Maggie (Catherine Johns, Hachette)
Tuesday, 15 November 2022
In Catherine Johns’s debut novel, a 17-year-old Catholic school girl’s life is derailed when she becomes enamoured of her priest. It’s 1967 and Maggie is a straight-A student whose education...
Tumbleglass (Kate Constable, A&U Children’s)
Tuesday, 15 November 2022
Rowan is helping her big sister Ash with painting her room when suddenly they find themselves in 1999, at a party in the very same house. While Ash wants to...
This Time it’s Real (Ann Liang, Penguin)
Tuesday, 15 November 2022
Ann Liang’s This Time it’s Real is a vibrant young adult romantic comedy with its heart in the right place. When 17-year-old Eliza Lin’s school essay about her fabricated love...
Little Plum (Laura McPhee-Browne, Text)
Tuesday, 8 November 2022
Little Plum is the second novel by the award-winning author of Cherry Beach, Laura McPhee-Browne. The story unfolds around 29-year-old Coral, who decides to follow through with a pregnancy from...
You Talk, We Die (Judy Ryan, Scribe)
Tuesday, 8 November 2022
Safe injecting rooms have been a polarising issue in Victoria for decades. Years of debate, government inquiries, coroner’s reports, media conjecture and scare campaigns have plagued any productive conversation. But...
Brain is (Not) Always Right (Scott Stuart, Scholastic)
Tuesday, 8 November 2022
Scott Stuart may have come to creating books for children in an unconventional way, but the social media storm surrounding his support for his child to be everything they could...
Cloud Land (Penny van Oosterzee, A&U)
Tuesday, 8 November 2022
In the gripping and extensively researched Cloud Land, Penny van Oosterzee imagines what a small region of Queensland’s Atherton Tablelands has witnessed over both geological time and since white settlement....
The Exclusion Zone (Shastra Deo, UQP)
Wednesday, 2 November 2022
‘You are searching for something,’ begins The Exclusion Zone. It's a provocation that forms the manifesto for the enthralling and ingenious second poetry collection from Shastra Deo following her ALS...
Timeless (Kelly Canby, Fremantle Press)
Tuesday, 1 November 2022
A topical theme in these social media-obsessed days, Timeless tells the tale of Emit, a young boy whose parents are always too preoccupied to pay attention to him. Tired of...
Who Cares? Life on welfare in Australia (Eve Vincent, MUP)
Tuesday, 25 October 2022
What is it like to live on welfare in Australia today? In Who Cares? researcher Eve Vincent endeavours to answer this question, with a special focus on the experiences of...
Compulsion (Kate Scott, Hamish Hamilton)
Tuesday, 25 October 2022
Lucy is a music journalist with a penchant for 80s party dresses, long, languorous walks, and throwing decadent dinner parties for her friends. Robin is the dark-eyed, softly spoken man...
A Man and His Pride (Luke Rutledge, Michael Joseph)
Tuesday, 25 October 2022
In Luke Rutledge’s A Man and His Pride, 26-year-old Sean Preston navigates the realities of being in his 20s—work, relationships, sexuality, mental health—against the backdrop of Australia’s 2017 same-sex marriage...
Headland (John Byrnes, A&U)
Wednesday, 19 October 2022
It’s a well-worn storyline for Australian crime fiction: a detective arrives in a small town only to discover that danger lurks beneath quaint country manners; the detective is usually running...
The Last Love Note (Emma Grey, Michael Joseph)
Wednesday, 19 October 2022
Recently widowed, Kate Whittaker is trying her hardest to navigate the grief of losing her husband, Cam, while also being a single mother to their young son. That’s not to...
The Matchmaker (Saman Shad, Viking)
Wednesday, 19 October 2022
Playing cupid for the Sydney Pakistani community is Saima Khan in The Matchmaker. Pairing lovers is second nature for Saima until the handsome, young white-collar Kal (Khalid) Ali unwittingly saunters...
Why Does it Still Hurt? (Paul Biegler, Scribe)
Tuesday, 11 October 2022
The way we understand pain evolves, and it is misunderstood even within the medical community. Part physical, part psychological, it is notoriously difficult to study. In Why Does it Still...
Sydney: A biography (Louis Nowra, NewSouth)
Tuesday, 4 October 2022
Melbourne-born Louis Nowra moved to Sydney as an adult and has never lost his passion for his adopted home. Whether he’s describing the city’s mercurial weather, its elegant convict-designed colonial...
An Afterlife for Rosemary Lamb (Louise Wolhuter, Ultimo)
Tuesday, 4 October 2022
‘Twisty mystery’ is the delightfully accurate descriptor on the AI sheet for this character-based drama. Yet before its mysterious elements begin unspooling, the characters and setting are firmly established, endearing...
The Teal Revolution (Margot Saville, Hardie Grant)
Tuesday, 27 September 2022
Australia's 2022 federal election brought a major upset: six independent female candidates—colloquially known as ‘the teals’ for the signature colour they adopted (a blend of green and Liberal blue)—catapulted into...
Tjitji Lullaby (Michael Ross & Zaachariaha Fielding, illus by Lisa Kennedy, ABC Books)
Tuesday, 27 September 2022
A lyrical storytelling beauty aligned with rich bedtime qualities of calm and serenity featuring diverse Australian wildlife. Tjitji Lullaby, the hardcover board book for babies to two-year-olds, originates from the...
Minds Went Walking (curated by Jock Serong, Mark Smith & Neil A White, Fremantle Press)
Tuesday, 20 September 2022
Minds Went Walking is a collection of responses to the work of singer-songwriter Paul Kelly. Curated by Jock Serong, Mark Smith and Neil A White, this is a no-rules collection...
Nice and Slow (Sarah Ayoub, illus by Mimi Purnell, HarperCollins)
Tuesday, 20 September 2022
With the soothing sensation of a lullaby, Nice and Slow lulls its young audience into a peaceful state of mindfulness, joy and creativity, while encapsulating the importance of quality time...
Going to Big School (Laura Sieveking, illus by Danielle McDonald, Scholastic)
Tuesday, 13 September 2022
Appealing to a diverse readership, Going to Big School inhabits the viewpoints of two children, Ava and Jack, on their first day at school. With contrasting personalities, Ava and Jack...
Waiting for the Storks (Katrina Nannestad, ABC Books)
Tuesday, 6 September 2022
Waiting for the Storks is the latest historical fiction title from Katrina Nannestad, transporting the reader to the Second World War and the time of Himmler’s Lebensborn Program, in which...
Tell Me Again (Amy Thunig, UQP)
Tuesday, 6 September 2022
Amy Thunig is an academic and social commentator on shows such as ABC’s The Drum. She also grew up in poverty, the child of parents battling drug addictions who provided...
Tiny Uncertain Miracles (Michelle Johnston, Fourth Estate)
Tuesday, 6 September 2022
Marick is unsure of his place in the world; he knew he wasn’t quite suited to the church, but he’s apprehensive that a new part-time job as a hospital chaplain...
Bold Types (Patricia Clarke, NLA Publishing)
Tuesday, 30 August 2022
Patricia Clarke started her career in journalism in 1951, a time when the industry was very much a man's world but women were making inroads. In Bold Types, Clarke gives...
Salonika Burning (Gail Jones, Text)
Tuesday, 23 August 2022
Award-winning novelist Gail Jones’s new offering adapts the First World War experiences of four very real people: British artists Grace Pailthorpe and Stanley Spencer, and Australians Olive King and Stella...
Men I Trust (Tommi Parrish, Scribe)
Tuesday, 23 August 2022
Scribe is proving itself to be at the forefront of local comics publishing with its second graphic release of 2022, Men I Trust by US-based Australian artist Tommi Parrish. The...
Koori Princess (Anita Heiss, Magabala)
Tuesday, 23 August 2022
Anita Heiss is an award-winning author who has published across the gamut of Australian writing: from adult fiction and memoir to children’s novels, she’s seemingly done it all. Koori Princess...
