A Couple of Things Before the End: Stories (Sean O’Beirne, Black Inc.)
31 October 2019
The stories in this debut collection from Melbourne writer Sean O’Beirne are written as fictional, often funny monologues, letters, speeches, interviews, texts and emails, diary entries, official reports and online...
Jane in Love (Rachel Givney, Michael Joseph)
31 October 2019
It is a truth universally acknowledged that Jane Austen re-imaginings are an uneven offering. Some are brilliant; some less so. The fundamental challenges of this niche, however, remain constant: that...
Maggie’s Going Nowhere (Rose Hartley, Michael Joseph)
31 October 2019
The eponymous character in Rose Hartley’s debut is introduced in the blurb as thoroughly relatable and a counterpart to Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag. While the comparison feels true on the surface—both...
Blueberries (Ellena Savage, Text)
15 October 2019
Ellena Savage’s debut collection of essays, Blueberries, is a breathtaking interrogation of the self in the world; the self within structures of power and oppression. Each essay examines a memory,...
The Medicine: A doctor’s notes (Karen Hitchcock, Black Inc.)
15 October 2019
When discussing modern medicine there is a lot to consider. There are the complexities of the doctor/patient relationship. The wellbeing of doctors. How responsible treatment and the law sometimes intersect...
Ten Doors Down: The story of an extraordinary adoption reunion (Robert Tickner, Scribe)
15 October 2019
As the rolling apologies for forced adoptions swept Australia in 2012 and 2013, it was too late for Robert Tickner’s mother—she had died, taking her secrets to the grave. But...
Contest for the Indo-Pacific: Why China won’t map the future (Rory Medcalf, La Trobe University Press)
15 October 2019
How does the world balance China’s emergence as a global superpower? What are the risks ahead? How do nation states dilute China’s hegemony and avoid capitulation to its interests? These...
Shirl (Wayne Marshall, Affirm)
15 October 2019
Wayne Marshall’s Shirl is a collection of bizarre, consistently funny stories that delights in dismantling the tropes of Australiana. From the adventures of a bereaved yowie at a Desperate and...
Cherry Beach (Laura McPhee-Browne, Text)
15 October 2019
When best friends Ness and Hetty move to Canada together, it seems as though a new phase of their lives is beginning—but their shared past won’t relinquish its grip so...
Return Ticket (Jon Doust, Fremantle Press)
15 October 2019
Jon Doust has now devoted three books to wilful, semi-autobiographical protagonist Jack Muir. While 2009’s Boy on a Wire and 2012’s To the Highlands saw Jack fumbling towards manhood, Return...
Bird (Adam Morris, Puncher & Wattmann)
15 October 2019
A novel told from multiple viewpoints, Bird examines the Western Australian prison system via the cultural and social constructs that prop it up, while also exploring Indigenous and non-Indigenous identity....
In the Clearing (J P Pomare, Hachette)
15 October 2019
If J P Pomare’s Call Me Evie was a slow-burner of a psychological thriller, his follow-up, In the Clearing, is a pared-back firecracker where the danger is clear and present—even...
Fauna (Donna Mazza, A&U)
15 October 2019
Donna Mazza’s Fauna is set in a near-future Western Australia, recognisable but markedly bleaker. Stacey and her family have signed up to an experimental research procedure in which Stacey’s embryo’s...
True West (David Whish-Wilson, Fremantle Press)
26 September 2019
Opening on a Western Australian freeway in 1988, True West immediately introduces Lee Southern, a teenager on the run from the militaristic bikie gang in which he grew up. Such...
Nothing New: A history of second-hand (Robyn Annear, Text)
26 September 2019
Opportunity shops—or op shops, as they’re lovingly referred to—are a well-established and much-loved feature of the Aussie retail landscape. In this entertaining and insightful history, Robyn Annear looks at where...
Peace (Garry Disher, Text)
26 September 2019
In Peace, Garry Disher returns to the rural South Australian town of Tiverton and to the hero of his 2013 novel Bitter Wash Road, Constable Paul ‘Hirsch’ Hirschhausen. Hirsch has...
Fascists Among Us: Online hate and the Christchurch massacre (Jeff Sparrow, Scribe)
26 September 2019
In the wake of the Christchurch massacre, Jeff Sparrow turns his eye to the recent rise of far-right violence. Fascists Among Us traces the history of fascism and seeks to...
The Great Divide (L J M Owen, Echo)
26 September 2019
In her fourth novel, L J M Owen, author of the ‘Dr Pimms, Intermillenial Sleuth’ series, gives us Australian rural crime at its most atmospheric: mist-shrouded streets, ruined vineyards, an...
Maurice Blackburn: Champion of the people (David Day, Scribe)
26 September 2019
Maurice Blackburn (1880–1944) was an influential member of the Australian Labor Party and a barrister, specialising in cases defending socialist causes. He held seats at both the state and federal...
The Bee and the Orange Tree (Melissa Ashley, Affirm)
26 September 2019
The Bee and the Orange Tree is Melissa Ashley's second historical novel. Set in the literary salons of 17th-century Paris, it follows the lives of three women: Marie Catherine d'Aulnoy, a...
Following the impulse: Anna Krien on ‘Act of Grace’
29 August 2019
Almost a decade in the making, Anna Krien’s debut novel, Act of Grace (Black Inc., October), is described by reviewer Brad Jefferies as ‘an ambitious and compelling study of trauma’....
Act of Grace (Anna Krien, Black Inc.)
29 August 2019
Anna Krien’s debut novel is an ambitious and compelling study of trauma and how it’s transferred and inherited, told through the points of view of four disparate but interconnected characters....
Paris Savages (Katherine Johnson, Ventura)
29 August 2019
Katherine Johnson’s fourth novel is a poignant imagining of the true story of three young Aboriginal people—Bonny, Dorondera and Jurano—who in 1882 agree to tour Europe with German engineer Hans...
Bruny (Heather Rose, A&U)
29 August 2019
Set in a near future, Heather Rose’s latest book is a work of political intrigue that samples current events and headlines. A diplomat returns to her Tasmanian hometown, charged with...
Womerah Lane: Lives and landscapes (Tom Carment, Giramondo)
29 August 2019
Tom Carment’s Womerah Lane is a lively and pensive personal history, chronicling 30 years of life and art from one of Australia’s most well-known landscape artists. Taking an episodic, essayistic...
Her Kind of Luck (Michelle Balogh, Brio)
29 August 2019
When Michelle Balogh’s great-grandmother Shan-Yi dies, Balogh moves into her apartment temporarily. Struggling with depression, the opportunity to live in the luxurious Sydney home provides a welcome change, but it...
Wearing Paper Dresses (Anne Brinsden, Macmillan)
29 August 2019
Life is tough in the Mallee in the 1950s, and when city sophisticate Elise, brimming with artistic and musical talent, is uprooted with her young children to her father-in-law’s wheat...
There Was Still Love (Favel Parrett, Hachette)
6 August 2019
Favel Parrett’s third novel, There Was Still Love, is a meticulously observed and masterfully crafted immigrant story about a displaced Czech family. The novel oscillates in nearly every way—between the...
The Woman Who Cracked the Anxiety Code: The extraordinary life of Dr Claire Weekes (Judith Hoare, Scribe)
25 July 2019
Australian doctor Claire Weekes found worldwide fame with her bestselling books on ‘nervous illness’ in the 1960s and 1970s—but despite gratitude from thousands of sufferers, she is almost forgotten today....
The Innocent Reader: Reflections on reading and writing (Debra Adelaide, Picador)
25 July 2019
Debra Adelaide’s biblio-memoir is more of a collection of essays than a cohesive story of a literary life, and reading it as such can help mitigate some of the internal...