All The Beautiful Girls by Elizabeth J. Church
In the summer of 1968, Ruby Wilde is the toast of Las Vegas. Showgirl of the Year, in her feathers & rhinestones, five-inch heels & skyhigh headdresses, she mesmerises audiences from the Tropicana to the Stardust. Ratpackers & movie stars, gamblers & astronauts vie for her attention & shower her with gifts.But not so long ago Ruby Wilde was Lily Decker from Kansas: an orphaned girl determined to dance her way out of her troubled past. When she was 8 years old, Lily survived the car crash that killed her parents & sister. Raised by an aunt who took too little interest in her & an uncle who took too much, dancing was her solace & her escape. Now, as Ruby Wilde, the ultimate Sin City success story, she discovers that the glare of the spotlight cannot banish the shadows that haunt her, and in her search for freedom she must learn the difference between what glitters & what is truly gold. Recommended by Janice in the February Gleaner’s Wilder Aisles. ($30, PB)
Camilla Lackberg’s new psychological thriller featuring Detective Patrik Hedström and Erica Falck.
The Odyssey: A New Translation by Peter Green
The Odyssey is vividly captured & beautifully paced in this swift & lucid new translation by acclaimed scholar & translator Peter Green. Richly illuminated by an engrossing introduction, concise chapter summaries, a glossary, and substantial explanatory notes, this is the ideal translation for general readers & students alike to experience The Odyssey in all its glory. ‘This is a triumph, a worthy successor to Peter Green’s outstanding translation of The Iliad. The style is flexible, sometimes colloquial, and often touching the heights, while being always immensely accessible to a modern reader. No version known to me is better at conveying the feeling as well as the sense of the original’—Christopher Pelling ($60, HB)
Heartpounding adventure and breathtaking magical inventions.
Fashion and love collide in the stylish new novel from the author of The Dangers of Truffle Hunting.
Pearls On A Branch: Tales from the Arab World Told by Women (ed) Najla Khoury ($30, PB)
While civil war raged in Lebanon, Najla Khoury travelled with a theatre troupe, putting on shows in marginal areas where electricity was a luxury, in air raid shelters, Palestinian refugee camps & isolated villages. Their plays were largely based on oral tales, and she combed the country in search of stories. Many years later, she chose 100 stories from among the most popular & published them in Arabic in 2014—stories told as they had been heard from parents & grandparents. Out of the 100 stories published in Arabic, Inea Bushnaq & Najla Khoury chose thirty for this book.
The Pearler’s Wife by Roxane Dhand ($33, PB)
It is 1912, and Maisie Porter stands on the deck of the SS Oceanic as England fades from view. Her destination is Buccaneer Bay in Australia’s far north-west—she is to be married to a man she has never met—wealthy pearling magnate, Maitland. Also on board is William Cooper, the Royal Navy’s top man. Following a directive from the Australian government, he and 11 other ‘white’ divers have been hired to replace the predominantly Asian pearling crews. However, Maitland & his fellow merchants have no intention of employing the costly Englishmen for long. Maisie arrives to a surprisingly cool reception from Maitland, and finds herself increasingly drawn to the intriguing Cooper. But Maisie’s new husband is harbouring deadly secrets. And when Cooper and the divers sail out to harvest the pearl shell, they are in great danger.
The Killing of Butterfly Joe by Rhidian Brook
24 year-old Welshman Llew Jones is in jail. All he wanted was to see America & write about it. Then he met the extraordinary Butterfly Joe & his freakish family & got caught up in an adventure that got way, way out of control. Now his friend’s gone & Llew has to give his side of the story. This part neo-gothic thriller, part existential road trip, part morality tale, hurtles across 1980s America leaving the life of introspection behind to participate in the Great American Dream: the one that takes you from ‘rags to riches via pitches’. It’s about the end of innocence & the dawn of consequence; the forces of revenge pitted against the powers of forgiveness; and, ultimately, the search for freedom and self-definition. ($30, PB)
An Unsuitable Match by Joanna Trollope ($30, PB)
Dealing with one’s own emotions is one thing. Facing a parent’s roller-coaster of a love life is quite another. Rose Woodrowe is getting married to Tyler Masson—a wonderful, sensitive man who is headover-heels in love with her. The only problem? This isn’t the first time for either of them, and their five grown-up children have strong opinions on the matter. Who to listen to? Who to please? Rose and Tyler are determined to get it right this time, but in trying to make everyone happy, can they ever be happy themselves?
Spring: Seasons Quartet 3 by Karl Ove Knausgaard ($35, HB)
I have just finished writing this book for you. What happened that summer nearly three years ago, and its repercussions, are long since over. Sometimes it hurts to live, but there is always something to live for. Spring follows a father and his newborn daughter through one day in April, from sunrise to sunset. It is a day filled with the small joys of family life, but also its deep struggles. This new novel in the Seasons quartet, Karl Ove Knausgaard reflects uncompromisingly on life’s darkest moments and what can sustain us through them.
Poetry
False Claims of Colonial Thieves ($25, PB) Charmaine Papertalk Green & John Kinsella
From poets John Kinsella & Charmaine Papertalk-Green comes a tête-à-tête that is powerful, thought provoking, and challenges what we think we know about our country, colonisation, and how we understand our land. Striking conversations surrounding childhood, life, love, mining, death, respect & diversity; imbued by silken Yamatji sensibility & sublimely responded to by the son of a foreman from South Champion Mine. This collection weaves two differing points of view together as Papertalk-Green & Kinsella’s words traverse this land & reflect back to us all, our many identities & quiet voices.
Interval by Judith Bishop ($24.95, PB) Judith Bishop’s attentive poetic gaze unfailingly reveals the luminous. In Interval, her poems—many addressed to a lover, or to children—explore intimacy, solitude and the ‘chemical mess’ of human love. As Carl Phillips said of Event, ‘These are splendid poems indeed, whose intelligence, vision, and sheer beauty at every turn persuade’. Julian Tuwim: Selected Poems ($29.95, PB)
Julian Tuwim (1919–1953) was a Polish poet, writing cabaret sketches, humoresque pieces, satires, and comic pieces rooted in and alluding to Jewish tradition. His phrases would echo in the Warsaw streets. He wrote texts for the theatre and librettos for opera, as well as lyrics to musical hits of his era and film soundtracks. Marcel Weyland’s new translations in this anthology of Tuwim’s poetry are a triumph of a kindred spirit who shares with the Poet his sense of semantic experiment and emotional adventure rarely seen in the world of poetry.
João by John Mateer ($19.95, PB)
In a sequence of 64 sonnets, John Mateer describes the encounters of an alter-ego, João, as he travels across the globe, attending festivals and readings, meeting with friends, lovers, and often-famous fellow authors. Questioning identity, melancholy in disposition, troubled by dreams and memories, João is also an innocent, and given to moments of illumination and joy. Mateer is both ironic and affectionate in his treatment of this picaresque figure, creating through his sonnet sequence a narrative which is new in Australian writing, the worldwide adventures of the poet as anti-hero, one who, despite his disappointments, still believes in the power of literature to create a sense of belonging, and to invoke ‘the deep mandala of meeting and friendship’.
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