what we're reading
Sophie: Hunger by Roxane Gay—The heart-wrenching memoir of one of my favourite feminist writers. It reveals the physical effects sexual trauma can have on your body, and the complicated relationship between food, hunger and self-image. I love this book because it doesn’t have the predictable ending of ‘weight loss triumph’, and it doesn’t command you to make peace with your body. Gay is still struggling with her unruly body, and that is refreshing to read. Scott D: To Die in Spring by Ralf Rothmann—The carnage and cruelty of battle seen through the eyes of two German teenage friends conscripted during the final weeks of World War 2. A fast paced and moving narrative of a most terrible coming of age. Follow with Günter Grass’s Peeling the Onion, a true account of the author’s experiences as a young SS soldier, his dramatic escape from the front and his uneasy relationship with the past as an old man looking back. Jonathon: The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner—Something like Orange is the New Black. A prison novel of confinement and consequence. Kushner’s cast of female inmates is wonderful, as is the counterpoint of past and present—particularly her scenes of 1980s San Francisco. James: Sabrina by Nick Drnaso—The first graphic novel to be longlisted on the Man Booker, and rightfully so. Drnaso channels the malaise of our times through a story about murder, those left behind, and conspiracy theories in the wake of a national crisis. It’s touching, sad, and sometimes disturbing—much like life, I guess. (I’m also reading Sabrina. I agree with James. Drnaso piles on page after page of uneasy paranoid silence—in both word and image ... I wish I hadn’t chosen it for my bedtime reading, but am glad to see the Man Bookers acknowledging the graphic novel. Ed) Andrew: Kudos by Rachel Cusk—The last of a wonderful trilogy that starts with Outline. Basically the erudite narrator, Fay, sits and listens to people; often complete strangers, and in her relaying what they tell her, lays out a myriad of discursive, philosophical commentaries on the state of being alive. Lorrie Moore in a review describes them as akin to babushka dolls; Cusk refers to her technique as ‘annihilated perspective’. Charming and addictive, these books are rabbit warrens lined with mirrors. John: Scrublands by Chris Hammer—Sent by his editor to a dusty Riverland town 12 months after a mass shooting, a journalist with his own demons, asks why a priest murdered parishioners on the forecourt of the church? There is some great writing here. My pick for best Aussie crime novel this year.
Performing Arts Don’t Stop Believin’ by Olivia Newton-John
4-time Grammy Award winner, Olivia Newton-John is one of the world’s best-selling recording artists of all time, with more than 100 million albums sold. In addition to her music and screen successes, she well known for her own personal journeys with cancer—and as the founding champion of the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness & Research Centre in her hometown of Melbourne she has inspired millions around the world. In this memoir she shares her journey, from Melbourne schoolgirl to international superstar starring in movies like Grease. $1 from every hardback sold will be donated to the ON-J Cancer Wellness & Research Centre. ($45, HB)
The Only Girl: My Life and Times on the Masthead of Rolling Stone by Robin Green ($33, PB)
In 1971, Robin Green had just moved to Berkley, CA. Those days, job applications asked just one question, ‘What are your sun, moon and rising signs?’ Green thought she was interviewing for clerical job at Rolling Stone, but was hired as a journalist. This brutally honest, memoir chronicles the beginnings of her career—a humorous careening adventure full of stories of stalking the Grateful Dead with Annie Liebowitz, sparring with Dennis Hopper on a film set in the desert, scandalizing fans of David Cassidy & spending a legendary evening on a water bed in the dorm room of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. She was there as Hunter S. Thompson crafted Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and now she presents that tumultuous time in America in a distinctly gonzo female voice. Strange Stars by Jason Heller ($45, HB) Jason Heller recasts sci-fi & pop music as parallel cultural forces that depended on one another to expand the horizons of books, music, & out-of-this-world imagery—presenting a whole generation of musicians as the sci-fi-obsessed conjurers they really were: from Sun Ra lecturing on the black man in the cosmos, to Pink Floyd jamming live over the broadcast of the Apollo 11 moon landing & Jimi Hendrix distilling the ‘purplish haze’ he discovered in a pulp novel into psychedelic song. Of course, the whole scene was led by David Bowie, who hid in the balcony of a movie theater to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey, and came out a changed man.
David M: Hotel Silence by AuðurAva Ólafsdóttir—A sympathetic portrait, by a woman, of a man who feels that he has become terminally useless, and the story of his regeneration. A consideration of choices and their context in the lives of ordinary mortals. Small in scale, light of touch, spare and apt in its use of metaphor. A pleasure. Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata James: This deceptively simple novel is filled with humour, nuance and profound moments found in everyday ‘small things’. Kieko (the narrator) will appeal to anyone who loves the way an outsider, largely overlooked by society, can often illuminate the very people that don’t see them with intelligence, precision and insight. Tamarra: Keiko is a square peg in a round hole—happy in her small role as a convenience store worker, but feeling the pressure from friends and family to conform. A quietly quirky little novel which speaks to us on what it means to be happy while challenging society’s perception of what happiness should look like. Tatjana: A smash hit in Japan, this is a weird, dark little novel. Keiko, who has long ago renounced her own identity, finds her job at a 24/7 convenience store is the perfect place to teach her how to be a ‘person’, using the store manual as a guide for her life. Keiko is definitely odd but the author is ambiguous on just how deranged she might also be. Don’t be fooled by the Pop Art design and bright lights of the transparent glass box that is the convenience store (all colour and movement and noise), the themes here are dark. Written with deadpan humour, Sayaka Murata deals with some of Japan’s current societal anxieties. Scott V: Oppy: The Life of Sir Hubert Opperman by Daniel Oakman— A warts-and-all biography of the legendary cyclist who eventually became a politician in the Menzies era. Fascinating to learn just how huge cycling was in Australia and Europe (especially in the 20s and 30s) and the almost inhumane endurance Oppy and his contemporaries displayed. Great read. Viki: Dictator Literature by Daniel Kalder—Daniel Kalder really does seem to have consumed the sum total tedium of all of the opuses written by the publishing-mad dictator fraternity of the 20th C. His book is a fantastic combination of history & literary criticism—laced with a liberal dose of sharp wit —with which Kalder does a particularly good job of skewering father of the canon, the logorrheic Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov aka Lenin. I’d recommend this to anyone who is interested in history, politics or literature.
Ricochet: David Bowie 1983: An Intimate Portrait by Denis O’Regan
In 1990, on their 3rd world tour together, photographer Denis O’Regan told David Bowie what inspired him to take up rock photography. ‘It’s because of you,’ said Denis. He was inspired by Bowie’s 1973 Ziggy Stardust concert at the Hammersmith Odeon. Bowie’s response: ‘Nah, you’ll probably tell Bono the same thing tomorrow night.’ In Ricochet—Bowie 1983, the official photographer of one of the most celebrated musicians of all time reveals intimate stories and pictures that offer an exclusive insight into David Bowie the man and musician. ($70, HB)
Beyond Bach: Music and Everyday Life in the Eighteenth Century by Andrew Talle ($60, PB)
Reverence for JS Bach’s music & its towering presence in our cultural memory have long affected how people hear his works. In his own time, however, Bach stood as just another figure among a number of composers, many of them more popular with the music-loving public. Eschewing the great composer style of music history, Andrew Talle takes a journey that looks at how ordinary people made music in Bach’s Germany. He focuses in particular on the culture of keyboard playing as lived in public & private. As he ranges through a wealth of documents, instruments, diaries, account ledgers & works of art, Talle gives life to a cast of characters—amateur & professional performers, patrons, instrument builders, and listeners—teasing out the diverse roles music played in their lives & in their relationships with one another.
The Old Greeks: Cinema, Photography, Migration by George Kouvaros ($25, PB)
How should the people that initiated a journey be remembered? What obligations arise as a result of their passing away? What role do films and photographs play in the process of memorialisation? Drawing on the events surrounding the arrival of his family in Australia from Cyprus, George Kouvaros traces how film & photography serve as toolkits for making sense of the experience of migration—at the level of everyday life & creative practice. 23