What do you think?
Rate this book
Ninety 9
In the last decade of the twentieth century, when music was recorded on cassettes and movies on VHS, Vanessa Berry was responding to the loneliness of life in the suburbs of Sydney by constructing imaginary worlds and identities from late-night music video programs, band T-shirts, mix-tapes and and the ‘dark energy’ of goth. Written and illustrated by one of Australia’s foremost zine-makers, Ninety 9 is a memoir about adolescence, its cherished objects, its magical places and, above all, its friendships –a personal guide to the end of the millennium for those who were too young to be there, and an intimate history, full of moments of recognition, for those who were.
- GenresNonfictionMemoir
160 pages, Paperback
First published July 30, 2013
1 person is currently reading
79 people want to read
About the author
Vanessa Berry
11 books23 followersVanessa Berry is a Sydney writer and artist who works with history, memory and archives. She is the author of the memoir Ninety 9 (Giramondo 2013), the essay collection Strawberry Hills Forever (Local Consumption 2007), and the zine I Am a Camera (1999–2017). Since 2012 she has been writing the blog Mirror Sydney, on which this book is based, exploring the city’s marginal places and undercurrents. Her zines and hand-drawn maps have been exhibited in the Museum of Contemporary Art, the National Gallery of Australia and the Museum of Sydney.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
March 2, 2014
At the end of the nineties, I started a master's thesis on zines, through which I first encountered Vanessa Berry's work. Over the years of my research, I learned that her zines were enjoyed by many, and that, within the Australian zine subculture, she was, effectively, a celebrity: revered for her writing, her knowledge of various aspects of more obscure instances of popular culture, and her inventiveness and constant renewal of the zine form through various self-publications.
I enjoyed Berry's self-publishing at the time, beyond my immediate academic concern with her work, generally, as the subject of my thesis. Rather than her subcultural insights into bands, however, I liked what might be considered the scholarly and literary aspects of her work: the research she'd done for her zine that reviewed all 69 St. Vincent de Paul op shops in Sydney; her description of her experiences of reading James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake amid the enforced languor of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome; her discipline in writing Laughter and the Sound of Teacups on the 23rd of every month; and, indeed, the aural evocativeness of that title.
I never actually met Berry while I was completing my thesis. I once saw her across the floor at an early National Young Writers' Festival in Newcastle, surrounded by a posse of fellow zine makers and bloggers, but as one of the (fledgling) academics that she admits, in Ninety 9, she regarded with suspicion, I was never afforded the opportunity to talk to her in any depth. At the time, I worried enormously about not getting to talk with Berry, as a key figure in the zine subculture; could I say that I had done a comprehensive survey of zine publishing in Australia if I hadn't spoken with her, gotten her approval for my project? I soon learned that a comprehensive survey of zine publishing wasn't possible, but also, Berry (and those close to her) had relayed her thoughts and views on zines and her production of them in a range of media otherwise available to me so that I didn't need to bother her after all.
I'm relaying the above concerns, because I don't come to this book without a history, however tangential, with its author and subject matter. Perhaps this would otherwise be irrelevant to my reading, except that I sought this book out and began to read it on the eve of my submission of an article about zines commissioned by The Conversation in their 'Explainer' series. It had been a decade since I'd submitted my master's, so I was concerned, not only that my knowledge wasn't up-to-date, but that I also needed to say something about the trajectory of zine makers I had known or known of during my research. Not everyone whom I encountered during my thesis still makes zines, as Berry does. Indeed, it was of some interest to see Sunanda Creagh's name on the staff of The Conversation--she too, along with her friend Lee, had been well-regarded zine publishers at the time. So, despite having reconciled the different perspectives on zine production between those of zine publishers and mine as a researcher, I still felt an involuntary twinge of inadequacy about explaining anything about zines all these years later.
***
In the end, Ninety 9, has only one chapter dedicated to zines, but the other chapters contain the substance of the topics that filled Berry's zines throughout the nineties and into the new millennium: radio programs and mix tapes, bands and music festivals, magazines and T-shirts, cult television and literature, share houses and op shops. Throughout the memoir, a picture emerges of the importance of popular and literary culture in the formation of a young woman's identity; both forms clearly offered Berry a sense of belonging not immediately available to her in suburban Sydney. What's key, however, is that Berry's coming of age memoir is not simply about the consumption of cultural artefacts, but is equally about the relationships she forged through sharing her pleasure in those forms through writing and publishing, through which she found like-minded people and, ultimately, her place in this world.
I found the final chapter, which recounts Berry's discovery of an abandoned suitcase in the back streets of Petersham, to be a satisfying ending to this fin de siècle memoir. This found object that turns out to contain the papers of one of her contemporaries, which she sifts through to glean a sense of its owner, is offered as an analogy for Ninety 9: a loosely-shaped memoir formed through unadorned prose on layers of abandoned paper, mix tapes, and reconditioned band T-shirts. That said, however, we can be grateful to Giramondo for publishing Berry's work in a more substantial form than a decaying suitcase, so that rather than disintegrating as ephemera is wont to do, it can serve as a memory, as a record, of a life, of a decade.
I enjoyed Berry's self-publishing at the time, beyond my immediate academic concern with her work, generally, as the subject of my thesis. Rather than her subcultural insights into bands, however, I liked what might be considered the scholarly and literary aspects of her work: the research she'd done for her zine that reviewed all 69 St. Vincent de Paul op shops in Sydney; her description of her experiences of reading James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake amid the enforced languor of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome; her discipline in writing Laughter and the Sound of Teacups on the 23rd of every month; and, indeed, the aural evocativeness of that title.
I never actually met Berry while I was completing my thesis. I once saw her across the floor at an early National Young Writers' Festival in Newcastle, surrounded by a posse of fellow zine makers and bloggers, but as one of the (fledgling) academics that she admits, in Ninety 9, she regarded with suspicion, I was never afforded the opportunity to talk to her in any depth. At the time, I worried enormously about not getting to talk with Berry, as a key figure in the zine subculture; could I say that I had done a comprehensive survey of zine publishing in Australia if I hadn't spoken with her, gotten her approval for my project? I soon learned that a comprehensive survey of zine publishing wasn't possible, but also, Berry (and those close to her) had relayed her thoughts and views on zines and her production of them in a range of media otherwise available to me so that I didn't need to bother her after all.
I'm relaying the above concerns, because I don't come to this book without a history, however tangential, with its author and subject matter. Perhaps this would otherwise be irrelevant to my reading, except that I sought this book out and began to read it on the eve of my submission of an article about zines commissioned by The Conversation in their 'Explainer' series. It had been a decade since I'd submitted my master's, so I was concerned, not only that my knowledge wasn't up-to-date, but that I also needed to say something about the trajectory of zine makers I had known or known of during my research. Not everyone whom I encountered during my thesis still makes zines, as Berry does. Indeed, it was of some interest to see Sunanda Creagh's name on the staff of The Conversation--she too, along with her friend Lee, had been well-regarded zine publishers at the time. So, despite having reconciled the different perspectives on zine production between those of zine publishers and mine as a researcher, I still felt an involuntary twinge of inadequacy about explaining anything about zines all these years later.
***
In the end, Ninety 9, has only one chapter dedicated to zines, but the other chapters contain the substance of the topics that filled Berry's zines throughout the nineties and into the new millennium: radio programs and mix tapes, bands and music festivals, magazines and T-shirts, cult television and literature, share houses and op shops. Throughout the memoir, a picture emerges of the importance of popular and literary culture in the formation of a young woman's identity; both forms clearly offered Berry a sense of belonging not immediately available to her in suburban Sydney. What's key, however, is that Berry's coming of age memoir is not simply about the consumption of cultural artefacts, but is equally about the relationships she forged through sharing her pleasure in those forms through writing and publishing, through which she found like-minded people and, ultimately, her place in this world.
I found the final chapter, which recounts Berry's discovery of an abandoned suitcase in the back streets of Petersham, to be a satisfying ending to this fin de siècle memoir. This found object that turns out to contain the papers of one of her contemporaries, which she sifts through to glean a sense of its owner, is offered as an analogy for Ninety 9: a loosely-shaped memoir formed through unadorned prose on layers of abandoned paper, mix tapes, and reconditioned band T-shirts. That said, however, we can be grateful to Giramondo for publishing Berry's work in a more substantial form than a decaying suitcase, so that rather than disintegrating as ephemera is wont to do, it can serve as a memory, as a record, of a life, of a decade.
June 24, 2024
tasteful nostalgia, weird kids unite 🙏
November 6, 2014
Ok... I'm a little bit biased about this book because not only was I too a music obsessed teenager in the 90s, oh Nitocris how I loved you, but this memoir was launched on my birthday... so I'm pretty sure I was fated to like it. That being said I liked it and you should too! So shut up and buy it. Well that would have worked on teenage me. I got a Hootie and the Goldfish single simply because I was crushing on the incredibly sexy Scottish HMV worker at Tuggerah... if you're reading this, "How you doin?"
All that aside this is very cool memoir that people in their 30s will definitely love and I dare say other ages too. Read it and enjoy this nostalgic trip to when you were too cool to be conventionally cool and knew everything.
All that aside this is very cool memoir that people in their 30s will definitely love and I dare say other ages too. Read it and enjoy this nostalgic trip to when you were too cool to be conventionally cool and knew everything.
August 11, 2017
I picked this one up because Vanessa Berry taught a class I took two years ago. She was a guest tutor, standing in for our regular one who couldn't make it, and she encouraged us to think about Sydney in a new way. I appreciated the idea of psychogeography, and it's stuck with me as something I want to explore more. On top of that, Berry was a lovely person, though perhaps a bit odd, who drew our attention to zines.
I'd never had much experience with them before, and as I write this, sadly still haven't, but she made it sound like this great and interesting niche world. As she taught our class, I put her two books into my to read list.
It turns out Ninety 9 isn't exactly my kind of book. It's a memoir about very specific things that I have to say I don't generally have an interest in. Most of the music Berry talks about is not something I've heard of, though I suppose in that sense it could serve as a handbook to be you started.
I did appreciate some of it though. Like her memories of Sydney, a map of s city that has now changed so much. And while some of the businesses she mentioned still exist, like Galaxy Books and Red Eye Records, they no longer occupy the same spaces they used to.
I also appreciated that her favourite movie was Love Serenade. It was written and directed by my friends mother, and truly encapsulates that feeling of small town isolation and boredom, which Berry also latched onto as a reason for her love of it.
So while it might not have entirely been my kind of book, it was worth reading. I wouldn't read it again, but it's nice to have taken it off the 'to read' shelf.
I'd never had much experience with them before, and as I write this, sadly still haven't, but she made it sound like this great and interesting niche world. As she taught our class, I put her two books into my to read list.
It turns out Ninety 9 isn't exactly my kind of book. It's a memoir about very specific things that I have to say I don't generally have an interest in. Most of the music Berry talks about is not something I've heard of, though I suppose in that sense it could serve as a handbook to be you started.
I did appreciate some of it though. Like her memories of Sydney, a map of s city that has now changed so much. And while some of the businesses she mentioned still exist, like Galaxy Books and Red Eye Records, they no longer occupy the same spaces they used to.
I also appreciated that her favourite movie was Love Serenade. It was written and directed by my friends mother, and truly encapsulates that feeling of small town isolation and boredom, which Berry also latched onto as a reason for her love of it.
So while it might not have entirely been my kind of book, it was worth reading. I wouldn't read it again, but it's nice to have taken it off the 'to read' shelf.
January 29, 2018
A 1990’s Sydney high school girl living in the banal North Shore yearns to be heard.
Our heroine, Vanessa, goes to great lengths to comminute and define who she is, by creating cassette mix tapes and printing cult zines.
Can we please have a sequel? This was my first response after eagerly devouring the memoir in one sitting.
Here is a story honouring outsiders. It’s about a cloaked Goth culture, late-night community radio and underground bands that have dissolved over time.
Most readers would be protective of our teenage ace. She’s the adolescent friend we all wish we had growing up.
Our heroine, Vanessa, goes to great lengths to comminute and define who she is, by creating cassette mix tapes and printing cult zines.
Can we please have a sequel? This was my first response after eagerly devouring the memoir in one sitting.
Here is a story honouring outsiders. It’s about a cloaked Goth culture, late-night community radio and underground bands that have dissolved over time.
Most readers would be protective of our teenage ace. She’s the adolescent friend we all wish we had growing up.
August 31, 2020
3.5/5. It was so fun to read about the places I grew up, 10-15 years earlier. I feel a connection to Vanessa Berry and love reading about her teenage life. If anything, that's what I want more of when I read her writing - she tends to focus on the objects, places, music, and ephemera that are important to her rather than her own internal life. I enjoy this to some extent, but it does leave me feeling excluded from the real story.
January 13, 2018
Great cultural history. Reminiscences of 90s Sydney life, bands, book and record shops, places, people, zines.
Read
August 5, 2016I’m old enough to think that the 90s was a fairly recent time period. However, Vanessa Berry’s Ninety 9, which is indeed a recollection of the 90s seen through the eyes of subterranean cultural influences – music, books, films, is so warm, familiar and quirky, that it makes perfect sense. Ninety 9 isn’t quite a memoir. Instead it’s a series of essays grouped around specific topics, structured in more or less sequential order. Music is certainly the primary focus, with bands like The Smiths, Ratcat, The Cure, Mudhoney, The Meanies, and later dark gothic style music like Alien Sex Fiend (don’t worry if you missed that one), Bauhaus, and Nick Cave. Berry attends concerts, listens endlessly to music, hunts down records, dresses up, makes cassette compilations (remember those?) and stays up late in her bedroom alone listening to the radio and phoning up the DJ, but she also begins to collect paraphernalia, muse, observe, and chronicle her experiences, which ultimately leads to her becoming the Sydney ‘zine queen – a title she still holds.
There’s a real beauty to this little book, from the attractive matt finish, small, square format that characterises all of the Giramondo shorts, to Berry’s own hand-drawn illustrations, which give the book a slightly rogue, zine feel. The book is written in light, clear prose, using a confessional first person form, which begins with Berry at the age of eleven. This style invites the reader in immediately, as we share both her family life – including her gifted sister’s music lessons and the tension between Berry and her mother, as well as her secret and later, not so secret, yearnings. Though this is a very personal and selective type of essay/memoir, it becomes universal in the way it clarifies the awkward sensations and pain of adolescence: : “I started high school with the knowledge that I would forever be too weird to be popular”.
I think most of us can relate to Berry’s sense of isolation and feeling of being ‘odd’ mingling with the ascerbic wittiness of her insight. I found myself identifying with with her musical tastes and obsessive interest in those bands that aligned with her sense of self. Ninety 9 is a charming and very enjoyable book. Berry invites the reader in, conjures the insecurities and excitement of youth, and opens up Sydney with the insight of time, the poignancy of nostalgia, and the intimacy of shared memory.
There’s a real beauty to this little book, from the attractive matt finish, small, square format that characterises all of the Giramondo shorts, to Berry’s own hand-drawn illustrations, which give the book a slightly rogue, zine feel. The book is written in light, clear prose, using a confessional first person form, which begins with Berry at the age of eleven. This style invites the reader in immediately, as we share both her family life – including her gifted sister’s music lessons and the tension between Berry and her mother, as well as her secret and later, not so secret, yearnings. Though this is a very personal and selective type of essay/memoir, it becomes universal in the way it clarifies the awkward sensations and pain of adolescence: : “I started high school with the knowledge that I would forever be too weird to be popular”.
I think most of us can relate to Berry’s sense of isolation and feeling of being ‘odd’ mingling with the ascerbic wittiness of her insight. I found myself identifying with with her musical tastes and obsessive interest in those bands that aligned with her sense of self. Ninety 9 is a charming and very enjoyable book. Berry invites the reader in, conjures the insecurities and excitement of youth, and opens up Sydney with the insight of time, the poignancy of nostalgia, and the intimacy of shared memory.
October 17, 2014
I give this book 3 and a half but it won't let me fragment my starry eyes. I had passed this book in the library so many times and picked it up and decided it was too kitschy for me to read so many times, before I eventually decided to actually get it out. Was quite a good quick read. And like others said I identified with making mixtapes etc… Was also curious about the books funding as it seems to have been partially funding by some sort of arts council/grant according to some logo at the back of the book. The old berry seems pretty cool, and I if that picture in the back of the book is her she does rather resemble a blackberry and I'm concerned for her as she has a maudlin appearance to her which may be worrisome if it plagues her existence. I'm writing her address here below, as I may want to write to her, but I forgot what I wanted to write to her about, which defeats the purpose of immediately coming on goodreads to act before I forget. Too late.
Vanessa Berry
Po Box 1879
Strawberry hills NSW 2012
Australia
^
|
Her address if anyone else wants to write to her. Hope she doesn't mind me posting it outside of the context of her book.
Vanessa Berry
Po Box 1879
Strawberry hills NSW 2012
Australia
^
|
Her address if anyone else wants to write to her. Hope she doesn't mind me posting it outside of the context of her book.
December 26, 2014
I think Vanessa's talent is her ability to choose a topic that seems familiar, or even taken for granted, and describe it in a way that reinvents it and makes it newly interesting. In Ninety 9 she writes about nineties music, recalling her teenage experiences visiting intimidating record stores, and retraces the record store circuit as an adult. Other stories are included-the history behind her band tshirts, the conversations triggered by the same tshirts at reuninion gigs, the experiences of listening to late night radio shows hosted by fellow music lovers. Every story is well edited, so there are moments of humour, but also that bittersweet recognition of a cultural moment that has fleetingly existed and passed by. I'd give this 5 stars if it was longer, but I'd definitely recommend it.
September 25, 2013
Awesome zinemaker writes book about growing up in suburban Sydney during the nineties. I grew up at the same time in a similar situation so I loved this. While nothing particularly exciting happens (much like my own life), I really enjoy reading about people’s lives, especially when it’s all about them discovering music and zines, braving the local record shops and gigs, trawling charity shops and writing to penpals. If you did any of those things, you should get this – it’s got lovely illustrations throughout too.
November 5, 2013
like stepping back into my early teenage years (although mine were somewhat later than Vanessa's, some aspects were very similar). I really identified with her habits of taping songs from the radio and rage and her experiences of connection through zine-making. I began reading her zines years ago and liked the writing style then - articulate and thoughtful. it's also good in the polished book format. I had such mixed feelings of that time that it's weird to read about: a mixture of adventure and loneliness, sort of.
January 3, 2014
A warm and wise journey through the music shops, community radio stations and pubs of 90s Sydney as teenage Vanessa Berry searches for an identity that fits. If you were there, parts of Ninety9 will be familiar; if you weren't, you'll wish you were. Put on your fave band T-shirt and the coolest 90s music you own, then settle into your op-shop couch and read this.
August 30, 2013
Essential Sydney reading, but maybe that's because I recognise so much of this...
December 31, 2013
How could i have forgotten about Gothic Martha Stewart?
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews