August Gleaner 2022

gleebooks

gleaner

Issue 5 Volume 29 Aug 2022

Gifts For Dad

Clear Your Calendars

Curated Selections For Father’s Day | p. 26

Events you just cannot miss | p. 14

All About

Books To Help Transform Your Kitchen Game | p. 11

From David’s Desk So, here we are heading towards an end of year that promises a bumper crop of great reading, and some dry and warm weather. Looking forward to it. What I’m not looking forward to is relocating our Glebe bookshop for six months or more, post Christmas this year. It’s the downside of the wonderful renovation of the premises which will take place over the next year. Of course it will be beautiful once it’s all done, but there’s some pain in the interim. Thirty thousand plus books and their bookcases, and all the associated points of sale and hardware have to be relocated. And you won’t be surprised that it’s proving incredibly difficult to find alternative space. If any reader of this column has a bright suggestion, I’d be delighted to hear from you.

Some other very important news: Many, many of our Gleaner readers will be familiar with the splendid contributions of Morgan Smith. And of course many of you who have been in the Glebe shop over the decades, or attended our Events program around ten to fifteen years ago, will have known her. Those of you lucky enough to frequent our Dulwich Hill shop since it opened in 2010 will know her as the unforgettable manager of that store. Morgan has been a brilliant bookseller at Gleebooks on and off for forty years, barring her Dame Nellie Melba period when she was a screenwriter. Nobody at Gleebooks has been her equal in the noble practice of hand-selling her favourite books. And the proof of her sure touch has always been evident in the level of trust in her recommendations and in her excellent judgement of a book worth reading. She has always championed good Australian writing, worked tirelessly for what she believed in, and has never been less than totally engaged with her colleagues, her customers and her industry. We salute her, and hope she keeps to her promise to keep turning up when she can, and to keep reading and recommending.

And now on to some advance proofs on my “to read” shelves that you should look forward to: “Limberlost” by Robbie Arnott (October) is brilliant. Arnott writes beautifully and this historical fiction set in north western Tasmania during and after WW2, confirms him as a young writer of the first order.

Ian McEwan’s “Lessons” (September) has a deceptively simple title for what is a deeply complex and ambitious novel, one of McEwan’s best, I think. It’s not autobiographical, McEwan insists, but this long and thoroughly engrossing tale of one man’s life navigates the timeline of his own life. His narrator, Roland Baines, at some stage says “nothing is ever as you imagine it”, but across the vast panorama from the 1940s to the present day, that the narrative traverses, we are left with the strongest sense of the “lessons” that a life lived through such extraordinary times might leave us with.

George Saunders, author of the utterly brilliant “Lincoln in the Bardo” , has a fresh volume of stories “Liberation Day” (October).

Original, wry, subversive, disturbing, masterful. Read it.

More to come next month, don’t worry.

David

Index Australian Literature International Literature Biography & Memoir Thrillers & True Crime Essays & Criticism Science & Economics Food, Health & Gardening History & Politics Events Self-Help & Psychology Australian & Aboriginal Studies

p. 3 p. 4 p. 6 p. 8 p. 9 p. 10 p. 11 p. 12 p. 14 p. 16 p. 17

Kids

p. 18

Teen Fiction & YA

p. 20

Philosophy & Culture Studies

p. 21

Art & Architecture

p. 22

Performing Arts & Poetry

p. 23

Specials

p. 24

Nimblefoot Robert Drewe

Penguin $33.00

Australian Literature

At the age of ten, and just short of four feet tall, a boy from Ballarat named Johnny Day became Australia’s first international sporting hero. Against adult competition he wooed crowds across continents as the World Champion in pedestrianism. After winning the Melbourne Cup still aged only fourteen, on a horse aptly called Nimblefoot, this already-famous athlete and jockey disappeared without a trace. A tale of mishap, adventure, chase, chance and luck.

p. 3

Highly Recommended Faithless

Alice Nelson

Hydra

Adriane Howell

Transit Lounge $30.00

Anja is a young, ambitious antiquarian, passionate for the clean and balanced lines of mid-century furniture. She is intent on classifying objects based on emotional response and when her career goes awry, Anja finds herself adrift. When she comes in contact with a beachside cottage offering a 100-year lease, she takes on more than she bargained as she discovers a presence that seemingly inhabits the grounds.

RandomHouse $33.00

Everything Feels Like the End of the World

Her Fidelity

Else Fitzgerald

Katharine Pollock

Random House $33.00

Kathy has worked at beloved Brisbane indie record store Dusty’s Records for half her life.

Lately, though, cracks have been appearing in Kathy’s comfortable indie bubble. Her friends are growing up and moving on, while she’s stuck in a cycle of record store, pub, repeat. How do you move forward? And what happens when you realise that you’ve been working so hard to be part of the boys’ club that you never stopped to wonder if you should be creating a club of your own?

Allen&Unwin $30.00

Grace Chan

Torri Haschka

Simon&Schuster $30.00

Affirm $33.00

S.D. Hinton

Christine Sykes

Ventura Press $33.00

In late twenty-first century Australia, TaoYi and her partner Navin spend most of their time inside a hyper-immersive, hyper-consumerist virtual reality called Gaia. They log on, go to work, socialise in this digital utopia as their aging bodies lie suspended in pods. When a new technology is developed to permanently upload a human brain to Gaia, Tao-Yi must decide what is most important: a digital future, or an authentic past.

The Brothers

The Tap Cats of The Sunshine Coast Through the observant eyes of Carol’s journalist niece Melissa, we meet Carol, Sofia and Bonnie whose lives have been intertwined since primary school. Their hopes, dreams, ageing, heartaches and heart mends have been woven together in a close web for decades. But hidden secrets will rock the foundations of their friendship and the destiny of the Tap Cats.

A collection of short speculative fiction exploring possible futures in an Australia not so different from our present day to one thousands of years into an unrecognisable future. Each story is anchored, at its heart, in what it means to be human: grief, loss, pain and love. These transformative stories are both epic and granular, and forever astonishing.

Every Version Of You

A Recipe For Family Three women, Stella, Elise, and Ava drawn together by impossible circumstances, will discover that the greatest comfort can often be found in the mess. A powerful and heartrending story about how food connects us and assumptions divide us – and how true family can come from where you least expect it.

This is the story of Cressida, a writer and translator, and her consuming love for Max, an enigmatic older writer - and married man. It is a passionate love story and a profound reflection on the nuances of attachment, the nature of desire, the different connections and relationships that sustain us, and the ways that we deceive ourselves and others in the hope that, finally, we can reach stumblingly towards one another.

HarperCollins $33.00

When Special Forces veteran Jake Harlow returns to the hamlet of Lorne on the Victorian south-west coast for his younger brother Tom’s funeral, he finds a sinister series of notes that suggest Tom’s death was no accident. As he gets closer to the truth, the danger becomes very real. But can Jake, burdened by scars both physical and mental, still protect anyone - including himself?

p. 4 5

International Literature

Highly Recommended

Life Ceremony

The Odyssey

Sayaka Murata

Lara Williams

Penguin, $33.00 Ingrid is a gift shop girl. Before that she was an IT technician, and before that a croupier, and before that a nursery nurse.

She has done more jobs than she can remember, she isn’t good at any of them but she’s good at pretending. Until the day that Ingrid is selected for the ship’s prestigious ‘mentorship scheme’ - a mysterious initiative run by its captain and self-anointed lifestyle guru, Keith - and slowly but surely things start to go wrong.

Granta $30.00

Electric and Mad and Brave

Tom Pitts

The Daughter of Doctor Moreau Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Quercus, $33.00 Carlota Moreau: A young woman, growing up in a distant and luxuriant estate, the only daughter of a genius - or a madman.

The hybrids: The fruits of the Doctor’s labour, destined to blindly obey their creator while they remain in the shadows, are a motley group of part-human, partanimal monstrosities. All of them are living in a perfectly balanced and static world which is jolted by an abrupt arrival. An irresistible and thoroughly satisfying novel.

Picador $35.00

Mohsin Hamid One morning, Anders wakes to find that his skin has turned dark, his reflection a stranger to him. Soon, reports of similar occurrences surface across the land. Some see in the transformations the long-dreaded overturning of an established order, to be resisted to a bitter end. This is a story of love, loss, and rediscovery in a time of unsettling change.

Diary Of A Void Emi Yagi

Anthony Marra

John Murray $33.00

The epic tale of a brilliant woman, Maria Lagana, who must reinvent herself to survive, moving from Mussolini’s Italy to 1940s Los Angeles-a timeless story of love, deceit, and sacrifice. Written with intelligence, wit, and an exhilarating sense of possibility, this novel spans many moods and tones, from the heartbreaking to the ecstatic.

Portrait of an Unknown Woman

Daniel Silva

HarperCollins $33.00

Hamish Hamilton, $30.00 Thirty-four-year-old Ms Shibata works for a company manufacturing cardboard tubes and paper cores in Tokyo. But the most frustrating part of her job, is as the only woman, there’s the unspoken expectation that Ms Shibata will handle all the menial chores. One day, exasperated and fed up, Ms Shibata announces that she can’t clear away her colleagues’ dirty cups, because she’s pregnant. She isn’t. But her ‘news’ brings results- a sudden change in the way she’s treated. Immediately a new life begins.

Matt Lacey is in a mental health facility recovering from a breakdown. In an attempt to work through a mess of conflicting thoughts, he writes, unwinding the story of his adolescence with the beautiful, impassive, fierce Christina. As Matt delves into the more agonising moments of his past, he has to learn to look directly at the pain and love that have made him who he is now.

Mercury Pictures Presents

The Last White Man Hamish Hamilton, $33.00

A collection of short fiction: weird, out of this world and like nothing you’ve read before. Mixing taboo-breaking body horror with feminist revenge fables, old ladies who love each other and young women finding empathy and transformation in unlikely places, this novel is a wild ride to the outer edges of one of the most original minds in contemporary fiction.

Legendary spy and art restorer Gabriel Allon has at long last severed ties with Israeli intelligence and settled quietly with his beautiful wife and their young twins in Venice. But when an opportunity arises to investigate the sale of a centuries-old painting, Gabriel is drawn into a deadly game of cat and mouse where nothing is as it seems.

The Seaplane on Final Approach

Rebecca Rukeyser

Granta $30.00

Mira, a young woman fascinated with sleaze, finds work on a remote Alaskan island at the far edges of the Kodiak archipelago. But the pristine natural beauty of Alaska soon reveals a wilderness of conflicted human desire and, as Mira nurses an erotic obsession, the other residents of Lavender Island are making plans and taking steps that will tear apart the island’s seeming paradise.

Carrie Soto Is Back

International Literature Literature

Taylor Jenkins Reid

Random House $33.00

By the time Carrie retires from tennis, she is the best player the world has ever seen.

She has shattered every record and claimed twenty Slam titles. But six years after her retirement, Carrie finds herself sitting in the stands of the 1994 US Open, watching her record be taken from her by a brutal, stunning, British player. At thirty-seven years old, Carrie makes the monumental decision to come out of retirement and be coached by her father for one last year in an attempt to reclaim her record.

God’s Children Are Little Broken Things Arinze Ifeakandu

Scribe Pb $33.00

These nine stories of queer male intimacy brim with simmering secrecy, ecstasy, loneliness and love in their depictions of what it means to be gay in contemporary Nigeria.

Generations collide, families break and are remade, languages and cultures intertwine, and lovers find their ways to futures; from childhood through adulthood; on university campuses, city centres, and neighbourhoods where church bells mingle with the morning call to prayer.

p. 5 p. 7

gleebooks favourites Cult Classic

Sloane Crosley

Bloomsbury $30.00

One night in New York City’s Chinatown, Lola is at a dinner with former colleagues when she excuses herself to buy a pack of cigarettes. On her way back, she runs into a former boyfriend. The next night, she runs into another ex. And then - another.

The city has become awash with ghosts of heartbreaks past. As memories of the past swirl and converge, Lola is forced to decide if she will surrender herself to the conspirings of one very contemporary cult.

The Immortal King Rao

Vauhini Vara

Atlantic $33.00

Athena Rao must reckon with the memory of her father, King Rao - literally. Through biotechnological innovation, he has given her his memories. Egocentric, brilliant, a little damaged, King Rao had a visionary idea. Together with his wife, he created a new world order, led by a corporate-run government. Athena’s future is now in the hands of its Shareholders - unless she can rejoin the Exes, a resistance group sustaining tech-free lifestyles on low-lying islands.

Brother Alive

Zain Khalid

Ultimo Press $33.00

In 1990, three boys are born, unrelated but intertwined by circumstance. They are adopted as infants and live in a shared bedroom perched atop a mosque. One of the brothers harbours a secret, an imaginary shapeshifting creature that he calls Brother.

When the family is offered a chance to move to another country, they realise they will have to change if they want to survive in this new world, and the arrival of a creature as powerful as Brother will not go unnoticed.

The Rabbit Hutch

Tess Gunty

Bloomsbury $30.00

The residents of The Rabbit Hutch come with their quirks, but Blandine is different.

Ethereally beautiful and formidably intelligent, she shares an apartment with three teenage boys she neither likes nor understands, all of them like her products of the state foster system. Until, that is, one sweltering week in July culminates in an act of violence that will change everything, and finally offer her a chance to escape.

p. 6

Biography & Memoir Empire, War, Tennis and Me

Sherpa

In this personal yet unsentimental memoir, Nobel Laureate Peter Doherty unearths the revealing and unique history of tennis and its ties to culture and nationalism. As Doherty shows, tennis and war have threaded their way through the lives of many people since the nineteenth century, in a way intriguingly unique to this sport. This is part of Peter’s story. And, as we come to realise, it is also part of the story of our world.

Changing the narrative of mountaineering books, Sherpa focuses on the people who live and work on the roof of the world. Amid all the foreign adventurers that throng to Nepal to scale the world’s highest peaks there exists a small community of mountain people at the foothills of Himalayas.

Sherpa tells their story.

Peter Doherty

Melbourne Uni Pb $33.00

Ankit Babu Adhikari and Pradeep Bashyal

Octopus $33.00

The Interpreter’s Daughter

The Boy From Boomerang Crescent

Teresa Lim

Eddie Betts

Simon&Schuster $50.00

How does a self-described ‘skinny Aboriginal kid’ overcome a legacy of family tragedy to become an AFL legend? One thing’s for sure: it’s not easy. But then, there’s always been something special about Eddie Betts.

Sometimes funny, sometimes tragic and always honest — often laceratingly so, this is the inspirational life story of a champion, in his own words.

Penguin $33.00

Lightning Flowers

Constructing A Nervous System

Katherine E. Standefer

Margo Jefferson

Granta $30.00

Taking in the jazz and blues icons whom Jefferson idolised as a child in the 1950s, ideas of what the female body could be as incarnated by trailblazing Black dancers and athletes - Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Topsy reimagined in the artworks of Kara Walker, white supremacy in the novels of Willa Cather, and more, this breathtakingly eloquent account is both a critique and a vindication of the constructed self.

A cherished family photograph, taken in Hong Kong, 1935, sets Teresa Lim on a journey to uncover her family history.

Through detective work, serendipity, and the kindness of strangers, she was guided to the fascinating, ordinary, extraordinary life of her great-aunt Fanny, and her world of sworn spinsters, ghost husbands and the working-class feminists of 19th century south China.

Little Brown $25.00 Now in PB

What if a lifesaving medical device causes loss of life along its supply chain? In this gripping, intimate memoir about health, illness, and the invisible reverberating effects of our medical system, Standefer recounts the astonishing true story of the rare diagnosis that upended her rugged life and sent her tumbling into a fraught maze of cardiology units, dramatic surgeries, and slow, painful recoveries.

Highly Recommended The Shadowy Third Julia Parry

Duckworth Books, $28.00 A death in the family delivers Julia Parry a box of love letters. Dusty with age, they reveal an illicit affair between the celebrated Irish novelist Elizabeth Bowen and the academic Humphry House Julia’s grandfather. Uncovering the hidden love triangle between novelist Elizabeth Bowen and the author’s grandparents this is a critically acclaimed biography with neverbefore-seen letters detailing the affair.

The Last Days of Roger Federer Geoff Dyer

Allen & Unwin, $40.00 Much attention has been paid to socalled late style - but what about last style? When does last begin? How early is late? When does the end set in? In this endlessly stimulating investigation, Geoff Dyer sets his own encounter with late middle age against the last days and last achievements of writers, painters, athletes and musicians who’ve mattered to him throughout his life.

On D’ Hill Many of you will already know that I am retiring this August.

It’s exciting and scary and somehow unbelievable that I have reached this age and this time. I thought perhaps that I would work forever, and I will continue to work, just doing different things. I have been extremely lucky to have a job I absolutely love and not once to have woken up dreading the day ahead.

Apart from a short-lived tree-change nearly 20 years ago, I have worked for gleebooks off and on, part-time and full-time, since 1991. To spend one’s days surrounded by books (and no, there is never time for reading at work!) is a privilege and a joy. I’ve had a variety of roles, such as the time I worked with the Law School to provide a library of hundreds of law books for a University in Hanoi. Working in customer service in the Glebe shop was often akin to being a research assistant for academics – the shop was full of eager students who are now respected academics and writers. I once quipped that academics and writers never rsvp’d for launches because they considered going to gleebooks like turning up to their parents’ house for Sunday lunch.

For many years I wrote a well-received column called Untitled for the Gleaner and later hosted the Sunday Book Club (my poodle Sunday was our mascot) where we only read Australian fiction. Many writers, including the recently deceased Frank Moorhouse, were kind enough to come and talk about their work to our small gathering. I met many generous, talented writers, academics and journalists while hosting the Events program from 2006 to 2010, a role I adored.

By far my greatest joy and perhaps the most fun, has been running gleebooks at Dulwich Hill. We’ve been open for 12 years now and the fabulously kind, warm, intelligent customers, both adults and especially the children, are what makes this shop so special. I have loved every minute of it (except stocktake). It’s a privilege to be part of this wonderful community. I won’t be leaving the area, and like the proverbial bad penny will reappear in the shop (once a fortnight), possibly in these pages and on the gleebooks website.

I am thrilled to be succeeded as Manager by the very wellread, utterly charming and capable Letitia Davy who brings a new (younger) energy and sensibility to our much-loved gleebooks at Dulwich Hill.

A heart-felt thankyou to all the staff in both Glebe and Dulwich Hill with whom I have worked over the years.

Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou to David and Roger for putting up with my - let’s just say eccentricities – over these many years. You are the best employers anyone could wish for.

Please join me at the shop for a celebration at 6pm on Friday 2nd of September. Treat it like home and just turn up.

See you on D’Hill Morgan

Thrillers & True Crime

p. 8 5

Stay Awake

The It Girl

Liv Reese wakes up in the back of a taxi with no idea where she is. When she’s dropped off at the door of her apartment, she is greeted by a stranger who claims to live there. As she tries to make sense of what is happening around her, she finds her hands covered in scribbles messages, like graffiti on her skin—Stay Awake. An extraordinary page-turner.

It was Hannah who found April’s body ten years ago, and it was Hannah who didn’t question what she saw that day.

But now she wonders if her testimony put an innocent man in prison. She needs to uncover the truth, even if it means putting her own life at risk. Because if the killer wasn’t a stranger, then maybe it is someone she knows.

Megan Goldin

Penguin $33.00

Ruth Ware

Simon & Schuster $33.00

Upgrade

All I Said Was True

At first, Logan Ramsay isn’t sure if anything’s different. He just feels a little sharper. Better able to concentrate. Better at multitasking.

Reading a bit faster, memorizing better, needing less sleep. But before long, he can’t deny it: something’s happening to his brain. Logan’s genome has been hacked.

And there’s a reason he’s been targeted for this upgrade. A reason that goes back decades to the darkest part of his past, and a horrific family legacy.

When Amy Blahn died on a London rooftop, Layla Mahoney was there. Layla was holding her. But all she can say when she’s arrested is that ‘It was Michael. Find Michael and you’ll find out everything you need to know.’ The problem is, the police can’t find him they aren’t even sure he exists, and now Layla only has 48 hours to convince the police and expose the truth. A relentless and absorbing thriller.

Blake Crouch

PanMacmillan $35.00

Imran Mahmood

Bloomsbury $30.00

Salt & Skin

The Girls Are Good

Grief-stricken over the loss of her husband, Luda Managan and her two teenaged children try to make a home for themselves on a collection of harsh and haunted Scottish islands. Luda soon finds herself condemned by the local community after publishing images documenting the death of a local child. Alienated, Luda turns her attention to the records from the 17th century island witch-hunts and the fragmented life stories of the executed women. A wonder of a book.

Martina wants to be the best gymnast in the world. But so does everyone around her.

During one week of intense competition, Martina and her teammates will be tested to the limit, and any sign of weakness can quickly spell the end. But by the end of the week, one of those gymnasts will be dead.

Every girl will do anything to win…but at what cost?

Eliza Henry-Jones

Ultimo Press $33.00

Ilaria Bernardini

HarperCollins $30.00

True Crime The Pyramid of Lies

The Ballroom Murder

Duncan Mavin

Leigh Straw

Pan Macmillan, $37.00

Fremantle Press, $33.00

The true story of Lex Greensill, the Australian farmer who became a high-flying billionaire banker with his one simple billion dollar idea, before crashing back down to earth, exposing a tangled network of flawed financiers, politicians and industrialists. A story of greed and ambition that shines a light on the murky intersection between business and politics.

A true crime story that gripped Perth nearly 100 years ago, follows Audrey Jacob who shot dead her former fiancé and was arrested in what seemed to be an open and shut case of wilful murder, until Arthur Haynes came to her defence. This is a story that demonstrated the power of the press and privilege in an extraordinary judicial outcome.

Essays & Criticism p. 9

Sibyl Recommends

Happy-Go-Lucky David Sedaris, $30.00

The latest installment from always funny, sometimes bizarre comic David Sedaris.

Provocations Jeff Sparrow

NewSouth, $33.00 Jeff Sparrow has been described as ‘one of Australia’s most crucial political thinkers’. With restless curiosity his writing takes us from ancient tortoises to the psychology of gun massacres, from queer bushrangers to Enid Blyton, and from atheism to vampires to dachshunds.

Provocations brings together his best writing from the last two decades, alongside important new work.

Ransom

David Malouf, $20.00

Malouf’s fable engraves the epic themes of the Trojan war onto a perfect miniature.

Living Democracy Tim Hollo

NewSouth, $33.00 It’s the end of the world as we know it, but it doesn’t have to be the end of the world. In fact, around the globe, people and communities are beginning an exciting new journey.

This book will inspire you, inform you, and get you fired up to co-create our common future. A living democracy.

Losing Face

George Haddad $30.00 A stunning, thought-provoking novel about facing up to your family and your future.

Science & Economics

p. p.10 5

The Age Of Seeds

If Nietzsche Were A Narwhal

The expansive story of one of nature’s great miracles - exploring not just the future of a plant, a species or an ecosystem but of our own ongoing survival. Exciting, fastpaced and beautifully told. The sleeping seed has found a powerful voice in this book, transcending history and geography, in a rip-roaring tale of human endeavour to feed, clothe and cure a human population of nearly 8 billion people.

What if human intelligence is actually more of a liability than a gift? A dazzling, delightful read on what animal cognition can teach us about our own mental shortcomings. In seven mind-bending and hilarious chapters, this book highlights features seemingly unique to humans - and compares them to our animal brethren. What emerges is both demystifying and remarkable, and will change how you look at animals, humans, and the meaning of life itself.

Justin Gregg

Fiona McMillan-Webster

Thames&Hudson $35.00

H&S $33.00

Sweet In Tooth and Claw

The Compact Australian Bird Guide

Kristin Ohlson

Scribe Pb $33.00

Sweet in Tooth and Claw explores the subtle ways in which nature is in constant collaboration to the betterment of all species. From the bear that discards the remainders of his salmon dinner on the forest ground, to the bright coral reefs of Cuba, Ohlson shows readers not only the connectivity lying beneath the surface in natural ecosystems, but why it’s vital for humans to incorporate that understanding into our interactions with nature, and also with each other.

Various Authors

CSIRO Pb $35.00

Water Always Wins

Einstein’s Fridge

A journey through time and around the world to uncover water’s true nature, and how it can help us adapt to climate change.

Award-winning science journalist Erica Gies follows water ‘detectives’ as they search for clues to water’s past and present. Using cutting-edge science and research they discover a deeper understanding of what water wants and how accommodating nature can protect us and other species.

The laws of thermodynamics govern everything from the behaviour of atoms to that of living cells, from the engines that power our world to the black hole at the centre of our galaxy. Einstein’s Fridge tells the story of how scientists uncovered the least known and yet most consequential of all the sciences, and learned to harness the power of heat and ice.

Erica Gies

Apollo $40.00

An easy-to-use and beautifully illustrated quick identification guide to all bird species regularly occurring in Australia.

It will appeal to both the beginner and experienced birdwatcher, and includes up-to-date species descriptions, distribution maps, illustrations and quick guide comparison pages for major groups.

Paul Sen

HarperCollins $23.00 Now in B-Format

Highly Recommended Girls That Invest Simran Kaur

John Wiley, $30.00 Ever wondered how on earth the stock market works, but felt too intimidated to ask “those” questions? This book is your invitation to join the thriving community of women who are building a better financial future. Understand the stock market and different types of investments grow your money, beat inflation and secure your future. Decode the jargon around markets, diversification, earnings and more. Put it all together, step-bystep, and start your investment portfolio.

The Hidden Kingdom of Fungi Keith Seifert

UQP, $33.00 Fungi are essential to all life on Earth and yet fungal diseases and toxins lead to over one million deaths each year. This compelling book from esteemed mycologist Keith Seifert ventures into our homes, bodies, farms and forests, and urges us to better understand our relationship with fungi, while revealing their world in all its beautiful complexity.

Persiana Everyday

Food, Health & Gardening

Sabrina Ghayour

Octopus $40.00

The all-new collection of more than 100 crowd-pleasing recipes for everyday eating!

Designed to ensure maximum flavour with the greatest of ease - including no-cook, quick-prep, quick-cook and one-pot dishes, Persiana Everyday is full of generous, inviting and delicious recipes to cook again and again for family and friends.

p. 11

Kitchen Essentials Cook

Karen Martini

Meat-Free Mexican Thomasina Miers

H&S $55.00

Heap flavour onto your plates and fill your kitchen with Tommi’s Mexican-inspired vegetarian and vegan recipes. Celebrating fresh, seasonal vegetables, earthy pulses and bold herbs, this is an enticing collection of recipes that are simple enough to cook every day and delicious enough to cook for feasts, with seasonal and dairy-free swapins to cater for every month and diet.

Hardie Grant $100.00

Girly Drinks

The Smart Veggie Patch

Mallory O’Meara

Terry Memory

H&S $30.00

Terry Memory built his veggie patch for his family of eight after surviving the Black Saturday bushfires. Determined to become more self-reliant in this era of unpredictable weather events and worsening health he designed a system that combines ancient agrarian traditions with the latest in science and technology to deliver massively increased yields while radically reducing workload.

Hurst Pb $35.00

Julia Busuttil Nishimura

Dr. Norman Swan

Hachette $35.00

PanMacmillan $45.00

Jamie Oliver

Jessica Lerchenmuller

Grub Street $45.00

Julia Busuttil Nishimura always knows the right dish for the occasion, weather or time of day. With recipes ranging from quick, flavourful meals for busy weeknights to simply indulgences for summer feasts, this cookbook perfectly matches dishes to time and place. Whether you’re having a solo slow Sunday, or a busy afternoon with guests, you’ll be equipped with the best recipes for any occasion!

One: Simple One-Pan Wonders

Vegan Buddha Bowls The first cookbook full of Buddha bowls without animal products. With over 50 recipes for breakfasts, salads, bowls for during the week, dinner and dessert bowls from smoothie bowls to stews and sweet bowls. This brings the vegan kitchen into the spotlight with a diverse selection full of essential nutrients, fresh ingredients and aromatic spices.

Strawberry daiquiris. Skinny martinis. Vodka sodas with lime. These are the cocktails that come in sleek-stemmed glasses, bright colours and fruity flavours — these are the Girly Drinks. But when exactly did drinking become a gendered act? And why have bars long been considered ‘places for men’ when, without women, they might not even exist? Girly Drinks unveils an entire untold history of alcohol that celebrates women.

Around The Table

So You Want To Live Younger Longer?

Deeply researched and written with Dr Norman Swan’s trademark wit, common sense and accessibility, this book brings together quick takeaway messages backed up by the science and evidence. No matter your age, Norman Swan’s work disentangles an individual’s ‘Book of Life’ and reveals the much awaited answer for those who seek eternal youth. We can live younger, longer - at any age - we’ve just got to know what to do.

Karen Martini shares a lifetime of cooking, eating and learning about food. This is an essential collection of more than 1000 recipes, from old favourites to brilliant new dishes. This deeply personal book bursts with dishes reflecting the richly diverse world of food. Karen’s unrivalled understanding of how we eat today will delight experienced home cooks and newcomers alike. It’s time to cook!

Penguin $55.00

Quick and easy meals are even simpler when you cook with just one pot, pan or tray. And with each recipe using eight ingredients or fewer, requiring minimal prep (and washing up), they offer maximum convenience. ONE is packed with budget-friendly dishes you can rustle up any time- delicious work from home lunches, quick dinners the whole family will love, meals to get novice cooks started.

History & Politics

p. p.12 5

The Glass Wall

Captives

Jarrod Shanahan

Bloomsbury $30.00

Captives combines a thrilling narrative account of Rikers Island’s descent into infamy with a dramatic retelling of the last seventy years of New York and American politics from the vantage point of its jails. It is a story of a crowded field of contending powers, of city bureaucrats and unions, black power activists and correction offices, crooked cops and elected leaders, who struggle for the right to run the city. A story that culminates in the triumph of the twin figures we today call neoliberalism and mass incarceration.

Max Egremont

Few countries have suffered more from the convulsions and bloodshed of twentiethcentury Europe than those in the eastern Baltic. This book features an extraordinary cast of characters – contemporary and historical, foreign and indigenous – who have lived and fought in the Baltic and Picador made the atmosphere of what was often $20.00 Now in B-Format thought to be western Europe’s furthest redoubt. This journey to the edge of Europe mixes history, travelogue and oral testimony to spellbinding and revelatory effect.

Rigged

Paul Frijters and Cameron K. Murray

Toxic

Dan Kaszeta

Hurst Pb $35.00 Now in PB

Toxic is the first comprehensive history of nerve agents, tracing the spread of these terrible weapons from their Nazi origins to Russia’s 2018 deployment of Novichok in Britain. The deadliest means of chemical warfare yet developed, the first militarygrade nerve agents were synthesised in Nazi Germany, with a massive industrial enterprise built for their manufacture. Toxic recounts the grisly history of these weapons of mass destruction: a deadly suite of invisible, odourless killers.

Time’s Monster

Allen&Unwin $33.00

Australia has become one of the most unequal societies in the Western world, when just a generation ago it was one of the most equal. This is the story of how networks of Mates have come to dominate business and government, robbing ordinary Australians. Every hour you work, thirty minutes of it goes to line the Mates’ pockets rather than your own. Mates in big corporations, industry groups, government departments, the halls of parliament and the media skew the system to suit each other.

Rigged uncovers the pattern of political favours, grey gifts and information-sharing that has been allowed to build up over two decades.

Priya Satia

For generations, British thinkers told the history of an empire whose story was still very much in the making. While they wrote of conquest, imperial rule in India, the Middle East, Africa, and the Caribbean was consolidated. Satia makes clear that Penguin Press historical imagination played a significant role in the unfolding of empire. History $25.00 Now in B-Format emerged as a mode of ethics in the modern period, endowing historians from John Stuart Mill to Winston Churchill with outsized policymaking power.

Tutankhamun’s Trumpet Toby Wilkinson

Picador $37.00

On 26 November 1922 Howard Carter first peered into the newly opened tomb of an ancient Egyptian boy-king. Acclaimed Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson takes a unique approach to a well-worn subject. Instead of concentrating on the oft-told story of the discovery, or speculating on the (brief) life and (fractious) times of the boy-king, Wilkinson takes the objects buried with the king as the source material for a wideranging, detailed portrait of ancient Egypt – its geography, history, culture and legacy.

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The Lighthouse of Stalingrad Iain MacGregor

Little Brown $33.00

The sacrifices that enabled the Soviet Union to defeat Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941-45 are sacrosanct. The foundation of their eventual victory was laid during the battle for the city of Stalingrad, resting on the banks of the river Volga. This book will shed fresh insight on this iconic battle through the prism of the men who fought one another over five months and the officers who commanded them.

Sisters In Resistance Tilar J. Mazzeo

Scribe Pb $35.00

The extraordinary true story of how three women - a fascist’s daughter, a German spy, and an American socialite - raced against Hitler’s SS to get key evidence into the hands of the Allies. Containing all the detailed twists and turns of a spy thriller, this is the story of three women, each faced with unbearable pressures and weighty moral questions, whose lives were drawn together in one of the most unlikely rescues of World War II.

History & Politics p. 13 Visiting Immigration Detention Michelle Peterie

Michelle Peterie’s revealing research offers a fresh angle on the human costs of immigration detention. Drawing on over 70 interviews with regular visitors to Australia’s onshore immigration detention facilities, this book bears important witness to Australia’s Bristol Uni Press onshore immigration detention system, and offers internationally relevant insights on $60.00 immigration, deterrence and the politics of solidarity.

We, the Opressors Dr. Jack Davy

Black Lives, White Law Russell Marks

La Trobe Uni Press $35.00

How and why Australia’s legal system fails Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Indigenous Australians are the most incarcerated people on the planet.

Featuring vivid case studies and drawing on a deep sense of history this groundbreaking book investigates Australia’s incarceration epidemic. What do we see if the institutions of Australian justice receive the same scrutiny they routinely apply to Indigenous Australians?

Enough

Harriet Johnson

HarperCollins $30.00

From barrister Harriet Johnson, Enough lays bare the appalling status quo of abuse against women in our society, offering an irrefutable case for why change is needed in policing and justice. Most vitally, it also gives a manifesto for how to get there. Addressing misogyny is to everyone’s benefit and the answers aren’t simple. Enough is the call to arms we can – and must – all get behind.

Quercus $35.00

August In Kabul Andrew Quilty

As night fell on 15 August 2021, the Taliban entered Kabul, capital of Afghanistan.

August in Kabul is the story of how America’s longest mission came to an abrupt and humiliating end, told through the eyes of Afghans whose lives have been Melbourne Uni Pb turned upside down— a young woman who harbours dreams of a university education; $35.00 a presidential staffer and a prisoner in the notorious Bagram Prison who suddenly finds himself free.

Killer In The Kremlin John Sweeney

Why We Fight

Christopher Blattman

Penguin $33.00

Around the world there are millions of hostile rivalries at any given moment and yet only a tiny fraction erupt into prolonged fighting. Most books on conflict forget this.

So in those rare instances of war, what broke down and kept the sides from compromise?

Drawing on the latest research in behavioural economics, this book presents five causes of wars and two ways to stop them.

An eye-opening book about how societies are designed to support the status of those in power at the destructive expense of those without it. The stories in this remarkable book illustrate the key factors that allow societies to create and sustain oppressive systems. Some are historical. Others have played out right before our eyes over the last decade. All are rooted in the systems in which we all participate. Together they represent the layers of systematic, often insidious oppression that make up the world today.

Random House $35.00

A gripping and explosive account of Vladimir Putin’s tyranny, charting his rise from spy to tsar, exposing the events that led to his invasion of Ukraine and his assault on Europe. Award-winning journalist John Sweeney takes readers from the heart of Putin’s Russia to the killing fields of Chechnya, to the embattled cities of an invaded Ukraine. This book shines a light on Putin’s rule and poses urgent questions about how the world must respond.

Join leading Australian and international authors, thinkers, and speakers in an

Aug Monday 1 Aug

engaging discussion of their work. All events take place upstairs at 49 Glebe Point Road.

Book launches are free and open to the public. Our Literary Events are $12 & $9 concession (pensioner/student) and free to gleeclub members – though bookings are still required, as popular events do sell out. Weekday events generally commence at 6pm for 6.30pm, and weekend events at 2.30pm for 3pm. Places are unreserved, so arrive a little early if you require a particular seat.

Tuesday

Wednesday

2 Aug

Queer Literature Book Club

15 Aug No Events on Monday

22 Aug No Events on Monday

29 Aug No Events on Monday

E

3 Aug The Summertime of our Dreams by Michael Pascoe

No Events on Monday

8 Aug

Thursday

9 Aug

Right Here Right Now: 6 for 6:30 with Natalie Isaacs

E

16 Aug Bruce New Date by Bruce J Watson

23 Aug AUE with Becky Manawatu

E

30 Aug Take a bow, Noah Mitchell by Tobias Madden

Purchase of tickets are mandatory for events marked with E.

10 Aug

Australia’s China Odyssey with James Curran

E

17 Aug

Rigged: 6 for 6:30 with Ross Gittens

E

24 Aug Dateline Jerusalem: 6 for 6:30 with Daniel Mulino

E

31 Aug

4 Aug

Zoom Event - The Penalty is Death: with Barry Jones

E

11 Aug

Am I Black Enough For You with Anita Heiss

E

18 Aug

Mr Caver’s Whale: 6 for 6:30 with Lyn Hughes

E

25 Aug Safety Net with Daniel Mulino

E

Bookings are essential for both free and ticketed events, so we can staff and cater the event appropriately. Phone 02 9660 2333 or book online on our website.

Events p. 15

An order confirmation will be emailed immediately upon completion of your booking; please bring a copy as proof of your booking, as we do not issue physical tickets. For virtual (zoom events) we send a Zoom link to all registered attendees by late morning on the day of the event.

Friday

Saturday 6 Aug

5 Aug

Kids Event at 2PM: What About Thao launch by Oliver Phommavanh

In The Shadow of the Palms by Sophie Chao

12 Aug Living Democracy: 6 for 6:30 with Tim Hollo

E

13 Aug

Kids Event at 2PM: Finding You with Robert Vescio and Hannah Sommerville

19 Aug

Her Fidelity with Katherine Pollock

Burnt Out: 6 for 6:30 with Victoria Brookman

20 Aug

Sunday 7 Aug The Carnival is Over by Greg Woodland

14 Aug

Time and Tide in Sarajevo: Book Launch

by Bronwyn Birdsall

21 Aug

E

26 Aug

E

27 Aug

Kids Event at 2PM: The Heartbeat Of The Land launch with Taanya Harricks

28 Aug

Upcoming In September 1/9

Sisters in Crime Event

18/9

7/9

Curlews on Vulture Street launch

by Daryl Jones Wilderness Society Launch

21/9 Growing Into Autism: 6 for 6:30 with Sandra

8/9

13/9 Farm: The Making of A Climate Activist 6 for 6:30 with Nicola Harvey

Lyn Drummond launches Painters, Philosophers and Poets Sustain a Seven Year Cycle.

Thom-Jones

Self-Help & Psychology

p.p.165

Highly Recommended Relationship Reset Lissy Abrahams

PanMacmillan $35.00

Why do we fight most with those we love best? Australian relationship therapist List Abrahams provides practical, evidencebased tools to help you: - understand what affects adult relationships - identify your blind spots, defence mechanisms and triggers - and recognise them in others - become aware of patterns in conflict, and learn new ways to respond to distress - developing a more trusting, intimate and stable relationship.

Legitimate Sexpecatation Katrina Marson

Scribe Pb $33.00

Katrina Marson exposes the limits of the criminal justice system and the fault lines in our society when it comes to sex, sexuality, and relationships.

Through storytelling that moves between heartbreak and hope, Marson makes the case for a cultural shift towards valuing sexual wellbeing and preventing sexual violence in the first place.

Building A Second Brain Tiago Forte

Allen&Unwin $33.00

Discover the full potential of your ideas and make powerful, meaningful improvements in your work and life.

This eye-opening and accessible guide shows how you can easily create your own personal system for knowledge management, otherwise known as a Second Brain. From identifying good ideas, to organising your thoughts, to retrieving everything swiftly and easily, it puts you back in control of your life and information.

So Much For Love Sophie Lambda

Papercutz $50.00 Graphic Novel

Sophie had always been cynical about love—until she meets Marcus. The beginning of their relationship was a whirlwind romance, but over time she finds herself on uneven footing. Part graphic memoir, part self-help, this book guides readers with honesty and humour through the disorienting spiral of a toxic relationship and offers a clarifying and empathetic point of view.

Reid All About It

It is true that if one lives long enough, explanations and discoveries of certain historical mysteries that one has wondered about – sometimes for decades – are eventually revealed and explained.

In March, HMS Endurance - the lost ship of Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton (1874-1922) – was discovered, in an astonishing state of preservation, 3 km (10 000 ft) down at the bottom of the Weddell Sea. Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition set out to make the first land crossing of Antarctica. This was abandoned when Endurance was trapped and sunk by sea ice in November 1915.

There followed an epic survival journey. In three lifeboats, the 28-man crew made a five-day sea journey to Elephant Island, where a makeshift camp was established. Shackleton and five others then set out on a 1300 km (800mile) journey across savage seas in a small whaling boat to reach aid on South Georgia Island.

Polar explorer Ranulph Fiennes has followed in his hero’s footsteps and written a biography: Ranulph Fiennes– Shackleton (2022) $25.00 An earlier, elegantly written work is Roland Huntford – Shackleton (1985), $29.99.

For Shackleton’s account, first published in 1919: South: The Illustrated Story of Shackleton’s Last Expedition 1914-1917 (2019) $49.99. This edition contains images by Australian Frank Hurley, the expedition’s official photographer.

Between 1346 and 1353, a bubonic plague pandemic known as The Black Death ravaged Eurasia, killing 60% of the population, including some 50 million Europeans. But where were its origins? In June, this scientific mystery was finally solved with the news that archaeologists and scientists using DNA analysis discovered the plague bacterium (Yersinia pestis) at two ancient graveyards in Tian Shan Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia. Therefore, I recommend: Philip Ziegler – The Black Death (1969, 1997) $37.00 In his Preface to the 1997 edition, the author presciently notes: “But if another plague…were to sweep across the world, people would not react very differently. There would be the same mixture of cowardice and heroism, panic and resignation, selfishness and self-sacrifice. An immeasurable chasm stretches between the fourteenth century and today, but the more one studies the medieval chronicles, the more convinced one is that human nature remains the same.”

Another mystery I hope to see resolved in my lifetime; where – on Mt. Everest - is the body of Andrew Irvine?

In June 1924, Irvine (1902-24) and George Mallory (1886-1924) attempted an ascent. Setting off on 8 June 1924 from their summit camp – Camp VI at 26 250 ft (8000m) - they were last sighted by teammate Noel Odell at 12.50 pm, just 800 ft (245m) from the summit – “going strongly for the top.”

In 1933, Irvine’s ice axe was found on a ridge at 27 700 ft (8443m). Mallory’s body was discovered in 1999 at 26 900 ft (8200m). Just 650 ft (200m) from Camp VI. He was roped and had fallen on the descent.

Irvine was carrying the Vest Pocket Kodak (VPK) camera that would resolve the question of whether they reached the summit decades before Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay.

In 2019, veteran mountaineer Mark Synnott went up the treacherous North Face to search for him.

Mark Synnott - The Third Pole: My Everest Climb to Find the Truth about Mallory and Irvine (2022) $25.00.

- Stephen Reid

What we’re reading in August ...

Australian & Aboriginal Studies p. 17

The Scrap Iron Flotilla 'This original story of hers is an absolute joy.'

David Walliams

A uniquely narrated, moving story about a young refugee trying to find his place in the world

No Words Maryam Master

‘A moving and beautifully observed story of the tortures of youth. Quite wonderful.'

Nick Cave

When the Second World War broke out, the British asked Australia for help. With some misgivings, the Australian government sent five destroyers to beef up the British Royal Navy in the Mediterranean. They were old ships, small with worn-out engines, a load of scrap iron. Yet, these destroyers were valiantly escorting troops, hunting submarines, and beating all odds. This is the story of the Australian flotilla, which is now an immortal part of the naval legend.

Growing Up Wiradjuri

A technicolour story about the soaring joy and numbing nightmare of being young and hopelessly in love.

Edited by Anita Heiss

Magabala Books, $25.00

Electric and Mad and Brave Tom Pitts 'An incredible leader who has challenged the limits of mindset and belief.’

Kurt Fearnley

Even the most difficult journeys can take us somewhere beautiful.

Stronger Dinesh Palipana 'I love Ostro – real food and life-enhancing.’

Nigella Lawson

Recipes ranging from quick, flavourful meals for busy weeknights to simple indulgences for summer feasts.

From the bestselling author of Ostro.

Around the Table Julia Busuttil Nishimura

Mike Carlton

Random House, $35.00

Investing in Australian authors and stories Love talking about books?

Find us online at Pan Macmillan Australia

A collection of personal stories by Wiradjuri Elders. In a strong collective voice, they share their difficulties and talk about the values that were imparted to them by staunch parents and grandparents, about what it means to come from a family where everyone takes care of each other during hard times, and the work they have done to build stronger communities.

Motherlands Amaryllis Gacioppo

Bloomsbury, $30.00 In a world built by human migration, an Australian returns to her ancestral home of Italy in search of the meaning of belonging. Weaving memoir and cultural history through modern political history, examining notions of citizenship, memory and the very notion of home, this book heralds the arrival of a major talent that opens one’s eyes to new ways of seeing.

The Shipwreck Larry Writer

Allen&Unwin, $35.00 Built to carry passengers in speed and luxury on the long route from Britain to Australia, the Dunbar became one of the the greatest maritime disasters. This is the masterfully told story of the Dunbar. Following the personal stories of its crew, the passengers and the sole survivor, James Johnson, it brings to life the world of sail and the tragedy that changed the colony forever.

p. 18

Kids I’m a Dirty Dinosaur Hide & Seek

Janeen Brian

Penguin, $17.00

A delightful new board book featuring everybody’s favourite muddy little dinosaur! With a ton of instant appeal and perfect energy for the pre-school age group, this joyous book for very young children has a wonderful interactive seekand-find theme.

Check out more events on page 14! For further details on all kids events, visit our website: www.gleebooks.com.au

We have a busy day on Saturday, 13th of August with 2 exciting events. At 2pm we have a story party for Robert Vescio and Hannah Sommerville’s new picture book Finding You. From 4pm we have the fabulously fun Deborah Abela joining us for bookclub to talk about her brilliant new middle grade, The Book of Wondrous Possibilities. Join us for some drawing, acting, and delicious slice of cake!

All bookclubbers are welcome, but our younger crew will especially enjoy!

Board Books

Ages 0-2

All events are free but bookings are essential. To book a spot or for more details, contact rachel@gleebooks.com.au

o A glimpse int our events!

Kids’ NonFiction

Calling all of our bookworms to share their favourite reads! We want to feature more of our wonderful book clubbers in our Gleaner magazine, so if you’ve got a book you’d love to review or if you want to write about an author visit, send us an email on rachel@gleebooks.com.au! We have exciting giveaways waiting for you!

This Is Our World

Wild Things

PanMac, $20.00

Hardie Grant, $30.00

Tracey Turner

A colourful celebration of our planet’s cultural and environmental diversity – an unforgettable journey that brings the people, customs and wildlife of twenty places around the world vividly to life for young readers.

Sally Rippin

This extraordinary book for parents is about how we learn to read and what can happen if we don’t, through the eyes of a parent who started out by doing everything the wrong way.

Picture Books Ages 2- 5

Children’s Fiction Ages 8- 12

A Job for Kingsley

The Book of Wondrous Possibilities

Gabriel Evans

Hardie Grant, $25.00

Deborah Abela

Kingsley has decided to get a job. This is not a decision to be taken lightly.

After all, a job is a BIG responsibility.

But finding the right kind of job is much harder than Kingsley expected.

Will Kingsley ever find a job that is exactly right?

Penguin, $17.00 Arlo Goodman lives with his Uncle Avery in a run-down flat above their bookshop. He has no friends, except for his pet mouse, Herbert. But when a girl called Lisette bursts into the shop and begs him to hide her from a murderer, Arlo’s life changes forever. A magical and delightful story!

I Remember

Jeanne Willis & Raquel Catalina (Ill)

Nosy Crow, $25.00 A celebration of the unforgettable love between a grandparent and grandchild, proving that even though the mind can sometimes forget, the heart will always remember.

This is a poignant story full of love and gentle humour to help young children understand dementia.

Paper Boat, Paper Bird

David Almond & Kristi Beautyman (ill)

Hachette, $23.00 Mina journeys to Japan and discovers the wonders of the world around her. Everything is strange and beautiful. Mina watches as a woman folds a piece of paper into an origami boat, then floats it over to her. As Mina discovers the magic of origami, her eyes are opened to the wonders of the real city around her.

Kitsy Bitsy’s Noisy Neighbours Polly Faber & Melissa Crowton (ill)

Nosy Crow, $25.00 The animals of Park View Rise all love their high-rise home. It’s peaceful, calm and quiet - no one here would cause a riot... But when Honky Tonk sings much too loudly, well, all hell breaks loose! Luckily, Kitsy Bitsy arrives just in time to teach her neighbours about the importance of kindness.

gleebooks winter reading bingo!

Ella and the Waves Britta Teckentrup

Hachette, $25.00 A beautiful and timely story of how one girl, Ella turns fear into courage with the help of a friendly whale. With the kindness of a small white bird, a lesson from a pod of porpoises and the support of a gentle whale, Ella finds her courage and discovers she was never alone.

A BOOK THAT MAKES YOU LAUGH

A BOOK ABOUT A REAL PERSON

A BOOK WITH A BLUE COVER

A BOOK WITH THE WORD "BRAVE" IN THE TITLE

A BOOK ABOUT ANIMALS

A BOOK ABOUT KINDNESS

Knight Owl

Christopher Denise

Hachette, $25.00 Since the day he hatched, Owl dreamed of becoming a real knight.

When Owl is faced with the ultimate trial-a daunting duel with a frightening intruder, he uses his his sharp nocturnal instincts to save the day!

Full of wordplay and optimism, this surprising display of bravery proves that cleverness (and friendship) can rule over brawn.

Teen Fiction & YA

p. p.20 5

gleebooks favourites

Better known for her Dr. Ruth Galloway books, this new book is a bit of a change for Griffiths.

Months after Jess escaped from the set of Stuck in the ‘90s, the nostalgic reality show she believed was her real life, the teen star is getting to know the outside world for the first time. But she can’t outrun her fictional life forever-or the media empire, Life-Like that owns it. To expose the truth, Jess must go back to the set and take Like-Life down from the inside, but getting revenge might just cost her everything. (12+)

When Peggy Smith is found dead, there seems to be nothing suspicious about her death. A ninety-year-old with heart disease, the end was not unexpected, so DS Hardbinder Kaur finds nothing of concern to her when carer Natalka tells her of Peggy’s death.

Nothing More to Tell Karen M. McManus

Penguin $20.00

Five years ago, Brynn quit Saint Ambrose School following the shocking murder of her favourite teacher. The case was never solved, but Brynn’s sure that the three kids who found Mr. Larkin’s body on school grounds know more than they’re telling.

When she lands the internship of a lifetime working on a new true-crime show, she decides to investigate what really happened that day in the woods for herself. (14+)

Sadie Starr’s Guide to Starting Over Miranda Luby

Text Pb $23.00

Sadie Starr is obsessed with starting over.

A new year, a new diet, a new social media identity. Anything that gives her a chance to be a better version of herself. But life at her new school proves starting over is more complicated than it sounds. An engaging, funny-serious look at the downsides of aiming too high, the dangers of black and white thinking - and the journey to realising imperfections are part of being human.

(12+)

Belladonna

Adalyn Grace

Hodder & Stoughton $23.00

My pick for August is The Postscript Murders by Elly Griffiths.

This Is Not The Real World Anna Carey

Random House $20.00

The Wilder Aisles

For as long as Signa Farrow has been alive, the people in her life have fallen like stars. Orphaned as a baby, nineteenyear-old Signa has been raised by a string of guardians, each more interested in her wealth than her well-being - and each has met an untimely end. When the lives of her remaining relatives are threatened by an enemy, Signa’s best chance of uncovering the murderer is an alliance with Death himself. Belladonna brings to life a highly romantic, gothic-infused world of wealth, desire, and betrayal. (14+)

However, when Natalka tells her that Peggy lied about her heart condition and that she was sure someone was following her, it becomes clear that Peggy’s death was more than an open and shut case. Peggy Smith had been a murder consultant, helping writers with ways to get rid of unwanted characters in their books. Peggy Smith was renowned among authors and was said to know more than anyone should about murder. When Natalka, cleaning out Peggy’s flat, is held up at gunpoint, DS Harbinder Kaur realises that there is more to Peggy Smith’s death than she previously thought. An unlikely trio joins to solve the mystery surrounding Peggy’s sudden death. This trio consists of Natalka, Peggy’s carer, Edwin, a very cautious neighbour, never seen without a tie, and Benedict, who owns the coffee shop where they meet.

All have personal problems, but these are put aside, as they turn into amateur detectives, intent on finding out what happened to their friend; Harbinder is not happy with this, and neither is her partner, DS Neil Winton, but being of a more laid back disposition, he is pleased for the three to do his work for him. Harbinder tries to make them stop their detection, so they go undercover. The trio finds themselves at a crime novel literary festival, where authors and suspects abound.

There seems to be a bit of a thing lately about amateur sleuths, as in Richard Osman’s two wonderful books. The three in this one are particularly lovely, as they seem to sort out their problems, become friends, and together set about finding out what happened to their dear friend Peggy Smith.

It seems strange to call a murder mystery enjoyable, but that cast is what this is, and I hope there is another coming, featuring the same delightful cast Until next time, Janice

Bi

Philosophy & Culture Studies

Julia Shaw

A&U Canongate $33.00

Julia Shaw explores how people have defined and measured bisexuality during its long and important history. She looks at behavioural bisexuality in animals, and investigates whether there is a bi gene. She explains the visual language of bisexuality, about bi visibility on screen and the colourful world of bisexual communities. This book aims to demystify bisexuality and celebrate it. It is a personal and scientific manifesto for the sexually in-between.

p. 21

Highly Recommended Fire Island Jack Parlett

Beyond Measure

James Vincent

Faber $33.00

We measure rainfall and radiation, the depths of space and the emptiness of atoms, calories and steps, happiness and fear. If we could not measure then we could not observe the world around us. But why did this urge to measure flourish? And when did measurement become ubiquitous? A revelatory and vibrant story of measurement which will make you look at the world around you anew.

Granta $35.00

What We Owe The Future William MacAskill

What’s Wrong?

Geoffrey Gibson and Chris Wallace-Crabbe

Hardie Grant $35.00

Arriving on Fire Island, a slim strip of land off the coast of New York after a break-up back home in England, scholar and poet Jack Parlett was beguiled by what he found.

Tracing Fire Island’s rich history, Parlett leads the reader through the early days of the island’s life as a discreet home for same-sex love, to the wild parties of the post-Stonewall disco era, to the residents’ confrontation with the AIDS epidemic, and into a present where a host of new challenges threaten the island’s future.

Around the world, people have witnessed a decline in thinking and language. This book is the joint response of a poet and a lawyer– a guide on how to think and how to write. With analyses of ‘truth’ and ‘bullshit’, there are chapters on grammar, style and professional writing. This is a book for people who want to think straight and write clearly, regardless of their academic record.

Bloomsbury $33.00

‘A great vision.’

‘Essential.’

Tyson Yunkaporta

Chloe Hooper

We are still five hundred million years away from the sterilisation of the Earth by the Sun, and one hundred trillion years away from the dying of the last stars. Positively influencing the long-term future is a key moral priority of our time. This is the idea fuelling a burgeoning movement of longtermist thinkers. As we lock in today the global values and systems that will outlast us by eons, let’s not forget the many left to come whose quality of life is in our hands.

‘Absorbing and compelling.’

Peter Varghese

Art & Architecture

p. p.22 5

Art For No One

Blind Date

E. Atlan, P. Chametzky, V. Hein and K. Hille

Tim Sandow

Peribo $99.00

In his figurative painting, Tim Sandow brings together the imagined cliché of a type of person with a superabundance of details. Situations that seem to come from day-to-day life appear perplexing at second glance. The paintings give the impression that they are inviting us into their world and ultimately cause us to recoil again and again from the vacant stares of the people who populate the pictures.

Hirmer Verlag GmbH $85.00

It Was Vulgar and It Was Beautiful

Jack Lowery

Little Brown $50.00

In the late 1980s, the AIDS pandemic was annihilating queer people, intravenous drug users, and communities of colour in America, and disinformation about the disease ran rampant. Out of the activist group ACT UP, an art collective that called itself Gran Fury formed to campaign against corporate greed, government inaction, stigma, and public indifference to the epidemic. In an era when structural violence and the devastation of COVID-19 continue to target the most vulnerable, this belief in the power of public art and action persists.

Highly Recommended Ramesh Edited by Jaklyn Babington

Thames&Hudson, $100.00 Bursting with energy and life force, this visual cornucopia celebrates the work of Sri Lankan Australian sculptor and painter, Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran, one of Australia’s most prominent and sought-after contemporary artists.

His exuberant ceramic idols and installations gleam with vivid impossibleto-ignore immediacy, provoking and stimulating audiences as he explores the politics of sex, gender and religion.

Between 1933 and 1945, artistic creativity within the German Reich was almost totally under the control of the National Socialist state. Many artists emigrated. But what about the ones who remained in Germany?

This volume questions this blanket judgement through 15 artist personalities and shows how differently they dealt with ostracism, the lack of audience and the absence of exchange, what possibilities they had for selling and exhibiting their works and to what extent they adapted to the requirements of the Nazi regime.

Surrealism and Magic

Musuem Barberini Potsdam

Prestel $105.00

This beautifully illustrated new volume on the Surrealist movement uncovers the influence magic, myth and the occult had on its development. This catalogue combines surrealist art with in-depth essays from leading academics and explores the myriad ways in which magic and the occult informed the development of the Surrealist movement in international perspective.

My Mother Country Monika Sommerhalder

Hatje Cantz Verlag, $100.00 The collection of Joëlle and Pierre Clément includes Australian painters whose work draws on Aboriginal culture and traditions.

This catalog by Kunsthaus Zug features 80 works by 50 artists from the collection, as well as paintings by Emily Kame Kngwarreye. With their “dot paintings,” the painters translate their millennia-old culture between traditional mythology and postcolonial reality into fascinating images created for international viewers.

Know My Name

Emergent Tokyo

National Gallery of Australia

Various Authors

National Gallery of Australia, $80.00

Oro Editions, $45.00 This book examines the urban fabric of contemporary Tokyo as a valuable demonstration of permeable, inclusive, and adaptive urban patterns that required neither extensive master planning nor corporate urbanism to develop. Unlike many of the discussions on Tokyo that emphasise cultural uniqueness, this book aims at transcultural validity, with a focus on empirical analysis of the spatial and social conditions that allow these patterns to emerge.

Know My Name brings together a range of works by women (cis and trans) that shed light on diverse ways of considering the stories of Australian art. With profiles and essays on more than 150 women artists written by 115 women writers, this book seeks to retell the dynamics of Australian art through the work of women to find new meanings and possibilities. By turning the tables, we present an opportunity to reckon with the strength and breadth of women’s contributions to the art of this country.

Winter Recipes from the Collective Louise Gluck

Carcanet Press $30.00

Performing Arts & Poetry

The fifteen poems and sequences in Louise Gluck’s rapt new collection is an invitation into that privileged realm small enough for the individual instrument to make itself heard, dolente, its line sustained, carried, and then taken up by the next instrument, spirited, animoso, while at the same time being large enough to contain a whole lifetime, the inconceivable.

p. 23

gleebooks favourites Mirabilia

Lisa Gorton

Three Plays Tim Winton

Penguin $23.00

Marked by Winton’s signature ear for dialogue, these are three searing plays about survival, mourning, and the remarkable gift of redemption. Rising Water, Signs of Life, and Shrine take us on a journey of the different individuals and their stories.

Containing elements of grief, horror, and thrill, these stories will without doubt attract and beguile many fans of Winton’s books.

Giramondo $25.00

There Might be a Moon or a Dog

Marc Vincenz

Letter to Petya Dubarova Abigail George

Gazebo Books $20.00

South African poet and writer Abigail George weaves a text shaped by the form and imagery of the sea. Petya is a mirage, a beacon, a hand to reach for when the waves of emotion are at their wildest – as the narrator addresses lovers and family members, diving into layered currents of memory and desire, struggle and elation, love and loss.

Gazebo Books $25.00

Waymarks

Sharon Connolly

Waymarks tracks one man through significant encounters with the natural world, around the globe. An Ethiopian lake, an Australian rainforest, an American desert, an English beach: the stage keeps changing, but the intent stays the same. A poet enters a deep dialogue with birds, animals, people, plants, seas, and all the forces that threaten and churn this mix of life.

Whip-smart and fabulously funny, the women of vaudeville entertained Australia and challenged ideas of how women should behave. They were musical comics, character actors and male impersonators in an entertainment industry being transformed by cinema and radio. This is a vivid and original account of how funny girls became entertaining women, while negotiating a society made for men.

Upswell $30.00

Song for Almeyda and Song for Anninho

Something Close To Music

John Ashberry, Monica de la Torre

Gayl Jones

Barbican Press $33.00

Anglo-Swiss-American poet Marc Vincenz takes us on an unexpected trip. The poems in this collection touch on past and present political and moral issues without appearing didactic. We are lured into disarming circumstances blending despair with wonder, where philosophical queries prompt what ideas and events are trustworthy. This is a gift of a book.

My Giddy Aunt and Her Sister Comedians

James Thornton

Barbican Press $25.00

The poems in Mirabilia test the relationship between art and politics. They are ekphrastic poems complicated by historical narrative; or, they are political poems, inspired by artworks. Written in Fibonacci syllabics, it is a reflection on Marianne Moore’s poem The Pangolin with its sense of nature’s perpetuity – lost in the years since her poem was written.

When the Portuguese attack Palmares, Brazil’s last fugitive slave enclave, Almeyda and her husband are separated as they flee from the destruction. Two powerful, epic poems give voice to the lovers: Almeyda’s passionate lament for Anninho, whom she believes has been killed, is combined with his response as he searches for her. Their story is one of longing - for each other, for freedom - and for revolution.

David Zwirner Books $18.00

An intimate and unique collection of the work of John Ashbery. This book places poetry by Ashbery (1927-2017), gathered from his later collections, in conversation with a selection of contemporaneous art writing. In addition, as Ashbery loved music and listened to it while writing, the “playlists” here offer representative samplings of music from these same years, culled from Ashbery’s own library of recordings.

Specials

50 s$ wa OW N 95 . $19

Aristotle’s Way: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life (HC) by Edith Hall

50 s$ wa OW N 95 . $19

Chasing the Light (HC) by Oliver Stone

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American Utopia: An Inspiring Celebration in Words & Art of the Connections Between Us All (HC) by David Byrne & Maira Kalman

The Best of Me: His Funniest & Most Memorable Stories (HC) by David Sedaris

60 s$ wa OW N 95 . $21

50 s$ wa OW N 95 . $19

Debussy: A Painter in Sound (HC) by Stephen Walsh

60 s$ wa OW N 95 . $17

Emperors of the Deep: The Ocean’s Most Mysterious, Misunderstood & Important Guardians (HC) by William McKeever

30 s$ wa OW N 95 . $14

Ethel Rosenberg: An American Tragedy (HC) by Anne Sebba

Silent Sparks: The Wondrous World of Fireflies (HC) by Sara Lewis

Father Brown Short Stories (HC) by G.K. Chesterton

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60 s$ wa OW N 95 . $21

70 s$ wa OW N .95 $26

Life in the Garden (HC) by Penelope Lively

Nazi Wives: The Women at the Top of Hitler’s Germany (HC) James Wyllie

Marvel Year by Year: A Visual History: Updated & Expanded (BOXED HC) by Stan Lee

40 s$ wa OW N 95 . $17

Clothes, Clothes, Clothes.

Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys: A Memoir (HC) by Viv Albertine

30 s$ wa OW N 95 . $14

The End of the End of the Earth: Essays (HC) by Jonathan Franzen

50 s$ wa OW N 95 . $19

Land: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World (HC) by Simon Winchester

50 s$ wa OW N 95 . $19

Metazoa: Animal Minds & the Birth of Consciousness (HC)

by Peter Godfrey-Smith

Specials

20 s$ wa OW N 95 . $10

This is Magritte (HC) by Patricia Allmer & Iker Spozio (ill)

40 s$ wa OW N 95 . $17

Nightflyers & Other Stories (HC) by George R. R. Martin

50 s$ wa OW N 95 . $19

Rise & Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations (HC) by Ronen Bergman

30 s$ wa OW N 95 . $14

Year of the Monkey (HC) by Patti Smith

40 s$ wa OW N 95 . $17

Haddon Hall: When David Invented Bowie (HC) by NEJIB

40 s$ wa OW N 95 . $17

Skeleton Keys: The Secret Life of Bone (HC) by Brian Switek

50 s$ wa OW N 95 . $19

Young Heroes of the Soviet Union: A Memoir & A Reckoning (HC) by Alex Halberstadt

50 s$ wa OW N 95 . $19

The World of Lore: Dreadful Places (HC) by Aaron Mahnke

60 s$ wa OW N 95 . $21

On Nature: Selected Essays On Nature by the Finest Essayist of Our Time (HC) by Edward Hoagland

50 s$ wa OW N 95 . $19

Time Tamed: The Remarkable Story of Humanity’s Quest to Measure Time (HC) by Nicholas Foulkes

60 s$ wa OW N 95 . $21

Planting the World: Botany, Adventures & Enlightenment Across the Globe with Joseph Banks (HC) by Jordan Goodman

40 s$ wa OW N 95 . $17

Underground: A Human History of the Worlds Beneath Our Feet (HC) by Will Hunt

50 s$ wa OW N 95 . $19

50 s$ wa OW N 95 . $19

The Maze: A Labyrinthine Compendium (HC) by Angus Hyland & Kendra Wilson

Prince Albert: The Man Who Saved the Monarchy (HC)

by A.N. Wilson

50 s$ wa OW N 95 . $19

30 s$ wa OW N 95 . $12

The World of Lore: Wicked Mortals (HC) by Aaron Mahnke

Hummus to Halva: Recipes from a Levantine Kitchen (HC) by Ronen Givon & Christian Mouysset

Gifts For Dad

Whether your old man is a fan of the wild, or is on the hunt for dad jokes to add to his repertoire, we’ve got your back with our handpicked selects for this father’s day. Fathers truly deserve the best of the best, and these are some reads he will enjoy and cherish!

The Summertime Of Our Dreams

Weekends With Matt

Michael Pascoe, $35.00

Peter Coleman & Matt Fowles $35.00

Smart, Stupid and Sixty

Dad Jokes: The Priceless Edition

Nigel Marsh, $35.00

Scott Hershovitz, $45.00

A Guide to the Creatures in Your Neighbourhood

Dad Says Jokes, $25.00

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What We’re Reading Ange Reviews Late Night at the Telegraph Club: Lily is on the cusp of adulthood in 1954 — an aspiring rocket scientist feeling alienated from her peers, she befriends the only other girl in her maths class, Kath. The two become fast friends, and something more begins to develop. When Lily comes across an ad for a male impersonator’s performance at a local club, she begins to question her heteronormative upbringing in San Francisco’s Chinatown. All the while, Lily’s father is facing deportation under allegations of involvement with communists. This is a heartwarming tale of first love, queer history, and the second generation immigrant experience.

Tilda Reviews The Perfect Golden Circle: A quiet, heartfelt novel.

A series of snapshots into a friendship between two wounded and brilliant men. Their ventures into the landscape explore their connection to nature, each other, and the history under their feet.

They talk of art and philosophy, pressing a new mysterious narrative in the landscape of English farmland

Victoria Reviews Horse: The long awaited new novel by one of my favourite authors has not disappointed. Horse is more than just a historical novel about a famous racehorse, it is also about injustice and racism that has continued to the present day, as well as art. Brooks has a wonderful talent in bringing history and her characters to life. I look forward to recommending this book.

Jonathon Reviews The Wonders: A novel of class and feminism. Medel subtly weaves the parallel lives of a grandmother and granddaughter who have never met, but in different generations have similar experiences of the journey from village to Madrid and the compromises faced in heteronormative relationships. Full of arresting and fiery political passages and castigating the banal repetition of the structural causes of social pain as well as sharp descriptions of lives never wanted but stubbornly lived.

Isabel Reviews A Witness of Fact:A precise and shocking account of what can go wrong in the background of our legal systems. Colin Manock (South Australia’s chief forensic pathologist from 1968 to 1995) was not appropriately qualified to hold this role. In fact, a number of individuals who worked under and alongside Manock felt that he was not applying pathological techniques correctly, and his decisions were regularly scrutinised and found to be highly concerning. Nevertheless, he held onto his status and position for a long time, whilst confidently brushing off any naysayers. The implications of his work are still being unravelled now, with many convictions and acquittals having been tainted. The clarity with which the information is presented by Rooke allows you to feel as though you are following Manock through his problematic career at the author’s side.

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Bestsellers—Fiction 1.

Sixty-Seven Days

2.

Horse

3.

Bodies of Light

4.

Enclave

5.

Black River

6.

Elizabeth Finch

7.

Grimmish

8.

Lapvona

Ottessa Moshfegh

9.

Lying Beside You

Michael Robotham

Yvonne Weldon Geraldine Brooks Jennifer Down Claire G. Coleman Matthew Spencer Augian Barnes Michael Winkler

10. Jesustown

Paul Daley

Bestsellers—Non-Fiction 1.

Masked Histories

2.

Happy-Go-Lucky

3.

The Jane Austen Remedy

4.

Bedtime Story

Chloe Hooper

Marrul: Aboriginal Identity

Inala Cooper

5.

Leah Lui-Chivizhe David Sedaris Ruth Wilson

& the Fight for Rights 6.

The Consul

7.

Fashion, Faith & Fantasy in the

Ian Kemish Roger Penrose

New Physics of the Universe 8.

I Want to Die but

Baek Sehee

I Want to Eat Tteokbokki 9.

Crying in H Mart

10. Orwell’s Roses

Michelle Zauner Rebecca Solnit

For more August new releases go to:

Main shop—49 Glebe Pt Rd; Ph: (02) 9660 2333, Fax: (02) 9660 9842. Mon to Sat 9am to 6pm; Sunday 10am to 5pm Blackheath—Shop 1 Collier’s Arcade, Govetts Leap Rd; Ph: (02) 4787 6340. Open 7 days, 9am to 5pm Blackheath Oldbooks—Collier’s Arcade, Govetts Leap Rd: Open 7 days, 10am to 5pm Dulwich Hill—536 Marrickville Rd Dulwich Hill; Ph: (02) 9560 0660. Tue-Fri 9am to 6pm; Sat 9am to 5pm; Sun 10am to 4pm; Mon 9am to 5pm www.gleebooks.com.au. Email: books@gleebooks.com.au; oldbooks@gleebooks.com.au