October 2021 Gleaner

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Vol. 28 No. 5 September/October 2021

new this month from Michelle de Kretser

Scary Monsters 1

from the road

I wrote in the last edition about my distaste for the notion of the ‘pivot’ as a glibly delivered solution to the dilemma of a business (well, Gleebooks, really) needing to respond to Lockdowns. And I’ve never had more responses to anything I’ve written—perhaps I should have been whingeing more, and reviewing or recommending less, over the last decades. To which end, I’d only add that I could fill Gleaner columns right now with misgivings and concerns over how we deal with the (next only?) opening up after Lockdown, courtesy of the Government’s desire to leave policing of mandates in retailers’ hands. Maybe we’ll have clarity, even certainty, and maybe everyone will behave perfectly, and maybe my fears of some anti-vaxxer flexing their ideological muscles at the expense of a bookshop staff member are misguided. But I dearly wish for an opening up that is friendly and uncomplicated and that, of course, gives us the best health outcome. Here’s hoping! Meanwhile, some books that I’ve read and hope that you might too; some just out, some coming very soon: The Magician by Colm Toibin. The comparisons with Toibin’s beautiful The Master, a fictional biography of Henry James are inevitable. I didn’t find Toibin’s epic and ambitious exploration of the life of Thomas Mann (nicknamed ‘the magician’ by his children) as affecting as the earlier book, but it is a fascinating and brilliant working into the mind of a an acknowledged great novelist.

Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen: we’re back in Corrections country in 1971 midwest USA. An engrossing plot and richly developed characters have Franzen at the top of his game. Crossroads is the first of a projected trilogy, the title of which, A key to All Mythologies, is a reference to George Eliot’s masterpiece, Middlemarch, a measure of a great intent, and of what’s in store.

The Winter Road by Kate Holden. Meticulously researched and approached with an admirably open-eyed sensitivity, this is ‘true crime’ writing in the class of Helen Garner or Chloe Hooper’s The Tall Man. It is the story of the killing of a government compliance officer by a landowner at Croppa Creek, and it ought to be essential reading for anyone who cares about land in our country, and our responsibilities to it.

Oh William! by the incomparable Elizabeth Strout (late OCT), in which we revisit a deeply reflective Lucy Barton. I need say no more.

And from the large wobbly stack at my bedside, await: Bewilderment

by Richard Powers (OCT)—the eagerly awaited next novel from the author of Overstory. 7 1/2 by Christos Tsiolkas (NOV). Scary Monsters by Michelle De Kretser (OCT) looks as deeply engaging and important as anything this wonderful writer has done (see Morgan’s interview with De Kretser opposite). The Way it is Now by Gary Disher. We’re in a beachshack town an hour or so from Melbourne, and I can’t wait.

There are more, many more, of course. Paradoxically, for me, a year so punctuated by Lockdown, only confirms the old adage, ‘so many books, so little time’—but would we have it any other way? David Gaunt

Australian Literature Literature Wild Abandon by Emily Bitto ($33, PB)

In the fall of 2011, a heartbroken young man flees Australia for the USA. Landing in the excessive, uncanny-familiar glamour & plenitude of New York City, Will makes a vow to say yes to everything that comes his way. By fate or random chance, Will’s journey takes him deep into the American heartland where he meets Wayne Gage, a fast-living, troubled Vietnam veteran, would-be spirit guide & collector of exotic animals. These two men in crisis form an unlikely friendship, but Will has no idea just how close to the edge Wayne truly is.

Bodies of Light by Jennifer Down ($33, PB)

So by the grace of a photograph that had inexplicably gone viral, Tony had found me. Or—he’d found Maggie. I had no way of knowing whether he was nuts or not; whether he might go to the cops. Maybe that sounds paranoid, but I don’t think it’s so ridiculous. People have gone to prison for much lesser things than accusations of child-killing. A quiet, small-town existence. An unexpected Facebook message, jolting her back to the past. A history she’s reluctant to revisit—dark memories and unspoken trauma, warning knocks on bedroom walls, unfathomable loss. She became a new person a long time ago. What happens when buried stories are dragged into the light?

Scary Monsters by Michelle de Kretser ($30, PB)

Lili’s family migrated to Australia from Asia when she was a teenager.

Now, in the 1980s, she’s teaching in the south of France. She makes friends, observes the treatment handed out to North African immigrants and is creeped out by her downstairs neighbour. Lyle works for a sinister government department in near-future Australia. An Asian migrant, he fears repatriation and embraces ‘Australian values’. He’s also preoccupied by his ambitious wife, his wayward children and his strong-minded elderly mother. Three scary monsters - racism, misogyny and ageism roam through this mesmerising novel.

In Moonland by Miles Allinson ($30, PB)

In present-day Melbourne, a man attempts to piece together the mystery of his father’s apparent suicide as his young family slowly implodes. At the ashram of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, in 1976, a man searching for salvation must confront his capacity for violence and darkness. And in a not-too-distant future, a woman with a life-altering decision to make travels through a climate-ravaged landscape to visit her estranged father.

Spanning the wild idealism of the 70s through to the fragile hope of the future, Mile’s Allinson’s 2nd novel is about the struggle for transcendence and the reverberating effects of family bonds.

The Things We See in the Light by Amal Awad

8 years ago, Sahar pursued her happily ever after when she married Khaled & followed him to Jordan, leaving behind her family, her friends & a thriving cake business. But married life didn’t go as planned & Sahar has returned home to Sydney without telling her husband. With the help of her childhood friends, Sahar takes a job at a local patisserie run by Maggie, a strong but kind manager who guides Sahar in sweets & life. But as she tentatively gets to know her colleagues, Sahar faces a whole new set of challenges. There’s Kat and Inez, who are determined that Sahar try new experiences. Then there’s Luke, a talented chocolatier & a bundle of contradictions. As Sahar embraces the new, she reinvents herself, trying things once forbidden to her. But just when she is finally starting to find her feet, her past finds its way back to her. ($30, PB)

Showtime! by Judy Nunn ($30, PB)

At the End of the Day by Liz Byrski ($33, PB)

When Mim Squires & Mathias Vander are stranded together on a disrupted flight home to Perth, they are surprised to find that they have much in common. Mim owns a bookshop, Mathias is a writer—Mim’s childhood polio is taking a toll on her life, Mathias is contemplating a cross-continent move to be nearer his daughter. But life back in Perth is not smooth sailing. As Mim and Mathias both struggle to adjust to the challenges of being in their late seventies, secrets from the past that neither wishes to face rise to the surface, challenging their long-held beliefs in their independence & singularity. At the end of the day, can they muster the wisdom and the courage they need to change?

Permafrost by SJ Norman ($30, PB)

Ranging across themes and locations—from small-town Australia to Hokkaido to rural England, recounting the confusion of a child trying to decipher their father and stepmother’s new relationship, the surrealness of an after-hours tour of Auschwitz, or a journey to wintry Japan to reconnect with a former lover, this collection of short fiction explores the shifting spaces of desire, loss and longing—inverting and queering the gothic and romantic traditions.

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In the second half of the 19th century, Melbourne is a veritable boom town, as hopefuls from every corner of the globe flock to the gold fields of Victoria. And where people crave gold, they also crave entertainment.

Enter stage right brothers Will & Max Worthing & their wives Mabel & Gertie—arriving from England in the 1880s with little else but the masterful talents that will see them rise from simple travelling performers to sophisticated entrepreneurs. Enter stage left their rivals, Carlo & Rube. Childhood friends since meeting in a London orphanage, the two men have literally fought their way to the top & are now producers of the bawdy but hugely popular ‘Big Show Bonanza’. Waiting in the wings—Comedy, tragedy, passion & betrayal; economic depression, the Black Death & the horrors of World War One.

The Dogs by John Hughes ($28, PB)

Michael Shamanov is a man running away from life’s responsibilities.

His marriage is over, he barely sees his son and he hasn’t seen his mother since banishing her to a nursing home two years earlier. A successful screen writer, Michael’s encounter with his mother’s nurse leads him to discover that the greatest story he’s never heard may lie with his dying mother. And perhaps it’s her life he’s been running away from and not his own. Is the past ever finished? Should we respect another’s silence?

And if so, is it ever possible to understand and put to rest the strange idea of family that travels through the flesh?

Now in B Format The Living Sea of Waking Dreams by Richard Flanagan, $23

Corporal Hitler’s Pistol by Tom Keneally ($33, PB)

How did Corporal Hitler’s Luger from WW1 end up being the weapon that killed an IRA turncoat in Kempsey, NSW, in 1933? When an affluent Kempsey matron spots a young Aboriginal boy who bears an uncanny resemblance to her husband, not only does she scream for divorce, attempt to take control of the child’s future & upend her comfortable life, but the whole town seems drawn into chaos. A hero of WW1 has a fit at the cinema & is taken to a psychiatric ward in Sydney, his Irish farmhand is murdered, and a gay piano-playing veteran, quietly a friend to many in town, is implicated. Rural communities have always been a melting pot & many are happy to accept a diverse bunch—as long as they don’t overstep.

Believe in Me by Lucy Neave ($33, PB)

As a teenager in the 1970s, Sarah is forced to leave her home in upstate New York to accompany a missionary to Idaho. When she falls pregnant, she is despatched to relatives in Sydney, who place her in a home for unmarried mothers. Years later her daughter, Bet, pieces together her mother’s life story, hoping to understand her better. As she learns more about Sarah’s past, Bet struggles to come to terms with her own history and identity, yet is determined to make peace with Sarah’s choices before it’s too late.

Travelling Companions by Antoni Jach ($33, PB)

Author John Connolly, and a couple encounter Nina, an eloquent storyteller, on their travels through Spain, France & Italy. She entrances them all with her tales, which prompts her fellow travelling companions to share their own stories. A handsome young man from Staten Island, who believes that life forms exist in other galaxies, vows to never work in an office again & travels by container ship to a commune in Italy. A lonely postal worker from Lodz takes home & reads the most interesting love letters before delivery—often becoming convinced a relationship needs his intervention. A woman named Pauline calls herself Kim because her surname is Nowak, mysteriously disappears from her own birthday party. Told by people on a journey, these are stories of lives in transit.

On D’Hill

Michelle de Kretser is a two-time Miles Franklin winner but we at Dulwich Hill just know her as a Dully local (and dog minder). Michelle kindly participated in an email exchange about her brilliant new novel, Scary Monsters.

Scary Monsters is two stories—one about Lili in the 1980s and one about Lyle in the not-too-distant future. The physical book is very striking in that it has two (beautiful) covers and can be read from the ‘front’ or the ‘back’. Why? One reason is that this is a novel told by migrant voices, and migration turns lives upside down. The flip format allows readers to experience—fleetingly and on a micro level—that sense of disorientation, and to ask themselves the question that all migrants must find their way to answering: How do I make sense of this new story?

On first reading, the two stories might seem unrelated. So, why is this a novel and not two novellas?

Another reason for the format—I have a few!—is that a novel is, as you point out, traditionally conceived of as a single continuous narrative. Two radically different, discontinuous narratives with some thematic common ground is my modest shot at upending the novel as a form. There’s a potential blink-andyou’ll-miss-it plot connection that concerns the fate of an important character.

Why potential and not clear-cut? Because literature is one of the few places in which ambiguity can be both unsettling and satisfying; it leaves room for interpretation and the exercise of autonomy. I’d like the outcome that’s suggested to haunt the reader as a monstrous possibility, rather than as a certainty.

The Magpie Wing by Max Easton ($26.95, PB)

How does the past (Lili) inform the future (Lyle) and vice versa?

Migration is like modernity in the sense that they both involve loss of the past.

When you migrate, the past is no longer a reliable guide to understanding and negotiating your new world. You describe the Lili narrative as the past and Lyle as the future because of their respective time periods; but for the reader who reads Lyle first, that narrative is the past and Lili is the future. And no matter which order you read the novel in, the part you read first will offer no certainty about what will happen in the part you read second. So once again, the flip format embodies the meaning of the novel.

The Unusual Abduction of Avery Conifer

by Ilsa Evans ($30, PB)

You’ve rarely written in the first person. What made you choose to do so in Scary Monsters and how different was the experience to writing in the third person?

One reason for wanting to try sustained first-person narrative was because it was something new for me. Sticking to what you know you can do is a shortcut to growing stale. It felt awkward, weird and terrifyingly bad when I began. But writing is always a matter of keeping going. Once I’d settled into the first person, I enjoyed it immensely. In third-person narration—even close third-person—the writer is always a voice in the text. The first person enabled me to disappear into my characters, to speak them from the inside, and I found it wonderfully liberating. I had feared that the first person would make me more visible because it’s so closely associated with autobiography. But the opposite happened: I became invisible. In creative terms, the process was hugely satisfying, and I think—hope—that it enabled me to speak directly and intimately to readers.

Helen, Walt & Duncan are looking for ways to entertain themselves in the sprawl of Sydney’s western suburbs. Walt, scrappy & idealistic, wants to prove a point, and turns to petty vandalism. His friend Duncan sticks to his fledgling football career, and sexual encounters in strange houses. Walt’s sister Helen, restless & seeking something larger than herself, is forced by scandal to leave the family home.

As they move into adulthood they gravitate to the dingy glamour of the inner-city suburbs, to escape their families’ complicated histories, and in search of new identities, artistic, sexual and political.

Beth’s daughter Cleo and Shirley’s son Daniel used to be married.

Now Cleo is in gaol for supposedly contravening a family violence order, and Daniel has full-time care of their four-year-old daughter, Avery. When Shirley suspects that Daniel is harming Avery, she enlists Beth to abduct their own granddaughter, even though the two women can’t stand each other. They are joined on the run across country Victoria by Winnie, Shirley’s own 89-year-old tech-savvy mother, and Harthacnut, Beth’s miniature schnauzer.

Here in the After by Marion Frith ($33, PB)

Anna, 62, is the victim of a terrorist attack in which 11 others were murdered. Nat, 35, is an Army veteran who fought in Afghanistan.

They have so little in common. And so much. A friendship stirs between them, tentative & unlikely, its foundation the violence they have seen & the memories that stalk them. Together, they begin to search for a way back home. But when Nat’s wife falls unexpectedly pregnant, terrible ghosts from his wartime past rise up & much more than a friendship is at stake.

Happy Hour by Jacquie Byron ($33, PB)

Having lost her husband, Frank, 3 years ago, 65-year-old Franny has removed herself completely from her previous life—living a life of decadent seclusion, with only her two dogs, Whisky & Soda, a stuffed cat, cocktails & the memory of Frank for company. Then the Salernos move in next door. This troubled but charming trio—beleaguered mother Sallyanne, angry teenager Dee & eccentric eightyear-old Josh—pull Franny into the drama of their lives. Despite her fixation with independence, Franny’s wisecracks & culinary experiments hide considerable trauma & pain, and when her eccentric behaviour has life-threatening consequences she faces a reckoning.

Ferocious Animals by Luke Johnson ($28, PB) The thirteen stories in Luke Johnson’s debut collection do not shy away from life’s brutalities. Nor do they overlook those moments of genuine intimacy, humour and revelation that imbue the tragic with purpose and with pathos. Set in regional Australia in an era before mobile phones and the internet, these stories will remind you of who and what we are beneath all the cool digital interfacesanimals, burning with ferocity for a mouthful of life’s flesh.

The Lyle story is a radical departure for you. Not to say your other books haven’t had their funny moments, but the Lyle story is laugh-out-loud funny, while also being a very bleak vision of the future. How did you find that balance?

I’ve always been drawn to dark comedy—all the way from Ruthless Rhymes to Swift to Anna Burns. I slightly exaggerated both the comedy and the horror in the Lyle narrative, trying to nudge it towards the fantastic while keeping it grounded in realism through the use of precise socio-cultural detail. But the funny-bleak push-pull was done instinctively really, and I’m rationalising it in retrospect.

This is your most political novel yet, dealing with racism, ageism and misogyny. What do you hope the reader will take from it?

What I hope they would feel after reading any one of my books: that they’ve engaged with art.

See you on D’Hill (Covid allowing)— let’s hope the coming Summer is more fun than this Winter, Morgan

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International Inte rnational Literature

Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney

Alice, a novelist, meets Felix, who works in a distribution warehouse, and asks him if he’d like to travel to Rome with her. In Dublin, her best friend Eileen is getting over a break-up, and slips back into flirting with Simon, a man she has known since childhood. Still young, with life catching up with them, they desire each other, they delude each other, they get together, they break apart. They have sex, they worry about sex, they worry about their friendships & the world they live in.

Are they standing in the last lighted room before the darkness, bearing witness to something? Will they find a way to believe in a beautiful world? ($30, PB)

Or, the special priced hardcover at $35

The Women of Troy by Pat Barker ($33, PB)

In the sequel to The Silence of the Girls Troy has fallen & the Greek victors are primed to return home, loaded with spoils. All they need is a good wind to lift their sails. But the wind does not come. The gods are offended—the body of Priam lies desecrated, unburied—and so the victors remain in uneasy limbo, camped in the shadow of the city they destroyed. The coalition that held them together begins to fray, as old feuds resurface & new suspicions fester. Largely unnoticed by her squabbling captors, erstwhile queen Briseis remains in the Greek encampment. She forges alliances where she can—with young, rebellious Amina, with defiant, aged Hecuba, with Calchus, the disgraced priest—and she begins to see the path to revenge.

More Than I Love My Life by David Grossman

On a kibbutz in Israel in 2008, Gili, along with the entire community, is celebrating the 90th birthday of her grandmother Vera. Onto the scene enters Nina—the iron-willed daughter who rejected Vera’s care; and the absent mother who abandoned Gili when she was still a baby.

Nina’s return forces mother, daughter and grandmother to confront the past head-on. Together with Rafael—father to Gili, lover to Nina and step-son to Vera—the three women embark on an epic journey to the desolate island of Goli Otok, formerly part of Yugoslavia. It was here, five decades earlier, that Vera was held & tortured as a political prisoner. And it is here that the 3 women will finally come to terms with the terrible moral dilemma that Vera faced, and that permanently altered the course of their lives. ($33, PB)

The Inseparables by Simone de Beauvoir ($25, HB) The Great Fall by Peter Handke ($25, PB)

An ageing actor as he makes his way on foot from the outskirts of a great metropolis into its centre. He is scheduled to receive a prestigious award that evening from the country’s president, and the following day he is supposed to start shooting for a film—perhaps his last—in which he plays a man who runs amok. While passing through a forest, he encounters the outcasts of the society—homeless people & migrants – but he keeps trudging along, traversing a suburb whose inhabitants are locked in petty but mortal conflicts, crossing a seemingly unbridgeable superhighway, and wandering into an abandoned railyard, where police, unused to pedestrians, detain him briefly on suspicion of terrorism.

Things don’t improve when he reaches the heart of the city—where he can’t help but see the alienation characteristic of its residents & the omnipresent malign influence of electronic technology.

Are You Enjoying? by Mira Sethi ($35, HB)

Childhood best friends decide to marry in order to keep their sexuality a secret. A young heiress embarks on a secret affair, ending in devastation but not for the party who was braced for it. A glum divorcee reaches out to his American neighbour.

A radicalised student’s preparations for his sister’s wedding in Lahore involve beating up the groom. An actress from a sheltered background in Karachi is forced to grow up fast on the set of her first major TV show where the real intrigue takes place off-screen. Pakistani, Sethi’s debut collection upends traditional notions of identity & scrutinises the relationship between power & desire.

Magma by Thora Hjörleifsdóttir ($35, HB)

20-year-old Lilja is in love. He is older & beautiful, a Derrida-quoting intellectual. He is also a serial cheater, gaslighter & narcissist. Lilja will do anything to hold on to him. And so she accepts his deceptions & endures his sexual desires. She rationalizes his toxic behaviour & permits him to cross all her boundaries. In her desperation to be the perfect lover, she finds herself unable to break free from the toxic cycle. And then an unexpected ultimatum: an all-consuming love, or the promise of a life reclaimed.

Thora Hjörleifsdóttir explores the darkest corners of relationships, capturing an ugly, hidden nature of love. In an era of growing pornification, she deftly illustrates the failings of our culture in recognizing symptoms of cruelty.

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Now in paperback Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, $20

When Andree joins her school, Sylvie is immediately fascinated. Andree is small for her age, but walks with the confidence of an adult.

Under her red coat, she hides terrible burn scars. Secretly Sylvie believes that Andree is a prodigy about whom books will be written. The girls become close. They talk for hours about equality, justice, war and religion; they lose respect for their teachers; they build a world of their own. But they can’t stay like this forever. Written in 1954, five years after The Second Sex, this novel was never published in de Beauvoir’s lifetime. This first English ed. includes an afterword by her adopted daughter, who discovered the manuscript hidden in a drawer.

Granta 156: Interiors (ed) Sigrid Rausing ($25, HB)

This summer issue features fiction by Jesse Ball, Eva Freeman, Okwiri Oduor, Tao Lin, Adam O’Fallon Price, Vanessa Onwuemezi, Kathryn Scanlan and Diane Williams. Granta 156: Interiors includes poetry by Kaveh Akbar, Sasha Debvec-McKenny, Gboyega Odubanjo and Nick Laird, as well as memoir by Chris Dennis, Debra Gwartney, Sandra Newman and Ruchir Joshi.

Tenderness by Alison MacLeod ($33, PB)

DH Lawrence is dying. Exiled in the Mediterranean, he dreams of the past. There are the years early in his marriage during the war, where his desperation drives him to commit a terrible betrayal.

And there is a woman in an Italian courtyard, her chestnut hair red with summer. Jacqueline & her husband have already been marked out for greatness. Passing through New York, she slips into a hearing where a book, not a man, is brought to trial. A young woman & a young man meet amid the restricted section of a famous library, and make love. Scattered and blown by the winds of history, their stories are bound together, and brought before the jury. On both sides of the Atlantic, society is asking, and continues to ask—is it obscenity or is it tenderness?

Three Sisters by Heather Morris ($33, PB)

When they are little Cibi, Magda & Livia make a promise to their father—that they will stay together, no matter what. Years later, at just 15, Livia is ordered to Auschwitz by the Nazis. 19-year old Cibi remembers their promise & follows Livia, determined to protect her sister, or die with her. Together, they fight to survive through unimaginable cruelty and hardship. 17-year-old Magda stays with her mother & grandfather, hiding out in a neighbour’s attic or in the forest when the Nazi militia comes. She escapes for a time, but eventually she too is captured and transported to the death camp.

In Auschwitz-Birkenau the three sisters are reunited and, remembering their father, they make a new promise, this time to each other: That they will survive.?

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr ($33, PB)

Bound together by a single ancient text, the characters of Pulitzer prize-winner, Anthony Doerr’s new novel are dreamers & outsiders figuring out the world around them: 13-year-old Anna and Omeir, an orphaned seamstress & a cursed boy, on opposite sides of the formidable city walls during the 1453 siege of Constantinople; teenage idealist Seymour & octogenarian Zeno in an attack on a public library in present-day Idaho; and Konstance, decades from now, who turns to the oldest stories to guide her community in peril.

Gleebooks’ special price $29.99

Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen ($33, PB)

It’s December 23, 1971, and heavy weather is forecast for Chicago.

Russ Hildebrandt, the associate pastor of a liberal suburban church, is on the brink of breaking free of a marriage he finds joyless—unless his wife, Marion, who has her own secret life, beats him to it. Their eldest child, Clem, is coming home from college on fire with moral absolutism, having taken an action that will shatter his father. Clem’s sister, Becky, long the social queen of her high-school class, has sharply veered into the counterculture, while their brilliant younger brother Perry, who’s been selling drugs to seventh-graders, has resolved to be a better person. Each of the Hildebrandts seeks a freedom that each of the others threatens to complicate.

We Are Not Like Them

by Jo Piazza & Christine Pride ($30, PB)

Riley & Jen have been best friends since they were children—they thought their bond was unbreakable. It never mattered to them that Riley is black & Jen is white. And then Jen’s husband, a Philadelphia police officer, is involved in the shooting of an unarmed black teenager and everything changes in an instant. This one act could destroy more than just Riley & Jen’s friendship. As their community takes sides, so must Jen & Riley, and for the first time in their lives the lifelong friends find themselves on opposing sides. Can anyone win a fight like this?

Pure Gold by John Patrick McHugh ($33, PB)

Two boys set fires while their worlds fall apart, a couple drives out to the hills in a last-ditch effort to save their marriage, a widow seeks a stranger’s help to bury her grief, a horse crashes a house party. Whether falling in love or turning on one another the residents in this debut collection set on an imagined island off the west coast of Ireland are united by a quest for connection in the treacherous waters of smalltown boredom.

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles ($33, PB)

In June, 1954, 18-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the juvenile work farm where he has just served 15 months for involuntary manslaughter. With his mother long gone, his father recently deceased, and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett plans to pick up his 8-year-old brother Billy & head to California to start a new life. But when the warden drives away, Emmett discovers that two friends from the work farm have stowed away in the trunk of the warden’s car. They have a very different plan for Emmett’s future, one that will take the four of them on a fateful journey in the opposite direction—to New York City.

Gleebooks’ special price $29.99

Matrix by Lauren Groff ($33, PB)

17-year-old Marie, too wild for courtly life, is thrown to the dogs one winter morning, expelled from the royal court to become the prioress of an abbey. Marie is tall, a giantess, her elbows & knees stick out, ungainly. At first taken aback by life at the abbey, Marie finds purpose & passion among her mercurial sisters. Yet she deeply misses her secret lover Cecily & queen Eleanor. Born last in a long line of women warriors & crusaders, women who flew across the countryside with their sword fighting & dagger work, Marie decides to chart a bold new course for the women she now leads & protects. She will bring herself, & her sisters, out of the darkness, into riches & power.

The Morning Star by Karl Ove Knausgaard ($33, PB)

One long night in August, Arne & Tove are staying with their children in their summer house in southern Norway. Their friend Egil has his own place nearby. Kathrine, a priest, is flying home from a Bible seminar, questioning her marriage. Journalist Jostein is out drinking for the night, while his wife, Turid, a nurse at a psychiatric care unit, is on a nightshift when one of her patients escapes. Above them all, a huge star suddenly appears blazing in the sky. It brings with it a mysterious sense of foreboding. Strange things start to happen as 9 lives come together under the star.

Bewilderment by Richard Powers ($33, PB)

Theo Byrne is a promising young astrobiologist who has found a way to search for life on other planets dozens of light years away. He is also the widowed father of a most unusual 9-yearold. His son Robin is funny, loving & filled with plans. He thinks & feels deeply, adores animals, and can spend hours painting elaborate pictures. He is also on the verge of being expelled from third grade, for smashing his friend’s face with a metal thermos. What can a father do, when the only solution offered to his rare & troubled boy is to put him on psychoactive drugs? What can he say when his boy comes to him wanting an explanation for a world that is clearly in love with its own destruction? The only thing for it is to take the boy to other planets, while all the while fostering his son’s desperate campaign to help save this one.

Colorful by Eto Mori ($28, PB)

‘Congratulations, you’ve won the lottery!’ shouts the angel Prapura to a formless soul. The soul hasn’t been kicked out of the cycle of rebirth just yet—he’s been given a second chance.

He must recall the biggest mistake of his past life while on ‘homestay’ in the body of 14-year-old Makoto Kobayashi, who has just committed suicide. It looks like Makoto doesn’t have a single friend, and his family don’t seem to care about him at all. But as the soul begins to live Makoto’s life on his own terms, he grows closer to the family & the people around him, and sees their true colours more clearly, shedding light on Makoto’s misunderstandings. Eto Mori’s beloved classic finally available in English.

Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout ($30, HB)

Lucy Barton is a successful writer living in New York, navigating the second half of her life as a recent widow & parent to 2 adult daughters. A surprise encounter leads her to reconnect with William, her first husband—and longtime, on-againoff-again friend & confidante. Recalling their college years, the birth of their daughters, the painful dissolution of their marriage, and the lives they built with other people, Strout weaves a portrait, stunning in its subtlety, of a decades-long partnership.

The Book of Form and Emptiness

by Ruth Ozeki ($33, PB)

After his father dies, Benny Oh finds he can hear objects talking—teapots, marbles & sharpened pencils, babbling in anger or distress. His mother, struggling to support their household alone, starts collecting things to give her comfort. Overwhelmed by the clamour of all the stuff, Benny seeks refuge in the beautiful silence of the public library—where the objects speak only in whispers. There, he meets a homeless poet & a mesmerising young performance artist—and a book reaches out to him. Not just any book—his own book. And a very important conversation begins.

Chronicles From the Land of the Happiest People on Earth by Wole Soyinka ($30, PB)

Much to Doctor Menka’s horror, some cunning entrepreneur has decided to sell body parts from his hospital for use in ritualistic practices. Already at the end of his tether from the horrors he routinely sees in surgery, he shares this latest development with his oldest college friend, bon viveur, star engineer and Yoruba royal, Duyole Pitan-Payne, who has never before met a puzzle he couldn’t solve. Neither realise how close the enemy is, nor how powerful. Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka aims directly at the corridors of power as he warns against corruption both of high office and of the soul, with a dazzling lightness of touch and gleeful irreverence.

Making Nice by Ferdinand Mount ($30, PB)

Dickie, lately the diplomatic correspondent for a London financial newspaper, his wife oncologist Jane & daughters Flo, an aspiring ballet dancer, and 14-year old Lucy, find themselves bound up in an ever more alarming series of unfortunate events, revolving around the shady character of Ethel (Ethelbert), founder of the dubious publication relations agency Making Nice. With echoes of Waugh’s Scoop this is a masterly take on the madness of contemporary society. Indeed, if there is one central theme to this most accomplished novel, it is the limitless human capacity for self-deception.

Foregone

by Russell Banks ($30, PB)

At the centre of Foregone is famed Canadian American leftist documentary filmmaker Leonard Fife, one of sixty thousand draft evaders and deserters who fled to Canada to avoid serving in Vietnam. Fife, now in his late seventies, is dying of cancer in Montreal and has agreed to a final interview in which he is determined to bare all his secrets at last, to demythologise his mythologized life. The interview is filmed by his acolyte and ex-star student, Malcolm MacLeod, in the presence of Fife’s wife and alongside Malcolm’s producer, cinematographer, and sound technician, all of whom have long admired Fife but who must now absorb the meaning of his astonishing, dark confession. Structured around Fife’s secret memories and alternating between the experiences of the characters who are filming his confession, Banks’ novel challenges assumptions and understanding about a significant lost chapter in American history and the nature of memory itself.

5

Silverview by John le Carré

Julian Lawndsley has renounced his high-flying job in the City for a simpler life running a bookshop in a small English seaside town. But only a couple of months into his new career, Julian’s evening is disrupted by a visitor. Edward, a Polish emigre living in Silverview, the big house on the edge of town, seems to know a lot about Julian’s family and is rather too interested in the inner workings of his modest new enterprise. When a letter turns up at the door of a spy chief in London warning him of a dangerous leak, the investigations lead him to this quiet town by the sea. ($33, PB)

Treasure and Dirt by Chris Hammer ($33, PB)

In the desolate outback town of Finnigans Gap thieves pillage opal mines, religious fanatics recruit vulnerable young people & billionaires do as they please. Then an opal miner is found crucified & left to rot down his mine, and Sydney homicide detective Ivan Lucic is sent to investigate, assisted by inexperienced young investigator Nell Buchanan. But Finnigans Gap has already ended one police career & damaged others, and soon both officers face damning allegations & internal investigations. Have Ivan & Nell been set up and, if so, by whom?

The Basel Killings by Hansjörg Dilger

It is just after midnight when PI Peter Hunkeler, spots old man Hardy sitting on a bench under a street light—but the usually very loquacious Hardy is silent—his throat a gaping wound. Hardy’s murder has much in common with the case of murdered prostitute, Barbara Amsler. Hunkeler’s trail leads him into the corrupt core of some of Basel’s political & industrial elite—and he will soon discover the consequences of certain events in recent Swiss history that those in power would prefer to keep far from the public eye. ($30, PB)

For Any Other Truth by Denzil Meyrick

When a light aircraft crash-lands at Machrie airport, DCI Jim Daley & his colleague Brian Scott find that both occupants of the plane were dead before take-off. Meanwhile in Kinloch, local fisherman Hamish is dragged into danger when he witnesses something he shouldn’t, and hotel manager Annie is beginning to suspect her new boss may not be as he first appeared. And just as Chief Superintendent Carrie Symington thinks she has finally escaped the sins of her past, she finds herself caught in an even deadlier trap. ($20, PB)

Suburban Dicks by Fabian Nicieza ($20, PB)

6

Crime Fiction

The River Mouth by Karen Herbert ($33, PB)

15-year-old Darren Davies is found facedown in the Weymouth River with a gunshot wound to his chest. The killer is never found. Ten years later, his mother receives a visit from the local police. Her best friend Barbara has been found dead on a remote Pilbara road. And Barbara’s DNA matches the DNA found under Darren’s fingernails. The investigation into her son’s murder is reopened, and Sandra discovers many secrets in her small town, and that her murdered son had secrets too.

Sweet Jimmy by Bryan Brown ($30, PB) Phil & Sweet Jimmy are cousins. Phil grows orchids—spider orchids— learnt about them in the nick. Jimmy likes orchids, too, but there are other things he likes even more. Trish Bennett didn’t like her life. Been on the streets. Bit of this for a bit of that. The ‘that’ wasn’t always nice.

Then Ahmed found her. Sam is a tea-leaf, a thief. Likes nickin ‘anything —until the day he knocked off more than the Volvo. Fell for the sexy and beautiful Sue May from Hong Kong, Frank Testy did. Silly old prick.

What price for ego? A huge bloody price it turns out. These gritty, raw and sometimes very funny stories from Australian great Bryan Brown are Aussie Noir at its best.

The Attack by Catherine Jinks ($33, PB)

Robyn Ayres works as the camp caretaker on Finch Island, a former leper colony off the coast of QLD. Her current clients are a group of exmilitary men who run a tough-love program for troubled teens. Amongst the latest crop is a kid called Darren. Last time she saw him his name was Aaron, and Robyn was his primary school teacher. And she was somehow at the centre of a vicious small-town custody battle involving his terrifying grandmother. Bruising classroom dynamics, manipulative parents and carers and horrendous small-town politics form the backdrop to a nail-biting thriller.

A Good Winter by Gigi Fenster ($33, PB)

When Olga’s friend Lara becomes a grandmother, Olga helps out whenever she can. After all, it’s a big imposition on Lara, looking after her bereaved daughter and the baby. And the new mother is not exactly considerate. But smouldering beneath Olga’s sensible support and loving generosity is a deep jealous need to be the centre of Lara’s attention and affection-a need that soon becomes a consuming, dangerous and ultimately tragic obsession. Winner of the 2020 Michael Gifkins Prize

Private Prosecution by Lisa Ellery ($33, PB)

Andrew Deacon is a junior prosecutor at the WA DPP with a bright future and a sense of entitlement to match. That future starts to look darker when he spends the night with an attractive stranger, Lily Constantine, and she is found murdered in her apartment the following day. Based on a conversation with Lil, Andrew believes he knows who killed her—a senior Western Australian criminal law barrister, Sam Godfrey SC, who is also Lil’s brother-in-law. Andrew tells the police everything he knows, but his quest to bring Godfrey to justice provokes retaliation and soon Andrew is on the run, with no way forward but to prove Godfrey’s guilt.

Once a budding FBI profiler, Andie Stern gave up her career to raise her 4 (soon to be 5) children in West Windsor, NJ. But one day, a very-pregnant Andie pulls into a gas station-& stumbles across a murder scene—and the bumbling local cops are in way over their heads. Obsessed with the case, Andie is back on the trail of a killer—with kids & disgraced local journalist Kenneth Lee in tow. A string of unusual oc- The Curlew’s Eye by Karen Manton ($33, PB) currences, and body parts surface around town—along with Greta’s partner Joel grew up with 5 brothers & a sister in a feisty household on an isolated NT property. But he doesn’t talk about those days— simmering racial tensions & a decades-old conspiracy. not the deaths of his sister & mother, nor the origin of the scars that snake Another Kind of Eden by James Lee Burke around his body. Now, many years later, he returns with Greta & their 3 Aspiring novelist Aaron Holland Broussard has observed young boys to prepare the place for sale. The boys are quick to settle in, the American West from the open door of a boxcar, riding and Joel seems preoccupied with work, but Greta has a growing sense the rails for both inspiration & odd jobs. In Denver, he finds of unease, struggling in the build-up’s oppressive heat & living in the work on a farm & meets Joanne McDuffy—college student shadow of the old, burned-out family home. She knows she’s a stranger and gifted painter. Their romance is complicated by Joanne’s in this uncanny place, with its eerie landscape, hostile neighbour, and a involvement with a shady professor who is mixed up with toxic dam whose clear waters belie its poison. And then there’s the mysa drug-addled cult. Then a sinister businessman & his son terious girl living rough whom Greta tries to befriend. set their sights on Aaron, drawing him into an investigation of grotesque murders. A prequel to Burke’s Holland family Riccardino by Andrea Camilleri ($33, PB) Inspector Montalbano receives an early-morning phone—and the caller trilogy ($33, PB) expects him to arrive imminently at a rendezvous with some friends.

A Change of Circumstance by Susan Hill Before he can reply the caller announces himself as someone called RicDCS Simon Serrailler has long regarded drugs ops in Laf- cardino & hangs up. Later that day news comes in of a brutal slaying ferton as a waste of time. But the body of a 22-year-old drug in broad daylight by an unknown assassin who makes his getaway on a addict pulls Simon into a whole new way of running drugs. motorbike—the victim’s identity? A man called Riccardino. Montalbano The foot soldiers? Meanwhile Simon’s GP sister Cat & her must contend with the involvement of a local bishop & a fortune teller husband Kieron (Simon’s boss) are struggling with medical who reports some strange goings-on in her neighbourhood. All roads dramas big & small. A trip to Bevham General on her rounds leadto a local salt mine—but the case proves stubbornly intractable until sets off alarm bells for Cat, and a visit from her son Sam as Montalbano receives another unexpected call he tries to work out if his midwifery course suits coincides The Stoning by Peter Papathanasiou ($30, PB) with a threat to their beloved family dog. ($33, PB) A small outback town wakes to a savage murder. Molly Abbott, a popular The Lonely Ones by Håkan Nesser teacher at the local school, is found taped to a tree and stoned to death.

1969. Six young people arrive in Uppsala, & over the course Suspicion falls on the refugees at the new detention centre on Cobb’s of a few years, they become friends. Years later, a lecturer at northern outskirts. Tensions are high between immigrants and some of Lund University is found dead at the bottom of a cliff in the the town’s residents. Detective Sergeant Georgios ‘George’ Manolis is woods close to Kymlinge. And chillingly, it is the very same despatched to his childhood hometown to investigate. His late father spot where one of the Uppsala students died 35 years before. immigrated to Australia in the 1950s, where he was first housed at the Detective Inspector Gunnar Barbarotti takes on this ominous detention centre’s predecessor — a migrant camp. He later ran the town’s case of history repeating itself, and is forced to confront an only milk bar. Within minutes of George’s arrival, it is clear that Cobb is increasingly grave reality. ($33, PB) not the same place he left as a child.

The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman

It’s the following Thursday, and Elizabeth has just had a visit from a man she thought was dead. It’s (one of) her ex-husbands, and he’s being hunted. His story involves some diamonds, some spies, and a very angry mobster. And then the bodies start piling up. So she enlists ‘The Thursday Murder Club’ in the hunt for the killer. If they find the diamonds—bonus! But this time the murderer isn’t some small-time criminal, and it soon becomes terrifying clear that they wouldn’t bat an eyelid at killing four septuagenarians. ($33, PB)

Cutters End by Margaret Hickey ($33, PB) New Year’s Eve, 1989. Hitching her way to Alice Springs 18-year-old Ingrid Mathers accepts a lift to the remote town of Cutters End. July 2021. DS Mark Ariti is seconded to a recently reopened case, one in which he has a personal connection. 3 decades ago, a burnt & broken body was discovered in scrub off the Stuart Highway, 300km south of Cutters End. Ultimately ruled an accidental death, many people were convinced it was murder. Mark’s interviews with the witnesses in the old case files go nowhere, and he has no choice but to make the long journey up the highway to Cutters End. I Shot the Devil by Ruth McIver ($33, PB)

Erin Sloane was 16 when high school senior Andre Villiers was murdered by his (and her) friends, led by the intense, charismatic Ricky Hell. Five people went into West Cypress Road Woods the night Andre was murdered. Only three came out. Ativan, alcohol & distance had dimmed Erin’s memories of that time. But nearly 20 years later, an ageing father brings her home—and as a journalist, she is asked to write a story about the Southport Three & the thrill-kill murder that mesmerised the country. Erin’s investigation propels her closer & closer to a terrifying truth. And closer & closer to danger.

The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny ($33, PB) When Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is asked to provide crowd control at a statistics lecture given at the Universite de l’Estrie in Quebec, he is dubious. Why ask the head of homicide to provide security for what sounds like a minor, even mundane lecture? But dangerous ideas about who deserves to live in order for society to thrive are rapidly gaining popularity, fuelled by the research of the eminent Professor Abigail Robinson. Yet for every person seduced by her theories there is another who is horrified by them. When a murder is committed days after the lecture, it’s clear that within crowds can lie madness.

The Housemate by Sarah Bailey ($33, PB)

3 housemates. One dead, one missing & one accused of murder.

Dubbed the Housemate Homicide, it’s a mystery that has baffled Australians for almost a decade. Melbourne-based journalist Olive Groves was obsessed by the case. 9 years later, the missing housemate turns up dead on a remote property. Olive is once again assigned to the story, this time reluctantly paired with precocious millennial podcaster Cooper Ng. They unearth new facts about the 3 housemates—and the revelations catapult Oli back to the death of the first housemate, forcing her to confront past traumas and insecurities that have risen to the surface again.

The Dark Remains ($30, PB)

by William McIlvanney & Ian Rankin

Lawyer Bobby Carter did a lot of work for the wrong type of people.

Now he’s dead. Besides a distraught family & a heap of powerful friends, Carter’s left behind his share of enemies. So, who dealt the fatal blow? DC Jack Laidlaw is not a team player, but he’s got a sixth sense for what’s happening on the streets. His boss chalks the violence up to the usual rivalries, but is it that simple? As two Glasgow gangs go to war, Laidlaw needs to find out who got Carter before the whole city explodes. When William McIlvanney died in 2015, he left half a handwritten manuscript of Laidlaw’s first case—Ian Rankin is back to finish what McIlvanney started.

State of Terror ($33, PB) Hillary Rodham Clinton & Louise Penny

A novice Secretary of State joins the administration of her rival, a president inaugurated after 4 years of American leadership that shrank from the world stage. A series of terrorist attacks throws the global order into disarray, and the secretary is tasked with assembling a team to unravel the deadly conspiracy, a scheme carefully designed to take advantage of an American government dangerously out of touch and out of power in the places where it counts the most.

Tank Water by Michael Burge ($30, PB)

James Brandt has returned to Kippen for the first time in 20 years because his cousin Tony has been found dead under the local bridge.

The fact that Tony has left him the entire family farm triggers James’s journalistic curiosity, and his anxiety. But it is the unexpected homophobic attack he survives that draws James into a hunt for the reasons one lonely Kippen farm boy in every generation kills himself. Standing in the way is James’s father, the town’s recently retired top cop, who is not prepared to investigate crimes no-one reckons have taken place.

City on Fire by Don Winslow ($33, PB)

2 criminal empires together control all of New England. Until a beautiful modern-day Helen of Troy comes between the Irish & the Italians, launching a war that will set a city on fire.

Danny Ryan yearns for a more ‘legit’ life, but as the bloody conflict stacks body on body, to save the friends he loves like family and the family he has sworn to protect, Danny becomes a leader, a ruthless strategist, and a master of a treacherous game—from the gritty streets of Providence to the glittering screens of Hollywood to the golden casinos of Las Vegas, Danny Ryan will forge a dynasty.

Better off Dead by Lee Child ($33, PB) A Jeep has crashed on a deserted Arizona road into the only tree for miles around. Minutes later Reacher is heading into the nearby border town, carrying Michaela Fenton, an army veteran turned FBI agent, who is trying to find her twin brother who may be mixed up with some dangerous people. And Reacher might just need to pay them a visit. Their leader has burrowed his influence deep into the town. Just to get in and meet the mysterious Dendoncker, Reacher is going to have to achieve the impossible. And there are people in this hostile, empty place who would rather die than reveal their secrets.

The Jealousy Man by Jo Nesbo ($33, PB)

A Greek detective has become an expert on jealousy thanks to some hard-earned lessons from his private life. A taxi driver finds his wife’s earring in a car belonging to his boss & sets out to discover how it ended up there. High in the skies above, a woman is on board a plane headed to London, about to end her own life in the wake of her husband’s affair with her best friend. But who is the man sitting next to her? Twelve pageturning short stories filled with dark thrills, twisted minds & vengeful hearts.

Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet ($33, PB)

When a young woman becomes convinced that her sister’s therapist was responsible for her suicide, she assumes an alter ego and presents herself as a client at his clinic, determined to get to the bottom of the charismatic therapist’s relationship with her sister. But just who is she convincing with her performance of the deeply troubled Rebecca? Case Study is a game of cat-and-mouse between therapist and patient, between truth and deception, and between author and reader.

True Crime

Redhanded

by Suruthi Bala & Hannah Maguire ($33, PB)

What is it about killers, cults & cannibals that capture our imaginations even as they terrify & disturb us? How do we carefully consume these cases & what can they teach us about what makes victims & their murderers our collective responsibility? Bala & Maguire reject the outdated narrative of killers as monsters & that a victim ‘was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.’ They dissect the stories of killers in a way that challenges perceptions & ask questions about society, gender, poverty, culture & politics. With Bala and Maguire’s trademark humour, research on real-life cases, and unflinching analysis of what makes a criminal, they take you through the societal, behavioural, and cultural drivers of the most extreme of human behaviour to find out once and for all: what makes a killer tick?

The Devil’s Work by Garry Linnell ($35, PB)

Claiming to be haunted by the ghost of his dead mother, Frederick Deeming had spent years roaming the planet under various aliases, preying on the innocent, the gullible & the desperate.

But the discovery by Australian police in 1892 of the body of one of his wives in a shallow concrete grave triggered a huge manhunts that exposed a further series of grisly murders— those of his first wife & 4 children—that stunned the Victorian era. This is a gothic journey into the twisted mind of a serial killer, set in the dying years of the 19th century when science & religion had collided, it raises fresh questions about Deeming’s role in the Jack the Ripper killings & culminates in his sensational trial where he was defended by a future Australian Prime Minister who believed he could also speak to the dead.

Cop by Valentin Gendrot ($30, PB)

What happens behind the walls of a police station? Journalist Valentin Gendrot undertook training to became a police officer, and worked in a police station in one of the tough northern arrondissements of Paris, where relations between the law & locals are strained. He witnessed police brutality, racism, blunders, and cover-ups—and also the oppressive working conditions that officers endure, and the tragic suicide of a colleague.

Asking important questions about who holds institutional power & how we can hold them to account, Cop is a gripping expose of a world never before seen by outsiders.

7

THE WILDER AISLES

Recently in this column, I wrote about Earlier Morning Riser by Katherine Heiny, which I so loved that I went on to her two previous titles. Single, Carefree, Mellow is a book of short stories with some characters appearing in one or more of the stories. I know some people are put off by the idea of the short stories—but these are great. All the stories are good—thought-provoking and thoroughly entertaining. I have trouble choosing any one in particular—but That Dance That You Do, with an harassed mother trying to organise a birthday party for her six-year-old son, and leaping the many obstacles in her way of achieving this event, and the title story, Single, Carefree, Mellow, where Maya’s dog is dying and she is leaving her husband—undecided about who she will miss most, do stand out. Heiny’s second novel, Standard Deviation, I find hard to write about—it is so good. One reason I find it difficult is that Audra, the main character, resembles me too much—she’s loud, will talk to anyone, and noses out family secrets in no time flat. Sadly when, on the odd occasion, I discover myself in a book, it is rarely flattering. Nevertheless, there Audra is. The beginning chapter suggests that Audra and her husband Graham, live in separate universes which has an impact on their family life. It is a second marriage for Graham, and when his first wife, Elspeth, re-enters his life, and therefore Audra’s, things start to happen. This is such a wonderful book, I put off finishing it for awhile, because I didn’t want all these people to leave my life, especially Audra and Graham’s son, origami obsessive, Matthew. In fact the Origami story is one of my favourite parts of the book. Eagerly awaiting the next book from this very talented writer.

A very different book is The Covered Wife. Lisa Emanuel’s debut novel places you in one of those situations of having to choose what means the most—what would you give up to have the other thing on offer. This is another difficult book to write about, but by far a different reason. Set in Sydney, Sarah is a young lawyer, working in a top law firm at Circular Quay. She leads a quiet life, immersed in her work, not given to socialising. One evening, after work, Tali, a woman who sits at the next desk, talks her into going for a drink with the crowd. There, Sarah meets Daniel—a barrister who works for a different law firm. Their relationship develops very quickly, finding that they have a lot in common, especially both being Jewish. His family turns out to the large, noisy loving family that Sarah never had, and she falls even more in love. Daniel introduces her to Rabbi Menachem Lev and his wife Cheni, and together, Sarah and Daniel start attending the progressive synagogue near the beach. At first Sara loves it, and becomes completely involved. The beachside synagogue has become too big for the site, so a decision is made to move to the Blue Mountains, and for all the adherents to move there, including Sarah and Daniel. In fact, it seems that Daniel has been chosen for a leadership role and Sarah is expected to be his partner, in every respect. After the birth of their son, Jossi, Sarah tries to be the Good Jewish mother and wife, but as more things are revealed about the situation in the mountains, she realises that this is a place she would rather not be. I loved this book—I have always been interested in Judaism, fascinated by the history and the archeology. The decision that Sarah has to make is not one that I would have liked to make.

I have loved all of Lisa Genova’s novels. Ones like Still Alice on dementia, Inside the O’Briens—Huntington’s Disease, and Every Note Played about ALS. She writes with such compassion and understanding of what the sufferers are going through. As I am, at the moment, the carer for my sister Barbara who has a form of dementia that has taken her short term memory, I was very interested in her latest non-fiction book, Remember. Lisa holds a degree in biopsychology and a PHD in neuroscience from Harvard. I found the book very helpful— she explains everything exactly in layman’s terms, but in an approachable way.

While there were maybe a few more technical terms I may have had a problem with, there were remarkably few for a non-science person like me. Genova explains the different forms of memory, how we can improve it and what to do when it starts to fail. I wanted to write about this book, not only for my sister, but for myself, to help me to understand what she is going through—and not get angry when telling her the time/date day every five minutes. I try very hard to put myself in her place, but it is not always easy. Genova’s book really opened my eyes to a lot of new attitudes and ways to respond to my sister.

Genova is a gifted writer and a very special person. FYI, I have just read online that Inside the O’Briens is being made into a film. Looking forward to it.

Very quickly, a few words about Australian author, Katherine Brabon’s new book, The Shut Ins. These shut ins, or hikikomori, are recluses who never leave their rooms for years. Mai and Hikaru went to school together, and when Mai catches up with him later and finds he has become a hikikomori, she decide to try and encourage him to leave his room. This is a very Japanese book, in away it reminded me of Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, one of my all time favourites. Highly recommended. Janice Wilder

Biography

The Turning Point: A Year that Changed Dickens and the World by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst ($50, HB)

1851 is a time of radical change in Britain, when industrial miracles & artistic innovations rub shoulders with political unrest, poverty & disease. It’s also a turbulent time in the private life of Charles Dickens, as he copes with a double bereavement & early signs that his marriage is falling apart. But this formative year will become perhaps the greatest turning point in Dickens’s career, as he embraces his calling as a chronicler of ordinary people’s lives, and develops a new form of writing that will reveal just how interconnected the world is becoming. Robert DouglasFairhurst transports you into the foggy streets of Dickens’s London, closely following the twists & turns of a year that would come to define him, and forever alter Britain’s relationship with the world.

The Woman They Could Not Silence by Kate Moore

Elizabeth Packard was an ordinary Victorian housewife & mother of six. That was, until the first Woman’s Rights Convention was held in 1848, inspiring Elizabeth & many other women to dream of greater freedoms. She began voicing her opinions on politics & religion— opinions that her husband did not share. Deeply threatened by her growing independence, he had her declared ‘slightly insane’ and committed to an asylum. Inside the Illinois State Hospital, Elizabeth found many other perfectly lucid women who, like her, had been betrayed by their husbands & incarcerated for daring to have a voice.

But just because you are sane, doesn’t mean that you can escape a madhouse. Fighting the stigma of her gender & her supposed madness, Elizabeth embarked on a ceaseless quest for justice—not only challenging the medical science of the day & saving others from suffering her fate, ultimately leading to a giant leap forward in human rights the world over. ($35, PB)

Dante by Alessandro Barbero ($40, HB)

Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy has defined how people imagine and depict heaven and hell for over 700 years. However, outside of Italy, his other works are not well-known, and less still is generally known about the context he wrote them in. Alessandro Barbero brings the legendary author’s Italy to life, describing the political intrigue, battles, city and society that shaped his life and work. Translated by Allan Cameron.

Nellie: The life and loves of Dame Nellie Melba

by Robert Wainwright ($33, PB)

When most Australians think of Nellie Melba they picture a squarish middle-aged woman dressed in furs & large hats, an imperious Dame whose voice ruled the world for three decades. But there was much more to her life than adulation & riches. To succeed she had to overcome social expectations, misogyny & tall-poppy syndrome. She endured the violence of a bad marriage, was denied by scandal a true love with the would-be King of France, and suffered the loss of her only child for more than a decade, stolen by his angry & vengeful father. And against these odds, she became the greatest opera singer of her time on stages across Australia, America & Europe.

Home in the World by Amartya Sen ($55, HB)

For Professor of Economics & Professor of Philosophy at Harvard, Amartya Sen, home has been many places—Dhaka in modern Bangladesh where he grew up, the village of Santiniketan where he was raised by his grandparents as much as by his parents, Calcutta where he first studied economics & was active in student movements, and Trinity College, Cambridge, to which he came aged 19. Sen recreates the atmosphere in each of these. Central to his formation was the intellectually liberating school in Santiniketan founded by Rabindranath Tagore (who gave him his name Amartya) & enticing conversations in the famous Coffee House on College Street in Calcutta. As an undergraduate at Cambridge, he engaged with many of the leading figures of the day—and this is a book of ideas, especially Marx, Keynes & Arrow, as much as of people and places.

Mr Atkinson’s Rum Contract: The Story of a Tangled Inheritance by Richard Atkinson ($25, PB) Like many well-to-do Georgian families, publisher, Richard Atkinsons’ family wealth was acquired at a terrible cost, through the labour & lives of enslaved Africans. Drawing on his ancestors’ private correspondence, Richard Atkinson pieces together their unsettling story, from the weather-beaten house in Cumbria where they once lived to the ruins of their sugar estates in Jamaica. This extraordinary work of detective biography is also a uniquely personal account of one of the most disturbing chapters in Britain’s colonial past.

The Birthday Scrolls by Geoff Nicholls ($25, PB)

8

This is a memoir of Newcastle bohemian Geoff Nicholls’ birthdays between the ages of 21 & 60. Pre-gentrification Newcastle, bands & parties mingle with visits to psychiatric wards, concerts in Sydney, work at the Hunter Wetlands Centre, yoga, singing, uni. Geoff writes of his passions & foibles, of the peaks & troughs of birthdays, including those he winds up celebrating by himself—a set of recollections of a life lived at a tangent to the mainstream, that explores family, loneliness, friendship & the transcendence to be found in art.

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Great Demon Kings by John Giorno ($37, PB)

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THRILLING READS

When he graduated from Columbia in 1958, John Giorno was eager to soak up as much of Manhattan’s art & culture as possible. Poetry didn’t pay the bills, so he worked on Wall Street, spending his nights at the EM FR M RO happenings, underground movie premiers, art shows & poetry readings EF M I R EC E that brought the city to life. An intense romantic relationship with Andy EAS AS REL LE RE NEW W ESS Warhol exposed Giorno to even more of the downtown scene, but afR P NE E M S NTL RO ELE ES FREMA EF R PR M ter starring in Warhol’s first movie, Sleep, they drifted apart & Giorno RIM W LE FRO EC NTIME NE AS EACR M S E S A E L LFER E became involved with Robert Rauschenberg & later Jasper Johns. He ES RE R R W W NE ROM EP NE SS TL PRE EF became a renowned poet in his own right, working at the intersection AN ESS TLE RIM PR MAN EM EC FRE FR TLE AS N E M A L of literature & technology, freely crossing genres & mediums alongside the likes of William RO EM RE FR W EF IM OM Burroughs & Brion Gysin. Completed shortly before his death in 2019, this is the memoir of NE FR CR SE IME R A C LE SE a singular cultural pioneer: an openly gay man at a time when many artists remained closeted RE LEA W ‘Brings vividly to RE debut ‘So intense that you ‘A superb NE W S & shunned gay subject matter, and a devout Buddhist whose faith acted as a rudder during a NE S E read frenetically.’ written with personlife the flamboyant EF R RIM EP EC N TL life full of fantastic highs & frightening lows.

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The Year of the End: A Memoir of Marriage, Truth and Fiction by Anne Theroux ($25, PB)

In 1990, after 22 years, spent across four continents, with 2 children Anne & Paul Theroux decided to separate. For that year, Anne—later a professional relationship therapist herself—kept a diary, noting not only her day-to day experiences as a busy freelance journalist & broadcaster, but the contrasts in her feelings between despairing grief & hope for a new future. With reflections on truth & fiction, literature and art and the nature of marriage, alongside commentary on notable political & cultural events, and interviews with prominent writers of the time, including Kingsley Amis & Barbara Cartland, her memoir offers a unique insight into the unravelling of a relationship & the attempts to rebuild a life.

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At the height of the Holocaust 25 young inmates of the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp were selected to design, cut & sew fashions for elite Nazi women in a dedicated salon. It was work that they hoped would spare them from the gas chambers. This fashion workshop—called the Upper Tailoring Studio—was established by Hedwig Hoss, the camp commandant’s wife, and patronized by the wives of SS guards & officers. Here, the dressmakers produced high-quality garments for SS social functions in Auschwitz, and for ladies from Nazi Berlin’s upper crust. Drawing on diverse sources—including interviews with the last surviving seamstress—Lucy Adlington follows the fates of these brave women. ($35, PB)

The Ambassador: Joseph P. Kennedy at the Court of St. James’s 1938–1940 by Susan Ronald ($60, HB)

On February 18, 1938, Joseph P. Kennedy was sworn in as US Ambassador to the Court of St. James. That his appointment to the most prestigious & strategic diplomatic post in the world shocked the Establishment is an understatement: known for his profound Irish roots & staunch Catholicism, not to mention his ‘plain-spoken’ opinions & womanizing, he was a curious choice as Europe hurtled toward war.

Initially welcomed by the British, in less than 2 short years Kennedy was loathed by the White House, the State Department & the British Government. Believing firmly that Fascism was the inevitable wave of the future, he consistently misrepresented official US foreign policy internationally as well as direct instructions from FDR himself. The Americans were the first to disown him & the British & the Nazis used Kennedy to their own ends. Through meticulous research & many newly available sources, Susan Ronald’s highly readable biography confirms what has long been believed by many: that Kennedy was a Fascist sympathizer & an anti-Semite whose only loyalty was to his family’s advancement.

A promising student at the Royal College of Music, Ivor Gurney enlisted as a private with the Gloucestershire regiment in 1915 & spent 2 years in the trenches of the Western Front. Wounded & gassed during the Battle of Passchendaele, Gurney was recovering in hospital when his first collection of poems, Severn and Somme, was published. Despite episodes of depression, he resumed his music studies after the war until he was committed to an asylum in 1922. At times believing he was Shakespeare & that the ‘machines under the floor’ were torturing him, he nevertheless continued to write & compose, leaving behind a vast body of unpublished work when he died of tuberculosis. Spanning literary criticism, history, psychiatry & musicology, this narrative sets Gurney’s life & work against the backdrop of the war & his institutionalisation, probing the links between madness, suffering & creativity.

Daring to Fly by Lisa Millar ($33, PB)

As a child growing up in country Queensland, Lisa Millar dreamed of a big life—which working as a foreign correspondent gave her. However, it also meant confronting the worst that humanity has to offer, and 3 decades as a journalist witnessing tragedy had a cost—an ever-escalating fear of flying threatened to rob her of her ability to work at all. For that young girl from small-town Kilkivan, who had to push herself to keep going, push herself to conquer fear, push herself to tell important stories, finally came the realisation that sometimes all we really need is what we already have—that we are all stronger and more resilient than we give ourselves credit for if we just dare to let ourselves fly.

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The Silence Between Us

by Oceane Campbell & Cécile Barral ($35, 30/6/21 PB) NE

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The Dressmakers of Auschwitz by Lucy Adlington

Dweller in Shadows: A Life of Ivor Gurney

by Kate Kennedy ($63, HB)

Larry Writer

4:24 p

Because Oceane had just turned 18 when she attempted suicide, the hospital had to respect her request: to not notify her parents.

Years later, when Oceane asked her mother, Cécile, to write something together about this period, she never expected that Cécile already had many pages filled with words that she began to write when she eventually learned of Oceane’s attempt. In this book Oceane pieces together her story through old diary entries, emails, hospital records & psychiatric reports, interspersed with Cécile’s own intense account of caring for her fiercely independent daughter—slowly learning about the intergenerational trauma that forced the chasm between them, as well as the campus sexual assault that pushed Oceane over the edge. As Oceane lets Cécile back into her life and they attempt to negotiate both the mental health and legal systems, the fractures start to mend.

No One Left Behind by Keith Payne ($50, HB)

Keith Payne grew up one of 13 children in the shadow of the Great Depression & WW2. After seeing his father come home wounded from war, Payne joined the army. He was sent to fight in Korea at 18 years old, the bloody beginning to decades of military service across the world. His life was defined by one night in 1969. In the dark jungle of Vietnam, under heavy enemy fire, Keith returned to a fled battlefield to rescue 40 of his soldiers.

For his extreme act of bravery in leading his men to safety, Payne became the last Australian to earn the VC for 40 years. He spent decades in the public spotlight while struggling with his own demons, then found new purpose as an advocate for others. In a lifetime of service, he has helped not only veterans of foreign wars, but also Indigenous diggers & communities left behind by civilian & military bureaucracy.

A Quantum Life

by Hakeem Oluseyi and Joshua Horwitz ($35, PB)

As he struggled to survive his childhood in some of the US’s toughest urban neighbourhoods in New Orleans, Houston & LA, and later in the equally poor backwoods of Mississippi, James Plummer adopted the persona of ‘gangsta nerd’—dealing weed in juke joints while winning state science fairs with computer programs that model Einstein’s theory of relativity. Once admitted to the elite physics PhD program at Stanford U, James found himself pulled between the promise of a bright future & the crack cocaine habit he developed in college. With the encouragement of his mentor & the sole Black professor in the physics department, James confronted his personal demons as well as the entrenched racism & classism of the scientific establishment—seizing his dream of a life in astrophysics, with his adopted new name, Hakeem Muata Oluseyi, in honour of his African ancestors.

Jeoffry: The Poet’s Cat by Oliver Soden ($45, HB)

Jeoffry was a real cat who lived 250 years ago, confined to an asylum with Christopher Smart, one of the most visionary poets of the age. In exchange for love and companionship, Smart rewarded Jeoffry with the greatest tribute to a feline ever written.

Oliver Soden combines meticulous research with passages of dazzling invention to recount the life of the cat praised as ‘a mixture of gravity and waggery’. His narrative roams from the theatres & bordellos of Covent Garden to the cell where Smart was imprisoned for mania. At once whimsical and profound, witty and deeply moving, Soden’s biography plays with the genre like a cat with a toy. It tells the story of a poet and a poem, while setting Jeoffry’s life and adventures against the roaring backdrop of 18th-century London.

Also New: Leaping into Waterfalls: The enigmatic Gillian Mears

by Bernadette Brennan ($35, PB)

9 9

Travel Writing

TAKE RISKS

The Bondi to Manly Walk: The Definitive Guidebook by Tara Wells ($35, PB)

This spectacular 80-kilometre track—Sydney’s best multi-day walk—connects the iconic beaches of Bondi & Manly, winding through secluded bays, protected bushland and the glittering harbour city along the way. Covering every bay, beach & headland between Bondi & Manly, day walkers can also choose from 12 highlighted short walks, including: Bronte to Bondi; The Rocks and Sydney Harbour Bridge; Hermitage Foreshore Walk near Rose Bay; South Head at Watsons Bay; The Spit to Manly Walk; Manly’s North Head. With track notes & maps for casual day walkers & multi-day hikers, accommodation & detailed itineraries for those wanting the challenge of inn-to-inn style hiking, as well as notes for families & dog walkers.

The Amur River: Between Russia and China

by Colin Thubron ($35, PB)

The Amur River is the 10th longest river in the world, rising in the Mongolian mountains & flowing through Siberia to the Pacific.

For 1,100 miles it forms the tense border between Russia & China.

Haunted by the memory of land-grabs and unequal treaties, this is the most densely fortified frontier on earth. Colin Thubron takes a dramatic journey from the Amur’s secret source to its giant mouth, covering almost 3,000 miles. Harassed by injury & by arrest from the local police, he makes his way along both the Russian & Chinese shores, starting out by Mongolian horse, then hitchhiking, sailing on poacher’s sloops or travelling the Trans-Siberian Express. Talking to everyone from Chinese traders to Russian fishermen, from monks to indigenous peoples, by the time Thubron reaches the river’s desolate end, where Russia’s 19th-century imperial dream petered out, a whole, pivotal world has come alive.

Berlin: The Passenger ($30, PB)

‘Berlin is too big for Berlin’ is the curious title of a book by flaneur Hanns Zischler who jokes about the low population density of this polycentric, extensive city. But ‘Berlin is too big for Berlin’ in another sense: how to live together & keep alive the myth of ‘Berlin, the trendy city’? To understand it, it is necessary to go on a journey to its origins, the nineties: the scars of war were everywhere, coal stoves, dilapidated buildings, basic supermarkets. When the Circus Came to Town: The Resurrection of Postdamer Platz by Peter Schneider; Berlin Suite by Cees Nooteboom; An Author Recommends

by David Wagner; Plus: the controversial reconstruction of a Prussian castle, Berlin’s most transgressive sex club, a green urban oasis, suburban neo-Nazis & much more.

The Runner’s Bucket List by John Brewer

This book contains 1,000 entries detailing the world’s best races, routes & locations to run, alongside impressive full-colour photography & race stats. Written by running experts from around the world & categorised into run type: road, trail, mountain, desert, snow/ice, multi-terrain, urban, multi-day, night, team/relay, festival, and novelty, this is the go-to guide for any runner. Containing helpfully plotted continent maps as well as easy to use month-by-month race finders, the races are also indexed both by type & location, for easy navigation. ($40, HB)

Atlas of Forgotten Places by Travis Elborough

Abandoned places are mysterious, strange, striking, neglected, hazardous and off-limits. Each sleeping monument offers a snapshot that transports you back in time, invites you to peer into hidden histories, unearth glamorous pasts and reveal dark truths.

From a disused New York subway station to a train cemetery in Bolivia, from a crumbling fourth-century castle to a derelict industrial monolith, from a vacant five-star hotel to a Soviet ghost town in the Arctic Circle. Original maps and stunning colour photography accompany Travis Elborough’s moving historic & geographic accounts of over 40 sites. ($40, HB)

Another Bangkok by Alex Kerr ($23, PB)

One of Asia’s most extraordinary cities, Bangkok is also one of the most baffling. It is filled with remarkable people & glittering golden palaces & temples, but is also a maze of concrete & twisting overhead utility wires. Alex Kerr has spent over 30 years in Bangkok and he revels in the secret, tucked-away corners, the great contemporary artists & the sheer wonder of so many aspects of Thai dance & design. While deploring the loss of much of old Bangkok, he is never merely nostalgic for a past but finds inspiration in Thailand’s dynamic modern fusions.

Surf and Stay: 7 Road Trips in Europe

Veerle Helsen, a die-hard surfer & design journalist, has combed Europe for a mix of better & lesser- known surfing spots, authentic beach restaurants, fabulous hotels & the most beautiful driving routes. profiles breath-taking surfing spots in seven European regions, including Spanish Cantabria, the French Basque Country, Tenerife, Belgium, and Brittany. ($90, HB)

10

JOHN MARSDEN

John Marsden, the award-winning, bestselling author of the Tomorrow series, has spent his life educating kids and teenagers.

Take Risks is the memoir of a revered author and educator, and a forthright discussion on teaching, parenting and society as a whole.

Home

STEPHANIE ALEXANDER

More than 200 recipes and an essential addition to every kitchen shelf.

‘Stephanie Alexander is one of the few chefs with the heart of a home cook: every recipe she writes is infused with warmth . . . no kitchen should be without her. . . There really is no one to match her’ Nigella Lawson

The

143-STOREY TREEHOUSE

A N DY G R I F F I T H S & T E R R Y D E N TO N Andy and Terry’s record-breaking treehouse now has 13 new storeys, including a word-o-matic (it knows every word in the whole world!), a complaining room, and a toffee apple orchard guarded by a kind scarecrow. Well, what are you waiting for? Come on up!

self/less

AV i VA

Seventeen-year-old Teddy lives in the walled-in city Metropolis. Radical laws condemn all forms of self-expression and creativity, and the lives of the people are carefully constructed and controlled by the City Council: We watch because We care. From Australian musician and global superstar AViVA, this is a stunning debut thriller.

Love talking about books?

Find us online at Pan Macmillan Australia

The Great Forest by David Lindenmayer

The city of Melbourne lies on the edge of a vast plain surrounded by a green and blue mountainous rim, whose hills and peaks are home to the magnificent Mountain Ash, the tallest flowering plant on the planet. The Mountain Ash forests were 20 million years in the making, and deep within the valleys are even more ancient, Gondwanic rainforests. This is a tribute to extraordinary landscapes now under severe threat from logging & wildfires, such as the catastrophic fire that struck on Black Saturday in 2009. It uncovers the intricate webs of life that make Mountain Ash forests so much more than their towering trees. It explores the unique forests that have sustained the Gunaikurnai, Taungurung & Wurundjeri peoples for tens of thousands of years, and that provide a home for creatures found almost nowhere else. ($50, HB)

The Turkish Embassy Letters: 1716–1718

by Mary Wortley Montagu ($30, PB)

Mary Montagu a self-educated intellectual, a free spirit, a radical, a feminist but also an entitled aristocrat & a society wit with powerful friends at court. In 1716 she travelled across Europe to take up residence in Istanbul as the wife of the British ambassador. Enchanted by her discoveries of the life of Turkish women behind the veil,

by Arabic poetry & by contemporary medical practices—including inoculation, for 2 years she lovingly observed Ottoman society as a participant, with affection, intelligence and an astonishing lack of prejudice. ‘… one of the best narrative travel books ever written by an Englishwoman.’—Dervla Murphy.

Naturalist on the Bibbulmun: A walking companion by Leigh W. Simmons ($40, PB)

The Bibbulman Track runs just over 1000km through the forests & across the coastal heaths of southwestern WA, from the towns of Kalamundain the North to Albany in the South. This is the story of Leigh Simmons’ journey with his son through this ancient & extraordinary corner of the world. Simmons musters his expertise in ecology & evolutionary biology to document the animals & plants found during the Noongar seasons of kambarang & birak—from November to January—with colour photographs throughout. He shows how evolution has shaped the extraordinary diversity of animals & plants in this corner of the World, the important roles biodiversity plays in providing the stable ecosystem in which we live & prosper, and the serious impacts to that stability imposed by our increasing overexploitation of what is an ancient and fragile landscape.

Now in B Format Wanderers: A History of Women Walking

by Kerri Andrews, $23

Food, Health & Garden

Why you should give a f*ck about farming

by Gabrielle Chan ($35, PB)

Farming sits at the intersection of the world’s biggest challenges around climate change, soil, water, energy, natural disasters & zoonotic diseases. Gabrielle Chan examines the past, present & future of farming. With a forensic eye, she lays out how our nation, its leaders, farmers & eaters can usher in new ways for us to work & live on our unique and precious land. We must forge a new social contract if we are to grow healthy food on a thriving landscape, while mitigating climate and biodiversity loss. This important book will change your thinking about food, farming and how you eat.

How To Keep Your Brain Young by Kerryn Phelps

While ageing physically is inevitable, ageing mentally is not. Kerryn Phelps lays out the basics of the brain & the simple, everyday practices for keeping your brain younger for longer. Our brains are continually capable of rewiring & relearning—Phelps applies this knowledge to an array of simple, sustainable lifestyle habits, showing how anyone, whether starting at 40 or 80, can age gracefully and keep mentally sharp. From diet & exercise to gut microbiome & mindfulness techniques, this book shows how to feel sharper, kick out the brain fog & retain mental acuity in later life. ($35, PB)

Every Deep-Drawn Breath by Wes Ely ($35, PB)

As COVID-19 survivors are discharged from hospitals, grateful to be alive, most don’t realise that the hardest part of their battle may be about to begin. More than half of the patients admitted to ICUs will struggle with post-intensive care syndrome, which can include Alzheimer’s-like cognitive deficits, PTSD, muscle and nerve damage, and depression. Their personal and professional lives can suffer irreparably. Worst of all, no one seems to understand that they have an illness at all. Not even their doctors. Dr Wes Ely is now a leader in the field of ICU survivorship—calling for healthcare professionals to turn their gaze from the latest life-saving machines to really see, as he says, ‘the person in the patient’.

Liver Better Life by Dr Paul Gow ($30, PB)

Liver health is the canary in the coalmine for your overall health. With good liver health, you can look forward to a life of vitality, free of the diseases that so often cause premature death in the western world, such as diabetes, heart attack, stroke & cancer. Reversing fatty liver disease is possible—and simple. Gastroenterologist Dr Paul Gow debunks common misconceptions & offers an in-depth insight into how your liver functions & the steps you can take to improve your liver health.

Ill Feelings: Stories of unexplained illness

by Alice Hattrick ($28, PB)

In 1995, Alice’s mother collapsed with pneumonia. She never fully recovered & was eventually diagnosed with ME, or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Then Alice got ill. Her symptoms mirrored her mother’s & appeared to have no physical cause; she received the same diagnosis a few years later. Ill Feelings blends memoir, medical history, biography & literary nonfiction to uncover both of their case histories, and branches out into the records of ill health that women have written about in diaries & letters. Hattrick’s cast of characters includes Virginia Woolf & Alice James, the poets Elizabeth Barrett Browning & Emily Dickinson, John Ruskin’s lost love Rose la Touche, the artist Louise Bourgeois, and the nurse Florence Nightingale.

The Good Life: How To Grow A Better World

by Hannah Moloney ($40, PB)

For Hannah Moloney a good life is one built around community & sustainability. In this book, she shares inspiration & practical advice to help you live happily & sustainably. From growing your own tea, to building a DIY water tank, making yoghurt & co-housing, this book will give you the skills, self-reliance & confidence needed to engage meaningfully with your space, your food & your community.

Whether you have a half-acre, a backyard, a tiny balcony or no balcony at all, there are tips & tricks to suit everyone.

New in September Hugh Johnson Pocket Wine 2022, $28 Gastro Obscura: A Food Adventurer’s Guide

Discover English bog butter. ‘Threads of God’ pasta (only three women know how to make it). The best black bean fritter restaurant in Brazil. The world’s largest floating restaurant. A croissant museum in Poland. Focusing as much on food’s place in our lives as well as our bellies, the book covers history—the network of ancient Roman fish sauce factories. Culture—picture four million women gathering to make rice pudding. Travel—scale China’s Mount Hua to reach a sacred tea house. Festivals—chase a wheel of double Gloucester at Britain’s annual Cooper’s Hill cheese rolling competition. And such truly surprising delicacies as sturgeon spinal cord, blood tofu, stinkbug tacos, and more. ($65, HB)

Med: A Cookbook by Claudia Roden ($55, HB)

Claudia Roden is credited with revolutionising Western attitudes to Middle Eastern and Mediterranean food. Over thirty years on from her first Mediterranean cookbook, Claudia shares the sun-soaked simplicity of the Mediterranean with new recipes for effortless, everyday cooking. From Provence to Petra, Madrid to Morocco, explore the many & varied flavours of the Mediterranean as Claudia shares a life’s worth of travelling & stories along with the food she cooks now.

New from the Big Chefs: Home by Stephanie Alexander ($60, HB) Ottolenghi Test Kitchen: Shelf Love

by Noor Murad & Yotam Ottolenghi ($50, PB) One Pan Perfect by Donna Hay ($50, HB) Rick Stein at Home ($55, HB) Together: Memorable Meals Made Easy

by Jamie Oliver ($50, HB) Camper Van Cooking ($35, HB)

by Claire Thomson & Matt Williamson

Life on wheels doesn’t have to mean eating out of cans & packets: This book gives you the advice, tips & tricks you will need to plan the food for your trip, from essential equipment to basic store cupboard staples. Recipes include saag paneer curry, gingery rice & prawns, frying pan toad-in-thehole, Spanish tortilla sandwiches, Bloody Mary prawn subs, toasted waffles with grated chocolate, one-pan fry-up, cherry chocolate mess, and raspberry ripple rice pudding.

Bowls & Broths by Pippa Middlehurst ($35, HB)

Pippa Middlehurst tells the story of building a bowl from the bottom up—with seasoning & sauce, crunchy bits & fresh herbs, aromatics & toppings—with accessible recipes that use these building blocks to maximise the power of ingredients, texture & flavour. With chapters on dumplings, noodles, hotpots, rice and even sweets things—perfect to try at home for a weekend feast & for quick & easy weeknight dinners, plus there’s handy batch cooking & freezer tips.

The Modern Preserver’s Kitchen

by Kylee Newton ($35, HB)

With over 30 recipes for jams, chutneys, ferments and pickles, and 70 dishes in which to use them these recipes inspire you to make your own or to reach into your condiment ghost-town shelf of half-eaten jams and pickles in the fridge and give new life to them instead of throwing them away. And once you’ve made them try using your preserves in delicious recipes such as Pickled Pea Frittata, Breakfast Kimchi Eggs, Deep-Fried Camembert with Cranberry Sauce and Dukkah, and Peach and Mint Jam Mini Galettes.

Sambal Shiok: The Malaysian Cookbook

by Mandy Yin ($50, HB)

Malaysian food results from the unique merger over centuries of Indigenous Malay ingredients with Indian spices & Chinese techniques. Every dish delicately balances sweet, sour, salty with chilli heat & a hint of bitter. These 75 Malaysianinspired recipe—including Malacca Nyonya curry laksa, Penang assam laksa, Malaysian fried chicken, prawn fritters, spiral curry puffs, flaky roti canai, beef rendang, KL golden fragrant clams, sambal mapo tofu, and the perfect steamed rice—can be made for a weekday family meal, a dinner party or celebration.

Grist: A Practical Guide to Cooking Grains, Beans, Seeds, and Legumes ($65, HB)

More than 125 recipes for 28 different types of grains, legumes, and seeds that, in combination with vegetables and lean proteins, are the stars of the healthiest, most variable, and most satisfying meals, many of them gluten free. For new and seasoned home cooks—bean lovers, those looking for weeknight solutions and/or a varied diet based on pantry staples this is a guide to building a repertoire of approachable, big-on-flavour recipes.

Flavors of the Sun by Christine Sahadi Whelan & Kristin Teig ($50, HB)

120 simple dishes, including starters, salads, soups, familyfriendly meals & desserts. With sections devoted to Bright, Savory, Spiced, Nutty & Sweet accents, this book offers inspiration, techniques & recipes for using everything from Aleppo pepper to za’atar with confidence. Plus no-recipe recipes help build up your flavour intuition so you can use, and use up, any of the featured spices, condiments & preserves to breathe new life into your standard repertoire.

11

books for kids to young adults

picture books

Big Dog, Little Dog by Sally Rippin ($25, HB) The Little Wooden Robot and the Log Princess First there was just Big Dog. And then, one day, Little Dog Tom Gauld ($25, HB)

arrived. A beautiful and hilarious story about the ups and When the log princess goes missing, her brother, the little wooden robot, downs of welcoming a new family member, with adorable sets out on an epic adventure to find her. He will encounter goblins, magic illustrations by Lucinda Gifford. puddings, a mushroom queen and a very intimidating wood pile as he seeks to bring his sister home.

Maxine by Bob Graham ($28, HB) In the companion title to Bob Graham’s celebrated picture book Max, Max has a new baby sister—Maxine!

Max is there for her first words, her first steps and … her first flight! But as Maxine grows up & starts school, she’s not sure if she feels comfortable in her superhero guise at all—can she convince her family that not all superheroes wear capes?

Babies at the Billabong by Maura Finn ($25, HB)

Echidna puggles drumming, Cockatoo chicks eating cake, Green tree froglets tap dancing. What else might you see on a trip to the billabong?

From the fabulous picture-book partnership behind By the Billabong comes this playful journey through the day in the Australian landscape.

But wait—what happens when it gets dark?!

The Tiny Explorers by Kat Macleod ($25, HB)

I Am the Subway by Hyo-eun Kim ($28, HB)

Accompanied by the constant, rumbling ba-dum ba-dum of its passage through the city, the subway has stories to tell.

A cinematic journey through the Seoul subway that masterfully portrays the many unique lives we travel alongside whenever we take the train. A poetic translation of the bestselling Korean picture book.

In Australia: A down under animal counting book by Marianne Berkes ($17, ST)

Kat Macleod’s luscious mixed-media artwork explores the natural world up close. Seemingly ordinary elements—grass, leaves, bugs & blooms—become mighty & magical when seen from the Tiny Explorers’ vantage point. And hiding amid this nature wonderland is a series of special items for the explorers to collect & transform into a fun surprise at the end of the journey.

KARRKIN My Body by Maureen Yanawana

This board book is in Mangala & English, introducing non-Indigenous Australians to one of the 5 languages spoken at BidyaFrom kangaroos to koalas, Australian animals are a fascinat- dang. With illustrations by & photographs of the students from ing bunch. Marianne Berkes & illustrator Jill Dubin make La Grange KindiLink & Remote Community School. ($17, BD) learning fun—your kids will hop, slurp, and munch as they Today’s Sun by Gregg Dreise imitate and count the animals.

This gorgeous black-and-white board book for baIn Your Cozy Bed by Jo Witek ($15, BD) bies celebrates Australian animals and the beautiful Told from the point of view of a loving parent, a child is moments in every day—the lyrical text paired with gently guided to get ready for bed, say goodnight to favourite exquisite high-contrast illustrations by Kamilaroi toys, and finally settle into sleep. Like the rest of Jo Witek author and illustrator Gregg Dreise.($15, BD) and Christine Roussey’s Growing Hearts series, this book features a die-cut front cover.

Big Sky Mountain by Alex Milway ($15, PB)

Rosa has come from the city to live with Grandma Nan in the wilds of Big Sky Mountain. Grandma Nan is not exactly an ordinary grandma, and Big Sky Mountain is like nowhere Rosa has ever been.

Grandma Nan lives in an old wooden cabin with Albert the moose & Little Pig the pygmy owl, and spends every day out on adventures.

From canoeing down rapids to making friends with the local animals, life never stays still for long on Big Sky Mountain!

Polly Pecorino: The Girl Who Rescues Animals

by Emma Chichester Clark ($20, HB)

Polly Pecorino rescues animals, and she can talk to them too. She spends all of her time caring for those at Happy Days Zoo, where the devious owners, Mr and Mrs Snell, will do anything to make money. One day they steal a bear cub, certain that he will do wonders for ticket sales, but the ferocious bears living in Wild Bear Woods want their cub back. Will Polly be brave enough to stand up to the Snells and take Booboo, the bear cub, back where he belongs?

Barkly Mansion and the Weirdest Guest

by Melissa Keil ($15, PB)

6 to 8

There is absolutely NOTHING weird about Cookie, Kyle, Fizzy and Lady Delilah. Except that they live in a mansion—and they’re dogs.

Then one day a gorilla named Edmund comes to live with them.

Wether it’s persuading the evil bunnies next door not to woodchip your favourite stick, or convincing the fancy club at Movie Night to let your weird new housemate sit with them this new series is packed full of mischief, mayhem & wordplay, every book features 3 fish-out-of-water episodes about this loveable canine crew.

The Listies’ Teleportaloo ($15, PB)

by Richard Higgins, Matt Kelly & The Listies

Rich and Matt love their nan. Unfortunately their nan has an evil NANASIS. And by the time Rich and Matt discover that their Nan ALSO has a TELEPORTING PORTALOO in the backyard it’s too late. They’re already hurtling through the interdimensional plumbing of time and space on a mission to stop the world from going down the toilet, literally!

8 to 12

Pax, Journey Home by Sara Pennypacker ($20, HB)

Mim and the Baffling Bully by Katrina Nannestad

The What on Earth Institute of Wonder Lisa Nicol

Julia and the Shark by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

In the sequel to Pax, it’s been a year since Peter & his pet fox, Pax, have seen each other. Once inseparable, they now lead very different lives. Pax must protect his litter of kits in a dangerous world.

Meanwhile Peter, orphaned after the war, has left his adopted home & joined the Water Warriors, a group determined to heal the land from the scars of the war. When one of Pax’s kits falls desperately ill, he turns to the one human he knows he can trust. Illustrated by Jon Klassen.

One elephant, one kakapo, one unlicensed teenage driver, one boy waiting for the world to end & a 12-year-old girl with a very special gift. Sal has always had an affinity with animals—especially the lost kind. But when 2 rare & endangered creatures appear out of nowhere, life takes a detour into strange & uncharted territory. ($17, PB)

Poison for Breakfast by Lemony Snicket ($18, HB)

‘This morning you had poison for breakfast.’ One day, Lemony Snicket finds a puzzling note pushed under his door and is forced to follow a winding trail of clues to solve the mystery of his imminent death.

Along the way, he tackles some of the key questions about life. Who was Korla Pandit what did he do and what was his real name? What are the 3 absolute rules for writing a book? Why should you never judge a goat by the way it looks? And why does being clumsy have its benefits?

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Mim Cohen roams the world in a travelling bookshop, with her dad & brother & a horse called Flossy. Flossy leads them to the place where they’re needed most—the place where the perfect book will find its way home. In The Travelling Bookshop 1 Mim arrives in a pretty Dutch village where she meets Willemina, a kind & gentle child, who is being bullied by a girl named Gerda. Mim knows they’re here to help Willemina—if only Dad would find her the right book. If only he would stop giving everyone else the wrong book! ($15, PB) The shark was beneath my bed, growing large as the room, large as the lighthouse ...The bed was a boat, the shark a tide, and it pulled me so far out to sea I was only a speck... a dying star in an unending sky. Julia has followed her mum & dad to live on a remote island for the summer—her dad, for work; her mother, on a determined mission to find the elusive Greenland shark. But when her mother’s obsession threatens to submerge them all, Julia finds herself on an adventure with dark depths and a lighthouse full of hope. With gorgeous black & yellow illustrations by Tom de Freston with tracing paper inserts ($20, HB)

Also New: Always by Morris Gleitzman ($20, PB) The Song of Lewis Carmichael

by Sophie Laguna ($17, PB)

kids events

non fiction

Let’s Eat Weeds! A kids’ guide to foraging

From salads to main dishes, edible weeds are delicious! In the ultimate companion for the young urban or rural forager, horticulturalist Annie Raser-Rowland & urban permaculture designer Adam Grubb show you how to smell your way to an angled onion, bake weeds ‘n’ cheese pie, and safely harvest the juicy fruits of a prickly pear. Illustrated by Evie Barrow. ($25, HB)

Lore of the Wild: Folklore & Wisdom from Nature

by Claire Cock-starkey ($28, HB)

Did you know that people used to believe that rabbits’ ears would twitch in the direction of a thunderstorm? That lily of the valley flowers were formed from fairies’ drinking cups? And that taking dandelions into the house would make you wet the bed? Brought to life with bright, folk art-inspired illustrations, show kids the lore of: different animals, birds & insects, all types of flowers, plants & trees, the weather, sun, moon & stars and good and bad omens & lucky charms.

Once Upon a Tune: Stories from the Orchestra

by James Mayhew ($40, HB)

Battle trolls with Peer Gynt in The Hall of the Mountain King; grapple with a magic broom in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, meet the evil Witch of the North in The Swan of Tuonela, sail the seven seas with Sinbad the Sailor in Scheherazade; be a prince disguised as a bee in The Flight of the Bumblebee and become a fearless hero in William Tell. Retold and illustrated by James Mayhew, this book includes Musical Notes where you can find out more about the stories and music, plus James’s recommended recordings to download and listen to.

Rachel has had to put her fabulous Bookclubs, Rhymtime and Storytime on hold or on Zoom as we go to press. To keep updated on all things Gleebooks Kids join our mailing list by emailing rachel@gleebooks.com.au or follow @madhatters_gleeparty on Instagram

Atlas of Amazing Architecture by Peter Allen ($30, HB) This atlas of architectural wonders eschews the classic children’s book fare of the Pyramids & the Taj Mahal, and includes buildings like the Jameh mosque of Isfahan in Iran, Native American plank houses in New Mexico, Stave Churches in Norway, The Djinguereber mosque in Mali, and extraordinary 18th century wooden churches on Kizhi Island, Russia. Each of these 50 buildings span all the continents and introduce new engineering technologies, define a movement or capture the essence of a moment in human history.

graphic novels

Rescuing Titanic by Flora Delargy ($20, HB)

In the middle of the night, the little ship, Carpathia, received a distress call from the sinking Titanic. It heroically changed course and headed straight into the frozen sea and saved 705 passengers of the Titanic from the icy waters of the North Atlantic. Along the journey, you will learn all about Morse code, navigation tools, the different roles of the crew, how the ships found each other, and by-the-minute details of exactly what happened on this cold & fateful night.

Friends Forever by Shannon Hale ($23, PB)

Cranky Chicken by Katherine Battersby

Everything about Chicken is cranky. Cranky eyes, cranky eyebrows, super-sharp cranky beak, even cranky scratchy feet. And everything makes Chicken cranky. The sun is too bright, the dirt is too dirty.

What Cranky Chicken is not is lonely. Nope, nope, definitely not. But then along comes a very cheerful worm named Speedy, who just wants to be friends. (6 to 8) ($15, PB)

Squeals on Wheels: The Super Adventures of Ollie and Bea 2 by Renee Treml

Q. What’s the hardest part of learning to skate? A. THE GROUND! Ollie is having a HOOT on his rollerskates, but Bea is full of excuses for why she can’t join in. Will she realise that sometimes it’s okay to look silly, and that real friends don’t CARROT all if you have very big feet? (6 to 8) ($13, PB)

Underground: Marsupial Outlaws & Other Rebels of Australia’s War in Vietnam by Mirranda Burton ($30, PB)

Shannon is in eighth grade, and life is more complicated than ever.

Everyone keeps changing, her classmates are starting to date each other (but nobody wants to date her!), and no matter how hard she tries, Shannon can never seem to just be happy. As she works through her insecurities and undiagnosed depression, she worries about disappointing all the people who care about her. Is something wrong with her? Can she be the person everyone expects her to be? And who does she actually want to be? (8 to 12)

Treasure in the Lake by Jason Pamment ($17, PB)

Grand adventures often begin where you least expect. Iris knows this because she’s read them all. But when she and her best friend, Sam, stumble upon an unusually dry riverbed on the outskirts of town, they make a discovery beyond anything Iris has read about: a hidden city, lost in time and shrouded in mystery. Storm clouds gather as secrets begin to surface. (8 to 12)

Why would a wombat be registered for war? It’s 1965, and an old Tattersalls barrel starts rolling marbles to randomly conscript young Australian men to fight in the war in Vietnam. Melbourne housewife Jean McLean is outraged, as are her artist friends Clif and Marlene Pugh, who live in the country with their wombat, Hooper. Determined to wreck the system, Jean forms the Save Our Sons movement’s Victorian branch, and she and her supporters take to the streets to protest. Meanwhile, in the small country town of Katunga, Bill Cantwell joins the Australian Army, and in Saigon, young Mai Ho is writing letters to South Vietnamese soldiers from her school desk. And when Hooper’s call-up papers arrive, he mysteriously goes underground.

Girls in Boys’ Cars by Felicity Castagna ($19, PB)

Rosa was never really trying to hurt anyone, no matter what they said in court. But she’s ended up in juvenile jail anyway, living her life through books and wondering why her best mate Asheeka disappeared. A page-turning novel about a complicated friendship; a road trip through NSW in a stolen car; the stories that define us; and two funny, sharp, adventurous young women who refuse to be held back any longer.

The Upper World by Femi Fadugba ($17, PB)

Esso is a teenager running out of time & into trouble. Caught up in a gang war, he receives an unexpected gift—access to a world where he can see glimpses of the past & future—and the devastating knowledge that the road he is on will eventually lead to the deaths of the people he loves most. A generation later, football prodigy Rhia is about to lose everything. When a man comes into her life claiming to know the key to time travel & asking for her help.

Switch by A.S. King ($20, PB)

Time has stopped. It’s been June 23, 2020 for nearly a year. Frantic adults demand teenagers focus on finding practical solutions to the crisis. 16-year-old javelin-throwing prodigy Tru Becker lives in a house with a switch that no one ever touches, a switch her father guards. In science at school she’s supposed to come up with a solution to the world’s problems—well Tru has a crowbar, and she’s going to see what happens when she flips the switch.

Sugar Town Queens by Malla Nunn ($20, PB)

15-year-old Amandla’s mother is a white woman living in Sugar Town, one of South Africa’s infamous shanty towns. She has visions, including ones that promise the return of Amandla’s father as if he were a prince in a fairytale, but their hardscrabble life is no fairytale. Lately, her mother has been acting even more strangely, so when Amandla finds a mysterious address at the bottom of her mother’s purse along with a large amount of cash, she decides it’s finally time to get answers about her mother’s life.

Teen fiction

Anything But Fine by Tobias Madden ($20, PB)

Luca is ready to audition for the Australian Ballet School. All it takes to crush his dreams is one missed step—and a broken foot.

Jordan is the gorgeous rowing star & captain of Luca’s new school.

Everyone says he’s straight—but Luca’s not so sure. As their unlikely bond grows stronger, Luca starts to wonder—who is he without ballet? And is he setting himself up for another heartbreak?

Take Me With You When You Go

by David Levithan & Jennifer Niven ($18, PB)

Ezra Ahern wakes up one day to find his older sister, Bea, gone.

Left behind with their abusive stepfather & their neglectful mother—how is he supposed to navigate life without Bea? As things unravel at home for Ezra, Bea confronts secrets about their past that will forever change the way they think about their family. Together & apart, broken by abuse but connected by love, Ezra & Bea must learn new trust before they can find a way back to each other.

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Psychology & Personal Development Living While Black: The Essential Guide to Overcoming Racial Trauma by Guilaine Kinouani

Over the past 15 years, psychologist Guilaine Kinouani has written about & run workshops on how racism affects both physical & mental health. Based on her findings, she has devised tried and tested psychological strategies to help many to find peace. In this book she gives voice to the diverse experiences of Black people around the world & uses case studies & exclusive research to offer guidance on how to set boundaries & process microaggressions; protect children from racism; navigate the dating world; identify & celebrate the wins. Kinouani offers self-care routines that improve day-to-day wellness for thriving not just surviving, and finding hope in the face of adversity. This is also a vital resource for allies who wish to understand the impact of racism & how they can help. ($30, PB)

Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favours the Brave

by Ryan Holiday ($35, HB)

Fortune favours the bold. All great leaders of history have known this, and were successful because of the risks they dared to take.

But today so many of us are paralysed by fear. Drawing on ancient Stoic wisdom & examples across history & around the world, Ryan Holiday shows why courage is so important, and how to cultivate it in our own lives. Courage is not simply physical bravery but also doing the right thing & standing up for what you believe; it’s creativity, generosity & perseverance. And it is the only way to live an extraordinary, fulfilled & effective life.

How to Deal With Idiots by Maxime Rovere

Idiocy is all around us: whether it’s the uncle spouting conspiracy theories, the colleagues who repeat your point but louder, or the commuters who still can’t count 2 metres, our lives are beset by idiots. But what is the answer to this perpetual scourge? Philosopher Maxime Rovere turns his attention to the murkiest of intellectual corners and illuminates a new understanding of idiots, one which examines our relations to others & our own ego, offers tools & strategies to dismantle the most desperate of idiotic situations, and even reveals how to stop being the idiots ourselves (because we’re always someone else’s idiot). ($25, HB)

Generations: How and Why We Change

by Bobby Duffy ($30, PB)

Are millennials entitled and lazy? Are baby boomers the most sexually liberal generation? Was generation X the last group to show loyalty to political parties? Bobby Duffy explores how when we’re born determines our attitudes to money, sex, religion, politics & much else. Informed by exclusive studies from IPSOS, as well as his own research, Duffy reveals that many of our preconceptions are just that: tired stereotypes. Generations provides a new framework for understanding the most divisive issues raging today: from gun control to climate change and Brexit to the surveillance state. The book includes data from over 40 countries and interviews across generational divides.

A Biography of Loneliness The History of an Emotion by Fay Bound Alberti ($28.95, PB)

Fay Alberti offers a radically new interpretation of loneliness as an emotional language & experience. Using letters & diaries, philosophical tracts, political discussions & medical literature from the 18th century to the present, Alberti argues that loneliness is not an ahistorical, universal phenomenon. It is, in fact, a modern emotion: before 1800, its language did not exist. As Alberti shows, the birth of loneliness is linked to the development of modernity: the all-encompassing ideology of the individual that has emerged in the mind and physical sciences, in economic structures, in philosophy and politics. From social media addiction to widowhood, from homelessness to the oldest old, from mall hauls to massages, loneliness appears in all aspects of 21st-century life. Yet we cannot address its meanings, let alone formulate a cure, without attention to its complex, protean history.

Heavy Light: A Journey Through Madness, Mania and Healing by Horatio Clare ($39, HB)

After a lifetime of ups and downs, Horatio Clare was committed to hospital under Section 2 of the Mental Health Act. From hypomania in the Alps, to a complete breakdown & a locked ward in Wakefield, this is a gripping account of how the mind loses touch with reality, how we fall apart & how we can be healed—or not—by treatment.

A story of the wonder & intensity of the manic experience, as well as its peril & strangeness, Clare’s story is shot through with the love, kindness, humour and care of those who deal with someone who becomes dangerously ill—his book illuminate a fundamental part of human experience, asking urgent questions about mental health that affects everyone.

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Also New Mortals: How the fear of death shaped human society Rachel E. Menzies & Ross G. Menzies ($35, PB)

Emotion-Focused Couple Work: A Practitioner’s Guide by Michelle A. Webster ($88, PB)

What happens when the love has gone, when the desire to be with each other has been eroded, or when they tell you that if counselling doesn’t work, the relationship is over? These are some of the problems practitioners face when couples come to counselling and psychotherapy. The Annandale approach to EmotionFocused couple work is integrative, bringing together aspects of humanistic psychology and family therapy with those from psychodynamic psychotherapy. Based on Michelle Webster’s 40 years of clinical experience, a step-by-step methodology for working verbally & creatively is outlined & demonstrated—to provide the theory & practice for working with couples in both a short-and long-term way.

A Tattoo on my Brain: A Neurologist’s Personal Battle against Alzheimer’s Disease by Daniel Gibbs

Unlike most patients with Alzheimer’s, Dr Daniel Gibbs worked as a neurologist for 25 years, caring for patients with the very disease now affecting him. Gibbs had begun to suspect he had Alzheimer’s several years before any official diagnosis could be made—forewarned by genetic testing showing he carried alleles that increased the risk of developing the disease, he noticed symptoms of mild cognitive impairment long before any tests would have alerted him.

In this highly personal account, Gibbs documents the effect his diagnosis has had on his life & explains his advocacy for improving early recognition of Alzheimer’s. Weaving clinical knowledge from decades caring for dementia patients with his personal experience of the disease, this is an optimistic tale of one man’s journey with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease. ($34.95, HB)

Into the Abyss by Anthony David ($23, PB)

We cannot know how to fix a problem until we understand its causes. But even for some of the most common mental health problems, specialists argue over whether the answers lie in the person’s biology, their psychology or their circumstances. Cognitive neuropsychiatrist, Anthony David brings together many fields of enquiry, from social & cognitive psychology to neurology—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.

Patrick believes he is dead. Jennifer’s schizophrenia medication helped with her voices but did it cause Parkinson’s? Emma is in a coma or is she just refusing to respond? Drawing from Professor David’s career as a clinician and academic, these fascinating case studies reveal the unique complexity of the human mind, stretching the limits of our understanding.

Performing Arts

Kalyakoorl, Ngalak Warangka: Forever, we sing by Gina Williams & Guy Ghouse ($20, PB)

Over many years, Noongar language has been reduced to a whisper, there are currently less than 400 fluent speakers. The collection of songs in this book represent Gina Williams’ & Guy Ghouse’s first two albums—Kalyakoorl (Forever) & Bindi Bindi (The Butterfly). Like their music, this anthology is informed by the four principles of Koort (Heart), Moort (Family and Community), Boodja (Land) & Koorlangka (Children & Legacy). They hope that, through this collection of reduced scores & song sheets, their music will be seen in new & interesting ways, and shared through schools, choirs & community groups.

You Are Beautiful and You Are Alone: The Biography of Nico by Jennifer Otter-Bickerdike ($40, HB)

Over the course of her life, Nico was an ever-evolving myth, an enigma that escaped definition. Though she is remembered for contributions to The Velvet Underground & Nico, her artistry & influence are often overlooked, whilst fellow Velvets Lou Reed & John Cale are hailed as icons. Defying the sexist casting of Nico’s life as the tragedy of a beautiful woman losing her looks, youth and fame, this biography cements her legacy as one of the most vital artists of her time, inspiring a generation of luminaries including Henry Rollins, Bjork, Morrissey & Iggy Pop. With over a hundred new interviews & rare archival material.

The Dancer: A Biography for Philippa Cullen

by Evelyn Juers ($39.95, PB)

Dead in 1975 at 25 years old, the Australian avant-garde dancer, teacher & artist Philippa Cullen lived a tragically short life. And yet, at the time, her artistic activity cast a long shadow over the burgeoning experimental counterculture in Australia & Europe. It is the probing of this juxtaposition that seems to be the controlling purpose of Evelyn Juers’ book. A sprawling work of genealogy and intellectual history, this biography positions its subject dialectically in order to illustrate both how Cullen impacted the texture of cultural history and how historical forces nonetheless imprinted themselves upon Cullen and her work.

Nina Simone’s Gum by Warren Ellis ($40, HB)

On Thursday 1 July, 1999, Dr Nina Simone gave a rare performance as part of Nick Cave’s Meltdown Festival. After the show, in a state of awe, Warren Ellis crept onto the stage, took Dr Simone’s piece of chewed gum from the piano, wrapped it in her stage towel & put it in a Tower Records bag. The gum remained with him for 20 years; a sacred totem, his creative muse, growing in significance with every passing year. In 2019, Cave—his collaborator and great friend - asked Warren if there was anything he could contribute to display in his Stranger Than Kindness exhibition. Warren realised the time had come to release the gum. Together they agreed it should be housed in a glass case like a holy relic. Worrying the gum would be damaged or lost, Warren decided to first have it cast in silver and gold, sparking a chain of events that no one could have predicted, one that would take him back to his childhood and his relationship to found objects.

Mozart in Motion: His Work and His World in Pieces by Patrick Mackie ($40, HB)

Poetry

How to Make a Basket by Jazz Money

In this David Unaipon Award-winning collection, writing in both Wiradjuri & English language, Jazz Money examines the tensions of living in the Australian colony today. By turns scathing, funny and lyrical, Money uses her poetry as an extension of protest against the violence of the colonial state, and as a celebration of Blak and queer love. Deeply personal and fiercely political, these poems attempt to remember, reimagine and re-voice history. ($25, PB)

Purgatorio Re-placed by Alex Selenitsch

Alex Selenitsch uses Dorothy Sayers’ translation of Dante’s Purgatorio as a guide to keep Dante’s overall structure of 33 Cantos or chapters, but rewrites in modern Australian English. Dante’s medieval list of sins, his characters & events are replaced with Australian ones, while the mountain is flattened out to encompass the continent of Australia. Over this geography, Sentitsch’s poem deals with issues of art & creativity, and the development of a poetic voice. ($25, PB)

Ismene’s Survivable Resistance

by Claire Gaskin ($25, PB)

Claire Gaskin re-envisions the myth of Antigone by focusing on her sister Ismene. Assuming the voice of a contemporary Ismene, she asks us to consider what survivable resistance might look like for those who live on after tragedy? What kind of avenues are available to resist autocratic and patriarchal structures of power? How might we imagine a future that is different to our past and instigate real change at both a personal and public level?

Human Looking by Andy Jackson ($24, PB)

Andy Jackson’s poems speak with the voices of the disabled & the disfigured. They speak of surgical interventions, and of the different kinds of disability which they seek to ‘correct’—finding figures to identify with in mythology & history, art and photography, poetry & fiction. They deal with unsettling extremes of embodiment, and with violence against disabled people, and the everyday life of the effects of illness, pain & prejudice.

Icon by Maria Zajkowski ($25, PB)

Displaced throughout life, my father, in his struggle with dementia, was exiled within himself, affected by the identities he lost, recreated and lost again. Icon is based on my familial experience of Alzheimer’s Disease & the institutions of memory. It explores the breakdown of identity & questions the purpose of belief; examining what is revered, and why.

Save As by A. Frances Johnson ($25, PB)

‘Save As bears clear-eyed witness to the warfare waged against the planet by the captains & footsoldiers of industry.

A record of environmental degradation, a tally of mounting human debts, and a catalogue of ghosts, both familial & communal, this collection is an uncompromising vision of our contemporary moment, and a moving elegy for what has been lost, and what is being lost—devastatingly, irretrievably—in the calamitous present.’—Bella Li.

One reason Mozart’s works have remained so ubiquitous, Patrick Mackie argues, is that he was composing at precisely the moment when our modern world was forming, and his priorities, explorations and emphases speak to our contemporary world—and Mackie takes the reader inside the vital experience of listening to Mozart’s music to uncover new perspectives on Mozart’s world and the ways that we live now. This is a unique biography of Mozart’s music, a journey through the pieces of his canon which leads to the pleasures of the works and an understanding of why they move us so intensely, as well as into the major & lesser known moments of Mozart’s life.

Letters from the Periphery by Alex Skovron

Long Players: Writers on the Albums That Shaped Them by Tom Gatti ($35, HB)

Take Care by Eunice Andrada ($24, PB)

50 authors write about the albums that changed their lives, from Deborah Levy on Bowie to Daisy Johnson on Lizzo, Ben Okri on Miles Davis to David Mitchell on Joni Mitchell, Sarah Perry on Rachmaninov to Bernardine Evaristo on Sweet Honey in the Rock. Part meditation on the album form & part candid selfportrait, each of these miniature essays reveals music’s power to transport the listener to a particular time and place. REM’s Automatic for the People sends Olivia Laing back to first love & heartbreak, Bjork’s Post resolves a crisis of faith & sexuality for a young Marlon James, while Fragile by Yes instils in George Saunders the confidence to take his own creative path.

Also New Doc: The life and times of Aussie rock legend Doc Neeson

by Jon Bradshaw and Anne Souter ($33, PB)

From 1960s Sydney to the cafés of today’s Melbourne, from the Trojan War & Byzantine Aleppo to the dark forest of Dante’s Inferno, from 18th century Lisbon to Vienna at the turn of the 20th, from the American Civil War to warfronts of our time, and of the future. This collection also marks Skovron’s return to the longer poem—notably the title-sequence, featuring a mysterious stalker versed in philosophy; the suite The Light We Convert, grounded in the world of 19th century music; and the poet’s translation of the opening Canto from The Divine Comedy. ($25, PB) Bound in personal testimony, the poems situate the act of rape within the machinery of imperialism, where human and non-human bodies, lands, and waters are violated to uphold colonial powers. Andrada explores the magnitude of rape culture in the everyday: from justice systems that dehumanise survivors, to exploitative care industries that deny Filipina workers their agency, to nationalist monuments that erase the sexual violence of war.

Hear the Art by Richard Tipping

Richard Tipping is fascinated by words found within words, and articulating their iterations. He works with poetic language in visual forms & physical media ranging from animated neon, slump glass, engraved marble & screenprint to large-scale public sculptures in steel, granite & electric lights. Typographic designs move off the page, becoming independent poem objects until—while living in the art world as things—they are photographed, and return to the page. ($24,95 PB)

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Granny’s Good Reads

with Sonia Lee

Australian Studies

Sold Down the River

by Scott Hamilton & Stuart Kells ($35, PB)

Who would have thought that Shakespeare in a Divided America by James Shapiro would be such a page-turner? Shakespeare has always been popular in America, despite unease in some quarters about cross-dressing in the comedies, interracial marriage in Othello, and the subhuman Caliban of The Tempest, sometimes seen as a native American. A production of Julius Caesar in 2017 almost started a riot, with a Trump-like Caesar in a business suit and long red tie, a Calpurnia with a Slavic accent, and a mob wearing Make Rome Great Again baseball caps. There was an actual riot in the 19th century when the audience didn’t like an English actor’s portrayal of Hamlet. Abraham Lincoln could quote Shakespeare by the ream and his actor-assassin’s favourite roles were Richard III, Hamlet and Macbeth, which gave him delusions of grandeur. In 1948 The Taming of the Shrew was turned into the hit Broadway musical Kiss Me Kate, with a mixed-race cast and suggestive lyrics by Cole Porter—the film version was much tamer and more conformist. I enjoyed the chapter about Shakespeare in Love and the tussle between producer Harvey Weinstein and his scriptwriters over the ending of the film. Weinstein favoured Shakespeare and Viola uniting in a happy Hollywood ending, while writer Tom Stoppard saw that would be out of the question since (1) Shakespeare was depicted in the film as a married man and (2) though adultery is not unfamiliar to Americans, they don’t like it being glamourised in films. The final chapter covers the alarming polarisation of a society in which, for example, a significant minority refuses to have Covid vaccinations or patronise plays with non-white or gay actors. Shapiro teaches Shakespeare at Columbia University and is not optimistic about his country’s future. This is a terrific book and once I started, I couldn’t put it down.

The story of water in Australia is written into its ancient rivers, creeks & wetlands. It’s home to more than 40 Indigenous nations, and it covers an area bigger than France. It is the beating heart of our regions & sustains 40 per cent of our food production. In 2012 Australia signed up to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, a scheme designed to create a market for its water and to safeguard the environment. But the Plan has sold our farmers & rural communities down the river. It has contributed to appalling environmental damage on the planet’s driest inhabited continent.

It has allowed a ruthless market to form, exploited by traders who buy & sell water as if it was a currency like Bitcoin. Scott Hamilton & Stuart Kells have interviewed irrigators, farmers, Traditional Custodians & water traders to tell this disastrous story.

Save Our Sons by Carolyn Collins is a detailed study of the women’s campaign in Australia against conscription during the Vietnam War. The war itself was not largely unpopular with Australians until 18-year-olds began being conscripted by birthdate lotteries. At first there were little groups of a few mothers wearing gloves and hats standing quietly with placards. Then the movement spread all over Australia among women from different social classes and political affiliations. Many were Liberal voters, not particularly against the war but wanting to stop conscription. They showed great resilience against repeated disappointment in elections, were called ‘commie sympathisers’, and had bulging ASIO files.

What particularly worried them was when their children met hostility at school from other students and even teachers. Save Our Sons became an important part of the wider anti-Vietnam War movement. They raised money, paid fines, supported draft-resisters and provided an underground service to give them places to stay while on the run. Some turned up at court, handed out pamphlets, and stood in silent protest every time a new lot of conscripts left the country. They were mainly peaceful and law-abiding and the Bolte government made a giant miscalculation when it imprisoned the ‘Fairlea Five’, all middle-class mothers with twenty-five children between them—and at Easter, too! Who’d cook their Easter dinner? This gained them lots of public sympathy, especially when they described the prison conditions for women at Fairlea as ‘appalling’. Congratulations to Carolyn Collins for researching these largely forgotten but very important women, and for writing such an absorbing book.

QE 83: Top Blokes—The Larrikin Myth, Class and Power by Lech Blaine ($25, PB)

I greatly enjoyed the new English version of The Golden Ass by Apuleius, translated from the Latin by Ellen Finkelpearl and edited by Peter Singer. It has delightful illustrations by Anna and Varvara Kendel, and is published by Text in a neat edition with an attractive cover. The Golden Ass was written towards the end of the second century CE and is the story of a bright lad named Lucius who, while dabbling in witchcraft, is accidentally anointed with the wrong magic salve and is turned into an ass. He then has many unpleasant adventures—the worst being his having to work non-stop on a treadmill for an exploitative miller and his sadistic wife. He’s finally rescued by the Goddess Isis and joins her religious cult. It’s not only a rollicking mature-audience tale but also an early example of empathy with animals. Apuleius claimed to be related to Plutarch, who had urged his readers to be kind to animals. The book has a substantial epilogue in which Peter Singer reflects on the way humans treat animals. He wonders whether people nowadays treat animals any better than they did in the ancient world. Perhaps we treat them much worse, since we now kill and consume them on an industrial scale. Singer published his first book on animal rights in 1975, and though there have been some small improvements since then, there’s still much to be deplored. In her informative essay on the literary and cultural context of The Golden Ass translator Ellen Finkelpearl mentions that she, like Singer, is a vegan. Some of the ‘embedded tales’ in the original Golden Ass, such as the story of Cupid and Psyche, have been omitted in this version but it’s still an excellent read. Sonia

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Labor People: The Stories of Six True Believers

by Chris Bowen ($29.95, PB)

Chris Bowen brings to life 6 great Australians & servants of their party. Spanning the 1890s to the 1970s, in paying tribute to these Labor warriors, he also tells an important part of the history of Labor & Australia. Who was the first loyal deputy & lynchpin of the earliest Labor governments? Which leading advocate of votes for women went on to play an important but unrecognised role in Australia’s literary history? Who did Labor turn to in its darkest WW1 hours when its very existence was under threat? Who did Curtin & Chifley turn to for their hardest jobs? Which Labor loyalist called her own party out on police brutality when it wasn’t fashionable? Which minister was Whitlam’s steadiest performer? Many have shaped the Labor Party & through it Australia—Chris Bowen shines a long-overdue light on six of Labor’s finest from the past.

The figure of the larrikin goes deep in Australian culture. But who can be a larrikin, and what are its political uses? Lech Blaine looks at Australian politics through the prisms of class, egalitarianism and masculinity, examining some ‘top blokes’, with particular focus on Scott Morrison & Anthony Albanese, but stretching back to Bob Hawke & Kerry Packer. He shows how Morrison brought a cohort of voters over to the Coalition side, ‘flipping’ what was once working-class Labor culture. Weaving in his own experiences Blaine explores the larrikin’s hidden contradictions—can a larrikin be female, or Indigenous—and how has it been transformed by an age of affluence & image?

Title Fight: How the Yindjibarndi battled & defeated a mining giant by Paul Cleary ($33, PB)

In the space of just 15 years, Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest’s Fortescue Metals Group has built a global iron-ore giant generating $19 billion in revenue a year. But in its rush to develop, FMG has damaged & destroyed ancient Aboriginal heritage & brokered patently unfair agreements with the traditional owners of the land. When FMG has met resistance, it has used ‘tough and savage’ litigation to secure a lucrative outcome. But this strategy came unstuck when FMG encountered a few hundred Yindjibarndi people & their leader, Michael Woodley who has led his community in an epic, 13-year battle against FMG, all on a shoestring budget. Paul Cleary reveals the Wild West of iron-ore mining in the Pilbara, and tells how a small group of Indigenous Australians fought tenaciously to defend their spiritual connection to country.

Rogue Forces by Mark Willacy ($35, PB)

Mark Willacy’s ward-winning Four Corners program, ‘Killing Fields’ captured on film the killing of a terrified, unarmed Afghan man in a field by an SAS soldier. It caused shockwaves around the world & resulted in an AFP war crimes investigation. It also sparked a new line of investigation by the Brereton inquiry, the independent ADF inquiry into war crimes in Afghanistan. More SAS soldiers came forward with undeniable evidence & eyewitness testimony of other unlawful killings, exposing a culture of brutality & impunity.

Rogue Forces takes you out on the patrols where the killings happened. The result is a gripping character-driven story that embeds you on the front line in the thick of the action as those soldiers (and those accused) share for the first time what they witnessed..

The Brumby Wars by Anthony Sharwood ($33, PB)

Walkley Award-winning journalist, Anthony Sharwood’s The Brumby Wars is about Australians at war with each other over their vision of an ideal Australia. To ecologists and people who ski, walk and fish in the High Country and other areas where the brumbies proliferate, they are a feral menace which must be removed to save delicate alpine landscapes. To the descendants of cattle families and many Australians in urban and regional areas, brumbies are untouchable, a symbol of wildness and freedom. Something has to give. But what? The land or the horses? This war is set to escalate dramatically before we have an answer. Featuring interviews with characters from all sides of the debate, this is the riveting account of a major national issue and the very human passions it inspires. It is also a journey, a quest to understand what makes us tick in our increasingly polarised country.

The Battle for Shaggy Ridge by Phillip Bradley

From the killing ground of Kaiapit to the treacherous heights of the Finisterre Range, for four months in 1943–44 the Australian army fought to drive the Japanese from their mountain strongholds. The most formidable position was the fortress-like Shaggy Ridge, its steep sides rising sharply to a knife-edge crest where battle was joined on a one-man front. Based on the accounts of over a hundred Australians, Americans & Japanese who served on, around & over the ridge Phillip Bradley tells the story of this extraordinary struggle for control of the Ramu Valley in New Guinea. ($33, PB)

Australia & the Pacific: A history by Ian Hoskins

This sweeping narrative history begins with the shifting of the continents to the coming of the first Australians and, thousands of years later, the Europeans who dispossessed them. Ian Hoskins explores colonists’ attempts to exploit the riches of the region while keeping ‘white Australia’ separate from neighbouring Asians, Melanesians & Polynesians. He examines how the advent of modern human rights & the creation of the UN after WW2 changed Australia & investigates our increasing regional engagement following the rise of China & the growing unpredictability of US foreign policy.

Concluding with the offshore detention of asylum seekers & current debates over climate change, Hoskins questions Australia’s responsibilities towards our increasingly imperilled neighbours. ($40, PB)

Vandemonians: The Repressed History of Colonial Victoria by Janet McCalman ($40, PB)

It was meant to be ‘Victoria the Free’, uncontaminated by the Convict Stain.—but more than half of all those transported to Van Diemen’s Land as convicts would one day settle or spend time in Victoria. There they were demonised as Vandemonians. Some could never go straight; a few were the luckiest of gold diggers; a handful founded families with distinguished descendants. Most slipped into obscurity. Burdened by their pasts & their shame, their lives as free men & women, even within their own families, were forever shrouded in secrets & lies. As Janet McCalman examines this transported population of men, women & children from the cradle to the grave, they come to life not just as prisoners, but as children, young people, workers, mothers, fathers & colonists.

Lies, Damned Lies by Claire G. Coleman ($33, PB)

Colonisation in Australia is not over. Colonisation is a process, not an event—and the after-effects will continue while there are still people to remember it . Author Claire G. Coleman, a proud Noongar woman, takes the reader on a journey through the past, present and future of Australia, lensed through her own experience. This literary work blends the personal with the political, offering readers an insight into the stark reality of the ongoing trauma of Australia’s violent colonisation.

Feminism & the Making of a Child Rights Revolution: 1969–1979 by Isobelle Barrett Meyering

When Australian women’s liberationists challenged prevailing expectations of female domesticity, they were accused of being antimother & anti-child. This book provides a much-needed reassessment of this stereotype. Drawing on extensive archival research & personal accounts, historian Isobelle Barrett Meyering places feminists at the forefront of a new wave of children’s rights activism that went beyond calls for basic protections for children, instead demanding their liberation. She revisits this revolutionary approach & charts the debates it sparked within the women’s movement. Her examination of feminists’ ground-breaking campaigns on major social issues of the 1970s—from childcare to sex education to family violence—also reveals women’s concerted efforts to apply this ideal in their personal lives & to support children’s own activism. ($35, PB)

Firestorm by Greg Mullins ($35, PB)

Greg Mullins followed his father into fighting bushfires—he fought major fires around Sydney & the Blue Mountains for decades, and studied bushfires in Europe, Canada & the US. He risked his life in the 1994 Sydney fires and, later, during our catastrophic Black Summer of 2019–20. As a career firefighter, he worked his way up the ranks to become Commissioner of one of the world’s largest fire services, Fire and Rescue NSW, for nearly 14 years. Over 5 decades he watched as weather patterns & natural disaster risks changed, seeing bushfires becoming bigger, hotter & more destructive. He talked to scientists and weighed their evidence with his experience, coming to the realisation that man-made global warming was setting the stage for a deadly firestorm.

In early 2019 he tried to warn the government that a Black Summer was imminent so that adequate preparations could be made—but when he and former fire chiefs from across the country tried to meet with politicians to sound an urgent warning, they were ignored. This is a compelling account of raging fire, political evasion, settled science, and one man’s courageous, urgent call to action for all Australians.

Now in paperback - with a new foreword A Bigger Picture by Malcolm Turnbull, $35

New ‘In the National Interest’ $19.95 each Governing in the Age of the Internet by Paul Fletcher

Paul Fletcher outlines the key challenges the internet has posed for governments as they seek to preserve their sovereignty, protect their citizens from harm, and regulate neutrally between traditional and online business models. Yes, the internet has changed everything—and that goes for governing, too.

Population Shock by Abul Rizvi

While Australia’s population will continue to grow over the next forty years, we will age significantly. Economic growth will slow, government and household debt will rise, and inequality will accelerate. Against that background, how will government chart our population and economic future?

System Failure: The Silencing of Rape Survivors

by Michael Bradley

The legal system’s responses to rape were designed without survivors in mind, and they do not address, in any way, the questions that survivors ask or the needs they express. Simply put, on the systemic response to rape, we are having the wrong conversation.

Dateline Jerusalem by John Lyons

In this extraordinary book, award-winning journalist John Lyons goes to the heart of how the media reports—or does not report—one of the biggest stories of our time: the conflict in the Middle East.

Rape Culture by Louise Newman

The recent revelations and allegations of sexual harassment and assault in the Australian Parliament have prompted furious responses—Women must not be represented as mentally unstable, untrustworthy or ruled by their hormones while their abusers take refuge in legalisms, obfuscations and the dark art of political calculus.

The Game: A Portrait of Scott Morrison

by Sean Kelly ($33, PB)

In a time of uncertainty, Australia chose in 2019 to turn to a man with no obvious beliefs, no clear purpose & no famous talents.

That we wanted Scott Morrison was the secret we did not know about ourselves. Morrison understands—in a way that no other recent politician has—how politics has become a game, and as his prime ministership continues, Morrison’s failure to think of politics as anything other than a game has become a dangerous liability, both to him & to us. Sean Kelly gives us a portrait of a man, the shallow political culture that allowed him to succeed & the country that crowned him.

Dear Prime Minister: Letters to Robert Menzies, 1949–1966 by Martyn Lyons ($40, PB)

Robert Menzies received 22,000 letters during his record-breaking 1949–1966 2nd term as Australian PM. From war veterans, widows & political leaders to school students & homespun philosophers.

They lectured him, quoted Shakespeare & the Bible at him and sent advice on how to eliminate the rabbit problem. The letters respond to the royal visit of 1954, Communism, Australia’s British connection and the dire poverty of aged pensioners. For many writers, these were not post-war boom years, but a time of anxiety & conflict, punctuated by fears of war, another Great Depression, or a nuclear Armageddon. This collection is a fascinating insight into the concerns, assumptions & political beliefs of 1950s and 1960s Australians.

Wounded Country by Quentin Beresford ($35, PB) Quentin Beresford investigates the complex history of Australia’s largest & most important river system. Waves of farmers exploited the region’s potential, with little consideration for the environmental consequences. Dispossession & marginalisation denied local First Nations people their lands & European settlers the Indigenous cultural knowledge to manage the Basin sustainably. Instead, we’ve had ‘nation-building’ irrigation schemes & agricultural enterprises promoted by politicians focused on short-term profits & a development-at-all-costs approach. Expert advice & warnings about long-term environmental effects have been continually sidelined. We’re now at a point of reckoning. How can we save the once mighty Murray–Darling?

Currowan by Bronwyn Adcock ($33, PB)

This is the gripping account of the massive fire that engulfed the south coast of NSW in 2019–20. Bronwyn Adcock fled the fire with her children. Her husband, fighting at the front, rang with a plea for help before his phone went dead, leaving her to fear- will he make it out alive? Adcock tells her story, and those of many others—what they experienced, saw, thought & felt. Her reportage is braided with much larger themes—what we know about how fire behaves, how that is changing due to climate change, and how communities can cope with natural disaster and prepare themselves for an increasingly dangerous future.

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Politics

AFA 13: India Rising? Asia’s Huge Question (ed) Jonathan Pearlman ($23, PB)

AFA13 examines the future of India, a rising giant whose unsteady growth and unpredictable political turns raise lingering questions about its role and power in Asia. Snigdha Poonam examines rising anti-China sentiment in Narendra Modi’s India. Aarti Betigeri considers the Indian-Australian community & key cultural, political and economic links to India. Elizabeth Buchanan considers Australia’s options as China expands its Antarctic operations. James Curran probes into the Australia-Indonesia security relationship under Paul Keating.

Richard Cooke demystifies key foreign policy jargon.

Recovery by Andrew Wear ($30, PB)

The Spanish flu was followed by the economic prosperity of the Roaring Twenties. After WWII, the German economy grew to become the world’s most advanced. US social & economic policies responding to the Great Depression paved the way for 20th century prosperity. As we emerge from the COVID-19 health & economic crisis, what can we learn from other recoveries? Through interviews with experts, policymakers & community leaders, Andrew Wear examines past recoveries, exploring what went well, what we should do differently & what the lessons might be for the recovery ahead of us. With governments prepared to lead, listen to experts & involve communities in decision-making maybe we can also choose to reconsider things we thought were fixed, and create a better future.

Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal

by George Packer ($33, PB)

How, in a few decades, did the US transform from a broadly prosperous middle-class country, with relatively healthy institutions & competent leaders, to a nation defined by discredited elites, hollowed-out institutions & blatant inequalities—feared & pitied by friends, mocked & sabotaged by adversaries, first in the world in Covid cases & deaths, and led in recent years by an incompetent authoritarian bigot? Combining reportage with historical narrative, autobiography & political analysis, George Packer depicts & assesses the 4 inadequate narratives that dominate American public life—Libertarian America, Cosmopolitan America, Diverse America & White America—to show that none of these narratives can sustain American democracy, and to point a better way forward, by looking back at previous eras of crisis to discover the resources for invigorating self-government.

The Digital Silk Road by Jonathan E. Hillman

China is wiring the world, and, in doing so, rewriting the global order—its vast infrastructure projects now extend from the ocean floor to outer space, and from Africa’s megacities into rural America. Unchecked, China will reshape global flows of data to reflect its interests. It will develop an unrivalled understanding of market movements, the deliberations of foreign competitors, and the lives of countless individuals enmeshed in its systems. Networks create large winners, and this is one contest that democracies can’t afford to lose. Taking readers on a global tour of these emerging battlefields, Jonathan Hillman reveals what China’s digital footprint looks like on the ground, and explores the dangers of a world in which all routers lead to Beijing. ($33, PB)

First Casualty by Toby Harnden ($30, PB)

The West is in shock. Al-Qaeda has struck the US on 9/11 & thousands are dead. Within weeks, UK Special Forces enter the fray in Afghanistan alongside the CIA’s Team Alpha & US troops. Victory is swift, but fragile. Hundreds of jihadists surrender & two operatives from Team Alpha enter Qala-i Jangi—the ‘Fort of War’—to interrogate them. The prisoners revolt, one CIA man falls, and the other is trapped inside the fort. 7 members of the elite British Special Forces volunteer for the rescue force. The six-day battle that follows proves to be one of the bloodiest of the Afghanistan war as the SBS and their American comrades face an enemy determined to die in the mud citadel. Based on unprecedented access to the CIA, SBS & US Special Forces. Orwell Prize-winning author Toby Harnden recounts the gripping story of that first battle in Afghanistan and how the haunting foretelling it contained—unreliable allies, ethnic rivalries, suicide attacks, and errant bombs—was ignored, fuelling the 20year conflict to come.

The Revenge of the Real by Benjamin Bratton

The global pandemic should be seen less as a ‘state of exception’ than a revelation of multiple preexisting conditions. As each wave swept over the globe, different countries experienced the stages of grief—from anger to acceptance in predictable sequence, but each dealt with the crisis in very different ways, some successful and some catastrophic. This stark moment of ‘reality’ enacted the largest control experiment in comparative governance in history. Can the world govern itself differently? Benjamin Bratton demands that we imagine an epidemiological view of society, on a planetary scale, and proposes a radical rethinking of what a post-pandemic politics could be, and should be, one that demands, rather than delays, a coordinated, pragmatic, equitable response to the biopolitical challenges that define the 21st century. ($25, PB)

18

Now in B Format Women and Leadership: Real Lives, Real Lessons

by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala & Julia Gillard, $23 The A, B & C of Democracy: Or Cats in the Sack

by Luca Belgiorno-Nettis & Kyle Redman ($25, PB)

As the world accelerates into its digital future - with new modes of working, connecting and living - our parliaments remain relics from a primordial, ideological and adversarial age. Meanwhile urgent political challenges are stumbling to half-solutions in slow-motion. Collaboration amongst us humans in the Anthropocene is no longer just a nice-to-have. This handbook is an introduction to minipublics—otherwise known as citizens’ juries or assemblies—interspersed with a few travel anecdotes to share the momentum behind the basic methodology of deliberative democracy.

How to Stop Fascism: History, Ideology, Resistance

by Paul Mason ($45, HB)

Fascism, Paul Mason argues, is a symptom of capitalist failure, one that has haunted us throughout the 20th century & into the 21st. The far right is on the rise across the world. From Modi’s India to Bolsonaro’s Brazil & Erdogan’s Turkey, fascism is not a horror that we have left in the past; it is a recurring nightmare that is happening again.

Mason offers a radical, hopeful blueprint for resisting & defeating the new far right. His book is both a chilling portrait of contemporary fascism, and a compelling history of the fascist phenomenon—its psychological roots, political theories & genocidal logic. History shows us the conditions that breed fascism, and how it can be successfully overcome. But it is up to us in the present to challenge it, and time is running out. From the ashes of Covid-19, we have an opportunity to create a fairer, more equal society.

History

About Time: A History of Civilization in Twelve Clocks by David Rooney ($35, HB)

Since the dawn of civilization, humans have kept time. From the city sundials of ancient Rome to the era of the smartwatch, clocks have been used throughout history to wield power, make money, govern citizens and keep control. Historian & former curator of timekeeping at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, David Rooney, tells the story of timekeeping, and how it continues to shape our modern world. Over twelve chapters he shows how clocks have helped us navigate the world, build empires and even taken us to the brink of destruction.

China in One Village: The History of One Town and the Future of the World by Liang Hong

After a decade away from her ancestral family village, during which she became a writer and literary scholar in Beijing, Liang Hong started visiting her rural hometown in landlocked Hebei province. What she found was an extended family torn apart by the seismic changes in Chinese society, and a village hollowedout by emigration, neglect, and environmental despoliation.

Combining family memoir, literary observation, and social commentary, Liang’s by turns moving and shocking account was seen across China as a mirror of their own families, and her observations about the way the greatest rural-to-urban migration of modern times has twisted the country resonated deeply. This is the story of contemporary China through one clear-eyed observer, one family, and one village. ($33, PB)

What Is History, Now? by Suzannah Lipscomb and Helen Carr ($33, PB)

Inspired by the influential text What is History?, authored by Helen Carr’s great-grandfather, E.H. Carr, this new collection addresses how we interpret history today—what stories are told, and by whom, who should be celebrated, and what rewritten. Contributors including: Justin Bengry, Leila K. Blackbird, Emily Brand, Gus Casely-Hayford, Sarah Churchwell, Caroline Dodds Pennock, Peter Frankopan, Bettany Hughes, Dan Hicks, Onyeka Nubia, Islam Issa, Maya Jasanoff, Rana Mitter, Charlotte Riley, Miri Rubin, Simon Schama, Alex von Tunzelmann and Jaipreet Virdi cover topics such as the history of racism and anti-racism, queer history, the history of faith, the history of disability, environmental history, escaping imperial nostalgia, hearing women’s voices and ‘rewriting’ the past.

Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts by Rebecca Hall ($45, HB)

Historian, and granddaughter of slaves, Rebecca Hall, uses indepth archival research & a measured use of historical imagination, to construct the likely pasts of women rebels who fought for freedom on slave ships bound to America, as well as the stories of women who led slave revolts in Colonial New York. Beneath both is Hall’s own tale—of a life lived in the shadow of slavery and its consequences. Part graphic novel, part memoir, illustrated in black & white by Hugo Martinez, Wake explores is a powerful reminder that while the past is gone, we still live in its wake.

The Aristocracy of Talent: How Meritocracy Made the Modern World by Adrian Wooldridge ($55, HB)

Like many Australians, I looked on with horror as images of a million dead fish swamped the media and consumed the news cycle. I resolved to dig deeper.

The Murray–Darling Basin is under threat. This vast and spectacular geographical region, covering one million square kilometres from central Queensland to South Australia, has been exploited for nearly 200 years.

Soil erosion, sand drifts, dust storms, salinity, algal blooms, threatened native flora and fauna, the drying out of internationally recognised wetlands and steadily worsening droughts have repeatedly brought large parts of the Basin to its knees.

We’re now at a point of reckoning. How can we save the once mighty Murray–Darling?

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QUENTIN BERESFORD

In Wounded Country, award-winning author Quentin Beresford investigates the complex history of Australia’s largest and most important river system.

Waves of farmers exploited the region’s potential, with little consideration for the environmental consequences. Dispossession and marginalisation denied local First Nations people their lands and European settlers the Indigenous cultural knowledge to manage the Basin sustainably. Instead, we’ve had ‘nation-building’ irrigation schemes and agricultural enterprises promoted by politicians focused on short-term profits and a developmentat-all-costs approach. Expert advice and warnings about long-term environmental effects have been continually sidelined.

spine 30.8mm

WOUNDED COUNTRY

Meritocracy—the idea that people should be advanced according to their talents rather than their status at birth. For much of history this was a revolutionary thought, but by the end of the 20th century it had become the world’s ruling ideology. How did this happen, and why is meritocracy now under attack from both right & left? Adrian Wooldridge traces the history of meritocracy forged by the politicians & officials who introduced the revolutionary principle of open competition, the psychologists who devised methods for measuring natural mental abilities & the educationalists who built ladders of educational opportunity. He looks outside western cultures & shows what transformative effects it has had everywhere it has been adopted, especially once women were brought into the meritocractic system. Wooldridge also shows how meritocracy has now become corrupted & argues that the recent stalling of social mobility is the result of failure to complete the meritocratic revolution. Rather than abandoning meritocracy, he says, we should call for its renewal.

WOUNDED COUNTRY THE MURRAY–DARLING BASIN A CONTESTED HISTORY

Charles Massy

‘One of the most important books to emerge in recent decades concerning both Australia's dangerous environmental mismanagement and the indivisible plunder of Indigenous society.’

CHARLES MASSY

236780

QUENTIN BERESFORD

ENVIRONMENT / AUSTRALIAN HISTORY

Cover photo by Gary Sauer-Thompson

‘One of the most important books to emerge in recent decades.’

A UNSW COMPANY

Time’s Witness: History in the Age of Romanticism

by Rosemary Hill ($55, HB) CMYK

Between the fall of the Bastille in 1789 & the opening of the Great Exhibition in 1851, history changed. The grand narratives of the Enlightenment, concerned with kings & statesmen, gave way to a new interest in the lives of ordinary people. Oral history, costume history, the history of food & furniture, of Gothic architecture, theatre & much else were explored as never before. Antiquarianism, the study of the material remains of the past, was not new, but now many became antiquaries & set about rediscovering their national history, in Britain, France & Germany. The Romantic age valued facts, but it also valued imagination & it brought both to the study of history. Among its achievements were the preservation of the Bayeux Tapestry, the analysis & dating of Gothic architecture, & the first publication of Beowulf. It dispelled old myths, and gave us new ones—Shakespeare’s birthplace, clan tartans & the arrow in Harold’s eye are among their legacies. From scholars to imposters the dozen or so antiquaries at the heart of this book show history in the making.

SPINE WIDTH 21.9 MM

In Hippocrasy, rheumatologist and epidemiologist Rachelle Buchbinder and orthopaedic surgeon Ian Harris argue that the benefits of medical treatments are often wildly overstated and the harms understated. That overtreatment and overdiagnosis are rife. And the medical system is not fit for purpose: designed to deliver health care not health.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions: read Hippocrasy and turn back.

Iona Heath CBE, former President, The Royal College of General Practitioners

This brilliant book offers clear and compelling evidence that we’re all at risk from too much medicine.

Ray Moynihan, author of Too Much Medicine? and Selling Sickness, Assistant Professor, Bond University

The Dream of Europe: Europe in the Twenty-First Century by Geert Mak ($35, PB)

‘… a fascinating history that shows how Australia’s relationships with the Pacific have shaped and informed each of our worlds.’

Iain McCalman

Lion City: Singapore and the Invention of Modern Asia by Jeevan Vasagar ($33, PB)

‘l am more than happy to see the publication of Ian Hoskins’s Australia & the Pacific ... it is crucial we understand what is going on in our region.’ Sean Dorney

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AUSTRALIAN HISTORY

A UNSW COMPANY

Before the Pharaohs: Exploring the Archeology of Stone Age Egypt by Julian Maxwell Heath ($60, HB)

‘A fascinating history that shows how Australia’s relationships with the Pacific have shaped and informed each of our worlds.’

Australia & the Pacific A history Ian Hoskins

Iain McCalman AO

‘Captivating’ Ross Fitzgerald ‘Ian Hoskins has written a major book.’

Iain McCalman

‘I am sir [sure] you will act as human bean’, wrote one distressed pensioner to Prime Minister Robert Menzies in 1953, pleading for assistance.

Robert Menzies received 22 000 letters during his record-breaking

‘An elegantly wry testament to a lost era of letter-writing.’

1949-1966 second term as Australian Prime Minister. From war veterans, widows and political leaders to school students and

homespun philosophers. Ordinary citizens sent their congratulations

and grievances and commented on speeches they had heard on radio.

They lectured him, quoted Shakespeare and the Bible at him and

sent advice on how to eliminate the rabbit problem. In Dear Prime Minister, Menzies’ fabled ‘Forgotten People’ write back.

Revealed here for the first time, the letters respond to the royal visit of 1954, Communism, Australia’s British connection and the dire

poverty of aged pensioners. For many writers, these were not postwar boom years, but a time of anxiety and conflict, punctuated by

fears of war, another Great Depression, or a nuclear Armageddon.

Dear Prime Minister is a fascinating insight into the concerns,

Richard White

assumptions and political beliefs of 1950s and 1960s Australians.

‘Menzies’ “Forgotten People” lay bare their assorted fears, gripes, hopes, sycophancy, paranoia, generosity, smugness, ingrained racism, sectarian prejudices, sometimes desperate poverty – and often atrocious spelling.’

RICHARD WHITE

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AUSTRALIAN HISTORY / POLITICS A UNSW COMPANY

MARTYN LYONS

The numerous remnants of prehistoric life found throughout Egypt represent an important chapter in the story of humanity’s distant past.

They also cast compelling light on the shadowy Stone Age peoples who lived in the Nile Valley and surrounding deserts, long before the mighty monuments of the pharaohs ever existed. This book examines the fascinating archaeology of stone Age Egypt, from its very beginnings, when early members of the human species arrived in Egypt from sub-Saharan Africa, to its end, when the impressive Naqada Culture emerged, setting in motion the processes that led to the formation of one of the world’s greatest ancient civilizations.

Rachelle Buchbinder and Ian Harris

SPINE WIDTH 36.8 MM

D e a r P r i m e M i n i st e r

In 1965, Singapore’s GDP per capita was on a par with Jordan. Now it has outstripped Japan. After WW2 & a sudden rupture with newly formed Malaysia, Singapore found itself independent—and facing a crisis. It took the bloody-minded determination & vision of Lee Kuan Yew, its founding premier, to take a small island of diverse ethnic groups with a fragile economy & hostile neighbours & meld it into Asia’s first globalised city. Jeevan Vasagar journeys through Singapore’s intricate history, examining the different faces of Singaporean life—from education & health to art, politics & demographic challenges—to reveal how in just half a century, Lee forged a country with a buoyant economy & distinctive identity. He explores the darker side of how this was achieved—through authoritarian control that led to it being dubbed ‘Disneyland with the death penalty’.

KATE McCLYMONT

Hippocrasy

How doctors are betraying their oath

237350

HEALTH / MEDICINE

A UNSW COMPANY

Ian Hoskins

Australia’s deep past and its modern history are intrinsically linked to the Pacific. In Australia & the Pacific, Ian Hoskins – award-winning author of Sydney Harbour and Coast – expands his gaze to examine Australia’s relationship with the Pacific region; from our ties with Papua New Guinea and New Zealand to our complex connections with China, Japan and the United States.

This revealing, sweeping narrative history begins with the shifting of the continents to the coming of the first Australians and, thousands of years later, the Europeans who dispossessed them.

Hoskins explores colonists’ attempts to exploit the riches of the region while keeping ‘white Australia’ separate from neighbouring Asians, Melanesians and Polynesians. He examines how the advent of modern human rights and the creation of the United Nations after World War Two changed Australia and investigates our increasing regional engagement following the rise of China and the growing unpredictability of US foreign policy.

Concluding with the offshore detention of asylum seekers and current debates over climate change, Hoskins questions Australia’s responsibilities towards our increasingly imperilled neighbours.

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Australia & the Pacific

The great European project was built out of a common desire for peace, prosperity and freedom; a wish for a united Europe striving towards a common goal. The EU was to set an example—an arena for close cooperation, tackling crucial shared concerns from climate change to organized crime, promoting open borders and social security. But the first two turbulent decades of this century have been times of rapid and profound change. From the shores of Lampedusa to Putin’s Moscow, the continent threatens to tear itself apart. What’s happened to Europe’s optimism and euphoria? How has it given way to nostalgia, frustration and fear, the fragile European dream in danger of turning into a nightmare? Geert Mak, one of Europe’s best-loved commentators, charts the seismic events that have shaped people’s lives over the past twenty years.

Norman Swan

This eye-opening and enthralling book on the medical and moral hazards which beset the health profession should be compulsory reading.

NORMAN SWAN

How doctors are Rachelle Buchbinder betraying their oath and Ian Harris

This powerful exposé reveals the tests, drugs and treatments that provide little or no benefit for patients and the inherent problem of a medical system based on treating rather than preventing illness.

The book also provides tips to empower patients – do I really need this treatment? What are the risks? Are there simpler, safer options? What happens if I do nothing? Plus solutions to help restructure how medicine is delivered to help doctors live up to their Hippocratic Oath.

Hippocrasy

‘This superb book explains how in medicine less is often not just more, it’s closer to the oath we’re all supposed to practise by.’

Two world-leading doctors reveal the true state of modern medicine and how doctors are letting their patients down.

One of the hardest things for a doctor to do ... is nothing. This superb book explains how in medicine and surgery less is often not just more, it’s closer to the oath we’re all supposed to practise by.

‘An elegantly wry testament to a lost era of letter-writing.’

RICHARD WHITE

Dear Prime Minister letters to robert menzies 1949–1966

M A RT Y N LY O N S

The Invention of Sicily by Jamie Mackay ($40, HB)

Sicily has always acted as a gateway between Europe & the rest of the world. Fought over by the Phoenicians & Greeks, the Romans, Goths and Byzantines, Arabs & Normans, Germans, Spanish & the French it became a unique melting pot where diverse traditions merged, producing a unique heritage & singular culture. In this fascinating account of the island from the earliest times to the present day, author and journalist Jamie Mackay journeys through this most elusive of places. From its pivotal position in the development of Greek & Roman mythology, and the beautiful remnants of both the Arab & Norman invasions, through to the rise of the bandits & the Cosa Nostra, Mackay weaves the political & social development of the island in with its fascinating cultural heritage, including Lampedusa’s masterpiece The Leopard & the novels of Leonardo Sciascia.

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Science & Nature

The Art of More: How mathematics created civilisation by Michael Brooks ($33, PB)

It starts with science.

Geometry, calculus & algebra are at the root of art, architecture, government, and almost every other aspect of our civilisation. The mathematics of triangles enabled explorers to travel far across the seas & astronomers to map the heavens. Calculus won the Allies WW2 and halted the HIV epidemic. And the mysterious Pi is one of the essential building blocks of the 21st century. From ancient Egyptian priests to the Apollo astronauts, and Babylonian tax collectors to the MIT professor who invented juggling robots, join Michael Brooks & his eccentric cast of characters in discovering how maths shaped the world.

Nature Is Never Silent by Madlen Ziege ($30, PB)

In forests, fields, and even gardens, there is a constant exchange of information going on. Animals & plants must communicate with one another to survive, but they also tell lies, set traps, talk to themselves, and speak to each other in a variety of unexpected ways.

Behavioural biologist Madlen Ziege reveals the fascinating world of nonhuman communication. showing how nature’s language can help us to understand our own place in the natural world a little better.

Silent Earth: Averting the Insect Apocalypse

by Dave Goulson ($35, PB)

Insects are essential for life as we know it. As they become more scarce, our world will slowly grind to a halt; we simply cannot function without them. Drawing on the latest ground-breaking research and a lifetime’s study, Dave Goulson reveals the shocking decline of insect populations that has taken place in recent decades, with potentially catastrophic consequences. He passionately argues that we must all learn to love, respect and care for our six-legged friends..

The Eloquence of the Sardine: The Secret Life of Fish by Bill Francois ($33, PB)

In a series of exquisitely rendered vignettes of marine life, Bill Francois takes a whistle-stop global tour revealing the mysteries of the sea, beginning with the simple eloquence of the sardine. He unpicks the sound of the sea—an underwater symphony orchestra voiced by a choir of fish—and deciphers the latest scientific discoveries on the immunity of coral & the changing gender of wrasses. Visit the depths of underwater Paris as Francois delves into the mysterious world of the eel & explore an extraordinary three-generational friendship between humans & killer whales, and the role a shoal of herrings played in Cold War tensions. Throughout, Francois brings the inner workings of fish to life—their language, their emotions, their societal rituals.

A Brief Welcome to the Universe: A Pocket-Sized Tour by Neil deGrasse Tyson et al ($25, PB) How do stars live and die? What are the prospects of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe? How did the universe begin? Why is it expanding and accelerating? Is our universe alone or part of an infinite multiverse? In an engaging style, with great illustrations & just a handful of equations three top astrophysicists field these questions and more—offering a passport into the wonders of our evolving cosmos.

The Sea is Not Made of Water by Adam Nicolson

How do sandhoppers inherit an inbuilt compass from their parents?

How do crabs understand the tides? How can the death of one winkle guarantee the lives of its companions? What does a prawn know?

Adam Nicolson explores the natural wonders of the intertidal & our long human relationship with it. The physics of the seas, the biology of anemone & limpet, the long history of the earth, and the stories we tell of those who have lived here: all interconnect in this zone where the philosopher, scientist & poet can meet & find meaning.

‘An utterly fascinating glimpse of a watery world we only thought we knew’—Philip Hoare ($35, PB)

Regeneration by Paul Hawken ($40, PB)

Where Hawken’s 2017 book Drawdown focused on modelling the most effective, known solutions to global warming, his new book offers a guide to what each of us can do—should do—to make changes in the ecological, social & economic & transform the climate crisis in a single generation. From land to ocean, food to industries—Regeneration proposes an extensive menu of actions that provide the means to radically reduce individual & collective impacts. The solutions, techniques & practices Hawken details are doable, sciencebased, and comprise a precise & unequivocal course of action— whether you are an individual, community focused or a national government.

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Out in September 2022 Guide To The Night Sky Southern Hemisphere

by Storm Dunlop ($20, PB)

Visit the CSIRO Publishing website for more quality science books, journals and magazines

publish.csiro.au A Trillion Trees: How We Can Reforest Our World by Fred Pearce ($40, HB)

Trees keep our planet cool & breathable. They make the rain & sustain biodiversity. Yet, we are cutting & burning them at such a rate that many forests are fast approaching tipping points beyond which they will simply shrivel & die. So should we get planting? Not so fast. Fred Pearce argues that we can have our forests back, but mass planting should be a last resort. Instead, we should mostly stand back, make room and let nature—and those who dwell in the forests—do the rest. Taking us from the barren sites of illegal logging and monocrop farming to the smouldering rainforests of the Amazon, Fred Pearce combines vivid travel writing with cutting edge science to tell a revelatory new history of the relationship between humans & trees—and shows us how we can change it for the better.

How it All Works

by Brian Clegg (ill) Adam Dant

($35, HB) The Universe is inconceivably complex. Its component parts though follow a set of unbreakable laws that have somehow been coded into their very fabric. These laws play out in different ways at different scales, giving rise to the familiar phenomena of everyday life—as well as the unfamiliar abstract goings—on outside our experience & awareness. These hyper-detailed scene illustrations show simply how the most interesting & complex named scientific laws & phenomena affect everyone’s daily lives—from Kirchoff’s Law affecting how you charge your phone, through to Newton’s Law of Cooling making your coffee just the right temperature to drink, all the way to quantum tunnelling influencing the nuclear fusion in our sun, to Wien’s Law determining its colour.

Ant Architecture by Walter R. Tschinkel

Walter Tschinkel has spent much of his career investigating the hidden subterranean realm of ant nests. This wonderfully illustrated book takes you inside an unseen world where thousands of ants build intricate homes in the soil beneath our feet. Tschinkel describes the ingenious methods he has devised to study ant nests, showing how he fills a nest with plaster, molten metal, or wax and painstakingly excavates the cast. He guides you through living ant nests chamber by chamber, revealing how nests are created and how colonies function. How does nest architecture vary across species?

Do ants have ‘architectural plans’? How do nests affect our environment? As he delves into these and other questions, Tschinkel provides a one-of-a-kind natural history of the planet’s most successful creatures and a compelling firsthand account of a life of scientific discovery. ($50, HB)

Philosophy & Religion When Bad Thinking Happens to Good People

by Steven Nadler & Lawrence Shapiro ($35, PB)

There is an epidemic of bad thinking in the world today. An alarming number of people are embracing crazy, even dangerous ideas. Steven Nadler & Lawrence Shapiro argue that the best antidote for bad thinking is the wisdom, insights & practical skills of philosophy. They provide an engaging tour through the basic principles of logic, argument, evidence & probability to show how we can more readily spot & avoid flawed arguments & unreliable information; determine whether evidence supports or contradicts an idea; distinguish between merely believing something & knowing it; and much more. In doing so, they reveal how epistemology, which addresses the nature of belief & knowledge, and ethics, the study of moral principles that should govern our behaviour, can reduce bad thinking—and moreover, why philosophy’s millennia-old advice about how to lead a good, rational & examined life is essential for escaping our current predicament.

Going to Church in Medieval England

by Nicholas Orme ($41.95, HB)

Parish churches were at the heart of English religious & social life in the Middle Ages & the 16th century. Through daily & weekly services, the parishes marked the seasons of Christmas, Lent, East & summer.

They helped communities to celebrate the great events of life—birth, coming of age, marriage—and gave comfort in sickness & death. With colour illustrations throughout, Nicholas Orme explores how the parishes came into existence, who staffed them & how their buildings were used. He looks at the people who attended church (and those who did not) and how their behaviour affected the way in which worship was staged. His final chapter discusses the English Reformation in the 16th century & shows how, alongside the changes, many aspects of church worship survived into the new era.

The Subversive Simone Weil by Robert Zaretsky

Known as the ‘patron saint of all outsiders’, Simone Weil (1909–43) was a philosopher who truly lived by her political & ethical ideals. In a short life framed by the 2 world wars, Weil taught philosophy to lycée students & organized union workers, fought alongside anarchists during the Spanish Civil War & labored alongside workers on assembly lines, joined the Free French movement in London & died in despair because she was not sent to France to help the Resistance. While many readers have been attracted to Weil’s religious thought, Robert Zaretsky offers a different Weil, exploring her insights into politics & ethics, to show a new side of Weil that balances her contradictions—the rigorous rationalist who also had her own brand of Catholic mysticism; the revolutionary with a soft spot for anarchism yet who believed in the hierarchy of labor; and the humanitarian who emphasized human needs & obligations over human rights. ($32.95, HB)

The Metaphysics of German Idealism: A New Interpretation of Schelling’s Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom and Matters

by Martin Heidegger ($51.95, HB)

Published in English for the first time, translated by Ian Alexander Moore and Rodrigo Therezo, this volume comprises the lecture course that Heidegger gave in 1941 on the metaphysics of German Idealism.

The Early Foucault by Stuart Elden ($39.95, PB)

Drawing on archives in France, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden and the USA, Stuart Elden offers a detailed study of Michel Foucault’s early career. It recounts his debt to teachers including Louis Althusser, Jean Hyppolite, Maurice Merleau-Ponty & Jean Wahl; his diploma thesis on Hegel; and his early teaching career. It explores his initial encounters with Georges Canguilhem, Jacques Lacan & Georges Dumézil, and analyses his sustained reading of Friedrich Nietzsche, Edmund Husserl & Martin Heidegger. Also included are detailed discussions of his translations of Ludwig Binswanger, Victor von Weizsäcker & Immanuel Kant; his clinical work with Georges & Jacqueline Verdeaux; and his cultural work outside of France.

After the Apocalypse by Srećko Horvat ($30.95, PB) Drawing on the work of philosopher Günther Anders, this book outlines a philosophical approach to deal with what Srecko Horvat, borrowing a term from climate science & giving it a theological twist, calls ‘eschatological tipping points’. These are no longer just the nuclear age or climate crisis, but their collision, conjoined with various other major threats—not only pandemics, but also the viruses of capitalism & fascism. In his investigation of the future of places such as Chernobyl, the Mediterranean & the Marshall Islands, as well as many others affected by COVID-19, Horvat contends that the ‘revelation’ appears simple & unprecedented: the alternatives are no longer socialism or barbarism—our only alternatives today are a radical reinvention of the world, or mass extinction. This is an urgent call not only to mourn tomorrow’s dead today but to struggle for our future while we can.

Now in paperback Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life

by Zena Hitz, $30

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Great Stories Uncovered

Cultural Studies & Criticism

Broken: Children, Parents & Family Courts

by Camilla Nelson & Catharine Lumby ($33, PB)

The family courts intimately affect the lives of those who come before them. Judges can decide where you are allowed to live & work, which school your child can attend & whether you are even permitted to see your child. Lawyers can interrogate every aspect of your personal life during cross-examination, and argue whether or not you are fit to be a parent. Broken explores the complexities & failures of Australia’s family courts through the stories of children, taking the reader into the back rooms of the system to show what it feels like to be caught up in spirals of abusive litigation. It reveals how the courts have been politicised by Pauline Hanson and men’s rights groups, and how those they are meant to protect most—children—are silenced or treated as property.

The Luminous Solution: Creativity, Resilience and the Inner Life by Charlotte Wood ($33, PB) A tour de force of interwoven perspectives and sustained suspense, Crossroads is the story of a Midwestern family at a historical moment of moral crisis.

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of All the Light We Cannot See comes a triumph of imagination and compassion, a soaring story of resilience, hope – and a book.

This book is an ode to music, and a celebration of humanity’s greatest creation.

It is not a call to arms, but a call to instruments.

Out now from The Right to Sex by Amia Srinivasan ($30, PB)

Since #MeToo many have fixed on consent as the key framework for achieving sexual justice. Yet consent is a blunt tool.

To grasp sex in all its complexity its deep ambivalences, its relationship to gender, class, race & power we need to move beyond ‘yes & no’, wanted & unwanted. We need to interrogate the fraught relationships between discrimination & preference, pornography & freedom, rape & racial injustice, punishment & accountability, pleasure & power, capitalism & liberation. We need to rethink sex as a political phenomenon. Amia Srinivasan examines the politics & ethics of sex in this world, animated by the hope of a different one.

There’s a War Going On But No One Can See It

by Huib Modderkolk ($30, PB)

Summer 2017—computer screens go blank in 150 countries.

The NHS is so affected that hospitals can only take in patients for A&E. Restarting is pointless; the computers are locked. And now the attackers are asking for money. Hijack software is just one example of how vulnerable the digital world has made us.

Huib Modderkolk takes a tour of the corridors & back doors of the globalised digital world, looking at key players including Edward Snowden, Russian hackers Cozy Bear & Evgeniy Bogachev, ‘the Pablo Escobar of the digital era’—revealing the dark underbelly of the digital world with the drive of a thriller.

A Bloody Good Rant by Thomas Keneally

Thomas Keneally draws on a lifetime of engagement with the great issues of our recent history & his own moments of discovery & understanding. He writes with unbounded joy of being a grandparent, and with intimacy and insight about the prospect of death & the meaning of faith. He is outraged about the treatment of Indigenous Australians & refugees, and argues fiercely against market economics & the cowardice of climate change deniers. And he introduces us to some of the people, both great & small, who have dappled his life. ($40, HB)

Award-winning writer Charlotte Wood shares the insights she has gained over a career of paying close attention to her own mind, to the world around her and to the way she and others work. Drawing on research and decades of observant conversation and immersive reading, Wood shares what artists can teach the rest of us about inspiration and hard work, how to pursue truth in art and life, and to find courage during the difficult times: facing down what we fear and keeping going when things seem hopeless.

Fishing for Lightning: The Spark of Poetry

by Sarah Holland-Batt ($30, PB)

This book gathers together poet & critic Sarah Holland-Batt’s columns on contemporary Australian poetry. In 50 lively short essays on fifty poets, Holland-Batt offers a masterclass in how to read and love poetry, opening up the music of language, form, & poetic technique.

From the villanelle to the verse novel, the readymade & the remix to the sonnet, Holland-Batt’s essays range across the breadth of contemporary poetry, but also delve into the richness of poetic & literary history, connecting the contemporary to the ancient.

Signs and Wonders: Dispatches from a time of beauty and loss by Delia Falconer ($33, PB)

Is a mammoth emerging from the permafrost beautiful or terrifying? How is our imagination affected when something that used to be ordinary—like a car windscreen smeared with insects— becomes unimaginable? What can the disappearance of the paragraph from much contemporary writing tell us about what’s happening in the modern mind? Scientists write about a ‘great acceleration’ in human impact on the natural world. Delia Falconer posits that we are also in a period of profound cultural acceleration, which is just as dynamic, strange, extreme & beautiful.

Manifesto by Bernardine Evaristo ($35, HB)

Bernardine Evaristo’s 2019 Booker win—the first by a Black woman—was a revolutionary moment both for British culture and for her. After 3 decades as a trailblazing writer, teacher & activist, she moved from the margins to centre stage. This is her no-holds-barred account of how she did it—charting her creative rebellion against the mainstream & her life-long commitment to the imaginative exploration of ‘untold’ stories. Drawing deeply on her own experiences, she offers a vital contribution to current conversations around social issues such as race, class, feminism, sexuality & aging.

Wonderworks by Angus Fletcher ($40, HB)

Literature is a technology like any other. Writers from Homer to Shakespeare, Austen to Ferrante each made a unique technical breakthrough that can be viewed as both a narrative & neuroscientific advancement. But literature’s great invention was to address problems we could not solve: not how to start a fire or build a boat, but how to live & love; how to maintain courage in the face of death; how to account for the fact that we exist at all.

Angus Fletcher tells the story of the greatest literary inventions through the ages, from ancient Mesopotamia to modern-day America. Drawing on cutting-edge neuroscience he walks through the evolution of literature’s crucial blueprints, offering a new understanding of its power.

The Fran Lebowitz Reader ($45, HB)

Acerbic, wisecracking and hilarious, this is the definitive essay collection from New York legend & satirist, Fran Lebowitz Lebowitz. In this volume she turns her trademark caustic wit to the vicissitudes of life—from children (‘rarely in the position to This tour de force of literary criticism, is nothing less than an lend one a truly interesting sum of money’) to landlords (‘it is the attempt to show the Complete Works—dramatic & poetic—as a solemn duty of every landlord to maintain an adequate supply of single, tightly integrated, evolving organism. Hughes supports roaches’). And her attitude to work is the perfect antidote to our his thesis with a painstakingly close analysis of language, plots exhausting culture of self-betterment (‘3.40pm. I consider getting & characters. A multitude of dazzling insights, such as only one out of bed. I reject the notion as being unduly vigorous. I read and great poet can offer into the work of another, is generated in the process, and the smoke a bit more’)— ’There is no such thing as inner peace. There is only nervousness entire understanding of Shakespeare, his art & imagination, is radically transformed. and death’

Shakespeare & the Goddess of Complete Being

by Ted Hughes ($60, PB)

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Puff Piece by John Safran ($35, PB) Philip Morris has announced they will shut down as a cigarette company, and relaunch as a health enterprise, dedicated to convincing the one billion smokers of the world to quit. The ever-curious John Safran discovers a company up to brand new shenanigans, wangling their way into unexpected places, desperately trying to keep their tobacco business alive by brandishing a mysterious new doohickey called an IQOS. And not only that, now they’re upending language itself—will they slip past bans by convincing governments they don’t sell ‘cigarettes’ but rather ‘HeatSticks’, and that these don’t emit ‘smoke’ but ‘aerosol’? Can John get the real story out of them without his life catching fire?

Caliban & the Witch by Silvia Federici

A cult classic since its publication in the early years of this century, this is Silvia Federici’s history of the body in the transition to capitalism. Moving from the peasant revolts of the late Middle Ages through the European witch-hunts, the rise of scientific rationalism & the colonisation of the Americas, it gives a panoramic account of the often horrific violence with which the unruly human material of pre-capitalist societies was transformed into a set of predictable & controllable mechanisms. It is a study of indigenous traditions crushed, of the enclosure of women’s reproductive powers within the nuclear family, and of how our modern world was forged in blood. ($23, PB)

On Freedom by Maggie Nelson ($35, PB)

So often deployed as a jingoistic, even menacing rallying cry, or limited by a focus on passing moments of liberation, the rhetoric of freedom both rouses and repels. Does it remain key to our autonomy, justice, and well-being, or is freedom’s long star turn coming to a close? Does a continued obsession with the term enliven and emancipate, or reflect a deepening nihilism (or both)? Drawing on a vast range of material, from critical theory to pop culture to the intimacies and plain exchanges of daily life, Maggie Nelson explores how we might think, experience, or talk about freedom in ways responsive to the conditions of our day.

Out in October Well Hello: Meanderings from the world of Chat 10 Looks 3

by Annabel Crabb & Leigh Sales, $40, HB

2nd2nd2ndHand Hand HandRows Rows Rows

The People’s Cyclopedia of Universal Knowledge

by W.H. De Puy (Geo. Coffey, Syd NSW) No date [c.1884] (2 Vols $150, HB) Who does not enjoy perusing old (En)cyclopedias? An exotic and fascinating time capsule of their era. Rev. William Harrison de Puy (1821-1901) was a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Baltimore, Maryland. He was also a prolific editor and compiler of cyclopedias, gazetteers and almanacs—both religious and secular—for over 40 years. This particular Cyclopedia was originally published in New York in 1881. A two-volume abridgement of the original six volume set. An 1884 supplementary note to this, the 11th Edition, states that it has been fully revised ‘to the close of the year 1883’. The format is two columns of text per page. The font size, I estimate, is 7 points (called Minion).Very small. I dug out my trusty stamp collecting magnifying glass to read the longer entries. There are some 5,000 b/w engravings to break up the pages of text. There were also sufficient sales, 55,000 copies in three years, and interest generated to see it printed overseas in Sydney, NSW (and I presume elsewhere in the World). An American creation, it of course reflects the entry bias of the country it was originally published to inform. As do all such works. My World Book Encyclopedia—1975 Yearbook, gives President Richard Nixon four full pages. Gough Whitlam, Australia’s Prime Minister, has one paragraph. So be it.

My first noted entry is Australia which receives one column. ‘By some strictly defined as an island—while by others loosely defined as a continent. Pop. 2,2 16, 121. A beautiful four colour engraved map occupies Vol 1 pp. 180-185. NSW, coloured in fetching pink, is depicted with the towns Sydney, Parramatta, Newcastle, Bathurst, Picton, Goulburn, Armidale & Tamworth for the American readers to gaze at. The most recent significant inventions, both in 1877, are listed as: The Phonograph (Thomas A. Edison) & The Telephone. There is also an utterly exhaustive statistical compilation detailing almost every aspect of the United States: The Fleetest Horses of Current Record, The U.S. Presidential Salary—in 1884 was $50,000 annually. In today’s values $1.38 million. Joe Biden’s current pay is a mere $400,000 p.a. A nine-page Australasia Supplement is also included. and one final listing, now topical 140 years later: Great Plagues & Distempers of History—Chronologically Arranged. Stephen

special price $29.99 Inflamed: Deep Medicine & the Anatomy of Injustice by Rupa Marya & Raj Patel ($35, PB)

What is the link between gut biodiversity, structural racism, and mental health? How does colonialism continue to cause lethal disease around the world? Why are First Nation people who speak their native language better protected against diabetes?

Inflamed journeys across the human body—through our digestive, endocrine, circulatory, respiratory, reproductive, immune, and nervous systems—illuminating the hidden relationships between our biological systems & the profound injustices of our political & economic systems. Marya & Patel show how inflammation is connected not just to the food that we eat & the air that we breathe, but is also linked to the traumatic events we experience, the stories we tell, and the arts of diagnosis that physicians practice—and fail to practice—every day.

Hippocrasy: How doctors are betraying their oath by Rachelle Buchbinder & Ian Harris

Rheumatologist & epidemiologist Rachelle Buchbinder & orthopaedic surgeon Ian Harris argue that the benefits of medical treatments are often wildly overstated & the harms understated.

That overtreatment & overdiagnosis are rife. And the medical system is not fit for purpose: designed to deliver health care not health. They reveal the tests, drugs & treatments that provide little or no benefit for patients & the inherent problem of a medical system based on treating rather than preventing illness.

They also offer tips to empower patients—do I really need this treatment? What are the risks? Are there simpler, safer options? What happens if I do nothing? Plus solutions to help restructure how medicine is delivered to help doctors live up to their Hippocratic Oath. ($33, PB)

The Modern Myths by Philip Ball ($49.95, HB)

From Robinson Crusoe and Frankenstein to Batman, many stories written in the past few centuries are commonly, perhaps glibly, called ‘modern myths’. Through the medium of narratives that all of us know in their basic outline and which have no clear moral or resolution, these modern myths explore some of our deepest fears, dreams, and anxieties. What myths are still taking shape today? And what makes a story become a modern myth? Philip Ball takes a wide-ranging tour of our collective imagination, asking what some of its most popular stories reveal about the nature of being human in the modern age.

A collection of Ted Hughes The poetry of Ted Hughes needs no introduction here. Likewise, the sculpture and graphic art of Leonard Baskin is immediately recognizable and widely admired.

That the two were friends, neighbours and collaborators is less well known. Together they worked on ten books starting with Crow, published by Faber in 1970.

The book represented a significant shift for Hughes stylistically and Baskin’s illustrations vividly captured the primitive and emotionally powerful form and language of Hughes’ folk tale. Cave Birds (1975) continued the story of Crow on his quest of self-discovery and again Baskin contributed an astonishing suite of bird drawings. Hughes’s long narrative poem Gaudete (1977) featured one of Baskin’s most extraordinary images on its cover: the poem’s protagonist, the unfortunate Reverend Lumb, is represented here as a sinister screaming turnip in this tale of alien abduction and mystic cults. A similar strain of dark humour pervades all of their work. Poet and artist saw their collaborations not just as illustrations of poems or simple responses to artwork but as something which ‘extends and expands ones understanding’ of both.

Cave Birds, Faber, 1975. 1st edition. SIGNED by Ted Hughes to front free-endpaper. Minor edge wear to dust jacket (now protected in removable plastic cover) including one small closed tear and some chipping. Faint spotting to edges and endpapers. Otherwise excellent tight clean copy. $250 Gavedette, Harper & Row, 1977. 1st US edition with review slip. Very light marks to dust jacket. Spotting to top edge. Otherwise excellent tight clean copy.

Other Ted Hughes 1st editions available: What is the Truth?, Faber & Faber, 1984. A delightful story for children about the animals of the English countryside with beautiful illustrations by R.J. Lloyd. Light spotting to top edge. Otherwise excellent. $35 Wolfwatching, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1st US edition, 1991. Minor edge wear to dust jacket. Light fading to spine of same. Light spotting to edges. Otherwise nice. Scott

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Spies?

N

E

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Ethel Rosenberg: A Cold War Tragedy

by Anne Sebba ($33, PB) I thoroughly enjoyed Anne Sebba’s earlier biography about Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor, entitled That Woman (2011). In this sympathetic biography, executed atomic spy Ethel Rosenberg—who had trained as a dancer and actress in her youth—emerges as a thoughtful, sensitive, ambitious woman and devoted mother to her sons. In 1950 she worked in New York in a secretarial job at a shipping company. But was she a spy for the Soviets? Even Sebba is uncertain. Throughout the book Ethel is said to be either: ‘not a spy’; ‘not legally complicit’ or ‘complicit to conspiracy—was that a crime?’

In 1949, the FBI learned that the secret of the construction of the atom bomb had been stolen and turned over to the Soviets. In February 1950, at the behest of the FBI, British intelligence arrested Klaus Fuchs, a German born physicist and atomic spy who confessed he had passed on information of the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos to the Soviet Union since 1943 and after the war. Fuchs named a group of individuals as fellow wartime spies: Harry Gold, a chemist and Morton Sobell a radar engineer, acted as couriers. Other members of the Rosenberg Spy Ring included: aviation scientist William Perl, and Army Signal Corps operatives Joel Barr & Alfred Sarant. Gold’s arrest and admissions revealed that his go-between with the Russians was David Greenglass—who had worked as a machine operator at Los Alamos between 1944–46—and his wife Ruth Prinz. Under interrogation, Greenglass told the FBI that he was recruited by Julius Rosenberg, his brother-in-law. Ethel had helped recruit his wife. During the war, Julius had worked as an Engineer Inspector in the Army Signal Corps Laboratory, having access to jet propulsion plans, sonar, radar and nuclear weapon designs. In 1950 he owned a machinist shop in the Bronx. Both Rosenbergs were members of the American Communist Party (CPUSA). They had met at a Young Communist League meeting in 1936 and married three years later. Julius Rosenberg was arrested for espionage in July 1950, Ethel a month later. At their trial, in March 1951, David Greenglass testified against them. He claimed that Ethel typed up his notes to give to the Soviets. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted on 29 March 1951—both were sentenced to death.

The US government offered to spare the lives of both Rosenbergs if Julius provided the names of other spies and they admitted their guilt. The Rosenbergs made a public statement: ‘By asking us to repudiate the truth of our innocence, the government admits its own doubts concerning our guilt ... we will not be coerced, even under pain of death, to bear false witness’. Numerous appeals for clemency to President Eisenhower—by public and international figures including Pope Pius XII, Einstein and Picasso among others—were fruitless. The Rosenbergs were electrocuted by electric chair at Sing Sing Prison New York on 19 June 1953.

Ethel became the only woman to be executed in the United States for a crime other than murder. The question of their guilt and innocence was debated for decades. It was, and still is, alleged by some historians that Ethel remained unaware of the full nature of her husband’s activities. In 1995 came the release of the Venona Transcripts. During WW2 the United States Army Intelligence intercepted numerous Soviet communications from a spy programme known as Venona. This ran from 1943 to 1980. Some 3000 transcripts were intercepted. These confirmed beyond doubt that Julius (Codename: Liberal) was the leader of a Soviet spy ring. All ‘handled’ by their case officer, Soviet intelligence agent & spy Alexander Feklisov.

Ethel is merely referred to as ‘Ethel’, the wife of a spy. Was she prosecuted simply to pressure Julius to a full confession and reveal more names? or Do the tapes confirm Ethel was a participant in her husband’s activities. In a 2001 interview, David Greenglass stated that he lied under oath at the trial concerning Ethel’s espionage activities. To protect his wife, Ruth. The Grand Jury Testimony related to the Rosenberg prosecution was finally released after Greenglass’s death at the age of 92 and confirmed that he never mentioned involvement by his sister Ethel in Julius Rosenberg’s delivery of atomic secrets to the Russians. However, in 2009, extensive notes collected from KGB archives by Russian-British historian Alexander Vassiliev were published, including KGB comments concerning Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. These notes make clear that the KGB considered Julius Rosenberg an effective agent and his wife Ethel an enthusiastic supporter of his work.

That she provided names of potential recruits to the Russians. Therefore: the chief witness at the Rosenberg trial perjured himself and Ethel’s death sentence was, in my opinion, unwarranted. Yet her involvement appears to me to be somewhat more than merely peripheral, as author Anne Sebba would like to insist. This book also includes an interesting chapter on the cultural impact of the Rosenberg case.

There are also moving chapters on the fate of their two sons—Michael and Robert (aged 10 and 6 in 19530—who were eventually adopted and raised by teachers, poets and songwriters Anne and Abel Meeropol (author of the song ‘Strange Fruit’ that protests the lynching of Black Americans).Since 2015 both of Ethel’s sons continue to campaign for the legal exoneration of their mother – and their hope for a posthumous Presidential Pardon. Stephen Reid

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Was $60

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The Annotated American Gods Neil Gaiman, HB

Baltasar and Blimunda Jose Saramago, HB

Was $60

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Now $19.95

Now $19.95

Gandhi: The Years That Changed the World, 1914-1948 Ramachandra Guha, HB

Grant Ron Chernow, HB

Was $50

Was $50

Now $18.95

Now $18.95

Nature’s Mutiny: How The New Silk Roads: The the Little Ice Age of the Long Present and Future of the World 17th Century Transformed the Peter Frankopan, HB West and Shaped the Present Philipp Blom, HB

Was $60

Was $60

Now $19.95

Now $19.95

Maoism: A Global History Julia Lovell, HB

Empire of Guns: The Violent Making of the Industrial Revolution Priya Satia, HB

Was $50

Was $70

Now $18.95

Now $24.95

Marcel Duchamp: Porte-Bouteilles Lars Blunck, HB

Human Anatomy: Stereoscopic Images of Medical Specimens Jim Naughten, HB

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Was $60

Was $36

Was $31

Was $50

Now $16.95

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Teresa, My Love: An Imagined Life of the Saint of Avila Julia Kristeva, HB

Was $45

Was $40

Now $16.95

Now $16.95

Life in the Garden Penelope Lively HB

The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off! Gloria Steinem, HB

Now $16.95

What Philosophy Can Do Gary Gutting, HB

Was $40

Was $50

Now $16.95

Now $18.95

Follow This Thread A Maze Book to Get Lost In Henry Eliot, HB

Was $30

Was $40

Figuring Maria Popova, HB

Father Brown Short Stories G K Chesterton, HB

Trickster Feminism: Poems Anne Waldman, PB

Behemoth: A History of the Factory and the Making of the Modern World Joshua B. Freeman, HB

Was $40

Now $12.95

Now $16.95

There’s No Such Thing as a Sexual RelaThe Lies That Bind: tionship: Two Lessons on Lacan Rethinking Identity Alain Badiou & Barbara Cassin, PB Kwame Anthony Appiah, HB

Was $30

Now $12.95

Guy Debord Anselm Jappe, PB

Was $50

Was $50

Was $50

Was $50

Now $18.95

Now $18.95

Now $18.95

Now $18.95

Trouble with Gravity: Solving the Mystery Beneath Our Feet Richard Panek, HB

Was $50

Now $18.95

Morning Glory on the Vine: Early Songs and Drawings Joni Mitchell, HB

Early: An Intimate History of Premature Birth & what it teaches us about being Human Sarah Digregorio, HB

Big Sister, Little Sister, The Bohemians: The Lovers Red Sister: 3 Women at the Heart Who Led Germany’s of 20th-Century China Resistance Against the Nazis

by Jung Chang, HB Norman Ohler, HB

Was $40

Was $52.95

Was $30

Now $16.95

Now $16.95

Now $14.95

Goodnight, L.A : Untold Tales from Inside Classic Rock’s Legendary Recording Studios Kent Hartman, HB

Do You Have a Band? Poetry & Artaud the Moma Punk Rock in New York City Jacques Derrida, PB Daniel Kane, PB

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The Arts Beyond Borders: Patrick Tjungurrayi ($45, PB) Hetti Perkins, John Carty & Sarah Brown

Ala. Alatuti. Oloodoodi. Patrick. Tjungurray. He is a man of many names, and they speak to many lives lived. Through the prism of Patrick’s art & life, this book illuminates a unique part of 20th century Australian history & art history. It also tells of a health crisis face Aboriginal people across Australia & an innovative & effective response to this crisis being driven by an extraordinary Indigenous organisation, the Purple House (Western Desert Dialysis). Patrick Tjungurrayi’s life illuminates the history, art history & political history of Australia throughout the 20th century. All proceeds from the sale of this book support the work of the Purple House in providing dialysis & essential support service to people in Central Australia & beyond.

Extinct: Artistic Impressions of Our Lost Wildlife

by Benjamin Gray ($60, HB)

While Australian animals are among the most unique in the world, they are also among the most endangered, with hundreds currently on the brink of extinction. Extinct is a collection of artworks from established & emerging Australian fine artists, each depicting an Australian animal that has already, for various reasons, tumbled over the edge into extinction. The book laments their loss, but also celebrates their former existence, diversity & significance. The artworks are accompanied by stories of each animal, highlighting the importance of what we have lost, so that we appreciate what we have not lost yet.

Conchophilia: Shells, Art, and Curiosity in Early Modern Europe ($90, HB)

Among nature’s most artful creations, shells have long inspired the curiosity & passion of artisans, artists, collectors & thinkers.

Shells circulated at the nexus of commerce & intellectual pursuit, suggesting new ways of thinking about relationships between Europe and the rest of the world. From elaborate nautilus cups & shell-encrusted grottoes to delicate miniatures, this richly illustrated book reveals how the love of shells intersected not only with the rise of natural history & global trade but also with philosophical inquiry, issues of race & gender, and the ascent of art-historical connoisseurship.

Triangle, Rectangle, Circle: Geometric Works on Paper 1995–1996 by George Johnson ($45, HB) New Zealand-born Australian artist George Johnson’s strongly geometric works have surfed 3 distinct waves of abstract painting.

In this book Patrick Hutchings, Jenny Zimmer & Johnson outline the sources of his use of Geometric Abstraction to express his philosophy of life; examine his studio practices from sketchbooks to major paintings; outline the trajectory of his career with the numerous exhibitions which have presented his works nationally between 1956 & 2021; and trace aspects of his critical acclaim.

The Art and Science of Ernst Haeckel ($45, HB)

Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) was a German-born biologist, naturalist, evolutionist, artist, philosopher, and doctor who spent his life researching flora & fauna from the highest mountaintops to the deepest ocean. At the heart of Haeckel’s colossal legacy was the motivation not only to discover but also to explain. To do this, he created hundreds of detailed drawings, watercolours, and sketches of his findings. work was as remarkable for its graphic precision and meticulous shading as for its understanding of organic evolution.

This is a collection of collection of 300 of his finest prints.

Do Not Erase: Mathematicians and Their Chalkboards by Jessica Wynne ($55, HB)

While other fields have replaced chalkboards with whiteboards & digital presentations, mathematicians remain loyal to chalk for puzzling out their ideas & communicating their research. Photographer Jessica Wynne offers more than 100 photographs of these chalkboards, gathered from a diverse group of mathematicians around the world.

The photographs are accompanied by essays from each mathematician, reflecting on their work & processes. Together, pictures & words provide an illuminating meditation on the unique relationships among mathematics, art & creativity.

Miquel Barcelo: Le Grand Verre de Terre

This book collects the images that the Mallorcan artist, Miquel Barcelo, made for the National Library of France, in Paris in 2016: a gigantic fresco of 190 metres long by 6 metres high, made in clay on the crystals of the mythical library & populated by the fantastic shapes, animals & creatures that shape Barceló’s imagination. A living work, conceived to be observed from inside & outside the building, the fresco was erased by the artist when the exhibition ended, and only the memory of these pages remain. ($150, PB)

Doing Feminism: Women’s Art and Feminist Criticism in Australia by Anne Marsh ($200, HB)

This volume represents over 220 artists & groups with 370 colour illustrations punctuated by extracts from artists’ statements, curatorial writing & critique. Tracking networks of art practice, exhibitions, protest & critical thought over several generations, art historian, Anne Marsh, demonstrates the innovation & power of women’s art & the ways in which it has influenced & changed the contemporary art landscape in Australia & internationally. The images & texts are curated by decade & contextualised to provide a broad analysis of art & feminist criticism since the late 1960s.

Alice Neel: People Come First

by Kelly Baum & Randall Griffey ($72.95, HB)

This book surveys Alice Neel’s nearly 70-year career, focusing on her long residency in New York, a place that provided her with lifelong inspiration. In addition to her compelling portraits of individuals of all ages, both famous & unknown, the book also explores her remarkable nudes, still lifes, cityscapes, and erotic pastels & watercolours—all considered through the lens of radical humanism that informed so much of the artist’s work.

Napoleon’s Plunder and the Theft of Veronese’s Feast by Cynthia Saltzman ($50, HB)

In 1796 Napoleon Bonaparte left Paris to take command of his first campaign in Italy, aged only 26. One year later, his army was in Venice & his commissioners were determining which great Renaissance artworks to bring back to France. Among the paintings the French chose was The Wedding Feast at Cana by Paolo Veronese, a vast masterpiece that had hung in the refectory of San Giorgio Maggiore since it was painted in 1563. Once pulled from the wall, the Venetian canvas crossed the Mediterranean packed among paintings commandeered from Venice & made its way to Paris where Napoleon gathered his spoils of war—treasures from the cities of Rome, Milan, and later Berlin and Vienna. Cynthia Saltzman interweaves the stories of Napoleon’s military campaigns, uncovering the treaties through which he obtained his loot, with the histories of the plundered works themselves, exploring how these masterpieces came into being.

Art in Detail: 100 Masterpieces by Susie Hodge

Art historian Susie Hodge examines 100 iconic paintings from the Western canon and spotlights the finer points a quick The Genius of Japanese Carpentry glance will almost certainly fail to reveal. These include subtle internal details, such as hidden symbols and artistic tricks emby Azby Brown ($30, PB) ployed by the painter to achieve particular effects. In addition, This book tells the story of the 1200-year-old Yakushiji monHodge writes about external influences on the artist—eveastery in Nara, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the dedirything from the socioeconomic context in which he or she cated modern-day craftsmen who are working to restore what flourished, to smaller local difficulties, such as the level of air has been lost to the depredations of time, fire & warfare. Azby pollution at the time the painting was created. And she treats Brown chronicles the painstaking restoration of the Yakushiji each of her subjects not only, to quote Matthew Arnold, ‘as in itself it really is’, but also monastery through: Extensive interviews with carpenters & as part of a tradition that links the oldest painting to the most recent, as artists pass a woodworkers; original drawings based on the plans of master carpenter Tsunekazu Nishioka; detailed photographs & diagrams showing the woodwork- metaphorical baton down through the ages. With 700 illustrations. ($50, PB) ing techniques, tools & materials used.

Pom Pom Cats: 30 Unique Pom Pom Cats Made

Stuff: Upholstery, Fabric, Frame

by Lorraine Osborne ($65, HB)

Far too much furniture is thrown away—and with it the perfectly good materials and resources it contains that ought to be reused. Traditionally trained upholsterer, Lorraine Osborne, gives you basic upholstery skills—featuring ways to calculate quantities of fabric accurately, and 12 of her top tips. All you need are a few basic upholstery skills, an ability to work three-dimensionally, and an eye for shape and design—plus your own personal style and a bit of flair.

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by Winding Wool by Trikotri ($28, PB)

Tsubasa Kuroda, a.k.a. trikotri offers instructions to make 30 different adorable cat pom poms, covering a full range of breeds from American Shorthairs, Abyssinians, Scottish Folds to Sphinxs. All the cat pom poms are variations on the same basic technique, so once the basics are mastered, anyone can create their own unique cat pom pom.

Also new: Knitted Animal Hats: 35 designs from the animal kingdom for babies, kids, and teens by Fiona Goble ($33, PB)

Andrew: It is difficult to express the profound impact of A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam. It is the portrayal of a young man’s train trip to the north of Sri Lanka, to a small Tamil community, and his attendance at the funeral of an elderly woman who was a companion to his grandmother. The nature of the woman’s death, and the profound sadness of her life, touched horrendously by the country’s civil war, is the subject of Krishan’s reveries; and so the physical passage north coincides with a journey of memory and contemplation. Anuk Arudpragasam’s prose style is a bravura tightrope display—his sentences cascade with participial phrases (they take some getting used to)—but somehow manage the almost impossible, conveying the flux of the present at the same time as the stream of memory. I’m not sure it is a perfect novel; I fancy Arudpagasam’s prose style is an acquired taste, and for some sections of the novel I found it cloying and worked against the subject matter, but in many many parts is truly transcendental.

It is definitely worth sticking with for the final chapter which is as gobsmackingly shattering and as beautiful as anything I’ve read.

Colm Toibin is one of my favourite authors and The Magician is an engaging pivot from his last few ‘chamber pieces’ to a big, bold, novel of the twentieth century and of the horrors of the rise of Nazism. Ostensibly it is akin to The Master, his acclaimed imagining of the life of Henry James. This time the subject is Thomas Mann and his large family; however it keeps much closer tabs on the known facts of Mann’s life, covers over half a century, and as such is a more straightforward ‘biographical novel’ than the James book. With the rise of Hitler, Mann’s horror and moral instinct is tempered again and again by a reticence to act on his beliefs and emotions—it is a powerful portrayal and he becomes almost a cipher, a perfect representative of a people hand-wringing and pearl-clutching their way towards moral destruction. It remains however a Toibin novel—its strongest scenes are not those of the public, historical figure but rather those where Toibin moves his magnifying glass slowly and steadily over the domestic tableau; examining the filigree of imagined conversations, sublimations, and disquieting observations.

what we're reading

Victoria: The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak is a beautiful book of a love affair between a Greek boy and a Turkish girl during the Cypriot uprising in the 1970s. It’s an enchanting story wound around a fig tree central to the narrative, which tells its own story. I think I have found a new fabulous author to read in Gwendoline Riley. Her most recent book My Phantoms is basically a story about a mother and daughter relationship. It is quite brutal in places but it is also subtle. Riley’s observations are extraordinary and I read this book in two days as I couldn’t put it down. Her previous novel First Love was shortlisted for the Bailey’s Women’s prize in 2017—having enjoyed My Phantoms so much, I’ll be reading it next. And finally, to The Labyrinth by Amanda Lohrey. The 2021 Miles Franklin winner is the story of Erica who moves to a sleepy town on the Australian south coast to be near her son who is in a nearby prison. She decides to build a labyrinth in the yard to help her navigate through the trauma and issues she has carried around most of her life—which you learn about as the book unfolds. You are also introduced to the characters she meets in this little town who help her with the labyrinth. Wonderfully written and well worthy of the Miles Franklin Award.

Ange: Crisis Zone by Simon Hanselmann is a witty, outrageous, disgusting, and saucy telling of the COVID crisis—as it happened. You may recognise Megg & Mogg... They have been twisted from casting spells in kid’s books to the housemates from hell. Simon Hanselmann’s online installments of his beloved characters during the mess that was 2020 was truly a light in the dark for me. I’m so glad this has been released in print because this is certainly one for the history books.

Happy Endings by Bella Green—Bella Green has gone by many different names—Verona, Ally, Apple, and Chelsea, to name a few. Starting out in sex work at the age of eighteen she did not envisage a long term career. Now in her thirties, she proudly calls herself a lifer. Happy Endings gives us a very generous and vulnerable look into her private life and work, both in sex work and stand-up comedy. If you’ve ever wondered about the intricacies of the sex industry in Australia this is a thoroughly compelling read.

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Bestsellers—Non-Fiction 1. So You Think You Know What’s Good for You

Norman Swan

2. Blessed: The Breakout Year of Rampaging Roy Slaven

John Doyle

3. The Brilliant Boy: Doc Evatt & the Great Australian Dissent

Gideon Haigh

4. An Insider’s Plague Year

Peter Doherty

5. Farmers or Hunter-gatherers? The Dark Emu Debate

Peter Sutton & Keryn Walshe

6. Puff Piece

Jonathan Safran

7. Notes on Grief

Chimananda Ngozi Adichie

8. Sold Down the River: How Robber Barons & Wall

Street Traders Cornered Australia’s Water Market

Scott Hamilton & Stuart Kells

9. Antigone Kefala: New Australian Modernities

(eds) Elizabeth McMahon & Brigitta Olubas

10. On Freedom: Four Songs of Care & Constraint

Maggie Nelson

Bestsellers—Fiction 1. Beautiful World, Where Are You 2. The Labyrinth 3. The Magician 4. Still Life 5. Sorrow & Bliss 6. Nothing But My Body 7. Klara & the Sun 8. Billy Summers 9. After Story 10. Once There Were Wolves

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Sally Rooney Amanda Lohrey Colm Toibin Sarah Winman Meg Mason Tilly Lawless Kazuo Ishiguro Stephen King Larissa Behrendt

and another thing.....

I’ve taken a leaf out of the bestsellers this month—the biggest sellers all fiction, with Sally Rooney topping the charts, but if Liane Moriarty’s new book had been available earlier in the month, Apples Never Fall would have been nipping at the heels of Beautiful World. My leaf, however, leaned to the other reading phenomenon brought on by lockdown and time on one’s hands that has been apparent in customer choices—the classic you’ve never quite got to. For me, it was a dig into my collection of Library of America volumes (the fantasy of retirement reading every receding) for Herman Melville and Moby Dick. Maybe drawn by the promise of open waters, or perhaps I was influenced by the argument over Melville in The Chair—a great Netflix offering if you haven’t got to it. Anyway, whichever wind blew me there, I’m finding the hunt for the great white whale an entirely surprising read. What I have always imagined would be a relatively straightforward (and hopefully gripping) narrative of revenge, obsession and rollicking adventure to be read by the fireside turns out to be anything but. Well occasionally it is—the pursuit of the leviathan in small boats and large swells is so written to have you on the edge of your seat. But in between those breathless moments are whale encyclopaedias, chapters of interior monologue worthy of Hamlet, strange sequences of dancing on deck which veer into distinctly homo-erotic drama, philosophising on the nature of the ‘colour’ white, the great battle of man and nature (a subject seen through 19th century eyes that reflects on all our current crises)—and many other digressions. Unlike a lot of grand 19th century narratives where it’s best to dive in and stay immersed until the last page, you can actually put Moby Dick down for a breather and when you return find you haven’t lost momentum—highly recommend for lockdown. Speaking of which, with continuing staff shortages and our avalanche of home deliveries, I’m hoping to get a November Gleaner out—if not printed, at least on the website. I’ll keep you posted—happy classics reading! Viki

For more October new releases go to:

Charlotte McConaghy

Main shop—49 Glebe Pt Rd; Ph: (02) 9660 2333, Fax: (02) 9660 9842. 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