Gleebooks Gleaner May 2016 by Gleebooks

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Vol. 23 No. 4 May 2016

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SYDNEY WRITERS F E S T I VA L 2 0 1 6

MAY 16 TO MAY 22

Festival Time

Festival is upon us again, and, as I said last month, bigger than Ben Hur—so our Gleebooks workers will be head down and bum up for the next few weeks. A few us might sneak into the odd session, but it’s mostly back-room and boxes and managing traffic for the week. Please come and see some of it for yourselves, it’s going to be very good value. If I could get there, I wouldn’t miss Peter Frankopan, Julian Barnes and William Boyd, Gloria Steinem, Suad Amiry, and Vivian Gornick. That’s for starters, and when you consider the breadth and depth that their writing covers, you get a sense of what a Festival can bring you. Of course, if you can’t get there, the ABC and the Festival’s own recordings should give you hours of pleasure. Enjoy Meanwhile, what to read? I’m deep in (an advance copy of) Adam Haslett’s Imagine Me Gone (June release). This is a haunting and epic novel of family, set in late 20th century US and Britain. It sometimes loses its way in managing time-shifts and changes in narrative voice between the protagonists, but it’s quite beautiful. Essentially the tragic story of a family’s fate determined by the onset of mental illness (inherited from father to son), I found it affecting and compassionate and rewarding. I confess I had little faith in the idea of Alain De Botton as a novelist. He did write a novel, years ago, before producing a phenomenally successful series of books which could roughly be described as embodying the meaning of philosophy in everyday life. I enjoyed, and learnt from them about diverse subjects—from travel to architecture, to religion, to news—to name but a few. So I was pleasantly surprised to find his new novel The Course of Love (released this month) was a thoroughly engaging novel about the ‘happily ever after’ of marriage. De Botton brings his forensic intelligence and a playful spirit of enquiry to follow the ‘course of love’ through twenty years of the marriage of Rabih and Kirsten—a middle class Scottish couple. Both provocative and thought provoking is the interspersion, throughout the book, of asides and annotations—musing on the problems and pitfalls of relationships. It’s a playful, but risky device (disrupting the narrative as it does) and it’s a tribute to De Botton’s skill a novelist that he pulls it off. For a change of pace, I read Henry Reynolds’ newest work of history, Unnecessary Wars. This is a fascinating and eye-opening account of Australia’s involvement in the Boer War. Reynold investigates the background and rationale of Australia’s commitment to a war which was essentially nothing to do with us. In doing so, he unearths some (to me) eye-opening material which reveals how widespread the opposition to engagement in the British Empire’s wars was. In the end, imperial loyalty triumphed, and set a solid precedent for our willingness to engage in future wars. Many people (me included, in my darker moments) wrote off the future for independent bookshops some years ago, under a seeming avalanche of obstacles and changes (the rise of the mega bookshops and chain, internet competition, e-books, occupancy costs, the GFC, to name a few). So, while our particular business breathes a sigh of relief that we have survived into our fifth decade, we’d like to acknowledge the outstanding achievement of our friends and colleagues at readings Bookshops in Melbourne. Readings was last month named the inaugural winner of the International Bookseller of the Year at the London Book Fair. It’s a fabulous accomplishment, and a tremendous recognition of the quality of independent book selling in Australia. Our congratulations to Mark Rubbo and his staff. David Gaunt

Australian Literature The Last Painting of Sara de Vos by Dominic Smith ($32.99, PB)

In 1631, Sara de Vos is admitted to the Guild of St. Luke in Holland as a master painter, the first woman to be so honoured. Three hundred years later, only one work attributed to de Vos is known to remain-a haunting winter scene, At the Edge of a Wood, which hangs over the Manhattan bed of a wealthy descendant of the original owner. An Australian grad student, Ellie Shipley, struggling to stay afloat in New York, agrees to paint a forgery of the landscape, a decision that will haunt her. Because now, half a century later, she’s curating an exhibition of female Dutch painters, and both versions threaten to arrive. Dominic Smith brilliantly bridges the historical and the contemporary, tracking a collision course between a rare landscape by a female Dutch painter of the Golden Age, an inheritor of the work in 1950s Manhattan, and a celebrated Australian art historian who painted a forgery of it in her youth.

Seeds & Skeletons: The 30th UTS Writers’ Anthology 2016 ($26.99, PB)

‘Of the many anthologies coming out of university writing programs, the annual UTS collection has always been the standout.’ Kerryn Goldsworthy, SMH. The UTS Writers’ Anthology is an annual publication produced by the University of Technology, Sydney. Students from the undergraduate, postgraduate and research programs submit their work anonymously, and a student editorial committee selects & edits the Anthology. In 2016, from over 300 submissions, the committee selected approximately 30 outstanding pieces.

Gotham: Wisdom Tree: 1 by Nick Earls

Wisdom Tree is a series of five novellas by author Nick Earl—to be released once a month from May to September 2016. Gotham, the first of these complex & distinct stories set in New York, Brisbane, Vancouver, Alaska and L.A. that somehow magically meet, tells of the encounter between music journalist, Jeff Foster and ‘boy pharaoh’, Na$ti Boi. It reveals how hollow celebrities cast their spell. Think, Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe. ($20, PB)

A Lover’s Country by Stuart Rees ($19.95, PB)

In the course of their passionate relationship, Tom Markson & his much younger Jewish lover Naomi Branath support a Palestinian leader, Fadeela Qubra who has been awarded an international prize for peace & who know the details of a murder & a massacre. Fierce opponents of Dr Qubra want her story suppressed & the award to her cancelled. Tom & Naomi find the courage & the stamina to resist the opposition & eventually enable Fadeela to leave Ramallah, fly to Australia to tell her sotry and receive her award. Despite death threats & opposition from powerful lobbies, human rights are upheld, love triumphs & the story is told.

Dying in the First Person: A Novel by Nike Sulway ($30, PB)

Samuel and Morgan are twin brothers separated by several oceans. In childhood they shared not only a family, but a secret imaginary world that had a language of its own: Nahum. But that was decades ago: before Morgan became a wanderer whose only contact with his brother was stories, written in Nahum. When Morgan unexpectedly passes away in the Netherlands, the woman he was living with—the mysterious Ana—agrees to accompany his body, and his final Nahum story, home to Australia. What she carries home to Samuel is not just a manuscript, but a startling revelation. Nike Sulway conjures a haunting, moving story of the complex relationships and allegiances of family life, of silence and memory, and the power of words and the imagination to transform everything.

Christina Stead Prize for Fiction Short List Ghost River by Tony Birch Locust Girl. A Lovesong by Merlinda Bobis Clade by James Bradley The Life of Houses by Lisa Gorton A Guide to Berlin by Gail Jones The World Without Us by Mireille Juchau Voting opens today for the People’s Choice Award. The winner will be chosen by the public from the shortlist for the 2016 Christina Stead Prize for Fiction. Vote today via the State Library of NSW website: http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/christina-stead-peoples-choice-awards

On D’Hill

As I’ve said before, I write this two weeks before The Gleaner appears on the first of the month, so it‘s often old news. Print! Last month I thought it would be autumn by now but went for a swim on April 10th, the day my mother would have been 90, should she have lived. She never swam. Point being you would have read or heard everything about Bob Ellis’s funeral—possibly the best (if you know what I mean) funeral I’ve ever attended. The speeches by everyone were brilliant, especially from Bill Shorten who spoke from the heart and showed his natural humour and intelligence. Bob’s emails to him, Shorten said, were so full of disgraceful epithets against the opposition, that if he had a dollar for each, he’d be able to afford the defamation payments were he to use them. A sad day but not without humour. Lionel Shriver is famous for her bestselling We Need to Talk About Kevin. For no particular reason I didn’t read the book or see the film, so when her new book proof was given to me, I looked forward to engaging with this highly regarded writer. The Mandibles is the strangest book I have read for a long time. A lot of writers are doing dystopia, and to be honest, it scares me, wimp that I am. Shriver’s book, centred on the Mandible family, is set in the not too distant future—2030–2047—when America has become a third world country due to their overwhelming debt and the uselessness of the dollar. China has introduced a new currency and only America refuses to use it which furthers their downfall. By the late 2040s, Asia is the dominant force on the world stage, money is completely gone and everyone is chipped, but somehow the redoubtable Mandible family members mainly survive and even flourish in the new reality. It’s a rather dense book, with a lot of dialogue about economics, but the characters are great and the concept all too believable. But, as I said, somewhat strange…and I’m undecided whether I think it brilliant or terminally faulty. For a much lighter read, try Curtis Sittenfeld’s Eligible, a modern take on Pride and Prejudice. I enjoyed it—a lot of fun, which let’s face it, is nice for a change. See you On D’Hill or at the Sydney Writers’ Festival, Morgan

Ice Letters by Susan Errington ($33, PB)

Adelaide, 1916, and Dora Somerville grieves for her brother, Edgar, killed in France. In the course of an oppressively hot summer, she decides to abandon her pacifist beliefs and embrace violence as a means to end the Great War. In his printing shop, her lover, Daniel Bone, also makes a momentous decision. He can no longer face the constant pressure to fight in the war—he will join an Antarctic expedition and abandon Australia, leaving Dora behind. However, the peace Daniel seeks eludes him when he is caught up in a crisis in the icy wilderness as the men find themselves under attack. When the lovers parted, they had agreed to write to one another, although they knew the letters would never be sent. Thousands of miles apart, their passion grows as the decisions they have made imperil them both.

Our Tiny, Useless Hearts by Toni Jordan ($30, PB) Henry has ended his marriage to Caroline and headed off to Noosa with Mercedes’ grade three teacher, Martha. Caroline, having shredded a wardrobe-full of Henry’s suits, has gone after them. Craig and Lesley have dropped over briefly from next door to catch up on the fallout from Henry and Caroline’s all-night row. And Janice, Caroline’s sister, is staying for the weekend to look after the girls because Janice is the sensible one. A microbiologist with a job she loves, a fervent belief in the beauty of the scientific method and a determination to make a solo life after her divorce from Alec. Then Craig returns through the bedroom window expecting a tryst with Caroline and finds Janice in her bed, Lesley storms in with a jealous heart and a mouthful of threats, Henry, Caroline and Martha arrive back from the airport in separate taxis—and let’s not even get started on Brayden the pizza guy. Janice can cope with all that. But when Alec knocks on the door things suddenly get complicated. Harnessing the exquisite timing of the great comedies to the narrative power and emotional intelligence for which she is famous, Toni Jordan brings all her wit, wisdom and flair to this brilliant, hilarious novel.

International Literature The Course of Love by Alain de Botton

What does it mean to live happily ever after? At dinner parties and over coffee, Rabih and Kirsten’s friends always ask them the same question: how did you meet? The answer comes easily—it’s a happy story, one they both love to tell. But there is a second part to this story, the answer to a question their friends never ask: what happened next? Rabih and Kirsten find each other, fall in love, get married. Society tells us this is the end of the story. In fact, it is only the beginning. From the first thrill of lust, to the joys and fears of real commitment, to the deep problems that surface slowly over two shared lifetimes, this is the story of a marriage—a story of modern relationships and how to survive them. The Course of Love is a delightful return to the novel by Alain de Botton, twenty years after his debut Essays in Love. ($32.99, PB)

Gleebooks’ special price $29.99

The Sport of Kings by C. E. Morgan ($33, PB)

Henry Forge has partnered with his daughter, Henrietta, in an endeavour of raw obsession: to breed the next superhorse. But when Allmon Shaughnessy, an ambitious young black man, comes to work on their farm after a stint in prison, the violence of the Forges’ history and the exigencies of appetite are brought starkly into view. Entangled by fear, prejudice, and lust, the three tether their personal dreams of glory to the speed and grace of Hellsmouth—an indomitable thoroughbred filly, running for one of Kentucky’s oldest and most powerful dynasties.

Katherine of Aragon, the True Queen by Alison Weir ($29.99, PB)

This is the first in a projected six novel series about Henry VIII’s Queens. A Spanish princess. Raised to be modest, obedient and devout. Destined to be an English Queen. Six weeks from home across treacherous seas, everything is different: the language, the food, the weather. And for her there is no comfort in any of it. At sixteen years-old, Catalina is alone among strangers. She misses her mother. She mourns her lost brother. She cannot trust even those assigned to her protection. Weir reveals a strong, spirited woman determined to fight for her rights and her daughter Mary’s rightful place.

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The Pier Falls by Mark Haddon ($33, PB) An expedition to Mars goes terribly wrong. A seaside pier collapses. A thirty-stone man is confined to his living room. One woman is abandoned on a tiny island in the middle of the ocean. Another woman is saved from drowning. Two boys discover a gun in a shoebox. A group of explorers find a cave of unimaginable size deep in the Amazon jungle. A man shoots a stranger in the chest on Christmas Eve. In this first collection of stories by the author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time Mark Haddon shows he is a master of the short form (several of the stories have been longlisted for prizes).

Good People by Nir Baram ($32.99, PB) It’s late 1938. Thomas Heiselberg has built a career in Berlin as a market researcher for an American advertising company. In Leningrad, twenty-two-year-old Sasha Weissberg has grown up eavesdropping on the intellectual conversations in her parents’ literary salon. They each have grand plans for their lives. Neither of them thinks about politics too much, but after catastrophe strikes they will have no choice. Thomas puts his research skills to work elaborating Nazi propaganda. Sasha persuades herself that working as a literary editor of confessions for Stalin’s secret police is the only way to save her family. When destiny brings them together, they will have to face the consequences of the decisions they have made. The Mandibles: A Family, 2029–2047 by Lionel Shriver ($29.99, PB)

The Mandibles have been counting on a sizable fortune filtering down when their 97-year-old patriarch dies. Yet America’s soaring national debt has grown so enormous that it can never be repaid. Under siege from an upstart international currency, the dollar is in meltdown. A bloodless world war will wipe out the savings of millions of American families. Their inheritance turned to ash, each family member must contend with not just disappointment, but also the challenge of sheer survival. Recently affluent Avery is petulant that she can’t buy olive oil, while her sister Florence is forced to absorb strays into her increasingly cramped household. As their father Carter fumes at having to care for his demented stepmother now that a nursing home is too expensive, his sister Nollie, an expat author, returns from abroad at 73 to a country that’s unrecognizable. Perhaps only Florence’s oddball teenage son Willing, an economics autodidact, can save this formerly august American family from the streets. This is a frightening, fascinating, scabrously funny glimpse into the decline that may await the United States all too soon

Also New Granta 135: New Irish Writing $25

The Dream Maker: by Jean-Christophe Rufin

Based on the true story of Jacques Coeur, The Dream Maker recounts the life and times of a Medieval visionary. Born in 1395, the son of a fur trader, Coeur rose to become the King of France’s visionary First Banker. With his tours of the Far East, his criticism of the Crusades, and his efforts to develop trade, this entrepreneurial genius contributed to bringing France out of darkness toward the Renaissance and modernity. Coeur was, at one time, the wealthiest man in France, but at the height of his success, disgrace and imprisonment at the hands of his enemies threatened. His ill-considered infatuation with Agnès Sorel, King Charles V11’s favourite mistress, precipitated Coeur’s fall from grace. In Rufin’s delectable prose this true story becomes a gripping tale of adventure, a novel of ideas, and a moving love story. ($44.99, HB)

Men by Marie Darrieussecq ($29.99, PB)

Solange was a provincial teenager in All the Way; now in her thirties, she’s not a great mother, is a mediocre actress, but in Hollywood she falls for a charismatic actor, Kouhouesso, who wants to direct a movie of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness—in Africa. He’s black; she’s white—what’s the difference when it comes to love, she wonders? Solange follows her man to Africa, determined to play a main role in both his film and his affections. But nothing goes to plan in this brilliantly droll examination of romance, moviemaking and clichés about race relations. After all, there’s no guarantee you’ll be loved by the one you love.

The Man/Booker Internation Short list announced! The Vegetarian by Han Kang A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler The Four Books by Yan Lianke A Strangeness in My Mind by Orhan Pamuk A General Theory of Oblivion by José Eduardo Agualusa The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante The Prospector by J.M.G Le Clezio ($35, HB)

On the isle of Mauritius at the turn of the 19th century the young Alexis L’Étang enjoys an idyllic existence with his parents and beloved sister—sampling the pleasures of privilege, exploring the constellations and tropical flora, and dreaming of treasure buried long ago by the Unknown Corsair. But with his father’s death, Alexis must leave his childhood paradise and enter a harsh world of privation and shame. Years later, he has become obsessed with the idea of finding the Corsair’s treasure; and through it, the lost magic and opulence of his youth. He abandons job and family, setting off on a quest that will take him from the remote tropical islands to the hell of the First World War, and from a love affair with the mysterious Ouma to a momentous confrontation with the search that has consumed his life.

Everyone Brave Is Forgiven by Chris Cleave

When war is declared, Mary North leaves finishing school unfinished, goes straight to the War Office to sign up. Mary is certain she’d be a marvellous spy. But when she is, bewilderingly, made a teacher, she finds herself defying prejudice to protect the children her country would rather forget. Tom Shaw plans to give it the war miss—until his flatmate Alistair unexpectedly enlists, and the conflict can no longer be avoided. He then discovers that he will do anything for Mary. However, when Mary and Alistair meet, it is love, as well as war—entangling three lives in violence and passion, friendship and deception, inexorably shaping their hopes and dreams. ($29.99, PB)

Educated Youth by Ye Xin ($30, PB) During the Cultural Revolution over 14 million Chinese high school graduates were sent from the cities to live and work in the countryside. They were known as zhiqing—‘educated youth’. They fell in love, married, had children. In the late 1970s the policy changed and they were allowed to return, but not their families. Many jumped at the opportunity, leaving spouses and children behind. Ten years later the children, now teenagers, began to turn up in the cities, looking for their parents. Educated Youth follows five such children, who have travelled across China from a province in the south west to Shanghai in the east, only to discover that their mothers and fathers have remarried, and have new families, in which there is no room for them. Their reappearance brings out the worst in the parents – their duplicity, greed and self-interest – and the best too, as they struggle to come to terms with their sense of love and duty.

Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld ($29.99, PB)

The Bennet sisters, Liz & Jane, have been summoned home from NYC to suburban Cincinnati to get their mother to stop feeding their father steak as he recovers from heart surgery, to tidy up the crumbling Tudor-style family home, and to wrench their three sisters from their various states of arrested development—it really is too much to bear. That is, until the Lucas family’s BBQ throws them in the way of some eligible single men: charming Chip Bingley—doctor & reality TV star, and Chip’s friend, the haughty neurosurgeon Fitzwilliam Darcy. In the newest ‘Austen project’ outing, Curtis Sittenfeld, catapults Pride and Prejudice into the modern world.

The Cauliflower® by Nicola Barker ($33, PB) To the world he is Sri Ramakrishna—godly avatar, esteemed spiritual master, beloved guru. To Rani Rashmoni, he is the Brahmin fated to defy tradition. But to Hriday, his nephew and long-time caretaker, he is just Uncle—maddening, bewildering Uncle, prone to entering trances at the most inconvenient of times, known to form dangerous acts of self-effacement, who must be vigilantly safeguarded not only against jealous enemies but also against that most treasured yet insidious of sulphur-rich vegetables: the cauliflower.

Altitude

North London in the 21st century: a place where a son will swiftly adopt an old lady and take her home from hospital to impersonate his dear departed mother, rather than lose the council flat. A time of golden job opportunities, though you might have to dress up as a coffee bean or work as an intern at an undertaker or put up with champagne and posh French dinners while your boss hits on you. A place rich in language—whether it’s Romanian, Ukrainian, Russian, Swahili or buxom housing officers talking managementese. A place where husbands go absent without leave and councillors sacrifice cherry orchards at the altar of new builds. ($33, PB)

Gleebooks Blackheath is also pleased to be involved in a Slow Food event on May 6 at Glenella Guest House in Blackheath where the guest speaker will be Sallyanne Pisk—author of Eating For You— her new book on mindful eating. Come along to eat wonderful food, find out about the benefits of Slow Food and buy Sallyanne’s book. Bookings are essential and available at https://www.eventbrite.com. au/e/slow-life-dinner-1-tickets-24537769128. Victoria Jefferys

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The Lubetkin Legacy by Marina Lewycka

BlackBooks

We are really looking forward to May in the Blue Mountains! Not only are the leaves turning and there is crispness in the air, but we have the Varuna Sydney Writers Festival at The Carrington, Katoomba on May 16th and 17th with a great line-up of authors! Tegan Bennett-Daylight, Charlotte Wood, Delia Falconer, Julian Leatherdale, Magda Szubanski and Mireille Juchau—just to name a few. The full programme and bookings can be found on Varuna’s website www.varuna.com.au. You can also buy tickets from Blackheath Gleebooks for the Monday and Tuesday events.

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Jeffrey Lockhart’s father, Ross, is a billionaire in his sixties, with a younger wife, Artis Martineau, whose health is failing. Ross is the primary investor in a remote and secret compound where death is exquisitely controlled and bodies are preserved until a future time when biomedical advances and new technologies can return them to a life of transcendent promise. Jeff joins Ross and Artis at the compound to say ‘an uncertain farewell’ to her as she surrenders her body. ‘We are born without choosing to be. Should we have to die in the same manner? Isn’t it a human glory to refuse to accept a certain fate?’ These are the questions that haunt Don DeLillo’s new novel. Ross Lockhart, most particularly, who feels a deep need to enter another dimension and awake to a new world. For his son, this is indefensible. Jeff, the book’s narrator, is committed to living, to experiencing ‘the mingled astonishments of our time, here, on earth’.

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Zero K by Don DeLillo ($29.99, PB)

Now in B Format Wind/Pinball: Two Novels by Haruki Murakami, $23 The Green Road by Anne Enright, $23 God Help the Child by Toni Morrison, $23 At the Water’s Edge by Sara Gruen, $23 Himmler’s Cook by Franz-Olivier Giesbert, $20

THE WILDER AISLES

The other day I was approached by a customer to recommend a Scandinavian crime novel. The problem was where to start. The rise of crime novels from the Nordic countries has been well-documented, but having been asked the question it made me think of my experiences in reading these authors. For me it all started with Henning Mankell. I can’t remember which was the first I read of his, but according to my daughter, it was Faceless Killers. And of course it was the wonderful police inspector, Kurt Wallander, that was a large part of the attraction. I then went on to other Scandi noir, including my other favourite Camilla Läckberg. Her series features the husband and wife team of writer Erica Falk and policeman Patrik Hedström. They live in a small Swedish fishing village and unite in solving the crimes happening in their village and surrounding areas. I had the pleasure at the SWF of meeting Camilla Läckberg and Henning Mankell at a gathering for him at his publishers. They were both very pleasant, and it was great to meet them. Läckberg invited me to stay with her in Sweden—an invitation I unfortunately, as yet, haven’t been able to take her up on. There are many, many Scandinavian crime writers—way too many to deal with in this column, but I do want to write about one more. This is Arnaldur Indriðason, from Iceland. Indriðason wrote eleven novels featuring Detective Erlendur Sveinsson, and then 3 stories with Erlendur as a young policeman. It is one of these that I want to talk about. In Oblivion, Erlendur, a gloomy, anti-social, very private person, who spends his free time reading his collection of papers concerned with people lost in the snow, finds a cold case of a girl who went missing years before. He becomes obsessed with the story, and uses his spare time to investigate the young girl’s disappearance. In the mean time, he is involved with the death of an American man, who has been working on the controversial US military base. His body is found in a lagoon, a long way from the town. Erlendur becomes convinced that the man was killed elsewhere and the body thrown into the water. The story involves the CIA, the continuing of the US base and the inmates of Camp Knox. I love the character of Erlendur. He is a humane, caring person, who is always on the side of the victims. The Blood Strand is the first crime novel by Christopher Ould. The setting is the Faroe Islands which lie between the Norwegian Sea & the North Atlantic. They are an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark. The Faroese are responsible for most domestic matters, Denmark for military defence, policing, and justice. Blood Strand’s narrative revolves around Jan Reyna, who left the islands as a child, and is a now working as a British murder police detective. He is drawn back to the islands when the body of his estranged father is found in an isolated spot, a shotgun by his side, someone else blood in his cardigan. Then another man’s body is washed up on the shore, also with a shotgun wound. Is his father, who has suffered a massive stroke, responsible? Jan teams up with Hjalti Hentze, a local detective, to solve the mystery. During the investigation Jan uncovers the reason for his mother’s flight from the island so long ago, and to complicate matters, he meets his half-brothers, who have their reasons for protecting the family name. Jan is faced with the decision of whether to stay and investigate the crime with Hjalti or flee back to the safety of his life in Britain. I really enjoyed this book. I liked the setting —in a part of the world I knew little about—and both Jan and Hjalti are very appealing characters. I gave this book to a friend, and he agreed with me. It looks as if this may be a first in a series. If so, I am looking forward to the next.

Stepping away from those crime ridden Scandinavian countries, I picked something quite different—The Mermaid of Brooklyn by Amy Shearn. As I often do, I was drawn to this book initially because I liked the look of it, and I also have happy memories of the time I stayed in Brooklyn, New York. It is always nice to read about places that you have been—especially special places that you may only get to visit once in a lifetime. Jenny Lipkin, ex-magazine editor, now mother of two and struggling with her new career, comes to the end of her coping ability, when her husband, Harry, goes out to buy cigarettes and never returns. Having reached her breaking point, she decides to end it all by jumping off the Brooklyn bridge into the East River. She is saved by a mermaid—desperate to get out of the water into real life, who then proceeds to take over Jenny’s life. The question is, is this a real mermaid or just a voice in Jenny’s head. As a result of this encounter, Jenny is forced to rethink all her ideas about life, motherhood, success and relationships. I occasionally got cross with Jenny, but realised that I was mad at her because she reminded me of myself. This is a light but well-written story about women, friends, children, men and how life is not always easy & requires at times a lot of hard work to keep going. Janice Wilder

Crime Fiction

The One Who Got Away by Caroline Overington

Loren Wynne-Estes is the girl from the wrong side of the tracks who’s landed a handsome husband, a stunning home, a fleet of shiny cars and two beautiful daughters—then one day a fellow parent taps Loren on the shoulder outside the grand school gate & hands her a note. Loren’s Facebook-perfect marriage is spectacularly exposed, and what is uncovered will scandalise a small town, destroy lives and leave a family divided. But who is to be believed and who is to blame? Will the right person be brought to justice or is there one who got away? ($30, PB)

Stalker by Lars Kepler ($30, PB) A video-clip is sent to the National Criminal Investigation Department. Someone has secretly filmed a woman through her window from the garden. The next day she is found dead after a frenzied knife-attack. The police receive a second film of another unknown woman—with no way to identify her before time runs out. When her husband finds her he is so traumatised that he cleans the whole house and puts her to bed. He may have seen a vital clue, but is in such an extreme state of shock that the police are unable to question him. Psychiatrist Erik Maria Bark is called in to hypnotise him—but what the man tells him under hypnosis leads Erik to start lying to the police.

The Truth About Julia by Anna Schaffner ($29.99, PB) In June 2014, Julia White—a beautiful and intelligent young woman— blows up a coffee shop in central London, killing twenty-four people before turning herself in to the police. Apart from publishing a potentially ironic manifesto, she refuses to explain the reasons for her actions... Clare Hardenberg, an investigative journalist, has been commissioned to write a biography of Julia but at the start of the novel she is on her way to prison herself. What has brought her to this point?

The Spy of Venice by Benet Brandreth ($35, HB) When he’s caught out by one ill-advised seduction too many, young William Shakespeare flees Stratford to seek his fortune. Cast adrift in London, Will falls in with a band of players—but greater men have their eye on this talented young wordsmith. England’s very survival hangs in the balance, and Will finds himself dispatched to Venice on a crucial embassy. Dazzled by the city’s masques—and its beauties—Will little realises the peril in which he finds himself. Catholic assassins would stop at nothing to end his mission on the point of their sharpened knives, and lurking in the shadows is a killer as clever as he is cruel.

Punishment by Anne Holt ($30, PB) A serial killer is on the loose, abducting and murdering children and then returning the child’s body to the mother with a note: You Got What You Deserved. It is a perplexing and terrible case, and Police Superintendent Adam Stubo is in charge of finding the killer. In a desperate bid to get some answers, he recruits legal researcher Johanne Vik, a woman with an extensive understanding of criminal history. So far the killer has abducted three children, but one child has not yet been returned to her mother. Is there a chance she is still alive? And can the pair solve the case in time? The Hotel of the Three Roses by Augusto De Angelis

The shady Hotel of the Three Roses is home to an assortment of drunks and degenerates. Inspector De Vincenzi receives an anonymous letter, warning him of an imminent outrage at the guest house, and shortly after a macabre discovery is made—a body is found hanging in the hotel’s stairwell. As De Vincenzi investigates, more deaths follow, until he finally uncovers a gothic and grotesque story linking the Three Rose’s unhappy residents to each other. This dramatic mystery from the father of the Italian crime novel, Augusto de Angelis, features his most famous creation—Inspector De Vincenzi. ($19.99, PB)

The Blood Strand by Christopher Ould ($16.99, PB)

Having left the Faroes as a child, Jan Reyna is now a British police detective, and the islands are foreign to him. But he is drawn back when his estranged father is found unconscious with a shotgun by his side and someone else’s blood at the scene. Then a man’s body is washed up on an isolated beach. Is Reyna’s father responsible? Looking for answers, Reyna falls in with local detective Hjalti Hentze. But as the stakes get higher and Reyna learns more about his family and the truth behind his mother’s flight from the Faroes, he must decide whether to stay, or to forsake the strange, windswept islands for good.

A Tapping at My Door by David Jackson ($30, PB) A woman at home in Liverpool is disturbed by a persistent tapping at her back door. She’s disturbed to discover the culprit is a raven, and tries to shoe it away. Which is when the killer strikes. DS Nathan Cody, just back to work after an undercover mission that went horrifyingly wrong, is put on the case. But the police have no leads, except the body of the bird—and the victim’s missing eyes. As flashbacks from his past begin to intrude, Cody realises he is battling not just a murderer, but his own inner demons too. And then the killer strikes again, and Cody realises the threat isn’t to the people of Liverpool after all—it’s to the police.

Dark Fires Shall Burn by Anna Westbrook

Sydney, 1946. 11 year-old Nancy & her best friend, Frances, are growing up in the doglegged streets of Newtown. In the aftermath of WW II thousands of damaged soldiers have returned to their homes. Meanwhile, in the seediest part of the city, 15 year-old Templeton lives amid bootleggers, gangs & prostitutes with his sister Annie. Threatened by Annie’s abusive partner, the nefarious Jack Tooth, they seek protection from a Darlinghurst madam: the once-powerful grog runner Dolly Jenkins. Soon, Templeton is drawn into an enigmatic underbelly of violence, sexuality, and secrets. When Frances witnesses an attempted assassionation, two worlds become inevitably intertwined. ($32.99, PB)

The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown by Vaseem Khan ($29.99, PB)

For centuries the Koh-i-Noor diamond has set man against man & king against king. It is now part of the British Crown Jewels, so when these Jewels go on display in Mumbai, security is everyone’s principal concern. And yet, on the very day Inspector Chopra goes to see the diamond, it is stolen from under his nose in a daring and seemingly impossible heist. When an old friend stands accused, Inspector Chopra takes the case. With sidekick baby elephant Ganesha in tow, Chopra soon realises that there is more at play than a simple case of greed.

Redemption Road by John Hart ($32.99, PB)

Elizabeth Black is a hero. She is a cop who single-handedly rescued a young girl from a locked cellar and shot two brutal kidnappers dead. But she’s also a cop with a secret. And she’s not the only one... Set in an America of desperate small towns and uneasy and remote landscapes, Redemption Road has all of John Hart’s trademark evocation of the abandoned and the derelict and sense of place—with descriptions so chilling and a story so full of twists and turns you cannot stop reading.

A Spring Betrayal by Tom Callaghan ($29.99, PB)

Inspector Akyl Borubaev of Bishkek Murder Squad has been exiled to the far corner of Kyrgystan where he finds himself caught up in a mysterious & gruesome new case: several children’s bodies have been found buried together—all tagged with name bands. In his search for the truth behind the brutal killings, Borubaev hits a wall of silence, with no one to turn to outside his sometime lover, the beautiful undercover agent Saltanat Umarova. When Borubaev himself is framed for his involvement in the production of blood-soaked child pornography, he sets out to save his own integrity, and to deliver his own savage justice on behalf of the many dead who can’t speak for themselves.

A Midsummer’s Equation by Keigo Higashino

When a man’s body is discovered at the base of some cliffs in the small resort town of Hari Cove, the police at first suspect a tragic accident. However, when the victim is found to have been a former policeman who died from carbon monoxide poisoning, they begin a murder investigation. Manabu Yukawa, the physicist known as ‘Detective Galileo’, is in Hari Cove to speak at a conference on a planned underwater mining operation, and finds himself drawn into the case. Did the murder have something to do with the fight of the small community to rebuild itself, or does it have its roots in the town’s history? ($32.99, PB)

The Fireman by Joe Hill ($29.99, PB)

Nobody knew where the virus came from. FOX News said it had been set loose by ISIS, using spores that had been invented by the Russians in the 1980s. MSNBC said sources indicated it might’ve been created by engineers at Halliburton and stolen by culty Christian types fixated on the Book of Revelation. CNN reported both sides. While every TV station debated the cause, the world burnt. Pregnant school nurse, Harper Grayson, had seen lots of people burn on TV, but the first person she saw burn for real was in the playground behind the school—this is one woman’s story of survival at the end of the world.

DragonFish by Vu Tran ($18, PB)

Oakland cop, Robert, still can’t let go of Suzy, the enigmatic Vietnamese wife who left him two years ago. Now she’s disappeared from her new husband, Sonny, a violent Vietnamese smuggler and gambler who is blackmailing Robert into finding her for him. As he pursues her through the sleek and seamy gambling dens of Las Vegas, shadowed by Sonny’s sadistic son, ‘Junior’, and assisted by unexpected and reluctant allies, Robert learns more about his ex-wife than he ever did during their marriage. He finds himself chasing the ghosts of her past, one that reaches back to a refugee camp in Malaysia after the fall of Saigon

She Died Young by Elizabeth Wilson ($28, PB)

London, 1956. A young woman has been found dead a hotel in King’s Cross. Broke her neck falling down stairs, the death certificate says. But Fleet Street journalist Gerry Blackstone thinks there’s more to it than meets the eye & hopes he can convince Special Branch’s DCI Jack McGovern to investigate. Meanwhile, Oxford is filling with Hungarian emigres fleeing the failed revolution & Special Branch is concerned that there could be Soviet spies among the genuine refugees and wants McGovern on-hand to keep an eye out. As McGovern carries out his casework in Oxford and Blackstone investigates behind the scenes in London, clues start to emerge that, somehow, this might all be linked.

uburban Sydney in the 1970s is an adventure

playground, especially for a busybody, free-range kid with energy, big appetites and ungodly urges. In such open space, backyards are arenas for daydreaming and free play, scars are marks of wisdom and school is an obstacle course between pleasure and pain. And so is home, as Tom Dusevic tries to make sense of his parents’

history and identity, known but unknowable, as post-war refugees from Croatia. This is a sensory tale of a glorious time to grow up in Australia by a visceral writer whose epiphanies are as startling as they are hilarious.

hat has happened on Nauru and Manus since

Australia began its most recent offshore processing regime in 2012? In this essential book, Madeline Gleeson provides a comprehensive and uncompromising overview of the first three years of offshore processing since it recommenced in 2012. It explains why offshore processing was re-established, what life is like for asylum seekers and refugees on Nauru and Manus, what asylum seekers, refugees and staff in the offshore detention centres have to say about what goes on there, and why the truth has been so hard to find. In doing so, it goes behind the rumours and allegations to reveal what is known – and what still is not known – about Australia’s offshore detention centres.

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

Now in B Format The Girl in the Spider’s Web by David Lagercrantz, $20 Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith, $20

Biography

IS A GOOD BOOK

your cup of tea?

Farewell to the Father by Tim Elliott ($34.99, HB) Growing up in 1970s Sydney, Tim Elliott had a loving stay-at-home mum, a professional father, three siblings, a private school education and endless opportunities to fish and surf at the nearby beaches. But this was not the idyllic childhood it appeared. A charismatic, well-respected doctor by day, Tim’s father became a roaring madman at night. The house was our castle, and Dad was our king. He was an unpredictable king, tyrannous and moody, lethal one day, loving the next. This is an extraordinary memoir of growing up with a parent afflicted by mental illness: a complex elegy loaded with love, rage and surprising humour. It is about the lengths children will go to protect themselves—and their families—from shame or harm, and how adapting to that adversity becomes and intractable part of who we are as adults.

Take Me to Paris, Johnny by John Foster ($12.95, PB) This is John Foster’s moving yet unsentimental account of the life of his partner, Juan Céspedes. It traces Juan’s youth in Cuba and his move to New York, where he struggles to make it as a dancer. There, in 1981—in ‘a chance encounter, much like any other’—he meets John, an Australian historian. What begins as just a fling becomes a dazzling six-year affair. The two travel between New York, Berlin and Melbourne, struggling with bureaucracy in their quest to gain Juan residency in Australia, then with the disease taking the lives of gay men around the globe. The Violet Hour: Great Writers at the End by Katie Roiphe ($33, PB)

An essential brew for people who love to write, and to read about writing.

In The Violet Hour, Katie Roiphe investigates the last days of six great thinkers, writers and artists as they come to terms with the reality of approaching death. Susan Sontag, the consummate public intellectual, finds her commitment to rational thinking tested during her third bout with cancer. After receiving the worst possible diagnosis, 76 year-old John Updike begins writing a poem. Roiphe vividly re-creates the fortnight of almost suicidal excess that culminated in Dylan Thomas’s fatal collapse on the floor of a Greenwich Village tavern. Sigmund Freud flees Nazi-occupied Vienna only to continue in his London exile the compulsive cigar smoking that he knows will hasten his decline. She shows us how Maurice Sendak’s beloved books for children are infused with his lifelong obsession with death, and from James Salter she learns that ‘we make our own comfort.’ By bringing these great writers’ final days to urgent, unsentimental life, Roiphe helps the reader to look boldly in the face of death and be less afraid. Hunge rford’s childh ood: w ise and no stalgic adven tures.

The Brontës: A Life in Letters by Juliet Barker

In this selection of letters & autobiographical fragments we hear the authentic voices of the three novelist sisters, Charlotte, Emily & Anne, their brother, Branwell, and their father, the Reverend Patrick Bronte. They cover childhoods absorbed in wild, imaginative games; the years of struggling to earn a living in uncongenial occupations before Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall took the literary world by storm; the terrible marring of that success as, one by one, Branwell, Emily and Anne died tragically young; the final years as Charlotte, battling against grief, loneliness and ill health, emerged from anonymity to take her place in London literary society and, finally, found an all too brief happiness in marriage to her father’s curate. Juliet Barker, author of the biography The Brontës has used her unrivalled knowledge of the family to select extracts from letters and manuscripts, many of which are appearing here in print for the first time. ($55, HB)

Whole Wild World: A Memoir by Tom Dusevic

Suburban Sydney in the 1970s is an adventure playground, especially for a busybody, free-range kid with energy, big appetites and ungodly urges. Backyards are arenas for daydreaming and free play, scars are marks of wisdom and school is an obstacle course between pleasure and pain. And so is home, as Dusevic tries to make sense of his parents’ history and identity, known but unknowable, as post-war refugees from Croatia. He longs to be liberated from the family’s quirks & its past. This is a sensory tale of a glorious time to grow up in Australia by a writer whose epiphanies are as startling as they are hilarious. From rowdy street protests and footy crowds, to the fevered set of a TV quiz show and the disco floor, Dusevic launches himself into the whole wild world. ($29.99, PB)

Jolley’s wicked tale of dark secrets in the suburbs.

UNIQUELY AUSTRALIAN STORIES @FremantlePress

fremantlepress.com.au

Dear World, How Are You? by Toby Little ($33, PB) When Toby Little was five years old, he decided to write to someone in every country in the world. With the help of his mum, Toby started handwriting and posting letters to everyone from research scientists in Antarctica to game-keepers in Chad and even the Pope. Not only did Toby achieve his goal but the world wrote back. This book is a collection of the most fascinating and heart-warming letters he sent and received. It shows that the world is only as big as your imagination and is full of potential friends, waiting to be discovered, no matter where you live.

The Long Goodbye by PJ Parker ($30, PB) When PJ Parkre’ss ageing mother succumbs to advanced dementia and the family attempts to care as best they can for her, it is her father who takes matters into his own hands and ends her mother’s life before taking his own life several weeks later. The Long Goodbyeis ultimately a grand story of love and the unbreakable bonds of marriage and family set against the harsh and unforgiving realities of life on the land. Pamela writes with incredible honesty and warmth about her own parents, grandparents and extended family, their celebrations, their wit and great humour whilst never shying from the dark truths and difficult struggles that plague them too.

Lust & Wonder by Augusten Burroughs ($28, PB) In chronicling the development and demise of the different relationships he’s had while living in New York, Augusten Burroughs examines what it means to be in love, what it means to be in lust, and what it means to be figuring it all out. This is an intimate and honest memoir filled with his unique and singular observations and his own unabashed way of detailing both the horrific and the humorous. Of Ashes and Rivers that Run to the Sea by Marie Munkara ($34.99, PB)

The highly anticipated Australian debut inspired by the true events of an unsolved murder and set in the seamy underbelly of 1940s Newtown.

Delivered on the banks of the Mainoru River by her two grandmothers, Marie was fortunate not to have been thrown to the crocodiles, a fate reserved for babies born in her family with light skin—preferring this to the child being taken by the authorities. But her grandmother Nellie had other ideas because she knew this one was ‘special’—and Marie and her mother ended up on the Tiwi Islands before Marie was then taken and placed with a white family to be raised in Adelaide. After her chance finding of an old baptismal card Marie went looking for her own family, leaving her strict Catholic establishment family aghast. Why dig up the past? But Marie knew without a doubt that she had to follow her heart or forever live to regret it.

The Ice Age: A Journey Into Crystal Meth Addiction by Luke Williams ($30, PB)

Luke Williams was a freelance journalist researching addiction to crystallised methamphetamine (commonly known as crystal meth or ice) when the worst possible thing happened—he became addicted himself. This book charts Williams’ recovery from the drug, and his investigation into its usage and prevalence in Australia and the Western world. In examining what led to his addiction, Williams also explores the social problems that surround ice, scrutinising whether its abuse is in fact an epidemic, with what we’re experiencing now merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg, or yet another moral panic about the underclass.

The Fighter: A True Story by Arnold Zable ($28, PB) Henry Nissen was a champion boxer, the boy from Amess Street in working-class Carlton who fought his way up to beat some of the world’s best in the 1970s. Now, he works on the Melbourne docks, loading and unloading, taking shifts as they come up. But his real work is on the streets. He’s in and out of police stations and courts giving character statements and providing support, working to give the disaffected another chance. And all the while, in the background is the memory of another fighter, his mother— and her devastating decline into madness.

Travel Writing

Street of Eternal Happiness: Big City Dreams Along a Shanghai Road by Rob Schmitz ($35, PB)

Shanghai: a global city in the midst of a renaissance, where dreamers arrive each day to partake in a mad torrent of capital, ideas and opportunity. Rob Schmitz is one of them. He immerses himself in his neighbourhood, forging relationships with ordinary people who see a brighter future in the city’s sleek skyline. There’s Zhao, whose path from factory floor to shopkeeper is sidetracked by her desperate measures to ensure a better future for her sons. Down the street lives Auntie Fu, a fervent capitalist forever trying to improve herself while keeping her sceptical husband at bay. Up a flight of stairs, CK sets up shop to attract young dreamers like himself, but learns he’s searching for something more. As Schmitz becomes increasingly involved in their lives, he makes surprising discoveries which untangle the complexities of modern China.

Only in Naples: Lessons in Food & Famiglia from my Italian Mother-in-Law by Katherine Wilson Arriving in Naples as a naive young intern at the American Consulate, Katherine is set up on a blind date—at least that’s what she’s expecting. Instead, Salvatore brings her home to eat pizza with his family. But this is no ordinary pizza, & the woman who makes it is no ordinary woman. She ends up marrying Salvatore—but it’s his mother who truly initiates Katherine into Italian society, offering her a culinary & cultural education that helps her acquires carnale, the quintessentially Neapolitan sense of living with comfort & confidence in one’s body. ($32.99, PB)

Fifty Places to Camp Before You Die by Chris Santella ($35, HB)

The book features the world’s top spots for sleeping under the stars and enjoying a host of outdoor recreational activities that make camping such a time-honoured tradition. Featuring favourite US National Parks destinations—as well as more exotic locales in Italy, Chile, France, Botswana, Germany and more—Santella provides helpful information and tips that will appeal to novice campers and seasoned outdoorsmen alike.

The 50 Greatest Walks of the World by Barry Stone ($23, PB)

With walks that will appeal to everyone regardless of ability, The 50 Greatest Walks of the World includes British classics such as the Pennine Way, Offa’s Dyke Path, and the Old Man of Hoy as well as Barry Stone’s personal favourites like Italy’s Cinque Terre Classic and the Isle of Skye’s Trotternish Ridge, one of Britain’s finest ridge traverses with almost 2,500m of ascents. The perfect accompaniment to practical guidebooks, Stone relates how slings and carabiners kept him from falling headlong off the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and reports on the progress of the continental-wide monster, the Trans Canada Trail, gaps in which are still being filled by countless grassroots communities.

The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone by Olivia Laing ($34.99, HB)

When Olivia Laing moved to New York City in her mid-thirties, she found herself inhabiting loneliness on a daily basis. Fascinated by the experience, she began to explore the lonely city by way of art. Moving fluidly between works and lives—from Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks to Andy Warhol’s Time Capsules, from Henry Darger’s hoarding to David Wojnarowicz’s AIDS activism—Laing conducts an electric, dazzling investigation into what it means to be alone, illuminating not only the causes of loneliness but also how it might be resisted and redeemed. The Lonely City is about the spaces between people and the things that draw them together, about sexuality, mortality and the magical possibilities of art. It’s a celebration of a strange and lovely state, adrift from the larger continent of human experience, but intrinsic to the very act of being alive.

Surfing Down South: Discovering Yallingup and Margaret River by Sue-Lyn Aldrian-Moyle ($44, HB)

Back in the late 50s–early 60s a group of free spirited, curious and adventurous young city surfers headed south in search of the wild surf in the South-West. Trailblazing & free spirited, these down south surfers challenged the status quo. Find out who and how Bears, Injidup Carpark and Gallows were discovered and named. What is the relationship between the Busso bogs and surfers? Did farmers really lock up their daughters when the surfers were in town? Many settled in the South West which became a haven for surfing and for escaping conscription, rejecting mainstream lifestyle and for breaking new ground - building alternative style houses and introducing the locals to vegetarianism and wholesome, home grown food. This book is about connection to place, dropping out, perseverance and community. 9

books for kids to young adults Picture Books

compiled by Lynndy Bennett, our children's correspondent Little Boy Brown by Isobel Harris (ill) André François ($29, HB)

First published in 1949, this wonderful picture book is the story of Mr and Mrs Brown’s little boy (unnamed) who lives with his parents in an apartment block in the city. His parents need never go into fresh air, because they use a tunnel from the building to the subway, and then they go straight to work, and anyway the fresh air gives them a cold. Little Boy Brown loves the fresh air, and one glorious day Hilda, the maid takes him out to her family home, where he meets her large and varied family— very different from his own. Told with immense cheer and good humour, there is nothing remotely preachy or negative about this book; true, the author is making a point, but in an extremely positive way. French designer and illustrator André François’ wonderful illustrations were on the cover of many New Yorkers back in the day, and they are perfect for this book—dynamic, detailed and cheerful. The narrative is mirrored in the qualities of the book’s thinnish portrait shape, just like an apartment building, (or a two storeyed house like Hilda’s), and the illustrations are all sepia pen and ink, with brown watercolour washes. It’s exciting to discover a new classic, and it would be a great book for 3-8 year olds. Louise

Plumdog by Emma Chichester Clark ($43, HB) Have you met Plumdog yet? Emma Chichester Clark’s Plumdog is a whoosell, (that’s a whippet, a poodle and a Jack Russell cross) and she has her very own diary, in the form of a blog. Plumdog is a compilation of the best of Plum’s blog entries, and her owner has kindly illustrated them. From January 1st, to the 31st of December, we can follow Plum’s enchanted life as she has lots of walks, visits lots of friends and relations, and generally has the happiest of dog lives. Even the endpapers, which are illustrated with pictures of all Plum’s friends, are part of the rich tapestry of this whoosell’s wonderful life. Clark’s illustrations capture all the joy of owning a dog, and Plum’s own entries capture the humanity of the dog herself. Plum’s picture book, Love is My Favourite Thing is also delightful—and being a picture book, suitable for very young readers. Plumdog is suitable for 12–adult readers. They’re both fabulous! Louise There is a Tribe of Kids by Lane Smith

When a young boy embarks on a journey alone… he trails a colony of penguins, undulates in a smack of jellyfish, clasps hands with a constellation of stars, naps for a night in a bed of clams, and follows a trail of shells, home to his tribe of friends. Both a meditation on childhood and an exploration of unusual collective nouns, Smith’s imaginative book features visual and verbal puns, playing with colours, moods and textures through the sponge-paint illustrations. There is a Tribe of Kids is imbued with the joy of language, nature and belonging. Described by one reviewer as “Absolutely radiant”, this is a book for all ages. ($25, HB) Lynndy

Superbot & the Terrible Toy Destroyer by Nick Ward

Rainforest Lullaby by Sally Odgers (ill) Lisa Stewart

Now in paperback: Australian Nature lovingly depicted, equally appealing here and to littlies around the world. Rainforest Lullaby is a gentle rhyming bedtime story gloriously illustrated in paper collage. The language is soothing and soporific, and so detailed and textured is the artwork that it’s difficult to resist stroking the tree frog’s tiny toes, or the possum’s tufty fur, but hush… don’t disturb them. It’s time to sleep! ($16, PB) Lynndy

Fiction

A marvellous graphic picture book for early readers—a super robot whose gadgets foil the baddies every time Superbot lives with his inventor, Mrs Brightspark, at the top of a skyscraper, always on alert to save the world from any trouble. These action-crammed stories show heroic Superbot in full rescue mode. ($17, PB) Lynndy

Clever Trevor’s Stupendous Inventions by Andrew Weldon The Kid with the Amazing Head by Andrew Weldon

Clever Trevor is, as you would expect, very clever. But not in the way that his teacher, Mr Schmedric, likes. When Mr Schmedric starts selling Trevor’s inventions as his own, and making money from them, Trevor and his friends come up with some very clever inventions to foil the evil Mr Schmedric. In The Kid with the Amazing Head, Steven wakes up one day to find that he can make his head do anything he wants! He can look like other people. He can shove a piano up his nose. Will he use his head for good or evil? Maybe a little of both..... It’s good to see cartoonist author Weldon’s zany books for younger readers back in print! ($10, PB) Lynndy

Ollie’s Odyssey by William Joyce ($28, HB) Filmic, with stunningly realistic illustrations in pencil. Rating: a little bit scary. In a melange of classic movie and storybook themes: imprisoned toys, talking junkyard friends, and a doll lost a generation ago, 6-year-old Billy returns from a family wedding to find that his beloved handmade stuffed toy, Ollie, is gone. Readers know that he has been abducted by miniature mechanical henchmen and taken to the lair of Zozo, an embittered clown doll that was once champion of toys. Ollie manages to escape but sees Billy, who has ventured out into forbidden territory in the depth of night to rescue him, taken prisoner instead. In a rousing climax, Ollie and his imaginatively armed junkyard allies overcome Zozo and free the toys. A thrilling tale of growth, love and loyalty for brave confident readers who aren’t yet beyond the stage of having a favourite toy. Lynndy

teen / ya fiction

The Things I Didn’t Say by Kylie Fornasier ($20, PB) ‘I hate the label Selective Mutism—as if I choose not to speak, like a kid who refuses to eat broccoli. I’ve used up every dandelion wish since I was ten wishing for the power to speak whenever I want to. I’m starting to wonder if there are enough dandelions.’ After losing her best friend that night, Piper Rhodes changes schools, determined that her final year will be different. She will be different. Then she meets West: school captain, star soccer player, the boy everyone talks about. Despite her fear of losing everything all over again, they fall in love without Piper ever speaking one word to West. But can a love mapped by silence last? You Know Me Well by Nina LaCour & David Levithan

Who knows you well? Your best friend? Your boyfriend or girlfriend? A stranger you meet on a crazy night? No one, really? Mark and Kate have sat next to each other for an entire year, but have never spoken. Their paths outside of class have never crossed, until Kate spots Mark out in the city for a wild, unexpected night. Kate is lost, having just run away from a chance to finally meet the girl she has been in love with from afar. Mark, meanwhile, is in love with his best friend Ryan, who may or may not feel the same way. When Kate and Mark meet up, little do they know how important they will become to each other—and how, in a very short time, they will know each other better than any of the people who are supposed to know them more. Told in alternating viewpoints this is a deeply honest story about navigating the joys and heartaches of first love, one truth at a time. ($20, PB)

One Would Think the Deep by Claire Zorn ($19.95, PB) Sam has always had things going on in his head that no one else understands, not even his mum. And now she’s dead, it’s worse than ever. With nothing but his skateboard and a few belongings in a garbage bag, Sam goes to live with the strangers his mum cut ties with seven years ago: Aunty Lorraine and his cousins Shane and Minty. Despite the suspicion and hostility emanating from their fibro shack, Sam reverts to his childhood habit of following Minty around and is soon surfing with Minty to cut through the static fuzz in his head. But as the days slowly meld into one another, and ghosts from the past reappear, Sam has to make the ultimate decision... will he sink, or swim? Award-winner Zorn’s latest novel is sure to garner her even more fans.

Food, Health & Garden

Avalanche by Julia Leigh ($25, PB) At the age of 38 novelist Julia Leigh made her first visit to the IVF clinic, full of hope. So started a long & costly journey of nightly injections, blood tests, surgeries & rituals. Writing in the immediate aftermath of her decision to stop treatment, Leigh lays bare the truths of her experience: the highs of hope & the depths of disappointment; the grip of yearning & desire; the toll on her relationships; the unexpected graces and moments of black humour. Along the way she navigates the science of IVF; copes with the impact of treatment; and reconciles the seductive promises of the worldwide multi-billion-dollar IVF industry with reality.

Perfect couple; perfect lie. The not-to-be-missed new psychological thriller from Caroline Overington.

The Wander Society by Keri Smith ($35, HB)

Society wants us to live a planned existence. The path of the wanderer is not this! The path of the wanderer is an experiment with the unknown. To be idle, to play, to daydream. The Wander Society offers us all a way to experience the joys and possibilities of unplanned time. Membership will require you to conduct research on your immediate environment and complete a variety of assignments designed to creatively disrupt your everyday life.

French Complexion by Christine Clais ($39.99, PB) Christine Clais presents her unique skincare philosophy based on more than twenty years of hands-on professional experience and the beauty secrets of her countrywomen. Through easy-to-follow expert tips, product recommendations and French beauty insights, Clais guides women through the stages of their lives and shows how to have healthy, glowing skin at any age. This is the perfect resource for all women wanting to learn about their skin’s needs, improve their complexion and delay skin ageing without resorting to surgery.

This Annoying Domestic Life: A Mindless Colouring Book for the Whole Goddamn Family ($9.99, PB)

A MADCAP NEW NOVEL FROM THE ONE-OF-A-KIND AUTHOR OF THE HUNDRED-YEAR-OLD MAN WHO CLIMBED OUT OF THE WINDOW AND THE GIRL WHO SAVED THE KING OF SWEDEN.

The new novel from the author of WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN and POST BIRTHDAY WORLD

The follow-up to Oslo Davis’ This Annoying Life, comes to you from deep within the familial bosom, with an even more miserable collection of images awaiting your ridiculous attempts to colour them in. Designed for mums, dads, kids and old people on all levels of the angst spectrum, This Annoying Domestic Life is less complicated than a divorce and cheaper than sending everyone to a shrink.

Milkbar Memories: The Cookbook of Your Childhood Dreams by Jane Lawson ($40, PB)

This is Jane Lawson’s ode to wonderful old-fashioned treats connected with her 1970s childhood. Food strongly associated with memories of simpler times: the maltiest of milkshakes; wickedly delicious lollies like musk sticks and fruit jubes; golden fish and chips; flakypastried meat pies and sausage rolls; vanilla slices and custard tarts. These ‘fun foods’-over 120 in total, including lots of exciting variations -are all made from scratch with real, natural ingredients for a 21st century audience. Chapters include Milkbar; The Lolly Counter; The Icecream Cabinet, Fish ‘n’ Chip Shop and Corner Store.

The Food I Love by Neil Perry ($49.99, PB)

Taking its inspiration from the food of the Mediterranean, this is more than just a book of recipes. It can be used in a variety of ways: readers can simply enjoy the 200 delicious recipes or be inspired by the thousands of suggested food combinations that work together to create superb dishes for breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert. Neil Perry also provides straightforward advice on everything from how to hold a cook’s knife to trussing chicken and filleting fish.

The Herb Companion by Marcus A Webb ($19.99, PB) This is an essential home reference guide to over 50 herbs. Each entry gives the essential properties of each herb, as well as its medicinal and culinary uses, and cultural significance. In addition, there are sections on flavour combinations, and uses for beauty and health. Also Available: The Spice Companion by Jonathan Croft

Craft Brew: 50 homebrew recipes from the world’s best craft breweries by Euan Ferguson ($29.99, PB)

Some 50 international craft breweries have volunteered a recipe (from the mighty BrewDog, Brooklyn, Mikkeller, Anchor, & Many More!) to create a unique, useful and technically accurate book for the homebrewer. Craft Brew offers a solid introduction to the kit required for all-grain brewing at home, including a glossary of the terms, plus tips & techniques for getting the best brew at home.

How to Develop a Brilliant Memory Week by Week: 52 Proven Ways to Enhance Your Memory Skills by Dominic O’Brien ($13, PB)

Dominic O’Brien offers a step-by-step programme of skills, introducing all the techniques on which he has built his triumphant championship performances. Pacing the course in line with his expert understanding of how the brain responds to basic memory training, he offers strategies and tips that he knows, from experience, will expand mental capacity at a realistic but impressive rate.

New in the Global Food History Series—HC, $24.99each Onions & Garlic by Martha Jay; Melon by Sylvia Lovegren Fats by Michelle Phillipov; Banana by Lorna Piatti-Farnell The Garden Wanderer by Julie Kinney

Everyone knows the Margaret River region for its wineries and beaches—now take an armchair ride around a small corner of Australia’s south-west and discover some hidden treasures in gardens of the region. Julie Kinney has lived in the area for twenty years and has an intimate knowledge of its gardens, from grand visions to pristine bush properties. Visit with her and share her enthusiasm through a selection of stunning photographs. ($44, HB)

The Nordic Kitchen: One Year of Family Cooking by Claus Meyer ($40, HB)

Claus Meyer brings the ethos that built Noma into the home with easy-going, accessible dishes that will fit seamlessly into family life. The book is divided into four seasonal chapters, & there are also features on food from the wild, including chanterelles, dandelions & blackberries. With recipes including Creamy Root Vegetable Soup with Crispy Bacon, Braised Pork Cheeks with Beer & Plum Vinegar, Pan-fried Mullet with Cucumber & Peas in Dill Butter & Rhubarb Cake.

Sirocco: Fabulous Flavours from the East by Sabrina Ghayour ($39.99, HB)

In the follow-up to her bestseller Persiana Sabrina Ghayour brings tastes of the East to Western-style dishes in a collection of 100 delicious and accessible recipes. With an emphasis on simple ingredients and strong flavours, Ghayour brings her modern inspirational touch to a variety of dishes ranging from classics and comfort food to spectacular salads and sweet treats.

events

s Eve nt ar d n e Cal

SUNDAY Launch—3.30 for 4

MONDAY 2

Three Pitt Street Poetry poets Earth Girls by Lisa Brockwell Launcher: Laura Bloom A celebration of Gods and Uncles by Geoff Page A celebration of 101 Poems by John Foulcher

Launch—3pm

Kate & Jol Temple

Captain Jimmy Cook Discovers the First Grade Jimmy Cook is finding History Week a bit boring until Ms Fennel starts banging on about Captain Cook. Publisher (Anna McFarlane) will introduce the authors, and a book reading for the kids will follow.

TUESDAY 3

Launch—6 for 6.30 John Hughes

Asylum Launched by: Mark Tredinnick and Mark Tedeschi AM QC This allegory, echoing Kafka, illuminates the stark terror of the modern age, marked by a border in constant shift between gods and men, truth and deception, freedom and constraint—a world that hides, not in darkness, but in the light.

Event—6 for 6.30 Rachel Landers

WEDNE 4

Launch— ABR States NSW L

Launchers: Eliza Peter With poetry reading tors to this ne David Malouf, Sus na Wright, Toby F Kate Middleton an

Event— Samantha T

Who Bombed the Hilton? On 13 February 1978 a bomb exploded outside the Hilton Hotel in George Street, Sydney. ilmmaker and historian Rachel Landers wrestles with the evidence to unravel this complex cold case in forensic detail, exposing corruption, political intrigue—and a prime suspect.

Better Than Sex: W Sex and Romance Panel: Zan Rowe a urier. Chair: Sama 16 exceptional writ fying glass to sex an digital

SYDNEY WRI MAY 16 T

Event—

Tim E

Farewell to This is an extraor growing up with by mental illness: powerfully told, l rage and surpr

Launch—3.30 for 4 Lee Whitmore

Ada Louise, a Life Imagined Launched by: Kate Grenville Animator Lee Whitmore’s first graphic novel is a biography of her grandmother, Ada, and her closest siblings. This is a signed limited edition (100 copies).

All events listed are $12/$9 concession. Book Launches are free. Gleeclub members free entry to events at 49 Glebe Pt Rd

May 2016

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

ESDAY

—6 for 6.30 s of Poetry Launch

abeth Allen and Rose gs by the contribuew anthology: sie Anderson, FioFitch, Pam Brown, nd Michael Aiken

—6 for 6.30 Trenoweth

THURSDAY 5

Launch—6 for 6.30 Stephen McInerney

The Wind Outside Launcher: Robert Gray The poems in this new volume celebrate experience in all its physical, sensual & emotional complexity from the streets & beaches of Sydney to the remembered landscapes of a South Coast childhood; they range as far as Britain, France and the rural villages of Greece.

o the Father rdinary memoir of a parent afflicted : a complex elegy, loaded with love, rising humour.

Launch—5 for 5.30

A Bookshop Gig with Tripod

Tripod: 101 Hits Comedy trio Tipod—Scod, Yon and Gatesy—will take you on an entertaining, chaotic and occasionally nail-biting journey through a random selection of songs from the ir new songbook—reportedly ‘the stupidest songbook ever to bluff its way into existence’.

13 Launch—6 for 6.30 Atheism for Christians Launcher: Prof Carole Cusack What can Mary Wollstonecraft teach Christians about sexual ethics? Are there lessons for theChristian world from writers like Marx, Nehru, Shelley, Popper, and Hume? Join author, Dr Benjamin T. Jones and guests for an interactive night of discussion and debate.

ITER’S FESTIVAL TO MAY 22nd

—6 for 6.30 Elliott

Benjamin T. Jones

Women Write about in the Digital Age and Lucy Le Masantha Trenoweth ters take a magnind romance in the l age.

FRIDAY

Event—6 for 6.30 Damon Young

The Art of Reading Philosopher Damon Young reveals the pleasures of reading through a rich sample of literature: from Virginia Woolf’s diaries to Batman comics. He writes with honesty and humour about the blunders and revelations of his own bookish life.

SATURDAY 7

Event—3.30 for 4 Jennifer Rayner

Generation Less: How Australia is Cheating the Young in conv. with Sen. Sam Dastyari Today’s young Australians are the first generation since the Great Depression to be worse off than their parents—Generation Less investigates young people’s prospects & offers a smart, funny & ground-breaking blueprint for a fairer future.

Event—6 –7.30

Remembering Dimitris Tsaloumas, poet and man

21 Dulwich Hill Launch 4pm Meg Welchman

27 Launch—6 for 6.30 Romond Coles

This Present Moment After a battle with breast cancer psychologist Meg Welchman was joined with illustrator Grace Cuell to create an art therapy journal based on 15 important themes of life with mandalas to give peace and focus through colouring and contemplation. RSVP Dulwich Hill Gleebooks

Visionary Pragmatism: Radical and Ecological Democracy in Neoliberal Times Launcher: Danielle Celermajer As neoliberal capitalism destroys democracy, commonwealth & planetary ecology, Romand Coles presents an invigorating new mode of scholarship and political practice he calls ‘visionary pragmatism’.

Granny’s Good Reads with Sonia Lee

Graham Swift’s novella Mothering Sunday: A Romance begins with some of the most evocative words in the English language: ‘You shall go to the ball!’ and ‘Once upon a time’. Add to these the half-disclosed Modigliani nude on the cover and Swift’s exquisite, thoughtfully sauntering prose and I was all his. The plot focuses on just one day, 30th March, 1924, Mothering Sunday, when servants have the day off to visit family and their employers make do. The Nivens and the Sheringhams are making do by motoring to Henley-onThames for a luncheon with the Hobdays, whose daughter is soon to marry Paul, aged 23, the sole survivor of the Sheringhams’ three sons. Jane Fairchild, the Nivens’ 22-year-old housemaid, an orphan with no family to visit, has been intending to spend the day in their garden reading Joseph Conrad’s Youth, lent to her by Mr Niven, when a telephone call changes her day and her life. She is being invited by Paul, who has been her secret lover for the past seven years, to spend the morning with him––though this time it’s to be different, since Paul is asking her to come, not by dark to an outhouse or a stable, but in broad daylight to the front door of Upleigh, the Sheringhams’ fine old country house. Paul’s parents are by now well on their way to Henley, and he has driven the family’s two servants to the train. So Jane pedals off to Upleigh, where Paul himself opens the front door to her and takes her up to his bedroom, with its undrawn curtains and open window. Their day is one of those rare golden March days of midsummer warmth. For the first time in their lives they can be safely alone and completely undressed. Their lovemaking, like Swift’s prose, is leisurely, as is the timing of Paul’s disappointing, though not unexpected, announcement that he is going out to lunch with his fiancée—but the house, he tells Jay, is hers, at least until the pumpkin hour when his folk will be on their way home. She hears him drive off, by now disastrously late for his appointment, then, without dressing, walks round the house, looking at its books and pictures, showing herself, in her skin, to its large mirrors and eating a slice of the cold pie left by cook for Mister Paul. Her reverie interrupted by an unanswered telephone, she dresses and cycles home, where Mr Niven makes the third life-changing announcement of her day. The story of this day, we learn, is Jane’s private story. Between then and now she has lived to be nearly a hundred and become a famous author with many a story to tell, but never this one. Swift has said that he never forgets the characters of his novels, many of whom seem, for him, to take on a life of their own outside his pages. One readily sees, from his tender, sensitive scrutiny of a young housemaid’s day off, how he has come to invest characters like Jane Fairchild with so large a life. Mothering Sunday is a beautiful, unforgettable book. In Love with Betty the Crow, by Robyn Williams, tells the story of the first forty years of ABC Radio National’s Science Show. I have listened to just about all of these programs and always find them exhilarating—even when I don’t quite understand them. Williams is the ideal host, chatty and informal, with an enviable list of contacts in Britain and the USA. I well remember his early programs on climate change, another memorable one where Sharon Carleton went at her own expense to Highgrove to see Prince Charles’s wildflower meadows and reed-bed septic system, and Peter Mason’s exceptional offerings, especially his series on Blood and Iron. In Chapter 13 Williams wonders why Australia so often thinks small. His recent programs have featured the work of PhD students, and the last two have been about elephants poached for ivory and illegally logged trees tracked by their DNA. Williams has a minuscule budget, no science unit and never misses a day, even when he recently had chemo for cancer. Australia is lucky to have him and I hope he lives forever. By the way, when the male crows take away the bent tool for getting at the food, the eponymous Betty the crow, makes her own tool—so we’d better stop saying ‘birdbrain’. Birds are cleverer than we think. My bedside book this month is Wildwood: A Journey through Trees by Roger Deakin. I first fell in love with Deakin when I read his book, Waterlog, and from his walk-on appearances in the works of Robert Macfarlane, who has written the foreword for this, Deakin’s sadly final book. There is a delight on every page and I go to sleep thinking of trees and rooks and moths and all the creatures that he so lovingly describes. Sonia

Code of Silence by Colin Dillon

Colin Dillon is an extraordinary man. He was the first Indigenous policeman in Australia. He was also the first serving police officer to voluntarily appear before the Fitzgerald Commission of Inquiry in 1987 & give first-hand evidence of police corruption. He did this at a time when the Fitzgerald Inquiry was beginning & struggling for traction. His evidence at the Inquiry was instrumental in eventually sending some police & politicians to prison. He describes the extraordinary range of criminal activities—drugs, gaming, SP bookmaking, brothels, vehicle theft—that were allowed to operate with impunity in return for bribes. It also tells of the high price an honest man and his family paid for his decision to break the code of silence. ($29.99, PB)

Australian Studies

Griffith Review 52: Imagining the Future (eds) Julianne Schultz & Brendan Gleeson ($28, PB)

Australian politics & national life are trapped in a permanent present. There are few opportunities to imagine the future, and even fewer to create it. Politics, commerce, media all focus relentlessly on the here and now. This breeds a corrosive cynicism. Yet when alternatives are presented they are often embraced and quickly become the new normal. It is time to envisage the future, without fear, as a landscape to be won through human striving and expression, and Griffith Review 52 imagines the new possibilities. Contributors include Al Gore, Tim Flannery, Maria Tumarkin, Anthony Funnel, Margaret Simons, Tony Birch, Don Henry, Ashley Hay, Leah Kaminsky, Graeme Davison, Tony Davis, Jane Gleeson-White & many more.

Offshore: Behind the Wire on Manus and Nauru Madeline Gleeson ($29.99, PB)

What has happened on Nauru and Manus since Australia began its most recent offshore processing regime in 2012? This book provides a comprehensive and uncompromising overview of the first three years of offshore processing since it recommenced in 2012. It explains why offshore processing was re-established, what life is like for asylum seekers and refugees on Nauru and Manus, what asylum seekers, refugees and staff in the offshore detention centres have to say about what goes on there, and why the truth has been so hard to find. In doing so, it goes behind the rumours and allegations to reveal what is known— and still not known—about Australia’s offshore detention centres.

The Convict’s Daughter: The scandal that Shocked a Colony by Kiera Lindsey ($32.99, PB)

One wet autumn evening in 1848, fifteen-year-old Mary Ann Gill stole out of a bedroom window in her father’s Sydney hotel and took a coach to a local racecourse. There she was to elope with James Butler Kinchela, wayward son of the former Attorney-General. Her enraged father pursued them on horseback and fired two pistols at his daughter’s suitor, narrowly avoiding killing him. What followed was Australia’s most scandalous abduction trial of the era, as well as an extraordinary story of adventure and misadventure, both in Australia and abroad. Starting with just a newspaper clipping, historian Kiera Lindsey has uncovered the world of her feisty great, great, great aunt—a currency lass born when convicts were still working the streets of Sydney who lived and loved during a period of dramatic social and political change.

Australia: A German Traveller in the Age of Gold by Friedrich Gerstäcker ($34.95, PB)

Friedrich Gerstäcker, the most illustrious and prolific of German travel writers, set foot in Australia in March 1851, having walked across the Andes, traipsed the goldfields of California, and sailed over the Pacific in search of new adventures. Gerstäcker found adventures aplenty in Australia. He rowed and trekked down the Murray, absorbed the excitement triggered by the discovery of gold, visited his countrymen in South Australia, and trained his outsider’s eyes on a colonial society gripped by profound change. In this translated edition of Gerstäcker’s book Australien, his lively travelogue is made available for the first time in English. Rarely has Australia’s colonial past been presented with such insight, humour & entertainment.

Breaking the Boundaries: Australian Activists Tell Their Stories (eds) Allen and Noble ($29.95, PB)

What makes an activist? What makes one person speak out against injustice while another will be content to get angry at the TV news? What makes the activist so determined to make her or his voice heard, often against powerful odds? This book looks for answers in the personal stories of 46 Australians, young and old, fighting to be heard in a range of areas including human rights, gender issues, and the environment. ‘Being an activist is about being more than yourself. It is about creating a better world.’ - Khadija Gbla, cross-cultural activist ‘In my time as an activist, I have learned two main things: do what you are able to do, and never lose heart.’ - Julian Burnside, barrister, human rights and refugee advocate. ‘We know instinctively if something is unfair or wrong. The greatest challenge is how to change that idea into the courage, passion and wisdom that enables us to act to make a change for the better. Jim Douglas, community activist

For the Common Good by Bill Shorten ($27.99, PB)

In For the Common Good Bill Shorten reflects on the values that led him to devote himself to the labour movement. He looks back on the emphasis on education and social justice in his childhood in Melbourne, and the rewarding years of hard slog as he organised and represented many of Australia’s lowest paid workers—including fruit pickers, forklift drivers, furnace operators and strappers—as a union official. In this thoughtful and inspiring narrative, Shorten offers readers an Australia that always cares for those who are in need, is a responsible corporate citizen, and steadfastly focuses on both the local and the global realities.

Till We Have Built Jerusalem by Adina Hoffman

Equal parts biographical puzzle, architectural meditation, and probing detective story, Adina Hoffman offers a prismatic view into one of the world’s most beloved and troubled cities. Her portrait of three architects who helped build modern Jerusalem is also a gripping exploration of the ways in which politics and aesthetics clash in a place of constant conflict. A beautifully written rumination on memory and forgetting, place and displacement, Till We Have Built Jerusalem uncovers ramifying levels of one great city’s buried history as it asks what it means, everywhere, to be foreign and to belong. ($40, HB)

Towards the Flame: Empire, War and the End of Tsarist Russia by Dominic Lieven ($30, PB)

The decision to go to war in 1914 had catastrophic consequences for Russia. The result was revolution, civil war & famine in 1917– 20, followed by decades of communist rule. Dominic Lieven’s powerful & original new book, based on exhaustive and unprecedented study in Russian and many other foreign archives, explains why this suicidal decision was made and explores the world of the men who made it, thereby consigning their entire class to death or exile and making their country the victim of a uniquely terrible political experiment under Lenin & Stalin.

This Orient Isle: Elizabethan England and the Islamic World by Jerry Brotton ($55, HB)

In 1570, when it became clear she would never be gathered into the Catholic fold, Elizabeth I was excommunicated by the Pope. It was the beginning of an English alignment with Muslim powers, and of cultural, economic & political exchanges with the Islamic world of a depth not again experienced until the modern age. England signed treaties with the Ottoman Porte, received ambassadors from the kings of Morocco & shipped munitions to Marrakesh in the hope of establishing an accord that would keep the common enemy of Catholic Spain at bay. By the late 1580s hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Elizabethan merchants, diplomats, sailors, artisans & privateers were plying their trade from Morocco to Persia. This Orient Isle shows that England’s relations with the Muslim world were far more extensive, & often more amicable, than we have ever appreciated, and that their influence was felt across the political, commercial & domestic landscape of Elizabethan England. Jerry Brotton recreatesis a startlingly unfamiliar picture of a part of Britain’s and international history.

Politics

A Rage for Order: The Arab World in Turmoil, From Tahrir Square to ISIS by Robert Worth

In 2011, a wave of revolution spread through the Middle East as protesters demanded an end to tyranny, corruption, and economic decay. From Egypt to Yemen, a generation of young Arabs insisted on a new ethos of common citizenship. 5 years later, their utopian aspirations have taken on a darker cast as old divides reemerge and deepen. In one country after another, brutal terrorists and dictators have risen to the top. Meet a Libyan rebel who must decide whether to kill the Qaddafi-regime torturer who murdered his brother; a Yemeni farmer who lives in servitude to a poetry-writing, dungeon-operating chieftain; and an Egyptian doctor who is caught between his loyalty to the Muslim Brotherhood & his hopes for a new, tolerant democracy. With dramatic storytelling and an original analysis of the Arab world today, Robert Worth captures the psychic and actual civil wars raging throughout the Middle East, and explains how the dream of an Arab renaissance gave way to a new age of discord. ($33, PB)

The Libertarian Alternative by Chris Berg

Libertarianism—the philosophy of government that pairs free market economics with social liberalism—presents a vigorous challenge & viable political alternative to the old Left–Right partisan shouting match. Libertarianism offers surprising new solutions to stagnant policy debates over issues such as immigration & civil rights, & provides a framework for tackling contemporary problems like privacy, the environment & technological change. Here Chris Berg offers a new agenda for restoring individual liberty in Australia, revitalising politics & strengthening our sagging economy. ($33, PB)

The Trust Deficit by Sam Crosby

Trust is the most powerful weapon in the political arsenal. It can pierce an opponent’s armour or deflect the most ferocious attack. It can explain difficult policies, and become a well of goodwill that politicians can draw from in their darkest hours. Yet despite its great value we are resigned to the idea that trust in politics will continue to decline. Drawing on contemporary political stories and examples, Sam Crosby shows us how faith in our politicians has been eroded but how it can be rebuilt. Julia Gillard’s pledge that there wouldn’t be a carbon tax and Tony Abbott’s promise of no cuts to health or education saw a collapse in their governments’ levels of support. By breaking trust down to its elements—reliability and competence, openness and honesty—we see how recent leaders established trust and used it to their political advantage. ($28, PB)

History

Smuggling: Seven Centuries of Contraband by Simon Harvey ($65 HB)

Smuggling can conjure images of adventure and rebellion in popular culture, but as this fascinating book shows, it has also had a profound effect on the geopolitics of the world. Central to this story are the (not always) legitimate forces of the Dutch and British East India Companies, the luminaries of the Spanish Empire, Napoleon Bonaparte, the Nazis, Soviet trophy brigades and the CIA, all of whom, at one point or another, have made smuggling part of their business. Simon Harvey also traces out the smallertime smugglers, the micro-economies of everyday goods, precious objects and people, drawing these stories together into a map of a subterranean world criss-crossed by smugglers’ paths.

Atlas of Lost Cities: A Travel Guide to Abandoned and Forsaken Destinations by Aude De Tocqueville ($45, HB)

Like humans, cities are mortal. They are born, they thrive, and they eventually die. Aude de Tocqueville tells the compelling narrative of the rise and fall of such notable places as Pompeii, Teotihuacan & Angkor. She also details the less well known, including Centralia, an abandoned Pennsylvania town consumed by unquenchable underground fire; Nova Citas de Kilamba in Angola, where housing, schools & stores were built for 500,000 people that never came; and Epecuen, a tourist town in Argentina now swallowed up by water. Original artwork shows the location of the lost cities, as well as a depiction of how they looked when they thrived.

Everything to Nothing: A History of the Great War, Revolution and the Birth of Europe by Geert Buelens ($40, HB)

The Great War is often referred to as ‘the literary war,’ the war that saw both the birth of modernism and the precursors of futurism. During the first few months in Germany alone there were over a million poems of propaganda written. In this cultural history of the WW1, the conflict is seen from the point of view of poets and writers from all over Europe, giving a transnational history of how nationalism and internationalism defined both the war itself and post-war dealings, and of how poets played a vital role in defining the stakes, ambitions and disappointments of the postwar Europe.

Chronicles: On Our Troubled Times by Thomas Piketty ($29.99, PB)

With Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty’s powerful, evidence-based analysis and solutions—including progressive wealth taxes to reduce inequality—were praised as much as his wonderful range of reference and panache. Comprising the very best of his writing for Liberation from the past ten years, translated into English for the first time, these short pieces bring readers the same expert eye, breadth of thought and practical ideas—providing Piketty’s analysis of the financial crisis, and of subjects and individuals, from productivity in Britain to Barack Obama.

Gleebooks’ special price $26.99

Connectography: Mapping the Global Network Revolution by Parag Khanna ($35, PB)

Parag Khanna guides the reader through the emerging global network civilization in which mega-cities compete over connectivity & borders are increasingly irrelevant. He travels from Ukraine to Iran, Mongolia to North Korea, London to Dubai & the Arctic Circle to the South China Sea—all to show how 21st century conflict is a tug-of-war over pipelines & internet cables, advanced technologies & market access. On the hopeful side, Khanna argues that new energy discoveries & innovations have eliminated the need for resource wars, global financial assets are being deployed to build productive infrastructure that can reduce inequality, and frail regions such as Africa & the Middle East are unscrambling their fraught colonial borders through ambitious new transportation corridors & power grids.

Broken Vows: Tony Blair The Tragedy of Power by Tom Bower ($3, PB)

When Tony Blair became prime minister in May 1997 after a landslide win, he was the youngest person to hold that office since 1812—his approval rating was 93 per cent and he went on to become Labour’s longest-serving premier. He had promised that ‘New Labour’ would modernize Britain, freeing it from sleaze, special interests and government secrecy. So what went wrong? Tom Bower was one of those who in 1997 looked on in excited anticipation as Blair took up residence in Downing Street. Now, with unprecedented access to more than 180 Whitehall officials, military officers and politicians, he has uncovered the full story of Blair’s decade in power. He has followed Blair’s trail since his resignation—to Asia, the Middle East and America, where he has built an extraordinary commercial empire advising tycoons and tyrants. The result is the political thriller of the year.

Science & Nature

Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space by Janna Levin ($30, PB)

May’s To-Read List

In 1916 Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves: miniscule ripples in the very fabric of spacetime generated by unfathomably powerful events. If such vibrations could somehow be recorded, we could observe our universe for the first time through sound: the hissing of the Big Bang, the whale-like tunes of collapsing stars, the low tones of merging galaxies, the drumbeat of two black holes collapsing into one. For decades, astrophysicists have searched for a way of doing so…In 2016 a team of hundreds of scientists at work on a billion-dollar experiment announced the first ever detection of a gravitational wave, confirming Einstein’s prediction. This is their story, and the story of the most sensitive scientific instrument ever made: LIGO.

15 Million Degrees: A Journey to the Centre of the Sun by Lucie Green ($35, PB)

An unflinching personal account of the yearning for a child and the heartbreaking experience of IVF.

One of the world’s leading thinkers gives powerful, evidence-based analysis of subjects ranging from productivity to the migration crisis.

Light takes just eight minutes to reach Earth from the surface of the Sun—but its journey within the Sun takes hundreds of thousands of years. What is going on in there? How does the Sun produce light and heat—and how on earth did scientists find out? Lucie Green takes the reader millions of miles from inside the Sun to its surface and to Earth, on the way discovering the latest research in solar physics, learning how the sun works and meeting the ground-breaking scientists who pieced this extraordinary story together.

Digital vs Human: How We’ll Live, Love and Think in the Future by Richard Watson ($35, PB)

What does it mean to live happily ever after? Alain de Botton returns to fiction with a brilliant new novel about modern relationships.

When Dora’s lover Daniel left on an Antarctic expedition, they had agreed to write to one another, although they knew the letters would never be sent.

Yeonmi Park’s story of escape from North Korea is an exploration of the risks we are prepared to take in order to be free.

The first collection of stories by the author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. A master of short form with a dark imagination.

To a large degree, the history of the next fifty years will be about the relationship between people and technologies created by a tiny handful of designers and developers. These inventions will undoubtedly change our lives, but the question is, to what end? What do we want these technologies to achieve on our behalf? What are they capable of, and—as they transform the media, the economy, health care, education, work, and the home—what kind of lives do we want to lead? Richard Watson extends an exuberant invitation for us to think deeply about the world of today and envision what kind of world we wish to create in the future.

Lab Girl by Hope Jahren ($33, PB) Hope Jahren is an award-winning scientist who has been pursuing independent research in paleobiology since 1996. She is the recipient of three Fulbright Awards & is one of four scientists, and the only woman, to have been awarded both of the Young Investigator Medals given within the Earth Sciences. Jahren talks about the discoveries she has made in her lab, as well as her struggle to get there; about her childhood playing in her father’s laboratory; about how lab work became a sanctuary for both her heart & her hands; about Bill, the brilliant, wounded man who became her loyal colleague & best friend; about their field trips—sometimes authorised, sometimes very much not—that took them from the Midwest across the USA, to Norway & to Ireland, from the pale skies of North Pole to tropical Hawaii. Candid & sometimes extremely funny, Jahren’s descriptions of her work, her intense relationship with the plants, seeds & soil she studies make for fascinating reading. Endeavouring Banks: Exploring Collections From the Endeavour Voyage 1768–1771 (ed) Chambers When English naturalist Joseph Banks accompanied Captain James Cook on his historic mission into the Pacific, he took with him a team of collectors & illustrators who returned with unprecedented collections of artefacts, specimens & drawings, opening up a whole world of knowledge as yet undiscovered by Europeans. This book features original voyage specimens together with illustrations & descriptions of them, showing a rich diversity of newly discovered species. The book also considers the work of Banks’ artists—Sydney Parkinson, Herman Diedrich Sporing & Alexander Buchan, as well as the priest Tupaia, who joined Endeavour in the Society Islands. ($70, HB)

The Scoop on Poop: Safely Capturing and Recycling the Nutrients in Greywater, Humanure, and Urine by Dan Chiras ($50, HB) The global bestseller and psychological thriller, from debut author Paula Hawkin, will forever change the way you look at other people’s lives.

With devastating honesty, humour and courage, Marie Munkara shares her extraordinary journey of discovery to find her origins.

Flush it and forget it is the plumbing mantra of the industrialized world— Human waste is a valuable resource we can use to support food production. Blackwater, greywater, and solids are actually rich in organic matter, and alternative means of handling these ‘wastes’ can conserve enormous quantities of fresh water for other uses. Whether you’re interested in composting toilets, outdoor grey- or blackwater planters, constructed wetlands, or other innovative solutions, author Dan Chiras will walk you through: System pros and cons design, construction, and maintenance advice costs, permitting issues, and the safe treatment of composted waste. All system plans are relatively simple and straightforward enough for the average homeowner to build and install. Intended for readers who live in cities, towns and rural environments, this is a practical guide to safe, ingenious ways to capture the nutrients from waste and recycle them back into your soil to grow fruit trees, vegetables, and flowers.

New in Reaktion’s Animal Series, $25 each: Seal by Victoria Dickenson; Sheep by Philip Armstrong

Philosophy & Religon Beyond Belief by Hugh Mackay ($32.99, PB)

Around two-thirds of us say we believe in God or some ‘higher power’, but fewer than one in ten Australians attend church weekly. Hugh Mackay argues that while our attachment to a traditional idea of God may be waning, our desire for a life of meaning remains as strong as ever. He interviews dozens of Australians representing many different points on the spectrum of faith, including some who are part of the emerging ‘spiritual but not religious’ movement. He exposes the deep vein of ambivalence about religion that runs through Australian society: we may not actively worship, but we still like to see local churches operating in our midst, and we use ‘our’ church to marry, christen our babies, educate our children & commemorate our dead.

Gleebooks’ special price $29.99

A Cabinet of Philosophical Curiosities: A Collection of Puzzles, Oddities, Riddles and Dilemmas by Roy Sorensen ($33, HB)

If you want to learn how to conform to confound, raze hopes, succeed your successor, order absence in the absence of order, win by losing and think contrapositively, look no further. Here you can unlock the secrets of Plato’s void, Wittgenstein’s investigations, Schopenhauer’s intelligence test, Voltaire’s big bet, Russell’s slip of the pen and lobster logic. Among your discoveries will be why the egg came before the chicken, what the dishwasher missed, and just what it was that made Descartes disappear.

Philosophers at Table: On Food and Being Human by Raymond Boisvert & Lisa M. Heldke ($40, PB)

The question of eating—what and how—may seem simple at first, but it is dense with possible interpretations, reflecting the myriad roles food plays in our lives. Boisvert & Heldke explore the philosophical scaffolding that supports this crucial aspect of everyday life, showing that humans are not just creatures with minds, but creatures with stomachs. Examining a wealth of myths, literary works, histories and films—as well as philosophical ideas—the authors make the case for a philosophy of food. They look at Babette’s Feast in a discussion of hospitality as a central ethical virtue. They compare eating a fast-food meal in Accra with dining at a molecular gastronomy restaurant as a way of considering the nature of food as art. And they describe biting into a slug to explore tasting as a learning tool, a way of knowing.

Strangers Drowning: Voyages to the Brink of Moral Extremity by Larissa MacFarquhar ($50, HB)

A couple adopts two children in distress. But then they think: if they can change two lives, why not four? Or ten? They adopt twenty. Another couple founds a leprosy colony in the wilderness in India, living in huts with no walls, knowing that their two small children may contract leprosy or be eaten by panthers. In a world of strangers drowning in need, how much should we help, and how much can we help? Is it right to care for strangers even at the expense of those we are closest to? Why do moral people make us uneasy? Between her stories, MacFarquhar threads a lively history of the novels, philosophy, social science, and self-help that have contributed to a deep suspicion of do-gooders in Western culture.

Dividuum: Machinic Capitalism and Molecular by Gerald Raunig ($37.95, PB)

As the philosophical, religious & historical systems that have produced the ‘individual’ (and its counterparts, society and community) over the years continue to break down, the age of ‘dividuality’ is now upon us. The roots of the concept of the ‘dividuum’ can be traced back to Latin philosophy, when Cicero used the term to translate the ‘divisible’ in the writings of Epicurus and Plato; later, medieval scholars utilized the term in theological discussions on the unity of the trinity. Grounding himself in the writings of the medieval bishop Gilbert de Poitiers and his extensive commentaries on Boethius, Gerald Raunig charts a genealogy of the concept and develops a philosophy of dividuality as a way of addressing contemporary modes of production and forms of life.

Of Reality: The Purposes of Philosophy by Gianni Vattimo ($67, HB)

We think it is wise to accept reality, rather than fight for something that does not exist or might never be. But in Of Reality, Gianni Vattimo condemns this complacency, with its implicit support of the status quo. Instead he urges us to never stop questioning, contrasting, or overcoming reality, which is not natural, inevitable, or objective. Reality is a construct, reflecting, among other things, our greed, biases, and tendencies toward violence. It is no accident, Vattimo argues, that the call to embrace reality has emerged at a time when the inequalities of liberal capitalism are at their most extreme. Though he recognizes his ideas invite charges of relativism, the philosopher counters with a discussion of truth, highlighting its long-standing ties to history and social circumstance.

Psychology Mindfulness for Unravelling Anxiety by Richard Gilpin ($20, HB)

Anxiety is a state many of us know only too well. Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) is on the global increase too with 1 in 25 people affected in the UK alone. Richard Gilpin shares frank personal anecdotes and therapeutic insights, revealing how mindfulness can create a path for us through anxiety. With wisdom and clarity, he guides us through the transformative practice of mindfulness meditation.’

Also Available: Mindfulness and Surfing: Reflections for Saltwater Souls by Sam Bleakley ($20, HB) Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction by Maia Szalavitz

More people than ever before see themselves as addicted to, or recovering from, addiction, whether it be alcohol or drugs, prescription meds, sex, gambling, porn, or the internet. But despite the unprecedented attention, our understanding of addiction is trapped in unfounded 20th century ideas, addiction as a crime or as brain disease, and in equally outdated treatment. Challenging both the idea of the addict’s ‘broken brain’ and the notion of a simple ‘addictive personality’, Unbroken Brain offers a radical and groundbreaking new perspective, arguing that addictions are learning disorders and shows how seeing the condition this way can untangle our current debates over treatment, prevention and policy. Like autistic traits, addictive behaviours fall on a spectrum—and they can be a normal response to an extreme situation. By illustrating what addiction is, and is not, the book illustrates how timing, history, family, peers, culture and chemicals come together to create both illness and recovery—and why there is no ‘addictive personality’ or single treatment that works for all. ($40, HB)

Andy Warhol Was a Hoarder: Inside the Minds of History’s Great Personalities by Claudia Kalb ($43, HB)

Was Andy Warhol a hoarder? Did Einstein have autism? Was Frank Lloyd Wright a narcissist? Journalist Claudia Kalb gives readers a glimpse into the lives of high-profile historic figures through the lens of modern psychology, weaving groundbreaking research into biographical narratives that are deeply embedded in our culture. From Marilyn Monroe’s borderline personality disorder to Charles Darwin’s anxiety, Kalb provides compelling insight into a broad range of maladies, using historical records and interviews with leading mental health experts, biographers, sociologists, and other specialists.

Now in B Format The Most Good You Can Do by Peter Singer, $24 The Shrinks: The Untold Story of Psychiatry by Jeffrey A. Lieberman & Ogi Ogas, $23 Scream: Chilling Adventures in the Science of Fear by Margee Kerr ($35, HB)

Fear is a universal human experience, but do we really understand it? If we’re so terrified of monsters and serial killers, why do we flock to the theatres to see them? Why do people avoid thinking about death, but jump out of planes and swim with sharks? For Margee Kerr, there was only one way to find out. In this eye-opening book, she takes the reader on a tour of the world’s scariest experiences: into an abandoned prison long after dark, hanging by a cord from the highest tower in the Western hemisphere, and deep into Japan’s mysterious ‘suicide forest’. She even goes on a ghost hunt with a group of paranormal adventurers. Along the way, Kerr delves into the surprising science from the newest studies of fear—what it means, how it works, and what it can do for us. Full of entertaining science and the thrills of a good ghost story, this book will make you think, laugh—and scream.

Creativity as Co-Therapist: The Practitioner’s Guide to the Art of Psychotherapy by Lisa Mitchell ($53, PB)

Experienced psychotherapist and creativity expert, Lisa Mitchell, bridges the gap between theoretical knowledge and therapeutic application by teaching psychotherapists of all backgrounds to see therapy as their art form. Readers are guided through the five stages of the creative process to help them understand the complexities of approaching their work creatively and to effectively identify areas in which they tend to get stuck when working with clients. Along the way workbook assignments, case studies, personal stories, and hands-on art directives will inspire the reader to think outside the box and build the creative muscles that hold the key to enlivening their work.

The Novel Cure The days are drawing in, and there’s a sense of mellow fruitfulness abounding, so Matthew Evans new cookbook is just thing the thing to have at hand when the urge strikes to transform bags of fruit into gleaming jars of condiments. Not Just Jam is a very apt title as there are recipes for much more than jam—pickles, relishes, curds, cordials and pastes. All the recipes are accessible and clearly written, and just as importantly, the book is well designed and very easy to read, with fabulous photographs. Matthew Evans is a terrific writer, and while most of us don’t live on a beautiful farm in the Huon Valley, we can still aspire to bringing a bit of authentic warmth and good cheer into our kitchens.

Four new books have really impressed me this month, the first is Graham Swift’s Mothering Sunday—a short, sharp book about ‘Mothering Sunday’, 1924. Despite being an excellent time in which to set a book or a film, it wasn’t a great time to be in the lower classes. Jane Fairchild is an orphan (apparently a lot of abandoned babies were given that surname), and has spent her adult life so far as servant in a big house. Life isn’t so bad, there’s a library full of books that she’s allowed to read, and she’s quite clever. Being an orphan means she doesn’t have the usual destination that her colleagues have on this particular Sunday. She has an assignation that will ultimately change the course of her life. Graham Swift captures the time and place elegantly in this book, as well as creating a looming sense of destiny, building up suspense and tension through the course of the day.

My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout, is another short book, succinct and plain-spoken, that arches through the life of the eponymous Lucy. Hospitalised in New York for a mysterious infection, Lucy Barton misses her two children greatly, her husband less so. Her mother arrives unexpectedly, and for the next five days sits by the bedside, having what appears to be a disjointed, aimless conversation with her daughter. In fact, the two are extremely connected, and their dialogue is very meaningful, and in the way of familial conversation, completely makes sense to them both. Lucy’s childhood was coloured by poverty, and the stress of her having a having a father who returned from WW2 clearly suffering PTS. Lucy leaves it all behind her, and goes to New York, where she creates a new life. The narrative is full of eloquent gaps, sparely written, without artifice or tricks. Elizabeth Strout writes about Lucy’s life, its past, its present and its future. A wonderful example of eloquent restraint.

Jhumpa Lahiri’s In Other Words is another short, remarkable book. The author decided to learn Italian, and did it in the most extraordinary way. She immersed herself in the new language, even moving with her young family to Italy. This is a serious, interior book, most definitely not a book about Italy, and not a particularly convivial memoir either—it is too earnest for that. But the yearning to belong, through language, is palpable, and surprising. The author is hard on herself, and she wrote this book in Italian (which is set on the verso pages of the book, with the English translation by Anna Goldstein on the recto page), creating a very unusual reading experience ... the reader is placed within the juxtaposition between the two languages. Even if you can’t read Italian (and I can not) the Italian text will call to you and makes its presence felt.

Finally, a most cheering book has crossed my reading path—The Novel Cure: An A-Z of Literary Remedies by Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin. The book has a most comprehensive list of ailments, both physical and emotional—from angst, to envy, loneliness, baldness, motherhood, childlessness, zestlessness, (the list goes on)— and corresponding titles of fiction books that will help cure what ails you. I started to read it from the beginning, just to review it, but soon found myself cross referencing, and writing down a reading list of books I must read (including some children’s books). It’s a fun idea, and written by two literary friends who clearly share a great wealth of reading, but ultimately it’s a serious book, and a very helpful one. I’m looking forward to taking my new booklist into work, Gleebooks being a veritable apothecary of wonderful cures. Louise

Cultural Studies & Criticism Better Than Sex: Women Write About Sex and Romance in the Digital Age (ed) Samantha Trenoweth

In an age that mashes internet porn with Tinder & arranged marriage, in an age in which everything (sexuality, gender, consent) seems fluid, what does the landscape of love look like, really? And how are the seismic jolts in the ways we negotiate sex & romance affecting women? In the 3rd book in Samantha Trenoweth’s series of essays by contemporary women, contributors ask whether the Tinderverse has killed romance; are women, who are increasingly powerful in all sorts of areas of their lives, more or less empowered in their personal relationships than they were a decade ago; and do women actually have more choices or fewer? Better than Sex assembles impressions of the contemporary love landscape from provocative writers, including Roxane Gay, Emily Maguire, Jamila Rizvi, Lucy Le Masurier, Susan Chenery, Rosie Waterland, Fiona McGregor, Rachel Hills, Zoe Norton Lodge, Van Badham & Ann Friedman. ($29.99, PB)

Why We Love Music: From Mozart to Metallica— The Emotional Power of Beautiful Sounds by John Powell ($35, PB)

Why does music affect you so profoundly? It impacts the way you think, talk, feel, behave, and even spend money. Scientist and musician John Powell showcases some fascinating studies—for example that shoppers spend more money in stores that play classical music and, even more astounding, they are more likely to buy German wine in stores playing German music. With chapters on music and emotions, music as medicine, music and intelligence, and much more, Why We Love Music is a delightful journey through the psychology and science of music.

The Abundance by Annie Dillard ($34.99, HB) Annie Dillard has spent a lifetime examining the world around her with eyes wide open, drinking in all things intensely and relentlessly. She conjures currents of magic and wisdom, illuminating the seemingly ordinary moments of a life lived fearlessly—as a breathless teenager, as a roving young adult and as a writer—with her unique wit, boundless curiosity and fierce, undeniably singular voice. Whether observing a sublime lunar eclipse or a moth consumed in a candle flame, the trembling of lily pads on a pond or hundreds of red-winged blackbirds taking flight, Dillard’s awe at the fragility of the natural world rejuvenates and inspires pleasure and heartache. Small Town Talk: Bob Dylan, The Band, Van Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix & Friends in Woodstock by Barney Hoskyns ($39.99, HB)

Think ‘Woodstock’ & the mind turns to the seminal 1969 festival that crowned a seismic decade of sex, drugs & rock ‘n’ roll. But Woodstock itself was over 60 miles from the site to which the fabled half a million flocked. So why the misnomer? Quite simply, Woodstock was already a key location in the 60s rock landscape, the tiny Catskills town where Bob Dylan had holed up after his 1966 motorcycle accident. Barney Hoskyns recreates Woodstock’s community of brilliant dysfunctional musicians, opportunistic hippie capitalists & scheming dealers drawn to the area by Dylan & his sidekicks The Band. Drawing on first-hand interviews with the remaining key players in the scene, & on the period when he lived there himself in the 1990s, Hoskyns has produced an East Coast companion to his bestselling L.A. Canyon classic Hotel California—a richly absorbing study of a vital music scene in a revolutionary time & place.

Lit Up: One Reporter. Three Schools. 24 Books That Can Change Lives by David Denby ($54, HB)

Can teenagers be turned on to serious reading? What kind of teachers can do it, and what books? To find out, Denby sat in on a tenth-grade English class in a demanding New York public school for an entire academic year, and made frequent visits to a troubled inner-city public school in New Haven and to a respected public school in Westchester county. He read all the stories, poems, plays, and novels that the kids were reading, and creates an impassioned portrait of charismatic teachers at work, classroom dramas large and small, and fresh and inspiring encounters with the books themselves, including The Scarlet Letter, Brave New World, 1984, Slaughterhouse-Five, Notes From Underground, Long Way Gone and many more.

Women After All: Sex, Evolution, and the End of Male Supremacy by Melvin Konner ($23.95, PB)

Anthropologist Melvin Konner traces the arc of evolution to explain the relationships between women & men. Drawing on colourful examples from the natural world—the octopus, the black widow spider & coral reef fish, which can switch from male to female in a single reproductive career—he sheds light on our biologically different human identities & the poignant exceptions that challenge the male/ female divide. We meet hunter-gatherers in Botswana whose culture gave women a prominent place, inventing the working mother & respecting women’s voices around the fire. History upset this balance as a dense world of war fostered extreme male dominance. But our species has been recovering over the past 2 centuries & an unstoppable move towards equality is afoot. It will not be the end of men but it will be the end of male supremacy & a better, wiser world for women & men alike.

Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity by Douglas Rushkoff

The digital economy was supposed to create a new age of prosperity for everyone. But as Facebook resells our data for billions and selfdriving cars threaten drivers’ work, it is only exacerbating the gap between the top 1% and everyone else. If we want it to truly redistribute wealth, we need to act now. Douglas Rushkoff identifies this crucial turning point and calls on everyone to remake the economic operating system from the inside out. With practical steps and incisive analysis, he offers a pragmatic, optimistic and human-centred model for economic progress in the digital age. ($35, PB)

Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age by Sherry Turkle ($35, PB)

We live in a technological universe in which we are always communicating and yet we have sacrificed conversation for mere connection. We see the costs of the flight from conversation everywhere. At the dinner table, children compete with phones for their parents’ attention. Friends learn new strategies to keep conversations going as their peers raise and lower their eyes to check their phones. At work we retreat to our screens, although it is conversation at the water cooler that increases productivity and commitment. Online, we want to share opinions that our followers will agree with – a politics that shies away from the real conflicts and solutions of the public square. Preeminent media researcher Sherry Turkle has been studying digital culture and communication for more than thirty years. Long an enthusiast for its possibilities, here she investigates a troubling consequence.

The Life Project: The Extraordinary Story of 70,000 Ordinary Lives by Helen Pearson ($55, HB)

Beginning just after the WW2 this single study has grown to encompass five generations of children and over 70,000 people. The resulting work is recognised by a small group of people worldwide as one of the greatest projects in science, but almost unknown by the rest of us. Its story reveals how studying who we are and how we develop—gathering information on birth weight, school work, ambitions, class, health and wealth—has enraptured scientists, and thrown vital light on how childhood and inequality influence the course of our lives. From libraries, laboratories and living rooms, talking with geneticists, economists, epidemiologists and statisticians, science writer Helen Pearson spent five years piecing together the story of an extraordinary project, and the scientists who created and sustained it.

s d d w n n a o 2 H R

This month, two truly beautiful photographic volumes featuring the work of one of Australia’ most revered photographers, Max Dupain (1911–1992). Max Dupain’s Australia. Melbourne. Penguin Viking. Hardcover. 224pp. Some 200 mostly b/w plates. Originally published 1986. This copy is a 1988 reprint. Some very minor age spotting on the top edge otherwise in near Fine condition. Price - $90.00. This selection of 200 photographs was made by Dupain himself—with portraits, iconic beach studies (Sunbaker—1937, on Pp. 104–105), city street life, landscapes and architectural studies. In an informative introductory Essay the photographer writes: This collection of pictures is not intended to be a tourist’s guide to the halcyon escape routes of Australia. Instead it is a very personal distillation of places and events I have encountered with 50-odd years of practising my craft in my own country. Regard it as a broad cross-section of intimate visual relationships which hopefully will afford pleasure, richness, some inner knowledge and maybe even joy and humour. Dupain’s Australians—Jill White / Frank Moorhouse. Neutral Bay, Sydney. Chapter and Verse. Hardcover. 2003. 112pp. Includes biographical timeline for Maxwell Spencer Dupain. Some very light wear. A near Fine copy. $80.00. This is the third volume in a series on Dupain’s work. Compiled by Jill White, Max Dupain’s photographic assistant for over thirty years. He bequeathed his Negative Exhibition Archive to her upon his death. Following the earlier collection: Dupain’s Sydney and Dupain’s Beaches, this volume contains a selection of photographs of Dupain’s family and friends, his military comrades, artistic and literary acquaintances, professional models, nude studies and also captures everyday Australians at work. The novelist Frank Moorhouse, contributes an introduction which examines Dupain’s photographic work as both representative of nostalgia and—for later generations with no historical memory of the scenes and people portrayed—as ‘historical Keyhole gazing’. Stephen Reid

Language & Writing

TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking by Chris Anderson ($32.99, PB)

This is the official TED guide to public speaking from the man who put TED talks on the world’s stage. Anderson shares his five key techniques to presentation success: Connection, Narration, Explanation, Persuasion and Revelation (plus the three to avoid). He also answers the most frequently asked questions about giving a talk, from ‘What should I wear?’ to ‘How do I handle my nerves?’. Ted Talks is also full of presentation tips from such TED notable speakers as Sir Ken Robinson, Bill Gates, Mary Roach, Amy Cuddy, Elizabeth Gilbert, Dan Gilbert, Amanda Palmer, Matt Ridley and many more.

Horrible Words: A Guide to the Misuse of English by Rebecca Gowers ($30, HB)

Nothing enflames the language gripers like a misplaced disinterested, an illogical irregardless, a hideous operationalisation. To a purist these are ‘howlers’ and ‘non-words’, fit only for scorn. But in their rush to condemn such terms, are the nay-sayers missing something? In this provocative and hugely entertaining book, Rebecca Gowers throws light on a vast array of horrible words, and shows how the diktats of the pedants are repeatedly based on misinformation, false reasoning and straight-up snobbery. The result is a brilliant work of history, a surreptitious introduction to linguistics, and a mischievous salute to the misusers of the language. It is also a bold manifesto that asserts our common rights over English, even as it questions the true nature of style.

Use Your Words: A Myth-Busting, No-Fear Approach to Writing by Catherine Deveny ($27.99, PB)

Want to write? Got a memoir, novel, blog idea or screenplay in your back drawer? Need to get ‘unstuck’? This is the magic pill you’ve been looking for. In Use Your Words writer and comedian Catherine Deveny reveals the secrets that have made her ‘Gunnas’ writing masterclasses sell-out successes around the country. With humour and passion, she explains the struggles all writers face and reveals how to overcome them. Whether you’re already published or just starting out, writing for others or purely for self-expression, Use Your Words has the tips, tricks, techniques and honest truths to get you writing. You’ll learn how creativity is a like a vending machine, how writing is like a magnet and how not to die with your light inside you.

The Art of Language Invention: From HorseLords to Dark Elves, The Words Behind World-Building by David J. Peterson ($27, PB)

From master language creator David J. Peterson comes a creative guide to language construction for sci-fi and fantasy fans, writers, game creators, and language lovers. Peterson offers an overview of language creation, covering its history from Tolkien’s creations and Klingon to today’s thriving global community of conlangers. He provides the essential tools necessary for inventing and evolving new languages, using examples from a variety of languages including his own creations, punctuated with references to everything from Star Wars to Michael Jackson. Along the way, behind-the-scenes stories lift the curtain on how he built languages like Dothraki for HBO’s Game of Thrones and Shiväisith for Marvel’s Thor: The Dark World, and an included phrasebook will start fans speaking Peterson’s constructed languages. This is an inside look at a fascinating culture and an engaging entry into a flourishing art form—and it might be the most fun you’ll ever have with linguistics.

The Great Spring: Writing, Zen, and This Zigzag Life by Natalie Goldberg ($37, HB)

The “great spring” of this book title refers to the great rush of energy that arrives when you think no life will ever come again—the early yellow flowering forsythia, for example. It also refers to enlightenment: obstructions shatter, pain cracks open, previously resisted truth releases, an acceptance of transiency flows through. Natalie Goldberg shares the moments that have sprung from her own life of writing, teaching, and Zen practice—moments of searching, wandering, zigzagging, losing, and leaping where she has found herself and her voice. In these pages, we watch as Natalie ‘makes positive effort for the good’—one of the guiding rules of her writing life—and we see that if we can stay attentive in our lives, even in the middle of the ruins, ‘we can hear the sound of a songbird in a Paris chestnut tree’. Whether we know if the song comes from inside us or out doesn’t matter.

THE UNRELENTING STRUGGLE - MAY 1916 n May 1916 the explorer Ernest Shackleton, after two years of isolation in the Antarctic, reaches the small island of South Georgia in the South Atlantic Ocean. In his memoir South he recalls meeting Mr Sorlle, the manager of the British whaling station there: ‘My name is Shackleton’, I said. Immediately he put out his hand and said, ‘Come in. Come in’. ‘Tell me, when was the war over?’ I asked. ‘The war is not over’, he answered. ‘Millions are being killed. Europe is mad. The world is mad’.

Indeed. The Great War has entered its 21st month. Casualties on the Western Front alone have reached more than two million. For the Central Powers, Germany in particular, 1916 is to be the year of maximum effort before the immense and irreplaceable drain on her manpower and resources occurs. The Battle of Verdun, undertaken to bleed France to death, has had an effect almost as disastrous upon Germany. Her losses to the end of May are 337,000 compared to French casualties of 363,000—yet Verdun remains untaken and French resolve is unbroken. In April, Bethmann-Hollweg, the German Chancellor, declares that Germany possesses ‘a gigantic moral reserve... the whole nation united like one man. It is this united and free Germany that our enemies desire to destroy’. Yet cracks are now appearing in the Burgfrieden—Civil Truce—the show of national political and social unity declared since August 1914. Strikes, once rare, have increased. In March an emergency war budget meets Socialist opposition in the Reichstag—the German parliament. On May Day, Karl Liebknecht the anti-war socialist leader is arrested and imprisoned for three years for inciting public disturbances. He is led off by police shouting: ‘Down with the war! Down with the Government!’. The Allied naval blockade in effect since August 1914 is also taking its toll on the populace: In 1915 some 88,232 deaths have been attributed to it—241 deaths a day. In 1916 the total will rise to 121,114—331 deaths a day. In Britain also, the effects of the conflict cannot be confined to battlefields and trenches alone. In April–May 1916 the British crush the Irish ‘Easter Rising’—an armed rebellion led by Irish republicans aiming to establish an independent Irish state. In the Middle East, Turkish forces win a stunning victory. A five month siege of a British army at Kut-Al-Amara in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) ends on 29 April 1916, with the surrender of the 12,000 man garrison. Historian James Morris declared it ‘the most abject capitulation in Britain’s military history’. The British offer the Turks a £2 million payment in gold for their release. This is rejected by Enver Pasha, the Turkish military commander. From 6 May the survivors are forced to undertake a 12 day, 1,200 mile (1,930 kms) death march northwards through the desert into captivity with little food and water. Over 4,500 will die. On 31 May 1916, a greater part of the German High Seas Fleet—42 warships— leave their base at Wilhelmshaven and seek battle with the British Grand Fleet off the Danish coast. It is an attempt to destroy a portion of the British fleet and, finally, break the ever tightening naval blockade. Jutland will be the largest naval battle of the war—and also the most controversial. Fought between 31 May–1 June 1916 it ends with major British losses of three battle cruisers: HMS Indefatigable is sunk with 1,017 men drowned; HMS Queen Mary is blown up with the loss of 1,266 lives and lastly HMS Invincible, which explodes in half, leaving only six survivors from its 2,000 man crew. Despite winning a tactical victory—the main German loss is the battle cruiser SMS Luetzow, which is scuttled—the German fleet never again ventured from its harbour. The total loss of life at Jutland is 9,823 men: British—6,784 German—3,039. In a London hospital, Vera Brittain (1893–1970), a 22 year old volunteer nurse, writes of her bewilderment when she hears the news of the battle: ‘Were we celebrating a glorious naval victory or lamenting an ignominious defeat? We hardly knew ... The one indisputable fact was that hundreds of young men, many of them midshipmen barely in their teens, had gone down without hope of rescue to a cold anonymous grave’. Stephen Reid RECOMMENDED BOOKS: The First World War by John Keegan ($29, PB) 1916: The Easter Rising by Tim Pat Coogan ($25, PB) The Siege of Kut-Al-Amara: At War in Mesopotamia 1915–1916 by Nikolas Gardner ($50, HB) Jutland 1916: Death in the Grey Wastes by Peter Hart & Nigel Steel ($25, PB) Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain ($23, PB)

Poetry

Gate of Lilacs: A Verse Commentary On Proust by Clive James ($33, HB)

Over a period of fifteen years Clive James learned French by almost no other method than reading À la recherche du temps perdu. Then he spent half a century trying to get up to speed with Proust’s great novel in two different languages. Gate of Lilacs is the unique product of James’s love and engagement with Proust’s eternal masterpiece. I had always thought the critical essay and the poem were closely related forms . . . If I wanted to talk about Proust’s poetry beyond the basic level of talking about his language—if I wanted to talk about the poetry of his thought—then the best way to do it might be to write a poem. There is nothing like a poem for transmitting a mental flavour. Instead of trying to describe it, you can evoke it.

Collected Poems: 1958–2015 by Clive James

In this book, Clive James makes his own selection from over 50 years’ work: from his early satires to these heart-stopping valedictory poems, he proves himself to be as well suited to the intense demands of the tight lyric as he is to the longer mock-epic. This collection displays James’ fluency & apparently effortless style, his technical skill& thematic scope, his lightly worn erudition & his emotional power. ($49.99, HB)

Jack & Mollie (& Her) by Jordie Albiston

Vibrantly playful and formally extraordinary, Albistion’s exuberant long poem captures the voices of two very likeable dogs and their unlikely ‘ownee’, offering a gloriously oblique portrait of the canine adventures that map a household. Jack and Mollie’s observant commentary of ‘Her’ give the book its emotional compass, while the syllabic structure and dynamic rhythms lend it muscle and pulse. ($24.95, PB)

False Nostalgia by Aden Rolfe ($24, PB)

Both lyrical and philosophical False Nostalgia explores the way memory works, and the role memory plays in our sense of identity, and what we take to be the significant moments in our lives—the relationship between what we remember and the stories we tell about ourselves. Through stand-alone poems, exploratory poetic sequences & essays which read like extended prose poems, Rolfe considers the complex connections between experience & recollection, the drive to document the moment, the fear of forgetting, the power of nostalgia, and the creative unreliability of memory itself. The poems place the reader in half-remembered places – on beaches walked during holidays, in festival gatherings and forests, film screenings and auction houses – asking not only what it means to look back fondly on a second-rate experience, but what it means to look forward to looking back on a moment while you’re still living through it.

Burnt Umber by Paul Hetherington

In this expansive and exciting collection Paul Hetherington moves with power and grace through an impressive range of form and content. The poems burst with tense and detailed images shot through with meditations on grief absence and hope. The work in Burnt Umber is always controlled and full of colour. Here is a poet at the height of his powers singing what it means to be alive.— Professor Nigel McLoughlin, University of Gloucestershire. ($23, PB)

The Emperor of Water Clocks: Poems by Yusef Komunyakaa ($41, HB)

‘If I am not Ulysses, I am / his dear, ruthless half-brother’. So announces Yusef Komunyakaa early in this new collection. But Ulysses (or his half brother) is but one of the beguiling guises Komunyakaa dons over the course of this densely lyrical book. Through these mutations and migrations and permutations & peregrinations there are constants: Komunyakaa’s jazz-inflected rhythms; his effortlessly surreal images; his celebration of natural beauty and of love. And also his insistent inquiry into the structures & struggles of power: not only of, say, king against jester but of man against his own desire & of the present against the pernicious influence of the past.

Poems That Make Grown Women Cry (eds) Anthony Holden & Ben Holden

Chosen by women from Yoko Ono to Judi Dench, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to Elena Ferrante, Carol Ann Duffy to Meera Syal, and Joan Baez to Olivia Colman, this unique collection delivers private insights into the minds of women whose writing, acting and thinking are admired around the world—their themes ranging from love & loss, through mortality & mystery, war & peace, to the beauty & variety of nature. ($35, HB)

E W

Now $19.95

Now $17.95

Was $90

Now $19.95

Mozart’s Ghosts: Haunting the Halls of Musical Culture Mark Everist, HB

Was $39.95

Now $18.95

Elizabeth David on Vegetables, HB

Now $18.95

Was $42

Now $19.95

Waiting for the Barbarians: Essays from the Classics to Pop Culture Daniel Mendelsohn, HB

Now $16.95

Now $19.95

Reinventing Back Paul Elie, HB

Was $70

Now $24.95

Doonesbury and the Art of G. B. Trudeau Brian Walker, HB

Now $14.95

Latin for Birdwatchers Over 3,000 Scientific Bird Names Explored and Explained, HB

Now $19.95

Was $50

Now $18.95

The Death of Caesar Barry Strauss, HB

Now $29.95

Dorothea Lange: Grab a Hunk of Lightning, HB

Was $34.95

Now $16.95

Was $80

Was $65

Was $35

The Compatability Gene: How Our Bodies Fight Disease Attract Others, and Define Our Selves Daniel M. Davis, HB

Was $55

Paris to the Past: Travelling Through French History by Train Ina Caro, PB

Now $16.95

Was $50

Empires of the Indus: The Story of a River Alice Albinia, HB

Was 55

Was $79.95

Psychiatric Power: Lectures at The College de France 1973–74 Michel Foucault, HB

The Art Instinct Denis Dutton, HB

Presence: The Collected Stories Arthur Miller, HB

Now $16.95

Was $50

Catching Life by the Throat: How to Read Poetry and Why Josephine Hart, HB

Was $40

An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth, Chris Hadfield, HB

P Was $50

Was $50

Paris Edward Rutherfurd, HB

Was $27.95

Now $13.95

The Leafcutter Ants Holldobler & Wilson, PB

Was $50

Now $19.95

The Edge of the World: How te North Sea Made Us Who We Are Michael Pye, HB Was $49.95

Now $24.95

Blue Mountains World Heritage Colley & Gold, HB

The Arts

Wardrobe Crisis: How We Went From Sunday Best to Fast Fashion by Clare Press ($30, PB)

Today we rarely know the origins of the clothes hanging in our closets. The local shoemaker, dressmaker and milliner are long gone, replaced by a globalised fashion industry worth $1.5 trillion a year. In Wardrobe Crisis, fashion journalist Clare Press explores the history and ethics behind what we wear. Putting her insider status to good use, Press examines the entire fashion ecosystem, from sweatshops to haute couture, unearthing the roots of today’s buy-and-discard culture. She traces the origins of icons like Chanel, Dior and Hermès; charts the rise and fall of the department store; and follows the thread that led us from Marie Antoinette to Carrie Bradshaw.

Platform Papers 47: After the Creative Industries by Justin O’Connor ($17, PB)

In the 1990s, the ‘creative industries’ was a new concept aimed at mobilising the energies of culture in support of a new kind of economy: entrepreneurial, multicultural, youthful and digitally savvy ‘Culture’ moved to the top table of policy-making, and a revolution in Higher Education was proclaimed, with ‘creativity’ a central resource. Yet, only twenty years later the Australian Government has launched an innovation program in which culture and the cultural industries are nowhere to be seen. This Platform Paper charts the rise and fall of the concept in Australia, and argues that while undoubtedly a victim of its own hubristic rhetoric, its rapid disappearance leaves a hole in policy-making that those in the cultural sector ignore at their peril. Justin O’Connor outlines what a new agenda for the cultural economy might look like, ‘after’ the Creative Industries.

Sar: The Essence of Indian Design by Swapnaa Tamhane ($95, HB)

The Indian subcontinent is an amalgamation of peoples, cultures, languages and philosophies. Throughout history Indian culture has been subject to myriad different influences, from the Mughal empire to the British Raj to the now globalised nation in transition. This book traces continuity through the history of Indian design from antiquity to the present day. The book explores the elements that make Indian design so special, including the varied manufacturing and decorating techniques of the country’s incredibly skilled craftsmen, highly specialized object designs that have been refined over centuries, and ongoing responses to nature, technology and necessity. Rather than following a chronological order or concentrating on the (often anonymous) designers, this book separates the objects into abstract categories anchored by Hindi words chosen to illuminate how each object fits into the lives of Indians.

DVDs With Scott Donovan

The Battle for Home: Memoir of a Syrian Architect by Marwa Al-Sabouni ($39.99, HB)

Drawing on the his personal experience of living and working as an architect in Syria, Marwa Al-Sabouni offers an eyewitness perspective on the country’s bitter conflict through the lens of architecture, showing how the built environment offers a mirror to the community that inhabits it. From Syria’s tolerant past, with churches & mosques built alongside one another in Old Homs & members of different religions living harmoniously together, the book chronicles the recent breakdown of social cohesion in Syria’s cities, with the lack of shared public spaces intensifying divisions within the community & corrupt officials interfering in town planning for their own gain, actions symptomatic of wider abuses of power. With first-hand accounts of mortar attacks & stories of refugees struggling to find a home, AlSabouni explores the personal impact of the conflict & offers hope for how architecture can play a role in rebuilding a sense of identity within a damaged society.

The Anatomical Venus: Wax / Sex / God / Death by Joanna Ebenstein ($55, HB)

Beneath the original Venetian glass and rosewood case at La Specola in Florence lies Clemente Susini’s Anatomical Venus (c. 1790), a perfect object whose luxuriously bizarre existence challenges belief. It—or, better, she—was conceived of as a means to teach human anatomy without need for constant dissection, which was messy, ethically fraught & subject to quick decay. This life-sized wax woman is adorned with glass eyes and human hair and can be dismembered into dozens of parts revealing, at the final remove, a beatific foetus curled in her womb. Sister models soon appeared throughout Europe, where they not only instructed the specialist students, but also delighted the general public. The incisive commentary and captivating imagery in this book reveal the evolution of these enigmatic sculptures from wax effigy to fetish figure and the embodiment of the uncanny.

Under the Edge: The Architecture of Peter Stutchbury ($95, HB)

A collection of ‘Projects in Brief’ covers seminal works of his early practice. Fourteen major recent ‘Projects in Detail’ are presented with explanatory texts, sketches, plans and new photography, including his ‘Invisible House’ in the Blue Mountains, which won 2014 House of the Year. The book finishes with an illustrated chronology of all his works and a section on his working studio.

Gift Shop

Wood Slab & Precious Metals Slab Notebooks, $19.95 each

These cool little notebooks feature photo realistic textured wood grain covers and page edges, making them appear as if they are actual blocks of wood. My favourite of the Precious Metals Slabs is the brilliant reflective Copper notebook which catches the light beautifully. These also come in polished Silver and Gold. Tamara

The Night Manager: The Complete Series

In Cairo at the height of the Arab Spring, hotel night manager Jonathan Pine receives a plea for help from the beautiful Sophie Alekan. As the mistress of the powerful but dangerous hotel owner, Sophie has evidence of an arms deal that could help crush the popular uprising. Compelled to do what he thinks is right, Pine makes contact with his friend at the British Embassy. But his actions unwittingly draw him into the terrifying world of ruthless arms dealer, Richard Roper. Adapted from the John Le Carre novel by David Farr, starring Tom Hiddleston, Hugh Laurie, Olivia Colman, Tom Hollander and Elizabeth Debicki & directed by Susanne Bier—a seriously classy thriller. (Region 2, $49.95)

Ghosts of the Civil Dead: Dir. John Hillcoat ($45) This is a startling and powerful film set entirely within the confines of a modern maximum security prison. It goes beyond the tradition prison film themes of good and evil to draw a frightening allegorical portrait of the nature and organisation of our society. On release this film caused heated debate worldwide. The most disturbing aspect is that it’s all true. This is the first feature by Australian director John Hillcoat who went on to direct The Proposition and The Road. Starring Nick Cave, David Field, Dave Mason, Vincent Gil, and packed with special features including interviews with Nick Cave, Mick Harvey and Blixa Bargeld. These are last original copies, there will be no more made.

Doctor Thorne: Season 1 ($39.95)

This 3 part dramatisation of a novel by Anthony Trollope sees Tom Hollander in the title role of Dr Thomas Thorne. He lives in the village of Greshamsbury in Barsetshire, with his young niece, Mary (Stefanie Martini), a girl blessed with every gift except money. Lords & ladies, frittered fortunes, star-crossed lovers—adapted by Julian Fellows of Downton Abbey fame this is just the outing to console those suffering due to Downton’s demise.

The Wolfpack: Dir. Crystal Moselle ($26.95)

Six brothers, known as ‘The Wolfpack’, grew up surrounded by the bustling electricity of New York City, but were trapped within the confines of their Lower East Side apartment. Living under the rule of their tyrannical father, and home schooled by their loving mother, they spent their entire lives lonely and locked away from society, rarely leaving home or interacting with people outside their immediate family. All they knew about the outside world was gleaned from their archive of over 10,000 films they watched obsessively and re-enacted meticulously, using elaborate homemade props and costumes to re-create what they experienced on screen. For years they used these films to fuel their imagination and stave off their loneliness, until one of the brothers dared to escape. Trusted with unprecedented access, director Crystal Moselle crafts a mesmerising portrait of an extraordinary family, capturing the thrill of the Wolfpack’s discoveries as they enter society and learn about the world outside their four walls.

Happy Valley: Series 2 ($39.95) No-nonsense police sergeant Catherine Cawood is back heading up her team of dedicated police officers in the Calder Valley in West Yorkshire. While on duty, she makes the gruesome discovery of a body. The victim’s injuries bear a striking similarity to a string of other murders over the previous few months, suggesting a serial killer is on the loose. But the case becomes even more shocking when it emerges that Catherine knows the victim—something that could have serious repercussions for both herself and her family.

Winton's Paw Prints

Annie Proulx’s new novel Barkskins is of a daunting thickness (as are so many books in these days of rush to publish and screw the editor) but I would happily have had it continue for another 700 pages. It’s a ‘climate change’ novel that covers the rape of the world’s once seemingly endless forests by colonising humans between 1693 to 2013, so if Proulx had the stamina there could easily have been (or be) another fat book dealing with the nightmare future generations face because of the human plague of consumption that has decimated the green world. It’s been ages since I read something that once engaged with is on your mind wherever you are and whatever you’re doing. You whip through the pages fast to get to what happens next, all the while trying to hold yourself back because the last page is approaching too quickly. And like other big books that have this affect—think Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell books— you also want to put the brakes on to give the depth of the author’s research a respectful amount of time to sink in. Barkskins opens with René Sel and Charles Duquet arriving in Wobik, New France. They have crossed the ocean, escaping a life of poverty in France to serve as engagés to the slightly villainous Monsieur Trépagny, an aspiring seigneur intent on taming the ‘forest of the world. It is infinite. It twists around as a snake swallows its own tail and has no end and no beginning. No one has ever seen its farthest dimension.’ No one? In the terra nulleus convictions of the colonist les sauvages who see the forest as ‘a living entity, as vital as the waterways, filled with the gifts of medicine, food, shelter, tool material ... within which one lived with harmony and gratitude’ don’t exist as either owner or tiller of these opportunities for great wealth and advancement to the white man brave enough to take them. ‘Whitemen looked at trees and saw they were good only to build flat-sided cage-houses or ships ... The forest was there, enormous and limitless. The task of men was to subdue its exuberance, to tame the land it grew on—useless land until cleared and planted with wheat and potatoes’. Duquet escapes M. Trépagny at the first opportunity. He becomes a voyageur dealing in furs. He uses the fortune he makes to found a lumber concern that criss-crosses the globe in search of forests to fell, eventually lopping down even the ancient kauri in New Zealand. The less ambitious Sel serves his time, earns his parcel of land, marries a Mi’kmaq woman, and dies suddenly and unceremoniously with an axe in his skull. There’s a lot of sudden death in the book as time moves in leaps and bounds and branches of both the Sel and Duquet family trees flourish or wither. Sel’s family tree in step with the fate of the indigenous population and the desecration of the forest, Duquet’s progeny reaping the profits of this desecration (there’s even a wink to Scarlet O’Hara and her post war lumber mill in one of Duquet’s more enterprising great grandchildren). There’s no stopping human progress and the book gets bleaker and bleaker. By the time you get to 2013 it’s hard not to think that we are actually already living in the dystopian future so many sci fi novels have predicted. The book ends in the company of those who labour to fix what’s been broken, but as one of these ecowarriors ponders: ‘What if it was already too late when the first hominid rose up and stared at the world?’ Bleak, yes, but an incredibly important and eminently readable book. Winton

what we're reading

James: Patience by Daniel Clowes is part psychotropic time travel story and part introspective love story, blending the fantastic with the mundane. It’s still a Clowes graphic novel, his trademark melancholy seeps through the pages, but those pages are now bursting with vibrant colour. In many ways he doesn’t stray far from classic time travel tropes. The protagonist risks time and space, things inevitably go wrong etc etc. Fortunately the characters’ vulnerable moments are what make the book so touching. Clowes draws these beautiful yet forlorn exchanges between the unnamed protagonist and the people that he meets as he traces the upbringing of his wife Patience. It’s a poignant reflection on what makes us who we are, and I would sometimes stop to pore over the lush artwork or a silent moment. Clowes loves his characters’ flaws, and that’s partly why they’re so readable. His ‘warts and all’ creations fail just like the rest of us, and they give this time travelling story the grounding in reality that it needs. Andrew: I told a friend I was reading Sarah Ferguson’s The Killing Season Uncut and he covered his ears in mock horror, exclaiming ‘Haven’t we heard it all? Do we really have to keep going over it?’ I appreciate his position, and would possibly have felt the same, but after reading Niki Savva’s The Road to Ruin out of sheer schadenfreude and revelling in its gossipy flyon-the-wall detail, I picked up the Ferguson on a whim only to find myself equally transfixed. Ostensibly they tell a similar story, but the differences are manifest. For one, quite a lot of the Savva is poorly written; it comes alive in episodes, incidents and details, but the bridging material is fairly dull. Ferguson, however, writes brilliantly. Savva is shockingly—joyously—biased, whereas Ferguson’s meticulous partiality is similarly part of her book’s appeal. Finishing Savva, I felt I had finished a very necessary colonic irrigation, but reading The Killing Season Uncut was like watching Ferguson hold up a piece of crystal to the light, turning it slowly around, examining its myriad flaws.

John: Peter Corris’ PI, Cliff Hardy, feels like a friend I have known for over thirty years, but have recently lost touch with. So when I picked up with the latest book in the Hardy series, That Empty Feeling, it was very much like catching up with an old friend. The last few years have been kinder to Corris’ hero than this reader. Cliff has aged but is still up to his neck in intrigue when he becomes embroiled with some ‘colourful Sydney identities’ from his past. A pleasure to reconnect.

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Bestsellers—Non-Fiction 1. Everywhere I Look

Helen Garner

2. The Road to Ruin: How Tony Abbott & Peta Credlin

Destroyed Their Own Government

Niki Savva

3. Talking To My Country

Stan Grant

4. Econobabble: How to Decode Political Spin and

Economic Nonsense

Denniss Richard

5. Penguin Bloom: The Odd Little Bird That Saved

a Family

Cameron Bloom

6. Accidentally Istanbul: Turkey Decoded for the

Inquiring Western Traveller

7. Unnecessary Wars

Nancy Knudson Henry Reynolds

8. Confessions of a Homegrown Alien:

An Australian Memoir

Jan Smith

9. In Love With Betty the Crow: The First 40 Years

of The Science Show

10. Mick: A Life of Randolph Stow

Robyn Williams Suzanne Falkiner

Bestsellers—Fiction 1. My Brilliant Friend

Elena Ferrante

2. A Lover’s Country 3. All the Light We Cannot See 4. A Little Life

Stuart Rees Anthony Doerr Hanya Yanagihara

5. The Chaser Quarterly: Autumn 2016 6. The Noise Of Time

Julian Barnes

7. Between a Wolf & a Dog

Georgia Blain

8. The War Bride 9. The Sick Bag Song 10. Mothering Su nday

Pamela Hart Nick Cave Graham Swift

and another thing.....

I am a cat fancier by nature, but the pleasures offered by a canine companion don’t escape me. And there are plenty of cute dog books available for a cat to spray (I may ask Coopes for a follow-up toon), one of which being Emma Chichester Clark’s book Plumdog (as recommended by Louise on the childrens’ page). But forget the kids, Plumdog’s blogging year accompanied by Chichester Clark’s beautiful illustrations would be the perfect gift for any dog lover you know—highly entertaining, and dare I say it, heartwarming (without falling into the saccharine trap). Meanwhile, after being blown away by Annie Proulx’s Barkskins (due in June), I’ll be embarking on another family saga, The Hands by Stephen Orr—which has been longlisted for the 2016 Miles Franklin. I’m looking forward to a day devoted to it—I loved his 2009 novel, Time’s Long Ruin, which, loosely based on the disappearance of the Beaumont children in Adelaide, 1966, so eloquently recaptures that sunburnt era of peeling skin and kids roaming the streets free of adult supervision. Then, from this month’s magazine, on my list is the new Lionel Shriver, The Mandibles, and Don Delillo’s latest, Zero K—bring on the dystopias! On the crime page I like the look of John Hart’s Redemption Road, and Benet Brandreth’s spy novel featuring William Shakespeare sounds interesting. Then I’d like to relax with Small Town Talk (page 18)—Barney Hoskyns’ exploration of the Woodstock music scene. As usual Festival time will see me helping keep the doors of the Gleebooks flagship on Glebe Point Road open instead of soaking up the (hopefully) balmy autumn sunshine at the wharf as I stroll from one event to the next—however, I wish you all a stimulating festival. Viki

For more May new releases go to:

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