Our Best Bargains for October
Readings Managing Director Mark Rubbo shares his top picks for bargain lovers this month.
I’m excited by this month’s new bargains which includes some wonderful titles, and there are even more lined up for the next issue of Readings Monthly out in November.
Many of the following highlights would make excellent gifts for Christmas. Mark Strizic – Melbourne Marvellous to Modern compiled by Emma Mathews is a truly gorgeous representation of Melbourne in the mid-twentieth Century by a marvellous photographer.
I also like The Words that Made Australia, a collection of writings about Australia from Federation to the present day and compiled by Robert Manne and Chris Feik. The Grattan Institute selected it as one of the books the Prime Minister should read over last summer.
Happy bargain hunting!
The Words That Made Australia
Special price $12.95.
(Reduced from $29.99.)
This is not a book of documents, snippets or worthy speeches. Instead it presents the original essays and the moments of insight that told us what Australia is and could be. These are the essential statements - from historians, reporters, novelists, mavericks and visionaries - that take us from Federation to the present-day, and tell a story of national self-discovery.
There is the Frenchman who saw that Australia was a ‘workingman’s paradise’, and the historian who explained why. There are the two reporters who realised the true significance of Gallipoli and conveyed it to the nation. There is Russel Ward on The Australian Legend, Robin Boyd on The Australian Ugliness, Donald Horne on The Lucky Country, W.E.H. Stanner on The Great Australian Silence and Anne Summers on Manzone Country. There are ‘Real Matildas’, ‘Cultural Cringers’, ‘Future Eaters’ and ‘Forgotten People’ - and much more.
Memorably written and cohesive, this is the essential sourcebook of the words that made Australia.
Gurrumul: His Life and Music
Special price $29.95.
(Reduced from $65.)
From concert halls to recording studios and into Aboriginal heartlands, this is the story of Australia′s Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu. This unique Indigenous man is one of the most inspiring music stories of our generation.
Part road trip, part biography, Robert Hillman′s account of Gurrumul′s life and music offers rare insights into the sources of his inspiration. The book includes interviews with family and friends, song lyrics and exclusive photographs. His story is one of a great talent revealed and of an astonishing musical gift that has left audiences all over the world spellbound.
The book also includes an exclusive CD of remixed songs from his bestselling albums Gurrumul and Rrakala featuring rare remixes of the songs ′Bäpa′ and ′Gurrumul History (I was Born Blind)′ and ′Warwu′.
Gardening Australia’s Flora
Special price $69.95.
(Reduced from $150.)
Gardening Australia’s Flora is a comprehensive, beautifully illustrated encyclopedia containing information on more than 20,000 plants from all around the world. Organised in an A to Z format by botanical name, the individual entries provide a detailed description of each plant and its features, notes on origin, cultivation requirements, growth habit and propagation. This 10th anniversary updated edition of takes into account the most up-to-date changes in horticultural classifications. Hundreds of new species and popular cultivars are included, and common names and synonyms have been updated throughout the book.
With a foreword by respected author and gardener Peter Cundall, the introductory section features new information on integrating native plants, landscape design principles, problem weeds, organic gardening and attracting fauna to your garden. There are detailed explanations of the characteristics and gardening needs of each of the country’s six main climate regions.
La Cucina Italiana
Special price $29.95.
(Reduced from $65.)
How do you recognize a San Marzano tomato? How do you shape tortellini? How do you cut scallopine?
Everyone loves Italian food, but the ingredients and techniques can be new territory and plain recipes can take you only so far. To make sense of it all, you need La Cucina Italiana. With more than 3,000 step-by-step photographs, this veritable encyclopedia guides you through all the essential building blocks of this cuisine. The images remove the guesswork from the more than 500 recipes included, allowing you to truly master the art of Italian cooking.
Reflecting the philosophy of the cuisine itself, La Cucina Italiana puts ingredients first, explaining the different types and the best use of each. Then it supplies you with multiple methods for preparing those ingredients, ranging from simple to complex. Thus the book is suitable both for beginners and more advanced chefs who want to perfect their techniques.
Mark Strizic: Melbourne - Marvellous to Modern
Special price $29.95.
(Reduced from $75.)
This magnificent collection of photographs arose from the creativity of a young photographer and his adoption of his new home town, Melbourne. His pictures were taken at a time when the Victorian elegance of the city once known as ‘Marvellous Melbourne’ was being punctuated by a wave of development and the modern architectural movement.
Today Mark Strizic is renowned as a photographer. In the 1950s he was a young science student from Europe playing with the possibilities of the camera. As he gained work as a professional his commercial success was accompanied by the instincts and eye of an artist. His solid technicality was accompanied by the whimsy and wit that made him the ‘poet of the fleeting movement’.
The versatility of his work shows us many aspects of Melbourne - its magnificent architectural heritage, its intimate and vibrant laneways, its grand arcades counter-posed against the sudden spaces of the wrecker, the brash intrusion of the glass and concrete skyscrapers, the poignancy of poverty in the rundown inner suburbs. We see the people, on grand occasions such as the 1954 Royal Visit, or just caught in their own world of travelling, shopping, resting, walking, working.