An Uncertain Grace (Krissy Kneen, Text)
Thursday, 2 February 2017
An Uncertain Grace is a powerful story told in five parts through the eyes of five characters from the present day to a post-climate-change world that is 100 years in...
On tour: Ken Liu
Thursday, 2 February 2017
Writer and translator Ken Liu is at the forefront of bringing Chinese science-fiction to an English-language market, having translated the Hugo Award-winning The Three Body Problem (Liu Cixin) and edited...
On tour: Madeleine Thien
Thursday, 2 February 2017
Canadian author Madeleine Thien’s latest book Do Not Say We Have Nothing (Granta) chronicles the lives of a group of musicians in 20th-century China. It was shortlisted for the Man Booker...
On tour: Sebastian Barry
Friday, 20 January 2017
Irish author Sebastian Barry is a novelist, playwright and poet. His latest novel Days Without End (Faber), which won the Costa Novel of the Year, is the story of two American...
On tour: Kate Summerscale
Thursday, 27 October 2016
UK author Kate Summerscale’s latest book The Wicked Boy (Bloomsbury) is the true story of a Victorian-era juvenile murder case that echoes the ‘outrageous plots’ of a penny dreadful novel. She...
Booking ahead: 2017 fiction preview
Thursday, 27 October 2016
In August, Black Inc. will publish Ruby J Murray’s second novel The Biographer’s Lover, which tells the dual stories of a biographer and her subject, an Australian artist. Murray’s exploration...
Booking ahead: 2017 nonfiction preview
Thursday, 27 October 2016
‘Following in the footsteps of Jack Kerouac, sober’ is the tantalising subtitle of Lennox Nicholson’s travel tale On the Wagon, which will be published by Affirm Press in February. Nicholson,...
And Then I Found Me (Noel Tovey, Magabala Books)
Tuesday, 11 October 2016
Noel Tovey has led an amazing life. He went from a terrible childhood of deprivation and abuse to become one of Australia’s great artistic exports, before returning home to be...
No Way But This: In Search of Paul Robeson (Jeff Sparrow, Scribe)
Tuesday, 11 October 2016
Paul Robeson (1898-1976) was an African-American singer, actor and political activist. His father was a slave, yet Robeson was able to carve out an acting and music career despite facing...
Jean Harley Was Here (Heather Taylor Johnson, UQP)
Tuesday, 11 October 2016
Heather Taylor Johnson’s second novel Jean Harley Was Here is an exploration of grief, with each chapter presenting a different glimpse into the aftermath of the character Jean Harley’s death,...
The Green Bell: A Memoir of Love, Madness and Poetry (Paula Keogh, Affirm Press)
Tuesday, 11 October 2016
Paula Keogh suffers a breakdown following the death of her best friend Julianne. It is while undergoing treatment in M Ward—the psychiatric unit of Canberra Hospital—that she meets the poet...
A life re-examined: Jeff Sparrow on ‘No Way But This: In Search of Paul Robeson’
Thursday, 6 October 2016
Jeff Sparrow’s book on African-American singer, actor and political activist Paul Robeson combines ‘essay, journalism, history and biography to produce something engaging, original and insightful’, writes reviewer Chris Saliba. He...
Booking ahead: 2017 fiction preview
Thursday, 6 October 2016
Several Australian authors make their long-awaited return to publishing next year, alongside some promising debuts. Andrea Hanke and Vicki Stegink round up publishers’ fiction highlights for 2017. (See nonfiction titles here.)...
On tour: Janine di Giovanni
Thursday, 6 October 2016
US foreign correspondent Janine di Giovanni’s latest book is The Morning They Came for Us (Bloomsbury), an account of the conflict in Syria. She will be touring Australia in February. ...
Booking ahead: 2017 nonfiction preview
Thursday, 6 October 2016
Several Australian authors make their long-awaited return to publishing next year, alongside some promising debuts. Andrea Hanke and Vicki Stegink round up publishers’ nonfiction highlights for 2017. (See fiction titles here.)...
Yearning potential: Lucy Durneen on ‘Wild Gestures’
Tuesday, 27 September 2016
UK writer Lucy Durneen’s Wild Gestures debut short story collection will be published by South-Australian publisher MidnightSun in January. It is an ‘intriguing collection’ of ‘psychologically acute portraits … shaped...
Barking Dogs (Rebekah Clarkson, Affirm Press)
Tuesday, 27 September 2016
Barking Dogs is a novel in stories from short-story writer Rebekah Clarkson, set in the fictional Mt Barker, a once sleepy country town being engulfed by the outer suburbs. Each...
Crimson Lake (Candice Fox, Bantam)
Tuesday, 27 September 2016
Candice Fox, winner of two Ned Kelly Awards and co-author with the bestselling James Patterson, has unleashed another taut, gripping crime thriller that is as accomplished as her publishing history...
The Dangers of Truffle Hunting (Sunni Overend, HarperCollins)
Tuesday, 27 September 2016
Kit Gossard thinks her life is on track. She’s a photographer for an internationally renowned food magazine, and is engaged to a man who can provide a secure future. So...
The Golden Child (Wendy James, HarperCollins)
Tuesday, 27 September 2016
Beth’s blogging alter-ego Lizzy may seem to have the perfect life, but Beth’s reality is far messier. Following the family’s relocation to Newcastle from the US, conflict seems to be...
Gwen (Goldie Goldbloom, Fremantle Press)
Tuesday, 27 September 2016
Gwen, Goldie Goldbloom’s uneven but engaging new novel, takes a panoramic approach to familiar territory. Set mainly in London and Paris at the turn of the 19th century, it chronicles...
Loopholes (Susan McCreery, Spineless Wonders)
Tuesday, 27 September 2016
Shakespeare once said that ‘brevity is the soul of wit’; the genre of microfiction takes this advice to heart. To succeed, microfiction must combine efficiency of text with immediacy of...
One Leg Over: Memories of Love, Fun and a Few Tears (Robin Dalton, Text)
Tuesday, 27 September 2016
In 2015, Text reissued Robin Dalton’s 1965 memoir Aunts up the Cross as part of its ‘Text Classics’ series. The book offered a humorous glimpse into Dalton’s bohemian childhood in...
A Perfidious Distortion of History (Jürgen Tampke, Scribe)
Tuesday, 27 September 2016
This book from German-born, Australia-based historian Jürgen Tampke is a great example of revisionist history. It’s a popular historical conceit that the end of World War I and the Treaty...
The Trapeze Act (Libby Angel, Text)
Tuesday, 27 September 2016
The Trapeze Act is a beautifully lyrical novel about the search for meaning and identity in 1970s Australia. This is quite a task for Loretta—daughter of a loose-cannon ex-carnie mother...
The Unfortunate Victim (Greg Pyers, Scribe)
Tuesday, 27 September 2016
The first book in a new crime series, The Unfortunate Victim follows Prussian detective Otto Berliner as he solves the murder of 17-year-old Maggie Stuart in 1860s Daylesford. This book...
The Waterfowl Are Drunk! (Kate Liston-Mills, Spineless Wonders)
Tuesday, 27 September 2016
Kate Liston-Mills’ debut collection of fiction is an astute, often moving study of three generations of a small-town family. Set in the author’s native Pambula in regional NSW, it captures...
Wedding Bush Road (David Francis, Brio)
Tuesday, 27 September 2016
Daniel, a 35-year-old Australian lawyer, leaves his LA base and girlfriend behind to return home upon hearing of the ill health of his mother Ruth. Upon arrival to the horse...
Wild Gestures (Lucy Durneen, MidnightSun)
Tuesday, 27 September 2016
This is an intriguing collection of short stories where things are seldom what they seem and characters are preoccupied by their past actions. Shaped less by plot than by precise...
The End of Patriarchy: Radical Feminism for Men (Robert Jensen, Spinifex Press)
Thursday, 25 August 2016
The End of Patriarchy by US academic Robert Jensen is a summary explanation of how radical feminism informs politics, written for an audience of men. Readers should bring an entry-level...
