Archive for August, 2011

Interview: Warren Bonett at Embiggen Books

Bucking the trend of bookshops closing down, Embiggen Books threw open its literate doors to the people of Melbourne in August 2011. Warren and Kirsty Bonett brought their arts-meets-sciences store from Noosaville in Queensland to Little Lonsdale Street, opposite The Wheeler Centre, for family reasons. It’s definitely a win for Melbourne!

I spoke to Warren in mid-August about Embiggen’s approach to life and its future plans.

Narrelle: What’s the philosophy behind Embiggen Books and the kind of books that you stock?

Warren: We focus on science as a pretty big area, but our primary thing is where the arts meets the sciences. Our MO, if you like, is a cross pollination of ideas. We got in a lot of neuroscientists to talk in the shop up north and we will do the same down here. They have a lot of things to say to people of all disciplines. You’ll find Proust, for instance, was particularly interested in the mind and there’s been a lot of cross-fertilisation between Proust and neuroscientists in the way that they think about thought itself and the brain.

N: What kind of ficton will you stock?

W: There’s quite a lot of science fiction in there, but what I’ve done is actually keep all of the different genres together from literature through to sci fi, horror and crime, because I think that the distinctions between the genres is shocking at best. It’s all a bit artificial. Science fiction or crime tends to become called literature after a patina of age has given it a bit of respectability.

Fiction is a good example of people being able to stumble across something that they weren’t really expecting to find or look for. Someone might come in for a Dickens and walk out with Doctorow instead. That idea, to me, goes to the heart of the store.

N: The store is making me think of Jules Verne, HG Wells and the whole Victorian era with that idea that the sciences and the arts not only don’t have to be separate but perhaps shouldn’t be separate.

W: I think they’ve both got to transform. Once upon a time you had the Renaissance-type individuals who didn’t really specialise but just applied thought to a wide range of disciplines. I think we’re at a point where that is almost impossible now. But some of my favourite artists and the most stunning artwork you’ll see today are coming out of people like mathematicians and engineers.

I think in some respects it behoves the arts to catch up with that, in that we can’t just rest upon our laurels and say “I’m a creative type, therefore I don’t have to pay attention to this stuff.” I think if you’re a creative type, it’s your responsibility to pay attention to this stuff.

So that’s my take on it, and steampunk and the Victorian era is really classic for it. The great icon of steampunk and in the sciences is Charles Babbage, possibly one of the top five most brilliant people the world has ever produced. His discoveries and his work are absolutely mindboggling, and he really did cross over between multiple genres. For instance, one of his favourite things was automata. That art that has really been lost, where you make a robot, effectively, out of clockwork.

I’d love to have some in the store and be able to represent artists that do the work in here. That would be fantastic.

N: Is that something you might consider in the future, having mini art installations?

W: Up north we actually did have a gallery attached to our bookshop. It just so happened that this space wasn’t really suitable for it. But we will conduct one and two day exhibitions, where we have a particular artist come in, some plinths and things through the store, by invitation only.

N: Is there anything particular you’d like to say to readers about your store and what they can expect of the experience?

W: It’s our mission to keep the culture of bookshops and having somewhere where you will be provoked in thought very much alive. We will have more events than most bookshops tend to, but we’ll bring in the people who are running the synchrotron or scientists from the Florey Institute in order to try make those things more accessible to people.

You don’t have to go to university or a specialised centre to see that. And that’s what we want to permeate throughout the shop. If you’ve got any ideas about anything that is worthwhile and rational and reasonable out there about the world, we want to help people connect with it.

***

Embiggen Books at 203 Little Lonsdale St, Melbourne is open Monday to Saturday, and late on Thursday and Friday nights. Follow them on Twitter @EmbiggenBooks.

Embiggen is also now stocking titles from Twelfth Planet Press, including the first three 12 Planets anthologies, Nightsiders by Sue Isle, Love and Romanpunk by Tansy Raynor Roberts and The Thief of Lives by Lucy Sussex. It also stocks Sophie Cunningham’s Melbourne. So what are you waiting for? Get yourself in to Embiggen Books!

2011
08/29
CATEGORY
Interviews
10 comments

It’s not creepy, it’s research.

I like visiting graveyards. Some people think this is morbid of me. They suspect perhaps that I’m scouting for possibe monuments for my own passing, or wishing to dwell on the End of Things, especially since, as an atheist, I really don’t believe I have an afterlife to either look forward to or dread.

Others share my enthusiasm, like my friend Katherine who recently accompanied me on two visits to the Box Hill cemetery in search of a couple of gravestones. Two visits were required because we couldn’t find DJ Dennis or Cyril Callister the first time round. Luckily, on the second visit we bumped into some members of the Friends of the Cemetery who knew just where we could find them.

But seriously, I don’t find graveyards morbid. Sometimes they are very sad, especially the graves of children. Most graves are meaningful only to the families of the deceased. Sometimes, though, a little part of the person’s story is left behind for random strangers like me.

And that’s one of the pleasures of the graveyard for me. These places mark the end of everyone’s story, eventually (or, if you’re a believer, the end of volume one and the beginning of the sequel). From time to time, a little of that story is shared.

In Box Hill, Katherine and I found the grave of a woman from Brighton who had been a keen gardener. We knew this because her epitaph referred to her devotion to her garden and the joy she and her neighbours gained from her gifts with plants. Beneath the headstone, her grave contained a little panorama of plants and a bluebird made of porcelain, shielded under clear perspex. I never knew this woman, but for a moment I shared and understood her love of growing things, and sharing that love with her community.

The purpose for the visit was to take pictures for entries in a new iPhone app project I’m working on, so, see, research, like I said. Dennis and Callister were my destinations.

CJ Dennis’s grave bears a quote from one of his poems, and it was pleasant to spend a moment reflecting on the legacy of The Sentimental Bloke and his other works which I”m yet to read. At Cyril Callister’s grave, I took a moment to be thankful for Vegemite, which he invented, on which so many Australian children have grown up and which gave me a taste of home when I needed it while living on foreign shores.

It has to be said, as an editor in my day job, it’s also an occupational hazard that I spotted a typo on stone. I don’t believe in an afterlife or ghosts, but I swear I’ll come back to haunt anyone who carves a spelling or grammatical error into my final resting place.

Graves can be sad; they can even be morbid. I find them melancholy but restful, a reminder that every life, however, brief, has it’s own story, filled with love, drama, tragedy and joy. It’s a reminder that every story ends and that I want to fill mine with love, adventure, friends, exploration and the unexpected.

In case you’re wondering, if I end up with a headstone (rather than cremated and kept in a pretty jar) I’d like my epitaph to read: Here lies Narrelle Harris. Full stop.”

2011
08/23
CATEGORY
apps
writers
writing
4 comments

Review: Whispering Death by Garry Disher

Garry Disher has been writing crime, along with kids books, thrillers and a host of non fiction, for a while now, but Whispering Death is my first foray into his world. A little brave of me, one might think, to leap into the sixth novel of the DI Challis series without having read the preceding five, but Disher has managed that difficult task of making the book as welcoming to a newbie as to an old hand. There are no barriers to first time readers coming on board at this stage of Challis’s career, and plenty of back story that beckons me to go back to the beginning.

Avoiding all the techno-wizardry of 21st century forensics, sparkling labs and endearing ubergeeks, Whispering Death instead brings you solid, foot-slogging detective work. The characters and the locale are drawn with detail and nuance. Alongside the dependable and likable Challis, Constable Pam Murphy has humour and warmth, as well as a few issues of her own to sort out. I particularly liked the practical, positive and no nonsense way he deals with the consequences of Murphy’s bout of anxiety and reaction to the antidepressants she has been taking. Treatment of common mental health problems should always be dealt with in such a matter-of-fact and non-judgemental manner.

The dual plots, one involving a rapist who dresses as a policeman, the other revolving around the activities and strange past of a female cat burglar, provide a balance between crimes of brutality and of intellect. The two never overlap except that the same police are involved in investigating both crimes, but the disparity between the types of crime allows an intriguing look at how the same type of police work, and a little luck, is effective no matter the crime.

Disher, twice winner of the Ned Kelly Award for Best Crime Fiction and other awards, has given readers a tight, gripping novel set in a distinct Melburnian landscape. Even if you’ve never read the Peninsula murder mysteries before, this isn’t a bad place to start.

Read an extract from Whispering Death, buy the paperback or get the e-book.

2011
08/18
CATEGORY
Reviews
Leave a comment

GaryView: Love and Romanpunk by Tansy Raynor Roberts

Gary and Lissa*For newcomers, the GaryView is a review of books/films/TV/entertainment carried out as a conversation between Lissa Wilson (librarian) and Gary Hooper (vampire) , characters from my book ‘The Opposite of Life’. Visit my website for more information.

Lissa: I hadn’t heard of Lamia’s before. How did I miss the fact that Keats wrote poems about vampires?

Gary: Lamia’s aren’t really vampires. They’re not really real, either. I think.

Lissa: Neither are manticores or basilisks, I take it.

Gary: Not that I’ve ever seen.

Lissa: Well, given that fiction is usually a case of Epic Fail when it comes to accurately describing vampirism as you know it, did you like the book?

Gary: Oh, she got the attitude of vampires spot on. And I really liked the Roman theme park and especially the airship in the last story.

Lissa: I bet you just wished there was a lot more about the engineering.

Gary: I know a lot about how airships worked. I was a bit obsessed with the idea when I was nine and read a bunch of books about the Hindenburg and stuff. My granddad still had newspaper cuttings from the papers from the disaster. I once met a vampire who said she’d been on an airship once. Sounded terrific. Well, except for the high volatility and risks of burning to death.

Lissa: A design flaw that sucks equally for humans and vampires. I really loved the idea of a Roman re-enactment town in the middle of the Australian bush. Someone should actually do that.

Gary: I’d love to see that. The Romans had some incredible engineering. Not just the aqueducts. They had hyraulic mining, water wheels, even ways of getting ducted heating into buildings.

Lissa: I have a sudden image of you in a toga supervising the building of bridges.

Gary: A toga?

Lissa: And sandals.

Gary: And you’re not laughing?

Lissa: I thought it would be rude. (giggles)

Gary: Getting away from your images of me in ridiculous costume…

Lissa: At least I didn’t picture you as a Centurion… oh dear… (giggles some more)

Gary: Getting away from that… what did you like?

Lissa:  My god, there were a lot of fearsome women in this book! I loved all of them.

Gary: Clea reminded me of my mum.

Lissa: Really? Don’t tell me she had a long-term friendship with an immortal…

Gary: Apart from me?

Lissa: Oh, there is that, isn’t there. Don’t tell me she fought monsters, too?

Gary: No. Well, she did once throw a cup of hot tea into Mundy’s face and tell him to bugger off.

Lissa: Your mum was clearly awesome.

Gary: Yeah. She was.

Lissa: Wish I’d known her.

Gary: She’d have liked you, I think.

Lissa: Her name wasn’t Julia, by any chance?

Gary: Dot. Dorothy.

Lissa: But a Julia in spirit, eh? The Julias in this book were all brilliant. If I ever have a daughter, I’m going to call her Julia, and she’ll be mighty.

Gary: I suspect any kid of yours’ll be pretty feisty.

Lissa: Though it seems that Dots are fairly mighty too.

Gary: And they make a mean lemon delicious.

Get Love and Romanpunk from Twelfth Planet Press. The book is the second of TPP’s Twelve Planets series.

2011
08/15
CATEGORY
Gary and Lissa
Reviews
writing
2 comments

Review: Melbourne by Sophie Cunningham

To begin with, I want to say what a beautiful object the book Melbourne is. When people go on about the texture, weight, feel and smell of real books in the e-book debate, this is the book they mean. Melbourne, written by Sophie Cunningham and published by New South Books, is exquisite. A small, solid hardback, its elegant dustcover sheaths a simple cream cover embossed in gold. It looks like a book made for princes. The inside cover is an old-style map of Melbourne with icons highlighting features of the city. The pages are thick, rough-edged paper which provide a real tactile joy.

An object as lovely as this book ought to have magic in its pages, and it does. Sophie Cunningham’s tale is part memoir, part ode to the city. I began by thinking the story was like some densely woven cloth, linking the past and present, connecting people and events across the city and time, but cloth is flat, and this story is deep and rich. So the Melbourne of these pages is more like close-growing plants whose roots go deep and intertwine, and whose branches and leaves mingle equally above.

It’s all a pretty poetic approach, but what the hell—the book has a beauty and poetry that go beyond saying “this is a neat and evocative book about Melbourne and its history”.  Cunningham’s personal history is revealed along with the city’s own story, and her emotional response to the places and people therein give the book real life and depth. Some of her experiences tally with or even cross over with mine, adding an extra tang of resonance.

Her story is full of extracts from essays, novels, emails and articles. The seasonal chapters flow from topic to topic, so that you may start with fruit bats in the gardens and end up at a book exhibition by way of Barry Humphries, football, TISM, indigenous history, Australian TV of the 1960s and the Victoria Markets. And every step leads logicially from start to finish. Along the way she talks about things I knew only in passing or not at all, adding to my own stash of knowledge about my adopted hometown.

New South has produced a number of books that give personal accounts of Australian cities, including the award-nominated Sydney by Delia Falconer. Cunningham’s Melbourne will surely be on upcoming lists. It sings a song of home to those of us who love this place, and perhaps may even explain that love to people who come from anywhere else.

Get Melbourne by Sophie Cunningham from New South Books  or from Readings, which also has it as an e-book.

2011
08/11
CATEGORY
writing
4 comments

New competition: Pimp my e-Book!!

The Opposite of Life is now available as an e-book on Amazon.com. At last it is available at a reasonable price to people living outside Australia! At last you can add it to your own digital collection!

To celebrate, and to get the word out there, I am running a Pimp My e-Book competition.

Visit my Facebook page for winners and details.

All you have to do is get the word out there: add the link to your Facebook wall; tweet about it; blog about it. Tell forums and your Goodreads groups. If you have the urge, go and leave a review on the Amazon.com page for it. Of course, there are four different places you can do that:

(I must stress that entry in the competition does not rely on you leaving a good review. If you want to leave a review, say what you really think. You’ll get an entry whatever you say, though obviously I hope you enjoyed it.)

Then all you have to do is paste your link on my Facebook wall or in a reply to my blog here to be in the running for a prize pool of specially-made prizes (pictured). These include t-shirts, tote bags, pens, a coffee cup and a key ring all featuring the cover of The Opposite of Life or the artwork Audrey Fox did for the sneak preview of the sequel, Walking Shadows.

I’ll keep a tally of everyone who has entered. Every week, I’ll select a winner, some at random, one or two for any particularly creative or effective promotions on the book’s behalf.

Already some people have spread the news on Twitter and Facebook: so the first two entrants in the competition are Julie Salisbury and Tom Cho!

2011
08/09
CATEGORY
writing
2 comments

Book Hungry

I recently read The Hunger Games. The whole trilogy. In five days. I’m still feeling the emotional fallout from the books themselves, and I still have residual soreness in my neck and shoulders from the intensity of the reading experience.

Numerous friends of mine had, without saying anything about the plot, sung the series’ praises. When I learned a film was being made,  decided I wanted to read the books before it came out.

I started reading The Hunger Games on a Sunday night on my Kindle, and was immediately drawn into the action-and-anxiety-packed world Suzanne Collins had put together. Desperate to find out what happened next, I hardly put it down . I synced the book and read from my phone when that was more convenient. I read after work and at lunchtimes

I finished the first book and almost instantly moved onto the second, Catching Fire. An apt title. The book had certainly set me aflame. The personal story of Katniss and Peeta and the Games was one thing, but the larger story of the brutal rule of the Capitol, the vile concept of the bread-and-circuses games, was a bigger fire. It pressed all my buttons about love, cruelty, justice, sacrifice and the need to stand against tyranny.

Every few chapters I was choked up; sometimes actual crying occurred. Sometimes at work, where I read voraciously during lunchbreaks or while cueing for coffee.

For the first time in a decade, I read while I walked to work, from my phone screen. I stopped reading at interesections, of course: I couldn’t afford to get myself run over and killed before I knew how it ended.

And if I thought the first two books had been emotional ordeals, the third left me literally unable to sleep. All my buttons fully engaged, Collins then hammered on my personal horror of the loss of self. I read Mockinjay in 24 hours. I cried a lot, right up to the bittersweet ending which nevertheless gave me a resolution that was both realistic and gave me solace.

I’m still absorbing the books: their themes, the reason for my intense emotional respose to them, and my reaction to the fanfiction that seems so focused on wrting traumatic adventures during previous (and sometimes future) Hunger Games tournaments.

Mostly I remain excited that here are books I have engaged with in an obsessive, consuming, compulsive way that I haven’t really had since I was a teenager myself. I love a lot of books I’ve read and love getting back to them when the necessities of life have made me put them down. But it’s been a long time since I couldn’t sleep because I was so anxious about the fate of two characters and their world.

The two writers who have come closest are Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan series and just about anything Mary Borsellino writes (her prose and ideas both excite me! Go and read The Wolf House series if you haven’t already). My husband tends to become a book widow for those two writers, too.

I’m excited that books that swallow me whole still exist. When I’ve had a chance to recover from this first encounter, I’ll be going back to The Hunger Games, Catching Fire and Mockingjay. Perhaps knowing everyone’s fates will make the reading of them a slow burn rather than a wildfire.

2011
08/09
CATEGORY
writing
7 comments
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