Diana Reid recommends
Tuesday, 21 January 2025
I was completely engrossed by Emily Maguire’s Rapture: it’s immersive, visceral and thrillingly original.
Diana Reid on ‘Signs of Damage’
Tuesday, 21 January 2025
Diana Reid follows her bestselling novels Love & Virtue and Seeing Other People with her highly anticipated third novel, Signs of Damage (March, Ultimo), which ‘will appeal to fans of...
Lucy Sussex recommends
Wednesday, 15 January 2025
Restless Dolly Maunder by Kate Grenville, which captures the female Australian voice and experience so well – just like Mary Fortune.
Megan Brown recommends
Wednesday, 15 January 2025
Natasha Lester’s The Disappearance of Astrid Bricard. I really enjoyed it because it weaves fact and fiction together, but not in a forced way or in a way that tries...
Megan Brown and Lucy Sussex on ‘Outrageous Fortunes’
Tuesday, 14 January 2025
Megan Brown and Lucy Sussex bring Mary Fortune, one of Australia’s most prolific yet overlooked woman crime writers, and her criminal son, George, to light in their book Outrageous Fortunes...
A year of Australian audiobooks: 2025 preview
Wednesday, 11 December 2024
Audiobook lovers have plenty of local content due in 2025. Here, we round up the Australian titles highlighted by local audio publishers Bolinda and Wavesound. All our 2025 Books+Publishing preview feature articles...
New year 2025 preview: CYA
Wednesday, 11 December 2024
From the witchy to the wistful, from the fact-filled to the fantastical, publishers have pulled together their lists of highlighted children's and young adult titles for 2025. Read on to...
New year 2025 preview: Poetry
Wednesday, 11 December 2024
Publishers highlight forthcoming poetry books from well-loved voices in the field—like Kirli Saunders, Omar Sakr, Grace Yee, Antigone Kefala and Eileen Chong—as well as titles from some poets newer to...
Kate Kemp recommends
Tuesday, 10 December 2024
I recently read and loved The Wakes by Dianne Yarwood. I am instantly drawn to books about women reinventing themselves at various ages. This book is a wonderful exploration of...
Kate Kemp on ‘The Grapevine’
Tuesday, 10 December 2024
Kate Kemp’s debut, The Grapevine (Hachette, February 2025), unravels the mystery of a murder in 1970s Canberra, revealing hidden secrets and buried tensions within the close-knit community of Warrah Place....
New year 2025 preview: Nonfiction
Wednesday, 4 December 2024
As we head towards 2025, publishers are preparing to send a wide array of new nonfiction titles out onto our bookshelves. Among the titles publishers are keen to highlight, booksellers...
‘I do, in fact, belong here’: Looking back and forward with the 2024 Open Book interns
Wednesday, 4 December 2024
First run as a pilot program offering two internships in 2022, the Open Book paid internship program is a joint sector initiative that aims to foster cultural and linguistic diversity...
‘There is nothing else quite like it’: Terri-ann White on Sharjah
Wednesday, 4 December 2024
Publishers and literary agents from 108 countries participated in this year’s Sharjah Publishers Conference, and Upswell publisher Terri-ann White was an Australian representative to the conference. She writes on the...
New year 2025 preview: Fiction
Wednesday, 27 November 2024
Unpublished manuscript prizes, hotly contest auctions, agents, slush piles, or authors wooed from rival publishing houses—wherever they came from, these are the fiction titles publishers are excited about for 2025....
Amplify Bookstore’s summer reading recommendations
Wednesday, 20 November 2024
Amplify Bookstore is an independent online bookseller specialising in books by Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC) authors, founded by Jing Xuan Teo and Marina Sano. Here, they share...
Karina May recommends
Tuesday, 19 November 2024
The best rom-com I’ve read this year is The Wedding Forecast by Nina Kenwood. It’s everything I’d want in a rom-com—addictive, delightful and featuring New York. I was also lucky enough to...
Karina May on ‘That Island Feeling’
Tuesday, 19 November 2024
Karina May is an avid romance reader and journalist turned author of ‘lively love stories for wanderlusters’, including Never Ever Forever and Duck à l’Orange for Breakfast. Her fourth novel, That...
Sophie Clark recommends
Tuesday, 12 November 2024
Dark Heir by C S Pacat! I blame the brilliance of that book for the world-class reading slump I’ve been in for much of this year. It was quite simply...
Sophie Clark on ‘Cruel Is the Light’
Tuesday, 12 November 2024
Tasmanian-based author Sophie Clark went from working for the Australian Senate to being a member of the Pitch Wars class of 2021. Her debut novel, Cruel Is the Light (Penguin,...
Melissa Garside recommends
Tuesday, 5 November 2024
I recently read Lights Out, Little Dragon by Debra Tidball and illustrated by Rae Tan. Debra and Rae have created a delightfully humorous and beautifully illustrated picture book. I was...
Melissa Garside on ‘Lexie Moon and the Word Burgling Bungle’
Tuesday, 5 November 2024
Melissa Garside, a primary school teacher and author with a passion for language, showcases her love for words and science in a story about a 10-year-old inventor in her debut...
Ali Gripper recommends
Tuesday, 29 October 2024
I am completely enthralled by Nadia Wheatley’s The Life and Myth of Charmian Clift. It’s a true labour of love, brilliantly written and researched, and introduces new generations of readers...
Ali Gripper on ‘Saltwater Cure’
Tuesday, 29 October 2024
Sydney-based, award-winning journalist Ali Gripper has contributed features to some of Australia's leading newspapers and magazines. Her first biography, The Barefoot Surgeon (A&U, 2018), told the story of Nepalese eye...
Teens and the ‘book slump’: Why we should diagnose a situation rather than an identity
Wednesday, 23 October 2024
With multiple reports pointing to a decline in reading for pleasure among young people, school library and research professional Gabrielle Mace argues a change in language could help teens avoid...
Jackie French recommends
Tuesday, 15 October 2024
Living Art: Indonesian Artists Engage Politics, Society and History edited by Virginia Hooker [along with Elly Kent and Caroline Turner]—we are having tomorrow’s lunch together. I’m reading it because I’m...
Jackie French on ‘Tigg and the Bandicoot Bushranger’
Tuesday, 15 October 2024
With a career spanning about 30 years and over 140 books for children and adults, Jackie French loves to incorporate Australian history and nature into her work. Her latest novel,...
Sally Rippin on children’s literature, literacy and gatekeeping
Wednesday, 9 October 2024
Sally Rippin is the Australian Children’s Laureate for 2024–25, the latest step in a career that has also included writing over 100 books for children and young adults, including the series...
Sophie Beer recommends
Tuesday, 1 October 2024
Oh, this is too difficult! Can I break it down into different genres? Adult: Because I’m Not Myself, You See by Ariane Beeston is a heartbreaking, unputdownable story of Ariane’s...
Sophie Beer on ‘Thunderhead’
Tuesday, 1 October 2024
Prolific illustrator Sophie Beer’s debut middle-grade novel, Thunderhead (November, A&U Children’s), was inspired by her own experience with a brain tumour that resulted in hearing loss. Books+Publishing reviewer Clare Millar...
Inga Simpson recommends
Tuesday, 24 September 2024
Dusk by Robbie Arnott. I admire his capacity to embed characters in the landscape and the way he evokes Tasmania’s central highlands as such wild, strange places where humans can...
