Notes from Eve Abbey • April 2019

NEW RELEASES

I’ve just eagerly read the final book in Steven Carroll’s wonderful Glenroy series. This one is set in 1917 Melbourne when the city is in a ferment of discussion about whether to accept conscription or not. The central character is Maryanne, Michael’s grandmother. She is almost forty, pregnant and unmarried. A stalwart character who is determined to keep her child (who becomes Vic) and not give him up to the Church as expected. It is called The Year of the Beast and although sixth in the series it is a prequel. You have yet to meet engine-driver Vic, wife Rita and their son Michael, their neighbours and workmates, living in a newly emerging suburb on the outskirts of Melbourne. 

Steven Carroll’s style is quite addictive. Short rhythmic sentences, graceful and tender prose. If you haven’t met these life-like characters yet you have a treat in store. The Art of the Engine Driver and The Gift of Speed, should be read first, in my opinion, while the other titles can be read in any order. They are The Time We Have Taken, Forever Young and Spirit of Progress. Steven is a Miles Franklin Award winner as well as several other big prizes. He is Australia’s John Updike and I think these books are marvellous.

 

 

Carroll has written another series all about T.S.Eliot. Those titles are The Lost Life, A World of Other People and A New England Affair. Take your pick! Enjoyment guaranteed.

 

Steven spoke at Abbey's in 2011 on the writing of Spirit of Progress. Excerpts:

More Author Videos

Prize winning Poet, Barry Hill wrote a glowing report in the Australian Review last Saturday for The Poems Vol.III in the Cambridge Edition of The Works of D. H. Lawrence, which includes Uncollected Poems and Early Versions. It is not cheap, although we have sold some already. He says "Dig into Lawrence dear readers. Fork out for this book. It is all process, and contemporary".

Bear in mind that Abbey’s carries a very extensive range of books published by Cambridge University Press especially, and also from Oxford University Press. On our website homepage there are currently two links, one each for Cambridge and Oxford, showing you all the titles in stock. You will be amazed! And if we are out of stock we can get it for you quickly.


Happy reading, Eve

Since 1968 ~ Abbey's 131 York Street Sydney ~ An Aladdin's cave for readers

Notes from Eve Abbey • November 2018

Browse: SUMMER READING 2018 CATALOGUE NEW RELEASES

Rick Morton, journalist on The Australian, has written a searing autobiography about his childhood on an enormous pastoral station in far-west Queensland. Not easy reading but leavened by some very amusing insights.

His violent and tyrannical grandfather passed on his genes throughout the family. Morton now says he is a “middle-class man in a poor boy’s body”. If you want to understand what it is like to be poor in this country read this. It is called One Hundred Years of Dirt.

It is 250 years since Captain Cook set sail from England to enter the Pacific. There is a book which is a companion piece to a TV programme on Foxtel I think. It is called The Pacific in the Wake of Captain Cook with Sam Neill and written by Meaghan Wilson Anastasios.

As I was born in New Zealand and went to a country school with many Maori friends I especially enjoyed the first section. I even have a copy of Cook’s famous map of New Zealand. I might put it up in the shop. It is a very readable book with informative remarks from interested people especially displayed throughout the text as well as excellent colour photographs.

There is a new book from Clare Wright who wrote The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka about the women involved in that famous episode. This new, much larger, book is called You Daughters of Freedom: The Australians Who Won The Vote and Inspired the World. Clare points out that World War I overshadowed the fame of Australia as a progressive reformist nation.

This new book is about the well-travelled activists such as Vida Goldstein, Nellie Martel, Dora Montefiore, Muriel Matters and Dora Meeson-Coates (who painted the famed banner carried in the British Suffragettes’ enormous marches in 1908 and 1911). These Australian women were amongst the leaders in the International movement for votes for women.

Both books are very readable. Here is an historian who can tell a good story!

Robyn Williams, of ABC Radio's The Science Show fame, has just written his autobiography and given it the title Turmoil: Letters from the Brink. Like many of us in the later stages of interesting lives he wonders where the world is heading.

Many of his tales fall into line with the recent upheaval at ABC where management by email or cartoon seemed to have gained the upperhand. He enthusiastically sings the praises of young scientists in Australia and thinks he has had a very lucky life.

You will enjoy, as I did, some stories about famous scientists. The Science Show is on Radio National on Saturday at noon and repeated on Wednesday. Don’t miss it. Thank you Robyn and friends.

I hope you pick up a copy of Abbey’s Christmas catalogue for 2018 which is in-store now. Inside the front cover there is a nice photograph of Abbey’s when we were in the Queen Victoria Building in George Street. Do you remember that comfortable shop? I think we have customers today who came along there with their parents. That was fifty years ago!

Keep well,

Since 1968 ~ Abbey's 131 York Street Sydney ~ An Aladdin's cave for readers

Notes from Eve Abbey • October 2018

NEW RELEASES

I’ve been reading some really good novels, not the latest releases, most especially Ruth Park’s The Harp in the South. What a great writer! You can get Harp in the South at a good price as a Popular Penguin, but the typeface is old fashioned or you can choose The Harp In the South Novels which includes Missus, Harp in the South and Poor Man’s Orange. I’m sure if you have been to the Sydney Theatre Company production you will want to fill it all in. Pure enjoyment.

Photo credit: Daniel Boud





I was also given Steven Carroll’s latest version of T.S.Eliot’s private life in A New England Affair. Steven has made two previous imaginings in The Lost Life or in A World of Other People. All wonderful books. This latest one is so very sad it was hard to read.

I admire greatly the writing of Steven Carroll so must remind you again of the Glenroy series about a suburban family in Melbourne beginning in the Fifties. There are five novels now – the first is The Art of the Engine Driver, so check them out at Abbey’s or in your library. Unique style. Great writing.





Finally I have also enjoyed an expanded edition, of Anthony Hill’s Captain Cook’s Apprentice. It is 250 years since Cook’s momentous voyage into the Pacific , so important to us, so it is a good time to publish the expanded edition of this ripping novel. Isaac Manley, one of the servant boys on board was promoted to Midshipman and later became an Admiral so there will be lots to learn for anyone dreaming of a life at sea – both good and bad.

Keep well,

Since 1968 ~ Abbey's 131 York Street Sydney ~ An Aladdin's cave for readers

Notes from Eve Abbey • May 2018

NEW RELEASES

I am having a bit of a kick in American History/Politics just now starting with a new book called Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life by Robert Dallek. We remember Roosevelt not only as a great President but also as a much loved and admired man with a wife who was equally admired. The author, History Professor at Boston University, has previously written, a long time ago, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy 1932 – 1945, as well as books about John F.Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Nixon and Kissinger. This latest book does focus more on the details of Roosevelt’s various campaigns for re-election and his mastery of consensus politics. He did, after all, serve an unprecedented four terms and died in office.

There is a new historical fiction book, not before time, about Eleanor Roosevelt and her loving relationship with journalist Lorena Hickok who became a White House fixture, known often as 'First Friend'. Franklin D. was so admired and revered by the media and by historians that no-one was willing to acknowledge this relationship, just as photographers kindly never showed Franklin’s paralysed legs. Tabloid gossip is how historians thought about Eleanor and Hick’s romance. Amy Bloom has written a fine fictionalised account of this long affair. It is called White Houses.

Remember Dickens’ (male) biographers never mentioned his mistress Nelly Ternan who remained unknown until Claire Tomalin published that terrific book The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens. There is an amusing remark quoted in Dallek’s book “Eleanor didn’t know how to be spontaneous – but then you can’t teach spontaneous can you?”

Prolific author Richard Aldous has written a revealing biography of the man known as Court Historian for the Kennedy years, especially for his famous book A Thousand Days, who was a brilliant writer and American historian. This is the story of an exciting intellectual life . It is called Schlesinger: The Imperial Historian. Don’t miss it. I am enjoying it now.

Daughter Jane is still working up on the Thai-Burma Border with the Karen Women’s Organisation. She is always looking for suitable material for the Personal Development School started years ago in the displaced person’s camp. Recently she asked for Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls 1 and 2. 100 Tales of Extraordinary Women. Lindy has already mentioned these large hardback books sitting in the treasure trove of Children's books she keeps in the far left of the shop. The books compiled by Francesca Cavallo and Elena Favilli not only succinctly tell the story of important and famous women but the single page story is in clear simple English with a striking original illustration on each facing page. Perfect for primary school libraries or special schools.

I’ve just finished, with much pleasure, Donna Leon’s 27th book in the Commissario Brunetti series set in Venice. It is called The Temptation of Forgiveness and in it Brunetti does indeed think about advising the culprit how to avoid prosecution. Donna Leon is not losing her touch, for this is indeed a very complicated fraud and Brunetti has not been reading his Latin classics too much but he has come to acknowledge how very complicated life has become.

A few months ago a friend insisted on lending me some old DVD’s which included not only Brideshead Revisited (which I mentioned last month) but also Becket and The Lion in Winter in both of which Peter O’Toole played Henry II. I was so intriqued by these that I decided to read about Henry’s mother, the amazing Eleanor of Aquitaine who not only married the King of France(Louis VII) but also Henry II of England, was the mother of Richard the Lionheart and of King John and managed to live to eighty two when she was indeed the King Pin!

So I am reading Eleanor of Aquitaine: By The Wrath of God, Queen of England by Alison Weir. There is also a book by leading medieval historian, Desmond Seward, called Eleanor of Aquitaine: Mother Queen of the Middle Ages which I have on order.

Looking at Abbey’s website I can also see many books about Eleanor, including the trilogy written by Elizabeth Chadwick beginning The Summer Queen, then The Winter Crown and finally The Autumn Throne. Find them in Historical Fiction.

An amusing piece of trivia… I looked up Henry II who is described as red-haired, freckled, short and sturdy with bow legs from riding his horse so much. Ah yes! Just like Peter O-Toole!







Keep well,

Eve

Since 1968 ~ Abbey's 131 York Street Sydney ~ An Aladdin's cave for readers

Notes from Eve Abbey • April 2018

NEW RELEASES

Would you like to try a piece of really original writing? Something unusual? If so, read The Town by Shaun Prescott. This is a first novel from a short story writer and it is very successful. His work is being compared to Gerald Murnane, especially to The Plains. There is a carefully controlled voice of the narrator, a writer who has moved to a Central West country town in order to write a book about the disappearing towns of the outback. The voice is dry and flat like the surrounding countryside. Is it banal? Surely something will happen? Someone will rebel? Fatalistic for sure. The Lifted Brow is the small publisher responsible for this. Take a good look.

I’ve just finished reading Tim Winton’s deeply personal book The Boy Behind the Curtains. This is a wonderful book, brilliantly written, wise and mature. In some pieces he recalls accidents that happened to his family, in others he speaks about the landscape of Western Australia and in others he recalls the important part played by church-going in his adolescence, or a visit to the National Gallery of Victoria or the euphoria of surfing or swimming with whales or the strangeness of a winter living in the gatehouse of a derelict Irish castle.

A fine book to give to a young person just awakening to the world. These autobiographical pieces are to be savoured one at a time.

The Boy Behind the Curtain has recently won the Non-Fiction Prize at the Adelaide Festival. Tim has donated the $15,000 prize to the fund for the Ningaloo Reef, one of his environmental concerns.

Since then I have read Tim Winton’s latest book, a novel called The Shepherd’s Hut. This is a very different approach. Written in the voice of an angry, poorly educated young man who has been horribly abused by his father, it is a style I would usually not enjoy reading but there are intermittent gorgeous descriptions of the Western Australian landscape as the young man escapes from society.

He stumbles across an old man, a priest who has been, for some reason, seemingly imprisoned on the edge of the huge, beautiful salt lake. Gradually, you come to understand that this is an allegory about the painful search for peace.

Winton’s writing is never dull and always has some deeper meaning. The story will stay with you.

Fans of Julian Barnes will enjoy his latest novel The Only Story, which is the curiously unemotional tale of a long love affair between a very young man and an older married woman in the suburban wilds of Surrey, England. All very circumspect and polite. I found it odd and dispiriting but nonetheless thought-provoking.

I’ve been watching a three disc set of Evelyn Waugh’s fabulous novel Brideshead Revisited. So sad. So melancholy. But thirty or more years ago no-one rang a friend on Sunday night because everyone was watching Brideshead Revisited.

The novel was a surprise departure from the famous satirical novels he had written in the thirties and described Charles Ryder’s infatuation with an aristocratic Anglo-Catholic family. It was first published in 1945 but the Popular Penguin edition which you can buy for $12.99 (who can complain about the price of books!) has some revisions made by Waugh and his Preface to the revised edition.

After Brideshead Revisited he went on to write some of best novels of the twentieth century, using his own experience as a not very successful soldier. Officers and Gentlemen, Men at Arms and Unconditional Surrender were put into one volume in 1965 under the title Sword of Honour. There is a special edition in Penguin Modern Classics as well as a Popular Penguin edition.

At Abbey’s you can usually find the backlist titles from special authors so look out for Vile Bodies, Handful of Dust, Scoop and Put Out More Flags, all of which were first published in the thirties. Enjoy yourself.

You can also find Waugh’s Complete Short Stories 1910-1962 as well as Work Suspended and Other Stories. To complete your pleasure look for Evelyn Waugh: A Life Revisited by Philip Eade. And what a life! Not an especially nice man but a wonderful writer with a wicked tongue.

VIEW EVELYN WAUGH • IN STOCK

Keep well,

Eve

Since 1968 ~ Abbey's 131 York Street Sydney ~ An Aladdin's cave for readers