gleaner - Gleebooks
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gleaner - Gleebooks
gleebooks gleaner news views reviews Vol. 21 No. 6 July 2014 WARM UP AT THE GLEEBOOKS WINTER SALE UPSTAIRS AT #49 GLEBE PT RD FRIDAY 18TH JULY TO SUNDAY 3RD AUGUST BARGAINS GALORE! 1 Lots to look forward to Australian Literature Sweet One by Peter Docker ($30, PB) I’ve three new and very different books by Australian women, illustrating the diversity and strength of contemporary writing, to recommend. The first, My Year without Matches, by Clair Dunn, is just out. I’d not imagined that I’d find the subject matter of this memoir as refreshing and challenging as I have. Dunn recounts her experience as a willing guinea pig in a year’s 'Wilderness Studies' project on a 100 acre property near Grafton with a handful of other participants. The physical challenges she describes are as formidable as they are fascinating to read about (eating road kill, skinning trapped wallaby, making fire without matches). But the book crackles and sizzles with the author’s reflections on the inner journey it entailed. It’s the (often painful) honesty of the discovery of her 'internal wilderness' that makes it such compelling reading. M any followers of Australian political history forget that Robert Menzies had many years in the political wilderness not knowing he would end up being Australia’s longestserving prime minister. This book focuses on the period between 1941, when Menzies lost the prime-ministership, to 1949, when he regained it. In the interim he travelled around the world, spending an extended time in Britain during World War II, set up the Liberal Party and, the author argues, developed the leadership qualities that made him so successful. T his is the story of the early battles of the South West Pacific theatre – the Coral Sea, Kokoda, Milne Bay, Guadalcanal – presented as a single air campaign that began with the Japanese conquest of Rabaul in January 1942. It is a story of both Australian and American airmen who flew and fought in the face of adversity and persisted despite extreme exhaustion, sickness, poor morale and the near certainty of being murdered if they The other two books are not yet published, but both are due in September. Of the first, Golden Boys by Sonya Hartnett, I’ll say more next month, but it is a brilliant, profoundly unsettling novel. Hartnett’s capacity for having the worlds of childhood and adults intersect in the most disturbing ways has rarely, if ever, been more powerfully expressed. Don’t miss it. At the same time, you should catch up with Heat and Light, Ellen van Neerven's debut novel, winner of the David Unaipon Award for unpublished Indigenous writing. This is a three-part fictional journey—two sets of stories book-ending a longer middle section. In the first, Heat introduces us to the Kresinger family, across several generations. The stories, set in both rural and urban locations, are at once discrete and connected, through the compelling presence of Pearl. The middle section, Water, is the longest, and is an oppressive and surreal vision of a people whose very existence is threatened. In the last section, Light, stories of connection and disconnection between and within family and race, challenge and intrigue the reader. This is a fine debut from a very talented writer. David Gaunt Win a Bike! What Came Before by Anna George ($29.99, PB) 'My name is David James Forrester. I'm a solicitor. Tonight, at 6.10, I killed my wife. This is my statement.' In Melbourne's inner west, David sits in his car, dictaphone in hand. He's sick to his stomach but determined to record his version of events. His wife Elle hovers over her own lifeless body as it lies in the laundry of the house they shared. David thinks back on their relationship, and what led to this terrible night. From her eerie vantage point, Elle traces the sweep of their shared past too. Before David, she'd enjoyed a contented life—as a successful filmmaker, a much-loved aunt and friend. But in the course of two years, she was captivated and then undone by him. Not once in those turbulent times did she imagine that her alluring, complex husband was capable of this. Claustrophobia by Tracy Ryan ($29.95, PB) Claustrophobia is the taut, compelling story of a young Perth wife who sets about to protect her husband by stalking his ex-lover, but unexpectedly falls into a passionate affair and a world of lies. In a novel that possesses the dark wit, psychological insight and narrative momentum of a Patricia Highsmith, Tracy Ryan captures the disturbing elements that sometimes lurk beneath the surface of a marriage. The realities of obsessive attachment and social isolation are explored through a deft and thought-provoking look at a complex personality and a plot that twists its page-turning way into our psyche. The Eye of the Sheep by Sofie Laguna ($30, PB) Meet Jimmy Flick. He's not like other kids—he's both too fast and too slow. He sees too much, and too little. Jimmy's mother Paula is the only one who can manage him. She teaches him how to count sheep so that he can fall asleep. She holds him tight enough to stop his cells spinning. It is only Paula who can keep Jimmy out of his father's way. But when everything falls apart, he has to navigate his unfathomable world on his own, and make things right. Sofie Laguna's first novel One Foot Wrong was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award and shortlisted for the Prime Minister's Literary Award. New Angus & Robertson Classics, $15 each Here's Luck by Lenny Lower Henry Lawson Selected Stories We of the Never-Never & The Little Black Princess by Aeneas Gunn Luigi's Freedom Ride by Alan Murray Luigi is a young Italian boy growing up in Tuscany in the 1920s, dreaming of cowboys and adventure, when a young Englishman, passing through on his way to Rome, gives him his first bicycle, thus sparking a lifelong passion. When World War II begins, Luigi enlists with the Bersaglieri, the Italian Army Cycling Corps (naturally), before unexpectedly finding himself fighting alongside the Partisans. Despite encountering great sorrow and tragedy, Luigi's zest for life remains undiminished, and his next adventure sees him cycling through the Holy Land, Turkey and Sri Lanka before finding an unexpected home—and an extraordinary surprise—in Australia. An irrepressibly optimistic, sweetly funny story. ($28, PB) Win a Bike! went down in enemy territory. www.newsouthbooks.com.au 2 When a senior Aboriginal war veteran dies horribly at the hands of state government authorities, Izzy, a journalist and daughter of a war veteran herself, flies to the goldfields of Western Australia to cover his death. But Izzy is about to learn that for every action there is an equal and bloody reaction. On the trail of the vigilantes, she finds herself embedded in a secret war that is finally, irrevocably, going to explode onto the surface. Buy a copy of Alan Murray's Luigi's Freedom Ride and go in the draw for a Reid Vintage 6 Speed Ladies Bike worth $250 The Turning Tide by C. M. Lance ($30, PB) When Mike Whalen revisits his former commando training grounds at rugged, beautiful Wilson's Promontory, he's shocked by a chance meeting with the granddaughter of his glamorous old friends, Helen and Johnny.When Johnny died in the Pacific War, Mike was left with a burden of buried secrets. And as he's drawn back into the life of Helen's family, Mike finds himself overwhelmed by the past, from growing up in melting-pot Broome to tragic guerrilla missions in Timor, desire in postwar Hiroshima and betrayal in the jazzy fifties. Before Mike can turn the bitter tides of memory and have any hope of happiness, he must rebuild his bonds with wartime mates, face his long-held guilt, and finally confront Helen—and himself—with the truth. Family Secrets by Liz Byrski ($30, PB) When patriarch Gerald Hawkins passes away in his Tasmanian home, after 10 years of serious illness, his family experience a wave of grief and, admittedly, a surge of relief. Gerald's dominating personality has loomed large over his wife, Connie, their children, Andrew & Kerry, and his sister Flora, for decades. Connie, whose own dreams were dispensed with upon marriage, is now determined to renew her long friendship with Gerald's estranged sister, Flora. She travels to France where she finds Flora struggling to make peace with the past & searching for a place to call home. Meanwhile Andrew's marriage is crumbling & Kerry has unfinished business with her father. Once the loss has been absorbed, is it possible that they could all find a way to start afresh with forgiveness, understanding and possibility? On D'Hill After closing the shop on a cold Saturday night in June, I made my way to the Petersham Bowlo, where there was a fund-raiser for the Asylum Seeker’s Resource Centre. The place was packed, mainly with people over 50. Good on them (us) for caring, I thought, but where were the young people? The answer came in the form of the writer whose book I was there to sell—Mark Isaacs, author of The Undesirables. In his mid- twenties now, Mark was only 22 when he was sent by the Salvation Army, totally untrained and unprepared, to work at the Nauru detention centre. What he witnessed there politicised him and led him to write the book, despite the fact that all workers are forbidden to speak out about their experiences inside the detention centres. All power to you, Mark Isaacs. As many of you will know, Barbara and Tony Horgan have closed Shearer’s Bookshop in Leichhardt, after over 30 years in the book trade. The massive turn-up at their goodbye drinks is proof of the great respect and affection in which they are held across the trade and with their customers. Booksellers are more collegiate than competitive, and many from around Sydney came to raise a glass, along with publishers and authors (William McInnes, David Marr, Libby Gleeson), with Richard Glover and Gleebooks coowner David Gaunt among the many admiring speakers. Barbara and Tony are moving to Perth to be near their children and grand-children, presumably in retirement, but as someone remarked, who can imagine the irrepressible Barbara Horgan not beginning some kind of book-related venture in her new home? My reading’s been rather patchy over the last month— picking books up, then putting them down, starting on this and switching to that. I wonder if it’s because there’ve been so many brilliant novels over the last 8 months or so (The Goldfinch, The Blazing World, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, The Signature of All Things, to name just a few), that other novels pale in comparison. I’ve therefore turned to non-fiction and enjoyed My Salinger Year, a memoir by Joanna Rakoff in which she recalls the year she worked for Salinger’s literary agent, developing a rather hilarious relationship with him over the phone. The book is beautifully evocative of 1960s literary New York. I’ve also started the Stella prize-winner, Clare Wright’s The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka, which is hugely readable and interesting. Proof copies are coming in of some fab new books by Australian writers, which I’m looking forward to—a new Sonya Hartnett for adults, Favel Parrett’s second novel (can she match her debut, Past the Shallows?) and a new Joan London, one of my favourite Australian writers. See you on D’Hill, Morgan Smith New in paperback Eyrie by Tim Winton, $22.99 Happy Valley: Text Classics by Patrick White, $12.95 Coal Creek by Alex Miller, $22.99 Lost & Found by Brooke Davis ($26.99, PB) At seven years old, Millie Bird realises that everything is dying around her. She wasn't to know that after she had recorded twenty-seven assorted creatures in her Book of Dead Things her dad would be a Dead Thing, too. Agatha Pantha is eighty-two and has not left her house since her husband died. She sits behind her front window, hidden by the curtains and ivy, and shouts at passers-by, roaring her anger at complete strangers. Until the day Agatha spies a young girl across the street. Karl the Touch Typist is eighty-seven when his son kisses him on the cheek before leaving him at the nursing home. As he watches his son leave, Karl has a moment of clarity. He escapes the home and takes off in search of something different. Three lost people needing to be found. But they don't know it yet. Millie, Agatha and Karl are about to break the rules and discover what living is all about. 3 International Literature The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton ($29.99, PB) 'There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed...' On a cold winter's day in 1686, 18-year-old Nella Oortman knocks at the door of a grand house in the wealthiest quarter of Amsterdam. She has come from the country to begin a new life as the wife of illustrious merchant trader Johannes Brandt, but instead she is met by his sharp-tongued sister, Marin. Only later does Johannes appear & present her with an extraordinary wedding gift: a cabinet-sized replica of their home. It is to be furnished by an elusive miniaturist, whose tiny creations mirror their real-life counterparts in unexpected ways... Nella is at first mystified by the closed world of the Brandt household, but as she uncovers its secrets she realises the escalating dangers that await them all. Does the miniaturist hold their fate in her hands? And will she be the key to their salvation or the architect of their downfall? Em and the Big Hoom by Jerry Pinto ($35, HB) In a tiny flat in Bombay Imelda Mendes—Em to her children—holds her family in thrall with her flamboyance, her manic affection & her cruel candour. Her husband—'The Big Hoom'—and her two children must bear her 'microweathers', her swings from laugh-out-loud joy to dark malevolence, & her frequent wish to die. The son begins to unravel the story of his parents: the mother he loves & hates in the same moment & the unusual man who courted, married & protected her—as much from herself as from the world. Both comic & moving, Jerry Pinto's portrait of a woman finding it difficult to stay sane, and what happens to those who cannot help but love her, is one of the most powerful and original debuts of recent years. The Spring of Kasper Meier by Ben Fergusson ($29.99, PB) WORLDWIDE RELEASE DATE 12 AUGUST 2014 Purchase 3 Murakami paperbacks for the price of 2 during August. The war is over, but Berlin is a desolate sea of rubble. There is a shortage of everything: food, clothing, tobacco. Kasper Meier trades on the black market to feed himself and his elderly father. He can find anything that people need, for the right price. Even other people. When a young woman, Eva, arrives at Kasper's door seeking the whereabouts of a British pilot, he feels a reluctant sympathy for her but won't interfere in military affairs. But Eva knows Kasper's secrets, and as her threats against him mount, Kasper is drawn into a world of intrigue he could never have anticipated. Why is Eva so insistent that he find the pilot? Who is the shadowy Frau Beckmann and what is her hold over Eva? As a net of deceit, lies and betrayal falls around him, Kasper begins to understand that the seemingly random killings of members of the occupying forces are connected to his own situation. Ishmael's Oranges by Claire Hajaj ($35, HB) It's April 1948 and war hangs over Jaffa. One minute 7-year-old Salim is dreaming of taking his first harvest from the family orange tree with his father; the next he is swept away by 'the great catastrophe' into a life of exile. Meanwhile Jude is growing up in the north of England, a girl from a Jewish family which has survived the Holocaust. When their paths collide in swinging-sixties London and they fall in love, they think they are aware of the many challenges ahead of them, but before long they both face unexpected choices. Spanning three generations, Ishmael's Oranges follows the journeys of those cast adrift by war—as well as by their own impulses—and asks what is the birthright of the generations that follow? Through Salim, Jude and their twins, Hajaj explores the longest conflict of our era in terms of the families we build, the loyalties we owe, and the stories we pass on to our children. Blood-Drenched Beard by Daniel Galera ($29.99, PB) WIN A PILGRIMAGE @murakami_film SHORT FILM FESTIVAL BEGINS 11 JULY 2014 #murakamifilmau His grandfather was murdered by the villagers of Garopaba during a Sunday dance at a community hall. The lights went out suddenly & when they came up, the gaucho was lying on the ground in a pool of blood. Or so the story goes. When his own father commits suicide he feels compelled to discover the truth about his grandfather. So he travels to Garopaba & begins a simple life on the coast, taking his father's old dog as a companion. He swims in the sea every day, makes a few friends, falls into a relationship, begins to make enquiries. But information doesn't come easily. A rare neurological condition means that he doesn't recognise the faces of people he's met—leading frequently to awkwardness and occasionally to danger. And the people who know about his grandfather are fearful to give anything away. Steeped in the sultry allure of south Brazil, Daniel Galera's spare and powerful prose unfolds a mythic story of discovery. Skylight by Jose Saramago ($30, PB) Lisbon, late-1940s. The inhabitants of an old apartment block are struggling to make ends meet. There's the elderly shoemaker and his wife who take in a solitary young lodger; the woman who sells herself for money, clothes and jewellery; the cultivated family come down in the world, who live only for each other and for music; and the beautiful typist whose boss can't keep his eyes off her. Poisonous relationships, happy marriages, jealousy, gossip and love—Skylight brings together all the joys and grief of ordinary people. Called ‘the book lost and found in time' by its author, Skylight is one of Saramago's earliest novels. The manuscript was lost in the publishers' offices in Lisbon for decades, and is only now being published in English. Parallel Stories by Peter Nádas ($19.99, PB) 4 In 1989, the memorable year when the Wall came down, a university student in Berlin on his early morning run finds a corpse lying on a park bench and alerts the authorities. This classic police-procedural scene opens an extraordinary novel, a masterwork that traces the fate of myriad Europeans—Hungarians, Jews, Germans, Gypsies—across the treacherous years of the mid-twentieth century. Summer House with Swimming Pool by Herman Koch ($29.99, PB) When a medical procedure goes horribly wrong and famous actor Ralph Meier winds up dead, Dr Marc Schlosser needs to come up with some deeply challenging crime thriller answers. After all, reputation is everything in Athis business. Personally, – powerful, provocative, shocking. he's not exactly upset that Ralph is gone, but as –aHenry high profile doctor Reynolds to the stars, Marc can't hide from the truth forever. It all started the A senior Aboriginal war veteran dies horribly at the previous summer. Marc & his wife & two teenage daughters agreed to hands of authorities. spend a week at the Meier's extravagant summer the MediterIzzy, journalisthome and daughter ofon a Vietnam vet, flies to the Western Australian goldfields to cover the story. ranean. Joined by Ralph and his striking wife Judith, her mother, film And Sweet One is called home to make things right. But Izzy finds herself embedded in a secret war. If she director Stanley Forbes and his much younger girlfriend, the large group settles in for days didn’t know it before, she is about to learn it now: for every action there is an equal and bloody reaction. of sunshine, wine tasting, and trips to the beach. But when a violent incident disrupts the idyll, darker motivations are revealed, and suddenly no one can be trusted. As the ultimate holiday soon turns into a nightmare, the circumstances surrounding Ralph's (later) death begin to reveal the disturbing reality behind that summer's tragedy. The Marriage Game by Alison Weir ($33, PB) The best place to hide an icepick is in a truckload of icepicks. The best place to hide an icepick is in a truckload of icepicks. ‘… a gripping read, a new slant on Indigenous issues and a ’ subtle dose of humour. Books+Publishing ISBN 9781922089755 Find us on Facebook Book club notes available #sweetonenovel @NorByNorwest Their affair is the scandal of Europe. Queen Elizabeth presents herself as the Virgin Queen but cannot resist her dashing but married Master of Horse, Lord Robert Dudley. Many believe them to be lovers, and there are scurrilous rumours that Elizabeth is no virgin at all. The formidable young Queen is regarded by most of Christendom as a bastard, a heretic and a usurper, yet many princes covet Tudor England & seek her hand in marriage. Under mounting pressure to take a husband, Elizabeth encourages their advances without ever committing; a delicate, politically-fraught balancing act which becomes known as ‘The Marriage Game'. But treading this dangerous line with Robert Dudley, the son and grandson of traitors, could cost her the throne. 9 781922 089755 Sand by Hugh Howey ($33, PB) A new novel and brand new world from the author of the Wool trilogy. The old world is buried. A new one has been forged atop the shifting dunes. Palmer has never been the same since his father walked out 12 years ago. His elder sister, Vic, is trying to run away from the past; his younger brothers, Connor and Rob, are risking their lives to embrace it. His mother, left with nothing but anger, is just trying to forget. Palmer wants to prove his worth, not only to his family, but to himself. And in the barren, dune-covered landscape of his home, there is only one way to earn respect: sand-diving. Plunging deep below the desert floor in search of relics and scraps of the old world. He is about to embark on the most dangerous dive of his young life, aiming to become the first to discover the rumoured city below. Noontide Toll by Romesh Gunesekera ($27.99, PB) Vasantha is a van driver in Sri Lanka. After nearly three decades of conflict, the civil war is over and the country is moving tentatively into the future—though at times the recent past seems too close for comfort. Pretty, entrepreneurial hoteliers have mysterious scars under their collars; Chinese businessmen looking to invest in scrap metal are led to gigantic scrap yards of abandoned bicycles; genial old soldiers are headhunted for brutal war crimes; young Sinhalese men pine after Tamil girls whose brothers, in another time, died by their hands. In this collection of linked stories, Vasantha drives across the beautiful but scarred landscape of his home island, lingering on the periphery of his passengers' varied stories. A Dog's Live by Michael Holroyd ($35, HB) Eustace is undisputed patriarch of the Farquhar family. That is, he would be if everyone stopped mumbling, let him get on with his shaving & find his way downstairs. It's not Henry's fault that he snores & that his marriage has collapsed. Or that he failed to get into the cricket team. But he has made up for it & is now a faster motorist than ever he was bowler. He is a good father too & one day, when he wakes up from day-dreaming, his son Kenneth will thank him. It is good that Anne sleeps with a whistle in her mouth—how else could she terrify the burglars? As for Mathilda she would love to like her mother, but prefers going for long walks with the dog. But what will happen to them all if the dog dies? Placing this eccentric family in isolation after two world wars & at the beginning of our aggressive financial culture, Michael Holroyd turns comedy into tragedy. Upstairs at the Party by Linda Grant ($29.99, PB) In the early seventies a glamorous and androgynous couple known collectively as Evie/Stevie appear out of nowhere on the isolated concrete campus of a new university. To a group of teenagers experimenting with radical ideas they seem blown back from the future, unsettling everything and uncovering covert desires. But the varnished patina of youth and flamboyant self-expression hides deep anxieties and hidden histories. For Adele, with the most to conceal, Evie/Stevie become a lifelong obsession, as she examines what happened on the night of her own twentieth birthday and her friends' complicity in their fate. A set of school exercise books might reveal everything, but they have been missing for nearly forty years. From summers in Cornwall to London in the 21st century, long after they have disappeared, Evie/Stevie go on challenging everyone's ideas of what their lives should turn out to be. New this month: Granta 128: American Wild (ed) Sigrid Rausing, $25 The Paris Review: Vol. 209 (ed) Lorin Stein, $24.99 A novel by Peter Docker PETER DOCKER fremantlepress.com.au Now in paperback & B format And Sons by David Gilbert, $20 Lion Heart by Justin Cartwright, $20 Local Souls by Allan Gurganus, $20 Reef by Romesh Gunesekera, $20 A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman Ove is the grumpiest man you will ever meet. He isn't as young as he used to be. He drives a Saab. He points at people he doesn't like the look of. He is described by those around him as 'the neighbour from hell'. Every morning he makes his inspection rounds of the local streets. He moves bicycles and checks the contents of recycling bins, even though it's been years since he was fired as Chairman of the Residents' Association in a vicious 'coup d'état'. But behind the surly pedant there is a story, and a sadness. And when his new (foreign) neighbours in the terraced house opposite accidentally flatten Ove's letterbox, it sets off a comical tale of unexpected friendship which will change both him & his community. ($29.99, PB) Barbarians by Tim Glencross ($29.99, PB) It is 2008, late capitalism is in crisis, and the great & the good are gathered at an Islington house party. Hosting proceedings are Sherard Howe, scion of a publishing dynasty & owner of a left-wing magazine, and his wife, Daphne Depree, whose feminist work The Third Sex is seen—to her increasing discomfort — as an intellectual cornerstone of the Blair era. The guests include cabinet ministers, celebrated artists, peers of the realm; all overshadowed by Afua, the Howes' supremely ambitious adopted daughter, already a rising star of the Labour Party. Into this world arrives Elizabeth 'Buzzy' Price, an aspiring (but suburban) poet supported by devoted Henry, the Howes' biological son. As the years pass and a coalition government takes office, Buzzy's fortunes rise and the elder Howes' lives threaten to unravel. A debut of extraordinary scope and confidence. Breaking Light by Karin Altenberg ($29.99, PB) Steeped in its bleak & beautiful landscape, Mortford is a place of secrets & memories: of bitter divisions & shattered dreams. Returning to this Dartmoor village where he grew up, Gabriel attempts to come to terms with what he lost as a boy so long ago. Slowly the mysteries hidden in this small community on the edge of the moors begin to unravel. But one of Gabriel's memories remains sharper than all the others: that of his boyhood friend Michael, the tenderness of their first summers & the violent betrayal that destroyed it. Intruding on his self-enforced isolation, the beautiful Mrs Sarobi, meddling Doris Ludgate and the frightful spectre of Jim of Blackaton will become bound up with Gabriel's search for acceptance and the possibility of love. Set in a haunted landscape, this mesmerising tale is told of the ways in which something once broken in two may, finally, be made whole. To Rise Again at a Decent Hour by Joshua Ferris ($42, HB) Paul O'Rourke is a man made of contradictions: he loves the world, but doesn't know how to live in it. He's a Luddite addicted to his iPhone, a dentist with a nicotine habit, a rabid Red Sox fan devastated by their victories, and an atheist not quite willing to let go of God. Then someone begins to impersonate Paul online, and he watches in horror as a website, a Facebook page, and a Twitter account are created in his name. What begins as an outrageous violation of his privacy soon becomes something more soul-frightening: the possibility that the online 'Paul' might be a better version of the real thing. As Paul's quest to learn why his identity has been stolen deepens, he is forced to confront his troubled past and his uncertain future in a life disturbingly split between the real and the virtual. 5 THE WILDER AISLES Six contemporary authors have been chosen by the Jane Austen Project to write modern versions of Austen's six complete novels. So far, Sense and Sensibility has been rewritten by Joanna Trollope and Northanger Abbey by Val McDermid. Of the two I think the Trollope has been the most successful at bringing the Austen narrative into the 21st century. A modern light is cast over the Dashwoods— Fanny and John, Belle and her three daughters, Elinor, Marianne and Margaret. I liked the idea of Elinor studying to be an architect, and although she doesn't finish her degree, she still gets a job to help with the family finances. This is a necessity after they lose their family home to John, who being male inherits the estate. I have always liked Elinor more than Marianne. I find Marianne's emotions difficult to take, but having said that I also find, at times, Elinor's tight rein on hers hard to take as well. In Trollope's version, Marianne throws herself on Willoughby at a dance, causing great embarrassment to Elinor. In the original, the scene is less dramatic but still very distressing to both Marianne and Elinor. Reading this new version sent me back to the original, and I definitely enjoyed it all the more as a result of reading the Trollope. Northanger Abbey was never a favourite of mine, although my daughter tells me I missed the point—she reads it as a satire on gothic romances like The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe, which were popular in Austen's time. I've always found Catherine Morland's rather hysterical manner difficult to cope with, and I find her even worse in McDermid's update. Catherine, who has been living a rather dreary life in Dorset, deprived of the romance and excitement she yearns for, is thrilled when she is invited to the Edinburgh Festival by her neighbours, the Allens. In Edinburgh, she attends a Highland dance class and meets the lovely Henry Tilney. Later she meets Bella, a girl of the same age, who shares her passion for supernatural novels. They become friends, but Bella, unfortunately, is not to be trusted. Through meeting Henry, she is invited to stay at Northanger Abbey, and on arriving her imagination starts to run riot. With its secret chambers, ghosts and crumbling turrets the ancient Abbey is exactly as she hoped. In her fevered imaginings, maybe even vampires have feasted in the dark, gloomy halls. What Catherine finds, of course, is that it's better to be in the real world than lost in the macabre reality of her imagination. Having said at the top of the column I liked the Trollope better, I find on reflection Val McDermid's outing was really quite fun. I actually much preferred Henry Tilney to both Willoughby and Edward from Sense and Sensibility. I of course went back and reread the original, and again enjoyed it more this time. The next two in the Project are Pride and Prejudice by Curtis Sittenfeld and Emma by Alexander McCall Smith. I am looking forward to both of them. Perhaps the purists would take issue with this whole project, and a lot of people I've chatted with seem to ask 'Why? regarding the project—I don't see why not. I also don't think Jane would mind (especially if it meant royalties and a room of her own). Children of War is the latest novel by Martin Walker featuring Bruno Courrèges, St Denis' Chief of Police—in the Périgord region of France. The beginning is quite hard to take—the body of man is found in the woods, brutally murdered. It turns out he was an undercover policeman, and a Muslim. A disturbed Bruno intends to make finding the murderer a high priority. However, his boss the Brigadier has other ideas. Meanwhile, Sami, a young Muslim boy from St Denis has been found on a French army base in Afghanistan, trying to get home. A friend of Bruno's has helped to smuggle Sami back into France, but the FBI are after him as well as an American woman who has an order for his extradition to the States. Bruno must unravel these various strands—the death of the policeman, Sami's time in Afghanistan, and why all these people are so very keen to get their hands on Sami. The seriousness of the situation becomes critical when Bruno himself is attacked, and he feels a desperate need to protect his town and his people from those who want to cause trouble. Alongside the Afghanistan story, another one is unfolding. A Jewish woman, who spent time as a young girl hidden from the Nazis in St Denis, has returned. She wants to visit the places where she stayed, and to make a donation towards some kind of memorial honouring those who kept her and other children safe throughout the war. How this story becomes part of the other, makes for very interesting reading. I think that Martin Walker's books are bigger than your basic crime novel—there is always so much more than murder and police procedurals going on. And there is of course the wonderful food and wine of the Périgord region, especially duck and goose and truffles—known as black gold. His website has lots to say about all this. It is great fun. Janice Wilder 6 Crime Fiction The Corners of the Globe by Robert Goddard 1919. James ‘Max' Maxted, former Great War flying ace, returns. Still seeking answers behind his father's murder, he enlists in German spymaster Fritz Lemmer's network under false colours and is despatched to the Orkney Isles, where the German High Seas Fleet has been interned in Scapa Flow. His mission: to recover a document secreted aboard one of the German battleships. But the information it contains is so explosive Max is forced to break cover and embark on a desperate and dangerous race south, pursued by men happy to kill him to recover the document. ($33, PB) Murder by Sarah Pinborough ($29.99, PB) Dr Thomas Bond, Police Surgeon, is still recovering from Jack the Ripper's depredations when he haunted the streets of London—and a more malign enemy hid in his shadow. Bond and the others who worked on the gruesome case are still stalked by its legacies, both psychological and tangible. But now the bodies of children are being pulled from the Thames, and Bond is about to become inextricably linked with an uncanny, undying enemy. Falling Freely, As If in a Dream by Leif G. W. Persson ($33, PB) In August 2007 Lars Martin Johansson, chief of the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation in Sweden, has opened the files on the unsolved murder of Prime Minister Olof Palme. Johansson forms a new group comprised of a few trustworthy detectives who doggedly wade through mountains of paperwork & pursue new leads in a case that has all but gone cold despite the open wound the assassination has left on the consciousness of Swedish society. Yet the closer the group gets to the truth, the more Johansson compromises the greater good for personal gain, becoming a pawn for the private vendetta of a shady political spin doctor. The Savage Hour by Elaine Proctor ($30, PB) De Wildt, South Africa. An elderly doctor is found drowned in a river on her home farm, apparently having slipped and fallen. Her family & servants remember a matriarch of fierce spirit who passed her passion for justice on to every man & woman, black or white. But for one friend—a detective—grief is splintered by an insidious doubt; one that will threaten to expose those he loves & the fractures in their family: she did not slip. The Savage Hour is a stealthy and compelling walk in the bloodied dust of a post-apartheid rural community. Midnight in Europe by Alan Furst ($29.99, PB) Paris, 1938. A shadow edges over Europe. Democratic forces are locked in struggle, while in Spain the war has already begun. Cristian Ferrar, a Spanish lawyer in Paris, is approached to help a clandestine agency supply weapons to beleaguered Republican forces. Joining Ferrar in his mission is an unlikely group of allies: idealists & gangsters, arms traders & aristocrats, including Max de Lyon, a man hunted by the Gestapo, and the Marquesa Maria Cristina, a refined beauty with a taste for danger. From libertine nightclubs in the City of Light to volatile bars by the docks in Gdansk, Furst paints a spell-binding portrait of a continent marching into a nightmare. The Broken Places by Ace Atkins ($29.99, PB) A year after Quinn Colson becomes sheriff, infamous murderer Jamey Dixon is released from prison & comes back to Jericho preaching redemption. Some believe him, but the victim's family thinks only of revenge. Dixon's gang from his last job don't believe him either— they're sure he's gone back to grab the hidden money from their last robbery, so they break out & head straight to Jericho themselves. Colson's job is made worse by yet another unwelcome visitor: a tornado that causes havoc just as events come to a head. Communications are down, the roads are impassable—the rule of law is about to snap. The Killing Room by Christobel Kent ($30, PB) PI Sandro Cellini is invited to attend a glamorous launch party for a luxury residence overlooking the glittering expanse of Florence, and finds that behind the ancient & luxurious facade of Palazzo San Giorgio, there lies a series of terrible secrets; an old torture chamber, hidden for centuries in the bowels of the building, and a much more recent malevolence. When one of the residents is found murdered in her room, events begin to spiral out of control. Sandro must work to untangle the complex web of relationships that exists between residents and staff to unmask a deadly killer.. A House of Knives by William Shaw ($29.99, PB) London, November 1968. DS Breen has a death threat in his in tray & two burned bodies on his hands. One is an unidentified vagrant; the other the wayward son of a rising politician. One case suffers the apathy of a depleted police force; the other obstructed by a PR-conscious father with the ear of the Home Office. But they can't stop Breen talking to Robert 'Groovy Bob' Fraser—whose glamorous Pop Art parties mask a spreading heroin addiction among London's youth—nor to a hippy squat that risks exposing it. When the potential perpetrator of his death threats is murdered, Breen becomes a suspect & is banished from a corrupt system, Breen is finally forced to fight fire with fire. To the Top of the Mountain by Arne Dahl ($33, PB) After the disastrous end to the Intercrime team's last case, the six officers have been scattered throughout the country. Detectives Paul Hjelm and Kerstin Holm are investigating the senseless murder of a young football supporter in a pub in Stockholm, Arto Söderstedt and Viggo Norlander are working on mundane cases, Gunnar Nyberg is tackling child pornography while Jorge Chavez is immersed in research. But when a man is blown up in a high-security prison, a major drugs baron comes under attack and a massacre takes place in a dark suburb, the Intercrime team are urgently reconvened. A Morbid Habit by Annie Hauxwell ($29.99, PB) Christmas is looming, and investigator Catherine Berlin is out of a job. Broke, and with a drug habit that's only just under control, she quickly agrees when an old friend offers her work. It's a simple investigation with a generous fee, looking into the dealings of a small-time entrepreneur. The only catch? It's in Russia. But when Berlin arrives in Moscow, things are not so straightforward. She's kicked out of her hotel, her allimportant medication confiscated by police. Strung out & alone, Berlin turns to her interpreter, an eccentric Brit named Charlie. But Charlie's past is as murky as Berlin's own, and when the subject of the investigation disappears, Berlin realises Charlie may be part of the web. The G File by Håkan Nesser ($29.99, PB) 1987. Verlangan, a former cop turned PI, is hired by a woman to follow her husband Jaan 'G' Hennan. A few days later, she is found dead at the bottom of an empty swimming pool. Maardam police, led by CI Van Veeteren, investigate the case. Van Veeteren has encountered Jaan 'G' before, but G has a solid alibi & the case comes to a dead end. 2002—Verlangan's daughter reports the PI missing & Van Veeteren returns to the 'G' file. For all Verlangan left behind was a cryptic note; and a telephone message in which he claimed to have finally discovered the proof of G's murderous past. Angelica's Smile by Andrea Camilleri ($30, PB) When members of Vigata's elite are targeted in a series of perfectly executed burglaries, Inspector Montalbano reluctantly takes the case. It soon becomes clear however that more links these privileged few than simply their lost possessions. It isn't long too before Montalbano finds himself taken with one of the victims, the captivatingly beautiful young Angelica. But as the detective's attraction grows—until he can think of little else—a series of strange, anonymous letters claiming responsibility for the thefts begin to arrive. His relationship with Livia under threat, Montalbano must focus his mind to solve this perplexing investigation before events spiral out of all control. The Lie by Hesh Kestin ($27.99, PB) Israeli human rights lawyer Dahlia Barr specialises in defending Palestinians accused of terrorism. One day, to her great surprise, the national police approach Dahlia with a proposition: join us and become the government's arbiter on when to use the harshest of interrogation methods—what some would call torture. She takes the job in the hope of changing the system from within, but when her son is kidnapped by Hezbollah Dahlia's anti-torture stance is sorely tested. A nail-biter about human beings on both sides of the terror equation whose lives turn out to have more in common than they could have ever imagined. Duffy by Dan Kavanagh ($29.99, PB) Things aren't going so well for Brian McKechnie. His wife was attacked in their home, his cat was brutally killed and now a man with a suspiciously erratic accent is blackmailing him. When the police fail spectacularly at finding out who's after him, McKechnie engages the services of Duffy—a detective like no other. A bisexual ex-policeman with a phobia of ticking watches & a penchant for Tupperware. But what he lacks in orthodoxy he makes up for in street-smart savvy & nononsense dealings. Intrigued by McKechnie's dilemma & the apparent incompetency of his ex-colleagues, Duffy heads to his old patch, the seedy underbelly of Soho, where he discovers that the streets are still mean and the crooks walk arm in arm with the blues. No Time for Goodbye by Linwood Barclay ($10, PB) You wake up. Your house is empty. Your family has disappeared. What could be worse than losing all the people you love in a single night? Twenty-five years after Cynthia Archer's entire family disappeared without a trace, she's about to find out. For Cynthia, it's finally time to solve the mystery that's hung like a dark cloud over her life. But digging up the truth may be the biggest mistake she's ever made. Gold, Frankincense & Dust by Valerio Varesi ($30, PB) Parma. A multiple pile-up occurs on the autostrada into the city. A truck transporting cattle skids off the road. Dozens of injured cows & bulls go on the rampage. In the chaos, the burned body of a young woman is found at the side of the road. Her death has no apparent link to the carnage. Commissario Soneri is assigned the case. It is a welcome distraction: his mercurial lover Angela has decided to pursue other options, leaving him even more morose than usual. The dead woman is identified as Nina Iliescu, a Romanian immigrant whose beauty had enchanted a string of wealthy lovers. Temptress, muse, angel—she was all things to all men. Her murder conceals a crime and a sacrilege, and even in death she has a surprise waiting for Soneri. ‘My name is David James Forrester. I’m a solicitor. Tonight, at 6.10, I killed my wife. This is my statement.’ David sits in his car, dictaphone in hand. He’s sick to his stomach but determined to record his version of events. His wife Elle hovers over her own lifeless body as it lies in the laundry of the house they shared. From her eerie vantage point, she too traces the sweep of their shared past. Dark, atmospheric and gripping – a stunning literary thriller about the risks you take when you fall in love. One of the bestselling and most acclaimed novels of the year, now in paperback. Shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award. Eyrie is a heart-stopping, groundbreaking novel for our times – funny, confronting, exhilarating and haunting. Inhabited by unforgettable characters, it asks how, in an impossibly compromised world, we can ever hope to do the right thing. The Weekend Australian wrote: “From the opening pages...You know you are in the hands of a master.” Renowned for its unusual mammals, Australia is a land of birds that are just as unusual, a result of tens of millions of years of isolation. But unlike the mammals, the birds did not keep to Australia; they spread around the globe. Australia provided the world with its songbirds and parrots, the most intelligent of all bird groups. Compared with birds elsewhere, ours are more likely to be intelligent, aggressive and loud, to live in complex societies, and are long-lived. An eye-opening book on Australian birds and their role in global evolution. The first social, cultural and environmental history of the Great Barrier Reef, this is an effortlessly readable work by a born storyteller. Iain McCalman charts our shifting perceptions of the reef: Captain Cook viewed it as the terrifying labyrinth that almost sunk his Endeavour; today we see this World Heritagelisted site as a fragile global treasure. ‘History doesn’t get any more lively than this. A stylish, racing read, The Reef surprises with every turn of the page, investing one of the world’s greatest natural structures with human drama.’ Philip Hoare, author of Leviathan. Now in B Format Cockroaches by Jo Nesbo, $19.99 No Man's Nightingale by Ruth Rendell, $20 Holy Orders by Benjamin Black, $20 A Delicate Truth by John le Carré, $23 7 Banjo: The Story of the Man Who Wrote Waltzing Matilda by Paul Terry ($30, PB) In 1886, a nervous young lawyer and aspiring writer met the editor of a radical new paper to discuss the possibility of publishing some poetry. He thought his 'fractured verses' would not stand the test of time. In a life that took him from a bush boyhood to the battlefields of South Africa and the turmoil of the Great War, Banjo Paterson rubbed shoulders with the rich and famous. But the heroes of his tales were ordinary folk—bushmen, battlers, swaggies & soldiers. From the political upheaval captured in Waltzing Matilda to the wistful longing for the bush in Clancy of the Overflow, Paul Terry follows the life and inspirations of AB Paterson—meeting the men & women who shaped the young Australian nation as it shook off its convict beginnings to embrace its own place on the world stage and who defined our national character today. The Best Years of Our Lives by Richard Clapton ($33, PB) Biography Murray Gleeson—The Smiler by Michael Pelly Courtroom tactician, devastating in reply, intimidating and intense. Murray Gleeson has been described as many things, but his grim work persona gave him the label that stuck—The Smiler. Born in a small country town in NSW, Gleeson became the nation’s top barrister & its leading judge. In a legal career spanning over 50 years, he had a ringside seat for political, legal & social events that shaped Australia – the final separation from Mother England, legalised abortion, the dismissal of the Whitlam government, the Tasmanian Dams Case, the Fine Cotton substitution, the scandalous attack on Justice Michael Kirby, the war on terrorism, prisoners’ right to vote & the detention of refugees. The Smiler draws on more than 100 interviews with Gleeson & his family, friends and judicial colleagues, including those who sat with him on the High Court. It is an unprecedented insight into a legend of the Australian legal system. ($59.95, HB) Now in B Format Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking by Anya von Bremzen, $20 Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China by Jung Chang, $20 Priscilla by Nicholas Shakespeare, $20 When he was 16 he inveigled his way into a maximum security hotel to hang out with the Rolling Stones. From that day on, Richard Clapton knew he was going to be a rock star. Through the glory years of rock & roll, in cities as varied as London, Berlin, Sydney, Los Angeles and Paris, Richard forged his own career and built up a significant body of work. By his own frank admission, these were years fuelled by prodigious quantities of alcohol and drugs, set against a backdrop of constant recording and touring, of endless bacchanalian partying and wild sex. It was to be a dark and dangerous journey to the very outer limits of human behaviour and physical endurance, a roller coaster ride of extraordinary euphoric highs and deep, shattering lows. Dozens of his friends died on that journey, but miraculously, he survived to tell the tale AND he remembers everything! Neil Armstrong: A Life of Flight by Jay Barbree Jay Barbree & his friend Neil Armstrong planned this book together for twenty years. Armstrong entrusted Barbree with details of his personal life, including his two marriages and the death of his baby daughter. And, of course, he gives the inside story of an extraordinary career, from the time he flew combat missions in the Korean War and then flew a rocket plane called the X-15 to the edge of the atmosphere, to when he saved his Gemini 8 by flying the first emergency return from Earth orbit and then flew Apollo-11 to the moon's Sea of Tranquillity. ($30, PB) Bulletproof Vest: The Ballad of an Outlaw & His Daughter by Maria Venegas ($30, PB) Maria Venegas had been estranged from her father for fourteen years when she finally made the journey back from the US to Mexico to visit him in the old hacienda where both he and she were born. As they begin spending summers and holidays together, herding cattle and fixing barbed-wire fence posts, he starts to share stories with her, tales of a dramatic life filled with both intense love and brutal violence—from the final conversations he had with his own father and his extradition from the US for murder, to his mother's pride after he shot a man for the first time at age twelve. In spare, gripping prose, Venegas traces her own life and her father's through the stories she inherited from him and gradually comes to understand the violent undercurrent that has shaped them both. Despite nearly being killed by a kangaroo & almost lynched & run out of town after his comedy was taken far too seriously, Sami Shah is very happy to be living in Australia. He had fronted his own satirical show on TV in Karachi, worked as a journalist and been a highly regarded newspaper columnist—all dangerous occupations to be involved in—when the combination of seeing the aftermaths of a devastating bomb attack and being the target of death threats convinced him to leave Pakistan. Under the terms of their Australian migration visa, Sami & his wife & young daughter were obliged to settle in a rural area, and so they moved to Northam in WA. I, Migrant tells the hilarious & moving story of what it's like to leave the home you love to start a new life in another country so your child can be safe& grow up with a limitless future. ($29.99, PB) Viv Albertine is one of a handful of original punks who changed music, and the conversation around it, forever. Albertine, lead singer of The Slits, now tells the story of what it was like to be a girl at the height of punk: the sex, the drugs, the guys, the tours... Before and beyond the break-up of The Slits in 1982, Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys is the full story of a life lived unscripted of a life lived on the frontiers of experience, by a true pioneer. 8 I, Migrant: A Comedian's Journey from Karachi to the Outback by Sami Shah The Secret Ministry for Ag. and Fish Noreen Riols ($18.99, PB) In 1943, just before her eighteenth birthday, Noreen Riols received her call-up papers, and was faced with either working in a munitions factory or joining the Wrens. A typically fashion-conscious young woman, even in wartime, Noreen opted for the Wrens—they had better hats. But when one of her interviewers realised she spoke fluent French, she was directed to a government building on Baker Street. It was SOE headquarters, where she was immediately recruited into F-Section, led by Colonel Maurice Buckmaster. From then until the end of the war, Noreen worked with Buckmaster and her fellow operatives to support the French Resistance fighting for the Allied cause. Sworn to secrecy, Noreen told no one that she spent her days meeting agents returning from behind enemy lines, acting as a decoy, passing on messages in tea rooms and picking up codes in crossword puzzles. Tomorrow We Escape by Tom Trumble On a November morning in 1943, escaped Australian POW Ian Busst comes within a day's march of Allied lines after journeying 100s of miles on foot through war-torn Italy. The young man is starving & hypothermic, and the German 10th Army stands between him & freedom. Years later, at 95, Ian Busst can still recall his wartime experiences in the Royal Australian Engineers in incredible detail, from the sound of a strafing Messerschmitt to the appalling vision of his two mates blown apart by a high-calibre bomb. Busst's odyssey took him through the dark days of the Battle of Britain and fighting in the Western Desert. Captured near Tobruk during a daring night mission ahead of the German advance into Libya, he was sent to the prison camps of Italy and eventually to the dreaded Campo 57. Subjected to appalling conditions, Busst—known as 'Mad Bugger'—became obsessed with one objective: escape. ($30, PB) The Map Thief by Michael Blanding ($33, HB) To those who collect them, the map trade can be a cutthroat business, inhabited by quirky and sometimes disreputable characters in search of a finite number of extremely rare objects. Once considered a respectable antiquarian map dealer, E. Forbes Smiley spent years doubling as a map thief —until he was finally arrested slipping maps out of books in the Yale University library. Michael Blanding has interviewed all the key players in this stranger-than-fiction story, and shares the fascinating histories of map-makers and the maps that charted the New World, and how they went from being practical instruments to quirky heirlooms to highly coveted objects. Agent Storm: My Life inside al-Qaeda by Morten Storm ($30, PB) He was the Western convert who would plunge deep inside alQaeda. He named his first son Osama after 9/11 and became a Jihadist. But then, after a sudden loss of faith, Morten Storm made a life-changing decision. He became a double agent for the CIA, MI6 and MI5. Filled with hair-raising close calls and duplicity, Storm's story builds to the climactic finale when he must betray his friend and mentor al-Awlaki—al-Qaeda's biggest threat to the West. Storm is trusted to find al-Awlaki a wife from Europe. She becomes the bait for a possible American drone strike . So Long, Marianne: A Love Story by Kari Hesthamar ($29.99, PB) At 22, Marianne Ihlen travelled to the Greek island of Hydra with Norwegian writer Axel Jensen. While Axel wrote, Marianne kept house, until Axel abandoned her and their newborn son for another woman. One day while Marianne was shopping in a little grocery store, in walked a man who asked her to join him and some friends outside at their table. He introduced himself as Leonard Cohen, then a little-known Canadian poet. Complemented by previously unpublished poems, letters, and photographs, So Long, Marianne is an intimate, honest account of Marianne’s life story—from her youth in Oslo, her romance with Axel, to her life in an international artists’ colony on Hydra in the 1960s, and beyond. The subject of one of the most beautiful love songs of all time, Marianne Ihlen proves to be more than a muse to Axel and Leonard. The book includes rare material by Leonard Cohen . Travel Writing Confessions of a Qantas Flight Attendant: True Tales and Gossip from the Galley by Owen Beddall Is the flight attendant lifestyle really flying to exotic destinations, swanning about in five-star hotels, daytime lazing around the pool and nighttime tabletop dancing with Bollywood stars? Owen Beddall dishes the dirt—he tells you the things you always wanted to know (and maybe a few things you didn't) about the glamorous world of flying. This book is packed with cabin crew adventures and misadventures in and out of that smart uniform in far flung places. There's sex, drugs and lots of celebrity gossip; Katy Perry, Lily Allen, Kylie Minogue, Venus Williams and Cate Blanchett are all in the galley having a gossip with Owen. ($34.99, PB) New York in 3D: The Gilded Age by Esther Crain This innovative package includes a sturdy, metal stereoscopic viewer and 50 stereoscopic photographs of the years of rapid development that marked the turn of the century in New York. The kit includes an accompanying 112-page paperback that provides a brief history of the stereograph craze and an overview of the city's evolution during that time. Stereoscopic images include Coney Island lit up at night; the 1900 view towards Madison Square Garden from the top of the Flatiron Building; pedlars carts on Elizabeth Street in 1904; the 1880 construction of the Brooklyn Bridge; the Ellis Island dining room in 1907; and Times Square with the new Astor Hotel in 1908. ($39.99, PB) Adventures in the Anthropocene: A Journey to the Heart of the Planet We Made by Gaia Vince ($37.99, PB) Humans have become a force on a par with earth-shattering asteroids and planet-cloaking volcanoes, and as a result, our planet is said to be crossing a geological boundary—from the Holocene into the Anthropocene, or Age of Man. Gaia Vince decided to quit her job at science journal Nature, and travel the world to explore what all these changes really mean. She found ordinary people solving severe crises in ingenious, effective ways. Take the retired railway worker who's building artificial glaciers in the Himalayas, for example, or the Peruvian painting mountains white to retain snowfall. Meet the villagers in India using satellite technology to glean water; and the women farmers in Africa combining the latest genetic discoveries with ancient irrigation techniques; witness the electrified reefs in the Maldives & the man who's making islands out of rubbish in the Caribbean. She also looks at how humanity's changes are reshaping our living planet, & explores how we might engineer Earth for our future. Tokyo Megacity by Ben Simmons & Donald Richie It has been said that 'every city has its high points, but Tokyo is all exclamation points!' Tokyo Megacity—a visual and descriptive exploration of a city that combines old with new and traditional with trendy—shows how Tokyo is like no other city in the world. The combination of Ben Simmons' photographs and Donald Richie’s text capture, as never before, the tremendous diversity, vitality and sheer liveability of the megacity that is Tokyo. ($39, HB) Twenty One Nights in July: A Personal History of the Tour de France by Ianto Ware ($24.95, PB) When chronic insomniac and reluctant office worker Ianto Ware went looking for answers to life's big questions, he found them in the world's largest bike race. Twenty-One Nights in July is a joyride through the Tour's greatest moments— part love letter to cycling, part history of the Tour de France, and part philosophical treatise on the merits of the humble bicycle. Ware unravels La Grande Boucle's greatest stages, contests, personalities, scandals and controversies—from Fausto Coppi's victory on Alpe d'Huez, to Jacques Anquetil and Raymond Poulidor's epic battle on the Puy de Dôme, from René Vietto's shameless weeping to Greg LeMond soiling himself in his battle against Bernard Hinault—digging deep into the Tour's hidden secrets to reveal how cycling transcended mere sport to become a philosophy for the modern age. The Moor: Lives Landscape Literature by William Atkins ($40, HB) In this deeply personal journey across Britain's most forbidding & mysterious terrain, William Atkins takes the reader from south to north, in search of the heart of this elusive landscape. His account is both travelogue & natural history, and an exploration of moorland's uniquely captivating position in British literature, history & psyche. Atkins may be a solitary wanderer across these vast expanses, but his journey is full of encounters, busy Saving St Brigid's by Regina Lane ($40, HB) with the voices of the moors, past & present: murderers & monks, smugglers & priests, At the top of a hill in south-west Victoria, surrounded by roll- gamekeepers & ramblers, miners & poets, developers & environmentalists. ing green hills that fall away to the Southern Ocean, sits a Bottoms Up in Belgium: Seeking the High Points of grand old red-brick church. Built and paid for by the children the Low Land by Alec Le Sueur ($22.99, PB) of the Irish famine survivors, St Brigid's is a symbol of faith Brussels and all those Eurocrats on the gravy train? It’s just so boring. & hope in an ancient land, by a cold, wild sea. In 2009, the Why, you can’t even name ten famous Belgians!’ Until 1993, Alec had Catholic Church put the church & hall up for sale, against the never been to Belgium, so it came as some surprise when in August that wishes of the local community. What began as a small local year he found himself at the altar of a small church in Flanders, recitissue became a battle that went all the way to Rome. The fight ing wedding vows in Flemish. It was the start, for better or for worse, for justice awakened Regina Lane to the richness of her Irish of a long relationship with this unassuming and much maligned little Catholic culture, and its lasting legacy on the community & the Church, she grew country. As he ordered yet another pint of Stella, it dawned on him that up in. Through the lens of her Irish heritage & that of the local indigenous people, perhaps it was time to immerse himself in Belgian culture, especially she weaves together a lyrical narrative of song & story, & discovers just how much when there were over a hundred locally produced beers on the menu. our ancestral traditions have to teach us if we are to transform the world we live. 9 books for kids to young adults compiled by Lynndy Bennett, our children's correspondent OS SETTS TO N ASS ACH U Postcard from Boston M B ding Book Expo 2014 beth Riley Memorial Fellowship, atten n I am in the USA on the ABA's Eliza ciatio Asso rs selle Book ralian Aust s. tactic val Thanks to the survi ctive colle rch children's booksellers to resea negotiaAmerica and visiting other specialist some book-related items and started but even more gigantic. I scoped out Fairs s' isher coming Publ forth of own s our copie like r's Book Expo America was much ' worth of excerpts and advance reade o Surrender As well, I amassed a painful few kilos . k—N shop Skin the to were n read retur I I those when of ly le supp tion for ed BEA. Most notab as hilariously bizarre te to booksellers I liaised with who miss with BEA, and his life anecdotes are books which, thankfully, I could dona the Children's Conference associated at speak r welcome was Pathautho Also ill. the roadk heard I l. and trip nove by Carl Hiaasen—his first teenage book that blends a mystery with road teen this in part r sy elements and majo a fanta plays the k to character Skin Heap sequence, this is a return as his adult novels. His idiosyncratic seven years after her popular Septimus Set . Sage e Angi by s serie n Moo r finder, book 1 in the Todhunte . Lucy whose of those characters we already know us forms through the eyes of young world of Septimus Heap, featuring some Dorks, exploring 'otherness' in vario of Pack lly crafted, el's skilfu Vrab and Beth tic of m pathe Sym realis . the baby is born with Down Syndrome Contrasting with these two books was her family's fragility when their new with ides coinc larity popu ol ralia. scho Aust in plummet from primary mending when they are released ent. All three are books I'll be recom splendours it offers. this was a moving tale of empowerm ere near enough time to take in all the ed realis that a month would be nowh I've ker's Clementine dy ypac alrea Penn ugh altho Sara ls. on, nove Bost re Tomorrow I'm off to further explo lings; and of Robert Parker's Spenser Duck for Way e Mak y's loske McC tt is a of Robert Nonetheless, I shall tread the path also set in Boston; plus Louisa M. Alco Moody Declares Independence are the of books and Megan McDonald's Judy part as re lectu a d I'd love to atten celebrated Boston luminary. Although ram y of Children's Literature summer prog Simmons College Centre for the Stud ng looki I'm . home ed head already at the Eric Carle Museum, I shall be ideas arising from the invaluable forward to trying some initiatives and sphere counterparts. conversations with some northern hemi institute some changes. we as think you Let us know what young readers See you in the shop! Lynndy. Chook Chook: Saving the Farm by Wai Chim ($14.95, PB) 1000 Inventions and Discoveries by Roger Bridgman ($29.99, PB) For the budding inventor this amazing guide is packed with the inventions and discoveries that have changed the world. Find out who came up with the idea, how they were influenced and key events that formed the backdrop of the discovery. Packed with stunning pictures and features you'll relive the most amazing discoveries ever made—and perhaps make a few of your own. Utterly Amazing Science by Robert Winston ($29.99, HB) Discover the incredible core topics in the world of science, including forces and motions, light and colour, elements and matter, and magnets and electricity with clear explanations and fun activities to help your child understand the building blocks of science. Packed with pop-ups, pull-outs, flaps, sliders and incredible science facts to make learning about science fun and interactive. 10 The Mount Athos Diet: The Mediterranean Plan to Lose Weight, Feel Younger and Live Longer by Richard Storey, Sue Todd & Lottie Storey For centuries, the monks of Mount Athos have enjoyed long lives, healthy bodies and calm minds thanks to their unique diet and lifestyle. This book shows the intermittent diet that keeps the monks slim, youthful and largely free from disease. The diet is made up of three fasting days full of delicious fruits and vegetables from nature's larder; three moderation days to enjoy the best of the Mediterranean, including olive oil, fish and even red wine; one feast day to completely indulge in whichever foods you like. The book has a simple diet plan, recipes, menu planners and tips on how to adapt the diet, plus guidance on exercise, meditation and emotional wellbeing. ($30, PB) Headache: A Family Doctor's Guide to Treating a Common Ailment by Carole Hungerford ($30 PB) In this timely book, family doctor and former headache sufferer Carole Hungerford addresses what we know about treating and preventing this common health problem, including what triggers headaches, food & chemicals to avoid, and the latest research on the role that genetics play in causing migraine. She explores the evolutionary role of headache, and examines which approaches to treatment work best for which types of patients. horses for courses Star Horse by Jane Smiley ($13.99, PB) The latest in the horse-obsessed Pulitzer prize winning author, Jane Smiley's The Horses of Oak Valley Ranch series. Gee Whiz is a striking horse—he is tall, but also graceful. He keeps his eye on things, not as if he's suspicious, but as if he's curious. Abby Lovitt is curious, too, about just how little of the world she has seen compared to those around her. Her brother receives a draft notice to Vietnam, her best friends return from their boarding school, and the wise, loveable Brother Abner opens her eyes with tales of his many years spent travelling. If your horse-mad child hasn't been introduced to Abby Lovitt trials yet, I highly recommend them. Viki Do You Dare? The Last Horse Race by James Moloney ($14.99, PB) Do You Dare . . . Stick up for your mates? Ride a horse at breakneck speed? Risk your life for freedom? Set in early Brisbane, about a boy trying to escape his past, and driven by vivid action, great characters and some thrilling moments of jeopardy this is a great way to engage boys from 8 to 12 with Australian historical fiction! p icture books There's a Lion in My Cornflakes by Michelle Robinson (ill) Jim Field ($14.99, PB) If you ever see a packet of cornflakes offering a free lion, ignore it! This is the hair raising story of a family who didn't—and end up with a grizzly bear, a cranky old crocodile and a whacking great gorilla! Lucas and Jack by Ellie Royce & Andrew McLean Every week Lucas' mum visits Great Grandpop at the nursing home. And every week Lucas waits for her outside. Waiting is boring! Until Lucas meets Jack. Jack is tricky and Jack is fun, and he is a great storyteller. A book to bridge generations, Lucas & Jack introduces young children to the idea that old people can be fun and that deep down we have more in common than we think, while encouraging them to ask questions, be curious, imaginative and empathetic. ($24.99, HB) Jeremy by Chris Faille & Danny Snell ($14.99, PB) When tiny kookaburra Jeremy falls out of his nest and is brought home by the family cat, he is only a few days old. Luckily, Jeremy is a fighter and as the weeks go by he grows stronger and stronger, until the time comes when he must say goodbye. My Paris Kitchen by David Lebovitz ($55, PB) French cooking has come a long way since the days of Escoffier. The culinary culture of France has changed & the current generation of French cooks, most notably in Paris, are incorporating ingredients & techniques from around the world. David Lebovitz remasters the French classics, introduces lesser known French fare, and presents 100 recipes using ingredients foraged in the ethnic neighbourhoods of Paris. David's stories describe the quirks, trials, and joys of cooking, shopping, and eating in France, while food and location photographs reveal modern life in Paris. Once a Month Cooking by Joy Allen ($25, PB) Jody Allen, founder of the phenomenally successful Stay at Home Mum online community, has the answer for busy mums on a budget. In a single day, cook all your main dishes for a month, freeze them, and then enjoy homemade food that is super-quick to prepare when the kids are hungry. From how to budget for and plan your menus, to how to cook and freeze in bulk, this book has step-by-step instructions and 150 freezable recipes that will save time and money. Gourmet Hot Dogs: How to Dress Your Dog with Style by Stephane Reynaud These 60 easy, tasty hot dog recipes, prepared with passion in gourmet French style, are divided into sausage type—from coarse and finely minced sausages, to Frankfurters, chipolatas, Toulouse sausage, chicken sausage, veal sausage—and each recipe includes suggestions for bread accompaniments, small (but perfectly formed) salad garnishes and the all-important condiments to maximise flavour and impact. ($29.99, PB) Backyard Bees: A Guide for the Beginner Beekeeper by Douglas Purdie ($35, HB) It’s Chinese New Year and for Mei & her family things are looking grim. It’s been another bad harvest & a disappointing year for their farm. And now, the government is building a major freeway that will rip right through their village & tear their little farm apart. What can Mei & her beloved chickens, Little and Lo, do to save their farm and keep the family together? As the deadline for bulldozing draws near, villagers young and old will come to realise that it takes a village to save a farm. Bully on the Bus by Kathryn Apel ($14.95, PB) She’s big. / She’s smart. / She’s mean. She’s the bully on the bus./ She picks on me and I don’t like it. But I don’t know how to make her stop. The bully on the bus taunts seven-year-old Leroy, then silences him with threats of worse to come. To distract him, his teacher introduces him to the adventures in The Big Bad Book of Fairytales. Hidden throughout are the clues that Leroy needs to overcome the bullying taunts once and for all. science science Food, Health & Garden All you need to keep bees is a bit of space in your backyard (or on your rooftop) & a little love for the creatures that pollinate the veggie patches of your neighbourhood. This is the ultimate guide to installing and maintaining a hive through the seasons. Learn how easy it is to keep happy, healthy bees, and how and when to harvest the liquid gold. Including extensive advice on choosing a hive & the equipment you need; case studies and anecdotes from beekeepers from all walks of life; and 20 delicious recipes for all that honey, from Toasted Honey Granola to Bees Knees Cocktails. Good without Gluten by Frederique Jules, Jennifer Lepoutre & Mitsuru Yanase ($29.99, HB) The chefs at Parisian restaurant and grocery store No Glu use a range of cereals, flours and clever flour mixes that are naturally gluten-free and healthy. They have developed over 65 delicious and nutritious recipes, which fall into the following chapters: Basic Recipes, Breakfast, Tea, Nibbles, Entrees, Mains, Desserts and Breads. Included are gluten-free recipes for scrumptious cookies, sticky banana cake, sweet pastry, polenta cake, savoury and sweet muffins, chestnut flour bread, chickpea bread, crepes, focaccia, cheesecake, burgers, pizza and quiche. Persiana: Recipes from the Middle East and Beyond by Sabrina Ghayour ($39.99, HB) Middle Eastern food demystified—from the chef behind the Persian Supper Club. Sabrina Ghayour's first cookbook is a celebration of the food and flavours from the regions near the Southern and Eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, with over 100 recipes for modern and accessible Middle Eastern dishes. Examples include Lamb & Sour Cherry Meatballs, Blood Orange & Radicchio Salad and Spiced Carrot, Pistachio & Coconut Cake with Rosewater Cream. The Blender Girl by Tess Masters ($34.99, HB) This book offers healthy whole-food concoctions that rely on natural flavours & sweeteners; all are gluten-free & many are also dairy-, egg-, nut-, soy-, and corn-free. Recipes for drinks, smoothies, and soups are a given, but this versatile collection also includes dishes with a blended component, including appetisers, snacks, salads & desserts; staples like sauces, spreads & condiments; plus details on sprouting, food combining, acid versus alkaline, live foods & more. AWW Food for Babies and Toddlers ($29.95, PB) This book contains plenty of puree recipes for babies, as well as chunkier foods as they learn to chew. There are also recipes for toddlers using a variety of foods that vary in taste and texture to help their palates change and develop. This book will help parents understand how to feed and nourish their children with recipes for the early stages of their development. Includes a foreword by Dr Joanna McMillan, accredited practising Dietician & Nutritionist. Jamie Oliver's Food Tube Series, $12.99 each The Cake Book by Cupcake Jemma The Family Cookbook by Kerryann Dunlop The BBQ Book by DJ BBQ The Asian Kitchen: Fabulous Recipes from Every Corner of Asia by Kong Foong Ling Take a flavourful and aromatic tour of Asia within the comfort of your own home and kitchen with each recipe simple to prepare, ingredients easy to get, and with clear colour photographs show you what the dishes look like! In this remarkable compilation, you’ll find recipes & dishes from every country in Asia—Burma, China, India, Indonesia, Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand & Vietnam. Complete menus are suggested for each cuisine. ($18.99, PB) Mason Jar Salads and More: 50 Layered Lunches to Grab and Go by Julia Mirabella There is more to the Mason jar than just canning, and this book provides step-by-step instructions for preparing nourishing, beautiful, & convenient lunches packed with fresh produce and whole foods. Made by layering ingredients vertically in the jars, these meals benefit from the tight seal of the lid—they can last for up to 5 days in the refrigerator. Recipes include Layered Quinoa & Veggies, Pesto Pasta with Tomatoes, & Southwestern Salad. ($18.99, PB) Ethical Butcher: How to Eat Meat in a Responsible and Sustainable Way by Berlin Reed Berlin Reed, a former self-described militant vegan punk, grudgingly took a job as a butcher's apprentice in Brooklyn when he could find no other work. Shockingly, he fell in love with the art of butchering & a food revolution was born. Along the way he saw how corporate greed, unsustainable food practices & outright misinformation gave birth to such falsities as the USDA label 'organic' and the conglomerate of eco-friendly supermarkets. Reed shows a better way towards food justice and the sustainable living of a mindful omnivore. ($21.99, PB) Grow a Sustainable Diet by Cindy Conner This book will help you develop a comprehensive, customised garden plan to produce the maximum number of calories and nutrients from any available space. Avoid arriving in August buried under a mountain of kale or zucchini (and not much else) by making thoughtful choices at the planning stage, focusing on dietary staples and key nutrients. Learn how to calculate: Which food and cover crops are best for your specific requirements; How many seeds and plants of each variety you should sow; What and when to plant, harvest, and replant for maximum yield. Focusing on permaculture principles, bio-intensive gardening methods, getting food to the table with minimum fossil fuel input, and growing crops that sustain both you and your soil, this complete guide is a must-read for anyone working towards food self-sufficiency for themselves or their family. ($33, PB) 11 events s Eve nt ar d n e Cal SUNDAY MONDAY 1 iss out! Don’t m il! r gleema ly o f p u n Sig week h Allen’s ate. t e b a z li E ail upd events em ooks.com.au leeb asims@g 6 Launch—3.30 for 4 Victor Marsh 8 21 Launch—6 for 6.30 Josie Gagliano The Australian Ageing Generation Handbook: How to Care For Them and Yourself Launched by TBC With the ageing population of Australia increasing every year, many children are struggling to cope—this book is a complete guide to caring for ageing relatives and yourself during this difficult time. 15 Event—6 for 6.30 14 20 2 Event—6 for 6.30 Where Song Began: Australia's Birds and How They Changed the World Tim Low, award-winning author of Feral Future, will give a talk about his eye-opening new book on the unique nature of Australian birds and their role in ecology and global evolution. 7 Stephen Mills Events are held upstairs at #49 Glebe Point Road unless otherwise noted. Bookings—Phone: (02) 9660 2333, Email: [email protected], Online: www.gleebooks.com.au/events WEDNESDAY Tim Low—Talk The Boy in the Yellow Dress Launched by Shelley Kenigsberg In 1950s Perth the young Victor Marsh had to hide any tendency towards gender inappropriate behaviour. The sense of not being 'at home' in his body ran alongside a search for meaning that brought him eventually to a spiritual awakening under the young guru Maharaji. 13 TUESDAY All events listed are $10/$7 concession. Book Launches are free. Gleeclub members free entry to events at 49 Glebe Pt Rd July 2014 9 Event—6 for 6.30 Leila Yusaf Chung Chasing Shadows in conversation with TBC A debut novel of astounding force and compassion, Chasing Shadows is the story of Palestine's trials, the clash of cultures, the brutality of tradition and the inheritance of loss across generations. $5 voucher with purchase of ticket and book 16 Event—6 for 6.30 Lex Marinos THURSDAY 3 Event—6 for 6.30 Jono Lineen Into the Heart of the Himalayas in conversation with Emma Ayres When Jono Lineen's brother died in tragic circumstances, he gave up a comfortable life, moved to the Himalayas and over eight years he crossed borders, religions, castes, languages and philosophical boundaries to find the way to embrace his future. 10 Launch—6 for 6.30 Robert Clancy, John Manning & Henk Brolsma Mapping Antarctica: A Five Hundred Year Record of Discovery Launched by TBC This volume tells the story of Antarctica through original & rare maps— re-produced in high resolution they represent all major events, from the discovery &of Antarctica to the scientific exploration of glaciers. 17 Event—6 for 6.30 Babette Smith The Luck of the Irish: How a shipload of convicts survived the wreck of the Hive to make a new life in Australia in conversation with Anna Clark Babette Smith tracks the lives of Irish convicts who arrived in Australia the mid-1800s, uncovering a longlasting influence of the Irish convicts on our national character. The Professionals: Strategy, Money & the Rise of the Political Campaigner in Australia in conversation with TBC Covering 15 federal election campaigns from 1974 to the present day, Stephen Mills provides a fascinating inside perspective on Australian political history political parties. Blood and Circuses: An Irresponsible Memoir in conversation with Richard Glover From Kingswood Country to The Slap, and beyond, this is the warm, funny and surprising life of one of Australia's much-loved actors and broadcasters. 22 23 24 29 30 31 WINTER SALE WINTER SALE UPSTAIRS #49 GLEBE POINT ROAD 27 28 CHILDRENS' BOOKS 12 BOOKS FROM EVERY DEPARTMENT FRIDAY 4 Event—6 for 6.30 Nick Bryant SATURDAY 5 Launch—3.30 for 4 Greg Barron The Rise & Fall of Australia in conversation with Julian Morrow In a forensic look at the Lucky Country, BBC correspondent Nick Bryant offers an outsider's take on the great paradox of modern-day Australian life: of how the country has got richer at a time when its politics have become more impoverished. Lethal Sky To be launched by 'Black Sheep' A highly decorated former senior intelligence analyst and combat veteran with both the USA's 2nd Infantry Division and the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment launches Greg Barron's thrilling new action adventure. 11 12 Launch—3.30 for 4 Bonnie Cassidy Final Theory Final Theory is a long poem that combining 2 fragmentary story lines—a couple as they travel through landscapes both pristine & ravaged by progress & a child tumbling through the ocean, encountering evidence of lost worlds. With readings by Bonnie Cassidy & friends. 18 19 25 26 WINTER SALE PREVIEW FOR GLEECLUB MEMBERS FROM 6PM AT #49 GLEBE PT RD BARGAINS GALORE! SALE Remember! Join the Gle eclub and ge t free entry events held to ALL at our shops , 10% credit a with every p ccrued urchase, The Gleaner ma and FREE P il ed to you, OSTAGE an ywhere in A ustralia. SALE ENDS SUNDAY AUGUST 3RD 13 Australian Studies The Rise and Fall of Australia by Nick Bryant Never before has Australia enjoyed such economic, commercial, diplomatic and cultural clout. Its recession-proof economy is the envy of the world. Its artistic exports win unprecedented acclaim. But never before has its politics been so brutal, narrow and facile, as well as being such a global laughing stock. A positive national story is at odds with a deeply unattractive Canberra story. BBC correspondent Nick Bryant offers an outsider's take on the great paradox of modern-day Australian life—of how the country has got richer at a time when its politics have become more impoverished—and argues that Australia needs to discard the out-dated language used to describe itself & push back against 'Lucky Country' thinking. Rejecting most of the national stereotypes, he sets out to describe the new Australia rather than the mythic country so often misunderstood not just by foreigners but Australians themselves. ($34.99, PB) Australian History in 7 Questions by John Hirst 'If there are genuine questions about Australian history, there is something to puzzle over. The history ceases to be predictable— and dull.' John Hirst presents a fresh and stimulating approach to understanding Australia's past and present by asking & answering questions he believes get to the heart of Australia's history: Why did Aborigines not take up farming? How did a penal colony change peacefully into a democratic society? Why was Australia so prosperous so early? Why did the colonies federate? What effect did convict origins have on national character? Why was the postwar migration programme such a success? Why is Australia not a republic? ($24.99, PB) The Way We Work: Griffith REVIEW 45 (ed) Julianne Schultz ($28, PB) The way we work has changed profoundly in recent years. This timely edition of Griffith REVIEW explores the extraordinary structural changes triggered by globalisation, the internet and the collapse of unions. Job security is a thing of the past—many welcome the flexibility of the new environment while others find it hard to adjust. This issue features stories from the coalface of work, both traditional & non-traditional jobs. Contributors include Ashley Hay, Rebecca Huntley, Gideon Haigh, Peter Mares, Kathy Marks, Craig McGregor, David Peetz & more. The Book of Paul: The Wit and Wisdom of Paul Keating (ed) Russell Marks ($9.99, PB) Presenting the one and only Mr Paul Keating—at his straightshooting, scumbag-calling, merciless best. On John Howard: 'The little desiccated coconut is under pressure and he is attacking anything he can get his hands on.' On Peter Costello: 'The thing about poor old Costello is he is all tip and no iceberg.' On John Hewson: '[His performance] is like being flogged with a warm lettuce.' On Andrew Peacock: '…what we have here is an intellectual rust bucket.' On Wilson Tuckey: '…you stupid foulmouthed grub.' On Tony Abbott: 'If Tony Abbott ends up the prime minister of Australia, you've got to say, God help us'. Menzies at War by Anne Henderson ($34.99, PB) In the months following his resignation as Prime Minister in late August 1941, Menzies swayed between relief at his release from the burdens of office as PM & despair that his life at the top had come to so little. Many followers of Australian political history, including Liberal party supporters, forget that Robert Menzies had many years in the political wilderness not knowing he would end up being Australia’s longest-serving prime minister. This book focuses on the period between 1941, when Menzies lost the prime-ministership, to 1949, when he regained it. In the interim he travelled around the world, spending an extended time in Britain during World War II, set up the Liberal Party and, the author argues, developed the leadership qualities that made him so successful. Anne Henderson refers to this time as his real political blooding. The Craft of Governing: The Contribution of Patrick Weller to Australian Political Science (eds) Glyn Davis & R. A. W. Rhodes ($45, PB) This book offers a tribute to the contribution of Patrick Weller to Australian political science, with chapters from leading political commentators including Michelle Grattan, Peter Shergold, Bob Jackson and James Walter. Contributors consider the role of the prime minister, approaches to studying executive government, the continuing significance of senior public servants and the nature of leadership in public bureaucracies. They also reflect on how insights from the study of domestic public policy can be applied to international organisations, challenges faced by Westminster democracies and approaches to political biography. 14 Now in B Format The Reef: A Passionate History by Iain McCalman, $24.99 Politics The Fourth Revolution: The Global Race to Reinvent the State by Micklethwait & Wooldridge In most of the states of the West, disillusion with government has become endemic. Gridlock in America; anger in much of Europe; cynicism in Britain; decreasing legitimacy everywhere. In response to earlier crises in government, there have been 3 great revolutions, which have brought about in turn the nation-state, the liberal state & the welfare state. In each, Europe & America have set the example. We are now, the authors argue, in the midst of a 4th revolution in the history of the nationstate, but this time the Western way is in danger of being left behind. Miclethwait & Woodridge have had extraordinary access to influential figures & forces the world over, and the book is a global tour of the innovators. The front lines are in Chinese-oriented Asia, & other emerging nations. The race is not just one of efficiency, but one to see which political values will triumph in the 21st century: the liberal values of democracy and freedom or the authoritarian values of command and control. The centre of gravity is shifting quickly, and the stakes could not be higher. ($50, HB) The Professionals: Strategy, Money and the Rise of the Political Campaigner in Australia by Stephen Mills ($29.99, PB) During 2010–11, Stephen Mills conducted on-the-record interviews with every living national campaign director of the two major political parties. Their experience covers the 15 federal election campaigns from 1974 to the present day. Built around ten critical moments in Australian electoral history, The Professionals traces the transformation of the party official from administrative servant to highly influential, professional campaign manager, and the election campaign from the pre-television days to the contemporary world of social media, focus groups and million dollar campaign budgets. He shows how Australia's political parties went from mass-membership organisations—which provided opportunities for grassroots participation—to top-down managerial enterprises. Internal control of the parties has shifted to a new centre of power: the Head Office. Sri Lanka's Secrets: How the Rajapaksa Regime Gets Away with Murder by Trevor Grant As the civil war in Sri Lanka drew to its bloody end in 2009, the government of this island nation removed its protection from UN officials & employees, who, along with other international observers, were forced to leave the conflict zone. President Mahinda Rajapaksa & his inner circle wanted, it seemed, a war without witness. The end result was the deliberate slaughter of an estimated 70,000 innocent civilians. However, many survivors, and some who died, were able to capture on camera the horrifying conclusion to the war and the cruel deprivations of the internment camps that followed. Today, through their images and testimony, Rajapaksa stands accused of war crimes. Trevor Grant presents the shocking story of the final days of this war, alongside the photographs and eye-witness accounts of many Tamils, including Maravan, a social worker who fled to Australia by boat after being tortured by soldiers seeking his folio of photographs. ($29.95, PB) Invisible Hands: Voices from the Global Economy (ed) Corinne Goria ($20, PB) The men and women in Invisible Hands reveal the human rights abuses occurring behind the scenes of the global economy. These narrators—including phone manufacturers in China, copper miners in Zambia, garment workers in Bangladesh, and farmers around the world—reveal the secret history of the things we buy, including lives and communities devastated by low wages, environmental degradation, and political repression. These stories capture the interconnectivity of all people struggling to support themselves and their families. Clinton, Inc: The Audacious Rebuilding of a Political Machine by Daniel Halper ($40, HB) When Bill and Hillary Clinton left the White House in January 2001 they were a disgraced couple, weighed down by a decade of scandal. Now, as they prepare for a second White House run, the Clintons are in a completely different orbit. Not only have they gone from virtually penniless to multi-millionaires, they are arguably the two most popular politicians in America. Even their daughter Chelsea, raised in the White House as her father was impeached, is considering a go at politics. Daniel Halper provides a meticulously researched account of the calculations, secret deals, and backstabbing that led to the Clintons' return to political prominence, and to Hillary's position as 2016 frontrunner. On Sovereignty and Other Political Delusions by Joan Cocks ($37.99, PB) For political theory to reflect, and reflect upon, not just Western political societies but the politics of an interrelated world, its basic concepts must be re-thought in a new key. Joan Cocks argues that these concepts require revision because the practical conditions on which their old definitions hinged have decomposed. With a focus on concepts of violence, sovereignty & progress, Cocks constructs her argument using 3 case studies: the confrontation between Anglo-American settlers & Native American tribes, the search for Jewish sovereignty in the new state of Israel & the world's reaction to the attacks on the US on 9/11. This book unsettles & refocuses these concepts so that they can better capture & illuminate the political experience of those at the receiving end of power across the globe today. History The Reckoning: Financial Accountability and the Making & Breaking of Nations by Jacob Soll ($40, HB) Whether in waging wars or building cities, leaders from ancient Mesopotamia to the present have relied on financial accounting to shape nations, kingdoms, empires & whole civilisations. Accounting tools such as auditing & double-entry bookkeeping form the basis of modern capitalism. Yet our understanding of accounting & its formative role throughout history remains minimal at best—and we remain ignorant at our peril. The 2008 financial crisis is only the most recent example of how poor or risky practices can shake, even bring down, entire societies. In a bold retelling of 1000 years of economic history Jacob Soll, presents a sweeping history of accounting, drawing on a wealth of examples from over a millennia of human history to reveal how it has both helped create vast wealth, & caused cycles of destruction that continue to this day. Now in B Format The Men Who United the States by Simon Winchester ($25, PB) The Supermodel and the Brillo Box Acquiring contemporary art is about passion and lust, as well as branding, about the back story that comes with the art, about the relationship of money and status. The Supermodel and the Brillo Box follows Don Thompson’s The $12 Million Stuffed Shark and offers a journey of discovery into what the Crash of 2008 did to the art market and the changing methods that auction houses and dealerships have implemented since then. Empire's Crossroads: A History of the Caribbean from Columbus to the Present Day by Carrie Gibson In October 1492, an Italian-born, Spanish-funded navigator discovered a new world, thousands of miles across the Atlantic Ocean. From Cuba to Haiti, from Jamaica to Trinidad, the story of the Caribbean is not simply the story of slaves and masters—but of fortune-seekers, tourists, scientists and pirates. Carrie Gibson unfolds the story of the Caribbean from Columbus's first landing on the island he named San Salvador to today's islands—largely independent, but often still in thrall to Europe & America's insatiable desire for tropical luxuries. From the early years of settlement to the age of sugar & slavery, during which vast riches were generated for Europeans through the enforced labour of millions of enslaved Africans, to the great slave rebellions of the 18th & 19th centuries and the long, slow progress towards independence in the modern era, Gibson offers a vivid, panoramic view of this complex & contradictory region. ($32.99, PB) The Third Horseman: Climate Change and the Great Famine of the 14th Century by William Rosen ($33, PB) In May 1315, it started to rain. It didn't stop anywhere in north Europe until August. Next came the four coldest winters in a millennium. Two separate animal epidemics killed nearly 80 percent of northern Europe's livestock. Wars between Scotland & England, France & Flanders, and two rival claimants to the Holy Roman Empire destroyed all remaining farmland. After 7 years, the combination of lost harvests, warfare, & pestilence would claim six million lives—one 8th of Europe's total population. William Rosen draws on a wide array of disciplines, from military history to feudal law to agricultural economics & climatology, to trace the succession of traumas that caused the Great Famine. With dramatic appearances by Scotland's William Wallace, and the luckless Edward II & his treacherous Queen Isabella, history's best documented episode of catastrophic climate change comes alive, with powerful implications for future calamities. The Paper Trail: An Unexpected History of the World's Greatest Invention by Alexander Monro The emergence of paper in the imperial court of Han China brought about a revolution in the transmission of knowledge and of ideas. Paper was the first writing surface sufficiently cheap, portable and printable for books, pamphlets, prints and journals to be mass-produced and to travel widely. It enabled an ongoing dialogue between communities of scholars who could now engage with each others' ideas across continents and years. Alexander Monro traces the westward voyage of this groundbreaking invention; beginning with the Buddhist translators responsible for the spread of paper across China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam. Paper finally reached Europe in 1276 and was indispensable to the scholars and translators who manufactured the Renaissance and Reformation from their desks. Paper still surrounds us in our everyday lives, but is the age of paper coming to an end? ($40, HB) ISBN 9781137279088 Palgrave Macmillan Philosophy and Blade Runner This book explores a full range of philosophical issues in the classic sci-fi film Blade Runner. Through critical examination of the film’s distinctive treatment of perennial philosophical issues including human nature, identity, free will, morality, God, death, time, and the meaning of life, the distinctive philosophy of Blade Runner is explored and assessed. ISBN 9781137412287 Palgrave Macmillan The Rise of the New East From China, to India, to Dubai, powerfully disruptive forces have resulted from the East’s resurgence, and these clashing forces have produced unexpected commercial opportunities and complexities.Taking the reader on a tour of the fast changing East, The Rise of the New East provides simple business strategies for dealing with the world’s growing complexity. ISBN 9781137370051 Palgrave Macmillan Social Constructionisms Social constructionism is one of the key ideas in the social sciences, offering different frameworks for understanding the human world. But what does it mean when we say that something is ‘socially constructed’? What exactly do we construct in our social interaction? And what actually ‘does’ the constructing? ISBN 9781403940001 Palgrave Macmillan How Theatre Means Between Two Homelands: Letters across the Borders of Nazi Germany (ed) Hedda Kalshoven ($44.95, PB) In 1920, at the age of thirteen, Irmgard Gebensleben first travelled from Germany to The Netherlands on a 'war-children transport'. She would later marry a Dutch man and live and raise her family there while keeping close to her German family and friends through the frequent exchange of letters. This correspondence, collected by Gebensleben's daughter, between Irmgard, her friends & four generations of her family delve into their most intimate & candid thoughts & feelings about the rise of National Socialism. The responses to the German invasion & occupation of the Netherlands expose the deeply divided loyalties of the family & reveal their attempts to bridge them. Of particular value to historians, the letters evoke the writers' beliefs and their understanding of the events happening around them. The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union by Serhii Plokhy ($50, HB) On Christmas Day 1991 Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as president of the Soviet Union. By the next day the USSR was officially no more and the USA had emerged as the world's sole superpower. Historian Serhii Plohky gives a vivid account of the preceding five months. Honing in on this previously disregarded but crucial period and based on new sources & exclusive interviews with the presidents of the two superpowers, Plokhy shatters the established myths of 1991 and boldly argues that the US actually wanted to preserve the Soviet Union and Gorbachev in power. With its spellbinding narrative and strikingly fresh perspective, this is the essential account of one of the most important turning points in world history. Ric Knowles demonstrates how the examination and practice of theatre is enhanced by a semiotic approach. Moving from the history and theory of performance analysis to its practical application with particular attention to cross-cultural applications, Knowles examines how meaning is produced in the process of creating, viewing and analysing theatre. ISBN 9780230232365 Palgrave Macmillan The Craft Beer Revolution Today, there are more than 2700 craft breweries in the United States and another 1,500 are in the works. Their influence is spreading to countries all over the globe. In The Craft Beer Revolution, Steve Hindy, co-founder of Brooklyn Brewery, tells the inside story of how a band of homebrewers and microbrewers came together to become one of America’s great entrepreneurial triumphs. ISBN 9781137278760 Palgrave Macmillan palgravemacmillan.com.au 15 NEW from Cambridge A History of Canberra Nicholas Brown In this charming and concise book, written for general readers, Nicholas Brown surveys the ways in which the capital has contributed to the political, cultural and social life of the nation, in both an insightful and witty manner. Paperback $39.95 © 2014 304 pages ISBN 9781107646094 A History of Thailand, 3rd Edition Chris Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit A History of Thailand offers a lively and accessible account of Thailand’s political, economic, social and cultural history, from the early settlements in the Chao Phraya basin to today. Paperback $34.95 © 2014 344 pages ISBN 9781107420212 Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change The latest Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) forms the standard scientific reference for all concerned with climate change and its consequences. An authoritative and unbiased overview of climate change. Paperback $130.00 © 2014 152 pages ISBN 9781107661820 www.cambridge.edu.au Pelican Introductions, $15 each Human Evolution by Robin Dunbar The Domesticated Brain by Bruce Hood Greek and Roman Political Ideas by Melissa Lane Revolutionary Russia, 1891–1991 by Orlando Figes The Solar Revolution by McKevitt & Ryan This book tells the story of how scientists are working to reconnect us to the 'solar economy', harnessing the power of the sun to provide sustainable food & energy for a global population of 10 billion people: an achievement that would end our dependence on 'fossilised sunshine' in the form of coal, oil and gas and remake our connection with the soil that grows our food. Steve McKevitt & Tony Ryan also describe the human race's complex relationship with the sun & take us back through history to see how our world became the place it is today, before moving on to the cutting-edge science and technology that will enable us to live happily in a sustainable future. ($22.99, PB) Infinitesimal: How a Dangerous Mathematical Paradox Shaped the Modern World by Amir Alexander ($40, HB) On August 10, 1632, five leading Jesuits convened in a sombre Roman palazzo to pass judgment on a simple idea: that a continuous line is composed of distinct and limitlessly tiny parts. The doctrine would become the foundation of calculus, but on that fateful day the judges ruled that it was forbidden. With the stroke of a pen they set off a war for the soul of the modern world. Amir Alexander's Infinitesimal is the story of the struggle that pitted Europe's entrenched powers against voices for tolerance and change. It takes the reader from the bloody religious strife of the 16th century to the battlefields of the English civil war & the fierce confrontations between leading thinkers like Galileo & Hobbes. We see how a small mathematical disagreement became a contest over the nature of the heavens and the earth: Was the world entirely known and ruled by a divinely sanctioned rationality and hierarchy? Or was it a vast and mysterious place, ripe for exploration? The legitimacy of popes and kings, as well as our modern beliefs in human liberty and progressive science, hung in the balance; the answer hinged on the infinitesimal. 16 Science & Nature A Sting in the Tale by Dave Goulson ($20, PB) Once commonly found in the marshes of Kent, the short-haired bumblebee now only exists in the wilds of New Zealand, the descendants of a few queen bees shipped over in the nineteenth century. Dave Goulson's passionate drive to reintroduce it to its native land is one of the highlights of a book that includes exclusive research into these curious creatures, history's relationship with the bumblebee and advice on how to protect it for all time. Dave Goulson combines Gerald Durrell-esque tales of a child's growing passion for nature with a deep insight into the crucial importance of the bumblebee. He details the minutiae of life in their nests, sharing fascinating research into the effects intensive farming has had on our bee populations and on the potential dangers if we are to continue down this path. The Remedy: Robert Koch, Arthur Conan Doyle, and the Quest to Cure Tuberculosis by Thomas Goetz In 1875 a diagnosis of tuberculosis or consumption was a death sentence. Doctors had little in their arsenal for treating this cunning disease & were even less certain about what caused it. Robert Koch, armed only with a microscope & a notebook, began to methodically pursue these things called 'germs'. His biggest discovery—one that would push medicine out of the dark ages—was of the bacteria that caused tuberculosis. When Koch announced his remedy for tuberculosis in 1890, euphoria swept the globe. Physician & aspiring writer Arthur Conan Doyle joined the throngs racing to Berlin for the public demonstration. However, when Conan Doyle toured the wards of treated patients he was staggered by what he found: Koch's remedy was either sloppy science or outright fraud. Interweaving of scientific & literary history, The Remedy is a tale that vividly explores how modern medicine emerges, not as the inevitable march of progress but as a lurching tumult of failed experiments and petty rivalries. ($30, PB) Where Song Began: Australia's Birds and How They Changed the World by Tim Low ($33, PB) Renowned for its unusual mammals, Australia is a land of birds that are just as unusual, just as striking, a result of the continent's tens of millions of years of isolation. Compared with birds elsewhere, ours are more likely to be intelligent, aggressive and loud, to live in complex societies, and are long-lived. They're also ecologically more powerful, exerting more influences on forests than other birds. Tim Low explains how our birds came to be so extraordinary, including the large role played by the foods they consume (birds, too, are what they eat), and by our climate, soil, fire, and Australia's legacy as a part of Gondwana. The story of its birds, it turns out, is inseparable from the story of Australia itself, and one that continues to unfold, so much having changed in the last decade about what we know of our ancient past. Mathematics in Twentieth-Century Literature and Art: Content, Form, Meaning by Robert Tubbs ($45.95, PB) During the twentieth century, many artists and writers turned to abstract mathematical ideas to help them realise their aesthetic ambitions. M. C. Escher, Marcel Duchamp, and, perhaps most famously, Piet Mondrian used principles of mathematics in their work. Was it mere coincidence, or were these artists simply following their instincts, which in turn were ruled by mathematical underpinnings, such as optimal solutions for filling a space? If maths exists within visual art, can it be found within literary pursuits? In short, just what is the relationship between mathematics and the creative arts? Robert Tubbs argues that the links are much stronger than previously imagined and exceed both coincidence and commonality of purpose, and that art can be better appreciated when the math that inspired it is better understood. Hemp Bound: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Agricultural Evolution by Doug Fine ($19.99, PB) The stat sheet on hemp sounds almost too good to be true: its fibres are among the planet's strongest, its seed oil the most nutritious, and its potential as an energy source vast and untapped. Its one downside? For nearly a century, it's been illegal to grow industrial cannabis in the US— even though Betsy Ross wove the nation's first flag out of hemp fabric, and colonists could pay their taxes with it. But as the prohibition on hemp's psychoactive cousin winds down, one of humanity's longest-utilis ed plants is about to be reincorporated into the American economy. Doug Fine embarks on a humorous yet rigorous journey to meet the men & women who are testing, researching, and pioneering hemp's applications for the 21st century. The Accidental Universe: The World You Thought You Knew by Alan Lightman ($29.99, PB) Alan Lightman explores the emotional and philosophical questions raised by discoveries in science, focusing most intently on the human condition and the needs of humankind. This collection of essays takes on the difficult dialogue between science & religion; the conflict between our human desire for permanence & the impermanence of nature; the possibility that our universe is simply an accident; the manner in which modern technology has divorced us from enjoying a direct experience of the world; and our resistance to the view that our bodies and minds can be explained by scientific logic and laws alone. Now in paperback Seven Flowers and How They Shaped Our World by Jennifer Potter, $30 Philosophy & Religion An Atheist's History of Belief: Understanding Our Most Extraordinary Invention by Matthew Kneale ($20, PB) What first prompted prehistoric man, sheltering in the shadows of deep caves, to call upon the realm of the spirits? And why has belief thrived ever since, leading us to invent heaven and hell, sin and redemption, and above all, gods? Religion reflects our deepest hopes and fears; whether you are a believer or, like Matthew Kneale, a non-believer who admires mankind's capacity to create and to imagine, it has shaped our world. And as our dreams & nightmares have changed over the millennia, so have our beliefs—from shamans to Aztec priests, from Buddhists to Christians: the gods we created have evolved with us. Belief is humanity's most epic invention. To understand it is to better understand ourselves. A Sense for Humanity: The Ethical Thought of Raimond Gaita (eds) Craig Taylor & Melinda Graefe Through his various works, including in particular his acclaimed biography, Romulus: My Father, Raymond Gaita’s ethical thought has had a considerable impact on the intellectual & cultural life of Australia. This collection is unique for its survey of this influence, with new essays from significant writers & academics, including Barry Hill, Alex Miller, Brigitta Olubas, Helen Pringle, Robert Manne, Gerry Simpson, Steven Tudor, Geoffrey Brahm Levey, Dorothy Scott, Christopher Cordner, Craig Taylor & Miranda Fricker, along with an introductory piece by J. M. Coetzee. Other features of the collection include a new poem for Gaita by poet and screenwriter Nick Drake & an interview with Gaita by Anne Manne, in which Gaita reflects on the origins & development of his ethical thought as a form of lucidity. ($34.95, PB) The Bloomsbury Companion to Philosophical Logic (eds) Leon Horsten & Richard Pettigrew ($53.99, PB) Covering stages in the history of logic and of modern logic, this comprehensive volume looks ahead to new areas of research & explores issues pertaining to classical logic & its rivals, semantics for parts of natural language, and the application of logic in the theory of rationality. Experts in the field provide a mix of technical chapters that offer excellent encyclopaedias of results in the area & chapters of philosophical discussions that survey a range of philosophical positions. To facilitate further study, the book also includes a detailed index, an up-to-date list of resources and an annotated bibliography. Epimethean Imaginings: Philosophical and Other Meditations on Everyday Light by Raymond Tallis These essays are written in the spirit of Goethe's Epimetheus who 'traces the quick deed to the dim realm of form-combining possibilities' Part 1, Analysis explore some of the big questions in philosophy: perception, knowledge & belief; truth & falsehood; time; the relationship between mathematics & reality; and probability & causation. The middle section, Tetchy Interludes, takes a wry look at some aspects of contemporary art; stupidity (including the author's own); health care policy; and Christmas. Part 3, Celebration, is more experimental in both its subject matter & treatment. It celebrates the complexity of ordinary, everyday consciousness by contemplating the miracle of speech, artefacts that have transformed our lives (and what they reveal about our cognition) such as the wheel, the sail, glue, and ink; and 'snapshots' of the author's own consciousness on an ordinary day, of past consciousness, as captured in historical memory. ($38.95 PB) Zizek and His Contemporaries: The Emergence of Slovenian Neo-Lacanianism by Irwin & Motoh In recent years, the popularity of the Slavoj Zizek has perhaps cast a shadow over the collective influence exerted by Slovenian intellectuals on modern day philosophy. Rather than an isolated genius, this book relocates him as a thinker whose ideas are born of a specifically Slovenian context. Although only coming to international notice in the early 1990s, the Slovenian school needs to be understood as the culmination of a series of intellectual, artistic & political movements inextricably connected to the quest for the succession of Slovenia from Yugoslavia. These developments must also be seen in the light of one of the giants of Continental philosophy: Jacques Lacan. Featuring brand new interviews with three of its forerunners—Zizek, Mladen Dolar and Alenka Zupancic—this fascinating account details each philosopher's individual concerns, whilst shedding light on the complex genealogy and continuing development of the Slovenian Neo-Lacanian school. ($45, HB) Wrong-Doing, Truth-Telling: The Function of Avowal in Justice by Michel Foucault ($56.95, HB) Three years before his death, Michel Foucault delivered a series of lectures at the Catholic University of Louvain that until recently remained almost unknown. These lectures—which focus on the role of avowal, or confession, in the determination of truth and justice— provide the missing link between Foucault’s early work on madness, delinquency, and sexuality and his later explorations of subjectivity in Greek and Roman antiquity. Extensively annotated by Fabienne Brion and Bernard E. Harcourt, these lectures are accompanied by two contemporaneous interviews with Foucault in which he elaborates on a number of the key themes. Psychology The Tale of the Duelling Neurosurgeons: The History of the Human Brain as Revealed by True Stories of Trauma, Madness, and Recovery by Sam Kean ($59.99, HB) For centuries, scientists had only one way to study the brain: wait for misfortune to strike—strokes, seizures, infections, lobotomies, horrendous accidents, phantom limbs, Siamese twins—and see how the victims changed afterwards. In many cases their survival was miraculous, and observers marvelled at the transformations that took place when different parts of the brain were destroyed. Parents suddenly couldn't recognise their children. Pillars of the community became pathological liars and paedophiles. Some people couldn't speak but could still sing. Others couldn't read but could write. The stories of these people laid the foundations of modern neuroscience and, century by century, key cases taught scientists what every last region of the brain did. Sam Kean explores the brain's secret passageways and recounts the forgotten tales of the ordinary individuals whose struggles, resilience and deep humanity made neuroscience possible. Anger Management Workbook: Use the STOP Method to Replace Destructive Responses with Constructive Behavior by W. Robert Nay Out-of-control anger can destroy relationships, reputations, careers—even your health. But Dr Robert Nay knows from extensive clinical experience that nearly anyone can learn to manage anger constructively This systematic workbook builds core anger management skills using interactive exercises that readers can tailor to their own needs. Dr Nay provides practical tools for identifying anger triggers, recognising the different faces of anger, replacing aggression with appropriate assertiveness, & defusing conflicts. A wealth of realistic stories & examples invite the reader to ‘'step in' & practise the skills discussed until old habits are replaced with more productive new ones. Readers can download and print additional copies of the worksheets & forms. ($45.95, PB) Autism Spectrum, Sexuality and the Law by Attwood, Henault & Dubin ($45.95, PB) The complex world of sex & appropriate sexual behaviour can be extremely challenging for people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and, without guidance, many find themselves in vulnerable situations. This book examines how the ASD profile typically affects sexuality & how sexual development differs between the general population & those with ASD. It explains the legalities of sexual behaviour, how laws differ from country to country, and the possibility for adjustment of existing laws as they are applied to the ASD population. With advice on how to help people with autism spectrum disorder gain a better understanding of sexuality & a comprehensive list of resources, the book highlights the need for a more informed societal approach to the psychosexual development of people with ASD. Cry of Pain: Understanding Suicide and the Suicidal Mind by Mark Williams ($39.99, PB) Suicide presents a real and often tragic puzzle for the family and friends of someone who has committed or attempted suicide. 'Why did they do it?' 'How could they do this?' 'Why did they not see there was help available?' For therapists and clinicians who want to help those who are vulnerable and their families, there are also puzzles that often seem unsolvable. What is it that causes someone to end his or her own life, or to harm themselves: is it down to a person's temperament, the biology of their genes, or to social conditions? What provides the best clue to a suicidal person's thoughts and behaviour? Each type of explanation, seen in isolation, has its drawbacks, so we need to see how they may fit together to give a more complete picture. Cry of Pain examines the evidence from a social, psychological and biological perspective to see if there are common features that might shed light on suicide. The Life of I: The New Culture of Narcissism by Anne Manne ($32.99, PB) Written with the pace of a psychological thriller, The Life of I is a compelling account of the rise of narcissism in individuals and society. Manne examines the Lance Armstrong doping scandal and in the alarming rise of sexual assaults in sport, the military and the vengeful killings of Elliot Rodger. She looks at the narcissism in the pursuit of fame and our obsession with 'making it'. She goes beyond the usual suspects of social media and celebrity culture to the deeper root of the issue: how a new narcissistic character-type is being fuelled by a cult of the self and the pursuit of wealth in a hypercompetitive consumer society. A Metaphysics of Psychopathology by Peter Zachar ($58.95, HB) In psychiatry, few question the legitimacy of asking whether a given psychiatric disorder is real; similarly, in psychology, scholars debate the reality of such theoretical entities as general intelligence, superegos, and personality traits. And yet in both disciplines, little thought is given to what is meant by the rather abstract philosophical concept of 'real'. Peter Zachar considers such terms as 'real' and 'reality—invoked in psychiatry but often obscure and remote from their instances—as abstract philosophical concepts. He then examines the implications of his approach for 17 psychiatric classification and psychopathology. Epistolary Gems There are times when one can’t stand to read anything too serious, too worthy, too taxing—P. G. Wodehouse, Dodie Smith and Tintin always fit my bill. I also like books of letters, Jean Webster’s fictional Daddy Long-Legs has been a favourite since I was a child, I laughed my way through Letters From a Faint-Hearted Feminist (Jill Tweedie) when I had babies, and I adored Helen Hanff’s 84, Charing Cross Road. Letters between writers are always interesting; Evelyn Waugh and Nancy Mitford spring to mind, and of course all the letters between the Mitford sisters are very entertaining. There is often something revelatory about epistolary books. They reflect the time they are written in, they reveal their writers and they can offer more insight than biographies (which often carry a bias). Love, Nina: Despatches from Family Life by Nina Stibbe is a collection of letters by the author to her sister Victoria. Written over several years when Nina Stibbe moved from Leicestershire to London, to nanny for the family of Mary-Kay Wilmers, editor of the London Review of Books, it’s a very funny book—endearingly so. The author is unaware that she’s landed in a literary nest—Alan Bennett is a neighbour and friend of her employer, Jonathon Miller, Claire Tomalin and Michael Frayn all live down the street. She’s very fond of her two charges, and wonderfully unimpressed by the milieu she finds herself in. Revealing as it is, this is not a voyeuristic book, and every person in it resonates with good humour, even the ‘mardy’ ones. I love the way it records the author’s literary awakening—she describes the books she’s reading (she’s doing a bridging course to get into tertiary education, having left school at 14). Reading Chaucer and Hardy for the first time, and going to a Beckett play (and seeing him sitting quietly in the audience), all add to the warmth of the book. Alan Bennett seems to be at dinner most nights, contributing a salad or a rice pudding, and is as civil and amusing as one would expect. But it is Mary-Kay Wilmers and her children who really spring to life in the letters; Nina Stibbe really landed in the right family. It was also lucky for us that digital technologies were in the future in the early 1980s. A book of emails or text messages just wouldn’t have the same ring to it. Louise Pfanner AIDS: Don't Die of Prejudice by Norman Fowler ($30, PB) Norman Fowler, explores the HIV/AIDS crisis that—scandalously—continues to affect millions of people across the world, despite the fact that we now have all the necessary means to prevent it. Travelling to nine different cities, from Russia and the Ukraine to the US, Fowler shows that the problem is not limited to Africa, and that the threat often lies closer to home that we might think. Straight Expectations by Julie Bindel ($28, PB) More than four decades after the start of the gay liberation movement, in Britain lesbians and gay men can legally marry, adopt children, and enjoy the same rights and respect as heterosexuals ... or can they? In Straight Expectations, Julie Bindel, an out lesbian since 1977, tracks the changes in the gay community in the last forty years and asks whether fighting for the right to marry has achieved genuine progress, or whether the new legal rights have neutered a once-radical social movement. Unspeakable Things: Sex, Lies & Revolution by Laurie Penny ($30, PB) This is a fresh look at gender & power in the 21st century, which asks difficult questions about dissent and desire, money and masculinity, sexual violence, menial work, mental health, queer politics and the Internet. Journalist and activist Laurie Penny draws on a broad history of feminist thought and her own experience in radical subcultures in Britain and America to debate cultural phenomena from economic justice and the Occupy movement, through eating disorders and social control, to online dating and freedom of speech. 18 Now in Paperback Music at Midnight: The Life and Poetry of George Herbert by John Drury, $22.99 Out of Time: The Pleasures and Perils of Ageing by Lynne Segal, $22 Cultural Studies & Criticism Survival of the Nicest: How Altruism Made Us Human & Why it Pays to Get Along by Stefan Klein ($30, PB) The phrase 'survival of the fittest' conjures an image of the most cutthroat individuals rising to the top. But Stefan Klein argues that altruism is in fact our defining characteristic: natural selection favoured those early humans who cooperated in groups. With survival more assured, our altruistic ancestors were free to devote brainpower to developing intelligence, language, and culture—our very humanity. As Klein puts it, 'We humans became first the friendliest and then the most intelligent apes'. Using current research on genetics and the brain, economics, social psychology, behavioural & anthropological experiments, history & modern culture, his groundbreaking findings lead him to a vexing question: if we're really hard-wired to act for one another's benefit, why aren't we all getting along? Klein believes we've learned to mistrust our generous instincts because success is so often attributed to selfish ambition. In Survival of the Nicest, he invites us to rethink what it means to be the 'fittest' as he shows how caring for others can protect us from loneliness and depression, make us happier and healthier, reward us economically, and even extend our lives. A QUIET AMERICAN MASTERPIECE. Journalism Ethics for the Digital Age by Denis Muller ($30, PB) Journalism is being transformed by the digital revolution. Journalists working for media organisations are having to file & update stories across multiple platforms under increasing time pressures. Meanwhile, anyone with sufficient literacy skills & access to the internet can aspire to practise journalism, and many are doing so. Yet journalism in any form still depends for its legitimacy on the observance of ethical principles & practices. It has to maintain a commitment to telling the truth & to minimise deception & betrayal; deal with conflicts of interest; protect sources & their confidences; know how to report traumatised & vulnerable people; and know when to respect privacy. Denis Muller traces the ethics of journalism from their origins in philosophy to the new problems brought about by digital technology, with practical examples to show how these values & principles can play out in the real world. The Art of Social Theory by Richard Swedberg In the social sciences today, students are taught theory by reading and analysing the works of Karl Marx, Max Weber, and other foundational figures of the discipline. What they rarely learn, however, is how to actually theorise. In this one-of-a-kind user's manual for social theorists, Richard Swedberg explains how theorising occurs in what he calls the context of discovery, a process in which the researcher gathers preliminary data and thinks creatively about it, using tools such as metaphor, analogy, and typology. He guides readers through each step of the theorist's art, from observation and naming to concept formation and explanation. To theorise well, you also need a sound knowledge of existing social theory. Swedberg introduces readers to the most important theories and concepts, and discusses how to go about mastering them. ($43.95, HB) Kafka, Angry Poet by Pascale Casanova ($42.95, HB) Franz Kafka was one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. His writing contributed greatly to existentialism, and the term 'Kafkaesque' is now synonymous with the literature of the surreal, the complex & the illogical. His works sustained themes of violence, family conflict, bizarre & all-powerful bureaucracies, and fantastical transformations. Pascale Casanova looks past the customary analyses of Kafka’s work & dives deep into his mind, examining his motives rather than the results. The hypothesis she develops is that Kafka began with an awareness of the tragic fate of the German-speaking Jews of early 20th century Prague & was subsequently led to reflect on other forms of power, such as male dominance and colonial oppression. Through her detailed research, Casanova shows us a combative Kafka who is at once ethnologist & investigator, unstintingly denouncing all forms of domination with the kind of tireless rage that was his hallmark. Stop the Presses! by Ben Hills ($40, HB) A decade ago Fairfax Media was a hugely powerful institution staffed by gun reporters, funded by its 'rivers of gold', offering up high quality, fearless journalism. Since then, it has become a car wreck in slow motion. How did it come to this? Ben Hills exposes the characters who took Fairfax to the brink of destruction—the dynastic princes, the acolytes, the self-interested, the would-be owners waiting in the wings. More than just another Fairfax book, Stop the Presses tackles vital issues around the death of independent media & the rise of the Internet age & asks what the price will ultimately be for democracy itself. 'Yet more lurid Crime thrillers...' sighs the Editor. Indeed. I cannot hope to join the esteemed reading ranks of some of my Crime Fiction Connoisseur Colleagues at Gleebooks. For example, I happen to believe that Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories are the pinnacle of 19th century crime literature, while Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer novels are (probably) those of the 20th! Dissenting letters/emails to the Editor, please. However, I must confess I find the content and wonderful cover artwork of these three selections very entertaining. Here they are to enjoy in front of the fire during the winter months. Poirot Investigates: Eleven Exciting Cases by Agatha Christie. 1955 Paperback reissue of original 1924 edition. Good condition. $10.00. Early Inspector Poirot cases, short, easy to read and quickly solved. The venerable Inspector Japp of Scotland Yard makes his first appearance in The Adventure of the Cheap Flat. Also very enjoyable is The Disappearance of Mr. Dagenham—to win a wager with Inspector Japp, Poirot has to solve the case without leaving his apartment. 100 Ideas That Changed the Web by Jim Boulton This book looks at the history of the Web from its early roots in the research projects of the US government to the interactive online world we know & use today. Fully illustrated with images of early computing equipment & the inside story of the online worlds movers & shakers, the book explains the origins of the Web's key technologies, such as hypertext & mark-up language, the social ideas that underlie its networks, such as open source & creative commons, and key moments in its development, such as the movement to broadband & the Dotcom Crash. Later ideas look at the origins of social networking & the latest developments on the Web, such as The Cloud and the Semantic Web—providing an informed and fascinating illustrated history of our most used and fastest-developing technology. ($29.99, PB) s d d w n n a o 2 H R The Quickness of the Hand by James Mayo. 1959 Paperback reissue of original 1952 edition. Good condition, $10.00. James Mayo was/is the pen name for the industrious Stephen Coulter, who also did service as an international journalist, while writing some 20 thrillers between 1952 and 1988. A friend of Ian Fleming, five of Coulter's novels featured his James Bond clone, Charles Hood—art collector and spy. I don't know if The Quickness of the Hand is 'the best thriller since Brighton Rock' as the cover claims, but since it involves the murky London underworld of the early 1950s, a man framed for murder trying to keep one step ahead of the police and a femme fatale who favours narcotics and ping pong balls, it satisfies on its own entertainingly lurid level. A COMEDIC ROMP IN THE TRADITION OF Voltaire. /randomhouseau Poetry There’s so much more at randomhouse.com.au Learning to Make an Oud in Nazareth by Ruth Padel The common ground of this rich and moving collection is shared by Judaism, Christianity and Islam, the three Abrahamic faiths. It is a vision of human life as pilgrimage and struggle but also as music, and creativity. An oud, central instrument of Middle Eastern music and ancestor of the western guitar, is made and broken. An ancient synagogue survives attacks of arson, a Palestinian boy in a West Bank refugee camp learns capoeira, Iranian ministers celebrate their plutonium enrichment by dancing on Bahrain TV and a guide shows us Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity during a siege. (35, PB) Testament by Robert Crawford (33, PB) Robert Crawford's 7th collection opens with a sequence of love poems, and closes with Testament, a startlingly fresh gathering of deftly rhymed paraphrases based on the New Testament. Whether making versions of Cavafy or elegising fellow poet Mick Imlah, writing how a father hands on a piece of marble to his son, or a sustained engagement with the politics of Scottish independence, Crawford shows how poetry can communicate from generation to generation aspects of what makes us most vulnerably and engagingly human. Open Verdict by Richard Keverne. 1954 Paperback reissue of original 1940 edition. Good condition. $10.00. Yet another British author who chose a pseudonym to write thrillers. Richard Keverne was the pen name for schoolmaster Richard Hoskins (1882–1950). He is not to be confused with the current criminologist author of the same name who is an expert in African ritual murder(!) Our (presumably) mildmannered schoolmaster wrote some 23 thrillers between 1926 and 1944, many featuring his creations Inspectors Mace and Artifex. In Open Verdict young Philip Harborough pays a tiresome visit to coastal Suffolk for an evening with family 'black sheep', Uncle Alban. After being treated to an atrocious dinner and much familial discourtesy, he returns to London early next morning. A few hours later he learns Uncle Alban has been murdered. Philip Harborough is now sole heir to his uncle's property. He is also the last known person to have seen the old reprobate alive. Now read on.... Stephen Reid Final Theory by Bonny Cassidy (24, PB) This is a long poem told in episodes, combining two fragmentary story lines—the one following a couple as they travel through landscapes which are at different times pristine & ravaged by progress; the other portraying the sensations of a child tumbling through the ocean, encountering evidence of lost worlds. Researched & composed in countries that were once part of the ancient supercontinent Gondwana—New Zealand, Australia & Antarctica—Bonny Cassidy's poems places its figures within vast scales of time & space. The focus on two generations, the near-future and the far-off future, raises questions about the development of consciousness, and what place we as humans have in the unfinished process of chance and change. Poems 1957–2013 by Geoffrey Lehmann (29.99, PB) This substantial volume, Poems 1957–2013, contains all of the poetry written by Geoffrey Lehmann considered by the poet to be worthy of inclusion. He has taken the prerogative of the mature artist looking back to revise poems, sometimes substantially, and to restore lines and passages he had removed from earlier versions. Displaying the breadth and depth of his poetry, Lehmann explores human nature in settings as diverse as ancient Rome and rural New South Wales, from searing satire to the domestic life of a family. The collection is divided into five sections: Simple Sonnets (1958–2011); Earlier Poems; Nero’s Poems (1970–2002); Spring Forest (1970–2010); and Later Poems (1976–2013). Poets of the Great War $24.95 each, HB Robert Graves; Edward Thomas; Rupert Brooke; David Jones; Siegfried Sasson Collected Poems by Lesbia Harford (29.99, PB) Lesbia Harford (1891–1927) has occupied only a small place in Australian literary history—yet when she died, at 36, she left behind 3 notebooks containing some of the finest lyric poems ever written in Australia. Harford’s writing looks both forwards and backwards, blending Pre-Raphaelite influences and plain-speaking with unusual subtlety. At the same time, Harford was bound inextricably to the period in which she lived: war in Europe, changing attitudes to religion, the suffrage movement, and widespread social upheaval all helped make her one of the first truly modern, urban figures in Australian poetry. New Angus & Robertson Classics collections, $14.99 each Banjo Paterson; Henry Lawson; Kenneth Slessor 19 20 JULY 1944 A RETROSPECTIVE I wrote about the attempted assassination of Adolf Hitler by a group of army officers led by Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg ten years ago, following the release of a well received German film on the subject (Jo Baier's Stauffenberg). With the 70th anniversary of this momentous event and the passing of the last of the participants, Nina von Stauffenberg (1913–2006)—wife of Claus and army officers Philipp von Boselager (1917–2008) and Ewald von Kleist-Schmenzin (1922–2013), I thought a second look at the event and the literature that has appeared within the last decade was worthwhile. The events of 20 July 1944 are a defining moment in German history. An occasion when men and women sacrificed their lives in order to assert the values of civilisation and humanity against a regime of evil and mass murder. Peter Hoffman's Stauffenberg: A Family History remains the standard biography of the three Stauffenberg brothers: Claus (1907– 1944), Berthold (1905–1944) and Alexander (1905–1963). Born into substantial privilege, both Claus and Berthold pursued military careers and initially supported the Nazi regime. However, by 1943 both had become disillusioned and Claus joined a disparate group of conspirators—churchman, diplomats, civilians and military figures—committed to the overthrow of Hitler and securing peace terms with the Allies. Stauffenberg was by now a battle-scarred veteran having lost his left eye, right hand and two fingers on his left hand. The Allied landings at Normandy in June 1944 finally convinced a number of senior army officers the war was lost and led them to initiate 'Operation Valkyrie'. This was a preplanned military coup in Berlin, which would commence with the physical murder of Hitler at his headquarters, the Wolf's Lair near Rastenburg, East Prussia. After an abortive attempt on 15 July, Stauffenberg flew to Rastenburg five days later and planted a bomb in the conference room that detonated at 12.40pm. Although four others were killed and 12 critically wounded, Hitler survived the explosion with only minor injuries. The coup might still have succeeded had the conspirators in Berlin acted swiftly. Instead, having no clear confirmation of Hitler's death, they waited for Stauffenberg's return to Berlin over three hours later, before issuing the orders for a military takeover of the capital. Once it was announced that Hitler was still alive, the plot collapsed. That same evening, Stauffenberg and three fellow conspirators, General Olbricht, Colonel Mertz von Quirnheim and Lieutenant von Haeften were shot in the courtyard of Army Headquarters in Berlin. Nazi reprisals were swift and savage. The most prominent conspirators, 200 individuals, including two field marshals, 19 generals, 26 colonels, two ambassadors, seven diplomats and the head of the Reich Police, were initially executed following filmed 'show trials' at the People's Court. Among them, was Berthold von Stauffenberg on 10.8.1944. In the last decade, a number of new historical studies have appeared in both English and German detailing aspects of these dramatics events. Many of these titles were published to complement the Bryan Singer's big budget film, Valkyrie (2008). Tom Cruise portrayed Claus Stauffenberg, backed by an imposing array of British and European actors. The current best single volume, a very readable narrative of events, is Nigel Jones' Countdown to Valkyrie: The July Plot to Assassinate Hitler (2008—$59.95, HB). Also important is Hans Gisevius' Valkyrie: An Insider's Account (2008—$23.99, PB). Gisevius (1904-1974) was one of the earliest and most active plotters. He used his position in military intelligence to further the anti-Nazi conspiracy. Gisevius escaped to Switzerland in 1945 and was later a prosecution witness at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials. This book is an abridgement of his original work To The Bitter End (1947). Although often self-serving and opinionated, he had no liking for Stauffenberg, his book is valuable as an eyewitness account of the fateful day. The attempted coup was the last of at least 20 known assassination attempts against Adolf Hitler. That there was substantial and heroic resistance to the Nazi regime at all levels of German society is shown in two works: The History of the German Resistance 1933–1945 by Peter Hoffmann (1996—$90, PB) is, despite its age, still the most comprehensive work on the subject. Hoffmann has now supplemented it with a documentary collection (the first of two planned volumes) that reveals the range of dissent within the Third Reich. Behind Valkyrie: German Resistance to Hitler—Documents (2011—$77, PB) collects letters, documents and testimonies of those Germans who fought Hitler from within. Many of these sources are translated in English for the first time. Hoffmann assembles the words of citizens protesting the National Socialist's dismantling of the first democratic German republic, socialists and conservatives arguing for civil liberties, and dissatisfied senior military officers'. The collection begins with Lutheran Pastor Dietrich Bonheoffer's Attack Upon Hitler's Leader Concept (February 1933) and concludes with Field Marshall Erwin Rommel's Military Report on the Normandy Front, dated 15 July 1944, which confronts Hitler with an ultimatum: 'The situation is approaching a severe crisis. The troops are fighting heroically, but the uneven struggle is nearing its end...it is necessary to draw conclusions from this situation...I feel myself duty bound to speak plainly on this point'. Once Hitler's favoured military commander, Rommel was by now prepared to collaborate with the conspirators who planned the uprising of 20 July. That day may have ended quite differently had Rommel not been severely wounded on 17 July. One other work must be mentioned as regards ordinary German resistance. Fiction based on fact. The German novelist Rudolph Ditzen (1893–1947) wrote under the pen name Hans Fallada. He is most famous for Little Man, What Now?(1932). His last novel, completed just before his death, Every Man Dies Alone (published as Alone in Berlin in 2009, $26.99, PB) was inspired by a Gestapo file given to Fallada by a friend shortly after the war. It recorded the case of Otto and Elise Hampel, a working-class couple who, after Elise's brother was killed in action in 1941, undertook a campaign of civil disobedience by leaving hundreds of postcards calling for industrial sabotage and Hitler's overthrow 20 in public places all over Berlin. So thorough were their efforts that the Gestapo believed they were dealing with a large, sophisticated resistance movement. The couple were eventually informed upon, caught, tried, and executed in April 1943. Another important book, available in German only (translator please!), is Konstanze von Schulthess' Nina Schenk Countess von Stauffenberg (2009). A biography written by Claus and Nina's youngest child. Her mother gave birth to her in January 1945 while in Ravensbrück Concentration Camp—she was arrested under the Sippenhaft law passed after 20 July 1944. Derived from medieval Germanic law, this Kin Liability law allowed for the collective punishment of whole families of an accused—be it imprisonment or execution. Over 7,000 people were arrested by the Gestapo during the months following the attempt on Hitler's life, and nearly 5,000 were executed. Nina survived her five months imprisonment—her husband had warned her just before the coup attempt: 'The less you know, the safer you'll be! Your task is to do everything for the children.' However, wishing to know of some of her husband's resistance colleagues, she named friends and acquaintances to Claus and he simply answered 'yes' or 'no', thereby revealing at least half a dozen to her. Nina, along with the other 'Widows of the 20th July', never remarried. In August 1944 Head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, proclaimed: 'The Stauffenberg Family will be wiped out to the last member!' A colour photo in this book, of a family gathering at Nina's 90th birthday in 2003 shows her surrounded by 43 descendants. E W N Was $50 Now $24.95 The Bascombe Novels Richard Ford, HB S P E Was $32.99 Now $14.95 Cain Jose Saramago, HB C I L A Was $50 Now $19.95 S Was $45 Now $19.95 Collected Short Fiction V. S. Naipaul, HB The New Yorker Stories Ann Beattie, HB Stephen Reid Was $45 Now $17.95 The Dream of the Celt Mario Vargas Llosa, HB Language & Writing How to Write a Better Minor Thesis by Paul Gruba & Justin Zobel ($20, PB) What is expected? What should the thesis consist of? How can the whole process be made a bit easier? How to achieve the best possible result? Working within strict time limits, and under pressure right from the start, what does the student need to do to ensure that the thesis is finished? Based on decades of working with students undertaking their first piece of research ,Dr Paul Gruba and Professor Justin Zobel take novice researchers through the process of completing a minor thesis from initial steps to final on-time submission. Was $39.95 Now $19.95 The Berlin Ghetto: Herbert Baum and the Anti-fascist Resistance Eric Brothers, HB Was $40 Now $17.95 Jealousy: The Other Life of Catherine M Catherine Millet, HB Was $24 Now $11.95 Now $19.95 Now $49.95 The Wrinkle in Time Quintet Madeleine L'Engle, HB Netherland Joseph O'Neill, PB Was $50 Was $170 Was $24.95 Now $13.95 Was $60 Now $24.95 Constantine: Unconquered Description de l'Egypte: Emperor, Christian Victor Napoleon's Expedition & the RePaul Stephenson, PB discovery of Ancient Egypt Franco Serino, HB Why Socrates Died: Dispelling the Myths Robin Waterfield, HB Everyone Can Write by Howard Gelman This is a practical book that is accessible to everyone from a business executive wanting to polish her reports to a retiree wanting to chronicle his family history. The book outlines the three forms of non-fiction writing: report, narrative and essay. Each one is dissected and a set of rules applied to each structure. The rules are easily put into practice and vary for each structure. Howard Gelman has also developed a foolproof method of structuring your writing based on the threestep formula: Pre-write, Free-write, Re-write—research, write, edit—getting writers to become the editors of their own writing, thereby dramatically improving its quality. ($20, PB) Wrestling with Words and Meanings: Essays in Honour of Keith Allan by Kate Burridge & Reka Benczes ($39.95, PB) This book honours the life & career of Professor Allan on the occasion of his 70th birthday. It brings together top-level researchers in linguistics—colleagues, collaborators & former students, who have all been inspired by Keith’s work in some way. These contributions are organised into the three main themes that run through Allan’s multifaceted and multifarious research: word meaning; pragmatics and discourse; and semantic theory & philosophy of language. The volume offers glimpses into corpus linguistics, cognitive linguistics & cultural linguistics, as well as the more traditional descriptive, diachronic & typological perspectives. Also new this month: Writers' and Artists' Yearbook 2015, $39.99 Was $19.99 Now $10.95 Was $22.99 Now $12.95 Was $45 Now $19.95 The Great Silence: Britain The Great Philosophers: The from the Shadow of the First Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Lives and Ideas of History's Worms: The Story of the Animals World War to the Dawn of Greatest Thinkers the Jazz Age & Plants That Time Has Left Behind Stephen Law, PB Juliet Nicolson, HB Richard Fortey, PB Was $49.95 Now $24.95 Be a Nose! Art Spiegelman, HB Was $40 Now $19.95 Middle Eastern Cooking Tess Mallos, HB Was $40 Now $18.95 Who Put the Beef in Wellington? 50 Culinary Classics James Winter, HB Was $56 Now $24.95 Diamonds, Gold, and War: The British, the Boers, and the Making of South Africa Martin Meredith, HB Was $24.95 Now $14.95 Magnum Landscape, PB 21 Craftivism: The Art of Craft and Activism by Betsy Greer ($33, PB) This is a provocative anthology of essays, interviews and photographs on the art-making phenomenon known as craftivism, the intersection where craft and activism meet. This book profiles craftivists from around the world (including Australia), and how they use their craft to create a greater good. Through their own words, stories, and experiences, these crafters provide a unique road map on how to live a more creatively fulfilling life that also helps others in the process. Expressionism in Germany and France: From Van Gogh to Kandinsky ($110, HB) Although the Expressionist movement is widely considered to have arisen out of a German aesthetic, it was actually as much a result of German artists' exposure to artists living & working in France, such as van Gogh, Seurat, Gauguin, Cézanne, Matisse, Picasso & Braque. In fact, in its early days, Expressionism was assigned no specific nationality at all. This ground-breaking examination of the cultural exchange between early 20th century French & German artists illuminates new ways of understanding the development of Expressionism. With more than 100 paintings and works on paper, the book focuses on the key exhibitions, galleries, & museum directors that helped disseminate styles & techniques of revolutionary French artists throughout Germany. Philographics: Big Ideas in Simple Shapes by Genis Carreras ($42, PB) Philographics is all about explaining big ideas in simple shapes, merging the world of philosophy and graphic design. Here are ninety-five designs, each depicting a different '-ism' using a unique combination of geometric shapes, colours, and a short definition of the theory. 'It takes the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 28,250 words to explain the woolly concept of relativism. It takes Genis Carreras 32 words and a single image. If you ask me, he doesn't even need the text'.—Co.Design. Pain in the Arts by John Tusa ($55.95, HB) Over a distinguished career in cultural leadership, management & journalism spanning almost 30 years, John Tusa has amassed a unique experience of the arts world, the political controversies it faces & the battles it continues to fight. His new book is a passionate defence of the performing & visual arts at a time of increasing 'Pain in the Arts', addressing the controversies in the arts that must be resolved so urgently today, including the everflowing arguments on whether they should be useful before they are excellent. He gives guidance on how the arts can survive in the downturn, explains why the case must always be made that they deserve special treatment and writes an excoriating critique of the language of Whitehall bureaucracy, showing how crucial to Britain's health & wealth are the small regional arts projects alongside the big arts institutions like the Barbican or National Theatre. DVDs: New Releases The Railway Man: Dir. Jonathan Teplitzky While serving in WW2, British Army officer Eric Lomax (Jeremy Irvine) is captured & held prisoner by the Japanese. He is brutally tortured & forced, along with his fellow captives, to build the Thai-Burma Railway. Many years later an older Lomax (Firth) is still traumatised by the experience. Supported by his wife Patti (Nicole Kidman) and friend Finlay (Stellan Skarsgård), he decides to track down one of his torturers, Takashi Nagase (Hiroyuki Sanada), hoping to find the answers that will enable him to finally let go of the hatred he has held for so long. ($29.95, Region 2) Morden: The Fjällbacka Murders Series 1 ($42.95) This is a crime series based on Swedish novelist (and recent guest of the Sydney Writers' Festival), Camilla Läckberg's series featuring detective writer Erica Falck and her police inspector husband Patrik Hedström, solving cold case crimes that float up to the surface in the idyllic fishing village of Fjällbacka. Episodes include: The Sea Gives, The Sea Takes Away, The Coast Rider, Queen Of Light, Friends For Life, In The Eye Of The Beholder. The set includes the feature film: The Hidden Child. Oh Boy: Dir. Jan Ole Gerster ($32.95) Winner of 6 German Film Awards, including best Film, Best Director and Best Actor. Niko is in his late 20s and recently dropped out of college. He lives for the moment, drifting through the streets of Berlin, observing the people around him with curiosity as they manage their daily lives, oblivious to his own growing status as an outsider. One day everything changes, and Niko is forced to confront the consequences of his inaction, when his girlfriend dumps him and his father cuts off his allowance. 22 The Arts Blow-Up: Antonioni's Classic Film and Photography (eds) Moser & Schröder Michelangelo Antonioni's 1966 cult film Blow-Up revolves around the issue of how much truth exists in perception and delves into the ways in which media reproductions can be manipulated. This book examines the film from a photographic perspective, investigating in detail the photographic and art-historical stances presented, as well as the genres it represents. The stylistic devices discussed range from social reportage, fashion photography and Pop art to abstract photography. In addition to film stills, works that can be seen in Blow-Up & photographs that illuminate the cultural context of the film, the famous, ambivalently incriminating photos are also included ($89.50, PB) Gerhard Richter: Editions 1965—2013 ($145, HB) Gerhard Richter (born 1932) fled from East to West Germany in 1961 and studied in Düsseldorf. In his new catalogue raisonné Hubertus Butin presents all of the prints, photography editions, artist’s books, multiples (objects), and painting editions from 1965 to 2013. Informative essays and numerous illustrations demonstrate how the editions (all of the artist’s original works of art that have been produced in multiple) are an independent, major part of Richter’s oeuvre, offering the artist an opportunity to reach a larger audience while simultaneously exploring creative possibilities in diverse and experimental ways. Deborah Grant—Christ You Know it Ain't Easy!! For the past decade, Deborah Grant has interwoven historical accounts and personal experiences with references to contemporary political issues in her ongoing series Random Select. Grant culls material from a variety of sources including magazine photographs, comic books, published texts and art historical reference books to create highly personal, nonlinear narratives that investigate politics, race and cultural identity. This book combines painting, drawing & collage to recount the fictional meeting between African-American folk artist Mary A. Bell & modernist painter Henri Matisse. ($29, PB) Bleak Houses: Disappointment & Failure in Architecture by Timothy Brittain-Catlin ($39.95, PB) The usual history of architecture is a grand narrative of soaring monuments and heroic makers. But it is also a false narrative in many ways, rarely acknowledging the personal failures and disappointments of architects. In Bleak Houses, Timothy Brittain-Catlin investigates the underside of architecture, the stories of losers and unfulfilment often ignored by an architectural criticism that values novelty, fame, and virility over fallibility and rejection. Brittain-Catlin suggests, critics could learn something from novelists about how to write about buildings. Alan Hollinghurst in The Stranger's Child, for example, and Elizabeth Bowen in Eva Trout vividly evoke memorable houses. Thinking like novelists, critics would see what architectural losers offer: episodic, sentimental ways of looking at buildings that relate to our own experience, lessons learned from bad examples that could make buildings better. Winton’s Paw Prints The thing I love about graphic fiction, memoir and journalism is that you can read and reread and re-reread, and there will always be some detail in the accompanying artwork that you missed in your first run-through—pictures or a style you can reserve for a more leisurely investigation once you've reached the narrative's denouement. The best of the graphic genre operates at both the level of art and text, and all of my favourite writer/artists have a very personal and particular way with words. It's one that they've honed to a razor sharp edge by years of getting as much as can be wrung out of print in the space allowed by speech bubbles and scene setters. Whether a humorous or devastating point is needed, they can make it with a precision and brevity that you could only wish a lot of novelists would strive for. But added to their marvellous ability at word-play is their idiosyncratic art. My case in point this month is New Yorker staff cartoonist Roz Chast's recent graphic memoir, Can't we talk about something more PLEASANT? Chast refers to her drawing as 'like handwriting', and her subject matter thrives on a sort of anxious, insecure world full of fury and failure overseen by a 'conspiracy of inanimate objects' (an expression she attributes to her mother). Rather than a collection of her cartoons, this latest book is a memoir about her nonagenarian parents' ride on 'the moving sidewalk of life' to the 'Caution: drop off ahead' point. Chast's jittery (but on closer inspection, really quite firm) line perfectly describes the horror of watching one's mother and father slip oh so slowly (and expensively) into that dark night. But the breath-taking surprise given by the portraits of her mother on her dying bed and in death that tie up this 'drop off' is something only a graphic memoir could achieve. The fact that this is a mother with whom Chast is quite aware that (and perfectly resigned to) there was never any chance of an 'in this life' resolution give these inked drawings both a loving poignancy and a fierce disinterest. This is not a self-help book, nor is it a 'mis-mem'. Roz was the only child of tenement children of escapees from Russia (honestly the grandparents' horror stories warrant another book). Her parents were born within ten days of each other, grew up two blocks apart, and 'never dated, much less anything else'd anyone besides each other'. 'Codependent? Of course we're codependent!' says mom. 'Thank God!!!', says dad. Her 'chain-worrier' ex-language teacher father George is slipping into senility, and Elisabeth, her fearsomely perfectionist retired vice-principal mother, has given up on dusting when, after a 10 year hiatus, Roz decides that it's time she makes the trip back to the hated Brooklyn of her youth to check up on her parents. This is not the Brooklyn of hipsters and artists, but the Brooklyn of smelly hallways and neighbours having screaming fights and where no-one went to Manhattan—'the city'—unless it was for the job at Drudgery Inc. Chast's journey into the deeply ingrained grime of unchecked old age is as much about planning for one's own demise as the witnessing of one's parents'. Cast off your graphic prejudices and give this book a chance. Winton ABN 87 000 357 317 Hockney: Printmaker by Richard Lloyd Over 6 decades David Hockney has created graphic works of great wit, beauty & intellectual complexity. This book features over 150 works, from etchings executed at the Royal College of Art in the 1960s, to experiments with printed computer drawings some 50 years later, via portraits, pools, poetry, Xeroxes & investigations into multi-point perspective. Written by Richard Lloyd, head of prints at Christies, with contributions from Hockney's friends & associates, the book explores the many achievements of Britain's greatest living practitioner of the graphic arts. ($55, PB) All Is Lost: Dir. J. C. Chandor ($29.95, Region 2) Deep into a solo voyage in the Indian Ocean, an unnamed man (Robert Redford) wakes to find his 39-foot yacht taking on water after a collision with a shipping container left floating on the high seas. With his navigation equipment & radio disabled, the man sails unknowingly into the path of a violent storm. After barely surviving the storm he is forced to rely on ocean currents to carry him into a shipping lane in the hope of hailing a passing vessel. But with the sun unrelenting, sharks circling & his supplies dwindling, the everresourceful sailor soon finds himself staring his mortality in the face. Andrew: Like many customers and staff, I rushed to Andrew Solomon's Far from the Tree after his bravura sessions at this year's Sydney Writers' Festival, to read his wonderful examination of the transformative role that children of 'difference' have in the lives of their parents. (It is slightly disconcerting when several colleagues suggest I, in particular, should read his book—just how 'different' a child do I present as, I wonder? Fantastic and absorbing stuff!). Solomon's work also has brought a greater piquancy to the novel I am currently reading— Family Life by Akhil Sharma. I was persuaded to read this novel last year when David Sedaris at the Sydney Opera House was asked which books had recently impressed him, and he nominated it as the most moving book he had read in a long time. It is indeed that. A searing and darkly humorous depiction of the life of a Delhi couple who move to New York in the 1970s and whose lives are turned upside down when their eldest son dives into a swimming pool and hits his head. A work of 'palliative poetics' is what the Guardian called it, narrated by the younger son—and not without his own Sedaris-esque dark humour. It is well worth a go as another facet of how families surprise themselves. ORDER FORM PO Box 486, Glebe NSW 2037 Ph: (02) 9660 2333 Fax (02) 9660 3597 Email: [email protected] Prices in the gleaner are GST inclusive and enjoy all the benefits: Join the 10% redeemable credit on all purchases, free entry to Gleebooks literary evenings held at #49, the Gleaner sent free of charge, free postage within Australia, invitations to special shopping evenings, & gleeclub special offers. Annual membership is $30.00, 3-year membership is $75.00. Membership to the gleeclub is also a great gift; contact us & we’ll arrange it for you. Please supply the following books: Please note that publication dates of new releases may vary. We will notify you regarding any delays. Total (inc. freight) $ Payment type attached Or charge my: BC VISA MC Card No. Expiry Date Name AMEX 3%surcharge on Amex Signature Gleeclub Number Address Renoir: Dir. Gilles Bourdos ($19.95) Set on the French Riviera in the summer of 1915, Gilles Bourdos' lushly atmospheric drama tells the story of celebrated Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, in declining health at age 74, and his middle son Jean, who returns home to recover after being wounded in World War I. The elder Renoir is filled with a new, wholly unexpected energy when a young girl miraculously enters his world. Blazing with life, the radiantly beautiful Andrée will become his last model, and the wellspring of a remarkable rejuvenation. At the same time, Jean also falls under the spell of the free-spirited young Andrée. Their beautiful home and majestic countryside grounds reverberate with familial intrigue, as both Renoirs become smitten with the enchanting and headstrong young muse. what we're reading Viki: I recently read a review of Charles Palliser's new book Rustication and, interest tweaked, decided it was time to hit that dauntingly hefty tome, his first and finest novel, The Quincunx. What a ride! I haven't been immersed in a story so thoroughly for a long time. Palliser is really on top of the Victorian form. With just the slightest of modern flavouring regarding political and social issues, and way less flannel and doll women, he takes Dickens up and sends you on a runaway page-turning frenzy of purloined last testaments, gordian-knotted chancery suits, murder most foul, precipitous falls into poverty, prostitution, madness and the potter's field—villainous betrayal at every turn. The language is pitch perfect, and Palliser's exemplary research is accompanied by family trees and maps and puzzles involving heraldry and the eponymous quincunx (I had to look it up). It was all I could do to stop myself turning back to the beginning and starting again when the last page with its satisfyingly ambiguous ending was turned. Instead, I ripped through Rustication—not quite as fine, but still a grabber. I now have all his other novels on order and they should fill the Hilary Mantel void until her final Cromwell novel, The Mirror and the Light, hits the stands. John: Nombeko Mayek is a very intelligent young girl who works for the sanitation department in Soweto. She cheats her destiny—to die young, finds great wealth, becomes a prisoner in South Africa's secret nuclear facility and, with the unwilling help of a couple of Mossad agents, ends up in Sweden with a nuclear bomb. Engaging from the first page, The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden is a great second novel from Jonas Jonasson. Too often second novels are a disappointment, especially when following a critically acclaimed best selling debut. Fortunately The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden does not suffer from this syndrome. It well deserves to emulate the success of The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared. City/Suburb Gleeclub membership: 3 years $75.00 1 year Postage (for rates see below) $ TOTAL $ $30.00 Ph: ( ) PostCode Fax: ( ) Email: Thankyou for your order. Delivery charges: Gleeclub members: Free postage within Australia. Non-Gleeclub members: Within Australia be $6.50 for 1-5 books, and free postage for 5 books and over. Up to 250g eg. 1 DVD or a small book, $5.00. For express, courier & international rates please apply. 23 Editor & desktop publisher Viki Dun [email protected] Printed by MPD Printing The News Every Day gleaner is a publication of Gleebooks Pty. Ltd. 49 & 191 Glebe Point Rd, (P.O. Box 486 Glebe NSW 2037 Ph: (02) 9660 2333 Fax: (02) 9660 3597 [email protected] Print Post Approved 100002224 POSTAGE PAID AUSTRALIA The gleebooks gleaner is published monthly from February to November with contributions by staff, invited readers & writers. ISSSN: 1325 - 9288 Feedback & book reviews are welcome Registered by Australia Post Print Post Approved Bestsellers Non-fiction 1. Far From the Tree: Parents, Children & the Search For Identity Andrew Solomon 2. Zealot: The Life & Times of Jesus of Nazareth Reza Aslan 3. Australian Notebooks Betty Churcher 4. Dear Leader Jang Jin-Sung 5. Dirty Secrets: Our ASIO Files (ed) Meredith Burgmann 6. The Fictional Woman Tara Moss 7. Cushion in the Road, The: Meditation & Wandering As the Whole World Awakens to Being in Harm's Way Alice Walker 8. Peas & Queues: The Minefield of Modern Manners Sandi Toksvig 9. Little Failure: A Memoir Gary Shteyngart 10. My Promised Land: The Triumph & Tragedy of Israel Ari Shavit Bestsellers Fiction 1. The Orphan Master's Son Adam Johnson 2. The Sex Lives of Siamese Twins Irvine Welsh 3. The Valley of Amazement 4. Frog Music Amy Tan Emma Donoghue 5. The Luminaries Eleanor Catton 6. The Narrow Road to the Deep North 7. May We Be Forgiven 8. Burial Rites 9. Only the Animals 10. The Swan Book 24 Richard Flanagan A M Homes Hannah Kent ....... and another thing The winter sale has rolled around again, and I strongly advise blocking off an afternoon somewhere between the 19th of July (preview for Gleeclubbers on the evening of Friday 18th of course) and August 3rd—there will be bargain priced books from every department to add to your collection including, as always, a heap of childrens books. I've just received a reading copy of the 10th anniversary edition of Andrew Stafford's 'kick-arse' music and political history of Brisbane, Pig City: From the Saints to Savage Garden (thank you UQP), and am thoroughly enjoying it. Stafford hasn't substantially revised his original text—as he says in the new introduction: 'The story of the Bjelke-Petersen government, and the strange intersection of art and politics in Queensland, is an enduring tale, and a cautionary one, too: of how easily and quickly a liberal democracy can decay into a quasi-fascist state...' And, as with all well-told social histories, I'm a couple of chapters in and already have a related list of Brisbane reading, both fiction and non, to follow up on. On a related subject, Stephen Mills' book on page 14 about the history of political campaigning in Australia is something I'm very interested in—and he'll be at Gleebooks on the 15th to talk about it. Between Two Homelands: Letters across the Borders of Nazi Germany on page 15 sounds like a fascinating epistolary history of living in Germany and Holland under the Nazis, and Serhii Plokhy's account of the 'Final Days of the Soviet Union' will, I think, be equally eye-opening. For relaxation in between I'll pick up the 'Jane Austen Project'. As Janice suggests on page 6, it's time to investigate Joanna Trollope's and Val McDermid's modern takes on Sense and Sensibility and Northanger Abbey. Which most certainly will send me back to the originals—it's been a while since I re-read Jane. Viki ases go to: For more July new rele Ceridwen Dovey Alexis Wright Main shop—49 Glebe Pt Rd; Ph: (02) 9660 2333, Fax: (02) 9660 3597. Open 7 days, 9am to 9pm Thur–Sat; 9am to 7pm Sun–Wed Gleebooks 2nd Hand—189 Glebe Pt Rd; Ph: (02) 9552 2526. Open 7 days, 10am to 7pm 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 Dulwich Hill—536 Marrickville Rd Dulwich Hill; Ph: (02) 8080 0098. Open 7 days, 9am to 7pm, Sunday 9 to 5 www.gleebooks.com.au. Email: [email protected], [email protected]