Readings.com.au: All posts

Tim Winton event postmortem

2008-05-16T00:00:00Z

More than 800 people packed into the Athenaeum Theatre in Melbourne last night to hear one of Australia's greatest writers, Tim Winton, talk about his latest novel Breath.

Readings brought Tim's entire back catalogue with them to the event and its made for quite a sight spread out over a few tables. Oh and Readings staff always like to pose.

Mark Rubbo, Managing Director of Readings, began proceedings by introducing the West Australian writer.

And before long Tim took to the stage.

Where he spoke about the genesis of Breath, the as-yet unfinished book he dropped in favour of writing Breath and life as Tim Winton the writer.

And all three tiers of the theatre listened to an hour or so as Tim spoke and read passages from his new book, before taking questions from the audience.

And to finish an evening with Tim Winton off there was the post-match signings.

This week

2008-05-15T00:00:00Z

Dr Paul Willis from ABC TV's Catalyst program launching Feathered Dinosaurs.

It's been another big week at Carlton. On Thursday night, sharp-tongued wit Judith Lucy drew in a big crowd, including many local comedians, to talk about family love and madness and her new autobiography, The Lucy Family Alphabet.

We had a big weekend for the mums and also the kids: Elizabeth Honey and Sue Johnson story-telling and singing from their new picture book/CD collaboration, I'm Still Awake, Still.

At our monthly AIIA event, President John McKay discussed the compelling book The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East by Kishore Mahbubani and on Tuesday palaeontologist John Long launched his new book Feathered Dinosaurs; you must see the amazing illustrations by Peter Schouten.

Last night Jason Steger, the Age Literary Editor, spoke with Andrew Reimer about A Family History of Smoking, Andrew's absorbing and funny memoir about two Jewish families living through the last gasps of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

I hope you managed to get a ticket to our sell-out event with Tim Winton at the Athenaeum tonight. See you there.

Three Dog Night ticket giveaway

2008-05-13T00:00:00Z

Two Blue Cherries will be presenting its debut show Three Dog Night from May 15 at fortyfivedownstairs on Flinders Lane. It's a stunning collaboration between award-winning novelist Peter Goldsworthy and hot new talent, actor/writer Petra Kalive.

Based on the award-winning Peter Goldsworthy novel of the same name, Three Dog Night, questions the philosophical challenge of learning how to die and Australia’s conflicted multi-culture. With a stellar cast, Tim Stitz (Asylum – La Mama 2007), Phil McInnes (OT - Malthouse 2006) and Petra Kalive (Underbelly) and under the expert direction of Andrew Gray (The Winterling - Red Stitch 2007), Three Dog Night promises to be the hottest piece of theatre this year.

Readings has four double passes to see Three Dog Night to giveaway. Simply email your name and contact details to Ally at Two Blue Cherries with 'Three Dog Night' in the subject line to go into the running to win.

Book tickets at www.fortyfivedownstairs.com

For more information http://www.twobluecherries.com/shows/threedognight.html

Best of the Booker shortlist announced

2008-05-12T00:00:00Z

The Best of the Booker, a one-off celebratory award to mark the 40th anniversary of the Booker Prize, has announced a shortlist of books to win the award.

The voting is now left to the public who will choose the winning title.

Pat Barker's The Ghost Road (1995)
Peter Carey's Oscar and Lucinda (1988)
JM Coetzee's Disgrace (1999)
JG Farrell's The Siege of Krishnapur (1973)
Nadine Gordimer's The Conservationist (1974)
Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children (1981)

Visit www.themanbookerprize.com for more details.

The 2008 Alfred Deakin Lectures

2008-05-12T00:00:00Z

The 2008 Alfred Deakin Lecture series brings the finest thinkers and innovators to Melbourne from throughout Australia and around the world.

Innovation Minister Gavin Jennings said at the launch of the 2008 lectures last week that “The 18 lectures run from Wednesday, 4 June, to Sunday, 15 June, in Melbourne and across regional Victoria covering legal, political, scientific and ethical issues."

“In 2008, the lecture series will take the public on a journey from the brain to body, through cities, nations and into space. The topics have been chosen because of their relevance to the issues we are facing here in Australia and elsewhere in the world.”

International speakers include Austin Williams, Director of the Future Cities Project; Professor Roger Brownsword, Director of the Centre for Technology, Law, Ethics and Society at King’s College London; Professor Barbara J Sahakian, Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology at the University of Cambridge, UK; and Ajay Royyuru, the lead scientist for IBM’s Genographic Project based in New York.

They will be joined by Australian speakers including Associate Professor John Armstrong, Philosopher in Residence at the Melbourne Business School; Dr Brian Walker, Research Fellow with CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems; Dr Jane Dixon, sociologist; Professor Paul James, Director of the Globalism Institute (RMIT); and Steve Bracks, former Premier of Victoria.

For more information visit www.deakinlectures.net

Readings is the official bookseller for the 2008 Alfred Deakin Lectures.

Readings' 40th Birthday Anthology Call Out

2008-05-08T00:00:00Z

Readings will celebrate its 40th birthday in 2009. As you may be aware, the company has grown through many changes in the bookselling industry, flourishing into the landmark Australian bookshop and an institution on the Australian literary scene.

To celebrate the milestone and to honour the company’s contribution, an anthology is to be published in early 2009. It will be a significant publication of new work by established and emerging Australian writers, and other writers who have had involvement with Readings over the last forty years, either through events, as customers or as employees.

We would love for you to be involved. It’s a great opportunity to be published in an anthology of quality Australian writing and to recognize Readings’ significance to the Australian literary scene.

We are looking for previously unpublished short fiction of up to 5000 words in length, though shorter work is preferred. The theme is open and the submission deadline is 31 May 2008. We are unable to pay for contributions, but your work will be published alongside prominent Australian writers in an anthology that will recognise your current or forthcoming publications and will have wide media exposure. All profits will go to the Brotherhood of Saint Laurence’s HIPPY child literacy fund. Click here for further information about HIPPY.

Please submit your best work on double-spaced, single-sided, numbered A4 to:

Readings Anthology
309 Lygon Street
Carlton VIC 3053

If your work is selected you will be asked to forward an electronic copy. The launch is set for early 2009 (plenty of time to get things right) so we hope to see you at the party to celebrate our 40th birthday and all things Readings.

If you have any further questions about the publication please email anthology@readings.com.au

NB: Please note that all book production positions have been filled.

Cradle to Cradle: William McDonough

2008-05-08T00:00:00Z

Reviewed by Mark Falvey

"Think before you throw: there's no such place as away" is an old BodyShop slogan that carried much weight, but for the architect McDonough and the chemist Braungart, it scarcely tips the scales.

Cradle to Cradle is a hugely informative challenge to prevailing opinion on environmental issues. I expected a series of scene-setting environmental horror stories followed by something approaching a sermon on the necessity to recycle and repair. Hmm.

If you want nightmares of toxic damnation, get a chemist to describe what happens when you walk down the street or sit in a chair. I was fairly close on that count, but my expectation of an Arts & Craft Movement speech couldn't have been more wrong.

Rather than railing against industry and commerce, Cradle to Cradle acknowledges its importance and highlights seemingly improbable cases where big business has got it right. The breadth of vision is even more encouraging than specifics of which materials to use or avoid.

The authors address and look beyond ecological-vs-economic issues and bring ethics into the equation. Want to go a little further than ethics? The often overlooked concerns of 'pleasure and delight' get a mention too.

This is not a dour prediction of a choking doom; with creative thinking and business sense 'sustainability' is simply aiming too low.

Rating: 4/5 stars

Therese Rein new Patron for the Indigenous Literacy Project

2008-05-08T00:00:00Z

The Indigenous Literacy Project (ILP) is a national book industry initiative which works in partnership with The Fred Hollows Foundation to improve literacy in remote Indigenous communities.

As the new Patron for the Indigenous Literacy Project, Therese Rein today said the project offered an opportunity for all Australians to get involved in a simple and effective community activity.

Members of the general public can participate in this important project by buying a book at one of the 400 participating bookshops. Publishers and booksellers from around Australia have pledged their support and will donate a percentage of sales on September 3 2008.

All of the funds raised will go directly to the Fred Hollows Foundation to buy books and literacy resources for indigenous communities.

The ambassadors for 2008 include Alexis Wright, Dr Anita Heiss, Geraldine Brooks, Andy Griffiths, David Malouf and Tara June Winch.

For more information visit www.worldwithoutbooks.org

Sunday is...

2008-05-08T00:00:00Z

Yes, Sunday is Mothers' Day and nothing beats the gift of a book (except maybe a book and a box of rich, dark chocolates.) There is lots of great new Australian fiction at the moment plus new biographies by Kate Jennings and Judith Lucy. My choice is the sassy new Bad Girls and Wicked Women that traces the lives of some of the most ruthless and ambitious women in history. Forget the chocolate, a full-bodied red instead, please.

The Text Young Adult Prize

2008-05-07T00:00:00Z

Text Publishing has announced a new writing prize on Australia’s literary landscape: The Text Young Adult Prize.

The prize aims to discover more wonderful new books for Young Adult readers, by Australian and New Zealand writers. Both published and unpublished writers of all ages are eligible to enter the prize with works of fiction or non-fiction. Submissions must be received by 31 July 2008.

Judged by a panel of editors from Text Publishing, the winning book will be announced on the evening of Saturday 30 August, at the Melbourne Writers’ Festival. The winner will receive a publishing contract with Text and a $10,000 advance against royalties.

The Publisher at Text, Michael Heyward, hopes this award “will unearth some brilliant new writing for teenagers, which we can take to the world as we have done for many adult writers on our list”. He launched the prize at the Children’s Book Council of Australia conference in Melbourne on 4 May.

Entry details can be downloaded from www.textpublishing.com.au

Third: Portishead

2008-05-07T00:00:00Z

Reviewed by Andrew McDonald, Readings Website Coordinator

Third is both a departure from and a reminder of that distinctive Portishead sound. Beth Gibbons’s affecting vocals retain the bleak-yet-beautiful feeling of previous Portishead albums but the accompanying noises make for a less-accessible but no-less compelling sound that owes more to the ’80s than any other decade. The band themselves acknowledged this by describing Dummy as having the sound of a crackly vinyl while Third has the wobbly sound of a VHS tape.

Third very much has the feeling of a band wanting to make ‘interesting music’, be it the marching groove of We Carry On, the ukelele sweetness of Deep Water or the piano-crashing of Magic Doors. The incessant, rhythm-driven first single Machine Gun teases us with a minimal mix of industrial percussion and soaring vocals until the final minute of the song when the synths kick in to round out one of the most intriguing comeback singles in recent memory. And the album continues on in this unpredictable manner

Third is a sparse record that sounds at first like it might spiral straight down into the dark but on repeated listens spirals round and round to reveal a collection of gloomy but intrinsically-beautiful songs.

Rating: 3/5 stars

Australia's Leading Female Writers Recommend: Mother's Day choices

2008-05-07T00:00:00Z

Emily Maguire

Every woman needs a bit more Edna St Vincent Millay in her life. I recommend the Selected Poems for a generous dose of Millay’s tough-minded, delicately phrased poems of lust, longing and grief. I'd also give a copy of Nancy Milford’s biography of Millay, Savage Beauty, which is worth reading just for the relationship between the brilliant, charismatic poet and her equally fabulous mother and sisters.

Emily Maguire’s latest book is Princesses and Pornstars.

Joan London

I love The View From Castle Rock this latest, possibly last book from the great Canadian short story writer, Alice Munro. It’s a new, inspiring form of autobiography in which she looks at her own family history and turns it into a collection of powerful, often uncanny stories.

Ex-Australian photographer Megan Lewis spent five years’ living with the Martu people in the Great Sandy Desert. The result is Conversations With The Mob, a series of photographs which stunned me with their beauty, insight and affection. By the end, without any sense of intrusion or exploitation, you are brought right close-up to a people and a landscape.

Joan London’s latest book is The Good Parents.

Cate Kennedy

I want to receive Tim Winton's new novel Breath. I wonder if he's called his book this because he knows his prose has the power to take a reader's breath away? I'm sure I'll devour this one with my usual mix of envy and wonder.

Cate Kennedy’s latest book is Dark Roots

Anne Manne

There are three books I would recommend as reading for Mother’s Day. What Mothers Do: Especially When It Looks Like Nothing is a great book for early motherhood because unlike all the Sleep Gurus and Feeding Nazis, it offers absolutely no advice! Instead the gentle and perceptive Naomi Stadlen, a psychotherapist who runs ‘Mother’s Talking’ groups in Britain, just asks; ‘What works?’ By listening to what mothers actually do, and how they discover what works, Stadlen winds up with a profoundly encouraging book.

The second is Maternal Desire: On Children, Love, and the Inner Life by Daphne De Marneffe about feminism, mothering, and the pleasure that caring for children can bring, from a very contemporary voice.

The third is Ann Crittenden’s The Price of Motherhood; why the most important job in the world is still the least valued. This accessible account shows both the important contribution mothers (in or out of the workforce) make to the shadow care economy, but also the economic disadvantages they so often suffer, and what we should do about it.

Anne Manne’s latest book is Quarterly Essay 29: Love and Money.

Toni Jordan

Mum loves Australian history, biographies and women with chutzpah—so I Am Melba by Ann Blainey is the perfect choice. She’ll love this story of the driven girl who becomes the most famous singer of her time. Mum’s also a insanely proud Queenslander, and she’ll soon be convinced that the time Melba spent in the cane-fields near Mackay were the secret to her success.

Toni Jordan is the author of Addition.

Virginia Duigan

Like me, I think my mother would have rushed out already to buy the irresistible new books by Geraldine Brooks, Helen Garner, Chris Koch and David Malouf. So rather than double up, I would give her Janet Frame’s posthumously published early novella, Towards Another Summer, written 45 years ago and, like so many first novels, rewardingly and revealingly autobiographical.

And being a long time admirer of Richard Ford I’d add The Lay of the Land, third in his Frank Bascombe trilogy – compare his take on America with that of his much younger contemporary, Jonathan Franzen.

And I just know how my mother would have loved observing Alan Bennett steer the Queen (the Her Majesty version) around the chessboard as she discovers literature in The Uncommon Reader. Her eye-popping learning curve embraces such disparate writers as Nancy Mitford and Jean Genet, and the joys of reading were never suggested with such sly and stylish humour or such inimitably subversive wisdom.

After writing a novel in which art is a central component, I would be delighted if I found in my own Mother’s Day parcel two very different books about art and artists. One is a novel: Pat Barker’s Life Class, about students at the Slade in WW1, the other a biography, Arthur Boyd: A Life, by Darleen Bungey. And to be extra greedy, I’d choose Janet Malcolm’s Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice, for the sheer fun of watching a biographer-detective in full forensic flight.

Virginia Duigan’s latest book is The Biographer.

Fiona Capp

A novel I would like (and haven't yet read) for a Mothers' Day present is Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1972. It is, I believe, about a woman artist struggling to cope with the demands of frontier life in America. Having just written a novel about a woman artist living in the Victorian goldfields, I'm keen to find out how Stegner approaches and explores a similar theme.

Fiona Capp’s latest book, Musk and Byrne.

Geraldine Brooks

‘Do you have a mother?’ For a year, this was the question that Melissa Fay Greene's adopted daughter asked every new child she met. In Addis Ababa, where she had come from, such a birthright couldn't be taken for granted. Greene's book, There Is No Me Without You: One Woman's Odyssey to Rescue her Country's Children is about what it means to be a mother in the most profound sense. Greene writes about Haregewoin, a middle class Ethiopian woman who loses her daughter to AIDs and is plunged into despair until she reluctantly agrees to shelter two of her city's thousands of AIDs orphans. Soon, infants and children of all ages began to appear on her doorstep, and an ordinary woman becomes an extraordinary champion, sheltering dozens of kids and finding adoptive families for them. Greene herself has adopted four Ethiopian children and she has much to say in this book about mothers and children and the different ways they find each other. It is by no means a sentimental book: Haregewoin is no saint, and Greene's anger at the multinational drug companies and politicians (including Al Gore) who turned their backs on the AIDs crisis gives the prose a white heat of urgency and rage.

Geraldine Brooks’s latest book is People of the Book.

Mistik Lake: Martha Brooks

2008-05-06T00:00:00Z

Reviewed by Athina Clarke, Readings Port Melbourne

Mistik Lake is a special book that demands uninterrupted devotion. It will be greedily consumed in one or two gulps; but for long after, it’s affects will be savoured. This is a beautifully told bittersweet tale filled with the warmth and love of family, the pain of abandonment and the tenderness of first love. What happened to 16-year-old Sally on the frozen Mistik Lake one night in 1981 haunted family, friends and a community for many years; secrets eroded trust and cast a veil of uncertainly over many lives. Highly recommended. This is definitely a crossover: Girls 14+ to adults will devour!

Rating: 4/5 stars

Genesis: Bernard Beckett

2008-05-06T00:00:00Z

Reviewed by Bruno Moro, Readings Malvern

It is the future. The world is not as we know it. Survivors of a devastating worldwide plague have formed a new Classical-Greek-styled and highly technological Island Republic. However, all is not as it seems ... This mind-boggling novel will twist your brain into knots as it weaves through a philosophical sci-fi tale with a killer twist. Perfect for thoughtful teenage readers and adult spec-fiction fans alike, I thoroughly enjoyed trying to keep up with this one. You will too!

Rating: 3/5 stars

Mahtab’s Story: Libby Gleeson

2008-05-06T00:00:00Z

Reviewed by Kathy Kozlowski, Readings Carlton

Inspired by Libby Gleeson’s meeting with a group of Year 11 students from Iraq and Afghanistan, this novel about a young refugee and her family is a gripping and enlightening read. It is not only the dramatic story of flight and family separation and danger that enthralls, but also the discomfort of having to be always quiet and hidden, boredom, and the dreaded effects of losing hope. It brings home how life in Australia offers such new and wonderful freedom and such scarey challenges. Highly recommended for 11 to 15 years-ish.

Rating: 4/5 stars

Monster Blood Tattoo Book 2: The Lamplighter: D.M. Cornish

2008-05-06T00:00:00Z

Reviewed by Athina Clarke, Readings Port Melbourne

The marvellous adventure of the young boy-hero Rossamund continues in this much awaited second book in the Monster Blood Tattoo series. While in the service of the emperor as lamplighter, our affable hero realises that the adventurous life is neither glorious nor daring but bloody and fearful; there is no respite from fiendish monsters and men with questionable motives.

Beware: This is not a book for the faint hearted. Readers should begin with book 1 (The Foundling) otherwise they’ll be lost. Lovers of high fantasy will relish the plunge into a wicked world replete with its own language. The book’s outstanding illustrations enhance the experience. It’s highly recommended for boys and girls who’ve loved Tolkien, Nix and Paolini.

Rating: 3/5 stars

Henrietta Gets a Letter: Martine Murray

2008-05-06T00:00:00Z

Reviewed by Alexa Dretzke, Readings Hawthorn

Sheezamageeza! Henrietta’s a bit jealous of baby Albert’s birthday and has the DILEMMA of a fairy living in a sock under her bed, who she helps to understand it’s best to be yourself and not try and impress other people or elves. As usual, there is some serious EXPLORIFICATION to do. Henrietta’s storytelling style is imaginative and EXHILLPERATING and her adventures are colourfully illustrated by the author. The first two Henriettas are being published in paperback simultaneously with this one (also in paperback), and they make a lovely set. We really do love Henrietta. Average reading ages 6 – 9

Rating: 4/5 stars

Leaf: Stephen Michael King

2008-05-06T00:00:00Z

Reviewed by Alexa Dretzke, Readings Hawthorn

Well here it is again, that tricky picture book – no words! But to quote the endpapers, ‘Silence is a word’, and of course a picture speaks a thousand words, and my review will probably not do justice to this sweet, whimsical book, but I’ll give it a go with some bare bones of an outline. A little boy doesn’t want his hair cut, runs away from snapping scissors, dives into the bushes, a bird flies by, drops a seed on his head … What do you think happens? Well, I think boys grow, trees grow, and life cycles happen, and of course the best picture books features a dog. Stephen Michael King has illustrated a charming picture book that should appeal to a wider audience, ie. children three up, and for adults as a gift book.

Rating: 3/5 stars

Edwina: The Dinosaur Who Didn’t Know She Was Extinct: Mo Willems

2008-05-06T00:00:00Z

Reviewed by Leanne Hall, Readings Carlton

Reginald Von Hoobie-Doobie harbors a serious grudge against Edwina the dinosaur. Everyone loves Edwina – she bakes the best choc-chip cookies, plays with all the kids, and helps little old ladies cross the road. No one listens to Reginald when he tries to tell them that dinosaurs are extinct – except Edwina. Mo Willems is an effortless storyteller, and his bold cartoon illustrations are full of expression and humour. Envy, the importance of listening to others, and the absolute necessity of friendship and kindness are all examined in this fun and simple story.

Rating: 3/5 stars

How to Heal a Broken Wing: Bob Graham

2008-05-06T00:00:00Z

Reviewed by Kathy Kozlowski, Readings Carlton

A pigeon flies into a skyscraper window, and in the busy grey city only one little child, with red jacket and golden hair, notices. He and his mother wrap the pigeon carefully in her scarf and carry it home, where with ‘rest, time and a little hope’ slowly, it heals. This is vintage Bob Graham, celebrating the everyday, noting small kindnesses, his seemingly simple illustrations revealing more with each reread. It is rare for a picture book by an Australian illustrator to be reprinted twice in America before publication. But not surprising. A picture book for 2-5 year olds, but really for all ages.

Rating: 3/5 stars