Miss Ex-Yugoslavia (Sofia Stefanovic, Viking)
Tuesday, 3 April 2018
Miss Ex-Yugoslavia is a coming-of-age memoir that brims with warmth, curiosity and a genuine affection for commonplace family drama. Written by Serbian-Australian writer and filmmaker Sofija Stefanovic, who describes herself...
Into the Night (Sarah Bailey, A&U)
Tuesday, 3 April 2018
When a homeless man is stabbed in a Carlton park, Detective Sergeant Gemma Woodstock is the first homicide officer there. Walter Miller has no enemies, not many friends and only...
Literary direct action: Meera Atkinson on ‘Traumata’
Tuesday, 3 April 2018
Meera Atkinson’s exploration of the effects of trauma, Traumata (UQP, May), is a powerful, personal memoir doubling as a philosophical treatise. ‘This is a humane, thought-provoking and heartbreaking addition to...
Welcome to Country: A Travel Guide to Indigenous Australia (Marcia Langton, Hardie Grant)
Tuesday, 3 April 2018
Welcome to Country goes beyond other Australian travel guides; it’s also an introduction to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, culture and places of interest. Its author, Marcia Langton, is...
The Motherhood (ed by Jamila Rizvi, Viking)
Tuesday, 3 April 2018
All new mothers need to read this book—when they have time, of course, and are not insanely tired, which is a long shot. However, it is no exaggeration to say...
Balancing Acts: Women in Sport (ed by Justin Wolfers & Erin Riley, Brow Books)
Tuesday, 3 April 2018
Amid the growing conversations surrounding the under-representation of women in sport in Australia, Balancing Acts deepens and personalises these discussions with more than 20 essays by a diverse range of...
The Love That I Have (James Moloney, HarperCollins)
Tuesday, 3 April 2018
James Moloney’s latest novel, The Love That I Have, is a heartbreaking, harrowing and deeply hopeful story that delves into the horrifying realities faced by hundreds of thousands of prisoners...
Fleshers: Newport City Book One (Alison Croggon & Daniel Keene, Newport Street Books)
Tuesday, 3 April 2018
Dez is a ‘flesher’, a naturally born human of the subclass now subjugated by ‘pinkers’, the cloned elite. Dez lives in the inner district of Newport, which is relatively safe...
Eggshell Skull (Bri Lee, A&U)
Tuesday, 3 April 2018
Blending memoir with social commentary, Bri Lee’s Eggshell Skull is a book about trauma, culpability and retribution. Unlike recently published personal narratives that are used as a launchpad to explore...
January and February reviews unlocked
Thursday, 22 February 2018
Eleven reviews of January and February 2018 new releases are now free to view on the Books+Publishing website: Fiction The Cage (Lloyd Jones, Text) Cake at Midnight (Jessie L Star,...
Floral communication: Holly Ringland on ‘The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart’
Thursday, 22 February 2018
Holly Ringland’s The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart (HarperCollins, April) is ‘a lush, powerful contemporary novel' about female survival in Australia’s Red Centre. Reviewer Claire West spoke to the author....
Pink Mountain on Locust Island (Jamie Marina Lau, Brow Books)
Thursday, 22 February 2018
Set in a Chinatown in an unnamed city, Jamie Marina Lau’s first book is a neon sucker-punch of a coming-of-age story. A short, literary novel in the vein of Jenny...
The Death of Noah Glass (Gail Jones, Text)
Thursday, 22 February 2018
In her seventh novel, The Death of Noah Glass, Gail Jones returns to familiar territory with a narrative grounded in its sense of place and character. Art historian Noah Glass...
The Unexpected Education of Emily Dean (Mira Robertson, Black Inc.)
Thursday, 22 February 2018
It is 1944 and 14-year-old Emily Dean, the novel’s narrator, has been sent from her home in Melbourne to stay on the family farm in rural Victoria. A reluctant visitor,...
Out There: A Survival Guide for Dating in Midlife (Kerri Sackville, Echo)
Thursday, 22 February 2018
‘This is not a guide to finding a new soulmate,’ writes Kerri Sackville as she introduces the premise of Out There. The objective of this ostensible dating guide is to...
Growing up Aboriginal in Australia (ed by Anita Heiss, Black Inc.)
Thursday, 22 February 2018
Growing up Aboriginal in Australia is a new anthology compiled by Anita Heiss that asks Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander contributors to share what ‘Growing up Aboriginal’ means to them....
The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart (Holly Ringland, Fourth Estate)
Thursday, 22 February 2018
The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart is a lush, powerful contemporary novel from debut author Holly Ringland. It revolves around Alice, who we first meet as an isolated young girl...
The Lace Weaver (Lauren Chater, S&S)
Thursday, 22 February 2018
Lauren Chater’s debut novel, The Lace Weaver, is a sweeping historical story set in Estonia and Russia during the tumultuous year of 1941. Stalin’s Red Army has descended on Estonia,...
The Fortress (S A Jones, Echo)
Thursday, 22 February 2018
In the midst of the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements, where men are being held accountable for indecent actions in their personal and professional lives, The Fortress is a timely and...
The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted (Robert Hillman, Text)
Thursday, 22 February 2018
In this tender, emotive novel, the lives of sheep farmer Tom Hope and Hungarian Holocaust survivor Hannah Babel collide in a small Victorian country town in the 1960s. Hannah’s exuberance,...
Shining a light: Laura Elvery on ‘Trick of the Light’
Thursday, 25 January 2018
Laura Elvery’s debut short-story collection Trick of the Light (UQP, March) comprises 24 ‘meticulously crafted’ short stories ranging in style from ‘stark realism to light speculative fiction’, writes reviewer Alan...
Saudade (Suneeta Peres da Costa, Giramondo)
Thursday, 25 January 2018
Sydney author Suneeta Peres da Costa’s novella Saudade will leave you feeling lost and homesick for a place of your own. Set in Angola’s fraught pre-independence period, Saudade follows Maria,...
Surviving Your Split: A Guide to Separation, Divorce and Family Law in Australia (Lucy and Rebekah Mannering, MUP)
Thursday, 25 January 2018
The last thing I expected from reading Surviving Your Split: A Guide to Separation, Divorce and Family Law in Australia was enjoyment. I expected sound legal advice, helpful case studies,...
False Claims of Colonial Thieves (Charmaine Papertalk Green & John Kinsella, Magabala)
Thursday, 25 January 2018
In False Claims of Colonial Thieves, Charmaine Papertalk Green and John Kinsella articulate a political poetry that responds to land occupation, resource exploitation and historical wrongdoing. They situate themselves as...
Women of a Certain Age (ed by Jodie Moffat, Maria Scoda & Susan Laura Sullivan, Fremantle Press)
Thursday, 25 January 2018
Once women turn 50, society deems them ‘invisible’. Women of a Certain Age pushes against female invisibility by compiling warm and honest tales from notable Australians. Readers from many backgrounds...
Randomistas (Andrew Leigh, La Trobe University Press)
Thursday, 25 January 2018
Randomised trials are scientific experiments that aim to clear the fog of our personal biases to arrive at the truth. Participants in a randomised trial are generally split into a...
In the Garden of Fugitives (Ceridwen Dovey, Hamish Hamilton)
Thursday, 25 January 2018
Ceridwen Dovey is one of our best, most original writers. Her 2014 book, Only the Animals, was a compelling, beautifully constructed collection of unforgettable short stories. Her splendid new novel, In the...
The Shepherd’s Hut (Tim Winton, Hamish Hamilton)
Thursday, 25 January 2018
Jaxie Clackton is a teenager on the run in the parched, unforgiving landscape bordering the salt lakes by the Western Australian desert. Convinced he’ll be held responsible for the accidental...
What the Light Reveals (Mick McCoy, Transit Lounge)
Thursday, 25 January 2018
Mick McCoy’s third novel, What The Light Reveals, is an intelligent, tense and memorable story that opens in a world gripped by post-WWII fear and the looming threat of the...
You Belong Here (Laurie Steed, Margaret River Press)
Thursday, 25 January 2018
This debut novel from acclaimed short-story writer Laurie Steed explores the dissolution of a family that began as a teenage marriage. Set against the backdrop of a 1980s and 1990s...
