First Name Second Name (Steve MinOn, UQP)
Tuesday, 28 January 2025
In Steve MinOn’s debut novel, First Name Second Name, the story spans four generations of the Chinese Australian Bolin family, whose roots in Australia date back to the late 19th...
This Stays Between Us (Margot McGovern, Penguin)
Tuesday, 28 January 2025
Margot McGovern’s second young adult novel, This Stays Between Us, may have taken seven years, but it’s worth the wait. This gripping thriller, set in the year 2000, is a...
Love Unedited (Caro Llewellyn, Picador)
Tuesday, 28 January 2025
Reading Caro Llewellyn’s debut novel, Love Unedited, is like reading someone’s diary entries on life and love, which is fitting for this story within a story. Set predominantly in New York...
How Australian Democracy Works: And Why We Need It More Than Ever (ed by Amanda Dunn, T&H)
Tuesday, 21 January 2025
At a time when democracy seems under threat globally, Australia’s democratic system is often seen as one of the best. Compulsory voting, democracy sausages and electoral boundaries set by a...
Geraldine (Andrea Thompson, Fremantle)
Tuesday, 21 January 2025
In this heartwarming debut novel, spanning the 1960s to the early 2000s, music journalist and artist manager Andrea Thompson tells the story of Geraldine, a fierce protagonist who remains true...
Half Truth (Nadia Mahjouri, Penguin)
Tuesday, 14 January 2025
Half Truth follows Zahra, a young Moroccan Australian woman, and her grandmother, Khadija. In alternating narratives, the novel follows the pair as they come of age in their respective timelines. The...
Harry and Gran Bake a Cake (Fiona McIntosh, illus Sara Acton, Puffin)
Tuesday, 14 January 2025
Fiona McIntosh (The Sugar Palace), the much-celebrated author for grown-ups, makes her debut in picture books with the simply delicious Harry and Gran Bake a Cake. A day in the...
Past & Parallel Lives (Kaya Ortiz, UWA Publishing)
Tuesday, 14 January 2025
In their debut poetry collection, Past & Parallel Lives, Kaya Ortiz explores what it means to wrestle with your identity and find belonging. Their poetry strikes a balance between grounded...
Vale John Marsden
Monday, 13 January 2025
Author and teacher John Marsden has died. Marsden was born in 1950 in Melbourne and grew up primarily in Victoria and Tasmania before beginning a teaching career. While working at...
The Body Next Door (Zane Lovitt, Text)
Tuesday, 10 December 2024
Nestled in Melbourne’s western suburbs, Carnation Way is a quiet street of identical-looking houses with one distinction: number 37 was the scene of a murder 13 years ago. In the...
Gutsy Girls (Josie McSkimming, UQP)
Tuesday, 10 December 2024
When Dorothy Porter died in 2008, Australia lost one of its greatest contemporary poets. The author of nine poetry collections and five verse novels, Porter had a lusty, raw and...
Diary of a Marine Biologist (Anita Thomas, illus Sarah Wilkins & Anita Thomas, Walker)
Tuesday, 10 December 2024
Did you know that oysters are often called the kidneys of the ocean because they filter a bathtub’s worth of water every two days? Or that marine biologists play a...
A Piece of Red Cloth (Leonie Norrington, Merrkiyawuy Ganambarr-Stubbs, Djawa Burarrwanga & Djawundil Maymuru, A&U)
Tuesday, 3 December 2024
The best fiction allows the reader to enter times, cultures and places otherwise inaccessible. Children’s fiction writer Leonie Norrington was commissioned by her adoptive mother, Yolŋu woman Clare Bush, to...
Somebody Down There Likes Me (Robert Lukins, A&U)
Tuesday, 3 December 2024
Somebody Down There Likes Me begins with a limousine pulling up to a defunct gas station near a United States ghost town, setting an apt tone for a novel that...
Jungle Escape (Nathan Luff, Walker)
Tuesday, 3 December 2024
Jungle Escape is the latest middle-grade title by Nathan Luff, author of Bad Grammar and the Family Disasters and Nerd Herd series. This stand-alone novel is filled with comedic mishaps, deliberate misunderstandings, and...
The Governor, His Wife and His Mistress (Sue Williams, A&U)
Tuesday, 26 November 2024
The latest, standalone historical fiction from Sue Williams, The Governor, His Wife and His Mistress, is a prequel to her bestselling and critically acclaimed novels Elizabeth & Elizabeth and That...
Three Boys Gone (Mark Smith, Macmillan)
Tuesday, 26 November 2024
Award-winning writer Mark Smith is a familiar name on the young adult shelves, with his acclaimed Winter trilogy finding its way onto school lists nationwide. Venturing into fiction for adult...
Gustav Glows with Gold (Kathy Creamer, illus Patricia Ward, Little Pink Dog)
Tuesday, 26 November 2024
Kathy Creamer, co-founder of indie children’s publisher Little Pink Dog Books, lovingly introduces upper-primary readers to the captivating work of Austrian artist Gustav Klimt in her creative nonfiction picture book...
The Serpent Rider (Yxavel Magno Diño, Bloomsbury Children’s)
Tuesday, 19 November 2024
Inspired by Filipino folklore, Yxavel Magno Diño’s debut novel, The Serpent Rider, is a mesmerising middle-grade fantasy. All Tani wants is for her bakunawa egg to hatch so she can...
The Pool (Hannah Tunnicliffe, Ultimo)
Tuesday, 19 November 2024
In Hannah Tunnicliffe’s latest novel, The Pool, a motley group of southside Melburnians meets for a summer party. The young families are connected through work and children, but they’re not really...
That Island Feeling (Karina May, Macmillan)
Tuesday, 19 November 2024
Set on a sleepy, scenic Australian island and featuring oysters, wine and flirty banter, That Island Feeling is the summer romance book for 2025. The novel follows Andie and her...
Figuring Out Thirty: Decoding the Decisive Decade (And What Really Matters) (Bridget Hustwaite, Penguin)
Tuesday, 12 November 2024
Bridget Hustwaite (How to Endo) is well known as an author and podcaster for her valuable insights into women’s health. Her latest book, Figuring Out Thirty: Decoding the Decisive Decade...
Saturday, Sunday (Natalie Kate Forbes, illus Danny Snell, Affirm)
Tuesday, 12 November 2024
Weekends are so busy for families, with the competing demands of sports and activities, seeing friends and extended family, shopping for the week and more. Saturday, Sunday captures this frantic...
Unfinished Business (Shankari Chandran, Ultimo)
Tuesday, 12 November 2024
The first in Miles Franklin–winning author Shankari Chandran’s Ellie Harper political thriller series, Unfinished Business mirrors the themes of the author’s past books (Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens, Safe Haven):...
Lexie Moon and the Word Burgling Bungle (Melissa Garside, illus Lauren Mullinder, Riveted Press)
Tuesday, 5 November 2024
Lexie Moon and the Word Burgling Bungle is debut author Melissa Garside’s exciting junior novel about a creative and prolific 10-year-old inventor. Lexie has been mentored by her grandfather, but...
The Wedding Party (Rebecca Heath, Head of Zeus)
Tuesday, 5 November 2024
In her latest thriller, The Wedding Party, Rebecca Heath (The Summer Party, The Dinner Party) masterfully tells the gripping story of three families connected by a tragic incident that occurred...
The Spirit Circle (Tara Calaby, Text)
Tuesday, 5 November 2024
Tara Calaby’s The Spirit Circle is a thrilling sapphic historical fiction set in 19th-century Victoria, exploring the passage of loss and grief and the importance of platonic and romantic bonds....
One Dark Night (Hannah Richell, S&S)
Tuesday, 29 October 2024
One Dark Night is Hannah Richell’s sixth novel. Like its predecessor, The Search Party, the story is a gripping, tangled web of mystery and intrigue from the opening paragraph to...
Revenge of the Toxic Space Potato (First Dog on the Moon, A&U Children’s)
Tuesday, 29 October 2024
Finding a fresh angle on superheroes in 2024 is no easy task—unless you’re the Indefatigable EnviroTeens, who effortlessly revitalise a tired genre with humour, action and underpants pastry. In First...
Yayoi Kusama (ed by Wayne Crothers & Miranda Wallace, NGV)
Tuesday, 22 October 2024
The book Yayoi Kusama from the National Gallery of Victoria captures the extraordinary 80-year legacy of the enigmatic artist, as showcased in the titular exhibition. This tribute to one of...
