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Vol. 27 No. 3 April/May 2020
OPEN FOR INTERNET AND PHONE ORDERS Still working hard to supply your isolation with reading matter!
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The Covid Pivot
Wow, just a month or more since writing my last Gleaner piece and our world has tilted alarmingly. I don’t want to use this space to editorialise, but some amazing changes have happened, with extraordinary speed. For the first time in 45 years, Gleebooks was shut—just like that. Events moved, and continue to move, so quickly that we have had great trouble knowing what to do, when to do it and how to do it. There was prospective ruin, then there was Jobseeker, which was dutifully and painstakingly taken on board. And then, in a matter of days, there was Jobkeeper—a very different rescue package to save jobs, and, hopefully, business. And all this, we assumed, was predicated on a substantial loss of business. Shut three shops and that’s what you’ll get. No events, no Sydney Writers’ Festival, a couple of dozen people instantly out of work unless we can instantly reinvent ourselves. Days and days of chaos while we scrambled to deal with customer confusion and expectation (‘surely you can’t be shut, you’re essential’), and with all of the orders and forward publishing programs. Not to mention the horrors of a disrupted supply chain—just how long will a book take to arrive from the US or the UK? Answer, no idea, until all this is over. There has rarely been a time in my life when reading couldn’t help save my world—but the stress around the prevention of a pandemic sees me with our two best selling books, Hilary Mantel’s instant classic The Mirror and the Light and Julia Baird’s beautifully intelligent and reflective Phosphorescence waiting by my bed, and all I can concentrate on is the ridiculous task at hand of an immediate recasting of Gleebooks as online bookseller—offering great deals and spectacular service. I even resorted to posting a cute photo of my six month old cattle dog (and delivery helper), Lottie, to shamelessly promote us. The result? A beautiful, heartening, welter of support from you, our customers, ordering widely and deeply from our website (amazing how many people didn’t know we’d had one, for twenty five years). And a maniacal dedication from our loyal staff to home deliver as much as we possibly could, to demonstrate our better than Amazon efficiency (and to save as much money as we could). I have a renewed respect for delivery people, it’s a hell of a job. We’ve caught up with customers we’ve not seen for years as well as finding some new ones. I’ve had conversations about COVID, about books, about Gleebooks, and about life in general that have been enormously rewarding. And I’ve taken part in a handful of media interviews about COVID and business/Gleebooks that have varied from being perceptive and worthwhile (Annabel Crabb) to downright ignorant and worse than useless (my lips are sealed). What have I learnt? That we are a small but meaningful cog in the lives of some, and that, sometimes, we all have to adapt (and fast!) to changed circumstances in a vastly more important and bigger world. When it’s all said and done, we just sell things for a living. And, fingers crossed, once we are ‘out the other side’ as they say, we will still have a business in one piece, and a chance to welcome you all back to our bookshops for a leisurely browse. It’s been quite a ride. David Gaunt
Australian Literature Almost a Mirror by Kirsten Krauth ($30, PB)
Like fireflies to the light, Mona, Benny & Jimmy are drawn into the elegantly wasted orbit of the Crystal Ballroom & the post-punk scene of 80s Melbourne, a world that includes Nick Cave & Dodge, a photographer pushing his art to the edge. Kirsten Krauth evokes the power of music to infuse our lives, while diving deep into loss, beauty, innocence & agency. Her novel is above all about the shapes that love can take and the many ways we express tenderness throughout a lifetime. Moving between the Blue Mountains & Melbourne, Sydney & Castlemaine, the book reflects on the healing power of creativity & the everyday sacredness of family & friendship in the face of unexpected tragedy. Shortlisted for the Penguin Literary Prize
Benevolence by Julie Janson ($20, PB)
Benevolence is told from the perspective of Darug woman, Muraging (Mary James), born around 1813. Mary’s was one of the earliest Darug generations to experience the impact of British colonisation. At an early age Muraging is given over to the Parramatta Native School by her Darug father. From here she embarks on a journey of discovery & a search for a safe place to make her home. Janson’s novel spans the years 1816–35 and is set around the Hawkesbury River area, the home of the Darug people, Parramatta & Sydney. Janson interweaves historical events & characters, shattering stereotypes with this Aboriginal perspective of colonisation.
The Night-Side of the Country by Meagan Delahunt ($25, PB)
It is the Time of the Felled Men. M, a writer, finds her own past triggered by the constant revelations of misogyny & violence. The novel she is writing stalls. She retreats to a guesthouse on a holy island (a fictional Iona) and there she encounters B—a woman who may or may not be a figment of her imagination. B is reckoning with her violent political past in an organisation known as the Movement. She has been on the run since speaking out against gender violence. Meagan Delahunt’s he novel plays with modes of storytelling to address how we deal with trauma & gender violence? Her feminist genre-crossing novel explores the creative process as a place of refuge, ambiguity, and as a starting point for resistance.
Bird by Adam Morris ($25, PB)
Bird follows Carson, a young, cerebral Aboriginal man who traverses his way in & out of the prison system in Western Australia. Told through the multiple white characters Carson encounters along his journey, Morris’ novel is similar stylistically & thematically to Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting or some of the early writings of John Dos Passes, painting a picture of a modern world which is simultaneously bleak, comic & harrowing.
The Octopus and I by Erin Hortle ($30, PB)
Lucy & Jem live on the Tasman Peninsula near Eaglehawk Neck, where Lucy is recovering from major surgery. As she tries to navigate her new body through the world, she develops a deep fascination with the local octopuses, and in doing so finds herself drawn towards the friendship of an old woman & her son. As Erin Hortle’s debut novel unfolds, the octopuses come to shape Lucy’s body & her sense of self in ways even she can’t quite understand. Hortle’s novel explores the wild, beating heart at the intersection of human & animal, love & loss, fear & hope.
Small Mercies by Richard Anderson ($30, PB)
The Brisbane Line by JP Powell ($30, PB)
As WWII ravages the world and the Japanese Empire has set its sights on Australia, the Americans have come to save us. But not all soldiers are heroes and not all heroes are soldiers. Sergeant Joe Washington, a US Military Police, loves music & photography but spends his days delving into the sordid & petty crimes committed by the thousands of American troops passing through town. While trying to find stolen gasoline stores, he is sent to investigate the body of an American soldier found dumped in a cemetery. Suddenly Joe is up against notorious detective Frank Bischof. Although ordered to leave the investigation alone, Joe fears that Bischof is protecting the most likely suspect while trying to pin the crime on an innocent—and intriguing—young woman, Rose. A woman who seems to walk between the parallel worlds of black market deals & Brisbane’s high society.
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After enduring months of extreme drought on their modest freehold, farming couple Dimple & Ruthie face uncertain times on more than one front. Ruthie receives the news every woman dreads. Meanwhile, a wealthy landowner, Wally Oliver, appears on the local radio station, warning small farmers like Dimple & Ruthie that the sooner they leave the land to large operators like him, the better. Bracing for a fight on all fronts, the couple decide to take a road trip to confront Oliver. And when the storm clouds finally roll in across the land they love, there’s more than the rain to contend with.
The Animals In That Country by Laura Jean McKay ($30, PB)
Hard-drinking, foul-mouthed & allergic to bullshit, Jean is not your usual grandma. Uninterested in humans except her granddaughter, Kimberly—she surrounds herself with animals, working as a guide in an outback wildlife park, and she has a particular soft spot for a young dingo called Sue. As disturbing news arrives of a pandemic sweeping the country, Jean realises this is no ordinary flu. Those afflicted begin to understand the language of animals. As the flu progresses, the unstoppable voices become overwhelming, and people begin to lose their minds, including Jean’s infected son, Lee. When he takes off with Kimberly, Jean feels the pull to follow her kin. Setting off on their trail, with Sue the dingo riding shotgun, they find themselves in a stark, strange world in which the animal apocalypse has only further isolated people from other species.
The Dickens Boy by Tom Keneally ($33, PB)
The 10th child of Charles Dickens, Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens, known as Plorn, had consistently proved unable ‘to apply himself’ to school or life. So at 16, he is sent to Australia. Plorn arrives in Melbourne in late 1868 carrying a terrible secret. He has never read a word of his father’s work. He is sent out to a 2000-square-mile station in remotest NSW to learn to become a man, where he encounters the same veneration of his father & familiarity with Dickens’ work in Australia as was rampant in England. Against this backdrop, and featuring cricket tournaments, horse-racing, bushrangers, sheep droving, shifty stock & station agents, frontier wars & first encounters with Australian women, Plorn enjoys wonderful adventures as he works to prove himself.
Sheerwater by Leah Swann ($33, PB)
Ava & her 2 young sons, Max & Teddy, are driving to their new home in Sheerwater, hoping to make a fresh start in a new town, although Ava can’t help but keep looking over her shoulder. They’re almost at their destination when they witness a shocking accident— a light plane crashing in the field next to the road. Ava stops to help, but when she gets back to the car, she realises that somehow, among the smoke, fire & confusion, her sons have gone missing. A propulsive read for readers of both literary & crime fiction.
The Adversary by Ronnie Scott ($30, PB)
It’s been a long winter in a creaky house in Brunswick, where a young man has devoted himself to recreational showers, staring at his phone, and speculating on the activities of his best friend & housemate, Dan. But now summer is coming, and Dan has found a boyfriend & a job, so the young man is being pushed out into the world, in search of friendship & love. This is a sticky summer novel about young people exploring their sexuality & their sociability, where everything smells like sunscreen & tastes like beer, but affections & alliances have consequences.
The Deceptions by Suzanne Leal ($30, PB)
1943. Taken from her home in Prague, Hana Lederova is imprisoned in the Jewish ghetto of Theresienstadt—with the imminent threat of transportation to the east. When she attracts the attention of the Czech gendarme who becomes her guard, Hana reluctantly accepts his advances, hoping for the protection she so desperately needs. Sydney, 2010. Manipulated into a liaison with her married boss, Tessa knows she needs to end it, but how? Tessa’s grandmother, Irena, also has something to hide. Harkening back to the WW2, hers is a carefully kept secret that, if revealed, would send shockwaves well beyond her own fractured family. Inspired by a true story of wartime betrayal, this is a searing, compassionate tale of love & duplicity—and family secrets better left buried.
HRT: Husband Replacement Therapy by Kathy Lette ($33, PB)
After a few too many glasses of champers, Ruby’s 50th birthday speech are not the warm words her guests are expecting. She takes her moment in the spotlight to reveal what she really thinks of every one of them. She also accuses her husband, Harry, of having an affair. And then she lambasts her octogenarian mother for a lifetime of playing her 3 daughters against each other. She then tells her stunned guests that she has terminal cancer—and she has cashed in her life savings and plans on taking her two sisters cruising into the sunset for a dose of Husband Replacement Therapy. Courageous? Or ruthlessly selfish? And do her sisters even want to go with her now that she’s cast herself off into social Siberia?
Ghost Species by James Bradley ($30, PB)
When scientist Kate Larkin joins a secretive project to re-engineer the climate by resurrecting extinct species, she becomes enmeshed in another, even more clandestine program to recreate our long-lost relatives, the Neanderthals. But when the first of the children, a girl called Eve, is born, Kate finds herself torn between her duties as a scientist & her urge to protect their time-lost creation. Set against the backdrop of hastening climate catastrophe, Ghost Species is an affecting exploration of connection & loss in an age of planetary trauma. For as Eve grows to adulthood she & Kate must face the question of who & what she is. Is she natural or artificial? Human or non-human? And perhaps most importantly, as civilisation unravels around them, is Eve the ghost species, or are we?
The Question of Love by Hugh Mackay ($33, PB)
Richard and Freya are, on the surface, a perfect couple. He has a thriving architectural practice; she plays the violin like an angel. They live in a beautiful home. They seem respectful and caring of one another. They should be happier than they are. In The Question of Love, Hugh Mackay has constructed a novel of stunning originality - both a sympathetic examination of a marriage and a nuanced exposition of the complexities and contradictions of human love. Starkly observed, beautifully written and intricately plotted, The Question of Love explores the myriad ways we resist the terrible beauty of true intimacy.
l l i H ’ D n O
There will be no mention of the c-word in this column. I will go ahead, as per usual, with a rather eclectic collection of books recently read. I feel it behoves me now and again to read something quite different—ie a book written by a man. In this case I went really out of my comfort zone with a crime novel called The Black Art of Killing, a debut by British screenwriter Matthew Hall. Dr Leo Black is an ex-Special Services operative who has been in every modern theatre of war and done more than his fair share of killing. He has left the army, disillusioned with the failures in the Middle East and elsewhere, and is now teaching military history at Oxford, where the lefties on the faculty are wary of his anti-war conversion. Leo learns that his best mate from the army has been killed doing a routine bodyguarding job and Black is enticed back into the field to find out who killed his friend. This is a well-written thriller with a subplot involving scientists and a threat to humanity, but it stands out for the analysis of the philosophical dilemma Leo Black must confront—when is it alright and/or necessary to kill? When is violence justified? Another surprise read for me was Monsters: The Passion and Loss that Created Frankenstein by Sharon Dogar—surprising because it is promoted as Young Adult, a genre I usually avoid (being an increasingly aged adult). However, I was attracted to reading about the affair between Mary Godwin and Percy Byshe Shelley and the events leading up to her writing Frankenstein—about which I’d heard snippets, but not the full story. I had no idea, for instance, that Mary was only 16 years old when she ran away with Shelley—as was her younger sister Claire, when she became pregnant to Byron and later, to Shelley. It reminded me of the 60s Push and the 70s in the inner-west when ‘free love’ seemed, amazingly, more advantageous to men and much less so to women who (like Mary Shelley) were castigated for the slightest hint of jealousy. Not that I know anything about that—it’s just what I heard! I recommend this excellent book to anyone who loves novels about writers, and it’s a must-read for the HSC kids ‘doing’ Frankenstein. Back in my real comfort zone is the fabulous new novel The Weight of Love by Irish writer, Hilary Fannin. This is a beautifully written story about a love triangle. Robin, Ruth and Joseph are friends in their 20s and the novel follows them through to their 40s when their past inevitably must be confronted. The characters are compassionately drawn, Fannin’s eye for detail and pithy observation are reminiscent of Michelle de Kretser’s, and I especially liked the mothers of both Robin and Joseph. An entirely satisfying read about human foibles, love and relationships. Loved it. Last but certainly not least, is a new historical novel, The Dictionary of Lost Words, by South Australian writer Pip Williams. Our wonderful protagonist, Esmé, spends much of her girlhood under the table in the scriptorium where her father and others are compiling the first Oxford English Dictionary. In a time during which the suffragette movement was changing the way women viewed themselves and the world, Esmé begins to notice that a lot of words, primarily those pertaining to women’s lives, are considered unworthy of inclusion in the OED. Esmé sets out to rescue those words and also to find meaning in her own life. This is a stunning novel which can be compared favourably to the bestselling Burial Rights by Hannah Kent. Read it and Love it. See you on the other side! Best, Morgan
Drowning in the Shallows by Dan Kaufman ($28, PB)
David’s journalism students petrify him. Then again, so does his cat. His girlfriend dumped him, he writes about bars for a dying newspaper that’s abandoned news reporting for lifestyle articles, and he’s desperately searching for meaning amongst the backdrop of Sydney’s shallow social and dating scene. Then he meets a young woman at a party who just might be the answer to his life’s meaninglessness. However, she’s only 19—and one of his student’s friends. This is a novel about a man who tries to curb his sleazier tendencies as he learns they’re not only pathetic but also the cause of—and not the solution to—his problems.
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International Inte rnational Literature
READ
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2020
The City We Became by N. K. Jemisin ($33, PB)
Five New Yorkers must band together to defend their city in the first book of a new series by Hugo award-winning and New York Times bestselling author N. K. Jemisin. Every city has a soul. Some are as ancient as myths, and others are as new and destructive as children. New York City? She’s got five. But every city also has a dark side. A roiling, ancient evil stirs beneath the earth, threatening to destroy the city and her five protectors unless they can come together and stop it once and for all.
Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell ($33, PB)
By the bestselling author of The Ship That Never Was
‘This is an extraordinary novel - I tore through it, captivated by the imagery and the setting, desperately hoping for a happy ending.’
‘A luminously beautiful book full of grace’ Magda Szubanski
Rebecca Starford, author of Bad Behavior
On a summer’s day in 1596, a young girl in Stratford-upon-Avon takes to her bed with a fever. Her twin brother, Hamnet, searches everywhere for help. Why is nobody at home? Their mother, Agnes, is over a mile away, in the garden where she grows medicinal herbs. Their father is working in London. Neither parent knows that one of the children will not survive the week. Inspired by the son of a famous playwright— this is a story of the bond between twins, and of a marriage pushed to the brink by grief. It is also the story of a kestrel & its mistress; flea that boards a ship in Alexandria; and a glovemaker’s son who flouts convention in pursuit of the woman he loves. And a tender reimagining of a boy whose life has been all but forgotten, but whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays ever written.
A Theatre for Dreamers by Polly Samson ($30, PB)
1960. The world is dancing on the edge of revolution, and nowhere more so than on the Greek island of Hydra, where a circle of poets, painters & musicians live tangled lives, ruled by the writers Charmian Clift & George Johnston, troubled king & queen of bohemia. Forming within this circle is a triangle—its points the magnetic, destructive writer Axel Jensen, his dazzling wife Marianne Ihlen, and a young Canadian poet named Leonard Cohen. Into their midst arrives teenage Erica, with little more than a bundle of blank notebooks & her grief for her mother. Settling on the periphery of this circle, she watches, entranced & disquieted, as a paradise unravels.
Rest and Be Thankful by Emma Glass ($25, HB) The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel
Vincent is the beautiful bartender at the Hotel Caiette, a 5 star glass-and-cedar palace on the northernmost tip of Vancouver Island. Owner of the hotel, NY financier Jonathan Alkaitis passes Vincent his card with a tip—it’s the beginning of their life together. That same day, a hooded figure scrawls a note on the windowed wall of the hotel: ‘Why don’t you swallow broken glass.’ Leon Prevant, a shipping executive for a company called Neptune-Avramidis, sees the note from the hotel bar & is shaken to his core. 13 years later Vincent mysteriously disappears from the deck of a Neptune-Avramidis ship. Mandel’s novel moves between the ship, the skyscrapers of Manhattan & the wilderness of remote British Columbia, painting a picture of greed & guilt, fantasy & delusion, art & the ghosts of our pasts. ($30, PB)
Minor Detail by Adania Shibli ($25, PB)
In the Naqab/Negev desert, Israeli soldiers capture and gangrape a Palestinian girl in her teens. They kill her and bury her in the sand. Many years later, in the near-present day, a young woman in Ramallah reads about this ‘minor detail’ in a larger context, and becomes fascinated by it to the point of obsession. She embarks on a journey of discovery into the events surrounding that rape and murder-not only because of its gruesome nature but also because it happened to take place twenty-five years to the day before she was born.
Enter the Aardvark by Jessica Anthony
Republican congressman Alexander Paine Wilson is determined that nothing will stop him in his campaign for re-election. Not the fact that he is a bachelor, not the fact that his main adversary Nancy Beavers—married, with children— is rising in the polls. Nothing. That is, until one hot day in August, he receives a large parcel via FedEx. Inside is a gigantic taxidermied aardvark. This aardvark has a surprising history—from the Victorian naturalist who discovered it to the taxidermist who deemed it his finest creation. But for Wilson, the entrance of the aardvark sets off a chain of events that threaten to ruin his entire career. ($25, PB)
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Now in B Format The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri, $20 Lanny by Max Porter, $20 Quichotte by Salman Rushdie, $20 The Runaways by Fatima Bhutto, $23
Laura is a nurse in a paediatric unit. On long, quiet shifts, she & her colleagues, clad in their different shades of blue, care for sick babies, handling their exquisitely frangible bodies, carefully calibrating the mysterious machines that keep them alive. Laura may be burned out. Her hands have been raw from washing as long as she can remember. When she sleeps, she dreams of water; when she wakes, she finds herself lying next to a man who doesn’t love her any more. And there is a strange figure dancing in the corner of her vision, always just beyond her reach.
Weather by Jenny Offill ($28, HB)
Lizzie Benson slid into her job as a librarian without a traditional degree. But this gives her a vantage point from which to practise her other calling: as an unofficial shrink. For years, she has supported her God-haunted mother & her recovering addict brother. They have both stabilized for the moment, but then her old mentor, Sylvia Liller, who has become famous for her prescient podcast, Hell and High Water, wants to hire Lizzie to answer the mail she receives: from left-wingers worried about climate change and right wingers worried about the decline of western civilization. As she dives into this polarized world, she begins to wonder what it means to keep tending your own garden once you’ve seen the flames beyond its walls.
All This Could Be Yours by Jami Attenberg ($30, HB)
Victor Tuchman—a power-hungry real estate developer & an allround bad man—is finally on his deathbed. His daughter Alex feels she can finally unearth the secrets of who he really was and what he did over the course of his life. She travels to New Orleans to be with her family, but mostly to interrogate her tight-lipped mother, Barbra. As Barbra fends off Alex’s unrelenting questions, she reflects on her tumultuous married life. Meanwhile Gary, Alex’s brother, is incommunicado, trying to get his movie career off the ground in Los Angeles. And Gary’s wife, Twyla, is having a nervous breakdown, buying up all the lipstick in drug stores while bursting into crying fits. As each family member grapples with Victor’s history, they must figure out a way to move forward—with one another, for themselves and for the sake of their children.
The Last Homeland by Matteo Righetto ($20, PB)
Winter 1868. On the rugged mountains of the Veneto, the inhabitants have by now almost completely disappeared: most of them, oppressed by appalling poverty, have emigrated to America in search of a better life. Holding on to this breathtaking, lonely landscape, is the De Boer family. But their precious tobacco smuggling gold is stolen by bandits, and Jole De Boer, now 20, must face the disaster alone, armed only with her father’s old rifle. During the chase, Jole passes through woods & deserted snow-covered villages on a journey that will force her to go much further than she ever imagined. This is the epic 2nd novel in Righetto’s acclaimed trilogy that began with Soul of the Border, telling the story of the De Boer family, and the endless human search for redemption..
Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler
Micah Mortimer isn’t the most polished person you’ll ever meet. His numerous sisters & in-laws regard him oddly but very fondly, but he has his ways & means of navigating the world. He measures out his days running errands for work—his TECH HERMIT sign cheerily displayed on the roof of his car—maintaining an impeccable cleaning regime & going for runs (7–15, every morning). He is content with the steady balance of his life. But then the order of things starts to tilt. His woman friend Cassia (he refuses to call anyone in her late thirties a ‘girlfriend’) tells him she’s facing eviction because of a cat. And when a teenager shows up at Micah’s door claiming to be his son, Micah is confronted with another surprise he seems poorly equipped to handle. ($30, PB)
Granta 151: Membranes
Membranes—porous biological interfaces which regulate flows between one zone & another—direct this issue guest-edited by Rana Dasgupta. Featuring new poetry from Andrew McMillan & Tishani Doshi, photography from Ruchir Joshi, Arturo Soto Gutierrez, Monica de la Torre & Anita Khemka. Fatin Abbas on the border between Sudan & South Sudan, Lydia Davis on faultlines in families, Mark Doty on homelessness in NYC, Anouchka Grose on infidelity & the idea of the unwanted third, Daisy Hildyard on membranes in the human body, Adam Jasper on Christian Enzensberger & ‘smut’, Kapka Kassabova on lakes & Europe, Anita Roy on the newt, Eyal Weizman on contemporary architectural strategies for repelling & dividing people. ($25, PB)
A Registry of My Passage Upon the Earth by Daniel Mason ($33, PB)
On a fated flight, a balloonist makes a discovery that changes her life forever. A telegraph operator finds an unexpected companion in the middle of the Amazon. A doctor is beset by seizures, in which he is possessed by a second, perhaps better, version of himself. And in Regency London, a bare-knuckle fighter prepares to face his most fearsome opponent, while a young mother seeks a miraculous cure for her ailing son. From the Nile’s depths to the highest reaches of the atmosphere, from volcano-wracked islands to an asylum on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, these stories cap a 15 year project that has won both a National Magazine Award & Pushcart Prize..
The Publisher Package with Annette Barlow Meet one of Australia’s leading publishers, Annette Barlow, for an individual 25-minute consultation including feedback on your manuscript and insight into the viability of the work in progress and where it could potentially land in the market. Includes a professional copy edit on a 3000-word sample of your manuscript by a Senior Editor
Saturday, 30 May 2020
Places are strictly limited to seven 25-minute consultations For more information: Talk to us: (02) 8425 0171 Email us: faberwritingacademy@allenandunwin.com Visit us: www.faberwritingacademy.com.au
Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami ($33, PB)
In Mieko Kawakami’s English language debut she explores the inner conflicts of an adolescent girl who refuses to communicate with her mother except through writing. Through the story of these women, Kawakami paints a portrait of womanhood in contemporary Japan, probing questions of gender and beauty norms and how time works on the female body. ‘So amazing it took my breath away’—Haruki Murakami
The Motion Of The Body Through Space by Lionel Shriver ($33, PB)
Allergic to group activities of any kind, all her life Serenata has run, swum, and cycled—on her lonesome. But now that she’s hit 60, all that physical activity has destroyed her knees. As she contemplates surgery with dread, her previously sedentary husband Remington, recently & ignominiously redundant, chooses this moment to discover exercise. But as he joins the cult of fitness that seems increasingly to consume the whole of the Western world, her once-modest husband burgeons into an unbearable narcissist. Ignoring all his other obligations in the service of extreme sport, he engages a personal trainer named Bambi, who treats his wife with contempt. When Remington announces his intention to compete in a legendarily gruelling triathlon, MettleMan, Serenata is sure he’s going to end up injured or dead—but the stubbornness of an ageing man in Lycra is not to be underestimated.
The Stray Cats of Homs by Eva Nour ($30, PB)
Sami’s childhood is much like any other—an innocent blend of family & school, of friends and relations & pets (including stray cats & dogs, and the turtle he keeps on the roof). But growing up in one of the largest cities in Syria, with his country at war with itself, means that nothing is really normal. And Sami’s hopes for a better future are ripped away when he is conscripted into the military and forced to train as a map maker.
If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha
Contemporary Seoul—a place where extreme plastic surgery is as routine as getting a haircut, where women compete for spots in secret ‘room salons’ to entertain wealthy businessmen after hours, where K-Pop stars are gods & ruthless social hierarchies dictate your every move. Navigating this cut-throat city are 4 young women: Kyuri, whose hard-won status at an exclusive ‘room salon’ is under threat; her flatmate Miho, an orphan who wins a scholarship to a prestigious art school in New York; Wonna, their neighbour, pregnant with a child that she & her husband can’t afford; and hair-stylist Ara whose infatuation with a K-Pop star has taken a violent turn. ($30, PB)
Death in her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh ($30, PB)
While on her daily walk with her dog in the nearby woods, our protagonist comes across a note, handwritten & carefully pinned to the ground with stones. Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here is her dead body. Shaky even on her best days, she is also alone, and new to this area, having moved here from her long-time home after the death of her husband, and now deeply alarmed. Her brooding about the note grows quickly into a full-blown obsession, as she explores multiple theories about who Magda was & how she met her fate. Her suppositions begin to find echoes in the real world, and the fog of mystery starts to form into a concrete & menacing shape. But is there either a more innocent explanation for all this, or a much more sinister one—one that strikes closer to home? In this blend of horror, suspense, and pitch-black comedy, Moshfegh asks whether the stories we tell ourselves guide us closer to the truth or keep us further from it.
The Discomfort of Evening Marieke L. Rijneveld Ten-year-old Jas has a unique way of experiencing her universe: the feeling of udder ointment on her skin as protection against harsh winters; the texture of green warts, like capers, on migrating toads; the sound of ‘blush words’ that aren’t in the Bible. But when a tragic accident ruptures the family, her curiosity warps into a vortex of increasingly disturbing fantasies - unlocking a darkness that threatens to derail them all. A bestselling sensation in the Netherlands, Marieke Lucas Rijneveld’s radical debut novel is studded with images of wild, violent beauty: a world of language unlike any other. ($30, PB)
The Death of Comrade President by Alain Mabanckou ($30, HB)
In Pointe-Noire, in the small neighbourhood of Voungou, on the family plot where young Michel lives with Maman Pauline and Papa Roger, life goes on. But Michel’s everyday cares—lost grocery money, the whims of his parents’ moods, their neighbours’ squabbling, his endless daydreaming—are soon swept away by the wind of history. In March 1977, just before the arrival of the short rainy season, Comrade President Marien Ngouabi is brutally murdered in Brazzaville, and not even naive Michel can remain untouched. Starting as a tender, wry portrait of an ordinary Congolese family, Alain Mabanckou quickly expands the scope of his story into a powerful examination of colonialism, decolonization and dead ends of the African continent.
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Crime Fiction
‘Rita’s ability to take you from despair to laughter to depravity in seconds makes this book utterly addictive.’ Nakkiah Lui
The Safety Net by Andrea Camilleri ($30, PB)
Vigàta bustles as the location for a Swedish television series set in 1950—the director asks the locals to track down movies & vintage photos to faithfully recreate 50s Vigata. Meanwhile, Montalbano is grappling with a double mystery, one that emerges from the past and another that leads him into the future—engineer Ernesto Sabatello, rummaging in the attic of his house, finds some films shot by his father between 1958 & 1963—always on the 27 March, and always the same shot: the outside wall of a country house. Montalbano, intrigued, begins to investigate its meaning. Meanwhile, a middle school is threatened by a group of armed men, and a closer look at the case finds Montalbano looking into the students themselves and delving into the world of social media.
Keeper by Jessica Moor ($33, PB)
‘The Octopus and I is a bracing and exhilarating read. A terrific book.’ Christos Tsiolkas
He’s been looking in the windows again. Messing with cameras. Leaving notes. Supposed to be a f***ing refuge. But Death got inside. When Katie Straw’s body is pulled from the waters of the local suicide spot, the police decide it’s an open-and-shut case. A standard-issue female suicide. But the residents of Widringham women’s refuge where Katie worked don’t agree. They say it’s murder. Will you listen to them? A searing feminist thriller that asks what justice looks like in a system blinkered by prejudice.
The Shadow by Melanie Raabe ($33, PB)
‘Every family has secrets. My sister’s discoveries astonished me.’ Geraldine Brooks
True Crime
Epstein: Dead Men Tell No Tales by Dylan Howard et al ($35, HB)
He was the billionaire financier & close confidant of presidents, prime ministers, movie stars & royalty, the mysterious self-made man who rose from blue-collar Brooklyn to the heights of luxury. But while travelling the world on his private jet & hosting lavish parties at his private island in the Caribbean, he also was secretly masterminding an international child sex ring—one that may have involved the richest & most influential men in the world. The conspiracy of corruption was an open secret for decades. After his arrest on sex trafficking charges in July, it seemed Epstein’s darkest secrets would finally see the light. But these hopes were shattered when he was found dead in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Centre, NY. The verdict: suicide. The timing: convenient, to say the least.
Kilo: Life & Death Inside the Secret World of the Cocaine Cartels by Toby Muse
Jose doesn’t see himself as a criminal. He’s just a farmer growing a crop he won’t lose money on- coca. Fabian calls himself a freedom fighter. But wars cost money. And transporting drugs is the fastest way to raise cash. Tomas runs a factory. But this factory is hidden deep in the jungle, and the product is cocaine. Alex decides where the drug goes nextinto Europe or the US. And he wields the power of life and death over everyone around him. Toby Muse goes deep into the mechanism of the drug trade, following a kilo of cocaine as it travels by land & sea to its final destination. On the way he meets druglords, contract killers, drug mules & submarine pilots, all of whom are trying to get ahead in the best way they know how. ($35, PB)
The Most Dangerous Man in America by Steven L. Davis & Bill Minutaglio ($35, PB)
Timothy Leary, the High Priest of LSD, had been running a gleeful campaign for California governor against Ronald Reagan, when he was sentenced to a 10 year prison sentence for the crime of possessing 2 marijuana cigarettes. Aided by the radical Weather Underground, he escaped from prison and Richard Nixon became obsessed with tracking him down. Spanning 28 months, Nixon’s careening, global manhunt winds its way among homegrown radicals, European aristocrats, a Black Panther outpost in Algeria, an international arms dealer, hash-smuggling hippies from the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, secret agents on 4 continents—the gonzo ride of a lifetime.
6
‘On February 11 you will kill a man called Arthur Grimm. Of your own free will. And for a good reason.’ Norah has just moved from Berlin to Vienna when a homeless woman spits these words at her. Norah is unnerved—many years earlier, something terrible happened to her on February 11. She shrugs this off as a mere coincidence, but shortly afterwards she meets a man called Arthur Grimm. Does she have a good reason to take revenge on Grimm? What really happened in the worst night of her life all those years ago? And can Norah make sure that justice is done without herself committing murder?
The English Teacher by Yiftach Reicher Atir ($27, PB)
After attending her father’s funeral, former Mossad agent Rachel Goldschmitt empties her bank account & disappears. But when she makes a cryptic phone call to her former handler, Ehud, the Mossad sends him to track her down. Finding no leads, he must retrace her career as a spy to figure out why she abandoned Mossad before she can do any damage to Israel. But he soon discovers that after living under cover for so long, an agent’s assumed identity & her real one can blur, catching loyalty, love & truth between them. In the midst of a high-risk, high-stakes investigation, Ehud begins to question whether he ever knew his agent at all.
Broken by Don Winslow ($33, PB)
In five intense novellas connected by the themes of crime, corruption, vengeance, justice, loss, betrayal, guilt and redemption Don Winslow creates a world of high-level thieves and low-life crooks, obsessed cops struggling with life on and off the job, private detectives, dope dealers, bounty hunters and fugitives, the lost souls driving without headlights through the dark night on the American criminal highway.
A Conspiracy of Bones by Kathy Reichs ($33, PB)
It’s sweltering in Charlotte, North Carolina and Temperance Brennan, still recovering from neurosurgery following an aneurysm, is battling nightmares, migraines, and what she thinks might be hallucinations when she receives a series of mysterious text messages, each containing a new picture of a corpse that is missing its face and hands. With help from a number of law enforcement associates including her Montreal beau Andrew Ryan and the always-ready-with-a-smart-quip, ex-homicide investigator Skinny Slidell, and some new cutting-edge forensic methods, Tempe must use all her tradecraft to discover the identity of the faceless corpse, its connection to a decade-old missing child case, and why the dead man had her phone number.
Buried by Lynda La Plante ($33, PB)
Jack Warr is a young DC with the Metropolitan Police. Charming but aimless, Jack is somewhat lost—until when, in the aftermath of a fire at a derelict cottage, a badly charred body is discovered, along with the burnt remnants of millions of stolen, untraceable bank notes—the hidden legacy of Dolly Rawlins and her gang of Widows, and Jack’s assignment to the case coincides with an investigation into his own past. As he searches for the truth about his identity, Jack finds himself increasingly drawn into a murky underworld of corruption and crime. Those millions have not been forgotten—and Jack will stop at nothing to find the truth.
The Missing Corpse by Jean-Luc Bannalec ($27, PB)
Along the picturesque Belon River, home of the world-famous oyster beds, between steep cliffs, ominous forests, and the Atlantic Ocean, a stubborn elderly film actress discovers a corpse. By the time Commissaire Georges Dupin arrives at the scene, the body has disappeared. A little while later, he receives a phone call from the mystical hills of Monts d’Arrée, where legends of fairies and the devil abound: another unidentified body has turned up. Dupin’s confounding case seems to have links to Celtic myths, a sand theft operation, and mysterious ancient druid cults.
The Talented Mr Varg by Älexander McCall Smith
The Department of Sensitive Crimes, led by Ulf Varg is renowned for taking on the most obscure & irrelevant cases no matter how complex—like the case ofTrig Oloffson (the infamous bad boy of Swedish letters) who is being blackmailed. However Ulf finds himself distracted by his brother’s questionable politics & meteoric rise within the Moderate Extremist Party & his married co-worker Anna. When Ulf is then tasked with looking into a group of dealers exporting wolves that seem decidedly domestic, it will require all of his team’s investigative instincts & dogged persistence to put these matters to bed. ($30, PB)
The Dirty South by John Connolly ($33, PB)
It is 1997, and someone is slaughtering young black women in Burdon County, Arkansas. But no one wants to admit it, not in the Dirty South. In an Arkansas jail cell sits a former NYPD detective, stricken by grief. He is mourning the death of his wife and child, and searching in vain for their killer. He cares only for his own lost family. But that is about to change . . . Witness the becoming of Charlie Parker.
Hitler’s Peace by Philip Kerr ($33, PB)
Autumn 1943. Hitler knows he cannot win the war: now he must find a way to make peace. FDR and Stalin are willing to negotiate; only Churchill refuses to listen. The upcoming Allied Tehran conference will be where the next steps—whatever they are—will be decided. Into this nest of double- and triple-dealing steps Willard Mayer, OSS agent and FDR’s envoy to the conference. His job is to secure the peace that the USA and Hitler now crave. The stakes couldn’t be higher. Showcasing Philip Kerr’s brilliant research and masterful plotting at its best, Hitler’s Peace has never before been published in the UK and is a fitting coda to the career of one of the masters of the historical thriller..
The Missing American by Kwei Quartey ($30, PB)
When vulnerable Gordon Tilson becomes the unwitting victim of an online scam, he finds himself alone in the whirlwind city of Accra, with a hardened resolve to uncover those responsible. But his decision leads him into unimaginable danger, and now his son Derek has lost all contact with him, and fears for his life. With no choice but to travel into the heart of Ghana, Derek begins a near impossible search for his father. Frustrated by the inadequate local police, Derek turns to Emma Djan, a young private detective desperate to prove her worth. In a heart-stopping race against time, they must expose those at the very heart of Accra’s power who are willing to kill to protect their secrets, if they are to find the missing American..
Are Snakes Necessary? by Brian DePalma & Susan Lehman ($35, HB)
When the beautiful young videographer offered to join his campaign, Sen. Lee Rogers should’ve known better. But with his ailing wife & his robust libido... Enter Barton Brock, the senator’s fixer. He’s already gotten rid of one troublesome young woman—how hard could this new one turn out to be? Pursued from Washington DC to the streets of Paris, 18-year-old Fanny Cours knows her reputation & budding career are on the line. But what she doesn’t realise is that her life might be as well. The Blood is Still by Douglas Skelton ($20, PB) When the body of a man in 18th century Highland dress is discovered on the site of the Battle of Culloden, journalist Rebecca Connolly takes up the story for the Chronicle. Meanwhile, a film being made about the ’45 Rebellion has enraged the right-wing group Spirit of the Gael which is connected to a shadowy group called Black Dawn linked to death threats & fake anthrax deliveries to Downing Street & Holyrood. When a 2nd body—in the Redcoat uniform of the government army—is found in Inverness, Rebecca finds herself drawn ever deeper into the mystery. Are the murders connected to politics, a local gang war or something else entirely?.
Rules for Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson ($30, PB)
A series of unsolved murders with one thing in common: each of the deaths bears an eerie similarity to the crimes depicted in classic mystery novels. The deaths lead FBI Agent Gwen Mulvey to mystery bookshop Old Devils. Owner Malcolm Kershaw had once posted online an article titled ‘My Eight Favourite Murders,’ and there seems to be a deadly link between the deaths and his list—which includes Agatha Christie’s The ABC Murders, Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train and Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. Can the killer be stopped before all eight of these perfect murders have been re-enacted?
Date with Danger by Julia Chapman ($19, PB)
A fatal accident at Bruncliffe’s livestock auction mart leads auctioneer Harry Furness to call in Yorkshire detective duo Samson O’Brien & Delilah Metcalfe, and the investigation soon takes a sinister turn when they discover evidence that suggests murder. With their inquiries ongoing, Clive Knowles approaches them for help—his sheep are being threatened by the gang of rustlers that is plaguing the Dales. The cases converge when poacher Pete Ferris sets in motion a blackmail plot which will ensure Samson is pulled back into trouble with his nemesis Rick Procter.
Fair Warning by Michael Connelly ($33, PB)
When veteran reporter John McEvoy investigates the murder of a woman with whom he had a one night stand (against the warnings of the police & his own editor) he makes a shocking discovery that connects the crime to other mysterious deaths across the country. His inquiry hits a snag when he himself becomes a suspect, and as he races to clear his name, his findings point to a serial killer working under the radar of law enforcement for years, and using personal data shared by the victims themselves to select and hunt his targets.
The Satapur Moonstone by Sujata Massey
It is rainy season in the remote kingdom of Satapur. Both the maharaja & his teenage son are dead & the kingdom is ruled by an agent of the British Raj on behalf of Satapur’s two maharanis. The royal ladies are in dispute over the education of the young crown prince, and a lawyer’s council is required— but they live in purdah & do not speak to men. Just one woman can help them. Enter Perveen Mistry, Bombay’s first female lawyer—into a trap full of cold-blooded power plays & ancient vendettas. How can she protect the royal children from the deadly curse on the palace? ($30, PB)
The Mist by Ragnar Jonasson ($33, PB)
The final nail-biting instalment in Ragnar Jonasson’s, Hidden Iceland series. 1987. An isolated farm house in the east of Iceland. The snowstorm should have shut everybody out. But it didn’t. The couple should never have let him in. But they did. An unexpected guest, a liar, a killer. Not all will survive the night. And Detective Hulda will be haunted forever.
Inheritance of Secrets by Sonya Bates
.Juliet’s elderly grandparents are killed in their Adelaide home. Who would commit such a heinous crime—and why? The only clue is her grandfather Karl’s missing signet ring. When Juliet’s estranged sister, Lily, returns in fear for her life, Juliet suspects something far more sinister than a simple break-in gone wrong. Before Juliet can get any answers, Lily vanishes once more. Juliet only knew Karl Weiss as a loving grandfather, a German soldier who emigrated to Australia to build a new life. Digging into the murders Juliet uncovers some disturbing secrets from WWII that will put both her and her sister’s lives in danger. ($33, PB)
The Silence by Susan Allott ($30, PB)
1997, and in a basement flat in Hackney Isla Green is awakened by a call in the middle of the night: her father, phoning from Sydney. 30 years ago, in the suffocating heat of summer 1967, the Greens’ next-door neighbour Mandy disappeared. At the time, it was thought she had gone to start a new life; but now Mandy’s family is trying to reconnect, and there is no trace of her. Isla’s father Joe was allegedly the last person to see her alive, and now he’s under suspicion of murder. Reluctantly, Isla goes back to Australia for the first time in a decade—to her past in a quiet street by the sea where two troubled couples live side by side.
Find Them Dead by Peter James ($33, PB)
A Brighton gangster is on trial for conspiracy to murder. The selection of the jurors has been secretly filmed. Later, a group of the accused’s henchmen sit around a table with the full personal details of each juror—a jury can convict if directed on a 10-2 majority verdict but no less. Which two will they ‘influence’? Roy Grace is called in to investigate a murder that has links to the accused & the suspicion that an attempt has been made to intimidate jurors, he finds the reach & power of the accused’s tentacles go higher than he had ever imagined.
We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker
30 years ago, Vincent King was convicted of murder. Released from prison, he is back in his hometown of Cape Haven, CA. Not everyone is pleased to see him. Like Star Radley, his ex-girlfriend, and sister of the girl he killed. Duchess Radley, Star’s 13year-old daughter, is part-carer, part-protector to her younger brother, Robin—and to her deeply troubled mother. But in trying to protect Star, Duchess inadvertently sets off a chain of events that will have tragic consequences not only for her family, but also the whole town. ($30, PB)
Hunting Game by Helene Tursten ($20, PB)
Helene Tursten’s explosive new series features Detective Inspector Embla Nyström, a sharp, unforgiving woman working in a man’s world. When one of her peers is murdered during a routine hunting trip, Embla takes charge of the search to track down the killer. But the murky underworld she uncovers during the course of the investigation will force her to grapple with some dark secrets of her own.
7
THE WILDER AISLES
Like many of you I find myself spending a lot of time isolated, and I’ve been going through my bookshelves seeking out the books I go to when feeling down and anxious. These titles always a help to me in difficult times, and I thought I might share them with you. They are a mixed bag, but I’m hoping there will be something here that might appeal to you. A Time to Keep Silence by Patrick Leigh Fermor is a slight book—only 96 pages—but he says a lot in those scant pages. The book tells the story of Fermor’s time in three monasteries, The Abbey of Saint Wandrille, a place of great art and learning, Solesmes, famous for the revival of Gregorian chants and at the monastery of La Grande Trappe, where monks take a vow of silence. Finally he visits the rock monasteries of Cappadocia—cut into the mountains and where the monks, the earliest Christian anchorites lived in complete isolation. More that a history or travel journal, Time is a meditation on silence and stillness for modern life. Fermor writes, ‘In the seclusion of a cell—an existence whose quietness is only varied by silent meals, the solemnity of ritual and long, solitary walks in the woods—-the troubled waters of the mind grow still and clear........’. There is also an excellent introduction by Karen Armstrong in this altogether lovely book. And if you don’t know Fermor’s other writings, they are well worth seeking out. ‘Take my Camel, dear’, said my aunt Dot, as she climbed down on her return from High Mass. How could anyone not read a book that starts in such a wonderful way. The Towers of Trebizond is one of my favourite books. Aunt Dot (Dorothea Ffoulkes-Corbett), Laurie—her niece & our narrator—and an old priest with the wonderful name of Father Chantry-Pigg plus afore-mentioned camel, travel from Istanbul to Trebizond, to write a history of Turkey. Many adventures assail them along the way, culminating of the disappearance of Father Chantry-Pigg behind the iron curtain. How they find their way home and rejoin Laurie and Dr Halide, a feminist Turkish doctor who is interpreting for the travellers, is such a great story. There is so much in Trebizond—travel, history, religion the politics of the time—plus a smidgen of the autobiographical. Laurie, the narrator, is based on MacAuley. She never married, but was in love with a married man—he and the fictional Laurie meet in Turkey. This affair ends in tragedy in the book. There is a lot to say about Rose MacAuley. She was in some ways the first modern woman to make a living by her writing. She was a poet, biographer, novelists and essayist. I have read and loved all of her books. Joanna Trollope calls The Towers of Trebizond ‘a book of a lifetime’—and I’m in total agreement—every time I read it I find something new to ponder on. Tove Jansson’s The Summer Book is a delight. Sophie, six-years old, goes to spend the summer holidays with her grandmother—an elderly artist, on a remote island in the gulf of Finland. Strangers, at first, they gradually become close and learn to accept each others fears and misgivings—and a special kind of love grows between them. I loved this book, not only for Sophie and her grandmother, but for the island itself, with its rocks, windswept firs and wild seas. Jansson captured much of her own experience in this book. It is filled with laughter, wisdom, joy and small adventures. Wonderful. My Family & Other Animals by Gerald Durrell is another book that never fails to cheer me up. I think this is Durrell’s best book, and though some times its language is slightly dated, it still has so much going for it—it never loses it freshness and delight. It tells the story of the Durrell family on Corfu during the years 1935 to 1939, when they were forced to leave because of the war. The family consists of Larry, the eldest, Leslie, Margo, Gerald— and mother. The weather in London is appalling and the Durrell family are sitting around in misery, nursing blocked noses, wheezes and sneezes. Larry suddenly announces that he has had enough of the cold and darkness of winter in England and suggests they should all move to Corfu where he has a friend. So they sell up and move. Some of the stories in this book are laugh out loud, most of them are amusing—and they are all entertaining. Gerald, who is 10 at the time, runs wild on the island, finding its world of insects and animals too good to be true. This is the start of Durrell’s lifelong involvement with the natural world. Larry is a writer, who spends most of his time with the various eccentric characters he invites to stay. Leslie is an avid shooter and often scares the others by shooting at tin cans on a fence, while Margo is constantly on a diet, drifting about the house, trailing scarves behind her. And mother is happy to spend the day reading recipes and cooking meals using all the great produce Corfu offers. There is a 2005 BBC 90 minute film, starring Imelda Staunton as mother, which is worth watching, not so the awful 2016 ITV mess. Also high on my list of comfort books are Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, Alice in Wonderland & Jane Eyre. Janice Wilder
8
Biography
The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom ($33, PB)
In 1961, Sarah M. Broom’s mother Ivory Mae bought a shotgun house in the then-promising neighborhood of New Orleans East and built her world inside of it. It was the height of the Space Race and the neighborhood was home to a major NASA plant—the postwar optimism seemed assured. Widowed, Ivory Mae remarried Sarah’s father Simon Broom; their combined family would eventually number twelve children. But after Simon died, six months after Sarah’s birth, the house would become Ivory Mae’s thirteenth and most unruly child. Winner of the National Book Award for non-fiction, The Yellow House tells a hundred years of Sarah Broom’s family and their relationship to home in a neglected area of one of America’s most mythologized cities.
Fourteen by Shannon Molloy ($30, PB)
This is a story about my fourteenth year of life as a gay kid at an allboys rugby-mad Catholic school in regional Queensland. It was a year in which I started to discover who I was, and deeply hated what was revealed. It was a year in which I had my first crush and first devastating heartbreak. It was a year of torment, bullying and betrayal - not just at the hands of my peers, but by adults who were meant to protect me. And it was a year that almost ended tragically. As much as Fourteen is a chronicle of the enormous struggle and adversity I endured, and the shocking consequences of it all, it’s also a tale of survival. Because I did survive.
I Choose Elena by Lucia Osborne-Crowley ($17, PB)
At the age pf 15 and on track to be an Olympic gymnast, Lucia OsborneCrowley was violently raped in Sydney on a night out, sparking a series of events that left her devastatingly ill for more than 10 years. Her path to healing began a decade later, when she told someone about her rape for the very first time. She eventually found solace in writers like Elena Ferrante, and her work is about rediscovering vulnerability & resilience in the face of formerly unbearable trauma. Osborne-Crowley explores how trauma affects the body—its cyclical, intergenerational nature; how it intersects with deeply held beliefs about the credibility of women; and how trauma is played out again & again in the fabric of our cultures, governments, judicial systems & relationships.
Lives of Houses (eds) Hermione Lee & Kate Kennedy
What can a house tell us about the person who lives there? Do we shape the buildings we live in, or are we formed by the places we call home? And why are we especially fascinated by the houses of the famous & often long-dead? Writers including Simon Armitage, Julian Barnes, Margaret MacMillan & Jenny Uglow’celebrate our fascination with the houses of famous literary figures, artists, composers, and politicians of the past. W. H. Auden, living in joyful squalor in New York’s St. Mark’s Place, W. B. Yeats in his flood-prone tower in the windswept West of Ireland, Benjamin Disraeli, struggling to keep up appearances, the lost houses of Virginia Woolf & Elizabeth Bowen, Benjamin Britten in Aldeburgh, England & Jean Sibelius at Ainola, Finland. The contributors also consider those who are unhoused, unwilling or unable to establish a home—from the bewildered poet John Clare wandering the byways of England to the exiled Zimbabwean writer Dambudzo Marechera living on the streets of London. ($47, HB)
Letters of Note: Art; Mothers; Love; Music; Cats; War ($15 each, PB)
Missives that celebrate, eulogise, rail against & analyse the idiosyncratic ways of our feline companions; letters that encapsulate the human experience of war; correspondence about art—the agony of being overlooked, the ecstasy of producing work that excites, to surprising sources of inspiration & rousing manifestos; joy & grief, humour & frustration written by & about mothers; the agony & ecsatcy of love’s first blush or the recriminations at its ending, the regrets of unrequited feelings and the joys of passions known; and letters by & about the musicians and music that enrich our lives. All collected by Shaun Usher, all great gifts
Radio Girl by David Dufty ($30, PB)
In old woolshed at Sydney harbour in 1944, rows of uniformed men & women in headsets tap away at small machines—presided over by a tiny woman, known to everyone as ‘Mrs Mac’ A smart girl from a poor mining town who loved to play with her father’s tools, Violet McKenzie became an electrical engineer, a pioneer of radio & a successful businesswoman. As the clouds of war gathered in the 1930s, she defied convention & trained young women in Morse code, foreseeing that their services would soon be sorely needed. She was instrumental in getting Australian women into the armed forces, and adored by the thousands of young women & men she trained, and respected by the defence forces & the public too for her vision & contribution to the war effort..
The Lost Boy: Tales of a child soldier by Ayik Chut Deng ($35, PB)
As a boy living in the Dinka tribe in what is now South Sudan, the youngest country in the world, Ayik Chut Deng was a member of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA). During his time as a child soldier, he witnessed unspeakable violence & was regularly tortured by older boys. At 19, he & his family escaped the conflict in Sudan & resettled in Toowoomba, Australia. But adjusting to his new life in small-town Queensland was more difficult than he anticipated. His PTSD was misdiagnosed as schizophrenia, leading to years of erratic behaviour on the wrong medication, and he found himself in trouble with the law before facing the fact that his behaviour was putting his life, as well as the lives of his loved ones, at risk. As an adult now living in Brisbane, Ayik is a father, working as an actor & volunteering at his local youth centre. Overcoming a childhood filled with torture & war was a process of lifelong learning, choices & challenges that included a remarkable chance encounter with a figure from his past.
Oh Happy Day: Those Times and These Times by Carmen Callil ($33, PB)
Carmen Callil’s great-great-grandmother Sary Lacey was born illegitimate in 1808. Callil follows Sary from slum to tenement and from pregnancy to pregnancy. George Conquest, a canal worker & the father of one of Sary’s children was sentenced—for stealing a piece of hemp—to 7 years’ transportation to Australia. Meanwhile, Mary Ann Brooks & her father John, a silversmith, travel across the seas from Lincolnshire to escape the Workhouse & life as a skivvy. For George, as for so many destitute & disenfranchised British people like him, Australia turned out to be his Happy Day. He survived, prospered & eventually returned to England, where he met Sary again, after nearly 30 years. He brought her out to Australia, & they were never parted again. Callil’s moving story of poverty, social injustice, Empire & migration not only reclaims from obscurity the lives of these ordinary men & women who were sent to Australia as convicts or domestic servants, but also draws telling parallels for our own times.
Merle Thornton: Bringing the Fight ($30, PB)
Merle Thornton is one of Australia’s most delightful, formidable and game-changing pioneering feminists—a woman who through her daring and defiance helped bring about positive change for generations of Australian women. In her most audacious act, in 1965 she chained herself to the bar at the Regatta Hotel in Brisbane to protest against the law that excluded women from public bars in Queensland, bringing about the end of segregated drinking in that state. The bar in the hotel is now called ‘Merle’s Bar.’ But that’s just one achievement, in a life full and rich in defiance, daring and determination.
Top End Girl by Miranda Tapsell ($33, PB)
Miranda Tapsell was born in Darwin and her people are the Larrakia. She grew up in Kakadu National Park & began performing at the age of seven. At 16, she won the Bell Shakespeare Company regional performance scholarship. Growing up, the few faces like hers on Australian screens were too often accompanied by a negative narrative around First Nation lives—Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander women especially. So she stopped expecting others would help change things and set about doing something herself. Combining her pride in her Aboriginality & passion for romantic comedies with her love of Darwin, the Tiwi Islands & the Top End, Tapsell co-wrote, produced & starred in the box office hit Top End Wedding. In this memoir, she shares the path she took to acting & how her role in The Sapphires & then in Love Child inspired her to create a film about coming back to family & culture.
Enemy of All Mankind by Steven Johnson ($33, PB)
Henry Every was the 17th century’s most notorious pirate. The press published wildly popular—and wildly inaccurate—reports of his nefarious adventures. The British government offered enormous bounties for his capture, alive or (preferably) dead. But Steven Johnson argues that Every’s most lasting legacy was his inadvertent triggering of a major shift in the global economy. Johnson focuses on one key event—the attack on an Indian treasure ship by Every and his crew—and its surprising repercussions across time & space. This is the gripping tale one of the most lucrative crimes in history, the first international manhunt, and the trial of the seventeenth century.
Rising Heart by Aminata Conteh-Biger ($35, PB)
1999, Sierra Leone—in the midst of a brutal civil war where mindless violence, vicious amputation and the rape of young enslaved women were the everyday weapons of bloody conflict, rebel soldiers snatched the young Aminata Conteh-Biger from her father’s arms, then held her captive for months. After she was released, the UNHCR recognised that her captors still posed a serious threat to her safety. So, at just nineteen years of age, she was put on a plane and flown to Australia. here that she has proudly built a life, while never allowing her trauma to define her. Yet it was a near-death experience she suffered during the birth of her child that turned her attention to the women of Sierra Leone - where they are 200 times more likely to die while having a baby than in Australia. So she set up the Aminata Maternal Foundation, then returned to the land of her birth to help. This is her story.
9
Travel Writing
Magdalena: River of Dreams by Wade Davis ($35, PB)
Slam Your Poetry Miles Merrill
and
Narcisa Nozica
Both a corridor of commerce & a fountain of culture, the wellspring of Colombian music, literature, poetry & prayer, the Rio Magdalena has served in dark times as the graveyard of the nation. And yet, always, it returns as a river of life. Wade Davis tells of his travels on the mighty Magdalena. Along the way, he finds a people who have overcome years of conflict precisely because of their character, informed by an enduring spirit of place, and a deep love of a land that is home to the greatest ecological & geographical diversity on the planet. Only in Colombia can a traveller wash ashore in a coastal desert, follow waterways through wetlands as wide as the sky, ascend narrow tracks through dense tropical forests, and reach verdant Andean valleys rising to soaring ice-clad summits. This wild & impossible geography finds its perfect coefficient in the topography of the Colombian spirit—restive, potent, at times placid & calm, in moments tortured & twisted.
Notes from an Apocalypse by Mark O’Connell ($30, PB)
Meet the men & women preparing for the end of the world—in the remote mountains of Scotland, in high-tech bunkers in South Dakota & in the lush valleys of New Zealand, small groups of determined men & women are getting ready. They are environmentalists who fear the ravages of climate change; billionaire entrepreneurs dreaming of life on Mars; and right-wing conspiracists yearning for a lost American idyll. One thing unites them: their certainty that we are only years away from the end of civilization as we know it. Worried about the possibility of the end of days,himself, Mark O’Connell set out to meet them.
Public and Private: East Germany in Photographs: Ulrich Wust ($95, HB)
‘Here is an exciting, engaging, instructive poetic playbook to usher in a new Australian slam generation.’ — Maxine Beneba Clarke
Ulrich Wust (1949), a trained urban planner, began photographing East German cities in the 1970s. His work was an uncompromising critique of the public realm & city building in the former GDR. Today, it is now recognised as one of the boldest aesthetic statements made in the socialist state. Since 1990, Wust has continued to focus on the architectural realities in the eastern districts of Berlin, torn between urban planning & real estate development. This book includes almost 200 images, rare ephemera & an in-depth interview.
Bondi to the Baltic by John McCombe
($32.95, HB) Two antique cars, a few old mates and the journey of a lifetime. Take a couple of vintage cars and their owners’ determination to drive them on a pilgrimage from Australia to Finland and you have a fascinating story told through photos and the distillation of blogs and diary entries by some foolhardy, adventurous blokes. Starting out from Thailand, their travels took them through Laos, China, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, Russia and Finland—a 6 month journey spread over two legs in successive years. Many an adventure, impossibly sticky situations, near misses and regular mechanical breakdowns were inevitably resolved with the support and civility towards this motley group of travellers in their ancient cars, by locals renowned for their hospitality.
Couchsurfing in China by Stephan Orth ($30, PB)
Stephan Orth chooses gets an insider view of China, direct from the living rooms of locals. For 3 months he explores China—from the gamblers’ paradise of Macau, to the mountainous region of Yunnan Province, to the city of Dandong on the North Korean border. Orth visits high-tech megacities & remote villages, meeting artists critical of the regime & ethnic minorities forced into re-education camps. He finds himself censored as a guest on live TV and almost joins an outlawed sect—uncovering the complicated realities of life in a country that encompasses old & new, natural & artificial, beautiful & chaotic.
Paris, City of Dreams by Mary McAuliffe ($56, HB)
‘Pathfinders charts an important though largely overlooked area of the country’s history. Michael Bennett weaves back into the nation’s historical narrative these Aboriginal heroes and heroines.’ — Professor John Maynard
A N I M P R I N T O F U N SW P R E SS
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Together, Napoleon III & his right-hand man, Georges Haussmann, completely rebuilt Paris in less than 2 decades—a breathtaking achievement made possible not only by the emperor’s vision & Haussmann’s determination, but by the regime’s unrelenting authoritarianism. Mary McAuliffe brings to life a pivotal era encompassing not only the physical restructuring of Paris but also the innovative forms of banking & money-lending that financed industrialization as well as the city’s transformation—creating new wealth & flaunted excess, even while producing extreme poverty. And a deeper change was occurring in the way people looked at & understood the world around them, given the new ease of transportation & communication, the popularisation of photography, and the emergence of what would soon be known as Impressionism in art & Naturalism & Realism in literature—artistic yearnings that would flower in the Belle Époque.
The Wild Silence by Raynor Winn ($35, HB)
In a follow up to her prize-winning memoir, The Salt Path, Raynor Winn writes about taking on a chronically over-farmed piece of land that was given to her and her husband, Moth, by a reader who was moved by their story in The Salt Path. This book is about readjusting to life after homelessness, but also about recovering trust & self-belief after a traumatic event. Since travelling the South West Coastal Path, Winn has become a regular long-distance walker, in this book she explores the hope she has of revitalising & of re-wilding this land, and the themes of lifelong love, nature & what it means to find a home..
Fast Asleep by Michael Mosley ($30, PB)
Food, Health & Garden
A good night’s sleep is essential for a healthy brain & body. So why do so many of us struggle to sleep well? Dr Michael Mosley explains what happens when we sleep, what triggers common sleep problems & why standard advice rarely works. Prone to insomnia, he has taken part in numerous sleep experiments & tested every remedy going. This is a 4 week programme, based on the latest science, designed to help you re-establish a healthy sleep pattern in record time. With advice including tips for teenagers, people working night shifts & those prone to jet lag, plus recipes which will boost your deep sleep by improving your gut microbiome.
Fat: the Secret Organ by Mariette Boon & Liesbeth van Rossum ($33, PB)
No other organ—yes, fat is an organ—has so many prejudicial attitudes towards it with people having such limited knowledge about it. In this thorough & accessible book, 2 scientists 3 talk about the latest research in this field of study. Did you know that: fat generates important hormones? fat can communicate with your brain? fat is essential to staying alive? the cause of excess fat often has nothing to do with too much food or too little exercise? stress, genetic predisposition & hormonal disorders affect the fat in your body? fat shaming has significant psychological effects? a crash diet does not benefit you. Boon & Van Russum give a fascinating & often surprising glimpse into the secret life of fat.
How to Eat: All your food and diet questions answered by Mark Bittman & David L. Katz ($30, PB)
What is the ‘best’ diet? Do calories matter? And when it comes to protein, fat, and carbs, which ones are good and which are bad? Mark Bittman and Dr David Katz answer all these questions and more in a lively and easy-to-read Q&A format. Topics include dietary patterns (Just what should humans eat?); grains (Aren’t these just ‘carbs’? Do I need to avoid gluten?); meat and dairy (Does grass-fed matter?); alcohol (Is drinking wine actually good for me?); and more. Throughout, Bittman and Katz filter the science of diet and nutrition through a lens of common sense, delivering straightforward advice with a healthy dose of wit.
F*ck Happiness by Ariel Gore ($28, PB)
Happiness has become big business. Books, psychologists, consultants, and even governments promote scientific findings into it. The problem is that almost all of this science is performed by & for straight white men. And some of the most vocal of these experts suggest that women can become happier by adopting traditional gender values & eschewing feminism. Sceptical of this hypothesis, Ariel Gore immersed herself in the optimism industrial complex, combing the research, reading the history, interviewing the thinkers, and exploring her own & her friends’ personal experiences & desires. The result is a nuanced, thoughtful & inspiring account of what happiness means to women.
The Art of Resilience by Ross Edgley ($33, PB)
Ross Edgley famously ran a marathon pulling a 1.4-tonne car and climbed a rope the height of Everest (8,848m), after living with Yamabushi warrior monks in Japan and partaking in Shamanic pain rituals with fire ants in the Amazon jungle. On his epic 1,780-mile journey around Great Britain, which lasted 157 days, Ross swam through giant jellyfish, arctic storms, ‘haunted’ whirlpools & polluted shipping lanes, going so hard & fast, his tongue fell apart. Edgley uses his swim experience & other endurance feats, to study the performance of extreme athletes, military & fitness specialists & psychologists to uncover the secrets of mental fitness & explore the concept of resilience, persistence, valour & a disciplined mindset in overcoming adversity.
Blooming Flowers: A Seasonal History of Plants and People by Kasia Boddy ($40, HB)
The bright yellow of a marigold & the cheerful red of a geranium, the evocative fragrance of a lotus or a saffron-infused paella there is no end of reasons to love flowers. Ranging through the centuries & across the globe, Kasia Boddy looks at the wealth of floral associations that has been passed down in perfumes, poems & paintings; in the design of buildings, clothes & jewellery; in songs, TV shows & children’s names; and in nearly every religious, social & political ritual. Exploring the first daffodils of spring & the last chrysanthemums of autumn, this is also a book about seasons, as Boddy considers how the sunflower, poppy, rose, lily & many others have given rise to meaning, value & inspiration throughout history, and why they are integral to so many different cultures.
Sanctuary: Artist-Gardeners 1919–1939 by Christopher Woodward ($50, PB)
Between the two world wars there were an exceptional number of artists who gardened, taking their activities as plantsmen and plantswomen as seriously as they took their art. Charles Mahoney shared his unbridled enthusiasm for plants with Edward Bawden, Geoffrey Rhoades, John Nash and Evelyn Dunbar who swapped cuttings with each other by post. Dunbar, along with Mahoney and Nash, even produced books on the subject, while Harry Bush’s oeuvre evolved around painting and repainting his garden in the south west London suburbs. In this volume the golden age of garden painting includes over 20 artists including Charles Mahoney, Edward Bawden, Eric Ravilious, Evelyn Dunbar, John Nash, Nancy Nicholson, Kenneth Rowntree & Winifred Knight.
Falastin: A Cookbook by Sami Tamimi & Tara Wigley ($50, HB)
Travelling through Bethlehem, East Jerusalem, Nablus, Haifa, Akka, Nazareth, Galilee & the West Bank, this book invites you to enjoy unparalleled access to Sami Tamimi’s homeland. Each region has its own distinct identity & tale to tell, and the book is a mix of traditional & contemporary, with recipes that have been handed down through the generations & reworked for a modern home kitchen, alongside dishes that have been inspired by Sami & Tara’s collaborations with producers & farmers throughout Palestine.
Vegan Cakes: Dreamy Cakes & Decadent Desserts by Sarah Hardy ($35, HB)
With step-by-step recipes, enticing photos, guidance on vegan icing & decorations, and recipes for cakes from a Pink Vanilla Dream Cake & Sherry Berry Trifle, to Rose & Ginger Cheesecake & Black Sesame Banana Bread, Vegan Cakes is the place where traditional baking rules are thrown out of the window, proving that you don’t need dairy & eggs to create baking wonders.
The Soup Book ($40, HB) Featuring recipes from Raymond Blanc, Dan Barber, Alice Waters, and other supporters of The Soil Association, The Soup Book offers more than 200 homemade soup recipes. Try winter warmers such as parsnip & apple soup or French onion soup, enjoy a light summer lunch of chilled cucumber soup with dill, and make a hearty borscht or pumpkin soup in autumn. The recipes are organised first by season, and then by ingredient, so you can easily find the ideal soup to suit the fresh ingredients you have to hand. Good Food New Classics ($40, FL) Classic & new classic recipes by Australia’s leading chefs as seen & cooked by Good Food fans all over Australia. Contributors: Danielle Alvarez, Jill Dupleix, Helen Goh, Kylie Kwong, Adam Liaw, Andrew McConnell, Katrina Meynink and Neil Perry. Bitter Honey: Recipes and Stories from the Island of Sardinia by Letitia Clark ($40, HB)
Chef Letitia Clark invites you into her home on one of the most beautiful islands in the Mediterranean Sea—Sardinia. The importance of eating well is even more pronounced here on this forgotten island. Try your hand at Roasted aubergines with honey, mint, garlic and burrata, or a fresh, zesty salad of Celery, orange, anchovy and hazelnut, followed by Malloreddus (the shell-shaped pasta from the region) with crab, saffron and tomato. Each recipe is accompanied by full colour photography and the story behind it to transport you to the glittering, turquoise waters and laid-back lifestyle of this Italian paradise.
Chow! Secrets of Chinese Cooking Cookbook by Dolly Chow ($40, HB)
First printed in 1936, reprinted 68 times and has sold over 300,000 copies in China. Each has province in China has their own specialties & methods of preparation—all of which are supposedly ‘the best’. Rather than attempting to cover the entirety of Chinese cuisine, Dolly Chow focuses on recipes born from melding her favourite family menus. Starting with how to wash rice, serve tea & make noodles from scratch, the book introduces 75 dishes based around meat, seafood & vegetables—from stuffed mushrooms & fried rice to minced pigeon, crab fat with green vegetables & duck tongue soup. A delicious peek into the Chinese food culture of the early 20th century.
Storecupboard Vegan by Veganpower & Kardinal ($55, HB)
300 easy, fast & inexpensive recipes that use ready-made vegan preparations, such as tofu sausages, smoked tofu, seitan, tempeh, soy steaks, vegan cheeses & dairy-free yogurt as well as regular storecupboard staples like tins of chick peas or beans, lentils, pasta, rice, quinoa, couscous, gnocchi, miso & frozen vegetables. Almost all the vegetables & herbs used in this book are frozen. The first obvious advantage to using frozen is it’s time saving! No cleaning, no peeling, no cutting & available in small quantities, without waste. The 2nd advantage is having on hand the basics for an instant meal—the aim of this book is to provide recipes for real cooking every day using mainly products that are easily found in local neighbourhood shops & supermarkets, and to use what you have on hand, stored in your kitchen cupboards or at the bottom of the fridge. You are always ready to go!
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books for kids to young adults
Landing with Wings by Trace Balla ($28, HB)
CBCA Book of the Year Award and Wilderness Society’s Environment Award for Children’s Literature winner, Trace Balla is often found sketching in nature, riding her bike, dancing, and growing vegies in her garden in central Victoria. Her new book—a story about spreading your wings & putting down roots in an ancient land is written in the form of a young girl’s (Miri) nature diary—Miri’s been on the move and now she’s finding her feet, her freedom, her community and her home, treading lightly all the way. A great book to inspire kids to keep their own nature diary.
Chosen by Elissa
The Astronaut’s Cat by Tohby Riddle ($25, HB)
The astronaut’s cat is an inside cat— a really, really inside cat ... on the Moon! In Tohby Riddle’s wonderfully whimsical story this very unusual and very ‘housebound’ cat dreams about the strange outside world—and the mysterious blue ball that rises into the ink-black sky. Perfect for housebound readers dreaming of landscapes Earthly or luna—and perhaps Cats!
Princess Kevin by Michaël Escoffier (ill) Roland Garrigue
This year, Kevin is going to the school fancy dress show as a princess. His costume is perfect but he knows that the best costumes are authentic. So he is outraged that none of the knights will partner with him and complete the look. When things don’t go quite a smoothly as he planned, there is only one thing for it—next year he will just have to be something even more fabulous. A heartwarming and funny story about imagination, diversity and persevering at expressing your fabulous self. ($22, HB)
The Pirates Are Coming! by John Condon (ill) Matt Hunt
In this hilarious retelling of The Boy Who Cried Wolf, Tom has a VERY important job—every day he climbs to the top of the hill and watches for pirate ships. But when he rings his bell and shouts PIRATES! a few too many times—and there’s NO pirate ship—the villagers begin to get tired of hiding. So what will happen when the pirates really do show up? ($25, HB)
Non Fiction
Hundred: What You Learn in a Lifetime by Heike Faller & Valerio Vidali
How does our perception of the world change in the course of a lifetime? When Heike Faller’s niece was born she began to wonder what we learn in life, and how we can talk about what we have learnt with those we love. And so she began to ask everyone she met, what did you learn in life? Out of the answers of children’s writers and refugees, teenagers and artists, mothers and friends, came 99 lessons—that those who have had a difficult time appreciate the good moments more. That those who have had it easy find it harder getting old. That a lot of getting old is about accepting boundaries. And of course, as one 94 year old said to her, ‘sometimes I feel like that little girl I once was, and I wonder if I have learned anything at all.’ ($40, HB)
teen fiction
picture books
Ten Little Figs by Rhian Williams & Nathaniel Eckstrom
Ten little figs are on my tree. I love figs and they’re all for me. This is a joyful rhyming picture book about a child keeping careful watch of the figs on the fig tree in his backyard. With his dog by his side, he counts down the number of figs as they are taken by various hungry Australian animals (flying fox, finches, green ants & others) until only one fig is left. Who will get that very last fig? Luckily Dad comes to the rescue & surprises his little one with the very last fig. ($25, HB)
Recycle and Remake: Creative Projects for Eco Kids
Looking for something to keep the kids occupied ... and care for the environment? Save trees by making your own seeded recycled paper from junk mail, clean up the oceans by turning old carrier bags into kites, friendship bracelets & colourful weaved baskets, and repurposing a cardboard box into a periscope. Learn about sustainable energies by creating a simple solar oven, cutting down on cling-film by making a food wrap from scrap cotton & beeswax, and turning an old T-shirt into a reusable tote bag so you never need to buy a plastic carrier bag again. You can even grow new plants to clean the air in your own upcycled milk bottle planters & using homemade compost. And as the kids make & create, they’ll learn kid-friendly facts about the big issues our planet is facing. ($20, HB)
Dare to Be You: Inspirational Advice for Girls on Finding Your Voice, Leading Fearlessly, and Making a Difference by Marianne Schnall Journalist Marianne Schnall interviews role models like Gloria Steinem, Maya Angelou, Amy Poehler, Kerry Washington, Sheryl Sandberg, Luvvie Ajayi & Arianna Huffington bringing together the most inspiring & rousing quotes to shed light on the many ways girls can empower themselves. Representing a diverse group of women’s voices-from actresses, comedians, and musicians, to business leaders, elected officials, activists, and Nobel laureates—these words speak to a wide array of issues that young women are facing every day. ($25, PB)
Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? by Caitlin Doughty ($30, PB)
What happens if someone dies on a plane? Can we give Grandma a Viking funeral? Why don’t animals dig up all the graves? Will my hair keep growing in my coffin after I’m buried? Every day, funeral director Caitlin Doughty receives dozens of questions about death. In this book she offers factual, hilarious & candid answers to thirty-five of the most interesting questions posed by her youngest fans, sharing the lore & science of what happens to, and inside, our bodies after we die. Why do corpses groan? What causes bodies to turn strange colours during decomposition? and why do hair & nails appear longer after death? Find out within.
Havenfall by Sara Holland ($17, PB)
Maddie loves spending summers at her uncle’s Inn at Havenfall. But the Inn is much more than a Maddie’s safe haven, and life in Havenfall isn’t without its secrets. Beneath the beautiful, sprawling manor in Colorado lie hidden gateways to other worlds, some long-sealed by ancient magic. When a body is found on the grounds, the volatile peace brokered between these worlds is irrevocably compromised. What’s worse is that Maddie’s friend Brekken stands accused of the murder. With everything she loves at stake, Maddie must confront shocking truths about the dangers lurking beneath Havenfall. First in a thrilling contemporary fantasy series about the safe haven between worlds—and the girl sworn to protect it. from the author of Everless.
Hello Strange by Pamela Morrow ($18, PB)
Since the death of their mother, Hunter, Milly and Coel have come unstuck. Their father isn’t coping either, even though he’s the successful head of BIOlogic and is developing a humanoid to enhance human lives. He brings home Josie, the latest prototype, hoping she might restore the family’s happiness. But Josie took a blast during an epic electrical storm and her system is unstable. Meanwhile, Professor Bishop and his mysterious student Gwin Tang have their own ominous plans for Josie
Mermaid Moon by Susann Cokal ($27, HB) Deep Water by Sarah Epstein ($20, PB)
Three months ago, thirteen-year-old Henry Weaver disappeared from The Shallows during a violent storm, leaving behind his muddy mountain bike at the train station. Mason Weaver is trapped. While Mason doesn’t know who he is or what he’s capable of, he knows the one thing binding him to this suffocating small town is his younger brother, Henry. Chloe Baxter wants answers. Why would Henry run away without telling her? One of Chloe’s friends knows something and she’s determined to find out the truth. As Chloe wades into dangerous waters and Mason’s past emerges, a chilling question ripples to the surface: how far would you go to keep a secret?
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Sanna is a mermaid—except her mother was landish, not seavish. The undersea witch who delivered her cast a spell that made her people, and her mother, forget her birth. Sanna longs to find her mother so much that she apprentices herself to the witch, learns the magic of making and unmaking, and fashions herself a pair of legs to go ashore on the Thirty-Seven Dark Islands, the nearest anyone can remember to where they left her mother. There, Sanna stumbles into a wall of white roses and a community desperate for a miracle—and into a baroness who would do anything to live forever. From the author of the Michael L. Printz Honor Book The Kingdom of Little Wounds comes an original fairy tale of belonging, sacrifice, magic and mortality.
Open Fire by Amber Lough ($25, HB)
In 1917, Russia is losing the war with Germany, soldiers are deserting in droves, and food shortages on the home front are pushing people to the brink of revolution. Seventeen-year-old Katya is politically conflicted, but she wants Russia to win the war. Working at a munitions factory seems like the most she can do to serve her country—until the government begins recruiting an allfemale army battalion. Inspired, Katya enlists. Training with other brave women, she finds camaraderie and a deep sense of purpose. But when the women’s battalion heads to the front, Katya has to confront the horrifying realities of war. Faced with heartbreak and disillusionment, she must reevaluate her commitment and decide where she stands.
fiction Under 8’s
Sabotage: Beatrice Zinker, Upside Down Thinker Book 3 by Shelley Johannes ($13, PB)
Beatrice’s upside-down adventures continue in this third book about friendship, secret codes & a topsy-turvy approach to life where things always turn out sunny-side up. Beatrice, her best friend, Lenny, and their new friend Sam are celebrating the things that make their classmates unique & special. But when a mystery award appears, it looks like Operation Upside is under attack! Beatrice will have to use all of her special skills—from Morse code to breakdancing—to uncover who would sabotage their secret mission. Aussie Kids: Meet Katie at the Beach by Rebecca Johnson ($13, PB) Rebecca Johnson is a part-time primary school science teacher & mother of two. In 2015 she received the Prime Minister’s Prize for Excellence in Science Teaching in Primary Schools. In her outing for this new series for emerging readers 6-8 years Johnson introduces Katie—who has a wobbly tooth that won’t come out. But she’s not going let that spoil her trip to the beach, or her intention to eat mangoes and play beach cricket!
Aussie Kids: Meet Eve in the Outback by Raewyn Caisley ($13, PB)
Raewyn Caisley is the author of books for younger readers that include Aussie Bites and Nibbles titles, and the award-winning picture books Hello From Nowhere and Something Wonderful. Caisley’s Aussie Kid is Eve, who lives at a roadhouse in the Nullarbor. She doesn’t get many visitors—but today her cousin Will is coming, and Eve is looking forward lots of fun! WeirDo #14: Vote Weirdo by Anh Do (ill) Jules Faber ($16, PB) Weir Dos in the running for class captain... but will an EPIC HAIR DISASTER destroy his chances of winning?! It wont be easy... but it will be funny!
Red Menace by Lois Ruby ($25, HB)
fiction 8 to 12
If thirteen-year-old Marty Rafner had his way, he’d spend the summer of 1953 warming the bench for his baseball team, listening to Yankees games on the radio, and avoiding preparations for his bar mitzvah. Instead, he has to deal with FBI agents staking out his house because his parents—professors at the local college—are suspected communist sympathizers. Marty knows what happens to communists, or Reds, as his friends call them: They lose their jobs, get deported...or worse. Two people he’s actually met, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, have been convicted of being communist spies, and they’re slated to be executed in two months.
Enchanter’s Child #1: Twilight Hauntings by Angie Sage ($15, PB)
New from Septimus Heap author. Alex has a set of Enchanted cards. When she flutters her fingers above them the cards come alive and create moving pictures of what is now and what is yet to come. But Enchantment is illegal in the city of Luma, and those who practice it are imprisoned forever in the Vaults—dark dungeons deep below the city. When Alex is betrayed by her foster sister Zerra she makes a daring escape with the help of her little foster brother, Louie. But outside Luma lurk deadly Hauntings that seek out those who practice magic: Enchanters and their children. Alex doesn’t believe she’s an Enchanter’s Child, but she has no idea who her parents are. Her Enchanted cards are her only clue to her true identity, and she becomes determined to find out who she is. And, while she is at it, to get rid of the deadly Twilight Hauntings forever.
Sticky Pines: The Bigwoof Conspiracy by Dashe Roberts
When 12 year-old, UFO-obsessed, Lucy Sladan sneaks out in the middle of a thunderstorm to investigate the unexplained disappearances in her hometown of Sticky Pines, she finds more than she bargained for: a huge hairy creature, a 13 year-old stranger named Milo Fisher & a deep-rooted secret. Lucy & Milo become entwined in a mystery that threatens to engulf the whole town of Sticky Pines & its weird & wonderful residents. ($15, PB)
Orion Lost by Alastair Chisholm ($15, PB)
The transport ship Orion is four months out of Earth when catastrophe strikes—leaving the ship and everyone on board stranded in deep space. Suddenly it’s up to thirteen-year-old Beth & her friends to navigate through treacherous & uncharted territory to reach safety. But a heavily-damaged ship, space pirates, a mysterious alien species & an artificial intelligence that Beth doesn’t know if she can trust means that getting home has never been so difficult. Lot’s of twists in this incredible twists in this unputdownable scifi adventure.
Otto Tattercoat and the Forest of Lost Things by Matilda Woods ($15, PB)
In the eternally frozen city of Hodeldorf, the Tattercoats live up on the roofs & by a strict code: only steal what you need, don’t leave a trace of yourself behind, and if another Tattercoat is in trouble, you must always help them out. So when Otto’s mother goes missing, and he is lured into a factory for children with nowhere else to go, the Tattercoats must come to the rescue. Dare they enter the Forest of Lost Things, where wolves, witches & other wonders hide in the shadows? And can they find a way to bring sunshine & warmth to Hodeldorf once more?
activities
graphic novels
Camping with Unicorns by Dana Simpson
In Volume 11 of Phoebe & her Unicorn school’s out and Phoebe & her unicorn Marygold Heavenly Nostrils have the entire summer to play games, visit the pool and even go camping. Unicorn horns turn out to be excellent utensils for roasting food over the campfire, a unicorn named Alabaster makes an appearance with a video game console that’s powered by plants, and throughout her summer adventures Phoebe learns that being cool isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. ($18, PB)
Stig and Tilde 2: Leader of the Pack by Max de Radigues ($18, PB)
puzzles games stickers art paper Let’s Roll! Capt. Underpants Sticker Activity Book
This LOL book includes 80 pages of hilarious activities for fans of the book series, the movie and the hit Netflix show! Includes a roll of 40 giant stickers, designed to look just like the elusive roll of toilet paper! Kids can use these stickers to complete activities & games throughout the book, from George & Harold’s creative signs to filling in the blanks of your own Capt Underpants comics.
Local tradition states that when a child turns fourteen, they have to survive all alone on an island for one year—their kulku. Now, it’s time for Stig and Tilde to take up the challenge. After a rocky start to their trip, the twins end up on yet another mystery island and find themselves in even more danger than before. With only each other for back up, will they make it out unscathed...? Find out in this new instalment!
Creativity Books ($20 each, SP) Space: Take Astronaut Alan’s space test before entering the world of aliens, intergalactic battles and cosmic critters to see if you’ve got what it takes to pass out of astronaut school with flying colours.
Princess: Make a tiara, design your own royal palace and take the ultimate test! Colouring, sketching and 150 stickers make this an unbeatable activity book for right royal princesses.
Style Queen: Let your imagination run riot in the ultimate activity book for fierce fashionistas. Design an outfit for every season, make your own perfume and hold a fashion show!
Dinosaurs: Build a Giganotosaurus, become a fossil hunter and make a dinosaur mobile!! Dinosaur decorations to cut out and make, awesome fold-out sticker scenes dinosaur craft paper.
Dragons: Make a knight’s sword, decorate some dragon eggs and create a potion to make dragons friendly. Packed with 2 pages of over 150 stickers, dragon-model pieces, dragon scale art paper.
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Events r Calenda
Hi everyone,
events ?
How are you holding up? It’s only been a few weeks, but I think we can all agree that the days of uncertainty and isolation are taking their toll. Which is why I would like to express my sincere gratitude for the wonderful support that has been flowing in since we suspended our events program, and subsequently shut the doors for browsing. Your kind words have honestly kept us going in the shop—whether they’re spoken over the phone, in an e-mail, or from a safe distance as we hand-deliver books! It has doubled our resolve to do everything we can to keep getting your books to you, and to keep conversations going about the books we love. On that note, I thought I’d let you know about a couple of virtual events we have in the pipeline! Margaret Simons and Gabrielle Chan will be joining us digitally on the 21st of April, to talk about Margaret’s Quarterly Essay: Cry Me a River—Water, Drought, Food and Politics. We’ll send a link out so that you can join us online, but follow us on Facebook as well so that you don’t miss out! I’m also organising talks with Michael Bennett (Pathfinders), Dr Liz Allen (The Future of Us), and Professor Paul Davies (The Demon in the Machine), but as you can imagine I’ve been flat out helping to deliver books so watch this space for more details. There will undoubtedly be more web events on the horizon, andeventually in-shop ones as well. I’ll look forward to seeing you at both. Don’t miss out! Stay safe. James Ross, Gleebooks Events Manager Sign up for gleemail! The gleeboo ks weekly email events update. asims@glee books.com.a u
gleebooks virtual 14
Performing Arts
Mysteries of Cinema: Reflections on film theory, history and culture by Adrian Martin ($30, PB)
This anthology collects highlights of distinguished Australian-born film critic Adrian Martin’s work in one volume. These vibrant, highly personal essays, written between 1982 & 2016, balance breadth across cinema theory with almost encyclopedic detail, ranging between aesthetics, cinephilia, film genre, criticism, philosophy & cultural politics—circumscribing a special cultural period that began with the dream of critique as a form of poetic writing, and today arrives at collaborative experiments in audiovisual essays. Throughout these essays, Martin pursues a particular vision of what cinema has been, what it is, and what it still could be.
Indian Sun: The Life and Music of Ravi Shankar by Oliver Craske ($40, HB)
Over 8 decades, Ravi Shankar was India’s greatest cultural ambassador, taking Indian classical music to the world’s leading concert halls & festivals. He taught George Harrison sitar, turning the 60s generation on to Indian music, astonishing the crowds at Woodstock, Monterey Pop & the Concert for Bangladesh with his virtuosity. He radically reshaped jazz & Western classical music as well as writing film scores, including Pather Panchali & Gandhi, and transformed awareness of Indian culture in the process. Using unprecedented access to family archives, Oliver Craske paints a vivid picture of a captivating, restless workaholic, who lived a passionate & extraordinary life—from his childhood in his brother’s dance troupe, through intensive study of the sitar, to his revival of the national music scene; and from the 1950s, a pioneering international career.
Torch the Place by Benjamin Law ($25, PB)
Teresa’s mum finds it impossible to let anything go—from grudges to household objects. She thinks of her home as a museum full of irreplaceable treasures. But she’s not really a curator, she’s a hoarder. When her kids return home to celebrate her 60th birthday, she’s over the moon to have the family back together. But this isn’t a reunion. It’s an intervention. Benjamin Law’s hysterically funny and moving playwriting debut, sparks joy in the clutter & finds truth in those chaotic moments that bring families closer.
This Is Shakespeare by Emma Smith ($23, PB)
So much of what we say about Shakespeare is either not true, or just not relevant, deflecting us from investigating the challenges of his inconsistencies & flaws. Emma Smith reveals but doesn’t resolve the ambiguities of Shakespeare’s plays & their changing topicality. She introduces an intellectually, theatrically & ethically exciting writer who engages with intersectionality as much as with Ovid, with economics as much as poetry—who writes in strikingly modern ways about individual agency, privacy, politics, celebrity & sex. She takes us into a world of politicking and copy-catting—flirting with & skirting round the cut-throat issues of succession politics, religious upheaval & technological change. Smith’s Shakespeare poses awkward questions rather than offering bland answers, always implicating us in working out what it might mean.
Stranger Than Kindness by Nick Cave ($50, HB)
This book contains images selected by Cave from Stranger Than Kindness: The Nick Cave Exhibition, presented by the Royal Danish Library in partnership with Arts Centre Melbourne. It features fullcolour reproductions of original artwork, handwritten lyrics, photographs & collected personal artefacts, presents Cave’s life, work & inspiration & explores his many real & imagined universes. The images are paired with commentary & meditations from Cave & writer Darcey Steinke on themes that are central to Cave’s work—asking what shapes our lives & makes us who we are & celebrating the curiosity & power of the creative spirit.
The Kinks: Songs of the Semi-detached by Mark Doyle ($25, PB)
Often described as the archetypal English band, The Kinks were above all a quintessentially working-class band with a deep attachment to London. Mark Doyle examines the relationship between the Kinks & their city, from their early songs of teenage rebellion to their album-length works of social criticism. He finds sometimes surprising connections with figures as diverse as Edmund Burke, John Clare & Charles Dickens. More than just a book about the Kinks, this is a book about a social class undergoing a series of profound changes— and a group of young men who found a way to describe, lament & occasionally even celebrate those changes through song.
The Short Story of Film: A Pocket Guide to Key Genres, Films, Techniques and Movements by Ian Haydn Smith ($25, PB) This is a innovative introduction to the art of film-making. It explores 50 key movies, from superhero blockbusters to indie darlings, navigating the reader around key genres, movements & techniques in a concise & fun read—giving moviegoers a new way to enjoy their favourite films and to discover new ones to watch.
Lev’s Violin: An Italian Adventure by Helena Attlee ($40, HB)
From the moment she hears Lev’s violin for the first time, Helena Attlee is captivated. She is told that it is an Italian instrument, named after its former Russian owner. Eager to discover all she can about its ancestry, and the stories contained within its delicate wooden body, she sets out for its birthplace, Cremona, once the hometown of famous luthier Antonio Stradivari. Making its way from the cobbled streets of 16th century Cremona, through cool churches, glittering courts & little coastal opera houses, Attlee journeys from the heart of Italian culture to its very furthest reaches. Her tale of princes & orphans, virtuosos & fraudsters, collectors, composers, travellers & raconteurs, becomes a meditation on the power of objects, stories & music to shape individual lives & craft entire cultures.
Elton John’s Blue Moves by Matthew Restall
By 1976, Elton John was the best-selling recording artist and the highest-grossing touring act in the world—then he released Blue Moves, and it all came crashing down. Matthew Restall argues that Blue Moves is a four-sided masterpiece, as fantastic as Captain Fantastic, as colourful as Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, a showcase for the 3 elements—piano-playing troubadour, full orchestra, rock band—with which Elton John & his collaborators redirected the evolution of popular music. Instead, both album & career were derailed by a perfect storm of circumstances— Elton’s decisions to stop touring & start his own label; the turbulent shiftings of popular culture in the punk era; the minefield of attitudes toward celebrity & sexuality. The closer we get to Blue Moves, the better we understand the world into which it was born—and vice versa. ($20, PB)
As if by Chance: Journeys, Theatres, Lives by David Lan ($40, HB)
A family day at the beach. There’s a song, an argument, a dash across the white sand & into the high rolling waves. We’re in Cape Town & David Lan is 10 years old. Cut to 1969 and, visiting London fresh out of high school, he interviews theatre luminaries Sybil Thorndike, Tom Stoppard, Trevor Nunn, Paul Schofield before heading home to join the South African army. Now it’s 1999. We’re at the Young Vic where David is interviewed to be artistic director, a job he’d do for 18 years, ensuring its flowering into a great world theatre. There’s a redesign to be imagined, money to be raised, shows to be staged. And when the doors reopen in 2006 we meet the extraordinary artists he draws in; travel to Peter Brook’s Paris, to Iceland in pursuit of a circus Romeo & Juliet, to Lithuania in search of his great grandparents, to a refugee camp in Congo with Joe Wright & Chiwetel Ejiofor, to Broadway for the Tony Awards. At times hilarious & always deeply felt, David Lan’s deft travels evoke a wildly varied life in theatre as well as a unique theatre of life.
The Eighth: Mahler and the World in 1910 by Stephen Johnson ($35, HB)
The world premiere of Gustav Mahler’s Eighth Symphony in Munich in 1910 was the artistic breakthrough for which the composer had yearned all his adult life, filling Munich’s huge Neue Musik-Festhalle on 2 successive evenings, to tumultuous applause. Stephen Johnson recounts its far-reaching effect on composers, conductors & writers of the time—Berg & Schoenberg, the teenage Korngold, Bruno Walter & Klemperer, and the writers Zweig & Mann (the character of Gustav von Aschenbach in Mann’s Death in Venice was partly based on the impression Mahler made on him in 1910). Johnson’s story of the work, and of the fate of the man who created it, makes for the most absorbing reading.
Daddy Cool by Darleen Bungey ($33, PB)
He was a glamorous heart-throb, a famous American singer performing in front of Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn, Clark Gable & other stars at the Academy Awards. In the 1930s, his recording of Hawaiian Paradise outsold those of Bing Crosby & Guy Lombardo. So how did he become an Australian infantryman, fighting alongside & performing for his fellow Diggers in Palestine, Beirut, Egypt & New Guinea? Why did he leave Hollywood & the ritziest hotels in America for a modest Californian bungalow in suburban Sydney? And what caused him to cease his endless drifting from one woman to another, one marriage to another & settle with the love of his life—a strong Aussie woman, talented radio broadcaster & publicity agent. Seeking answers, Darleen Bungey explores her father’s multi-layered & at times tempestuous life.
Woodstock: Interviews & Recollections ($45, HB)
Featuring a foreword from legendary director Martin Scorcese, Woodstock: Interviews and Recollections combines stories, anecdotes, and perspectives from dozens of musicians and filmmakers (including Thelma Schoonmaker, Country Joe McDonald and Arlo Guthrie about the making of the Academy Award-winning documentary Woodstock. Assembled by associate producer Dale Bell, the oral history takes readers behind the scenes—and behind the camera—at the decade-defining event.
15
Granny’s Good Reads
with Sonia Lee
Mrs Delany: A Life by Clarissa Campbell Orr is a delightful book—beautifully produced and with a stunning cover—about Mary (née Granville) Delany, the 18th-century English gentlewoman who, at the age of seventy-two, invented a new art form. One afternoon when a sore foot prevented her from walking, Mary picked up her scissors and cut out pieces of coloured paper, which she then stuck on to black paper with flour-and-water paste to imitate the flower on her desk. Over the next seventeen years she made almost a thousand of her ‘flower mosaics’, neatly arranging them in the albums which are now one of the British Museum’s favourite exhibitions. Mary called her art ‘frippery’, but its admirers, who included the Duchess of Portland and Queen Charlotte, thought more favourably of it. The flowers in the duchess’s magnificent Bulstrode gardens in Buckinghamshire had been Mary’s early inspiration, and when the duchess died King George III gave her a grace and favour residence at Windsor and a pension of £300. Mary’s life is every bit as interesting as her art. Her sister said that she was born to ‘cheer as well as charm’ and she needed all her cheer and charm when, in a fruitless attempt by her uncle to shore up the Granville family’s fortunes, she was disastrously married off, at the tender age of seventeen, to Alexander Pendarves, a sixty-year-old Tory M.P. who died six years later without updating his will in her favour. After this sobering event Mary stayed resolutely single for twenty years, despite receiving at least eight proposals of marriage. She nevertheless had many platonic friendships with men such as John Wesley, Jonathan Swift and Horace Walpole, while Sir Joseph Banks gave her flowers to copy. Finally, when she was safely over forty, she accepted the marriage proposal of an Irish clergyman named Patrick Delany, with whom she got on a treat and was very happy. It was four years after Patrick’s death when she picked up those scissors and bequeathed us her Flora Delanica. While this is not the first time that Mrs Delany’s paper flowers have been celebrated in print, Clarissa Campbell Orr’s beautifully illustrated volume is a winner. Readers may also like The Paper Garden by Molly Peacock which shows many of the flower mosaics. Anne Scrimgeour’s On Red Earth Walking (Monash U.P) tells the story of the Pilbara aboriginal strike in Western Australia from 1946 to 1949 and will, I hope, make your blood boil. Today, surely, it must defy comprehension that, even in the 1940s, aboriginal men could be forced to work for pastoralists for a pittance—a few shillings plus a bag of tea and sugar, some bread and a few morsels of meat, while their wives worked for nothing in the station homestead. Those who tried to move, even to other stations, were brought back to their employers by the police. According to many of the pastoralists, the ‘natives’ were useless, one white man being worth ten of them, but when these ‘useless’ employees withdrew their labour and set up camps at the Twelve Mile and near the Moolyella tin mines, pastoralists urged the police and the Native Affairs Department to use all methods, no matter what, to bring them back. Encouraged by Don McLeod, one of their white supporters, they asked for better employment conditions or, preferably, a pastoral lease of their own. The response of the government was to gaol McLeod and the strike leaders, call the strikers ‘communists’, and threaten them with removal to a place of confinement. Although, within the memories of some of the strikers, such disputes would once have been ‘settled’ at gunpoint, the pastoralists now hoped to succeed by intimidation and threats of removal. Shortly afterwards, matters improved somewhat when officials who had been commissioners in New Guinea were appointed to WA’s Native Affairs Department: they were horrified by the racism they witnessed and the pitiful conditions of many of the Aboriginal people. Even so, seventeen strikers were removed at gunpoint in 1949 and made to walk twelve miles in chains. This came to the attention of the Anti-Slavery Society in London, and the Seamens’ Union threatened to ban the export of wool if such inhumane measures were again resorted to. One vivid memory I take from this book is of a school, built from tin cans and with logs for seats, which Tom Sampie, an Aboriginal man with some limited education, ran for four years at the Twelve Mile. Sampie’s requests for correspondence courses and books were denied. Another recent Monash book is Gene Bawden’s Comfort and Judgment, which is all about 19th century Melburnian house furnishings. Bawden cites books by W H Rocke, Harriet Wicken and Wilhelmina Rawson. These three authors wrote, respectively, for the gold-fuelled upper class, those middle-class types who wanted a ‘good room’, done up to the nines that no one ever used, and bush-dwellers, who had to knock up their furnishings from whatever came to hand. The photographs are fascinating, of rooms crammed with furniture, and paintings by Minnie (a-Beckett) Boyd. Sonia
16
Australian Studies
A Bigger Picture by Malcolm Turnbull ($55, HB)
Malcolm Turnbull’s life has been filled with colourful characters and controversies, success and failure. From his early years in Sydney, growing up with a single father, to defending ‘Spycatcher’ Peter Wright against the UK government; the years representing Kerry Packer, leading the Republican Movement and making millions in business; and finally toppling Tony Abbott to become prime minister of Australia—only to be toppled by a right-wing insurgency after 3 years in office. In an exceptionally candid memoir Malcolm Turnbull tells it all.
special price $45
Oil Under Troubled Water: Australia’s Timor Sea Intrigue by Bernard Collaery ($40, PB)
In May 2018 Bernard Collaery, a former ACT Attorney-General & long-term legal counsel to the government of East Timor, was charged with conspiracy to breach the Intelligence Services Act 2001. He was forbidden from talking about the charges against him, but under parliamentary privilege independent MP Andrew Wilkie revealed what has since been described as ‘Australian politics’ biggest scandal’. 5 years earlier, after ASIO officers raided Collaery’s home & office, Collaery told journalists that ASIS had been bugging the East Timorese government during negotiations over Timor Sea oil. He was about to represent East Timor; as well as calling the evidence of a former senior ASIS agent known publicly only as Witness K, at The Hague in a case against the Australian government. Collaery’s book tells the sordid history of Australian government dealings with East Timor, and how the actions of both major political parties have enriched Australia & its corporate allies at the expense of its tiny neighbour & wartime ally, one of the poorest nations in the world.
The Ghost And The Bounty Hunter by Adam Courtenay ($30, PB)
1803, convict William Buckley fled an embryonic settlement in the land of the Kulin nation (now the Port Phillip area), to take his chances in the wilderness. A few months later, the local Aboriginal people found the former soldier near death. Believing he was a lost kinsman returned from the dead, they took him in, and for 32 years Buckley lived as a Wadawurrung man, learning his adopted tribe’s language, skills & methods. The outside world finally caught up with Buckley in 1835, after John Batman, a bounty hunter from Van Diemen’s Land, arrived seeking to acquire & control the perfect pastureland around the bay. The Wadawurrung were betrayed, Buckley was broken, the theft of Kulin country would end in the birth of a city, and the frontier wars had begun.
The Battles for Kokoda Plateau by David W. Cameron ($33, PB)
On 21 July 1942, a large Japanese reconnaissance mission landed along the north-eastern coastline of Papua, it would soon turn into an all-out attempt to capture Port Morseby. In 3 weeks of battle, outnumbered by at least 3 to 1 the 39th Battalion, supported by the 1st Papua Infantry Battalion & the Royal Papuan Constabulary fought to keep the Japanese at bay by holding the Kokoda Plateau—the gateway to the Owen Stanleys. Not far away, and desperately trying to reach the Australians, were two groups of Anglican missionaries trapped behind enemy lines. With each passing day the parties grew, joined by lost Australian soldiers & downed American airmen. Using letters, diaries & other first-hand accounts, from friend & foe alike, David W. Cameron, has written a detailed & provocative account of what occurred at the northern foot of the Owen Stanleys in late July and early August 1942.
The Road: Uprising in West Papua by John Martinkus ($25, PB)
Chemical weapons deployed. Choppers taken out. Tens of thousands of people displaced. Communications repressed. The West Papuan independence movement has reignited, and Indonesian troops are cracking down. In The Road, John Martinkus gives a gripping, up-to-date account of the province’s descent into armed conflict and suppression. Replete with vivid detail and new information, his revelatory work of journalism shows how and why a highlands road led to an uprising, and where this might all lead.
Testing 3,2,1: What Australian Education Can Learn From Finland by Michael Lawrence
‘Finnish teachers looked at me as if I was a child molester when I described the NAPLAN tests given to children as young as eight. When they suggested that the results of these tests would lead to increased funding and assistance for those students and schools that did not do well, it was difficult to explain that this was not the case! My investigation into what made the Finnish system so successful was quickly becoming an inquiry into why my own system was so unsuccessful. Testing 3,2,1 is veteran Australian educator Michael Lawrence’s investigation into how Australian education fell behind the world’s best and how Finland came to lead. It is also a guide to how some of Finland’s ideas can be used by teachers and schools to begin to reverse the current malaise of Australia’s education system. Essential reading for all Australian educators—and voters.’ ($28, PB)
Griffith Review 68: Getting On (ed) Ashley Hay
In a world where 70 is the new 50, old age isn’t what it used to be. By 2060, the ratio of Australians aged over 65 will have passed one in 4. This unprecedented demographic transformation marks a quiet revolution with far-reaching consequences for both individuals & wider society. As the proportion of older people continues to rise, how will working patterns, leisure habits & modes of living be reshaped & refashioned to answer future needs? How will this shift in the balance of the population be addressed? Will our seniors be celebrated or marginalised, powerful or powerless? What approach will Australia take to the global phenomenon of long life? Might listening to the wisdom of our elders change everyone’s world? ($28, PB)
Killing Sydney: The Fight for a City’s Soul by Elizabeth Farrelly ($35, PB)
Elizabeth Farrelly has influenced & reported the shape of Sydney for over 30 years. Here, in her sharp, erudite style, she imparts a message that is part-lovesong, part-warning about the home city she adores, covering the history of Sydney’s soaring civic buildings & unique public spaces, its present reality of housing crisis & nearcontinual development—including the human & urban impact of ongoing projects WestConnex, NorthConnex & the F6 Extension, the Powerhouse relocation, the Packer casino, the light rail relocation, the sale of heritage buildings like the Sirius for private apartments, and Darling Harbour—and laying down the gauntlet for its protection as a green, affordable & accessible heritage city.
Body Count: How climate change is killing us by Paddy Manning ($33, PB)
Across an angry year of weather, Australians witnessed record heatwaves & worsening drought, unprecedented fish kills in the MurrayDarling Basin & devastating wildfires across QLD & NSW—this is climate change, a terrifying portent for the most arid continent on earth. The climate crisis is now a health emergency, with extreme weather events, disease, mental illness & infrastructure collapse killing what the WHO predicts will be millions around the world over the next decade. Paddy Manning reveals what climate change really looks like, telling the moving stories of victims, their families & doctors— putting names & faces to the people who have already paid the ultimate price for inaction on the biggest moral challenge of our century.
Under Fire: How Australia’s violent history led to gun control by Nick Brodie ($30, PB) This is a history of Australia, measured by the gun. From bushrangers & soldiers to the many farmers & recreational shooters shooting animals & each other, the firearm is an inescapable part of Australia’s story & its characters. But just as guns have been a part of Australia’s modern identity, so too has gun control. After the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, Australia became a world-leader in firearms regulation. Yet even before this tragedy, questions had long been brewing: questions over who could shoot what, where, and when. Nick Brodie tells the story of the answers we negotiated.
Great Expectations: Emigrant Governesses in Colonial Australia by Patricia Clarke ($30, PB)
The Female Middle Class Emigration Society scheme helped governesses & would-be governesses emigrate to the colonies from 1861 to 1886. The women who participated were encouraged to write back to the society, and it is their letters—sometimes plaintive, sometimes upbeat—that form the heart of Patricia Clarke’s book. Written by women who were often fluent in multiple foreign languages, skilled artists & musicians, able to teach the liberal arts, as well as algebra & geometry, the letters describe wildly different experiences & stories of culture clash abound—combining to describe the colonial experiences of a particular group of emigrant women, but also telling a broader story, of emigration, education, class prejudice & the development of Australian society.
Australian Universities: A history of common cause by Gwilym Croucher & James Waghorne ($40, PB)
Few of our institutions are as significant or as complex as Australia’s universities. This comprehensive history of Australia’s university sector explores how universities work & for whom, and how their relationship with each other, their academics & students & the public has evolved over a century. The book explores how Australia’s universities have sought to resolve tensions between their separate identities & common interests, and how they have engaged collectively with government & the public. It also tells the story of how they have expanded to usher in an era of much wider participation in higher education; and how they have shaped & been shaped by internationalisation, including their creation of the country’s third-largest export sector.
On Hope by Daisy Jeffrey ($17, PB)
While our leaders fail to act, one of the lead organisers of the Australian Climate strike, 17-year-old Daisy Jeffrey shows how ordinary people are fighting back & demanding we address climate change to help save our planet. She talks about what prompted the action, what she & her friends believe, standing up to speak truth to power & why she is choosing hope over indifference.
Living with the Anthropocene: Love, Loss and Hope in the Face of Environmental Crisis (eds) Muir, Wehner & Newell ($35, PB)
Australian writers come together to reflect on what it is like to be alive during an ecological crisis as the physical world changes all around us. How do we hold onto hope? These personal stories are more than individual responses. They build a picture of a collective endeavour towards cultures of care, respect & attention— values & actions that we yearn be reflected in the institutions that have power to act on a scale that matches the complexity & enormity of the challenge. This is a literary anthology for the age of humans that reflects on how we might resist, protect, grieve, adapt & unite. Contributors include: Tony Birch, James Bradley, Sophie Cunningham, Delia Falconer, Ashley Hay, Iain McCalman, Ellen van Neerven, Jane Rawson, David Ritter & many more.
Rivers: The Lifeblood of Australia by Ian Hoskins ($50, PB)
Givers of life & subjects of anguish, Australian rivers have shaped the nation from the moment the first Australians arrived tens of thousands of years ago. Offering the vital ingredient for life, they are also guardians of culture, a means of transportation, sites for play & leisure, and sources of power—deeply entrenched in almost every aspect of human life & an irreplaceable part of the global ecosystem. From Melbourne’s Yarra to the Alligator rivers of Kakadu, Ian Hoskins presents a history of our complex connections to water. In his foreword Don Watson laments the price rivers have paid for human industry & calls for greater connection with the waterways we rely on for our existence.
The Fatal Lure of Politics: The Life and Thought of Vere Gordon Childe by Terry Irving ($39.95, PB)
In his early life Vere Gordon Childe (1892–1957) was active in the Australian labour movement & wrote How Labour Governs (1923), the world’s first study of parliamentary socialism. At the end of WWI he decided to pursue a life of scholarship to ‘escape the fatal lure’ of politics & Australian labour’s ‘politicalism’, his term for its misguided emphasis on parliamentary representation. His career in archaeology & prehistory aimed to ‘democratise archaeology’, involve people in its practice & to reveal to them What Happened in History (1942)—a best seller that sold 300,000 copies. He supported Russia’s ‘grand & hopeful experiment’ & opposed the rise of fascism—and for 40 years the security services of Britain & Australia continued to spy on him. His Australian background reinforced his hatred of colonialism & imperialism, and there is a direct line between Childe’s early radicalism & his final—and fatal—political act in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney.
Democratic Adventurer: Graham Berry and the Making of Australian Politics by Sean Scalmer
Graham Berry (1822–1904) was colonial Australia’s most gifted, creative & controversial politician. A riveting speaker, a newspaper proprietor & editor, and the founder of Australia’s first mass political party, he wielded these tools to launch an age of reform: spearheading the adoption of a ‘protectionist’ economic policy, the payment of parliamentarians, and the taxing of large landowners. He also sought the reform of the Constitution, precipitating a crisis that the London Times likened to a ‘revolution’. Berry’s forgotten, fascinating life—his drives & aspirations, the scandals & defeats that nearly derailed his career, and his remarkable rise from linen-draper & grocer to adored popular leader show his influence on later Australian politics, and reflects on the possibilities & constraints of democratic politics. ($39.95, HB)
Politics, Media and Campaign Language: Australia’s Identity Anxiety by Stephanie Brookes
Stephanie Brooks analyses & reclaims Australian campaign speech & electoral history to tell the story of changing national values & priorities, and traces the contours of collective conversations about national identity. She argues that the story of Australian identity is characterised by recurring cycles of anxiety & reassurance, which betray a deep underlying feeling of insecurity. Introducing the concept of ‘identity security’, she focuses on electoral language showing that election campaigns provide a valuable window into an overlooked part of Australia’s political & cultural history. ($55, PB)
The Future of Us: Demography gets a makeover by Dr Liz Allen ($30, PB)
We know what the population of Australia is. We know where these people live and where they were born. We know how many babies they are likely to have. We know what their life expectancy is. We know how educated they are and whether they’re working. Demographer Liz Allen explains what this all means and how we can use this information to make Australia better. Looking beyond births, deaths & marriages, Liz Allen takes apart inequality, migration, tax, home ownership, and dissects how the word ‘population’ became so charged, asking what Australia might look like in 20 years if we had zero migration. Allen’s book gives demography a makeover to create a better future for us.
17
Politics
How to Feed a Dictator by Witold Szablowski
What was Pol Pot eating while two million Cambodians were dying of hunger? Did Idi Amin really eat human flesh? And why was Fidel Castro obsessed with one particular cow? Travelling across 4 continents, from the ruins of Iraq to the savannahs of Kenya, Witold Szablowski (author of Dancing Bears: True Stories of People Nostalgic for Life Under Tyranny) tracked down the personal chefs of 5 dictators known for the oppression & massacre of their own citizens—Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Uganda’s Idi Amin, Albania’s Enver Hoxha, Cuba’s Fidel Castro, and Cambodia’s Pol Pot-and listened to their stories over sweet-and-sour soup, goat-meat pilaf, bottles of rum, and games of gin rummy—to offer a knife’s-edge view of what it was like to be behind the scenes at some of the turning points of the last century. ($30, PB)
Five Rules for Rebellion: Let’s Change the World Ourselves by Sophie Walker ($25, PB)
Sophie Walker, a long-time activist & journalist turned political party leader & ‘modern-day suffragette’ offers the future rebels & revolutionaries—women who are fed up & disempowered but uncertain of where to begin a 5-step journey to incorporating activism into their lives. Featuring tips from a number of leading activists, and drawing on Sophie’s own experiences, this book sees activism as a positive lifelong learning experience, rather than a series of pitched battles. Escape despair, learn how to channel your anger, arm yourselves with hope, engage with differing views compassionately, endure in the face of challenges, and convert your confusion & impatience into a force for good.
Gods and Demons by Deborah Cassrels ($35, PB)
In 2006, journalist Deborah Cassrels embarked on a personal odyssey to the Indonesian island of Bali. She was quickly enchanted by everything that most tourists find—its beauty, easy lifestyle, exotic culture, stunning beaches & striking landscapes. 3 years later she moved thereto be The Australian’s first Bali-based correspondent, covering events throughout Indonesia. Peeling back the tourist veneer, Cassrels soon found herself caught up in a tapestry of beauty, mystery, power, corruption & violence. From the newly jailed, reeling Bali Nine & the gruesome executions of their condemned bosses, to stories of shackled people, infamous terrorists, powerful tycoons & lavish royal celebrations, Cassrels reveals a hidden side to the mystical Hindu paradise & vast Indonesian archipelago in which all is not as it seems.
Democracy on the Road: A 25 Year Journey through India by Ruchir Sharma ($23, PB)
The Power Worshippers by Katherine Stewart
The Religious Right has long masqueraded as a social movement preoccupied with a number of cultural issues, such as abortion & same-sex marriage—but Katherine Stewart shows that America’s religious nationalists aren’t just fighting a culture war, they are waging a political war on the norms & institutions of American democracy. She pulls back the curtain on the inner workings & leading personalities of the movement, exposing a dense network of think tanks, advocacy groups & pastoral organisations embedded in a rapidly expanding community of international alliances— united not by any central command but by a shared, anti-democratic vision & a common will to power. She traces the money that fuels this movement to a cadre of super-wealthy, ultraconservative donors & family foundations. She shows that today’s Christian nationalism is the fruit of a longstanding antidemocratic, reactionary strain of American thought that draws on some of the most troubling episodes in America’s past. ($40, HB)
Deport, Deprive, Extradite: 21st Century State Extremism by Nisha Kapoor ($23, PB)
When Minh Pham was extradited from Britain to the US to face terrorism related charges, his appeal against the deprivation of his British citizenship was still pending. Soon after he arrived his appeal was lost and he was effectively made stateless. In looking at these stories of Muslim men accused of terrorism-related offences, Nisha Kapoor exposes how these racialised subjects are dehumanized, made non-human, both in terms of how they are represented & via the disciplinary techniques used to expel them. She explores how the establishment of these non-humans enables the expansion of inhumanity more broadly, targeting Muslims, people of colour, immigrants & refugees. In asking what such cases illuminate & legitimate about precariousness and dispossession, she offers a radical analysis of the contemporary security state.
Six Capitals: Updated Edition by Jane Gleeson-White ($25, PB)
Climate change is here and capitalism is implicated: it’s programmed to privilege profit and growth over human communities and the living earth. We need to change this system - and we need to do it now. Six Capitals charts the rise of four movements designed to overthrow capitalism as we know it: multi-capital accounting, for society, nature and profit; the push for a new corporation legally bound to benefit nature and society while making a profit; ecosystem accounting for nations; and legal rights for nature, which resonate with indigenous earth-centred laws. These movements are critical for the future of human life on this planet. This revised, updated edition is for the new generations of business leaders, entrepreneurs, activists, accountants, economists, scientists, farmers, food growers & distributors, teachers, parents, politicians, bureaucrats & concerned citizens everywhere.
For 2 decades bestselling author Ruchir Sharma has chased election campaigns across every major state in India, travelling the equivalent of a lap around the Earth. Ruchir & his fellow writers talk to farmers, shopkeepers & CEOs from Rajasthan to TaHidden Hand: Exposing How The Chinese Commil Nadu, and interview leaders from Narendra Modi to Rahul munist Party Is Reshaping The World Gandhi—offering an intimate view inside the lives and minds of by Clive Hamilton & Mareike Ohlberg ($33, PB) India’s political giants and its people, Sharma explains how the complex forces of With its enormous economic power, China is now a global politifamily, caste and community, economics and development, money & corruption, Bolcal & military force engaged in an ideological struggle with the lywood & Godmen, have conspired to elect & topple Indian leaders since Indira Gandhi. West. Combining a mass of evidence with unique insights, Clive The Progress of This Storm: Nature and Society in Hamilton & Mareike Ohlberg lay bare the nature & extent of the Chinese Communist Party’s influence operations across the a Warming World by Andreas Malm ($25, PB) Western world—in politics, business, universities, think tanks In a world careening towards climate chaos, nature is dead. It can & international institutions such as the UN. This new authoritarian power is no longer be separated from society. Everything is a blur of hyusing democracy to undermine democracy in pursuit of its global ambitions. brids, where humans possess no exceptional agency that sets them apart from dead matter. In this blistering polemic & theoretical Jacinda Ardern: A New Kind of Leader manifesto, Andreas Malm develops a contrary argument—in a by Madeleine Chapman ($35, PB) warming world, nature comes roaring back, and it is more imporNew Zealand’s prime minister has been hailed as a leader for tant than ever to distinguish between the natural & the social. Only a new generation, tired of inaction in the face of issues such with a unique agency attributed to humans can resistance become as climate change & far-right terrorism. Politically engaged & conceivable. Deflating several prominent currents in contempopassionate, Ardern has encountered her fair share of sexism, rary theory constructionism, hybridism, new materialism, posthumanism & submitting but rather than let that harden her, she advocates ‘rising above’ the influential work of Bruno Latour to particularly biting critique, Malm shows that disparagers. In her first press conference, she announced an action against fossil fuels is best served by a theory that takes nature, society & the dia- election campaign of ‘relentless positivity’. The tactic was a relectics between them very seriously indeed. sounding success—donations poured in & Labour rebounded in
Between Two Fires: Truth, Ambition & Compromise in Putin’s Russia by Joshua Yaffa ($30, PB)
Joshua Yaffa chronicles the lives of 8 ambitious Russians—from politicians & entrepreneurs to artists & historians—who have built their careers & constructed their identities in the shadow of the Putin system. Torn between their own ambitions & the omnipresent demands of the state, some muster cunning & cynicism to extract privileges from those in power while others are broken or demoralized. For each, the question of compromise—where to bend, how much & in the service of what goal—is ever-present. The result is an intimate & probing portrait of the way citizens shape their lives around the demands of a capricious & repressive state, which offers urgent lessons about the nature of modern authoritarianism.
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the polls. But has Ardern lived up to her promise? What political concessions has she had to make? Beyond the hype, what does her new style of leadership look like in practice?
Economics for the Many (ed) John McDonnell
Edited and with an introduction by Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer John McDonnell, this book features contributions from the participants in his New Economics conferences, including Barry Gardiner, Ann Pettifor, Prem Sikka & Guy Standing. It covers topics from housing, public ownership & fairer international trading systems to industrial policy for the 21st century & how to tackle tax avoidance & regional imbalances. Together, the essays in this volume lay out a vision for a new economics, one that works for the many, not the few. ($23, PB)
History
The SS Officer’s Armchair by Daniel Lee ($35, PB)
It began with the surprise discovery of a stash of personal documents covered in swastikas that had been sewn into an armchair’s cushion. This is the story of historian Daniel Lee’s trail of discovery—cold calls, documents, coincidences & family secrets, to uncover the life of one Dr Robert Griesinger from Stuttgart. Lee reveals the strange life of a man whose ambition propelled him to become part of the Nazi machinery of terror. He discovers unexpected ancestors in New Orleans, untold stories of SS life & family fragmentation. Lee’s historical detective story is an addition to our understanding of Nazi Germany and a chilling reminder of how such regimes are made not by monsters, but by ordinary people.
Coffeeland: A History by Augustine Sedgewick
Augustine Sedgewick’s book tells the surprising story of how coffee came to be such valuable commodity in the global economy & the world’s most popular drug. This story centres on the volcanic highlands of El Salvador, where James Hill, born in the slums of 19th century Manchester, founded one of the world’s great coffee dynasties. Adapting the innovations of the industrial revolution to plantation agriculture, Hill helped to turn El Salvador into perhaps the most intensive monoculture in modern history, a place of extraordinary productivity, inequality and violence. Sedgewick follows coffee from the Hill family plantations into the US, through San Francisco roasting plants into supermarkets, kitchens & work places, and finally into today’s omnipresent cafés—revealing the unexpected consequences of the rise of coffee, which reshaped large areas of the tropics, transformed understandings of energy, and ultimately made us dependent on a drug served in a cup. ($50, HB)
The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World & Globalization Began by Valerie Hansen
When did globalization begin? Most observers have settled on 1492, the year Columbus discovered America. But Valerie Hansen shows, it was the year 1000, when for the first time new trade routes linked the entire globe, so an object could in theory circumnavigate the world. Drawing on a wide range of new historical sources & cuttingedge archaeology, Hansen shows, for example, that the Maya began to trade with the native peoples of modern New Mexico from traces of theobromine—the chemical signature of chocolate—and that frozen textiles found in Greenland contain hairs from animals that could only have come from North America. This compelling revisionist argument shows how encounters between players from Europe, the Islamic world, Asia, the Indian Ocean maritime world, the Pacific and the Mayan world set the stage for the globalization that would dominate the world for centuries to come. ($40, HB)
The Children of Ash & Elm: A History of the Vikings by Neil Price ($60, HB)
The Viking Age—between 750 & 1050—saw an unprecedented expansion of the Scandinavian peoples. As traders & raiders, explorers & colonists, they reshaped the world between eastern North America & the Asian steppe. For a millennium, though, their history has largely been filtered through the writings of their victims. Based on the latest archaeological & textual evidence, Neil Price tells the story of the Vikings on their own terms—their politics, their cosmology, their art & culture. From Bjørn Ironside, who led an expedition to sack Rome, to Gudrid Thorbjarnardøttir, the most travelled woman in the world, Price reveals the real Vikings, not the caricatures they have become in popular culture & history.
The Habsburgs by Martyn Rady ($60, HB)
From modest origins, the Habsburgs grew in power to gain control of the Holy Roman Empire in the 15th century. Then, in just a few decades, their possessions rapidly expanded to take in a large part of Europe stretching from Hungary to Spain, and parts of the New World & the Far East. They continued to dominate Central Europe throughout the WW1. Historians often depict them as leaders of a ramshackle empire, but Martyn Rady reveals their enduring power, driven by the belief that they were destined to rule the world as defenders of the Roman Catholic Church, guarantors of peace & patrons of learning, in an the epic story of a dynasty & the world they built—and then lost—over nearly a millennium.
Lessons of Tragedy: Statecraft & World Order by Hal Brands & Charles Edel ($30, PB)
The ancient Greeks hard-wired a tragic sensibility into their culture. By looking disaster squarely in the face, by understanding just how badly things could spiral out of control, they sought to create a communal sense of responsibility & courage to spur citizens & their leaders to take the difficult actions necessary to avert such a fate. Today, after more than 70 years of great-power peace & a quarter-century of unrivalled global leadership, Americans have lost their sense of tragedy. This amnesia has become most pronounced just as Americans and the global order they created are coming under graver threat than at any time in decades. In a forceful argument that brims with historical sensibility and policy insights, two distinguished historians argue that a tragic sensibility is necessary if America and its allies are to address the dangers that menace the international order today.
Science & Nature
The Rules of Contagion: Why Things Spread and Why They Stop by Adam Kucharski
Why do some ideas take off & others fail to spread? Why are some diseases predictable & uncertain? And what about the outbreaks that never happen at all? Even as we see our lives being shaped by the spread of ideas, trends—and even diseases—we sometimes struggle to grasp how it actually works. Outbreaks seem to be driven by randomness & hidden laws— in this book epidemiologist Adam Kucharski reveals how new mathematical approaches are transforming what we know about contagion—from the revolutionary initiatives that helped tackle gun violence in Chicago to the truth behind the spread of fake news. He explains how innovations & emotions can spread through our friendship networks, what STDs can tell us about banking, and why some outbreak predictions go badly wrong. ($30, PB)
The Doctor Who Fooled the World by Brian Deer ($35, PB)
The news breaks first as a tale of fear & pity. Doctors at a London hospital claim a link between autism & a vaccine given to millions of children—MMR. Young parents are terrified. Immunisation rates slump. And as a worldwide ‘anti-vax’ movement kicks off, old diseases return to sicken & kill. But a veteran reporter isn’t so sure, and sets out on an epic investigation. Battling establishment cover-ups, smear campaigns & gagging lawsuits, he exposes rigged research & secret schemes, the heartbreaking plight of families struggling with disability, and the scientific deception of our time.
The Gospel of the Eels by Patrik Svensson
The European eel, Anguilla anguilla is born as a tiny willowleaf shaped larva in the Sargasso Sea, travels on the ocean currents toward the coasts of Europe—a journey of about 4000 miles that takes at least 2 years. Upon arrival, it transforms itself into a glass eel & then into a yellow eel before it wanders up into fresh water. It lives a solitary life, hiding from light & science both, for 10, 20, 50 years, before migrating back to the sea in the autumn, morphing into a silver eel & swimming all the way back to the Sargasso Sea, where it breeds & dies. And now the eel is disappearing, and no-one knows why. Patrik Svensson’s quite unique natural science memoir covers his ongoing fascination with this secretive fish, but also the equally perplexing & often murky relationship he shared with his father, whose only passion in life was fishing for this obscure creature. ($35, PB)
Fathoms: The world in the whale by Rebecca Giggs ($35, PB)
When Rebecca Giggs encountered a humpback whale stranded on her local beach in Australia, she began to wonder how the lives of whales might shed light on the condition of our seas. How do whales experience environmental change? Has our connection to these fabled animals been transformed by technology? What future awaits us, and them? And what does it mean to write about nature in the midst of an ecological crisis? In a blend of natural history, philosophy & science she introduces whales so rare they have never been named; tells us of the astonishing variety found in whale sounds, and of whale ‘pop’ songs that sweep across hemispheres; takes us into the deeps to discover that one whale’s death can spark a great flourishing of creatures; examines the uncanny charisma of these magnificent mammals, and confront the plastic pollution now pervading their underwater environment.
Multifarious Mr Banks by Toby Musgrave
As official botanist on James Cook’s first circumnavigation, the longest-serving president of the Royal Society, advisor to King George III, the ‘father of Australia’, and the man who established Kew as the world’s leading botanical garden, Sir Joseph Banks was integral to the English Enlightenment. From an early age he pursued his passion for natural history through study & extensive travel, most famously on the HMS Endeavour. He went on to become a pivotal figure in the advancement of British scientific, economic & colonial interests. With his enquiring, enterprising mind & extensive network of correspondents, Banks’s reputation & influence were global. Drawing widely on Banks’s writings, Toby Musgrave’s new biography sheds light on Banks’s profound impact on British science & empire in an age of rapid advancement. ($60, HB)
Budgerigar by Sarah Harris & Don Baker
Wild or tamed budgerigars are Australia’s gift to the bird world. They sing & dance, and yawn as contagiously as humans. They are masters of mimicry. They grasp simple grammar, can count to 6 & have memories that belie their size. They’ve been coveted by royals & been companions to the great & famous as well as grannies in suburban kitchens around the world. Surprising, charming and occasionally alarming, this the book that at last opens the cage door on the incredible story of the little bird that grew. ($30,PB)
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Poetry
Throat by Ellen van Neerven ($25, PB)
In her 2nd collection award-winning Mununjali Yugambeh writer Ellen van Neerven explores love, language & land, flexing their distinctive muscles & shining a light on Australia’s unreconciled past & precarious present with humour & heart. Unsparing in the interrogation of colonial impulse, and fiercely loyal to telling the stories that make us who we are.
Fire Front: First Nations poetry and power today (ed) Alison Whittaker ($25, PB)
Curated by Gomeroi poet & academic Alison Whittaker, this collection showcases Australia’s First Nations poets old & new, including Oodgeroo Noonuccal, Ruby Langford Ginibi, Ellen van Neerven, Tony Birch, Claire G. Coleman, Evelyn Araluen, Jack Davis, Kevin Gilbert, Lionel Fogarty, Sam Wagan Watson, Ali Cobby Eckermann, Archie Roach & Alexis Wright. Divided into 5 thematic sections, each introduced by an essay by Bruce Pascoe, Ali Cobby Eckermann, Chelsea Bond, Evelyn Araluen & Steven Oliver.
Homer Street by Laurie Duggan ($24, PB)
Laurie Duggan’s new collection contributes to 2 on-going sequences, Allotments, and Blue Hills, which alludes to the long-running domestic radio serial of the same name. These are made up of the brief haiku-like poems—impressions, mysterious conjunctions, oddities & contradictions, the small details that express large forces, as in his observations of the landscape, the weather, domestic & suburban settings. In the final section, Afterimages, Duggan offers descriptions of paintings & comments on artists, and sometimes imaginary constructions of what a particular artist might have done.
Infernal Topographies by Mr Graeme Miles
The infernal topographies of the title of this collection are more psychological than geographical, though physical travel & the infusing of the past into the present are also at issue. Driven in part by the anxieties of time & mortality that have always been at the root of lyric, these poems are also shaped by the pressure of the likely collapse of the current social order, and by impending and current extinctions. Weaving the domestic, the oneiric & the outside worlds, these are poems that try to find a place from which to speak & think when so much seems to be ending. ($23, PB)
Turbulence by Thuy On
In this intensely personal collection, On explores loss, separation and renewal, online dating, sex, longing, rejection and desire. Though they are personal and confessional, taken from the authors own life, these poems speak to anyone who’s ever loved and lost. Filled with short sharp burst of emotion, this stunning debut seeks to untangle the messiness of human relationships. ($23, PB)
Ask Me About the Future by Rebecca Jessen
Rebecca Jessen’s poems map constellations of desire, loss & longing. Riffing on the future (which isn’t what it used to be), dating apps, despair, Bonnie Tyler, Taylor Swift & the lesbian Bachelorette, they are set in interstellar queer utopias, maternity wards & single beds.These are poems of sly surprises, radical vulnerability, dark-edged humour & vast originality. Following Jessen’s award-winning verse novel, Gap,this collection confirms Jessen as one of the most engaging and talented writers of her generation. ($24, PB)
Homeland Calling: Words from a New Gen. of Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Voices Edited by Ellen van Neerven, this collection is written by First Nations youth from communities all around Australia, the powerful words display a maturity beyond their years. These young people are the future, and their passion for their culture, languages and homelands is beyond inspiring. All royalties from the sale of the book will go towards Desert Pea Media’s training and development programs in Indigenous communities. ($24, PB)
The Complete Lyrics 1978-2020 by Nick Cave ($24, PB)
‘I walk into the corner of my room, see my friends in high places. I don’t know which is which and whom is whom, they’ve stolen each other’s faces’ Spanning Nick Cave’s entire career, from his writing for The Birthday Party, through highly acclaimed albums like Murder Ballads, Henry’s Dream and DIG, LAZARUS, DIG!!! up to his latest release, Ghosteen, this is a must-have book
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Philosophy & Religion Art of Solitude by Stephen Batchelor ($40, HB)
When world Buddhist writer Stephen Batchelor turned 60, he took a sabbatical from his teaching & turned his attention to solitude, a practice integral to the meditative traditions he has long studied & taught. He aimed to venture more deeply into solitude, discovering its full extent & depth. This beautiful literary collage documents his multifaceted explorations. Spending time in remote places, appreciating & making art, practicing meditation & participating in retreats, drinking peyote & ayahuasca, and training himself to keep an open, questioning mind have all contributed to Batchelor’s ability to be simultaneously alone & at ease. Mixed in with his personal narrative are inspiring stories from solitude’s devoted practitioners, from the Buddha to Montaigne, and from Vermeer to Agnes Martin.
In Search of Sacred Time: Jacobus de Voragine & The Golden Legend by Jacques Le Goff ($50, PB)
It is impossible to understand the Middle Ages without grasping the importance of The Golden Legend—the most popular medieval collection of saints’ lives. Assembled in the 13th century by Genoese archbishop Jacobus de Voragine, the book became the medieval equivalent of a bestseller. Renowned medievalist, Jacques Le Goff, offers a comprehensive history & interpretation of this crucial book. In a major reinterpretation of a book that is central to comprehending the medieval imagination account, Le Goff shows how The Golden Legend Christianised time itself, reconciling human & divine temporality.
The Beginnings of Philosophy in Greece by Maria Michela Sassi ($45, PB)
The beginnings of the long process leading to philosophy were characterized by intellectual diversity and geographic polycentrism. In the sixth and fifth centuries, between the Asian shores of Ionia and the Greek city-states of southern Italy, thinkers started to reflect on the cosmic order, elaborate doctrines on the soul, write in solemn Homeric meter, or, later, abandon poetry for an assertive prose. And yet the Presocratics—whether the Milesian natural thinkers, the rhapsode Xenophanes, the mathematician & ‘shaman’ Pythagoras, the naturalist & seer Empedocles, the oracular Heraclitus, or the inspired Parmenides—all shared an approach to critical thinking that, by questioning traditional viewpoints, revolutionised knowledge. This unique study, available for the first time in English, explores the full range of early Greek thinkers in the context of their worlds. It features a new preface to the English edition in which Sassi discusses the latest scholarship on the subject.
An Ethical Guidebook to the Zombie Apocalypse: by Bryan Hall ($35, PB)
When your base camp is overrun by zombies, whom do you save if you cannot save everyone? Is it permissible to sacrifice one survivor to an undead horde in order to save a greater number of the living? Do you have obligations to loved ones who have turned? Bryan Hall uses situations like these to creatively introduce the foundational theories of moral philosophy, covering major thinkers such as Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, and John Stuart Mill. Written from the perspective of someone struggling to survive in a world overrun by the undead, each chapter begins with graphic art and a ‘field exercise’ that uses a story from Zombie world to illustrate an ethical problem. By considering moral controversies through the context of a zombie apocalypse, the morally irrelevant factors that get in the way of resolving these controversies are removed & you can better answer questions such as: Do we have a moral obligation to help those less fortunate than ourselves? Is it ever morally permissible to intentionally kill an innocent person? Are non-rational but sentient beings morally considerable?
Kant’s Philosophical Revolution: A Short Guide to the Critique of Pure Reason by Yirmiyahu Yovel
Perhaps the most influential work of modern philosophy, Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason is also one of the hardest to read, since it brims with complex arguments, difficult ideas & tortuous sentences. In this short, accessible book, Yirmiyahu Yovel helps readers find their way through the maze of Kant’s classic by providing a clear & authoritative summary of the entire work. The distillation of decades of studying & teaching Kant, Yovel’s ‘systematic explication’ untangles the ideas and arguments of the Critique in the order in which Kant presents them—an invaluable guide for philosophers and students. ($40, PB)
Idleness: A Philosophical Essay by Brian O’Connor
We’re all expected to work to survive & get ahead, and devoting energy to anything but labour & self-improvement can seem like a luxury or a moral failure. Far from questioning this conventional wisdom, modern philosophers have entrenched it, viewing idleness as an obstacle to the ethical need people have to be autonomous, to be useful, to contribute to the social good, or simply to avoid boredom. Brian O’Connor argues that the case against an indifference to work & effort is flawed—and that idle aimlessness may instead allow for the highest form of freedom. ($33, PB)
How to Drink: A Classical Guide to the Art of ImThe Inner Self: The joy of discovering who we bibing by Vincent Obsopoeus ($34, HB) Is there an art to drinking alcohol? Can drinking ever be a virtue? really are by Hugh Mackay ($35, PB)
The Renaissance humanist & neoclassical poet Vincent Obsopoeus (1498—1539) thought so. In the winelands of 16th century Germany, he witnessed the birth of a poisonous new culture of bingeing, hazing, peer pressure & competitive drinking. Inspired by the Roman poet Ovid’s Art of Love, he wrote The Art of Drinking (De Arte Bibendi) (1536)—arguing that moderation, not abstinence, is the key to lasting sobriety, and that drinking can be a virtue if it is done with rules & limits. Obsopoeus teaches how to manage your drinking, how to win friends at social gatherings, and how to give a proper toast. However he also suggests that drinking to excess on occasion is fine, and offers tips on how to win drinking games, citing extensive personal experience. Complete with the original Latin on facing pages, this new translation is as intoxicating today as when it was first published.
Radical Sacrifice by Terry Eagleton ($33, PB)
The modern conception of sacrifice is at once cast as a victory of self-discipline over desire & condescended to as destructive & archaic abnegation. In this analysis, Terry Eagleton makes a compelling argument that the idea of sacrifice has long been misunderstood. Pursuing the complex lineage of sacrifice in a lyrical discourse, Eagleton focuses on the Old & New Testaments, offering a virtuosic analysis of the crucifixion, while drawing together a host of philosophers, theologians & texts—from Hegel, Nietzsche & Derrida to the Aeneid and The Wings of the Dove. Brilliant meditations on death & eros, Shakespeare & St Paul, irony & hybridity explore the meaning of sacrifice in modernity, casting off misperceptions of barbarity to reconnect the radical idea to politics & revolution.
Drawing on a lifetime of research Hugh Mackay’s new book is about the ways we hide from the truth about ourselves & the psychological freedom we enjoy when we finally face that most searching question of all: ‘Who am I, really?’ He explores our ‘top 20’ hiding places - from addiction to materialism, nostalgia to victimhood. He explains how it is our fear of love’s demands that drive us into hiding. He argues that love is our highest ideal, the richest source of life’s meaning & purpose, and the key to our emotional security, personal serenity & confidence. Yet Mackay exposes the great paradox of human nature, that while love brings out our best, we don’t always want our best brought forward.
Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker ($33, PB)
After World War II, Don Galvin’s work with the Air Force brought them to Colorado, where their 12 children perfectly spanned the baby boom: the oldest born in 1945, the youngest in 1965. The established script for a family like the Galvins was aspiration, hard work, upward mobility, domestic harmony. But behind the scenes was a different story: psychological breakdown, sudden shocking violence, hidden abuse. By the mid-1970s, 6 of the ten Galvin boys, one after the other, were diagnosed as schizophrenic—the Galvins became one of the first families to be studied by the National Institutes of Mental Health. Their story offers a shadow history of the science of schizophrenia, from the era of institutionalization, lobotomy & the schizophrenogenic mother, to the search for genetic markers for the disease. Samples of their DNA informed decades of genetic research that continues today, offering paths to treatment, prediction, and even eradication of the disease.
Passion for Ignorance: What We Choose Not to Losing Eden: Why Our Minds Need the Wild Know and Why by Renata Salecl ($50, HB) by Lucy Jones ($40, HB)
In our post-truth, postindustrial world we are often overwhelmed by the constant flood of information & misinformation, and there has been a backlash against the idea of expertise, and a rise in the number of people actively choosing not to know. Renata Salecl argues that there may also be a positive side to ignorance, and that, by addressing its role in society, we may be able to reclaim the role of knowledge. Drawing on philosophy, social & psychoanalytic theory, popular culture & her own experience, Salecl explores how the passion for ignorance plays out in many different aspects of life today, from love, illness, trauma, and the fear of failure to genetics, forensic science, big data, and the Incel movement—concluding that ignorance is a complex phenomenon that can, on occasion, benefit individuals and society as a whole—a fascinating investigation of how the knowledge economy became an ignorance economy, what it means for us, and what it tells us about the world today.
Psychology The Great Pretender by Susannah Cahalan
For centuries, doctors have struggled to define mental illness— how do you diagnose it, how do you treat it, how do you even know what it is? In search of an answer, in the 1970s a Stanford psychologist named David Rosenhan and 7 other people—sane, normal, well-adjusted members of society—went undercover into asylums around America to test the legitimacy of psychiatry’s labels. Forced to remain inside until they’d ‘proven’ themselves sane, all 8 emerged with alarming diagnoses & even more troubling stories of their treatment. Rosenhan’s watershed study broke open the field of psychiatry, closing down institutions & changing mental health diagnosis forever. But, as Cahalan’s new research shows, very little in this saga is exactly as it seems. What really happened behind those closed asylum doors, and what does it mean for our understanding of mental illness today? ($35, HB)
Innate: How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are by Kevin J. Mitchell ($40, PB)
What makes you the way you are—and what makes each of us different from everyone else? Leading neuroscientist Kevin Mitchell traces human diversity & individual differences to their deepest level: in the wiring of our brains. He guides the reader through important new research, including his own groundbreaking work, and explains how variations in the way our brains develop before birth strongly influence our psychology & behaviour throughout our lives, shaping our personality, intelligence, sexuality & even the way we perceive the world. He explores the genetic & neural underpinnings of disorders such as autism, schizophrenia & epilepsy, and how our understanding of these conditions is being revolutionised, and examines the social & ethical implications of these ideas & of new technologies that may soon offer the means to predict or manipulate human traits.
Also New: Hysteria: A memoir of illness, strength & women’s stories throughout history by Katerina Bryant ($30, PB)
In the moment of our great migration away from the rest of nature, more & more scientific evidence is emerging to confirm its place at the heart of our psychological wellbeing. Travelling from forest schools in East London, to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, via Poland’s primeval woodlands, Californian laboratories & ecotherapists’ couches, Lucy Jones takes us to the cutting edge of human biology, neuroscience & psychology, and discovers new ways of understanding our increasingly dysfunctional relationship with the earth. Losing Eden is a rallying cry for a wilder way of life—for finding asylum in the soil & joy in the trees—which might just help us to save the living planet, as well as ourselves, from a future of ecological grief.
Nerve: A Personal Journey Through the Science of Fear by Eva Holland ($33, PB)
In 2015, Eva Holland confronted her greatest fear when her mother unexpectedly had a stroke & died. After the shock & grief subsided, Holland went on a deep dive into the science of fear, digging into an array of universal & personal questionsWhy do we feel fear? Where do phobias come from & how are they related to anxiety disorders & trauma? Can you really smell fear? What would it be like to feel no fear? Is there a cure for fear? Or, put differently, is there a better way to feel afraid? Holland meets with scientists who are working to eliminate phobias with a single pill, she explores the lives of the few individuals who suffer from a rare disease that prevents them from ever feeling fear, and she immerses herself in her own fears, including hurling herself out of a plane (and in the process, learns that there are right & wrong ways to face your fears).
Thinking Matter: Our Quest to Understand the Brain by Matthew Cobb ($60, HB)
We’ve been trying to make sense of the link between our minds & our bodies since the very dawn of civilisation. Matthew Cobb explores the weird theories, blasphemous experiments & terrifying operating theatres that got us to the cusp of revelation. Spanning the centuries he reveals how the lives & works of a parade of philosophers, surgeons, mystics & neuroscientists have shaped the way we understand ourselves at the most profound level. From primitive dissections to the latest complex computational models of brain function, he charts the course of this continuing quest looking toward the discoveries to come.
Into the Abyss: A Neuropsychiatrist’s Notes on Troubled Minds by Anthony David ($30, PB)
Even for some of the most common mental health problems, three specialists might offer you 3 completely different treatments. Patrick believes he is dead; Jennifer’s schizophrenia medication seems to bring on the symptoms of Parkinson’s; Emma is in a coma—or is she just refusing to respond? The key for each patient might be anything from a traumatic memory to a chemical imbalance, an unhealthy way of thinking or a hidden tumour. These are the fascinating case studies that have driven the most startling insights in cognitive neuropsychiatrist, Anthony David 40-year career studying illnesses at the edge of human understanding.
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Cultural Studies & Criticism
Friends and Rivals: Four Great Australian Writers by Brenda Niall ($35, PB)
Four Australian women writing in the late 19th & early 20th centuries—a time when stories of bush heroism & mateship abounded, a time when a writing career might be an elusive thing for a woman. In this engaging account of the intersecting & entwined lives of Ethel Turner, author of the much loved Seven Little Australians, Barbara Baynton, who wrote of the harshness of bush life, Nettie Palmer, essayist & critic, and Henry Handel Richardson, of The Getting of Wisdom & The Fortunes of Richard Mahoney fame, Brenda Niall illuminates a fascinating time in Australia’s literary history & brings to life the remarkable women who made it so.
City of Trees: Essays on Life, Death and the Need for a Fores by Sophie Cunningham
Criminal justice systems have not been designed to seek the truth. In places like Australia, it remains an adversarial blood sport often distracted by smoke & mirrors. Drawing on his experiences as a child of Burmese migrants fleeing a military junta & his evolution from a naive law clerk, too shy to speak, into a lawyer whose ponytailed flamboyance & unbridled willingness to speak truth to power riled many within the legal establishment, Andrew Boe delves into cases that he found unable to leave behind. From a suicide in the Gibson Desert to a death on Palm Island, places where race relations are often stalled in a colonial time warp; an isolated rural home, and the question of what is self-defence after a woman’s decades of domestic abuse to children abandoned, ‘stolen’ & then fought over—Boe holds fast to the premise that either every one of us is entitled to the presumption of innocence or none of us are.
Little History of Poetry by John Carey
Reasons for Transitioning—Want to impress good-looking ex; Want to upset good-looking ex; Bored of existing wardrobe, looking for excuse to buy all-new clothes that don’t fit in a new way; Younger siblings getting too much attention; Neoliberalism??; Want to sing both parts of a duet at karaoke; Something about upper-body strength; Excited to reinforce a different set of sexist stereotypes; Cheaper haircuts; Just love layering shirts ... From the writer behind The Toast and Slate’s ‘Dear Prudence’ column comes a personal essay collection exploring popular culture, literature, religion & sexuality—with Ortberg revisiting beloved cultural & literary figures in the light of his transition.
In these moving, thought-provoking essays Sophie Cunningham considers the meaning of trees & our love of them. She chronicles the deaths of both her fathers, and the survival of P-22, a mountain lion in Griffith Park, Los Angeles; contemplates the loneliness of Ranee, the first elephant in Australia; celebrates the iconic eucalyptus & explores its international status as an invasive species. This is a powerful collection of nature, travel & memoir writing set in the context of global climate change. It meanders through, circles around & sometimes faces head on the most pressing issues of the day. It never loses sight of the trees. ($20, PB)
What is poetry? If music is sound organised in a particular way, poetry is a way of organising language. It is language made special so that it will be remembered & valued. It does not always work—over the centuries countless thousands of poems have been forgotten. In this history John Carey tells the stories behind the great & unforgotten poems, from the oldest surviving one written nearly 4000 years ago to those being written today. He looks at poets whose works shape our views of the world, such as Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Whitman & Yeats. And he also looks at more recent poets, like Derek Walcott, Marianne Moore & Maya Angelou, who have started to question what makes a poem ‘great’ in the first place. Carey shines a light on the richness & variation of the world’s poems—and the elusive quality that makes them all the more enticing. ($40, HB)
Recollections of My Non-Existence by Rebecca Solnit ($35, HB)
In 1981, Rebecca Solnit rented a studio apartment in San Francisco that would be her home for the next twenty-five years. There, she began to come to terms with the epidemic of violence against women around her, the street harassment that unsettled her, and the authority figures that routinely disbelieved her. That violence weighed on her as she faced the task of having a voice in a society that preferred women to shut up or go away. Recalling the experience of living with fear, which Solnit contends is the normal state of women, she considers how oppression impacts on creativity and recounts the struggle to find a voice and have it be heard. Solnit’s latest book is an electric account of the pauses & gains of feminism in the past 40 years; and an extraordinary portrait of an artist.
No Visible Bruises: What we don’t know about domestic violence can kill us by Rachel Louise Snyder ($35, PB)
An average of 137 women are killed by familial violence across the globe every day. In the UK alone, two women die each week at the hands of their partners, and in the US domestic violence homicides have risen by 32 percent since 2017. Rachel Snyder reports from the front lines of the epidemic—interviewing men who have murdered their families, women who have nearly been murdered, and people who have grown up besieged by familial aggression to paint a vivid & nuanced picture of its reality. She talks to experts in violence prevention & law enforcement, revealing how domestic abuse has its roots in our education, economic, health & justice systems, and how by tackling these origins we can render it preventable.
I Know this to be True ($18 each) Waleed Aly: On sincerity, compassion & integrity Greta Thunberg: On truth, courage & saving our planet Gloria Steinem: On integrity, empathy & authenticity Ruth Bader Ginsburg On equality, determination & service
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The Truth Hurts by Andrew Boe ($33, PB)
Something That May Shock and Discredit You by Daniel Mallory Ortberg ($30, PB)
No Rules Rules: Netflix & the Culture of Reinvention by Reed Hastings & Erin Meyer ($35, PB)
Hard work is irrelevant. Be radically honest. Adequate performance gets a generous severance. And never, ever try to please your boss. These are some of the ground rules if you work at Netflix. They are part of a unique cultural experiment that explains how the company has transformed itself at lightning speed from a DVD mail order service into a streaming superpower—with 125 million fervent subscribers & a market capitalisation bigger than Disney. Netflix Chairman and CEO shares the secrets that have revolutionised the entertainment & tech industries. From unlimited holidays to abolishing financial approvals, Netflix offers a fundamentally different way to run any organisation, one far more in tune with a fast-paced world. For anyone interested in creativity, productivity and innovation, the Netflix culture is something close to a holy grail.
Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women that White Feminists Forgot by Mikki Kendall ($30, PB) All too often the focus of mainstream feminism is not on basic survival for the many, but on increasing privilege for the few. Meeting basic needs is a feminist issue. Food insecurity, the living wage and access to education are feminist issues. The fight against racism, ableism & transmisogyny are all feminist issues. White feminists often fail to see how race, class, sexual orientation & disability intersect with gender. How can feminists stand in solidarity as a movement when there is a distinct likelihood that some women are oppressing others? Hood Feminism is both an irrefutable indictment of a movement in flux & also clear-eyed assessment of how to save it.
Fake Law: The Truth About Justice in an Age of Lies The Secret Barrister ($35, PB)
Could the courts really order the death of your innocent baby? Was there an illegal immigrant who couldn’t be deported because he had a pet cat? Are unelected judges truly enemies of the people? Most of us think the law is only relevant to criminals, if we even think of it at all. But the law touches every area of our lives: from intimate family matters to the biggest issues in our society. Our unfamiliarity is dangerous because it makes us vulnerable to media spin, political lies & the kind of misinformation that frequently comes from loud-mouthed amateurs & those with vested interests. Thankfully, the Secret Barrister is back to reveal the stupidity, malice & incompetence behind many of the biggest legal stories of recent years, in an hilarious, alarming & eye-opening defence against the abuse of our law, our rights & our democracy.
wow, no thank you. by Samantha Irby ($23, PB)
Staring down the barrel of her 40th year, NYT journalist Samantha Irby is confronting the ways her life has changed since the days she could work a full 11 hour shift on 4 hours of sleep, change her shoes & put mascara on in the back of a moving cab & go from drinks to dinner to the club without a second thought. Recently, things are more ‘Girls Gone Mild’, and in this book of essays Irby discusses the actual nightmare of living in a rural idyll, weighs in on body negativity (loving yourself is a full-time job with shitty benefits) & poses the essential question: Sure sex is fun but have you ever googled a popular meme?
Now in B Format Wordy by Simon Schama, $23 Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell, $23 Greek To Me by Mary Norris, $23
Winner of the Indie Book Award for Debut Fiction 2020
SUZANNE DANIEL ‘Allegra drew me into her life from the first page and I didn’t want to leave. Funny, smart, tender and wise, this is a book to curl up with by the fire...I loved it.’ Liz Byrski
From the author of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up
MARIE KONDO
Find your focus – wherever you’re working – with Joy at Work. Marie Kondo believes the key is creating a healthy environment, having a consistent routine, taking time to recharge and accepting that, yes, sometimes things are going to be chaotic.
From the award-winning author of Station Eleven
THE GLASS HOTEL E M I LY S T. J O H N M A N D E L ‘No one can create beautiful, enmeshed, startlingly clever worlds the way Mandel does. A new novel by her is a cause for enormous, tumultuous celebration.’ Daisy Johnson
Love talking about books? Find us online at Pan Macmillan Australia
Pedantic: A hilarious and useful guide to the 100 terms smart people should know by Ross Petras & Kathryn Petras ($20, PB)
Your boss makes a joke about Schrodinger’s cat—something you’ve heard of, but what exactly happened (or didn’t happen) with that cat? Or you’re reading a New Yorker article that explains that ‘Solecism slipped into solipsism into fullblown narcissistic projection.’ An excellent point—if you know what ‘solecism’ means—or, for that matter, ‘solipsism’. Covering the worlds of science, the arts & philosophy, Ross & Kathryn Petras explore broad topics, like quantum physics & ontology, and more specific ones, like shibboleth & bête noire. From oft heard Latin phrases (prima facie, sui generis and the like) to those pesky words that have entered our vocabularies from other languages (bildungsroman, sturm und drang), this book will inform and delight even the most pernickety word nerds.
Thinking Inside the Box: Adventures with Crosswords & the Puzzling People Who Can’t Live Without Them by Adrienne Raphel
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KAT NIP Alley Kat Blues ($20, HB): Kat Scratch Fever ($20, HB) by Karen Kijewski It seems to be a habit of mine to ‘discover’ an entertaining ‘new’ detective series that most people—and I daresay, many of my crime fiction enthusiast colleagues at Gleebooks—were enjoying more then two decades ago. Between 1988 and 1998, California-born crime writer Karen Kijewski (pron. KiJEFF-ski), wrote nine novels featuring the hard-boiled, thirty-something, Sacramento Private Investigator, Kat Colorado. They have titles such as Katwalk, Katapult, Wild Kat, Honky Tonk Kat, Copy Kat, etc. The two titles featured are Books 6 and 8 in the series. I thoroughly enjoyed both. They are intriguing mysteries with the relatively straightforward, linear narrative that this occasional crime fiction reader requires: i.e., the crime, the investigation—with various twists and turns—and then everything explained clearly at the end. As well as this, these novels have just the right amount of jaunty swagger and wise cracking dialogue necessary for our redoubtable P.I. dealing with (often) overbearing clients, suspects and exasperated or often slow on the uptake (mostly) male law enforcement officials—especially one that Kat is romantically involved with. Short chapters, with headings such as Snoop du Jour, Only the Lonely and On the Prowl add to the fun. As does being reminded of the (now forgotten) technology and practices that P.I.s dealt with less than two decades ago. Such as hand written phone messages left on the desk, fax machines, checking daily newspapers to locate specific addresses and laboriously following (actual) paper trails to uncover and prove criminal misdeeds or such like. Now for the bad news. After seeking out the other titles in this series, I found that all but one, Kat’s Cradle (1992) Pb. $13.99, are Out of Print. Ms Kijewski is now in retirement, so there will be no further Kat chronicles. Seek these out where you can. The Scarlet Thread: Australia’s Jack the Ripper—A True Crime Story by Maurice Gurvich and Christopher Wray ($20, PB) ‘Diabolical Murder: A woman’s body found under a hearthstone’—The Age Newspaper, Melbourne. 4 March 1892. Frederick Bailey Deeming (1853-1892) was a multiple larcenist, fraudster, bigamist and murderer. His life and gruesome crimes—in two countries—are narrated here in this splendidly researched book. Deeming, born in England, claimed he was epileptic since 18 and that he (and his parents) had spent years in asylums. He was at any rate, a cunning and devious fantasist and serial killer who went under numerous aliases and occupations, among them: Harry Lawson (an Australian sheep farmer); Albert Williams (Army Inspector) and ‘Baron’ Swanston. His murder of his first wife and four children in Rainhill, England in July 1891 and the killing of his second in Melbourne in December 1891 led newspapers—and some later historians—to speculate the he was in fact the Whitechapel murderer, Jack the Ripper. Deeming’s defence counsel, (future Prime Minister) Alfred Deakin, argued a defence of insanity. Convicted of murder on 2 May 1892, Deeming used the three weeks of an unsuccessful appeal to the Privy Council to write poetry: ‘The Jury listened well to the yarn I had to tell, But they sent me straight to hell.’ As well as an autobiography, which was destroyed. The Last Victim: The Extraordinary Life of Florence Maybrick, the Wife of Jack the Ripper by Anne E. Graham and Carol Emmas ($20, HC) Even if she was not married to ‘Jack the Ripper’, American born Florence Chandler’s ill-fated union to Liverpool cotton merchant, James Maybrick in 1881, resulted in personal tragedy enough for the young wife. Maybrick was notorious philanderer and perpetual hypochondriac. He self-administered a bewildering variety of medicines including included regular doses arsenic, believed to act as a tonic and an aphrodisiac. Her husband’s death from arsenic poisoning in 1889, led to Florence being convicted of his murder, in one of the most controversial—and notorious—trials in British legal history. Her death sentence commuted to life imprisonment, she spent 14 years in various prisons, undertaking gruelling hard labour or in solitary confinement, often under the strict silence rule. The psychological toll this placed on her was described in her own book, My Fifteen Lost Years. Returning to the US, Florence lived out her ruined life as a recluse. She died destitute and alone in a small farmhouse in Connecticut, aged 79. The case inspired dozens of non-fiction works, as well as novels by authors such as Dorothy Sayers and Peter Ackroyd. The case for James Maybrick being the Ripper was based on the ‘discovery’ of Maybrick’s diary by Michael Barrett in which he confesses to be Jack. In 1995, Barrett confessed to writing the diary himself, describing the process of counterfeiting the diary in detail.
The crossword was invented in 1913, almost by accident, when a newspaper editor at the New York World was casting around for something to fill some empty column space for that year’s Christmas edition. Almost overnight, it became a roaring commercial success, and ever since then has been an essential ingredient of any newspaper worth its salt. Paradoxically, its popularity has never been greater, even as the world of media & newspapers, its natural habitat, has undergone a perilous digital transformation. Blending first-person reporting from the world of crosswords with a delightful telling of its rich literary history, Adrienne Raphel dives into the secrets of this classic global pastime. At the annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, she rubs shoulders with elite solvers of the world, doing her level best to hold her own; aboard a crossword-themed cruise Ripper Update: In Jan 2020, The Journal of Forensic Sciences (65) 1 pp.295-302, published an article entitled she picks the brains of the enthusiasts Forensic Investigation of a Shawl Linked to the Jack the Ripper Murders. These were the results of a second DNA whose idea of a good time is a week on the test (the first was undertaken in 2014) on the samples found on the shawl of Catherine Eddowes (1842–1888), the high seas with nothing but crosswords to fourth of the ‘canonical’ five Ripper victims. This item is the only remaining physical evidence—that we know of— do; and, visiting the home & office of Will linked to these murders, found at the crime scene.The DNA test results, from maternal descendants of both victim Shortz, NYT crossword puzzle editor & and suspect, matched: Catherine Eddowes was murdered by Aaron Kosminski (1865-1919), a Polish barber, resident US National Public Radio’s official Puzin Whitechapel. His appearance also matched the only reliable eyewitness description we have of the Whitechapel zlemaster, she goes behind the scenes to killer. As well, senior police officers investigating the Whitechapel murders at the time, Assistant Commissioner see for herself how the world’s gold standRobert Anderson (1841-1918) and Chief Inspector Donald Swanson (1848-1924), both named Kosminski as a chief ard of puzzles is made. ($30, PB) suspect in private correspondence, revealed decades later. Case closed? Stephen
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Mezoamerican Month
The Aztecs of Mexico by G.C. Valliant The Daily Life of the Aztecs on the Eve of the Spanish Conquest by Jacques Soustelle Mexico: From the Olmecs to the Aztecs by Michael D. Coe, Javier Urcid & Rex Koontz The Maya by Michael D. Coe & Stephen Houston The Art of Mesoamerica: From Olmec to Aztec by Mary Ellen Miller Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs by Camilla Townsend I recently read of the death of Michael Coe (1929–2019). He was one of the
great archaeologists and historians of our era. He specialised in the study of preColumbian Mesoamerican civilisations. Mesoamerica is the historical and cultural region in North America that extends from central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica, and describes the pre-Columbian societies which flourished within this area. Some decades ago, a youthful interest in Ancient Central American civilisations was sparked by reading my favourite comics—The Adventures of Uncle Scrooge McDuck—who was constantly setting off to find various buried treasure, Aztec, Inca or Mayan, with his nephews Donald and Huey, Dewey and Louie in tow. After this, came issues of National Geographic, throughout the late 1960s, that would regularly feature colour supplements on new archaeological discoveries. As a teenager, I became fascinated by these civilisations—especially the Aztecs—after reading my parent’s copy of G.C. Vaillant’s Aztecs of Mexico, which is still being reprinted into the early 1970s. George Vaillant (1901–1945) and his wife Susannah (1908–1995), spent a decade conducting meticulous archaeological excavations in central America. His synthesis of Aztec culture became a bestseller. A second, revised edition was written by Susannah after his early death. I still recall the chapter in which the reader is taken on a walk through the capital, Tenochtitlan, at the height of the Aztec Empire in 1519 CE. A man-made island city some 8 to 13 sq. km large—comparable in size to Rome. Built in the middle of the great salt water Lake Texcoco, which itself covered over 5, 400 sq. kms. A ‘shimmering, aquatic world’ of gardens, canals, aqueducts, orderly streets, bridges and causeways, a grand palace, a pyramid at the centre, with a population of 50,000 (which rivalled London or Seville). Tenochtitlan rose like a dream to the eyes of the Spaniards who first saw it. It is now the site of Mexico City. At its greatest extent, the Aztec domain covered over 128,000 sq. kms throughout central Mexico, from the Gulf Coast to the Pacific Ocean, and south to modern day Guatemala. The Aztec Empire was a final, brilliant burst before the arrival of Spanish Conquistadors under Hernán Cortés in 1519. With the aid of an alliance of Aztec enemies and rivals, the ensuing conflict saw their downfall in 1521. Another informative Aztec history work I enjoyed was Jacques Soustelle’s elegantly written book ($54, PB). Soustelle (1912–1990) was not only a renowned anthropologist, he was also a leader of the Free French Resistance forces during the WW2, became Governor of Algeria and a member of Charles DeGaulle’s post-war government. Of course, I then found that these Mesoamerican civilisations seemed a varied, puzzling, alphabet soup of names: Aztecs, Olmecs, Mayas, Zapotecs, Toltecs. Thankfully, this confusion was ended in 1977, when I purchased a new, Second Edition copy of Michael Coe’s Mexico (it was originally published in 1962). The decades pass. Now, an updated Eighth Edition ($40, PB) sits next to it on my library shelf. This classic work, improved with each edition, now features substantial, new contributions from the co-authors on the earliest civilisations of Mesoamerica—especially the Zapotecs. The Maya civilisation of Central America do not feature in this book. As their civilisation was so complex, a separate volume is required to do it justice. Thus, Coe’s latest revised 9th edition of The Maya ($35, PB) can be read in conjunction. (This replaced my now very dilapidated 1975 Pelican paperback copy). Mesoamerican art also deserved an accessible, comprehensive work—and in 1986, Dr Mary Miller set that right with The Art of Mesoamerica (30, PB) Her latest (6th) edition provides an expanded review of sculptures, palaces, paintings: from colossal Olmec heads to intricate Aztec calendar stones. The complexity and innovation of the art and architecture of prehispanic civilisations is displayed with colour illustrations throughout, in the always handsomely presented Library of Art series. Back to the Aztecs, although they called themselves the Mexica (Me-SHEE-ka). ‘Aztecs’ was a word that scholars began to use from the 18th century onward to describe the people who dominated central Mexico at the time the Spaniards arrived. One of the areas of horrified fascination in my early readings were—of course—the accounts of Aztec blood ritual to nourish the Sun God, human sacrifices (carried out with razor sharp obsidian knives) on the top of huge temples and the resulting mountains of victims’ skulls. However, as Camilla Townsend argues in Fifth Sun ($54, HB), these rituals were not as central to the Aztec state as some scholars have suggested. Such practices were also not unique to them. The Olmecs also partook of blood sacrifice. It seems that this Aztec scale of slaughter was also immensely exaggerated by the Spanish invaders to excuse their own violence against the indigenous peoples.
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Townsend has made a comprehensive study of Aztec writings, known as the xiuhpohualli (shoo-poo-WA-lee), the ‘Yearly Account’. Nicknamed by modern historians as The Annals, these were written by the Aztecs themselves in Nahuatl (NAR-wat), the native tongue of the Aztec state: The Aztecs were master storytellers, and they wrote down many of their stories in the sixteenth century, in the decades after the conquest. Spanish friars taught their young people to transcribe sound by means of the Roman alphabet, and they used the new tool to write down many of the old oral performances. The zealous friars taught the boys the alphabet so they would be able to study the Bible and help disseminate the tenets of Christianity. But the Aztec students did not feel limited in its application…They could use it to record anything they chose…In the privacy of their own homes, away from the eyes of the Spaniards what the Nahuatl speakers most often wrote was history. Using these writings, Camilla Townsend presents a fresh, lively and insightful account of the Aztecs in all their complexity, from the viewpoint of the native people and individuals themselves, rather than relying solely on the secondhand testimony of European soldiers and priests. ‘In the Annals we can hear the Aztecs talking… they became true scholars. It is their efforts that now allow for reconstruction of what their people once thought about. In short, the Aztecs were conquered but they also saved themselves.’ Stephen Reid
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Opera: The Great Artists, Composers & their Masterworks Joyce Bourne, HB
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Now $12.95 Paleo Italian Slow Cooking Dominique de Vito, PB
Christian Art Rowena Loverance, HB
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DC Super Heroes Origami: 46 Folding Projects, PB
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New Collected Poems of Marianne Moore, HB
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Faithful and Virtuous Night Louise Gluck, HB
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Jonathan Swift: Jane Austen, the Secret Radical His Life and His World Helena Kelly, HB Leo Damrosch, PB
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The House of the Dead: Battle Scarred: The 47th A British Lion in Zululand: Siberian Exile Under the Tsars Fall of Burma 1941-1943 Battalion in WW! Daniel Beer, HB John Grehan & Martin Mace, HB Sir Garnet Wolseley in South Africa Craig Deayton, PB William Wright ,HB
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The Explosion Of Deferred Dreams: Musical Renaissance & Social Revolution in San Francisco, 1965-1975 Mat Callahan, PB
Kenneth Clark: Life, Art and Civilisation James Stourton, HB
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Medieval Modern: Art Out of Time Alexander Nagel, HB
Breaking The Spell: A History of Anarchist Filmmakers, Videotape Guerrillas, and Digital Ninjas Chris Robe, PB
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The Push & the Pull Darryl Whetter, PB
The Ancient Paths: Discovering the Lost Map of Celtic Europe Graham Robb, PB
The 50 Greatest Walks of the World Barry Stone, PB
The Revolutionary Genius of Plants Stefano Mancuso, HB
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A Good Food Day: Reboot Your Health with Food That Tastes Great Marco Canora, HB
Grog: A Bottled History of Australia’s First 30 Years Tom Gilling, PB
The Food And Wine Of France Edward Behr, HB
Vegan Eats World Terry Hope Romero, PB
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The Arts The Stranger Artist: Life at the edge of Kimberley painting by Quentin Sprague ($33, PB)
At a hinge-point in his life, artist & ex-gallerist Tony Oliver travelled to the East Kimberley, where he plunged into the crosscurrents & eddies of the Aboriginal art world. He would stay for almost a decade, working alongside a group of senior Gija artists, including acclaimed figures Paddy Bedford & Freddie Timms, to establish Jirrawun Arts, briefly one of the country’s most successful & controversial Aboriginal painting collectives. This book follows Oliver’s journey & the deep relationships he formed—the immersion of culture & spirituality in the everyday, the importance of Law, the deep & abiding connection to country, and the humour & tragedy that pervade the Aboriginal world.
Decisive Network: Magnum Photos & the Postwar Image Market by Nadya Bair
Since its founding in 1947, the legendary Magnum Photos agency has been telling its own story: its photographers were witnesses to history and artists on the hunt for decisive moments, and their pictures were humanist documents of the postwar world. Nadya Blair challenges this mythology to offer a new history of what it meant to shoot, edit & sell news images after WWII. She unpacks the collaborative nature of photojournalism, focussing on how picture editors, sales agents, spouses & publishers helped Magnum photographers succeed in their assignments & achieve fame, concludes in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when, amidst the decline of magazine publishing and the rise of an art market for photography, Magnum turned to photo books and exhibitions to manage its growing picture archives & consolidate its brand. In that moment, Magnum’s photojournalists became artists & their assignments turned into oeuvres. Such ideas were necessary publicity, and they also managed to shape discussions about photography for decades. ($104, HB)
Marquis de Sade and the Avant-Garde by Alyce Mahon ($96, HB)
The writings of the Marquis de Sade present a libertine philosophy of sexual excess & human suffering that refuses to make any concession to law, religion, or public decency. Alyce Mahon traces how artists of the 20th century turned to Sade to explore political, sexual & psychological terror, adapting his imagery of the excessively sexual & terrorized body as a means of liberation from systems of power. Mahon shows how avant-garde artists, writers, dramatists & filmmakers drew on Sade’s ‘philosophy in the bedroom’ to challenge oppressive regimes & their restrictive codes & conventions of gender & sexuality. She provides close analyses of early illustrated editions of Sade’s works and looks at drawings, paintings, and photographs by leading surrealists such as Andre Masson, Leonor Fini, and Man Ray. She looks at how Sade’s ideas influenced Guillaume Apollinaire, Anne Desclos, the Happenings of Jean-Jacques Lebel, the theatre of Peter Brook, the cinema of Pier Paolo Pasolini, and the multimedia art of Paul Chan. She also discusses responses to Sade by feminist theorists such as Simone de Beauvoir, Susan Sontag & Angela Carter.
Curatopia: Museums and the future of curatorship by Schorch & McCarthy ($74, PB)
What is the future of curatorship? Is there a vision for an ideal model, a curatopia, whether in the form of a utopia or dystopia? Or is there a plurality of approaches, amounting to a curatorial heterotopia? Covering 3 regions—Europe, North America & the Pacific—this volume addresses these questions by considering the current state of curatorship. It reviews the different models & approaches operating in museums, galleries & cultural organisations around the world & discusses emerging concerns, challenges & opportunities. The collection explores the ways in which the mutual, asymmetrical relations underpinning global, scientific entanglements of the past can be transformed into more reciprocal, symmetrical forms of cross-cultural curatorship in the present, arguing that this is the most effective way for curatorial practice to remain meaningful. International in scope, the volume.
On Making Art & Being an Artist by Kent Nerburn ($28, PB)
When Kent Nerburn received a letter from a young woman questioning a life in the arts, he was struck by how closely her questions mirrored the doubts & yearnings of his own youth. So Nerburn resolved that he would write his own letter: one of welcome & encouragement to all young artists setting out on the same strange & magical journey, sharing the wisdom of a life spent working in the arts. From struggles with money & the bitterness of rejection, to spiritual questions of inspiration & authenticity, his book offers insight, solace & courage to help young artists on the winding road to creative fulfilment.
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Christopher Wren: In Search of Eastern Antiquity by Vaughan Hart ($118, HB)
In this revelatory study of one of the great architects in British history, Vaughan Hart considers Christopher Wren’s interest in Eastern antiquity & Ottoman architecture—an interest that would animate much of his theory & practice. As the early modern understanding of antiquity broadened to include new discoveries at Palmyra & Persepolis, Wren disputed common assumptions about the European origins of Classical & Gothic architecture, tracing these building traditions not to the Greeks or Germans but to the stonemasons of the biblical East. In a deft analysis, Hart contextualizes Wren’s use of classical elements columns, domes & cross plans within his enthusiasm for the East & the broader Anglican interest in the Eastern church. Hart’s careful study of diary records reappraises Wren’s working relationship with Robert Hooke, who shared in many of Wren’s theoretical commitments, results in a new, deepened understanding of Wren’s work.
Assembled Human by Sabine Breitwieser
From the conveyor belt to cybernetics & today’s digital revolution, from Cubism, Futurism & Constructivism into the recent present with Ed Atkins, Jon Rafman, Avery Singer, or Anna Uddenberg, this book traces the transformation of technology, presenting a wide panorama of artistic visual worlds: human beings as hybrid creatures, blended with their own self-made machines. Featuring 200 works by 100 artists with many essays, this extensive catalogue goes in-depth into this highly current issue. ($145, HB)
Gerhard Richter: Life and Work by Armin Zweite ($250, HB)
Gerhard Richter embraces many concepts in his work & continually thwarts categorisation. In this authoritative overview, Armin Zweite leads you through every phase of Richter’s career including his early artistic education in East Germany & his later prolific output in West Germany: the black & white photo paintings, the brilliantly conceived colour charts & lush, inscrutable gray paintings, installations with glass & mirrors, his landscapes, portraits & still lifes, and his monumental abstract paintings, which broke records at auction. Also included are selections from Richter’s larger-scale thematic works, such as Atlas, his ongoing collection of photographs & newspaper clippings, and October 18, 1977, a series of paintings commemorating the lives & deaths of members of a German left-wing terrorist group. The beautiful plates sections feature exquisite reproductions of more than 250 of his most famous works.
Read This if You Want to be Great at Drawing People by Selwyn Leamy ($25, PB)
Learn to draw figures & faces with this clear & easy to follow guide. Revealing the techniques & ideas behind inspirational works, Selwyn Leamy will set you on the path to making your own great drawings. From traditional life drawing to unconventional character studies, works by masters such as Henri Matisse, Auguste Rodin & Vincent van Gogh, as well as contemporary artists including Marlene Dumas, Zin Lim & Catherine Kehoe, all serve to illustrate a range of approaches & to encourage you to try out new ideas.
Turner’s Apprentice: A Watercolour Masterclass by Tony Smibert ($35, PB)
Tony Smibert is known for watercolours inspired by Turner & the golden age of British watercolour. His method of painting in Turner’s style, informed by a 50 year journey into non-Western painting cultures, ingeniously draws together ideas & principles from East & West to bring out an entirely new perspective on Turner’s practice. A working manual for artists, the book brings together elements of practice from historic masters including Leonardo, Claude Lorraine and Monet as well as Turner. This is a book for anyone aspiring to learn from any master, explaining the practice & philosophy of traditional apprenticeship from the point of view of diverse models. Even to those who may never paint, Turner’s Apprentice offers a glimpse of the thrill of painting & learning, and an inspiring tool for art appreciation.
Joyful Mending by Noriko Misumi ($25, PB)
Simply by applying a few easy sewing, darning, felting, or crocheting techniques, as well as some sashiko and other favourite embroidery stitches, you can repair your favourite pieces in a transformative way. A perfect occupation for those winter days of isolation!
Pom Pom Pom by Henry Le
Vietnamese artist, Henry Le’s fabulous pompoms make other pompoms look distinctly ordinary. There are 50 fun & fashionable designs to create, from animals & emojis to sushi & cakes. Each project is accompanied by simple instructional diagrams and beautiful photography. Plus there’s step-by-step text and photographs for when you need to learn something that’s extra to the basic pompom techniques covered at the start of the book. Plus there’s a section showing how to turn these adorable little pompoms into cute accessories. Fun for the kids. ($35, PB)
what we're reading
Jonathon: Providence by Max Barry—Military space opera with AI and aliens. Need I go on? I like the way this one uses the scenario of elite soldiers fighting a sublime, unassailable alien threat to talk about the powerlessness of humanity in the face of computers that are infinitely smarter than us; here, the AI that operates—or is—the warship Providence. It asks: what place do people take in the drama of their own lives when autonomy has been so fully alienated? Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton— This is just as pulpy and wonderful as you’d expect a book about dinosaurs eating people to be! But it also introduces a little more depth than the film. Dr Ian Malcolm (played by Jeff Goldblum in the movie) has many pages about environmental destruction, the false promises of technology and the inevitable failure of human plans; the dinosaurs come to embody this and his tragic schadenfreude. And of course it’s a total page turner! I Am Legend by Richard Matheson—Matheson is a legendary early horror writer, famous for his story about a plane flight window and: ‘there’s something... on the wing!’ But I Am Legend (1954) is his magnum opus. He brilliantly inverts Vampire lore, introducing the idea that vampires are a new species, replacing humankind; with a lone surviving human having to come to terms with his position in a new natural order. The concluding twist is just wonderfully done. It’s no wonder that this book went on to influence so many images that we take as a given in horror. James: The first movie that Joshua Wong saw in cinemas was The Dark Knight Returns. While I let the temporal implications of that sink in, let me recommend Wong’s book Unfree Speech as a lucid, potent reminder that protest has the power to change lives. It’s easy to feel despondent in the face of government inaction––Wong reminds us that there is hope. He charts his course from idealistic young activist to... well, you get the idea. His experiences on the front line of the Hong Kong protests are shocking, as he and his family are intimidated by Chinese Communist Party loyalists to capitulate, but Wong never waivers. If this kid, who was barely old enough to see an MA+15 film, can stare down government injustice I reckon we can too. Chloe: The Weather by Jenny Offill—I’ve been waiting with bated breath for Art Monster Jenny Offill’s follow-up to Dept. of Speculation. That brief but perfect montage of life as a writer, parent, partner and generally encumbered human was published in 2014. My anticipation and anxiety levels were therefore fairly high when Weather finally made it into my hands in February. Could she do it again? Oh yes, in a very different way, she could. Weather is a pre-apocalyptic novel following Lizzie, a frazzled university librarian who has vague ideas about not having reached her potential, as she becomes increasingly climate-aware and climate-anxious. Her anxiety is focused on her only child, Eli, and the alarming political environment that does nothing to ensure his future. Lizzie begins a second job answering email for her former thesis supervisor, Sylvia, who ‘used to check in on me sometimes to see if I was still squandering my promise’ and is now a climate-action advocate. The emails Lizzie receives are full of questions about the Rapture, wind turbines and carbon taxes. In answering these, Lizzie’s own understanding of what is happening to the environment becomes increasingly nuanced, specific and alarming. While the vignettes of Dept. of Speculation were arguably less alarming and more hilarious, Weather follows in its footsteps through Offill’s ability to make everything uncannily relatable, from the parents at your kid’s old preschool that you try to avoid, to my own propensity for asking for medical advice from my husband, who is not medically trained in any way. Weather is also an ode to the peculiar intensities of having a single child, and the feeling that every stage is the only one so you’d better not mess this up. Offill is always eerily prescient—and just as we have been able to (temporarily, no doubt) stop checking our air quality apps, we’re suddenly preparing for a pandemic, Lizzie learns which things to stockpile and how to make a lamp out of a can of tuna and a piece of newspaper. I would not say that this book made me feel any better about the future; in fact, it definitely made me feel worse. But maybe that’s a good thing, because seriously, what are we doing?
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Stephanie: Nightingale by Marina Kemp—Set in rural France, in the small village of Saint Sulpice, a young nurse, Marguerite Demers arrives to care for a dying, frail, old man—Monsieur Lanvier. Once the wealthiest and most powerful man in the village, he is now an embittered, frightened and cantankerous old man. Decay is everywhere—in the rundown house and garden. Death is hovering. Yet Marguerite is comforted by the isolation, the quietness, the repetitive rhythm of caring for Monsieur Lanvier. The villagers are a wary and suspicious lot, especially of new comers and keep Marguerite at arm’s length. There is much speculation and gossip as to why she would swap her life in Paris for their quiet little backwater. What must she be running from? Marguerite is not the only person with a secret and as suspicion and jealousy are aroused in some, trust and friendship build between others. When the truth is revealed be ready for some serious twists and turns, in an emotionally rich tale where secrets and lies abound.
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is a publication of Gleebooks Pty. Ltd. 49 Glebe Point Rd, (P.O. Box 486) Glebe NSW 2037 Ph: (02) 9660 2333 Fax: (02) 9660 3597 books@gleebooks.com.au
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Bestsellers—Non-Fiction 1. Phosphorescence
2. Dark Emu 3. Capital & Ideology
Julia Baird Bruce Pascoe Thomas Piketty
4. Party Animals: The Secret History of a Labour Fiasco
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5. Truganini: Journey through the apocalypse
Cassandra Pybus
6. The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East
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7. Anxiety
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8. Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder & Memory in
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9. Oil Under Troubled Water: Australia’s Timor Sea Intrigue
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Could Help Save Australia
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Hilary Mantel Delia Owens Bernadine Evaristo Dervla McTiernan Anne Enright
6. Trace Elements
Donna Leon
7. Such a Fun Age
Kiley Reid
8. Bruny 9. The Dutch House 10. A Thousand Moons
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Heather Rose Ann Patchett Sebastian Barry
and another thing.....
Oh for a splendid isolation!! Not that I’m complaining, because it’s great to still be employed. We at Gleebooks are still beavering away, albeit behind closed doors, dealing with a deluge of online and phone orders. And after leaving the shop I wander the streets of Glebe hand delivering books to the socially-isolating—safe in the knowledge that if the cops pull me up for being on the street I can prove I’m providing an essential service. And not only is my daily exercise in hand, I’m discovering a new and charming backstreet view of the suburb I’ve lived and worked in for thirty years—so please keep up your reading Glebe-ites. Usually by the time I get home I’m more inclined to Netflix or a boxed set, but have still managed to get through a reread of both Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies before breaking open The Mirror and The Light. They were as good as I remember, and a great refresher before diving into Mirror—which my read aloud group of two is reading to each other via Hangouts every Thursday. Mantel’s writing is as good to read aloud as any of the Victorians, online or off. Still in Tudor territory I’m also reading a John Buchan novel called The Blanket of the Dark in which young Peter Pentecost, who has claim to the throne, is caught up in an intrigue to dethrone the evil usurper Henry, and his villainous adviser Crummle. Mantel’s version of working class Cromwell is so lovingly relatable I’m struggling with Buchan’s status quo version of history, but it’s a great tale—and as full of the same contradictions inherent in the concept of inherited power as Mantel’s. The other book I’m reading is Maria Reva’s Good Citizens Need Not Fear. A bureaucratic glitch sees the building at 1933 Ivansk Street and its residents disappear from the municipal records, meaning the inhabitants have to find ways to survive despite the neglect of the authorities. This might be a portrait of Soviet Russia in the years up to and following the Communism’s fall, but it feels terribly relevant to the current crisis. This issue of the magazine has a combination of releases from April and May, and marks the beginning of a new Gleaner publishing schedule which will see 8 issues printed a year: Feb/March; April/May; and then once a month to November. I am hoping, though, that this period of online ordering might encourage your use of the online magazine. Keep well! See you in print in June. Viki
For more April/May new releases go to:
Main shop—49 Glebe Pt Rd; Ph: (02) 9660 2333, Fax: (02) 9660 3597. Open 7 days, 9am to 9m Thur–Sat; 9am to 7pm Sun–Wed Sydney Theatre Shop—22 Hickson Rd Walsh Bay; Open two hours before and until after every performance Blackheath—Shop 1 Collier’s Arcade, Govetts Leap Rd; Ph: (02) 4787 6340. Open 7 days, 9am to 6pm Blackheath Oldbooks—Collier’s Arcade, Govetts Leap Rd: Open 7 days 10am to 5pm Dulwich Hill—536 Marrickville Rd Dulwich Hill; Ph: (02) 9560 0660. Open 7 days, Tue–Sat 9am to 7pm; Sun–Mon 9 to 5 www.gleebooks.com.au. Email: books@gleebooks.com.au; oldbooks@gleebooks.com.au