Readings.com.au: Malvern Bestsellers

Gallop!

This quirky picture book combines retro appeal with state-of-the-art animation technology to create the feel of an old-fashioned kinetoscope within its pages. Each page is adorned with a seemingly simple black-and-white illustration of an animal or object behind a vertical screen. As the reader moves the opposite page, the illustration comes to life, making a horse gallop, a rooster strut, a chimp swing and one shining star sparkle. The illustrations in Gallop! are each accompanied by a chirpy, sing-song line of text aimed at the young reader (‘Can you gallop like a horse?’), but the book is equally likely to appeal to admirers of all ages, who will be seduced by its magical inner workings.

The Age Good Food Guide 2009

With nearly 300 reviews of Melbourne restaurants and extensive coverage of destinations further afield, The Age Good Food Guide 2009 edition will point you in the right direction for every occasion.

John Lethlean and Necia Wilden share a great enthusiasm for food, wine, restaurants and quality journalism and writing. In this, the 29th edition of The Age Good Food Guide, their focus is clearly on the best places to eat and drink in Melbourne and country Victoria.

Melbourne's most respected guide to eating out.

The Lieutenant

In 1787 Lieutenant Thomas Rooke sets sail from Portsmouth with the First Fleet and its cargo of convicts, destined for New South Wales. As a young officer and a man of science, the shy and quiet Rooke is full of anticipation about the natural wonders he might discover in this strange land on the other side of the world.

After the fleet arrives in Port Jackson, Rooke sets up camp on a rocky and isolated point, and starts his work of astronomy and navigation.

It's not too long before some of the Aboriginal people who live around the harbour pay him a visit. One of them, a girl named Tarunga, starts to teach him her own language. But her lessons and their friendship are interrupted when Rooke is given an order that will change his life forever.

Inspired by the 1790 notebooks of William Dawes in which he recorded his conversations with a young Gadigal woman, THE LIEUTENANT is a story about a man discovering his true self in extraordinary circumstances. This powerful novel will enthral readers of Kate Grenville's bestselling THE SECRET RIVER, winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize.

Arabesques

One Sunday afternoon in a secluded valley in Normandy, Robert Dessaix chanced upon the castle where the famous French writer Andr Gide spent his childhood. Recalling the excitement Robert felt when he first read Gide as a teenager, he set off to recapture what it was that once drew him so strongly to this enigmatic figure.

A Most Wanted Man

A half-starved young Russian man in a long black overcoat is smuggled into Hamburg at dead of night. He has an improbable amount of cash secreted in a purse round his neck. He is a devout Muslim. Or is he? He says his name is Issa. Annabel, an idealistic young German civil rights lawyer, determines to save Issa from deportation. Soon her client's survival becomes more important to her than her own career. In pursuit of Issa's mysterious past, she confronts the incongruous Tommy Brue, the sixty-year-old scion of Brue Freres, a failing British bank based in Hamburg. A triangle of impossible loves is born. Meanwhile, scenting a sure kill in the so-called War on Terror, the spies of three nations converge upon the innocents. Poignant, compassionate, peopled with characters the reader never wants to let go, A Most Wanted Man is alive with humour, yet prickles with tension until the last heart-stopping page. It is also a work of deep humanity, and uncommon relevance to our times.

The Duchess

Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, was one of the most flamboyant and influential women of the eighteenth century. The great–great–great–great aunt of Diana, Princess of Wales, she was variously a compulsive gambler, a political savante and operator of the highest order, a drug addict, an adulteress and the darling of the common people.

This authoritative, utterly absorbing book presents a mesmerizing picture of a fascinating world of political and sexual intrigues, grand houses, huge parties, glamour and great wealth – always on the edge of being squandered by the excesses and scandals of individuals.

THE DUCHESS is the story of an extraordinary woman who rose to fame by staying true to her passions in a world of protocol, gossip and social rules – and paid the price. Georgiana's extraordinary life has now been made into a major film – starring Keira Knightley and Ralph Fiennes – which is due for release on Boxing Day 2009.