Summer reads: Book extracts with Australian stories and authors
Summer is the best time to dive into a page-turner, so here’s your chance to sample some new releases from Australian authors.
SUMMER is the best time to dive into a page-turner, so here’s your chance to sample some new releases from Australian authors.
THE LAWSON SISTERS
Janet Gover
Mira
RRP $29.99
ELIZABETH Lawson never cried. Never.
She could remember the last time she’d cried. That was just over 15 years ago and in all those years, she had not shed so much as a single tear.
But today ... today it was hard.
A drop of moisture fell onto the black steering wheel, fading as it dried instantly in the late morning heat. Sweat, she told herself firmly. It was sweat. One of these days, she’d buy a new tractor with an air-conditioned cab. But that was pretty unlikely. New tractors cost money, and money was something she didn’t have. She was even less likely to have it after today.
Liz jammed the hat back on her short dark hair. There was nothing wrong with the tractor she had. It had a few years on it, but it was reliable and exactly what she needed to cultivate lucerne on the river flats or cart hay or shift muck from the stables.
Today it was exactly what she needed to dig a grave big enough to bury a horse.
It was well past midday when Liz parked the tractor in the machinery shed. As always, her first thought was for her horses. Some needed feeding, others hadn’t been exercised. She also had to clear out the stallion stall, which was now empty. She slumped against the tractor. She really didn’t want to face that empty stall right now.
And it looked like she wouldn’t have to. Her eyes narrowed as she watched a car approaching up the long gravel drive trailing a small cloud of dust. It stopped by the homestead and the driver got out. He was carrying a briefcase. That was not a good sign.
“G’day,” she called as she walked towards the house.
The driver of the car turned to her. She recognised him immediately, and her heart sank a little further.
“Miss Lawson.” He offered her his hand.
Liz wiped her hand on the thigh of her jeans before shaking.
“I’m Richard Walker. I’m the loans manager — ”
“At the bank in Tamworth. Yes, of course. I recognise you. What brings you all the way out here?”
“It’s about the Willowbrook loan account.”
“I thought it might be.”
It wasn’t a long conversation, nor was it an easy one. Liz had pretty much known what Walker was going to say. Despite that, the papers he left on her kitchen table were devastating.
She was going to do something she hadn’t done in a very long time. She was going to talk to her sister.
● This is an edited extract from The Lawson Sisters, which is available Monday
RIPTIDES
Kirsten Alexander
Bantam Australia
RRP $32.99
Friday 6 December 1974
Charlie
I WAKE when Abby shouts. She reaches across me and grabs the steering wheel. A car horn brays. White beams flare at us then pitch to the right. For an instant, a rump of blue metal shines in our headlights. I elbow my sister out of the way and take the wheel, leaning back hard so I don’t slam my head into it. Abby flattens her hands against the dashboard as I brake and strain to control our sideways skid. She screams my name. We sling to one side of the narrow dirt road and the other car slings the opposite way, like wrong ends of magnets made to meet. We slide to an angled stop, pointing into scrappy bushland.
Dust swirls in front of our headlights, the only movement in a frozen moment. My window is open but I don’t hear a sound from the surrounding bush, the cicadas and creaky eucalypts dumbstruck. Abby and I stare through the windscreen at the dust, panting, coughing.
Neither of us moves until the cassette ejects with a clunk, having played its silent end, giving way to static. Abby hits the off button, fumbles to get out of the car and walks through the settling dust. I don’t follow her straight away. I’m clocking what just happened. What the hell just happened? I feel the thumping drum of my heart, the heat where my jeans sink into ridged vinyl, a breeze through the open door. I watch my sister walk away, her long hair splayed across the back of her singlet like a web.
Once I get out, I cross the road and stand on the thin verge, shaking my sore wrists. Down in the ditch, Abby stands next to a crumpled car. A blue Holden Premier, stopped on the cusp of a roll, one front wheel and one back not touching earth, the bonnet crunched against a gum, headlights still blazing. Abby’s on her toes, yanking at the driver’s-side handle. I slide down to join her. “Help me,” she says. Instead, I go to the front of the car, worried she’ll pull it down on to all fours, on to us. But it’s pushed so firmly into the tree, pug-faced, there’s no chance of that.
I can see the driver, a woman, slumped across the steering wheel, glowing under the internal light. She has thick blonde locks shot through with caramel and gold. Blood oozes from her head. She’s coated in shards of glass.
● This is an extract from Riptides, which is available on February 4
SHARK ARM
Phillip Roope & Kevin Meagher
Allen & Unwin
RRP $32.99
ON SATURDAY, November 16, 1929, an estimated 135,000 people — one in nine of Sydney’s entire population — flocked to Coogee to attend the opening of the Coogee Pier and adjacent shark-proof enclosure. If beachgoers grew tired of the pier’s amusements, they could walk to the northern end of the beach, where they would find, under a domed roof, the long-established Coogee Aquarium Baths.
The saltwater baths were owned by Charles and Albert Hobson, showmen who, determined to improve their business, had installed an electric pumping system that could empty and refill the pool with fresh seawater in less than an hour. In summer, the 50-metre pool was used for public bathing or swimming events, and in the cooler months it became an aquarium where sea creatures were exhibited.
On Wednesday, April 17, 1935, Bert and his nephew, Ron set out to catch a fresh shark to display at the aquarium. They were unsuccessful that day, but ... returning in the morning, they were in luck. A large, 4.4m tiger shark had attacked a smaller shark caught on one of the lines, and had eaten a large portion of it. In doing so, however, it had become hopelessly tangled in the other lines.
Anzac Day, 1935 dawned cool and foggy. As the 20th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings, and with many of the survivors of the first AIF still alive, it was a solemn occasion around the country. The Hobsons had opened the aquarium early that day and did a good trade, but by late afternoon only 12 to 14 people were left gawking at their newest attraction. One of these was Narcisse Leo Young, a proofreader for The Sydney Morning Herald. Bert Hobson corroborated Young’s account.
Later, Detective Constable Frank Head wrote a report to his Inspector recounting the events of that afternoon:
“I beg to report that about 4.45pm this date a telephone communication was received at the station ... to the effect that a shark, which is being exhibited at the baths, had at about 4:30pm this date vomited a human arm.”
● This is an edited extract from Shark Arm, which is available now
THE POWER AGE
Kelly Doust
Illustrations by Jessica Guthrie
Murdoch Books
RRP $39.99
The Power Age is a celebration of growing older for women, and features interviews and words of wisdom from women such as former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark and designer Leona Edmiston.
This edited extract from the interview with Maggie Beer comes from Chapter 9: Pay It Forward.
BELOVED culinary icon, cookbook author and television presenter Maggie Beer has always understood the value and joy of honest good food. Now she has made it her mission to improve the quality of life of elderly people in a meaningful, practical way — every single day. The rewards have been immense.
In 2010, after being named Senior Australian of the Year for her many years as a passionate and enthusiastic food educator, Maggie was inundated with around 900 speaking engagement offers, and wondered how she could really make the most difference to people’s lives.
“I spoke at an event to a thousand CEOs of aged care facilities, and that’s when my own life really changed — though it took a while for the journey to unfold,’ Maggie explains.
“I did a lot of research on the state of the food being offered in aged care homes, and what I found was both great and terrible. The terrible was not to be accepted, and the great to be celebrated and used as benchmarks.”
And so, in 2014, The Maggie Beer Foundation came into being, to improve food experiences for older Australians, particularly those living in aged care homes.
As well as engaging CEOs, its focus, says Maggie, “is upon providing practical cooking advice and knowledge about the nutritional value of food to the kitchen staff in homes”.
Maggie has made it her personal mission to link the latest research on how the food we eat can impact brain health, with her innate knowledge of what good food can do for a person’s emotional wellbeing.
The Foundation is on the cusp of setting up an online training program so its message can spread.
“Success has come from loving what I do, believing in it, and having a mind that needs to see ideas through,’’ says Maggie.
“My advice to anyone looking to make a difference themselves is to take it seriously. Go do something for someone else and see how it makes you feel — there’s nothing like it for giving meaning to your life,’’ she suggests.
“Find a cause that’s going to resonate with you personally, because we all need to be connected and have purpose over and above our own lives. It’s a given that you need to look after yourself first, and women in general are not good at that — but it’s a two-way street: so much confidence comes from helping others.”
● The Power Age is available now
Stories too good to be lost
A fascinating collection of life stories from the Mallee captures a past that otherwise would vanish without trace.
Just like nonna did it
A book that gathers closely held recipes from Italian grandmothers has proved such a hit it has led to a sequel.