Readings.com.au: Reviews

Going Bovine: Libba Bray

2010-03-10T00:00:00Z

Reviewed by Leanne Hall, Kids' Book Specialist, Readings Carlton

Whilst initially reluctant to read any book featuring a cow and a garden gnome on the cover, I will always be grateful that I got past my initial prejudice and read the sprawling, rollicking, chaotically perfect Going Bovine.

A very deserving winner of the 2010 Michael L. Printz award, Going Bovine is the tale of Cameron, an American teenager diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, commonly known as Mad Cow disease. Cameron's already a pretty cranky and disconnected youth, but when the hallucinogenic symptoms of his disease start to take hold, his life starts to become increasingly terrifying and entertaining. It's hard to describe such a rambling novel that takes the reader on a road trip across America, from voodoo-jazz in New Orleans, to happy-clappy religous cults addicted to positivity and smoothies, to spring-break-girls-go-wild shenanigans in Daytona.

All along the way Bray lampoons American pop culture and highlights (with affection) the various insanities afflicting her country and its teens. This is a gutsy, touching, hilarious rollercoaster ride of a book that can be enjoyed equally by adults as well as teens.

Destination Saigon: Adventures In Vietnam: Walter Mason

2010-03-01T00:00:00Z

Reviewed by Joe Rubbo, Readings State Library of Victoria Manager

When Walter Mason spends the night in a beachside monastery, he wonders if some early rising monks might think him an apparition of Di Lac, the fat, smiling Buddha of the future. This is an apt description of my own impression of Mr. Mason after reading the personal and amusing account of his voyages in Vietnam as a festively plump foreigner.

Possessed of a fluid and receptive engagement with spirituality, Mr Mason directs his exploratory trip into the religious practices and beliefs of individuals and groups in contemporary Vietnamese society, finding charisma in all facets of Vietnamese life. I became more and more engaged with Mr Mason’s comical and touching stories, related in the sort of personal, unpolished style that heightens humour and forgives gentle moralising.

Reality Hunger: A Manifesto: David Shields

2010-03-01T00:00:00Z

Reviewed by Louise Swinn, Editorial Director of Sleepers Publishing

There’s been some advance fanfare for Reality Hunger, a provocative new manifesto from this University of Washington creative writing professor. In a work that is a series of hooks, Shields writes: ‘Don’t waste your time; get to the real thing. Sure, what’s “real”? Still, try to get to it.’

Often a novel begins with the note, ‘any relation between the characters and real people is entirely coincidental’, which can be blatantly untrue. In 1722, Daniel Defoe tried to pass off A Journal of the Plague Year as an actual journal and in 1595, Sir Philip Sidney had to fight for the right to ‘lie’ in literature. So we have come full circle. And yet, as per James Frey et al, we don’t like to find out we’ve been lied to for the sake of a good story.

Reality Hunger’s main concern is the blurring of the boundary between fact and fiction, the new ways we need to learn how to tell stories, and how to read and understand them. Then Shields takes apart plot. Writers beware: literature is marginalised; Shields urges us to accept that and use it to our advantage. It seems appropriate, in the year Salinger leaves us, for this new text to be obsessed with authenticity and the search for what is ‘real’. ‘It’s all in the art. You get no credit for living.’ Read it first: argue later.

Kill Your Darlings Issue One: Rebecca Starford (Ed)

2010-03-01T00:00:00Z

Reviewed by Martin Shaw, Book Buyer at Readings Carlton

The long summer draws to an end, our publishing houses emerge from what feels like a long recess, and we have new and exciting offerings to behold! A particular stand-out so far this year has been Affirm Press’s terrific first couple of offerings in their short-story series, overseen by Rebecca Starford.

In a show of remarkable industriousness, she has now co-edited (in her own time no less!) a brand-spanking-new literary journal, in order to – as the editors have it – ‘reinvigorate and re-energise’ a medium that sometimes risks a certain staleness. An outstanding design concept is perhaps the first feature which lifts this journal above the average; some snappy book reviews, a cartoon from the redoubtable Oslo Davis, an extended interview with Sarah Waters, and stories from some of the most exciting exponents of Oz Lit (including Kalinda Ashton, Patrick Cullen and Chris Womersley) all indicate that this publication has every intention of becoming a fixture in our literary world.

Oh and there’s a clutch of diverse and approachable non-fiction articles too, all an ideal length for the more time-poor among us. My only gripe is a rather inflammatory piece by Gideon Haigh on the alleged decline in Australian literary reviewing – but it attests to KYD’s mission to be at the forefront of debate and exchange, for all who care about books, writing and ideas.

www.killyourdarlingsjournal.com

Requiem For A Species: Why We Resist The Truth About Climate Change: Clive Hamilton

2010-03-01T00:00:00Z

Reviewed by Mark Rubbo, Managing Director of Readings

To Hamilton, the case is clear cut and the current growth of greenhouse gas emissions will lead to a catastrophic rise in global temperature. Indeed, he argues that even if governments had the political will to act promptly and resolutely – and radically restructured their economies and societies – it may still be too late. He quotes one analysis that claims the world is irreversibly headed for 2.4 degrees Celsius of warming above pre-industrial levels. At that degree of warming, we would lose the Arctic summer sea ice and see the melting of the Himalayan–Tibetan glaciers and of the Greenland ice sheet.

In an earlier book, Hamilton introduced the concept of our growth fetish. It is the developed (and now the developing) world’s addiction to consumption and to economic growth at any cost that has got us into this predicament, he argues. Ironically, says Hamilton, if we took stringent measures to stabilise greenhouse gases over the next 40 years to a level where we may have a chance to survive, then the cost to world GDP in 2050 would be 2%. Reducing atmospheric carbon will not inhibit economic growth; it is the only way to ensure it is sustained.

Hamilton is pessimistic about the world’s ability to introduce measures that would give us a chance; governments are compromised by the pressure of powerful interest groups, such as the coal industry, to emasculate their climate change policies. All political parties are compromised to a greater or lesser degree and the recent experience in Australian politics is a vivid example of this. Hamilton’s book is a sobering one; it will be dismissed as scaremongering by the interests that deny global warning and alarmist by others. If the science is right, then we have little or no time to act.

Hamilton provocatively concludes his book by calling on citizens to break laws that protect those who continue to pollute the atmosphere in a way that threatens our survival.

Moon: Duncan Jones

2010-03-01T00:00:00Z

Reviewed by Robbie Egan, Readings Carlton Manager

In the wake of the science-fiction phenomenon Avatar, it is conceivable that 3D blockbusters may become the default for years to come as studios strive to emulate the giddy box-office heights of James Cameron. This is not a criticism of Avatar – it is a pulse-quickening experience – but even the most brightly lit displays can become wearying on the eye.

Duncan Jones’ first film, Moon, is a delightful antidote for those craving ideas that seem beyond the churn of Hollywood studios. Using old-fashioned models and seventies-looking interiors, Jones has created a highly realistic lunar station, from which Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) monitors and maintains a one-man mining operation. In this near-future all our energy problems have been solved by the discovery of Helium3, a clean fuel found on the dark side of the moon.

Moon gives us Sam Bell at the end of his three-year contract. He is desperately tired and lonely, bickering with his robot helper GERTY (voiced with sinister ambiguity by Kevin Spacey) and chatting at length with his indoor plants. The long-range communications satellite has been out of commission and contact with his wife and daughter has been exclusively through video recordings. With only weeks to go before he heads home to Earth, it seems all Sam has to do is wait.

But waiting alone on the moon for three years has taken its toll. Bouncing slowly across the cool dusty pock-marked terrain in a lunar truck, Sam is spooked by a vision and crashes into one of the automated Helium3 harvesters. When he awakes in the infirmary, GERTY fussing about him, Sam’s understanding of the world begins to change. GERTY seems reluctant to impart information about the crash and unusually obstructive when Sam wishes to leave the station. What ensues is a surprisingly early revelation of a key twist, from which inexorable conclusions are reached. In uncovering truths about his work, Sam begins to question who he is, why he is caught in his predicament, and what it is to live in the age of the corporation.

Underpinning these questions is the film’s minimalist aesthetic. Grey exteriors are punctured by harsh slashes of sunlight. Earth looms large, mournfully luminous but also distant and abstract. This is what it must be like to go to work alone on a mine site, awakening to straight-lined white interiors laced with moon-dust. Sam’s spacesuit doesn’t gleam - it too is dusty and scuffed. Moon abounds with such quotidian details of the working life. This is not 2001, more Silent Runnings meets Outland. It is not a film about gadgets - it is equally as fascinating to watch GERTY cut Sam’s hair as it is to see him unloading Helium3 three from a moving harvester – and the film builds its momentum around Sam’s re-conception of truth rather than any space-age technological conceit.

It is a beautiful film to watch, too, but where Moon is most extraordinary is its emotional depth. Sam Rockwell delivers the best performance of his career as an exhausted workingman prodded into action. Complemented by a stunning sonic tapestry from Clint Mansell, Moon is an intensely thoughtful and original interrogation of what our horrid, corrupt and exploitative monster of a world is up to and heading for, entirely explored through one man’s confrontation with himself.

Skulduggery Pleasant: Dark Days: Derek Landy

2010-02-25T00:00:00Z

Reviewed by Leanne Hall, Kids' Book Specialist, Readings Carlton

I came late to the Skulduggery Pleasant series – starting with the third book, The Faceless Ones, and then following it with Dark Days, the fourth. I enjoyed Dark Days so much I’m now reading the first two books back to back!

For the uninitiated, Skulduggery Pleasant is a skeleton detective/sorcerer who works with his partner Valkyrie Cain (aka former ordinary Irish schoolgirl Stephanie Edgley) and a host of other characters to defeat the many powers of evil.

In Dark Days, Valkyrie must undertake a dangerous rescue mission to retrieve Skulduggery from a hellish dimension ruled by the Faceless Ones. There’s no time for her to take a breather afterwards, though. There’s the matter of the Desolation Engine – a bomb that could wipe out thousands – that has fallen into the wrong hands. I can’t say much more without spoiling a plot full of surprises, but I will say that the book ends with Valkyrie on the verge of a major identity crisis. This is smart, funny, contemporary fantasy that’s up there with the best, easily as good as the books of Cassandra Clare or Eoin Colfer.

Nanny Piggins and the Runaway Lion: R.A. Spratt

2010-02-25T00:00:00Z

Reviewed by Alexa Dretzke, Kids' Book Specialist, Readings Hawthorn

Would you believe it? A pig that is a nanny, a chocolate addicted pig that is a nanny! Let me introduce you to the hilarious, clever and fashionable Nanny Piggins.

If you haven’t read the first two books in the series, forget school – hurry to your bookshop and on the way home buy two dozen chocolate bars and your day will be perfect! How to describe Nanny...hmmm. Think Roald Dahl meets Mary Poppins, but funnier. She’s irreverent, inspirational, very glamorous and the best fun I’ve had in ages. You absolutely must read all three books; oink, very loudly when you enjoy the fun of it all and don’t mention the word bacon! It’s chocolatey nonsense for all the family, from ages 5+ (read to), because Nanny is too delicious for anyone to miss.

Scarlett Fever: Maureen Johnson

2010-02-25T00:00:00Z

Reviewed by Marie Matteson, Kids' Book Specialist, Readings Port Melbourne

Scarlett Martin might seem like she lives a charmed life. Her family own an old New York hotel and she is an assistant to a Broadway theatrical agent while still attending one of the top schools in the city – and all at the age of 16. The hotel happens to be falling down though, and the talent agency consists of one crazy boss and one client, a unicycle-riding Shakespearian actor: her brother. So Scarlett doesn’t find her life charming so much as catastrophic. Let’s not even start on her not-quite love life.

If you haven’t yet come across the Martin family and the crazy New York high jinks that surround them, you have been missing out. Maureen Johnson writes a screwball romantic comedy that makes you laugh out loud while genuinely rooting for Scarlett and her crazy but loveable family and friends. The best summer book ever. Well, that is since the last one, Suite Scarlett – the prequel.

The Piper's Son: Melina Marchetta

2010-02-25T00:00:00Z

Reviewed by Callie Martin, Kids' Book Specialist, Readings St Kilda

Sequels are a dangerous business. But then, so is moving away from your genre, which Melina Marchetta proved to be no obstacle in her fourth novel, Finnikin of the Rock. Her return to the world of Saving Francesca is met with greedy anticipation for us rabid fans and oh, we’re so glad Marchetta dares to be dangerous!

The Piper’s Son is the story of Tom Mackee – a Tom Mackee damaged by the five years between books. Tom is aiming for oblivion, wanting to leave behind the friends and family who tie him to grief. Kicked out of his flat, broke and friendless, Tom moves in with his aunt and slowly, his messy life comes into focus. There is darkness in this book: the darkness of real life, real pain. But there is warmth and light too, as Tom finds himself and realises the people he is trying to escape are the people who will ultimately help him move beyond it.

The Surrendered: Chang-Rae Lee

2010-02-25T00:00:00Z

Reviewed by Michelle Calligaro, Readings Monthly Editorial Assistant

June Han is only 11 years old when her family is torn apart by the Korean War. Her will to survive is far stronger than her capacity to heal and her emotional life is stunted so profoundly that it reverberates through the rest of her life. Hector Brennan, an American soldier, finds her on the road and takes her to an orphanage, where soon they meet Sylvie Tanner, the wife of the new missionary. Hector and Sylvie are both fighting their own demons, and the complicated bonds that arise in the intense environment of the orphanage leave none unmarked.

Moving back and forth between contemporary America and Europe, war-time Korea and the childhoods of Hector and Sylvie, Chang-Rae Lee weaves a profound and haunting tale that offers no easy path to redemption.

American XI: Ain't No Grave: Johnny Cash

2010-02-25T00:00:00Z

Reviewed by Dave Clarke, Readings Carlton

The final instalment in Cash’s celebrated American Recording series, this release is the final piece of the puzzle for many Johnny Cash fans around the world. As with the others from the series, it is produced by Rick Rubin and sees Cash interpret other artists’ songs in his own inimitable way. Recorded not long after his wife died and in the final months of his own life, there is real poignancy here.

I'm New Here: Gil Scott-Heron

2010-02-25T00:00:00Z

Reviewed by Dave Clarke, Readings Carlton

The title is a little incongruous, given Gil Scott-Heron has been around since the 70s. He was a pioneer of rap and jazz-funk and one of the most political songwriters of that time. He returns after a lengthy spell, having been a victim of what he for so long preached against – the scourge of drugs. And what a return it is – his voice may be a little more weathered, but the passion and intelligence remain. Well worth investigating.

Rush To Relax: Eddy Current Suppression Ring

2010-02-25T00:00:00Z

Reviewed by Declan Murphy, Readings St Kilda

ECSR made the UK Guardian’s top 50 albums of 2009 at number 28, a list also bothered by the Drones. In a year that gave us some fairly stunning records, that’s quite an amazing feat for a very indie, very Melbourne band. And now, the most exciting band in the country returns with their third album Rush to Relax.

Are these guys the saviours of rock 'n' roll? Well, maybe – as anyone who has seen them live will attest to. That guitar sound! For bands that exude so much frenetic energy in a live setting, it can sometimes be difficult to capture on record what makes them so truly great. That’s not so with The Ring. If you like your punk rock by way of The Stooges/Television, then please, please, please see this band, buy this record.

The Last Station: Jay Parini

2010-02-25T00:00:00Z

Reviewed by Melanie Joosten, freelance reviewer

From the tragic love of Anna Karenina to the marshalling of almost 600 characters in War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy’s mastery of fiction is undisputed. Which makes it even more devastating that the final years of his life should have descended into an almost comical farce as Tolstoy embraced pacifism, vegetarianism and celibacy (no mean feat for a man who proudly recorded the innumerable sexual conquests of his youth).

Parini’s finely realised historical novel is based on the many surviving diaries, letters and accounts of those who stayed close to the Count in his final days: his adoring daughter Sasha, his youthful secretary Valentin, and the various followers of the philosophy Tolstoyism, which saw the writer revered as a Christ-like figure. The thrust of the novel, however, comes from the volatile relationship between Tolstoy and his long-suffering wife Sonya. Parini cleverly captures the intricacies of this larger-than-life couple, while revealing in both a genuine vulnerability.

Reissued to coincide with the movie release, The Last Station celebrates a great writer while exploring the inherent interior struggles of such an astonishing mind.

Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand: Helen Simonson

2010-02-25T00:00:00Z

Reviewed by Fiona Hardy, Readings Carlton

Welcome to the quaint and beautiful English village of Edgecombe St Mary. Major Ernest Pettigrew, Royal Sussex, retired, is quite happy living his insular life of golf games with other men of standing, avoiding the perpetually embarrassing ladies of the Flower Guild and drinking copious amounts of tea. When he gets news of the unexpected death of his brother Bertie, he finds himself struck with grief. There, at the right time, is Mrs Ali: local Pakistani shopkeeper, purveyor of the Major’s beloved tea, and a rather charming lady. The Major, despite being almost entirely made of stiff upper lip, is a surprisingly lovable character, and while the discreetly intolerant villagers and the couples’ problem-plagued families seem to be doing their best – unwillingly or not – to drive the two apart, it is impossible to resist cheering on their union.

In the tradition of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, where seemingly distinguished British people defy expectations and become the readers’ heroes with a few scathing comeuppances, Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand delivers a cast of characters as comforting and warm as a cup of Earl Grey.

The Hopeless Life of Charlie Summers: Paul Torday

2010-02-25T00:00:00Z

Reviewed by Michael Awasoga-Samuel, Readings Carlton

Paul Torday, who gave us the comic novel Salmon Fishing in the Yemen in 2006, returns here with his fourth novel. Torday writes with confidence and clarity, like many other writers – such as Toni Morrison and Annie Proulx – who start to produce work late in life.

Torday’s latest novel contains references to the business world, a world the author is familiar with. Two friends, Henry and Eck, have a chance encounter with stranger Charlie Summers while on holiday in France. When they return to their lives back in England, Charlie appears first to Henry, taking him up on a casual offer of a place to stay (much to the annoyance of Henry’s wife). Later, he does the same to Eck. Charlies is a drifter and a bit of a charlatan, but what he does seem to bring out in those lives he enters is a sense of honesty, paradoxically delivered through his deception. This novel engages on many levels.

All That Follows: Jim Crace

2010-02-25T00:00:00Z

Reviewed by Kiera Gee, freelance reviewer

When Leonard Lessing recognises a gunman’s face on television as an old acquaintance, he must decide whether or not to alert the authorities. It is choices such as this one which shape the plot and the subsequent turns it takes. What I loved about this book was the ‘realness’ of its characters and the overall plot. Leonard himself – insecure, indecisive, wannabe hero – is in a rut, due to a shoulder injury preventing him from playing his sax. What occurs in the story, though bizarre, has the potential to occur in anyone’s life and this is the powerful connection you have with Leonard: he’s just your average Joe.

Beneath the surface, some tough questions are asked, particularly whether a life of ‘sound and fury’ (as lived by the gunman) is more significant than the quieter one led by Leonard himself. Crace craftily uses this experience to contrast how alive and secure Leonard feels with his sax in comparison to the rest of the time. This aids in our understanding of Leonard and hence the choices he makes.

Mr Rosenblum’s List: Natasha Solomons

2010-02-25T00:00:00Z

Reviewed by Michelle Calligaro, Readings Monthly Editorial Assistant

This is Natasha Solomons’s first book. She first worked as a shepherdess at the age of nine, graduated later to screenwriting, and has since written this gratifying story about the extraordinary Mr Rosenblum. Mr Rosenblum arrives in England after the war and wants desperately to assimilate. To do so, he creates a comprehensive guide to the manners, customs and habits of his new home. His wife finds this all too much really and would prefer to remember those left behind. But together, they search for a new home and for the meaning of home.

This is their story. I mention that Natasha was once a shepherdess because there is clearly a link between this wonderful writer’s first job and this tale. (One has to read it to find the connection.) I can tell you, though, that this novel is about the best of humanity: a great big dose of kindness, laughter and empathy. It’s all here in Mr Rosenblum’s List.

Serena: Ron Rash

2010-02-25T00:00:00Z

Reviewed by Jason Austin, Readings Carlton

When timber baron George Pemberton returns to the mountains of North Carolina with his new wife Serena, a man confronts them with his daughter – whom, it is alleged, is carrying George’s child. From the very first chapter we learn that George, a violent man, has chosen his equal in Serena as she informs the girl she will get nothing from them.

Lady Macbeth-like, Serena sets out on an ambitious plan to destroy anyone who comes in the way of their becoming a powerful timber empire. But things are stacking up against the Pembertons. The Depression has hit, the government are forcing landowners to sell off their properties to create national parkland and their workers are dying due to unsafe working conditions. Then, with the realisation that she is unable to have a child of her own, Serena turns her attention to murdering the only heir to their empire, George’s illegitimate son.

Serena is a strong novel with a great female villain. It’s a dark and brooding piece of Appalachian gothic by a wonderful storyteller.