Man of mystery.

Some say he is an exiled royal of the Russian Empire, living an anonymous life of wealth and good taste in the states of South East Australia.

Some say he is the real-life inspiration for Ian Fleming’s James Bond—an international man of mystery with a penchant for classic cars and even more classic watches.

Some say he is a lover of the simple life, happiest with a good book in one hand, an (Irish) coffee in the other and a cat on his lap.

Some say he speaks twelve languages.

Some say he is the publicity-shy author behind such hits as the Twilight series and the Four Ingredients cook books.

Man of intrigue.

Some say he is the fiendish puppet master controlling Prince Philip and the international drug trade.

Some say he can tweet in his sleep.

Some say he suffers apoplectic fits at the misuse of the word decimate, sentences containing ‘myriad’ followed by ‘of’, the use of impact as a verb and the phrase ‘predominantly comprised of’.

Some say he once impacted a stakeholder meeting intended to incentivise participants to leverage synergies going forward.

Some say he wears the hell out of tweed.

Man of many hairstyles.

Some say his filing technique is as mysterious as he is.

Some say he was the moody guitarist for a rock band composed entirely of librarians.

Some say they were called The Leptons.

Some say he taste-tests gin and tonic for a living.

Man of means.

Some say he likes hats.

All we know is that he’s been an exceedingly excellent publisher, a quiz-answerer extraordinaire, stylish to a fault and we’ll miss him dreadfully.

That said, we doubt he’ll be going too far afield.

Bless you Tim Coronel, it’s been a lot of fun.

Category Fancy Goods |

Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves (Macmillan) is Matthew Reilly’s fifth book in the Scarecrow series (including the spin-off novella Hell Island, produced for Books Alive in 2003). In the latest instalment, Reilly has ‘humanised an often superhero-like character’ while creating his ’most cruel and violent villains yet’, says reviewer Emily Smith. (See her review here.) She spoke to the author.

You’ve featured many different nations and organisations as the villains in your books. To what extent do current affairs and politics affect who you cast as the bad guys?
My books—especially the Scarecrow series—are set in the real world, so current events are very important. In fact, the reason it’s been eight years since the last Scarecrow novel is that I was waiting for the world to change. And around 2008-2009, it did!

Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves reveals the characters’ personal lives more than in previous books: we learn more about Schofield’s family and Mother also opens up about married life. What made you decide to explore this?
I put Scarecrow through hell in Scarecrow, and I felt that readers would like to know how he dealt with the horrible things that happened in that book. That meant delving into his personal life, and that of his friend, Mother, as well. I am older now, too—I am 37 now, whereas I was 23 when I wrote Ice Station—and I think as I get older, I like to find out more about my characters. That said, while I wanted to explore Scarecrow’s and Mother’s characters, I wanted to do it in the middle of an absolute rampage of a story!

You set the first Schofield novel, Ice Station, in Antarctica. What made you choose to return to a frozen landscape?
I have always wanted to set a book in the Arctic. It is very different to the Antarctic, with its own dangers (polar bears, extreme cold) and unique features (the sea ice, the leads, old Soviet bases). I also like setting my books in faraway places as they allow readers to escape; they also allow me to escape when I write the books.

Your novels keep getting faster and faster. How do you juggle a fast-paced plot with character development and back story?
My theory is this: try to develop character during big action scenes! I wanted Thieves to be both fast and intense, to be relentless in its relentlessness. And I think I have succeeded in this aim. I want every new book that I write to be somehow better than the one that came before it—with this one, that would be in its intensity. But action and thrills are worthless if readers don’t care about the characters, so I needed to thread character moments and back story into the action. How do I do it? I’m not quite sure. If you’re going to have a character moment, why not have it on a runaway missile train!

What’s in store next for Shane Schofield?
I have an idea for a new Scarecrow story. I now have to decide whether to write a new book about him, or do another Jack West novel. This is the decision I must make.

What was the last book you read and loved?
I am loving Boomerang by Michael Lewis right now. I have loved all of his books, especially Moneyball. Lewis is a gifted nonfiction writer, who writes with clarity and humour about subjects like pro sports and the Global Financial Crisis (in Boomerang he goes to  countries like Iceland, Greece and Ireland to find out why they suffered as they did in the GFC). I read a lot of nonfiction, but Michael Lewis is the man. If I see a new book by him on the shelves, I will buy it without even reading the jacket. I just know it will be good.

Tags: Army of Thieves, Emily Smith, Macmillan, Matthew Reilly, Scarecrow, Scarecrow and the Army of Thieves, Shane Schofield Category Interviews |

Andrew McGahan (credit Jason Froome)

In November, Miles Franklin Award-winning author Andrew McGahan will publish his first young-adult novel, The Coming of the Whirlpool, book one in his ‘Ship Kings’ series. Reviewer Heath Graham describes it as a ‘classic adventure tale’ which ‘captures the mystery and the romance of the sea’. He asked the author about his sailing background, his favourite adventure stories and the importance of having a map in the front of the book.

Why YA? Was it very different to writing your other novels?
I’ve always loved reading fantasy, and have often promised myself that I would try writing it one day, so it seemed perfectly natural, when I started dwelling on the ideas for ‘Ship Kings’, to give it a go. And no, the work involved is no different really from any of the other novels—a little more lighthearted in the invention, maybe, but no less demanding when it comes to getting it down.

As for YA, I didn’t particularly conceive the series as being that way, it was more that I saw it as belonging to the type of fantasy that’s mostly about the wonder and adventure and mood of its own strange world, and less about say the complexity of its politics or relationships. A classic style of fantasy, in other words, and one which, as it happens, can be pitched at YA readers—but which can be enjoyed by the young at heart too, no matter how old.

You capture the feeling of the ocean brilliantly. Are you a sailor yourself?
Alas, no, I’m strictly a landlubber, with little other than foolish and romantic notions about life at sea. But then maybe that’s the point—who knows, being an experienced sailor might even have proved more of a hindrance than a help when it came to imagining an ocean in fantasy. That said, I’ve read up plenty, and tried to keep the basic sailing details at least minimally authentic.

This is the first book in a series of four. How much detail have you already planned for the series?
For someone who normally launches off into a novel with almost no planning, the series ahead has been fairly well plotted. On the other hand, nothing ever turns out as expected when it comes to the actual writing, so while I’m sure book four will end up roughly as planned, there’ll be surprises in it too, even for me.

Was there much research involved in writing this book? How did you approach it?
I read up enthusiastically on the technical aspects of sailing, but at the same time I didn’t go overboard. The romance of sailing was always the more important thing, and for that I’ve been researching for years anyway—I have a particular hunger for sea tales, the more mythical and fantastic the better. Mind you, given the unusual properties of the ocean in the Ship Kings world (something which becomes more apparent in book two and onwards), I’ve been led into some odd nooks of research—the physical behaviour of non-Newtonian fluids, for one.

What were some of your favourite adventure stories growing up?
Tolkien, of course, anything he wrote. Stephen Donaldson’s ‘Thomas Covenant’ chronicles. Ursula Le Guin’s ‘Earthsea’ series. T H White’s Once and Future King. Monsarrat’s The Cruel Sea. Oodles of others too—but I have to give a special mention here to Poe’s classic short tale of horror, A Descent into the Maelstrom, which transfixed me so profoundly when I read it at about age 10, that even now, more than 30 years later, I’ve felt compelled to try (in vain) to match it with a giant whirlpool of my own.

How important to a fantastic adventure novel is having a map in the front of the book?
It’s all part of the fun. I loved consulting, for instance, the Tolkien or Donaldson maps while reading those books, and used to wistfully draw maps of my own fantasy realms as a kid—so it was a poignant moment indeed when I sat down to sketch the first proper map for the Ship Kings world, not long after I’d finished the first draft of book one. It was one of those dislocating instants when you become aware that your childhood self would be dancing about in utter joy if they could somehow fast-forward to it.

Tags: Allen & Unwin, Andrew McGahan, Ship Kings, The Coming of the Whirlpool Category Interviews |

Well, the stylish November issue is in the house. As well as the usual reviews and news, it’s got interviews with author and bookseller A S Patric, whose short story collection The Rattler is published by Spineless Wonders in November, Brian Falkner who has a new YA series kicking off in November with Recon Team Angel: Assault (Walker Books), Frank Moorhouse, whose ‘Edith Trilogy’ wraps up with Cold Light (Random House, November) and, of course, Ray Martin, whose new book Ray Martin’s Favourites (Victory, November) contains the stories behind some of his favourite interviews.

In the same issue, Eloise Keating looks at changes to sales repping and Andrea Hanke investigates the finer details of digital rights. We report on the Melbourne and Brisbane writers’ festivals, Reuben Crossman reflects on the international book design awards and Kate Cuthbert interviews two digital advocates working in romance publishing.

Tags: A S Patric, Bookseller+Publisher, Brian Falkner, Cold LIght, fiction, Frank Moorhouse, Random House, Ray Martin, Ray Martin's Favourites, REcon Team Angel: Assault, short stories, Spineless Wonders, The Rattler, YA Category Bookseller+Publisher Magazine, It's all about us |

The first episode of the eight-part mini-series adaptation of The Slap (Christos Tsiolkas, A&U) is due to air on ABC1 on Thursday, 6 October at 8.30pm. Each episode, like the book, focusses on the lives of eight different characters. The first is episode is about Hector, a handsome and financially secure man in his early 40s, married to the beautiful veterinarian Aisha, with two children and adoring Greek working-class parents, yet for the past year he’s been having an affair with 17-year-old Connie, part-time assistant to his wife.

The relationships can get complicated, so we thought we would post the family tree the ABC has provided to help you get your head around all the characters and their connections (see below).

The Slap has been an incredibly popular book, winning a slew of awards including the Commonwealth Writers Prize, the ALS Gold Medal and the Booksellers’ Choice Award. Bookseller Scott Whitmont reviewed the book for us back in September 2008 and said ‘it would not be inappropriate to describe it as a contemporary Australian masterpiece’. Here’s hoping the television series is a masterpiece of its own. You can read Whitmont’s full review here.

Of course, The Slap isn’t the only book by Tsiolkas to reach the screen. His debut novel Loaded (Vintage) was adapted to film as Head On in 1998, starring Alex Dimitriades as Ari. In The Slap, Dimitriades will play Harry. Fans of Tsiolkas should also look out for the movie adaptation of Dead Europe (Vintage), which is currently in production by See Saw Films. The film will be directed by Tony Krawitz, best known for his production Jewboy.

Keep up-to-date on twitter by following @theslaptv and tweeting the hashtag: #theslap.

Tags: ABC, Allen & Unwin, Christos Tsiolkas, The Slap Category Fancy Goods, Reviews |

Did we mention the October issue of the magazine hit our desks a couple of weeks ago? Here are the reviewers’ top picks from the reviews this time around:

Foal’s Bread (Gillian Mears, A&U, November)

‘ Mears is up there with Tim Winton and Kate Grenville,’ writes Fairfield Book’s Heather Dyer in her review of Foal’s Bread, Mear’s first novel in 16 years. The novel tells the story of two generations of the Nancarrow family, set in the horse-jumping circuit in rural NSW prior to WWII. ‘The relationships between the characters in Foal’s Bread are rich and varied, and Mears rarely takes the obvious route as she explores emotions of love, jealousy, frustration and disappointment … Foal’s Bread is a book to be read slowly and savoured.’

Forecast: Turbulence (Janette Turner Hospital, Fourth Estate, November)

‘Janette Turner Hospital’s anthology of stories gathers together a striking array of disturbed and disturbing characters—the forthright daughter of a cult leader, a young woman facing her father for the first time in years, the devastated parents of an abducted youth, and two young girls who bond though self-harm,’ writers reviewer Portia Lindsay. ‘Turner Hospital’s writing is both sharp and intimate. She doesn’t shy away from brutality, and in this—and the theme of individuals struggling among forces much larger than themselves—it contains similarities to Due Preparations for the Plague.’

Silence (Rodney Hall, Pier 9, November)

‘Silence should be approached with senses attuned to the sounds, images and emotions that are evoked so vividly by this master storyteller,’ writes reviewer Toni Whitmont of Rodney Hall’s short story collection. ‘The stories cover several continents and ages. They are told from the points of view of rulers and minions, victors and vanquished, and even, occasionally, animals (well, a dreaming bird) … I came to this book unprepared, and I was completely overwhelmed by the tapestry of its imagery and the echoes of its stillness.’

HipsterMattic: One Man’s Quest to become the Ultimate Hipster (Matt Granfield, A&U, November)

Dumped by his hipster girlfriend, Matt Granfield ‘decided to turn himself into The Ultimate Hipster … embarking on a series of sure-fire markers of Ultimate Hipness: getting a tattoo, starting a band, acquiring a fixed-gear bicycle, learning how to knit, selling organic cupcakes and scrabble jewellery at a market in a laneway, and so on,’ writes reviewer Hannah Francis. ‘While this sounds like a potentially annoying premise, Granfield writes with a light-hearted humour that is refreshing and at times laugh-out-loud funny.’

Tony Robinson’s History of Australia (Tony Robinson, Viking, November)

This book ‘is a companion book to the TV series Tony Robertson Explores Australia, which aired on the History Channel earlier this year,’ writes reviewer Jessica Broadbent. ‘As always, Robinson pokes just the right amount of fun. He unearths some interesting events from the history books, including some that may come as a surprise to many locals. For example, who knew there was a Founding Orgy? … He also covers more recent events such as the apology to the Stolen Generations, and takes a stroll with the award-winning author Anh Do.’

For more information on forthcoming books, sign up for the free Bookseller+Publisher Newsletter, published fortnightly.

Tags: Allen & Unwin, australian book reviews, Bookseller+Publisher Magazine, fiction, Foal's Bread, Forecast: Turbulence, Fourth Estate, Gilliam Mears, HipsterMattic, Janette Turner Hospital, Matt Granfield, nonfiction, reviews, Tony Robinson's History of Australia, Viking Category Bookseller+Publisher Magazine, It's all about us, Reviews |

The winners of the Publishers Association of New Zealand (PANZ) Book Design Awards 2011 have been announced.

The winners are:

Gerard Reid Award for Best Book sponsored by Nielsen Book Services
	Hill and Hole (Kyle Mewburn & Vasanti Unka , Penguin NZ) design by Vasanti Unka.
HarperCollins Award for Best Cover
	Lives of the Poets (John Newton, Victoria University Press) cover design by Greg Simpson.
Mary Egan Award for Best Typography
	Stunning Debut of the Repairing of a Life (Leigh Davis, Otago University Press) cover design by Christine Hansen.
Random House New Zealand Award for Best Illustrated Book
	Blue Smoke: The Lost Dawn of New Zealand Popular Music 1918–1964 (Chris Bourke, Auckland University Press) design by Spencer Levine (cover) & Katrina Duncan (interior).
Hachette New Zealand Award for Best Non-Illustrated Book
	The Great Wrong War: New Zealand Society in WWI (Stevan Eldred-Grigg, Random House NZ) design by Pieta Brenton.
Pearson Award for Best Educational Book
	School Journal Part 3 Number 3 2010 (Learning Media Te Pou Taki Kōrero) design by Jodi Wicksteed.
Scholastic New Zealand Award for Best Children’s Book
	Hill and Hole (Kyle Mewburn & Vasanti Unka, Penguin NZ) design by Vasanti Unka.

See the shortlisted books here.

Tags: Blue Smoke, Book Design Awards, Chris Bourke, Hill and Hole, John Newton, Kyle Mewburn, Leigh Davis, Lives of the Poets, PANZ, Publishers Association of New Zealand, School Journal Part 3 Number 3 2010, Stevan Eldred-Grigg, Stunning Debut of the Repairing of a Life, The Great Wrong War, Vasanti Unka Category Awards |

Shortlisted titles for the Publishers Association of New Zealand (PANZ) Book Design Awards 2011 have been announced:

HarperCollins Award for Best Cover
No Fretful Sleeper: A Life of Bill Pearson (Paul Millar, Auckland University Press) cover design by Keely O’Shannessy.	Eep! (Joke van Leeuwen, Gecko Press) cover design by Spencer Levine.	Lives of the Poets (John Newton, Victoria University Press) cover design by Greg Simpson.
Mary Egan Award for Best Typography
Classic: The Revival of Classic Boating in New Zealand (Ivor Wilkins, Random House NZ) cover and interior desgin by  Kate Barraclough	Hauaga: The Art of John Pule edited by Nicholas Thomas, Otago University Press) design by Fiona Moffat (cover) & Wendy Harrex (cover and interior).	Stunning Debut of the Repairing of a Life (Leigh Davis, Otago University Press) cover design by Christine Hansen.
Random House New Zealand Award for Best Illustrated Book
Group Architects: Towards a New Zealand Architecture (Julia Gatley, Auckland University Press) design by Spencer Levine (cover) & Katrina Duncan (interior)	Blue Smoke: The Lost Dawn of New Zealand Popular Music 1918–1964 (Chris Bourke, Auckland University Press) design by Spencer Levine (cover) & Katrina Duncan (interior).	It’s in the Post: The Stories behind New Zealand Stamps (Richard Wolfe, Craig Potton) design by Sarah Elworthy.
Hachette New Zealand Award for Best Non-Illustrated Book
Chancers and Visionaries: A History of Wine in New Zealand (Keith Stewart, Random House NZ) design by Katy Yiakmis.	The Great Wrong War: New Zealand Society in WWI (Stevan Eldred-Grigg, Random House NZ) design by Pieta Brenton.	No Fretful Sleeper: A Life of Bill Pearson (Paul Millar, Auckland University Press) design by Keely O’Shannessy (cover) & Katrina Duncan (interior).
Pearson Award for Best Educational Book
School Journal Part 3 Number 3 2010 (Learning Media Te Pou Taki Kōrero) design by Jodi Wicksteed.	Leprechaun Ice Cream ( Learning Media Te Pou Taki Kōrero) design by Liz Tui Morris.	Principles of Accounting 4th edition (Murray Smart, Nazir Awan & Richard Baxter, Pearson) by Marie Low (cover) & Esther Chua (interior).
Scholastic New Zealand Award for Best Children’s Book
Hester’s Blister (Chris Gurne, Scholastic NZ) design by Sarah Nelisiwe Anderson.	Hill and Hole (Kyle Mewburn and Vasanti Unka , Penguin NZ) design by Vasanti Unka.	The Moon and Farmer McPhee (Margaret Mahy, illus by David Elliot, Random House NZ) design by Sarah Elworthy & David Elliot.

The winners of this year’s awards, as well as the winner of the Young Designer of the Year Award, will be announced at an awards ceremony at the National Library in Auckland on 25 August.

See more information on the shortlist here.

Tags: awards, Book design, cover design, New Zealand, PANZ, shortlist Category Awards, Book design |

The original Australian Stationery and Fancy Goods Journal

Happy Birthday to us! We’re 90 years old (though we’re told we wear it well).

Bookseller+Publisher magazine started life on 10 June 1921 as the Australian Stationery and Fancy Goods Journal—a name we like so much we named this blog after it. Much of what we know of this magazine’s early history comes from the memoir A Life of Books: The Story of DW Thorpe Pty Ltd by founder D W Thorpe and his daughter Joyce Thorpe Nicholson, who took over the family business. There are also the magazine’s archives: shelves of wonderfully fragrant issues chronicling the history of bookselling and publishing in Australia.

Bookseller+Publisher was launched in difficult times—the first editorial opened with the line: ‘Everywhere we hear of falling prices.’ Of course, D W Thorpe wasn’t referring to the price of books from online overseas retailers but to the post-war slump in commodity prices. ‘It was hardly an encouraging climate to start a trade journal,’ writes Thorpe in the memoir. ‘In fact no time was favourable until after the Second World War.’

But he persevered. In the second issue Thorpe called for the establishment of a trade organisation to bring together retail, wholesale and manufacturing sectors of the industry—as well as offering a more light-hearted piece on gum-nut novelty items, or ‘specimens of woodology’ as the article referred to them, and an ad for James Spicer & Sons toilet rolls. For better or worse, the journal had a distinctly ‘Australian’ feel.

The original delightful name was changed in the 1930s to Ideas for Stationers, Sporting Goods, Newsagents, Art & Gift Shops, Booksellers and Libraries. Not surprisingly, that was shortened before long to Ideas and in the 1970s the magazine became Australian Bookseller & Publisher.

In the early years of this decade we became Bookseller+Publisher, but if we had that old 1930s reckless disregard for brevity we might just as well be Bookseller, Publisher, Author, Editor, Librarian, Newsagent, Distributor, Designer, Printer, Agent, Student+Reader. We’re for booklovers everywhere, and we thank you all for being our friends.

(PS You can check out some highlights from the current issue here. And sign up for our free fortnightly Bookseller+Publisher Newsletter here.)

Tags: Bookseller+Publisher Category Bookseller+Publisher Magazine, It's all about us |

The July issue of Bookseller+Publisher magazine has landed! Here are some of the forthcoming releases that impressed our reviewers this issue:

Spirit of Progress (Steven Carroll, Fourth Estate, August)
Clive Tilsley of Fullers Bookshop in Tasmania reviewed Steven Carroll’s Spirit of  Progress, a ‘prequel’ to The Art of the Engine Driver, the first of Carroll’s ‘Glenroy’ trilogy. ‘Reading Spirit of Progress was one of the most enjoyable things I have done for a long time,’ writes Tilsley. ‘While it begins and ends in 1977, most of the story is set in the immediate post-war years in Melbourne as the country starts life afresh… I am sure everyone who has read the ‘Glenroy’ series will welcome this addition.’

Babylon (Stephen Sewell, Victory, August)
Rachel Edwards, events manager at Fullers Bookshop in Hobart, declares Babylon ‘a taut and unpredictable crime novel from Stephen Sewell, who is best known as a playwright and scriptwriter and who recently adapted the film Animal Kingdom into book form’. Charismatic psychopath Dan is driving a stolen black Chevrolet when he picks up Mick, a young English backpacker. ‘Dan’s flair and immediate power over the vulnerable Mick are slowly teased out in an extended cop-chase/road-trip through a dark and mythic east-coast Australia,’ writes Edwards. ‘This is a tightly written literary crime novel.’

Cargo (Jessica Au, Picador, August)
Bookseller+Publisher journalist Eloise Keating says former Meanjin deputy editor Jessica Au’s debut novel Cargo is ‘a stunning and compelling read’. The novel weaves together the stories of three teenagers finding their way in the early 1990s in Currawong, a small Australian coastal town in which the lives of residents are invariably influenced by the water that surrounds them,’ writes Keating. ‘Au captures the rawness of her protagonists’ emotions with compassion and skill, as well as refreshing honesty… the complexity and uncertainty of growing up is celebrated in this unique snapshot of adolescence which will be appreciated by readers of all ages.’

The Courier’s New Bicycle (Kim Westwood, HarperVoyager, August)
Perth-based bookseller Stefen Brazulaitis said that while Westwood’s novel ‘will definitely appeal to science-fiction readers’, he’d recommend it to adventurous literary fiction fans too. ‘Salisbury “Sal” Forth is a bicycle courier in a future Melbourne, running contraband through the back streets of a society in turmoil. Mass vaccinations against the latest super flu have tipped the body chemistry of most of the population into endocrine crisis and infertility. With the government dominated by anti-technology Christian fundamentalists, the illegal hormone packages that Sal delivers are the only hope some have…’

RPM (Noel Mengel, UQP, August)
Reviewer Jarrah Moore was impressed by Noel Mengel’s novel, set in 1984 in a small silo town in Queensland, about ‘a mismatched group of dreamers and cultural outcasts’. ‘What connects the characters is their shared obsession with music, and the same thing holds the book together,’ she writes. ‘This is a book with heart, delicate characterisation and a striking sense of place: the small-town world with its wide open spaces and narrow minds, and the vibrant music aficionados scene that springs up around the record store RPM come together in a way that is both idealised and deeply honest.’

Melbourne (Sophie Cunningham, NewSouth Books, August)
In nonfiction, bookseller Veronica Sullivan enjoyed the fourth in NewSouth Books’ series of popular histories of Australian capital cities: Sophie Cunningham’s Melbourne. ‘As a former editor of Melbourne-based literary journal Meanjin, Cunningham is uniquely qualified to dissect the city. She offers an intimate, nuanced perspective of Melbourne past, present and future. This is the Melbourne of Graham Kennedy, Helen Garner and Mick Gatto, but also of generations of artists, cyclists, Collingwood fans and the covert urban explorers known as the Cave Clan,’ writes Sullivan. ‘This book is lively and accessible, with a voice that is informative but not didactic, making it ideal both as an insiders’ guide for locals and an introduction for curious outsiders.’

A Small Book about Drugs (Lisa Pryor, A&U, August)
Portia Lindsay says A Small Book About Drugs by former Sydney Morning Herald columnist Lisa Pryor is ‘a persuasively written and thought-provoking essay that warrants serious consideration by young people, parents, politicians, law enforcement and the media’. It ‘offers a controversial perspective on recreational drug use, as discusses many aspects of the practice that are often taboo in mainstream debate,’ writes Lindsay.

Violin Lessons (Arnold Zable, Text, August)
Lindsay also reviews Arnold Zable’s Violin Lessons in which ‘music in its many forms provides comfort, escape or nostalgia for a variety of trapped or displaced individuals—the Iraqi refugee reunited with his band, the Polish labourer enchanted by his music box, the Cambodian fisherman who serenades the river’. ‘This book is a wonderfully complex, sad and beautiful read,’ writes Lindsay.

Sign up for our free fortnightly Bookseller+Publisher newsletter for more information on forthcoming titles here.

Tags: A Small Book about Drugs, Arnold Zable, Australian fiction, Babylon, Cargo, crime fiction, debate, Fourth Estate, Glenroy, HarperVoyager, Jessica Au, Kim Westwood, Lisa Pryor, melbourne, music, NewSouth, Noel Mengel, Picador, post-war, Queensland, RPM, sci-fi, Sophie Cunningham, Spirit of Progress, Stephen Sewell, Steven Carroll, Text, The Courier’s New Bicycle, UQP, Victory, Violin Lessons Category Bookseller+Publisher Magazine, Fancy Goods, It's all about us, Reviews |