soft meteorites
Nathan Shepherdson

When assembling my work, I assembled myself, laid out on an autopsy table (of sorts). And soft meteorites presented itself as three themes – art, death, and friendship.

In soft meteorites Nathan Shepherdson has installed a type of two-way valve that attaches the page to the flesh. Moments are emptied of words then refilled with fresh observations. The pulse quietly excludes standard angles for a free-form geometry that collects spiralling perspectives. He sings inside the silence he listens to. Meditations are a material. Sometimes lean and elegant, almost emaciated. At other times the complexities compound themselves under lingua-thermal pressure, moving very fast, jumping ship like a sailor who doesn’t even know if the ocean is still there. Wry smiles are laid out like the silver-plated cake forks inherited from your grandmother, tattered velvet a warm home for memories used only on special occasions. Memory and Memoriam are primary yet differentiated blocks by which Shepherdson’s body is drawn but not yet quartered. Elastic hands reach into holes that aren’t there to find the ones that are.

The counterbalance is in the mood and gestures Shepherdson creates, which invite and repel the chaos which parades unnoticed in its endless supply of costumes. The question mark, inverted, bristles added to its profiled dome sweeps it all away with thinking. Falling is the secondary purpose of any cliff small or large. Micro-shadows from dust disturbed form answers and shapes for capture and translation before they again settle into nothing.

Stories from the Center of the World: New Middle East Fiction
Edited by Jordan Elgrably

Short stories from 25 emerging and established writers of Middle Eastern and North African origins, a unique collection of voices and viewpoints that illuminate life in the global Arab/Muslim world.

“Provocative and subtle, nuanced and surprising, these stories demonstrate how this complicated and rich region might best be approached–through the power of literature.” –Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of The Committed

Stories from the Center of the World gathers new writing from the greater Middle East (or SWANA), a vast region that stretches from Southwest Asia, through the Middle East and Turkey, and across Northern Africa. The 25 authors included here come from a wide range of cultures and countries, including Palestine, Syria, Pakistan, Iran, Lebanon, Egypt, and Morocco, to name some.

In “Asha and Haaji,” Hanif Kureishi takes up the cause of outsiders who become uprooted when war or disaster strikes and they flee for safe haven. In Nektaria Anastasiadou‘s “The Location of the Soul According to Benyamin Alhadeff,” two students in Istanbul from different classes — and religions that have often been at odds with one another — believe they can overcome all obstacles. MK Harb‘s story, “Counter Strike,” is about queer love among Beiruti adolescents; and Salar Abdoh‘s “The Long Walk of the Martyrs” invites us into the world of former militants, fighters who fought ISIS or Daesh in Iraq and Syria, who are having a hard time readjusting to civilian life. In “Eleazar,” Karim Kattan tells an unexpected Palestinian story in which the usual antagonists — Israeli occupation forces — are mostly absent, while another malevolent force seems to overtake an unsuspecting family. Omar El Akkad‘s “The Icarist” is a coming-of-age story about the underworld in which illegal immigrants are forced to live, and what happens when one dares to break away.

Contributors include: Salar Abdoh, Leila Aboulela, Farah Ahamed, Omar El Akkad, Sarah AlKahly-Mills, Nektaria Anastasiadou, Amany Kamal Eldin, Jordan Elgrably, Omar Foda, May Haddad, Danial Haghighi, Malu Halasa, MK Harb, Alireza Iranmehr, Karim Kattan, Hanif Kureishi, Ahmed Salah Al-Mahdi, Diary Marif, Tariq Mehmood, Sahar Mustafah, Mohammed Al-Naas, Ahmed Naji, Mai Al-Nakib, Abdellah Taia, and Natasha Tynes

A Magical Girl Retires
Seolyeon Park

A millennial-turned-magical girl must combat climate change and credit card debt in this delightful, witty, and wildly imaginative ode to magical girl manga.

Twenty-nine, depressed, and drowning in credit card debt after losing her job during the pandemic, a millennial woman decides to end her troubles by jumping off Seoul’s Mapo Bridge.

But her suicide attempt is interrupted by a girl dressed all in white—her guardian angel. Ah Roa is a clairvoyant magical girl on a mission to find the greatest magical girl of all time. And our protagonist just may be that special someone.

But the young woman’s initial excitement turns to frustration when she learns being a magical girl in real life is much different than how it’s portrayed in stories. It isn’t just destiny—it’s work. Magical girls go to job fairs, join trade unions, attend classes. And for this magical girl there are no special powers and no great perks, and despite being magical, she still battles with low self-esteem. Her magic wand… is a credit card—which she must use to defeat a terrifying threat that isn’t a monster or an intergalactic war. It’s global climate change. Because magical girls need to think about sustainability, too.

Park Seolyeon reimagines classic fantasy tropes in a novel that explores real-world challenges that are both deeply personal and universal: the search for meaning and the desire to do good in a world that feels like it’s ending. A fun, fast-paced, and enchanting narrative that sparkles thanks to award-nominated translator Anton Hur, A Magical Girl Retires reminds us that we are all magical girls—that fighting evil by moonlight and winning love by daylight can be anyone’s game.

Cunning Folk: Life in the Era of Practical Magic
Tabitha Stanmore

Imagine: it’s 1600 and you’ve lost your precious silver spoons – or perhaps your neighbour has stolen them. Or maybe your child has a fever. Or you’re facing trial. Or you’re looking for love. Or you’re hoping to escape a husband… What do you do?

In medieval and early modern Europe, your first port of call might very well have been cunning folk – practitioners of ‘service magic’. Neither feared (like witches), nor venerated (like saints), they were essential to everyday life, a ubiquitous presence in a time when the supernatural was surprisingly mundane. For people from all walks of life, practical magic was a cherished resource with which to navigate life’s many challenges.

In Tabitha Stanmore’s beguiling account, we meet lovelorn widows and dissolute nobles, selfless healers and renegade monks. We listen in on Queen Elizabeth I’s astrology readings and track treasure hunters trying to unearth buried gold without upsetting the fairies that guard it. Much like us, premodern people lived in bewildering times, buffeted by forces beyond their control; and as Stanmore reveals, their faith in magic has much to teach us about how we accommodate ourselves to the irrational in our allegedly enlightened lives today.

Told with warmth, wit and above all, empathy, these stories take us deep into people’s day-to-day lives- their hopes and desires, their fears and vulnerabilities. Charming in every sense of the word, Cunning Folk is an immersive reconstruction of a bygone world and a thought-provoking commentary on the beauty and bafflement of being human.

Rural Hours: The Country Lives of Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Townsend Warner and Rosamond Lehmann
Harriet Baker

A joyful, rule-breaking experiment in biography, which celebrates ‘country life’ as a state of mind

1917. Virginia Woolf arrives at Asheham, on the Sussex Downs, immobilized by nervous exhaustion and creative block.

1930. Feeling jittery about her writing career, Sylvia Townsend Warner spots a modest workman’s cottage for sale on the Dorset coast.

1941. Rosamond Lehmann settles in a Berkshire village, seeking a lovers’ retreat, a refuge from war, and a means of becoming ‘a writer again’.

Rural Hours tells the story of three very different women, each of whom moved to the country and was forever changed by it.

We encounter them at quiet moments – pausing to look at an insect on the windowsill; jotting down a recipe; or digging for potatoes, dirt beneath their nails. Slowly, we start to see transformations unfold. Invigorated by new landscapes, and the daily trials and small pleasures of making homes, they emerge from long periods of creative uncertainty and private disappointment; they embark on new experiments in form, in feeling and in living. In the country, each woman finds her path- to convalescence and recovery; to sexual and political awakening; and, above all, to personal freedom and creative flourishing.

Graceful, fluid, and enriched by previously untouched archival material, Rural Hours is both a paean to the bravery and vision of three pioneering writers, and a passionate invitation to us all- to recognize the radical potential of domestic life and rural places, and find new enchantment in the routines and rituals of each day.

Men Have Called Her Crazy
Anna Marie Tendler

‘A stunning self-portrait of a woman trying to make sense of the misogyny and sexism she has faced throughout her life.’ – TIME Magazine

In early 2021, popular artist Anna Marie Tendler checked herself into a psychiatric hospital following a year of crippling anxiety, depression and self-harm. Over two weeks, she underwent myriad psychological tests, participated in numerous therapy sessions, connected with fellow patients and experienced profound breakthroughs, such as when a doctor noted, “There is a you inside that feels invisible to those looking at you from the outside.”

In Men Have Called Her Crazy, Tendler recounts her hospital experience as well as pivotal moments in her life that preceded and followed. This is a memoir that speaks to every woman who has been made to question her own sanity, doubt herself and her worth. Anna Marie Tendler’s powerful writing, insight and clarity enabled her to find a way out of the narratives that had been foisted on her since girlhood and create her own, new story. This beautiful and heartfelt book invites us to do the same.

This stunning literary self-portrait examines the unreasonable expectations and pressures women face in the 21st century. Yet overwhelming and despairing as that can feel, Tendler ultimately offers a message of hope. Early in her stay in the hospital, she says, “My wish for myself is that one day I’ll reach a place where I can face hardship without trying to destroy myself.” By the end of the book, she fulfils that wish.

I always imagined that Paradise would be a kind of library.
Jorge Luis Borges
Crow Books
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900 Albany Hwy, East Victoria Park
Telephone
(08) 9472 9737
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