Post festival holiday reading
I’m on holidays as you read this, travelling, relaxing and recuperating after a hectic Sydney Writers’ Festival. The outstanding memory most people might keep of this year’s Festival at its new venue, Carriageworks, is of life imitating art in the ‘outing’ of one guest by another very much in, the spirit of ‘Power’, the Festival’s theme. My memories are more mundane: counting the books, and the boxes, trying not to lose track of the books, getting to places on time, and hoping that no one trips over a lead and disconnects computers, tills, and eftpos machines. Anyway, as far as I could tell, the change of venue, due to the renovation of the Walsh Bay wharves, was a success—and we found Carriageworks, and our fresh new industrial-chic shop, a positive experience. I hope that the many Gleebooks customers we saw there found likewise, and hope to bump into you there next year. While exploring Bohemian Europe I’ll weigh myself down (yes, I’ve got an Ipad, but no e-books for this old-timer) with a few exciting upcoming releases. I’m some way through Stephanie Bishop’s Man Out of Time (publishing in September), a profoundly moving novel about family relationship (daughter/father) and particularly the way in which destructive behaviour can impact, internally and externally. Her language is as refined and exact as the deeply absorbing subject matter. Absolutely recommended. I also have advance copies of the new book by Sarah Perry, author of The Essex Serpent (a terrific historical novel from 2016, well worth reading). The title Melmoth is a direct nod to a now obscure early 19th century Gothic novel, Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin (forever ago it was on my Sydney Uni reading list). With the ‘discovery of a strange manuscript filled with testimonies from the darkest chapters of human history, which all record sightings of a tall, silent woman in black, with unblinking eyes and bleeding feet: Melmoth, the loneliest being in the world’ at its heart, it looks an intriguing, and beguiling prospect (publishing in October). And third leg of my fiction trifecta will be Barbara Kingsolver’s history of two families occupying the same house a century apart, Unsheltered (October). Can’t wait. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with reflections on a trio of non-fiction June releases. I’ve already mentioned Phillipa McGuinness’ fascinating memoir The Year Everything Changed: 2001. This is a blend of the personal and the historical. It’s at once reflective, an eye-opener (it’s amazing just how much, outside of the day that changed the world, happened in 2001), and very moving. And Simon Winchester is up to his usual standard of detailed examination and historical research in Exactly: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World. It’s a very readable history of how the pioneers of precision in engineering changed their own, and our world. Not only does it show our reliance on precision in invention and design, it also goes to the crux of the question of how the technological and the natural can co-exist. Lastly, can I commend Waiting for Elijah by Kate Wild. This is the first book from a writer of long experience as an investigative journalist at the ABC. Wild brings those forensic skills, and great compassion to the story of the shooting of the mentally ill 24 year-old Elijah Holcombe by a policeman in Armidale in 2009. Writing the book has been a six year journey for Wild, and she is engaged and compelling in every aspect of her account, especially in her sympathy for the bereaved family. There’s little question that this is yet another death of a mentally ill person which didn’t have to happen, but Wild covers so much, with such care and deep sensitivity, that we are left in no doubt that everyone, us included, is a victim of a an imperfect health and policing system. David
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Australian Literature Only Killers And Thieves by Paul Howarth ($30, PB)
A powerfully told, gripping novel of family, guilt, empire & race set in the dusty, deserted outback of Queensland in the 1880s. Tommy McBride & his brother Billy return to the isolated family home to find their parents have been brutally murdered. Haunted & alone, their desperate search for the killers leads them to the charismatic & deadly Inspector No one & his Queensland Native Police an infamous arm of colonial power whose sole purpose is the ‘dispersal’ of Indigenous Australians in protection of settler rights. The retribution that follows will not only devastate Tommy & his relationship with his brother, but leave a terrible & lasting mark on the colony & the country it later becomes.
Reading the Landscape: A Celebration of Australian Writing ($29.95, PB)
Featuring 25 of the greatest Australian writing names from UQP’s past & present, UQP’s 70th Anniversary Anthology showcases specially commissioned fiction, non-fiction & poetry by Australia’s finest writers on themes such as legacy, country, vision & hope. Participating authors include: Ali Alizadeh, Venero Armanno, Larissa Behrendt, Lily Brett, Gabrielle Carey, Peter Carey, Matthew Condon, David Brooks, Karen Foxlee, Kári Gíslason, Rodney Hall, Steven Herrick, Sarah Holland-Batt, Nicholas Jose, Mireille Juchau, Julie Koh, Melissa Lucashenko, Patti Miller, David Malouf, James Moloney, Jaya Savige, Josephine Rowe, Peter Skrzynecki, Samuel Wagan Watson, Ellen van Neerven.
Meanjin Vol 77 No 1 (ed) Jonathan Green ($25, PB) This edition of Meanjin features the Nauru Diaries of former Royal Navy doctor Nick Martin. What he found in the Australian detention centre ‘was way more traumatic than anything I’d seen in Afghanistan’. You’ll also read Paul Daley on Indigenous history, statues & strange commemorations, Omar Sakr & Dennis Altman on the same sex marriage vote & Fiona Wright on Australia in three books. There’s new fiction from Laura McPhee-Browne, Peter Polites, John Kinsella & Paul Dalla Rosa & a fine selection of new poetry from the likes of Stephen Edgar, Chris WallaceCrabbe, Marjorie Main & Judith Beveridge.
Also released in June: Meanjin Vol 77 No 2, $25 Bluebottle by Belinda Castles ($30, PB)
On a sweltering day in a cliff-top beach shack, Jack and Lou Bright grow suspicious about the behaviour of their charismatic, unpredictable father, Charlie. A girl they know has disappeared, and as the day unfolds, Jack’s eruptions of panic, Lou’s sultry rebellions and their little sister Phoebe’s attention-seeking push the family towards revelation. 20 years later, the Bright children have remained close to the cliff edges, russet sand & moody ocean of their childhood. Behind the beautiful surfaces of their daily lives lies the difficult landscape of their past, always threatening to break through. And then, one night in late summer, they return to the house on the cliff. This is a gripping & evocative story of a family bound by an inescapable past, from the award-winning author of The River Baptists and Hannah and Emil.
The Book Ninja by Ali Berg & Michelle Kalus
Frankie Rose is desperate for love. Or a relationship. Or just a date with a semi-normal person will do. It’s not that she hasn’t tried. She’s the queen of online dating. But enough is enough. Inspired by her job at The Little Brunswick Street Bookshop, Frankie decides to take fate into her own hands and embarks on the ultimate love experiment. Her plan? Plant her favourite books on trains inscribed with her contact details in a bid to lure the sophisticated, charming and well-read man of her dreams. Enter Sunny, and one spontaneous kiss later, Frankie begins to fall for him. But there’s just one problem—Frankie is strictly a classics kind of gal, and Sunny is really into Young Adult. Like really. ($30, PB)
The Love That I Have by James Moloney ($28, PB)
Margot Baumann has left school to take up her sister’s job in the mail room of a large prison. Butthis is Germany in 1944, and the prison is Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin. Margot is shielded from the camp’s brutality as she has no contact with prisoners. But she does handle their mail and, when given a cigarette lighter & told to burn the letters, she is horrified by the callous act she must carry out with her own hands. This is especially painful since her brother was taken prisoner at Stalingrad and her family have had no letters from him. So Margot steals a few letters, intending to send them in secret, only to find herself drawn to their heart-rending words of hope, of despair & of love. This is how Margot comes to know Dieter Kleinschmidt— through the beauty & the passion of his letters to his girlfriend. And since his girlfriend is also named Margot, it is like reading love letters written for her.
