got a ‘finished
book’ on the go, too. My
favourites of 2009? Well,
The Women in Black by
Madeleine St John (Text, PB, $29.95),
laced with irony yet still exuding such
warmth for its characters; a beautiful time
capsule of 1950s Sydney. Good to a Fault by
Marina Endicott (A&U, PB, $27.99) is also
a novel with real heart: it questions how far
we will go to do good, and whose interests
we are really serving. Brothers and Sisters,
edited by Charlotte Wood (A&U, PB,
$32.99), collects together some of my
favourite writers, emerging and emerged,
delivering polished gems of short stories.
And finally a novel that has more dazzling
passages in it than any other I’ve read this
year, despite some flaws, is Lorrie Moore’s
A Gate at the Stairs (Faber, PB, $32.99).
Aviva Tuffield is Fiction Acquisitions Editor
at Scribe and inaugural convenor of Readings
Australian Book Clubs.
Michael Williams
Eva Hornung, Cate Kennedy, M.J. Hyland,
Jeff Sparrow, Chloe Hooper, Guy Rundle: it’s
been an extraordinary year or so for Australian writing from voices old and new. Sleepers
Publishing launched its fiction list this year
with an outstanding early run, following
Age Book of the Year Things We Didn’t See
Coming by Steven Amsterdam (PB, $24.95)
and Brendan Gullifer’s very funny Sold (PB,
$24.95) with Kalinda Ashton’s powerful debut
The Danger Game (PB, $24.95). From further
afield, Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall (Fourth Estate,
PB, $32.99) looked like an imposing behemoth
best held over for the summer break, but revealed itself to be a compulsively readable romp
and worthy of its accolades. And Truth
(Text, PB, normally $32.95), Peter Temple’s
long-awaited follow-up to The Broken Shore,
made my heart race, made me cry and made
me see Melbourne in a new light. Hard to
ask for more, really.
Michael Williams is head of programming
at the Centre for Books Writing and Ideas
Andrea Goldsmith
Charlotte Wood
The contemporary American novelist
Elizabeth Strout is a masterful storyteller.
Her three books: Amy and Isabelle (Pocket,
PB, $21.95), Abide with Me (Pocket, PB,
$22.99) and the linked short stories, Olive
Kitteridge (Pocket, PB, $22.99) tell sharp,
sad, irresistible stories of ordinary people
living in small-town America. All wonderful. In his latest novel, Ransom (Knopf, HB,
$29.95), David Malouf takes a minor event
from The Iliad and spins it into a tale of the
limitations of honour and pride and the
strength of a father’s love for his son.
Ransom shows the fictional imagination at
full strength. I loved it. Thomas Mann’s
Buddenbrooks (Vintage, PB, $30.95) is a
big sprawling family saga in the nineteenthcentury model. If you want to fall into the
arms of a good book during the hot summer
days, this novel is a beauty.
Andrea Goldsmith’s latest novel is Reunion
(Fourth Estate).
The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker (S&S,
PB, $32.99) is an acute and hilarious study
of procrastination, an entertaining lecture on
poetic form and a subtle questioning of how
we measure artistic success or failure – I loved
it. Patrick White Letters edited by David Marr
(Random, PB, $32.95): I love letters for their
idiosyncratic intimacies. So astutely edited by
Marr, these are full of tenderness, black wit,
rage and insight, especially about the writing
process. On irritably rewriting a short story:
‘so boring tucking into cold pudding’.
Charlotte Wood’s latest book is the anthology
Brothers and Sisters (A&U, PB, $32.99).
Garry Disher
I’d like to start by asking why
anyone would want to read
Kathy Reichs or Patricia
Cornwell ahead of Karin
Slaughter (Genesis, Century,
PB, $32.95) – or at all. Meanwhile, thank God the UK
police procedural is no longer
cute and bucolic. This year’s standouts were
Stuart MacBride’s Blind Eye (HarperCollins,
PB, $32.99), set in Glasgow, and Brian
McGilloway’s Bleed a River Deep (Macmillan,
PB, $32.99), set on the Irish borderlands.
Garry Disher’s latest book is Blood Moon
(Text, PB, $23.95).
Angela Meyer
Some of my favourite reads
of 2009 display the variety of
books that come under the
banner of ‘Australian fiction’.
Steven Amsterdam’s enlightening post-apocalyptic
novel-of-stories Things We
Didn’t See Coming (Sleepers,
PB, $24.95) and Tom Cho’s brilliant, funny
and imaginative ride through different types
of transformation Look Who’s Morphing
(Giramondo, PB, $24.99) were major
highlights. I’ve revisited parts of both.
Kalinda Ashton’s The Danger Game (Sleepers, PB, $24.95) is a haunting insight into
loss, modern city life, and having political and
emotional courage – and I loved the challenging narrator, Patrick Oxtoby, in M.J. Hyland’s
This Is How (Text, PB, $32.95), as well as the
book’s existential nature. The best book I read
from across the sea was Philipp Meyer’s
American Rust (A&U, PB, $32.99), about
mistakes and failures, and choices made and
violence done on small and large scales, most
often quietly. Highly memorable. Other
books that definitely will stay with me from
2009 are Nick Cave’s disgustingly compelling
The Death of Bunny Munro (Text, PB, $32.95)
and Krissy Kneen’s raw and beautiful sexual
memoir Affection (Text, PB, $34.95).
Angela Meyer is Acting Editor of Bookseller &
Publisher magazine and blogs at blogs.crikey.
com.au/literaryminded.
Mandy Brett
My favourite book of 2009 apart from Eva
Hornung’s Dog Boy, which it would be poor
form to mention because we published it?
That would be Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
(Fourth Estate, PB, $32.99). You don’t often
get a historical blockbuster taking out the
Booker Prize, although the late great Dorothy
Dunnett was shortlisted once. But it really is
one of life’s most indulgent pleasures: crack
the spine on one of those big fat bastards and
you’re off to the sixteenth century (or whenever) to hob-nob with richly clad figures of
power, acumen and charisma. When Hilary
Mantel’s driving, you also get massive serves
of intelligence and sly humour, deployed with
breathtaking technique. And an honourable
mention to The Girl Who Played with Fire by
Stieg Larsson (Maclehose, PB, $24.95). Much
more exciting, as everyone has said, than the
first in the series; plus it’s got intrigue, mayhem, polymathic genius, lashings of Swedish
sexual insouciance and a diminutive kick-arse
heroine. Very chunky!
Mandy Brett is senior editor at Text Publishing.
Chris Feik
I knew nothing of Herta Muller before her
Nobel Prize. Since then I’ve read a short
novel by her called The Passport (Profile, PB,
$21.95), which was superb – a distilled,
almost expressionist evocation of a Romanian
village from which everyone wants to escape.
This year I found Stefan Aust’s The BaaderMeinhof Complex (Cape, PB, $45) transfixing.
Several books by Tony Judt, including Reappraisals (Vintage, PB, $29.95) were also great.
Chris Feik is Publisher at Black Inc.
Tanya Swan
The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko
Ogawa (Harvill, PB, $32.95) is a moving and
sparsely written story of friendship, trust and
learning. Small Wars by Sadie Jones (Chatto
& Windus, PB, $32.95) follows the plight
of Hal and Clara’s crumbling relationship
against the backdrop of Britain’s ‘small war’
in Cyprus. This novel paints an emotionally powerful portrait of marriage and what
happens when you are forced to question
everything you believe in. The cast of eclectic
characters residing in Siddon Rock come to
life in the mystical and engaging Australian
debut novel of the same name – Siddon Rock
by Glenda Guest (Vintage, PB, $24.95).
Tanya Swan is key accounts manager
at Random House.
Readings staff Best Books 2009
Readings Monthly Dec 09 / Jan 10 5
Readings staff choose their best books of the year
Mark Rubbo
Lovesong by Alex Miller
(A&U, HB, normally $39.95,
our special price $33.95) is
a touching love story set in
France by one of Australia’s
great writers. Miller never
fails to excite and delight
me. If the Dead Rise Not by
Phillip Kerr (Quercus, PB, $32.95) features
Nazis, Cuba and murder – not to mention
great characterisation and plot. This is the
latest in Kerr’s series featuring German ex-cop
Bernie Gunther. In my opinion, Kerr has
been terribly underrated as a crime writer.
His invitation to the forthcoming Adelaide
Writers’ Week will help bring him to a wider
audience. And if you want to understand
what’s happened in Australian politics and
the economy in the last 15 years (the Keating/Howard years), you should turn to Paul
Kelly’s The March of Patriots (MUP, HB, normally $59.99, our special price $49.95).
He has incredible access to the main players
and writes so lucidly that one can’t fail to be
gripped. He manages to strip away the cant
and give us the real story. I read the delightful The House in Via Manno by Milena Agus
(Scribe, PB, $24.95) quite by chance and was
totally captivated. The novel’s young narrator
tells the story of her beautiful but eccentric
Sardinian grandmother and her search for
love. Inspector Singh Investigates: A Bali Conspiracy Most Foul by Shamini Flint (Piatkus,
PB, $22.95) is the second in the Inspector
Singh series, a delightful crime series featuring
the overweight and slightly incorrect Singaporean Inspector. Seconded to the Bali Police
in the aftermath of the bombings, Inspector
Singh lands a bizarre case and saves the day.
Mark Rubbo is managing director of Readings
Martin Shaw
As many of you know, the
third and final Stieg Larsson
volume, The Girl Who Kicked
the Hornets' Nest, was my
companion on recent holidays
(Maclehose, PB, normally
$32.95, our special price
$27.95). Like a favourite TV
series, it delivered again on all counts: the ever
resourceful Salander is now pitted not only
against her father but an ineluctable and even
greater enemy, with the whole gallery of
characters (both good guys and villains)
returning from previous volumes to ensure a
riveting, immensely satisfying read. Otherwise, 2009 was again the year of the short
form for me: the nine connected episodes in
the exhilarating debut by Steven Amsterdam,
Things We Didn't See Coming (Sleepers, PB,
$24.95) was a worthy winner of the Age Book
of the Year from a writer with the utmost
dedication to his craft, and a semi-miraculous
ability to conjure the most unlikely situations
and make you care about them – a lot! My
love affair with American realist fiction
continued apace with another debut – Wells
Tower's short-story collection Everything
Ravaged, Everything Burned (Granta, PB,
$32.99). Some stunning stories here, written
in a rich vernacular that walks a line never far
from both the tragic and the comic. William
Maxwell spoke of ‘the happiness of getting it
down right’ – and if there is a better writer in
English at the moment than Maurice Gee,
I would be surprised. His Access Road
(Viking, PB, $29.95) is an immensely
affecting short novel that makes you believe
in the power of fiction all over again.
Martin Shaw is books division manager
of Readings
Alexa Dretzke
The Portrait by Willem Jan Otten (Scribe,
PB, $27.95) is my number one fiction pick
for 2009. It sounds ridiculous – a canvas
that tells a tale – ahhh, but what a tale:
splendid, moving, masterful and original.
And my non-fiction pick is The Lost Mother
by Anne Summers (MUP, HB, normally
$35.00, our special price $26.95). Tracing a
youthful painting of her mother, Summers
eloquently and evocatively draws disparate
threads to make a compelling story.
Alexa Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn
Danielle Mirabella
For my picks of 2009, I’ve
chosen the latest offerings
from the masterful Irish
literary writers Colm Toibin
and William Trevor. Both
Toibin’s Brooklyn (Picador,
PB, $32.99) and Trevor’s Love
and Summer (Viking, HB,
$45) are elegantly written novels, subtle and
restrained in style, yet utterly emotionally
absorbing. Locally, Craig Silvey’s second published work of fiction, Jasper Jones (A&U, PB,
$29.95), is a fantastic read. Winner of the
2009 Indie Award for Book of the Year as
voted by Australian independent booksellers,
Jasper Jones is a funny, quirky and uniquely
Australian novel.
Danielle Mirabella is from Readings
Hawthorn
Robbie Egan
My picks are Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
(Hamish Hamilton, PB, $32.95), Father’s
Day by Tony Birch (Hunter, PB, $24.95),
Homicide by David Simon (Canongate, PB,
$26.95) and Melbourne: The Making of an
Eating and Drinking Capital by Michael
Harden (Hardie Grant, HB, $39.95).
Robbie Egan is manager of Readings Carlton
Pip Newling
The World Beneath by Cate Kennedy (Scribe,
PB, $32.95) snuck up on me. Kennedy’s
writing is so clear, so precise and reveals the
chasms in relationships so assuredly, that before I realised it, I was seduced, beguiled and
drawn to the last satisfying page, as though
being led by the hand. A read that will stay
in your imagination (and your heart) long
after you have finished.
Pip Newling is from Readings Port Melbourne
Michael
Awosoga-Samuel
The Portrait by Jan Willem Otten (Scribe,
PB, $27.95) is the beautiful story of an artist
narrated by his canvas – seamlessly written
by a delicate author who uses his sentences
sparingly and to great effect. The Housekeeper
and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa (Harvill,
PB, $32.95) is a genuine must-read. I was
lost in a world of mathematical equations
and it felt so good. I loved This Is How by
M.J. Hyland (Text, PB, $32.95): she is able
to get so completely inside her subject, you
are left astounded. The Book of Flights by
J.M.G. Le Clezio (Vintage, PB, $24.95) is
a book you can get completely lost in. The
experience is akin to a dream-like state.
Amazing and truly otherworldly.
Michael Awosoga-Samuel is from
Readings Carlton
Sally Madsen
This year I feel as if I’ve
rediscovered the short story.
I’ve just read two terrific
collections. Actually I picked
up each book thinking it was
a novel. Olive Kitteridge
(Pocket, PB, $22.99) by 2009
Pulitzer Prize winning (for
this book) author, Elizabeth Strout, has its
title character, Olive Kitteridge, crop up to a
greater or sometimes an absolutely minimal
extent in these stories set in a small seaside
town in Maine. The same nameless narrator
features in every one of Steven Amsterdam’s
stories, set in some strange future dystopic
world in Things We Didn’t See Coming
(Sleepers, PB, $24.95). And I’m now dipping
into the the diverse, sharp and funny collected
stories of Amy Hempel in The Dog of the
Marriage (Quercus, PB, $24.95) and have just
read the first two beautiful stories in Alice
Munro’s new collection Too Much Happiness
(Chatto & Windus, HB, normally $45, our
special price $39.95). So when you haven’t the
time or the inclination to go into the expansive
world of the long novel, pick up a short story.
Sally Madsen is from Readings Carlton
Emily Harms
Movida Rustica (Murdoch, HB, $59.95) is an
absolutely stunning book and gift for those
who love to cook to impress, as well as those
who just love glancing over the beautiful
photos! A must-have for all Melburnians!
Stephanie Alexander’s Kitchen Garden Companion (Lantern, HB, $125) has inspired me and
I am reaping the rewards of my little family’s
veggie patch at St Kilda Veg Out. Too Much
Happiness (Chatto & Windus, HB, normally
$45, our special price $39.95), Alice Munro's latest book of short stories, is absolutely
engrossing. Her writing is sublime. Bottersnikes and Other Lost Things by Juliet O’Conor
(Miegunyah, HB, $59.99) is a gorgeous
collection of Australian illustrated children’s
books and includes works from some of
Australia’s best known and loved writers and
illustrators, including my personal old favourites May Gibbs and Ida Rentoul Outhwaite.
Emily Harms is marketing manager of Readings
Mike Paterson
Richard Price is crime fiction’s dirty realist.
In Lush Life (Bloomsbury, PB, $23.99), he
makes the streets sing with his dialogue.
Mike Paterson is from Readings Port Melbourne
Jason Austin
My pick is This Is How by M.J. Hyland (Text,
PB $32.95), a powerful piece of fiction.
Her writing has a cold distance to it, her
words so spare – yet you get under the skin
and feel compassion for this man who has
done something very wrong. Masterful.
Jason Austin is from Readings Carlton
Bruno Moro
My favourite was Homer and Langley by E.L.
Doctrow (Little Brown, PB, $29.99).
Bruno Moro is manager of Readings Malvern
Kathy kozlowski
I loved Brooklyn by Colm Toibin (Picador,
PB, $32.99), the story of a young woman
caught between the possibilities of her new
life in 1950s Brooklyn, and her sense of belonging to Ireland and home. Colin Toibin
writes with such a balance of understatement
and visual colour that it is almost our own
imagination telling the story.
Kathy Kozlowski is from Readings Carlton
Chris Gordon
The Year of the Flood by
Margaret Atwood (Bloomsbury, HB, normally $45, our
special price $37.95)
combines a wonderful fairy
tale morality with spinetingling visions of the future
with strong women leading
the way ... I could not put it down.
Chris Gordon is events coordinator at Readings
Michelle Calligaro
My favourites this year include: Shahriar
Mandanipour’s difficult and darkly humourous Censoring: An Iranian Love Story (Little
Brown, PB, $29.99) that evokes the absurdity
and fear of life under a merciless regime;
Anne Michaels’ haunting The Winter Vault
(Bloomsbury, PB, $32.99), in which a bright
young engineer ably oversees the reconstruction of the temple at Abu Simbel, but
struggles to reconstruct life with his wife after
personal tragedy; Roberto Bolaño’s, miserable
priest whose deathbed confession reveals a life
not well-lived in By Night in Chile (Vintage,
PB, $24.95); and After the Fire, A Still Small
Voice, (Vintage, PB, $32.95) in which Evie
Wyld beautifully captures the intensity and
anger that flows through the lives of three
generations of men, through war and peace,
across Europe and Australia.
Michelle Calligaro is the editorial assistant
of Readings Monthly
William Hueston
Heyward
2666 by Roberto Bolaño (Picador, PB,
$25) absorbed me for 900 pages. It is huge,
beautiful and dark. Filled with voices, characters and places, 2666 is alive. The premise
of David Eagleman’s Sum (Canongate, PB,
$22.95) is simple and timeless: what happens
when you die? Eagleman writes charmingly
and with warmth; the product of which is
this small, thoughtful and touching book.
A Lucky Child by Thomas Buergenthal
(Profile, HB, $39.95) is incredible. Unlike
writers such as Primo Levi and Elie Wiesel,
Thomas Buergenthal waited until much
later in life before writing an account of how
he survived the Nazi concentration camps;
the result is stunning. This book is incredible.
William Hueston Heyward is from Readings St
Kilda
6 Readings Monthly Dec 09 / Jan 10
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Q & A: Barbara Kingsolver
Barbara Kingsolver talks about her new book, The Lacuna (A&U, PB, normally $35, our special price $29.95)
myself. In the autumn of 2001, I personally
experienced a terrible backlash against my
identity as a political artist. It was time for me
to sink or swim, so I dived into that question
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Is Harrison Shepherd based on or inspired by an
actual 1950s writer?
Frida Kahlo is an incredible icon to recreate.
How much pressure did you feel to do her justice,
and how did you go about reconstructing and
re-imagining her life and these events?
The truth is, I imagined this novel without
Frida, but she moved into it. I wanted to
examine the birth of the modern American
political psyche, using artists as a vehicle. I
would start with the Mexican revolutionary
muralists of the 1930s, and end with the anticommunist censorship of the 1950s. Diego
Rivera was such a crucial part of that history, I
thought I should have my narrator live in his
household for a time. I was interested in the
muralists, these men with their party work
and collective shenanigans. Frankly I thought
of Frida as too personal and self-involved to
add much to my story.
I read all the biographies of Diego and Frida,
then went to Mexico City to see their art,
archives and homes, which are preserved as
museums. Frida is such a potent and intriguing person, she was everywhere I looked: her
doodles and drawings even cover the margins
of Diego’s financial ledgers. I felt her poking
at my shoulder, saying, ‘look, chica, you’re
ignoring me’. She was not a frozen icon at all,
but a rogue and a complex person with aches
I understood. She started to steal scenes. She
was a natural for drawing out my reclusive
narrator – those two had brilliant chemistry.
No, he isn’t. Because this novel is about real
events in history, it’s full of actual people:
Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Lev and Natalia
Trotsky, Douglas MacArthur, J. Edgar Hoover
– it’s a regular Madame Tussaud’s. I was fanatical about representing those people accurately from the historical record. Their every
move was plotted before I began; for example,
if Frida went into the hospital or Diego went
to San Francisco on a particular date in 1936,
that’s what they had to do in my novel.
You can plainly see, then, I needed a protagonist who could be completely malleable to my
authorial control, to give me the flexibility
to build my own plot and carry my intended
themes. So Harrison Shepherd is a pure
invention. He was entirely cooperative.
How long did it take to write the book?
I began plotting out the architecture of the
story in February 2002, and finished seven
years later, almost to the day. I took a twoyear hiatus in 2006 to write a non-fiction
book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, but the novel was still on my mind, accumulating weight
and momentum. The research and writing
were simultaneous, almost to the end. I kept
discovering fascinating and horrifying events
buried in the historical record that made my
heart race, and pushed me on toward my final
conclusions.
Fortunately for me, Frida and Diego were the
most discussed and photographed people of
their time, two of North America’s first artistic
celebrities. This played perfectly into my theme.
I didn’t have to invent much, I just opened their
journals, covered my bulletin board with photos,
and the scenes began to roll.
Do you think novelists have a duty to address
political issues?
I think writing a novel is a political act,
automatically, because of the way it draws the
reader into a carefully constructed world-view
and generates empathy for the people who
inhabit that world. I think the novelist’s duty,
then, is to own up to the power of the craft,
and use it wisely.
What got you so interested in that particular
part of history and how long did you spend
researching the period?
As long as I’ve been a writer, I’ve wondered
why we have such an uneasy relationship
between art and politics in the US – as opposed to many other countries, where the two
are considered inseparable. I suspected that
if I studied the mid-twentieth century when
political artists were persecuted here, I might
find the genesis of that fear. But it was a huge
undertaking, and I was a little afraid of it
The linguistic and historical detail of this book is
seamlessly integrated into the various voices and
locales. Was this a matter of immersing yourself
completely in research until the characters came
to life, or did you start with the characters and
work backwards?
I always begin with theme. I knew what I
wanted this book to say about art and language, freedom of expression, fame, privacy,
journalism, and cultural identity. I built a plot
that would carry my themes, and invented
two principal characters – Harrison Shepherd
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KINGS WAY
and Violet Brown – who could dramatise my
story. After that, I dressed the set with color
and fragrance and noise, people and things.
Technically, the historical figures function
more as setting than characters, but I still had
to make them lively and convincing. In the
process they came to have their own roles to
play, but always within the strict confines of
truth. I feel strongly about that; their lives
are not mine to appropriate. So I couldn’t,
for instance, put real people into bed with
anyone they didn’t actually have affairs with.
Fortunately, this crowd gave me a wide playing field.
My research involved spending time in historical neighbourhoods in both the US and
Mexico, in cities and jungles and sea-caves
and archaeological sites, looking at artworks,
visiting special archives, and studying old
photographs. I read, and read: personal journals, biographies, newspaper archives, books
on political theory, hundreds of popular
magazines from the 30s and 40s, even recipe
‘I think the novelist’s
duty, then, is to own
up to the power of the
craft, and use it wisely.’
books. Mostly I needed to know things that
cannot be found online. The difference between amateur and professional research, I’m
going to tell you, is a willingness to get your
hands dirty. Also your shoes.
It was thrilling to immerse myself so deeply
in the era. More than ever before, I came to
understand fiction writing as a process of
barely-controlled lunacy. For the last several
months of writing I was so intensely engrossed, my family brought me sandwiches
at my desk and hoped I’d someday return to
them. I dreamt about cooking for Trotsky,
and impressed elderly men at dinner parties
by rattling off arcane World War II trivia. The
stacks of research materials grew like a forest
in my office, it’s a harrowing sight. I am clearing it all out now, making way for whatever
comes next.
Are Harrison Shepherd’s novels based on or
inspired by any real novels?
Not exactly. To my knowledge no one has
really done the pre-Columbian potboiler, but
I had in mind a category of American fiction
that came to prominence in the 1930s with
Dashiell Hammett at the helm: novels like
The Maltese Falcon. This was the last hurrah of
the novel as an everyday, working person’s entertainment, and a golden time for some fine
writers who did not pretend to be anything
but entertainers, yet really wrote sophisticated literature in spite of themselves. (And
interestingly, despite his apolitical subject
matter, Hammett was persecuted for communism.) To the Sam Spade genre, add a dash of
Hemingway and a heaping portion of James
Michener’s epic historical sagas – Hawaii and
Tales of the South Pacific – and you’re in the
right part of the bookstore.
How do you deal with your own fan mail?
It was no stretch for me to create the character of Violet Brown, the ideal amanuensis to a
writer, because I’m blessed with such a perfect
assistant myself.
THE BEGINNINGS OF AUSTRALIAN GRAFFITI
WITH 1200 FULL-COLOUR PHOTOGRAPHS
MIEGUNYAH PRESS. HB.
WAS $65.00
NOW ONLY
$43.95
AVAILABLE AT ANY READINGS
SHOP OR ONLINE AT
WWW.READINGS.COM.AU.
Oslo Davis
www.oslodavis.com
Readings Special Price
The Lacuna (A&U, PB,
normally $35, our special price
$29.95) is now available
at all Readings shops and
at www.readings.com.au.
Readings Monthly Dec 09 / Jan 10 7
New Books Fiction
Australian
Fiction
The Woman of Seville
Sallie Muirden
International
Fiction
Beginners
Raymond Carver
Jonathan Cape. PB. $34.95
Lovers of the short story
form – and more particularly, of one of its high
priests, Raymond Carver,
will be fascinated by
Beginners. This controversial,
much-talked-about collection is Carver’s most famous
collection of stories, What We Talk About
When We Talk About Love, without the
formidable presence of Carver’s famous
editor/collaborator Gordon Lish. And
many of the stories here are substantially
different – some had been cut by as much
as 50%, or even 80%, by Lish’s blue pencil.
The Guardian review of Beginners concluded: ‘The true Carver, we now see, is gentler,
fleshier, less brutal than Lish’s Carver.’ For
the first time, you can meet ‘the true Carver’
within these pages.
Consolation
Anna Gavalda
Chatto & Windus. PB. $32.95
January 2010
Anna Gavalda’s first novel,
Hunting and Gathering, was
a word-of-mouth bestseller
here at Readings. Consolation was France’s bestselling
novel in 2008. A successful
47-year-old architect falls
apart after hearing about the
death of a woman he once loved, turning
his back on all he has achieved to go in
search of the past and his childhood. But
fate holds out a final hope of consolation in
the form of Kate, a damaged, fearless young
woman in love with life. Vividly observed
and alive with wit, this is a heartbreaking
and enchanting book.
Paul Theroux
Hamish Hamilton. HB. $45
Renowned travel writer and
novelist, Theroux’s new
novel is classic crime fiction.
Based in Calcutta, Jerry
Delfont is suffering from ‘a
dead hand’ or writer’s block,
when he receives a letter
from the charming and
intriguing Merrill Unger about the mysterious death of a young boy in a cheap hotel
room. A devotee of the goddess Kali, Unger
introduces Delfont to a strange underworld
where tantric sex and religious fervour lead
to obsession; and philanthropy and
exploitation walk hand in hand.
Gentleman’s Relish
Patrick Gale
Fourth Estate. PB. $27.99
January 2010
The author of Notes on an
Exhibition, an incredibly
moving fictional exploration
of manic depression and
creativity, has produced an
impressive collection of
short fiction. ‘Dark, witty
and often obliquely moving,
these are tales of difficult fathers and gay
sons, of lonely wives and random or
deliberate acts of violence.’ – Telegraph
Oscar Wilde’s Stories
for All Ages
Oscar Wilde, selected
by Stephen Fry
Vladimir Nabokov
Penguin. HB. $55
Unable to complete his final
novel before his death,
Nabokov requested that the
notes he had taken on index
cards be destroyed. More
than 30 years later, and after
a tumultuous debate between
publishers and Nabokov’s
son, the index cards are to be reproduced, as
they were, in his careful handwriting and
‘furious’ crossings-out: a novel in fragments.
It traces the lives of beautiful and promiscuous Flora Lanskaya and her unhappy
marriage to the grossly fat Philip Wild,
obsessed with death and the hereafter.
FRENCHÊ
FILMÊÊ
FESTIVALÊ
2010
Chronic City
Jonathan Lethem
Faber. PB. $32.99
Jonathan Lethem’s brilliant,
wildly inventive, semi-autobiographical gentrification
novel The Fortress of Solitude
was recently voted one of
the top 20 books of the new
millennium. It was also a bit
of a favourite among many
Readings staff. The novel published after
that, You Don’t Love Me Yet (set in LA) had
been largely written many years earlier, and
felt like a bit of a step backwards. Chronic
City feels like the next step we’ve been
waiting for – and was acclaimed as ‘even
better’ by a New York Times reviewer. It’s set
in an alternate reality Manhattan, where
former child star Chase and his friend
Perkus travel through endless New York
social events, where he is in demand due to
his early stardom, but also his current
predicament: his fiancée is stranded on the
International Space Station, and her love
letters to him from there are published in
the New York Times (which is available in a
‘war-free’ edition). It’s clever and bizarre
and – like all really good genre fiction –
very much about the world we inhabit now.
Fans will love it.
HarperCollins. HB. $29.99
In this beautifully illustrated
edition, one of Oscar Wilde’s
biggest and most erudite
contemporary fans introduces
a selection of his favourite
Wilde classics. Stephen Fry
(who played Wilde in the film
of the same name) explains
why these stories mean so much to him – and
what the reader can take away with them,
whatever their age. Includes ‘The Selfish
Giant’, ‘The Happy Prince’ and many more.
The Original of Laura:
dying is fun: A Novel
in Fragments
ALLIANCEÊFRAN‚AISEÊ
the patient of psychiatrist and amateurpainter Andrew Marlowe. In his struggle to
understand Oliver’s torment, Marlowe’s
research takes him from America to France,
across the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries, on a journey marked by obsession and a tragedy at the heart of French
Impressionism.
ZZZIUHQFK¿OPIHVWLYDORUJ
MELBOURNE
4Ê-Ê19ÊMarch
FORNASETTI ©
HarperCollins. PB. $27.99
Seville in the year 1616 is a
place of betrayal and torture,
with the spying eyes of
the Inquisition everywhere.
Moorish settlers are banished from Spain and their
traumatised children are
locked away in monasteries for religious conversion with even the
most penitent locals conducting their true
lives in secret. Paula Sanchez is a concubine famed for her beauty who does her
best to avoid the attentions of her lecherous benefactor Bishop Rizi in order to sit
as Mary for the ‘The Penitent Magdalen’.
In the evenings she escapes the heat and
uncertainty of her earthy existence and conflicting morality with the Ladder Man: a
mute, almost-ethereal being who never sets
foot upon the ground, preferring instead
the rooftops of Seville. Young apprentice
painter Diego Velasquez wanders freely
about the city and watches over the progress of the painting and Paula’s involvement
within it. Muirden’s uniquely poetic writing
reveals the strands of spirituality, longing
and love emerging from behind the brush
strokes and creates a hot, bustling city that
emanates divine fantasy and escape.
Kath Lockett is a freelance reviewer
A Dead Hand:
A Crime in Calcutta
Griffith REVIEW 26: Stories for Today
Julianne Schultz, Ed $24.95
A bumper collection of outstanding fiction and essays from writers who describe what it means to be Australian in a globalised
world, includes Frank Moorhouse, Nikki Gemmell, Kate Grenville and the
best emerging authors writing today.
The Danger Game
(Sleepers Publishing)
Kalinda Ashton, $24.95
Two estranged sisters unite to reconcile a distant family tragedy. “An unflinching examination of familial and communal bonds. It is masterful, poignant, powerful and true. Ashton’s is a remarkable voice and this is a wonderful novel.”
—Christos Tsiolkas
Big Things in Small Packages
This Christmas, the small presses have all the best books
HEAT 21:Without a Paddle (Giramondo)
Ivor Indyk, Ed $24.95
Essays by James Ley on Samuel Johnson; Peter Craven on
Manning Clark and Kate Lilley. In fiction, Brian Castro
on nervous illness; Saskia Beudel on cities of skies. Poets Fay Zwicky, Anthony
Lawrence, Joanne Burns. Plus paintings
based on idioms by Jon Campbell.
The Swan Thieves
Elizabeth Kostova
Little Brown. PB. Normally $32.99
Our special price $27.95
January 2010
Following on from The
Historian, Elizabeth Kostova
again mixes historical fact
with fantasy to create an
epic story. Renowned
painter Robert Oliver slashes
a painting at the National
Gallery of Art and becomes
Swimming: a Novel (Vanark Press)
Enza Gandolfo, $29.95
A story of loss, survival, friendship.
‘… gentlest, yet toughest portrait of an artist’s marriage I’ve read
in Australian writing’ —Helen Garner
‘characters leap off the page.’ —Sunday Age
SPUNC
spunc.com.au
8 Readings Monthly Dec 09 / Jan 10
The Tin Drum
The True Deceiver
The Tango Collection
Harvill. HB. $55
The Tin Drum tells the story
of 30-year-old mental
patient Oskar Matzerath,
who resolves to stunt his
own growth at the age
of three, witnesses the
horrors and eccentricities
of the Nazi era, and participates in Germany’s post-war economic
miracle, only to be haunted by feelings
of responsibility for his country’s dark
past. Marking the fiftieth anniversary of
this landmark novel comes this beautiful
new hardback edition – a new translation,
supervised by Grass himself, with a new
foreword by the author, too. Particularly
praising the translation, the Guardian
recently called it: ‘the definitive version
of arguably the most important German
novel of the postwar era.’
Profile. PB. $23.99
January 2010
Swedish literary luminary
Tove Jansson is best known
for her classic children’s
books featuring the Moomins. But she also published
11 books for adults – and
this crisp, haunting novel,
the third to become available
in English, is a revelation. In the deep winter
snows of a Swedish hamlet, a strange young
woman fakes a break-in at the grand home
of a reclusive elderly children’s illustrator.
She successfully persuades her to take her in
as a protector – and by the time the snow
thaws, both women will have changed
irrevocably. ‘One of Jansson’s most deceptively quiet, most astonishing compositions.’
– Ali Smith
A&U. PB. $35
Gunter Grass
Shades of Grey
Jasper Fforde
Hodder Headline. PB. Normally $32.99
Our special price $27.95
January 2010
Imagine life ruled by colour
codes – like paint-by-number – life, work, destiny
dictated in advance by your
particular shade. Eddie Russett lives comfortably in a
fabulously imagined world
where life is rigidly dictated
by the colours you can see. But then he falls
in love with a Grey named Jane, and begins
to question the core values of his society.
‘No summaries can do justice to the sheer
inventiveness, wit, complexity, erudition,
unexpectedness and originality of [Fforde’s]
works, nor to their vast repertoire of
intricate wordplay and puns.’ – The Times
Tove Jansson
Graphic Novel
Robert Crumb’s
Book of Genesis
Robert Crumb
Jonathan Cape. HB. $55
What Crumb started as a
satire became a deeply
fascinating journey into the
language and stories of the
bible. Crumb has created a
literal translation of the Book
of Genesis based on the King
James Version that will
appeal to his fans, graphic-novel lovers and
believers alike. ‘Crumb’s familiar drawing
style – black ink, a tremulous line, dense
cross-hatching that darkens the field and
electrifies the light through contrast – gives
Genesis the punch of a heavy graphic novel.’
– Los Angeles Times
Bernard Caleo (ed.)
Graphic art as a form of storytelling has really come into its
own in the last few years, with
the mainstream success of
artists like Shaun Tan and
Nicki Greenberg (who created
a graphic novel version of The
Great Gatsby). This collection
brings together some of the best artists in
Australia and New Zealand, including Nicki
Greenberg, Mandy Ord, Andrew Weldon and
Bruce Mutard, all drawn from the romance
comic book anthology Tango.
Anthologies
The Words We Found
Lisa Dempster (ed.)
Voiceworks. PB. $25
Voiceworks, the voice of young writers Australia-wide, is turning 21. And instead of being
presented with a giant key, it’s celebrating with
this smart (and often very funny) anthology,
featuring the best of the magazine over the
years. Looking at the names between these
pages, it’s easy to see that many of Australia’s
up-and-coming young writers had their early
roots here – writers like Justin Heazlewood
(aka The Bedroom Philosopher), YA author
Lili Wilkinson, Meanjin’s Jessica Au and Best
Australian Stories/Essays regular Anna Krien,
whose first non-fiction book will be released in
2010. With supporters of the ilk of Christos
Tsiolkas, John Marsden and Marieke Hardy,
this is a publication well worth a look.
Journals
Griffith Review 26:
Stories for Today
Julianne Schultz (ed.)
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Overland: Issue 197
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$14.95
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Text. PB. $24.95
This is the first ever fictionthemed edition from one of
Australia’s most respected
literary journals. And why not
– it seems perfect timing,
coming just after the journal
has come under the banner of
one of our leading fiction
publishers, Text. The influence seems evident,
too, with healthy representation from Text
leading lights such as Kate Grenville (who
contributes a rousing essay on the role fiction
can play in affecting social change), Toni
Jordan (who delivers the first sneak peek at
her new novel-in-progress) and Krissy Kneen,
author of this year’s surprisingly poignant
erotic memoir, Affection, which seemed to
herald her arrival as a major new name in
Australian writing. And it kicks off with an
extract from Frank Moorhouse’s novel-inprogress, the third in his critically acclaimed
Edith Campbell trilogy. This is a very, very
strong anthology – solidly packed with stories
that had me thoroughly engrossed. I was
pleased to find old favourites, like Georgia
Blain and Danielle Wood, mixed with new
discoveries (to me, at least) such as Georgina
Luck’s moving and insightful story about a
couple of ambulance workers, and Sydney
Smith’s nightmarish yet seductive tale about a
dreamy small-town girl farmed out to work in
her aunt’s city pub. An excellent read.
Jo Case is editor of Readings Monthly
HeZX^Vaeg^XZ
*.#.*=7
Overland is one of Australia’s
longest running and most
respected literary journals,
comfortably based in
Melbourne and solidly
rooted in progressive
left-wing politics. It’s also a
consistent home of good
writing, regularly publishing Australia’s top
fiction writers, like Cate Kennedy and
Steven Amsterdam. Highlights of this issue
for me included ‘The Fat Man’, the latest
disconcerting and strangely moving fiction
from Virginia Peters, who is surely destined
to become a household name in future
years. Sophie Cunningham’s exploration of
Melbourne’s underground drains with a
guide from the infamous Cave Clan was a
fascinating alternative view of Melbourne
and its history and landmarks. And I loved
Anwyn Crawford’s witheringly frank
assessment of Nick Cave and his legacy as
an Australian cultural icon, concluding
that, far from being the underground hero
he clearly sees himself as, he has become
‘the monarch of middlebrow’, increasingly
descending into self-parody. It’s a fantastic
essay from a former fan, one I feel like I’ve
been waiting to read all year. There’s also a
typically clever and engaging essay on
Rudd’s ALP by Guy Rundle, who won Age
Book of the Year for Non-Fiction this year
for his book on Obama’s presidential
campaign – and clearly knows his politics.
Jo Case is editor of Readings Monthly
Meanjin
Sophie Cunningham (ed.)
MUP. PB. $24.99
The last issue of Meanjin for
2009 looks like a cracker of a
read. There’s a 10,000 word
essay from Charlotte Wood
on the ethics of using other
people’s lives in fiction,
drawing on interviews from
the likes of Helen Garner,
Malcolm Knox and Robert Drewe. Mel
Campbell writes on Michael Jackson, Sophie
Cunningham interviews Eva Hornung,
there’s new fiction from Patrick Allington,
Morris Lurie, Nicola Redhouse – and plenty
more reading (and graphic) goodness.
Poetry
The Crooked Floor
T.M. Collins
Ilura. PB. $22.95
Individual poems in this
outstanding collection have
received more than 20
awards, including the Apollo
Poetry Award, the C.J.
Dennis Literary Award, and
the W.B. Yeats Poetry Prize.
Literature
A New Literary History
of America
Griel Marcus
& Werner Sollos (eds)
Harvard University Press. HB. $89.95
Literary devotees can’t afford
to miss this weighty and
deliciously lively new tome –
and neither can lovers of
American culture at its best.
Locally, The Macquarie
Anthology of Australian
Literature has been the cause
of much energetic public debate about what
constitutes our national literature this year
– and A New Literary History of America
seems set to do the same in the US. In more
than 200 original essays, this intriguing book
explores American literature in an openarmed, fantastically inclusive manner –
including cartoons, television, hip-hop
and science fiction alongside more expected
entries. Essays include Camille Paglia on
Tennessee Williams, Jonathan Lethem on
Thomas Edison, Walter Mosley on hardboiled detective fiction and much more.
An absolutely perfect Christmas gift –
or gift to yourself!
Readings Monthly Dec 09 / Jan 10 9
Dead Write with Kate O'Mara (including Best Crime Picks of 2009)
Summer Releases
Recent victory at the Ned
Kelly Awards must have
spurred Peter Corris into a
writing frenzy, as he drops the
second Cliff Hardy novel in
less than a year with Torn
Apart (A&U, PB, $29.99).
Cliff befriends a long-lost
cousin only to have him turn up dead, and
although he’s lost his detective's licence he
cannot rest until he knows the truth.
Tami Hoag ruminates on the mindset of
a deeply disturbed ten year old, the son of
a possible serial killer, in Deeper than Dead
(Orion, PB, $32.99). Travel writer extraordinaire Paul Theroux tries his hand at crime
writing with his Calcutta murder mystery
A Dead Hand (Hamish Hamilton, HB, $45),
while veteran crime writer Joe Gores tries his
hand at a prequel to The Maltese Falcon with
Spade and Archer (Orion, PB, $32.99).
I’m not normally a fan of prequels, reboots,
retcons etc., but I reckon Gores has done a
sterling job with this. Sue Grafton inches
one step closer to the end of the alphabet
with her new Kinsey Milhone investigation
U Is for Undertow (Macmillan, PB, $32.95)
– given how long she’s been writing this
series (A is for Alibi came out in 1982) the
standard has remained high.
Boris Acumen’s She Lover of
Death (Weidenfeld &
Nicolson, PB, $29.99) is
released in translation this
month, concerning the
events surrounding a scandalous suicide in Moscow and
the accompanying, equally
scandalous, suicide note. R.S. Mayer’s The
Murderer's Daughters (Little Brown, PB,
$32.99) – described by Publisher’s Weekly as
‘solid’ – revolves around the adult life of
Lulu, whose father murdered her mother
and injured her sister when she was a child.
The family of a Jewish refugee tries to find
the valuable art collection he left behind in
Europe in Robert Goddard’s Long Time
Coming (Bantam, PB, $32.95), while a
couple must go to desperate lengths to
protect their adopted daughter in C.J. Box’s
Three Weeks to Say Goodbye (Atlantic Books,
PB, $32.95).
If you missed them earlier in
the year, there are some
goodies going into small
format this month. Jo
Nesbø’s The Redeemer
(Vintage, PB, $24.95), a
tough cop drama set in a
junkie-infested Oslo, is a
ripper. Garry Disher’s Blood Moon (Text, PB,
$23.95), with its Mornington Peninsula
setting is also worth a look, as is Qiu
Xialong’s The Mao Case (Hodder Headline,
PB, $24.99), an unflinching mystery set in a
modern capitalist China still bound by
communist law.
Crime Picks for 2009
I hope my rapturous review
of Camilla Läckberg’s The
Preacher (HarperCollins, PB,
$32.99) shifted a few copies,
but if you missed my praise
the first time round I
reiterate it here. I also fell
totally in love with Craig
Russell’s stylish, funny and brutal Lennox
(Arena, PB, $32.99) a brilliant noir set in
grimy post-war Glasgow. Fred Vargas’ first
crime novel The Chalk Circle Man (Harvill,
PB, $32.95) finally got an English translation this year, and is as wonderful as I
expected it to be. All year I’ve been singing
the praises of David Rotenberg’s Zhong
Fong Mysteries (all $22.95) – Nero have
released all five of them in Australia over the
course of the year and they’re all good. Be
advised though that you really need to read
them in order. Martin Walker’s two Bruno
novels, Bruno: Chief of Police ($24.95) and
The Dark Vineyard ($29.95) – both published by Quercus) are quite enjoyable and
well worth your time, as is Peter Robinsons’
New Books Non-fiction
Biography
Committed
Elizabeth Gilbert
A&U. PB. Normally $32.99
Our special price $27.95
January 2010
The bestselling author of Eat,
Pray, Love is back with
another memoir – this time
about marriage. At the end of
her bestseller, she fell in love
with Brazilian-born Australian Felipe, like her, a
survivor of a horrific divorce.
They swore to never get married – until it
became the only way for them to settle in
the US. In the lead-up to making this big
commitment (again), Gilbert embarked on
an exploration of marriage itself and its place
in our society. The result is this witty,
intelligent book, blending historical research,
interviews and personal reflection.
Gábriel García
Márquez
Gerald Martin
Bloomsbury. PB. $35
Gerald Martin’s definitive
biography of one of the
twentieth century’s most
respected novelists is now in
paperback. It is a classic
rags-to-riches tale: a sickly
child, raised in small-town
Colombia, Márquez remains
unknown into his forties, when One
Hundred Years of Solitude turns him into an
international star. Through interviews with
everyone from Fidel Castro to Carlos
Fuentes and Mario Vargas Llosa, Martin
captures the tensions in García Márquez’s
life between celebrity and literature, politics
and writing, and solitude and love.
Samuel Johnson:
A Biography
Peter Martin
Phoenix House. PB. $45
The author of The Life of
James Boswell has turned now
to Boswell’s famous subject:
Samuel Johnson. Martin
focuses on the personal
elements of Johnson’s life: his
struggles with depression,
disease and the self-doubt
that deeply affected his life and work.
Martin fills in some of the details not found
in Boswell’s work, from his adolescence to
early life as a schoolteacher and unconventional marriage. ‘Peter Martin’s biography of
Samuel Johnson is a profoundly poignant
and eloquent account of the Western world’s
greatest literary critic.’ Harold Bloom
Small Memories
José Saramago
Random House. HB. $32.95
January 2010
Saramago’s stories are often terrifying in
their vision of human frailty, as in his novel
Blindness recently made into a Hollywood
film. In this memoir of his childhood, he
turns inward, gathering together the threads
that marked his own journey. Born in Portugal in 1922, Saramago’s early days were spent
between the tiny village of Azinhaga and
working-class poverty in Lisbon. He recalls
the joys and humiliations, the success and
failures of early life, including his determination to teach himself to read.
Vanity Fair’s Proust
Questionnaire
Graydon Carter
Rodale Press. PB. $34.99
Vanity Fair’s ‘Proust Questionnaire’ is almost as iconic as its
annual post-Oscars bash. Since
1993, well over 100 of our
age’s most notable and most
vibrant personalities have
taken part, answering the same
series of questions that began
as a parlour game invented by Marcel Proust,
who believed the answers revealed a person’s
true nature. In these pages, some of the best
interviews are featured, from subjects such as
Salman Rushdie, Norman Mailer, Lauren
Bacall, Aretha Franklin and Martin Scorsese.
Australian Studies
Quarterly Essay 36:
Australian Story:
Kevin Rudd and
the Lucky Country
Mungo MacCallum
Black Inc. PB. $16.95
Mungo MacCallum is one of Australia’s most
seasoned – and entertaining – political journalists. He is a raconteur par excellence, as well
as a sharp and canny analyst. In this Quarterly
short story collection The Price of Love
(Hodder & Stoughton, PB, $32.99), which
includes a new Inspector Banks novella.
Marshall Browne’s taut Nazi spy thriller
Iron Heart (William Heinemann, PB,
$29.99) was a sterling example of the genre,
with all the clichés and a few surprises.
Writer’s Festival guest Robert Wilson finished off his Javier Falcon quartet admirably with The Ignorance of Blood (HarperCollins, PB, $32.99) – I’m looking forward
to reading whatever he decides to do next.
The taciturn Erlandur returned in Arnuldar
Indridason’s Hypothermia (Harvill, PB,
$34.95) investigating a mysterious suicide
– I always enjoy Indridason’s books, even
if there’s a certain sameness about them!
James Lee Burke’s Rain Gods (Orion, PB,
$32.99) was a beautifully written evocation
of a desolate, lonely America. Andrea Maria
Schenkel’s Ice Cold (Quercus, HB, $24.95),
about a murderer stalking the streets of
inter-war Munich, is as chilling as its title
suggests. Finally, Anthony O’Neill’s anthropomorphised cat-and-dog crime caper
The Unscratchables (Viking, PB, $32.95),
the sales of which were boosted by a
(belated) positive review in The Age, was
really very funny and clever. I didn’t dare
to compare it to Animal Farm, but other
reviewers have.
Essay, one year on from the election of Kevin
Rudd's ALP government, MacCallum turns
his perceptive gaze on the government's performance so far – and meditates on leadership
itself in a time of major change and challenge.
He argues that the things we used to rely on
are not there anymore. On the Right, the blind
faith in markets has recently collapsed. The
Left lost its guiding light with the demise of
the socialist dream. In entertaining fashion,
MacCallum shows how Australia’s history has
been one of great illusions: endless pastures,
endless gold, a new Britannia, and more. But
while our past big visions seem to have come
undone, we need a new one more than ever.
Note that Mungo's essay is also available
as a Bolinda Audio Book ($16.95).
Journeys to
the Interior
Nicolas Rothwell
Black Inc. PB. $32
January 2010
Nicolas Rothwell continues to
delve deeply into the life and
spirit of northern and central
Australia, bringing it to life
for us coastal-fringe dwellers.
In this book, he draws on the
lives and art of indigenous
artists who transform their
natural world through painting, photography
and music. He sketches portraits of artists
including Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu,
Ian Fairweather, Noel Pearson and Galarrwuy
Yunupingu and reveals the deep connection
between the artist and their home. ‘Nicolas
Rothwell makes us see the world anew.’
– Pico Iyer
10 Readings Monthly Dec 09 / Jan 10
Q&A with
Charlotte Wood
DECEMBER 2009
Wiley s PB s $37.95
FROMMER’S 300 UNMISSABLE
EVENTS AND FESTIVALS
AROUND THE WORLD
An inspirational guide book to events
and festivals, celebrations and natural
phenomena in the world’s top cities,
secret retreats and far-flung places. Offers
practical information and insider tips, from
how to get there, to where and when to
buy tickets before they sell out.
A lost classic brought back into
print to help you change
your luck — for the better !
WHY SOME PEOPLE ARE LUCKIER
THAN OTHERS AND HOW YOU CAN
BECOME ONE OF THEM
MAX GUNTHER
JANUARY 2010
Wiley s PB s $24.95
THE LUCK FACTOR
Luck has a great influence on our lives, but
is seemingly out of our own control. The
Luck Factor takes us on a richly anecdotal
ride through the more popular theories and
histories of luck — from pseudoscience
to paganism, through mathematics to
magicians.
www.wiley.com
New from Palgrave Macmillan
I Drink Therefore I Am
A Philosopher’s Guide to Wine
Roger Scruton, American Enterprise Institute,
Washington and Blackfriars Hall, Oxford.
Gradually, under the
discipline of ritual,
prayer and theology,
wine was tamed
from its orgiastic
origins to become a
solemn libation to the
Olympians and then
the Christian Eucharist
- that brief encounter
with salvation which
has reconciliation
as its goal. Whether
or not good for the
body, Scruton argues,
wine, drunk in the
right frame of mind, is definitely good for the
soul. And there is no better accompaniment to
wine than philosophy. This good-humoured book
offers an antidote to the pretentious clap-trap
that is written about wine today and a profound
apology for the drink on which civilisation has been
founded. In vino veritas.
$49.95 Hb, ISBN 9781847065087
Publish December 2009, 224 pages
Continuum
Humanity in War
Frontline photography since 1850
Caroline Moorehead is a biographer and journalist.
Published to
commemorate the
150 years since the
idea for the Red
Cross was born at the
Battle of Solferino
in Italy, Humanity
in War traces the
history of the
largest humanitarian
organization in the
world through its remarkable photographic archive.
Part of an international campaign, these iconic
images serve to document the realities of war
and the effectiveness of the now omnipresent
Red Cross. They reveal and promote what can be
achieved when aid to the suffering is given without
discrimination. They are also a history of the
evolution of photography itself.
$89.95 Pb, ISBN 9781906523152
Publish December 2009, 240 pages
New Internationalist
Jo Case interviews Charlotte Wood about
her cracking new anthology Brothers and
Sisters (A&U, PB, $32.99).
The stories in Brothers
and Sisters were all
specially written for this
anthology. What made you
decide to commission new
works rather than
anthologise existing stories?
It was initially my publisher’s idea – Jane
Palfreyman’s – to commission entirely
new stories, and as soon as she said it, the
whole project became much more
exciting. Somehow, the writers agreeing
to write to a theme injected the anthology with an element of risk, and therefore
of energy, that I don’t think it would
have had otherwise. There was always the
danger that having agreed, one might
find one had nothing to say, so I suspect
some of us had to work really hard, pushing our work in new directions in order
to discover a way into the topic. I know
some of the writers (including me) found
the whole process much more confronting than they’d expected.
I think the commissioning of new works
also had the unexpected side effect of
giving the anthology a cohesion it might
not otherwise have had. Obviously an
editor’s personal literary tastes come
into play in choosing contributors like
this (rather than existing work choosing us, as it were, simply by relating to
the topic), so I think some common
ground between the writers – a precision
with language, a reflectiveness, a kind of
smokiness – lies beneath the collection as
a whole.
I’m so proud of this book, and proud to
be associated with a publisher who suggested taking the riskier path. It shows
how committed A&U are to new work,
and to producing a collection that we
hope will have a long life as a work of art,
not just a Christmas stocking stuffer.
The writers in this anthology represent
a terrific mix of emerging writers (like
Virginia Peters), celebrated new voices (like
Nam Le) and established favourites, like
yourself and Robert Drewe. How did you
go about deciding which writers to include?
One of my aims was to gather together
exactly this range of experience – Roger
McDonald and Rob Drewe being our
most experienced contributors, and
Michael Sala and Virginia Peters being
the newest, with the rest of us covering
the spectrum between. We wanted an
equal gender split, because we thought
men and women might approach the
topic quite differently, and I wanted to
push these writers up against each other,
which I hoped might result in some
surprises for the reader. I didn’t want
a predictable list of names, and hence
the newer writers became a particularly
crucial part of the book. But in my mind
there was only one essential criteria – all
the contributors in this book would, first
and foremost, be beautiful writers.
You deliberately asked your writers to
submit longer than usual pieces for this
anthology. What was the instinct guiding
that decision? Do you think we need more
venues in Australia to publish longer short
stories?
Yes, I do. I knew from the start that I
didn’t want too many works in this book,
because sometimes I think anthologies
can become overcrowded and therefore
uneven - quieter stories can be lost, new
writers can be ignored in the sheer volume of material. So the decision to have
fewer writers then instantly created more
space, and while we weren’t prescriptive
about it, we did ask that the writers submit longer pieces if it felt right for them,
suggesting a rough length of around
5000 words. The resulting stories range
from around 4000 to 11,000 words.
I think it’s had a very strong effect on the
work, in that they were given space to
really enter into the life of their stories
and sort of swim around in them. Unless
a writer is particularly drawn to the very
short form (such as Paddy O’Reilly’s
utterly flawless ‘Breaking Up’ in Scribe’s
New Australian Stories) my view is that
short stories can sometimes feel as if the
writer is skating over the surface of things
too quickly. So in this collection I think
the stories have a depth they might not
otherwise have, simply because there is
this luxury of space and time in which to
thoroughly explore what they’re saying.
Short story competitions in this country
mostly limit the works to 3000 words –
which automatically eliminates some of
the best short fiction we have. I’d actually
love to see someone establish a literary
prize for a short story collection, because
there are more and more good ones being published these days.
In your own story, ‘The Cricket Palace’,
you beautifully illuminate how childhood
patterns of sibling relationships endure into
adulthood and old age, with your 60- and
70-something sisters. Was that something
you wanted to explore?
Because I’d already written about siblings
in their 30s and 40s in The Children,
I worried that I had nothing more to
say. So I shifted my gaze to old age, and
thought about what it might be like
for two very different siblings to be left
with each other at the end of their lives,
when some of the other beloved people
and defining structures of their lives had
fallen away. My main character Wendy
is still defining herself, rather snobbishly,
by what she sees as her superiority to
her sister Ruth, and her difference from
Ruth. But in the end, she needs her sister
more than ever.
Many of the stories in this anthology
explore dark territory – though the overall
emotional effect for me, on finishing it, was
admiring respect for the tenacity of the sibling bond. It’s a deeply unsentimental, and
deeply affecting, anthology. Do you think
that dark thread, leavened with warmth
(and often dark humour too), reflects the
writers, their subject matter, or both?
The risk with an anthology about love
– which ultimately is what this is – is
that it can topple into sugary gush, and
that’s one of the reasons I approached
writers who each had a powerfully
unsentimental eye, whose previous work
had a smoky intensity I found riveting.
Happy stories about happy families –
well, there’s no story there, really. And it
isn’t honest. Which is not to say that the
works in this collection aren’t redemptive
– there are happy endings, and moments
of great beauty, and of deep, ferocious
love. I think the whole book, in the
end, is suffused with tenderness. The
kind of tenderness that comes after a
bruise, perhaps, but that makes it all the
more truthful, all the more interesting.
Read the full interview online at
www.readings.com.au
Humour
Free to a Good Home
Catherine Deveny
Black Inc. PB. $24.95
Ah, Catherine Deveny. No
one tells it like it is quite like
her. This third in what’s
becoming an annual ‘best of ’
series shows Melbourne’s
most famous anti-marriage
Channel Nine hater at her
very best. Here, she turns her
rapier wit on chick and lad mags, competitive parenting, religion, Hey Hey it’s Saturday
and Chadstone. But she’s not just a champion hater – there are also odes to bogans,
hard rubbish, Jon Stewart and Mad Men.
Cultural Studies
Smile or Die
Barbara Ehrenreich
Granta. PB. $29.99
January 2010
Barbara Ehrenreich is best
known as the author of the
bestselling Nickel and Dimed,
about going undercover as a
low-wage worker, reporting
back on how the employed
poor live – and its companion book, Bait and Switch,
which explores the world of laid-off whitecollar workers. Her experience in researching
these books underlies the philosophy of this
one – a savagely funny, thought-provoking
and sharply clever argument against the cult
of positive thinking. As she succinctly
concludes, behind the mantras, cheerleading
and smiley faces of motivational speakers,
self-help authors from Norman Vincent
Peale to Rhonda Byrne (The Secret), and
‘prosperity preachers’ (who counsel ‘be a
victor, not a victim’ with straight faces, while
also citing a man who was crucified as their
ideal), ‘there is always the darker message
that if you don’t have all that you want, if
you feel sick, discouraged, or defeated, you
have only yourself to blame’. After all, you
must have been attracting negative energies
with your thoughts. She also shows – damningly and convincingly – the role of reckless
positive thinking in the recent financial
crisis. A brilliant and enlightening book.
Jo Case is editor of Readings Monthly
Our Dark Side:
A History of Perversion
Elisabeth Roudinesco
Wiley. PB. $39.95
A fascinating history of
perversion in the West, this
book delves into the question
of what perversion is and
what it means. It goes
beyond standard declamations of perversion as
necessarily monstrous and
cruel to suggest that it can also attest to
creativity and self-transcendence, to the
refusal of individuals to follow the rules of
their society. Elisabeth Roudinesco studies
some great emblematic figures of the
perverse: the mystical saints and flagellants
of the Middle Ages, the Marquis De Sade,
the male homosexual and hysterical woman
of the nineteenth century, the paedophile
and the terrorist in the twenty-first.
The Infinity of Lists
Umberto Eco
Quercus. HB. $99.95
Eco’s philosophic enquiry into
the arts, through the History
of Beauty and On Ugliness, is
continued in The Infinity of
Lists. Here he argues that the
cataloguing and accumulation
of objects and ideas has been
a central endeavour of the
Western psyche that reflects much of the
Readings Monthly Dec 09 / Jan 10 11
spirit of the time: from ancient bestiaries to
the naturalist collections of the sixteenth
century, from the treasures of Gothic
cathedrals, to Andy Warhol. This beautifully
illustrated edition includes extensive artworks
and a comprehensive literary anthology.
Cooking with
Frank Camorra
Political Correctness:
A History of Semantics
and Culture
Geoffrey Hughes
Wiley-Blackwell. PB. $47.95
Political correctness, once considered to be
the basis of civilised communication, is today
most often used in a disparaging way, an
excuse to obfuscate and avoid dealing with
real issues. In this thought-provoking book,
Geoffrey Hughes charts the history of political correctness and how language has evolved
to deal with issues of race, nationality, gender
and difference from Chaucer to Coetzee, with
excursions into nursery rhymes, film and rap
music along the way: a fascinating insight
into this ongoing debate.
Politics
The Politics
of Authenticity:
Radical Individualism
and the Emergence
of Modern Society
Marshall Berman
Verso. PB. $49.95
Marshall Berman explores
the notion of authenticity:
how personal identity
evolved through history and
sparked the search for
individual ‘authentic’
happiness. He draws on the
revolutionary period of
eighteenth-century France and particularly
the works of Montesquieu and Rousseau,
where these ideas of individualism and
self-actualisation were just beginning to
emerge. He argues that their ideas of
self-identity are far removed from the
modern evolution of capitalist self-interest.
Sapphistries:
A Global History of
Love Between Women
Leila Rupp
New York University Press. HB. $47.95
From the ancient poet
Sappho to tombois in
contemporary Indonesia,
women throughout history
and around the globe have
desired, loved and had sex
with other women. In
beautiful prose, Sapphistries
tells their stories, capturing the multitude of
ways that diverse societies have shaped female
same-sex sexuality across time and place. Giving voice to words from the mouths and pens
of women, and from men's prohibitions,
reports, literature, art, imaginings, pornography and court cases, Rupp also creatively
employs fiction to imagine possibilities when
there is no historical evidence.
History
Emancipation:
How Liberating the
Jews from the Ghetto
led to Revolution
and Renaissance
Michael Goldfarb
Scribe. PB. $39.95
The French Revolution freed
the Jews from the ghettos
they had been sentenced to
for 500 years. Remarkably
quickly Jewish people
established themselves as key
thinkers, writers and artists
that would shape world
A recipe from Frank Camorra
and Richard Cornish's new book,
Movida Rustica.
Adobo de pollo
Chicken skewers marinated with
paprika and oregano
To get an idea of the intensity and
energy of the Spanish feria or fair,
imagine the sideshows from the
agricultural show you went to as a kid
and multiply that by a hundred. Thousands of coloured lights, crazy, crazy
rides, hordes of rampaging teenagers,
a cacophony of pop music from scores
of different casetas (large tents run by
local social or political organisations) –
that is the feria. It ’s an early-summer
institution in almost every decentsized town. Some of the casetas have
a portable kitchen and many serve
skewers of grilled meat marinated in
adobo – the classic marinade of herbs
and pimentón.
Last time I was in Cáceres the town
was empty; it seemed they were all at
the feria – all 82,500 of them. There I
had one of the best pinchos I have ever
had. It was a skewer of lamb, slightly
charred on the outside, moist in the
middle and redolent of garlic, cumin,
oregano and loads of sweet smoky paprika. Here we are using chicken, but
you can just as easily substitute lamb,
beef or pork.
Makes: 12 tapas or 6 raciones
Ingredients
1 kg (2 lb 4 oz) skinless chicken thigh
meat, cut into 2.5 cm (1 inch) chunks
2 tablespoons smoked sweet paprika
1 tablespoon cumin seeds, roasted
and ground
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
3 tablespoons finely chopped parsley
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon saffron threads
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
125 ml (4 fl oz/ 1/2 cup) extra virgin
olive oil
Combine all the ingredients in a large
bowl, cover with plastic wrap and
marinate in the refrigerator overnight.
Thread the chicken meat onto 12
metal skewers. Heat a charcoal grill or
barbecue flat plate to high. Cook the
chicken skewers for 5 minutes, or until
cooked through, turning regularly.
Allow to cool slightly, then serve.
Readings
special Price
This is just one of the
many mouth-watering
recipes from Frank
Camorra’s Movida
Rustica: Spanish
Traditions and Recipes
(Murdoch, HB,
Normally $59.95,
our special price $49.95), a lovingly
compiled book that highlights the
pillars of Spanish cooking, and the
culture in which the food is grown,
prepared and eaten.
Readings_DEC09.indd 1
26/11/09 2:28:32 PM
12 Readings Monthly Dec 09 / Jan 10
th Estate
Wolf Hall
Winner of the 2009
Man Booker Prize
9780007292417
Henry VIII is on the
throne, but has no
heir. Cardinal Wolsey
is charged with
securing the divorce
the Pope refuses to
grant. Into this atmosphere of distrust, only
Thomas Cromwell dares to gamble his life
to win the king’s favour and ascend to the
heights of political power.
A Woman of Seville
9780732290597
Seville in 1616 is
dangerous. Paula
Sánchez is sitting for
the painting, The
Penitent Magdalen.
Each evening she
escapes the cares of life, travelling along
rooftops with the mysterious ladder man.
By day, she is encouraged to be a mother
to the Morisco boys, who are also seeking
liberation. Does the painting hold a secret
that can truly free Paula?
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history: Marx, Freud, Mahler, Proust,
Einstein and many more that have been
forgotten. Goldfarb explores this period,
looking at how the Jewish people thrived in
a changing European economy where land
ownership was giving way to commerce and
international migration that began a new
period of enlightenment.
Anything Goes:
A Biography of the
Roaring Twenties
Lucy Moore
Atlantic. PB. $26.95
It’s an apt time to revisit the
1920s: an era of hedonism,
escalated consumerism,
exciting technological
innovations, worship of
youth and celebrity, and
fear-driven religious fundamentalism. An era that came
to a (literally) crashing end with the fall of
the stockmarket in 1929. Anything Goes
brings it all to life: glamorous gangsters,
prohibition, the birth of Hollywood, the Jazz
Age, political show-trials and the Klu Klux
Klan. Riveting and enduringly relevant.
World War II
Evan Mawdsley
Whether it’s unbuckling
your seatbelt before
the plane has stopped,
yelling ‘I love fudge!’
at a funeral or flipping
off inanimate objects,
this hilarious and subversive
collection will allow you to unleash
your rebellious side – without getting arrested.
BW\g/Qba]T@SPSZZW]\³'%/Z[]ab:SUOZ
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/dOWZOPZS\]ej>O^S`POQYj'''
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CUP. PB. $59.95
This magnificent new global
history of World War II
shows how its origins lay in a
conflict between the old
international order and the
new. It begins with the
outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937, tracing its
globalisation as it spread throughout Asia,
Europe and the Middle East. Military and
strategic history lie at the core of this
comprehensive book, but the many influencing factors (social, political, economic,
ideological) are woven into the text. It also
examines the considerable consequences of
the war, including the break-up of colonial
empires and the beginning of the Cold War.
1492: The Year Our
World Began
Felipe Fernández-Armesto
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Bloomsbury. PB. $35
In 1492, the world was
changing: the last Islamic
kingdom in Europe collapsed; a new Muslim empire
rose in Africa; Portuguese
explorers roamed the
southern hemisphere; Jews
expelled from Spain crossed
the Mediterranean to North Africa, Italy and
Istanbul; and the Aztecs and Incas laid the
foundations of a new world in the Americas.
Using real explorers Fernández-Armesto
charts this changing world and the new
distribution of power and wealth through
civilisations and religions.
The Inheritance
of Rome: A History
of Europe from 400
to 1000
Christopher Wickham
Penguin. PB. $29.95
January 2010
Christopher Wickham sees
the period following the fall
of the Roman Empire as one
of great development and
change. By showing the
establishment of new states,
from Ireland to Constantinople, and drawing on the
lives of the Goths, Franks, Vandals, Byzantines, Arabs, Anglo-Saxons and Vikings, he
examines a period of history often overshadowed by what came before and after. ‘Almost
every page is full of arresting details and
insights … illuminating even the murkiest
corners of the so-called Dark Ages’
– Daily Telegraph
The Time Traveller’s
Guide to Medieval
England
Ian Mortimer
Jonathan Cape. PB. $27.95
Jump aboard the time
machine with popular
historian Ian Mortimer, for a
personal experience of
England in the Middle Ages.
Mortimer immerses the
reader in the everyday life of
the period: the sights, smells,
tastes and real-life experiences of everyone
from landowners to peasants. ‘The result of
this careful blend of scholarship and fancy is
a jaunty journey through the 14th century,
one that wriggles with the stuff of everyday
life.’ – Guardian
Personal
Development
In the Company
of Rilke
Stephanie Dowrick
Inspired Living. PB. $35
Stephanie Dowrick, author
of Choosing Happiness and
Intimacy and Solitude,
examines the spiritual life in
the work of early twentiethcentury poet, Rainer Maria
Rilke. Dowrick enjoys the
beauty of his writing while
exploring its deep ambivalences, central to
his struggle with the nature of human
existence. ‘Stephanie Dowrick has accomplished something wonderful, bringing us
into the company of the most human of
men and into the presence of his astonishingly beautiful poetry.’ – John Armstrong,
philosopher and writer
Science
Blessed Days of
Anaesthesia:
How Anaesthetics
Changed the World
Stephanie J. Snow
OUP. PB. $31.95
Anaesthesia is a central part
of contemporary surgery but,
as Stephanie Snow reveals, in
the nineteenth century many
surgeons believed that pain
was a necessary condition for
recovery after the shock of an
operation. Anaesthesia
caused the Victorians to rethink concepts of
pain and sexuality and the links between
mind and body. It resulted in a moral crisis
that was heavily debated by doctors, clergy
and scientists. ‘Stephanie Snow’s admirable
account of the slow triumph of anaesthesia
constantly astonishes. ’ – T
­ imes Literary
Supplement
Psychology
The Red Book
Carl Jung
WW Norton. HB. $290
This gorgeous illustrated
book is the most influential
unpublished work in the
history of psychology – now
available to scholars and the
general public for the first
time. Carl Jung created this
illuminated volume between
1914 and 1930 – an extended self-exploration he called his ‘confrontation with the
unconscious’. It was here that he developed
his principle theories – of archetypes, the
collective unconscious, the process of
Readings Monthly Dec 09 / Jan 10 13
individuation. An astonishing work of art on
par with the illuminated manuscripts of
William Blake, this watershed publication
will cast new light on the making of modern
psychology.
Philosophy
On Kindness
Adam Phillips & Barbara Taylor
Penguin. PB. $19.95
January 2010
An elegant and thoughtful
analysis of kindness in
history, life and the modern
world, by renowned psychoanalyst Adam Phillips and
historian Barbara Taylor. This
deeply intelligent, highly
readable book gives a short
history of kindness, from Cicero to Christ to
now, followed by a psychoanalytic take on
the topic – how it relates to our deepest
emotions and impulses. This book aims to
reinstate kindness as an essential communal
value.
I Drink Therefore
I Am: A Philosopher’s
Guide to Wine
Roger Scruton
Continuum. HB. $49.95
Wine may or may not be
good for the body, argues
Roger Scruton – but, when
drunk in the right frame of
mind, it’s definitely good for
the soul. And there’s no
better accompaniment to
wine than philosophy. This
good-humoured book is infused with a
serious passion for wine, without taking it
too seriously. At the same time, it reclaims
the pleasures of the drink on which civilisation was founded.
Reference
The Australian
Book of Lists
Steve Barnett
Penguin. PB. $24.95
From the twenty most
popular names for pets, to
the four conspiracy theories
that just won’t go away,The
Australian Book of Lists brings
together a wide collection of
facts and figures about our
nation. With a typically
Aussie sense of humour, Steve Barnett has
compiled arcane, curious and hilarious lists
that cover Australian culture, people, places,
sport, the natural world and everything in
between.
Travel
Kevin McCloud’s
Grand Tour of Europe
Kevin McCloud
Weidenfeld & Nicolson. HB. $65
‘What the Grand Tourist
wanted was the romance of
classical literature, the
heroism and the passion of
the Aeneid and of Horace
brought to life in the streets.’
Grand Designs’ Kevin
McCloud travels in the
footsteps of some of Britain’s famous
tourists, through the greatest buildings and
ruins of Europe, as well as the brothels,
bathhouses and drinking dens which formed
the other unofficial half of the grand tourist’s
experience. This is a beautifully photographed travelogue to accompany the
Channel 4 TV series.
Media
The Wire: Truth Be Told
Rafael Alvarez
MUST HAVE SUMMER READING
Canongate. PB. $34.95
The Wire has been a DVD
phenomenon at Readings
this year – and constantly
touted by the media as ‘the
greatest television show ever
made’. Why? Well, in my
humble opinion – because,
this time, the media are
right. The many fans who agree will be rapt
to discover this satisfyingly bulky tribute to
all five series. Put together by Wire staff
writer Rafael Alvarez, it boasts an episode
guide for each series, a lengthy introduction
by David Simon, an interview with Simon
by Nick Hornby, essays by crime writers
(and show writers) George Pelecanos and
George Lippman and various others. Oh,
and there are loads of photographs and stills
throughout. A perfect Christmas gift.
Jo Case is editor of Readings Monthly
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Cartoons
SCHUMANN THE SHOEMAN
JOHN & STELLA DANALIS
Three Second
Thoughts
Matt Golding
Scribe. PB. $27.95
Scribe has developed a
reputation for publishing the
best of Australian cartooning
talent, led by their annual
collection of Best Political
Cartoons (edited by Russ
Radcliffe). Here is another
brilliant new collection
showcasing one of our finest – and wittiest –
observers of modern life. It’s sophisticated
silliness of the highest order.
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UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND PRESS
www.uqp.com.au
Art
Cubism and
Australian Art
Lesley Harding & Sue Cramer
Miegunyah. HB. $54.99
Cubism was a movement
that fundamentally changed
the course of twentiethcentury art. Termed the ‘art
of conception’ it has evolved
and been re-interpreted
beyond the limited pure
Cubism of its early incarnations. Harding and Cramer examine the
influence of Cubism on Australian art from
the 1920s right through to today. More
than eighty international and Australian
artists are featured including: Sam Atyeo,
Ralph Balson, Grace Crowley, Frank Hinder,
Roger Kemp, Godfrey Miller, Stephen Bram
and Daniel Crooks, as well as Pablo Picasso,
Georges Braque and Fernand Léger.
Van Gogh:
His Life and Work
Tim Hilton
Harper Collins. HB. $59.95
This is the first definitive
biography of Van Gogh’s life
and art, an artist who
produced almost 2000 works
in ten years. It sheds new
light on Van Gogh’s role in
modern art and his relationship with literature, including quotations from 600 letters between
Vincent and his brother Theo. Highly
illustrated and extensively researched, it goes
beyond the myths that surround the life,
work and death of this great artist, to reveal
the sensitive and troubled man beneath.
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SOUTH
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14 Readings Monthly Dec 09 / Jan 10
Art & Design
Best of 2009
with Margaret Snowdon
James Cook and
the Exploration
of the Pacific
Adrienne Kappler et al.
Thames & Hudson. HB. $75
This lovely and fascinating
book is published in
conjunction with an
exhibition organised by
the Bonn Kunstalle.
It is a rare gathering of items
collected during the Cook
voyages from diverse
collections, and consequently some
extraordinary pieces are illustrated –
makes you want to see the exhibition.
U
O
Y
IL
’T
DHROPOPINPG
Celebrate Melbourne’s passion for shopping, from the
Paris end to the corner store. This free exhibition reveals
our shopping habits from early settlement to today,
highlighting our changing lifestyles, tastes and desires.
There is something about the far/distant/exotic
past that causes a mental shift that can be
inspiring and liberating, and there have been
some excellent books in that category this year:
Don’t miss Craft Hatch at the Library, presented in
association with Craft Victoria. Indulge in beautiful
handmade jewellery, clothing and homewares by some
of Melbourne’s most talented makers.
The Tres Riches Heures
of Jean, Duke of Berry
Saturday 19 December, 11am–4pm
State Library of Victoria, 328 Swanston Street, Melbourne
Exhibition open 10am–5pm daily (to 9pm Thursdays; closed 25 Dec to 1 Jan)
SA MELBOURNE HISTORY
slv.vic.gov.au/goto/tilyoudrop
PARTNERS:
FREE EXHIBITION
11 DEC 09–3 1 OCT 10
STATE LIBRARY
OF VICTORIA
MEDIA PARTNER:
EVENT PARTNER:
SPONSORS:
Jean Longon et al.
George Braziller. HB Slipcase. $195
In this edition, the famous
medieval illuminated
manuscript is presented
as a facsimile reproduction,
with explanations
and translations.
All new novellas from six of Australia’s
top SF/Fantasy authors, including World
Fantasy Award Winner Margo Lanagan.
“Six of the best.”— Sean Williams
Meanjin ~ Vol 4, 6 68
Sophie Cunningham, Ed $24.95
In this bumper Christmas issue of
Meanjin we explore the classics, politics, fiction writing, food reviewing,
skateboarding, Michael Jackson and
much much more.
Stuff your stockings with these four standout collections
of new writing from Australia’s small presses
Unique, exciting writing and art about
music. Short fiction, poetry, essays, interviews, photographs & bonus CD of
swinging jazz and improvisation.
spunc.com.au
SPUNC represents over 70 Australian small
publishers. Check them out online today.
SPUNC
Phaidon. HB. $120
Moving onto the contemporary, this title illustrates the
fascinating diversity of
abstract painting today –
highly recommended for
anyone interested in contemporary painting.
Fashionista
Simone Werle
Prestel. HB. $59.95
Subtitled ‘a century of Style
icons’ – for once a book with
claims to style really delivers
the goods. Also in the fashion
stakes, My Favourite Dress by
Gity Monsef et. al, (Antique
Collectors Club, HB, $80)
is a quality must-have for the
person who loves high end fashion and individual style. Famous and influential arbiters
of taste present their favourite frock – very
nice. And ten per cent of sales goes to Save
the Children, a UK charity that intervenes on
behalf of children in emergencies, worldwide.
Elizabethan
Architecture
Pierre Bohan
Yale University Press. HB. $110
A new title from Yale about
an intriguing period, the
book covers many aspects
such as social structure, the
influences of both foreign
craftsmen and local history,
and the intellectual life of the
times.
Barbara Martorelli (ed.)
extempore Issue 3
Miriam Zolin, Ed, $30.00
Bob Nickas
Ammo. HB. $85
An elegant book about the
glamorously maximalist
interior designer, Kelly
Wearstler. Interiors that are
both very contemporary and
reminiscent of Hollywood
20s and 30s grand style.
George Barbier: The
Birth of Art Deco
This long-running biannual literary
journal contains haiku, poetry, short
stories, essays, interviews and reviews.
Painting Abstraction:
New Elements in
Abstract Painting
Royal Academy of Art. HB. $165
Highlighting over 300 works
from the collections of the
holy monasteries of Sinai
and Mount Athos, the
Treasury of Saint Mark’s in
Venice, and museums and
institutions across the globe,
this landmark publication
– which accompanies a spectacular exhibition – explores the artistic identity of this
turbulent empire and its influence on
European and Islamic traditions.
From the not-so-distant past:
famous reporter forty
(Walleah Press)
$10.00
Thames & Hudson. HB. $150
Doesn’t include architecture,
but even if you’re not a fan of
art deco, a stunning book,
with an illustration of the
most amazing glass tea
service you could imagine –
vorticism meets elegance.
Hue
Mark Girouard
Get Stuffed
Alistair Duncan
Byzantium 330 to 1453
Robin Cormack
X6 – a novellanthology
(Coeur De Lion)
Keith Stevenson, Ed $34.95
Art Deco Complete
Rizzoli. HB $89.95
An exhibition catalogue
from the Musei Civici
Veneziani, of the gorgeous
illustrations of George
Barbier – whose style has
probably been hugely
influential on much
contemporary fashion and
possibly interior decorating styles (when
you can get away from French provincial,
almost the antithesis of the fanciful,
decadent, stylish and wondrous world
created by Barbier).
Kelly Wearstler
The Sea:
An Anthology of
Maritime Photography
Since 1843
Flammarion. HB. $120
From shipyards to lonely
contemplation, this book
contains a beautiful and
diverse meditation on all
things nautical – fisherman,
fish, boats, storms, coastlines,
industry and photographic
exploration of the aesthetic.
Art Special Offer
Kings Way: The
Beginnings of
Australian Graffiti:
Melbourne 1983-93
Duro Cubrilo, Martin Harvey
and Karl Stamer
Miegunyah. HB. Was $64.99. Now $43.95
Kings Way tells the story of
Melbourne's emerging
underground graffiti scene.
Using the city's walls and
trains as their canvas, these
writers pioneered the
elaborate spray-paint artworks
that continue to dominate
Melbourne's cityscape. With more than 1200
full-colour images, this volume captures the
rapid changes in styles in these early years, as
Melbourne's graffiti evolved from basic tags
through to explosive full-colour masterpieces.
Best Kids’ Books 2009
Readings childrens book staff choose their best kids books for 2009
Board books
Younger Readers
Junior Fiction
Audrey’s Big Secret: Audrey Book 3
Christine Harris (Little Hare. PB. $14.99)
Another fantastic tale about a mischievous
little girl in 1930s outback Australia. In this
third book in the series, Audrey meets a little
girl whose big secret brings to light the Stolen
Generations from a child’s perspective. MM
Orange Pear Apple Bear
Emily Gravett (Macmillan. HB. $14.99)
Now in board format, perfect for young
readers. Beautiful, witty illustrations that
skilfully weave colour, objects and humour
into the story of a bear eating some fruit.
Marie Matteson is from Readings Port Melbourne
Picture Books
The Princess Who Had No Kingdom
Ursula Jones & Sarah Gibb (illus.)
(Orchard. HB. $28.99)
A longer picture book about a princess
who discovers the best sort of kingdom,
this is beautifully illustrated in colour and
silhouettes and is a real charmer. KK
Amelia Bedelia Celebration Book and CD
Peggy Parish (Harper. HB. $32.99)
Four stories about Amelia Bedelia, the
lovable maid who sometimes takes instructions rather too literally (a ‘dressed chicken’
wears trousers for example), published in nice
big print, with a CD. The perfect gift for an
early reader who enjoys a good laugh. KK
Novelty
Wow! said the Owl.
Tim Hopgood (Macmillan. HB. $26.99)
A young owl decides to stay awake and see
the world. A stunningly illustrated introduction to the colours of the natural world. MM
Mr Chicken Goes to Paris
Leigh Hobbs (A&U. HB. $24.99)
Mr Chicken does indeed go to Paris – where
he learns some new French words, sees the
sights and becomes a spectacle himself.
Holly Harper is from Readings Malvern
The Incredible Book Eating Boy Pop-Up
Oliver Jeffers (Harper. HB. $29.99)
Ingenious paper engineering adds an
exciting new element to the tale of a young
boy’s insatiable appetite for books. MM
Build Your Own Paper Robots
(Thames & Hudson. HB. $29.95)
Nothing is cooler than creating your own
personal army of paper robots. HH
Where is the Green Sheep?
Mem Fox & Judy Horacek (illus.)
(Viking. Boxed set. $29.95.)
Can’t resist the combination of this favourite
picture book for the very young and a soft,
bright green, woolly sheep. KK
Classic
Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed
Mo Willems (Walker Books. PB. $15.95)
My favourite picture book of the year. It is
absurd, wonderful and the best answer to
that tricky question ‘why not?’
Callie Martin is from Readings St Kilda
Mimi and Moochie Go Shopping
Margaret Chamberlain (Hodder Headline.
HB. $28.99)
This cute-as-pie slice of girliness encourages
the spirit of giving as much as the joy of
consuming. CM
Mannie and the Long Brave Day
Martine Murray & Sally Rippin (illus.)
(A&U. HB. $22.99)
This book about a small girl’s exciting day’s
play is by turns whimsical and familiar.
Kathy Kozlowski is from Readings Carlton
Isabella’s Garden
Glenda Millard & Rebecca Cool (illus.)
(Walker. HB. $27.95)
Lilting and iridescent.
Alexa Dretzke is from Readings Hawthorn
(Also KK)
Pilot & Huxley
Dan McGuiness (Omnibus. PB. $12.99)
Funny, quirky and slightly creepy, Pilot and
Huxley must travel through dimensions to
return an overdue video game. HH
Middle Fiction
Pig City
Louis Sachar (Bloomsbury. PB. $14.99)
The shift from being clever and a leader to
being too clever and becoming a bully is
subtly and humorously told as Laura starts
a secret club, Pig City, that eventually leads
to all out playground war with the rival gang
Monkey Town. MM
Pippi Longstocking
Astrid Lindgren & Lauren Child (illus.)
(OUP. HB. $36.95)
Cannot be beaten for fun and irreverence,
what a girl! AD
Goldilocks and the Three Bears
Emma Chichester Clark (illus.)
(Walker. HB. $27.95)
I reckon God dreamed up Emma Chichester
Clark specially to illustrate Goldilocks.
It is such a wise and homely story and
everything about her illustrations – the
heroine, the bears, the garden, the furniture
– is just right! KK
implications of her rebellion in the arena
and adds depth and consequence to a great
survival story. MM (Also all kids’ buyers.)
Arrival: The Phoenix Files Book One
Chris Morphew (Hardie Grant. PB. $16.95)
A conspiracy is afoot in the town of Phoenix
and it’s up to Luke to get to the bottom of
it. Fast-paced, exciting read. HH
The Enemy
Charlie Higson (Puffin. PB. $19.95)
Think Lord of the Flies – with zombies!
When everyone over the age of 14 turns into
a zombie-like creature, the kids must work
together to survive. HH
Running with the Horses
Alison Lester (Viking. HB. $29.95)
This book is breathtaking and moodily
illustrated. A very sensitive portrayal of the
child as the magic of the world begins to be
tempered by a sense of reality and danger.
Excellent for older children and good readers. CM
Leviathan
Scott Westerfeld (Viking. PB. $29.95)
This book made me fall in love with Scott
Westerfeld. It’s smart, funny and ambitious,
full of action, adventure and cerebral steampunk illustrations. CM
The Mysterious Benedict Society
Trenton Lee Stewart (Chicken House. PB.
$16.99)
A fantastic adventure story starring a group
of gifted orphans unravelling mind-bending
puzzles and fighting the forces of evil. MM
The Wrong Grave
Kelly Link (Text. PB. $22.95)
A delicious collection of short stories with
illustrations by Shaun Tan. Possibly the
most perfect short stories I have ever read,
this book scared me silly – and I loved every
minute of it! CM
The Adventures of Nanny Piggins
R.A. Spratt (Random. PB. $14.95)
Stars a deliciously non-PC nanny who
knows little about nannying and everything
about giving children a riotously happy life.
Eight to eleven year olds could read it to
themselves of course, but why not all enjoy
it? KK (Also HH.)
City of Glass
Cassandra Clare (Walker. PB. $24.95)
The third book in Cassandra Clare’s addictive Mortal Instruments trilogy. This trilogy
has it all: forbidden love, gay warlocks, epic
battle scenes, seriously evil fathers ... If you
like witty Buffyesque fantasy, then you will
love this book. LH
Cicada Summer
Kate Constable (A&U. PB. $15.99)
Magical. AD
The Graveyard Book
Neil Gaiman (Bloomsbury. PB. $16.99)
The inimitable Neil Gaiman at his best.
The Graveyard Book is a tightly written,
funny and creepy story of a young boy
raised in a graveyard by ghosts. LH
The Billionaire’s Curse
Richard Newsome (Text. PB. $19.95)
The best adventure, heist, action extravaganza of the year! Careful though – sleep
patterns may be disrupted. CM (Also KK)
Mostly Sunny With a Chance Of Storms
Marion Roberts (A&U. PB. $15.99)
I loved this sequel to Sunny Side Up, with its
family sagas and doggy shenanigans. Perfect
for girls right on the cusp of growing up. CM
Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson & John Lawrence
(illus.) (Walker. HB. $39.95)
Let these evocative new illustrations that feel
carved from a past of wood, tar and lantern
light bring to life young Jim Hawkins’
adventure of a lifetime. MM (Also HH)
Readings Monthly Dec 09 / Jan 10 15
Non-Fiction
Young Adult Fiction
Roald Dahl’s Completely Revolting Recipes
(Random. HB. $27.95)
All the recipes from Dahl’s books that you
never really wanted to know! My favourite
recipe is Mosquito Toes and Wampfish Roes
Delicately Fried. Sounds both delicious and
slightly frightening. CM
Raw Blue
Kirsty Eagar (Penguin. PB. $19.95)
An intensely physical and emotional
examination of a young woman searching
for control of her body and succour in the
surf. A fierce yet lyrical book about surfing and surf culture from a young woman’s
perspective. MM (Also LH)
Catching Fire: The Hunger Games Book Two
Suzanne Collins (Scholastic. PB. $18.99)
An exciting sequel to the breathless thrill-ride
that was The Hunger Games, Catching Fire
opens up Katniss and the reader to the greater
The Usborne Science Encyclopedia
(Harper. HB. $59.99)
An enormous book for the mad scientist in
your life! Complex enough to be interesting
but simple enough for even us literary adults
to understand. Ages 10+. CM
Riding the Black Cockatoo
John Danalis (A&U. PB. $18.99)
John Danalis grew up with an Aboriginal
skull on his family mantlepiece. The story
of his research to find its rightful resting
place and of his personal journey is deeply
moving. KK
16 Readings Monthly Dec 09 / Jan 10
New Release DVDs
DVD OF THE MONTH
CORALINE
Released 9 December. $39.95. Bluray $44.95
A young girl walks through a
secret door in her new home
and discovers an alternate
version of her life. On the
surface, this parallel reality is
eerily similar to her real life
– only much better. But
when her adventure turns
dangerous, and her counterfeit parents
(including ‘other mother’) try to keep her
forever, Coraline must count on her
resourcefulness, determination and bravery
to get back home – and save her family.
PUBLIC ENEMIES
$39.95. 2DVD $44.95. Bluray $44.95
The incredible and true story
of legendary Depression-era
bank robber John Dillinger
(Johnny Depp), whose
lightning raids made him the
number one target of J.
Edgar Hoover’s fledgling FBI
and its top agent, Melvin
Purvis (Christian Bale), and a folk hero to
many of the downtrodden public.
HARRY POTTER AND THE
HALF BLOOD PRINCE
$39.95. 2DVD $44.95. Bluray $44.95
During Harry Potter’s sixth
year at Hogwarts, Lord
Voldemort is tightening his
grip on both the Muggle and
wizarding worlds. Love is in
the air, but danger lies ahead,
and Hogwarts may never be
the same again.
THE HANGOVER
M15 $39.95. R $39.95. Bluray $49.95
A blow-out Las Vegas
bachelor party turns into a
race against time when three
hung-over groomsmen
awaken to find a tiger in the
bathroom, a six-month-old
baby tucked away in a closet
and, to top it all off, the
groom has gone missing.
STAR WARS TRILOGY:
EPISODES 1–3 Box set
EPISODES 4–6 Box Set
$49.95 each
JULIA
A TASTE OF HONEY
Julia is an alcoholic – an
unreliable, manipulative and
compulsive liar. Glimpsing
imminent perdition, a
chance encounter with a
Mexican woman convinces
Julia to engage in a violent
kidnapping and murder. A
uniquely unnerving, edge-of-your-seat
thriller, starring critically acclaimed Academy
Award winner Tilda Swinton.
Rita Tushingham makes her
screen debut as Jo, a young
girl who falls pregnant to a
sailor while he is on shore
leave after fleeing her floozie
of a mother. Jo befriends
Geoff, a homosexual, who
comes to her rescue by
offering to look after the baby. This blissful
state of affairs is short lived as Jo’s hateful
mother descends upon her daughter.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS:
THE DEFINITIVE TWENTIETH CENTURY ALMANAC
LA BÊTE HUMAINE
$29.95
$89.95
the internet.
Witness the most significant
events of the twentieth
century, from the Wright
Brothers’ first flight to the
landing on the moon, from
WWI to the end of the Cold
War, and from the first
automobile to the birth of
$14.99
TYSON
$34.95
Renoir’s classic film is the
story of a murderous love
triangle set on the Paris–Le
Havre mainline. The train
engineer, Lantier, witnesses
the stationmaster murder the
lover of his wife, Severine.
Desperate to flee her
husband, Severine turns to Lantier.
DEAD SET
$29.95
Yellowbeard is the ultimate
pirate: a true scurvy shyster
of the highest order and a
nautical scallywag in league
with the devil. Written by
comedy legends Graham
Chapman and Peter Cook,
Yellowbeard is a prime
example of madcap, anarchic 80s humour.
Dead Set is a horror series in
which the dead are returning
to life and attacking the
living. Curiously there are a
few people left in Britain who
aren’t worried about any of
this – that’s because they’re
the remaining contestants in
Big Brother, blissfully unaware of the horrific
events unfolding in the outside world. Until
an eviction night when all hell breaks loose ...
HOPSCOTCH
INSIDE THE VATICAN
Based on Brian Garfield’s
best-selling novel, Hopscotch
is a smart and stylish
spy-game comedy starring
Walter Matthau as the CIA
operative who knows too
much and Ned Beatty as the
new boss who vows to have
him terminated.
In this light-hearted two-part
documentary, viewers are
taken on an exclusive tour
behind the forbidding walls of
the tiniest state on earth.
From the kitchens to the
workshops, from the Vatican’s
fire department to its farm,
the filmmakers capture the industriousness
and cheer of those who work behind the
scenes to keep it running smoothly.
YELLOWBEARD
$19.99
$19.99
A long time ago in a galaxy
far, far away … the original
trilogy of the Star Wars Saga
is available in the six-disc
Star Wars Trilogy box set.
Also collected for the first
time ever, the Star Wars
Prequel Trilogy.
$24.95
$39.95. Bluray $49.95
One of the most famous
sporting figures in the world
lets his guard down after two
decades in the spotlight to
tell his remarkable life story
in his own words. Featuring
plenty of powerful footage
from his historic fights
alongside emotional and honest storytelling
from the man himself, Tyson is absolutely
riveting.
STAFF PICKS
Best of 2009
Readings DVD specialists
– Lou Fulco, Mike Paterson,
Dean Allan, Ollie Olsen and
Michael Awosoga-Samuel –
recommend the following
2009 titles: The Wire: Seasons
1–4 ($29.95 each) by far our
monster of 2009 and still
going strong; Star Trek XI (special edition
$44.95) a glorious return of sci-fi magic; The
Red Riding Trilogy ($39.95), the evil twin of
Life On Mars; Wall-E ($39.95) Pixar’s
masterpiece, In Bruges ($19.95), Pulp Fiction
meets Withnail & I; The Sweet Hereafter
($29.95) an emotional tour-de-force – Ian
Holm is brilliant; in Gran Torino ($24.95)
Eastwood shines, along with his car; Let The
Right One In ($29.95) – finally! a great
vampire flick; Mad Men: Series 2 ($39.95);
Don’t Look Now ($14.95); Withnail & I
($24.95); The Hit ($19.95); The Long Good
Friday ($19.95); Ashes To Ashes: Series 1
($59.95); Frozen River ($39.95); I’ve Loved
You So Long ($34.95); Frost/Nixon ($14.95);
Dexter: Season 3 ($49.95); Generation Kill
($39.95); Gossip Girl: Season 1 ($34.95) and
Season 2 ($59.95); and Elegy ($39.95).
RARE
TREASURES
Discover these little-seen
classics from the world’s
best directors, hand picked
from around the globe.
Influential Cinema from Around the Globe
DIRECTORSSUITE.COM.AU
Readings Monthly Dec 09 / Jan 10 17
Best CDs 2009
Readings music staff share their top ten releases for 2009
Dave Clarke
As Day Follows Night
Sarah Blasko. $21.95
This Australian singer-songwriter gets better
with every album. This is a gem.
Black Across The Field
Lucie Thorne. $29.95
Lucie has a deep, soulful, bluesy voice, warm
and intimate. Probably my favourite of 2009.
Sleeping Patterns
Jordie Lane. $29.95
From delicate folk to rollicking blues, Lane
delivers it all on this terrific debut produced
by legendary Aussie bluesman Jeff Lang.
This was also a top ten pick for St Kilda's Declan
Murphy and Carlton's Miranda La Fleur.
Privileged Woes
Oh Mercy. $24.95
New Melbourne outfit, Oh Mercy, delivers
this quality debut album with a nod and a
wink to The Go-Betweens and Augie March.
Blood From Stars
Joe Henry. $29.95
Henry has been working on his craft for
20 years now. He is a master producer and
singer-songwriter, like Tom Waits.
This was also a top ten pick for Malvern's Alice
Bisits and Port Melbourne's Ali Meehan.
Lost Channels
Great Lake Swimmers. $25.95
It’s like channelling CSNY from the 70s.
Creators of lovely harmonies: quietly beautiful.
This was also a top ten pick for Hawthorn's
Morgana Keating and Carlton's Lou Fulco,
who nominated it his album of the year:
'nothing comes close'.
Noble Beast
Andrew Bird. $24.95
The quirky Bird has released many albums,
but none as wonderfully beguiling as this
chamber-pop masterpiece.
Astral Weeks: Live At The Hollywood Bowl
Van Morrison. $29.95
His classic Astral Weeks album was performed
live in LA last year – the result is this stunning album. Sounds better than the original.
Midnight At The Movies
Justin Townes Earle. $24.95
The son also rises. Steve’s boy releases his
second album and it’s a beauty. This was also
a top ten pick for Port Melbourne's Ali Meehan
and Carlton's Michael Awosoga-Samuel.
My One And Only Thrill
Melody Gardot. $22.95
The best female jazz vocal album this year.
This was also a top ten pick for Malvern's Alice
Bisits and Port Melbourne's Ali Meehan.
To Be Still
Alela Diane. $24.95
Her neo-folk second album has been on my
playlist all year.
Roustabout
Charlie Parr. $25.95.
This is a terrific old-school raw blues album.
And he’s performing at our Carlton shop on
Monday 18 January at 6pm.
The List
Roseanne Cash. $27.95
This album of father Johnny’s favourites is
worth investigating. Helping out are Springsteen, Elvis Costello and Rufus Wainwright.
Dave Clarke is from Readings Carlton
Morgana Keating
Retrospective
Armand Amar. $34.95
A stunning 2-CD collection from this composer of primarily film soundtracks. Pieces
range from soaring orchestral to gorgeous vocal works. Includes collaborations with Lévon
Minassian (Songs from a World Apart).
Phenomenal Handclap Band
Phenomenal Handclap Band. $24.95
A great fun (and surprisingly slick) release
from this New York super-group. Loving the
mix of progressive rock, disco, electro and
psychedelia.
The Thao And Justin Power Sessions
Portland Cello Project. $24.95
Definitely a release that defies description or
categorisation; this is something that really
needs to be heard to be appreciated. Yes, it
features cellos, but one would never call this
classical music. I was getting a great reaction
when playing this in-store at Hawthorn.
Middle Cyclone
Neko Case. $29.95
There is just something about Neko’s voice
and the way she performs her songs that really
touches something within. This album is a
slight turn of direction that works admirably.
This was also a top ten pick for
Port Melbourne's Ali Meehan.
Them Crooked Vultures
Them Crooked Vultures. $21.95
This (yes, another) supergroup collaboration
from Josh Homme, Dave Grohl and John
Paul Jones is a deliciously chunky guitar-anddrums-driven album – slick, but not overproduced – that sits nice and heavy in the hand.
Morgana Keating is from Readings Hawthorn
THE PERSUADERS
COMPLETE SERIES
Lou Fulco
The Sun Came Out
Seven Worlds Collide. $21.95
Neil Finn and friends ditch the covers and
surprise with wonderful original songs recorded in a family-friendly environment.
Before The Frost … Until The Freeze
Black Crowes. $19.95
A triumphant return with a rootsier, even
more laidback feel.
Wilco: The Album
Wilco. $22.95
The most important band making music today.
This was also a top ten pick for St Kilda's
Declan Murphy.
Music From The North Country: The Jayhawks
Anthology
The Jayhawks. Deluxe edition. $36.95
At last, a compilation to remind us what
an amazing band they are. Alternate versions of some songs are better than the
original takes.
White Lies For Dark Times
Ben Harper. $22.95
A familiar sound, yet still inspiring.
www.beyondhomeentertainment.com.au
AVAILABLE ON DVD DECEMBER 9TH
18 Readings Monthly Dec 09 / Jan 10
Best CDs 2009 from Readings Staff continued
No Line On The Horizon
U2. $24.95
It has the killer single of the year and is still
delivering.
Strict Joy
The Swell Season. $24.95
The Swell Season are still romancing us long
after Once has left our consciousness.
This was also a top ten pick for St Kilda's
Declan Murphy.
Working On A Dream
Bruce Springsteen. $14.95
Springsteen is always making music that
matters. Lyrically and musically absorbing.
The Beatles: Stereo Box Set
The Beatles. $364.95
The greatest songwriters, singing the best
songs, in the greatest band to ever grace
our world!
This was also a top ten pick for Malvern's
Alice Bisits.
Lou Fulco is from Readings Carlton
Declan Murphy
Truelove’s Gutter
Richard Hawley. $27.95
Sheffield troubadour and former Pulp guitarist croons his way through a mighty and
moody set of tunes.
XX
The XX. $24.95
Four barely-out-of-their-teens Londoners drop
a minimalist pop gem. Anyone see it coming?
This is also a top ten pick for Carlton's
Miranda La Fleur.
Kingdom of Rust
Doves. $27.95
This Manchester trio delivers another sweeping, supersonic masterpiece.
Merriweather Post Pavillion
Animal Collective. $27.95
A stunning collection of harmony-drenched
tunes that continue to reward.
Recordings of the Middle East (EP)
The Middle East. $15.95
Though not a full-length album, this Townsville band produced a five-track beauty, which
was for me the Australian release of the year.
This is also a top ten pick for Carlton's
Miranda La Fleur.
Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Phoenix. $22.95
Pop music doesn't get any better than this.
This French band, who have been knocking
on the door for some time, finally kick it in.
This is also a top ten pick for Port Melbourne's
Ali Meehan.
A Strange Arrangement
Mayer Hawthorne. $29.95
This is a stunning piece of sounds-so-authentic-its-scary soul from a Detroit wonder
kid who wrote, produced, played and sang
practically everything.
Declan Murphy is from Readings St Kilda
Alice Bisits
Live In London
Leonard Cohen. $26.95
This could easily be called 'Live In Australia'
as his concerts here followed the perfection
of the UK tour. Go on – relive the exhilaration of that great night.
The Bright Mississippi
Allen Toussaint. $30.95
This is so elegant a tribute to New Orleans,
with a guest list of icons and produced by
Joe Henry, another master.
*Specially priced for a limited time only.
Design © 2009 Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved.
Sigh No More
Mumford and Sons. $21.95
A very late entry, only released a week but
I am totally hooked on the rich harmonies
and lyrics to match. Throw in a banjo and
it’s all happening!
maturity in her writing: quite stunning.
The Astounding Eyes Of Rita
Anouar Brahem. $32.95
Brahem has produced another gorgeous
work of art. I didn’t think the previous
masterpiece could be outdone, but this
is sublime. Simply mesmerising.
This was also a top ten pick for
Port Melbourne's Ali Meehan.
Don’t hurry for heaven
Devon Sproule. $29.95
A calm and soothing record. Devon Sproule
is always good and always engaging.
Alice Bisits is from Readings Malvern
Miranda La Fleur
When The Devil’s Loose
A.A. Bondy. $24.95
This is a wonderful down-tempo and poetic
indie folk album.
My Maudlin Career
Camera Obscura. $24.95
A very tender and quaint album.
This was also a top ten pick for Carlton's
Michael Awosoga-Samuel.
Dr Boondigga & The Big BW
Fat Freddy’s Drop. $24.95
Very smooth tunes – the perfect album
for summertime!
This is also a top ten pick for Port Melbourne's
Ali Meehan.
New York–Addis–London
Mulatu Astatke. $24.95
Another superb summertime album, this
features Ethio-jazz pioneer Mulatu Astatke’s
key recordings between 1965 and 1975.
Through The Devil Softly
Hope Sandoval & the Warm Inventions.
$25.95
Beautiful and well worth waiting for.
Miranda La Fleur is from Readings Carlton
Ali Meehan
Declaration of Dependence
Kings of Convenience. $24.95
The gentle vocals and sweet acoustic melodies inspire memories of relaxed days, warm
nights and the company of good friends.
The Hazards of Love
The Decemberists. $22.95
A gut-wrenching neo-rock opera with
soaring vocals, intelligent arrangements
and wicked storytelling.
Music for Men
Gossip. $19.95
The vocals are extraordinary and the music is
raw and loud: a guilty pleasure.
Confetti
Little Birdy. $29.95
This album is a slow burn, but once it’s been
on repeat a couple of times it’s an absolute
bonfire! Classic vocals, classic Little Birdy!
Ali Meehan is from Readings Port Melbourne
Michael Awosoga
-Samuel
Love is not pop
El Perro del Mar. $24.95
The confidence in her voice equates to the
Back to the River
Susan Tedeschi. $19.95
This is big, bold and beautiful, and kicks ass
like no one else can.
Soil Creatures
Grand Salvo. $24.95
This is a wonderfully introspective release
from these quiet achievers.
Rules
The Whitest Boy Alive. $29.95
Erlend Øye from Kings of Convenience delivers another slice of Norwegian toe-tapping
goodness.
Chimeradour
Jeff Lang. $29.95
Lang continues to release great music. The
opener, Two Worlds, is beautiful and Richard
Thompson’s End of the Rainbow reminds us
how good an interpreter Jeff Lang is.
Stranger Here
Ramblin’ Jack Elliott. $29.95
Can’t fault this: an excellent delivery of
classic American songs.
Michael Awosoga-Samuel is from
Readings Carlton
Paul Barr
Rivermudtwilight
Les Triaboliques. $34.95
This is an astonishing, atmospheric collection of electric/acoustic stringed instrument
pieces ranging from Balkan and African
blues to a remarkable Eric Burdon remake.
The Maker’s Mark
Tony McManus. $29.95
The world’s finest Celtic fingerpicker goes
into a custom guitar shop and does justice
to a variety of handmade acoustics and tunes
from the Celtic world.
Tell No Lies
Justin Adams & Juldeh Camara $31.95
Justin Adams of Les Diaboliques and West
African Juldeh Camara, inject electricity and
excitement into this rocking take on African
blues.
Song up in her Head
Sarah Jarosz. $30.95
This young, talented all-rounder debuts with
mostly originals in a folk/bluegrass style with
lots of mandolins.
Kali Sultana
Titi Robin. $34.95
A double concept CD blending North
African and gypsy music from acknowledged
guitar/oud master Frenchman Robin.
Music from The Atlantic Fringe
The Unwanted. $31.95
Members of Irish trad band, Dervish, have
great fun blending bluesy harmonica, dobro
and fiddle into Appalachian, cowboy and
Irish songs, jigs and reels.
Live
Guidewires. $31.95
This is a beautifully played, intricate and
varied collection of Celtic instrumentals.
On Common Ground Kevin Crawford & Cillian Vallely. $31.95
This pipes, whistle and flute duo take a break
from Lunasa for this cracking cd.
Paul Barr is from Readings Carlton
Classical CDs Best of 2009
Readings Monthly Dec 09 / Jan 10 19
Readings music staff share their best ten classical releases for 2009
Phil Richards
In Principio
Arvo Pärt (ECM. ECM2050. $32.95)
This is Pärt at his best: magnificent compositions that are at once beautiful and strong.
Handel – 12 Concerti Grossi OP.6
Il Giardino Armonico (Decca. 4780319.
$39.95)
In the sure hands of Il Giardino Armonico
Handel never sounded better.
Asturias: The Spirit of Spain
Guitar Trek (ABC Classics. 4763389.
$21.95)
This is another brilliant recording from one
of Australia’s finest ensembles.
For David
David Russell (Telarc. CD80707. $31.95)
For David is another recording of classical
guitar music from one of the best. This CD
is a pure delight.
JS Bach: The Six Partitas. BWV 825-830.
Andras Schiff (ECM. ECM200102. $44.95)
This is Schiff at his best, a beautiful recording
that will live with the listener for a long time.
Glass, Taverner & Nyman: Works for Soprano,
Saxophone & Orchestra
Amy Dickson (Sony. 88697376792. $21.95)
This is a wonderful recording from one of
Australia’s most accomplished musicians.
Phil Richards is from Readings Carlton
Catherine Koerner
Purcell: Dido and Aeneas
Teodor Currentzis (Alpha. ALPHA140.
$32.95)
So often recordings of this masterpiece are
stodgy and staid but this one is fresh, light
and heartbreakingly poignant all the way
through. Simone Kermes sings the role of the
abandoned Dido with sensual delicacy.
Monteverdi: Teatro D’Amore
Christina Pluhar & L’Arpeggiata (Virgin.
2361402. $30.95)
Christina Pluhar and her group
L’Arpeggiata get together with several
well-known classical singers (including
the wonderful Philippe Jaroussky) for a
baroque/jazz-style jam session of the music
of Italian master Claudio Monteverdi.
Outstanding.
Benjamin Britten: Folksong Arrangements
Steve Davislim & Simone Young (Melba.
MR301120. $29.95)
Anyone with a drop of English, Irish,
Scottish or Welsh blood may experience
a tear to the eye on hearing this CD, so
beautiful and poignant are the performances.
Mussorgsky: Pictures Reframed
Leif Ove Andsnes (EMI Classics. 6983602.
$21.95)
Andsnes’ wonderful recording of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition hasn’t been
out of my CD player since first placing it
there six weeks ago.
Favourite artist of 2009 goes to Gustavo
Dudamel and his orchestra The Simon
Bolivar Youth Orchestra. If only Australia
had the systemica that Venezuela has in
place. What an inspiration. I hope they
tour Australia soon. I can highly recommend the CD Fiesta (DG, 4777457,
$19.95) and the DVD The Promise of
Music (DG, 0734427, $17.95).
Catherine Koerner is from Readings Hawthorn
Kate Rockstrom
Adio Espana
The Baltimore Consort (Dorian. DSL90901.
$30.95)
My first and almost top pick would have to
be from The Baltimore Consort – their musicianship brings this long-dead music alive.
Below for Low Flutes
Peter Sheridan (Move. MD3330. $29.95)
Interesting contemporary music.
Floodplain
Kronos Quartet (Nonesuch. 7559798288.
$31.95)
Really exciting.
Piewoh
Arianna Savall (Aliavox. AV9869. $29.95)
This is a favourite, along with all the other
releases from the Savall family.
Kate Rockstrom is from Readings Carlton
Maurice Smith
Walton’s Cello Concerto
Pieter Wispelwey (Onyx. ONYX4042.
$30.95)
Both regal and lyrical. Wispelwey, always a
favourite with Australian audiences, shows
once again why he is among the best and why
the Walton Concerto deserves to be heard
more often.
Chopin: Piano Works
Maria Joao Pires (DG. 4777483. $29.95)
This patrician of the piano has brought to
us another fabulous compilation of Chopin.
This time it is mainly late works, but as
usual, with great insight and, of course, with
interpretations that challenge our idea of
Chopin – always a good thing.
Romantic Piano Concerto 46
Danny Driver (Hyperion. CDA67659.
$33.95)
Rarely have I enjoyed something so much on
a first hearing and it makes you wonder why
some of these lesser-known concertos are not
heard more often.
Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven & Wagner
Jonas Kaufmann (Decca. 4781463. $21.95)
Jonas Kaufmann is a gifted and versatile artist
and this disc of German opera arias shows
him at his best. A real surprise and a treasure.
4DVD
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Chopin Mazurkas
Vassily Primakov (Bridge. BCD9289.
$29.95)
This selection of Chopin Mazurkas from
Vassily Primakov stopped me in my tracks.
They are elegant without being sentimental
and completely convincing.
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Bad Boys
Bryn Terfel (DG. 4778091. $29.95)
This is a whole disc of wonderful stage
nasties from Opera, Gilbert and Sullivan and
musical theatre, and Terfel does it so well.
Schubert: The Collector’s Edition
Various (EMI Classics. 3858532. $69.95)
And the bargain of the year goes to this
50-CD set containing some long forgotten
gems and favourites from some great artists.
VOLUME 4
4 BRAND NEW
FEATURE
LENGTH
EPISODES
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OUT NOW
Maurice Smith is classical music buyer
for Boorondara Libraries
CLASSICAL SPECIALS
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This month we take 50% off the RRP of a
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La Promessa: Italian Songs
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