Gleaner August 2016

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Vol. 23 No. 6 August 2016

New this month: Blue Dog by Louis de Bernières

National Bookshop day is on Saturday 13th Celebrate with a visit to Gleebooks 1

holiday reading

If only life were one long reading holiday................no, of course there are lots of other lovely things to do on leave, walking, exploring, eating, swimming—but the sheer pleasure of knowing you can just pick up a book and go for it, for hours, is exquisite. Anyway, just back from a midwinter furlough in a peaceful bit of Bali and the Northern Territory, here’s a taste of some new, some old, and some not out yet titles.

Foremost was an advance copy of Tim Winton’s The Boy Behind the Curtain (due Oct, we will have it at a special price of $39.95) It’s great, as simple as that. Spread over more than a decade are essays of dazzling insight and opinion on class, the environment, guns, asylum seekers, interspersed with intimate, highly personal reflections on an upbringing rich (yes, rich) in religious fundamentalism, surfing, writing and much more. It’s a disparate collection of pieces, but united by the sheer power and brilliance of Winton’s imagination and confronting directness. His life, like his writing, seems to have been shaped by the unexpected, by accident and the havoc implicit in the natural world. (Keep Sunday 9th October free—Tim Winton will be at Gleebooks to talk about his book) Next, courtesy of the reading group, was a foray into Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich ($15). It’s years since I’ve read it. I had no idea (until I read the intro in my edition) that by the time he was writing it, Tolstoy had determined that the preoccupations of the earlier masterpieces Anna Karenina and War and Peace, were no longer important enough. Hmm, since they’re two of the finest novels I’ve ever read, I think he was wrong, but this novella, pared back as it is, is still compelling in the way only a truly great writer can manage. In a nutshell, Tolstoy is asking what life is worth the living? The answer is grimly, relentlessly revealed, in this tiny masterpiece.

If you’re keen on some non-fiction full of interesting and socially important detail, I’d suggest a new bestseller from Germany, publishing here in September. Peter Wohlleben trained as a forester in the 1970s, and in The Hidden Life of Trees ($30) he traces his conversion over a working lifetime from conventional forester to tree conservationist. The subtitle, What They Feel. How They Communicate-Discoveries from a Secret World, suggests much of the process, and it’s genuinely fascinating. Wohlleben says that the untrained perspective of visitors he took on tours opened his own eyes. Read it, and you’ll see how his changed life transformed the way the forest could be viewed, and preserved. I read this straight after Annie Proulx’s amazing Barkskins and found the most remarkable parallels. Barkskins is a monumental work of the ‘new (American) world’ and its three centuries of saga chart the relentless destruction of the America forests as a central motif.

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After the Carnage by Tara June Winch

A single mother resorts to extreme measures to protect her young son. A Nigerian student undertakes a UN internship in the hope of a better future. A recently divorced man starts a running group with members of an online forum for recovering addicts.

Ranging from New York to Istanbul, from Pakistan to Australia, these unforgettable stories chart the distances in their characters’ lives—whether they have grown apart from the ones they love, been displaced from their homeland, or are struggling to reconcile their dreams with reality. ($24.95, PB)

Barbed Wire and Cherry Blossoms

by Anita Heiss ($33, PB)

5 August, 1944. Over 1000 Japanese soldiers break out of the No. 12 Prisoner of War compound on the fringes of Cowra.

Hundreds are killed, many are recaptured, and some take their own lives rather than suffer the humiliation of ongoing defeat.

But one soldier, Hiroshi, manages to escape. At nearby Erambie Station, an Aboriginal mission, Banjo Williams, father of five & proud man of his community, discovers Hiroshi, distraught and on the run. For the community, life at Erambie is one of restriction and exclusion—living under Acts of Protection and Assimilation, and always under the ruthless eye of the mission Manager. On top of wartime hardships, families live without basic rights—they choose offer Hiroshi refuge. Mary, Banjo’s daughter, is intrigued by the softly spoken stranger, and charged with his care. Love blossoms between them, and they each dream of a future together. But how long can Hiroshi be hidden safely and their bond kept a secret?

Troppo by Madelaine Dickie ($30, PB)

Then on to Janet Malcolm’s The Journalist and the Murderer ($27) (thanks again, reading group). To remind you, this hugely controversial book from 1990 starts: Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. The assertion, and the book (which dealt with the successful case brought by a convicted murderer against the journalist Joe McGinniss who was ‘immersed’ in his defence team before writing a true crime bestseller, Fatal Vision) proved sensational.

At the time Malcolm herself was in the middle of a ten year lawsuit instigated by Jeffrey Masson, keeper of the Freud archives, over assertions she made in her book, In the Freud Archives. She’s a fearless and engrossing writer and the journalist-subject encounter plays out in various ways (this a book of journalism as well as a book about journalism). At a quarter of a century’s distance. I found it absolutely fascinating to reflect on where the ‘new journalism’ has taken us. And remember that this is all before we’d even heard of social media.

I don’t read enough crime books, but that’s because I’m too often making bad choices and being disappointed. Not so with Jane Harper’s The Dry, a fresh Australian voice.

This is a beauty. Set in drought-stricken rural Victoria (and the prose fairly crackles with the despair and shimmering heat), it involves the unravelling of a gruesome crime by federal policeman Aaron Falk—returned for the funeral of a dear childhood friend. The Dry is tightly and flawlessly plotted and paced, but what sets it apart is the authenticity of time, place and people—something quintessentially Australian. For a first novel to be up there with Temple and Disher is high praise, but it’s deserved.

Australian Literature

David

This is a story about black magic, big waves and mad Aussie expats. Set in Sumatra, it’s told from the perspective of Penny, a young surfer who’s landed a job managing a resort for the notorious Aussie Shane. Penny is drifting, partying, hanging out—a thousand miles away from claustrophobic Perth and her careerminded boyfriend. But things take a dangerous turn when Penny learns about Shane’s reputation as a troublemaker. Caught up in the hostility directed at Shane, and flirting and surfing with the hell-man Matt, Penny soon finds herself swept into a world where two very different cultures will collide.

The Salamanders: A Novel by William Lane

Arthur lives in a hut by the Hawkesbury River, the detritus of suburban life gradually encroaching. When Rosie, the adopted daughter of his fathers’ second wife returns from England to visit, their time together raises childhood memories of their father Peregrine, a famous and controversial artist, and what happened at a holiday by the ocean years ago. With poetic, hallucinatory power, Lane explores how art can become life, how we as adults cannot truly escape the past and the influence of our parents, and how we might embrace the intensity and beauty of the moment as we journey towards reconciliation. ($29.95, PB)

Inexperience & other stories by Anthony Macris

Can a relationship survive a long-anticipated but disappointing world trip? Will a small-shopkeeper cope when pitted against an emerging mega-mall? How do we keep our sanity in the face of life’s obstacles—and when we don’t, what will pull it back again? Take a trip through the world’s greatest cities and into the mind’s darkest places. Anthony Macris’s new fiction—a novella and accompanying story cycle—deftly examines our fragile relationships with travel, art, money and, especially, each other. ($25, PB)

Juneau: Wisdom Tree 4 by Nick Earls

Juneau: an acutely observed moment in which we see the universe. Set in what was once a Canadian gold-­rush town, it’s about lineage, sons and fathers and great uncles, and how we’re connected through time and across the planet. ‘This smart, precise, and beautiful novella reads like an emotional time bomb.

Everything is quiet at first, then comes a slow build of tension, and then comes a strange ticking sound, and then—BOOM— suddenly your heart blows up. You can’t write better than this.

It’s simply perfect.’—Elizabeth Gilbert. ($20, PB)

Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty ($33, PB) Clementine is haunted by regret. It was just a BBQ. They didn’t even know their hosts that well, they were friends of friends.

They could so easily have said no. But she and her husband Sam said yes, and now they can never change what they did and didn’t do that Sunday afternoon. Six responsible adults. Three cute kids. One playful dog. It’s an ordinary weekend in the suburbs. What could possibly go wrong? Liane Moriarty takes marriage, sex, parenthood and friendship and shows how guilt can expose the fault lines in any relationship.

On D’Hill

We booksellers consider ourselves a bit different—let’s be honest—a cut above, other retail workers in that our knowledge of our product is very specialist. Sure, someone in a hardware store needs to know exactly the right drill bit you need, or the best tool for a particular job, but does it involve hours and hours, week after week, reading new product, more and more of which arrives every month? How many new drill bits are released onto the market each month? (There is no word in English for someone who sells hardware. In French it’s quincailler!)

My point being that I feel like I’m chasing my tail trying to keep up with all the great books out now and the many more to come leading up to Christmas. I worry about all the debut authors who have put their heart and soul into their baby only to have it all but ignored. Increasingly, I’m not reading books that are selling themselves, like Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See and Dominic Smith’s The Last Painting of Sara de Vos. They’re doing perfectly well without my recommendation, but then I miss out on those wonderful reading experiences.

There are books I read because according to the publishers they’re going to be the ‘next big thing’. What do I do when I don’t like that book at all? My job is to sell books so there’s no way I have the freedom to write a bad review like a critic or blogger. Customers who know me have learned to read between the lines and when I think I know their taste well, I steer them away from the dud, instead giving them a book I’m pretty sure they’ll enjoy. The other side of that of course, is that it’s a subjective opinion, and the person might have loved the dud book and my advice has robbed them of a pleasurable read. This has been prompted by my reading a debut Australian novel which is supposed to be the ‘next big thing’ and which I found much to admire but much more to criticise. I won’t name the book, and I won’t handsell (personally recommend) it to you. That’s all I can do, or not do.

What I will recommend and handsell is the first adult crime novel from much-loved YA author Melina Marchetta (Looking for Alibrandi). Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil ($33, due early September) is set in England and France, has the requisite damaged (but attractive) cop named Bish, a teenage daughter, an ex-wife, a bombing that may or not be terrorist related, a possible romance and a massive miscarriage of justice. Pacy, engrossing, witty, unsentimental and well written. There are swear words so I guess Marchetta knows it’s not going to end up on the HSC curriculum for the next hundred years like Alibrandi. It’s a hard genre change for any writer and I think Marchetta has succeeded brilliantly.

See you on D’hill, Morgan

Maggie’s Kitchen by Caroline Beecham ($30, PB)

When the Ministry of Food urgently calls for the opening of British Restaurants to feed tired & hungry Londoners during WW2, Maggie Johnson is close to realising a long-held dream. But after struggling through government red-tape and triumphantly opening its doors, Maggie’s Kitchen soon encounters a most unexpected problem. Her restaurant has become so popular with London’s exhausted workers, that Maggie simply can’t get enough supplies to keep up with demand for food, without breaking some of the rules.

With the support of locals, and the help of twelve-year-old Robbie, a street urchin, and Janek, a Polish refugee dreaming of returning to his native land, the resourceful Maggie evades the first threats of closure from the Ministry. As she fights to keep her beloved Kitchen open, Maggie also tries desperately to reunite Robbie with his missing father, as well as manage her own family’s expectations.

Skylarking by Kate Mildenhall ($25, PB)

Kate and Harriet are best friends, growing up together on an isolated Australian cape in the 1880s. As daughters of the lighthouse keepers, the two girls share everything until a fisherman, McPhail, arrives their small community. When Kate witnesses the desire that flares between him and Harriet, she is torn by her feelings of envy & longing. But one moment in McPhail’s hut will change the course of their lives forever. ‘Kate Mildenhall’s impressive debut novel takes an historical case & re-imagines it with such sensitivity and insight that we feel this must be how it truly happened.’—Emily Bitto

New this month The Chaser’s Australia:The Chaser Quarterly Issue 4, $25

SET AGAINST THE WAR-TORN LANDSCAPE OF A SHATTERED IRAQ, THE GIRL IN GREEN IS AN ADVENTURE STORY TOLD WITH ALL THE WIT, HUMANITY AND INSIGHT OF MILLER’S ACCLAIMED DEBUT NORWEGIAN BY NIGHT. Now in B Format A Guide to Berlin by Gail Jones, $23 When the Night Comes by Favel Parrett, $20 The Landing by Susan Johnson, $23 Their Brilliant Careers: The Fantastic Lives of Sixteen Extraordinary Australian Writers

by Ryan O’Neill ($28, PB)

This is a hilarious novel in the guise of sixteen biographies of (invented) Australian writers. Meet Rachel Deverall, who discovered the secret source of the great literature of our time—and paid a terrible price for her discovery. Meet Rand Washington, hugely popular sci-fi author (of Whiteman of Cor) and inveterate racist. Meet Addison Tiller, master of the bush yarn, ‘The Chekhov of Coolabah’, who never travelled outside Sydney. Their Brilliant Careers is a wonderful comic tapestry of the writing life—playful set of stories, linked in many ways, which together form a memorable whole.

The Windy Season by Sam Carmody ($30, PB) A young fisherman is missing from the crayfish boats in the West Australian town of Stark. There’s no trace at all of Elliot, there hasn’t been for some weeks and Paul, his younger brother, is the only one who seems to be active in the search. Taking Elliot’s place on the boat skippered by their troubled cousin, Paul soon learns how many opportunities there are to get lost in those many thousands of kilometres of lonely coastline.

Fiercely evocative, this is an Australian story set within an often wild and unforgiving sea, where mysterious influences are brought to bear on the inhospitable town and its residents.

The Memory Stones by Caroline Brothers

Buenos Aires, 1976. Osvaldo Ferrero and his wife Yolanda escape the city’s heat with their daughters, sensible Julieta and wilful Graciela, who is nineteen and madly in love. They will be the last days the family ever spends together. On their return to Buenos Aires, the Argentine military stages a coup. Friends vanish overnight, and Osvaldo, too, is forced to flee. When Graciela herself is abducted, Osvaldo can only witness the disintegration of his family from afar, while Yolanda fights on the ground for some trace of their beloved daughter. Soon, she realises they may be fighting for an unknown grandchild as well. Depicting the despair and hope of one family as it seeks to rebuild after unimaginable loss, this is a devastating portrait of a country that has come face to face with terror, and the long dark shadow it leaves behind. ($28, PB)

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Altitude

BlackBooks

Boo ks w ith

We have been shivering away up here in Bleakheath (yes it has been bleak)…and here is what one of us has been reading…

Iris and the Tiger ($17), released earlier this year, is a clever, dreamy children’s novel about fakes and obligation. Iris is 12 when her parents send her to Spain to safeguard their chances of inheriting Bosque de Nubes, an estate protected by her eccentric great aunt, Ursula.

I keep thinking about it, and picking it up to look at its beautifully produced cover and the illustrations at the start of each chapter. The way the book discusses creative work, muses, parents, and surrealism could inspire interesting discussions with young readers. Iris is an endearing protagonist—immediately relatable as she questions her parents’ motives and engages with the weirder elements of Aunt Ursula’s life and home—particularly the surrealist artworks that haunt the estate. The playful, seemingly non sequitur elements of Bosque de Nubes (tennis-playing sunflowers, tenacious boots that resemble human feet, a five-legged dog) cohere into a beautifully realised Wonderland. I would love a book that returns to this world. Joshua Cram Looking forward to having one of our bestseller authors, Liane Moriarty come to the Blue Mountains to talk about her long awaited new novel—Truly Madly Guilty. Full details below and don’t take too long to book as tickets are selling fast!

We are also sad to say farewell to the lovely Hannah Ley who has left the folds of Gleebooks Blackheath to pursue other areas of the book world. She will be working for NewSouth Books and we wish her all the best.

Victoria Jefferys

Liane Moriarty in the Blue Mountains The hotly anticipated new novel from the Number 1 New York Times bestelling author of Big Little Lies and The Husband’s Secret...

International Literature Dear Mr M by Herman Koch ($29.99, PB) Once a celebrated writer, M’s greatest success came with a suspense novel based on a real-life, unsolved disappearance. It told the story of a history teacher who went missing one winter after his brief affair with a stunning pupil. Upon publication, M’s novel was a bestseller, one that marked his international breakthrough. That was years ago, and now M’s career is almost over as he fades increasingly into obscurity. But not when it comes to his bizarre, seemingly timid neighbour who keeps a close eye on him. Why? From various perspectives, Herman Koch tells the dark tale of a writer in decline, a teenage couple in love, a missing teacher, and a single book that entwines all of their fates. Thanks to M’s novel, supposedly a work of fiction, everyone seems to be linked forever, until something unexpected spins the ‘story’ off its rails.

Gleebooks’ special price $26.99

The Last Photograph by Emma Chapman ($30, PB)

Rook Henderson is an award-winning photojournalist, still carrying the hidden scars of war. Now, suddenly, he is also a widower. Leaving his son Ralph to pick up the pieces, Rook packs his belongings and flies to Vietnam for the first time in fifty years. Here he reflects upon a life defined through his work in wartime Vietnam, and then further back in time through rural life in the 1970s, fashionable London in the 1960s, a post-war working class childhood in a Yorkshire mining town, and a secret grief he’s never been able to forget. When Ralph follows him to Vietnam, seeking answers from the father he barely knows, Rook is forced to reconsider his marriage to the unforgettable June and the price he has paid for a life behind the lens.

A Beautiful Young Wife by Tommy Wieringa ($20, PB) Edward Landauer, a brilliant microbiologist in his forties, meets a beautiful young woman. She is the love of his life and when the two marry in France, Edward is the happiest man in the world. Ruth Walta appears to represent a victory over time, but even she cannot stop him growing older. And before long, their marriage descends into a clash between her idealism and his realism. Edward’s research relies on animal testing, whereas Ruth is troubled by the animals’ fear and confusion.

The Lauras by Sara Taylor ($33, PB) I didn’t realise my mother was a person until I was thirteen years old and she pulled me out of bed, put me in the back of her car, and we left home and my dad with no explanations. I thought that Ma was all that she was and all that she had ever wanted to be. I was wrong. As we made our way from Virginia to California, returning to the places where she’d lived as a child in foster care and as a teenager on the run, repaying debts and keeping promises, I learned who she was in her life-before-me and the secrets she had kept—even from herself. But when life on the road began to feel normal I couldn’t forget the home we’d left behind, couldn’t deny that, just like my mother, I too had unfinished business. New from author of The Shore, which was long listed for the Baileys Women’s Fiction Prize and shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year.

Gleebooks’ special price $29.95

New this month Granta 136: Legacies of Love (ed) Sigrid Rausing, $25 Blue Dog by Louis de Bernières ($30, PB)

Liane Moriarty is the author of six bestselling novels, Three Wishes, The Last Anniversary, What Alice Forgot, The Hypnotist’s Love Story, The Husband’s Secret and Big Little Lies. Film rights to What Alice Forgot have been pre-empted with Jennifer Aniston starring as Alice. Big Little Lies reached number 1 on the New York Times bestseller list in its first week of publication - the first time this had been achieved by an Australian author. It was also number 1 on the Australian fiction charts and is currently being adapted for television starring Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon.

When:

SATURDAY 6 AUGUST, 2016

2.30pm for 3.00pm start Where: The Carrington Hotel, Ballroom, Katoomba Cost: $20 ($17 concession) includes afternoon tea Liane will be in conversation with Susan Hayes Bookings essential. Tickets available at Gleebooks Blackheath or phone Gleebooks on 4787 6340 or email blackheath@gleebooks.com.au

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When a family tragedy means Mick is sent to the outback to live with his Granpa, it looks as if he has a lonely life ahead of him. The cattle station is a tough place for a child, where nature is brutal and the men must work hard in the heat and dust. However, after a cyclone hits, things change for Mick. Exploring the flood waters, he finds a lost puppy covered in mud and half-drowned. Mick and his dog immediately become inseparable as they take on the adventures offered by their unusual home, and the business of growing up, together. In this charming prequel to the much-loved Red Dog, Louis de Bernières tells the moving story of a young boy and his Granpa, and the charismatic and entertaining dog who so many readers hold close to their hearts.

To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey

Lieutenant Colonel Allen Forrester receives the commission of a lifetime when he is charged to navigate Alaska’s hitherto impassable Wolverine River, with only a small group of men. The Wolverine is the key to opening up Alaska, and its rich natural resources, to the outside world, but previous attempts have ended in tragedy. Forrester leaves behind his young wife, Sophie, newly pregnant with the child he had never expected to have. Adventurous in spirit, Sophie does not relish the prospect of a year in a military barracks, while her husband carves out a path through the wilderness. What she does not anticipate is that their year apart will demand every ounce of courage and fortitude of her that it does of her husband. ($33, PB)

Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters ($33, PB)

It is the present-day, and the world is as we know it. Except for one thing: slavery still exists. Victor has escaped his life as a slave, but his freedom came at a high price. Striking a bargain with the government, he has to live his life working as a bounty hunter. And he is the best they’ve ever trained. A mystery to himself, Victor tries to suppress his memories of his own childhood and convinces himself that he is just a good man doing bad work, unwilling to give up the freedom he is desperate to preserve. But in tracking his latest target, Victor discovers secrets at the core of his country’s arrangement with the system that imprisoned him, secrets that will be preserved at any cost.

Forty Rooms by Olga Grushin ($30, PB) Forty Rooms is a conceit: it proposes that a modern woman will inhabit forty rooms in her lifetime. They form her biography, from childhood to death. For our protagonist, the much-loved child of a late marriage, the first rooms she is aware of as she nears the age of five are those that make up her family’s Moscow apartment. We follow this child as she reaches adolescence, leaves home to study in America, and slowly discovers sexual happiness and love. Mysterious, withholding, and ultimately emotionally devastating, this is a deep exploration of women’s identity, of women’s choices.

August’s To-Read List

Hisham Matar’s memoir isn’t just about the burden of the past, it is the story of what it is to be human.

A compelling account of Australia’s bloodiest and most significant battle of the Vietnam War.

Agents of Empire describes the paths taken by members of a VenetianAlbanian family, almost all of them previously invisible to history.

Offering a unique account of rural life and a fundamental connection with the land that most of us have lost.

A charming story of a young boy and his dog adventuring through the outback. Prequel to the bestselling Red Dog.

The moving personal story behind the very public political face of Labor’s Anthony Albanese, written with the cooperation of Albo.

As only he can, Mike Carlton tells the story of the HMAS Australia II and the Pacific War on Japan.

If you let decisions happen to you, what will transpire? Can you become someone else without the world noticing?

Flock of Brown Birds by Ge Fei ($10, PB)

In this avant garde novella, memory and time are subjective. A writer named Ge Fei retreats to the beautiful solitude of the Waterside to finish his novel inspired by the Revelations of St. John. He perceives ominous and portentous signs in the natural landscape around him, particularly in a flock of brown birds that flies periodically past his window. The arrival of a mysterious woman named Qi magnifies his anxiety and sense of temporal disorientation, calling into question his grasp on reality.

Heroes of the Frontier by Dave Eggers ($33, PB) A mother and her two young children embark on a journey through the Alaskan wilderness. At first their trip feels like a vacation: they see bears and bison, they eat hot dogs on a bonfire, they spend nights parked along icy cold rivers in dark forests. But as they drive, pushed north by the ubiquitous wildfires, they begin to feel chased by enemies both real and imagined, past mistakes pursuing the tiny family even to the very edge of civilization. This is a captivating and hilarious novel of family, loss, and the curse of a violent America.

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi ($33, PB)

Effia and Esi: two sisters with two very different destinies. One sold into slavery; one a slave trader’s wife. The consequences of their fate reverberate through the generations that follow. Taking us from the Gold Coast of Africa to the cotton-picking plantations of Mississippi; from the missionary schools of Ghana to the dive bars of Harlem, spanning three continents and seven generations, Yaa Gyasi has written a miraculous novel—the intimate, gripping story of a brilliantly vivid cast of characters and through their lives the very story of America itself.

Tuesday Nights in 1980 by Molly Prentiss ($33, PB)

On the eve of 1980, downtown New York is the centre of the universe.

Here are the artistes and the socialites, the dealers and collectors, partygoers & hangers-on. Among them is painter Raul Engales, in exile from Argentina’s Dirty War and his own past. He has just caught the eye of New York’s most infamous art critic: James Bennett. Bennett has synaesthesia, experiencing life and art in wild, magical ways. He sees pictures as starbursts and fireworks, smells citrus when he says ‘mother’, and hears songs when he looks at sculptures. In this city, his name is a byword for good taste—until the day his gift deserts him. And then there’s Lucy: the muse. Newly escaped from suburban Idaho, she is drawn like a firefly to the electric brilliance of the city—and especially to its artists. Over the course of one year, these three lives will collide and remake each other.

The Bertie Project by Alexander McCall Smith

Bertie’s respite from his overbearing mother, Irene, is over. She has returned from the middle-east, only to discover that her son has been exposed to the worst evils of cartoons, movies and Irn Bru, and her wrath falls upon her unfortunate husband, Stuart. Meanwhile, Bruce has fallen in love with someone other than himself; Big Lou wants to adopt her beloved Finlay; Matthew and Elspeth host the Duke of Johannesburg for supper and Bertie decides he wants to move out of Scotland Street altogether and live with his grandmother, Nicola. ($35, HB)

The Last Days of New Paris by China Miéville

1941. In the chaos of wartime Marseille, American engineer—and occult disciple—Jack Parsons stumbles onto a clandestine anti-Nazi group, including Surrealist theorist André Breton. In the strange games of the dissident diplomats, exiled revolutionaries, and avant-garde artists, Parsons finds and channels hope. But what he unwittingly unleashes is the power of dreams and nightmares, changing the war and the world forever. 1950. A lone Surrealist fighter, Thibaut, walks a new, hallucinogenic Paris, where Nazis and the Resistance are trapped in unending conflict, and the streets are stalked by living images and texts-and by the forces of Hell. To escape the city, he must join forces with Sam, an American photographer intent on recording the ruins. ($30, PB)

Now in B Format Numero Zero by Umberto Eco, $23 The Blue Guitar by John Banville, $23 Flood of Fire by Amitav Ghosh, $23 The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood, $20

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THE WILDER AISLES

Whilst looking for some crime-lit to read in bed, I picked up The Lavender Ladies Detective Agency: Death in Sunset Grove, by Minna Lindgren ($20)—not only my first Finnish crime book, but, Moomins aside, I think this is the first Finnish book I have read. And it is a great delight.

I found myself laughing out loud as I followed the adventures of three ninety+year-olds who reside at Sunset Grove, a retirement community in Helsinki, run by The Loving Care Agency—a misnomer if ever there was one! The Lavender Ladies are best friends Siiri and Irma, who have rooms next to each other, and Anna-Liisa. When a suspicious death occurs at Sunset Grove, Siiri and Irma decide to investigate. All sorts of strange things start to happen—Irma’s medical notes go missing, their rooms are searched, Siiri finds mysterious medications appearing in her room (which she hides), and when a fire breaks out in the Group Home, where those with dementia are hidden away, Siiri is accused of setting the fire. Lots of adventures ensue as the Lavender Ladies set out to find the real culprit. They are aided by taxi driver Mika Korhonen (Siiri’s advocate, and her ‘angel’) and Omni Rinta-Paakku, known as the Ambassador, a fellow resident—both of whom come to the ladies rescue in their hours of need. And then there’s the staff. The director, Siinikka Sundstrom, seems to be more interested in helping the orphans of India than the people under her care. Nurse Virpi Hiukkanes is a most undesirable creature and her husband, odd-jobs man Erikki, is not much better.

This is a great fun book. I loved the old ladies, I loved their joy of life & their attitude to death—especially Siiri who rides around the city on trams, admiring or otherwise the architecture, about which she seems to know a lot. These Lavender Ladies prove that there is life after ninety and they give me hope for the future—that I don’t have to sit in a chair all day, that there are still some adventures to have. I am pleased to say is that this is the first of a trilogy. I am really looking forward to the next one to be translated.

Another crime book I found whilst browsing is The Body Under the Bridge by Paul McCusker ($17). This is a very English outing. It features Father Gilbert, an ex-Scotland Yard Detective, now an Anglican priest in the small English town of Stonebridge. When sitting in his office one day, a staff member calls out, saying that a man is on the church tower threatening to jump. Gilbert rushes to the top of the tower where a man stands near the edge, holding a gold medallion in his hand. As Father Gilbert is pleading with him, the man suddenly throws the medallion at him, pulls a Stanley knife from his pocket, cuts his throat, and falls from the tower. The strange medallion Fr Gilbert is left holding is a very strange thing—with the Crucifixion on one side and a peacock on the other. When the police arrive, they can find no body. However another body turns up under an ancient bridge on the estate of Lord Haysham.

This body turns out out be 200 years old, a peat body. Haysham wants to develop the land on his estate, but is opposed by the local Greens led

by David Todd, a member of an old Stonebridge family. More bodies, an age-old feud—this mix of the occult and village crime is something that I usually dislike. However, it really got me in. I was intrigued and kept guessing to the end. A good find.

Now to Ann Patchett’s, new book, Commonwealth (due in September, $30). Told over five decades, this is a complex story of two families, the Cousins and the Keatings. Both Albert Cousins and Fix Keating are involved in the law, Fix is a policeman, Albert is the Assistant District Attorney. They meet when Albert, married with three children and one on the way and desperate to get out of his house on a Sunday afternoon, crashes a christening party that Fix and his wife Beverley are hosting for their second daughter. Albert arrives with a bottle of gin and fixings— the party descends into drunkenness, and Albert kisses Beverley. This kiss changes everything for the Keatings and the Cousins—including divorce and the joining of the two families, with the lives of the six children becoming intricately entwined. The Keating children, Caroline and Frances, and the Cousins—Holly, Jeannette, Calvin and Albie are united by their disillusionment with their parents, and a strange kind of bond is forged between them. In later life, Franny, the grown-up baby of the christening party, meets a celebrated author and falls under his spell. He writes a novel using what Franny has told him about their childhoods, and on the publication of the book, their lives laid bare, they are forced to face their past, their losses, their guilt, and how a small thing like a kiss, can change people’s lives forever. A great read. Janice Wilder

6

Crime Fiction

The Serpent’s Sting by Robert Gott ($30, PB)

William Power, actor & sometime-private inquiry agent, has returned from the Northern Territory, shaken, stirred & generally discombobulated. ‘I survived the tropics with my life & my looks intact, despite the best efforts of the flora, fauna, and Military Intelligence to steal both from me.’ It is late 1942, and in what he believes is a demeaning sideshow to the war, he finds himself playing a pantomime dame. If only this was his only worry, but, as his great hero, Shakespeare, noted, ‘When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.’ Can Will finally overcome his tendency to be the living embodiment of Murphy’s Law?

Why Did You Lie? by Yrsa Sigurdardottir ($33, PB) A journalist on the track of an old case attempts suicide. An ordinary couple return from a house swap in the states to find their home in disarray and their guests seemingly missing. Four strangers struggle to find shelter on a windswept spike of rock in the middle of a raging sea. They have one thing in common: they all lied. And someone is determined to punish them...Why Did Your Lie? is a terrifying tale of long-delayed retribution from Iceland’s Queen of Suspense.

Revolver by Duane Swierczynski ($33, PB)

Three generations—torn apart by one bullet. Philadelphia 1965: Two street cops—one black, one white—are gunned down in a robbery gone wrong. The killer is never prosecuted. One of the fallen officers, Stanislaw Walczak, leaves behind a 12 year-old boy, Jimmy. Philadelphia 1995: Homicide detective Jim Walczak learns that his father’s alleged killer, Terrill Lee Stanton, is out of prison. Walczak will be waiting, determined to squeeze the truth out of him—any way he can. Philadelphia 2015: Jim Walczak’s daughter Audrey, studying forensic science in grad school, reinvestigates her grandfather’s murder for her dissertation. But the deeper Audrey digs, the more she realises: the man everyone thinks killed Walczak didn’t do it.

I See You by Clare Mackintosh ($30, PB) When Zoe Walker sees her photo in the classifieds section of a London newspaper, she is determined to find out why it’s there. There’s no explanation: just a grainy image, a website address and a phone number.

She takes it home to her family, who are convinced it’s just someone who looks like Zoe. But the next day the advert shows a photo of a different woman, and another the day after that. Is it a mistake? A coincidence? Or is someone keeping track of every move they make.

The Silent Dead by Tetsuya Honda ($17, PB)

When a body wrapped in a blue plastic tarp and tied up with twine is discovered near the bushes near a quiet suburban Tokyo neighbourhood, Lt Reiko Himekawa and her squad take the case. At 29, Reiko is young to have been made lieutenant, particularly because she lacks any kind of political or family connections. When she makes a discovery that leads the police to uncover 11 other bodies, all wrapped in the same sort of plastic, the only possible clue is a long shot lead to a website spoken only in whispers on the Internet, something on the dark web known as ‘Strawberry Night’. But while she is hunting the killer, the killer is hunting her... and she may very well have been marked as the next victim.

Dear Amy by Helen Callaghan ($33, PB) Margot Lewis is the agony aunt for The Cambridge Examiner—but she’s never had a letter like this: Dear Amy, I don’t know where I am. I’ve been kidnapped and am being held prisoner by a strange man. I’m afraid he’ll kill me. Please help me soon, Bethan Avery. Bethan Avery has been missing for nearly 2 decades. This is surely some cruel hoax. But, as more letters arrive, they contain information that was never made public. How is this happening? Answering this question will cost Margot everything Dark Matter by Blake Crouch ($30, PB)

‘Are you happy in your life?’ Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious. Before he wakes to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits. In this world he’s woken up to, Jason’s life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible. Is it this world or the other that’s the dream? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could’ve imagined—one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself even as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe. .

A Pitying of Doves by Steve Burrows ($20, PB) Why would a killer ignore expensive jewellery and take a pair of turtledoves as the only bounty? This is only one of the questions that piques CI Domenic Jejeune’s interest after a senior attaché with the Mexican Consulate is found murdered alongside the director of a local bird sanctuary. The fact that the director’s death has opened up a full-time research position studying birds hasn’t eluded Jejeune either. Could this be the escape from policing this ‘birder’ detective has been seeking? But a trail that weaves from embittered aviary owners to suspicious bird sculptors only seems to be leading him farther from the truth—and it would seem that diplomatic co-operation and diplomatic pressure go hand in hand.

The Satanic Mechanic by Sally Mara ($33, PB) Tannie Maria writes the Love Advice and Recipe Column for the Klein Karoo Gazette, but her own problems resist her attempts to self-medicate, even with an amazing peanut-butter coffee chocolate cake. Her new relationship with Detective Henk Kannemeyer continues to be haunted by the memory of her abusive husband, and she decides to check out a PTSD counselling group run by a man they call the Satanic Mechanic.

But when someone poisoned with mustard sauce before her eyes, her quest for healing takes a more investigative turn. Which means her intimate relationship with Henk is about to get professional. And more importantly, very complicated.

The Hanging Tree by Ben Aaronovitch ($30, PB) The Hanging Tree was the Tyburn gallows which stood where Marble Arch stands today. Oxford Street was the last trip of the condemned.

Some things don’t change. The place has a bloody and haunted legacy and now blood has returned to the empty Mayfair mansions of the world’s super-rich. And blood mixed with magic is a job for Peter Grant.

Peter Grant is back as are Nightingale et al at the Folly and the various river gods, ghosts and spirits who attach themselves to England’s last wizard and the Met’s reluctant investigator of all things supernatural.

Cyanide Games by Richard Beasley ($33, PB) When Melissa Cheung’s husband is arrested in China for corruption, her first call is to Peter Tanner. As a criminal defence barrister, Tanner often crosses paths with some of the most evil but wealthy members of the nation’s underbelly. Melissa’s phone call takes Tanner away from drug dealers and crooked property developers into the highest end of corporate corruption—mining companies trying to cover up environmental disasters and families at the top of the rich list who think they’re above the law. As he pursues those who had Cheung incarcerated, Tanner unearths cover-up after cover-up, putting his life and those of others in danger as he tries to bring the perpetrators to justice..

Man in the Corner by Nathan Besser ($33, PB)

David collapses from a rare brain disease and within a few months his world is turned upside down. He had a perfectly acceptable life—successful business, happy marriage, two children. Why then has he involved himself in an identity-theft crime worth millions of dollars? Why is he taking instructions from the oddly eloquent, handsome criminal, Ben Strbic? While he can’t quite understand the sequence of events that has led him here, he knows he must continue to the very end. As the days and months progress, a scam that was meant to be straightforward becomes a perilous mystery unfolding in David’s very own life.

The Summer that Melted Everything

by Tiffany McDaniel ($30, PB)

When local prosecutor Autopsy Bliss publishes an invitation to the devil to come to the country town of Breathed, Ohio, nobody quite expects that he will turn up. They especially don’t expect him to turn up as a tattered and bruised thirteen-year-old boy. Whether he’s a traumatised child or the devil incarnate, Sal is certainly one strange fruit: he talks in riddles, his uncanny knowledge and understanding reaches far outside the realm of a normal child, and ultimately his eerily affecting stories of Heaven, Hell, and Earth will mesmerise and inflame the entire town.

Love You Dead by Peter James ($30, PB) An ugly duckling as a child, Jodie Bentley had two dreams in life—to be beautiful and rich. She’s achieved the first, with a little help from a plastic surgeon, and now she’s working hard on the second. Her philosophy on money is simple: you can either earn it or marry it. Marrying is easy, it’s getting rid of the husband afterwards that’s harder, that takes real skill.

But hey, practice makes perfect. DS Roy Grace’s previous case is still giving him sleepless nights, and he now believes a Black Widow is operating in his city—and he soon comes to the frightening realization that he may have underestimated just how dangerous this lady is.

The Falls by B. Michael Radburn ($30, PB)

Damaged but not yet broken after an ordeal in Tasmania’s wilderness, park ranger Taylor Bridges believes his ghosts are in the past until a raging forest fire in an isolated canyon of Eldritch Falls lays bare the remains of a young woman... and a secret killing ground. After the police enlist Taylor in their investigation, the evidence bizarrely points to Jacob Muller, a deranged preacher, who reigned over The Falls a century ago. But when a crucial witness disappears, it’s clear there is more to the dark history of The Falls.

The Secrets of Wishtide by Kate Saunders ($28, PB)

Mrs Laetitia Rodd, aged 52, is the impoverished widow of an Archdeacon. Living in Well Walk, Hampstead, with her confidante & landlady, Mrs Benson (who once let rooms to John Keats), Mrs Rodd makes her living as a highly discreet private investigator. Her brother, Frederick Tyson, is a criminal barrister living in the neighbouring village of Highgate with his wife and ten children. When he brings to her attention a case involving the son of Sir James Calderstone, Mrs Rodd sets off for Lincolnshire. But looking into young Charles Calderstone’s ‘inappropriate’ love interest soon takes a rather unpleasant turn. And as the family’s secrets begin to unfold, Mrs Rodd discovers the Calderstone’s have more to hide than most.

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author of ‘Backlash’, an astonishing confrontation with the enigma of her father and the larger riddle of identity consuming our age.

No. 1 New York Times bestselling author Daniel Silva delivers another spellbinding international thriller -- one that finds the legendary Gabriel Allon grappling with an ISIS mastermind.

GHOST EMPIRE is a rare treasure - an utterly captivating blend of the historical and the contemporary, realised by a master storyteller.

Now in B Format The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine

by Alexander McCall Smith, $20 On the Bone by Barbara Nadel, $20 London Rain by Nicola Upson, $20

True Crime

My Italians: True Stories of Crime and Courage by Roberto Saviano ($25, PB)

This is a deeply personal and candid portrait of Italy today: a place of trafficking and toxic waste, where votes can be bought and sold, where organized crime ravages both north and south—yet also where many courageous individuals defy the system, and millions work tirelessly for a better future.

Mayhem by Matthew Thompson ($35, PB)

Meet BADNE$$. He’s the enigmatic, impulsive, exasperating, destructive, big-hearted Aussie outlaw who stole millions of dollars in daring bank robberies and became a folk hero as big as Ned Kelly when he masterminded two spectacular prison breaks in the space of six weeks. Now Christopher ‘BADNE$$’ Binse is serving a crushing 18 years in solitary. He craves death more than infamy. The only way he can find redemption is to open his tortured soul to acclaimed journalist Matthew Thompson, in the hope another wild child out there will learn from the strange and savage saga of his life and think twice.

Saltwater by Cathy McLennan ($32.95, PB)

‘Everyone knows that some of those kids are innocent . . . your dilemma is not whether the kids are innocent, but which of the kids are innocent.’ When Cathy McLennan first steps into Townsville’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service as a young graduate she isn’t expecting a major murder case to land on her desk. The accused are four teenage boys whose family connections stretch across the water to Palm Island. As she battles to prove herself in the courtroom, Cathy realises that the truth is far more complex than she first thought. She starts to question who are the criminals and who are the victims.

Saltwater tells the compelling story of one lawyer’s fight for justice amongst the beauty and the violence of this tropical paradise.

7

Biography

July’s To-Read List

In order to survive, you need to re-embrace life. An extraordinary debut novel about violence and the transformative powers of music and love.

This enchanting book, glowing with colour, unlocks the lives, passions and designs of two charismatic artists, Mariano Fortuny and William Morris.

Brett Whiteley: Art, Life and the Other Thing

by Ashleigh Wilson ($50, HB)

When he died in 1992 Brett Whiteley left behind decades of ceaseless activity—some works bound to a particular place or time, others that are masterpieces of light and line. Whiteley had arrived in Europe in 1960 determined to make an impression.

Before long he was the youngest artist to have work acquired by the Tate. With his wife, Wendy, and daughter, Arkie, he then immersed himself in bohemian New York. But within two years he fled, having failed to break through. Back in Sydney, he soon became Australia’s most celebrated artist. He won the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman prizes in the same year— his prices soared, as did his fame. Among his friends were Francis Bacon and Patrick White, Billy Connolly and Dire Straits. Yet addiction was taking its toll: Whiteley struggled in vain to separate his talent from his disease, and an inglorious end approached.

Written with unprecedented behind-the-scenes access, and handsomely illustrated with classic Whiteley artworks, rare notebook sketches and candid family photos, this dazzling biography reveals for the first time the full portrait of a mercurial artist.

Gleebooks’ special price $39.99

The Return by Hisham Matar ($35, PB) Hisham Matar was 19 when his father was kidnapped and taken to prison in Libya. He would never see him again. 22 years later, the fall of Gaddafi meant he was finally able to return to his homeland. In this moving memoir, the author takes us on an illuminating journey, both physical and psychological; a journey to find his father and rediscover his country. At once a universal and an intensely personal tale, this is an exquisite meditation on how history and politics can bear down on an individual life. And yet Hisham Matar’s memoir isn’t just about the burden of the past, but the consolation of love, literature and art. It is the story of what it is to be human.

The Mint: Lawrence After Arabia by T. E. Lawrence

Captain Edward Denny Day was Australia’s greatest lawman. His uncompromising sense of justice changed history and shocked the world. This is his story.

Kurt Johnson discovers the legacy of the Soviet Union is very much alive, in this fascinating hybrid of history, travel and journalism.

In 1922, his dreams of an independent Arabia shattered, T.E. Lawrence enlisted in the RAF under the assumed name John Hume Ross. Though methodical & restrictive, life there seemed to suit Lawrence: ‘The Air Force is not a man-crushing humiliating slavery, all its days. There is sun & decent treatment, and a very real measure of happiness, to those who do not look forward or back.’ With poetic clarity, Lawrence brings to life the harsh realities of barracks life & illuminates the strange twilight world he had slipped into after his war experiences. ($28.95, PB)

Swifty: A life of Yvonne Swift by Edmund Campion

A bold, dark and compelling novel about privilege, fear and the great harm we can do when we are afraid of losing what we hold dear.

An exhilarating, moving account of life as an SAS medic in the world’s most intense warzone.

8

Discover who you really are and embrace a simple truth: in order to fulfil yourself, you must learn to forget yourself.

An absorbing account of our country’s role at the end of the First World War, as told by a bold new voice in Australian history.

When Yvonne Benedicta Swift entered the Sacré Coeur convent in Rose Bay in 1938, she was determined to dedicate herself to religious life.

But in the 1970s she did something unusual: retrained as a lawyer, established her own practice and defended some of Sydney’s most notorious criminals. In her shift to the law, ‘Swifty’, as she was known, left behind an impressive career as principal of the Rose Bay School of the Sacred Heart, and later Sancta Sophia College at the University of Sydney. In her legal practice she took on clients who she believed had been wronged, especially by the legal system itself. Known for her plain-speaking approach and her deeply compassionate outlook, Swifty went on to represent the likes of convicted murderers Douglas Rendell and Arthur Loveday, underworld figure Bill Bayeh, and Bandidos gang members for everything from traffic offences to murder. ($35, HB)

Learning What Love Means by Mathieu Lindon

Mathieu Lindon’s father Jerome Lindon was the founder of Editions de Minuit, the legendary French publishing company that not only gave the world the nouveau roman but also nurtured two Nobel Prize winners, Samuel Beckett and Michel Simon. Lindon rebelled against his father with the full battery of a ‘disastrous adolescence’. It would take another literary giant—Michel Foucault—to reconcile Mathieu Lindon to his father’s love. Over an intense six-year period that included one year of living together in Foucault’s apartment on rue de Vaugirard, Lindon and Foucault enjoyed a passionate, productive friendship. Their social circle included other figures of the Parisian gay, literary, and art scenes (including Hervé Guibert and Daniel Defert), creating a satisfying, self-invented, pleasure-oriented surrogate family that eventually produced an alchemical miracle: Lindon reevaluated and accepted his father’s love. ($37.95, PB)

No Man is an Island by Adele Dumont ($33, PB)

In 2010, 24-year-old Sydneysider Adele Dumont volunteered to teach English to men in immigration detention on Christmas Island. She didn’t expect to find the work so rewarding or the people she met so interesting. So when she was offered a job working at Curtin detention centre near Derby in Western Australia, she took it. Working at Curtin required a fly-in fly-out lifestyle. Adele lived in a donga in WA, her life full of bus trips to the detention centre; back home in Sydney, she was overwhelmed by the choices and privileges people had. What kept her returning to Curtin were her students: men from many lands who had sacrificed all they knew for a chance to live in Australia; men who were unfailingly polite to her in a situation that was barbarous. Men who were looking for an opportunity for a better life.

Travel Writing

The Republic by Seamus Murphy ($55, HB)

One hundred years after Ireland’s Easter Rising of 1916, the revolt that ultimately lead to independence, who are the Irish and what has become of the republic they made? Photographer Seamus Murphy, exile and escapee, digs deep to discover the forces and mysteries that drive—and have often beguiled—the country since its birth. From the streets of Dublin, and the suburbs of towns and cities adapting to new multicultural life, to the older habitats of Ireland’s wilder western shores, Murphy endeavours to capture the spirit of contemporary Ireland in this witty, closely observed and beautiful photographic book.

New novelists and the sea

Walking With Plato: A Philosophical Hike Through the British Isles by Gary Hayden ($30, PB)

‘If one keeps on walking, everything will be alright’. So said Danish writer Søren Kierkegaard, and so thought philosophy buff Gary Hayden as he set off on Britain’s most challenging trek: to walk from John O’Groats to Land’s End. But it wasn’t all quaint country lanes, picture-postcard villages and cosy bed and breakfasts. In this humorous, inspiring and delightfully British tale, Gary finds solitude and weary limbs bring him closer to the wisdom of the world’s greatest thinkers. Recalling Rousseau’s reverie, Bertrand Russell’s misery, Plato’s love of beauty and Epicurus’ joy in simplicity—a refreshing escape from the humdrum of everyday life.

Heritage sites that preserve wonders of the ancient world, such as the Great Wall of China; memorials that commemorate significant moments in the 20th century; the Sterkfontein Caves, near Johannesburg in South Africa—the ‘cradle of the human race’—to Checkpoint Charlie; Stalin’s birthplace to Elvis’s Graceland; the seats of power, from Versailles to the White House; the world’s major battlefields, from Gettysburg to the Somme; significant monuments and places of worship, such as the Wailing Wall, the Chatmohar Mosque in Pakistan, and St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. You may not get to all of them, but this will help with the bucket list. ($40, PB)

Land of the Turquoise Mountains: Journeys Across Iran by Cyrus Massoudi ($47.95, PB)

For Cyrus Massoudi, a young British-born Iranian, the country his parents were forced to flee thirty years ago was a place wholly unknown to him. Wanting to make sense of his roots and piece together the divided, divisive and deeply contradictory puzzle that is contemporary Iran, he embarked on a series of journeys that spanned hundreds of miles and thousands of years. Rich portrayals of Sufis and ageing aristocrats, smugglers and underground rock bands are all woven together with history, religion and mythology to form a unique portrait of contemporary Iranian society. And, running through the heart of the narrative, lies Massoudi’s poignant personal quest; his struggle echoing that of Iran itself, as it fights to forge a cohesive modern identity.

FICTION

1001 Historic Sites You Must See Before You Die

Penny loves her home in a remote Indonesian fishing village – but black magic, big waves and aggressive Aussie expats make for dangerous surfing.

From 19th century authors recording the city’s dramatic transition from Prussian Hauptstadt to German capital after 1871 & the modernist intellectuals of the Weimar period, to the resistance writers brave enough to write during the dark years of the Nazi era & those who captured life on both sides of the divided city, a body of literature has emerged that reveals Berlin’s ever-shifting identity. Since 1989, Berlin has yet again become a crucible of creativity, serving as both muse and sanctuary for a new generation of writers who regularly claim it as one of the most exciting cities in the world. Spanning more than 200 years of local life and literature, this collection functions as an introduction to some of the finest writing in and about the city, as well as a guide to some of its best sights and vibrant neighbourhoods.

60 Degrees North: Around the World in Search of Home by Malachy Tallack ($20, PB)

The 60th parallel marks a kind of borderland. It wraps itself around the lower reaches of Finland, Sweden and Norway; it crosses the tip of Greenland and of South-central Alaska; it cuts the great spaces of Russia and Canada in half. The parallel also passes through Shetland, at the very top of the British Isles. Malachy Tallack explores the places that share this latitude, beginning and ending in Shetland, where he has spent most of his life. The book focuses on the landscapes and natural environments of the parallel, and the way that people have interacted with those landscapes. It explores themes of wildness and community, of isolation and engagement, of exile and memory.

Climbing Days by Dan Richards ($35, HB)

Dan Richards is on the trail of his great-great-aunt, Dorothy Pilley, a pioneering mountaineer of the early 20th century. She & her husband, I. A. Richards, were a mystery to Dan, but the chance discovery of her 1935 memoir, Climbing Days, leads him on a journey. Following in the pair’s footholds, Dan travels & climbs across Europe, using Dorothy’s book as a guide. Learning the ropes in Wales and Scotland, scrambling in the Lake District, scaling summits in Spain & Switzerland, he closes in on the serrate pinnacle of Ivor & Dorothy’s climbing lives, the mighty Dent Blanche in the high Alps of Valais. A beautiful portrait of a trailblazing woman, up to now lost to history but also a book about that eternal question: why do people climb mountains?

FICTION

Berlin: A Literary Guide for Travellers

by Paul Sullivan & Marcel Krueger ($43.95, HB)

Wiremu Heke is miles from home seeking to avenge the destruction of his village – but the sealers of Australia’s vast southern oceans must cooperate or die.

OF NEW AUSTRALIAN WRITING

fremantlepress.com.au @FremantlePress

Now in B Format London: A Travel Guide Through Time by Matthew Green, $25 How the French Think: An Affectionate Portrait of an Intellectual People by Sudhir Hazareesingh, $25

9

books for kids to young adults for the very young

compiled by Lynndy Bennett, our children's correspondent Here is yet another reason to embrace books and reading: ‘Because the right words, in the right order and rhythm, mess with you in exactly the right way.’ —Cath Crowley (Australian author)

picture books

This month some of our favourites are being issued in board book format

Oi Frog! by Kes Gray (ill) Jim Field

Brightly coloured bold illustrations, comical animals and wordplay in this rhyming story make it just as much fun for the older reader as for the pre-school listener. Who could resist this slightly gormless frog? ($15, BD) Lynndy

The Crocodile Who Didn’t Like Water

by Gemma Merino

Charmingly guileless, this little crocodile is different from the others, and being the odd one out can be lonely. Although he prefers climbing trees to gambolling in the water, he tries to change so he’ll fit in, but perhaps he isn’t a crocodile after all…? ($15, BD) Lynndy

This wordless picture book tells the story of a little girl, and a bee she rescues. The plight of the world’s bees is well known, and this most charming book is full of encouraging sentiment for fostering all nature, especially bees. Alison Jay’s illustrations are warm, colourful and full of detail… the little girl lives in the city, but has reminders of nature all around her. I particularly loved all the flowery and spotty patterns throughout the book, and there’s a list of flowers and herbs that bees love, for any nascent gardeners out there. A great one for reading with the very young, and older children will enjoy the details and humour throughout. ($25, HB) Louise

The Detective Dog by Julia Donaldson (ill) Sara Ogilvie ($25, HB) Nell the dog has a very strong sense of small, and employs it well. She’s an asset at home if you lose a sock or a shoe, or mislay any toys. On Mondays, Nell goes to school with 6 year old Peter, and listens to the children reading (what a great idea!)

One particular Monday morning, there’s a disaster at school, and Nell is quickly employed to use her specific skill. Told in rhyme, this fast paced adventure is full of humour, with wonderful illustrations that extend the text, and create a wholly involving story. Sara Ogilvie’s illustrations are reminiscent of that golden age of British children’s picture book illustration, when paint and pencil and ink graced the page, and her illustrative technique is reminiscent of her work as a printmaker, with layers of textures that subtly build up the pictures. Full of detail and movement, with a hundred little stories told within the picture on the page, The Detective Dog is a book that is bound to be read and re-read many times, with something new being revealed each time. For 4–8 year olds. Louise The Stupendously Spectacular Spelling Bee

by Deborah Abela ($15, PB)

Considering the success of a certain TV programme, this novel is very timely, although shyness doesn’t seem to be an attribute of Australia’s real little language aficionados. ‘India Wimple can spell. Brilliantly.

Every Friday night, she and her family watch the Stupendously Spectacular Spelling Bee. When the Wimples suggest she enter the next Bee, India says she’s not good enough—but her family won’t hear it and encourage her to sign up. There are plenty of obstacles to reaching the finals: something in India’s past has made her terribly shy, and moving on to each round involves finding the money to make it happen. And finally, there’s Summer Millicent Ernestine Beauregard-Champion, a spoilt rich girl who is determined to win—and isn’t afraid to step on anyone who gets in her way.’

non-fiction

Bee-&-Me by Alison Jay

All Kinds of Cars by Carl Johanson

This is a really imaginative look at all kinds of vehicles, real and imagined. I like the way the illustrator has combined the two, just as he has combined black and white illustrations with colour ones, creating a really interesting mix. For example there are two pages of completely made up vehicles—a hip-hop car, a castle car, a chimney car, a chewing gum car, followed by two pages of heavy work vehicles: a drilling rig, a mining dump truck, a remote miner, a bed car, all drawn in the simple, but accurate style that is used in the book.

Each vehicle is clearly labelled, and put together in loose categories. Flat bright colours have been used throughout, and the whole book is full of humour and detail… from the black and white endpapers that show a very busy cityscape, and the alphabetical index at the back. This is a very nicely designed book throughout, from the matt buff coloured cover, with its crisp white pages, and appealing font, all in capital sans-serif lettering.

Great for 2–7 year olds. ($28, HB) Louise

fiction

Forgetting Foster by Dianne Touchell ($20, PB)

Just as West Australian author Touchell’s previous books related to socially difficult teenage matters, this latest novel is a tremendously powerful depiction of a young family facing dementia. Seven-year-old Foster adores his lively prankster dad whose endless imagination allows him to weave marvellous stories around anything at all. When his dad starts to forget everyday things, none of their family is concerned—after all, everyone forgets things at times. However with more frequent forgetting comes a decrease in joking, and changes in his dad’s personality, then his mum becoming very angry and overwrought, so that even optimistic Foster realises something very serious is wrong in his family. ‘Foster’s feelings were tangling him up. No one was explaining to him how he should be feeling and he didn’t understand the feeling that was bothering him now… Dad was going away somewhere all on his own. And Foster was already missing him.’ Indiscriminate and tragic, dementia is far more commonly known as a disease that strikes older people but it affects much younger people too, and in this heart-wrenching story we share Foster’s amusement, confusion and ambivalence as his family dissolves then adapts around his dad’s illness. Unsettling, compassionate and just superb, Forgetting Foster is great for readers of about 10–14 who love Palacio’s Wonder and other books about human relationships. I defy you to remain unmoved! Lynndy

Astronaut Academy: Are You Ready for the Challenge?

by Steve Martin (ill) Jennifer Farley ($20, PB)

The Gruffalo and Friends Annual 2017

by Julia Donaldson (ill) Axel Scheffler

Longing for five minutes peace? This latest Gruffalo annual, brimming with crafts, puzzles, colouring in, stories and activities will keep your little monsters occupied with favourite characters and ever so much more. ($17, HB) We love our selection of Ostheimer wooden animals! Handmade in Germany, using non-toxic paints and natural oils, these toys are made to last, and are destined to become family heirlooms (I have several that are now being enjoyed by a second generation). We have a veritable flock of different birds at the moment—blackbirds, owls, ducks and drakes, finches, sparrows and geese, all ranging from $12. We also have a few woodland creatures, and a very handsome Frog Prince, and all are currently perching in and under a special unpainted wood Ostheimer tree ($70).

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toys

What’s it really like to be an astronaut on a mission to Mars? In this exciting activity book kids will not only find out but also train for their own missions. Once enrolled at the academy, they face a variety of challenges and missions that mimic the real-life tasks astronauts may have to perform in space. Specific activities include handeye coordination exercises, obstacle courses, building a balloon rocket, basic first-aid skills, how to deal with weightlessness, and doing fiddly things while wearing big gloves! A jam-packed Space Goodies section includes stickers, a poster, board game, press-outs, and a model space shuttle. Informative, interactive, and fun, this book will appeal to all aspiring astronauts!

Sticker Shape Create by Thereza Rowe ($20, PB) Sticker, Shape, Create is in a stylish new art activity series for creative children, combining stickers and drawing. Using just a few basic sticker shapes and following simple step-by-step instructions, kids can build striking sticker pictures onto a variety of background scenes. Each spread features a different theme, from chirping birds and incredible insects, to hot air balloons, fun cityscapes, fireworks and lots more. After the basic sticker shapes have been created, children can use pens or coloured pencils to add fun and imaginative details to the stickers, bringing the pictures to life. Each pull-out sticker sheet contains the same shapes in 10 different colours, so children can mix and match to create their own unique pictures and combinations.

breaking news . . .

Australian titles featured on USBBY outstanding international books list: Two Australian titles have been selected for the 2016 United States Board of Books for Young People (USBBY) list of Outstanding International Books for children and young adults. Irena Kobald’s My Two Blankets, illustrated by Freya Blackwood, was selected in the pre-kindergarten-to-grade 2 age category. Amina: Through My Eyes by J L Powers was selected in the grades 6-8 age category. The USBBY list of Outstanding International Books for children and young adults is compiled by the USBBY Outstanding International Books committee from international books published in the US during the previous calendar year.

Food & Health

The Middlepause: On Turning Fifty

by Marina Benjamin ($30, PB)

Spurred by her own brutal propulsion into menopause, Marina Benjamin weighs the losses, joys & opportunities of our middle years, taking inspiration from literature & philosophical example. She uncovers the secret misogynistic history of HRT, and tells us why a dose of Jung is better than a trip to the gym. Attending to ageing parents, the shock of bereavement, parenting a teenager, and her own health woes, she emerges into a new definition of herself as daughter, mother, citizen & woman.

I Quit Sugar: Slow Cooker Cookbook

by Sarah Wilson ($25, PB)

Learn how to use a slow cooker, use leftovers and buy sustainable cuts of meat; Create simple staples and clever sides; Start the day with hearty breakfasts and weekday dump ‘n’ runs; Slow cook soups and stews, curries and comfort classics or, for those more adventurous, a little offal; Sweeten your day with slow cooked sugar-free cakes and puddings.

Beef and Potatoes: 200 recipes, for the perfect steak and fries and so much more by Jean-Francois Mallet

Rib eye steak with garlic chips; Belgian beef and beer stew; and roast beef with béarnaise sauce. How to make the ultimate chips; potato pancakes with spinach and mint; Dauphine potatoes; and potato puree with truffles. Classic cottage pie; beef and potato tagine with mint yoghurt; traditional beef wellington with duchess potatoes; and Mexicanstyle braised beef. 200 recipes for everything from steak and chips to warming beef bourguignon. ($50, HB)

Easy Mediterranean: 100 Simply Delicious Recipes for the World’s Healthiest Way to Eat by Sue Quinn

Doctors and scientists around the world hail the Mediterranean diet as the healthiest possible way to eat, linking it to lower risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes and other illnesses. Easy Mediterranean celebrates this nutritious—and, most importantly, delicious—approach to food. Sue Quinn combines the vibrant flavours of the countries that hug the Mediterranean Sea to create fresh and contemporary dishes that taste wonderful and are also good for you. Vegetables, fruit, grains, legumes and seafood take centre stage in 100 recipes - with meat, poultry and sweet dishes in the mix, too. All are easy to prepare and share, reflecting a cornerstone of the Mediterranean approach: that food should be a pleasure to be enjoyed with friends and family. ($40, PB)

Milk. Made. by Nick Haddow ($55, HB)

This is an elegant & comprehensive tour of the art of cheesemaking & eating—from selecting cultures, to the practices of production right through to the best recipes to enjoy them. There are sections on the key types of cheese (and other dairy products) as well as how to make cheese, store cheese, serve cheese, and the history of the cheese. For those who don’t want to make it Milk.

Made. includes 75 recipes such as croque monsieur, onion soup with grilled cheese croutons, beetroot and feta tart, sour cream scones, classic fondue & many more.

Fresh India: 120 Quick & Flavour-Packed Vegetarian Recipes for Every Day by Meera Sodha

With over 500 million non-meat eaters, India is the best place for vegetarian food on this earth—all the food in Fresh India is fresh, quick to cook and flavour-packed, with ingredients available from your local supermarket. Recipes include sweet potato kebabs, pomegranate and onion seed parathas, beetroot pachadi, cashew & lemon rice, fresh coconut chutney and so much more. ($50, HB)

Simplissime: The Easiest French Cookbook in the World by Jean-François Mallet ($40, HB)

Discover how to make a mouth-watering Apple Tart with Cinnamon with just five ingredients, or Spaghetti with Asparagus and Orange in just three steps. For an impressive dish, whip up mouth-watering Mussels in Curry in a short 15 minutes. Each of the 160 recipes in this book is made up of only 2-6 ingredients, and can be made in a short amount of time. Recipe steps are precise and simple, accompanied by clear photographs of each ingredient and finished dish.

Nina Capri by Nina Parker ($50, HB) In her new cookbook, Nina Parker draws on her passion for Italian cuisine to present over 100 original recipes. With many gluten-free and dairy-free options, she offers a lighter, healthier approach in her cooking. Full colour throughout, much of this beautiful cookbook is shot on location on the stunning Amalfi Coast of Capri, in amongst the intimacy of the charmed cosy streets, and alongside the expanse of clear blue sea.

New this month Halliday Wine Companion 2017, $40 James Halliday’s Wine Atlas new ed, $80 Great Australian Beer Guide, $30

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events

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MONDAY 1

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Don’t m iss out!

Sign up for gleem Elizabet h Allen’s ail! weekly email ev e n t s u p asims@g d leebooks ate. .com.au

Event—6 for 6.30 Richard Fidler

Ghost Empire In 2014, Richard Fidler and his son Joe made a journey to Istanbul.

Fired by Richard’s passion for the rich history of the dazzling Byzantine Empire, this book a beautifully written ode to a lost civilization, and a warmly observed father-son adventure far from home.

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TUESDAY

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Event—6 for 6.30 Ashleigh Wilson

Brett Whiteley: Art, Life & the Other Thing In conv. with Tony Bond Written with unprecedented behind-the-scenes access, handsomely illustrated with classic Whiteley artworks, rare notebook sketches & candid family photos, this book reveals the full portrait of a mercurial artist.

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WEDNESDAY 3

Launch—6 for 6.30 Caroline Beecham

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Event—6 for 6.30

John Birmingham

How to be a Writer ‘Beauty is good, but coin is better. You can’t eat artistic integrity.

It tastes like sawdust.’ This gonzo guide is a lesson in the practicalities of writing: how to be productive, professional and maybe one day even pay the rent.

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Event—6 for 6.30 Peter Mares

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Event—6 for 6.30 Presented by Walkley Foundation

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Event— Tara Jun

After the in conv. with D Ten years after claimed Swallow t Winch returns w nary new collectio ing from New York Pakistan to Austr gettable stories ch in their char

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Eimear M

The Lesser From the author o winning A Girl Thing, this new n love and innocen covery, the grip o struggle to be new the bedsits and sq ties north

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Position Doubtful In conv. with Susan McCulloch A beautiful and intense exploration of friendships, landscape, and homecoming, Position Doubtful offers a unique portrait of the complexities of black and white relations in contemporary Australia.

Fay Anderson & Sally Young

Shooting the Picture: Press Photography in Australia In conv. with Mike Bowers This is the story of Australian press photography from 1888 to today— the power of the medium, seismic changes in the newspaper industry, and photographers who were often more colourful than their subjects.

A Mission Divide and Colonialism i Mis Launcher: Pro This book provide long process of dec the Methodist Ov Australasia, a co that operated in of F

Kim Mahood

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Maggie’s Kitchen Amid the heartbreak and danger of London in the Blitz of WWII, Maggie Johnson finds her courage in friendship and food. ‘They might all travel the same scarred and shattered streets on their way to work, but once they entered Maggie’s Kitchen, it was somehow as if the rest of the world didn’t exist.’

Not Quite Australian In conv. w. Tim Soutphommasane Today, there are more than million temporary migrants living in Australia. Peter Mares draws on case studies, interviews and personal stories to investigate the complex realities of this new era of temporary migration.

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THUR

30 Event—6 for 6.30 Yann Martel Author Talk

The High Mountains of Portugal Author of Life of Pi returns with a suspenseful, mesmerising story of a great quest for meaning, told in three intersecting narratives that touch the lives of three different people and their families, and taking us on an extraordinary journey through the last century.

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Event—6 for 6.30

Juris & Lois Greste

Freeing Peter Freeing Peter tells the extraordinary true story of how an ordinary Australian family took on the Egyptian government to get Peter Greste out of prison.

Kirstie Cl

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Adele D

No Man is This is a unique p takes a humanitar migration detentio sue of immigratio sible through a viv of characters and story about immi all Australians

August 2016

RSDAY

—6 for 6.30 ne Winch

e Carnage Dr Jane Messer r the much-acthe Air, Tara June with an extraordion of stories. Rangk to Istanbul, from ralia, these unforhart the distances racters’ lives

—6 for 6.30 McBride

Bohemians of the multi-awardIs a Half-formed novel is a story of nce, joy and disof the past and the w again, set across quats of mid-nineh London.

—6 for 6.30 lose-Barry

ed: Race, Culture in Fiji’s Methodist ssion of. Tim Rowse es insight into the colonisation within verseas Missions of olonial institution the British colony Fiji.

All events listed are $12/$9 concession. Book Launches are free.

Gleeclub members free entry to events at 49 Glebe Pt Rd

Events are held upstairs at #49 Glebe Point Road unless otherwise noted.

Bookings—Phone: (02) 9660 2333, Email: events@gleebooks.com.au, Online: www.gleebooks.com.au/events

FRIDAY 5

Launch—6 for 6.30 The Chaser

Chaser Quarterly Issue 4 Launcher: David Hunt A comprehensive guide to the culture, history, politics, religion, fashion, media and the few remaining footy heroes not currently facing criminal charges, that have made Australia one of the Top 196 countries in the world today.

12 Launch—6 for 6.30 Gay McKinley

On Becoming Good Enough: Stories from both sides of the couch Launcher: Petrea King In her years as a psychotherapist, a sense of never being good enough sat alongside most of Gay’s clients—it also sat alongside herself. She has written these stories because it took her nearly 60 years to know that she is good enough.

Event—6 for 6.30

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Brad Norington

Planet Jackson: Power, Greed & Unions in conv. with Annabel Crabb Kathy Jackson was hailed as a heroine for blowing the whistle on the million-dollar fraud of Michael Williamson, the corrupt boss of the Health Services Union. But what if Jackson was just as corrupt as Williamson? This is the real HSU story.

26 Launch—6 for 6.30 Fred Smith

The Dust of Uruzgan This is the personal story of Australia’s war in Afghanistan as told by Fred Smith, star of Australian Story, Australian diplomat in Afghanistan and Australian Defence Forces favourite singer and composer of Dust of Uruzgan.

SATURDAY 6

Launch—3.30 for 4

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Russell Meares

The Poet’s Voice in the Making of Mind Launchers: David Butt, Anthony Korner, Cécile Barral and Joan Haliburn How did the human mind evolve and how does it emerge, again and again, in individual lives? Russell Meares presents a fascinating inquiry into the origin of mind..

Launch—3.30 for 4

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Bobby-Jo Clow

Reflections of Elephants Launcher: David Blissett This is a celebration, seen through the lens of acclaimed photographer Bobby-Jo Clow. From the rusty, red plains of Tsavo to the lush, green forests of Northern Thailand, BobbyJo has captured every aspect of elephant life, from first step to untimely death.

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Launch—3.30 for 4 Pene Henson

Into the Blue Pene Henson has been many things— minister’s wife, barefoot beach-town kid, New York City lawyer, British boarding school matron, baseball team manager, singer in a rock band, church choir member, queer party girl, and soccer mom. Into the Blue is her first novel.

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21 Launch—3.30 for 4

Randa Abdel-Fattah

When Michael Met Mina In conv w. Sara Saleh (human rights and refugee advocate) A boy. A girl. Two families. One great divide. When Michael meets Mina, they are at a rally for refugees - standing on opposite sides. This is a novel A novel for anyone who wants to fight for love & against injustice.

27 Launch—3.30 for 4 Michelle Cahill

28 Launch—3.30 for 4

Letter to Pessoa Launcher: Michelle de Kretser a scientist, a cat and a young Indian female version of Joseph Conrad, in settings across the world, from Barcelona to Capetown, Boston to Chiang Mai, Kathmandu to Kraków, is the first collection of short stories by award-winning Goan-Australian poet Michelle Cahill.

—6 for 6.30 Dumont

s an Island personal story that rian stance on imon. It makes the ison detention accesvidly told story full humanity. It is the igration detention s need to read.

SUNDAY

Remember! b and get free Join the Gleeclu ld at our shops, entry to events he with every pur10%credit accrued aner delivered to chase, and the Gle onth. your door every m

Shibboleth and Other Stories: The 2016 Margaret River Short Story Competition anthology Launcher: Julie Koh With her prize-winning story Jo Riccioni paves the way for a collection of twenty-four immaculate stories. Other contributors include Magdalena McGuire, Michelle Wright, Melanie Cheng, Cassie Hamer, and Laura Elvery.

Tim Winton in October Author Talk Sun. October 9—5 for 5.30

The Boy Behind the Curtain The remarkable true stories in his new book reveal an intimate and rare view of Tim Winton’s imagination at work and play. $45 (no concession) Ticket price includes entry to the event, drinks on arrival & a copy of the book

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Granny’s Good Reads with Sonia Lee

I must confess that I couldn’t bear to read Helen Garner’s This House of Grief ($24), but her latest offering, Everywhere I Look ($26.99), is a great delight. Spanning the last fifteen years of her work, it includes diary extracts, a delicious essay on the insults of age, a touching tribute to her mother, and, best of all, her letter to Mrs Dunkley, who taught a very young Helen 5th Grade parsing and analysis, thus giving her the tools of the trade to become a writer. How to Marry Your Daughters, in which Garner revisits Pride and Prejudice moved me to (her phrase) ‘flights of joyous hyperbole’.

With a writer’s keen eye she examines the plot, calls Austen a ‘cunning minx’ for placing Darcy’s first proposal exactly halfway through the novel and making the reader wait just as long again for the resolution. Relishing the novel’s ‘detached wit’, she drinks a final toast to ‘the Empress, Jane Austen’ and ‘the Lydias of this world, the slack molls who add grit to the engine of the marriage plot’. I say long live Empress Helen and God bless Mrs Dunkley, who taught her that an adverb can modify an adjective and that a well-written sentence is a thing of beauty and a joy for ever.

With The Last Painting of Sara De Vos ($33), Dominic Smith has given us a beautiful and engrossing novel. This is a story of love and heartbreak, betrayal, regret and resilience. Smith deftly moves the action from 1957 in Manhattan, where Australian student Ellie Shipley is forging At The Edge of the Wood—a rare work from the golden age of Dutch painting by Sara de Vos, to 1636 in Holland, where de Vos paints the original in sadly reduced circumstances, to 2000 in Sydney, where Ellie, now a celebrated art historian, is curating an exhibition of Dutch women painters at which the forgery is likely to come to light. Smith creates such strong visual impressions of these places and the people who inhabit them that they linger with the reader long afterwards. The art descriptions, especially the one of At The Edge of the Wood, provide one of the delights of the book—and the lecture Ellie Shipley gives on Vermeer is a splendid tour de force. I loved this novel and think it could well be voted best book of the year.

Econobabble ($20), a useful little book by Richard Denniss, demystifies many of the words used by politicians and economists to bamboozle us, such as surplus, deficit, free trade, efficiency and even unemployment. Denniss also exposes many of the inconsistencies and stupid arguments which people tend to accept because they are so forcefully asserted. This is a book to keep in your back pocket and bring out when perplexed.

Readers who remember having a little weep over Paul Gallico’s The Snow Goose in their youth will be pleased to see the recent reprint of the novel with delectable illustrations by Angela Barrett and a cover to tug at the heart strings ($36.99). It would make a perfect gift for a teenager, especially with the new film of the 1940 Dunkirk evacuation in production. (My son, by the way, is in the film crew.)

My bedside book this month is Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez ($23), author of the classic Of Wolves and Men ($35). Lopez has a keen eye and an exquisitely crafted prose style. As a bonus there’s a foreword to this re-issue

by Robert Macfarlane. Lopez wrote Arctic Dreams in 1986 but since then the Arctic ice has retreated by ten per cent a year, so the animals which were the object of his rapt admiration may well be gone by 2050 or so, giving his book the air of a death-knell.

Sonia

Two Sisters: A True Story by Ngarta Jinny Bent

Ngarta & Jukuna lived in the Great Sandy Desert. They traversed country according to the seasons, just as the Walmajarri people had done for thousands of years. But it was a time of change. Desert people who had lived with little knowledge of European settlement were now moving onto cattle stations. Those left behind were vulnerable & faced unimaginable challenges. In 1961, when Jukuna leaves with her new husband, young Ngarta remains with a group of women & children. Tragedy strikes & Ngarta is forced to travel alone. Her survival depends on cunning & courage as she is pursued by two murderers in a vast unforgiving landscape. Jukuna’s rich account may be the first autobiography written in an Aboriginal language. Presented in English and Walmajarri. ($25, PB)

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Australian Studies

Position Doubtful: Mapping Landscapes and Memories by Kim Mahood ($30, PB)

Since the publication of her prize-winning memoir Craft for a Dry Lake, in 2000, writer and artist Kim Mahood has been returning to the Tanami desert country in far north-western Australia where, as a child, she lived with her family on a remote cattle station. The land is timeless, but much has changed: the station has been handed back to its traditional owners; the mining companies have arrived; and Aboriginal art has flourished. Comedy and tragedy, familiarity and uncertainty are Mahood’s constant companions as she immerses herself in the life of a small community and in groundbreaking mapping projects. What emerges in is a revelation of the significance of the land to its people—and of the burden of history.

Griffith Review 53: Our Sporting Life (ed) Julianne Schultz ($28, PB)

Timed to coincide with the finals season and the Rio Olympics, Griffith Review 53 brings insider reports from major sporting events and minor sporting communities; it investigates the links between sport & business, sport & culture, sport & social cohesion; the life of the athlete & the passion of the spectator. It examines betting, doping & corruption; race, gender & violence in (and around) sport; as well as positive stories of sport in regional & rural Australia & beyond.

Not Quite Australian: How Temporary Migration Is Changing the Nation by Peter Mares ($33, PB)

Today, there are more than million temporary migrants living in Australia. They work, pay tax and abide by our laws, yet they remain unrecognised as citizens. All the while, this rise in temporary migration is redefining Australian society, from wage wars and healthcare benefits, to broader ideas of national identity and cultural diversity. Peter Mares draws on case studies, interviews and personal stories to investigate the complex realities of this new era of temporary migration.

Mares considers such issues as the expansion of the 457 work visa, the unique experience of New Zealand migrants, the internationalisation of Australia’s education system and our highly politicised asylum-seeker policies to draw conclusions about our nation’s changing landscape.

The Hate Race by Maxine Beneba Clarke ($33, PB) Suburban Australia. Sweltering heat. Three bedroom blonde-brick.

Family of five. Beat-up Ford Falcon. Vegemite on toast. Maxine Beneba Clarke’s life is just like all the other Aussie kids on her street.

Except for this one, glaring, inescapably obvious thing. This is a powerful, funny, and at times devastating memoir about growing up black in white middle-class Australia.

City Dreamers by Graeme Davison ($35, PB)

Building on a lifetime’s work, Graeme Davison views Australian history, from 1788 to the present day, through the eyes of city dreamers—such as Henry Lawson, Charles Bean and Hugh Stretton—and others who have helped make the cities we inhabit. Davison looks at significant individuals or groups that he calls snobs, slummers, pessimists, exodists, suburbans and anti-suburbans—and argues that there’s a particular twist to the ways in which Australians think about cities. And the way we live in them.

Platform papers 48—When the Goal Posts Move

by Ben Eltham ($17, PB)

In May 2015 the Federal Arts Minister, George Brandis, dropped a funding bombshell that divided the arts like nothing since the Fraser Government in the 1980s brought down ceiling funding on the recently created State arts. Brandis’ action favoured the classic arts but threatened the country’s developmental arm, the ‘small to medium’ sector, and drove a wedge between the two which promised the death of innovation. Journalist & social commentator Ben Eltham traces his coverage of these 12 months: the shocking impact, the actions taken; and asks: How have the arts become so marginalised? Is this the end of our most imaginative initiatives? Of the Australia Council itself?

A Handful of Sand: The Gurindji Struggle, After the Walk-Off by Charlie Ward ($29.95, PB) Fifty years ago, a group of striking Aboriginal stockmen in the remote Northern Territory of Australia heralded a revolution in the cattle industry and a massive shift in Aboriginal affairs. After many years of research, Charlie Ward tells the story behind the Gurindji people’s famous Wave Hill Walk-off in 1966 and questions the meanings commonly attributed to the return of their land by Gough Whitlam in 1975. Written with a sensitive, candid and perceptive hand, the book reveals the path Vincent Lingiari and other Gurindji elders took to achieve their land rights victory, and how their struggles in fact began, rather than ended, with Whitlam’s handback.

Also new: Hamilton Hume: Our Greatest Explorer by Robert Macklin ($33, PB) Bolt—Worth Fighting For: Insights and Reflections by Andrew Bolt ($25, PB) Follow the Leaders: How to survive a modern-day election campaign by Francis Keany ($20, PB)

The Water Kingdom by Philip Ball

History

Water is a key that unlocks much of Chinese history and thought. The ubiquitous relationship that the Chinese people have had with water has made it an enduring metaphor for philosophical thought and artistic expression. From the Han emperors to Mao, the ability to manage the waters—to provide irrigation and defend against floods—became a barometer of political legitimacy, and attempts to do so have involved engineering works on a gigantic scale. Yet the strain that economic growth is putting on its water resources today may be the greatest threat to China’s future. Philip Ball has written an epic story, guided by travellers and explorers, poets and painters, bureaucrats and activists, who have themselves struggled to come to terms with living in a world so shaped and permeated by water. ($35, PB)

The Penguin History of Modern Vietnam

by Christopher Goscha ($65, HB)

The Vietnamese are in the unusual situation of being both colonisers themselves and the victims of colonization by others. Their country expanded, shrunk, split and sometimes disappeared, often under circumstances way beyond their control. Despite these often overwhelming pressures Vietnam has survived and is universally recognized as forming one of Asia’s most striking and complex cultures.

Christopher Goscha draws on the latest research and discoveries in Vietnamese, French and English. He describes both the grand narrative of Vietnam’s story but also many of the remarkable byways and what ifs, and spends time on the countless minority groups who have done so much over the centuries to define the many versions of Vietnam.

The First Circumnavigators: Unsung Heroes of the Age of Discovery by Harry Kelsey ($57.95, HB)

Harry Kelsey’s book is concentrate on the hitherto anonymous sailors, slaves, adventurers & soldiers who manned the ships of Ferdinand Magellan & other illustrious explorers. He contends that these initial transglobal voyages occurred by chance, beginning with the launch of Magellan’s armada in 1519, when the crews dispatched by the king of Spain to claim the Spice Islands in the western Pacific were forced to seek a longer way home, resulting in bitter confrontations with rival Portuguese. Based on more than 30 years of research in European & American archives, Kelsey offers fascinating stories of treachery, greed, murder, desertion, sickness & starvation but also of courage, dogged persistence, leadership, and loyalty.

Politics

Easternisation: War and Peace in the Asian Century by Gideon Rachman ($35, PB)

Easternisation is the defining trend of our age—the growing wealth of Asian nations is transforming the international balance of power.

This shift to the East is shaping the lives of people all over the world, the fate of nations and the great questions of war and peace.

A troubled but rising China is now challenging America’s supremacy, and the ambitions of other Asian powers—including Japan, North Korea, India and Pakistan—have the potential to shake the whole world.

Meanwhile the West is struggling with economic malaise and political populism, the Arab world is in turmoil and Russia longs to reclaim its status as a great power. Gideon Rachman offers a road map to the turbulent process that will define the international politics of the 21st century.

Collision Course: Endless Growth on a Finite Planet by Kerryn Higgs ($46.95, PB)

The notion of ever-expanding economic growth has been promoted so relentlessly that ‘growth’ is now entrenched as the natural objective of collective human effort. The public has been convinced that growth is the natural solution to virtually all social problems—poverty, debt, unemployment, and even the environmental degradation caused by the determined pursuit of growth. Meanwhile, warnings by scientists that we live on a finite planet that cannot sustain infinite economic expansion are ignored or even scorned. In Collision Course, Kerryn Higgs examines how society’s commitment to growth has marginalised scientific findings on the limits of growth, casting them as bogus predictions of imminent doom.

Against Democracy by Jason Brennan ($55.95, HB)

Most people believe democracy is a uniquely just form of government—political participation is good for us—it empowers us, helps us get what we want, makes us smarter, more virtuous, and more caring for one another. Jason Brennan argues that democracy should be judged by its results—and the results are not good enough. Just as defendants have a right to a fair trial, citizens have a right to competent government. But democracy is the rule of the ignorant & the irrational, and it all too often falls short. Furthermore, no one has a fundamental right to any share of political power, and exercising political power does most of us little good. On the contrary, a wide range of social science research shows that political participation and democratic deliberation actually tend to make people worse—more irrational, biased & mean. Given this grim picture, Brennan argues that a new system of government—epistocracy, the rule of the knowledgeable—may be better than democracy, and that it’s time to experiment & find out.

Agents of Empire: Knights, Corsairs, Jesuits and Spies in the 16th Century Mediterranean World

by Noel Malcolm ($30, PB)

This book describes the paths taken through the eastern Mediterranean and its European hinterland by members of a VenetianAlbanian family, almost all of them previously invisible to history.

They include an archbishop in the Balkans, the captain of the papal flagship at the Battle of Lepanto, the power behind the throne in the Ottoman province of Moldavia, and a dragoman (interpreter) at the Venetian embassy in Istanbul. Through the life-stories of these adventurous individuals over three generations, Noel Malcolm casts the world between Venice, Rome and the Ottoman Empire in a fresh light, illuminating subjects as diverse as espionage, diplomacy, the grain trade, slave-ransoming and anti-Ottoman rebellion.

The House of the Dead: Siberian Exile Under the Tsars by Daniel Beer ($65, HB)

It was known as ‘the vast prison without a roof’. From the beginning of the 19th century to the Russian Revolution, the tsarist regime exiled more than one million prisoners & their families beyond the Ural Mountains to Siberia. Daniel Beer brings to life both the brutal realities of an inhuman system & the tragic & inspiring fates of those who endured it. This is the vividly told history of common criminals & political radicals, the victims of serfdom & village politics, the wives & children who followed husbands & fathers, and of fugitives & bounty-hunters. Beer taps a mass of almost unknown primary evidence held in Russian & Siberian archives to tell the epic story of both Russia’s struggle to govern its monstrous penal colony & Siberia’s ultimate, decisive impact on the political forces of the modern world.

All Things Made New: Writings on the Reformation by Diarmaid MacCulloch ($60, HB)

The Reformation which engulfed England & Europe in the 16th century was one of the most highly-charged, bloody & transformative periods in their history. Ever since, it has remained one of the most contested. These essays expand upon MacCulloch’s classic Reformation: Europe’s House Divided.

Throughout the book, he brilliantly undermines one persistent English tradition of interpreting the Reformation—that it never really happened—and establishes that Anglicanism was really a product of Charles II’s Restoration in 1660 rather than the ‘Elizabethan Settlement’ of 1559.

Listen, Liberal or, what ever happened to the party of the people? by Thomas Frank ($30, PB)

Financial inequality is one of the biggest political issues of our time: from the Wall Street bail-outs—where bankers still received huge bonuses while thousands of people lost their homes—to the rise of ‘the One Percent’, who between them control 40 per cent of US wealth. So where are the Democrats —the notional party of the people—in all this? In his scathing examination of how the Democratic Party has failed to combat financial inequality, despite being given near perfect conditions for success, Thomas Frank argues that the Left in America has abandoned its roots to pursue a new class of supporter: elite professionals. Unless the Democrats remember their historic purpose & win back the working class, Frank warns, the rift between America’s rich and poor will deepen further still, with dire consequences for both sides.

Europe Since 1989: A History by Philipp Ther

The year 1989 brought the fall of the Berlin Wall & the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. It was also the year that the economic theories of Reagan, Thatcher, and the Chicago School achieved global dominance. Philipp Ther—a firsthand witness to many of the transformations, from Czechoslovakia during the Velvet Revolution to postcommunist Poland & Ukraine—offers a sweeping narrative, describing how liberalization, deregulation & privatization had catastrophic effects on former Soviet Bloc countries. He refutes the idea that this economic ‘shock therapy’ was the basis of later growth, arguing that human capital and the ‘transformation from below’ determined economic success or failure. Most important, he shows how the capitalist West’s effort to reshape Eastern Europe in its own likeness ended up reshaping Western Europe as well. ($75, HB)

A Billion Voices: China’s Search for a Common Language by David Moser ($10, PB)

Mandarin, Guoyu or Putonghua? ‘Chinese’ is a language known by many names, and China is a country home to many languages. Since the turn of the twentieth century linguists and politicians have been on a mission to create a common language for China. From the radical intellectuals of the May Fourth Movement, to leaders such as Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong, all fought linguistic wars to push the boundaries of language reform.

Now, Internet users take the Chinese language in new and unpredictable directions. David Moser tells the remarkable story of China’s language unification agenda and its controversial relationship with modern politics, challenging our conceptions of what it means to speak and be Chinese.

15

Science & Nature

Lolcatz, Santa, and Death by Dog: Strange & True Tales from Science & Technology

by Andrew Masterson ($35, PB)

Have you ever considered, for example, the influence of breasts in cyberterrorism? Or the role of cats in the Arab Spring? Did you know that there is a peer-reviewed paper describing the correct method for sticking a pin in a can of Guinness? Andrew Masterson takes a gleeful romp through the curiosities of science and tech research, pausing occasionally to interview some of the giants in the field, including cosmologist Neil deGrasse Tyson, string theorist Brian Greene, US ‘science guy’ Bill Nye, science comedian Robin Ince, and America’s most wanted man, Edward Snowden.

G

Kingdom of Speech by Tom Wolfe ($33, HB) Tom Wolfe argues that speech—not evolution—is responsible for humanity’s complex societies and achievements. From Alfred Russel Wallace, the Englishman who beat Darwin to the theory of natural selection but later renounced it, and through the controversial work of modernday anthropologist Daniel Everett, who defies the current wisdom that language is hard-wired in humans, Wolfe examines the solemn, longfaced, laugh-out-loud zig-zags of Darwinism, old and Neo, and finds it irrelevant here in our Kingdom of Speech.

oenawan Mohamad is one of Indonesia’s foremost

literary figures and public intellectuals. This selection of translated essays, spanning 1968 to 2014, demonstrates the breadth of his perceptive and elegant commentary on literature, faith, mythology, politics, history and Indonesian life. In Other Words shows a writer committed to Indonesia and engaging with universal themes and struggles, offering a fascinating insight into questions that concern us all.

The Art of Flight by Fredrik Sjöberg ($35, HB) ‘We rarely know where and almost never why. It doesn’t matter. Nothing is certain any longer. I just want to shut my eyes, point at random and say, as a sort of experiment, that once, when I was 16 years old, I spent a whole night singing romantic songs in the top of a pine tree.

That’s where it may have started.’ Fredrik Sjöberg continues his exploration of the pleasures and trials of those who spend their time tracing the smallest details of the natural world in these two tales of ambition, fear and hapless romance. Calling on his childhood memories and experience as a hoverfly collector, and following the trail of long forgotten entomologists before him who left their native Sweden for the national parks of the US, Sjöberg contemplates the richness of life & the strange paths it leads us on.

The Long, Long Life of Trees by Fiona Stafford

Trees are so entwined with human experience that diverse species have inspired their own stories, myths, songs, poems, paintings & spiritual meanings. Some have achieved status as religious, cultural, or national symbols. In this beautifully illustrated volume Fiona Stafford offers intimate, detailed explorations of 17 common trees, from ash and apple to pine, oak, cypress & willow. She discusses practical uses of wood past and present, tree diseases and environmental threats, and trees’ potential contributions toward slowing global climate change. Brimming with unusual topics and intriguing facts, this book celebrates trees and their long, long lives as our inspiring and beloved natural companions. ($42.95, HB)

The Boy Who Played with Fusion: Extreme Science, Extreme Parenting and How to Make a Star

by Tom Clynes ($23, PB)

I

n the mountains and jungles of Timor, Bougainville and New Guinea, during the Second World War

elite Australian forces fought arduous campaigns against the Japanese. The story of these independent companies and commando squadrons, whose soldiers wore the distinctive double-diamond insignia, is told here for the first time. Through arresting images from the Australian War Memorial’s unparalleled collection – some never published before – Double Diamonds

profiles the operational history of these units and the stories of the men who served.

w w w. n ews o u t h p u b l i s h i n g .co m

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By the age of 11, Taylor Wilson had mastered the science of rocket propulsion. At 13, his grandmother’s cancer diagnosis drove him to investigate medical uses for radioactive isotopes. And at 14, Wilson became the youngest person in history to achieve nuclear fusion. How could someone so young achieve so much, and what can Wilson’s story teach parents and teachers about how to support high-achieving children? Science journalist Tom Clynes follows Taylor Wilson from his Arkansas home where his parents encouraged his intellectual passions, to the present, when now-17-year-old Wilson is winning international science competitions with devices designed to prevent terrorists from shipping radioactive material into the US.

1001 Inventions That Changed The World ($40, PB) Have you ever wondered who came up with a staircase that moved, leading eventually to the creation of the escalator? The genius of some inventions is their simplicity: the paperclip, rivets, boomerangs. From the invention of the wheel in the fifth millennium BC to the development of the world wide web and the launch of the MP3 player, this engaging, accessible, and enlightening book reveals the origins and impact of everything from paper to the personal computer, and from penicillin to the contraceptive pill.

Incredible Life Forms: A Colouring Book

by Ernst Haeckel ($20, PB)

50 ready-to-colour drawings of magnificent creatures taken from lithographic plates by 19th century naturalist and artist Ernst Haeckel. Enter the wonderful and mysterious world of the oceans and colour your way to new discoveries as did Ernst Haeckel, a biologist, naturalist, and artist, who in the late 18th century studied and illustrated thousands of new species. These 50 exotic drawings taken from a collection of the original 100 lithographic plates show a multitude of beautiful and exotic life forms each one more marvellous than the last; jellyfish, starfish, sea slugs, star coral and many others. The spectacular drawings need colouring to bring them to life—allowing you to bring your own sense of colour and vibrancy to the forms.

Philosophy & Religon

Ecology of Wisdom by Arne Naess ($27, PB)

Philosopher, mountaineer, activist and visionary, Arne Naess’s belief that all living things have value made him one of the most inspirational figures in the environmental movement. Drawing on his years spent in an isolated hut high in the Norwegian mountains, and on influences as diverse as Gandhi’s nonviolent action and Spinoza’s all-encompassing worldview, this selection of the best of his writings is filled with wit, charisma and intense connection with nature.

Emphasizing joy, cooperation and ‘beautiful actions’, they create a philosophy of life from a man who never lost his sense of wonder at the world.

Broken Tablets: Levinas, Derrida, and the Literary Afterlife of Religion by Sarah Hammerschlag

Over a span of thirty years, twentieth-century French philosophers Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida held a conversation across texts. Sharing a Jewish heritage and a background in phenomenology, both came to situate their work at the margins of philosophy, articulating this placement through religion and literature. Chronicling the interactions between these thinkers, Sarah Hammerschlag argues that the stakes in their respective positions were more than philosophical. They were also political. Levinas’ investments were born out in his writings on Judaism and ultimately in an evolving conviction that the young state of Israel held the best possibility for achieving such an ideal. For Derrida, the Jewish question was literary. ($55.95, PB)

Love in the Dark: Philosophy by Another Name

by Diane Enns ($53.95, HB)

Love in the Dark claims that intimacy must accept risk as long as love does not destroy the self. Erotic love inspires an inexplicable affirmation of another but can erode the autonomy and vulnerability necessary for love. There is a limit to love, and appreciating this limit requires a rethinking of love’s liberal paradigms, which Enns traces back to the hostility toward the body and eros in Christianity and the Western philosophical tradition. Against a legacy of an abstract and sanitized love, Enns recasts erotic attachment as an event linked to conditional circumstances. The value of love lies in its intensity and depth, and its end does not negate love’s truth or significance. Writing in a lyrical, genre-defying style Enns delineates the paradoxes of love in its relation to lust, abuse, suffering, and grief to reach an account of love faithful to human experience.

Miracle Myth: Why Belief in the Resurrection and the Supernatural Is Unjustified

by Lawrence Shapiro ($54.95, HB)

There are many who believe Moses parted the Red Sea and Jesus came back from the dead. Others are certain that exorcisms occur, ghosts haunt attics, and the blessed can cure the terminally ill.

Though extraordinarily improbable, people have embraced miracles and myths for millennia, seeing in them proof of the extraordinary potential of our world—and ourselves. Lawrence Shapiro acknowledges that myths have value. They may even provide insight into our place in nature.

Even so, if our understanding of reality is formed through the fallacy of myth, our ties to the world fray. Shapiro’s investigation reminds us of the importance of evidence and rational thinking as we explore the unknown.

A Little History of Religion by Richard Holloway

Richard Holloway retells the entire history of religion from the dawn of religious belief to the 21st century. Writing for those with faith & those without, and especially for young readers, he encourages curiosity & tolerance, accentuates nuance & mystery, and calmly restores a sense of the value of faith. Ranging far beyond the major world religions of Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism & Hinduism, Holloway also examines where religious belief comes from, the search for meaning throughout history, today’s fascinations with Scientology & creationism, religiously motivated violence, hostilities between religious people and secularists & more. ($38.95, HB)

The Wisdom of Frugality: Why Less is More— More or Less by Emrys Westacott

From Socrates to Thoreau, most philosophers, moralists, and religious leaders have seen frugality as a virtue and have associated simple living with wisdom, integrity, and happiness. But why? And are they right? Is a taste for luxury fundamentally misguided? If one has the means to be a spendthrift, is it foolish or reprehensible to be extravagant? In this book, Emrys Westacott examines why, for more than two millennia, so many philosophers and people with a reputation for wisdom have been advocating frugality and simple living as the key to the good life. He also looks at why most people have ignored them, but argues that, in a world facing environmental crisis, it may finally be time to listen to the advocates of a simpler way of life. Looking not only at the arguments in favour of living frugally and simply, but also at the case that can be made for luxury and extravagance, including the idea that modern economies require lots of getting and spending, this is a philosophically informed reflection rather than a polemic—ultimately arguing that we will be better off—as individuals and as a society— if we move away from the materialistic individualism that currently rules. ($57.95, HB)

Psychology The Memory Illusion: Remembering, Forgetting, and the Science of False Memory

by Julia Shaw ($35, PB)

Forensic psychologist and memory expert Dr Julia Shaw uses the latest research to show the astonishing variety of ways in which our brains can indeed be led astray. She shows why we can sometimes misappropriate other people’s memories, subsequently believing them to be our own. She explains how police officers can imprison an innocent man for life on the basis of many denials and just one confession. She demonstrates the way radically false memories can be deliberately implanted, leading people to believe they had tea with Prince Charles, or committed crimes that never happened. And she reveals how, in spite of all this, we can improve our memory through simple awareness of its fallibility.

On the Verge of Insanity: Van Gogh and His Illness by Marije Vellekoop ($45.95, HB)

The mental state of Vincent van Gogh (1853—1890) has been a perennial source of discussion and conjecture since his death by suicide. Was he mentally ill or a genius? What was the precise nature of Van Gogh’s illness? Did it influence his work? This intriguing publication examines how Van Gogh’s mental condition revealed itself in 1888 and how he struggled with it throughout his life. Van Gogh’s letters to his brother Theo, his artist friends, and his sister Willemien reveal that his primary reason for living was his art. Richly illustrated with artworks, letters, historical documents, and photographs, this book provides a nuanced and considered overview of an extraordinary man who had to cope with mental illness at a time when the symptoms were readily misunderstood and professional treatment was insufficient.

The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a HighTech World by Gazzaley & Rosen ($52.95, HB)

Adam Gazzaley and Larry Rosen—a neuroscientist & a psychologist—explain why our brains aren’t built for multitasking, and suggest better ways to live in a high-tech world without giving up our modern technology. Thy explain that our brains are limited in their ability to pay attention. We don’t really multitask but rather switch rapidly between tasks. Distractions & interruptions, often technology-related—referred to by the authors as ‘interference’—collide with our goal-setting abilities. We can change our brains with meditation, video games & physical exercise; we can change our behaviour by planning our accessibility & recognizing our anxiety about being out of touch even briefly. Gazzaley & Rosen don’t suggest that we give up our devices, but that we use them in a more balanced way.

The Cyber Effect: A Pioneering Cyber-Psychologist Explains How Human Behaviour Changes

by Mary Aiken ($35, PB)

Mary Aiken applies her expertise in cyber-behavioural analysis to a range of subjects including criminal activity on the Deep Web and Darknet; deviant behaviour; internet addictions; the impact of technology on the developing child; teenagers and the Web; cyber romance and cyber friendships; cyberchrondria; the future of artificial intelligence; and the positive effects on our digital selves, such as online altruism. From understanding what actually happened in the Malaysian plane crash to the increase in psychotic incidents among teenage gamers, packed with vivid stories, eye-opening insights and surprising statistics, The Cyber Effect offers us a fascinating guide through a new future that it’s not too late to do something about.

Now in paperback The Ghost in My Brain: How a Concussion Stole My Life and How the New Science of Brain Plasticity Helped Me Get It Back by Elliott Clark, $28 The Good Story: Exchanges on Truth, Fiction & Psychotherapy by J. M. Coetzee and Arabella Kurtz, $25

The Athletic Brain: How Neuroscience is Revolutionising Sport and Can Help You Perform Better by Amit Katwala ($33, PB)

The athletic brain has been trained through hours and hours of practice—years of sweat & toil—however, cognitive training tools offer the tantalising possibility of breaking the ‘10,000hour rule’. Top-level athletes and teams are increasingly tapping into new knowledge of the brain to develop tools and techniques that can offer a shortcut to sporting success, or push the boundaries of performance beyond its current limits. Increasingly, these tools are becoming available to the ordinary amateur, revolutionising the ways in which anyone can improve their skills. Based on interviews with top athletes and the scientists working at the cutting edge of our knowledge, Amit Katwala provides a fascinating insight into the possibilities that are becoming open to us all.

17

Puzzling

Cultural Studies & Criticism

Margaret Drabble’s books often have an uncanny knack of mirroring my own life, there’s a sense of familiarity in them that I find quite surprising, but reassuring. Her memoir The Pattern in the Carpet ($27) was published a few years ago, and most engaging it was—a seemingly jumbled collection of memories, and a revealing insight into her childhood. She suffered depression from a young age, and found that doing jigsaws relieved her anxiety, and she has continued doing them through her life. Of course the slightly confusing narrative of this book makes it like a jigsaw, each piece of the memoir is integral to the whole, with its own particular place.

I can attest to the calming qualities of a jigsaw— I have been highly absorbed, if not slightly confounded, by an extremely complicated 1000 piece one, a painting called Flower Cycle by Rosalind Wise produced by Pomegranate. We have several other Pomegranate puzzles in the shop at the moment: beautiful ones by the American naturalist illustrator Charley Harper—dazzling bugs and birds, paintings by Carl Larsson, Henri Matisse, and other artists (they range in price between $20 to $30 dependingon how many pieces). Margaret Drabble describes how doing a jigsaw of Constable’s clouds really brings them to life for her, and I think doing a jigsaw of a painting is far more interesting than one of a photograph, but it has to be a good painting to make it worth the effort.

As I sit and ponder my thousand pieces, most of them totally equal, I am also listening my way through the most wonderful audiobooks—The Barchester Chronicles. This is a series of six books set in the fictitious county of Barsetshire, by Anthony Trollope. British actor, Timothy West, is the reader, and he is excellent—I’m still not tired of his voice and I’m up to the sixth book, so that’s about 180 hours of listening to him. These books are not complicated, but they are heavily populated with characters, so a certain amount of concentration is required while listening—for this reason they aren’t good ones for going to sleep by, but perfect for listening to while jigsawing. The first of the series, The Warden, sets the pace, and the place, and we meet characters that appear throughout the six books.

Barchester Chronicles, the second one, is the best known, and has some of the most extraordinary characters in it. It is also extremely funny—I laughed all the way through. All the books are about the clergy, the aristocracy, and the educated middle class. The commercial reality of life is what really interests Trollope and most of his characters, and one gets used to the extraordinarily mercenary expectations of nearly everyone in the books. Dr Thorne is the next book, and it’s much more detailed (and enjoyable) than the recent BBC TV series. Framley Parsonage is the next book, and the only one I didn’t really enjoy, followed by The Small House at Allington. This book is different from the others—it’s far more domestic and personal, a love story full of jiltings and broken promises, and a most unexpected ending. I’m listening to The Last Chronicle of Barset now, many old friends are reappearing, some having fared less well than others and I suspect loose ends will be tied up. So far it’s a lot darker and more serious than the others, but just as riveting. One of the features of Trollope’s writing that translates so well to audio, is his penchant for interrupting, both his own narrative and his characters. It creates a sense of complicity, as though he is is confiding in us.

My guess is that I shall finish my jigsaw at the same time I finish the Barchester books, and I will miss them both enormously when I do.

Next? Louise

Mythomania: Tales of Our Times, from Apple to Isis by Peter Conrad ($40, HB)

Despite our culture’s proclaimed respect for scientific reason, we live in a society that is no less bedazzled-and bedevilled-by myth than those of our remote ancestors. Roland Barthes first examined the mythical resonances of consumer products in the 1950s. Far from being demystified, consumerism has since morphed into a universal religion, its compulsory ritual of shopping essential to our economic survival. Myth has also invaded the political realm, as terrorists brandish black flags and recite theological mantras as they martyr themselves. Conrad casts his brilliant beam upon subjects from The Queen to the Kardashians, via Banksy, Nando’s, vaping, the vogue of the cronut, the mushroom-like rise of Dubai, the launch of the Large Hadron Collider, the growth of the Pacific garbage patch...In Judge Judy, he shows us a matronly Roman goddess dispensing justice with a fly swatter. In the metamorphosis of Caitlyn Jenner from Olympic athlete and paterfamilias into idealized female form, he sees parallels to the deeds of the residents of Mount Olympus themselves. Finally, after surveying advances in biomedical engineering and artificial intelligence, he asks whether we might be on the brink of a post-human world.

18

Far and Away: Reporting from the Brink of Change: Seven Continents, Twenty-Five Years

by Andrew Solomon ($35, PB)

In 1991 Andrew Solomon rode a tank into Red Square in Moscow with a band of Russian artists protesting the coup after Gorbachev’s resignation. In 2002 he was in Afghanistan following the fall of the Taliban; in 2014 he travelled to Myanmar to meet ex-political prisoners as the country slowly, fitfully pushed towards freedom. We find him in Greenland in 2001 researching widespread suffering from depression and on the quest for a rare bird in Zambia in 1998. Far and Away tells these and many other stories of profound upheaval. With his signature brilliance and compassion, Solomon demonstrates both how history is altered by individuals, and how personal identities are altered when governments alter.

Looking for ‘The Stranger’: Albert Camus and the Life of a Literary Classic by Alice Kaplan ($53.95, HB)

Since its publication in France in 1942, Camus’ L’Etranger has been translated into 60 languages and sold more than six million copies. It’s the rare novel that is as at likely to be found in a teen’s backpack as in a graduate philosophy seminar. How did a young man in his twenties who had never written a novel turn out a masterpiece that still grips readers more than seventy years later? Alice Kaplin follows Camus from colonial Algeria, where he started out as a journalist covering the criminal courts to his lonely struggle with the novel in Montmartre, where he finally hit upon the unforgettable first-person voice that enabled him to break through and complete it. The initial critical reception of The Stranger was mixed, and it wasn’t until after liberation that it began its meteoric rise. As France and the rest of the world began to move out of the shadow of war, Camus’ seemingly modest tale of alienation was being seen for what it really was: a powerful parable of the absurd, an existentialist masterpiece.

Hands: What We Do with Them—and Why

by Darian Leader ($33, PB)

Why do zombies walk with their arms outstretched? How can newborn babies grip an adult finger tightly enough to dangle unsupported from it? And why is everyone constantly texting, tapping and scrolling? Rather than seeing the history of civilisation in terms of technological breakthroughs, it can be seen as a history of how we have kept our hands busy. From early tools to machinery, from fists to knives to guns, from papyrus to QWERTY to a glowingly swipeable screen, the hands have always been kept occupied. But why this incessant activity? Why can’t we keep our hands still? And what might this reveal about our innermost selves? Drawing examples from popular culture, art history, psychoanalysis, modern technology and child development, Darian Leader presents a unique and fascinating odyssey through the history of what human beings do with their hands, and why.

The Hatred of Poetry by Ben Lerner ($20, PB)

No art has been denounced as often as poetry—even bemoaned by poets: ‘I, too, dislike it,’ wrote Marianne Moore. Lerner takes the hatred of poetry as the starting point of his defence of the art. He examines poetry’s greatest haters (beginning with Plato’s famous claim that an ideal city had no place for poets, who would only corrupt & mislead the young) and both its greatest & worst practitioners, providing inspired close readings of Keats, Dickinson, McGonagall, Whitman & others. Throughout, he attempts to explain the noble failure at the heart of every truly great & truly horrible poem: the impulse to launch the experience of an individual into a timeless communal existence.

Play All: A Bingewatcher’s Notebook by Clive James

Television & TV viewing are not what they once were—and that’s a good thing, according to Clive James. Since serving as television columnist for the London Observer from 1972 to 1982, James has witnessed a radical change in content, format & programming, and in the very manner in which TV is watched. Here he examines this unique cultural revolution, providing a brilliant, eminently entertaining analysis of many of the medium’s most notable 21st century accomplishments & their not always subtle impact on modern societyincluding such acclaimed serial dramas as Breaking Bad, The West Wing, Mad Men, The Sopranos & 30 Rock. ($36.95, HB)

Now in paperback Latest Readings by Clive James, $26.95 In Other Words: Forty Years of Essays

by Goenawan Mohamad, (tr) Jennifer Lindsay

Goenawan Mohamad is one of Indonesia’s foremost literary figures and public intellectuals, and this translated volume of essays, from 1968 to 2014, demonstrates the breadth of his perceptive and elegant commentary on literature, faith, mythology, politics, history and Indonesian life. With almost 100 short essays, most taken from his popular columns in Tempo, the Indonesian-language news weekly, In Other Words shows a writer committed to Indonesia but grappling with universal themes and struggles, offering a fascinating insight into questions that concern us. ($35, PB)

TRULY MADLY GUILTY

EAT REAL FOOD COOKBOOK

LIANE MORIARTY

DAVID GILLESPIE

An ordinary backyard barbeque takes an unexpected turn in Liane Moriarty’s latest bestseller.

Liane deftly applies her unique observational skills to the pillars of our lives: marriage, sex, parenthood and friendship, exploring how guilt can expose the fragility of our relationships.

THE 78-STOREY TREEHOUSE ANDY GRIFFITHS TERRY DENTON

Mad misadventures in the world’s coolest treehouse.

Australia’s #1 author and illustrator are back with more crazy antics in their everexpanding treehouse – now with 13 new storeys! What are you waiting for? Come on up!

David Gillespie, one of Australia’s most trusted voices in health and wellness, delivers the follow-up to his bestselling Eat Real Food. Based on scientific research, Eat Real Food Cookbook is your guide to saying ‘no’ to the food the manufacturers want you to eat and ‘yes’ to the food vital to the health of your family.

LOVE YOU DEAD PETER JAMES

One city. One Roy Grace.

One venomous new killer.

‘James writes meticulously researched police procedurals, so informed that you can smell the canteen coffee… enthralling.’ – DAILY MAIL

www.panmacmillan.com.au

Meanjin Vol 75, No 2 (ed) Jonathan Green ($25, PB)

The Meanjin winter issue takes on the culture wars. Mark Davis turns his attention to the shady world of cultural politics; Clive James muses on writing, death & epitaphs; Jenny Hocking traces the profound links between Australian Rules football & the Indigenous Australian game of Marngrook; Robyn Annear marvels at her mother’s hair; Anna Funder on a favourite piece of fiction; Denis Muller details just what the Australian public really thinks about immigration & asylum seekers; Katharine Murphy reflects on a working life punctuated by election campaigns & the lessons they offer; Osman Faruqi wonders just why it is that Australian media is so, well, white; Glyn Davis & Ian Anderson chart a selection of moments from the long history of post colonial Indigenous politics. Plus new fiction from Michael McGirr, Alice Bishop & Ben Walter and fresh poetry from Stuart Cooke, Eileen Chong, Sarah Holland-Batt & many more.

The Writer’s Room by Charlotte Wood ($33, PB) Charlotte Wood’s online journal The Writer’s Room has become essential reading for writers at all stages of their careers, and also pure reading pleasure for booklovers everywhere. Wood’s interviews with a wide range of well-known writers range in topic from the subject matter of the writers’ work to quite intricate—and intimate—revelations about the ways in which they work. Her subjects are frank about the failures and successes, the struggles and triumphs of the writing life, and extremely generous in their revelations. A must-read for writers and readers.

Pimp State: Sex, Money and the Future of Equality

by Kat Banyard ($30, PB)

How society should respond to the rise of the sex trade is shaping up to be one of the 21st century’s big questions. Should it be legal to pay for sex? Isn’t it a woman’s choice whether she strips for money?

Could online porn warping the attitudes of a generation of boys? An increasingly popular set of answers maintains that prostitution is just work, porn is fantasy, demand is inevitable; so fully legalise the sex trade and it can be made safe. Kat Banyard contends that these are profoundly dangerous myths. Sexual consent is not a commodity, objectification and abuse are inherent to prostitution, and the sex trade poses a grave threat to the struggle for women’s equality.

The Myth of Meritocracy: Why Working-Class Kids Still Get Working-Class Jobs by James Bloodworth The best jobs in Britain today are overwhelmingly done by the offspring of privileged parents. Meanwhile, it is increasingly difficult for bright but poor children to transcend their circumstances. A vague commitment from politicians to build a ‘meritocracy’ is not enough.

Any genuine attempt at improving social mobility starts by reducing the gap between rich and poor. ($20, PB)

s d d w n n a o 2 H R

On Books, Book Collecting and Booksellers

The Amenities of Book-Collecting and Kindred Affections by A. Edward Newton. Atlantic Monthly Press. Boston. 1924. Hardcover. Fifth Edition. Rebound in 1/4 cloth. 373pp., coloured frontispiece, b/w plates, index. Signs of wear, slightly scuffed and worn spine. A previous owner’s name written on front pastedown. Very Good condition. $35.00.

Though in its stern vagaries Fate / A poor book-lover me decreed, Perchance mine is a happy state— / The books I buy I like to read: To me dear friends they are indeed, / But, howe’er enviously I sigh, Of others I take little heed— / The books I read I like to buy.

Alfred Edward Newton (1864–1940) was an American author and book collector and this first stanza of BALLADE OF A POOR BOOKLOVER appears early on in this light hearted and charming memoir. It was while I was poking about among the old book-shops that it occurred to me to write a little story about my books—when and where I had bought them, the prices I had paid, and the men I had bought them from, many of whom I knew well.

This rambling story clearly shows the tremendously good time the author had in building his collection—which numbered over 10,000 books at the time of his death. First published in 1918, his book was a bestseller selling 25,000 copies. One of the highlights of his collection was the complete, original, hand written manuscript of Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd (1874). Its author, when informed of its discovery, wrote saying that he had ‘supposed the manuscript had been pulped ages ago.’ One page only was missing; Mr Hardy supplied it.

Some Early Australian Bookmen by George Ferguson. Australian National University Press. Canberra. 1978. Hardcover. First Edition. 66p., 19 text illustrations and facsimiles printed in brown. Fine in Fine Dustjacket. This edition is limited to 1,000 copies signed by the author of which this is number 473. $50.00.

A brisk, informative monograph covering the period 1830 to 1900 that ‘selects some of the outstanding figures among booksellers, book publishers, authors and bibliophiles to show how the trade developed during its formative years’.

By 1835, Sydney had ‘assumed quite a literary aspect of late’ according to a report in The Colonist, with the ‘Colonial Capital’ now host to five major bookshops—‘Not unworthy of the appearance of the British Metropolis itself’—the latest being Mr Innes’ shop ‘in the handsome row of buildings recently erected in King Street, is equally creditable in its exterior and seems remarkably well stocked.’

One controversy reported in 1854 seems remarkably contemporary. Melbourne newspaper The Argus published an article applauding the actions of American publishers—before the days of international copyright—of selecting any English title they chose & republishing it without permission or payment. The paper condemned Customs authorities holding up pirated editions shipped to Victoria & it also attacked publishers and authors ‘who think more of the few paltry shillings they would gain by the sale of their own copyrights than of extending the reputation they acquire among the new generation of the Antipodes...’ George Robertson (1825—1898), bookseller & publisher, fired back in a letter: We have no recourse to American pirated editions... If the operation of copyright laws would form a hindrance to social progress here, they would do the same in England. But I contend that they do not. They form the cradle of literary talent; the nursing mother of genius. They give a stimulus to literary effort in the most effectual ways, by holding out a rich prize to those that are successful in the race. Productivity Commission, take note!

I conclude with a second piece of verse, three stanzas from a lengthy poem— The Auld Shop & the New, written by Henry Lawson (1867–1922), written in 1910, for George Robertson (1860–1933), co-founder of Angus and Robertson, in acknowledgment of ‘his splendid generosity during years of trouble’: O do you mind the auld shop, Dan? / They’ve scarcely left a hint— Where Banjo and meself, lang syne, / Brot our furse books to print.

They’ve partly left the auld front, Dan, / But that is going too— An’ sae I sadly sing the sang: ‘The Auld Shop an’ the New!’ Twa boxes ‘neath the window-sills / Stood open to the glare, An’ soiled and tattered Secon’-Han’ / Took dust, or fluttered there.

Twa cards stood on the pavement stanes, / Writ large for great an’ sma’, Wi’ ALL IN THIS BOX SAXPENCE , Dan, / An A’ IN THIS BOX TWA .

Depar-r-tments grew by yards since then, / The shelves have run by miles, But, save his winsome selling smile, / The Black Chief seldom smiles.

And mony a time he thinks an’ sighs, / An’ longs, wi’ bitter pain,

As Banjo put it aince) to see / Those boxes back again!

Stephen

19

VULCAN’S FURY

Eruption: The Untold Story of Mount St Helens by Steve Olson ($39.95, HB).

‘Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it...’ On the clear, bright Sunday morning of 18 May 1980 at 8.32am (Pacific Daylight Time), his voice tinged with excitement rather than panic, Dr David Johnston (1949–1980)—a US Geological Survey vulcanologist—radioed what was to be this last brief message from his observation post, Coldwater II, on a 300 m high ridge some 10kms north of Mount St. Helens, Washington. An earthquake of magnitude 5.1 on the Richter Scale below the north slope triggered the largest landslide in recorded history. It swept down at speeds of up to 250km/h hit Coldwater II and continued on 21 kms down the North Fork Toutle River, filling it’s valley 180m deep with debris. A lateral blast of hot volcanic gases and steam was also released, travelling outwards northwest and northeast at 320km/h, levelling forests as far as 27kms away. Lastly, so-called pyroclastic flows soon followed, surging down the valleys, paving them with a layer of superheated magma and ash. Gas-filled rock blew into dust, throwing 400 million tons 24km into the atmosphere, creating an ash cloud that swept across the North American continent in three days and circled the globe in 17 days. When the eruption ended, 600 square kms lay devastated.

Author Steve Olson imagines Johnston’s last moments: As Johnston watched, the blast cloud obscured the avalanche. The front of the cloud was magnificent. It was like an immense oncoming waterfall of blocks of earth and ice cascading overhead... Johnston could have tried to take shelter. He might have run inside the trailer thinking he could survive. But by the time the blast reached the ridge he must have known he wouldn’t live. It is certainly possible that he stood and watched the oncoming holocaust. The blast picked up the geologist and his house trailer and flung them into space above Coldwater Creek and into the adjacent valley. His body has never found.

Mount St Helen’s—named after an 18th Century British diplomat—is 154km south of Seattle, Washington and is one of the major peaks in the Cascade chain of mountains. It crowned a landscape of astonishing beauty, with a pre-1980 summit height of 2950 m. Its near perfect cone was snow-covered all year round. The mountain lured climbers, artists, photographers, campers—all those caught under its spell. Dormant since 1857, Mount St Helens rumbled back to life with a series of small earthquakes beginning in March 1980. Ash plume eruptions also began later that month. From early April an ominous bulge—caused by magma pressure building up—appeared on the north flank of the volcano, growing at the rate of 2m per day.

David Johnston understood the potential danger posed by Mount St Helens. ‘Magma is rising. It looks like there’s a very good chance there will be an eruption. If there is an explosion, it is possible that very, very hot incandescent debris could come down on all sides...This mountain is a powder keg and the fuse is lit..’ he told a press conference on 27 March 1980 ‘...but we don’t know how long the fuse is.’

Fifty two days later, the fuse ran out.

Mr. Olson has written not only a gripping, minute-by-minute account of what happened on the day the volcano erupted, he also views the event in longer perspective by melding together vulcanology (the eruption altered the prevailing science), political, economic, social and environmental history. His book also provides a lucid narrative of the economic, political and historical forces at play that influenced the fate of those near the volcano that day—placing the event in context. He describes how landmark decisions regarding national forest boundaries—made by President Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot, first Chief of the US Forestry Department in 1907—helped determine the borders of the inner ‘red zone’ and outer ‘blue zone’, put into effect by the Forest Service to protect lives in the event of an eruption.

The author details the history and actions of the infamous Weyerhaeuser Timber Company. Founded in 1900 by German immigrant Frederick Weyerhaeuser—who became one of the largest private land owners in North America when he purchased 3.5 million hectares of forest lands in western Washington from the Northern Pacific Railroad. By 1903 the company owned over a quarter of all woodlands in the state. These included land holdings up to the timberline on the west slope of Mount St Helens.

In 1980, Weyerhaeuser was the richest company in the state. The Forest Service didn’t think it could create an exclusion zone that extended onto Weyerhaeuser land (where most of the 57 victims were on May 18). More than 1,000 employees worked the forests surrounding the volcano. The company had been granted a fortuitous exemption from inclusion within the highly restricted ‘red zone’ by the Washington State Governor Dixie Lee Ray, allowing their logging operations to continue uninterrupted, despite the imminent threat of danger. Had the eruption not occurred on a Sunday, hundreds of loggers would have died.

Most moving of all, in several short chapters, the author recalls to life and recreates the fate of many of the 57 victims caught in the massive blast and its aftermath—some of those killed were up to 21kms away.

Among them: Harry R. Truman (1896–1980), a curmudgeonly, 83 year old exbootlegger with a mystic streak, who—along with his 16 cats—lived on the south edge of Spirit Lake at the foot of the volcano and refused to leave despite the risk:

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‘If I got out of here I wouldn’t live a day, not a ..... day! I talk to the mountain. I am part of that mountain and the mountain is part of me!

Reid Blackburn (1952-1980), a National Geographic photographer, on assignment at Coldwater Creek, 13kms (8 miles) from the mountain. His body was found in June 1980, inside his car, buried in ash. The cloud had reached him before he could put his key in the ignition: ‘Ash from Mt. St. Helen’s tastes like chalk dust mixed with metal; it smells like a dry field stirred by the wind on a hot day. These must have been among Blackburn’s last sensations as he died.’

John Killian (1951–1980) and Christy Killian (1959–1980): Newlyweds. They were camping at Fawn Lake some 14kms from the eruption: ‘The blast cloud rose above the ridge like an oncoming storm. Then it swept across the water. Instantly every tree around the lake snapped. Christy was caught in a maelstrom of wood, stone, water and hot ash...When her left arm was found several months later, it was identified by the wedding band on her finger. John’s experience was different. Sitting on the edge of his fishing raft: ‘...he would have noticed the surface of the water ripple as the air pressure suddenly changed. The oncoming blast picked up the raft as easily as if it were a leaf on a pond. For the last instant of his life, John Killian was flying, flying through the liquid air.’

This book also finally lays to rest the pernicious, long lasting, post-eruption myth that most of these 57 people were ‘Illegal trespassers’ and that they knew what kind of danger they could face. Only four of the victims were known to be inside the restricted areas set up by federal and local governments. David Johnston on duty for the U.S.G.S., Harry Truman who was given special authority to stay and amateur volcano observers Bob Kaseweter & Beverly Wetherald who had permission to take readings near Spirit Lake at their own risk. The others—in areas they thought were safe—were simply caught off guard by the sheer force, speed and size of the blast cloud. Two years after the eruption, the US government established the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. This protected area of 450 km2 of land serves as a vast outdoor museum for scientific research, tourism, and education. Thirty six years later, the natural regeneration of the area around Mt St Helens continues apace.

Within a couple of hundred years, say geologists, the volcano itself—being still active—will regain its former symmetrical splendour.

Also there, on the now renamed Johnston Ridge—at the site of his original camp - is a memorial to all 57 of those who perished. Stephen Reid

Poetry

Undying: A Love Story by Michel Faber

How can you say goodbye to the love of your life? In Undying Michel Faber honours the memory of his wife, who died after a six-year battle with cancer. Bright, tragic, candid and true, these poems are an exceptional chronicle of what it means to find the love of your life. And what it is like to have to say goodbye. ($25, PB)

Knocks by Emily Stewart

Emmily Stewart’s debut collection consistently surprises in its formal range, encompassing sonnets, erasures and found poetry, and striking at the level of the image—‘the computer ecstasy of first-person’. Individual poems consider place, persona, fandom, viruses, data and desire in evoking ‘a residual gala of feeling’. Yet out of variety emerges a very particular architecture: these are the works of a poet obsessed with the structure of the everyday; its litter and networks, idiom and drama: today a princess bites off her plait / today paper shredders are put to good use. Tender, argumentative, affecting—this is poetry that moves. ($25, PB)

Writing to the Wire (eds) Dan Disney & Kit Kelen ($25, PB)

Surely we are better than this? The seeking of asylum in Australia has been politicised in recent decades. Our national conversation has vilified people fleeing persecution and desensitised the Australian polity to human suffering. What impact does this have upon our collective ethics & national identity?

Writing to the Wire is a collection of poems by Australians and people who would like to be Australians. It is a book about the idea of being Australian. It is about who we are and who we would rather be. Poetry can show us what we’re thinking and feeling in a way our politics has failed to do.

The Remedies by Katharine Towers ($23, PB)

The Remedies is a book of small wonders: from a house drowning in roses to crickets on an August day, from Nerval’s lobster to the surrealism of flower remedies, these poems explore the fragility of our relationship with the natural world.

Katherine Towers also shows us what relationship can aspire to be: each poem attunes us to another aspect of that world, and shows what strangeness and wonder might be revealed when we properly attend to it.

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The Dust That Falls from Dreams Louis de Bernières, HB

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Rogues (eds) George R. R. Martin & Gardner Dozois, HB

Comrade Ambassador: Whitlam’s Beijing Envoy Stephen Fitzgerald, PB

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The Homing Instinct: The Story and Science of Migration Bernd Heinrich, HB

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Struck by Genius: How a Brain Injury Made Me a Mathematical Marvel Jason Padgett, HB

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The Vital Question: Zoom: How Everything Energy, Evolution, and the Moves—From Atoms and Origins of Complex Life Galaxies to Blizzards and Bees, Nick Lane, HB Bob Berman HB

Now $16.95

The Night Bookmobile Audrey Niffenegger, HB

Now $17.95

Mother of God: An Extraordinary Journey Into the Uncharted Tributaries of the Western Amazon—Paul Rosolie, HB

That’s Disgusting: Unraveling the Mysteries of Repulsion Rachel Herz, HB

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Three Moments of an Explosion China Miéville, HB

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The Story of Pain: From Prayer to Painkillers Joanna Bourke, HB

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The Reproach of Hunger: Food, Justice, and Money in the Twenty-First Century David Rieff, HB

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Interviews with Artists Michael Peppiatt, HB

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The Hidden Life of Dogs Thomas &Williams, PB

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Anxious: Using the Brain to Understand and Treat Fear and Anxiety Joseph LeDoux, HB

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Murder in Hindsight Anne Cleeland, HB

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These are the Names: Jewish Lives in Australia, 1788–1850 John S. Levi, HB

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Mister Wonderful: A Love Story Daniel Clowes, HB Mietta’s Italian Family Recipes Mietta O’Donnell, HB

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The Arts

The Legacies of Bernard Smith (eds) Anderson, Marshall & Yip ($40, PB)

Bernard Smith was the founding professor of contemporary art and the directory of the Power Institute at the University of Sydney, published the classic art text Australian Painting, three volumes on the art of Captain Cook’s voyages, and two memoirs. His work was seminal for histories of Pacific encounter and he also authored some of the country’s most eloquent memoirs. This publication brings together international academics from a range of disciplines to focus on everything Bernard Smith left his mark on: Antipodean and European ‘envisioning’ of the Pacific, the definition of Australian art, gallery scholarship and public art education, museological practice, art criticism, Australian art biography and local heritage..

Shooting the Picture: Press photography in Australia by Sally Young & Fay Anderson ($45, PB)

This is the story of Australian press photography from 1888 to today—the power of the medium, seismic changes in the newspaper industry, and photographers who were often more colourful than their subjects. The book explores our political leaders and campaigns, crime, war and censorship, international events, disasters and trauma, sport, celebrity, gender, race and migration. It maps the technological evolution in the industry from the dark room to digital, from picturegram machines to iPhones, and from the death knock to the ascendancy of social media, and raises the question of whether these changes will spell the end of traditional press photography as we know it.

Kaffe Fassett’s Bold Blooms: Quilts and Other Works Celebrating Flowers ($50, HB)

Renowned colour expert and quilt and fabric designer Kaffe Fassett explores flowers as a source of inspiration for patchwork and needlepoint in this new quilting guide and pattern collection. Along the way, he shares a behind-the-scenes look at his fascinating design process—from mood boards and ‘sketching’ with colour swatches to planning and sewing the quilts. While the focus is on patchwork and needle-point, the design and colour ideas translate to many design disciplines and materials, including crafts, fibre arts, floral design and home decor. Accessible to all skill levels.

Sewing Happiness: A Year of Simple Projects for Living Well by Sanae Ishida ($45, PB)

This is a seasonal book of simple sewing projects and inspirational personal stories. It consists of 20 projects plus variations (including Japanese-inspired home goods, children’s and women’s clothing) organised by season and stitched together with charming and relatable personal stories about how sewing brought her profound happiness. Part 1 includes the incredibly moving essays as well as a look-book of photos of the projects, and Part 2 includes all the instructions with detailed illustrations. The book is 30% memoir and 70% practical sewing projects..

DVDs With Scott Donovan Follow the Money $49.95, Region 2

When a body washes ashore on the Danish coast local detective Mads Justesen suspects it may have come from a nearby wind farm run by the conglomerate Energreen. Initial investigations prove this to be the case but when the farm’s Ukrainian workforce disappear mysteriously overnight and his superiors tell him to drop the case Justesen knows he is onto something. Forced to take leave ‘for family reasons’ Justesen attaches himself to the Major Fraud Squad and thus begins a thrilling cat-and-mouse game between the police and Energreen’s charismatic CEO Alexander Sanders and his ruthlessly ambitious young legal advisor Claudia Moreno. In a neat and characteristically Danish twist the corporate villain is a sustainable energy company trading on its environmental credentials to get away with murder—literally! Follow the Money is yet more top Scandi-Noir—to my mind the best since The Killing.

Anglo-Saxon Attitudes $39.95, Region 2

This marvellous comedy of manners includes what must be one of the earliest screen appearances of the present James Bond, Daniel Craig.

Craig plays Gilbert Stokesay, the wayward son of an eminent archaeologist, who claims his father’s sensational discovery of a pagan phallic figure in the coffin of a disinterred Bishop, was based on an elaborate hoax for which he, Gilbert, was responsible. Gilbert’s best friend Gerald Middleton, now a wealthy and cultured professor of medieval history, who was present for the discovery, continues to be haunted by his friend’s claim which threatens his self-esteem and reputation as a historian.

Forty years on and with Gilbert long dead in the trenches of the Great War, Gerald is determined to uncover the truth, at whatever cost, and in doing so must confront the demons of a wonderfully dissolute life.

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Eye of the 60s: Richard Bellamy & the Transformation of Modern Art by Judith E. Stein ($38, HB)

A man with a preternatural ability to find emerging artists, Richard Bellamy was one of the first advocates of pop art, minimalism & conceptual art. The founder & director of the fabled Green Gallery on 57th Street, the witty, poetry-loving art lover became a legend of the avant-garde, showing the work of artists such as Mark di Suvero, Claes Oldenburg, James Rosenquist & Donald Judd. He partied with Norman Mailer, was friends with Diane Arbus & Yoko Ono, and frequently hosted or performed in Allan Kaprow’s happenings. Always more concerned with art than with making a profit, Bellamy withdrew when the market mushroomed around him, letting his contemporaries a& friends, such as Leo Castelli and Sidney Janis, capitalise on the stars he first discovered. Bellamy’s life story is a fascinating window into the transformation of art in the late 20th century.

The Story of Emoji by Gavin Lucas) The word ‘emoji’ literally translates from Japanese as ‘picture’ (e) and ‘character’ (moji). This book traces emoji from their origin as a symbol typeface created specifically for a Japanese mobile phone provider in the late 1990s to an international communication phenomenon. As well as a history of emoji and an interview with their creator, Shigetaka Kurita, the book includes an exploration of non-text typefaces, from the decorative fleurons of the early days of the printing press to the innumerable digital typefaces available today, to the use of emoticons, ASCII art, and kaomoji in typed messages. It also looks at an array of artworks, fashion lines, special character sets, advertisements, and projects that convey emoji’s widespread impact on contemporary culture, and concludes with a section for which a group of illustrators, artists, and graphic designers have created original emoji characters they wish existed, including bacon, and even a ‘stabbedin-the-back’ emoji. ($39.99, HB) Theo van Doesburg: A New Expression of Life, Art, and Technology by Gladys Fabre ($99, HB)

This handsome catalogue presents the Dutch artist Theo Van Doesburg (1883–1931) as a nomadic propagandist on a quest for a new aesthetic that, in conjunction with contemporary science and technology, sought to reform the world. Van Doesburg was a central figure of the De Stijl movement, characterized by a pared-down aesthetic centred in basic visual elements such as geometric shapes and primary colours, and this book highlights the artist’s collaborations with other leading members, including Piet Mondrian, Bart van der Leck & Georges Vantongerloo. It also traces the stylistic trajectory of the artist’s career from his NeoPlasticist and Dadaist creations to his Elementarist and Conrete artworks and brings together art, architecture, cinema, poetry, literature, design & typography to illuminate Van Doesburg’s enduring contributions to De Stijl.

Gift Shop

Cat Bingo, $35

It’s about time! The series that brought you Dog Bingo and Bug Bingo, is finally catering to the cat fancier.

(Dog Bingo is still available $35) This is the perfect gift for someone with a pet and parlour game passion.

Versus: The Life and Films of Ken Loach

This is a funny, provocative and revealing account of the life and career of one of Britain’s foremost filmmakers, Ken Loach, as he turns eighty and looks back at over fifty years of filmmaking, encompassing classics such as Kes (1969) and Palme d’Or winners The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006) and I, Daniel Blake (2016). ($32.95, region 2)

In Order of Disappearance: Dir. Hans Petter Moland

When snowplow driver, Nils (Stellan Skarsgard) receives news that his son has died of a heroin overdose, he is disbelieving of the official report and soon uncovers evidence of his son’s murder an innocent victim of local crime boss, The Count . Armed with heavy machinery, Nils embarks upon a quest for revenge that inadvertently ignites a fullblown underworld gang war, with the body count spiralling ever higher and higher. DEATH WISH set in FARGO, but funnier...and bloodier! ($32.95, region 2)

Ivan’s Childhood: Dir. Andrei Tarkovsky

Andrei Tarkovsky’s debut feature is a moving and powerful story of war and revenge. Determined to avenge his family’s death at the hands of the Nazis, 12 year-old Ivan joins a Russian partisan regiment as a scout, where he becomes indispensable for his ability to slip unnoticed behind enemy lines. But, as his missions become increasingly dangerous, it is decided that he must be removed from the front line. Ivan resists and convinces his commanding officers to allow him to carry out one last expedition. ($32.95, region 2)

Winton's Paw Prints

Stephen Romei had a nice couple of Pair of Ragged Claws columns in the Saturday Australian recently about rereading which had me (an inveterate re-reader) thinking about the pleasures of the second, third, fourth (in the case of Lord of the Rings I’m embarrassed to say I’ve lost count) read through a favourite book, or author. I’ve read through all of Jane Austen (occasionally skipping Northanger Abbey, and always leaving my personal favourite, Persuasion, til last) more than thrice. Basically, these days when my fiction shelves start gasping for a cull it’s the books I know I’m not going to read again that I send to the second hand shop. Those ‘life-changing’ books read in one’s callow youth can lose their lustre slightly as one gets older (there seemed to be lot of disappointment in the Romei column when it came to a second look at that perennial teen eye-opener Catch-22)—but a good book just seems to get richer with each reading. There’s almost an autobiographical aspect to the experience—looking back on the person you were and the understanding you had twenty years previous. I’d have a terrible time choosing which ten books I’d take to a desert island, but besides an Austen, Middlemarch would be one, and there’d have to be a Dickens, plus that perfect ‘modern’ Dickensian novel, The Quincunx by Charles Palliser. And there would also have to be a Jane Smiley. Her take on King Lear, the Pulitzer winner, A Thousand Acres, or her joyous exercise in hippophilia, Horse Heaven, or her ‘revisioning’ of The Decameron, Ten Days in the Hills (a lesser work, but still eminently re-readable)—or her most recent foray, the three volume family saga, Last Hundred Years—Some Luck, Early Warning and The Golden Age. I always buy the US hardcovers of a new Smiley, and these have been sitting unread on the shelf for a year or so. Actually, I’m pleased I’ve taken my time in getting to them, because once engaged they are completely addictive—and now I don’t have to wait for the new volumes to appear—I can just keep roaring through the years and watching the Langdon progeny go forth from their Iowa farm into the 20th century and beyond. It’s a good thing there’s a family tree in the front pages of each book because the names and relationships branching out from the Cheeks and Chicks, the Vogels and Augsbergers can get a bit hard to hold onto at times. The books cover 100 years from 1920 to 2019, with a short chapter per year. I’m in 1966 at the moment. Tim, son of Lillian, fifth daughter of Walter and Rosanna Langdon has just been killed in Vietnam. As with Annie Proulx’s Barkskins (a book I’m already rereading) death comes with a brutal unexpectedness—and before you have time to catch your breath the years just flow on. This inexorable passage of time, ‘creeping in its petty pace’, years turning over chapter by short chapter, makes for an affect both frantic—what happens next, and soothing—all things must and will pass. Highly recommended.

Winton

what we're reading

John: When I picked up a copy of Rick Moody’s new novel, Hotels of North America, and perused the pages my reaction was ‘What a great little book!’—and my opinion didn’t change on reading it. In this age where we can all be experts and share our well, or uninformed opinion on any topic, to share with anyone with access to the web, Moody tells the story of Reg Morse a fictional ‘road warrior’ who writes hotel reviews for rateyourlodging.com The story is told through a series of reviews that often reveal more about the reviewer than his lodgings. He also reveals much about our need to share and how we choose to see the world. Fabulous!

Andrew: I have been reading Nora Webster by Colm Tóibín. As with all of Tóibín’s work, it is a hard novel to fault; the prose is spare, seemingly unadorned, and yet so considered that it becomes profoundly moving—it is almost as if there is an alchemy at work. Nora Webster, recently widowed, is trying to move on in her upturned world; doggedly coping with her grief; her two young boys, and the deprivations of an impoverished middle-life. Tóibín’s wrought iron prose elevates the seemingly mundane to something Chekovian and wondrous. Whether it is the ritual humiliation of a first day at a new job, working to a imperious and arrogant woman who was once Nora’s underling; or the internal mortification of a hastily misjudged hairstyle—the observation is meticulous and the impact profound. Unlike current literary darling Hanya Yanigahara—whose hero is paraded around in his sufferings like a farmyard animal led by a nose chain at a country showground—Tóibín portrays a sadness in quietude; which is all the more devastating for it. It may not sound like it, but the wonder of this book is it is also immensely readable—as rich in deliciously observed everyday humour as it is in sadness.

Steve: Denali’s Howl: The Deadliest Climbing Disaster on America’s Wildest Peak by Andy Hall. In July 1967, twelve young mountaineers attempted to climb Alaska’s Mt Denali (formerly Mt McKinley) at 6,190 m the highest peak in North America. This was the Summer of Love & these young men ‘wanted to get high on thin air... they wanted to climb because they enjoyed climbing. They were going on a big adventure and they wanted to test themselves.’ They reached the summit in two parties. The second group of seven climbers were engulfed in a ferocious seven day arctic blizzard that descended on the mountain, with winds reaching over 480 kph. All seven men perished on the mountain. Four of the seven simply vanished. Two were found 300m (1,000 ft) below the summit.

One other was found in the remains of the expedition tent—holding onto a tent pole where he froze to death. Two of the survivors wrote accounts of the disaster and described the sometimes fractious dynamics of the co-joined mountaineering group. Author Andy Hall was five years old at the time, his father was one of the National Park rangers that helped lead the rescue mission. He believes the stories of conflict are exaggerated. He spent half a decade researching the disaster and resists the facile urge to lay blame.

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Bestsellers—Non-Fiction

1. Everywhere I Look

Helen Garner

2. Notes on an Exodus: An Essay

Richard Flanagan (ill) Ben Quilty

3. The Silk Roads: A New History of the World

Peter Frankopan

4. Dark Emu, Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident?

Bruce Pascoe

5. Talking To My Country

Stan Grant

6. Aboriginal Children, History & Health: Beyond

Social Determinants

John Boulton

7. The Shepherd’s Life: A Tale of the Lake District

James Rebanks

8. Ken Done: A Life Coloured In

Ken Done

9. Not Just For this Life: Gough Whitlam Remembered

(eds) Wendy Guest & Gary Gray

10. The Art of Time Travel: Historians & Their Craft

Tom Griffiths

Bestsellers—Fiction 1. Barkskins

Annie Proulx

2. A Chinese Affair

Isabelle Li

3. The Last Painting of Sara de Vos 4. The Dry 5. My Brilliant Friend 6. A Little Life 7. All the Light We Cannot See 8. The Vegetarian 9. The Sympathizer 10. Vinegar Girl

Dominic Smith

and another thing.....

Another favourite Coopes (this time for the dog lovers) while I await her return from retirement. Thankyou to those who emailed in support. With the world and climate going to hell in a handbasket I’m thinking of following David’s recommendation and heading to Jane Harper’s drought-stricken rural Victoria in The Dry for my crime read for the month. A good contrast to the latest Fred Vargas, which was great if you haven’t already indulged. I also like the sound of Janice’s ‘Lavender Ladies’ detecting up a Finnish storm in Helsinki’s Sunset Grove retirement Village. Meanwhile I’ve been reading Tom Griffiths’ book The Art of Time Travel: Historians and their Craft. A fantastic read. Griffiths’ love of history and the craft of writing it is utterly infectious. Each chapter deals with a different (Australian) historian and you come away wanting to read every book they’ve written. It is definitely time to put away the DVD boxed sets and get down to some serious reading—I have so much to catch up on. Speaking of reading, it’s National Bookshop Day on Saturday August 13th. There’s going to be a treasure hunt for the kids, and we’re hoping to have some authors strolling the aisles at 49 Glebe Point Rd having a go at a bit of ‘handselling’ as we call it in the trade—recommending books—so come along for a bit of bibliotherapy with your favourite author. Viki

Jane Harper Elena Ferrante Hanya Yanagihara Anthony Doerr Han Kang Viet Thanh Nguyen Anne Tyler

National Bookshop Day: Saturday 13th Treasure hunts for the kids.

Chat with an author about what to read next.

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