New Wave

• That might be a traditional beach read – typically a genre paperback with a propulsive plot – or an opportunity to catch up on the classics you never got around to during the year.
• We asked six experts in reading and writing to share what they plan to read on the beach.

Love and Other Scores by Abra Pressler (and other Australian romantic comedies)

• The book I’ll be taking to the beach this summer, just in time for the tennis, is one of Pan Macmillan’s latest offerings: Love and Other Scores by Abra Pressler.
• • Harper Collins published Steph Vizard’s The Love Contract (what if pretending to date your neighbour was the solution to your childcare problems?).
• • Simon & Schuster published Amy Hutton’s Sit, Stay, Love (the ultimate rom-com for dog people), my own Can I Steal You For A Second?

Three Assassins by Kotaro Isaka

• With winter receding (David Copperfield, followed by Demon Copperhead), I am looking to what kinds of books might fill my summer, so I’m reading a new-to-me crime/thriller writer, Kotaro Isaka.
• The novel follows three men who’ve made careers out of hiring themselves as assassins.
• And best of all, there is a new Kotaro Isaka novel, Mantis, published this month – just in time for the height of summer, under a shady tree by the sea.

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy and The Flying Doctor’s Christmas Wish by Kathleen Ryder

• Middlemarch and Moby Dick, and this year will be War and Peace.
• On a recent trip to central Australia, I met romance fiction author Kathleen Ryder.
• Her books include Christmas-themed novellas set in Alice Springs, and my pick for this summer is The Flying Doctor’s Christmas Wish.

Skeletons in the Closet by Jean-Patrick Manchette

• The much-anticipated English translation of the only untranslated novel by the reinventor of dark and darkly witty crime novels, Jean-Patrick Manchette, is the book I most hope to read this summer.
• Skeletons in the Closet features the hermetic, alcoholic Parisian private eye Eugène Trapon, the only fictional creation of Manchette’s to appear in more than one novel.
• Trapon is obviously an heir to Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade, but Manchette’s novels are only superficially hard-boiled.

Daisy and Woolf by Michelle Cahill and Between You and Me by Joanna Horton

• Some books can’t be digested at once, so this summer I will be returning to Daisy and Woolf by Goan-Anglo-Indian poet and author, Michelle Cahill.
• Also on my list is Between You and Me by Brisbane author, Joanna Horton.

The science fiction of Samuel R. Delany and Babel, or the Necessity of Violence by R.F. Kuang

• This summer, I’m aiming to dive deeper into the works of Samuel R. Delany, who was memorably profiled in the New Yorker earlier this year.
• Delany is most commonly associated with the New Wave science fiction movement of the 60s and 70s, but his writing spans a fascinating range of genres and subjects.
• I’ve also wanted to read Babel, or the Necessity of Violence by R.F.

• Beth Driscoll receives funding from ARC Linkage Project grant LP210300666 Community Publishing in Regional Australia Liz Evans' debut novel will be published by Ultimo Press in 2024.
• Michelle Cahill is the current Hedberg Writer-in-Residence at the University of Tasmania.

• Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - October 26, 2023) - Peggy Van de Plassche, an esteemed expert in health and wellness, is set to share her innovative perspective on "The Microdose Diet" at the highly anticipated Wonderland Conference in Miami.
• Ms. Van de Plassche, a renowned entrepreneur, author, speaker and advocate for alternative medicine, will be one of the distinguished speakers featured at the conference.
• The Microdose Diet, a groundbreaking concept introduced by Peggy Van de Plassche, explores the benefits of combining alternative medicine in a 90 day protocol.
• "I am thrilled to join thought leaders in discussing the tremendous value of psychedelic medicine on mental health and longevity at the Wonderland Conference.

• The campaign features all eight participants from the program: Armando Cabral, Áwet, Bernard James, Elisamama, Interior, June 79, Renowned and Sorellina.
• Saks will feature participating brands across its digital channels, showcasing each designer's background and their Pre-Fall and Fall collections available on Saks.com .
• To celebrate the designers in the program, Saks hosted an intimate cocktail party on Wednesday, September 13 at L'Avenue at Saks.
• Each designer was also featured in a dedicated Saks Live where they shared their brand stories, inspirations and highlighted their latest collections.

• With the audacity of relative youth on their side, they wanted to bring down the old system and remake Hollywood.
• Released in 1971, the film galvanised audiences, changed the landscape of Hollywood genre realism, and took home five Oscars – including Best Picture.
• Read more:
  From the Moscow stage to Monroe and De Niro: how the Method defined 20th-century acting

Enduring artistic fascination

• Friedkin plays the thriller like something lifted from the French New Wave, say Jean-Pierre Melville’s glorious Le Cercle Rouge of 1970.
• The French Connection was followed by perhaps the most notorious film of the Hollywood 1970s: The Exorcist (1973).
• But there many works from the last 40 years of enduring artistic fascination: the synth-oozing To Live and Die in LA (1985), which sets the template for Michael Mann’s Collateral (2004); Jade, Friedkin’s 1995 attempt to outdo Paul Verhoeven’s Basic Instinct (1992), a perverse pleasure precisely for its manic unevenness; and 2011’s stylised, hyper-violent domestic drama, Killer Joe.
• Read more:
  50 years since Mike Oldfield began writing Tubular Bells: the pioneering album that changed the sound of music

My personal top five

• I want to close this reflection with my William Friedkin top five, which I’ll be revisiting across the next week: 5.
• Sorcerer (1977) Many commentators on Friedkin’s career regard The Sorcerer as Friedkin’s last great auteur film.
• Cruising (1980) Has Cruising – a film about a serial killer within New York’s homosexual subcultural community - been cancelled?
• The Exorcist (1973) Simply put, the milestone that brought one of the most distinctive artistic visions to a classical possession genre story.
• The film oozes a place and time unlike any other film shot in New York in the 1970s.