Readings.com.au: News

Reading Matters at SLV: Round-Up

2013-05-17T00:00:00Z

From Thursday 30th May to Saturday 1st June, Melbourne's children's and YA book fanatics are going to be in Seventh Heaven – and by that I mean The State Library of Victoria. Find out what Readings' specialist team are most looking forward to on the Reading Matters program.

Angela Crocombe, Children's and YA Specialist at the St Kilda store:

Alison Croggon totally blew me away with Black Spring, her fantasy re-working of Wuthering Heights last year, and I was embarrassed not to have read more of this brilliant Australian author, so I’m definitely looking forward to hearing from her. I’m also a fan of the strange and hilarious mind of US author, Libba Bray (Going Bovine, The Diviners), so I will definitely be leaning forward in her sessions to catch every word. Most of all, I look forward to discovering a whole new list of ‘must read’ authors to keep me reading late into the night.

Alexa Dretzke, Children's and YA Specialist at the Hawthorn store:

I just love two days of dedicated discussion about kids and YA books. However, having read three great books by three wonderful Aussie authors, I’m really excited about hearing Vikki Wakefield (Friday Brown), Gabrielle Williams (The Reluctant Hallelujah) and Fiona Wood (Six Impossible Things) at the conference. I have just finished and loved Fiona’s new book Wildlife and I am looking forward to hearing her talk about it.

Athina Clarke, Children's and YA Specialist at the Malvern store:

2001 was my first year in bookselling and the year Garth Nix’s second novel in the Old Kingdom series, Lirael, was published. I remember the publisher’s rep giving me a proof copy containing only 4 or 5 chapters which I read in one sitting. I hadn’t read the first book in the series, Sabriel, but, no matter, I was mesmerised! This was high fantasy at its best and I hadn’t been this excited since I’d read Ursula Le Guin! So began my love affair with Garth Nix’s writing. I’m thrilled that he’ll be a part of Reading Matters and looking forward to his contribution.

Reading Matters for me is a fantastic opportunity to talk to like minded people – people who love books for young adults. To discover the great books I haven’t read so that I can share them with my customers, and I in turn can share my favourites.

Holly Harper, Children's and YA Specialist at the Carlton store:

Few Australian authors can claim the range or international success of Garth Nix, which makes him something of a rockstar in the world of kidlit. His Sabriel trilogy (and its much-anticipated sequels) has earned him a following that stretches far past its intended teen audience, and with each new series he manages to reinvent the speculative genre. His most recent novel is A Confusion of Princes, an epic YA space opera with healthy doses of conflict and tension, so it’s only fitting he’ll be discussing these topics for Reading Matters.

You’d be hard pressed to find many young readers who haven’t at least heard of John Flanagan’s phenomenally successful Ranger’s Apprentice series. These tales of a young Ranger named Will (think a cross between Robin Hood and a ninja) and his travels under his tutor Halt have spawned a series that spans an entire fantasy world, as well as Flanagan’s latest spin-off series, Brotherband. I have no doubt that his session on communities will make for a fascinating discussion.

Emily Gale, Children's and YA Specialist at the Carlton store:

I'll be dashing into as many talks as I can in between running the Readings' pop-up shop. The panel I'm most looking forward to is called Unleashing YA: Gayle Forman, Morris Gleitzman and Keith Gray on adult encroachment in YA, because I think the stats on the huge number of adult buyers of YA fiction are really interesting.

Many of the works by this year's panel can be found in the collection below.

You can browse the full Reading Matters program and read author bios on the SLV site.

The Way We Work: Kim Kane and Marion Roberts

2013-05-15T00:00:00Z

Writing is often said to be a lonely occupation, but what happens when you co-author a work of fiction? The authors of new YA novel Cry Blue Murder, Kim Kane and Marion Roberts, share their experience.

MR: With over seven published novels and picture books between us our usual approach has been to work on solo projects. Cry Blue Murder is our first collaboration as writers.

KK: Writing to each other (as Alice and Celia write to each other in the novel), our first draft zipped along. It was like a form of literary jousting, each dashing out emails in a competitive frenzy, trying to make each other laugh. There was a real vim to the writing and the freedom did help us develop distinct character voices.

MR: Neither of us had written a suspense novel before so strategic plotting became the prime focus of the second and third drafts. We also increased the ages of the characters, which ultimately required a complete re-write and a rigorous structural edit. The initial momentum of the first draft started to slow down a little feel a little more like ... hard work.

KK: I can honestly say there is not one single line of Cry Blue Murder that hasn't been well and truly raked over. That’s the thing about co-writing a novel. It's like a marriage - you're in it for the best of drafts, and the worst of drafts, hip to hip. In fact we went through two entire editing processes before the manuscript reached an editor.

We did, however, come up with ideas we could never have dreamed alone. A mystery written for younger children with Red Riding Hood at its core became a creepy thriller for young adults.

MR: Working together meant that there was usually one of us who had a flame burning for the novel in times of despondency or frustration. Kim and I are both highly imaginative so when either of us would come up with an idea to improve the novel it usually involved significant re-writing. The logistics of this was not always easy.

KK: Our restrictions were mainly physical. I had toddler twins and Marion had teenagers...

MR: Child bride.

KK: ...and so the exact moment I was ready to log on in the evening and start revisions, was the very time Marion would be on duty.

One of the best parts about co-writing is that we each got to see another writer's process at close hand. Marion is hilarious and it was great fun to see her new drafts. When it came to re-drafting, we differed. Marion claimed I was a word hoarder, hugging my darlings but I felt she was so keen to trim she'd throw out the bath water, the baby, the bathroom and half the kitchen. I continuously combed through the debris to stick bits back in.

MR: Usually without telling me. Working with Kim was a lot of fun. We share a similar subversive wit, which was a real saviour through the tough parts. Being land-locked to our own homes due to kids meant hours editing over the phone late at night, and by email. Kim gets very attached to her words...

KK: And yours

MR: ...and while it was pretty tough convincing Kim that certain elements of the novel had to go she really did pull through at the eleventh hour. I was seriously proud!

KK: You sounded just like Alice then.

Our finest moment was the very last read-through and it was affirming to flick through the pages and see we both were concerned about the same bits. I think we were really very fortunate to share a vision for the work.

Cry Blue Murder is available now at $19.95.

The 2013 Commonwealth Book Prize Regional Winners Announced

2013-05-15T00:00:00Z

The regional winners of the 2013 Commonwealth Book Prize have been announced with Australian author, Michael Sala, named the winner of the Pacific region for his book, The Last Thread.

The Commonwealth Book Prize and the Commonwealth Short Story Prize act as catalysts to target and identify talented writers, and to create environments where alliances of writers in remote places and those with limited or no publishing infrastructure, can flourish. Each regional winner has been granted £2500 in prize money.

You can read more about the prize here.

Here is the full list of winners:

Africa - Sterile Sky by E.E. Sule (Nigeria)

As the gifted young Murtala comes of age in Kano, violent riots and his family’s own woes threaten to erase all he holds dear. Stalked by monsters real and imagined, desperate to preserve a sense of self and the future, Murtala hunts for answers in the wreckage of the city – and gives us a unique insight into modern life in northern Nigeria.

About the author:

E.E. Sule is the pen-name of Dr. Sule E. Egya who is an associate professor in Department of English, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University, Lapai, Nigeria. His poems, short stories, and critical work have appeared in numerous journals, anthologies and literary magazines. Sterile Sky is his first novel.

Asia - Island of a Thousand Mirrors by Nayomi Munaweera (Sri Lanka)

Island of a Thousand Mirrors follows the fate of two families, one Tamil, one Sinhala as they straddle opposite sides of the long and brutal Sri Lankan civil war.

Narrated by the eldest daughter of each family, the story explores how each woman negotiates war, migration, love, exile, and belonging. At its root, it’s a story of a fragmented nation struggling to find its way to a new beginning.

About the author:

Nayomi Munaweera is a Sri Lankan-American author and artist. Having migrated to Nigeria when she was very young and later to America, she continued visiting Sri Lanka regularly, witnessing the devastation wrought upon her country of birth by civil war. These experiences led her to write her first novel, Island of a Thousand Mirrors, which was published by the Perera Hussein Publishing House in late 2012.

Canada and Europe - The Death of Bees by Lisa O’Donnell (United Kingdom)

Two young sisters attempt to hold the world at bay after the mysterious death of their parents.

Marnie and her little sister Nelly are on their own now. Only they know what happened to their parents, Izzy and Gene, and they aren’t telling. While life in Glasgow’s Hazlehurst housing estate isn’t grand, they do have each other. Besides, it’s only one year until Marnie will be considered an adult and can legally take care of them both.

As the new year comes and goes, Lennie, the old man next door, realizes that his young neighbours are alone and need his help. Or does he need theirs? But he’s not the only one who suspects something isn’t right. Soon, the sisters’ friends, their other neighbours, the authorities, and even Gene’s nosy drug dealer begin to ask questions. As one lie leads to another, dark secrets about the girls’ family surface, creating complications that threaten to tear them apart.

About the author:

Lisa O’Donnell won the Orange Screenwriting Prize in 2000 for her screenplay The Wedding Gift. Recently she took a break from screenwriting when she moved to LA with her two children. Her debut novel, The Death of Bees was published in 2012.

Caribbean - Disposable People by Ezekel Alan (Jamaica)

Ten year old Kenneth Lovelace often went to bed without dinner. Instead of feeling hunger, however, what he mostly felt was fear and shame, knowing that his family’s poverty was the reason he had no food.

Kenneth also recalls his bitterness whenever his parents locked him out of their tiny, one-room house to act on their ‘urge’. This was in the 1970s, when Jamaica’s socialist regime was dragging the country into bankruptcy, and when an Old Timer had told him that he was cursed since birth.

Beginning with his earliest memories, Disposable People traces the life of Kenneth Lovelace, now a consultant living in the USA. After a string of failed marriages, bad relationships and other misfortunes, Kenneth looks back at his life in his old, hateful village with hopes of finding the roots of his latest tragedy. What comes out is a story of mischief and adventures, sex, prejudice, evil spirits, adversities and, progressively, violence.

About the author:

Ezekel Alan was born and raised in rural Jamaica and spent his formative years under the Socialist regime of the 1970s. He currently lives with his wife and kids in an architecturally noteworthy house in Asia, has a good, reliable dog and a satisfyingly abundant supply of sweet, juicy mangoes. Inspired by true events, Disposable People is Ezekel’s debut novel. He is currently working on his second.

Pacific - The Last Thread by Michael Sala (Australia)

The Last Thread is Michael Sala’s fascinating life in fiction. From his early years in the Netherlands to growing up in Australia during the 1980s, Michael recalls the secret surrounding his estranged Greek father and how scandalous events from the past fractured his family.

This is a moving chronicle of a boy’s turbulent relationship with his bullying stepfather, aloof older brother and adored mother, whose cheerful apathy has devastating consequences. As his life unfolds, Michael – now a father – must decide if he can free himself from the dark pull of the past.

Reminiscent of the great autobiographical novels of JM Coetzee and Michael Ondaatje, The Last Thread is a beautifully crafted work from an exceptional new writer.

About the author:

Michael Sala is an Australian writer and teacher. His short fiction has been published in various anthologies, including The Best Australian Stories three times. In 2007, he was shortlisted for the Australian/Vogel Literary Award. The Last Thread, published by Affirm Press in 2012, is his first novel.

You can read more about the regional winners here.

The judging panel, which included our very own Books Division Manager Martin Shaw, will announce an overall winner on May 31 to receive £10,000 in prize money.

Picturing Gatsby

2013-05-14T00:00:00Z

Nicki Greenberg looks back at adaptations of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic, from Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 screenplay to Gatz.

I first read The Great Gatsby when I was 17 years old. I was captivated by it: by the beauty, the melancholy, the grand yearnings and grown-up extravagance that hummed on a frequency outside the range of my experience. I had to stretch to touch that floating, tarnished world, and just as my fingertips grazed its edges, it would elude me again. I have since read the book many times, and I marvel at the way it yields something different with each reading. Gatsby at 17 is a different experience to Gatsby at 25, at 30, at 37. It is part of the book’s magic that it continues to offer new facets as the reader’s position shifts, and yet its mystery, its feeling of slipping through our fingers, remains.

This glimmering mystery poses a special challenge when adapting the text, whether for the page, stage, screen or any other medium. If we try to pin the book down too forcefully, to fix it with one particular vision, we run the risk of diminishing it. The task, I feel, is not to attempt to pluck out the mystery of the book, but to cradle it, to turn it gently in our hands and allow different lights to play on it so that a reader might see new gleams of meaning flash across it.

For a number of people I have spoken with over the years, Francis Ford Coppola and Jack Clayton’s 1974 film adaptation of The Great Gatsby, with Robert Redford in the title role, is their principal, or only, vision of what the novel is all about. This saddens me, because the film not only failed to do justice to the novel but, in my view, did it an enormous disservice. A quick skim of reviews written at the time suggests that critics largely agreed. This month, there will be another film version of Gatsby, and perhaps this new extravaganza – in 3D, no less – will become another generation’s vision of the book, for better or for worse.

Movie poster for Baz Luhrmann's upcoming film adaptation.

I watched the Coppola/Clayton version some 20 years ago when studying the novel for my Year 12 literature class, but had never revisited it until very recently. This was mainly because I didn’t enjoy it the first time around, and then because I didn’t want it to skew or get in the way of my own adaptation of the novel. Film images are incredibly potent, and they seem to burn a more powerful impression into our minds than the more subtle ones conjured up by reading a piece of prose. This can happen whether we like the film or not. I feel fortunate that Fitzgerald’s novel was so moving and important to me that it completely eclipsed any memory that I had of the film. Watching it 20 years later, it affronted me all over again.

Gatsby does pose some especially tough challenges to translation for the screen, partly because of the contemplative, introspective nature of Nick Carraway’s narrative. The 1974 film couldn’t seem to make up its mind about this, muddying his voice and his particular point of view. It lurched through the plot and charlestoned through the lavish party scenes, relying heavily on an overblown recreation of the novel’s exterior surfaces – the costumes, the cars and the meticulously constructed sets. As a result, the meaning and the mystery of this most subtle and supple novel, and the luminosity of the prose that made it, is lost.

Robert Redford and Mia Farrow (1974)

Coppola also rewrote the story primarily as a grand romance between Gatsby and Daisy. This is simply not what the novel is about, and the attempt to make it so – presumably because Hollywood loves a love story – makes a nonsense of it. Fortunately for Nick, he was not present during the interminable soft-focus scenes of their affair to report clangers like these:

‘Kiss me! Be my lover! Stay my lover!’

‘It was fine for you – breaking my heart with your impossible love!’

‘Put on your uniform and let’s turn off all the lights except for a single candle, and I’ll let you tell me you love me.’

This was not the only startling departure from the book. Over and over again, Coppola rejected the novel’s scenes of perfect delicacy, wit and irony – scenes that are a gift to a screenplay – and replaced them with his own heavy-handed inventions. Adaptation is certainly a creative process, but an adaptor’s impulses must be guided by the meaning, tone and form of the original text. This demands subtlety, restraint and, most importantly, constant, sensitive listening to the book. Coppola’s failure to really listen, while focusing obsessively on the visual, is where I think the film came unstuck.

By contrast, in 2009 I saw the most astonishing and brilliant adaptation of Gatsby – a production called Gatz, by New York theatre company Elevator Repair Service. The show incorporated a verbatim recital – almost completely without notes – of the entire novel. It lasted seven hours and was utterly captivating. In a dilapidated office, a bored clerk finds a copy of The Great Gatsby in his desk and begins to read aloud. As he is drawn into the novel, the clerk imperceptibly shifts to become the voice of Nick Carraway, while his co-workers and various passers-through assume the roles of the other characters.

Gary Wilmes and Scott Shepherd in Gatz.

This was adaptation at its finest: faithful to the novel and also thrillingly original. The play illuminated every word of the novel’s wonderful prose, while riffing on the wry humour of the text with an incongruous setting and surprising cast of characters. Nick’s role as a semi-reluctant witness, both ‘within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life’ was perfectly reflected by the clerk-narrator, drawn into the story by a force outside his control – the force of the story itself. Without a single sequin, without lavish sets or cars or costumes, Gatz evoked not only the Jazz Age ambiance of the novel but, more importantly, its complex and mysterious heart.

Gatz is a beautiful example of a group of artists pursuing a dream that for many years must have seemed crazy. A seven-hour play? Imagine the emotional and physical demands on an actor who must memorise, and then recite, the entire novel. Imagine the leap of faith and the huge amount of work by all involved in bringing this play into the world. Positively Gatsbyesque!

Perhaps in order to make an adaptation of Gatsby that resonates, one needs something that is impossible to manufacture. Not a gigantic budget or eye-popping special effects or a scriptwriting holiday on location in Long Island, but a very large dose of passion, ‘a romantic readiness’ and sensitivity as open and extravagant as Gatsby’s own.

Nicki Greenberg's graphic adaptations of The Great Gatsby and Hamlet are published by Allen & Unwin. In between making love to the classics, she also writes and illustrates books for children.

Roadtesting Courgette Cake

2013-05-13T00:00:00Z

Chris Gordon road tests the recipe for 'Courgette' Cake as seen in the delightfully quirky The Bookery Cook.

As much as I am completely in love with this sweet book of delicious recipes, and even more delicious illustrations, I am equally concerned that these three wonderful Australian writers and food-lovers (all sisters) seem driven to use French words when there is no need. Does it make your food taste better? No. So let’s start again...

I recently put my hand to the Zucchini Cake recipe found in The Bookery Cook.

To be perfectly frank, I was feeling very pleased with myself because I simply went outside and picked one from my garden. If you’re interested in growing some yourself, you’ll soon discover that it’s surprisingly easy. I used The Little Veggie Patch boys for guidance as well as the excellent Small Organics Spaces from Josh Byrne.

The recipe is simple as well. First, you grate the zucchini and put it in a colander to de-juice. You really don’t want the grated zucchini to be wet so sprinkle a small amount of salt all over it and wait for the juice to run. Then mix in all the ingredients, enjoy a glass of wine and lick the bowl while the cake is baking.

After the cake cooled I covered it with cream-cheese icing and served it up. My bloke and I loved it. My mother-in-law tolerated it. My daughter thought the icing was delicious and my son thought a few choc chips would’ve made it a ten out of ten eating experience.

Would I make it again? Absolutely.

The recipes in this cookbook are easy to follow and I love that there are sections on cooking ‘themed’ banquets for guests, from Indian to Moroccan and more. I love that the recipes are made for crowds and communities. I also love that there are illustrations rather than styled food pictures - that the women have shared the creation of this book with so many artists giving the book such warmth and generosity.

Highly recommended and I’ll even forgive their use of French.

Chris Gordon is the Events Coordinator for Readings and is a committee member of The Stella Prize.

Book of the Week: Steal My Sunshine by Emily Gale

2013-05-13T00:00:00Z

Our own Emily Gale has released her first YA novel, shedding light on an little-known aspect of Australian history - the forced adoptions that saw 'wayward girls' and single mothers forced to give up their babies by churches and hospitals.

In Steal My Sunshine, Hannah's family life begins to distort beyond her deepest fears and feeling powerless and invisible, she seeks refuge in the two anarchists of her life: her wild best friend, Chloe, and her eccentric grandmother, Essie.

In her review of the novel, Kim Gruschow writes:

"Steal My Sunshine has history, mystery and a little bit of romance. Hannah gains both clarity and confidence as she steps into adulthood, and author Emily Gale has created a great character in the anarchic Essie."

Steal My Sunshine is out now.

Meet the Bookseller with Amy Vuleta

2013-05-10T00:00:00Z

Amy Vuleta shares some of her favourite new releases from Australian authors, and tells us which Michael Chabon book inspired her to invest in a beehive!

Why do you work in books?

I’ve always loved to read, and when I was a teenager I realised that most of what I knew about the world – of history, geography, biology and human relationships – I had learned from reading stories. I’ve always sought knowledge of the world in fiction, which may seem counterintuitive to some people, but actually makes perfect sense to me. I love working with literature because I see it as a means for us all to explore and understand our lives and the world.

What was your favourite book as a kid?

I loved the picture book The Jolly Postman when I was little – discovering the handwritten letters and cards inside the envelopes is such a vivid memory. When I was older, I read everything I could find in the local library by Victor Kelleher. I loved his otherworldly characters and settings. I’m really pleased to see that Taronga has been re-released by Penguin in the Australian Children’s Classics series.

What’s the best book you’ve read lately and why?

I loved Tomato Red by Daniel Woodrell. It’s a take on the classic hardboiled noir-style story, but set in the hills of the Ozarks in Arkansas. The femme fatale role is filled by a skinny girl with tomato red hair, dying to get out of her backwater town, and the fall guy is endearing, loyal, and really someone you want to get behind. Woodrell is a brilliant writer.

I’ve also read a couple of really impressive new releases from Australian writers recently—Steeplechase by Krissy Kneen, Ghost Wife by Michelle Dicinoski, and Entitlement by Jessica White. They were all beautifully written and compelling modern Australian stories.

What’s your favourite book of all time and why?

I always find the ‘favourite of all time’ question impossible to answer! Today I will say Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, or her novella Matilda. I love the drama of Frankenstein, and the precise, knowing challenge to Victorian society offered up in Matilda.

What’s the best experience you’ve had in a bookshop?

The best experience I’ve had in a bookshop was at the Housing Works second hand bookshop in New York. Last year I waited outside the shop in the rain for an hour and a half to get a seat at The Moth story slam, and it was worth every damp minute. The Moth podcast is about people telling true stories, live and unscripted. We heard a bunch of New Yorkers distil an experience they’d had into a five-minute story in ways that were funny, heartbreaking, illuminating, and entertaining.

What have you noticed people buying lately?

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, all of the books in the Song of Fire and Ice series, and anything that has been made into a film recently.

Name a book that has changed the way you think – in ways small or large.

The Final Solution by Michael Chabon has a character in it that keeps bees, and a wonderful scene of him extracting the honey, and it seemed to put the idea in my head that I wanted to be an apiarist. Now I have my own hive in my backyard!

On Motherhood and Sharing Books

2013-05-09T00:00:00Z

In the lead-up to Mother’s Day, three Melbourne authors reflect on the books they’ve most enjoyed sharing with their mothers – and the reads they’ve loved sharing with their children, too.

Jo Case

My favourite author to share with my mum is Jane Austen, the first ‘grown up’ author I really loved. When I was in high school, Mum repeatedly urged me to read Pride and Prejudice and Emma – but I refused, just because I was in the stage of doing the opposite of whatever she said. When I succumbed a few years later, I realised I should have listened to her in the first place.

The first book I remember (willingly) sharing a passion for with mum was The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, after we watched the BBC series together when I was in primary school.

Maybe I identified with the contrary Mary Lennox?

My thirteen-year-old son and I share a love of Jon Ronson and David Sedaris. I introduced him to the latter after I was so absorbed in When You Are Engulfed in Flames that I forgot to pick him up from school. He wanted to see what was so damned absorbing – and after I read him a few pages, he was hooked. (And even forgave me.) I’m looking forward to reading Diabetes with Owls together.

We’re also big fans of Judy Blume’s hilarious Fudge stories (Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Superfudge), about a mischievous kid who good-naturedly charms his parents and drives his big brother crazy.

My mum is a massive Jodi Picoult fan – she loves the ‘what if’ nature of her novels, and the social and ethical questions they pose. I reckon she’d love Kylie Ladd’s Into My Arms, which I tore through on the weekend, keen to discover the fate of a lovestruck couple who are unexpectedly separated in a seriously disturbing way. I’ve already wrapped it for Mother’s Day.

Mum’s favourite present ever? The Pride and Prejudice t-shirt I got her last Christmas. She has heavily hinted that this year, she’d like the Jane Eyre one.

Jo Case is the author of Boomer and Me: A Memoir of Motherhood, and Asperger’s (Hardie Grant).

Monica Dux

My mum lives in Sydney, so it’s not a simple matter of just handing books back and forth. However I always pack a book or two when I fly up to visit her, not just for me to read on the plane, but things I want to share.

As a fifteen-year-old, Mum worked at David Jones, so I knew she’d adore reading Madeleine St John’s The Women in Black. I also passed on my copies of Anne Summers’ The Lost Mother and Ducks on the Pond. She’s currently reading my copy of Gillian Mears’ Foal’s Bread, which she’s also enjoying.

I recently bought her a biography of Harry Bellefonte, a man for whom Mum is still burning a candle. I might give that one a miss, as I don’t want to move in on my mum’s imaginary beau.

My parents still live in the house I grew up in (indeed, the house I was conceived in), and the place is like a time capsule of my youth. There’s even a little bookshelf still packed with all my childhood books.

My Dr Seuss collection has been preserved there, books that I love reading to my own kids, especially One Fish, Two Fish. I was given my copy back in kindergarten, a prize for some long forgotten pre-school achievement. It contains one of my favourite lines in all literature: ‘From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere’ – which pretty much sums up my life philosophy.

I recently dug out Colin Thiele’s Storm Boy and read it to my six-year-old son. I literally sobbed at the end, and could barely finish the last page. My son seemed bemused by my behaviour. Maybe dead pelicans just don’t resonate with kids today?

Monica Dux is the author of Things I Didn’t Expect (When I Was Expecting) (MUP).

Anna Goldsworthy

The first book I can remember my mother reading for me was a Little Golden Book, The Tawny Scrawny Lion. She has a resonant voice, and always delivered it as a type of song: ‘If I didn't have to run, run, run for every single bite I get, I’d be fat as butter and sleek as satin.’ Carrot soup never seemed more attractive.

A few years later, while playing schools with a friend, I chanced upon my mother’s childhood volume of Enid Blyton’s The Magic Faraway Tree. It looked like a grown-up book, and I opened it up and pretended to read it from the middle, until I realised I was no longer pretending. The game and my friend were soon forgotten; a book has been open ever since.

These days, my mother and I have Alice Munro in common. Whenever a new volume of stories appears, I buy a copy for each of us, praying that it will not be Munro’s last.

One of my own pleasures in motherhood is the picture books of Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler. Donaldson began as a songwriter, and her picture books are rich with music. We read The Gruffalo to our first-born every night for three years, and I am sure it has had a fundamental effect on his worldview (it certainly has on mine).

My best friend from primary school, Katrina Germein, is now a children’s author; sharing her books with my children allows me to relive our shared childhood. Her My Dad Thinks He’s Funny is a hilarious compendium of lame puns that has colonised our household’s humour: ‘How are you feeling?’ ‘With my hands!’

Anna Goldsworthy is the author of Welcome to Your New Life (Black Inc.).

Jo Case, Monica Dux and Anna Goldsworthy will be talking about motherhood – the good, the bad and the ugly – at Readings Hawthorn next Wednesday 15 May at 6.30pm. To read more please see here.

Q&A with Anna Krien

2013-05-08T00:00:00Z

In Night Games, Anna Krien takes a fearless and compelling look at the dark side of footy culture – in particular the disturbing incidents that took place in a South Melbourne townhouse after the 2010 grand final that culminated in the rape trial of a young footballer. Here, she talks to Jessica Au.

What drew you to explore this side of sporting culture? Did you feel that this was a book that needed to be written?

It was the unfortunate ‘St Kilda Schoolgirl’ saga that caught my (and many others’) attention back in 2010. It was a pretty trashy story, one that involved a teenage girl, footballers, a false allegation of pregnancy, viral emails, photos of naked players and a salivating media circus. (One tabloid journalist even helped the teenager at the centre of the story, Kimberley Duthie, set a ‘honey trap’ for a dodgy football manager.) But putting the trashy elements aside, there were serious issues at play. Duthie was never going to be a heroine for women’s rights, for taking on the big boys at the AFL – but what was interesting was how much the public wanted her to be. She became a weapon (albeit one that fell apart) for other people’s misgivings about footballers.

And yes, I do feel like this was a book that needed to be written. Whether I’ve succeeded in filling or partially filling the gap on the bookshelves, I don’t know – but over the past decade, the silence in and around the darker side of football, both Aussie Rules and Rugby League, has begun to fray. This is, in part, due to the ‘intrusion’ of female sports journalists who have exposed a shadowy subculture of entitlement, callousness and humiliation, a scene that had been dutifully ignored by male journalists (or should I call them groupies?) for years.

You touch on the ethics of getting to know the family of the young footballer at the centre of the rape trial (who is called ‘Justin’ in the book), and objectivity when everyone, including the writer, has something at stake. As a journalist, how do you negotiate these challenges?

It’s really difficult to negotiate. The defendant, Justin Dyer, and his family were really suffering throughout the trial. They were under enormous pressure, and no amount of objectivity could blinker me from genuinely feeling for them. What was even more difficult was that I had no one to compare their suffering with – the complainant, who I call Sarah, gave her evidence in closed court and was otherwise entirely absent from the trial. I was constantly having to shore up the Dyer family’s pain with speculation about Sarah’s own trauma. And that’s the tough thing about being a writer – you have to continually discern between the emotive and what’s right.

Tell us about the research process for Night Games. What was your reaction to some of the stories that you uncovered?

The start of any investigative process begins with getting the lay of the land. I read whatever I could get my hands on about football, power and sex. The explosive Four Corners’ ‘Code of Silence’ and a surprising early 90s study in the United States that revealed male athletes as featuring prominently in reported sexual assaults, despite constituting only a tiny percentile of the campus population, got the ball rolling. From here, I tried to speak to anyone who had an insight into the on-field and off-field culture of Australia’s two main footy codes, Rugby League and Australian Rules – from past and present players, coaches, staff, sexual assault counsellors, females working within the codes, journalists, ‘groupies’ and so forth.

Alongside this, I was following the rape charges and subsequent trial of Justin Dyer.

As for my reaction to some of the stories I heard in relation to the off-field antics of players and women, I hate to say it but I can’t say I was surprised. Sometimes this disturbed me – I felt like I ought to have been more shocked, more horrified, but unfortunately I thought it was all pretty predictable. It’s a sad thing to admit, but much of it felt grossly familiar.

What did surprise me was the depth and breadth of yearning to be part of the team – what struck me as a sad schoolyard desire that had potential to be quite dangerous, particularly if the need to be ‘in’ with ‘the boys’ got in the way of doing proper police work, for example. Another thing that shocked me is that footy isn’t taxed. Football clubs and football leagues don’t pay income tax. Most sporting bodies don’t. They are not-for-profit, so to speak, their status much like that of a charity. I think this is a real clanger because it reveals that football is not ‘just’ a business and it’s not ‘just’ a game – its responsibilities are very real.

You write also about the ‘grey zone’ – the ‘glacial space between a man’s action and a woman’s reaction’ – and later ask whether there is any room for exploring disturbing sexual encounters, that often don’t fit within stock stereotypes. Culturally, socially or legally, do you feel we have the language for this yet?

I don’t think we do. I think it’s very difficult for someone to reflect on a disturbing sexual encounter without feeling pressured to conclude that there was a victim and a perpetrator, that it was rape or that they were to blame for bringing it on themselves. And, ultimately, this is what Night Games is about – that strange place between consent and rape, one that the slogan ‘No means No’ doesn’t allow for.

Finally, tell us about your favourite works of literary journalism.

Locally, it’s the ladies that have my heart. Helen Garner’s The First Stone, Chloe Hooper’s The Tall Man and Anna Funder’s Stasiland are all incredible works of literary journalism, their brave voices not too fragile to question themselves and yet strong enough to draw a line. Add to that the poetry of their writing. It’s like these writers play the piano on their typewriters. Offshore, it’s the usual suspects that have me enthralled – Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is hilarious, and there is always John Behrendt’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil to curl up with.

Night Games: Sex, Power and Sport is available now.

Roadtesting Rizogalo

2013-05-07T00:00:00Z

Chris Gordon uses a rainy day as an excuse to test out Sweet Greek: Simple Food, Sumptuous Feasts.

It’s raining outside. Pouring in fact. The air is cold and it seems winter is laying its heavy head on me already even though I'm sure I was outside frolicking in the sunshine only last week. Now I’m looking for warmth and Kathy Tsaples, bless her, has the answer.

I skim through her cookbook, Sweet Greek, before coming to rest on the great comfort food of all time: rice pudding. (Commonly known as rizogalo.) Kathy says in the recipe introduction that she feels like she's nurturing her family when she makes this creamy dessert and so following in her footsteps, I embrace feelings of kindness and generosity as I start the process.

Twenty minutes later I’m feeling glad I've given myself plenty of time because I’m still stirring the rice and water. I’m also thankful I’ve used my largest saucepan because it looks like I'm going to be left with a lot of rice pudding - the recipe calls for two litres of milk - and once the water is finally absorbed I add this to the pan. I continue to stir.

All up it takes me nearly an hour to make the pudding. I’m stirring and stirring - and to be honest my feelings of devotion for my family have shifted during the process. I cannot leave the kitchen while my rice is cooking, I tell myself despite growing frustration, I must continue to stir!

But all is forgiven when I lay out the end result. Creamy, delicious and warm rice pudding is such a treat.

It’s fair to say my kids demolished a serving each, and then another, until there was none left over. One hour of cooking had translated to ten minutes of eating. The rain continued throughout their feasting and afterwards, they trundled off to bed where, with stomachs full of milk and rice, they slept like angels.

One hour of cooking translated to ten hours of peace? Ah.

Chris Gordon is the Events Coordinator for Readings and is a committee member of The Stella Prize.

Round-Up of May New Releases

2013-05-06T00:00:00Z

It’s shaping up to be a blockbuster May at Readings, with several of the year’s most anticipated books hitting our shelves. First up there’s Anna Krien, who might just be installing herself as a short-priced favourite for next year’s Stella Prize (amongst many other awards) with Night Games: Sex, Power and Sport, her riveting diagnosis of that institution of modern Australian society: the AFL. She examines not only its allure to a broad section of society and its high media profile, but also its murky depths, particularly when it comes to the aberrant moral behaviour of some of its players.

Does the league sometimes seem to perpetuate as much as reject sexual stereotypes of women? And what does the average punter make of it all? How are their attitudes, and society’s generally, shaped by this dominant cultural force?

Our reviewer says nothing less than that Night Games ‘is one of the most incredible works of investigative non-fiction that I have ever read’.

Also much-heralded is Hannah Kent’s debut novel, Burial Rites, a masterful evocation of a time and place. Set in late nineteenth-century Iceland and based on actual events, it is the incredible story of the last woman to be executed on the island. Perhaps the biggest hurdle for a writer of historical fiction, particularly when the setting is a country at great geographical and cultural remove from one’s own, is to be convincing.

Yet Kent has a near-miraculous touch here: her details ring true, the natural environment is a character in itself and the tale of a savage double murder is played out by a great cast of characters. Booksellers around the country have fallen in love with the book in advance of publication, and I can’t help but feel that as our Aussie winter starts to grip, this will be the novel for our own long, cold nights.

Perhaps to continue the northern theme – Karl Ove Knausgaard has released the second volume in his epic autobiographical novel-series, A Man in Love, and will doubtless be a hot ticket when he visits our shores for the Sydney Writers’ Festival. Everyone’s favourite thriller writer John le Carré returns with A Delicate Truth and David Sedaris is also back with Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls.

There are also new novels from Lionel Shriver (Big Brother) and Andrea Goldsmith (The Memory Trap), and a posthumous novel from the wonderful Janet Frame (In the Memorial Room). Finally, Robert Hillman’s Gurrumul: His Life and Music – a pictorial tribute with accompanying CD – rounds out this big publishing month.

Martin Shaw is Readings’ Books Division Manager.

Book of the Week: Night Games by Anna Krien

2013-05-06T00:00:00Z

The Pies beat the Saints and the city of Melbourne was still cloaked in black and white crepe paper when the rumour of a pack rape by celebrating footballers began to surface. ... And so, as police were confiscating bed sheets from a townhouse in Dorcas Street, South Melbourne, the trial by media began.

Our book of the week is Night Games: Sex, Power and Sport from award-winning author and journalist, Anna Krien (Into the Woods, Us and Them). Both a courtroom drama and a riveting piece of first-person narrative journalism, Krien explores questions of sex, consent and power in relation to football culture, as she follows the rape trial of a young athlete.

Some of our staff are already calling it the best book they've read this year and in her review of the book, Jessica Au writes:

"A deeper truth is at stake here, and it is this challenge that Krien is intellectually concerned with. For both genders, we lack utterly the language with which to articulate the grey area between sexual will and sexual consent. Culturally, legally and socially, we are mute, and confused."

Night Games: Sex, Power and Sport is available online and from our shops now.

Hannah Kent chats to Margo Lanagan

2013-05-03T00:00:00Z

Hannah Kent talks to Margo Lanagan about researching nineteenth-century Iceland, her mentorship with Geraldine Brooks and her astonishing debut novel, Burial Rites.

The saga of Burial Rites began when, at 17, Hannah Kent spent a year in Iceland as an exchange student. For the first few months, ‘I didn’t speak the language, I was homesick, I was horribly conscious of the fact that I “did not belong” while simultaneously being very conspicuous, and the winter darkness compounded all of that discontent. I think I was probably depressed – I remember sitting in the shower, unable to stand up because I was so sad.’

Needless to say, Kent did stand up. She might admit to being ‘scared shitless’ while writing her debut novel, and she might have given a TED talk about her close acquaintance with impostor syndrome, but she has a steelier side. It’s visible in what little, as yet, can be found online about her, and it runs like reinforcing mesh through the grimly gorgeous Burial Rites. The literary magazine she co-founded and edits is called Kill Your Darlings, for goodness sake – clearly she’s no wimp.

She credits Iceland with this facet of herself. ‘My first time in Iceland forged my character completely. I became so sick of myself that I started to go for long walks in the snow. I’d tramp up the icy slope of the hill to where the cemetery was and look out over the town’s dark harbour to the mountains on the other side of the fjord, and watch the light shift and alter, and everything was set right and peaceable within me.’

Visiting a valley in north-west Iceland with one of her host families, she asked about the landscape they were driving through. The family pointed out three mounds on the bare plain; on one of these, they told her, a murderess called Agnes Magnúsdóttir had been beheaded, the last person to be executed in Iceland.

For a long time, the execution mound was only one of many impressions Kent brought back from that bleak, treeless and myth-soaked land. But four or five years later, she found herself ‘still filled with questions and curiosities about the murders’ that Agnes and her accomplices had committed. By the time she got permission to write her novel as a PhD in Creative Arts at Flinders University, she’d found that her murderess had left very little trace in the historical record, and that when people did mention Agnes they called her a witch or a monster and moved on. Kent’s project ‘to supply a more ambiguous portrayal of this woman’ was born.

Agnes Magnúsdóttir was beheaded with a broad axe in 1829, as was Fridrik Sigurdsson for the same murders. Between the night of the murders in 1828 and the day the axe fell, Agnes was first held in prison, and then billeted with a family on a farm at Kornsa, near the proposed execution site. Kent focuses on that time, that family and the young Assistant Reverend Thorvardur Jónsson, who was charged with readying Agnes to meet her maker, to show us the woman behind the crime, and the society that confined and shaped her.

How was Kent able, from Australia, to research an obscure Icelandic murderess? ‘At first, I struggled to find much information about the murders and Agnes’s life,’ she says. ‘I read indiscriminately: academic articles about everything from parish law, kin networks, smallpox epidemics and the supernatural, memoirs, Icelandic fiction, plays and poems, diaries written by British scientists arriving in Iceland to study geysers, song lyrics, recipes, the great and wonderful sagas. If it was about Iceland in the nineteenth century, I read it.’

During this phase, Kent felt she was ‘blindly feeling my way in the dark, making guesses that could well be completely incorrect’. But most of her guesses were right on the nail, as she discovered when she went back to Iceland for a six-week research trip. ‘This is where I found out about Agnes’s early life: from parish and ministerial records, censuses, letters from the trial, and so on. That was a real thrill, finally getting my hands on the primary sources after two years of pining for them!’

‘Much of the research,’ Kent admits, ‘and certainly the writing, was completed under an enormous shadow of self-doubt. I’d never written a novel before, and didn’t know how one goes about it. The thing is to keep going anyway. You get used to the shadow. I’m astonished by how clean the process seems, looking back. At the time it felt like only chaos and anxiety.’

A mentorship conducted by email with author Geraldine Brooks helped Kent in the later stages. ‘The ending was very grim, and very sudden – even more so than it is now. I think when I sent the manuscript to her, I was fussing at things on sentence-level – not seeing the forest for the trees. Geraldine brought my attention back to the themes of the story, its emotional truth.’ Brooks urged Kent to ‘let a bit more light in’ to a tale that of necessity would have to end in darkness and death.

The finished novel certainly packs a punch as it moves inexorably along its parallel tracks. Kent admits, ‘I was often emotional when writing. I felt the setting and characters and story all very intensely.’ But this is the Kill Your Darlings deputy editor writing here – not a drop of sentimentality leaks through, and the story is all the more powerful for this masterly restraint.

It feels like a just reward for Kent’s years of careful work that the novel has done so well so far. At the Australian Independent Bookseller Awards in March, eyes lit up at the mention of this book. Pre-publication press has been full of exciting phrases like ‘massive advance’, ‘multiple bidding wars’ and ‘foreign rights in how many countries?’ Such upfront buzz often raises expectations so high that the book itself can only disappoint. I have no such fears for Burial Rites; if there’s any justice in the world, it’s going to win every accolade going.

Margo Lanagan is the author of Sea Hearts and Cracklescape.

Essential Picture Books (Part 3)

2013-05-02T00:00:00Z

A double-mention for Judith Kerr as the children's specialists return with 10 more picture books they voted as must-haves after a brainstorm last year. We hope you enjoy using it as a go-to list, or perhaps to jog some happy memories.

The Tiger Who Came To Tea by Judith Kerr (1968)

A slice of 1960s domestic life in this elegantly told tale of a tiger with a voracious appetite and no table-manners, who still manages to be the coolest cat in town. He drinks all of daddy's beer! Wonderfully nostalgic.

The Elephant and the Bad Baby by Raymond Briggs and Elfrida Vipont (1971)

They're never too young for comedic irony: elephant tears around town stealing all manner of treats for baby, then scolds baby for not saying please. Rumpeta-rumpeta-rumpeta!

Each Peach Pear Plum by Janet and Allan Ahlberg (1979)

Flawless, addictive rhyme and all manner of favourite characters collide, as only the Ahlbergs could.

The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler (1999)

The shelf has been groaning with Julia Donaldson's work for over a decade but this clever story that champions the underdog is still our favourite. Owl ice cream, anyone?

Elmer by David McKee (1989)

Simply looking at Elmer the patchwork elephant is a joyful thing. The story in which we are introduced to him is also a celebration of being different and nurturing your sense of humour.

Mr Gumpy’s Outing by John Burningham (1970)

Gentle, understated genius. The textures and colours transport the reader into a carefree summer. My original 1970s hardback is a most treasured possession.

Are We There Yet? by Alison Lester (2004)

If you've ever found yourself saying "I'd love to take the family on a road-trip all around Australia, BUT..." - here's the solution. Enjoy the trip from the comfort of your living room. Great detail so older kids love it, too.

Mog The Forgetful Cat by Judith Kerr (1970)

Kerr's Mog books are a celebration of the infuriating but highly entertaining personality of the cat. Grumpy, selfish, occasionally rather stupid, but undeniably a much-loved member of the family.

Possum Magic by Mem Fox and Julie Vivas (1983)

Let's face it, it's practically the law to have this on your child's bookshelf in Australia. But it's more than the Aussie animals and staple foods that explain its enormous popularity - the bond between Grandma Poss and Hush is adorable and the illustrations have a magic of their own.

Hairy Maclary From Donaldson’s Dairy by Lynley Dodd (1983)

A motley crew of aptly named dogs in this, one of the most joyful read-aloud books. My personal favourite is Schnitzel Von Krumm. And yours?

We're up to 30 Essential Picture Books now - here are the first two collections in case you missed them: Part 1 with books 1-10 and Part 2 with books 11-20.

What I loved: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

2013-05-01T00:00:00Z

One day my younger brother came home to find me sobbing at the kitchen table. I told him not to worry, that I was just reading a book and he said, why would you read something that makes you cry?

I’m still not sure how to answer that question but, thinking back on the books and films I’ve loved the most, there’s a definite trend in this direction. In a strange, masochistic way, the ability to make me tear up is my litmus test for any good book, and novelist Kazuo Ishiguro has passed this test several times. My hands-down favourite is Never Let Me Go. I won’t talk too much about the story itself though, as much of the pleasure in reading Ishiguro here lies with the surprises he’s tucked into the plot.

Never Let Me Go is set in an alternate version of the 1990s and is narrated by Kathy H, a ‘carer’ coming to the end of a successful career. As she travels through the English countryside, she reminisces about her time as a student at the seemingly-idyllic Hailsham. A sense of menace lingers beneath the banality of Kathy’s memories: a woman who visits the school recoils in fear from the children; the older students say a boy’s body was found in the woods nearby with hands and feet removed. These moments float to the surface of the narrative so gently that they slip by unseen, all the while gradually and deliberately building tension.

In this way it’s easy to see how Ishiguro could be described as deceptive. He has an uncanny ability to lull you into an unsuspecting state of passivity – something akin to boredom – and then all of a sudden, in only a few brief sentences, he’ll hit you with an emotional punch. He basically karate chops right at your heart. In Never Let Me Go Kathy seems such an ordinary person. Her tragedies are recognisable in our own lives – a childish fight with a friend, a crush on a boy with a girlfriend – but these small tragedies are thrown into sharp relief when her background becomes clear to us. Ultimately, I still find them heartbreaking long after finishing the book.

Even more heartbreaking is the manner in which Ishiguro’s characters respond to their losses by restricting their hopes and hiding their desires. There’s a scene in Never Let Me Go where Kathy stops for a break while driving to her next job. She walks a little way from the car, out into a windy day with rubbish caught along the fence line. She stands still, looks into the distance and imagines, just for a moment, a tiny glimpse of what she longs for. And then she turns back to the car and drives off.

This scene just kills me. I feel so strongly for Kathy in that moment and when I read a book that is exactly what I want to find: a moment of understanding with another person, even if it makes me cry.

Bronte Coates is the Online & Readings Monthly Assistant. She is a co-founder of literary project, Stilts.

Miles Franklin Shortlist 2013 Announced

2013-04-30T00:00:00Z

An all female Miles Franklin shortlist has been announced for 2013, reflecting on a growing trend in Australian literature toward strong, emerging women voices. The list includes three debut novels, two books from our Best Fiction of 2012 list and the inaugural Stella Prize winner, Carrie Tiffany.

This year’s winner will receive $60,000, up from $50,000 last year, and each of the shortlisted authors will also receive a cash prize of $,5000, thanks to funding from the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund.

The shortlisted list includes:

Floundering by Romy Ash

"A debut novel of extraordinary power, Floundering grabs the reader and doesn’t let go for a second. The pitch-perfect narrative spins a spare, even mundane tale of childhood dread punctuated by weirdness, evil and exquisite humour." - from the Judges' notes

Mateship with Birds by Carrie Tiffany

"Tiffany’s clever, closely observed evocation of the cadence of the language and attitudes of this period underpins an engaging and unusual, sometimes startling visceral, love story which asks us the question about the origins of our emotions: are they artifice or instinct?" - from the Judges' notes

Questions of Travel by Michelle de Kretser

"The stories intertwine and pull against one another, and within this double narrative, Michelle de Kretser explores questions of home and away, travel and tourism, refugees and migrants, as well as ‘questions of travel’ in the virtual world, charting the rapid changes in electronic communication that mark our lives today. She brings these large questions close-up and personal with her witty and poignant observations, her vivid language." - from the Judges' notes

The Beloved by Annah Faulkner

"Annah Faulkner’s The Beloved is a beautiful novel of mothers and daughters, of following dreams and the consequences when you don’t." - from the Judges' notes

The Mountain by Drusilla Modjeska

"As ambitious in its reach as it is perceptive and accomplished, The Mountain stakes out new territory in our fictional landscape. This is a big novel in every sense, whose length and span reflect its serious intent and intellectual heft." - from the Judges' notes

To read the full notes from the Judges and more, visit the Miles Franklin website.

Book of the Week: Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

2013-04-29T00:00:00Z

Sometimes I think I see it again, the farm, burning in the dark. Sometimes I can feel the ache of winter in my lungs, and I think I see the flames mirrored in the ocean, the water so strange, so flickered with light. There was a moment during that night when i looked back. I looked back to watch the fire, and if I lick my skin I can still taste the salt. The smoke.

Our book of the week is Hannah Kent's much-anticipated debut novel, Burial Rites. In northern Iceland, 1829, Agnes Magnúsdóttir is condemned to death for her part in the brutal murder of two men.

In her review of the novel, Jessica Au writes:

"Kent’s nineteenth-century Iceland is assuredly and beautifully realised, full of sickening snows and cold valleys, cramped badstofas and damp crofts, whale fat smeared on wood and windows made from dried sheep’s bladders. ... Burial Rites, and its poetic, subsuming world, is a beautifully executed work of the genre."

You can read an extract of Kent's novel here.

Burial Rites is out now.

Mother’s Day Gift Ideas

2013-04-29T00:00:00Z

Mother's Day is Sunday 12 May and we've asked our staff to share their gift ideas.

Don't forget, we have free shipping anywhere in Australia for all online purchases. Place your order by 5pm, Sunday 5 May for delivery before Mother's Day (in-stock items only.)

Head books buyer Martin Shaw recommends...

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

Sometimes you hear a lot about a certain book with good reason. Hannah Kent’s debut novel, Burial Rites, is a splendidly realised creation that isn’t afraid to sidle up to the great sagas that Iceland is so famous for. A compelling account of the last woman to be executed there, this is the winter read of 2013!

The Memory Trap by Andrea Goldsmith

After 2009’s acclaimed Reunion, Andrea Goldsmith, surely one of Melbourne’s finest contemporary storytellers, returns with The Memory Trap, an engrossing take on the nature of friendship and relationships.

Madeleine: The Life of Madeleine St John by Helen Trinca

For years this reclusive London-based writer was virtually unknown to the Australian public – I even remember Madeleine St John’s Booker Prize nomination in 1997 causing a bit of a scramble to find out who she was. Here at last is the story of her life – a rather troubled one perhaps, but one that also gave us some splendid novels, which are only now starting to be appreciated.

Children’s specialist Emily Gale recommends...

Mummy’s Kisses by Paula Clark & Lisa Stewart

Pretty in pink on the cover but with a beautiful cool palette on the inside, Mummy’s Kisses includes a simple rhyme about the ways mums encourage and reassure us (which is also great to read out loud). The real clincher is the use of a mummy echidna and her baby puggle – who could resist?

My Mum Is Beautiful by Jessica Spanyol

I couldn’t help identifying with this mum, who obviously never has a bath in peace and turns a blind eye to her children jumping in muddy puddles simply because it gives her five minutes for a phone call with a friend. Sweet and very cheering.

PS: As heartwarming as these two are, I’m sure I’m not alone in wanting to see books about mums being funny or silly instead of capable, domestic and ‘perfect’.

Food specialist Chris Gordon recommends....

The Little Veggie Patch Co’s Guide to Backyard Farming by Fabian Capomolla and Mat Pember

Skip the pot plant from the nearest milk bar and give your mother something that lasts longer: inspiration. This gem of a book is packed with fun and easy-to-follow activities such as keeping chickens, growing plants from cuttings, making cider and tomato sugo, and starting a backyard beehive. This is the sort of the gift that gives twice!

From India by Kumar & Suba Mahadevan

This beautifully presented cookbook will allow the wonderful smells and colours of Indian cuisine to come streaming through your kitchen windows. Here is a book that will spice up the drabbest of days and put colour in your cheeks. Both a cookery book and an ode to India.

Art & Design specialist Margaret Snowdon recommends...

Paris Sketchbook by Jason Brooks

This delightful book is a clever mix of retro and the now, sprinkled with literary and historical asides. With his clever, stylish fingers, Brooks draws fashion, architecture, interiors and all the things travellers love, from doorways to cute cars, art and food.

I also recommend Collecting Ladies: Women Botanical Illustrators and Ferdinand Von Mueller by Penny Olsen, for a look at nineteenth century Australia and charming art, Collecting Art for Love, Money and More by seriously seasoned advisors Ethan Wagner and Thea Westreich Wagner, Kate Spade New York: Things We Love for sassy style, The Crafty Minx at Home by Kelly Doust for creative mums, The Designer Says: Quotes, Quips and Words of Wisdom for advice that transcends design, Pattern 100 for cutting edge fashionistas and The Purple Book by Angus Hyland and Angharad Lewis for fun.

Music & DVD specialist Dave Clarke recommends...

To Be Loved by Michael Bublé

Canadian crooner Michael Bublé is back with his sixth studio album, featuring covers of Dean Martin, the Jackson 5, Elvis Presley and Frank and Nancy Sinatra, as well as four original songs.

Little French Songs by Carla Bruni

A warm and intimate album of folk, pop and traditional French tunes from model, actress and singer Carla Bruni. This is her first album in five years, and sees Bruni recording in French, Italian and English.

Ottolenghi’s Mediterranean Feast

Yotam Ottolenghi takes us on a culinary journey from Tunisia through to the spice markets of Morocco and the exotic eateries of Istanbul in this riveting four-part series.

Browse more recommendations for Mother's Day here.

EWF Program Highlights

2013-04-24T00:00:00Z

Emerging Writers' Festival Director Sam Twyford-Moore rounds up the best of this year’s fest.

Writers deserve to be as big as rock stars. We’re not quite at the point where there are ridiculous portraits of writers in tight jeans published in street press, or where they are being chased by a crazy mob of fans, but we’re close, and the 2013 Emerging Writers’ Festival program is partly an attempt to give them the credit they are due.

The Emerging Writers’ Festival Opening Night Gala

This is the tenth Emerging Writers’ Festival. On our opening night, we’ll be wishing the festival a very happy tenth birthday and kicking off our celebrations with a special keynote by the ratbag poet Astrid Lorange looking at the next ten years of writing in Australia.

The Writers’ Conference

The Writers’ Conference returns to Melbourne Town Hall and the Ambassadors are back. Our Ambassadors this year are Melinda Harvey, Walter Mason, John Safran, Jennifer Mills and Khairani ‘Okka’ Barokka, who we are bringing out from Indonesia as our International Writer in Residence through the generous support of the Australia-Indonesia Institute.

Words Travel: Australia and Indonesia

In addition to bringing Okka out, we’re sending a writer to the Bali Emerging Writers’ Festival – and it’s exciting to announce that that writer is Laura Jean McKay, whose collection of short stories Holiday in Cambodia will be released in July by Black Inc. In a neat coincidence, the BEWF runs from May 18 – 19, which means Laura will be back in time to report on her experience in Bali at a special event, Words Travel, which will look at the connections between Australia and Indonesia. Words Travel will take place during the Writers’ Conference.

Sweatshop Stories

I moved down from Sydney to take up the reigns of this festival. I was thinking it was going to be a bit of a controversial move seeing as the EWF is such a Melbourne icon, but I’ve been disappointingly embraced. It shouldn’t surprise that I’m bringing some Sydneysiders down with me. Through the support of the University of Western Sydney, we are bringing seven writers from Western Sydney from the Sweatshop Collective, a movement devoted to achieving equality for Western Sydney communities through literacy and critical thinking and one of the most dynamic groups of writers in this country. They’ll be presenting Sweatshop Stories, which they are furiously rehearsing at the moment.

Emerging Q&A

This year sees the return of many festival favourites, including Emerging Q&A, running bigger and better, down at Federation Square’s The Edge. Cheekily timed on a Monday just before Q&A proper, ours is going to be a wide ranging cultural conversation, rather than a back and forth game of political ping pong. Benjamin Law will host, doing his very best Tony Jones impression… if you can get your head around that.

Turns the Words up Loud – A Night of Writing and Music

Turn the Words Up Loud is a live event at the Toff in Town featuring writers who are musicians who might also be writers who might also be musicians. Legendary Dave Graney joins former Frente! frontwoman Angie Hart in a must-see hybrid of writers’ festival panel and late night gig.

The Writers’ Retreat at Abbotsford Convent

I’m most excited to announce that this year we have a major new partner in the Abbotsford Convent Foundation. For our second weekend (June 1 and 2), we’ll be running The Writers’ Retreat. This is a two day program focused around writing and wellbeing, with workshops on yoga, meditation and slow writing, and panels on writing and food, new nature writing and balancing life and writing. This is incredibly unique programming for a writers’ festival and I can’t wait to hear what you think.

As the Abbotsford programming makes clear, the Emerging Writers’ Festival is here of course to support writers, ten years strong with a stellar festival line up to prove it. Writers will be getting paid their dues!

To find out more about the Emerging Writers' Festival visit their website.

Sign up to the Readings Classical enews to win!

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Readings classical music specialists are here to help you choose from an extensive range of all types of classical music at our shops. Classical music specialists regularly review many releases which you can browse online, and all online orders receive free shipping anywhere in Australia.

Each year in September we offer amazing discounts on box sets in our Classical Box Set Sale, which is not to be missed if you love classical music!

Sign up to our monthly classical enews to keep up to date with the latest releases and reviews plus news, promotions and competitions.

All new subscribers who sign up to receive the classical enews by 1 May 2013 will go into the draw to win a double A-reserve subscription to the Melbourne Recital Centre concert series (value $528). Only the winner will be notified.