The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Page 142

12s Spectrum books THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD SATURDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1999 BEST PENNING MTOEBIh STSELLERS OF THE YEAR WASTE Black Notice by Patricia Cornwell, Little Brown, $24.95. A mysterious death takes Dr Kay Scarpetta to Interpol in Lyon and to a Paris morgue. Hannibal. by Thomas Harris, William Heinemann, $39.95. Clarissa Starling meets up again with Hannibal Lecter in the sequel to The Silence of the Lambs.

Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende, Flamingo, $24.95. A young Chilean woman, spumed by her lover, seeks her fortune in the California Gold Rush. The Pilot's Wife by Anita Shreve, Abacus, Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter, Tech Press, $19.95. Kiyosaki offers advice on how to become rich. Surgeon of Crowthorne by Simon Winchester, Faber, $24.95 (paperback The tale of an Oxford English Dictionary contributor confined to a mental asylum.

'Tis by Frank McCourt, Flamingo, $36.95. The second volume in McCourt' memoirs. The Whole Woman by Germaine Greer, Doubleday, $19.95. Greer argues that the feminist movement has been sidetracked from its main objectives. Bella Tuscany by Frances Mayes, Doubleday, $19.95.

Mayes continues the account of her love affair with Tuscany. The Cashflow Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki, TechPress, $19.95. Why some i a 1 $17.95. A multiple tragedy when a woman's KM novels, and more unsettling for it, a media-saturated not-quite-now which has the uncanny familiarity of deja vu. Like Bret Easton Ellis, Gibson has a fascination with the surfaces of contemporary culture, with the almost fetishistic power of things and images to evoke, their power to take on meanings of their own.

Echoing Barthes, a character in Tokyo glimpses this power in the towers of Shinjuku, the walls of animated light, sign and signifier twisting toward the sky in the unending ritual of commerce, of desire. Vast faces fill the screens, icons of a beauty at once terrible and banal. Texture overlays texture, present and future refracting through each other, altering each other. Laney sees this change, this "mother of all nodal IK! 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 idealised virtual being, created to embody the fantasies of a world drunk on celebrity, "the ultimate expression of entertainment Yet even as Laney drives his agents towards the centre of the puzzle, other players, players with quite different agendas, begin to intrude: the Lucky Dragon mini-mart chain's new nano-fax service (physical objects replicated from the molecular level up, anywhere in the world); the enigmatic billionaire Cody; a silent assassin who is hunting Rydell. The event that awaits them, the "mother of all nodal is a strangely anti-climactic one.

Yet that sense of anti-climax is much of what gives this book its power to haunt Like its title, half promise, half elegy for parties that shall never be, it is a strange, ambiguous moment, where the perfection of the virtual and the flawed reality of the flesh meet And, in one strange, subtle moment, Gibson both subverts and fulfils the apocalyptic imagination we seem so unable to escape. Even as worlds end, new ones are born, and tomorrow is always another day. James Bradley's second novel. The Deep Field, was The Age Fiction Book of the Year for 1999. ALL TOMORROW'S PARTIES By William Gibson Viking, 278pp.

$24.95 pb ISBN: 0 670 87558 9 Reviewed by JAMES BRADLEY WTSL OR two millennia, Judeo- Christian culture has been waiting for the end, time I and history ticking slowly towards their supposedly inevitable conclusion. But although the end stubbornly refuses to come, we cannot help ourselves: from nuclear winter to global warming, from inter-planetary collisions to the Y2K bug, our cultural imagination constantly seeks out dire predictions and invests dates with apocalyptic significance. All Tomorrow's Parties, William Gibson's sixth (or seventh, if you count Tlie Difference Engine, co-authored with Bruce Sterling) novel, turns upon an ending not imagined, but foreseen, coalescing out of the ceaseless motion of the information that courses through the datanets of the early 21st century: Laney reaches up and removes the bulky eyephones. Yamazaki cannot see what outputs to them, but the shifting light from the display reveals Laney's hollowed coming because of organic changes within his brain's structure occasioned by repeated doses of an experimental drug called 5-SB. Not psychic, at least not in a non-rational or non-scientific sense, Laney is able to perceive shapes in the fractal oceans of data that have immersed the world.

History might be plastic, an endlessly revised narrative that forms itself out of stored data, but Laney can see more than the narratives, more than just the data. He can see "the shape that comprised of every narrative, every and within that shape he can see "nodal points, discontinuities in the texture of And so, from his refuge in a Tokyo subway station, Laney tries to reach this nodal point in time to predict it, for in a twist on his Cassandra-like power to see the future coming, Laney can only see change coming, not what that change might be. To accomplish this he draws in others: Rydell, the soft-hearted security guard from Virtual Light, no longer a star in the making on the tabloid television show, Cops in Trouble Chevette, the former cycle courier and no longer Rydell's girlfriend; Rei Toei, the Idoru of Gibson's last novel, not quite a person, but an eyes. "It's all going to change, Yamazaki. We're coming up on the mother of all nodal points.

I can see it, now. It's all going to change." For those not familiar with the name, William Gibson is the man whose 1984 novel, Neuro-mancer, is generally credited with having coined the term "cyberspace" (although Australian writer Damien Broderick probably beat him to it, technically speaking) and who, in the two novels that followed, mapped out a vision of a future which was as exhilarating as it was terrifying. That first sequence of novels, the Sprawl was followed in 1992 by the Bridge novels, Virtual Light and (in 1996) Idoru. All Tomorrow Parties forms the coda to this second sequence and a remarkable coda it is, replete with Gibson's stylish, often star-tlingly beautiful, images of a world increasingly subsumed in virtualities of its own making, the-inexorable narrative movement for which Gibson is justly famous, and a strange, haunting and ultimately profound reimagining of what the end of the world might look like. As with Virtual Light and Idoru, the future of All Tomorrow's Parties is a more tangible future than that of the Sprawl pilot husband dies in a crash and is discovered to have led a double life.

The Testament by John Grisham, Century, $35 (paperback A billionaire takes revenge on his children by leaving his estate to a Brazilian missionary. East of the Mountains by David Guterson, Bloomsbury, $24.95. A terminally-ill man returns to the wilderness of his youth, intending to die there. Ice Station by Matthew Reilly, Macmillan, $22.95 (paperback When a suspected alien spacecraft is discovered in Antarctica, the action comes thick and fast. Southern Cross by Patricia Cornwell, Little Brown, $24.95 (paperback Police Chief Judy Hammer is sent to Richmond, Virginia, to clean up crime and corruption.

Monsoon by Wilbur Smith, Macmillan, $45 (paperback $25). The 18th-century adventures of three Seagoing brothers and their pirate father. Death du Jour by Kathy Reichs, William Heinemann, $24.95. Forensic thriller set in Montreal and off the coast of the Carolinas. people work less, earn more and pay less in taxes.

Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt, Flamingo, $24.95. The prize-winning memoir of an Irish-American's childhood in Dublin and New York. Marie Claire Cooking by Donna Hay, Murdoch Press, $29.95. Easy, stylish recipes for busy people. Your Mortgage and How to Pay It Off in Five Years by Anita Bell, Random House, $12.95.

Tips on how to reduce your mortgage speedily. Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Road Maps by Allan and Barbara Pease, HarperCollins, $22.95. On how men and women differ. 3 Although the end stubbornly refuses to come, we cannot help ourselves 10 This list, representing the best-selling adult fiction and non-fiction books in their first publication form, was compiled with the cooperation of more than 50 chain, franchise and independent booksellers in the Sydney region, including Dymocks, Angus Robertson Bookworld, Collins Booksellers. Gleebooks, Shearer's Bookshop.

Lindfield Bookshop, Pages Pages, Moscraft Bookshop, Books Etcetera, Pentimento Bookshop, Bookoccino, Megalong Bookshop and Norton Street Bookshop. PAPER ODEBRA ADELAIDE IS IHwlT EE ILL EE OF THE WEEK I ENDEAVOUR vjii TNI tOT OFjCAFTAtM COOK" Sretel Killeen .7.. A jouPNtv Through crai Kupdistan I'- I visiDie SHORT AMD SWF.F.T I0 vrv poems pantylihe imm yoar iitc i raakB you laugh Solomon's Song by Bryce Courtenay, Viking, $39.95. Two wealthy Australian families continue their feud in the latest novel in the Potato Factory series. (1) The Wind and the Monkey by Robert Barrett, HarperCollins, $14.95.

Larrikin and bouncer Les Norton heads to Port Stephens, where mayhem is only a step behind. (3) Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende, Flamingo, $24.95. A young woman follows her heart from Chile to California during the gold rush. (16) Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee, Seeker Warburg, $29.95.

The rapidity of change in South Africa is reflected in this Booker Prize- I 2 3 4 6 7 8 9 10 i 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Marie Claire Food Fast by Donna Hay, Murdoch Books, $29.95. Recipes for people who love good food. (3) Tis by Frank McCourt, Flamingo, $36.95. McCourt's sequel to the bestseller Angela's Ashes. (14) Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter, Tech Press, $19.95.

The combined philosophies of two fathers. (75) Guinness 2000 Book of Records, Guinness, $35. The millennium edition includes the Book of Records itself. (7) Turning Point by Hugh Mackay, Macmillan, $25. The social researcher takes stock of Australia at the end of the 20th century.

(1) Parcel Arrived Safely: Tied With String by Michael Crawford, Century, $39.95. The alternately inspiring, tragic and hilarious life of the international star. (6) SMH Good Food Guide 2000 by Terry Durack and Jill Dupleix, Anne O'Donovan, $18.95. Annual guide to Sydney's restaurants by SMH Good Living writers. (8) Tire High Price of Heaven by David Marr, Allen Unwin, $24.95.

Critical observations about the Church's influence on Australian life and politics. (2) Your Mortgage and How to Pay It Off in Five Years by Anita Bell, Random House Australia, $12.95. Tips on how to pay off your mortgage sooner. (11) Cheap Eats 2000 edited by John Newton and Vanita Connery, Universal magazines, $8.95. Annual guide to the best of Sydney's "cheap and (5) VISIBLE PANTY LINE True Stories from Your Life By Gretel Killeen Penguin, 226pp, $17.95 Collections of recycled columns are normally as exciting as cold pizza, but I laughed myself to tears just as much as when these pieces first appeared (in Another Newspaper's colour mag).

Killeen can extract the comic juices out of any experience: stuck on a flight with the passenger from hell or just leaving the house each morning with the kids. Changing a doona cover or handling a packet of frozen peas will never be the same again. Consider this next time you visit the dentist: "Scary if I had false teeth I could just post them. Or take a photo and then send a fax. I can't believe that science can create a sheep from a single cell yet I still have to take my own teeth to the dentist!" This Christmas, buy this book, wrap and label for yourself, and truly enjoy the festive season.

HARD YARDS By Melissa Lucashenko UQP, 222pp, $19.95 Urgent and focused, this story about street survival is an example of realism that shows how much an ear for dialogue and idiom counts in such fiction. Roo Glover, adopted, abandoned, detained and now homeless, is literally on the having lost out in his short life at most things except athletics. Lucashenko never falters as she creates the rhythms of urban Aboriginal language, and the language of cops, crims and the generally dispossessed and despairing. Not that Hard Yards is entirely bleak: Roo almost inspires optimism in his search for belonging and his desire to achieve. In his case belonging is simple: he wants a family, but the one he wants is torn apart by a death in custody; while making a mark involves a wild, grand dream of Olympic qualification.

But the persuasive power and unflagging momentum of this novel is such that both could happen. ENDEAVOUR The Story of Captain Cook's First Great Epic Voyage By Peter Aughton Windrush Press, 216pp, $19.95 Cook's first voyage of exploration 1768-1771 was to observe the Transit of Venus, chart the Pacific and hopefully the legendary Great South Land. This account is lively, readable and interesting, but also rather facile. A populist, unscholarly approach means, for example, a discussion of longitude that ignores Dava Sobel's book, a tiny bibliography, a limited index. But it's reassuringly anecdotal: the Endeavour, formerly a coal-trader, could survive any gale conditions; the famous Banks was just 25 when the voyage began; Cook kindly let his young cousin step on Australian soil before him.

Maybe I'm spoiled by reading Greg Dening, but I was dismayed by the persistent Anglocentricism for example, that en route to Tahiti from Cape Horn the Endeavour sailed where no vessel had ever ventured before. Surely Aughton meant "English SWEET TEA WITH CARDAMOM A Journey Through Iraqi Kurdistan By Teresa Thornhill Pandora, 217pp, $22.95 A barrister, traveller and Middle East enthusiast, Thornhill travelled to Kurdistan twice in 1993, when the Western-protected Safe Haven operated, to talk to Kurdish women about life under Saddam Hussein's rule. Possibly descended from the Medes, the Kurds have been brutalised for decades by their Iraqi rulers, despite also being Moslems. Kurdistan is a culture where "almost everyone is standing on a mountain of pain and grief. A genuine sympathy and passion leads Thornhill to some amazing places, perilous moments and terrible stories (like the women who killed her own daughter to banish family shame following a rape), but her insights are not especially deep, while her style can be pedestrian.

All rather disappointing if, like me, your interest in women of islamic countries has been aroused by Geraldine Brook's inspiring Nine Parts of Desire. winning novel. (4) Timeline by Michael Crichton, Century, $39.95. Time travellers take a "quantum bus ride" to 14th-century feudal France. (1) The Blackwater Lightship by Colm Toibin, Picador, $25.

As a young man is dying, his sister, mother and grandmother arrive at an uneasy truce. (5) Bridget Jones and the Edge of Reason by Helen Fielding, Picador, $18.95. Another hilarious year in the life of diarist Bridget Jones. (1) The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett, Doubleday. $36.95.

The 23rd book in the Discworld fantasy series. (2) Temple by Matthew Reilly, Macmillan, $25. The United States races to find an ancient Incan icon which may contain the secret to a terrifying new weapon. (8) Hannibal by Thomas Harris, Heinemann, $39.95. The sequel to The Silence of the Lambs.

(17) SHORT AND SWEET, 101 Very Short Poems Edited by Simon Armitage Faber Faber, 112pp, $12.95 Armitage, who has modestly omitted himself from this collection, shows the disadvantages of anthologies that have a single, arbitrary theme. The longest poems start at 13 lines (14 and you have a sonnet: too long for his purposes, besides, sonnets are too often "exercises in literary brown-nosing, numerically sucking up to the conventions of his shortest has none (the title says it all). But in between either scrupulous selection, or reliance on Anglo-American sources (he felt compelled to include haiku, and therefore didn't), or sheer literary snobbery (no epitaphs, prayers, limericks, Ogden Nash), the poems themselves fall rather flat. That's despite including luminaries like Auden, Dickinson, Tennyson, Plath, Coleridge, Donne, Yeats and Frost. The usual token women, no Australians, few contemporaries: don't they write short poems? But accessible, fun, and so perhaps a good book for the poetry-shy.

This list, representing the best-selling books in their first publication form, was compiled with the co-operation of more than 50 chain, franchise and independent booksellers in the Sydney region, including Dymocks (George St, Sydney), Brays Bookshop (Balmain), Collins Booksellers (Macquarie Centre), Pages Pages Booksellers (Glenrose Shopping Centre, Belrose) and Lesley McKay's Bookshop (Double Bay). Number of weeks on the list. compiled by Joel Becker 0 DYMOCKS www.dymocks.com.au FULLY UNCONDITIONALLY GUARANTEED Octagonal Tabic from 1 99 Benches 1 99 IMPORTER GOES PUBLIC ALL STOCK HEAVILY REDUCED TO MEET OVERDUE COMMERCIAL BILLS liiiiniiiiiiiii; ti) at AUSTRALIAN TEAK GARDEN WHOLESALE WAREHOUSE 44 Atkinson Road Taren Point (Ph 9531 4477) Waterford CRYSTAL Extension Table from $4S0 Folding Chairs $65 Steamers $175 Teak Outdoor Furniture if FACYOIE5V SALE 5 144 GOULBURN ST Graphic Design Open Day There's only one school if you want to make it in design, advertising, packaging, publishing or cyberspace. It's the school with the amazing employment record. Hotel Management Open Day Hotel and resort management is one of the great careers.

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