Readings.com.au: Malvern Recommends: Books

The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance

264 wood and ivory carvings, none of them larger than a matchbox: potter Edmund de Waal was entranced when he first encountered the collection in the Tokyo apartment of his great uncle Iggie. Later, when Edmund inherited the 'netsuke', they unlocked a story far larger than he could ever have imagined...

The Ephrussis came from Odessa, and at one time were the largest grain exporters in the world; in the 1870s, Charles Ephrussi was part of a wealthy new generation settling in Paris. Charles's passion was collecting; the netsuke, bought when Japanese objets were all the rage in the salons, were sent as a wedding present to his banker cousin in Vienna. Later, three children - including a young Ignace - would play with the netsuke as history reverberated around them.

The Anschluss and Second World War swept the Ephrussis to the brink of oblivion. Almost all that remained of their vast empire was the netsuke collection, dramatically saved by a loyal maid when their huge Viennese palace was occupied. In this stunningly original memoir, Edmund de Waal travels the world to stand in the great buildings his forebears once inhabited. He traces the network of a remarkable family against the backdrop of a tumultuous century and tells the story of a unique collection.

Mice

Even the meekest of mice have their breaking point...This provocative thriller will have you asking: What would you do if you were pushed to the limit?

'Shelley, darling,' Mum said. 'Don't be frightened. He just wants money. If we do everything he says, he's going to go away and leave us alone.' I didn't believe her, and I could tell from the trembling of her hands and the catch in her voice that she didn't believe it herself. When a cat gets into the mousehole, it doesn't go away leaving the mice unharmed. I knew how this story was going to end.

Shelley and her mum have been bullied long enough. When they retreat to an isolated cottage in the country, they think their troubles are over, and they revel in their cosy, secure life. But one night, an intruder disturbs their peace and something inside Shelley snaps. What happens next will shatter all their certainties.

Gordon Reece is a writer and illustrator. He studied English literature at Keble College, Oxford, and has been a lawyer and a teacher. Originally from the UK, he lived in Spain for a number of years and emigrated to Australia in 2005. His books include picture books for trade and educational publishers (Pepe in England series for Macmillan Spain; What does your daddy do?, The Runaway Circus and Nog the Nag Bird for Lothian), comics and graphic novels (The Adventures of Count Oblonsky and Petrov, Macmillan, Spain) as well as fiction for adults (The Lift, Ripples Magazine, 2006).

Thin Executioner

No extra details available for this item.

Freedom

Patty and Walter Berglund were the new pioneers of old St. Paul -- the gentrifiers, the hands-on parents, the avant-garde of the Whole Foods generation. Patty was the ideal sort of neighbour who could tell you where to recycle your batteries and how to get the local cops to actually do their job. She was an enviably perfect mother and the wife of Walter′s dreams. Together with Walter --environmental lawyer, commuter cyclist, total family man -- she was doing her small part to build a better world. But now, in the new millennium, the Berglunds have become a mystery. Why has their teenage son moved in with the aggressively Republican family next door? Why has Walter taken a job working with Big Coal? What exactly is Richard Katz-outré rocker and Walter′s college best friend and rival-still doing in the picture? Most of all, what has happened to Patty? Why has the bright star of Barrier Street ′a very different kind of neighbour′ -- an implacable Fury coming unhinged before the street′s attentive eyes?

In his first novel since THE CORRECTIONS, Jonathan Franzen has given us an epic of contemporary love and marriage. FREEDOM comically and tragically captures the temptations and burdens of liberty: the thrills of teenage lust, the shaken compromises of middle age, the wages of suburban sprawl, the heavy weight of empire.

In charting the mistakes and joys of FREEDOM′s intensely realised characters as they struggle to learn how to live in an ever more confusing world, Franzen has produced an indelible and deeply moving portrait of our time.

Lazarus Rising

He has been one of Australia’s most controversial prime ministers, leading the Liberal Party to victory over four elections and becoming the second-longest-serving PM in the nation’s history. John Winston Howard is the face of the modern Liberal Party, an economic radical and social conservative whose ideology has united many Australians and divided just as many others. But what people often forget is that long before he became Prime Minister, John Howard was an idealistic politician.

This book looks back over 30 years in politics, and at the changes Howard has seen both inside and outside the Government during that time. From his modest beginnings, to his steep ascent in Liberal Party ranks, and subsequent time in the wilderness during the Coalition’s opposition years, to a victory almost no one had predicted, and on to some of the most tumultuous years in Australia’s recent past, this is history seen through the eyes of the ultimate insider. Here, Howard tells how he responded on issues vital to Australia, such as gun control, East Timor and the relationship with Indonesia, the aftermath of 9/11, and the rising tide of asylum-seekers.

Lazarus Rising takes us through the life and motivations of John Howard, and through the forces which have changed and shaped both him and the country he led for 11 years.

Three Seconds

Three Seconds won the Swedish Academy of Crime Writers’ Award 2009 for Best Swedish Crime Novel of the Year.

Piet Hoffman is the best undercover operative in the Swedish police force, but only one other man is even aware of his existence. When a drug deal he is involved in goes very wrong, he is faced with the hardest mission of his life: to infiltrate Sweden’s most infamous maximum security prison. Intelligent, gripping, brutal, Three Seconds is the latest thriller from Roslund and Hellström, the heirs apparent to Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankell as masters of Scandinavian crime.

The Party Thieves: The Real Story of the 2010 Election

Barrie Cassidy picked a hell of an election to cover: changes of leaders on both sides of politics, Australia’s first woman Prime Minister, a hung parliament, a Green and independent ascendancy, and a country not knowing who its Prime Minister was for nearly three weeks.

But in the beginning were the Party Thieves, Malcolm Turnbull and Kevin Rudd. Turnbull’s manic desire to get his own way in the party, and because he simply stopped listening, led to his demise. Rudd stole the party through his authoritarian approach to government and a cabinet that felt alienated from the job of governing.

Cassidy contends that the removal of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in the lead-up to the 2010 election ranks with the Dismissal, the disappearance of Holt and the day Fraser called an election as one of the four big stories in Australian politics in 50 years.

In both cases, the members of their respective parties came at the Party Thieves to reclaim what was rightfully theirs, and set the stage for the ascension of Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard.

And all that, before we even get to the 2010 election campaign.

The Party Thieves is more than just a campaign diary of the extraordinary 2010 election and its aftermath; it is a rip-roaring, incisive analysis of a tumultuous nine months in politics that even surprised veteran journalists such as Cassidy. This is a must for political junkies of any persuasion.

Barrie Cassidy has been covering federal politics since he was first posted to Canberra in 1979. He has worked as political correspondent for ABC TV and radio and political analyst for The 7.30 Report. He is a former president of the parliamentary press gallery.

He was for four years senior press secretary to Prime Minister Bob Hawke and eventually his senior political adviser. Barrie has worked overseas as a correspondent, again in major political capitals. First, as US correspondent for The Australian in Washington during the rise of Bill Clinton and then as European correspondent for the ABC based in Brussels.

He has hosted many political/discussion/interview programs on television including Meet The Press and The Last Shout on Network Ten and currently, Insiders and Offsiders on the ABC.

The Dead

A TERRIBLE DISEASE IS STRIKING EVERYONE OVER THE AGE OF FOURTEEN. DEATH WALKS THE STREETS. NOWHERE IS SAFE.

Maxie, Blue and the rest of the Holloway crew aren't the only kids trying to escape the ferocious adults who prey on them.

Jack and Ed are best friends, but their battle to stay alive tests their friendship to the limit as they go on the run with a mismatched group of other kids – nerds, fighters, misfits. And one adult. Greg, a butcher, who claims he's immune to the disease.

They must work together if they want to make it in this terrifying new world. But as a fresh disaster threatens to overwhelm London, they realize they won't all survive.

'Higson has got the balance of blood and gore just right.' Daily Mirrror

'Clever . . . fast-paced . . . inventive.' Guardian

Fall Girl

‘The secret to having people give you money is to act as though you don’t want it.’

Meet Ella Canfield, highly qualified evolutionary biologist. Attractive, if a little serious-looking in those heavy glasses—but then she’s about to put her career on the line. Dr Canfield is seeking funding for a highly unorthodox research project. She wants to prove that an extinct animal still roams in one of Australia’s most popular national parks.

Meet Daniel Metcalf, good-looking, expensively dishevelled millionaire. Quite witty but far too rich to be taken seriously. He heads the Metcalf Trust, which donates money to offbeat scientific research projects. He has a personal interest in animals that don’t exist.

Problem number one: There is no such person as Dr Ella Canfield.

Problem number two: Della Gilmore, professional con artist, has never met anyone like Daniel Metcalf before.

Someone is going to take a fall.

A sparkling, sexy read from the author of Addition, Fall Girl is a story about passion and loyalty, deceit and integrity, and the importance of believing in things that don’t exist.

Read our Q&A with Toni Jordan about Fall Girl.

Shall We Dance?

Loulou Landers, London's undisputed Queen of Vintage Fashion, meets man on the eve of her dreaded forty-ninth birthday. He's kind, he's sensitive, he's divinely handsome and he carries a designer suit like George Clooney. Unfortunately, he's barely half her age, and Loulou's just not ready to 'go cougar'.

Then there is Loulou's 21-year-old daughter, Theo, who won't get a job, won't move out, wears chainstore fashion, and hasn't said a civil word to her mother for years. And she is on the verge of her own spectacularly unsuitable affair.

So how will Loulou cope with a daughter who's off the rails, a main who won't take no for an answer, an ageing process that won't slow down – not to mention a birthday party in a camping ground? Like she always has – with wit, grit and an exemplary sense of style.

Started Early, Took My Dog

The fourth novel featuring Jackson Brodie from the bestselling author of When Will There Be Good News?

A day like any other for security chief Tracy Waterhouse, until she makes a purchase she hadn't bargained for. One moment of madness is all it takes for Tracy's humdrum world to be turned upside down, the tedium of everyday life replaced by fear and danger at every turn.

Witnesses to Tracy's Faustian exchange in the Merrion Centre in Leeds are Tilly, an elderly actress teetering on the brink of her own disaster, and Jackson Brodie who has returned to his home county in search of someone else's roots. All three characters learn that the past is never history and that no good deed goes unpunished.

Kate Atkinson dovetails and counterpoints her plots with Dickensian brilliance in a tale peopled with unlikely heroes and villains . Started Early, Took My Dog is freighted with wit, wisdom and a fierce moral intelligence. It confirms Kate Atkinson’s position as one of the great writers of our time.