Readings.com.au: Carlton

Unfinished Business

2008-08-07T00:00:00Z

Even before last night's round with Kerry, Paul Keating's Nothing But The Man Big Ideas event at the Melbourne Writers Festival had sold out. But be consoled that the new book Unfinished Business: Paul Keating's Interrupted Revolution by David Love has arrived in store. Love explores Keating's hopes for the transformation of the economy that were interrupted when he lost office in 1996. Taken from personal conversations over the last 30 years, Love examines Keating's vision and its relevance today.

A book by its cover

2008-08-05T00:00:00Z

Though we don't often like to admit it, a good cover goes a long way to enticing a reader. The new cover of the classic Richard Yates' novel, Revolutionary Road, caught Jo's eye as she wandered past the book shelves.

Luckily Revolutionary Road is the whole package, exposing a dark unhappiness in the American suburban heartland but told with a great sense of empathy and humour. When not out book-spotting, Jo can sometimes be found behind the music counter and if you're lucky you might hear her singing a few bars as well.

I'll admit, I also recently discovered a wonderful novel by falling for its cover. Embers by Sandor Marai imagines the reunion of two men who haven't seen each other for forty-one years. It is the story of an intensely experienced childhood friendship that is destroyed by a love affair. Atmospheric and haunting, it explores the boundaries of class and love and a vastly changing European world.

Eastern rhythms

2008-08-01T00:00:00Z

If you're a regular visitor to the shop, I'm sure you've heard some of the Middle-eastern tunes that are played for our staff...um, I mean customer pleasure...not to mention a bit of belly-dancing without the bells (or bellies) to go with it.

Kevin has fallen for the new Natacha Atlas album, Ana Hina. A little more romantic, a little sadder than her earlier pop-inspired work; it is a wonderful collection, including a beautiful version of Frida Kahlo's poem, "La Vida Callada".

Damon Young in conversation with Professor John Armstrong

2008-07-21T00:00:00Z

Tuesday 30 September 2008 at 6:30pm

Readings Carlton: 309 Lygon St, Carlton, Victoria, 3053

Damon Young is a Fellow in the School of Philosophy, University of Melbourne. He has published widely in Australian and overseas journals, and lectured on globalisation, European philosophy, and literature. His book Distraction explores our diversions and interruptions, and their role in modern life.

Free, but please book on 9347 6633 or on Facebook.

Janet Frame's The Goose Bath launch

2008-07-21T00:00:00Z

Wednesday 17 September 2008 at 6:00pm

Readings Carlton: 309 Lygon St, Carlton, Victoria, 3053

Melbourne independent publisher Wilkins Farago has secured the Australian rights to one of the most important works of Antipodean literature of the past 30 years, Janet Frame’s posthumous The Goose Bath. The celebrated New Zealand writer’s final masterwork, described as ‘a volume that alters the landscape of New Zealand poetry’ will be released in Australia in September 2008.

Twice shortlisted for the Nobel Prize for Literature, Janet Frame (author of An Angel at My Table) published many novels during her lifetime, but only one collection of poetry, way back in 1967. From that time until her death in 2004, Frame kept her poetry largely to herself, piling her poems into a bathtub once used by the family geese. Over time the ‘goose bath’ overflowed with hundreds of brilliant unpublished poems. By the time she died in 2004, Frame had named her hoped-for but elusive new selection The Goose Bath. She never saw it published. From this treasure trove her literary executors selected over 100 poems that illustrate the shape of her life: her childhood and the subsequent difficult years in mental hospitals; her travels around the world; her life as a writer, growing older and facing illness and death. features the fascinating account of how the book came into being, written by Frame’s niece and literary executor, Pamela Gordon, and poet Bill Manhire.

Pamela Gordon is expected in Melbourne in September for the Australian launch of The Goose Bath.

Free, but please book on 9347 6633 or RSVP on Facebook.

Chris Abani book launch

2008-07-21T00:00:00Z

Tuesday 16 September 2008 at 6:00pm

Readings Carlton: 309 Lygon St, Carlton, Victoria, 3053

Chris Abani will deliver the Opening Night Address at the Brisbane Writers Festival and then visit Melbourne to have his book, Song for Night launched.

Part Inferno, part Paradise Lost, and part Sunjiata epic, Song for Night is the story of a West African boy soldier’s lyrical, terrifying, yet beautiful journey through the nightmare landscape of a brutal war in search of his lost platoon. The reader is led by the voiceless protagonist who, as part of a land mine-clearing platoon, had his vocal chords cut, a move to keep these children from screaming when blown up, and thereby distracting the other minesweepers. The book is written in a ghostly voice, with each chapter headed by a line of the unique sign language these children invented. This book is unlike anything else ever written about an African war.

Chris Abani’s first novel, Masters of the Board (1983) was published in Nigeria when he was sixteen. Currently Abani is a Professor at the University of California, Riverside. He is the author of five novels and four poetry collections. Since 1983 Abani has accumulated over 16 awards, prizes and fellowships for his writings.

Free, but please book on 9347 6633 or RSVP on Facebook.

Chloe Hooper in conversation with Sally Warhaft

2008-07-18T00:00:00Z

Earlier this month, Sally Warhaft and Chloe Hooper were in-store to discuss Chloe's remarkable new book, The Tall Man.

Chloe Hooper investigates the death of Cameron Doomadgee in a watch-house cell on Palm Island and the struggle to bring policeman Christopher Hurley to trial.

Here is a recording of this conversation, compliments of Slow TV.

Readings in Psychoanalysis

2008-07-17T00:00:00Z

Thursday 28 August 2008 at 6:30pm

Readings Carlton: 309 Lygon St, Carlton, Victoria, 3053

Join us for our monthly forum over a glass of red.

Supported by Deakin University.

Free, but no need to book

Claire Thomas book launch

2008-07-17T00:00:00Z

Wednesday 20 August 2008 at 6:30pm

Readings Carlton: 309 Lygon St, Carlton, Victoria, 3053

Join us for the launch of Fugitive Blue. Fugitive Blue tells the story of a young art conservator and her work on a fifteenth-century panel painting in striking ultramarine. As she restores the fragile artwork, her fascination with it grows. How did an inexperienced artist in Renaissance Venice come to possess such valuable art materials? Who has loved it? Relinquished it? Carried it with them across the world? This beguiling and multi-layered novel illustrates Claire’s place as a talented young Australian author.

Claire Thomas has published short stories in various journals including Meanjin, Overland and Australian Short Stories.

Dr Chris McAuliffe, Director of the Ian Potter Museum of Art, the University of Melbourne will launch Claire's book.

Free, but no need to book.

Fiona Allon book launch

2008-07-17T00:00:00Z

Tuesday 19 August 2008 at 6:30pm

Readings Carlton: 309 Lygon St, Carlton, Victoria, 3053

Join us as journalist and author, George Megalogenis converses with Fiona Allon about her book Renovation Nation.

Renovation Nation asks why we have become so wrapped up in our homes. It explores the ways we are distorting our lives in the pursuit of prestige and tax-free capital gains as we play the real estate game with mindless passion. Fiona Allon is a writer and critic who specialises in the analysis of contemporary Australian culture and politics. She is a regular media commentator on current affairs, social issues and popular culture, and researches and writes on a broad range of subjects.

Free, no need to book.

Rochelle Jackson book launch

2008-07-17T00:00:00Z

Friday 15 August 2008 at 6:30pm

Readings Carlton: 309 Lygon St, Carlton, Victoria, 3053

Working with leading Australian forensic psychologist Ian Joblin, investigative journalist Rochelle Jackson takes us deep into the minds of eight notorious Australian criminals to find out what created them and why they choose a life of crime. Inside Their Minds explores the background, childhood and personality of these criminals, and includes interviews with the criminals themselves, family members and the police and detectives involved. Her fourteen-month investigation working with Ian Joblin took her to most states of Australia and into the lounge rooms of Brenden Abbott’s mother, one of Ivan Milat’s brothers and child murderer Kathleen Folbigg’s foster sister. Rochelle corresponded with every offender in the book, even if they were in jail and her search led to some fascinating revelations about how criminals are ‘created’.

Free, no need to book.

Rachel Power in conversation with Clare Bowditch

2008-07-17T00:00:00Z

Thursday 14 August 2008 at 6:30pm

Readings Carlton: 309 Lygon St, Carlton, Victoria, 3053

In The Divided Heart: Art and Motherhood, author Rachel Power interviews some of Australia’s most respected artists, writers and actors to reveal the shocking and funny demands of motherhood, and their unfinished passion for their work.

Free, but please book on 9347 6633 or RSVP on Facebook.

Jacinta Halloran in conversation with Claire Forster

2008-07-17T00:00:00Z

Tuesday 12 August 2008 at 6:30pm

Readings Carlton: 309 Lygon St, Carlton, Victoria, 3053

Claire Forster, an agent for Curtis Brown, will be in conversation with Jacinta Halloran about Jacinta’s book Dissection. This title is our very own pick for the August CAL Readings title.

Free, but please book on 9347 6633.

Stefan Laszczuk book launch

2008-07-17T00:00:00Z

Monday 11 August 2008 at 6:00pm

Readings Carlton: 309 Lygon St, Carlton, Victoria, 3053

Antoni Jach will be launching Stefan’s I Dream of Magda. Genuinely engaging, funny and utterly surprising, this novel of brothers, family and loss is the winner of the 2007 The Australian/Vogel Literary Award.

'Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’ Tolstoy wasn't thinking specifically of the Harrison family when he wrote those words, but maybe he should have been. George Harrison is afraid of the dark. His father is dead and his mother lives in la-la land. Reeling from a broken heart, and still coping with the trauma of a childhood home invasion, George works in a dead-end job in a bowling alley and finds rare solace in the giant painting of an alien that sits outside his room. His brother Matthew isn't much better off. After losing the love of his life in a traumatic car accident, he's retreated into a private world of sleep where he dreams about falling in love with comedienne Magda Szubanski.

Stefan Laszczuk is currently undertaking a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Adelaide

Free, no need to book.

How to Draw Yourself as a Go Girl workshop

2008-07-17T00:00:00Z

Saturday 09 August 2008 at 12:00pm

Readings Carlton: 309 Lygon St, Carlton, Victoria, 3053

We are lucky enough to have with us the illustrators of Go Girl fame - conducting a How to Draw Yourself as a Go Girl workshop.

Places are strictly limited so book quickly for your place in this 45-minute event. There will be games and giveaways as well!

Free but please book on 9347 6633.

Nicholas Celebrates Bastille Day

2008-07-17T00:00:00Z

To celebrate Bastille Day and all things French, children's specialist Leanne and the Sunday team held a party with Nicholas and the gang from Rene Goscinny's classic childhood stories.

Sharing croissants and orange juice with an excited group of local fans. Amy and Georgia read and joined in with activities for the kids.

The staff really got behind the party and turned it into a fun afternoon.
If you would like to know about upcoming events for kids, subscribe to our kids e-news or pick up a newsletter next time you're in the store.

Greggory Clarke - EVENT CANCELLED

2008-07-16T00:00:00Z

Wednesday 06 August 2008 at 6:30pm

Readings Carlton: 309 Lygon St, Carlton, Victoria, 3053

This event has been cancelled.

A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World examines why some parts of the world are so rich and others so poor? Why did the Industrial Revolution--and the unprecedented economic growth that came with it--occur in eighteenth-century England, and not at some other time, or in some other place? Why didn't industrialization make the whole world rich - and why did it make large parts of the world even poorer?

In A Farewell to Alms, Gregory Clark tackles these profound questions and suggests a new and provocative way in which culture--not exploitation, geography, or resources - explains the wealth, and the poverty, of nations.

Gregory Clark is chair of the economics department at the University of California,

Free, but please book on 9347 6633.

Chinese Politics

2008-07-15T00:00:00Z

The interest in China has increased exponentially over the last few years and so have the number of books published on Chinese politics and what China's rise means for the global future (not to mention the interest in the Olympics). New works from academics, journalists and economists among others have been filtering through, exploring the powerful social, cultural and political shifts that are defining the future of China and its impact on the rest of the world.

Check out our collection of current titles on the China phenomenon here.

Best Australian Independent Albums revisited

2008-07-13T00:00:00Z

Following on from our in-house survey last week, AIR have announced the Top 50 Australian independent albums of all time. Interestingly, none of the Carlton favourites made it into the national Top 5 - we always new we were a quirky bunch. Check out the full Top 50 at the AIR website.

Ouyong Yu

2008-07-10T00:00:00Z

Wednesday 13 August 2008 at 6:30pm

Readings Carlton: 309 Lygon St, Carlton, Victoria, 3053

Culturally diverse, On the Smell of an Oily Rag: Speaking English, Thinking Chinese and Living Australian draws examples from low and high culture and from the everyday and the literary life. Ouyang Yu shows that they are closer together than we usually think. Based on the unique biji xiaoshuo (pen-notes fiction) genre and written in an accessible, readable and deliberately un-academic style, On the Smell of an Oily Rag is a seminal non-fiction book that creates its own genre of what Ouyang Yu calls, biji feixiaoshuo (pen-notes non-fiction), in its exploration of cultural, linguistic and literary similarities, differences and parallels between the English and the Chinese language in a distinctly Australian context.

Ouyang edits Australia’s only Chinese literary journal, Otherland, and writes and teaches part-time in China and Australia.

Supported by Asialink, University of Melbourne.