A Smart Girl’s Guide to Second Chances (Steph Vizard, HarperCollins)
Tuesday, 26 August 2025
Steph Vizard’s A Smart Girl’s Guide to Second Chances is a fun, perfectly executed romcom that plays cleverly with the idea of missed connections and what-ifs. When Rebecca is offered...
Silence Is My Habitat: Ecobiographical Essays (Jessica White, Upswell)
Tuesday, 26 August 2025
Silence Is My Habitat by Jessica White (A Curious Intimacy) is a collection of ecobiographical essays – stories that trace a life not through chronology alone, but also through a...
The Lucky Sisters (Rachael Johns, Penguin)
Tuesday, 26 August 2025
Rachael Johns (The Patterson Girls, The Greatest Gift) delivers one of her most heartfelt and emotionally layered novels yet in The Lucky Sisters, a story marking a confident shift beyond...
Here Come the Cousins (Maggie Hutchings, illus Sarah Zweck, T&H)
Tuesday, 26 August 2025
In Here Come the Cousins, a young child eagerly awaits the arrival of their seven cousins at Pop’s seaside home. After hellos and measuring who has grown the most over...
Last Chance Joey (Meredith Resce, Rhiza Edge)
Tuesday, 26 August 2025
In Meredith Resce’s debut YA novel, Last Chance Joey, 17-year-old Joey Walton – who is struggling with dyslexia, toxic social circles and a troubled home life – is sent to live in the...
Books in the media this weekend, 23–24 August
Friday, 22 August 2025
A round-up of the books being reviewed and mentioned in key media this coming weekend. National The Saturday Paper Looking for Elizabeth: The Life of Elizabeth Harrower (Helen Trinca, La...
Book Week made me buy it: Children’s titles on the charts
Friday, 22 August 2025
Top 10 bestsellers The Let Them Theory (Mel Robbins & Sawyer Robbins, Hay House) Cozy Corner (Coco Wyo, Penguin) Cozy Cuties (Coco Wyo, Penguin) An Inside Job (Daniel Silva, HarperCollins)...
Mad Mabel (Sally Hepworth, Macmillan)
Tuesday, 19 August 2025
Few people suspect an elderly woman or a little girl of murder, which is what makes Mad Mabel such a deliciously enjoyable read. Sally Hepworth’s latest novel begins with a...
For No Mortal Creature (Keshe Chow, Penguin)
Tuesday, 19 August 2025
For No Mortal Creature by Keshe Chow (The Girl with No Reflection) is a romantic fantasy inspired by Inception and Wuthering Heights, but the story it tells is unique and...
Left Behind (Martine Kropkowski, Ultimo)
Tuesday, 19 August 2025
Martine Kropkowski’s Left Behind is a stunning depiction of the remote, wild and isolated beauty of K’gari, paired with a taut and insidious suspense that grabs you from the opening lines....
Naynay and the Mermaid (Tasma Walton, illus Charmaine Ledden-Lewis, Scholastic)
Tuesday, 19 August 2025
Naynay and the Mermaid is a beautifully told and visually striking picture book by accomplished actor and author Tasma Walton, a proud Boonwurrung woman from Melbourne. Naynay is asked to keep...
Riots (Fiona Skyring, UWA Publishing)
Tuesday, 19 August 2025
Renowned Australian historian Fiona Skyring returns with Riots, a captivating nonfiction book that unearths a chapter of ANZAC history rarely spoken of today. Skyring takes readers back to the turbulent...
Ningaloo: Australia’s Wild Wonder (Tim Winton, illus Cindy Lane, Fremantle)
Tuesday, 19 August 2025
Ningaloo, written by award-winning author Tim Winton and illustrated by Cindy Lane, is a beautifully designed nonfiction picture book about the Ningaloo Reef off the West Coast of Australia. Called...
Elizabeth Harrower: The Woman in the Watch Tower (Susan Wyndham, NewSouth)
Tuesday, 19 August 2025
In Elizabeth Harrower: The Woman in the Watch Tower, journalist and author Susan Wyndham offers a sympathetic and illuminating exploration of the life and work of one of post-war Australia’s...
The One Remaining (Paula McLean, Fearless Press)
Tuesday, 19 August 2025
Paula McLean’s The One Remaining is a quiet, affecting novel about memory, silence and the long shadow of a sister’s disappearance. When successful novelist Hilary Mason discovers a stack of...
Comfort, cosy, colouring in this week’s bestsellers
Friday, 15 August 2025
Top 10 bestsellers The Let Them Theory (Mel Robbins & Sawyer Robbins, Hay House) Cozy Corner (Coco Wyo, Penguin) An Inside Job (Daniel Silva, HarperCollins) Cozy Cuties (Coco Wyo, Penguin)...
Books in the media this weekend, 16–17 August
Friday, 15 August 2025
A round-up of the books being reviewed and mentioned in key media this coming weekend. National The Saturday Paper Conspiracy Nation (Ariel Bogle and Cam Wilson, Ultimo) Erik Satie Three Piece...
Spud and Snowball and the Fancy Fish (Spud and Snowball #1) (Judith Rossell, ABC Books)
Tuesday, 12 August 2025
Mischief abounds in Spud and Snowball and the Fancy Fish, Judith Rossell’s new illustrated junior fiction chapter book, which introduces us to the adventures of two charming but chaotic cats. When...
The Worst Thing I’ve Ever Done (Clare Stephens, Atlantic)
Tuesday, 12 August 2025
The Worst Thing I’ve Ever Done is a sharp and unsettling novel that makes you reconsider every online interaction, bad review, snarky comment or quick judgment. Journalist Ruby Williams wants...
I’d Rather Be a Cat (Laura Bunting & Philip Bunting, Scholastic)
Tuesday, 12 August 2025
Laura and Philip Bunting’s charming I’d Rather Be a Cat is a fun, rhyming addition to the corpus of picture books about being comfortable in your own skin. With a...
Do We Deserve This? (Eleanor Elliott Thomas, Text)
Tuesday, 12 August 2025
Do We Deserve This? by Eleanor Elliott Thomas (The Opposite of Success) follows twenty-something underachiever Bean Halloway, who buys a lottery ticket for her mother, only for it to win...
Boobs (Lisa Portolan & Amanda Goff, Echo)
Tuesday, 12 August 2025
Boobs is an exploration of all things breasts. Combining personal insight with research, Amanda Goff (Misfit: The Unravelling of Samantha X) and Lisa Portolan examine the ways that breasts are perceived, augmented...
Be(wilder): Journeys in Nature (Darryl Jones, NewSouth)
Tuesday, 12 August 2025
Ecologist Darryl Jones (Curlews on Vulture Street) travels across Australia and the world to study the lives of wild animals in urban environments and how humans and non-human animals can comfortably...
Book Club – this month’s reads
Friday, 8 August 2025
Looking for your next great group read? Our monthly Book Club rounds up new release titles that are perfect for sparking conversation and perhaps even some debate. From compelling fiction to...
Three new entries to top 10
Friday, 8 August 2025
Top 10 bestsellers The Let Them Theory (Mel Robbins & Sawyer Robbins, Hay House) Cozy Corner (Coco Wyo, Penguin) An Inside Job (Daniel Silva, HarperCollins) Cozy Cuties (Coco Wyo, Penguin)...
Books in the media this weekend, 09–10 August
Friday, 8 August 2025
A round-up of the books being reviewed and mentioned in key media this coming weekend. National The Saturday Paper Crimson Light Polished Wood (Monia Raszewski, Transit Lounge) No Straight Road...
A Great Act of Love (Heather Rose, A&U)
Tuesday, 5 August 2025
Heather Rose's A Great Act of Love follows Caroline, an upper class widow who leaves London in the late 1830s to undertake a long and dangerous journey to Van Diemen’s...
The Legend of Jessie Hickman (Mark Greenwood, illus Frané Lessac, NLA)
Tuesday, 5 August 2025
The Legend of Jessie Hickman is a beautifully crafted nonfiction picture book that tells the remarkable true story of a 20th century Australian circus performer turned bushranger. Written by Mark...
Seed (Bri Lee, Summit Books)
Tuesday, 5 August 2025
Bri Lee’s Seed is a suspenseful literary thriller that asks urgent, existential questions: What does it mean to leave an impact on the world? Is it too late to halt...
Catch (Sarah Brill, A&U Children’s)
Tuesday, 5 August 2025
Sarah Brill’s Catch is a heartfelt and quietly thrilling coming-of-age novel. The story follows 16-year-old Beth as she navigates the upheaval of her older sister’s surprise pregnancy, the quiet chaos of...
