2017 promises to be a big year at Melbourne University Publishing with new books coming from Dame Quentin Bryce, Moana Hope, Chloe Shorten and Susan Carland, among others.
Here are the highlights from the first half of the year.
The Perth Writers Festival is coming up soon and three wonderful authors from the MUP stables will be making the trip out west – Mark Colvin (author of Light and Shadow), Mark Di Stefano (author of What a Time to Be Alive) and Damon Young (author of The Art of Reading, Philosophy in the Garden and Distraction).
Here are the details of each authors’ sessions:
On the Campaign Trail
Friday 24th February
Lee Zachariah and Mark Di Stefano travelled the length and breadth of Australia for the 2016 double dissolution election campaign. From big cities to small towns, interstate highways to dusty backroads, they followed the twists and turns of Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten’s campaign. They share what really happened behind the scenes of this historic election.
#HashtagHeadlines
Saturday 25th February
We’ve seen exponential growth in social media activity around the world but what influence does this have on politics and policy? From energising younger voters to peddling polarised political views, Mark Di Stefano, Lindy West and Mark Colvin talk with Di Darmody about the positives and pitfalls of our social connectivity.
Casualties of War
Saturday 25th February
The devastating conflict in Syria is one of the worst humanitarian crises of our times. More than five years since it begun, over 250,000 people have lost their lives, with millions more displaced. What hope is there that this conflict will end? Patrick Cockburn is a journalist specialising in the Middle East, while Marwa al-Sabouni is a Syrian architect living and working in Homs. They talk to Mark Colvin.
The Art of Reading
Sunday 26th February
Alberto Manguel has devoted his life to reading, even moving to France so that he could accommodate his library of more than 30,000 books. Philosopher and writer Damon Young extolls the virtues of reading in his new book, and novelist Jane Smiley has long championed the benefits of close reading. They talk to William Yeoman about this most wonderful pursuit.
The Narrative Desire
Sunday 26th February
It is human nature to make sense of our world through narrative and metaphor. Storytelling, creative writing and reading have long been recognised for their therapeutic potential. We’ve asked poet Susan Varga, philosopher Damon Young and novelist Ken Liu to share their reading lives with Susan Wyndham.
Witness to History
Sunday 26th February
Patrick Cockburn, Mark Colvin and Madeleine O’Dea have reported from global events and conficts for over 20 years. They talk with Kirsti Melville about bearing witness to moments in our collective history that have changed the world.
In this inaugural year of the AFL Women’s competition MUP is very excited to be publishing Moana Hope’s autobiography.
A high-flying athlete who was signed up by Collingwood Football Club as a marquee player for the first AFLW season, Moana remains grounded by remarkable selflessness and is an inspiration for women and girls everywhere.
My Way is her story and will be published in April 2017.
Louise Adler, MUP CEO and Publisher-in-Chief, says, “Last year MUP published Michelle Payne’s autobiography to great success. Her’s was a story of resilience, courage and talent. In 2017 we are thrilled to be able to share the equally inspirational story of the star of Australian women’s football, Moana Hope. Mo has always done it her way, with passion, determination and a huge heart.”
Moana Hope is one of thirteen children. No fan of dolls or dresses, footy was always her passion, and she would spend hours each day playing kick-to-kick with her dad and brothers at the local park. When her dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer, Moana cared for him until his death four years later.
‘Playing football takes me to a different place.’
– Moana Hope
Footy and cricket provided an escape from the demands of domestic life, and she made numerous state and national teams for both sports. She also began to explore her Maori heritage, getting tattoos that represented the dearest people in her life.
But as women’s football became more popular, being good at the game wasn’t enough—players started being pressured about the way they looked. Moana refused to grow her hair or cover her tatts, and for the first time in her life felt sidelined by the game. But later, inspired by a women’s exhibition game, she realised what she was missing and returned with gusto to the game she loved.
My Way by Moana Hope will be published on April 3rd 2017. Pre-order here.
We’re excited to be publishing Take Heart: A Story for Modern Stepfamilies by Chloe Shorten in April 2017.
Chloe is a public affairs specialist, a mother to three children and married to Bill Shorten, the leader of the Federal Opposition.
Take Heart takes a close and considered look at modern Australian families that are a variation on the nuclear model.
Families move from one state to make a new family in another. They blend into new homes, take holidays with all children and all parents. They invent new routines and rituals to establish their own household rhythm. And don’t forget the double sets of school uniforms and pyjamas that exist under different parents’ roofs. It’s the new normal of family life for many Australians.
In a recent interview with The Daily Telegraph Chloe talked about the book saying, “It’s got quite a lot of the research I did myself for when we became a stepfamily, because 43 per cent of Australians are not living in a traditional nuclear family.”
Chloe was surprised at the lack of materials for these families and the unexpected tripwires for those not fitting the traditional cookie-cutter model. She was also heartened by the sensible advice she unearthed, the resilience of her children and the joy of watching her husband become a new father three times over.
“My book looks at when the kids meet that new person in your life. How to go about that meeting is important and often, in the heady rush of a relationship forming, it’s easy to overlook.”
In Take Heart Chloe tells of her own quest to create a new normal. Honest, sincere and warm hearted, it is the story of the modern household and it broadens the idea of who qualifies as ‘a family’ in the 21st century.
Take Heart: A Story for Modern Stepfamilies will publish on April 3rd 2017.
When you’re doing the last of your Christmas shopping there’s no better destination than a bookshop. They are perfect places to pick up a last-minute (literary) gift.
But which bookshop to visit?
We asked a host of MUP authors to tell us about their favourite and/or local bookshops – because authors always have the best bookshop recommendations.
Mark McKenna
Author of From The Edge: Australia’s Lost Histories and An Eye for Eternity: The Life of Manning Clark.
‘I have two favourite bookshops. The first is a Sydney institution, Gleebooks. At a time when both music and bookshops are under considerable pressure, it’s a relief to know that I can still walk into a store where there’s both a wide range of new releases (including a comprehensive selection of literary and current affairs journals) and a “deep” back catalogue.
My favourite local bookshop is Candelo Books in Bega. I’ve been going there for several years now and always enjoy the careful selection of new releases and the passion for books, especially local history, shared by the shop’s owners. Wherever I am, I’ll find a bookshop if I can, except if it’s Woolworths or Coles.’
Candello Books, Bega, NSW
Gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Road, Glebe, Sydney
Ruth Quibell
Author of The Promise of Things
‘My original favourite bookshop no longer exists. It was one of the rare retail places where as a child I felt trusted to be left alone, while still knowing I could ask a question if I had one. Its red carpeted floor in the quiet ground floor corner of the suburban mall has long since been demolished. Yet I get its familiar feeling of quiet belonging and trust when I go to Embiggen books in Melbourne. The shop itself is more like entering into a personal library rather than a retail space. With intriguing objects, such as fossils and artworks set among the bookshelves, it’s a beautiful place to slow down, to look curiously, and, yes, shop. Like in my remembered bookshop, I know that the Embiggeners will leave me alone to happily browse the shelves until I’ve found what sparks my interest, or until I ask for their expert advice.’
(Don’t miss Ruth’s tips for ethical gift giving – and receiving – over at the Ethics Centre)
Embiggen Books, Little Lonsdale Street, Melbourne
Mark Colvin
Author of Light and Shadow: Memoirs of a Spy’s Son
‘Some people call economists killjoys because they tell us to give money, not gifts, at Christmas. They argue that choosing the wrong present for your friends or family is worse than giving them nothing at all. But for me their argument has always struck a chord, because the gift I always wanted to get at Christmas was a book token. It wasn’t cash exactly, in the sense that you couldn’t spend it on clothes or records, but it worked like cash in one place: your favourite bookshop.
In the sixties that was The Chelsea Bookshop, just up from Paulton’s Square on the King’s Road, where two elderly ladies recommended the latest and best in children’s literature to me and my sister, adjusting their choices as we grew. At Oxford in the 70s I spent my grant money in Blackwell’s on The Broad, or Maxwell’s just over Magdalene Bridge, where an extraordinary memory-man called Theo Dunnet could, without looking, give you details of every book in stock and many that weren’t. Starting at the ABC in Sydney’s King’s Cross in the 70s, I haunted the small, dim, wonderfully well-stocked Macleay Street bookshop. In Belgium in the 80s there was the Brussels English bookshop for the latest David Lodge or early Ian McEwan. In London in the 90s, Daunt’s, with its galleried shelves and glorious, church-like, decorative end window, supplied this traveller with guides as well as novels to read along the journey.
Bookshops have been stitched into the fabric of my life. Long may they thrive.’
Lesley Harding
Author of Margaret Preston: Recipes for Food and Art and co-author of Modern Love: The Lives of John and Sunday Reed and Sunday’s Garden
‘I love all bookshops great and small: Hill of Content, Brunswick Street Bookstore, Corrie Perkin’s My Bookshop, Avenue Bookstore, Douglas Stewart Fine Books, and Sainsbury’s to name a few. But I reserve a special affection for Readings in Carlton. It has been a regular haunt since my university days (when the store was across the road and somewhat smaller) and my bookshelves are stacked with purchases spanning the intervening thirty years. I can remember the first, a slim volume on emerging Australian composers acquired at the behest of a new friend; and of course the most recent, a political memoir for my Dad just this week. In between there have been literary theory texts and Russian novels for my studies; glossy catalogues from the Tate and MoMA in my day job as a curator; children’s books after becoming a mother and aunt; and a wealth of glorious Australian fiction and non-fiction in recent years, when I’ve had more time to read for pleasure. The books trace the shifts and changes of life, while Readings has been a constant—a veritable treasure trove complete with the comfortable, unhurried atmosphere of my late uncle’s sitting room and library and an enviably well-read staff.’
Readings Carlton, 309 Lygon Street, Carlton
John Watson
Editor of The Conversation’s 2016 Yearbook
‘My favourite bookshop is in Port Fairy. The reason is two-fold: because it’s there and offers a remarkably good range for a small-town bookshop; and because it provided one of my favourite bookshop moments. We were browsing through the shelves one day when a well-dressed perfumed woman swept in and announced herself with a declaration along the lines of: “I just love a good bookshop. I love the smell of books.” She did a circuit of the shop, with barely a pause to look at a book, then left. The owner quietly commented: “Well there won’t be any bookshops left if you don’t buy any books."’
Ironbird Bookshop, 44 Sackville Street, Port Fairy, Victoria
James Morton
Co-author of Bent Uncensored, Gangland Robbers and the Gangland series
‘Whenever I’m in Acland Street in St Kilda I always look in on Readings. It’s an old-fashioned — in the best sense of the word — book shop; helpful staff, comfortable and with shelves and shelves of books, not just best sellers but books you haven’t come across and which make you want to stay and read them there and then.’
Readings St Kilda, 112 Acland Street, St Kilda
Fay Anderson
Co-author of Shooting the Picture: Press Photography in Australia
‘I have two favourite book shops. Readings in Hawthorn, which is iconic. Readings offer an amazing range, their staff know books, and it’s just a wonderful place to roam for a few hours.
The other is Tim’s Bookshop in Maling Road, Canterbury. Tim’s is my local, independent bookseller and their staff universally love books and are always welcoming, gracious and are on hand to suggest some great titles. A bonus – they gift wrap!’
Tim’s Bookshop, 143 Maling Road Canterbury (and Kew too!)
Readings Hawthorn, 701 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn
Patricia Drum
Co-author of The Killing Season Uncut
‘My favourite bookshop, Gleebooks Blackheath, is a real gem. It’s a peaceful haven when you need a quiet space and some soothing browsing time. It’s the first port of call when you’re looking for conversation and recommendations. It’s a reliable destination when you need a gift, and it’s a marvellous distraction for kids who get lost in the shelves and shelves of children’s books. They have books for all ages and interests, all eccentricities and enthusiasms. The staff are knowledgeable, friendly and endlessly patient, and so far no book has been too hard to track down, even if it’s been out-of-print for decades. Gleebooks is a huge supporter of our local community, and a much-loved presence in our town.
Gleebooks Blackheath, Shop1, Collier’s Arcade Govetts Leap Road, Blackheath
Tony Walker
Author of The Peter Thomson Five
‘Blessed I’ve been to have lived over the past decade or so near two bookshop havens, first Kramerbooks on Dupont Circle in Washington DC, and now Corrie Perkin’s My Bookshop at 430 Toorak Road, Toorak in the heart of the Toorak Village.
Each in their own way provided many pleasurable hours, looking, browsing, sometimes buying … and, well, just enjoying being in the company of books. Knowing her market in a golfing corner of the city Corrie was kind enough to open her doors – and her reception space – to a launch of my MUP-published book on Peter Thomson’s five Open Championship victories (The Peter Thomson Five). She tells me it has been selling steadily. It’s nice the Perkin name lives on in a place that honours contributions to the written word. On her website Corrie reminds us, “books are not commodities, they are works of art.’’ I couldn’t agree more.’
Corrie Perkin’s My Bookshop, 430 Toorak Road, Toorak (and in Hawksburn!)
Murray Walding
Author of Surf-o-rama: Treasures of Australian Surfing
‘Lorne Beach Books is nestled in the middle of the main street of the Great Ocean Road town of Lorne. It’s not a big shop but the proprietors, David and Meryl Bartak, have it well-stocked with an eclectic range of books.
There’s a great selection of books on designer homes that will inspire anyone thinking of doing a holiday home reno and if you want info on the hippest holiday destinations worldwide, they’ve go that covered too.
Personally, I’m a big fan on their pop culture and music section, and it’s no surprise, because of their location, that they have all the latest titles in surf and beach literature. Grab what you want to read and head straight across the road to one of the most beautiful beaches in the country.’
Lorne Beach Books, 108A Mountjoy Parade, Lorne
Shaun Carney
Author of Press Escape
‘The bookshop that really changed things for me was the Avenue Bookstore in Albert Park. The original shop was actually in the avenue from which it draws its name and I lived around the corner for many years. It had a special sensibility. You felt this great respect for books and writers whenever you entered, and when the shop moved 100 metres east to its current, much larger space in Dundas Place, that feeling came along too. I’ve since relocated to the other side of the river but whenever I go back to the store, it’s like slipping into a warm, luxurious bath.
Closer to home, I like Readings Carlton, which has a very different feel. It’s always bustling, there’s heaps of movement through the store, and it’s close to bursting with great music and magazines as well as an incredibly deep range of books. I always wonder what damage I could do there if I had a limitless credit card and a day to spare. I enjoy a bit of noise in a bookstore. That’s why I always visit Dymocks in Collins Street whenever I’m in the city, down in a basement that began its life as a food court. It’s never not busy and if you care about books, you have to feel good about that. Despite its considerable size, it still operates on a human scale. On my last visit, a young woman behind the counter enthused about the fact that she’d sold a book to an actor from the ABC series Rosehaven earlier that day. More recently, I’ve been impressed by Corrie Perkin’s My Bookshop in Toorak Village. She employs helpful staff and Corrie is a lifelong book person. Her love of books informs every element of the store.’
Avenue Bookstore, 127 Dundas Place, Albert Park
Readings Carlton, 309 Lygon Street, Carlton
Dymocks, Lower Ground Floor, 234 Collins Street, Melbourne
Corrie Perkin’s My Bookshop, 513 Malvern Road, Hawksburn
Andrew Rule
Editor of the anthology Man & Beast
‘Choosing favourite bookshops is like choosing a favourite child: you can love several at once, for different reasons. I like to browse in Readings in Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn, and to catch up with former newspaper colleague Corrie Perkin at her two shops in Hawksburn and Toorak Village.
On weekends there’s often a chance to pore over (and paw) new stock at the small but perfectly-formed The Bookshop at Queenscliff, which is a small bookshop at Queenscliff, on the tip of the Bellarine Peninsula. Literate residents of Sorrento and Portsea might like to pop over on the ferry to see what the other half is reading.’
The Bookshop at Queenscliff, 30 Hesse Street, Queenscliff
Janne Apelgren
Co-author of Around the World in 80 Dinners
‘It’s a quality of life measure that things are good when you can walk to a local bookshop. And I can. Readings Hawthorn’s huge range makes it browser friendly, there’s even a coffee shop down the back. The travel section, food and photography books are a real strength, and it keeps shopper friendly hours (8 till 8 weekdays).
Further afield, my former colleague Corrie Perkin’s My Bookshop in Hawksburn is a testament to her great taste and judgement. I love that Corrie and her team can nail a title for every hard-to-buy-for friend and family member, even the ones who don’t think they like to read!
My former local, the alluring little Pages and Pages in Mosman, fuelled my bookclub for the best part of a decade, and knew its clients so well that every recommendation was always perfect. And it has a fabulous back room, a treasure trove for young readers.’
Readings Hawthorn, 701 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn
Corrie Perkin’s My Bookshop, 513 Malvern Road, Hawksburn (and in Toorak!)
Pages and Pages, 878 Military Road, Mosman
Joanna Savill
Co-author of Around the World in 80 Dinners
‘My favourite bookshop is Kinokuniya. They have one of the very best selections of food books ever. When I was studying for my Masters in Gastronomy (yes, really), I was almost always guaranteed to find interesting texts there, as well as inspiring and beautiful cookbooks. And such a range of fiction titles to browse. And buy! It is always humming with readers of all ages and stages and interests and passions – testament to the fact that books are alive and well, loved by many and not dying out any time soon.
PS. A close second is the Dymocks HQ in George Street. Always reliable and good and efficient with super helpful staff. And its Melbourne counterpart in Collins Street. Love its almost-hidden basement treasure trove feel.’
Kinokuniya, Level 2, The Galeries, 500 George Street, Sydney
Dymocks, 424-430 George Street, Sydney
Dymocks, Lower Ground Floor, 234 Collins Street, Melbourne
James Button
Author of Speechless: A Year in My Father’s Business and Comeback: The Fall and Rise of Geelong
‘I love Readings in Carlton but for sheer bookshop experience, I can’t beat Hill of Content at the top of Bourke Street. Its padded, reverent silence makes me want to curl up in one of their clubby leather armchairs upstairs and read for a week. The staff are warm and well informed, the selection of books is wide and deep, and to get the brain firing some of Melbourne’s best coffee shops are ten to fifty metres away. On Friday nights in winter you can see the crowds flowing up the hill toward the MCG and maybe even hear the roar. This may be Melbourne’s best bookshop in which to buy a book on football.’
Hill of Content, 86 Bourke Street, Melbourne (and Balmain!)
Damon Young
Author of The Art of Reading, Philosophy in the Garden and Distraction: A Philosopher’s Guide to Being Free
‘Embiggen Books is like a hymn to literature, only atheist in temperament, and with world class coffee and hot chocolate. Actually, it’s not like a hymn at all. It’s more like a Portishead track—except not sad. Look, the point is that Warren and Kirsty care about readers and reading, and their collection—which runs from brand new science, to classic philosophy, to award winning fiction, to sexy art, and more—is excellent.
Their shop, near Melbourne’s State Library, is also gorgeous: Tasmanian oak shelves, fossils and other scientific bibelots in glass cabinets, and wall-to-wall, well-curated books. I drop in whenever I can, to browse, chat and buy. “Buying books would be a good thing,’ wrote Schopenhauer, “if one could also buy the time to read them in.” Shut up, Schopenhauer.’
Embiggen Books, Little Lonsdale Street, Melbourne
Richard Cornish
Author of My Year Without Meat
‘You know you have a good relationship with your bookseller when you can phone through your Christmas shopping list and the books are waiting for you in a box, gift-wrapped. Plus there are a few suggestions for books for the members of the family you have forgotten to put on the list in the first place.
I have known Chris Redfern and his crew from Avenue Bookstore for over 20 years. My sister in law used to work in the Albert Park Store and we got to know the staff personally. They learned what I liked to read (Ian Banks RIP) and what my partner fashion designer Tiffany Treloar needed as reference material. When our kids came along they were able to find books that suited them and their reading interests. For us a visit to the Avenue Bookstore – there is a now a store in Elsternwick just around the corner from us – is a trip out, a little adventure.’
Avenue Bookstore, 127 Dundas Place, Albert Park
Avenue Bookstore, 91 Swan Street, Richmond
Avenue Bookstore, 434 Glenhuntly Road, Elsternwick
Mark Colvin’s autobiography Light and Shadow: Memoirs of a Spy’s Son has proved to be incredibly popular, with rave reviews (The Australian called it ‘cinematic’) and a reprint already underway.
Mark is doing various events in support of the book. We’ll add more here as they come up.
Mark Colvin – Writers @ Stanton
Stanton Library
North Sydney, NSW
Tuesday 22nd November, 1pm
Books will be available to buy thanks to Constant Reader.
Free event. Book here.
Mark Colvin at Mosman Library
Barry O’Keefe Library
Mosman, NSW
Wednesday 23rd November, 7pm
Books will be available on the nights thanks to Pages and Pages.
Mark Colvin – The Fifth Estate with Sally Warhaft
The Wheeler Centre
Melbourne, VIC
Tuesday 29th November, 6.15pm
Free event. Book here.
Mark Colvin in conversation with Tom Tilley
Gleebooks
Glebe, NSW
Thursday 8th December, 6pm
With the shock election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States, it’s worth revisiting Dangerous Allies – the final publication from Malcolm Fraser before his death last year.
In the book the former Australian prime minister examines the history of Australia’s strategic dependence and argues that relying on the US is no longer appropriate nor relevant to Australian interests.
A couple of quotes are worth highlighting.
On Australian independence from the US:
“We have not yet learnt the lesson that a smaller power never buys the goodwill of a major power by just doing what that major power wants. A degree of independence goes to respect and to a country’s pride. In many things, the national interest of Australia will coincide with the national interest of the United States. Yet, on occasion when our national interests do not align, Australia should tell the United States that we cannot support it. We should have said this in relation to Vietnam. We also should have said this in relation to Iraq and Afghanistan.”
And on the US and China:
“Strategic independence does not mean ending our relationship with America and cutting our ties. It does mean having a different relationship, a more equal one in which we can feel free to say no or offer a differing opinion. Similarly, strategic independence should not mean acquiescing to all the demands of a growing China, ignoring such issues as human rights. It does mean needing to appreciate and accept that China will increasingly seek out a new role for itself, as its power continues to grow. Strategic independence would allow Australia to agree and disagree with both Washington and Beijing.”
Read more about Dangerous Allies here.
Last week Nick Warner, the head of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS), launched ABC broadcasting legend Mark Colvin’s autobiography Light and Shadow: Memoirs of a Spy’s Son at Berkelouw Books in Sydney.
Nick gave a soaring speech, paying tribute to Mark’s journalistic career and recounting the incredible story of John Colvin, Mark’s father, who was a spy working for MI6.
Nick has kindly allowed us to publish his launch speech here. Enjoy!
Light and shadow.
A spy’s son and a journalist’s father.
A biography and an autobiography, delicately interwoven.
My father was a journalist and I run ASIS. So there’s a nice symmetry here, which maybe is why Mark asked me to launch his book.
So, spies and journalists. We do much the same work. Collect information. Analyse it. Disseminate it. In his book Mark says this:
‘a spy and a journalist, if they’re doing their jobs properly, are both trying to find out the truth behind the lies and propaganda, even if they use radically different tools.’
‘For both of us’ – Mark says of himself and his father – ‘information gathering was our trade and constant doubt and questioning the knives we wielded’.
For me and so many millions of others, Mark is the voice of Australian current affairs. I’ve listened to him for years, driving home after work. Calm. Clear. A voice you can trust.
Mark and I met in the late 1980s in Namibia.
I was running the DFAT office and Mark was doing a story for Four Corners on a young woman, Ndeutala, who had fled years earlier in fear for her life, leaving a young son behind. Now she was back, looking for him.
Mark and his crew were up near the border with Angola. The boy, they were told, had gone to the coast to collect salt. They’d missed the shot – the reunion – at least for the day. So they drove away and decided to film some colour. Let me quote from the book:
‘Out of the shimmering heat haze we could see emerging the outline of a vehicle of some sort … A cart … A donkey cart …driven by a teenage boy … Suddenly, behind me, Ndeutala started ululating, in that eerie way you hear so often in Africa. Had she recognised the boy? Could she really do so, at this distance, after all these years? In a minute or two he was beside us, and they fell into each other’s arms. It remains one of the most moving and dramatic scenes I’ve ever witnessed, let alone filmed.’
I remember watching that episode almost 30 years ago. And it still sends a tingle down my spine.
So much more comes to you in this moving book – some of it sad. Boarding school abuse, beatings, brutality.
Mark writes that for him school was:
‘A prison … The prevailing sense of injustice – a system without any recourse or appeal – stays with you for the rest of your life.’
So much of the book though is revealing and uplifting. A love of books. This man is so extraordinarily widely read – and he seems to have read every spy book ever written. And there’s his deep love of music. But mostly, I love the stories of Mark’s adventures on assignment. Iran after the revolution – Mark’s first real foreign assignment. He writes, ‘I tend to look back now and see a young idiot’.
After the disaster of the US effort to save its hostages, Mark worried that there might be a second American raid. From Tehran, he rang his father, then the senior MI6 officer in Washington. ‘No’, was the answer. Mark wondered whether his father might have been using the call to pass a message to the Iranians. Now for a journalist, that’s a really dangerous game.
Or how about the black market caviar salesman. Caviar for breakfast, lunch and dinner. When he flew back to London Mark took 15 pounds of the stuff with him. And we learn in a chapter called ‘Drunk as lords in Revolutionary Iran’ that when the caviar ran short there was always the Korean restaurant and an unending flow of beer and wine.
Before he became a journalist the food and drink was less enticing. In Mongolia, on the border with Kazakhstan with his father, Mark was served sheep’s ear. ‘Dear god, the ear’, he writes. ‘A stewed Goodyear tyre, with added gristle but without the flavour…forty minutes of solid chewing with no discernible result’. And to drink, a type of vodka – ‘it tasted like a cocktail of pure surgical spirit and milk left in the Australian sun for a week’.
There’s so much more. Belsen. Gorbachev. Poland to cover Solidarity.
Interviewing Lech Walesa, Mark asked the union leader, do you respect General Jaruzelski? Which unfortunately was translated ‘Do you have sexual desire’ for the General?
South Africa. Uganda. Rhodesia. Rwanda. Ethiopia.
Or how about Baghdad in 1990. Prophetically Mark wrote at the time:
‘The West hardly seems to have thought about the dangers of total victory. If Saddam Hussein were removed, Iraq would become a massive power vacuum…the consequences outside Iraq might be just as dire…we will have to face the consequences.’
And interwoven through the book is this other extraordinary man, Mark’s father, John Colvin.
An extrovert. A party animal. An adventurer.
During World War 2 John ran midget submarines into Vietnam, supporting a ring of resistance agents against the occupying Japanese. In the 1950s he was running agents into Yugoslavia, including a source who discovered a fatal flaw in Eastern Bloc military security. Paper was in such short supply that the monthly tactical plans and order of battle were recycled after a month or two and turned into…toilet paper. Mark tells us, ‘The recycling consisted of cutting them up into small squares and hanging them on hooks in the soldiers’ latrines’. John’s agent was able to get hold of enough of these to provide ‘intelligence gold’.
Then there was Malaysia, Konfrontasi and West Papua.
And John was consul general in Hanoi at the time of US bombing raids. In one letter to his son, John wrote that he’d been to a reception for the Soviet cosmonaut, Titov, the second man in space. There were so many toasts and counter-toasts that Ho Chi Minh ended up drunkenly sitting on Titov’s knee, fondling his face. And later John was Ambassador to Outer Mongolia.
Mark was sitting on a bench at the border railway station on the way to Ulan Bator, in the middle of nowhere, when a junior PLA soldier sat down next to him and told him a story. Lin Biao, a marshal in the PLA and Mao’s deputy and designated successor, had, he said, been shot down by the Chinese Air Force the year before, preventing a potential Russian coup.
This was the first Chinese account of the circumstances of Lin Biao’s death. And it was almost certainly a message for his father, that Mark failed to pass on for a couple of days. When he finally did so, John was furious – he’d been beaten to the intelligence coup of the year.
Right at the end of the book there’s this. Mark and John talking late into the night. Mark asked his father what he thought of the mirror-world of moral grey areas, dilemmas, paradoxes and complexities explored in John le Carre’s novels:
‘“Was it absolutely clear cut? Did you ever find any ambivalence or ambiguity about what you were doing?” John replied, “Never. Not once. Not for a single minute.”’
But as Mark says, that’s not him. He’s devoted his life to not taking sides. Here’s how he puts it in the book:
‘My real interest has always been in the opinions and perceptions of others: in walking around a subject, as one walks around…a sculpture in a museum, trying to see it from every possible angle.’
All I can say Mark – for all of us here today and those who listen to you as they drive home at night – is keep walking around the sculpture. Please.
Nick Warner is the head of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service.
Light and Shadow: Memoirs of a Spy’s Son is out now
MUP’s editorial team don’t just like making books. They like making food too. As they worked on Lesley Harding’s magnificent new book Margaret Preston: Recipes for Food and Art they couldn’t resist road-testing some of the recipes they were working with.
Lesley Harding (who is a curator at Heide and co-wrote last year’s bestselling book Modern Love: The Lives of John & Sunday Reed) came across a volume of Margaret Preston’s hand-written recipes when looking through a solander box of prints at the National Gallery of Australia.
As she says in the book: “There was something about this glimpse into the personal life of Preston, one of Australia’s most celebrated and beloved artists, that registered the modest compilation as something worth further consideration.”
“In addition to the recipes for food her book contains a range of handy hints and homemade remedies,” Lesley tells us, “from what type of saucepans to buy (aluminium – but never wash them with soda), how to serve wines, correct etiquette for hosting guests at dinner, and tips for cooking greens, through to instructions for making furniture polish. The dishes themselves range from savoury items to baking, the content typical of the era and predominantly hearty fare.”
Lesley’s enthusiasm for Margaret Preston’s art, food and creative lifestyle was infectious and spread rapidly to the wider MUP offices. The editorial team spent their evenings making the recipes they were editing, designing and proof-reading by day.
Now, the MUP editorial team share their experiences of cooking with Margaret Preston (all of these recipes are found in the new book).
Fruit Cracknels
A consolation prize recipe was always going to be a mixed bag. Was there some missing ingredient that would have got it over the line? The combination of the fruit and the cinnamon made it a perfect winner for me with a cup of afternoon tea.
– Sally Heath, MUP Executive Publisher
Chicken Kedgee
“It felt wrong to sauté chopped-up boiled eggs in tomato sauce for this recipe, but the final result was really good. So old-fashioned and satisfying. Everyone wanted me to make it again.”
– Cathy Smith, MUP Senior Editor
Mint Cup
Using the peppermint essence seemed cheating but it was good mix with the clove essence. I loved using soda water but also felt there should be room for a dash of gin.
– Sally Heath, MUP Executive Publisher
Orange Ice Cream and French Jellies
“The orange ice-cream had an interesting technique of rubbing the oranges with sugar cubes to get the flavour out of the zest without any texture. It was a bit of bother but the intense flavour was worth it. The French jellies are rosewater and orange flavoured. I took some to work and they all disappeared.”
– Cathy Smith, MUP Senior Editor
Coffee Ice Cream
I don’t like creamy ice cream so this was a good blend for me. Others argued for more milk and cream to replace the water.
– Sally Heath, MUP Executive Publisher
Kisses
Was this the same recipe my great aunts used for my favourite treat they invariably produced every time I visited? They were as good as I remembered and made me feel four again.
– Sally Heath, MUP Executive Publisher
Margaret Preston: Recipes for Food and Art is out now.
Last week Shireen Morris and Damien Freeman discussed Indigenous Recognition with contributors to their recent anthology The Forgotten People: Liberal and Conservative Approaches to Recognising Indigenous Peoples at a special event at the Senate Alcove at Parliament House in Canberra.
The event was co-hosted by Constitution Education Fund Australia, Cape York Institute, Baker & McKenzie and Melbourne University Publishing and featured Australia’s foremost Aboriginal filmmaker, Rachel Perkins, known for such celebrated films as Bran Nue Dae.
Above: Rachel Perkins.
Ms Perkins said, “Australia is desperate for a solution… The guilt is too great among non-Indigenous Australians to not come up with something that works”. She said that devising such a solution is, among other things, a matter of courage. “Will we be too scared, or will we be strong enough to make a promise to improve the situation of our Indigenous peoples?”