Book ❤️ # KinoLoves is a selection of our favourite titles that we take any opportunity to recommend to you!

FICTION

The Girl With All the Gifts
M.R. Carey
RRP $22.99

The phenomenal word-of-mouth bestseller The Girl with All the Gifts is now a major film on widespread distribution starring Glenn Close, Gemma Arterton and Paddy Considine.

NOT EVERY GIFT IS A BLESSING

Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class.

When they come for her, Sergeant Parks keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don’t like her. She jokes that she won’t bite. But they don’t laugh.

Melanie is a very special girl.

Emotionally charged and gripping from beginning to end, The Girl with All the Gifts is the most powerful and affecting thriller you will read this year.

 

Her Body & Other Parties
Carmen Maria Machado
RRP $19.99

Reviewed by Sophie:

Once in a while a writer comes along who blows you out of the water. The book slithers and crawls through an uncanny and grotesque labyrinth of stories of the visceral pleasure, sensuality, hunger, and horror of embodying a female body.

Magical realism dances with horror, flirts with sci fi, and takes queer feminist discourse behind the bike sheds, Reminiscent of Angela Carter and Kelly Link, but with more decapitation and Law & Order SUV doppelgangers, it is so slippery I haven’t digested it all, but at my core it grips me with its truth. It is a pulsing, wild thing. Believe the hype.

 

French Exit
Patrick deWitt
RRP $19.99

Reviewed by Connor:

Who – or, more to the point, WHAT – is Patrick deWitt? This is his fourth novel, each has had a wildly different setting and tone, and every one of them has been not merely good but outstanding. Is he a wizard? Was he secretly grown in a lab by Soviet engineers to be some sort of posthuman uber-novelist? In any event, he continues to be an absolute lord. French Exit is vintage deWitt – word perfect, outrageously funny, literary yet fun to read, somehow sad and uplifting at once. How does he do it? Someone should look into it… with science. Not you though. You should just get this book.

 

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Taylor Jenkins Reid
RRP $24.99

Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now?

Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.

Summoned to Evelyn’s luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the ‘80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn’s story near its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.

 

Bunny
Mona Awad
RRP $22.99

Reviewed by Frances:

A blood-soaked fever dream starring a coven of quasi-satanic post grad students at a prestigious New England university.

Sharp, satirical, and satisfying. The best exploration of young female relationship dynamics since The Girls by Emma Cline.

 

 

 

 

Exploded View
Carrie Tiffany
RRP $22.99

Reviewed by Marianne:

I thought I knew what I was getting into when I picked up this book, but Carrie Tiffany thoroughly exploded all my expectations.

Exploded View is dark and strange and immersive, and the writing! Oh, the writing. I haven’t read anything like it in years (or maybe ever). Outstanding! Frightening! Remarkable!

 

 

 

The Leopard
Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa
RRP $14.99

This is the new, revised edition which includes recently discovered new material including letters and diary entries by the author and two additional sections of the novel.

The Leopard is a modern classic which tells the spellbinding story of a decadent, dying Sicilian aristocracy threatened by the approaching forces of democracy and revolution.

In the spring of 1860, Fabrizio, the charismatic Prince of Salina, still rules over thousands of acres and hundreds of people, including his own numerous family, in mingled splendour and squalor. Then comes Garibaldi’s landing in Sicily and the Prince must decide whether to resist the forces of change or come to terms with them.

 

The Narrow Road to the Deep North
Richard Flanagan
RRP $19.99

Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2014. A novel of the cruelty of war, tenuousness of life and the impossibility of love.

August, 1943. In the despair of a Japanese POW camp on the Thai-Burma death railway, Australian surgeon Dorrigo Evans is haunted by his love affair with his uncle’s young wife two years earlier. Struggling to save the men under his command from starvation, from cholera, from beatings, he receives a letter that will change his life forever.

This savagely beautiful novel is a story about the many forms of love and death, of war and truth, as one man comes of age, prospers, only to discover all that he has lost.

 

The Master and Margarita
Mikhail Bulgakov
RRP $14.99

Reviewed by Kirsty:

The devil and his troop of trouble-making demons come to Moscow and leave the city in confusion and disarray. Only the writer who calls himself “The Master” and his love, Margarita, are able to escape unscathed. Bulgakov delivers all the density you crave from your Russian literature, but with an unexpected measure of hilarity. Seriously absorbing!

 

 

 

Out
Natsuo Kirino
RRP $22.99

In the Tokyo suburbs four women work the graveyard shift at a factory. Burdened with heavy debts, alienated from husbands and children, they all secretly dream of a way out of their dead-end lives.

A young mother among them finally cracks and strangles her philandering, gambling husband. She confesses her crime to her colleagues and unexpectedly, they agree to help. But then the dismembered body parts are discovered, the police start asking questions and more dangerous enemies begin to close in.

Out is a psychologically taut and unflinching foray into the darkest recesses of the human soul, an unsettling reminder that the desperate desire for freedom can make the most ordinary person do the unimaginable.

 

The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea
Yukio Mishima
RRP $19.99

A band of savage thirteen-year-old boys reject the adult world as illusory, hypocritical, and sentimental, and train themselves in a brutal callousness they call ‘objectivity’. When the mother of one of them begins an affair with a ship’s officer, he and his friends idealise the man at first; but it is not long before they conclude that he is in fact soft and romantic. They regard this disillusionment as an act of betrayal on his part – and the retribution is deliberate and horrifying.

Reviewed by Frances:

This story will burrow its way under your skin and never, ever come out. Even if you want it to.

 

NON-FICTION

The Order of Time
Carlo Rovelli
RRP $19.99

Reviewed by Will:

Everything you know about time is wrong.

Every second paragraph I had the urge to call someone and shout at them that mass slows down time! Time is made of gravity! There’s no such thing as the present! You, too, can alienate your friends with physics as The Order of Time is short, smart, and comprehensible to the average reader (ignore the endnotes). Rovelli deftly deconstructs time, bringing the world down with it, before building slowly back up again out of the bizarre and fascinating quantum realm to one where time is strange but solid, and ultimately human.

 

The Spy and the Traitor
Ben Macintyre
RRP $22.99

Reviewed by Annie:

This is by far one of the best spy stories I’ve had the pleasure of reading! Seamlessly mixing narrative flow with insightful and meticulous research, MacIntyre’s book is unputdownable! Telling the story of one of the West’s most prolific double agents, we explore the delicate world of espionage at the height of the Cold War, when peeking behind the Iron Curtain was literally a matter of life and death.

 

 

 

Midnight in Chernobyl
Adam Higginbotham
RRP $19.99

Reviewed by David:

An in-depth investigation into the tragedy at Chernobyl that is a fascinating and horrifying read about government corruption, individual heroism, and the attempt to cover up what could have been a global disaster. Highly recommended for fans of the HBO TV series, and newcomers to the Chernobyl story.

 

 

 

Dark Emu
Bruce Pascoe
RRP $22.99

Reviewed by Kate:

Dark Emu is a ground-breaking and necessary conversation that is a welcome challenge to our understanding of Australian history. Pascoe offers an opportunity to question and engage with histories of our country, particularly those of colonial agriculture and of Aboriginal Australians and their systems of knowledge, farming, management of irrigation and hunter gathering practices. This essential book, along with the Young Readers edition is a must for every Australian.

 

 

 

Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race
Reni Eddo-Lodge
RRP $19.99

Reviewed by Annie:

For anyone who has ever felt like me, over-excited “ethnic” person who always brings up race. Eddo-Lodge doesn’t pull any punches. She doesn’t pander to a white audience and concisely deconstructs the institutionalised prejudice which permeates through our culture. This book is like the book you’ve been waiting so long for and never knew you needed!

 

 

How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy
Jenny Odell
RRP $29.99

Reviewed by Marianne:

There are plenty of books out there about how to quit your phone and reclaim your attention, but not so many that address what radical things you might like to do with your attention once you’ve stolen it back. Odell proposes a move towards practices and technologies that give us back our contexts, that situate us in a space and in a time and an ecosystem, as an alternative to the endless immediacy and placelessness of the newsfeed.

How to Do Nothing is a thought provoking treasure trove of alternative approaches, and a much better option than wasting your weekend scrolling on Instagram!

 

KIDS’S BOOKS

A Boy and a Ball
Phil Cummings, illustrated by Phil Lesnie
RRP $16.99

Reviewed by Jessica:

“From the Prime Minister’s Literary Award-shortlisted creators of ‘Feathers,’ comes this compassionate tale of a family’s search for a safe place to call home.”

The power of the two Phils is STRONG with this new collaboration, an impossibly beautiful and timely picture book. There is a reason Phil Cummings is one of Australia’s most beloved storytellers 0 the evidence is clear with this book – and his words are given breathtaking life with Phil Lesnie’s imaginative illustrations and limitless talent!

 

The List of Things That Will Not Change 
Rebecca Stead
RRP $16.99

Reviewed by Marianne:

Rebecca Stead has a big brain and an even bigger heart, so it’s no surprise that this book will make you smarter and kinder and more gentle and curious than you were when you began. Essential for young readers (and old ones, too)!

 

 

 

 

The Adventures of Catvinkle
Elliot Perlman
RRP $19.99

Reviewed by Kate:

If only I could hand this book out to you all! Elliot has written a gloriously funny tale that has warmed my heart. Catvinkle is a truly pampered cat and is rather unimpressed when her owner brings home Ula, a lonely Dalmatian. With plenty of cat puns, dog chasing adventures, and dancing cats (yes, DANCING CATS!), I loved this lively and gentle story with its thoughtful themes. Perfect for readers 8-12 years, but younger readers would also enjoy this novel and Laura’s gorgeous illustrations as a reading aloud experience. Five stars for this one!

 

My Life as an Alphabet
Barry Jonsberg
RRP $16.99

Reviewed by Allyx:

Candice Phee is different – people say “on the spectrum,” but really she’s just unflinchingly honest and socially uncomfortable… okay, and a little strange. Her family have fallen apart, for many reasons, her new friend is sure he’s from another dimension, and Candice’s fish is having religious issues. Through her writing of her school assignment – an autobiographical alphabet – we see Candice try to fix everyone and everything with hilarious and beautifully touching results. This is absolutely wonderful!

 

 

Lenny’s Book of Everything
Karen Foxlee
RRP $19.99

Reviewed by Amanda:

If someone asked me to rate this book out of five, I’d give it six shiny golden stars. This is one very special book, and has been the most moving thing I read this year. From the very first page I was taken aback by just how beautifully Karen Foxlee writes, and felt utterly spoiled as a reader throughout. This is a tender story about a brilliant young girl named Lenny Spink, her brother Davey, who has a condition and cannot stop growing, and their single mother Cynthia, who does all she can for the three of them to get by. The Spink family win a subscription to Burrell’s Encyclopaedia with new issues arriving each week, and Davey and Lenny are whisked away into a world of wonder and adventure. There is so much love and heart in this book, and I will sincerely hold this story and its characters dear to my heart for a very, very long time. Perfect for fans of Wonder, A Song Only I Can Hear, and Bone Sparrow.

(Contains some sensitive themes, recommended for readers age 10+).

 

Cats are a Liquid
Rebecca Donnelly, illustrated by Misa Saburi
RRP $29.99

Reviewed by Jessica:

Plopped cats, slopped cats, flat cats, cat cats. Slouched cats, couch cats, scarf cats, barf cats…

Okay, maybe not barf cats. But all other cats! This book is full of cats doing all sorts of cat things and I am officially obsessed! CATS! Delightful rhymes and sweet illustrations – what more could one want?

 

 

The Extraordinaries
TJ Klune
RRP $19.99

Reviewed by Jess:

Why do I want to read thee? Let me count the ways! This is TJ Klune’s YA debut that has taken the book world by storm. A queer funny urban fantasy with superheroes?  It’s like my dreams have manifested into book form.

 

 

 

 

 

I Had Such Friends
Meg Gatland-Veness
RRP $19.99

Reviewed by Phoebe:

What a stunning Australian debut! This is a quietly powerful story about self-discovery, lost love and unlikely friendships. It reminds us that everyone struggles and sometimes, all it takes to get through the day is to be in the good company of one other person. Highly recommended for fans of Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor and Park. Trigger warning: this book contains issues surrounding bullying, abuse, depression, and self-harm.

 

 

 

ART AND DESIGN

Hannah Ryggen: Woven Manifestos
Esther Schlicht
RRP $104.99

Reviewed by Elo:

Hannah Ryggen’s life, at first glance, seems idyllic; living on a far flung Norwegian fjord, weaving tapestries on a hand-made loom using yarn naturally dyed with foraged pigments including those created from birch leaves, moss, and rosemary.
However the warmth of Ryggen’s tapestries almost betrays their overt anti-war and anti-fascist sentiments, as the artist used the medium to record the traumas of WWII. Weaving dissent into each of her works, Ryggen ridiculed the violent leaders of the era and exposed their crimes. Ultimately, her powerful artistic vision sought to communicate the radical political potential of textile art, and its important democratic and social utility beyond just the decorative.

 

Treehouses, Tower’s and Tea Rooms: The Architecture of Terunobu Fukimori
J.K Mauro Pierconti
RRP $129.99

Reviewed by Frances:

The first time I read this book, I leafed through it and looked at the pictures. I imagined a world where these buildings exist- although ‘buildings’ seems too heavy and commonplace a word for Fukimori’s fairytale creations. They seem as though they have bloomed out of the earth after a heavy rain, like field mushrooms. They are charming, and sweet, and they both imitate and transcend nature- not in rivalry, but as a harmonious composition. His use of space and light is generous and measured, and the interiors house a gentle accumulation of shadows that result in a soft stillness. One feels as though if you were to clap your hands in a Fukimori tea house, there would be no sound.

In my second reading, I read the essays- Pierconti’s extensive research draws together a story that spans from pre war Japan, through atomic turmoil and foreign imposition, and into the new modernity that Japan (and the rest of the world) struggle with to this day. Funkimori’s story is that of a journey for identity in a post colonial world, a balancing of tradition and innovation, and the endless quest to reconcile nature with civilisation. His designs ask the question- can we tread lightly in the world?

 

The Art of the Devil: An Illustrated History
Demetrio Paparoni
RRP $70.00

Reviewed by Frances:

This gorgeously illustrated compendium is that rare treasure in the realm of art books- a book that is just as fascinating to read as it is to look at. The engrossing essays that accompany the smorgasbord of imagery (pulled from locations as diverse as ancient temple walls to episodes of The Simpsons), clearly display the authors profound passion and breadth of knowledge on the subject

The devil is an indefatigable presence in our collective imaginations, just as powerful today as it was thousands of years ago. Early Christians painted them as an incarnation of the horned god Pan; a symbol of dark paganism who had stepped straight out of the old testament to remind the faithful of what is in store for those who stray from the flock. In the contemporary imagination, they are just as often painted a playful instigator, a figure of rebellion and chaos(see: the emotionally vulnerable Satan as depicted in South Park), or as a stand in for the darkest parts of the human psyche- a kind of dramatised manifestation for the Freudian concept of the id(the Faustian deal maker of Rosemary’s baby, or the apparition of obsession and infatuation in Fuselli’s Nightmare).

To quote everyone’s favorite friendly neighborhood Satanist, Anton LaVey,”Satan has been the best friend the church has ever had, as he has kept it in business all these years!”

Enjoy this fascinating book, and ave satanas!

 

End Street
Noel McKenna
RRP $45.00

Reviewed by Jo:

Noel McKenna is a master of mood. End Street depicts a humble suburban existence with simply furnished interiors and lone figures or pets. Perhaps it’s the recent experience of lockdown but there is something about these old fashioned domestic scenes that are both comforting yet mysteriously cut off from the world. They depict a quiet life lived alone in which there’s time to practice piano or read a book. Most touchingly, they depict the unique humour and tenderness that animals bring into our lives.

 

Postures: Body Language in Art
Desmond Morris
RRP $49.99

Reviewed by Lynn:

The depiction of the human form, its faces and all its individual parts has fascinated us since prehistoric cave paintings.
In Postures, Morris breaks down the expressive potential of body language and gestures in art from Greek sculptures, to classical paintings, to graffiti art. Some are familiar, while others strange and highly specific. How did the ‘middle finger’ become such a popular symbol for insult? Why did Napolean always hide his right hand in all of his portraits? What is the significance of a ‘hail’ in one context and culture compared to another?

If body language is considered a more immediate way of discerning a person’s attitudes and intentions, perhaps learning to navigate their various origins and intersections can give us a better understanding of human nature.

 

Arboretum
David Byrne
RRP $39.99

Reviewed by June:

Arboretum is a series of 85 sketchbook diagrams drawn intimately in pencil, exploring the interconnectedness of human life and expression. Beginning with the simple roots-and-branches of a tree, culture is further imagined as constellations and Mobius strips, nebulous Venn diagrams and bacterial growths. Byrne’s cryptic and playfully satirical juxtapositions of the micro/macro and the sacred/profane invite readers to free-associate on the origins and structures of collective human culture – from bodily habits to corporate hierarchies.

In all its familiar and irrational philosophy, Arboretum is a reminder of the many meanings of culture – 1) to tend, till or cultivate, 2) as the production of microorganisms in a suitable environment, and only much later as the collective customs of a people. A fascinating and humorous experiment, featuring Byrne’s own musings – and pencil smudges!

 

The Great Animal Orchestra
Bernie Krause and United Visual Artists
RRP $35.00

Reviewed by Lynn:

Bernie Krause records and studies the sounds of living organisms in landscapes and marine environments across the world. This book presents his discoveries in seven vibrant soundscapes and spectrograms that the reader is encouraged to experience using the accompanying QR codes.

The visual and audio elements combined reveals the beauty and dense biodiversity within these natural habitats and how each produces its own unique signature. An animal orchestra, Krause calls it, comprised of insects, reptiles, birds, mammals and sea creatures when vocalising in tandem can offer us powerful and detailed feedback on the condition of each ecosystem.

Sadly many voices have vanished completely from that orchestra over the decades as the world continues to rapidly transform and deteriorate, a reminder that we have a responsibility as co-habiters to listen to, remember and better love this place we call home.