After Love
Subhash Jaireth
Transit Lounge, PB, 9781921924255
$27.23 exGST $29.95 incGST ADD TO TROLLEY
Vasu is an Indian architecture student studying in Moscow in the late 1960s. Full of enthusiasm for the Soviet Union and its ways, he is blind to the hardships that many of its citizens face. Then he meets and falls in love with Anna, an archaeology student and talented cellist who desperately wants to leave the city. Uncertain that a return to India would be right for Anna, Vasu takes a teaching job in Venice instead, where Anna can indulge her passion for music. But one day Anna goes missing. A sensitive and moving love story, After Love explores the realm of emotions and music in a thought-provoking way, delving into the interplay and spaces between them that cannot always be explained.
The Amber Amulet
Craig Silvey
Allen & Unwin, PB, 9781742379982
$15.45 exGST $16.99 incGST ADD TO TROLLEY
By day, 12-year-old Liam McKenzie seems like an ordinary boy. To avoid any suspicion about his real identity, he sometimes acts up at school or deliberately gets himself into trouble at home. By night, Liam is the Masked Avenger, patrolling the neighbourhood and helping those in need. Whether it’s stepping in to help a neighbour who has neglected to check his tyre pressure, or clearing someone’s congested garden sprinkler, the Masked Avenger, accompanied by his sidekick Richie the Powerbeagle, is on the case. However, it’s really the lady at the end of the street that needs his help, and the only thing that can help her is the Amber Amulet. But what if, by helping one person, you hurt someone else? A big, heartfelt story presented in a small, quirky package.
The Best Australian Stories 2012
Sonya Hartnett (ed)
Black Inc, PB, 9781863955805
$27.26 exGST $29.99 incGST ADD TO TROLLEY
These annual showcases of the local literary scene are essential purchases for readers who want to keep up to date with what both well-established names and up-and-coming stars are up to. This year, Essays includes pieces by writers including Peter Robb, Helen Garner, Gillian Mears, J M Coetzee and Clive James; Poems offers over 100 works by poets including Les Murray, John Kinsella, Michael Sharkey, Luke Davies, David Brooks and Robert Adamson; and Stories features loads of exciting new names as well as a few familiar ones (Alex Miller, David Astle, Chris Womersley).
The Conversation
David Brooks
UQP, HB, 9780702249440
$27.23 exGST $29.95 incGST ADD TO TROLLEY
Sometimes it’s easier to talk to a stranger than to someone you love. That’s what Stephen experiences one night in Trieste, Italy. Alone in a restaurant, he notices a striking woman who’s also about to dine alone. A gust of wind upsets the contents of his table, and as the waiter cleans up, the woman invites him to sit with her. In minutes he’s told her things it took him months to tell his wife – and their conversation flows from there, accompanied by delicious food. This meditative book is reminiscent of Richard Linklater’s classic film Before Sunrise, in which two strangers share a night of intense conversation. Australian author David Brooks has outdone himself here, and the melancholy and beauty of this novel linger well after the last page is read.
The Happiness Show
Catherine Deveny
Black Inc, PB, 9781863955720
$27.26 exGST $29.99 incGST ADD TO TROLLEY
There are plenty of hilarious one-liners in Catherine Deveny’s first novel, but the controversial comedian doesn’t just stick with her shtick. This is an entertaining book about serious stuff like emotion, commitment and fulfilment. And lust. Can 38-year-old Lizzie Quealy resist gorgeous Tom, the Englishman she fell in love with in her twenties, when they meet again? She loves her life in inner-city Melbourne with her husband and kids, but the temptation is huge. Which way does happiness lie? Lizzie is an authentic character, with a messy life, foibles and conflicting feelings. And if her dilemma is familiar, her solution to it is surprising. The Happiness Show will resonate with many women, and plenty of men too.
Happy Valley
Patrick White
Text Publishing, HB, 9781921922916
$27.26 exGST $29.99 incGST ADD TO TROLLEY
Patrick White’s first novel was released on the cusp of WWII and he never gave permission for it to be republished, apparently fearing legal action, but perhaps also because he felt it wasn’t up to the Nobel-winning standard of his later work – surely an unfair comparison! Now, finally, it has resurfaced as part of the excellent Text Classics series, an initiative to bring lost or forgotten works of Australian literature back into the limelight. It’s an involving tale of desperation, love and ambition set in the isolated Snowy Mountains town of Happy Valley, a name more ironic than affectionate. In his introduction, Peter Craven is right to call this novel ‘the exhilarating performance of a great writer in the making’.
In Falling Snow
Mary-Rose MacColl
Allen & Unwin, PB, 9781743311219
$27.26 exGST $29.99 incGST ADD TO TROLLEY
Iris has never told her granddaughter Grace the story of when her 15-year-old brother Tom enlisted to fight in France in 1914 and she followed him across the Channel, determined to bring him home. Or how this led to her serving in a field hospital in the old abbey of Royaumont, just north of Paris. But an invitation to a reunion in France unearths memories of that time and of secrets that will affect Grace’s life – and that of her family – in unimaginable ways. This is a compelling saga about the lengths we go to for love, as well as an inspiring story about two headstrong women torn between families and demanding careers.
Las Vegas For Vegans
A S Patri´c
Transit Lounge, PB, 9781921924309
$27.23 exGST $29.95 incGST ADD TO TROLLEY
This collection of short stories well and truly lives up to the promise of its bleak and evocative front cover. Patri´c is based in Melbourne and has been described as one of the country’s most exciting writers of literary fiction, but the stories here defy geographical or stylistic constraints, being set across the globe and within various genres. The book draws its title from the final story, a literary doff-of-the-cap to Chandleresque crime writing but with a protagonist who is more vulnerable than hardboiled. It’s about deserts – geographical and emotional – and is as daringly and dazzlingly original as the stories it precedes. One for lovers of literary risk-taking.
Like a House on Fire
Cate Kennedy
Scribe Publications, PB, 9781922070067
$25.41 exGST $27.95 incGST ADD TO TROLLEY
Cate Kennedy can write a mean short story, and here she’s at her incisive and beautiful best. She writes about people who are as perfectly ordinary as any one of us – which is to say absolutely extraordinary – and tells us about human weakness and strength, about love and loneliness, and about fear and bravery. Relationships between people are portrayed in all their complexity: Kennedy can flawlessly evoke tenderness, scorn, impatience, protectiveness … any of the many feelings that might rise up between people. These stories are at once contemporary and timeless – finish one and you won’t be able to decide whether to reread it or enjoy the rewards of the next.
Lola Bensky
Lily Brett
Michael Joseph, PB, 9781926428475
$27.26 exGST $29.99 incGST ADD TO TROLLEY
In the summer of 1967, Lily Brett travelled to the UK and US, interviewing rock stars in London and New York for Go-Set magazine and attending the Monterey International Pop Festival. This novel draws its inspiration from this experience, and its protagonist clearly has much in common with the youthful Brett – including parents who are Holocaust survivors. Lola is a curious mix of neuroses, self-deprecation and nonchalance, and her conversations with larger-than-life characters such as Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Mick Jagger are far removed from the usual question-and-answer sessions of popular rock journalism. A lighter read than Brett’s previous novels, Lola Bensky is about rock musicians, collective experience, self-esteem and the human condition.
Lost Voices
Christopher Koch
Harper Perennial, PB, 9780732294632
$29.99 exGST $32.99 incGST ADD TO TROLLEY
Determined to pay off his father’s gambling debt, Hugh Dixon asks his wealthy, estranged great-uncle, Walter, who lives in the ancestral farmhouse on the outskirts of Hobart, for help. Recognising 18-year-old Hugh’s artistic talents, Walter sees his great nephew as a kindred spirit, and a bond soon forms between the two. Listening to Walter’s tales, Hugh finds himself drawn into the depths of the family’s history, including a notorious encounter with Liam Dalton, a legendary gentleman bushranger who was a member of a utopian gang of outlaws who roamed 1850s Tasmania. Koch is a masterful storyteller, and this compulsively readable novel brilliantly evokes time and place.
The Midnight Promise
Zane Lovitt
Text Publishing, PB, 9781921922930
$27.26 exGST $29.99 incGST ADD TO TROLLEY
We all love to hear about masterpieces and bestsellers being discovered in publisher slush piles. The editorial staff at Text Publishing came across The Midnight Promise in this way, and in so doing they – and we – truly hit the jackpot. A collection of short stories featuring Melbourne-based private inquiry agent John Dorn, the book is described by the author as ‘a detective’s story in 10 cases’ and features edgy, conversation-driven prose that is reminiscent of the work of Peter Temple. From the twist in the tail of ‘Amnesty’ to the extraordinarily powerful ‘Troy’, this is crime fi ction of the highest quality and is one of the most exciting local literary debuts of recent times.
Nine Days
Toni Jordan
Text Publishing, PB, 9781921922831
$27.26 exGST $29.99 incGST ADD TO TROLLEY
It takes some novelists time – and a few books – to hit their stride, and in Toni Jordan’s case this would seem to have occurred with the publication of her third novel. While it shares some of the romance and humour that characterised her previous novels Addition (Text. PB. $23.95) and Fall Girl (Text. PB. $19.95), Nine Days offers the reader a lot more – an expertly orchestrated multivoice narrative, earthy and evocative Aussie language, carefully researched historical background and an extremely moving storyline that never descends into mawkishness. Set in the Melbourne suburb of Richmond during WWII and in the present day, Nine Days was inspired by the photograph that graces its front cover, and the lives of its characters will resonate with many readers.
SPECIAL PRICE Originally $39.99
Questions of Travel
Michelle de Kretser
Allen & Unsin, HB, 9781743311004
$29.95 exGST $32.95 incGST ADD TO TROLLEY
‘What is the modern age if not movement, travel, change?’ Michelle de Kretser asks in her new novel. She then deftly weaves twin narratives detailing the trajectories of two protagonists: nomadic, artistically inclined, Australian-born Laura; and Ravi, dreamer and mathematician, who grows up in troubled Sri Lanka. From Colombo’s beaches to London bedsits and backpacker haunts in Bali and Kerala, we journey across fi ve decades, to arrive in 21st-century Sydney. De Kretser’s exquisite prose, signposted with pop culture and historical references, illuminates the grand themes and incidental details of modern life. For anyone who has lugged a backpack or bunked in a youth hostel, this novel will evoke familiar sensations and emotions as it probes the restlessness and motivations of the traveller.
Street to Street
Brian Castro
Giramondo Publishing, PB, 9781920882952
$21.82 exGST $24.00 incGST ADD TO TROLLEY
This novella details the tribulations of Sydney literature teacher Brendan Costa as he endeavours to fulfi l his ‘lifework’, a biography of Christopher Brennan, the great early-20thcentury Australian poet and scholar. Brennan, convinced of his own genius and given to alcohol-fuelled bouts of brilliance, died penniless and dissolute. Costa’s life mirrors that of Brennan in at least two respects – his troubled marriage and his penchant for the bottle – but his academic career is singularly desultory. Sales of Costa’s fi rst two poetry collections have been minimal, but an unexpected publishing deal takes him to Amsterdam, where his fortunes take a turn. With this tightly spun narrative, Castro probes the creative impulse and the ecstasies and torments that it unleashes.
Sufficient Grace
Amy Espeseth
Scribe Publications, PB, 9781922070029
$27.23 exGST $29.95 incGST ADD TO TROLLEY
Ruth and her cousin Naomi live in an isolated religious community in America. Their lives are ruled by the rhythms of nature – harsh winters, hunting seasons, harvests – and by their families’ uncompromising beliefs. As their story unfolds, it becomes obvious that beneath the surface of this closed, frozen world, hidden dangers lurk. Now resident in Australia, Espeseth was born in rural Wisconsin, and she captures the harsh beauty of that landscape extremely well in this powerful story of lost innocence and the quest for absolution.
Unnatural Habits
Kerry Greenwood
Allen & Unwin, PB, 9781742372433
$20.90 exGST $22.99 incGST ADD TO TROLLEY
The 19th book in Greenwood’s much-loved series of novels featuring Phryne Fisher is sure to please both long-standing fans and those who have recently discovered the glamorous sleuth through the ABC television series. The plot is the usual exhilarating mélange of fashion, fiendishness and friendship, with Phryne, Dot, Jane, Ruth and the other members of their unorthodox and extended household attempting to locate a missing journalist and a group of pregnant girls, uncover dastardly goings-on at a convent and solve the mystery of who is chloroforming men and performing forced vasectomies on them (yes, you read that correctly!). Also available: The Honourable Phryne Fisher Returns (Allen & Unwin. PB. $29.99), a second anthology of Phryne’s early adventures including Death at Victoria Dock, The Green Mill Murder and Blood and Circuses.
The Voyage
Murray Bail
Text Publishing, HB, 9781921922961
$27.26 exGST $29.99 incGST ADD TO TROLLEY
Murray Bail’s latest novel brings together a seemingly disparate clutch of ideas, characters and scenarios – a 40-something Sydney piano manufacturer, an archetypal blonde from upper Austria, a music critic whose house has burnt down, a cargo ship returning from Europe to Australia – and spins them into a narrative whole in his usual extremely accomplished manner. Frank Delage has unsuccessfully attempted to spruik his radically designed concert grand in Europe, but by chance he encounters Amalia van Schalla, doyenne of Viennese society, and her daughter Elizabeth, with weighty implications for them all. Looping backwards and forwards in time, Bail fl eshes out intricate sketches of character and a richly embroidered tale that has an irresistible momentum.
WHISKY FOXTROT CHARLIE
Annabel Smith
Fremantle Publishing, PB, 9781922089144
$22.72 exGST $24.99 incGST ADD TO TROLLEY
Ahh, families. They’re so hard sometimes. Charlie’s relationship with his identical twin Whisky (real name William) has moved from inseparable to estranged. They go from boys playing with their walkie-talkies and memorising the two-way alphabet, through adolescence (with Whisky getting the girls and Charlie’s confidence withering), to adulthood, where Charlie cannot forgive Whisky his sins. Then, with Whisky lying in a coma after an accident, Charlie is flooded with conflicting emotions. Can he forgive? Should he forgive? What do his memories tell him? Does he need to challenge his idea of himself? Annabel Smith’s moving novel feels like it could be a true story, and her use of the two-way alphabet, from Alpha to Zulu, gives a sense of progression and focus.
Highly Recommended
Blue
Pat Grant
Giramondo Publishing, PB, 9781920882914
$18.18 exGST $20.00 incGST ADD TO TROLLEY
Part autobiography and part science fiction, Pat Grant’s graphic novel addresses issues of difference, fear and change through its tale of three teenagers who decide to skip school to go surfing.
Highly Recommended
The Chemistry of Tears
Peter Carey
Penguin, PB, 9780143568551
$20.90 exGST $22.99 incGST ADD TO TROLLEY
After her lover dies, museum horologist Catherine Gehrig is given the task of assembling a 19th-century automaton. Carey’s latest novel is full of familiar themes: the power of love, the process of grief and the futility of humanity’s search for order.
Highly Recommended
Eleven Seasons
Paul D Carter
Allen & Unwin, PB, 9781742379715
$27.27 exGST $30.00 incGST ADD TO TROLLEY
The winner of this year’s Australian/ Vogel Literary Award for unpublished manuscripts by writers aged under 35, Eleven Seasons is a story of wayward youths, Aussie Rules football and the relationships of mothers and their sons.
Highly Recommended
The Engagement
Chloe Hooper
Hamish Hamilton, PB, 9781926428376
$27.26 exGST $29.99 incGST ADD TO TROLLEY
This psychological thriller by the author of The Tall Man (Penguin. PB. $24.95) is a gothic tale of love, sex and money set in Victoria’s Western District that nods towards Charlotte Brontë one minute, Gabrielle Lord the next.
Highly Recommended
The Hanging Garden
Patrick White
Knopf, HB, 9781742752655
$27.23 exGST $29.95 incGST ADD TO TROLLEY
White’s unfinished and hitherto unpublished novel is set in Sydney during WWII. It tells the story of two children who, together, negotiate the dangers of life as strangers abandoned on the far side of the world.
Highly Recommended
A History of Books
Gerald Murnane
Giramondo Press, PB, 9781920882853
$24.50 exGST $26.95 incGST ADD TO TROLLEY
The major work of fiction in this collection, ‘A History of Books’, explores the relationship between reading and writing in 29 sections, each of which begins with the memory of a book that has left an image in Murnane’s mind.
Highly Recommended
The Light Between Oceans
M L Stedman
Vintage, PB, 9781742755717
$18.14 exGST $19.95 incGST ADD TO TROLLEY
This international bestseller tells the story of what happens when a boat carrying a dead man and a crying infant washes ashore on a remote island off Western Australia, radically changing the lives of lighthouse keeper Tom Sherbourne and his wife Isabel.
Highly Recommended
Mateship with Birds
Carrie Tiffany
Picador, PB, 9781742610764
$18.17 exGST $19.99 incGST ADD TO TROLLEY
Set in rural Australia in the 1950s, the second novel by Carrie Tiffany (Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living, Picador. PB, $22.95) is a beautifully written hymn to the rhythm of country life.
Highly Recommended
The Memory of Salt
Alice Melike Ülgezer
Giramondo Press, PB, 9781920882907
$25.41 exGST $27.95 incGST ADD TO TROLLEY
Shifting and cutting between different decades, continents, languages and cultures, this debut novel navigates the often treacherous waters of identity politics through cleverly interwoven twin stories.
Highly Recommended
The Mountain
Drusilla Modjeska
Vintage, PB, 9781741666502
$25.41 exGST $27.95 incGST ADD TO TROLLEY
This story of love, loss, grief and betrayal is set in the fascinating, complex country of Papua New Guinea, whose culture and people cannot escape the march of modernity that threatens to overwhelm them.
Highly Recommended
Pilgrimage
Jacinta Halloran
Scribe Publications, PB, 9781921844904
$27.23 exGST $29.95 incGST ADD TO TROLLEY
An affecting portrait of the mother–daughter relationship, this second novel by Melbourne-based Halloran follows 49-year-old Celeste as she accompanies her mother and sister to a pilgrimage site in Romania where her terminally ill mother seeks a miracle.