BOOK CLUB
THIS MONTH I’VE GONE LOOKING FOR
SOMETHING OUT OF THE ORDINARY.
REVIEWSREV IEWS ANNABELANNABEL L AWSONLAWSONTHE MAN WHO
CLIMBS TREES
James Aldred, W.H. Allen, $29.99Fabulously different from anything
you’ve read before, Aldred’s memoir
of climbing and inhabiting the world’s
tallest and most unyielding redwoods
and eucalypts reveals him not only
as a brilliant writer but a true mensch.
High winds, insects, snakes, crotch rot,
maggots in the scrotum — nothing will
deter him. And the fact that no one told
HM the Queen that the BBC was going
to film Aldred climbing the plane tree
tapping at her window, thus exposing
him to a right royal scowl and not a wave
— well he could grin and bear it.WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS
A GOOD IDEA?
Alyssa Mastromonaco,
Little Brown, $29.99“Go get me a diet Coke, would you?”
said a junior staffer to baby-faced,
pint-sized Alyssa Mastromonaco, who
just happened to be deputy chief of staff
to the Obama administration. It’s her
own fault. She buys cast-offs from the
op shop and wore denim to Buckingham
Palace. In her riveting memoir she
spares the reader nothing — poo
and vomit feature in her story as the
overworked team gorge on junk food
and dodgy drinks at all hours. Alyssa is
top notch at her job. She manages to buy
a second-hand plane for the president
for a mere $3 million, in the middle of
nowhere and without a credit card. And
there are some real scoops, for example,whatwhat happened at the Copenhagen happenedatth
climateclimate talks with ObamtalkswithO a bursting in
onon the mthemeetingeeting they tried to exclude they
himhimhim from fromfrom.. But there’s far too m. But there’s far too mButtheres uch uch
aboutabout Alyssa’s IBS, which strikes at about Alyssa’s IBS, which strikes at about Alyssa’s IBS, which strikes at Alyssa’sIBS,whichstrikesat
the worst moments, placing a pall
over meetings with the Pope and
other important people. A tell-all
view from the top of the mountain.THE ZOO
Christopher Wilson,
Faber And Faber, $24.99Stalin’s corpse lies in state but Yuri
spots that it is not the tyrant but one
of his stand-ins who has been killed
for the occasion. As a result of a traffic
accident, 12-year-old Yuri is an idiot
savant and also chronically cheerful.
His parents are dead on Stalin’s orders
but he does not know it and gratefully
accepted the job of Stalin’s food taster.
There are laughs galore in this noir
novel. A must-read.THE PARTY
Elizabeth Day, 4th Estate, $29.99Harder to bear — surely — than
unrequited love, is love that is almost
but not quite unrequited. The three
characters whose POVs dominate this
stylish tragi-comedy are Martin, whose
love for his best friend far exceeds
what he feels for his wife, Lucy, who
kids herself that very little attention
is better than none, and Keith, her
well-meaning psychotherapist. As in
Shakespeare (the porter in Macbeth,
the gravedigger in Hamlet, andCaliban in The Tempest) the tensions
of the mof the main dramain drama are relieved by a are relieved by
bouts of buffoonery. These take place bouts of buffoonery. These take place
in a fictional village police station in a fictional village police station
not far out fromnot far out fromnot far out fromnot far out fromnot far out fromnotfaroutfrom London. London. London. London. London.London.HINTERLAND
Steven Lang, UQP, $29.95This could turn out to be the best novel
I’ve read all year. In dairy country in
Queensland, Peter Mayska, a mining
megamogul, plans to build a dam. This
divides the community. Mayska expects
local politicians to do his bidding. My
favourite character dies unexpectedly
but his replacement — local doctor Nick
— picks up the baton and helps Eugenie,
the leader of the anti-dam campaign.
Wry glimpses of accursed youth tug
at the heart. We — or at least those
who educate and guide — have erred
somewhere along the line. Very moving.IT’S ALIVE!
Toby Walsh, La Trobe, $34.99The 2016 US elections revealed the
potential for artificial intelligence
(AI) to outflank democracy. Whether
it’s bots driving Twitter and Facebook
or cyber programs hacking top-secret
files, we need to be aware. Walsh,
a professor at University of NSW,
guides us through the history, the
present and the future of AI. When the
last Country Style flesh and blood artist
or journalist trots off to retirement,
gorgeous images and lively interviews,
sometimes in holographic form, will
PHOTOGRAPHY still reach subscribers. Seriously.
SAM McADAM COOPER
BOOKS
NOVEMBER 2017 COU NTRY ST Y LE 141